God is Good

Probably the oldest song I can remember singing in the evangelical church I grew up in is "God Is Good". The chorus continues with further proclamation: "I sing and shout", "we celebrate", "we know it's true": every time interspersed with, God is good.

The purpose of today's post is to propose a new model for belief in God in order to diminish religious mistrust and foster a broader understanding of faith.

My daughter used to claim that almost any meat was "chicken". Sometimes she was correct, it really was chicken, and sometimes it was something else, maybe pork. Correct or incorrect, right? For Fiona, she was working with the set of categories at her disposal, which featured different labels to most of us. She thus could be said to be identifying each piece of "chicken-like" substance "correctly". When provided new categories, she revised her definitions. Today those meat categories are rapidly coming into line with where most of us are at.

"God" is an interesting one though. The word relates to a being or beings that no-one can usually see. Despite the great coming of the incarnated Word in Jesus Christ, first century Christians still affirmed with conviction that God is invisible and immortal. My translation of 1 Timothy 6:16 reads as adapted from the NIV:

To the only one who is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see - to him be honor and might forever. Amen.

Jesus was astonishingly the physical way in which that perfection would be glimpsed - eventually leading to an extraordinary idea of him joining the father in his divine coeternal status, despite some fairly clear distinctions made in earlier times. The point, however, is twofold. Firstly, that we humans desire in earnest to gaze upon the perfectly good. Our souls drink it up. That is what Jesus enabled (see Colossians 1:15). Secondly, to return to that classic hymn, God is Good. God defines goodness. It's actually a bit like saying: goodness is goodness. It's reflected in other mystical statements like God is Love. For Christians, Jews and Muslims he necessarily defines that which is perfect.

This might sound unacceptably vague or ambiguous, but actually, there is a beautiful simplicity on offer here to which we can all have access and from which I feel sure we can all benefit. If in fact God is goodness, defining goodness and love itself, then there can literally be no squabbles about his goodness, any more than we could complain that a sandwich is not a sandwich.

The dividing line is not whether God is good or not - almost everyone has a category for "good" and almost everyone knows instinctively that that perfect measure lies outside of themselves.

Where Christianity might be said to differ from Buddhism or Humanism, for instance, might be the notion that perfect goodness should be personified (as opposed to could be personified). I don't know Buddhist thought well enough to assert this for sure, but I assume that there is healthy accommodation for the personification of Goodness, whom we might refer to as "God". Of course, Christian doctrine actually muddies the water a little in staking the claim that perfect goodness is the Godhead, but not personified as only one person, since Father, Son and Holy Spirit each are persons possessing and personifying the divine Goodness. 

Indeed, it seems to me like there is a lot of common ground here between the current human perspectives. Here is another logical step for humanity: many people would like to benefit from greater Goodness in their life, even though they don't come close to defining it or personifying it. The ancient way we have interacted for millennia to invoke such Goodness is through meditative prayer and spiritual request. Doing so collectively enhances a sense of connection, community and belonging.

What I find so appealing in this realisation of the natural appeal to pray more is that there is a natural "fit" between our human needs for 1) goodness and 2) community. 

There is a third human need concerned by the recognition of a universal Good. We need to experience gratitude. Research shows not only that regular meditation provides powerful and sustained improvement to our brain states but also that it develops our brain structures, developing our physiological capacity to be compassionate. That level of benefit runs so deep we can describe it as a need to be grateful. What religious belief provides is something precious: someone to be grateful *toward*. However, I want to be really, really careful here not to be heard to say that humans need to thank a personified Goodness (a.k.a. God) in order to develop neurologically. That's clearly false since many traditions achieve this effect simply by practising a sense of gratitude and expressing it frequently around others. What I am saying however is that the personified/personal way is a great way to tick three boxes in a way we can agree is beneficial:

Enhancing our own goodness and love

Enhancing our sense of community

Enhancing and channelling our gratitude

God really is Good, unfalsifiably so. *He* defines it. In the next post, let's think more about the next steps of relating to God: how this appeal to his perfection requires we keep our requests broad and sensitive to what our senses are telling us. Of course, to do this we will necessarily be opening the ugly can of worms that is suffering.

Obstacle 5: The Lord Jesus, starting in Mark

In the endearing little love story between Tina and Archie we saw Tina is the church and Archie is the Lord Jesus Christ. The old-fashioned name "Archie" that Archie wants to change is "Lord". 

I believe a translation overhaul is needed for "Lord" in many modern Bible translations both in English and other languages. This overhaul is necessary for a relevant and yet faithful religious institution like Christianity.

The Number 1 question was how to translate the Hebrew name for God, "Yahweh". I finally arrived, after two years of researching the issue, at the idea that GOD, all caps, would be a good solution. Eugene Peterson got there first though!

This only makes the suggestion all the more palatable, as I have arrived at the same destination as Peterson but via, I am sure, a different route, bringing more grammatical substance than Peterson's work had access to.

Overcoming Hurdle 5: The Lord Jesus 

If you make this move - to switch the Yahweh translation from "The LORD" to "GOD", then there are some fresh problems to solve - I identify five of these. Overcoming the first obstacle, we established that it is more than faithful to ancient tradition to apply the lower case "g" to god, permitting the possessive "GOD, our god". Overcoming the second, we realised that often "Lord of lords" can be replaced by "king of kings", condensed or even "Commander-in-Chief". Overcoming the third, we addressed the issue of "Divine Combos" where we steered clear of the risk of redundant repetition. Overcoming the fourth was quite a task but essentially boiled down to a set of criteria for identifying unambiguous references to the Kyrios of the Old Testament (while including clear justification of two main identities traditionally both designated "the Lord").

This now leaves us excellently placed to approach the fifth and perhaps toughest hurdle: The Lord Jesus Christ. 

In the preamble to each of these treatments of the obstacles faced by any program to remove Lord language from the Bible I have referenced Eugene Peterson groundbreaking translation, The Message. In this translation there are obviously thousands fewer occurrences of "the lord" because of the translator's excellent choice of GOD for Yahweh. But I failed to mention quite what he did with Adonai, which is relevant to our current Obstacle. Peterson really is pretty consistent at avoiding lordship language and with Adonai translates (my) Master. And he does the same with Jesus. Job done? 

I'm not sure. The problem with Kyrios in Koine Greek is that packed into "Kyrios", especially for a Hellenistic Jew, you have an extraordinary breadth of potential signification, the precise meaning of which will only become apparent within the context of the dialogue, discourse, text, etc. 

So whereas in modern languages our titles of authority have mushroomed into a confusing sub-language unto itself, ancient languages had fewer choices - the important nuances were drawn from surrounding context. But let us just say for the sake of simplicity that Kyrios covers at least three important layers of authority: 

Kyrios-God, both Creator and god of the Jewish people 
Kyrios-Ruler, emperor established ruler of the people for a designated area and its inhabitants; royal family members 
Kyrios-Boss, properly addressed "Sir". Also appropriate as an address for any homeowners by their paid staff or slaves.  

In other words, it can be a catch-all for any authority figure!  

So what do we think of Peterson's "Master"? Is it a good catch-all in English?  

Peterson's assumption that Master might be applicable for all three authority levels is actually misleading (Abraham is Master of his household, Jesus is “Master of all” in Philippians 2, and Yahweh, via Adonai, is Master too).  

Let's take God first of all. Would anyone in any faith tradition we know of refer to a deity they reverence as "Master"? For me, this title Master does not work well here. I have already discussed how Adonai functions alongside Yahweh as a reference to the Divine Name in How does the Adonai cookie crumble into Greek Yoghurt?, and how when combined in Hebrew we are well within our rights in English to render these to a single “GOD”, see Obstacle 3. 

Why doesn't Master work here? Because Master is first and foremost the expression of a personal functional relationship between Master and Servant without a religious root. 

So what about the various levels of human authority in the Bible? Should Abraham's "Master-ship" be homogenised with that of Jesus? 

Actually, that is the misleading question. Can you see why? It assumes a static, flat representation of the level of authority intended by the biblical writer. Remember, the Biblical writer is drawing on the context to draw out the important nuances of the authority, not the word Kyrios itself. So this means that the authority level of Jesus can be intentionally upgraded even while maintaining the same title of Kyrios.  

But can we do that in English? I don't think we can: our politically and culturally sensitive vocabulary is rich and revised constantly to empower lower-level roles and avoid issues such as gender discrimination in the workplace. So translation into this complex world of English authority systems is far from straight forward - this should already be evident from the treatment of the first four Obstacles and Let's (at last) translate Yahweh and Kyrios into modern English!. Thus we need to proceed with Jesus with this same due care.  

The gospel writer Mark is the first New Testament writer to which we have access who is describing Jesus prior to his exaltation. He does not hide from his readers that Jesus was speaking in Aramaic and was know to his followers in their mother tongue as "Rabbi", a title still in practice among Jews today. Mark spreads these references across Peter (Mark 9:5 & 11:21), a blind man (Mark 10:51) and Judas Iscariot (Mark 14:45).  

Here is the surprising bit. Prior to Jesus' exaltation in the extended (and inauthentic) ending in Mark, Kyrios is not often applied to Jesus! As a result, we can go through them applying my more dynamic approach as a proposed methodology to measured gospel translation of the pre-exaltated Kyrios Jesus. 

(1:3 is a Yahweh reference and a direct citation from the Septuagint, and thus can be rendered GOD)   

2:28 Lord of the Sabbath is Jesus, but in a grand quasi-cosmic sense. King would suffice here although I prefer a more descriptive “the Son of Man is in charge of the Sabbath”.  

5:19 is Jesus, deliverer of the man with a legion of demons: the Great Rescuer, or the Master could maybe work here. But how does that work? A man cannot be expected to be making sense to refer to "the" Master when retelling the story to his fellow villagers, can he? Unless it is to be made into some exalted interpretation of Kyrios (which could be one shade of meaning here), then a more personal note is needed and feels more natural in this story, namely your Master: "...tell them how much your Master has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you."

7:28 is Jesus, a "Sir" address is sufficient. 

11:3 the authority needing the colt, is Jesus, but note he is unnamed for the colt-owner(s) thus probably a reference to an authority level higher than Household owner and not possible in the "Sir" address form. There is certainly nothing to suggest that those encountered by the colt were Jewish or would recognise a Jewish authority term.  

There would seem to be 2 choices:  

1. A local active authority to whom any inhabitant of Jerusalem would defer. 
2. A title tolerated and respected by locals even if they are not directly under its jurisdiction. 
Of course, historically, it is not straight forward to determine precisely what happened during Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on the back of the colt, and in particular how widespread his popularity was given the events ahead, but Mark is clearly portraying it as a triumphant entrance fit for a highly esteemed dignitary, one even commissioned by God for the establishment of his kingdom. A Jewish king. 

Either way, the owners accept the title. For 1. a local authority should be recognisable via the title used, e.g. the Ruler or the Commander or the Commanding Officer might more adequately reflect the Kyrios here than Master. But this then creates unnecessary tension with the ensuing scene, the very purpose of the colt story. In which case we should prefer a version of 2 that would likely be respected without being overly specific. I would opt for "His Excellency" or "His Royal Highness": given the forthcoming exposition of Psalm 110 in chapter 12, consistency would be best maintained via the latter. 

(11:9, 12:11, 12:29 and 12:30 are all Yahweh references, and thus can be rendered GOD - by the way, on the Shema of 12:29, my proposal would be to follow the growing awareness of the uniqueness of Yahweh summarised in this great Jewish declaration and translate simply as follows:  
‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: “Listen up, Israel: GOD is our god, Him alone”). 

12:36 The LORD said to my Lord. Obviously there is no space in my Lord retirement program for either of these titles as English Lords, and we have already settled on GOD for Yahweh. But how do we settle this tricky puzzle for the second lord? 

First, why is it tricky? It is tricky because someone at some point misread this Psalm. Whether it was Mark or Jesus himself is not obvious, but someone somewhere unfortunately flattened the two speakers (the prophet addressing the King and Yahweh) into a single speaker and it stuck for all three synoptic gospels, which creates some awkwardness for me as a follower of Jesus. Mark has Jesus claiming that David is the speaker throughout about someone else who is superior to him! 

That is not at all how Psalm 110 reads. 

But let's accept the situation as best we can by allowing for some "prosopological exegesis" and continue the solutions imagined for the viewing of the colt and in line with this royal Psalm: Your Royal Highness. Not only does this term clearly infer the royal lineage, it fits Mark's usage well and, critically, it remains widely understood today. A fourth advantage to "your Royal Highness" is that the Highness is an open invitation that prepares the reader for the super exaltation to come from other New Testament writers. These compositors will flesh out the Highness in directions that take Jesus into supreme levels of authority, fully occupying both the divine and terrestrial spheres. 

12:37 following on from the exposition of verse 36 above, we could now accept David himself calls him "your Highness". 

13:20 and if [the] Kyrios had not cut those days short... Here although we are not in the context of a Markan Septuagint citation, the pericope, the fact that Kyrios is anarthrous and the New Testament understanding that only the father knows the hour all point in a common direction: this Kyrios is Yahweh, much like in 2 Corinthians 3:16-18. 

16:19 and 16:20 both lie in the longer ending referenced above and whose translation interest me less for now. 

So there we have it! In the whole of Mark, Kyrios seems to be applied directly to Jesus as few as 5 times and is not astonishingly is not yet established as "the Lord Jesus" (only in 16:19 that we can discount as original). For that reason alone, that is to say an unestablished and infrequent type of lordship, has required us to reflect that aspect and tread with contextual care suggesting: 

• The Son of Man is in charge of the Sabbath 
• Tell them how much your Master has done for you 
• Sir, she replied, even the dogs.... 
• His Royal Highness needs it (the colt) 
• GOD said to Your Highness... 


Hopefully, these translations can mirror the crescendoing layers of meaning we see unfolding in the Koine New Testament.  

In subsequent gospels, Kyrios would be used more extensively. This seems to be in connection with the call to "make disciples", and Peterson's "Master" proposal increases its appeal for those actively engaged in exemplary discipleship.

In our next post, however, we can unpack the super-exalted status of the resurrected Christ as developed in some of the epistles, and explore how that might best be translated in modern English. 

Thank you for your interest! It has been a while since I received any feedback or comments. If you can, please do so - it has the effect both of challenging my thinking on these difficult issues and encouraging me that this work is worthwhile.

OMG: GOD!?

WHEN DO YOU experience your "ah-ha" moments? There is a fun American saying that I'm quite taken to: "noodling". Perhaps like yours, my brain continues to noodle on problems even when I am consciously not thinking about it - in fact, my biggest breakthroughs have come when I have hardly been conscious at all! Like my son's name, for instance - it just kinda came to me in the early hours eight years ago, Jeremy. And this morning it happened again at God-knows-what-time.

Off and on, although I've probably lost most my readership by being so intense about it recently, I have been studying the peculiar problem of how to translate this biblical name for God, Yahweh. At times, also prodded by my wife but hinted at by my friends, I've been asked the most important question of all: w h y ?

It's an excellent question for me that has haunted me. Of course, I kicked this whole blog off on a quest to understand "the divinity of Christ", "the Trinity" and other core beliefs that I no longer felt were obvious from "Scripture Alone" - and one of the spinoff questions was the relationship between the Old and New Testament "Lords", the common answers to which I clearly found distinctly unsatisfying (still). But it feels like ages that I have come to terms with some of the "how" and "why" questions of 4th century Christian-establishment and Empire-backed theological wording still endorsed today by the church of today. This debate, as I had understood it, was "the wrong debate" (see my sample chapter for more of what I mean by this). But the Yahweh question still dogged me.

So I tried other stabs at the "why" question, like the rather boring "can we better understand the history of the Greek translation" (an example here) and even what about biblical translation today of "Yahweh"? Do we need to rethink how we translate this "LORD"? Such a well-established translation practice seemed and still seems ludicrous to a hardly-read blogger to even bother with, but I made a couple of gestures at the relevance of my research (like here). And then this morning happened - I "ah-ha'd", felt like a goon, and promptly fell back to sleep again. I didn't even remember it until feeling in a tired state again this evening, which is kinda lucky, because it could end up being the end-game of this research.

Let's not think about "Lord" so much as a translation but just as a word. If you are not a Christian, do you even have a feel for this word? Do you use it? Or does it conjure images of antiquated British legal structures?

I think I'm bothered with the irrelevance of the word. A church that wants to bring the world into restorative relationship with its maker and redeemer needs to be relevant. At times she has been cutting edge. Sometimes she survives, barely hanging on. But this Name business, so important for the first believers, has become devoid of the value it initially held, because "Lord" scarcely exists as a non-Christian concept. The "name" works against the goal. But not GOD!

Yes, that's why I felt like a goon, because the answer, or at least what I think this work could be suggesting as at least a better answer, might simply be good old "God", potentially capitalised. Why do I like "GOD"?

• GOD is a much more widely understood and furnished concept, regardless of personal belief.
• GOD uniquely fulfils the mandate originally set up by the Septuagint translators, by being both anarthrous in English and still being a title. The same is true in other languages!
• GOD is already a popular although as-yet undeveloped translation, appearing on the occasions where "Adonai" and "Yahweh" (or Elohim) occur together in authoritative translations like the KJV and the NASB as "Lord GOD".

This could be so big, so obvious, yet formed at a scarcely awake time and from an untrained researcher that you'd be forgiven for seeing it as hilarious!!!! 😂 
Sorry, that wasn't very respectful.

More soon - hope this was more accessible, please let me know.

#bloggers, #blogging, #bloggingtips, #problogging, #blogpromotion, #bloggerlife, #bloggersgetsocial, #bloggerproblems, #bloggerstyle

LJC S2 Part 8: Prayer

THIS IS WHERE Hurtado's study gets up, close and personal, if we will let it. Why? Because: "Who did they pray to" is just a tiny step from "who do I pray to". Also, in ways surely never glimpsed by the disciples when they asked for assistance on how to pray to Jesus, the issue of how to pray seems complex when there are at least two, closely related potential recipients. So how does Paul handle it?

Paul's prayers seem to primarily aim for God, although as ever, Jesus is never far removed from view. In Romans 1, the prayer is even offered "through" Jesus. However, as Hurtado rightly notes, there are other occasions when both are addressed, such as 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13:

Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

There are also petition moments that include Jesus, such as Paul's famous petition to the Lord Jesus for the removal of his "thorn" in 2 Corinthians 12. Fascinatingly, Hurtado also informs us that in the "unsuccessful mutations" of Christianity, direct prayers to Jesus are actually more prominent than in the canonical material, which seems to keep something of a balance. Hurtado concludes:

Overall, we get the impression of a remarkably well-established pattern of prayer in which Jesus features very prominently, either as recipient or as unique agent through whom prayer is offered. Moreover, there is simply no analogy in Roman-era Jewish groups for the characteristic linking of Jesus with God in the prayer practice reflected in Paul's letters. (p. 140)

Notes

You may have noticed that I have been treating God as a uni-personal individual. This is in keeping with Hurtado and, I strongly believe, with Paul. We also are clearly thin on Holy Spirit in this area, certainly as a recipient of prayer. That obviously does not mean that Paul dos not have a great deal to say about the Holy Spirit, and indeed sees the Sprit as interceding/praying for us in Rom 8.

Why We Bind Theology To Doxology

1. Any theology that does not lead to song is, at a fundamental level, a flawed theology (J. I. Packer).

Logos.com describes Packer as "perhaps one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries."

2. I think a good theologian prays well, first. No theologian who doesn’t has even begun to understand the discipline. And then s/he serves the Church, and his or her particular part of it (down to a local congregation) in humility and faithfulness. Theology belongs to the Church; any theologian divorced from the Church is a bad theologian, however brilliant or knowledgeable. A good theologian has a grasp of gospel values, and would swap everything s/he has written to see one sinner repent, or one broken life healed. A good theologian writes and speaks only to help the Church be more faithful to the gospel, bringing whatever knowledge of the tradition, whatever insight into contemporary modes of thought, and whatever native cleverness s/he may possess, all into service of this one end. A good theologian is marked by humility and cheerfulness, knowing how far short of the mystery of God and God’s works his/her best efforts fall, and knowing that in the good grace of God something of lasting worth may still come from them. A good theologian, finally, does know something, and has some capacity of thought, and so can make a contribution through his/her God-given vocation.

I am not a very good theologian.

(S. Holmes)

I describe Stephen Holmes as an extremely knowledgeable and apparently humble theologian. Holmes had an important impact on my own understanding of the Trinity around 2014-2015, and I continue to use his book for reference on historical contributions.

The purpose of our learning and contributions is not for us, but for Another and for others who worship that Other - God, say Holmes and Packer and indeed the lion's share of Christian theologians. Are they correct? Does theology lead to doxology? Doxology defines itself pretty clearly to me, but how is theology to be defined? If it is that which we can say of God via the biblical text on the historical platform from which we gaze, then we presume the reality of the God in question. Thus, in the case of Christian theology, then we must indeed humbly agree and reaffirm what is said above.

However, it should probably be remembered as well that Christianity is also an intensely historical phenomenon which has affected humanity globally. Therefore, historical studies can and must overlap considerably with the work of theologians. This is where we need to tread carefully and, I think, welcome the inter-worldview historical task. On the one hand, "neutral" history without faith commitment could actually shed greater light on Christianity's authenticity. On the other hand, it could also cast doubt on central tenets, doctrines or beliefs. 

This comparison and overlap remind me a little of the evolution "debate": we see some anti-christian science on the one hand, and six-day creationists on the other. However, I think, most people overlap: scientists on the most-part are not setting out to disprove religions, simply to understand the universe better and produce life-enhancing insights. It's positive, not negative. Further, many Christians, myself included, do not believe a six-day creation 6000 years ago to be at all credible in light of the data produced by extensive research. What do we do in that overlapping space? We interact. Christians do science; scientists have faith. Both are enhanced. 

The same should be said and clarified for theology and history. Historical theology reaches back through the hermeneutical spiral toward the source, both for theologians and historians of religion. Collaboration is necessary. Collaboration produces the results both enterprises need and should detract from individual glory.

But let's get back to the Christian task of theology. Yes, theology in its brute form is without a doubt a Christian task. But why point out that it has to lead to doxology? What might the alternative be? Obsession? Pride? Distraction?

For me, I do believe there is truth in this from the perspective in which I have been raised and have now affirmed as an adult believer. But during my recent journey, theology has been quite historical when I was horrified to consider that my cherished trinitarian beliefs no longer seemed to fit the biblical text that I also cherished so dearly. Theology is also about wanting to know the truth, and that's ok. That can take time. And mistakes. And learning. And humility. Such a process can run deep through your soul, and, without you even realising it, prepare the way for a deeper and sounder doxology than the fractured, pride-ridden self could have arrived at without the history. 

Is the theology to doxology idea something of a paradox, why even bother saying it? Perhaps theology requires that it be said from the same lips of those who have authentically and personally wrestled with the issue for themselves (I make no judgement on either Holmes or Packer here), but that incarnational approach I find deeply appealing. Any preacher who speaks of his own pride gets my instant and total attention. I can relate to him or her. Now we get real. Now we get to ditch the crowns, and we can do it together and we can do it alone.

Perhaps also theology doesn't want Christians to get too lost in historical analysis and forget their purpose. As we have said, there is this wide overlap with historical analysis, with its neutral goal of simply better understanding past events. There can be a conflict of interests though here. Let's take my example of the Gospel of Matthew. I have deeply divided feelings about the Gospel of Matthew. Part of me loves it - in particular, we get the sermon on the mount, which is amazing. My history part loves it too, as I now understand the baptism formula in 28:19 in a new light that enhances earlier teaching. However, my faith part has at times suffered as I have wrestled with the modifications that I see this author has made to his sources and his thinly concealed objectives. My understanding of Scripture and inspiration has been severely tested in the case of Matthew, yet when I look back in history I also get fresh faith: Matthew ends up being the most popular and retranscribed gospel (I think) for the early church. A massive contribution has been made by Matthew, and I am an inheritor of its contribution, whatever the conclusions I reach about it. 

It may feel like a paradox at times when we get to ugly texts or bits we don't know if they are even literally truely recounting actual events in our past. But if we stop for a second as Christians and ask ourselves why we are even asking that historical question, we should remember to answer ourselves: because we want to know God better.

Moral Arguments

I feel finally inspired to write something down after an informed but friendly debate held by Unbelievable on Christian Premier Radio on the legitimacy of the moral argument - or at least a certain form of it. You can listen to the episode here, and watch Craig's fun animated video presentation of it here. I'm not convinced by either Cranman or Craig's versions. I do agree, however, absolutely that discussing premise 2 first makes more sense.

It seemed to me that there was at least one more voice that needed to be heard, that of Christian - and why not, atheist - evolutionists and also a specialist in anthropology and sociology wouldn't have gone amiss either! I guess I'm aiming a bit high asking for a whole panel, but yet it is an important topic, so why not state the ideal conditions? :)

The keyword for my own response and argument is going to be "cluster". I think it can and should be argued that there is a phenomenon of clustering that takes place with regard to moral behaviour choices.

So we can observe that most people believe that it is "wrong" to kill but also, sadly, that war is sometimes necessary and will almost certainly involve killing. In the same way, a police officer might have to kill a crazed gunman. Even though killing is wrong, there is some kind of justifying principle at work: the greater good (or the least harm). I note how this word "greater" operates. It presupposes that degrees of goodness and wrong can be identified in order to make the moral decision possible and indeed to make the moral decision itself.

Here is a question that made an alternative argument seem necessary for Christians (like myself, who don't think you can easily get to the Christian God by apologetic argumentation) to have another way into the debate: Can a theist imagine a functional intelligent society in which individuals, groups and the species as a whole could thrive without "God"? What would the minimum contents be of that God?

It's difficult to imagine, but this may depend on our definitions of God.

We accept that consciousness is a spectrum. Awareness varies according to the complexity of the life-form, and even self-awareness in humans can vary from non-existence to heightened (and back again, e.g. in a fit of rage). The moral code that says don't harm my own species is necessarily built into every species for it to advance.

Could we imagine a mass-mutation of a species away from that moral law? Yes! Unfortunately, it would also involve the self-destruction of the species.

As the species that is human, our accumulated knowledge continues to increase and our legal systems inevitably complexify in accordance with that knowledge, and the clustering process continues in new moral scenarios either hitherto unforeseen (e.g. medical ethics) or better understood (e.g. LGBQT).

So it is probably pretty clear that I find the presentation of John Cranman's (and WL Craig's) moral argument untenable in its current format. But I also don't think it shouldn't be abandoned altogether either, despite my previous doubts. It is simply that some tighter and also some looser definitions must be properly integrated. I also think it is useful to break the argumentation into two halves, as I have attempted below, to cater for intelligent and less intelligent species.

Here we go:

1. For a species to thrive at any level of intelligence requires ingrained knowledge of the behavioural norms necessary for the survival of any given individual's offspring, of the individual itself and of the individual's group.

2. Human beings are a species.

3. For humans to thrive requires their ingrained knowledge of the behavioural norms necessary for the survival of their offspring, themselves and of their group.

4. Such ingrained knowledge in humans can be aptly described as moral values and duties.

5. Although not strictly universal, moral values and duties can be observed to cluster around certain norms that transcend a given human social group.

6. That which transcends can be aptly described by an observer from within that species as equivalent to objective reality.

7. Moral values and duties are at least equivalent to an objective reality.

And so, at last, we arrive, as in the podcast episode, at the second premise first. Note that thus far an appeal to God has not seemed to be necessary for the flow of this argument.

H O W E V E R

8. Moral decisions can be complex, such as those involving conflicting moral values, and in such cases require more knowledge about likely outcomes in order to imagine and assess the "greater good" (or benefit) and the "greater harm".

9. Such an increased need of knowledge vastly exceeds the speed at which humans can evolve, and may even require total knowledge, letting us then assert such decisions require perfect knowledge on the part of the moral navigator in order to be made safely.

10. Only "God" has perfect knowledge (be he real or imagined).

11. Therefore God or an unrealised ideal knowledge is necessarily sought for complex moral choices to truly enhance the human race.

12. The Christian God is a perfectly legitimate solution to complex moral problems.

13. Non-theistic models of improving knowledge are also perfectly legitimate solutions to making better complex moral choices.

On the basis of the moral argument alone, we cannot state which offers the best explanation.

Coregency

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation

Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah

This morning I woke up much too early because of congestion. My stuffy nose had meant that my breathing had been entirely through my mouth, completely drying it out. However, it got me pondering about the neurological authorities involved in the incredible breathing apparatus with which we are all endowed. Think about it for a moment. You can take total control of your breathing. Speed it up, slow it down, make it shallow, make it deep, breathe through your mouth, breathe through your nose (or even do both) or even stop it entirely to consume food and drink or take a plunge underwater; most importantly, while exhaling, manage your breath past your vocal chords in such a way as to make distinct sounds that we call "talking". And yet: 99% of the time (my made-up statistic), we are totally unaware of our own breathing and it is operated from an unconscious neurological location in a similar way to the beating of our hearts - to which we have no access whatsoever. In sum, not only is breathing amazing, but its authority distribution is seamless.

It then occurred to me that there could be some theological mileage in this as a helpful way to understand God's kingdom. The book of Revelation, right at the back of our Bibles, paints the clearest picture of all the New Testament of this coregency dynamic at work. God's kingdom has been entrusted to his Messiah, to whom he has given full authority for actual rule. This is not me trying to twist an interpretation into today's post, it is simply me trying to give good credence to the above passages. Coregency is what allows both regents to graciously assert that it is their kingdom. Some people today, including in the world of Christian apologetics, would like to temporarily suspend the possibility of concepts like co-ownership and coregency, before continuing with their lives in which such power-sharing practices continue to shape the fabric of our societies.

Ehrman complaint and defining God

I am fresh off a slight rant at Bart Ehrman on his blog at http://ehrmanblog.org/the-controversies-about-christ-arius-and-alexander/

Here's what I had to say to him on his ambiguous way of using the G-word :)

Hi all.
Dr Ehrman I believe we already discussed the implications of not defining our terms regarding G-o-d; I suggested that most folk listening to you will not be defining G-o-d as "a divine being". You do this discussing John's christology and I now see you do it with Arius too. That's a confusing tactic, because " a divine being" is **not** how most folk would define, or even understand you saying G-o-d. If you mean "a divine being" then please just say that from the start, consistently. It almost seems like currying some favour with the evangelical crowd regarding John. Since I know that you have some issues with their approach at times and perhaps a certain narrow mindedness, I doubt that is the case, I am just saying it almost seems like that. I would not be so public about this complaint if I had not tried to share it privately first!

My second comment concerns the argument of God becoming a Father requiring the impossible situation that the unchangeable One changed. That seems like a non sequitur. Yhwh can be shown to have had different states with regard to his creation. If creation hasn't always been then he hasn't always been creator. He hasn't perpetually had some kind of mind-state of wrath, but he has definitely, biblically been wrathful.... And then not again. Yhwh sometimes moves about. Most significantly, however, and most probably won't agree with this, I don't think we can say that Yhwh himself has always been God. By this I mean that God is a title, with respect to a **people**. Yhwh is **Israel's** God, etc. Before all time and space, Yhwh wasn't anyone's God. Look forward to any responses :)

Throwing Thomas some trinitarian credit... [updated]

Today I am providing the next part of my new sub-chapter into explicit references of Jesus being called "God".

John 20:28 – My Lord and my God!

John 20:28 brings us to what is probably the most explicit attribution to Jesus of the title “God” in the whole New Testament. Furthermore, and unlike in John 1:1, the definite article preceding "God" is also significantly present (ho Theos). The context of this famous declaration is that Jesus has now been raised and most of his disciples had seen him and been “breathed on” by him – but not Thomas. Like some other disciples, Thomas has doubts. Jesus subsequently confronts him and commands him to stop doubting and believe. Thomas’ response is “My Lord and my God” (and to worship – it is not clear if he actually takes up Jesus on his invitation to touch his wounds, but presumably not according to this account).

In this immediate context of doubt about God’s resurrection of Jesus and the disciples’ own empowerment through Jesus’ breathing in v22-23, why might Thomas say “My Lord and my God” to Jesus? Of course it is possible that despite the multiple distinctions within John’s gospel between Jesus and his Father God, that Thomas supernaturally glimpsed something of a totally different level to John, which concerned Jesus’ very nature (or natures). Maybe – because of the explicit wording we have to be open to it, or it might also be argued to work nicely in tandem with the prologue (the God-Word became flesh). However, since good Trinitarian theology is about big-picture reality of the life of God, there are some other contextual considerations that should be integrated into the exegetical analysis before developing theology from such a rare and apparently explicit statement.

The first consideration is to properly account for the author’s perspective. Although Thomas is “speaking” here, John is also speaking throughout. It is not likely therefore that Thomas will have a different insight to Jesus’ identity to that which John now holds 60 years later around A.D. 90. Within this very same chapter, Thomas’ statement is framed by two significant facts. Firstly, when the raised Jesus addresses Mary Magdalene, he freely and inclusively talks to her of his (and your) Father being his (and your) God (20:17) – so here John has another explicit and quite different statement about Jesus, that he and Mary share the same Father and God (see 7.3 God is the God of Jesus/Jesus has a God/Jesus is the servant of God). Secondly, the purpose of the book itself is plainly stated (20:31) so that, concerning Jesus’ identity, John earnestly wants to convince his readers of Jesus’ identity claim. This claim, which is demonstrably not in Cappadocian terms, states simply: the Messiah and the Son of God. For John, the Father is always in view and never confused with the Son. So why on earth might both “Lord” and “God” seemingly be attributed to the one Jesus here in John 20:28?

A minor second consideration is a hidden distinction in the Greek, which emphasises the third point I will develop below. It would have been possible for Thomas to simply state: “the Lord and God of me!” Yet, he does not do that. What he actually says in the Greek is: “the Lord of me and the God of me!”

With this in mind, let us move on to the final and most important consideration of John’s purpose here: spurring disciples to know God the Father in Christ. When we zoom in on just this passage for doctrinal purposes, Thomas’ character (and belief) development within John’s gospel are often sadly lost. For in addition to the primary goal of revealing Jesus’ identity as God’s Messiah and Son, John is also desperate for people to respond to the revelation he is chronicling, and truly believe this dual (and to a less emphasised extent, triple) reality. It seems impossible that this dual reality could be an incredible revelation of Christ’s two natures! The dual reality is seeing both Christ and God-the-Father-in-Christ. Believing (and its antithesis, doubting) are key themes for him, so in encouraging late first century disciples in their belief, tracking Thomas’ spiritual journey would have made a lot of sense. Just look at how Jesus immediately responds to Thomas in the following verse: “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”. So to understand Thomas’ “belief development”, we need to go back six chapters to chapter 14, where both Thomas and Philip question Jesus about belief. Belief is to be in God and in his Son (14:1), you cannot short-circuit Jesus to the Father (14:6), and the Father is present in the Son. If you see the Son then your desire to see the Father is satisfied, not because the Father is the Son, but because the Father is in the Son. You cannot have one without the other. This is the journey that John is so keen to show his disciples and readers later on. Zoom forward three chapters to John 17:3, and Jesus prays this: Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Jesus and the Father are to be known, both of them. For Thomas as-yet without the Holy Spirit, that means knowing (and believing in) the still-present Jesus and, through that Jesus, knowing their common Father.

In light of these three considerations, it therefore seems quite possible to me that in 20:28, Thomas finally understands that the Father, who in first century parlance is the one who is properly called “God” in the genitive sense, that this Father is indeed in the Son (John 14:10). Thomas might well then state “the Lord of me (a title in the possessive form that is never attributed to God in the Bible but always to human authorities[6]) and the God of me” (specifically stating belief of the Father’s presence, truly and astoundingly in Jesus).

It is somewhat ironical that the traditional interpretations, which have pushed for simple divinity interpretations, have frequently failed to identify and develop the deeper trinitarian and Johannine themes here of the Father in the Son. 18^th century commentaries such as Matthew Henry (We must believe his deity—that he is God; not a man made God, but God made man, as this evangelist had laid down his thesis at first, ch. 1:1[7]) have provided a normative precedent away from vertical contextualisation in this case. Much later that century, British bishop Brooke F. Westcott, unsurprisingly[8], was more careful with the text, despite his failure to specifically join the dots to the Father’s indwelling presence through his Holy Spirit (my emphasis):

The discipline of self-questioning, followed by the revelation of tender compassion and divine knowledge, enabled St. Thomas to rise to the loftiest view of the Lord given in the Gospels ….

The record of this confession therefore forms the appropriate close to his narrative; and the words which follow show that the Lord accepted the declaration of His divinity as the true expression of faith. He never speaks of Himself directly as God (comp. v. 18), but the aim of His revelation was to lead men to see God in him.[9]

Perhaps Westcott was inspired by Augustine who also is close but strangely un-trinitarian here:

[Thomas] saw and touched the man, and [then] acknowledged the God whom he neither saw nor touched.[10]

Adolf Schlatter, however, was able to make a full connection (my emphasis):

“The Word is God,” 1:1. The knowing of Jesus is then attained when it is seen that “he is in the Father and the Father is in him,” 14:10. Through his single word “my” [Thomas’s] knowledge remains not just knowledge but becomes faith.[11]

In final conclusion on Thomas, while it must obviously be concluded that he does address Jesus as “God”, it is frankly disappointingly and decidedly untrinitarian to isolate this passage from its overarching witness of the Father in his Son, the Christ. Jesus himself states emphatically throughout this same gospel:

But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.”

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.” [12]

“The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone”.[13]

And finally, when Philip and Thomas ply Jesus with questions on precisely this topic:

Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority.[14]

---

[1] For now I can say this: despite general historical shifts in understanding what is going on with “Word” (logos), “God” (ho theos and theos) and “Become” (egeneto), that Christians having access to this passage or its precursor, have always believed that God’s eternal divine word was incarnated in (or into) Jesus (as a Christian I also have made the choice to believe that). This leaves incarnation Christology still very open as my chapter above on the church fathers demonstrates. It is precisely the interpretative options that I must still articulate and align with John’s overarching themes and goals.

[2] You will recall that there is a penalty system in place for texts where the strength of their suggestiveness or dissuasiveness is weakened according to a number of defined causes (see p. 51). This category is concerned more than any other by the penalty system as we shall now briefly see before we zoom into two of the most crucial of all blue texts in the entire New Testament canon, and which are certainly not to be penalised: John 20:28 and Hebrews 1:8-9.

[3] Of course, we are assuredly not positing a traditional evangelical view of first century Jewish monotheism that excludes other real gods within Yahweh’s divine council (please refer to the Monotheism entry in chapter 2 if needed; also see ).

[4] Titus is harder for me to assume this because I cannot apply the same criterion of consistency to a book that might be the only text we have by its author. If that were true and it were written in a later and more christologically developed situation, then the assumption of distinction is a considerably weaker option. Earliest manuscript is Papyrus 32, dated late 2^nd century.

[5] Fortunately, this variation is footnoted by the NIV, which alerts readers to the shakiness of this evidence

[6] James 3:9 does not really present an exception to the rule given its textual variations, which are not always footnoted in modern translations. Given the biblical evidence, the variant “our God and Father” should be preferred.

[7] M. Henry, Exposition of the Old and New Testament, Vol. 3,  p. 707, London: Joseph Ogle Robinson, 1708.

[8] Unsurprising given his biblical and ground-breaking credentials in New Testament textual criticism.

[9] B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John, p. 297, London: John Murray, 1894.

[10] Augustine, John, 121:5, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 1 7:438, Philip Schaff, T. & T. Clark, 1896-1900. One could legitimately pose the question of compatibility between Augustine’s statement here and the ecumenical and unshakable doctrinal stance of both Catholic and Orthodox theology, that Mary is the Mother of God (431 Council of Ephesus): if Jesus could only be touched and seen according to his human nature, which is presumably true, then how could Mary be considered to have mothered him according to his divine nature? A staunch defender of Augustinian theology might posit that Augustine was simply stating that Thomas had not previously “seen” the Father in Jesus until this revelatory moment, but then why this tense and not “whom he had neither seen nor touched”? Of course the issue of physical contact with the risen Lord is not entirely resolved, with some early ambiguity around the physical contact may have been heightened through a tradition expressed by Ignatius in the early 2^nd century which does categorically affirm this although the source of that tradition is now lost to us. See R. Brown, The Virginal Conception & Bodily Resurrection of Jesus, p. 88 fn.150, Paulist Press, 1973. Brown does not, however, indicate why Matthew 28:9 was not relevant to him.

[11] Adolf Schlatter, Johannes, p. 362, Evangel. Verlag-Anst., 1954, cited by Frederick D. Bruner The Gospel of John: A Commentary, p. 1183, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2012 (Bruner cites page 362, which appears to be from a translation, not the original).

[12] John 8:16-19

[13] John 8:29

[14] John 14:9-10, obviously my own emphasis.

Wheaton College dispute, varying perspectives and "corners"

Some of you may be aware that at the moment there is a high-profile theological dispute underway in the States. Even CNN is in on the action here!

The lady involved is a professor of political science. She does not appear to be a Muslim, she is simply was "showing solidarity" toward Muslim women in wearing the headscarf (hijab) and making her now-famous facebook post that includes this: "I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God." (see her full post here)

A lot of people thinking about this right now. Lots of helpful attempts to define and illustrate the the problem. Two thoughts dominate my mind.

The first is to simply re-iterate a powerful "parable" provided by Robert Jenson, itself modelled on another (Jenson states) by Ludwig Wittgenstein: Suppose that in a room containing several persons, I ask one of them to go stand in the corner. Whatever that person does, the rest of us will usually be able to decide whether or not he obeyed me. But now, suppose I draw an arc on the floor in the corner and ask the group whether someone who stood inside the arc would obey my request and they all answer yes. Next I draw a slightly larger concentric arc and repeat the question, and so on. At some point the group will begin to disagree about whether someone who stood in the latest arc but outside the one just previous would have obeyed my request. Then we may be tempted to wonder where "the corner" is and to suppose something ambiguous in my original instruction—when in fact there was nothing at all ambiguous about it. The instruction, "Go preach the gospel," can be perfectly clear and may be decided on even if the several instructors give no agreed, uniform definition of what the gospel "is." (Robert Jenson, On the Problem of Scriptural Authority, p240).

The One God is understood differently between the two faiths. But also, although hopefully to lessening degrees, within each faith the understanding is different. Go the full distance and you finally realise that everyone holds their own unique perception of exactly who the One God actually is (or where the "corner" is). If difference of perception could be measured, it would obviously have to be continuous and not discrete data. Any individual attempting to carve out boundaries (see Carl Medearis http://www.amazon.com/Speaking... rather than trace dynamic trajectories will be imposing some form of imperialistic approach by definition.

So to claim that the attributes are different therefore the God is different is nonsense. If you think that God is love and you are a Christian and the Muslim agrees with you, but your abused doubting-but-still Christian friend still believes in the Christian God but is struggling to sense God's love, how does that work out? The content of LOVE is unique to all of us anyway. I really don't think attributes won't cut it.

Since such strongly voiced opinions are voiced with such strength, you might be forgiven as an outsider to think that since God himself appears silent in this debate, that He might be allowing others to appear ridiculous in their appearing to be his mouthpiece. Ultimately the question should be if there is such a God as the One God, who is more in "corner" than another, would he feel identified by those hailing a different corner? Or would he not notice? That was my second point - God's perspective. Of course, it is theoretically possible that assuming the true existence of One True God, that none of the "monotheistic" faiths have really got close to nailing who he is, perhaps through divine intention. Since perfectly "nailing it" is out of the question, I think this argues for grace and flexibility of that God if he accepts any of us, based on other principles than correct identification.

God our Mother: an oversight?

It has become pretty cool to consider that God the Father might have been a construct from patriarchal cultures (read antiquated). The Liturgists say: "we know all about God our Father... but to know only God the Father would be like knowing just the day-time and never the night".

I am a big fan of the Liturgists, I listen to their podcasts, I discuss their episodes with friends. They blow away the horrible religious cobwebs from your soul! But I think here they should have done a lot better, given their pedigree.

First, listen to Pink and Blue. I actually find it shocking that so many of these "maternal" attributes are considered to be maternal! Is it not paternal to look at your son or daughter and say "Son, I believe in you"? That - to me as a father - strikes me as so paternal. What it means to the child will be different whether they hear it from their mother and the father, but it is just so, so simplistic to assume that these themes they are throwing out there are so black and white. Another theme was "motherly" protection.

Second, bring us back to the Bible. Please. God does not just reveal himself as a Father through Scripture, in a direct "I am God your Father" way, not much anyway. What he does is reveal his fatherhood through his incredible relationship with his monogenes, Jesus Christ, by whom we are also adopted into the same family if we follow Jesus our Brother, His way, His stance of son. We understand God as Father in and through his unique relationship with the Messiah, right? 

So while it is not clear to me now that we need to concede the first person of the Trinity to now be the Parent, there is someone else that I feel would have to be conceded on the same level. Only half of us can really strive to be a son like Jesus is a meaningful way. Reason dictates that, obviously, but also the diversity in the early church across gender and ethnic background, requires it: that we look to the male Jesus for his stance as child before God, and not only as Son. This much is granted (and it is interesting that monogenes does also apply to only daughters, see my monogenes post). Yet the one who is physically irrefutably male, or perhaps that Trinitarians would say became male, his condition of child of God is rarely if ever examined. It probably carries with it the whiff of heretical belittling because a child is small relative to the parent, while the Son can be as big as the parent. Yet the female half of the population called to ressemble Christ as uniquely Son, and not child, might, according to the God our Mother method, be left with a lack of role model.

But what about the one Jesus called "God" and "Father"? Was Jesus so caught up in a patriarchal culture that he himself was unaware of the gender choices he was making or endorsing? Jesus can strike as very counter-cultural, capable of exchanging blows with the religious elite of his time, but was this one just out of his human perceptual capabilities? Would not the God who wants to reveal himself (or should I say, themselves, to conserve the gender neutrality) so fully to us, in and through Jesus, have allowed Jesus to grasp that they were more Parent or Mother as well as Father, rather than this whole Divine Dad thing?

I have a feeling that this throws us back, quite sweetly, to the Liturgists poor delineation we commented at the start of this post. Could it be that all the qualities that we require in a perfect parent are equally present in both the perfect father and the perfect mother, but expressed differently? I think that could be right. In which case there is nothing in the Father that is lacking, because the perfect Father lacks nothing the perfect Mother would possess, while he will express it in a male way.

Of course, the "God-bearer" Mary, Theotokos, via her own immaculate conception as required in the Catholic church (or just sinless life according to the Orthodox church), may have embodied some of these same aspirations of the God our Mother propagators in times past.

There was more in my mind on this, but the post is long enough and I am half asleep so I bid you goodnight!

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!

Jesus using the third person singular when speaking of God

How can we understand Jesus being the one true God when God's son is quoted using the third person singular of God? We have a few options. Here is one of many examples of this usage from Revelation:

Revelation 22:18 NIVUK

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: if anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll.

So if we apply this general question to this specific example, we get something like, if Jesus is as God as the Father is God, and if Jesus knew that and John knew that, then why would Jesus not be quoted saying: "I will add to that person..." or "we will add to that person..."? I think it is a very good question that we are not encouraged to query.

Here are three options I can see:
1. When Jesus says "God", he is not referring to the full Divine being of God, that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but rather the one person of the Father. This then would need the third person even though Jesus is no less God Almighty than the Father.

2. When Jesus says "God", he is referring to the One God, of whom he is one of and not all three of the three members of that Divine being. So even though he knows he is God, it would be improper or unnatural for him to assume the first person singular or plural, since that would be to assume that he is the Father and the Spirit when he is not. This then would need the third person.

3. Either Jesus or John should not be assumed to have grasped Jesus' divinity in this way, hence the need for the third person.

There may be some other options for the Trinitarian here. One however they are unlikely to go for is: " Jesus doesn't say he will add to that person... he simply says God will add". Most serious Trinitarians would sensibly avoid that mistake because they know that not only does Jesus elsewhere use the third person pronoun he in reference to Theos, God, but because they also know that in the Greek the verb form used for will add is third person, regardless of whether or not we have the pronoun.

John 10:33

We have traditionally understood the divine and the created orders as utterly distinct, separated as if by an unbridgeable chasm. Basil of Caeserea. That's the work of Christ, to bridge that chasm. Others have pointed to more of a spectrum of divinity, a hierarchy, although not emphasised in Isaiah but strong in other OT and extra-canonical writings. What I believe this passage indicates (in Greek, not this translation so much) is that there IS a chasm AND a spectrum, that the title that Jesus had assumed of himself SON OF GOD was considered a divine claim and condemnable as blasphemy. It also appears likely from :

- Jesus' response, which has no quotes in the Greek around the word "gods" (v34),

- the anarthrous theos, god, and the anarthrous anthropon, man (v33),

--> that the allegation in v33 carries indeed the sense of the indefinite article "a".

The " mere " of "mere man" I think is a stylistic interpolation of the NIV that while comprehensible may do nothing to draw us closer to the original meaning of these fascinating verses.