{"id":6203,"date":"2016-09-20T16:10:11","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T16:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/09\/20\/michael-gorman-on-christological-coherence\/"},"modified":"2016-09-20T16:10:11","modified_gmt":"2016-09-20T16:10:11","slug":"michael-gorman-on-christological-coherence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/09\/20\/michael-gorman-on-christological-coherence\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Gorman on Christological Coherence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gorman-120w\"<\/a>On classical Christology, as defined at the Council of Chalcedon in anno domini<\/em> 451, Christ is one person with two natures, a divine nature and a human nature.   But isn't this just logically impossible inasmuch as it entails a contradiction?  If Christ is divine, then he is immaterial; but if he is human, then he is material.  So one and the same person is both material and not material. Again, if Christ is divine, then he is a necessary being; but if he is human, then he is a contingent being.  So one and the same person is both necessary and not necessary.  <\/span><\/p>\n

There are several ways to remove contradictions like these.  One way is by using reduplicative constructions, another invokes relative identity theory, and a third is mereological.  This entry will examine Michael Gorman's version of a fourth approach, the restriction strategy.  (See Michael Gorman, "Classical Theism, Classical Anthropology, and the Christological Coherence Problem" in Faith and Philosophy<\/em>, vol. 33, no. 3, July 2016, pp. 278-292.) Glance back at the first example of putative contradiction.  The argument requires for its validity two unstated premises:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Necessarily, every divine being is immaterial<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

and<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Necessarily, every human being is material.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If so, and if Christ is both divine and human as orthodoxy maintains, then Christ is both immaterial and material.  We can defuse the contradiction if  we follow Gorman and replace the first of these with a restricted version:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

R. Necessarily, every solely<\/em> divine being is immaterial.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From this restricted premise, a contradiction cannot be derived.  Christ, though divine, is not solely divine because he is also human.  "Saying that every solely divine being is immaterial does not imply that Christ is immaterial, because Christ is not solely divine; therefore, it leaves open the door to saying that Christ is material." (283)  In this way, 'Christ is divine' and 'Christ is human' can be shown to be a non-contradictory pair of propositions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now there is more to Gorman's article than this, but the above restriction is the central move he makes.  Unfortunately, I cannot see how this is satisfactory as a defense of the Chalcedonian definition.<\/span><\/p>\n

For even if Christ is unproblematically both divine and human, how is he unproblematically both immaterial and material?  Clearly he must be both.  Gorman removes contradiction at one level only to have it re-appear at a lower level.  He shows how something can be coherently conceived to be both divine and human, but not how it can be coherently conceived to be both immaterial and material.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can Gorman's move be iterated?  Can we say that an immaterial entity need not be solely<\/em> immaterial?  Can we say, coherently, that while Christ is immaterial he is also material?  I don't see how.  It is a contradiction to say that one and the same x is both F and not F at the same time, in the same respect, and in the same sense of 'F.'  If you say that Christ is immaterial qua God but material qua man, then you have abandoned the restriction strategy and are back with reduplication.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what am I missing? <\/span><\/p>\n

(Comments enabled.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
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\"\"<\/a>One Person, Two Natures<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>More on One Person-Two Natures: Response to Timothy Pawl<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Are There Possible Worlds in which the Human Nature of Christ Exists Unassumed?<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Word of the Day: 'Inenarrable'<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On classical Christology, as defined at the Council of Chalcedon in anno domini 451, Christ is one person with two natures, a divine nature and a human nature.   But isn't this just logically impossible inasmuch as it entails a contradiction?  If Christ is divine, then he is immaterial; but if he is human, then … Continue reading “Michael Gorman on Christological Coherence”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,288],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-doctrine","category-trinity-and-incarnation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}