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Firstly, in Catholic (and indeed orthodox) theology. It is the Church that is the ultimate source of authority, not the bible.

IIRC the Church has to agree with the Bible though, doesn't it?

Also, IIRC in Orthodox theology Church Tradition can err, though I'm not positive about that, and an Orthodox Christian could confirm or deny this.
 
IIRC the Church has to agree with the Bible though, doesn't it?

Of course it does not contradict the bible, since the completed bible itself is a product of the Church, inspired by God in its writings. However ultimately the Church is authoritative, not scripture divorced and distinct from the Church that produced it.
 
IIRC the Church has to agree with the Bible though, doesn't it?

Also, IIRC in Orthodox theology Church Tradition can err, though I'm not positive about that, and an Orthodox Christian could confirm or deny this.

Think of the relationship between the Catholic church and the bible as similar to the one between the American people and the Constitution. The People (the Church) created the Constitution (the Bible) and maintain that they are the authority of government (Christendom), but at the same time they regard their creation, this canon (of laws, of doctrine) as foundational. Granted, it's not a perfect analogy, since the Bible isn't QUITE as open to change as the Constitution: no one is going to add books to it at this point.
 
Also, IIRC in Orthodox theology Church Tradition can err, though I'm not positive about that, and an Orthodox Christian could confirm or deny this.
The Orthodoxy Church doesn't have a definitive document comparable to the Catholic Catechism and certain traditions which haven't been officially confirmed or denied (like potential universalism and the sinlessness of the Theotokos) are controversial, but the official declarations of the Church are absolutely authoritative.
 
The Orthodoxy Church doesn't have a definitive document comparable to the Catholic Catechism and certain traditions which haven't been officially confirmed or denied (like potential universalism and the sinlessness of the Theotokos) are controversial, but the official declarations of the Church are absolutely authoritative.

When has the Church officially declared something? And how is it done? (I know they don't have any ex catherda, at least not anymore.)

And were ex catherda statements by the Pope valid if made before the schism? Or are they still ignored?
 
Revisiting the Babylon = Rome issue. One problem we have is the Babylonian Talmud, since we know that was written by Jewish Scholars around the time of 300-500AD, so we have evidence of a Jewish presence in the region, and since Peter is writing to Jews and we have a very important document to Religious Jews in the same place Peter was said to have been writing from. It is known that the region has one of the longest survive Jewish centres in the world, so we have evidence of Jews living in the region of Babylon.

About the issue of Antioch, it is where Paul was born and there was great Jewish centre there and also it is from Antioch that Paul's Journeys started, so it had become an important centre for Christians, since it was actually at Antioch that disciples of Christ were first called Christians, so there was plenty of reason for Peter to go there. Also there were plenty of Synagogues in the towns that Paul visited, since that is where he first started preaching to and if there wasn't one he would go to a place where people would meet, so Peter did have reasons to go there. Paul had problems with Peter, since he was living like a Gentile when he was amongst the Gentile Christians, but when he was with fellow Jews, he acted like a Jew, so Paul was pointing out his hypocrisy and when there was a summit in Jerusalem, Peter agreed with Paul, since he knew Paul was right about the issue. Galatians is about the fact that under God there is no difference between the two group, s trying to live under the Jewish law was not need for salvation, which some of Jews contended, so Paul had to sort out Peter that to show his failings and we see from Peter's writings, that he did not present the same problems he had earlier. And in Galatians Paul remarked that Peter was better to the Jews and Paul was better to the Gentiles, which makes Peter Going to the major centre of the Gentiles, a big problem. Galatians 2:7,8 But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter;
8 (For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles:)
Since Peter was more useful in getting his message across to fellow Jews and Paul was more effective to go to the Gentiles, since he was a Roman citizen, so it would be extremely confusing why Peter would even need to go to an area where Paul would be more effective than Peter. Since Paul lived in a Gentile city he knew the culture far better than Peter, who spent the most of his life in Jewish place before this encounter, so it is odd that he would go to the major centres of Gentile culture. It is going away from places where he would be most effective. God always chooses people to go to places where they are going to be most effective. If someone is understanding of the culture of the place, it is better than someone who has no clue about the culture of the place. Many missionaries we support at my church are generally those who have some experience in that culture, but we do have those that don't, but for the most part we have people who understand the culture of the region, they are going to, so having a non-Roman citizen going to the very birth place of Roman culture is very odd. Jewish culture and Roman culture is very much almost two different worlds. Ever wonder why Democracy is not happening in much of the Mid East? It is because their culture is so different from our own. Understanding people's culture is an important part of getting the Gospel message across. So for those reasons Peter would have no dealings with Roman culture and thus no need to even go to Rome.
 
This would be during the time of early Imperial Rome, circa Vespasian's sack of Jerusalem? How could Peter miss Roman culture?
 
This would be during the time of early Imperial Rome, circa Vespasian's sack of Jerusalem? How could Peter miss Roman culture?

He grew up on a fishing boat and caught and sold fish. He could handle a fishing net without having to learn Roman culture?
 
Well, if he went out of his way to avoid it, maybe, but try avoiding American culture or Chinese manufactured goods today. They're both ubiquitous.
 
What do you think of Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason? Does he make any errors in his assessment of the Bible?
 
Just to give a little help on the Evangelical Protestant side of things, I know most Evangelical Protestants think that this was a personal command for that particular ruler, not for all Christians at all periods in time.

As for what other, historical Christians have thought, that's Plotinus' job:p
 
As a theologian, what is your take on the mind/body problem in philosophy? Can computers be created by humans which possess consciousness or awareness or whatever it is we possess which makes us special? If so what theological implications would result from this? Would this present a problem for theology?
 
No, I'm just posting crap, I meant to write the Orthodox, not the Protestants:p

Protestants don't usually believe in Apostolic Succession anyways.

So, with that in mind, who has a better claim, the Catholics or the Orthodox, in your view?

I'd say their claims are pretty much equal. I suppose the Orthodox might point to the fact that more eastern than western churches had apostolic foundation, but the Catholics might retort that they have the most important of the apostles, so really it evens out. Besides, apostolic succession isn't simply about having local churches that were originally founded by apostles - it's about being organisationally linked to the apostolic foundations. Thus the Church of the East, for example, might claim apostolic succession even if it couldn't identify any churches actually founded by apostles there.

As for Protestants, don't be so sure that they don't believe in apostolic succession. It's a pretty important principle for Anglicans, or at least some Anglicans.

Revisiting the Babylon = Rome issue. One problem we have is the Babylonian Talmud, since we know that was written by Jewish Scholars around the time of 300-500AD, so we have evidence of a Jewish presence in the region, and since Peter is writing to Jews and we have a very important document to Religious Jews in the same place Peter was said to have been writing from. It is known that the region has one of the longest survive Jewish centres in the world, so we have evidence of Jews living in the region of Babylon.

First, AD 300-500 is not the same thing as the mid-first century. You can't cite conditions that exist in one century and assume that they apply two hundred and fifty years earlier. This would be like saying that the state of Israel exists today, therefore it existed in 1750.

Second, the Babylonian Talmud was not written in Babylon, because, as I previously mentioned, Babylon was a howling wilderness with nothing but sand whipping past vast and trunkless legs of stone. It was written in various locations in what is now Iraq. There were indeed plenty of Jews in this region, but they were not in Babylon.

Third, while there were plenty of Jews in Babylonia, there were also plenty of Jews in Rome. If the existence of Jews in Babylonia is evidence that Peter went there, then the existence of Jews in Rome is equally good evidence that Peter went there. Furthermore, there is, as far as I know, no evidence whatsoever that a Christian community existed in Babylonia in the mid-first century. However, there is multiple and very good evidence that a significant Christian community existed in Rome at this time. Therefore, extrinsic factors suggest that we would be much more likely to expect Peter to be in Rome than in Babylonia.

About the issue of Antioch, it is where Paul was born and there was great Jewish centre there and also it is from Antioch that Paul's Journeys started, so it had become an important centre for Christians, since it was actually at Antioch that disciples of Christ were first called Christians, so there was plenty of reason for Peter to go there.

Acts 21:39 states that Paul was from Tarsus, not from Antioch.

Otherwise, the points you make about Antioch are entirely correct. But again, they apply just as well to Rome. I repeat that Rome was a major city for Christians and, indeed, the first place where they appear to have suffered persecution from the civil authorities, which suggests that they were quite noticeable. The relative deference that Paul shows to the Roman Christians in his letter to them is further evidence for the importance of the Christian community there. I simply cannot understand the implication that Peter could have had no reason to go to Rome. There is every prima facie reason to suppose that, if he were in a travelling mood, he might want to go to Rome. If he had reason to be in Antioch he could have had just as much reason to be in Rome.

Also there were plenty of Synagogues in the towns that Paul visited, since that is where he first started preaching to and if there wasn't one he would go to a place where people would meet, so Peter did have reasons to go there.

I don't see what the synagogue point has to do with anything. Paul's methods of evangelising don't seem to me to be relevant to the question of what motives Peter had to be in which city. And if they are relevant, well, there were synagogues in Rome too. I repeat - it had an important Jewish population.

Paul had problems with Peter, since he was living like a Gentile when he was amongst the Gentile Christians, but when he was with fellow Jews, he acted like a Jew, so Paul was pointing out his hypocrisy and when there was a summit in Jerusalem, Peter agreed with Paul, since he knew Paul was right about the issue. Galatians is about the fact that under God there is no difference between the two group, s trying to live under the Jewish law was not need for salvation, which some of Jews contended, so Paul had to sort out Peter that to show his failings and we see from Peter's writings, that he did not present the same problems he had earlier.

All this may be true, but again, I don't see its relevance. I'll remind you that although Galatians tells us that Peter visited Antioch, it doesn't tell us why he visited Antioch. I would think it's a fair assumption that he didn't go there with the specific purpose of having a big argument with Paul - after all, Paul says that he (Paul) criticised Peter, not vice versa. That suggests, at least to me, that Peter was there for some other reason - perhaps simply to visit the church and offer support - and that Paul objected to his behaviour while he was doing there, leading to the public row.

And in Galatians Paul remarked that Peter was better to the Jews and Paul was better to the Gentiles, which makes Peter Going to the major centre of the Gentiles, a big problem.

And what do you think Babylonia was? Do you think the Persians were all Jews? Or, for that matter, do you think the citizens of Antioch were all Jews? And yet we know that Peter went to Gentile Antioch and you claim he went to Gentile Babylonia.

Once again, your points apply to all the locations in question. I'll remind you: Rome, Antioch, and Babylonia were all Gentile regions that contained significant Jewish populations. In that respect, they were all identical. If the large Jewish populations of Antioch and Babylonia provided Peter with sufficient motive to go there, then the large Jewish population of Rome provided him with equal motive to go there. And if the predominantly Gentile culture of Rome provided Peter with sufficient motive to avoid going there, then the predominantly Gentile culture of Antioch and Babylonia would have provided him with equal motive to avoid going there too.

Since Peter was more useful in getting his message across to fellow Jews and Paul was more effective to go to the Gentiles, since he was a Roman citizen, so it would be extremely confusing why Peter would even need to go to an area where Paul would be more effective than Peter. Since Paul lived in a Gentile city he knew the culture far better than Peter, who spent the most of his life in Jewish place before this encounter, so it is odd that he would go to the major centres of Gentile culture. It is going away from places where he would be most effective. God always chooses people to go to places where they are going to be most effective. If someone is understanding of the culture of the place, it is better than someone who has no clue about the culture of the place. Many missionaries we support at my church are generally those who have some experience in that culture, but we do have those that don't, but for the most part we have people who understand the culture of the region, they are going to, so having a non-Roman citizen going to the very birth place of Roman culture is very odd. Jewish culture and Roman culture is very much almost two different worlds. Ever wonder why Democracy is not happening in much of the Mid East? It is because their culture is so different from our own. Understanding people's culture is an important part of getting the Gospel message across. So for those reasons Peter would have no dealings with Roman culture and thus no need to even go to Rome.

Again, all of this would be just as good reason for Peter not going to Antioch or Babylonia as it would be for his not going to Rome. And yet, as I just said, he did go to Antioch and you think he went to Babylonia. If it would have been so ineffective for Peter to go to a Gentile city, what was he doing in Antioch?

Moreover, if you think Peter would have been completely out of his depth in the alien culture of Rome, how on earth do you think he would have coped in Iraq? At least Galilee in Peter's time was a client state of Rome and effectively part of the Roman empire. Roman and hellenistic culture was present in Galilee, most notably at the Romanised city of Tiberias, which Peter couldn't possibly have been wholly unfamiliar with. Persian culture, by contrast, would not have been quite so familiar to the average Galilean, I think we can safely say. It therefore seems to me that Peter would have had far more chance of understanding the culture of the city of Rome than he would have with the Persian towns of the Euphrates.

Furthermore, you are quite wrong when you say "Jewish culture and Roman culture is very much almost two different worlds." In fact there was great crossover between them. There were more Jews living in the Diaspora - i.e., in the Roman world - than there were living in the Holy Land. Jewish theology by the first century had been influenced by hellenistic thought, as one can see above all in the Wisdom literature. There were many thoroughly hellenised Jews, in the Holy Land just as outside it. Paul himself was a Roman citizen whilst also being a zealous Pharisee (and a Christian as well). To suppose that somebody couldn't have coped with Roman culture just because he was a Galilean Jew is to make a huge and unwarranted assumption.

Quite apart from all of this, though, there is the fundamental point that this whole "Peter couldn't have been in Rome" thing is based upon almost total ignorance of the activities of the church and its leaders during this period. We don't know what was going on in the church at Rome or what Peter was doing for almost all of his ministry! How can anyone possibly assert that Peter couldn't have been in Rome? How can you possibly know that nothing happened there which could have required his expertise or experience rather than that of one of the other apostles? You talk about the need to place missionaries in locations where they are familiar with the culture (even though you admit that some missionaries go to places where they are unfamiliar with it, which entirely undermines your argument) - but how do you know that Peter was doing mission work at all? Galatians tells us that he visited the church in Antioch, not that he did mission work there. Paul, similarly, tells us that he visited Jerusalem to meet with the church leaders there, not in order to preach to the unconverted. How do you know that Peter couldn't have gone to Rome to visit the church there for some reason? How do you know that the church in Rome didn't have some kind of problem that needed apostolic oversight?

Moreover, I've already provided links to Eusebius, who gives an entirely plausible reason for Peter being in Rome: because he was chasing Simon Magus. Acts 8 tells us that it was Peter who originally confronted Simon Magus, and Justin Martyr and Irenaeus both tell us that Simon subsequently moved to Rome and taught there. It's entirely plausible that Peter might have wanted to travel to Rome himself and counter-act Simon's activities. I should say that our knowledge of Simon Magus is even slighter than our knowledge of Peter, and really the tradition that Simon Magus went to Rome is unreliable - but that's not the point. The point is that whether or not there's much evidence for it, this is a perfectly plausible story which certainly could have happened. Something like it could easily have happened. Even if Peter did not, in fact, go to Rome to deal with Simon Magus, there's any number of similar problems or crises that could have arisen in Rome which he might have wanted to deal with. Just read 1 Corinthians, which testifies to the fact that the Corinthian church had so many problems that they wrote to Paul about some of them and he heard about others, prompting his letter to them. How do we know that the Roman Christians didn't also have problems of some kind? How do we know that they didn't write to Jerusalem asking for help, or that the Jerusalem leaders heard about them by other means, and Peter went there to sort things out? Or how do we know that the Roman Christians didn't hold a big celebration to mark their 25-year anniversary and invited Peter out there? Or how do we know that Peter didn't have a second cousin in Rome whom he decided to visit? We don't know anything! There are a million reasons why Peter might have wanted to visit Rome, just as there are a million reasons why he might have wanted to go anywhere else or do anything else. We just don't know. To assert that he couldn't have wanted to go to Rome is just special pleading because, frankly, you don't want the Catholics to be right. I can't see any legitimate, objective, historical reason for such a strong statement. And yet it's not needed, because merely locating Peter in Rome doesn't make the Catholics right about his ecclesiological significance anyway.

He grew up on a fishing boat and caught and sold fish. He could handle a fishing net without having to learn Roman culture?

It would be pretty remarkable for someone to live next door to the city of Tiberias and not know Roman culture. As I just said, Roman culture was everywhere, and it is a mistake to make such a big distinction between Roman and Jewish culture. However, in addition to the points I made before, we see here more unhistorical romanticising about Peter. How do you know that he grew up on a fishing boat? Does the New Testament say that? For all we know, Peter was a banker who, at the age of 40, had a mid-life crisis, quit his job, bought a boat and became a very bad fisherman. Or maybe when Jesus met him he was a teenager who'd run away to the boats. Who knows? There seems to be this general assumption that Peter was some sort of hoary-bearded old salt of the sea like Captain Haddock, whose knowledge was entirely restricted to the tides and the migration of cod, or something like that. And so of course such a simple peasant couldn't possibly have coped with the complexities of Roman civilisation, let alone ventured outside the peasant-friendly environs of the Jewish homeland. That's as unhistorical as it is patronising. It seems to me that there's just as much myth-making about Peter by Protestants as there is by Catholics.

What do you think of Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason? Does he make any errors in his assessment of the Bible?

Shockingly, I haven't read it, so I can't say.

How have theologians have looked into the verses of Mark 10 concerning wealth and poverty? The verse in particular which is interesting to me to is Mark 10:21. How literally do Christian churches take this verse?

Well, evidently most of them take it non-literally. Clement of Alexandria famously argued that it should be taken in a spiritual sense to refer to whatever is most important to the individual (or something like that).

In the later Middle Ages there was a huge row about poverty, but it didn't revolve around this verse - it revolved around the question whether Jesus and his companions themselves owned anything. The more rigorous Franciscans claimed that they did not, and so complete poverty was a rule to be observed. The rest said that in fact they did, and so evangelical poverty was a relative matter, not an absolute one. The less rigorous line won out, which is why the Franciscan order owns things today.

By the way, any question along the lines of "What have theologians thought about verse X?" can be answered, at least initially, by going to this page, choosing a volume and navigating to the index of scriptural citations. Repeat for each volume.

As a theologian, what is your take on the mind/body problem in philosophy? Can computers be created by humans which possess consciousness or awareness or whatever it is we possess which makes us special? If so what theological implications would result from this? Would this present a problem for theology?

As you probably know, most philosophers today subscribe to some form of functionalism, which holds that the mind (or, better, mental properties) are properties of the body that it has in virtue of the way it is constituted. Most of the (significant) debates among philosophers of mind are debates within this broad agreement - for example, the debate between dualists and non-dualists today is between those who think that mental properties are not reducible to non-mental properties and those who think that they are.

Now I think that, to put it brutally, most theologians aren't really aware of the specifics and nuances of contemporary philosophical debate on this issue. Academic theologians are at least aware that philosophers long ago rejected substance dualism and anything like it, and so they are happy to accept that the mind is not a distinct thing from the body. They point out that this is in accordance with biblical teaching, which conceives of human beings as organic unities. Moreover, the Bible generally thinks of life after death in terms of the resurrection of the body, not of the survival of the soul, so on this view there's no need to posit any spiritual "part" to the human person that survives death. However, in the larger Christian world, and especially that particularly vocal and energetic part of it that is the evangelical world, such views are largely unheard of, and congregations and authors alike assume the existence of the soul.

As a side note, I remember as a teenager encountering a disbeliever in evolution for the first time and being utterly astounded that such people really existed in the real world, and not (say) somewhere in rural America (which for me wasn't very real). We had a tremendously long argument about it. One of his arguments was that if evolution is true then it's hard to explain where the soul comes from. It seemed quite obvious to me that this was entirely correct, and that this is so much the worse for the soul, but he seemed to be working with different premises. The point here is that for an awful lot of evangelicals, the existence of the soul is simply taken as a given. Moreover, the soul is more or less identified with the mind - as it must be if its survival after death is to be of any interest or value to us. It follows that they don't have much time for philosophical theories of the mind other than straight-out substance dualism.

On the question of AIs and the like, it seems to me that if functionalism is true (as most informed people think it is) then there is no reason, in principle, why there couldn't be thinking, self-aware computers or perhaps machines of a different kind. Of course there could be reasons in practice why we can't build any, but that's a different issue. But I don't know whether this has been discussed in a theological context. I'm sure it must have been, but I don't know what positions exist on the matter.
 
Spoiler :
I'd say their claims are pretty much equal. I suppose the Orthodox might point to the fact that more eastern than western churches had apostolic foundation, but the Catholics might retort that they have the most important of the apostles, so really it evens out. Besides, apostolic succession isn't simply about having local churches that were originally founded by apostles - it's about being organisationally linked to the apostolic foundations. Thus the Church of the East, for example, might claim apostolic succession even if it couldn't identify any churches actually founded by apostles there.

As for Protestants, don't be so sure that they don't believe in apostolic succession. It's a pretty important principle for Anglicans, or at least some Anglicans.



First, AD 300-500 is not the same thing as the mid-first century. You can't cite conditions that exist in one century and assume that they apply two hundred and fifty years earlier. This would be like saying that the state of Israel exists today, therefore it existed in 1750.

Second, the Babylonian Talmud was not written in Babylon, because, as I previously mentioned, Babylon was a howling wilderness with nothing but sand whipping past vast and trunkless legs of stone. It was written in various locations in what is now Iraq. There were indeed plenty of Jews in this region, but they were not in Babylon.

Third, while there were plenty of Jews in Babylonia, there were also plenty of Jews in Rome. If the existence of Jews in Babylonia is evidence that Peter went there, then the existence of Jews in Rome is equally good evidence that Peter went there. Furthermore, there is, as far as I know, no evidence whatsoever that a Christian community existed in Babylonia in the mid-first century. However, there is multiple and very good evidence that a significant Christian community existed in Rome at this time. Therefore, extrinsic factors suggest that we would be much more likely to expect Peter to be in Rome than in Babylonia.



Acts 21:39 states that Paul was from Tarsus, not from Antioch.

Otherwise, the points you make about Antioch are entirely correct. But again, they apply just as well to Rome. I repeat that Rome was a major city for Christians and, indeed, the first place where they appear to have suffered persecution from the civil authorities, which suggests that they were quite noticeable. The relative deference that Paul shows to the Roman Christians in his letter to them is further evidence for the importance of the Christian community there. I simply cannot understand the implication that Peter could have had no reason to go to Rome. There is every prima facie reason to suppose that, if he were in a travelling mood, he might want to go to Rome. If he had reason to be in Antioch he could have had just as much reason to be in Rome.



I don't see what the synagogue point has to do with anything. Paul's methods of evangelising don't seem to me to be relevant to the question of what motives Peter had to be in which city. And if they are relevant, well, there were synagogues in Rome too. I repeat - it had an important Jewish population.



All this may be true, but again, I don't see its relevance. I'll remind you that although Galatians tells us that Peter visited Antioch, it doesn't tell us why he visited Antioch. I would think it's a fair assumption that he didn't go there with the specific purpose of having a big argument with Paul - after all, Paul says that he (Paul) criticised Peter, not vice versa. That suggests, at least to me, that Peter was there for some other reason - perhaps simply to visit the church and offer support - and that Paul objected to his behaviour while he was doing there, leading to the public row.



And what do you think Babylonia was? Do you think the Persians were all Jews? Or, for that matter, do you think the citizens of Antioch were all Jews? And yet we know that Peter went to Gentile Antioch and you claim he went to Gentile Babylonia.

Once again, your points apply to all the locations in question. I'll remind you: Rome, Antioch, and Babylonia were all Gentile regions that contained significant Jewish populations. In that respect, they were all identical. If the large Jewish populations of Antioch and Babylonia provided Peter with sufficient motive to go there, then the large Jewish population of Rome provided him with equal motive to go there. And if the predominantly Gentile culture of Rome provided Peter with sufficient motive to avoid going there, then the predominantly Gentile culture of Antioch and Babylonia would have provided him with equal motive to avoid going there too.



Again, all of this would be just as good reason for Peter not going to Antioch or Babylonia as it would be for his not going to Rome. And yet, as I just said, he did go to Antioch and you think he went to Babylonia. If it would have been so ineffective for Peter to go to a Gentile city, what was he doing in Antioch?

Moreover, if you think Peter would have been completely out of his depth in the alien culture of Rome, how on earth do you think he would have coped in Iraq? At least Galilee in Peter's time was a client state of Rome and effectively part of the Roman empire. Roman and hellenistic culture was present in Galilee, most notably at the Romanised city of Tiberias, which Peter couldn't possibly have been wholly unfamiliar with. Persian culture, by contrast, would not have been quite so familiar to the average Galilean, I think we can safely say. It therefore seems to me that Peter would have had far more chance of understanding the culture of the city of Rome than he would have with the Persian towns of the Euphrates.

Furthermore, you are quite wrong when you say "Jewish culture and Roman culture is very much almost two different worlds." In fact there was great crossover between them. There were more Jews living in the Diaspora - i.e., in the Roman world - than there were living in the Holy Land. Jewish theology by the first century had been influenced by hellenistic thought, as one can see above all in the Wisdom literature. There were many thoroughly hellenised Jews, in the Holy Land just as outside it. Paul himself was a Roman citizen whilst also being a zealous Pharisee (and a Christian as well). To suppose that somebody couldn't have coped with Roman culture just because he was a Galilean Jew is to make a huge and unwarranted assumption.

Quite apart from all of this, though, there is the fundamental point that this whole "Peter couldn't have been in Rome" thing is based upon almost total ignorance of the activities of the church and its leaders during this period. We don't know what was going on in the church at Rome or what Peter was doing for almost all of his ministry! How can anyone possibly assert that Peter couldn't have been in Rome? How can you possibly know that nothing happened there which could have required his expertise or experience rather than that of one of the other apostles? You talk about the need to place missionaries in locations where they are familiar with the culture (even though you admit that some missionaries go to places where they are unfamiliar with it, which entirely undermines your argument) - but how do you know that Peter was doing mission work at all? Galatians tells us that he visited the church in Antioch, not that he did mission work there. Paul, similarly, tells us that he visited Jerusalem to meet with the church leaders there, not in order to preach to the unconverted. How do you know that Peter couldn't have gone to Rome to visit the church there for some reason? How do you know that the church in Rome didn't have some kind of problem that needed apostolic oversight?

Moreover, I've already provided links to Eusebius, who gives an entirely plausible reason for Peter being in Rome: because he was chasing Simon Magus. Acts 8 tells us that it was Peter who originally confronted Simon Magus, and Justin Martyr and Irenaeus both tell us that Simon subsequently moved to Rome and taught there. It's entirely plausible that Peter might have wanted to travel to Rome himself and counter-act Simon's activities. I should say that our knowledge of Simon Magus is even slighter than our knowledge of Peter, and really the tradition that Simon Magus went to Rome is unreliable - but that's not the point. The point is that whether or not there's much evidence for it, this is a perfectly plausible story which certainly could have happened. Something like it could easily have happened. Even if Peter did not, in fact, go to Rome to deal with Simon Magus, there's any number of similar problems or crises that could have arisen in Rome which he might have wanted to deal with. Just read 1 Corinthians, which testifies to the fact that the Corinthian church had so many problems that they wrote to Paul about some of them and he heard about others, prompting his letter to them. How do we know that the Roman Christians didn't also have problems of some kind? How do we know that they didn't write to Jerusalem asking for help, or that the Jerusalem leaders heard about them by other means, and Peter went there to sort things out? Or how do we know that the Roman Christians didn't hold a big celebration to mark their 25-year anniversary and invited Peter out there? Or how do we know that Peter didn't have a second cousin in Rome whom he decided to visit? We don't know anything! There are a million reasons why Peter might have wanted to visit Rome, just as there are a million reasons why he might have wanted to go anywhere else or do anything else. We just don't know. To assert that he couldn't have wanted to go to Rome is just special pleading because, frankly, you don't want the Catholics to be right. I can't see any legitimate, objective, historical reason for such a strong statement. And yet it's not needed, because merely locating Peter in Rome doesn't make the Catholics right about his ecclesiological significance anyway.



It would be pretty remarkable for someone to live next door to the city of Tiberias and not know Roman culture. As I just said, Roman culture was everywhere, and it is a mistake to make such a big distinction between Roman and Jewish culture. However, in addition to the points I made before, we see here more unhistorical romanticising about Peter. How do you know that he grew up on a fishing boat? Does the New Testament say that? For all we know, Peter was a banker who, at the age of 40, had a mid-life crisis, quit his job, bought a boat and became a very bad fisherman. Or maybe when Jesus met him he was a teenager who'd run away to the boats. Who knows? There seems to be this general assumption that Peter was some sort of hoary-bearded old salt of the sea like Captain Haddock, whose knowledge was entirely restricted to the tides and the migration of cod, or something like that. And so of course such a simple peasant couldn't possibly have coped with the complexities of Roman civilisation, let alone ventured outside the peasant-friendly environs of the Jewish homeland. That's as unhistorical as it is patronising. It seems to me that there's just as much myth-making about Peter by Protestants as there is by Catholics.
Spoiler :



Shockingly, I haven't read it, so I can't say.



Well, evidently most of them take it non-literally. Clement of Alexandria famously argued that it should be taken in a spiritual sense to refer to whatever is most important to the individual (or something like that).

In the later Middle Ages there was a huge row about poverty, but it didn't revolve around this verse - it revolved around the question whether Jesus and his companions themselves owned anything. The more rigorous Franciscans claimed that they did not, and so complete poverty was a rule to be observed. The rest said that in fact they did, and so evangelical poverty was a relative matter, not an absolute one. The less rigorous line won out, which is why the Franciscan order owns things today.

By the way, any question along the lines of "What have theologians thought about verse X?" can be answered, at least initially, by going to this page, choosing a volume and navigating to the index of scriptural citations. Repeat for each volume.



As you probably know, most philosophers today subscribe to some form of functionalism, which holds that the mind (or, better, mental properties) are properties of the body that it has in virtue of the way it is constituted. Most of the (significant) debates among philosophers of mind are debates within this broad agreement - for example, the debate between dualists and non-dualists today is between those who think that mental properties are not reducible to non-mental properties and those who think that they are.

Now I think that, to put it brutally, most theologians aren't really aware of the specifics and nuances of contemporary philosophical debate on this issue. Academic theologians are at least aware that philosophers long ago rejected substance dualism and anything like it, and so they are happy to accept that the mind is not a distinct thing from the body. They point out that this is in accordance with biblical teaching, which conceives of human beings as organic unities. Moreover, the Bible generally thinks of life after death in terms of the resurrection of the body, not of the survival of the soul, so on this view there's no need to posit any spiritual "part" to the human person that survives death. However, in the larger Christian world, and especially that particularly vocal and energetic part of it that is the evangelical world, such views are largely unheard of, and congregations and authors alike assume the existence of the soul.

As a side note, I remember as a teenager encountering a disbeliever in evolution for the first time and being utterly astounded that such people really existed in the real world, and not (say) somewhere in rural America (which for me wasn't very real). We had a tremendously long argument about it. One of his arguments was that if evolution is true then it's hard to explain where the soul comes from. It seemed quite obvious to me that this was entirely correct, and that this is so much the worse for the soul, but he seemed to be working with different premises. The point here is that for an awful lot of evangelicals, the existence of the soul is simply taken as a given. Moreover, the soul is more or less identified with the mind - as it must be if its survival after death is to be of any interest or value to us. It follows that they don't have much time for philosophical theories of the mind other than straight-out substance dualism.

On the question of AIs and the like, it seems to me that if functionalism is true (as most informed people think it is) then there is no reason, in principle, why there couldn't be thinking, self-aware computers or perhaps machines of a different kind. Of course there could be reasons in practice why we can't build any, but that's a different issue. But I don't know whether this has been discussed in a theological context. I'm sure it must have been, but I don't know what positions exist on the matter.

Mark 1:16-21:

Spoiler :
16Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.

17And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.

18And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.

19And when he had gone a little farther thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets.

20And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.

21And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught.

22And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.

23And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,

24Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.

25And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him.

26And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.

27And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him.

28And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.

29And forthwith, when they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.

30But Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell him of her.

31And he came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.


We have a married man (Peter) and his brother (Andrew) who were fishers. We have two other brothers and their father who also fished. Seems to me that it was a family business to fish on the Sea of Gallilee. They had boats and it seems that periodically those boats were used to cross the lake. Acts 4:13 also declares, that they were unschooled which means that they more than likely grew up in the family business. Peter and Andrew had their own house and the other two brothers seemed comfortable in visiting it. I do not see any "romantacizing" going on. Now, one can say the narrative was added to make a great story, but it is there. Even if Peter ran away as a teenager, he still ended up married and his brother was fishing right along side of him when Jesus called them. Jesus even healed Peter's mother-in-law.

Peter, being married, was more than likely the more "mature" of the "bunch" and rather out spoken in his thoughts, remained a leader.
 
As a theologian, what is your take on the mind/body problem in philosophy? Can computers be created by humans which possess consciousness or awareness or whatever it is we possess which makes us special? If so what theological implications would result from this? Would this present a problem for theology?



Ken Macleod's recent novel 'The night sessions', set in 2021 after the Faith Wars pogrom against all religions, features a Calvinist theologian who believes that intelligent, self-aware robots have souls. This appears to the remnant Presbyterian faithful to be a major theological problem! Maybe there is a version of the Turing test which could establish whether robots have souls?
 
Maybe there is a version of the Turing test which could establish whether robots have souls?

There isn't one for humans . . .

I always figure, err on the side of caution. If they seem self-aware, just assume they have souls.
 
There isn't one for humans . . .

I always figure, err on the side of caution. If they seem self-aware, just assume they have souls.

Well, yeah; there is an issue only if the robot/AI does seem self-aware.

Maybe Blade Runner has something to say on this - if the robot dies mid-sentence it probably doesn't have a soul.
 
I must admit I find it hard to read the Authorised Version - it is hardly the most intuitive translation available - but I will do my best!

We have a married man (Peter) and his brother (Andrew) who were fishers. We have two other brothers and their father who also fished. Seems to me that it was a family business to fish on the Sea of Gallilee.

Certainly there were family businesses fishing on the Sea of Galilee. But what I'm contesting is the notion that we know that Peter spent his whole life doing that. The mere fact that his brother was also a fisherman doesn't prove it. Perhaps Peter only started fishing at the age of 40 and persuaded his unassertive brother to go into business with him. Maybe they were the Quark and Rom of first-century Galilee. Of course I'm not saying that that is more probable than the supposition that they had always been fishermen. I'm just saying that you can't assert, as if it were a known fact, that they were always fisherman - and you certainly can't draw conclusions about Peter's familiarity with Roman culture from such assertions.

(As for James and John, the text doesn't actually say that their father was a fisherman. It says only that they were fishermen, and that when they followed Jesus they left their father in the boat. Perhaps their father had a completely different occupation, or was retired, and was visiting them to see what they did for a living. Not the most probable interpretation, of course, but possible.)

They had boats and it seems that periodically those boats were used to cross the lake.

Yes, so they were fishermen, which no-one disputes.

Acts 4:13 also declares, that they were unschooled which means that they more than likely grew up in the family business.

First, the claim in that verse that they were uneducated is in the context of an assembly of priests, so I would take it that it means that they were not educated in the finer points of the Jewish Law - i.e. they were not priests - rather than that they were completely uneducated. Second, even if it does mean that they were completely uneducated, it doesn't follow from that that they grew up in the family business (assuming that there was a family business). Alan Sugar makes a constant virtue of his lack of education, but he founded his own business. Perhaps Peter and Andrew originally did some other form of manual labour and later changed to become fishermen.

Peter and Andrew had their own house and the other two brothers seemed comfortable in visiting it.

I don't really see how that's relevant. I would add, though, that Peter's living arrangements seem rather hard to understand on the basis of the Gospels. As you say, Mark 1:29 has him sharing a house with his brother Andrew (and his own mother in law, but no wife is mentioned). But Matthew 17:25 implies that Jesus and Peter are living together, rather like Holmes and Watson (that "What do you think, Peter?" is very Holmes!).

I do not see any "romantacizing" going on. Now, one can say the narrative was added to make a great story, but it is there. Even if Peter ran away as a teenager, he still ended up married and his brother was fishing right along side of him when Jesus called them. Jesus even healed Peter's mother-in-law.

I don't know if I'd call any of this a particularly great story; on the contrary it's pretty thin stuff. Which is precisely my point - there are very few details about Peter in the Gospels or anywhere else in the New Testament, and it is a mistake to make assertions such as "He grew up as a fisherman" on the basis of them. I agree that he probably grew up as a fisherman, simply because that is how trades of this kind usually worked in that time and place. But you can't say anything more definite than that.

Peter, being married, was more than likely the more "mature" of the "bunch" and rather out spoken in his thoughts, remained a leader.

I don't see how being married made him any more "mature" than any of the others. First, maybe he was a smooth-talking ladies' man with an angry "her indoors" (she never appears anywhere in the New Testament, despite being mentioned obliquely). Second, maybe all the others were married too. I would say that Peter became one of the leaders of the post-Easter church (and he apparently had less authority than James the Less) not because of any inherently authoritative character of his own - indeed, his portrayal in Galatians suggests that he was a bit of a ditherer - but simply because he had been Jesus' closest friend.

Ken Macleod's recent novel 'The night sessions', set in 2021 after the Faith Wars pogrom against all religions, features a Calvinist theologian who believes that intelligent, self-aware robots have souls. This appears to the remnant Presbyterian faithful to be a major theological problem! Maybe there is a version of the Turing test which could establish whether robots have souls?

There isn't one for humans . . .

I always figure, err on the side of caution. If they seem self-aware, just assume they have souls.

All of this depends on what one means by "soul". If it is just another word for being self-aware, then a self-aware robot has a soul by definition, and the only question is whether it is self-aware in the first place. If it means simply being alive (which is what it means in an Aristotelian context), then the only question is whether you count a given robot as living or not, and that's purely a question of definitions. If, however, it means the possession of some immaterial substance, then it's pretty unlikely whether anything has such a thing.
 
What where the main points of influence of Plato on Christian thought? I'm studying Ol' Widey at the moment, but this doesn't seem to come up on the course- I suppose it's a bit out-of-the-way for first year philosophy- but I'm aware that Neoplatonism was very significant in early Christianity, so I'd be interested to know how the two link up.
 
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