Ask a Theologian IV

Some Chinese Christians and Christian scholars of Chinese thought identify the Logos of John 1 with the Tao. What's the significance of this?

How did the tradition of Monks taking on new given names develop?

but simply because he had been Jesus' closest friend.

Click to expand...

The crap???

John was the "Man Jesus loved."

What makes you say Peter???

"The disciple whom Jesus loved" is most commonly, but not universally, identified with John.

I'd think it is fair to day that Jesus loved all of his disciples, but that he loved them differently. When you consider that John was the youngest disciple, only about half of Jesus's age, it seems reasonable to assume that Jesus loved John like a son and Peter as a comrade.

Traitorfish said:

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.

Click to expand...

Well, first, there's a big difference between Plato himself, Middle Platonism (which is the main kind of Platonism that influenced Christianity), and Neoplatonism, which came later. All three of them influenced Christianity but in subtly different ways.

The main points of influence are the idea of a lower, material world and a higher, spiritual world. In Plato himself the "higher" world is largely logical in structure and purpose, but in Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism it took on a more religious dimension. That obviously resonated well with Christianity. A related idea was that of God. Plato is ambivalent about monotheism but the Middle Platonists believed in a higher God who governs the universe and a lower God who enacts his decrees. The higher God of the Middle Platonists was an obvious parallel to the God of Christianity, while the lower God was an equally obvious parallel to the Wisdom of Jewish literature, the Logos of the New Testament, and the Christ of Colossians. Indeed there is probably Platonic influence upon even the biblical ideas themselves, at least to some degree. The consequence of this was that Christians not only thought about Christ in terms drawn from Platonic speculation about the World Soul but also thought about God the Father in terms drawn from Platonic speculation about the higher God. For example, Clement of Alexandria talks about comprehending God through the process of abstraction, where you think of a solid object and then abstract from it all the dimensions until you are left with the pure notion of existence. That's taken directly from Platonic theologians.

Relatedly, Middle Platonists identified the high God with the sum of the Platonic Forms. In Neoplatonism this was elaborated upon, so Plotinus thought that there is a divine Mind which contains all the Platonic Forms and orders the activities of the World Soul. Christians approved of this idea and it is found in some brief passages of Augustine, which would become some of the most influential things he ever wrote because medieval philosophers were obsessed with them. The notion that all possibilities subsist in the mind of God continued to be central to Christianity at least until Leibniz.

Then of course there's the central Platonic doctrine of the immateriality, separability, and immortality of the soul, which is not found in the Bible (at least, not much) but which became incredibly important in Christianity.

Running through all these ideas is the emphasis upon the spiritual world above and denigration, to a greater or lesser degree, of the physical world below. Plato thought of the two worlds as an organic unity, but Neoplatonists and some Christians alike lost that sense. In Christianity that tendency was clearest in gnosticism, which was at least partly influenced by Platonism (although mainstream Platonists had even more contempt for gnostics than they had for Christians in general). However, even where this emphasis upon the spiritual (in the Platonic sense) did not go that far, there was a thoroughly Platonic sensibility that left such a stamp upon Christianity that it's never left it. In the Symposium, Socrates describes a ladder by which the soul ascends to true Beauty: beginning with the appreciation of beautiful physical objects, the soul learns to recognise the Form of Beauty by which they are beautiful, and so progress to an appreciation of beautiful spiritual objects such as the virtues, before finally appreciating pure Beauty itself. This was possibly the most influential thing Plato ever wrote, as it became absolutely central to Neoplatonism, which identified the form of Beauty with God himself. And through them it became central to Christianity. Gregory of Nyssa, for example, writes constantly about the love of Beauty, identified as God, in many passages which could almost word-for-word be passages of Plotinus.

_random_ said:

Some Chinese Christians and Christian scholars of Chinese thought identify the Logos of John 1 with the Tao. What's the significance of this?

Click to expand...

In Taoism, the Tao has a cosmic role not unlike the Logos in Greek philosophy - it is a principle that underlies the world and gives it order. So I suppose that logos in John 1 is sometimes translated as "Tao", or identified with the Tao, to make that point and that cultural connection. Of course this can be a dangerous thing to do, because there are also big differences between Logos and Tao, among which are the fact that Logos is something comprehensible and rational - indeed the source of all reason - whereas the Tao is meant to be incomprehensible. The Tao Te Ching starts with a statement of its unstateability.

_random_ said:

How did the tradition of Monks taking on new given names develop?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure, but I assume it was an extension of the practice of giving someone a new name at baptism.

Domination3000 said:

The crap???

John was the "Man Jesus loved."

What makes you say Peter???

Click to expand...

First, "the crap" is not a particularly illuminating response.

As MagisterCultuum says, nothing in the New Testament identifies John with the Beloved Disciple. In fact there are good reasons for thinking that the Beloved Disciple is not John. Indeed he may be not a real person, but just a literary device.

Peter is the most prominent disciple in the Gospels other than John, and he is the most prominent apostle in Acts until Paul shows up. Throughout the Gospels, Peter is presented as the primary spokesperson for the disciples and the closest thing Jesus has to a confidant. The story I cited in my previous post about Peter coming back "to the house" where Jesus engages him in conversation about taxes is just one example among many. No other disciple is portrayed as singled out for one-to-one conversation with Jesus in this way. The strong implication is that Peter was regarded as the person who was closest to Jesus, with whom he spoke privately most often.

Peter's downgrading in John's Gospel in favour of the mysterious Beloved Disciple suggests that this Gospel was written by someone in a Christian community that didn't think much of Peter, and perhaps regarded itself as having been founded by the Beloved Disciple (assuming that this is really a historical person). The story in John 20:2-9 about Peter and the Beloved Disciple racing to the tomb has been interpreted as a commentary on the author's view of the different Christian communities: the Beloved Disciple reaches the tomb before Peter, indicating that he is superior to Peter (and the churches associated with him are superior to others), but Peter enters the tomb first, indicating that he's still got some things going for him. I don't know how reliable such an interpretation would be.

MagisterCultuum said:

I'd think it is fair to day that Jesus loved all of his disciples, but that he loved them differently. When you consider that John was the youngest disciple, only about half of Jesus's age, it seems reasonable to assume that Jesus loved John like a son and Peter as a comrade.

Click to expand...

Although John is traditionally represented as a young man, there is nothing in the New Testament to indicate his age. I think that the tradition of his great youth derives from the traditional identification of John of Patmos, author of Revelation, with John the apostle; given that Revelation has always been thought to be written at least towards the end of the first century, it would seem reasonable to think that John can't have been very old when he knew Jesus, since otherwise he would have been impossibly old by the end of the century. That reasoning founders on two points, though. The first is that tradition also holds that the apostle John was martyred but miraculously saved from death and rejuvenated, so his life would have been supernaturally extended anyway, meaning that there's no reason to suppose a late birth to enable him to live long enough to write Revelation. The second and more important point is that there is no good reason to identify John of Patmos with the apostle John in the first place, so the book of Revelation is irrelevant to the question of the apostle's age.

All we can say, on the basis of what the New Testament actually tells us, is that the apostle John was young enough to have a father still living (Mark 1:20) and that he was probably younger than his brother James, since he is always mentioned after him. That doesn't warrant saying that he was younger than Jesus, let alone as young as half his age.

First, "the crap" is not a particularly illuminating response.

Click to expand...

Just to set the record straight, it was meant to be a comment of confusion, not one of insult. I apologize sincerely if you took it the other way.

As MagisterCultuum says, nothing in the New Testament identifies John with the Beloved Disciple. In fact there are good reasons for thinking that the Beloved Disciple is not John. Indeed he may be not a real person, but just a literary device.

Peter is the most prominent disciple in the Gospels other than John, and he is the most prominent apostle in Acts until Paul shows up. Throughout the Gospels, Peter is presented as the primary spokesperson for the disciples and the closest thing Jesus has to a confidant. The story I cited in my previous post about Peter coming back "to the house" where Jesus engages him in conversation about taxes is just one example among many. No other disciple is portrayed as singled out for one-to-one conversation with Jesus in this way. The strong implication is that Peter was regarded as the person who was closest to Jesus, with whom he spoke privately most often.

Click to expand...

Very enlightening, thanks.

Although John is traditionally represented as a young man, there is nothing in the New Testament to indicate his age. I think that the tradition of his great youth derives from the traditional identification of John of Patmos, author of Revelation, with John the apostle; given that Revelation has always been thought to be written at least towards the end of the first century, it would seem reasonable to think that John can't have been very old when he knew Jesus, since otherwise he would have been impossibly old by the end of the century. That reasoning founders on two points, though. The first is that tradition also holds that the apostle John was martyred but miraculously saved from death and rejuvenated, so his life would have been supernaturally extended anyway, meaning that there's no reason to suppose a late birth to enable him to live long enough to write Revelation. The second and more important point is that there is no good reason to identify John of Patmos with the apostle John in the first place, so the book of Revelation is irrelevant to the question of the apostle's age.

Click to expand...

Ignoring the second part, when do you think Revelation was written? And what is the youngest John could have been when he wrote it (If he did indeed write it)? And do you see any reason to believe he DIDN'T write it, or is there just no evidence either way?

Plotinus said:

In Taoism, the Tao has a cosmic role not unlike the Logos in Greek philosophy - it is a principle that underlies the world and gives it order. So I suppose that logos in John 1 is sometimes translated as "Tao", or identified with the Tao, to make that point and that cultural connection. Of course this can be a dangerous thing to do, because there are also big differences between Logos and Tao, among which are the fact that Logos is something comprehensible and rational - indeed the source of all reason - whereas the Tao is meant to be incomprehensible. The Tao Te Ching starts with a statement of its unstateability.

Click to expand...

If God is believed to be both the source of our rationality and to transcend it, then I don't really see this as a problem. Really, from my very limited knowledge of Chinese philosophy, the idea that "the Tao became flesh and dwelt among us" strikes me as in some ways more poignant than saying the same thing about a fundamentally rational force. Of course, you do run into the issue of to what extent it's okay to alter the meaning of Sacred Scripture when translating it to better communicate the "big ideas" to foreign cultures. (Probably my favorite story about this comes from a tribe in the Amazon Basin who would build their houses on logs rooted deep in the sand, so Wycliffe translators reversed the roles of the wise and foolish builders, but at the core that's not as drastic as translating "Logos" as "Tao.") How have Biblical translators historically dealt with this issue?

All we can say, on the basis of what the New Testament actually tells us, is that the apostle John was young enough to have a father still living (Mark 1:20) and that he was probably younger than his brother James, since he is always mentioned after him. That doesn't warrant saying that he was younger than Jesus, let alone as young as half his age.

Click to expand...

Wouldn't the sort of people who would go around closely following itinerant preachers at the time generally have been in their youth?

Domination3000 said:

Ignoring the second part, when do you think Revelation was written? And what is the youngest John could have been when he wrote it (If he did indeed write it)? And do you see any reason to believe he DIDN'T write it, or is there just no evidence either way?

Click to expand...

It was almost certainly written in the 90s of the first century, during the persecution of Domitian. See here for more details, and look at the rest of that site if you want summaries of what scholars think about the rest of the New Testament.

There's no reason to doubt that Revelation was written, as it claims to be, by John of Patmos. I don't know of any indications of his age. I don't know of any good reason to assume that John of Patmos is the same person as the apostle John. As far as I know, the traditional reasoning goes something like this:

The Fourth Gospel features a character called the "Beloved Disciple", and this is the author's modest way of referring to himself.
The "Beloved Disciple" is probably John.
So John the apostle wrote the Fourth Gospel.
The three letters attributed to "the Presbyter" are written in a similar style to the Fourth Gospel.
So John the apostle wrote those as well.
The book of Revelation is written in a similar style, and furthermore claims to be written by someone called John of Patmos.
So John the apostle wrote that as well, and is the same person as John of Patmos.

I've already indicated that the attribution of the Fourth Gospel to John the apostle is very dodgy, so that basically undermines the whole argument. However, the rest of the argument is shaky as well, because the similarities in style between the Fourth Gospel and the other texts mask underlying differences. The Johannine epistles were not written by the same person who wrote the Gospel, and Revelation was even more certainly not written by the same person. Even patristic authors such as Dionysius the Great and Theodore of Mopsuestia recognised that. The idea that John of Patmos must be John the apostle simply because they have the same name won't work, because "John" was a very common name - there are quite a few Johns in the New Testament.

So there is no good reason to think that the apostle John wrote Revelation. As for arguments against such an attribution, I suppose its date is the strongest. If it was written in the 90s then it seems unlikely, though not impossible, that a disciple of Jesus' could have been active at that time. Even if John were a teenager when he knew Jesus, he'd still have been about 80. Certainly he could have lived for that long, but the absence of evidence that he did so might seem to suggest otherwise.

_random_ said:

If God is believed to be both the source of our rationality and to transcend it, then I don't really see this as a problem.

Click to expand...

Of course, but then I don't think that early Christians would have accepted the notion that the Logos transcends our rationality. They might have accepted such a claim about the Father, but the whole point of the Logos (from both a pagan and a Christian viewpoint) is that it is rational and comprehensible, because it reveals the incomprehensible Father to the world.

_random_ said:

Really, from my very limited knowledge of Chinese philosophy, the idea that "the Tao became flesh and dwelt among us" strikes me as in some ways more poignant than saying the same thing about a fundamentally rational force. Of course, you do run into the issue of to what extent it's okay to alter the meaning of Sacred Scripture when translating it to better communicate the "big ideas" to foreign cultures. (Probably my favorite story about this comes from a tribe in the Amazon Basin who would build their houses on logs rooted deep in the sand, so Wycliffe translators reversed the roles of the wise and foolish builders, but at the core that's not as drastic as translating "Logos" as "Tao.") How have Biblical translators historically dealt with this issue?

Click to expand...

I like that story. But I can't really answer the question, as I have no idea! Translation always means interpretation and the changing of ideas to fit a new cultural context. I think biblical translators just have to accept that and deal with it; I don't know if principles have been developed to help them, although I wouldn't be surprised.

_random_ said:

Wouldn't the sort of people who would go around closely following itinerant preachers at the time generally have been in their youth?

Click to expand...

No doubt that is true in all periods of history, although we'd need a sociologist to tell us. But then that would be true of all of Jesus' disciples, not just John. Indeed it would be true of Jesus himself, since he started off as a disciple of John the Baptist. It seems to me quite reasonable to assume that Jesus' followers were more likely to have been younger rather than older people, but one can't conclude from that that John was younger than Jesus - who was pretty young himself - let alone a teenager.

Plotinus said:

\
No doubt that is true in all periods of history, although we'd need a sociologist to tell us. But then that would be true of all of Jesus' disciples, not just John. Indeed it would be true of Jesus himself, since he started off as a disciple of John the Baptist. It seems to me quite reasonable to assume that Jesus' followers were more likely to have been younger rather than older people, but one can't conclude from that that John was younger than Jesus - who was pretty young himself - let alone a teenager.

Click to expand...

Perhaps, but it seems to be a reasonable enough proposition that John may have been alive when the various Johanine writings were written.

Is open theism a cop-out or a legitimate response to issues of free will?

_random_ said:

Perhaps, but it seems to be a reasonable enough proposition that John may have been alive when the various Johanine writings were written.

Click to expand...

Of course, it's possible. But one may say the same thing of any other disciple of Jesus too.

_random_ said:

Is open theism a cop-out or a legitimate response to issues of free will?

Click to expand...

We had a question on open theism before, and I don't know that I could add much to the brief comment I made there. My view on free will is that compatibilist free will makes perfect sense while incompatibilist (or contra-causal, or libertarian) free will is barely comprehensible, and to the degree that it can be coherently described, undesirable. I've talked about this frequently throughout these threads. As I understand it, if open theism or any similar position is developed specifically as a response to issues associated with free will, it's incompatibilist free will that's meant. I don't think the same issues arise at all with compatibilist free will. So I would say not so much that open theism is a cop-out as that it's an answer to the wrong question. If you think free will is important you're better off thinking in terms of compatibilist free will, not incompatibilist, and (as a happy bonus) the problems which open theism is meant to solve simply won't arise. Of course, there could be other reasons for endorsing open theism that aren't connected to free will.

The only problem with compatibilist free will from a theological point of view is that it undermines the free will response to the problem of evil. But that is no great loss, because the free will response isn't much use anyway, at least in my opinion.

You might have touched on this before, but I didn't see it specificaly mentioned anywhere. What did the mass look like in the very early church?

Ajidica said:

You might have touched on this before, but I didn't see it specificaly mentioned anywhere. What did the mass look like in the very early church?

Click to expand...

And related: I've heard from an Anglican rector that the Christian liturgical practice has its roots in Jewish practices. Has anyone done a book on that?

Can you think of any reason why sacred art in Orthodoxy seems much more static than in Catholicism? Even as Russia became increasingly influenced by the aesthetics of the West, the polyphony in the chant and the perspective in the icons don't get rid of the basic "Byzantine" flavor that permeates it all. Instrumentation and statuary were explored quite thoroughly in the Catholic Church but never found any use at all in Orthodoxy.

Ajidica said:

You might have touched on this before, but I didn't see it specificaly mentioned anywhere. What did the mass look like in the very early church?

Click to expand...

The brief answer is that no-one is sure. The somewhat less brief version is this (because I'm lazy, this is pasted from a short overview I wrote about this a while ago):

Another distinctive feature of Christian liturgy was the Eucharist, which also came directly from Jesus. The word “eucharist” comes from the Greek for “giving thanks”, and it was used to refer to this practice by the end of the first century AD. It was a ritual re-enactment of elements of the Last Supper, the final meal that Jesus shared with his disciples on the night before he was executed. The Gospels differ over the interpretation of this meal: in the Synoptics, it was a Passover meal; but according to John Passover was actually a day later and the Last Supper was simply an ordinary dinner. The earliest account we have of the event is from Paul:

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

The structure of the sentences in Greek suggest that this material had already been shaped by the oral tradition: this was a passage that people repeated in a liturgical context. Similar accounts are found in the Synoptic Gospels, although not in John. They indicate not only that Jesus treated the bread and wine at the Last Supper in a significant way, but that the Christians did the same thing when they shared the bread and wine together. However, we do not know precisely what form this ritual took. The Jewish Passover meal was – and still is – a proper dinner, which features ritual elements that bring to life the original Passover, eaten on the eve of the Exodus. By recreating elements of that event, such as the use of unleavened bread, participants identify with their ancestors who took part in the original event. Was the Christian Eucharist something similar? If so, it would have been an actual meal which the believers shared together, in the course of which the words that Jesus had spoken at the Last Supper would, at one point, be repeated. The context of the passage from 1 Corinthians 11 suggests this scenario, since Paul criticises those who eat too much and allow others to go hungry, which implies that he is talking about a complete meal, eaten (in part) to satisfy hunger, and not simply a symbolic morsel of bread and sip of wine.

However, other texts suggest something different. Acts mentions several times that the Christians would break bread together. Acts 2:42, 46, for example, tells us that they ate and prayed together, and the same thing happens at 20:7, where it seems that this is a weekly occurrence. But all of these events seem to be ordinary meals, without any mention of eucharistic elements. There is no reference to wine – which plays an important part in the Last Supper in both Paul and the Synoptics – or to any special words of Jesus or indeed any mention of Jesus at all. In Acts 27:35, while on a ship in a storm, Paul breaks bread, gives thanks to God, and shares it with everyone, including the sailors. This implies that the meals which Christians shared with each other – and sometimes with other people – were not the Eucharist. Something similar seems to be suggested in a text known as The teaching of the apostles, normally called simply the Didache (the Greek word for “teaching”). This short text, which was lost in antiquity and only discovered and published in the 1880s, is of enormous importance as a window into the early Christian church. The only problem is that no-one knows what period, or what place, it offers that window onto. It is usually thought to have been written in the late first or the early second century AD, although sometimes it has been regarded as a later composition which is “looking back” to an earlier time. The first half of the work contains ethical exhortations which seem to parallel much of the Sermon on the Mount; scholars are unsure whether they are based upon Matthew’s Gospel or represent an independent witness to the same material. The second half is a series of instructions about running the church. Among them are instructions for holding the Eucharist, which seem rather different from those in Paul. The Didache tells its readers to bless first the wine and then the bread. There is an eschatological angle: the bread was once different grains of corn, brought together into one loaf, and the Christians pray that the church may also be brought together into God’s kingdom. But there is no mention at all of the Last Supper, or of the words Jesus spoke at it; although the ceremony is explicitly Christian, invoking Jesus in the prayers, there is no indication that it has anything to do with anything that Jesus himself actually did.

Many scholars, therefore, have suggested that the early church actually had two kinds of rituals that involved eating. The first was simply a normal meal, which might involve a semi-formal breaking of bread and prayer of thanks to God at the start. It might not involve wine at all. This is what the Didache describes and which Acts seems to presuppose. And the second was the Eucharist itself, a much more formal ritual with bread and wine – perhaps only small amounts of each – at which a fairly standard form of words, handed down from the Last Supper, was repeated. There must still have been variations in the words, however; it varies between the different Gospel accounts and Paul.

The precise significance of the Eucharist seems to vary somewhat in the texts, just as baptism does. In some it has an important eschatological element. The passage from Paul quoted above, for example, links it to the future return of Jesus: to perform the Eucharist is to proclaim him until his return. It is very likely that Jesus himself meant his actions at the Last Supper to be interpreted in something like this way. In Mark 14:25, immediately after his words over the bread and wine, he tells his followers that “I will never again drink of the fruit of the wine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” In some texts, this eschatological dimension becomes an emphasis upon the future resurrection of those who participate in the Eucharist. In John 6:35-40, Jesus calls himself “the bread of life”, and states that those who come to him will be raised up on the last day. This passage is generally considered to be a reflection upon the meaning of the Eucharist: by eating the bread, believers were actually eating Jesus himself, and looking forward to the time when God would raise them up.

Other texts, however, suggest a less directly eschatological meaning of the Eucharist. In another passage from 1 Corinthians, Paul writes:

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. 1 Corinthians 10:16-17

On this view, to share in the Eucharist is to be united to Christ and to his whole church. For Paul, the Eucharist forms part of his theology of unity and identity, which we looked at in the previous chapter.

Click to expand...

Smellincoffee said:

And related: I've heard from an Anglican rector that the Christian liturgical practice has its roots in Jewish practices. Has anyone done a book on that?

Click to expand...

The basically Jewish origins of primitive Christianity was one of the main emphases in early Christian research over the past thirty years. I don't know of any particular books on the liturgy itself, but I'm sure they exist - this is very much not my area.

_random_ said:

Can you think of any reason why sacred art in Orthodoxy seems much more static than in Catholicism? Even as Russia became increasingly influenced by the aesthetics of the West, the polyphony in the chant and the perspective in the icons don't get rid of the basic "Byzantine" flavor that permeates it all. Instrumentation and statuary were explored quite thoroughly in the Catholic Church but never found any use at all in Orthodoxy.

Click to expand...

I'm afraid I'm not sure about this either. My guess is that it's twofold: first, Orthodoxy is, as we all know, much more concerned to remain true to tradition than other forms of Christianity generally are, so it changes less in general. And second, Russian Orthodoxy in particular drew its identity and sense of authority from its conception of itself as the heir to Byzantium, with Moscow as the Third Rome. So one can see how a Byzantine sensibility would be especially clingy there.

Plus, with icons in particular, don't forget just how holy they're meant to be. Christ is incarnate (in some way) in an icon, just as the Son is incarnate in Christ's human body. This is one reason why the design of icons has not developed greatly in many centuries (well, it has developed, of course, but within pretty strict channels). If icons are vessels of divinity then you experiment with the design at your peril.

Time for another round of questions. Hope these don't bug you too much.

Plotinus said:

Christ is incarnate (in some way) in an icon, just as the Son is incarnate in Christ's human body.

Click to expand...

Can you explain how this works and how the idea developed?

The idea that slavery is inherently immoral goes back to at least St. Gregory of Nyssa, so how have Christians historically interpreted Old Testament laws explaining the mechanics of slavery?

I understand that Swinburne espouses some form of substance dualism, which is rare for a contemporary philosopher. What are the basics of his view on the subject and what's your opinion of it?

Speaking of Swinburne, if I could only buy one of his books, which one should it be?

Has any Christian theologian/philosopher ever given an intelligible definition of the self? Would it be considered the same thing as a soul?

Of the different English translations of the bible, are there particular translations that different denominational groups strongly support over others?

I ask because I have an aunt, non-denominational Protestant New Englander, that I was thinking of getting a bible for Christmas. But without giving away the idea, I can't think how to decide between KJ or NIV.

_random_ said:

Time for another round of questions. Hope these don't bug you too much.

"Christ is incarnate (in some way) in an icon, just as the Son is incarnate in Christ's human body."

Can you explain how this works and how the idea developed?

Click to expand...

As with most Orthodox things, I don't know a great deal about this. The basic idea comes from ancient attitudes towards images. To us, to say that X is the image of Y is to assert that X and Y are numerically different, though they may be similar. In an ancient context, to say that X is the image of Y is to say that X is in some way (numerically) identical to Y even though they are also numerically distinct. So if the Son is the image of the Father, that expresses their identity rather than their distinctness. Similarly, if an icon is an image of the Son, then the icon (in some way) is the Son, even though in another way it plainly isn't.

I believe that the notion that the icon is an extension, or part, of the incarnation itself developed at a fairly early stage, but as far as I know the key individual in the articulation of this view was John of Damascus in his three Logoi Apologetikoi of 729-30. In these books, John gives a twofold defence of the use of icons. The first element of his defence is a distinction between veneration and worship, the point being that icons are not worshipped but venerated, which is not idolatrous, and God is worshipped through this veneration. This argument had previously been made by Germanus of Constantinople. The second plank of John's defence is that icon veneration is not merely permissible, but indispensable, because of the role that the icon plays in the incarnation. This is part of the way in which God uses material things to express the immaterial. John conceives of a kind of hierarchy of representation, the lowest kind being mere representation as in an ordinary picture recording something, and then moving up through prefiguring and analogy to Christ himself, an image of God who shares his nature. This means that, according to John, any material thing can potentially represent and, in a sense, actually become something higher. In this way, it becomes a kind of sacrament. Thus, to venerate an icon of Christ is to worship the Christ whom the icon represents and, in a real sense, makes present.

This basic idea was later developed and articulated rather more forcefully by Theodore the Studite, who was the major leader of the iconophiles in the later stages of the iconoclasm controversy. Theodore accepted that an icon was obviously a different thing from what it represented, but its representational form and, above all, similar name indicates some kind of identity of nature. In fact, although they are two in ousia, they are one in hypostasis. Just as the Son is the image of the Father, and the Father is worshipped through him, so too an icon is an image of the Son, who is worshipped through it. So Theodore goes rather further than John of Damascus, who was clear that God is worshipped whilst icons are only venerated. Theodore's theology effectively allows icons to be worshipped as extensions of the divine nature. Theodore does, however, shy away from drawing this conclusion, stressing that icons are not part of the Trinity. What is to be worshipped is not the image, but Christ in the image. By the same token, refusing to venerate the image is a refusal to worship Christ, which is why icons can never be a matter of indifference.

_random_ said:

The idea that slavery is inherently immoral goes back to at least St. Gregory of Nyssa, so how have Christians historically interpreted Old Testament laws explaining the mechanics of slavery?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure, but I think there would be two main responses. The first is that the Old Testament lays down laws for the just treatment of slaves, which envisages a very different kind of slavery from that actually practised in most slave-owning societies, including classical antiquity. So the biblical view is not that slavery is inherently wrong, but that slavery may be just, although it rarely ever has been. The (old) Catholic Encyclopedia reports precisely this view in this rather surprising article - I say rather surprising since it seems at some points to endorse the view in question, although this may be an unjust interpretation of mine based on insufficiently careful reading.

The second response would of course be that the Old Testament laws about slavery are part of the dispensation that God gave to the ancient Hebrews which were intended only to apply to that period, just as he also ordered them to wage aggressive war (something which the Catholic Church thinks is never just), to have many wives, and so on. I don't know the history of this kind of view, but I think it is basically a modern one; it is at any rate unbiblical.

_random_ said:

I understand that Swinburne espouses some form of substance dualism, which is rare for a contemporary philosopher. What are the basics of his view on the subject and what's your opinion of it?

Click to expand...

"Rare" is putting it mildly! As I understand it, Swinburne takes pretty much the classical Cartesian line that the mind is a formally and really distinct substance from the body, which can and indeed does exist without it. He's aware, of course, that much of what the mind does requires a body, and so conceives of the disembodied mind as quite different, phenomenologically speaking, from the embodied mind. His main book on this subject is The Evolution of the Soul, which I have not read, but as I understand it his principal argument for this position is along the lines of Descartes', to the effect that the conceivability of the mind and body as distinct indicates that they are. This doesn't seem to me a very promising line of reasoning, but as I haven't read his detailed exposition of it, it wouldn't be fair for me to judge.

_random_ said:

Speaking of Swinburne, if I could only buy one of his books, which one should it be?

Click to expand...

That depends on what aspect of his thought you're interested in. If it's his philosophy of mind then the above-mentioned book would be the one to go for. If it's his arguments for God's existence then The Existence of God would be the obvious choice.

Whiskey_Lord said:

Has any Christian theologian/philosopher ever given an intelligible definition of the self? Would it be considered the same thing as a soul?

Click to expand...

That depends on what one means by "self", and indeed by "soul". I can't think of any discussions of "the self" per se - it is not a concept much used by either theologians or philosophers, I think. Philosophers, at least, are perhaps more interested in the mind, or consciousness, or person, or indeed soul - any one of which one might identify as "the self" even if that term is not used. I think that most theologians who think that "soul" is a useful category would pretty much identify it with the self.

Cutlass said:

Of the different English translations of the bible, are there particular translations that different denominational groups strongly support over others?

I ask because I have an aunt, non-denominational Protestant New Englander, that I was thinking of getting a bible for Christmas. But without giving away the idea, I can't think how to decide between KJ or NIV.

Click to expand...

This is another vexed issue that I don't know much about. I think that preferred biblical translations generally reflect theological stances rather than denominations themselves. For example, evangelicals typically use the NIV, no matter what denomination they are. Fundamentalists typically use the AV, again no matter what denomination they are. More middle-of-the-road and liberal people are likely to use the NRSV. But then these things aren't set in stone - I went to a service at a very evangelical church last week and they were using the ESV rather than the NIV I would have expected.

I think that the NIV is a bad translation, for reasons I've given before, so I wouldn't encourage anyone to use it. I would say that if your aunt is a Christian then presumably she already has a Bible, and what you're thinking of getting her is a presentation-type Bible rather than an everyday reading sort of one, in which case the AV might make the most sense whatever translation she normally uses. But that's just a best guess. Otherwise I think the NRSV is a good all-purpose translation that no-one is likely to object to unless they have a weird dogmatic insistence upon another one, which is probably unlikely to be the case with your aunt.

question deleted

Have you read David Fitzgerald's book "Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All"? What is your assessment on his research and the assertion that Jesus never existed based on his findings?

Quick, someone post that Armarium Magnum link in which "Nailed" receives a thorough thrashing!