{"id":7599,"date":"2014-11-03T15:54:36","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T15:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/11\/03\/one-person-two-natures\/"},"modified":"2014-11-03T15:54:36","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T15:54:36","slug":"one-person-two-natures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/11\/03\/one-person-two-natures\/","title":{"rendered":"One Person, Two Natures"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reader inquires,<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The Creed of Chalcedon (A.D 451) set forth the following dogma, among others: (my emphasis)<\/p>\n

".. one and the same Christ ….to be acknowledged in two natures<\/span>, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence<\/span>, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son . . ."<\/span><\/p>\n

The deliberate  language of 'two natures' in 'one Person' is really remarkable. When you find some time, can you give me a bit of direction in determining, first – what it is for a person to 'have a human nature' and second – depending on that answer, is there any way to explain the concept of a person having two<\/span> 'natures'? I even find the statement that human persons have both an 'animal nature' and a 'human nature' troublesome. There is a category mistake  that I sense but cannot yet explain.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The reader poses three questions.  After answering them,  I will pose a fourth question that the reader doesn't explicitly ask.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Q1. How can a human person have both an animal nature and a human nature?<\/em>  I don't see much of a difficulty here.  If man is a rational animal (Aristotle), then Socrates, in virtue of being human, is an animal.  Now he is both animal and human essentially as opposed to accidentally.  Thus Socrates could not have existed without being an animal: he could not have been inanimate, say a statue or a valve-lifter in a '57 Chevy. And he could not have existed without being human: he could not have been nonhuman like a cat or a jelly fish.  Whether or not every essential feature of a thing is part of its nature, every nature is essential to a thing that has it.  So I see no problem in saying that Socrates has both an animal nature and human nature, where the latter includes the former, though not conversely.  Nature N1 includes nature N2 just in case it is impossible that something have N1 but not have N2.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Q2. How can a person have two natures?<\/em>   This is answered above.  Humanity and animality are distinct — the first includes the second, but not conversely — but there is nothing to prevent one and the same individual substance from having both of them.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Q3. What is it for a person to have a human nature?<\/em>  On the Boethian definition, a person is an individual substance of a rational nature.  So the question might be: How can a rational individual — an individual being that has the capacity to reason — also be human?  Well, I don't see much difficulty here.    Not every person is a human being, but every human being is a person.  So humanity includes personhood. 
<\/span><\/p>\n

Q4. How can one and the same person have two seemingly incompatible natures?<\/em> I suspect that this is the question the reader really wants to pose.  There is no obvious problem about one person having two natures if they are logically compatible as they are if one includes the other.  The problem is that while humanity includes animality, humanity appears to exclude<\/em> divinity.  Among the marks of humanity: animality, mortality, mutability, passibility; among the marks of divinity: spirituality (non-animality), immortality, immutability, impassibility.  <\/span><\/p>\n

According to Chalcedon, one and the same person is both fully human and fully divine.  Now, necessarily, anything human is passible, thus capable of suffering.  But, necessarily, nothing divine is passible; hence nothing divine is capable of suffering.  So if one and the same person is both human and divine, then one and the same person is both capable of suffering and not capable of suffering.  This is a contradiction. Herein lies the difficulty. <\/span><\/p>\n

The reader needs to tell me whether this is the problem that is exercising him.  (Note that the problem can be developed using attributes other than passibility.)<\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder whether the reader would be satisfied with the following strategy and the following analogy.  Christ qua human<\/em> is capable of suffering, but Christ qua divine<\/em> is not.  This removes the contradiction.  Analogy:  Obama qua president is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, but Obama qua citizen is not.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am not endorsing either the reduplicative strategy or the analogy.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A reader inquires, The Creed of Chalcedon (A.D 451) set forth the following dogma, among others: (my emphasis) ".. one and the same Christ ….to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being … Continue reading “One Person, Two Natures”<\/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-7599","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\/7599","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=7599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}