#984 Doubts about the Incarnation

Dr. craig’s response

Although I’ve discussed your question elsewhere, Nikolas, I couldn’t resist choosing your question this week because of your wonderful testimony and the role played by the ontological argument in your conversion to theism! In my response, I want first to address your question and then offer some more general advice on dealing with doubts.

With regard to your question, I’d strongly encourage you not to jump to conclusions about the incoherence of the hypostatic union, since this is one of the most difficult subjects in Christian theology and philosophy of religion. Although you eschew “appealing to mystery,” you need to appreciate that Christian philosophers defending the coherence of the doctrine would not presume to tell you how Christ actually is one person with two natures. Rather what we can do is to offer models of the incarnation fulfilling that condition which are rationally acceptable. But in a sense the mystery of how it actually happens remains. We shouldn’t expect to know how God actually does it.

So before you make up your mind too soon, you need to master some of the basic literature on the question. An indispensable treatment is Thomas Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986). This book by a philosopher at the University of Notre Dame defending the coherence of the incarnation has become something of a modern classic. Another more recent treatment that I would recommend is Andrew Ter Ern Loke, A Kryptic Model of the Incarnation (Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2014). Andrew defends a model much like my own. Finally, if you want to get really deep in the weeds, tackle the book by Timothy Pawl, In Defense of Conciliar Christology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019); cf. his more digestible short book The Incarnation, Elements in the Philosophy of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). Since your English is obviously very good, I can recommend these works to you with a clear conscience.

There is, however, some confusion in your question. You are conflating two different questions. On the one hand, there is the question of how two natures can be united in one person. This, I think, is the most fundamental question. I address this question in my chapter on the incarnation in Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 2d rev. ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2017). But the alternatives you discuss are really answers to a different question, namely, how can incompatible predicates be truly ascribed to Christ? That is a different issue!

With regard to your four alternatives in answer to the second question, we can reject (1), (3), and (4) because, as you say, they are theologically unacceptable. But what about (2), that “Jesus had both some attributes that are person-specific actualized in one consciousness; ex. one mind both being omniscient and limited in knowledge and intellect”? You have not stated this alternative quite correctly; you should have said that Jesus had attributes that are nature-specific actualized in one person or consciousness.

Timothy Pawl maintains that the relevant predicates are not incompatible when properly understood because they have implicit clauses specifying that the subject has a concrete nature in virtue of which the predicate is true of the subject. So when it is said that Christ is omniscient, what is meant is that Christ has a nature that is unlimited in knowledge; likewise, when it said that Christ is not omniscient, what is meant is that Christ has a nature that is limited in knowledge. Since Christ has two natures, these predicates, properly interpreted, can both be true of Christ. On this interpretation, Christ can be both omniscient and non-omniscient, for these predicates are not contradictory. Similarly, he can be omnipotent and non-omnipotent, eternal and non-eternal, omnipresent and non-omnipresent, and so forth, for in every case what is negated is not the predication simpliciter but the specific predicate relative to a certain nature.

It seems to me that Pawl is wholly justified in this claim. As one reads the Church Fathers, it is evident that they were not asserting contradictions but plausibly ascribing appropriate predicates implicitly referring to the respective natures of Christ. To say that Christ is F is to say that Christ has a nature that is F and that he is not F is to say that he has a nature which is non-F.

Of course, this solution to the problem of incompatible predicates still leaves unsolved the first question of how two natures, human and divine, can be united in one person. For a discussion of that question, take a look at my chapter in Philosophical Foundations.

Finally, Nikolas, it bothers me that your faith could be so quickly shaken by doubts about the incarnation. As I’ve said, this is one of the most profound subjects in all of Christian theology, and we shouldn’t expect that the answers would be obvious to us. If we have good reason to think that Christianity is true—and surely we do—, then it is rational to maintain Christian belief even in the face of unanswered questions, especially ones to which we should not expect to know the answers.

My colleague Michael Licona, who is a congenital doubter, once told me a story of how he was sharing some of his doubts with Gary Habermas. Habermas simply retorted, “Mike, do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead or not?” Since Mike had thoroughly studied the historicity of the resurrection, he replied unhesitatingly, “Yes, I do.” Gary said, “Well, then. . . ?” Mike insisted, “But what about . . . ?” And Gary repeated, “Did Jesus rise from the dead or not?” The point is that if we have good evidence for the truth of the resurrection and thereby for the person of Christ, then doubts based upon highly speculative questions can be overcome.

The evidence for the resurrection is in this case what philosophers call an overwhelming defeater. It may not undercut or rebut the alleged defeater of Christian belief, but it simply overwhelms it by exceeding it in warrant. When we encounter doubts that we cannot answer, we should always review the evidence on the positive side of the ledger. This is so important to keep in mind because we will all have unanswered questions in this life. Of course, if we can find good answers, as in this case, so much the better!