Re: [asa] Supra-Natural and the Balance of the Trinity [was addendum to Greetings from a new member]

Brief comments in red below.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Gregory Arago
  To: George Murphy ; Merv ; asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 4:41 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] Supra-Natural and the Balance of the Trinity [was addendum to Greetings from a new member]

  What about a 'supra-natural' component instead? Lately I've been reading about the concept of 'supra-organic,' which had/has nothing to do with natural vs. non-natural discussion (nor MN vs. PN), but rather about overcoming organicism. Human beings are said to have a 'supra-organic' component/aspect.

  Maybe. You'd have to say more fully what you mean by this.

  Secondly, how does the understanding or salvation of pre-Christian persons fit in with 'theology of the cross?' Does there not come a time and place when/where theology of the cross somehow imbalances the Trinity? After all, the Bible, kenosis aside as a specialized theological concept/percept, does not actually "start from the cross," but with Genesis 1.

  1) The cross-resurrection event is salvific but the theology of the cross is not limited to soteriology. 2) The doctrine of the Trinity can be understood as a way of explicating the claim that God is revealed in the cross-resurrection event. 3) Theology should start from the cross. The fact that the Bible starts with Genesis is secondary. We learn who the creator is in the cross-resurrection event.

  When it is written, "the comprehensibility of the world 'though God were not given' is a natural consequence," I simply view it as an 'interpreted (i.e. personal) consequence' and nothing more. What has it got to do with being 'natural?'

  I don't want to get into another go-round about the word "natural" (my last post about which, BTW, you didn't respond to). What I meant was that the hiddenness of God's action in the world corresponds to the hiddenness of God's salvific action in the cross.

  G. Arago

  George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
    I sent that last post too quickly. The claim that the universe can be
    understood without reference to God is not simply a "convenient" way of harmonizing religious belief with scientific reality. To see it that way is the result of starting with a merely "theistic" theology. If one starts
    from the cross, with its claim that God's supreme act takes place in
    concealment, and that God typical MO is kenotic, then the comprehensibility of the world "though God were not given" is a natural consequence. & the smirk of atheists at that is simply an expression of the foolishness that "Greeks" see in the cross.

    Shalom
    George
    http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

    "...we shouldn't be surprised if, among other things, human beings don't contain any special "supernatural" component." - George

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Received on Tue Apr 10 19:28:00 2007