nunnington wrote:I think a common liberal view today (trying desperately to avoid substitutionary atonement), is that we are separated from God, just by being individual egos (a nod to Eastern religion, there), and salvation is at-one-ment, that is the reconciliation and unification of the disunited. But it is also quite an ancient view, I think. I think gospel of Thomas has it, errrm, here we are,

"When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

(saying 22).

This does push the crucifixion to the sidelines (good, in my book), as reconciliation doesn't need a blood sacrifice. At most, the crucifixion becomes a necessary precursor to the theosis achieved via the resurrection, of no particular importance in itself (channeling Orthodox theology in spades, there).

It's good to see liberal Christian takes on Christology. I see far more focus on "Jesus, wise teacher" from liberal Christians than I do ontology and metaphysics. The evangelicals and Forward in Faith mob (or Nora and Bracket, as many now are) have spotted this weakness, and love sneering at liberals for thinking that Jesus is "just a wise preacher." C.S. Lewis' "tri-lemma" is usually wheeled out at this point.

Now, a radical Christian take on Christology and reconcilliation, framing it all in psychological and experiential terms, that I'd like to see go mainstream. One step at a time, I guess.

Byron

Well, then the crucifixion represents the surrender of ego to the great I am, or the pleroma. Of course, this turns the Christian story into a kind of Jungian mythos. Is it therefore Christian? Well, why not, it's just that you have become the Christ! Again, this is not that outlandish, I think. 'Our old self was crucified with him', (Rom), and 'it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me', (Gal).

But then possibly they are interpolations.

Doubtdispelled wrote:Saved from what, precisely?

...from being not saved.

nunnington wrote:I think a common liberal view today (trying desperately to avoid substitutionary atonement), is that we are separated from God, just by being individual egos (a nod to Eastern religion, there), and salvation is at-one-ment, that is the reconciliation and unification of the disunited. But it is also quite an ancient view, I think. I think gospel of Thomas has it, errrm, here we are,

"When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

(saying 22).

I've never been entirely sure that I understood what that passage in Thomas was saying. It sounds a little like "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey," which has stuff about ego boundaries which I do understand (The inside is out and the outside is in.) But I still can't figure out that passage.

People might do well to look at Socinian ideas about the atonement which make Christ the enabler of each of us repenting and abandoning out own sin. I'm not putting it forth as the answer, though it often seems closer to what the NT writers had in mind than Anselm's ideas and the Reformers' do. (There is no actual official atonement theory in either Roman Catholicism or in the main Protestant denominations - substitutionary atonement has long be dominant, but most other views are not actually heretical.)

nunnington wrote:Byron

Well, then the crucifixion represents the surrender of ego to the great I am, or the pleroma. Of course, this turns the Christian story into a kind of Jungian mythos. Is it therefore Christian? Well, why not, it's just that you have become the Christ! Again, this is not that outlandish, I think. 'Our old self was crucified with him', (Rom), and 'it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me', (Gal).

But then possibly they are interpolations.

Does the ego have to surrender? Presumably the I AM has an ego (to end all egos), so this is just the triumph of ego in another form! Couldn't instead the ego join with Christ's, and work in co-operation with him: it's all mysterious and I'm not sure it makes any sense, but damn, is it incarnational, and the church has made the incarnation's incoherence into a Sacred Mystery, so mere senselessness should be no barrier!



Or perhaps Christ isn't an ego, but a transformative experience, which infuses and redirects our egos to the service of the other (and the other to us). Theologians like talking about a "Christ-event" that spanned Jesus' life and the immediate response to it -- immediate in a generous sense, the Christ-event usually stretches to the end of the 1st Century -- so this would fit nicely with that.

I think it all comes down to perceiving Christ in experiential terms, rather than didactic ones. He was a great teacher? Well, yeah, some of the time, maybe ... fairer to say that it was a collaboration between him and the folks who rewrote/invented his lines. And the literary creation in the NT hardly blasts away all other teachers. Do Aristotle, and the Buddha, and Spinoza, and Springsteen wilt by comparison? I doubt it. Even evangelical Christians will admit this (well, some of 'em): so why give them a monopoly on Christ-as-experience?

PeterI wrote:(There is no actual official atonement theory in either Roman Catholicism or in the main Protestant denominations - substitutionary atonement has long be dominant, but most other views are not actually heretical.)

I have great fun in pointing this out to spittle-flecked evangelicals, along with all the bits in the NT that talk about Christ's ransom.

This is after evangelicals have become aware that there are rival atonement theories: most are shockingly ignorant about their own most cherished dogmas, tho' not so shocking when you see their pastors'/their enthusiasm for staying on the approved reading list (platefuls of C.S. Lewis and Lee Strobel, with sides of "Tom" Wright and Rick Warren, and if they've very good, maybe a snippet of scripture as a palate cleanser). Gotta avoid being led into error, yo.

Byron

By gum, you are hot tonight, mate.

A Zen teacher I had used to call it the 'point of view of no point of view', that is, no centre at all. Or the centre is at every point in experience, because the I am is always at that point now (otherwise there would be no experience), and there is nothing else. Admittedly, this is a long long way from gentle Jesus, meek and mild.

Byron wrote:

PeterI wrote:(There is no actual official atonement theory in either Roman Catholicism or in the main Protestant denominations - substitutionary atonement has long be dominant, but most other views are not actually heretical.)

I have great fun in pointing this out to spittle-flecked evangelicals, along with all the bits in the NT that talk about Christ's ransom.

You seem to meet rather different people than I do, or perhaps we choose who to engage in conversation differently.

Byron wrote:
platefuls of C.S. Lewis

You do know that C. S. Lewis was a proponent of Ransom Theory.

Peter.

nunnington wrote:Byron

By gum, you are hot tonight, mate.

Cooling down from the Thread Without End, which is still toasty by the mean standard.

A Zen teacher I had used to call it the 'point of view of no point of view', that is, no centre at all. Or the centre is at every point in experience, because the I am is always at that point now (otherwise there would be no experience), and there is nothing else. Admittedly, this is a long long way from gentle Jesus, meek and mild.

The center at every point of experience? Wow, isn't that a divine POV? No wonder Buddhists don't have a god as Abrahamic theology understands it -- they're mainlining it from the source! (or is that Source)

PeterI wrote:You seem to meet rather different people than I do, or perhaps we choose who to engage in conversation differently.

Seems so!

Byron wrote:
platefuls of C.S. Lewis

You do know that C. S. Lewis was a proponent of Ransom Theory.

Peter.

Didn't know that specifically (of his corpus I've read the various Screwtape works, some of his essays, Suprised by Joy, various bits from God in the Dock, & of course, that wee tale about a wardrobe and its sequels). Not surprising: he also didn't think the Bible was inerrant (as Judas died twice, in equally bloody but different ways). IME evangelicals even have approved texts of their approved authors!

Byron wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:Theology up until the reformation wasn't exclusively built on top of the Bible, even though a lot of people seem to think the Bible is the sole authority in all kinds of Christianity.

It's bizarre to see non-believers use this line: in effect, they're validating the claims of fundagelicals!

It's quite insidious how this fundagelical model of religions has been generalized by a lot of people in the west. Part of the problem, of course, is that people like to talk about religions - a lot of the time dismissively, altho' some will speak admiringly (but likewise ignorantly) - but few go to the effort of learning about the religions they speak of. Among atheists, there seems to be an idea that there's nothing to learn, as it's all nonsense anyway.

This has lent a surprising credence to what is a religious idea in the first place - that scripture is central (although, as rational atheists we realize scripture is nonsensical as well, so we cut out actually learning what religion is about - it's all nonsense, so learning about it is superfluous). This is a dangerous way to go, really, when it comes to trying to talk to religious people, and this should be stressed whenever people on this forum misrepresent or downright unknowingly argue against caricatures of religion or downright strawmen of it.

Not that the Bible is set against universal reconciliation. Yes, Jesus was fond of consigning his enemies to Gehenna, but there's also Paul's startling claim in Romans 11 that "all Israel" will be saved: "For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all." As noted by that colossus of late-20th Century Pauline scholarship, E.P. Sanders, Paul also spoke about punishment and damnation. In short, he was inconsistent, as he wasn't a systematic theologian, but a charismatic preacher.

I have at times wondered whether "all Israel" is to be read as "all Israel ever" or "all Israel of the time referred to".

Zwaarddijk wrote:

Byron wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:Theology up until the reformation wasn't exclusively built on top of the Bible, even though a lot of people seem to think the Bible is the sole authority in all kinds of Christianity.

It's bizarre to see non-believers use this line: in effect, they're validating the claims of fundagelicals!

It's quite insidious how this fundagelical model of religions has been generalized by a lot of people in the west. Part of the problem, of course, is that people like to talk about religions - a lot of the time dismissively, altho' some will speak admiringly (but likewise ignorantly) - but few go to the effort of learning about the religions they speak of. Among atheists, there seems to be an idea that there's nothing to learn, as it's all nonsense anyway.

This has lent a surprising credence to what is a religious idea in the first place - that scripture is central (although, as rational atheists we realize scripture is nonsensical as well, so we cut out actually learning what religion is about - it's all nonsense, so learning about it is superfluous). This is a dangerous way to go, really, when it comes to trying to talk to religious people, and this should be stressed whenever people on this forum misrepresent or downright unknowingly argue against caricatures of religion or downright strawmen of it.

Not that the Bible is set against universal reconciliation. Yes, Jesus was fond of consigning his enemies to Gehenna, but there's also Paul's startling claim in Romans 11 that "all Israel" will be saved: "For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all." As noted by that colossus of late-20th Century Pauline scholarship, E.P. Sanders, Paul also spoke about punishment and damnation. In short, he was inconsistent, as he wasn't a systematic theologian, but a charismatic preacher.

I have at times wondered whether "all Israel" is to be read as "all Israel ever" or "all Israel of the time referred to".

Well expressed. I think this ignorance results in a polarization amongst religious people. You get the creationists and so on who will crash into a forum like this, and usually depart equally quickly. But I think more intelligent religious will avoid it, not because of any hostility that might be around, but the sheer depth of ignorance, which requires an endless conveyor belt of explanations, that 'actually, X does not mean something utterly naive and stupid, as you have portrayed it'. But then the response is often 'well, you're not a genuine Christian/Muslim, etc., because you don't fit my caricature'.

The reduction of Christianity to sola scriptura is a case in point. I guess many American atheists are Protestant atheists!

Byron wrote:

nunnington wrote:Byron

By gum, you are hot tonight, mate.

Cooling down from the Thread Without End, which is still toasty by the mean standard.

A Zen teacher I had used to call it the 'point of view of no point of view', that is, no centre at all. Or the centre is at every point in experience, because the I am is always at that point now (otherwise there would be no experience), and there is nothing else. Admittedly, this is a long long way from gentle Jesus, meek and mild.

The center at every point of experience? Wow, isn't that a divine POV? No wonder Buddhists don't have a god as Abrahamic theology understands it -- they're mainlining it from the source! (or is that Source)

A bit off-topic, or maybe not, but this is one of those strange Buddhist legerdemains almost, that the centre of experience is here now, unavoidably. Where else would it be? You can try to distract yourself from it, but that is also the centre! This is one sense, I think, of the saying that 'samsara is nirvana' - the daily wheel of life is also the seat of enlightenment. Where else would it be?

But this relates to one of our previous conversations - that in the West, the divine is usually seen as Other, and then I am forever caught in a frenetic search, which only reinforces my alienation as 'seeker'. In the East, this has often been collapsed, so that seeker and sought become one.

But, this is also found in Christianity in some of the mystics, and then this can be seen as salvation also - that as Eliot might have said, there is only this moment now (which I am about to reify as the past!) and it is numinous.

Maybe, the Jewish/Christian idea of 'I am that I am' is connected to this.

And there is also the Angel of Silesius:

Abandonment ensnareth God:
But the Abandonment supreme,
Which few there be can comprehend,
Is to abandon even Him.

(Kill the Buddha!).

nunnington wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:It's quite insidious how this fundagelical model of religions has been generalized by a lot of people in the west. ...

Well expressed.

+1

Nicely said, Zwaarddijk.

I think this ignorance results in a polarization amongst religious people. You get the creationists and so on who will crash into a forum like this, and usually depart equally quickly. But I think more intelligent religious will avoid it, not because of any hostility that might be around, but the sheer depth of ignorance, which requires an endless conveyor belt of explanations, that 'actually, X does not mean something utterly naive and stupid, as you have portrayed it'. But then the response is often 'well, you're not a genuine Christian/Muslim, etc., because you don't fit my caricature'.

The reduction of Christianity to sola scriptura is a case in point. I guess many American atheists are Protestant atheists!

Goes for the whole Anglosphere new atheism, I think. Dawkins and the transatlantic Hitchens are proddy atheists through-and-through, focusing on the Bible and its wacky contents. They wheel on evil old Rome when it suits, but as I've argued before, this is Catholicism approached from a protestant POV, through a book of martyrs, smokily.

Even if this assessment is off-base, the "no true Christian" fallacy is certainly run amok. The new atheists explicitly say that "moderates" aren't "proper Christians," and Dawkins actually praises the pal of some hick anti-abortionist murderer in The God Delusion for being true to his faith! Reckon it's mostly down to polarization and the need for an other: if there was no nice, in-group/out-group split, it all gets so much murkier.

What to do about it? Hard as it is, keep plugging away, I think. (Tho' take it from someone well and truly sick of rolling out "history isn't bunk, 101" in the Thread Without End: I know how wearying it gets!)

Zwaarddijk wrote:I have at times wondered whether "all Israel" is to be read as "all Israel ever" or "all Israel of the time referred to".

In the context Paul was writing, he was expecting an imminent apocalypse. The Gentiles had to return for this to happen: E.P. Sanders reckons that Paul thought that the Gentile part of the mission was going well, and had turned his attention to the Jews, amongst whom the Jerusalem church was making little headway. So "all Israel" could fairly be read as "the Jews in the middle-1st Century."

Skinny Puppy wrote:Just off the top of my head.


• In the book of Revelation there are 144,000 Jews (12,000 from each tribe of Israel) that will be saved. They aren’t followers of Christ, but they serve God. (It’s highly subject to interpretation; I’m giving the version we believed.)
• In addition Jesus spoke of the poor man (a Jew) in heaven seeing the rich man in hell.
• Elijah went straight up to heaven.


So Jews get to go to heaven despite being non-Christian.

Wasn't this a parable? Bring up the mustard seed parable and they simply say it was a parable and was meant figuratively. Surely then this line of reasoning, that it was figurative, can apply to others as well. Is there any biblical basis for hell. I've heard arguments from some that say the verses speaking of what some call 'hell' are actually places in the city used to burn/destroy stuff and it really alludes to destruction and not eternal torment. But then I've heard others that say differently.

Byron wrote:

nunnington wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:It's quite insidious how this fundagelical model of religions has been generalized by a lot of people in the west. ...

Well expressed.

+1

Nicely said, Zwaarddijk.

I think this ignorance results in a polarization amongst religious people. You get the creationists and so on who will crash into a forum like this, and usually depart equally quickly. But I think more intelligent religious will avoid it, not because of any hostility that might be around, but the sheer depth of ignorance, which requires an endless conveyor belt of explanations, that 'actually, X does not mean something utterly naive and stupid, as you have portrayed it'. But then the response is often 'well, you're not a genuine Christian/Muslim, etc., because you don't fit my caricature'.

The reduction of Christianity to sola scriptura is a case in point. I guess many American atheists are Protestant atheists!

Goes for the whole Anglosphere new atheism, I think. Dawkins and the transatlantic Hitchens are proddy atheists through-and-through, focusing on the Bible and its wacky contents. They wheel on evil old Rome when it suits, but as I've argued before, this is Catholicism approached from a protestant POV, through a book of martyrs, smokily.

Even if this assessment is off-base, the "no true Christian" fallacy is certainly run amok. The new atheists explicitly say that "moderates" aren't "proper Christians," and Dawkins actually praises the pal of some hick anti-abortionist murderer in The God Delusion for being true to his faith! Reckon it's mostly down to polarization and the need for an other: if there was no nice, in-group/out-group split, it all gets so much murkier.

What to do about it? Hard as it is, keep plugging away, I think. (Tho' take it from someone well and truly sick of rolling out "history isn't bunk, 101" in the Thread Without End: I know how wearying it gets!)

Zwaarddijk wrote:I have at times wondered whether "all Israel" is to be read as "all Israel ever" or "all Israel of the time referred to".

In the context Paul was writing, he was expecting an imminent apocalypse. The Gentiles had to return for this to happen: E.P. Sanders reckons that Paul thought that the Gentile part of the mission was going well, and had turned his attention to the Jews, amongst whom the Jerusalem church was making little headway. So "all Israel" could fairly be read as "the Jews in the middle-1st Century."

Yes, the point about fundies being the real Christians came out very strikingly at the time of the Haiti earthquake, when Dawkins published his article, saying that Robertson (who had said that the Haitians were being punished by God), 'stands squarely in the Christian tradition'.

So how has Dawkins acquired his knowledge of this tradition?

God had better be careful. It's not a good idea to start down-sizing hell in this economic climate.

If I was a demon I'd be consulting my union about this. Bloody management, eh?

horacerumpole wrote:These days, many Christians seem to think that Jews and Muslims, and sometimes other non-Christians can be "saved" even though they don't believe that Jesus was the son of God or otherwise accept Christianity.

What is the theological basis for this?

Muslims don't think that Jesus was son of god and that salvation depends on accepting Jesus' death on the Cross; Jews also don't think so; ex-Jews turned atheists now could confirm it, at least.

PeterI wrote:

"When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

(saying 22).

I've never been entirely sure that I understood what that passage in Thomas was saying. It sounds a little like "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey," which has stuff about ego boundaries which I do understand (The inside is out and the outside is in.) But I still can't figure out that passage.

It's talking about other bodies in place of the (physical) body. So the hand you make is not a physical hand, and the eyes you make are not a physical eye; but neither are these things metaphorical.

An 'image in place of an image' creates something in place of a non-physical body. The bodies are referred to in the gnostic texts as garments, and the body that exists beyond all opposites is the one that contains even male and female in a single one. The union of these was called syzygy.

That body is what Jesus speaks of several times as the 'solitary one' in the GoT and also in the Dialogue of the Savior.

Beyond that..... the sacrament awaiting the outcome of syzygy is the bridal chamber. Such things are key components in other religions too; at least where they recognize the realization of other bodies that are in place of a body.