Metatheology with Baber

Hi Xavier
Forgot to mention that the Australian Baptist Union has agreed to allow its members ‘free choice’ on the issue of the literality of scriptures. ..much to the consternation of conversatives and the elderly!!

I find Luke 2 v 41 interesting to the extent that it says “Each year his parents went to Jerusalem…..”
The Greek word for ‘parents’ being ‘ goneus’ which Strongs Concordance defines as ” a begetter, father, plural parents”

All of this is very difficult!

Blessings

John

John

I’ll rely on the historicity, reliability and generally accepted authenticity of the NT scriptures since I myself was not there. 😛

John

Ok I didn’t know your stance, thought you were a Christian.

Adios

John

When you get a chance to fully “import” this article you will see why I don’t adhere to the “figurative” interpretation some give to Ps 2.7 and “begotten”. For example, study the words of the angel in Matthew 1.20:

Joseph, son of David, do not fear to receive Mary as your wife, for that which in her was BEGOTTEN is of the Holy Spirit and she shall bring forth a SON.

John

Have you read my article on this?

http://inthenameofwhowhat.blogspot.com/2010/11/csi-begetting.html

Marg

Hello?

Harriet, I am late in thanking you for your response (an emergency has kept me busy), but I do appreciate it. I don’t expect more, and I think I do understand your wish to describe your church practices in a way that makes sense. Your writing shows that ambiguity is not your style.
(If you plan to make sense out of the Athanasian creed, though …)

My own goal is different, because I find the Bible to be both coherent and satisfying. Reading it convinces me that the Son of God was never created, so we agree on that point, at least.

I like Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians (ch. 1:16-23). It expresses what I want for myself, and for anyone else who hungers for a growing knowledge of God.

Xavier
I agree with your comments regarding Mark 12,29 and John 17.1,3 and subsequent comments regarding the Apostles Creed. The former ‘crystallise’ Christs teachings precisely!

Marg
You are ‘spot on’ regarding the Apostles Creed.
It r epresents a glimmer of ‘light’ before the ‘gloom and confusion’ of Trinitarianism started creeping into the Christian Church.
A lot of people have come to me expressing their reservations about Christianinty, and I have advised them that they will find few problems in ‘building up”to the Apostles Creed.- but they will fail to sustain a scriptural basis for later doctrines. This has in fact, been their experience.
The Apostles Creed represents the ‘common ground’ with which few Christians , or ‘would be ‘Christians can argue- a position which Desideratus Erasmus would approve!
From this common ground, good men and women can venture forth cautiously – and always in a spirit of brotherly love.
Every Blessing
John

Well I just looked up the Apostles Creed, which is in the Catechism at the end of my 1928 American Prayer Book. And I suppose I could affirm each article—under some interpretation. But there’s the rub: almost anyone could affirm it under some interpretation or other. So a great many clergy I think would interpret “I believe in God” as “I am committed to an agapistic way of life” so that there’s no commitment to supernaturalism and one priest I know glossed “life everlasting” as “not pie in the sky when we die, but life in depth and fullness here and now.”

That is NOT the way I interpret these claims. My aim is not to avoid supernaturalism. Revisionary naturalized notions of religion are nothing more than a ploy by atheistic clergy who want get paid to act as public intellectuals or moralists.

However that being said, I don’t have any firm convictions about what the supernatural whatever is like. Christianity, including the doctrine of the Trinity, is one theory about it. I want to explore that theory, look at different versions, see how they work, and whether the logic puzzles can be dealt with. Why Christianity? Because (1) it’s interesting—the machinery is elaborate and I enjoy monkeying with it and (2) it’s here—it’s my culture religion, and I really like it.

I’m sorry if this sounds flip—that isn’t my intention. I’m prepared to say, tentatively: “Yeah, I’ll bet on the Creed, on some interpretation or other.” I realize it sounds backwards but for me theology, the doctrine of the Trinity in particular, wasn’t a reflection on religious convictions I had on independent grounds. For me, working with the theological machinery was what induced me to “get religion”—to the extent that I got it.

Harriet, I find your writing refreshing. You are perfectly frank about your goals and what they are based on, and I have yet to see a hint of rudeness. I don’t agree with you; but I am attracted.

I am also ignorant. But if you have a few minutes to spare, I’d like to find out how much we AGREE on. It seems to me that some of us miss the opportunity to enjoy the “oneness” Jesus specifically asked for from his disciples, because we are too busy “putting down” people who don’t agree with us. So …

“In the end though I confess that the whole purpose of the enterprise as I see it is to make sense of churchy practice and, hopefully, get more butts on the pews. Which church? Well, the Episcopal Church of course. Or really any liturgical church that maximizes ceremony, silverware and liturgy. Yup.”

I think the Episcopal Church is not much different from the Anglican Church of Canada, with which I am reasonably familiar. At least, I am familiar with what the Anglican Church was about 60 years ago. I think it has changed.

Anyway, I just looked at the Apostles Creed in my Anglican prayer book (revised 1918!!). I still know that creed by heart (almost!) – and I would not mind if my non-liturgical “brethring” made it part of some service or other. So I am going to begin there.

I believe every word of that creed, so long as the “catholic” church is understood to be the sum total of all those who have accepted (or will accept) Jesus Christ as God’s Messiah and Savior, and therefore are part of his “body”.

I realize that parts of it may be ambiguous. I don’t mind. All of it, I think, can be backed up from the Bible. And if we agree on the Apostles’ creed, we have a lot in common.

That could be some type of quasi-eternalism that has similarities to eternalism. For example, a universe did not always exist and the entire so-called future of the universe existed from the moment that the universe was created. In this case, everything in the universe had one cause that is God while there would be no sequence of time and cause and effect within the universe. But we still need to qualify that this is not the meaning of eternalism except that their is no distinction among the past, present, and future since creation.

Also, I hope we agree that anything that has always existed is self-existent and uncaused. Likewise, anything that has always existed has no causation.

We agree that eternalism implies that the future always exist. Do we also agree that eternalism implies that the future has always existed?

That sentence is unclear to me. How does the future exist but not already exist?

Per eternalism, here is a quote from SEP:

“One version of Non-presentism is Eternalism, which says that objects from both the past and the future exist just as much as present objects. According to Eternalism, non-present objects like Socrates and future Martian outposts exist right now, even though they are not currently present. We may not be able to see them at the moment, on this view, and they may not be in the same space-time vicinity that we find ourselves in right now, but they should nevertheless be on the list of all existing things.” http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/

This is standard eternalism: “Objects from both the past and future exist just as much as present objects.”

Are you sure that you are inclined to buy this view?

Hi Harriet,

I am curious about your view of eternalism. For example, Does your view of eternalism say that the future does not already exist?

I don’t think eternalism has these consequences, and I’m inclined to buy it. However I do think theology insofar as possible should avoid commitment to any contentious metaphysical theses, so maybe I can suggest a detoxified Christology that captures what one wants to say about divine and human “natures” without metaphysical commitments.

On my account Incarnation cashes out as the role Christ plays within the Church as the “image” of God. So we can understand claims about his divine and human natures as marking a difference in reference comparable to the difference in, e.g. talking about a picture as such or talking about what it represents. Watching Washington Week, I point in the direction of my TV set: “That’s Gwen Ifel” I remark; and, I say, that’s my new flat-screen TV. No worries about this item having both human and televisual natures, and I think one can avoid worries about Christ’s nature(s) by approaching adopting a similar line.

On the face of it this seems radically reductionist—evading metaphysics. But let’s be a little rational-reconstructionist here. This kind of move really wasn’t available to Christian theologians in the 5th century. Reference and representation weren’t in their philosophical repertoire; they reified and hypostasized and did high metaphysics

HI Harriet, I might misunderstand your view of temporal parts. For example, if your view says that Incarnation was two separate entities that coordinated, then that would be dyophysitism. Is that one of your implications of temporal parts or am I missing your view altogether?

I’m no fan of Wittgenstein myself and don’t think that what I’m doing here is Wittgenstianian for at least two reasons:

(1) I assume that religion by its nature purports to be about transactions with supernatural beings or states of affairs, and that claims about the existence of God are straightforward assertions like claims about the presence of the cat on the mat—not resolves to live an agapistic life or whatever. And I take natural theology seriously. However, given the assumption that there’s something supernatural or other—perfect being, first cause, or whatever natural theology delivers, we look at the practice of religious Folk attempting to do business with the supernatural and try to dope out the assumptions on which they’re operating given their experience.

(2) I don’t see how this is different from what goes on in other non-Wittgenstianian philosophical discussions, e.g. work on personal identity. There, we consider the way in which people talk and behave—anticipating certain events, ascribing responsibility to people for past actions, etc. and try to dope out the understanding of personal persistence involved. And then we worry the logical puzzles, try to fiddle the account to accommodate ordinary ways of thinking about persons—or if bold suggest that the concept of a person they assume is incoherent, that there are cases where the question of personal identity can’t be answered or whatever.

I don’t see that proceeding in this way when it comes to theological claims is “laying truth aside”—though I suppose I do reject “tradition-based constraints” if by that you mean recognizing the Bible or the documents that came out of Church councils as authoritative. But I’m not claiming religious practice is a language game that doesn’t need any justification in terms of anything outside. I’m assuming that we do in fact somehow get in touch with the supernatural through our religious practices, including religious talk and in particular, through liturgy.

Religious practice does need justification: if there is no supernatural being or state of affairs, it’s not justified. I don’t see how my account involves laying truth aside. We reflect on the experience of God we get through participating in liturgy and other religious rituals, and on the experience of others, including writers of the Bible and participants in church councils.

In any case, I reject dyophysitism but would not call it adoptionism.

Per comment 9: Saying Christ is two entities while one is human and one is divine would look like Nestorianism, and Nestorius’ opponents said that his view looked close to adoptionism. The view you mentioned would clearly be dyophysitism.

About Adoptionism, I’m thinking of the kind of view that was apparently current amongst some Nestorians that the divine nature was pre-existent but the human nature only came into being at the Incarnation. And of course they didnt think of the human nature as stage of the divine nature because they wanted to hold that once the 2nd Person of the Trinity became incarnate he had, at every time, two distinct natures. In the source I read about this (sorry, I don’t have the reference) this kind of view was described as a version of Adoptionism.

Adoptionism Classic was a very old view—possibly the oldest view—and typically the claim was that Jesus, born as a regular human, was adopted by the Father at baptism, or at least sometime in adulthood. So the “Adoptionism” of the view I described—which is 5th century, is a revised version. But would it count as Adoptionism? Seems peculiar to adopt at the instant an individual comes into being. But it’s not so far fetched to imagine civil law governing human adoptions allowing people involved in private adoptions to adopt at conception—surrogate parent contracts may in fact do this.

Dale said:
And I think it is pretty clear that on catholic/creedal theology the man Jesus is supposed to be the same person as the pre-human, eternal logos. (Never mind that they have no coherent account of how that is so.)

Hi Dale,

A comparable example to this is NYC mayor Bloomberg existing as two entities. He has been a natural person since his birth and a government entity/agency since his first inauguration. The mayor is the same natural person.

In any case, a model of material constitution could help to explain how the Second Person of Trinity become a human. For example, a lump of bronze becomes a bronze statue of Athena. The lump of bronze preexisted the statue and continues to exist. Would that make the statue a part of the lump or is the lump an indivisible lump that is also the statue? I suppose the latter.

What if I hold that the Trinitarian Person was pre-existent but became a human at some time in the late 1st century BC so that, in effect, Christ is a proper temporal part of the 2nd Person of the Trinity. Does this make me an adoptionist?

Hi Harriet, if I understand the original post, then the above is your quote. I do not understand it. For example, tradition teaches Christ preexisted. Did you mean: “What if I hold that the Trinitarian Person was pre-existent but became a human at some time in the late 1st century BC so that, in effect, the [incarnation] is a proper temporal part of the 2nd Person of the Trinity?”

Very interesting—let me consider comments in turn:

(1) On Christology, I was inspired here by Robin Le Poidevin “Identity and the composite Christ: an incarnational dilemma>” (Religious Studies 45 167-186, 2009). Le Poidevin suggests that Christological controversies about Jesus-Christ-divine nature-Trinitarian Person, etc. are comparable to the Tibs-Tibbles problem, and considers relative identity and perdurantist responses.

(2) “Image of God” Here I’m extending an argument I’ve run in a couple of papers on the Eucharist—one currently out and another coming out. I argue that the consecrated bread and wine are a referential device s.t. pointing to them we can say “That’s Christ” in the way that pointing to a mirror we can say, “That’s me.” There isn’t any ambiguity in the word “me”—rather there’s “ambiguity” as it were in what we’re doing in pointing: do we intend to pick out the mirror as such, of some object it represents? And my idea here is that within the tradition of the Church Jesus is such a referential device.

(3) Revisionary metaphysics. Here is my inchoate, developing metatheological view. I’m a revisionary metaphysician, sympathetic to Bishop Berekeley. I don’t think that ordinary talk or commonsense is very theory-laden, so I’m not worried if the metaphysics behind it is bizarre: as long as it makes the talk come out right, or almost right, without violating logical constraints, and with minimum ontological commitment, I think that’s just great.

When it comes to theology, the talk and practice we want to explain and justify are church talk and practice. That doesn’t mean abandoning rationality: we want produce an account that preserves as much as we can without logical incoherence. Compare discussions of personal identity, in particular puzzle cases of fission where ordinary talk seems to violate transitivity of identity. Well we can’t have that, so the game is to figure out an account that preserves formal features of identity as an account of ordinary talk, so that we can talk with the vulgar without messing up the logic. This seems to me what we want to do with theology.

As far as truth goes—metaphysics is speculative. We try out hypotheses and see what consequences they have, and then consider costs and benefits. Why should theological metaphysics be any different?

In the end though I confess that the whole purpose of the enterprise as I see it is to make sense of churchy practice and, hopefully, get more butts on the pews. Which church? Well, the Episcopal Church of course. Or really any liturgical church that maximizes ceremony, silverware and liturgy. Yup.