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diamondd
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 42
| Posted 11/27/2002 9:28 AM (GMT -6) |   | Hey I was just wondering how my fellow inclusivist take the following verse:
Matthew 7:13-14 -
"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few that take it."
Are we to gather from this verse that the good majority of humanity present and past are going to be damned? IF so what kind of implications does this have theologically and philosophically in our view of God? Even if people are inclined to take the road to destruction you have to wonder: If you want to have a relationship with someone, why would you make it hard for them to have one?
blessings,
David
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diamondd
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 42
| Posted 11/28/2002 6:25 PM (GMT -6) | | hello? no takers? i have always struggled with this verse and i wondered how some others understand it. You don't have to believe in inclusivism to respond. thanks.
-David
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/29/2002 3:26 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Matthew 7:13-14 -
"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few that take it."
To throw a curve ball over the plate, V. Lossky or C. Yannaras mentioned that God does NOT "give us eternal life" (as if we then have it in ourselves). Vacation Sunday school notwithstanding. "In HIM is life...the light of men." God does not detach "life" and give it to us. God is divine (eternal) by nature, and became man that we might become god/divine by grace...In HIM. (Athanasias)
The emphasis in the verse above is on the "way" and the "choice," Not on God's judgement.
Someone wrote that: "Hell is a prison locked from the inside." Especially since the fall, "the road is hard that leads to life". That is true. And it emphasizes it to follow with there are few that take it. WE must know that not all of our steps are "on" that way. And so we repent.
But, back to eternal life. There is only one way. HE is the way. His love is also his judgement. Broad and separate from him is every way but the narrow (only) way in which we follow him, with Him by His Spirit.
I think that the terms Inclusivist and Exclusivist should BOTH be thrown out. They distort the issue, and prevent the essential questions from being asked, in favor of the surfacy ones.
Fred
Edited by - fred on 11/29/2002 08:49:16 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/29/2002 3:47 AM (GMT -6) | | David wrote: "If you want to have a relationship with someone, why would you make it hard for them to have one? "
God did not make it hard, he made it EASY.
In the garden our Father and Mother had it easy. They were created immature, and had a fine place to mature. And they had the variety of choices that they needed in order to follow the path of maturing. (And they also had each other, to grow in completeness in the image of Trinitarian community.)
God made it easy by becoming one of us (the original plan) so that we might have personal relationship with the Trinity through relationship with the Son -- who became one of us. He suffered in obedience so that he might identify with us in every way.
Rest for the Weary
25 At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.
27 "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
David, when we think of "easy" or "hard" lets think of the adjectives that REALLY describe them. (I know the verse uses easy and light the other way; but, I'm sure you follow me.) Not the "numeric possibilities/probabilities" of choosing the right choice. The "broad way" is hard in that respect of leading to "distruction" -- and you can't get much harder than destruction. His "yolk is easy."
How we assign words like easy and light can mean a great deal to the outcome of our thinking.
The same is true with respect to "free will." True "Free will" comes from a heart that is truly free, and in its freedom is not a slave to temptation or sin. Free will id NOT defined by how many choices there are to be made. (Its sometimes mistaken to be that.) Even when one of the choices is one that the person would never take...that does not mean that free will was not present. An example: When Christ, in true free will, turned down and rebuked the devil who tempted him three times; he DID have free will, even thought his human will was truly free to allign to the divine will...and did. It was true temptation, because Christ did have two choices. The fact that he never would take on of them is irrelevant.
Fred | | Back to Top | | |
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diamondd
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 42
| Posted 11/29/2002 1:03 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Fred,
thanks for the response. real quickly...
you said:
quote:
God did not make it hard, he made it EASY.
quote:
David, when we think of "easy" or "hard" lets think of the adjectives that REALLY describe them. (I know the verse uses easy and light the other way; but, I'm sure you follow me.) Not the "numeric possibilities/probabilities" of choosing the right choice. The "broad way" is hard in that respect of leading to "distruction" -- and you can't get much harder than destruction. His "yolk is easy."
Alright I understand what you are saying about the consequences of one's choice being easy or hard to bear with. However, what i mean by "easy" and "hard" is in a epistemological sense. Is the "right" way really that obvious? I tend to think not(because many don't receieve the proper message and the mesage itself is not so easily verifiable), maybe that's why faith is so important...however, that is also why i think the inclusivist position is so important. If you can prove that faith is so "easy" than i guess you will have made apologetics much easier, and saved me many troubles along with the rest of the world. Yes, Jesus did come to the Earth, but i was not there to see him visually. I have never seen or heard God in any objective sense, so to me, epistemology is such where faith isn't that obvious if you don't depend on subjective feelings about God or the bible. I may have good feelings about God, but that doesn't mean others will. Is Christianity really that objectively easy to porve or comprehend? It may not be irrational, but that doesn't make it verified. more could be said but i guess that is enough for now. thanks again for your response, i guess i am sort of working through some ideas out loud here.
blessings,
David
Edited by - diamondd on 11/29/2002 6:09:53 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/29/2002 5:28 PM (GMT -6) | | David, I understand what you are saying now about how "obvious" the Gospel is ("easy" and "hard" is in an epistemological sense). I didn't think to offer a view until the third call. So it is the verse (Matthew 7:13-14) that I was answering to, and not the issue of inclusivist/exclusivist.
You had Matthew 7:13-14 and I offered Matthew 11:28-30. Together they offer an interesting JUXTAPOSITION.
I said: God did not make it hard, he made it EASY. God made it easy by becoming one of us. He suffered in obedience so that he might identify with us in every way. But I was not at all refering to whether or not salvation was "obvious."
You remarked: "Alright I understand what you are saying about the consequences of one's choice being easy or hard to bear with." Since I interjected the JUSTAPOSITION of those two verses (from Mt. 7 and 11) "easy or hard to bear with" could be anything or everything.
Salvation requires one's death. The death part is hard; the salvation part is easy. (Pick your verse.)
Thing is, that its hard for all of us right now. Freedom is unavailable to us; we are slaves of natural necessity. The only freedom is death. But the only salvation is help from beyond ourselves. The hard-gained freedom in Christ does not obliterate us, but gives new birth to what God created.
Be a living Epistle.
God will show them their need. Its there already. It does not need to be any more "obvious."
But I have it from the mouths of some Fifty-somethings and Sixty-comethings, and a Seventy-something that mere appologetics doesn't make a dent. Our NEED does make that dent.
As Bonhoeffer said, "Christ bids us come and die."
As John Chrysostom said, "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs bestowing life."
"Time is the freedom to love." (from Ware's "The Inner Kingdom")
Edited by - fred on 11/29/2002 10:30:57 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/29/2002 6:19 PM (GMT -6) | | Ignore this if you wish. Its point is that salvation is more than just responding to information; but rather "salvation in terms of divine-human communion."
footnote 56. It is too easily forgotten that the doctrine of the Trinity as is presently known in the Christian tradition emerged when Athanasius of Alexandria unequivocally affirmed the divinity of Christ against Arian objections. Athanasius, however, affirmed the divinity of Christ not simply on the basis of scriptural exegesis, but on the basis of the principle that if salvation is offered in the resurrected Christ, and if this salvation consists in overcoming the limitations of finitude caused through sin, i.e., death, then only in communion with the uncreated can creation be given incorruptible, immortal existence. Thus, we see that in Athanasius the trinitarian God is linked to an understanding of salvation in terms of divine-human communion and a description of the limitations of the human situation. Insofar as the fundamental question in the Christian tradition up to Athanasius was the identity of Christ, efforts to judge the 'trinitarian' theologies of the 1st three centuries in terms of effectiveness in expressing coherently a God who is three and one are anachronistic and miss the point of trinitarian theology. On Athanasius, see De Incarnatione, 3-11, and 54.11-12 where Athanasius offers his famous axiom: "for he became human so that we might become god" (my translation). See also Peter Widdicombe's recent article, "Athanasius and the Making of the Doctrine of the Trinity," Pro Ecclesia, 4.4 (1999): 456-78.
Person, kenosis and Abuse: Hans Urs von Balthasar and Feminist theologies in conversation, Paper presented to the Boston Theological Society, 13 April 2000, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Holy Cross GOST
www.bostontheological.org/colloquium/bts/btspapanikolaou.htm
Edited by - fred on 11/29/2002 11:20:51 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/29/2002 9:13 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
If you want to have a relationship with someone, why would you make it hard for them to have one?
Hi David-
How 'bout God made it easy but people make it hard?
Tom
"It might take a year or two to begin to understand Calvinism. But you won't do so by reading books. It's a transformation of outlook." Al & Fred | | Back to Top | | |
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