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| Posted 6/27/2001 8:50 AM (GMT -6) |   | Doc-
I’m going to struggle through the wording of this, but I trust you’ll get my meaning.
In God at War, chapter nine (“Christus Victor”), you argue that the primary significance of the cross is found in its cosmic effects (i.e. deals with Satan and his cohorts) and that the anthroplogical dimension (man’s atonement) logically follows this, but that these are not to be bifurcated. Fine. Here’s where I’m gonna stumble over myself…
Seems to me that if the death and resurrection of Christ are God’s primary means for dealing with evil, and since evil predated the fall of man (which God knew only as a possibility before its occurrence), then Christ’s death and resurrection would seem to have existed in God’s mind as a certainty before the anthropological NEED for it even existed.
Let me try again. In the early chapters you argue that the Genesis creation was really re-creation. The place was originally trashed by Satan when he moved in. I’m assuming then that your claim that the cross was primarily God’s strategy for recapturing/redeeming the cosmos (at least the part of it that was trashed by Satan) was determined by God PRIOR to the creation of man. And why wouldn’t this be the case, since the problem of evil at the cosmic level predated the problem of evil at the anthropological level?
The struggle I’m having with chapter nine is that not only is the incarnation predetermined by God for intimacy’s sake irrespective of man’s sinning (something often mentioned here), but the death and resurrection are also predetermined for the sake of redeeming the cosmos prior to and irrespective of the redemption of man, for it was determined prior to man’s even needing it. In short, you’ve got Jesus crucified and raised certainly before, and thus necessarily irrespective of, man’s needing it. To me it looks like you commit the error you warn against, you bifurcate the cosmic and anthropological dimensions of Christ’s death, and thus the anthropological IS an afterthought. I’m also left wondering, in the event mankind did NOT sin (which was possible prior to their having sinned and subsequent to God’s having predetermined the death and resurrection of Christ) but became all God intended him to be, HOW would God get Jesus up on the cross? That is, if the death and resurrection are the MEANS to solving the COSMIC problem of evil, and this means is determined prior to man’s fall, doesn’t this involve God in having to predetermine the ANTHROPOLOGICAL problem of evil? So let me ask you, would the death and resurrection of God-incarnate have been necessary to God’s ultimate (cosmic) victory over Satan even had Adam never fallen? To answer yes is to bifurcate the cosmic and anthropocentric dimensions of Christ’s work, is it not?
Lastly, what is lost if “works” in “destroying the works of the devil” is understood as including the damage Satan brought upon man, thus the anthropological dimension? As I read chapter nine I distinctly get the feeling you understand “works of the devil” essentially as excluding the anthropological damage reeked by Satan. My point is, if these “works” exclude the anthropological, then the death and resurrection must both be predetermined PRIOR to the anthropological need for them. And that really doesn’t sit well with me. But if these “works” include the anthropological (which the writer to the Hebrews assumes), then what need is there to posit a distinction of purpose between the cosmic and anthropological? Follow me?
I hope this is even understandable. Have mercy. Talk slowly and use small words.
Tom
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| Posted 6/27/2001 8:52 AM (GMT -6) | | TGB
06/13/01 6:43 PM
"Tom at War": It's late and I can't sleep
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Doc-
Can’t wait. Can’t sleep. Gotta get these thoughts outa my head!
On the open view, the anthropocentric dimension of atonement simply doesn’t exist until Adam sins. Before that time, fallen humanity was only a possibility.
The problem of sin and evil, however, is NOT a human problem at its core (you’re right on in this), for sin predates (if I could use such a term) Adam’s fall and thus humanity’s NEED for atonement. And I HAVE to believe that God (eternally knowing all possibilities) had a plan for ultimately destroying Satan and his cohorts that did NOT also include atoning for sinful humanity. And THAT plan is what I’d like you to explain to me. Reaching back into the “Jesus and Free Will” thread, I’d like to ask you to explain your understanding of what God’s plan for ultimate cosmic victory over Satan and evil WOULD HAVE been had mankind not fallen. Would it have included the death and resurrection of God-incarnate? Why or why not? If so, how would such a thing have been accomplished?
Here’s what’s in my brain:
1. Satan and his cohorts rebel.
2. Earth becomes the habitation of Satan and his gang.
3. Earth is trashed.
4. Recreation (Gen. 1)
5. Man is created to be God’s viceroy/means for destroying the “works of the devil” (which at this point did not include a ruined humanity). [Detour: I want to believe that God made known to his angelic counsel his intention to create man and that THIS precipitated Lucifer’s downfall. Thus, the link to God’s decision to widen his purpose for man’s creation to include—in some freaky way my brain won’t let me describe at 2:30 AM—Satan’s ultimate demise, and thus my sense that the problem of Satan and evil was ALWAYS about man! It began with God’s announcement to create him and continues today. “Anthropos” occasioned the cosmic fallout to begin with! Whoah!]
6. Enter incarnation. The incarnation was already God’s predetermined means for achieving the greatest possible intimacy with man. It now includes participating with (leading?) mankind in the eschatological victory over Satan and his armies.
7. I do not see that this victory required Christ’s death and resurrection provided mankind did NOT fall. I can see the rationale for the incarnation in terms of achieving the greatest possible intimacy with man and for participating with man, in incarnate form, in whatever form of encounter with Satan such a scenario would require to secure Satan’s ultimate defeat. But until man sins, the death and resurrection of Christ are not settled part of the future.
8. Of course, once man falls, the rules of engagement change and the problem of Satan and evil is REDEFINED. The incarnation becomes a rescue mission (i.e., the anthropocentric) in addition to God’s means for destroying Satan (i.e., the cosmic). But because Satan’s evil had found it’s way into MAN (through a sin-free version of which God originally intended to win his victory over Satan), man’s salvation becomes inextricably linked to Satan’s destruction. I think you miss the way the turn of events redefines the problem and thus the solution. You argue the cosmic is primary and the anthropological is the happy result. And in recognizing that the problem of Satan and evil predated man’s need for salvation, I concede this primacy, BUT (and this is what I think you miss) in sinning man redefined the problem for God and for this reason there’s a sense in which the anthropocentric dimension conditions the cosmic. And if it conditions the cosmic, I need to qualify what primary now means.
It’s 2.30 AM and I have work tomorrow…eh, today.
Blessings,
Tom
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| Posted 6/27/2001 8:54 AM (GMT -6) | | Mephi2K
06/13/01 8:18 PM
Sup, Buddy
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Tom,
Hmmmm...mind if I make some statements.
1) I think that you are right on in your first post.
2) I have some problems with your second post. First of all, this thing seemed WAY too anthropocentric to me. Especially that speculation on way Satan fell. (You saw that movie "Prophecy" with Christopher Walken, now didn't you? LOL)
Second, on the Incarnation. You say that the incarnation was to be PRIMARILY as the means to have the greatest intimacy with man. This was the intent EVEN BEFORE evil reared it's ugly head. So this is how I see what you are saying:
1st reason: To have intimacy with man.
2nd reason: To destroy the works of Satan
3rd reason: To redeem fallen mankind.
Now, let's look at this, Tom. The first question that I have is where is all this coming from. From what I hear you saying, God would have incarnated himself with man, EVEN IF Satan had never insurrected or man would have fallen. Where is your biblical evidence for this stuff? Is this purely speculative? Along the same lines, wouldn't you be saying that God's original relationship with man was LESS than ideal in comparison to incarnation? That EVEN THOUGH, God knew there was a fundamentally better way to exist with man, he decided to just make man in the imago dei without Incarnation first. That's cool, but, given your view of God, could you say that God had a REASON for doing this? Especially if He knew the type of devastation that loomed the Earth that man would be sent into? Wouldn't God have incarnated IMMEDIATELY to deal with the situation, eliminating any fall of mankind?
Nother thing. Biblical evidence, as I see it, seems to lump intimacy with man, redeeming fallen mankind, and destroying the works of Satan into ONE thing with the Incarnation. In other words, it doesn't seem that the Incarnation had one ORIGINAL intention and then, due to certain circumstances, later found OTHER benefits that it could be used for. It does seem that the plan was ALWAYS of one intention that combined all of the elements you mention.
1 John 3:8
He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.
1 Tim 1:15
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-- of whom I am the worst.
John 6:38-40
For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
Man, it don't GET no plainer than that. It doesn't really seem to be an after-the-fact deal, in any way. However, it DOES seem plain that Jesus' sacrifice WAS predestined before the actual occurance of HUMAN sin. (Perhaps this is why Doc says what he does)
Rev 12:8
All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast-- all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.
All I'm saying is that it seems to me that the ONLY way, to me, to make sense of all this is to say one of two things:
1) Either God basically thought it a foregone conclusion that man WOULD eventually sin, due to what happened on the earth...and accordingly he predestined the sacrifice of Christ. (Think about our "Pelagius" discussion)
or...
2) God just plain KNEW that humankind WOULD sin in the future as a certainty.
You were right on in your first post. Now I think we should just take the implications to their logical conclusions. Here's my take...
God basically ordained the fall of man FOR THE SAKE of redemption. IN other words, God, before creation, knew that He wanted to do certain things we would call redemptive history. He established a "perfect" relationship with Adam, knowing that Adam WOULD sin, thus allowing God to act in the "MORE PERFECT" way of Incarnation and oneness with God through Christ. Seems simple to me.
Blessings,
Meph.
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| Posted 6/27/2001 8:56 AM (GMT -6) | | GregBoyd
06/13/01 10:51 PM
RE: Sup, Buddy
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Tom,
I don't mind speculation if the goal is to contribute to a systematically coherent general picture that helps makes sense of all the particulars that need explaining. But I don't see what some of your speculations help explain. E.g. What does linking God's plan for humanity with Satan's down fall help explain?
I find the notion that the Incarnation was intended by God as the culmination of the relationship he desired with humanity -- even before the fall -- to be somewhat plausible. I find the Christus Victor view of the atonement to also be plausible, for it makes sense of the many passages that link Christ's death and resurrection with his victory over enemies. I find it simplest to subsume the anthropomorphic significance of the cross under the cosmic significance... and some scritpures specifically do this.
What I don't see the need for is to speculate about how God might have addressed the sin issue (among angels) if humans had not fallen. Since redemption isn't the issue with angels, it seems, why think he has to do anything -- let alone die on the cross -- to defeat his foes? What are we trying to explain with our speculation?
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see any reason to suppose that Christ would have died on the cross if humans hadn't fallen.
At the same time, I do think that it more probable than not that it was certain to God that Christ would have to die for humanity even before humanity was created. I know (from the anthropological thread) that that bugs the heck out of you and meph, but I still hold to it. I'm certain someone is going to get killed in a car crash in the next week. Don't know who, when or why -- but I do know it will happen. (This ties into the Logic and future thread. Add together all the little probabilities of any individual in the US getting kicked in a car crash in the next week, and you'll arrive at well over 100% certain that someone will get killed.
So too -- sooner or later, I suspect, the fall was inevitable.
But worth it.
In this sense I agree with Mephi that God planned on being glorified by redemption from the very start. But, unlike Mephi, I can assert this without having to posit the paradox of God ordaining sin "in such a way" that we and not God are responsible for what God ordains. (There we go again, eh Mephi ).
Sleep well Tom.
Doc
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| Posted 6/27/2001 8:58 AM (GMT -6) | | TGB
06/14/01 6:38 AM
RE: RE: Sup, Buddy
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Doc and Mephi-
No more 2 AM posts. The grey matter does NOT function well at that time.
Let me say first that speculating on possible links between God’s decision to create man and the occasion of Satan’s rebellion was NOT necessary to my essential point, which is why I placed a “detour” sign in front of my comments and [bracketed] them in. Something told me that if I threw that in it would end up burying my real concern over what I think is Doc’s bifurcation of the cosmic and anthropocentric dimensions of the death and resurrection. So, let’s just dump my second post.
Doc, you said, “Since redemption isn't the issue with angels, it seems, why think he has to do anything -- let alone die on the cross -- to defeat his foes?”
What time of day is it THERE? He “doesn’t have to do anything to defeat his foes”? Then what is chapter nine about? Why argue that defeating his foes is the PRIMARY motivation for the death and resurrection of Christ? Exactly my point. Why insist, as you do in chapter nine, that the death and resurrection are “primarily” about defeating his foes, especially when redemption IS the issue with man, not angels? If God doesn’t need the cross to defeat his foes but does need it to redeem man, then WHY is defeating his foes primary and redeeming man relegated to the status of being, fortunately for us, a “by-product” of the cross? Something’s not accounted for.
When Christ described his own mission, for example in Lk 19.10, he did not hesitate to put the anthropocentric at the center, “…I have come to seek and to save the lost.” This doesn’t have to mean that’s ALL the cross is about, but it certainly means it’s there and it’s central. It’s more than a by-product. Redemption DEFINES the death and resurrection. It might not do so exclusively, but it’s there.
The “strong man” analogy Jesus gives (Mat 12; Mk 3; Lk 11) does indeed place “binding the strong man” before “spoiling his goods” (which I take to refer respectively to the cosmic and anthropocentric dimensions of Christ’s coming). I don’t think this favors the “primacy” of the cosmic defeat as you envision it. “Binding” may be the necessary pre-requisite to “spoiling” in terms of HOW the spoiling is accomplished, but “spoiling the goods” is what is wanted. I don’t think it compromises those texts which you rightly note speak in warfare terms of our forgiveness coming from Christ “exalted” over his enemies to suggest that the cosmic dimension of Christ’s death and resurrection is partly defined and conditioned by the anthropocentric.
How so? Personally, my hunch in that the cross WAS necessary to defeating God’s angelic foes AND to redeeming man. I think this follows from man’s having followed Satan in sinning, an act which fused the cosmic and anthropocentric dimensions into ONE single problem of evil, and so fused any solution into one indivisible event. Now, defeating Satan at the cosmic level IS necessary to redeeming man (in agreement with Doc), but that this cosmic defeat must come through the CROSS (contra Doc, who admits the cross is NOT necessary to the defeat of God’s foes) is dictated by man’s having yielded himself to God’s cosmic foe. “Anthropos” has succumbed to Satan. The cosmic and anthropological battles are fused in Adam. God now faces Satan IN Adam, and that is where God must defeat him. Adam and his redemption become the battlefield where God defeats his cosmic enemy, Satan. This is why I think your exalting the cosmic to “primary” status and relegating the anthropological to what amounts to a fortunate by-product bifurcates the cosmic and anthropocentric dimensions of Christ’s death and resurrection.
Mephi, good comments. You thought the first post was right on? I thought the second simply repeated the first (except for the “detour”). Funny. But the “evolving” three-fold motivation for the incarnation you noted (intimacy, followed by the cosmic defeat of Satan, followed by the redemption of man) was, Iiiieee thought, a standard OV thing! No lie. It’s been argued on this forum, and Sanders argues this same kind of thing (from “intimacy” to “redemption”) on the basis of 1Pt. 1.20, “He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was manifest at the end of the times for your sake.” So when I read Doc’s ninth chapter in God at War I read this into his “primary/secondary” description of the purpose of Christ’s coming. In my view, Meph, the cosmic and anthropocentric dimensions of the death and resurrection of Christ are essentially two sides of one coin, and arguing that one side is “primary” and the other a “by-product” doesn’t completely reflect the integrity of the one issue.
Blessings,
Tom
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| Posted 6/27/2001 8:59 AM (GMT -6) | | JoeMoore
06/15/01 4:40 PM
RE: Doc, I'm disappointed (nit-pick warning!)
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I would have let this go, but one of your main theses in open theology is correctly dealing with possibilities. This is one of my pet peeves.
You said: "you'll arrive at well over 100% certain that someone will get killed." You CAN'T be more than 100% certain. Certainty is a certainty.
There. I said it. I feel better now. I can put up with athletes giving 110% because they don't know any better but it still sounds like fingernails on a chalk board .
Joe Moore
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| Posted 6/27/2001 9:00 AM (GMT -6) | | TGB
06/19/01 9:10 AM
Take these nails out of my hands and get me down!
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Doc-
The "Logic and Future" thread is absolutely awesome. I'm loving it. But when you get a break, perhaps during one of Mephi's standing 8 counts, could you help me down off this cross by commenting a bit on my last response to your "cosmic/anthropocentric" warfare view of the death and resurrection?
No rush. I have lots of blood left.
Tom
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