#802 Trinity and Incarnation
September 25, 2022Dr. Craig,
I will begin my question with the obligatory statement that I am a huge fan of your work and have been following you since I was in high school. It was you that led me to studying Philosophy as an undergraduate and then later pursuing a Masters in Theological Studies from HBU. I owe you a great debt.
With that out of the way, it seems like your view of the Trinity undercuts one of your critiques of kenotic Christology.
When you are discussing the Trinity, you say that exemplifying the divine nature is not the only way to be divine (which I agree with). A reason for this is that one of the attributes of the divine nature is being triune, and clearly the members of the Godhead are not triune, so they don’t instantiate the divine nature in this sense. Yet, we can still say they are divine due to their membership in the trinity or something like that. I am fine with all this, and I agree with your view of the trinity.
The issue is that when you critique kenotic Christology you reason along the lines of “Well, omniscience is an essential attribute of the divine nature, so if Christ is not omniscient that means he is not exemplifying the divine nature, which means that he is both God and Man.” This is admittedly a rough paraphrase, but hopefully you understand the gist of it.
But hold up, you argue regarding the Trinity that a person can be divine without exemplifying the divine nature and note that parts can have properties that the whole lacks.
If we follow your reasoning regarding the Trinity, we should be able to say that at the incarnation the Son no longer has the properties of omniscience. Just as we can say that the divine nature has the property of being tri-personal which the members of the Trinity lack, we can also say that the divine nature has the property of being omniscient which one of the members of the Trinity lacks. If you say not exemplifying the divine nature in regards to omniscience means that Jesus is not God, you should be consistent and say not exemplifying the divine nature in regards to being tri-personal means that the Father is not God. Both omniscience and being tri-personal are thought to be essential attributes of the divine nature after all. However, you seem to change your tune when it comes to the Trinity and says that a person doesn’t have to instantiate the divine nature to be divine.
I want to note that on the view I just proposed God (understood as the full trinity) still essentially has the property of omniscience, its just the case that one of the members of the Godhead does not have this property. I don’t see how this is substantially different from your view of the trinity which says that God (understood as the full trinity) essentially has the property of being triune, its just the case that the members of the trinity don’t have this property.
Your brother in Christ,
James
United States
Dr. craig’s response
A
Thanks for your kind remarks, James! The short answer to your question, I think, is that just because a divine person can lack the property of being himself triune (tripersonal) doesn’t imply that a divine person can lack just any divine attribute. For example, I’m sure you’d agree that no divine person could lack the property of being personal. No person could give up the property of being personal and still be divine. Similarly for goodness: no person could be divine if he were not good. Just run through the usual divine attributes and ask yourself whether any person lacking such an attribute deserves to be called divine. I’d include omniscience on the list of properties that any person must have if he is to be properly called divine. So I’d amend your admittedly rough paraphrase of my view to state more accurately “if Christ is not omniscient, that means he is not divine, which means that he is not both God and Man.”
So the inference does not follow that “Just as we can say that the divine nature has the property of being tri-personal which the members of the Trinity lack, we can also say that the divine nature has the property of being omniscient which one of the members of the Trinity lacks.” That inference would require justification, which I don’t think is forthcoming.
- William Lane Craig