Here I just want to sketch out a few questions to potentially spark discussion.
I don't intend here to sketch out the meaning of words such as enhypostasis and anhypostasis, or hypostatic union and the rest, because if you are interested in this in any detail, you will already know, and will be keen for me to get to my questions.
Suffice it to say, we are dealing with trains of thought to understand how Jesus being divine, and coming down from heaven, was able to live in human form. That already mentions two natures - human and divine. These two natures are joined together in Jesus. But how does that work? For instance, does having two natures mean having two minds with two wills? Can you be human without having a 'human' mind?
I'm not going to rehearse well known critiques of the different positions held by pre-Reformation theologians, Lutherans, Reformed, etc.
This post, you see, is proposing a dialogue using Temple theology, a theology which is an area of speciality for myself. (I really must write some posts abut it!)
Can Temple theology be a useful tool for widening conversation about how Jesus' human and divine natures interacted 2,000 years ago?
Where this is going
At the end of this post, I hope to have established a basis for asking this question. Is the hypostatic union basically this: that Jesus' whole humanity is the temple of his whole divinity?
Some preliminary questions
Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem was where heaven and earth were joined together. It was a wood and stone structure in which God dwelled, dwelling there in the form of his 'Name' and his 'Glory.' Are we aware of how much that carries over into the New Testament understanding of Jesus?
Jesus is the new Temple.(The incarnation is actually conceived of in Temple language in John 1:14.) In him, heaven and earth are joined together. Can we relate this to how, in the incarnation, his humanity and divinity are joined together? Could this help us to see how his divine nature is joined to his human nature? (Albeit 'you can't see the join' - a joke for British readers!)
Two perspectives on biblical anthropology should be noted for thinking about Jesus' human nature. Can we apply to Jesus in his incarnation a New Testament anthropology in terms of him being body, soul/mind, and Spirit? (May we speak of either a bipartite humanity with special reference to his flesh (sarx in John 1:14), or a tripartite humanity - human body, human mind, human spirit (pneuma, psyche and soma in in 1 Thess 5:23)? It doesn't necessarily matter which of those two perspectives of biblical anthropology we hold to for the purposes of this discussion, as you will see. It's just well to be aware that there are these two perspectives, to be aware of the assumptions we bring.
I'm going to explore an analogy which will help to make room for me to ask this question: can we speak in broad terms of Jesus' humanity as being the temple of his divinity? That can be broken down. Should we limit that to his body/flesh being the temple in which he dwells? Or can we go further? Is his human consciousness the temple of his divine mind?
Analogy: Christians and the Holy Spirit
I want to make an analogy with 'ordinary' Christians. We who are not God, not deities, not divine. In Christians, God's Holy Spirit dwells. Does this mean that in the ordinary Christian, we who are not God, not deities, that we are earthly temples in which the eternal infinite Holy Spirit is able to dwell in some miraculous way - the infinite dwelling in the finite, the immortal dwelling in the mortal, the divine Spirit dwelling in non-divine human bodies?
Our mind
Can the infinite mind of God dwell within such small creatures as ourselves, with such small brains? The issue here is not really the capacity of the human brain/body to house God so much as the capacity of the infinite Holy Spirit to dwell in such small creatures as ourselves. If God wanted to, he could make a silicon chip into which to download everything he knows. The smallness of Jesus as a human being with a body isn't a problem, so long as we remember that God can dwell as he wishes, and be incarnate as he wishes.
Is this what Paul posits as the normal experience of the ordinary Christian? That is, Paul who is, in New Testament language, born again, born of the Spirit from above. Is he a finite temple of the indwelling infinite divine Spirit?
Our body
Is it fair then to say that our whole personal humanity is a temple of the divine Holy Spirit? Or should we limit our statement to saying that only our bodies are a temple of the divine Holy Spirit? Does this distinction in use of terms matter or not in this dialogue? All worth thinking about, because our experience matters as an analogy as we come, shortly, to think about the incarnation of Jesus.
Is the Christian experience - which includes the still small voice speaking inwardly to us, the nudges and occasionally words of the indwelling Holy Spirit - can we speak of this as the mind of God speaking to our minds? Can we as temples then speak therefore of the mind of God being revealed to our minds by the Spirit, who is dwelling within us? Can we speak of all this as an inward experience, of this happening within us? As a 'temple experience,' if you like.
Can we humans, we Christians, speak of being the body of Christ? Are we joined to Christ as his body, in some substantial way beyond metaphor? That is surely a view found in the New Testament.
Our spirit
If our human bodies are joined to Christ's body, are our human spirits also joined to the Spirit of Christ? There is such a think as spirit if we are body, soul and spirit. Note Luke 8:55 which tells of a girl raised from the dead as "her spirit returned." Or 1 Corinthians 6:17: "he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him." Or Romans 8:16 where his Spirit is joined with our spirit. Or 1 Corinthians 14:14: "For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful."
So, to reframe it... is it that only our bodies are joined to his indwelling Spirit? Or is it that, in particular, our human spirits are joined to his Spirit? Is this what it means for us to be alive in the Spirit? If we are temples of the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit attached to us so closely that we partake of the divine nature? We who are not divine, not God, not deities?
As part of the body of Christ, is it that we are able to be temples of divinity by extension from Christ? (Because he is a temple of divinity first. That is, he is both temple, in the biblical language of the temple of his body, and he is the divine presence within the temple - John 1:14.) So, is that what makes it possible for us Christians to be temples of the Holy Spirit - by extension from Christ? This seems to be what Paul thought.
So those were some questions about being human, about being body and mind and spirit, about being temples.
Back to Jesus
From our understanding of being Christians, of being those who are not deities but are temples of God's Spirit, can we make an analogy to how Jesus is to be understood in his incarnation, in his experience? Let's see if the analogy is useful.
Can we use that analogy of human experience to talk about him? Of course we are moving on to something different from we who are not deities. Is the fact that Jesus is both the temple and also the divine presence within the temple (John 1:14) a basis for understanding how his human nature is joined to his divine nature? Is Temple theology a language we can use to reframe dialogue around hypostatic union?
Is the Christian experience of our merely human minds intimately knowing the mind of God's indwelling Spirit, is this experience an analogy that can help us to understand Jesus, to help us understand the consciousness of his human nature joined to his divine mind, the Logos? Is the temple of the body a helpful key to understanding here?
If the infinite mind of God can dwell within such small human creatures as ourselves, by the indwelling Holy Spirit, then surely there is no problem with the infinite mind of God being in Jesus - if veiled from his consciousness, none the less there? (No less there in the mind of Jesus than in the mind of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling Holy Spirit.) After all, John says that to Jesus the Spirit was given without limit.
Does bringing the imago dei into the question assist us here? If we are saying that humanity is in the image of divinity, and that this image is perfect in Jesus - which Judaeo-Christian tradition asserts - is it not then simply a good fit for Jesus' humanity to be the temple of his divinity? Is it not a good fit for Jesus' consciousness to be the temple of his divine mind? Is this where the theology of the imago dei should take us?
Personhood
This shifts the question away slightly from questions of personhood. Some commentators speak as if personhood is known to be different things if it's 'divine' personhood or 'human' personhood. But frankly there is no agreement on what 'personhood' actually is, or what the difference is, so that seems to me an unsure foundation for any conclusion.
I would venture that to be a human person simply means to be someone with the imago dei who is known to God, and that personhood is thus relational. As such, asking whether Jesus is a 'human' person is not necessarily to understand anything. You are human and you are known to God: therefore you are a human person. To be human, you have to have humanity, not to lack divinity. This seems to me to have plenty of explanatory power for the personhood of Christ in the incarnation.
If a human is made in the image of God - and Christ is the image of God - then this one, Jesus, being known to his Father as exactly the imago dei, this is enough to account for a personhood that is as much at home in humanity as in divinity.
This is Christ: one imago dei, one who is known to the Father in his humanity and in his divinity, one person.
I don't hold a binary premise (some do) that in order to be human, you first have to lack divinity, or be independent of deity. I don't see any logic in that binary premise, and it's certainly not a premise for being 'human' that I can see in the Bible. What I do find is that to be human, you have to have the imago dei, and there is nothing better suited for being both human and divine. Christ can be the imago dei in both humanity and deity, even if the rest of us have the imago dei in humanity only.
A human mind for instance is basically a mind made to be fit the likeness of the imago dei. Romans 11:34 speaks of the mind (νοῦς) of the Lord: "Who has known the mind of the Lord?" It doesn't say the Lord doesn't have a mind or that the Lord's mind is utterly unlike a human mind. But its reach is different. It reaches further without limit. A mind is a mind. Someone with a low IQ is no less a person that Albert Einstein was. Compared to Einstein, Jesus' mind had the greater reach, but it doesn't mean that one of them isn't a person, or that one of them lacks humanity. A mind is a mind. 1 Corinthians 2:16 says "we have the mind (νοῦς) of Christ." Luke 24:45 says Christ "opened their minds." Minds of those with the imago dei are relatable to each other. The human race is capable of rational thought because it was made by the Logos. The incarnation makes sense. (By the way, the Christological debates of the first Christian millennium didn't really debate the concept of the 'mind' in the incarnation, but they did debate the concept of 'will.')
All secular attempts to define personhood run the risk of being potential tools of eugenics, as they usually have a reference to a potential for rational thought, for instance, which could be used to deny personhood to people with dementia. A definition of personhood as being someone with the imago dei who is known to God avoids that risk. It also helps us understand why there is no intrinsic problem in Christ adopting human nature joined to his divine nature. It's also why I believe Temple theology is an aid in rethinking hypostatic union.
Closing questions
Does it mean we can speak of Jesus having a human consciousness and a divine mind? Is his human consciousness the temple of his divine mind? Is that going too far?
Is his whole humanity the temple of his whole divinity? Or is merely his body the temple of his divinity (John 1:14)?
If he is redeeming our whole humanity, is it sufficient to limit his body/flesh to be the temple of his divinity? Or does it make more sense to think of his whole humanity being the temple of his divinity? To reframe that, can we think of Jesus' human nature being the temple of his divinity?
But in short, how can the language of temple theology best be adjusted for dialogue about hypostatic union, within orthodoxy? Can the language of temple theology refresh dialogue around hypostatic Christology? Is the hypostatic union basically this: that Jesus' whole humanity is the temple of his whole divinity?
Will this help us to work through some of the knottier questions around hypostatic union? That is my hope in presenting these outline questions.
I will leave these questions hanging for the moment, in the hope of further discussion.
Some articles on the subject of hypostatic union for background
The advantage of these is that they are short!
https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/tsysk1/
https://www.gotquestions.org/enhypostasis-anhypostasis.html
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/leithart/2008/11/en-and-an/
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