Jesus the man or Jesus the Son of God

[Fist and Faith]

If someone came up with an idea about chaos or quantum theory without knowing what physicists claim about those things, his idea would either be proven wrong, or it would not be proven wrong. What does his idea predict? Does it predict that we can walk through walls? Easily proven wrong. He did something wrong as he was coming up with this idea. Yeah, should have researched it better. Other predictions might not be so obvious, but they can still fail when the test is performed, or the event observed.

Or, the predictions might pan out each time. Does it prove his idea was right? Well, it sure doesn't prove the idea was wrong. Could be the first 99 predictions in a string are proved, and the 100th fails. His idea might need some tweaking. Might be something minor wrong. Rework it with the new information. OTOH, could be a very big misunderstanding will be revealed. The first 99 things might have happened for other reasons entirely, and the whole idea needs to be scrapped.


Opinions of sacred texts that are held without having asked what theology was developed before are still valid. There's no such thing as proving them wrong. Such an opinion may not be a valid opinion within the system of Orthodoxy, or Catholicism, or Tibetan Bhuddism, or whatever faith system claims ownership of the text in question, but it's still a valid opinion.

[aliantha]

There are so many things where people have opinions without ever having asked, "What was the theology developed in the early Church, over the first millennium and in the second millennium?" Imagine if someone started having opinions about chaos or quantum theory without having done much, if any, research into what physicists do claim about those things...

Snootiness (or lack thereof ) aside -- to what did you address this comment? Are you critiquing Fist's interpretation of the Fall? Because the story of Adam and Eve predates the first couple of milennia of your Church by quite a bit. Maybe if we're after the real meaning of the Fall, we should be asking what *Jewish* theology says about it.

I know we've discussed this before here in the Close, and iirc, the Jewish interpretation is somewhat differently nuanced than the Christian one.

[Orlion]

There are so many things where people have opinions without ever having asked, "What was the theology developed in the early Church, over the first millennium and in the second millennium?" Imagine if someone started having opinions about chaos or quantum theory without having done much, if any, research into what physicists do claim about those things...

Snootiness (or lack thereof ) aside -- to what did you address this comment? Are you critiquing Fist's interpretation of the Fall? Because the story of Adam and Eve predates the first couple of milennia of your Church by quite a bit. Maybe if we're after the real meaning of the Fall, we should be asking what *Jewish* theology says about it.

I know we've discussed this before here in the Close, and iirc, the Jewish interpretation is somewhat differently nuanced than the Christian one.

And as an aside, you don't know the extent of my theological studies... hell, unless someone tells you, you don't know the extent of anyone's studies.
To give you an idea, I've run into your ideas from time to time, and aside for specific Orthodox trivia, I've been familiar with just about everything. And that's only because my studies ran down the branch of the Roman Catholic Church more than the Orthodox.
To give you more of an idea of my previous studies, I have an Origen book and New Testament in Greek. I have historic works by Josephus and Eusebius, an Encyclopedia of Early Church Fathers Teachings, Christian and Jewish Apocrypha and various pseudepigraphica. I have studied the history. I have read the apologies. And that doesn't change my opinion.

[aliantha]

I have an Origen book and New Testament in Greek.

Those books would be Greek to me!

<rimshot>

(Oh come on, *somebody* had to do it. It might as well be me!)

[Cybrweez]

lucimay, I was trying to answer your question. That's how I look at it. From my point of view, what my daughter does is causing the disconnect, from her view, I'm punishing her.

[rusmeister]

I apologize for writing hastily.

My first impression from my skim reading was that most people who were commenting were... people who do not believe in Christ's divinity, and so it looked like a stacked discussion that didn't try to bring the defenders of it into the game. You have to admit that it'd be irritating if the shoe were on the other foot, especially when you know of answers to most or all of the objections and it looks like most people really don't.

But I DO see defense of it - or at least an awareness of paradoxes that are not explained by simplistic dismissal.


I apologize if people's thoughts are dealt with piecemeal - I'm taking them post by post.

Hashi’s initial summary is quite correct. It is the synthesis that takes into account all of the things that were reported and accepted as true. It is orthodox (and Orthodox).

Lord Foul’s quote -

I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.

- is an excellent example of why people who want to see Jesus as merely a good teacher select what they like from what He says and ignore what they don’t like. He DID speak of fire and brimstone, and said that He Himself would be the judge of mankind, He DID claim to be able to forgive third-party sins as if He were the person chiefly offended, rather than the jilted husband or whatever. I think we don’t stop to think about the implications of those things but skim right over them in rushing to the sermon on the mount, admiring those teachings, but then leaving them for other people to carry out into practice.

I can't imagine anything more counterproductive, meaningless, and more likely to lead to future bloodshed than to be the Son of God and die as he did. Any ordinary person can sacrifice for someone else. Sometimes it is even meaningful. When a divinity dies...and hey, guess what, he didn't really die, he can't, he's divine...that's not a powerful message, that's just trite. [when I'm really ranting/annoyed, I find it metaphysically, metaphorically, and literally offensive].
A real message would be if he were still hanging around in some shack somewhere, still 30 years old, and still helping the sick, the meek, the poor.

This is an example of what I mean by paradox. I agree that the death on the Cross is not a message. It makes no sense at all as a message - it is meaningless as such. As an action it is incredibly meaningful, however - if one will only inquire as to what the meaning could be. If one doesn't wish to ask, but merely heckle/condemn, then there is no intelligent discussion.

And I think the objections to Christ being God (HLT, Avatar, etc) are quite natural. If Jesus is merely "a good teacher" (who we can select what we like from and ignore the rest) then he (being merely a lower-case "he") has no impact on us - we can ignore him and look to the 10,000 other "good teachers" and eclectically build a worldview that pleases us. But if He IS Who He claimed to be, then, yeah, a lot of people are in a lot of trouble - a serious re-ordering of one's own life is in order in order to deal with that fact. A major emotional incentive to rationalize a denial of His divinity; a factor working against our reason.

Fist is quite wrong, though, when he says

Yes, Jesus said it. But it was taken wrong. When asked about it, he said, "I am not the only way. My teachings are. Love."

He is right, of course, that Jesus did say that love is essential (although we should unpack the modern hazy understanding of the word vs the Greek agape, but did insist, multiple times, that there is no other salvation - no other way to get to God.

One thing Lord Foul is not correct on is the idea that

this person we know pretty much zilch about written about 200 or so years after his death from not even first-hand sources, and we're trying to make concrete guesses as to what he really said or who he was.

If we are to believe any history at all, if we are not to reject dozens of historically accepted primary sources, from Clement of Rome (AD 80-100), Ignatius (born NLT 50 AD), never mind the gospels themselves (AD 50-100, although some people desperately dispute this) then we have confirmation of a great many of these sayings by eyewitnesses and for some disconnects of only one generation. We also have an organization established within a couple of months of Christ's death fanatically committed to preserving the tradition of what they believed, in a highly developed civilization with excellent transport and communication.

It is only that the events are remote to US that makes them seem so dubious. We are not similarly agnostic about events recent to our own time within one or two (or even three generations), neither are we agnostic about other records of ancient history, but claim to know quite a bit about what went on in the ancient world. It is only when we deal with this Man who claimed to be God that a curious agnosticism, unlike any other man in the ancient world, arises in the face of intensive reporting from numerous sources confirming the claims over the following decades and centuries. If the person is Plato or Plutarch, we are not agnostic at all; we firmly believe that these people either wrote or said those things - but if it is Jesus, who was called 'the Christ', then suddenly we doubt.

As I said, Fist, the fact that a peculiar bias arises toward this Man that is willing to contradict itself, to attack Him on any grounds at all, that is at the very least grounds for suspicion of the bias.

The idea that a thing 'needs to be mentioned in the Bible' to be accepted as doctrine is purely a child of the Protestant Reformation - Protestant Sola-Scriptura influence on us post-modern people. Scriptural canon is surely important, but it was determined by the early Church, and was not the ONLY source of doctrine in ancient Christianity. Much of what was written by those called "the Church fathers" or (Catholic) "Doctors of the Church" was also taken into account, not as "addition" or "new teaching", but as clarification of what is said in Scripture. Thus concepts like "The Trinity" and "free will" can be seen in Scripture even though not specifically named as such.

Linna's thought on what is called "The Trilemma" is also key. But again, it involves taking the totality of what is reported. Those who hold the idea of Christ as "a great teacher", selectively choosing what they like to hear, need to grapple with what they don't like to hear/think about. This leads to the Trilemma and the idea of 'just a great teacher' must be discarded. (Although I think it a dilemma, ultimately - the Liar option, in my opinion, isn't really on the table - but Lunatic/megalomaniac certainly is.

The Orthodox Christian will reject the idea that the Bible is "God's Word" in the Protestant sense - that is part of our trouble as English speakers born to English/American culture - the peculiarity of our Protestant heritage colors everything and makes it difficult to see outside of the Protestant paradigms. Jesus Christ is the Word of God (John ch 1). Scripture is given by inspiration of God - but was written by men in a local place, time and language. The Bible did NOT fall out of heaven, straight from God, like the Koran supposedly did. So it IS holy, it DOES have wisdom and truth - but it is not a scientific treatise and was never meant to be one.

On words like "image" - we seem to have this idea that it means "physical/material identity" -thus the complaints about man making God in his own image - whereas we see it as much more "bearing essential truth". Matter is a created thing. God is not created. Therefore God is NOT matter and whatever our being made in God's image means, it is not that. But God took ON matter and became human, not in some misty and prehistorical time, but in a definite, developed and well-recorded historical time under a definite Roman ruler. THAT is the Christian teaching.

The line, Lord Foul, is expressed in the Nicea-Constantinople Creed (anyone see me flashing my 'union card' there? ):

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth and of all things visible and invisible.

And in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made; Who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man. And He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried. And the third day He arose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; Whose Kingdom shall have no end.

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; Who spoke by the prophets.

In one Holy, Catholic*, and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

(* Russian "sobornaya" - 'collective/united/universal')

That is the line. Anything outside of that - ain't Christian - it isn't something consistently held for 2 millennia. It is the synthesis of the oral and written Tradition of the Christian Church. Without that definition, then we couldn't even be talking about the same thing.

I think Lucimay's questions as great. Again, I apologize for my earlier and hasty words.
The Orthodox teaching is that the act of disobedience caused the disconnect. Man, essentially, invented the first religion when he accepted the lie of the serpent and committed the act of disobedience (there was only one commandment, not ten - EVERYTHING was permitted, and disobedience - of one little thing, was the only thing one could possibly do wrong. In seeking life in the fruit (we don't know that it was an apple - that's a western tradition in an apple-rich world) he cut himself off from the true Source of Life, much like a diver cutting his oxygen supply - and so began to age and die.

In Orthodoxy, Christ is the second Adam, and Mary the second Eve (although the familial relationship is different). Mary said 'Yes' to God where Eve had said 'No', and Christ reversed Adam's fault - that of making the self his own God and saying "Let MY will be done" - by completely submitting and saying "Let THY will be done", and so, made it possible to haul us out of the grave. We still live with the consequences of Adam's sin (although we are not guilty of that sin) just as a child born with fetal alcohol syndrome has o live with the consequence of his parents' sins, but the gospel - the good news - is that death CAN be reversed, and that we CAN be restored - news too good to be true to people who are used to living under the sentence of death, diagnosis of terminal cancer, etc.

Always question things. Question everyone and everything. All the time. Even me. It is better to be an honest skeptic than a wishy-washy sponge who just accepts things blindly.

I agree. But having questioned, and having received an answer that satisfies our mind and heart, our skepticism should end at that point. Otherwise, we would have to be content to perpetually not know anything and doubt everything.

Orlion's idea that "omnipotence" means "Can do ANYTHING" seems to include the idea of being able to do the intrinsically impossible - something that no serious philosopher can accept and claim to be logical. It ought to be self-evident that the intrinsically impossible must be excluded. CS Lewis put it best:

In ordinary usage the word impossible generally implies a suppressed clause beginning with the word unless. Thus it is impossible for me to see the street from where I sit writing at this moment; that is, it is impossible to see the street unless I go up to the top floor where I shall be high enough to overlook the intervening building. If I had broken my leg I should say ‘But it is impossible to go up to the top floor’–meaning, however, that it is impossible unless some friends turn up who will carry me. Now let us advance to a different plane of impossibility, by saying, ‘It is, at any rate, impossible to see the street so long as I remain where I am and the intervening building remains where it is’. Someone might add ‘unless the nature of space, or of vision, were different from what it is’. I do not know what the best philosophers and scientists would say to this, but I should have to reply ‘I don’t know whether space and vision could possibly have been of such a nature as you suggest’. Now it is clear that the words could possibly here refer to some absolute kind of possibility or impossibility which is different from the relative impossibilities and impossibilities we have been considering. I cannot say whether seeing round corners is, in this new sense, possible or not, because I do not know whether it is self-contradictory or not. But I know very well that if it is self-contradictory it is absolutely impossible. The absolutely impossible may also be called the intrinsically impossible because it carries its impossibility within itself, instead of borrowing it from other impossibilities which in their turn depend upon others. It has no unless clause attached to it. It is impossible under all conditions and in all worlds and for all agents.

It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.

‘All agents’ here includes God Himself. His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it’, you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix them with the two other words ‘God can’. It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.

"The Problem of Pain"

Free will is the idea that we are free to make our own choices. This is something that people very often consider worth dying for. Freedom is generally agreed to be a good thing. If God gave it to us, we ought to admit His goodness, not curse Him for giving it to us and blaming Him when we misuse it. Freedom, if it exists at all, MUST include being free to disobey - even one teeny-weeny little injunction. So free will is a gift from God. God did not "design us to disobey". WE chose - and choose to disobey - even now, we want to be our own God. The words "submission" and "obedience" are dirty words in our culture. We have an irrational attitude towards them. That is the Christian paradox. We must submit. We must give up our life in order to save it. We must act contrary to our desire to be our own god.

This is also the refutation of Fist's idea that it is an evil thing that God did. Would we not think it magnanimous if God took us and said "Here is eternal life AND the universe. Do whatever you like, wherever. The only condition is to not eat a particular fruit in sector X-385." Go and have fun!" Of course, our Fallen human nature, as is now, DOES tend toward the forbidden fruit, even if we had such great goods as the universe and eternal life as the alternatives. But that only proves that we ARE Fallen.
(I think about fairy tales, which are chock full of the idea of happiness on one little condition, which, of course, the main character violates, and once again Falls. These myths are true myths. They are allegorical ways of communicating the Truth to us.

But since a picture is worth a thousand words...

This:


led to this:



Truly He is the Son of God.

[Avatar]

I have an Origen book and New Testament in Greek. I have historic works by Josephus and Eusebius, an Encyclopedia of Early Church Fathers Teachings, Christian and Jewish Apocrypha and various pseudepigraphica. I have studied the history. I have read the apologies. And that doesn't change my opinion.

Oh, I have several versions of the Bible, the Qua'ran, the Rig Veda, the Bahgavad Gita, the Book of Mormon, the Gnostic Gospels and various sundry writings on religion. Since they have not led me to Orthodoxy though, Rus feels that my knowledge of religion is lacking, because I haven't taken the time to learn anything.

--A

[rusmeister]

I have an Origen book and New Testament in Greek. I have historic works by Josephus and Eusebius, an Encyclopedia of Early Church Fathers Teachings, Christian and Jewish Apocrypha and various pseudepigraphica. I have studied the history. I have read the apologies. And that doesn't change my opinion.

Oh, I have several versions of the Bible, the Qua'ran, the Rig Veda, the Bahgavad Gita, the Book of Mormon, the Gnostic Gospels and various sundry writings on religion. Since they have not led me to Orthodoxy though, Rus feels that my knowledge of religion is lacking, because I haven't taken the time to learn anything.

--A

Hi Av,
No, that's not what I'm saying. I accept that you have learned a great deal.
But if you have taken time to learn things, they are specifically things that do not defend the divinity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, fully God and fully Man. So when someone undertakes to speak on THAT topic, yes, their knowledge is lacking no matter what they know about the Tao, the Seven-Fold path, the 5 Pillars of the Faith and so on. It is on that question that one must turn to what the ancient Church - which has actually survived all these centuries and is still teaching what it established 2,000, 1,800, 1,500 and so on years ago - established, and what everybody - even in the West, continued to believe for nearly 1,000 years after the Schism with the East, and which some, even in the West, still believe today. All of the most traditional forms of Christianity (a term I use for convenience) still confesses it, even if many no longer access the Tradition which established it, which is known as "Orthodoxy". It's not my invention, or that of anyone of my time.

So if you want to consider the most intelligent thought defending the divinity of Christ, yes, you must grapple with Orthodox theology - which, as I said, is still shared to a considerable degree in the West. One who does not wish to, when the Church freely invites them to do so, is a heckler and not an intelligent seeker of the best understandings. They have already held the kangaroo court in their own head, and the verdict is guilty before the trial - which will therefore never take place. This has a name, even two.

Merely as a beginning - although from here you'd have to go on to the ancient sources:
www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=17
www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=18

[Fist and Faith]

That's a great quote from The Problem of Pain.

Fist is quite wrong, though, when he says

Yes, Jesus said it. But it was taken wrong. When asked about it, he said, "I am not the only way. My teachings are. Love."

Heh. Sorry, I should have explained the joke. It's from a short story I wrote years ago:
kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1468
I don't actually think this happened. I don't know a time traveller who gave me these quotes. But it's a kind of morality and a kind of supreme creator I like.

So if you want to consider the most intelligent thought defending the divinity of Christ, yes, you must grapple with Orthodox theology - which, as I said, is still shared to a considerable degree in the West. One who does not wish to, when the Church freely invites them to do so, is a heckler and not an intelligent seeker of the best understandings. They have already held the kangaroo court in their own head, and the verdict is guilty before the trial - which will therefore never take place. This has a name, even two.

Merely as a beginning - although from here you'd have to go on to the ancient sources:
www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=17
www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=18

You don't understand, rus. It's entirely possible that the Orthodox teachings are the best, most logical understanding of the Bible. It could be that, if I made a massive, long-term attempt to see the Bible as a unified whole, free from contradiction, I might come up with the same thing the Orthodox Church teaches. For the sake of argument, I'll agree that the OC did the best possible job of it.

The thing is, that's only defending the interpretation of the Bible. The truth of it is another matter. Orthodox Tradition doesn't prove Jesus said or did any of the things attributed to him in the Bible, it's only a - possibly the best - way of viewing the entire book. "Defending the divinity of Christ" only means "Defending why we think the Bible is saying Christ is divine."

[Hashi Lebwohl]

To give you more of an idea of my previous studies, I have an Origen book and New Testament in Greek. I have historic works by Josephus and Eusebius, an Encyclopedia of Early Church Fathers Teachings, Christian and Jewish Apocrypha and various pseudepigraphica. I have studied the history. I have read the apologies. And that doesn't change my opinion.

We are not here to change your opinion. Even if I could do such a thing I wouldn't.

You can't have free will if you can't understand what your choices are. And you can't understand what your choices are without the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve did not have free will.

The apple gave them the knowledge of good and evil; it gave them free will.

Unfortunately, you are incorrect in this assessment. Free Will, as it related to Adam and Eve, was not a choice of "good" or "evil" but rather one of "obey" or "disobey". This is same kind of choice that is still available to angelic beings--they may choose to disobey whenever they want to. We know that angels have Free Will because some of them decided to rebel once.

Also, try not to think of it in terms of "right" and "wrong". Instead, think of it in terms of "cause" and "effect"--they chose to perform an action and because of that action they introduced separation from God, commonly referred to as The Fall. This is what makes Lucifer's damnation complete--it was bad enough that he rebelled and got some of his cohorts to go along with him but it was worse when he caused Man to rebel.

[Fist and Faith]

You can't have free will if you can't understand what your choices are. And you can't understand what your choices are without the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve did not have free will.

The apple gave them the knowledge of good and evil; it gave them free will.

Unfortunately, you are incorrect in this assessment. Free Will, as it related to Adam and Eve, was not a choice of "good" or "evil" but rather one of "obey" or "disobey". This is same kind of choice that is still available to angelic beings--they may choose to disobey whenever they want to. We know that angels have Free Will because some of them decided to rebel once.

Also, try not to think of it in terms of "right" and "wrong". Instead, think of it in terms of "cause" and "effect"--they chose to perform an action and because of that action they introduced separation from God, commonly referred to as The Fall. This is what makes Lucifer's damnation complete--it was bad enough that he rebelled and got some of his cohorts to go along with him but it was worse when he caused Man to rebel.

Did Lucifer possess the knowledge of good and evil when he rebelled? Do the angelic beings you refer to now possess that knowledge? Adam and Eve did not possess it when they "rebelled." It is akin to having small children make this decision. They have not learned enough to know good and evil any more than Adam and Eve did before they ate the apple. Small children cannot Fall from their parents. The must grow, and learn. THEN they can decide how to live. They may choose to live in ways that do cause permanent separation from their parents. But Adam and Eve did not grow and learn. The apple was how they learned.

And unless God wanted humans to be ignorant of good and evil forever (Was that God's plan? Eternal ignorance of good and evil for humans?), the tree was God's method for giving us that knowledge. Again, what else was the tree there for?

[Hashi Lebwohl]

You worry too much about "good" and "evil".

If you think that small children cannot Fall from their parents--by which I mean "rebel"--then you have never had children. Rebelling is what children do best.

[Fist and Faith]

You worry too much about "good" and "evil".

I didn't put that tree there.

If you think that small children cannot Fall from their parents--by which I mean "rebel"--then you have never had children. Rebelling is what children do best.

I have children. And they do, indeed, rebel. But they are not capable of rebelling permanently. Nothing a small child can do can cause a permanent separation of any sort from the parent, whether we consider it natural consequences or punishment. Only the parent can cause a permanent separation. It would be the parent's fault. The good parent explains why the child's act of rebellion is wrong; gives alternate courses of action that the child could have taken; possibly gets therapy or medication for the child (if there seems to be some psychosis at work); etc. But it is the parent who must do the teaching, and who must make sure the child learns what that action means, and what will happen later in life if the child-grow-to-adulthood does it again. When an the child does grow to adulthood, it has learned, and can choose to do things that will cause permanent separations. If my daughter kills every pet we bring into the house, or steals from everybody, I'll teach her what is wrong with that, and what will happen if she does it as an adult. I will not kick her out of the house as an 8 year old. If she does these things as an adult, she will not be allowed in my house.

Adam and Eve never learned the things that we teach our children. They did not have the capacity to understand these things until they ate the apple. They were 8 year olds who were kicked out of the house.

[rusmeister]

That's a great quote from The Problem of Pain.

Fist is quite wrong, though, when he says

Yes, Jesus said it. But it was taken wrong. When asked about it, he said, "I am not the only way. My teachings are. Love."

Heh. Sorry, I should have explained the joke. It's from a short story I wrote years ago:
kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1468
I don't actually think this happened. I don't know a time traveller who gave me these quotes. But it's a kind of morality and a kind of supreme creator I like.

So if you want to consider the most intelligent thought defending the divinity of Christ, yes, you must grapple with Orthodox theology - which, as I said, is still shared to a considerable degree in the West. One who does not wish to, when the Church freely invites them to do so, is a heckler and not an intelligent seeker of the best understandings. They have already held the kangaroo court in their own head, and the verdict is guilty before the trial - which will therefore never take place. This has a name, even two.

Merely as a beginning - although from here you'd have to go on to the ancient sources:
www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=17
www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=18

You don't understand, rus. It's entirely possible that the Orthodox teachings are the best, most logical understanding of the Bible. It could be that, if I made a massive, long-term attempt to see the Bible as a unified whole, free from contradiction, I might come up with the same thing the Orthodox Church teaches. For the sake of argument, I'll agree that the OC did the best possible job of it.

The thing is, that's only defending the interpretation of the Bible. The truth of it is another matter. Orthodox Tradition doesn't prove Jesus said or did any of the things attributed to him in the Bible, it's only a - possibly the best - way of viewing the entire book. "Defending the divinity of Christ" only means "Defending why we think the Bible is saying Christ is divine."

Thanks, Fist (I always appreciate it when someone reads a quote and 'groks' it; that's kind of rare around here).

I only propose defending interpretation here in argument, Fist. It is precisely interpretation that people are debating, and proceeding from there to truth - what they think about what they HAVE been exposed to. Being exposed to deep theology changes one's attitudes - you can tell who's shallow and who's deep - primitive arguments with easy refutations are not raised - people become aware that there are sophisticated and thought-out answers based on extensive knowledge, if if they don't agree with the ultimate conclusions.

I don't think my faith can be proved, but I do think that people can learn to reject simplistic nonsense, either the simplistic nonsense of a simplistic religion, or the simplistic nonsense of a simple unbelief. People who become familiar with the theology I speak of stop saying things like "Jesus was just a good teacher" really quickly. They realize that they're up against something far more complex - a complex description of a real individual with many sides, who was immersed in a culture that was very clear on Who God was, He was teaching at the age of 12 and flipping people out and the things he said were precisely NOT the words of a first century Galilean; no such Galilean or any Jew would have dreamed of saying the things He said. Some of it - the parts ignored by the "good teacher" crowd - were incredibly blasphemous within the culture He was in, even if they convey nothing to most today. He positively identified Himself, repeatedly, with the Creator of the world, the prophesied Son of Man (this is a major crimp in Ali's idea that Judaism stands on equal footing with Christianity - when the prophesies of Isaiah, Zechariah and so on are fulfilled - was reading Zechariah's prophecy of the entry into Jerusalem on the donkey (it's pretty explicit) just today.

But a person who was raised Baptist, Episcopalian or whatever, and left the faith of his parents (even if they were devout) with only a child's understanding of even Protestant theology, and thinks that he knows all he needs to know, and has closed his mind - or has read heaps of NON-Christian texts, is in no position to know any of those things. They have opinions without knowledge. That's the point I was trying to make earlier. Any of us who DO really know something about something are justifiably irritated when people who don't begin speaking about it as if they did have in depth knowledge. I've learned that I know very little, so I listen to good teachers. I know enough about Orthodox theology to know that I know very little and there is far more to learn, and then I see that most know even less. I won't speak of arrogance - I don't think it intentional. But it needs remedy and response. I am humbled myself when Lucimay asks pointed questions - instead of just "knowing".

Anyway, nothing will prove that Christ is God in the flesh in any scientific sense, so I hope you won't continue to expect that from me, when I never offered to. Reason CAN lead one to faith, and I am an example - but reason does not exist in a vacuum.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I didn't put that tree there.

Thank goodness for that. If you had, I would have some explaining about my behavior to do to you.

Adam and Eve never learned the things that we teach our children. They did not have the capacity to understand these things until they ate the apple. They were 8 year olds who were kicked out of the house.

Just like one cannot judge a child according to an adult's standards, one cannot judge God by human standards. In this respect, paralles of God/Man versus parent/child fail.

I understand--you dislike God, which is fine with me. As I have noted several times, I am not here to convert anyone.

[rusmeister]

You worry too much about "good" and "evil".

I didn't put that tree there.

If you think that small children cannot Fall from their parents--by which I mean "rebel"--then you have never had children. Rebelling is what children do best.

I have children. And they do, indeed, rebel. But they are not capable of rebelling permanently. Nothing a small child can do can cause a permanent separation of any sort from the parent, whether we consider it natural consequences or punishment. Only the parent can cause a permanent separation. It would be the parent's fault. The good parent explains why the child's act of rebellion is wrong; gives alternate courses of action that the child could have taken; possibly gets therapy or medication for the child (if there seems to be some psychosis at work); etc. But it is the parent who must do the teaching, and who must make sure the child learns what that action means, and what will happen later in life if the child-grow-to-adulthood does it again. When an the child does grow to adulthood, it has learned, and can choose to do things that will cause permanent separations. If my daughter kills every pet we bring into the house, or steals from everybody, I'll teach her what is wrong with that, and what will happen if she does it as an adult. I will not kick her out of the house as an 8 year old. If she does these things as an adult, she will not be allowed in my house.

Adam and Eve never learned the things that we teach our children. They did not have the capacity to understand these things until they ate the apple. They were 8 year olds who were kicked out of the house.

Children may not rebel permanently (I assume we all have multiple kids here - I know you do), but they CAN commit acts that cannot be undone with permanent consequences. Little Yaroslav will never grow up - he played on a window and fell to his death from a 4th story floor (real kid, real name, friends of friends of ours). A kid can, if they are sufficiently determined, get around a parent's best defenses. We know that at some point, we MUST begin to let our children go and take some responsibility for ourselves, and then we face the risk that they will NOT listen to our sage advice and seriously hurt or even kill themselves - yet that risk is unavoidable if they are to become mature and responsible adults.

Adam and Eve were told they would die, and evidently understood - but chose to believe the serpent, instead. How many children die when we tun our backs - perhaps to another child - and they rush across a street heedless and a car mows them down? There are plenty of situations where we would NOT accuse the parents of negligence - but the tragedy would remain.

[lucimay]

I'm just saying, if this had happened...) I think it was a horribly evil thing for God to do.

umhm. /nod nod. precisely why i'm not so fond of this yahweh guy.


oh and thanks for clarification cyberweez.

and also orlion, love the bacteria thing. have always felt like
an amoeba in a petrie dish anyways!! LOL!!

[High Lord Tolkien]

Back to my original thoughts:

So Jesus the man dies on the cross and stays dead.
If his words aren't taken literally, what message of his is lost?

God still exists and the path to God is through Christ's teachings.


How much does the Resurrection influence your faith over the teachings of Jesus that I mentioned earlier?

Which do you use more on a day to day basis?

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Back to my original thoughts:

So Jesus the man dies on the cross and stays dead.
If his words aren't taken literally, what message of his is lost?

God still exists and the path to God is through Christ's teachings.


How much does the Resurrection influence your faith over the teachings of Jesus that I mentioned earlier?

Which do you use more on a day to day basis?

According to Christian theology, it simply doesn't work that way. Christ's resurrection was the means by which God and Man were able to be reunited.

His teachings, although they are wise and would lead to a "better" world if only more people followed them, are ancillary to the primary fact--the resurrection. Without that one act, reconciliation with God would be impossible and we would still be living under the Old Covenant. I don't know about you, but I would fail at following the Mosaic Law--it's pretty strict.

[High Lord Tolkien]

His teachings, although they are wise and would lead to a "better" world if only more people followed them, are ancillary to the primary fact--the resurrection. Without that one act, reconciliation with God would be impossible

Why?
According to what you've posted it was the dying that makes the reconciliation. That makes the circle complete, so to speak.

Why is the Resurrection needed for reconciliation?

And what is the Resurrected Christ anyway?
I mean literally.
A ghost?
A physical human?

Didn't he supposedly disappear and reappear magically to his Disciples?
How did the physically resurrected, (still mortal like everyone else?) Jesus pull that off?
Wouldn't he, as a resurrected human have to physically die again for his soul to enter Heaven?
I remember reading that the last the Disciples saw him he was floating up to Heaven. What happened to his body?


It seems odd to me that what many here have said was the fundamental core of Christianity would be so sparse of information at the end.
Actually it's wildly.....can't come up with a word that won't piss anyone off...loosely open to speculation.

And let me just say, I'm not being sarcastic or just being a troll. Good Friday is coming up and these thoughts are on my mind.