Incarnation, Divine Timelessness, and Modality
A central part of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation is that the Son of God ‘becomes' incarnate. Furthermore, according to classical theism, God is timeless: He exists ‘outside' of time, and His life has no temporal stages. A consequence of this ‘atemporalist' view is that a ti...
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| Medienart: | Elektronisch Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Verfügbarkeit prüfen: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Presses Universitaires de Louvain, Université Catholique de Louvain
[2019]
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| In: |
TheoLogica
Jahr: 2019, Band: 3, Heft: 1, Seiten: 88-112 |
| RelBib Classification: | NBC Gotteslehre NBF Christologie VA Philosophie |
| weitere Schlagwörter: | B
Incarnation
B Divine Freedom B Atemporality B Son of God B Modality |
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Volltext (doi) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Zusammenfassung: | A central part of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation is that the Son of God ‘becomes' incarnate. Furthermore, according to classical theism, God is timeless: He exists ‘outside' of time, and His life has no temporal stages. A consequence of this ‘atemporalist' view is that a timeless being cannot undergo intrinsic change—for this requires the being to be one way at one time, and a different way at a later time. How, then, can we understand the central Christian claim that the Son of God ‘becomes' human? This paper examines one such explanation, drawn from a brief remark by Brian Leftow: the Word takes on flesh by exhibiting modal variation with regards to the incarnation. On this account, a timeless God ‘becomes' incarnate simply due to variation across logical space: at some possible worlds He is incarnate and at others He is not. Modal variation need not, therefore, require temporality: it only requires variation across (static) possible worlds. I draw out the problems with Leftow's modal claim under the heads of Ersatzism and Genuine Modal Realism about possible worlds, respectively. I argue that in both instances, Leftow's desired cross-worldly variation of the Son's incarnation cannot be achieved. |
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| ISSN: | 2593-0265 |
| Bezug: | Kritik in "On Emily Paul on Brian Leftow (2019)"
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| Enthält: | Enthalten in: TheoLogica
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.14428/thl.v2i3.2283 |