144 - The Logic of God Incarnate

The Logic of God Incarnate

By Thomas V. Morris

Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1986. 220 Pp. $19.95.

Morris claims that "a few simple metaphysical distinctions and a solid dose of logical care will suffice to explicate and defend the doctrine [of the Incarnation] against all extant criticisms of a philosophical nature." This is a remarkable claim.

The author interprets the traditional doctrine of the Incarnation as the identity statement that Jesus of Nazareth was one and the same person as God the Son, a single individual having all the properties constitutive of deity and all the properties essential to humanity. He undertakes to defend this claim against charges that it is conceptually incoherent and cosmologically incongruent. He then ventures some remarks about the epistemic status of the doctrine of the Incarnation and about the relation of this doctrine to that of the Trinity. We can focus on his extended argument against charges of conceptual incoherence.

First, Morris argues that, although no individual can have more than one individual-essence (that whole set of properties individually necessary and jointly sufficient for being numerically identical with that individual), various individuals share kind-essences (sets of properties individually necessary and jointly sufficient for membership in that kind). On the basis of this first key metaphysical distinction, he suggests that Jesus could have had all the kind-essential properties of humanity and divinity while still having a single individual-essence. He might have existed, that is, as "one person with two natures."

Secondly, a distinction should be drawn between common human properties (those widely shared) and essential ones (those necessary to being a human being at all). To be fully human, then, is to share these essential properties. Morris suggests that one might properly hold properties that would be logically incompatible with an incarnation (such as metaphysical contingency, having a beginning in time, and being possibly annihilated) to be common, rather than essential human properties. Thus, by sharing all essential human properties, Jesus may still have been fully human without being merely human, as those would be who do not share such properties as these.

How might Jesus have shared all the kind-essential properties of both humanity and divinity and also have been fully human? Morris suggests

146 - The Logic of God Incarnate

that he may have had "two minds," or two distinct ranges of consciousness: an earthly and historically conditioned one contained by, but not containing the divine one of God the Son. By means of the relation between the two, it may even have been epistemically possible for him (as ruled by his human mind) to sin, yet not logically possible for him to have done so in virtue of the necessary goodness of his divine mind.

What has Morris achieved? To the extent that one accepts his metaphysical distinctions and two-minds model, as well as the logical-conceptual links he proposes between them, one will also accept his basic claim. I imagine that Morris' work will attain something of a formative status for discussion of Christian faith in the community of analytically-minded philosophers of religion.

And yet, this strength belies the book's basic weaknesses. Its claims to truth logically presuppose claims to meaning. However, these are based on thought-experiments and analogies which are ad hoc, rather than placed in any theory of analogy. Perhaps we can expect this, but there is no indication of interest along these lines. It takes for granted a metaphysics of "Aristotelian essentialism" (Quine) which is problematic for many and which leads to conundrums in the so-called problem of transworld identity among those who study modal logic. Its understanding of revelation is primarily propositional and, therefore, naive. It evidences no awareness of the kerygmatic character of early Christian texts. In other words, this is a book by an analytic philosopher of religion for those of his colleagues who do not have an interest in analogy, semantics, revelation, or history.

PHILIP E. DEVENISH

Union Congregational Church
Hancock, Maine