IV. Objections to the Bible doctrine of the incarna- tion worthy of consideration are more easily resolved,
perhaps, than those against anj^ other doctrine of Scrip, ture, for they are mostly, if not altogether, to be com« prehended under the head of its deep mysteriousness. Many writers, however, have adduced as parallel the mystery of creation, which is in itseK the embodiment of thought in matter, and the existence of such a com- posite being as man, not to speak of mysteries with which oiu- entire economy is crowded. A p>-io)-i, it is not more difficidt to conceive of the union of the divine with tlie human, or the taking up of the human into the divine, than to comprehend the incarnation of an immaterial essence such as that of the mind in a mate- rial form like that of the body. " If even in our time the idea of the incarnation of God stiU appears so diffi- cult, the principal reason is, that the fact itself is too much isolated. It is always the impulse of spirit to embody itself, for corporeity is the end of the work of God ; in every phenomenon an idea descends from the world of spirit and embodies itself here below. It may therefore be said that aU the nobler among men are rays of that sun which in Christ rose on the firmament of humanity. In Abraham, jNIoses, and others, we already discover the coming Christ" (Olshausen on John i, 14).
The strictures of archbishop Whately with respect to the substance of Deity, etc., may hold good of dogma- tism upon the incarnation : " But as to the substance of the supreme Being and of the human soul, many men were (and still are) confident in their opinions, and dog- matical in maintaining them : the more, inasmuch as in these subjects they could nc* br refuted by an appeal to experiment. . . . Philosophical divines are continu- ally prone to forget that the subjects on which they speculate are confessed^/ and by their ovm account be- yond the reach of the human facidties. This is no rea- son, indeed, against our believing anj'thing clearly 7-e- vecded in Scrijyture ; but it is a reason against going be- yond Scripture with metai^hysical speculations of our own," etc. {Cyclop. Brit, i, 517, 8th ed.). On objections, consult Liddon, Bampton Lecture, lect. v ; Sadler, Em- manuel, chaps, ii, v ; Frayssinous, Def. of Christianity, ii, ch. XXV ; Thos. Adams, Meditatio7is on Creed, in Worlds, iii, 235 ; IMartensen, Christ. Dogmat. § 132.
V. History of Views. — The true theorj' of the natuje of Christ was of gradual development in the history of the Church. Not unlike the best and most enduring growths of nature, it sprang up and matured amid the conflicts of doubt and the tempests of faction. (See § VIII, below.) The efforts to harmonize the divine anil human natures of Christ gave rise to a series of fluctua- tions of doubt, which illustrate in a signal manner the tendencies of the human mind to recoil from die ex- treme to another. The close of the 4th centiu-y (A.D. 381) witnessed the maturing of correct views as to the twofold nature in the one person of Christ, and their embodiment in the creed, Avhich, subjected to the test of centuries, is stDl the expression and symbol of the faith of the Church. See Creed, Nicene and Coxstaxti- KOPOLITAN, vol. ii, p. 562.
" If we would correctly apprehend the ancient Church doctrine of the two natures, we must take ^vaig in the abstract sense in Avhich it was used. The divine na- ture consists in this, that Christ is God, the predicate ' God' belongs to him ; the human natiu-e is this, that the predicate ' m.an' is assigned to it. His divine nature is the divine essence which subsists in the Logos from eternity, and which in his becomiiig man he still 7~e- tained. His human nature is the man's nature or mode of being and constitution, which yb?- itself does not sub- sist, but which, as a universal attribute, exists in all other men, and, since his incarnation, also in him — the natura hominmn. To have human feeling, will, and thought, and as a human soul to animate a human body, is human natiu-e. We must, however, never think of human natiu-e as a concretum, a subsistens, a son of Jlarj', with which the Son of God miited himself, or mixed himself up" (Ebrard, iu Herzog, Rcal-Encyklopddie, s. v. Jesus Christ).
INCARNATION
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INCARNATION