{"id":563,"date":"2008-11-10T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-10T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=563"},"modified":"2008-12-11T22:15:56","modified_gmt":"2008-12-12T02:15:56","slug":"jesus-and-%e2%80%9cgod%e2%80%9d-part-9-what-is-worship-dale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/jesus-and-%e2%80%9cgod%e2%80%9d-part-9-what-is-worship-dale\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus and \u201cGod\u201d – Part 10 – What is worship? (Dale)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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  1. Nothing is appropriately worshipped except God.<\/li>\n
  2. Jesus is appropriately worshipped.<\/li>\n
  3. Therefore, Jesus is God.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This argument is valid. But is it also sound?<\/p>\n

    It may depend on what is meant by the term “worship”<\/strong>. It seems to me that many contemporary Christian philosophers and theologians understand “worship” in a way that makes 1 true by definition<\/strong>. For them, “worship” is an other-directed state or activity which (1) can only really be given to one being, and which (2) can only appropriately be given to the one true God. It is something like an stance of honoring which involves a total self-giving, a total surrender.<\/p>\n

    On the other hand, you might think 1 is obviously false. If worship just means “honoring”<\/strong>, then lots of things other that God are appropriately honored. But reasserting the above line of thought, one may say: “worshipping” just in honoring something as God – because it is the one God, or because it has the features which only the one God has. So then 1 would mean, “Nothing is appropriately worshipped as God but God.” To my eyes, this is trivially true.<\/p>\n

    But then on this reading of “worship” 2 changes from very plausible to doubtful. Jesus is by several people worshipped<\/strong> or honored in the NT, and a couple of history of theology scholars have emphasized that Jesus was highly honored in ways similar to how God (the Father) was honored very early on in Christianity, and not, say, post-Nicea, as some would prefer to think. Certainly, he honored in some of the same ways God is<\/em> – bowing, verbal praise, etc., and certainly for some of the same reasons as – e.g. moral excellent, various benefits rendered to believers. But was he honored “as God”<\/strong> – i.e. because he was believed to be numerically identical with God, or to have all<\/em> the same honor-worthy features which God has?<\/p>\n

    It can’t be the first, because the NT writers presuppose that some things are true of Jesus that are not true of God, and vice-versa. So, they’re presupposing them to be numerically distinct. Many Trinity theories take this into account.<\/p>\n

    Are they worshipping\/honoring Jesus because he has certain properties, all of which the NT writers assume God has? It seems not.<\/p>\n

    …he gave up everything and became a slave, when he became like one of us. Christ was humble. He obeyed God and even died on a cross. Then God gave Christ the highest place and honored his name above all others. So at the name of Jesus everyone will bow down, those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. And to the glory of God the Father everyone will openly agree, “Jesus Christ is Lord!” (Phil 2, TEV)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    So here, Christ is to be worshipped\/honored because<\/strong> he humbled himself, obeyed God, was obedient through a very nasty and sacrificial death, and has been consequently exalted by God. Moreover, Paul seems to be thinking that worship\/honor given to Christ, as it were, passes through him and lands ultimately on God. It would be misleading, it seems, to say that Paul affirms that Christ should be worshipped “as God”, because some of the grounds of the honor, the reasons for it, apply to Christ, but not to God.<\/p>\n

    I starting to think that the above argument has little chance of being sound<\/strong>. If “worship” is defined as a kind of mental stance appropriate only to YHWH, or to beings with all and only the same features as YHWH, then 1 will be true, but 2 will be false. And if “worship” is taken in a broader sense – just some sort of honoring for a reason, then 2 will be true, but 1 false.<\/p>\n

    And it seems we do need such a broader concept of worship<\/strong>, where it is thought of as a three place relation, in predicate logic: W(D,O,R) – Devotee D worships an Object O for a Reason R. Polytheists can be consistent when the worship many gods. For example, she might worship goddess X for blessing her with fertility, and god Y for giving their nation victory in battle. I’m thinking of worship as a mental stance or attitude<\/strong> which one typically expresses in various kinds of actions, mental and physical.<\/p>\n

    (Thanks to my colleague Andy<\/a> for a helpful conversation on these matters.)<\/p>\n

    Next time: wrapping up.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Technorati Tags: monotheism<\/a>, worship<\/a>, Jesus<\/a>, worshipping Jesus<\/a>, polytheism<\/a>, Philipians<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Nothing is appropriately worshipped except God. Jesus is appropriately worshipped. Therefore, Jesus is God. This argument is valid. But is it also sound? It may depend on what is meant by the term “worship”. It seems to me that many contemporary Christian philosophers and theologians understand “worship” in a way that makes 1 true by… Read More »Jesus and \u201cGod\u201d – Part 10 – What is worship? (Dale)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,15,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-christology","category-monotheism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}