I just thought of a simple argument against the Christian
dogma of the incarnation. Here it is:
1.
If it is possible that
there is something that has two natures, then it is possible that there is something
that has a potentially infinite number of natures.
2.
But it is not possible that
there is something that has a potentially infinite number of natures.
3.
Therefore, it is impossible
that there is something that has two natures.
4.
Therefore, it is impossible
for the Christian doctrine of the incarnation to be true.
I think premise (1) is obviously true. The crux of the
argument lies with premise (2). Is it impossible that something have a potentially
infinite number of natures? Is it impossible for something to have something like 10^10000000000000000 natures? It
honestly seems like it to me, but I admit that this is just an intuition.
Premise (2) seems reasonable to me. So, since the argument is logically valid,
(3) and (4) follow. But there is a problem for the orthodox Christian here, since he is committed to the truth of (~4). He believes that the second person of the Trinity, the
Logos assumed a second human nature unto his divine
person in the incarnation.
What is the solution here? I do not know the solution. I
think the Christian's best bet is to deny (2), and claim that the divine
persons could, if they so wanted, incarnate in a potentially infinite amount of
types of things—i.e., that they could take on a potentially infinite amount of
natures. So perhaps panentheism is possibly true, something which I am
not sure is consistent with orthodox Christian theology. But I suppose that
someone may respond by saying that the divine persons cannot take on
non-rational natures, but only rational natures, and so it's not the case that panentheism
is possibly true—rocks could never be hypostatically united to the Godhead. So
while it may be true that a divine person could take on a potentially infinite number of natures, those natures would have to be rational natures.
In any case, I cannot help but think that the critic of
orthodox Christianity is well within his epistemic rights in thinking that this
argument is sound, even if it is ultimately unsound. Of course, this, as well
as many such prima facie eminently reasonable arguments against orthodox Christianity,
may be problematic for the perhaps overly exuberant orthodox Christian
evidentialist.
I should add that I have left nature undefined here, and
just intend it to pick out whatever we commonsensically take to be a nature,
which is probably something like a Finean or Aristolelian essence. Now how
something can have two such essences or natures is not even something that I
can frankly even conceptualize. But perhaps the reader can help me out here.
