The last glimmer of hope

There are signs, albeit faint signs, of productive questions being asked in the last two posts from Eric Svendsen. It turns out that there was an even better question asked by "Mathetes" on Svendsen's forum. I missed it before because I don't ordinarily read that forum, but I checked in just to make sure that I didn't leave anything out. I hope that I can answer all of the questions in the next couple of responses. Following my usual habit, it will be comprehensive (my earlier words in blue, Svendsen's and Mathetes's in red, my current response in black), which I do to prevent what I say from being taken out of context or from being accused of ignoring some or another particular point. I can't think of any better way to show my good faith in that respect, so I'm stuck with it.

This is the longest I have ever seen Svendsen stick to a point (which wasn't my point, but at least it is *A* point), so I'll have to give him credit for that. The benefit of him sticking to this point is that he has asked some questions that might actually help to illustrate why he is missing my position.

Then Prejean must have forgotten about the entire series of dialogue I have on Historical Theology posted under the “Notable Series” section of this blog.

No, it's simply that I won't give the anti-Mariological conspiracy theories the dignity of being considered a rational point, because there is absolutely no reality to them. Asking what a "person" is, on the other hand, strikes me as productive inquiry into exactly what Nestorianism is.

Prejean has engaged in doublespeak here. He begins by asserting that the apostles do not speak to him or to anyone else outside of their narrow first-century Jewish context. He ends up asserting that they do indeed speak to 21st-century Christians via a miracle. Do they speak to us or not? Which is it? And if they speak to us, even via a miracle, then (contrary to Prejean’s original statement about this in another thread) they can indeed function as a rule of faith.

Svendsen does not appear to be distinguishing between the natural and supernatural operation of Scripture. I can explain that as follows. First, I didn't say that the Apostles do not speak to us outside of their first-century Jewish context. In some sense, all historical literature speaks to people outside of the historical context, be it the works of Euripides, the Qu'ran, the Book of Mormon, or whatever. In that mundane sense, the Bible does speak as any historical document does. But the authoritative component of Scripture, what makes it able to speak beyond its historical confines as revelatory, i.e., its inspiration, is supernatural and not natural in quality, and this is perceived by application of the rule of faith to Scripture (Scripture being its own rule of faith in this regard would be circular; the rule of faith isn't learned FROM Scripture but used to read Scripture).

The Scripture speaks to the Church outside of time through the supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit, not merely through the mundane operation of natural communication. If we strictly look at "what the Apostles were trying to tell us," then we miss the greater part of the meaning of Scripture, which is what the Holy Spirit was trying to tell us through the Apostles' words, which often goes far beyond what the Apostles themselves intended, although never contradicting that intent. So we evaluate Scripture narrowly as a historical document to ascertain what was intended at the time, using mundane means, and then we turn to the question of the Holy Spirit's providential purpose in having inspired this particular piece of writing (the supernatural). This appears to be the method used by Raymond Brown and other Catholic exegetes, although Brown in particular has been criticized for separating the two in excessively dialectical fashion (effectively separating the natural and supernatural with a faith-reason dichotomy). Anyway, the point is that the natural and the supernatural interact in the text, without separation OR confusion, and neither should be disregarded. It just happens that, as with any document with a rich historical context, much is going to be lost of the natural component with separation of time and culture.

However, as Steve Hays has cogently pointed out here, Prejean routinely confuses exegesis with the establishment of “dogmatic authority” and then with application (“the apostles don’t speak to me; therefore whatever they might say is irrelevant to dogmatic authority of revelation”). This confusion in turn is based on Prejean’s odd notion that if the Bible is written in the context of a different time and culture, then it has no meaning for us today (by which he apparently means it has no application today). Yet the content of Scripture is focused mostly on universal truths that transcend time and culture.

I don't say that it has no meaning, only that it was not, by and large, intentionally written to have meaning for us today. It still DOES, on account of the Holy Spirit's superintendence of what was written, but that is more a product of the supernatural operation than the intent of the authors. The fact that the Bible wasn't, for the most part, written intentionally for us in the historical sense may be an "odd notion" for Svendsen, but it is entirely pedestrian for Catholics and Catholic exegetes. That is not to say that there aren't numerous points of universal truth taught in Scripture; there are. But they are universal precisely because they are not bound up with cultural contexts, precisely because they pertain to universal aspects of the divine and human nature or because they pertain to singular historical events (and in the case of Christ, both are true; the historical events in His life have universal significance on account of the hypostatic union).

The idea that man has rebelled against God, that man is desperately sinful, and that he stands in need of redemption is not something confined to the first century or to the Jewish world. The idea that Christ’s death on the cross is sacrificial and propitiatory stands universally true regardless of whether a 21-century culture recognizes that “without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.” Hence, the consequential statement “whoever believes is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already” is just as true and just as applicable for someone in the 21st-century Western world as it was for someone in first-century Judea. Exegesis is the method for determining what all that means in its original setting so that we can make sure we first get the meaning right and then the application right. But Prejean thinks we can bypass not only the message and the meaning, but consequently the application as well.

This is actually an excellent case of the same natural/supernatural distinction in the application of the Old and New Covenants. I find it useful to see the relationship between the natural and supernatural views of the text as the "shadow" of a three-dimensional object (which fits nicely with the concept of the Old Covenant as a "shadow" of the new; Hebr. 8:4, 10:1). The historical study is the study of the shadow, not the "true form" of the thing itself. The sacrificial system is intended to show a far more fundamental ontological need for grace. The human nature, in the image of God, is built so that it cannot achieve its true end without grace; it lacks the power to achieve that end through natural operations, and importantly, it lacked that power even before Adam ever sinned. Adam was really the first Pelagian; he denied his need for God's grace, asserting instead his own independence, spurning the very thing that his very nature was built to need. Because of that, his progeny are born into a state of deprivation; unlike Adam, they are born into a situation where the grace of God is not readily available to them. When Scripture speaks of sin in the context of nature, it is referring not to actual sin, but to this condition of being deprived of what our nature needs.

The radical dependence of our nature on God is the reality of which the Law and its juridical imagery is a shadow (Rom. 5:12-13, 20-21); the earthly blessings and cursings of the Law were meant to illustrate this more profound spiritual truth about our dependence on God (John 6:26-27 et seq.).

It was the error of the Judaizers who thought that the Law prescribed the means for salvation (Gal. 2-3); mere human operation avails nothing for salvation, not even for Christ. Rather, Christ's obedience under the law shows that He did not reject God's grace like Adam (and like Adam but unlike us, He was not even born into the condition of deprivation of that grace; Hebr. 4:15). He not only refused to thwart God's grace and did what Adam did not by accepting this grace according to the operation of His human nature (see, e.g., Luke 3:21-22, John 17:17-19). That's why Christ, who obviously did not need baptism for the forgiveness of sins, nonetheless accepted being baptized, and in so doing, sanctified baptism for all those who came after Him. That's why Christ's life sets the pattern to which human nature must be conformed (Rom. 8:28-30). The separation of sanctification and justification is actually based on confusion of the atonement (which removes an obstacle to grace) with grace itself. Salvation requires the operation of grace, not merely atonement.

Prejean’s confusion on these things stems from his lumping all historical documents in the same category of intent. If we’re talking about the writings of Euripides, then, yes, we can limit the application and assume Euripides was writing to those in his own day. We can view it as a mere historical document that helps us to understand the development of Greek tragedy. We don’t have to go beyond that and posit some sort of application today (unless you are a theater major) because there is no inherent authority in the writer or the writings to justify doing so.

It's not confusion; it's quite deliberately treating Scripture in the exact same manner I would treat any other historical document, because those sorts of conclusions are all that historical methods can actually tell you. Going "beyond that" and "posit[ing] some sort of application today" based on the "inherent authority in the writer or the writings" is not treating Scripture as a purely historical document. It's confusing the divine and human aspects of Scripture, which are perceived by different methods, rather than allowing them to persist distinctly and unconfusedly. If you are suggesting an application that would not be expected from some other sort of historical document of the day, then you're confusing theology with historical exegesis.

But Scripture is categorically different. It is revelation given by God. It is therefore not only inherently authoritative, but universally applicable. It is forward-looking by design. It is filled with prophecies and progressive revelation that culminates in God’s self-disclosure in Christ. But even when revelation ceases, it is not thereby finished speaking. It focuses its reader on the coming capitulation of all things at the eschaton; the summing up of all things in Christ and the final recompense in which all wrongs will be righted. It admonishes its reader to believe, act and think in a way that is commensurate with that event. It commends the Scriptures as fully capable of equipping the man of God for the work of the ministry, according to which that work is to “teach,” to “reprove,” to “correct,” and to “train in righteousness.” But most importantly, it expressly warns its readers that a day will come when men like Prejean will reject the “sound doctrine” of Scripture for fables and myths and “doctrines of demons.” Hence, (contra Prejean) the Scriptures themselves testify to their own eminent relevance for everyone, particularly those who are closest to the eschaton.

I'm not saying that the Scriptures aren't relevant to everyone who holds the rule of faith; rather, I am saying that the human component is not sufficient to make them so. If you simply read the Scriptures as a historical document, you will only get the natural component, and if you define that as the exclusive content of Scripture, you end up just like the Judaizers, worshipping the shadow rather than the reality. The spiritual content of Scripture is accessible only through the Christological hermeneutic; it is only by faith in the divine act of Incarnation that the Scriptures actually function as REAL revelation, as opposed to shadow revelation.

Svendsen is really on to something big here, but he hasn't stretched the implications as far as they need to go. Scripture is just like every other aspect of creation; it finds its significance, meaning, and purpose in Christ. So the understanding of what revelation is, how it functions, starts with an understanding of Christ as God-man. He is the model for theandric action, and just as His divine and human natures persisted unconfusedly in their personal union, so the divine and human components of Scripture persist unconfusedly. The meaning of Scripture was hidden until the Incarnation, because the divine action cannot be perceived except through the true theophany: the Incarnation. The Scriptures testify to Christ, but only those who know Him can see it. Svendsen is right to say that they admonish the believer to do these things, but that presupposes belief, which is exactly right. Until you believe and believe rightly, the Scriptures are always hidden, even if you are intimately acquainted with their historical meaning.

Yes, there are some things that no longer apply to us, such animal sacrifices. But that’s not due to a different culture or time; it’s due solely to the prophetic fulfillment of such things in the work of Christ. Yet, even in that case, general principles still apply. Paul can cite the episodes of the children of Israel in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt and exhort the (mostly Gentile) Corinthians of the first century (several centuries removed from the Exodus), “Now these things happened as examples for us, that we should not crave evil things, as they also craved”; and he can go on to make specific applications against the Corinthians participation in pagan sacrifices. Paul makes a similar point in Rom 15:4, and specifically connects it with the timeless application of the Scriptures: “For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

Certainly, general principles about the human nature and the divine nature continue to apply, because those things do not change. There is much moral guidance in Scripture that is simply an accurate description of human behavior, but even an atheist can recognize that. Paul's Christological hermeneutic is far from this sort of mundane analogy based on human nature; note the explicitly Christological focus in that passage (see, e.g., 1 Cor. 10:1-6, 16-17, 26). This is hardly just "they were idolators, and bad things happened to them, so don't be idolators either."

Prejean has written his explanation in the hope of escaping the charge of docetism. Yet, in the process he has placed himself in an even worse position. The atoning sacrifice of Christ recorded in Scripture has no relevance to Prejean because, after all, the concept of atoning sacrifices is something that's confined to the 1st-century Jewish world and has no relevance to us in a 21st-century Western culture. Man’s desperate condition is not a universal truth to Prejean, but rather something confined to a specific place and specific time.

On the contrary, trying to stretch the shadow into the substance itself is no kind of solution at all for this problem. It's precisely to avoid the sort of reasoning that Svendsen cites that I assert that the desperate condition of man is not merely a matter of violating the Mosaic law. It's a radical dependence built into human nature that Adam denied, leaving us in a situation not only of dependence but also of deprivation.

Scripture has no relevance to him, and in fact (according to his own words) is no more authoritative or applicable than the Quran or the Book of Mormon. There’s no sense in trying to understand the meaning of what God has told us in his revelation because none of that was written to us. The result of Prejean’s reasoning is that we’re exempt from sin, from the need for a sacrifice, and from the command to believe in Christ; and we are immune to the consequences of ignoring these things. Not only is Prejean therefore docetic (the apostles aren’t real people who can speak to us today), but he is (by virtue of that doecetic viewpoint) Gnostic in his doctrine of sin by John’s standards (1 John 1:8-10).

There's also no sense in trying to stretch the historical meaning of Scripture into something that it can't be. To understand the meaning of what God told us in revelation requires us to know His son; there is no substitute. I am far from denying the real existence of sin; on the contrary, I am opposed to limiting our dependence on God to the need of forgiveness for transgressions. That would confuse the shadow with the reality, elevating the human above its radical dependence on God. Likewise, elevating the Scripture's human component denies the need of the divine component for the Scripture to function as a whole, which elevates the human capacity beyond its creaturely limitations. Among Protestants, Karl Barth's concept of "witness," the conformity of a human life to Christ's life, probably explains this idea of the Christological dependence of revelation better than anyone else I have seen.

And remember, according to Prejean himself, it doesn’t matter that you happen to deny such charges and actively affirm beliefs contrary to the charge (Protestants, according to Prejean, deny the Incarnation and the divinity of Christ by virtue of the their understanding of theotokos, even though they actively affirm those things). Hence, according to his own rationale, even if Prejean actively affirms the apostles are real people, he’s still a docetist by virtue of his understanding of Scripture; and even if he actively affirms the principle of sin, he’s still a gnostic denier of sin by virtue of his understanding of Scripture.

I certainly have no qualms about this sort of argument. Nestorius appears to have affirmed the union of divine and human in Christ, only incoherently so. But I take issues with two statements here. First, I don't think "Protestants" as a whole agree with Svendsen's defense of Nestorius. Second, I'm not docetistic; I'm theandric. It's not docetistic to say that the theandric quality of Scripture depends on both the divine and human operations, distinct and unconfused.

No, rather because Prejean is incapable of objective analysis he has always merely assumed I hold to his understanding of Nestorianism; namely, that Christ is two persons rather than one. I don’t hold that, and never have held it. I have always affirmed the singularity and unity of the union of man and God in Christ. I’m sorry if that doesn’t fit into Prejean’s limited paradigm, but it is a fact nevertheless. The debate, as far as I have been involved, has always been about the exact way that union occurs; not about a single subject vs. a dual subject. But this is par for the course with Prejean. When he can’t understand a view, he simply lumps it into the view that seems to him to be close to it, and then issues sweeping judgments that do not apply.

Nestorianism isn't the belief that there is no union in Christ; most Nestorians affirmed that there was a union. Nestorianism is the belief that the union between the natures is constituted by something other than the person of the Word of God, and particularly, by union of operations like will or love (i.e., Nestorian-type monoenergism, aka, monothelitism). It has nothing to do with my "limited paradigm," but rather with my belief that Christ cannot be constituted by the union of the natures. The Word of God constitutes the basis for the union of the natures, not vice versa.

You say that nous (which is incidentally of Platonic origin as Apollinaris used it, not Aristotelian)

Notice the pettiness. I label nous an Aristotelian category, and Prejean responds that it is of Platonic origin, as though this is some great correction. Aristotle was a disciple of Plato, and regularly employed the term nous—and I doubt there is a great distinction in how each man uses it. I’m using “Aristotelian” as a category of terms. I have used “Platonic” interchangeably in past dialogue for these same categories.

To say that there isn't a difference between Aristotle and Plato on intellect is like saying there isn't a difference between Protestants and Catholics on papal authority, but leaving that aside, the distinction actually matters here. The Platonic/Neoplatonic idea of how nous is individuated is substantially different from authors with an Aristotelian influence and a concept of particular substance (e.g., Augustine, Aquinas). Part of Apollinaris's problem is that his idea of human nature doesn't include the soul as an individuating form of the human being, which is why he doesn't think that a human being has to have a soul to be a real human being.

[you say that nous] means the same thing as "person" (which isn't true of either Platonic, Aristotelian, or Neoplatonic uses of the term, but accepting your usage for the sake of argument).

That’s simply not true. I have stated that that is the Apollinarian use of the word (which Prejean may want to dispute), but that’s not thereby my definition. As I have stated elsewhere, my use of “nous,” “person,” or any other such term employed by the fifth-century debate is mere accommodation. I do not put any stock in their accuracy or authority. Biblically, nous refers to the "mind" or "intellect," and I have stated that clearly even in my earliest articles on this subject.

But Apollinaris doesn't mean the same thing by "nous" as "person;" he means roughly the same thing you do ("mind" or "intellect"). Apollinaris's error is to make mind common to the human and divine nature, so that the Word of God needs only one mind for both the human and divine nature. But he always maintains that the body is appropriated by the person, so he clearly isn't saying that "mind" equals "person" (a mind can't be a body). It is Svendsen who equates mind and person when he says "Both the human nous and the divine nous are bound together in Christ and comprise His person." This is what Svendsen says is "The View of the Bible and the Early Church," in contrast with Apollinaris's view. But it was Nestorius who held that the person of Christ was comprised by the union of two natures, rather than the person of the Word of God being the basis for the union.

That would mean that two persons (the divine person and the human person) combine to form a divino-human person with both divine and human properties. That's Nestorianism.

See again? Here’s how Prejean reasons: Svendsen’s view appears to be close to Nestorianism, therefore it is Nestorianism. Aside from the fact that Nestorius used prosopon ("face") to properly describe his view (there was already a language difference between Cyril and Nestorius), whatever Prejean thinks Nestorius believed is far from my view.

It's not a question of being close to Nestorianism; it literally IS Nestorianism. Svendsen doesn't seem to understand that Nestorianism is a heresy about the union of the natures in Christ. It's a contradiction in terms to say "I believe that the person of Christ is comprised by the union of the natures, but I'm not Nestorian."

Once again, I have gone on record stating I reject the philosophical categories and distinctions employed in the fifth-century. They are not authoritative for me. I view them as artificial categories. They are nothing more than unbiblical (and unhelpful) categories that further confuse the simplicity of Scripture. I am coming from a biblical perspective on this issue, not a fifth-century one. I refuse to speculate on just how the union between God and man takes place because to speculate beyond what is revealed invariably results in idolatry.

So do I; it's Svendsen who has ventured to say that the union in Christ consists of the union between two natures, just as Nestorius speculated. I am content to affirm that Christ IS the Word of God, the same person, and to deny the speculation that appropriating a human nature changes that.

I have no idea what you mean by "mere accommodation" or what "categories" you have in mind. It seems that you have no concept that could sustain any sort of coherent doctrine of the Trinity. If my concepts are inadequate, then what are your alternatives?

Biblical ones.

Is begging the question Scripturally normative?

I wrote: Biblically speaking, the separation of these categories simply does not exist. A “person” and his “nature” are biblically inseparable, perhaps even to the point of being indistinguishable. God as a “person” cannot cease to be God in “nature” and still be God. Man as a “person” cannot cease to be man in “nature” and still be man. biblically, no “person” can have a “nature” that does not reflect his “person.”

Prejean responded:
Your position would then be that the Bible makes the Trinity impossible. Either there aren't three persons (because they all have the same nature, and nature is identical to person) or there are three gods, just as three men with the same nature are not one but three.

That’s absurd. That would be like arguing since Prejean and I both share a human nature, we must be identical in person to each other.

Indeed, that has historically been used for reductio ad absurdam to charge Christians with polytheism, used by pagans, Jews, Muslims and atheists alike. It is obvious that a person who doesn't instantiate the divine nature is not God and that a person who does not instantiate the human nature is not a man. Nature "reflecting" person is equally tautological; a "person" is nothing other than the real instantiation of a nature, so this says nothing other than "something is what it is." But the person can't be constituted by being the nature, else having the same nature would imply being the same person. At the same time, the instantiation of a nature cannot constitute the nature (nominalism), lest affirming three divine individuals entail polytheism. That's why it's important to avoid both Nestorianism (the person being constituted by the instantiation of the nature) and nominalism (the reality of the nature being limited to its instantiation).

But that’s not at all the point I was making. The members of the Godhead are distinct from one another, yet they share the same divine nature. The point I made was that a person is inseparable from his nature—that remains true of the Godhead as well. The Father is inseparable from deity; the Son is inseparable from deity; the Holy Spirit is inseparable from deity. None of the members of the Godhead can be separated from their nature—else they cease to be God.

Properly speaking, they would cease to exist; an instantiation of no nature is nothing. Of course, that is an impossibility with respect to an unchanging divine person.

Prejean’s objection has much more to do with person and being than it does with person and nature, biblically defined. Biblically, God is God by virtue of his attributes and nature. God regularly defines himself by his abilities, his attributes, and his nature: by his immutability (“I am God; I do not change”); by his self-existence (“I am that I am”), by his eternality (“I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end”), by his love (“God is love”), etc. Jesus is the Word who was with “God” (i.e., the Father; distinguishable from him), but was himself “God” (i.e., deity).

Given that "person" is the real existence of a nature, I can't see where the fact that my objection has to do with person and being in any way implies that it doesn't relate to person and nature. Svendsen is saying here exactly what I am saying; only what instantiates the divine nature is God.

Fortunately, this isn't true, because your logical argument for equating nature and person is nonsense.

Notice Prejean’s straw man. I did not say person and nature are to be “equated” biblically; I said they are biblically “inseparable,” perhaps to the point of “indistinguishable.” That remains a biblical fact whether Prejean recognizes it or not. As an analogy, identical twins may be “indistinguishable,” but that fact does not “equate” them or make them truly “identical.” Once we identify a specific instance of an entity that has all the attributes of a man, what is left to define that entity as a person? More on this later.

I don't recognize a difference between indistinguishability and true identity. If two things are literally indistinguishable, i.e., they have no properties distinguishing them, then they are the same thing. Philosophers distinguish individuals by the property of haecceity ("thisness"). the Trinity has the rather odd property of being distinct (having haecceity) while being numerically identical to Himself. More on that later.

Natures don't reflect persons; persons instantiate natures. Your statements are tautologous; you are simply saying that a person that does not instantiate a nature is not a person with that nature. This is both necessarily and obviously true and has nothing to do with the point.

That’s not my point at all. I recognize that nature is the broader category and person is one instance of that category. But there’s no need for sophistry here. When I say that a man’s nature reflects his person, or that God’s nature reflects his person, I’m referring to the specific instance of that nature in the person. Hence, no “person” can have a “nature” that does not reflect his “person.” If we have all the attributes of deity bundled into a specific instance, how is that not a divine person? By the same reasoning, if we have all the attributes of humanity bundled into a specific instance, how is that not a human person? Yet there are not two persons but one.

Person is a category of nature? I've never heard anything like that before; person is a category of instantiation of nature, specifically, the instantiation of a rational nature. Again, you're confusing the instantiation of the nature with the nature; absent an instantiation, there are no concrete properties to be bundled into a concrete entity. The nature is given concrete existence by the person, not vice versa. The doctrine of the Incarnation is that the divine person instantiates the human nature (really and concretely). You seem to be arguing that if there is a concrete instantiation of the human nature, there must be a human person and that the person Christ is constituted by the union of this human person with the Word of God. That's Nestorianism.

I wrote: These texts affirm that Jesus was “a man.” Further, they affirm he was *fully* a man “in all things,” not a *partial* man, not *almost* a complete man, and not mere “flesh and blood.” Indeed, the full “manhood” of Jesus as the “last Adam” is assumed in texts such as Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. Further, they assert that if he did not assume *full* humanity, then he could not have redeemed us fully—to which even the fathers testify: “What is not assumed is not redeemed” (Gregory of Nazianzus). Atonement requires that Jesus is fully man--flesh, intellect, spirit, and whatever else one may care to specify regarding that which makes a man a “man”--not simply God with a "human nature.”

Prejean responded:
Feel free to clarify if I am misinterpreting, because I am not exactly sure what you have a mind, and I don't want to misunderstand you. It appears that you are saying that Jesus was human not only in the sense of having flesh and blood, but also in the sense of having emotions and reason (although with the caveat of Hebr. 4:15, without sin). What is confusing is your conclusion "not simply God with a 'human nature.'" The definition of human nature "whatever one may care to specify regarding that which makes a man a man, including flesh, intellect, spirit, etc." To say that He has all of these things is nothing other than saying that He has a human nature. Perhaps the subsequent questions will clarify.

Here is why Prejean's distinction between “person” and “nature” confuses the issue. If he has a human body, human emotions, a human intellect, a human mind (the biblical “nous”), a human, spirit, a human soul, a human will, human understanding, human wisdom, etc., what, pray tell, is lacking for this to be a “human person”?

A "person" isn't a nature; we classify persons by the instantiation from which they derive their existence. The Word of God is a "divine person" because His existence derives from being God (more specifically, "God from God"). A "human person" is a "human person" because he derives his existence from instantiating the human nature, i.e., by being created. To say that someone is a "human person" is to say that the person was created. When that person is the Word of God, it isn't proper to say that He is a "human person" because His existence is not derived from instantiating the human nature. The Word of God in no way depends on His human nature for His existence, so it would be wrong to say that He is a "human person." This is why the Fathers distinguished Christ's proper nature (meaning proper to His existence) from His assumed nature.

I wrote: It is not "human nature" that mediates for us before God, but "the man, Christ Jesus" (1 Tim 2:5).

Prejean responded:
"The man" only requires a person with a human nature.

Prejean will later define "person" as a concrete instantiation of rational nature (an instance or gathering of the essential attributes of nature into a single entity, for which see below). Yet here he neatly sidesteps that definition by distancing the person from the nature so as to suggest that the instantiation of human nature does not require a human person. More on this in my closing remarks.

This is backward; attributes aren't gathered together into an entity; the entity instantiates them (the concrete reality is the person, not the nature). The instantiation of a human nature doesn't require a human person because a divine person can instantiate the human nature without depending on that nature for His existence.

It doesn't require that there be a man, Christ Jesus, separate from the Word of God.

Except the text specifies that he is not only “man,” but "the man." Can a man be a man without being a human person? If so, how?

Sure. He can be a divine person instantiating the human nature. Why not?

I am not saying that the man is separate from the Word. I’m saying that Christ Jesus is the singular union of man and God. I do not purport to know how that union took place or what the exact makeup is--and I doubt anyone else can adequately explain it either. But I must affirm with Scripture that he is 100% man and 100% God.

Is He the union or is He the Word of God? If "the man Christ Jesus" IS the Word of God, then you affirm that a divine person (the Word of God) can instantiate the human nature. I'm not asking you to say HOW a divine person can instantiate the human nature; nobody knows that. All I'm asking you to affirm is that the natures are united in the person of the Word of God. This talk of "union" is just misleading, and it's exactly the sort of wishy-washy language that Nestorius kept using. Is the union the same as the Word of God, or isn't it?

I entirely agree with you that natures don't mediate; persons do.

And yet in this case, the “person” is “the man” Christ Jesus. If person is a concrete instantiation of nature, then how does Prejean avoid ascribing personhood to “the man” (a concrete instantiation of human nature)?

I do ascribe personhood to Him, and I also affirm that He is the same person as the Word of God. The person instantiating the human nature is the divine Word of God. The Word of God unites the natures.

Also, I'd question your exegesis of the term "mediator" here. In context, it appears to have a "physical" meaning (in the sense of pertaining to physis, nature), affirming that there is a single person acting as a physical mediator between the two natures.

Question it all you like; but you'd be in error to do so. I affirm there is a single person acting as mediator; but “nature” is not what is in mind here so much as the need for man in his whole being to have a mediator before God.

I fail to see how that answers me. What could capture the need of man's whole being more than the human nature?

You seem to be thinking in terms of Christ talking to Himself ("for us"), and that seems logically implausible. I don't see this passage as pertaining to his intercessory (human) role as high priest.

What? Why would you assume that on my view Christ must be talking to himself in this passage? By mere virtue of his humanity? Christ is obviously exempt from the need for mediation because he is the mediator. And he is the mediator precisely because he is both man and God. Paul is obviously referring to the rest of mankind, of which Christ became the “source of eternal life to all who obey” by virtue of that suffering and sacrifice (Heb 5:7-9), which actions make him our “high priest” by definition (Heb 5:10). If “mediator” in this passage does not refer to his intercessory work, what can it mean? Even the context makes intercession clear. Vv. 1-2, “I urge that prayers, requests, and intercessions be made for kings and all in authority”; v. 3, “God our Savior”; v. 4, “who wants all men to be saved”; v. 6, “gave Himself as a ransom for all men.”

I took you to be implying that Christ as "the man Christ Jesus" was interceding before God in His human capacity, and it seems relatively obvious to me that His mediation is theandric, involving both divine and human action. It seems from what you are saying here that you are not, so I apologize for the misreading.

I wrote: Atonement is possible only if one who is fully man, through perfect obedience to God, can reverse the sin brought into the world by the “man” (viz., Adam) who, using his human soul, spirit, will, intellect, etc., rebelled against God.

Prejean responded:
The idea that perfect obedience can save is Pelagian. Not even perfect obedience can earn union with God; that is beyond the capability of human nature, even for Adam, even for Christ.

Try reading Romans and Hebrews a few times and you will be quickly cured of your biblical illiteracy on this point:For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. (Heb 2:10) . . . In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. (Heb 5:7-10)But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. . . . For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. (Rom 5:12-21)

I suggest you put down your Catholic Theology book and immerse yourself in Scripture.

Oddly enough, those are exactly the passages that I would point to in support of the opposite conclusion. In particular, Romans 5 seems to militate rather strongly against the idea that perfect obedience suffices to give salvation. Certainly, disobedience prevents salvation, and certainly, Christ's life is the form of our salvation and reception of grace. But to think that it was the human effort of obedience, apart from God's grace, that elevates man to union with God strikes me as badly wrong-headed, if not outright Judaizing. We need to be saved from our condition of being deprived of grace, but we also need to live the acceptance of that grace in the pattern of Christ's life in order to reach our supernatural end.

I asked: Do you believe Jesus was fully human; that is to say, fully a man? Was he 100% man?

Prejean responded:
Yes, He was a person possessing the full human nature.

That’s not what I asked. What I asked is whether a concrete instantiation of rational human nature (using Prejean's conceded definition of "person") can be a “man” apart from being a human person? Prejean's answers to my later questions reveal that he believes the phrase “human person” legitimately describes an instantiation of human nature. If that’s the case, then he's dancing on this point—and I think he knows it.

In point of fact, that isn't what you asked. You asked if He was fully human, fully a man, 100% man, and I say "yes" to all of those questions, because that is simply asking whether He instantiates the human nature. The question of whether someone can be a man apart from being a "human person" is entirely separate, and of course I do believe this, as I said above. There's no "dancing" here. Being a "man" means "having the human nature," and being a "human person" means "deriving one's existence from the instantiation of the human nature." Christ is a man, not a human person.

I asked: Was there any part of humanity that was not “shared” by Jesus via the incarnation? In other words, if one attribute of humanity is “personhood” (and whatever that entails on your view), did Jesus assume humanity on that level?

Prejean responded:
"Personhood" is not an attribute of humanity by definition.”

Says who? Plato or Yahweh? But even by his own definition, an instantiation of rational nature is a person; and so, by that definition, the instantiation of rational human nature must be considered a human person. Yet here Prejean is arguing that I can be an instantiation of humanity without being a person? How?

"Personhood" is obviously not an attribute of humanity, because that is identical to saying that humanity must necessarily exist, which is obviously not the case. I'm not saying that you can be an instantiation of humanity without being a person; I'm saying that a person can instantiate humanity without being a human person. Namely, I'm saying that a divine person, which is to say a person who derives His existence from being divine, can instantiate with human nature. Or, to put in succinctly, Jesus Christ is the Word of God.

"Personhood" refers to concrete individual existence of any rational nature.

I will ask the question again: Did Christ have a rational human nous (mind, intellect)? Was it a concrete individual instance of it? If so, how does Prejean avoid the notion of “human person”?

And I will say again: the adjectives put in front of "person" do not conventionally refer to the nature instantiated by that person, but to the instantiation of the nature by which that person exists.

Existence is not an attribute of nature for any nature except the divine nature. The divine nature necessarily exists; nothing else does.

I agree with this point. But we’ll see whether Prejean can maintain it in light of his view.

I certainly believe so.

I wrote: If the answer #2a is yes (and/or 2b no), what is included in your definition of “person” that was unimpacted by sin and does not therefore need to be redeemed in the atonement?

Prejean responded:

This is what I mean by confusing "nature" with "person." Persons are only impacted by personal sin; the "except sin" qualification in Hebr. 4 means that Christ has no personal contact with sin. "Original sin" refers to being born in a condition of privation, absent God's grace, which is solely situational and accidental, not an effect of sin on the nature per se, so Christ does not have this property either.

Prejean has not only missed the point entirely, he has also misunderstood Scripture’s teaching regarding the effects of Adam’s sin to his progeny. He would be well advised not to confuse the error-filled, semi-Pelagian Roman theology of original sin with the Scriptural teaching about the sin nature. I’ll let this point slide here (though will take it up later) since he's already conceded that everything required for the existence of a "person" is part of his definition of "nature."

Of course, since I think there is no Scriptural teaching about the "sin nature" (indeed, I view it as a metaphysical absurdity) and since I have categorically denied Svendsen's assertion that person is part of nature or a category of nature, I don't think he's proved much.

Based on my answer to #3, these questions involve a category error. Person isn't an attribute of nature, so personal redemption is not a matter of the nature being redeemed. All faculties of nature are redeemed, but person is not a faculty of nature.

I will grant Prejean this point based on his definition of person.

Not sure why there's a different answer for 2a, but OK.

Sin is an act of the will (and particularly, the gnomic mode of exercising the will).

Biblically, that’s the definition of rebellion, but sin comprises much more than that. A person can sin in his actions, his plans, or merely in his unacted-upon thoughts and desires. Indeed, sin resides in us because we have a sin nature. Our sin nature is such that, according to Paul, “nothing good dwells in me” and “I am in bondage to sin.” That sin, according to Paul “dwells in me” to the point of exclaiming “wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death!” That’s why Prejean’s notion of original sin is anemic. We are radically impacted by sin in our entire beings, such that even the “heart is desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” That’s why it’s important to account for these things when speaking of the redemption provided by Christ. Again, whatever was not assumed by Christ was not redeemed. That includes the entire person of a man, not merely his attributes of nature considered separately.

First, plans, thoughts, and desires are movements of the will too. Second, you're reifying sin. Sin isn't a thing; there is no sin nature. On the other hand, this is an excellent description of the person who treats his own nature as autonomous, not requiring God's grace. It's a vicious cycle; our nature deprived of its supernatural end is a pathetic and feeble thing, and our efforts to the behave as if we are not in desperate need of grace, as if some works of our own nature could elevate us to God, only serve to reinforce how pathetic our efforts are. Note the Psalmist's affirmation of the incomprehensibility of sin, that the corruption of the heart is baseless and chaotic. To say that there is a principle of sin, a "sin nature," is to deny the fundamental senselessness of sin, and at the heart of the senselessness is the notion that our nature can somehow grasp God by its unaided operations. Christ is human, but He has no "sin nature."

Having said all that, if Prejean's definition of "person" is simply the bundling together of the attributes of rational nature, then I can understand why he might exempt this from the consequences of sin. But in that case, since it is enough to say that if all the attributes of nature are impacted by sin and must be assumed to be redeemed, then it adds nothing to the equation to say that the person is also impacted by sin.

With this, I can agree. There is no aspect of human life not beset by the consequences of sin and the deprivation of grace. Persons, as instantiations of natures, are afflicted by the consequences of sin on the nature.

Divine nature is absolutely simple, meaning there is no existence/essence composition (to use Augustine's term, "To be ... is to be a person"). Divine nature is necessarily existent, and we know by revelation that this necessary existence involves existing tri-personally. Divine persons, therefore, necessarily exist.

Via their nature, no disagreement there. But this does not help Prejean’s case. He’s awfully vague on this point, but as near as I can tell, Prejean defines “person” as a concrete instantiation of rational nature. In other words, “human nature” is a “pool” of related attributes—including things like intellect, wisdom, spirit—and “person” is a single metaphysical “embodiment” or “clothing,” as it were, of those attributes. “Person,” therefore, acts as a sort of invisible layer that combines and contains all these attributes in a single entity.

... with one important caveat: person is the source of those attributes' reality; it is not merely the collection of attributes. That was a common error in recent analytical philosophy; some good Thomists have worked diligently on correcting it.

Yet Prejean ends up abandoning this definition when he insists on referring to Christ as a “divine person with a human nature.” In every other case, instantiation of rational human nature, according to Prejean, is the very definition of "human person"; but in the case of Christ, Prejean conceives of "person" as something in addition to the instantiation of a rational human nature--indeed, the instantiation of rational human nature in the case of Christ is left hanging in the air! That instantiation of rational human nature ends up being nothing more than . . . human nature; whereas in every other case it is a person! He has already conceded that existence is part of “nature” (at least for the divine), not part of “person.” Hence, even if this “person” has “life in himself,” that is only by virtue of his divine nature, not by virtue of his person per se. It makes no sense to refer to someone as a “divine person” who also happens to instantiate humanity.

Svendsen has misunderstood me pretty seriously. "Person" is whatever instantiates a rational nature, no matter whether it takes its existence from instantiating that nature or not. Ordinarily, no nature necessarily has an instantiation; thus, a "human person" does not necessarily exist, not does an "angelic person." They are created. The divine nature necessarily exists, but it is wrong to say that the existence is part of the divine nature (which would break the divine nature into parts). Rather, the divine nature is necessarily instantiated tri-personally; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit necessarily exist and are necessarily God.

I've bolded the last statement because it not only makes sense to me but also strikes me as an essential confession to avoid Nestorianism. If Christ is anything other than a divine person who also happens to instantiate humanity, then He is not the Word of God, because the Word of God is a divine person. On the other hand, if the Word of God does not merely happen to instantiate the human nature (that is, accidentially) but instead essentially does so, then we have the human nature necessarily existing and the Word of God as necessarily Incarnate, which is obviously unacceptable as well. So I think that "a divine person who happens to instantiate the divine nature" is not a bad summary.

If “person” is the “wrapping” around nature, then it is evident that the person of Christ wraps around two natures—divine and human. And if person is defined as an instantiation of nature, and the human nature has been instantiated in Christ, then how can a reference to “human person” be avoided?

Because the person of Christ is the Word of God, and the Word of God does not derive His existence from being human. Since person refers to existence, it is improper to predicate "human person" of the Word of God.

That is not to say there are two persons in Christ—only that the single person of Christ is both human and divine. And in that case the most we can affirm is that Jesus Christ instantiates both a divine nature and a human nature; that is to say, he is a person who is both human and divine—which is what I have been affirming all along. To say that he is a “divine person with a human nature” is gratuitously to change the definition of “person” midstream for the sake of salvaging a position.

Certainly. The question is whether the person of Christ is constituted by the union, or whether the person of Christ is the Word of God. The reason we say "divine person" is to say that the existence of this person derives solely from instantiating the divine nature; the human nature is instantiated only accidentally, not essentially. If we say "human person," we imply that the person essentially instantiates the human nature; "divine person with a human nature" forecloses that.

I wrote: Poppycock! You were the one who raised the issue that my training included nothing in patristics, and used that as some sort of reason not to take my views seriously. I simply responded to something you wrote not only recently but dozens of times in the past on various boards. You either have a very short memory, or you are a liar.

Prejean responded:
which is a tu quoque response of the fallacious sort. I challenged your qualifications; I did not present my qualifications as any part of my basis for challenging your qualifications. You switched the issue from your qualifications to my qualifications, which was completely irrelevant to your own. It was only in response to the irrelevant question of my qualifications that I raised my own.

That’s absurd. Prejean states this as though the tu quoque fallacy is specially designed for those who happen to get in their ad hominem first, in a sort of “na, na, na, na, na . . . I beat you to the punch with an ad hominem and you are now disallowed to make the same point back.” See here for a fuller explanation of why Prejean’s appeal to tu quoque is illegitimate. The reason it is illegitimate in this case is that I did not concede I am unqualified to write on these issues. Far from it; what I said was that I have training in related disciples, and Prejean does not. That is not tu quoque. Moreover, Prejean states “I did not present my qualifications as any part of my basis for challenging your qualifications,” but that is not what I objected to. My objection was rather that Prejean runs around the internet asserting that all who disagree with him are unqualified to speak on the issue precisely because they have no training in patristics. It is not fallacious to point out the obvious; namely, that Prejean himself is even less qualified by virtue of the fact that he not only has no training in patristics, but not even in a related field. But I did not raise this as something that I believe is necessary—I raised it as something that Prejean apparently thinks is necessary. I don’t believe one must possess formal training in patristics to read historical documents. But Prejean clearly believes that is necessary for everyone else but him. I was merely pointing out Prejean’s inconsistency with his own (not my) stated standard. He clearly does not like it that his inconsistency has been exposed, so he illegitimately resorts to tu quoque.

Except that if you reread my original post on Nestorianism, my point wasn't that he was unqualified, but he was unqualified and at odds with those who were. Lack of qualifications aren't a problem in and of themselves; lack of qualifications and blithe dismissal of the relevant scholarship is.

Continuing the string of disappointment

Eric Svendsen once again failed to expend any effort at trying to understand what I am saying, which is a shame given that his earlier questions would have been valuable to him had he bothered to listen to them. His response does point to some common mistakes that Protestants make, and it reminds me that I should probably devote a bit of time to explaining the relationship between nature and dynamis, and the two uses to which that term is put. But for the nonce, even though it is now evident it will do no good for Svendsen, I am obliged to respond for the sake of completeness of this context. I debated over whether trying to summarize the major points, but I've so often found that repetition and point-by-point answers are the only way to give a sufficiently comprehensive response that I will do so once again. I've been accused of lying, so I'll unfortunately have to respond to that spurious charge as well.

I'll go in reverse order to Svendsen's posts (I was hoping the first response would forestall the mistakes in the second, but that didn't turn out to be the case). Svendsen's words are red; my earlier words are blue; my present responses are in black.

In response to Svendsen's post with a ridiculous title:

My timing is dictated by responsibilities I have—not by the timing of Prejean’s rants.

Absent any way of knowing otherwise, I'll take him at his word for this.

“Eric the Yellow”? I realize Prejean is young; but I didn’t know he was twelve. Oh, that’s right; he’s now a sycophant of Art “Jack Chick” Sippo, and takes his cue from him.

It was Dave Armstrong's term to describe a long and well-documented pattern of behavior.

And Prejean flatters himself. He assumes I have a much higher regard for what he does and thinks than I actually do. In fact, I care very little whether Prejean was paying attention or not.

I have no idea why your "regard" has anything to do with it. You gave a response to me at an oddly late moment after having charged into a conversation with someone else with a remark about me. If you don't care, then you have an odd way of showing it. I freely confess that I do care about your backward views, in light of the available scholarship, because they are being used to justify irrational prejudices against Catholics, and I find the idea that citizens of 21st century America can believe such things disturbing. But I am beginning to perceive that your responses are at the level of emotion and not reason, so I am now dubious about whether there is any serious danger of mistake here. There is relatively little I can do for people who aren't going to think things through with sufficient critical detachment to avoid being ruled by emotion.

His voice in this—or in anything for that matter—is so minor, it is barely worth responding to. There are not many who even read his blog; and that’s not just my opinion, it is a technical observation. In fact, good luck finding Prejean’s blog if you don’t already have it bookmarked. Even a Google search on the name of the blog or the name of the author--or both--will yield only third-party references to it, which means it simply does not draw much traffic.

... which is a very good argument for why I am not doing this in order to play to the audience. I do it for the sake of correctness and accuracy. The Internet is a medium with little safeguard for truth or accountability, and I see myself as doing nothing but making a very slight contribution to that goal. In the grand scheme of things, the blogosphere is quite insignificant in terms of the lasting contribution to human knowledge; it is simply an attempt for me to do the best I can within my own tiny sphere. But rational accountability is of no use for people who aren't acting rationally in the first place, so there may be little to do here anyway.

And why exactly would someone lose credibility for [calling me an idiot]? Again, Prejean assumes here that I have a higher view of him than I actually do.

It doesn't matter what your view is; it matters what a reasonable and objective view of the matter would suggest. A reasonable and objective view of the situation militates strongly against my idiocy. Moreover, it is directly contrary to your own caricature of me as a disingenuous manipulator.

Again, not necessarily. Someone as disingenuous as Prejean knows that if he admits defeat, his “catholic cause” goes out the window. His M.O. is to engage in sophistry and spin the dialogue in his favor. Nothing particularly “senseless” about that, particularly when we’re dealing with someone who has demonstrated a propensity to lie.

I've cheerfully admitted error many a time without thinking that the "Catholic cause" hinged on it, and I can't even imagine having such a egomanical view of the world as to think so, so Svendsen is simply making things up. In fact, I think we learn exactly where Svendsen's commitment to the truth is. I have never once been disingenuous, sophistic, or dishonest with him, much less "demonstrated a propensity to lie."

I have no doubt that Svendsen believes what he is saying, which is the best evidence that Svendsen is behaving completely irrationally with respect to me. I have no idea what emotional motivation that comes into play here, as contrasted with James White, who is obviously trying to please his father (although this means he has little relevance for Catholics who have no concern for pleasing his father) Certainly, I think there is a clue in Svendsen referring to his father and siblings as his "earthly family" on the occasion of his mother's funeral, but apart from that, I have no information about the emotional drive that produces this behavior. All I can say is that he isn't thinking clearly when it comes to Catholicism.

That’s ridiculous. Of course such a person would. It would be idiotic not to, since anyone with a search engine could find the dialogue on my blog (unlike Prejean’s blog). And then such a person would engage in sophistry and spin to make it look like he is right. In fact, I’ll prove it. Just read how Prejean spins his backpedaling incident. It is indisputable that Prejean originally thought Nestorius taught Christ was two persons; and then when confronted with the evidence of patristic scholars pretended he always knew Nestorius’s view had been misunderstood.

Apart from this being completely senseless (since it would simply provoke someone to do the search whether I linked it or not, and if I were really conniving, I would almost certainly rather take the chance that they wouldn't search), there is also the fact that there are several people who could testify (and in the case of Perry Robinson, have testified) to the fact that I knew otherwise well before I brought this issue up with Svendsen. When you start calling delusional beliefs that aren't even reasonably possible "indisputable," there's a strong indication that you simply aren't thinking, but reacting on pure emotion.

I'm glad that I'm not forced to believe crazy things about my opponents in order to convince myself that I'm not wrong. What I can't understand is why anyone would believe someone who is spouting such insane things. I can't imagine that Svendsen ever did business presuming that every Catholic with whom he did business was dishonest, but like I said, on the Internet, you can be nuts without accountability.

Just because Prejean has deceived himself into thinking he can explain [the hypostatic union], does not make it so.

I have never purported to explain the mechanism of the hypostatic union, but I certainly don't think there is any doubt about what is being affirmed. More on this will follow.

[Scripture]'s the only divine authority that functions as common ground in this discussion; hence, it’s the only divine authority that is worth anything in this discussion. Even the councils themselves do not claim to have additional revelation—rather, they work with their understanding of Scripture. Prejean loses this point.

But I don't accept that Scripture serves as a divine authority in the way that Svendsen does, so this is question-begging. Absent an argument, Svendsen's assertion is gratuitous.

“Little surprise that a Calvinist says this; my brand spanking new copy of Helm's John Calvin's Ideas says much the same thing. Calvin doesn't consider the communicatio idiomatum to refer to anything real, which is Nestorianism.”

Here’s another example of Prejean’s “dazzling” logic at work. And it’s the same “logic” that would allow me to conclude that since Prejean does not recognize the apostles can act as a rule of faith, then he doesn’t believe they are real people. And since he doesn’t believe they are real people, he’s a Docetist. Therefore, Roman Catholicism is Docetic. See how easy that was?

I have no reason to think that Helm is wrong, while you have no good reason to charge me with docetism, so it's not really the same situation.

Prejean's underlying humanistic rationalism betrays him. If he can’t explain it, it’s not real.

I don't know why affirming basic principles of logic is "humanistic." If it is, then color me a proud humanist, because I don't think that Christianity is senseless.

He knows exactly how God is one and three at the same time. Prejean can explain that. He knows exactly how God can have no beginning—that there was never an instant when God had a first thought. He knows the mechanics of how God can be all places at all times. Prejean can explain perfectly how the hypostatic union works. He has penetrating insight into just how all those things came together.

No, I don't know how it is, but I know what I am affirming. This is a distinction that has always been held, and indeed, it is one that must be affirmed for Christianity to even be reasonably defensible.

And he can do all this without Scripture!

On the contrary, it is because of Scripture that I am even able to affirm what I can. Otherwise, I would be stuck with sheer negations on account of the infinite creature/creator divide.

Prejean’s completely comprehensible God is, unfortunately, nothing more than an idol made in his own image. This is the same rationale Jehovah's Witnesses use to deny the Trinity.

Except that I have years worth of posts maintaining that God is not completely comprehensible. Certainly, JWs try to project limited human concepts onto God, but Svendsen does the same, just without any consistency. I, on the other hand, have a coherent concept of Christian apophaticism.

No, he doesn’t; He wants agreement for one purpose only—so that he can push a Marian agenda.

Again, this is just crazy. Svendsen has just made this up with no evidence or reasonable basis, just like the accusations of dishonesty and just like the paranoid conspiracy theory where I just repeat arguments that I know have been beaten. This isn't the real world; it's la-la land.

The entire dialogue began as an informal discussion on the title “mother of God,” and the Christology of the fifth century was a side point (introduced by Prejean to bolster his argument) that eventually took center stage. Prejean has either forgotten the original discussion that prompted my series, or (more likely) he is a liar.

Again with the crazy accusations of dishonesty. In fact, this was exactly where Svendsen's detachment from reality began. I'm sure that in Svendsen's mind, this is what was going on when Kevin Johnson happened to point out that the Reformers hadn't seen any need to deny perfectly orthodox forms of veneration for Mary, including the term "Mother of God," so Svendsen's anti-Mariology was entirely unnecessary, motivated only by the aforementioned irrational antipathy toward Catholicism. I pointed out at the time that Svendsen justified his hostility to the term "Mother of God" based on the same mistake that produced both Arianism and Nestorianism, so his opinion was of no consequence. Whether the discussion was "informal" or not, Svendsen's critique of the use of the term "Mother of God" was based on a logical error. I had pointed out that his criticism of the term was based on the confusion of person of nature before I even got involved in that discussion, and I pointed out to Svendsen in the update to my first response to him that this was the basis for what I had said and in response to Svendsen's express request I laid out exactly what I considered to be the basis for that argument. For Svendsen now to claim that the discussion wasn't about what he wanted it to be is simply incredible. If he was interested in answering my charge, then it would have to have been about whether he had confused nature and person. If anything, Svendsen took the dialogue on a completely ridiculous course when he took off on the subject of whether Nestorius was consciously Nestorian, which had absolutely nothing to do with whether Svendsen had logically failed to distinguish person and nature in the same way as Arianism and Nestorianism (obviously referring to the beliefs historically condemned by the Ecumenical Councils, given my invocation of the Fifth Ecumenical Council in my original post before the "Mother of God" discussion ever started).

Unanimously? So, there are no other patristic scholars except the seven Prejean mentions above? Here again we are treated to Prejeans idea of “scholarship.”

Considering I recited the authors of the major Cyrillian studies of the last couple of decades, I consider the sample representative. Note that Svendsen cites no one who actually disagreed with them regarding the point I raised.

“It's perfectly fine to use the term [Mother of God] in an unqualified way; it is only if qualified that it becomes heterodox (Mary is the Mother of God as God). If Christ is truly a single divine subject, then Mother of God is the norm, and the openly heterodox statement would be "mother of a man." This is yet another demonstration of Svendsen's ignorance of the theological use of this term (his laughable statements about meter theou being the only worse howlers).

Except, of course, that the qualifier for theotokos in Chalcedon is “as regards his humanity”—the very thing Prejean has just claimed is “heterodox.”

On the contrary, the fact that Chalcedon used the qualifier proves my point. You don't see the Chalcedonian Fathers saying "theotokos of the man Christ"; rather, they say "theotokos as regards his humanity."

And once again, Cyril’s mater theou was not used in the proclamations; so, no, theotokos means “God bearer,” not “mother of God.”

But this also supports my point. In point of fact, "mother of God" like "Son of God" could be given a purely relational, rather than a natural, significance (this is why homoousios was used as an amplification of Son of God against the Arians, who maintained that "Son of God" could be a relational term). Theotokos was therefore chosen to be an even stronger term to show that the Word of God has a natural relationship with His Blessed Mother. Svendsen has proved a point against his own position here; he conceded that the Council used the stronger term rather than the weaker term. He appears to be relying on Brown's gaffe in this regard. I have no idea why Brown would have made the mistake of thinking that meter theou was somehow stronger than theotokos, but Brown has no source for his claim (although it sounds like the sort of dated argument that Harnack or Seeberg would make). But everyone I have read who examined the issue comes to the opposite conclusion.

Philosophy classes were a required part of my program. One now needs an advanced degree in philosophy to know about Aristotle and Plato?

Well, not knowing that they had different concepts of intelligibility and nous, and that this was at the heart of a major disagreement between them, certainly doesn't help the case. I don't think it requires an advanced degree, but neither do I think that taking a couple of philosophy classes means that you actually know anything about them. Again, it's not the qualifications in themselves, but the lack of qualifications combined with saying things contrary to what is considered routine in the scholarship, which is exactly what I said in my first post to Svendsen.

To use Prejan’s own logic, since he has absolutely no training in patristics or any related discipline, what makes him qualified at all to speak on any of this?

Because I'm well-read, and because I'm not claiming my own authority (anyone can check my sources easily enough).

Now to the point; tools are useful only if those tools are the right tools. I can’t drive a nail with a screwdriver. I can’t rightly loosen a bolt with a hacksaw. Aristotelian categories are out of place when attempting to explain what has not been revealed to anyone.

And as I said, there's a difference between the how and the what of an Incarnation. If I were trying to explain the former, that would be a problem. Trying to affirm the latter is simply coherent orthodoxy, and if Aristotelian concepts are useful for that affirmation, then there is nothing wrong with them.

Prejean just continues to dig himself deeper and deeper into heresy. Here is why Prejean’s open rejection of Scripture in these matters is so dangerous. Notice how his thinking compares to that of the Great Apostle:

“For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, in order that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience that He might show mercy to all. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” (Rom 11:30-36)

Paul himself could not explain God’s dealings with man, that he would “shut up all men in disobedience” just so he could “show mercy to all.” Instead, he throws his hands in the air and exclaims, “Your judgments are unsearchable and your ways unfathomable!” According to Paul, “NO ONE has known the mind of the Lord.” Prejean, of course, just thinks Paul’s lack of philosophical explanation is “nonsense.” Paul admits he does not know whether he was “in the body or out of the body” when he was caught up to the third heaven (2 Cor 12). Prejean, of course, can explain all of that, and thinks Paul’s explanation of “unknowability” is mere “nonsense” and a “philosophical copout.”

No, I simply draw the entirely pedestrian distinction between the how (which is incomprehensible) and the what (which is rationally explicable). Svendsen simply appeals to this whenever he says anything incoherent to avoid explaining why he is affirming nonsense. In other words, he's using God's incomprehensibility to avoid the critical thinking required to confront the emotional and irrational judgments he is making here.

And just to show that the early church followed this approach to that which had not been revealed, here is what Cyril of Jerusalem (the “good” Cyril) had to say about the matter:

“But if the Lord permit, I will set it forth, according to my powers, with demonstration from the Scriptures. For when we are dealing with the divine and holy mysteries of the faith, we must not deliver anything whatsoever, without the sacred Scriptures, nor let ourselves be misled by mere probability, or by marshalling of arguments. And do not simply credit me, when I tell you these things, unless you get proof from the Holy Scriptures of the things set forth by me. For this salvation of ours by faith is not by sophistical use of words, but by proof from the sacred Scriptures (Catechetical Lectures, Lecture IV, Art. 17). . . . For these articles of our faith were not composed out of human opinion, but are the principle points collected out of the whole of Scripture to complete a single doctrinal formulation of the faith” (Ibid., Lecture V, Art. 12). . . . Let us be content with this knowledge [taken from Scripture] and not busy ourselves with questions about the divine nature or hypostasis. I would have spoken of that had it been contained in Scripture. Let us not venture where Scripture does not lead, for it suffices for our salvation to know that there is Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit [Ibid., Lecture XVI, Art. 24]. . . . But the Holy Spirit himself has not spoken in the Scriptures about the Son’s generation from the Father. Why then busy yourself over something that the Holy Spirit has not expressed in the Scriptures? You do not know all the Scriptures, and yet must get to know what is not in the Scriptures? (Ibid., Lecture XI, Art. 12).

The irony of Svendsen affirming someone who argued in favor of the term "theotokos" (Ibid., Lecture X, art. 19) as "the good Cyril" is delightful, but St. Cyril says nothing in the 4th and 5th lectures other than what I have said numerous times about the interpretation of Scriptures according to the rule of faith. If anything, St. Cyril's argument would utterly reject Svendsen's position that someone who denies the holy mysteries (the Sacraments) would be competent to exegete Scripture correctly (and again, citing someone with such a strong sacramental realism as "the good Cyril" is too funny). St. Cyril's comments in the 11th and 16th lectures say exactly what I said: we affirm the distinction between nature and person, between begetting and proceeding, without knowing the actual details of these things. Svendsen's citation of St. Cyril displays all his usual incompetence in handling the writings of the Fathers; anyone with a cursory knowledge of patristic scholarship would recognize the distinction immediately.

According to Prejean, Cyril is just a blithering idiot.

The more apt statement would be "According to Cyril, Svendsen is just a blithering idiot," but who's counting?

Who denies that Christ is a single subject? Does Prejean imagine this is what I’m talking about when I say that the mechanics of how the union of God and man in Christ takes place is not something Scripture addresses? Even the Godhead is addressed as a single subject—that doesn’t explain the complexity of the Trinity. Prejean’s reticence in venturing into Scripture is now beginning to make a lot more sense.

Whether it is or it isn't, the entire debate over Nestorianism was whether it was coherent to say that any form of union other than natural union, union in which the very person of the Word of God was the basis of the union, inherently required denial of the single personhood of Christ. Again, the question is not the how of the union, but the what. Plenty of Nestorians asserted a union of operation that was so close that Jesus and the Word of God were effectively one person, but this logically entailed two real persons, not a single real person. This is because operations are functions of nature and not person, so no operation can be constitutive of a union between natures; they can't make two natures part of the same subject. If you don't affirm the personal union, then it is incoherent to say "Jesus is God." And as far as the Godhead being referred to as a "single subject," I have no indication that Svendsen is using the term in the technical sense.

Well, I think we all know that Prejean’s view of scriptural authority doesn’t even require a Bible. He rejects the apostles’ teachings and writings, and has given them the same status as heretical religious books like the Quran and the Book of Mormon.

I'll do more explaining on this subject later, but this is another distinction Svendsen confuses: the distinction between nature and supernature.

And Prejean’s continued mention of a “single-subject Christology,” as though own view of Christ is something other than that, is nothing less than misrepresentation of my view.

Nestorius affirmed single-subject Christology in a nominal way as well, but it was irreconcilable with his notion of the personhood being constituted by a close union between two real entities. That confuses nature (operation) with person.

That’s not even the point. We all know that these things aren’t taught in Scripture—which is why Prejean insists on appealing to the title theototos. If we can agree that Mary is “mother of God,” then we cannot deny the privileges that attend that title (so goes the reasoning). It’s not strange at all that Prejean would focus on this issue to advance a larger agenda for Mary. It’s something that’s done all the time in RC pop-apologetics.

So goes whose reasoning? It certainly isn't mine, and given Svendsen's paranoia about me, I find it difficult to give credence to his opinion that it happens "all the time" even with other Catholics. The opponents addressed in the Apollinarimonophysitism article certainly weren't, and neither was Kevin Johnson in the original thread that sparked this whole debacle.

No it’s not the same old thing. The Augustinian quotes I supplied show that Augustine spoke of Mary’s motherhood only in terms of his humanity, and denied it involved his divinity. That’s just what is at issue here in the proper understanding of theotokos.

But that is MY understanding as well. What Svendsen appears completely incapable of understanding is that the term "Mother of God" applies to person and not nature. Augustine is talking about nature and not person. This isn't a ridiculously complex issue of philosophy; it simply requires saying that one thing is not the other thing.

I quoted Augustine:

At that time, therefore, when about to engage in divine acts, He repelled, as one unknown, her who was the mother, not of His divinity, but of His [human] infirmity" (Tract. in Ioannem CXIX, 1)

Prejean responded:“And when we speak with the qualification of speaking about natures, this is entirely routine. Since Svendsen evidently can't distinguish between nature and person (subject), I can see why this is confusing.”

There’s nothing even remotely present in this passage that speaks of Prejean’s distinction between “nature” and “person.” Yes, of course he’s referring to nature—but for Augustine, that’s the only meaningful way to express that union. All Augustine is interested in affirming is that Mary can be viewed as “mother of Jesus” only by virtue of his humanity, and NOT by virtue of his divinity. Hence, the title “mother of God” would simply be disallowed by Augustine in any context.

This is so bizarre that I wonder how Svendsen could even have thought it made sense. Svendsen admits that Augustine is referring to nature in discussing humanity and divinity. But he appears to be saying that he is incapable of distinguishing between natures and union between natures (i.e., person, to which the term "Mother of God" applies). Not only is there absolutely no evidence of this in the text, but it is so blatantly inconsistent with Augustine's entire corpus, including De Trinitate as the most obvious example, that it is unthinkable that Svendsen could possibly have presented this as a serious argument. Again, when it comes to Catholicism, Svendsen routinely displays this sort of emotional reaction against any sort of rational thinking. This is the sort of gross logical error that no one thinking straight would ever make. Svendsen continues after a similar quote...

“According as He was God, he had no mother.” Prejean somehow interprets this as evidence that Augustine would have given full assent to the title “mother of God.” I’ll let the reader decide for himself whether that’s even a reasonable option.

Note Svendsen's logic going off the beam again. Svendsen was the one using this as evidence that Augustine would have denied the title "Mother of God." I am simply pointing out that there is nothing in these quotes even to suggest that. Svendsen is the one who has to maintain that Augustine can't distinguish nature and person for his argument to stick, and these quotes fail to do that (and manifold other sources could be cited to show that he did not). Unless Augustine accepts Svendsen's confusion of person and nature, Svendsen has proved nothing.

Anti-intellectual? No. Careful to make a distinction between the paradigm of the New Testament writers and the paradigm of the fifth-century writers? Yes. I’ll say this once again. Aristotelian categories are woefully inadequate to explain Scripture because they are based on different paradigms. To engage in such an activity would be equivalent to using postmodern metanarratives to accurately explain propositional truth; or to use a screwdriver to hammer a nail.

I find the idea of someone who uses the term "paradigm" in this way right before criticizing "postmodern metanarratives" amusing, but I must deny that metaphysical reality is a matter of "paradigms." Aristotelian concepts describe reality, and if the reality being described is identical in Scripture times and the present day, then there is no reason to think that an Aristotelian articulation of this reality is in any way inferior.

This, again, just demonstrates Prejean’s ignorance of Scripture. “Biblically constrained” just means the Bible doesn’t address it, or addresses it in a specific but limited way. Why is that ridiculous? Is Prejean under the impression that Scripture addresses every conceivable question that might come up?

No. I think it's ridiculous to think that topics not addressed explicitly by the authors of Scripture cannot be the subject of dogma or that only concepts of the 1st century authors can be used to describe the same reality that Scripture describes.

And that doesn’t at all imply Scripture is illogical, or that we cannot arrive at a systematic theology of God.

Nor does it imply that Scripture alone is adequate to do so.

What is does imply is that any systematic theology must not transgress or “run ahead of” what Scripture actually affirms—because at that point it is no longer the use of logic that is at play, but logical fallacies.

First, this would only prove that the method of extracting dogma from Scripture is not strictly deductive, but that is relatively obvious to anyone who rejects the formal sufficiency of Scripture, and it does not show either logical fallacy or lack of logic (induction being a form of logic as well). Following that point, this is merely an assertion of the formal sufficiency of Scripture, which begs the question as between the Protestant and Catholic views of Scriptural authority.

As an example, I can affirm that my dog has dark eyes, and that his coat is dark. If that’s all the information I provide, Prejean has no right to conclude that my dog’s eyes and coat are black. They may be; but no logic is going to figure that out. There are any number of options that could fall under the category of “dark” (brown, almond, chocolate, etc.) and it’s nothing but pure speculation to assume dark = black. Worse, it’s sophistry of the worst kind to try to claim you really are able to deduce that dark = black.

On the other hand, if I were claiming that I were inducing the conclusion from certain consistent facts (say, the presence of black canine fur around a dog bowl in Svendsen's house), then one certainly wouldn't claim that it was "sophistry of the worst kind" to arrive inductively at the conclusion that Svendsen had a black dog. I didn't view Svendsen as a Humean skeptic, but he appears to be taking the view that nothing can be known inductively.

That’s just what Prejean is attempting to do in terms of figuring out something about the God-Man that has not been divinely revealed.

"Has not been divinely revealed" begs the question, since I believe that it is.

Human categories of logic cannot explain how God is both three and one, how God can have no beginning, how God is at all times everywhere present, what heaven looks like, what the makeup of the resurrection body is—and yes, how the union of God and man takes place in Christ. If Prejean doesn’t accept these categories, let him explain the “mystery” of the mass in logical terms—or is that no longer a mystery to Prejean? My goodness, even Trent recognizes this concept: “If any one say that in Divine Revelation there are contained no mysteries properly so called, but that through reason rightly developed all the dogmas of faith can be understood and demonstrated from natural principles: let him be anathema” (Sess. III, Canons, 4. De fide et Ratione, 1). Is Prejean now beyond Trent?

All of this should have clued Svendsen in to the fact that he didn't understand what I was saying. The fact that he didn't pick it up once again says more about Svendsen than me.

So, according to Prejean, no one could understand scriptural concepts of God until they were defined in the fifth century. Not that Prejean has any idea what the “truth of Scripture” is. But, here again is that “contemptuous” Trent: “If any one say that in Divine Revelation there are contained no mysteries properly so called, but that through reason rightly developed all the dogmas of faith can be understood and demonstrated from natural principles: let him be anathema.” To Prejean, this is a “philosophical copout.”

The citation from Trent is inapposite; it isn't a "philosophical copout" because it presupposes a coherent concept of what can and cannot be known by natural reason. But the very idea that Trent formalized dogma presumes that there are true dogmas not known formally in earlier times. And again, I see nothing all that troublesome about 1st century Christians not knowing things that deal with concepts and problems appearing long after they went on to their reward. It would be anachronistic to think that they did.

Apparently Prejean has no idea that someone can “write plainly” about an incomprehensible subject. “In the beginning was the word; and the word was with God, and the word was God. . . . and the word became flesh and dwelt among us” is plainly written. From this we know that the Word was God from the beginning and that he became man. But the plainly written words do not venture into how that occurred. It is the latter that the councils tried to explain, and they did so in convoluted ways because they were not content with the simplicity of Scripture.

This is nonsense; as a historical matter, the Fathers made it abundantly clear not only that they did not claim to explain "how that occurred" but also that they could not explain "how that occurred." Cyril of Jerusalem's statement above regarding the affirmation of the eternal begetting along with the impossibility of explaining it is a perfect example. Indeed, the Councils were deployed against those who considered the Scriptural formations inadequate based on their own novel methods of exegesis; they respond to problems in which the opponents reject the rule of faith. It was Nestorius who was not content with "the Word became flesh" but who felt the need to introduce a novel term, Christotokos, when Theotokos was both less confusing and more accurate.

Yes; every interpretation that conflicts with Prejean’s is always “shredded” by Prejeans selective use of scholarship.

Svendsen is welcome to pony up any recent scholarly responses to any works that I have cited.

The legal analogy was an analogy only, Prejean’s long sidebar notwithstanding. I assumed Prejean was conservative, not progressive, in his reading for the Constitution. My mistake. Prejean apparently believes there is merit in reading historical documents anachronistically, and that the Constitution supports for a woman’s right to kill her infant. So be it. That method of interpretation is not one that is acceptable in biblical exegesis.

As I said, Scalia and Thomas, both conservative Catholics themselves, employ the same sort of reasoning. Neither believe in the abomination of legalized abortion, and both have perfectly good legal arguments that do not rest on restricting legal exegesis to purely historical methods. It's not "anachronistic" to read laws as laws; they were written to be applied in the future without being strictly tied to authorial intent (indeed, such a thing does not exist in laws passed by a legislature, in which every person voting for the law may have slightly different reasons for doing so). It begs the question for Svendsen to say that the method is not acceptable, because my point is exactly that Scripture is also not the sort of document written for purely mundane historical interpretation.

Suffice it to say that it’s a good thing catholic lawyers are not in charge of Scripture.

Likewise for conservative Evangelicals.

Maybe it’s because Scripture is a historical document. Does Prejean also believe there was a special “Holy Ghost Greek” used for the New Testament?

No, but I do believe that it is a theandric document, a combination of nature and supernature, and I don't believe the natural component exhausts the supernatural meaning of Scripture, which is perceived only by the rule of faith.

That’s because there aren’t “different methods of exegesis”; only varying genre of literature that need to be exegeted, and the recognition of the idiosyncratic exegetical constraints for each genre. Does Prejean look for hidden or unlikely meanings in a legal document?

It's not a question of "hidden or unlikely meanings;" it's a question of the right method for determining what counts as a meaning. Authorial intent is not the exclusive method for determining what meaning a document has; legal exegesis of statutory and constitutional law is one method of giving meaning to a document independent of authorial intent. That's not merely a difference of genre, but a difference in exegetical method.

I doubt he’d win many cases that way (assuming he has even tried a case at all). I am no lawyer, but as a business owner I have to deal with them all the time. The law firm used by my company is very prestigious, and Prejean has no doubt heard of them. I have used them for contracts, partnership agreements, and, yes, even for patent issues (logos have to be patented).

I think you mean "trademark," although I suppose you could get a design patent on a logo. I'm not a litigator; I just support litigation. However, I certainly use techniques of statutory interpretation and caselaw to form legal arguments, and what I do in this regard is identical to what is done at any law firm anywhere in the country. I suspect that you might not be familiar with it because few clients ever get involved with the gritty details of litigation. Most clients have contact with contracts, and in those cases, the intent of the parties is often the controlling meaning as a matter of substantive law. That wouldn't be a particularly good example for the sort of reasoning I am discussing.

I can tell you with certainty that they do not suffer novel interpretations of law, or look for hidden meanings in documents. Things like intent, context, conditions, and wording are all important aspects when they are “exegeting” legal documents.

I suspect that many of the caselaw interpretations of statutes would be considered "novel" by Svendsen's method of historical exegesis, but lawyers certainly aren't allowed to ignore the caselaw simply because the decision isn't justified by Svendsen's standards for historical, authorial intent. All of what Svendsen cites is important; none of it is exclusive, and none of it is bound solely to authorial intent.

But, perhaps Prejean can get away with allegorical interpretations of legal documents in Louisiana—or perhaps that state allows him to “add to” a legal document that’s already been signed, sealed, and delivered.

I'm not licensed in Louisiana, so I couldn't tell you. Contract law is ordinarily a matter of intent as between parties, so historical interpretation of intent is ordinarily a perfectly good method for evaluating contracts. I would note, however, that courts often have to make decisions in cases where there is no clear "answer" as to what the intent of the parties was or would have been, meaning that even contract law isn't strictly limited to authorial intent.

In any case, whatever “method of exegesis” Prejean thinks he can get away with in legal circles doesn’t apply to biblical exegesis.

Begging the question again.

I didn’t say exegesis is not taught in law school. I said biblical exegesis is no different than the exegesis of any document of antiquity. If Prejean has training in Constitutional law, that is completely irrelevant to the point I made. He has no training in any discipline related to patristics or biblical exegesis. The latter two are related disciplines in that the patristics are early interpretations of Scripture. But I do not see how Prejean’s study in Constitutional law is relavant to any point I made. He himself admits that the two disciplines are different.

I maintain that the exegesis of Scripture as a normative document is more like the exegesis of normative documents (like statutory and constitutional law) than ordinary historical exegesis. In other words, I reject the assertion that legal exegesis is irrelevant to patristic and Scriptural interpretation. And for the record, the study of law often involves ancient documents too.

Here’s another example of Prejean’s dazzling logic. Getting a 3.9 GPA at Harvard means that you’ll always think correctly on every issue, and you’ll always be an expert at any unrelated discipline into which you venture. And that’s why all Harvard graduates who have earned a 3.9 GPA can be found fighting for Christian truth!

Unless you think that being right on every issue is necessary to be reasonable, then this is completely irrelevant. This was given in response to your statement that you could not presume that you were "dealing with a rational person."

Seems to me someone once said: “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.” Oh, silly me. I forgot; Prejean does not countenance Scripture.

So now I'm confused. Are you saying that God is irrational and that I am following with wisdom of the world contrary to God because I am rational, or are you saying that God is rational and still maintaining that I am irrational despite the evidence I cited above to the contrary? Again, it looks like you are simply using Scripture to excuse answering for what you say.

Yes, the entire legal world is on pins and needles waiting breathlessly for Jonathan Prejean to “keep up” with his skills. Let me disabuse Prejean of his fallacious thinking. Patristics is not my field of study, and only marginally an area of interest for me. I make no apologies for not “keeping up” with that field. But I can assure Prejean there is no slouching when it comes to my field; and my “20 years out of date” masters degree has been diligently “kept up” to date. Although I do not work in the field full-time, I do work as a tutor in NT for my alma mater. And just as a reminder to Prejean; whatever he may think about my credentials, my doctoral work not only passed examination by committee, but has been endorsed by major scholars in my field, and related fields—including church history. What, in contrast, has Prejean ever published that received comparable commendations?

What do I care about your accomplishments outside of patristics? The issue is whether you are keeping up with patristics and the skills that would be relevant to that field of study. I have made a case for being perfectly capable of reading the literature intelligently, for understanding the arguments that are made, and for keeping up with the literature, all of which you challenged my ability to do simply because I wasn't trained in what you consider exegesis. On the other hand, despite whatever training you may have had, you could be completely oblivious to the scholarship on Nestorius and Cyril, and indeed, you are by your own admission. That's the subject that is being discussed; everything else is irrelevant. So what I would like to understand is why someone who is not "keeping up with that field" is writing articles about "Apollinarimonophysitism" without bothering to get back up to speed on the subject?

And so, Prejean confirms his Docetism. “The word of God is living, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.”

On the contrary, I refuse to confuse the divine and human operations in Scripture. This is a property of the divine inspiration of Scripture, not the merely human aspects of its operation.

Well, then Prejean would just be plain wrong about that, because the fathers did indeed give primacy to the text of Scripture. Note Cyril of Jerusalem’s words cited above, for pete’s sake. How can someone who claims so much knowledge about the fathers be so ignorant of what they believed about Scripture? None of them—not one—would have relegated Scripture to the status of the Quran or the Book of Mormon as Prejean has done. Prejean remains a biblical heretic.

The notion that the Scripture could be read truly without the rule of faith to discern its spiritual content was not one that any of the Fathers held. They certainly didn't believe that the mundane historical content of Scripture exhausted its meaning. Indeed, "for Pete's sake," look at Cyril's statements about "the divine and holy mysteries." What Svendsen is doing is exactly what Cyril condemns: trying to justify the Christian faith by some mundane method rather than the divine inspiration of the Scriptures. It's quite clear from how Cyril describes the operation of the Spirit, but Svendsen evidently can't be bothered to read the lectures from which he is snipping quotes. And absent this divine operation of the Spirit, the Scriptures ARE just another mundane book like the ones I cited. Certainly, being able to read the Scriptures through mundane means didn't make them any more valuable for the Arians and Nestorians.

Prejean has said nothing to clear him of the charge that he is, in fact, a biblical heretic by virtue of his blatant disregard for the teaching of the Apostles.

I don't disregard the teaching of the Apostles. I simply don't confuse the divine operation in the Apostles with the human operation. There is more to Scripture than the historical intent of the Apostles.

More Prejean lies. I never said Christ is not a single subject. I said that we cannot explain how the union of God and man took place, but that we must affirm his full deity as well as his full humanity, and that anything beyond that is mere speculation.

The only teaching I have been arguing for from Ephesus and Chalcedon is a single subject, so either you were saying that Chalcedon "ran ahead" of the Apostles in teaching a single subject or you are simply so baffled about what it taught that you think it was teaching something beyond what it did teach. But what you said here doesn't exonerate you from the charge that you deny the single subject, because explaining how isn't required in order to affirm what kind of union between the natures exists. Is this union constituted by the person of the Word of God, or isn't it?

Not true; theotokos was intended to convey that Christ was deity even in the womb.

Of course it's true; that is a necessary condition of single-subject Christology.

I’ll take my chances and stick with the Scriptures on this one. If Prejean wants to boast of his brilliant intellect before God and explain to God in the judgment that he had Him all figured out and had no need of biblical constraints in this, more power to him.

Given that I don't think God placed Biblical restraints on knowledge (indeed, it strikes me as a contradiction in terms), I don't think the fact that I had no need of them. Indeed, I think there are plenty of natural limitations on my "brilliant intellect" that more than prevent me from having God "all figured out," so I can't imagine why He would be so threatened by my mind that He would need to constrain it.

Necessary, eh? Then I guess Christianity just did not exist until the fifth century.

I imagine that if Arianism would have come up in the first century, they would have come up with the same answer then. As it was, I doubt they even thought about the concepts involved, having more immediate concerns at the time with Judaism and Gnosticism.

And as I’ve already demonstrated, Prejean is a Docetist, since his belief entails that he doesn’t accept the apostles as real people who can function as a rule of faith. See how easy this is?

I suppose it comes down to who has the better reasons for his position. I've seen no foundation for Docestism in my refusal to confuse the divine and human operations in Scripture. You seem to have no defense against my charge of Nestorianism.

So, in Prejean’s view, Nestorius was condemned by Cyril and his cronies for an unarticulated belief?

That appears to have been exactly the case. Cyril kept demanding an explanation from Nestorius for his apparenly contradictory statements, and Nestorius never could provide one, nor do his writings even seem to leave room for one to be logically possible. The conclusion was essentially that there is no way his statements could be given an orthodox interpretation, even though he never openly denied the single personhood of Christ. Of course, later authors attempted to rehabilitate him without success.

But they do turn on the ability to understand history, Scripture, and theology—disciplines which are lost on Prejean.

Begging the question again. I understand history just fine, and I'm no slouch in the Catholic understanding of Scripture and theology either.

Ah; I see. And so when Arianism held sway in all the bishoprics in both East and West for nearly a century, that was the “church.” In other words, the fourth-century church which rejected the divinity of Christ could not have been in error because they were indistinguishable from the first-century church.

There was no period in which Arianism held sway in all the bishoprics in both East and West. "Athanasius contra mundum" is an exaggeration, as was the world "groaning to find itself Arian." You've been reading too many Protestant conspiracy theories. None of the Arian bishops had the authority to speak for the Church as a whole, and Liberius's and Hosius's signatures to the compromise formula (which was not even heterodox, only dangerously ambiguous) was obtained under duress. I could recommend some good works on the subject, including some recent monographs, but I doubt they would help you. Timothy Barnes's Athanasius and Constantius is the must-read, though.

Except for that little gaff about the fourth century Arian Catholic church.

I didn't make one. You seem to buy uncritically into everything that might possibly serve your emotional need to bash Catholicism.

If Prejean is so indifferent to my opinion, why does he bother to right a 20-page response to it?

Accountability. I like to have a document that people can reference. It's a good example of the sort of unreasoning emotionalism one sees in anti-Catholicism.

Here we go again with Prejean’s “wisdom that is wiser than God’s

Nope. I just prefer to let God work these sorts of things out in His own time. If He didn't think the moment was right for the Church to confront Arianism in AD 60, then He is well within His rights to postpone the confrontation until the 4th century. I don't impose some sort of requirement on Him to do everything at once.

I’ve addressed this point sufficiently in my previous response to Prejean. Prejean is a docetist on this point, plain and simple.

Again, natural/supernatural, not Docetist. The natural component is real; it just can't be stretched to cover the supernatural.

No; but what it does mean is that you don’t place all your eggs in one basket that has not yet been responded to by whatever you think the “old school” is.

It's a pretty good sign that it isn't going to happen when none of the new authors take up defending the correctness of the old position.

First of all, I do not care whether you agree with him or not since your opinion on these things is completely worthless.

And I don't care whether you care. I was clarifying my position.

Nevertheless, here is the text of Oakes’ review to which I referred:

Here Cyril was certainly bolder than the Latin theologians, but the lack of theological daring in Latin Christology has somewhat slanted McGuckin's interpretation of Pope Leo I, whose famous Tome was read out before the assembled bishops at Chalcedon to unanimous acclaim: "Peter has spoken through Leo!" The standard Western account of that episode claims for Rome a balance of approach lacking in the more disputatious Greek theologians, who were still too besotted by the neo-Platonic speculations common in the East. McGuckin disagrees. He points out, rightly, that the bishops not only accepted Leo's intervention as the voice of Peter but went on to say, "So also did Cyril teach." (Cyril had died seven years before Chalcedon.) According to McGuckin, the bishops accepted Leo because, and only because, he taught the same thing as Cyril, who alone was the test for Christological orthodoxy. McGuckin also makes the much more radical claim that the decree of Chalcedon was meant as a deliberative corrective to Leo's Tome. This thesis will not stand up to scrutiny. The decree the Eastern bishops supported dearly represented a middle passage between the extremes of Antioch and Alexandria. Cyril had favored the term "hypostasis" to denote the union of divine and human in Jesus, while the Antiochenes preferred "person." Chalcedon used both terms. Similarly, Cyril generally spoke of a hypostatic union "from" two natures, whereas Leo and the Antiochenes insisted on the union taking place "in" two natures and that is the formulation Chalcedon chose. Finally, we know that the Alexandrians themselves detected these "concessions" to Antiochene theology because Cyril's more hotheaded successors (Eutyches and Dioscorus, primarily) actively rejected the Council. That rejection soon led to the Monophysite heresy, which lives on to this day in the Coptic and Ethiopian churches.”

Incidentally, notice here that Oakes countenances the difference between the Antiochene “in two natures” and the Cyrillene “from two natures”—the very phrases I used and for which Prejean accused me of “not keeping up with scholarship.” Apparently, Oakes has not been informed of Prejean’s correction.

Svendsen evidently now can't even read a review reasonably. Svendsen argued that this use of phrase meant that Chalcedon was correcting Cyril; Oakes says exactly the opposite, conceding that Chalcedon considered Cyril orthodox. He merely notes that the Chalcedonian Fathers did not consider his orthodoxy exclusive of other equivalent formulations such as the ones advanced by Leo (viz., they did not see the need to correct Leo in light of Cyril). They appear to have accepted orthodox statements rather even-handedly, picking whichever one appeared most useful or clear. That Svendsen claims support from Oakes for the proposition that Chalcedon and Ephesus conflict is objectively dishonest, although given Svendsen's rampant emotionalism, I have strong doubts as to whether he sees it.

In other words, Prejean has declined to petition these scholars for a correction, who surely know of McGuckin’s views by now. Which really means he doesn’t think he’ll get one. And that’s just the point of my corrective to Prejean on how to do scholarship.

Are you serious? I don't know these people; it's a perfectly sufficient "petition" that their work has been specifically addressed. Silence is consent if the work is well-known; if they thought McGuckin were wrong, they would have said something by now. It's ridiculous to think that most scholars are going to put out a statement every time that their work is refuted, and indeed, it would be obnoxious in the extreme for me to demand it of them. Indeed, the way I "do scholarship" is not to go out of the way to embarrass people I think are refuted, which would be pointless, but to allow them the dignity of silence. Given that McGuckin gave a speech at the festschrift for Pelikan's 80th birthday, I can't imagine that Pelikan thought McGuckin had done him wrong.

Go back and re-read my series on Historical Theology, Mr. Prejean. I’m not going to do your homework for you.

Given that I've read all of your sources (and all but Brown are addressed in mine), and you've read none of mine that I can tell and even openly confessed that you aren't keeping current, I fail to see what homework you could do for me, even if you wanted to do so.

Actually, Prejean does indeed reject the authority of Scripture. And it was he and no one else who relegated it to the pit of the Quran. Here are his own words on this that he is now attempting to backpedal:

“Anyway, your misunderstanding on Catholic authority is somewhat beside the point. I have nothing to hide; I have never been anything other than willing to yield the field if you want to discuss matters of Biblical exegesis, because I don't share your concept of Scriptural authority. From my perspective, it's about as interesting to me as an argument from the Book of Mormon or the Qu'ran; we might as well be reading different books.”

And I repeat: your concept of Scriptual authority based solely on natural meaning lacks any perception of the supernatural meaning, meaning that it is just another document like any other uninspired document. If you don't like the Qu'ran as an example, then I'll take your example of Euripides. If you read Scripture using natural methods, then it's a natural document, nothing more.

And, once again, using this same rationale, Prejean is a Docetist.

And once again, Svendsen has no argument.

I do not deny that Christ is a divine person with a human nature. What I deny is that is all he is. As I already stated, he was fully a man—not merely a human nature. That’s why I insisted that both the human and the divine are bound together in Christ and constitute his person. This affirms the oneness of Christ and the full humanity of Christ, without attempting to speculate how all this tales place.

The problem isn't in the how, but the what you are affirming. You said "the human and the divine are bound together in Christ and constitute his person." That's exactly Nestorianism. Christ's person is not constituted by the union of natures; rather, the Word of God constitutes the union of the natures. It's not a question of how, since no one knows that. It's a question of you affirming the wrong thing.

Yes, and once again, Prejean is a Docetist. See how easy that is?

And once again, you have no argument. See how easy that is?

Stop with the lies, Mr. Prejean. I have never stated that Christ is not a divine person—I have always said that is not ALL he is. That’s why you constantly arrive at the wrong conclusions—you are incapable of getting the arguments right.

Then what other person is there in Christ than the divine person? It is because you say that He is not ONLY a divine person that you err; indeed, that IS the Nestorian error. There is no way that you can say "[the divine person] is not ALL that Christ is" without also saying "there is more than one person in Christ."

I defy anyone to find where I admitted not understanding the catholic position. Another example of Prejean’s inability to rightly understand even a contemporary statement.

It was your silence; your sole response was that I was misunderstanding your position. You didn't say that you understood the Catholic position (indeed, you still haven't, and your admission of your lack of qualficiations in patristics practically disqualifies you from even possibly doing so). It seems to me that if you actually did understand the Catholic position, you would have said something. But I still have yet to hear what makes you qualified to speak about Catholic theology. Certainly, nothing here shows it.