Tuesdays with Thomas F. Torrance (10.15.13)

On the importance of the concept of the "homoousion" ("of one being") in Christian Theology:

The homoousion, then ... is of staggering significance. It crystallizes the conviction that while the incarnation falls within the structure of our spatio-temporal humanity in this world, it also falls within the Life and Being of God. Jesus Christ is thus not a mere symbol, some representation of God detached from God, but God in his own Being and Act come among us, expressing in our human form the Word which he is eternally in himself, so that in our relations with Jesus Christ we have to do directly with the ultimate reality of God. As the epitomized expression of that fact, the homoousion is the ontological and epistemological linchpin of Christian theology. With it, everything hangs together; without it, everything ultimately falls apart.⁶