An Idealistic Understanding of the Incarnation

The incarnation is baffling for any human mind. How can the infinite become finite? Well, let us define our terms (see the "Mind-Model" of the Trinity before proceeding). The standard view of the incarnation demands that Jesus, in His one Person, had two complete and distinct natures. These two natures (divine and human), while they do not mix, are perfectly joined. Jesus is a hypostasis-a distinct property bearer-who bears both the the properties of being Divine and human. That means, in His Divine nature, the Son of God is everything that makes God God. He is omniscient, omnipresent, etc. In His human nature, He is everything that makes a human human. These two natures, again, do not mix, but nevertheless are united in the Son of God-the Logos. So how are we to understand this? I don't think I can fully resolve the issue. But I'll try to make it as intelligible as possible. Let's define terms.

Consciousness
Consciousness is the fact of experience, as Sam Harris puts it. It is the fact of perception, of feeling, of color, of knowledge. It is the world we inhabit (see my post "How Consciousness proves the existence of God"). On idealism, consciousness is all that exists (again, see the blog post just mentioned). Consciousness is the system of thoughts, experiences, knowledge, etc that characterize reality.

Personhood
Personhood is the concept of "self" or "ego". It is my "I". It is me; I am a person. Personhood, therefore, can be described as a localization of consciousness. It is the fact that I exist and therefore I am experiencing stuff. Consciousness is an essential part of what it means to be a person. A rock does not possess consciousness, and therefore is not personal. Animals can be said to be personal because they possess (presumably) consciousness. Possessing consciousness-having a system of thoughts and experiences-is an essential part of being a Person. In fact, I'd say Personhood is identical to localized consciousness (again, the fact of the existence of the "self"). It is a distinct center of awareness.

Mind (what I'd also call the Soul) 
Then what is the Mind? I used to define this as one's own consciousness...and therefore, Personhood. But then I realized Jesus has both a human mind and a divine mind. Yet Jesus is not two persons in one Person; He is ONE Person with two natures. Yet He has a human mind. How is this to be understood?

I now suggest that the mind is a center of understanding within localized consciousness. That sounds confusing. A lot of big words. Here's what I mean by that. The mind is the means through which I experience the world. Whereas Personhood is localized consciousness, the mind is what localized consciousness does. Consider this. 

Personhood = italics
Mind = bold

I feel pain. Mind, as a friend of mine helpfully put it, is the self's perception of both itself and the world-the self's relationship to both itself, and the world. Whereas Personhood is the self, the mind is the instrument the self uses to perceive. Thus, it is proper to say that I have a soul, rather than to say I am a soul. So the mind, as the center of understanding within my localized consciousness, is the self's self-awareness. It is the way the self views itself and it's relationship to the world. As I said, having at least one mind is an essential part of Personhood. 

Bipolarism
This is going to be a helpful ANALOGY ONLY to clarify my definition of the mind. I do not want to suggest that the Person of the Son is bipolar. Rather, this can help us understand something about the nature of the mind. I was talking with a very insightful friend at church about this, and she brought up the fact of Multiple Personality Disorder. It's when a singular "self" experiences multiple modes of the self-and yet these modes can sometimes be totally disconnected from one another. What I mean by mode here is: a way of viewing itself. In spite of having multiple personalities, my friend reminded me that there is still only one Person experiencing all of these. There is only one self, yet that self has something like multiple minds (I realize this isn't a perfect analogy, again) that are disconnected from each other. In other words, the mind is the way the self views itself and its relationship to the world. Perhaps that's more precise wording on what exactly I mean by "center of understanding".

The Divine and Human Person
Unlike a bipolar person, the Son's Divine and Human natures are completely united, yet nevertheless distinct. So within the Son's "ego", the Son's sense of "I", He can have two ways of viewing Himself and His relationship to the world, and hence two minds. This is unique to the Son. The Son possesses two minds, whereas the other Persons possess only one mind. While this is mind (hehe) bending, it is not logically incoherent. It may be incomprehensible to our minds, because we only possess a singular mind. Yet within the Son's self, He possesses to ways of viewing Himself and His relationship to all things (i.e two minds). He possess a divine mind, and a human mind. So His one Person possesses two minds.

The Trinity-Cosmic Consciousness, the Universal Mind
Mind with a capital "M" is not the same as mind as I have thus far described it. On idealism, all is mind. Reality is fundamentally mental. Thus, I would define the being of God as Cosmic Consciousness. In other words, God's Being is Consciousness. He is a system of thoughts, perceptions, emotions, etc. Red flags may go off because I have just called God a "system". No worries, He's not an impersonal system, because consciousness is inherently personal ;) 

I'll refer to the Divine Being as the Divine Consciousness from this point on. I STRONGLY recommend you look at my mind-model of the Trinity, as this serves as an edit to it. Replace "center of consciousness" with "localization of consciousness" and I think we should be good. 

Within the Divine Consciousness, there are three distinct localizations of consciousness: Father, Son, and Spirit. To put it in terms of the creeds, there are three personal hypostasis. A hypostasis is just a distinct property bearer. Or in simpler terms, it's a thing with properties. So what this means is that while the Persons of God never operate independently from each other, and while the Father is the source of the Godhead, the properties that make God who He is (omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, omnibenevolence) are still distinctly possessed by each Person. So in the Divine Consciousness, there are three hypostasis...we can pretty much use this word interchangeably with "Person" insofar as we are applying it to personal agents. Which we are. Note: I am using the word "distinct" rather than "individual" for a reason. The word "individual" seems to imply a separate existence for each Person. But Scripture testifies wholly against that; God is one. We are not tri-theists. I mean that each Person, while inter-dependent, nevertheless each possess the attributes of God. 

Here's the key thing to remember. These Persons are not "parts" of God. Each Person is fully God. That means, on the idealist view of reality, two things. 
1.) Everything that makes God who He is is possessed by each Person
2.) Each Person shares and operates in the Divine Consciousness fully. So while these localizations of consciousness are distinct centers of information processing in the Divine Consciousness (the Divine Mind, we could say...but I won't for the sake of avoiding confusion), they nevertheless think and operate in perfect unity and accord. The thoughts of all Persons in the Godhead are fully known, and fully comprehended. 

Concluding Thoughts
So this is my model. To most people, this probably looks like silly speculation. It's not if my God exists. It's also matters a ton in how we present the incarnation to the world. We are not to present God as a logically incoherent entity-that dishonors Him. We are to present Him as faithfully as possible. 

I will call my model the "Idealist Incarnation" model. I want to mention one last thing. It is helpful to note that all of reality exists as a projection of the Divine Consciousness. Thus, at least in theory, it's not impossible for Him to unite a human nature to Himself. The common property shared between God and man is consciousness.