From some philosophical points of view, the Incarnation is difficult to motivate. From others, a host of reasons appear, raising the problem of how to choose among and/or prioritize them. In this paper I examine how different substantive commitments and starting points combine with contrasting understandings of method in philosophical theology, to generate different analyses and answers to Christianity’s crucial question: cur Deus homo?

This article is a venture into a Christian Theology of Other Faiths. In contrast to History of Religions, which seeks to understand a religion from its own point of view, a Christian Theology of Other Faiths seeks to understand another religion from the perspective of the Christian revelation.Here I present Simone Weil’s claim that the Word of God is manifest in human form in other faiths, and that the Gospels are written from the point of view of a victim, and (...) are completed by the Bhagavad Gita which is written from the point of view of an agent who wields a sword. (shrink)

In what sense, if any, does the dominant conception of the traditional theistic God as disembodied inform our embodied experiences? Feminist philosophers of religion have been either explicitly or implicitly preoccupied by a philosophical failure to address such questions concerning embodiment and its relationship to the divine. To redress this failure, certain feminist philosophers have sought to appropriate Luce Irigaray’s argument that embodied divinity depends upon women themselves becoming divine. This article assesses weaknesses in the Irigarayan position, notably the problematic (...) move from a woman’s subjectivity to divinity. In the light of these weaknesses the author looks for a better alternative. Drawing on the work of feminist and nonfeminist philosophers, a feminist-friendly conception of theism is sketched in terms of incarnation and intersubjectivity. Philosophical accounts of the ethical formation of gendered subjects by way of bodily practices offer new concepts for con. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss certain aspects of Leibniz's theory and practice of 'soft reasoning' as exemplified by his defence of two central mysteries of the Christian revelation: the Trinity and the Incarnation. By theory and practice of 'soft' or 'broad' reasoning, I mean the development of rational strategies which can successefully be applied to the many areas of human understanding which escape strict demonstration, that is, the 'hard' or 'narrow' reasoning typical of mathematical argumentation. These strategies disclose an (...) 'other' reason, i.e. a complementary set of arguments and methods developed by Leibniz in order to deal with crucial issues such as the 'weighting' of probabilities and truths of fact. I will argue that one of the most compelling examples of the importance and fertility of Leibniz's 'other' reason is provided by his solution to the problems posed by the unique epistemological status of theological mysteries. (shrink)

Medieval theologians discussed the logical structure of reduplicative propositions in the midst of their discussions of the Incarnation and the Trinity. Aquinas has the usual medieval analyzes of reduplicative propositions: the specificative and the strictly reduplicative. But neither analysis resolves successfully the problems of the consistency of the statements about God while avoiding making the Trinity or the Incarnation a merely accidental feature of Him. However, Scotus introduces another analysis: abstractive. I shall conclude that Scotus’s view of reduplication, one, if (...) not invented by him, as least stressed and developed by him, offers a better solution of the consistency of the Incarnation and the Trinity than that of Aquinas. (shrink)

IN THIS PAPER THE AUTHOR DEALS WITH AQUINAS’ SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM, WHETHER THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION IS CONSISTENT. HE FIRST SHOWS WHY THERE IS A PROBLEM OF CONSISTENCY WITH THIS DOCTRINE, GIVEN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN BELIEFS. HE THEN CLAIMS THAT AQUINAS HAS TWO SOLUTIONS, AND THAT BOTH FAIL: THE FIRST SOLUTION, AS SCOTUS ALSO OBSERVES, DOES NOT RESOLVE THE APPARENT INCONSISTENCY, AND THE OTHER DEPENDS ON MAKING HUMANITY ACCIDENTAL TO CHRIST, AND HENCE ON ABANDONING THE ORTHODOX POSITION.

I make three points in response to Richard Sturch's comments on my paper: I defend my interpretation of the Morris–Swinburne (M–S) account of the Incarnation; I argue that the M–S model appears to undercut the view that the unity of consciousness can be explained in terms of the self; and third, I argue that M–S model seems to entail that God has false beliefs.

Thomas Morris and Richard Swinburne have recently defended what they call the ‘two-minds’ model of the Incarnation. This model, which I refer to as the ‘inclusion model’ or ‘inclusionism’, claims that Christ had two consciousnesses, a human and a divine consciousness, with the former consciousness contained within the latter one. I begin by exploring the motivation for, and structure of, inclusionism. I then develop a variety of objections to it: some philosophical, others theological in nature. Finally, I sketch a variant (...) of inclusionism which I call ‘restricted inclusionism’ (RI); RI can evade many, but not all, of the objections to standard inclusionism. (shrink)

Drawing on insights from the medieval theologians Duns Scotus and Hervaeus Natalis, I argue that medieval views of the Incarnation require that there is a sense in which the divine person depends on his human nature for his human personhood, and thus that the paradigmatic pattern of human personhood is in some way dependent existence. I relate this to a modern distinction between impairment and disability to show that impairment -- understood as dependence -- is normative for human personhood. I (...) try to show how medieval theories of the resurrection of the body can provide, within this context, plausible accounts of what it might be for human persons to be redeemed. (shrink)

According to Henry of Ghent (d. 1293), it is impossible for the second person of the Trinity to assume into unity of person an irrational nature (e.g., a stone nature), or to assume a rational nature that does not enjoy the beatific vision. He argues that the assumption of a nature to a divine person entails both that the nature has the sort of powers that could exercise supernatural activities and that these powers are exercised. Henry’s Franciscan opponents argue against (...) this. Existent irrational natures (like existent rational natures) are not necessarily subsistent and belonging to a kind does not require the opportunity to exercise the causal powers associated with that kind. (shrink)

Aquinas distinguishes four types of part included in a hypostasis (’suppositum’): (1) kind-nature; (2) individuating feature(s); (3) accidents; (4) concrete parts. (1) - (3) in some sense contribute ’esse’ to the ’suppositum’. Usually Aquinas holds that Christ’s human nature does not contribute ’esse’ to its divine ’suppositum’, since it is analogous to a concrete part of its ’suppositum’. This effectively commits Aquinas to the Monophysite heresy. In ’De Unione’ Aquinas argues instead that Christ’s human nature contributes ’secondary ’esse‘ to its (...) divine ’suppositum’. This account is coherent and orthodox, but sacrifices explanatory power. (shrink)

The Vatican’s position on in vitro fertilization (IVG), found in the ’Instruction on Bioethics’ (1987), is that all IVF is immoral, for it violates the normative procreative act of married spouses. The dilemma created is, if all instances of IVF are immoral, then God’s act in the Incarnation (granting the traditional doctrine) must also have been immoral. Conversely, if God’s act in the Incarnation was not immoral, then at least some cases of human IVF are not immoral either. A resolution (...) is offered. Two diagrams are employed. (shrink)

This paper is exploratory. It raises the questions: 1) How is it possible that that which is of its "nature" transcendent should become immanent or incarnate?; 2) How is it possible for one and the same individual to be both "fully" God and "fully" man? As concerns 1) an answer is offered by appeal to Geach’s account of Aquinas’s doctrine of "Form"; as concerns 2) a sketch answer is supplied on the basis of 1) It is held that a paradox (...) only arises if it were required that God the Son took on the "non-formal" predicates expressing the essence of the Godhead in the "very same sense" as they apply to God himself. (shrink)

THE PURPOSE OF THE PAPER IS TO CRITICALLY EXAMINE TWO METAPHYSICAL PRINCIPLES ADVOCATED BY PROFESSOR MORRIS IN HIS BOOK "THE LOGIC OF GOD INCARNATE", NAMELY (I) THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN "COMMON" HUMAN PROPERTIES AND "ESSENTIAL" HUMAN PROPERTIES; (II) THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN BEING "MERELY" X AND "FULLY" X. THE FIRST DISTINCTION IS BOTH DEFENDED AND EXPANDED ON; THE SECOND IS REJECTED ON THE GROUNDS THAT IT INVOKES AN IMPOSSIBLE COMPARISON; A COMPARISON BETWEEN A QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT ON THE ONE HAND AND THE QUALITATIVE (...) ASSESSMENT ON THE OTHER. IN THE LIGHT OF THIS IT IS CLAIMED THAT MORRIS’S DEFENCE OF THE ORTHODOX DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION FAILS. (shrink)

The argument is offered as a challenge to ecumenical theologians such as John Hick. A consideration of the life and teaching of Krishnamurti gives rise to the following argument: (1) that the statement "K spoke from Unconditioned Insight" is a reasonable formulaic expression of K’s authority in soteriological matters; (2) that the statement is as intelligible as comparable statements about Jesus or Buddha; (3) that it is more reasonable to believe the statement about K; (4) that believing the truth of (...) the statement implies deep scepticism about the truth and the soteriological efficacy of established religions, and consequently renders an ecumenical theology irrelevant. (shrink)

The debate within the Christian academic community over open theism, or "openism", has been quite intense of late. Progress in this debate depends upon our examining how openism and its rivals fare when applied to particular Christian doctrines, beliefs, and practices. I hope to further the debate by raising a question regarding the Incarnation: ’Was Jesus Christ free in a morally significant way?’ After arguing that the two principal alternatives to openism (Thomism and Molinism) can offer internally plausible answers to (...) this question, I examine responses available to the open theist. None of these responses, I argue, seems particularly appealing. (shrink)

Traditional Christians face a puzzle concerning the freedom and perfection of Christ. Jesus the man, it seems, must have possessed significant freedom forhim to serve as a moral example for us and for his death to have been truly meritorious. Yet Jesus the Son of God must be incapable of sinning if he is trulydivine. So if Jesus is both human and divine, one of these two attributes - significant freedom or moral perfection - apparently needs to be surrendered. In (...) thisessay, it is argued that if (and perhaps only if) a Molinist approach to divine providence is embraced, one can plausibly affirm both the freedom of the manand the impeccability of the Son. (shrink)

The traditional doctrine of the Incarnation maintains that God became man. But was it necessary that God become the particular man He in fact became? Could some man or woman other than the man born in Bethlehem roughly two thousand years ago have been assumed by the Son to effect our salvation? This essay addresses such questions from the perspective of one embracing Molina's picture of divine providence. After showing how Molina thought his theory of middle knowledge helps alleviate a (...) traditional Christological puzzle, the essay turns to the aforementioned questions concerning God's incarnational alternatives and suggests some fairly radical answers. Finally, the essay presents two substantial objections to these radical answers and argues that these objections fail. (shrink)

IN "THE INCARNATION AS A CONTINUING REALITY," RELIGIOUS STUDIES 6,303-27 (DECEMBER 1970), DAVID PAILIN CLAIMS THAT THE INCARNATION REVEALS THE NECESSARY, EMPIRICALLY NON-FALSIFIABLE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD’S "ACTIVE ACTUALITY". GOD’S "PASSIVE ACTUALITY," THE WAY HE EXPERIENCES THE WORLD, IS METAPHYSICALLY KNOWN, BUT NOT HIS "ACTIVE ACTUALITY," THE WAY IN WHICH HE RESPONDS TO THE WORLD, FOR HE COULD HAVE RESPONDED OTHERWISE. NEVERTHELESS GOD’S CONCRETE RESPONSE IS EMPIRICALLY NON-FALSIFIABLE, FOR EVERYTHING THAT CAN POSSIBLY HAPPEN IN THE ACTUAL WORLD WILL REFLECT THAT RESPONSE. (...) I REPLY THAT THE METAPHYSICAL PRINCIPLES AS WELL COULD CONCEIVABLY BE OTHERWISE, BUT GOD’S PRIMORDIAL DECISION DETERMINES WHICH MUST BE EXEMPLIFIED BY ALL POSSIBLE ACTUALITIES WHATSOEVER. THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF GOD’S RESPONSE TO THE WORLD IS THEREBY METAPHYSICALLY KNOWABLE. THE INCARNATION OF THE CHRIST REVEALS TO US THE CONTINGENT CHARACTER OF GOD’S RESPONSE TO THE PARTICULARITIES OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, AND THIS. (shrink)

As a preliminary, I shall clarify the kenotic position by arguing that a position which is often called kenotic is actually a quasi-kenotic version of the classical account, according to which Jesus had normal divine powers but chose not to exercise them. After this preliminary, I discuss three problems with the strict kenotic account. The first is that kenosis conflicts with the standard list of attributes considered essential to God. The second problem is posed by the Exaltation, namely the resumption (...) by Jesus of normal divine powers after his life on Earth. Finally there is the problem of how it was possible for Jesus to be the same person as the pre-incarnate Word. My solutions to these problems constitute my defence of a strict kenotic account of the Incarnation. (shrink)

According to the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, the Son of God is truly but only contingently a human being. But is it also the case that Christ’s individual human nature is only contingently united to a divine person? The affirmative answer to this question, explicitly espoused by Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, turns out to be philosophically untenable, while the negative answer, which is arguably implicit in St. Thomas Aquinas, explication of the Incarnation, has some surprising and significant (...) metaphysical consequences. (shrink)

Let me begin somewhat perversely by making clear what I do not intend to do in this paper. I do not propose to offer a general defense of Ockham's resolution of the metaphysical perplexities engendered by the dogma of the Incarnation. In fact, I have argued elsewhere that his account of the hypostatic union is seriously deficient. 1..

According to the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, the Son of God is truly but only contingently a human being. But is it also the case that Christ’s individual human nature is only contingently united to a divine person? The affirmative answer to this question, explicitly espoused by Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, turns out to be philosophically untenable, while the negative answer, which is arguably implicit in St. Thomas Aquinas, explication of the Incarnation, has some surprising and significant (...) metaphysical consequences. (shrink)

The essay sets out difficulties facing currently favoured approaches in the philosophy of mind and then argues that reflection on the Christian Doctrine that, in the person of Jesus Christ, God became a man may reveal new ways of thinking about what ’we’ are. If sense is to be made of this doctrine we must think of a ’single’ subject possessed of divine and human attributes. Applying this idea in the philosophy of mind suggests a view which avoids both Cartesian (...) dualism and physicalism. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with the drift of recent analytical philosophy of mind away from the view of persons as unified subjects of thought and action--human beings as rational animals--towards various forms of dualism (including materialist dualism) and eliminativism. It raises the question what view of persons would be able to accommodate (even if only as a hypothesis) the idea that human beings are images of God and that God took on a human nature in the person of Jesus Christ? (...) The reply is in terms of a non-dualist, non-physicalist view: incarnational anthropology’. (shrink)

This is a critique of Thomas Morris’s proposal in The Logic of God Incarnate (1986) that the idea of divine incarnation can be understood on the model of two minds, a human mind enclosed within a divine mind, with the latter having full cognitive access to the former but the former only occasional access to the latter. The critique, which suggests the failure of Morris’s attempt to render a Chalcedonian-type dogma intelligible, claims that cognitive access is not sufficient to constitute (...) incarnation, and that Morris is unable to explain how, since two wills are also required, Jesus was genuinely free to sin and yet necessarily sinless. (shrink)

In this article we argue that an immaterialist ontology -- a metaphysic that denies the existence of material substance -- is more consonant with Christian dogma than any ontology that includes the existence of material substance. We use the philosophy of the famous eighteenth-century Irish immaterialist George Berkeley as a guide while engaging one particularly difficult Christian mystery: the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ. The goal is to make plausible the claim that, from the analysis of this one example, (...) there are strong reasons for thinking that if one wants to be a Christian one ought to be an immaterialist. (shrink)

Reprinted in Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology, Volume 1: Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement, Oxford 2009, ed. Michael Rea. A popular argument for the divinity of Jesus goes like this. Jesus claimed to be divine, but if his claim was false, then either he was insane (mad) or lying (bad), both of which are very unlikely; so, he was divine. I present two objections to this argument. The first, the dwindling probabilities objection, contends that even if we make generous probability assignments (...) to the relevant pieces of evidence for Jesus’ divinity, the probability calculus tell us to suspend judgement on the matter. The second, and more telling objection in my opinion, the merely mistaken objection, contends that it is no less plausible to suppose that Jesus was neither mad nor bad but merely mistaken than that he was divine. (shrink)

THE AUTHOR, THOUGH CRITICAL OF MARTIN’S BOOK, "RELIGIOUS BELIEF", DEFENDS MARTIN FROM THE CRITICISMS OF ROWE AND PLANTINGA BECAUSE THE LATTER HAVE NOT "MADE THEIR CASE" IN CLAIMING THERE IS A CONTRADICTION INVOLVED IN THE ARGUMENT THAT CHRIST AND GOD ARE THE SAME. (STAFF).

We are beings of the flesh. Our sensorimotor motor experience is the basis for the structure of our higher cognitive functions of conceptual cognition and reasoning. Consequently, our subjectivity is intimately tied up with the nature of our embodied experience. This runs directly counter to views of self-identity dominant in contemporary cognitive science. I give an account of how we ought to understand ourselves as incarnates, and how this would change our view of meaning, knowledge, reason, and subjectivity.

This paper examines the importance of the concept of Incarnation for the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer. The first section traces the role of the Incarnation in his work on the center or medium of language. The second part examines the threefold description of human finitude that Gadamer develops and shows the continuing importance of the concept of Incarnation. The third part discusses the implementation of this understanding of human finitude for the experience of divine infinitude. The final section outlines implications (...) of Gadamer’s work for contemporary work in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

THIS PAPER COMPARES THE WORK OF MERLEAU-PONTY WITH THAT OF MARCEL, TO WHOM HE IS SAID TO OWE A MAJOR INTELLECTUAL DEBT. ALTHOUGH THERE ARE APPARENT SIMILARITIES TO BE FOUND IN THEIR WORK, ESPECIALLY IN THEIR CONCEPTS OF "INCARNATION" AND "SITUATION," THERE ARE STRIKING DIVERGENCES IN THEIR VIEWS ABOUT "HISTORY." A STUDY OF THESE POINTS THE WAY TO AN EXPLORATION OF YET MORE FUNDAMENTAL DISAGREEMENTS BETWEEN THEIR SUPERFICIALLY SIMILAR "PHILOSOPHIES OF EXISTENCE.".

The last quarter of the twentieth century saw a resurgence of realism in various areas of philosophy, including metaphysics and the philosophy of religion, and this trend has continued in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In philosophy of religion this led to explorations of the philosophical coherence of orthodox doctrines, such as the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. In metaphysics, there was renewed interest in debates concerning persistence, composition, the relation between mind and body, time (...) and necessity, among others. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the links between these two strands of realist inquiry, focusing on some metaphysical issues raised by the Incarnation. It ends with some suggestions as to how recent developments in metaphysical debate might inform our understanding of this most central of Christian beliefs. (shrink)

One way of understanding the reduplicative formula "Christ is, ’qua’ God, omniscient, but ’qua’ man, limited in knowledge" is to take the occurrences of the ‘qua‘ locution as picking out different parts of Christ: a divine part and a human part. But this view of Christ as a composite being runs into paradox when combined with the orthodox understanding of the Incarnation, according to which Christ is identical to the second person of the Trinity. In response, we have to choose (...) between modifying the orthodox understanding, adopting a philosophically and theologically contentious perdurantist account of persistence through time, or rejecting altogether the idea of the composite Christ. (shrink)

Anselm's "Cur Deus" Homo argues that only by the Incarnation can God save humanity. This seems to sit ill with the claim that God is omnipotent and absolutely free, for this entails that God could save humanity in other ways. I show that features of Anselm's concept of God and treatment of necessity make the claim that the Incarnation is a necessary means of salvation problematic. I then show that for Anselm, all conditions which make the Incarnation necessary for human (...) salvation stem from God's nature and prior choices. If so, the Incarnation's necessity restricts neither God's freedom nor His power. For that the Incarnation is necessary given God's actual choices does not entail that it would have been necessary had God made other choices, or that God could not have made choices which would have made the Incarnation non-necessary. (shrink)

Among the objections to the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation which Anselm takes up in ’Cur Deus Nomo’ is an argument that a wise God would not act so, because it is inefficient. I explicate Anselm’s reply to this. It is (I argue) that the Incarnation is an elegant way to achieve a large set of goods including human salvation, and that God might well be wise to treat a sort of beauty the Incarnation involves as a value more important (...) than efficiency. (shrink)

Many skeptics throughout the centuries have accused the New Testament characterization of the incarnation as being incoherent. The reason is that it appears impossible that any person can exemplify human properties such as ignorance, fatigability, and spatial limitation, as the New Testament testifies of Jesus, while possessing divine properties such as omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence at the same time. This paper proposes a possible model which asserts that at the incarnation, the Logo's mind was divided into conscious and preconscious, and (...) the divine properties were transferred from the conscious into the preconscious, which became part A of Jesus' preconscious. Simultaneously, the conscious acquired newly created human properties, while a human preconscious which would become part B of Jesus' preconscious and a human body were also created. It is demonstrated that this model does not suffer from the problems that beset other models such as Apollinarianism, two-consciousness Christology, and ontological Kenoticism, and that based on this model the full attributes of divinity and humanity of Jesus as testified by the Scriptures could have simultaneously coexisted in one person without contradiction. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate composition models of incarnation, according to which Christ is a compound of qualitatively and numerically different constituents. We focus on three-part models, according to which Christ is composed of a divine mind, a human mind, and a human body. We consider four possible relational structures that the three components could form. We argue that a ’hierarchy of natures’ model, in which the human mind and body are united to each other in the normal way, and (...) in which they are jointly related to the divine mind by the relation of coaction, is the most metaphysically plausible model. Finally, we consider the problem of how Christ can be a single person even when his components may be considered persons. We argue that an Aristotelian metaphysics, according to which identity is a matter of function, offers a plausible solution: Christ’s components may acquire a radically new identity through being parts of the whole, which enables them to be reidentified as p. (shrink)

This book offers original essays by leading philosophers of religion representing these new approaches to theological problems such as incarnation.

In this paper, we examine Abelard’s model of the incarnation and place it within the wider context of his views in metaphysics and logic. In particular, we consider whether Abelard has the resources to solve the major difficulties faced by the so-called "compositional models" of the incarnation, such as his own. These difficulties include: the requirement to account for Christ’s unity as a single person, despite being composed of two concrete particulars; the requirement to allow that Christ is identical with (...) the pre-existent Son, despite the fact that the pre-existent Son is a (proper) part of the incarnate Christ; and finally, the requirement to avoid Nestorianism, i.e., the position that Christ’s proper parts are persons in their own right. We argue that Abelard does have adequate solutions to these problems. In particular, we show that his theories of relations and predication can be put to use in defence of a compositional account of the incarnation. (shrink)

What metaphysics can plausibly back up the claim that God became incarnate? In this essay we investigate the main kinds of models of incarnation that have been historically proposed. We highlight the philosophical assumptions in each model, and on this basis offer novel ways of grouping them as metaphysical rather than doctrinal positions. We examine strengths and weaknesses of the models, and argue that ’composition models’ offer the most promising way forward to account for the pivotal Christian belief that, in (...) Christ, true divinity and true humanity meet in a genuine union. (shrink)

Christian thinkers have recently expressed concern about the “silencing” or marginalisation of religion in public life, have affirmed the desirability of dialogue between the world of faith and the world of reason but have raised doubts about the feasibility of a moral language that refers to unconditional moral claims or human rights or the intrinsic dignity of human beings if it is not grounded in a transcendent or supernatural source of value. The present paper is an attempt to open a (...) conversation about these themes from the point of view of a non-theistic humanism inspired by a notion of incarnation. (shrink)

This book is a study of Søren Kierkegaard's elucidation of the condition by which the Truth may be learned. Like Kierkegaard's pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, we are concerned in particular with that Truth which concerns us ultimately and which is confessed by Christians to be disclosed in Jesus Christ. Called faith by Climacus in Philosophical Fragments, this condition is characterized by a transformation of the individual under the impact of revelation and is received as a gift from God rather than attained (...) through human resourcefulness. The epistemological ramifications of this transformation are explored both in terms of the New Testament concept of metanoia and in comparison with claims to cognitive progress in other fields. We conclude that the account of Christian conversion given by Climacus in Philosophical Fragments and approved by Kierkegaard in his acknowledged works is a faithful elucidation of the concept of metanoia and remains a pertinent challenge to the persistent attempts of moderns and post-moderns alike who propose to learn the Truth on quite different terms. Murray Rae thus seeks to develop a new interpretation of Kierkegaard and to challenge some widely followed theological epistemologies. (shrink)

Traditionally, the term ’God’ has been understood either as a proper name or as a description. However, according to a new view, the term God’ in a sentence like "Jesus Christ is God" functions as a kind term, much as the term ’tiger’ functions in the sentence "Tigger is a tiger." In this paper I examine the claim that divinity can be construed as a ’supernatural’ kind, developing the outlines of an account of the semantics of God’ along these lines, (...) and suggest that it might solve an important philosophical problem concerning the Incarnation. (shrink)

In this paper I present and defend two arguments which purport to show that the doctrines of timelessness and the Incarnation are incompatible. An argument similar to the first argument I consider is briefly discussed by Stump and Kretzmann in their paper "Eternity." I argue that their treatment of this type of objection is inadequate. The second argument I present is, as far as I know, original; it depends on a certain subtlety in the doctrine of the Incarnation, viz., that (...) the Son took on or assumed a human nature. It seems that there is no way to understand what it is for the Son to take on a human nature that doesn’t entail his mutability; and mutability entails temporality. Thus, since Christ is said to take on a human nature, an orthodox Christology must maintain that the Son is temporal. I conclude by considering whether the Son’s temporality entails the temporality of the Godhead. (shrink)

Shapiro tests these hypotheses against two rivals, the mental constraint thesis and the embodied mind thesis. Collecting evidence from a variety of sources (e.g., neuroscience, evolutionary theory, and embodied cognition) he concludes that the multiple realizability thesis, accepted by most philosophers as a virtual truism, is much less obvious than commonly assumed, and that there is even stronger reason to give up the separability thesis. In contrast to views of mind that tempt us to see the mind as simply being (...) resident in a brain or body, Shapiro argues for a far more encompassing integration of mind, brain, and body than philosophers have supposed. (publisher, edited). (shrink)

After tracing the development of the doctrines of avatāra and incarnation, the two are compared and contrasted. Some nuanced differences are: (1) Avatāras descend repeatedly, while Christ comes only once. However, we must also reckon with the Second Coming of Christ and the possibility of many incarnations. (2) The avatāra is real but perfect because it is made of "pure matter," while the incarnation is imperfect. (3) Avatāras have different purposes and, unlike the incarnation, not every Avatāra grants salivation. The (...) two concepts are not so incompatible as may appear at first, yet the differences spring from the contrasting worldviews of the respective religions. The two beliefs can also be mutually complementary. (shrink)

This important contribution to the ground-breaking Radical Orthodoxy series revisits the works of Husserl, Heidegger, Augustine and Derrida to reconsider the challenge of speaking of God through predication, silence, confession and praise. James K. A. Smith argues for God's own refusal to avoid speaking as well as for our urgent need of words to make Him visible to us. This leads to a radical new "incarnational phenomenology" in which God's love endows imperfect signs with the means to indicate true (...) states of infinitude, and in which we may ultimately discover a new theology of the arts. (shrink)

I suggest that Tim Bayne's use of the term ‘inclusion’ to describe the model of the Incarnation found in Morris and Swinburne may have misled him. The experiences of the Word do not include those of Jesus in the way that mine include my experiences as a teenager; but He is aware, in the case of Jesus, that ‘these experiences are mine’, which is not true of His awareness of the experiences of other people. Again, Bayne rejects the idea that (...) what differentiates the experiences of Jesus from those of the Word is that they differ in kind, on the grounds that they are integrated so as to be co-conscious in the divine consciousness; but this is only true if we think in terms of ‘inclusion’. Nor are any false beliefs held by Jesus part of the beliefs of the Word. Furthermore (although this is not related to ‘inclusion’) while a single soul may be sufficient to unite experiences, it need not be necessary; some other factor may (and I think does) unite the human and divine experiences of Christ. (shrink)

The orderliness of the universe and the existence of human beings already provides some reason for believing that there is a God - as argued in Richard Swinburne's earlier book Is There a God ? Swinburne now claims that it is probable that the main Christian doctrines about the nature of God and his actions in the world are true. In virtue of his omnipotence and perfect goodness, God must be a Trinity, live a human life in order to share (...) our suffering, and found a church which would enable him to tell all humans about this. It is also quite probable that he would provide his human life as an atonement for our wrongdoing, teach us how we should live and tell us his plans for our future after death. Among founders of religions, Jesus satisfies uniquely well the requirement of living the sort of human life which God would need to have lived. But to give us adequate reason to believe that Jesus was God, God would need to put his 'signature' on the life of Jesus by an act which he alone could do, for example raise him from the dead. There is adequate historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. The church which he founded gave plausible interpretations of his basic message. Therefore Christian doctrines are probably true. (shrink)

Christian orthodoxy has maintained that in Jesus Christ God became man, i.e., acquired a human nature, while remaining God. Given two not unreasonable restrictions on the understanding of "man," that claim is perfectly coherent. But if the New Testament is correct in claiming that in some sense Christ was ignorant, weak, and temptable, we have to suppose that Christ had a divided mind; or, in traditional terminology, that the two natures did not totally interpenetrate.

Christian orthodoxy has maintained that in Jesus Christ God became man, i.e., acquired a human nature, while remaining God. Given two not unreasonable restrictions on the understanding of "man", that claim is perfectly coherent. But if the New Testament is correct in claiming that in some sense Christ was ignorant, weak, and temptable, we have to suppose that Christ has a divided mind; or, in traditional terminology, that the two natures did not totally interpenetrate.

THE DOMINATING CONCEPT IN GREEK THOUGHT, SAYS TORRANCE, WAS A RECEPTACLE NOTION OF SPACE. THIS HAD NO PLACE IN THE NICENE THEOLOGY. WITH THE ASCENDANCY OF ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHY THE RECEPTACLE NOTION OF SPACE DOMINATED MEDIEVAL THEOLOGY, AND THIS IS WHAT, DESPITE LUTHER’S INSIGHT INTO THE RELATION BETWEEN THE ONTOLOGICAL AND DYNAMIC WAYS OF THINKING OF THE REAL PRESENCE AND THE INCARNATION, PRODUCED THE SEPARATION BETWEEN THEM. THIS PROBLEM INHERITED BY MODERN THEOLOGY CAN ONLY BE SOLVED IF WE USE THE PATRISTIC (...) UNDERSTANDING OF JESUS CHRIST IN SPACE AND TIME AS GOD’S PLACE IN THIS WORLD WHERE HE IS PRESENT IN OUR PLACE. (BP). (shrink)

The characteristic claim of Christianity, as codified at Chalcedon, is that God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, is numerically the same person as Jesus of Nazareth. This article raises three questions that appear to threaten the coherence of orthodox Chalcedonian incarnationalism. First, how can one person exemplify seemingly incompatible natures? Second, how can one person exemplify seemingly incompatible non-nature properties? Third, how can there be one person if the concept of incarnation implies that one person incarnates himself (...) as another person? The attempts of C. S. Lewis and T. V. Morris to deal with these difficulties are examined and found inconclusive. (shrink)