The Two Natures of Christ and the Trinity

KEVIN HARRIS: Bill, there are some YouTube Shorts from a Brandon Duke who addresses your view of the two natures of Jesus. Now, these are shorts so there are a few blanks that we need to fill in. Let's go to this first clip.

BRANDON: Here teaching his Defenders Sunday school class, William Lane Craig makes the following claim.

DR. CRAIG (recording): Remember there is no human person who is Christ.

BRANDON: Wait, what?

DR. CRAIG (recording): There's only one person in Christ, and that is a divine person – the second person of the Trinity.

BRANDON: Um, Peter in his sermon in Acts 2 says, “Jesus of Nazareth was a man.”

DR. CRAIG (recording): The person of Christ is not a human person. It is a divine person. The second person of the Trinity.

BRANDON: And 1 Timothy 2:5 also says, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Jesus Christ.”

DR. CRAIG (recording): Sounds to me as though you're saying that Jesus simply had a human nature.

BRANDON: It’s not me saying it. Peter and Paul said it.

DR. CRAIG (recording): It's contrary to the Council of Chalcedon – that Christ had two complete natures.

BRANDON: Well, so much the worst for the Council of Chalcedon.

KEVIN HARRIS: First of all, we want to invite listeners to your Defenders class, Bill. You can catch the stream on Sundays and visit the archives at ReasonableFaith.org. But comment on this first critique from Mr. Duke, if you would.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. Well, Brandon is clearly not an orthodox Christian. Orthodox Christianity holds that there is one person who is Christ, and that is the second person of the Trinity, and that this person since the incarnation has two natures (one human and one divine). Therefore the Bible speaks of Jesus as both God and man. So Brandon is quite right in saying that the Bible speaks of Jesus as a man, and it also speaks of him as God. Now, how do you put that together? What that means is that this person has both a divine nature and a human nature and therefore can be called both God and man. But notice that the human nature has not always existed. The human nature was assumed in the incarnation, but the divine person (the second person of the Trinity) pre-existed the incarnation. He existed from eternity. And so in Christ we have a single divine person who exemplifies not only a divine nature, but since the incarnation a human nature.

KEVIN HARRIS: He brought up the councils. How much credence do we give to the major church councils in history as far as faith and practice as Christians?

DR. CRAIG: I think that insofar as the major church councils codify and explain biblical teaching then they are to be accepted. In this case it is not simply the Council of Chalcedon that affirms both the humanity and deity of Jesus, this is part of New Testament teaching. The New Testament explicitly calls Jesus both God and man. So the formulation of this by the major church councils is something that we should accept because they are in accord with biblical teaching.

KEVIN HARRIS: Here's the next clip on Jesus growing in wisdom and stature. Check this out.

BRANDON: A perfect divine person can't get more wise, right? So what about when Luke says Jesus grew in wisdom and stature?

DR. CRAIG (recording): Clearly the Logos does not grow in moral excellence or perfection.

BRANDON: OK. But Luke does say Jesus grew in wisdom. Right?

DR. CRAIG (recording): The book of Hebrews even says, “and being made perfect through what he suffered.” There's moral perfection going on there.

BRANDON: Wait. You've already said the only person is the divine perfect person. How could such a person grow morally?

DR. CRAIG (recording): It would be with respect to the human nature.

BRANDON: I can't find that in here anywhere.

KEVIN HARRIS: By the way, people in the comments of these shorts are saying that he's not allowing your full teaching in that class – in your Defenders class – in these clips. But you first talk about the Logos. Define that term if you would, and then what is significant about Jesus growing in wisdom and stature?

DR. CRAIG: The term Logos comes from the preface of the Gospel of John. It's the Greek word for “word” or “reason.” And so right at the beginning of the Gospel of John, John says “In the beginning was the Word [the Logos] and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.” And then he goes on to say, “And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us.” So Jesus is from eternity God. But he took on flesh – humanity. Now, in order to explicate this claim, the church fathers found it necessary to use the vocabulary of Greek philosophy to speak of natures – a human nature and a divine nature. So in his human nature Christ could grow in wisdom and stature and moral virtue even though in his divine nature he was already perfect. In my book Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview I attempt to give a model of the two natures of Christ that attempts to make sense of this.

KEVIN HARRIS: It seems like there at the end of that clip that Brandon is making a big deal about trying to find a single proof text or passage or passages that spells out the doctrine. Is this an example like the doctrine of the Trinity where philosophy and theology fill in the blanks that Scripture does not exhaustively cover?

DR. CRAIG: Yes, I think that's right. As Brandon himself illustrates so well, heretics can cite Bible verses, too. So in order to show the error of these early heretics the church fathers drew upon the resources of Greek philosophy for the necessary concepts and vocabulary to clearly formulate biblical doctrine. So the use of the term “natures” was right at the center of early Christology in order to make sense of the biblical affirmations that Jesus was both God and man.

KEVIN HARRIS: Here's the third and final clip where the Holy Spirit is addressed. Let’s go to it.

BRANDON: An audience member asks a good question during one of William Lane Craig's Sunday school classes.

QUESTION (recording): If only the Father knows the day and the hour of the second coming, how should we address the Holy Spirit?

DR. CRAIG (recording): You mean his knowledge?

BRANDON: I mean, Matthew 24:36 says, “Only the Father knows.”

DR. CRAIG (recording): I think we have to affirm that the Holy Spirit, as the third person of the Trinity, is also omniscient and that therefore the Holy Spirit and the Logos in their divine natures do fully know that.

BRANDON: Mark 13:32, as well, “Only the Father knows.”

DR. CRAIG (recording): There's complete interchange and sharing of knowledge among the three persons of the Trinity.

BRANDON: Jesus here says, “Only the Father knows” something.

DR. CRAIG (recording): No one can presume to penetrate the mystery of the incarnation.

BRANDON: Or we could just accept what Jesus said.

KEVIN HARRIS: Well, your class members always ask good questions, by the way. So we're dealing with what Jesus as a man knew about the future.

DR. CRAIG: Right.

KEVIN HARRIS: And whether the Holy Spirit knows what the Father knows. He presses those Scriptures that say, “Only the Father knows.”

DR. CRAIG: This so well illustrates the naivete of this way of using the Bible. That passage is in no way intended to address the question of either the divine Logos or the Holy Spirit. It's not a trinitarian passage. Jesus is saying that as a man he does not know the time of his second coming – only the Father knows that. Jesus does not. And this is not meant to be a piece of trinitarian theology.

KEVIN HARRIS: As we conclude, will this topic be included in your Systematic Philosophical Theology? Where are you on that section?

DR. CRAIG: Yes, this will be the subject of Volume 4 of my Systematic Philosophical Theology. Volume 4 will deal with two theological loci. The first will be Christology – the doctrine of the person and work of Christ. Then the second part will be the doctrine of salvation. So these issues will come in for full discussion in Volume 4.

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