In the late 1990s I discovered two Christian authors who were to have a big effect on my thinking.
In this post, I’ll discuss the first of these: Dr. Dallas Willard (1935-2013), professor of Philosophy at USC, and well-known writer on Christian spirituality. While at Biola in the early 90s I’d heard him talk at an SCP, and was vaguely aware that some of my professors at Biola had studied under him, such the man who introduced me to philosophy, Del Hanson. His philosophical work that I’ve read is well done and helpful. But his magnum opus is his Divine Conspiracy, clearly the product of many, many years of studying and reflecting on the Bible, and learning to live it out as a disciple of Jesus.
I found this book staggering for many reasons. It took me a long time to read it the first time; each chapter required a lot of thought to process. I would read one, then stop to think about it for several days or weeks. To call it a book on Christian spirituality is to shortchange it. It is that, but it’s also a practical and biblical theology of the Kingdom of God. It is full of insights about the New Testament, about Jesus and God, about human psychology and relationships. Name a Christian classic – Augustine’s Confessions. The Imitation of Christ. C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. I would argue that Willard’s book is far superior, and affords far more insight.
Back in the dead of the winter of 1999-2000, based on my study of this book, and taking its advice, I went on a spiritual retreat, alone at a Catholic retreat house in Massachusetts. I read through all four gospels, and rededicated my life to God, to discipleship to Jesus. It gave me a huge boost in faith, in trust in God, which saw me through the process of job hunting, a process that went from about September 1999 to April 2000. Most find this process terrifying, but I thought it was fun! I simply didn’t worry about it, I just trusted God and did my best, and I was given what I needed.
I’ve read The Divine Conspiracy maybe half a dozen times, and I’ve worked through it with about three groups of people. But I wouldn’t say that I’ve fully learned and lived its message. I’m still working on that. Other Christians I’ve read it with have usually either (1) pooped out before the end, or (2) thought it was really neat, but they seemed to go on understanding the message of Jesus and Christianity as they always had – like, in one ear and out the other. These responses, I could never understand. I’d be a happy man if I could be a part of a group of Christians who really got the good news of the Kingdom, and who would throw aside all tradition, if that’s what it took, to get it.
The content of the book is hard to summarize. But he expounds on the good news of the Kingdom of God, which was Jesus’s central message. (Through a footnote of his, by the way, I discovered that the biblical unitarian Sir Anthony Buzzard had long been emphasizing this biblical theme, such as in this short book and this one.) Willard shows, I think, how this fits with Paul’s emphases, and with the Old Testament. He provides a reading of the Beatitudes on which they make sense! (Here’s my version.) He expounds at great length on the theme of discipleship to Jesus. He devastatingly critiques the theological Right as well as the theological Left in contemporary America as inadequate “gospels of sin management.” Although Willard writes as an evangelical to evangelicals, in many ways he’s profoundly out of step with them. I don’t think he always realizes to what extent this is so – or at least, he never draws attention to these issues.
Someone – I think it might have been J.P. Moreland – once described Dallas as a sort of Christian Jedi Master. That’s not far off the mark!
One big theme Willard hits is the centrality of God to Jesus’s world view.
Now God’s own “kingdom,” or “rule,” is the range of his effective will, where what he wants done is done. The person of God himself and the action of his will are the organizing principles of his Kingdom, but everything that obeys those principles, whether by nature or b y choice, is within his kingdom. …the kingdom of God is not essentially a social or political reality at all. Indeed, the social and political realm, along with the individual heart, is the only place in all of creation where the kingdom of God, or his effective will, is currently permitted to be absent. (p.25)
You can tell here that he’s no Calvinist. In my mind he’s a sort of open theist, though he privately denied it. He also, much of the time, sounds like a unitarian – someone who thinks God just is a certain self, namely the Father. It’s important, he argues, that we think rightly about this magnificent self.
You cannot call upon Jesus Christ or upon God and not be heard. You live in their house… We usually call it simply “the universe.” But they fully occupy it. …Only as we understand this, is the way open for a true ecology of human existence, for only then are we dealing with what the human habitation truly is. And the God who hears is also one who speaks. He has spoken and is still speaking. Humanity remains his project, not its own, and his initiatives are always at work among us. (pp. 32-3)
To [Jesus’s] eyes this is a God-bathed and God-permeated world. …Until our thoughts of God have found every visible thing and event glorious with his presence, the word of Jesus has not yet fully seized us. …We should, to begin with, think that God leads a very interesting life, and that he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe. (pp. 61-2)
Here, as through the book, “God” isn’t Jesus – rather, Jesus is someone else, someone other than God, a go-between relating humans to God. He’s quite far from the Jesus-is-God-himself strain of thinking that is so prominent in American evangelicalism. When you go to look at the New Testament, you see that this is how it is – Jesus and God are, as it were, two characters. And God is held up as fundamental and central, although Jesus is exalted to his right hand, to sit on his throne with him.
Just like in the New Testament, Willard often uses “God” to refer to the Father. But totally unlike the New Testament, eventually it becomes clear that Willard is a social trinitarian! For him, God is a group, a society which is a close-knit community of divine persons. (e.g. pp. 382-4)
What? How can God be both a group (so, not a self) and a “He” (a self)? Clearly, Willard thinks the one God is both. If he’s a self, though, he must be a thing, a concrete entity, an individual substance. But at times, Willard describes this “God” community as neither a thing nor a self. He seems to think that the fundamental reality is really a group of three realities, a group which isn’t itself a thing.
…the advantage of believing in the Trinity is that we then live as if the Trinity were real… a self-sufficing community of unspeakably magnificent personal beings… In faith we rest ourselves upon the reality of the Trinity in action – and it graciously meets us. For it is there. And our lives are then enmeshed in the true world of God. (p. 318)
What gives with those last two “it”s? I don’t know! Is the one God an it, or a he? It matters! I see the unfortunate influence of late 20th c. “social trinitarian” theologians here, injecting incoherence into what is otherwise a magnificent scriptural picture. It’s pretty hard to read the New Testament and come away thinking that the Father is either a member or a proper part of the one God. The New Testament is firmly on the “he” side, and assumes that the God of Jesus (the Father) is one and the same as the God of Israel.
This is, it seems to me, based on his writings, how Willard often thought about the one God. But I surmise that for him, as with many, it was unthinkable that a Christian should not be a trinitarian. So of course, he must be a trinitarian, and the Bible must be trinitarian. Isn’t a Christian by definition a trinitarian, of one sort or another? I would answer, no. If by definition a Christian were a trinitarian, then there would have been no Christians in the first 350 years or so of Christianity, which is absurd. You can choose to label, say, Justin Martyr, Origen, or Tertullian as “trinitarian,” (because they were Christians, were they not?) but in my view that is an abuse of the term.
If you’ve read my philosophy papers, it’ll probably come as a surprise that my favorite Christian book (outside the Bible) is by a social trinitarian. But I’ve found that subtracting the confused social Trinity theorizing from the book leaves it as valuable as it was; in other words, those theories are inessential to nearly all that Willard says.
I’m not the only one who thinks that you can subtract Willard’s minimal “social” Trinity language from this book without any loss. Here’s a long, mostly positive review of the book by biblical unitarian Barbara Buzzard.
Next time, another Christian classic which changed my life.
Hi Dale
I was a second generation JW and before I met Anthony
Buzzard, I already had reservations about the pre-existence of Jesus.
Moreover, the book that changed my life was “Christology in the Making: A New
Testament Inquiry Into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation [James D.
G. Dunn]” After that I started to collect various others books such
as: The Myth of God Incarnate[ James Hick], They Never Told Me This
in Church! [Greg S. Deuble] and many other publications that reinforced
my conviction that the literal pre-existence was not really taught in
scripture, but rather, God’s foreknowledge, predestination and prophetic
pre-existence was the terminology that best represented the expression/s of the
biblical writers. Any Christology that challenges the genuine humanity of
Jesus, just was not an option for me. So eventually I had to give up the
Michael is Jesus doctrine and let scripture speak on its own testimony. Certainly
I am enjoying your experiences and spiritual journey.
Enjoying this series! Hearing new tidbits I didn’t the first time around. Looking forward to the stunning conclusion 🙂
I had a question about a view of the incarnation. Has there ever historically been a view that says that God incarnated Himself as Jesus while simply simultaneously continuing His existence in heaven as God? In other words, the Father alone would be God and the Son would not be eternal, but rather the Son would be God in flesh, something that began to happen in Mary’s womb? I Hope that’s clear. It’s basically Sabellianism except that the Father doesn’t cease to be the Father. I’m sure you’d have some logical and philosophical objections to it but I was wondering if anyone prominent or influential ever held such a view?
Aaron,
The “incarnation” doctrine is primarily based upon a perpetual misinterpretation of phrase “the word became flesh” in John 1:14. There is nothing in the context of the Prologue that has anything to do with the conception or birth of Jesus Christ.
The writer of the 4th Gospel speaks of “the beginning” (John 1:1-3) when the apostles came to know Jesus Christ as an human being who embodied the message of eternal life (1 John 1:1-3). That is when the Savior was “manifested to Israel” (John 1:30-31; 1 John 1:2) and “the word became flesh AND dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
Rivers,
I’ve read some of your posts and gathered that you have this view of John 1 before. However, the purpose of my post was to ask about a particular possible view that perhaps one could have had at some point in history…not reflective really at all of my view. I read a review of a Larry Hurtado book on Amazon by someone who claimed to be neither a Trinitarian nor a Modalist but still believed that Jesus was God in the flesh..I was pondering what exactly this guy’s Christological view could have been?
I will say, all though I’m sure you are well aware, that using 1st John 1:1-3 to interpret John 1, while not insanely crazy, is generally rejected based on the fact that John 1 uses the exact same phrase as Genesis 1:1 and also speaks of all things coming into existence through the Word, leading us to see this “beginning” as the beginning of all things, not the beginning of the gospel.
Hi Aaron,
The contextual problems with taking “in the beginning” (John 1:1) as a reference to the time of the Genesis creation in the Prologue and the 4th Gospel are numerous.
The evidence shows that writer of the 4th Gospel simply didn’t use the creation language to refer to anything that happened in Genesis. Rather, he use it to speak of what was happening during the public ministry of Jesus.
Please consider these things:
1. “the beginning” refers to the time when the apostles began following Jesus (e.g. John 8:25; John 15:27; John 16:4). They didn’t start following Jesus during the time of Genesis (John 1:34-49).
2. “the word” refers to something spoken by God through Jesus Christ (e.g. John 5:24; John 14:24) or a name for Jesus himself (1 John 1:2; Revelation 19:13). The “word” did not dwell among the disciples back in Genesis (John 1:14; 1 John 1:2).
3. “the light” refers to Jesus Christ himself (e.g. John 8:12; John 9:5) and the truth he was teaching (John 3:19-20; John 12:36). John the baptizer could not have “testified about the light” (John 1:6-7) back in Genesis.
4. “the darkness” refers to those who were rejecting the knowledge of eternal life that was revealed by Jesus Christ (e.g. John 3:19-20; John 12:35). The “darkness” could not have overcome Jesus or his teaching back in Genesis (John 1:5).
5. “the world” refers to the people to whom Jesus came during the time of his public ministry (e.g. John 9:5; John 12:19; John 18:36). Jesus did not “come into the world” back in Genesis (John 1:9-10).
6. “all things” refers to what God gave to Jesus Christ to reveal to his disciples (e.g. John 4:25; John 14:26; John 16:15). None of things that Jesus disclosed to his disciples came during the time of Genesis (John 1:3).
Rivers,
I’m afraid that I just don’t see many of these things as “problems” for the traditional reading of John 1. Before another passage should be referred to or before we simply cite where an author uses the same Greek word in a different context to prove its meaning in this context the given passage should be allowed to speak for itself. Showing where the words “all things” appears in another chapter in John is a dangerous route to interpreting “all things” in John 1. Such a phrase (indeed all these phrases) could have a half dozen meanings depending on the immediate context in which they are being used. Verse 9 says “the world” was made “through Him” (Jesus). You said that “the world” referred to people Jesus came to during His public ministry…so the people Jesus met during His public ministry were made through Him? This just seems really odd, and illustrates my point. “The world” seems to have 2 meanings right here in John 1:9. I think this kind of thing can easily just turn into proof-texting, which I don’t think will change anyone’s mind. But what’s more important is that I didn’t start this thread to debate my view of John 1 against yours but to ask about a theoretical view of Christ and whether anyone throughout church history has ever held this view. I understand you don’t believe in any incarnational view of Jesus or “the Word” per se, and that you have reasons you think are legitimate for rejecting this. I disagree with you, but I still don’t have a scent leading to anything that would answer my original question. Would you happen to know? Dale? Anyone?
Hi Aaron,
Thank you for the reply. Here are some comments that came to mind:
1. I don’t understand why you would think it is “dangerous” to attempt to interpret the Prologue in light of how the writer of the 4th Gospel used his own terminology when you are advocating the idea that “in the beginning” (John 1:1) should mean the same thing as Genesis 1:1? How then can you argue that your explanation is based upon “immediate context” when you are appealing to Genesis to give the interpretation?
2. I think your presuppositions about the phrase “made (GINOMAI) through him” (Jesus 1:10) are causing you to misunderstand what I was suggesting about the meaning intended by the author. The word translated “made” (GINOMAI) does not mean to “create.” Jesus and the apostles used different verbs (KTIZW, POIEW) whenever they spoke of what God “created” in Genesis (e.g. Matthew 19:4; Romans 1:25; Revelation 10:6).
3. In John 1:10, I don’t think there are “two definitions of the world” as you suggest. Rather, I think the context shows the writer was speaking of “the world” in two different sense (believers, unbelievers) similar to how Paul later said that “they are not all Israel, who are from Israel” (Romans 9:6). Thus, it’s the same “Israel” and the same “world” in which there exist both believers and unbelievers.
In the immediate context, the writer shows this distinction in “the world” by explaining that “some of his own did not receive him” (John 1:11) and others “who received him, were given the right to be made (GINOMAI) children of God” (John 1:12). This is where there is the connection between “made (GINOMAI) through him” (John 1:10) and “to be made (GINOMAI) children of God” (John 1:12) is also elucidated by the writer.
Jesus Christ determined who the children of God were (John 1:13) because he had authority to give holy spirit (John 3:34; John 7:39) to those who were going to be “born of the spirit” (John 3:3-6) and revealed as “the sons of God” (Romans 8:11) at the resurrection (Romans 8:23). This is what John 1:12-13 is talking about.
Hi Rivers,
I’m going to try to answer concisely. I’ll match topics by the numbers you used above.
1. This is dangerous because the use of a single word or short phrase varies in meaning and use all the time. As Dale has pointed out before; we read a single book by a single author and have the word “bat” mean an animal with wings 100 times but the 101st time it could mean a stick used to hit a baseball. I’m not saying this is never useful, but you are using it as definitive proof of your position and to try and act as if no one should even entertain another reading of the text, even though all of church history has disagreed with your reading for 2,000 years. I advocate “in the beginning” to refer to creation and Genesis 1:1 because that is the only way it really makes sense as far as I can tell. Unlike the phrases you’re analyzing, “in the beginning” only occurs in the Bible twice without a qualifier (such as, “In the beginning of the reign of Jehoichin”) which should give us more confidence in thinking it refers us to the beginning of time/creation. The immediate context which bolsters this is that John 1:2-3 make sense only if John 1:1 is speaking of creation. “He/it was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him/it, and without him/it nothing was made that has been made.” This doesn’t make any sense apart from being a reference to creation.
2. “The word translated “made” (GINOMAI) does not mean to “create.”
It absolutely means and is used in the Bible to mean when something came into being. Just as we can use “create” and “made” in English so Greek has more than one way to say something came into existence. I could say, “God created the world” or “God made the world.” Now, it is obvious to anyone that “made” probably has a wider semantic range than “create” but it is definitely a practical synonym in the right context. I want you to imagine one of us using these 2 words interchangeably now and then having someone 1,000-2,000 years from now insisting that since “create” is a more precise word that none of us meant that God is the creator when we wrote that “God made the world.”
3. Please explain how Jesus was coming into “the world” can have 2 senses of the same meaning in John 1:10. I don’t understand. I think we agree that the 3rd occurrence means “the people of the world” (who did not believe in Jesus). What intelligible way of this meaning of the word “world” makes sense of “the world was made through him.”?
You have inserted the word “world” into John 1:11. Almost all translators add something there, though most agree that “people” is the best thing to insert here. Since I can’t think of anyone who would contest that the 3rd occurrence of “world” in John 1:10 means “people of the world” it is appropriate because it is referring back to people again in John 1:11.
Ginomai used to say that we who believe in Christ become children of God is an appropriate word. Doesn’t Jesus say in the GJohn that when a man comes to know God that he is being born again (or “from above”)? Wouldn’t this fit with coming into being? Isn’t it also said in scripture that when someone comes to Christ he becomes a new creation? I don’t see how insisting on only one narrow meaning of this word helps when anyone can pull scripture from other places in the Bible an use it as proof text alongside what you’re doing here and say that ginomai means made in a sense of coming into being.
The Trinitarian view is that this “Word” is the eternal personal pre-existence of the 2nd person of the Trinity (Jesus Christ). Even if one were to reject this, I think it is appropriate to see “the Word” (whatever that might be) as eternal and the means by which all things came into existence. This “Word” (whatever he or it is) came as Jesus Christ. Jesus is “The Word of God,” eternal personal pre-existence or not.
Please know that I highly respect the fact that you don’t allow the majority reading to just decide things for you but I do think that at some point it is a good thing to consider what the overwhelming majority of the church has said for the last 2 millennia.
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for the additional comments. You’re taking a broad stroke approach to a lot of interpretation issues so I’ll try to be concise as well. I’ll follow your numbered responses:
1. I understand your point about the possibility that words can have a specific meaning. However, I don’t think Dale’s analogy fits becuase, when the writer of the 4th Gospel uses “beginning” 18 other times to refer to the time of the public ministry of Jesus, there’s no reason to force a different meaning in John 1:1-3 unless the context requires it. Although I agree that John 1:1 is alluding to the language in Genesis 1:1, it is only literally (since nothing in the context of the Prologue actually happened during the time of Genesis 1:1).
2. You don’t cite any examples of where GINOMAI means to “create” so your definition remains unsubstantiated by evidence. Although “made” could be synonymous with “create” in modern English, the usage of the biblical Greek words was not synonymous. That is why I included POIEW (“to make”) along with KTIZW (“to create”) in my comment.
3. Jesus “coming into the world” (John 1:9) was referring to his appearing at the beginning of his public ministry. That is when John “testified about the light” (John 1:6-8). I agree that “the world” was referring to “his own [people]” (John 1:10-11). However, Jesus was teaching that his disciples were “chosen out of the world” because they were “not of the world” (John 15:19).
4. I simply understand “the word” (O LOGOS) to be referring to Jesus Christ himself who emobodied the message of eternal life that God was revealing through him during the time of his public ministry (1 John 1:1-5). This is how the writer of the 4th Gospel always used LOGOS (except for one time that is referred to something that was spoken by Isaiah, John 12:48). I don’t find any exegetical evidence that there was anything “eternal” about the LOGOS when it was used to refer to Jesus Christ.
5. I can understand your preference for the majority opinion, but I’m glad you respect the fact that I’ve taken a fresh look at the evidence for myself. I think it’s evident that the Church Fathers and most of modern scholarship has been wrong about the interpretation of the Prologue. I think there are reasonable alternatives that need to be considered.
Hey Rivers,
I thought I’d make some final remarks and say thanks for the discussion.
1. I suppose we just disagree about this point. (Also, did you mean that John 1:1 is alluding to Genesis 1:1 figuratively or typologically?).
2. Hebrews 11:3 “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”
“Made” here is ginomai. It is also used alongside “created” (probably “established” more literally) in this verse as a practical synonym and the context is definitely the time of creation.
3. I don’t see the implication here which would be a problem for the traditional reading of the text. The “world” (kosmos) can definitely mean the people of the world or the physical world. Insisting it means the former every time doesn’t make sense. I think your conclusion is the crux of your interpretation here.
4. It seems insignificant to say that “in the beginning of the gospel the word (Jesus) was with God” and “was God.” What does that mean? Why is it meaningful? Would it be a surprise to anyone that Jesus was with God since the beginning of the gospel? It seems like me saying, “Since the beginning of my life, I was there, and so was God.” Of course I was, of course God was, doesn’t this go without saying?
5. I agree along with you and some others here that at times too much stock is placed in the church fathers (especially the Orthodox Church’s view of them). They were but men who lived centuries after Christ was here. But I sometimes think some of the posters here on Dale’s blog go too far. Their writings are still invaluable and honestly, they spoke Greek and so few of them besides maybe Paul of Samosata and a couple others actually thought John 1 didn’t mean the Word was eternal and the agent of creation that I have a hard time acting more informed than they were about this passage.
Thanks for the discussion. You may have the last post. I look forward to talking with you in the future.
Peace.
-Aaron
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for the final remarks. Here are my clarifications and thoughts:
1. Yes, I made a mistake in that paragraph in the previous comment and meant to say that I think the writer was only applying the language in Genesis (i.e. beginning, light, darkness, made, world, all things) to describe what was actually taking place during the time of the public ministry of Jesus Christ.
2. I’m not sure that GINOMAI in Hebrews 11:3 has the same sense as “create” (Genesis 1:1) for a couple reasons. First, the term sometimes translated “worlds” in that verse is AIWNAS which means “ages” (i.e. generations of people) and does not refer to the inanimate elements of “creation.” Second, the entire context of Hebrews 11 is speaking about the generations of people who had “faith” in God’s promises and not about anything being “created” in Genesis 1.
3. I agree with you that KOSMOS (world) can infer the territory because, even though it usually refers more specifically to people or a civilization, that would also necessarily include where the people live. Like GINOMAI, the term KOSMOS is just not specific enough to always determine in what sense the writer was using it (and both words appear frequently in the 4th Gospel with different semantic nuances).
4. In John 1:1, it depends in what sense one interprets PROS TON THEON (“with God”). PROS literally means to move “toward” someone (or something) and not to be “with” someone. This is one of the critical mistakes that interpreters have made throughout the centuries. Based upon how Jesus used PROS to speak about himself (e.g. John 13:1-3), I think it’s more likely that “the word was with [toward] God” (John 1:1b) is alluding to the resurrection (and not preexistence). That is how Jesus Christ came to be “in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18; John 20:17).
5. Thanks again for the cordial conversation. I don’t put much stock in the opinions of the Church Fathers because I think we all have access to the same canonical evidence that was available to them (and probably with much better capacity to analyze and interpret the texts). For me, the final authority rests with the eyewitness testimony of the apostles that was confirmed by the signs and wonders that God performed among them (Hebrews 2:3-4). I’m just dong the best I can to offer a coherent and comprehensive explanation of the biblical material. 🙂
Hey Rivers,
One last thing. I was wondering where you attended church and if you could send me a website or some more information about it? I have been looking into visiting a Bible-believing Unitarian church for research and curiosity purposes if I’m ever in an area where one is. Thanks again!
Hi Aaron,
I attend an Evangelical mega-church in the New York area and serve as a leader in the contemporary worship ministry there. I’ve never attended a biblical unitarian church and don’t know of any. I’ve always found it easier to be an heretic in a larger church where the pastors are too busy with marketing to worry too much about doctrine.
You might want to try contacting the Atlanta Bible College and speaking with the receptionist there. She can probably direct you to the location of a church in your area (if there is one). Atlanta Bible College is what Anthony Buzzard, Dustin Smith, Sean Finnegan, Dan Gil, and some of the other popular biblical unintarians are affiliated with.
Thanks Dale – it is genuinely powerful to hear your journey, and how your own faith is infused in it. It speaks depth, care, prudence, faith and love. Reminds me of the amazing quote on Stephen Holmes’ blog – did you see it? http://steverholmes.org.uk/blog/?page_id=5 (italics part)
It is really good to know your own influences. You and Holmes are definitely two of mine. Buzzard I struggle with a bit if I am honest. I will add Willard to the ever-expanding to-read-list…
Cheers,
J
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