Our historical analysis of the views leading up to the Chalcedonian definition has shown us that the attempts to solve this problem were formulated within the Greek philosophical understanding of man as a rational animal; that is, that man has two parts: a rational soul and an animal body. This is the underlying assumption in the all of the historical attempts to relate the human to the divine in Christ. But this Greek philosophical understanding of man is not the Biblical understanding of man. Let us examine the problem of the nature of man in order to state and clarify the Biblical understanding of man. Then the problem of person of Christ can be successful solved.
According to the Biblical view, man is a created personal being in a created physical world and is as such a union of spirit (person or self) and body (physiologial organism).
"Then the Lord God formed man of the dust from the ground, andWhen God breathed into the nostrils of the body of man the breath of life, He created man's spirit and man became a living soul. The soul of man is the union of this created spirit and the body formed from the dust of the ground. Thus man is a dipartite being having two parts, spirit and body; the soul is not a third part of man but is the union of man's created spirit and his body. Man's soul as the union of spirit and body is the expression of the human spirit or person in and through the body. Thus, man is neither a dipartite being having two parts of a body and soul, nor the Platonic tripartite being having a body, a animal soul, and rational soul, nor a tripartite being having three parts of a body, soul, and spirit; but man is a dipartite being having a body and spirit with the soul, both the rational and animal soul, as the union of the spirit and the body. The spirit of man is his person, his self.
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and
man became a living soul [nephesh]" (Gen. 2:7 KJV).
What is a person?
A person may be defined as a
being (an existent) that is self-determining, not determined, who
has freedom, free will, the ability to choose.
Now within the self, existence is known in the act of decision.
To exist is to decide. This is particularly apparent in those
momentous passionate decisions of a crisis. In fact, every act of decision,
whether in a great crisis or not, is the place where existence can be
found. The act of decision itself is also an act of existence. That
is, to be is to choose. This was partially apprehended in Descartes'
phrase: cognito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am.
Descartes saw that the act of thinking or even doubting is to exist.
For one to think or doubt he had to exist. However, since he sought
to fit this into an Greek philosophical scheme of thought, Descartes did not
recognize that thinking and doubting are basically acts of decision.
Not only to think or doubt but to decide is to exist. Any act of
decision is an act of existence: decerno ergo sum, I choose,
therefore I am. A person therefore should be defined as a
being (an existent) that is self-determining, not determined, who
has freedom, free will, the ability to choose. A person is to be
distinguished from a non-person, a thing, an "it," which is a
being that is determined, not self-determining, that has no freedom,
no free will, no ability to choose. Thus the existence of a person
is found in his ability to choose, to make decisions.
"I choose, therefore, I am", not, "I think, therefore, I am".
To be is to choose, not just to think or to preceive.
Man's reason is a function and an expression of his will.
This freedom of decision of man, not his reason, is what distinguishes
man from the rest of creation; this is what gives to man his existence
as a person or self and to his reason that human and personal character.
Now a careful analysis of decision reveals that every act of
decision involves three elements:
(a) the agent making the decision,
(b) the alternatives to be decided between, and
(c) a criterion to decide by.
This third element of every decision, the criterion by which the
choice is made, means that every human decision involves a reference
to a criterion in or beyond the self. In other words, behind every human
decision as to what a person should do or think, there must be a reason.
That is, the choice between the altenatives is made with reference to
some criterion of choice, and choice cannot be made without this reference.
Now the criterion of a choice must be also chosen, and that choice
is made with reference to an ultimate criterion, an ultimate reason for
the choice of the criterion. That is, the ultimate reason for any
decision, practical or theoretical, must be given in terms of some particular
criterion, an ultimate reference or orientation point in or beyond
the self or person making the decision. This ultimate criterion
is that person's god. In this sense, every man must have a god, that is,
an ultimate criterion of decision. Thus in the very exercise of his
freedom-of-decision, man shows that he is such a being that must
necessarily appeal to an ultimate criterion, a god.
In fact, his every uncoerced decision implies this ultimate criterion.
Since decisions involve a reference to an ultimate criterion beyond the self,
to a god, the Bibical view of man is that he is a religious animal,
a being who must have a god.
According to the Greek thinkers, Reason, the universal and necessary, is the divine or God. The divine, according to the Greek conception of reality, is that which is not subject to change, decay or death; the gods in Homer are "immortals." The divine, therefore, cannot be known through the senses because that which is known through the senses is a world characterized by change, decay or death. But since the objects of reason are always and everywhere the same, the divine can be known through reason. This eternal, unchanging realm of the Ideas, the Universals, the objects of Reason, are the divine. Both Plato and Aristotle held reason to be divine. God is the divine or eternal realm of the Ideas in Plato's philosophy, or he is a self-thinking thought of Aristotle's philosophy. But since the concepts of God and man are correlatives, the Greek concept of man reflects the image of this god. Since reason is god, man viewed in the light of this god, is a rational animal. Reason is the divine part of man. This view of man is the underlying assumption in the all of the historical attempts to relate the human to the divine in Christ. This Greek view of man is the cause of the problem of the nature of Christ.
This is not the Bibical view of man or of God. God is not Reason, the universal and necessary. And Ultimate reality is not the universal and the necessary. That is, Reason is not God. God is a person (or more accurately, three persons) whose existence is not in His reason but in His unlimited sovereign free decision and will; it is not the universal ideas in God's mind that determine how or why God will create man and the world, but His unlimited sovereign will (Rev. 4:11). Since reason is a function of the will, God is rational and His reason is a function of His will. Thus the world that God has chosen to create is rational.
Man is also a person (or more accurately, a spirit [person] in a body - see Gen. 2:7) whose existence is also to be found, not in his reason, but in his limited free will and decision. And since decisions involve a reference to an ultimate criterion in or beyond the self, to a god, the Bibical view of man is that he is a religious animal, a being who must have a god. Reason is not the divine part in man but is a function of the will of the person. To be is to choose, not to think or to know. Knowledge and reason depend upon a prior decision as to what is real. It is upon decision that any knowledge finally depends.
The first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, used their freedom of choice to disobey God and choose a false god, wisdom and knowledge; that is, Reason. The basic sin is turning from the true God and to faith in a false god of some kind; it is idolatry. Sin is any choice contrary to ultimate allegiance or faith in the true God (Rom. 14:23). The consequence of Adam's sin was death (Gen. 2:16-17): physical death (the separation of their spirits from their bodies) and spiritual death (the separation of their spirits from God). In other words, they lost their fellowship with God and with each other (Gen. 3:7-8) and their dominion over creation. But even though they have fallen from the image of God, they still are persons and still have the freedom of choice.
The descendants of Adam are born not in the image of God but in the image of Adam, the man of dust, the old man, and as such are subject to death, physical and spiritual. Death has been inherited by all men (Rom. 5:12). And since they have been born into the world spiritually dead, alienated from God, not knowing personally the true God, and since they must have a god, an ultimate criterion of decision, they choose a false god as their God and thereby sin (Gal. 4:8). The creation, man himself, contains a knowledge about the true God which leaves them without excuse for the sin of idolatry (Rom. 1:19-20). But this knowledge is about the true God and is not a personal knowledge of the true God which comes from an encounter and fellowship with God.
Hebrew-Christian | Medieval Synthesis | Greek-Roman | |
---|---|---|---|
God | Creator | Supernatural - Grace | The rational |
World | Created | Natural - Nature | The non-rational |
Man | spirit (person) & body |
spirit (moral) & soul (rational) & body (animal) |
mind (rational) & body (non-rational) |
Ultimate reality is not the universal and necessary and this Reason is not man's ultimate criterion but the sovereign will of the Creator who made all things and has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. This basic incompatibility between the Greek and Biblical view of God and man explains the conflict between Greek philosophy and the Christian faith and the failure of the attempted synthesis of these divergent points of view by Augustine and Aquinas. All attempts to synthesize the classical Greek view of God and man with the Biblical view will fail. Worst of all, the Biblical view of God and man will be obscured and misunderstood.
And this is what happened in the early church as it sought to explain the relation of the divine and human in the God-man Jesus Christ. They misunderstood the rational soul of man as the third part of man, the spirit and body being the other two parts. But the rational soul of man is not the third part of man, but is the expression of man's spirit or person in and through his body (see Gen. 2:7). Thus the Biblical view of man is that man is a dipartite being having a body and a spirit (or person) with the soul as the union of a spirit and the body. Hence, man is neither the Greek view of man as a dipartite being having two parts of a body and rational soul, nor the Platonic tripartite being having a body, a animal soul, and rational soul, nor the view of the Christian synthesis of man as a tripartite being having three parts of a body, a soul, and a spirit, where the soul is considered the animal soul and the spirit was considered to be the mind, the rational soul of the Greek view. The Biblical view of man is that his soul is not a third part of man but that his soul, both the rational and animal soul, is the expression of his spirit or person in and through his body, and thus the union of his spirit and his body.
In the incarnation, the divine Word, the Son of God, took the place, not of the human soul (psuche), but of the human spirit (pneuma) in the man Jesus. His human soul is the union of His divine spirit (His Person) and His human body. Thus Jesus is one person with two natures; His divine nature is the divine Word, the Son of God, and His human nature is His human soul and His human body where His human soul is the expression of His one divine spirit or person in and through His human body.
This view of the incarnation is not the Word-Flesh Christology of Apollinarianism. In the late A.D. 300, an Alexandrian, named Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, tried to explain how the Word of God became flesh, a human being. He assumed that man was a dipartite being having two parts, a body and a rational soul. Now in the incarnation, the Word of God took on a human body, and thus Christ had a human body, but the divine Logos took the place of the human rational soul. Apollinaris wrote,
"The Word became flesh without assuming a human mind;Theodore of Mopsuestia, the great leader of the theologians at Antioch, accused Appollinars of contradicting Scrpture. The New Testament describes Christ as "afraid" and "growing in wisdom" (Luke 2:52). Now these statements apply to Christ's mind: "It is obvious that the body did not grow in wisdom." Therefore, unless the Apollinarians claimed that during Jesus' boyhood the divine Logos grew in wisdom -- a view which "not even these men are so impudent as to maintain in their wickedness" [2] -- they must acknowledge that Christ had a human mind, not just a human body.
a human mind is subject to change
and is the captive of filthy imaginations;
but He was a divine mind, changeless and heavenly." [1]
Apollinaris offered a compromise. The human mind, he explained, is composed of parts. Its lower elements feel fears and emotions, while reason dwells in its highest part. Christ had not only a human body but also the lower parts of the human mind; the divine Logos replaced only the human reason. Theodore responded that the real problem concerned salvation, and there this compromise did not help. Since Christ saved humanity by uniting it with divinity, only those parts of us which have been united with divinity in Christ will be saved. Therefore, if Christ lacked a human reason, then human reason has not been united with divintity in Christ and will not be saved. In the words of Gregory of Nazianzus,
"If anyone has put his trust in Him as a Man without a human mind,Appollinars' theory of the Person of Christ clearly assumes the Platonic tripartite distinction between body (soma), animal soul (psuche), and rational soul or mind (nous), as three distinct element in man, Thus he viewed Christ as having a human body and an animal soul, but not a human rational soul, as the seat of rationality and intelligence, Accordingly, instead of a human rational soul, the divine Word of God took its place and was the divine nature in Christ. Thus Christ was not completely human.
he is really bereft of mind, and quite unworthy of salvation.
For that which He has not assumed He has not healed;
but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved." [3]
This is not the Biblical understanding of man presented here. The Biblical view of man is that man is a dipartite being having a body and a spirit (or person) with the soul as the union of a spirit and the body. Hence, man is neither the Greek view of man as a dipartite being having two parts of a body and rational soul, nor the Platonic tripartite being having a body, a animal soul, and rational soul, nor the view of the Christian synthesis of man as a tripartite being having three parts of a body, rational soul, and spirit. The Biblical view of man is that his soul is not a third part of man but that his soul, both the rational and animal soul, is the expression of man's spirit in and through his body, and thus the union of his spirit and his body.
In the incarnation, the divine Word, the Son of God, took the place, not of the human soul (psuche), but of the human spirit (pneuma) in the man Jesus. His human soul, both the rational and animal soul, is the union of His divine spirit and His human body. Thus Jesus is one person with two natures; His divine nature is the divine Word, the Son of God, and His human nature is His human soul and His human body where His human soul is the expression of His one divine spirit or person through His human body.
Did Jesus have a human spirit? The answer is "No" and "Yes". No, the divine Word of God took the place the human created spirit in the God-man Jesus. And yes, the Word of God took upon Himself the limitations of a created human spirit. As Paul indicates in Phil. 2:5-8:
"5 Have this mind among yourselves,That is, in Jesus, the Word of God took the place of the created human spirit, but he took upon Himself the limitations of that human spirit; "he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being in the likeness of man." Thus Jesus was the Word of God made flesh (John 1:14), that is, a divine person or spirit in a human body with all its limitations. but without sin.
which you have in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of man.
8 And being found in human form he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice,This cry was misunderstood by the bystanders as a calling upon Elijah (Matt. 27:47-49). But it was not a calling on Elijah, but it was His spirit as the Son of God calling upon God His Father. He had entered into our spiritual death inherited from Adam and His spirit was separated from God His Father. This spiritual death was not a non-existence of His spirit, but was a separation between His spirit as the Son of God from God His Father. This is only time in all eternity that He as the Son of God was separated from God His Father. It happened because He had entered on the cross into our spiritual death inherited from Adam (Rom. 5:12; I Cor. 15:21-22). This raises the problem of how is this possible. As it was expressed by those who mocked Him, saying
'Eli, Eli, la'ma sabach-tha'-ni?' that is,
'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" (Matt. 27:46)
"He saved others; he cannot save himself.How can God die? The obvious answer is "No, God cannot die."
He is the King of Israel;
let him come down now from the cross,
and we will believe in him.
He trusts in God; let God deliever him now, if he desires him;
for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'" (Matt. 27:42)
"6For I, the Lord, do not change;If Israel turns from their sins, then they will not be consumed because the Lord God is unchanging in keeping His promises not to destroy them if they will return to Him. Thus the Biblical God is unchanging, not because He is a timeless unchanging super-It, but because the Biblical God, who keeps His promises, is three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are without beginning or end. The Biblical God has time, but His time has no beginning nor end. His time is an absolute time, not like our created time which has a beginning.
therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
7From the days of your fathers
you have turned aside from my statutes,
and have not kept them.
Return to Me, and I will return to you,"
says the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 3:6-7 NAS)
God created the heavens and earth by an act of His will. As those in heaven sang,
"Worthy art thou, our Lord and God,God is three Persons by whose will all things were created and do exist.
to receive glory and honor and power,
for thou didst create all things,
and by thy will they exist and were created." (Rev. 4:11)
And in eternity God also made the decision for the Son of God to become a man and to die on the cross for the salvation of men. So this once in all eternity, at the cross, the Son of God died spiritually by being separated from God the Father. He did not cease to exist, but He entered into our spiritual death and His personal relationship to God His Father was broken and He was temporarily separated personally from God His Father. And He died physically when His spirit was separated from His body.
"Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said,His spirit did not cease to exist, but was released from His body when His body died physically; Jesus "yielded up his spirit" to His Father into whose hands He had commited His spirit. As He died physically, His spirit was separated from His body, but His spirit did not cease to exist. But He did not remain in this spiritual and physical death; God the Father raised the Son of God from the dead, not only physically from the dead, but also spiritually from the dead. And thus God provided for us salvation from death to life, both spiritually and physically.
'Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!'
And having said this he breathed his last."
(Luke 23:46; compare Mark 15:37)
or as the Gospel of John said,
"When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said,
'It is finished';
and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." (John 19:30)
or as the Gospel of Mathew said,
"And Jesus cried again with a loud voice
and yielded up his spirit." (Matt. 27:50)
[1] Apollinaris, Letter to the Bishops Exiled at Diocaesarea 2;
quoted by G. L. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics
(London: S.P.C.K., 1948), p. 111.
This and next two footnotes are taken from
William C. Packer, A History of Christian Theology, an introduction
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1983), p. 87,
footnotes 24, 25, and 26, respectively.
[2] Quoted in R. A. Norris, Manhood and Christ
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 204.
[3] Gregpry of Nazianzus, Letter 101, to Cledonius the priest,
against Apollinaris, translated by Charles Gordon Browne and
James Edward Swallow, in
ASelect Library of nt Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
2nd Series, Vol. 7
(Christian Literature Co., 1894), p. 440.
The text of this and the previous paragragh is taken from
William C. Packer, A History of Christian Theology, an introduction
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1983), pp. 80-81,