Reasonable Faith

Guest (Male): Greetings, Dr. Craig. On August 2nd, 2025, having gone through emotional turmoil similar to yours, I became a theist after watching your multi-video lecture on the ontological argument on your Defenders podcast, even though I had been a devout critic of such arguments before. Subsequently, on November 16th, I became a Christian, also with the help of your debates and writings regarding the historicity of Jesus Christ.

However, on January 1st, I started to doubt Christianity due to the doctrine of the hypostatic union, which states that Jesus was one person, a single center of self-consciousness, possessing two natures: one divine, the other human, both fully instantiated. The reason why I, at this moment, find this to be incoherent is because the four possible options to resolve it seem to me to be either deeply fallacious or incompatible with perfect-being theology.

The first attempt is to affirm dual personhood of Jesus, that he was a bi-personal entity with two distinct minds, which is mutually exclusive with the traditional teachings of Christianity and the Bible. The other option is affirming that Jesus had both some attributes that are person-specific instantiated in one consciousness—for example, one mind both being omniscient and limited in knowledge and intellect—which is self-contradictory.

Thirdly, Jesus only had divine attributes while the human ones were suspended—for example, only omniscience, only immutability, only incorporeality, etc.—which the Bible explicitly rejects. And the last option, which is most frequently adopted by Christians, is Kenosis, which is the view that Jesus intentionally suspended his divine attributes—for example, no impassibility, no timelessness, no omniscience, no lack of limitation, etc.

Nevertheless, I find this to be a weak option given the following: one, it limits the divine nature given that the essential great-making properties are not fully maximized, which contradicts the notion of a maximally great being. Two, it goes against immutability of God, either entailing improvement, deterioration, or arbitrary change, all incompatible with perfect-being theism. And three, it implies there is composition or distinction in divine attributes, which contradicts divine simplicity.

Mystery responses are not persuasive to me since, if there is at least one known contradiction in the essence of X, X cannot be possibly instantiated in any possible world, and I think there is a serious chance that such a contradiction may be found without radically redefining the divinity of Christ. Given that Jesus being the Lord and Savior and God is absolutely essential to the truth of Christianity due to the Trinity, atonement, biblical authority, Jesus's own claims, resurrection, etc., I would appreciate an honest and rigorous response.

Thus, my question is, if you want to maintain the truth of Christianity, how do you reconcile Jesus being a singular person fully exemplifying the human and divine nature without entailing an incoherence or appealing to mystery? Best regards, Nicholas, Poland.

Dr. William Lane Craig: Although I've discussed your question elsewhere, Nicholas, I couldn't resist choosing your question this week because of your wonderful testimony and the role played by the ontological argument in your conversion to theism. In my response, I want first to address your question and then offer some more general advice on dealing with doubts.

With regard to your question, I'd strongly encourage you not to jump to conclusions about the incoherence of the hypostatic union, since this is one of the most difficult subjects in Christian theology and philosophy of religion. Although you eschew appealing to mystery, you need to appreciate that Christian philosophers defending the coherence of the doctrine would not presume to tell you how Christ actually is one person with two natures.

Rather, what we can do is to offer models of the incarnation fulfilling that condition which are rationally acceptable. But in a sense, the mystery of how it actually happened remains. We shouldn't expect to know how God actually does it. So, before you make up your mind too soon, you need to master some of the basic literature on the question.

An indispensable treatment is Thomas Morris's book, *The Logic of God Incarnate* (1986). This book by a philosopher at the University of Notre Dame defending the coherence of the incarnation has become something of a modern classic. Another more recent treatment that I would recommend is Andrew Ter Ern Loke, *A Cryptic Model of the Incarnation* (2014). Andrew defends a model much like my own.

Finally, if you want to get really deep in the weeds, tackle the book by Timothy Pawl, *In Defense of Conciliar Christology*, published by Oxford University Press, 2019. You might compare his more digestible short book, *The Incarnation*, published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. Since your English is obviously very good, I can recommend these works to you with a clear conscience.

There is, however, some confusion in your question. You are conflating two different questions. On the one hand, there is the question of how two natures can be united in one person. This, I think, is the most fundamental question. I address this question in my chapter on the incarnation in *Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview*, second edition, 2017. But the alternatives you discuss are really answers to a different question, namely, how incompatible predicates can be truly ascribed to Christ. That is a different issue.

With regard to your four alternatives in answer to that second question, we can reject one, three, and four because, as you say, they are theologically unacceptable. But what about two? That, as you put it, Jesus had both some attributes that are person-specific instantiated in one consciousness—for example, one mind both being omniscient and limited in knowledge and intellect.

You've not stated this alternative quite correctly. You should have said that Jesus had attributes that are nature-specific, instantiated in one person or consciousness. Timothy Pawl maintains that the relevant predicates are not incompatible when properly understood because they have implicit clauses specifying that the subject has a concrete nature in virtue of which the predicate is true of the subject.

So, when it is said that Christ is omniscient, what is meant is that Christ has a nature that is unlimited in knowledge. Likewise, when it is said that Christ is not omniscient, what is meant is that Christ has a nature that is limited in knowledge. Since Christ has two natures, these predicates, properly interpreted, can both be true of Christ. On this interpretation, Christ can be both omniscient and non-omniscient, for these predicates are not contradictory.

Similarly, he can be omnipotent and non-omnipotent, eternal and non-eternal, omnipresent and non-omnipresent, and so forth. For in every case, what is negated is not the predication simpliciter, but the specific predicate relative to a certain nature. It seems to me that Pawl is wholly justified in this claim.

As one reads the Church Fathers, it's evident that they were not asserting contradictions but plausibly ascribing appropriate predicates implicitly referring to the respective natures of Christ. To say that Christ is F is to say that Christ has a nature that is F, and to say that he is not F is to say that he has a nature which is non-F.

Of course, this solution to the problem of incompatible predicates still leaves unsolved the first question of how two natures—human and divine—can be united in one person. For a discussion of that question, take a look at my chapter in *Philosophical Foundations*.

Finally, Nicholas, it bothers me that your faith could be so quickly shaken by doubts about the incarnation. As I've said, this is one of the most profound subjects in all of Christian theology, and we shouldn't expect that the answers should be obvious to us. If we have good reason to think that Christianity is true—and surely we do—then it is rational to maintain Christian belief even in the face of unanswered questions, especially ones to which we should not expect to know the answers.

My colleague Michael Licona, who is a congenital doubter, once told me a story of how he was sharing some of his doubts with Gary Habermas. Habermas simply retorted, "Mike, do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead or not?" Since Mike had thoroughly studied the historicity of the Resurrection, he replied unhesitatingly, "Yes, I do." Gary said, "Well, then." Mike insisted, "But what about—?" and Gary repeated, "Did Jesus rise from the dead or not?"

The point is that if we have good evidence for the truth of the Resurrection and thereby for the person of Christ, then doubts based upon highly speculative questions can be overcome. The evidence for the Resurrection is, in this case, what philosophers call an overwhelming defeater. It may not undercut or rebut the alleged defeater of Christian belief, but it simply overwhelms it by exceeding it in warrant.

When we encounter doubts that we cannot answer, we should always review the evidence on the positive side of the ledger. This is so important to keep in mind because we will always have unanswered questions in this life. Of course, if we can find good answers, as in this case, so much the better.