What is your understanding of God, Jesus, the Atonement?

disciple Clint

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hedrick

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As you know from other threads, I understand Rom 6 as saying that those who are in Christ through faith die with him to sin and rise to new life.

This is consistent with Jesus’ own statement at the last supper about dying to establish the new covenant. “The blood of the covenant” is a reference to Ex 24:8. The new covenant is based on a renewal of the people, and that’s basically what Rom 6 is about.

But it’s hard to talk about the atonement without understanding its role in the larger Christian picture. I understand Jesus as teaching that God freely forgives us, though possibly with some limitations. (One suggests that we have to forgive others.) So the atonement isn’t about allowing God to forgive us. It’s about entering new life. Paul's equivalent of this is Rom 3:25-26.

I accept 1 Cor 15 at face value. Being in Christ, and renewed through his death and resurrection places us within the Kingdom now. But in the end Christ will defeat the powers that hold humanity in slavery and most people will be made alive in Christ at that point. (The most obvious reading is that everyone will be included, but it's possible that some are part of the powers that are destroyed first.)
 
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hedrick

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I think this is consistent both with Jesus’ teaching about the future and also the prophets. They saw the nations eventually coming to the renewed Jerusalem. However in both cases this was not precisely universal, but there were some enemies to defeat.
 
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Andrewn

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But in the end Christ will defeat the powers that hold humanity in slavery
Haven't the powers already been destroyed?

John 12:31 Now judgment is upon this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out.

Col 2:15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

Heb 2:14 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,

1 John 3:8
The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the very start. This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil.
 
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hedrick

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Haven't the powers already been destroyed?
Look around you. As with so many other things there's a present and a future. The powers have been defeated in principle, because Christ is already here. But that defeat won't be fully effective until the end.
 
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dms1972

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Look around you. As with so many other things there's a present and a future. The powers have been defeated in principle, because Christ is already here. But that defeat won't be fully effective until the end.

I don't understand why some conservative christians rail so much at liberal christians, while there have not been many replies you don't seem to differ that much in what you say from christians of a more conservative cast. But I suppose there are a variety or spectrum of views within liberal theology?
 
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hedrick

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I don't understand why some conservative christians rail so much at liberal christians, while there have not been many replies you don't seem to differ that much in what you say from christians of a more conservative cast. But I suppose there are a variety or spectrum of views within liberal theology?
The original list of 5 fundamentals is still a big deal. One of them is penal substitution. Liberals generally reject it on moral grounds, though we could just as well use Biblical grounds. There's interest in Christus Victor, Christ as example, and other models. Most would say that the NT uses a number of different way to talk about Christ's death, and we don't need to choose just one. Some element of substitution is certainly acceptable.

What liberals tend to reject is anything suggesting that God is the target of the atonement, i.e. that he needs Christ's death in order to forgive, whether because of his honor or his justice. Personally, I reject it because it contradicts Jesus' teachings about God.

The atonement of disgust, Penal Substitution [ignore the link title supplied by the software], seems particularly likely to upset conservatives, though I think it's true to Jesus' intent. (It's also not an analysis I've seen before.)

That's the mainstream. There are certainly more radical thinkers who don't believe atonement as a concept even makes sense. I don't think there are many who take that approach, but they're there.

But the atonement is only one thing between liberals and conservatives, and not necessarily the most important. Liberals generally have an interesting combination of basing theology more closely on the NT than conservatives but rejecting Biblical inerrancy. Both of these get us in trouble. We also tend to prioritize the Synoptic Gospels, while conservative Protestants prioritize Paul.

These days, differences on sex and gender are probably more important than theology. But those are probably best not dealt with in this thread. In general terms, however, the most serious differences both in theology and ethics are based on our willingness to accept mainstream science and history, including social science, and to separate the Biblical writers' experience of God / Christ from ideas they inherited from their culture.

The underlying problem seems to be certainty. Christians historically have wanted certainty. The Catholic tradition got it from the concept that the Church is inerrant. Protestants got it from an inerrant Bible, combined with a set of traditional interpretations that were understood as being "literal". But in both cases, there's an underlying expectation that truth can't change, and if we truly know the truth, theology can't change either. I think the real objection to liberal theology is that our theology changed as we understood the 1st Cent background better and made continuing progress separating out Biblical ideas from traditional Christian reinterpretation. And our ethics continues to change in some areas based on the results of social science, and a reexamination of traditional exegesis in areas that it affects. Unfortunately, you can't get unchanging certainty out of this approach. My claim would be that there's nothing in Scripture or our experience of God that should lead to think we actually have that kind of unchanging truth.
 
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bekkilyn

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The underlying problem seems to be certainty. Christians historically have wanted certainty. The Catholic tradition got it from the concept that the Church is inerrant. Protestants got it from an inerrant Bible, combined with a set of traditional interpretations that were understood as being "literal". But in both cases, there's an underlying expectation that truth can't change, and if we truly know the truth, theology can't change either. I think the real objection to liberal theology is that our theology changed as we understood the 1st Cent background better and made continuing progress separating out Biblical ideas from traditional Christian reinterpretation. And our ethics continues to change in some areas based on the results of social science, and a reexamination of traditional exegesis in areas that it affects. Unfortunately, you can't get unchanging certainty out of this approach. My claim would be that there's nothing in Scripture or our experience of God that should lead to think we actually have that kind of unchanging truth.

This part has been big in my experience and I primarily see it in conservative Christianity (though individual conservative Christians are all over the place.) I've always taken it to heart that we see God's truth through a mirror darkly and that mirror doesn't become clear until God's Kingdom is fully realized, but the *institution* of conservative Christianity (whether it be the Catholic perspective of "the Church" or the Protestant perspective of "the Bible) seem convinced that they currently see through that mirror 100% clear and that their particular viewpoint is 100% God's Truth. And so whenever a viewpoint or interpretation clashes with their own, they start freaking out even up to the point of accusing people of having the spirit of Satan, Jezebel, etc.

But how can any of us say with 100% certainty that we have that 100% knowledge of God's truth.

Even reading scripture literally, even with the assumption of inerrancy, is still someone's very fallible interpretation of what that means. It's dangerous when people believe they have it down 100% considering how often the bible and/or the "Church" is used as a (even violent) weapon against others.
 
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hedrick

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In my opinion, after the amount we’ve learned about the Jewish background of the NT in the last 100 years, if it didn’t have at least some effect on our understanding, something is wrong. But this is 180 degrees from the conservative view, in which any change indicates that we can’t have the unchangeable truth.

Interestingly, people who use critical scholarship seem closer to agreement than conservatives, if you look across the whole theological spectrum. When combined with a more modest understanding of what kind of certainty we actually have, we are pretty close to dealing with the problem of disunity. Not that we're combining all our churches, but that we're in communion, and our scholars and theologians form a single community. The main exception is Catholics, where the scholars and theologians are part of the common community, but there are key areas where the tradition still controls.

My favorite theology these days is from Doug Ottati. He has published the first volume of a systematic theology. The hallmark of it is very careful consideration of what we can reasonably claim to know. This makes it very different from historical theologies, though at times Luther had the same realization.
 
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dms1972

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Here is a criticism of liberalism I have read (from Gresham Machen, who btw never fully embraced fundamentalism either), as it is from a book written in the early part of the twentieth century, it may not take into account more recent developments in liberal theology. The criticism is that liberal theology doesn't make a distinction of Creature and Creator. God's transcendence is not acknowledged, and God is identified with a world process. Is this true of all liberal theology, if not of what theologians could this be said to be true of?

The writer Hedrick mentioned Doug Ottati I looked up his books on Amazon, where the summary of one said it is Augustinian.

A two-volume work by Douglas Ottati, Theology for Liberal Protestants presents a comprehensive theology for Christians who are willing to rethink and revise traditional doctrines in face of contemporary challenges. It is Augustinian, claiming that we belong to the God of grace who creates, judges, and renews. It is Protestant, affirming the priority of the Bible and the fallibility of church teaching. It is liberal, recognizing the importance of critical arguments and scientific inquiries, a deeply historical consciousness, and a commitment to social criticism and engagement.

As I said I suspect not all liberal theology is the same - isn't some of it influenced more by Hegel and Kant? But I find it hard to know who Machen's criticism is of in particular (however I have not read his book entirely - just a few parts) - as he just speaks of liberalism. When these old Princeton guys talk about "liberalism" which theologians or what is it they are talking about?
 
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hedrick

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Here is a criticism of liberalism I have read (from Gresham Machen, who btw never fully embraced fundamentalism either), as it is from a book written in the early part of the twentieth century, it may not take into account more recent developments in liberal theology. The criticism is that liberal theology doesn't make a distinction of Creature and Creator. God's transcendence is not acknowledged, and God is identified with a world process. Is this true of all liberal theology, if not of what theologians could this be said to be true of?
There is a general concern that traditional theology makes God look like a big man in the sky. There are at least two problems: (1) he's not a human, (2) the idea of someone on the outside looking in and occasionally interviewing with miracles seems inconsistent with being present everywhere, and with the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The alternative is typically some sort of panentheism. I've read several presentations of that, and I'm still not sure whether it's sort of an intuition, or a more specific concept of God. Since the Christian tradition has never claimed that we understand God's nature, perhaps an intuition or an analogy is all we can reasonably expect.

Given when Maachen wrote, a lot of the writing on panentheism hadn't been done yet. So I wonder if he's thinking of Tillich. Reading Tillich one sometimes wonders whether this God is anything other than some kind of psychology. There are a few things he wrote that make me think Tillich has something more in mind, but someone who is hostile to the whole scheme of rethinking theology (which Maachen definitely was) could well say so. The recent things I've read on panentheism definitely see God as more than creation, and at least logically (and probably chronologically) prior to it. But you really need a philosopher to deal with this well.
 
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bekkilyn

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I kind of like to see God as having some essence in everything he has created (panentheism) but at the same time, he is still the creator existing independently of his creation. Kind of like the idea that the Holy Spirit lives within us and yet is not limited by us. Or another example on the human level: An artist will put something of herself or himself into a creation, but is not the actual creation. Or another example: God creates a rock and as the "artist" of that rock, there will be something of God's image or essence existing in the rock, but the rock itself is not God and God is not limited to the rock. The rock is only a witness to God's glory and his eternal presence.

Hopefully some of that makes sense. I have no idea whether it is "liberal theology" or not though because there is plenty of scripture that supports the idea that God's creation, his handiwork, is a witness to him as Creator and so even a strict bible literalist may not have issue with it.
 
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hedrick

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The writer Hedrick mentioned Doug Ottati I looked up his books on Amazon, where the summary of one said it is Augustinian.

A two-volume work by Douglas Ottati, Theology for Liberal Protestants presents a comprehensive theology for Christians who are willing to rethink and revise traditional doctrines in face of contemporary challenges. It is Augustinian, claiming that we belong to the God of grace who creates, judges, and renews. It is Protestant, affirming the priority of the Bible and the fallibility of church teaching. It is liberal, recognizing the importance of critical arguments and scientific inquiries, a deeply historical consciousness, and a commitment to social criticism and engagement.
Certainly the priority of grace is Augustinian. But Augustine also had a commitment to predestination that Ottati doesn't exactly share. However the major characteristic of the book is that it reviews the major alternatives on issues, criticizes all of them, and adopts a set of statements that he thinks are well justified, rather than any of the specific theories that he reviews. This is the sort of approach that was taken by Nicea, which didn't define a complete theology of the Trinity, but adopted a set of statements that set boundaries within which discussion should occur. Even Chalcedon should probably be understand as that kind of thing applied to the Incarnation. (However from a historical point of view it was less successful, because there were other reasonable ways to talk about the Incarnation, and the Church was never able to manage the conflict with people holding those views.)

I don't think Ottati's final statements are the only value to the book. His review and assessments of the major alternatives is also really helpful. I shouldn't give the impression that he treats them all equally. Some he's willing to accept with appropriate qualification.
 
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bekkilyn

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I think panentheism would be considered liberal in the West, though there are tendencies in the East. To my knowledge anything other than a super powerful person-like thing is considered non-traditional here.

I'm not sure that's been my experience, though I can't quite pinpoint it. Maybe there is a difference in how, for example, a Calvinist might perceive God versus a Wesleyan, though I'm not at all claiming that either are panentheists per se.
 
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dms1972

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There is a general concern that traditional theology makes God look like a big man in the sky. There are at least two problems: (1) he's not a human, (2) the idea of someone on the outside looking in and occasionally interviewing with miracles seems inconsistent with being present everywhere, and with the presence of the Holy Spirit."

I suppose it depends on what one means by a miracle. I am not sure what has been been written on that by theologians, but I do have CS Lewis's book on Miracles and interestingly he adds a footnote to say his definition (which is 'an interferene with Nature by a supernatural power'), would not be given by many theologians.

When Jesus was doing his miracles, the Holy Spirit had not yet been sent.

The alternative is typically some sort of panentheism. I've read several presentations of that, and I'm still not sure whether it's sort of an intuition, or a more specific concept of God. Since the Christian tradition has never claimed that we understand God's nature, perhaps an intuition or an analogy is all we can reasonably expect.

Sorry I am not following - what would Panentheism be an alternative too?

What do you refer to when you say 'christian tradition'?

You say christian tradition has never claimed that we understand God's nature - I suppose so, but is it claiming to understand God's Nature to delineate the Attributes of God?

Given when Maachen wrote, a lot of the writing on panentheism hadn't been done yet. So I wonder if he's thinking of Tillich. Reading Tillich one sometimes wonders whether this God is anything other than some kind of psychology. There are a few things he wrote that make me think Tillich has something more in mind, but someone who is hostile to the whole scheme of rethinking theology (which Maachen definitely was) could well say so. The recent things I've read on panentheism definitely see God as more than creation, and at least logically (and probably chronologically) prior to it. But you really need a philosopher to deal with this well.

Tillich I have seen variously described as Neo-protestant, Neo-orthodox and Existentialist, it could be that sort of theology that Machen was writing against, i don't know. I have scanned through about the first 30 pages and he mentions H.G. Wells about 4 times, but the for the most part just refers to Modern Liberalism, or Modern Naturalistic Liberalism - he says very little therefore about any particular theologians who fall under his critique.
 
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hedrick

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Sorry I am not following - what would Panentheism be an alternative too?
God as a human-like agent.
What do you refer to when you say 'christian tradition'?

You say christian tradition has never claimed that we understand God's nature - I suppose so, but is it claiming to understand God's Nature to delineate the Attributes of God?
In the Trinitarian context, you'll often see the statement that we can't know God's nature. I've never been entirely clear what the acknowledged limits really are, since the same people who say we can't know his nature but only make negative statements are the ones very insistent on precise definitions of ousia and hypostasis.

For myself, I would say that I don't have a clue what God actually is, but that we can know some things about him. Attributes, I guess.
Tillich I have seen variously described as Neo-protestant, Neo-orthodox and Existentialist
Neo-orthodox would seem odd. No idea what neo-Protestant is. My suspicion is that what he was after is roughly what theologians are now calling panentheism, but when I read him I didn't find the description as clear. (Of course I was 16 at the time, so maybe part of it was me.) Not that current descriptions of panentheism are that clear, but they're probably as clear as we can reasonably expect.
 
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dms1972

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Neo-orthodox would seem odd. No idea what neo-Protestant is. My suspicion is that what he was after is roughly what theologians are now calling panentheism, but when I read him I didn't find the description as clear. (Of course I was 16 at the time, so maybe part of it was me.) Not that current descriptions of panentheism are that clear, but they're probably as clear as we can reasonably expect.

Neo-protestant theology was what Barth arrayed himself against, for him it was associated with Schleiermacher, Ritschl, Hermann, Troeltsch, and also Bultmann and Tillich. I think you are right about panentheism, I see Bloesch say Tillich refered to his own position as "eschatological panentheism".

Panentheism seems to be the view that God is in all, in contrast to Pantheism which is the view that God is all.
 
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