According to the Catholic Church, is Jesus a man, or does He rather have a human nature without being a man?
Upvote:3
God-Man is not a third sort of nature. The hypostatic union is the union of two natures (human & divine) in the one Divine Person, Second Person of the Trinity.
Fr. John Hardon, S.J., defines it:
The union of the human and divine natures in the one divine person of Christ. At the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) the Church declared that the two natures of Christ are joined "in one person and one hypostasis" (Denzinger 302), where hypostasis means one substance. It was used to answer the Nestorian error of a merely accidental union of the two natures in Christ. The phrase "hypostatic union" was adopted a century later, at the fifth general council at Constantinople (A.D. 533). It is an adequate expression of Catholic doctrine about Jesus Christ that in him are two perfect natures, divine and human; that the divine person takes to himself, includes in his person a human nature; that the incarnate Son of God is an individual, complete substance; and that the union of the two natures is real (against Arius), no mere indwelling of God in a man (against Nestorius), with a rational soul (against Apollinaris), and the divinity remains unchanged (against Eutyches).
Upvote:4
According to the Catholic Church, is Jesus a man, or does He rather have a human nature without being a man?
It is explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
IV. How is the Son of God Man?
470 Because "human nature was assumed, not absorbed",97 in the mysterious union of the Incarnation, the Church was led over the course of centuries to confess the full reality of Christ's human soul, with its operations of intellect and will, and of his human body. In parallel fashion, she had to recall on each occasion that Christ's human nature belongs, as his own, to the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it. Everything that Christ is and does in this nature derives from "one of the Trinity".
The Son of God therefore communicates to his humanity his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. In his soul as in his body, Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of the Trinity:
The Son of God. . . worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin.
Christ's soul and his human knowledge
471 Apollinarius of Laodicaea asserted that in Christ the divine Word had replaced the soul or spirit. Against this error the Church confessed that the eternal Son also assumed a rational, human soul.
472 This human soul that the Son of God assumed is endowed with a true human knowledge. As such, this knowledge could not in itself be unlimited: it was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space and time. This is why the Son of God could, when he became man, "increase in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man", and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience. This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking "the form of a slave".
473 But at the same time, this truly human knowledge of God's Son expressed the divine life of his person. "The human nature of God's Son, not by itself but by its union with the Word, knew and showed forth in itself everything that pertains to God." Such is first of all the case with the intimate and immediate knowledge that the Son of God made man has of his Father. The Son in his human knowledge also showed the divine penetration he had into the secret thoughts of human hearts.
474 By its union to the divine wisdom in the person of the Word incarnate, Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal.108 What he admitted to not knowing in this area, he elsewhere declared himself not sent to reveal.
Christ's human will
475 Similarly, at the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III in 681, the Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human. They are not opposed to each other, but co-operate in such a way that the Word made flesh willed humanly in obedience to his Father all that he had decided divinely with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our salvation.110 Christ's human will "does not resist or oppose but rather submits to his divine and almighty will."
Christ's true body
476 Since the Word became flesh in assuming a true humanity, Christ's body was finite. Therefore the human face of Jesus can be portrayed; at the seventh ecumenical council (Nicaea II in 787) the Church recognized its representation in holy images to be legitimate.113
477 At the same time the Church has always acknowledged that in the body of Jesus "we see our God made visible and so are caught up in love of the God we cannot see."114 The individual characteristics of Christ's body express the divine person of God's Son. He has made the features of his human body his own, to the point that they can be venerated when portrayed in a holy image, for the believer "who venerates the icon is venerating in it the person of the one depicted".
The heart of the Incarnate Word
478 Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: "The Son of God. . . loved me and gave himself for me." He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation,117 "is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings" without exception.
According to Catholicism, Jesus Christ is truly man and truly God, with a Divine nature and a human nature.
Jesus is the most important person who has ever lived since he is the Savior, God in human flesh. He is not half God and half man. He is fully divine and fully man. In other words, Jesus has two distinct natures: divine and human. Jesus is the Word who was God and was with God and was made flesh (John 1:1, 14). This means that in the single person of Jesus he has both a human and divine nature, God and man. The divine nature was not changed when the Word became flesh (John 1:1, 14). Instead, the Word was joined with humanity (Col. 2:9). Jesus’ divine nature was not altered. Also, Jesus is not merely a man who “had God within Him,” nor is he a man who “manifested the God principle.” He is God in flesh, the second person of the Trinity. “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word,” (Heb. 1:3). Jesus’ two natures are not “mixed together” (Eutychianism), nor are they combined into a new God-man nature (Monophysitism). They are separate yet act as a unit in the one person of Jesus. This is called the Hypostatic Union.
The following chart should help you see the two natures of Jesus “in action”:
God
He is worshiped (Matt. 2:2, 11; 14:33)
He was called God (John 20:28; Heb. 1:8)
He was called Son of God (Mark 1:1)
He is prayed to (Acts 7:59)
He is sinless (1 Pet. 2:22; Heb. 4:15)
He knows all things (John 21:17)
He gives eternal life (John 10:28)
All the fullness of deity dwells in Him (Col. 2:9)
Man
He worshiped the Father (John 17)
He was called man (Mark 15:39; John 19:5)
He was called Son of Man (John 9:35-37)
He prayed to the Father (John 17)
He was tempted (Matt. 4:1)
He grew in wisdom (Luke 2:52)
He died (Rom. 5:8)
Other verses to consider when examining His deity are John 10:30-33; 20:28; Col. 2:9; Phil. 2:5-8; Heb. 1:6-8; and 2 Pet. 1:1. 1 Tim. 2:5 says, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Right now, there is a man in heaven on the throne of God. He is our advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1). He is our Savior (Titus 2:13). He is our Lord (Rom. 10:9-10). He is Jesus.
Jesus is true man and true God, the two natures, each retaining its own properties, are united in one subsistence and one person.
Hypostatic Union, a theological term used with reference to the Incarnation to express the revealed truth that in Christ one person subsists in two natures, the Divine and the human. Hypostasis (upostasis) means, literally, that which lies beneath as basis or foundation. Hence it came to be used by the Greek philosophers to denote reality as distinguished from appearances (Aristotle, “Mund.”, IV, 21). It occurs also in St. Paul’s Epistles (II Cor., ix, 4; xi, 17; Heb., i, 3: iii, 14), but not in the sense of person. Previous to the Council of Nicaea (325) hypostasis was synonymous with ousia, and even St. Augustine (De Trin., V, 8) avers that he sees no difference between them. The distinction in fact was brought about gradually in the course of the controversies to which the Christological heresies gave rise, and was definitively established by the Council of Chalcedon (451), which declared that in Christ the two natures, each retaining its own properties, are united in one subsistence and one person (eis en prosopon kai mian upostasin) (Denzinger, ed. Bannwart, 148). They are not joined in a moral or accidental union (Nestorius), nor commingled (Eutyches), and nevertheless they are substantially united.
The following may be of interest to some:
More post
- 📝 What Verses did Ellen White use to support Soul Sleep?
- 📝 What arguments are used by Protestants who object to the use of marijuana, even where it is legal?
- 📝 According to premillenial view, What is the point of the Millenium reign?
- 📝 Confusing argument from GotQuestion (Calvinist) about 24 Elders
- 📝 On what bases do Eastern-Orthodox reject total depravity?
- 📝 Which scripture was Paul quoting in 1 Corinthians 15:45?
- 📝 What churches identify themselves as being Modalist?
- 📝 What is the minimum amount of action required to get in to heaven?
- 📝 Do The Original Houses of Numbers Still Exist?
- 📝 What was the name of the Pharaoh during the time of Moses?
- 📝 Does Predestination apply to all people or just the major characters God needed for His plans for us to unfold?
- 📝 Did the Bull, Unam Sanctam, authorize/promote Christian aggression by the "temporal sword"?
- 📝 What is the Septuagint?
- 📝 According to Calvinists, why did God say what He did to Cain in Genesis 4:7?
- 📝 Praying BOLDLY: Praying for personal achievement vs. praying for selfless achievement
- 📝 Cajetan's view on the canon
- 📝 Under what conditions does the Catholic Church explicitly call the laity extraordinary ministers?
- 📝 Do Jehovah's Witnesses believe the 144 000 are from Israel?
- 📝 Isn't Israel the firstborn Son of the Lord?
- 📝 Why baptise or christen a child multiple times?
- 📝 Were the sins of the Israelites forgiven with the animal sacrifices or simply held in abeyance until Jesus death on the cross?
- 📝 How is Christ's death so significant?
- 📝 Why not "Word is God"? Why past tense? Does it mean word was god initially but not anymore?
- 📝 What exactly is hermeneutics and exegesis?
- 📝 Which are some of the Non Trinitarian sects in Christianity
- 📝 Mormon belief in Jesus Christ
- 📝 Did the Early Church (ante-Nicene period) believe in the continuation or cessation of the office of Apostle?
- 📝 Why are there different divisions of the Ten Commandments?
- 📝 Why is beating one's breast used to show sadness and guilt?
- 📝 Did any of the Early Church Fathers believe that Revelation 12:1-5 is about the Virgin Mary?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 According to the Catholic Church, is Jesus a man, or does He rather have a human nature without being a man?
- 📝 Where does the Catholic tradition that Mary did not have pain giving birth to Jesus come from?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church teach that Jesus' Human Nature was created?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church have a contingency plan for the case that the pope and all cardinals are dead?
- 📝 According to Catholic doctrine, what effect does the Last Judgment have on those who are already in heaven?
- 📝 What rules does the Catholic Church have for venerating crosses/crucifixes on Good Friday?
- 📝 Does the Catholic church allow a previously divorced man to remarry?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church consider it sinful for couples who aren't able to conceive to have sex?
- 📝 According to the Catholic Church, does purgatory have a symbol?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church have a position on slavery reparations?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church have any mechanism to improve poor homilists?
- 📝 According to the Catholic Church, did Jesus have faith or hope?
- 📝 Why does the Catholic church have so many Masses throughout the week?
- 📝 Can a baby be baptized in a Catholic Church if the mother does not have papers proving she was baptized?
- 📝 According to the Catholic Church, does Jesus condemn those who don't believe?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church have a list of Good Books?
- 📝 According to the Catholic Church, when Jesus speaks, is he is speaking as a Man or God or both?
- 📝 How does the Catholic church distinguish between the human soul and spirit?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church have a policy on how altars are to be destroyed?
- 📝 According to the Catholic Church, whom does Jesus refer to as the “ruler of this world” in Jn 16:11?
- 📝 By what authority does the Catholic church have priests?
- 📝 According to Catholicism, does Matthew 16:18 justify that the Catholic Church is the one true church?
- 📝 How does the Catholic Church tell us to do reparation for our sins according to Church teachings?
- 📝 How does Catholic Church differentiate between the presence of Jesus and that of the Holy Spirit on the earth?
- 📝 Does the Eastern Orthodox Church have guidelines on which language to recite the Jesus Prayer in?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church have to submit to an approved private revelation?
- 📝 According to Catholic exorcists, does the Devil hate Catholic Church prayers said in Latin?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church teach that modern churches have guardian angels?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church have any (quasi) interdiction against the Harry Potter books?
- 📝 Does the Catholic Church have an official position on domestic 'health passes' or 'vaccine passes' that could be used to control citizens' activities?
