I think the point behind Genealogical Adam and Eve (GAE) is that many believers today think of A & E as historical because of the New Testament references (already discussed at length in this thread). The GAE approach helps such believers to reconcile their belief in inerrant Scriptures with the science of evolution. However, the historicity of Eden does not really seem to show up in the New Testament in the same way. Thus, the belief in a special creation of A & E can be scientifically accommodated, but there is no particular impetus to accommodate a historical Eden or 144 hours of creation.
I agree with you that it seems a bit odd to mix hermeneutical methods that way. On the other hand:
I donât see any way of handling all the creation passages in a perfectly consistent way; and
The GAE approach might help reconcile conservative believers with scientists both within the body of Christ and outside.
For example, the GAE approach might even help our friend @Ralphie who has popped in to join us.
I think there is merit in several of the approaches described in this thread, and am not 100% certain where to land.
The reference to the involvement of animals in the appeal to God, mentioned in the royal decree (vv 7â8), is certainly not funny. It is the language of severity; it demonstrates the urgency of the situation in Nineveh rather than any awkward choices on the part of the king and his nobles.
That (the two natures in conflict) is inevitable when you have too low a view of humanity â as if human beings are incapable of anything extra-ordinary. Thus thinking Jesus has to be an average joe in order to be human at all. That is what I sometimes see behind this comment of only paying lip service to the humanity of Jesus. It is true that there can be a tension between those who think the miracles are all supernatural and those (like myself) who do not. But that is really a separate issue, because the miracles are a work of the Father rather than a Jesus with superpowers.
In any case, the evidence human beings are capable of extra-ordinary things is overwhelming. It reminds me of the old complaint that democracy leads to mediocrity and it certainly seems like there is now a lot of mistrust for people with education so that people want leaders which are no smarter than themselves â very odd trend. Has this gone to the extreme worshipping mediocrity as well in the person of Jesus?
They do a fine job of of being in conflict all on their own. To be fully God (omniscient, omnipotent) is not to be fully human (non-omniscient, non-omnipotent). The basic doctrine is a contradiction in termsâ one of the countless âdivine ineffable mysteriesâ that result in taking everything overly literal and having too high of a few of the Gospel of John on historical grounds. The best excuse Iâve seen is from a respectable Christology work which desperately claims that we donât fully understand the nature of God or humanity, so we canât rule out them coexisting in one being.
Unless you donât accept that definition of being fully God or buy into the sort of theology that takes the power over Himself away from God and puts it in the hands of theologians to say God cannot do anything which contradicts their definitions. Power over oneself is the most important power of all and thus to put it in the hands of theologians is to make God their slave which suits their own obsession with power as well as the use of God as a tool of power over others. And I suppose I can see how this theological enslavement of God can lead to an accusation of paying only lip service to the 100% humanity of Jesus because of the resulting incompatibility with being 100% God (probably glossed over with babble about mysteries and such). So, the alternative is to accept that omnipotence must logically include all the same abilities that we have to limit oneself, take risks, make sacrifices, give privacy, share responsibility, and indeed all the things normally thought to be required for a real love relationship.
For evidence that traditional theology has made the wrong choice, consider the traditional answer to the conundrum of whether God can make a rock so heavy that even He cannot lift it. The traditional answer is to say that God cannot do this because it contradicts the omnipotence of God. It becomes the beginning of a long list of things this castrated god cannot do. My answer is to refute this and say that God CAN! God can do all of those things because it God Himself who has power over Himself, to be whatever He chooses to be, even a helpless human infant lying in a manger. God CAN make a rock so heavy He cannot lift it, because He can limit His own power. God CAN create living beings with free will because He can choose not to know (and thus control) what we will do before we make our own choices. God CAN share responsibility for the outcome of events, taking a risk that those He creates with free will turn against Him and do evil.
Just re: the very common rock question. I remember reading years ago that Glenn Miller thinks this falls into a class of statements that uses improper referents and relations and is essential void of any truth value whatsoever. The comparison he uses is âColorless green ideas sleep furiously.â In other words itâs not a proper questions.
He also defines omnipotence in the classical sense of God being able to do anything consistent with his own nature.
The rest of what you said is quite interesting but at first glance, it looks like you donât care about the law of non-contradiction when it comes to describing God. Any idea can be asserted at that pointâŚ
There is that rut those theology books have carved into your brain and which I refuse to allow them to carve into mine. A contradiction with their presumption that they can define God into a corner is no problem with any legitimate use of the law of contradiction â which is frequently misused as shown by the findings of modern physics.
I am not rejecting a box I was painted into. You did that with souls, multiple times. Thinking psychology and neuroscience are the end all, be all of what constitutes consciousness and being human. I think God is well beyond our understanding and comprehension. We have achieved great things and seem very smart but thatâs only in comparison to life on this planet: goats, donkeys, dolphins, etc. We may not be nearly as clever as we think we are in the end.
Anyways, by your logic (or lack thereof) God can sanction and support slavery, misogyny, genocide and rape and still be all-loving. God can do whatever he wants and be whatever he wants all the time whether it is contradictory or not to us. He could even write an inerrant scripture that has countless errors in it. Iâll take sober theology over nonsense cloaked under mistaken philosophy built around the current quantum mechanical view of the universe.
You are just mixing up issues though. You are thinking open-view theism does not fit under traditional understandings of God. It does. Omniscient: God knows all that can be known. If there are limits to things God knows then they are self imposed in creating free beings. Omnipotent: God has maximal power, cannot do anything contrary to his own will, but surrendered a small degree in making beings with free-will who have some genuine power and choices of their own to make. Your version of God could probably will himself out of existence is so chosen.
But to define Jesus as fully human and fully God at the same time existing in one being is a contradiction in terms. Most Christians havenât cornered themselves into a box on this issue via theology. Not admittedly. The majority readily affirm it as true. It is actually the cornerstone of their theology. Even I think Jesus was God in some sense. I just canât accept the Orthodox creedal language. Same with trinitarian creeds. The language goes too far. Iâd probably be more inclined to take an adoptionist perspective if pressed but trying to understand how exactly God came to earth in human form is something I would guess ahead of time that I would never be able to understand. I share your view the miracles were from the Father, not âsuperhero Jesusâ, as you put it. The limitations on Jesus in the Gospels demonstrate that he was not fully divine at that juncture. An omniscient being, someone who knows everything, knows how many grains of sand there are in the universe, let alone who touched his robe from behind.
I am not sure that it ever was a major theological issue. Aquinas asked if angels could occupy the same space. What evidence is there that question was even discussed in the church? More of a parody of some who discussed things that others did not find important (such as medieval angelology). Iâm sure all manner of things we do not consider important today were probably the substance of many debates and discussions. Iâm also sure that 1,000 years from now someone might look back on our discussions and see what we chose to debate over and find it very odd as well.
Thatâs my point. It was debated, though. Itâs a distraction. Anything which distracts us from being about the serious business of reaching others, pales in significance.
In Screwtape the senior advisor tells his pupil to add anything to Christianity so as to divide and conquer: Christianity and the Reform Movement, Christianity and Womenâs Suffrage, Christianity and Gardening. Anything to divert attention from his divine mission.
Each human being is created as a unique individual. But our uniqueness is in regard to the combination of attributes that all humanity sharesâall of us except One.
Jesus Christ stands alone. He is like us in every wayâexcept one - the sinlessness of Jesus. That answers your conflict question.
Vinnie, your question was raised years ago in Chalcedon. It was held in the year 451, in which the church confessed its belief about Jesus in this way: They said that we believe that Jesus is âverus homus, verus Deusâ -truly man, truly God.
Then they went on to set boundaries for how weâre to think about the way in which these two natures relate to each other. They said that these two natures are in perfect unity, without mixture, division, confusion, or separation. Vinnie no division.
When we think about the Incarnation, we donât want to get the two natures mixed up and think that Jesus had a deified human nature or a humanized divine nature. We can distinguish them, but we canât tear them apart because they exist in perfect unity.
When Paul wrote that Jesus emptied himself and became a servant and yet he was God, in what ways did he retain or not retain his powers of being God?
The concept of âemptyingâ was a raging controversy in the nineteenth century, and elements of it remain today. The Greek word used by Paul in the second chapter of Philippians, kenosis, is translated as âemptyingâ in most Bible versions. The question is, Of what did Jesus, in his human (incarnate) state, empty himself?
The popular view in certain circles in the nineteenth century was that at the time of the Incarnation, the eternal God, the second person of the Trinity, laid aside â emptied himself of â his divine attributes so that he could become a man.
And in becoming a man in the very real sense, he stopped being God. And so there is the transformation from deity to humanity because he set aside his omniscience, his omnipotence, his self-existence, and all of those other attributes that are proper to the nature of God.
There was one Orthodox theologian during the middle of that controversy who said somewhat caustically that the only emptying that theory proved was the emptying of the minds of theologians who would teach such a thing as God stopping for one second to be God.
If God laid aside one of his attributes, the immutable undergoes a mutation, the infinite suddenly stops being infinite; it would be the end of the universe. God cannot stop being God and still be God.
So we canât talk properly of God laying aside his deity to take humanity upon himself. That is why orthodox Christianity has always declared that Jesus was âverus homus, verus Deusâ â truly man, truly God. His human nature was fully human, and his divine nature always and everywhere was fully divine.
Paul does speak of Christ emptying himself of something. I think the context of Philippians 2 makes it very clear that what he emptied himself of was not his deity, not his divine attributes, but his prerogatives â his glory and his privileges.
He willingly cloaked his glory under the veil of this human nature that he took upon himself. Itâs not that the divine nature stops being divine in order to become human. In the Transfiguration, for example (Matthew 17:1-13), we see the invisible divine nature breakthrough and become visible, and Jesus is transfigured before the eyes of his disciples. But for the most part, Jesus concealed that glory. I think Paul is saying in Philippians 2 that weâre to imitate a willingness to relinquish our own glory and our own privileges and prerogatives.
So Vinnie, do you accept the Council of Chalcedon that confessed its belief about Jesus in this way: verus homus, verus Deus?
This should never have been controversial. In fact, those who care about the kingdom should care about justice, in my opinion. Itâs one way to let our light shine.
"One of the groups pushing for womenâs suffrage was the Womanâs Christian Temperance Union. Founded in 1874, the organization fought for social reform and had its eyes on prohibiting alcohol and its influence on society.
The group, with chapters scattered throughout the country, worked to establish suffrage in hopes that women, who were viewed as the moral authority in Christian homes and inherently pure, would rally against alcohol and other issues they viewed as immoral." Christian groups had a powerful, crucial and necessary role in establishing suffrage. They didnât represent themselves and their agendas as the equivalent of Christianity, though. Christians were integral in wiping out the slave trade and slavery, rightfully so. GOD is all about justice. He loves just people and condemns religious phonies who preach righteousness, but steal and have no time to help their parents.
The gospel cannot be attached to any movement. That is the point. No one can replace Jesus. No one is as He is. No one else can save our souls and hearts and our very lives for ever. Here is an example of what can happen: the hostile reaction to evangelicals who supported a less than perfect man. Look at the harm Billy Grahamâs association and support for Nixon had on his reputation.
The importance of salvation through Christ cannot be equaled. Remember this account? âThere was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich manâs table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 âThe time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abrahamâs side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, âFather Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.â
25 âBut Abraham replied, âSon, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.â
27 âHe answered, âThen I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.â
29 âAbraham replied, âThey have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.â
30 ââNo, father Abraham,â he said, âbut if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.â
31 âHe said to him, âIf they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.ââ
I am not sure what conflict question you are referring to. Jesus was like us in every way but sin is my position.
Just about every issue we raise has been discussed ad nauseam. For most Christians this settled the issue. I see things from a different perspective. I am not bound by Creeds. If I were I would just fully endorse the RCC and be done with it.
This is what I said. 100% God 100% man in one beingâand by being I mean the same as one nature in your terminology.
Christian apologists today recognize the problem. They try to claim its a paradox, not a contradiction. Greg Boyd wrote: âSo, is the teaching that Jesus is fully human and fully God a contradiction or a paradox? If the very meaning of âGodâ entailed ânot also human,â or if the very meaning of âhumanâ entailed ânot also God,â then we would indeed have a contradiction on our hands. But who can claim to know so much about God and humans that they can be confident they are logically contradictory? I would rather argue that we only know God on the basis of what he in fact has done. And since I have compelling reasons for believing that he in fact became a human, this is proof enough to me that any claim that âGodâ and âhumanâ are mutually exclusive is a contradiction.â
Thats the standard argument. The claim to ignorance. Maybe its right but its about as intelligible as conspiracy theory nonsense. âYou donât have exhaustive definitive foreknowledge so you canât logically disprove NASA staged the moon landing.â Iâm not a fan of fuzzy apologetical special pleading. To be God is to not be man in the same way that to be a triangle is to not be a square. God has omni-attributes, man does not. Jesus was begotten, men are born. Everything I know about the word âhumanâ and âGodâ tells me they are very much different beings. Humans canât create a universe. As much as I like Boydâs works overall, it looks like some early Christians thought Jesus was God, therefore Jesus is God. That is a horrible argument and I know it caricatures his own view to a degree because he probably believes we have strong evidence a man who was walking on water and controlling the weather walked around Galilee claiming to be God. I doubt he would have made it to Jerusalem to be crucified by the Romans if he did that.
You seem to think this is a silly view of the empty minds of theologians. I agree it creates problem we canât explain. But people espousing this view are doing is the same thing as you. They are accepting scripture and believing problematic statements to be true based on it.
As you noted: Philippians 2:5-8 " Let the same mind be in you that was[a] in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of deathâ
even death on a cross."
You also have Hebrews 2:7 " 9 but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone."
How is it possible to say that a being who is fully divine, who is the full creator of the universe, who is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenevolent is lower than angels? The idea that Jesus emptied himself is certainly a valid interpretation of scripture. I would say better than yours about Jesus just hiding glory but you donât like the philosophical conundrums it creates. The idea that Jesus is both God and man simultaneously in one being is more than a philosophical conundrum, itâs a contradiction in terms by most reasonable definitions of human and man. God is not man, God had to become man. The entire language of the incarnation presupposes the difference between the two. I mean the difference, to use some speculative hyperbole, is probably as close to infinite as you can get.
No I do not, as it stands. I prefer to think of Jesus as the Son of God and leaving that a little bit unexplained. The more precisely you try to define Him the more problems you create. My Savior for sure. I would say that scripturally Jesus certainly preexisted life on earth and somehow reflects Godâs own being.
Hebrews 1:5 For to which of the angels did God ever say,
âYou are my Son;
today I have begotten youâ?
Or again,
âI will be his Father,
and he will be my Sonâ?
6 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,
âLet all Godâs angels worship him.â
If God had to beget Jesus at some point in some time before our time (our language is breaking down) then he did not always exist. It also may call to mind things like Psalm 2. He is not God proper in the necessary, maximal philosophical being, but Godâs Son, a piece of Godâs own being but possibly lacking in the full omni-attributes of God. I really donât know. I only have strong confidence that scripture is conflicted on whether Jesus is fully God and that the Gospel of John is not a historical portrayal of the ministry of Jesus. Even Jesus says âWhy do you call me good, only God alone is good?â I donât think the man thought Jesus was God (BLASPHEMY) and that Jesus says everything with a twinkle in his eye when its contrary to what modern fundamentalists and evangelicals believe about Jesus. In some sense Jesus represented God on earth in the form of a man. He has been given this authority by the Father. The buck stops there for me. He is fully God insofar as He represented God on earth to us and bridged the gap between God and man. As you say, God canât exactly stop being God. Jesus was His solution to the human predicament.
I did and thatâs why I asked you, who do you believe He was? I canât tell and Iâve read what you said over and over.
You raise good, valid questions and youâve given this topic a lot thought. You want to know and are unwilling just to accept what others say. How commendable is that? Very.
âHow long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.â
25 Jesus answered, âI did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Fatherâs name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all[c]; no one can snatch them out of my Fatherâs hand. 30 I and the Father are one.â
31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, âI have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?â
33 âWe are not stoning you for any good work,â they replied, âbut for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.â
"But if I do, though ye believe not Me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.â
Their argument was similar to yours. You canât be God because you are a mere man.
He says, Is that so? Then, how do I perform all these miracles?
Being GOD is not only being infinite, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, etc., GOD IS. For in Him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. Within His body He contained infinity, omniscience, etc. He is not bound to manifest Himself only in ways I can conceive. There is mystery in Him. Following Him is the most exciting way of living there is.
He couldnât rise again from the grave, either, but He did and that fact radically transformed the defeated guys who loved Him so. He calmed the waves and the wind and produced food when there wasnât any. Heâs cool.