"Jesus is/was/always will be,God. There have been many people who have lived their lives with great dignity, for the promotion of peace, who've taught by example...but they were not God."
I'm responding to this quote that came my way regarding my "Ghandi" article. I actually strongly agree with the latter portion of this quote. However, I think the former argument in it reveals an obvious assumption that we humans have access to celestial knowledge of the holy in so much that we can determine who is God and who isn't God. I think it's painfully arrogant to claim that any "I" has obtained this godlike information.
Yet I will concede that there is a sort of normative arrogance in making any faith statement such as, "Jesus is God." In fact, I think it's quite impossible to say anything concerning faith or the lack of faith without having some quantitative "arrogance" attached to it. I say this because every faith statement I make, whether it's a theistic or atheistic one, is derived by staking a claim to some divine knowledge whether that knowledge is divinely theistic or divinely atheistic.
Does this mean that I am being arrogant by claiming that the person that wrote the quote is arrogant? Probably so. This leads me to wonder at what point does an arrogant idea become "too" arrogant of an idea? I think that line can be drawn particularly when some person decides who is or isn't the "I am."
4 comments:
You need to change the name of your blog. This isn't postmodern theology (of philosophy). This is *very* modern, rife with modern presuppositions.
Your concept of truth seems coming from the exact same place as Descartes's concept of truth -from the subjective realm of inside yourself.
A statement of Christian faith (unlike the modern statement of reason) says that an outside source has provided information that is Divine about the Divine. The phrase "Jesus is God" is not to be backed up with human rationale, but obedience to the Divine Revelation of Christ.
Would you label Jesus arrogant for claiming to be God?
I agree with you in a whole bunch of your criticism with modern, western Christianity (especially the evangelical circles). However, there is far more to Christianity than the Jerry Falwells or the Creflo Dollars.
Christianity has a rich history and tradition that dates back to Jesus and the Apostolic fathers of the Church. Combine that with the Scripture that they provided, and we have a very clear image of Jesus as Christ.
Ghandi wasn't *the* unique Messiah in all of history (according to Christian tradition and Scripture). Ghandi was a sinner just like you and I and you or I can be Ghandi if we really go out and try. There's really nothing stopping us. Still, Ghandi could still have been the smuggest jerk in the world for all we know, he just knew how to put out a good image when the cameras were on him.
I see arrogance when people use the Word of God to justify themselves and their on actions but not submitting to it themselves. A lot of people use Scripture like a drunk uses a streetlight (for support and not for illumination).
Not all of us are like that, though.
A question I have for you is how can you call yourself "Christian" if you write off the Scripture and tradition (including the most basic Creeds) that composes the entire Christian worldview?
Does your reasoning trump Divine Revelation?
Isn't that arrogant?
I can't read your intentions or your inner-most thoughts, but I can interpret from the information you have provided (which can be vastly misinterpreted). I'm not even asking for answers, for I don't have the authority to command an answer from you (thank God!). Still, your theological worldview seems to be coming from the inside out, and not the other way around. That troubles me deeply. Was that what Jesus was about?
Jesus was a cynic, I know that for sure. In that sense, I feel like I'm in good company because, as you have noted, i'm quite a cynic myself. i don't feel like cynicism is a sign of disconnectedness or disingeniousness for my faith but rather the opposite. i believe my questions and cynicism are emulations of the savior. that's my opinion anyway, i realize many people disagree.
a quick note about jesus claiming to be "god." i don't ever recall him claiming to be so in the new testament, but i certainly recall in Jesus inferencing that he/He is not "good" but that only God is good in Luke 18.
i'm going to sort of quote a very modern philosopher named ayn rand and say that it is superfluous to claim the irrelevance of dependency on rational truth in spiritual evaluation, since the same people who criticize using rational truth to evaluate spirituality are using rational arguments in their criticism. I don't claim that my rational truth is superior to divine revelation or biblical tradition. Rather i see my logic interconnected with those elements of my faith. one cannot be used without the other. for example, my rationale is derived from tradition; similarly, my tradition can only be expressed in my rationale. arguing one over the other is like arguing whether the river makes water or water makes the river. it's a voided argument.
Hey there!
I was having a chat with Caleb and he said that I may have come off as too harsh. I'm sorry if I came off as too harsh.
As for Jesus' claim to be God, what about the scene in John 10:22-30?
What of the beginning of John where the writer explicitly says that In the beginning the Word was with God and the Word *was God* and the Word became flesh to dwell among us?
What of in John 8:58 where Jesus says "Before Abraham was born, I am."?
Or what about when Jesus appears to Thomas, at which point says "My Lord and my God!"? Jesus did not correct this as if it were heresy.
Paul says a lot about the divinity of Christ (and Revelation is packed full of Christ-as-God). I know you were looking for the claims of Divinity by Christ, though.
Just as a cautioning, I come from a bit of an existentialists perspective (Søren 4eva!). I can understand the idea that things don't necessarily correspond with the ability to grasp it rationally. I'm not calling you stupid, but I am saying that the idea of miraculous events are difficult get a hold of intellectually (myself included).
In such a situation, instead of looking for something concrete in "knowing" what is, I simply recognize my ability to comprehend such things is insufficient. Such an example is like a child trying to rationalize calculus. Psychology says this simply cannot happen in the majority of young children. That does not invalidate the existence of calculus, but is a statement about the ability to rationalize.
That is, in more words, what the writer of Hebrews says about faith.
I agree with you in the concept of integration of rationale with faith. I think the modern idea of faith (totally divorced from reason) is not Biblical or, at the very least, not of Hebrew theology. Faith and reason need to be integrated, but it seemed that yo err on the side of modern, scientific, Kantian objective truth which doesn't exist (hence the initial comment about your misnomer). If we enter the language of narrative (the context in which all truth is found), then we are working with a completely different animal.
With this animal, we have the Christian narrative to find all truth in. This is a very different narrative than the one that has objective, naked truth as the source of all wisdom. This is why the Christian tradition (a tradition totally outside of myself) becomes so important. I'm not trying to create a world that conforms to my traditions, my logic or my rationale, but I am taking all of my world (all my thoughts, emotions, passions, everything else that makes up me) and trying to stuff the entire thing into a box created by this outside Thing (the One called YHWH, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit).
I hope this made sense. :/
Again, sorry for being a jerk.
-Brett
brett,
i completely agree with your argument that using kantanian philosophy to analyze Christianity is a different "beast" than using the postmodern narrative analysis to analyze it. however, that doesn't negate the fact that we use kantanian logic to state that we use narrative interpretation measures. that simply goes to show that one style of analysis stands on the shoulders of the other. post-modernity only makes sense if we use modern logic to explain what "it is."
that's not to say that miracles and narrative logic don't "exist" outside of modernistic logic; rather, i'm suggesting we wouldn't understand "postmodernism" without a modernistic explanation of it.
is the explanation necessary? probably not. i suppose calculus would still exist were there no one to explain it. however, we wouldn't know about it! and knowing about something sure seems to have some practical application in every day life.
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