1 of 5 - David has questions
And who are you btw? Tell me a little about yourself. And ask what you want to know about me. Context helps conversation.
[Prescient, it turns out] For Jesse who needs to mature in Christ
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1DWGn2Ucuu/?mibextid=wwXIfr Answer the question he puts to you, Jesse: did God, the eternal God, go to a plan B for salvation because - God didn't know, or - did God go to plan B after wasting time since with the expulsion from Paradise and Noah, and Abraham, and Moses, and David, and exile, and the whole Israel thing, or - wasn't plan A - the Incarnation - simply the eternal plan of God's faithfulness with His Creation all along?
When I sit with John 1:1–3, I’m honestly trying to understand how John expects readers to hold together both the distinction and the unity between the Word and God. The text itself seems to insist on both, and I’m trying to take that seriously.
ReplyDeletePhilippians 2:6–7 keeps weighing on me. Paul says Christ “emptied Himself,” but he never explains what exactly was emptied. I’m trying to read the passage without assuming it means a loss of divinity, yet the language is undeniably strong.
Mark 13:32 is one of those verses that stops me. Jesus says the Son doesn’t know the day or hour, yet earlier Mark shows Him acting with unmistakable divine authority. I’m trying to understand how Mark wants us to hold those scenes together.
Hebrews 5:8 challenges me deeply. The idea that the Son “learned obedience” raises real questions about what “learning” means for someone who is eternally perfect. I’m trying to let the text speak without forcing it into categories that feel too neat.
John 17:5 feels incredibly profound. Jesus speaks of the glory He had with the Father before the world existed, and I’m trying to grasp how this prayer frames His pre‑existence and His relationship with the Father in the narrative itself.
Colossians 1:15 calls Christ the “firstborn of all creation,” and I find myself wrestling with how the surrounding verses guide us toward understanding that as a statement of status rather than sequence. The text seems to push in both directions.
Luke 2:52 is a verse I can’t gloss over. Jesus grows in wisdom, and I’m trying to understand how Luke expects us to hold that alongside the reality of His divine identity. The growth seems real, not symbolic.
Damn, David. I expected a question on easier material but you’re bringing up the pinnacle of difficulties. Getting logical agreement that there must be a prime mover as creator for there to be existence and beings in existence is easier. Getting to logical agreement that the prime mover must be Being itself: eternal, immutable, omnipresent is easier. And that Being as omnipresent must infer a Spirit on continuing presence available to the experience of existence and beings in existence is an easier chore.
ReplyDeleteThank God you didn’t actually ask a question. You’re wrestling with whole history of theological discussion of the Incarnation. Or are you?
What’s your question, David? Give it to me boldly.
And please tell me a) where you’re coming from within western Christianity and b) why this matters to you.
DeleteI AM curious what the question is/questions are.
ReplyDeleteWhere David says:
I’m honestly trying to understand how John expects readers to hold together both the distinction and the unity between the Word and God. The text itself seems to insist on both, and I’m trying to take that seriously.
and much of the rest, my initial concern, David, is (at least to me - one man's opinion!) you might be going the route of treating the Bible as a rulings book, where we go to find rulings and authoritatively divine answers to the sorts of questions: "Was God wholly human and wholly God...? Was Jesus literally, 'THE WORD'? And what does any of that mean?"
For me (again, just me) this is the sort of "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" sort of question - maybe something vaguely interesting to consider, but not really a vital question.
Again, maybe that's just me.
The parts of Jesus' (and the collection of biblical authors') words that ARE clear focus on "How do we preach good news to the poor and marginalized? How do we best love? How do we best work for justice, especially for the poor and marginalized...?" THESE are the primary important questions the Biblical authors wrestle with.
Which is not to denigrate your questions... your points. Just trying to keep them in what I think is the right context, theologically, biblically, orthodoxically and orthopraxily (is that a word??).
And I hope that doesn't sound unduly harsh. It's not intended to be. Just an honest point of someone who has MANY "Angel/pins" conversations over the years and, theologically, I'm just much less interested in them these days.
ReplyDeleteDan just destroyed all schools of theology. And all theologians from Augustine to... Hans Urs von Balthasar. That last name alone - just the name - probably disturbs the ghosts of agrarian American protestant primitivism. Stay true to your roots, Dan.
ReplyDeleteI, however, took in the Scottish Enlightenment half of the churches of Christ, and have always needed to give fuller fledged answers to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in me. Answers that engaged history, engaged philosophy, answers that were theological in Anselm's terms: faith seeking understanding.
It has often and long been said by the church that is in our intellect where we most live out the image and likeness of God in which we are made. Dan may want to steer that to ethics mostly. The complaint to that is that our foundations in faith must go far deeper than behavior while there is such cruel suffering in human existence. Melania's "do better" is trite and salaciously hypocritical. But what Dan means, as far as I know him, is that we Americans have all the reason in the world to do better as we have been given gifts by God unparalleled in human history. Gifts of comfort and power the dimensions of which could easily provide equity for everyone in this nation. And that would be basic natural love.
I think, though, that such an eschatological reality - reaching near to communal perfection - is timed to the mysteries of God's will. Without a spiritual relationship to God, even biblical ethics is not enough to sustain hope over a lifetime in the 21st or any earlier century.
And a spiritual relationship with God for the duration of the christian church has only and always been achievable in private contemplation, communal worship, and the sacramental presence of God in the Holy Spirit. A spiritual relationship with God is personal (Christ in you) communal (you are the body of Christ) and ritually - sacramentally lived - (take and eat my body and drink my blood). Christ himself is the sacrament of the encounter with God.
David's biblical review, whether he is sincere or not, raise in us the existential need to understand who Jesus is if we are going to be in relationship to him. David's assumption is that we proclaim Jesus as the incarnate God. And, from the Council of Chalcedon on, the historic church's understanding - unspoken but present in David's wrestling - is that the Incarnate Jesus is fully God and a conscious and feeling (and learning) human being.
To relate to Jesus the Christ, we need some grasp on how he is such. In an intimate relationship with Jesus the Christ, in a growing, deepening, developing relationship, we will come to know him more and more, in his divinity and in his humanity.
Faith seeks to understand so that a person of faith may both live in deepening love toward Jesus and to express that same love to others. Come what may. In Eden or in Hell.
That! is faith that endures in changing the world.
David, I'm willing to engage. Are you? What is your deepest, most worrisome question?
Well, maybe the vulnerability/visibility was too much for David?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, here’s a bit of help, maybe, in reading the seemingly contradictory passages David has posted for us:
“In the Summa Theologiae (Part III, Questions 9-12), St. Thomas Aquinas argues that because Christ assumed a perfect human nature for the purpose of salvation, his human soul possessed three distinct, complementary ways of knowing. These three ways allow Christ to be both a "pilgrim" (experiencing human life) and a "comprehensor" (possessing divine vision).
The three ways Aquinas bestows human knowledge on the Incarnation are:
1. Beatific Knowledge (Vision of the Divine Essence)
Aquinas argues that from the moment of his conception, Christ's human soul possessed the Beatific Vision, seeing God face-to-face just as the angels and saints do in heaven.
• Significance: Because Christ is the Mediator, he must possess the ultimate goal of humanity (union with God) while on earth.
• Nature: This knowledge is not discursive or successive but is an intuitive, immediate vision of the divine essence.
2. Infused Knowledge (Knowledge of Species)
Beyond the direct vision of God, Aquinas posits that Christ's human soul was endowed with infused knowledge (or "imprinted" knowledge), similar to that of angels.
• Significance: This allowed Christ to know all things that can be naturally known by the human intellect, as well as the mysteries of grace and prophetic knowledge.
• Nature: It is a created knowledge infused into Christ's soul by the Word, allowing him to understand all creatures and all human truths instantly, rather than through slow learning.
3. Acquired Knowledge (Experimental Knowledge)
Aquinas argues for a third type of knowledge—acquired, or experiential, knowledge—which Christ obtained through his senses and the active intellect.
• Significance: This allowed Christ to truly grow in knowledge and experience human life step-by-step, as indicated by Scripture ("He increased in wisdom and age").
• Nature: Although Aquinas notes this knowledge was "maximally perfect" (he knew what he needed to at each stage), it was acquired over time, allowing him to "learn" through experience, thus confirming the reality of his human nature
Actually, this was my own comment to David.
DeleteDavid?
ReplyDeleteHe's made an appearance on my page yesterday, as well as in an email. I don't mind answering questions but I'm not at all sure he's a real person... or if he's one of the trolls trying to troll.
ReplyDeleteI read his comments to you. They seem genuine.
DeleteDavid appears to have left the building. If "David" ever was.
ReplyDeleteIn the way that radical protestant church life doesn't educate us to really think deeply - AT ALL - about the incarnation unless we individually seek it out, I doubt that David has the confidence to engage with these 5 long posts/too brief essays.
DeleteI don't blame him. All the Thugs are sorely lacking. It's American anti-intellectualism that protects the fragile ego.