lohaextra.blogg.se - Ubiquity and omnipresence

The second response Cross provides to the idea that Luther has presented a “new dogma” is this: what Luther provides isn’t new at all. The root is not everywhere the tree is, nor is its trunk (and so on). Vermigli’s example is of a tree: the unity of a tree is not risked merely because its parts are in different places. For, so goes the argument, if one tries to plug in other sorts of objects to this metaphysical principle, it generates obviously false conditionals. This principle, argues Cross (following Vermigli), is unmotivated. L HD: If the human nature is present at a location, L, at a time T, then the divine nature is present at location, L, at time T. L DH: If the divine nature is present at a location, L, at a time T, then the human nature is present at location, L, at time T. Here’s one way to think of two-way spatial inseparability: Cross suggests that the critical premises are (1) and (2), premises (says Cross) that rest on a particular metaphysical assumption: two-way spatial inseparability.

The first is an analysis of the argument. To this “new dogma,” Cross provides two responses. The new dogma is that Christ’s human nature has the property of “being omnipresent” or “being ubiquitous.” The humanity is everywhere ( and )įrom this line of reasoning, says Cross, Lutherans believe that Luther advances a “new dogma” concerning Christ’s humanity. It is not the case that the divinity exists where the humanity does not ( and MT)Ĭ3. It is not the case that the natures are spatially divided.

If the natures are spatially divided, the person is divided.Ĭ1.

If the divinity exists where the humanity does not, the person is divided. Here’s Cross’s rendering of this Lutheran argument: Luther, it seems, thinks that ascribing various properties to one of Christ’s natures and not to the other entails Nestorianism. On Cross’s reading, Luther has an important Christological worry that motivates his argument for bodily omnipresence. Why on earth should anyone entertain that a body possibly could be omnipresent?Įnter Martin Luther. Indeed, my own response to such a concept is one of incredulity.

Bodies aren’t maximal sorts of things bodies, by virtue of the nature of having the property “being a body” are limited so, no body (no body ≠ nobody) can be omnipresent. Now, one immediate response to the question is “no, of course not bodies aren’t the sorts of things that can be omnipresent.” One reason for this immediate response might be this: omnipresence is a divine property it’s a maximal property predicable only to that which is a maximal sort of thing (i.e., God). O’Brian Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, came to Fuller to shed some light, particularly by way of a close reading of the Reformation and post-Reformation Christological/Eucharistic debates that cropped up between Luther, Zwingli, and others. What about this question: can a human body be located everywhere? Can a human body be omnipresent? To this question, Dr. What sort of things are humans? What is a human’s relation to its creator? What is a human’s relation to another human? Do humans have a vocation? If so, what is it? Did God make a human being one substance? Two substances? Three substances? When thinking about theological anthropology, myriad questions arise.