Of Nyssa perhaps?
Gregory of Nyssa referred to the bestowal of the image of God as being a matter of grace; that might be what I was thinking of; I think he also extends it to the act of creating humans in the first place as an act of grace.
There’s the one I was thinking of above.
Pondering, the only comment about grace I can recall from Gregory of Nazianzus is about baptism, so I’m going to guess it was the first Gregory I had in mind . . . .
unless I’m getting my Fathers confused, which is not unlikely.
I comment on the “first thing” you take issue with.
You claim:
This amount to state:
God ordered Creation to bring about the body of Jesus Christ (which defines the human body) and thereby humankind.
God ordered humankind to share eternal life by freely accepting God’s love.
As this was Creation’s main aim, God considered from the very beginning the possibility that human beings sin, and in His mercy decided that, in such a case, God will give them opportunity to repent and grace to restore the relationship with Him.
From this it follows that God ordered creation on the basis of the possibility that humans sin.
I would be thankful to know whether you may share this conclusion.
If it was just a possibility then Jesus was Plan B.
I’ll note in passing that your point engages in circular reasoning.
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I assume that God’s Son would also have become flesh if humanity had not sinned (very much in agreement with the great Greek Father Irenaeus!).
So, Jesus was God’s Plan in any case, and it is confusing to speak about “Plan B”:
From the perspective of “a God outside time”, Christ “is the image of the invisible God” and “the firstborn over all creation” (Col 1:15f), and “the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world” (Revelation 13:8) as well.
God ordered creation in such a way that it is suitable for both: the possibility that humans sin, and the alternative possibility that humans do NOT sin.
Accordingly:
On the one hand, God ordered creation since the very beginning for the possibility of sin (i.e.: as if sin had already happened), and therefore submitted creation to mechanisms that would bring illness, death, along with concupiscence (inclination to sin coming from the selfish urges encoded in the sapiens genome) for humans after the Fall.
On the other hand, when God created humankind in His image, God endowed the first humans with grace to overpower such mechanisms, and therefore these first humans ordered to eternal life were in a state as if sin had not yet happened, i.e.: free from illness, death, and concupiscence, in agreement with:
“[God’s] grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time ” (2 Timothy 1:9).
And if humanity had not sinned, why was “the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world”?
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I’ve heard that the Greek word in that verse can be translated (and indeed is better translated) as “the lamb slain from the foundation of the world” not “before the foundation of the world”. Meaning that once humanity started sinning, then Christ’s salvation plan became operational for all people in history. But humans in that case would have had to start sinning first, as opposed to being predestined/created to sin.
More like
God ordered creaton on the basis of the probability tht humans sin.
And Christ is the proof that it is not as important as some people here are trying to make out.
Sin is a natrual part of creation and must be, otherwise we would be automatons.
You cannot offer a choice if one of them is not allowed.
If God wants us to choose Him there must be a viable alternative. otherwise the choice is loaded.
Richard
The translation you propose as the “better” one, is actually the same I used in my quotation:
Now, consider the following question:
When did God decide “Christ’s salvation plan”, i.e.: that the Lamb will be slain for the sins of humankind?
In the perspective of God “outside time” the answer seems to be:
From all eternity, as time did not yet exist.
Now, as you very well state, this cannot mean that humans were “predestined/created to sin” by God.
But then, what does it mean?
You propose:
“humans… would have had to start sinning first” and then “Christ’s salvation plan became operational for all people in history”.
I basically agree, but this should not be understood in the sense that “a human act (the Fall) is the cause of a divine action, God’s decision of salvation”.
In my view the correct way to formulate things is:
God’s decision to redeem us is a consequence of God’s pondering that humans can sin, and it is God’s response to this possibility from all eternity, before sin happens. Thus, if sin happens, the fact that “the Lamb is slain” is not caused by sin, but by God’s will to redeem us:
No one takes my life away from me. I give my own life freely. (John 10:18)
It is important be aware that it is God’s decision what founds reality. All possible decisions humans can make that are relevant for eternal life (the only reality that matters for everlasting happiness!) are present in God’s mind, and God has a plan for each possible decision tree, and all these plans co-exist in God’s mind.
Therefore, the very fact that the world and humankind exist, results from God’s decision to create humans ordered to eternal life. But this decision is concomitant with the decision to redeem them if they sin. Thus, it is also fitting to say that the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, very much in agreement with:
Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. (1 Peter 1:20).
I appreciate your point, but am not convinced that God’s resolve and the human free-will decision to sin can be parsed out as you seem to do here. It seems to me that both are necessary?
A father can resolve in his heart to save his daughter should she ever jump into the river, and yet the father will never act on that resolve until-and-if the child actually jumps into the river at some point. Most people (I think) would say that it was the child’s act of jumping into the river that actually caused the parent to get wet.
In other words, God’s plan/resolve is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the act of salvation to actually occur.
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Yes.
In a real sense that contradicts what you just said above, because ‘predestined’, or even ‘destined’ by itself, is a time-based and tensed word (as is all our language) and does not really apply to God.
Those who do not consider, ignore or forget that fact can say one of two things, either that it ‘cannot mean humans were “predestined/created to sin” by God’, as you just did, or they can say that it does mean that we were predestined to sin by God.
And that is where all the contention and vituperative language stems from between Arminian thinking and Calvinism, those who decry a ‘controlling’ God (ignoring his providential sovereignty) and those who are willing to confess an apparent paradox in our four spacetime dimensions, one of which is sequential time, dimensions to which God is not bound and constrained.
In my view, to address this question it is fitting to distinguish between God’s perspective from “outside time” and our perspective “in time”:
From God’s perspective, His Father’s resolve to jump into the river “from all eternity” means to get wet “from all eternity” as well, independently of the child’s act of jumping “in time”.
From the child’s perspective, his act of jumping into the river precedes in time the parent’s resolve to jump and to get wet, nonetheless, strictly speaking, also in this perspective “in time” it is “the parent’s act of jumping into the river” (and NOT “the child’s act of jumping into the river”) that actually causes “the parent to get wet”.
The effects God has to bear “from all eternity” for resolving to suffer and die to save me, are caused by God’s resolve, and NOT by my sin “in time”. God’s resolve is inseparable from the act of salvation, and in this sense a sufficient condition for this act. My act of repent is a necessary condition for God’s act of salvation to become efficient for me. My sin is only a necessary condition for me getting damned, and becomes a sufficient one if I do not repent.
And this is what it is meant by:
No one takes my life away from me. I give my own life freely. (John 10:18)
Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. (1 Peter 1:20).
And what the Greek Father St. Irenaeus magnificently states:
“For inasmuch as He had a pre-existence as a saving Being, it was necessary that what might be saved [the human race] should also be called into existence, in order that the Being who saves should not exist in vain.” ( Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 22 §3).
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Interesting, but now we’re getting into God’s relationship with time, which is speculative, and so it’s not something I want to make strong doctrines around. But if you ask my opinion, I do not think that Jesus existed as incarnated and “slain” in the Godhead from eternity past (as you seem to suggest), but that his incarnation was something new for the Godhead that happened at a fixed point in human history. As an Open Theist, my opinion/speculation is that God relates to his creation in real time, not “outside of time”. Therefore, when God created the material universe (in my opinion) he created the potential for sin to enter world, but it was only the freewill of humans that actualized that potential, and then triggered the incarnation plan when they sinned. However, I think the nature of God is eternally Kenotic Love-- the Trinity pouring out love within themselves, and so this “posture” of self-sacrificial love has existed from eternity past. His plan for salvation may have existed for eternity, but I don’t think was enacted towards creation from all eternity. If that makes any sense?
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Both/and? It’s not something we can get our heads around. God absolutely relates to us in sequential time, for which not inconsequential detail we have much factual evidence. Just within the last couple of hours I was talking to an industry rep about one of God’s real-time interventions in my life almost exactly 56 years ago.
In order to clarify what I suggest, I dare to repeat which my axioms are:
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The aim of creation is that humans share divine eternal life.
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The incarnation plan is necessary in order humans can share divine eternal life, and therefore it goes along with the creation plan.
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The redemption plan is necessary in order fallen humans can share divine eternal life, and therefore it goes along with the creation and incarnation plan for the case humans sin.
This said, my suggestion is that the following statements both hold:
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in “the Godhead” all is “from eternity”,
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“for the Godhead” each decision regarding human history is new.
So for instance, the decision to create the world and humankind is “in the Godhead from eternity”, although it happens “at a fixed point in human history”. And the same holds for the concomitants decisions regarding incarnation and redemption.
Nonetheless, the decision to create the world and humankind is “something new for the Godhead”, as creation is not something necessary for God to be and live. And the same holds for the concomitants decisions regarding incarnation and redemption.
Please let me know whether you may agree to the preceding claims; then I will comment further.
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Hi Antoine. I can’t presume to understand how a timeless being thinks about how and “when” to create the universe but we seem to agree that the Godhead exists “from all eternity” and that the aim for creation was that sentient, self-aware creatures(humans) could share in a free-will (loving) relationship with God, and that the Godhead chose to create at “some point in time”. It seems that the point of difference between your view of incarnation and mine is that you think that the second person of the Godhead (Jesus) existed as incarnated and slain from all eternity whereas I do not. Do I have your view correct there?
I think the phenomenon of “time” was created when God created the universe and as an Open Theist, think God then experiences and relates to creation through time–via a future that he also experiences as one where not all facts are completely settled, i.e., he leaves space for created free-will agents such as angels and humans to affect the exact course of history–within bounds, of course (as the masterful chess-player he knows how to react to all moves of all free agents to finally achieve his purpose). I think God’s plan for incarnation and salvation was there from the beginning, but that God didn’t decide to enact that plan until humans actually sinned. And, as an Open Theist, I don’t think God knew with 100% certainty that humans would sin when he created (that’s the freewill part). although probably was pretty certain they would…!). Had humans not fallen, I’m not sure the incarnation would have been necessary–I don’t don’t think the Garden of Eden was a literal, historic place–but it speaks of God “walking in communion” with humans in some primordial pre-fall state without specifying that it was humans communing with an incarnated Jesus at that point in time. But its an interesting question for me to speculate about. Had humans not fallen, would God still have chosen to incarnate himself as a human to relate to creation in that way? I guess he could do so if he wished? But for me, this is speculative and goes beyond what scripture can be made to say about a firm doctrinal position…
cheers.
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Yes, in this we find common ground!
My view is that the decision of the Godhead (Holy Trinity) to create humankind goes inseparably along with the decision that the second person of the Holy Trinity becomes incarnate as Jesus, to the aim of making it possible that humans share the divine Trinitarian life, and the decision that Jesus becomes slain in case humans sin, to the same aim.
For the Godhead, this decision is “from all eternity”, although Jesus is born and slain “at some point in time” (about 2000 BP), as you very well state:
I comment now on some quite interesting points you address:
As said, for me incarnation is necessary in order we can share the divine Trinitarian life.
You may ask: why?
Because sharing the Trinitarian life means that I become son of God, i.e.: Christ himself.
But how can this be in order that the Son of God (“the second person of the Godhead”) maintains his identity and I maintain my identity?
This can be achieved because Christ incorporate us in his body, according to:
“so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” (Romans 12:5)
So, the incarnation is necessary in order we can become the body of Christ, and thereby Christ himself, children of God.
This has a number of consequences, for instance:
When God makes the first humans and orders them to eternal life, God is in fact making them in the image of Jesus, and thereby in the Image of God. In other words, it is the body of Jesus, prepared by God from all eternity, that defines the human body. And the other way around: Evolution aims to prepare the body of Jesus and thereby the human body.
Nonetheless, “these first humans were NOT communing with an incarnated Jesus at that point in time”, as you rightly claim.
I like specially your following comment:
This fits very well with my proposal:
When God created the universe, God created a universe that is convenient for both cases: the case humans sin and the case humans do not sin.
Thus, since the very beginning God submitted the universe to decay, which in particular for animals involves illness, death, and selfish instincts (conditions that are encoded in the genome and transmitted by DNA replication), but endowed the first humans with the capability (“original grace”) to master this state of decay.
Thereby humans were perfectly free to sin or not to sin. But if they decided to sin (as they did), they would lose original grace and fall into the state of illness, death, and inclination to sin, i.e.: the state where we are now after the Fall.
This state should not be considered a punishment coming from “God’s rage”, but rather a condition coming from God’s mercy: thereby God let us become aware of our weakness and move us to freely search for God’s help and love.
Nicely stated.
I’ve pondered this view before, and been accused of circular reasoning if evolution is correct. But then there was that fellow student who claimed to have determined that God only needed to intervene seven times after the first cell to get humans, so . . . ???
Thanks for this comment!
I would rather say that it is your “accusers”, who are falling into “circular reasoning”.
“If evolution is correct” then:
One cannot establish by mere evolutionary biological criteria which creature is human and which is not, as the beginning of Homo sapiens is totally fuzzy. You need some additional principle coming from outside.
So we define “human” on the basis of the bodily differences we can observe today because we have written in our hearts the commandment:
“You shall not kill another human being (i.e.: another creature sharing the same type of body you share) but you are allowed to use animals (i.e.: creatures sharing bodies sharply different from the body you share) for food” (Genesis 9:3, 5-6).
In fact, “the origin of the species” is this very commandment!
So who wrote this principle in our hearts, he did it in a particular moment when he considered that the difference of lifeforms was sharply enough for us to distinguish between humans and animals. And then he wrote also in our hearts the reason for this commandment:
“For God made humankind in the image of God.” (Genesis 9:6)
And this is the same as to say:
“For this human body is the body I have prepared for my Son from all eternity”.
In other words, Genesis 9:3,5-6, is a universal revelation that both, announces the incarnation of God and allows us to define humankind.