Jac3510 wrote:An angel appeared to Abraham as the agent of God, just as an angel appeared to Moses as the agent of God ('God sent as both ruler and deliverer through the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush', Acts 7:35).
Funny . . . I don't see where it says that an angel appeared. It says YHWH appeared to Abraham. In fact, the word “angel” does not even appear anywhere in that text. By comparison, Exodus 3:2 flat says it was the Angel of the LORD that appeared to Moses.
And it's precisely because of passages such as Exodus 3:2 that I know that 'YHWH appeared to X' means that YHWH used an agent.
In other words, you have to read into this text something it doesn't say in order to hold to your theology.
No I don't. I simply have to look at analogous passages. Once I see that God 'appears' to men through an agent, then I understand how He can be said to appear to men and yet be invisible.
I could, of course, cite many, many other passages that explicitly say that God Himself appeared.
And from passages such as Exodus 3:2, we know how to understand them.
Genesis 3 is a good example. God would walk in the cool of the day through the Garden. It seems silly to send an angel to walk through the Garden.
Why does that seem 'silly'? But in this case there's no actual necessity for an angel anyway.
In fact, to use a tactic you tried on Byblos, if you just read Genesis 1-4 in a very straightforward manner, the obvious impression you would get is that you were having face to face conversations. But again, we can cite numerous examples of God Himself appearing with no reference to an angel.
The difference being that in the case of Byblos we're dealing with a point of grammar and logic (X being identified as other than Y). In the case you and I are discussing, we are reconciling 'no man hath seen God, nor can see', with recorded theophanies. Your solution is to ride roughshod over 'no man hath seen God, nor can see' by claiming that God was seen all over the place (especially in the person of Christ), whereas I have plenty of passages of Scripture which tell us that when God appeared visibly to men He did so using an agent (an angel). I am therefore not asserting God did anything which He hasn't explicitly made clear is the manner in which He represents Himself, whereas you're having to throw out one verse of Scripture in order to suit your theology.
Well that's certainly a unique take.
No it's not a unique take. It's a very old take.
Paul explicitly says that by Christ all things were created. That is past tense, my friend.
I certainly agree!
The New Creation isn't here yet.
Er, yes it is. The new creation is the believer. I'm not talking about the eschatological kingdom.
Further, Paul says that even the visible and earthly things were created by Jesus. That hardly sounds like the new creation (especially considering this is all controlled by a past tense verb).
Actually he says things 'visible
and invisible', and he says 'powers and principalities'. Now I invite you to show me all the invisible things, and all the 'powers and principalities' which were created in Genesis 1-2.
And yet further, these things were reconciled (again, past tense) to God in Christ.
And it's that part '
reconciled' which shows Paul is talking about the new creation. It's not talking about trees, rocks, and fish. They don't need to be 'reconciled' to God through Christ.
Oh, and as for Matt 19, Jesus does not attribute creation to anyone other than Himself. He says the Creator did the work.
He speaks of the creator in the third person, as someone other than himself. Don't you think it's odd that he didn't say 'Oh yes, Adam and Eve, I remember making them'?
You quite arbitrarily want Jesus to come to “his own” in the sense of “his countrymen,” and yet want the OT statements from God to be marks of ownership.
It isn't in the least arbitrary. Christ
was a Jew. They
were his countrymen. The only way you can read 'his own' there as 'his personal creation' is by assuming that Christ is the creator, begging the question. Of course I wouldn't say the same of God. The Jews weren't His countrymen, He isn't a human being, still less a Jew.
Now, fair enough . . . at least you recognize the difference, but it doesn't get you anywhere. Look at John 1:10-11
- He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.
You sure are suggesting a very harsh, jarring change in context between the two verses. In 10, we are talking about the whole of creation, and in 11 we are to move not only to just the Jewish people, but in fact to a non-ownership / relational use of the possessive pronoun? Please. You'll forgive me if that seems very, very week.
I'm not particularly concerned if you find it 'very, very week'. I'm not trying to convince you. All I have to concern myself with is the gospel preached by the apostles. Anything other than what they preached is 'another gospel', and 'another Jesus'.
As verse 10 clearly states that Word was the conduit through which the world was made, then we can thoroughly expect “His own” to refer to that same act of creation. You'll need a LOT stronger argument than just suggesting a possible difference in the semantic range of the possessive pronoun.
How about the fact that 'his own' are those who rejected him? Who rejected him? Simple - the Jews. You see, it all fits. If you want 'his own' to be the entire creation, you have a whale of a job on your hands proving that every single human being, together with animals and inanimate objects rejected Christ.
I have no idea why you cannot follow this very, very simple argument.
I can follow it, I simply object to it because it's logically incoherent.
Jesus is a Person. God, when we use the word as that Being's NAME, is a person.
But there's no evidence that THEOS is used as a name in the Scriptures. It's a noun, pure and simple. This is recognized most importantly in the arguments over Sharp's rule, which
requires that THEOS be a noun, not a name. If THEOS were a name, then Sharp wouldn't have had even a single leg on which to stand. His argument wouldn't get anywhere.
Absolutely no one here is arguing that the PERSON called Jesus is the same as the PERSON called God.
I agree. That's certainly not the issue.
This is just the same as Human and Divinity. There is nothing within the definition of Humanity or Divinity that causes them to be mutually exclusive.
That's a really astonishing statement. You think they're equivalents. Amazing. You really don't think they have mutually exclusive attributes?
First of all, immortality and mortality have not been properly defined. A person can be immortal in at least three senses. Without going into detail, they can either have life within themselves, making them immune to death; they can simply not have death within themselves, but therefore be prone to death from without; they can have death residing within the flesh, but their immaterial portion capable of existence after its departure from the body. All humans are immortal in the third sense. I believe Adam was immortal in the second sense until the Fall, and only the God Himself is immortal in the first sense.
I'm sorry, but you're just making thing sup. The word 'immortal' simply means 'cannot die'. End of story. But whatever else you say, the fact is that 'immortal' and 'mortal' are mutually exclusive by definition. One is 'p and the other is not-p.
When the Second Person of the Godhead took on flesh, He did not cease to be immortal. He was just as immortal as He had always been; His body, however, while not containing death within itself (as ours do), was susceptible to death from without. Does that contract with anything in the class known as Divinity? Nope. Not at all.
In other words, you say he was p and not-p simultaneously.
Concerning omnipotence and omniscience, I have no problems there either. Just like Pierac, you have confused the coequal ontological nature of God as being a coequal economical nature of God. I don't believe that is the case at all. In essence, Jesus Christ, both before and after the incarnation, was the same as the Father. That is true in economy. Even before the incarnation, the Son and Spirit can only do and know what is according to the Father's will and knowledge. That doesn't affect their coequality in ontological nature one bit.
In this entire paragraph you have successfully failed to explain how Christ could know everything (p), and yet not know everything (not-p), simultaneously. I take it that your explanation isn't intended to resolve the difficulty, it's simply intended to tell me that you don't believe Christ was omnipotent, since he only knew what God told him.
Yup, and I have repeatedly said that this IS an argument from silence.
And you are wrong. I would be arguing from silence if I said that the absence of a statement saying apostles preached the trinity or deity of Christ in Acts 2 proves that they
didn't taught the trinity.
Unless you have a statement that says that people were baptized as Christians based only on the knowledge that Jesus was a man, then you cannot assume that was the only knowledge that was prerequisite to salvation.
I agree. I have already said this. But I have pointed out that whilst I can
most certainly say that the apostles baptized people with the knowledge Jesus is a man, you have
no evidence that they baptized people with the knowledge that Jesus was God. So I can assert my view and substantiate it, but you cannot assert your view with any substantiating evidence.
Your argument runs thus:
1. The recorded apostolic preaching does not include reference to the divinity of Christ,
2. People were baptized after believing the apostolic preaching,
3. Therefore, belief in the divinity of Christ is not necessary for Christian Baptism.
Almost. The conclusion should read 'Therefore, whilst there is evidence that the belief Jesus is a man through whom God worked is necessary for Christian baptism, it cannot be asserted that the belief Jesus is really God Himself is necessary for Christian baptism'. When you have evidence that such knowledge
is necessary for Christian baptism, get back to me.
First off, it doesn't matter whether or not I have evidence that they were baptized with the knowledge of the divinity of Christ.
Yes it does matter. If you have no evidence for it, then you cannot assert it.
I am talking about YOUR argument, about YOUR assertion. YOU have to defend YOUR assertion.
My assertion is that they baptized people with the knowledge that Jesus is a man. I have presented clear evidence for my assertion, which has been acknowledged (you acknowledged they taught Jesus is a man and baptized people with that knowledge). Your assertion is that this is not
all they taught at that time, but you have provided no evidence for this invisible teaching.
Now, in the broadest possible sense, I can totally agree that Acts was written “to instruct a catechumen.” The book is obviously written to instruct a believer on the growth and development of Christianity. But Fortigurn, that doesn't mean anything, because in that sense, every single book in the entire Bible is written “to instruct a catechumen.”
No that is not true. The prophets weren't written for the catechumens. Revelation certainly wasn't. The epistles most certainly weren't. The fact is that
very few books of the Bible were written to instruct a catechumens. Goodness, the Pentateuch most certainly wasn't, and nor were 1 Samuel to 2 Chronicles.
What you have to ask yourself is this: in what is the catechumen being instructed? Your answer has consistently been the basic essentials of the apostolic tradition (in the sense of what had to be believed to be baptized). First off, I disagree with that entirely. That's not what Theophilus was being instructed in. He was being shown the historical basis of his faith so that he might me sure that his faith was grounded in reality (see Luke 1:4).
Evidence for your assertion please.
The very simple fact of the matter is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that the sermons recorded in Acts contain all of the elements in the original apostolic preaching.
Yes there is. The fact that it was written to a catechumens who is explicitly being instructed.
This is true because it is not the purpose of acts to record all the elements of the original apostolic preaching.
That is an assertion without evidence.
Concerning the first “mistake,” there is nothing secondary about Pliny's personal experience with Christians.
Er, I am referring to
Pliny as a secondary source. Original statements written by the Christians themselves constitute a primary source. But representations of their views by other people constitute a
secondary source.
If Pliny is secondary, then so are all the Gospels, because Jesus Himself didn't write any of them.
The gospels are certainly secondary sources for what
Jesus said, but they are primary sources for the personal experiences of the apostles.
Concerning the second “mistake” has no bearing on anything. We have gotten a good deal of information about Nazi Germany from former Nazis. According to your logic, I can never read the words of a former Mormon or former Muslim about what they believe.
No that is not 'my logic'. I am simply saying that claiming Pliny was interrogating people who were currently Christians and speaking of their personal practices, is inaccurate. He wasn't. He was interviewing people who hadn't been Christians for 3 to 25 years.
The third “mistake” is flat comical. I can't appeal to former Christians to find out what orthodoxy was?
I didn't say that.
And on what basis do we assume that their practice of Christianity was not orthodox?
Nothing simpler, as I pointed out - we simply compare it with the
wealth of explicit primary Christians sources we have for the Christian memorial service. I gave you the New Testament, I gave you the Didache, and I gave you Justin Martyr's description of the memorial service. These are
primary sources for the Christian memorial service, and
none of them contain any reference to meetings at dawn, nor any reference to hymns to Christ - whether as a 'divinity' or anything else. You are committing the fallacy of exclusion, selecting only one source of evidence and refusing to compare it with all other valid sources. You are also assuming this selected source is accurate, whilst refusing to subject it to a method of validation.
Now, besides this, you seem to have missed the thrust of the argument. I already said that the fact that a few Christians in the mid 70's believed Jesus was God would be, by itself, a hasty generalization.
It most certainly would.
However, when you take that fact and add it to the rest of my argument, this fact leads us to exactly the conclusion you want to avoid: it was the widely held view of the early church that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh.
Well no, because the rest of your argument is flawed. As I have already demonstrated, you cannot show me that 'It was the widely held view of the early church that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh'. The Didache and the Apostles' Creed say absolutely nothing of this, Justin Martyr believed Jesus was an angel, and it's not until the
late 2nd century that we find the first suggestion that Christians believed Jesus was God Himself.
# The New Testament: There are perhaps three (contested), hymnic passages in the New Testament, and none of them are addressed to Christ as a 'divinity'. Nor is there any evidence whatever that the early Christian assemblies met at dawn and sang a hymn to Christ, still less a hymn to Christ as a 'divinity'.
Of course, this entire paragraph falls to the fallacy of begging the question.
No it is not begging the question. It is a fact that there are perhaps three hymnic passages in the New Testament (just check on B-Trans, the professional Bible translation list, if you don't believe me). It is a fact that none of them are addressed to Christ as a divinity (again, just check on B-Trans, don't take my word for it). It is a fact that there is no evidence in the New Testament that the early Christian assemblies met at dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as a divinity.
If you believe I'm wrong, then you should be able to
prove me wrong easily, by showing me all the passages in the New Testament where the early Christians met at dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as a divinity.
The very thing we are discussing is whether or not the NT teaches the divinity of Christ.
No, not in this particular part of the discussion. In this particular part of the discussion we are assessing whether or not the early Christians met at dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as a divinity. Just present the New Testament verses you have to prove this, and we'll talk.
# The Didache: This contains a clear description of the service at Christian assemblies. There is no mention of a dawn meeting. There is no mention of a hymn to Christ, still less a hymn to Christ as a 'divinity'. Not only that, but the three prayers which are described are all prayers to God, who is identified as one person, the Father. And not only that, but Jesus is clearly identified not only as the son of God, but as His agent and servant.
Two problems with your argument here. First off, it is again an argument from silence (you like these, don't you?). Unless we have a clear statement on the PURPOSE of the Didache, you cannot argue against orthopraxy based on omission. That is really a simple idea, Fortigurn. Don't make arguments based on omission.
It is not an argument from silence. I am not saying that the absence of the information you require
proves that the early Christians didn't meet at dawn and sing a hymn to Christ as a divinity. I am simply saying that you are asserting this without any corroborating evidence from the writings of the early Christians themselves. There is no record of it, yet you assert it.
Secondly, we do have a clear statement of the purpose of the Didache, it's in the text.
Ok, second, let's say we take the popularly assumed purpose, which was to instruct the new believer in basic Christian life issues.
This is not a matter of scholaly dispute, especially since the Didache explicitly declares itself to be a catechetical document.
First off, notice that this person is already a believer, so it is assumed that they already understand the Gospel. Second, note that the Didache is completely silent on issues we know to be essential to basic Christianity: it never expressly identifies Jesus as “the Son of God.” There are no exhortations to “believe” anything; the word “faith” is only used three times, and only once with any significant connection to anything. There is no mention of preaching (only of prophets and teachers). There is no mention of singing, which we know was a part of early worship (see Eph 5:18-20, etc.).
I'm sorry but I disagree. There is an
explicit statement that the one being baptized should believe what is contained in the Didache. The limited use of the word 'faith' doens't concern anyone unless they're a believer in 'faith alone'. There are teachers and preachers
and apostles (who were preachers), and singing (whilst we know it was a part of early worship), was certainly not 'essential to basic Christianity').
In short, we don't get anything about orthopraxy from the Didache. What we get is a manual for Christian living.
You have to be joking. A manual for Christian living
is Christian orthopraxy, by definition. And of course, although chapters 1-6 mainly address matters of one's way of life, the fact of the matter is that you cannot possibly claim that the latter chapters do not say anything about
congregational orthopraxy, because they manifestly do. Look at them. The entire order of service is laid out. Formal prayers are presented, one for the bread, one for the wine, and one to close the meeting. Instructions for baptism are given. Instructions regarding prophets and teachers/preachers are given.
That there is no reference to the deity of Christ proves absolutely nothing, and to say otherwise is, again, an argument from silence.
That there is no reference to the deity of Christ does mean something - it means that you
cannot assert that the Christians who wrote this document believed in the deity of Christ. And that's the point you are missing. Like most people, you believe that assertion without evidence constitutes a valid argument, and you believe that when someone points out that you are making an asserting in the absence of evidence then they are making an argument from silence. The fact is that you don't understand what an argument from silence is.
I don't have to assert that these Christians didn't believe in the deity of Christ. I don't have to assert that for a moment. But I can certainly assert that they believed what they say, and I have evidence for exactly that (the document itself). But you
cannot assert that they believed in the deity of Christ, because they said no such thing.
I note you couldn't do anything at all with Justin Martyr:
And still more appeals to silence . . .
And still a complete misunderstanding of the argument from silence. You have made an assertion regarding the orthopraxy of the early Christians. You have failed to substantiate this assertion. You have claimed that the testimony recorded by Pliny represents the orthopraxy of the early Christian memorial meal. Yet when we read the earliest descriptions of the Christian memorial meal, in the New Testament, the Didache, and Justin Martyr, we find
no such practices - no meeting at dawn, and no hymns to Christ (still less hymns to Christ as a 'divinity'). There is therefore no reason to believe your unsubstantiated assertion that the testimony recorded by Pliny represents the orthopraxy of the early Christian memorial meal.
What's happenig here is like what happened with Sargon, our visiting Mormon. He would make assertions regarding the Book of Mormon. We would point out that there is absolutely no archaeological evidence substantiating those assertions. He would then accuse us of an argument from silence. Of course that was a false charge. It was a false charge when he made it, and it is a false charge in this situation when you make it.
Now, is this all your idea of early Christian orthopraxy?
These are the earliest Christian documents proximate to Pliny, so they are the relevant texts. I threw in Martry just for fun, because it demonstrates that even up to the mid-2nd century there is no evidence for this dawn meeting and singing of a hym to Christ as a divinity. I could throw in the apology of Minicius Felix (late 2nd century), who also describes the Christian memorial meeting and says nothing whatever of a dawn meeting and singing of a hym to Christ as a divinity.
Pliny's letter predates all of this.
I could argue about this, but I don't need to. Pliny's letter certainly doesn't predate the New Testament. The fact is that even Pliny's letter predated everything (including the New Testament), there is
no independent witness substantiating the testimony Pliny records. That's where it starts and finishes. If, as you claim, the early Christian memorial meeting
did constitute of a meeting at dawn and the singing of a hym to Christ as a divinity, then can you possibly explain why there is
no mention of it in the earliest Christian texts which
explicitly describe the memorial service? It's not in the New Testament, it's not in the Didache, it's not in Martyr. Yet you want to claim that this is Christian orthopraxy, without any substantiating evidence whatever.
It's rather absurd to dismiss a stated fact from Christians as to how they worshipped...
Ah, but when we read Pliny we
don't have 'a stated fact from Christians as to how they worshipped'. We have an account
by Pliny. So instead we turn to the
real documents, written by
Christians which contain
stated facts as to how they worshipped - the New Testament, the Didache, and Martyr. You want to throw out
all of these as unrepresentative of Christian orthopraxy, on the basis of a single secondhand reference from Pliny, just because it suits your theology.
Further, it goes without question that the earliest churches were modeled after synagogues, and synagogues did include, for instance, singing.
The Greek churches weren't, but of course this is an irrelevant point anyway.
Yet further, I have already mentioned Ignatius who predates Martyr and who was alive and well while the Didache was being used, and he, a bishop, calls Jesus Christ God on some sixteen occasions.
I've already addressed this in another thread. The passages to which you appeal are late interpolations or part of downright fraudulant epistles (the Ignatian epistles are notoriously corrupt).
If we are going to go all the way up to Martyr, perhaps I should mention Diognetus, Irenaeus, Martyr himself, Aristides, Tatian, and others?
For what? The further removed you are from the apostolic era, the less relevant your witnesses are.
So, again, considering my three lines of evidence:
1. Pliny (and others) speaks of the worship of Jesus as divine during the apostolic years;
Pliny and others?
What others? You have no others, certainly no 'others' proximate to the apostolic era. Yet the Didche and the Apostles' Creed
are proximate to the apostles' era, and you won't use them. Why not? Because they represent a Christian faith to which you cannot consent and in which you do not believe. The fact is that the earliest Christian witnesses do not record the faith in which you believe.
2. The early church fathers uniformly considered Jesus divine, which pushes the source of the belief into the apostolic years;
No it doesn't. First of all the Early Church Fathers
did not 'uniformly consider Jesus divine'. Some thought he was an angel, some 'power', or 'spirit' from God, some thought he was an attribute of God, some thought he was the Holy Spirit, some thought he was an embodiment of God's mind or purpose, some thought he was just a man, and some thought he was a 'mode' of the Father. Even if there was a uniform belief among the Early Fathers (which there most certainly isn't), it wouldn't pus the source of the belief into the apostolic years. That's a complete non-sequitur.
And I note once more that you leap over the documents which
indsputably date to proximate with the apostolic years, the Didache and the Apostles' Creed. This is the fallacy of exclusion.
3. John's epistles take time to deal with proto-Gnosticism, which presumes a belief in the divinity of Christ during the apostolic years.
Dealing with Gnosticism does not presume a belief in the divinity of Jesus. It simply presumes a believe in the rejection that Jesus was a real human being.
So you're in exactly the same problem as those who claimed that the early Christian assemblies involved group sex and cannibalism - there is no record of it taking place at all. If as you claim this was the orthopraxy of the early Christian assemblies, then why is there no Christian record of it, not in the New Testament description of Christian assemblies, not in the Didache's description of Christian assemblies, and not even in Martyr's description of Christian assemblies?
I'm nowhere near in “exactly the same group.”
Those who claimed Christians were cannibals had misunderstood the Eucharist. It is an understandable misinterpretation. Those who charged them with group sex were not apostates who had at one time been in Christians meetings in which those things existed; they were enemies of the Church who were trying to destroy it with the pen.
This doesn't change the fact that the situation is directly analogous. We have extant claims that the Christians were cannibals. How can we deal with this? By showing that there is no evidence to support it. The fact that there is no evidence to support it means that it cannot be asserted as definite.
Yes, and Paul and Barnabas immediately put a stop to that belief. This statement weighs AGAINST your position. We know that people were worshipping Jesus as divine during the apostolic days.
Er no we don't. In fact we know that when the Jews saw Jesus perform miracles they
didn't suddenly believe he was God:
Matthew 9:
8 When the crowd saw this, they were afraid and honored God who had given such authority to men.
See that? They believed that
God had given authority to
Christ, whom they understood to be a
man. Jesus said the same, explicitly ('
the Father residing in me
performs his miraculous deeds', John 14:10).
And of course, the apostles took care to teach explicitly that Christ did not perform miracles with his own power. They taught that the miracles were performed by
God, through Christ, whom they identified as a
man:
Acts 2:
22 “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man clearly attested to you by God with powerful deeds, wonders, and miraculous signs that God performed among you through him, just as you yourselves know-
It couldn't be clearer.
Further, we know that the apostles' direct disciples worshipped Jesus as divine.
Really? Could you name a few? And can you explain why we don't find this in the Didache or the Apostles' Creed?
So, if they are AIMING at destroying the notion that Jesus is God, then I can expect to find a statement that explicitly says that Jesus is not God.
Yes, if they were amied at that, I would expect to find such statements. But I don't believe they were aimed at that. So I don't expect to find such statements. But we do find statements which identify Christ as 'other than God', identify Christ as only mortal, and which distinguish between God and Christ as two separate beings.
Yeah . . . Jesus = Agent is not the same as Jesus <> God.
Yes it is. The agent
of God is, by definition,
not God. By the way, the Didache does in fact make mention of Jesus as the son of God, quoting from the baptismal formula of Matthew 28:19 (identifying Jesus as 'the son'), and referring to Jesus explicitly as the 'child of God' in the communion prayer for the bread (twice 'through Jesus thy child'), and in the communion prayer for the wine ('through Jesus Thy child', and 'through Thy child').
Yes, yes, the Ignatian letters contain interpolations, but good luck proving every reference to Jesus' divinity is a later addition to the text.
I don't need good luck, I simply have to point to the extant work on the subject.
Of course, I can certainly see why you would want to discredit him. If he acknowledges Jesus' deity, your entire case is shot.
Not in the least. I could grant you every single mention of Jesus' deity in Ignatius, and it still wouldn't affect my case. It doesn't change the apostlic teaching (see the Acts), it doesn't change the Didache, and it doesn't change the Apostles' Creed. You would have one single man against a combined witness of earlier documents specifically and explicitly identifying Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
).
