CS Lewis on God’s Relation to Time

[JAL]

@The Liturgist,

I mentioned that mainstream thinking contradicts the notion of an outpouring. For the same reasons, it is also contradicts the notion of being filled with the Third Person. Bear in mind it is hermeneutically illegal to interpret the Hebrew and Greek in a manner devoid of linguistic precedent. To allow such, after all, would mean we can make the Bible say anything we want it to say, it's exegetical chaos. What does the term "filled" mean, historically? What's the precedent here?

I know of only two possible meanings.
...(1) An emotional reference. She was filled with joy.
...(2) A volumetric reference. The room was full of air, wind, or gas.

Since the Holy Spirit is NOT an emotion, the expression "filled with the Holy Spirit" MUST be a volumetric reference. In my view, the proper translation is "filled with the Holy Breath/Wind" much like a room is filled with air, wind, or gas. Scripture is prolific with volumetric references to the divine Presence:

"Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle."
"They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them."
"The temple was filled with smoke, from the glory of God and His power."
"When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple."

These volumetric references flatly contradict an immaterial God devoid of size and shape.

This notion that God has no size and shape is a tenet of DDS (Doctrine of Divine Simplicity). Let's take a look at its Platonic origin. Plato held to a bizarre theory that concepts/properties are existing immaterial realities. Thus one could argue that a red chair isn't red due to red paint. Rather, an immaterial "form" (a concept/property) called "redness" exists, and somehow the paint is red because it participates in "redness". Of course Plato provides no COHERENT theory as to how an immaterial, intangible redness could tangibly impact a material paint or a material chair. It's bogus.

And yet the church fathers fell for it. Due to Plato, they believed that concepts/properties can exist in their own right. Consequently DDS holds that God is not a person WITH omniscience. Rather, He is the omniscience concept/property ITSELF. As a person, I like pepperoni on my pizza. Perhaps you, as a person, prefer sausage. What kind of pizza does a CONCEPT prefer? This bizarre theory depersonalizes God. I'm pretty sure He likes bread and beef steak, because He went over to Abraham's house for supper one evening, and that's exactly what they served Him (Genesis 18).

And it raised another problem. According to DDS, God is indivisible into parts, thus has no multiplicity in Him (thereby contradicting the Trinity of course). The problem, then, is the question, how many concepts/properties comprise God? Supposedly only one. If we say He is the omniscience concept/property, how then will there be room for other concepts/properties such as love, purity, patience, tranquility, etc.??? This has led, historically, to debates on how to resolve this apparent contradiction. Bottom line: it's all incoherent, because we're supposed to be talking about Three Persons, not three concepts/properties.

Conclusion: The historic Doctrine of God - the way that He is defined - is unintelligible mumbo-jumbo and double-talk impossible for anyone to really know what is being said. It should never have been dignified with the term "doctrine".

 

[JAL]

@The Liturgist,

After 2000 years, mainstream theologians still cannot provide a satisfactory resolution to these two problems:
...(1) Why does a fair, just, and kind God allow me to suffer the consequences of Adam's sin?
....(2) How is it possible for Adam's sinful nature to be transmitted/inherited? (Any notion of receiving a sinful nature is self-contradictory, since sin is my own free choice rather than something that HAPPENS to me).

Yet a material soul solves both problems easily. As Millard J. Erickson concluded, "We were all [physically] present in Adam, such that we all sinned in his act."

In my version of this solution, God simply removed most of Adam's sin-stained soul to a place of suspended animation after he fell. At each conception, He mates a speck of this sin-stained soul to the zygote. Each of us is a piece of Adam even though we can't remember how, back in the garden, we were originally one mind acting in unison to consume the forbidden fruit by free choice.

Conclusion: Immaterialism is consigned to an incoherent jurisprudence, regarding the Fall.

 

[JAL]

@The Liturgist,

Immaterialism lacks individuation - it affords no way for reality to differentiate between individuals because a soul void of size and shape has no specific location in space. This is a problem because individuation is the basis for EVERYTHING that happens to us. For example, why did Christ alone suffer the cross? Because His soul alone was at that location in space, within that physical body nailed to the cross. Without individuation, we'd ALL suffer the cross, and we'd all suffer the same punishment in hell, including God Himself.

Intercommunication is based on individuation. I can target you ALONE with a message by whispering to you, and no one else will hear it.

 

[JAL]

@The Liturgist,

Immaterialism is existentially incoherent because I can only imagine myself as an existing body comprised of tangible limbs that I can feel. Even if my nervous system becomes too destroyed to feel my limbs, I will at least feel my eyes distinctly enough, hopefully, to angle my vison in one direction or another. If I can’t even feel my eyes or head—if I can’t feel any sense of tangible, bodily self—I am no longer a conscious self and best described as unconscious/ dead. John saw the souls of martyrs under a heavenly altar (Rev 6:9) precisely because souls are tangible bodies with size and shape.

 

[The Liturgist]

It's beginning to look like a bit of a copout here - like you'd rather debate the nit-pickiest version of the Nicene Creed than resolve any logical problems facing you. Isn't this why you keep asking me the same questions over and over again - meanwhile deflecting mine? Is this the easy way out here?

No. Rather, I will not debate theology with anyone who does not affirm the Nicene Creed in its entirety, along with the rest of the ChristianForums.com Statement of Faith. There is no “nit-pickiest” version of the Creed, but rather one version (I mentioned two English translations of it, since the original is in Greek).

So to make matters simple, here is the CF.com Statement of Faith.

 

[JAL]

No. Rather, I will not debate theology with anyone who does not affirm the Nicene Creed in its entirety, along with the rest of the ChristianForums.com Statement of Faith. There is no “nit-pickiest” version of the Creed, but rather one version (I mentioned two English translations of it, since the original is in Greek).

So to make matters simple, here is the CF.com Statement of Faith.

Copout. The only tenet of the Nicene Creed that you've really called into question here is:
"Begotten of the Father before all ages."

As one commentary states, this means, "The Father begets the Son before all ages; that is, before any act of creation."

Which is precisely my position. And mine is the only clear, coherent explanation of begetting offered in 2000 years.

 

[JAL]

If I were standing in your shoes, I'd be far more interested in ascertaining the truth of Scripture - finding a clear, consistent, coherent interpretation - than compliance with a man-made statement known as the Nicene Creed. You seem to have different priorities than I do. I don't understand it.

 

[JAL]

You've also conveniently ignored the demonstrations where I've shown your position to contradict Scripture. But that doesn't matter, right? What matters to you is compliance with man-made manifestos.

 

[The Liturgist]

My foremost reason for insisting on the importance of the Creed is purely theological. The Nicene Creed is the divinely inspired Symbol of Faith of the Church which wrote and compiled the New Testament and which is the divine successor to the Hebrew religion. Every cult that exists, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Unitarian Universalists, Christian Science, the LDS, etc, rejects the Nicene Creed.

A second but no less important reason for caring about the Creed is that adherence to the CF.com Statement of Faith which includes the Creed is required to even post in General Theology, and it is my desire to avoid getting into an intense debate only for the debate to be shut down when it emerges the person I am debating with is not a Nicene Christian.

 

[JAL]

My foremost reason for insisting on the importance of the Creed is purely theological. The Nicene Creed is the divinely inspired Symbol of Faith of the Church which wrote and compiled the New Testament and which is the divine successor to the Hebrew religion. Every cult that exists, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Unitarian Universalists, Christian Science, the LDS, etc, rejects the Nicene Creed.

A second but no less important reason for caring about the Creed is that adherence to the CF.com Statement of Faith which includes the Creed is required to even post in General Theology, and it is my desire to avoid getting into an intense debate only for the debate to be shut down when it emerges the person I am debating with is not a Nicene Christian.

Seems you've tried to convince yourself I'm not a Nicene Christian. You haven't likely convinced the staff. I'm a staunch advocate of Trinitarianism, Incarnation, Christ's bodily resurrection, etc.

Are there not subtle differences in some mainstream christologies? For example the churches are not unanimous on the Filioque, right?

I'm raising objections that virtually no one else raises. They deserve to be addressed, even if you need to move this thread to Controversial Theology in order to do so - or by starting a separate thread there. I'm pretty sure that even someone with your expertise cannot bring lucidity to all the multiple charges of incoherence levelled here, and people need to see that, as it would help them be more objective in their theological choices. Most Christians have no idea to what extent they've been indoctrinated.

As for thread-shutdown, I've already posted conservatively, for example I didn't logically critique the Hypostatic Union but merely reiterated what mainstream theologians already admit: it is a humanly incoherent concept.

And I'll continue to post conservatively. I'll resort to a private message if I have a statement that looks risky.

To me the slight risk seems well worth it because Christians will never think objectively if they've only been exposed to one point of view. If a particular post shuts the thread down, we can start a new one (being sure to reference the old one), avoiding the specific topic that shut the first one down.

 

[JAL]

@The Liturgist,

2000 years deep, theologians still can't provide a clear, coherent explanation of the brain's role in the mind's thinking. For an obvious reason: an intangible, immaterial mind cannot mutually impact with a physical brain. Such is logically incoherent.

For more details - as well as some hard biblical evidence for a physical soul - see the four posts 189-192 on this thread.

This incoherence explains why, 2000 years deep, theologians still can't explain something as simple as regeneration.

 

[JAL]

@The Liturgist,

For the same reasons, the atonement becomes logically impossible. Because: regardless of how much damage is done to Christ's body, it could have no impact on an immaterial mind, hence no physically-induced suffering is possible.

The mind alone, not the body, has conscious experiences such as the five senses and pain. After all, to say that a body void of a soul feels pain only begs the question, Who is feeling this pain?

 

[JAL]

@The Liturgist,

A frequent atemporal assertion is, "God knows the future because He is there." Not clear. If the past, present, and future coexist, then ALL of us coexist in the past, present, and future. Meaning, it makes us just as atemporal as God is. In other words, does atemporality mean:
...(A) God does not participate in time, OR
...(B) He participates in ALL time, just like we do? How than is He different from us?

As usual, no clear, coherent answer is provided. "God knows the future because He is there." Non-sequitur. If my future exists, I'm there too, right? Consequently, shouldn't I too know my own future?