Ho hum.
Can you grasp that there might be a difference between “Jesus is God” and “God is Jesus”?
Apparently not.
Again, you don’t understand the trinity well enough not to have to copy AI-generated text because you can’t explain it yourself. Challenge over. You lose.
And the rest of what I wrote, which you are pretending was not there.
It was not AI generated. it is a standard illustration, maybe a little prettier than most.
Your criticism is invalid and false.
And you do not know enough to tell me what I do or do not know abut the Trinity. There is nothing you can do or say to change that.
Richard
I have no idea how posting “My emphasis:” and emboldening two contrasting words in a quoted post and response to it[1] could possible contravene any posting guidelines.
If some-one could explain how it does, that might be useful.
As in:
My emphasis:
Post: Again, you don’t understand the trinity well enough not to have to copy AI-generated text because
Response: It was not AI generated. it is a standard illustration, maybe a little prettier than most.
where there is a contrast between ‘text’ vs ‘illustration’ ↩︎
Get your facts straight.
I am not going to go through one by one to prove to you how stupid the selection is.
Richard
To me question 1 reads as a variation on the same theme. You talk about “weakening the connection between the text and the real creation.” But what is it that weakens the connection? I can only assume that you are talking about myth versus non-myth. That’s the distinction I reject completely.
Note that I am not arguing Genesis 1-2 is myth. What I am arguing is that if it is myth, then it is true myth. If it is, say, historical narrative, then it is true historical narrative.
Suppose Genesis 1 is myth. Suppose the only facts we can draw from that myth are that God created the universe; that he made it a good universe; and that he created mankind in a special relationship with him. These are not weak statements. They are strong and majestic statements.
It is true that a creation myth may have fewer connections with “real” creation. But they are not weaker. In fact I would argue the other way. A myth telling us who created the universe is in my opinion more real and significant than a historical narrative of how creation happened.
Note that we don’t get to say what kind of connections to creation we should have. The scriptures may be true and authoritative, but they have never claimed to be comprehensive. Nor has the church.
So our responsibility is to read the text and let it speak to us on its own terms. This is fundamentally a literary, not a scientific, exercise, because Genesis is first of all a literary object.
Question 2 is for me very different. It’s a question about canon: why did Israel and the church choose those particular writings? That’s a big question, but ultimately the books now in the Bible are the ones which in the judgement of God’s people accurately reflected the story of God among them.
Again, this makes the scriptures authoritative, but not comprehensive. So we have marvelous worship in addition to the Psalms. We have profound wisdom outside the Bible. We have deep theological reflection in every generation. As I write these words, I think of C S Lewis, who was an important influence in my early Christian life. But the difference is that although I consider him wise and insightful, I don’t consider him infallible.
Yes – the first story was finished. That means that anything that follows is not part of the first story.
No – a triumvirate is three different individuals, which would be tritheism and not the Trinity.
AI? Not likely – that’s practically straight out of my old Western Philosophy text.
A triumvirate can be any trio or triad, not necessarily distinct. There’s more then one possible definition.
Where do you think the AI would have got it?
That means it didn’t generate it. It "found " it like any search engine would.
(Except that it was already on my computer in my Church pictures folder. And I have used it in other places.)
So back down.
Richard
No. Who said God made some clone of the man? He made an actual woman. The rest is your imagination
The answer was Jesus is God
No, it means that the details of what happened are what follows
Peter, I think several different issues are being run together here.
But in my previous reply I wrote:
And also:
So I do not see where the distinction between “myth” and “non-myth” enters my argument.
The expression “true myth” itself sounds almost oxymoronic to me. What exactly do you mean by it here?
You then make three statements:
I did not call those statements weak. In fact, in my previous reply I wrote:
Those theological claims are already part of the reading I am proposing. They are not an alternative to it.
When I spoke of “weakening the connection,” I was talking about something different: the strength or specificity of the relation between the actual structure of the text and the real created order.
The claim “God created the universe” can be theologically fundamental while leaving almost completely open the structure and history of that universe. So the question is not whether the theological claim is strong or weak. The question is whether the sequence, distinctions, and functions of the images in Genesis 1 themselves make any substantive claim about the created order, or whether nearly all of that cosmogonic structure is simply a literary vehicle for a small number of more general theological propositions.
Agreed. But not being entitled to prescribe the answer in advance does not mean that we are not entitled to investigate whether such a connection exists.
That is why I previously wrote:
So I am not starting with the claim that Genesis must contain a particular correspondence with the history of creation. I am asking whether such a correspondence is actually there.
But this is precisely where I still have a question. In my previous reply I had already written:
What exactly are the text’s “own terms,” and how do we establish them?
The phrase sounds clear until different interpreters, arriving at substantially different readings, each claim that their own reading is simply what follows from letting the text speak “on its own terms.” At that point the phrase itself does not yet tell us which interpretation belongs to the text and which belongs to the interpreter.
So what, in your view, establishes the “terms” on which Genesis 1 must be read?
Certainly, determining what a text says requires literary analysis. But if an interpretation makes a claim about an external referent — the real created world — then whether that proposed correspondence is actually true cannot be settled by literary analysis alone.
This is why I do not see literary and scientific inquiry as alternatives here. Literary analysis constrains what we are entitled to claim on behalf of the text. Scientific knowledge can then test a specific proposed correspondence with the created world.
On the second question, you write:
This raises another question for me.
Christian traditions do not all have exactly the same canon. So what exactly do you mean here by “the judgement of God’s people”?
More fundamentally, does canonical recognition give a text the status of Revelation, or does a community recognize a text that already has that status?
You finish with C. S. Lewis:
I also see a real distinction between Genesis and a theological work by C. S. Lewis. That is precisely the distinction I am asking about.
Calling one text “canonical” tells us where a particular tradition draws the boundary. But what explains why, on one side of that boundary, we have divine Revelation, while on the other we have profound human theological literature?
That is precisely what I am trying to understand.
There are four distinct Christian canons. Plus one Jewish.
So there have been five distinct judgements of God’s people.
I am sure the people that have chosen one canon think so, while ignoring the Revelation in the other canons. Plus ignoring the possible Revelation in the texts that didn’t make it into a canon.
The process of canon formation, like making sausage, is a messy business.
No.
I didn’t say the picture looked AI-generated, I said the text looked AI-generated.
This text:
That doesn’t resemble familiar mode of expression. It does resemble Google AI’s response when asked to explain the trinity,[1] both in content and typographical style. Hence my comment “…don’t understand the trinity well enough not to have to copy AI-generated text…”
But maybe it wasn’t copied from Google AI. Maybe it was copied from somewhere else. It doesn’t matter, because the conclusion is the same.
That conclusion is being reinforced.
It’s now a very strong inference, and the corollary that the trinity isn’t well understood is equally strong.[2]
The lack of response to this: “… there might be a difference between “Jesus is God” and “God is Jesus”?” also reinforces that conclusion.
I tried to simply state this conclusion and close the conversation, but some-one keeps demanding it be reopened and reiterated.
P.S. If this post reads somewhat stiltedly, it’s because it is written without any words beginning with the penultimate letter of the alphabet.
The Trinity is the core Christian doctrine that defines one God as three distinct, co-equal, and co-eternal persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit ↩︎
Though not as strong as for some-one who thinks “Jesus is God” is the answer to every question, whether about the trinity or not. ↩︎
Who cares! I had already explained it in my own words. That was just a confirmation. Don’t be so bl..dy minded!
I have been a Christian all my life! I know my faith.
Just get lost if you can’t be civil.
Richard
I’m reminded of Matt 7:3-5.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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