Featured Do our systems of thought teach that Jesus is really the One True God?

Since, you have God eternally confined to the body of Jesus Christ, please explain why this view is nothing more than a variant form of modalism? Does not this view require the incarnation of the Father as well as the Spirit to eternal union with flesh if the whole Godhead dwells bodily in Christ?

 

Please answer the following questions directly!

1. Was the preincarnate God omniscient? Or was he growing in wisdom and knowledge?
2. Was the preincarnate God omnipotent? Or did he grow weary and need sustance to survive drawn from outside his own being?
3. Does the incarnate God mutable? Or grow in wisdom and knowledge?
4. Does the incarnate God non-eternal? Or have a beginning point with regard to his nature (Jn. 1:14 "became" flesh)?

I certainly don't want to misunderstand or misrepresent you. But it seems you are contradicting your own logic? First you assert that the entire Godhead, which I assume include the Father and the Spirit dwell bodily in Christ unless they are not part of the Godhead? But I don't understand your distinction. You assert the fullness of God dwells bodily in Christ as the body is the container for this fullness to dwell, so before the incarnation what was the container for the fullness of God in the Son? What is the container for the fullness to dwell in the Father and Spirit that is different from the preincarnate Son? Does the container become God - "the word BECAME flesh" or remains flesh?

I realize you are simply trying to summarize differences but I would include the definite articles and conjunctions before each name (you probably would also). So, you think that God is changed by reversing the direction? If one accepts the distinction in seats of conscience, persons and manifestations then I see no difference at all. However, if the nature of God changes with the incarnation whereby "the flesh" is added then I see a completely different kind of God becoming than what existed previous to the incarnation, a god that is void of immutability, void of omniscience but was in a state of becoming immutable, becoming omniscient, becoming omnipotent.[/QUOTE]

 

It is interesting your choice of words that you do not use. You do not say "I don't have the fullness of the Godhead confined to the body of Christ" but rather "I don't have God eternally confined to the body of Christ." When previously defining "the fullness of the Godhead" you did include the Father and Spirit as inseparable union within that body.

I do not see what a pre- versus a post-resurrection has to do with the nature of God?

You cannot assert that because that is the topic of debate which you first must prove to be the case.

Your logic does not agree with this formula. You have a different God in nature in the preincarnate Son than in the post-incarnate Son! You have a preincarnate God in the person of the preincarnate Son that is immutable, omniscient, omnipotent but that is not the incarnate God in the person of the incarnate Son who is mutable in knowledge, power and eternity (as the flesh as a beginning point). They are not the one and same God in nature with regard to the Son and thus the nature of God cannot be changed with regard to one Person as they are inseparable with regard to what makes God to be God. Thus, your logic leads you to include the new incarnate nature of God as coequally shared by the Father and the Spirit or else the Son has a different God nature than the Father and the Spirit. Your logic necessarily leads to modualism as it demands that the nature of God the Father, nature of God the Spirit is coequal to the nature of God the Son which now includes humanity and so all three must coequally be human in nature UNLESS the humanity can be distinguished from God nature. Which is it?

 

Again, your wording is interesting but I believe misleading and irrational. For examle, let me reword your statement as follows that reflects the truth of your position as I see it:

1. The Logos is omniscient. Humbling Himself to become a non-omniscient man did not change His nature but his humanity became inseparable with his nature.
2. The Logos is omnipotent. Humbling Himself to become a non-omnipotent man did not change His nature but his humanity became inseparable with his nature.
3. The Logos is immutable. Humbling Himself to become a mutable man did not change His nature but his humanity became inseparable with his nature.
4. The Logos is eternal. Humbling Himself to become man did not change His nature but his humanity became inseparable with his nature.

 

One question. In your view did the humanity become united to God the Son's nature, thus one with his nature before or after the resurrection?

 

JonC said: ↑
What I see as problematic is that you seem to affirm the Trinity in one direction (Father, Son, and Spirit are God) but not in the other (God is Father, God is Son, God is Spirit).

I realize you are simply trying to summarize differences but I would include the definite articles and conjunctions before each name (you probably would also). So, you think that God is changed by reversing the direction? If one accepts the distinction in seats of conscience, persons and manifestations then I see no difference at all. However, if the nature of God changes with the incarnation whereby "the flesh" is added then I see a completely different kind of God becoming than what existed previous to the incarnation, a god that is void of immutability, void of omniscience but was in a state of becoming immutable, becoming omniscient, becoming omnipotent.

 

So, what is your point in making the distinction that Paul said this after the resurrection if the same was true before the resurrection?

 

Sure,

I never stated anything that denied the actual humanity or real existence of his physical body but quite the reverse as I demanded the continued existence of his actual humanity but a mergence of humanity with deity is not humanity or deity but a hybrid new God nature that had no eternal existence as opposed to the immutable eternal nature of God.

 

Then what does it mean to become flesh with regard to ONE divine nature? I believe he became flesh in the sense of tabernacling in the flesh but I do not believe the nature of flesh merged with the nature of God as one inseparable nature.

 

Again, quite a choice of words. You did not say the fullness of God dwells BODILY in the Son. Why is this important? Because the Son existed both prior and after the incarnation but the "bodily" aspect did not. So what is the container for the Godhead prior to the existence of a body? If the whole entire Godhead (Father, Son and Spirit) dwelt in bodily form rather than the entire attributes (pleroma) that make God to be God then how can you escape the obvious conclusion to that line of thinking that the entire Godhead (Father, Son and Spirit) continue to dwell in a body rather than just the Son of God? Either the term "Godhead" includes all three Persons or it does not. If the meaning is only the PLEROMA or all attribues that make God to be God, whether in the Father, or in the Son or in the Spirit dwell within the body of Christ that is one thing but to claim the Father, Son and Spirit dwell in the body of Christ is quite another thing.

If your view was true then why did it not merely say GOD BECAME FLESH or THE GODHEAD became flesh instead of "the Word became flesh"?

 

Do you then acknowledge that the "word" is of one nature and the "flesh" is of another nature?