You got rid of all the rest of your argument. 😞

In any case, problems with the humanity of Christ and its relation to God are a lot of why I'm not a Christian. Nietzsche says it rather sussinctly as:

"*God* on the cross!?"

I'm sure it can be rationalized- the idea that God could die in some sense or have flesh and humanity -and Aquinas, for instance, does his best to try to make sense of the idea. But the basic metaphor/symbology of it is, as Kierkegaard wants to point out all the time, absurd.

The usual move is, as far as I've seen, to deny that any change in Christ is a change to the godhead. God didn't cease to be while Jesus was bodily dead, for instance.

I'm also not sure that it's held universally that Jesus *acquired* Humanity, since he is to be both God and man with no division, but my christology is not as strong as it could be.

Sure, at the core of Christianity sits an aparent paradox.

My problem was that I'm not sure the Paradox can actually be rationalized without losing the whole idea.

After all, if God is in fact inpassive and metaphysically ultimate, in what sense can I transgress it or owe him a debt or be in need of redemption with respect to him? In what sense can the metaphysically ultimate actually pay a penalty for me? Why in the form of death? Why can we not simply miraculously pay the penalty? Why can he not make it such that the penalty was never a penalty in the first place? The usual rationalizations of what's going on make it at the very least extremely queer that these are the mechanics of the celestial world. I mean, I would be interested in talking this over with a Miamonadan since, as a mere virtuous pagan, I could use a abrahamic voice here.

iwpoe wrote:

Sure, at the core of Christianity sits an aparent paradox.

My problem was that I'm not sure the Paradox can actually be rationalized without losing the whole idea.

After all, if God is in fact inpassive and metaphysically ultimate, in what sense can I transgress it or owe him a debt or be in need of redemption with respect to him? In what sense can the metaphysically ultimate actually pay a penalty for me? Why in the form of death? Why can we not simply miraculously pay the penalty? Why can he not make it such that the penalty was never a penalty in the first place? The usual rationalizations of what's going on make it at the very least extremely queer that these are the mechanics of the celestial world. I mean, I would be interested in talking this over with a Miamonadan since, as a mere virtuous pagan, I could use a abrahamic voice here.

Are you understanding the crucifixion and resurrection as a matter of substituionary atonement? This has been the standard understanding in Western Christianity since St. Anselm. It has its place, but I would argue that the Patristic understanding of Christus Victor. Here the understanding is metaphysical.

I don't think that the literal ransom theory is the fullest expression of the Patristic theory of the incarnation and resurrection, certainly not for (in my view) the most profound of the Fathers, such as the Alexandrine and Cappadocian Fathers. The deeper meaning, I would say, is that the devil here represents privation and evil. The incarnation and the resurrection, as I understand them, shows that God is present in all creation - which never ceases to reflect him, even at its most privative. As low as we may sink in sin and ignorance, God is there. And he redeems creation, because he brings it back to him - he always triumphs over evil.

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iwpoe wrote:

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I tend to think docetism is one step too short. If God is metaphysically ultimate all natures participate in him in some respect: anything that *is* in any respect has its being in him. Our relationship to God is even more intimate than that of a fish in water. To say that God has within himself human nature in order to affect a reconciliation seems both unnecessary (there is no gap between God and I that requires that kind of bridging) and arguably incoherent. God is metaphysically ultimate: he can't have mundane properties like human nature as if he were an ordinary being. It's especially dubious when you consider divine simplicity.

​Well, all natures participate in him, but surely we do not all participate in him to the same degree (obviously, I'm putting very complex issues in very simplistic terms). This is why there is privation and evil and suffering. It is very complex metaphysics, but I would say, as a Platonist, that creation in some sense participates in the divine, though this doesn't conflict with divine simplicity.
 

That said, I'm not sure the material incarnation implies the incarnation is *merely* temporal. Christ is eternal and he's eternally and fully man and God with no division or distortion. His time on earth as a man walking about a location is, of course, limited, but I think the meaning of the material incarnation is in orthodoxy not meant to be temporally and spatially limited. His eternal nature *always* has that material relation just as the souls of the dead do, even though they aren't always living.

Well, Corbin's problem was about our relationship to the divine, and his view of a deeply personal, mystical relationship we all have to develop. He saw the incarnation as downgrading that in favour of a dogmatic, public, and spatially and temporally limited relationship.