The Catholic World, Vol. 10, October, 1869 to March, 1870Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 10, October, 1869 to March, 1870
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
We are not, of course, aware from what source or teachers Dr.
Channing learned the doctrine of the hypostatic union. Of one thing
we are fully assured, that the Catholic Church never taught, first,
that in Christ there are two souls. He is endowed with a human soul,
belonging to the human nature of which he is possessed. The infinite
and divine nature of the Word, of which Christ is also preserved,
has never, in theological language, been called a soul, nor can we
denominate it by that name except in loose and metaphorical language,
unworthy of a philosopher and theologian who is stating points of
doctrine.
Again, the Catholic Church never taught that the human soul of Christ
was ignorant. This may have been the opinion of those from whom Dr.
Channing may have drawn the theory of the hypostatic union; but in
stating a doctrine in which all Christendom concurs, Protestant
as well as Catholic, we should have thought it more honest if Dr.
Channing, not satisfied with his own teachers, would have taken the
pains to ascertain what two hundred and fifty millions of Christians
hold about it.
The first real objection of Dr. Channing is as follows:
"We maintain that this (to attribute to Christ two natures in one
person) is to make Christ two beings."
The same looseness and want of accuracy of philosophical language.
What does Dr. Channing mean by _being_? If by being is meant nature,
of course we do all attribute to Christ two natures, the human and
the divine.
If by being is meant person, we deny flatly that to attribute to
Christ two natures is to make him two persons.
Let the reverend doctor prove the intrinsic impossibility of two
distinct natures being united in one single subsistence and person,
and then we shall grant him that Christ, being possessed of two
natures, is two persons also. But such impossibility can never be
demonstrated; for the fact of the union between soul and body in man,
in the unity of one single personality, is a contradiction to all
such pretended impossibility. We have, moreover, shown in the course
of this article the intrinsic possibility of such supposition.
Dr. Channing continues:
"To denominate him one person, one being, and yet to suppose him
made up of two minds infinitely different from each other, is to
abuse and confound language, and to throw darkness over all our
conceptions of intelligent natures."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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