Two-Minds Christology and the Cartesian Intuition

Although a Two-Minds Christology—whereby Jesus has a human mind and a numerically distinct divine mind—is arguably the traditional view, it has been challenged due to our shifting intuitions about what constitutes a person. That is, it just seems to many that a person just is her conscious life, what I call the Cartesian Intuition. Thus, many, such as William Lane Craig, object against a Two-Minds Christology for qualifying as a form of Nestorianism, the heresy that there are two persons in the Incarnation—the merely human Jesus with his own mind and the fully divine God the Son with his own mind. However, I argue that the Two-Minds Christology can comport with a version of the Cartesian Intuition. First, I shall motivate the Cartesian Intuition, demonstrating its seeming incompatibility with a Two-Minds Christology. Second, I shall briefly characterize and defend the Two-Minds Christology. Finally, I shall give two modifications to the Cartesian Intuition that can countenance the Two-Minds Christology, one being epistemological and the other using so-called disjunctive properties that some kenotic Christologists, like Ron Feenstra, employ. I conclude that the Two-Minds Christology should therefore be considered as justified as, if not more justified than, kenotic Christology.