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)

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)

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)

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..

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)

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)

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

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)