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Originally posted by albert


Hello all!

I must admit I haven't read all the posts here carefully, but here's my contribution. I want to maintain what Greg calls libertarian free-will of all agents at all times i.e. I reject the idea that libertarian free-will precedes compatibilistic freedom - that seems to make the reward for success worse than the endurance of the trial. In addition, it seems to me that the incarnation should be understood in terms of a full-scale kenotic theory. That's the approach I take, and I think it has extremely good Biblical basis. So here's how I approach the problem:

Jesus incarnate gave up his omniscience (cf. Mt. 24:36 and note the verb tense), omnipotence (regarding his miracles etc., see Jn. 14:10-12), and omnipresence (yes I know about Jn. 3:13, the most misunderstood verse in the Bible within orthodox Christology - see Eph. 2:6 for the reason this verse does not teach that Jesus was omnipresent, again noting the verb tenses).

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Originally posted by albert

. . .I don't believe that humans have a "sinful nature", and I do not believe that they are born sinful. The problem they have is that they are born out of fellowship with God. Any limited being perpetually out of fellowship with God will inevitably fall into sin.

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Originally posted by albert



So Jesus was incarnated just like us - and I mean "like us in all respects" - but he was born in perfect fellowship with the Father. So I agree with Greg that he was incarnated in our probationary period (which I take to mean he was incarnated like Adam and Eve before the fall). That is, in perfect fellowship with God, but limited and without divine attributes like omniscience.

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Originally posted by albert



Now I regard it as highly significant that when Adam and Eve were tempted, God withdrew in some sense from them for a period (see Gen. 3:8-9, in which God comes looking for them, implying that he had left them in some sense before that). I think this was essential to the test being genuine. This tempory absence of God's fellowship was crucial to the test. I think that God similarly temporarily left Jesus in this sense during the temptation in the wilderness (Mt. 4:11), and most significantly on the cross (Mt. 27:46). During these temporary absences the person involved (Adam, Jesus) had to operate on the basis of faith and trust in God. There was a really genuine choice.

And yes, I think Jesus could have sinned at these points if he had chosen to.

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Originally posted by albert

There was a genuine risk of it all coming apart. On my view, however, this has no Nestorian implications. Rather, the implications are more severe. Jesus' failure would have meant the end of the Trinity as it is.

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Originally posted by albert

He could never have been raised from the dead nor regained his divine attributes. It would have left the Father and the Holy Spirit alone in the Godhead. What would have happened then, I have no idea. But it shows that God took an ultimate risk in the incarnation.

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Originally posted by albert

You might ask, if there was such a chance of failure, with such drastic consequences, why did God do this? The answer is, because there was no other way to save us. He loved us that much that he was prepared to risk even self-destruction to redeem us.

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The Statement of Faith of the Third Council of Constantinople(681 AD)


We also proclaim two natural willings or wills in him and two natural operations, without separation, without change, without partition, without confusion, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers -- and two natural wills not contrary to each other, God forbid, as the impious heretics have said they would be, but his human will following, and not resisting or opposing, but rather subject to his divine and all-powerful will. For it was proper for the will of the flesh to be moved naturally, yet to be subject to the divine will, according to the all-wise Athanasius. For as his flesh is called and is the flesh of God the Word, so also the natural will of his flesh is called and is God the Word's own will, as he himself says: "I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me," calling the will of the flesh his own, as also the flesh had become his own. For in the same manner that his all-holy and spotless ensouled flesh, though divinised, was not destroyed, but remained in its own law and principle also his human will, divinised, was not destroyed, but rather preserved, as Gregory the divine says: "His will, as conceived of in his character as the Savior, is not contrary to God, being wholly divinised." We also glorify two natural operations in the same our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God, without separation, without change, without partition, without confusion, that is, a divine operation and a human operation, as the divine preacher Leo most clearly says: "For each form does what is proper to it, in communion with the other; the Word, that is, performing what belongs to the Word, and the flesh carrying out what belongs to the flesh." We will not therefore grant the existence of one natural operation of God and the creature, lest we should either raise up into the divine nature what is created, or bring down the preeminence of the divine nature into the place suitable for things that are made. For we recognize the wonders and the sufferings as of one and the same person], according to the difference of the natures of which he is and in which he has his being, as the eloquent Cyril said.

Preserving therefore in every way the unconfused and undivided, we set forth the whole confession in brief; believing our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God, to be one of the holy Trinity even after the taking of flesh, we declare that his two natures shine forth in his one hypostasis, in which he displayed both the wonders and the sufferings through the whole course of his dispensation, not in phantasm but truly, the difference of nature being recognized in the same one hypostasis by the fact that each nature wills and works what is proper to it, in communion with the other. On this principle we glorify two natural wills and operations combining with each other for the salvation of the human race.

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Originally posted by albert

The theory I am advocating is not even close to Arianism. Arianism held to a Christ who was a created being and neither fully human nor fully God. It did not hold that Christ was divine at any time.

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Originally posted by albert

The view I am advocating is kenotic theory, developed in the 19th century, and it's a big mistake to view it in terms of previous Christologies.

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Originally posted by albert

To quote the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, "Kenotic theology at a theoretical level is a way of conceiving of the incarnation that is relatively new in the history of reflection on the person of Christ".

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Originally posted by albert

As for church councils, while I think we should consider what they say in the light of scripture, I have no higher regard for them than for any other commentator or exegete of scripture. They are not infallible or binding.

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Originally posted by albert

The earlier councils from Nicea to Chalcedon resulted in some important insights, but they were also heavily influenced by Greek philosophical conceptualizations which I think are both wrong and un-Biblical.

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Originally posted by albert

They were also conducted in an extremely un-Christian manner. As for later councils, in my view they became increasingly confused, caught in a maze of philosophical preconceptions that had little to do with Biblical teaching.

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Originally posted by albert

So for example, you quote the 3rd council of Constantinople as saying:

"We also proclaim two natural willings or wills in him and two natural operations, without separation, without change, without partition, without confusion, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers -- and two natural wills not contrary to each other, God forbid, as the impious heretics have said they would be, but his human will following, and not resisting or opposing, but rather subject to his divine and all-powerful will".

But the Bible always attributes only one will to Jesus, e.g. "I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me (i.e. the Father)" Jn. 5:30.

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Originally posted by albert

Saying that this is only Jesus in his humanity speaking,

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Originally posted by albert

or such like, is a ludicrous attempt to get around what the passage teaches, and results in a "schizophrenic" Jesus. The word "My" refers to one's self, to one's ego. It cannot refer to only one nature. If Jesus had two wills, he would have said so ("I do not seek either of my two wills, but the will of Him who sent Me".

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Originally posted by albert

The two-wills theory is based, not on scripture, but on a very convoluted philosophical line of reasoning which is highly questionable.

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Originally posted by albert



There are numerous other problems with the orthodox view but I'm more interested here in developing a Biblical Christology consistent with open theism.

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Originally posted by albert



Anyway, no doubt you will think I am an "impious heretic", but that's what I think.

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Originally posted by albert

All the best,

Albert.

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Originally posted by sglr

This chat room talks about God as though he is a mere human that is a little better than us.

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God is the great I Am. He is who he is.

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He doesn't decide whether or not to sin, he is completely imcapable of sin.

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Sin is not part of his nature nor does he have any inclination to sin.

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He doesn't make decisions like you or me.

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He is perfect.

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God's desires are only to glorify himself.

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Decisions have nothing to do with it.

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Your group has so diminished God's glorious being, that you actually believe he is capable of sin. Incredible.

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the issue is fundamentally important. The book of Hebrews presents Christ's example as an encouragement to us (e.g. Heb. 4:15) because he was just like us. But if he had some divine nature which prevented him from sinning, then he wasn't like us at all. What good is his example? You and I can never learn anything from it because we don't have that divine nature to help us out. In addition, it makes the temptation and trials of Jesus into a farce. Was the devil really so theological ignorant so as not to realize that Jesus couldn't sin? Why did he bother with the temptation? There are many other reasons but they relate to other areas of theology which I'll leave aside.
All the best, Albert.

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From Bishop Kallistos Ware's "The Orthodox Way", chapter 4--God as Man
(pp73-77)

Salvation as Sharing

The Christian message of salvation can best be summed up in terms of sharing, or solidarity and identification. The notion of sharing is a key alike to the doctrine of God in Trinity and to the doctrine of God made man. The doctrine of the Trinity affirms that, just as man is authentically personal only when he shares with others, so God is not a single person dwelling alone, but three persons who share each other's life in perfect love. The Incarnation equally is a doctrine of sharing or participation. Christ shares to the full in what we are, and so he makes it possible for us to share in what he is, in his divine life and glory. He became what we are, so as to make us what he is.

St. Paul expresses this metaphorically in terms of wealth and poverty: "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9). Christ's riches are his eternal glory; Christ's poverty is his complete self-identification with our fallen human condition. In the words of an Orthodox Christian hymn, "Sharing wholly in our poverty, thou hast made divine our earthly nature through thy union with it and participation in it." Christ shares in our death, and we share in his life; he "empties himself" and we are "exalted" (Phil. 2:5-9). God's descent makes possible man's ascent. St. Maximus the Confessor writes: "Ineffably the infinite limits itself, while the finite is expanded to the measure of the infinite."

As Christ said at the Last Supper: "The glory which thou hast given to me I have given to them, that they may be one, as we are one: I in them and thou in me, may they be perfectly united in one" (John 17:22-23). Christ enables us to share in the Father's divine glory. He is the bond and meeting-point: because he is man, he is one with us; because he is God, he is one with the Father. So through and in him we are one with God, and the Father's glory became our glory. God's Incarnation opens the way to man's deification. To be deified is, more specifically, to be "christified": the divine likeness that we are called to attain is the likeness of Christ. It is through Jesus the God-man that we are "ingodded", "divinized", made sharers in the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). By assuming our humanity, Christ who is Son of God by nature has made us sons of God by grace. In him we are "adopted" by God the Father, becoming sons-in-the-Son.

This notion of salvation as sharing implies two things in particular about the Incarnation. First, it implies that Christ took not only a human body like ours but also a human spirit, mind and soul like ours. Sin, as we saw (p.58), has its source not from below but from above.; it is not physical in its origin but spiritual. The aspect of man, then, that requires to be redeemed is not primarily his body by his will and his center of moral choice. If Christ did not have a human mind, then this would fatally undermine the second principle of salvation, that divine salvation must reach the point of human need.

The importance of hit principle was re-emphasized during the second half of the fourth century, when Apollinarius advanced the theory -- for which he was quickly condemned as a heretic -- that at the Incarnation Christ took only a human body, but no human intellect or rational could. To this St. Gregory the Theologian replied, "The unassumed is unhealed". Christ, that is to say, saves us by becoming what we are; he heals us by taking our broken humanity into himself, by "assuming" it as his own, by entering into our human experience and by knowing it from the inside, as being himself one of us. But had his sharing of our humanity been in some way incomplete, then man's salvation would be likewise incomplete. If we believe that Christ has brought us a total salvation, then it follows that he has assumed everything.

Secondly, this nation of salvation as sharing implies -- although not just unfallen our fallen human nature. As the Epistle to the Hebrews insists (and in all the New Testament there is no Christological text more important than this): "We do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but he was in all points tempted exactly as we are, yet without sinning" (4:15). Christ lives out his life on earth under the conditions of the fall. He is not himself a sinful person, but in his solidarity with fallen man he accepts to the full the consequences of Adam's sin. He accepts to the full not only the physical consequences, such as weariness, bodily pain, and eventually the separation of body and soul in death. He accepts also the moral consequences, the loneliness, the alienation, the inward conflict. It may seem a bold thing to ascribe all this to the living God, but a consistent doctrine of the Incarnation requires nothing less. If Christ had merely assumed unfallen human nature, living out his earthly life in the situation of Adam in Paradise, then he would not have been touched with the feeling of ourinfirmities, nor would he have been tempted in everything exactly as we are. And in that case he would not be our Savior.

St. Paul goes so far as to write, "God has made him who knew no sin to be sin for our sake" (2 Cor. 5:21). We are not to think here solely in terms of some juridical transaction, whereby Christ, himself guiltless, somehow has our guilt "imputed" to him in an exterior manner. Much more is involved than this. Christ saves us by experiencing from within, as one of us, all that we suffer inwardly through living in a sinful world.

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Yes. He was like us in every way, except sin. I tend not to think of him "assuming our FALLEN human nature"----but he did. Ah, but then my mind is blown to think that he was fully divine at the same time. Beyond comprehension. But glorious.

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On this last point, the Belgic Confession Article XVIII says:

"......who took upon Him the form of a servant and became like unto man, really assuming the true human nature WITH ALL ITS INFIRMITIES, sin excepted.......and did not only assume human nature as to the body, but also a true human soul, that He might be a real man. For since the soul was lost as well as the body, it was necessary He should take both upon Him, TO SAVE BOTH."

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Originally posted by sglr

This chat room talks about God as though he is a mere human that is a little better than us. God is the great I Am. He is who he is. He doesn't decide whether or not to sin, he is completely imcapable of sin. Sin is not part of his nature nor does he have any inclination to sin. He doesn't make decisions like you or me. He is perfect. God's desires are only to glorify himself. Decisions have nothing to do with it. Your group has so diminished God's glorious being, that you actually believe he is capable of sin. Incredible.

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Originally posted by sglr

Dear Feelinahole,

First of all, I'll let Jonathan Edward's quotation (in last post) answer why God cannot sin. Again, John likes to believe that God's characteristics are human-like.

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John mockingly describes my description of Him as a "moral robot". Praise God that he is just that!

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For my faith is based upon that Rock. He is a God of promises and covenants, of foreknowledge and sovereignty.

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John would like you to believe that he can change his "mind" and that is sad.

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In regard to John's reference to Matt. 5:48. Christ was referring to God's perfection and merely stating what is expected of us. God's plan of salvation is that we all fall short....way short and therefore require a savior. Paul's letter to the Romans makes it clear to us that NONE of us meet God's expectations. Romans; 3:10   "None is righteous, no, not one: 11no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." Also in 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Is John trying to argue that God cannot be omniscient, omnipresent nor omnipotent because we cannot be those things? It appears so, but to be fair, we may have to ask him.

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John also asks "Isn't love a desire?" Again, John appears to think of God's Love as the type of love that one human would have for another.

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I would argue that God's desire is for us to love him because he knows that what it is best for us is to love Him.

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Our love is mostly selfish,

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God's Love is part of His being, as is Truth and Light. God doesn't decide to be those things...he is those things, in so much as we can humanely understand.

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John uses Jonah 3:10 to show God's "decision". Can one really argue that God didn't know what the Nivevites would choose; Him or death, therefore causing him to "decide" something on the spot. I think not. Read verse 8 & 9 to see God working submission in their hearts.

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I'm not quite sure what "decision" is proven by Phil 2:5.

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Finally, John's vision of God's "freedom" is one that is able to make mistakes,

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not know the future

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and break his promises (if He so chooses).

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