Christology - dual consciousness?

[CharlieJ]

I'm involved in a discussion now with a friend exploring the two natures of Christ, particularly regarding his intellect. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus had a human mind, yet he possessed knowledge that is impossible to humanly gain.

Is the solution to the problem that he has dual consciousnesses? Also, how do Chalcedon and the monothelite controversies factor into this? Any other insights from the Patristics are welcome.

 

[PresbyDane]

I know this will be the stupid answer but I have always thought of it in the way, that yes Jesus was human but he was sinless and we actually do not know what a sinless and "uneffected by the fall" mind can do.
just my humble

 

[Vytautas]

Yes, but I do not have Partristic insight. Jesus has a human mind and a divine mind at the same time. Jesus is human, so that he has a human mind. Jesus is God, so that he has a divine mind. So Jesus is one person with two minds. Knowledge from the divine mind could be communicated to the human mind. The Son took on a human nature, so that he had two minds at the incarnation, but before that the Son had one mind. Now he has two minds, and he will always have two minds for eternity.

 

[Christusregnat]

I'm involved in a discussion now with a friend exploring the two natures of Christ, particularly regarding his intellect. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus had a human mind, yet he possessed knowledge that is impossible to humanly gain.

Is the solution to the problem that he has dual consciousnesses? Also, how do Chalcedon and the monothelite controversies factor into this? Any other insights from the Patristics are welcome.

Charlie,

The question of what composes the nature of man is important at this point. My own understanding is that man has three parts: mind, will and body. Or, if you like, his soul has two parts: mind and will.

Christ, as second Adam, had to have the created components of human nature to add to His Divine nature, in One Person: Our Lord Jesus Christ.

If human nature is as I have posited, then Christ had two intellects, just as He had two wills. His human intellect wasn't fused into a third type of divine/human intellect. Thus, at certain points in Scripture, we find the Son of Man claiming limited knowledge. The relevant portions of our Larger Catechism are as follows:

Q. 36. Who is the Mediator of the covenant of grace?
A. The only Mediator of the covenant of grace is the Lord Jesus Christ,[137] who, being the eternal Son of God, of one substance and equal with the Father,[138] in the fulness of time became man,[139] and so was and continues to be God and man, in two entire distinct natures, and one person, forever.[140]

Q. 37. How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man?
A. Christ the Son of God became man, by taking to himself a true body, and a reasonable soul,[141] being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance, and born of her,[142] yet without sin.[143]

Q. 38. Why was it requisite that the Mediator should be God?
A. It was requisite that the Mediator should be God, that he might sustain and keep the human nature from sinking under the infinite wrath of God, and the power of death,[144] give worth and efficacy to his sufferings, obedience, and intercession;[145] and to satisfy God's justice,[146] procure his favour,[147] purchase a peculiar people,[148] give his Spirit to them,[149] conquer all their enemies,[150] and bring them to everlasting salvation.[151]

Q. 39. Why was it requisite that the Mediator should be man?
A. It was requisite that the Mediator should be man, that he might advance our nature,[152] perform obedience to the law,[153] suffer and make intercession for us in our nature,[154] have a fellow-feeling of our infirmities;[155] that we might receive the adoption of sons,[156] and have comfort and access with boldness unto the throne of grace.[157]

Q. 40. Why was it requisite that the Mediator should be God and man in one person?
A. It was requisite that the Mediator, who was to reconcile God and man, should himself be both God and man, and this in one person, that the proper works of each nature might be accepted of God for us,[158] and relied on by us as the works of the whole person.[159]

You can find the relevant Scriptures for such a study below:

Westminster Larger Catechism

Cheers,

Adam

 

[CharlieJ]

The question of what composes the nature of man is important at this point. My own understanding is that man has three parts: mind, will and body. Or, if you like, his soul has two parts: mind and will.

Exactly the question. What did the Chalcedonian creed mean by "physis"? If they meant what you mean (and I would mean), then the dual consciousness of Christ becomes a settled matter of ecumenical orthodoxy. I would like to know if "physis" or the Latin counterpart "natura" was expressly identified in this way. Also helpful would be to know for sure (I'm pretty confident) that the will was considered a part of the mind in ancient psychology. If it is, then the Third Council of Constantinople seals the dual consciousness understanding.

I'm probably going to have to do a bit of work on this myself, but if there's anyone who can help me make the connection, I appreciate it.

 

[Christusregnat]

Exactly the question. What did the Chalcedonian creed mean by "physis"? If they meant what you mean (and I would mean), then the dual consciousness of Christ becomes a settled matter of ecumenical orthodoxy. I would like to know if "physis" or the Latin counterpart "natura" was expressly identified in this way. Also helpful would be to know for sure (I'm pretty confident) that the will was considered a part of the mind in ancient psychology. If it is, then the Third Council of Constantinople seals the dual consciousness understanding.

I'm probably going to have to do a bit of work on this myself, but if there's anyone who can help me make the connection, I appreciate it.

Phusae refers to the way things are created by God. In other words, what did God create man to be? Clearly, man is dust and spirit: body and spirit. Spirit, in Scripture, is generally the intellecual faculty, of which, as you alluded to, volition is a subset. I would call this generically, Augustinian Realism, rather than a product of Ancient Psychology. In other words, it is the result of mature deliberation on the Scriptures than ancient speculation.

Cheers,

Adam

 

[Thomas2007]

Charlie,

You may find Rushdoony's "Foundations of Social Order" to be valuable to you in this study, in particular, Chapter 6 on the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD.

I would say that no, the solution to the problem is not asserting that Christ had dual consciousness. Rather, the doctrine of "Economic Appropriation" solves these issues and maintains the Confessional standard that Christ has two natures in true union without confusion. If he had "dual consciousness" wouldn't he be "double minded" and unstable in all his ways, as Scripture says?

Rushdoony comments on the Fourth Anathema of Cyril, which reads:

"If anyone shall divide between two persons or subsistences those expressions which are contained in the Evangelical and Apostolical writings, or which have been said concerning Christ by the Saints, or by himself, and shall apply some to him as to a man separate from the Word of God, and shall apply others to the only Word of God in the Father, on the ground that they are fit to be applied to God: let him be anathema."​

He comments:

"It forbade the ascription of certain acts to Christ's humanity and others to His deity, for such an ascription would assume an alternating consciousness and no true union. In that true union, "we must economically ascribe to Him, God the Word, all the human names and human expressions used of that Man in the New Testament, in order to guard against our being led, as were the Nestorians, to worship a mere creature, contrary to Matt. vi.10" (quote from Chrystal, I, 326) In that the Divine is the infinitely superior and controlling nature in the incarnate son, we must economically ascribe to Him the activities and words of the whole, for while God the Son was truly incarnate, the determination of all things never passed from eternity to time, nor from God to man."​

While this is covering acts, his explanation delves into the concept of dual consciousness and that Economic Appropriation is the solution to all issues regarding His humanity and Deity. Anyway, that is my understanding.

Cordially,

Thomas

 

[Pergamum]

Great thread.

 

[CharlieJ]

Thomas, thank you for the bibliography. I'm not familiar with economic appropriation. It's worth a look.

Rushdoony's mentioning of Cyril, however, may be a little unjustified. First, Cyril warns against dividing between two persons, not two natures. Second, Chalcedon actually overturned Cyril in favor of Leo, so Cyril does not represent Chalcedonian orthodoxy.

 

[R. Scott Clark]

As suggested above, there are several errors to avoid here:

1. Jesus is not two persons. He is one person.

2. Jesus has two natures, contra the monophysites. Someone asked above about physis. It means "nature," that which makes a thing what it is. Jesus is true God and true man.

3. He has two wills (contra the monothelites).

All this is summarized in the Definition of Chalcedon and the Athanasian Creed.

Reformed theology has said that there is a categorical distinction between what God knows and the way he knows it and what we know and the way we know it. Since 1590 we've used the words "archetypal theology" (what God knows, the way he knows it) and "ectypal theology" (what we know, the way we know it) to distinguish these two types of knowledge.

By definition, only God knows archetypal theology. Anything that any human knows is ectypal.

Further there are subdivisions of ectypal theology: theology of angels (what angels know, the way they know it), theology of the blessed (what glorified Christians know, the way they know it), theology of the pilgrims (what Christians, in this life, know, the way they know it), and theology of union (what Christ knows in his human nature, the way he knows it).

This last category distinguishes us from the Lutherans who impute archetypal theology to Christ's humanity and thus tend to confuse the two natures and tend to confuse the Creator with the creature.

And now for this commercial message: You can read more about this distinction in Recovering the Reformed Confession.

John Murray has a nice expression somewhere. He said that Christ has two sources of consciousness, one center of self-consciousness.

 

[Wannabee]

In attempting to address both, the flesh and the person:
John 1:14 - "the Word was made flesh" - verb of being - "became" as opposed to "I am" - The Word became flesh. He didn't merely take on flesh, but became, altering the "limitation" of being God by taking on humanity ("limitation" here in reference to growth, wisdom, stature, death, and other experiences that are impossible for pure spirit). To consider some sort of dualism in both/either form and consciousness would seem to put tension on the unity of God and flesh inherent in Christ Jesus. It seems to over-complicate the grandeur of the incarnation and marvelous work of God in the lives of men.
The fullness of God dwells in bodily form (Col 2:9). There is no partiality in the fullness of Christ. Is it possible, in such a case, to separate His consciousness in any way that Scripture does not? Could "He" be one person of two natures if He had two consciousness? Is this not inherent in the Trinity, to be one with three persons? Can we say the same of Christ? To do so, would seem to me, to make Him two persons in one body.
Obviously there is something in regard to the consciousness of Christ inherent in the hypostatic union that we cannot understand. But dividing Him in any fashion holds inherent dangers that might be best avoided (the list of heresies involved is long).

The hypostatic union enables us to ascribe to God what belongs to the flesh in Christ.
How then is Christ (whom you term a mere man) proclaimed in Holy Scripture to be God without beginning, if by our own confession the Lord’s manhood36 did not exist before His birth and conception of a Virgin? And how can we read of so close a union of man and God, as to make it appear that man was ever co-eternal with God, and that afterwards God suffered with man: whereas we cannot believe that man can be without beginning or that God can suffer? It is this which we established in our previous writings; viz., that God being joined to manhood,37 i.e., to His own body, does not allow any separation to be made in men’s thoughts between man and God. Nor will He permit anyone to hold that there is one Person of the Son of man, and another Person of the Son of God. But in all the holy Scriptures He joins together and as it were incorporates in the Godhead, the Lord’s manhood,38 so that no one can sever man from God in time, nor God from man at His Passion. For if you regard Him in time, you will find that the Son of man is ever with the Son of God. If you take note of His Passion, you will find that the Son of God is ever with the Son of man, and that Christ theSon of man and the Son of God is so one and indivisible, that, in the language of holy Scripture, the man cannot be severed in time from God, nor God from man at His Passion. Hence comes this: “No man hath ascended into heaven, but He who came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven.”39 Where the Son of God while He was speaking on earth testified that the Son of man was in heaven: and testified that the same Son of man, who, He said, would ascend into heaven, had previously come down from heaven. And this: “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before,”40 where He gives the name of Him who was born of man, but affirms that He ever was up on high. And the Apostle also, when considering what happened in time, says that all things were made by Christ. For he says, “There is one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things.”41 But when speaking of His Passion, he shows that the Lord of glory was crucified. “For if,” he says, “they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.”42 And so too the Creed speaking of the only and first-begotten Lord Jesus Christ, “Very God of Very God, Being of one substance with the Father, and the Maker of all things,” affirms that He was born of the Virgin and crucified and afterwards buried. Thus joining in one body (as it were) the Son of God and of man, and uniting God and man, so that there can be no severance either in time or at the Passion, since the Lord Jesus Christ is shown to be one and the same Person, both as God through all eternity, and as man through the endurance of His Passion; and though we cannot say that man is without beginning orthat God is passible, yet in the one Person of the Lord Jesus Christ we can speak of man as eternal, and of God as dead. You see then that Christ means the whole Person, and that the name represents both natures, for both man and God are born, and so it takes in the whole Person so that when this name is used we see that no part is left out. There was not then before the birth of a Virgin the same eternity belonging in the past to the manhood as to the Divinity, but because Divinity was united to manhood in the womb of the Virgin, it follows that when we use the name of Christ one cannot be spoken of without the other.

Philip Schaff, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series Vol. XI, Sulpititus Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997), 602.

IF anyone shah after the [hypostatic] union divide the hypostases in the one Christ, joining them by that connexion alone, which happens according to worthiness, or even authority and power, and not rather by a coming together (συνόδω), which is made by natural union (ἐ̂̔́νωσιν φυσικὴν): let him be anathema.

Philip Schaff, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series Vol. XIV, The Seven Ecumenical Councils. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997), 211.

 

[Vytautas]

...Thus joining in one body (as it were) the Son of God and of man, and uniting God and man, so that there can be no severance either in time or at the Passion, since the Lord Jesus Christ is shown to be one and the same Person, both as God through all eternity, and as man through the endurance of His Passion; and though we cannot say that man is without beginning orthat God is passible, yet in the one Person of the Lord Jesus Christ we can speak of man as eternal, and of God as dead...
Philip Schaff, The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series Vol. XI, Sulpititus Severus, Vincent of Lerins, John Cassian. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, 1997), 602.

The above quote is apparently contradictory, since we can speak of man being eternal, and of God being dead. It would be better to speak of a singular man being eternal and not all men being eternal because only the son of man is being written about in the above quote and not all men in general.

The humanity of Christ cannot be said to be eternal because Jesus took on a human nature in time, and Jesus was not always human. The divinity of Christ cannot be said to be mortal because God is eternal even though Jesus died on a cross. The person of Christ is both eternal and mortal, but each of the natures of Christ do not have both attributes of eternality and morality.

 

[jwithnell]

I think the WCF wording is useful here:

"So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ ... "

I hope it doesn't sound like a cop-out, but beyond this, I don't know how much more we can humanly explain. The incarnation is incredibly hard to grasp precisely because it is so easy to fall into error, either by confusing the two natures or emphasizing one over the other.

Even more than knowledge, I find the idea of God's power existing with a human body just flabbergasting. Here's the creator of the universe dealing with all the weakness of the human flesh.

 

[Thomas2007]

Thomas, thank you for the bibliography. I'm not familiar with economic appropriation. It's worth a look.

Rushdoony's mentioning of Cyril, however, may be a little unjustified. First, Cyril warns against dividing between two persons, not two natures. Second, Chalcedon actually overturned Cyril in favor of Leo, so Cyril does not represent Chalcedonian orthodoxy.

Hi Charlie,

The book is a study of the ancient creeds and their development, so his reference to Cyril is in the context of the issues as they existed and I think it is applicable within the scope of your question.

While I agree Cyril's anathema was against the Nestorians and the point you make about persons and natures is correct, the problem becomes acute when we attempt to define attributes of each nature in such a way that it essentially composes a concept of a "split personality," which is a basic premise in modern psychology.

I think we have to be especially careful because we are children of enlightenment rationalism and were all raised and educated in a predominance of these presuppositions. While I recognize that consciously you are not proposing this, the categories of thought are basic axioms in how we are all taught to think, and because of that they exist as undercurrents to our thought.

The basic presupposition is that men have come to believe that salvation is knowledge and sin is ignorance; we can see this most plainly in our government schools as it postulates that the will of man is governed by his mind and the information available to it. Biblical faith, however, holds that man's sinful nature governs his mind and will and bends them to its purposes - to know or determine good and evil for itself and abolish God.

Christ, of course, never had a sinful nature and while we detest the concept of a division of the natures, so we equally must of co-mixture of the natures. So, while we recognize that their are two wills, and two natural operations in our one Lord, we do not assert that they are contrary or opposed to one another. Yet, when language is asserted proposing a "dual consciousness," we automatically correlate it to the modern psychological presupposition of opposition because the very subject matter presupposes knowledge and ignorance in its own categories.

In the doctrine of economic appropriation the human flesh and will are totally governed by the divine nature and will and are one without confusion with the deity. In the 3rd Council of Constantinople this is called the "economic conversation":

"Defining all this we likewise declare that in him are two natural wills and two natural operations indivisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, inconfusedly, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers.

And these two natural wills are not contrary the one to the other (God forbid!) as the impious heretics assert, but his human will follows and that not as resisting and reluctant, but rather as subject to his divine and omnipotent will....

We glorify two natural operations indivisibly, immutably, inconfusedly, inseparably in the same Lord Jesus Christ our true God, that is to say a divine operation and a human operation, according to the divine preacher Leo, who most distinctly asserts as follows: " For each form does in communion with the other what pertains properly to it, the Word, namely, doing that which pertains to the Word, and the flesh that which pertains to the flesh."

For we will not admit one natural operation in God and in the creature, as we will not exalt into the divine essence what is created, nor will we bring down the glory of the divine nature to the place suited to the creature.

We recognize the miracles and the sufferings as of one and the same Person, but of one or of the other nature of which he is and in which he exists, as Cyril admirably says. Preserving therefore the inconfusedness and indivisibility, we make breifly this whole confession, believing our Lord Jesus Christ to be one of the Trinity and after the incarnation our true God, we say that his two natures shone forth in his one subsistence in which he both performed the miracles and endured the sufferings through the whole of his economic conversation, and that not in appearance only but in very deed, and this by reason of the difference of nature which must be recognized in the same Person, for although joined together yet each nature wills and does things proper to it and that indivisibly and inconfusedly. Wherefore we confess two wills and two operations, concurring most fitly in him for the salvation of the human race." Percival, 345f​

 

[py3ak]

It is always well to consult Warfield. The “Two Natures” and Recent Christological Speculation is a good place to begin -volume 6 of the collected works.

 

[CharlieJ]

Thomas, thanks. That background was helpful.

py3ak, ahh... good old Warfield. I was on the road, so I didn't have access to my libraries. I will check there.