Theological Tidbits

A heresy named after Nestorius (c. 451), a bishop of Constantinople, arose in the first half of the fifth century. Nestorianism held that there are two persons in Christ as well as two natures. In other words, Christ is both a divine Person and a human person. Each person is separately expressed through its corresponding nature. In other words, the divine Person is expressed through the divine nature and the human person is expressed through the human nature. The two persons and their corresponding natures are united through their mutual agreement with one another. There are some difficulties with Nestorianism because it denies the union of the divine and the human in one divine Person:

1. God’s love would not have been returned because God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, would not have suffered and died on the cross. A divine Person united solely to the divine nature cannot die. On the other hand, persons united to a human nature can undergo death. The Nestorian Christ is a divine Person united to the divine nature and a human person united to a human nature. Since a divine Person united only to the divine nature cannot die, according to the Nestorians it was only the human person of Christ who died on the cross. However, after sin only God is capable of returning God’s love. Therefore, if the second Person of the Trinity did not offer Himself to the Father through death on the cross, we are not redeemed—i.e., we are still alienated from God.

2. according to the Nestorian answer, Christ’s body would have expressed only His human person, not His divine Person. Thus, for the Nestorians, when the Apostles saw Christ’s body, they would not have seen the second Person of the Trinity expressed—but rather the human person of Christ. For the Nestorians, Christ did not reveal God and therefore did not show us who we are as images of God.

3. if Christ were two separate persons, Mary would not be the Mother of God. A mother is the mother of a person, not merely of a nature. In the Nestorian view, Mary would have given human nature only to the human person because only the human person would have been united to the human nature. Thus, she would not be the mother of a divine Person. She would not be the Mother of God. However, Mary is Theotokos, which means Mother of God. Mary is the Mother of God—i.e., the mother of Christ—because she gave Him, God the Son, His human nature.

Nestorianism was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431 because it denied our redemption, the revelation of God through Christ’s human body and Mary’s divine motherhood.

A knowledge of Christ is vital to each of us if we are to live fully as images of God and if we are ever to recover in any way from sin and its effects. We are never able to leave the question of who Jesus Christ is unanswered. “Each one of us must let himself be touched personally by the question: ‘But who do you say that I am?’ You who hear Me spoken of, answer Me. What do I really mean for you?” (Pope St. John Paul II). This question never ceases to be asked in one form or another because, for each of us, to seek the identity of Christ is to seek one’s own identity; it is to seek one’s own proper activity; it is to seek to know how to love God through our bodies and how to love others by using things for their benefit; and it is even to seek salvation. In Christ’s question and its proper answer lies the entire mystery of humanity. Consequently, those who do not correctly answer the question of Christ “Who do you say that I am?” remain in a state of confusion.

Peter, the spokesman for the Apostles, correctly answered Christ’s question when he said: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). However, over the centuries since Christ, especially in the first centuries after His ascension, there were many incorrect responses to Christ’s question. One of the earliest incorrect answers was offered by Arianism, named after its founder, Arius (256-336), a priest of Alexandria in Egypt. Arianism held that Christ is only human—i.e., that Christ is only a human person, possessing a human nature. Nature (essence) signifies “what” someone is. Person signifies “who” someone is. For Arius, Christ is not God. Rather, He is only a human being, albeit a human being very close to God. However, this is impossible. If Christ were only human, He could not have satisfied God’s love rejected by Adam and Eve when they sinned. Moreover, if Christ were only human He could not have revealed God to us. Therefore, He could not have revealed who we are as images of God. Arianism was condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325.

A knowledge of Christ is vital to each of us if we are to live fully as images of God and if we are ever to recover in any way from sin and its effects. We are never able to leave the question of who Jesus Christ is unanswered. “Each one of us must let himself be touched personally by the question: ‘But who do you say that I am?’ You who hear Me spoken of, answer Me. What do I really mean for you?” (Pope St. John Paul II). This question never ceases to be asked in one form or another because, for each of us, to seek the identity of Christ is to seek one’s own identity; it is to seek one’s own proper activity; it is to seek to know how to love God through our bodies and how to love others by using things for their benefit; and it is even to seek salvation. In Christ’s question and its proper answer lies the entire mystery of humanity. Consequently, those who do not correctly answer the question of Christ “Who do you say that I am?” remain in a state of confusion.

Peter, the spokesman for the Apostles, correctly answered Christ’s question when he said: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). However, over the centuries since Christ, especially in the first centuries after His ascension, there were many incorrect responses to Christ’s question. One of the earliest incorrect answers was offered by Arianism, named after its founder, Arius (256-336), a priest of Alexandria in Egypt. Arianism held that Christ is only human—i.e., that Christ is only a human person, possessing a human nature. Nature (essence) signifies “what” someone is. Person signifies “who” someone is. For Arius, Christ is not God. Rather, He is only a human being, albeit a human being very close to God. However, this is impossible. If Christ were only human, He could not have satisfied God’s love rejected by Adam and Eve when they sinned. Moreover, if Christ were only human He could not have revealed God to us. Therefore, He could not have revealed who we are as images of God. Arianism was condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325.

If Christ were not God and man, we would not be able to experience God—our prototype—in human form, we would not be able to see who God is, to see how He acts or to see the One we should love. Consequently, we would not know our identity, our proper activity or the fact that we are to love God through a mutual bodily exchange of love and that we are to love others by using things for their benefit. Further, only the divine Son could definitively love us, His Father and the Holy Spirit. Thus, if Christ is not God and man, then original sin and its effects remain—and the friendship between God and man, broken by original sin, is not restored. With the same breath that we proclaim Christ’s divinity, we must proclaim His humanity.

God the Son became man to love us, His Father and the Holy Spirit. Obviously, in Christ we see an act of God’s love. God the Son also became man to reveal Himself—i.e., the Wisdom of God. God’s wisdom is revealed in every act of Christ. However, the divine wisdom is most especially manifested in Christ’s passion, death and resurrection. Further, Christ’s life is not only an act of divine love and the most complete manifestation of God’s wisdom, it is also an act of divine power. The power of God can be seen in the union of the two natures in the one divine Person. The power of God is also obviously present in the miracles of Christ. In the incarnation and the redemption, the Trinity—Power, Wisdom and Love—act as one principle.

God did not have to become man. But He freely chose to become man at the same moment that He freely chose to create man. God’s choice to create man was simultaneously a choice to become man—so great was His love for us.

God’s act of creating man and woman in His image and likeness was completed in and through the incarnation. The God-man brought God’s act of creation to completion by revealing man’s identity—man’s proper activity—which was to love God through a mutual, bodily exchange of love and to love others by using things for their benefit: “Creation is thus completed by the incarnation” (Pope St. John Paul II). God willed the incarnation at the same time that He willed creation.

The incarnation revealed human beings to themselves by showing human beings their proper identity; by showing human beings their proper activity; by showing human beings how to love God in and through a human body and how to love others by using things for their benefit.

Christ revealed who we are as human images of God. Even without original sin, all men and women, as images of God, need to know the God-man to know fully their identity, proper activity and to know that they should love God through a mutual bodily exchange of love and love others by using things for the sake of people. As images of God, we do not know ourselves unless we know God. Further, since we are made like God, we are called to act like Him. However, we cannot act like Him unless we know how He acts. In addition, since human persons are enfleshed spirits, they love in their unified totality, body and soul: “Love includes the human body, and the body is made a sharer in spiritual love” (Pope St. John Paul II). It seemed even at the dawn of creation that human beings were called to love God in and through their bodies. However, only in Christ was man’s suspicion about himself definitively confirmed. Finally, Christ confirms that we are to love others by exercising a dominion over things for the sake of people (Gen 1:26).

Although the angels are images of God, God did not need to become an angel for them to know their identity and proper activity. The angels are pure spirits as God is pure spirit. Thus, the angels are able to relate to God solely on the spiritual level. By relating to God as spirits to spirit, they experience their prototype according to their own nature and thus they can know themselves as spirits. Human beings, however, are both spirit and body. In order for them to experience God and thus come to know themselves, they must see God as spirit and body. In other words, they need to see Him enfleshed. Knowing this, and loving humanity with an everlasting love, God gave Himself to us in a bodily form to allow us to know ourselves and our proper activity and to reveal that we are to love God through a mutual bodily exchange of love.

By returning God’s love for man through the cross, Christ filled the spiritual space between God and man with love. In Christ’s suffering, “sins are canceled out precisely because He alone as the only-begotten Son could take them upon Himself, accept them with that love for the Father which overcomes the evil of every sin; in a certain sense He annihilates this evil in the spiritual space of the relationship between God and humanity, and fills this space with good” (Pope St. John Paul II). The love of God offered to us is the divine life—i.e., grace. This life overcomes original sin’s most damaging effects to the human person. Further, the grace of God allows us to live the very life of God here on earth and most gloriously in heaven. Thus, through Christ’s cross, original sin and some of its effects were overcome. Therefore, on the cross, Christ loved us mercifully by eliminating original sin and its most serious effects, and by drawing us close to God—i.e., reviving the friendship between man and God. Through the God-man, the ancient model of God’s mercy, established in the Old Testament, is renewed but infinitely surpassed. Through Christ, God’s merciful love for us is extended even to original sin and its effects.

Further, through His passion and death, Christ not only loved us but He even loved His Father and the Holy Spirit. Christ undid the rejection of God’s love by Adam and Eve. In other words, He eliminated the effects of sin. Further, Christ, as God-perfect man, made a perfect response to God’s love and thus drew us closer to God. Thus, He drew from the evil of sin a greater good, a perfect human response to God’s love. By eliminating the effects of sin and drawing us close to God, Christ even loved the Father and the Holy Spirit.