Chapter 18

Conciliar Christology — Timothy Pawl's Defense of the Councils

Introduction: Why Coherence Matters

Can the Incarnation survive the scrutiny of logic? Critics of Christianity have long claimed that the doctrine of the Incarnation — the belief that Jesus Christ is one Person who is both fully God and fully human — is simply incoherent. How can one being be omniscient and limited in knowledge? How can one person be immortal and mortal, invisible and visible, impassible and passible? These seem like flat contradictions. If they are, then the central claim of the Christian faith collapses under its own weight. The councils of the early church defined the Incarnation in precise terms, but did they inadvertently define something logically impossible?

This is where the work of Timothy Pawl becomes so important. In his groundbreaking book In Defense of Conciliar Christology, Pawl undertakes a task that is both modest and extraordinary. He does not try to explain the Incarnation — that is, he does not offer a model of how the two natures relate in Christ's experience (the way Andrew Loke's kryptic model does, as we explored in Chapter 17). Instead, Pawl asks a more basic and prior question: Is the Incarnation, as defined by the ecumenical councils, even logically coherent? Can a thoughtful person affirm what the councils teach without contradicting themselves?

Pawl's answer is a resounding yes. Using the tools of analytic philosophy — modal logic, predicate logic, and careful metaphysical reasoning — he demonstrates that the conciliar Christological definitions are not self-contradictory. The apparent contradictions dissolve once we properly understand how predicates (that is, descriptive terms like "passible" and "impassible") work when applied to a Person who has two natures. This is an enormous contribution to Christology. If Pawl is right, then the person who affirms the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Definition, and the decrees of Constantinople II and III need not fear that they are believing nonsense. The Incarnation is mysterious, yes — but it is not logically impossible.¹

I want to be upfront about my own convictions. I find Pawl's philosophical defense of the councils to be rigorous, careful, and largely convincing. I endorse conciliar Christology wholeheartedly. Where I go beyond Pawl is in my preference for Loke's Kryptic Model (the Divine Preconscious Model) as the best way to explain the experiential dimension of the Incarnation — what it was actually like for Christ to live with two natures. I see Pawl and Loke as deeply complementary thinkers. Pawl shows us that the Incarnation is possible; Loke helps us understand what it is like. Pawl defends the "what" of conciliar Christology; Loke fills in the "how." Together, they provide the most formidable contemporary defense of orthodox Christology available.²

But there is another reason why Pawl's work matters profoundly for this book's argument. The councils that Pawl defends explicitly define Christ's human nature as including a rational soul. The Chalcedonian Definition confesses Christ as "truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body" (ek psychēs logikēs kai sōmatos, ἐκ ψυχῆς λογικῆς καὶ σώματος). When Pawl defends the coherence of the councils, he is — whether he makes this point explicitly or not — defending the coherence of a Christology that requires Christ to have an immaterial human soul. In other words, Pawl's defense of conciliar Christology is, implicitly but necessarily, a defense against physicalism about Christ's human nature. If the councils are right, and Pawl shows they are logically coherent, then Christ has a rational soul — and physicalism, which denies the existence of such a soul, is ruled out by the very councils that define orthodox Christian belief.

In this chapter, we will carefully examine Pawl's approach, his key philosophical moves, the areas where I agree and disagree with him, and the crucial connection between his defense of the councils and the book's central argument against physicalism.

I. Pawl's Approach: Defending Coherence, Not Explaining the Mystery

Before we dive into Pawl's arguments, we need to understand exactly what he is doing — and what he is not doing. This distinction is crucial for appreciating his contribution and for seeing how it relates to the other models of the Incarnation we have surveyed in this part of the book.

Pawl's goal, as he states it, is not to argue for the truth of conciliar Christology. He does not attempt to prove that the Incarnation actually happened or that the conciliar definitions are correct readings of Scripture. That kind of argument belongs to biblical theology and historical theology — work that other chapters in this book take up. Instead, Pawl's goal is more focused: he wants to show that conciliar Christology, if we suppose it to be true for the sake of argument, is not internally contradictory. His project is a defense against the charge of logical incoherence.³

Think of it this way. Imagine someone tells you that they believe a certain mathematical equation is valid. A critic might respond in two different ways. First, the critic might say, "I don't think that equation accurately describes reality." That is a factual objection — an objection about whether the equation is true. But second, the critic might say, "That equation is internally contradictory — it says 2 + 2 = 5, and that's logically impossible." This is a coherence objection — an objection about whether the equation even makes sense. Pawl is addressing the second kind of objection. He is not trying to prove that the Incarnation is true. He is trying to show that it is not the intellectual equivalent of 2 + 2 = 5.

This is enormously important. If the doctrine of the Incarnation were genuinely self-contradictory, then no amount of biblical evidence, historical argument, or spiritual experience could rescue it. Logical contradictions are impossible — they cannot be true in any possible world, not even by divine power (since God cannot make a married bachelor or a square circle). So the coherence question is logically prior to the truth question. We must first establish that the Incarnation is at least possible before we can discuss whether it is actual.⁴

Compare Pawl's approach with the other Christological models we have examined. Kenotic Christology (Chapter 15) tries to explain the Incarnation by saying that the Son gave up certain divine attributes. The two-minds view of Thomas Morris (Chapter 16) explains the Incarnation by positing two distinct minds, one divine and one human, in Christ. Loke's Kryptic Model (Chapter 17) explains the Incarnation by arguing that divine attributes were concealed at a preconscious level rather than surrendered. Each of these is a model — an attempt to explain how the two natures relate in Christ's lived experience. Pawl deliberately refrains from offering any such model. His approach is, as I like to put it, more minimalist. He simply defends the logical structure of the conciliar claims without filling in the experiential details.⁵

This modesty is both a strength and a limitation. It is a strength because it means Pawl's defense does not depend on any controversial psychological theory about Christ's inner life. Even if one rejects kenoticism, or the two-minds view, or Loke's kryptic model, Pawl's defense of the councils still stands. The coherence of conciliar Christology does not require us to adopt any particular theory about how Christ experienced having two natures; it only requires us to see that the conciliar claims are not contradictory. But the limitation is that Pawl's defense leaves us wanting more. Knowing that the Incarnation is logically possible is comforting, but it does not tell us what the Incarnation was like — what it was like for Christ to be both omniscient and limited in knowledge, both omnipotent and physically weak, both eternal and temporally located. For that, we need a model. And that is why, as I argued in Chapter 17, I find Loke's kryptic model so valuable as a complement to Pawl's defense.

II. The Content of Conciliar Christology: What the Councils Actually Teach

Pawl begins his project by carefully laying out exactly what the ecumenical councils teach about Christ. This might seem like an obvious first step, but it is actually one of the most valuable parts of his work. Many critics of the Incarnation attack a caricature of the conciliar position — a simplified or distorted version that is easier to refute. By meticulously cataloguing the actual conciliar statements, Pawl ensures that his defense addresses the real thing.⁶

Pawl organizes the conciliar teachings into several categories. First, there are teachings about the Person of Christ. The councils affirm that Christ is one Person — the eternal Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, the Logos. There are not two persons in Christ (that would be the heresy of Nestorianism). There is one and the same Son, one Lord, one Christ.⁷

Second, there are teachings about the divine nature of Christ. Christ possesses the full divine nature, being consubstantial (homoousios, ὁμοούσιος — meaning "of the same substance or essence") with the Father. He is truly God, not a lesser divine being, not a created god, not a demigod. Everything that belongs to God by nature — omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, eternity, immutability, impassibility — belongs to the Son.

Third — and this is where things become especially relevant for our argument — there are teachings about the human nature of Christ. Pawl carefully documents how the councils describe Christ's humanity. The key conciliar texts consistently affirm that Christ has a complete human nature consisting of a human body and a rational soul. Pawl notes that the claim that Christ had both a body and a soul is thoroughly attested in the conciliar statements.⁸

Notice the remarkable consistency. From Ephesus (431) through Chalcedon (451) to Constantinople III (681), the councils repeat the same formula: Christ's human nature consists of a rational soul and a body. This is not an incidental detail or an afterthought. It is a constitutive element of the conciliar definition of Christ's humanity. As Pawl summarizes, according to conciliar Christology, "a human nature is (or is constituted by) a human body ensouled by a rational soul, where the soul includes a human will and principle of action."⁹

This point cannot be emphasized strongly enough. The very councils that Pawl is defending — the councils whose coherence he demonstrates with such philosophical rigor — define Christ's human nature in terms that necessarily include an immaterial rational soul. Anyone who accepts the conciliar definitions as authoritative is committed to affirming that Christ has a rational soul. And anyone who denies that Christ has a rational soul is contradicting the councils. This is a direct and unavoidable problem for physicalism, which denies the existence of immaterial souls altogether. We will return to this point in detail later in the chapter.

Fourth, there are teachings about the manner of union between the two natures. The Chalcedonian Definition provides the famous four negative adverbs: the two natures are united "without confusion" (asynchytōs, ἀσυγχύτως), "without change" (atreptōs, ἀτρέπτως), "without division" (adiairetōs, ἀδιαιρέτως), and "without separation" (achōristōs, ἀχωρίστως). The natures are not blended into a third thing (contra Eutychianism). They are not altered by the union. They are not split apart into two persons (contra Nestorianism). And they are never separated — the union is permanent and indissoluble.¹⁰

Fifth, there are teachings about the predications true of Christ — the properties and descriptions that can be truthfully attributed to Him. This is where the real philosophical difficulty arises, and where the bulk of Pawl's analytical work is concentrated.

III. The Fundamental Problem: Apparently Incompatible Predications

Here we arrive at the heart of the matter. Following the philosopher Richard Cross, Pawl calls the central difficulty "the Fundamental Problem" of conciliar Christology. The problem can be stated simply, and it is a problem that every thoughtful Christian should wrestle with.¹¹

According to the councils, certain predicates — that is, descriptive terms or properties — must be true of anything that has a divine nature. God is omniscient, omnipotent, immortal, immutable, impassible, invisible, and so on. These are not optional features of divinity; they belong to the very essence of what it means to be God. At the same time, certain predicates must be true of anything that has a human nature. Humans are limited in knowledge, limited in power, mortal, mutable, passible (that is, capable of being affected by outside forces), and visible.

Now here is the problem. Some of these predicates seem to be direct contradictions of each other. "Omniscient" and "limited in knowledge" look like they cannot both be true of the same being. "Immortal" and "mortal" seem to cancel each other out. "Impassible" and "passible" appear to be logical opposites. If Christ has both a divine nature and a human nature, then both sets of predicates must be true of Him. But how can contradictory predicates be true of the same Person at the same time? That seems to violate the most basic rule of logic — the law of non-contradiction, which says that something cannot be both true and false at the same time in the same way.

Pawl presents this problem in rigorous deductive form. The argument goes roughly like this:

Premise 1: There are pairs of predicates (like "passible" and "impassible") such that anything with a divine nature must have one, and anything with a human nature must have the other.

Premise 2: These pairs are logically incompatible — nothing can have both at the same time in the same way.

Premise 3: Christ has both a divine nature and a human nature.

Conclusion: Therefore, Christ has logically incompatible predicates — which is a contradiction.¹²

If this argument is sound, conciliar Christology is logically incoherent. The Incarnation would be impossible — not merely mysterious, but actually self-contradictory, like a square circle. This is the charge that Pawl sets out to defeat.

Before examining Pawl's solution, notice something important: the Fundamental Problem arises precisely because the councils affirm that Christ has two complete natures. If you weaken either nature — if you say Christ is not really divine (Arianism), or not really human (Docetism), or human but without a rational soul (Apollinarianism) — the problem goes away, because you no longer have two full sets of predicates that need to be attributed to the same Person. The heresies "solve" the Fundamental Problem by mutilating one of the natures. But the councils refuse to take this easy way out. They insist on the fullness of both natures. And Pawl shows that this insistence does not, in fact, produce a logical contradiction.

IV. Pawl's Examination of Unsatisfactory Responses

One of the most valuable features of Pawl's work is his patient examination of proposed solutions that do not work. Before presenting his own solution, Pawl considers — and rejects — a series of inadequate responses to the Fundamental Problem. This is important because several of these inadequate responses are still popular in theological circles, and understanding why they fail helps us appreciate the superiority of Pawl's actual solution.

A. Denying the Law of Non-Contradiction

Some theologians, impressed by the paradoxical character of the Incarnation, have suggested that we should simply accept the contradiction and embrace paradox. Perhaps the Incarnation is a genuine logical contradiction that is nonetheless true — a "supra-logical" reality that transcends the law of non-contradiction.

Pawl rightly rejects this move. The law of non-contradiction is not a mere human convention that God might override. It is a fundamental principle of all rational thought. If we abandon it, we lose the ability to say anything meaningful about God or Christ, because every statement and its negation would be equally true. As Pawl points out, if we allow contradictions, then the claim "the Incarnation happened" and the claim "the Incarnation did not happen" would both be true, and the entire enterprise of theology collapses into meaninglessness.¹³

B. Appealing to Mystery

Another common move is to appeal to mystery. "The Incarnation is a divine mystery," the theologian says. "We should not expect our finite minds to comprehend it. Just believe it, even if it seems contradictory." Now, I absolutely affirm that the Incarnation is a genuine mystery — a reality that transcends our full comprehension. But Pawl rightly distinguishes between something being mysterious and something being contradictory. A mystery is something we cannot fully understand. A contradiction is something that cannot possibly be true. The Christian claim is that the Incarnation is mysterious but not contradictory — that it exceeds our understanding without violating the laws of logic. Simply waving the "mystery" flag does not answer the Fundamental Problem; it avoids it.¹⁴

Loke makes a similar point in A Kryptic Model of the Incarnation. He observes that while some theologians appeal to mystery or paradox, this is inadequate because the Christian is making meaningful affirmations about God's nature and Christ's person. The believer affirms that God's understanding is unlimited (Psalm 147:5) and that Jesus apparently did not know the day or hour of His return (Mark 13:32). The believer must be able to demonstrate that these affirmations can be held together without contradiction — simply appealing to mystery is not enough.¹⁵

C. Denying One Set of Predicates

A third family of responses tries to solve the problem by denying that one set of predicates is truly apt of Christ. Kenotic Christologists, for instance, deny that Christ is omniscient during the Incarnation — the Son "emptied Himself" of omniscience and therefore is not both omniscient and limited in knowledge. Problem solved! But as we argued in Chapter 15, kenoticism pays too high a price. If the Son gives up essential divine attributes, He ceases to be fully divine. Kenoticism solves the Fundamental Problem by weakening the divine nature, which the councils explicitly forbid.

Other theologians try the opposite move: they deny or qualify the human predicates. Perhaps Christ was not really mortal, or not really limited in knowledge. But this weakens the human nature and slides toward Docetism or Apollinarianism. The councils insist that Christ is "like us in all respects except for sin" (Hebrews 4:15, quoted at Constantinople III). If we deny Christ's genuinely human limitations, we deny His complete humanity.

Pawl systematically examines these strategies in Chapters 5 of his book and shows that none of them work — either individually or in combination. You cannot solve the Fundamental Problem by denying predicates that the councils themselves attribute to Christ.¹⁶

V. The "Qua" Strategy: Relativizing Predicates to Natures

One of the most historically important attempts to address the Fundamental Problem is the qua strategy. The Latin word qua means "insofar as" or "in respect of." Medieval theologians frequently used qua clauses to handle the apparent contradictions: Christ is omniscient qua divine (that is, insofar as He is divine) and limited in knowledge qua human (insofar as He is human). The contradiction dissolves, the thought goes, because the predicates are indexed to different natures.

Pawl devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 6 of his book) to a rigorous examination of the qua strategy. He identifies four different ways of understanding the qua move, depending on which element of the sentence the qua clause modifies: the assertion itself (A), the subject (S), the predicate (P), or the copula — that is, the "is" in "Christ is passible" (C).¹⁷

Let me walk through these briefly in accessible terms.

The assertion-modifying (A) approach says that when we assert "Christ is passible qua human," we are not making a straightforward claim but rather a qualified one — we are restricting the scope of our assertion. Pawl argues this approach fails because it does not actually resolve the logical problem. Even if our assertion is qualified, we are still attributing both predicates to the same Person.

The subject-modifying (S) approach says that the qua clause picks out a different subject in each case. "Christ-qua-divine" and "Christ-qua-human" are different subjects, and different subjects can have contradictory properties without any problem. But Pawl shows that this approach either divides Christ into two subjects (which is Nestorianism) or fails to resolve the problem, because conciliar Christology insists that it is one and the same Christ, one and the same Son, who is both passible and impassible. You cannot split Him into two subjects without destroying the unity of His Person.¹⁸

The predicate-modifying (P) approach says that "passible-qua-human" and "impassible-qua-divine" are actually different predicates — not contradictory ones. On this reading, the predicates are disguised relational properties: "Christ is passible-in-relation-to-His-human-nature" and "Christ is impassible-in-relation-to-His-divine-nature." These are no more contradictory than "John is taller than his daughter" and "John is shorter than his father." Pawl finds this approach more promising, though he notes it requires us to treat every predicate as a disguised relational predicate, which is a strong metaphysical commitment.

The copula-modifying (C) approach says that the "is" in "Christ is passible" and the "is" in "Christ is impassible" function differently — one is "is-humanly" and the other is "is-divinely." This is another way of indexing the predications to different natures without splitting the subject.

Pawl evaluates all four approaches carefully and finds that the first two fail, while the latter two — the predicate-modifying and copula-modifying strategies — are successful as far as they go. They do provide ways of understanding the qua locutions that dissolve the apparent contradiction. However, Pawl notes that both require a commitment to understanding all predicates as either relational (P) or involving a two-place copula (C), which some philosophers find problematic. So Pawl goes on to offer an even more direct solution: denying that the predicates are genuinely incompatible in the first place.¹⁹

VI. Pawl's Preferred Solution: Denying the Incompatibility

Here we reach the most creative and powerful element of Pawl's defense. Instead of trying to show that the predicates are true "in different ways" or "of different aspects" of Christ, Pawl argues that the predicates are not actually incompatible at all — once we properly understand what they mean in light of the unique case of the Incarnation.

This might sound bizarre at first. How can "passible" and "impassible" not be contradictory? Are they not simply the negation of each other — like "married" and "unmarried"? Pawl's brilliant insight is that the apparent incompatibility arises from truth conditions that were formulated without the Incarnation in mind. When we revise the truth conditions to account for the possibility that one being could have two natures, the incompatibility vanishes.²⁰

A. Initial Truth Conditions and Why They Seem Incompatible

Take the pair "passible" and "impassible" as a test case. The intuitive truth conditions are:

Passible: s is passible just in case it is possible that at least one other thing causally affect s.

Impassible: s is impassible just in case it is not the case that it is possible that at least one other thing causally affect s.²¹

Given these truth conditions, the predicates are clearly contradictory: one says it is possible for s to be causally affected; the other says it is not possible. Nothing can satisfy both conditions simultaneously. So far, the critic's case looks strong.

But Pawl asks: Are these really the right truth conditions for a being with two natures? The initial truth conditions treat the subject as having a single nature. They assume that "passible" and "impassible" are simple properties of the subject as a whole. But what if the subject has two natures — one of which is such that it can be causally affected, and the other of which cannot? In that case, we need revised truth conditions that are sensitive to the two-nature structure of the subject.

B. The Cheerleader Analogy

Pawl introduces a wonderfully simple analogy to make this point vivid. Consider two toy predicates:

Arm-bent: s is arm-bent just in case s has an arm that is bent 90 or more degrees.

Arm-unbent: s is arm-unbent just in case s has an arm that is not bent at 90 or more degrees.²²

Now consider a cheerleader who has one arm raised (bent at 90 degrees) and the other arm lowered (not bent). Is she arm-bent or arm-unbent? The answer is: both. She satisfies the truth conditions for "arm-bent" (she has an arm that is bent) and for "arm-unbent" (she has an arm that is not bent). There is no contradiction because the predicates refer to different arms. The cheerleader is both arm-bent and arm-unbent at the same time, in the same sense, without any logical problem.

Pawl's point is that we initially think "arm-bent" and "arm-unbent" are contradictory only because we normally deal with cases where the subject has just one arm, or where all arms are in the same position. When we encounter a subject with multiple arms in different positions, we see that the predicates are compatible after all. The same logic applies to the Incarnation. We initially think "passible" and "impassible" are contradictory because we normally deal with beings that have just one nature. When we encounter the unique case of a Person with two natures — one of which is passible and the other impassible — the predicates turn out to be compatible.

C. Revised Truth Conditions for Candidate Predicates

Based on this insight, Pawl offers revised truth conditions for the Christological predicates. For the passible/impassible pair, the revised conditions look something like this:

Passible (revised): s is passible just in case s has a nature according to which it is possible that at least one other thing causally affect s.

Impassible (revised): s is impassible just in case s has a nature according to which it is not the case that it is possible that at least one other thing causally affect s.²³

On these revised truth conditions, there is nothing contradictory about Christ being both passible and impassible. Christ has a human nature according to which He can be causally affected (He can be beaten, crucified, killed). And Christ has a divine nature according to which He cannot be causally affected (God is beyond all external causal influence). Both predicates are true of the same Person, at the same time, in the same sense — and there is no contradiction, because the predicates, properly understood, are not incompatible.

D. Explaining Our Initial Intuitions

A natural objection arises: If the predicates are not really incompatible, why do they seem incompatible? Pawl has an elegant answer. We think they are incompatible because we have never encountered another case of a being with two natures. In every other case we know of, a being has exactly one nature, and so the initial (unrestricted) truth conditions work perfectly well. We generalize from this experience and conclude that the predicates must be contradictory. But this generalization is unwarranted — it is like concluding that "arm-bent" and "arm-unbent" are contradictory because we have only ever met people with one arm (or whose arms are always in the same position). The apparent incompatibility is an artifact of our limited experience, not a genuine logical truth.²⁴

Pawl also offers a powerful historical argument. The councils themselves — composed of hundreds of learned bishops — simultaneously affirmed that Christ is both passible and impassible, both visible and invisible, both limited and unlimited. The Second Council of Nicaea (787), for example, declares Christ to be "both invisible and visible, incomprehensible and comprehensible, unlimited and limited, incapable and capable of suffering, inexpressible and expressible." As Pawl observes, this council stacks up five pairs of apparently contradictory predicates in a single sentence. If the council fathers genuinely believed these predicates were incompatible, they would have been knowingly affirming five contradictions in one breath. It is far more charitable — and far more reasonable — to suppose that they did not consider the predicates incompatible when predicated of a being with two natures.²⁵

VII. Definitions, Natures, and Metaphysics: Pawl's Framework

Pawl does not merely solve the Fundamental Problem and stop. He also provides a careful metaphysical framework for understanding the key terms used by the councils — terms like "person" (hypostasis, ὑπόστασις), "nature" (physis, φύσις), and "substance" (ousia, οὐσία). Getting these definitions right is essential for understanding and defending the conciliar claims.

A. Person and Hypostasis

For Pawl, a "person" or "hypostasis" is a particular individual — not a nature or a property, but a concrete existing thing. Christ is one hypostasis: the eternal Son, the second Person of the Trinity, the Logos. This one Person possesses two natures. The Person is the "who"; the natures are the "what." The Son is who Christ is; the divine nature and human nature are what He is.²⁶

B. The Concrete Nature View

One of Pawl's most important contributions is his careful analysis of what the councils mean by "nature" — specifically Christ's human nature. Pawl distinguishes between two fundamentally different ways of understanding "nature": the abstract nature view and the concrete nature view.

On the abstract nature view, a "human nature" is a property (or set of properties) that is necessary and sufficient for being human. It is an abstract entity — something like a Platonic form or a universal. To say that Christ has a human nature, on this view, is to say that the Son exemplifies or instantiates the property of being human. Christ's human nature is a property of the divine Person.²⁷

On the concrete nature view — which Pawl defends and which I share — a "human nature" is a concrete particular: a real, individual thing consisting of a body and a soul. Christ's human nature is not a property but a thing — the specific body-soul composite that the Son assumed at the Incarnation. Pawl follows Thomas Flint in referring to this concrete particular as "CHN" (Christ's Human Nature).²⁸

This distinction matters enormously. On the concrete nature view, when the councils say that the Son assumed a human nature "of a rational soul and a body," they are saying that the Son united Himself to a concrete thing — a particular human body animated by a particular rational human soul. The Incarnation is not the addition of an abstract property to the divine Person; it is the assumption of a real, concrete, body-soul composite. As Pawl puts it, he will use the term "Christ's human nature" to refer to "that particular body-soul composite with which Conciliar Christology claims the Word became hypostatically united."²⁹

Oliver Crisp, in Divinity and Humanity, provides a thorough and illuminating analysis of both views. He argues that the concrete nature view is preferable for several reasons. First, persons assume concrete things, not abstract properties. The Incarnation involves a real union with a real human nature, not the addition of abstract properties to the divine Person. Second, the concrete view better preserves the genuine humanity of Christ — He has a real body and a real soul, not just the property of "being human." Third, the concrete view is more naturally compatible with the councils' explicit language about Christ being "of a rational soul and a body" — language that describes concrete components, not abstract properties.³⁰

Crisp also helpfully observes that the abstract nature view faces a serious problem with dyothelitism — the doctrine that Christ has two wills. If Christ's human nature is merely a property that the Son instantiates, it is difficult to see how this property includes a genuine human will that is distinct from the divine will. On the concrete nature view, by contrast, the human nature is a body-soul composite, and the soul includes a human will — a real faculty of willing that is distinct from (though always in harmony with) the divine will. This is why the concrete nature view is more naturally compatible with the full conciliar Christology, including the decree of Constantinople III (681) that Christ has two wills.³¹

C. Hylomorphism and Truthmaking

Pawl adopts a broadly Thomistic metaphysical framework — specifically, hylomorphism (from the Greek hylē [ὕλη], meaning "matter," and morphē [μορφή], meaning "form"). According to hylomorphism, material substances are composites of matter and form. A human being, on this view, is a composite of a body (matter) and a soul (form). The soul is the "form" or organizing principle that makes the body a living human body rather than a mere heap of matter.³²

Pawl uses this hylomorphic framework to develop a "truthmaking" account of how predicates are made true of Christ. When we say "Christ is passible," what makes this true? On Pawl's account, it is Christ's human nature — specifically, the body-soul composite that is His concrete human nature — that makes this predicate true. And when we say "Christ is impassible," what makes this true is His divine nature. Different natures serve as different "truthmakers" for different predicates, all attributed to the same single Person.³³

This truthmaking account has a crucial implication. If the human nature is the truthmaker for predicates like "passible," "mortal," "limited in knowledge," and "having a human will," then the human nature must be a robust enough entity to bear these predicates. A mere physical organism — a body without a soul — would be a very different kind of truthmaker than a body-soul composite. And the councils explicitly specify that the truthmaker for Christ's human predicates is a body ensouled by a rational soul. The metaphysical framework Pawl employs thus presupposes a dualist understanding of human nature — even though Pawl himself does not frame the issue in terms of the physicalism-dualism debate.

VIII. Additional Metaphysical Objections: Immutability, Impassibility, and Atemporality

After resolving the Fundamental Problem, Pawl turns in Part III of his book to additional metaphysical objections. The most significant of these involves the "modal" predicates — predicates that, if true of something at all, must necessarily be true of it. The three main modal predicates are immutability (God cannot change), impassibility (God cannot be causally affected), and atemporality (God exists outside of time).³⁴

The objection runs like this: If God is necessarily immutable, then it is impossible for God to change. But the Incarnation involves change — the Son, who was not incarnate, became incarnate. Therefore, the Incarnation is impossible for a necessarily immutable being. Similar arguments can be constructed for impassibility and atemporality.

Pawl responds by applying the same strategy he used for the Fundamental Problem. The truth conditions for "immutable" need to be revised for the case of a being with two natures. On the revised truth conditions, a being is immutable just in case it has a nature according to which it cannot change. Christ's divine nature satisfies this condition — the divine nature cannot change. But Christ also has a human nature that can and does change (He grows, learns, suffers, dies). So Christ is both immutable (in respect of His divine nature) and mutable (in respect of His human nature), and there is no contradiction.³⁵

Pawl examines objections from several contemporary philosophers — Richard Cross, Jonathan Hill, Richard Holland, and Thomas Senor — and argues that they all presuppose the initial (unrestricted) truth conditions for the modal predicates. Once the truth conditions are revised, the objections lose their force. This is a powerful result. It means that the doctrine of the Incarnation is compatible even with strong classical theistic claims about divine immutability and impassibility.³⁶

I should note that, as I argued in the third book in my series, The God Beyond the Clock, I hold to dynamic divine temporality — the view that God is genuinely temporal — and qualified immutability. So I do not personally affirm strict divine immutability, impassibility, or atemporality in the strong classical sense. But Pawl's result is still valuable for my project, because it shows that the Incarnation is coherent even on stronger versions of classical theism than the one I hold. If the Incarnation is coherent with strict immutability, it is certainly coherent with qualified immutability. Pawl's defense covers a wider range of theological positions than I need, which only strengthens the overall case.

IX. Number Troubles: Two Natures, Two Wills, but One Person

The final major section of Pawl's book addresses what he calls "number troubles." These are objections that claim the numbers in conciliar Christology do not add up. The most common version goes like this: If Christ has two natures, two wills, and two principles of action, does He not have two persons? Having two complete centers of agency seems to require two persons — and that would be Nestorianism, which the councils explicitly condemn.³⁷

Pawl frames the problem using what he calls "unfriendly conditionals" — conditional statements that, if true, would render conciliar Christology false. The most threatening unfriendly conditional is the "Person-Will Conditional": If Christ is only one person, then Christ has only one will. The councils affirm the antecedent (Christ is one person) but deny the consequent (Christ has two wills, as Constantinople III decreed). If the Person-Will Conditional is true, conciliar Christology is internally contradictory.³⁸

Pawl's response is characteristically careful. He examines several arguments offered in favor of these unfriendly conditionals and shows that none of them succeed. The key insight is that the conditionals assume a particular understanding of "person" — an understanding on which a person is defined partly in terms of having one will or one nature. But Pawl argues that this cannot be the understanding of the conciliar fathers, since they explicitly taught that one person (Christ) has two wills and two natures. Whatever "person" means in the conciliar framework, it does not mean "a being with exactly one will." The conciliar fathers clearly had a concept of personhood that is compatible with a single person having two wills, and we should interpret "person" in that light.³⁹

This is relevant to the question of Christ's human soul. If Christ has two wills — a divine will and a human will — then He must have a faculty of human willing. On any plausible account, a human will is a faculty of the human soul. If Christ has no human soul (as physicalism implies), then He has no faculty of human willing, and dyothelitism — the doctrine of two wills — collapses. Pawl's defense of the councils against number troubles is thus, once again, implicitly a defense of the reality of Christ's human soul.

X. Pawl's Conclusion and Its Extended Implications

Pawl concludes his book with a remarkable statement: "I conclude that if there is a sound philosophical argument for the thesis that Conciliar Christology is false or incoherent, I am not aware of it."⁴⁰ This is a bold but carefully qualified claim. Pawl is not saying he has answered every possible objection to Christianity or every possible objection to the Incarnation. He is saying that, among the philosophical arguments that target the logical coherence of what the first seven ecumenical councils actually teach, none of them succeeds.

Pawl also honestly acknowledges that there is "still work to be done." He identifies five areas of "Extended Conciliar Christology" — claims that are commonly held in the tradition but were not explicitly defined in the first seven councils — that need further philosophical analysis. These include: (1) the freedom of Christ's human will; (2) the relationship between Christ's foreknowledge and His deliberation; (3) the compatibility of impeccability (inability to sin) with genuine temptation; (4) the descent into Hades and the state of Christ during the triduum mortis (the three days between death and resurrection); and (5) the possibility of multiple incarnations.⁴¹

Notice that the fourth area — the triduum mortis — is directly relevant to this book's argument against physicalism. As we will explore in detail in Chapters 21 and 22, the triduum poses a devastating problem for physicalism. If Christ's human nature is a body-soul composite (as the concrete nature view holds), then when Christ died, His body and soul separated. On dualism, the soul survived and maintained the hypostatic union during the three days. On physicalism, there is no soul to survive, and the hypostatic union is either dissolved or rendered unintelligible. Pawl acknowledges that this is a question "that cries out for answers" but does not develop the point himself. This book takes up precisely this challenge.

XI. Areas of Agreement with Pawl

Let me now state clearly where I agree with Pawl — which is on the vast majority of his positions.

First, I agree that conciliar Christology is logically coherent. Pawl's demonstration of this is, in my judgment, the most rigorous and successful in the literature. The Fundamental Problem — the problem of apparently incompatible predications — is a real and serious challenge, and Pawl's solution (denying the incompatibility by revising the truth conditions to account for the two-nature structure of Christ) is both elegant and philosophically sound.

Second, I agree with the concrete nature view. Christ's human nature is a concrete particular — a body-soul composite — not an abstract property. This view is better supported by the conciliar texts, more naturally compatible with dyothelitism, and theologically richer than the abstract alternative.

Third, I agree with Pawl's broadly hylomorphic metaphysical framework. The soul is the form of the body; a human being is a body-soul composite. This framework has deep roots in the Christian theological tradition (especially in Aquinas) and provides a natural account of the constitution of Christ's human nature.

Fourth, I agree with Pawl that the councils are philosophically defensible. The gathered bishops of the ecumenical councils were not naive or logically confused. Their definitions can withstand rigorous philosophical scrutiny. A thoughtful, intellectually honest Christian can affirm the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonian Definition, and the decrees of all seven ecumenical councils without committing any logical error.

Fifth, and most importantly for this book, I agree that the councils' explicit affirmation of Christ's rational soul is non-negotiable. When Pawl defends the coherence of conciliar Christology, he is defending a Christology that necessarily includes the claim that Christ has a rational soul. Any position that denies Christ has a rational soul — including physicalism — is in direct conflict with the councils Pawl so ably defends.

XII. Areas of Difference: Pawl's Minimalism and the Need for a Model

While I agree with Pawl on nearly everything, there is one significant area where I go beyond him — and this is more a supplement than a disagreement. Pawl's approach is deliberately minimalist. He defends the logical structure of conciliar Christology — the "what" — without developing a specific model of how the two natures relate in Christ's experience — the "how." As he puts it, he has "presented Conciliar Christology and supposed its truth for the sake of argument" and has not "argued for the truth, probability, or even logical possibility of Conciliar Christology." His goal has been to show that "no extant philosophical objections to Conciliar Christology... show it to be inconsistent or incoherent."⁴²

This is valuable but, I believe, incomplete. The believer wants to know not only that the Incarnation is possible but also something about what it was like. How did Christ's divine omniscience relate to His human ignorance of the day and hour? How did His divine omnipotence relate to the physical weakness He experienced in the wilderness and at Golgotha? How did His divine eternity relate to His temporal, embodied existence in first-century Palestine? These are not merely academic curiosities. They are questions about the lived reality of the Person we worship. And answering them — even tentatively, even with appropriate humility — enriches our understanding of the Incarnation and deepens our worship.

This is where Loke's Kryptic Model comes in, as I argued in Chapter 17. Loke proposes that during the Incarnation, Christ's divine attributes (omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence) were not surrendered or given up (that would be kenoticism) but were concealed at a preconscious level. Christ had a single stream of consciousness — a genuinely human conscious experience — while His divine knowledge and power operated "behind the scenes," accessible when needed (as when He performed miracles, read people's thoughts, or prophesied) but not constantly flooding His human awareness. This preserves both the genuineness of His human experience and the fullness of His divine attributes.⁴³

I see Pawl and Loke as deeply complementary. Pawl shows us that the conciliar definitions are coherent — that the "bare bones" structure of the Incarnation (one Person, two natures, two wills, two sets of predicates) does not involve any logical contradiction. Loke then fills in the experiential content — he proposes a specific model of how those two natures relate in Christ's actual experience. Pawl gives us the logical skeleton; Loke gives us the theological flesh. Together, they provide a comprehensive defense and explanation of the Incarnation.

To put it another way: if the Incarnation were a house, Pawl would be the structural engineer who demonstrates that the blueprint is sound — the load-bearing walls are in the right places, the foundation can support the weight, and the building will not collapse. Loke would be the architect who shows you what it looks like to live in the house — how the rooms connect, where the light falls, and how the space feels. You need both.

XIII. The Soul Connection: Why Pawl's Defense Supports Dualism Against Physicalism

We come now to the point that matters most for this book's argument. Throughout Pawl's defense, there is an unspoken but unavoidable implication: the councils Pawl defends are incompatible with physicalism about Christ's human nature.

Let me spell out the argument step by step.

Step 1: The ecumenical councils define Christ's human nature as consisting of "a rational soul and a body." This is not a peripheral detail but a constitutive element of the definition, repeated at Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), and Constantinople III (681).

Step 2: Pawl defends the coherence of these councils and argues that their teachings should be taken seriously as philosophically rigorous and logically consistent definitions.

Step 3: If the councils are right — if Christ's human nature really does consist of a rational soul and a body — then Christ has an immaterial rational soul as part of His human nature.

Step 4: Physicalism about human nature denies the existence of immaterial rational souls. On physicalism, a human being is a purely physical organism — a body without a soul.

Step 5: Therefore, physicalism is incompatible with the conciliar definition of Christ's human nature. To accept physicalism is to deny what the councils affirm about the composition of Christ's humanity.

This argument has considerable force. The councils did not idly or accidentally insert the phrase "of a rational soul and a body" into their definitions. They did so deliberately, precisely because the heresy of Apollinarianism — which denied that Christ had a rational human soul — had been condemned. The councils needed to make it absolutely clear that Christ's human nature is complete, including a rational soul. As Gregory of Nazianzus had argued, "What is not assumed is not healed" — and if Christ did not assume a rational human soul, then the rational soul of humanity is not healed by the Incarnation (as we explored in detail in Chapter 12).⁴⁴

Now, a physicalist might object: "I accept that the councils used the language of 'rational soul,' but I interpret that language differently. The councils were using the philosophical vocabulary of their time. They did not intend to make a metaphysical commitment to substance dualism. The 'rational soul' is just their way of saying 'rational capacities' or 'the full range of human mental life.' We can affirm that Christ had a complete set of rational capacities without affirming that He had an immaterial soul-substance."

This objection deserves a fair hearing, but I believe it fails for several reasons.

First, the councils were not speaking loosely. They were making precise theological definitions — the most carefully worded theological statements in all of Christian history. The Chalcedonian Definition is famous for its terminological precision. When the council fathers said "rational soul and body" (psychēs logikēs kai sōmatos), they meant a rational soul and a body — two distinct components that together constitute the human nature. If they had meant merely "rational capacities," they would not have paired "soul" with "body" as two components.

Second, as Pawl's own analysis makes clear, the concrete nature view — which Pawl defends as the best reading of the councils — understands Christ's human nature as a concrete particular composed of a body and a soul. The "soul" here is not a metaphor for rational capacities; it is an ontological component — a real constituent of the human nature. Pawl himself defines CHN (Christ's Human Nature) as "that particular body-soul composite with which Conciliar Christology claims the Word became hypostatically united."⁴⁵ A "body-soul composite" is not a body with rational capacities; it is a union of two distinct entities.

Third, the historical context confirms that the councils intended a metaphysical claim. The council fathers were condemning Apollinarianism — the explicit denial that Christ had a rational human soul. Their affirmation that Christ is "of a rational soul and a body" was a direct and deliberate response to Apollinarius. They were asserting the existence of a distinct rational soul in Christ — not merely affirming His rational capacities.

Fourth, the Athanasian Creed (the Quicumque) uses an analogy that presupposes the ontological distinctness of soul and body: "For just as the rational soul and body are one man, so God and man are one Christ." As Pawl notes, both Cyril and the Athanasian Creed make the same analogy: as the soul is to the body it indwells, so the Word is to the human nature He assumes.⁴⁶ This analogy only works if the rational soul is a genuine ontological entity — a real thing that indwells the body. If the "soul" were merely a set of rational capacities emergent from the body's physical processes, the analogy would collapse.

The conclusion is clear. Pawl's defense of conciliar Christology is, by extension, a defense of the claim that Christ has an immaterial rational soul. And since Christ's human nature is the paradigm and norm for human nature in general (as Wilkinson has argued in Crowned with Glory and Honor), the conciliar definitions support substance dualism and rule out physicalism — not only for Christ but for all human beings.

XIV. The Triduum Problem and Extended Conciliar Christology

Pawl himself acknowledges that the triduum mortis — the three days between Christ's death and resurrection — raises questions that his book does not fully answer. He lists "the descent into Hell" as one of the extensions of conciliar Christology that "cry out for answers." He asks: What was Christ's relation to the component parts of His human nature after its death? Was Christ still related to the nature, or merely to the component parts? Was Christ still a man at the time?⁴⁷

These questions are absolutely central to this book's argument, and we will explore them in depth in Chapters 21–23. But let me preview the basic point here, since it connects directly to Pawl's framework.

On the concrete nature view that Pawl defends, Christ's human nature is a body-soul composite. At death, the body and soul separate. What happens to the hypostatic union? On dualism, the answer is clear: the Son remains united to both the separated soul and the dead body. The soul survives and is conscious — it descends to the dead, proclaims victory to imprisoned spirits (1 Peter 3:18-20), and goes to paradise with the repentant thief (Luke 23:43). The body lies in the tomb. The Incarnation continues because the Son is still united to both components of His human nature, even though they are temporarily separated. The soul serves as the bridge that preserves the continuity of the Incarnation through death.

On physicalism, there is no soul to survive. When Christ dies, His body is all there is of His human nature. That body is in the tomb, decaying. There is no conscious Christ to descend to the dead, no spirit to be "made alive" (1 Peter 3:18), no personal presence to accompany the thief to paradise. The Incarnation appears to be interrupted — the Son is no longer united to a functioning human nature. The hypostatic union, defined by the councils as existing "without separation," is effectively dissolved. This is a catastrophic problem for physicalism, and it arises directly from the conciliar framework that Pawl has so ably defended.

As the contributors to Christian Physicalism? have argued, the triduum mortis is one of the most devastating objections to physicalism about Christ's human nature. If there is no soul to survive death, then the Incarnation has a three-day gap — and the councils' insistence that the two natures are united "without separation" is violated. Dualism avoids this problem entirely because the soul provides the continuity that bridges death and resurrection.⁴⁸

XV. Pawl, Loke, and the Comprehensive Defense of Orthodox Christology

Let me now draw together the threads and show how Pawl's work fits into the larger argument of this book.

We have now examined four major models of the Incarnation in Part IV of this book. Kenotic Christology (Chapter 15) fails because it sacrifices essential divine attributes. The Two-Minds View (Chapter 16) has significant strengths but faces difficulties with the unity of Christ's experience. The Kryptic Model (Chapter 17) — my preferred framework — preserves both the fullness of Christ's divine attributes and the genuineness of His human experience. And now, Pawl's Conciliar Christology (this chapter) demonstrates that the conciliar definitions are logically coherent.

Together, Loke and Pawl provide what I consider the strongest available defense of orthodox Christology. Pawl defends the logical structure; Loke fills in the experiential content. Both presuppose — and both require — the reality of Christ's immaterial human soul. Their work thus converges on the central thesis of this book: physicalism about human nature is incompatible with orthodox Christology.

We can now state the argument from the models of the Incarnation:

1. Every orthodox model of the Incarnation — whether kryptic (Loke), conciliar (Pawl), or the older two-minds model (Morris) — presupposes or requires that Christ has an immaterial human soul.

2. The only model that is even potentially compatible with physicalism is kenoticism — and kenoticism fails on independent grounds (as argued in Chapter 15).

3. Therefore, no viable model of the Incarnation is compatible with physicalism.

4. If no viable model of the Incarnation is compatible with physicalism, then physicalism is incompatible with the Incarnation.

5. If physicalism is incompatible with the Incarnation, and the Incarnation is true (as all Christians affirm), then physicalism is false.⁴⁹

This is a powerful argument, and it is strengthened by the fact that it does not depend on any single model. Even if one rejects Loke's kryptic model and prefers a different approach, the argument still goes through — because every orthodox alternative also requires the soul.

XVI. Objections and Responses

Objection 1: "Pawl's defense is purely logical and tells us nothing about reality."

Response: It is true that Pawl's defense is primarily about logical coherence, not about metaphysical reality. But coherence is a necessary condition for truth. If conciliar Christology were logically incoherent, it could not possibly be true — regardless of the biblical evidence. Pawl establishes that the councils could be right. The biblical and historical arguments in other chapters of this book establish that the councils are right. Pawl clears the logical ground; the rest of the case builds on that ground.

Objection 2: "The councils' metaphysical language is outdated and should be reinterpreted in modern categories."

Response: While it is true that the councils used the philosophical categories available to them (primarily a broadly Aristotelian and Platonic framework), their theological claims are not reducible to any particular philosophical system. The claim that Christ is one Person with two natures — one divine and one human, the latter consisting of a rational soul and body — is a substantive theological claim, not merely a philosophical preference. If we "reinterpret" this claim in physicalist categories that eliminate the rational soul, we are not updating the language — we are changing the content. We are no longer saying what the councils said. And that, for any Christian who takes the authority of the councils seriously, should be deeply troubling.

Objection 3: "Pawl's revised truth conditions for the Candidate Predicates are ad hoc."

Response: Pawl anticipates this objection and responds effectively. The revised truth conditions are not ad hoc — they are the natural and expected truth conditions for a being with two natures. The initial truth conditions were formulated for beings with one nature. When we discover that there is a being with two natures (Christ), we need to update our truth conditions accordingly — just as we update our definitions of "arm-bent" and "arm-unbent" when we discover a being with two arms in different positions. The revision is not arbitrary; it is motivated by the unique metaphysical situation that the Incarnation presents.⁵⁰

Objection 4: "Two wills implies two persons — so conciliar Christology is Nestorian."

Response: Pawl addresses this directly in his treatment of number troubles. The claim that two wills entails two persons depends on a particular understanding of personhood — an understanding that the conciliar fathers themselves rejected when they affirmed both one person and two wills. Whatever personhood is, it is not constituted by having exactly one will. The Son is one Person who has two wills — one belonging to His divine nature and one belonging to His human nature. The human will is a faculty of the human soul, exercised by the divine Person. This is mysterious but not contradictory, as Pawl demonstrates.⁵¹

Conclusion

Timothy Pawl has given the church a gift. His rigorous philosophical defense of conciliar Christology demonstrates that the ecumenical councils — those remarkable gatherings of bishops who defined the faith once for all — were not logically confused, theologically naive, or philosophically careless. The doctrine of the Incarnation, as defined at Nicaea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Constantinople, is logically coherent. A single Person can have two natures — one divine and one human — without contradiction. Apparently incompatible predicates (like "passible" and "impassible") are, in fact, compatible once we understand them in light of the two-nature structure of the Incarnation. The Fundamental Problem is solved, the additional metaphysical objections fail, and the number troubles are resolved.

But Pawl's defense also carries implications that go beyond his stated project. The councils he defends explicitly and repeatedly define Christ's human nature as consisting of a rational soul and a body. This is not a dispensable element of the conciliar definitions; it is constitutive of what the councils mean by "human nature." When Pawl shows that conciliar Christology is coherent, he is showing that a Christology that includes a rational human soul is coherent. And this means that physicalism — which denies the existence of the rational soul — stands condemned by the very councils that define orthodox Christian belief.

I have argued throughout this chapter that Pawl and Loke are deeply complementary. Pawl defends the logical structure of the Incarnation; Loke explains its experiential content. Together, they provide the most powerful contemporary defense of Chalcedonian Christology available. And both, in different ways, require the reality of Christ's immaterial human soul. The case against physicalism continues to build.

In the next chapter, we will turn to the doctrines of anhypostasia and enhypostasia — the traditional explanations of how Christ's human nature can be complete without being an independent person — and show how these doctrines further strengthen the case for substance dualism and against physicalism.

Bibliography