Hi,
If we believe that Christ was the perpetual Son to the Perpetual Father, that He existed before the ages, can someone explain this:
In the fullness of time, Christ was born of Saint Mary - He took flesh from her. So, when He was born, His body and soul was created.
So, which part of Christ existed before He was born?
If His soul, mind, body only existed when He was born, then what existed before?? Our faith tells us that Christ existed before. That the Father Created everything through the Word (Logos) with the Life giving Holy Spirit.
Thanks
Comments
The Word of God exists before all things and beyond all consideration of time. When He chose to become incarnate by taking to Himself a complete instance of humanity from the Virgin Mary then he added a new way of being to Himself. The humanity which he took to Himself had no existence at all before the instance of the incarnation.
The Person of Christ is the eternal Word, and He is that aspect of Christ which 'existed before'. The rest, that complete humanity which He owns as His own humanity, the body, soul, mind, all of this came into being at the incarnation and had no existence at all before that moment.
In Christ
Father Peter
Can you do a small comparison for me?
What were the differences between Jesus Christ Incarnate, and The Word, the Logos of the Trinity?
So when we say Christ is the word of God is it meant literally?
Not necessarily literally, in the sense that He is spoken. But when you take the Greek word Logos, which is translated to either word or logic, if you take it into Logic, its like saying, the Word is the Logic of God, He is what makes things happen so to speak. I'm not a theologian, but those are my cents on that.
In the beginning was the Word. He is one of the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, and is worshipped together with the Father and the Holy Spirit as One God.He is an eternal and divine person or indentity. Through his agency God the Father made the world and all created things.
When God made the world Jesus Christ did not exist. Before the incarnation the Word of God is not know as Jesus or the Christ.
But when God willed to become incarnate, that is to say became human, he created for Himself by the power of the Holy Spirit, from the flesh of the Virgin Mary, a complete instance of humanity, the same as our humanity in every way. This humanity had mind, and emotion, and the faculty of willing. But it was not independent of the Word who created it for Himself. Instead at the very moment of its creation it became the humanity of the Word Himself, so that from that moment the Word existed naturally as the Divine Son, and also according to Gods plan for our salvation as a human being.
The name of this human being which he chose to become is Jesus, and he receives the title of Christ or Messiah, because He is the one through whom God will work out our salvation, and He is truly anointed by God. He is not a man whom God is working in, but He is truly the Word of God become man.
That is why the Virgin Mary is Theotokos, or God Bearer. The one she carried in her womb is truly the Word and Son of God as man. To touch Jesus Christ was to touch God the Word in His humanity. There was no other person who was being touched. And so it was truly God the Word who was nailed to the cross and died and rose again according to His own divine power.
In a simple way we can say that 'what' Jesus Christ was only came into being at the incarnation. But the 'who' Jesus Christ is has existed for ever and is the eternal Word of God.
This is why the heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches - to use shorthand - are dangerous. If Jesus is actually a man in whom God dwells then God is not born, and does not die, and is not raised again. All of this happens only to a man in whom God dwells essentially like the prophets. And on the other hand, if the humanity he took is not the same as ours then even if we say that God has been born into this other humanity, has died in it and has risen again in it, it is not our humanity which has been renewed.
Therefore we keep these two thoughts in mind. God the Word Himself has truly become flesh but without ceasing to be what and who He is from eternity. Because of His love for us He has chosen to become part of His own creation, and He now dwells among us. But He has not ceased to be the Word of God. He is the same Divine Person with a new name, Jesus Christ, and we worship Jesus Christ and the Word with one worship because they are the same Person, the same identity.
Does that explain anything?
Father Peter
I think I'm quite confident in the idea of the Trinity. What I find hard to understand is what part of Christ existed before His incarnation if during His incarnation, His Soul and Body were created. Before that period in time, these entities did not exist.
So, again - I stress the question: What therefore existed?
Why not write down a comparison table?
The Word of God (before Incarnation) ||| Jesus Christ (After the Incarnation
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It is important to stress that Jesus Christ IS the Word of God, but the Word of God made flesh.
Rather than draw the table dividing the Word and Jesus Christ it is better to consider before and after the incarnation.
Before the Incarnation
The Word of God exists as the Second Person of the Trinity.
The man known as Jesus Christ does not exist.
The Word exists simply as a Divine being beyond our comprehension.
After the Incarnation
The Word of God exists as the Second Person of the Trinity.
The Word of God has created a human existence from the flesh of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Word exists in that human existence as a man
The Word exists as a Divine being beyond our comprehension
The man is known by others as Jesus and is called the Messiah or Christ, but the man is the Word of God, now made flesh while remaining a Divine being and one of the Trinity.
The Word has 'extended' His eternal being into a new mode of being, into that of a limited, created, humanness. But He has not ceased to be what He is, and it is truly a new way of being for the Word. All that it means to be human has been assumed by Him at the moment of the incarnation.
The mind of Jesus did not exist before the incarnation, the body of Jesus did not exist before the incarnation. Human mental and psychological processes are not the same as the identity of a human being. God the Word exists in and through His humanity, but He is more than his humanity, and his absolute beingness is rooted in His divinity not his humanity.
In the case of Jesus Christ, what existed before the incarnation? The Word existed before the incarnation. Nothing of his humanity existed before the incarnation. The Word of God is not the soul of Jesus, he is not the mind of Jesus. All of these things were created at the moment of the incarnation, they are not the same as the identity of a person, they are the means by which the identity of a person is expressed. In the case of Christ that identity is that of the Word of God, who exists as man through the human mind, and soul and body which he created.
As far as men were concerned, Jesus was entirely a man, an extraordinary man of course. It is faith which teaches us that He is indeed the Son and Word of God.
I am not sure this answers everything. There is a whole area of anthropology to consider. What does it mean to be man, what is the soul, the mind, the body, where do they interface. I would say, as a provisional opinion, that in man the identity subsists in the soul, which expresses itself through the mind and body, and is formed and deformed by the mind and body, while in Christ the identity subsists in the very person of the Divine Word who in some manner forms his own Divine indentity in the soul of the humanity he creates to be his own flesh. The human soul receives a unique personhood at the moment of creation, while the humanity of Christ receives the personhood of the Word so that it is truly the humanity of the Word.
I have probably confused people more than helped.
Father Peter
Which "part" or "entity" of Jesus Christ existed before the ages?
So, if His body and soul were created by virtue of His incarnation, then what "part" of Him existed before the ages...
I mean, when He said to the jews: Before Abraham, I Am, He is saying that He was there at the time of Abraham! He knew Abraham! He is saying that He IS God. But if His soul only existed when He was born, then what memory did He have of Abraham??
But if His soul and body did not exist before He was incarnate, then how did He "know" Abraham.
Did Christ have two minds: A human mind and a divine mind? or did He just have one Mind?
What is the difference between the mind of Christ and the mind of the Father?
Thanks
The human organ of mind in Jesus Christ had no existence before the incarnation. The human soul had no existence. Not a single human characteristic of Jesus Christ had any existence before the incarnation.
When Christ says 'Before Abraham was I am' it is not because any part of his humanity had any existence in the time of Abraham, but because the person he is, the I, is the same I as the Word of God.
The person we are is not the same as our mind, or even our soul. The person we are is an inner identity known to God which is imprinted on our soul and which is manifest through our mind and body. The person with Alzheimers is stil known to God, even though the physical matrix of mind and body in which that person is known has become defective and veils the person from our sight.
In the case of Christ, and we can only speak hesitantly and with humility, it seems to me that the human soul, which normally receives the imprint of a new and unique person, receives the imprint of the Divine person of the Word, so that the soul is the expression of the being of the Word. But the soul has no pre-existence, it is human and created.
It is the person of the Word who is before and beyond the incarnation. But this person is not any 'thing' or 'part' at all. Indeed what God is is beyond our knowing. In a unique and unknowable manner this Divine person has become flesh, but the flesh becomes, it is not pre-existent. It is the Word who in creating it, becomes one with it, and so we believe that Jesus Christ is truly the Word of God incarnate, but the Word of God is not part of the humanity, even though he is one with his humanity. If he is any part at all then he is the person, and the person is not the soul or the mind or the body.
As ever
Father Peter
We are just going around in cicles here. I really thank you for the time you are giving to explain all this, but for me to understand, could you just answer the following question in less than 20 words?
If all of Christ's humanity ONLY existed once He was incarnate, then what was it about Him that existed before??
OK - did Christ have to learn the history of the Torah, or was He born already knowing it given that He was the author of it??
He knows all things by virtue of his being the Word of God, but that knowledge is mediated through a true human mind and soul.
My 20 words starts here..
He knows all things because He is God incarnate, but He does not manifest more than He chooses because He is truly man. A man cannot walk on water, but God made man can because He is not a man on his own but the true humanity of God.
Another 20 words. It was the HIM about him that existed before.
Here is a poor analogy that should not be pushed beyond my use of it. A king hears that the people in one of his villages are suffering under a petty local tyrant. He knows that if he appears in all his glory he will not be able to discover the truth of what is going on. So he dresses as a servant and visits the village where he appears as a simple worker and goes about helping those in need. Is he the king or a servant? What is the true foundation of his being? Surely he is the king before all else and that cannot be taken from him by his having become a servant. It is truly the king who is going about doing good, yet he appears and is truly a servant. What was there of the servant before the king became a servant? There is nothing except the person of the king who becomes the servant. Because before he becomes a servant there is nothing at all of the servant in his being, and after becoming a servant he remains a king. It is he himself who is the unity between these two ways of being.
I think that the elves in Lord of the Rings are a faint echo of the incarnate Lord of Glory. They appear as simple woodland people who act a bit odd, but behind and within the veil of their simple humanity there is a blinding glory.
The incarnation is dynamic. It is in the very act of living as a human that the incarnation takes place. It is not a 'thing' bolted onto the divinity, it is a way of being that the Word participates in truly by calling into existence his own humanity and living through it in a human way. Yet it is always God's humanity, and just as the saints who experience a unity with God by grace manifest all manner of wonders, so the humanity of God which is united in an interior union of ownership not of grace is used to work wonders directly by the Word whose humanity it is.
This might still be going round in circles as far as you are concerned. Can we chop your question into little questions?
But my answer remains, there is nothing human which had any existence before the incarnation, it is the dynamic act of owning which makes the humanity of Christ that of the Word.
Peter