The Trinity, the Incarnation, and Time/Space

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liamconnor
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The Trinity, the Incarnation, and Time/Space

Post #1

Post by liamconnor »

I post this here (in philosophy) hoping to avoid the typical apologists and antagonists that frequent the other subforums.

the Q for D is really more of just a Q. It is not interesting in defending the truth of the trinity nor the historicity of the incarnation. It treats both claims neutrally: things to be considered. The New T. is the ultimate source for the ideas

Here is the philosophical dilemma:

The 2nd Person of the Trinity is eternal: no beginning and no end. In fact, temporal descriptions of him are metaphorical. The sentence "he always existed" obviously contains relics of Time.

The Incarnation, however, happened (from our finite perspectives), at some point in our history, around 1st c. AD.

Now, the Incarnation cannot be reckoned as an 'episode' in the eternalness of the 2nd P.: that would introduce 'change' to the 2nd P, which, with Aristotle and Thomas I regard as ridiculous.

All this is metaphysically fine for me: in the Incarnation it is not God that changes but a Man. As one creed puts it (a very rough quote): the Incarnation did not consist in God descending into man but rather the taking up of man into the divine.

Fine.

The dilemma begins with the doctrine of the Ascension. There, flesh and blood ascends into another sphere, presumably the divine sphere of existence: the finite enters into a mode of infinitude.

But I cannot see how this is metaphysically possible.

Q for D: Is there a solution to this problem (and please, not one from someone who merely wishes to poo-poo the Christian faith. As its been said, "You will know them by their deeds", and true lovers of philosophy, whether they agree with them or not, will appreciate Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas).

Have I placed too much importance on--made too substantial--the concepts of Time and Space? Perhaps Time and Space are, as Kant seemed to maintain, mere spectacles of reality and not reality itself?

Or perhaps there is a buffer zone between the infinite and the finite: an in between place in which the Incarnate Jesus reigns, while ultimate Reality remains ultimate?

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Post #2

Post by The Tanager »

liamconnor wrote:The dilemma begins with the doctrine of the Ascension. There, flesh and blood ascends into another sphere, presumably the divine sphere of existence: the finite enters into a mode of infinitude.

But I cannot see how this is metaphysically possible.

Q for D: Is there a solution to this problem
I'm probably way off on what you are saying, but are you saying that a temporal, spatial being is entering into an atemporal and non-spatial mode of existence and that this is what seems metaphysically at odds?

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Re: The Trinity, the Incarnation, and Time/Space

Post #3

Post by Divine Insight »

liamconnor wrote: Q for D: Is there a solution to this problem (and please, not one from someone who merely wishes to poo-poo the Christian faith. As its been said, "You will know them by their deeds", and true lovers of philosophy, whether they agree with them or not, will appreciate Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas).
It's not my intent to poo-poo the Christian faith, however, from a purely philosophical perspective I fee that it's relevant to point out the following facts:

There simply is no single coherent Christian theological philosophy that we could even speak to. The truth of the matter is that Christian theology is an off-shoot of the previous Abrahamic tales of a God. And far more importantly this off-shoot "philosophy" has itself taken many divergent and disagreeing paths.

Therefore when you speak of this "metaphysical problem", it may not even apply to all the various Christian theological ideas. For example, some Christian theologies do not embrace the idea that God does not have "physical attributes". To the contrary, they hold that if God is real then God must have some sort of "physics" (or structure), it may simply be beyond the mundane physics that we experience in this world.

Keep in mind that "metaphysical" simply means "Beyond the Physical", it doesn't necessarily mean non-physical or intangible. It could simply mean beyond the physics of our experience.

Therefore, the idea of a physical body ascending to a "spiritual world" is not necessarily a contradiction. This can all depend on how specific theologians view this ill-defined religious paradigm.

In fact, many Christian theists do imagine physical bodies being resurrected and/or directly being taken up into a spiritual realm. Most Christians imagine retaining their physical bodies in heaven. Although they may imagine their body being transformed into a pristine state of perfect health and desirable youth.

The point is that most Christian actually do imagine going to heaven as a physical body and meeting with their loved ones there who they will also recognize because those loved ones will have retained their physical bodies as well.

We need to recognize also that this religious paradigm has "winged angels" that apparently have bodies almost identical to humans. This implies that heaven is not only a physical place, but it even has air to breath and fly around in. Without air what would the angels used their wings for?

It seems to me that there are no problems in terms of "metaphysics" with this religious paradigm, unless specific theologians decides to create problems by demanding that there can be nothing physical in the spiritual world. But if that's the case then what defines the spiritual world?

As secularists point out, the only thing that gives anything meaning is information, and information is nothing more than physical substance arranged "in formation". Without some sort of structured substance there wouldn't be anything to define any information. Therefore it seems that if some sort of "spiritual world" actually exists, it would need to have some sort of structure, and therefore it would need to have some sort of physics. That "physics", of course, would be far different from the physics of our universe. And for this reason this would make it "metaphysical" (i.e. beyond our known physics).

A spirit world (if such a thing exists) would need to have some sort of structure. Otherwise what would be the basis of its existence?

So the very idea of a totally non-physical spirit world doesn't really make any sense anyway. There needs to be something that is "in formation" in order to produce information. Without information what sense would it make to say that anything exists at all?

Even a God (if one exists) would need to have some structured formation. Without that what sense does it make to say that it even exists at all?

So if any God actually exists, it would need to have some type of "physics" that describes its formation. Without formation it can have no information.
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Post #4

Post by The Tanager »

A comparison I have in thinking about this, but not sure this is what the OP was trying to get at, is the difference between 2D and 3D objects. Infinitude encompasses finitude, but goes beyond it rather than being an opposite of finitude just like a cube encompasses the characteristics of being a square.

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Re: The Trinity, the Incarnation, and Time/Space

Post #5

Post by marco »

[quote="liamconnor"]

The dilemma begins with the doctrine of the Ascension. There, flesh and blood ascends into another sphere, presumably the divine sphere of existence: the finite enters into a mode of infinitude.

But I cannot see how this is metaphysically possible.quote]

The dilemma surely ends with the Ascension and begins with the Incarnation. If Christ assumed human nature then we can accept he retained divinity, by postulating a hypostatic union. The Ascension is an indication of Christ completely discarding his physical persona and entering wholly into divinity. I have no idea why one would want to discuss the chemistry, physics or the metaphysics of this transformation.

A more sensible interpretation is that the Ascension represents the physical death of the human being and the resumption of his divine role. Of course this collides drastically with phrases such as "conquering death" or "death where is thy sting?"

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