Thread: Purgatory: 27% - the Virgin Birth Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Eb'lis (# 2344) on :
 
In my haste to speak of this subject I have been unable to check properly whether it has been dealt with before hand, I dont think it has, but if it has please accept my appologies.

Anyway, i was scanning teletext yesterday and found a news item that said that 27% of the CofE vicars did not believe that Jesus was a virgin birth, and said that he was probably fathered by Joesph. And that the 'virgin birth' idea was down to poor Bible translation.

Now if this is so surely this means.
a)It Makes the position of Jesus as the son of God questionable.
b)If this is true then the whole Bible could therefore be laid down as a complete sham. i.e what is and isn't correct?
c)The said Vicars are losing the plot completely, they believe in a one true God creator of the universe, yet do not believe that this almighty power could make a virgin birth possible.

Any thoughts?

[ 13. March 2003, 22:32: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
a) No
b) No and
c) No
Perhaps they just don't believe in a quixotic God who changes his own rules at a whim.
 

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Posted by Eb'lis (# 2344) on :
 
Sorry but I think It does ask serious questions about the way thinking is progressing in the christian church. You either have a belief and you stick to it, or you become a walking contradiction.

To me the virgin birth is essential to how we believe in God, to dismiss it like mr grumble has only shows that people are willing to paper over the cracks to fuel thor own belief system.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Eb'lis

(1) Yes
(2) Yes, and
(3) Yes

The only qualification I woulfd make is that biblical inerrancy is not a part of Orthodox belief. We believe that the Bible truly and authoritatively teaches but that (minor) inconsistencies and archaic views that have no or little theological importance, (eg., HOW the Universe and life was created in Genesis 1), need not trouble us.

The virgin birth is an essential featue of the incarnation as it is the guarantee that in the one person of Christ the divine and human natures are joined. Ideas about the incarnation that see God as "uniquely indwelling Jesus" differ not in kind from any saint or holy person. I am not sure what "uniquely" means in this context. You can't qualify unique.
 

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Posted by Garden Hermit (# 109) on :
 
If one's mind is so closed that one cannot even accept the possibility of

1. The Virgin Birth
2. The Resurection

then I would suggest that one's mind is also closed to the much more wonderous things in God's kingdom.

Why is it that mankind seem to try and explain everything away using their own intellect ?

Pax et Bonum
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
... perhaps because the dominance of science has bequeathed to us the notion that the only things that count are reason and evidence. On both those counts the resurrection and the virgin birth fall. (I do believe that these are rational beliefs and that there is evidence for them but it is not the sort of "reason" and "evidence" that a logical positivist would endorse).
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 
So you're saying that the majority DO believe in the virgin birth?
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Sorry Freddy I didn't make myself clear. The reason and evidence demanded by a non-believing or skeptic logical positivist are more narrowly defined subsets of reason and evidence that extend beyond the realm of the natural sciences. The rational / irrational and empiricism / faith polarities arise from a failure on both sides to recognise the due operation and limits of specific kinds evidence and reason applicable to each.
 

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Posted by Merseymike (# 3022) on :
 
But I think we are coming dangerously close to saying that if you don't believe in the 'virgin birth', then you are not legitimately a Christian. I think questions are reasonably asked surrounding the meaning of the word 'virgin' and the preponderance of virgin births in other religious traditions.

Does Jesus as the Son of God mean he was physically the Son of God, or was the epitomy of Godliness in human form ?

My answers to the initial questions would also be no, no and no. And I probably do believe in the Virgin Birth, I should add! But if others don't , that makes no difference to whether I regard them as Christian or not
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Merseymike

quote:

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But I think we are coming dangerously close to saying that if you don't believe in the 'virgin birth', then you are not legitimately a Christian.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Dear Merseymike

quote:

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But I think we are coming dangerously close to saying that if you don't believe in the 'virgin birth', then you are not legitimately a Christian.

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Are we? No one has said that, implied or inferred it.

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quote:

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If one's mind is so closed that one cannot even accept the possibility of

1. The Virgin Birth
2. The Resurection

then I would suggest that one's mind is also closed to the much more wonderous things in God's kingdom.

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That seems a pretty good indication that at least one person in this thread has so inferred or implied. Could it be that you didn't read the posing carefully??? Surely not.

Like Merseymike, I would say that I would believe in the Virgin Birth, but accept that some Christians don't. Failure to believe in it doesn't take them out of the kingdom. Equally (and I'm sure you will be horrified at this), I don't think that it should necessarily disbar them from ordination/church leadership either!
 

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Posted by Smart Alex (# 1916) on :
 
Damn damn damn!

I previewed the post and still failed to notice the spelling mistake. I should have said "Could it be that you didn't read the posting carefully???" rather than POSING (although that could be a remarkably appropriate mistake to make!)
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Sorry Freddy I didn't make myself clear.

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Whoops. Yes, you made yourself perfectly clear. I agree completely with what you said.

It was me who was not clear. I was responding to the OP when I said that this means that the majority of vicars accept the virgin birth.

I would personally expect the majority of the Christian clergy to deny the virgin birth. I believe in it myself, but I don't find that belief to be widely shared.

I don't know how many of the clergy would PUBLICLY deny it, however, since many of the simple still hang on to these things...
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I think the birth stories were tagged on in retrospect, as an honour to someone they believed was very special. That is not to say they aren't necessarily true, but rather that we need to be careful about dogmatically stating that they are true.
 

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Posted by Garden Hermit (# 109) on :
 
Please read what I wrote carefully.

The word I used was 'possibility' of the Virgin Birth.

That word doesn't say 'Yes' or 'No'. It implies Faith.

Christians can't actually prove anything, - what we say is 'its the best we got even though we don't understand it 100%'.

Pax et Bonum
 

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Posted by Robert Jesse Telford (# 3256) on :
 
Well put Hermit. Although I am starting to think it doesn't matter whether you believe in it or not, after watching that Virgin Mary thing the other day on the Beeb. All you need to do is anchor your faith in a realism that events did indeed happen in the Middle-East, and that much theological discussion is not essential for the strengthening of faith and trust in God.

I don't know whether Mary was a virgin. Does it matter? No.
 

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Posted by Arch- (# 982) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Chorister:
I think the birth stories were tagged on in retrospect, as an honour to someone they believed was very special. That is not to say they aren't necessarily true, but rather that we need to be careful about dogmatically stating that they are true.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Eb'lis:

... i was scanning teletext yesterday and found a news item that said that 27% of the CofE vicars did not believe that Jesus was a virgin birth, and said that he was probably fathered by Joesph. And that the 'virgin birth' idea was down to poor Bible translation.

Now if this is so surely this means.
a)It Makes the position of Jesus as the son of God questionable.
b)If this is true then the whole Bible could therefore be laid down as a complete sham. i.e what is and isn't correct?
c)The said Vicars are losing the plot completely, they believe in a one true God creator of the universe, yet do not believe that this almighty power could make a virgin birth possible.

Any thoughts?

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quote:

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To me the virgin birth is essential to how we believe in God

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quote:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
So you're saying that the majority DO believe in the virgin birth?

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Basically yes. The headline for the survey was that a quarter did not believe in the Virgin Birth as a historical reality. However, if you look at the statistics the other way round it means that three-quarters of Anglican clergy do believe in a Virgin birth. But that would make the thread less fun if you looked at it that way round wouldn't it

Tubbs
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Are all things possible with God?

Does God act contrary to his own nature?

Is he ever 'bad'?

If not then even God has limits.

And I suggest that another is that he follows his own rules where it comes to conceptions.

Lest there be misconceptions.

No the vicar is NOT the one who has lost the plot.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Will someone here state precisely why he or she:-

(1) Doesn't believe in the virgin birth?

Please don't go straight to the Bible ... we all know the gospels vary ... the first version of Mark had no account of the resurrection ... so what?!

(2) Believes that the incarnation can be just as easily believed without it.

I'm not restricting your answer but the "uniquely God-indwelling" christology doesn't itself require the incarnation to function, so, in my opinion, this falls outside the remit of the question. If you want to deny the incarnation ... that's another matter.
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
It was no 'virgin' birth.

And frankly, I don't see why only having a human mother would make one more divine. Or are you saying that growing up with a step-dad is what did it?

The Lord be with you.
 

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Posted by Amanuensis (# 1555) on :
 


Perhaps we should just devote a whole board to the virgin (or not) birth.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear mrgrumble_au

Yes, but I asked you WHY you did not believe in the virgin birth.

quote:

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And frankly, I don't see why only having a human mother would make one more divine. Or are you saying that growing up with a step-dad is what did it?

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Nothing can make anything or anyone MORE divine. I know I am being pedantic but we need to be clear. Jesus was and is fully God and fully Man or he was/is not.

So, why does his divinity REQUIRE a virgin birth? Muslims seem to accept the virginal birth whilst strongly denying the Incarnation. All that shows is that it is possible to accept the virgin birth without HAVING to believe in the Incarnation. It can just simply be taken as a stupendous miracle. Muslims are not averse to miracles (even if some Christians are). However, the oher way round ... accepting the Incarnation and denyong the virgin birth is something else entirely.

The Incarnation means that the human nature of Christ was indivisibly but distinctly joined to the human nature in the one person of Christ (Chalcedon). Note here we are talking about NATURE ... not person (vs. Nestorianism) and we are certainly not thereby talking about the Spirit of God either. The Spirit of God resides in the saints ... but that does not make of the saint another Incarnation of the Word, (yet another avatar). One cannot even say in this way of thinking that Jesus was UNIQUELY indwelt by God for how can grade indwelling? God dwells in a person or He does not. One could say that of any particular person that he or she is so open to God that the possibility remained that God was able to act fully through that person, unimpeded by sin but that wouldn't be the Incarnation either because moral and spiritual progress is a matter of the will, not nature. No, the Incarnation means that the Son came from the Father ... he did not achieve union with the Father post birth, (adoptionism). When Jesus was born as a human child he was already God in that his divine nature and human nature were already conjoined.

The virginal conception is necessary in order that the divine nature be received from the Father and not from Joseph, (who did not possess it).
 

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Posted by nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 
virgin birth exists in nature as parthenogenisis... in fact there is at least one species of lizard where a male has never been found, and which is presumed to be entirely parthenogenic. so virgin birth alone does not indicate anything about divine origin (unless we are to accept that these lizards are divine too!)
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
I do NOT believe it because in the absense of any evidence FOR it (as opposed to theolgical musings in favour of it), I see no reason to invoke the miraculous.

In short you have given me all sorts of convoluted theory why you believe it but not a shred of evidence that God did what you want him to have done.

Evidence is the difference between fact and snake-oil.


 

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Posted by Amos (# 44) on :
 
What Arch said. And I thank him for saying it. As it happens, I preach the Virgin birth, but I certainly don't think it's necessary to the nature of Our Saviour as fully God and fully human, to the Mystery of the Incarnation, to Jesus's teaching and healing, to His Passion, or to his Resurrection. All the nativity narratives are back-formations from a resurrection-faith. The Virgin birth is the ultimate form of earlier Biblical miraculous conceptions: the birth of Samuel to Hannah (whose words prefigure the Magnificat), for instance. Incidentally, is there anyone here who believes Mary was still 'technically a virgin' after Jesus was born? If so, you are following in the footsteps of the author of the (disgustingly antisemitic) Proto-evangelium of James, which has a yokellish midwife named Salome give Mary a quick pelvic examination after the birth. For her impious impudence her hand withers up, and healing it has to be Baby Jesus's first post-natal miracle. I rather regret that episode didn't make it into the SoF Nativity Pageant!
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Nichole

The virgin birth is not simply parthenogenesis ... I am not going to speculate about chromosomes and genes ... although Alan has done that in an interesting way recently. The virgin birth is a corollary of the belief in Jesus' divine nature ab initio. How the miracle manifested itself is a different matter and is not exclusively linked to the Incarnation as I mentioned in my reference to Islam.

Dear mrgrumble_au

Evidence? Those who met and knew Christ in the flesh. Witnesses. The continuation of that witness out of the New Testament into the apostolic age. Theology is not rocket science and rocket science isn't the only form of truth.

Dear Amos

quote:

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Incidentally, is there anyone here who believes Mary was still 'technically a virgin' after Jesus was born?

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quote:

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All the nativity narratives are back-formations from a resurrection-faith.

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In this you are correct ... but they are not traditions created by the resurrection but events put into context by the resurrection. Neither of us can argue from silence as to what the Virgin Mary said or didn't say to the disciples. If there had been a virgin birth I guess it would be common knowledge anyway. Anyway, as I said ... you can have the virgin birth without the Incarnation but not the other way round. The resurrection requires the Incarnation first ... then the virgin birth becomes a necessary adjunct to that. After JAT Robinson we can no longer shove this aside for a now refuted later authorship of John. (In any event "later" means written down ... not the oral tradition itself which is primary).
 

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Posted by Wm Duncan (# 3021) on :
 
Natural parthenogenesis would result in the birth of a female offspring, wouldn't it?

But as to the virgin birth of Jesus, if it's not important enough for Mark John or Paul to mention, it's worth questioning whether it's a fundamental of the faith or the result of spinning-out the christology to fit the conceptuality of the age.

Wm Duncan
 

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Posted by Amos (# 44) on :
 
Dear Fr. G--
1) You've not read the Protoevangelium Jacobi, have you? Are you acquainted with any of the other Apocryphal infancy narratives?

2) I don't know anyone--Catholic, Orthodox, Calvinist, or Member of the Church Society who believes that Jesus was fully God, fully man, and was delivered through an aperture the approximate diameter of a hazelnut. Nor do I know how believing such a thing, or requiring others to believe it could possibly be edifying.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear William

As I said ... the original and reliable version of Mark has no account of the resurrection. On something so vital to Christianity as the resurrection shouldn't EVERY gospel have it? Doesn't that call into question your assumption that something should be included if all witnesses attest to it? John's Gospel of course has no account of baptism or eucharist but as Oscar Cullmann has pointed out; it's impossible to understand the depth of John's Gospel without its underlying sacramentality. Each gospel or epistle was never intended to be a comprehensive account. This is actually made explicit in John's Gospel itself ... John 20:30-31 ... albeit this relates to Christ's adult ministry. The principle remains valid.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Amos

That's not what the perpetual virginity is about at all. Jesus had a normal birth. The significance of the PERPETUAL virginity of Mary would derail this thread. I am more than happy that you should start a separate thread about that. The pepetual virginity of Mary is not necessary to the Incarnation but in our tradition it does have its own significance.
 

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Posted by Amos (# 44) on :
 
Sorry to double post, but I think it is important to distinguish between the affirmation of the creed that Jesus Christ is the only son of the Father, begotten not made; the fulfillment of the message of the Annunciation, and Mary's virginity either before or after Jesus's birth.

Frankly, I believe that had the Almighty wished, he could have chosen the village bike as the mother of his only-begotten son (He'd called upon the Prophet Hosea to do something similar...). Mary's virginity refers to her capacity to give her whole heart, to say 'Yes' utterly and completely. It isn't a matter (to paraphrase the great David Jenkins) of a conjuring trick with wombs.
 

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Posted by Amos (# 44) on :
 
That may be how YOU square the notion of perpetual virginity with your common sense, Father G, but Tradition has done otherwise.
Do I see the baleful influence of modern science creeping in to corrupt simple faith?
 

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Posted by nicolemrw (# 28) on :
 
yes of course natural parthenogenasis would result in a female offspring, but that wasn't my point. i mean, if you wanted to disprove that jesus was created by parthenogenisis you could point out that it hasn't been known to happen in humans at all. my point was that if there was ever a parthenogenic human birth, it could concievably (pardon the pun) be to a virginal mother, but it wouldn't say anything about the divinity of the offspring.
 

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Posted by PaulTH (# 320) on :
 
Fr Gregory
I'm not qualified to answer this question because I do believe in the "uniqely indwelt" position of Jesus, which doesnt't require a belief in a virgin birth. But the history for it is poor. Matthew and Luke's accounts, IMo cut accross otherwise coherant narratives, as I've said in my "inconsistency in Matthew" thread. It seems to me that Mark, John, Paul, James and Jude, know nothing of it. I accept the argument that failure to mention something isn't evidence of ignorance. But Paul's writings were extensive, in which he mentioned Jesus being a descendant of David.

Again, I don't want to overlap another thread, but I argue that the Davidic lineage and the virgin birth are incompatible. Then there's the question of extra-Biblical evidence. Prior to 150AD, the only reference to the virgin birth comes in Ignatious of Antioch's "Epistle to the Virgin Mary." but this epistle is regarded by scholars as bogus. Eusebius had access to many early church documents but knew nothing of this one. So there is no reference in the anti-nicene Fathers before the second half of the second century, ie maore than 130 years after Christ.

If anyone knows better, of any references from an early period which support a belief in the virgin birth, I'd like to know them and check them out. However much weight adherants to this doctrine place on Matthew and Luke, theirs are the only references to it, and I don't think it's enough. They could easily be second century redactions. I believe, though I need to research it further, that an old Syriac version of Mathhew exists without the nativity stories and in which the genealogy names Joseph as Jesus' father. This info comes from the book "Jesus the Jew" by Geza Vermes. I didn't agree with Dr. Vermes on some of the things he said about Jesus, but he is a scholar, and highly unlikely to cite non existent material in his book.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
I know this will be hugely unpopular in some (most?) circles here Paul but in contested matters the Church that was responsible for codifying the oral tradition into Scripture is not a different animal from the society that persisted into the apostolic age and beyond. For me this isn't simply a piece of textual analysis but being part of a living stream of historical consciousness which bears witness to these things. Awaiting the missiles!
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Dear Fr
Your 'evidence' is evidence of Jesus' birth not of immaculate conception.
Try harder.
Grumble

 

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Posted by PaulTH (# 320) on :
 
Fr. Gregory
You'll get no missiles from me. Perhaps this issue is my "final frontier" for becoming an orthodox Christian. My objection to it isn't based on philosophy. If God can create a universe ex-nihilo, He can surely create a human body in which to tabernacle among us. It's just that IMO it doesn't fit with the rest of scripture or with historical analysis of contemorary sources.

I understand and respect your position as an Orthodox priest that you can't teach outside the faith, a point that some on the ship don't seem to understand. But I've struggled a long time with this one, like Jacob, who was renamed Israel(struggler with God). In suspect the hand of the Hellenisers on this doctrine. Perhaps we all still have much to learn. Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
No mrgrumble_au, I think it may be you who have to try harder ... the immaculate conception is the Roman Catholic doctrine that the Virgin Mary at her conception was preserved fron all taint of original sin.

Dear Paul

The issue isn't really the virgin birth but the requirements of the Incarnation to be the Incarnation and not something else.

I have nothing but respect for your integrity on this key difference in our believing. Everything will work out in the End ... which we both believe.
 

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Posted by Glenn Oldham (# 47) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:


The Incarnation means that the human nature of Christ was indivisibly but distinctly joined to the human [sic – should be ‘divine’ ??? G.O.] nature in the one person of Christ (Chalcedon). Note here we are talking about NATURE ... not person (vs. Nestorianism) … When Jesus was born as a human child he was already God in that his divine nature and human nature were already conjoined.

The virginal conception is necessary in order that the divine nature be received from the Father and not from Joseph, (who did not possess it).

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But ‘The virginal conception is necessary in order that the divine nature be received from the Father and not from Joseph, (who did not possess it)’ is a statement not an explanation. It still leaves it entirely unclear why the inheriting of the divine nature made it necessary for Joseph not to be the father.

Is receiving the divine nature a matter of genetics? Are you implying that Joseph did not have the right genetic coding? Well if it is a matter of genetics then God could have simply altered the genetic code of the sperm (and the egg too if necessary) and allowed conception to take place in the ordinary way. There would be no necessity for the virginal conception. (The genetic approach would also leave us with the rather odd idea of a particular genetic make up as being inherently divine – a rather odd idea.)

If, on the other hand, the inheritance of the divine nature is not a matter of genetics then why exclude Joseph from a role in paternity? There would again be no reason to have a virginal conception.

I feel that we simply do not know enough about the mechanics and metaphysics of the incarnation to make any compelling suggestions about why the incarnation would necessitate a virgin birth. Furthermore I fell that if there were no tradition of the virgin birth at all the early church would still have had no trouble in asserting the doctrine of the incarnation.

Glenn
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Dear Fr
No evidence for that either.
Of course I assume if you actually had any evidence you would have given it.
Snake oil it is.
Grumble
 

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Posted by J. J. Ramsey (# 1174) on :
 
One thing that strikes me as peculiar is the attributing of the story of the virgin birth to a poor translation. If all the Gospels said about the virgin birth was just the quote of a Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14, that would make sense, since parthenos is a dubious translation of "young woman". However, what we have are two whole accounts from Matthew and Luke. Some translation error!
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Do we actually mean virgin birth?
Virgin conception would be more accurate.
Even then in modern time when 'fooling abuut' doing things short of your actual intercourse, many a couple has been surprised by the fact that penetration need not occur for the wily sperm to find its goal.


 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Scot

quote:

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If, on the other hand, the inheritance of the divine nature is not a matter of genetics then why exclude Joseph from a role in paternity? There would again be no reason to have a virginal conception.

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True, divine nature cannot be coded by genetics or else we might eventually be able to create divine nature in the lab! The only coherent response (and I know it's speculative) is that divine nature is something other than DNA. This would seem to be consistent with the belief that God in his essence has no materiality. Could this extra "something" have been added into the womb / foetus AFTER conception? Possibly not since the human being then existed and the die would have been cast. (Adding after would ber a form of adoptionism of course, albeit minimalist). The father had to be "absent" of course because for a natural maturation and birth the mother had to be "present."
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
I'm sorry both of you ... that should have said "Dear Glenn"
 

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Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
The incarnation could just as easily have taken place at the moment of a normal conception. No virgin birth, no adoption. The story of Mary's willingness to bear Christ is theologically compelling, but the mechanics of the virgin birth make no sense to me, given God's omnipotence.
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Nor is it necessary.
Indeed a Christ born in 'questionable circumstances' is a more compelling son of God (to me) than the one embellished by the efforts of the 1st and 2nd century faithful.


 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Ruth

quote:

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The incarnation could just as easily have taken place at the moment of a normal conception.

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quote:

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True, divine nature cannot be coded by genetics or else we might eventually be able to create divine nature in the lab! The only coherent response (and I know it's speculative) is that divine nature is something other than DNA. This would seem to be consistent with the belief that God in his essence has no materiality. Could this extra "something" have been added into the womb / foetus AFTER conception? Possibly not since the human being then existed and the die would have been cast. (Adding after would ber a form of adoptionism of course, albeit minimalist). The father had to be "absent" of course because for a natural maturation and birth the mother had to be "present."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
But ‘The virginal conception is necessary in order that the divine nature be received from the Father and not from Joseph, (who did not possess it)’ is a statement not an explanation. It still leaves it entirely unclear why the inheriting of the divine nature made it necessary for Joseph not to be the father.

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It is interesting to see how people struggle with this one.

Swedenborgians have any easy time with this question because of the Swedenborgian doctrine that a person receives a distinctly different type of heredity from a father than from a mother.

The soul itself, a person's inmost nature, is said, in this doctrine, to come from the father, to be modified by that which comes from the mother. The contribution of the mother and father are equal, but it is the contribution of the seed from the father that initiates the whole process of creating a human. The roles of the father and mother in creating a child are exactly equal and complementary, as is typical of the distinctions between male and female.

If Jesus was to have a divine soul from birth, it was imperative that Joseph not be the father - because the father, not the mother, is the origin of the soul. At the same time it was imperative that He have a human mother to form His human nature and endow it with a human heredity. The interplay between the two (that is, the contribution of the mother and the Father) is what made Jesus our Savior.

But I really think that a subject as deep and complex as how and why God became Man is too much for a brief discussion like this. It is just too easy to shoot the whole thing down, as the more sensible position is obviously and understandably to be skeptical of something as unlikely as a virgin birth.

The key, to my mind, is to have a reason for it, and to have it fit in some important way into a consistent and sensible system.

The thought that we would have "evidence" for something like this, other than 2,000 year old second-hand accounts is not a useful avenue to pursue. It amounts to the simple assumption that it didn't happen, which anyone is certainly welcome to make.
 

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Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :
 
If we decide the virgin birth wasn't "necessary" does that mean we must believe it didn't happen?

This whole way of looking at it seems bass-ackwards to me. We are given certain data; we must cobble them together into a coherent world view. To throw out any data is to distort whatever world view we end up with.

So it seems to this fool.

Reader Alexis
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
What data?

No one has yet advanced any to show that it happened at all.

Even the Biblical text which is used to support it is better translated as young women than intact hymen.


 

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Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by RuthW:
I still see no reason why the incarnation and a natural conception are incompatible.

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I agree. Without arguing whether it actually happened or not, I cannot see why a supernatural conception is necessary to the incarnation.
 

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Posted by Jesuitical Lad (# 2575) on :
 
How does that explain away Mary's reaction to the Annunciation: "How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?"

Before dismissing the Biblical evidence, you might want to reacquaint yourself with the Nativity narratives...


 

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Posted by Jesuitical Lad (# 2575) on :
 
The above intended for Mr Grumble, not Scot!


 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
I am familiar with the texts.

What would you have said if you had been Mary and you had been 'fooling around' with Joseph?


 

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Posted by Jesuitical Lad (# 2575) on :
 
Mr Grumble,

Seems to me that denying the Virgin Birth is the least of your problems.
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Please try to remember to play the ball and not the man.


 

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Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 
It seems to me that a woman is a virgin as long as she hasn't had sexual intercourse. I do not see how the hymen breaking, as Mary gave birth to Jesus, invalidated her virginity.

If tradition taught that Mary's hymen was unbroken, I would have trouble with that myself. If tradition, and Scripture teach that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit coming upon her, I have no problem accepting that.

Christina
 

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Posted by Robert Jesse Telford (# 3256) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Robert Jesse Telford:
Well put Hermit. Although I am starting to think it doesn't matter whether you believe in it or not, after watching that Virgin Mary thing the other day on the Beeb. All you need to do is anchor your faith in a realism that events did indeed happen in the Middle-East, and that much theological discussion is not essential for the strengthening of faith and trust in God.

I don't know whether Mary was a virgin. Does it matter? No.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:
[QUOTE]Swedenborgians have any easy time with this question because of the Swedenborgian doctrine that a person receives a distinctly different type of heredity from a father than from a mother.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mrgrumble_au:
I am familiar with the texts.

What would you have said if you had been Mary and you had been 'fooling around' with Joseph?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SpO-On-n-ng:
Yes, but Freddy, what do Swedenborgians do about the fact that this seems to have no basis in what has been discovered subsequently by genetic science...?

---

Good point. It may not be true.

The idea, however, is that genetic science doesn't even recognize, nor could it describe or quantify, what is called the human "soul" - so how could it be expected to confirm this particular point?

I would not expect that the differences between the male and the female contributions would be detectable by scientific means. These are religious concepts, neither confirmed nor disproved by science. A person has no reason to believe them unless they believe in divine revelation. Even if they do believe in divine revelation, they may not believe that this particular piece of information meets that standard.

I am actually not aware of whether there is research addressing the question of differences between the way that a mother and a father's heredity affects their offspring. I would not expect there to be manifest differences. My maternal grandfather was bald, whereas my paternal one was not - so I hope there is no truth in that old chestnut about baldness coming from the mother's side.

So you are right - it may or may not be true.

My comment was simply that Swedenborgians, having accepted this, which is not contradicted by science, don't struggle with the reasoning behind the virgin birth. It is seen as an absolute necessity, fitting neatly into the entire scheme of how it is that the Incarnation saved the human race.
 

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Posted by Cosmo (# 117) on :
 
I find this whole business irritating and just another attempt by some 'liberal' thinkers (ie the ones who won't allow any other form of opinion to have any validity except their own) to try to de-mystify the Godhead into solely human terms.

Let us remember that the belief that Jesus Christ had no human father but that he was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit to the Virgin Mary is clearly stated in the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels (Matthew 1f and Luke 1f). It has since been a constant tenet of orthodox Christian theology since the earliest days of the church. It is, at the very least, implied in both the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds and has always been seen by theologians as working hand-in-hand with the Incarnation as both stressing the uniqueness of Christ. Only in the last hundred years or so have liberal theologians attempted to cast doubt on the doctrine.

I simply don't see the problem with the Virgin Birth. Why is it such a big deal for people like mr_grumble? Might it be because it is miraculous and something that we, as mere humanity, are unable to do or strive towards? Might it be, shock horror, out of our control? We'd better stop believing in the resurrection or the miracle narratives or whole swathes of Christian thought and theology in that case.

The Virgin Birth removes any association of the taint of Original Sin (or have we stopped believing in that as well now?) with the conception and birth of Christ. It also stops any notions of 'adoptionism' and is a powerful argument against the heresy of Arianism (although to hear the constant reduction of emphasis on the divinity of Christ I suspect that Arius musy be getting ready for a comeback tour). It stresses the unique personage of Mary and her utter 'purity' in being the vessel for the Son of God and the one to whom he attributes his full humanity. To deny the Virgin Birth also presumably, given the texts that we have been given, denies the Annunciation.

Lastly, why should God bother with going through the whole process of letting Mary and Joseph break Jewish Law, send the Holy Spirit to work through the sperm of Joseph (but presumably 'clean out' Joseph's sperm from traces of Original Sin and making Joseph into a sort of divinely imspired stud pony) and then allow the Church, the 'Body of Christ', to make a complete cock-up (if you will excuse the term) over the centuries concerning the theology of the Conception and Birth of Christ?

Might it in fact be that the Early Church Fathers, who laboured over these points for so many years, actually got it right with the help of the Holy Spirit? Might it be that God doesn't particularly want his Church to teach fundamentally flawed theology and doctrine, particularly concerning the conception and birth of a part of the Godhead as God and Man? Might it be that in the recent times theologians such as Gore and Temple and Ramsey and Macquarrie and Williams have also got it right in defending the Virgin Birth? Or should we simply bow before mr_grumble who, in his infinite sagacity, has seen through all those charlatans?

Cosmo
 

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Posted by PaulTH (# 320) on :
 
Cosmo
I can't agree with that position. We've already had comments from believers in the virgin birth that DNA has nothing to do with the soul. In that case, why couldn't Jesus have "normal" DNA, ie created from the DNA of two earthly parents and still have a soul direct from God, and of God? Thye comments about breaches in Jewish Law are incorrect. Betrothed couples were't forbidden sexual relations in that culture.

Also with reference to original sin, which I don't believe in anyway, preferring the Orthodox and Jewish view of those things, it escapes me how having a human father taints a child with original sin, but a human mother doesn't. The Catholic Church has had to add yet another tier of complex theology in the form of the Immaculate Conception to preserve Jesus from original sin.

I think anyone who makes any claim to be a Christian realises that something special happened when Christ came into the world, but I believe the nativity stories to be symbolic additions made a century after Christ lived on earth.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Gosh Cosmo!
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Paul

Sorry for this double post as a result of your crossed incoming!

I thought Cosmo's point concerned the wisdom of the Church in dealing with the folly of an otherwise sinful girl who in her position would have been excoriated by the elders of Israel (and the Church!) Surely it would have been much easier NOT to have to deal with a virgin birth. The brute facts cohered with the theological interpretation. Why do we now know better? Because miracles like that just can't happen. If that's the case we should disbelieve the resurrection first!
 

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Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by PaulTH:
We've already had comments from believers in the virgin birth that DNA has nothing to do with the soul. In that case, why couldn't Jesus have "normal" DNA, ie created from the DNA of two earthly parents and still have a soul direct from God, and of God?

---

I didn't say that DNA has nothing to do with the soul. I said that the soul is not something that can be detected and quantified by scientific means.

I have no doubt that it is intrinsically connected with the physical substances of the body - just not in a measurable way.

Therefore it is essential that Joseph have had nothing to do with it.
 

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Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Jesus was not a human body animated by a divine soul. He had a human soul, or he was no human being and could not have effected our salvation.

Reader Alexis
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
A Happy Christ Mass to you all.


 

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Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cosmo:
I find this whole business irritating and just another attempt by some 'liberal' thinkers (ie the ones who won't allow any other form of opinion to have any validity except their own) to try to de-mystify the Godhead into solely human terms.

---

quote:

---

Let us remember that the belief that Jesus Christ had no human father but that he was conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit to the Virgin Mary is clearly stated in the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels (Matthew 1f and Luke 1f). It has since been a constant tenet of orthodox Christian theology since the earliest days of the church. It is, at the very least, implied in both the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds and has always been seen by theologians as working hand-in-hand with the Incarnation as both stressing the uniqueness of Christ. Only in the last hundred years or so have liberal theologians attempted to cast doubt on the doctrine.

---

quote:

---

I simply don't see the problem with the Virgin Birth. Why is it such a big deal for people like mr_grumble? Might it be because it is miraculous and something that we, as mere humanity, are unable to do or strive towards? Might it be, shock horror, out of our control? We'd better stop believing in the resurrection or the miracle narratives or whole swathes of Christian thought and theology in that case.

---

quote:

---

The Virgin Birth removes any association of the taint of Original Sin (or have we stopped believing in that as well now?) with the conception and birth of Christ.

---

quote:

---

It also stops any notions of 'adoptionism' and is a powerful argument against the heresy of Arianism (although to hear the constant reduction of emphasis on the divinity of Christ I suspect that Arius musy be getting ready for a comeback tour).

---

quote:

---

It stresses the unique personage of Mary and her utter 'purity' in being the vessel for the Son of God and the one to whom he attributes his full humanity.

---

quote:

---

To deny the Virgin Birth also presumably, given the texts that we have been given, denies the Annunciation.

---

quote:

---

Lastly, why should God bother with going through the whole process of letting Mary and Joseph break Jewish Law, send the Holy Spirit to work through the sperm of Joseph (but presumably 'clean out' Joseph's sperm from traces of Original Sin and making Joseph into a sort of divinely imspired stud pony) and then allow the Church, the 'Body of Christ', to make a complete cock-up (if you will excuse the term) over the centuries concerning the theology of the Conception and Birth of Christ?

---

quote:

---

Might it in fact be that the Early Church Fathers, who laboured over these points for so many years, actually got it right with the help of the Holy Spirit? Might it be that God doesn't particularly want his Church to teach fundamentally flawed theology and doctrine, particularly concerning the conception and birth of a part of the Godhead as God and Man? Might it be that in the recent times theologians such as Gore and Temple and Ramsey and Macquarrie and Williams have also got it right in defending the Virgin Birth? Or should we simply bow before mr_grumble who, in his infinite sagacity, has seen through all those charlatans?

---

Might it be that equally respectable theologians do not subscribe to the virgin birth?

Never did find evidence of liberality in your post. Perhaps next time you'd care to show that you allow that other opinions have validity.
 

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Posted by PaulTH (# 320) on :
 
Mousethief
I've never suggested that Jesus was a human body with a divine soul, far from it. I agree that such a person could never save humanity, but many Christians act as if He was just that. On another thread, Alan came up with a theory that He was effectively a clone of His mother, in which an X chromosome had rapidly evolved into a Y chromosome. Forgive me my scepticism, but I don't believe that happened.

Like Ruth, I see no reason why a virginal conception has any bearing on His divinity or otherwise. We all have a spark of the divine in us, Jesus divinity was complete. But in His earthly life and death, he had the same corruptible body as the rest of us, subject to pain and death. Otherwise He would never have been ale to redeem our infirmities.
 

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Posted by Amanuensis (# 1555) on :
 
The onlookers, long since reduced to torpor, are suddenly roused, and after a startled pause, leap to their feet to applaud Cosmo

Attempts to say something serious:
In the constant wrangling over the importance/unimportance of the physical event, it seems a pity that we can't agree on the theological significance of the virgin birth. Or perhaps it is necessary to accept that it did happen before it can mean anything to us?
 

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Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :
 
Not this onlooker.

Personally I do believe that the virgin birth happened, but I do not believe that it is in any way necessary. In fact, demanding its necessity carries a whiff of denial of God's power over nature. If he is able to execute the incarnation, he is able to do it with or without a male contribution.
 

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Posted by Simon (# 1) on :
 
Excuse me sounding a distinctly un-Christmassy note on December 24th, but the VB strikes me as an unhealthy sort of thing. For a couple of reasons...

First, I think it undermines the humanity of Jesus by robbing him of a normal human birth. How can Jesus be said to be "one of us" when his conception and birth are fundamentally different from ours? These are primary moments in the forging of human identity, and if Jesus doesn't have a truly human conception and birth, then the incarnation can't work. I don't need a mechanistic explanation to believe that Jesus was both fully God and fully a human being. As soon as you get down to discussing how DNA meets the soul, you know you're onto a loser. The VB, in attempting to shore up the incarnation (which needs no shoring up) actually trivializes it.

Second, it's an attack on human sexuality, and I suspect this is the true motive for the originators of the story. There's no penetration, no orgasms, no messy semen containing "traces of Original Sin" (thanks for reminding us of that relic of weird doctrine, Cosmo). And -- thanks be to God! -- Mary remains a virgin during and after the birth. She and Joseph never consummate their relationship. The church has even put about a gossipy tradition that Joseph was an old man when he married Mary, and so wasn't up to the job anyway. This might be a triumph for a certain kind of life-denying piety, but it's a tragedy for healthy sexuality. It's not the taint of sin that the story is steering us away from, but the taint of sex. Jesus is a virgin born into a family of virgins.

In short, I think the VB brings the incarnation into disrepute.
 

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Posted by Qlib (# 43) on :
 
Simon -
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Simon

The Virgin Birth has nothing to do with "tainted sexuality." May wasn't a virgin when she conceived because sex was somehow compromised ... all the arguments about the virginal conception have to do with the Incarnation ... nothing else.

In one important sense Jesus was manifestly NOT one of us. Although subject to temptation he was and is the sinless Son of God.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
Are you saying that original sin is transmitted only from the father's conribution to conception?

What happens then if, as is perhaps possible, somone manages to artificially make a human baby with no father?
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Who's that addressed to Ken? I have not mentioned original sin so I don't think it can be me.
 

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Posted by Gunner (# 2229) on :
 
If the Virgin Conception didn't happen then do we say the Resurrection didn't happen.
What do we say of those priests who teach this? Should they be de-frocked?
 

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Posted by Nightlamp (# 266) on :
 
Simon, In the bibilical narrative the conception is unique (well according to Luke) but the birth? The unusual features of the birth seem to be that he was born in a stable and various people came and saw him. He was a refugee in eygpt some time after birth.
 

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Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gunner:
If the Virgin Conception didn't happen then do we say the Resurrection didn't happen.
What do we say of those priests who teach this? Should they be de-frocked?

---

No 'we' don't say that. (Who are 'we', anyway?) Some people might, some people mightn't. For some of us, the Resurrection is an/the essential core belief in our understanding of Christ's salvific purposes in God. But the virgin birth (ie, she was a virgin when she gave birth) is not what 'saves' us, or offers us reconciliation with God. Equating the two is a real non-starter, convenient (albeit untruthfully convenient) as it is to attempt to discredit the ministry and work of other Christians.
 

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Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 
Cosmo!

That was COSMIC!

I think that the liberal questioning of the Virgin Conception, is more serious than just implying that Christians nearly 2000 years ago, got their facts wrong.

It is a conspiracy theory.

It points to a scenario, where these Christians lied, and fabricated stories, that were untrue, to back up their beliefs.

If this were true, Christianity is bankrupt, both morally and spiritually. It has no integrity.

Many Liberals seem to value integrity, but don't seem to have much trouble scorning the integrity of those who cannot answer for themselves. They have no problem speaking evil of the dead.

I think Liberalism is bankrupt.

It is the Church, that is the 'pillar and bulwark of the truth.' It is the Church that received Jesus' promises.

If the Virgin Birth isn't true, the Church has failed to be the pillar and bulwark of truth, and Jesus' promises have failed, because made-up stories, rather than truth, prevailed.

Christina
 

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Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Simon

The Virgin Birth has nothing to do with "tainted sexuality." May wasn't a virgin when she conceived because sex was somehow compromised ... all the arguments about the virginal conception have to do with the Incarnation ... nothing else.

In one important sense Jesus was manifestly NOT one of us. Although subject to temptation he was and is the sinless Son of God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by PaulTH:
Mousethief
I've never suggested that Jesus was a human body with a divine soul, far from it. I agree that such a person could never save humanity, but many Christians act as if He was just that.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ken:
Are you saying that original sin is transmitted only from the father's conribution to conception? What happens then if, as is perhaps possible, somone manages to artificially make a human baby with no father?

---

I think this was addressed to me as well.

In the Swedenborgian system there is no such thing as original sin. So the virgin birth was in no way a mechanism for avoiding original sin.

The idea of the Incarnation, in this system, is that God was to come into the world, taking on the sins of the world at the level of humanity and defeating them. He had to come into the world, not because as God He could not easily defeat hell at any point, but because humanity could not defeat hell. Hell did not actually have any power, but for humans it did have power because of the ignorance and evil of the human condition - meant by the darkness and the captivity so often mentioned in the prophecies. This is what needed to be dispelled.

To overcome this, Jesus took it on by birth to a human mother, from whom He inherited all the ignorance and evil inclinations of the human race. This system does not recognize original sin, but it does teach the idea of inherited inclinations to evils of every kind, which are passed down from generation to generation. These inclinations are augmented or diminished according to the free choices and behaviors of each generation.

So the question about what happens when we make babies with no father is not relevant. What a thought, though!

From Mary, therefore, Jesus was born with a human heredity, enabling Him to encounter and overcome evil at the human level. From the Father, however, He was divine, and therefore able to completely subdue the hells from His own power. This was the struggle of His life, culminating in His final temptation, or struggle, on the cross, by which He overcame the desire for natural life itself and all the evil attached to it - completely conquering hell and completely uniting Himself to His inmost divine nature. When He rose, therefore, He was simply the Lord, and said that all power in heaven and on earth was now in His hands.

This is why the virgin birth is so important. It's not that God could not have imparted divinity in a human in any way that He liked, whether from a human father or whatever. He chose to do it in this way because of the normal processes of nature, and because of the normal relationships between what is female and what is male, so that the evil that had become lodged in this natural system could be overcome from within its own walls. If that makes any sense.

Merry Christmas to all on this thread, by the way!

I'm thinking about these things as I wait for the family to wake up, so we can all open our stockings - which I notice that Santa has left hanging by the chimney with care.
 

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
I feel slightly scalded by Cosmo's post - but in a good way.
Thanks to him for clearing up some shakey issues for me.

Cosmo quote

quote:

---

Might it be that God doesn't particularly want his Church to teach fundamentally flawed theology and doctrine,...

---

quote:

---

I actually hadn't thought of how much influence God must have had over the men who developed church tradition. If they were good, prayerful men at all, then of course his will would be done through them.

---

The men (and hopefully women ... but I won't get into that right now ) whom God influenced and used in developing Church Tradition were the same kind of men and women whom God influenced and used to construct the Scriptures. The only difference in status concerns the "eye witness" character of most of the biblical tesimonies in the New Testament. The inspired quality of Christian thinking and acting beyond the New Testament canon is not of a radically different order to that within it.

If the Church developed any teaching that was in clear contradiction to Scripture then she would not be true to HERSELF ... as well as God of course. However, that's not to say that the Church doesn't have the freedom to unfold, interpret and develop biblical teaching in the context of human understanding and action; she does. Unless this ongoing work is divinely inspired we have no hope. All we are left with is going back to the text and hoping that it can simply speak for itself. Well, a lot of it can .... but also, a lot of it needs contextualising, explaining, relating, moving forward into the "now" of God's present action. We have not been left as orphans. God has given us the Church to help us find our way. This is one wheel we don't have to reinvent.

The trouble with many exegetes and theologians who are working today is that they are like many young people in the 60's who thought that they had just invented sex. Theological endeavour is a 3500 year old work in progress. Truth didn't just emerge in the last 35 years.
 

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Posted by PaulTH (# 320) on :
 
This thread has descended into the mental gymnastics I so dislike in Christianity. In Job 19.25, he says "I know that my Redeemer lives and that in the end he will stand upon the earth." This simple faith in God's power to redeem is complicated by the Trinity, the virgin birth, and many layers of theology. In the catechism in the BCP it says, "I learn to believe in God the Father who created me, in God the Son who redeemed me and in God the Holy Ghost who sanctifies me and all the elect people of God."

While I deplore the protestant election, the rest of it tells us something. It is God who creates, God who redeems and God who sanctifies. The rest is unimportant. To define, redefine and over-refine doesn't bring anyone closer to God. Jesus' name in Hebrew Yahoshua means "Yah saves." Jesus knew that. We all have to believe it and we will taste His mercy.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Paul

quote:

---

mental gymnastics

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by PaulTH:
On another thread, Alan came up with a theory that He was effectively a clone of His mother, in which an X chromosome had rapidly evolved into a Y chromosome. Forgive me my scepticism, but I don't believe that happened.

---

Just to clarify, it was on the Inconsistancy in Matthew thread. And I didn't describe it as a theory, but wild speculation. So your scepticism is appropriate. The point I was trying to make on the other thread (ignore the wild speculation, it isn't important) is that there is paradox in the Incarnation - the infinite eternal God becomes a finite temporal human being; that there is paradox in Jesus being born normally yet of God should hardly surprise us.
 

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Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on :
 
Firstly, at the risk of being unoriginal and shockingly behindhand, "Nuff respeck" (as I believe the kids on the block would have it) to Cosmo for the ringing (my ears are at any rate!) defence of orthodox doctrine! Not a big fan of smilies but you've forced one out of me ...

Secondly, it seems to me that it's a bit disingenuous, PaulTH, to label perfectly decent and coherent arguments of other shipmates "gymnastics" without specifying more precisely - I really can't think whose utterances here you imagine deserve such treatment. It surprises me (naive, I know) that more liberal or at any rate less traditional thinkers are often first to accuse orthodox doctrines of being "gymnastic" (are we to understand "sophistical" or "specious" by this?), when one of the primary (although, to my mind, thoroughly unjustified) accusations leveled at the trads is that they check their brains in at the baptistry door and blindly follow tradition/the Magisterium/whathaveyou. If orthodox doctrine is sometimes at heart difficult to express in simplistic terms, it's because it's a human expression of the deepest and most mysterious of truths. It is of course not necessary for all to be able fully to articulate or get to grips with all of these revealed truths to qualify as a Christian, but it is necessary to have an understanding, or be susceptible to one, which precludes falling into grave error about what God would have his people know of Himself and themselves, doncha think? Mustn't our understanding play a part in our faith? Could I really be said to be embracing Faith if I completely misunderstood some of its essentials. Theology is not some specious superiority game for those who like that sort of thing, but one of the many ways in which God engages and meets with us, and we all need a bit. We shouldn't be surprised if some of the deepest truths are difficult to fathom (the mystery of the Faith, doncha know ...) but easy to get wrong.

Sorry to strike such a discordant note so early in the great octave of the Nat - Merry Christmas to all aboard
 

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Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by ChristinaMarie:
I think that the liberal questioning of the Virgin Conception, is more serious than just implying that Christians nearly 2000 years ago, got their facts wrong.

It is a conspiracy theory.

It points to a scenario, where these Christians lied, and fabricated stories, that were untrue, to back up their beliefs.

If this were true, Christianity is bankrupt, both morally and spiritually. It has no integrity.

Many Liberals seem to value integrity, but don't seem to have much trouble scorning the integrity of those who cannot answer for themselves. They have no problem speaking evil of the dead.

I think Liberalism is bankrupt.

It is the Church, that is the 'pillar and bulwark of the truth.' It is the Church that received Jesus' promises.

If the Virgin Birth isn't true, the Church has failed to be the pillar and bulwark of truth, and Jesus' promises have failed, because made-up stories, rather than truth, prevailed.

---

Saying that the stories of the conception and birth of Christ in Luke and Matthew are not historically, factually true casts no aspersion on the early Christians. Historical fact was not a requirement of the genre in which they were operating - heck, historical fact the way we understand it is a relatively recent construction. Claiming that the nativity narratives must be historically factual is entirely anachronistic.

I have the utmost respect for the early Christians, for the writers of the gospels, and for the Gospel itself. The stories of the virgin birth are not the product of conspiracy, but the product of people who are writing gospels, evangelizing instruments.

The remarks above about integrity are beneath contempt.
 

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Posted by PaulTH (# 320) on :
 
I apologise if anyone thought the term mental gymnastics was patronising, but my meaning is that I don't believe in salvation only for rocket scientists and brain surgeons. I think Micah 6.8 still holds true

"And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

I don't believe Jesus taught anything that was essentially different from that, nor that God requires anything else from us in the way of mental assent.

Ruth makes the very excellent point that in order to disagree with the historicity of the virgin birth doesn't imply that the story was made up by someone lacking integrity. The gospels were never meant to be simple biographies in our modern understanding of the term. Eternal truths are often woven into stories. That was the parabolic teaching style of both Jesus and contemporary rabbis of His time.

I believe the virgin birth stories tell two very important things. They show the degree of humilty and self sacrifice required before the Word is able to incarnate in any individual. They also show why Jesus told His followers, "Call no man on earth your father." "He who does the will of my Father is my mother, brother and sister." Though family is quite rightly precious of most of us God requires us to go beyond it and accept His universal Fatherhood under which we're all brothers and sisters. That IMO is the true meaning of the virgin birth stories. They aren't fabricated lies, they tell us a very important truth.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Chesterbelloc

I have no such hesitation about using similies ...
Thank you for your post.
 

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Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:
Originally posted by ChristinaMarie:
I think that the liberal questioning of the Virgin Conception, is more serious than just implying that Christians nearly 2000 years ago, got their facts wrong.

It is a conspiracy theory.

It points to a scenario, where these Christians lied, and fabricated stories, that were untrue, to back up their beliefs.

---

<Ironic tone of voice> Oh no! We've been rumbled!! This is true of course. As soon as it was rumoured that I was no longer a card-carrying conservative, I received through the post, in plain brown paper, a 'Christianity for Liberal Conspirators' package, informing me of all the doctrines, dogma and beliefs etc, that I must now not conform to, having no opinion of my own, naturally, nor the ability to study, pray and experience God in my own life.

This rule book stringently sets down the regulations for the 'Liberal Christian Life' - which of course must bear no resemblance at all to real or proper Christianity; and comes accompanied with a cassette tape which hypnotizes the listener into repeating the same brainless, dishonest hogwash, regardless of what they theymselves may think. For isn't the first rule in the book: You shall not think for yourself, but conform your ideas for the greater glory of THE CONSPIRACY.

Finally, we are instructed that we are no longer to be truthful, or truth-seeking human beings just trying to serve our Lord to the best of our ability etc, etc - no, that's only for a certain kind of Christian, apparently - we are to forsake our natural integrity and the vocation of our baptism vows ('cos, hey, they don't mean anything to us after all, right?) and turn into some kind of anti-Christian lie-spewing parody of a disciple of Christ.

The chief ceremony for conspirators, in case, anyone is interested in turning up for the next one, is the summer solstice eve, where we meet on desecrated ground, wear our surplices inside out, and chant the Creed backwards. Oh, and our names are entered into the 'Liberal Conspirators Handbook' in blood...... <Ironic tone off>

Just another bit of nonsense to add to the quote above!

 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Anselmina

This is a bit of a tangent to the thread but what the 'eck ...

I consider myself a liberal on many things (salvation, sexuality, religion and science to name just a few) so I suppose I'm part of the conspiracy as well. However, one thing I have noticed when in dialogue with those of a more "liberal" disposition is just how illiberal many of them are, (your good self excepted). They slag off fundamentalists for all they're worth but when an intelligent presentation of a more conservative approach comes along the following sentiments are often expressed ...

(1) Sneering ... "you can't possibly believe that can you?!"
(2) Superiority ... "well you can't have read "X" by "Y" because he puts paid to that argument most eloquently"
(3) Smearing ... "so you're one of those 'you'll burn in hell' types are you?"

None of these sentiments have been expressed on the Ship but the subtext behind much liberal fundamentalism often involves these things.
 

---

Posted by Arch- (# 982) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Dear Anselmina

This is a bit of a tangent to the thread but what the 'eck ...

I consider myself a liberal on many things (salvation, sexuality, religion and science to name just a few) so I suppose I'm part of the conspiracy as well. However, one thing I have noticed when in dialogue with those of a more "liberal" disposition is just how illiberal many of them are, (your good self excepted). They slag off fundamentalists for all they're worth but when an intelligent presentation of a more conservative approach comes along the following sentiments are often expressed ...

(1) Sneering ... "you can't possibly believe that can you?!"
(2) Superiority ... "well you can't have read "X" by "Y" because he puts paid to that argument most eloquently"
(3) Smearing ... "so you're one of those 'you'll burn in hell' types are you?"

None of these sentiments have been expressed on the Ship but the subtext behind much liberal fundamentalism often involves these things.

---

quote:

---

Claiming that the nativity narratives must be historically factual is entirely anachronistic.

---

Why is this so? What evidence do you submit to support this contention? (I know it's a commonplace amongst liberal exegetes but I would like the issues exposing a bit more here).
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Well, for a start, there is the fact that the gospel narratives were not written until many decades after the events; anyone who has played 'Chinese whispers' will attest to the problems with oral transmission of information.

If the subject were any else, common sense would tell us that inaccuracies are bound to have crept in; all the more so in the case of Our Lord, because of the enthusiasm of his followers.

Frankly, it is the suspension common sense by the (numerous) traditionalists who have posted that is the most astounding.

When proposing an idea that is beyond the realms of usual experience, the onus is surely on the person proposing it, (rather than on the sceptic) to provide evidence.


 

---

Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 
The idea that the Gospels are mythological in character regarding the Infancy Narratives, at least, doesn't work with Luke's Gospel, to my mind.

A preamble that states that he is giving an orderly account, conflicts with mythological stories for evangelism purposes.

The Liberalism, I am criticising, BTW, is strictly the one that denies the miraculous and the invisible world, etc. It has nothing to do with pastoral concerns, such as sexuality.

How come, if Liberalism is right about the Virgin Birth, and other teachings that were formulated as the Church of the first 500 years AD, fought heresies, that those closest to the sources, didn't realise this? How come the Creeds were formulated, as if these things were true?

I mean, they all knew for example, that Christ didn't really cast out demons, right? So, how come many went into the wilderness to combat the demonic?

Hey! The Infancy Narratives, don't add up, so let's throw out the Virgin Birth! Mind you, the Resurrection accounts, don't add up either, why not throw that out too?

While we're at it, it is repulsive to modernity, that a piece of bread and cup of wine, can be changed into the Body of Blood of Christ, isn't it? Let's all take the Zwinglian view, while we're at it.

The Trinity don't make sense, so let's all be Unitarians. Hey! Perhaps this will lead to Church being One, as Jesus prayed in John 17. Ah! Maybe that was made up too, and we've been banging our heads against a brick wall with Ecumenism. God don't want that really.

I guess I should look forward to remarks of intellectual greatness now, that my remarks are below contempt.

I can only imagine what the Church Fathers' reaction would have been to these modern re-interpretations.

Christina
 

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Posted by Merseymike (# 3022) on :
 
Yes, but the point is that we now live in 2002, and the Church Fathers didn't - and if faith is going to make sense in our world, it simply isn't good enough to simply hark back to some sort of 'tradition in aspic' as a necessarily superior form of wisdom.

This sort of all or nothing phliosophy is only another type of fundamentalism , placing church Tradition as 'that which must not be questioned' rather than the Bible.

Both, for me, are not acceptable. By trying to present everything as all or nothing, it effectively counts out anyone who feels that certain church traditions and teaching are not justified in a literal sense.
 

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Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 
Merseymike,

I would put it to you, that it is you who is living in the past of modernity.

We are in post-modernity now.

Today, many people believe in spirits and the supernatural, just look at the New Age movement, and their spirit guides, for example.

Modernity, has been tried, and found wanting. It's not me, who's out of touch.

The post-modern world has stopped being dogmatic about science, and recognises its limits. Not so with the Modern.

Christina
 

---

Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 
Furthermore, a view that says 'I can't accept this, because it conflicts with my scientific worldview' is just as Fundamentalistic, as any other kind.

Christina
 

---

Posted by Merseymike (# 3022) on :
 
I disagree that we are 'living in post-modernity'. At the most, we exist in late modernity, but both have ingested much that is modern, even if we accept their existence.

In any case, if that is the situation, absolutely no philosophy or idea which could be considered a 'grand theory' will have any impact in flexible, confused, postmodern times. Postmodern theorists don't allow for the emergence of as single truth or order within postmodernity : its very existence precludes that possibility - which is why I find it odd that some traditionalists seem to look upon its existence as a sort of opportunity. It is a misreading of what postmodernity, with its celebration of uncertainties, advocates
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Merseymike

quote:

---

Yes, but the point is that we now live in 2002, and the Church Fathers didn't - and if faith is going to make sense in our world, it simply isn't good enough to simply hark back to some sort of 'tradition in aspic' as a necessarily superior form of wisdom.

---

quote:

---

Imagine all those people influenced by Jonathan Edwards and Colin Fry, who have television programmes were they 'communicate with dead and bring comfort to the relatives.'

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mrgrumble_au:
Well, for a start, there is the fact that the gospel narratives were not written until many decades after the events; anyone who has played 'Chinese whispers' will attest to the problems with oral transmission of information.

---

quote:

---

I hardly think it matters.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Merseymike:
But in a culture where literacy is not widespread, the use of imagery and metaphor, along with the need to make stories relate to the lives of those reading is all the more important.

---

quote:

---

1. Jesus isn't physically here to do them, and there should not be the need to prove His divinity - the Resurrection should have already done that.

---

quote:

---

2. There is no independent evidence that those claimed have taken place : just one piece of watertight medical evidence from sources entirely outside the church would help.

---

quote:

---

3. I think that the miracles in the Bible may well have been real, yes, but some are not exactly as explained - I think 'demon possession' equates to mental illness, for example.

---

quote:

---

4. To be a dispensationalist in the conservative evangelical sense involves, I gather, plenty of baggage about 'the different ages', which I'm not particularly into. However, I do think that a Church which feels that the message of the love of God has to include contemporary hocus-pocus is deluding itself. So, to the extent that 'these things pass away', then, yes, I'm a dispensationalist. I am certainly not convinced that charismata is anything other than mass hysteria and wish-fulfilment.

---

Hocus pocus, mass hysteria, wish fulfilment. Sounds like prejudice to me rather than evidence. Wouldn't it seimply be more honest to be agnostic. You could only be so emotively damning if you made a good case for saying either:-

(1) God couldn't work miracles becauise of the restraints imposed on the natural order.
(2) God wouldn't work miracles for reasons best known to himself ... or perhaps we shouldn't pray for rain because someone else would experience drought.

You do know what "hocus pocus" refers to don't you.
 

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Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 
Merseymike,

You wrote:

"Well, Christina, if Christianity can't stand up to any sort of logic, and if it has to be ossified in an unchanging , rigid 'truth', then I think it deserves to die : I would certainly not think it worth following."

Truths such as the Trinity, that Jesus is both God and Man, and the Virgin Birth, are all Mysteries, Mike. It's not traditional Christianity that imposes rigid truth, it deals with faith and mystery. Unlike the Modern approach, which will only believe what it can understand according to it's worldview, traditional Christianity accepts Mystery and believes in what has been revealed.

"In its time, Christians have believed the earth is flat, advocated the death of those who believed differently, and still today oppress other minorities."

So have the followers of every other religion and none. Consider the former Soviet Union, regarding persecution.

Regarding the oppression of minorities, I would guess this particularly refers to gay and lesbian people. Well, in my case, as a transsexual woman in a committed lesbian relationshiop, I would suggest to you, that those who oppress sexual minorities, are hi-jacking either the Scripture or Tradition.

It is possible to interpret Scripture without coming to the conclusion that 'obviously God does not approve of any same-sex relationships', the same goes with Tradition.

I've found that there are many who believe in Tradition, who use it to back up traditions, just as there are those who use Scripture, to back up their interpretation.

I do not believe Christianity is about ossified truth, nor do I believe that it is about 're-inventing the wheel.'

Christina
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
No-one has yet addressed this central fact:

Virgin conception (and by this, I take it that we mean 'no sperm conception') is not a normal, common-sense or everyday experience.

The only evidence we have is the assertion of writers, none of whom were eye-witnesses (to the conception).

Tell me again; apart from theological argument (which simply goes along the lines of 'my view is the God had to have done it this way because it fits my view of things thus'), what evidence is there?


 

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Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 
It could well be, that Luke was told about the Virgin conception, by Mary.

Christina
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
That would still not make St Luke an eyewitness.

In court it would be called 'hearsay'.


 

---

Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 
Okay, so here's the scenario. Let's suppose the story is true. Who is the only eye-witness? Mary!

Did Luke know Paul? Yes. Is it likely Luke was present during the Acts15 scene? Probably. Is it likely that Mary was a member of the Jerusalem Church? Most likely.

How do we know that the history of Julius Caesar is true?

In fact, have you seen 'The Matrix'? Perhaps, we're all human batteries for a machine that has taken over the world, as in the film.

Hey! Perhaps Sollopsism is true! Why I am I talking to you people then?

Christina
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
There is still an awful lot of supposition in that scenario.

Which puts it, as evidence goes, on the level of 'I heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend'.

Of interest too is that not even the Gospel writers put the utterance 'Honest guv, I was a virgin' on the lips of St Mary.


 

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Posted by Merseymike (# 3022) on :
 
Gregory : we will have to agree to differ. If its a choice between any conservative brand of Christianity and agnosticism, then I would have to opt for the latter, because there is too much I cannot accept in the former. But that isn't the only option available, as you well know

With regard to your points above :

* I don't believe in contemporary miracles, and nothing you have said convinces me that I should. It is up to you to prove conclusively that these things are possible and independently verifiable, not the other way around
* I am sure that Lourdes and other places of pilgrimage can bring healing of sorts, but as for physical miracles, then no.
* Jesus is alive, but not physically present, and miracles gave added emphasis to this. I do not believe that his representatives on earth perform miraculous healings.
* I didn't explain anything away - I think Jesus was able to heal, but as I don't believe in physical devils or demons, I would hardly believe that they were capable of being removed - would I ?
* When you start presenting evidence which can be accepted by other than those who share your faith, then I will accept your criticisms. Looking at what doesn't get healed in the world, a God which selectively chooses to heal some things or saorts some things out seems perverse in the extreme - and not the sort of God I would want much truck with, frankly.

Yes, Christina, the heart of faith is Mystery, and there is much which cannot be explained. That does not mean that we automatically have to reject anything which manages to do so. I do see what you are saying, but that sort of faith wouldn't satisfy me.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Merseymike

Yes, we will have to agree to differ.

Dear mrgrumble_au

OK hearsay ... so Mary tells Luke a lie ... a lie for which she has absolutely no motivation ... a lie which would cause her no end of trouble and all quite unnecessarily.

Now who's telling fantastic stories?!
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Really Father!

You are the master of misreading and misunderstanding!

I said nothing about lying. We are discussing (dispassionately, I hope) the available evidence and its standard.

Your hyperbole is not helpful.


 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
The only way anybody could have known outside of Mary was if Mary spilled the beans, (other than someone else inventing the story and why would they do that?). No, the possibilities are clear and binary. She lied or she didn't.
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Oh to see things so clearly (not).

We know of no claim from Mary's lips that she conceived without sperm. That muchu we do know.

Thee rest, despite your assertion to the contrary. is pure conjecture.


 

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Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 
The assertion that the Virgin Conception, is not historically accurate, as related in Scripture, is pure conjecture.

Furthermore, it is a new thing, not something believed by the majority of Christians throughout the ages.

To believe in the Trinity and the Incarnation, but reject the Virgin Birth, really is to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, as Fr G wrote previously, IMO.

Christina
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
What have I asserted other than what we know?

I don't think that I even 'asserted' that the Virgin Conception did not take place.

How you read the scriptures is quite another matter as is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and that of the Incarnation.

Could we stick to one topic at a time?


 

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Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mrgrumble_au:
Oh to see things so clearly (not).

We know of no claim from Mary's lips that she conceived without sperm. That muchu we do know.

---

She did say, "How can this be so, since I have no husband?"

Reader Alexis
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Which may be read in any number of ways.

The fact that we choose to read is as evidence of a claim of no intercourse is nevertheless only one of a number of possible readings.


 

---

Posted by PaulTH (# 320) on :
 
Does anyone who gives such importance to the virginal conception consider it to be an article of faith so important that it can affect our place in eternity? With regard to Mary, Luke and Paul, it's a reasonable assumption that the Luke mentioned in Paul's letters is the Luke who wrote the Gospel and Acts. But it's unlikely that he was with Paul as early as the Council of Jeruslam in c49AD.

None of us knows how long Mary lived, but Luke, writing in the eighties, is unlikely to have had Mary as a personal confidant. Paul, who was the greatest expounder of resurrection theology had experiences of the Risen Christ that were MYSTICAL. He met Christ on the road to Damascus long after( at least a few years) after the Ascension. But in the so called "Pauline Creed"(1Cor15.3-8) Paul equates his experiences with those of the other Apostles.

So while I certainly believe in the resurrection as an experience, to try and define it would be dangerous, and quite possibly misleading. There is no dismissing of any Biblical doctrine in my agenda, just a desire to understand the seed in the chaff. I defy anyone to say it all has a plain meaning.
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Quite so.


 

---

Posted by eutychus (# 3081) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mrgrumble_au:

not even the Gospel writers put the utterance 'Honest guv, I was a virgin' on the lips of St Mary.

---

MrGrumble, reader Alexis did not quite quote the relevant passage exactly (he offered: "How can this be so, since I have no husband?"). In fact it reads thus:

Lk 1:34 " "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" "

You suggest this statement could be read "a number of ways". Would you like to give us a plausible list?
 

---

Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 
Hi Paul,

I don't believe that our salvation is dependent upon whether we believe in the Virgin Conception or not.

My bottom line is, that a person who has a relationship with God is saved from the penalty of sin, is being saved from the power of sin, and will be saved from the presence of sin. You can substitute 'liberated' for 'saved' too.

Because of this, I cannot accept statements, made by theologians in the past, that 'in order to be saved, one has to accept the full Catholic Faith', etc. I consider such statements to be traditional, but not authoritarian Tradition, on a par with the Trinity, for example.

I think we need to ask practical questions, related to Jesus statement, that the truth sets us free. If the Virgin Birth, is not factual, then how can we accept other things, which are even more difficult to accept, but my faith/trust?

If the Church, before the great divide in AD1054, got it dogmatically wrong, about the Virgin Birth, how can we have any trust about the Nicene Creed or Chalcedon?

If Luke, with a preamble which clearly states that he's attempting to write an orderly account, included something mythological, then how can we trust what he writes about Jesus' ministry?

The Apostle Paul, wrote that they didn't follow cunningly designed myths and fables. Was he wrong?

Joseph Campbell, who wrote 'Hero with a thousand faces' argues that Christianity is the most successful religion, based on the common God-Man myth, who dies and rises again. There was no historical Jesus, at all. It's all myth.

I'm not writing hyperbole here, these beliefs are actually held by many people today.

What has lead to where I am today, is a balancing act of Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience.

One thing I have serious doubts about, is the belief that Mary was a virgin, all her life. Scripture seems to indicate otherwise, in its statement about her not having relations with Joseph while she was pregnant. I don't think Tradition teaches it, but I may be wrong. I think it is tradition with a small 't'.

I believe Scripture should be used by the individual, as a mirror, as a means to spiritual growth. I believe it is the Church that determines doctrine, not the individual Christian.
As Paul wrote, the church is the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

Christina
 

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Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on :
 
mrg,
With regard to Our Lady's "How can this be, since I have no husband?", you wrote:

Which may be read in any number of ways.

The fact that we choose to read is as evidence of a claim of no intercourse is nevertheless only one of a number of possible readings.

[/QUOTE]

Er ... and those other readings which are o-so-obvious would be ...? The virginal concep[tion of OLJC is clearly, deliberately and explicitly stated in the accounts we have, so it really does seem that we are faced with accepting them at face value or rejecting them as willfully (or at the very least recklessly) false. Tough call, no?

Fr Gregory,
Thank you for your prodigally generous response to my last post
There, I've squeezed another one out!

CB
 

---

Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by eutychus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by mrgrumble_au:

not even the Gospel writers put the utterance 'Honest guv, I was a virgin' on the lips of St Mary.

---

MrGrumble, reader Alexis did not quite quote the relevant passage exactly (he offered: "How can this be so, since I have no husband?"). In fact it reads thus:

Lk 1:34 " "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" "

You suggest this statement could be read "a number of ways". Would you like to give us a plausible list?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:

quote:

---

Claiming that the nativity narratives must be historically factual is entirely anachronistic.

---

Why is this so? What evidence do you submit to support this contention

---

I know I'm not Ruth and wouldn't dream of speaking for anyone else. But, my view is that the Gospels are primarily historical in the modern sense (though they do contain considerable amounts of historical material) on two counts

1) I'm no expert on ancient literature, but it is my understandinf that the sort of historical/biographical account such a statement implies simply did not exist in the first century. Histories and biographies contemporary with the Gospels are far more heavily biased than modern accounts would be, and often contain material we can be pretty sure was invented by the authors (I'm hoping someone can come up with some examples - the small collection of books I have that might be relevant is a long way from here). If "secular" authors saw no need to be "historically accurate" why should the Evangelists?

2) The internal evidence of the Gospels themselves. As has been often pointed out, there are inconsistancies between Gospels. There is good evidence that accounts of some events and teachings were altered for the purposes of the Evangelists (either in content, timing relative to ohter events or both). There was clearly some selectivity in what to include.

The "Chinese whispers" is a big red herring on two counts - one it severelly underestimates the ability of pre-literate people to accurately recount verbal stories, and two, it assumes the Evangelists themselves saw benefit in historical accuracy in its own right.

Hope I'm making sense, it's late and I'm rushing so as not to run up too large a phone bill at my parents.
 

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Posted by PaulTH (# 320) on :
 
Christina
The church has to determine doctrine rather than the individual, because a thousand different voices mske no sound. But given the way the church has been structured, establishing dogma and anathema, and with the power to excommunicate based on the idea that there is no salvation outside the church, that puts the church in an abusively powerful position which it has used many times.

In such a scenario the church hodls the power of eternal life versus eternal damnation over the souls of those who may or may not agree with them. Having once been the victim of a protestant sect who used such tactics, I can assure you that it's a life draining experience. But the whole history of Christianity is riddled with this psychotic treatment of fellow humans, from the crusades to the inquisitions to the holocaust.

Whenever an organisation from the Communist Party to the Vatican to the Ecumenical Councillors, set themselves up as ultimate arbitrators of truth, the only thing you can be sure of is that hate and bloodshed will follow in its wake.
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Thank-you. I concede that point.

At the heart of this question is how we regard scripture.

If we think it is invariably to be read as 'literal truth' then we will fight tooth and nail to preserve that 'truth' over the truth that in the real world, to make a baby you need a sperm, an egg and a woman.

If you think as I do (which the more voluble of you do not) that it was inspired by the Holy Spirit but written by fallable culture bound mortals with a first century mindset then you can open your mind to the facts rather then dwelling on the implausible.

For that reason there is no point in a text quoting fest. Whether we ascribed the words of Mary to her or the tradition repeated by th e gospel writers, they still amount to heresay, committed to paper many decades after the events.


 

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Posted by Merseymike (# 3022) on :
 
Christina, you said earlier :

I believe it is the Church that determines doctrine, not the individual Christian.

The thing is, that for both of us, with regard to our sexuality and relationships, we are going against Church Tradition and Doctrine. Now, that doesn't cause me any real problem - but only because I am a liberal catholic rather than a traditional one.

Don't you think that for some people, the doctrine of the Virgin Birth may be something they simply can't believe ? Just like I can't believe the traditional church teaching about sexuality ?

I just don't think it is all or nothing. I don't personally have any problem with the Virgin Birth, but I am aware of various explanations, and I think all are acceptable for Christians to hold. I am also aware that some Christians believe that there are miracles today, but in terms of 'signs and wonders', I don't believe that.

I try to be consistent, and I don't see how a conservative position is commensurate with either my reason or experience : it is both of those things which, for me, temper both Scripture and Tradition
 

---

Posted by David (# 3) on :
 

quote:

---

By a grumbler:
Well, for a start, there is the fact that the gospel narratives were not written until many decades after the events; anyone who has played 'Chinese whispers' will attest to the problems with oral transmission of information.
If the subject were any else, common sense would tell us that inaccuracies are bound to have crept in; all the more so in the case of Our Lord, because of the enthusiasm of his followers.
Frankly, it is the suspension common sense by the (numerous) traditionalists who have posted that is the most astounding.
When proposing an idea that is beyond the realms of usual experience, the onus is surely on the person proposing it, (rather than on the sceptic) to provide evidence.

...

For that reason there is no point in a text quoting fest. Whether we ascribed the words of Mary to her or the tradition repeated by th e gospel writers, they still amount to heresay, committed to paper many decades after the events.

---

No no no no and more No. You are simply wrong. Oral transmission in a non-literate society has nothing in common with "chinese whispers". You need to update your knowledge by at least 30 years.

Frankly, it is the suspension of common sense by the (numerous) uneducated "liberals" who have posted that is the most astounding. To persist in this sort of anachronism while moaning about the blinkered view of "traditionalists" is quite stunning stuff.
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
One no would suffice.


 

---

Posted by PaulTH (# 320) on :
 
David
I agree with you completely that chinese whispers have nothing to do with oral transmission, especially aomong Jewish people, many of whom carried the entire Torah in their heads. That doesn't alter my point that the vb stories aren't fiction, aren't invented and aren't dismissive of the integrity of their writers.

What they are IMO are ways of explaining how God's nature came to dwell among us. They don't have to be historical to fulfill those demands.
 

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Posted by David (# 3) on :
 
No it wouldn't, you keep repeating the same claims - "heresay" [sic] and the like.

You.Are.Wrong.

[That was to Grumbler. Crosspost is all.]

[ 26. December 2002, 22:58: Message edited by: David ]
 

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Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 
PaulTH,

I'm arguing for the position of the Orthodox, which recognises the 7 Ecumenical Councils. I distance myself from any suggestion that I am arguing for a Roman Catholic understanding, which could be understood from your response.

As far as the idea that the Orthodox believe that the Church has power over someone's eternal damnation or life, I think that is untrue. I've read many statements by Orthodox, pointing out that being Orthodox guarantees nothing, what matters is a trusting relationship with Christ.

Furthermore, it is not Tradition in Orthodoxy, as I understand, that eternal damnation be believed, though some argue that it is. (Coniaris, for example) My understanding is that the Orthodox Tradition goes no further than the Nicene Creed, that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead. There are many Orthodox who hope and pray for Universal Reconciliation. Indeed, it has been stated to me, that such an attitude is seen as a holy attitude in Orthodoxy. In many other churches, it would be seen as outright heresy.

There is a collegiate understanding of how the Church is the pillar and bulwark of the truth, in Orthodoxy, rather than a central authority, such as the Papacy and Magisterium. It should be remembered that 'ekklesia' is literally translated as 'assembly' not church. I see the people as the Church, and that disallows any view that the Church is some power structure.

I do not believe the decisions of the 7 Ecumenical Councils were forced upon the people, who are the Church. They were accepted by the people. Other Councils were rejected by the Church - the people.

From my reading of Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy, both have strong views regarding the Church. However, neither teach that there is no salvation outside Roman Catholicism (Vatican 2), or Orthodoxy. (Bishop Kallistos - The Orthodox Church)

I think it needs to be understood that the comments about no salvation outside the Church, were made while there was one visible Church, and that the statements were made in opposition to Gnosticism.

Christina
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Chinese whispers may not be relevant at the transmission stage of oral tradition but they most certainly are at the formation stage.

But that is what the game is designed to illistrate: i.e. how 'stories start', not how an established oral tradition is transmitted.


 

---

Posted by PaulTH (# 320) on :
 
Christina
I'm sorry if I made it unclear. I was referring to the historical position of the churches rather than their contemporary views. However, I hold that many lives have been lost to Christian bigotry.
 

---

Posted by David (# 3) on :
 

quote:

---

Chinese whispers may not be relevant at the transmission stage of oral tradition but they most certainly are at the formation stage.

But that is what the game is designed to illistrate: i.e. how 'stories start', not how an established oral tradition is transmitted.

---

quote:

---

Written by Grumbler, then seemingly disowned:
...one who has played 'Chinese whispers' will attest to the problems with oral transmission of information.

---

quote:

---

Chinese whispers may not be relevant at the transmission stage of oral tradition but they most certainly are at the formation stage.

---

One step back but still no evidence. I presume we are talking about the formation of the canon now.
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
David
There is a differnece betweeen spotting apparent inconsistencies and arguing the point.

Father
No. It is your onus to prove the implauible. Waiting.


 

---

Posted by ChristinaMarie (# 1013) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Merseymike:
Christina, you said earlier :

I believe it is the Church that determines doctrine, not the individual Christian.

The thing is, that for both of us, with regard to our sexuality and relationships, we are going against Church Tradition and Doctrine. Now, that doesn't cause me any real problem - but only because I am a liberal catholic rather than a traditional one.

Don't you think that for some people, the doctrine of the Virgin Birth may be something they simply can't believe ? Just like I can't believe the traditional church teaching about sexuality ?

I just don't think it is all or nothing. I don't personally have any problem with the Virgin Birth, but I am aware of various explanations, and I think all are acceptable for Christians to hold. I am also aware that some Christians believe that there are miracles today, but in terms of 'signs and wonders', I don't believe that.

I try to be consistent, and I don't see how a conservative position is commensurate with either my reason or experience : it is both of those things which, for me, temper both Scripture and Tradition

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by PaulTH:
Christina
I'm sorry if I made it unclear. I was referring to the historical position of the churches rather than their contemporary views. However, I hold that many lives have been lost to Christian bigotry.

---

Dear Paul,

Substitute the word 'Christian' with 'Hindu', 'Muslim', 'Communist', whatever.

I don't think bigotry is the product of Christianity, it is the product of fallen human beings.

I don't think the wheat and tares Scripture, is just about true Christians and false ones. I think we all have tares in our hearts. I learned to be bigotted, influenced by an atheist family. It took time for the Holy Spirit to convict me, and bring about growth and change in my outlook.

Yours,
Christina
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
There is no point at all.

'Oral transmission of information' occurs in both the formation stage and in the established oral tradition stage.

I'm sorry if refining my position has confused you.


 

---

Posted by pcd (# 3570) on :
 

quote:

---

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mrgrumble_au:
There is no point at all.

'Oral transmission of information' occurs in both the formation stage and in the established oral tradition stage.

I'm sorry if refining my position has confused you.

---

It hasn't been refined, it's been contradicted. In any case, your position seems to equate oral transmission with inaccuracy. Again, as has been pointed out by many on this thread, You.Are.Wrong.
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
IF you can't win the argument just misquote me.


 

---

Posted by David (# 3) on :
 
Point out the misquote, will you? You have a few minutes.

Idiot.
 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear mrgrumble_au

quote:

---

Father
No. It is your onus to prove the implauible. Waiting.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Dear mrgrumble_au

quote:

---

Father
No. It is your onus to prove the implauible. Waiting.

---

You are requiring standards of proof that a conventional historian would consider rare if not impossible.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ChristinaMarie:

I guess I should look forward to remarks of intellectual greatness now, that my remarks are below contempt.
Christina

---

At the risk of sending CM to sleep....... (although I think I can assure her we're quite safe from the threat of intellectual greatness....)

First, there's this....

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anselmina:
For some of us, the Resurrection is an/the essential core belief in our understanding of Christ's salvific purposes in God. But the virgin birth (ie, she was a virgin when she gave birth) is not what 'saves' us, or offers us reconciliation with God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ChristinaMarie:
I don't believe that our salvation is dependent upon whether we believe in the Virgin Conception or not.

My bottom line is, that a person who has a relationship with God is saved from the penalty of sin, is being saved from the power of sin, and will be saved from the presence of sin. You can substitute 'liberated' for 'saved' too.
Christina

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by pcd:
If not virgin birth why believe in the resurection or the road to Damascus experience of Paul.?

---

Because they make require belief in a way that the Virgin Birth doesn't?

What I mean is that the complete transformation of the disciples makes no sense if you take away the resurrection. Even the most sceptical person must admit that SOMETHING happened to transform the followers of an obscure Jewish teacher into a movement that swept the world.

And so with Paul - you have to provide some explanation for his dramatic transformation (which is only deniable if you reject 100% of the Bible).

But the Virgin Birth doesn't (to me anyway) fit in the same category. You can believe in the divinity of Christ without having to accept the Virgin Birth.
 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear hatless

My aim is not to convince you but my aim is to show you that the virgin birth has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with sex, (pun intended).

You have lodged an idea in your head that us VB folk recoil from the messiness of Jesus' humanity and want to protect his birth somehow from sexual ectasy and engorged penises and vaginas.

You will not be convinced but let me make it perfectly clear that the reason why we support VB is because we believe that only by this route can we have a christology that isn't adoptionist.

There are those who are better capable than I at textual archaeology and hypothesising what Mary may or may not have said about her condition and the psychology of the narrative and the biblical authors. All this is important and just because I concentrate on the integration of the VB into the Incarnation (as you have done contrariwise) doesn't mean that I think the evidence to be unimportant or inaccessible.

Why do I think that anything other than VB leads to an adoptionist christology - because the divine nature can only have a tangential contact with Jesus humanity if the conception was an entirely closed human loop. Without the VB God pops in to call when Jesus is old enough, spiritually mature enough ... whatever and then goes back home again when Jesus dies only to come back again in the resurrected Christ.

This christology is also neo-Nestorian if not Nestorian itself. The importance of the divine nature being there "ab initio" from conception is that Jesus is the Son sent from the Father .. the Word made flesh ... not the Spirit sent to indwell.

Don't ask me to speculate how physiologically the conception of Jesus differed from ours but it did. It's not the absence of semen here which is the point but the prseence of the creative Spirit who had no problem moulding the vessel of the Mother of God's chromosomes. He did not recoil in horror as you suggest. I think that you should indeed post a new thread about why anyone believes what they do. Do you want to put it up or shall I?
 

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Posted by pcd (# 3570) on :
 
Thanks for your reply Smart Alex which does mke sense to me but also has implications to the effect that some things are to be believed because they are more plausible than others or beacause we need them to be true. I agree that it need not affect ones faith whether the vb is true or not but it might cause one to doubt the authenticity of other parts of the scriptures. Noone has addressed the prophecy of Isaiah as fa as I can see. Do we think the account of the birth of Jesus was written with that in mind. Of course the death on the cross is also foreshadowed here,
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Something meaty to get our teeth into even if it goes against the grain of many writing here ... (do not read if suffering from hypertension and subscribing to the view that the Holy Roman See is the whore of Babylon, )

Virgin Birth - New Advent
 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
And at the other end of the spectrum ...

quote:

---

And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

---

quote:

---

Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by hatless:
…It's a relatively trivial doctrine, most agree. The prospects for judging the evidence to the satisfaction of anyone (let alone all) are very poor. So where does our belief or disbelief come from? …

---

quote:

---

Could this extra "something" have been added into the womb / foetus AFTER conception? Possibly not since the human being then existed and the die would have been cast.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by RuthW:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ChristinaMarie:
I think that the liberal questioning of the Virgin Conception, is more serious than just implying that Christians nearly 2000 years ago, got their facts wrong.

It is a conspiracy theory.

It points to a scenario, where these Christians lied, and fabricated stories, that were untrue, to back up their beliefs.

-- snip ---

---

Saying that the stories of the conception and birth of Christ in Luke and Matthew are not historically, factually true casts no aspersion on the early Christians. Historical fact was not a requirement of the genre in which they were operating - heck, historical fact the way we understand it is a relatively recent construction.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Merseymike:
Maybe if we took that approach, Mousethief, then we would all stop thinking and accept what we are told by the Church despite any progress or insight we might make. That way Christianity will be unchanging...and irrelevant.

No thanks

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by pcd:
Supposing I write my memoirs or perhaps my testimony how would my view of history influence how I set it down. If I say a number of events led to my conversion would I not mean that a number of events ..etc.. or would I mean that I actually meant something else.? Are the gospels so many biographical novels.I seems to me that the importance here is not the virginity of Jesus mother but the grounds on which we take the Bible with a pinch of salt.If not virgin birth why believe in the resurection or the road to Damascus experience of Paul.?

---

quote:

---

I do understand that, Gregory : and perhaps for you, thats enough for you to say - I will submit that which I believe behind that which the Church teaches because of the superior position of the Church and Holy Tradition.

---

quote:

---

It's true Merseymike not because someone tells me it is so but because I feel the Incarnation as described (that is with the Virgin Birth and the Theotokos) deep deep down in the core of my being. I believe in a God who takes FLESH to save me ... not merely one who inspires me but one who reaches down with wounded hands and grabs me out of the shit I both create and find myself in. Ultimately it's a measure of his Infinite Love ... not an interesting debate here.

---

Note that ... NOT BECAUSE SOMEONE TELLS ME

In the spin off thread "Why do we believe ANYTHING" I have stated that there are some things that make me a dissenter ... BUT that I don't put myself above the Church as only-member-and-only-Pope. That doesn't mean that I simply obliterate my conscience and submit. As the Great Leader says ... there is a "third way."
 

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Posted by Chapelhead (# 1143) on :
 
Is God capable of 'achieving' the incarnation without a virgin birth?

Well, I would consider him a rather small God if he weren't.

And if I said that such a thing was not possible, because my feeble human mind cannot comprehend how it could be achieved then I would think myself arrogant indeed.
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
The history of the church's dealings with the revelations of scientific revelation is a sorry one indeed.

In every case wehere there has been a conflict betwteen faith and tradition, the church has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the light off truth.

No doubt those who opposed Gallileo said too that they felt 'deeply in the heart' that it was a terracentric universe.

Thankfully for the church, that particular 'verity' had not been incorporated into a creed, so could eventually jetisoned.

Alas, the virgin conception seems to have been set on stone because a pre-scientifc church acccepted it and put it in its creeds.

Feelings and faith are one thing that can indeed lead us seriously astray. Our propensity (as a species) for blind faith has probably been the cause of more interpersonal conflict than anything else.

Feelings are not infallible and neither are Popes or the church.


 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear mrgrumble_au

No ... and neither is reason and evidence isn't always what it seems either ... so where does that leave us?
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
It leaves us on an insignificant planet somewhere in the Milky Way.

And with an unlikely doctrine for which there is no evidence.


 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
What is your evidence that this planet is insignificant? Unexceptional, yes ... but not insignificant. Copernicus was describing geography not value.
 

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Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Interestingly you seem to be seeking to keep the terracenetric model alive by swapping 'geoography' for 'significance'.

Isn't it the truth that the bible is actually silent on that subject and scientifically we have no evidence to judge it with either?

Unless by 'significance' you mean to us rather than to God.


 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
No I mean that God created the earth (ny natural processes of course) and said that it was GOOD. He created life here (by natural processes of course) because he had humans in mind ... sentient creatures made in his image and likeness. That's why the planet is significant but not exceptional. Eventually I fully anticipate that we will find other unexceptional but significant planets where this has happened in other equally valuable but different ways.
 

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Posted by Glenn Oldham (# 47) on :
 
Thanks, Chesterbelloc, for your attempt to show that the incarnation necessitates the virgin birth. I do not follow your argument however. Let me take the crux of what you said in two stages. You say that:

quote:

---

It doesn't matter at what point you say the Son becomes flesh in the case of a normal human conception, even if it is at the very point of "first contact" between the egg and the sperm, because if it's a normal human conception nothing else needs happen for that being to come into existence. This makes the incarnation, however you look at it, an add-on to an existing viable person, not a unique taking on of the flesh of the eternal Word.

---

quote:

---

a unique taking on of the flesh of the eternal Word. We are only looking at the latter when it is a unique generation of Christ-in-flesh between the Holy Spirit and Our Lady - how this happned is of course a mystery, but it seems to me to be one towards which a properly orthodox, reasoned Christology exclusively points.
Happy to clarify anything that may (very likely) not be clear here, folks.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cosmo:
Might it be that in the recent times theologians such as Gore and Temple and Ramsey and Macquarrie and Williams have also got it right in defending the Virgin Birth?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:

Will you please describe to me biologically Glenn precisely what happened from the moment of Christ's death on the Cross to the point where St. Thomas touched his wounds upon his resurrection ... that is the physical changes his body went through during the period of his resurrection. To follow the same logic as the VB his resurrection cannot be believed until this description is complete.

---

quote:

---

These evidences and arguments are far stronger (textually, historically, and so on) in the case of the resurrection than for the VB.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:

I have asked if anyone can tell me why the incarnation necessitates the virgin birth and so far I have not had a reply which explains that (not one I can understand anyway).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Dear Glenn

quote:

---

These evidences and arguments are far stronger (textually, historically, and so on) in the case of the resurrection than for the VB.

---

They are not. No one witnessed the resurrection, (the resurrection APPEARANCES are another matter). Because no one witnessed the resurrection itself it is not possible to say biologically what happened to Christ's body. This is no different empirically from the impossibility of saying biologically what happened in Mary's womb.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Dear JJR

A lot of people have said that here but what do you make of the arguments put forward in these over 200 posts here that include reasons for refuting that view?

---

quote:

---

The problem with a normal human conception for the Son, as I see it is that, if there are two human gametes, Mary's and Joseph's, then there is nothing lacking from story to bring into being a person, but that person would be entirely human. Now, if God chose to make such an entity His Son at any stage whatsoever , this would either be by adopting them as such and adding special "stuff" of His own (which I reject as adoptionism). . . .

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
It's true Merseymike not because someone tells me it is so but because I feel the Incarnation as described (that is with the Virgin Birth and the Theotokos) deep deep down in the core of my being.

---

quote:

---

I believe in a God who takes FLESH to save me ... not merely one who inspires me but one who reaches down with wounded hands and grabs me out of the shit I both create and find myself in. Ultimately it's a measure of his Infinite Love ... not an interesting debate here.

---

I too believe in this, and believe in it just fine without believing in the virgin birth.
 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
As you rightly say Ruth ... we won't get very far with feelings. My aim was PARTLY tangential really ... all those folks who think I'm Borg just because I'm Orthodox.
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
Let's face it.

It's a stalemate.

An impasse.

A dead parrot in fact.


 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Not at all mrgrumble_au ... don't give up so easily. This doctrine has a long and venerable history of disputation. As far as I am concerned I'll just carry on believing it ... as I always have. [That will be 7 impossible things before breakfast please, (until cloning that is ... darn, Jesus would have to be a girlie).]
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
That is precisely why it's a dead parrot.


 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
No, it's a Norwegian blue, straight from the fjords ... Mary told me.
 

---

Posted by mrgrumble_au (# 3611) on :
 
And there was I taking you for a lumberjack.


 

---

Posted by PaulTH (# 320) on :
 
Why is a literal resurrection ie in a physical sense any more important than a literal virginal conception? Even the most hard nosed atheist would admit that something happened to Paul on the road to Damascas. Even if they concluded that he was a deranged crackpot, the total transformation of his life is evidence of something. The same goes for the disciples. That Jesus presence was still available to them after His death on the cross, is an uncontestable piece of history.

Paul's description of the resurrection in 1Cor 15.3-8 is the only canonical reference to His appearence to James, His brother, though this is expanded into Jesus serveing the bread and wine to James in the apocryphal gospel of the Hebrews. But Paul, whose experiences of the Risen Christ were undoubtedly mystical, mentions all the apearences in one breath. So we can't be sure that all the resurrection appearences weren't mystical. It is inconsistent in John, in the same chapter where Jesus says," Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father." (20.17), but says"Put your finger here. Reach out your hand and put it into my side."(20.28)

Either He was physical or not. Either He could be touched or not. For these reasons I tend to go for a mystical resurrection in which Jesus assured His followers that He was still with them. Nothing else can account for the miracle of Pentecost.
 

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Posted by Glenn Oldham (# 47) on :
 
Thanks, Chesterbelloc, for your reply. I will study it carefully. No time for a response tonight, alas.
Glenn
 

---

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mrgrumble_au:
The history of the church's dealings with the revelations of scientific revelation is a sorry one indeed.

---

quote:

---

So we can't be sure that all the resurrection appearences weren't mystical. It is inconsistent in John, in the same chapter where Jesus says," Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father." (20.17), but says"Put your finger here. Reach out your hand and put it into my side."(20.28)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Anyway, back to the point (sort of)...We tend to think of biographies as describing the important events in someones life that explains why they became the famous person they were or are - as such they tend to focus on events in formative years (which is how you can get biographies of people who are barely more than children themselves). In the ancient near east and Mediterranean world biographies were far more likely to emphasise the events that made someone famous, to describe the man through his actions as an adult - thus a biography of a Roman general could quite reasonably consist of an account of his actions in a single battle (and I'm sure such a biography does exist, I just don't have a reference to hand).

Thus biographies known to the Evangelists wouldn't have contained many details of childhood, nor be particularly concerned for historical accuracy so long as the narrative showed the character of the man.

Alan

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

(1) The problem with a normal human conception for the Son, as I see it is that, if there are two human gametes, Mary's and Joseph's, then there is nothing lacking from story to bring into being a person, but that person would be entirely human.

(2) Now, if God chose to make such an entity His Son at any stage whatsoever , this would either be by
(2a) adopting them as such and adding special "stuff" of His own (which I reject as adoptionism).
(2b) The only alternative left, it seems is that God somehow converted such a pre-existent being into His Son "proper", but in this case it would be the obliteration of the existing entity as such, not really its transformation into God at all. The Son did pre-exist His incarnation, and so no other entity could have been converted into the Son without it's utter destruction. It would just make no sense.

(3) This is why I say that however it happened, it must have been uniquely Mary's and the Holy Spirit's child, because anyone else's "oar in" (as it were) would either have been a direct obstacle to the child's being God "proper", or an utterly superfluous and removed extra.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
in order to do this he must adopt it and add special stuff to it since it is as yet only human

---

quote:

---

The importance of the idea of the virgin birth is that it is tied up with our understanding of Jesus being "fully human and fully divine".

---

That is most certainly correct but it begs the question as to what is meant by "divine."

Christian theology differentiates between "divine" as something ADOPTED by God but which is a CREATED "thing" and "divine" as an attribute, energy or ontological category ... having the ESSENCE of God ETERNALLY.

(There is of course the metaphorical or hyperbolic sense which is entirely earthbound ... "that was a "divine" chocolate pudding!" }

Examples ...

Divine - adopted ...

The evangelists embarked upon a divine mission.
The divinely appointed fathers met in Council.
By grace we are to partake of the divine nature.

Divine - essential / eternal

The divine nature and human natures form a hypostatic union in the oner Person of Christ.
The divine nature cannot be seen by anyone.

When Christian theology affirms the divinity of Christ it does NOT refer to the former created sense but the latter uncreated sense. This was, of course, the issue behind the conflict with Arianism but it is also typical of adoptionist christology.

Adoptionism has Jesus as an ENTIRELY AND EXCLUSIVELY human natured person with "divinity" either as some sort of created extra stuff added from conception onwards OR (more classically) with a temporary possession of and by the Holy Spirit effectively rendering Christ's identity as "the Word / Logos FROM ETERNITY made flesh" redundant.

Why is this important? Because in the adoptionist scheme of things the incarnation is reduced to prophetic inspiration (albeit to a higher degree). In fact by being so reduced it ceases to be the Incarnation. The flesh must be joined to the Godhead not just the Spirit. This is what the Virgin birth ensures. The nature of that union at conception and subsequently (the enhypostatic union according to Leontius of Byzantium) is manifested as a certain sharing of attributes from each nature but without an erosion of either. Beyond that the Church has not gone and any toying with meta-genetics is pure speculation.
 

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Posted by PaulTH (# 320) on :
 
Fr. Gregory
You talk of the speculative nature of going beyond the metagenetics. I don't think that would mean much to a convention of lumberjacks. The theology you expound is at best hinted at in scripture. St Paul frequently uses the "Risen Christ" and the "Spirit" interchangeably. I am not a sola scriptura adherant, but it is a serious stretch of NT theology to arrive at your theology. A "lower" Christology may be heretical to the Orthodox, but can be supported by both scripture and ancient non canonical sources.
 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Paul

quote:

---

The theology you expound is at best hinted at in scripture.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Meta-genetics ... trying to work out how the Incarnation involved the manipulation of human genetics. That's speculation .. or rather the rationalism of trying to pin down a miracle so that it can subjected to human logic ... the evidence of someone putting a host under the microscope trying to find the Body of Christ. It's all the same. Fruitless. That's non-biblical supposedly in the service of the Bible.

---

"someone putting a host under the microscope trying to find the Body of Christ. " This at least rules out a literalistic understanding of transubstatiation so is hardly fruitless.

If I am told that Jesus did not have an earthly father and yet was fully human I am entitled surely to ask about his genetics. What can it mean to say that 'Jesus was fully human but without a biological father but I am not prepared to say anything about his genetics'? I imagine that the reply would be 'they were fully human' and if I then ask 'how can that be?' I will probably be told: 'God can do anything, so if it says that God did X or Y God did indeed do X or Y and so that's that, don't ask questions.'

It is the same with the Chalcedonian account of the incarnation. The council ruled out various other approaches to understanding the incarnation and produced a tantalisingly summarised account of the key points they saw as essential and did not bother to expound how the parts of the definition were logically consistent, they just implied that they were. Trying to give a fuller exposition of the incarnation and also of its relation to the virgin birth is not idle speculation, it is trying to assess whether the doctrine is logically contradictory, logically coherent or undecidable. What is wrong with that?

In any case, what makes you think that logic is merely human? Is mathematics merely human? Is science merely human? Done by humans yes but transcending their whims and wishes and not mere convention.

If I am convinced by the evidence and arguments for the conclusion that the Church is authoritative and to be trusted in its declaration that these doctrines are true then I may feel that I can assent to them in an intellectually responsible manner and test them no further. If, on the other hand, I am not convinced by those arguments (and I am not) I will naturally feel the need to examine those doctrines carefully (along with wider issues too) to see if I can assent to them in an intellectually responsible manner.

Glenn
 

---

Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Glenn

You have to use the right tools for the job. No physicist can do without mathematics. No literary historian can do without textual analysis. No theologian can do without Tradition.

The action of God in the material realm is accessible but it cannot be circumscribed by an earthbound empiricism. You can ask away about genetics as much as you like but in the case of the Virgin Mary it will remain speculative. The veracity of the Virgin Birth is not established by scientific enquiry. Logical positivistssay that this is the only truth worthy of the name. I demur.
 

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Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
I hope everything is okay with Eb'lis, but I notice he hasn't been able to return to his thread for nearly four and a half pages. I've found the Orthodox contribution to this thread instructive and fascinating, and I know a number of Anglicans of different stripe have contributed here; but I'm still rather hoping to find out

a) why Eb'lis, as an RC is concerned specifically for the CofE clergy mentioned in the OP's survey -the ecumenical interest of a fellow Christian is a good enough reason, so it would be good to know that and

b) if any useful comparisons or contrasts can be drawn with RC clergy, in much the same way as we've had useful contributions from the Orthodox folk.

Mind you, if it clashes with the OP, perhaps it wouldn't be that useful - maybe I'm just being nosey!
 

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Posted by Laura (# 10) on :
 
Anselmina,

I think Eb'lis is horrified at what a monster he started, and can't bear to look!
 

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Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 

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Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
"that was a "divine" chocolate pudding!"

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I'm all in favour of divine chocolate pudding...

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The divine nature and human natures form a hypostatic union in the one Person of Christ.
The divine nature cannot be seen by anyone.

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any toying with meta-genetics is pure speculation.

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At last! I agree with Father Gregory about something!

Russ
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Russ

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What’s wrong with a mental picture of Christ being “like the saints, but more so” ? Maybe God didn’t come down to earth from heaven, but then we now know that heaven isn’t in the literal sense “up” in the first place.

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(You are of course correct on the classical take on adoptionism).

If Jesus is just like us only a better human (by any definition) then God has not done anything more than [1] use more promising material [2] through [1] work more in Christ than us. In other words the Incarnation is not necessary at all because GOD himself, directly, through and in the humanity of His Son has not done anything to save us ... he has merely provided us with an inspiring example. Harnack rules OK? I think not. I don't see how that can be squared with the New Testament at all. Whatever Christ as done as a human it is God-made-flesh who has done it as SUBJECT.

Nature? It has become difficult to talk about "nature" in our culture (which is why Buddhism is making headway of course). The difficulty about nature resides in its fluid and indeterminate expression. The ontology, therefore, is sacrificed to the phenomena. I suppose the only way of resolving this is to ask a negative question.

What would it be about an android that would not make it share in human nature?
What is it about a dolphin (or an alien) with similar capabilities to that of a human that would make neither capable of sharing in human nature, (whatever that was).

Notice that human nature is singular. It is one thing we all share, not some stuff each individual possesses in the pineal gland or anyone else, (Descartes - soul - )
 

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Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :
 
Fr. G said this on RooK's Satan thread:

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The fall of Lucifer is theological reflection dressed up in mythic concepts, language and narrative, (just as much as Adam and Eve is theological reflection dressed up in mythic concepts, language and narrative).

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Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
The ontology, therefore, is sacrificed to the phenomena. I suppose the only way of resolving this is to ask a negative question.

What would it be about an android that would not make it share in human nature?

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Originally posted by RuthW:
Fr. G said this on RooK's Satan thread:

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The fall of Lucifer is theological reflection dressed up in mythic concepts, language and narrative, (just as much as Adam and Eve is theological reflection dressed up in mythic concepts, language and narrative).

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I put the virgin birth in the same category.

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I feel I should get this off straight away before
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(c) I waste away for lack of gin/food/shore-life!

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I do want to say that it is both the origin and the composition of the cell that counts here (even if it seemed to you that I based my argument only on composition), because if the origin of the cell is M and J's gametes meeting, then whatever follows to "make the cell God" too, either is an add-on to what is already there (the person that would have resulted plus the "God" bit), or the replacement of some stuff that's already there with the stuff that makes the resulting person God, which we both agree would be the obliteration of the person-that-would-otherwise-have-been, and therefore a non-starter.
…
the state of affairs in which God just "chooses" the M-&-? cell to be His son is just adoptionism (how is the cell really going to be a person who is actually God unless the Holy Spirit was involved in the creation of the cell? [OK, maybe that's begging the question a bit ...]);

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How does a virginal conception avoid adoptionism in my view? Well, not all virginal conceptions necessarily would. But one in which God provides the necessary complement to Mary's genetic contribution at the conception without any extra human agent at least gives us a resultant person which is God's and Mary's uniquely. It is the person that results from this union that seems to be the only unqualifiedly plausible candidate for being God, just as the only plausible candidate for being my son would be someone with both his mother's and my genes. How is the resulting person divine as well as human? Well, that is precisely another part of the Mystery of the incarnation (God not having genes, and divinity presumably not being genetic, and all). It's really a process of eliminating the alternatives - any non-virginal account we have seen so far either makes the (human) father's role superfluous, or seems to involve adding to or adopting an already existing (potential, if you like) person.

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… a virginal conception … in which God provides the necessary complement to Mary's genetic contribution at the conception without any extra human agent at least gives us a resultant person which is God's and Mary's uniquely. It is the person that results from this union that seems to be the only unqualifiedly plausible candidate for being God … How is the resulting person divine as well as human? Well, that is precisely another part of the Mystery of the incarnation (God not having genes, and divinity presumably not being genetic, …

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Originally posted by Paul Careau:
The concept of the "virgin birth" may simply reflect the culture of the 1st & 2nd century AD which was placing increased emphasis of the value of an ascetic, celibate life.

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
divinity presumably not being genetic

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Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
In Matthew 1:25, it says that Joseph didn't sleep with his wife until she had borne Jesus. The implication is that after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary slept together like any ordinary married couple of the time.

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Originally posted by Anselmina:
I hope everything is okay with Eb'lis, but I notice he hasn't been able to return to his thread for nearly four and a half pages. I've found the Orthodox contribution to this thread instructive and fascinating, and I know a number of Anglicans of different stripe have contributed here; but I'm still rather hoping to find out

a) why Eb'lis, as an RC is concerned specifically for the CofE clergy mentioned in the OP's survey -the ecumenical interest of a fellow Christian is a good enough reason, so it would be good to know that and

b) if any useful comparisons or contrasts can be drawn with RC clergy, in much the same way as we've had useful contributions from the Orthodox folk.

Mind you, if it clashes with the OP, perhaps it wouldn't be that useful - maybe I'm just being nosey!

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Sorry i've been away and i didn't plan to be so its taken some time for me to catch up on whats been said etc.

However I was interested because in answering a) The church of England seems to be losing the plot somewhat, to me there is a stark difference between modernisation (which the R.C Church certainly requires) and forgetting what your faith was built upon in the first place.

In regards to B) I have no idea what the R.C clergy feel re this issue though i would guess it may be a v. similar stance to the Orthodox view? The rekationship between Orthodoxy and R.C is certainly there, as I was once told that if as a R.C you can't get to church for some reason but you can get to an Orthodox Church that will do under the circumstances. Over To Fr Greg....
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Eb'lis

The Roman Catholic, Orthodox and conservative Protestant positions on the virgin birth are, as far as I can see, identical. The wider issues concerning original sin, the perpetual virginiy of the Mother of God etc. are more divergent. The only difference between Orthodoxy and Catholicism would be in the implications of original sin for the Immaculate Conception, (which we don't believe in). However, we have moved away from the Virgin Birth by a long way when we come to that aspect.
 

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Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
Hello, Eb'lis.
Thank you for you response. So, no surveys taken of RC clergy beliefs then? And based on the assumption that all RC clergy belief reflects whatever the Church dogmatic tradition and teaching is? That's fair enough.

As I suggested in an earlier post, this doesn't reflect my many conversations with many RC ordinands and clergy friends; but from what I understand they are rarely subject to the same force of scrutiny for what they personally believe, as opposed to what the Church publicly affirms, that CofE clergy regularly fall under.

The lack of survey material based on RC clergy, similar to the one in your OP would seem to back that up. That's really all I wanted to know.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Anselmina

Why is a conclusion made that Catholic clergy opinions as a whole must be at variance with formal Church teaching based on a statistically non-significant collection of anecdotal accounts AND that their personal beliefs are a matter of indifference provided that they "get on with the job." That seems rather cynical to me.
 

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Posted by Eb'lis (# 2344) on :
 
Sadly my whole basis for the question is based on a survey within the church of england and reported on bbc teletext!

I doubt that the catholic church woud even entertain such a survey...
 

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Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
Fr. Gregory
I am rather cynical! But my cynicism has nothing to do with my qestion.

My question was to find out if it was possible to compare like with like as in: a survey of CofE clergy belief states that 'da-de-da'; a similar survey of RC clergy belief states that 'da-de-da'. Simple as that.

In the context of Eb'lis's comments about Catholic clergy's attitudes being the same as that of Orthodox clergy's to Church teaching, in terms presumably of acceptance and obedience, I stated that this didn't mainly reflect my own experience of RC ordinands and clergy. I made no statement concluding that Catholic clergy opinion as a whole must be at variance with Church teaching.

This is another reason why it would have been interesting just to know how another church's clergy view the dogmatic teaching and authority of their Church, compared to the CofE folk. I'm the first to say that just because I have personal anecodtal experience of RC clergy who do not personally agree with certain tenets of their church teaching, doesn't mean that they are typical. My clumsy question was: is there any information which helps us to understand what the typical RC cleric's view is, bearing in mind the apparent contradictory evidence I personally have to date? That's all.

I'll admit it could have read ambiguously. I guess the lack of such information means that strictly speaking I can't make either assumption about my anecdotal experience; that it is or isn't typical.

I'd also like to come to the conclusion that, well, we're all rather cynical about such surveys and gathered information anyway, and tend to take these things with a large dose of salt. So it wouldn't matter that we didn't have statistics on clerical belief. But then, if that were so, this thread wouldn't exist.
 

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Posted by Fr. Gregory (# 310) on :
 
Dear Anselmina

I take your point. I have been known to use anecdotal evidence as well and then be challenged to present survey material. On the other hand we are dealing with matters that can't easily be assessed and personal impressions and accounts ARE important. I SUSPECT that there will always be clergy who are in significant variance with their church's teaching and practice. I think that the more significant difference between churches lies in the self understanding and doctrinal standards expected between the churches. On that there does seem to be "clear blue water" between the Catholic / Orthodox Churches and the Anglican Church. I am not saying that "anything goes" in Anglicanism but it is much looser. Even Richard Dawkins says so, (with approval of course), so it must be so!
 

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Posted by J. J. Ramsey (# 1174) on :
 

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Originally posted by Mousethief:

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Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
In Matthew 1:25, it says that Joseph didn't sleep with his wife until she had borne Jesus. The implication is that after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary slept together like any ordinary married couple of the time.

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So when Jesus says "Lo I am with you always, until the end of the age" the implication is that after the current age ends, he'll leave us on our own?

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Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
Um, no. There's a difference between saying "X didn't happen until Y" and "X will happen until Y." The implication of the former is that X does happen, but only after Y, while with the latter, X may or may not continue after Y.

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Originally posted by Jesuitical Lad:

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Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
Um, no. There's a difference between saying "X didn't happen until Y" and "X will happen until Y." The implication of the former is that X does happen, but only after Y, while with the latter, X may or may not continue after Y.

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In 2 Samuel 6:23 we read that "Therefore Michal
the daughter of Saul had no child until the day of her death".

Err...

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quote:

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Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
In Matthew 1:25, it says that Joseph didn't sleep with his wife until she had borne Jesus. The implication is that after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary slept together like any ordinary married couple of the time

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Originally posted by PaulTH:
Anselmina and Fr. Gregory
Do you consider that the fidelity to the required doctrinal standards might mean that even if a Catholic or Orthodox priest had private doubts about an important aspect of Christian doctrine, he'd be less likely to say so.

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Oh dear, PaulTh. I couldn't say! My anecdotal evidence - which Fr. Gregory quite rightly implies is limited in its usefulness (and in relation to this thread utterly marginal) - was that for some soon-to-be Catholic priests of my acquaintance their position on certain doctrines was, while in the lecture room, what they understood the Church wanted it to be, was, whilst in private something a little more coloured by personal interpretation.

As a lowly Anglican I have no idea how typical this is, or even how serious it is . Perhaps other Catholics here could speak up for how likely or unlikely it is to hear their clergy disagree with official Church positions on doctrine?
 

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