I tend largely to agree with what both David and Elberry say, if only because the notion of God as the terminus ad quem of a reasoning process has long struck me as dumb, as does the preoccupation with the "historical Jesus." Only a moron like Bill Maher would still assert that Jesus did not exist. The peculiar thing about Jesus is that more seems to have been written about him by contemporaries and near contempraries than any other figure from that time. I also think that what David and Elberry are demonstrating here is what an authentic religious response looks like.
One thing that Elberry says, though, struck me: "If an absolute meaning is to be communicated to the world it must do so within the world; and so it cannot be absolute, or it would destroy the world—that is, it would not be apprehendable in worldly terms; the world would end where it began." The difficulty he raises is valid, but it would seem to be precisely what the Incarnation is meant to address. I have just come from morning Mass (though this post won't appear until this afternoon) and the Gospel today was of Mary Magdalene encountering Jesus after the Resurrection and being told by her Noli me tangere. It's the sort of detail no one would make up, it seems to me. But it brought to my mind Eliot's line about the intersection of the timeless with time, which is also what I think Elberry is addressing.
One thing that Elberry says, though, struck me: "If an absolute meaning is to be communicated to the world it must do so within the world; and so it cannot be absolute, or it would destroy the world—that is, it would not be apprehendable in worldly terms; the world would end where it began." The difficulty he raises is valid, but it would seem to be precisely what the Incarnation is meant to address. I have just come from morning Mass (though this post won't appear until this afternoon) and the Gospel today was of Mary Magdalene encountering Jesus after the Resurrection and being told by her Noli me tangere. It's the sort of detail no one would make up, it seems to me. But it brought to my mind Eliot's line about the intersection of the timeless with time, which is also what I think Elberry is addressing.
Yes, i think there's a great deal in the Gospels that isn't made up. i have it on authority that the healing of the centurion's servant happened, for example.
ReplyDeleteAs a reader and also a fiction writer, i've always felt that the character of Christ is consistent across all 4 gospels, and from my experience of creating characters (most of mine are based on real people and even Sini, who was initially ex nihilo, takes her speech patterns from a Finnish woman i email) the only way a complexly detailed character would seem to be essentially the same person across 4 different accounts, by people of such differing temperaments, is if he was like that in real life, and all 4 had met him. i'd also guess they were around him long enough to absorb something of him - so at least a year, i'd guess. Enough that when he wasn't there they could as it were conjure his image up and the 'feel' of him, and so when they wrote the character is definitely alive - i speak here as someone who's written living characters (eg the Viking) and ones who never really come alive, so i know the difference, and i would say it's extremely unlikely that they just 'made it up'. It is extremely hard to write a convincing character, even if you have a list of things they've said and remember things they did, it's not just a matter of copying these out, you have to as it were dwell in their image, to even become them to some degree, and then when you write it has the depth that you get in the Gospels. i'd guess if you went back to that time & place you'd find Christ was more or less as he appears in the Gospels. i assume he was 'only human' in Agent Smith's words, but clearly not ordinary.
i think if atheists had experience of trying to write fiction and create plausible characters, they might wonder for a moment about four different people all creating the same character.
But I don’t know Frank -- Isn’t this at odds with what is pretty consistent Christian theology?
ReplyDeleteMainstream Protestant and Catholic theology would have it that the God of the Bible is very much a historical God, that is, One who interacts with human history (or human “reality.”)
And the mystics show that religious experience, however it is failed to be described, can be experienced outside of the Bible.
Man’s failure to describe that experience is a different matter.
So simply because the descriptive failure exists, I don’t think that “God must leave for man to enter. He can only be sought in his absence.”
He Is above and beyond -- “I Am Who Am.” (We can’t even translate that correctly (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_am_that_I_am.) Christians hold that "No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father's heart, who has made him known" (John 1:18)
But Christ has made Him known to us here. And since Christ is part of the Godhead, then it is with Christ we can know God.
So you can see that is a little different than saying that the absence of God is where He is found. Rather, a very real Person, Christ, and a very real Thing, the Holy Spirit, ensures God’s appearance to us -- which is the only appearance we can stand now because it seems to me that
God is too much for us to experience. He would blow our circuits. But he has put in “tunnels” from Himself to us that we can experience -- Christ and the Spirit. Going one step further, Christian theology would also have it that we have to experience those real and tangible aspects of God -- the only ones we can connect with, in fact, given our limitations (we can only see through a glass, darkly) -- to find God.
Hi Joe,
ReplyDeleteMy point was that the Incarnation addresses the problem raised by Elberry regarding an absolute within the world. I have always thought that idea of the Creator entering His own creation as a creature was sound on its face. What other way to deal with the problem born of having given those creatures freedom? Of course, as a Catholic, I believe in Scripture and Tradition.
I recommend you and the reader of this post to do an extensive research of NT and the Christian doctrines (like salvation by faith in Jesus and trinity) to find about its origin.
ReplyDeleteYou will find a wealth of invaluable documented information ignored in Christian and circles at: www.netzarim.co.il
Anders Branderud