Some thoughts on "Atheism"

What if words are just human inventions that help us survive? I believe that might be possible, but let's have a think about the implications for "atheists".

What might 'theism' mean? That a person believes in a form of divine consciousness independent of humankind? What would define that consciousness as divine? Eternal? Maybe, let's go with that. Now what if a person considers such a being or beings to exist, but feels that they are not relational gods. This "theist" feels and practices no allegiance to the gods. This would be a distinctly narrow view of theism that bypasses the social dynamics that seem to have turbo-powered the development and evolution of our human brains. True theism is always attached to a larger social religious landscape informed by the religions of today.

In parallel, you might have a person who feels belonging and relationship within the context of a faith community. The second person is governed to an equal degree by the communal values as all other members, their only difference being that this person has a sneaky feeling that actual existence of a god may not be necessary beyond the collective symbolism clearly at work binding the community in its values and goals. The values and goals are of maximal importance and the person feels strong allegiance to both the community and the values. They even can experience powerful cathartic sensations as they worship and pray with other believers. They consider life and relationships a privilege to be treasured and would never want to suggest that a person should stop their religious convictions if they were clearly the means by which a person understands, improves and fits into the world.

This last part: about treasuring life and not opposing those with literal religious convictions is key to understanding why the term generates misunderstanding. "The atheist" is commonly understood to mean opposing religious conviction: "you should not believe it, it's nothing but a bunch of lies and contradictions"!

Here, there are commonly a couple of dynamics at play. Firstly, a person may commonly have experienced, as mild as it might appear, a form of power abuse at the hands of those in charge in a religious institution and be reacting against that. Secondly, in light of plausible explanatory alternatives for the existence of all things, there is no reason given as to why the first form of theism as defined above could not be granted (an uninvolved deity). In light of these problems I want to ask:

1. What does it even mean to assert that a religion is "true" or even "real", when the adopted stories are indisputably held authentically and prove powerful to unite a community to positive action?
2. Why even bother to assert that you are an atheist? Why even enter the conversation?

In my next post, I want to address the possibility of "lies and contradictions" in the Christian faith.

Key notions defined series: 15. Trinity, trinities and Fourth Century Trinitarianism

For a tight definition, I am not of much help to you here, sorry.

What can we say of Trinitarianism? Its traditional form originates from the end of the Fourth Century in very close connection to the creed issued at the Council of Constantinople in the year 381^[1], and the subsequent fifth century Council of Chalcedon (451), at which Christ’s two natures were also more carefully described. The nuts and bolts of that language can be laid out: God is exactly One God in precisely three co-eternal, consubstantial and co-equal persons, yet the Father is not the Son and neither the Father nor the Son is the Spirit. 

The key goal of the confession really was to establish quite what Christians should not be believing and saying, and flushing out some of the controversial beliefs in the early church, while helping Theodosius, the Roman Emperor, to unite a crumbling Roman empire into a more-defined and less-divided faith.

The focus throughout Church history, however, has been on comprehending what believers are to believe about God, and thus almost every word of that statement has been analysed to unbelievable levels in the attempt to understand what could be meant precisely by this language and its implications for the church and individual followers of Christ.

Surprisingly enough, “trinity” does not originally mean very much other than a threesome, or simply “threeness”. Consequently, when it started being borrowed into theological discussions concerning the Christian God, I contend it did not originally mean the single-being-yet-tripersonal God in the second and third centuries (the period separating the New Testament and the beginning of the creedal period). The Latin word used by Tertullian in the third century, trinitas, was a plural referring term, with God being the founding source member of the other two, who are not properly called God or understood to be God in the same way, but were instead derived or sent out from within God. (Please refer to Chapter 4 for a quick examination of a variety of references on this evolution, including Tertullian). I believe it is important to realise that even the language provided by the fourth and fifth century Catholic[2] Church (trinity as a theological word still being a fairly recent word), already provided a subtle evolution in the term “trinity”, I contend, from its earlier theological use.

As the church entered the Middle Ages, well after the trinity came to be understood as three co-eternal, consubstantial and co-equal persons in one perfect godhead, the Trinity, there was a further significant shift – for some – in trying to figure out exactly how the Holy Spirit is sent. This debate became a source of division and permitted the eastern and western churches to split, the East preferring the name “Orthodox” and sticking resolutely to the original formulation of Constantinople regarding the Holy Spirit. The Catholic Church resolutely defended the addition of the “filioque clause”, which means that – for them – the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son.

Another very significant swing in Trinity theory is the so-called Trinitarian “revival”, which is much more recent, alive today and has roots from within both the Catholic and Orthodox wings, and has been developed differently throughout denominations. The Trinity has become a source of lots of reflection (and speculation) about how God is like a perfect community, or church or even society (we will explore the fact of multiple expressions of what people actually mean by “Trinity” today in the very next chapter).

Stephen Holmes explains how recent developments and theories of the Trinity are in actual fact a departure from divine simplicity and the oneness of God maintained throughout most of church history. Thus the enthusiasm and charisma of many modern expositors such as Ravi Zachariah, Leonardo Boff or G. K. Chesterton, who might delineate through word play the “tri-unity” of God, or expound that “God himself is a society”^[3], can legitimately be described as a subsequent development or even an interpolation of what the word T-R-I-N-I-T-Y has meant historically. So we have a complex matrix of meaning here to untangle. One thing is certain: there is not a single theological meaning commonly understood throughout church history, right up to today, and there exists no one sentence or formulation of ideas that can adequately state them all, and they cannot be mutually compatible.

So historically, there is considerable movement in the notion of what Trinity might actually mean, and it seems likely to continue to shift. But suffice it to say, that the question of “the” Trinity, is a far, far more complex issue than a “do you or don’t you believe it”, precisely because what is understood by “it” varies and has varied so much. This is a key point of this paper. Let me repeat again, any dream of consensus on what the doctrine actually is disintegrates as soon as you attempt to go any further than the traditional language, which is vague, apparently self-contradictory and necessarily invites disagreement.

Another difficulty, then, in providing a precise definition, in addition to the huge variety of interpretations of what the words actually mean, is that it does not seem at first glance to make sense! It is one of the reasons why there are so many views on it.

Take for instance the simple word “is” if you want to affirm that “Jesus is God”. Is this “is” identical to “=“? Or to put it in an even more confusing format, is the “is” identical to “identical to”, and is the “is not” the exact opposite of “is”? That might seem trivial, but ask yourself the question: if God is the Trinity and the Holy Spirit is God, then is the Holy Spirit not then the Trinity? That would seem absurd, right? So the “is” is a problem. But then we get to greater and trickier questions still, of substance, essence, persons and even personality.

Sometimes apparently simple terms become not-so-simple when you look at them in more detail! In this paper, when I refer to “Trinity” or “Trinitarian” with a  capital “T”, I am referring quite specifically to an authoritative, ecumenical, fourth-century, full Nicene confession of the One God in three divine co-equal, co-eternal, consubstantial and unconfused Persons or hypostases (and by “full”, we also have to refer to the 381 version of the creed, not simply the 325 version), and I am necessarily not referring to anything precise in terms of its subsequent development, of what on Earth those words might actually mean in the positive sense (remember the key goal of the confession really was to establish quite what Christians should not be believing and saying).

---

[1] The actual creed to which most refer as the Nicene creed is in actual fact the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed

[2] Catholic in the sense “Universal”

[3] G. K. Chesterton,  Orthodoxy, p94, Christian Classics Ethereal Library

Key notions defined series: 14. Translation

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It is also an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions. Here is the next one:

Translation

Translation is interpretation. If you already speak two languages then you already know this, since there are so many words that you have already seen cannot be systematically translated the same way, that require context absolutely, etc. However, it can be, as Anthony Buzzard correctly notes, a most subtle type of interpretation. Gordon Fee concurs: “it is sufficient to point out how the fact of translation in itself has already involved one in the task of interpretation.”[1] 

Buzzard mentions its subtlety during a discussion of the significance of Jesus being worshipped[2]. Imagine the following, slightly exaggerated, example: every time God is worshipped (in Greek, Proskuneo), we get “worship”, every time Jesus is worshipped, we get “worship”, every time a superior human other than Jesus is worshipped (in Greek, still Proskuneo), we get “bowed down”, “prostrated”, etc. That would be a very subtle form of bias that begins before we even start to look at the text, expressing an underlying theological commitment on the part of the translator(s) of which most lay readers of the Scriptures have no awareness. 

Fortunately, I think we can say that translators working in teams, even when they might share some overarching theological perspectives, are steadily removing some of these theological biases that have been historically present in the translations we and our predecessors have been reading[3].

Next Key Notion post: Trinity, trinities and Fourth Century Trinitarianism

---

[1] Fee & Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Creative Print & Design, Ebbw Vale), p. 15

[2] See Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9gN0HTvOXQ

[3] See my post here, based on two particular improvements to the NIV in Hebrews and Titus:

 http://faithandscripture.blogspot.fr/2015/04/there-is-hope-for-niv-quick-peak-at.html

Key notions defined series: 13. Textual criticism

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It is also an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions. Here is the next one, this time with footnotes (I have no idea why sometimes Blogger includes and excludes them):

Textual Criticism

This is essentially the study – I would even say a science – of establishing the most likely original text written by the author via the painstaking examination of masses of manuscript data. Its necessity flows from the following two facts:

• We have no originals manuscripts
• The copies we have all differ

In fact, the extant Greek manuscripts alone currently number close to 6000, and most evangelical or conservative scholars are not troubled by the large number of differences (I will not scare the reader with the agreed approximate number), as the vast majority of these are considered to be of no importance. However, there are passages where textual variants affect meaning, and some of these also concern the scriptural justification of Fourth Century Trinitarianism. Furthermore, these kinds of variants are no longer considered by textual critics to be all accidental.

For example, does John 1:18 say “the only begotten God”, “only begotten God”, “the only begotten Son”, “only begotten Son of God”, or “the only begotten”? In total there are no less than thirteen different variants depending on the manuscript you are looking at[1]. This verse clearly got up several copyists noses! Copyists are not machines – they are believers, followers of Christ, as Philip M. Miller is careful to note as he references to the late “giant” of textual criticism, Bruce Metzger:

“Metzger, while wrestling with the difficulties alterations raised in his Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, likewise noted the suppression of doctrinally difficult words, and secondary improvements ‘introduced from a sense of reverence for the person of Jesus’[2] ”[3].

This seemingly technical section will become relevant when we treat one passage in Chapter 7.

---

[1] P.M. Miller, Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic and Apocryphal Evidence, p. 73 lists the manuscripts concerned. The most attested source (which of course does not necessarily mean the original) is “the only begotten son”

[2] Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2^nd ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), 200, note on John 11.33

[3] P.M. Miller, Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament: Manuscript, Patristic and Apocryphal Evidence, p. 64

Key notions defined series: 12. Sola Scriptura

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It is also an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions. Here is the next one, minus a few footnotes:

Sola Scriptura

The original title of this paper was Nicene Trinitarian Interpretations Against Sola Scriptura Constraints – I changed that because I felt it portrayed too blank-and-white a picture of the issues at hand. Sola Scriptura as a notion, however, remains a pillar in my thinking and draws me toward the Protestant tradition afresh, for it powerfully draws us back to the text and tries to say: “only you are authoritative”. Of course in practice that is a lot harder to do, as “the plain meaning of the text” is usually (if not always) coloured by the interpretations we have received about those texts from others. Those “others”, for believers, are faith-communities and authorities to whom they belong, and with whom it is often not straight forward to disagree or even reflect “plainly”. Nonetheless, it was used by the reformists to make that symbolic separation between what is tradition and the canon of Scripture of itself.

What I did not know, was, like with my modern understanding of monotheism, that my current-day understanding of the Protestants’ “rallying cry” of Sola Scriptura had undergone development and change from its earlier usage . Through their “rallying cry”, the reformists were challenging the Catholic Church over the authority base of the Bible; it is not the case, they said, that the Scriptures plus the Catholic (Pope-blessed) teaching together make God’s plumb-line. However, this expression Sola Scriptura can be found centuries earlier in a very entirely different context. A 12th Century-born Oxonian theologian named Robert Grosseteste seems to provide one of the earliest references to the sola scriptura principle – it would seem at some point between 1230 and his death in 1254. Grosseteste beautifully states:

 ‘The Scripture alone (sola scriptura) so inscribing the mind, elevates the person beyond himself and all the way to God, calling that person to unite with God, he creates one spirit, and causes that person to live in divine manner… Scripture is the only text that illuminates the mind, and forms the will, whereas all other texts at the disposal of the theologian darken the mind and deform the will’. 

For some of these lesser-known medieval theologians like Grosseteste, who no doubt were preparing the way for the later protests against the Catholic Church’s grip, there was something unique to the Scriptures themselves, not just in terms of the intellectual, factual or theological knowledge that could be drawn from them, but also in the way in which they bring spiritual transformation to Christians, elevating them, uniting them with God, illuminating them and shaping their will (presumably to align will and action). Perhaps we should study these theologians more!

Key notions defined series: 11. Mystery

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It is also an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions. Here is the next one:

Mystery

Things can be defined as a mystery OR mysterious. But what is the difference? If something is described as A mystery, then there is something fundamentally ungraspable at its very core, a bit like an endless work-in-progress because nobody can really agree on what this mystery actually IS at its very heart. Even if people consistently acknowledge some phenomenon that is worthy of acknowledging and probing, they shift between imprecise language and depend on inadequate analogy. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity or the two natures of Christ might qualify very well.
If something, however, is to be described as merely mysterious, then mystery may not be at the very core of the phenomenon described.

Jimmy needs to get a flight to Detroit. He has the precise fare needed for a bus and a train to the airport. If Jimmy misses the last bus that would get him on time for the last train to the airport that would enable him to catch his flight to Detroit, then – according to this definition – it would be more fitting to describe his on-time arrival in Detroit as mysterious than A MYSTERY. It is not an unresolvable mystery to its very core that Jimmy made his flight. We can come up with alternative scenarios that meant that Jimmy got lucky.

What does it mean to say that God is one and tri-personal? It’s a mystery! I confess it now annoys me somewhat if, when a believer’s set of interpretations no longer holds together, they just play their joker card, and declare their belief to be a “mystery”. You can’t beat that card! Even the apostle Paul plays it that way, right? So some feel they can do this with authority because of how Paul speaks of mystery.

This way of understanding mystery is mistaken because mystery, exegetically, is about God’s inclusion of the gentiles, not about irreconcilable inconsistencies or contradicting points of view. According to the definition above, gentile inclusion is actually more mysterious than A MYSTERY because we do not see this inclusion as incomprehensible to its very core.

Key notions defined series: 10. Monotheism

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the processing and weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It is also is an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions. Here is the next one:

9. Monotheism

Nathan Macdonald shows that our modern understanding of monotheism is quite different to the expression and commitment required in First Century Judaism to the One True God, maker of Heaven and Earth. Even the word monotheism, our English word derived entirely from Greek words, was never used back then. We can only trace it back in English to Henry Moore (17^th century), although a single mention of μονόθεον in Greek is found in a Byzantine hymn, of unknown date (but definitely a few centuries earlier, since the Byzantine empire finishes decisively in 1453). 

Monotheism today forgets the dynamic and life in the ultimate God, it forgets the praise that is for him alone, and instead intellectualises. Or as Chiara Peri puts it in her brief essay The Construction of Biblical Monotheism: an Unfinished Task: “In its historical development, monotheism is a dynamic process rather than a static reality.” The “mono” also can distract our focus – and translators’ focus – from the plurality of heavenly beings. God’s angels can be extremely powerful and awesome, even speaking on His behalf. The biblical authors speak of multitudes, and of course the “Heavenly Host” and the “Lord of hosts”, akin also to a heavenly (good) army. In the Torah, the Israelites are instructed that they shall have no other gods before YHWH, which clearly presupposes a belief in their existence. Modern translations have tended to squash this emphasis perhaps in light of a more rationalistic monotheism. It is more than a little interesting to note that Jesus himself seems to re-address wrong thinking about what we call monotheism when he is accused of blasphemy in John 10:34.

Please also see my brief presentations of "God" and "Deity":  

Key notions defined series: 9. Logic

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the processing and weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It is also is an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions. Here is the next one:

Logic

Logic can be perceived negatively, but it should not be! In fact it shares some very common ground with the word logos, the Word, which we find famously in John 1. It is what helps us grasp concepts and meaning, and enables us to communicate them as best we can to others. So it is not just the domain of philosophy, for we are constantly applying logical principles to see if people, arguments, and practices are consistent. As soon as something appears contradictory, we say “hang on a minute! Something is not right here!” When we see the biblical authors also trying to make their point, they will at times (depending on their own personal style of writing and the genre of the biblical text) make very logical appeals to strengthen the arguments they are making, or to protect themselves against future accusations of inconsistency.

Paul is a great example of this:

For ‘God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’ But when it says, ‘All things are put in subjection’, it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him [1].

We love logic – I think God might do too, provided it is a source of life to us and in us. God’s logic keeps us sane and prevents us from spiralling off into thinking absurdities like “God is so great that he can exist and not exist at once”, or “there might be such a thing as a square circle” or “I know a married bachelor”. Now if – let us imagine for a moment – there were mention, say in Psalms, of a married bachelor, what would our response be? Would it be a mystery? No. We would identify the genre of the text – poetic – and remind ourselves that not all of the texts are to be taken literally, that we must understand its context. We might possibly conclude with something like: while the man was officially married, in actual fact, his life really was that of a bachelor (he did not love his wife or his children, he did not communicate with them, he came and went as he pleased, and so on). So there is no contradiction. In one sense, the man is married, the legal, civil and administrative sense, but in another sense he is a bachelor.

I hope that is clear! We do not tolerate true contradiction, only relative or superficial contradiction, and this is logic that is at work at the heart of our reasoning. Most, if not all “Trinitarians” fully comply with this, despite the apparent 3 and 1 tension. No-one is implying that God is three of one thing and one of that same thing.

---

[1] 1 Corinthians 15:27

Key notions defined series: 8. Interpretation

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the processing and weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It is also is an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions. Here is the next one:

Interpretation

This is absolutely central to the thesis of this paper! I mentioned it a little already in the opening chapter, where I recalled that we are all interpreters of the information our senses provide our brains. We have trained our brains to process information from the world in order to interact with it better, to survive and to thrive. Sometimes we process well, and sometimes less well, to a point where we can say to someone who understood something quite different from what we intended to say as having “misinterpreted” what we said. I recently discovered kicking about in the back of my mind something of a working definition of poor biblical interpretation that I hope you like and find useful when it comes to how many approach the Bible on a variety of topics:

Interpretation is what makes me say this verse’s plain reading works just fine for me, but that verse needs to be understood according to its context or underlying doctrinal truth. Most Bible teachers or theologians probably practice this to some degree, it is difficult to completely avoid. One person stands out for me, however. His name is Phil Norris. Whilst I was studying at King’s Bible College and Training Centre, Oxford, in the Autumn of 2001, he taught our opening module, on exegesis. I still remember Phil saying something very fresh, and it remains fresh: we do not need to learn the context of just the passages we find difficult, but of the verses we cherish or find easy to interpret too. That sounds so simple! But it needed stating as it is not a very natural approach for most of us. We should note Fee & Stuart: “The antidote to bad interpretation is not no interpretation, but good interpretation, based on common-sense guidelines”. 

Interpretation is absolutely fine, necessary and normal, provided we do not, as Stephen Holmes put it in an interview in 2014, “smuggle our assumptions onto the table”. See Exegesis& Eisegesis.

---

[1] Steven C. Roy, 2006, How Much Does God Foreknow?, p.22.

Key notions defined series: 7. Inspiration [updated]

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the processing and weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It is also an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions. Here is the next one:

Inspiration

[revised 13/06/15]
This is a big topic, and there are many, many understandings of what it might mean for the canon of Scripture to be “inspired” by God. I want to let you know straight away my own understanding of inspiration. It is but one of many interpretations, but it is central to why I am probing what authors came to think about God, His Son and His Holy Spirit.

Scriptural inspiration is not:
- God bypassing the writer’s brain and directly moving his hand across the page (inspired texts but uninspired authors)
- Affirming ideas and thoughts that go against what the author generally believes
- At all the same thing as prophecy
- “Magical”
- Something that we have the authority to apply to the text.

Scriptural inspiration is:
- In line with the author’s opinions
- Over time understood and tested to be authoritative
- Fully incarnated, beginning in the author’s inspired mind and inspired beliefs
- Invested with original and binding meaning and intention
- Most fully (and best) understood in light of original context, occasion and genre

So while we Christians believe that these first century authors were writing down “God-inspired truth” to shape followers of Jesus for all ages to come, this process necessarily started with their own generation. It is vital to this paper that we grasp this approach to inspiration. This view is not always shared, but these principles match a view in the scholarly world, that Paul, the gospel writers, James, Jude, and so on, were very intentional in their writings and that it is dangerous to attempt to separate what they thought and believed from what they wrote (i.e. uninspired minds but inspired texts).

Key notions defined series: 6. Ineffability

Having recently completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing on this blog a chapter of a paper I am writing, which helps me in the processing and weighing of these texts. This chapter is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It also is an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions. Here is the next one:

Ineffability

The Oxford dictionary defines ineffable as “too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words”. It is curious and perhaps a little paradoxical, that it was the very proponents of the Nicene formulations that also developed this concept with regard to the Divine. On the one hand, God is affirmed as so great as to be unfathomable and indescribable, while on the other hand, the church was under such pressure to define its God in as precise terms as possible on the basis of the now-defined scriptural canon. In some ways, it was a real paradox!

Here is a nice little quote from Paula Rhinehart, that illustrates a much more modern understanding of this concept:

God does not allow us to reduce Him to a size and a shape we can manage. He moves in our lives in ways that burst our categories and overwhelm our finiteness. When we realise He’s bigger than anything we can get our minds around, we can begin to relax and enjoy Him. 

Of course, it is almost a given that Rhinehart is referring to the Trinity, but should not a Unitarian perspective also embrace the God-Jesus relationship as "ineffable"? Either way, I basically agree, and this paper should be understood to operate within this boundary. The more we know, the more we know how little we know.

Key notions defined series: 5. God

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the processing and weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It also is an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions. Here is the next one:

God

“Oh my God, she’s beautiful!” exclaimed the younger sister to her older sister, Millie, cradling the new-born baby in her arms.

“O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame”, writes the Psalmist 3000 years ago, pleading to Israel’s all-powerful, universe-creating, divine council-presiding and nation-founding God, Yahweh, to keep his country and people.

What we mean when we say a word like “g-o-d” can vary a lot (see “Deity”). One of the questions of this paper is do we understand that the “God” of Paul is the same “God” of Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa and the other fourth century religious authorities, and if it is redefined what does that mean for us?

Dr. Carl Mosser also informs us that the word God – θεός or theos, in Greek – might not originate in Greek as a being. In early antiquity it was frequently used in an adjectival sense, i.e. of that divine realm. For Greek-speaking Jews who carried belief in Yahweh, ultimate supreme creator and presiding among the heavenly council (Psalm 82), the fullest sense of theos in the first century was of “that ultimate one, the God of Israel” when prefixed by “ho” (the). However, because theos does not originate in Hebrew, but in Greek, it seems possible that it came to be used increasingly as a noun with the expansion of its empire into Jewish areas. Mosser notes that the earlier more generic sense was not instantly replaced and that in the first century both usages could be happily used alongside, relying on context to communicate the intended meaning. Dr. Winfried Corduan, who makes an interesting case for original monotheism (that monotheistic religions did not “evolve” from a pantheistic root), might take issue with this slow shift in usage from one language into another.

Dr. Paula Fredriksen is also in agreement with Mosser, however, that we need to be careful about the application of words like “deity” and “god” in the early Christian era. In the ancient world, it was a commonly held view, monotheistic cultures included, to see other divine gods as present and active, but that towering above them all was the one True God, the Creator of all things.

The Old and New Testaments, with a possible few exceptions, like Isaiah, seem to accept and presuppose the existence of other gods, and yet Christians are often sheltered from this more ancient form of monotheism. Indeed, Psalm 82 and other Old Testament passages  would suggest a more plural divine picture, but all the same: allegiance and worship were reserved for God Almighty, El Shaddai, as shown in Exodus 6:3 as YHWH.

Some of the most famous words in the Old Testament are the ten commandments given to Moses, and the very first, and possibly most important of these seem to pre-suppose other gods:

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God (Exodus 20:3-5).

Another final point we stumble over a few times in the paper is the issue of this definite article preceding “theos”: ho (the). In Greek, you get a strong idea of the subject being a specific being when this definite article is used, i.e. “ho Theos”. First century believers – like Arabic-speaking Christians in North Africa to this day – are quite comfortable about saying “the God” all the time. When it is without the article, well, that is a big debate!

Key notions defined series: 4. Exegesis & Eisegesis

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the processing and weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It also is an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions.

Here is the next one, minus some footnotes:

4. Exegesis & Eisegesis

Exegesis is the work of drawing out the original meaning intended by the author. It is commonly and correctly understood as a necessary practice for preachers and teachers of the Bible in order to remain as faithful as possible to its message. Nowhere have I seen it better summarised than by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart’s classic introductory work, How to Read the Bible For All It’s Worth. On p. 26 of my 2nd Ed., it reads with a beautiful simplicity:

A text cannot mean what it never meant   

I take this as fundamental and universal. Exegesis is a safeguard against too quickly applying meaning of our own to these texts that were not there in the original author’s mind and introducing extra-biblical foundations into the church, because as Stephen Holmes states this with his usual eloquence: “No reader approaches any text in a neutral and uncommitted manner” .

A lesser-known term for adding extra meaning to the text is eisegesis. While exegesis is careful to take into account contextual factors like time, place, writer, recipients, occasion, literary factors such as genre (is the text a story? A parable? A poem? Wisdom literature? An epistle?) and textual issues (are there any significant manuscript variants in this passage?), eisegesis is often “in a hurry” to get on to what the individual or group in question are wanting to teach and hear, infusing their own message with borrowed authority from the Bible.

Exegesis is absolutely central to the question this paper is asking about the status of the creeds. Some can tolerate some eisegesis on grounds roughly along the lines of: although the author may not have fully known what he was saying, the God who was inspiring and orchestrating the whole thing did know. While this might conceivably exonerate writers such as the composer of Matthew’s gospel, from proper exegetical practice, later authors should not have any more legitimate, spiritual or prophetic authority than you or I. Relaxing exegetical rigour, or trying to sidestep it as I feel Stephen Holmes attempts via his appeal to some kind of “deeper exegesis” , cannot and will not do for the true Protestant.

We must exegete, we must provide hermeneutics, we must not eisegete.

Presented here is my plumb line, which is a widely accepted principle today. Stephen Roy, himself on a theological quest, puts us on a good, common-sense track. When he acknowledges the authority of Scripture like this it makes you really want to listen to what he has to say:

…I propose that a valid theological model must be consonant with Scripture both quantitatively and qualitatively. In other words, we must first ask, does this model deal with all relevant biblical data? And second, does it do so fairly, without misreading texts so they serve a prior theological agenda?
However, it is also a rather modern understanding of exegesis. Early church authorities, such as John Chrysostom, were still pioneering the fundamentals of today’s good interpretative practices. Stephen Holmes outlines the tension well:
[It is understood by Chrysostom that] a text cannot be understood unless we know its author, the context of composition, and so on… But all patristic interpreters are united in seeing the primary meaning of the biblical text as Christological...”

To paraphrase this you could say that the new church approached (Old Testament) Scriptures:

• Desiring and expectant to find Christological references throughout, especially when there is dialogue and the speaker of the text is not identified
• Let us be careful how we go 

The victorious theology of the church in the fourth century was shaped by a prototype exegetical method roughly along these lines, sometimes referred to as prosopological exegesis. The Councils were then the outworking of an early systematic theology, that is an attempt at a more collective or canonical exegesis.

Key notions defined series: 3. Doctrine

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the processing and weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It also is an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions.

Here is the next one.

3. Doctrine

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. 2 Timothy 3:16[1] (NRSV)

Congregations and students of the Bible are often reminded of this wonderful verse, but how does the Holy Trinity fare? Is it definitely God-breathed and infused into the Scriptures? Is it useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness? Is it practical? This is one of the key challenges that underpins the “Trinitarian revival” picture painted by Holmes in the next chapter, taken up by many. Let us simply remember that dry, intellectual (even unbelieving) study of God is a very recent phenomenon, and that purely intellectual and vocalised agreement of “a” doctrine might have sounded very strange in much of our church history, and I suspect would still be odd, for example, in the Orthodox Church. So do not be fooled when you see the word “doctrine” in scripture. It is the same Greek word translated “teaching” [διδασκαλίᾳ] in the passage cited above . Quite frankly, it is surprising that translators still opt for this word, when the first century meaning – according to the Pastoral Epistles – was so consistently practical.

So if you see the word “doctrine” in this paper, please do not confuse it with the way the earliest Christians saw διδασκαλίᾳ: good, applicable teaching that changes your life.

---

[1] Another possibility reading is “Every Scripture inspired by God is also useful…”

[2] See 1 Tim 1:3, 1 Tim 1:10, 1 Tim 4:16, 2 Tim 4:3, Titus 1:9, Titus 2:1

Key notions defined series: 2. Deity

Having completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing almost 500 passages, I am "celebrating" that milestone by publishing a part of the paper that helps me in the processing and weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It also is an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions.

Here is the next one.

Deity

I have had an increasing sense of wariness about the confusion hanging over this word, which is why it will not feature strongly in this paper. Deity has come to be used like a measuring tape of the degree of heresy and damage you might be capable of wielding on the belief of an individual or even of a church. How much deity does Jesus have? Seven? Fourteen? If we use expressions like “fully divine” or “full deity”, what would it mean to say “partially divine” or “partial deity”?

Dale Tuggy voices a similar complaint here commenting on the sacking of a World Vision employee over the issue of the Trinity:

The words in their doctrinal statement […] fail to clearly express any precise views about God and Jesus. It seems to me that a lot of evangelical talk of the “deity of Christ” (or him “being God” or “being fully God” or “100% God” etc.) functions primarily as a sort of shibboleth, and that’s what is going on here. Their statement also owes something to a distinctively American anti-creedal tradition, which goes back to the founding of [the United States of America…t]he result is a distinctive sort of Christian tradition zealous to police itself for correct beliefs, but without interest in making precise distinctions.[1]

More and more, I feel that the word deity does not really reflect anything we can find in the Scriptures regarding God (except one single verse, Colossians 2:9, which I will not be examining) in the way we use the word. It also places major question marks over the roots of Fourth Century Trinitarianism itself, for the second and third centuries are full of church fathers and writers who would not have professed the “full deity of Christ” in the sense understood one or two centuries later.

The term deity also – in my view – is now spoiled with a misunderstanding of what we now define as monotheism, please see below.

Finally, deity does not even reflect what the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed actually states (or the church movement behind it) in the fourth century. Take the legendary Athanasius for instance, who strategically made the otherwise inconsequential Arius into a heresiarch. This is the same Athanasius who is famous for being such a strong proponent of salvation as deification: Jesus became man, so that men could become gods, deified. There was arguably no-one more central to the creed most churches hold so dearly to today. See “God” for more on the evolution of the word “theos” in antiquity.

---

[1] See full article No Trinity, No Job – Part 2, http://trinities.org/blog/no-trinity-no-job-%E2%80%93-part-2-dale/

---

[1] See full article No Trinity, No Job – Part 2, http://trinities.org/blog/no-trinity-no-job-%E2%80%93-part-2-dale/

What means what? Key notions defined series: 1. Contradictions

I am one satisfied blogger right now :)

Not because of the blog going especially well, but because the main research I am doing finally hit a big milestone this weekend - I have completed my main review of the New Testament (and some Old Testament) texts, cataloguing 463 NT passages. To "celebrate" that milestone, I want to publish a part of the paper that helps me in the processing and weighing of these texts, which is currently entitled Chapter 2: Key Notions Defined. It also is an opportunity for me to tidy up these definitions.

I will publish one every two days for the next month, in alphabetical order. Here is the first one.

Contradiction

Contradiction concerns two opposing and incompatible statements or ideas (see Logic), whereby both cannot be true. I do not believe in full biblical contradictions on significant issues, nor do I believe on contradictions on the micro-level within the same author and text. That leaves some wriggle room on a medium level, although some (conservative streams) will try very hard indeed to eliminate the slightest whiff of any kind of inconsistency whatsoever. This is rooted in an implicit assumption that every Greek and Hebrew word  must be utterly faultless. So when confronted with issues like how many angels were at the tomb after the resurrection – I feel little concern. But more significantly, is there contradiction between James and Paul on what faith looks like? There is disagreement on emphasis, yes (again, see “Logic”, below). But here we do not need to consider ourselves locked into a contradiction. That is an example of a significant issue.

For an example of no micro-level contradictions within the same author and text:

Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, ‘Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.’ (John 7:28)
Then they asked him, ‘Where is your father?’ ‘You do not know me or my Father,’ Jesus replied. ‘If you knew me, you would know my Father also.’ (John 8:19)

Neither Jesus nor the author have time between these passages to change their point of view. We can therefore assume that unless insane, John is not writing something that fundamentally contradicts itself. Conclusion: Jesus came from Nazareth in the geographical sense (the “where” part, which was and is key to knowing someone) but they do not know the One from whom Jesus has come in the spiritual sense (a key part of “who” since the Father is “in” Jesus). Contradiction does not seem to be an issue here.

If the doctrine of the Trinity is to stand biblically as essential interpretation, according to these requirements of non-contradiction, then it must not contradict the Scriptures on micro or macro levels.

---

[1] There is also a King James fundamentalist group that believes that this English translation is the ultimate word of God.