Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Very nice. Very cool. Indeed, like Jesus' ministry itself, very radical - as in "to the roots", which is a literal meaning of the word radical (similar in origin to the word "radish").
 

OK, so I admit this is probably a dumb question. I'll also admit I've not been following the spiritual journey you are on, so again, it is my fault for not knowing.

Is Jesus God or some emmanation from God?
 

second comment rubbish. just doing to sign up for comment email thingy
 

Note the mention of Wisdom. As I understand Sophia-Wisdom, it is a personification, in Jewish tradition, of a "personality" (for lack of a more precise term) of, that is (as I understand it), an emanation of God (and frankly I don't profess to know the difference between that and "God"). :-)

Nothing in this post is a denial of Jesus' "divinity."
 

Yes, I would agree to a certain degree. What I do see is gnostic type language being used to describe divinity. Which in my humble opinion is no longer orthodox Christianity.

Are you saying, there was the real God who by emmenation came to be Sophia who later became Jesus? (Granted, I am over simplifying the entire gnostic worldview)

The only reason I ask is that I've just had my head in looking at gnostic stuff. So my radar is up. I don't know that I really care one way or the other. Just wanting to know what path you're traveling on. (And I ain't talking about one going to either heaven or hell, that seems pretty obvious)
 

First things first. I want to apologize for my presumptuousness in my last comment on the last thread. I guess my frustration with the kind of imbecility personified by the comments towards the end made me speak out of turn. Many meas culpa.

Now then, while not at all trying to be argumentative, or be a devil's advocate, I would like to address a question in re your last comment. Specifically, in what does the Divinity of Jesus consist? Do you subscribe to the neo-Platonism-with-a-dose-of-Aristotelain essentialism in the traditional Nicene-Chalcedonian formula, that is that the Son is of the same substance as the Father, distinct yet co-eternal? I am not being either smug or smart-alecky here. Rather, this is my own, barely surfacing struggle here. Specifically, of what does "divinity" consist? If, as I have, one rejects any kind of metaphysical jargon as so much meaningless hoo-ha, how then do we deal with the whole question of the Trinity (I won't bore you with details, but I have kind of come through and left behind the semi-process, semi-existentialist interpretation of Jurgen Moltmann) and the relationship of the historical person Jesus to the God of the Jews and Israel?

These are not light questions, and I don't expect a complete answer. I am asking, perhaps, for a direction in which to start looking for an answer for myself. I consider the Trinity to be the single most defining idea of Christian thought - and the most confusing, and the one most folks wish could be ignored. Yet, one finds oneself coming back round to it, if for no other reason than the experience of the disciples, the early church, and our own contemporary life seems to bring it to the fore again and again. It seems, if we wish to affirm that Jesus, his life, his ministry, his death, and resurrection, are far more than mere historical events, but have intrinsic meaning and transcendent value, then we must wrestle with the twin questions of the Trinity, and the nature of Divinity itself.
 

Pech, re: "What I do see is gnostic type language being used to describe divinity. Which in my humble opinion is no longer orthodox Christianity."

I could not, at this point in my Christian faith journey, care whether where I am is orthodox or not -- as long as it is within the historical faith ... uh ... region of Christianity. :-) "Heresy," in my view, by definition, means "wrong" Christianity (by the majority-establishment's standards), not "not Christianity."

Jesus is Lord. I leave that at that. I pray others do, too.

I AM saying that, as we all see through a dark glass, and always have, and always will -- until the sweet by and by, we cross that river Jordan, etc. -- it all is a matter of perception, and not a matter of what-who-where-why-how God is.

Geoffey: Slow down, please. Re: "Specifically, in what does the Divinity of Jesus consist?" Right now, my own struggle, as it were (although I must admit I am enjoying a relatively newfound freedom from certain inherited definitional-doctrinal shackles) -- my own "struggle" has to do with what the Divinity of Jesus does NOT consist of, not what it DOES consist of. :-)
 

Now GKS has raise the ante way up in the game.
We are now in the realm of the sios stuff.

I believe you read this book once ER if memory serves me well. Arius versus Athanasius.
East versus West.
Dissimilar versus identical.

Key words:
Arianism-dissimilar-anamoios.
God and Jesus are dissimilar in essence. God begat son so son must have existed before begatment. Son is divine but not fully divine.
Main dude: Arius
Arians were the Goths and the Vandals and kicked ass and created problems until about 800 A.D.

Semi-Arianism-similar-homoios
God and son are similar but not in all things. Homoios is in the Bible so it must be the correct relationship.
Main dude: Emperor Constantius 353-361
Semi Arians lost out in 381

Nicaeans-identical substance-homoousious
God and son of identical substance, both have full divinity.
main dude Athanasius of Alexandria
Won power in 325, lost again in 353 and then got it back again when Theodosius I took over as Emperor. Theodosius I, was a kick ass general who had been at war for Rome in Spain against the Arian Vandals and wanted all this theological shit to stop. So he declared that the Nicean Council of 325 was right about everything and outlawed the rest.

Cappadocians- of like substance- homoiouios
main dude: Basil and the Cappadocian Fathers

Affected a compromise so they could get the Holy Spirit into the mix for the Trinity to work. So they and the Nicaeans decide that "identical" and "of like" substance meant the same thing.
Thus Homoiouios and homoouios became the same thing. Theodosius I, said OK, now that's enough, this is the way it will be or you die. Many did. East /West church split was started for real here.

Gnostic God/Son thoughts had already been dispensed with by 325 so they were not considered. For the Gnostic's God had no Essence or Substance to discuss and the Son was everything from the Avatar of the Logos to a Mythological person used to teach levels of knowledge depending on which of the separate branches of gnosis you followed. By the way the very concept of "Gnostic" as a group or religion was formed in 1850.

OK, ER which are you?
 

correction:
Arianism-dissimilar-anamoios.
God and Jesus are dissimilar in essence. God begat son so Son must NOT have existed before begatment.
 

I *can* say, though, that my relatively recent awareness of the concept of Sophia-Wisdom, as a personification of, basically, what the Greeks (and others earlier) concieved as the Logos, is large inb my thinking right now, as a component of how the earliest followers of Jesus might have characterized the audacity of the one they saw as the Holy one who radically changed their life: Yeshua bar Yosef, of Nazareth.
 

Drlobo: Our comments crossed. But, there you go, as to where I am.
 

Goodness. I left out a critical component, re:

"Sophia-Wisdom, as a personification of, basically, what the Greeks (and others earlier) conceived as the Logos ..."

Sophia was, as I understand it, part of the Jewish concept of God, to the point of personification (or, as we might say, anthropomorphism), and, therefore, a way to personify the "Godness" of Yeshua bar Yosef, who was seen as a Holy on -- especially afer he was gone.
 

You ask me to slow down, yet you venture down Elizabeth Johnson's alley of a feminized Trinity. Yet, before we go too far down that road, you did change the nature of my question without asking ;)

OK, what does the Divinity of Jesus not consist in? Or of?
 

Re, "you venture down Elizabeth Johnson's alley of a feminized Trinity."

If so, I have stumbled into it. I don't know who she is. :-)

As to your question. Whew. I, uh, ... hmmm.

Jesus divinity does not consist of utter equality with God the Father -- but then "equality" is probably a faulty concept. All I know is even the earliest Christians, in the earliest gospel, "quoted" Jesus as saying, "Why callest me good? There is none good but one, that is God" (Matthew 19:17).
 

BTW, the very notion of a "feminized" Trinity is about as valid a concept as a "masculinized" Trinity. Which is to say, both are bullshit. And that comes to me without any actual study in theology at all.

:-)
 

Well let this heretic (one who chooses) restate his positions stated in former comments on former posts on this blog.

God: Yes I believe in a God, but....
"God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore, to argue that God exists is to deny him."
---Paul Tillich



Jesus: Is Logos: The devine Logos:

(The source of the following is: Jesus Christ Sun of God: Ancient Cosmology and Early Christian Symbolism, by David Fidler published in 1993.)

First point Fidler makes is that. "In ancient Greek, Logos has many meanings but none of them are "Word"..." He says it is a mistranslation. When the Greek was translated into Latin, Logos was translated as Verbum and then Verbum was translated into Word in English.

In fact Logos has so many meanings in ancient Greek ranging from mystical, mathematical, musical, to scientific that it is best to leave it untranslated and just use the word Logos itself after learning it meanings.
So what does it mean?
Major among those listed by Fidler are:
1. Order or pattern
2. Ratio or proportion
3. Oratio, a discourse, articulation, or account (Verbum probably came from this meaning)
4.Reason both in the sense of rational and also in the cause of something
5.logoi, as in the principle or cause
6. the principle of mediation, creating harmony between extremes

"Finally, in Greek mystical and Cosmological thought, the idea of The Logos in a cosmic sense encompasses all of these meanings and refers to the underlying Order of the Universe, the blueprint on which all creation is based. If we are to appreciate the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel and other Greek Mystical Writings, all of these meanings must be simultaneously held in mind."

The Concept of Logos predated the birth of Christ in Greek philosophy by at least 400 years.
The Greeks were looking for the avatar of The Logos to appear. Not unlike the Persians who were watching for the Messiah of the Jews to appear, thus the story of the three wise men from the East.
Paul Tillich, a most interesting Christian Theologian, saw these things pre-dating the birth of Jesus as God readying mankind in preparation to revealing himself through his son The Logos.
The ground had been tilled to received the seed.

And....

" ... the understanding of Jesus as a new manifestation of eternal truth or of perennial wisdom. Study the ahistorical Christ of the eternal Logos and the limitless Kosmos. He is in the Gospels, even more so than the orthodox one. The Logos can assume as many forms as there are people (has been or will ever be) on this planet. However many forms that are needed to provide his grace to each soul, he will take. Yet He will still be the one and only way. The congealed orthodox (straight thinking) individual's vision of Jesus is the only one he can see or understand. For that person, it will be what it is ..., for that person it will suffice"

Holy Spirit: The Wisdom of God that opens our eyes, that let's us remember him and his being. Personfied by Sophia, Wisdom herself. Who is a woman because mankind needs to see God as a complete being. In "reality" neither God, nor Jesus, nor Sophia are of any sex. race, substance, esscence or what not...

In the end neither are we.
 

GKS said: "I consider the Trinity to be the single most defining idea of Christian thought - and the most confusing, and the one most folks wish could be ignored. Yet, one finds oneself coming back round to it,..."

I wonder if indeed the Trinity is that "defining" of Christian thought or Roman thought? There are so many variations of Christian that do not hold or believe in the Roman Trinity.

Indeed it is confusing, but might that be because the concept was purged from Judaism. After all Elohim did original mean the "Divine family of El". Was Elohim purged to mean the same as YHWH.
After all did not chapter one of Genesis say:

26 Then Elohim said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So Elohim created man in his own image, in the image of Elohim he created him; male and female he created them.

Ip-so-facto then there must have been at least two of God in Elohim and one was male and one female, now that is two thirds of the way to a trinity.

As an aside, ever notice that YHWH (yaweh) is only one letter ( a shin) difference than Yhswh (joshua)(aka Jesus) in Hebrew.
yhwh versus yhswh

In Hebrew the shin is symbolic: it appears on its own on the mezuzah attached to the doorpost of all Jewish households as the sign of El Shaddai, the Holy Spirit.

So, must be a coincidence that YHWH plus S to Equal YHSWH means the unspeakable name of God plus the Shaddai, or Holy Spirit equals Joshua/Jesus the Son of God.

This stuff is really neat isn't it.
 

Sorry guys I am having to bail out of the discussion. As they say if you stand the heat get out of the kitchen. That's me.

There are so many can of worms I can't keep my head straight.

Sorry for being the slacker of this conversation.
 

Pecheur: "There are so many can of worms I can't keep my head straight."

Indeed, it is not orthodox, but neither is anything said here that far out either.

When I read the Orthox Catholic and Protestant Fundamentalist Seminarians on these view points they attack them with same violence that the Ante-Nicean Father Origin manifested, but with much more distortion than Origin could get away with.

Don't bail out. Ask your question(s). I can't speak for ER or GSK but I don't think we are deamons here.

Right now I feel like I have laid the proverbial wet blanket over the conversation, and I haven't even gotten back to the Goddess concepts that ruled relgions between 35,000 b.p. to 3,500 to b.p., but was replaced by the Male Gods who simple took over their theologies and temples. (the Cult of Mary took back a lot of it between 600 and 1200 c.e.)

OK, I also admit that I took the Shem/Shaddia reference several degrees without the intermediate steps.
 

Dr Lobo,

NO NO NO! Let me clarify. I am not saying anything against you, GSK, or ER. Not at all.

I am just too ignorant to contribute anything more. It's all interesting conversation, but my little bit of knowledge has not prepared me to be able to interact. That's all. It's all good.

I'll just listen from the sidelines if that's OK
 

Whoa. Just last night, I got to chasing cross-references in my hand-dandy study Bible like I hadn't done since high school. Starting with Psalm 29:1. More anon.
 

Make that more Tuesday maybe. I had to whine about the Dems today.
 

drlobojo: do you happen to know from which book that Tillich quote comes?

all: like pecheur, my knowledge base isn't sufficient to contribute to these conversations (nor do i check in often enough to keep up real-time) but i thoroughly enjoy reading all of it! thanks for all the food for thought, links, references, etc. over the last week or so.
 

Backing up a whole series of comments, in response to drlobojo's archaeological analysis of the doctrine of the Trinity:

While all those things, and others besides, went in to the developing doctrine, I would insist that, in the end, there is a limit to the relevance of this kind of thing. The teaching that One God is a community of Divine Persons, equal, uncreated, and each responsible together for the creation and sustenance of the Universe and the salvation of said fallen creation, is a direct response to searching for a meaning in the events of Jesus life, death, and resurrection. Obviously, the people who wrestled with this event, or these events, used as many ideas as they could find to try to reach an understanding of something ineffable. In the end, though, the results were quite extraordinary, and unique to Christianity. Roman Catholic theological historian (or historian of theology) Catherine Maury Lacguna has written the best history of the doctrine, entitled God For Us. In it she points out that while the details of trinitarian thought weren't codified until the early fourth century, and it took another century until they were finalized, there is abundant evidence, from various things in Scripture and the early, post-Apostolic writers, to show that there were proto-trinitarian musings as early as the late-1st century. So, this kind of reaction rests early in church history.

There is also the fact that, as a practical matter, we do not live in a world where the roots of the doctrine have any meaning. I think I would go even further and argue that it is difficult to grant meaning to the doctrine itself today, burdened with the dead language of essentialist metaphysics. I would reject it myself (and have come close on several occasions) if not for the fact that a few moments contemplation about the the whole Jesus/Christ event leads one inexorably to ask questions that can only be addressed by an approach that can only be called trinitarian. Does this mean it is necessary for everyone, or even correct? Obviously not. I just find it fascinating that this is where I, like so many who have gone before, end up.
 

Kristen that Tillich quote comes from his first of the three volumes on "Systematic Theology".

In that God was never created he doesn't "exist", rather he is the ground of all being.

In my terms, from quarks to quasars God is in and of it all. They exist, because he is.

Good reading :)
 

woah--may have to save those for after the semester's over, but they're definitely going on the "to read" list! thanks!
 

GKS said: "The teaching that One God is a community of Divine Persons, equal, uncreated, and each responsible together for the creation and sustenance of the Universe and the salvation of said fallen creation, is a direct response to searching for a meaning in the events of Jesus life, death, and resurrection. Obviously, the people who wrestled with this event, or these events, used as many ideas as they could find to try to reach an understanding of something ineffable. In the end, though, the results were quite extraordinary, and unique to Christianity."

I agree that the doctrine of the Trinity originally was a valiant attempt to understand the life and meaning of Jesus. The result however ended up being jury rigged and a political compromise.
Also the results were far from extraordinary or unique. Indeed they were most syncretistic. It was no accident the the actual solution came from Capadocia. The triune, the three legged platform upon which the God abides is old in its concept. The sets of Three Goddesses predating all of this is most numerous. The triune and the trinity of God is Greek, it is Egyptian, it is Pythagorean, it wanders back before written history to images strewn across the steppes of Asia. (The Trismegistos, the triple Hermes, in sum equals the one God Apollo as an example)
So the theopoliticians under the threat of the sword of Theodosius I, reached back to ground that they were familiar with to and declared it to be true. And as you recognized, for the fouth century it was a damn fine fix.

Trouble is, it is the 21st century.
More trouble is by the 25th century when we are spread all over everywhere in the nearby cosmos will it work then.
 

I think the worse thing to ever happen to ideas is people started writing them down.

We would all understand one another better, I think, in an oral tradition, where definitions are fluid but meaning is deeper.
 

ER said;
"I think the worse thing to ever happen to ideas is people started writing them down."

Surprising statements from a wordsmith indeed. Preliterate societies were image societies.
That's what all the drawings graffiti, idols and images were for, communication. So they weren't just "oral".
Ideas travel a little better in writing than they do orally. Remember the game of "telephone"
 

Oral then, with images. Still better that rhe MYTH that words, which are only speciliazed IMAGES, are any more exact!

Maybe historical linguisitcs is my field ..
 

Whew. I'll try that again:

Oral then, with images. Still better than the MYTH that words, which are only specialized IMAGES, are any more exact!

Maybe historical linguistics is my field ...
 

Speaking of wordsmiths, GKS used a word that has come into a vogue of sorts (again) in theological discussions, "ineffable".

1. incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible: ineffable joy.
2. not to be spoken because of its sacredness; unutterable: the ineffable name of the deity.

But of course, you have to use it, express it, explain it. GKS knows that, and he is not saying that it shouldn't be.

GKS also made the point that.." There is also the fact that, as a practical matter, we do not live in a world where the roots of the doctrine have any meaning. I think I would go even further and argue that it is difficult to grant meaning to the doctrine itself today, burdened with the dead language of essentialist metaphysics."

But yet the Orthodox structure stands squarely on what they think that doctrine means today and dares you to not only attack it, but even to discuss it.

Sometimes you have to go back to the radical origins. That "radish" if you please that the roots of which are buried in the cellars and lost under these sacred cathedrals and million ton mega-churches.

I stand guilty as well of his accusation of practicing "archeology". I do love it so. Wait, maybe he was saying I was an archaeological artifact myself. Naw, couldn't be. He is such a nice looking young man, he wouldn't do that?
 

"Nice looking"? "Young"? Did you read what my oldest sister wrote about the picture? As someone on the young end of what used to be known as "middle-age", I could take issue with that, but I won't. You old fart.

Anyway, I used the term "archaeology" in the sense the Nietzsche and Foucault, two practitioners of the art, used it - looking at cultural and linguistic practices and delving in to their origins, and seeing how these origins shaped what became these cultural and linguistic practices.
 

GKS said: "You old fart."

Acknowledge at last!
If you only knew how accurate that was.

Actually for the past five years I have been on a small quest to track back along mankind looking for first origins of God in our collective minds. ( I know I could have just read Jung) It has been a most interesting quest. So I have been doing some library archeology. I am so far down in the diggings that I have to climb five ladders to get up to the Nicaean Council level. By the way after about 2000B.C.E. it is Goddesses all the way down. Gods were just something they devoured after they mated.

It is fun though. And ER, your blog does inspire me, truly it does.
 

Glad to be of occasional assistance -- and frequent buffoonery!