The Human Jesus

[Yasin]

I agree with this statement. And although it's not a science book, when the Bible touches on issues involving established scientific fact, it's surprinsingly accurate.

Most people when they claim that religion conflicts with science, they are most likely referring to theoies and not facts. Like the Bible The Quran is not a textbook on science, but did reveal some important scientific truths 114 years ago.

Respectively, Yasin

 

[logician]

"Most people when they claim that religion conflicts with science, they are most likely referring to theoies and not facts"

By definition religion conflicts with science, as religion is based upon faith and dogma, science is based upon fact.

Read Bertrand Russell's classic "Why I Am Not a Christian" for further enlightenment into the conflicts between religion and science.

 

[Polaris]

"Most people when they claim that religion conflicts with science, they are most likely referring to theoies and not facts"

By definition religion conflicts with science, as religion is based upon faith and dogma, science is based upon fact.

Read Bertrand Russell's classic "Why I Am Not a Christian" for further enlightenment into the conflicts between religion and science.

Science is not based on fact.

Science - The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.

What scientists observe or explain theoretically can hardly be considered fact.

 

[mr.guy]

By definition religion conflicts with science, as religion is based upon faith and dogma, science is based upon fact.

By definition of conflict, you've left no avenue for crossfire.

 

[Quiddity]

Science is not based on fact.

Science - The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.

What scientists observe or explain theoretically can hardly be considered fact.

Do share, what do you consider a fact?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact

 

[Quiddity]

"Most people when they claim that religion conflicts with science, they are most likely referring to theoies and not facts"

By definition religion conflicts with science, as religion is based upon faith and dogma, science is based upon fact.

Read Bertrand Russell's classic "Why I Am Not a Christian" for further enlightenment into the conflicts between religion and science.

Where is the conflict?

 

[Polaris]

Do share, what do you consider a fact?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact

Fact (dictionary.com) - Knowledge or information based on real occurrences;
- Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed.

Science is not based on fact, it is based on our best understanding of the world around us. It is based on theories, laws, and observations, some of which may very well be factual. But to say that science is based on fact is an inaccurate statement.

 

[gnostic]

Christ had the Holy Spirit living within Him. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And he received the downpouring of the Holy Spirit later in his life.

Sorry, but that doesn't make sense.

If Jesus was one of three aspect of God, then there is no need for the Holy Spirit to be in living in him, because he is already holy.

 

[mr.guy]

If Jesus was one of three aspect of God, then there is no need for the Holy Spirit to be in living in him, because he is already holy.

At the end of the day, can one really have too much holy?

 

[gnostic]

Dawny had made it sound like Jesus was possessed.

 

[Bishka]

By definition religion conflicts with science, as religion is based upon faith and dogma, science is based upon fact.

.

Your opinion, ever read something called the Word of Wisdom found in the 89th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants?

 

[James the Persian]

Dawny had made it sound like Jesus was possessed.

Dawny's view actually sounds quite like Adoptionalism. Other things she's written sound Monophysite, though, (which requires a belief that Christ was God and not just a man, as is the case in Adoptionalism) and so I think it's safe to assume that she is simply having a hard time expressing her beliefs, given that the Incarnation and Adoptionalism are contradictory positions to hold.

James

 

[Smoke]

Read Bertrand Russell's classic "Why I Am Not a Christian" for further enlightenment into the conflicts between religion and science.

I certainly recommend that everyone read Why I Am Not a Christian, an excellent book which was one of my favorites even when I was a Christian. However, it's mostly about the superfluity and harmful effects of religion (and especially Christianity) -- more of a philosophical critique than a scientific one.

But I can't help noticing that most of the posters here don't want to touch Katzpur's question with a ten-foot pole.

For one who believes in the Virgin Birth, and especially for one who holds that belief in the context of the New Testament, the idea that half of Jesus' genetic makeup comes from Joseph seems eminently sensible to me. It would explain how it is that Jesus manages to be completely human, and it would also explain why the two New Testament writers who insist on the Virgin Birth also insist in tracing Jesus' ancestry through Joseph. (I don't think we want to refer to this as IVF, though; it would be more a matter of artificial insemination.)

I think we have four propositions on the table:

1) Katzpur's suggestion that Jesus is genetically the son of God -- that half his genetic makeup comes from his divine Father, and

2) Nehustan's suggestion that Jesus is genetically the son of Joseph.

3) Jorylore's suggestion that God created half of Jesus' genetic makeup from previously existing matter.

4) The suggestion of several Christians that we don't know and it doesn't matter.

I can think of a fifth (actually, Jorylore's suggestion made me think of it):

5) God created half of Jesus' genetic makeup ex nihilo.

The ancients didn't know about genetics, and some of them, at least, had the idea that it was the father's seed that produced the child. The mother was pretty much just the matrix in which the seed developed. So it's easy to imagine the ancients taking a view somewhat similar to Katzpur's.

On the other hand, if one accepts the Chalcedonian view of the two natures of Christ, Katzpur's view seems problematic in the light of what we know about genetics. It seems -- to me at least -- to make Jesus not so much fully human and fully divine as a sort of human-divine hybrid. Of course, Protestants don't always consider themselves bound by conciliar definitions, and most of the Evangelicals I know embrace a number of heresies from an orthodox point of view, so what's one more?

Nehustan's suggestion -- interestingly, since Nehustan obviously doesn't accept the Chalcedonian doctrine -- seems to me much more in line with Chalcedon than Katzpur's. The idea that God created the necessary genes, either ex nihilo or from previously existing matter, also doesn't seem to pose a problem from a Chalcedonian point of view, but it kind of leaves you hanging on the question of just what it means for Jesus to be fully human.

James' suggestion that we don't know and we don't need to know is the only answer possible from James' perspective; an Orthodox Christian is on very shaky ground when he proposes dogmatic novelties. Yet it must be admitted that the answer is unsatisfying. The Holy Fathers concerned themselves with such questions as whether the Theotokos remained not just a technical virgin but physically intact and whether or not the holy gifts of the Eucharist were physically digested, and we can easily imagine that if they had known anything about genetics they would have produced a whole literature on just this question that Katzpur has raised.

I dislike two of the kinds of answers we've seen on this thread:

1) The suggestion of some Christians that it's an impudent question. It's not impudent at all; it's a perfectly reasonable question, and Christians ought to grant that it's a reasonable question even if they don't have a definitive answer to it. It's all very well to say it's a miracle, but what manner of miracle is it? If you don't know -- and you obviously don't -- wouldn't it be more becoming to say something along the lines of, "It hasn't pleased the Lord to reveal this to us" than to lash out at the question? Don't you kind of wonder, yourself, what the answer might be?

2) The suggestion of some non-Christians that the lack of a satisfying answer is an embarrassment to the Christian religion. Whatever the answer might be, it would be an answer about a miraculous event, and you know very well that you consider one miracle as absurd as the next, so what does it matter what the Christian answer, if any, is?

Neither am I at all certain that the idea of the Virgin Birth sprang from Christianity's unhealthy attitude toward sex. It easy to see how that doctrine could reinforce those unhealthy attitudes, but Christians may well have imagined a Virgin Birth before they imagined that virginity was preferable to marriage, and they certainly imagined a Virgin Birth long before Augustine imported his peculiar psychological baggage into Christian thought.

Personally, I don't believe in the Virgin Birth at all, but if I did, I'd find Nehustan's suggestion the most satisfying.

Even more satisfying would be a sensible admission that there's no more need to believe in a literal Virgin Birth than in a literal six-day Creation, but I understand that for most Christians that's too much to ask.

 

[James the Persian]

James' suggestion that we don't know and we don't need to know is the only answer possible from James' perspective; an Orthodox Christian is on very shaky ground when he proposes dogmatic novelties. Yet it must be admitted that the answer is unsatisfying. The Holy Fathers concerned themselves with such questions as whether the Theotokos remained not just a technical virgin but physically intact and whether or not the holy gifts of the Eucharist were physically digested, and we can easily imagine that if they had known anything about genetics they would have produced a whole literature on just this question that Katzpur has raised.

You're quite right to point out that we tend to leave Mystery as Mystery. I don't find that unsatisfying, however. What do we gain by knowing how God performs a miracle? What effect could it possibly have upon our salvation or faith? Frankly, it doesn't matter whether Christ's humanity is genetically from Joseph and Mary or from Mary plus some extra created specifically for the purpose by God. All that matters, from a Christological point of view, is that it is fully human. I think either of the two options are perfectly fine but I see no reason to speculate on which might or might not be true. More importantly, I see potential harm in reasoning of this sort. It is precisely this sort of philosophising and speculation that lead to a number of the over-rationalistic heresies within the early Church. There comes a point when we must just admit that we, limited humans that we are, cannot hope to understand the Mysteries of God. That's one of the things I like about Orthodox spirituality - we are less concerned with nailing down the details of how something occurred than we are with understanding what it means for us, hence, as an example, why we don't have teachings like Transubstantiation but rather rely on the Real Presence in the Eucharist as a Mystery.

James

 

[Rejected]

You are describing a God that is not even remotely similar to the God I believe in. God doesn't "insist on punishing us with eternal suffering for making the wrong choice". I'm not sure how you ever reached that conclusion. I believe in a God who is both just and merciful. He has established laws that we are required to obey, but he also has provided means by which we can be forgiven of our transgressions against his laws so that we don't have to pay to appease the demands of justice. It does however require some effort and faith on our part. I believe him to be much more merciful and loving than you try to make him out to be. I don't believe in this heaven or hell notion of salvation that you seem to imply... I believe that God will provide at least some degree of glory and salvation to the vast majority of his children.

I'm sorry. I really dont' know much about the LDS faith, so I'll plead ignorance on that and ask you to elighten me on what your beleifs are. For the most part the brand of christianity I've been exposed to teaches that the unsaved will burn in hell for eternity. There's not a whole lot of Mormons in southern Ggeorgia.

How do you know a perfect being doesn't need anything? Just because God is perfectly righteous and wise doesn't mean that his creations and his children don't bring him additional joy and fulfillment.

Because, by definition, something that is perfect is whole, complete, it needs nothing.
If Gods creation made him happy he could not be perfect because a perfect being would need nothing to make him happy, he would already be perfectly happy.
If god needed his creation to make him happy he would have been lacking, and therefore not perfect. And the definition of the Christian God is a perfect divine being.

 

[sojourner]

I don't know how I feel about what Midnight just said -- I feel a response is called for...I need to chew on it a while. But, I would like to add another monkey wrench to the works:

(This might be a good question for James to answer...)
Human beings are created by God. Trinitarians, though, assert that Jesus was "begotten, not made." If Jesus was fully human (and assuming he had the requisite 46 chromosomes ) how could he not be created by God? Isn't "created by God" one of the defining factors of a human being (for the Christian)?

I find this thought disturbing, since I am a Trinitarian.

 

[James the Persian]

I don't know how I feel about what Midnight just said -- I feel a response is called for...I need to chew on it a while. But, I would like to add another monkey wrench to the works:

(This might be a good question for James to answer...)
Human beings are created by God. Trinitarians, though, assert that Jesus was "begotten, not made." If Jesus was fully human (and assuming he had the requisite 46 chromosomes ) how could he not be created by God? Isn't "created by God" one of the defining factors of a human being (for the Christian)?

I find this thought disturbing, since I am a Trinitarian.

You are confusing two different issues here. When we say in the Creed that the Son was 'begotten, not made' we are not talking of the Incarnation, as is readily apparent if you read through the whole thing. God the Son was begotten 'before all ages', i.e. in eternity, He wasn't begotten 9months prior to being born of the Theotokos - that's when He became Incarnate. Begotten not made indicates, as does the proceeds with respect to the Holy Spirit, that He takes His nature eternally from the Father, is an integral part of God and was not created. There was no time, contrary to what Arius taught, when the Son was not. It therefore is of no consequence that humans are creatures. Christ does indeed have a complete human nature and that was, indeed, created, but He also has a complete Divine nature, which is uncreated. Does that clear up the issue for you?

James

 

[sojourner]

You are confusing two different issues here. When we say in the Creed that the Son was 'begotten, not made' we are not talking of the Incarnation, as is readily apparent if you read through the whole thing. God the Son was begotten 'before all ages', i.e. in eternity, He wasn't begotten 9months prior to being born of the Theotokos - that's when He became Incarnate. Begotten not made indicates, as does the proceeds with respect to the Holy Spirit, that He takes His nature eternally from the Father, is an integral part of God and was not created. There was no time, contrary to what Arius taught, when the Son was not. It therefore is of no consequence that humans are creatures. Christ does indeed have a complete human nature and that was, indeed, created, but He also has a complete Divine nature, which is uncreated. Does that clear up the issue for you?

James

I don't want to hijack the thread, but I would like to explore this sideline a little further.

I understand that we're not talking about the Incarnation. My point was this: assuming that Jesus is eternal, begotten by God, that necessarily places the nature of his existence on a level wholly different than a human being. Human beings are creatures, not literal offspring of God.

To me, this creates a little bit of a mess in the understanding of the nature of Christ, as understood in the Trinitarian fashion, when we say that Christ was fully human.

So, James, I understand what you're saying is that "created by God" is not one of the important attributes of the Christian understanding of what it means to be "fully human." Is that correct? I guess I'm kind of getting hung up on the "fully" and the "not made" aspects here. Is the understanding that Jesus was begotten, but also made by God, ( as you seem to say in the statement I highlighted in red) because I think that's in direct opposition to the creedal statement, "begotten, not made."

Or, in that particular statement, is the creed only speaking about Jesus' divine nature?

 

[Smoke]

You're quite right to point out that we tend to leave Mystery as Mystery. I don't find that unsatisfying, however.

Well, religion without Mystery doesn't make for much of a religion, does it? The Orthodox cognizance of that fact is one of the strengths of Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, this isn't a Mystery like the Mystery of the Trinity, in which the intellect simply isn't up to the task; this is more mundane Mystery, in my mind, in which the answer would be fairly simple to understand if there were one. The problem isn't the incomprehensible nature of Jesus' genetic makeup, but the fact that the Fathers didn't have the background to ask the question. If they had asked the question, I can hardly imagine Jerome or Cyril of Alexandria, for example, not coming up with an answer -- though I can't know what that answer would have been.

 

[Polaris]

1) Katzpur's suggestion that Jesus is genetically the son of God -- that half his genetic makeup comes from his divine Father, and
2) Nehustan's suggestion that Jesus is genetically the son of Joseph.
3) Jorylore's suggestion that God created half of Jesus' genetic makeup from previously existing matter.
4) The suggestion of several Christians that we don't know and it doesn't matter.
5) God created half of Jesus' genetic makeup ex nihilo.

Hi MidnightBlue, thanks for the interesting breakdown. I would like to address 3 of your 5 options:

1) Obviously I'm with Katzpur on this. This is the one that I believe makes the most sense as it makes Jesus' references to God as his Father, and himself as the Only-Begotten quite literal, which is exactly how I believe their relationship to be. It also implies that God has genetic information and is therefore a physical being, which is also right in line with my perception of God.

2) This one doesn't make much sense to me. If Jesus was genetically begotten of Mary and Joseph, what exactly is it that accounts for his divine nature and uniquely divine characteristics? Also why would Jesus continually declare God to be his Father? Also this seems to throw the whole virgin Mary thing completely out the window.

3) Number 5 could be included here with the main point being that God just created the 23 paternal chromosomes without coming from any particular gene pool. To me this makes more sense than #2 (scripturally speaking), but it still creates an odd Father/Son relationship.

I would argue that the bulk of scritpural evidence points to #1 being the correct option.

If one accepts the Chalcedonian view of the two natures of Christ, Katzpur's view seems problematic in the light of what we know about genetics. It seems -- to me at least -- to make Jesus not so much fully human and fully divine as a sort of human-divine hybrid. Of course, Protestants don't always consider themselves bound by conciliar definitions, and most of the Evangelicals I know embrace a number of heresies from an orthodox point of view, so what's one more?

Does it suggest anywhere in scripture that Jesus was fully human and fully divine? What does that even mean anyway? I believe the important point is that he possessed both human and divine qualities: human so that he could fully understand our trials and sufferings and lead by example, divine so that he could do for us what we could not possibly do for ourselves.

What do we gain by knowing how God performs a miracle? What effect could it possibly have upon our salvation or faith? Frankly, it doesn't matter whether Christ's humanity is genetically from Joseph and Mary or from Mary plus some extra created specifically for the purpose by God. All that matters, from a Christological point of view, is that it is fully human. I think either of the two options are perfectly fine but I see no reason to speculate on which might or might not be true. More importantly, I see potential harm in reasoning of this sort. It is precisely this sort of philosophising and speculation that lead to a number of the over-rationalistic heresies within the early Church. There comes a point when we must just admit that we, limited humans that we are, cannot hope to understand the Mysteries of God.

Hi James. In part, you're right... this detail likely isn't going to have much affect on our salvation, but the correct answer to this has important implications. If Katzpur and I are right -- that part of Jesus' genetic makeup was actually inherited from God making them literally Father and Son -- then two important points of religious debate are resolved: 1) God is indeed Jesus' father and the two are separate beings, and 2) God must be a physical being. Any discussion that might help shed light on the nature of God and his relationship to Christ and us is important in my opinion.