Hello this is Christian Class so please write in Christian’s perspective. Nothing special opinion please just regular faithful christian’s perspective please!!
thank you!!
First question: Give what you think is the one biggest strength and one biggest weakness of the Antiochene Christological position, and state why. Then do
the same for the Alexandrian Christological position.
Here is a follow-up question to my first one:
Now that you have considered the strengths and weaknesses of each position, would you adopt one position or the other, or perhaps blend them into a kind
of hybrid position? Discuss the details of this.
So here’s the third question I’d like you to tackle:
The Antiochenes sometimes speak of Christ as a God-inspired man. Do you agree or disagree with this? Why or why not.
Fourth and final question:
What do you make of the “communication of attributes” doctrine of the Alexandrian theologians? What truths vs. dangers might be lurking here?
so there are few questions but you don’t have to answer every single of them! I will show you some of my classmates discussion on those questions!!
Classmates discussions:
1) This is tricky. I am leaning more toward a hybrid because these feel too polarized. Personally, I would like more clarity about how these two natures and
two persons can connect to/communicate with each other. Perhaps that’s fleshed out more through the work of the Spirit in Jesus’ life?
I appreciated the 4 requisites from Berkhof that need to remain for our Christology to be orthodox: Christ is true God, true man, one person, with distinct
divine and human elements/natures (pg 93 in the notes). I think if we stay within these bounds, then we have some room for how we explain Jesus, making a
hybrid approach possible.
My Theology 2 class helped me make a bit better sense of things. I learned that if we start by looking at Christ as being fully divine, who then took on
humanity, we can see that there’s no giving up of anything on the Son’s part, there’s only an adding. And that Jesus’ divine and human natures are not in
conflict, because God can occupy the same time and space that creatures can (Acts 17:28 – “in him we live and move and have our being”). God just adds our
way of being, so that he can know and experience things in a human nature, just like he knows everything in his divine nature).
2) I think the the biggest strength of the Antiochene Christological position is the acknowledgement of Christ’s fully human and fully divine natures. Seeing
the full humanity of Christ allows for complete redemption of humanity in all its aspects. Yet, the biggest weakness of the Antiochene Christology is that they
strictly divide these two natures which makes for a ‘God-inspired man’ and a ‘schizophrenic Jesus’. There is no union of natures, and Christ is forced to ‘put
on’ either his human self, or his divine self, accordingly.
The biggest strength of the Alexandrian position is that they preserve the unity of Christ’s person – the divine Logos assumes human nature through the
incarnation, which is important because it is not just any ‘Joe’ whom God inspired, but God (the Logos) himself. The weakness of Alexandrian Christology is
that they teach that Christ’s human nature is “anhypostatic” – it is incomplete and dependent on the divine nature, which poses problems for the redemption
since Christ has no ‘real’ human nature.
3) Antiochene Christological Position
Biggest strength – Reliance on Col. 2:9 “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” The emphasis was on the indwelling of the divine in a human
body. It preserved Christ’s true humanity, so that he was able to have weakness, sorrows, etc.
Biggest weakness – The two natures of Christ are not united. They seem to flip flop between divine and human.
Alexandrian Christological Position
Biggest strength – Reliance on John 1:1 “The Word became flesh.” They view Christ as a divine person who assumes a human nature. It’s not possible to
separate the divine and the human natures of Christ.
Biggest weakness – By emphasizing the divinity it’s possible to lose the humanity of Christ For example did he eat? can he suffer?4) The biggest strength of the Alexandrian Christological position is the unity of the human and divine in Christ. It strengthens the idea that the human Jesus
was always a man who belonged to the Logos.
The biggest weakness is that Christ’s real humanity is somewhat lost so that he didn’t really suffer like a human. The divine Logos within him is what
controlled the human flesh, so it completely lowers the idea that Christ suffered along with men.
The biggest strength of the Antiochene Christological position is the integrity of the natures of Christ. This attempt solidified for them that Jesus’ humanity
stays human and that his divine nature stays divine. Though it is a separation, it is concrete.
The biggest weakness is that Jesus’ separation of the human and divine allows Jesus to “flop” back and forth. Therefore, the only clear way to solve this
problem is to move toward dynamic monarchianism.