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Solving a paradox against concrete-composite Christology: a modified hylomorphic proposal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2010

ANDREW LOKE
ANDREW LOKE*
Affiliation:
Department of Education & Professional Studies, King's College London, Franklin-Wilkins Building (Waterloo Bridge Wing), Waterloo Road, London SE1 9NH
*
e-mail: qaddeen@yahoo.com
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Abstract

A paradox adapted from the well-known ‘paradox of increase’ has been formulated against composite Christology in recent literature. I argue that concrete-composite Christologists can reply by denying the premise that the pre-incarnate divine nature=the Second Person of the Trinity. This denial can be made by modifying a hylomorphic theory of individuals. Using an analogy from material coinciding objects, this modified theory provides an illuminating account of how a person can gain (or lose) parts over time but remain numerically identical, and it demonstrates that concrete nature and person are not the same thing.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , December 2011 , pp. 493 - 502
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Introduction

Christians over the centuries have believed that Jesus Christ was truly divine and truly human. An immediate question that arises is how a person could possess the contradictory properties of divinity and humanity. A helpful way of addressing this question is to think of the contradictory properties as being exemplified by Christ in two different respects: in respect of his divine nature, and in respect of his human nature.Footnote 1 A straightforward way by which this strategy can be made to work is to understand the two natures – divine and human – as concrete parts of the incarnate divine person. (An analogy: there is nothing contradictory in the thought that a lollipop is both red and not-red: not-red in respect of its stick, and red in respect of its edible top; in this instance, the stick and the edible top are two concrete parts of the lollipop.)Footnote 2

In the literature, this has been called the concrete-nature view, according to which ‘nature’ is fundamentally a concrete particular, in contrast with the abstract-nature view which understands ‘nature’ to be fundamentally a property or a set of properties.Footnote 3 According to the concrete-nature view, what happens at the point of incarnation is that the divine nature conjoins with the human nature, such that Christ has the divine nature and the human nature as his concrete parts (call this the concrete-composite Christology; unless otherwise specified, in the rest of this paper I shall use the term ‘nature’ in accordance with the concrete-nature view, i.e. to refer to a concrete particular).

In an interesting article in Religious Studies, Robin Le Poidevin discusses a paradox against a composite Christology.Footnote 4 Le Poidevin does not define ‘divine nature’ as a divine concrete particular; rather, he uses ‘divine nature’ to refer to the divine part of Christ.Footnote 5 Thus, his paradox is directed against composite Christology broadly rather than concrete-composite Christology specifically.Footnote 6 In any case, postulating the ‘divine part’ to be a ‘divine concrete particular’ is consistent with the paradox, and it would cause a problem for the strategy described in the previous paragraph.

Le Poidevin formulates the paradox as follows:

  1. (a) The pre-incarnate divine nature=the incarnate divine nature.

  2. (b) The pre-incarnate divine nature=the Second Person of the Trinity.

  3. (c) The Second Person of the Trinity=Christ.

From (a), (b), and transitivity:

  1. (d) The Second Person of the Trinity=the incarnate divine nature.

From (c), (d), and transitivity:

  1. (e) Christ=the incarnate divine nature.

But (e) is false, as the divine nature is only part of Christ.Footnote 7

A similar problem has been raised by Thomas SenorFootnote 8 and Thomas Flint, the latter pointing out that the problem is adapted from the well-known ‘paradox of increase’.Footnote 9 A lucid account of this paradox has been given recently by Eric Olson:Footnote 10 suppose that an entity A acquires B as a part, and let C=that which, together with B, made up A after B had become a part of A, as shown in Figure 1:

Figure 1.

The paradox is as follows:

  1. (1) A acquires B as a part.

  2. (2) When A acquires B as a part, A comes to be composed of B and C.

  3. (3) C does not acquire B as a part.

  4. (4) C exists before B is attached.

  5. (5) C coincides mereologically with A before B is attached.

  6. (6) No two things can coincide mereologically at the same time.

  7. (7) C=A. [from (5) and (6)]

  8. (8) A does not acquire B as a part. [from (3) and (7), contrary to the original assumption]

With respect to the paradox which he formulated, Le Poidevin suggests that, ‘if they want to retain the orthodox understanding of Christ as identical to the Second Person of the Trinity, the only way for proponents of the composite Christ to avoid paradox is to accept perdurantism. That might be too high a price to pay, theologically (and perhaps also philosophically)’.Footnote 11

In what follows, I will argue that, instead of paying this price, proponents of concrete-composite Christology can retain the orthodox understanding of Christ by denying premise (b), that is, by denying that the pre-incarnate divine nature=the Second Person of the Trinity, and that this denial can be made by modifying a hylomorphic theory of individuals. The argument will proceed in the following steps. In the next section, I will give a brief description of the modified hylomorphic theory. In the third section, I will show how this theory would ground the identity of the person through time. Having done this, I will demonstrate in the fourth section that the difficulties which led Le Poidevin to affirm (b) can be solved on the modified hylomorphic theory, and further difficulties related to this theory will be addressed.

A modified hylomorphic account

What are Le Poidevin's reasons for thinking that the pre-incarnate divine nature=the Second Person of the Trinity? He writes, ‘For if the divine nature that becomes incarnate is not the Second Person of the Trinity, then, against orthodoxy, it is not the Son who becomes incarnate. It would also raise difficulties for the Trinity, since it implies four persons, or three persons plus one nature, in one godhead.’Footnote 12

In reply, let us assume that Le Poidevin understands ‘becomes incarnate’ as ‘conjoins with a human nature’. The proponent of the concrete composite account can affirm that the divine nature and the Second Person of the Trinity (the Son) become incarnate (the latter conjoins with the human nature and assumes it as one of his parts, the former does not assume it as one of its parts), but maintain that they are different things.Footnote 13

One would ask, ‘But how can they be different things?’. An analogy from material-coinciding objects would help us see how this can be the case. The typical case is that of lump of clay and a statue (e.g. Michelangelo's David) into which the sculptor sculpts the clay. As Wasserman explains, pursuing the familiar Aristotelian idea that material objects are compounds of matter and form, where forms are conceived of as abstract entities of some sort (e.g. ‘guiding principles’ or ‘universal properties’), one could say that David and Lump differ because David, but not Lump, has the form statue as a non-material part. Thus, material-coinciding objects can share all of their proper material parts but differ in some non-material aspect.Footnote 14

Of course, the Son and the divine nature are not material objects. Nevertheless, one can postulate an analogous account for immaterial entities similar to the hylomorphic theory described in Richard Swinburne's The Christian God. As Swinburne explains, ‘On this theory, individuals are the individuals they are in virtue of the stuff (hyle) of which they are made, and the form or nature or essence (morphe) imposed upon it.’Footnote 15 Swinburne notes that on an Aristotelian view, forms are universals and ordinary physical matter is the only stuff of which individuals which have this-ness are made, but Swinburne suggests that the hylomorphic theory can be applied to an immaterial individual by understanding it in a more liberal way than the normal Aristotelian way. Thus, one can postulate a different kind of stuff from physical matter (call this different kind of stuff, ‘soul-stuff’) or a different kind of form from universals, such as individual essences (‘Maybe there is an essence not just of humanity or being a philosopher, but of Socrates’).Footnote 16

Therefore, it can be postulated that the ultimate reality of a being which does individuate is a particular restriction on the specific form, and that restriction is the ‘individual essence’. It is the union of the individual essence with stuff that brings into being particular individuals. In the case of Socrates, the essence of Socrates is a particular restriction on the form of humanity – it is a particular way of being human – and its union with stuff gives rise to Socrates. Granting the possibility that the human soul can exist apart from the body, that existence would consist in the instantiation of the form in immaterial soul-stuff.Footnote 17

Swinburne eventually concludes that it would be better to say that the hylomorphic theory does not apply to souls, for the reason that ‘A hylemorphic [i.e. hylomorphic] theory has its natural application to inanimate material objects … . If we extend it to souls we have to postulate a soul-stuff, whose existence we have no reason to postulate other than to preserve the hylemorphic [i.e. hylomorphic] theory.’Footnote 18 However, in what follows it will be argued that there is an independent reason for postulating the existence of soul-stuff and extending the modified hylomorphic theory to immaterial entities, and the independent reason is it provides a helpful account of not only how the paradox against a concrete-composite Christology can be solved, but also in general how persons can increase (or decrease) in size.

Adapting the hylomorphic account, it can be postulated that the divine concrete particular and the Son are (i) coincident but (ii) differ in some other immaterial aspect.

(i) The divine concrete particular and the Son are coincident in the sense that they share their ‘type-A’ immaterial properties (e.g. aseity, eternity, immateriality) and that together they exemplify ‘type-B’ immaterial properties, type-B properties being those that require a conscious agent (omnipotence, omniscience, etc).

For the distinction between their sharing of type-A immaterial properties and their exemplification of type-B immaterial properties together, consider the material analogy of Lump and Statue: Lump and Statue share their weight property by virtue of sharing parts, but Lump is beautiful only by virtue of being informed by Statue. Similarly, type-A properties are properties that are shared by the divine concrete particular and the Son by virtue of their sharing parts, whereas type-B properties are properties that are only had by the divine concrete particular by virtue of its having the form of the Son.Footnote 19

The reason for making the distinction between type-A and type-B properties is this. Concerning type-A properties, the divine concrete particular has these properties by virtue of its parts, thus it exemplifies these properties in its own right. Now properties such as omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, etc require a conscious agent. If the divine concrete particular exemplifies the property of a conscious agent in its own right, then this would result in two conscious agents (the divine concrete particular alongside the Son), which is problematic.Footnote 20 Therefore, properties such as omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, etc should not be type-A properties, which the divine concrete particular exemplifies in its own right. Rather, they should be type-B properties, which the divine concrete particular does not exemplify in its own right, but only by virtue of its having the form of the Son. On the other hand, the Son simpliciter does not exemplify the type-B properties apart from the divine concrete particular (this, in addition to the fact that the divine concrete particular and the Son share their type-A properties, explains why the divine concrete particular is divine).Footnote 21 Rather, the Son with the divine concrete particular exemplifies these type-B properties.

(ii) The difference in some other immaterial aspect between the divine concrete particular and the Son is that the Son has the form ‘person’ which includes a particular restriction (the individual essence of the Son), but the divine concrete particular does not have this. This explains why the divine concrete particular is not a person.Footnote 22

Identity of the person through time

The ‘individual essence of the Son’ is what grounds the identity of the Person pre- and post-Incarnation. Concerning the issue of personal identity through time, there are three main approaches that have been discussed in literature. The first is the somatic approach (the criterion of personal identity through time is the continuity of the same body through time), while the second is the psychological approach (the criterion is the continuity of the mind (the most important element of which is memory) through time).Footnote 23 The third is called the simple view, and it has been defended by philosophers such as Thomas Reid, Bishop Butler and Richard Swinburne. The simple view affirms that there is always an absolute answer (i.e. either Yes or No) to questions about personal identity over time (e.g. ‘Is this the same person?’). This is true of human persons as well, even though empirically the human person changes through time (e.g. having physical attributes that are different from what he had before). What this implies that there is an enduring ‘I’ which remains the same through change and existing fully now.Footnote 24

In contrast to the somatic and psychological views, the simple view affirms that, although bodily continuity and psychological continuity are fallible evidence of personal identity, personal identity is not constituted by either or even both together.Footnote 25 Many proponents of the simple view would affirm that what grounds personal identity across time is something immaterial. Somatic and psychological views face great difficulties,Footnote 26 and one is justified in agreeing with C. Stephen Evans that the simple view is the strongest by far, and that its current lack of popularity among philosophers is explicable by materialistic prejudice.Footnote 27 There are good reasons for thinking, however, that this prejudice is insufficiently motivated.Footnote 28

By proposing that the immaterial ‘individual essence of the Son’ is what grounds the identity of the Person pre- and post-Incarnation, the modified hylomorphic account affirms the simple view. What this modified hylomorphic account implies is that a person (the ‘form’) can grow bigger or smaller by acquiring or losing parts, but remain numerically the same person because the immaterial individual essence (a particular ‘restriction’ of the ‘form’) endures through time. Thus, the pre-incarnate Son and post-incarnate Christ are numerically the same in virtue of the continuity of the individual essence of the Son. This answers Michael Goulder's challenge to incarnationalists, viz. ‘Unless some continuity between the Word and Jesus is being asserted, their doctrine is not a paradox but a mystification, not an apparent contradiction but apparent nonsense.’Footnote 29

With this modified hylomorphic account, we are also in a position to answer William Vallicella's objection. Vallicella argues that, since God the Son cannot incarnate himself in himself but incarnate himself in another, this implies that the agent and the locus of the Incarnation cannot be identical. Since Jesus is the locus of the Incarnation, God the Son and Jesus cannot be identical.Footnote 30 The reply that the modified hylomorphic account would give to this objection is that, since in virtue of the continuity of the individual essence of the person a person at time t 1 can possess an additionally part at t 2 and still remain numerically the same person, God the Son and Jesus are numerically identical because Jesus was simply God the Son incarnating himself by possessing an additional part, i.e. a human nature.

Addressing difficulties

We shall now return to an earlier mentioned difficulty which Le Poidevin raises, viz. ‘if the divine nature is not the Second Person of the Trinity, then it implies four persons, or three persons plus one nature, in one godhead’.Footnote 31 With the modified hylomorphic theory, it can be replied to Le Poidevin that the postulation that the divine concrete particular does not have the ‘individual essence of the Son’ would account for the fact that there are not four persons in one godhead. Furthermore, since the Son and the divine nature share some divine properties and have other divine properties together, there are not ‘three persons plus one nature in one godhead’, for otherwise we would have ‘double counting’.Footnote 32

In his account of the paradox of increase, Olson gives some arguments for rejecting the strategy of utilizing the notion of coincidence to escape the paradox. He argues that ‘coincidentalists’ cannot give a satisfactory account of why A but not C can gain parts, and, with respect to persons, why a person is conscious whereas whatever coinciding with him/her is not (if it were, there would be two conscious beings).Footnote 33 The modified hylomorphic account can give an answer: the Son having the individual essence (but the divine concrete particular not) would account for the fact that, while the two entities (the Son and the divine concrete particular) share many properties together, there are also properties which they do not share together.Footnote 34 For example, the Son having the ‘individual essence’ accounts for why the conjoining of human nature makes the human nature a part of the Son, but not a part of the divine concrete particular. The Son having the ‘individual essence’ also accounts for why the Son is conscious and intelligent, whereas the divine concrete particular coinciding with him is not conscious and intelligent in its own right, but only by virtue of its having the form of the Son.Footnote 35

Olson objects further with respect to coincident objects A and C as follows: he considers a proposed solution to the paradox of increase, a solution which postulates that A can acquire new parts because it is an organism or a person or a thing of some other ‘mereologically inconstant’ kind, whereas C cannot change its parts because it is a ‘mass of matter’ or a ‘mereological sum’ or the like. He writes,

But this is little help. Suppose we ask what it is about A that makes it an organism rather than a mass of matter, and what it is about C that makes it a mass of matter and not an organism. Ordinarily we expect there to be physical differences between organisms and non-organisms. We think we can tell whether something is an organism by examining it. But there is no such difference between A and C.Footnote 36

However, Olsen's objection does not work, for one can hold the simple view of identity described in the third section, according to which A has an immaterial essence of an organism which C does not have, and this makes A an organism and C a mass of matter which (although not an organism) is coincident with an organism. I would argue that there is no physical difference between an organism and the non-organism it is coincident with, but there is physical difference between a ‘non-organism that is coincident with an organism’ and a ‘non-organism that is not coincident with an organism’, and that this physical difference can be examined.

In his paper, Senor raises some difficulties concerning the view that God the Son has a human nature as one of his parts, a view which my proposal affirms. He argues that this conflicts with the doctrine of divine simplicity: the Second Person of the Trinity does not remain simple, and that God the Son will be partly material. Senor also asks in virtue of what does God the Son's taking on human nature mean that the human body and soul literally become part of him, arguing that since God the Son has no proper parts, there is no chance that the human parts will be integrated to him.Footnote 37

To Senor's concerns it can be replied that the doctrine of divine simplicity is widely debated in contemporary literature, and it is probably safe to say that there is not yet any compelling scriptural-theological or philosophical argument for either side of the debate. Therefore, I see no adequate reason to reject my proposal because of this doctrine. I would affirm that God the Son is partly material. Since, according to composition models, he is partly material in respect of his human nature which he had assumed, and not in respect of his divine nature, this avoids the problem of saying that his divine nature is material. As to what accounts for how the human body and soul literally become part of him, since I deny that God the Son has no proper parts, I can postulate that the human part is integrated with him in a way that is consistent with the divine pre-conscious model which I proposed in a recent paper.Footnote 38 According to this model, at the incarnation the consciousness of the Logos acquired newly created human properties, such as the capacity to experience physical pain. In reply to Senor, it can be postulated that the human properties would also include a certain extent of the consciousness's ability to function during his embodied stage being made dependent on a particular brain, and that this dependence would account for the particular brain and body being his.

Conclusion

The modified hylomorphic theory provides an illuminating account of how a person can gain (or lose) parts over time but remain numerically identical. Additionally, with this theory it can be shown that concrete nature and person are not the same thing. Hence, the paradox against concrete-composite Christology can be solved.Footnote 39

References

Notes

1. Richard Cross ‘Parts and properties in Christology’ in M. W. F. Stone (ed.) Reason, Faith and History: Philosophical Essays for Paul Helm (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 177–178.

2. Ibid., 178.

3. Oliver Crisp Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 41, 46, 68.

4. Le Poidevin, Robin‘Identity and the composite Christ: an incarnational dilemma’, Religious Studies, 45 (2009), 167–186CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Ibid., 178.

6. Robin Le Poidevin made this clear to me in private correspondence.

7. Le Poidevin ‘Identity and the composite Christ’, 178.

8. Senor, Thomas‘The compositional account of the Incarnation’, Faith and Philosophy, 24 (2007), 52–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. Thomas P. Flint ‘Should concretists part with mereological models of the Incarnation?’ paper presented at the Logos Workshop in Philosophical Theology, University of Notre Dame, 2009.

10. Olson, Eric ‘The paradox of increase’, The Monist, 89 (2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, available at http://www.shef.ac.uk/content/1/c6/03/49/16/Par%20Inc.pdf, accessed 10.7.2010.

11. Le Poidevin ‘Identity and the composite Christ’, 184. Le Poidevin explains that on perdurantism, the Son and Christ are understood to be different collections of temporal parts that are intimately joined together. This allows us to say, using an ‘ordinary identity’ talk about persistence, that Christ is identical to the Son, and also that the pre-incarnate divine nature is identical to the incarnate nature. Since this ‘ordinary identity’ talk invokes a different kind of fact from the strict identity invoked by saying that ‘the Son is identical to the pre-incarnate divine nature’, the paradox is resolved. Nevertheless, Le Poidevin notes that perdurantism has the problematic consequence that the Son could have perdured as many human beings, each quite independent of each other; ibid., 182–183.

12. Ibid., 179.

13. This move is briefly considered by Le Poidevin in ibid., 180.

14. This is discussed in Ryan Wasserman ‘Material constitution’, in E. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 edn), available at http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2009/entries/material-constitution/, accessed 10.7.2010. Wasserman's worry concerning this view is that it gives up the popular idea that things like statues and lumps of clay are wholly material objects. However, this worry is not applicable for immaterial entities like divine nature and the divine Person, and it is not applicable to a mind–body dualist view of Christ (see further, n. 28 below).

15. Richard Swinburne The Christian God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 46.

16. Ibid., 46–47. Individual essence is also called haecceity, a term introduced by Duns Scotus for that in virtue of which an individual is the individual that it is: its individuating essence making it this object or person; Simon Blackburn ‘Haecceity’, in The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). See also Alvin Plantinga The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974).

17. Swinburne The Christian God, 47–49. Swinburne attributes the view on the ultimate reality of being to Duns Scotus, although he observes that it is disputable that Scotus held a hylomorphic theory. It should also be noted that Swinburne's idea of instantiation of the form in immaterial soul-stuff assumes substance dualism (see further, n. 28 below), but certain versions of hylomorphic theory deny this and affirm that the form just is the soul. There is disagreement among scholars concerning whether Aristotle affirmed or denied substance dualism; see the discussion and literature cited in Howard Robinson ‘Dualism’, in Zalta The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2009 edn), available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2009/entries/dualism/, accessed 10.7.2010.

18. Swinburne The Christian God, 50.

19. I thank an anonymous referee for the journal for suggesting this analogy. It might be objected that the proposal that the divine nature has parts violate the doctrine of divine simplicity. For my reply to this objection, see the section, ‘Addressing difficulties’ below.

20. I thank Robin Le Poidevin for pointing this out to me in private correspondence.

21. In answer to Thomas Flint, who asks with respect to the strategy of utilizing the notion of coincidence to escape the paradox, ‘It's much harder to understand how the Son could be, in a world where no Incarnation occurs, coincident with a concrete substance distinct from himself. Is this substance … omniscient, omnipotent, and wholly good? If not, how could it qualify as a divine substance?’; Flint ‘Should concretists part with mereological models of the Incarnation?’, 15.

22. In answer to Flint (see previous note), who asks ‘Is this substance supposed to be a person? If not, why not?’; ibid.

23. See the discussion and the literature cited in Eric Olson ‘Personal identity’, in Zalta The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2008 edn), available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2008/entries/identity-personal/, accessed 10.7.2010.

24. Richard Swinburne ‘The dualist theory’, in S. Shoemaker and R. Swinburne Personal Identity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), 3–66; William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), ch. 14. For Reid's view, see Thomas Reid ‘Of identity’, in A. D. Woozley (ed.) Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (London: Macmillan, 1941). For Butler, see Joseph Butler ‘Of personal identity’, a dissertation added to The Analogy of Religion (Oxford: Clarendon, 1897).

25. C. Stephen Evans ‘The self-emptying of love: some thoughts on kenotic Christology’, in S. T. Davis, D. Kendall, and G. O'Collins (eds) The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 270.

26. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the difficulties and the attempted solutions. See Olson ‘Personal identity’.

27. Evans ‘The self-emptying of love’, 267–271.

28. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss these reasons. For a recent account, see George Bealer and Robert Koons (eds) The Waning of Materialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), especially xvii–xx.

29. Michael Goulder ‘Paradox and mystification’, in idem (ed.) Incarnation and Myth: The Debate Continued (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 1979), 54.

30. Vallicella, William ‘Incarnation and identity’, Philo, 5 (2002), 91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31. The second part of the difficulty is also noted by Flint, who asks that if the divine concrete particular ‘is omniscient, omnipotent, and so on, have we not added to the Trinity a fourth entity that exhibits these perfections?’; Flint, ‘Should concretists part with mereological models of the Incarnation?’, 15.

32. This is adapted from the discussion with respect to material coincident objects in Wasserman ‘Material constitution’: ‘Suppose that Lump weighs 10lbs; David will then weigh 10lbs. as well. So why don't you get a reading of 20lbs. when you place both on the scale? Answer: because the two objects share the same weight as a result of sharing the same parts. Just as calculating the weight of something by summing the weights of all its parts (e.g. weigh the bricks and the molecules of a wall) will get the wrong result (since some parts will be weighed more than once), weighing David and Lump would involve the same kind of double-counting.’

33. Olson ‘The paradox of increase’, 10–11.

34. Cf. Wasserman's question for the material-coincidence view: ‘What could account for these differences? How can two things that are exactly alike in so many ways still differ in these other respects?’ Wasserman calls this the grounding objection; Wasserman ‘Material constitution’.

35. I thank the journal's anonymous referee for helping me to clarify this point.

36. Olson ‘The paradox of increase’, 10–11.

37. Senor ‘The compositional account of the Incarnation’, 58–59.

38. Loke, Andrew‘On the coherence of the Incarnation: the divine preconscious model’, Neue Zeitschrift fur Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, 51 (2009), 50–63Google Scholar.

39. I would like to thank Professor Robin Le Poidevin for his very gracious and helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, the journal's anonymous referee and Professor Peter Byrne for useful suggestions, Professor Alister McGrath for supervising my work at King's College, London, Professor J. P. Moreland for his metaphysics classes at Talbot School of Theology, and Mary S. C. Lim for her kind assistance.

Figure 0

Figure 1.