Hi Amergin —
In saying that "the Father" is always prior to the "Son" is a biological factor in not only human evolution but that or other primates and mammals.
Yes, and agreed ... but can we open it up?
It is generally agreed in Christian theology that when we speak of God we are speaking analogically, using metaphors, etc., because the Divine is simply incomprehensible to our nature (having said that, we can for example declare that God is rational, if only because if God is irrational, then there's no point in believing in anything ... )
I am still struggling with the Doctrine of the Trinity ... but let me put this:
God is ... and God knows that God is ... and God responds to what God knows of God's own is-ness.
God is, is Father. And God's knowing of this is Son, so in that way one might say the First Person of the Trinity is what it is, and the Second Person of the Trinity is the knowledge of the First, and the Third Person of the Trinity is the response of the First to the Second, and the Second to the First.
The idea that the Son is the self-knowledge of the Father is actually evidenced in Scripture, and has come about through contemplation of the Scriptures in the Fathers.
Now I am aware that this is an anthropomorphic expression, we assume rationality of God, and self-reflection of God, but then we would be mad to assume we possess qualities, those very qualities we are told separate us from the animals, that God does not possess.
(But again, we're still positing God as the exemplar and perfection of everything we can think of. The Anselmian argument that God 'is that which nothing greater can be thought' is no proof of anything.)
One of the strongest arguments, for me, is the notion that if such things as 'divine union' are possible, then the principle of unity must somehow exist in something which is One, so that the One-ness of God must contain unity within it, and saying that one contains all the other numbers cos you can't get to two without one first, is not actually an argument. God is not one God among man, nor is God one thing, as opposed to another thing, or no-thing.
The one-ness of God is not an ordinal one-ness.
So I am saying the is-ness of God is prior to God's self-knowledge, and yet God being God (and thus perfect), there was not a moment when he did not know Himself, as it were. So God's being precedes the knowledge of His being, but that knowledge is actually co-existent and co-eternal because there was never a 'time' or condition when God was unaware of God.
Another aspect is that of Divine Union.
The way this union is expressed, by Christ, is in the most intimate terms, He talks of this in terms of one-ness, son-ship, parental and nuptial relationships. All these terms are there to signify the intimacy and immediacy of what He is speaking of.
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If your God has a Father who is prior to (precedes) the Son, it is a strong suggestion that Jesus was a created being, whether a bipedal primate or a god-son who creates Jesus (Arian Heresy).
As you point out, this analogy can lead to Arian heresy, although Arius was more swayed by Origen's Platonism than the Scriptural image.
The theological structure of your god is patterned off of human families. This goes along with giving JHWY a clearly human personality and emotions. When Jesus claims to be subordinate to JHWY the Father, it follows that Jesus was created and not equal to the Father God, JHWY.
If one looks at it that way. The other is that human families fall into a natural pattern — the pattern was there before humans, as it's there in the animal kingdom (and we are animals) ... but if one allows that the language used is meant to convey the information to the widest possible audience, then certain aspects have to be patterned on
something, to render it intelligible to a wide audience.
In the writing of the Fathers, and the development of doctrine, the anthropological aspect (evident in the mythopoeic language of the Hebrew Scriptures) fades away. As critics note, when the Fathers think, they Platonize, and there has long been an observed tension between Christian Revelation and Platonic doctrine (although the influence of Stoicism, etc., should not be overlooked).
As my course tutor said, "The history of Christianity is the Salvation History of the Jews contemplated in the light of the Greek philosophical tradition."
True, but the story's ambiguities and gospel contradiction to Christianity's mythology make your version seem highly unlikely, non-rational, and related to classical Judaism. My version is rational and suggests Christianity is Indo-European Paganism using a few Jewish names.
Really? I think you're ploughing a lonely road there. I am unaware of any heavyweight Scripture scholar who would support that contention.
I am only using sources from books supposedly written by the earliest followers. Later opinions by saints, priests, and bishops seem less important and less reliable than those who wrote within a century of Jesus' death.
Really? How do you judge their veracity? There's load of spurious stuff out there, claiming this and claiming that. All of it's interesting from an historical perspective, but claiming its authentic is something else altogether.
The further one gets in centuries, the farther they get from the beliefs of the evangelists. Therefore, I place little confidence in Augustine, Athanasius, or Aquinas. I would place more confidence in the words of Jesus as recorded by the four gospel writers. My hypothesis fits your gospels.
Well my theology fits the Gospels, and so does Augustine, Athanasius and Aquinas, and if you can show their their theology doesn't, then your reputation would be made ... but I don't think you can.
I think you're on your own. I fail to see how the Gospels evidence the fact that a highly informed Jew (the Scriptural references in His words and actions are numerous and touch every aspect of the testimony), preaching to a largely Jewish audience, who were demonstrably touchy about infringements on their religious beliefs (as the Romans learnt, and were obliged to make pragmatic allowances), bought into a pagan philosophy wholesale ... I don't see that at all.
Trinities abound in the world from 4000 BCE, consisting of either Father-Son-Spirit or Father-Son-Earth Mother. Christianity was determined to hold onto the Trinity Religions of its mostly Indo-European converts.
As I keep saying, triunes are widespread and universal, as are monads, dualisms, quaternities ... one, two, three, etc., are all sacred numbers in all traditions ... but
it's what the doctrine says that counts, and the Doctrine of the Trinity is founded in Hebraic thought, not IndoEuropean.
However, they then risked conflict with the absolutely Monotheistic Jews and early Jesus followers (Ebionites, Nazarites, and other cults which I cannot name.)
Who are 'they'?
So they came up with the chaotic and irrational Trinity of a Monotheistic God. 3=1, 1=3 flies in the face of reason. Do not dismiss reason.
Amergin, this isn't reason, this is opinion. There is 2,000 years of reasoned philosophical and metaphysical contemplation of the Trinity. That you find it chaotic and irrational only means you don't understand it, and the way you insist on looking at it, I can see why.
The first form of Christianity was later called heresy, was the teaching of Bishop Arius.
You see, it's with comments like this that you torpedo your own argument.
Arianism was not the first form of Christianity, nor was it the first heresy. Arianism was Arius' idea, and it was soundly rejected by the congregation he was preaching to, a congregation of fishermen, sailers, dockers, etc (his parish was the docks in Alexandria, and his forté was composing worksongs on theological themes) — it was the congregation who complained to the Bishop of Alexandria that Arius was singing off his own songsheet, as it were, in saying that Christ was created, that 'there was a time when He was not'.
He taught a belief that fits much better with the gospels. He said that JHWY was the High God or Father, and Jesus was the created god, a son of the high god.
No, it fits with you ... and you fit it to the gospels.
The convolution of Tertulian's Trinity idea was not compatible.
It was not Tertullian's Trinity — the doctrine was in place before Tertullian. He came up with the term Trinity, that's all.
The Official Church of Athanasius stuck with the double and contradictory story of a Trinity ...
It seems to me you've concocted a theory to explain away a theory that you don't understand.
This does not make sense to me. Dialogue between Creation and its Creator is meaningless to me.
To you ... please do not assume the same of everybody.
The Incarnation is irrational
Quantum Physics is irrational. So what? Are you saying there is nothing in the Cosmos, or beyond it, that will not reveal itself to your gaze?
It is not implicit in my reading of the scripture. How does one separate relation from nature or essence?
Then reread John Chapters 14-16 ... it's there.
I read the entire text of the Bible. I had lots of time growing up on a farm during winters. I did not select the verses used in my argument until middle aged adulthood. My ideas did evolved over the first 30 years of my life. What I have posted is the result of much time thinking, postulating hypotheses and trying to counter my own hypotheses. I trust my brain and long periods of thought rather than the general unreliability of tradition, folk tales, or the mere unsupported ideas of theologians.
Oh dear ... you mean you've ignored 'the winnowed wisdom of the human race', to use a term coined by Prof. Huston Smith, and stuck with what you've come up with in isolation.
I'd keep that to yourself ... that argument, combined with the manifest errors you put to me above, do not stand your theory in good stead.
I place my understanding on analytical thought, reason, and sceptical re-analysis of my ideas. I have to do this as a neuroscientist before publishing a theory. I rely on my colleagues to apply reason and scepticism in criticism of my work. Sometimes they are right and find an error which I then re-evaluate and try to correct. I am a devout rationalist and sceptic. It has served me well. When I have been misled, it is by opinions without rational evidence.
And it never occurred to you that many theologians are trained philosophers, rationalists and sceptics?
Your bias:
An atheist is rational, logical, reasonable, because of what he believes;
a theologian is irrational, illogical, unreasonable, etc., because of what he believes (which is other than what you believe).
I, for example, a believer and Catholic, happen to think many atheists are rational, reasonable people, I do not assume, as you do, that they're 'away with the faeries' and hold beliefs that are patently nonsense because they don't think like me.
That's not good methodology in anyone's book.
God bless,
Thomas
