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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Moral Influence atonement theology
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Is this the God who commanded OT genocide for good reason too?
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Love wins
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Mousethief;
quote:
Which is why I require the exact same thing the pagan gods do, the understanding of which is exactly what I don't want you to come away with. See how easy I have made it for you to understand what differentiates me from them.
I'll sit out of this for a bit while you explain to God what he should have done instead, since you clearly know so much better than Him....
I think that's twice this particular line in spiritual blackmail has been used on this thread.
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Fact 1;
God commanded the OT sacrifices in relation to atonement, thank-offerings, and various other purposes. He commanded them presumably for good reason.
They were necessary in that time to teach basic lessons about atonement; they are now superseded by the sacrifice of Jesus to which they pointed and about which they can even now serve as aids to understand/interpret what Jesus did.
Some in OT times misinterpreted the sacrifices in various ways and had to be reminded that they were not doing God a favour or buying His favour, but taking part in rites which signified gracious divine forgiveness and which required not just the mechanical performance of the ritual but also genuine repentance and change of conduct to make them meaningful. Sacrifices not reflecting that spirit and attitude were meaningless and unnecessary.
Read Hebrews for an NT take on this point.
OK, but perhaps you can now appreciate that there are various ways to read the texts in question: you say that they're correctives of the original temple sacrifice, I say that they indicate that your understanding of the purpose of sacrifice is fundamentally wrong. It isn't because you have a "biblical" interpretation and I don't. It is that we're looking at it differently.
Incidentally, I think your interpretation is considerably less biblical on this point than mine because you appear to be reading things into those passages that aren't there. David dancing was not more acceptable than the temple sacrifice because he was more repentant.
Anyway.
I just wanted to bring up with you how you square your forthright claims about the sacrifice with writers that are often seen as talking about an Anabaptist view of the world - in particular Walter Wink and John Yoder. Wink wasn't an anabaptist as far as I know, but I believe his formulation of the term "the myth of redemptive violence" has wide currency amongst Mennonites. Yoder certainly was speaking from a Mennonite viewpoint and seems to be saying similar things about the state as you.
Walter Wink argued that the original model of the atonement was Christus Victor but that it lost out "..because it was subversive to the church's role as a state religion.."
and
quote:
Atonement became a highly individualized transaction between the believer and God; society was assumed to be Christian, so the idea that the work of Christ entails the radical critique society was largely abandoned.
Yoder had a lot to say about the atonement, largely echoing what you seem to be disagreeing with others on this thread about.
For example he says:
quote:
Evidence that God's purpose with man is reconciliation and obedience rather than cancellation of guilt is found already in the Old Testament sacrificial system. It is often forgotten, especially when the imagery of sacrifice applied to the doctrine of the Atonement that Old Testament sacrifice in general was not concerned with the problem of guilt. Most sacrifices dealt with ritual uncleanness or ritually required acts of praise. The "sin offering' was valid only for unwitting sins, the "guilt-offering" only for sins where full reparation could be made. Other sins were dealt with by retributive civil justice ("eye for eye") or not at all. Forgiveness, in the Old Testament as in the New, is a gift of God's grace, not something which can be earned by sacrifice.
I think one could go on with other writers such as Stanley Hauerwas, also steeped in the anabaptist tradition, who said
quote:
That Protestant evangelicals would leave Gibson's movie and say "gee, I didn't know he had to suffer so much for my sins"-quite frankly, that's to make yourself more important than you are. It also underwrites satisfaction theories of the atonement, which fail to do justice to the fact that this is the second person of the Trinity who is suffering. When you say, "someone had to suffer to reconcile me with an angry Father," you forget: it's not an angry Father who has given the Son to receive our violence. The problem with saying "I didn't know he had to suffer that much for my sins" is it fails to do justice to the Trinitarian character of the Christian faith. What is happening in the cross is a cosmic struggle.
--
I think one could go on and construct a Mennonite/Anabaptist theory of the atonement which would inevitably look a lot more like Yoder, Hauerwas and Wink's version and almost nothing like yours.
So I suppose I'd like to hear how you square this all together. If you go with Wink in rejecting the "Myth of Redemptive Violence", how can you believe in a substitutionary atonement? If with Yoder you believe that forgiveness is something given by grace not by sacrifice, how can it then be a transaction? If with Hauerwas you believe it is a cosmic struggle, how can it then also be penal?
If you don't believe any of those things, in what sense are you actually an anabaptist as opposed to a slightly strange evangelical?
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arse
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I didn't mean to imply that you were ONLY influenced by the Anabaptist position, Steve.
My point was simply that none of us simply go by the Bible 'alone'. We all of us approach and interpret the scriptures through whichever set of specs we happen to be wearing ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
No fan of Gibson's "Passion" myself; but that sounds like PSA which, I remind you, I'm not advocating, but substitution of a somewhat different kind.
The difficulty with 'PENAL substitution' is that it focuses on the idea of God setting forth an edict that sinners shall die, and then finding himself in a self-inflicted 'bind' that he can't forgive sinners unless somebody dies - to avoid that he inflicts death on Jesus instead. Which all looks very arbitrary and abstract and makes God look like some of the worst and most self-important of earthly kings.
From my perspective the situation is that human legal systems do even now, and even more in older times, throw up examples where someone faces a legal penalty and someone else graciously/lovingly faces the penalty for them - and in older times it could be a death penalty. Such examples legitimately provide a partial illustration of Jesus suffering on our behalf; but I don't see them as offering a primary explanation of atonement.
Jesus himself uses the example of debt or other circumstances of damage done requiring compensation, and forgiveness of debt or remission of the compensation. And the point in such a situation is that in such a situation the person forgiving chooses to suffer rather than be repaid - in effect, in a situation of real costliness, he foots the bill while the person who should foot it goes free. It is not an arbitrary penalty but a costliness inherent in the situation.
Simply because Jesus uses the illustration, it qualifies as a major meaning of the atonement. The wrongdoer should by rights pay the cost; the person wronged, by forgiving, foots the bill himself.
Other explanations of the atonement are also valid in varying degrees. Some of them have the problem of the 'moral influence' theory - that a bare death can't really have moral influence; only a death that very positively achieves something else in the situation can do that.
And we haven't yet gone much into the Passover imagery which again is very clearly 'substitution' imagery....
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Christian orthodoxy rules out the claim that God is one person.
No it doesn't.
To say that God's unity consists only in his being one substance, runs counter to the whole of Scripture, in which God displays a unity of psychology. will, purpose, character, etc - in fact all the attributes of personhood.
At the same time, he exists as three persons.
quote:
that the three persons are simultaneously one person is not Christian orthodoxy, which distinguishes between 'ousia/substance' and 'hypostasis/person' precisely to avoid a logical contradiction.
No, credal formulae exist to guard against heresy, not to provide comprehensive, hermetically sealed systematic theologies.
The truth that God is three persons in one substance does not and cannot imply that God's only unity is in substance.
[ 30. January 2017, 21:46: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
But then, I wouldn't expect creedal exactitude from some independent evangelical quarters ...
Maybe not, but credal exactitude is what you are getting from me.
Perhaps your problem is that you are interpreting the creeds through your particular personal lens......?
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So that makes it alright then?
No, of course it doesn't.
Current theological ignorance on the part of all too many Protestants is a fact, no matter who points it out.
(At the same time, we need to beware of imagining some sort of mythical Golden Age when all Christians were theologically literate).
The point is that Orthodox and RC commentators would be better employed taking the plank of ignorance out of their own flocks'eyes than pointing to the speck of ignorance in Protestants' eyes.
[ 30. January 2017, 22:02: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
each person of the Trinity must be a Trinity in order to be God, producing a sort of infinite regress.
What? 3 holy Spirits? 3 sons? 3 fathers?
Yep, and so on indefinitely....
It's an argumentum ad absurdum put up by anti-Trinitarians, and a reminder to we Trinitarians that Trinitarianism cannot be contained within logical categories.
Have you forgotten, KC, that the Athanasian Creed deals with this one, as I suspect Leo was hinting at?
quote:
"So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts."
Not at all.
The Athanasian Creed is quite right, but it doesn't "deal" with the problem, which is logically inseparable from a belief in the Trinity, but just asserts the theological truth.
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
"Married bachelor" is a logical contradiction.
So is tri-personal person.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
"Married bachelor" is a logical contradiction.
So is tri-personal person.
Indeed. Fortunately nobody but you believes it. At least, it's not the teaching of either the Orthodox or Catholic churches. Maybe some little Protestant group or other.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Mousethief;
quote:
This is why people like me say there is no objective, clear, unambiguous meaning of the text, and every single way of taking it is the result of interpretation from particular points of view.
So the Word of God is completely unclear.
Straw man. You can't get "completely unclear" from what I said without dragging in some enthymeme you haven't yet shared with us.
quote:
You seem to be suggesting we should go to the Orthodox Church; which is so reliable a Biblical interpreter that it was responsible for the Constantinian error of establishing a state church with all the persecution, wars, and other problems which followed.
It's back, fellas! He's found a way to drag it into yet another thread! It's the tangent that will not die, but grows up through each and every crack in each and every pavement.
quote:
And the advice to follow the Orthodox Church is coming from an adherent thereof who himself doesn't accept the Constantinian error - indeed vehemently rejects it - but also doesn't accept the Bible!!
WTF? This is a straw man to end all straw men. I don't accept your incorrect interpretation of the Bible, or Jamat's, to be sure. But I don't accept the Bible? What orifice did this emerge from?
quote:
And you still haven't, after lots of dancing around it, explained your interpretation of the OT sacrifice system and its place in God's purposes, and why that interpretation is so much better than what I deduced from Scripture.
Mine doesn't have to be better for yours to be bad. Mine is irrelevant. We don't lay all the interpretations on the SOF out, and select the least worst. Mine being horrid doesn't absolve yours of its inherent logical flaws. The only one dancing here is you.
quote:
I don't think Mousethief exactly 'rejects the Bible'. My problem there is that on a very key point which compromises the authority of the original Orthodox church he apparently disagrees with the said Orthodox church but still doesn't seem to accept the Bible as a better authority. And to my mind that leaves his source of authority as very uncertain and of questionable reliability.
A very key point which compromises the authority of the original Orthodox Church? Please explain whatever that might be. I hope you don't mean the church being happy to stop being persecuted when Constantine issued the Decree of Toleration. Because that is not an official doctrine of the church. So it hardly "compromises the authority of the original Orthodox Church" (as if I could do any such thing) for me to think that the separation of church and state is a superior idea. You perhaps don't really understand the difference between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church as regards church-and-state. Hint: The EP never led an army nor commissioned killing swathes of Arabs in return for remission of sins.
The problem with this whole nattering about the old testament sacrifice system is that ultimately it doesn't matter. Perhaps you don't know but the Orthodox Church doesn't create a dogma on every single point of biblical interpretation. Some things, particularly in things that don't directly impinge on the nature of the Trinty or the Incarnation, or on the obtaining of salvation of the individual, we poor, hoodwinked (as per Jamat) Orthodoxen are allowed to disagree. Look up theologoumenon if you are interested.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
You have stated that you allow your 'Orthodox' Church to guide your conviction. Is that not an abdication of conscience?
No.
quote:
Of the possibility of a personal responsibility for belief?
No. Thanks for playing. And no, I'm not offended when people disagree with me. Then again I don't condemn other people to hell for not believing my interpretation, unlike some here.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Orthodox and RC commentators would be better employed taking the plank of ignorance out of their own flocks' eyes than pointing to the speck of ignorance in Protestants' eyes.
And this has to do with the conversation here .... how?
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
To my mind, though I’m not sure all share it, the problem with much of this voluminous discussion centres on a confusion between “metaphor” and the reality it seeks to point to, whether it relates to the atonement and now, God help us, the trinity.
As I see it the task of theology and evangelism is to present the atonement in ways which are relevant and explicable to specific cultures separated by time and space. The biblical language of sacrifice and its purposes is clearly meaningful to those raised in a Jewish culture and (somewhat less so) to contemporary cultures that still employ sacrifice in their traditional religious practices. To most people in modern Western society (including Christians and Jews) and elsewhere, however, sacrificial language is incomprehensible and, consequently, fails to engage with experience and discussion of the human condition. Instead we end up with having to explain the metaphor, which defeats the purpose of the exercise. Similarly, Anselm was trying to articulate the atonement for a European social structure steeped in feudalism around the first millennium, and there is no reason why it should resonate or seem so convincing today as it might have then. Other metaphors, Christus Victor, PSA, Moral Influence, have to be regarded in a similar manner. The problem is when we regard our favourite metaphor as if it were the thing itself.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
by Mousethief;
quote:
A very key point which compromises the authority of the original Orthodox Church? Please explain whatever that might be. I hope you don't mean the church being happy to stop being persecuted when Constantine issued the Decree of Toleration.
No, I was thinking more of the bit where Theodosius passed a law which basically said everyone in his Empire had to be a Christian or else, and the Orthodox Church didn't tell him he was more than slightly exceeding his authority....
And yes, maybe at a merely technical level that's not quite an 'official doctrine' - but it's still so completely wrong and Scripture-contradicting that it is seriously difficult to believe that the Church that was involved in that and carried it on for over a millennium can in any way claim special authority over Biblical interpretation.
And while I'm aware that the RCC is different, the Orthodox was (and in too many places still is) up to its ears in the state link; and the RCC was basically building on the error initially made by the Orthodox. A wrong of such devastating consequences and it's not even an official doctrine...!!
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Christian orthodoxy rules out the claim that God is one person.
No it doesn't.
To say that God's unity consists only in his being one substance, runs counter to the whole of Scripture, in which God displays a unity of psychology. will, purpose, character, etc - in fact all the attributes of personhood.
At the same time, he exists as three persons.
quote:
that the three persons are simultaneously one person is not Christian orthodoxy, which distinguishes between 'ousia/substance' and 'hypostasis/person' precisely to avoid a logical contradiction.
No, credal formulae exist to guard against heresy, not to provide comprehensive, hermetically sealed systematic theologies.
The truth that God is three persons in one substance does not and cannot imply that God's only unity is in substance.
How can three apples be one apple?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Mousethief;
quote:
A very key point which compromises the authority of the original Orthodox Church? Please explain whatever that might be. I hope you don't mean the church being happy to stop being persecuted when Constantine issued the Decree of Toleration.
No, I was thinking more of the bit where Theodosius passed a law which basically said everyone in his Empire had to be a Christian or else, and the Orthodox Church didn't tell him he was more than slightly exceeding his authority....
And yes, maybe at a merely technical level that's not quite an 'official doctrine' - but it's still so completely wrong and Scripture-contradicting that it is seriously difficult to believe that the Church that was involved in that and carried it on for over a millennium can in any way claim special authority over Biblical interpretation.
And while I'm aware that the RCC is different, the Orthodox was (and in too many places still is) up to its ears in the state link; and the RCC was basically building on the error initially made by the Orthodox. A wrong of such devastating consequences and it's not even an official doctrine...!!
Of all that I wrote in response to your posts, all I get in response is more beating on the Special Steve Langton Drum™. Give it a fucking rest.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
A wrong of such devastating consequences and it's not even an official doctrine...!!
And it's so very central to the heart of your beef with the Orthodox Church that you have raised it in your mind to such a height that my disagreeing with it is taken by you to be a sign that I am against everything the ancient Orthodox church believed and stood for. As a sign that there is, in fact, something wrong with my loyalty to the Orthodox Church, because I disagree with what YOU think is its defining mark.
You get to define the Bible AND you get to define my church.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
that the three persons are simultaneously one person is not Christian orthodoxy, which distinguishes between 'ousia/substance' and 'hypostasis/person' precisely to avoid a logical contradiction.
No, credal formulae exist to guard against heresy, not to provide comprehensive, hermetically sealed systematic theologies.
Yes. And specifically, the credal formula of the Trinity exists to guard against the heresy that God is one person.
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Where is the pre-exilic statement that God doesn't really need all these sacrifices after all? I admit I haven't memorized the entire Torah, so I may be missing something.
In Samuel where David returns the ark of the covenant, puts it in a tent and appoints praise singers to worship. He gets to sit in front of it and worship and it is he who says bulls and goats you have not desired etc. He is the game changer oft quoted in the New Testament. He actually gets away with a new kind of sacrifice, praise. He gets away with being close to the ark without being the high priest.
Sorry, can you quote the reference for this in Samuel, I can't seem to find it.
I do find relevant stuff in Psalms 50 and 51, the former being attributed to David's apppointed choir leader Asaph, the latter to David himself in his repentance over his affair with Bathsheba and murder of her husband; so clearly the idea goes back at least to the time of David, well pre-Exilic.
Yes, it seems he added a complete redefinition to worship altering the Mosaic rules.
1Chronicles 15-16 there were still burnt offerings, v40 but you had access to others besides the priests to the ark and official praise singers. Referred to also in Amos 9:11and quoted in Acts15:16. Also, Ps 51:16. Thou dost not require burnt offering else I would give it.I Sam 6,7:18 David sits before the Lord and receives revelation. Fascinating aspect of his life.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
No fan of Gibson's "Passion" myself; but that sounds like PSA which, I remind you, I'm not advocating, but substitution of a somewhat different kind.
The difficulty with 'PENAL substitution' is that it focuses on the idea of God setting forth an edict that sinners shall die, and then finding himself in a self-inflicted 'bind' that he can't forgive sinners unless somebody dies - to avoid that he inflicts death on Jesus instead. Which all looks very arbitrary and abstract and makes God look like some of the worst and most self-important of earthly kings.
From my perspective the situation is that human legal systems do even now, and even more in older times, throw up examples where someone faces a legal penalty and someone else graciously/lovingly faces the penalty for them - and in older times it could be a death penalty. Such examples legitimately provide a partial illustration of Jesus suffering on our behalf; but I don't see them as offering a primary explanation of atonement.
Riiight, so have you actually read any Mennonite or Anabaptist theologians or does your theology of the atonement owe more to CS Lewis and the Evangelicals?
Because you don't talk like someone seeped in Anabaptist theology on this. Almost every theologian I've ever heard of from that background thoroughly rejects PSA and embraces a version of CV.
Yoder again:
quote:
"Redemption" in New Testament usage is not purchase out of hock or out of jail, but out of slavery, slavery to sin. From being servants of sin we become servants of God. Redemption is a change of masters, and the New Testamentt use of this term is one of the strongest statements of tho truth that the concern of God in Atonement is our. obedience, not our guilt.
Indeed if one holds to the idea that there is a "Myth of Redemptive Violence", it is hard to see how one could see the atonement in any other way as an Anabaptist.
As J. Denny Weaver, another Mennonite theologian, writes:
quote:
The conclusion.. is that they portray an image of God as either divine avenger or punisher and/or as a child abuser, one who arranges the death of one child for the benefit of the others. Does it surprise that through the centuries, folks following a God of this stripe, where violence belongs intrinsically to the divine working, might end up justifying violence, under a variety of divinely anchored claims and images?
If you believe that God is fundamentally interested in peace and that the calling to the Christian is to nonviolence, how can you possibly accept a theology of atonement that is fundamentally violent? Again, if you don't accept those things, in what sense are you claiming to be an anabaptist?
quote:
Jesus himself uses the example of debt or other circumstances of damage done requiring compensation, and forgiveness of debt or remission of the compensation. And the point in such a situation is that in such a situation the person forgiving chooses to suffer rather than be repaid - in effect, in a situation of real costliness, he foots the bill while the person who should foot it goes free. It is not an arbitrary penalty but a costliness inherent in the situation.
Jesus used many bad examples to make a point. I don't think one in all seriousness could say that because one of the parables discusses a corrupt accountant releasing debtors that therefore the atonement is like a debt.
quote:
Simply because Jesus uses the illustration, it qualifies as a major meaning of the atonement. The wrongdoer should by rights pay the cost; the person wronged, by forgiving, foots the bill himself.
I disagree. Just because Jesus used the example of treasure in a field does not mean we should be looking for revelation in plates of gold.
quote:
Other explanations of the atonement are also valid in varying degrees. Some of them have the problem of the 'moral influence' theory - that a bare death can't really have moral influence; only a death that very positively achieves something else in the situation can do that.
And we haven't yet gone much into the Passover imagery which again is very clearly 'substitution' imagery....
You seem to be happy to use "clearly" in a sense that is only "clear to me given the context of how I read the text and therefore must be clear to everyone else".
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Kwesi
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# 10274
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Posted
Steve Langton quote:
And we haven't yet gone much into the Passover imagery which again is very clearly 'substitution' imagery....
(Following Mr Cheesy) Surely, not! The children of Israel were not guilty of the crimes against them committed by the Egyptians. The blood of the lambs was deployed to ensure they did not suffer an unjust punishment.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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Jamat
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# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Mousethief: I don't accept your incorrect interpretation of the Bible, or Jamat's, to be sure. But I don't accept the Bible?
Then what do you make of the plain statements of 1Cor 15: 3-5 and1 Peter 1:3 and 1Peter2:24? There are very clear statements here where Paul insists that Christ by his death and resurrection caused us to be born again to a living hope. What mysteries of interpretation are involved here that you could call incorrect? My belief is that through Christ's death, a regeneration became possible in my human nature and my past sins forgiven on the basis of faith. What other way is there to understand these and other pretty clear passages such as in Romans3:24-25?
[ 31. January 2017, 07:48: Message edited by: Jamat ]
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
by mr cheesy;
quote:
Jesus used many bad examples to make a point. I don't think one in all seriousness could say that because one of the parables discusses a corrupt accountant releasing debtors that therefore the atonement is like a debt.
Agreed it is in the nature of parables that a main point made may be put in a context of a world situation not totally satisfactory - like the example of that corrupt accountant, where the main point is not the atonement, or another which uses the example of an unjust judge to make a different point. As Tyndale pointed out, you're meant to use your brain in biblical interpretation as you do in reading other books.
But the imagery of debt in relation to atonement is far more widespread than just one parable, and it is often precisely in the context of divine forgiveness of sin.
And yes I do read Anabaptist theologians. And as is a primary point of Anabaptism, I check them out by the Bible. I think at this precise historic time there are some who have elevated the 'non-violence' to a point where they forget Paul's point in Romans 12; 18 that there is such a thing as divine retribution - we don't avenge ourselves because we trust in God to ultimately secure justice, and we don't trust our (sinful) selves.
Also can I point out that I'm not advocating a single 'atonement theory'. The purpose of Jesus' death is portrayed in many ways and it is an act of God which accomplishes many purposes. There is a big chunk of truth in 'Christus Victor' - but it looks to me to have a gap in it if you try to make it the only or primary theory.
Likewise, clearly Passover is a major image of what Jesus does - it is why he is referred to as 'Lamb of God', why he chose Passover for the final confrontation, why our 'communion' is a transformed Passover meal. I'll come back later on how I understand what's going on at Passover; but it's a bit more than just marking out the Israelites against the angel of death making mistakes.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
And yes I do read Anabaptist theologians. And as is a primary point of Anabaptism, I check them out by the Bible. I think at this precise historic time there are some who have elevated the 'non-violence' to a point where they forget Paul's point in Romans 12; 18 that there is such a thing as divine retribution - we don't avenge ourselves because we trust in God to ultimately secure justice, and we don't trust our (sinful) selves.
I see that you've created an anabaptism of your own imagining. If the historical witness of the thing you say you believe in and some of the principal theologians say something, and you are divorced geographically from the majority of anabaptists, it is hard to say that you are, in fact, any kind of authority on this subject.
Which is fair enough, I'm not bothered what you believe. But what is, I think, entirely dishonest is to claim that you are talking from an anabaptist position when clearly you're a self-defined-anabaptist-talking-for-himelf.
quote:
Also can I point out that I'm not advocating a single 'atonement theory'. The purpose of Jesus' death is portrayed in many ways and it is an act of God which accomplishes many purposes. There is a big chunk of truth in 'Christus Victor' - but it looks to me to have a gap in it if you try to make it the only or primary theory.
A gap that is violence and wrath. The antithesis of what it means to be anabaptist.
quote:
Likewise, clearly Passover is a major image of what Jesus does - it is why he is referred to as 'Lamb of God', why he chose Passover for the final confrontation, why our 'communion' is a transformed Passover meal. I'll come back later on how I understand what's going on at Passover; but it's a bit more than just marking out the Israelites against the angel of death making mistakes.
Well certainly there are pointers back from the atonement to the passover, but I don't think it therefore follows that the atonement must be considered to be penal or substitutionary.
[ 31. January 2017, 09:07: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Mousethief;
quote:
Of all that I wrote in response to your posts, all I get in response is more beating on the Special Steve Langton Drum™. Give it a fucking rest.
OK, we need perhaps to take this tangent to a thread of its own, preferably a civilised Purg thread rather than Hell.
What happened took centuries, and my sources say even Theodosius wasn't the end of it. Arguably Justinian was pretty much the culmination with a major purge that included capital punishment for pagans. But the whole process effectively constitutes a major redefinition of the Church and of what it means to be a Christian. And that redefinition is in rather clear defiance of the Bible in all kinds of ways, and it led to terrible results supposedly in the name of Jesus which should never have happened IF the church had remained faithful to the NT teaching about its nature and its place in the world.
The complacency and indeed outright approval of the Orthodox church in that process and that redefinition necessarily casts some doubt (understatement!) on any claim by Orthodoxy that as an institution it can have some special authority to tell everyone else what the Bible is about. It also undermines the similar derivative claims of the RCC 'magisterium', and of Protestant 'state church' bodies like Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Reformed/Presbyterian.
In the current thread you still haven't really answered what atonement theory or theories you/your church are putting forward. Hard to discuss something you aren't telling us about....
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Steve, the Orthodox don't have a settled position on the atonement. It's not really that hard to understand. The other stuff is ![[Snore]](graemlins/snore.gif)
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arse
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by mr cheesy;
quote:
Well certainly there are pointers back from the atonement to the passover, but I don't think it therefore follows that the atonement must be considered to be penal or substitutionary.
'Penal', no; substitutionary definitely. Will you please stop constantly implying I'm advocating 'PSA' when I've clearly said I'm not....
Back later....
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
'Penal', no; substitutionary definitely. Will you please stop constantly implying I'm advocating 'PSA' when I've clearly said I'm not....
Back later....
If you are talking about a debt which must be paid then I think you are actually talking about penal substitutionary atonement.
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arse
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Christian orthodoxy rules out the claim that God is one person.
No it doesn't.
To say that God's unity consists only in his being one substance, runs counter to the whole of Scripture, in which God displays a unity of psychology. will, purpose, character, etc - in fact all the attributes of personhood.
At the same time, he exists as three persons.
I think being a centre of consciousness is equally an attribute of personhood. Or for those who think talk of centres of consciousness gives too much weight to Cartesianism, being a party to a relationship.
Theologians in the Western tradition have given some thought to how to describe the distinctions between the persons. (I do not know enough about the Eastern tradition.)
Unity of will means cooperation in shared goals and agency. I would concede that there are some Western theologians who have been willing to skirt modalism who question whether it is conceptually coherent to talk about 'three persons' in modern English if there is no possibility of disagreement between those persons in goals or means: they would tend to doubt whether the modern English meaning of 'person' is the best possible translation of 'hypostasis'. Most theologians however I think take it that it's conceptually coherent at least within the limits of created beings' ability to talk about the divine.
Either way, there are no grounds for talking about there being only one 'hypostasis'.
Whatever your preferred way of handling the problem, nothing in Christian tradition allows one to endorse the claim that God is one person.
quote:
quote:
that the three persons are simultaneously one person is not Christian orthodoxy, which distinguishes between 'ousia/substance' and 'hypostasis/person' precisely to avoid a logical contradiction.
No, credal formulae exist to guard against heresy, not to provide comprehensive, hermetically sealed systematic theologies.
The truth that God is three persons in one substance does not and cannot imply that God's only unity is in substance.
This is true in so far as shared goals are concerned. However, it is irrelevant to the statement that God is not one of anything in any sense that God is three of anything; God is not three of anything in any sense that God is one of anything.
(I think you're on thin ice trying to dismiss statements from the creeds on the grounds that they are not systematic theologies, when in your last post you were trying to argue that the line 'God of God' in the Nicene Creed shows that Christian orthodoxy implies an infinite regress. You appear to be applying a double standard according as to whether it supports your argument.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Mousethief;
quote:
A very key point which compromises the authority of the original Orthodox Church? Please explain whatever that might be. I hope you don't mean the church being happy to stop being persecuted when Constantine issued the Decree of Toleration.
No, I was thinking more of the bit where Theodosius passed a law which basically said everyone in his Empire had to be a Christian or else, and the Orthodox Church didn't tell him he was more than slightly exceeding his authority....
*ahem*. You know the views of the admins on you raising your pet subject (Constantine and the related Church-State relationship) on threads where this is not directly relevant to the subject. Engage with the subject without dragging Constantine into it, or don't post if you can't do that. The choice is yours. But, keep it up and the admins can take the choice away altogether.
And, while I'm here. mousethief, please respond to Steve in an appropriate manner for the board you are on. Hell is down below.
Alan
Ship of Fools Admin
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Mousethief: I don't accept your incorrect interpretation of the Bible, or Jamat's, to be sure. But I don't accept the Bible?
Then what do you make of the plain statements of 1Cor 15: 3-5 and1 Peter 1:3 and 1Peter2:24? There are very clear statements here where Paul insists that Christ by his death and resurrection caused us to be born again to a living hope.
Which is not the same thing as PSA. One can believe in atonement without believing in PSA.
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
And, while I'm here. mousethief, please respond to Steve in an appropriate manner for the board you are on. Hell is down below.
Will do.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
We walked past a church that got the equivalent of an MBE last year, and rightly so. In the window it said this; atonement theorizing on the street:
DID YOU KNOW?
We are each created and loved by God.
We are made for relationship.
Jesus said life is more about relationships than rules.
We were made to love God and love others.
4/6
SO, WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
God is perfect and holy.
We all have done wrong and
deserve separation from Him.
We cannot relate to God as we are.
We need a saviour to die in our place.
2/7 at best.
WHY JESUS?
The Bible says, 'God so loved the world, (that is, you and me), that he sent Jesus that whosoever believes in Jesus will not die but will have everlasting life', John 3:16, Jesus came to earth to give his life to die in our place, so that we can know God.
2/3
"On the cross he bought us freedom from guilt, freedom from addiction, freedom from fear, and freedom to change and live a new life that lasts beyond death."
Not in my experience. Although painfully progressively partially and deconstructedly ultimately true.
Followed by the sinner's prayer.
All understandable in a literal text bound hermeneutic, forgivable but ever diminishingly effective.
My wife didn't see all this as a problem compared with the invisible elephant in the room of damnationism. I see them as inextricable.
It's very sad as this church does so much in the community.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Kwesi
Shipmate
# 10274
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Posted
Steve Langton quote:
In the current thread you still haven't really answered what atonement theory or theories you/your church are putting forward. Hard to discuss something you aren't telling us about....
The critic of a theory, any theory about anything, does not have to have an alternative. It's called scepticism, and is an important route by which error is exposed and knowledge increased.
Most mainstream churches, as far as I am aware, do not have a theory of the atonement they enjoin their members to believe. Instead they settle for "Who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man: And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.....We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead,and the life of the world to come." I think that's quite enough to be going on with!
Can I reiterate the importance of distinguishing between metaphor and theory. Jesus as the Passover Lamb, for example, is a powerful metaphor but it does not constitute a theory of the atonement, and quickly breaks down if treated was such. A theory is stronger than a (mere) metaphor because it consists of a series of logically connected propositions that seek to explain how a particular phenomenon works. If it is a good theory it is capable of being demonstrated as false. (Of course, it may stand the test and not be falsified). PSA seems to be regarded by its supporters not as a metaphor, but a theory that is demonstrably so true that in some churches and organisations it has come to enjoy creedal status, which is why it is so fiercely (dogmatically?) defended. It's critics, however, disagree, finding its assumptions and model unconvincing. To do that, as mentioned earlier, they do not need to have a better theory of their own.
Posts: 1641 | From: South Ofankor | Registered: Sep 2005
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Christian orthodoxy rules out the claim that God is one person.
No it doesn't.
To say that God's unity consists only in his being one substance, runs counter to the whole of Scripture, in which God displays a unity of psychology. will, purpose, character, etc - in fact all the attributes of personhood.
At the same time, he exists as three persons.
quote:
that the three persons are simultaneously one person is not Christian orthodoxy, which distinguishes between 'ousia/substance' and 'hypostasis/person' precisely to avoid a logical contradiction.
No, credal formulae exist to guard against heresy, not to provide comprehensive, hermetically sealed systematic theologies.
The truth that God is three persons in one substance does not and cannot imply that God's only unity is in substance.
Tyhe 3s to infinite bregresss is bizare -, I've never heard of the notion in 50+ years.
Re-the rest, I think you are confusing 'person' with 'substance.'
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
I'm pretty much with you on the point you make there. I've tried to make clear that
1) I regard PSA as a metaphor and at that a somewhat partial metaphor of atonement - but quite validly using examples that can (or at least could then) arise in human legal systems to illustrate aspects of what's going on in the atonement.
2) In a sense every human attempt at an explanation - or to put it another way, every attempt by God to explain what He's doing in human terms - is to a large extent metaphor. And there are a lot of such
metaphors available in the Bible, and all have some measure of truth in them.
3) I think that the idea of 'debt' in a wide sense, and forgiveness of debt, is the metaphor which perhaps corresponds most closely to the underlying reality. 'Debt' portrays not an arbitrary penalty like "If you step on the grass I will stick you in front of a firing squad", but rather an inherent or 'reality of the situation' penalty, where sinful acts produce real consequences and harm which can't just be 'wished away'. Either compensation must be paid, or if the wrong is forgiven, then the person wronged must voluntarily lose out.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Meanwhile, @Kaplan ...
Of course I'm wearing lenses when I talk about the Trinity. I am wearing Trinitarian lenses.
Trinitarianism is a 'lens'.
That doesn't make it any the less true.
On the creedal exactitude jibe, yes, I was teasing. I'm not accusing you of creedal inexactitude, I was simply saying that I couldn't quite see the point you were making and was surprised as the way your argument was going.
Accusing you of creedal inexactitude would be rather like accusing Mousethief of ignoring the Bible - it seems to me.
Although I must admit, I'm wasn't quite sure where you were going with your argument and it could slip into Modalist territory it seemed to me ... but then either Modalism or a form of Tri-theism is a danger if we aren't careful with how we deploy the Trinitarian vocabulary ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Kwesi: To most people in modern Western society (including Christians and Jews) and elsewhere, however, sacrificial language is incomprehensible
Behind the concept of sacrifice is the universal one of justice. This is something everyone is wired to grasp. The atonement satisfies the demands of justice and love simultaneously which is its genius.
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
[qb] [QUOTE]Mousethief: I don't accept your incorrect interpretation of the Bible, or Jamat's, to be sure. But I don't accept the Bible?
Then what do you make of the plain statements of 1Cor 15: 3-5 and1 Peter 1:3 and 1Peter2:24? There are very clear statements here where Paul insists that Christ by his death and resurrection caused us to be born again to a living hope.
Which is not the same thing as PSA. One can believe in atonement without believing in PSA.
quote:
Are you suggesting then that the whole discussion is a mere matter of semantics?
PSA is a frame to understand the scriptures,sure but for mine the power of the gospel is in the essence of the atonement rather than in a verbalised set of descriptors. The gospel is accessible to all in its essentials without necessarily understanding its conceptual mechanics which I do not think any of us do.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
On the Trinitarian stuff...
Some confusion is caused by using the word 'person' in this context. The Greek terms are more abstract and shall we say cold-blooded, but more precise - we're talking about a single individual being who nevertheless has an underlying complexity making him almost like an intensely united family. As Augustine pointed out, God is Love within himself because the one HE is also a relationship.
In Latin, the term 'person' would not, I understand, have been used of God himself. It was a word for the three hypostases (I think that's the right term). And it was borrowed - "with caution" - from the theatre where the 'person' was the role the actor played, as in 'Dramatis Personae'. Taking that very literally would lead to the heresy of 'modalism' or some such, and Trinitarians would want to be clear that these were real distinctions within God rather than different roles played by the one being.
'Person' then originally didn't mean a distinct individual as it does nowadays. But using it in the Trinitarian context to mean more than a role, combined I suppose with the decided 'personhood/personality' of Jesus eventually changed the everyday use of the word towards 'person' in the modern English sense. But if you then read back that sense into discussions of the Trinity it may be misleading, giving an impression of three gods rather than one God.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Kwesi: To most people in modern Western society (including Christians and Jews) and elsewhere, however, sacrificial language is incomprehensible
Behind the concept of sacrifice is the universal one of justice. This is something everyone is wired to grasp. The atonement satisfies the demands of justice and love simultaneously which is its genius.
The foul murder of thre best of men instead of me is not justice.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
'Person' then originally didn't mean a distinct individual as it does nowadays. But using it in the Trinitarian context to mean more than a role, combined I suppose with the decided 'personhood/personality' of Jesus eventually changed the everyday use of the word towards 'person' in the modern English sense. But if you then read back that sense into discussions of the Trinity it may be misleading, giving an impression of three gods rather than one God.
I see. So you accept an argument from authority relating to the doctrine of the Trinity but not the doctrine of the atonement. We're all supposed to think that you've independently deduced that from reading the bible alone are we?
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arse
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
@Dafyd. Thank you for nailing the coffin on the idea I have ignorantly touted here for many years, that God is a person of persons, a meta-person, a gestalt hive-mind.
He is a what, not a who; substance, homoousious of whos; Persons, hypostases.
Is that correct?
I very much like the mapping of centre of consciousness to person. God has no centre of consciousness. He has, is three centres of consciousness.
Correct?
What happened to the centre of consciousness of God the Son during the Incarnation?
I still say nothing. Jesus was a new person, hypostasis of two homoousioses, natures. The beloved son of God was not God the Son, except by nature?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by mr cheesy;
quote:
I see. So you accept an argument from authority relating to the doctrine of the Trinity but not the doctrine of the atonement. We're all supposed to think that you've independently deduced that from reading the bible alone are we?
NO!
Actually I don't particularly accept the way Trinitarianism developed - much of the formal statement is as I hinted far too much a rather cold academic mathematical puzzle kind of thing, and the technical language used can as in the case of that use of the word 'person' end up causing confusion. My point above was to explain part of that development and the changed use of language in the process in hopes of avoiding confusion.
I learned Trinitarianism from the church circles I moved in when I was younger. But checking against the Bible as I've grown up, including using as best I can an interlinear Greek NT, the basics of the Trinity are there; and the logic of the atonement requires something like that, as I pointed out above discussing the different reactions of on the one hand 'liberal' unitarianism and on the other 'fundamentalist' unitarianism like the Jehovah's Witnesses. In the one case, giving up much idea of Jesus' atoning death for what amounts to a feeble moral influence theory, in the other adopting a particularly crass and inherently unjust form of PSA to continue portraying Jesus dying for our sins.
In the end I don't accept the Trinity simply on 'authority' in an extra-biblical sense, but because I do in the end find it in the Bible. And I'm largely content with the Biblical data and a bit suspicious of any idea that the very academic philosophy of the creeds really 'explains' the Trinity.
Indeed my analysis of the more detailed credal statements suggests that they often aren't saying "This is how it is", but rather putting boundaries. In effect they are admitting it's beyond easy human comprehension (in the literal sense that it's "Too big to grasp") but they're saying don't try to resolve the difficulties by taking a one-sided view. If you simplify it for your understanding, you'll lose it.
It is a fact that essentially I worked out the Biblical basis of Anabaptism independently with little access to actual Anabaptist theology or knowledge where I might find modern Anabaptists. This was also of course the experience of the original Reformation-era Anabaptists, finding anomalies in the state churches set up by Luther/Calvin/and Lizzie Tudor, and seeking to be more biblical. And it's a common experience for others too. Anabaptism isn't about a tradition developing ideas because we just like them - it is about following the Bible and seeking to be more biblical in our ideas.
I don't suggest that such independence is exactly normal and I can tell you it's a lot less scary to be doing Biblical exploration with a fellowship as I mostly do now. That has both corrected some places I didn't get things right, not claiming infallibility; and also allowed my independent discoveries to bring some new light to traditional groups. That's how these things work.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, it's how these things work by trying different lenses in the optician's clinic that is theological reflection.
You didn't come to these conclusions independently. You came to them by interaction with other people, by personal study and by working within the framework of a received tradition.
I don't know why that is such a contentious thing to accept. That doesn't take God out of the equation.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Either way, there are no grounds for talking about there being only one 'hypostasis'.
The interpretation of hypostasis as person in the formula "three hypostases, one ousia" is permissible, because centuries of theological and credal usage means that everyone is now agreed on that usage in that context, but originally it was a very ambiguous term, almost interchangeable with ousia.
So yes, it is now a term best avoided when talking about God's unity, but God's personal unity is true nonetheless.
quote:
Whatever your preferred way of handling the problem, nothing in Christian tradition allows one to endorse the claim that God is one person.
You can avoid the terms person, or hypostasis, if it makes you happy, but you are still stuck with the fact that the Bible, throughout, refers to God as one, integrated, personal being, as a unified identity, with an ontological unity that goes beyond just unity of substance.
And it simultaneously, in the NT, portrays him as trinitarian.
You don't solve mysteries like that with pat formulae.
[ 31. January 2017, 23:32: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
the difference between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church
Here is the fatal flaw in the argument that the problems presented by private interpretation of Scripture can be solved by submission to the teaching of a putatively authoritative ecclesiastical tradition.
To which tradition does one defer when they differ?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
the difference between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church
Here is the fatal flaw in the argument that the problems presented by private interpretation of Scripture can be solved by submission to the teaching of a putatively authoritative ecclesiastical tradition.
To which tradition does one defer when they differ?
One will have to decide that for oneself; my decision docket is full. I have clearly nailed the tri-bar cross to my mast. Other ones' mileage will doubtless vary. Hey-ho. There is no certainty in this life other than death and taxes and that God loves us. You have similarly nailed your colors, by accepting the things you do about the atonement rather than the things we do. We are brave enough to call it what it is. Not all evangelicals are, let alone all Protestants.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
You don't solve mysteries like that with pat formulae.
And yet for mysteries like the atonement, you do.
[ 01. February 2017, 00:45: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Whatever your preferred way of handling the problem, nothing in Christian tradition allows one to endorse the claim that God is one person.
You can avoid the terms person, or hypostasis, if it makes you happy, but you are still stuck with the fact that the Bible, throughout, refers to God as one, integrated, personal being, as a unified identity, with an ontological unity that goes beyond just unity of substance.
And it simultaneously, in the NT, portrays him as trinitarian.
You don't solve mysteries like that with pat formulae.
The question isn't whether or not the formula solves the mystery. The question is whether or not the mystery is logically inconsistent. The formula asserts that it is not logically inconsistent. It asserts a constraint upon any proposed solution to the mystery, namely that any proposed solution must be logically consistent.
(In any case I do not think the problem of inconsistency between the depiction of God in the OT and Trinitarian belief is quite as insurmountable as you do.
That is even if we ignore various characters in the OT - God's Word, God's Wisdom, God's Spirit, God's Presence - that seem to complicate your claim of an integrated personhood in the OT depiction.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Actually I don't particularly accept the way Trinitarianism developed - much of the formal statement is as I hinted far too much a rather cold academic mathematical puzzle kind of thing, and the technical language used can as in the case of that use of the word 'person' end up causing confusion. My point above was to explain part of that development and the changed use of language in the process in hopes of avoiding confusion.
I learned Trinitarianism from the church circles I moved in when I was younger.
Those two phrases are mutually contradictory. If you learned and accepted Trinitarianism from church then - even if they didn't tell you - you were accepting the way that the doctrine developed thousands of years ago.
quote:
But checking against the Bible as I've grown up, including using as best I can an interlinear Greek NT, the basics of the Trinity are there; and the logic of the atonement requires something like that, as I pointed out above discussing the different reactions of on the one hand 'liberal' unitarianism and on the other 'fundamentalist' unitarianism like the Jehovah's Witnesses.
But nobody is arguing that the Trinity is a doctrine that is incompatible with the bible. The fact is that you were given a doctrine of the Trinity, which unbeknown to you (at the time) was developed by the very structures you now believe were fundamentally broken. You've then used that measure against the bible and have said "ah, ok, that works".
The one thing you clearly haven't done is invent the theory of the Trinity on your own. Don't be ridiculous.
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In the one case, giving up much idea of Jesus' atoning death for what amounts to a feeble moral influence theory, in the other adopting a particularly crass and inherently unjust form of PSA to continue portraying Jesus dying for our sins.
In the end I don't accept the Trinity simply on 'authority' in an extra-biblical sense, but because I do in the end find it in the Bible. And I'm largely content with the Biblical data and a bit suspicious of any idea that the very academic philosophy of the creeds really 'explains' the Trinity.
This is just the same as a climate denier saying "well, I've looked at the data and I know it is all a load of crap," when they've had absolutely no training, no experience of handling data. Who cares what you think you've reasoned out?
Whether you like it or not, orthodox Christianity was handed to you down the centuries. You have a choice to accept or reject it, but you don't have the choice of claiming that you've reasoned it out from first principles from the bible in some cave somewhere.
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Indeed my analysis of the more detailed credal statements suggests that they often aren't saying "This is how it is", but rather putting boundaries. In effect they are admitting it's beyond easy human comprehension (in the literal sense that it's "Too big to grasp") but they're saying don't try to resolve the difficulties by taking a one-sided view. If you simplify it for your understanding, you'll lose it.
It is a fact that essentially I worked out the Biblical basis of Anabaptism independently with little access to actual Anabaptist theology or knowledge where I might find modern Anabaptists. This was also of course the experience of the original Reformation-era Anabaptists, finding anomalies in the state churches set up by Luther/Calvin/and Lizzie Tudor, and seeking to be more biblical. And it's a common experience for others too. Anabaptism isn't about a tradition developing ideas because we just like them - it is about following the Bible and seeking to be more biblical in our ideas.
I am told that there are no swearwords in Welsh and that even the worst expletives in English are mild insults yn Gymraeg.
Which is handy. Because ti'n llawn cachu. You're full of poo.
You didn't independently work out anabaptism. You've read a couple of books and hung around with a few people and developed a single-track theology and called it anabaptism.
You no more have a theology that resembles anabaptism than are able to fly to the moon. You don't read anabaptist theologians, you don't even associate with other anabaptists and you think you can work out all this stuff on your own.
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I don't suggest that such independence is exactly normal and I can tell you it's a lot less scary to be doing Biblical exploration with a fellowship as I mostly do now. That has both corrected some places I didn't get things right, not claiming infallibility; and also allowed my independent discoveries to bring some new light to traditional groups. That's how these things work.
It's impossible. What you are saying that you've done is not possible.
Either you are wrong and you've actually picked up stuff from sources you are not admitting (in which case you are a liar) or you truly believe it and are delusional.
[ 01. February 2017, 08:12: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Jolly Jape
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# 3296
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Kwesi: To most people in modern Western society (including Christians and Jews) and elsewhere, however, sacrificial language is incomprehensible
Behind the concept of sacrifice is the universal one of justice. This is something everyone is wired to grasp. The atonement satisfies the demands of justice and love simultaneously which is its genius.
No! No! No! The concept behind sacrifice (in the Biblical sense), is Covenant. The sacrifice is symbolic of the commitment to the covenant of those people bound by it. Specifically, of Adonai's commitment to His people. Nothing whatsoever to do with justice. In fact, biblical Covenants are Covenants of grace, not of justice.
Even pagan sacrifices had nothing to do with justice, had, in fact, no moral component at all. They were a means of placating angry gods, and were imagined to be effective regardless of the moral behaviour of those making the sacrifice.
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To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Kwesi: To most people in modern Western society (including Christians and Jews) and elsewhere, however, sacrificial language is incomprehensible
Behind the concept of sacrifice is the universal one of justice. This is something everyone is wired to grasp. The atonement satisfies the demands of justice and love simultaneously which is its genius.
The foul murder of thre best of men instead of me is not justice.
Exactly. Jamat may be correct that we wired to understand Justice, but if so, he must accept that my wiring tells me that punishing the innocent ain't it.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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