--On Sat, 02 Mar 2002 18:22:47 george murphy wrote: >Stuart d Kirkley wrote: >> >> >> >> On Fri, 1 Mar 2002 15:24:28 >> >> bivalve wrote: >> >> Even being born as the heir apparent to Caesar >> >> would have made the Creator physically dependent on others to feed >> >> and clean Him. >> >> >> Stuart Kirkley wrote >> >> I still, for the life of me, can not understand how people can rationally state that Jesus was God incarnate. To me this is one of the biggest stumbling blocks of theololgy which stems from and leads to a narrowness of scriptural interpretation. If, as the Bible states clearly many times, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to be the Saviour of the world, reveals God as Parent and Son as offspring, distinct and individual, how do you arrive at the idea that Jesus was God???!! I just find it incredulous that well reasoned people can actually hold to this doctrine. >> >> Sorry, I had to get that out. >> > >> George Murphy wrote: >> >1) The real stumbling block (_skandalon_) is not simply that Jesus is God Incarnate but that he died on the cross - I Cor.1:18-31. >> > >> >2) Scripture also says that "the Word was God" (Jn.1:3), that "in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily" (Col.2:9) &c. >> > >> >3) "Rationality" is a criterion for judging not premises but the way one thinks from premises. Christian thought properly begins with the belief that Jesus is fully human and fully divine and develops - rationally - its concept of God from there. It does not begin with some philosophical assumptions about the unity of God and then try to shoehorn the divinity of Christ into that understanding of God - though unfortunately that's the way that theology often has worked. >> > >> >4) The proper Christian understanding of God is trinitarian, not because of an _a priori_ belief that God is three and one but precisely as a way of trying to make sense of the belief that the one who died on the cross is "true God of true God." >> > >> > Shalom, >> > George >> > >> >George L. Murphy >> >http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/ >> >"The Science-Theology Dialogue" >> >> >SK wrote: >> >OK, first I have no idea what you mean by 1., unless you mean that Jesus did not actually die as he proved three days later. The thing is, is that he did die out of mortal selfhood and was resurrected into his divine eternal selfhood which was the animating spirit of his earthly existence in the first place. > > "What I mean" is what Paul means - that a crucified Messiah is a scandal to "Jews and Greeks" - i.e., good religious & philosophical folks. It goes against our conceptions of divine power, glory, &c. It is "foolishness." _A fortiori_, the idea of a crucified _God_ is scandalous to commonsense ways of thinking about the divine. > >> As for 2., by simply stating some Scripture does not give me any basis to understand where you are coming from. Yes, the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh, but just what is the Word? To me it is the Truth or the ever present reality of divine government which has appeared in all ages in various forms, as a burning bush, as a still small voice, as a guiding star. Jesus was the embodiment of Truth, but as a human he was not the whole of Truth. Jesus said I go unto the Father, , that is he sought the whole of Truth and lived it, but he was not that whole. Thus his humility in the face of Truth. > > Where I am coming from is where John 1:1-14 is coming from. The Word that was God & was made flesh is Jesus. > >> 3. - I prefer to let God do the conceiving, after all He is the Creator. > > If you don't want to do theology, that's your privilege. But then don't proclaim your opinions about theology. > >> 4. Again, there are a lot of different doctrines out there, the notion of the Trinity is one of them. God said, I am that I am. To me that means one and one only and doesn't leave any room for any other entity. The trinity to me speaks more about the quality, not the quantity of God. > > Precisely. The dogma of the Trinity is not about arithmetic & certainly is not a denial of the unity of God. It has to do with the quality of that unity, which is organic rather than mathematical. > > Shalom, > George > >George L. Murphy >http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/ >"The Science-Theology Dialogue" > S.K. wrote: >OK, I'm just going to let 1. go for now, and your little quip on 3. can be forgiven. We seem to agree on 4. more or less, but 2. hmmm, this is where I have a major disagreement and not so much with you but with the strange doctrine taught by so many churches that Jesus was God, and the use of Scripture like John 1:14 and others to support this. I don't know if you actually read my response to 2. above, but that is what I believe and understand to be Jesus' birthright.
For every Sriptural quote you use to declare the doctrine that Jesus was God I can reveal dozens more that will refute your claim. For instance read just a couple of verses later in John 1:18 ' No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.' OK, if no one has seen God at any time then, when people looked at Jesus they couldn't be looking at God, according to the writer. Also again, the Son is in the bosom of the Father - If Jesus is God, then he must be the Father, who somehow begot himself and now holds himself in his own bosom, that's quite a contortionistic feat. Further, he hath declared him. Jesus never once said, I am God, never, ever, not even close. Yet he declared him, ie. He that believeth on me, believeth not on me but on Him that sent me. Jesus wanted no personal credit or applause for his existence or his works, he always pointed out that it was God that did the works through him. I could go on, but the reason I have such a problem with this is that Jesus said 'He that believeth on me the works that I do shall he do also.' When you believe that Jesus was God, you are implicitly making his works and deeds undoable by mere mortals because they were done by God in Jesus form. Yet Jesus taught us to follow him, and do his works, and many of the early Christians did just that, they went around healing the sick, but they weren't God either. But because they believed in Jesus teachings and knew the power that lay behind them did not come from his personal charisma or an individually isolated supernatural force, but was a power that was available to all of God's children at any time anywhere, the power of Truth and Love.
The big problem with making Jesus God is you put this power out of reach of the rest of us and you believe that the healing power demonstrated by Jesus is unattainable. In some ways it's a bit of a cop out, it tacitly declares that it is humanly impossible to do the things he did because he was God so how can we possibly do the things he did. Well his early disciples did and the true healing ministry of early Christianity thrived for some three hundred years. Why did it disappear?, because dogma, ritualism and formalism crept back into vogue and the healing ministry was obscured and nearly forgotten by the church. Then all these bizarre doctrines and creeds developed like the notion of the Trinity and the idea that Jesus was God.
Jesus said 'It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing' - Until religion regains the true motive of Christs mission and demonstrates it, all the arguments and debates about theology don't amount to squat.
OK, I'm done.
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