^{page 157 note 2} ‘The Christology of Wolfhart Pannenberg,’ Religious Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, 10 1967.Google Scholar

^{page 157 note 3} ‘A Programme for Christology,’ Religious Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, April 1968, p. 516.Google Scholar

^{page 162 note 1} The New English Dictionary gives ‘come into existence, sprung’ as the ‘rather neuter signification’ of the sense of ‘born’ relevant here, and gives the following Christian phrases to exemplify this sense: ‘born of the Virgin Mary’, ‘born in a stable’.

^{page 163 note 1} It appears that orthodoxy would not refuse to accept this way of formulating what is found in the scriptural passages cited in the second reaction on the ground that the phrases ‘existed’ and ‘did not exist’ in the formulation misrepresent the content of the passages. For orthodoxy itself, in the persons of Leo and Cyril, speaks of the Incarnation in like idiom: ‘continuing to be before time, [the Son] began to exist in time…’ (The Tome of Leo, my italics); and the ‘[Son Jesus Christ] is said to have been born…after a woman's flesh, though he existed and was begotten from the Father before all ages…’ (Cyril's Second Letter to Nestorius, my italics.)

^{page 163 note 2} Op. cit., pp. 515–16.

^{page 163 note 3} ibid.

^{page 164 note 1} Cp. Summa Theologica, III, xvi, A. 4, especially objection number one and its reply.

^{page 166 note 1} Seeing that the general form of the charge of self-contradiction against the orthodox claim fails, the critic may choose to make a more modest charge, which runs as follows: ‘All statements of the form in question (the form “X as A is N, and X as B is not N”) are self-contradictory, except those in whic hwhat takes the place of “X” is an expression signifying something representational—a picture, image, or figure. “The duck-rabbit” and “the figure” are such expressions here, whereas “Christ” and “Jesus” are not.’ This less comprehensive charge obviously cannot be met, as the bolder one could, by saying that since the remark about the duck-rabbit in the answer to the riddle is not self-contradictory the argument given to support the charge is unsound. For this more modest charge already excepts all such remarks and confines itself to statements whose subject terms signify something non-representational—such as the orthodox statement about Christ under discussion. (I wish to thank Anthony Kenny for suggesting this less comprehensive charge to me.) What reply can orthodoxy make to this new charge? I think that the proper reply is this: ‘This new charge makes an exception of “representational” statements. But a defence against this charge must await the critics' attempt to justify excepting them; in other words, it must await the critic's attempt to justify this new charge. For until such an attempt is made, we have been offered no reason to pay it he. And if the critic does not deem such justification necessary, then by the same token we too can except without justification any statement we wish to—and of course we would straightway except the Christological statement that is the subject of this discussion.’ (Such a reply by orthodoxy employs the strategy suggested by the remark by Geach used as this paper's motto.)

^{page 166 note 2} Op. cit., p. 516.

^{page 166 note 3} Religious Language, Macmillan, New York, 1963, pp. 193–200.Google Scholar

^{page 166 note 4} ibid., esp. pp. 194–5.

^{page 167 note 1} Might contemplation of the duck-rabbit figure also show us that there is some confusion in the thought of Cyril when, contending against Nestorius in his ‘Second letter to Nestorius’, he says that the hypostatic unity is ‘indescribable and inconceivable’? Again suppose that Nestorius is thinking about the matter in the way described above. And suppose Cyril, thinking at the same general level and so also inclined to resort to the same commonplace objects to illustrate his thoughts to himself (the same one-sided diet), to have replied, ‘True, one thing cannot be two things, have two natures. Cabbages are just cabbages and cannot be ships also. But nevertheless Christ is but one thing (person) and he has two natures, that is, is two things (God and a man). He is the sole exception. But one can no more describe or conceive how this can be so than one could describe or conceive how a cabbage could be both a cabbage and also a ship, should some unimpeachable authority assure one of this.’ But if Cyril had bethought himself of the figure of the duck-rabbit, he could have replied to Nestorius, ‘Your examples of cabbages and ships show how you are misled. Of course, one thing cannot have two natures or be two things, if what you have in mind by this is shown by your example ‘A cabbage cannot be a cabbage and also a ship’. But surely you would allow that one thing can have two natures or be two things when what you have in mind is shown by the figure of the duck-rabbit. For here, one thing, the figure (one disposition of a single segment of line), is two things (has two natures), a duck and a rabbit.’ And supposing Cyril to have replied to Nestorius in this way, we can see that he could not have gone on to say of the hypostatic union that it is indescribable and inconceivable—if what led Cyril to actually characterise it in this way was his having something like a ‘cabbage-ship’ model in the back of his mind.

^{page 170 note 1} It might be thought that one can appeal as well to cases of transformation or metamorphosis. Thus: ‘There is no more reason to think the Christian claim self-contradictory than to think that this remark about an adult frog is self-contradictory: “As an adult frog, this creature did not exist before last summer; before that time it existed as a tadpole.”’ —This attempt, however, might seriously mislead one concerning Christian teaching. For according to that teaching, although the Word became flesh, in doing so it did not cease being the Word—whereas, of course, when a tadpole becomes a frog, it ceases to be a tadpole. The cartoon figure will not mislead in this way. For although it becomes a duck, it does not cease being a rabbit.—In connection with this it is interesting to consider an engagement described by Williams, Bernard in his ‘Tertullian's Paradox’ (New Essays in Philosophical Theology, p. 207).Google Scholar The engagement is between Marcion, with whom Williams evidently agrees, and Tertullian. Williams writes: ‘It will be recalled that Marcion had said that if God had been incarnated, he would have changed; but change involves losing some attributes and gaining others; and God cannot do this. Tertullian briskly replied that what Marcion had said was true of temporal objects, but God is not a temporal object, and that therefore what Marcion said did not apply. But this is to counter one's opponent's move by smashing up the chess-board.’ We can certainly agree that Tertullian simply smashed the chess-board. But we can also see how Tertullian should have replied. He should have said, ‘If you mean by saying that God cannot change that he cannot become other than God, then what you say is correct. God cannot change in such we that he ceases to be God—as a tadpole changes in such wise that it ceases to be a tadpole. But if you mean that God cannot change while remaining God, then your position is both unscriptural and gratuitously restrictive. Are not God's speaking, his becoming wroth, and so forth instances of change in him? And is not the Incarnation another such instance? You seem to be driven to fly in the face of these and other such instances because your conception of change is fed exclusively by examples like that of the tadpole, examples of transformation or metamorphosis. But if you enrich the diet to include examples like that of the cartoon figure, you will find yourself able to allow that God can change—without ceasing to be God—as the cartoon rabbit changes into a duck-rabbit without ceasing to be a rabbit.’ Here, also, belongs a comment on a remark of Hepburn's, R. W. in Christianity and Paradox (p. 66).Google Scholar Hepburn says, ‘If we took literally the texts, “He that hatte seen me hash seen the Father”, and “I and my Father are one”, they would seem to imply that God and Jesus were identical. But a little reflection shows that this would be immediately disruptive of several fundamental Christian ideas. For one thing, …it would mean that when God became incarnate, he no longer dwelt also in eternity,…’ Reading these texts with the hap of the cinematic duck-rabbit, we see that we can take them in a way that does not imply that when God became incarnate, he no longer dwelt in eternity, or, in other words, was no longer eternal; just as we see that it would be wrong to think that when the rabbit figure became a duck-rabbit, it ceased to have the character of a rabbit's head.—And it is not obvious that this way of taking the texts would be less literal than the way described as literal by Hepburn. But whether less literal or not, it is, I think, the way (in Augustine's phrase) of ‘the prudent, careful, and devout reader’.

^{page 171 note 1} That there are difficulties involved here, and abiding on, may be gathered from a reading of pages 517 through 519 of the C. J. F. Williams article referred to earlier. (See also The Historical and Mystical Christ, Henry, A. M. [ed], Fides Publishers Association, Chicago, Ill, pp. 37–38, 45, 63–64, 69, 70).Google Scholar The problems for orthodoxy there described may be viewed as stemming from orthodoxy's rejection of the thesis that it was a man that the Son assumed. Certainly had orthodoxy accepted this thesis, the problems Williams describes would not have arisen for it.—See the following passages of Summa Theologica for material concerning this rejection: III, iv, A.A. 2 and 3; ii, A. 6; and xvi, A.A. 1 and 4. For passages relating to the difficulties to which this rejection leads, see: III, iv, A. 4; ii, A. 2, reply obj. 3, A. 3, reply obj. 2, and A. 5, reply obj. 2,; iv, A. 2, reply obj. 1 and A. 4, reply obj. 3.

^{page 172 note 1} That Aquinas does this is evident not only from his remark that ‘it cannot properly be said that the Son assumed a man, granted (as it must be, in fact) that in Christ there is but one suppositum [person]…’ (III, iv, A. 3), but also from his saying ‘to assume is to take something to oneself’ (III, iii, A. 1; see also III, ii, A. 8 and iv, A. 2; my italics).

^{page 173 note 1} Not ‘in’ in the sense illustrated by one's pointing to a ‘still’ version of the duck-rabbit figure and saying, ‘There is a duck in that figure. See it?’ but in the sense illustrated by one's saying of a cupful of water that one has poured in one's bath that it is in one's bath.