Posted on 08/06/2008 8:58:59 AM PDT by koinonia
More than two centuries before the Reformation, a theological debate broke out that pitted theologian Thomas Aquinas against an upstart from Britain, John Duns Scotus. In essence, the debate circled around the question, "Would Christmas have occurred if humanity had not sinned?"
Whereas Aquinas viewed the Incarnation as God's remedy for a fallen planet, his contemporary saw much more at stake. For Duns Scotus, the Word becoming flesh as described in the prologue to John's Gospel must surely represent the Creator's primary design, not some kind of afterthought or Plan B. Aquinas pointed to passages emphasizing the Cross as God's redemptive response to a broken relationship. Duns Scotus cited passages from Ephesians and Colossians on the cosmic Christ, in whom all things have their origin, hold together, and move toward consummation.
Did Jesus visit this planet as an accommodation to human failure or as the center point of all creation? Duns Scotus and his school suggested that Incarnation was the underlying motive for Creation, not merely a correction to it. Perhaps God spun off this vast universe for the singular purpose of sharing life and love, intending all along to join its very substance. "Eternity is in love with the inventions of time," wrote the poet William Blake...
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
To which I responded that that is an opinion.
You responded: But it's not my opinion. :) It's what the NT says. The way the Greek text reads, it's the purpose (English language Bibles say "only" [NAB, NIV] , the koine Greek text says ei me [except, a conditional particle], the KJV version says "sent but for..."). Either way, there is no doubt that the text states his purpose is exclusive.
My question, then, is this: if this were truly the exclusive reason for Christ's coming, then why did Jesus immediately heal that Canaanite woman’s daughter? (Mt. 15:28). Jesus himself says, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” (John 12:32).
As you know, we could debate about interpretations until the cows come home (and then some :) ) , but in the end neither of us has God-given authority to interpret divine revelation. I don't know about you, but from what I’ve noticed many of the people who claim to have the Holy Spirit (yes, even FReepers :) ) contradict one another in the name of Jesus. Whose right? Who really has the Holy Spirit? Now that’s the million dollar question...
In the end, I have to thank you because you granted me my theologoumenon, and at least we respectfully agree to disagree :)
Regardless, we have both been bought, not with gold or silver, “But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you…” (I Peter 1:19-20). Pray for me that may I respond generously to God’s mercy and I’ll do the same for you. God bless you.
Unfortunately. It should say Lev 11:20. The problem is also with the KJV translation and choice of words (fowl). The Hebrew term refers to birds as well as insects . My question was what flying creature creeps?
Then why don't they include cats in that group of animals not to be eaten because they "chew their cud?"
The Greek text (Mat 13:32) reads:
"Which (ho) smaller than (microteron) indeed (men) is (estin) all (panton) of the seeds (spermaton)"
It couldn't be clearer or more definitive. It's not about English grammar. It's about English translations. The NIV actually adds a word—that's not in any of the manuscripts—in order to remove the conflict! The NIV reads:
"Though it is the smallest of all your seeds"
The length some people will go to remove any possible discrepancies form the Bible doesn't stop at falsifying the text, even Christ's own words! And the NIV is really good at that!
Granted, I don't know Aramaic, but in Hebrew the superlative is expressed by definite article + adjective
We have no record in Aramaic and retro-translating is a dangerous business (we know that from Textus Receptus!). The Gospels were written in koine Greek. That is the original language, regardless of what language Jesus spoke. Matthew, an eyewitness, says in Greek what Jesus said.
Job 9:6, Ps 75:3
But in the usage of a pre-scientific community, I don't think it's important.
Agree, but then how do you determine what is true and what is not? I guess we have to shed parts of the Bible as the scientific community lifts the haze off of some of the ancient concepts of geography, astronomy, and disease!
This is why the literalists insist that every word in the Bible "must" be true or else God is a liar. If we presume, however, that the authors of biblical books are merely men who were moved (inspired) to write about their faith, and wrote in an imperfect manner and language, with human errancy, and prejudices, then we agree more than I thought, but it also makes the Bible rather unreliable.
I am assuming you are using "true" as in "factual." Why does the story have to be factual to be true? The moral of the message can be true even if the story is not factually true.
However, we must also realize that factual corroboration of names and places does not prove the story to be factually true.
The discovery of Troy does not prove that Iliad is a historical account of a Trojan War (which never took place).
Just because there are cities and places mentioned in the Bible that exist to this day doesn't mean the biblical stories regarding those places are true, even if their (moral) message may be.
But God didn't do that! Don't you see? God spent an inordinate amount of time cuddling "his" people and they still rejected his message (from our point of view).
Even if all Jews had nothing to do with Jesus being "convicted," just about all rejected Jesus as the Christ. If God was really trying to make them 'his" children, he didn't do such a good job!
We should also not forget here that Jesus fails the Jewish test of a messiah (having only one of the seven biblical requirements in their view), and that the Christian idea of a messiah is something that was unknown to Judaism.
Well, hallelujah! Your view certainly agrees with the Orthodox teaching on the Bible:
From the Dogmatic Tradition of the Orthodox Church posted on the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (GOARCH). It starts with
The Holy Bible (or Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments) is the most authoritative part of the Sacred Tradition of the Church...
As for the authorship, it goes on to say that the Bible is a product of cooperation of man and the Holy Spirit. This represents the so-called "synergistic theory."
The Church rejects Philo's so-called "mechanical theory" which states that the biblical authors were "possessed" by the Holy Spirit, but they don't offer any proof or any reason even why that theory is wrong.
The Bible itself certainly often speaks of "trances" of various biblical personalities (i.e. Abraham, Peter,etc) .
Combine this with the Hebrew belief that spirits (or gods, idols, demons, devils) exert control (this comes from a Hebrew root of the word demon/god/spirit) to rule, and that in Judaism the Spirit of God is not a Person, but the power of God, and Philo's view (being Jewish) is perfectly legitimate and there is every reason to believe that the early Christians subscribed to the same view, as they did to the demonic etiology of so many physical and mental diseases.
After establishing that God leads and men follow, the articles states
God leads, and man follows; God works, and man accepts God's work in him, as God's coworker in subordination to Him. So it is with divine inspiration in the case of the Bible: the Holy Spirit inspires, and the sacred author follows the Holy Spirit's injunctions, utilizing his own human and imperfect ways to express the perfect message and doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
In this sense, we can understand possible imperfections in the books of the Bible, since they are the result of the cooperation between the all-perfect and perfecting Divine Author, the Spirit, and the imperfect human author. Biblical textual criticism is completely normal and acceptable by the Orthodox, since they see the Bible in this light. Nothing human is perfect, including the Bible, which is the end product of human cooperation with the divine Spirit.
There are some problems with this view, however.
If God leads, and the authors are willing sub-ordained co-workers with God, God is still in charge of the project and the author of it, and if the product contains errors, then it's the author's fault, unless God wants us to have faulty scriptures, and I don't believe there is any evidence of that (alhtough OT God does send "deceiving spritis" to confuse people, and the disicples believed in it)
And if the Bible contains (human) errors, then it is neither authoritative—except by fiat—nor inherently reliable!
Naturally, this view probably won't go down with the frothier Biblical literalists, who seem to think that each verse of Scripture is of equal value to every other verse; some agree with you that the Bible should be read on the level of a science textbook, only they think it's correct on that level.
If you allow one error in the Bible, who is to say what is correct? Of course, that's why we have the Holy Tradition, which "fills in the gaps" as unwritten authority, and something that was known to the Church form the beginning, everywhere and always, as they say.
The 300-year old struggle to form a canon agreeable to the whole Church shows that this is not the case. For one, books such as 2 Peter were hotly debated and contested as for several centuries.
In Constantinople, the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch, seocnd in honor to the Pope, as late as the 9th century AD, the Book of Revelation, for example, was listed as "questionable" alongside Shepherd of Hermas and Epistle of Barnabas (both of which appear as canon in the oldest extant complete Christian Bible, the mid 4th century AD Codex Sinaitucus)!
It may be of interest here to mention that Revelation is the only book of the Bible the orthodox Church never reads from in public.
The scriptures cannot be the most authoritative and yet full of errors. There is an inherent contradiction in this view.
I think God would have done a much better job at communicating.
Yet the Bible says "seek and ye shall find." Even as the resurrected Jesus was about to leave his eleven disicples, some of them still doubted (cf Mat 28:17)
Jesus came to proclaim that blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. He also came to proclaim to love those who hate us, not to return evil for evil, etc. And he lived by those principles.
He never said "don't help" Gentiles. He only said that he (personally) was not sent but for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Besides, the Canaanite woman expressed faith in him .
You may know this or not, but the so-called Noahides (the "People at the Gate") are Gentiles who observe the Law and Judaism states that they will be saved too (observing the Law makes them "righteous" in God's eyes as far as Judaism is concerned), although they will always be second to the Jews, and never equal to them in terms of rewards.
Judaism was never opposed to helping others, but the mission Jesus claims to have been sent to accomplish was for the lost sheep of Israel, and the Bible is very clear that it means no Gentles, and not even Canaanites. In other words, he didn't come to preach to them, nor did he send his disciples to preach to them.
As you know, we could debate about interpretations until the cows come home (and then some :) ) , but in the end neither of us has God-given authority to interpret divine revelation. I don't know about you, but from what I’ve noticed many of the people who claim to have the Holy Spirit (yes, even FReepers :) ) contradict one another in the name of Jesus. Whose right? Who really has the Holy Spirit? Now that’s the million dollar question...
I couldn't agree with you more, koinonia. I am the last person to involve the HS in my opinions. My opinions are my opinions. I read the Bible the way I read everything else. Some things are clear others are not. I don't hang my faith in God on the Bible, or any "holy book" for that matter. It is more an observation that mercy doesn't exist in nature, whether it be human left to its own devices (we have to be taught to be merciful), nor is there any mercy in the animal world. As such, our awareness of mercy is indeed a revelation that's not of this of this world. And it takes no Bible to realize that something caused all this to exist. and that this world is the way it is, as Taoism says so well, whether we understand it or not.
Disease. Again, you're looking for the "scientific" answer and apparently will be content with that. In OT times, they apparently had noticed the phenomenon of contagion, vide the treatment of lepers; when Jesus cleansed the lepers, I don't recall any mention of demons. Job was afflicted with boils by Satan, with God's permission, but he was hardly possessed. My own understanding is that disease entered the world through sin -- as one of the Church Fathers (I forget who) put it, since man disobeyed God, so his own body will not obey him. I'm not concerned with "proving" it to anyone; to me, it rings true, though it says nothing about whatever cellular mechanisms or whatever are involved.
As for the Bible being "reliable," I take the historical books as being as reliable as any history we have -- certainly moreso than whatever source you rely on for your understanding of Galileo and the Church. ;-)
Of course, I still assume the Trojan War happened, even if archeology hasn't found any evidence of it yet! In fact, I consider most things scientific mildly interesting, but subject to revision. (And if the Bible were intended as some sort of diviney inspired All-purpose Boy Scout Handbook, surely it would have said something about Anthropogenic Global Warming!)
I have no idea, any more than I know why cats are never mentioned in the Bible at all -- OT or NT. Unless those poor people didn't have any . . . :(
I thought it was generally accepted (on internal evidence) that Matthew's gospel was orignally written in Aramaic, though no Aramaic copy is known to survive.
Personally, I'd be hesitant about too close-nitpicking in any ancient language. Lord knows there are enough current misunderstandings and confusion and misinterpretation among actual speakers of the same language at the same time in the same geographical area.
I don't see that God "cuddled" (coddled?) his people exactly. In fact, IMO, I could have done with a great deal more coddling in my life! But God had other plans . . .
I'm hardly expert in rabbinic Judaism, but one thing that struck me when I was taking Hebrew (and I had probably more than half a dozen courses based on Midrash -- which I loved!) was Judaic parallels to the Christian gospels. The only one I remember clearly after all these years is the story of how Moses, when he was watching Jethro's sheep, climbed down a ravine to rescue a lamb that had fallen in. Moses put the lamb over his shoulders and climbed back up, and according to the Midrash, that was how God was assured that he would be the right leader for Israel.
Anyway, (without looking it up) "whoever says a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him."
The story's not over.
I don't see a contradiction -- it's simply that there is nothing more authoritative (well, Tradition, but -- like the Jews -- I see Scripture and Tradition as unified). The image I rather favor is that humanity (and the world) suffered a catastrophe, and managed to survive, in spite of wounds and injuries, clinging finally to the Ark of the Church, clutching what scraps and tatters and small belongings that could be salvaged.
I think God would have done a much better job at communicating.
Yes, if I were God, I would have done things differently too, I imagine! ;-)
What you just posted is an insult to intelligence. Being an astrophotographer is a hobby, not an academic degree and the fact that the article you linked even lists his hobby as an authentication of his qualification is like saying that someone who owns a sailing boat is an expert on naval history.
First of all, if Galileo actually looked at the sun through his telescope, he would have gone blind to one eye not both, right at that instant, not years later. One can see sunspots on a projected image of the sun on a white screen or a wall, but not directly.
Gaileo purchased the telescope from the Dutch, and being a tinkerer, ade some imporvements on it. He never claimed to have invented it. It was a simple lens with a negative eyepiece, and power of 14X (your average binocluars typically come with a power of 8-16X. Anything over 10X cannot be hand held steadily enough for useful obsevring or provide sufficiently wide field of view). The differnce is that Galileo's telescope had only abut 1/3 the light gathering power of an average 8X50 binoclars, and was not achromatic, or coated for greater transmission, or necessarily optically to within the 2-wave tolerance of commercial optics (true astronoical optics are finished to better than 1/4 wave tolerance). So, all in all, it was a toy. At best one could call it a small "spotting scope.
But it was sufficient to resolve the Milky Way into stars(of which, in our galaxy, alone there are billions and not millions, as the author says), or to show "appendiges" on Saturn.
Your author is dead wrong when he says that Gaileo didn't have a proof. He postulated heliocentricity based on the phases of Venus. Simple geometry shows that the only way we can see the full face of Venus is if it goes around the sun. When he positvely observed the fully illuminated face of Venus, knew.
Obviously, if Venus was always in front of the Sun, as it was believed, then a full face of Venus cluld never be seen. And he was right, of course.
Galileo was not convicted and thrown into house arrest for insulting the Pope, but on charges of "vehement suspicion of heresy." Heresy, by definition, means "that which is not taught by the Church," so your author is again wrong in asserting that the Church did not have a stance on heliocentricity. Otherwise it couldn't have accused Galileo and convicted him of "vehement suspcision of heresy."
The Church used Aristotelian philosophy and Ptolomey's navigational system (both were geocentric) becuase they agreed with the theolgoical notion that man was God's central creation and that we were the center of the Creation, and that everything revolved around us (literally speaking!).
Ptolemy's navigaitonal system is a typical scientific working model, which works on predictable observend phenomena, even if it is based on on erroneous premises, and a typical exmaple of the so-called "observational phenomenon."
This amateur that your Catholic site uses as some "authority" on this subject also finds himself authorized to diagnose the cause of Gailleo's blindness. It could have been nothing more than cataracts, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, bad lighting (usually candles) and, above all, old age! BTW, the loss of sight from looking into the sun through a telescope is instantaneous, not gradual.
The fact still remains that the Cathoic Church did not retract its charge of "vehement suspicion of heresy" until the 1990's, 450 years after his death. It cointinued to blame him for teachng a "false" doctrine of heliocentricity until the end of the XX century. Talk about obtuse....
Well, you can go on assuming the Trojan War happened. Belief in things in absence of evidence is called fantasy. I have just as much "justification" to believe there are pink unicorns living on Jupiter!
Really? Cats were considered "holy" in Egypt. Surely Moses would have known about cats.
Keep dreaming. The world survived in spite and despite the Arc of the Church. Most of the world got by being not even anywhere close to the Church.
Yes, if I were God, I would have done things differently too, I imagine!
Oh I see, so a Bible full of holes and forgeries is the best way to bring people to God?
Me, myself and mine does not constitute a proof. He presumes to be the source of truth (his Menachean mindset is showing).
Let's also not forget that that what he calls the canonical books became canonical by decisions of men who are not considered free of error, the Church hierarchs.
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