Here is the assignment: “The Church teaches that Christ is truly human and truly divine. Comment on the significance of each of the aspects of the mystery of Christ with regard to our sanctification and our salvation.” The title I gave it for the blog uses the word “theandric,” which Father John Hardon, S.J. , defines as follows:

“Literally ‘God human,’ referring to those actions of Christ in which he used the human nature as an instrument of his divinity. Such were the miracles of Christ. Other human activities of Christ, such as walking, eating, and speaking, are also theandric, but in a wider sense inasmuch as they are human acts of a divine person. The purely divine acts, such as creation, are not called theandric.”

In The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, Father Paul M. Quay, S.J., speaks of two inadequate kinds of Christology: that of modern theology, with its Subordinationist and Adoptionist tendencies, and the more common misunderstanding of “devout Catholics,” who sometimes tend toward Monophysitism.[1] These Christological errors, which detract from the divine and human natures respectively, are a particular concern for Father Quay because his systematic treatment of the spiritual life is an amplification of St. Irenaeus’ profound doctrine of the “recapitulation” (anakephalaiosis). Continue reading →