Announced on Steve Katsaras’s blog.
Both Mr. Katsaras and Mr. Naga did well last time, which was a 3-way discussion:
And here’s a later debate between Mr. Naga and evangelical apologist Samuel Green, called Jesus: Mighty Prophet or God with us?
Related posts:
podcast 270 - Origen's "one God"
podcast 245 – Response to Branson Part 3 – Dueling Definitions
podcast 230 - The Failure of Fashionable Antiunitarian Arguments
On a Rebuttal to my "How Trinity theories conflict with the New Testament" - Part 1
Feser's Negative Mysterian Defense of the Trinity
10 steps towards getting less confused about the Trinity - #7 - the deity of Christ vs. the Trinity
trinitarian or unitarian? 3 - Irenaeus's 2-stage Logos theory
Obsession
The Lost Early History of Unitarian Christian Theology
Is God a Self? Part 2 - Flint
Something more about Raymond E. Brown, who, I believe, was the one who coined the expression “conception Christology”, but then shied away from it and, instead of seeing as complementary of “Logos Christology”, ended up espousing “pre-existence Christology”.
This is what he writes:
“Matt[hew] and Luke in different infancy stories affirm that already by conception in the womb of Mary Jesus was not only Son of David but also ‘God with us’ and God’s Son. That was and is true. The formulations of conception christology are problematic only when, by ways of restriction, Christians might think that God’s Son became or began his existence when divine power overshadowed Mary and the Holy Spirit came upon her, so that she conceived without human intervention. Without showing cognizance of the problem, various other NT writings prevent such a misunderstanding by portraying Jesus as present at certain key moments in the OT history of God’s people (the times of Moses and Abraham), or as the one through whom all things were created, or as an entity with God who entered flesh (incarnation), or as the Word spoken by God before the act of creation – the various forms of preexistence christology. All there formulations were and remain true …” (Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to New Testament Christology, 1994, pp. 144-5)
QUESTIONS
Why would “conception christology”, that Brown rightly attributes to Matthew and Luke as the ONLY christology that they wanted to express, be referred to as “problematic”? Why “problematic”?
Why should seeing God’s intervention in the womb of the Virgin Mary by His Holy Spirit as His way of bringing about His Son be seen as a “restriction”?
Why does Brown assume that “various other NT writings” (presumably Paul’s, John’s and Hebrews) would have considered “conception christology” (as opposed to “preexistence christology”) a “misunderstanding”.
Why resort to the scripturally unwarranted gambit of assuming that it was the “preincarnated Jesus” (rather than, obviously, YHWH) who interacted with Abraham and Moses? Or that YHWH would have resorted to the “preincarnated Jesus” for His act of creation? Or that God (actually, a “person” thereof, unless one adopts Sabellianism) would have “entered flesh”? Or that God’s Word, before the Incarnation was other than an essential attribute of God?
I am a great admirer of Brown’s freedom and independence of inquiry, but I suspect that, sadly, in his last years (+ 1998) he lost his intellectual integrity and lapsed into the most trite and embarrassing loci of “orthodox” traditionalism.
A contribution to the critique of my position (Qs & As).
[Q] Has anybody ever proposed a position equal (or similar) to mine?
[A] AFAIK, R.E. Brown has, but only limited to Matthew and Luke (he speaks of “conception christology” as opposed to “pre-existence christology”). I believe that nobody has ever proposed to see the “Nativity Accounts in Matthew and Luke and the Incarnation of God’s Logos in John as two sides of the same account”, as I have. Let me refer to it, from now on, as “logos conception christology” (LCC).
[Q] May Socinian Unitarians be interested in LCC?
[A] If Socinian Unitarians accept the virgin conception as literal (IOW if they subscribe to “conception christology”), they are half way there. AFAIK, no Socinian Unitarian, though, has ever considered the Incarnation of God’s Logos as the “complementary side” of “conception christology”. Maybe some will …
[Q] May Muslims be interested in LCC?
[A] I believe they could, because it would certainly defuse what Jaco calls “Mohammed’s strawman”. Reasonably, though, I believe that Muslims may only begin to consider seriously LCC after Islam has undergone a process of criticism substantially similar to the one Christianity has experienced over the last 250 years. Hopefully faster …
[Q] May traditional “orthodox” Christians (i.e. “trinitarians”) be interested in LCC?
[A] I believe not. The reasons are so obvious that I don’t think I need to expand on them.
[Q] May “liberal” Christians be interested in LCC?
[A] No. In fact even less, if possible, than traditional “orthodox” Christians. The reason is quite obvious. For them, there is no (strong or even weak) creedal statement of Christianity left. Everything is fluid, everything is metaphor. Everything is, ultimately, subjective.
[Q] May Jews be interested in LCC?
[A] Apart from the variety of positions within modern Judaism (in alphabetical order: Alternative, Classical Reform, Conservative, Humanistic, Haymanot, Karaite, Liberal, Orthodox, Progressive, Reconstructionist, Reform, Renewal, Traditional – perhaps I have left some out), obviously, the first stumbling block is the very objection to Jesus as the Messiah. IF they accept Jesus as the Messiah AND (unlike most “Messianic Jews”, who often are nothing but “evangelicals in disguise”) they refuse the “trinity”, THEN, of course, LCC should be of interest for them.
[Q] How does the LCC fare vis a vis Christian Creeds?
[A] LCC is a strong re-affirmation of a genuine Christian Creed, however minimal. Incidentally, I firmly believe that LCC is entirely compatible with the Apostles’ Creed (more appropriately: the Old Roman Symbol – 2nd century). It is only compatible with the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed once its metaphysical parts have been removed (that is, essentially, it has been reduced to the ORS). It is obviously incompatible with the s.c. “Athanasian Creed”.
[Q] How does the LCC fare vis a vis the Christian Scriptures?
[A] I believe that is the only Christology that is perfectly compatible with the Christian Scriptures, and, in particular, with the NT, without requiring arbitrary and/or biased assumptions: first and foremost, “pre-existence”.
Other questions are welcome and will be answered.
Jaco,
it would be easy for me to just enjoy your approval … 🙂
… but it would not be entirely honest. 🙁
So, let me respond with my comments. You write:
“I think what should be shown is that “Son of God” had an emic meaning in the first century different from the strawman Mohammed built in the Qur’an.”
I am not ashamed to confess that I had to look “emic” up. So, I found that it is part of the dyad emic/etic (apparently both, somehow, deriving from [phon]emic and [phon]etic). Apparently “emic” expresses how a notion (say “Son of God”) is understood “from within” a culture (“subjectively”), whereas “etic” has to do with how a notion, pertaining to a specific culture, is understood “from outside” (“objectively”).
So, if I’ve got you right, you are more or less saying that “Son of God”, in the cultural milieu of 1st century Judaism, was a metaphor, with many sides and layers, but a metaphor, certainly not a crude literal notion (“the strawman Mohammed built”), including sexual implications like, say, in earlier and contemporary Greek mythology, Apollo was the son of Zeus and Lete, or Heracles was the son of Zeus and Alcmene.
I wish I could agree entirely, but things are not as simple as that, I am afraid. While certainly “Son of God” (or “sons of God”), in 1st century Judaism, was a metaphor, with many facets, the predominant one, in the way it is used in the NT (and in particular the Gospels), being that of Messiah, we cannot ignore that, on the one side, we have the Nativity Accounts in Matthew and Luke (see, in particular, Matt 1:18 and Luke 1:35), and, on the other side, in John we have the Prologue, with its notion of God’s Logos (John 1:1), which (which …), at some point, becomes incarnated (Grk sarx egeneto – John 1:14).
The real question then (at least AFAIAC), becomes this: can the Nativity Accounts in Matthew and Luke and the Incarnation of God’s Logos in John be seen as two sides of the same account, without dismissing the former as “mythological” and without resorting to the notion of “pre-existent (or even eternal) person” for the latter?
My answer is yes: the Virgin Conception is the “outer” and miraculous aspect of the “inner” mystery: the Incarnation, which, though, contra Arians and Trinitarians, the person of the Son of God, Jesus, was generated exactly at the moment of conception, not one split second before.
Mario, you took the words right out of my mouth.
I think what should be shown is that “Son of God” had an emic meaning in the first century different from the strawman Mohammed built in the Qur’an. Sex with a consort is NEVER the idea in Judaism. An enlightened man having close intimacy with God, THAT is the authentic cultural meaning in the Jewish mind. Moreover, even in Islam we find the metaphorical/spiritual reference to a father/son relationship in the name of one of Mohammed’s companions. Abu Hurreira was his name, whose name literally means, Father of the cats (from his feeding stray cats in his village). And blissfully unaware of the non sequitur elsewhere in the Qur’an (God not having a consort), all faithful Muslims understand that Abu Hurreira obviously didn’t have sex with a cat so as to earn that name.
“Jesus: Mighty Prophet or God with us?”
Perhaps, unbeknown to Christians and probably also to Muslims, differences are not so great.
When the angels said: O Marium, surely Allah gives you good news with a Word from Him (of one) whose name is the Messiah, Isa son of Marium, worthy of regard in this world and the hereafter and of those who are made near (to Allah). [Quran, 003.045 – Shakir translation]
O followers of the Book! do not exceed the limits in your religion, and do not speak (lies) against Allah, but (speak) the truth; the Messiah, Isa son of Marium is only a messenger of Allah and His Word which He communicated to Marium and a spirit from Him; believe therefore in Allah and His messengers, and say not, Three. Desist, it is better for you; Allah is only one Allah; far be It from His glory that He should have a son, whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth is His, and Allah is sufficient for a Protector. [Quran, 004.171 – Shakir translation]
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