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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Religion of Jesus, or religion about Jesus?
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gracie:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
Oh, the Jews had been in Babylon for 70 odd years. If the magi were from around that region it's perfectly possible that they had access to the Hebrew Scriptures, so I also think it's possible that the magi were pagan astrologers with access to the Hebrew Scriptures. It's therefore possible that they reached their conclusions through a syncretistic blend of scriptural revelation and occult practices.
I'm not disputing that the Magi may possibly have had access to the Hebrew Scriptures (though nothing in the text in Matthew suggests that they did). It is however clear that no matter how well they knew the Scriptures this cannot be how they knew that the King of the Jews had been born.
Are you saying that it is impossible that God was involved in this revelation and that it was occult?
There was a Jewish diaspora in that part of the world from the destruction of the first Temple in 597 BC until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. It's hardly outwith the bounds of possibility that some Parthian wise men were acquainted with the Jewish Scriptures. The Parthian Empire took an interest in Jewish affairs, as they were pretty much on the border between Rome and Parthia, so its hardly impossible that some Parthian Magi took an interest in religious affairs in Judea around 4BC, or thereabouts. As the young Herod had come to power after the Parthians had abuducted one of his predecessors and mutilated him, one can see why he might have been anxious about Parthian aristocrats turning up on his doorstep and enquiring about the whereabouts of the Messiah.
The whole point of the story in Matthew is that the Magi rock up and demonstrate the allegiance of the Gentiles to Jesus which, as any fule kno, is one of the characteristics of the Messiah in the OT. So, if we are going to read Matthew in a sympathetic way the point of Epiphany is that the Magi are supposed to be there. They are not gate crashers. They are the fulfilment of prophecy.
If I wanted to set up a conspiracy theory, I would suggest that the Magi were Parthian agents who wanted to raise up a Davidic pretender to bring Judea into the Parthian sphere of influence, or merely to cause trouble for Rome and Herod, with the Holy Family as their catspaws and that the Holy Family had to get the hell out of Dodge when it all went Pete Tong. This would then explain Jesus' sense of anointedness and his reluctance to be a political Messiah. I don't believe this - the choice isn't between the Gospels and a sober account of Jesus' birth from a cottage hospital in Bethlehem, it's between the Gospels and simply not knowing. But it would be an interesting take on the story.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
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Gracie
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# 3870
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
There was a Jewish diaspora in that part of the world from the destruction of the first Temple in 597 BC until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. It's hardly outwith the bounds of possibility that some Parthian wise men were acquainted with the Jewish Scriptures. The Parthian Empire took an interest in Jewish affairs, as they were pretty much on the border between Rome and Parthia, so its hardly impossible that some Parthian Magi took an interest in religious affairs in Judea around 4BC, or thereabouts. As the young Herod had come to power after the Parthians had abuducted one of his predecessors and mutilated him, one can see why he might have been anxious about Parthian aristocrats turning up on his doorstep and enquiring about the whereabouts of the Messiah.
My point wasn't that it was unlikely that the Magi were familiar with the Hebrew Scriptures. Rather that knowledge of the Hebrews Scriptures could not have led them to conclude that the Messiah and King of the Jews at that particular time.
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When someone is convinced he’s an Old Testament prophet there’s not a lot you can do with him rationally. - Sine
Posts: 1090 | From: En lieu sûr | Registered: Dec 2002
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Gracie
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# 3870
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Posted
Oops there should have been "had been born" in the middle of that last sentence.
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When someone is convinced he’s an Old Testament prophet there’s not a lot you can do with him rationally. - Sine
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I'm of the view that such things of necessity mean that a different God is being worshipped (...) Therefore, all and any "god" who is not Trinity is simply is not God.
Oh dear, just when we were doing so well...
The true God being trinitarian in nature is one thing.
Apprehending that mystery is another.
Seeking to worship the true God in ignorance of the fullness of his nature does not constitute wilful idolatry.
If a complete understanding of the Godhead is a prerequisite to worshipping the "correct" God, then either all would be idolatrous (since our human understanding cannot apprehend the fullness of who God is) or God would not be God (because he could be fully known and circumscribed by mankind).
We're specifically discussing Islam Eutychus and I'm sure you know that Islam expressly rejects any possibility of a Triune God; in fact it specifically forbids the entertainment of such an idea. That surely means that Islam - whether you like it or not - is a fundamental and non-negotiable rejection of God-as-he-really-is, not just an "inadequate or incomplete understanding" of God-as-he-really-is. Consequently, the god called Allah, who is described in the Koran, is not and can ever be considered to the same God who Christians worship.
[ 04. January 2015, 22:17: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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irish_lord99
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# 16250
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Posted
So, just to be clear, do you believe the Jews worship a different God?
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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
So, just to be clear, do you believe the Jews worship a different God?
And presumably the Samaritans as well, despite what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman. Which was where daronmedway replied;
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
On which basis the Jews worship an idol rather than the true God as well. And so do the Samaritans. In which case Jesus must have been misquoted in what he said to the Samaritan woman.
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
Possibly. I'd suggest that the God of Judaism and Samaritanism is inadequate in comparison with what is actually revealed in the OT and NT Scriptures as we see it expressed in the ecumenical creeds. Perhaps the line between theological inadequacy and outright idolatry is the degree of intentionality.
Which is slightly ambiguous to me. Either Jesus was possibly misquoted in the gospels or the argument is the Muslims intend their error and are therefore idolators but the Jews and Samaritans didn't intend their error and so aren't.
Neither seems completely satisfactory.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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agingjb
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# 16555
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Posted
Do christians regard people who have different views from themselves on the filioque as not worshipping the same god?
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Refraction Villanelles
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
Do christians regard people who have different views from themselves on the filioque as not worshipping the same god?
No, just heretics.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
Consequently, the god called Allah, who is described in the Koran, is not and can ever be considered to the same God who Christians worship.
And with this we are back to the confusion between the signifier and the referent.
God is not the sum of a set of signifiers. He is not even the sum of the signifiers we find in Scripture. He is the Referent to which those signifiers refer.
God-breathed signifiers (the words in the Bible) help us to understand what he is like, but they don't circumscribe him. And the message I take away from the Bible is that they can't circumscribe him. (For one thing God went a lot further than revealing himself through the written word; he sent his Son and the Spirit of Jesus to reveal truth to us).
Signifiers like "triune" and "trinity" help me in my understanding of God, but they are not words in the Bible; they are human theological constructs.
You make it sound as though proper worship is only about prior adherence to the right set of signifiers and theological constructs. That doesn't match my experience or what I see in the Bible. I think worship is first and foremost an affair of the heart and the Spirit. Theological truth is another component, but it's a work in progress for everyone.
By your own lights and account, there are people in your congregation of whom it could be said that they were worshipping "a different God" (your words) prior to coming to a correct theological understanding. Serious question: how can you stand to lead a congregation in worship if you believe that in doing so you are providing an opportunity for some people to continue in idolatry?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
Consequently, the god called Allah, who is described in the Koran, is not and can ever be considered to the same God who Christians worship.
And with this we are back to the confusion between the signifier and the referent.
God is not the sum of a set of signifiers. He is not even the sum of the signifiers we find in Scripture. He is the Referent to which those signifiers refer.
God-breathed signifiers (the words in the Bible) help us to understand what he is like, but they don't circumscribe him. And the message I take away from the Bible is that they can't circumscribe him. (For one thing God went a lot further than revealing himself through the written word; he sent his Son and the Spirit of Jesus to reveal truth to us).
Signifiers like "triune" and "trinity" help me in my understanding of God, but they are not words in the Bible; they are human theological constructs.
You make it sound as though proper worship is only about prior adherence to the right set of signifiers and theological constructs. That doesn't match my experience or what I see in the Bible. I think worship is first and foremost an affair of the heart and the Spirit. Theological truth is another component, but it's a work in progress for everyone.
By your own lights and account, there are people in your congregation of whom it could be said that they were worshipping "a different God" (your words) prior to coming to a correct theological understanding. Serious question: how can you stand to lead a congregation in worship if you believe that in doing so you are providing an opportunity for some people to continue in idolatry?
I'll go with that
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
For those who don't understand:
the ancient Greeks thought that water was an element. We think water is a compound of oxygen and hydrogen. We think water is a different thing (signifier), but we're both talking about the same stuff - water (referent).
Some people think Richard III of England was a scheming murderer, and some people think he was a statesman in difficult times; but both groups are talking about the same person.
It happens all the time that people talk about the same thing, while holding different beliefs about that thing, or the same person while holding different assessments of that person's character. It doesn't suddenly become different when people talk about God.
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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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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
You make it sound as though proper worship is only about prior adherence to the right set of signifiers and theological constructs.
The logical conclusion is that when the disciples worshiped Jesus, they were worshiping an idol since none had a proper understanding of the trinity.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
I think daronmedway's attempted way out of this is to say that in God-of-the-Bible-approved revelation, there is no intent to deceive, merely incomplete revelation, and that worship within a system within which there is no intent to deceive (roughly speaking, biblical revelation) is not idolatry.
However, this does not square with his assertion here that a lady in his own congregation (which he presumably strives to base on biblical revelation in good faith) who was a "functional Arian" was quote:
worshipping a different God... and her "God" was not the God of Christianity
which appears to me to make her (in his appraisal) an idolater.
[ 05. January 2015, 08:48: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
So, just to be clear, do you believe the Jews worship a different God?
I don't think so. I suppose a very simplistic way of putting it would be to say that non-Christian Jews have an underdeveloped view of God-as-he-is revealed in their scriptures and have not embraced the NT revelation, whereas Muslims have an over-developed view of God in that the vision of God depicted in the Koran is an intentional departure from OT and NT revelation. The Jewish view of God fails to embrace what has been revealed in the NT; the Muslim view of God - found in the Koran - rejects and contradicts to what has been revealed in both testaments. In this respect Jews have an underdeveloped vision of the one true God, whereas Muslims worship a false god.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I think daronmedway's attempted way out of this is to say that in God-of-the-Bible-approved revelation, there is no intent to deceive, merely incomplete revelation, and that worship within a system within which there is no intent to deceive (roughly speaking, biblical revelation) is not idolatry.
However, this does not square with his assertion here that a lady in his own congregation (which he presumably strives to base on biblical revelation in good faith) who was a "functional Arian" was quote:
worshipping a different God... and her "God" was not the God of Christianity
which appears to me to make her (in his appraisal) an idolater.
This is a fair point and does reveal an overstatement on part, I therefore retract my comment about this lady worshipping a different God in favour of a softer view that her view of God was unintentionally heretical. But hey, this is the Church of England so no worries…. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I suppose a very simplistic way of putting it would be to say that non-Christian Jews have an underdeveloped view of God-as-he-is revealed in their scriptures and have not embraced the NT revelation, whereas Muslims have an over-developed view of God in that the vision of God depicted in the Koran is an intentional departure from OT and NT revelation (...) In this respect Jews have an underdeveloped vision of the one true God, whereas Muslims worship a false god.
So in your new modified view, everything within the canon up to its completion represents divine revelation-in-progress, so worship based on it does not qualify as idolatry, whereas every claimed divine revelation subsequent to closure of the canon is not divine in origin and therefore ipso facto leads to idolatry?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
So how does she get a bye on that but not muslims? And the Samaritan woman that Jesus spoke to still seems to be in limbo according to your view.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I suppose a very simplistic way of putting it would be to say that non-Christian Jews have an underdeveloped view of God-as-he-is revealed in their scriptures and have not embraced the NT revelation, whereas Muslims have an over-developed view of God in that the vision of God depicted in the Koran is an intentional departure from OT and NT revelation (...) In this respect Jews have an underdeveloped vision of the one true God, whereas Muslims worship a false god.
So in your new modified view, everything within the canon up to its completion represents divine revelation-in-progress, so worship based on it does not qualify as idolatry, whereas every claimed divine revelation subsequent to closure of the canon is not divine in origin and therefore ipso facto leads to idolatry?
Basically yes.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
So how does she get a bye on that but not muslims?
Because she simply hadn't realised the teaching of the apostles, whereas Muslims are taught to explicitly reject that teaching. Different categories.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Do you think divine revelation ceased with the closure of the canon?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
Because she simply hadn't realised the teaching of the apostles, whereas Muslims are taught to explicitly reject that teaching. Different categories.
On common sense I'd have thought that made her more culpable having heard all your orthodox and I have no doubt clear and concise preaching yet nevertheless persisted in heresy, versus the benighted Muslim who is being actively misled.
But there's a wider problem illustrated here - where do these rules come from? What basis in scripture or anywhere else beyond our arbitrary reasoning to produce such distinctions?
(PS I note the Samaritan woman hangs on in limbo).
[ 05. January 2015, 09:54: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Ok, I take back my presumption in trying to tell other people what Daronmedway 'sincerely believes'.
I suggest he extends a similar courtesy to everyone else - including the members of his own congregation ...
Incidentally, I'm just as frustrated as Daronmedway might be at the general lack of Trinitarian awareness - as it were - across all the churches - including the CofE. I don't find this as much of an issue with the Orthodox as their Liturgy is so explicitly Trinitarian that you'd have to be pretty dim to miss it ... although from what Orthodox priests have told me, some of the laity do miss it until it's explained to them in detail.
Howbeit, at least those people who are not so far along the journey are not idolaters now, so we are makings some ' progress' ... ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I'd agree with Daronmedway that the Jews have an 'underdeveloped' view insofar as they've inserted a full-stop where the Christians have a comma ...
And that the Muslims have over-stepped the mark and essentially added 'further revelation' - which is something (on one reading of the closing chapter of the book of Revelations) that is a no-no ...
Ok, I'm not as simplistically 'biblicist' as that and don't believe that divine revelation is restricted to the canon of the NT. However, I would say that subsequent writings and putative revelations - whether the Quran or the Book of Mormon are necessarily suspect and not 'worthy of all acceptation.'
I don't think we're all that far apart, it's simply that, for whatever reason, Daronmedway appears to go in for more strident and emotive language than Eutychus and some of the other posters here - who are also coming from an evangelical base.
The irony with all of this is that some Orthodox and some Lutherans wouldn't consider Daronmedway to be 'kosher' in his Trinitarianism nor his adherence to the Ecumenical Creeds - insofar as they believe that Calvinism enshrines a wonky Christology ...
So it ain't just me who presumes to suggest what Daronmedway sincerely believes ... ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
But his challenge was a good one and, for the record, I've yet to be fully convinced that those Orthodox and Lutherans who carp at Calvinists over various Christological points are entirely correct to do so ... but then ... there's no smoke without fire ...
All this could be a question of semantics.
I am quite prepared to say that Muslims have an erroneous view of the Godhead - insofar as they are not Trinitarian and expressly forbid such a belief.
That doesn't necessarily imply that they are worshipping a 'different' God, simply that they have yet to realise that the God they are worshipping is in fact Triune.
Ultimately, of course, we don't know ...
We can't judge who or what the Muslims believe God to be - or whether they are worshipping him as 'unknown' or in a partial way or even not at all - as Daronmedways suggests.
Which makes such speculation a futile exercise in my book - and why I believe that Eutychus's approach is both more sensitive pastorally and evangelistically.
Which doesn't mean I wasn't annoyed when our local vicar told me to back off from trying to gently correct someone who had come out with a whole pile of sub-Trinitarian doo-doo in the context of public worship ...
I told him in some ways that this was his job, not mine and if he wasn't doing it properly then he should expect people to take matters into their own hands.
Only I wasn't as blunt as that ...
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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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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Ok, I take back my presumption in trying to tell other people what Daronmedway 'sincerely believes'.
I suggest he extends a similar courtesy to everyone else - including the members of his own congregation ...
Gamaliel, I am going to take this up in the Styx.
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Do you think divine revelation ceased with the closure of the canon?
No, I'm a continuationist so I would consider the charismata to be a form of revelation from God which is subordinate to the canon. I do not accept that there is any "inscripturate revelation" after the closure of the canon and I have reservations about the recording of prophetic utterances in writing for public consumption beyond the local congregation in which those prophecies were spoken verbally.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
Back up a bit lad - doesn't being a religious Jew in this day and age require the implicit, if not the explicit, rejection of the Messiahship of Jesus?
As such, I find the distinction being drawn between Judaism and Islam here a little artificial. Both say Jesus was not the Messiah. How important that is to the individuals in those religions you can debate, but I don't think, given that, you can really categorise the one as "incomplete" and the other as "wrong". If Jesus is the Messiah, both are wrong. Not merely incomplete. Wrong. It may or may not matter much in terms of salvation etc. as a woolly liberal like me would say, but still factually wrong, if Jesus' Messiahship is a fact.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Back up a bit lad - doesn't being a religious Jew in this day and age require the implicit, if not the explicit, rejection of the Messiahship of Jesus?
As such, I find the distinction being drawn between Judaism and Islam here a little artificial.
It would be possible for Christian to discuss the nature of God with a Jew using scripture which both accept as divinely inspired (the Hebrew Scriptures/OT); not so the Muslim.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I have once done so. They accused me of using a messed-up translation and of misinterpretation. Exactly the same arguments that Muslims have used. Yet the former is incomplete revelation and the latter idolatory?
I'm still troubled as to how these rules are wrung out of scripture, and where they leave the Samaritan woman. (Especially since Jesus' words to her seem to me to offer a more scriptural basis for discussing this than these other rules).
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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mdijon
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# 8520
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Posted
And by the way many Jewish believers would regard the Talmud as inspired. Does that tip them over the line into idolatory?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Back up a bit lad - doesn't being a religious Jew in this day and age require the implicit, if not the explicit, rejection of the Messiahship of Jesus?
As such, I find the distinction being drawn between Judaism and Islam here a little artificial.
It would be possible for Christian to discuss the nature of God with a Jew using scripture which both accept as divinely inspired (the Hebrew Scriptures/OT); not so the Muslim.
That may be so, and I'm not up to speed on Islamic or Jewish beliefs about the Hebrew Scriptures, but that's not the distinction you made further upthread.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
And by the way many Jewish believers would regard the Talmud as inspired. Does that tip them over the line into idolatory?
There's no concensus on this thread regarding what idolatry actually is, so I'm not really able to say at the moment. I think it would be important to look at the biblical theology of idolatry to shed more light on the discussion.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
And by the way many Jewish believers would regard the Talmud as inspired. Does that tip them over the line into idolatory?
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
There's no concensus on this thread regarding what idolatry actually is, so I'm not really able to say at the moment.
That didn't stop you labeling Muslims as idolaters. Are you going to withdraw that on the basis of the lack of consensus on idolatry?
And you continue to avoid the Samaritan-worship-what-you-do-not-know question.
[ 05. January 2015, 15:55: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
And by the way many Jewish believers would regard the Talmud as inspired. Does that tip them over the line into idolatory?
Jewish believers may think the Talmud is divinely inspired. That does not mean it's not subject to interpretation and disputation. That's what the Rabbis have been doing since the Babylonian exile.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
And by the way many Jewish believers would regard the Talmud as inspired. Does that tip them over the line into idolatory?
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
There's no concensus on this thread regarding what idolatry actually is, so I'm not really able to say at the moment.
That didn't stop you labeling Muslims as idolaters. Are you going to withdraw that on the basis of the lack of consensus on idolatry?
And you continue to avoid the Samaritan-worship-what-you-do-not-know question.
I didn't say I didn't have an opinion as to what idolatry is, I said that there's no consensus on this thread as to what idolatry is. By the definition of idolatry that I'm working to the god described in the Koran is an idol while others disagree.
With regard to the Samaritan woman, it's interesting that Jesus addresses her both as an individual and as a member of a religious sect. I'd suggest that the Samaritan failure to embrace the whole Jewish canon of scripture would suggest an incomplete vision of God by the standards of the available revelation of the day.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
I didn't say I didn't have an opinion as to what idolatry is, I said that there's no consensus on this thread as to what idolatry is. By the definition of idolatry that I'm working to the god described in the Koran is an idol while others disagree.
OK, so by your definition are the Jews who say Christians have messed with the translations and interpretation of the scripture and believe in the Talmud more or less idolaters than the Muslims who say Christians have messed with the translations and interpretation of scripture and have the Koran?
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
With regard to the Samaritan woman... I'd suggest that the Samaritan failure to embrace the whole Jewish canon of scripture would suggest an incomplete vision of God by the standards of the available revelation of the day.
And would your view change if you looked at Samaritanism and found that it wasn't simply Judaism minus something but in fact included a bunch of other texts and additional beliefs?
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
Less so and no, respectively.
[ 05. January 2015, 16:28: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
Doesn't that strike you as inconsistent? If not can you explain the differences?
I have a strong suspicion that you are showing me lots of post-hoc justifications for an a priori prejudice which don't quite add up to a consistent argument.
(And we haven't even got to where we get any scriptural validity for all these rules and nuances).
[ 05. January 2015, 16:37: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
No, I'm a continuationist so I would consider the charismata to be a form of revelation from God which is subordinate to the canon.
In that case I think you should be open to the possibility of the Spirit drawing an individual to worship God prior to them discovering a more accurate description of God through the Scriptures and encountering the risen Christ.
As a bonus, seeing things that way deals rather more neatly and non-legalistically with the thicket of objections you are presently finding yourself having to hack through (and we haven't properly dealt with the Magi or the Athenians yet in this respect...).
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
No, I'm a continuationist so I would consider the charismata to be a form of revelation from God which is subordinate to the canon.
In that case I think you should be open to the possibility of the Spirit drawing an individual to worship God prior to them discovering a more accurate description of God through the Scriptures and encountering the risen Christ.
Oh I fully believe in the sovereignty of God in effectual calling because, as you rightly suggest, God's grace is irresistible and election is unconditional.
[ 05. January 2015, 16:52: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Well why not drop all this "idolatry" and "gatecrashing" and "worshipping a different God" vocabulary then?
[ 05. January 2015, 16:55: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Doesn't that strike you as inconsistent? If not can you explain the differences?
I think I already have. It's do with progressive revelation and the place of that revelation in time. Islamic "revelation" is post-apostolic and post-canonical, and therefore to be rejected as false and wholly unnecessary in light of previous revelation. This is not the case with either Judaism or Samaritanism.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Well why not drop all this "idolatry" and "gatecrashing" and "worshipping a different God" vocabulary then?
Human responsibility.
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
His view of God was incomplete but not heretical inasmuch as he wasn't consciously "teaching against or teaching differently to" apostolic teaching.
How is that different from an honest (but possibly misled) Muslim?
It's different because the Koran offers a
view of God which stands in wilful and explicit contradiction to apostolic teaching.
Wilful? How? I doubt whether 6th Century CE Arabic people knew any 'apostolic' teaching beyond some of the weird gospels like Thomas.
I'm not sure how one would come to that conclusion. There were certainly Christians in Arabia, and one of the earliest Christian churches to have been discovered by anthropologists was built there in the 4th century.
It seems to me that for Christians in the Syrian/Antiochene tradition, for whom Jesus was more of an example of perfect human obedience to God's will rather than a glorified God-Man, the leap to Islam was not as great as it might seem to more modern Catholic-minded Christians.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
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mdijon
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# 8520
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Posted
Can you see why, with the examples I give above, it seems rather arbitrary?
For instance, it presumably means that following pre-Biblical Hindu scriptures is simply an incomplete understanding of God, but Swedenborg is idolatry.
That seems incredibly counter-intuitive and I don't understand the logical or scriptural basis for it. Can you find any precedent for such a distinction?
In fact in terms of precedent it seems to be rather an evolved position even given your earlier statement;
quote:
Perhaps the concept of idolatry as it is revealed in the bible would help. The general idea is that the human heart is an "idol factory" which produces false gods... Insofar as these 'gods' depart from the God revealed in the Bible, they are idols or false gods. So, what must we believe about the God revealed in the bible in order for our God to not be an idol? For that we have the ecumenical creeds.
I think Eutychus produces a more intuitive possibility that avoids all this inconsistency.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Well why not drop all this "idolatry" and "gatecrashing" and "worshipping a different God" vocabulary then?
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
Human responsibility.
Non sequitur. Human responsibility for the error can be claimed whatever the vocabulary used for the error.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Can you see why, with the examples I give above, it seems rather arbitrary?
For instance, it presumably means that following pre-Biblical Hindu scriptures is simply an incomplete understanding of God, but Swedenborg is idolatry.
That seems incredibly counter-intuitive and I don't understand the logical or scriptural basis for it. Can you find any precedent for such a distinction?
In fact in terms of precedent it seems to be rather an evolved position even given your earlier statement;
quote:
Perhaps the concept of idolatry as it is revealed in the bible would help. The general idea is that the human heart is an "idol factory" which produces false gods... Insofar as these 'gods' depart from the God revealed in the Bible, they are idols or false gods. So, what must we believe about the God revealed in the bible in order for our God to not be an idol? For that we have the ecumenical creeds.
I think Eutychus produces a more intuitive possibility that avoids all this inconsistency.
It strikes me that both you and Eutychus have a rather ahistorical view of revelation; as if the revelation of Christ and the apostolic proclamation of Christ at a specific point in history is merely happenstance rather than a complete gamechanger in terms of what humanity could expect in terms of subsequent divine revelation.
[ 05. January 2015, 17:29: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
In haste:
Is this where we ask about how you think people were saved before Christ?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
It strikes me that both you and Eutychus have a rather ahistorical view of revelation; as if the revelation of Christ and the apostolic proclamation of Christ at a specific point in history is merely happenstance rather than a complete gamechanger in terms of what humanity could expect in terms of subsequent divine revelation.
Not at all, I just don't think the fact that the Talmud was written before Christ by 6 centuries and the Quran 6 centuries after is a sufficient justification for calling Muslims idolaters who worship a different God and Jews worshipers of the same God with an incomplete revelation.
That doesn't at all deny the importance of the Gospels in revelation. I just don't think the dating of the origins of the other religion as before or after that dramatic event is informative in determining whether we are dealing with a different God.
Having said all that, Augustine's post above describing the difference between signifier and referent seems to me to describe the most fundamental level at which your view is illogical - what I'm pointing out here are all the downstream oddities that the illogicality then throws up.
(ETA: Eutychus' in haste is again a more fundamental point than I've clunked through in detail)
[ 05. January 2015, 17:38: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
In haste:
Is this where we ask about how you think people were saved before Christ?
No one was, that is until Christ descended into Hades.
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
In haste:
Is this where we ask about how you think people were saved before Christ?
Before Christ in what sense?
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
In haste:
Is this where we ask about how you think people were saved before Christ?
No one was, that is until Christ descended into Hades.
Again in haste and off the top of my head (although this is a bit of a tangent):
Enoch (walked with God)? Elijah? (taken up to heaven)? Moses (appears with Elijah alongside Jesus at the Transfiguration)? Abraham (who believed God and it was credited unto him as righteousness, and who saw Jesus' day and rejoiced)? Melchisedek??
daronmedway:
If the work of Christ applies only in a linear fashion in history, what happens in your view, in terms of salvation, to those who were born and died prior to Christ's incarnation?
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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