On Tue, 11 Jan 2000 13:32:14 -0500 George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
writes:
> dfsiemensjr@juno.com wrote:
>
> > George Murphy will not agree with my view, for he thinks that the
> > crucifixion changed God. I think this view is one product of
> > Melanchthon's Aristotelianism which spoiled Lutheranism. (I hold
> that
> > Aristotle loused up Plato, as Thomas did Augustine. Calvin stuck
> with
> > Plato and Augustine, but Luther's Augustinianism was diluted.) I
> hold
> > that Malachi 3:6 is unconditional. The crucifixion changed our
> > relationship with the deity because we are in time, but did not
> change
> > God's eternal purpose. The problem in communicating this to us is
> that we
> > are so totally temporal that we do not have language to match
> > timelessness. The use of the past tense and "beginning" in the
> first
> > verse of John reflects the eternal Sonship, not a time before the
> > creation.
>
> Let me tie a couple of things on this theme together,
> beginning with Dave's
> pre-emptive strike. Yes, the Incarnation, including the cross,
> changed God in the
> sense that God assumed the history of Jesus, and thus the history of
> the world,
> and thus the temporality of the world. How this is supposed to be
> due to Melanchthon's
> Aristotelianism is not clear to me. It's a result of taking with
> utmost seriousness
> the claim that "the Word was made flesh" and the communication of
> attributes in the
> hypostatic union, as Luther did. But it is hardly original with
> Luther: The statement
> that "one of the Trinity was crucified for us" was approved by the
> Fifth Ecumenical
> Council.
> Statements about the suffering of God, death in God &c have
> been problems for
> Christians because they have begun their understanding of God with
> the assumptions of
> Greek philosophy that the ideal Being is unchanging, impassible &c,
> and have assumed
> that God must have those attributes. It is then hard to see how one
> can speak about
> "the passion of my God" (as Ignatius of Antioch did). What is
> needed instead of that
> supposed "orthodoxy" of the God who can't love, suffer, &c is to
> start with God's own
> revelation of who God is in Christ instead of the God of the
> philosophers.
> (I am not endorsing process theology, which has problems.
> But divine
> temporality isn't one of them.)
> To pick up on the original question - the idea that time is
> part of creation
> is stated clearly by Augustine: "The world was not made in time but
> with time." That
> means, as the whole course of Scripture makes clear, that time,
> change, & history are
> parts of God's intention in creation. I.e., they are _good_, & our
> goal is not (like
> that of Greek philosophers) to escape from an inferior realm of
> becoming to a superior
> realm of being, or for the world to be brought back to some ideal
> primordial state. &
> God ties himself permanently to the history of the world in the
> Incarnation.
>
> Theologia naturalis
> delenda est!
> George
>
Why do the Greeks get blamed for taking seriously "I AM"? If I were
following the Greeks or their successor Romans I would deny the
possibility of creation: _ex nihil nihil fit_. Aristotle's Pure Form was
involved in an eternal temporal interaction with prime matter. His
"thought thinking itself" is not eternal in the sense which is applied by
Augustine to the deity. Indeed, the Greeks did not, to my knowledge, even
think about time. That was left to Augustine.
That God is outside of time, that time is strictly within this world,
does not necessarily involve that he be without affect. His revelation
through the prophets, as well as the perfect revelation in the Son,
declare his love. I note that the saints were chosen "before the
foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4). The rest of the redeemed was
completed from the foundation of the world (Hebrews4:3). They were
foreknown and predestinated and _glorified_ (Romans 8:29f). The
crucifixion was by the deliberate will and foreknowledge of God (Acts
2:23). The purpose was ordained before the ages (I Corinthians 2:7).
Grace was given to us before time began (II Timothy 1:9). Eternal life
was promised before the ages began (Titus 1:2). As you and I see it, I am
definitely not glorious. But God says it's a fact, so it's a done deal
although I am not yet aware of it.
It is certain that a God who redeems is radically different from one who
leaves man to his own devices. That he emptied himself to enter his
creation to be the redeemer is beyond human imagining. But this is what
God IS in himself, though in our temporal view he _became_ the redeemer.
So I contend that saying that the crucifixion changed God is to force
human categories onto him inappropriately. The crucified God is what he
is timelessly, eternally.
I suspect that you are objecting to the philosophical view that connects
changelessness with impassivity, and then interprets the latter term
"psychologically." This is common, but in error. God is impassive in the
sense that he is _actus purus_ or, to use Buber's terminology, strictly a
subject. He is not impassive in the sense that he does not feel.
As for _theologia naturalis delenda est_, I'll agree if what you have in
mind is the kind of thing Paley did. But there are Psalm 19 and Romans
1:20, though the fool and the perverse reject the theology that nature
presents. I note also that the scientific evidence for the Big Bang leads
to a theological conclusion.
Dave
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