Not at all.
1 Like
That would only be in relation to what they came to do. The Jews are expecting someone whom they call a Messiah to come and rescue them and be their king or leader. The Hebrew mashiaḥ, means an “anointed one”. The Greek for this word is “Christos”, same meaning.
A prophet has come to teach and not necessarily be a leader.
I think Jesus best described the position of a person, who comes from God, to be either a teacher and/or leader, when he said “I and my Father (God) are one.”
In the enlightenment experience there is union with the Divine. In the case of a prophet or messiah that union is unbroken or continuously realized. The enlightenment experience that some ordinary person may have or be granted. Really enlightenment is only given, it is by Grace. There is a change that is permanent, but the person again fall back to the “ordinary” state of identifying with personal self, but not like before. Once you identify as conscious being, i.e., a spiritual being, you no longer have the attachment and strong identity with the body-mind.
To try and give an analogy. If you play a computer game and become engrossed, you identify with the avatar on the screen. I remember playing Diablo 1 and 2 and I had become very engrossed in the game, so much so that in trying to dodge some of the missiles thrown “at me” by the demons, which were really thrown at my avatar in the game on the screen, I nearly fell off of my chair. I had to grab my desk to stop from falling on the floor. This being engrossed analogy is the ordinary state, in which we are enchanted by the physical reality.
Now lets say as you are playing the phone rings. Your attention is called away from the game, You will then identify as yourself, the player and not the avatar on the screen. Then when you return to the game you may not be so engrossed. You retain an awareness of yourself, the player.
Maybe Judaism, but I am not sure about Christianity. In Christianity it seems that there is an equality between the Three Persons of God.
In the Greek though this is not the understanding in reading the text. The Greek carries a male article for God, but “The Divinity” carries a female article. It is not that there is any male or female aspect. This is just the peculiarity of Greek. For example the door has a female article, the wall has a male article and the floor has a neuter article. No one ever understands the door to be female or the wall male. It is just how Greek is spoke /written. So too my understanding when I read O Theos, which in English would be The God, I understand it as in English, i.e., the “O”, which is a male article is not indicative of God as male.
I haven’t been following this one so I’m not sure where the best break should be – is there a specific post that you think marks where the new topic began?
Another fine false dichotomy everyone’s gotten themselves in to.
It’s no conjecture. It’s a rational fact. Or leads to one once the meaningless ‘statistics’ are dispensed with. The laws of physics are prevenient. God obeys them. He has no option. If He exists; then He instantiates them. And they inevitably lead to life and consciousness. Whether He exists or not. And Craig’s ‘philosophy’ is no such thing and doesn’t trump objective, disinterested reason. Penrose was being a gentleman.
what objective answers?
1 Like
Christianity is monotheist and its one God is economically more complex than the God either side of it, yes.
No. The laws of physics are the meaning God has given to relevant information so as to create this reality.
That is how I understand God when reading the Greek bible. But there is also the Christian belief that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
I think this came about with Constantine the first. The Greeks were in such heated debate in the church as to the nature of the body of Christ, that the army had to be called in on several occasions to separate the warring factions. In Greek we say “where there are two Greeks, there are three opinions”. So something had to be done. Hence the council at Nicea.
why is that an issue here??
1 Like
Ani99…I suppose every culture has that saying. I have also heard " put two Jews in a room and you will have three opinions."
I believe Tertullian was the first to use the name “Trinity”—late second century A.D. That would be a century and a half before Constantine who, at any rate, seemed to side with the Arian faction…But even before Tertullian, there was a Jewish philosophy about a God who was – in their case, not three-in-one but two-in-one. Thus the idea goes back to the era of the composition of the Old and New Testaments…even to be beginning when God said “Let us make man in …” This is another fascinating subject. Thanks for bringing it into the discussion.
2 Likes
No. The laws of physics, mathematics, logic are nothing to do with God (and on up from the other end: chemistry, biology, psychology including ‘morality’) apart from if He exists He instantiates them. He doesn’t get to decide what they are. He’s humble like that.
The economic Trinity is a logical deduction from the premiss that Jesus is God incarnate. The Oecumenical Councils are irrelevant but congruent with that fact.
Well, it’s not a clean before and after – there is a mix, and it’s my fault. Starting with my question and @Hugh_Wessel1’s legitimate note, 113 & 114, skipping to 116 and through yours 124, but after that, it’s kind of both.
The Bible gives us objective propositions about God (I don’t mean objective scientific propositions). For instance, that he is spirit (not material), that he created the heavens and the earth, that Jesus sustains the existence of material, just to name a few.
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
Through [Jesus] all things were made, and without him nothing was made that has been made.
1 Like
What are the truth conditions in that?
That truth can be revealed through testimony.
There is no testimony.
Why do you say that? You trust in testimony daily.
I wonder how many ways they had to slice “immaterial” in the time the Bible was written? I think we have a few more now. Why shouldn’t that be understood as existing in the psyche? It seems that the Bible can be put in the service of any popular interpretation while unpopular interpretations can be dismissed with a nod and a wink among the many who agree.