quote:

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Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2)

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Yeah, they knew lots about genetics back then.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I think it is a nice story. Not true except in the poetical or aesthetic sense.

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
The problem, of course, is that "Source, Ground, Root, or Wellspring of all being" is not as sentimental or touching as "Father."

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I think it is a nice story. Not true except in the poetical or aesthetic sense.

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So you're outside the historic flow of creedal Christianity. Which is fine but then your comments are those of an outsider and don't help to make sense of the story from within.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I think it is a nice story. Not true except in the poetical or aesthetic sense.

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So you're outside the historic flow of creedal Christianity. Which is fine but then your comments are those of an outsider and don't help to make sense of the story from within.

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No, I don't accept that. I don't accept the literality of it, nor do I necessarily accept the culture-bound nature of some of these conceptualizations. I might call you dogmatic in return, but let's not escalate, and I'll let "outsider" pass.

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Originally posted by The Midge:
If you go back to Genesis when God made man in "our image": he wasn't complete until woman was added. I think that says a fair bit about who God is.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The Midge:
If you go back to Genesis when God made man in "our image": he wasn't complete until woman was added. I think that says a fair bit about who God is.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I think it is a nice story. Not true except in the poetical or aesthetic sense.

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So you're outside the historic flow of creedal Christianity. Which is fine but then your comments are those of an outsider and don't help to make sense of the story from within.

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No, I don't accept that. I don't accept the literality of it, nor do I necessarily accept the culture-bound nature of some of these conceptualizations. I might call you dogmatic in return, but let's not escalate, and I'll let "outsider" pass.

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But it can't pass. I'll take dogmatic, no problem. But if you reject those things, you place yourself outside them. By definition. And those things are part of the historical thread of creedal Christianity.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
[QUOTE]..... if you reject those things, you place yourself outside them. By definition. And those things are part of the historical thread of creedal Christianity.

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There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
I will note that theologically what is important for the incarnation is that Jesus became human

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Originally posted by Boogie:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
[QUOTE]..... if you reject those things, you place yourself outside them. By definition. And those things are part of the historical thread of creedal Christianity.

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This would warrant a thread of its own, I think.

Are you saying that I can't be part of my Church if I don't accept every detail of its doctrines?

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Originally posted by Josephine:
In fact, that's exactly what the Creed says. It's true that, in the English translation that most of us are familiar with, it says that he was made man. But the Greek that it was written in says that he was made human, not that he was made male.

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Originally posted by John Holding:
MM - On your second point, I understand your issue with the maleness of Jesus. The church has not done a great job of working through that issue. But I would ask, then how you would deal with male exclusion if he had been a woman?

In becoming human, Jesus had to be one or the other, but couldn't be both. Being born in a specific time and a specific place, being male rather than female meant he could do things (travel about, teach in a synagogue etc.) that he needed to be able to do.

Is his male-ness a big thing, though? I believe it happens to be true that he was male, but I don't think that's important about him or what he said, except as a statement of historical fact with no theological importance at all.

John

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:


As a man, you can say with confidence that the incarnate God knew what it was like to be a human like you - I can't. Just as there are aspects of male experience that I can never know, there are aspects of being female that are closed to you - and to the male Jesus.

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Originally posted by Twilight:
I think I get around this by reading most Biblical references to "man," as "mankind" and the "he," pronoun for God as just a habit of language like "she," for ship. I don't believe that God or ships actually have genders.

Jesus being male born of Mary a female also just seems like practical conveniences of the time. From the first visit to the temple a young girl would have had such problems.

I know it must be hard for anyone, man or woman, to keep hearing about God as "our Father," if she/he has had a bad relationship with their father or men in general, but the same problem would be reversed if God was prayed to as "our Mother."

I find it hard to hear God called she, simply because then all of a sudden in my mind, God does have breasts etc, where the sound of he is so routine to my ears that I can ignore it and not actually visualize a gendered being.

I don't know the answer. The "Universe?"

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm not even going to tackle the other members of the Trinity. But when it comes to feeling excluded from Christ because of his maleness--well, no, not me, not this woman. Because if he really meant all that stuff he was saying (including through Paul etc.) about us being the Body of Christ, then Christ IS feminine (as well as masculine) and has feminine experiences (as well as masculine). In fact, he has MY experiences. And even in his Gospel-reported lifetime we catch him saying things like " How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" (Matthew 23) It's a very feminine image, and he just throws it out there as if it weren't no thang. And I don't think it was a "thang" for him, based on how he behaved toward women--just as if we actually were human beings, ha. Similarly we get things like this:

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Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. (1 Peter 2)

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What is that if not a reference to the Lord as a breastfeeding mother?
.

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Originally posted by The Midge:
If you go back to Genesis when God made man in "our image": he wasn't complete until woman was added. I think that says a fair bit about who God is.

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Like that! Thankyou Midge
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Hurray! I was hoping some of that would help you as it helped me. In fact I'm using it to remind myself of a parallel problem just now--the fact that I'm getting old while Christ died and rose at ca. 33 years, and how can he comprehend the experience of old age and etc? But of course the same applies, that my experiences ARE his experiences (just recalled Paul on the subject, when he spoke of "filling up what is lacking in Christ's suffering" which can't possibly refer to helping with the work of salvation (already accomplished), but could easily refer to filling up the sum of Christ's human experience, most of it through us. Heck, there's also that bit where he says to Paul, "Why do you persecute ME?" when Paul is actually persecuting his followers. If the connection between us and him is that intimate that he takes it for granted, then I suppose he knows all about old people's aches and pains and marginalization. I'm going to try to remember that.
 

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Posted by mancunian mystic (# 9179) on :
 

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Originally posted by Dafyd:


That Jesus became incarnate as a man is hard to avoid. I'm aware that as a man I'm speaking from the privileged position here, so I can't say much for it.
I will note that theologically what is important for the incarnation is that Jesus became human (i.e. it doesn't confer any ontological privilege on middle Eastern skin coloration, Jesus's hair or eye colour, whatever sexuality Jesus happened to have, or on masculinity). So although some churches think Jesus' masculinity has implications for who can be a priest, for example, I think that has to be a mistake. The accidents of Jesus' humanity have to be incidental, or the incarnation doesn't work.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Hurray! I was hoping some of that would help you as it helped me. In fact I'm using it to remind myself of a parallel problem just now--the fact that I'm getting old while Christ died and rose at ca. 33 years, and how can he comprehend the experience of old age and etc?

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Originally posted by betjemaniac:

quote:

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:


As a man, you can say with confidence that the incarnate God knew what it was like to be a human like you - I can't. Just as there are aspects of male experience that I can never know, there are aspects of being female that are closed to you - and to the male Jesus.

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For what it's worth I'm not sure that follows - I don't think gender confers on me the ability to understand what it's like to be *any* man. I'm not sure most of the time, because it's not uniform, what it feels like to be me!

I don't know what it's like to be anyone else, except in the abstract of treating others how I would like to be treated. Consequently my understanding has always been rather that it is even more miraculous that God knows what it's like to be every single person on Earth.

I certainly don't think God knows what I feel like because I'm a man and he was a man too. That almost makes it a conjuring trick or an accident of genes. Jesus is God made man, but God is also omniscient...

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Originally posted by Josephine:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
I will note that theologically what is important for the incarnation is that Jesus became human

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In fact, that's exactly what the Creed says. It's true that, in the English translation that most of us are familiar with, it says that he was made man. But the Greek that it was written in says that he was made human, not that he was made male.

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
mancunian mystic

Very interesting OP and posts. May I suggest that, instead of heading only in one direction, back towards Christian belief, you might also take a clear look in the other direction as well?
You might find that a perusal of, for instance, the BHA's views might help you to situate yourself more securely wherever you decide is right for you.

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Penny S:
[QB] And the introduction of Mary would have helped.

But would it? Mary, as presented by the Church, offers women the choice of Virgin/Mother as role models. Whereas Jesus is offered as an example of a fully-realised human being who is also divine! As a single woman, that view of Mary is of no use to me, (though I can find my own way through to an understanding of her that's rather less simplistic).

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:

quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:


That Jesus became incarnate as a man is hard to avoid. I'm aware that as a man I'm speaking from the privileged position here, so I can't say much for it.
I will note that theologically what is important for the incarnation is that Jesus became human (i.e. it doesn't confer any ontological privilege on middle Eastern skin coloration, Jesus's hair or eye colour, whatever sexuality Jesus happened to have, or on masculinity). So although some churches think Jesus' masculinity has implications for who can be a priest, for example, I think that has to be a mistake. The accidents of Jesus' humanity have to be incidental, or the incarnation doesn't work.

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Thankyou Dafyd: very helpful. It strikes me now that when we move beyond physical gender, we all have our own unique mix of "male" and "female" traits: maybe Jesus holds them in balance? That's just a speculative comment, but one I'll ponder on!

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Originally posted by Enoch:
I'm no biologist, but somebody pointed out to me a few years ago that Jesus's maleness is evidence for the virgin birth as conventionally understood, in a way that no one in the C1 BC or AD could have known. If, by some freak of nature, as far as I know unrecorded in human history, a woman were to produce a child spontaneously in her own womb without male intervention, that child would receive only her genetic material, would be some sort of clone. The child would therefore have to be female.


Going back to the OP, mancunian mystic, I accept that what I'm going to say may strike you as insensitive, but it's important. I hope it doesn't put you off in your search, because without some awareness, you may well call off your search before you have any chance of finding again who you are looking for.

One of the things a lot of us find most difficult, is when, or if, it dawns on us that we have to accept God on his/her terms, not ours, as he/she is, not as we'd prefer him/her to be. The issues may be completely different for you than for, say, me.

He made us in his image. A lot of the time, we'd so much prefer to remake him/her in our image, be that male, female, stern, cuddly, and supporting our pet causes, be they right wing, left wing, environmentally engaged, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, lover of Bach or Hillsong or whatever. We'd so much rather enlist him in support of us and our causes, than let him be who he is, let him shape us rather than expect him to fit in with us.

So one of the things to take into account is whether what makes us uncomfortable is the fruit of how other people have over the centuries tried to fit God to suit who they wanted. To what extent is what makes you feel uncomfortable, a perception which is God's gift to you, his calling to you? Or is it just to do with where you are at the moment?

So to your final comment. I think we have to accept that to be incarnate, Jesus was bound to be male or female. There's no third option. Likewise, though, you had to be born male or female. There's approximately a 50% chance either way, but we have no control over which way for us the die was thrown. By the time we are conscious, it's far too late. And, however we may try to skate round saying this, those who genetically are not clearly of one gender or the other are tragically disabled.

This may not cheer you, but there's quite a lot to be said for accepting, rather than rebelling against, the things one cannot change. It certainly makes it easier to perceive who God is, to reduce the number of preconceptions one is going to insist on imposing upon him.

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All of that makes a lot of sense. I don't think we can possibly have a conception of God in all His fullness, but He's given us plenty of clues and pointers to what He's like...and couched them in terms we can (more or less) understand and relate to. Yes, sometimes some of those terms for various reasons can be hard for people to relate to, perhaps because of past human bad experiences. I mean, let alone whether God is to be seen as father or not, there are probably a lot of people who have trouble in how to relate to Him simply as an authority figure (partly because of bad experiences with people in authority, but also perhaps because of not understanding what true authority is).
If God somehow, were it possible, gave an account of His Being to us in algebraic form, well, I'm sure mathematicians would have an amzing understanding of Him...but I would be completely flummoxed. Give God a break I'm sure He knows what He's doing!
 

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Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
MM, I find much of value, and resonate a lot with your posts and thoughts. I'm a feminist clergywoman ordained in an evangelical church, so all of this is very much front & center for me. I look forward to many more discussions with you.

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:

Language: God as male, Father and Son - the mainstream Church is showing no signs of changing this language, except in a very few enlightened places. I believe God is beyond gender - I'll come to Jesus in a moment. Is that the most commonly accepted view, or is the male God still regarded as a theological necessity? If not, why does the Church continue to mislead us with the Father/Son images? .

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Originally posted by Boogie:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
..... if you reject those things, you place yourself outside them. By definition. And those things are part of the historical thread of creedal Christianity.

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This would warrant a thread of its own, I think.

Are you saying that I can't be part of my Church if I don't accept every detail of its doctrines?

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Originally posted by Enoch:
I think we have to accept that to be incarnate, Jesus was bound to be male or female. There's no third option.

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
mancunian mystic

Very interesting OP and posts. May I suggest that, instead of heading only in one direction, back towards Christian belief, you might also take a clear look in the other direction as well?
You might find that a perusal of, for instance, the BHA's views might help you to situate yourself more securely wherever you decide is right for you.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Thanks for posting that. It is what I feel when this sort of militant stridency bursts forth. I might add to not accepting, not fully understanding.

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Penny S:
[QB] And the introduction of Mary would have helped.

But would it? Mary, as presented by the Church, offers women the choice of Virgin/Mother as role models. Whereas Jesus is offered as an example of a fully-realised human being who is also divine! As a single woman, that view of Mary is of no use to me, (though I can find my own way through to an understanding of her that's rather less simplistic).

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Originally posted by Enoch:
Until about 30 years ago, that was everyone understood 'made man' to mean. It's a recent change of English usage that has caused 'made man' to become ambiguous as to whether it means 'made human' or 'made male'.

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Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:

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Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Yet, somehow, God in Christ has experienced all that is needed to identify with us, to come along side us in our pain and weakness and say "I understand".

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
We have to be careful here about the distinction between "female" and "feminine." Jesus is not female in the biological sense, but that does not mean he cannot display characteristically feminine attributes such as compassion and sadness.

Which begs the important question, why are compassion and empathy "feminine" attributes? Can they not be considered human attributes, or more theologically, are they not divine attributes?

Perhaps, the Church discovered its realization that Jesus was divine, because his very actions and character revealed to them, the same loving tenderness of YHWH who in the prophetic literature, promised to not forsake his people in the same manner that a mother would not forsake her child (Isaiah 49:15).

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
For a long time, a Methodist church I know had a piece of intriguing graffiti daubed in large letters on ones of its outside walls: 'God is a woman'. I've often wondered why the church leaders didn't remove it sooner! I must remember to ask one of them at some point.

Regarding Jesus, he was (i.e. while on earth) apparently male in sexual terms, but some commentators have hinted that he wasn't significantly representative of masculinity, which is culturally defined.

His renunciation of kingly powers, emphasis on servanthood and caring for the weak, etc. are qualities that Christendom has often been ambivalent about emphasising in men. And his lack of (recorded) sexual interest in women (or men) is also something that the Christian, and especially Protestant, world doesn't unambiguously view as a normal or desirable aspect of masculinity.

It's also been noted more than once that religious iconography often presents him in a vaguely 'effeminate' light.

I'm not saying that Jesus was female in some biological way. But as the terrestrial focal point of a supposedly patriarchal religion, God made flesh, it could surely be said that the masculinity of Jesus somehow subverts his maleness rather than affirming it. Maybe that's not a coincidence, and maybe it says something about Christianity's appeal to women, the patriarchal reality of Christian history notwithstanding.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm not being militantly strident so much as repeating a pretty indisputable fact: the creed posits a virgin birth. Therefore if you deny the virgin birth, you have stepped outside of that stream which flows through the creed. I'm not sure how (a) that's strident, or (b) that's debatable. I'm not even saying the creed is right, for fuck's sake. I'm merely saying what the creed states, and that to deny it is to step outside the creed. This isn't rocket surgery.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:

Let's clarify a little. They thought that men planted a seed inside a woman in the ancient world. [..] The creed is true within this socio-cultural context. Which doesn't mean it is literally true in the face of modern science.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
mousethief. I do that. In my dotage it appeared to me that no... wasn't abandoning the creed, which is going too far, but challenging the Orthodox take on eggs and genders and that you were extrapolating to his abandonment of the creed from that. But may be he was! Even though I'm too dim to see it. In which case you extrapolated nowt. All will be revealed I'm sure. Where did I go wrong?

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Originally posted by Penny S:
Pagan Romans believed that punishment awaited in the afterlife for people who killed virgins.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Let's clarify a little. They thought that men planted a seed inside a woman in the ancient world. The woman is like a field in which the sower sows. The contribution of the woman comes only from her nurturance of the developing child in utero. Mother earth, father sky. The creed is true within this socio-cultural context. Which doesn't mean it is literally true in the face of modern science.

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
The creed does not stand in any sense on the details of biological knowledge 2000 years ago. "You're having a baby!" "But how? I've never known a man!" doesn't depend on getting the details of the biology right - it just depends on knowing that children are a consequence of shagging, and that having a child without previously having had the shagging would be something rather out of the ordinary.

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Originally posted by Mousethief:
The Orthodox Church teaches that Christ obtained all of his "flesh" (human nature) from his mother, and all of his spirit (divine nature) from his Father

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:
As a woman, I have a huge difficulty with the fact that Jesus was male.

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:
I find that hurtful and rejecting, especially as 2000 years of misogyny has been able to excuse itself as a result.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
But if you reject those things, you place yourself outside them. By definition. And those things are part of the historical thread of creedal Christianity.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
They thought that men planted a seed inside a woman in the ancient world. The woman is like a field in which the sower sows. The contribution of the woman comes only from her nurturance of the developing child in utero. Mother earth, father sky. The creed is true within this socio-cultural context. Which doesn't mean it is literally true in the face of modern science.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:


That Jesus became incarnate as a man is hard to avoid. I'm aware that as a man I'm speaking from the privileged position here, so I can't say much for it.
I will note that theologically what is important for the incarnation is that Jesus became human (i.e. it doesn't confer any ontological privilege on middle Eastern skin coloration, Jesus's hair or eye colour, whatever sexuality Jesus happened to have, or on masculinity). So although some churches think Jesus' masculinity has implications for who can be a priest, for example, I think that has to be a mistake. The accidents of Jesus' humanity have to be incidental, or the incarnation doesn't work.

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Originally posted by Enoch:


Going back to the OP, mancunian mystic, I accept that what I'm going to say may strike you as insensitive, but it's important. I hope it doesn't put you off in your search, because without some awareness, you may well call off your search before you have any chance of finding again who you are looking for.

It's not so much me looking as being found at the moment...! The return of Jesus into my prayer life has been disconcerting, to put it mildly. Hence the exploration of issues that have taken me away from Christianity in recent years.

One of the things a lot of us find most difficult, is when, or if, it dawns on us that we have to accept God on his/her terms, not ours, as he/she is, not as we'd prefer him/her to be.
He made us in his image. A lot of the time, we'd so much prefer to remake him/her in our image,

The call to find God as Godself, rather than as my image or the church's image or anyone else's image were one of the motives for my move away from the structures of the church (which I have never declared to be permanent - fortunately, it now seems!)

To what extent is what makes you feel uncomfortable, a perception which is God's gift to you, his calling to you? Or is it just to do with where you are at the moment?

What a good question! Thankyou.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
MM, I find much of value, and resonate a lot with your posts and thoughts. I'm a feminist clergywoman ordained in an evangelical church, so all of this is very much front & center for me. I look forward to many more discussions with you.

quote:

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:

Language: God as male, Father and Son - the mainstream Church is showing no signs of changing this language, except in a very few enlightened places. I believe God is beyond gender - I'll come to Jesus in a moment. Is that the most commonly accepted view, or is the male God still regarded as a theological necessity? If not, why does the Church continue to mislead us with the Father/Son images? .

---

On the Father/Son/Spirit imagery-- the important thing to remember, I think, is precisely what you have said, that they ARE images-- metaphors-- not the thing itself. Some churches/ preachers/ priests are better at keeping that in mind than others.

Since "Father" is the most common image in the Bible, there must be something about that image that communicated something true in the ancient world.

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:


Regarding Jesus, he was (i.e. while on earth) apparently male in sexual terms, but some commentators have hinted that he wasn't significantly representative of masculinity, which is culturally defined.

His renunciation of kingly powers, emphasis on servanthood and caring for the weak, etc. are qualities that Christendom has often been ambivalent about emphasising in men. And his lack of (recorded) sexual interest in women (or men) is also something that the Christian, and especially Protestant, world doesn't unambiguously view as a normal or desirable aspect of masculinity.

It's also been noted more than once that religious iconography often presents him in a vaguely 'effeminate' light.

I'm not saying that Jesus was female in some biological way. But as the terrestrial focal point of a supposedly patriarchal religion, God made flesh, it could surely be said that the masculinity of Jesus somehow subverts his maleness rather than affirming it. Maybe that's not a coincidence, and maybe it says something about Christianity's appeal to women, the patriarchal reality of Christian history notwithstanding.

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:

quote:

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:
As a woman, I have a huge difficulty with the fact that Jesus was male.

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Jesus just extended the use of the father metaphor as a convenient way of describing a loving, caring, forgiving and protesting God who cares for His people. As Christians, we've inherited these terminologies, but I doubt if many churchgoers today take them in any way literally. As a man they don't bother me because we're just saying in church what has been said throughout the two millennia of Christianity, accepting them metaphorically, but not taking them any more seriously than that. I hope, mancunian mystic, that these things don't put you off attending church, and that you can move onwards with your Christian journey.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
.

Jesus' in-your-face courage couldn't be more 'masculine', particularly in defending a woman about to be murdered by a mob.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I didn't ascribe any of that stuff to the Creed. My whole thing about chromosomes was an attempt to put forward some ideas and kick them around. Can we make the church's ancient teachings about the virginal incarnation and birth of Christ make sense within the framework of modern genetics? Maybe we can't. But that doesn't mean we can't look at it and see what we come up with.

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I don't think I agree that people don't take these images/metaphors seriously. Even if we might say that we understand that it's not a literal Father or Son and that of course it's not saying that God is male- in fact words are powerful things, and that imagery, repeated unceasingly, year after year, with very little offered in most churches to provide any sort of alternative or counter view, and presented as a reality rather than as an image, DOES have its effects on our image of God, and probably also on our images of each other, and - pure speculation here - may play its role in the male dominance of the church for the past 2000 years.

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Originally posted by Penny S:
mousethief, I was being mealy mouthed about the martydom of women. The pagan nutjobs charged with executing a virgin, argued the author of the book about St Agnes (and sorry, I can't track the title or the author down at the moment), would have taken the opportunity to ensure their victim did not fall into the prohibited category.

I think I have heard of recent nutjobs that they have had similar ideas, and acted in a similar way.

It would have been tremendously supportive to later women, she argued, if it had been taught that a woman was not rendered less of a good person by the abuse they received, as if it were their fault, and if the special women in the past had not been protected by miracles, which she doubted.

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Originally posted by Gramps49:
In the Old Testament the word for Spirit of God is actually feminine. And the word for Wisdom of God is also feminine. John just adapts that word to a male noun, I think primarily because Jesus was born a male.

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quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Can we make the church's ancient teachings about the virginal incarnation and birth of Christ make sense within the framework of modern genetics? Maybe we can't. But that doesn't mean we can't look at it and see what we come up with.

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This sort of idea has been thoroughly debunked. Such ideas have been promoted for 150 years, with a famous example W.E. Gladstone's (a British prime minister) attempt to reconcile the Genesis creation story with what was know about evolution and geology in 1896. We are always up a blind alley if we think the bible has anything scientific in it.

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
One has to massage the creeds and other churchly stuff , mangle the bible, and misrepresent the science to get anywhere with this.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leaf:

quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:
mousethief, I was being mealy mouthed about the martydom of women. The pagan nutjobs charged with executing a virgin, argued the author of the book about St Agnes (and sorry, I can't track the title or the author down at the moment), would have taken the opportunity to ensure their victim did not fall into the prohibited category.

I think I have heard of recent nutjobs that they have had similar ideas, and acted in a similar way.

It would have been tremendously supportive to later women, she argued, if it had been taught that a woman was not rendered less of a good person by the abuse they received, as if it were their fault, and if the special women in the past had not been protected by miracles, which she doubted.

---

"The Geometry of Love" by Margaret Visser. She pointed out that hagiography of the period was still heavily influenced by pagan Roman thinking. The claim that St Agnes died a virgin was extremely unlikely to have been true. The fact that the claim was made shows that some in the early Church still viewed women through the lens of pagan perspective, rather than what we might (naively) call New Testament perspective.

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Of course He inherited His flesh from humanity and His spirit from God and ancients used their then incomplete understanding of human origins to describe it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
I don't understand why regarding the virgin birth as metaphorical rather than historical places someone outside the thread of credal Christianity.

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quote:

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It's hard to fit the ancient's description of Jesus' origins into a modern understanding of biology.

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Originally posted by Penny S:
It would have been tremendously supportive to later women, she argued, if it had been taught that a woman was not rendered less of a good person by the abuse they received, as if it were their fault, and if the special women in the past had not been protected by miracles, which she doubted.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
mousethief, she was betrothed therefore she was as good as married?

And the big O has to be RIGHT,

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
This sort of idea has been thoroughly debunked.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:
Mousethief is doing a thought-experiment: if we assume a minimal departure from natural law, what are the consequences?

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Science™ proves faith is wrong. Film at 11. This kind of misuse of science has been popular since the dawn of the Enlightenment. It has never gone away.

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quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Science™ proves faith is wrong. Film at 11. This kind of misuse of science has been popular since the dawn of the Enlightenment. It has never gone away.

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No. It's the idiocy of trying to impose a biblical or faith-based structure derived from church traditions onto science.

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You are the one who threw genetics into this topic.

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There are other problems tangential to this one, which pertain to trying to provoke conflicts between science and religion when there really isn't any. Some pope or other said truth can't contradict truth. To which we should more maturely respond that if several true things seem to contradict, then our analysis is flawed or is at the wrong level. Your introduction of genetics into this is a failed endeavour, to which I referenced a 19th century attempt which also failed.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Er, no abuse intended AT ALL mousethief, I wasn't being sarcastic.

And my point remains, Mary was betrothed, therefore all but married, therefore it is absurd for you to say 'she was not planning on ever getting married'.

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quote:

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Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Your introduction of genetics into this is a failed endeavour, to which I referenced a 19th century attempt which also failed.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Er, no abuse intended AT ALL mousethief, I wasn't being sarcastic.

And my point remains, Mary was betrothed, therefore all but married, therefore it is absurd for you to say 'she was not planning on ever getting married'.

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Then I misspoke. She should have said, "But I'm not planning on getting fucked." Someone who is betrothed doesn't greet the words "You will have a son" with surprise. And yet she greeted those words with surprise. Conclusion: There's something going on here beneath the words on the page.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
DNA is part of your "flesh." Indeed a rather intimate part.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Er, no abuse intended AT ALL mousethief, I wasn't being sarcastic.

And my point remains, Mary was betrothed, therefore all but married, therefore it is absurd for you to say 'she was not planning on ever getting married'.

---

Then I misspoke. She should have said, "But I'm not planning on getting fucked." Someone who is betrothed doesn't greet the words "You will have a son" with surprise. And yet she greeted those words with surprise. Conclusion: There's something going on here beneath the words on the page.

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If we've got to be picky picky about this, there is surely sufficient room for surprise in being a yet-unmarried girl and having an angel show up to make this particular announcement, when you know darn well from the OT that this is a message usually given to barren women well along in years. And Mary certainly knew the Scriptures, judging by the Magnificat.

If it had been me, I'm sure I would have been thinking, "Are you sure you weren't supposed to go see old Mrs. X down the village?"

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
I could just accept, if we knew nothing about genetics, that God planted a human seed, which grew in Mary's fertile flesh, but understanding genetics makes it absurd.

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quote:

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:

quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
DNA is part of your "flesh." Indeed a rather intimate part.

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Of course, but what I can't get my head around is that Jesus inherited half his DNA in the usual way from Mary's ovum, but the masculine half was miraculously created for the purpose. I could just accept, if we knew nothing about genetics, that God planted a human seed, which grew in Mary's fertile flesh, but understanding genetics makes it absurd.

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Originally posted by HCH:
There is no reason to think Joseph was significantly older than Mary.

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Originally posted by HCH:
There is no reason to think Joseph was significantly older than Mary.

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht :
This makes no sense at all. You would be prepared to believe that God miraculously created a "human seed" but not that He miraculously created some human DNA?

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quote:

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:

quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht :
This makes no sense at all. You would be prepared to believe that God miraculously created a "human seed" but not that He miraculously created some human DNA?

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I've heard it said that inheriting Mary's DNA makes Jesus fully human, and inheriting a male portion direct from God makes Him fully divine. I think that makes Him neither fully human nor divine.

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
[QUOTE] Besides I think being the Messiah of Israel, of the seed of David, is incompatible with the virgin birth

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
[QUOTE] Besides I think being the Messiah of Israel, of the seed of David, is incompatible with the virgin birth

How so?

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Originally posted by Penny S:
Wasn't Mary of the house and lineage of David?

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Originally posted by Penny S:
A dear friend and colleague who belonged to Pentecostal traditions had been taught that the birth had to be a virgin birth because the blood of a child is inherited from the father, and for Jesus' blood to be effective on the cross it had to be God's blood and not human.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
27 generations back gives you 134,217,728 ancestors in that generation

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Jesus' claim to be Messiah rests on his descent from the House of David. Both the genealogies of Matthew and Luke, though they don't tally very well, trace that lineage through Joseph. St Paul knew this. In Romans, he writes:


3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:

Here, Paul is saying that, in the flesh, Jesus is the seed of David, but in the spirit, he is Son of God by his resurrection. So his being born of a virgin without a human father nullifies that claim. Paul knows of the messianic claim, but he, as far as can be seen from his writings, knows nothing of a virgin birth.

quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:
Wasn't Mary of the house and lineage of David?

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Where does it say that?

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Other biblical verses have also been debated, e.g., that the reference by Paul that Jesus was made "of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Romans 1:3) may be interpreted as Joseph being the father of Jesus. However, most scholars reject this interpretation in the context of virgin birth given that Paul used the Greek word genomenos (i.e., becoming) rather than the word gennetos (i.e., that is born, born) and the reference to "seed of David" is likely to Mary's lineage.

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
it all seems to me like one of those things where a variety of interpretations can be argued

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:
[QB] After several years unable to describe myself as a Christian, though with a lively faith, I seem, like it or not, to be on my way back to Jesus... I believe God is beyond gender - I'll come to Jesus in a moment. Is that the most commonly accepted view, or is the male God still regarded as a theological necessity? If not, why does the Church continue to mislead us with the Father/Son images?

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
it all seems to me like one of those things where a variety of interpretations can be argued.

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I agree with you completely here Nick, but the link you supplied to Aquinas, for example, just proves that this has always been a problem for the Church.

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Christ's messianic claim is incompatible with his being born of a virgin. Huge amounts of scholarship have gone into finding ways round that. They may work for some people, but they don't for me. I came to this realisation in 1968 as a 14 year old boy. That either the messianic connection or the virgin birth or both, must be metaphoric stories.

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Why? If Mary was also descended from David, then the two claims are not incompatible.

The gospel genealogies don't really help. Luke clearly says that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was born. In his genealogy, he also says that Joseph was assumed to be the father of Jesus. Matthew's genealogy lists Joseph as Jesus's father, but then when he describes Jesus's birth, he very clearly says that Joseph was not Jesus's father, that Mary was a virgin and conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. So if the messianic claim and the virgin birth are mutually exclusive, then you have to explain the fact that both Matthew and Luke made mutually exclusive assertions.

Same with the "seed of David" reference—it's only incompatible with the virgin birth if the possibility that Mary was also descended from David is excluded.

I'll certainly concede that there are reasons one might come to the conclusion that the virgin birth is metaphorical. But I don't think the messianic claim requires such a conclusion.

[ 11. August 2016, 01:15: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]
 

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Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :
 
I'm wondering if we could describe the Trinity this way:

"In the name of God the Father who cherishes us like a Mother, in the name of Christ, Wisdom and Word, in the name of the Holy Spirit, Friend and Comforter."


 

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Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
I'm wondering if we could describe the Trinity this way:

"In the name of God the Father who cherishes us like a Mother, in the name of Christ, Wisdom and Word, in the name of the Holy Spirit, Friend and Comforter."

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Originally posted by catnip:

Jesus is a different case. But had he been born a woman, he would never have been listened to in that very oppressive society. You know, they were much like the Taliban in the way they treated women at the time--a very M.E. and ancient sort of thing and all the religions there like to take women back to the way it was before God spoke. Women couldn't talk to men they were not related to in public...

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Well, it also shows, as you seem to acknowledge, that the idea that Mary was also descended from David is not a new or radical idea.

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
27 generations back gives you 134,217,728 ancestors in that generation

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Most Europeans are descended from Charlemagne. Of course I get it that we're all inbreeds beyond 10 generations. But Jesus' Messianic claim is traced in the NT through Joseph. If or not Mary was too descended from David doesn't come into the narrative anywhere.

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
Theologians have been poring over the NT for two millennia. It must have been obvious early on that, if Joseph is not Jesus' father, He can't be related to David unless it's through Mary. He could well have been, but we can't speculate on it because it isn't recorded.

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Why does the NT play down so much that James "The Lord's brother" was head of the Church? He wasn't a disciple, one of the 12 leaders of the New Israel. But as brother, he was of the same Messianic lineage, at a time when Christianity, at least in Jerusalem was seen as a Messianic sect within Judaism. I can't fit the virgin birth into that narrative.

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Originally posted by Philip Charles:
Christians experience Jesus as someone unique, special, life changing etc, etc. Because of their faith they realize he was special right from his conception. The explanation of how this 'specialness' came about was the Virgin Birth which was accepted from the earliest days. The authors of the NT accepted this explanation of Jesus' 'specialness'. So the argument goes backwards in time, recognizing the 'specialness' of Jesus first then back in time to the Virgin Birth as an explanation of how this came about.

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Originally posted by Philip Charles:
It would be helpful to me if Shipmates could come up with other possible explanations of how Jesus' 'specialness' could be explained.

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
It must have been obvious early on that, if Joseph is not Jesus' father, He can't be related to David unless it's through Mary.

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quote:

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The Bible makes no attempt to connect Jesus to David via Mary, but explicitly does so via Joseph.

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Matt. 3:9: And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
EM:Martin, I'm less than 125 miles from you SSW and you will find that kind of conversation in our church, although many would see us as con evo with charismatic overtones.
[...]

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If we're talking about a supernatural event like a virgin birth, then "lineage" takes on a whole new meaning. If, for example, "lineage" means "some of David's DNA", well, why not? Why wouldn't the incarnate God have some of David's DNA, whether or not Mary is descended from David? We're already talking about a supernatural event, so thinking about it in woodenly naturalistic terms is sorta meaningless.

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Originally posted by Eliab:
I think the idea is that Jesus's human nature definitely wasn't a specially created costume for God to walk around in. He was (and is) one of us, part of our race and species, biologically related to us as closely as we are to one another.

And he was also the son of a virgin, so his mother is the only source of that human nature. He must have taken that entirely from her.

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quote:

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Mousethief.

quote:

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Originally posted by Philip Charles:
Christians experience Jesus as someone unique, special, life changing etc, etc. Because of their faith they realize he was special right from his conception. The explanation of how this 'specialness' came about was the Virgin Birth which was accepted from the earliest days. The authors of the NT accepted this explanation of Jesus' 'specialness'. So the argument goes backwards in time, recognizing the 'specialness' of Jesus first then back in time to the Virgin Birth as an explanation of how this came about.

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That's one way of spinning it. What's your evidence?

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quote:

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Mousethief

quote:

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Originally posted by Philip Charles:
It would be helpful to me if Shipmates could come up with other possible explanations of how Jesus' 'specialness' could be explained. [

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I'm not clear what you're asking here. The historical explanation is that he was the co-eternal, only-begotten Son of the living God become incarnate as a human being. Which would explain a lot of 'specialness', one would think.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Philip Charles:

Christians experience Jesus as someone unique, special, life changing etc, etc. Because of their faith they realize he was special right from his conception. The explanation of how this 'specialness' came about was the Virgin Birth which was accepted from the earliest days. The authors of the NT accepted this explanation of Jesus' 'specialness'. So the argument goes backwards in time, recognizing the 'specialness' of Jesus first then back in time to the Virgin Birth as an explanation of how this came about

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Originally posted by Martin60:

Minimally Mary's egg was fertilized by the Holy Spirit, analogous to sea urchin eggs pricked with a pin, the haploid DNA duplicated, one of the X chromosomes was switched by the Holy Spirit to a Y and a NORMAL male developed. Jesus was NOT an XX male, with de la Chapelle syndrome, caused by faulty sperm.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Minimally Mary's egg was fertilized by the Holy Spirit, analogous to sea urchin eggs pricked with a pin, the haploid DNA duplicated, one of the X chromosomes was switched by the Holy Spirit to a Y and a NORMAL male developed. Jesus was NOT an XX male, with de la Chapelle syndrome, caused by faulty sperm.

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:
It never ceases to amaze me the mental gymnastics people are willing to go through in order to preserve a literal meaning of this.

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Originally posted by Eliab:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If we're talking about a supernatural event like a virgin birth, then "lineage" takes on a whole new meaning. If, for example, "lineage" means "some of David's DNA", well, why not? Why wouldn't the incarnate God have some of David's DNA, whether or not Mary is descended from David? We're already talking about a supernatural event, so thinking about it in woodenly naturalistic terms is sorta meaningless.

---

I'm not sure, but I think that this is the sort of thing that the orthodox* idea that Jesus received his humanity from Mary rules out.

I think the idea is that Jesus's human nature definitely wasn't a specially created costume for God to walk around in. He was (and is) one of us, part of our race and species, biologically related to us as closely as we are to one another.

And he was also the son of a virgin, so his mother is the only source of that human nature. He must have taken that entirely from her.

Of course we now know that men have Y chromosomes and women don't. Everything else that makes up a male body you could get from a woman alone, but that bit needs some tweaking.

So either the orthodox view is mistaken, or Mary had a Y chromosome but identified as female, or Jesus didn't, but identified as male, or Jesus's Y chromosome was somehow derived from Mary's DNA - not a special creation of God but a development of material taken from a human mother. A miraculous development, but one that works with the human stuff that was already there, rather than supplementing it with new material.

I think the last option is the more likely. It would, presumably, have been a reworking in one generation of what nature had previously done over many to end up with Y chromosomes in the first place.

Although I rather like the idea that Jesus or Mary might have been inter-sex in some way or another - that could even mean that the more unusual ways of being human might actually be a designed-in feature, because God was going to use the quirky bits of biology, the bits that we are tempted to despise and consider broken, as the very means of becoming incarnate and so raising our human nature to union with his nature as God. That fits the divine MO, I think. But who knows? The important thing is that God wanted to be more than just our creator, and became one of us. We are all now related to him. All of us (indeed if Darwin is right (which he is) every living thing on earth) has a family tree which drawn wide enough includes the incarnate God.


(*Small 'o', but anyone who wants to capitalise it is welcome to.)

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Of course He had Mary's DNA. ONLY her DNA.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
It never ceases to amaze me how rationalistic people are and still call themselves creedally Christian in any meaningful way whilst being excellent followers of the Son of God I'm sure.

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I'm sure you're not the least bit amazed! I've yet to meet a single Christian of any stripe who has been 100% consistent to their own avowed flavour of the faith. And I don't think I'd like to meet one either.
 

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Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
You got me Anselmina!

...because...???? DNA is human. And wasp. And banana. But not Holy Spirit.
 

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Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
You got me Anselmina!

...because...???? DNA is human. And wasp. And banana. But not Holy Spirit.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
You got me Anselmina!

...because...???? DNA is human. And wasp. And banana. But not Holy Spirit.

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Totally agree (as I said explicitly above) that he had DNA. To be human is to have DNA. I just don't think it's a given that he had Mary's DNA. There is nothing in the orthodox Christian creeds to suggest he did, simply because DNA was an unknown concept at the time. He had SOME sort of DNA. Whether it was 50%, 100%, or 0% Mary's we cannot know.

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Of course He had Mary's DNA. ONLY her DNA.

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Of course He had Mary's DNA. ONLY her DNA.

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So Martin it seems you are saying that Jesus was a clone of Mary, something that doesn't happen in our species, but that the Holy Spirit manipulated one of his X chromosomes into a Y so he could be born a man. Oh dear! What next?

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
It's as good a theory as any, when you're talking about a supernatural event. But it certainly isn't the only possibility.

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quote:

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Originally posted by PaulTH*:

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin60:
Of course He had Mary's DNA. ONLY her DNA.

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So Martin it seems you are saying that Jesus was a clone of Mary, something that doesn't happen in our species, but that the Holy Spirit manipulated one of his X chromosomes into a Y so he could be born a man. Oh dear! What next?

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Going back to the concerns raised by the OP, the issue is perhaps not such about availability of genderised readings of the Trinity, etc. After all, there's no shortage of feminist/womanist, etc. theologies and readings of the Bible, if you're willing to look for them.

Rather, the challenge is that if you want to be a churchgoer, the likelihood of the liturgies, sermons or hymns of your average church incorporating deliberately feminising or female understandings of the Trinity is slight. The pronouns used are almost always male.

Many of us may have come across special liturgies or services where the female or the feminine aspect of God was deliberately emphasised. But 'special' is what they remain; such approaches are not normalised.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gee D:

quote:

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Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
I'm wondering if we could describe the Trinity this way:

"In the name of God the Father who cherishes us like a Mother, in the name of Christ, Wisdom and Word, in the name of the Holy Spirit, Friend and Comforter."

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MM - you've expressed your strong disagreement with the use of traditional language, and your difficulties in accepting the explanations offered. What would satisfy your concerns? How would you express the traditional Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
btw, mancunian mystic, I recognize we've gotten far, far afield from the heart of your question. If you've hung out at the Ship for any amount of time, you know this sort of tangental riffing is typical of us theonerds. It's fun for us-- it's fun for me. But it's ultimately meaningless-- whereas your OP was, I think, quite meaningful and important. So I just want to check in, and see if you feel satisfied that we've addressed, if not completely answered, your concerns? Anything you'd like to redirect us back to, or are you content to leave us to our arcane tangents?

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I'm delighted that my questions have sparked such a wide-ranging debate

I haven't really engaged with all of it, as I have more than enough to occupy my overstretched brain cells at the moment. But the responses to my queries have been very helpful, and I really appreciate the thoughtful spirit in which they've been made. I was just a bit apprehensive that I'd get shot down!
 

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Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by mancunian mystic:

quote:

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Going back to the concerns raised by the OP, the issue is perhaps not such about availability of genderised readings of the Trinity, etc. After all, there's no shortage of feminist/womanist, etc. theologies and readings of the Bible, if you're willing to look for them.

Rather, the challenge is that if you want to be a churchgoer, the likelihood of the liturgies, sermons or hymns of your average church incorporating deliberately feminising or female understandings of the Trinity is slight. The pronouns used are almost always male.

Many of us may have come across special liturgies or services where the female or the feminine aspect of God was deliberately emphasised. But 'special' is what they remain; such approaches are not normalised.

---

Thankyou, Svitlana - this is one of my questions. Why is the church so reluctant to use any alternative to the traditional male-centered language? As you say, the alternatives do exist. So is it laziness, a reluctance to jolt people out of old certainties and assumptions (however inaccurate or unhelpful those may be) or a continuing male fear that the women may get uppity if they begin to believe that they're not subordinate in the Godhead or the church? One of my biggest difficulties with the church is that it teaches/models an image of God that is more incomplete and partial than it need be - while acknowledging that of course ANY image of the divine is going to be hopelessly inadequate, the church could at least attempt to include both genders!. And it's all made worse by the lack of clear teaching to underline that Father/Son is a metaphor, not a reality.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:
Why is the church so reluctant to use any alternative to the traditional male-centered language? As you say, the alternatives do exist. So is it laziness, a reluctance to jolt people out of old certainties and assumptions (however inaccurate or unhelpful those may be) or a continuing male fear that the women may get uppity if they begin to believe that they're not subordinate in the Godhead or the church? One of my biggest difficulties with the church is that it teaches/models an image of God that is more incomplete and partial than it need be - while acknowledging that of course ANY image of the divine is going to be hopelessly inadequate, the church could at least attempt to include both genders!. And it's all made worse by the lack of clear teaching to underline that Father/Son is a metaphor, not a reality.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

it draws too much attention, even if it's just "oh yeah, she said "she" because God isn't male. That's right".

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quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:
As theories go, adoptionism makes more sense to me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

it draws too much attention, even if it's just "oh yeah, she said "she" because God isn't male. That's right".

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I agree with you that God isn't male or female.

I am entirely happy to use female similes to describe God. Describing God as being like a mother in such-and-such a way? Talking about traditionally feminine aspects of God? Fine.

I have a problem using female pronouns for God though, as in my traditional English grammar, male pronouns are the neutral default and female pronouns imply explicit femaleness (in a way that male pronouns, at least to me, do not imply maleness).

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:
Why is the church so reluctant to use any alternative to the traditional male-centered language? As you say, the alternatives do exist. So is it laziness, a reluctance to jolt people out of old certainties and assumptions (however inaccurate or unhelpful those may be) or a continuing male fear that the women may get uppity if they begin to believe that they're not subordinate in the Godhead or the church? One of my biggest difficulties with the church is that it teaches/models an image of God that is more incomplete and partial than it need be - while acknowledging that of course ANY image of the divine is going to be hopelessly inadequate, the church could at least attempt to include both genders!. And it's all made worse by the lack of clear teaching to underline that Father/Son is a metaphor, not a reality.

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:

With regards to men, I suspect that many male clergy leave the issue to their female counterparts, even if they agree with its importance in principle. I don't think I've ever come across a male minister referring to God as 'she' in any liturgy.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

This option doesn't work well for God though, nor does "it" (impersonal). So we're left with either gendered pronouns or awkward linguistic gymnastics to avoid all pronouns (again, much easier to do in writing than in speaking). So when preaching to a multi-generational congregations, you have a real dilemma of how to communicate to an audience that's going to hear masculine pronouns in radically different ways.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

This option doesn't work well for God though, nor does "it" (impersonal). So we're left with either gendered pronouns or awkward linguistic gymnastics to avoid all pronouns (again, much easier to do in writing than in speaking). So when preaching to a multi-generational congregations, you have a real dilemma of how to communicate to an audience that's going to hear masculine pronouns in radically different ways.

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It's possible that my language might evolve to the point where using singular "they" for God doesn't sound silly. I don't have an intellectual objection to it, but it doesn't sound natural.

I think it's a better option than "she" though. You make the point that younger people are more likely to read gender into "he", which might well be true - but I would have thought that everybody reads gender into "she". I don't think anyone encounters the pronoun "she" and starts thinking in a gender-neutral way.

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I would agree that most people read "she" as gendered. The problem is that 1/2 the population reads "he" as similarly gendered.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gee D:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

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I would agree that most people read "she" as gendered. The problem is that 1/2 the population reads "he" as similarly gendered.

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Would half the population read it that way? I suspect that many might, but probably more would hear it as a necessary consequence of lacking a gender-neutral pronoun other than the inappropriate "it" and not think twice.

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Originally posted by Gee D:

A couple of days ago, I asked mancunian mystic how she would re-write "Father, Son and Holy Spirit", what would satisfy her concerns. So far she's not responded, and perhaps why she hasn't is that there is no way it can be done in a manner which avoids heresy.

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Originally posted by Gee D:
I can't speak of the UK, but here the context of using the male singular pronoun for the Father, indeed use of Father itself, would be clearly understood as using the only language we have, not as being sexist. Thinking of it as being sexist would be thought of as well and truly out of date.

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Originally posted by Gee D:
And yes, I saw mancunian mystic's suggestion, which is why I added the words "without heresy" - the suggestion seems to me to fall within modalism.

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Originally posted by Gee D:

A couple of days ago, I asked mancunian mystic how she would re-write "Father, Son and Holy Spirit", what would satisfy her concerns. So far she's not responded, and perhaps why she hasn't is that there is no way it can be done in a manner which avoids heresy.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

[Really? That is the precise opposite of the case here. Thinking of gendered language as correct or natural is very much out-dated thinking in the US-- the sort of thing I was taught in school in the 1960s.

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:
this is one of my questions. Why is the church so reluctant to use any alternative to the traditional male-centered language?

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Originally posted by bib:
I must admit to be surprised by this post as it has never occurred to me to allow gender terms to interfere with my faith. Does it really matter what we call God? I find when I'm worshipping or in prayer I'm just addressing God, not visualising,hearing or speaking male or female language. To think otherwise is rather like the eternal argument of whether the milk goes in the cup first or last when making a cup of tea.I'm sure God doesn't mind what terms we use, so I choose to worship God as I see fit.

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
In an age of increasing family breakdown and absent or successive fathers the problem of Christian 'father language' may become more than just an academic issue.

There's an American psychologist who wrote a book about the possible connection (in some but obviously not all cases) between atheism and defective or absent fathers. Some Christians will baulk at the potentially conservative uses of such an idea, but the Christian feminist desire to reduce 'father language' is an attempt to deal with the same basic problem, ISTM.

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Originally posted by Net Spinster:

quote:

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Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
In an age of increasing family breakdown and absent or successive fathers the problem of Christian 'father language' may become more than just an academic issue.

There's an American psychologist who wrote a book about the possible connection (in some but obviously not all cases) between atheism and defective or absent fathers. Some Christians will baulk at the potentially conservative uses of such an idea, but the Christian feminist desire to reduce 'father language' is an attempt to deal with the same basic problem, ISTM.

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I suspect Paul Vitz (the psychologist in question) is wrong and that he used selection bias to get the results he wanted.

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Originally posted by mancunian mystic:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gee D:
How would you express the traditional Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

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One version I've come across is Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. That at least ungenders it. Not being a theologian, I suspect that anything I came up with for myself would be deemed suspect! I just tried Mother, Daughter, Holy Spirit. It sounds strange and, interestingly, immediately jars just because it pigeonholes God into one gender - it feels much too specific. Which presumably Father/Son would too if we hadn't been hearing it since the cradle.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

This is actually not true. Jewish women had a remarkable amount of freedom compared to the Taliban-style culture you are envisioning.

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IMHO if you took a Jewish woman of basically any biblical time period and dropped them into the Taliban they would go utterly nuts. The restrictions and misogyny would be almost as foreign to them as to us. [/QB]

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Originally posted by Russ:

If it's true that younger people don't have access to the sense of "his" as a default when gender is unknown, but always hear it as saying something about gender, the conservatives would say that that is a loss, that society should go back to how it was.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I can't speak for the experience cross-pond, but here in US, yes, definitely "he" is heard as gendered by most under-40s.

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It's pronouns for God that really create the sticking point, since none of the usual work-arounds work in this particular case.

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Actually, she did-- just a few posts above. She (I think it's she?) suggested the standard, "Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer".

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Originally posted by bib:
I must admit to be surprised by this post as it has never occurred to me to allow gender terms to interfere with my faith. Does it really matter what we call God? I find when I'm worshipping or in prayer I'm just addressing God, not visualising,hearing or speaking male or female language. To think otherwise is rather like the eternal argument of whether the milk goes in the cup first or last when making a cup of tea.I'm sure God doesn't mind what terms we use, so I choose to worship God as I see fit.

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
There's also the usage I encounter with some regularity of using "God" specifically for the first person of the Trinity, as in "God, Son and Holy Spirit" or "God, Christ and Holy Spirit." Of course, that presents the problem of suggesting that the second and third persons of the Trinity are not God. On the other hand, it does have biblical warrant—"the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit...."

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Gee D, I was responding to bib (whom I quoted). I do not suggest that you seek to dodge this problem. I agree with you that the proposed solutions (most noticeably Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer) are modalist. I do not myself know what the solution is. It begins to seem intractable.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I dunno... anecdotally, I am not the only pastor who has observed this concern expressed by parishioners with absentee or abusive fathers. At the very least there is a disconnect, a distancing from the language of God, which is pretty problematic given that's the substance of our faith.

Whether or not that's a leading cause of atheism is another matter of course. But based on anecdotal experience, it at least makes sense that it's a factor.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Not to belabor the point, but that's not exactly what you said. What you said was:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gee D:

A couple of days ago, I asked mancunian mystic how she would re-write "Father, Son and Holy Spirit", what would satisfy her concerns. So far she's not responded, and perhaps why she hasn't is that there is no way it can be done in a manner which avoids heresy.

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Which doesn't sound like, "she answered, but the answer was heresy". It sounds like, "she didn't answer, because she knows to do so will involve heresy". Those are two different things.

As I said when I first mentioned modalism, I'm not as worried about modalism as most theologians, and certainly not as much as the patristics. It's so ubiquitous that it seems "natural"-- I think it's just a byproduct of our own human thinking. Often our efforts to avoid heresy just mean that we stop talking about God, or stop saying much of anything meaningful. Or we keep repeating the same few things over and over, even when it creates other sorts of inaccuracies, such as the ones mancunian mystic points out. I would rather go with the language that makes sense, whether it's a modalistic image like the "ice" analogy, or modalistic terminology like "creator, redeemer, sustainer"-- and then explain the modalist issue in the context of why the image falls short. Again, this is precisely what we already do with "Father, Son, Holy Spirit"-- use an image that has proven to be somewhat problematic, simply because it's also quite helpful (and, of course, biblical and traditional). So we use the image, knowing the problems, then teach to that issue, the problematic parts, in the contextualization.

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Originally posted by fausto:
I also don't see why formulas like "creator, redeemer, sustainer" would necessarily be heretical or modalistic (or for that matter, why "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" necessarily implies orthodox Trinitarianism). "Creator, redeemer, sustainer" acurately describes the different roles of the three persons in the Trinitarian model, and can easily be supported from scripture.

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Originally posted by fausto:


I also don't see why formulas like "creator, redeemer, sustainer" would necessarily be heretical or modalistic (or for that matter, why "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" necessarily implies orthodox Trinitarianism).

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Originally posted by Gee D:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
There's also the usage I encounter with some regularity of using "God" specifically for the first person of the Trinity, as in "God, Son and Holy Spirit" or "God, Christ and Holy Spirit." Of course, that presents the problem of suggesting that the second and third persons of the Trinity are not God. On the other hand, it does have biblical warrant—"the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit...."

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Or the command to baptise in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:
I also don't see why formulas like "creator, redeemer, sustainer" would necessarily be heretical or modalistic (or for that matter, why "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" necessarily implies orthodox Trinitarianism). "Creator, redeemer, sustainer" acurately describes the different roles of the three persons in the Trinitarian model, and can easily be supported from scripture.

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The problem is that all three persons are creator, redeemer, and sustainer.
We can easily support the involvement of all three persons in creation from Scripture: See John 1:3 for the Son, and Genesis 1:2 for the Spirit. Redeemer and sustainer is perhaps a bit less amenable to proof-texting, but I haven't checked. (I think it's in Hebrews that it says of the Son that all things hold together in him: i.e. the Second person is also sustainer.) When it comes to Redeemer this is important: a view of the Trinity in which only the Second person redeems hints at a view where the Judgmental First Person has to be appeased by the merciful Second Person. The First Person initiates redemption and the Third Person makes it effective.

You can make a case that as titles, 'Creator', 'Redeemer', and 'Sustainer' can be most appropriately applied to each of the three persons. But if that is taken to imply that they can only appropriately be applied to one of the three persons then there's a problem.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I don't see why saying "'Father, Son, Spirit' are good ways to understand God, even though God is not male" is inherently different from saying "'Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer' are good ways of understanding God, even though all 3 persons of the Trinity are involved in all these actions."

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I don't see why saying "'Father, Son, Spirit' are good ways to understand God, even though God is not male" is inherently different from saying "'Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer' are good ways of understanding God, even though all 3 persons of the Trinity are involved in all these actions."

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Because the first distinguishes persons; the latter distinguishes actions or operations and could equally be true of a monopersonic* God. It does not specify a Trinity.

_____
*or whatever the right term is

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
So why not deal with the modalism the same way we deal with other misrepresentations-- name it, explain it, and move on? Why is this image disallowed because it falls short, but not others?

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
So why not deal with the modalism the same way we deal with other misrepresentations-- name it, explain it, and move on? Why is this image disallowed because it falls short, but not others?

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: three persons. The Trinity. The fact that there are three identifiable persons says something true about God.!

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

Creator / Redeemer / Sustainer: Three of the things that God does. Why are there three in this list? Why not two or four? There isn't a reason, except for the artificial one that you want to write down three names to match the Trinity, which as we have said leads you directly to modalism. Do not pass Go!

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Originally posted by Gee D:
This

"Blessed be God: eternal Majesty, incarnate Word, abiding Spirit."

from MW 3053 may be worth thinking about. Not enough time for me now, but shall later.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

So, again, how is this any different from the problematic modalism of creator/redeemer/ sustainer?

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There is a traditional answer to that question-- again, we have a history of using Father/Son/Spirit and a history of opposing modalism. There is somewhat of a biblical reason-- Father is the most common image for God in the Bible, although Father/ Son/ Spirit shows up in only a few places, and referring to God by functions like Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer is at least as common. There is a linguistic reason-- we have a word for the error of limiting God by function and we don't have a word for limiting God by gender.

None of these really seem to fully answer the question mm is asking about why Creator/ Redeemer/ Sustainer, given proper teaching to correct for the inherent modalism, cannot be a useful and biblical adjunct to Father/ Son/ Spirit.

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Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
You could only assume he was male by going against a separate teaching.

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Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

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Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
You could only assume he was male by going against a separate teaching.

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Assuming you're aware of and understand the separate teaching. And that's a major part of the problem—many people go to church and hear "Father" over and over and over, without hearing and understanding adequate separate teaching on the nature of God. Hence, on some level they think of God as male, even if they know that's not quite right. Lex orandi, lex credendi.

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Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
cliffdweller wrote:

quote:

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There is a traditional answer to that question-- again, we have a history of using Father/Son/Spirit and a history of opposing modalism. There is somewhat of a biblical reason-- Father is the most common image for God in the Bible, although Father/ Son/ Spirit shows up in only a few places, and referring to God by functions like Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer is at least as common. There is a linguistic reason-- we have a word for the error of limiting God by function and we don't have a word for limiting God by gender.

None of these really seem to fully answer the question mm is asking about why Creator/ Redeemer/ Sustainer, given proper teaching to correct for the inherent modalism, cannot be a useful and biblical adjunct to Father/ Son/ Spirit.

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I see what you are saying, cliffdweller, but the church has also always taught that God (as in the Father) is not male, and is a Spirit. You could only assume he was male by going against a separate teaching. Which come to think of it is the definition of a heresy.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But again, that's precisely my point. I'm certainly not arguing against using Father/ Son/ Spirit. I'm simply suggesting that we handle the modalistic problems of Creator/ Redeemer/ Sustainer in precisely the same way-- by using the imperfect yet helpful & biblical language, and then teaching to the limitations of the language.

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quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gee D:
This

"Blessed be God: eternal Majesty, incarnate Word, abiding Spirit."

from MW 3053 may be worth thinking about. Not enough time for me now, but shall later.

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Oh, I like that one. It manages to avoid suggesting tritheism, anthropomorphism (including both gender identity and ancestral generation), and modalism all at the same time.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
But it's not biblical to refer to the Trinity with that formula.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
You're replacing one formula, which is used in the Bible and has 2000 years of bona fides, with a made-up formula that introduces errors not in the first formula. We're going from imperfect to out-and-out heretical, and what's the point of that?

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quote:

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Originally posted by TomM:

quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gee D:
This

"Blessed be God: eternal Majesty, incarnate Word, abiding Spirit."

from MW 3053 may be worth thinking about. Not enough time for me now, but shall later.

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Oh, I like that one. It manages to avoid suggesting tritheism, anthropomorphism (including both gender identity and ancestral generation), and modalism all at the same time.

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But it does risk confusing the Persons. Both the Son and the Spirit are eternal, and both share equally in the Majesty of the Godhead with the Father. (As the Quincum Vult puts, 'co-equal in Majesty'). It also depersonalises the Persons, in that 'Majesty' is an attribute and not a personal title like 'Father' is.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
And it is reasonable to try to find a way to present the baptismal formula that doesn't lend itself to this mistake. But a modalist formula is not the answer.

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quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:

quote:

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Originally posted by TomM:

quote:

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Originally posted by fausto:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gee D:
This

"Blessed be God: eternal Majesty, incarnate Word, abiding Spirit."

from MW 3053 may be worth thinking about. Not enough time for me now, but shall later.

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Oh, I like that one. It manages to avoid suggesting tritheism, anthropomorphism (including both gender identity and ancestral generation), and modalism all at the same time.

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But it does risk confusing the Persons. Both the Son and the Spirit are eternal, and both share equally in the Majesty of the Godhead with the Father. (As the Quincum Vult puts, 'co-equal in Majesty'). It also depersonalises the Persons, in that 'Majesty' is an attribute and not a personal title like 'Father' is.

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True enough. I don't think it is realistic to expect to completely avoid all possible shortcomings, given the limitations of human language. But this formula seems to offer some advantages that others lack, and overcome some shortcomings that others possess. Whether it is on balance better or worse than any other formula is a subjective judgment.

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Originally posted by TomM:
But then, as with 'Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer', you are replacing a formula that has clear Scriptural roots as a whole formula (Mt. 28.19), not merely in its constituent parts, with one that is without roots as a formula that requires significant work to demonstrate its orthodoxy.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But again, that's precisely my point. I'm certainly not arguing against using Father/ Son/ Spirit. I'm simply suggesting that we handle the modalistic problems of Creator/ Redeemer/ Sustainer in precisely the same way-- by using the imperfect yet helpful & biblical language, and then teaching to the limitations of the language.

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But it's not biblical to refer to the Trinity with that formula. You're replacing one formula, which is used in the Bible and has 2000 years of bona fides, with a made-up formula that introduces errors not in the first formula. We're going from imperfect to out-and-out heretical, and what's the point of that?

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm certainly not arguing against using Father/ Son/ Spirit. I'm simply suggesting that we handle the modalistic problems of Creator/ Redeemer/ Sustainer in precisely the same way

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Originally posted by fausto:
But it seems to me that the discussion here turns on a much broader question -- which is, how to address the gender identity problems that are necessarily connoted by the use of that language.

Those are two different questions with potentially two different answers.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
As a formula, neither one exists in the Bible, other than a single place (and that possibly a scribal gloss) where we find Father/Son/Spirit.

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The individual elements of both formulas are present in Scripture in roughly equal terms.

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God is "Creator" about as often as he is called "Father". So "Creator/Redeemer/Sustainer" is no more "made-up" than "Father/Son/Spirit."

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm certainly not arguing against using Father/ Son/ Spirit. I'm simply suggesting that we handle the modalistic problems of Creator/ Redeemer/ Sustainer in precisely the same way

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I'm NOT doing away with the tradition formulation or suggesting we use it less. I'm suggesting that we handle the limitations of other metaphors in the same way we handle the limitations of the traditional formula.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
What I and fausto and mm are suggesting, I think, is not replacing traditional language, but broadening it with other equally biblical images. More specifically, I'm arguing that when we do that we should handle the inevitable shortfalls of the metaphors (which, again, are biblical) in the same matter-of-fact way we handle the shortfalls of the traditional formula, rather than clutching our pearls and crying "modalism!" (iow, calmly and quietly say "modalism" without the pearl-clutching).

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The individual elements of both formulas are present in Scripture in roughly equal terms. God is "Creator" about as often as he is called "Father".

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
As a formula, neither one exists in the Bible, other than a single place (and that possibly a scribal gloss) where we find Father/Son/Spirit.

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This one doesn't exist in the Bible. Except where it does. Huh?

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The individual elements of both formulas are present in Scripture in roughly equal terms.

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But not to distinguish the Persons.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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God is "Creator" about as often as he is called "Father". So "Creator/Redeemer/Sustainer" is no more "made-up" than "Father/Son/Spirit."

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God is spoken of as creating the world? Or God is called "Creator" (or the Greek/Hebrew equivalent)? I confess I'd be surprised if the latter were the case.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm certainly not arguing against using Father/ Son/ Spirit. I'm simply suggesting that we handle the modalistic problems of Creator/ Redeemer/ Sustainer in precisely the same way

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I'm NOT doing away with the tradition formulation or suggesting we use it less. I'm suggesting that we handle the limitations of other metaphors in the same way we handle the limitations of the traditional formula.

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And I'm saying the limitations of a modalist formula are far greater than those of the traditionalist formula, and unnecessary. If we were deciding today ex nihilo on a formula to name the Trinity, for baptism or other purposes (I fail to see why distinguishing these is such a big deal, but then that's not your bailiwick, it's fausto's), we may not choose the F/S/HS formula at all. But that's not where we are at. We have a time-tested formula and a newly coined formula that claims to be just as good. It's not. Why introduce NEW problems when we've already got problems as it is? If we have to come up with a formula to augment (I don't say replace) the F/S/HS formula, let's at least come up with one that doesn't create new rabbit trails.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The individual elements of both formulas are present in Scripture in roughly equal terms. God is "Creator" about as often as he is called "Father".

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I think this is precisely the risk of the 'creator' formula: it implies that 'God' only refers to 'Father'. That the Father is more God than the Word and Wisdom.
The Word/Wisdom and Spirit are biblically as much creator as the Father is. And both are God.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
What I meant to say is, as a formula Father/Son/Spirit appears only once in Scripture-- and that is probably a scribal gloss.

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So individually, both are biblical, as a formula, only a slight difference. (As I said before, in terms of tradition in the orthodox Church, obviously a huge-- and important-- difference).

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Gen. 14:9, 22; Deut. 32:6; Ecc. 12:1; Is:27:11; 40:28; 43:15; Matt. 19:4; Rom. 1:25; Col. 3:10; 1 Pet. 4:19

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm certainly not arguing against using Father/ Son/ Spirit. I'm simply suggesting that we handle the modalistic problems of Creator/ Redeemer/ Sustainer in precisely the same way

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I do think distinguishing between the language of the baptismal liturgy from our language in general is important-- for both biblical reasons and for the sake of tradition-- the long history of use in the Christian Church.

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My overall point was that we should treat a modalistic metaphor the exact same way we treat the limitations of Father/ Son/ Spirit.

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What I don't agree is that modalism is so much a greater problem then the problem of, for lack of a better word, "genderism".

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I think we can do the same with modalism-- take a deep breath, calm down, and just handle it matter-of-factly.

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Use the language-- which again, is highly biblical language-- and the calmly and matter-of-factly teach to the limitations of the language-- what is misrepresented by the modalism.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
What I meant to say is, as a formula Father/Son/Spirit appears only once in Scripture-- and that is probably a scribal gloss.

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So the entire pericope -- the last 12 verses in the KJV -- are a "gloss"? I am used to "gloss" meaning a few words added into the text either subconsciously because of memorized liturgy, or intentionally to make clear (the scribe thinks) what the "actual" meaning is. But 12 verses a gloss? I mean I know there is question about its originality (as with the pool-at-Bethesda pericope in John). But it doesn't make sense to me to call it a gloss. It doesn't just change things. It adds the whole post-resurrection scene not present without it. This is perhaps a tangent. But I don't think the F/S/HS formula can be dismissed as a "gloss."

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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So individually, both are biblical, as a formula, only a slight difference. (As I said before, in terms of tradition in the orthodox Church, obviously a huge-- and important-- difference).

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Yes, your "slight" difference, at least in terms of the worship of the Orthodox Church, is gigantic.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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I do think distinguishing between the language of the baptismal liturgy from our language in general is important-- for both biblical reasons and for the sake of tradition-- the long history of use in the Christian Church.

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I do not, as noted above, and think that the long history of use points in exactly the opposite direction. The trinitarian F/S/HS formula is used for a whole lot more than baptism. No disrespect intended, but can it be that a Protestant would not realize how much the formula is utilized in the worship of the Orfies and Caffix?

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm certainly not arguing against using Father/ Son/ Spirit. I'm simply suggesting that we handle the modalistic problems of Creator/ Redeemer/ Sustainer in precisely the same way

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Again, why borrow trouble? Especially trouble that two ecumenical councils worked hard to stamp out? If we're going to borrow trouble, let's borrow smaller trouble.

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I do think distinguishing between the language of the baptismal liturgy from our language in general is important-- for both biblical reasons and for the sake of tradition-- the long history of use in the Christian Church.

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I do not, as noted above, and think that the long history of use points in exactly the opposite direction. The trinitarian F/S/HS formula is used for a whole lot more than baptism. No disrespect intended, but can it be that a Protestant would not realize how much the formula is utilized in the worship of the Orfies and Caffix?

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My overall point was that we should treat a modalistic metaphor the exact same way we treat the limitations of Father/ Son/ Spirit.

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I would argue we cannot. The genderism does not deny one of the two core beliefs of our faith (the Trinity and the Incarnation). Modalism does.

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What I don't agree is that modalism is so much a greater problem then the problem of, for lack of a better word, "genderism".

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Here is probably the root of our disagreement. I think the whole history of Christian thought and worship -- at least since the Nicene Council, and probably well before (somebody upthread alluded to Justin Martyr which pushes it back into the mid-second century) tells against the light importance you put on countering modalism.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm not sure which periscope you're referring to? I'm referring to Matt. 28:18-20-- the only place where the F/S/S formulation occurs.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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So individually, both are biblical, as a formula, only a slight difference. (As I said before, in terms of tradition in the orthodox Church, obviously a huge-- and important-- difference).

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Yes, your "slight" difference, at least in terms of the worship of the Orthodox Church, is gigantic.

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I said "huge" and "important"-- those are, I think, synonyms for "gigantic."

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But again, as you suggest, this is something that makes a lot more sense within the Protestant tradition.

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Originally posted by fausto:
I am still struggling to understand why "creator, redeemer, sustainer" and similar newly-minted formulas are being discussed as if they were necessarily modalistic. Yes, I understand that "c/r/s" ascribes to each person a primary function that the other two can also perform.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

I am looking for evidence online that the F/S/HS was added to Matt 28:18, and am not finding it. This site claims all ancient manuscripts save one include the formula, and suggests the theory it's a gloss came from a questionable interpretation of Eusebius.

All the sites I could find that argue it is not authentic argue not from textual evidence but from first principles. It can't be authentic because it's not true therefore it can't be authentic. Which fails to move me as convincing hermeneutics...

In short it looks like assigning Matthew 19 to "gloss" status was something of a fad that has faded. I am open to correction in the form of not-obviously-whackjob websites which give good reason to think it's an addition.

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Although, to be fair, that's really predicated by a priori assumptions on the part of scholars who assume trinitarian formulas are later, so I'm not going to die for that hill. My point is simply that there is only one biblical use of the F/S/S formula

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
So individually, both are biblical, as a formula, only a slight difference. (As I said before, in terms of tradition in the orthodox Church, obviously a huge-- and important-- difference).

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Yes, your "slight" difference, at least in terms of the worship of the Orthodox Church, is gigantic.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But again, as you suggest, this is something that makes a lot more sense within the Protestant tradition.

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So, y'all are already so far from the forms and usage of the original traditions of Christianity, what's one more thing? Is that what you're saying?

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by fausto:
I am still struggling to understand why "creator, redeemer, sustainer" and similar newly-minted formulas are being discussed as if they were necessarily modalistic. Yes, I understand that "c/r/s" ascribes to each person a primary function that the other two can also perform.

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I fail to see how you can describe it thus and then turn around and say it's not modalist. Describing God in terms of functions and not persons is the very essence of modalism.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
As I said (I thought, rather clearly) the difference in biblical witness is slight (a score of 1-0, to be precise). The difference in terms of historic Christian tradition is both "huge" and "important." What's unclear or paradoxical about that?

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
So, y'all are already so far from the forms and usage of the original traditions of Christianity, what's one more thing? Is that what you're saying?

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No, it's not. I think you know that.

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Originally posted by fausto:
If anything, by so starkly assigning the divine roles it separates the hypostases even more clearly than Trinitarianism does -- to me it seems to suggest tritheism more than modalism.

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by fausto:
I am still struggling to understand why "creator, redeemer, sustainer" and similar newly-minted formulas are being discussed as if they were necessarily modalistic. Yes, I understand that "c/r/s" ascribes to each person a primary function that the other two can also perform.

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I fail to see how you can describe it thus and then turn around and say it's not modalist. Describing God in terms of functions and not persons is the very essence of modalism.

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Modalism as I understand it denies a triune Godhead and instead affirms the absolute unity of God. It supposes that the seeming distinctions among the three hypostases of the Trinitarian Godhead are illusory, that they are merely different aspects or manifestations of a single undivided deity. "Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer" attributes different primary functions to each of the different hypostases, perhaps misleadingly, but it does not necessarily deny any real distinction whatsoever among them as modalism does. If anything, by so starkly assigning the divine roles it separates the hypostases even more clearly than Trinitarianism does -- to me it seems to suggest tritheism more than modalism.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
As I said (I thought, rather clearly) the difference in biblical witness is slight (a score of 1-0, to be precise). The difference in terms of historic Christian tradition is both "huge" and "important." What's unclear or paradoxical about that?

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Okay so we appear to have arrived at:

Protestant: the difference is minor because the Biblical witness, although of great importance, is minimal, and the witness of tradition, although huge, is of minimal importance.

Orthodox: Both matter a hell of a lot and the question is therefore rather not an open one.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
So, y'all are already so far from the forms and usage of the original traditions of Christianity, what's one more thing? Is that what you're saying?

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No, it's not. I think you know that.

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Then if this is not what you're saying, is what I said above what you're saying? Or am I just wholly failing to see why you poo-poo something that to me seems of great importance?

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by fausto:
If anything, by so starkly assigning the divine roles it separates the hypostases even more clearly than Trinitarianism does -- to me it seems to suggest tritheism more than modalism.

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But it starkly assigns them wrongly. The Father is not the only person that creates. The Son is not the only person who redeems. The Spirit is not the only person who sustains. It may not "deny" the Trinity. But I deny that is enough to absolve it of the charge of modalism.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Further it presents the Trinity falsely. It pretends to be a trinitarian formula when it is not. It wrongly assigns just one action to each person of the Trinity, when in fact all three actions can apply to all three persons. As such it is saying that each of three modes corresponds to one person, thus reducing three persons to three actions. Which is an eminently modalist thing to do.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
But here's the bottom line: You are prepared to add a heretical formula to your worship (indeed you already have). I am trying to tease out why.

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Originally posted by fausto:
I agree that it misleadingly constrains the activities of each person. (I think we all agree that human words cannot completely and perfectly describe God.) But why do you perceive that doing so is necessarily modalism rather than its total opposite, polytheism?

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Modalism would say that the different actions only appear to be performed by different persons, when in reality there is no distinction among the persons and all the various actions are different facets of the same single person. As I said, I think the "c/r/s" formula gives an impression of greater separation of the persons, not an impression that they are identical.

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But if it does present the Trinity falsely, doesn't calling one of the persons "Father" and another "Son" present it even more falsely?

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Trinitarianism requires all three persons to be co-equal, co-eternal, co-existent, and uncreated, yet it is impossible for a son to be uncreated and eternally co-existent and co-equal with his father.

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Either "Father, Son, Holy Spirit" is every bit as flawed a metaphor as "creator, redeemer, sustainer" -- even if each has a limited usefulness in certain contexts -- or else Arianism is true, Trinitarianism is false, and the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople just plain made a mess of things.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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Originally posted by mousethief:
But here's the bottom line: You are prepared to add a heretical formula to your worship (indeed you already have). I am trying to tease out why.

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I have??? I added C/R/S-- or another other alternate formula to my worship??? When was that??? How did you know that-- have you been a MW at my church???

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Whenever I have done that, you have called it "confusing", then used that as a jumping off point to mock my tradition. I'm not really excited about continuing another round of that.

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Originally posted by TomM:
(Unless you are describing the first hypostasis as the god of Deism - the watchmaker who sets its all running and then goes off on a nice long holiday for all eternity).

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Modalism would say that the different actions only appear to be performed by different persons, when in reality there is no distinction among the persons and all the various actions are different facets of the same single person. As I said, I think the "c/r/s" formula gives an impression of greater separation of the persons, not an impression that they are identical.

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I have to conclude I just don't understand what you're saying. Falsely assigning roles and pretending each role corresponds to a single member of the Trinity, when all three roles apply to all three -- how can this further differentiate? It's like you had three white male heterosexuals and you called them "The White One," "The Male One" and "The Heterosexual One." Would that help differentiate them? I can't see it.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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But if it does present the Trinity falsely, doesn't calling one of the persons "Father" and another "Son" present it even more falsely?

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The fathers of the councils clearly didn't think so. They seemed to think "monogenes" referred to a relationship that isn't dependent upon time. It is certainly used metaphorically in Scripture, as Isaac is referred to as the monogenes son of Abraham, when we know darned well he had another son.

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Trinitarianism requires all three persons to be co-equal, co-eternal, co-existent, and uncreated, yet it is impossible for a son to be uncreated and eternally co-existent and co-equal with his father.

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It's also impossible for three persons to be one being. Are you willing to throw over Trinitarianism entirely? Or can you believe two impossible things before Breakfast?

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Either "Father, Son, Holy Spirit" is every bit as flawed a metaphor as "creator, redeemer, sustainer" -- even if each has a limited usefulness in certain contexts -- or else Arianism is true, Trinitarianism is false, and the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople just plain made a mess of things.

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Nah. Don't accept your argument.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Whenever I have done that, you have called it "confusing", then used that as a jumping off point to mock my tradition. I'm not really excited about continuing another round of that.

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It has never been my intent to mock your tradition, and I apologize for any sloppy wording that may have seemed so. I am indeed confused as to why someone would add, or argue for adding, a heretical formula to their worship. However balanced your presentation, it seems to boil down to "it's not as bad as all that."

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Originally posted by fausto:

What Cliffdweller and I are asking you to try to understand is that (1) "Father" and "Son" are indeed imperfect metaphors, especially when describing the ungendered nature of a non-anthropomorphic God or the co-eternal, co-equal, and uncreated nature of the persons of the Trinity, and that (2) the imperfection of the traditional formula's language does give rise to misunderstandings that do in fact injure rather than strengthen faith in some cases, but (3)such misunderstandings can be addressed through the use of other descriptions and metaphors, even though (4) such other descriptions and metaphors can also be imperfect in different ways.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
[And, for the record, I agree with you (against my buddy fausto) that C/R/S is definitely modalist, for all the reasons you mentioned.

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Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
[And, for the record, I agree with you (against my buddy fausto) that C/R/S is definitely modalist, for all the reasons you mentioned.

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But I agreed with you so many other times. And that's a lot coming from an evangelical! (fausto will know what I'm referring to here)
 

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Posted by fausto (# 13737) on :
 

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

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Originally posted by fausto:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
[And, for the record, I agree with you (against my buddy fausto) that C/R/S is definitely modalist, for all the reasons you mentioned.

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But I agreed with you so many other times. And that's a lot coming from an evangelical! (fausto will know what I'm referring to here)

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Originally posted by fausto:
What Cliffdweller and I are asking you to try to understand is that (1) "Father" and "Son" are indeed imperfect metaphors, especially when describing the ungendered nature of a non-anthropomorphic God or the co-eternal, co-equal, and uncreated nature of the persons of the Trinity, and that (2) the imperfection of the traditional formula's language does give rise to misunderstandings that do in fact injure rather than strengthen faith in some cases, but (3)such misunderstandings can be addressed through the use of other descriptions and metaphors, even though (4) such other descriptions and metaphors can also be imperfect in different ways.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Part of my pov here is that I think it is important that we speak about God. God is a mystery, but God is a mystery that wants to be known. That's the whole point of Scripture, the whole point of the incarnation. God wants to be known and reveals God-self to us. But again, our language is limited. So when we start talking about God, we're going to fumble around. We are inevitably going to bump up against all the historic heresies, and particularly we're going to bump up against modalism. I'm simply suggesting we have a less hysterical response to that, a less anxious response, yes, more of a "it's not a big deal" response. That we simply say "oops-- yeah, that was modalism", explain what modalism is and why it falls short, and move on.

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To again, calm the heck down. Because when we don't, it has the tendency to shut down all conversation about God and all we do is repeat the same safe formulations-- which then robs even the safe and wonderful "approved" formulation of F/S/S of it's depth and beauty because we can't even talk about it without worrying about getting a toe over the heresy line.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
I don't disagree with any of these things...

Right. Not sure what I have said that indicates I wouldn't agree. Except...

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Originally posted by mousethief:

Except that modalism, as being a denial of one of the Big Two Defining Tenets of Christianity, is a bigger deal than things that are not denials of one of the Big Two Defining Tenets of Christianity.

...I can't see how rejecting C/S/R gives the message that we can't talk about either the problems with, or the beauty of, F/S/HS. Especially if it's made clear up front that it doesn't deny the Incarnation or the Trinity, its problems are more subtle and in many cases more personal than that. .

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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To again, calm the heck down. Because when we don't, it has the tendency to shut down all conversation about God and all we do is repeat the same safe formulations-- which then robs even the safe and wonderful "approved" formulation of F/S/S of it's depth and beauty because we can't even talk about it without worrying about getting a toe over the heresy line.

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I can't see how rejecting C/S/R gives the message that we can't talk about either the problems with, or the beauty of, F/S/HS.

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[qb]Most theological problems change what yard line you're on, or put you in the stands, or in line for a hot dog. This is all expected stuff and no need for panic or denial of beauty. Denying the Trinity or the Incarnation puts you outside the stadium. This is a point I am not sure we've met eye-to-eye on yet.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
And honestly, that's how I hear it-- a hysterical over-reaction. I think that sort of reaction (which yes, I understand harkens back to the patristic era-- they were wrong) hampers all of our conversations about God.

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Originally posted by fausto:
If merely allowing the possibility of modalism were enough to render an otherwise triune formula modalistic, then the traditional "Father, Son, Holy Spirit" formula must be even more strongly Arian (and antitrinitarian) than the "c/r/s" formula is modalistic. After all, it is simply impossible for a pre-existent, uncreated father to have generated a son who is equally pre-existent and uncreated. That in turn would mean that Arianism is scriptural and Trinitarianism is not.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by fausto:
I am still struggling to understand why "creator, redeemer, sustainer" and similar newly-minted formulas are being discussed as if they were necessarily modalistic. Yes, I understand that "c/r/s" ascribes to each person a primary function that the other two can also perform.

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I fail to see how you can describe it thus and then turn around and say it's not modalist. Describing God in terms of functions and not persons is the very essence of modalism.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

Modalism is wrong. [..]

"Genderism" or whatever you want to call the error of F/S/S is also wrong.[..]

I am arguing (again, I've said this already) that we deal with the modalist limitations of C/R/S in the precisely the same way we deal with the "genderist" limitations of F/S/S. iow, use the formulation in whatever ways seems useful and helpful in our particular ecclesiastical context (recognizing mine is quite different from yours)-- and then teach to the problematic areas.

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

That's my problem with it - it's that it doesn't tell us anything correct about the Trinity.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by fausto:
I am still struggling to understand why "creator, redeemer, sustainer" and similar newly-minted formulas are being discussed as if they were necessarily modalistic. Yes, I understand that "c/r/s" ascribes to each person a primary function that the other two can also perform.

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I fail to see how you can describe it thus and then turn around and say it's not modalist. Describing God in terms of functions and not persons is the very essence of modalism.

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Does this help at all, or does it just make things worse?

Modalism is a form of "nothing buttery"--it takes God to be a single Person (nothing BUT a single person) who picks up various names depending on which particular function he is doing at the moment.

The c/r/s formula lends itself to modalism if one is already that way inclined--at best, we can say it doesn't prevent whatever modalistic leanings one might have lurking. But it doesn't cause them, and it can in fact be used by a perfectly orthodox Trinitarian who knows and believes all the usual caveats about how the Three Persons cofunction and coinhere. The formula itself makes no "nothing buttery" statement, but it doesn't prevent such a position, either--and that's a weakness.

So the problem is not that c/r/s is modalist in and of itself. The problem is that it is minimalist--it is missing the built-in protection against modalism that the F/S/S formula possesses. And that fact makes it very easy for both orthodox Trinitarians and modalists to use it without ever realizing that they don't mean the same thing by it.

If I've just made things worse, I'll go away.

ETA: It's not the describing of God in terms of function that is the essence of modalism. It's the downright declaration that he is "nothing but" one person who has various functions that is the essence of modalism.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm going to have to think about this one more, but I'm considering the analogy of what it would mean if someone were to refer to my family members as "Protector, Sustainer, Joy-Giver" instead of "father, mother, child". The parallel is more exact than I first thought, because surely all three of us carry out all three functions, though it is usual to specially associate each with a particular person. Is this formula, then, implying modalism? I would say not. We remain three separate people, and nobody would dream of saying my rather naff proposed formula gave any support to a modalist statement about our natures.

What then is the problem with the formula (besides its tweeness)? I wonder if it lies in reductionism. Those so inclined--which is a huge lot of people, it seems--can easily take the formula in the "nothing buttery" sense--Mr. L is "nothing but" a protector, I am "nothing but" a sustainer (aka cook, shopper, producer of random school supplies), and so on. It is problematic because it reduces each person to a function. That in itself is not modalism, but it IS a category error. Worse, it is the particular category error that enables the further mistake of true modalism to occur.

Modalism proper takes the error one step further--it not only reduces the persons to functions, but it ALSO goes on to deny the existence of separate persons at all. The formula does not deny this; it merely ignores it, is silent on the question altogether.

Which is IMHO what the C/R/S formula does with the Trinity.

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So if we are not compelled to reject the scriptural F/S/S formula as false because it is antitrinitarian, or else reject Trinitarianism because it contradicts the scriptural formula, we must accept the reality that it is a flawed metaphor that is explicitly at odds with doctrine is some respects but useful for other reasons, and recognize the limitations of its flaws with our eyes open. But if we are willing to allow that much interpretive freedom in order to adopt a formula that so plainly contradicts orthodox doctrine on its face, it would be hypocritical to reject an alternative formula that does not contain such a stark inconsistency merely because it is more doctrinally ambiguous.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I disagree that the F/S/S formula ought to be called Arian.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:


However, I would tend to avoid C/R/S on other grounds, namely the lack of Scriptural example. I look to the Bible to know better than I do, so if one formula gets used and the other omitted, that's the way I'll lean. Particularly in the case of baptism.

(notice those words "tend to avoid". I probably would in fact use the c/r/s formula without worry in the context of a clearly Trinitarian worship service, somewhere in the liturgy. The rest of the service would compensate for the possibility that someone might misread it as pre-modalism. Hopefully it would also compensate for the possibility that someone might misread it as "the First Person of the Trinity ONLY has this function, while the Second Person does something completely different..." )

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Finally it's a good idea when planning worship to take into account the tendencies of the age. Arianism is not a terribly common problem today, at least compared to modalism. Modalism seems to be hiding behind every postmodern bush, at least in Western cultures. If we were back in Athanasius' day, no doubt the balance would be skewed the other way, and we'd have to look out for ways to emphasize the Unity and also the deity of Christ.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

What then is the problem with the formula (besides its tweeness)? I wonder if it lies in reductionism. Those so inclined--which is a huge lot of people, it seems--can easily take the formula in the "nothing buttery" sense--Mr. L is "nothing but" a protector, I am "nothing but" a sustainer (aka cook, shopper, producer of random school supplies), and so on. It is problematic because it reduces each person to a function. That in itself is not modalism, but it IS a category error. Worse, it is the particular category error that enables the further mistake of true modalism to occur.

Modalism proper takes the error one step further--it not only reduces the persons to functions, but it ALSO goes on to deny the existence of separate persons at all. The formula does not deny this; it merely ignores it, is silent on the question altogether.

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Originally posted by fausto:


Here's why. If the c/r/s formula has a "minimalism" problem because it allows room for a modalist interpretation, then the F/S/S formula has an even greater problem because it is explicitly Arian. For every pair of father and son who have ever lived, it has been an absolute, incontrovertible truth that "there was a time when the son was not". However, if that truth is applied to God, it does not merely allow room for Arianism, it is the defining principle of Arianism. Unlike the c/r/s formula, the F/S/S formula cannot "lend itself to" Trinitarianism unless "one is already that way inclined" -- and one takes a very lenient approach to interpreting the metaphor.

So if we are not compelled to reject the scriptural F/S/S formula as false because it is antitrinitarian, or else reject Trinitarianism because it contradicts the scriptural formula, we must accept the reality that it is a flawed metaphor that is explicitly at odds with doctrine is some respects but useful for other reasons, and recognize the limitations of its flaws with our eyes open. But if we are willing to allow that much interpretive freedom in order to adopt a formula that so plainly contradicts orthodox doctrine on its face, it would be hypocritical to reject an alternative formula that does not contain such a stark inconsistency merely because it is more doctrinally ambiguous.

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This.

Again, the reason this is more than just an esoteric theonerd debate is that it goes to the heart of our ability to speak of God. The wonderful, incomprehensible thing about the Bible is that in the pages of Scripture, finite human beings dare to speak of God. We dare to talk about God, to not only describe our experiences of God, but to draw conclusions on them, to make statements about God's character and essence. That's an incredibly audacious act. And an incredibly powerful act. I

This kind of give-and-take of experience/ conclusion/ evaluation/ correction is precisely the way we get to know anyone. I read Lamb's post, or Mousethief's, or fausto's, and I begin to draw conclusions, to form a picture of him/her. Then I read another post, and it shifts things-- I learn a bit more, I see places where my earlier conclusions were inaccurate or incomplete, I readjust my thinking and expectations. That's a natural, mostly subconscious process, but essential to the way we learn--including/especially the way we come to learn and know others. And again, the fact that we are explicitly invited to "taste and see"-- to learn and know Godself-- that's a sacred and wonderful thing.

But the whole way we have handled the heresy thing since the patristic era seems designed to short-circuit that process. By treating each heresy as ebola-- something to be ruthlessly contained and exterminated (sometimes literally) makes it pretty darn hard to have that sort of exploration-- that sort of wonderfully gradual unfolding of knowledge and awareness. It means that the only things we can say about God are the "safe", pre-approved things, even when, as fausto noted, those things have been shown to be just as faulty as the unsafe, unapproved things.

Again, not saying we should endorse or promote or ignore heresy-- it's important that we try to get it right, because what we say about God is important. Just that we be less anxious about it and so quick to shut down the process. This seems particularly true of modalism precisely because it is so prevalent. There's something almost natural about modalism-- it sort of the way we naturally tend to categorize things-- and people. It's wrong for all the reasons Lamb noted-- both about people and about God-- to limit them to their functions, but it is also natural. We think of people as The Doctor, The Athlete, The LoudMouthed KnowItAll ( ). It's totally wrong, but it is our starting place. And then we start to know them in a broader, more inclusive way.

Having a less anxious response to modalism would, I believe, allow us to simply talk more about God. We could start to spin analogies or talk about our experiences, without this ever-present fear of stepping a toe over the line. Then we can, clearly and explicitly, but without so much frantic haste and urgency, correct the inaccuracies-- the limitations, the reductionism.
 

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Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

However, I would tend to avoid C/R/S on other grounds, namely the lack of Scriptural example. I look to the Bible to know better than I do, so if one formula gets used and the other omitted, that's the way I'll lean. Particularly in the case of baptism.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
(notice those words "tend to avoid". I probably would in fact use the c/r/s formula without worry in the context of a clearly Trinitarian worship service, somewhere in the liturgy. The rest of the service would compensate for the possibility that someone might misread it as pre-modalism. Hopefully it would also compensate for the possibility that someone might misread it as "the First Person of the Trinity ONLY has this function, while the Second Person does something completely different..." )

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Awesome! Yes, that's precisely what I'm arguing for. Oh, good, I so like it when we agree... makes me feel like I'm on to something...

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

Finally it's a good idea when planning worship to take into account the tendencies of the age. Arianism is not a terribly common problem today, at least compared to modalism. Modalism seems to be hiding behind every postmodern bush, at least in Western cultures. If we were back in Athanasius' day, no doubt the balance would be skewed the other way, and we'd have to look out for ways to emphasize the Unity and also the deity of Christ.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But the reality is, the F/S/S formula is used only once in Scripture. I can't think of any other formula that's used anywhere in Scripture. The separate entities of F/S/S appear of course throughout Scripture-- but then, so do C/R/S. otoh, the one and only instance of a F/S/S formula is specifically in the context of baptism, which is why I agree with you that at the very least, the formula should be retained for baptism.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But the reality is, the F/S/S formula is used only once in Scripture. I can't think of any other formula that's used anywhere in Scripture. The separate entities of F/S/S appear of course throughout Scripture-- but then, so do C/R/S. otoh, the one and only instance of a F/S/S formula is specifically in the context of baptism, which is why I agree with you that at the very least, the formula should be retained for baptism.

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But all scripture is not created equal. Only one part is printed in red, for very good and defensible reasons, and we should pay very close attention to the words of Christ that we have in Holy Writ. And "Father" comes effortlessly off his lips, over and over and over. And what is more he describes the relationship between himself and the First Person of the Trinity with father/son language far more often than with any other relationship language. In short, if there's a problem with using these relationship words to describe the relationship between the First and Second Persons, then don't talk to me, talk to Jesus.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

I confess I don't understand your point about angst at all. In saying that something is modalist, I am making a statement of fact (or not fact if I'm wrong), not referring to my inner states. And it seems to me that inferring things about my inner states therefrom is rude. And skirts the borders of Bulverism.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
totally agree with the above (even the "words in red" part-- a more controversial rubric that sometimes gets me in hot water). Which is why I am not arguing for jettisoning F/S/S, especially in context of the baptismal liturgy.

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More of a general statement of "we treat modalism like ebola" not specifically "mousethief treats modalism like ebola".

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Sir Thomas Browne made a distinction between downright heresy and bare error (in Religio Medici, which is a purely awesome book). The distinction appears to lie in the teachability (or otherwise) of the person putting forth the error. The one who is willing to discuss, learn, find out more, and so forth is not guilty of heresy, which requires a crappy attitude, aka obstinacy and incorrigibility under any circumstance.

There is a third category, that of "we don't know yet," aka speculation. It's a place to walk very carefully indeed, and not at all a place to get dogmatic or even to attempt to teach others, in case one turns out to be wrong when the facts finally do come out. But it isn't heresy either.

And I suppose I'd add a fourth category, that of teachings Christians differ on in all good faith, which do not in themselves imperil our mutual standing as members of the family of God.

I started off posting this because I thought it worthwhile to mention that not everyone caught in some error is a heretic. Most of us have been in error at some time or other, and were perfectly happy to learn better. I was.

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Oh, I like this. So much so that I've copied the post to my notes to follow up on in my lecture/class discussions on "intellectual hospitality".

otoh I am cursing you for adding yet another compelling book to my growing pile of must-reads.
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Wisely expounded, LC.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 


Thomas Browne is pure awesomeness in a text. I did my darndest to find a doctoral topic in his stuff so I could revel in reading him, but no luck . I read him anyway. His stuff is like sanity, like light, like waking up after nightmare, and filled with the love of God and of reason.

If you ever want to see a sane Renaissance take on questions like "Did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons?" try his Pseudodoxia Epidemica (On Vulgar Errors), which, despite the titles, is in English. (AFAIK all his stuff is in English.)

And Religio Medici is a one or two hour read, and doubtless available on Gutenberg Project.
 

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Posted by fausto (# 13737) on :
 

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
totally agree with the above (even the "words in red" part-- a more controversial rubric that sometimes gets me in hot water). Which is why I am not arguing for jettisoning F/S/S, especially in context of the baptismal liturgy.

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Fair enough. I realize now looking at it that it really was more of a response to fausto than to you. Sorry about that.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:


And I suppose I'd add a fourth category, that of teachings Christians differ on in all good faith, which do not in themselves imperil our mutual standing as members of the family of God.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I take the black letter stuff to be inspired by the Holy Spirit (in so far as we haven't mistranslated, miscopied, etc.) and I see no reason to prioritize the words of one member of the Trinity over another.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Jesus did not use "son of God" and I agree that "Son of Man" just means "Human Being." But Jesus did use Father/Son wording in ways that were meant to specifically talk about his relationship with God.

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Originally posted by fausto:
Sure, he called God "Father", and not only as the father of himself, but also as the father of us all.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
For example I give you John 5:19:

Jesus gave them this answer: "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."

Here he is clearly referring to himself as "the Son" and not to everyman.

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Originally posted by fausto:
In the Trinitarian context, I think "Father" is traditionally understood to describe a relationship not only with the Son, but also with all humanity (who are represented in the Trinity by the human element of the Son's nature, and on whose behalf the Son serves as mediator with the Father).

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However, even if that verse is a factual record of something Jesus actually said, it is also a particularly poor illustration of the Trinitarian principle that the relationship of Father and Son is between autonomous equals, rather than between an autonomous superior and a dependent subordinate.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
Well if John is going to be off-limits then we may as well throw out the majority of Orthodox theology.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

Unless you believe Paul was a mere puppet, his words were his words, not the Holy Spirit's.

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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
if you want to communicate with someone, you have to do so in a language he understands. And if he understands the pronoun in this sentence to be referring to a male person, then you need to find some different language.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I suppose I ought to identify myself as "not a red letter prioritizer."

I take the black letter stuff to be inspired by the Holy Spirit (in so far as we haven't mistranslated, miscopied, etc.) and I see no reason to prioritize the words of one member of the Trinity over another.

But of course those of you (the majority on Shipboard) who don't hold my position on inspiration will naturally come to different conclusions.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
So while I would agree very much that all of scripture is inspired by God and authoritative, the best and clearest revelation of God is Jesus himself.

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Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

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Originally posted by mousethief:

Unless you believe Paul was a mere puppet, his words were his words, not the Holy Spirit's.

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We believe they were both. But AFAIR this is a deceased equine, and I'll shut up now.

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:
circling back to the OP, Barth has some interesting things to say about male/ female. He draws from Gen. 1:27 "in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them" to suggest that the image of God is not anything found in any one individual, but is found uniquely in intimate community. Another reason why genderist language creates a false picture.

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Originally posted by mousethief:
There is, strictly speaking, no pronoun, since Hebrew is one of those languages where the ending on the verb tells you the pronoun. The verbs are conjugated for a male.

Not for the faint-of-heart.

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Originally posted by Galilit:
My first Spiritual Director (also known as "Mum") replied to my question on this topic: "I don't think they'd have listened to a woman in those days, dear-ie"

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But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me, And the Lord has forgotten me."

"Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.

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