As it is Easter, I thought I’d just do a quick write up on why the Christian onto-theological model of God does not find much mileage in Islam. One of the classic go-to arguments by our Christian brothers and sisters is to argue that only the human nature suffered, not the divine nature. The reason this is argued is to circumvent the law of non-contradiction. What is the law of non-contradiction?
A cannot be A and not-A at the same time.
To circumvent this, we are told Jesus has two natures, so he suffered in one nature (the human nature or A) and didn’t suffer in another nature (the divine nature or B). On the surface this may seem like a reasonable response, until you break it down into notation form:
Jesus the Person {(divine nature), (human nature)}
In other words, Jesus, the 2nd Person of the Trinity and therefore God, can be said to have suffered, to say otherwise is to deny the personhood of Jesus in totality as the Trinitarian schema is presented to us. Calvinists in particular are fond of this argument but as RC Sproul has noted, other Christians accuse them of being Nestorians by dividing Jesus into two persons, a human person and a divine person. Those who argue in the form that Calvinists and most other popular Christian speakers do, fall prey to being declared apostates:as per the Council of Ephesus (431 CE):
If anyone distributes between the two persons or hypostases the expressions used either in the gospels or in the apostolic writings, whether they are used by the holy writers of Christ or by him about himself, and ascribes some to him as to a man, thought of separately from the Word from God, and others, as befitting God, to him as to the Word from God the Father, let him be anathema.
We can abstract this ontological model even further:
One Divine Being {(Father), (Son), (Holy Spirit)}
In this rendition, we can also say the Divine Being also suffered, as we are told each member of the Godhead is fully divine. Meme-ified we see:
And:
and God knows best.
Categories: Christianity, Jesus
Blogging Theology 
Reblogged this on robert2016's Blog.
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Ijaz,
I think it is nearly obligatory to talk about the veneration to Mary when discussing the hypostatic union. From my understanding of the Christological controversy, certain groups wanted Mary to be Theotokos, so she had to give birth to both the human and divine Jesus, not just the Messiah” (as in being the Christotokos).
Do you have any reason as to why Reformed Christology is Nestorian? Does it have something to due with the highly admirably emphasis on the sovereignty of God?
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Latias,
I think you are right in making a connection between Christians wishing for Mary to be Theotokos and the development of the Trinitarian doctrine. It is easy to see how one affects the other.
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*something to do with their highly admirable emphasis on the sovereignty of God?
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Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.
The human experiences of Jesus must have been capable of being communicated as an experience to his divine nature without changing the divine nature, including death.
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But God is immortal and so does not experience death. Immortal means someone who does not experience death. If someone does not experience death, it is absurd to think death is communicable to Him.
Death is not a communicable disease that can be communicated to the one who does not die at all.
Thanks.
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“The human experiences of Jesus must have been capable of being communicated as an experience to his divine nature without changing the divine nature, including death.”
what do you mean EXPERIENCE? physical EXPERIENCE of the invisible spirit ? a virtual reality experience? did the spirit part play a video game in his mind? what does “communicated mean” ?
what does “as an experience to his divine nature” mean ? physical? non-physical?
while the divine nature was receiving a communication of sexual temptations, how did that not give new experiences to the divine nature?
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remember the words “addition”
and NEW mean CHANGE
to add is to increase and to increase means to change
to EXPERIENCE something new means to change.
remember this.
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“The union of the two natures in Christ is in the one self, I or person, of the Logos, whatever you want to call it.”
dont quote me creeds, EXPLAIN what you just said earlier.
what does it MEAN “one self”
?
the DIVINE SELF AND the human self are ONE thing ? EACH experience the other as ONE self?
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Do you people listen to yourselves? An experience that doesn’t effect change? No wonder Atheist scoff so haughtily at “religion,” when most of what anybody experiences is this lobotomized drivel.
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CHRIST IS RISEN!!!! …………….
…………..April Fools.
(I know, I’m a day late, but its still funny! 🙂 )
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just put yourself in the time of this so called resurrection .you hear jesus tell the sign that he will rise from the dead and you EXPECT that he or his disciples will BRING him out and tell him to ride on a donkey again.
deut says
21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.
so since the desiples of jesus knew this and jesus knew this, deut 21 is saying that the SIGN should have been SHOWN to the people the sign was given to, but NOBODY, no christian, no desiples, no one PRODUCED the body of jesus
the sign was the living body
not EMPTY tombs
visions
talking in different languages
miracles
THE sign = LIVING body of jesus, but it was NEVER produced as proof
CAN YOU blame the jews for rejecting jesus? can you blame them for thiniking jesus was a FALSE prophet which they EASILY KOED?
for first 50 days, all you hear is body is stolen. on day 51, you approach peter and ask “where is jesus”
peter says, ” in heaven”
then comes a pharisee turned apostate pagan who has a vision
but his visions are TOO late
and he also DID NOT produce a LIVING body.
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the biggest APRILS fool the pagan romans PULLED on the pharisees (assuming the story is true) is when they said an ANGEL came down and FLOORED them and MOVED the stone
think about it. IF an angel just took you out MOMENTS ago you would be shit scared and you would think that as you are SPREADING lies, the angel will TAKE you out instantly, but matthew REPORTS :
”
And this account has been circulated among the Jews to this very day.…”
because there was no angel (assuming matthew is telling truth) the romans PULLED april fools prank on the jews , they would not be scared in spreading lies because they lied and joked about the angel coming down. you don’t have to be afraid of your own invention.
the jews are portrayed as so dumb that they don’t even ask , “you sure you not telling porkies about the angel… you guys are READY steady to spread lies even after that ????”
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