How do we properly speak of the communication of attributes?

[Mr. Bultitude]

I've just read through two related threads (one of them is my own!):

http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/berkhof-christology-19677/
http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/athanasius-christs-omnipresence-during-his-earthly-life-80954/

Rev. Buchanan's thoughts on both threads were especially helpful and valuable, as was the section of the Belgic Confession quoted by Casey in the former thread.

But I'm still a little confused, though I feel like I should already know the answer to my question. (And perhaps rereading the above threads a few more times would resolve it, but it's a bit much for my brain!) My question is: how do we speak of the person of Christ (God the Son) when there are differences in the two natures?

For example, in his divine nature he is omnipresent but in his human nature he is only present locally in his body. Is "he" (the person, Jesus Christ, God the Son) omnipresent or not? There are a myriad of other examples I could use, but I think this one illustrates my question well enough. Is it even a question that we can give a "yes" or "no" to, or does it need a dozen qualifications when we talk about it?

 

[py3ak]

Yes, you can say that Jesus is omnipresent. What is proper to either nature may be concretely referred to the person. The fact that the Son is omnipresent according to the divine and not the human nature doesn't mean that it is some other person that is omnipresent, after all.

 

[Mr. Bultitude]

But is it also proper to say he is "not omnipresent" since his human nature does not share that attribute? (Sounds like a stupid question, but it's exactly that kind of conundrum that prompted this thread.)

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Persons act; natures are.

The Second Person of the Trinity acts, according to the properties of each nature.

WCF VIII. Of Christ the Mediator

7. Christ, in the work of mediation, acts according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet, by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature.

Since the Person is the proper actor, to say that the Son "is not omnipresent" is at best an incomplete statement (at worst, inaccurate), since he is not everywhere only BY the virtue of his humanity (but he IS everywhere BY the virtue of his divinity). Since his natures remain "without conversion, composition, or confusion" the one in respect to the other (WCF 8.2, by explicit borrowing from the formula of Chalcedon), what is "proper" to his human nature includes local (not ubiquitous) presence.

The quality of omnipresence is essentially divine, and therefore the statement "the Son of God is omnipresent" bears an internal implication of accuracy, which in most cases should not require the specific qualifier: "according to his divinity."

 

[RamistThomist]

The danger in saying a sharing of attributes, particularly in Lutheranism and Orthodoxy, is that one risks the attributes (natures?) fusing together. Further, they always insist it is a one-way street. It is always a divine motion to the human, never the other way around. Which makes one wonder just how legitimate a communication it is.

 

[py3ak]

But is it also proper to say he is "not omnipresent" since his human nature does not share that attribute? (Sounds like a stupid question, but it's exactly that kind of conundrum that prompted this thread.)

The bald statement could certainly be misleading. But the Son of Man did not know of that day and hour. The same person who is omnipresent is also locally present in only one place at a time.