In the “Can God make a rock so heavy…” thread, the following exchange took place:
Today is, in the Western churches, the Feast of the Epiphany, which celebrates precisely that – God the Son becoming a human being in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, revealed to all people (hence “Epiphany”). The Orthodox feast of the Theophany, which falls today for Gregorian-calendar folks and 13 days from now for those who keep the Julian calendar, is a different name for the same thing, ceteris paribus.
The idea of God becoming man and teaching among us as one of us, and eventually paying the price for human separation from God, is probably as central to Christianity as any single dogma can be. I’d be very interested to see the reactions of people to the above exchange and what thoughts it sparks in them.
My usual response to the “God can do absolutely anything” attitude is: Can he die? Can he terminate his own existence?
With all the contradictions inherent in the concept of a being that is both omnipotent and omniscient, my view is that God can do absolutely anything - except exist (a sort of anti-ontological view).
I’d assume God could become human if he wanted to. But why would he want to?
Certainly not to learn suffering. A god who knows all would know in advance exactly what Jesus felt, and worse. He’d have felt the terror of those being drowned in the flood. He’d have felt every rock hitting a man being stoned for violating the Sabbath. He’d have felt the agony of those crucified for far longer than Jesus was. I know the agony is a big thing among Christians, but Christians have both suffered and dealt far worse torture than Jesus felt.
So I don’t get god become man. I do get man become god, though. Though this concept means nothing in Judaism, it was an accepted fact in the culture surrounding the early Christians. They grew up with stories of gods coming down to mate with mortals, of Emperors becoming deities, of heroes raised to heaven. Perhaps they thought that the man they respected and revered more than anyone deserved at least as much godhood as Claudius. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me. Far more sense than limiting the knowledge of God.
I don’t know about Revtim, but I’m pretty sure Zev doesn’t put much stock in the Christ story…
For the record, the concept of non-Corpeal gods becoming temporarily corpeal is nothing new, nor restricted to Christianity. Most classical pagan religions/myths are based on this type of thing, and just go and ask a Buddhist about it.