One person in two natures: Christology and coherence

Abstract

A commitment to the Chalcedonian standard implies a logical difficulty for Christology: a single person, in virtue of existing in two natures, exemplifies apparently incompatible attributes. This ‘problem of contradictory Christological predication’ threatens the truth of the doctrine of the Incarnation by calling its logical coherence into question. In this thesis, I take this problem as the subject of discussion. I present this project as a work of philosophical theology, conducted in an analytic-cum-scholastic mode, whose purpose is to give greater intelligibility to the Incarnation doctrine without compromising its irreducible mystery. In the first chapter of the thesis, I locate my project in the domain of analytic theology, a style of theological speculation which places a high priority on linguistic precision. I then lay a foundation in scholastic metaphysics, many of the central categories of which are vital to giving intelligibility to the doctrine of the Incarnation. Finally, I consider the place of mystery in a project of this kind. I suggest that the mystery of the Incarnation need not impede our progression in knowledge and understanding of the doctrine, but nor should we consider the Incarnation as merely one further instance of a mundane or creaturely phenomenon. To say that the Incarnation is a ‘mystery’ is not to say that it is intellectually inaccessible, but that it defies absolute cognitive reduction. In the second and third chapters of the dissertation, I provide a metaphysical foundation for the traditional teaching that Christ is one divine person who exists in two natures. First, I consider issues relating to the divine person and divine nature, such as what it means for Christ to be ‘consubstantial’ with the Father, how God relates to the created order in general, what a divine person is and how the second person alone may be the subject of the Incarnation in light of the inseparability of Trinitarian operations. Next, I consider issues relating to the assumed human nature, such as whether the human nature is concrete or abstract, how the human nature relates to its properties and what place, if any, the language of ‘composition’ should have in the metaphysical analysis of the hypostatic union. On these various topics, I align most closely to a ‘Latin’ or scholastic position, though I eschew the language of composition which proved popular among the medievals. In the fourth and fifth chapters, I survey the various ways in which the problem of contradictory Christological predication has been treated in the tradition. One way in which the problem has been addressed, and the first which I consider, is that of ‘jettisoning’ either the divine or human side of a given pair of contradictory predicates, so that the divinity of Christ must ‘give way’ so as to accommodate the humanity, or vice versa. This family of approaches, which I term ‘limitation strategies’, I find irredeemably problematic, particularly as they have been given expression in a number of recent analytic treatments. I then consider the alternative family of strategies, ‘classical strategies’, which seek to preserve coherence by ‘segregating’ the divine and human attributes only to the nature to which they correspond. While I am persuaded that some form of classical strategy is the correct approach, I conclude that most of the prevailing classical manoeuvres are deficient in some respect. In the final chapter, I propose a semantic and metaphysical strategy for addressing the problem. The human nature relates to the divine person according to a relation of ontological dependence that is entirely unique, and the sense in which the person may be said to be the subject of human properties is one that is irreducibly qualified by this unique dependence-relation. The Word is thus the subject of both divine and human properties, though the sense of ‘property exemplification’ that is at work is not univocal, and therefore does not give rise to contradiction. I associate this semantic strategy with a renovated habitus theory of the hypostatic union, which understands the human nature’s relation to the Word as one that is entirely extrinsic to the divine person, bringing about no internal change to the Word in its divinity, while maintaining, contra compositional accounts, that the Incarnation does not give rise to a product which includes the divine person and human nature as parts. Thus, my approach preserves a strong identity between ‘Christ’ and ‘the Word’. Importantly, the human nature’s dependence upon the person is unique in a sense that satisfies the requirements of ‘mystery’, for it does not reduce the hypostatic union to an instance of a more general metaphysical phenomenon.