Hypostatic Union explanation

[BGoodForGoodSake]

In each of us resides the self of the past the current and the self of the future. Often these selves are in conflict with one another. If you stop to dwell on it you may never be able to resolve these entities logically yet one knows that they exist in one body. Logic and reason may allow one to understand things but the ultimate truth resides in experience.

Mind elaborating on this? Self of the past, self of the current and self of the future? What the hell?

Lol

On the three selves, have you ever started something and failed to complete it? Why?
Are all your memories accessible at any time? How and when do they come to you?

On knowledge and experience.

[Vergil]

May i have a link to study Hypostatic Union?

[IceMobster]

Uh. Hey Rick, pass on the LSD, please.

[PaulSacramento]

Ok everyone,

I'm trying to explain the Hypostatic Union to my son, and it's not working. Anyone have a way to explain it so a teenager can understand. Links, or anything would be appreciated.

Considering that theologians don't agree on how to express it, good luck !

On a serious note though, one of the mistakes that has been made was trying to explain the trinity ( actually putting a name to it didn't help either of course).
I wonder how those before the term "hypostatic union" understood the relation between Father, Son and HS?

They didn't use words like "trinity" and "hypostatic union" and yet they understood.

[Jac3510]

May i have a link to study Hypostatic Union?

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07610b.htm

Ok everyone,

I'm trying to explain the Hypostatic Union to my son, and it's not working. Anyone have a way to explain it so a teenager can understand. Links, or anything would be appreciated.

Considering that theologians don't agree on how to express it, good luck !

On a serious note though, one of the mistakes that has been made was trying to explain the trinity ( actually putting a name to it didn't help either of course).
I wonder how those before the term "hypostatic union" understood the relation between Father, Son and HS?

They didn't use words like "trinity" and "hypostatic union" and yet they understood.

Sure, Paul. The problem is that the HU is the explanation. The data is fairly easy: Jesus is fully God and fully man. When someone says, "How can that be?" and you begin to explain it, then (if you want to avoid various Christological heresies) the explanation you provide is the HU.

[PaulSacramento]

May i have a link to study Hypostatic Union?

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07610b.htm

Ok everyone,

I'm trying to explain the Hypostatic Union to my son, and it's not working. Anyone have a way to explain it so a teenager can understand. Links, or anything would be appreciated.

Considering that theologians don't agree on how to express it, good luck !

On a serious note though, one of the mistakes that has been made was trying to explain the trinity ( actually putting a name to it didn't help either of course).
I wonder how those before the term "hypostatic union" understood the relation between Father, Son and HS?

They didn't use words like "trinity" and "hypostatic union" and yet they understood.

Sure, Paul. The problem is that the HU is the explanation. The data is fairly easy: Jesus is fully God and fully man. When someone says, "How can that be?" and you begin to explain it, then (if you want to avoid various Christological heresies) the explanation you provide is the HU.

You make it sound so simple

My point is that in trying to explain such things we are slaves to words and analogies and metaphors and so much more.
There is no way around it.
The analogy of the blind man you stated is an apt one, for how does one explain the color red to a person that can NOT see and has NEVER seen?

Now, I am not saying it can't be done ( explaining the hypostatic union), what I am saying is that I have found that ONE way does NOT work for everyone and that we need various methods of explaining the "unexplainable".
Like I said earlier, the first generations were able to understand and explain without the verbiage we use and, to be honest, I have heard from many that it is the very verbiage that cause them issues.
I recall one person saying to me, " I believe that Christ is God like The Father in spite of the trinity doctrine, not because of it".

[Jac3510]

It is simple. The first thing to do is stop offering analogies. The second thing to do is to give them the biblical data. The third thing to do is to teach people the proper language. The last thing, if people are so inclined, is to explore that language--why it is constructed the way it is. The biblical data is very simple. It's two propositions: Jesus Christ is fully man. Jesus Christ is fully God. Now, people can just accept that on shear faith, saying, "I don't know how that's true, but okay!" Or people can ask how that it is true. Then you give them the language. You say, "Jesus is human in virtue of having a human nature. He is divine in virtue of having a divine nature. Necessarily, those natures are not comingled into some human-divine nature that is neither human in and of itself nor divine in and of itself (as would be the case of a demigod). These two natures are united in one Person." And if someone asks, you can tell them that's where the word hypostatic comes from--from the Greek word meaning "person" (hupostasis). The natures are united in a Person. Anything beyond that requires understanding those words. What is a nature? What is a person? When dealing with human persons, what is the form/matter composite, and how does that relate to the divine person who is pure form? But those are all just background questions--things that help us understand the language. As you answer them, they way raise more background questions. What is a form in a form/matter composite. What is matter? What is actuality and potentiality? What is a substance (Gk ousia) and how does that relate to a person (hupostasis). That's why analogies don't help any of this, because the problem here isn't relating to it. It is just being educated enough to know what the terms mean. And even after all the education, even when you "get" it, that doesn't mean that you have an experiential comprehension of it. If "getting it" means to have a conception of it the way I have a subjective understanding of, say, color, then we will never "get it." But that doesn't mean we can't make it logically consistent enough that we can't give it our intellectual assent and feel comfortable accepting it by faith.

[PaulSacramento]

Simple...LOL.

[Jac3510]

Simple <> easy

[Kurieuo]

SoCalExile shared this on the Lordship Salvation thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnIH_UTMrys

If you watched it, then the guy explains a hypostatic union of sorts within us too.
Just find the similarity interesting.

[Nicki]

What do you mean exactly by 'form'? To me it basically means 'shape' - something physical.

[Jac3510]

What do you mean exactly by 'form'? To me it basically means 'shape' - something physical.

Read this firist: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/03 ... -soul.html

Form doesn't mean "shape" in this context. It is the principle that makes something what it is.

[Nicki]

What do you mean exactly by 'form'? To me it basically means 'shape' - something physical.

Read this firist: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2012/03 ... -soul.html

Form doesn't mean "shape" in this context. It is the principle that makes something what it is.

So - rereading your posts as well - the form is the same thing as the soul, and produces a body. How does that fit in with DNA making the body what it is? And why is intellect immaterial, but not imagination?

[Jac3510]

So - rereading your posts as well - the form is the same thing as the soul, and produces a body.

Less "the same thing as" and more the definition of. The soul, by definition, is the form of the body. So, yes, the soul is what produces the body. Think of it this way: the matter that makes up your body is informed by the soul.

How does that fit in with DNA making the body what it is?

DNA is a part of the body and so informed (that is, made what it is) in virtue of the soul. Human DNA is human DNA precisely because it is a human soul that informs it.

And why is intellect immaterial, but not imagination?

Imagination, like the intellect, is an internal faculty of the soul (there are others as well--memory, will, etc.). The intellect is not identical with the soul, but is (like imagination) a power of it. The materiality or immateriality of something is related to its own nature and therefore how it is expressed/realized. The body is material insofar as the body is what the material production of the soul. It is just the nature of the body to be material. The intellect is immaterial insofar as it is the cognitive power of the soul. It is just the nature of the intellect to be immaterial. And so it is with the imagination. It's just immaterial by nature. It is not distinct from the soul, as if the immaterial part of you is part soul, part intellect, part imagination, etc. Rather, the immaterial part of you is just soul, and the soul has various powers and faculties. Some of those powers and faculties are and are expressed immaterially (even if they have material instrumental causes), e.g., the intellect and imagination. Some are and are expressed materially, e.g., the body.

For more on the imagination, read this: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07672a.htm

[Nicki]

So - rereading your posts as well - the form is the same thing as the soul, and produces a body.

Less "the same thing as" and more the definition of. The soul, by definition, is the form of the body. So, yes, the soul is what produces the body. Think of it this way: the matter that makes up your body is informed by the soul.

How does that fit in with DNA making the body what it is?

DNA is a part of the body and so informed (that is, made what it is) in virtue of the soul. Human DNA is human DNA precisely because it is a human soul that informs it.

Okay - it's philosophy I guess. It's not really biblical - I'm not saying it's unbiblical either, but how do you know these ideas are true? Is it just the one philosophy which makes the most sense to you?

And why is intellect immaterial, but not imagination?

Imagination, like the intellect, is an internal faculty of the soul (there are others as well--memory, will, etc.). The intellect is not identical with the soul, but is (like imagination) a power of it. The materiality or immateriality of something is related to its own nature and therefore how it is expressed/realized. The body is material insofar as the body is what the material production of the soul. It is just the nature of the body to be material. The intellect is immaterial insofar as it is the cognitive power of the soul. It is just the nature of the intellect to be immaterial. And so it is with the imagination. It's just immaterial by nature. It is not distinct from the soul, as if the immaterial part of you is part soul, part intellect, part imagination, etc. Rather, the immaterial part of you is just soul, and the soul has various powers and faculties. Some of those powers and faculties are and are expressed immaterially (even if they have material instrumental causes), e.g., the intellect and imagination. Some are and are expressed materially, e.g., the body.

For more on the imagination, read this: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07672a.htm

The article you linked to said the intellect (among other aspects of us) was immaterial but not the imagination - it basically said a disembodied soul would have no imagination because the imagination was dependent on matter; something along those lines.