I don’t think the answer is entirely consistent but the most common image to me in Scripture is the one that naturally comes from a patriarchal society. God was considered male or described that way more frequently than as a woman. My personal belief is that God does not have sex/gender.
I also don’t really think the Trinity is in the Old Testament. It is not obvious in the New Testament either but it did develop in the church as it reflected on who Jesus was. This leads to some back-reading and typology in the OT (e.g. out of Egypt I called my son).
So you can argue from a canonical perspective that the typology was meant to be there.
From a historical-critical perspective there is no Trinity in the Old Testament anymore than there are computers or automobiles.
It’s all about what hermeneutic you choose to espouse.
I don’t consider the Trinity super important. I don’t think about it often. Fundamentalists and evangelicals and their doctrinal litmus tests bore me. God is God. The Holy Spirit is God’s Spirit. Jesus is the incarnate Son of God. Monotheistic Trinitarian is a contradiction in terms to me but I have no problem with the Nicene Creed nor necessarily with God having a triune nature.
If we asked the historical Jesus if he thought he was equal with God himself, I suspect his answer might surprise a lot of Christians.
If you want to insist on a Biblical interpretation that makes the Bible demonstrably false, that is your choice.
Even the staunchest Geocentrists in Galileo’s time saw the futility in trying to cling to demonstrably false Biblical interpretations.
“Third, I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun is at the center of the world and the earth in the third heaven, and that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand them than what is demonstrated is false.”–Cardinal Bellarmine, 1615
All events at scales larger than single atoms are one-time past occurrences that cannot be exactly replicated. How are complex ones like planet formation any different from simple ones like chemical reactions in terms of necessary methodology?
As the Scriptures are basically male dominated/orientated, the answer should be obvious, But, genderism is not an issue as such in Scripture, so the question becomes academic. Genderism has only become an issue in the last century or so.
Perhaps it should not be an issue in this case. Some people seem to need to emphasise the feminine side of God, but their reasons for it are social rather than spiritual.
In short, the sayings material in John comes from the post Easter church. I am not saying it’s wrong but I think it developed out of Jesus’s own self-views based upon experiences of the post-Easter community.
John reframed synoptic traditions in my mind and he scoffs at the notion of Jesus asking the cup be taken from him.
Not to mention, a lot of the “divinity” sayings of Jesus are only obviously divinity sayings after almost 2000 years of Christian interpretation. Jesus could have had a high view of himself without thinking he was fully God. Though John 1:1 makes his own views on this issue quite obvious.
Plus along the way missing huge amounts of the glory of God by not reading the text for what it is!
Plus that all the things that the Egyptians considered to be gods are nothing but tools made by YHWH-Elohim for His purposes!
That’s not what he said at all. Misrepresenting is bad form; not understanding isn’t all that great, either.
Really? That’s a common talking point that quite commonly turns out to be not the case.
I have – in one geology class we were given rocks to examine and determine their age. We weren’t told where they came from, we weren’t told an age they were estimated to have, we were just given the rocks and the instruction to determine an age.
The youngest rock in that set was at least a quarter-million years old; the oldest was at least two million years old.
So yes, it is possible to “do that”, and it is done regularly by geologists when they encounter formations for which there is no existing data or comparison.
This makes me growl because in what you say you impugn the integrity of just about every science professor I had, especially all the Christian ones, and including the ones who opened every class with a prayer (my favorite was “Lord, be in my heart and in my yearning, also in my mind and in my learning”). Their inherent bias was that God created the heavens and the Earth, and their task was to “think God’s thoughts after Him”.
It also shows a failure to even know what science is. You’re treating it as though scientists are oracles who announce truths, which is totally wrong. “Tossed about” does not mean, as you seem to think, that it is just guesswork/speculation, when it in fact is used for how different scientists see a data set differently and brainstorm or discuss things in an effort to reach a conclusion. In the case of the age of the Earth, every time there is new or better information scientists toss that information about, arguing from what they understand towards a common conclusion – and when they “toss about” a number, it’s to find one that fits everything that’s been learned.
So 13.79 billion years is the latest conclusion that fits all the known facts, it is not the latest “speculation and conjecture”. It is the latest refinement based on numerous different methods for dating the universe. Will it get replaced by a new number? Almost certainly, especially now with the James Webb telescope showing us galaxies older than any we’ve ever seen before, pushing back the earliest known galaxies closer to the start. And just BTW, they’re known to be truly old not just because of distance and redshift but because of the elements in them.
The divinity of Jesus and his relationship to God was a question that led to the very first schism in the Christian church which led to the split between Arianism and Nicene Christianity. This was 400 years after the birth of Christianity. Quite obviously, Nicene Christianity won out and is by far the dominant form of Christianity today. So it was closer to 400 years of Christian interpretation, not 2000. I would hazard a guess that the Nicene interpretation was already present well before the first council.
You mean 300 years? I’m talking about us reading the gospels and the New testament today. We are reading ~1900 year old writings through the lense of orthodoxy that was established a long time ago. I don’t read all pre-Nicene texts as if they all taught this understanding all along. Nicene/Orthodox Christianity was certainly influenced by Christians teaching, preaching and writing that predated it by 300 years. We are dependent on all of it and history is of course usually written or told by the winners.
Certainly parts of it were. That is undeniable since the Gospel of John was written by the turn of the first century. Matthew 28 even has the beginnings of a Trinitarian formula around 50 years after Jesus died (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). Most certainly I would say the historical Jesus had a high view of himself. Whatever it was is historically lost to us. We only know what the early Church came to believe.
Thank you for the link to the article “Is Evolutionary Creation Compatible with Biblical Inerrancy?” I found it very informative.
As usual, people use the term “inerrancy” to mean different things, and that results in a lot of misunderstanding. At least now I know more about what people might mean when they use the term. I think I too like the phrase “authoritative according to its purpose”.
As someone who has embraced Evolutionary Creation as the best way to harmonize the Bible with science, I can see the difficulty in affirming the Chicago Statement. But even that can be accepted if one considers “the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood” to mean that God created the heavens and the earth from nothing, and the flood to mean that God judges sin and to point to His ultimate grace in Jesus Christ. There are a lot of deep theological truths in the accounts of creation and the flood. This is “authoritative according to its purpose”.
Finally, I would say that humility is essential in thinking about Biblical trustworthiness. This is knowing who God is, and knowing who we are, in our weakness and extremely limited understanding. There have been many Bible scholars and Church fathers/mothers over the millenia that we can look to for guidance in dealing with teachings in the Bible. Similarly, there have been many scientists and philosophers that have distinguished themselves in the pursuit of truths that have stood the test of time, after extensive analysis by other scientists of various religious beliefs, including of course Christian.
Humility is further needed to accept that there may be ambiguities in some areas of Biblical interpretation, and it often is just not possible to completely understand a particular topic of any depth. A Christian must be able to live with that in faith, hope and love.
Hi Mike,
First let me say that the interpretation of the bible as being historical in detail is an interpretation that I was taught through my early years, through parochial elementary school, parochial high school, and the first two years of pre-ministerial college. I still believe that this is a belief that can be acceptable to God, if this interpretation of the bible is not used in conflict with basic Christian principles. In this discussion context, the principle that is most critical is a simple application and generalization of what Paul said about making a big deal out of things that are not essential. Believing as I once did, and as you seem to beieve, concerning the absolute historical truth of some things we were told by other people that the bible meant, this belief is for certain not essential for salvation.
This only seems nonsensical if someone does not understand what it means that God, as the Creator of this entire universe, also created the time dimension as we experience it, and that He exists outside of that time dimension that we experience. Yes, it is more certainly true that God, including Jesus, does exist right now before Noah’s flood, and does right now exist before the exodus from Egypt, than that God created the universe somewhere around 6000 years ago. God does not experience time in this universe in the same way that we who live here experience time. You know many biblical passages where this is unmistakably stated.
And many women today are still being “put in their place” by mysogynists, many of whom misinterpret and misuse scripture. I for sure do not believe that God is either male or female, in the same sense as we humans are men and women. And just because God allowed His prophets and apostles, in a male dominated social culture, to use the male pronoun, that does not suggest to me that I am superior to my wife by virtue of me being male.
I agree it’s not in the OT or the NT. I agree it arose later - and not from apostles or disciples of Jesus or any of their writings. It is completely unscriptural. I don’t understand your last sentence, or how “out of Egypt I called my son” would lead anyone to a Trinity belief. Could you explain that?
Yes, a “monotheistic trinity Godhead” is completely irrational, and leads many rational thinking people away from Yahweh and Jesus. That’s why I think it is important.
Yes, there is God. And the Holy Spirit is God’s Spirit. As for Jesus…
Jesus was begotten BY God. (Psalm 2:7, John 3:16)
Jesus is a creation OF God. (Col 1:15, Rev 3:14)
Jesus is the Son OF God. (Matt 16:16)
Jesus is the Word/Spokesman OF God. (John 1:1, Rev 19:13)
Jesus is the Messiah/Christ/Anointed One OF God. (Luke 2:11, Acts 2:36)
Jesus is the sacrificial Lamb OF God. (John 1:29, Rev 7:10)
Jesus is the Holy one OF God. (Mark 1:24, John 6:69)
Jesus is a prophet OF God. (Luke 4:24, Acts 3:22)
Jesus is an angel/messenger OF God. (John 8:28, 12:49, Galatians 4:14, Revelation 22:16)
Jesus is the mediator BETWEEN God and men. (1 Tim 2:5)
Jesus is a Priest OF God. (Heb 5:10)
Jesus is a Servant OF God. (Acts 4:30)
Jesus OBEYS God. (John 8:29, 12:49)
Jesus WORSHIPS God. (John 4:22)
Jesus says his God is greater than him, and all. (John 14:28, 10:29)
Jesus says that our God is also his own God. (John 20:17, Rev 3:12)
Jesus distinguishes himself as someone OTHER THAN his God. (John 10:36, 17:3)
Jesus was sent BY God. (Gal 4:4)
Jesus sits at the right hand OF God. (Mark 16:19, Acts 2:33)
Jesus rules in the power, authority, and name OF God. (Micah 5:4, Matt 28:18)
Jesus will hand the reign of the Kingdom back to his own God. (1 Cor 15:24, 28)
“You will know them by their fruits.” It is a very large subject, and one I don’t have time to get into right now. But thanks for your very thoughtful response.
If there were a true demonstration of the things Cardinal Bellarmine mentioned, then the Bible would indeed be demonstrably false… and no amount of pretending that our minds aren’t able to understand what God meant in Genesis 1 - which is written as an easy to understand straightforward factual account of the timing and order of the creation of our world, and is supported by many other scriptures - would change the fact that the Bible would be wrong, at least about those things.
I don’t believe the Bible is wrong about those things. And I don’t believe there has ever existed a “true demonstration” that it is.
There have been … from Galileo, from Newton, and from scientists ever since all the way up to space agencies today actually sending crafts out into it all according to those established principles! You’ll be in for quite a ride if you ever catch up to the breakthrough understandings discovered several centuries ago now - by people then who understood basic things that gradeschool students understand well today.
So - if you don’t believe the earth moves, what is your view about how the apparent motions of the sun and stars are explained, Mike?
Yes, add all that in with verses like the following and you end up with the divinity of Christ.
Philippians 2:6-8: 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 death— even death on a cross.
John 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life,[a]and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own,[c] and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son,[d] full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.”’) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son,[e] who is close to the Father’s heart,[f]who has made him known.
We believe God lowered himself and became like us in every way.
Every statement about Jesus and by Jesus in the Bible must be read through the lens of accommodation.
As the Gospels are memories and second-hand facts, surely it is the meanings not the minutia that need to be addressed? Claiming Jesus was full of HImself seems to me to be blasphemous, but equally, to claim precision on any exact statement He made would be equally false. John clearly re-orders events and sayings to make his points. Luke is the only one who claims some sort of dispassion with an “orderly account”, but even he makes certain assumptions about the existence of God that much of the world does not accept.
The Bible has to be taken in the context it was written, which is writings of faith and belief. To try and impose any scientific or even social accuracy is to impose truths that are not part of its remit. In truth, the Bible’s primary function is to imbue faith in God and to try and disseminate what (that version of) God wants, demands, or requires and what responses we might expect from Him (Her or it). All the rest is padding and context.
20“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—23I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
How do you accept Jesus’ statement that the believers will also share the same “I in you and you in me” relationship with Jesus and the Father?
