But the Spirit is not flesh. So why bring Jesus into it. I think this is a case where genitives in Greek aren’t doing English speakers any favors because we see that gentive and think Christ’s (possessive) spirit when genitive’s have a whole set of meanings in Greek.
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I was wrong on this one. Kyrios is the Greek translation for YHWH in the Septuagint. But in the NT we should keep in mind that it doesn’t only refer to YHWH, it can be a title of respect for others, and when the text says “Jesus is Lord” I don’t think people understood it to mean Jesus is YHWH. I think it meant Jesus had authority and honor and was owed allegiance. But I won’t bet money on that, I could be wrong.
The Holy Spirit speaks through human messengers all the time (see how many times in the OT it says “the spirit of the LORD” was “upon” someone or “filled” someone or the “word of the LORD came to” someone. It was definitely not angels of the Lord/preincarnate Son speaking God’s revelation or acting on God’s power. The Holy Spirit also speaks to people’s own inner spirits without a human intermediary.
And once again, name here doesn’t mean personal identifying label, it’s a reference to reputation, honor, and covenant faithfulness. That’s what the concept of a “name” entailed. God’s “name” is that he saves his people. It’s the act of faithfulness that brings glory to God, not the name/label Jesus.
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Thats word games…within the CONTEXT, the theological position is that Christ was the one who remained behind talking to Abraham.
How do we know this?
Well one evidence: if you recall Christ usage of the phrase “I am” on a number of occasions in the gospel of John…this is referring to his past existence prior to the incarnation…it mirrors statements made to Moses actually. Should you care to access a bible concordance you could easily verify that. Its not something many here are willing to, or in the habit of, doing but if you did…
Now one could also throw out there the often used biblical claim no one can look upon the Father and live…that suggests no one, not even Abraham, has seen the Father…so then it must have been the son.
This notion suggests that it was the same with Jacob…he wrestled with the Son.
We can play word games around this all you like, however the theology regarding who Abraham saw and talked with is accurate in trinitarian belief.
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Jesus started out saying,
- John 3:3 “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.
Born again, or born “from above” as often footnoted, means born of Spirit. Nicodemus then questions what He means by that and Jesus then clarifies by stating the obvious, the water being the natural birth. And then again, He connects the water with being born of flesh.
- John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’
But Nicodemus again marvels at this and Jesus again clarifies that with the “water” He is stating the obvious.
- John 3:12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.
So we need to be born from above, reborn of Spirit in Christ Jesus to “ascend” to or enter heaven, the kingdom of God.
Baptism is not a sprinkling but involves full immersion in water. (907. βαπτίζω) - to immerse, submerge. The water used in baptism again symbolizes the flesh, earthly, and so by being fully submerged and coming back up out of the water represents being buried and then reborn in Christ.
Baptism is a public outward expression of our faith; it is not required for salvation, but should follow it. And it is just the beginning of us dying to our old self and being raised (new like a child even) in Christ. We are not made perfect, but like God who emptied Himself (Php 2:7) to be born as a human child, He had to grow back into Himself… let us not pretend that Jesus, as a child, never threw His peas on the floor.
I would agree in that context. The name Jesus, however, means “I AM (Yahweh) your Savior.” And it would seem you agree:
Him speaking within us is through Jesus who is our intermediary. If it was an out-of-body voice we would be looking around for who invaded our home.
I’d never looked at it before. I just went and read John 1, here:
It’s kind of refreshing, and fascinating because I “hear” the Greek in the background as I read along.
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This is clear in the OT when God talks about His angel and says, “My Name is in him”. A mere label can’t be “in” someone, but character and authority can be.
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It’s not word games, it’s trying to be very careful to not say more than the scripture does. God the Son was not Christ before the Incarnation.
From the Hebrew in Genesis in the passage you referenced, all that can be said is that YHWH remained to talk with Abraham. Yes, we know that it was “YHWH-who-walks-like-a-man” (as opposed to YHWH who remains in heaven) as the second-Temple rabbis recognized, and theologically we know that YHWH-w-w-l-a-m became incarnate as Jesus, but it’s best to use the various titles carefully.
Just for what it’s worth, that’s outdated. Texts have been found where βαπτίζω is used in reference to stone couches and other items no one was going to pick up and submerge in water, so to be accurate “inundate” and “wash” have to be included.
That’s theological back-fill – “Jesus” = “Yeshua” = “Joshua” = “Yehoshua” which translates as “Yahweh saves” or “Yahweh is salvation”. The latter gets the concept of “name” involved fairly well.
Duly noted, but does not change the meaning from what I can tell. If you cannot pick up something to immerse it, you inundate it - fill water where its at. As for “wash”, I don’t think that can be applied with todays meaning as they didn’t have sinks or showers back then where full submergence is not needed to get clean. They would wash hands by immersing in the water, or their full body immersed in a pool to wash.
We have a better understanding nowadays on a number of things (both theologically and scientifically). Jesus/Joshua are human names and I wouldn’t expect anything else from God, who came down from heaven, took on human form and wants us to know Him personally. He showed us how to be human.
Joshua from the OT certainly would not have known that the God of the universe would reveal his same name. Joshua was certainly a type for Christ in that he brought the Israelites across into the promised land.
And they washed large items by pouring water over them.
Yeah, I don’t think they even had the concept of the Messiah back then, so Joshua would have likely been baffled at the idea that he was a “type” for anything/anyone.
And they would also sprinkle dirt/ashes on their heads symbolically, so the concept of the water in baptism representing earth/ground, burial and resurrection still applies in any case as opposed to washing our old selves off.
I have been watching this video on the council of Nicea, which outlines the conflict with Arius on much the same issue as this thread. Did the Son of God always exist just like the Father or not.
Well one of the things which bother me about the conflict is the assumption of absolute time as something which God is in subjection under – so that you have to ask what has God been doing all that time before creation? Of course, as a modern physicist I reject this antiquated notion of absolute time. But in addition I reject some of the classical theology that God is in some kind of timeless “eternity” (whatever that means), to say instead that God can use whatever time He wants as He chooses. In the context of this, the question of what God is doing during some supposed endless period of time before creation becomes nonsensical.
Yet there remains the question of whether there was some time when the Son did not exist. This would assume the designation of the Son as only begotten is a temporal relationship. I see no reason to disagree with the orthodox position which rejects this idea. No… it is more than that, I see reason to reject the Oneness idea. Of course I love the Christian idea of God become man as temporal event with in the framework of time of the physical universe. But the oneness idea makes the Father - Son relationship look rather illusory or circumstantial rather than fundamental and essential.
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I would agree. I’d suggest though that God was probably doing something. What it was, who knows?.. But my guess is perhaps building prototypes for this current universe. Possibly with completely different laws of physics. When He was ready to start over (in the beginning), it was folded all up in the “singularity” and the current universe was born.
When the universe was created in the beginning, there is nothing said about when that was or how many times He created it. The seven days of creation begin with this current earth, created 4.5 billion years ago.
- Gen 1:2 Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
was - (1961. הָיָה hayah) To be, become, come to pass, exist, happen
It is in the perfect tense, so can be rendered that it, “came to pass” or “became” without form and void suggests that there was something previous.
Yes, God becoming man is a temporal event, but this is distinguished in Jesus referring to Himself as “Son of Man”. His status as Son of God is eternal though as all things in this universe (and any previous) were made through Him.
Scientific inquiry is limited to what is observable, testable, and falsifiable, and the concept of God becoming incarnate in a specific individual, such as the Christian doctrine of Jesus Christ as both fully divine and fully human, is a theological claim, not a scientific one.
Science studies religion as a phenomenon, examining its origins, psychological and social functions, or neurological correlates, but does not judge the truth of religious claims themselves. Many religious claims are not directly testable using science, and their truth is often a matter of faith or personal experience rather than empirical evidence.
Psychologically and sociologically, research shows that religious people may apply different standards of evidence to religious claims than to scientific ones, often requiring less empirical repetition or confirmation for claims attributed to the divine.
Therefore, as metaphor or allegory, I could interpret religious narratives as symbolic expressions of moral, existential, or psychological truths, rather than literal descriptions of historical or physical events. Sceptics see them as speculation about realities beyond human comprehension, or, from a more radical viewpoint, as fantasies or cultural constructs.
I have yet to see a compelling argument regarding God becoming a man and only statements like above, that scientists find no reason to not believe, citing the fact that we have mathematics, that we have an enquiring mind, and that we cannot as yet explain the origin of life. These tend to be quite speculative, as indeed is much of theology made up of circular arguments.
Science has as yet not solved the problem of consciousness, and some physicists have claimed that Advaita Vedanta is closer to the hypotheses of some physicists than Christianity.
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Rob I largely agree but one thing I’d push back on is the idea that the truths of religion should cohere with those of science. Whether they seem to or not probably doesn’t much matter apart from the cognitive dissonance it may engender. But I don’t think religious truths that are expressed in a manner which better fit with the best theories of science are intrinsically superior.
I am most comfortable when the sacred doesn’t rely on such devices but what I can’t know is whether the faith thus held is superior or not to a more abstract conceptualization. I suspect there are strengths and weaknesses on both sides when we are trying to express and enter into relationship with that which cannot be named.
I agree, which is why I wrote what I did. A complaint was made that the OP didn’t comply with the aims of the forum, which is “The BioLogos Forum exists as a place to help foster gracious dialogue about the harmony between science and the Christian faith.” I would argue that the question asked is theological by nature and ridiculous if we take a scientific view.
Scientifically, we would have to ascertain whether we are arguing from a materialist point of view, or whether we accept that matter is a secondary attribute of the universe. Because if we accept the latter, then the physical universe came into being through something else. Advaita Vedanta suggests that it is consciousness, and in Genesis, God first of all “created the heavens and the earth,” but “the earth was formless and empty.”
“And God said …” Speech, as an act, typically presupposes a conscious agent. For God to “say” anything implies intentionality and awareness. It may be an anthropomorphising of the process, but it suggests that consciousness was primary, together with intentionality and awareness. Since the living spirit (nephesh) is said to be blown into the nostrils of mankind, we could read this as implying that we share something with that primary mover: Consciousness.
Therefore, not only is God “one,” but also all is God. In my panentheistic perspective, God is in and beyond all. Therefore, any ‘son’ comes from God, and indeed, was always with God. But it would mean everybody comes from and was with God. That, I believe, could harmonise to some degree science and Christian faith, albeit in both cases somewhat unorthodox.
It requires us to step away from the materialist worldview, adopt a non-dualist outlook, and realise that our calling is to realise who we are. Reading the Gospel teaching of Christ, that could be seen to be what he was teaching. It was Paul who made everybody trapped in a sinful body, whose soul needs to look upon the cross like Israel looked upon the brazen snake for healing.
We “miss the mark” by not realising who we are: spiritual beings having and getting lost in a physical experience.
Oh sorry, I didn’t know that had happened. And I see now that what you wrote was basically the same as me. I’m afraid this was another instance of my having needed another draft before I posted.
What I was thinking about was the holding of the resurrection as historically true. I think the church would be better off without it for those with a disposition like mine. But I accept that a such a claim and the insistence that only Christianity has the real truth about God is part of a tradition which people trust and count on. I certainly don’t expect or even want to talk anyone out of that. I think faith in what can’t be named is delicate no matter what we believe so good luck to everyone.
Given my aversion to group-think I probably couldn’t be part of any tradition from anywhere in the world. Fortunately I do believe the perennial philosophy will always be an option and I find that moves me enough and informs how I understand the traditional approaches. There is truth in all of them and like those rock islands in Ryoan-ji Temple garden, all of which cannot be seen from any one vantage point, I think each tradition offers something of value.
Agreed, and I tried to harmonise what Jewish/Christian scripture says with what some physicists are speculating about the beginnings. The problem with this is that it rather depends on what basic outlook we have, whether a materialist or an idealist one.
We often forget that there are robust philosophical traditions—idealism, dualism, panpsychism, spiritualism, and others—that argue for the primacy or co-equality of mind, consciousness, or spirit. These views challenge the notion that reality is only material and that consciousness is merely a product of physical processes, offering alternative explanations for the nature of existence, consciousness, and meaning.
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I have an alternative view between these extremes, that consciousness can indeed be the product of physical processes, but that reality is not only physical and that consciousness can be a product of non-physical processes also. Not only that but I suggest parallelism (usually applied to the mind-body problem) in physical living organisms. In other words, just because the consciousness generally involves interaction with the spirit doesn’t mean physical processes are not sufficient for the existence of consciousness on their own. I think it is built into the physical laws of nature and spirit echoes this as a response. In particular, I don’t think we should expect that a study of consciousness is going to reveal some non-physical existence interacting with things.
Thank you for your reply. I wouldn’t say that the opposing views I presented are ‘extreme’, but considering the mainstream scientific approach, which posits that consciousness arises from complex interactions in the brain and nervous system, that seems to me to be one-sided.
Iain McGilchrist acknowledges the strong correlation between brain activity and conscious experience, but he argues that this correlation does not fully explain the nature or origin of consciousness. He accepts that there is a close relationship between brain processes and consciousness, but suggests that this relationship is not merely one of the brain producing consciousness. Instead, he explores alternative models, such as the brain emitting, transmitting, or permitting consciousness.
He posits that consciousness is not a byproduct of matter but rather a fundamental, irreducible aspect of reality. In his metaphysical view, consciousness is “the stuff of the cosmos”—matter itself is a phase or aspect of consciousness, not the other way around. But he does come in your direction when he argues that it is more reasonable to regard consciousness as at least as fundamental as matter, if not prior to it. He suggests that the cosmos itself may be the emanation or projection of a cosmic-scale mind, and that our conscious experience reflects this underlying reality.
So, while parallelism is not the dominant model in contemporary neuroscience, it is not ruled out by current scientific understanding, especially since the mechanisms underlying consciousness are not yet fully explained. But I am influenced, among others, by Iain McGilchrist’s view that challenges reductionist accounts by proposing that consciousness is not merely a product of the brain but a fundamental aspect of reality itself.
The brain, in his framework, is intimately involved in shaping and permitting conscious experience, but it does not exhaust the mystery of consciousness. This perspective opens the door to a more expansive understanding of mind and matter, one that invites both scientific and philosophical exploration. This might appeal to your idea that “spirit echoes as a response” rather than being a causal factor in consciousness offers a framework where spiritual experience is a reflection or resonance of physical consciousness, not its origin. This can be seen as a type of non-reductive physicalism or even a form of neutral monism.
You are sceptical that scientific study will reveal non-physical entities interacting with the physical, which aligns with the current methodological naturalism of science. This is not necessarily because non-physical entities have been disproven, but because the scientific method is structured to seek explanations that are testable, observable, and repeatable within the natural world. Philosophers and scholars have noted that this methodological commitment can “narrow the field to a confined system of concepts and arguments, effectively limiting the scope of valid questions and answers.”
The discoveries of dark matter and energy demonstrate that the universe contains components fundamentally different from anything we can directly detect with our senses or even with the most advanced scientific instruments. These entities were inferred not through direct observation, but through their effects on visible matter, the structure of the cosmos, and the expansion of the universe.
Just as dark matter and dark energy are inferred from their gravitational and cosmological effects, I am suggesting (influenced by others) that consciousness might also be something we know primarily by its effects—on our experience, behaviour, and perhaps even on the physical world—rather than by direct observation or reduction to physical processes.
So, I am grateful for your openness to a reality that is “not only physical” because it resonates with philosophical positions that caution against reducing all of reality to what is currently measurable or observable. It is philosophically coherent and reflects a moderate stance within the mind-body debate. It acknowledges the sufficiency of physical processes for consciousness, does not deny the possibility of non-physical dimensions, and refrains from invoking direct interaction between spirit and matter.
From a scientific perspective this is just meaningless, explaining absolutely nothing. It is much like dualism – describing something as separate fundamental existence is to exclude it from any real explanation. This is why scientific explanations are basically monistic (many different forms of energy) – not only describing a phenomenon as different but also explaining why it is different.
Exactly. The point is that science is limited by its methodology to see only the physical part of reality. In fact, I would say science and objective evidence only exists because of the mathematical space-time structure of the physical universe. But that means it is blind to anything outside that structure.
And this is one of the merits of parallelism. Neither committing to some unreasonable “God of the Gaps” restriction on scientific investigation of consciousness, nor limiting reality to what science can discover. This is not “separate magisterium” because scientific findings can still contribute to limitations upon what non-scientific claims can be considered reasonable.
No. They only “discover”/demonstrate something is missing in our current scientific understanding of reality. It might simply be a flaw in the mathematical model we have right now. Using this to point to non-physical realities is a “God of the Gaps” type argument.