Ask a Theologian III

[GhostWriter16]

It's too bad that I was raised around fundies to begin with. MY life could have been a lot more pleasant.

Oh wow. You would die if you lived with my parents. I'm considered a fundie already, and I consider them fundamentalists...

 

[uppi]

No, I believe it perfectly. They skipped less important generations most likely however, as did most genealogies back then.

But there are no gaps in them where one could assume skipped generations. There is no way to insert missing generations without altering the text that is already there. Therefore you cannot believe them perfectly as there must be words that are wrong.

 

[GamezRule]

Oh wow. You would die if you lived with my parents. I'm considered a fundie already, and I consider them fundamentalists...

I know I could handle it.

 

[Plotinus]

Genesis 1:2-10 is exactly right, according to the current science anyway.

I don't think modern science accepts the notion of a vault in the sky that holds back the rain.

Besides, as I said, I just don't see the point of this picking at the text and saying, "Aha! They may have been totally wrong about the stuff in this verse, and in that verse, and in that whole passage, but they got the stuff in this passage totally right!" Well, maybe they did, but I don't see how that's of any particular interest. Surely if they got things right, that is of interest only because of what it demonstrates about the source of their knowledge. For example, if they got everything right, yet had no scientific methods or instruments that could possibly have been used to get it right, then that would be good evidence that they were divinely inspired (or something like it). That would be interesting. Conversely, if they agreed with modern science (about some things) and there were good reason to think that this is because they were using methods similar to those of modern science, that too would be very interesting, in a different way.

But if they agree with modern science in just a few things, and if there's no possible way that they could have got those few things correct through any kind of scientific or rational process (as I assume they couldn't have, in the case of these things), then these things were just lucky guesses, and I don't see what's interesting about that.

More questions, less talky!

I did not find this one asked before, so I'll give it a shot: in your opinion, who is the most influential contemporary theologian? You can pick dudes who died somewhat recently too in this I suppose.

That is hard to say and I don't know that I would be the best person to answer. Instinctively I would say Jurgen Moltmann or Wolfhart Pannenberg, who are both alive and yet old enough to be considered already influential to the degree you suggest.

Could you tell us something about how Satan's power was perceived by a couple of sects that you're fond of? Some Christians seem to really credit Satan with a lot of brute capability and intelligence. Some don't.

Which sects think Satan would've been smart enough to write a post such as this?

I had a thread about "how powerful is Satan?" and the responses were all over. From Puck level to Cthulhu to Demiurge. Which were historical views?

Regards,


edit: nevermind, it's in the first post.

Unfortunately I don't have much to add to what I said in reply to the question linked to in the first post. I can tell you that according to the desert fathers, the demons in general (and I assume this applies to Satan) have power over physical things but not spiritual. For example, demons can cause various unpleasant or tempting thoughts to enter your mind by manipulating your brain, but they cannot affect your mind directly or your soul (they thought the mind is part of the soul).

Otherwise, I think there is a good case for saying that power is really the defining attribute of the devil in traditional Christianity. I'm thinking of the contrast with God himself, for whom power is always subordinate to reason and benevolence. For example, Schleiermacher says that we should think of God's omnipotence in terms of a lack of restrictions upon the exercising of his benevolent and saving will (or something along those lines). Of course many people have thought of God primarily in terms of omnipotence, and seen God as mainly an all-powerful, all-seeing sort of cosmic policeman who's just waiting for you to do something wrong. (An awful lot of Catholics seem to be brought up this way, at any rate, as I said here.) Barth says that in his view this is a very good description of the devil. I'm inclined to agree. If that's so then of course it's a terrible irony that a lot of people, including a lot of Christians, conceive of the Christian God in terms that are more appropriate for Satan, but that's popular religion for you.

@Plotinus- 2 Timothy 3:16 affirms the inspiration of the word. To deny that is to deny the Bible's validity, which calls the entire book into question.

I'm afraid this is an example of poor debating: I wrote a long post trying to explain to you precisely why it is wrong to pluck verses out of the Bible to support some crazy view, and you reply by completely ignoring everything I said and instead pluck out another verse from the Bible to support a crazy view.

First, as Whiskey_Lord said, “inspired” doesn't mean “infallible” at all, let alone “infallible in matters of science”. If you actually look at that verse you'll find that the author is saying that scripture is “useful” for various things, which is a pretty weak claim.

Second, as galdre said, the author was referring to whichever texts he thought of as “scripture” - but which texts were those? Not our Bible, that's for sure, since the canon of the Bible had not yet been established, and at least some of its books had not yet even been written. For example, the author of 1 Timothy can hardly have intended to say that the book of 2 Peter is “inspired”, since 2 Peter had not yet been written, so the author of 1 Timothy cannot have had it in mind when he talked about “scripture”.

Third, and more fundamentally, it wouldn't make any difference if there were a verse in the Bible saying “Everything in the Bible is 100% true in every way,” because that would only prove something if you already thought that that verse was true, and what's the basis for that? If I say “Everything I say is 100% true in every way,” that doesn't mean it's actually true. The only person who would be convinced by this statement is someone who already thinks that everything I say is 100% true. So the argument is obviously circular.

Fourth, Protestant fundamentalists seem to have great difficulty distinguishing between validity, authority, inspiration, and infallibility (among other things, probably). It's perfectly possible to believe that someone or something is one of these things without being all of the others. For example, I take it that most Christians will believe that their ministers have authority of at least some kind. If you, Domination3000, attend church and listen to your pastor's sermons, presumably you think that your pastor has authority of some kind, otherwise why bother to listen? Yet I take it that you don't think he's inspired (at least in a theological sense) and I'm sure you don't think he's infallible. If fundamentalists thought their pastors were infallible they wouldn't keep disagreeing with them and forming breakaway splinter churches.

Now consider these two cases. In Religion A, the chief priest claims to be infallible. He also claims religious authority over all believers because he is infallible. It is his infallibility that gives him this authority.

In Religion B, by contrast, the chief priest does not claim to be infallible. He does claim religious authority over all believers, but not because he's infallible (because he's not) – it's just because he has great wisdom and experience. Perhaps many of his followers do actually believe that he's infallible, as it happens, but this is not the basis for his authority. It's just another feature that he happens to have.

Now suppose it is proved, somehow, that neither of the chief priests is actually infallible. What happens? The chief priest of Religion A is in trouble, because his authority has been undermined. This is because his authority was based upon his supposed infallibility. Remove that infallibility, and he has no authority at all. But the chief priest of Religion B is in no such difficulty. He never claimed to be infallible. Even if he turns out not to be infallible, he still has the great wisdom and experience which are the basis of his authority. Of course, those followers who thought that he was infallible will be upset, but they can still believe in the authority of their chief priest, because it wasn't based upon his supposed infallibility.

So consider the Bible. Is it like chief priest A or chief priest B? Fundamentalists will say it's like chief priest A, and that its authority rests upon its infallibility. Prove it to be infallible and you completely undermine its authority and, with it, Christianity (since they also believe Christianity to be based solely upon the Bible). But why suppose this at all? You won't find this idea in the Bible itself. And as I said before, the fact that the Bible contradicts various established facts about the world (and, come to that, contradicts itself too) proves that it can't be infallible. So why not suppose that the Bible is more like chief priest B, and suppose that it has authority because of the wisdom of its authors, their experience of God, and yes, perhaps even because God directly revealed various things to them? You don't have to believe it's infallible to believe that; and you don't have to waste time trying to prove that everything in the Bible is true and everything that reason tells us about the world is false in order to save the Bible's authority.

Ok another question, because I have just been hit with some DIVINE INSPIRATION!


In reference to this post on indigenous Christian movements in Africa, I have a few questions.

1. Where exactly can I find where you wrote that? It might be important for sourcing if I decide to write on this for a class next semester.

That's from The new Lion handbook: the history of Christianity (or, if you're in America, The new Zondervan handbook). Although it's possible that the text might be a bit different in the published book, since I probably just pasted my original, unedited version.

2. Where can I learn more?

Here's the entire bibliography for that chapter, on Christianity in modern Africa:

Anderson, A. African reformation: African initiated Christianity in the twentieth century Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press 2001
Asamoah-Gyadu, J. K. African charismatics: current developments within independent indigenous Pentecostalism in Ghana Leiden: Brill 2005
Bailey, B. and Bailey, M. Who are the Christians in the Middle East? Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 2003
Besier, G., ed. The churches, Southern Africa and the political context Atlanta, GA; London: Minerva 1999
Blakely, T., van Beek, W., and Thomson, D., eds. Religion in Africa: experience and expression London: Currey; Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann 1994
DomNwachukwu, P. Authentic African Christianity: an inculturation model for the Igbo New York: Lang 2000
Eide, O. Revolution and religion in Ethiopia: the growth and persecution of the Mekane Yesus Church, 1974-85 Oxford: Currey 2000
Elphick, R. and Davenport, R., eds. Christianity in South Africa: a political, social and cultural history Oxford: Currey; Cape Town: Philip 1997
Gifford, P. Ghana’s new Christianity: Pentecostalism in a globalizing African economy Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 2004
Gish, S. Desmond Tutu: a biography Westport, CT: Greenwood 2004
Hansen, H. and Twaddle, M., eds. Christian missionaries and the state in the Third World Oxford: Currey 2002
Hasan, S. Christians versus Muslims in modern Egypt: the century-long struggle for Coptic equality Oxford: Oxford University Press 2003
Hege, N. Beyond our prayers: Anabaptist church growth in Ethiopia, 1948-1998 Scottdale, PA: Herald 1998
Katongole, E., ed. African theology today Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press 2002
Kitshoff, M., ed. African independent churches today: kaleidoscope of Afro-Christianity Lampeter: Mellen 1996
Kuperus, T. State, civil society and apartheid in South Africa: an examination of Dutch Reformed Church-state relations Basingstoke: Palgrave 1999
Lockot, H. The mission: the life, reign and character of Haile Selassie I London: Hurst 1992
McGrandle, P. Trevor Huddleston: turbulent priest London: Continuum 2004
Mockler, A. Haile Selassie’s war rev. ed. Oxford: Signal 2003
Molyneux, K. African Christian theology: the quest for selfhood Lewiston, NY: Mellen 1993
Rasmussen, A. Modern African spirituality: the independent Holy Spirit churches in East Africa, 1902-1976 London; New York: British Academic Press 1996
Sanneh, L. Piety and power: Muslims and Christians in West Africa Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 1996
Sanneh, L. and Carpenter, J., eds. The changing face of Christianity: Africa, the West, and the world Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005
Shank, D. Prophet Harris, the “black Elijah” of west Africa Leiden: Brill 1994
Thomas, D. Christ divided: liberalism, ecumenism and race in South Africa Pretoria: Unisa 2002
Tutu, D. No future without forgiveness: a personal overview of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission London: Rider 1999
Verstraelen, F. Zimbabwean realities and Christian responses: contemporary aspects of Christianity in Zimbabwe Gweru: Mambo 1998

There's also:

Isichei, E. A history of Christianity in Africa: from antiquity to the present London: SPCK; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans 1995
Sundkler, B. and Steed, C. A history of the church in Africa Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000

The Sundkler and Steed volume is enormous and covers everything to some extent.

3. What do you think of Joseph Kony, the Lord's Resistance Army, and how it fits into the greater narrative of the spread of AICs?

I'm afraid I don't know anything about that – although it seems a thoroughly unpleasant topic!

4. Would primary sources be relatively easy to find online or in book form on some of the more prominent people you mentioned in your post?

I suspect not – primary sources on African religion are not easy to come by – but the books I listed might be a good place to start, at least. (Although bear in mind that that bibliography is from a few years ago, so perhaps there are new relevant items since then.)

Was it ever revealed what Jesus wrote on the ground in John 8:6?

No, and the story is almost apocryphal anyway (being written in a style unlike the rest of John's Gospel, not fitting into the overall story, and being absent in many ancient manuscripts).

Maybe he played NetHack, and was writing "Elbereth".

http://nethack.wikia.com/wiki/Elbereth

No, clearly he was writing xyzzy. An easy word to write in a language with no written vowels.

Second: I bought one of your books. I dearly hope it's good. It's excellent!

Thank you! I hoped that too.

It's a bit of an offshoot from the one two pages ago ("Did Solomon write Ecclesiastes?"). What is the current state of knowledge of the dating and authorship of the Old Testament books? And what of their historicity?

I'm no good at answering that. I would direct your attention to this site except that it is currently displaying a suspended message, which is alarming as it's a superb resource. Perhaps it will be back soon! (Its sister site is up, at least.)

Don't. Even if it's not literally true, it's still ridiculous and still features yahweh promoting obviously immoral actions.

That's the Bible, not Christianity. Christianity isn't the Bible. If you dismiss Christianity purely because you don't like the Bible, you're allowing the fundamentalists to dictate the terms of the discussion.

But there are no gaps in them where one could assume skipped generations. There is no way to insert missing generations without altering the text that is already there. Therefore you cannot believe them perfectly as there must be words that are wrong.

Yes, this is a good point and illustrates the inconsistency of fundamentalism. First, the fundamentalist says that the genealogies are infallible and literally true in every respect, because they are part of the Bible, which is infallible and literally true in every respect. But when that's inconvenient, the fundamentalist turns around and says that actually the genealogies are just like other ancient genealogies, i.e. not literally true in every respect. But of course, you can't have it both ways.

Another common example is the Gospels. Some events are described in more than one Gospel, but with small variations in detail. I've heard fundamentalists saying that this doesn't mean that any of them are wrong; it's just like if an event today were reported in different newspapers, which had interviewed different witnesses. Of course they would differ slightly in the details, because people remember things differently. But the whole point of the Bible – according to fundamentalists – is that it's not supposed to be like normal witness or newspaper reports. You can't have it both ways.

 

[GhostWriter16]

@Plotinus- My apologies. I'll give a better answer ASAP.

I know I could handle it.

Sometimes they drive ME nuts... and that's with me accepting a lot of what they believe.

If I explained it on here, I'd probably be called a liar...

I can handle it simply because to me, they are just extreme, but that's coming from someone who's ALREADY extreme, so to you, they'd be impossibly extreme.

If you want me to explain better, PM me, this isn't the place for it.

 

[sanabas]

That's the Bible, not Christianity. Christianity isn't the Bible. If you dismiss Christianity purely because you don't like the Bible, you're allowing the fundamentalists to dictate the terms of the discussion.

While I agree with the first two sentences, I don't think the last sentence is completely accurate. My own experience with Christianity was 10 years of catholic schooling and about 7 years of fairly regular church. There wasn't the fundamentalist message of bible infallibility, but there did seem to be the message of the bible being true the way a history book is. The more abhorrent bits, the bits where God appears as petty & peurile, like stories about Abraham or Job I don't remember ever hearing about except by reading the bible myself. Stuff like Adam & Eve, or Moses, we certainly did learn about, but never that they were obviously wrong with today's knowledge, but that was how the authors of those books made sense of things. It was basically learned as 'Christian history', in the same way we learned about Ned Kelly or the first fleet as 'Australian history'. I don't think it needs to fundamentalists dictating the terms in order to teach & discuss the bible as a history book. I don't think it's unreasonable to dismiss a religion based on the history contained in the book they're teaching from.

Even ignoring the old testament completely as being a work of fiction, with much that should be ignored and some bits that have useful and interesting teachings in them, there's stuff in the new testament that are enough for me to dismiss a religion that believes it. With the biggest one being the idea of Jesus being sacrificed for our sins. I don't think there's anything fundamentalist about believing that, it cetainly seems to be one of, if not the most important core belief of Catholicism. I do think dismissing a religion purely because of that core idea taught by the bible is reasonable, and doing so has nothing to do with allowing fundamentalists to dictate things.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Did the Hellenists have theologians?

 

[Berzerker]

I don't think modern science accepts the notion of a vault in the sky that holds back the rain.

I dont think Gen 1:2-10 mentions rain being held back by a vault

 

[ParkCungHee]

"And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day."

 

[Plotinus]

While I agree with the first two sentences, I don't think the last sentence is completely accurate. My own experience with Christianity was 10 years of catholic schooling and about 7 years of fairly regular church. There wasn't the fundamentalist message of bible infallibility, but there did seem to be the message of the bible being true the way a history book is. The more abhorrent bits, the bits where God appears as petty & peurile, like stories about Abraham or Job I don't remember ever hearing about except by reading the bible myself. Stuff like Adam & Eve, or Moses, we certainly did learn about, but never that they were obviously wrong with today's knowledge, but that was how the authors of those books made sense of things. It was basically learned as 'Christian history', in the same way we learned about Ned Kelly or the first fleet as 'Australian history'. I don't think it needs to fundamentalists dictating the terms in order to teach & discuss the bible as a history book. I don't think it's unreasonable to dismiss a religion based on the history contained in the book they're teaching from.

Even ignoring the old testament completely as being a work of fiction, with much that should be ignored and some bits that have useful and interesting teachings in them, there's stuff in the new testament that are enough for me to dismiss a religion that believes it. With the biggest one being the idea of Jesus being sacrificed for our sins. I don't think there's anything fundamentalist about believing that, it cetainly seems to be one of, if not the most important core belief of Catholicism. I do think dismissing a religion purely because of that core idea taught by the bible is reasonable, and doing so has nothing to do with allowing fundamentalists to dictate things.

Well, that is fair enough. But what do you object to about the doctrine of the atonemenet?

Did the Hellenists have theologians?

If by "Hellenists" you mean pagan Greeks, then I don't think they did particularly - they basically had Hesiod and means of interpreting him, and that was it, at least as far as I know. And there were people who argued for particular ways of interpreting Hesiod, such as Heraclitus (not the philosopher) who defended allegorical interpretation. Also, of course, the philosophical schools generally dealt with theology in various ways too, especially the Platonists, the Stoics, and the Epicureans.

 

[sanabas]

Well, that is fair enough. But what do you object to about the doctrine of the atonemenet?

Atonement for what? That's something I find objectionable, that what ancestors did is something I need to be forgiven for, that without that sacrifice my soul would be created dirty, and impossible to clean no matter how I lived. If they did something wrong, then forgive them or don't, I assume they've got eternal souls that can be talked to. But judge me purely on what I do, that should be the default position, not something god needs to fiddle around to enable.

Long time since I've been in a church, but I seem to remember the line 'Christ died so our sins may be forgiven' being fairly prominent, though don't remember if it's actually part of the mass. The idea that somebody needs to be sacrificed before god can forgive those particular sins is something I find objectionable.

The resurrection and the miraculous powers also make Jesus' martyrdom seem pretty hollow, makes that forgiveness-enabling sacrifice seem pretty minimal.

The gospel stories would make far more sense to me, be far less objectionable to me, if it wasn't a preplanned sacrifice to enable god to start forgiving and continue to forgive humans, but if instead god wasn't omnipotent or was non-interventionist, and humanity had deteriorated to the point that he needed to incorporate as a mortal, teach people, set humanity on a different course, knowing that he'd eventually get martyred for his message. Leave out the resurrection stuff, concentrate purely on spreading that message, on the idea that it's a message worthy enough to die for if necessary. Have the apostles not insisting that Jesus is alive again, but that his message remains true, that it still needs to be spread. Seems a decent way to solve some of the contradictions that arise from both omnipotence and omnibenevolence too.

That's another thing I object to, though not sure how much it's grounded in the bible and how much it comes from elsewhere, or just from habit: what's the point of prayer? Of asking god to intervene, to give you strength, to organise your thoughts, whatever? I can see praying/meditating to try and work stuff out, in the same way I can see writing stuff down to try and make more sense of what's going on in your head. But actually asking god to fix it for you, expecting supernatural help? Seems extremely arrogant to me, and as soon as it actually happens once, it leads to the problems, contradictions & questions about why god doesn't intervene all the other times. So I'm curious what the point of prayer is supposed to be. I'm also curious if there are christian groups who don't do it for those reasons, or who believe in god without feeling the need to worship god.

I dismiss Christianity for far more reasons than just the bible, with the way they tried to indoctrinate me being #1 on the list. But I think what's presented in the bible is more than enough by itself for me to dismiss the religion that uses it.

 

[Atticus]

Much of those things have been covered already. There's an index at the first page of this thread, and I did some ctrl-f:ing there to find these:
How could the actions of Adam and Eve affect other people?
Why do Christians believe that God has to sacrifice someone before he can forgive people’s sins?
If God is omniscient, what is the point of prayer?

The last question isn't exactly what you asked, but the answer to it contains this:

A third response is that you don't pray in order to get God to do things; you pray to attune your own will to that of God. On this view, prayer is more like contemplation than conversation. This is a more Thomist line.

I've got some questions about gnosticism:
If I've correctly understood, gnostics thought that they could find hidden messages in the sayings of Jesus. Can you give any examples of secret messages they found? Did they have some methodology or advices for finding them? Did they have any other positive solutions for humans? I mean, did they have any ohter thoughts of what could save them from the demiurge?

Also, I've been thinking little teachings of Jesus from the point of view that he didn't even himself think he was God, or that there even existed one necessarily. I suppose there's multiple people who have thought this things before, so can you mention some of them? In these meditations I've come across with the difficulty to find something that would correspond to Jesus' word "God", surprisingly... Have other people who have thought about this given any good ideas about it?

 

[Cu Chulainn]

That's the Bible, not Christianity. Christianity isn't the Bible. If you dismiss Christianity purely because you don't like the Bible, you're allowing the fundamentalists to dictate the terms of the discussion.

I don't understand how a Bible free Christianity would even remotely resemble current Christianity as practiced and believed by the masses. No matter how you slice it, the core of Christianity is substitutionary atonement, an utterly deplorable and immoral concept.

 

[downtown]

Atonement for what? That's something I find objectionable, that what ancestors did is something I need to be forgiven for, that without that sacrifice my soul would be created dirty, and impossible to clean no matter how I lived. If they did something wrong, then forgive them or don't, I assume they've got eternal souls that can be talked to. But judge me purely on what I do, that should be the default position, not something god needs to fiddle around to enable.
.

Even if you reject the concept of original sin, the atonement would still be necessary as individual people do a pretty good job sinning on their own (right?). Forgetting what your ancestors did, surely your own life was not blameless.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

Even if you reject the concept of original sin, the atonement would still be necessary as individual people do a pretty good job sinning on their own (right?). Forgetting what your ancestors did, surely your own life was not blameless.

If he's anything like me the objection is to the very concept that someone else being punished for your crimes is an acceptable or moral situation.

 

[sanabas]

Even if you reject the concept of original sin, the atonement would still be necessary as individual people do a pretty good job sinning on their own (right?). Forgetting what your ancestors did, surely your own life was not blameless.

Sure, but if I want forgiveness for what I've done, then I need to atone for it myself. If others will do that atonement on my behalf, why shouldn't I sin as much as I want to? If God's not able to forgive me without the sacrifice from Jesus, why not?


@Atticus: Thanks. I've only skimmed bits of the thread, haven't looked at page 1 nor searched it. I'll quote from the replies you linked to.

you need to be aware that there are many different versions of the notion of original sin. Some theologians have regarded it simply as a bad example. Adam and Eve sinned, and this set a precedent, and that is all that "original sin" really is - there's nothing actually inherited. That was Pelagius' view. Others have viewed it as a sort of tendency to do wrong (known as concupiscence), without intrinsic guilt. That is, Adam's sin actually warped human nature, causing us to tend to sin. However, we are guilty only for the sins that we actually perform ourselves. This was the majority view among Christians before the fifth century AD. Finally, others have believed that everyone actually inherits not simply concupiscence but actual guilt, so that everyone is born guilty before they've even done anything. This was Augustine's view.

The first two there seem sensible enough, but I don't see how they could lead to the theology I learned at school, the idea that Jesus needed to die for us. Augustine's view is basically what I learned, seems to be the only one that fits logically with Jesus' sacrifice, and is an idea I find very objectionable.

One is that God's omniscience doesn't cover the future. To be omniscient means to know everything that can be known, so some theologians claim that it is logically impossible to know things about the future, because claims about the future have no truth value. On this view, God is inside time, and although his knowledge of the past and present is perfect, he can only make guesses about the future (although his perfect knowledge of past and present mean that his guesses are extremely good). So God himself doesn't know what he's going to do, so you may as well try to persuade him. This is a rather unorthodox view of God, associated with modern Process Theology, although the Socinians believed something similar in the sixteenth century, and some modern philosophers of religion such as Richard Swinburne also suggest it.

A second response is that even though God is timeless and creates the world timelessly, and knows everything about it, when he sets it up he takes account of the prayers within it. For example, God knows that I pray on Saturday that I want something to happen on Sunday. He chooses to grant this request, so he creates the world in which the thing I want to happen on Sunday does happen. This is basically a Molinist view. It also has the interesting corollary that you could pray for past events too.

A third response is that you don't pray in order to get God to do things; you pray to attune your own will to that of God. On this view, prayer is more like contemplation than conversation. This is a more Thomist line.

The first two explanations there still leave the problem of God's arbitrariness in deciding which prayers to answer and which to ignore. The third is closer to my own view, that it might be useful as a form of meditation, but certainly isn't useful in getting God to intervene on your behalf, which is what it seems like most prayers are geared towards.

 

[Plotinus]

Atonement for what? That's something I find objectionable, that what ancestors did is something I need to be forgiven for, that without that sacrifice my soul would be created dirty, and impossible to clean no matter how I lived. If they did something wrong, then forgive them or don't, I assume they've got eternal souls that can be talked to. But judge me purely on what I do, that should be the default position, not something god needs to fiddle around to enable.

As Downtown said, you're confusing the doctrines of the atonement and original sin. The doctrine of atonement simply says that, through Christ, we are saved. That's it. There's no reference to having to be saved from the sins of our ancestors - that's something quite different and not really biblical, although it has roots in certain biblical passages.

Long time since I've been in a church, but I seem to remember the line 'Christ died so our sins may be forgiven' being fairly prominent, though don't remember if it's actually part of the mass. The idea that somebody needs to be sacrificed before god can forgive those particular sins is something I find objectionable.

I think part of this is that you're mixing up different metaphors. There are lots of different kinds of language that are applied to salvation in general and the atonement in particular. The language of "sacrifice" is one set, the language of "forgiveness" is another set. There are others too - such as "ransom", "redemption", and indeed "salvation". All of these are incompatible with each other if taken literally because they are very different sorts of concepts, which suggests that none of them is meant to be pressed too far. So if you think in terms of God having to literally sacrifice someone in order to put himself into a position where he is able to literally forgive people, then I agree that that is objectionable and barely comprehensible. But I don't think that's how it's meant to be seen.

If you use the language of sacrifice, as (for example) the letter to the Hebrews does at length, then you're seeing Christ's death in terms drawn from ancient sacrificial practices and in particular Jewish sacrifice. The idea there is that whatever is sacrificed creates a sort of link between you and the deity you're sacrificing it to. So by offering the sacrifice, you become united in some way to the deity. To say that Christ's death is a sacrifice is simply to say that, through his death, people become united to God. It's not saying anything more than that; it's not, for example, saying that a literal sacrifice had to be made in order for literal forgiveness to be bestowed.

The resurrection and the miraculous powers also make Jesus' martyrdom seem pretty hollow, makes that forgiveness-enabling sacrifice seem pretty minimal.

I'm not sure why; it is after all a core Christian doctrine that Jesus was fully human and suffered just as we suffer. Of course some Christians would agree that having miraculous powers would be incompatible with this, but they would say that that just means that he didn't have any.

The gospel stories would make far more sense to me, be far less objectionable to me, if it wasn't a preplanned sacrifice to enable god to start forgiving and continue to forgive humans, but if instead god wasn't omnipotent or was non-interventionist, and humanity had deteriorated to the point that he needed to incorporate as a mortal, teach people, set humanity on a different course, knowing that he'd eventually get martyred for his message. Leave out the resurrection stuff, concentrate purely on spreading that message, on the idea that it's a message worthy enough to die for if necessary. Have the apostles not insisting that Jesus is alive again, but that his message remains true, that it still needs to be spread. Seems a decent way to solve some of the contradictions that arise from both omnipotence and omnibenevolence too.

Again, some Christians have thought things similar to this; process theology had something like this view of God.

That's another thing I object to, though not sure how much it's grounded in the bible and how much it comes from elsewhere, or just from habit: what's the point of prayer? Of asking god to intervene, to give you strength, to organise your thoughts, whatever? I can see praying/meditating to try and work stuff out, in the same way I can see writing stuff down to try and make more sense of what's going on in your head. But actually asking god to fix it for you, expecting supernatural help? Seems extremely arrogant to me, and as soon as it actually happens once, it leads to the problems, contradictions & questions about why god doesn't intervene all the other times. So I'm curious what the point of prayer is supposed to be. I'm also curious if there are christian groups who don't do it for those reasons, or who believe in god without feeling the need to worship god.

As Atticus said, I've already addressed that a bit. The main point is that that's not supposed to be the point of prayer - it's not meant to be about asking God to fix things for you. Rather, it's supposed to be about aligning your own will to that of God - just as Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane.

I don't think there are any Christian groups who don't pray, or who believe in God without feeling the need to worship him; I think it's part of the very concept of God that he should be worshipped. (Although it's not clear precisely why this is the case.)

I've got some questions about gnosticism:
If I've correctly understood, gnostics thought that they could find hidden messages in the sayings of Jesus. Can you give any examples of secret messages they found? Did they have some methodology or advices for finding them? Did they have any other positive solutions for humans? I mean, did they have any ohter thoughts of what could save them from the demiurge?

We have plenty of writings by the gnostics and accounts of their thought, which give us a good idea of what they believed and what they thought the hidden messages of Jesus were, but I don't know that there are any examples of them deriving them from the teachings given in the canonical Gospels. Rather, their writings present Jesus as giving his secret teachings privately to the disciples, in texts such as the Apocryphon of John. You can have a look through that for the fairly standard gnostic teachings, to the extent that there were any. You'll notice that that text states that the only people to be saved will be those on whom the Spirit descends and who respond by living ascetic lifestyles:

Those on whom the Spirit of life will descend and (with whom) he will be with the power, they will be saved and become perfect and be worthy of the greatness and be purified in that place from all wickedness and the involvements in evil. Then they have no other care than the incorruption alone, to which they direct their attention from here on, without anger or envy or jealousy or desire and greed of anything. They are not affected by anything except the state of being in the flesh alone, which they bear while looking expectantly for the time when they will be met by the receivers (of the body). Such then are worthy of the imperishable, eternal life and the calling. For they endure everything and bear up under everything, that they may finish the good fight and inherit eternal life.

Also, I've been thinking little teachings of Jesus from the point of view that he didn't even himself think he was God, or that there even existed one necessarily. I suppose there's multiple people who have thought this things before, so can you mention some of them? In these meditations I've come across with the difficulty to find something that would correspond to Jesus' word "God", surprisingly... Have other people who have thought about this given any good ideas about it?

I don't think that an interpretation of Jesus on which he didn't believe in God would be viable. God is absolutely central to his teaching as represented in all sources, especially the Synoptics with their emphasis upon the kingdom of God. So I don't know of any interpretations of Jesus as non-theist, although no doubt there have been some. As for interpretations of Jesus as not believing himself to be God, I should think that's the mainstream scholarly view, and it's shared by at least some Christian theologians. Although I'm not sure I can cite any who have definitely asserted this (as opposed to merely raising it as a possibility).

I don't understand how a Bible free Christianity would even remotely resemble current Christianity as practiced and believed by the masses.

I'm not talking about a Bible-free Christianity; that would barely be possible. I'm just talking about Christianity that uses the Bible with its eyes open, as an authoritative text but not one that is to be slavishly followed in everything, because it is understood in historically sensitive terms as a product of its day. You might be surprised how many "masses" practise and believe in that way.

No matter how you slice it, the core of Christianity is substitutionary atonement, an utterly deplorable and immoral concept.

I agree that substitutionary atonement is deplorable and immoral, but you are quite wrong to think that it's the core of Christianity. On the contrary, no-one believed it before the Middle Ages, and hardly anyone believed it before the Reformation.

I've already said something about this doctrine just a few pages ago, here.

The core of Christianity, if it has one, is that salvation comes through Christ. It is not that salvation must be understood in a particular way (e.g. through Jesus being punished in our place). As I said in that previous post, you can find very different and, I would say, far superior understandings of the atonement in the Bible, principally Romans 6-7, where Paul gives an outline of what salvation consists of that doesn't involve anyone getting sacrificed or punished, and where sin is conceived of as an oppressive force that enslaves us, not as some kind of legal ledger of our misdeeds.

If he's anything like me the objection is to the very concept that someone else being punished for your crimes is an acceptable or moral situation.

It's neither acceptable nor moral nor even very comprehensible, but as I've just said, it is fortunately not part of Christianity (although it's something that a lot of Christians from certain modern traditions believe).

The first two there seem sensible enough, but I don't see how they could lead to the theology I learned at school, the idea that Jesus needed to die for us. Augustine's view is basically what I learned, seems to be the only one that fits logically with Jesus' sacrifice, and is an idea I find very objectionable.

I don't see why Augustinian original sin is required to make sense of the idea of Christ's sacrifice. The concept of atonement states that we need saving. It doesn't state that we need saving because of what our ancestors did. All that the doctrine of atonement requires is some account of what the problem is that the atonement is supposed to solve. Various such accounts have been proposed. Augustinian original sin is one. An alternative is the view that there is no such thing as original sin, but that we each happen, individually, to have chosen to sin. Another alternative view is that sin isn't about transgressions in the first place, but is some kind of force that oppresses us (as in Romans 6). Another is that sin is basically the dark side of the ego (something that Augustine also says).

The first two explanations there still leave the problem of God's arbitrariness in deciding which prayers to answer and which to ignore.

Why would he have to be arbitrary? Maybe he chooses to answer prayers that, if answered, would bring about greater good, and he chooses to ignore prayers that wouldn't. Maybe he chooses to answer prayers that are prayed by particularly good people and ignores those that aren't. There are all sorts of ways that God could select some prayers to answer, and some not to answer, that wouldn't be arbitrary. We might not like them, of course, but that's not the same thing!

 

[Stegyre]

I don't understand how a Bible free Christianity would even remotely resemble current Christianity as practiced and believed by the masses. No matter how you slice it, the core of Christianity is substitutionary atonement, an utterly deplorable and immoral concept.

I hesitate to speak for someone who speaks so very well for himself, but I think that Plotinus' point is that "the Bible" and "Christianity" are distinct.

Each informs the other: how you read the Bible affects your perception of Christianity, and one's Christianity affects how one reads (or interprets) the Bible -- for example, what parts are historical, allegorical, or theological; what parts are divinely inspired versus the imperfect/non-binding insertions of men (when Paul says that women should be silent in church, was he speaking for God or for himself?).

There is not a "Bible-free Christianity" (well, Plotinus can probably point us to an example of such, but it's likely very obscure), but there are parts of any Christian sect that won't appear in the Bible, and there are parts of the Bible not represented in a particular Christian sect -- and maybe some parts of the Bible not represented in any Christian sect.

As for the real issue, "the core of Christianity is substitutionary atonement," I think (as a Christian) that's a very fair summary. Again, I'd defer to Plotinus, but I suspect the vast majority of Christianity takes that belief as the essence of Christianity.

As for that concept being "an utterly deplorable and immoral concept," if conceived as
"someone else being punished for your crimes," I agree. IMO, that's a serious failing of many allegories used to explain Christ's Atonement, some of which (allegories) are positively abominable.

For myself, I'm not aware of an explicit scriptural statement that Christ was "punished" for our "crimes." What I am aware of are statements that he "suffered" for our "sins" and that as a result, we may be forgiven of our sins, or have them remitted. While often related, "punishment" is not the same as "suffering," and "crimes" are not the same as "sins." In fact, it is the differences between these pairs of concepts that leads to the repugnancy of viewing the Atonement as "someone else being punished for your crimes."

Frankly, I don't have an explanation for how the Atonement did what it did, nor why it was (from all appearances) essential to be done and the only way (or at least, the best way) to do it. That leads to my own Plotinus question:

What are the theories about the Atonement? (Such as, Why Christ? Why was it necessary? What did it do? How did it do it?)

EDIT: and in the interim, I've been ninjaed by Plotinus himself. So much for my presumption.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

I'm not talking about a Bible-free Christianity; that would barely be possible. I'm just talking about Christianity that uses the Bible with its eyes open, as an authoritative text but not one that is to be slavishly followed in everything, because it is understood in historically sensitive terms as a product of its day. You might be surprised how many "masses" practise and believe in that way.

Would, then, that the theology of the average Christian were as enlightened as that of theologians. Personal experience, sadly, has shown me little reason to hope that this should ever be the case. The fundamentalists are, for the most part, beyond reason, and the moderates persist in enabling their less sensible brethren.

I agree that substitutionary atonement is deplorable and immoral, but you are quite wrong to think that it's the core of Christianity. On the contrary, no-one believed it before the Middle Ages, and hardly anyone believed it before the Reformation.

Then I have learned something. Suffice it to say that there was nothing in twelve years of Catholic eduction to lead me to suspect that substitutionary atonement was ever a negotiable point in Christian theology.

I've already said something about this doctrine just a few pages ago, here.

The core of Christianity, if it has one, is that salvation comes through Christ. It is not that salvation must be understood in a particular way (e.g. through Jesus being punished in our place). As I said in that previous post, you can find very different and, I would say, far superior understandings of the atonement in the Bible, principally Romans 6-7, where Paul gives an outline of what salvation consists of that doesn't involve anyone getting sacrificed or punished, and where sin is conceived of as an oppressive force that enslaves us, not as some kind of legal ledger of our misdeeds.

By what mechanism, then, is salvation brought? Why could Yahweh not simply will it to occur rather than going through the motions of incarnation?

It's neither acceptable nor moral nor even very comprehensible, but as I've just said, it is fortunately not part of Christianity (although it's something that a lot of Christians from certain modern traditions believe).

What difference does it make what a religion means to academics if what is practiced from the pews is so radically different? I know reality isn't a democracy, but Christianity as it currently stands in America is a twisted mess.

 

[Plotinus]

Would, then, that the theology of the average Christian were as enlightened as that of theologians. Personal experience, sadly, has shown me little reason to hope that this should ever be the case. The fundamentalists are, for the most part, beyond reason, and the moderates persist in enabling their less sensible brethren.

I really do think you'd be surprised. If you're in America then that's inevitably going to give you a skewed viewpoint of what "the average Christian" is like, because of the prominence of fundamentalism there, to a degree unequalled anywhere else in the western world. Yet even so, that's only in some churches. Think of the Episcopalian church, which is part of the Anglican communion, and is considerably more liberal than most of the other Anglican churches. This is one of the causes of the current problems in the Anglican church. The Episcopalians are so liberal they're happily ordaining gay bishops and the like, which the fundamentalist elements in other Anglican churches (mainly the African ones) aren't quite so keen on. The point is that I think the average Episcopalian would probably agree, more or less, with the position I outlined above. They would not agree with the fundamentalist perspective and would probably not even have any contact with it.

Within the Church of England itself, which is where most of my personal experience lies, I think it makes a huge difference what church (i.e. what individual church) you're in; some will be basically fundamentalist, some will be indistinguishable from Roman Catholics, some will be total limp-wristed liberals. To put it crudely, when it comes to the basis of their theology, the evangelicals think the Bible is the main thing, the Anglo-Catholics think church tradition is the main thing, and the liberals think reason is the main thing. If there's such a thing as an average Anglican it's someone who fits somewhere between all of these, who believes what they believe on the basis of a combination of the Bible, church tradition, and reason. I think there are a lot of people like that. But of course, the evangelicals are by far the loudest group, so they get most of the attention and it seems like they are more dominant than they really are. Also, evangelicals are far more likely to be vocal about their faith to non-Christians, so it seems to non-Christians like Christians are all evangelicals. But, again, they are not.

Then I have learned something. Suffice it to say that there was nothing in twelve years of Catholic eduction to lead me to suspect that substitutionary atonement was ever a negotiable point in Christian theology.

Well, it seems that what is taught in the average Catholic education has, at best, a tangential relationship to official Catholic teaching. I have to say I'm surprised by this particular point, though, because I didn't think that substitutionary atonement is a common doctrine even at the popular level in Catholicism. In fact, it seems to me that Catholic education and popular piety commonly neglects the doctrine of the atonement altogether - even though it is surely one of the most central doctrines of Christianity - and I think that part of the reason for this is a desire to be distinguish themselves from Protestantism, and in particular evangelicalism, which makes this doctrine the be-all and end-all of Christianity. I think this causes many Catholic teachers to stress the doctrine a lot less than they ought to (together with connected doctrines such as that of divine grace), which is why, at the popular level, Catholicism often seems to be out-and-out Pelagianism (the heresy that we are capable of saving ourselves through good works, and don't require God's grace or Christ).

Not only that, but the doctrine of substitutionary atonement is peculiarly Protestant and is closely associated with the Reformed tradition. It's never been part of Catholic tradition, and I would have thought that Catholics would want to dissociate themselves from it because of its Calvinist connections. But there you go, I suppose different teachers or schools do different things.

By what mechanism, then, is salvation brought? Why could Yahweh not simply will it to occur rather than going through the motions of incarnation?

There is no definitive answer to that. I suppose the simplest answer is also one of the oldest, which is that salvation is divinisation. For us to be saved is nothing more nor less than for us to become divine. The incarnation is therefore necessary for salvation, because it is the (permanent) union of divinity to humanity. Because God became human, it is possible for humans to become divine, since the connection has been made. This was the understanding of salvation common to most of the church fathers, and is particularly associated with Irenaeus and, later, Athanasius.

Now later theologians came up with all sorts of alternative explanations. In fact some agreed with you that God could have saved human beings without requiring the incarnation, but he nevertheless chose to do it this way because it was (for some reason) preferable. Others argued that God had no choice, and that salvation logically required incarnation. The main person who argued this was Anselm of Canterbury, who wrote this book setting out the argument in considerable detail (it's also quite readable, being written in dialogue form). Anselm developed a quite different understanding of the atonement, which went something like this:

By sinning, human beings have robbed God of something (namely, his honour).
To redress the wrong, it is necessary for God to be paid back for this (because if he isn't, then the wrong goes unredressed).
Since human beings are the ones who robbed God, a human being must make the payment.
But human beings can't possibly do this, because God's honour is of infinite value; in fact, only God can do it.
So there must be someone who is both human and God to make the payment.
The God-man is of infinite value, since he's God, and he can die, since he's man; his death is of infinite value.
Therefore, the God-man dies and offers his death to God to redress the loss of God's honour.

The actual argument is a lot more sophisticated than that suggests. It rests, in particular, upon early medieval notions of justice, according to which people owe allegiance to their lords and, if they break that allegiance, are reckoned to have robbed them of their honour. Anselm applies the same reasoning to the relation between humans and God. Also, if someone committed such a crime, there were two possibilities in the medieval system: the person could be punished, or they could avoid the punishment by making a payment to the injured party to redress the balance. Anselm conceives of the atonement as like the latter case. So for Anselm, Christ is not punished in our place (as the Reformers would later hold, and as modern evangelicals and fundamentalists believe). Rather, Christ makes a payment to God that obviates the need for anyone to be punished. On a medieval understanding of justice, this makes a lot of sense (much more than the notion of one person being punished in the place of another does, anyway). Anselm's theory is normally described as being based on the concept of satisfaction - contrast that to the Reformers' theory, which is based on the concept of substitution.

All that said, it's worth looking in particular at book 1, chapter 12 where Anselm specifically addresses the objection that God could have just forgiven the sin without having to go through all this. I think his responses could probably be adapted for other theories of the atonement - i.e. they might be plausible answers even if you don't think much of all the stuff about justice and satisfaction. He says, basically:

(1) If God merely forgives the sinner and doesn't do anything about the sin, then the sin is not dealt with. But it is not fitting for God to leave sin undealt with.

(2) If God merely forgives the sinner and doesn't do anything about the sin, then in God's eyes there is no difference between the guilty and the innocent. But that doesn't seem right (presumably because God is supposed to be perfectly just).

(3) Our actions are subject to law. But if God merely forgives the sinner and doesn't do anything about the sin, then sinful actions are not subject to law. It would follow that sinful acts are more free than non-sinful ones. But that doesn't seem right.

(4) If God merely forgives the sinner and doesn't do anything about the sin, then injustice is not subject to law. But only God is not subject to law.

(5) God's freedom, justice, and mercy should be understood only in relation to his dignity and what is proper. If, as has been argued, it is unfitting to his dignity and what is proper to merely forgive the sinner and not do anything about the sin, then God wouldn't do that, his freedom, justice, and mercy notwithstanding.

There are other understandings of the atonement too, which would give a completely different answer to the question. For example, I keep telling people to look at Romans 6-7, where Paul presents something like the following theory:

(1) We are oppressed by sin. That is, "sin" can be taken as shorthand for whatever blights our lives. It should be thought of as a spiritual force that suppresses us, not as things that we do.

(2) The only way to escape from this burden of sin is to die.

(3) Christ has died.

(4) Christians are united to Christ. Christians are "in Christ", just as Christ is "in them". (Paul doesn't specify what this means but it implies some kind of mystical, spiritual union.)

(5) It follows that what happens to Christ, happens to Christians, in a spiritual way.

(6) Because Christ has died, thereby escaping sin, Christians can also make his death their own and escape sin without having to die literally.

(7) Christ has also been raised.

(8) Christians will therefore also be raised to new life in Christ - this is understood both literally in terms in of a future bodily resurrection, but also more spiritually as the enjoyment of a new kind of life right now, free from sin.

Now I think that's actually a pretty interesting understanding of the issue. You can see that it's no longer a question of God "forgiving" us for our "sins", because on this understanding, the problem is not "our sins" that we have committed and which need to be forgiven; the problem is, rather, our oppression by malignant spiritual forces. (One could easily interpret this in a non-mythological way by thinking about, say, the power of the ego or things like that.) Our salvation must consist in overcoming these forces, however we conceive of them. For Paul, this is done by our mystical union to Christ, and our sharing in his death and resurrection, as symbolised in baptism. On this understanding, to ask why God can't just "forgive" us without having to go through the incarnation makes no sense, because it's not conceived in terms of "forgiveness" in the first place.

And there are many other models of the atonement, such as the subjective models inspired by Abelard or the "Christus Victor" model associated with Gustaf Aulen. These too understand the "problem" that the atonement is meant to overcome in quite different ways, which explain in different ways why the incarnation and death of Christ in particular are necessary to resolve it.

What difference does it make what a religion means to academics if what is practiced from the pews is so radically different? I know reality isn't a democracy, but Christianity as it currently stands in America is a twisted mess.

Well, yes, but that's America for you. One might say the same of all kinds of other things too, such as politics. (And, of course, one might say that America gets some things right that other countries don't.)

Less flippantly, I think that, as I've said, it's not a question of academics versus the ordinary churchgoer, and I think that a lot more ordinary Christians than you imagine will hold views rather more sophisticated and reasonable than the fundamentalists who dominate so much of the discourse in America, though not, thankfully, in any other vaguely reasonable country. Of course even the average liberal Episcopalian will probably not be aware of the different theories of the atonement that I've just outlined, so to that extent of course there's a difference between academics and ordinary believers. But the point is that that doesn't make the average Episcopalian a fundamentalist.

It's also worth noting that C.S. Lewis, in one of the best bits of Mere Christianity, states very clearly what I've just been saying: that the Christian doctrine of the atonement is that we are saved through Christ, but it doesn't specify how. And there are various "theories" that try to explain this, but none is definitive. He uses the illustration of theories of nutrition: we know that eating healthy meals is necessary to survive, and we know this whether we've heard about vitamins or not. Scientific theories about vitamins and how they work are just an attempt to explain why eating healthily is good for you, and if science moves on and they come up with completely different theories, that won't change the fact that eating healthily is good for you or the fact that we know this from experience. Similarly, according to Lewis, Christians know that they are saved through Christ through their experience; they may have different theories about how this works, but those aren't the important thing.

It's a strange thing that this point, which is absolutely correct (unlike most of the other things Lewis says in the same book), and which is utter anathema to Protestant fundamentalists and evangelicals (who hold extremely strongly) that the "penal substitution" model, according to which Christ is punished in our place for our sins, is the only acceptable model of the incarnation and is literally true), should be found in a book which is widely read by evangelicals and found on evangelical church bookstalls the world over. I suppose the evangelicals get so excited by the nonsensical "trilemma" passage that they just don't notice the bit about the atonement.