Post Edited (Similitude) : 10/10/2011 8:42:19 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/11/2011 7:59:55 AM (GMT-5)

2) How do you define "person"?

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/11/2011 8:43:29 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/11/2011 10:47:10 AM (GMT-5)

4) They don't know how positing this drastically affects the whole redemption process.  As long as Jesus is "God enough" to show and tell them that they'll be saved for "heaven" by believing in His work...and that be meaningful...that's all they need.

What do you think, Tom?

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/11/2011 11:47:05 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Tom) : 10/11/2011 12:21:36 PM (GMT-5)

Hi Jeff!  This is a discussion topic that is close to my heart and I hope you don’t mind me barging in.  You prompted some thoughts.

J - To me, what you're saying about the godhead doesn't explain anything in need of explanation.

451 – I think you articulate here the general feeling of most evangelicals, even many of those trained in theology.  These things, I have been told, are so far from the real issues of the world and even the Christian life, that we shouldn’t spend time on them.  For the most part, I would agree.  However, we have the advantage of a long history of relatively defined doctrine.  Our theological thinking is based on the results of the battles fought long ago.  There certainly was a time when these things were important and the decisions had both practical and theological significance for believers.  We could also suggest that, partly because the battles were fought so long ago, we are in a day when traditions are not enough and we are re-visiting many of the same issues.  Thus, the discussion has relevance, not so much for those who have been brought up in traditional thinking, but for those who will learn the future doctrine of the church.

J - Because to me, the godhead is nothing more or less than that/those person(s) that account(s) for the ordered system of beings my mind is naturally designed to infer as an extra-ego world.

451 – What do you mean by this?  Are you suggesting that we only assert a godhead that our minds can “infer.”  Does our knowledge of God come from our inference?  If so, are you dismissing revelation? I am not insinuating anything, just trying to get a sense of where you are coming from.

J- . . . as I've argued before, I don't see how omnipresence explains anything about God's knowledge.

451 – This is fair.  For some, the omni formula is a logical construct where each “pillar” bears the weight of the whole.  IOW, one leads to the other and the second leads to the third, etc.  If one falls, the others are carried down with it.  To wit: If God is to know everything with full and perfect knowledge, then He must be eternal and He must be omnipresent because that perfect (read experiential) knowledge requires presence.  Of course, whether God has that kind of knowledge or whether that knowledge is in the realm of the possible is the debate of Open Theism.  It is also a debate of philosophy, where the concepts are defined and explained to minute degrees so that we can decide whether we agree or not.

J - The other [sense of mystery] is that which can not be thought by humans--supra-intuitive relationality, e.g. But that kind of mystery, by definition, is irrelevant to philosophy and theology.

451 – And that opens the door to my main comment.  What you describe above is what I might call revelation, the communication of that divine rationality in a way that our minds and hearts are able to receive.  I would agree that revelation is a problem for philosophy.  I might even further suggest that revelation is the bane of philosophy.  It answers questions not asked and creates more questions by its assertions.  Revelation, by its nature, inserts itself into the discussion and makes much of our debate look like foolishness.

OTOH, revelation is the very heart of theology.  Now, I know that some see theology as a branch of philosophy, where our reasoning power is exercised in discussions that interest us.  But, for Christians, human reasoning is quite irrelevant.  Who cares what I think must be the case?  What we ought to care about is what has been revealed.  Once we believe in a God who is real and active and personal, we care about what He says.

So, when I ask whether Jesus was omnipresent while He walked the earth, I have to look at the Scriptures.  Then I find passages where He tells Nicodemus that He “saw” him under the fig tree and He tells the disciples that wherever two or three of them are gathered He is there “in the midst of them.”  I assert these statements as revealed truth.  I also consider such things as the firm conviction throughout Scripture that God is omnipresent and Jesus is fully God.  These are the only kinds of real theological assertions I can make. 

There is no question that this leads me to certain apparent contradictions and to literal interpretation of verses that are uncomfortable for my preferred way of thinking.  When that happens, I have to stand on the mystery of the divine rationality that you mention.  I simply do not and probably cannot understand.  And for me to try to explain the mystery beyond the revelation opens me to the leading of my limited intellect and, by my definition, moves us into the realm of philosophical discussion. 

Hi Tom!  Thanks for the welcome!  And thanks, One Love, for the comments!

Extrapolating from the human to the divine has always been a source of trouble in theological discussion.  We do it because we think we understand what it means to be human and because we certainly do not understand what it means to be divine.  Yet, the initiative of incarnation was from the divine to the human and any extrapolation, any understanding of how things work, will have to come from that side of the equation.  Of course, that necessarily ends in mystery.  We have what revelation we have, never enough to settle these things beyond statements drawn from faith in that limited revelation. 

I certainly understand that kenoticism answers some of the hard questions about Jesus.  The problem is that it creates many more and its assertions stand in contrast to facts revealed.  While we see Jesus asking who touched Him, as though He didn’t know, we also have Him telling the life story of the woman at the well whom He hadn’t met before.  Does He know some things and not others?  I suspect it is the desire to conceive a Jesus “just like us” and with whom we can readily identify that leads some people to the conviction that Jesus had limited knowledge.  At the same time, it is the desire to have a Jesus who is beyond us and able by that distinction to save and lead us that brings others to the conviction that Jesus knew all things.  (That and the statement from John 16:20 that Jesus knows all things. ;)

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/12/2011 12:34:26 PM (GMT-5)

So much I could say, and might later...

Erickson's view is regurgitated Strong. Many forget today that Strong, probably the greatest of the evangelical theologians, was convinced of the reliability of historical criticism and did not see inerrancy as a necessary doctrine. While he rejected the classic teachings of kenoticism from Thomasius and Dorner, et al., he attempted to provide a "compatible" theory that incorporated evangelical and modernist thinking.

“(a) In that act of the preexistent Logos by which he gave up his divine glory with the Father, in order to take a servant-form.  In this act, he resigned not the possession, nor yet entirely the use, but rather the independent exercise, of the divine attributes.

(b) In the submission of the Logos to the control of the Holy Spirit and the limitations of his Messianic mission, in his communication of the divine fullness of the human nature which he had taken into union with himself.

(c) In the continuous surrender, on the part of the God-man, so far as his human nature was concerned, of the exercise of those divine powers with which it was endowed by virtue of its union with the divine, and in the voluntary acceptance, which followed upon this, of temptation, suffering, and death.” (Systematic Theology, 1907, p. 703)

“Omniscience gives up all knowledge but that of the child, the infant, the embryo, the infinitesimal germ of humanity.  Omnipotence gives up all power but that of the impregnated ovum in the womb of the Virgin.  The Godhead narrows itself down to a point that is next to absolute extinction.” (ibid.)

Love that song! I have consistently spoken to the error, however, and have suggested that we sing "emptied Himself because of love" instead.

Perhaps it should be said someplace in this discussion that the Scriptures may not teach kenosis at all like it has been taught.  Almost certainly Paul is echoing the words and sentiments of Isaiah 53 as he writes to the Philippians.  Note:

Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.  Isaiah 53:12

but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.  Philippians 2:7-8

These passages are remarkably similar, both in words used and in the point of the message.  In fact, the concept of “emptied Himself” and “poured out His soul” are plainly parallel.  I seriously doubt that Paul had any intention of communicating a lessening of divine attributes, however we want to explain the idea.

If Erickson, a reputable theologian, blunders in this way, it is not surprising when on several occasions I have asked gatherings of evangelical pastors the question 'After the incarnation had occured, did the Second Person of the Godhead still possess and exercise the attribute of omnipresence, or was he confined to the human body he had assumed?' that many have opted for the latter construction: 'After all,' they say, 'is this not what the word "incarnation" means?' They did not seem to realize that the necessary implication of this choice is that in the incarnation God the Son divested himself of his attribute of being always and everywhere immediately present in his created universe."

Robert L. Reymond
"Classical Christology's Future in Systematic Theology"
from "Always Reforming: Explorations in Systematic Theology" by
Andrew Thomson Blake McGowan