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Identity and the composite Christ: an incarnational dilemma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

ROBIN LE POIDEVIN
ROBIN LE POIDEVIN
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT e-mail: R.D.LePoidevin@leeds.ac.uk
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Abstract

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.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , June 2009 , pp. 167 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Cambridge University Press

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