I've always had trouble understanding how exactly God was fully human and fully divine. Again, it's something that's not stated directly in the Bible. but something that came about much later after much controversy. It's something that is widely accepted in Christianity today, however.

But what exactly about Jesus makes him FULLY human--what about his soul, for example is human? What was divine? Was he omniscient when he lived on earth? Is he human now that he's "in heaven?"

Not sure about the whole thing.

Hehe,
I might swing and miss on this one but what I remember from my Catechism class is that Jesus was indeed both fully human and fully divine.

He was fully human in the fact that he knew temptation, (i.e. was tempted to sin) and suffering and all that came along with humanity. But he was divine because he was able to transcend humanity and not sin.

I went with that for a while too, but as far as Catholics go, then why is Mary sinless?

If Mary is sinless, then sinlessness can't be the indication of Jesus' divinity.

Ah yes the good ole catholic doctrine of Immaculate conception. This is where I become a heretical catholic. I don't really believe in the doctrine of the Immaculate conception, ergo Mary was still born with original sin, ergo she wasn't sinless ergo my prior claim still logically fits within my construct of beliefs.

I'd be willing to discuss the doctrine of the Immaculate conception with you if you'd like since we're both catholic but preferably via e-mail or something. I doubt too many people here would be interested in it.

Someone should split the thread to start a new one about the humanity/divinity of Jesus.

ask and it shall be given unto you.

Well then Boru, pursuing your definition...

Are you saying then that the only thing that makes us human is our sinfulness? In other words, the only thing that separates us from divinity is that we are sinful? And that the more sinless we can become the more we approach divinity?

If I might post my thoughts on the subject:

I believe that Jesus was "fully God and fully man". Your main question, it seems to me, is "what makes one human and what makes one divine?" This is a good question, and one that I am not sure I know the answer to. On immaculate conception, I would say that Mary was certainly not sinless, but that Jesus didn't inherit original sin from her because Mary was really only a carrier. This is probably heretical of me, but bear with me anyway here. In a "biological" sense, Mary was not Jesus' mother. God was Jesus' father and mother, essentially. Jesus' humanity did not come from Mary, and so he was not born doomed to sin -- his humanity came from the same place as Adam's. From God. However, he was at the same time fully God -- he was God personified, essentially. This is a wondrous mystery, and a concept that I still struggle to understand. A friend of mine suggested a possible interpretation of Jesus' last words on the cross that I found quite profound, and which offers some insight as to Jesus' divinity.

Matthew 27:46
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, [ Some manuscripts Eli, Eli] lama sabachthani?”–which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” [ Psalm 22:1]

This is a passage which has often been met with confusion by those seeking the truth. How could God "forsake" Jesus? The common excuse thrown around is that Jesus was quoting a Psalm, and so suddenly he didn't actually mean that God was forsaking him. While the idea of this statement merely being an expression of Jesus' immense pain is a valid one, I don't think that that is a sufficient explanation. What my friend suggested was that God really did "forsake" Jesus here. When Jesus took the sins of mankind upon himself, God could not (or would not) look upon him. When Jesus as man, who had been sinless his whole life and as such had always been completely connected with Jesus as God and with God the Father, took mankind's sins upon himself, his connection with God was severed. Jesus the man no longer had a link to God the Father, and his Godhead left him. He was fully, and merely, human. He was, in fact, less than human, because all humans are always connected to God, however weakly or dimly. He was completely and totally separated from God, and at this point, he was only Jesus the human.

This, I think, is a very profound explanation of Jesus' humanity and his connection with God the Father, but I must confess that I still do not very well understand Jesus as God. Where did Jesus' Godhead go at this moment? Back to Heaven, to be reunited with God the Father, perhaps? This seems like the most likely scenario to me, but I'm not at all certain.

Wow. That's a pretty cool explanation.

I can't buy into it though. The notion that Jesus (God personified as you say) could at some "moment" be completely separated from God simply strikes me as implausible.

Boethius, a medieval philosopher, once said that evil is nothing. He came to this conclusion by starting with the premise that God is good, and God's creation is good. God created everything that exists. Therefore, everything that exists is good. Evil, therefore, is not only the absence of God, it's the diminishing of reality itself (and if you conceive of God as reality itself, than this is a nice fit). In this conception, for Jesus to be COMPLETELY separated from God, he would have to for a moment not exist at all. But then again you don't have to agree with Boethius.

By the way, if you ever have to write a paper about Boethius, you may get comments from your teacher like, "What a great paper on nothing!"

Back to the topic at hand though. I think Buddhism has a lot to say about this topic. See "Living Buddha, Living Christ" by Thich Nhat Hanh. I really like what he says about divinity, although it is very Buddhist and not very Christian in the sense that perhaps there is no real difference between divinity and humanity. In this sense, Jesus Christ is of course the perfect model for humanity, insofar as for him, divinity and humanity coexisted in perfect harmony. This, Thich Nhat Hanh seems to indicate, is indeed something worth pursuing.

Saint Augustine stated, God was not the creator of evil or bad, he created good but endowed to us the abilitiy to make our own choices. Thus is evil a human creation, and God merely an arbitrator of evil, and a judge.

And for Augustine, the world of divinity and the world of humanity are completely separate except in Christ (very unlike Thich Nhat Hanh, for example). Augustine sets apart a "City of God" and a "City of Man," and we should not expect the City of Man to be the City of God. Jesus comes into the City of Man, but he is the king of the City of God.

For Augustine it seems, the only "human" part about Jesus is the fact that he lived for 33 years in the City of Man.

:huh:

Well..I'm only 100 pages into Confessions so yea.....

yeah Augustine wasn't so big into giving humanity credit for their good deeds, everything good was because God graced us and allowed us to choose good, everything bad was because we're fallen. It's a gross oversimplification but you get the point. What's interesting is how many of his views are borderline heretical nowadays in the catholic church.

Yeah, we've come a long way from Augustine.

Example: I saw a Catholic Charities billboard up in Baltimore that had a hand reaching out and a slogan that said "Touching the Divine Within."

I do not believe Isa (whom you call Jesus) was Divine, but rather a Prophet. He was just a man and, albeit a very nice and wise man, not worthy of worship.