Is it a contradiction to say that Jesus is both 100% God and 100% man?
I was talking to a fellow believer who said it was a contradiction, but that he believed it anyway.
I tried to explain why it wasn’t a contradiction at all, and that if it were, he literally couldn’t believe it.
He seemed to be thinking of Godhood and manhood as two different kinds of stuff.
“You’re either one thing or the other, not both,” he insisted. “So it’s a contradiction! I don’t understand it, and neither can you!”
Instead of thinking in terms of stuff, I told him he should think of it in terms of properties or attributes, and gave him the example of Michaelangelo’s statue of Moses.
The Statue
On the one hand, you can describe the statue solely in terms of physical properties. Your list might look like this:
- It is made of marble which is mostly composed of calcite CaCO3.
- It has a certain height.
- It has a certain weight.
- It is located in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome.
On the other hand, the sculpture depicts Moses, so it also has representational or artistic properties:
- Depicts Moses.
- He is seated.
- He is holding the Ten Commandments.
- He is glaring.
- He has two horns, due to a mistranslation in the Latin Vulgate Old Testament.
In other words, you could say that Michaelangelo’s statue of Moses is 100% physical and 100% artistic. Is there a contradiction between the two? Of course not. It’s two different ways of looking at the same thing.
The statue also has many historical properties:
- Commissioned in 1505.
- It was for the tomb of Pope Julius II.
- It was finally completed in 1545.
So you can say the statue of Moses is 100% physical, and 100% artistic, and 100% historical. Those aren’t contradictions. Those are just different ways of looking at the same thing.
Wearing Multiple Hats
Or think about yourself. Maybe you are an accountant. In which case, you have the following attributes:
- Good at math.
- Graduated with an accounting degree.
- Can use Excel.
- Work in accounts payable.
Maybe you are also a father. In which case, this might be true:
- Biologically related to two sons and a daughter.
- Have been a father for seven years.
- Tough but fair.
- Provides for children.
In other words, you can be 100% an accountant and 100% a father without there being a contradiction between the two.
The Godman
So, is there a contradiction in saying Jesus is both God and man?
Not if you think of it in terms of two different sets of properties.
In terms of Jesus’ deity, you could list many divine attributes, such as:
- Eternal.
- Omniscient.
- Omnipotent.
- Perfectly good.
In terms of Jesus’ humanity, you could list many biological attributes, such as:
- Member of the species Homo sapiens sapiens.
- Bipedal
- Has kidneys that process about 50 gallons of blood each day
- 23 pairs of chromosones
- Jewish
Jesus can have all the attributes of divinity, and all the attributes of humanity, without there being an obvious contradiction between the two. It’s just two different ways of describing the same Person.
Ken Tamashiro
Hi Shawn,
This is an excellent way of presenting Jesus as the God / Man / Savior.
I’m thinking Dennis Prager a Jew, would honestly, consider this article, as another way of looking at things.
Have a Great Day!!!
Ken,
Jo Ann Wiebe
The last sentence sums it up perfectlyt, Shawn. Really appreciate this article. This blog and GES are a lifeline for me. Don’t get much spiritual food anywhere else except what I dig out on my own. That’s good too and I have lots of GES materials, but I really need a community of fellowship.
Jim Poulos
To try and describe the person of Christ is an attempt to describe someone using man’s finite understandings which will lead to contradictions. In the 1980’s a logistician named Kurt Gödel showed the limits of man’s reasoning. Shortly after he proved this delemma a Jewish philosopher came to a similar conclusion in relation to God: that if there is a God and unless He reveals Himself man will never know He is there or Who He is.
The Jesus’ being one with God and man is something that will always challenge man’s thinking. God is beyond man’s logic in many ways. He will always be Holy, separate, in ways man will always need to wrestle with to mature knowing Him and will alway need His help in this wrestling.
“But Grow in the Grace and Knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
I know this may challenge this post. I hope it is taken as ‘iron sharpening iron.’
Mark McLean
Knowing our Lord has both a divine and human side, and each side having attributes, is not a contradiction. But to view our Lord’s divinity and humanity, in another way, as a union, as one, a holy thing, humanity hungry and yet all knowing, all powerful, a mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh, this mystery, know as the hypostatic union of our Lord, contradicts all human logic! As all other Bible doctrines do when looking at each doctrine from both viewpoints, a divine and human view point. If they go together, logically, then faith is not needed to put them together, that then will not please God! Hebrews 11. Knowing without faith it is impossible to please Him.
All Bible doctrine has both a divine side and a human side, and when both sides are clearly seen in Scripture, they will never go together in our human minds. Proof, created out of nothing (which is the first test of this Biblical principle of interpretation in Hebrews 11), virgin birth, God always was, my will as to His decrees, God and man as one!
When both these views on a Bible doctrine are meditated upon, like our Lord’s birth, divine side, (virgin birth) and human side (male and female), and then reasoned to go together, to harmonize, faith is not needed! That then, is proof, that we have just interpreted the Word wrongly or lack knowing fully each side, seeing we can harmonize them, we have put them together by reasoning, and that without faith. Trinity!?
So, attributes of our Lord humanity and divinity are seen in Scripture, but when we put them together as a union, as one, at His birth, one then needs faith to put them together, to please God.