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August 16, 2005
Ch. XVII. Q. 105. The Union of Natures
THE GODHEAD and the Manhood are inseparably united in the Person of Jesus Christ; and this means that they possess in Him but one personal subject or inner Self, the second Person of the eternal Trinity. This Person has made our nature His own, without surrendering His Godhead; and the union thus accomplished is permanent. Achieved once for all in the Virgin's womb, it abides forever through all the stages of the human—its growth, humiliation, death, resurrection and endless glory.1
2. When Nestorius assailed the description of the Blessed Virgin as Θεοτόκος, Bearer of God, he was understood to deny that the Person whom she bore is numerically the same with the eternal Logos, who became incarnate. It was this division of Christ into two persons—the man whom the Virgin bore, and the Word dwelling in and associated with the man—which the Council of Ephesus condemned under the name of Nestorianism.2 The adoptionist theory is akin to Nestorianism, distinguishing between the child of Mary and the eternal Son, with whom, by adoption, He became associated and identified in honour.3 Every theory which refuses to acknowledge a continuous identification of the Subject or Ego of our Lord's human limitations with the almighty, omnipresent and omniscient Son of God is, in that regard, "Nestorian."
3. The inseparableness of the union of Godhead and Manhood in Christ lies in their abiding possession of one Ego or inner Self, the eternal Logos. The union is not one of mutual commixture, but hypostatic, καθ’ ὑπότασιν ἓνωσις. The two natures meet and have communion with each other in the Self which is common to both; and the reality of this inner Self must be assumed if any other form of union than that of mutual commixture is to be maintained. That there is a real inner self—denoted for example, by personal pronouns, and distinguishable in personal beings from the personal
functions that emerge in consciousness—is an unavoidable postulate of belief in moral responsibility and of common speech.4
4. The indivisible unity of Christ's Person teaches5 (a) that the divine and the human have really met and operated in mutual communion in Him; (b) that the consistently human life and experience of Christ on earth is a true self-manifestation of very God-incarnate; (c) that whatever Jesus Christ did, practiced and endured in the flesh was done and submitted to by very God, and has divine significance and value; (d) that divine attributes and human limitations are to be ascribed alike, although in relation to distinct natures, to the self-same personal Subject, the Word-incarnate;6 (e) that the union of divine gifts with outward signs in the sacraments is in line with the method of mediation initiated by the Incarnation; (f) that the union of human cravings with moral invincibility which was exhibited by Him can be gradually reproduced in those who by sacramental grace and self-discipline grow in Him.
1 Incarnation, ch. vi.; St. Thomas, III. ii; Rich. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, V. Iii. 2-4; H.P. Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, Lec. v. V; D. Stone, Outlines of Christ. Dogma, pp. 73-82; Wilhelm and Scannell, Cath. Theol., Pt. 11. ch. ii.
2 Incarnation, ch. ii. 7; J.F. Bethune-Baker, Early Hist. of Doctr., ch. xv; C.J. Hefele, Hist. of the Church Councils, vol. III. pp. l-156; St. Thomas, lII. xxiii. 4; xxxv. 5; Bp. Pearson, Creed, fol. pp. 177-178; Rich. Hooker, V. li. 2, lii. 2-4; W. Bright, Sermons of St. Leo, nn. 2, 34.
3 Refs. in Q. 103. n 9, above.
4 Incarnation, chh. iv. 2 and vi. 1, 7.
5 Incarnation, ch. vi. 9-12.
6 Incarnation, ch. vi. 4.
Posted by AKMA at August 16, 2005 04:11 PM