The Incarnation

How can one person be both God and human? This Element presents the teachings behind the Doctrine of the Incarnation.

The Doctrine of the Incarnation, that Jesus Christ was both truly God and truly human, is the cornerstone of traditional Christian theism. This Element analyses what the traditional teaching meant by person, divinity, and humanity to showcase various solutions that have been offered to the question of how one person can be both God and human.The Doctrine of the Incarnation, that Jesus Christ was both truly God and truly human, is the foundation and cornerstone of traditional Christian theism. And yet, this traditional teaching appears to verge on incoherence. How can one person be both God, having all the perfections of divinity, and human, having all the limitations of humanity? This is the fundamental philosophical problem of the incarnation. Perhaps a solution is found in an analysis of what the traditional teaching meant by person, divinity, and humanity, or in understanding how divinity and humanity were united in a single person? This Element presents that traditional teaching, then returns to the incoherence problem to showcase various solutions that have been offered to it.