I'm attempting to describe the underlying tensions in the narrative. It's a good illustration of the power of myth to encapsulate the human condition, but I really can't have a conversation on the basis that it acctually happened. That's just bonkers.
W well, I’m sorry to hear that, and i guess I’ll refrain from answering your post then.
The main point I'm after is that God, allegedly, could have chosen any one of a countless number of ways to establish and safeguard eternal relationship with humans other than the rigged, continuously failing one God did.
As has already been noted, this seems to rest on the assumption that the story/stories in Genesis should be understood as literal history rather than in something like a mythic/metaphorical sense. I realize, of course, that many, including some here, do read Genesis as reflecting what literally happened, and I’m not setting out to argue with them. But that’s not the only way that faithful Christians read Genesis.
Often, yes, but I don't think it holds up any better in a mythical/metaphorical framework. It's a bad/poor story.
For goodness' sakes, people, I didn't say my baby was a monster of depravity! I said I saw the first sign of the universal human illness in him--because he deliberately tried to deceive me. And the manner of it was such that I had to go in the other room and laugh myself silly, because really, an eight month old? But I didn't want to be reinforcing that sort of behavior, thus I went in the other room. And you can be highly amused at something that is, humanly speaking, innocent--and yet at the same time recognize that it is in fact a first manifestation of the brokenness of the world, showing up in a new human being.
I would have given you the details, but now that I'm apparently some heartless horror of a mother, I think I won't.
I don't think this means we are innately "bad" or "evil." If we were, we wouldn't be in conflict with ourselves. What we are, is messed up--infected--twisted--marred, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the person. Some people it's really noticeable in, others maybe not at all, especially if we don't live with them. But it was one of the griefs of parenthood, watching my baby grow and seeing the familiar human infection manifest itself--not just in bad behavior, but in brokenness--the inability to truly trust or believe oneself beloved, that sort of thing. And nothing I did as a parent could head it off, though I tried, of course, who wouldn't?
I usually use the model of infection, as it seems to fit best with how sin propagates itself--basically, since sin entered our species, it's become something we're born with or born into, however you want to say it. Something that shows itself early--my son was eight months old when he first tried to deceive me--and something that is progressive and deadly if it doesn't get proper treatment.
It looks like you're saying that we're not innately evil, but that we are innately sinful, and that we all (with one exception) inevitably do evil things.
Do you think you were predisposed to see your son's behaviour as unhealthily "sinful" by virtue of your beliefs, in contrast (for example) to another mother who might view it as being healthily "wilful" behaviour, albeit behaviour that needed correcting?
Now the way the infection shows itself in human lives is generally in what we call individual "sins," which are acts, words, or thoughts that are anti-God and anti-life--the sorts of things almost everybody knows instinctively is wrong.
Broad brushstroke? My understanding is that there are widely varying views on the morality of various issues, including some of the ones you mentioned. Are lies told in order to prevent harm wrong? Are they sinful?
No, I don't. It wasn't wilfulness, it was a deliberate and obvious attempt to deceive, and it was hilarious. And the only way I could call it sinful was in contrast with perfection--because really, an eight month old? Against any ordinary human standard, that's innocent. But the slightest shade of gray is still a departure from completely bright.
As it was, I laughed myself silly--and I was sad, too, because I knew what it heralded.
As for broad brushstrokes, the list I provided there, in context, was intended to be broad brushstrokes. We were not discussing an individual case, we were talking about concepts. Of course it was broad! Did you expect detail from a simple list? Or would you please look at the context which includes the bit you quoted--and see that I'm talking about things that are anti-life and anti-God.
If you want to discuss whether a lie can ever be non-sinful, feel free to start a thread. but it's a bit much to expect surgical precision in a list provided to flesh out the general concept of "sin." I'd have to use hyperlinks and about 60 pages of text just to flesh it out adequately, if you hold me to that level of detail.
I find the concept that an 8 month old baby could in any sense be described as "sinful" to be... disturbing.
The alternative to me, though, is to say that 8-month-old baby is, in some sense, not human.
I think this is where I find equating “sin” with something like “evil” problematic. By describing an infant as “sinful,” I definitely don’t mean anything like “evil” or the like. I just mean something like that infant, as he or she goes through life, is inevitably going to make some choices that hurt themselves and hurt others, some decisions that are the wrong decisions, just like all the rest of us.
This reminds me of a portion of the French Reformed baptismal liturgy that is often found in American Presbyterian (PC(USA) at least) baptismal liturgies. It’s spoken directly to the newly-baptized infant by the minister. It can be found in various forms, substantially the same but with a few differences here and there. The form I’m most familiar with is:
For you, little one,
the Spirit of God moved over the waters at creation,
and the Lord God made covenants with his people.
It was for you that the Word of God became flesh and lived among us,
full of grace and truth.
For you, name, Jesus Christ suffered death
crying out at the end, “It is finished!”
For you Christ triumphed over death,
rose in newness of life,
and ascended to rule over all.
All of this was done for you, little one,
though you do not know any of this yet.
But we will continue to tell you this good news
until it becomes your own.
And so the promise of the gospel is fulfilled:
“We love because God first loved us.”
Often, yes, but I don't think it holds up any better in a mythical/metaphorical framework. It's a bad/poor story.
It seems to be a metaphorical representation of something in human experience though. The story of the person who lives in happiness until they open the one forbidden door, or lights the lamp they've been forbidden to light, or brings up the subject they've been told not to bring up, seems pretty recurrent to me.
(That said the only non-European (African) example I can think of, apart from Genesis itself, explicitly refers to Adam (although whether Christian or Islamic I don't know)).
There's the problematic "like us" clause (please don't try to shoehorn the Trinity in there -- that won't wash).
It might wash. It depends on how much God intended those words to come down through time to us, not only whatever cultural factors were involved at the time.
As for foreknowing the Flood (however that may have played out in history raised than sacred myth), again in my understanding of traditional Christian theology, God knows everything not from a past point in time, “fore”seeing it, but seeing all of time and space and our free willed decisions in His eternal, transcendent Now.
Often, yes, but I don't think it holds up any better in a mythical/metaphorical framework. It's a bad/poor story.
It seems to be a metaphorical representation of something in human experience though. The story of the person who lives in happiness until they open the one forbidden door, or lights the lamp they've been forbidden to light, or brings up the subject they've been told not to bring up, seems pretty recurrent to me.
(That said the only non-European (African) example I can think of, apart from Genesis itself, explicitly refers to Adam (although whether Christian or Islamic I don't know)).
There was this one, in which he was told not to open the box…
I don't think this means we are innately "bad" or "evil." If we were, we wouldn't be in conflict with ourselves. What we are, is messed up--infected--twisted--marred, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the person. Some people it's really noticeable in, others maybe not at all, especially if we don't live with them. But it was one of the griefs of parenthood, watching my baby grow and seeing the familiar human infection manifest itself--not just in bad behavior, but in brokenness--the inability to truly trust or believe oneself beloved, that sort of thing. And nothing I did as a parent could head it off, though I tried, of course, who wouldn't?
I usually use the model of infection, as it seems to fit best with how sin propagates itself--basically, since sin entered our species, it's become something we're born with or born into, however you want to say it. Something that shows itself early--my son was eight months old when he first tried to deceive me--and something that is progressive and deadly if it doesn't get proper treatment.
It looks like you're saying that we're not innately evil, but that we are innately sinful, and that we all (with one exception) inevitably do evil things.
Do you think you were predisposed to see your son's behaviour as unhealthily "sinful" by virtue of your beliefs, in contrast (for example) to another mother who might view it as being healthily "wilful" behaviour, albeit behaviour that needed correcting?
Now the way the infection shows itself in human lives is generally in what we call individual "sins," which are acts, words, or thoughts that are anti-God and anti-life--the sorts of things almost everybody knows instinctively is wrong.
Broad brushstroke? My understanding is that there are widely varying views on the morality of various issues, including some of the ones you mentioned. Are lies told in order to prevent harm wrong? Are they sinful?
No, I don't. It wasn't wilfulness, it was a deliberate and obvious attempt to deceive, and it was hilarious. And the only way I could call it sinful was in contrast with perfection--because really, an eight month old? Against any ordinary human standard, that's innocent. But the slightest shade of gray is still a departure from completely bright.
Thanks - this helps me understand your perspective.
As it was, I laughed myself silly--and I was sad, too, because I knew what it heralded.
I agree about it being hard not to laugh, at least.
As for broad brushstrokes, the list I provided there, in context, was intended to be broad brushstrokes. We were not discussing an individual case, we were talking about concepts. Of course it was broad! Did you expect detail from a simple list? Or would you please look at the context which includes the bit you quoted--and see that I'm talking about things that are anti-life and anti-God.
It was the "almost everybody knows instinctively is wrong" I thought was rather sweeping - I'm not sure an 8-month-old knows does know about the wrongness of these things instinctively - my understanding is that it all has to be learned.
If you want to discuss whether a lie can ever be non-sinful, feel free to start a thread. but it's a bit much to expect surgical precision in a list provided to flesh out the general concept of "sin." I'd have to use hyperlinks and about 60 pages of text just to flesh it out adequately, if you hold me to that level of detail.
Err - I wasn't looking for an in-depth study, I just had in mind something like lying to someone with dementia because they're unable to remember that their life-partner has died.
Meanwhile, there seems to be some wilful ambiguity about the evilness of sin on this thread - I get the impression that some people think that sin is doctrinally evil, but they would rather use euphemisms when discussing it. Which is understandable, but makes the reasoning hard to follow.
With regard to “original sin,” that seems to me to be a second- or third-tier doctrine. It’s not found the ecumenical creeds, nor is it a foundational doctrine in the way that, say, the Incarnation or the Resurrection are. Rather, it’s an attempt to understand both what Christians believe has been revealed—that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, and that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”—and what we observe about human reality, which boils down to despite their best efforts, humans screw up, make wrong choices and fail to do right. Everyone does, without exception.
To the extent that “original sin,” as it has historically been understood, helps in understanding that human reality, it is useful. To the extent it distorts human reality or leads us to incorrect assumptions or conclusions, it is not helpful. And to the extent that the name “original sin” misleads us, turns the idea into something it’s not (like being about sex) or otherwise distorts how we think about human reality (such as by setting up a false binary between “original sin” and “and God saw that it was good”), it’s no longer workable. (I could say very much the same thing about “total depravity.” Now there’s a name that doesn’t at all convey what the doctrine is really about.)
This.
If I said I knew someone who was perfect, who never did anything wrong, no one here would believe me. The thread on facts and beliefs has been very interesting and the categories for 'knowledge' 'facts' 'truth' and 'beliefs' are complex, but all of us know on some deep level that all humans do wrong things.
The Why and the How are the open questions.
I love the TV show Scrubs. It's very funny and entertaining. It also works on a deeper level. I don't watch medical shows, they annoy me too much. They don't relate to the lived experience of being a medic.
Scrubs is very silly. But in the midst of that silliness, it captures something of what it's like to be a doctor. This scene is a great example: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3OSOlB90XKo
The idea that myth and allegory can speak to deeper truths is not novel. Genesis 3 contains a lot of theology. Here is some of it:
The Man and the Woman are in a right relationship with each other because they are in a right relationship with God
The sin of taking the fruit is an action of disobeying a specific instruction
When tempted by the serpent, the woman thought the fruit looked good and wanted to gain 'god-like' knowledge and by doing so, she was deciding that she knew better than God
The Protoevangelium
the first announcement of the Gospel - that God would fix this
The common assertion is that all of us do this. We 'play God' in the sense of making ourselves, our desires, our wishes and our wants the centre of the universe. The biblical world view is that God and only God is the centre and the universe belongs to him.
As Nick put it Original Sin is an attempt to summerise this. It is a way to describe the human condition in relation to God.
A quick word of explanation: Angels in the Bible are messengers of God. We do not know if they have free will.Satan might be a special case; human being could be an experiment. Who knows?
A quick word of explanation: Angels in the Bible are messengers of God. We do not know if they have free will.Satan might be a special case; human being could be an experiment. Who knows?
Whatever you have to believe @Eirenist. I can try and make it work as a story, but as with all fantasy, you have to suspend disbelief. Human being could be an experiment by what agent?
Often, yes, but I don't think it holds up any better in a mythical/metaphorical framework. It's a bad/poor story.
It seems to be a metaphorical representation of something in human experience though. The story of the person who lives in happiness until they open the one forbidden door, or lights the lamp they've been forbidden to light, or brings up the subject they've been told not to bring up, seems pretty recurrent to me.
(That said the only non-European (African) example I can think of, apart from Genesis itself, explicitly refers to Adam (although whether Christian or Islamic I don't know)).
I see your point, yes, which extends all of the way into horror movies when a dread-filled character descends into the darkened basement.
There's the problematic "like us" clause (please don't try to shoehorn the Trinity in there -- that won't wash).
It might wash. It depends on how much God intended those words to come down through time to us, not only whatever cultural factors were involved at the time.
I think a closer reading is the one that refers to a pantheon of gods, of which YHWH was one.
Often, yes, but I don't think it holds up any better in a mythical/metaphorical framework. It's a bad/poor story.
It seems to be a metaphorical representation of something in human experience though. The story of the person who lives in happiness until they open the one forbidden door, or lights the lamp they've been forbidden to light, or brings up the subject they've been told not to bring up, seems pretty recurrent to me.
(That said the only non-European (African) example I can think of, apart from Genesis itself, explicitly refers to Adam (although whether Christian or Islamic I don't know)).
I see your point, yes, which extends all of the way into horror movies when a dread-filled character descends into the darkened basement.
There's the problematic "like us" clause (please don't try to shoehorn the Trinity in there -- that won't wash).
It might wash. It depends on how much God intended those words to come down through time to us, not only whatever cultural factors were involved at the time.
I think a closer reading is the one that refers to a pantheon of gods, of which YHWH was one.
That could be one of the cultural factors that might be involved.
A quick word of explanation: Angels in the Bible are messengers of God. We do not know if they have free will.Satan might be a special case; human being could be an experiment. Who knows?
I think most Christians would say that angels have (or had?) free will, and that about a third of them, including Lucifer (now Satan), used it wrongly. I’ve never heard any orthodox Christian teaching suggest that human beings are “an experiment.” For one thing, if God exists in eternity and already knows the outcome of our use and misuse of free will, why run an experiment?
I'm beginning to think that it's a shame Pelagius lost the argument to Augustine.
Less controversially, I'm wondering to what extent Augustine, as the winner, wrote the history books, and how many of the ideas ascribed to Pelagius were actually believed by him.
Pelagius wrote about how to be a Christian in the early fifth century as the Western Roman Empire started to disintegrate, and is the first known British author. He was condemned as a heretic in 418 for teaching a collection of ideas almost all of which he did not, in fact, teach.
In reality, he was labelled a heretic for his defence of free will and the goodness of human nature against three intertwined doctrines that were being promulgated as orthodox doctrine at the time: original sin, an absolutist account of prevenient grace, and predestination interpreted as preordainment.
It's hard to know what Pelagius was actually teaching and as has been said before, the Eastern part of Christendom was prepared to cut him some more slack, but without legitimising whatever it was he was actually teaching.
I'm very wary of falling into a binary position on this one.
Pelagius - Good guy.
Augustine - Bad guy.
Pelagius - Bad guy.
Augustine - Good guy.
I don't think it works as neatly as that.
I've seen some Anabaptist material that makes out that Pelagius was the good guy and everyone else was wrong.
But then, if you take the Anabaptist thing to its logical conclusion then Christianity as a whole was only 'right' and good and healthy for about 5 minutes on a Thursday afternoon immediately after Pentecost.
Human beings, my inner Pratchett suggests, might be an experiment of God to see what happens if you give an autonomous being reason and the ability to make choices. I conceive of angels (if they exist) as emanations of God, I question whether they can be completely autonomous. Satan, obviously, is the problem here. All this is perilous speculation of a disordered imaginaion, of course.
Human beings, my inner Pratchett suggests, might be an experiment of God to see what happens if you give an autonomous being reason and the ability to make choices. I conceive of angels (if they exist) as emanations of God, I question whether they can be completely autonomous. Satan, obviously, is the problem here. All this is perilous speculation of a disordered imaginaion, of course.
Eternity, as in time after time, for ever and ever, backwards, not forwards of course, was in the ground of being; if that were Love, then Love can do no experiment any more than nature can. It's all been done an infinite 'number' of times. Creation, with our without an intentional creator, is eternal. There can be nothing new. No experiments.
For one thing, if God exists in eternity and already knows the outcome of our use and misuse of free will, why run an experiment?
Whether God knows what would have have happened if things had been otherwise is a debate in Christian theology, since arguably there is nothing there to know.
(On this account true statements about counterfactuals are statements about the causes that would operate under the hypothetical scenario.)
That said, how God's knowledge interacts with human freedom is also a debated point. The theologians I most respect take a compatibilist position: that is God is on a plane so different from created beings that God's actions do not interfere with our actions in the way two created beings might interfere.
It's hard to know what Pelagius was actually teaching and as has been said before, the Eastern part of Christendom was prepared to cut him some more slack, but without legitimising whatever it was he was actually teaching.
I'm very wary of falling into a binary position on this one.
Pelagius - Good guy.
Augustine - Bad guy.
Pelagius - Bad guy.
Augustine - Good guy.
I don't think it works as neatly as that.
I suppose part of the point is that at the time, it *was* a binary issue - theologians made their cases, but it was the church that ruled on matters of truth. The argument that each theologian put forward was, in itself, rather less authoritative than the position taken by the church. If he was unlucky, the loser was branded a heretic and his argument branded a heresy.
I suspect that the idea that individual "ordinary" Christians could debate and decide for themselves would have struck everyone involved as bizarre. The way we do (doctrinal) theology now wasn't an option. (I guess things started changing around Luther's time.)
Ok, more seriously, Arius appears to have lost by a narrow margin. Things would have been very different had his views prevailed.
We have no way of telling how things might have turned out if Pelagius had won out over Augustine or if Luther hadn't been offered refuge by the German Princes or if Constantinople hadn't fallen to the Ottomans or if the envoys from Rus had plumped for Islam instead of Byzantine Christianity ... *
Or if different books had been included in the scriptural canon other than the ones we have now, or... or ... or ...
* a reference to the story about the conversion of the Rus.
For one thing, if God exists in eternity and already knows the outcome of our use and misuse of free will, why run an experiment?
Whether God knows what would have have happened if things had been otherwise is a debate in Christian theology, since arguably there is nothing there to know.
(On this account true statements about counterfactuals are statements about the causes that would operate under the hypothetical scenario.)
That said, how God's knowledge interacts with human freedom is also a debated point. The theologians I most respect take a compatibilist position: that is God is on a plane so different from created beings that God's actions do not interfere with our actions in the way two created beings might interfere.
I agree that in terms of what “would have happened” is something for which there is nothing to know. The decisions that He sees us freely make throughout time and space from His Eternal vantage point have to be made for Him to see them, as I understand it.
I’m not sure how you mean God’s actions “do not interfere”—I mean there is miracle and Providence, as I understand it. And interaction through prayer, the Sacraments, and such.
The theologians I most respect take a compatibilist position: that is God is on a plane so different from created beings that God's actions do not interfere with our actions in the way two created beings might interfere.
I’m not sure how you mean God’s actions “do not interfere”—I mean there is miracle and Providence, as I understand it. And interaction through prayer, the Sacraments, and such.
Paraphrasing Rowan Williams as I understand his argument, possibly badly:
Williams starts with Christology. Jesus is both God and human. One doesn't override the other or alter the other. There was an argument, mostly in the Eastern Church, as to whether Jesus had two wills, one as God and one as human, or only one will. The apparent problem with the latter is it sounds like the two wills could decide to do something different. However, theologians, of whom the most respected was Maximus the Confessor, worried that one will would mean either Jesus wasn't properly human or properly God. Their point of view won the argument. Their answer to the problem is that just as God's nature and human nature are so different in kind that it's possible for Jesus to be both without contradiction, so it's possible for God's will and Jesus's will to both operate freely while always coming to the same conclusion.
The same applies to us. Unlike created knowledge, Aquinas writes, where what is known causes the knowledge, God's knowledge causes what is known in the way a craftsman's knowledge of what he's making causes what is made, or an author's knowledge of her characters causes those characters.
I think the authorial analogy works here: a great author creates everything her characters do but at the same time she respects the characters' own integrity and freedom. So Jane Eyre turns down Rochester both because she chooses to and that's who she is, and because that's the story Brontë wanted to tell.
(I presume that has something to do with why there is sin; one can't say God chooses there to be sin.)
I’m thinking (in terms of God seeing everything in time from His vantage point in Eternity) more along these lines here, also in Aquinas (and in Boethius):
St. Thomas Aquinas said:
And although contingent things become actual successively, nevertheless God knows contingent things not successively, as they are in their own being, as we do but simultaneously. The reason is because His knowledge is measured by eternity, as is also His being; and eternity being simultaneously whole comprises all time, as said above (I:10:2). Hence all things that are in time are present to God from eternity, not only because He has the types of things present within Him, as some say; but because His glance is carried from eternity over all things as they are in their presentiality. Hence it is manifest that contingent things are infallibly known by God, inasmuch as they are subject to the divine sight in their presentiality; yet they are future contingent things in relation to their own causes.
And
Things reduced to act in time, as known by us successively in time, but by God (are known) in eternity, which is above time. Whence to us they cannot be certain, forasmuch as we know future contingent things as such; but (they are certain) to God alone, whose understanding is in eternity above time. Just as he who goes along the road, does not see those who come after him; whereas he who sees the whole road from a height, sees at once all travelling by the way. Hence what is known by us must be necessary, even as it is in itself; for what is future contingent in itself, cannot be known by us. Whereas what is known by God must be necessary according to the mode in which they are subject to the divine knowledge, as already stated, but not absolutely as considered in their own causes.
The theologians I most respect take a compatibilist position: that is God is on a plane so different from created beings that God's actions do not interfere with our actions in the way two created beings might interfere.
I’m not sure how you mean God’s actions “do not interfere”—I mean there is miracle and Providence, as I understand it. And interaction through prayer, the Sacraments, and such.
Paraphrasing Rowan Williams as I understand his argument, possibly badly:
Williams starts with Christology. Jesus is both God and human. One doesn't override the other or alter the other. There was an argument, mostly in the Eastern Church, as to whether Jesus had two wills, one as God and one as human, or only one will. The apparent problem with the latter is it sounds like the two wills could decide to do something different. However, theologians, of whom the most respected was Maximus the Confessor, worried that one will would mean either Jesus wasn't properly human or properly God. Their point of view won the argument. Their answer to the problem is that just as God's nature and human nature are so different in kind that it's possible for Jesus to be both without contradiction, so it's possible for God's will and Jesus's will to both operate freely while always coming to the same conclusion.
The same applies to us. Unlike created knowledge, Aquinas writes, where what is known causes the knowledge, God's knowledge causes what is known in the way a craftsman's knowledge of what he's making causes what is made, or an author's knowledge of her characters causes those characters.
I think the authorial analogy works here: a great author creates everything her characters do but at the same time she respects the characters' own integrity and freedom. So Jane Eyre turns down Rochester both because she chooses to and that's who she is, and because that's the story Brontë wanted to tell.
(I presume that has something to do with why there is sin; one can't say God chooses there to be sin.)
I’m thinking (in terms of God seeing everything in time from His vantage point in Eternity) more along these lines here, also in Aquinas (and in Boethius):
St. Thomas Aquinas said:
Hence what is known by us must be necessary, even as it is in itself; for what is future contingent in itself, cannot be known by us. Whereas what is known by God must be necessary according to the mode in which they are subject to the divine knowledge, as already stated, but not absolutely as considered in their own causes.
As I understand it, it's that very last bit that leaves the "space" for human free will. (God's actions not interfering ...)
I’m thinking (in terms of God seeing everything in time from His vantage point in Eternity) more along these lines here, also in Aquinas (and in Boethius):
St. Thomas Aquinas said:
Hence what is known by us must be necessary, even as it is in itself; for what is future contingent in itself, cannot be known by us. Whereas what is known by God must be necessary according to the mode in which they are subject to the divine knowledge, as already stated, but not absolutely as considered in their own causes.
As I understand it, it's that very last bit that leaves the "space" for human free will. (God's actions not interfering ...)
@Eirenist I think the Church, from parts of the NT has made Satan into a problem. In the book of Job, he is an agent of God and a member of the heavenly court. He fulfillls this role perfectly in the temptations of Jesus. The Father has to test whether Jesus could be capable of using his special gifts for his own self-aggrandisement. Fortunately he wasn't, but only through being tempted could he show that.
There was a rabbinic tale about an elderly king who wanted to pass on the reins of power to hos son. But he wanted to be sure that his son was of the utmost moral worth. So he hired a seductress to try and tempt his son into immorality. The son passed the challenge and took over the kingdom. The seductress, in that story, fulfills the role of Satan. She is doing the will of the king. Satan does God's will for similar purposes.
I've heard various preachers make similar points. It doesn't let Satan off the hook as it were.
But your point isn't that unusual in and of itself, although probably carried further than those preachers I mentioned would be prepared to go.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard a preacher claim that the Father had to test Jesus, and that the accuser in the desert was just doing the Father’s will. It’s a new idea to me, and one that strikes me as pretty problematic, starting with trying to get my head around God testing God.
Ok. I may have caused unnecessary confusion here. I should have been more specific.
Like you, I've never heard preachers say that the Father had to test Jesus.
What I have heard is that Satan is God's 'unpaid servant' as it were, that God can work good out of what the Devil intends for harm.
I was riffing with that idea.
But yes, I too find pablito1954's point about the temptation of Christ problematic. I s'pose what I was driving at was the more general point that the Devil can unwittingly serve God's purpose, if we can put it in those terms.
@Gamma Gamaliel " I am the Lord and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness. I make good and create evil. I the Lord do all these things. (Isaiah 45. 6-7) As a monist, as opposed to a dualist, I don't believe in anything or entity which has any power to override God's will. We nay be unable, with our feeble ape brains, to understand the purpose of Satan, which I just see as our evil urge towards nihilism, but I believe that, in the end, all manner of things will be well, to quote Dame Julian of Norwich.
I'm not so petty and party-spirited to dismiss all post-Schism figures.
😉
I think what @Nick Tamen and I were pushing back on was the notion that God the Father was using Satan to 'test' Christ through the Temptation.
I can see what you are getting at but it's not a view I've come across in that particular instance. For all I know, that might be Patristic references or writings from other periods of Christian history that incline towards that view.
I've not come across that but then I'm no expert. @Nick Tamen doesn't appear to have encountered it either and he seems well versed in all matters Reformed.
Perhaps you can help us with references? Or other Shipmates who may be able to shed light on this one?
I've heard various preachers make similar points. It doesn't let Satan off the hook as it were.
But your point isn't that unusual in and of itself, although probably carried further than those preachers I mentioned would be prepared to go.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard a preacher claim that the Father had to test Jesus, and that the accuser in the desert was just doing the Father’s will. It’s a new idea to me, and one that strikes me as pretty problematic, starting with trying to get my head around God testing God.
I've heard various preachers make similar points. It doesn't let Satan off the hook as it were.
But your point isn't that unusual in and of itself, although probably carried further than those preachers I mentioned would be prepared to go.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard a preacher claim that the Father had to test Jesus, and that the accuser in the desert was just doing the Father’s will. It’s a new idea to me, and one that strikes me as pretty problematic, starting with trying to get my head around God testing God.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard a preacher claim that the Father had to test Jesus, and that the accuser in the desert was just doing the Father’s will. It’s a new idea to me, and one that strikes me as pretty problematic, starting with trying to get my head around God testing God.
Like you, I've never heard preachers say that the Father had to test Jesus.
I have.
May I ask what denomination(s)/tradition(s) the preachers you’ve heard say this belong to?
I had a feeling you might ask. It might have been liberal evangelical, Anglican, but depending on the context, of which I have no clear memory, it could have been a visiting speaker of almost any (more-or-less evangelical) ilk.
I've always understood the idea of God allowing Satan to tempt Jesus as being reasonably mainstream.
Given that the idea of God forsaking God seems pretty central to the narrative, I don't find the idea of God testing God particularly problematic.
I may be quite off, but it seems to me there’s a difference when Jesus, who is also fully human, feels forsaken by the Father.
Interesting indeed.
I note you use the word "feels" (in contrast to "was"), which suggests the direction in which your interpretation of this leans.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard a preacher claim that the Father had to test Jesus, and that the accuser in the desert was just doing the Father’s will. It’s a new idea to me, and one that strikes me as pretty problematic, starting with trying to get my head around God testing God.
Like you, I've never heard preachers say that the Father had to test Jesus.
I have.
May I ask what denomination(s)/tradition(s) the preachers you’ve heard say this belong to?
I had a feeling you might ask. It might have been liberal evangelical, Anglican, but depending on the context, of which I have no clear memory, it could have been a visiting speaker of almost any (more-or-less evangelical) ilk.
No problem.
I've always understood the idea of God allowing Satan to tempt Jesus as being reasonably mainstream.
Given that the idea of God forsaking God seems pretty central to the narrative, I don't find the idea of God testing God particularly problematic.
I may be quite off, but it seems to me there’s a difference when Jesus, who is also fully human, feels forsaken by the Father.
Interesting indeed.
I note you use the word "feels" (in contrast to "was"), which suggests the direction in which your interpretation of this leans.
Whether there's a difference or not depends on how you envisage God's will interacts with the will of all the creatures of His creation - whether Satan is free to do anything that isn't in accordance with God's will.
Whether there's a difference or not depends on how you envisage God's will interacts with the will of all the creatures of His creation - whether Satan is free to do anything that isn't in accordance with God's will.
The NT writers, and Jesus as they report him, seem to believe that Satan was free to oppose the will of God. Post-exile/Second Temple Judaism had a different view of Satan from that reflected in Job.
Luke’s conclusion to the temptation narrative—“When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.”—suggests to me someone acting from their own motivations, not on behalf of God. And the use of “devil” (diabolou in Greek) suggests something other than the Satan we see in Job.
Comments
W well, I’m sorry to hear that, and i guess I’ll refrain from answering your post then.
Often, yes, but I don't think it holds up any better in a mythical/metaphorical framework. It's a bad/poor story.
I would have given you the details, but now that I'm apparently some heartless horror of a mother, I think I won't.
No, I don't. It wasn't wilfulness, it was a deliberate and obvious attempt to deceive, and it was hilarious. And the only way I could call it sinful was in contrast with perfection--because really, an eight month old? Against any ordinary human standard, that's innocent. But the slightest shade of gray is still a departure from completely bright.
As it was, I laughed myself silly--and I was sad, too, because I knew what it heralded.
As for broad brushstrokes, the list I provided there, in context, was intended to be broad brushstrokes. We were not discussing an individual case, we were talking about concepts. Of course it was broad! Did you expect detail from a simple list? Or would you please look at the context which includes the bit you quoted--and see that I'm talking about things that are anti-life and anti-God.
If you want to discuss whether a lie can ever be non-sinful, feel free to start a thread. but it's a bit much to expect surgical precision in a list provided to flesh out the general concept of "sin." I'd have to use hyperlinks and about 60 pages of text just to flesh it out adequately, if you hold me to that level of detail.
I think this is where I find equating “sin” with something like “evil” problematic. By describing an infant as “sinful,” I definitely don’t mean anything like “evil” or the like. I just mean something like that infant, as he or she goes through life, is inevitably going to make some choices that hurt themselves and hurt others, some decisions that are the wrong decisions, just like all the rest of us.
This reminds me of a portion of the French Reformed baptismal liturgy that is often found in American Presbyterian (PC(USA) at least) baptismal liturgies. It’s spoken directly to the newly-baptized infant by the minister. It can be found in various forms, substantially the same but with a few differences here and there. The form I’m most familiar with is:
For you, little one,
the Spirit of God moved over the waters at creation,
and the Lord God made covenants with his people.
It was for you that the Word of God became flesh and lived among us,
full of grace and truth.
For you, name, Jesus Christ suffered death
crying out at the end, “It is finished!”
For you Christ triumphed over death,
rose in newness of life,
and ascended to rule over all.
All of this was done for you, little one,
though you do not know any of this yet.
But we will continue to tell you this good news
until it becomes your own.
And so the promise of the gospel is fulfilled:
“We love because God first loved us.”
Fixed code - la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
(That said the only non-European (African) example I can think of, apart from Genesis itself, explicitly refers to Adam (although whether Christian or Islamic I don't know)).
It might wash. It depends on how much God intended those words to come down through time to us, not only whatever cultural factors were involved at the time.
As for foreknowing the Flood (however that may have played out in history raised than sacred myth), again in my understanding of traditional Christian theology, God knows everything not from a past point in time, “fore”seeing it, but seeing all of time and space and our free willed decisions in His eternal, transcendent Now.
And I was aiming for, but can’t recall the exact words I was trying to type:
(however that may have played out in history, whether in history or in sacred myth).
There was this one, in which he was told not to open the box…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urashima_Tarō
I agree about it being hard not to laugh, at least.
It was the "almost everybody knows instinctively is wrong" I thought was rather sweeping - I'm not sure an 8-month-old knows does know about the wrongness of these things instinctively - my understanding is that it all has to be learned.
Err - I wasn't looking for an in-depth study, I just had in mind something like lying to someone with dementia because they're unable to remember that their life-partner has died.
This.
If I said I knew someone who was perfect, who never did anything wrong, no one here would believe me. The thread on facts and beliefs has been very interesting and the categories for 'knowledge' 'facts' 'truth' and 'beliefs' are complex, but all of us know on some deep level that all humans do wrong things.
The Why and the How are the open questions.
I love the TV show Scrubs. It's very funny and entertaining. It also works on a deeper level. I don't watch medical shows, they annoy me too much. They don't relate to the lived experience of being a medic.
Scrubs is very silly. But in the midst of that silliness, it captures something of what it's like to be a doctor. This scene is a great example:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3OSOlB90XKo
The idea that myth and allegory can speak to deeper truths is not novel. Genesis 3 contains a lot of theology. Here is some of it:
the first announcement of the Gospel - that God would fix this
The common assertion is that all of us do this. We 'play God' in the sense of making ourselves, our desires, our wishes and our wants the centre of the universe. The biblical world view is that God and only God is the centre and the universe belongs to him.
As Nick put it Original Sin is an attempt to summerise this. It is a way to describe the human condition in relation to God.
AFZ
Whatever you have to believe @Eirenist. I can try and make it work as a story, but as with all fantasy, you have to suspend disbelief. Human being could be an experiment by what agent?
I think a closer reading is the one that refers to a pantheon of gods, of which YHWH was one.
That could be one of the cultural factors that might be involved.
I think most Christians would say that angels have (or had?) free will, and that about a third of them, including Lucifer (now Satan), used it wrongly. I’ve never heard any orthodox Christian teaching suggest that human beings are “an experiment.” For one thing, if God exists in eternity and already knows the outcome of our use and misuse of free will, why run an experiment?
Less controversially, I'm wondering to what extent Augustine, as the winner, wrote the history books, and how many of the ideas ascribed to Pelagius were actually believed by him.
In which context I came across In praise of Pelagius
It's hard to know what Pelagius was actually teaching and as has been said before, the Eastern part of Christendom was prepared to cut him some more slack, but without legitimising whatever it was he was actually teaching.
I'm very wary of falling into a binary position on this one.
Pelagius - Good guy.
Augustine - Bad guy.
Pelagius - Bad guy.
Augustine - Good guy.
I don't think it works as neatly as that.
I've seen some Anabaptist material that makes out that Pelagius was the good guy and everyone else was wrong.
But then, if you take the Anabaptist thing to its logical conclusion then Christianity as a whole was only 'right' and good and healthy for about 5 minutes on a Thursday afternoon immediately after Pentecost.
Eternity, as in time after time, for ever and ever, backwards, not forwards of course, was in the ground of being; if that were Love, then Love can do no experiment any more than nature can. It's all been done an infinite 'number' of times. Creation, with our without an intentional creator, is eternal. There can be nothing new. No experiments.
(On this account true statements about counterfactuals are statements about the causes that would operate under the hypothetical scenario.)
That said, how God's knowledge interacts with human freedom is also a debated point. The theologians I most respect take a compatibilist position: that is God is on a plane so different from created beings that God's actions do not interfere with our actions in the way two created beings might interfere.
I suspect that the idea that individual "ordinary" Christians could debate and decide for themselves would have struck everyone involved as bizarre. The way we do (doctrinal) theology now wasn't an option. (I guess things started changing around Luther's time.)
We have no way of telling how things might have turned out if Pelagius had won out over Augustine or if Luther hadn't been offered refuge by the German Princes or if Constantinople hadn't fallen to the Ottomans or if the envoys from Rus had plumped for Islam instead of Byzantine Christianity ... *
Or if different books had been included in the scriptural canon other than the ones we have now, or... or ... or ...
* a reference to the story about the conversion of the Rus.
I agree that in terms of what “would have happened” is something for which there is nothing to know. The decisions that He sees us freely make throughout time and space from His Eternal vantage point have to be made for Him to see them, as I understand it.
I’m not sure how you mean God’s actions “do not interfere”—I mean there is miracle and Providence, as I understand it. And interaction through prayer, the Sacraments, and such.
Williams starts with Christology. Jesus is both God and human. One doesn't override the other or alter the other. There was an argument, mostly in the Eastern Church, as to whether Jesus had two wills, one as God and one as human, or only one will. The apparent problem with the latter is it sounds like the two wills could decide to do something different. However, theologians, of whom the most respected was Maximus the Confessor, worried that one will would mean either Jesus wasn't properly human or properly God. Their point of view won the argument. Their answer to the problem is that just as God's nature and human nature are so different in kind that it's possible for Jesus to be both without contradiction, so it's possible for God's will and Jesus's will to both operate freely while always coming to the same conclusion.
The same applies to us. Unlike created knowledge, Aquinas writes, where what is known causes the knowledge, God's knowledge causes what is known in the way a craftsman's knowledge of what he's making causes what is made, or an author's knowledge of her characters causes those characters.
I think the authorial analogy works here: a great author creates everything her characters do but at the same time she respects the characters' own integrity and freedom. So Jane Eyre turns down Rochester both because she chooses to and that's who she is, and because that's the story Brontë wanted to tell.
(I presume that has something to do with why there is sin; one can't say God chooses there to be sin.)
St. Thomas Aquinas said:
And
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1014.htm#article13
I like that.
Yes.
There was a rabbinic tale about an elderly king who wanted to pass on the reins of power to hos son. But he wanted to be sure that his son was of the utmost moral worth. So he hired a seductress to try and tempt his son into immorality. The son passed the challenge and took over the kingdom. The seductress, in that story, fulfills the role of Satan. She is doing the will of the king. Satan does God's will for similar purposes.
But your point isn't that unusual in and of itself, although probably carried further than those preachers I mentioned would be prepared to go.
Like you, I've never heard preachers say that the Father had to test Jesus.
What I have heard is that Satan is God's 'unpaid servant' as it were, that God can work good out of what the Devil intends for harm.
I was riffing with that idea.
But yes, I too find pablito1954's point about the temptation of Christ problematic. I s'pose what I was driving at was the more general point that the Devil can unwittingly serve God's purpose, if we can put it in those terms.
I'm not so petty and party-spirited to dismiss all post-Schism figures.
😉
I think what @Nick Tamen and I were pushing back on was the notion that God the Father was using Satan to 'test' Christ through the Temptation.
I can see what you are getting at but it's not a view I've come across in that particular instance. For all I know, that might be Patristic references or writings from other periods of Christian history that incline towards that view.
I've not come across that but then I'm no expert. @Nick Tamen doesn't appear to have encountered it either and he seems well versed in all matters Reformed.
Perhaps you can help us with references? Or other Shipmates who may be able to shed light on this one?
Given that the idea of God forsaking God seems pretty central to the narrative, I don't find the idea of God testing God particularly problematic.
I may be quite off, but it seems to me there’s a difference when Jesus, who is also fully human, feels forsaken by the Father.
Interesting indeed.
I've always understood the idea of God allowing Satan to tempt Jesus as being reasonably mainstream. I note you use the word "feels" (in contrast to "was"), which suggests the direction in which your interpretation of this leans.
Yes, “feels” was used deliberately.
Luke’s conclusion to the temptation narrative—“When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.”—suggests to me someone acting from their own motivations, not on behalf of God. And the use of “devil” (diabolou in Greek) suggests something other than the Satan we see in Job.