Hypostatic Union
Christ is one person in two natures, divine and human.
This doctrine defines Christian orthodoxy. Denial places one outside the historic faith.
What the traditions say
Dogma. CCC 467: "The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man."
Affirmed, but with the communicatio idiomatum taken further than in Reformed theology — the human nature receives real (not merely predicated) divine attributes.
Chalcedonian Orthodoxy is definitive. The Oriental Orthodox churches (Coptic, Armenian) accept a miaphysite formulation that is now largely recognized as linguistically rather than theologically different.
Defined at Chalcedon (451): two natures "without confusion, without change, without division, without separation" in one person.
Affirmed with emphasis on the distinction of natures (extra Calvinisticum). Each nature retains its own properties.
Key scriptures
- 1Tim 3:16 — And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
- Col 2:9 — For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
- John 1:14 — And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.