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To: Campion
Campion, I don't have a problem with the term "human person" because I do not see it as necessarily incompatible with "divine person" and/or intrinsically Nestorian. If I had been alive during the life of Christ on earth, and someone had pointed at Christ and asked me: "Is He a human person?" I would (let's say) reply, "Yep." And if they then asked, "Is He a divine person?" I would reply, "Yep." And if they then asked, "Is He two persons?" I would reply, "Nope." If they asked, "How can He be a human person and a divine person, and not be two persons?" I would reply, "Because He is one person with two natures. He is a *divine* person, in fact the Second Person of the Trinity, because of His divine nature. But it is also true that He is a *human* person because of His human nature. By 'human person' I mean that He is truly a person and that He is truly a human, and that His personhood is human in virtue of having a human nature. By saying that He is a 'human person' I do not mean that his personhood is *merely* human."

What do you think about that? Do you think the term 'human person' is innocuous in that sense, but that it is just too intrinsically misleading? :-)

-A8

59 posted on 12/13/2006 10:12:28 AM PST by adiaireton8 ("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)
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To: adiaireton8
I think that the argument would go essentially like this. "Person" is a "who"; "nature" is a "what". Christ (as you correctly note) is not a divine person "stuck to" a human person. There is only one "who," one person, in Christ.

Having said that, the question then becomes "who is that 'who' in Christ". "And you ... who do you say that I am?"

To that question, the primary answer we must give is "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God, the incarnate Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Son". That identifies a divine person, not a human person.

Christ was the same person before the Incarnation as after. Before the Incarnation, there is no question that he did not have a human nature. After the Incarnation, there is no question that he remains Divine. Since he was a Divine person before the Incarnation, he remains a Divine person today.

The correct formulation, in the opinion of most theologians AFAIK, that Christ is a Divine person possessed of both a divine nature (obviously) and a human nature.

66 posted on 12/13/2006 10:38:57 AM PST by Campion ("I am so tired of you, liberal church in America" -- Mother Angelica, 1993)
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