Philo

Volume 5, Issue 1, Spring-Summer 2002

Incarnation and Identity

The characteristic claim of Christianity, as codified at Chalcedon, is that God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, is numerically the same person as Jesus of Nazareth. This article raises three questions that appear to threaten the coherence of orthodox Chalcedonian incarnationalism. First, how can one person exemplify seemingly incompatible natures? Second, how can one person exemplify seemingly incompatible non-nature properties? Third, how can there be one person if the concept of incarnation implies that one person incarnates himself as another person? The attempts of C. S. Lewis and T. V. Morris to deal with these difficulties are examined and found inconclusive.