Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Spotify | Email | RSS
Has anyone ever seen God himself? The Bible seems to both affirm and deny this.
In Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho (written c. 155-61), Justin claims that the “God” seen in any Old Testament theophany was not the one God, the Creator (i.e. the Father), but was instead another “God” – the pre-human Jesus. In his view, it is impossible that God himself be seen. Thus, for instance, the prophet Isaiah (pictured here) must have seen Jesus, not God (in the vision described in Isaiah 6).
But why couldn’t an omnipotent being in some sense appear to humans? And what does the Bible say? Can we read it as consistent about whether or not God can be seen? In this episode we hear from Moses, John, Paul, a psalmist, and the author of the letter to the Hebrews.
You can also listen to this episode on stitcher or itunes (please subscribe, rate, and review us in either or both). It is also available on youtube (scroll down – you can subscribe here). If you would like to upload audio feedback for possible inclusion in a future episode of this podcast, put the audio file here.
Links for this episode:
- Justin Martyr @ Early Christian Writings
- includes translations of his undoubted works, and also of some doubtful and probably inauthentic works attributed to him
- the best modern English edition of Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho
- Audio version of an older translation of Dialogue with Trypho by the Dead White Guys podcast
- James Dunn, Christology in the Making.
- This episode’s thinking music is “Photo theme: Moon rise” by Antony Raijekov
It seams to me that a lot of the early fathers were Unitarians that believed Jesus was a pre-existant “angel” or a being who was created by God prior to the creation of the world … Now I wonder if the philosophical defense of such a view given by Justin Martyr (and others), is giving the reason for the belief? or a kind of philosophical apologetic given to a belief held for other reasons (scripture, tradition, or whatever), ala William lane Craig style apologetics, he appeals to the science of today, and they appealed to the philosophy of their day to defend something which they believed for non Scientific or philosophical reasons.
Given the differing philosophical views (say between Justin Martyr and Tertullian), yet having similar Christological beliefs, I would probably Guess it’s more the latter.
I think it’s important because if many of the early Church writers believed in a pre-existent Jesus while maintaining Unitarianism (i.e. what is called Arianism), and did so on the basis of tradition and/or scripture, that would be a very good indication as to what the earlier Christians, in the first Century, and the apostles believed, as well as how scripture was read and understood.
I like this
Hi Roman,
Good comment. I don’t see any way to cleanly separate out beliefs held for biblical reasons from those held for other reasons. The reason is that the Bible can be read in different ways, and our other beliefs usually strongly influence how we read it. Here’s a clear recent example: Simon Gathercole’s book. He argues that the authors of the synoptics all assume the pre-human-existence of Jesus. This, if you think about it, is a surprising claim. Why don’t they ever mention it then? But Gathercole argues that in those books Jesus says “I have come…”, which if you look in various extra-biblical books, was said by angels who’ve been sent from heaven. So…
My point is that Gathercole, as an evangelical, is strongly committed to Jesus’s pre-existence for theological reasons. So, he’s strongly motivated to find pre-existence in the synoptics. (It would be bizarre, he realizes, if Paul was clearly teaching pre-existence in the 50s, yet gospels written from the same apostolic movement in the 60s-80s didn’t teach it.) But if you asked him, Gathercole would say that this – pre-existence, and also pre-existence-assumed-in-the-synoptics, was a Bible-based belief.
Back to the 2nd c. “fathers.” They clearly do read John 1 etc. as teaching pre-existence. But we also note that there was an immensely prestigious pagan theology/philosophy, Platonism, on which there needed to be multiple sources of the material world – an ultimate, and an in-between. And, importantly,Hellenized Jews had shown various ways to reconcile the biblical God with Greek philosophy, and had really internalized a lot of the Greek theology, re: ideas about transcendence, immutability, and so on – this had been ongoing for a couple of centuries at this point. So there were powerful reasons for educated, urban Christians (Jewish or Gentile) to find pre-existence and the claim that Jesus created the cosmos in the Bible. Now, if you think it’s just obvious that the Bible teaches those things, you’ll think this is all besides the point. But I would argue that neither is obvious, as there are well-motivated readings of texts in question which don’t imply them.
Tertullian was not a Platonist, no. But in some sense just about all the other apologists were.
Ok, I suppose the question, is what ideas were internalized by the Authors of the NT, and what ideas did they assume would be internalized by the Readers, If those ideas are the same ideas as various of the Church fathers (I personally doubt it for most of them), then the Church fathers would be a kind of exegetical aid as to how the writings would have been read by the indended Readers, and how the writer intended it to be read. If we believe the traditional story that the first fathers were taught by the apostles then it would seam like the value of them for understanding the intent of the writings would be quite high …
Do you have an more opinion on this issue?
Unitarian Mythology http://www.spreaker.com/user/arianism_today/historical-myths-of-unitarians
Hi Elisio,
I listened to this podcast of yours and I’m getting the impression that your defense of “Arianism” is primarily based upon the authority of the Church Fathers and not scripture. Although you appeal to scripture at some points, the essence of your claim is that “the Church Fathers never condemned preexistence so it must be true.” I don’t think that’s a sufficient argument for a couple of reasons.
First, there’s no way to know for sure whether or not anyone in the post-apostolic churches condemned preexistence or not. We only have a little bit of information about what some of the people believed at that time. We also know that some of them destroyed the works of others with whom they didn’t agree (e.g. that is why nothing written by Arias himself even exists).
Second, from an exegetical (biblical) standpoint, it’s fallacious to transfer authority to the Church Fathers and claim that their opinions on a particular subject were consistent with scripture. Only sound exegesis of the biblical text should determine what Jesus and the apostles were teaching (on its own merit).
first of all your mis representing what I said. I said that there is no evidence for the claims made that the early church believe that Jesus only existed after Mary. my point is is that that claim. that is being made has no bases in evidence. why don’t you then give me some of this awesome evidence that Jesus only existed after Maria.
Eliseo,
The scriptures are full of evidence that Jesus Christ didn’t exist before his human birth. Here are some examples:
1. Matthew and Luke both say that Jesus had his “origin” (Grk. GENESIS) when he was born as a result of the genealogy of Abraham (Matthew 1:1, 18; Luke 1:14).
2. Matthew indicated that the “Messiah” did not exist until “42 generations after Abraham” (Matthew 1:16-17).
3. Luke indicated that “the son of God” did not exist until he was conceived through Mary (Luke 1:32-35).
4. Jesus testified that his royal purpose began when he was “born” (John 18:37) because the scriptures said that he would be the “offspring” out of David’s own “body” (2 Samuel 7:12).
5. The Hebrew prophecies that the apostles attributed to Jesus Christ only spoke of him as one who didn’t yet exist in the past (Deuteronomy 18:15-18; 2 Samuel 7:12-14; Isaiah 9:6; Micah 5:2).
Dale,
in your previous podcast (“podcast 73 – Is Proverbs 8 about Jesus? Part 3”) you said that while he converted to Christianity, Justin never abandoned his Platonic
notion of God as utterly transcendent, unchangeable and even incapable
of direct contact with the Created world. It would be a vain exercise to look for the foundations of this in the Scripture. The notion of deuteros theos is Philonic through and thorugh.
Dale,
Even after the apostles lived with Jesus Christ himself (1 John 1:1-2), they understood that “no man has seen God at any time” (John 1:18). Paul made an even stronger statement when he said that God is the one whom “no man has seen or can see” (1 Timothy 6:16).
Thus, I think we have to be able to explain why the words for God and Lord were used of things that the Patriarchs did “see.” There must be a sense in which those who appeared on God’s behalf were regarded as co-rulers with Him. Since there’s no evidence that Jesus himself existed before the apostolic era, the Patriarchs must have been conversing with other beings that could bear the title of God and Lord.
It seems that the most likely explanation is that the ancient Hebrews regarded the heavenly angels as bearers of God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26) who shared the throne with YHWH (1 Kings 22:19-21) in the same way that Jesus promised that his disciples would share God’s throne with him (Revelation 3:14).
Comments are closed.