Is Jesus a grape vine?

An impromptu debate I had on Facebook with a sacramentalist:

Josh

I guess the church had it wrong for 1,500 years.

Hays

i) Do you have polling data on what most Christians, especially the laity, believed from, say, the 2C-16C? 

Who all are the spokesmen for "the church"? Do you really mean some bishops, church fathers, scholastic theologians? 

How many laymen were in a position to form an independent opinion on the subject? Was freedom of dissent tolerated? 

ii) However you slice it, some Christians got it wrong. So where do you draw the line? Why do you think it's unacceptable for some Christians to have it wrong but not others? 

Josh

Not to mention Ignatius, disciple of John.

Hays

Why don't you quote a reliable source regarding the precise historical relationship between Ignatius and the Apostle John? 

Josh

And the Corinthians were guilty of the body and blood of the Lord only spiritually speaking or metaphorically speaking.

Hays

i) Unfortunately for you, I linked to a post which discusses that very passage:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/01/discerning-body.html

ii) Moreover, even if (ex hypothesi) we suppose the problem in 1 Cor 11 was about sacrilege, what makes you think that requires the real presence? For instance, mishandling the ark of the covenant was fatal, yet the ark of the covenant was just a wooden box. There was nothing about the composition of the ark that made it deadly to the touch. 

Josh

Oh, and when I have union with my wife, it's only a spiritual union.

Hays

How far do you wish to press that analogy?

Josh

Sounds like you admit that God's Real Presence and Word rested upon and united with the Ark of the Covenant.

Hays 

"United" with the ark? Like a hypostatic union?

You don't seem to grasp the nature of cultic holiness and ritual purity. It's about symbolic presence, symbolic holiness. God enforces that. But it's not because ritually holy things are objectively different from common or profane things.

Josh

Wait, are you saying that God's special presence did not rest on the land of Israel?

Hays 

What do you mean by "presence"? Do you think Yahweh is a physical being? Did Yahweh physically occupy so many square miles of ancient Israel?

Josh 

What do you mean by "occupy"? Did Yahweh actually live with Israel? See, I can play the reformed games of qualifying words to the nth degree as well.

Hays

Why do you object to the word "occupy"? You spoke of God's "special presence resting on the land of Israel". So you seem to think God was spatially present inside the borders of Israel in a way that he was spatially absent outside the borders of Israel. Do you have some alternative formulation that would more accurately capture what you meant?

You used the word "presence," which you set in contrast to "spiritual". So aren't you using physical as an implicit antonym for spiritual? Physical time and space. The question at issue isn't whether my usage is qualified but whether your usage is qualified. 

Josh

The early Christians were accused of cannibalism as well. Of course, they could have just said "oh we just mean spiritually by faith." Of course, they didn't.

Hays 

So do you think that communion is cannibalism?

Josh 

So do you think that "communion" is snack time?

Hays 

You're being evasive. Do you think there's a middle ground between figurative and cannibalistic, or is it in fact cannibalistic? If there is a middle ground, where do you find that in the language you invoke?

Josh 

We confess sacramental union and sacramental eating, not a Capernaitic eating. 

Hays

And why isn't that "playing games of qualifying words to the nth degree"?

Josh

But I have a feeling this won't suffice for you and you'll try and use fallen human reason to explain away God's clear miraculous Words. That, of course, is how reformed theology rolls.

Hays 

Why isn't the use of weasel words like "sacramental" union and "sacramental" eating explaining away God's clear words? "Sacramental" just becomes a cipher. How is that any improvement over "spiritual"? Is "sacramental" synonymous with "physical," or is it something in-between physical and non-physical?

Josh

I'm not quite sure I understand. If I read aloud the sentence "The bicycle is green", I don't need to "explain" what I think it means. It means the bicycle is green. "This is My Body" means "This is My Body." The only way we have to "explain" it is if I say "The bicycle only represents the color green."

Hays 

And if you read aloud the sentence "God is a rock," or "Behold the lamb," or "I am the true vine," you don't need to explain what it means because it means God is a rock–whereas to say that's a metaphor is a "word game to the nth degree". 

According to your hermeneutic, to say Jesus is a lamb means Jesus is an animal. To say that's theological metaphor uses fallen human reason to explain away God's clear miraculous words. To say Jesus is a vine means Jesus is a plant. To say that's a theological metaphor uses fallen human reason to explain away God's clear miraculous words.

How do you interpret the following statement?

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold,the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!…35 The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples,36 and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (Jn 1:29,35-36).

Does you think Jesus was a shapeshifter? When the Baptist saw Jesus on those occasions, had Jesus changed into a young sheep? Or is the Baptist using a pascal metaphor?

Are you afraid to admit the obvious because that would be a fatal concession to the hermeneutic you disdain?

Josh

Wait, are you saying we are not really ingrafted into Jesus? That He is only "like" a vine? We are "kind of" ingrafted into Him?

Hays 

So you don't think "ingrafted" is a metaphor? You think Christians are literal branches? That Jesus is a literal plant? Is Christology a branch (pun intended) of botany? 

"Like" a vine rather than "is" a vine. Yes, I think it's a relation of analogy rather than identity. We're figuratively ingrafted into him. You think Jesus is actually a grape vine? 

Are you claiming that the body of Jesus was a physical container for God? Did God fit inside the dimensions of a human body? Do you view God as a physical being?

Josh  

This is more evidence that you are not taking God at His Word. Scripture is clear: "In Christ all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form." Yes indeed, the finite contains the infinite. Repent of your unbelief and take God at His Word.

Hays

i)So you think God is a physical being? In my experience, those who profess the real presence equivocate. They lead with strong language about literalism, taking God at his word, and so on, but when you press them they backpedal. Take your equivocal answer about whether communion is cannibalistic. Seems like you want to have it both ways. 

ii) As for taking God at his word, do you think the Bible never uses theological metaphors and similes? When it says the church is the bride of Christ, and we read about their marriage in Revelation, will that be sexually consummated? Or is that a dreaded metaphor?

iii) Col 2:9 is, indeed, an excellent prooftext for the Incarnation and the deity of Christ. That said:

iv) Your inference only follows on the assumption that God is "infinite". Paul doesn't say that. So you're not taking God at his word, but importing an extraneous assumption into the text.

What do you mean by "infinite"? Do you think God is evenly dispersed throughout the physical universe like an energy field? 

v) Do you think the Bible never uses spatial metaphors? Do you think angels live in outer space? Does God live in outer space?

When the angel appears to Joseph "in" a dream, do you think the angel miniaturized itself to fit inside Joseph's skull, or is that a spatial metaphor?

Josh

If it doesn't make sense to me, I won't believe it [imputing that to me].

Hays

i) Depends on what you mean. It's psychologically impossible to believe an idea unless you have a fairly clear understanding of what the idea represents. You waffled on whether communion is cannibalism. You want to deny that, yet you seem to think Christians literally consume the physical body of Jesus. If so, your denial is arbitrary.

ii) I don't normally reject positions because I don't understand them, but because I do understand them. I reject defective concepts of God and defective concepts of the Incarnation, not because they are incomprehensible, but because they are false.

So one question is whether you have a clear concept of what they're supposed to believe. If, when you press them, they retreat into weasel words, then their faith is a fill-in-the-blank.

Josh 

Did Jesus walk on water? Turn water to wine? Ascend into heaven? If you deny that the finite contains the infinite, then you deny the very Incarnation itself. To do such is nothing less than latent (or not so latent) Gnosticism.

Hays 

i) You're confusing the properties of God qua God with God qua Incarnate. The question at issue isn't whether God Incarnate has physical properties. The question, rather, is whether God in himself has physical properties.

You need to explain why you imagine the Incarnation must be formulated in terms of the finite literally containing the infinite. Do you think God is composed of matter and energy? Does God have extension? Does God have volume? Is God like an ether?

It's not that God is too big to be contained in the body of Jesus. Rather, it's that God is not big or small in the first place. God is not that kind of being. Why do you imagine the doctrine of the Incarnation requires God to fit inside the body of Jesus? Why is that how you model the hypostatic union?

From what I can tell, you think the Incarnation requires a point of physical contact between God and man. But that could only be the case if both divine and human natures are physical. And even human nature has an immaterial aspect (the soul).

ii) An analogy for the Incarnation would be substance dualism. How mind and body pair off. But I don't take that to mean the soul is a physical something inside a body.

iii) BTW, no, I don't think Jesus literally ascended to heaven. God doesn't live in a place. According to Acts 1, Jesus levitated to a certain altitude, then he was enveloped by the Shekinah. Do you think that in principle, we could take a space ship to heaven? Is heaven literally above the earth?

Josh

No wonder so many Calvinists become atheists.

Hays

So why have traditionally Lutheran, Catholic, and Orthodox countries like France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Quebec, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Ireland become so secular?

Josh

I think Calvinism just died the death of a thousand qualifications,

Steve 

In other words, you can't produce anything resembling a counterargument. Since I wasn't discussing Calvinism, much less adding qualifications to traditional Calvinism, you comment is a red herring.

Josh

I didn't see arguments above, merely distraction tactics. But I digress.

Hays

It's hardly a problem for my position that you can't defend your claims.

Josh

The burden of proof is on you, since you are the one claiming something new in the history of the church, Schaff's shoddy scholarship notwithstanding.

Hays

i) As an elementary point of logic, both sides share a burden of proof. You are making claims and I am making claims. At the moment you're behaving like a village atheist.

ii) Your position is new in the history of the church since the NT doesn't teach your position. Your position represents a post-New Testamental innovation.

Josh

Pardon, but I'm not the one trying to explain away the Incarnation.

Hays 

That requires you to present an actual argument, not a tendentious assertion. Onus in your court.

Josh

Let the reader understand. You said that the incarnation requiring a point of contact between God and man was something you took issue with above.

Hays

Try again. What I actually said was a point of physical contact between God and man. 

Josh

Yet John says "that which we have touched".

Hays

i) Your appeal is confused. The Incarnation is not a hypostatic union between the divine nature and the disciples. It is not a hypostatic union between Jesus and the disciples. Rather, it's a union between the divine nature (specifically, the Son) and one uniquely particularized human nature. 

ii) Yes, Jesus was and is tangible. The disciples could touch him. But what they're touching is the body of Jesus. They're not touching God directly. They're touching God in the intermediate sense that they are touching a human body in union with a human soul in union with the divine Son. There's an intervening medium. 

When Jesus eats fish, that doesn't mean that God qua God eats fish. The divine nature isn't consuming fish. The divine nature is incapable of consuming fish. Rather, an individual is consuming fish, an individual who unites two different sets of properties (one set divine, the other set human) in a common property-bearer. God Incarnate consumes fried fish. 

But it's not as if the divine nature is in direct physical contact with fried fish. For God isn't physical. Rather, that transaction is mediated by union with a human nature. 

iii) You're alluding to 1 Jn 1:1. But the quote is inapt in reference to our discussion. I didn't say or imply that Jesus had no physical contact with other human beings. Rather, the point at issue, in the context of the hypostatic union, was whether, when the divine nature assumed a human nature, the divine nature was and had to be in direct physical contact with the human nature it assumed.

But that would only be possible if the divine nature was physical in itself and apart from the Incarnation. If that's what you had in mind, then you think the Incarnation involves one physical being (God) uniting himself with another physical being (a human body). For A to be in physical contact with B, both A and B must be physical.

If that's not what you mean, then you're welcome to disambiguate your position. 

Josh

Are you able to answer one single question without equivocation or qualification or distractions of nitpicking every last word?

Hays

I don't equivocate. You're the one who equivocates. People who, unlike you, actually take orthodoxy seriously, take qualifications seriously. You cannot be theologically orthodox unless you draw appropriate qualifications. Your intellectual impatience is incompatible with orthodoxy. Theological orthodoxy requires precision thought and precision formulations. I'm doing just the opposite of equivocating. Rather, I painstakingly define my terms and explicate my concepts.

Josh

How could Jesus appear through locked doors? Walk on water? I mean, it can't really mean that, because after all, bodies don't do those things, right?"

Hays

i) Now you're alluding to Mt 14:22-33, Jn 6:19f. & Jn 20:19,26. Since you say that in the context of the Incarnation, you seem to imply that Jesus was able to do that because he had a special body. By virtue of the Incarnation, Jesus had a hybrid body with divine and human attributes which enabled him to certain the limitations of a normal human body.

But if that's what you're angling at, then your concept of the Incarnation is heretical. In that event, you position is that Jesus didn't have a human body, but a superhuman body. Jesus was a demigod: part human and part divine. An amalgam of intermingling attributes. 

If that's not what you mean, then you're welcome to disambiguate your position. 

ii) Nature miracles don't require an Incarnation or hypostatic union. God empowered human agents (prophets, apostles) to perform nature miracles. If it came to that, do you really think God couldn't empower Elijah, Elisha, or St. Paul to walk on water or change water into wine? 

Now, unlike apostles and prophets, Jesus performed miracles by his own power. But there's nothing about walking on water or changing water into wine that intrinsically requires the "infinite" to become embodied in the "finite".

Just as walking on water defies gravity, so does a floating axehead. Does that involve a hypostatic union between an axehead and God?

Just as changing water into wine involves metamorphosis, a rod changing into a snake or vice versa involves metamorphosis. Did that require a hypostatic union between sticks, snakes, and God? If analogous OT miracles don't require your theory of the hypostatic union, your examples fall short of what you wish to prove.

iii) BTW, Jn 20 doesn't say how Jesus entered the upper room. But if you take the Incarnation seriously, then you presumably don't wish to say that Jesus alternately materializes and dematerializes. So what about the doors becoming miraculously porous? Or doors miraculously unlocking? 

Josh

Nestorianism, plain and simple.

Hays

i) Josh is an example of folks who aren't serious about orthodoxy. They content themselves with drive-by hits. Toss out a label, then run a way. No sustained engagement. 

ii) Distinguishing the two natures is not Nestorian. And refusing to blend the two natures is not Nestorian. Is Josh a monophysite? Separating the two natures would be Nestorian. Can Josh demonstrate that I've done that?

Everything I've said is consistent with Chalcedonian orthodoxy. By contrast, Josh needs to explain how his own position isn't guilty of "confusing" the two natures and imputing "change" to the divine nature, or to the divine and human natures alike. How does Josh's position preserve the distinctives of each nature? 

Josh

This is indeed your Calvinist slip showing. I mean, how could the finite contain the infinite, right?

Hays

i) Notice that Josh is the one, not me, who interjected the "finitum non capax infiniti" formula into this debate. He's the one, not me, who framed the issue in those terms.

That's not my operating principle. I realize it's polemically useful for Josh to recast the issue in those terms and pretend that's my framework, but that's dishonest on his part.

ii) Some Christians talk loosely about God "entering" the world or "entering" time and space at the moment of the Incarnation. Some Christians reserve that for the moment of creation. I don't object to popular language. That can be innocuous so long as we don't press it. But it's not theologically accurate. 

I'm a classical theist. In my view, God is timeless and spaceless. Notice that Josh keeps dodging the question of whether God is a physical being. Here's how Aquinas glosses the Incarnation in Jn 1:14: 

It should be noted that this statement, "the Word was made flesh", has been misinterpreted by some and made the occasion of error. For certain ones have presumed that the Word became flesh in the sense that he or something of him was turned into flesh, as when flour is made into bread, and air becomes fire. One of these was Eutyches, who postulated a mixture of natures in Christ, saying that in him the nature of God and of man was the same. We can clearly see that this is false because, as was said above, "the Word was God." Now God is immutable, as is said, "I am the Lord, and I do not change" (Mal 3:6). Hence in no way can it be said that he was turned into another nature. Therefore, one must say in opposition to Eutyches, the Word was made flesh,i.e., the Word assumed flesh, but not in the sense that the Word himself is that flesh. It is as if we were to say: “The man became white,” not that he is that whiteness, but that he assumed whiteness.

If you ask how the Word is man, it must be said that he is man in the way that anyone is, man, namely, as having human nature…The statement," the Word was made flesh", does not indicate any change in the Word, but only in the nature newly assumed into the oneness of a divine person. And the Word was made flesh through a union to flesh. Now a union is a relation. And relations newly said of God with respect to creatures do not imply a change on the side of God, but on the side of the creature relating in a new way to God.

That's my own position. 

iii) I don't think we can directly and fully understand how God became Incarnate. For one thing, the divine nature is somewhat mysterious to begin with. And the Incarnation is a unique event. That's not something we experience firsthand. Not something we can grasp from the inside out.

But although the precise relation is mysterious, we can understand the basic ideas feeding into the relation. We have some understanding of the divine attributes. And we understand what it means to be human. By the same token, we can grasp enough about the hypostatic union to rule out false or defective paradigms of the Incarnation.