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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Let’s solve the problem of evil > I met the devil, and he is me ( Doc/Icon) | Forum Quick Jump
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Questioner
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| Posted 8/22/2004 1:40 PM (GMT -6) |   | Oops. One more...
John 15: Jesus praying for his disciples.
9 I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. 11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.
Whoa. "...protect them from the evil one" Sounds a LOT like what Jesus taught them to pray in Matthew's Gospel...right?
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Questioner
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| Posted 8/22/2004 2:20 PM (GMT -6) | | Just ONE More...
Luke 10: Following an exorcism
The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Demythologize this for me, too, wouldja? Thanks. | | Back to Top | | |
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Questioner
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| Posted 8/22/2004 4:03 PM (GMT -6) | | Semeia:
quote:
And that leaves us with an enormous problem concerning WHY God would allow a free-will being the lifespan and omnipresence that satan apparently has? If satan is resolved in his evil (his heart completely hardened and made up) then why does God just leave him be? Didn’t he destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because there was no more hope of love? Didn’t God destroy the world with a flood because of the "fullness of their iniquity"? Wasn’t satan around at that time? Isn’t he described as completely evil? If he is a literal being, why has God allowed him free reign over the earth? I mean, Eve just bit a little apple and paradise was over for her. Satan is given credit for the greatest evil the world has produced, but God just lets him live on and on? Would you let a completely hardened, fully evil pedophile take care of your beloved children? For the simple reason that you gave the pedophile free will and now don’t want to take it away?
One could argue that since God lets murderers and pedophiles run free here on earth in order that some may choose love, that he is doing the same in the spiritual realm with free-will spiritual beings. The problem with that, though, is that here on earth one does not have unlimited time – we all die and are eventually choosing for God or against God. We eventually have to choose to be with God or separate from God. God does not let a person with a hardened heart wreak havoc for a thousand years. So why, if satan is completely evil and set against God – an adversary of God – why would he be allowed to reign free from the beginning of age until the very end?
Personally, I think this is one of the more powerful intuitive arguments against the existence of a literal Satan. It does seem patently messed up to allow a being (or beings) so powerful to not only run amok while being so evil…but also allowing them to RETAIN all that power…just because you didn’t want to usurp any authority that you originally gave them. To me, this would be as stupid as me letting a gynocologist that I KNOW rapes women after drugging them continue to work in his own OB/GYN clinic using stirrups and all…because he earned his pedigree fair and square! Why, his credentials wouldn’t be valid in the FIRST place if we took them away anytime he did something that we didn’t approve of…right?
This goes against everything in us. We seem to intuitively know that some people may need to be constrained for the good of society. That would prisons and institutes for the criminally insane are for. But it would seem that God wouldn’t want to abridge anyone’s freedom the way our commonsense morality tells us to!
All that said, Semeia, we still have to deal with what Jesus has been saying. It seems VERY evident to me that the gospel writers believed that Jesus believed not only in angels and the resurrection (like others of the Pharisaic understanding), but in demons as well. Now, we could say that Jesus really knew all along that there really was no Satan, but, knowing his context of Satan-believing people, he decided to go ahead and use the figure anyways. But this of course would lead to some serious issues. The way that Jesus talks about Satan (especially to the religious leaders that time) would seem VERY close to deceit if Jesus really didn’t believe in a Satan figure. Moreover, he kept talking about that "evil one", which is a reference to the Satan figure. Then we’d have to ask the question: How did Jesus know that demons and Satan weren’t real…when a significant amount of his contemporaries did? Was this divinely conferred information? If so, why wouldn’t Jesus just say that? "Hey, guys, there IS no Satan…but there are "powers’ in the world that you need to worry about"
Another thing that one could do is to say that Jesus was TRULY the God incarnate…such that Jesus actually did grow in knowledge and stature before men (as Scripture seems to attest) In other words, Jesus grew in the knowledge that anyone of his contemporaries would have held. Jesus wouldn’t have known about the 2nd law of Themodynamics, dinosaurs, or that the world was round. Jesus would have known what other people in his time, place, religious orientation, and social class would have known. This would mean that theoretically Jesus could be wrong on some things…maybe even some theological things. Jesus was much more closely associated with the Pharisees than the Saducees, theologically speaking. This much is evident in this text…
Mark 12:18-27
Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that ‘if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.’ There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children; and the second married her and died, leaving no children; and the third likewise;
none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died.
In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seven had married her."
Jesus said to them, "Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage,but are like angels in heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong."
(Note. This story is also found in Matt. 22)
As you can see, Jesus, by talking about angels and the resurrection aligned himself much more with the Pharisees. At any rate, it would be possible that Jesus BELIEVED that angels existed, just like the Scripture above indicates…BUT he was wrong.
Now, Semeia, I’m wondering which line of thought should we take…
1) Did Jesus KNOW that angels, demons, and Satan were NOT literal beings from the start, but he just spoke as if they were for the sake of his audience?
2) Did Jesus really believe that angels, demons, and Satan existed (as would the Pharisees), but he was ERRONEOUS in that belief (along with Paul, the self-proclaimed Pharisee of Pharisees)
OR…
3) Jesus believed that angels, demons, and Satan were literal beings and he was absolutely correct about that.
I cannot speak for Dr. Boyd, but I would venture to say that this is part of his issue. He believes that Satan is real because there seems to be ample evidence from the Gospels, from what we know about Pharisaic belief at the time, and from Paul’s testimony that Jesus would MOST LIKELY have believed in a literal Satan figure. He will also not want to say that Jesus could have been wrong about that belief, because Jesus was the Son of God, and supposedly he would not make such a mistake (I think that one could argue against this, but anyway…) So, he is left with someone incorporating the literal Satan belief into his theologizing.
I would actually say that the reason why he goes to the stretching lengths in his theodicy that he does is partly because of the merit of your intuitive argument, Semeia. Why in the world WOULD God let Satan truly be the "ruler of the age"? The only answer that Greg could probably come up with was TWT 1: Love must be chosen. If the answer could somehow be tied to that, then there would be a metaphysical reason why God HAD to allow Satan and his angel such freedom. Voila! The warfare worldview.
I hope that everyone reading this can appreciate the constraining position in which Greg finds himself. His theology appears to be unashamedly Christocentric…like Iconoclast’s. (I would wager that that’s why his primary motif for the atonement is CHRISTUS VICTOR [meaning Christ, the Victor] And for that reason, he CANNOT just let go of the idea of a literal Satan.
So…out of the 3 options, Semeia, which would YOU choose?
Q
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Questioner
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| Posted 8/22/2004 5:37 PM (GMT -6) | | Oops. One more possibility for Semeia:
4) The Gospel writers put words in the mouth of Jesus. Words that Jesus never said. In other words, Jesus really didn't believe in Satan (the evil one, devil, etc) and never SAID that he did...but somehow, that belief found its way into the Gospels.
Hey, don't write this off. Remember the shorter and longer endings of Mark!  Of course, this brings up the issue of exactly what we CAN say came from Jesus, right? But anyways...which option do you go for, Semeia?
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 8/22/2004 7:35 PM (GMT -6) | | Questioner
Now, Semeia, I’m wondering which line of thought should we take…
1) Did Jesus KNOW that angels, demons, and Satan were NOT literal beings from the start, but he just spoke as if they were for the sake of his audience?
2) Did Jesus really believe that angels, demons, and Satan existed (as would the Pharisees), but he was ERRONEOUS in that belief (along with Paul, the self-proclaimed Pharisee of Pharisees)
OR…
3) Jesus believed that angels, demons, and Satan were literal beings and he was absolutely correct about that.
Iconoclast
None of the above. Not #4 either.
5) Jesus knew that "satan" and "angels" were metaphorical language for deeper concepts and used that language appropriately to convey deep truth. Jesus did not speak as if satan and angels were literal - He used the language metaphorically. The question is, why do you read His language as though He is being literal? And what evidence do you have that any of His listeners believed His language to be literal?
I have a Jewish friend and when I asked him about this he said that the Jewish people see scripture as deeply metaphorical and always have. That they are, in fact, very non-literally minded about all this stuff. Now, I realize that this isn't exactly a ton of evidence for my view but what is your evidence that the hearers saw it as literal? It seems to me that story telling is a great tradition in that society much more than in ours - perhaps we are just very Newtonian mechanics influenced and see everything as a clockwork literal universe.
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 8/22/2004 7:55 PM (GMT -6) | | Questioner
Semeia, I did a little check up on something. The term "poneros" in Greek; adjective neutral singular genitive [important point] for "evil, wicked. Translated as the "evil one" by the NRSV. When you look at where this term is used you get some interesting places:
Mat 6
9 “Pray then in this way:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not bring us to the time of trial,
but rescue us from the evil one.
Iconoclast
And other translations say "deliver us from temptation."
Again, we have constantly shifting language that supposedly refers to Satan as a literal entity. I don't see it here it all. This looks metaphorical to me.
If it was literal then we could presume that the only time we are going to be in a time of trial is when Satan is personally trying to tempt us. But then we get right into the Santa Claus problem. How is Satan going to get around to all 6 Billion people unless he is omnipresent like God?
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 8/22/2004 8:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Questioner
Just ONE More...
Luke 10: Following an exorcism
The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Demythologize this for me, too, wouldja? Thanks.
Iconoclast
You betcha.
The seventy went around healing people. Jesus then told them that He saw their work - He saw them healing people - He saw them spreading the kingdom by letting people know they were loved - which was overcoming the message, the accusation that they were unworthy to be healed.
Jesus saw "satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning" is a reference to what the seventy accomplished by healing folks.
"Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning" is metaphorical speech. "Fall from heaven" itself contains a set of metaphors. First it contains the Up versus Down metaphor. Up typically maps to more, better, in power and Down typically maps to less, worse, out of power. To "fall from" then maps to going from more, better, in power to less, worse, out of power. "Heaven" is a metaphor that can be used to map many things. It has many possible connotations: "ultimate", "other worldly", "power", "goodness", "pleasure" and so on. (e.g. that piece of pie was a slice of heaven.)
I would say that in this context "fall from heaven" means going from having power to not having power.
"like a flash of lightning" is metaphorical speech mapping our experience of how lightning works to how powerfully what the seventy just did took away satan's power.
All of this is very clearly metaphorical speech. So, why not think that "satan" is also metaphorical speech?
If it was literal speech then that would mean that Satan was in heaven until the seventy did a bunch of healing and that they caused Satan to fall from heaven like a flash of lightning by healing folks. But wait, lighting happens very quickly and then it is done. Wouldn't this mean that a particular healing caused this to happen and then it was done? Was it the first healing that was done or the last? And if healing caused this then why wasn't satan already cast down from heaven when Jesus healed the first person?
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Semeia
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| Posted 8/22/2004 8:39 PM (GMT -6) | | Questioner said:
Semeia:
quote:
Is he a physical/spiritual being who has sexual organs and he is present (everywhere at once since these things happen simultaneously around the earth) when someone is raped and murdered and he actually gets an erection and an orgasm from that? Some believers believe that they have been raped by the devil – but how could that be? Does the devil have thousands of penises that can surround people around the earth who feel oppressed and attacked by the devil? Is it possible that what people are experiencing is an actual individual spiritual entity?
You're not a fan of hentai…now are you?
Semeia:
No, I'm not. In fact I had to look up that word on dictionary.com, and this is what it said:
Main Entry: hentai
Function: noun
Definition: sexually explicit animation or comics
Etymology: Japanese 'perverted, perversion'
As far as the above description, I am quite serious about what it could possibly mean to think that a single evil entity - the Evil One - can possibly be "involved" in even a fraction of the evil that is happening all over the globe at any given time. It's the Santa Claus problem, only instead of delivering presents satan is delivering rape, murder, destruction, as well as all the minor temptations that we like to give satan the rap for, to almost six billion people. And that's if we forget about natural evil, which some want to pin on satan as well. So how does he do it?
Thanks,
Semeia
"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
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| Posted 8/22/2004 11:50 PM (GMT -6) | | I guess you'll have to take my word for it, but I don't have a problem accepting the figurative satan idea over the literal. In fact, in some ways I that idea would make life a little easier. But I don't think the literal satan idea is being charitably argued against. You don't need to posit God-like omniscience to get a literal Satan. Where does it say that all personal beings must either be as limited as humans or as unlimited as God? I am currently listening to music and typing at the same time. It is conceivable to have a personal being who can do three things at once and, who knows, maybe six billion things at once. Or maybe by obtaining some critical mass, Satan can get us to do his work for him. Maybe if enough people are deceived, certain evils may become systemic and then become accepted without Satan's constant intervention. Maybe he waits for opportune times.
About him being stupid, yeah, so? It is supremely stupid that Eve ate the fruit. But it happened. God had loved her, but she acted like God wasn't loving. Evil and stupidity go hand in hand.
Why would God allow Satan to exist? There is no way to be certain. But it seems like the kind of thing that God does. He allows me to exist. Maybe by allowing Satan to exist God allows humans the ability to choose and therefore to love. Maybe we need more than one option for a choice to really be a choice. And maybe without someone to tempt us, we would never recognize a choice. Maybe I'm wrong. But the point is, it's not so cut and dry, not so absurd.
Satan lives a long time. Again, so what? He will die. We will live. What we've got is a personal being who is stronger than us, lives longer than us, and is more intrinsically evil than us. I don't know what the problem is. Whatever explaination you have for evil in the world, just apply that to Satan and you've got an explaination for why God permits Satan to exist.
I'll admit that the figurative Satan might actually be the right idea. It could get rid of some problems. It makes sense. But all these things can be said about the literal idea too. That and the literal reading seems to be the obvious one. It reminds me of the people who said God just created the world with dinosaur bones already in it. It's an unnecessarily complicated explaination. Throw Ocham's razor out the window (not that Ocham's razor always works). There's a whole lot in the Bible that must be explained away.
Again, you guys may be right, but I think it's best to take the Bible literally unless there is some compelling reason to read it otherwise. So far, I don't see a reason that is compelling.
I don't feel dissed, and I hope this doesn't come across mean.
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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Questioner
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| Posted 8/23/2004 5:17 AM (GMT -6) | | Iconoclast:
quote:
5) Jesus knew that "satan" and "angels" were metaphorical language for deeper concepts and used that language appropriately to convey deep truth. Jesus did not speak as if satan and angels were literal - He used the language metaphorically. The question is, why do you read His language as though He is being literal? And what evidence do you have that any of His listeners believed His language to be literal?
I have a Jewish friend and when I asked him about this he said that the Jewish people see scripture as deeply metaphorical and always have. That they are, in fact, very non-literally minded about all this stuff. Now, I realize that this isn't exactly a ton of evidence for my view but what is your evidence that the hearers saw it as literal? It seems to me that story telling is a great tradition in that society much more than in ours - perhaps we are just very Newtonian mechanics influenced and see everything as a clockwork literal universe.
I think that maybe the easiest thing to do is to look at some of the movements in 1st-century Judaism and see which ones that Jesus was most likely to be associated with, given his statements.
I think that a very good case could be made that...
1) Jesus had much more in common with Pharisees than Saducees.
We have some very good information on the beliefs of these two 1st century sects of Judaism. It is clear that Pharisees DID believe in literal angels, immortality, and the resurrection of the dead...whereas Saducees did not. (For a simple point on this, check any decent Handbook to the Bible) It can be shown in the text that a) Jesus did NOT dispute the orthodoxy of the Pharisees more than he disputed their lack of balance [Matt 23:1-3]...but b) he outright said, in the Scripture text that I pointed out earlier, that the Saducees (who didn't believe in the resurrection, immortality, OR angels) were wrong. This is probably why he references both the resurrection AND angels in the same dispute! He disagreed with Saducee audience THEOLOGICALLY, not merely PRAXEOLOGICALLY (as he did with the Pharisees)
(Note. I think that this is why it's VERY important to note that Paul was a self-proclaimed PHARISEE of Pharisees.)
2) Jesus was in the apocalyptic vein.
Apocalypticism deals a LOT with cosmic conflict between good and evil, light and darkness, between God and Satan. We see some significant continuity of this in Jesus's thought. All we'd have to do to confirm this is to look at many of the discussions where Jesus is speaking about his return! Dr. Boyd affirms this idea:
God At War, Page 211-212
"We may regard death as 'a natural part of life,' but for Jesus and other apocalypticists it was not so. Indeed, throughout the New Testament, death is treated as "the last enemy to be destroyed" (1 Cor 15:26). It reigns as a foreign invader, given access to God's children by their sin (Romn 5:12-17; 1 Cor 15:21; Jas 1:15; cf Gen 2:216-17; 3:19-23). The one who holds the 'power of death' is 'the devil' (Heb 2:14), the one who has been 'a murderer from the beginning' (Jn 8:44). Hence there is in this worldview nothing 'natural' about death. At least as we presently experience it, death was never part of God's design for creation. It is, rather, the ultimate 'scourge' of the evil one."
There are many bible handbooks and commentaries out there that would be great to help you assess these ideas for yourself though, Iconoclast.
But hopefully, you can understand why I'm much more inclined to believe that Jesus was NOT being metaphorical. The Pharisees with which he was theologically aligned believed in LITERAL angels and demons. The apocalypticists with which he was theologically aligned believed in a cosmic war with a LITERAL Satan. And when you put these together, this makes the MOST SENSE out of all the texts I've placed heretofore!
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Questioner
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| Posted 8/23/2004 5:28 AM (GMT -6) | | Sahid:
quote:
You don't need to posit God-like omniscience to get a literal Satan. Where does it say that all personal beings must either be as limited as humans or as unlimited as God? I am currently listening to music and typing at the same time. It is conceivable to have a personal being who can do three things at once and, who knows, maybe six billion things at once. Or maybe by obtaining some critical mass, Satan can get us to do his work for him. Maybe if enough people are deceived, certain evils may become systemic and then become accepted without Satan's constant intervention. Maybe he waits for opportune times.
Very well said. This isn't very hard to understand either. Bill Gates isn't Microsoft, right? But he's a mover and shaker nonetheless because of his position, correct? It is entirely conceivable that a literal Satan could be using a matrix of...
--systemic evils (Wink's "powers")
--parapsychological phenomena by humans
--other demonic forces
--nature
to do all kinds of things. To act like Satan has to be there for each and every thing he wants done is absurd to me as saying that Bill Gates has to do EACH and EVERY thing to help Microsoft function.
Now, something interesting. When we talk about Bill Gates we AUTOMATICALLY think about Microsoft. The two names are so ingrained in our minds as being together that they are almost synonomous. In other words, to talk about Bill Gates is to talk about Microsoft in many people's minds. Could that be true for Satan? To talk about Satan is to talk about all the crap in the world...even though Satan ITSELF may not be doing each and every little thing.
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Questioner
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| Posted 8/23/2004 5:37 AM (GMT -6) | | Iconoclast:
quote:
The seventy went around healing people. Jesus then told them that He saw their work - He saw them healing people - He saw them spreading the kingdom by letting people know they were loved - which was overcoming the message, the accusation that they were unworthy to be healed.
Jesus saw "satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning" is a reference to what the seventy accomplished by healing folks.
"Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning" is metaphorical speech. "Fall from heaven" itself contains a set of metaphors. First it contains the Up versus Down metaphor. Up typically maps to more, better, in power and Down typically maps to less, worse, out of power. To "fall from" then maps to going from more, better, in power to less, worse, out of power. "Heaven" is a metaphor that can be used to map many things. It has many possible connotations: "ultimate", "other worldly", "power", "goodness", "pleasure" and so on. (e.g. that piece of pie was a slice of heaven.)
I would say that in this context "fall from heaven" means going from having power to not having power.
"like a flash of lightning" is metaphorical speech mapping our experience of how lightning works to how powerfully what the seventy just did took away satan's power.
All of this is very clearly metaphorical speech.
Which commentary and/or bible resource did you get this from? I've NEVER seen anything like this! My resources must be terribly limited.
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 8/23/2004 3:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Questioner
I think that a very good case could be made that...
1) Jesus had much more in common with Pharisees than Saducees.
We have some very good information on the beliefs of these two 1st century sects of Judaism. It is clear that Pharisees DID believe in literal angels, immortality, and the resurrection of the dead...whereas Saducees did not.
Iconoclast
I think it is possible to determine that the Pharisees believed that angels actually appeared to human beings and gave messages from God. I think it is impossible to determine if the Pharisees actually believed that an angel was a literal independent entity from God. Unless of course a specific discussion around this issue took place and they came down on one side or the other. Do you know of such a discussion?
I also believe that human beings experienced angelic messengers. I just think that these messengers were aspects of God and not independent literal entities. You see, the logic, the pragmatic effect is the same. And as long as it is the same it is impossible to tell what a person believes regarding the underlying actuality.
Moreover, even if the Pharisees DID believe that angels were literal independent entities it does not follow that for Jesus to uphold this notion means that He also ascribes to this specific belief. This is because Jesus can uphold this notion based on the pragmatic effect - the logic of its meaning - without passing comment on the underlying actuality.
We all do this with each other all the time. If someone says that time is like a river because it flows then I can agree with them and uphold that notion even if they actually believe it to be much more literal. It is only when one espouses an actual entailment of some metaphor that you disagree with that you then go after the underlying actuality of it - whether it is more or less literal.
Thus, what you posit here actually provides zero insight one way or the other as to what Jesus believed the literal underlying actuality of angels to be.
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Questioner
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Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/23/2004 3:42 PM (GMT -6) | | Iconclast:
quote:
So...if I don't us a proper "Appeal to Authority" then it must not be right? Can you show me exactly what is inconsistent or incoherent about this interpretation? Is this how you are operating? You only stay within the lines of established and agreed upon understandings? Where would that have got Copernicus or Newton or Einstein?
Don't you think that ALL the bible commentaries pre Copernicus interpreted the bible as saying that the sun goes around the earth?
Do you agree that "fell from heaven" is metaphorical speech? Are you aware of the Up / Down metaphor and its usages? Surely you don't believe that satan LITERALLY fell from heaven to earth.
Hey, I just wanted to know where your idea came from. It's novel (at least to me) and I figured you may have seen something I didn't. It does concern me that you don't seem to take into consideration some of the historical contexts of Jesus and his hearers. Your interpretation appeared to follow from some form of deconstruction of everything as metaphor...not necessarily to anything about the context in which Jesus was. For example, could Jesus's alignment with Pharisee theology shed some light on why Jesus would be talking about Satan and "spirits" in the passage? Perhaps. But you didn't seem to touch that at all.
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Iconoclast:
quote:
Moreover, even if the Pharisees DID believe that angels were literal independent entities it does not follow that for Jesus to uphold this notion means that He also ascribes to this specific belief. This is because Jesus can uphold this notion based on the pragmatic effect - the logic of its meaning - without passing comment on the underlying actuality.
We all do this with each other all the time. If someone says that time is like a river because it flows then I can agree with them and uphold that notion even if they actually believe it to be much more literal. It is only when one espouses an actual entailment of some metaphor that you disagree with that you then go after the underlying actuality of it - whether it is more or less literal.
I've got something. What would be sufficient evidence to convince you of the plausibility that it is VERY LIKELY that Jesus believed in literal angels and demons? What would that evidence look like? That would help.
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 8/23/2004 3:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Questioner
2) Jesus was in the apocalyptic vein.
Apocalypticism deals a LOT with cosmic conflict between good and evil, light and darkness, between God and Satan. We see some significant continuity of this in Jesus's thought. All we'd have to do to confirm this is to look at many of the discussions where Jesus is speaking about his return!
Iconoclast
I don't see how any of this is evidence that Jesus believed in a literal satan. In fact, the whole apocalyptic speech is heavily metaphorical in nature. I think this is highly suggestive of the opposite conclusion.
And the whole warfare speech is also highly metaphorical. Have you ever noticed how radically different one fights a spiritual war versus a literal war? Why is this? Why, in fact, is it exactly backwards from a literal war? We are supposed to love our enemy in this spiritual war but hate our enemy in a literal war. Why is this?
Questioner
The apocalypticists with which he was theologically aligned believed in a cosmic war with a LITERAL Satan.
Iconoclast
What is your evidence for the apocalypticists believing in a LITERAL satan? All I see is metaphorical speech that makes no sense whatsoever if one tries to interpret it literally. If one tries to interpret it literally one gets a picture of a B movie - or even a B novel series.
Now, if one interprets all of it metaphorically then it starts to make sense with what Jesus taught: love your enemy, judge not, turn the other cheek, blessed are the poor in spirit and so on.
In a literal cosmic war the Son of God dying on the cross is a major setback. In a metaphorical cosmic war the Son of God dying on the cross is a decisive victory that turns the tide.
thanks,
Iconoclast
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Questioner
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| Posted 8/23/2004 3:51 PM (GMT -6) | | | Again, what would be the evidence to convince you of the plausibility of Jesus (and/or PAUL) believing in angels, demons, and a literal Satan? What would that evidence look like? | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
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Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 8/23/2004 4:05 PM (GMT -6) | | Questioner
Hey, I just wanted to know where your idea came from. It's novel (at least to me) and I figured you may have seen something I didn't.
Iconoclast
The key shift in my understanding of that passage was an argument I read that when Jesus says that He saw satan fall from heaven it was not a reference to the distant past but a direct commentary on what the seventy had just accomplished. It was a convincing argument to me. I believe I read this in one of Walter Wink's books.
If Wink is accurate then this is solid evidence that Jesus was using "satan" metaphorically in this passage. I, of course, agree that even if this is true it does not provide evidence that Jesus did NOT believe in a literal satan. But it certainly does show that at least in this case He used satan metaphorically.
It is also clear, I would think, that when Jesus tells Peter, "satan get behind me" that Jesus is using satan metaphorically there as well.
My whole point is that we cannot tell whether Jesus believed satan to be literal or not based on the speech we have in the bible.
This is because we only have access to the "surface structure" of the biblical authors. We simply cannot gain access to their "deep structure" unless it is explicitly revealed.
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Questioner
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Total Posts : 48
| Posted 8/23/2004 4:11 PM (GMT -6) | | Iconoclast:
quote:
This is because we only have access to the "surface structure" of the biblical authors. We simply cannot gain access to their "deep structure" unless it is explicitly revealed.
Aha! Now we are getting somewhere. What would it look like for a biblical author's deep structure to be revealed. Be very specific. (I know what you mean by deep structure and surface structure. I know about NLP)
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