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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 3/27/2008 5:34 PM (GMT -6) |   | I'll get some more intercessors going.
Stay up, man. God's with you.
In prayer,
Whoever knows and recognizes how near God’s Kingdom is to him may say with Jacob, “God is in this place, and I knew it not.”
Meister Eckhart, "The Nearness of the Kingdom"
Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the Kingdom of God is within you.
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Similitude
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| Posted 3/27/2008 7:26 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 3/27/2008 7:59 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 3/28/2008 12:36 AM (GMT -6) | | You all are awesome. Thanks for the prayer. I haven't watched news on TV for weeks and weeks, just busy with what's going on. But I imagine the violence of southeastern Iraq (El-Kut and Basra) has been in the news.
Jeff: I must have missed this, earlier. I'm not sure what it means to "take responsibility" if it doesn't mean to accept due consequences. As I see it, taking responsibility means to humbly accept, without mental or physical resistance, being HELD responsible by another. If we're not HELD responsible by God, how can we TAKE responsibility?
Tom: I only mean that we 'confess' to God we're responsible for the suffering he endures in forgiving us, that we admit/confess, "I'm responsible for doing x, y, and z." It's just to admit to God that I chopped down the Cherry tree, that I'm the one who screwed up and who's screwed up. So "taking responsibility" is just "repenting." We can find another phrase if you want, but that's what I'm talking about. So I don't experience the consequences of what I'm responsible for doing. The offended party (God) does that in forgiving me. But to have the relationship reconciled and fellowship restored, I have to acknowledge this all in his presence. But of courrse "to acknowledge" and "repent" of x, y, and z, I have to perceive x, y, and z. I have to understand what I've done, to whom, and the what costs the offended party has suffered because of me. That's what incarnation and cross are about. Displaying the cost of forgiveness in terms we can understand so that the necessary informed repentance can occur. The Cross introduces into our field of perception the necessary 'noeetic' (D's phrase) goods we gotta apprehend so that we can dispose ourselves relationally as we need and ought to. But there's no responsible disposing of ourselves rightly apart from the perception of truth. The cross IS that truth.
As far as I can tell this is all that's metaphysically required for relational reconciliation between us and God, and that's my problem with what seems to be behind "what's not assumed is not healed." Gregory's phrase seems to say there's something else, something besides (a) God's free choice to absorb my offense without seeking to extract just penalty from me (that is, to forgive me), (b) my humble confession and repentance (on my part), and (c) making fully available (via incarnation, cross, and resurrection) for our understanding the content of our offense and the depth of divine suffering that declares our forgivness. Something ELSE is needed in D's view.
I don't doubt that there is an aspect of ongoing healing that we continually access through our appreciation of Christ's earthly suffering (the whole High Priest, "I've been there I understand you," thing). The same "empathy" occurs every day in our own relationships. There's nothing mysterious or metaphysical about it per se. It's just the effects that our knowing he travelled our road has for our perseverance. I'm more confident, more encouraged to persevere and suffer (as he suffered) when I perceive his suffering THE SAME THING, having the same experiences. That's cool. I don't think this has to do with atonement or reconciliation per se.
Tom
Post Edited (Tom) : 3/28/2008 12:58:13 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/28/2008 6:20 AM (GMT -6) | | | Yeah. That's more clear.
And I was wrong about Rom. 3. It doesn't say that Christ as propitiation IS a shewing forth of God's righteousness. Rather it says God set him forth to be a propitiation UNTO the shewin forth of God's righteousness. So the only way I can make sense of righteousness there (in terms of dealing with sin), in the case Christ's death and shedding of blood was not effectual as an act,is if God's righteousness is talking about God's faithfulness to something He previously had SAID.
Here's my problem. Paul and John explicitly say Jesus' death/blood were propitiatory. Paul ties that to a demonstration of God's righteousness. How do you make the link between these biblical claims and your thesis? That's what I have difficulty making sense of.
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Sahid
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Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 3/28/2008 1:51 PM (GMT -6) | | I've always struggled to get a hold of what is meant by propitiation or expiation. Basically, it's the same issue I have with Gregory/Athanasius. The claims about the rules of salvation are made, but then when I ask "Why?", people look at me like I'm speaking a foreign language. Here's what I found on the infallible wikipedia:
"The idea of propitiation includes that of expiation as its means, but the word "expiation" has no reference to quenching God’s righteous anger. The difference is that linguistically the object of expiation is sin, not God (that is, sin is removed, not God). Linguistically, one propitiates a person (makes them favorable), and one expiates a problem (removes it)."
Either way, isn't forgiveness excluded?
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 3/28/2008 10:49 PM (GMT -6) | |
Sahid said...I've always struggled to get a hold of what is meant by propitiation or expiation. Basically, it's the same issue I have with Gregory/Athanasius. The claims about the rules of salvation are made, but then when I ask "Why?", people look at me like I'm speaking a foreign language. Here's what I found on the infallible wikipedia: "The idea of propitiation includes that of expiation as its means, but the word "expiation" has no reference to quenching God’s righteous anger. The difference is that linguistically the object of expiation is sin, not God (that is, sin is removed, not God). Linguistically, one propitiates a person (makes them favorable), and one expiates a problem (removes it)." Either way, isn't forgiveness excluded?
I'll offer....
Programs:
Essence and Energy, Synergy Part 6
Sunday, March 23, 2008
In the sixth and final program on the series on "Relics", Steve and Bill discuss issues that face the Western theological concepts of nature, person, will and their relationships to one another before and after the fall. How one views the nature of God and the human being determines one's view of the meaning of salvation and the impact of "salvation" on the human being in this life. Relics are the evidence of the progressive nature of the human participation in the divine energies of God and a foretaste of the life to come in eternity. In the second half of the program Steve and Bill examine the New Testament and many passages that point us to the concept of "synergy", the working of the human person with God toward the goal of union with God.
Essence and Energy, Relics Part 5
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
We continue the discussion of essence and energy and give a very broad overview of the influence of the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle on Augustine and Aquinas and how philosophy has influenced the views of God in the West. . We also discuss how the East and West's views of God manifest themselves in how we view creation and the human being's relationship to God.
Relics Part 4: Persons, Essence and Energies
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
In part four of our discussion of relics, we tackle the nature of God and the nature of the human being and how we can "know" a person. What is the relationship of "nature" to a "person"? What is an "energy"? How is a nature's energies expressed? The proper definition of nature, energy and personhood form the cornerstone for a proper definition of salvation and the goal of our existence in God.
http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/ourlife
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Sahid
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| Posted 3/29/2008 2:07 AM (GMT -6) | | Dictionary.com:
Propitiate - to make favorably inclined; appease; conciliate.
There is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Who is the subject and who is the object of this propitiation? We might say God is the subject propitiating, but the passage doesn't quite say that. It says God displayed Jesus as a propitiation. So again, God displayed Jesus as a propitiation from and to whom? I think the reference to passing over and blood is likely drawing from the exodus. So is this a parallel to the Israelites killing a lamb to remind God to rein in the destroyer? Israelites -> God, lamb -> Jesus, destoyer -> ??? Who is God trying to rein in? Himself? If there's no ontological reason why God is impotent to forgive, why would he need reining in? Putting God in the position of the Israelites drastically turns the tables. The effort to turn only one half of the table (i.e. to posit God appeasing himself) doesn't strike me as very credible. This is an even more acute schizophrenia than is supposed by some in the case of Jesus. Whereas Jesus is thought to have two wills which both line themselves up, these wills (one desiring violence and the other desiring peace; one desiring repayment and the other desiring forgiveness) do not line up. Ditheism.
For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren...
Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham. Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.
Here propitiation is closely tied to sharing sufferings and offering hope. Jesus' humanity makes him "become" merciful and faithful. And this allows him to make propitiation for sins. Since he has suffered with us, he can help us.
How does taking on our humanity and, specifically, displaying that he has shared our sufferings and defeated death make him become able to propitiate? This propitiation is for sins - to God. So by communicating something to us, he appeases God. In this passage it is the communication that allows propitiation, not the ontology or passion itself. How does that work? We see that Jesus is vindicated and has defeated death, and then appeasement can be made. Our seeing allows propitiation. Christus Victor and Moral Example come prior and make possible this propitiation. The appearances after the Resurrection are then essential to the work of Christ; it's not just Death/Resurrection; it's Death/Resurrection/Proclamation. Unless we are made aware of the Death and Resurrection, the critical change has not reached us.
Jesus' suffering and demonstration of power over death make him able to propitiate. But the emphasis in this passage is on the change in us, not a supposed change in God. We are the ones who are released from fear, and this opens up propitiation. It is not God who is released from some constraint of forgiveness by Jesus' unique ontological/sacrificial standing. Check out what comes next...
Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.
Apostle and High Priest of our confession. It is we who need to be reconciled to God and not God who needs to be reconciled to us. He is not the apostle to God - God, being the Almighty, needs no apostle to be sent to him; he is not High Priest of God's forgiveness (that is, he doesn't allow/open-up-the-possibility-of God's loving forgiveness - God is in no need of a priest to allow him to forgive, but rather he allows our confession).
And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
But take a look at this from 1 John:
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
Again, forgiveness is available; the issue is our blindness and confession. Here, as with Romans and Hebrews, propitiation is stood on it's head. It is still propitiation inasmuch as it's goal is reconciliation. But New Testament propitiation is no longer a matter of convincing God but of convincing man. The more traditional understanding of propitiation is that something must be done to adjust God's view. Now we see that God requires no adjustment; it is rather we who need a new view. It is not God who must be appeased but our own blindness/stubbornness to the good news whose violence must be stemmed.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - StavesacrePost Edited (Sahid) : 3/29/2008 10:34:21 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/29/2008 10:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for getting the passages out there, Zach. The one in Romans especially, insomuch as it refers to a demonstration of God's righteousness in passing over sin and justifying the believer, seems to need an explanation of how God's righteousness is related to Jesus' bloodshed. The only way I can think of how to do that is to suppose that God's righteousness, in that context, has to do with God's FAITHFULNESS. For God verbally TOLD Adam he would die if he transgressed.
So we still don't have to posit some metaphysical effectualness of Christ's blood. We can say that Christ's death renders God's WORD true in an optimally revelatory way. And the fact that death IS a consequence of sin may, also, be an optimal non-verbal way of revealing that sinners are void of that species of glory attributable to the incorruptible Creator, as Paul implies. IOW, if these things have to do with optimal revelation, then God's righteousness has to do with how Christ's death renders Him TRUE to His word in a revelatory way--a way where humans can GET it.
In short, the hierarchy may be something like this:
1) God is not the author of confusion
2) God reveals optimally that which we need to know to choose rightly
3) Some of that revelation is SPOKEN
4) That which is spoken, especially, must be rendered as intelligible as possible
5) Christ's death renders God's promise to Adam (and his seed, by implication) perspicuously true while still revealing how God can be non-contradictory in ressurecting Adam to eternal life.
This way, it's about the non-contradictory nature of God's WORDS and unspoken revelation--not anything uniquely effectual in Christ's blood.
So here's the way I see death as related to God's truthfulness. If God's promise to Adam that he would die, if he sinned, entailed the notion of eternal death, then God's word is at stake if Adam can be resurrected to eternal life. But if God only meant he would die for a short while, then he would still unconditionally live forever, erasing any meaningful distinction between one that sins and one that doesn't sin with respect to the relation of eternal life to that glory of incorruptibility that God has.
So it seems to me, that substitution is the only way God can be remotely perspicuous in His claim about death and its meaning. It's the only way He can effectually drive home the point of what sin-caused death MEANS while still not contradicting Himself when resurrecting sinners unto eternal life. Sin-caused death is death that is intended to DISTINGUISH the glory of an incorruptible Creator from that fallen glory of one who sins, and is thereby proven corruptible. Somehow, one who falls short of that glory is supposed to be able to put on incorruptibility, nevertheless.
What other than substitution/imputation more clearly expresses this distinction in MEANING while simultaneously EXPLAINING how the remission of sins and justification can be non-contradictory to God's promise to Adam that his sin would result in death? And if substitution is the most clear way to maintain the distinction while remaining non-contradictory, it renders God righteous by rendering Him faithful to what His words and non-verbal revelation seemed to MEAN. God is not the author of confusion.
So I'm agreeing with Tom that Christ's death shows us what it cost Christ to reconcile us. I just think it ALSO does that in the way Paul ties it to the distinctions in meaning between God's attribute of incorruptibility and ours of corruptibility, and so on. Which is to say that there are other distinctions that Tom does not address which can only be sufficiently known by us in terms of outcomes like death.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 3/30/2008 10:44:21 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
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| Posted 3/30/2008 9:55 AM (GMT -6) | | We know that Adam died in a spiritual way. We also know that he died in a physical way (even if the story itself is not taken strictly literally). So I don't see the threat to God's promise. If there is resurrection, then death is implied. Now if God's word that sin results in death implies everlasting and irrevocable death, then we've got a problem. But even Jesus' resurrection would not fix that problem. So, it is a perceived threat to God's word rather than an actual threat. Are you saying that Jesus' resurrection clarifies to sinners the possible impermanence of death?... in case they did not have hope beyond death? I would agree there. This jives very well with Hebrews:
He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
The false (but, apart from revelation, very understandable) belief that death is the final word, has serious implications for our faith and theology. The one implication that I want to emphasize is that the ethic of Caiaphas - doing a little evil so that good may result - is given much more credibility since we cannot hope for post-mortem justice. And it is the ethic of Caiaphas that justifies human sacrifice in all its forms: from social exclusion to oppression to murder. Furthermore, the ethic of Caiaphas offers a rationalization for misrepresenting these "necessary evils" in the name of societal preservation.
Now just replace "ethics of Caiaphas" with "ethics of accusation".... "ethics of the Accuser".... "Satan".
Throughout his life Jesus was at work defeating Satan. But this work came to a climax on Resurrection Sunday and over the course of the following forty days. The empty tomb is not the end of the gospel. It is the resurrection appearances which, properly speaking, are the crucial moment. When Thomas touches Jesus' wounds or when the disciples on the road to Emmaus have their eyes opened. By itself, an empty tomb does nothing. So God has power over death... He must have had that power already, right? So what changes by manifesting this power in Jesus? It is we who change. Through the Spirit in Christ, God free[d] those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. This is why we can say So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. And also By grace you have been saved through faith. The Word proclaimed, heard, and believed is effectual for salvation. It is this communication and response, not merely the event itself, which is crucial.
Death never had the last word. Jesus did not have to do anything to make this true. It was already true. But now The Son of Man [is] lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him [has] eternal life.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - StavesacrePost Edited (Sahid) : 3/30/2008 10:17:53 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/30/2008 11:37 AM (GMT -6) | | | Z: Now if God's word that sin results in death implies everlasting and irrevocable death, then we've got a problem. But even Jesus' resurrection would not fix that problem.
J: Indeed. Jesus' resurrection is never said to be sufficient for the ressurection of humans. Over and over it is said that it his death that addresses our sin(s). The implication, it seems, is that God has no reason to ressurect us if our sins are not remitted. But Jesus said he poured out his blood for the remission of sins. I'm thinking that forgiveness is one thing--remission is another. We, ourselves, can forgive others, but we can't remit their accountability to God. If the dependency, on Christ's death/blood, of remission of sins is not related to God's fidelity to His word, then I'm clueless as to how to explain remission apart from some properties of Christ's blood.
Z: And it is the ethic of Caiaphas that justifies human sacrifice in all its forms: from social exclusion to oppression to murder.
J: Exactly. If there are no post-mortem consequences of our actions post-mortem, or if they are utterly unknowable, then relativism is the only RATIONAL "ethic" that is left--assuming we are truly libertarianly free in the first place.
Z: Throughout his life Jesus was at work defeating Satan. But this work came to a climax on Resurrection Sunday and over the course of the following forty days. The empty tomb is not the end of the gospel. It is the resurrection appearances which, properly speaking, are the crucial moment. When Thomas touches Jesus' wounds or when the disciples on the road to Emmaus have their eyes opened. By itself, an empty tomb does nothing. So God has power over death... He must have had that power already, right? So what changes by manifesting this power in Jesus? It is we who change.
J: The problem I have with this line of reasoning is that it works even prior to Jesus, too. God supposedly raised the dead in the OT. So it undercuts the relevance of Christ's ressurection.
Same problem with...
Z: Death never had the last word. Jesus did not have to do anything to make this true. It was already true. But now The Son of Man [is] lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him [has] eternal life.
J: Why wouldn't this same reasoning work with an OT ressurection? Why wouldn't those who believed in the Israelite God who caused the ressurection have eternal life. Well, of course, they WOULD. So belief in Christ's being "lifted up" is not unique in that sense. Rather, it is progressive revelation. Christ is effectively saying that once he is lifted up, belief in the true God must necessarily entail belief in HIM. Just like Christ said salvation is of the Jews as opposed to the Samaritans. But that was progressive revelation. It was not always so.
And this brings us back to God's MODE of revelation. Paul says Christ BECAME a quickening spirit. At a point in time, because of what he did, the Son, as opposed to the Father, ACQUIRED the power to quicken. Just like he acquired a name above every name. Just like he was given all authority in heaven and earth. Just like it pleased that Father that the fulness of the godhead SHOULD DWELL IN HIM. Just like he emptied himself of what non-essential equality with the Father he had. This kind of language relating what Christ became to what he did and what it renders possible and/or inevitable is ubiquitious. All these things happened in TIME. All attempts to render this temporal language meaningless necessarily compel a need to explain why the temporal language is false.
IOW, what is the exegetical approach that justifies the dismissal of the temporal language. I'm saying that Christ's becoming in time is REAL. And I'm also saying that it is this fact about the nature of the Son that grounds the intelligibility of the NT. All theories that try to render the Father and Son identical in attributes can never explain it, to my mind. Only a "co-creator" of the universe that had the capacity to DIE can explain it. The Father has no such capacity, IMO.
But with you guys, I'm trying to explain it without appealing to some causal properties of Christ's blood, etc.. I'm hoping it can be explained in terms of the most intelligible mode of God's Self-revelation. If this fails, then I'm clueless. I have no idea how to formulate an exegesis that can eliminate the temporal meaning of the temporal language without simultaneously eliminating all the other meaning that is important. I'm perfectly content to sit in a state of uncertainty to avoid judging other people's beliefs on the grounds of a belief or system of thought that has no knowable rational ground, itself.
Might your's or Tom's thesis be true. Yep. But it might not be true. I can't see what grounds either one. I have no experience that corresponds to either. And scriptural language doesn't get me there. Your arguments tend to be about what scripture DOESN'T say more than what it DOES say. How, e.g., is God's righteousness for having passed over sin related to Christ's blood? Not how does Christ's bleeding affect your motivation--but how is God's righteousness related to it? This is dealing with what it DOES say.
You may say Paul is wrong. Fine. But how do we determine when an ancient writer claiming apostolic authority was just bluffing? I've never understood the method. (Note: I'm not saying that the genre and content of various "gospels" and "epistles" cannot be seen, even by non-chrisitian scholars, to be clearly distinct from those that were canonized. I'm talking about how to distinguish bluff and delusion within the canonized writings from accurate claims when there are no clear contradictions, even, in the writing.)
Some theologians will say that death is a normal fact of human existence. I just don't know how they exegete after taking that leap. It seems to me, that at that point, they're just doing speculative metaphysics and then trying to force fit scripture to it the best they can. But why force fit scripture at all if it was not necessary to ground or inform the metaphysics in the first place? It seems to me that many a mutually-exclusive metaphysic could be force-fitted to scripture this way. They can't all be true.
One must remember that your view and Tom's view are not identical. Yet they both posit what people OUGHT to or MUST know before they can properly relate to God. Once you go THERE with no compelling or even perspicuous support from scriptural statements, you've left me. I know no christians that could honestly say they see eye to eye with either of you. But I'm not gonna judge them for that without something like relatively clear text. We just differ in what constitutes valid grounds for a belief that has implications about judgment of other people.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 3/30/2008 1:37:46 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 3/30/2008 9:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Z: Yes. Isn't this a corroborating fact?
J: Yeah. I'm must making the point that God provided potential forgiveness even in the OT. But Paul seems to argue that Christ, by what he did, redeemed OT believers from the curse of the Law. As if God's forgiveness of OT saints was forward looking to Christ's death, just like Rom 3.
I'm not convinced that substitution/imputation is the wrong way to look at it. Maybe it's the very fact that the Godhead is a plurality that allows God to remit sins in terms of a substitution/imputation, since by dying willingly and innocently for another, no injustice or wrong is done as is the case in all other human sacrifice. And maybe that allows God to actually hold humans accountable to a law in the first place.
For if God didn't use substitution/imputation to remit sins (sin being the violation of law), then maybe God couldn't actually hold us accountable to being law-abiding creatures in the first place and still reveal to us what He does via death (namely, that we, by sinning, fall short of His incorruptible glory). IOW, maybe the possibility of substitution, grounded as it is in the plurality of the godhead, renders possible certain relationships and optimal modes of revelation in the created order. In that sense, maybe substitution isn't necessary because of God's essential nature so much as it provides for MORE possibilities and CLEARER divine self-revelation in the created order.
In any case, it's probably nothing to lose sleep over, eh? <G> I'm thinking that however God remits sins, it is the fact that our sins are remitted graciously and at great cost to Himself and His Son that compels us to deem it our reasonable service to give our bodies as living sacrifices.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 3/30/2008 9:59:46 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
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| Posted 3/30/2008 10:42 PM (GMT -6) | | For what it's worth, the idea of fault as physical and contaminating along with salvation as washing is significantly different than the idea of fault as injustice and guilt and its corresponding salvation through repentance and forgiveness. I don't want to abandon impurity/cleansing language altogether; there is a rich history there. But I do want to make clear that the impurity/cleansing (or objective) view of morality is metaphorical. Subjective morality (injustice/guilt/repentance/forgiveness) is at least a much more precise metaphor.
Transference of sin from one to another is most at home in objective morality where sin is conceived as physical stuff that stains. I am comfortable with that sort of language in the same way that I am comfortable calling Jesus a lamb, a vine, or a High Priest. But I am uncomfortable with others using this language as though it is literal truth. No! Jesus is not literally a lamb, vine, or High Priest. Neither is sin literally picked up off of me and put on him. Literal belief in such things seems down right ridiculous to me. I don't mean to be insensitive to anyone, but I don't think substitution/imputation can work in a literal sense after the eighth century BC (when we finally learned that sacrifices don't appease God).
That's the problem I see with it. We can speak of substitution in the same way we can speak of God's wrath manifested in the Babylonians. Having read Habakkuk and believing that God does not cause people to sin, we know that the Babylonian army was not literally sent by God to judge the nation. But Habakkuk, having just been disabused of his previous notions, can meaningfully express what is happening in the prior flawed (now figurative) terms. In the same way we can speak of substitution along with all the rest of the sin-through-physical-contamination language, but we do so knowing that these terms no longer carry the meaning they once did.
Another for-instance: we know that Jesus was not defeated. Still, we can look back and discuss how the disciples handled Jesus' defeat. This does not imply that we believe Jesus was actually defeated. But we can use the old literally-obsolete now-figurative language only so long as we don't forget that this is the old language.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 4/4/2008 7:37 PM (GMT -6) | | Zach: Having read Habakkuk and believing that God does not cause people to sin, we know that the Babylonian army was not literally sent by God to judge the nation. But Habakkuk, having just been disabused of his previous notions, can meaningfully express what is happening in the prior flawed (now figurative) terms.
Jeff: You've made the exact relevant point, here. If scripture was once "flawed," how does it become unflawed? This seems like logical schizophrenia. We don't treat any other words this way (actually people treat the constitution the same way for the same reason) precisely because of the logical non-sense entailed in such a treatment. If a text was false yesterday about an historical claim, it can't BECOME true in the future except by EISegeting a meaning into the text that was once deemed absent from it on inductive, hermeneutical grounds, alone.
More to the point, if the NT theology can change meanings from its original meaning to my personal preferred meaning, then in what way is real theology being gotten from the NT? Isn't it obvious that, in that case, we're just saying the NT writers were wrong or insufficiently clear and we're just doing eisegesis in some vain hope that our preferred theology can become authoritative by some bizarre hermenutical sleight of hand?
If the NT is flawed, as you claim the older OT texts are, then we don't need it. Nor do we need to construct some new 21st century hermeneutics to force-fit the NT to our more modern views, as if by doing so it gives our modern views more credence. Views that cannot be inductively EXegeted from sufficiently perspicuous texts must stand or fall in terms of their rational superiority, alone. If, on the other hand, we want to say that exegesis is too subjective a science, the same conclusion follows--we are left with nothing but rational superiority as a criteria for the determination of theological truth.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 4/4/2008 7:54:41 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
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| Posted 4/5/2008 12:38 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: You've made the exact relevant point, here. If scripture was once "flawed," how does it become unflawed? This seems like logical schizophrenia.
Zach: I was once told by my parents not to talk to strangers. Later they told me to be polite. I thought they were schizophrenic, although I didn't know the word for it at the time. They taught me two contradictory rules. By your logic I therefore didn't need my parents!?! You knew before you wrote your post how I would answer: Progressive Revelation.
But I am concerned with this:
Jeff: If the NT theology can change meanings from its original meaning to my personal preferred meaning, then in what way is real theology being gotten from the NT?
Zach: What brought this up? I'm not claiming that I agree with everything in the New Testament (even if we pretend there is such a thing as a definitive version). I'm not claiming that I disagree with anything either. But even if I did come to disagree with something, you are still acting like the NT is some unified whole wherein if one part is in error, the entire whole should be thrown out. That is a pretty outrageous claim. I don't like the designated hitter rule, should I stop watching all professional sports? Dr. King had his personal failings, should I therefore distrust all college graduates? The Bible, the OT, and the NT are not strings of Christmas lights that all blackout when one burns out. My faith in biblical teachings does not rest on some catch-all justification.
Jeff: If a text was false yesterday about an historical claim, it can't BECOME true in the future except by EISegeting a meaning into the text that was once deemed absent from it on inductive, hermeneutical grounds, alone.
Zach: Tell that to Paul. Galatians 3:16. Using eisegesis to make the case for progressive revelation is a New Testament, Pauline tactic. This sort of eisegesis is entirely appropriate. Even the BFM, before Pope Paterson cut it out (no offense to any Catholics) said, "The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ." He is the word after all. How can we not reinterpret the scripture in light of Christ?
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 4/5/2008 11:30 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: If a text was false yesterday about an historical claim, it can't BECOME true in the future except by EISegeting a meaning into the text that was once deemed absent from it on inductive, hermeneutical grounds, alone.
Zach: Tell that to Paul. Galatians 3:16. Using eisegesis to make the case for progressive revelation is a New Testament, Pauline tactic. This sort of eisegesis is entirely appropriate. Even the BFM, before Pope Paterson cut it out (no offense to any Catholics) said, "The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ." He is the word after all. How can we not reinterpret the scripture in light of Christ?
Jeff: How do you know Paul was using eisegesis? The fact that a text can have plural meanings doesn't mean that any of them are necessarily false. Your original claim was that an earlier prophet made a flawed claim. And then you claim that we can redeem the earlier flawed claim by treating it figuratively in an eisegetic way. But that just begs the question: Why not just chunk the flawed text since you supposedly know, on OTHER grounds, what the truth is? At that point, the text has no value as a source of theological information. It might be nice for poetry, but not for theological information. Why waste our time eisegeting when we're having a hard enough time trying to get people to understand the OTHER, supposedly more sure, grounds of our beliefs?
The reason I bring up the subject is this: If we can just claim that texts that say things like "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins" (and others like it elsewhere) are flawed, then it is obvious that the substitutionary view has no support from ancient writings. And this is so for a reason most historians readily accept. And it's this: The NT writers, because of the outrageousness of their claims, all fall, as does Jesus for the same reason, into the liar-lunatic range of possibilities. These people tell us that both the Son and the Spirit revealed things to them that were subsequently confirmed by signs and wonders.
If these guys taught and wrote things down that were contrary to what was revealed to them, then they are such pathological folks that they are the last people to get theology from. On the other hand, if they believed they were writing what was revealed to them when in fact it never was revealed them, they're delusional. What is the third possibility that even seems remotely plausible? You say the NT is not an integrated whole. How is it not so that an unbiased historian should agree with you? What would you point him to in the texts to make your case?
I'm not at all trying to argue against you in behalf of exegesis over eisegesis. What I'm getting at is this: What purely rational criteria (sense you believe in eisegesis) renders your interpretation of Christ's death superior to Tom's? Or are we all relativisticly free to choose our own interpretation of his death? I'm not sure I understand what grounds your confidence in your position such that you would argue with me or Tom. Because I don't see how you've presented any clear claim that contradicts either of us.
If all your saying is that it doesn't matter how you interpret Christ's death as long as it brings you to repentance and subjection to Christ, then I follow you. But I've never got that sense from your argument. Personally, I'm not even convinced that an interpretation of Christ's death is necessary to come to repentance and subjection to Christ. I could see how someone could believe he is lord and ressurected and both repent and follow his teachings (if his teachings were all that was available to this hypothetical person) with no interpretation of his death whatsoever. And even more so does this seem plausible to me if we can't get any perspicuous theology from texts in the first place.
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Sahid
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| Posted 4/5/2008 12:39 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: Your original claim was that an earlier prophet made a flawed claim. And then you claim that we can redeem the earlier flawed claim by treating it figuratively in an eisegetic way. But that just begs the question: Why not just chunk the flawed text since you supposedly know, on OTHER grounds, what the truth is? At that point, the text has no value as a source of theological information.
Zach: This is a misrepresentation of my position. Which prophet do you remember me speaking against? Why not chunk the flawed text? Which flawed text? Putting texts in stark categories of "true" and "flawed" is exactly what the progressive revelation view does NOT do. I completely disagree that "flawed" texts have "no value as a source of theological information".
Jeff: If we can just claim that texts that say things like "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins" (and others like it elsewhere) are flawed,
Zach: Wait. When did I make such a claim? Let's clear this up now. Sahid, being of sound body and mind, does hereby believe Hebrews 9:22.
Jeff: ...then it is obvious that the substitutionary view has no support from ancient writings.
Zach: I don't follow you at all. First, what do you mean by "ancient"? But secondly, how does my supposed claim imply that?
Jeff: The NT writers, because of the outrageousness of their claims, all fall, as does Jesus for the same reason, into the liar-lunatic range of possibilities. These people tell us that both the Son and the Spirit revealed things to them that were subsequently confirmed by signs and wonders.
Zach: What?! I am AGREEING with the New Testament!!
Jeff: If these guys taught and wrote things down that were contrary to what was revealed to them...
Zach: When did I claim anything like this?
Jeff: On the other hand, if they believed they were writing what was revealed to them when in fact it never was revealed them...
Zach: Or this?
Jeff:What is the third possibility that even seems remotely plausible? You say the NT is not an integrated whole. How is it not so that an unbiased historian should agree with you? What would you point him to in the texts to make your case?
Zach: ??? My third possibility is that the New Testament authors happened to get everything right.
Jeff: What purely rational criteria (sense you believe in eisegesis) renders your interpretation of Christ's death superior to Tom's?
Zach: Well, I don't feel that I've been arguing against Tom's interpretation. He's been mostly asking questions - the same questions I've been asking. So I've been giving my answers. I think my interpretation is correct because it makes better sense of Christ's work. It doesn't require God to fight against God or God to fight against the laws of salvation. It doesn't require a superstitious belief in sin and cleansing from sin. It is a certain kind of eisgesis that I'm advocating (and it probably shouldn't be called eisgesis at all). I'm saying Jesus is the fulfillment of scripture. I'm making the (I thought obvious) claim that we read the Old Testament differently than those who read it before the Christian era. Jesus is the lens through which we read everything, including the Hebrew scriptures.
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Similitude
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| Posted 4/5/2008 2:05 PM (GMT -6) | | Zach: Having read Habakkuk and believing that God does not cause people to sin, we know that the Babylonian army was not literally sent by God to judge the nation. But Habakkuk, having just been disabused of his previous notions, can meaningfully express what is happening in the prior flawed (now figurative) terms.
Jeff: What does "prior flawed (now figurative) terms" mean in this context, if not that the text, prior to a time when Habakkuk was disabused of his previous notions, said or implied that God judged Israel via Babylon, thereby causing people to sin? I see no other way to take your words.
Zach: Well, I don't feel that I've been arguing against Tom's interpretation. He's been mostly asking questions - the same questions I've been asking. So I've been giving my answers. I think my interpretation is correct because it makes better sense of Christ's work. It doesn't require God to fight against God or God to fight against the laws of salvation. It doesn't require a superstitious belief in sin and cleansing from sin.
Jeff: Tom's view doesn't require a belief in "cleansing from sin" either. But now you're adding that "belief in sin" is superstitious. Are you saying there is no sin only for non-covenanters? If so, then they shouldn't be judged OR die, should they? Or are you saying that there is literally no such thing as sin even for parties of bi-lateral covenants?
Post Edited (Similtude) : 4/6/2008 8:16:39 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
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Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 4/8/2008 4:28 PM (GMT -6) | | Sorry it's been a while. Need to catch my breath. I'll try to respond to the other one after this.
Jeff: What does "prior flawed (now figurative) terms" mean in this context, if not that the text, prior to a time when Habakkuk was disabused of his previous notions, said or implied that God judged Israel via Babylon, thereby causing people to sin? I see no other way to take your words.
Zach: "Thereby causing people to sin" I don't follow you here.
I think it was common pagan belief that local gods fought each other for supremacy and human warfare was a reflection of this spiritual warfare. The Hebrews had been taught otherwise. Their God is more than a local god. He is God of all creation. So when they are defeated in battle, they assume it is God's will that the enemy come against them. But this is not quite accurate either. The book of Habakkuk and part of Isaiah (I forget the chapters off hand) make this clear. The invading army is even more evil than we are! This is not just! My interpretation of God's answer is: "You're right; it's not just YET. But I am Lord and I will establish justice." This, more or less, is where we are left in the OT.
Looking at it now, I think I misspoke. The final change in perspective is found in the NT. The revelation of Habakkuk taken together with the NT belief that God does not cause sin is what finally does it. So I shouldn't have said, "But Habakkuk, having just been disabused..." I'm not confident that I could make a case for Habakkuk believing that God does not cause sin.
But now we know that the Babylonian invasion was unjust and ALSO that God doesn't cause injustice. Taken together we are left with a figurative reading (very likely NOT the original reading). I personally believe that we we do not "leave room for God's wrath", God make the best of it and uses this injustice for his purposes.
Jeff: Tom's view doesn't require a belief in "cleansing from sin" either. But now you're adding that "belief in sin" is superstitious. Are you saying there is no sin only for non-covenanters? If so, then they shouldn't be judged OR die, should they? Or are you saying that there is literally no such thing as sin even for parties of bi-lateral covenants?
Zach: That's not what I meant. I DON'T mean that all belief in sin is superstitious. But I DO believe that there is A superstitious belief in sin which my position avoids. This is the idea that sin is a contagious physical stain that can be covered by physical blood or transfered onto other people or animals.
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Similitude
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| Posted 4/8/2008 9:06 PM (GMT -6) | | Zach: That's not what I meant. I DON'T mean that all belief in sin is superstitious. But I DO believe that there is A superstitious belief in sin which my position avoids. This is the idea that sin is a contagious physical stain that can be covered by physical blood or transfered onto other people or animals.
Jeff: I wonder how many people even believe what you're describing there, though. I would think both the "washing" language and the "transfer" language are just metaphorical ways of describing substitution/imputation. Substitution is one thing. Washing and transference need not be entailed in substitution, though.
Substitution has the idea of a reckoning. The Pauline idea seems to be that faith can be reckoned as righteousness in the stead of that righteousness by law-abiding that we failed at. And this is so because Christ's death is reckoned as our own, rendering God "just in justifying him of the faith of Jesus." We, in some sense, died in him and with him, to put it another way.
If it turns out that substitution is just another way of God's doing what you and Tom are saying--namely, helping humans understand a thing: by, e.g. helping them rationally understand forgiveness in terms that their logical and teleological minds can apprehend (such that the notion of consequences for sin is not negated) and seeing how God is not arbitrary in His dealings and communications with rational men--then I would still say that it makes as much or more sense than the other two views.
In fact, substitution, as a declaration only, entails Tom's view. And the other view seems to be too dependent on a view of human nature that is not easily recognized in many humans. How many people, e.g., actually believe that human sacrifice is anything other than insane? What makes Christ's death NOT insane is that he was not merely a human. The godhead, by virtue of being a plurality, had the ability to accomplish substitution withOUT bona-fide human sacrifice.
The fact is, Hebrews tells us that Christ had to be perfected through sufferings to even become the captain of our own faith, which results in suffering, too. He learned from this suffering that he might be merciful in the fullest sense of the word. So even if Christ's sufferings were necessitated for these reasons, alone, and the substitutionary language is just a kind of language that renders our intuitions about consequences of sin coherent (as Tom's view also implies), Christ apparently had to suffer anyway, if Hebrews is true.
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