Dualism Offers the Best Account of the Incarnation

Hight and Bohannon have recently argued that an immaterialist ontology is more consonant with the doctrine of the Incarnation. I argue that their proposal is insufficiently motivated, as their objections to a substance dualist account of the incarnation are not compelling. I defend a concrete-parts Christology, which allows for materiality and immateriality to be exemplified by Christ in two different respects. I show how immaterialist and materialist objections that dualism cannot adequately account for the unity of the incarnate Christ can be overcome.

2019

Incarnation, as per definition in its simplistic form, wherein God assumes a human nature, is central to the Christian doctrine of faith. The premise upon which the uniqueness of the Christian doctrine of incarnation, as opposed to other religious traditions, is embedded in and among other texts of the Christian Bible, and in the Gospel according to John 1:1-18. This article will articulate some of the philosophies in existence at that time which may allegedly have influenced and elicited a response from the writer of the Gospel according to John (GAJ). An attempt will be made to understand how some of these philosophies view incarnation in forms that may not necessarily reflect incarnation as is traditionally understood in Christianity which is primarily ‘God becoming flesh’. Central to the understanding of Christian incarnation is the philosophical concept of logos which emanated in Greek philosophy. Finally, it should become apparent, that the understanding of ‘incarnation’, in s...

In the long history of Christian hermeneutics, the Incarnation is hardly ever addressed as embodiment. In part, this is because the early influence of Platonic and Neo-Platonic philosophy contributed to the tradition of Christian asceticism that emphasized the denial of the body. Yet to assert, as Christians do, that “the Word became flesh” is to claim that God himself became embodied. This implies that to understand the Incarnation, we have to understand embodiment. The centrality of the Incarnation, the fact that it distinguishes Christianity from Islam and Judaism, demands that we take embodiment as a central element guiding Christian hermeneutics. In this essay, I describe our embodiment in terms of its ontological structure as an intertwining. I then use this structure to interpret the Incarnation.

2024

Traditional accounts of the incarnation, accounts which maintain true divine nature and true human nature of Christ, have faced numerous criticisms across the history of the church, criticisms that have never entirely been resolved. What if the problem is not the claim of dual "natures" but rather the philosophical paradigm within which "nature" has been interpreted? In this paper, it is argued that significant issues caused by the traditional dual-nature paradigm can be resolved through a conceptualist account of "nature," that is, ontological identity or similitude with like things. After introducing the classic paradigm and the problems associated with it, conceptualism is proposed as a plausible solution to the problems of natural and personal identity and, as a result, a strong framework within which to tackle the classic problems associated with the incarnation. At the very least, the plausibility of conceptualism as an answer to pressing issues in the doctrine of the Incarnation suggests that the problems are found not in the God-man claim but in a particular construal of the meaning of that claim.

This paper explores the theological use of the term "incarnational." It concludes that the words "incarnation" and "incarnate" need to be reserved for the action of God. The word "incarnational," however, is analyzed through five theological models. The paper concludes that the adjective "incarnational" can be correctly described as the actions of believers seeking to live Christ-like because they are indwelt, in union with, and made in the image and likeness of Christ. This paper was presented at the April 2018 Far West Region Meeting of the ETS.

Traditional accounts of the incarnation, which maintain the true divinity and true humanity of Christ, have faced numerous criticisms across the history of the church, criticisms that have never entirely been resolved. What if the problem is not the claim of dual "natures" but rather the philosophical paradigm within which "nature" has been interpreted? In this paper, it is argued that significant issues caused by the traditional dual-nature paradigm can be resolved through a conceptualist account of "nature," that is, ontological identity or similitude with like things. After introducing the classic paradigm and the problems associated with it, conceptualism is proposed as an adequate solution to the problems of natural and personal continuity and, as a result, a strong framework within which to tackle the classic problems associated with the incarnation. Keywords: ontology, Hellenistic philosophy, conceptualism, essentialism, incarnation, Christology.

Studies in Spirituality, 2017

A spiritual reading of the motif of incarnation as it runs through the biblical Scriptures describes it as a divine-human communica- tion transforming the human self into a relationship. the human self has a passive bodily beginning: ‘me’ is the one who feels changes in his flesh, and who feels being seen and known. God’s self-revelation touches us in our flesh, the very spot where we are the most vulnerable, but also the spot where we share each other’s feelings and movements and where we become a self. Incarnation, therefore, is not about a word becoming matter, but about the sharing of God’s presence and the flesh feeling and realizing this presence. this means that the human flesh is not only a principle of individuation (Jean-luc Marion) but also a principle of communion. We are one flesh because in God’s presence we feel what the other feels. Although the motif of incarnation is fulfilled in Jesus, it is being developed in the figures of Adam, Mozes, the prophets, the Suffering Servant, and it is continued in the figure of peter. An investigation of this motif confirms that the human being, in his or her engagement with God and environment, becomes more and not less human. the salvation of the incarnation causes the new human self to be deeply related, or better: restored in this original communion.

The Metaphysics of Incarnation - ed. Anna Marmodoro and Jonathan Hill, 2011

Incarnation is a central doctrine to Christianity: believers hold that Jesus was, in some way, identical with God whilst also being fully human. This doctrine raises a number of philosophical problems. This chapter gives an overview of some of these problems and the different ways in which Christian thinkers have sought to overcome them.

Modern Theology, 2014