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According to Trinitarian theology as held by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, God is 3 persons/hypostasis in 1 essence/nature/substance and one attribute of God is his immutability (c.f. Summa Theologica Ia Q9 A1) yet it is also the case that Christ is both true God and true man. This latter doctrine is called the hypostatic union referring to the two natures (divine and human) present in one person (hypostasis).

How are these doctrines both held as true?

GratefulDisciple
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eques
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  • This answer to another question also answers this question. – Nigel J Aug 09 '23 at 08:42
  • @NigelJ No, it doesn't. That question doesn't mention immutability at all. It asserts correctly that person and nature are different but doesn't address how the 2nd nature which begins to exist in time is not a change to the person that affects the claim of immutability of God – eques Aug 09 '23 at 12:44
  • Your comment proves the point. You say 'a change to the person'. *It is not*. It is an addition of a nature. There is no 'change to the person' - which is exactly the point of the answer I linked to. Quod erat demonstrandum. – Nigel J Aug 10 '23 at 08:40
  • @NigelJ No, I said "doesn't address how... is not a change to the person"; The linked answer does not mention change nor immutability and hence cannot be an answer against this question on its own. – eques Aug 10 '23 at 10:14

1 Answers1

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My answer is based on how Fr. Thomas Joseph White explained the following in two Church Grammar podcast episodes: Tough Christology Questions and Tough Trinity Questions.

Below is a very rudimentary explanation; I highly encourage you to listen to the entirety of both episodes.

  1. the 3 levels of presence of God in the created realm, that from our point of view is God's omnipresence
    • in all created beings (giving it individual nature as well as sustains its existence)
    • presence of grace (giving us a share of Trinitarian life and a fellowship with Him as adopted son/daughter through Christ)
    • unique incarnation in the historical human nature of God: Jesus Christ
  2. how the Incarnation is willed out of eternity by all 3 Trinitarian persons in that only the 2nd person obtains a body at a particular time in history as a temporal effect, not as essential change in God's own being (i.e. God's Trinitarian nature does not improve or being more fulfilled with Jesus's bodily experience in history). In other words, Jesus's divine nature while being incarnated does not change, and what we see Jesus was doing is the 3rd mode of presence.
GratefulDisciple
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  • I think point number 2 needs elaboration, specifically how what seems to amount to a change in the person (the temporal effect of the human nature) – eques Aug 09 '23 at 00:04
  • @eques Fr. Thomas White in his Trinity episode discussed at length the modern theology's tendency of not only reducing Jesus's divinity (so Jesus can be "more human") but also how since Hegel, there is a great shift of how theologians try to understand the the inner life of the bodi-less Trinitarian God as undergoing development in history to make it more palatable to modern sensibilities (minutes 10:30 to 2:00), exemplified by Karl Rahner's Axiom "The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and vice versa", possibly contributing to our being predisposed to reject immutability. – GratefulDisciple Aug 09 '23 at 00:18
  • Fr. Thomas White may cover that, but my point is about what is actually expressed in the answer. It's not only a body but a soul (i.e. a complete human nature) that is attained by the 2nd person in time and yet God is immutable. So what is the meaningful distinction to make around person, nature, essence, etc to describe what is immutable and not and what undergoes change or how? – eques Aug 09 '23 at 12:58
  • @eques I will need more time to improve the answer, but in the meantime this comment space can give me the points I need to address. In the Trinitarian Chalcedonian definition Jesus's human nature has a 100% human soul like us (not just body) that without confusion and without separation "the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis". Now Aquinas and Fr. Thomas White, a Thomist, tried to help us process that definition in philosophical terms ... – GratefulDisciple Aug 10 '23 at 15:25
  • ... and being downstream from them both, I tried to faithfully summarize how they do it, tailoring to your question. To answer your comment, yes, there are 2 souls here (if we can call God a "soul"), but more precisely 2 minds and 2 wills (one set divine, another human). And we can conceive that Jesus's human soul DOES undergo change, like all other modes of presence of God in this world. But change in the world is "out of scope" with regards to God's immutability as defined in Question 9, as God is Spirit and Jesus (having a body animated by his human soul) is separate than the Holy Spirit. – GratefulDisciple Aug 10 '23 at 15:34
  • For Christians, it's essential that God is NOT aloof and NOT simply a transcendent being beyond the world, as though God spun the universe into existence like a watchmaker and has no part of Himself in it. But because the universe is manifestly changing (simply common sense), we need a way to preserve God's immutability while God also being with us in the world (Emmanuel), and Aquinas does this by proposing 3 modes of presence as EFFECTS, explained by Fr. White Trinity video min 20:00 to 29:11 (see my answer). – GratefulDisciple Aug 10 '23 at 15:49
  • "yes, there are 2 souls here (if we can call God a "soul")" we cannot. A soul is an animating principle. The term you should perhaps use is "spirit" – eques Aug 10 '23 at 18:34
  • @eques Yes, a soul (in Aristotelian understanding) is an animating principle (whether it is vegetative, animal, or rational animal) while God is a self-existing being from whom all created souls participate. That's why I immediately qualified it in the next sentence. The main point is that there are two centers of thinking and willing, so while the exact ontology of the incarnation needs to remain somewhat mysterious, to preserve orthodoxy the 1 person 2 natures (1 who and 2 what) distinction is asserted in Chalcedon, as a processing of Scriptural revelation in proposition form. – GratefulDisciple Aug 10 '23 at 20:16
  • All of that is correct in the Thomistic tradition, but wouldn't really convince a scriptural-minded person who questions how immutability doesn't conflict with hypostatic union; that is, someone with a limited metaphysical framework to organize their theology. – eques Aug 10 '23 at 21:18
  • @eques Well, your question started with a Thomistic quote, so maybe you want to ask another question about immutability from a different angle. Fr. Thomas White hinted a lot of ways how modern theologies are not comfortable with the Thomistic solution. Secondly, it seems that immutability itself is under attack for yet another reason apart from Incarnation understood in the modern way: concern with scripture, theodicy or impassibility. Roger Olson's blog has many articles about this, such as this one. – GratefulDisciple Aug 10 '23 at 21:29
  • Personally, I keep listening to both sides (I follow Dr. Roger Olson for the other side who like you argues that his position is more scriptural), although at this point I'm more comfortable with the Thomistic solution, partly because it is historically more orthodox and STILL coherent, and arguably STILL consistent with Scripture, properly interpreted (by reading Fr. White's books featured in the interviews). – GratefulDisciple Aug 10 '23 at 21:33
  • I suppose I've mentally conflated my two recent questions and didn't explicitly connect in the scriptural aspect. I'm sure Aquinas does quote Scripture in support of those doctrines. – eques Aug 14 '23 at 17:27