My “On Baukham’s Bargain” has drawn a response from my biggest fan, the Reformed brawler Steve Hays. I reply in the comments there.
Given how many evangelicals have jumped on the Bauckham Bandwagon, I hope that it’ll get some serious discussion in the journals or elsewhere.
Here’s my first reply to his post:
Steve, it’s odd to spend so many words sniping at my summary of what Bauckham holds forth as advantages of his theory. e.g. After the seventh point (of Bauckham’s!) you object, “That’s a diversionary tactic.” Is that an objection to Bauckham?
Read all the way through, then think, and then, finally start objecting.
About the “fatal concession”, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. The time-explicit version of the indiscernibility of identicals is all I need to make the point. Jesus and God have, at one time, differed. It follows that they are not identical (by the time-explicit version). This is in a footnote just because it’s a technical point. See here if you still don’t get it. http://youtu.be/9IPJq1kcDuc?t=5m49s
“Tuggy has now abandoned strict identity” Eh… no.
” If we say an agent could do otherwise, and we gloss that by reference to possible worlds, then is he the same self?”
This is what is impossible: Steve being dismissive and not being dismissive at one and the same time, in one and the same “possible world”. In another possible world (at this same time), it may be that Steve is not dismissive. That is wholly compatible with him being dismissive in this, the actual world.
“He’s projecting his own complaints onto the text, as if the NT writers saw the issues the same way he does.”
Wow, are you shooting from the hip here. Of course, I’m not complaining at all about the NT, but rather about Bauckham’s theory. Maybe you have a hard time separating the two?
“By ascribing to Jesus exclusive names, titles, attributes, actions, and prerogatives that are uniquely reserved for the one true God.”
Yeah, I discuss this argument in the paper. Only God can be truly described as F. Jesus is truly described as F. Ergo, God = Jesus. And, you admit, because the NT says so, that the two have differed. So you directly imply that one and the same being has, at one time, differed from itself.
Has God himself told us this? If so, we might try to overlook that it seems as obviously false as any claim does. Of course, the point of the whole paper, which I don’t think you’ve really digested, is that Bauckham’s theory seems ill-equipped to help us understand the texts. When faced with such a patent incoherence, we really ought to doubt our theory, and see if we can make better sense of the text. We should be afraid that the apparent contradictions have come from our own confused theorizing, and not from the texts themselves. In every other context, we rightly hesitate to attribute an obviously confused message to a text.
Is it arrogant to refuse to believe what appears contradictory? It can be. It doesn’t seem to be in the above case; it is the humble course to try to make the best sense out of a text. But it is plainly arrogant to foist a demonstrably incoherent theory on the Christian public, and if they point out its incoherence, accuse them of sitting in judgment over God’s self-revelation. I dare say God does not appreciate this condemnation; as we listen to him, he expects and requires us to use the minds he so generously gave us.
The fact is that the argument above was not endorsed by a great many historic mainstream theologians. e.g. https://trinities.org/blog/archives/5000 They called Jesus “God” and thought of him as in a lesser sense divine, but they demonstrably did not draw the conclusion that Jesus and the Father were the same being, or the same God. Instead, the argued that the one God of the OT is the Father, who is greater than Jesus. In your mind, Steve, the numerical identity of Jesus and God is an obvious implication of the NT. Well, then Justin, Origen, Tertullian, etc. didn’t get the memo. Which is to say, no – that’s not at all an obvious implication of the NT, but rather a controversial theory about it.
Update: I’ve gone a few rounds with him there. Though he can’t help calling me a liar etc. he’s relatively well-behaved, and raises some objections based on the idea that I’ve somehow unfairly concocted what I say about numerical identity just to trip up Trinity theories. I explain why this is not at all so.
Update 2: He goes another round, but this time is back to his usual bile and belligerence. I couldn’t muster the will to try to correct all his errors. This gets old, when the student constantly accuses one of incompetence, dishonesty, and such.
Thanks, John. I will respond when I get a chance – have a lot of important things to do.
Dale
I understand your reluctance to re-engage with that ‘gracious’ fellow over there at Triablogue.!
When he starts losing an argument, he immediately seeks to re-define terms – and then accuses his ‘opponent’ of doing just that!
One simply can’t debate with such people – yet I feel that you should ‘close the debate’ with one more comment.!
Ignore the increasingly hysterical and errational comments. and let Hays not claim that he ‘saw you off’.!
Every Blessing
John.
Well said John.
Dave
“Correct,and I propose they saw it as blasphemy because Jesus wasn’t the type of Messiah they were expecting”
And even if he was,he would become the head of a mighty army which would liberate Israel from the Romans – and this was undesirable for reasons expressed in John 11v45.
So Christ incensed the Pharisees for two good reasons
(i) He insulted these pious gentlemen in adjoining chapters – snakes, illegitimate, children of the devil
(ii) He posed the ‘political’ threat mentioned above.
The only sin which merited stoning was blasphemy – and they could not pin that on him.
Stoning without blasphemy would result in the persons doing the stoning being executed.
So they didn’t stone him .
No doubt their determination to kill him was increased.
It seems that the Romans did not see Christ as a political threat at that time -if they ever did.
Blessings
John
James,
>>
The guardians of the Second Temple stated that Jesus’ claim of divine Sonship and Messiahship was blasphemy.
>>
Correct. Notice that the question conflates divine sonship with Messiahship. The high priest explicitly defines the Messiah as ‘The Christ; the son of the Blessed.’ This is evidence of an expectation that the Messiah would possess divine sonship.
>>
Questing why they saw this as blasphemy is important for interpreting the claims of Jesus.
>>
Correct. I propose they saw it as blasphemy because Jesus wasn’t the type of Messiah they were expecting.
James,
As you are likely aware, many scholars and commentators recognize that “Son of God” was primarily a functional title in Jesus’ day. By the NT period it was apparently a title for the Messiah, probably in light of Psalms 2:7, etc. IMO, it is historically implausible that the application of the title to Jesus suggested to his followers and his opponents that he was “divine” in the sense that most orthodox expositors understand it. As John Ziesler put it in his “Pauline Christianity”:
“…being Son of God meant obedient service to God on the one hand, and divine commissioning and endorsement on the other. In our society we tend to forget that the first thing about a son was that he obeyed his father; therefore calling Jesus Christ Son of God meant first of all that he did what God wanted. He was the obedient one?…?Paul’s use of the title reflects Jewish rather than pagan background. He uses it to convey Christ’s carrying out the divine purposes: he is given up by God for our sake (Rom. 8:32; Gal. 2:20); his death reconciles us to God (Rom. 5:10; cf. Col. 1:13f); indeed all God’s promises are accomplished through him (2 Cor. 1:19f).” (see pp. 41, 42)
In Mark 14, it seems to me that Jesus wasn’t being asked “Are you the Messiah and also the Son of the Blessed” as though these were two completely different things; rather the phrase seems to mean “Are you the Christ also known as the Son of the Blessed?”
Interestingly, we don’t have to guess about why the religious leaders had Christ executed, because the NT makes it clear:
“If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” (John 11:48)
Jesus was the Messiah, but he was not the Messiah they envisioned, i.e. a great warrior king who would restore Jewish national sovereignty. In their minds, Jesus couldn’t be who he claimed to be because he didn’t do what they thought the Messiah was supposed to do. Yet by claiming to be the Messiah he was putting them — i.e. “their place and their nation” — in jeopardy. To add insult to injury, Jesus didn’t show them the respect they felt they deserved, but he went about referring to them as “hypocrites”, “white-washed graves”, etc. They didn’t have Jesus executed because they thought he claimed to be God; they had him executed because he claimed to be the Messiah, yet he didn’t have the “right stuff” for that function, so, in their minds, he must have been a blasphemer rather than the genuine article.
James
Isn’t the debate about whether Christ was in some sense ‘God’ – or, perhaps God’s divine agent (someone through whom God worked)?
I think Christ himself answered that question aqequately.
If the religious leaders thought otherwise, they were mistaken.!!
Blessings
John
Oops, make that “Questioning why they saw this as blasphemy is important for interpreting the claims of Jesus.”
Good question. The views of the Sanhedrin who were the guardians of the Second Temple during the ministry and trial of Christ are important to Christians for the purpose of understanding the background of Gospels while interpreting the Gospels. This is an important issue for biblical hermeneutics.
Consider Mark 14:61–64 NRSV:
…. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus said, “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven.'” Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy! What is your decision?” All of them condemned him as deserving death.
The guardians of the Second Temple stated that Jesus’ claim of divine Sonship and Messiahship was blasphemy. Questing why they saw this as blasphemy is important for interpreting the claims of Jesus.
Peace,
Jim
Please pardon that I need to make a revision by adding an adjective:
Consider my thought experiment: If Jesus identified himself as an intermediary divine agent and the Sanhedrin condemned Jesus for blasphemy according to all four Gospels, then the Sanhedrin must have rejected the existence of [human] intermediary divine agents. For example, if the Sanhedrin accepted the existence of [human] intermediary divine agents, then they would not have condemned Jesus for blasphemy on the grounds that Jesus identified himself as a intermediary divine agent.
Why is it relevant to us Christians what the Sanhedrin thought?
HI Dale and everybody else, Consider my thought experiment: If Jesus identified himself as an intermediary divine agent and the Sanhedrin condemned Jesus for blasphemy according to all four Gospels, then the Sanhedrin must have rejected the existence of intermediary divine agents. For example, if the Sanhedrin accepted the existence of intermediary divine agents, then they would not have condemned Jesus for blasphemy on the grounds that Jesus identified himself as a intermediary divine agent. Peace, Jim
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