Re: [TruthTalk] Apologetic for the eternal sonship of Christ

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:13:49 -0700

 
Great post, Debbie. Well stated. Judy does not realize that she does the very thing she criticizes others for doing. Someday the Spirit of God may open her eyes to this truth. We all employ language which is "non-biblical" to speak about things which are biblical; this seems to be especially true and relevant in terms of the language we use to speak about God and the relationship between the "members" of the "Godhead." An example of Judy doing this very thing can be witnessed in the exchange below between her and myself a few days ago:
 
BT wrote  >  May I ask you a question? Would you try to give me some idea as to the quality of relationship (in other words, what kind of relationship it was) that the pre-incarnate Word had with that member of the Godhead you call the Father?
JT answered  > They were one in all aspects and operated like a symphony.
Judy here makes two claims which she could not support if she were to apply the standards of her criticism of others upon herself; i.e., she employs language to speak about the Godhead which is not found in Scripture. Here she claims the pre-incarnate Word and the Father were "one in all aspects" and that they "operated like a symphony," yet by her own criteria neither of these claims are "Scriptural" because neither can be found in the words of the Bible. Hence if she were to be consistent she would have to say of herself that she has redefined God using English words that are totally unscriptural; this because she said of the Nicene theologians that they "agreed to redefine God using a Greek word that is totally unscriptural." 
 
Judy, however, does not apply these standards to herself. Nor ought she have to. The problem here is not with her language; it is with her unreasonable expectation concerning the language of others. In other words, she needs to change her standards. Perry asked a very pertinent question of Judy today: ". . . how would you describe the biblical concept of Godhead to someone who did not understand it?" To which Judy responded, "I would demonstrate the Godhead this way: God the Father has the thought; God the Word speaks it into existence; and God the Spirit carries it out. So you see the Godhead as one working in harmony, like a symphony" (I have added some of the punctuation). The reason this question is so pertinent to this discussion, is because in order for it to be answered, it required of Judy to use language to speak of God which does not find one-to-one correspondence in Scripture. Judy realized intuitively that it would not do for her to answer with something like Well, the Godhead is like the Godhead, because that would be meaningless to me (by the way, this also is why the statement "God says what he means and means what he said," is actually a meaningless statement). Judy realized that if I had asked her what a cat is like, it would not do for her to tell me that a cat is like a cat. No, she would have to employ other language to describe to me the essence of a cat. This is what we all have to do when explaining to others what God is like.
 
And this is what Athanasius did at Nicea. He said to Arius, No, the Son did not exist in some being other than that of the Father; he existed of the same being as the Father -- homoousios to patri. Anthanasius is not here redefining God using a Greek word that is totally unscriptural. He is using the language God has given him to speak to biblical concepts which speak to the existence of God. He reads Jesus' words stating that he and the Father are one and concludes they are the same, and he also reads the words of Jesus stating that he is the "I AM" and thus further concludes (by using the very same word) that the Son is of the same being as the Father. Hence his statement is "Scriptural" in that he uses the language of his own tongue to speak to and about the concepts contained in the words of the Bible: the very thing which Judy does above, especially with her use of the word "symphony" to describe the inner operations of the Godhead.
 
By the way, I like this description. I believe the mutual indwelling of the Trinity is very aptly and beautifully described as being like a symphony. The Nicene theologians coined a remarkably similar word to speak of the same inner relations; it is the word perichoresis, which means roughly "like a choir" or "pertaining to a choir." They recognized in the Trinity a coming together of distinct voices to make an harmonious sound. We have several words that find their root in this word: choir (of course), chorus, choreography, to name a few. And when we say that we speak with one accord, we are also calling upon this root to supply the meaning for our statement: we are speaking as with one voice. Judy recognizes this same "accord" coming through in her use of the word symphony. Here the "sym" of symphony represents a coming together of a plurality to make a unity, a "synthesis" if you will; and the "phony" comes from the GR word phonos which means "sound" (also voice, note,  language, and utterance): hence a plurality of sounds coming together to make one harmonious sound, one accord -- very apt, very beautiful. AND what a wonderful example of employing non-biblical terminology speak meaning into biblical concepts.
 
Bill
 
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 7:01 AM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Apologetic for the eternal sonship of Christ

Since this has been asked again, and explicitly of all TTers, I will again ask what constitutes unscriptural terminology. A term can exist in only one language, except for very rare cases where it is borrowed with its meaning totally intact into another language. And there is no one-to-one correspondence between terms in one language and terms in another. What language are we talking about, then, and what version of scripture in that language? "Godhead", for example, is an unscriptural term if I go by sundry fine reputable English translations in my house. It is also unscriptural if we go by the original Greek, since it's not a Greek term, nor does its use in the KJV bear a one-to-one correspondence with any Greek word in the original. Nor is it used now by Christians with the same meaning it had for the KJV translators. This is not a trivial problem when people base their entire response to an argument on whether or not a term used in the argument "exists in the Bible".
 
When talking about God or what he is saying to us in the Bible, I am sure I use terms which are not in any translation or manuscript of Scripture. When I talk about what Shakespeare is saying in his plays, I also use terms which do not appear in any of his works or translated works, and would no doubt do so even if his works were the only vestige we had of him. I find it strange and arbitrary to make a rule of avoiding doing so.
 
Debbie
    
----- Original Message -----
From: Lance Muir
Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 7:09 AM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Apologetic for the eternal sonship of Christ

Jt speaks of 'a greek word that is totally unscriptural' when speaking of God. What about:
'homoousios to patri'=of one being with the Father  This also was employed in speaking to the Arian heresy.  Do you (I'd address all on TT here) ever employ 'unscriptural' terminology when speaking of God? Is this a matter of principle with you? 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: June 28, 2005 06:54
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Apologetic for the eternal sonship of Christ

 
 
On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 02:10:26 -0400 [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 It does not appear that we are talking about just the eternal Sonship of Christ  --  but something that is bigger and even more important.   Judy, please be careful, here, that in your zeal to disagree with me that you are not misrepresenting your own beliefs.
 
jt: I agree with the statement above JD
My belief is that our disagreement most likely goes all the way back to the council of Nicea in May 325AD where they eventually agreed to redefine God using a Greek word that is totally unscriptural - For this reason they had problems getting complete agreement - but the "Berean" bishops finally caved. 
 
This word "homoousion" or substance in the Nicean creed states that the son is one substance with the Father and the Spirit is the same substance also from where they get the procession.  Since God is a Spirit this makes no sense at all; what is it supposed to mean?  Maybe DavidM would be better able to explain it with his background in biology but it makes no sense to me at all. 
 
Apparently they were so fearful of Arius at Nicea that they ran with it - proceeding from there to what they call "the procession" and the myriad of other unscriptural religious dogma that has today reached it's apex in the present day rcc babylonian system.  jt

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