Thanks, Paul —

So that would mean that the Person of Jesus, and the Second Person of God, is finite or limited by the human body, or only partially manifest in the created human body, because God, the Father, the First Person of God, cannot be incorporated fully in a created being. That would mean my professor is correct, that Christ is the manifestation of God, God's presence, but not
God qua God, which would be more akin to the ultimate Idea in Platonic philosophy.

• But then, we have to ask: Is the Third Person of God, the Holy Spirit, corporeal or
  semi-corporeal?

From a Scriptural viewpoint there are places in the Old Testament where people have said God cannot be seen, but others places where they have said they have seen God. I can provide book and chapter if needed.

• How do we clarify this issue?
• One last question, what about the Resurrected Body of Christ?
• Is that more God qua God, or is God simply and always inexpressibly in total, which makes the Christian an finite image of God, while physical, and not God qua God in all his glory?

Al

Thanks, Mike —

In paragraph 256 of your reply, it states:

"Divinity without disparity of substance or nature, without superior degree that raises up or inferior degree that casts down. . . the infinite co-naturality of three infinities. Each person considered in himself is entirely God. . . the three considered together. . . I have not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its splendor."

Section 202, which is also key to the faith in Jesus Christ as God, says much the same.

So when I ask:

• What aspect of God, that is beyond our mortal body, would Jesus not be the entire revelation of God, such that God cannot be fully expressed in the flesh in time, hence that aspect of Jesus, that is not fully human, though fully God?

The answer seems to be while we cannot understand the totality of God being incarnated or manifested in Jesus Christ, He is indeed fully incarnated in the flesh as God, not in something beyond His realm, not in some Platonic Idea of the divine, beyond space, time, and eternity; which God also is; nevertheless, Jesus is fully manifest and not limited, even if we cannot understand this.

It's also my understanding that when Jesus appeared after the Resurrection He had a new body, such that, while Jesus is God on Earth, fully; He does not present Himself to us fully, since that is beyond human comprehension and beyond what can be contained or expressed in physical reality.

• I am I getting this correct?

Al

Paul —

So the answer is that Jesus, in His Physical Reality, is limited by fact of his corporeal reality, by His Human Body and, as such, His existence on Earth, in body, is not the full expression of God, therefore, God could be not be fully expressed, because of the infinity that is God.

That said, it is not wrong to say that God is like a Platonic Idea, and Jesus is the manifestation of that idea, which cannot be expressed fully in reality, but rather reveals God, since there is no form that God could have, which could contain all that He is, and through Kenosis He chooses to reduce His Divinity, since all form is necessarily limited, so for God to be fully human, God, as Jesus, must limit himself.

Thus, Jesus is at once presented to us in a form we can see, and also exists beyond what we can see and know in form.

• Is that correct?

In other places I have read that Jesus is fully manifested as God in the flesh and, as such, this means the unique person of Jesus is the complete embodiment of God and this notion of a platonic idea, where God is un-representable, is not exactly true; it's just that we cannot comprehend it.

Al