The One Divine Nature

2013 ◽  
pp. 226-237
Author(s):  
William Hasker
Keyword(s):  
Divine Nature ◽  
The One

Religion and Politics under the Ptolemies (300 BCE-215 BCE)

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-29
Author(s):  
Athanasios Koutoupas
Keyword(s):  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
The One

The article examines the relation that is developed between the policy and the religion in Hellenistic Egypt during the period of the first four Ptolemies. It presents two levels of promotion of the practice of deification of the king: on the one hand the recognition of divine nature from the descendants of each king when he or she dies and on the other the recognition of divine nature from their subjects and the various civic communities during their life.

scholarly journals Why Catholic Theology Needs Metapshysics: A Christological Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-62
Author(s):  
Thomas Joseph White
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
The One ◽  
Human Intellect ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Church

The Chalcedonian confession of faith asserts that Christ is one person, the Son of God, subsisting in two natures, divine and human. The doctrine of the communication of idioms is essential to the life and practices of the Church insofar as we affirm there to be properties of deity and humanity present in the one subject, the Word made flesh. Such affirmations are made without a confusion of the two natures or their mutually distinct attributes. The affirmation that there is a divine and human nature in Christ is possible, however, only if it is also possible for human beings to think coherently about the divine nature, analogically, and human nature, univocally. Otherwise it is not feasible to receive understanding of the divine nature of Christ into the human intellect intrinsically and the revelation must remain wholly alien to natural human thought, even under the presumption that such understanding originates in grace. Likewise we can only think coherently of the eternal Son’s solidarity with us in human nature if we can conceive of a common human nature present in all human individuals. Consequently, it is only possible for the Church to confess some form of Chalcedonian doctrine if there is also a perennial metaphysical philosophy capable of thinking coherently about the divine and human natures from within the ambit of natural human reason. This also implies that the Church maintains a “metaphysical apostolate” in her public teaching, in her philosophical traditions, as well as in her scriptural and doctrinal enunciations.

scholarly journals THE ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCIL OF MANAZKERT AND THE DOGMATIC SYSTEM OF THE ARMENIAN CHURCH

2016 ◽  
pp. 106-129
Author(s):  
ARTHUR MATEVOSYAN
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Complete System ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Holy Trinity ◽  
Perfect System ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

In the history of the Armenian Apostolic Church there is a dogmatic document of exceptional clarity and integrity in which its doctrine is set forth as a complete system. We mean 10 anathemas adopted in 726 A.D. by by the ecclesiastical council of Manazkert. This council was convened by the leaders of the Armenian and the Syrian Jacobite churches-Catholicos John of Odzun and Patriarch Athanasius of Antioch in order to overcome doctrinal differences between them. According to this anathemas, the dogmatic system of the Armenian Church can be described as follows. God is the Holy Trinity that has three Persons and one nature, and the Persosns are equally perfect. The one Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son, incarnated Ban and became a perfect man, who had all the qualities of human nature- soul, body and mind. The human nature, accepted by Christ, was sinful and mortal like the nature of every human being. Christ had one, but not sole, divine nature. Between divine and human natures of Christ existed ontological, and not only moral connection. Christ's humanity, although it was not naturally incorruptible, was incorruptible owing to its unspeakable unity with divine nature. Christ suffered voluntarily, and not by the natural necessity. Christ was consubstantial by divinity to the Father, and by humanity to S. Virgin and all the people. The body of Christ was incorruptible since birth to resurrection. The Council of Manazkert made the doctrine of the Armenian Church solid and perfect system. It is important to note that the doctrine of the Armenian Church is quite unique, and does not coincide with doctrines of other Churches. The decisions of the Council of Manazkert still retain their importance for the Armenian Church.

scholarly journals Hervaeus Natalis and his polemics with the early scotists about formalities and formal distinction in God

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-418
Author(s):  
Galina V. Vdovina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Biographical Information ◽  
Rational Expression ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The One ◽  
Formal Distinction

The article is devoted to Hervaeus Natalis, also known as Hervaeus drom Nedellec, who was an outstanding theologian at the end of 13th — beginning of 14th centuries (c. 1260–1323). Brief biographical information about Hervaeus is provided and his importance for medieval thought is emphasized. The subject matter of the article is the consideration of a formal difference, or formal distinction in God. The introduction of this concept is usually associated with the name of Duns Scotus, and there is every reason for this: although Duns was not the inventor of formal distinction as such, it was he who put it at the heart of his trinitarian theology. The concept of formal difference is inextricably linked to the concept of formalities, which in this context mean those ontological subunits in a concrete single essence between which there is a formal difference. The basic impetus to the introduction of both concepts was the necessity for rational expression of distinction between common divine nature and those relations by which Persons are constituted (relations of fatherhood, sonship, etc.), and also between different divine attributes. The task was, on the one hand, not to destroy the absolute real unity in God, and, on the other hand to explain certain differences that exist in him before any act of intellect, even divine intellect. Therefore, the notion of formality as a correlate “from the nature of the thing”, which corresponds to any attribute or relation, is conceivable in a separate concept.

Dust

2019 ◽  
pp. 174-192
Author(s):  
Nathan Lyons
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Ontological Dependence ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
The Real ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
The One

This chapter conducts a thought experiment, which compares the immaterial culture of Thomistic angels with the corporeal culture of humans to clarify the particular contribution that matter makes to cultural life. This suggests two perfections of matter. First is the ‘detour through the real’ that is enforced by matter. Whereas angels use purely intentional signs to know and communicate, corporeal creatures necessarily use material signs, which are not intentional but real. This reflects Trinitarian knowledge and expression, which proceeds through the real sign of the divine Word. Second is the process of biological generation. Whereas an individual angel sustains its own species, organisms must generate one from another within the one shared nature, and this ontological dependence and mutuality reflects the Trinitarian procession of persons within the one divine nature. These perfections of material existence mean that dust is a blessing to the sign, just as signs are a blessing to dust.

On the Two Consciousnesses Model: An Assessment of James Arcadi’s Defense

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 146-150
Author(s):  
Andrew Ter Ern Loke
Keyword(s):  
Divine Nature ◽  
The One ◽  
Rule Out

In a recent review published in Journal of Analytic Theology, James Arcadi offers a defence of the Two Consciousnesses Model against Loke’s criticisms previously published in this journal. Arcadi postulates that Christ could have one centre of the two ranges of consciousness and one centre of operation. I argue that Arcadi’s postulation preserves the unity of the person but is beset by another problem, namely that on Arcadi’s view the one centre of experiences of Christ would have experienced the unlimited scope of awareness through his divine nature, which rule out the possibility that he experienced human limitations with regards to his scope of experiences.

Could God Become Man?

1989 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 53-70
Author(s):  
Richard Swinburne
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Solid Material ◽  
Material Object ◽  
Human History ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Characteristic Shape ◽  
Essential Nature ◽  
Oak Tree ◽  
Rational Individual ◽  
The One

The central doctrine of Christianity is that God intervened in human history in the person of Jesus Christ in a unique way; and that quickly became understood as the doctrine that in Jesus Christ God became man. In AD 451 the Council of Chalcedon formulated that doctrine in a precise way utilizing the current philosophical terminology, which provided a standard for the orthodoxy of subsequent thought on this issue. It affirmed its belief in ‘our Lord Jesus Christ, … truly God and truly man, … in two natures … the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person’. One individual, one thing that is; and being a rational individual, one person. An individual's nature are those general properties which make it the sort of individual it is. The nature of my desk is to be a solid material object of a certain shape; the nature of the oak tree in the wood is to take in water and light, and to grow into a characteristic shape with characteristic leaves and give off oxygen. Chalcedon affirmed that the one individual Jesus Christ had a divine nature, was God that is; and it assumed that the divine nature was an essential nature.

Divine Simplicity

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-88
Author(s):  
Thomas Schärtl
Keyword(s):  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
The One

This paper examines a variety of approaches in order to make sense of the doctrine of divine simplicity. Discussing the implications of traditional and contemporary philosophical concepts of divine simplicity, the author argues for taking the divine nature as a stupendous substance (in a Hegelian sense) to serve as the one and only truthmaker of statements regarding God, while we can resolve the predication problem which is caused by the idea that, as implied by divine simplicity, God is identical to his attributes if we conceive of the divine nature as an equivalent to Platonic forms.

scholarly journals Spinoza’s Monism II: A Proposal

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Primus
Keyword(s):  
Previous Issue ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

Abstract An old question in Spinoza scholarship is how finite, non-eternal things transitively caused by other finite, non-eternal things (i. e., the entities described in propositions like E1p28) are caused by the infinite, eternal substance, given that what follows either directly or indirectly from the divine nature is infinite and eternal (E1p21–23). In “Spinoza’s Monism I,”<fnote>“Spinoza’s Monism I,” in the previous issue of this journal.</fnote> I pointed out that most commentators answer this question by invoking entities that are indefinite and sempiternal, but argued that perhaps we should not be so quick to assume that in Spinoza’s system, an infinite and eternal substance could cause such indefinite, sempiternal entities. But if such eternal-durational causation is denied, then it seems harder to see how Spinoza’s system could be coherent: if Spinoza holds that the infinite, eternal substance cannot cause anything that is not infinite and not eternal, then how can he also hold that all things are modes immanently caused by substance (E1p15, E1p18, E1p25)? In this essay, I explain how Spinoza’s system could be understood in light of a denial of eternal-durational causation. On the interpretation I offer, God is the cause of all things and all things are modes because the essences of all things follow from the divine nature and all essences enjoy infinite, eternal reality as modes immanently caused by the infinite, eternal substance. The same non-substantial essences can also be conceived as enjoying non-infinite, non-eternal reality, but so conceived, they are enduring, finite (or sempiternal, indefinite) entities that cannot be conceived as modes caused by and inhering in the one infinite, eternal substance. I conclude by pointing out that if we take this interpretive route, we do have to understand Spinoza as committed to acosmism, or a denial of the reality of the world – at least the world of enduring, finite things.

scholarly journals Origen’s Trinitarian Subordinationism: An Essay in Reevaluation

2019 ◽  
pp. 66-93
Author(s):  
Алексей Русланович Фокин
Keyword(s):  
Divine Nature ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
Cappadocian Fathers ◽  
God The Father ◽  
The One ◽  
Unity Of God

В статье на основе анализа подлинных (в том числе новооткрытых) греческих сочинений Оригена автор показывает, что в богословии александрийского дидаскала Бог Отец рассматривается как Бог в абсолютном, первичном и изначальном смысле, как «Бог Сам по Себе», обладающий Божественной природой во всей полноте её апофатических и катафатических свойств. Сын-Логос наследует эту природу лишь частично и рассматривается Оригеном как «второй Бог», получивший от Отца «Божество» в более широком смысле и обладающий им «по причастию». Он находится в неравном и подчинённом положении по отношению к Отцу, Который больше и выше Сына не только по Своему нарождённому и изначальному Божеству, но и по силе, могуществу, благости, знанию, почитанию и т. д. Установлено, что у Оригена отсутствует ясная концепция единства Божества и единосущия Отца и Сына, а также недостаточно чётко сформулированы онтологические основания Их единства: его богословие предполагает скорее духовно-нравственное и разумно-волевое единство Отца и Сына, чем единство Их сущности или природы. В связи с этим автор высказывает убеждение в том, что, несмотря на все попытки современных западных учёных пересмотреть тринитарное учение Оригена и представить его как некий «реляционный субординационизм» в духе учения Каппадокийцев, его учение об Отце и Сыне представляет собой онтологический субординационизм, или «субординационизм сущности», сходный с субординационизмом Логоса в отношении к Сущему в системе Филона Александрийского или Ума в отношении к Единому в системе Плотина. The article is based on an analysis of authentic (including some newly discovered) Greek writings by Origen. The author demonstrates that Origen understands God the Father as the God in an absolute, primal and original meaning, as “God as he is”, the one who possesses the divine nature in wholeness of its apophatic and cataphatic properties. The Son-Logos adopts this nature only partially and is viewed by Origen as a “second God”, who receives “divinity” in a broader sense from the Father and possesses it “by the means of communication”. The Son is unequal and subordinate to the Father, who outranks the Son not only by his unbegotten and primal divinity, but also by his power, benevolence, knowledge, worship etc. According to the author, Origen lacks a clear notion of the unity of God and of the coessentiality of the Father and the Son. Also, Origen is not clear enough formulating ontological grounds for their unity as his theology presumes a kind of unity of the Father and the Son, which is rather spiritual/moral and rational/volitional that based upon unity of their essence or nature. The author therefore is convinced that, regardless of all attempts of modern Western scholars to reassess Origen’s trinitarian teaching presenting it as a “relational subordinationism” agreeable to the Cappadocian Fathers, his teaching on the Father and the Son still is an ontological subordinationism or a “subordinationism of essence”, close to Philo’s subordinationism of the Logos in its relation to Existent or to Plotinus’ subordinationism of the Nous in its relation to the One.

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