How Can Incarnation Be Recognized In The Divine Nature Of Christ?

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We learn that it is difficult to understand the process by which the unity of Jesus Christs’ divinity and humanity works in conjunction with time and space. Neo-Arian Christologies, in an effort to make the concept more reasonable, tended to separate Christ’s humanity from His divinity. In this mindset and noted by O’Collins, Jesus, the man becomes, “…merely (a) human teacher of wisdom, and the perfect example of moral perfection” (221). It is understood however, that Jesus as the Son of God, shares in the divine traits that are recognized in God, His Father. As stated by O’Collins, “The doctrine of the incarnation means that in this man, Jesus of Nazareth, we recognize characteristics that enable us to identify him as divine…” (232). However, the ‘soft’ accounts, or what O’Collins considers to be Neo-Arian, would have one to believe that Jesus though special and maybe even gifted for the role as God’s fully empowered representative, was neither the reality of nor Son of God. …show more content…
Ultimately the issue is that the Incarnation, and what it entails, requires a leap of faith in understanding that Jesus lived both an infinitely divine and finitely human existence. Some, especially proponents of Neo-Arianism, were not willing to take this leap. They see the harmony of the two natures existing in one person as unintelligible and incoherent. Yet what they fail to recognize, is that Gospels show that Jesus Christ lived a very human existence. As noted by O’Collins, the Logos shared in, “…nine essential traits of human existence: we are bodily, rational, free, emotional, remembering dynamic, social, and limited/unlimited beings” (237). One can find all these traits in play in the life of Jesus, thus being able to declare the Christ as fully