[soc.religion.christian] God, the Son and Logos fun!

lindborg@basin.cs.washington.edu (Jeff Lindborg) (05/07/91)

In article <May.4.22.10.32.1991.21747@athos.rutgers.edu> davidbu@loowit.wr.tek.com (David E. Buxton) writes:
>The Trinity has been a popular area in which to find heresies  down  through
>history.    The  highly  esteemed  theology of one leader, body of people or
>church has been stamped as heresy by another - heresy is in the eye  of  the
>beholder.   Battles and wars have been fought and blood has been shed.  Just
>as the saying goes: "one man's food is another man's poison", so it is  that
>one man's gospel is another man's heresy.  So let us be careful, on one hand
>to be tactful and on the other hand to strive for the  truth,  or  to  limit
>ourselves to what is clearly truth and not speculate further.

Why be so cautious?  This can be a fun and interesting topic.  The worst that can
happen is that you could end up being wrong.  As far as I know your God doesn't
send you to hell for speculating and being incorrect.  The fact of the 
matter is the Bible is not terribly clear about the nature of Christ (or the 
Word or Logos if you prefer) and His relationship to the Father and the Spirit.
As such its difficult to limit ourselves to what is "clearly" truth.

>     The Arian limited or denied divinity of Jesus.

Actually Arius stated the the Logos (by which he means the 'Son' of the Father 
which manifested itself in Jesus) was capable of sin and had free will.  It was
capable of change but didn't.  The Logos had a limited understanding of the Father
and was not perfect... it was a creation of the Father (begotten from the Father).
This, of course, was the problem that facilitated the calling of the council of 
Nicea in which many of the bishops actually plugged their ears when Arius spoke.
Maturity at its height...

>     Jesus and Satan are brothers born of God.

E-GADS! This was surely denounced as heresy on the spot!  All things were created
through Christ (the Son or Logos) including the angels (of which Satan is one). 

>     The Holy Spirit is simply the spirit of God.  When Jesus was  on  earth
>     there  was  no  God  in  heaven, or perhaps God shuttled back and forth
>     between the roles of Father and Son.  God in the OT, Jesus (really  God
>     Himself) in the NT and now back to God again.

This was the famous "Modalist" standpoint (that the three natures of the divine 
were just different 'modes' of the same being... Namely God the Father).  Sabellius
was known for pushing this and is also called the "father" of trinitarian heresy.
The problem here, of course, was how can God die for three days?  Where did He 
go for that time?  Who was taking care of the office while He was away?

>We need to be careful that we do not get into speculation about the Trinity.
>Let us examine what the Bible says about the members of the Trinity.  Let us
>draw what conclusions are clear from these texts and then leave it at  that.

Well, there are Biblical support for nearly all standpoints... even the Gnostic
idea that Christ was not human at all (known as 'Docetism') and Paul of Samosata's
claim that Christ was all human ( 'Adoptionism') and was filled with the Spirit in
the same way that the prophets were.
  Jesus says things like "He who has seen me has seen the Father" and "I and the
Father are one."  But in other places we see that the Son is 'beggoten' from the
Father and in Proverbs 8 and in Hebrews we seem to get the idea the the Son 
(or Logos) is not the same ('homoousios' or one with) as the Father but is
in fact made or brought into existence by the Father.  It is also quite unclear
as to whether or not the Son is lower on the hierarchy then the Father (as 
Origen argued in his 'graded power' structure) or if they were one in spirit
and will, differing only in 'hypostasis' (or specific identity) as Iranaeus 
argued (he, in case you're wondering, set the foundation for what is now 
considered orthodox).  
   The problems the early Christian church faced were those of trying to establish
the idea the Christ was divine AND human without sounding like they were talking
about two different gods.  Polytheism came to have a very bad name and this 
tag was to be avoided at all cost.  Christ MUST have been human to have suffered
and resisted temptation (so the argument goes) yet he must also have been 
the divine Son sent by the Father to save us from our sins etc...  As such you
see a LOT of diversity of opinion as to the nature of Christ. 
   Diversity, however, was to be discouraged by the late third and early fourth
centuries when unity and organization were being fought for.  As such the council
of Nicea was called by Constantine and the first steps (but not the final word!)
were taken to come up with one definition and exclude all others.  

>The  many  'heresies' of history come about when someone gets to speculating
>and extrapolating beyond what is clear in the Bible.  Let us accept that  we
>cannot  know all that we would like to know about the Trinity.  We know that
>there is but one God to worship, that Jesus is divine and worthy of our wor-
>ship.   How  to  explain this to full human satisfaction is something we are
>simply going to have to leave until a future date when  we  can  ask  Jesus,
>face to face, to explain it to us.

Ah!  Tertullian (a North African theologian and major tight-wad) would be quite
pleased with this attitude!  "There are certain things the human mind is not
supposed to know.  Curiosity about such things leads to evil.  These thing 
should not even be thought about..."
... can you say D.O.G.M.A. ?
  This is, of course, a total cop out.  If your position is not intellectually
defensible, perhaps it is not correct.  Simply saying you're not going to think
about it or wonder is denying the natural human tendency to do so.  God (or so
you say) made you with this natural curiosity and reasoning ability, so use
it.  I see no reason why this should be called a sin...

>These  philosophers  can  only turn to the philosophy of the pagan
>nations from which they were nurtured.  What they have to say is quite  dis-
>tinct from what we find from a careful examination of the scriptures.

But when the scriptures are incomplete, we must go elsewhere.  St. Iranaeus would
not be thrilled with your characterization of philosophy as 'pagan'.  The entire
idea of the eternal soul seperate from the corporal body is taken from Plato.
MANY parallels were found in his story of the creation and the story in 
Genesis by such greats as Origen, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria and that
eminent heretic Valentinus.  Many of the founding fathers of Christianity
who set fourth the language you use about the nature of Christ were first used
by philosophers who considered themselves to be Christian.



So lighten up and jump in... I love this topic.


Jeff Lindborg

"... the Jews shall be ashamed at the judgement when they are called to answer
for their murder of God!"
                 Melitio of Sardis (paraphrase from 'Homily on the Passover')