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The Huguenot
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 6/5/2003 12:05 PM (GMT -6) |   | Hello everyone.
Well, it seems I have been away far too long, though it looks as if you have all gotten along quite well without me. I have been encouraged to get back at it (hello, DLW!), and so by God's grace let us see where this track shall lead us. It seems things have settled down a bit, and so if my return merely shakes things up, feel free to ignore this. Hopefully, however, I would lay down a few pertinent points to my thread (if authorship gives me some Marxist ownership!).
PotOnWheel, thank you very much for that excellent quote by St. Gregory. I was, I must admit, a bit surprised by your choice of texts. I would want to argue with you (in a loving way) that such a text won't help your enterprise, namely, that free will is better and necessary. I'll try to lay out some reasons why.
1) Gregory isn't Scripture. Of course we disagree about God's Word, but lets attempt to settle the issue there.
2) One of the biggest critiques made by the OV is that Christianity has been infected by Greek philosophy. St. Gregory is one of your main targets in this light. He, as well as the other Gregorys, were quite taken with the philosophies of the day. I hope I'm not being biased here. Actually, I think Roger Olson, who is sympathetic to the OV, would agree with me. Perhaps you would like to browse his "The History of Christian Theology." It seems that you would rather find a quote by St. Gregory citing determinism and attack him for it! At least, this seems more sympathetic to your project. On this same note, I cannot for the life of me understand why Dr. Boyd signs with a Plato quote. Oh well. Even when he was still at the school he had a different (but lively) sense of humor!
3) And finally, I don't think you want this quote because St. Gregory is contradictory, limiting, and in some cases, just plain wrong (at least it seems so). Let's take a look. First of all, I would say that Gregory is answering a specific question here, namely, why don't the dispensations (he calls them earthquakes) take place violently and quickly, appearing right after the other? His answer, as you highlighted, is so that we are not too violently handled by these earthquakes, and that we might be gently won over to God. At the quick, he gives us an illustration, that we might better understand what he means. He analogizes to streams and trees being held back by an alien force. Both of these elements are attempting to "grow," and this force is holding them back. One can imagine a dam holding the river or a wicket gate impeding the sprouting branches. St. Gregory intones that these are not durable, and will eventually break. However, in respect to humans, this is quite wrong. Sin has quite firmly got us in its wicked grasp, and is not broken even in death, as it bears us off to hell (or non-existence). It takes a SUPER-natural occurrence to break its hold. I would totally agree with the saint here that this super-natural cause is indeed the gentleness of God, what we call grace. However, Gregory mixes it up precisely because he is so influenced by Greek thought. He is far too optimistic about man, and sees us as Plato, Aristotle, and Heraclitus understand man. I think he has no room here for Paul's indictment that we are sold as slaves to sin. Finally, he alludes at the end of the quote that the Gospel beguiles us . In its most charitable reading, Gregory is right. There is some sense in which one can say the Gospel beguiles us away from our sin. However, it is a poor choice of words. First, we would want to say that the Gospel quickens us, takes the scales from our eyes, opens the eyes of our heart unto enlightenment, etc, so that we could say "We now see as we have never seen before!" Also, beguilement seems to be more in line with subtle tyranny than the gentle wooing of God's grace, irresistable as it is.
Well, I eagerly await your response. You'll have to tell me if you agree. I don't disagree with you that God wants us to choose Him. I think we merely disagree on when we have free will. I think the point of sanctification is for the saints of God to show their affection for their Father and Lord Jesus by choosing him over sin. Hence, this is the point of God redeeming our fallen natures at conversion. We must be freed from sin (justified, in a matter of speaking) before we can now choose God (sanctification).
The Huguenot
SDG
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/6/2003 5:43 AM (GMT -6) | | Dear Huguenot, with respect to:
quote:
2) One of the biggest critiques made by the OV is that Christianity has been infected by Greek philosophy. St. Gregory is one of your main targets in this light. He, as well as the other Gregorys, were quite taken with the philosophies of the day. I hope I'm not being biased here. Actually, I think Roger Olson, who is sympathetic to the OV, would agree with me. Perhaps you would like to browse his "The History of Christian Theology." It seems that you would rather find a quote by St. Gregory citing determinism and attack him for it! At least, this seems more sympathetic to your project. On this same note, I cannot for the life of me understand why Dr. Boyd signs with a Plato quote. Oh well. Even when he was still at the school he had a different (but lively) sense of humor!
I think that the "Open View" is a post-lberal heresy! Sorry to give the impression that I support it.
As to Gregory of Naz. I don't hink that HE confused himself with scripture. But he did write sermons--of which I quoted fromone. The idea he expressed THEN must be taken by YOU and brought back to Scripture to be examined. Of this I trust we both agree.
quote:
Well, I eagerly await your response. You'll have to tell me if you agree. I don't disagree with you that God wants us to choose Him. I think we merely disagree on when we have free will.
My family and I attend a Chrsitian Reformed Church. I don't find those Dutch Calvinists around me saying that we don't have free will. They put a "rider" on it. But they certainly do affirm the free-ness of our response to God!!!!!!
Now, as to the Greek influences, I'd like to point you to what REALLY happened. It was the Christians (Capadoceans) who re-shaped Greek culture in the image of the Hebraic understanding of God, and not the other way around!! The re-shaping of the word "hypostasis" is a case in point!
Rather than going to a Roger Olson for what a narrow-minded (prejudiced) view of the East is, ask THEM.
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 6/6/2003 7:51 AM (GMT -6) | | Hug, here are my responses that are matched up with what Pow wrote.
quote:
I think that the "Open View" is a post-lberal heresy! Sorry to give the impression that I support it.
The agnostic definition of heresy is what the other guy believes that we don't.
quote:
My family and I attend a Chrsitian Reformed Church. I don't find those Dutch Calvinists around me saying that we don't have free will. They put a "rider" on it. But they certainly do affirm the free-ness of our response to God!!!!!!
I attended a CRC church in grad-school. I don't look to theological agreement as what unifies Christians together(How about a round of Kumbaya, Pow?). A good calvinist is an inconsistent calvinist!
quote:
Now, as to the Greek influences, I'd like to point you to what REALLY happened. It was the Christians (Capadoceans) who re-shaped Greek culture in the image of the Hebraic understanding of God, and not the other way around!! The re-shaping of the word "hypostasis" is a case in point!
My general view is that all of theology is an attempt to reconcile an independent world-view with the world-view of Christ as revealed in the NT. Initially, much of theology was targeted at trying to reconcile Greek thinking with the Bible, but this need not be the end-all-be-all of theology. I.e., open theists try to reconcile the Bible with their own post-liberal world-view and I try to reconcile it with a pragmaticist world-view I picked up on while in Grad-School.
This does not imply an anything goes relativism or an endorsement of liberal theology-style neutering of the radicality and distinctness of the Gospel. It just expresses a diffidence to there being one correct theology, apart from which all others are heresies. I retain much of traditional teachings on heresy as regards gnosticism etc..
dlw
dlw
Prayer from Kenya
From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me. | | Back to Top | | |
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The Huguenot
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2003
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 6/6/2003 8:58 PM (GMT -6) | | PoW, DLW, good ideas and thank you for your gracious dialogue. In order...
quote:
I think that the "Open View" is a post-lberal heresy!
PoW: How embarassing! Forgive me for misreading you! I had no right to infer you were OV. I read your treatment of St. Gregory and immediately assumed (we all know what happens when you assume) that: 1)supporting free will, therefore 2)he's an Open Theist! Forgive me. As to his (Gregory's) sermon, I followed your link and as near as I can tell Nazianzen is giving a theological discourse on pneumatology. Could you tell me what texts he's preaching from? You're definitely correct: the responsibility is on my shoulders to check back with Scripture. Thanks for pointing that out. Let me know the text.
quote:
My family and I attend a Chrsitian Reformed Church. I don't find those Dutch Calvinists
around me saying that we don't have free will. They put a "rider" on it. But they certainly do
affirm the free-ness of our response to God!!!!!!
I don't think I would disagree with your Reformed friends. I think here it becomes an issue of semantics. What is the "rider" they place on it? I too would affirm our free response, but would want to say that God must be the one to free us from sin to do so. You'll have to let me know if I do disagree with your brethren.
DLW: It is good to hear from you. Thank you for your encouragement. Once again, you always have thought provoking words.
quote:
The agnostic definition of heresy is what the other guy believes that we don't...I retain much of
traditional teachings on heresy as regards gnosticism etc..
Hmm...The gnostics were condemned at many synods, thus making them heresies. While much in the NT could be said condemns gnosticism (which I think is fair and true), it never outright condemns them. Therefore, the Church has issued the anathema (again, I think rightly). We don't have councils anymore, but the closest thing we do have in Protestantism is something akin to ETS. There are many willing to affirm that a good deal of the Bible shows OV theism to be wrong. Would you be willing to agree that OV theism is heresy should ETS find it so? I realize that is not what ETS is deciding, but if they would oust it, would you disavow Evangelicalism, or at least consider OV theism wrong?
You know, I very much agree with you about various theologies condemning one another. Of course, gnosticism was a theology, but the Church said it was wrong. Could the same ever happen to OV theism? Personally, I don't think so. Most OVers, and Arminians, and most "Christians" and "Evangelicals" and "Christendom" embrace a form of semi-Pelagianism, which has been anathemized at many synods and councils. Let me know what you think.
quote:
A good calvinist is an
inconsistent calvinist!
*Hearty chuckle* Well, you have them in a quite a bind! If you're a good calvinist, you're inconsistent, and if you agree with the quote...well, who wants to be known as a bad calvinist?!?! Good call, friend! Well, I'll bite. What, praytell, is your reasoning for this "most audacious of all claims?" 
quote:
My general view is that all of theology is an attempt to reconcile an independent world-view
with the world-view of Christ as revealed in the NT.
Yes. That is where theology is now. However, can we ever escape our independent WV and embrace a solely Scriptural one? As always, its a pleasure.
The Huguenot
SDG
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/7/2003 3:17 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
As to his (Gregory's) sermon, I followed your link and as near as I can tell Nazianzen is giving a theological discourse on pneumatology. Could you tell me what texts he's preaching from?
Huguenot, Gregory was in retirement, back in his native town on the family estate. I suppose he did preach there, perhaps some (without usurping those ordained to the task there...), but what you read was part of a series written and crafted to address serious threats that preyed on the faithful far beyond where he was. ( Introduction to the "Theological" Orations http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-07/Npnf2-07-41.htm#P4162_1255901 ) So, don't expect it to be a sermon on a single text. It is basically part of a debate, and designed to both convince and to provide ammunition to those who need it. Gregory had been Patriarch of Constantinople-New Rome. I can find you links to other things he wrote that do have scripture verses associated with them. But even they might be where he quotes scripture from memory (and 20th.cent. scripture citations added).
(later) I checked. Here is a site with lots on it, incl. Gregory. http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/
But when I went to the site you visited I DID notice blue links to citations from where Gregory quotes scripture. Didn't you see them/follow them?
You seemed to be implying that unless someone starts solely from one text and keept to it that something is wrong. Gregory (Arch-Pastor of the whole Greek Speaking world, knew the Greek VII OT and the Greek NT beyond what anyone you or I will meet knows.) used these passages as resources while constructing effective debate to deal with an outside threat.
quote:
Luke iv. 20, 30.
Exod. xix. 13.
Ps. liii. 5.
John i. 9.
Ps. xxxvi. 9.
Isa. xxi. 2.
...Ib. xi. 9.
Ps. cxli. 5.
John xv. 26.
Ecclus i. 2.
Isa. viii. 19.
John iv. 24.
Rom. viii. 26.
1 Cor. xiv. 15.
John i. 2.
Jer. x. 16.
Prov. xxx. 29, 30. 31.
Exod. xxxvii. 7.
1 John v. 8
...verse 7
...verse 8
Isa. xli. 4.
Ib. xliii. 10.
Heb. xii. 26.
(Heb. xiii.),
Haggai (ii. 6),
(Heb. xii. 26).
Acts xvi. 3.
Ib. xxi. 26.
Galat. vii. 7-17.
Ps. lxxxiv. 7, and 2 Cor. iii. 18.
John xiv. 16, 17.
John xvi. 7.
...xvi. 8.
...xvi. 12.
...xiv. 26.
Job iii. 9.
Luke i. 35; iii. 22: iv. 1.
Luke iv. 1, 18.
Acts ii. 4.
Matt. xii. 31.
Acts v. 3. etc.
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 6/7/2003 8:03 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
DLW: It is good to hear from you. Thank you for your encouragement. Once again, you always have thought provoking words.
I oscillate between whether my spiritual gift is encouragement or a very dry wit. No, glad to hear from you.
quote:
quote:
The agnostic definition of heresy is what the other guy believes that we don't...I retain much of
traditional teachings on heresy as regards gnosticism etc..
Hmm...The gnostics were condemned at many synods, thus making them heresies. While much in the NT could be said condemns gnosticism (which I think is fair and true), it never outright condemns them. Therefore, the Church has issued the anathema (again, I think rightly). We don't have councils anymore, but the closest thing we do have in Protestantism is something akin to ETS. There are many willing to affirm that a good deal of the Bible shows OV theism to be wrong. Would you be willing to agree that OV theism is heresy should ETS find it so? I realize that is not what ETS is deciding, but if they would oust it, would you disavow Evangelicalism, or at least consider OV theism wrong?
There have been other links that discussed the ETS's threat of declaring OVTheism heresy. It seems its not going to happen since the arminians were worried that they could be next.
If you hang around here long enough you will find that one's OVTheism is colored by your background. OVTheism denies a tenet that was part of the Medieval Theological Synthesis(or compromise between transcendence and immanence as Roger Olson and Stanley Grenz would put it). Other groups have done this, the difference is that most OVTheists are from Neo-Evangelical backgrounds(If you read Stanley Grenz's "Renewing of the Center", Neo-Evangelicals are people who were fundamentalists(typically white USAmericans) but chose to turn back to interact with the mainstream or have been influenced a lot by that group of Christians).
This group has a very high view of Scripture and Theology and shared the affirmation of expressing the Fundaments of what Christian Theology is about. They don't tend to be strongly influenced by evolutionary ideas and so there view of Theology tends to be more ahistorical, like Physics. If Theology is ahistorical or like physics then it cannot truly change and, ultimately, there can be only one true Theology. So the OVTheists implicitly perceive themselves as a paradigm change in Theology, like Einstein's Relativity was to Newtonian Physics. As shown in Dorrien(The Remaking of Evangelical Theology), traditionally headship among Neo-Evangelicals has been with Calvinist for the simple reason that their theology was more consistent(which makes my statement below even more pungent). Now that OVers claim to have a systematic, biblical theology without some of the assumptions commonplace in Classical Theology, there position is being threatened and so they are attacking the Biblicity of OVTheism.
Historically, lots of theological debates involved other more mundane issues. Post and Pre-Millenialism revolved around whether the Church was responsible for trying to transform the existing system, to bring on the millenium, which though it would fail, would then bring along the second coming of Christ. I.e., is it our duty to make changes to the socioeconomic system we find ourselves in or to just try to save as many souls as possible prior to the rapture?
Similarly, if you check out the movie "In the name of the Rose" with Sean Connery(A Medieval Murder Mystery), the film takes place in the medieval ages where two orders are debating whether or not Jesus owned his own tunic or something. Yet, the substance of the debate revolves around whether it was legitimate for the Church to own property(I.e., if Jesus owned property then it couldn't be wrong for the Church to do the same.).
quote:
quote:
You know, I very much agree with you about various theologies condemning one another. Of course, gnosticism was a theology, but the Church said it was wrong. Could the same ever happen to OV theism? Personally, I don't think so. Most OVers, and Arminians, and most "Christians" and "Evangelicals" and "Christendom" embrace a form of semi-Pelagianism, which has been anathemized at many synods and councils. Let me know what you think.
I think that with books like Dorrien's(the first book on Evangelical Theology written by a non-Evangelical), it will come out more and more how historically there has always been a fair amount of diversity in theology among those people that claim the label "Evangelical". As such, I'm not worried about OVTheism being declared a heresy.
quote:
quote:
A good calvinist is an
inconsistent calvinist!
*Hearty chuckle* Well, you have them in a quite a bind! If you're a good calvinist, you're inconsistent, and if you agree with the quote...well, who wants to be known as a bad calvinist?!?! Good call, friend! Well, I'll bite. What, praytell, is your reasoning for this "most audacious of all claims?"
Well, one can follow through consistently with Calvinism and conclude a fatalism or that this is the "best of all possible worlds". The opposite outcome is also possible but that follows from additional belief tenets found in the reformed tradition that follow from their religious and political persecution at the hands of the Holy Roman Empire and the RCC. These additional beliefs can be transplanted from Calvin's systematic theology or a belief in Exhaustive Definite Foreknowledge.
Predestination is a non-refutable hypothesis and can be reconciled with virtually any scenario, but it doesn't help us organize and process many aspects of reality, especially the Reality of Evil. If taken exhaustively and consistently, it tends to do more harm than good(So many souls have been won over by Theodicies that reconcile what seems like evil to us with God's Providence/Sovereignty. Not!).
quote:
[quote]My general view is that all of theology is an attempt to reconcile an independent world-view
with the world-view of Christ as revealed in the NT.
Yes. That is where theology is now. However, can we ever escape our independent WV and embrace a solely Scriptural one? As always, its a pleasure.
The goal is not to arrive at the the true Theology, based on Sola Scriptura, but to be one as Christ and the Father are one and to then advance the Kingdom of God, while also dialoguing with each other about what that means. Systematic Theology, by confronting our received world-views with the world-view of Christ found in Scripture, should be a source of inspiration and renewal in how we go about reconciling our differences and sharing the Gospel with the World.
dlw
Prayer from Kenya
From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me. | | Back to Top | | |
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