Dear Father Angelo,
I would like to discuss with you something that has been troubling me for a long time.
It concerns Jesus’ dual nature.
As far as I know: Jesus is fully God and fully Man, He is the Second Person of the Trinity, and therefore not the same person as the Father and the Holy Spirit but another divine person, with the same nature as them (which consists of being omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent).
However, there are some aspects of this statement which I still cannot fully comprehend:
Jesus is ONE person with TWO natures: human and divine. The DIVINE nature is eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, as much as the Father and the Holy Spirit, while the HUMAN nature, his soul, was created ex nihilo 2000 years ago. Created in the figure of Jesus of Nazareth are therefore his soul and his body.
It is at this point that something does not sit right with me.
When Jesus died on the cross, naturally, his human nature died. His body was mortally wounded as a mortal, and his soul was heading to Sheol, a generic realm of the dead (neither paradise nor hell).
Thus, if his human nature died, then how can it be said that “God died”? At first, I thought, “God in himself did not really die, but since the divine nature is connected to the human nature in one person, then with the disappearance of the human nature (gone to Sheol), which is one of the two pillars of the Incarnation, the divine nature also disappears (which returns to Paradise with the Father and the Spirit), and therefore in this sense, and only in this sense, it can be said that God died for us.”
But then another question arises: when it was said that Jesus had two wills, what did that mean? Because naturally, if Jesus has normal human thoughts (like reflecting on a topic, wondering what to eat, a sense of humor, aesthetic tastes), how can he also have divine thoughts (knowing everything, perfectly knowing his greatness, the thoughts of people, having mercy and justice that only God can have)?
To say that Jesus has two natures seems a bit like saying a circle can be square and a square can be a circle. Being man and being God does not mean entering a paradox since they are things whose limits and capacities are completely different? For example, Jesus in Scripture prays, sometimes shows uncertainty; therefore, He does not have the omniscience and omnipotence of God on his own, which would however be part of his nature.
The only way to resolve this in my mind is to affirm that Jesus has two natures and two wills, and therefore Christ is practically a man with two different personalities inside.
At death, what happened to Jesus? The first letter of Peter and tradition say that He went to the spirits in prison, to the underworld, Sheol, and I suppose that it was the human nature and soul of Christ that went there and NOT the divine nature, which returned to its place awaiting the resurrection.
Finally, in the divine nature… what real difference is there between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? They all have the same characteristics, are equal in every way, except in their relationship under an “archetype,” I would say. The divine person of the Father, from whom the Son and the Spirit eternally originate, behaves as Father towards the only divine person of the Son, while the Spirit is also a divine person (not a mere “force” without personality as Jehovah’s Witnesses say), even if in practice he behaves as such.
The question here becomes: in the end, how is this not modalism like the Hindu trimurti?
Thank you.
RESPONSE OF THE PRIEST
Dearest,
1. Let us proceed in order with your statements.
First of all, you rightly say that in Jesus there is one person and two natures: divine and human.
You correctly recognise that the person of Jesus is not a human person but a divine person. Jesus is God who assumed a human nature, made of an immortal soul and a body. “And the Word became flesh” (John 1:14).
The “I” of Jesus is a divine “I,” perfectly joined and inseparable from his divine nature. He freely chose to unite with human nature to make himself visible and accomplish redemption.
2. In Christ, the two natures, divine and human, are supported by a single “I”: His divine “I.”
All the actions performed by Jesus are performed by God through His assumed human nature.
For this reason, all His actions have a theandric value—meaning infinite and universal—because they are enacted by God through the human nature.
Therefore, you can say that God became incarnate for you, that He was born for you, preached for you, prayed for you, lived for you, died as a sacrifice of atonement for you, rose from the dead, and sits at the right hand of the Father for you.
The subject of all His actions is divine because every action is always attributed to a subject (actiones sunt suppositorum; the suppositum is the subject, the person).
3. Similarly, every action suffered by Jesus was also experienced by God in the same way that, if someone slaps you, they cannot say: ‘I slapped your cheek.’ You would reply: ‘You slapped me, because I am in my body.’
Precisely because of the divinity of His person, the sacrifice of Jesus is a divine sacrifice, an action performed by God.
He performed it for all and for each one of us, because all of us are personally known and loved by Him.
4. The soul and body of Jesus were sustained by the divine Person of the Word.
At the moment of Jesus’ death, His soul and body were separated from each other, but they were not separated from the subject that sustained them: His divine person.
Jesus Christ rose from the dead by the divine power that sustained his body, according to the words He himself said: “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” (John 10:18).
5. You say that Jesus with His soul went to Sheol, the generic realm of the dead.
If for the Jews at the time of David (10th century BC) Sheol was the generic realm of the dead, where only the shadow of the living survived (in this sense, Psalm 87:11 reads, “Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon?”), at the time of Jesus it was no longer simply a generic realm of the dead.
In the wisdom literature, which dates a few centuries before Our Lord, there emerges the conviction that ” the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
For though in the sight of others they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.
Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
like gold in the furnace, he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.” (Wisdom 3:1-6).
Because of this common belief, Jesus on the cross says to the good thief: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43).
Paradise at that time was understood as the bosom of Abraham, as also emerges from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
Theologians have called this bosom of Abraham the limbo.
Therefore, at the moment of his death, Jesus went to visit the righteous of the Old Testament who awaited liberation. These are the captive souls of which Saint Peter speaks.
6. You then say that with Jesus’ death, His human nature vanished, while His divine nature returned to Paradise.
The first part is acceptable because Jesus died in His human nature; however, soul and body, although separated, remained united to the divine person of the Word.
With the divine person of the Word, the divine nature is also present.
There is undoubtedly something infinitely different between the corpse of Jesus and the corpse of any human being.
Where there is a human corpse, the person is no longer present.
While in the corpse of Jesus, His divine person is present.
If in human tombs there are only corpses but no persons, in Jesus’ tomb it was He himself who entered, personally.
His personal presence linked to the corpse is important because with His Resurrection, He had to defeat death.
7. A true man, because He is endowed with a perfect human nature, Jesus Christ acted according to the demands of human nature: He ate, slept, walked, spoke. In particular, He prayed.
He prayed by virtue of His human nature because prayer is the attitude of the inferior towards the superior.
He prayed for each of us according to all our personal needs, because all were distinctly present in His most perfect knowledge.
8. Since His human nature was united to the divine person of the Word, with His human intelligence, He was able to see within the divine depth.
For this reason, from the very first moment of His existence, He had the beatific vision by virtue of which He not only saw the divine essence but also constantly kept each of us present because personally known and loved.
9. Because Jesus, as God, is Creator and Lord of all things, he had no insecurity but manifested full sovereignty over matter (multiplying bread and fish), over nature (calming the seas and winds to the point that all exclaimed: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him”( Mark 4:41).
He manifested full sovereignty over diseases that instantly disappeared, over demons who must leave without resistance and over death.
No insecurity then in Jesus.
At the moment of arrest in the Garden of Olives, all fell to the ground at hearing his word: “I am he” (John 18:6).
In Isaiah 53:7 in the Vulgate version it reads: “Oblatus est quia ipse voluit, et non aperuit os suum.”
In English, “He was sacrificed because he willed it, and he did not open his mouth.”
The CEI translation, made from Hebrew, partly differs and writes: “Mistreated, he allowed himself to be humiliated and did not open his mouth.”
However, in “He allowed himself to be humiliated,” the freedom of the Messiah is recognised, He who could have resisted but did not want to because He came precisely for atonement, for redemption.
The arrest of Jesus, His passion, and His death were not an accident.
Everything happened because He willed it.
Rightly, the Church liturgy in the Eucharistic prayer says: “offering Himself voluntarily to His Passion.”
10. Moreover, since He read the secrets of hearts, there was no need for anyone to question Him.
It should be remembered that in the human mind of Christ there was a threefold knowledge: that of the beatific vision, that coming from infused knowledge, and that acquired.
About the beatific vision, Saint Thomas writes: “The knowledge of the blessed consists in the vision or cognition of God. But Christ also as a man knew God fully, according to what he affirms in the Gospel: ‘I do know him and I keep his word’ (John 8:55). Therefore, in Christ there was the knowledge of the blessed” (Summa Theologica, III, 9,2, sed contra).
“Therefore, the soul of Christ, which is part of human nature, by means of a light communicated by the divine nature, was elevated to the beatific knowledge, by which one sees God by essence” (Ib., ad 1).
There was also infused knowledge since it is written that in Christ “ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3).
“Thus, beyond the uncreated divine knowledge, there is in the soul of Christ the beatific knowledge, by which he knows the Word and things in the Word, and the infused knowledge by which he knows things in their nature through intelligible species proportioned to the human mind” (Summa Theologica, III, 9, 3).
By means of this knowledge, “Christ knew all things that divine revelation has manifested to men, through the gift of wisdom and prophecy, or any other gift of the Holy Spirit. All these things the soul of Christ knew more and better than all others. The essence of God, however, he did not know with infused knowledge, but with beatific knowledge, as mentioned before” (Ib., III, 11, 1).
Finally, in Christ there was also acquired or experimental knowledge. Saint Thomas writes: “In the soul of Christ must be placed acquired knowledge for the need of the active intellect, which cannot remain idle, having the task of making objects intelligible in act, just as infused knowledge is placed in it for the perfection of its possible intellect. (…)
Thus, with acquired knowledge, he knew all those things that it is possible to know through the operation of the active intellect” (Ib., 12, 1).
When asked whether Christ’s acquired or experimental knowledge grew, Saint Thomas affirms yes because Sacred Scripture says that Jesus grew in wisdom, age, and grace before God and men, and Saint Ambrose explains that He grew according to human wisdom, but human wisdom is that which is acquired in the manner of man with the light of the active intellect.
And “both the infused knowledge of the soul of Christ and his beatific knowledge were the effect of an agent of infinite power who can obtain everything at once: therefore Christ did not progress in either of the two knowledges, but had them perfect from the beginning.
Instead, acquired knowledge arises only from the active intellect, which does not perform its operation all at once but in successive phases.
That is why with this knowledge Christ did not know everything from the beginning, but little by little and after some time, that is, in perfect age.
This results from the fact that the Evangelist joins the two progressions of knowledge and age'” (Ib., ad 1).
11. To the objection that the evangelist says they found Him in the temple sitting among the doctors while listening to them and questioning them, Saint Thomas replies: “Origen explains that Gospel text thus: ‘The Lord did not question to learn, but to instruct by raising questions. Because from the same source of doctrine flows the wisdom of questioning and that of answering.’
Therefore, in the same Gospel passage follow the words: ‘All who heard him were amazed at his intelligence and his answers'” (Ib., 3, ad 1).
12. He did not need to reflect as we do. When asked whether to pay tribute to Caesar, he tells Peter to go to the seashore and open the mouth of the first fish he would find, and he would find the coin for the tribute.
Therefore, when He asks questions like the one where he asks what people think of Him, He does not need to receive information but wants to highlight and confirm Peter’s faith who recognises Him as the Christ, that is, the Messiah, and as the Son of the living God, that is, of the same divine nature.
In other words, He recognises the Messiah and God.
Likewise, when He asks demons their name, he does not do it to learn but so that all from the demon’s own mouth would know that in that person there was a legion of demons.
There is no need to resort to a split personality, because His human intelligence and will were perfectly in harmony with the intellect and will of God.
For now, I stop here. This is enough for our visitors and perhaps also for you.
I bless you, wish you all the best, and remember you in prayer.
Father Angelo
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