Deification is only possible because of the unique Christian understanding of God’s nature as a Trinity. Most traditional descriptions of the Trinity focus upon dogmatic definitions of the persons of the Trinity, based upon Revelation and logic. However, what is often lost in these definitions is the living and active magnificence of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity consists of a series of profound paradoxes which have proven to be too difficult to understand or just too difficult to tolerate for followers of other monotheistic religions. The greatest paradox is that God is one God who is three persons sharing one divine substance. They howl that is polytheism. A less recognized paradox is that he is perfect act and perfect potency — perfectly unchanging as well as perfectly dynamic. That makes no sense, they howl again. How can something be standing still and moving at the same time? But then why not? Quantum mechanics famously teaches that a cat can be simultaneously alive and dead.1
The three-personned Christian God is a remarkable sui generis in the pantheon of proposed divinities. There is no other being either actual or hypothesized who can be described like him. Even more remarkably, he can only exist if he actually is (not simply possesses) infinite perfection. From this the idea follows that such a perfect being must actually have existence in order to be this perfect — otherwise he would not be perfect. This is the idea at the core of Thomas Aquinas’ famous “argument from degree” for the existence of God.2
The Trinity is certainly intellectually challenging. As a result, some refuse to accept a God whose nature their minds cannot grasp. Instead, they limit their God to the limits of their own understanding — yet another version of a “god of the belly.”
The paradoxes of Christianity only multiply from there. The Trinity is bad enough, but then there is the Incarnation. The second person of the divine trinity becomes enfleshed, takes on human nature, and becomes perfectly God and man with both natures co-existing simultaneously. They howl that is blasphemy.
Why? Philosophically, there is no issue. “Nature” is simply defined as the innate or essential qualities or character of something. Possessing a “nature” does not automatically preclude possessing another kind of “nature.” But how does this work as a practical matter? An analogy from Creation could be helpful.
Consider the photon, the basic particle of light. It is one entity that has both the nature (essential qualities or character) of a wave and a particle simultaneously.3 No physicist would say that the photon is two different entities; rather, it has two natures both coexisting and revealed under certain circumstances. The “entity” of Christ is a person who has two natures, divine and human, both coexisting and revealed under certain circumstances. The apostle John makes repeatedly clear in the first chapter of his gospel that Christ is “the light of men.”
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:1-5).
The phrase “light of men” can be interpreted two ways. The first is that the light of the Word illuminates men. The second meaning of the phrase “in Him was life, and the (emphasis mine) life was the (emphasis mine) light of men” could mean that the light of men, their human nature (their life), was “in Him?” In other words, the Second Person had taken on (taken in?) human nature in addition to his divine nature and human nature was now in Him? Even further, if human nature was now taken within the Second Person, it was therefore now taken into the Trinity itself through the communication mediated by the Holy Spirit and therefore deified?
It cannot be a mere coincidence4 that “the light” or the Incarnation as described by John has two natures just as its physical equivalent the photon does.5 Creation is made in the image of the Creator.
There are several Greek words for “light” in its various aspects that appear in Scripture. Indeed, the Greek word John uses for light φως (phos) doesn’t just mean physical light; it implies the manifestation or revelation of something. Indeed, a good definition of the word “manifestation” is “an incarnation of something or someone.” In other words, manifestation can mean incarnation. For example, we might say that a woman is “the incarnation of beauty,” or that Hitler and Stalin are “incarnations of evil.”
When the manifesting light “entered the world” in Mary’s womb at the Annunciation, the Word of God was incarnated as the phos light and thus manifested to the world his two perfect natures — human and divine. Jesus is “the light” and is indeed the manifestation and incarnation of God. So, when John says that “He was the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know Him” (John 1:10), he doesn’t just mean that the world did not recognize him as Yahweh the Creator, the second person of the divine Trinity, but that the world did not recognize his dual nature as the incarnate God-man.
And the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:5).
The dark world did not comprehend that Jesus is the manifested and incarnated Word made flesh entering his own Creation at its summit—as a man. The Incarnation is the greatest light event in the universe since the Big Bang. In the beginning of Genesis, the phos light manifested itself to the formless void, but in the beginning of John it manifested itself to man.
A similar passage to John’s first chapter exists in Isaiah where he says,
Shine, shine, O Jerusalem, for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. Behold, darkness and gloom shall cover the earth upon the nations, but the Lord will shine on you; and His glory shall be seen upon you. Kings shall come to your light, and the Gentiles to your brightness (Isaiah 60:1-3).
“Light” is again the dual natured phos. “Lord” is Kurios or Yahweh, the second person of the Trinity. Here, Isaiah foretells what John announces. The light of the Incarnation has entered into the darkness of the world. Simeon alludes to this passage in Isaiah at the Presentation in the Temple, when he takes the baby Jesus into his arms and says,
For my eyes have seen your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light (phos) to bring salvation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel (Luke 2:30-32).
Jesus takes up the theme of light himself and makes this explicit on Palm Sunday when he foretells his crucifixion,
The people answered Him, “We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever; and how can You say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?” Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. “While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them. But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.” These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him. Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God (John 12:34-43).
“Light” in this passage is phos, the dual-natured incarnate light. To believe in the phos is to believe in the Incarnation, which is to believe in the Christ. When reading Scripture, if light is mentioned and the word “phos” is used in the original Greek, it is a good bet that what is being alluded to is the Incarnation. These references are everywhere.
“Schrödinger's Cat,” Wikipedia, accessed December 16, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat.
“Argument from Degree,” Wikipedia, accessed December 17, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_degree.
The photon has mass, is therefore attracted by gravity, and can move through a vacuum like a particle, yet it can be diffracted like a wave.
There are no coincidences with God.
Albert Einstein won the 1921 Nobel Prize for describing the photo-electric effect, but also in part for describing the particle-wave duality of light. The apostle John would have had no idea of the scientific nature of light two thousand years ago when he wrote his magnificent gospel, but the Holy Spirit certainly would have.