r THE INCARNATION Thomas D. Senor The Christian doctrine of the Incamation is, at bottom, the claim that Jesus Christ was God incamate. As traditionally understood, this does not mean that Jesus was a specially appointed prophet or that he was adopted by God or even that he was pre-existent and existentially unique. No, the doctrine of the Incamation is more radical that any of that. Its claim is that the human being Jesus of Nazareth was and is God. Not surprisingly, Jesus' identity claims assumed divine prerogatives (i.e., having the ability to forgive sin; being the Lord of the Sabbath; being God's unique Son and the Son of Man of Daniel ?; asserting authority over the Torah)' Such assertions implying that he stood in the place of God didn't go over well wide either the Jewish .o**rrii.y in which Jesus hai lived or in the larger Hellenistic and Greek worlds' Ho\l/ co,rli God be bom? How could the divine being literally walk the earth as a human who ate, drank, and slept? The very idea was, to borrow a phrase used in a similar context by the Apostle Paul in First Corinthians, 'a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles'(1: 23 NRSV). Nevertheless, that is the doctrine that became the received view in the traditional Christian Church' This essay will consider the nature of this essential Christian doctrine, examine a particularly thomy philosophical problem to which it gives rise, and discuss three potential responses proposed by its defenders. The doctrine In the third century cE, the Christian Church expended its collective theological energy comlng to terrns with the relationship of Jesus Christ to God the Father' It was in the founh century that rhe focus switched to the humaniry of Christ. Orthodox Christianity had always affirmed Jesus' physical realiry. Although some Gnostic sects had taughr that Christ, while divine (indeed, becurse divine) was not physically .*bodiJ, early church theologians as far back as at least the writer of the letters of John (generally believed to have been written at the very end of the first century) stressed that Jesus Christ had a physical body' The meat of the doctrine of the Incamation can be found in dre Nicene Creed and the ,Chalcedonian Definition.' Here is the relevant section of the former: lhrist ts Was e was more s and rving Son trons :wish rrlds. asa ina Jews that nine hree lical was dox lcts ally sof rry) rnd THE INCARNATION We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, etemally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incamate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. The emphasis here is clearly on the divinity of Christ. During the early fourth century the christian church was divided over the narure of cfuist. Arius and his followers argued that Jesus Christ was pre'existent but was not etemal; rather, the Son had been God's first creation. He was thought unique and in many ways u*,iy r,rp.rio, to oth., created entities, but he was not of the same substance * iod ,h. Furir.r. altho"githe vote was hotly contested, in 325 the bishops ^t th" co.r.rJtf Ni."" expricitly rejected Arianism and embraced the doctrine that the Son was not only pre-existent but was also 'begotten not made', that is, consubstantial with the Father. while the Nicene Creed made explicit Christ's divinity ".rd "ss.rt.d his humaniryit wasn't until almost 130 years later that a more fully developed account of therelationship of Christ's humanity to his diviniry was hammered out at the Councilof chaceldon in 451. The key christological claim is that J.r* cn irt is ,fully Godand fullv human.'The humaniry that Christ exemplifies is like ours except that his is not stained with sin. Importantly, this implies that while the incamate God is theWord made flesh, he is not simply the \Uord made flesh. fh. *ri.*.nt endorsed atthis council (known as the 'Chalcedonian Definition') irrrirt trr"t Crrrist not only had a human body but a human 'rarional soul.' In other words, h. ;; not just the soulof God the son housed in a human body: he had a human mind as welt. Had he not |1i5 conative and cognitive aspects of humanity, he wourd have not been ,fully numan. The chief philosophical objection There are various objections that can be raised against the docrine of the Incamation. s91e are epistemological. For example, it might be thought that even if the accounts of the life of Christ in the Gospels are presumed to be ".J.r.",., there is nothing there(or in any other records) that could justifr the claim that Christ is literally God. This may or may not be a good objection to belief in the Incamation, but it will not be thesubject of our focus here. Instead, the objection that will occupy ,r, I -.r^pt ysical innature. In the most straighdorward of terms, it goes like this: 5s7 THOMAS DSENOR It is a necessary tmrh drat God is omnipotent and omniscient. This tmth stems from the very concept of God: no being that lacked these properries would qualifr as divine. Furthermore, it is also a necessary truth that no human being can have infinite knowledge and power; to be human is to be finite. And now we can see why it is impossible for there to be a being who is both fully divine and fully human. To be fully divine is ro meet all of those conditions necessary for divinity. Such a person will then be omniporent, and omniscient. To be fully human, on the other hand, requires a person ro be limited in power and knowledge. so a person who is fully divine and fully human will be an omnipotent, omniscient being who is limited in power and knowledge. But that is a logically inconsisrent description. Therefore, the doctrine of the Incamation is not even possibly true: it represenrs a metaphysical impossibiliry. Let's try to be a bit more formal in our presentation of the problem. The argument intends to show [C] It is not possible that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human. Heret a more explicit formulation of the argument: 1 Necessarily, "r,ythttg that is God (i.e., divine) is omnipotent. (premise) Z Necessarily, anphing that is human is not omnipotent. (premise) 3 Suppose: It is possible that Jesus Christ is both divine and human. (supposition for reductio) It is possible that Jesus is both omnipotent and human. (from l, 3) It is possible that Jesus is both omnipotent and not omnipotent. (ftoml,4) But it is not possible that Jesus is both omnipotent and not omniporent. (premise) [C] Therefore, it is not possible that Jesus Christ is both divine and human. Because the heart of this objection to the classical understanding of the Incamation is a claim of logical inconsistency, lett dub the argument above the 'lnconsistency Argument.' Acrually, what we have here is an instance of a more general argument type. I've selected omnipotence to represent all those divine qualities that, on the face of it, would seem to be inconsistent with essential human qualities. Before trying to figure out how the defender of traditional Christology can best respond, let's make sure we fully appreciate the argument. There are three premises among its seven steps. The first fwo are alleged necessary tmths that derive from the concepts of God and humanify, respectively. The rationale for them was discussed above, and we will have reason to come back to them later. For now we can grant that they have at least a ceftain prima facie plausibility. The only other genuine premise is step 6, which claims that it is not possible that Jesus Christ be both omnipotent and 4 5 6 558 trurh 'erties at no to be ; who those )tent, on to ttully )ower efore, :nts a argument THE INCARNATION not omnipotenr. The justification for this premise is none other than the Law of Nonconnadiction which says that nothing can be both tme and false. So if Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human, and if being the former entails being omnipotent and being the latter entails being not omnipotent, then traditional Christology is committed to both the tmth and the falsity of the claim that Jesus Christ was omnipotent, and thus to denying the Law of Non-contradiction. The argument is logically valid, and so the other steps will be mre if our premises are tme. There are, then, only three ways of rationally avoiding the conclusion: one of the premises must go. Either something can fail to be omnipotent and yet be divine, or something can be omnipotent and yet be human, or something can both have and lack the same properfy. As we will see, the denial of each one of these premises lines up with a traditional response to this Christological objectionDenying step 1: the kenotic solution premise of the Inconsistency Argument is that, necessarily, anything that is omnipotent. The traditional concept of the Christian God includes the concepr of a being who created the universe exnihilo, and whose power is unlimited. To affirm these things would seem to be nothing other than to affrrm God's omnipotence. So in denying the first step does the Christian also deny that God has unlimited power? Not necessarily. Peter Geach (1977) famously argued that Christians should give up the concept of omnipotence in favor of what he termed 'almightiness.' Being 'almighty'would entail that there could be nothing more powerful than God, even if (for technical philosophical and theological reasons we don't have time to get into) God is not omnipotent per se. However, giving up the ascription of omnipotence for rhese reasors will not help with the Inconsistency Argument, as steps 1 and Z could easily be recast with 'almighty' in place of omnipotence. The grounds for a more robust denial of the first step of the lnconsistency Argument can be found in the New Testament itself. The Apostle Paul, writing to the church at Philippi, had this to say about the Incamation: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, But emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being bom in human likeness. (Phil. 2: 5-7 NRSV) ). The later kenotic ftadition (the name of which derives from the Greek word kenosis which means 'emptying') interprets this text as claiming that, in some metaphysically serious way, the second person of the tinity gave up, or emptied himself of, some aspects of his divinity in order to take on humanity. The implication is that the point of the Incorrsistency Argument is recognized even here: in order to become human, God the Son had to empty himself of those aspects of his divine nature that were inconsistent with his becoming incamate as a human being. Omnipotence and The first is divine rsition for 4) nipotent. oim. :amation nsistency argument r the face can best premises from the discussed gant that rremise is rtent and 559 THOMAS D. SENOR omniscience are prime candidates for what the Son surrendered, although there may have been others as well. Therefore, the kenoticist will say, it's not uue that in order to be God a being must be omnipotent because Jesus Cfuist was both fully God and fully human. Not only do we have a possible counterexample we have an actual one! (See Feenstra 1989 for a robust defense of kenoticism.) The problem with this approach is that it appears to gut our concept of God. That is, step 1 is grounded in a widespread and plausible account of the divine nature. According to this view, what it is to be God is to be a being with attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, etc. The worry with the kenotic account of the Incamation is that in divesting himself of divine properties like omnipotence and omniscience, God the Son thereby ceases to be God. For in order for kenoticism to be of help to the Christological raditionalist, it must not imply that God the Son gave up dlinity in order to take on humanity. Notice also that the problem for the Chalcedonian isn't just that omnipotence is apparently inconsistent with genuine humanity, but that so many of the other attributes are too. God is not only all-powerful, but omniscient' necessarily good, etemal, etc. So even if it were possible for a divine being to give up some of his infinite atrributes, how could it be that God the Son emptied himself of all of these qualities and yet remained &vhv?. It is tempting to understand the kenotic position as implying that the Son gave up his diviniry to become human. If the kenoticist insists that the Son's diviniry was maintained while many of its distinctive atuibutes were given up, she will rhen owe us an account of divinity on which it is possible that God is not omnipotent, omniscient, necessarily good, etemal, etc. (See Senor 1991 for a proposal along these lines.) Thomy though the aforementioned problem is, it does not represent the most serious objection to the kenotic solution. As noted above, the grounds for kenoticism would seem to be a tacit recognition of the philosophical problem made explicit in the Inconsistency Argument in order to become human, God the Son had to abandon (at least temporarily) those qualities of divinity that are inconsistent with his human incamation. Once the Son is suitably emptied, there is no barrier to taking on a human nature. This method of getting around the lnconsistency Argument will work as long as (a) giving up paradigmatic divine qualities is consistent with remaining divine and (b) all the divine qualities that are inconsistent with human nature can be set aside. The first objection we discussed concems (a). Ve are now sefting our sighs on (b). As we begin to consider (b), note that there is nothing inherently mysterious in the idea of property divestment. You have the ability to divest yourself of some of your cunent qualities. Suppose you are a married professor of philosophy who lives in New York Ciry. Get divorced, quit your job, and move to Texas and you'll have changed some of your rather important properties. But you've got other propefties that you aren't in a position to do arrything about (e.g., having been bom in the rwenrieth century). Call properties of this latter sort 'stable propefties.' The kenotic srraregy depends on the non-stabiliry of all the divine properties that are inconsistent with humanity. For if any of those attributes tum out to be stable, then there will be a property that the incamate God the Son will both have and lack. And one such ir tt CI Lll qr hr SJ fir V gr w ol Ir v( ST w, rt JI, sc rf c( p( (r cl w, ot cl 1S ki Wl is AI so th ot aI pc 560 rere may in order fod and .ual one! d. That nature. such as account potence roticism the Son )otence e other y good, infinite ualities oplying hat the /en up, I is not roposal 3 most Iticism in the 'andon tuman luman rs long re and aside. (b). cus in me of r lives have rcfties n the :notic istent 'ill be such THE INCARNATION instance is all the Inconsistency Argument needs to show the logical incoherence of the doctrine of the Incamation. There are, it would seem, any number of stable divine properties that are apparently inconsistent with human nature. For example, on standard theism, God is the uncreated, necessarily existing creator of all that is other than himself. Yet these qualities, one and al[, are both stable and yet apparently inconsistent with a personb having a human nature. Since the kenotic approach leaves us with a human being who is the uncreated, necessarily existing creator of all that is other than himseli one may be excused for thinking that rather little ground has been made against the Inconsistency Argument. So even if kenoticism can provide grounds for denying step 1 of this particular version of the Inconsistency Argument, it is far from clear that it is a successful strategy for dealing with all such arguments. Denying step 2: Thomas Morris's 'two minds' reply Since there will be instances of the Inconsistency Argument that have an unassailable frrst premise, we must look elsewhere if we are to defend onhodox Christology. \Torking through the argument's steps in order, let us now consider step 2. !?hat is our ground for thinking that, necessarily, all human beings lack omniporence? We might think that the answer to this is rather simple and directly parallel to what we had to say earlier about the divine qualities: it is part of our concept of humaniry that humans are finite creatures with fairly limited capacities. We are of a rather small size even when measured by terrestrial standards, and our powers are thus circumscribed by what a being weighing at most a few hundred pounds is capable of. So in the same way that our concept of divinity necessitates that only an omnipotent being counts as divine, our concept of humaniry requires that only a being with limited powers (and who thus lacks omnipotence) could be human. Thomas Morris (1986) has challenged this claim about the concept of humaniry (Richard Swinbume 1994 gives a similar defense). Making a distinction berween cluster concepts and natural kind concepts, Morris argues that it is only the former whose essence can be known by simple a priori reflection and which will consist of other concepts knowable by reflection. So, for example, our concept of a bachelor is a cluster concept par excellence. By reflection, we can come to know that no one who is married can be a bachelor. However, we do not find out the essence of a natural kind in the same way. Thke, for example, our concept of an orange. We might think we could say that an orange is a sweet, orange-colored fruit with a peel. While this is a fair description of a standard orange, we must acknowledge that drose of us who are not horticulturists lack the expertise to say that these are necessary conditions of something's falling under the botanical kind orange. That is, we could possibly leam that there are types oforanges that are green and sour when ripe. Ifour concept ofan orange were a cluster concept, we'd be in a position to tell the horticulturists, 'No, you apparently don't understand what an orange is: nothing that is green when ripe could possibly be an orange.' But we are not in a position to say that. Being an orange is to 56r THOMAS D. SENOR be a member of a certain natural kind, and the essences of natural kinds are discovered by empirical investigation rather than conceptual reflection. What does all this have to do with the Incamation? Morris thlnks that once we understand that our notion of humanity is a natural kind rather than a cluster concept, we will see that many of the convictions we might have about the essence of humanity may, in principle, be overridden in the same way that our conviction that being orange when ripe may be shown to be wrong by botany. Just as being orange in color might be very coTrvrwn amongst oranges even if it is not essential for being an orange, so the objector to the lnconsistency Argument can say that while lacking omnipotence might be extremely corvnon among humans, it is not an usmtial property of humanity. Whereas the first response to the Inconsistency Argument held fast to the standard human kind properties, and gave ground on the Son's divine attributes, the current reply does just the reverse. To be fully human, in this sense, is to have a properly functioning human body and mind. Precisely what that consists in will be determined by a complete science of the human person, and not by a priori reflection on our nonscientifi.c concept of humaniry. What we currently know of the humankind nature might not obviously preclude the possibiliry of that nature's becoming intimately associated with a divine nature and all that that involves. So far we've said nothing about the 'Two Minds' aspect of Morris's position. There are two reasons for appealing to the dualiry of minds. First, the New Testament contains passages which seem to suggest, for example, that there are things Jesus Christ does not know (see Matthew 24:36). The second reason for insisting on the Two Minds view is that without it, the defender of orthodoxy may seem to have won the batde but lost the war. By dropping all the relevant features of humanity that were incompatible with the standard divine propefties, the Christian is in danger of being left with a picture of Jesus Christ as perhaps technically human but rather little like us. What makes Morris's Two Minds view distinct from just any orthodox position (as we've seen, the Chalcedonian definition insists that Jesus Christ had both human body and rational soul in addition to the mind of God the Son) is its insistence that during the Son's time on earth, it was the human mind that was primarily that through which God incamate consciously operated. T[king on and functioning through the consciousness of a human mind can explain how Christ could be both ignorant of some things and yet omniscient: the ignorance is a function of the conscious human mind while omniscience is had in the divine mind. Furtherrnore, we can suppose that the human mind came to know most things in much the same way that any typical human mind would come ro know them. We needn't think of the infant Christ consciously pondering the thoughts of the Godhead if it is the human mind that was the primary vehicle in which conscious thought occurred. The main problem for the Two Minds view is squaring it with the Chalcedonian Definition's insistence that there is but a single person in the Incamation. Morris himself sees this difficulry and attempts to make plausible his claim that two minds can be had by a single person. Yet as John Hick (1989) points out' there is a dilemma here for Morris: if there are two distinct minds in the Incamation, and if the human 562 IT (r C S h' jt pl * a1 s) w r1 g( tt If N * SE (t T tt is ol c( in pr re is C OI AT n( nr tl c( al scovered once we concept, rumanity at being in color r orange, omntporperry of standard : culTenl properly ermined )ur nonI nature timately r. There lontains loes not rds view but lost ble with icture of tion (as human rce that through ugh the rrant of human ose that typical : Christ hat was :donian Monis r minds ilemma human THE INCARNATION mind has access to the divine mind only inasmuch as the divine mind allows it to have (which is Morris's view), then it would seem that the relationship between the mind of God the Son and the human mind of Christ is in principle no different from God the Son's relationship with any other human mind. None of us (including Jesus Chrisr) has r-uuestricted access to God the Son's mind; all of us (including Jesus Christ) know just as much of the divine mind as the divine mind chooses to reveal. Morris sees this pan of the dilemma as a potential problem and tries to solve it by maintaining that the human and divine minds of God incamate have a single, shared set of cogniave ard causal powerc. The distinction in the two minds is in their accompanying belief systerns, and not in the faculties that produce (or are associated with) them. But if we say there is but one set of causal and cognitive powers, and that *rese powers are the cognitive and causal powers of God the Son, then it is highly questionable if a genuine human mind, or'rational soul,'has been taken on at all. So the dilemma is this: either there are two distinct sets of cognitive and causal powers, or there are not. If there are, rhen the uniry of the lncamation is threatened (and the heresy known as Nestorianism looms), and there is apparently, in principle, no unique relation between the human mind of Christ and the mind of God the Son. If there are not two distinct sets of powers, then it is hard to see that God incamate had a genuine human mind (and the heresy known as Apollinarianism looms). One final point in deferue of the Two Minds view: it is clear that orthodoxy insists that God the Son took on a complete human nature and that includes taking on a complete human mind or'rational soul.' So Morris might claim that, to some degree at least. all defenders of the Chalcedon Defrnition will have to face Hick's dilemma. Denying step 6: The compositional model The final premise of the argument comes at step 6, and it asserts that it is not possible that Jesus Christ be both oflrnipotent and not omnipotent. As claimed above, this is really glounded in what might just be the single most important rule of logic and of rational thoughtr the Law of Non-connadiction. How, one might reasonably ask, could the believer deny something so basic? The key, the defender of orthodoxy will say, is that one can af6rm the Law of Nonconnadiction and yet deny step 6. For Jesus Christ differs from the rest of humanity in one very important respect: he has two natures, one divine and one human. So property ascriptions to him are ambiguous in a way that properry ascriptions to the rest of us aren't. When we say that Jesus is omnipotent, what we are really asserting is that Jesus Christ, qua divine nature, is omnipotent. And when we say that Jesus Christ lacks omnipotence, what we are asserting is that Jesus Christ, qua human, lacks omnipotence. Had Chrlst a single nature, then the claim that he is both omnipotent and not omnipotent would violate the Law of Non-contradiction. But as it is, there is no contradiction in saying that, qua his divine nature Christ is omnipotent and qua his human nature he is not. Eleonore Stump (2004) and Brian Leftow (2004) offer independent, although strikingly similar accounts of the metaphysics of the Incamation that they find in 563 THOMAS D. SENOR the writings of Thomas Aquinas. The firndamental idea is that God incamate is a compositional entity composed of God the Son and the human body and mind of Jesus Christ. On this account, the properties that God incamate has qua diviniry are properties that are had by his divine part; similarly, his human properties are had by his human pan. This approach puts some flesh on the bones of the qua claim above. The apparent inconsistency is resolved by assigning the properties in question to distinct parts of God incamate. Just as there are no logical difficulties in saying of an apple that it is red qua its skin and not red qua its core, so there is no logical problem with the claim that Jesus Christ is omnipotent qua his divine part and not omnipotent qua his human part. The difficulty with this view can be seen if we keep squarely in mind that the doctrine asserts that although there are two natures, there is but one person and hence a single subject of predication. So even if we grant that the divine part is omnipotent and the human part is not omnipotent, we must ask if the compositional God incamate is omnipotent. If we say that having an omnipotent paft, God incamate himself is omnipotent, then we would seem to be right back where we started: Jesus Christ (who is God incamate) is a human who is yet omnipotent. But if we go the other way and say that the human part tmmps the divine part where omnipotence is concemed, and hence that God incamate is not omnipotent, then we have a divine being who is not omnipotent. So one might be excused for wondering how the compositional account cuts ice against t}re lnconsistency Argument. For in the final analysis, it doesn't seem to offer us a way of seeing how Jesus Christ could be both omrripotent and not omnipotent; instead, it shows only how he could have an omnipotent part and a nonomnipotent paft. But these rhings were never in doubt. No one ever thought that, say, his left eye brow was omnipotent. And the Christological raditionalist has always claimed that he was omnipotent in his divine nature. The point ar issue is whether the person who is God incamate can be said to be omnipotent, nor whether he has an omnipotent part. There is another dfficulry inherent in the compositional picrure. Onhodoxy is clear that there is only a single person in the Incamation. The person who is God the Son and the person who is Jesus Christ are the same person. However, the friend of the compositional picture cannor asseft rhis. For God the Son is, on the compositional view, but a proper part of the whole that is God incamate. The conclusion must be either that God incamate is a person too, and so there are rwo persons in the Incamation (but this is the heresy of Nestorianism pure and simple), or God incamate has a person as a paft (i.e., God the Son) but is not a person himself. But then Jesus Christ, who the tradition tells us just is God incamate, is an impersonal conglomerate witl a personal paft. Yet surely this is not theologically acceptable to the Chalcedonian tradition that claims that the rwo natures are joined in such a way that they are 'concurring in one Person' and that the incamate God, Jesus Christ, is 'in all things like unto us.'The compositional view would seem to have trouble with both of these claims: the God incamate has a person as a part but is not a person, and hence seerns to be not much like us at all. 564 Inat and a so mr way c myst€ rncon cast d See al exclu Creat (Chat (Chat reenstl Inca Geach publ Hick, J Leftow Irca Uni' Morris Senor, Stump (eds Oxft Swinbr ** Pres Hebblr Uni Hick, J Joht Norris, devr rmate is a d mind of ivinity are had by his bove. The to distinct f an apple blem with )otent qua I that the rnd hence nnipotent incamate himself is 'rrist (who r way and ,med, and vho is not Ll account it doesn't t and not nd a nonrght that, ns always ; whether he has an rodoxy is ro is God :he friend e compo- >nclusion ersoru in , or God nself. But rpersonal ptable to rch a way Christ, is rble with rson, and THE INCARNATION Conclusion In a bdef essay such as this, it is not possible to explore the philosophical difficulties and attempted solutions in anything like the detail they deserve. Nor is it possible to so much as mention all the issues that should have a hearing. What can be said by way conclusion is simply this: what the doctrine of the Incamation proposes is deeply mysterious, and while a good prima facie case can be made for its being logically inconsistent, the defender of the tradition is not without resources in attempting to cast doubt on the Inconsistency Argument. See a]so Christianity (Chapter 6), Religious pluralism (Chapter 20), Inclusivism and exclusivism (Chapter 21), Omniscience (Chapter 24), Omnipotence (Chapter 25), Creation and divine action (Chapter 30), The Tiinity (Chapter 49), Revelation (Chapter 50), Resurrection (Chapter 52), Sin and salvation (Chapter 53), Miracles (Chapter 55). References Feensua, R. (1939) 'Reconsidering kenotic Christology,' in RJ. Feerstra and C. Plantinga (eds) Tnrury, Incmvti:on, ond Atnwwnt, Note Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Geach, P. (1977) Prwiderce Md Euil, Cambridge: Cambridge Universicy Press, chapter l, previously published as 'Omnipotence,' Philosophy 48 (1973):7-20. Hick, J. (1989) 'The logic of God incamate,' Religrors Satdies 25: 409-23. Leftow, B. (2004) 'A timeless God incamate,' in S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, and G. O'Colliru (eds) The Incanwtton: An Invrdisciplnwy Slmposizm on dv hrmr.atian of dre Son of Go/, New York: Oxford University Press. Morris, T. (1986) Th€ l-ocic of Godhrcanwte,lthaca, Nt Comell University Press. Senor, T. (1991) 'God, supematural kinds, and the Incamation,' fu[gious Studb 27:353-70. Srump, E. (2004) 'Aquinas' metaphysics of the Incamation,' in S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, and G. O'Collins (eds) The lrcanatian: An Intedisciplhwry S]trposium on dv lrcanwtion of tlw San o/ God, New York: Ordord University Press. Swinbume, R. (1994) The Christian God, New York: Onford Universiry Press. Further Reading CoUins,G.(1995) ABiblical,Histnical,andSystentaticSaadyofJeszsChrist,NewYork:OrdordUniversity Press. (A study of general issues of Christology.) Hebblethwaite, B. (1987) Tlw Inrmwtion: CoLlzced Essals in Chrismlop, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (A philosophically sophisticated theologian's deferse of the orthodox doctrine.) Hick, J. Q@6) TheMetaplor of Gdhrcamate: Chrisologr in aPlurdistic Age, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press. (A critical look at the traditional doctrine.) Norris, R. (1980) Th€ ChriswlngicalContrwusy, Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress. (Readings in early development of t}re doctrine of the Incamation.) ,] ri ; * n ld ;* jil I j) q