- CHARLES MORGRIDGE :-
Now this doctrine is to be rejected, because, like that of the Trinity, it is essentially incredible. It is not a mystery, but as palpable a contradiction as can be stated. By the nature of any person or being, is always meant his essential qualities. If Christ possess a Divine and Human nature, he must possess the essential qualities of God and the distinctive qualities of man. But these qualities are totally incompatible with one another. The qualities of God are eternity, independence, immutability, exemption from pain, sorrow, and death, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. But the qualities of MAN are derived existence, dependence, mutability, susceptibility of pain, sorrow and death, comparative weakness and ignorance, and locomotivity.
To assert, therefore, that the same mind possesses both a Human and a Divine nature, is to assert that the same mind is both created and uncreated, both finite and infinite, both dependent and independent, both mutable and immutable, both mortal and immortal, both susceptible of pain and unsusceptible of it, both able to do all things and unable, both acquainted with all things and not acquainted with them, both ignorant of some things and possessed of the most intimate knowledge of them, both in all places and only in one place at the same time.
Now if this doctrine is not an absurdity, I know not how to conceive of or describe an absurdity.
It is a doctrine "which councils and parliaments may decree, but which miracles cannot prove." It is not pretended that any passage of Scripture expressly asserts the doctrine of the Two Natures. Like that of the Trinity, it is a mere inference from the premises laid down by Trinitarians. I know of no allusion in the Bible to the doctrine of the Two Natures, either with or without modification. But an objection of a graver character lies against the doctrine of the Two Natures. It implicates the moral character of the Holy Jesus; it impeaches his veracity; and exposes him to the charge of equivocation, duplicity, and falsehood. These are weighty charges; and we cannot endure, for a moment, a hypothesis which throws suspicion of dishonesty upon our blessed Saviour. Jesus said, "I can of mine own self do nothing." The Trinitarian says, Jesus can of himself do everything that God can do. Jesus said, "My Father is greater than I." The Trinitarian says, Jesus is as great as the Father.
To one unacquainted with the use that is made of the doctrine of the Two Natures, these assertions appear to be palpable contradictions. He cannot perceive how the assertions of Jesus, and those of Trinitarians, can both be true. But here comes in the doctrine of the Two Natures to reconcile the apparent contradictions. "Jesus is both God and man," says the Trinitarian. "And though as man, he can do nothing of himself, yet as God, he can do everything. Though as man, he is not his Father's equal, yet as God, he is equal with the Father in substance, and power, and glory."
But if he is God, can he say in truth, that he can do nothing of himself? What, can God do nothing of himself! If he is God, can he say in truth, My Father is greater than I? What, is the Father greater than God! For a man to assert that he cannot do what he is conscious that he can do, is to say what is not true. For what a man can do, in any way, or by any means, he can certainly do.
Suppose a man should be required to subscribe his name to a written instrument; and that he should refuse to do it, saying, "I cannot write. I cannot wield the pen. I never learned to write." Suppose it should be known that this man could write; that an explanation should be demanded; and that he should say, he only meant that he could not write with his left hand, though he could use the pen with his right hand as well as any man. Would not such a man subject himself to the charge of equivocation, duplicity, and falsehood? The disciples came to Jesus with these questions: "Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?" After some explanation and caution, Jesus answered thus: "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the SON, but the FATHER only." The Trinitarian says, the Son knew perfectly both the day and the hour. Here the doctrine of the Two Natures is again employed to solve the difficulty. "Jesus being God as well as man," says the Trinitarian, "He must have known the day and hour as God, though he did not know it as man. When he said he did not know the day and hour, he spoke of his human nature only." But is this satisfactory?
The disciples came to Jesus not to inquire into any distinctions in his nature, but to obtain information of a different kind. Now if Jesus had two natures, the one omniscient, and the other "of imperfect knowledge," would he not consider the questions addressed to the nature that knew, rather than the nature that did not know, the subject about which the disciples came to inquire? Most certainly. Yet Jesus not only said that the Son did not know, but that the Father only knew. All other persons, besides the Father, whether they be persons in the Trinity or out of it, are excluded from the knowledge of the day and hour.
Let us suppose that a murder is committed in the city of Boston, at noon, by some person or persons unknown—that suspicion fastens upon an innocent man, who, at the time of the murder, was in New York—and that he is charged with the crime, apprehended, and brought to trial. The prisoner summons in his defence a witness, who saw him in New York, about noon, the same day the murder was committed in Boston. This witness, being under oath, is asked, "Did you see the prisoner in New York on the day?" The witness answers, "I did not." This being the only witness for the defendant, he is convicted, and hanged. After the execution, this witness confesses that he did see the man that was hanged, in New York, on the day and hour specified at the trial. Being required to answer for himself, he says, under oath, that his left eye was defective; only his right eye was sound. And when he testified in court that he did not see the prisoner, he meant that he did not see him with his defective eye; but he saw him distinctly with his sound eye. Now, I ask, would not all honest men consider such a witness perjured?
The only difference I can see, between the conduct of such a witness, and that which the doctrine of the Two Natures imputes to Jesus, is, that what Jesus said was not said under the solemnity of an oath. Knowledge is the eye of the mind. Jesus is said to have two capacities of knowledge—his divine and his human nature. The one is strong and piercing, knowing all things. The other is weak and defective, being ignorant of many things. As such an one, he says, in regard to the time of a certain event, he does not know the day nor the hour. He makes no exception of one of his capacities of knowledge; but says, absolutely, he does not know the time. No one knows but the Father. Yet the doctrine of the Two Natures supposes that Jesus did know the day and hour; and that when he said he did not know, he spoke only of his capacity of knowledge which is weak and defective.
Another objection to the doctrine of the Two Natures is, that it renders it impossible to understand or believe any thing that Jesus says of himself. The terms I, me, myself, mine own self, always denote one person, an individual; they include the whole person, all that constitutes him a person. In this sense they were unquestionably used by Christ. When he said, I, me, myself, he could not have meant a part of himself. He could not have meant that part of himself which is infinitely less than another part of himself. If it be admitted that Jesus did not mean himself, his whole self, all that constitutes his proper personality, there is no assertion he ever made but what may be contradicted. One has only to say, "This he did as man, it is not true of him as God, therefore it is not true; and this he did as God, it is not true of him as man, therefore it is not true." In this way, every assertion he ever made of himself, may be contradicted. In this way, we may deny his birth, his crucifixion, his death, and his resurrection, because these were true of him only as man, not as God. If, instead of saying, "My Father is greater than I," he had said, "I am not so great as my Father, I am not equal with the Father, I am not God, I am not equal with God," we have only to say, "This he spoke as man, hence it is not true," in order to set his testimony, concerning himself, aside. Now can a doctrine be admitted which renders his plainest sayings unintelligible, and makes it absolutely impossible for him to deny that he is God, if he had a mind to do so? ...
We object to the doctrine of the Two Natures, because it would, if admitted, deprive us of the comforts and advantages arising from the example of Christ's prayers and sufferings. In commenting on the secret morning prayer of Jesus, (Mark i. 35) Dr. Adam Clark, in his great zeal for the doctrine of the Two Natures, says—"Not that he needed any thing, for in him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; but that he might be a pattern to us." If the learned Doctor be correct, Jesus must have asked his heavenly Father for innumerable blessings which he did not need, that he might be a pattern to us. But how can we imitate such a pattern without praying for such things as we do not need? If Jesus is God, he must have prayed to himself. But of what benefit to us can such an example be? What comfort or instruction can be derived from contemplating the prayers of Jesus, if every prayer he offered was addressed to himself, and he was so independent that he needed nothing? "Being in agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground" Was all this only to set us an example? What sympathy can we feel with the sufferer, if he needed nothing he prayed for? Prayer is an expression of dependence and want. If a person who needs nothing prays, is it not mere pretence?—is it not hypocrisy?
Finally, the doctrine of the Two Natures defeats its own end. To illustrate this, let us consider it in connection with the doctrine of the atonement as held by Trinitarians. It is argued that sin is an infinite evil; that it deserves an infinite punishment; and, consequently, the atonement must be infinite. But no finite being can make an infinite atonement. But Jesus, being both God and man, is qualified to make an infinite atonement by the sacrifice of himself upon the cross. But all Trinitarians, so far as my knowledge extends, hold that Jesus died as man, not as God. Nothing bled and died but the human nature. The victim, the offering, the sacrifice, was not the divine, but the human nature of Christ, the mere man. This was presented or offered, not to the human, but to the divine nature of Christ, the Supreme God. Thus the infinite atonement entirely disappears. A mere man endures the cross, sheds his blood, and dies an atoning sacrifice to the infinite God. In relation to the doctrine of the atonement, a belief in the proper Deity of Christ has not the least advantage over a belief in his simple humanity. ...
