Posted on 06/14/2005 4:01:43 PM PDT by sionnsar
A discussion Starter from Peter Toon
There was a time when the word “individual” was only an adjective and referred to one specific thing –e.g., an individual drop of rain, or an individual flavor/ texture of a fruit, or an individual person, or an individual page of a book, and so on . Now it is increasingly used as a noun for a human being, often to indicate a single human being as one unit of a community or society and distinct from all other “individuals.” Also it may be used to indicate a specific human being as having a uniqueness and thus different from all others – “John is a real individual.”
There have been many objections during the last century or so to the use of the word as a synonym for a single human being, especially where no contrast between one human being and others is implied. For example, take, “Three individuals were placed under arrest,” or “The local Mayor will make time for any individual who wants to talk to her/him.” In these cases, some argue (rightly, I judge) that it is better to use the nouns “people” or “person.”
In fact, it is probably the case that the use of “individual” for “person” increased in the cold war years when the West was standing against the collectivism of communism. It became the fashion to speak of the importance of the individual person (which became quickly “the individual” and thus achieved a kind of sanctity as a word).
For Christians, Jesus is unique, and not merely in one aspect, but in many. He alone is God become man without ceasing to be God. He alone as a man lived a totally perfect life of love for others. He alone is the One Mediator between God the Father and the human race. And so on.
The Church of God in her official dogma and doctrine has spoken of him as “One Person made known in Two Natures, Divine and Human “ (Council of Chalcedon, 451; and the Athanasian Creed from 5th century). Although the word “individual” can be used of him as an adjective (e.g., “ as distinct from the Father and the Holy Ghost, he is an individual Person, even though he has the one identical Nature with the Father and the Holy Ghost”), it is not wise at all to use “individual” as a noun of him. Certainly, as the Messiah and Saviour, he stands apart from all others of the human race, but he is not an “individual” in the modern sense, for he is a corporate man, a representative man, the new Israel, and the second and new Adam. That is, he is totally bound by God’s design and covenant to those whom he came to identify with and save. He is a Person who in his Personhood is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Also in this same Personhood he is one with the human race for he is One Person made known in two natures, divine and human. Through his human nature he is one with mankind and especially so with the elect.
This being so, holy mother church has guided her members to speak of human beings also as persons, that is, persons with one nature, human, and with a unique human personality, rooted in that human nature, which is made in the image and after the likeness of God. (see e.g., in the classic editions of The Book of Common Prayer where candidates for baptism are called “persons”).
So it is not wise for the Church or preachers or Christian teachers to use the word “individual” as a noun to refer to a person made in the image and after the likeness of God. For, properly speaking, though each of us is an individual person, we are not strictly individualities, for we are united in the order of nature by blood and genes with our families/kith and kin and in the order of grace we are united with the members of the Body of Christ, who are our brethren for eternity! And as made in the image of God we reflect in our personhoods the tri-Personal Nature of God. Certainly each of us has to respond to God’s word and grace and this is an individual action, but it is the action of an individual person not an “individual.”
And, further, if we do insist on using it as a noun of a precious human being, then we need to be sure that we use it only in order to make a contrast which is both reasonable and is in accord with the basic Christian view of man/humanity. Perhaps it is best to avoid the word altogether as a noun for we do after all have other words to use. [Try going a week without using the word as a noun for a human being.]
Of course, we live in a society where “individualism” is rife and where the declared rights of “individuals” and the self-worth of “individuals: is taken for granted. The basis of this type of post-Enlightenment thinking is that the basic unit of any society is “the individual” and by the free choice of “individuals” a society or even church is formed. By voluntary association distinct “individuals” choose to create together a unit, or society, or church or whatever.
Christianity has a very different view – at least in its biblical theology, which knows no individualism as such. The primary unit is on the one side the representative Man (Adam and then Christ) in whom is contained the race of man or the elect of God, and on the other the family (be it the so-called extended family, or the tribe, or in Israel, the twelve tribes as One). Any member of these unities is an individual member or person but not an individual as such.
In the Church a person is baptized not only into union with Christ himself but also simultaneously into his Body, and thus each baptized believer is one member united to many members. And each member is an individual person, an individual Christian, not an individual in isolation! By Christian nurture and education, the Church seeks to make each of us aware that while we are individual persons with individual responsibility we are nevertheless not isolated units for we are inter-related. Rather, we are related units and we find our fulfillment and vocation in rightful unions and associations and vocations with others! Our individual talents are by the grace of God used for the common good and to fulfill duties to family, community, nation and local church.
Jesus was not an individual in his earthly ministry and in heaven now as our King, Priest and Prophet, he is not an individual, even though he possesses human nature perfected and glorified. He is a Person, an unique Person but a Person, eternally related to the Father and the Holy Ghost in Love in the Holy Trinity. We who are his brethren, because adopted by his Father as his children, are likewise not individuals but persons, each of us (by grace alone) having a personal relation with the Father, through and in Jesus. Thus we avoid and reject modern individualism for we belong to the fellowship and communion of the saints in glory.
June 14, 2005 petertoon@msn.com
Briefly, the distinction between "individual" and "person" is as follows:
The INDIVIDUAL is characterized and defined/ defines himself in terms of his differences from other individuals. Individualism is inherently and inevitably atomistic (hence profoundly contrary to human nature -- see below). Where it is the dominant functional philosophy, society is always in flux between the extremes of anarchy and collectivism (which is the revenge human nature takes on radical individualism), leaving man with a choice between the life of the solitary wasp or that of the hive.
The human PERSON, though unique, is defined in terms of his relation to other human persons. We come to know ourselves and to be ourselves in relation to others. Which is another way of saying that man is an inherently social being. Apart from a society, he is something less than human.
This inherent social nature is perhaps the most important aspect of the
image of the Triune God in man. One consequence of this is that man can only find personal fulfillment in communion with God. This fulfillment takes place -- and can only take place -- in the society of the Church "which is the blessed company of all faithful people," which is why the Church is in principle prior to any person's relationship with God. Thus the church is not a voluntary society constructed of individual believers, but an organic reality into which we are called by God and in which he brings us to faith.
Wow, this is mind-stretching stuff.
Not surprisingly, with your re-statements, I think we are indeed on the same wavelength regarding the Persons of the Trinity and on what you mean by a Being.
The quotation that you found from Lossky was interesting -- I didn't recall that passage. I'm pretty sure that when he says "the Greeks" in this context, he means "the Greek fathers" as opposed to "the pagan Greek philosophers." That is what would make the most sense, anyway.
The quotation from Lossky that I was thinking of was one that I recalled during recent discussions with Roman Catholics about the filioque. I was able to find it on-line:
By the dogma of the Filioque, the God of the philosophers and savants is introduced into the heart of the Living God, taking the place of the Deus absconditus, qui posuit tenebras latibulum suum. The unknowable essence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit receives positive qualifications. It becomes the object of natural theology: we get "God in general," who could be the god of Descartes, or the god of Leibnitz, or even perhaps, to some extent, the god of Voltaire and of the dechristianized Deists of the eighteenth century. Manuals of theology begin with a demonstration of His existence, thence to deduce, from the simplicity of His essence, the mode in which the perfections found among creatures are to be attributed to this eminently simple essence. From His attributes they go on to a discussion of what He can or cannot do, if He is not to contradict Himself and is to remain true to His essential perfection. Finally a chapter about the relations of the essence — which do not at all abolish its simplicity — serves as a fragile bridge between the god of the philosophers and the God of revelation.
The Procession of the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Trinitarian Doctrine
The Mary Magdalene story is interesting primarily because of it's iconoclastic nature.
I watched an interesting documentary on National Geographic about the Da Vinci Code stuff, and although I was biased, I'm afraid that the cases the experts made for it being hooey were quite a bit more convincing to me than were those trying to make the case in all seriousness.
One point that was made in favor of the MM story was the seeming oddity of Christ appearing first to her. That was quite interesting, because St. Gregory Palamas, in his sermon for the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing women, makes a very strong case for the inner unwritten tradition of the Orthodox Church that Christ actually appeared first to his mother. I won't go into the details, but it is quite interesting...
Much more interesting than all that Holy Blood, Holy Grail, stuff. :-)
Well let's face it. Some of the stuff in the Bible is pretty farfetched too, but for some reason no "believer" really wants to take a serious look at debunking some of that hooey ... the virgin birth, the loaves & fishes etc etc ... it all falls under the "you must have faith" banner.
If someone is going to take the trouble to tear apart one book (the Davinci Code), shouldn't it be fair game to tear apart the other (the Bible)?
I laughed when I saw someone on this thread refer to the Bible as history.
Uh ... no ... it's a book. Fiction (or "allegory" as the Church likes to phrase it) with historical references. So is Davinci.
If you think that tearing orthodox interpretations of the Bible apart started with the Da Vinci code, you slept through any classes you attended on the Enlightenment -- not to mention any number of ancient heresies, pagan Roman polemicists, etc...
Most criticisms of the Bible are as old as the hills, and have been answered by Christians every time they come up.
What I can't figure out is why anyone who doesn't believe that Jesus is who Christianity says he is would think that it would matter in the least whether or not he was married and had children.
Jesus is of significance to the world because so many people have been utterly convinced that he was who the Church says he is, and because they believe that what the Church teaches about him is true. If he is not what Christians believe him to be, then he was an obscure failure of an itinerant Jewish preacher, then his blood-line is of no more interest than is mine, and no-one would have bothered to preserve or record it. It would certainly have no significance to future humankind, as the Holy Blood, Holy Grail people seem to think it does.
The whole Holy Blood, Holy Grail stuff has been around since the Middle Ages. The only explanation for it that makes sense is that it was a mythology that was concocted as part of some sort of subversive society pitted against the Roman Catholic church. It's power is that it took the incredible reverence for Jesus as God, and then read *that* back into a bloodline. The fact that this was completely illogical wouldn't faze the type of people who go in for "secret knowledge" and "secret histories" one bit. In fact, the kind of small minds that believe in that stuff thrive on logical fallacies.
Why would a "kingly" line be founded on a failed Jewish preacher? What claim would he have had to such a thing? Why would his bloodline have been of any significance? The whole thing is just too silly for words.
Believe that he married, died in obscurity, and that the Church created a whole fabricated mythology around made-up stories about him. That has some logic to it. Believe that he was the Son of God and the Messiah, and that what the Church passed down about him is true -- that makes sense. But believe that he was just an ordinary Jewish rabbi and that everything the Church said about him from the earliest centuries was a lie -- but yet that he also has some sort of cosmic significance that kingdoms would rise and fall over his bloodline? Give me a break...
I think that a person named Jesus did live & that he walked around his immediate surroundings saying that he was the son of God.
Someone doing this today would be 1/locked away or 2/ manage to get a lot of folks to drink Koolaid or 3/ go on Oprah, sell a few books & fade into obscurity.
But it was different times then. People were very into superstition, otherwordliness etc & so he picked up a large following.
The fascinating part of it all is the huge impact it has had on the history of the world. The religion that he started has had an enormous impact on history.
So, for many people, trying to track down some actual facts (outside of the Catholic PR manual...the Bible) is extremely interesting.
Will the discovery of Jesus' progeny amount to a hill of beans? No. But the study of the life of powerful people in history will always be interesting to many people.
Which is very good, because if we weren't on the same wavelength one of us would have to be wrong, and being wrong about this stuff is extremely bad.
You see, the line of Jesus is important because King David was a space alien, and therefore Jesus and Mary Magdalene passed superior alien DNA on to the Merovingians.
But it was different times then. People were very into superstition, otherwordliness etc & so he picked up a large following.
But you had just spoken of moderns managing to get folks to drink Koolaid, which I take it means poisoned Koolaid a la Jim Jones.
Other than Masada (which was different because of that whole Roman army thing), can you name any comparable ancient examples?
I think I saw that in a Mel Brooks movie. The Twelve Apostles were a Yiddish vaudeville troupe, very popular on the Lower East Side in the 1890's, and the whole Son of God schtik was just taken too seriously. Some people will believe *anything*.
This stuff is making my eyes cross. I think I must have Pregnancy Brain. Sigh ... two years until my next coherent thought ...
Oh.
Yes but Jim Jones only got a few hundred people for a few years.
Jesus got quite a few more.
Examples? How's about Judaism, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism, Shinto etc etc ... signing onto someone's religion appears to have been quite the hobby in the days of old.
Before he made them all die. If he hadn't, how many he'd have now is unknowable.
Examples? How's about Judaism, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism, Shinto etc etc ... signing onto someone's religion appears to have been quite the hobby in the days of old.
I meant ancient examples of mass suicide. None of those are related. And Islam is Medieval (as were the Cathars, so don't try the endura). And for those I can answer with Scientology, Mormonism, the Moonies, Falun Gong, etc. Your prejudice against the past is baseless.
Do you have any particular reason to believe the "Holy Grail" stuff is the real truth kept hidden be evil ecclesiastics all these years? I'm not asking you to just denounce the Bible. Give reasons for your position.
No, I don't have any incidents of mass suicides in ancient times ... I'm not even sure how this relates to the topic at hand ... that the DaVinci Code & the Bible are just two books.
Either could be right, or neither.
Is the Holy Grail a cup or Jesus' progeny or just a myth? No idea ... but books that weave a fun plot around it's existence are great entertainment.
My entire point is that Dan Brown's version of the Christian history is just as plausible as the Bible's.
If you don't think so ... why not?
According to Dan Brown, nobody thought Jesus is God until the Council of Nicea. According to the Bible, the early Christian believed that the Word was with God, and was God, and that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, as of the Only Begotten of the Father.
Now who is in a better position to know what early Christians believed? Dan Brown? Or the Apostle John?
Who's been on Oprah and who's book is being made into a mega movie with lots of real movie stars, hummm. I think those of us with modern sensibilities and intellect know the answer! ;)
"""According to Dan Brown, nobody thought Jesus is God until the Council of Nicea. According to the Bible ..."""
According to Mark Twain the Bible is full of lies.
This is what he told me just the other day:
"The Bible has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies."
Could it be that Dan Brown's fiddling with the Bible is only an honest attempt to uncover some of those lies?
I see that you are refusing any real interaction.
"""I see that you are refusing any real interaction."""
I brought good old God fearing Mark Twain into the debate just to see how well you measure up against the big boys.
Now I see that you are refusing any real interaction with the big boys, you just want to debate fools like me.
Pity.
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