Incarnation, Divine Timelessness, and Modality

A central part of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation is that the Son of God ‘becomes' incarnate. Furthermore, according to classical theism, God is timeless: He exists ‘outside' of time, and His life has no temporal stages. A consequence of this ‘atemporalist' view is that a ti...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Paul, Emily (Author)
Contributors: Collier, Matthew James (Bibliographic antecedent)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Presses Universitaires de Louvain, Université Catholique de Louvain [2019]
In: TheoLogica
Year: 2019, Volume: 3, Issue: 1, Pages: 88-112
IxTheo Classification:NBC Doctrine of God
NBF Christology
VA Philosophy
Further subjects:B Incarnation
B Divine Freedom
B Atemporality
B Son of God
B Modality
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Summary:A central part of the Christian doctrine of the incarnation is that the Son of God ‘becomes' incarnate. Furthermore, according to classical theism, God is timeless: He exists ‘outside' of time, and His life has no temporal stages. A consequence of this ‘atemporalist' view is that a timeless being cannot undergo intrinsic change—for this requires the being to be one way at one time, and a different way at a later time. How, then, can we understand the central Christian claim that the Son of God ‘becomes' human? This paper examines one such explanation, drawn from a brief remark by Brian Leftow: the Word takes on flesh by exhibiting modal variation with regards to the incarnation. On this account, a timeless God ‘becomes' incarnate simply due to variation across logical space: at some possible worlds He is incarnate and at others He is not. Modal variation need not, therefore, require temporality: it only requires variation across (static) possible worlds. I draw out the problems with Leftow's modal claim under the heads of Ersatzism and Genuine Modal Realism about possible worlds, respectively. I argue that in both instances, Leftow's desired cross-worldly variation of the Son's incarnation cannot be achieved.
ISSN:2593-0265
Reference:Kritik in "On Emily Paul on Brian Leftow (2019)"
Contains:Enthalten in: TheoLogica
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.14428/thl.v2i3.2283