One of the old puzzles of Christology is why it is that in us the soul and body together compose a person, but they do not do so in Christ.
The problem is intensified if one thinks that there is an entity composed of the soul and body of Christ, an entity one might call “Christ’s concrete human nature”. For the person of Peter just is the entity composed of the soul and body of Peter, while in Christ the quite similar (except in sin) entity composed of the body and soul is not a person, but rather is united to a person.
The standard way out of this difficulty is to say that being a person is an extrinsic feature of a concrete human nature. Thus, Peter’s concrete human nature is a person because it is not united to a person distinct from it. But Christ’s concrete human nature is not a person because it is united to a person distinct from it. A problematic consequence of this is that personhood is not an intrinsic feature of an entity.
But there is a better way to get out of the difficulty. Just deny that in Christ there is any entity composed of his soul and body, and any statements about “Christ’s human nature” we need to make about his concrete soul and body should get paraphrased as statements about two entities, Christ’s soul and Christ’s body. Since there is no such entity as Christ’s concrete human nature, there is no puzzle as to why this entity isn’t a person.
This also solves another problem. If there is such a thing as Christ’s concrete human nature, then plausibly it thinks human thoughts, just as Peter’s concrete human nature thinks human thoughts. But Christ also thinks human thoughts. So in Christ there are two human thinkers: Christ and Christ’s concrete human nature. This is implausible! Granted, we can get out of it by making human thinking extrinsic as well, but each time we do the extrinsicness move, we intensify puzzlement.
But there is still a problem: Why is it that Peter’s soul and Peter’s body compose a whole—namely, Peter’s person—while Christ’s soul and Christ’s body do not compose a whole? Here we should make an extrinsic move. Christ’s soul and Christ’s body do not compose a whole because they are personally united to something else. Peter’s soul and Peter’s body, however, are not personally united to something else (I don’t count composition as personal union).
It may seem like at this point we have made no progress: we are back to an extrinsicness move. But this extrinsicness move is plausible in non-theological cases. Suppose Fred is missing a left leg. Then Fred’s soul, head, arms, torso, and right leg compose a whole. But Peter’s soul, head, arms, torso, and right leg do not compose a whole. Why the difference? Because Peter’s soul, head, arms, torso, and right leg are personally united to something else–namely, a left leg. But Fred’s soul, head, arms, torso, and right leg are not personally united to something else.
There is another worry. Suppose we embrace survivalism and think that Peter continues to exist in a disembodied way after death and before the resurrection of the body. But now Peter’s concrete human nature is reduced to a soul, and the soul does exist. So now Peter’s soul is a person, while Christ’s soul is not, even though both exist and are intrinsically alike (apart from accidental features). However, I think there is a way out of this, too. We deny that Peter’s soul is a person. The easiest way is to go four-dimensionalist: Peter’s soul is just a part of a four-dimensional entity that includes a body, though the body doesn’t happen to exist at this time. A less easy, but still tenable, way is to say that disembodied Peter has the soul as a proper part, with no co-part, and classical mereology needs to be modified to avoid Weak Supplementation (which is the axiom that says that if an object has a proper part, then it has another non-overlapping part).
9 comments:
Hi Alex!
Two things here.
First, I think you have a “Christ” where you want a “Peter” here:
“For the person of Peter just is the entity composed of the soul and body of Christ, while in Christ the quite similar (except in sin) entity composed of the body and soul is not a person, but rather is united to a person.”
Second, I think you might here be reinventing the third view presented by Peter Lombard, often called the Habitus Theory. Richard Cross, in his recent Early Scholastic Christology, calls it the non-aliquid theory. Here I’ll just quote a review I wrote of the book for the Scottish Journal of Theology:
“This theory claims that the Word assumed a human body and soul, but that, importantly, these two created things were not united into some third thing (hence non-aliquid). Since there is no further thing there composed of body and soul, there’s no worry of that further thing being itself a man or a person.”
There are some serious problems with fitting this view to the Conciliar teachings, which Cross lays out (see pg 145 of the above-mentioned book). Here’s one, again from my review:
“Turn now to arguments concerning the non-aliquid view. Peter of Poitiers (1125/ 30–1205), himself a proponent of the view, considers an argument against it and ‘admits defeat’ (pp. 126–7). If there is nothing there that is Christ’s composite of body and soul, then there is nothing there in which certain properties can inhere (for instance, to be able to laugh, to run, to cry, etc.). But if there is no human nature there, in what would such features inhere? Not just the soul. Not just the body. Not just the divine nature. And so, there’s an essential ontological component missing from the non-aliquid view.”
I wonder if you can get the benefits you want if you were to say that the body and the soul do compose a unit, that being Christ's Human Nature, but that THAT unit and all the accidental features do not compose a further unit, unlike in the case of Peter.
Aquinas thought of the nature as a metaphysical constituent of a human person. The other constituent parts are accidental features. On this view, a human nature, all by itself, is never a whole human person. It is whatever largest whole that has that nature that is the person.
In a mundane case with Peter, that largest whole, Peter himself, is composed of the nature and the accidents. In the case of Christ, there's a real human nature, there are accidental features, but there's no additional thing, the nature&accidents unit. Rather, the largest whole, so to speak, is the whole person of the Logos, in and from two natures (one of which, the human one, composed of form and matter and ontologically bearing accidental forms). Aquinas and John of Damascus were happy to speak of the composite person of Christ.
That might work for what you want.
Fixed the typo. It seems pretty easy to solve the problem of where the properties inhere. Presumably, when you laugh, it's because of something, A, that your body does and something, B, that your soul does. Your laughing, then, is an action of your person derivative from the body's Aing and the soul's Bing. When Christ laughs, it's because his body does A and his soul does B. His laughing, then, is an action of his person derivative from his body's Aing and the soul's Bing.
That's a very interesting history! It looks to me like the main worries with the non-aliquid theory are:
1. Properties had in virtue of soul + body.
2. The alleged difference between Peter and Christ in that Peter is a composite of soul and body while Christ is not a composite of soul and body.
3. The papal condemnation of the denial of "Christ as man is something".
4. Cross thinks that on the non-aliquid theory, "Christ is a man" comes to "Christ has a man".
I've responded to 1.
In response to 2, I am confused. On the aliquid theory, it seems not to be true that Christ is a composite of soul and body, because Christ is not a concrete human nature, and it is Christ's concrete human nature (CCHN) that is a composite of soul and body. Now, one might affirm the semantic theory that if CCHN is F, then Christ is F. But that semantic theory does not apply to all predicates. E.g., CCHN is identical with a non-person, but Christ is not identical with a non-person. Indeed, this example suggests that the semantic theory is not going to be true for identity claims in general. And "Christ is a composite of soul and body" appears to be an identity claim.
Maybe it's not an identity claim. Here is a plausible story: "x is a composite of y and z" means that x has y and x has z and every w that x has either (a) is y, or (b) is z, or (c) is had derivatively from having y and having z and from what y and z have. The non-aliquid theory now says this: the Logos has soul and the Logos has body, and everything that that the Logos has, he has derivatively from having soul and having body. There are two edge cases to consider: the divine nature and the human accidents. The human accidents are easy: they are derivatively had from having soul and body and from what the soul and body have. The divine nature is also not difficult: the Logos does not have love, wisdom or the divine nature, but he is love, wisdom and the divine nature.
It is not clear to me on this account of composition that Christ counts as composed of body and soul on the aliquid theory. CCHN clearly is composed of body and soul. But Christ has CCHN on the aliquid theory, and CCHN is not soul and not body, and it is not clear to me that having CCHN is derivative from having soul and having body and the soul and body having things. In fact, it seems to me that having soul and body might be derivative from having CCHN.
If we want to go out on a limb--and I probably don't--we could give a mereological gloss to the theory. A standard classical mereology rendering of "x is composed of the ys" is equivalent to: (a) each of the ys is a part of x, and (b) every proper part w of x has a part in common with at least one of the ys. Is it true then that Christ is composed of soul and body? Well, on the theory in question, the soul is a part of Christ and the body is a part of Christ, so we have (a). What about (b)? Well, there are two edge cases to consider: Christ's human accidents and Christ's divine nature. But Christ's divine nature is not a proper part of Christ. And it seems plausible to say that any human accident of Christ either is an accident of Christ's soul or an accident of Christ's body, or else has a part in common with an accident of Christ's soul or an accident of Christ's body. (I assume that if a is an accident of b, then a is a part of b. If this is false, then perhaps Christ's human accidents don't need to be considered at all.)
In response to 3, it seems to me that nobody should say that Christ as man is CCHN. CCHN is not a person. Christ as man is a person. (Aquinas in ST 3.16.12 makes a distinction of one sense in which this is true and one sense in which this is false. I don't take the false one!)
Finally, I just don't get 4. Christ is a man for exactly the same reason that Peter is a man: because each has soul and body. Neither Christ nor Peter has a man on the theory in question.
Hmm. Very interesting.
I think the biggest objection to the non-aliquid theory is the need to say "Christ as man is something" to avoid the Alexander III anathema. The aliquid theory only has an advantage in this regard if the "something" that Christ as man is is CCHN, since any other answer that the aliquid theory can give to what the "something" is is presumably an answer the non-aliquid theory can give as well, as the non-aliquid theory's ontology is the same as the aliquid's, minus CCHN.
But on the variant you suggest, we cannot say that "Christ as man is CCHN." For Christ as man is the same kind of thing that Peter as man is. But Peter as man is not a nature, but a man, a whole "composed of the nature and the accidents".
I suppose one advantage of this theory is if you are unsatisfied with my reductive solution to the problem of body-soul accidents like laughter.
Here's a variant of your alternative solution that I think might work ebtter. Suppose that there is a concrete human nature in Christ and in Peter, and that Peter is identical with his concrete human nature, but Christ is not.
Now, consider what we might call "ordinary hypostatic predicates", like "is tall", "is non-short", "breathes" and "thinks" (granted, "is non-short" is a bit of stretch of "ordinary").
Thesis: For each ordinary hypostatic predicate P, there is some metaphysical story of the form: "x has P iff x is a hypostasis with a concrete nature N such that N's fundamental features satisfy F_P".
Determining the specifics of F_P is, of course, in general a very difficult philosophical task, and indeed it has been one of the paradigmatic occupations of philosophy to figure out what F_P is for predicates P like "knows that p" or "is courageous". But there is such an F_P for each ordinary hypostatic predicate P, even if we do not know what it is.
Given the thesis, we don't have any reduplication of ordinary hypostatic predicates. "Christ is in pain" is true because Christ is a hypostasis and his concrete human nature has fundamental features arranged in the F_pain way. (Toy but false theory: Christ's human nature has C-fibers firing.) "Peter is in pain" is true because Peter is a hypostasis and his concrete human nature has fundamental features arranged in the F_pain way. Christ's concrete human nature is not in pain, because it is not a hypostasis, so there is only one thing in pain, the Logos. Peter's concrete human nature is in pain, because it is a hypostasis, but because Peter's concrete human nature is Peter, there is only one thing in pain, Peter.
One may worry that the Thesis is _ad hoc_ in its requirement that x is a hypostasis. I don't think so. Suppose (to oversimplify) lungs are fundamental features and the there is some fundamental motion M of lungs that makes for breathing. Then we don't want to say: x is breathing iff x has lungs engaging in M. For then my torso would be breathing. We should instead say: x is breathing iff x is a hypostasis with lungs engaging in M. Or suppose materialism is true and C-fibers are fundamental and the (false) theory that pain has to do with C-fiber firing is true. Then we don't want to say: x is in pain iff x has C-fibers firing. For then brains and heads are in pain. We want to say: x is in pain iff x is a hypostasis that has C-fibers firing. Likewise, the Thomist should not say: x is contemplating horseness providing that x has a passive intellect that instantiates horseness (in the intentional mode). For then both I and my soul contemplate horseness, which is false--only I do.
Hi Alex,
There’s a lot of good stuff here in your replies!
I like your discussions of the non-aliquid theory. I’ll not say much about them here. Just one thing:
On the non-aliquid view, you’ve got to do a systematic rephrasing of most Christological dogma. Christ does not have two natures. Contrary to Cyril, his human nature is not “flesh enlivened by a rational and intellectual soul”. Contrary to Leo, his human nature did not hang on a cross. Contrary to Constantinople III, his human nature did not will and perform operations.
I realize there’s a nearby thing to be said about all these assertions, and I don’t doubt that you could find a way to translate away all quantification over human natures. But then we’re left with the fact that the councils, in their attempts to speak so strictly and perspicuously about the essential components of the incarnation, were everywhere speaking wrongly. As you say, on this view “there is no such entity as Christ’s concrete human nature” and yet the Church has consistently and emphatically said that there is such a thing for a long time in its infallible pronouncements.
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To your discussion of Alexander III’s condemnation of “Christ as man is not-something,” we might read the qua clauses differently.
I read them as ontological laser pointers, gesturing toward that in reality in virtue of which the predicate is apt of the subject. “Christ suffered qua man” means that the predicate, “suffered” is apt of the subject, the person of the Word, and, if you look at the bit of reality that is doing the heavy lifting of ontologically grounding that claim, it is the humanity of Christ.
You seem to be reading “Christ as man” and “Peter as man” to be subjects to which we predicate “something.”
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Considering your variant of my alternative solution: you’ve basically given the semantical mechanics of the view I argue for in my 2016 book and elsewhere! The difference is that I deny your initial metaphysical assumption, that Peter is identical to his concrete human nature. (A word on why to deny this at the end of this already-overly-long comment).
Compare your Thesis in that last comment to what I’ve called revised truth conditions. Here’s one example from which to generalize:
“s is passible just in case s has a concrete nature that it is possible for some other thing to casually affect.”
And concerning your “F_P” locution, I talk about the “typical dependence” conditions for mundane, non-incarnational cases, saying that whenever those conditions, whatever they are, are satisfied in a hypostasis (whether divine or not), that predicate is apt of the hypostasis. You are right that such conditions can be tricky to spell out; happily, I don’t think we have to do so to use this sort of move.
Now, you use the Peter=Peter’s concrete nature (PHN) move, but I don’t think you need to. Peter can stand in for “s” in my revised truth conditions, since Peter has a concrete nature that fulfills whatever requirements. No need for Peter to BE that concrete nature.
For the work you do in your last paragraph, adding in “is a hypostasis” to the analysis of some predicates, I do that work, too, distinguishing “suppository” and “non-suppository” predicates in a 2020 book chapter called “The Metaphysics of the Incarnation.” Here’s a wrinkle for you, though. Sometimes the councils will predicate robust predicates of the assumed human nature. To reiterate my examples from above: it willed, it hung on a cross. You get even more robust examples if you look at how the fathers spoke outside the councils, too. To my mind, the best thing to do here is distinguish suppository and non-suppository senses, saying something like Aquinas’s line: “We may therefore say that the soul understands, as the eye sees; but it is more correct to say that man understands through the soul.” (ST I q.75 a.2 ad.2)
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Now, finally: why I don’t want to say that Peter IS PHN? Identity is necessary, so if P=PHN, then Necessarily(P=PHN). Now, God’s omnipotence extends such that it is possible that a divine person assume any human nature, not just the one that was in fact assumed. But now consider the possible world where the Son assumes PHN at its first moment of existence. Since PHN=P necessarily, the Son assumes a person in that world. But persons cannot be assumed. Therefore, etc.
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Thanks for this fun discussion!
Tim
Thanks, Tim! I think I misunderstood or misremembered your view.
I think that if I wanted to defend the view I was suggesting, I might say that a lot of the traditional quantifications over natures are quantifications over abstract natures or maybe second-order quantifiers. Or I would just say that they are like ordinary language quantifications over tables and chairs (I am one of those metaphysicians who doesn't believe in tables and chairs)--they are correct in ordinary language, but not in ontologese.
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