(Some dispose of Him with philosophy)
Hi Mark.
I'm not trying to dismantle anyone's faith, although perhaps dislodge some preconceptions ... or at least highlight a preconception where people think "Hey, I'm totally open-minded."
(... as someone studying Catholic theology, my preconceptions are being challenged all the time ... )
The point you make in parentheses is a very important point. There is still an ongoing debate about the Hellenisation of Christianity ... some, within the Church, say it went too far, some, outside of it, say not enough.
The 'problem' (from 2nd - 6th century especially) was the development of Christology and Trinitarian doctrine.
How can the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all be God, and yet there not be three Gods?
Some will argue that Son and Spirit are modes of God, ie there is only one God, whom we perceive in different ways (Monarchianism), so the Son and the Spirit are not 'real' as such ... others argue that there was only one God, and the Son and Spirit emanate from Him at the start of creation, so Arius cried, "there was a time when he (Christ) was not" (Subordinationism, in a variety of guises) ...
... another, an idea much loved of Theosophy and the New Age, holds that Jesus was purely a man who was Christed at His baptism in the Jordan (the descent of the Dove), and later abandoned by the Christus when He suffered on the Cross ... this heresy was the reason St John decided to write a gospel, to refute the teachings of the proto-gnostic Cerinthus...
... others that He was never a man at all, but only seemed to appear in the Flesh (Docetism) ... that He was a man, but His human soul was displaced by the Divine Spirit (Appolinarianism) ... that He was neither God nor man, but somewhere in between (as the JW's hold) ...
... there's loads of isms, believe me.
The Christian Fathers put philosophy to work to argue against error, and in some cases fell into error themselves. Not even the popes were exempt from mistake, and again, as everyone assumes anything the pope says, thinks or doies is assumed 'infallible' by the Roman Catholic Church, they might do well to read about the 3rd century.
... Anyway ...
Outside of Catholicism, few bother with thinking about such things these days, or do so in 'New Age' terms with a very, very flakey philosophy – as I did, and I taught, for many years. Greek Orthodox do of course, and the Russian Orthodox Church, emerging from Communism, has some very exciting ideas about Pneumatology and the Holy Spirit – Sophiology ...
... Many theologians have meanwhile noticed the modernist drift of Churches into technical error by the simple fact of not trying to explain or comprehend what they believe.
If I was to posit extremes, I'd say the US was drifting towards fundamentalism (a belief without any philosophical thinking to underpin it) – or at least the US is the noisiest region of Christian fundamentalism on the planet at the moment, whilst Europe is drifting into little more than ethical humanism in which Christ is little more than 'a thoroughly good bloke.'
Me? If I'm going to believe in a religion, I want one with all the 'bells and smells' – I want to 'feel' I'm in the Presence of the Divine, that I'm engaged in a Mystery that stretches beyond the limits of my comprehension ... I want my religion tangible, not theoretical ... and I delight in a religion that looks at Angels and Qunatum Physics, into eschatology and linguistics, into the history of the development of religion, myth, language, culture, philosophy, and does not allow itself to be limited by a cultural view that objective reality is itself a myth ...
... and I certainly don't want one that decides for itself what God can and cannot do ...
Thomas
