While on the Subject of Nature

See where you stand (according to the author of this quiz) pertaining to heresy. Some questions are hard to give direct answers to and others take some thoughts that you may have not considered all the implications before.

http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=7096N

Disclaimer: This quiz should only be used for a tool to get one digging deeper for understanding.

 

Well, that tread didn’t last even long enough for me to see it. Barely over one page; (well… it wasn’t about C vs A so what do you expect? ) yet, interestingly to me it brings up the question of being Chalcedon Compliance stated as: “You believe Jesus is truly God and truly man in every respect, apart from sin.” And “Officially approved in 451.”

Now I got the Chalcedon compliant, (which lead me to ask “Officially approved by who in 451 and want does that mean?”) And I also got 58% Nestorianism which lead me to a study over three days of what transpired between the two councils (Ephesus 431 and Chalcedon 451) asking why, and who called the shots? This study not only enlightened me in some knowledge about church history, but lead me into several hours of Biblical study. That’s my bag for coming here… study and learn.

So what is the harm??? I never claimed the results as valid; as a matter of fact I clearly stated “according to the author” so please don’t build a strawman against me as if I give the quiz credit for accuracy.

I also got a little Pelaganism, Gnosticism, Apollanarian, Adoptionist, and Monarrchianism. And I assure that I would love to know how the author came to those conclusions and think the author’s questions and bogus results are full of mud!!!

This is a theology and Bible study debate forum and this quiz brings up important questions that not only the church fathers explored but we (Baptist Board Groupies) also try to discuss while unfortunately all too often do shooting blindly from the hip.

BTW, I read your PM, which didn’t seem to reject the notion before I posted the quiz and tried to reply back with what was a nice and complimentary note, but you missed it , and apparently because you are a popular guy being your mail box is TOO full. Clean out your desk dude!

 

I think you’re pretty close on what the author was getting at: The nature of God in both the Trinity and during the incarnation. Here are some points I’ve worked on; what you think?

1) We have three inseparable Persons in one God; distinct Persons but inseparable in Nature or we otherwise would have three gods. If the Divine and Human Natures are united in the Word into one Nature, how do you find it possible to avoid the conclusion that the whole Divine Nature became man and suffered and died, or else conclude that each of the three Persons had a Divine Nature of His own?

2) If one is to say Christ only had a human body and “human living principle” but the Divine Logos (Word) had taken the place of the “thinking principle” then you have denied Christ to have exercised human activities, human acts of the will, human acts of cognition. (Do you need examples of this?) The error in the belief of one nature (Monophysitism) is in the failure to distinguish between the human or the mixed activities of Christ as a Man, and the purely Divine activities He had in common with the Father and Holy Ghost (which are in fact the Divine Nature.)

3) The Christological implications or complications that develop by attempting to completely mingle the human nature into the Divine, as to dissolve the human aspect within the incarnation (Eutychianism-dissolved like a drop of honey in the sea), or formulate one nature calling it only Divine can only be looked at by me as preposterous because of the existent human characteristics of Christ on Earth and the damage that would be done to the view of the hypostasis union of the Trinity.

 

Yeah, I sat back and tried to figure where the questons were leading and then couldn't answer fully, so would hit somewhere between "agree and disagree" which is why I think I got some negative results. Such as "Thinkinstuffs" 33% each on the Nestorianism and Monophysitism which are total opposites.

 

Monophysitism is the Christological position that Christ has only one nature, as opposed to the Chalcedonian position that Christ has two natures, one Divine and one human. From many points of view the Monophysites position of the fifth century are the most important of early heresies, and it is said that “no heresy or related group of heresies until the sixteenth century has produced so vast and important a literature.”

Four ways a Monphysite would conclude Christ having one nature:

• the human nature is absorbed by the divine;
• the divine Word (Logos) disappears in the humanity of Christ;
• a unique third nature is created from the combination of the divine and human natures;
• or there is a composition (a natural whole) of humanity and divinity, without confusion.

The Monophysite believes that Christ has but one nature, the Divine one.

The Chalcedon Council concluded that Christ is One Person in two natures; the difference of the Natures being in no way abolished because of the union, but rather the perfection of each being preserved, and both concurring into one Person and one Hypostasis.