Thursday, October 19, 2006
(7:00 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Theologian as Biologian
I believe that I have thought of an illustration from biology that can serve to help people avoid the grievous christological heresies of Nestorianism, Monophysism, and Monothelitism. As we know, the orthodoxy teaching is that Jesus Christ has distinct two natures, human and divine, but is nonetheless a single person or subsistent entity (hypostasis). That single person or subsistent entity is the Word of God, the second person of the Trinity. Christ's human nature is assumed by the Word from the very moment it comes into existence -- there is no "time lag" during which Christ's human nature would've existed apart from the Word. At the same time, it must be affirmed that Christ's human nature had its own human will and performed human acts, because a human will bereft of will or action would not be truly human.To say that Christ is two subsistent entities or hypostases would be Nestorianism; to say that the two natures combine to create a new single nature would be Monophysism; to say that Christ has only a divine will but no human will would be Monothelitism. To say that Christ performed only divine actions would be Monergism, but that is normally treated as a subset of Monothelitism.
It's admitted in advance that no perfect illustration can be found, since the miraculous event of the Incarnation is sui generis. The standard illustration that I have seen for the "two natures" is the union of body and soul in the human being. This is fine as far as it goes, showing how a single entity (a human being) can have two "natures" within it. The aspect it lacks is a clear analogue for the assumption of a human nature by a divine entity -- it is not that the human being is really a body that has taken on a soul or is really a soul that has taken on a body; it's just both. And in any case, talk about the "soul" doesn't really grab modern people in the same way as it did people back then.
This brings me to my illustration: the relationship between mitochondria and cells. The mitochondria has its own DNA, separate from that of the cell -- the two types of DNA being obviously analogous to the two "natures." Nonetheless, we call that entity that possesses the two kinds of DNA a cell -- thus we can say that it is a cellular entity (hypostasis) just as Christ is a divine entity (hypostasis).
The problem with this illustration is that the mitochondria produce energy for the cell, whereas the human nature of Christ is not to be thought of as fulfilling a need or lack in God. Still, assuming that my comic book biology is correct, this seems to be a fairly good illustration that can, as I said, help ward off the ever-present threat of heresy. If any biologians have any correction they wish to offer, I would be glad to hear it.
As a sidenote, if anyone could explain to me how it came about that the French have such nicer editions of patristic and medieval writers, with up-to-date texts and facing translations, while we Anglos largely have to make do by piecing together various shit translations from the Victorian era, I'd be interested to learn. Is it a division of labor thing? Germans cover Bible and Reformation-era, the French get the stuff in between, and the Americans are left with the sloppy seconds of televangelism and bad pop music? (Leaving the British theologians, of course, the very important task of empty posturing.)
Finally, does anyone else find the Journal of the American Academy of Religion to be appallingly dull? I've been receiving it for a year and a half, and I've never been tempted to read so much as a single article.
