What was this thirst for logical proofs that haunted me and made me feel so inferior in faith to Timothy and the rest of the brothers? Why could I not hold on to the passionate certainty that I had felt in my heart when I first heard Peter preach the Word two decades ago?
Timothy sat next to me in the stern, silently watching the sail billowing, appearing deep in thought. I knew that look—and knew not to interrupt it. At length he spoke. “I have been thinking through the night,” he said, “of how best to describe Jesus’ nature. It is difficult to do, for I am convinced that he has a dual nature, that of both God and man—although at first blush one nature would appear to exclude the other. This is what you wish to understand, Mark, is it not—how one can simultaneously be both the son of God and son of man?”
“That is precisely my question. As I believe, God has no body; God is pure spirit, uncreated, always existing, existing before there ever was a physical world—a physical world which God created. I see it as inconsistent for an incorruptible and immortal spiritual being to have flesh and blood, bone and sinew, which by nature corrupt and die.”
“Ah, just as I thought,” Timothy smiled. “You see the dilemma as one of logical impossibility, Mark.”
“What do you mean, logical impossibility?”
“I mean an impossibility which follows from the very definition of the terms used. For example, even presuming that God is all powerful and can do anything, He still cannot make a square circle, nor make a stone so heavy that even He cannot lift it, yet these ‘inabilities’ are not true limitations on His omnipotence, because they are mutually exclusive by definition. Do you see?”
“I think I do.”
“These physical qualities of man you mention, having corruptible flesh, blood, bone and sinew—you would agree that they are separate from the quality of a man’s soul or spirit, and not of its essence?”
“Of course.”
“And indeed, we have already posited that the soul can have life beyond the physical life of the body, haven’t we?”
“We have.”
“A soul could logically be clothed with mortal flesh, even on a human plane, then, without destroying its essence?”
“That follows.”
“And may we define ‘man’ as a being having both a body and a soul, the one physical and corruptible, the other spiritual and incorruptible?”
“We may.”
“Similarly, your objection to Jesus’ being both God and man was that God, as a pure spirit, is eternal and incorruptible; must we not also say that God’s spirit, no less than man’s, could logically be clothed with mortal flesh without destroying its essence?”
“No doubt that is so.”
“Then the partaking of a divine spirit and a human body at once is not of the character of logical impossibilities; which is to say, it is not inconsistent by definition. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“So, if a divine spirit in a human body is not logically impossible, then it must be within an omnipotent God’s power to achieve, must it not?”
“In those terms, Timothy, I would agree; nevertheless, I would say that the divine spirit and the human soul are truly different even if both be capable of eternal life—for the one is created, the other does the creating, existing from all time prior to all creation. If Jesus was created, was born into the world, then I cannot see how he could also be uncreated God.”
“You have begged the question, Mark! You have presumed that Jesus was created in respect of both body and soul. But that need not be the case.”
“Explain.”
“To be truly human, created in the flesh, he would of necessity have been born of a woman, would he not?”
“Yes.”
“To be truly divine, uncreated spirit, he would of necessity have been begotten directly of God, would he not?”
“Again, yes. But how can both be possible?”
“It is written by the prophet Isaiah, ‘the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.’ I contend that that this prophecy has been fulfilled in Jesus.”
For an instant, I was taken aback; the possibility of the passage’s reference to the birth of Jesus had never occurred to me. I had always translated the Hebrew word almah to mean young girl at the age of puberty rather than its alternative translation virgin—and had presumed that the son referred to in this passage was Hezekiah, the son of King Ahaz to whom this prophesy was made. Who could blame me? The notion of a divine father and a human mother was popular in Greek mythology and legend, but quite foreign to Judaism. There was, of course, the metaphorical reference early in the Book of Genesis to the “sons of God” taking wives from among the daughters of men prior to the Great Flood and producing the race of giants known as the Nephilim, but I had always understood those “sons of God” as being angels, and not true deities.
Timothy must have seen the look of puzzlement on my face. “Suspend your disbelief for a moment, Mark, and consider: if God, being pure spirit, were ever to take on flesh and become one of us, how could it be otherwise than by a virgin birth? For if the seed of a man had caused Jesus to grow in his mother’s womb, then he would have been born simply human, and not the son of God at all. He would, being man, have had to become God at a later time—which we have agreed is illogical.”
“I must confess, I had never considered that.”
“And let us go further: being begotten of God need not mean being created by God, but merely emanating from God—and all the while of one being with God. Do you see this as well?”
“I must ask you to elaborate, Timothy.”
“We spoke earlier of time as a measure of change, and of the distinction between everlasting existence in a universe of change, and the eternal ‘now’ which does not change; do you recall?”
“I do.”
“Is ours not a temporal universe of change?”
“Assuredly so.”
“And is God’s?”
“Assuredly not; He is unchanging.”
“In our world, if a man creates something, there surely was a point in time when he existed but his creation did not. Is not that the nature of creation; creator always precedes creature in time?”
“Of course.”
“Similarly, if a man procreates, he must of necessity have existed in time prior to his child, must he not?”
“I agree; although perhaps we may say that the seed which became his child was always present within him, or at least latent within him.”
“Yes, but even there, would it not be accurate to say that the latent or potential child is surely different from the actual child, which comes to be what we properly describe as a child later in time?”
“True.”
“But if, in God’s world, all is immutable and time has no application, would it not be contradictory to speak of a prior ‘time’ when God existed, yet that which emanates from Him did not?”
“It would be. But could not the same argument be made