Identity and the composite Christ: an incarnational dilemma

Abstract

AbstractOne way of understanding the reduplicative formula ‘Christ is,quaGod, omniscient, butquaman, limited in knowledge’ is to take the occurrences of the ‘qua’ locution as picking out different parts of Christ: a divine part and a human part. But this view of Christ as a composite being runs into paradox when combined with the orthodox understanding of the Incarnation, according to which Christ is identical to the second person of the Trinity. In response, we have to choose between modifying the orthodox understanding, adopting a philosophically and theologically contentious perdurantist account of persistence through time, or rejecting altogether the idea of the composite Christ.