I’m not low rent or even squatter grade for Julian Barbour’s Janus Point. I came across his name earlier this year and then saw his book which I thought wildly fascinating given my philosophy background. And seeing Sean Carroll’s endorsement was icing on the cake. I couldn’t even follow one of Barbour’s videos where he explains the math behind his theory.
But I dig Janus points and the relativity of one in the ‘distant’ past with one in the present. Now I need to be careful how I say that… I didn’t like the idea of the universe expanding from my own personal point of view… and yet that may be what science is trying to tell me…
I wasn’t aware of Gregory Bateson, who died 1980, but the interconnectedness and interdependence of various aspects of the natural world, human societies, and the mind resonates with me. Also, his point that our understanding of reality should not be limited to isolated parts but should encompass the relationships and patterns that emerge from these interconnected systems sounds a lot like what I have been reading in Iain McGilchrist’s work. The same goes for the role of perception and communication in shaping our understanding of the world. Both McGilchrist and Bateson examine the limitations of language and the ways in which our mental processes can either enhance or hinder our ability to comprehend the complexity of the world around us.
So, the call in “A Sacred Unity” for a shift in our thinking, urging us to move away from reductionism and embrace a more holistic and ecological approach to understanding the world is also an area which I have been discovering and I recognized the interconnectedness of all things and the importance of nurturing harmonious relationships within and between various systems some time ago, since taking up nursing in the 1990s in fact.
Which is what my experience was. I was, at that time in my life, on a paradigm change, having trained as a nurse, becoming a nursing manager, I expanded my focus on to many aspects which I found the evangelical community had difficulty with. It was only natural that my religious outlook expanded too, following the lead of theologians like Jörg Zink, who I respected.
It depends on your experience, and at that time there was a lot of fundamentalism about in Germany, and I attended a meeting of aspiring theologians from evangelical churches, who described their agony at having to learn about the historical-critical method (for example), and my own confusion as to why that should cause agony.
Again, that is your prerogative, I have leant another way. I can’t identify with your metaphor because it is the other way around for me, the dead wood is on the outside, like in reality.
It was more the direction he was pointing with his books, which was to the transcendent that had been identified in so many other traditions. His book on mysticism was especially influential.
so that “ἐξὸν” has to be taken in the sense of “possible” in order to align with “ἄρρητα”. That makes it very much like the limitations of human language, as Jay notes:
To me the “deadening effect” comes in more when terms that are inadequate to begin with get used so often we tend to forget that they are in fact inadequate. This struck me more than once in systematic theology classes when we all darned well knew that the technical terms being employed were inadequate yet by repetitious use we treated them as sufficient.
Though an example from here of a “deadening” comes from one member insisting that if we can’t help but sin then Christ’s death is meaningless – that’s the result of constant reference to a legal model deadening the mind to more potent models presented in the New Testament.
It’s a bigger challenge to western understanding which despite a return to the original languages still is filtered through a framework that was structured by Latin and a Roman way of thinking. When considered in the context of the ancient near east and the Old Testament considered apart from imposing the New on it, Hesier’s view makes a lot of sense out of other things that westerners leave to the side as uncomfortable (one book it helps make sense immensely is Daniel).
Having listened to Heiser for at least enough hours to constitute a university course, I disagree that there’s any “elitism” involved; along with Genesis 1, the “council of the gods” theme is one of putting everything back in its place of relating to YHWH-Elohim as Creator of all. He’s really just in one sense insisting that the Genesis Creation polemic is no accident and that the same theme continues down past the Torah into the Writings and the Prophets. So if anything is “elitist”, it starts right back in the opening of Genesis.
Heiser also has some good presentations online explaining something that Judaism would still prefer to hide, that the Old Testament plainly has two different YHWHs, the YHWH in Heaven and the YHWH Who walks on Earth. I was always a bit disappointed in him for not going the full course and pointing out how at least one strain in second-Temple Judaism recognized that YHWH came threefold, with the Spirit also being YHWH.
Having listened to so much of his material, I have to say that this is taken out of context because Heiser makes it abundantly clear that “lesser gods” along with the rest are all created entities. What he’s doing in the above is trying to make clear that we have certain prejudices about the Hebrew אֱלהִים (elohim) to the point that translators go to great lengths to wiggle out of rendering it within the context of the ancient near east.
Yes; it’s all in the viewpoint. To “the nations”, the heavenly council would have all been gods; from the perspective of the Torah, since they are created beings then they qualify as angels.
BTW, to get a handle on “principalities and powers” it’s really necessary to go into Jewish mythology/mysticism to learn about the whole heavenly hierarchy. It’s actually tragic that Christians avoid even admitting the existence of the literature behind a whole array of references from various apostles in the New Testament!
That statement can only be maintained by either ignorance or deliberate deception. What counts as “incarnation” in those other religions has nothing to do with the concept in the Christian scriptures. The use of the wording “other avatars” confirms this, because in the scriptural view there is no such thing as an “avatar”; that concept cannot be imported into the scriptures without doing extreme violence to ancient Hebrew thought.
Besides the fact that the Incarnation is utterly and drastically different in concept from the notion of avatars, those other entities the Ba’hai offer as being versions of Christ taught pretty much 180° differently than what the Jesus of the New Testament did – so, again, the position can only be maintained either from serious ignorance or purposeful deception (including self-deception in the form of wishful thinking).
Which is my point. If you have a pantheon like other cultures, but claim that yours is superior, that is religious elitism. In fact, your complaint:
…is heading towards polytheism, although not getting quite there.
You speak about people “wiggling” but you do your fair share here as well.
That wasn’t very gracious of you, and it ignores the fact that the metaphors may differ, but you can’t distinguish the concepts in the minds of others. I appreciate that you might say that we differ in our approach today, but all concepts have always begun in mind. We are not talking about physical realities but interpretations.
Hmmm… isn’t this what you did when I described why the concept of the Trinity is superior to other forms of theism for me? You said that was my opinion, and apparently disagreed with it.
No, I am following your words and find a point where I disengage and let you go your way. I’m not here to disagree in a way that denies you your faith, I just propose a different position. I may suddenly stop posting if I find that I am being told that I am disingenuous. There are points in any discussion which I can refute without denying someone their faith. Of course, we could just not have a conversation, like some people I have known who pull back as soon as they hear that I have a different position. But I always assume, perhaps wrongly, that people on any forum are looking out for something they hadn’t heard before.
For me online discussions have been a treasure trove of learning. Often through conflict, but not always. I still remember like it was yesterday when me and this individual I was chatting with in a philosophy forum on Facebook, after a thousand or so comments of us (and others) disagreeing, sat there staring at each other as it were. He was my senior by a good 30-40 years, and had bushy hair and was from Britain I think. It was something as we both realized that an uncaused cause didn’t necessarily have to be aware of its action.
Anyways, I had something I wanted to disagree with you about, but I lost my train of thought in that wonderful memory.
(I’m not ready to denigrate words entirely, however, keeping in mind that that we have been spoken to with words by the Incarnate Word with enlivening effect, not deadening. And we have been enabled to as well, not enlivening, but at least communicating. ; - )
I think St. Bonaventure is more emphatic yet: he once wrote, in response to someone claiming that all his knowledge must surely make him close to God, that his words were so insufficient that he was carried farther from God with every one he set to page, so that he ended up knowing God less well than a widow kneeling at the Sacrament. For me that resonates with a point made by C. S. Lewis that all our statements about God are wrong, since every word that falls short constitutes a movement away from real understanding.
That kind of brings me to where I sit on the matter of the OP: since God didn’t make the universe as a machine but upholds it and sustains it in existence moment by moment (the Greek verb Paul uses is NOT past tense but present), then God is lurking behind every item in the universe. John Stott approaches this in one of his books (can’t recall which one), but where this first jumped out at me was in reading Colossians in the Greek and running into the term πρωτότοκος (pro-TOH-toh-kos) which is a term that in the context Paul is using in its philosophical sense of “opener of the way”: that concept of “way-opener” includes the idea that everything else which might come through the way that has been opened is shaped by the way-opener, which informs us that everything that exists was shaped by the form of Jesus and so has something to tell us of His character. So as I write this I can look out the window at the moon, or across the room at the bricks of the fireplace, or over to one side to a candle flame, or at my wine glass on the stand by me, or at my pup Knox in the next chair, and know that in a very potent sense Christ is peeking out from under each one and inviting me to know Him better.
Which in a long way around illustrates how the term “omnipresent” tends to get used philosophically and thus to a large degree sterilely, but in grasping the πρωτότοκος concept (which Paul is expounding on in verses 16 & 17) the idea of omnipresence comes alive with the reality that “He is not far from each one of us” because “the power of His word” “carries the existence of all things” in every moment I might take to look at the moon or bricks or wine or the candle flame or my pup, or for that matter at the spider in the upper corner by the window or the piece of stone from the Himalayas on my fireplace mantel or even the bit of a leaf stuck on the doormat where I wiped my feet earlier today – He is, to borrow a phrase from Martin Luther, in and with and under all those things and the only reason I don’t see Him there clearly is that I’m stuck with the faculties of fallen man where my spirit is willing but flesh is weak.
You wouldn’t happen to know the song Way Maker by Sinach?
William Craig also doesn’t get enough credit for speaking about the role of the Spirit’s testimony in knowing God. If it were not for this blessing, we would only be spinning our words, disoriented, and driving ourselves further into the abyss.
Israel didn’t make any such claim. The Old Testament doesn’t compare pantheons because it doesn’t recognize that there are any pantheons to compare.
Not in the least – it’s headed starkly against polytheism.
I’m not interested in being gracious when it comes to making accurate statements. The only way to make Incarnation as in the scriptures at all equivalent to incarnation as in avatars is to replace the biblical concept with an alien one, and that only happens through either ignorance or deception. There’s no way to “interpret” the biblical concept of Incarnation to make it match the other, you have to butcher the scriptural view and import a much lower concept of God for starters.
