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The Incarnation: divine embodiment and the divided mind
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 June 2011
Extract
The central doctrine of traditional Christianity, the doctrine of the Incarnation, is that the Second Person of the Trinity lived a human existence on Earth as Jesus Christ for a finite period. In the words of the Nicene Creed, the Son is him
who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
- Type
- Papers
- Information
- Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 68: Philosophy and Religion , July 2011 , pp. 269 - 285
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2011
References
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3 In an illuminating essay (‘What Does Chalcedon Solve and What Does it Not? Some Reflections on the Status and Meaning of the Chalcedonian Definition’, in Davis, , Kendall, and O'Collins, (eds.) The Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 143–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar), Sarah Coakley outlines three approaches to an understanding of Chalcedon to be found in the literature, and finding them all wanting in some respect, proposes a fourth. The first interpretation takes the definition to lay down the terms in which the Incarnation is to be described, but makes no ontological claims. A second takes the definition to be metaphorical. Both of these Coakley finds implausible. The third approach is one found in analytic philosophical treatments of the Incarnation, typified by Brown (The Divine Trinity (London: Duckworth, 1985)Google Scholar and Morris (The Logic of God Incarnate (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1986)Google Scholar. In these, the Chalcedonian statement is taken to be, or intended to be, a literally true description of the Incarnation. Coakley applauds the recognition in this approach that the statement does intend to be truly descriptive of an actual state of affairs, but points out that ‘literal’ has additional connotations that may not appropriately represent the intentions of those who originally constructed the statement. Her own proposal is that Chalcedon, in her words, ‘sets a ‘boundary’ on what can, and cannot, be said, by first ruling out three aberrant interpretations of Christ…second, providing an abstract rule of language for distinguishing duality and unity in Christ [i.e. two natures but one person], and third, presenting a ‘riddle’ of negatives by means of which a greater (though undefined) reality may be intimated'. (Coakley ‘What Does Chalcedon Solve and What Does it Not?’, 161.)
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9 The composite view has been articulated and defended both by Eleonore Stump (‘Aquinas’ Metaphysics of the Incarnation’, in Davis, Kendall, and O'Collins (eds.) The Incarnation, 197–218) and by Brian Leftow (‘A Timeless God Incarnate’, in Davis, Kendall, and O'Collins (eds.) The Incarnation, 273–99). Both find the roots of this view in Aquinas.
10 According to St Matthew's narrative:
And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. (26.39)
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (27: 46)
11 See Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate, 103–7; Swinburne, ‘Could God Become Man?’, 64–6; The Christian God, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994)Google ScholarPubMed, ch. 9. cf. Hebblethwaite, Brian, The Incarnation: collected essays in Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 31, 68.
12 Whereas I have talked of ‘accounts’ of embodiment, I have followed writers such as David Brown in talking of ‘models’ of Christ's nature. The implication, I take it, is that any theory we come up with concerning the divine must at best be an approximation.
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18 Brown, The Divine Trinity, 227.