I was near the end of my oral exams with the juniors when I began to realize how far I could push them. I would start from basic definitions regarding the Incarnation and gradually force them to think more and more, and they held up—not just the star students, but all of them. Actual excerpt from one of the orals:
What is a suppositum?
How does being a suppositum differ from being an individual?
What is the difference between the terms “suppositum” and “person”?
Are you a suppositum?
Is a tree a suppositum?
Is a dog a suppositum?
Is my nose a suppositum?
Is Christ’s human nature a suppositum?
Why not?
Is Christ’s divinity a suppositum?
Why is that?
Tell me about the heresy of “monoenergism”?
What does “energy” mean in this debate?
What did Maximus the Confessor mean by “theandric energy”?
What would happen to theandric energy if you were a Nestorian?
What would happen to theandric energy if you were a Monophysite?
…and so on.
