Amos's River of Justice

Tag: Council of Nicaea

  • The Divinity of Jesus Christ

    Arianism is the issue that led to the Council of Nicaea. It is one example of a doctrine that questions the divinity of Jesus Christ.

    Arius (c. 250 – 336) believed that Jesus was just a man. His doctrine is now called Arianism. “Arianism affirmed a created, finite nature of Christ rather than equal divinity with God the Father.”

    Arius’s views were eventually denounced as heresy, but not before they divided the Church’s bishops. They caused so much turmoil in the early Church that the Emperor Constantine called a council to reconcile the factions. The final decision about this doctrine was composed at the council of Nicaea.

    I’m Against Re-litigating Arianism

    It is surprising to find that the divinity of Jesus is currently being litigated on YouTube as if the Council never happened. For reasons I will explain here, I am against re-litigating Arianism.

    But it is important to state at the beginning that this debate is connected to another important topic: the Virgin Birth of Jesus. In this article I will use Thomas Boslooper’s book, The Virgin Birth, to add the information that I wasn’t allowed to add on Wikipedia. Boslooper’s account indicates that Christian scholarship has a long history of skirting the topic of the virgin birth.

    There is Power in Christianity

    There is power in the Christian religion. Many people have testified of this. Based on my own experience, people of faith are not bothered by a critical approach to the virgin birth. However, a certain editor on Wikipedia was bothered so much that he became a thief. Then he bullied me and told lies about me for daring to write about it.

    Sincere objections can usually be overcome. However, on Wikipedia the insincere party has the ability to block anyone it disagrees with. This makes reconciliation, not to mention real understanding, impossible. I think it implies either a lack of faith or the desire for a public spectacle.

    Here on my own blog, I am at least able to write without interruption. The question remains as to whether anything I write will get through to anyone. And yet, I keep writing.

    My Cautious Approach to the Scholarship

    Before I begin, it is important to remember that the The Virgin Birth was published in 1962. Religious leaders have had more than thirty years to consider or make changes based on Boslooper’s arguments and criticisms. So, some of the criticisms may no longer be justified.

    I have noticed while studying James B. Adamson’s commentary on the Book of James that Christian theologians must be familiar with the findings of biblical scholars. Apparently, when they agree with those findings they are willing to make changes. What else can explain the omission of this phrase from the Lord’s Prayer, ‘And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil’?

    Boslooper Cites the Failure of Biblical Scholarship

    Boslooper was convinced that biblical scholarship had failed to present the kind of analysis of the story of Jesus’ birth that would serve as the basis of a satisfactory interpretation. He was mainly inspired by Oscar Cullmann’s1 disappointment when he could not find a single book on the virgin birth that presents a historical approach to the subject. The purpose of this book was to fill this need in biblical critical scholarship. The Virgin Birth is a history of interpretations of Jesus’ birth.

    Thomas Boslooper’s Introduction Summarized

    The subject of the virgin birth brings with it an entire history of interpretations. Christian communities have always taken different views on this part of Jesus’ story. There is also a history of responses from the non-Christian community.

    Beginning with Ignatius and continuing through Origen, the virgin birth was at the center of the Church’s controversy with the non-Christian world. The exact point of disagreement differed with every non-Christian community.

    The Debate With Jews and Gentiles

    With the Jews, Christians struggled to demonstrate the relationship of the virgin birth to the Old Testament. With the Gentiles, the discussion centered on the relationship of the virgin birth to other religious traditions.

    Meanwhile, within early Christianity itself the virgin birth had a positive effect over all with the development of Marian theology. A theology of Mary developed at the same time as a body of extra-canonical literature to support it.

    Protestant Christianity

    In Protestant Christianity, two main factions developed around the story of the virgin birth, supernaturalists versus naturalists. The supernaturalists considered the virgin birth historical. For them, it was an indispensable support to the whole structure of Christianity. The naturalists on the other hand, thought the virgin birth was unhistorical and therefore, unimportant.

    Examples of How Modern Historians Dealt With the Virgin Birth

    The story and doctrine of the virgin birth are treated as almost invisible by modern historians and contemporary theologians. They all tend to follow the naturalistic interpretation and attach it to a single historical or theological idea. Many of them treat the virgin birth in the narratives of Matthew, chs. 1 and 2 and Luke, chs. 1 and 2 as unrelated to the main story of Jesus. Boslooper gives several examples of historical treatments:

    • Harnack thought the virgin birth should be understood as the outgrowth of a mistranslation of Isaiah 7:14.
    • Lobstein proposed the view that the virgin birth is a myth created by popular devotion to explain the divine Sonship of Christ.
    • For Percy Gardner, the narratives of the virgin birth represent two separate attempts to give a date for the divine origin of Jesus.
    • Soltau saw the story of Jesus’ conception as an attempt at the end of the first century to reconcile the belief that Jesus was born in Bethlehem on the one hand, with the earlier tradition of his origin in Nazareth on the other.
    • Conybeare understood the virgin birth as a legend adopted by the Catholic Church to reconcile the Ebionite and Docetic parties.
    • Charles Guignebert argued that all the stories of the miraculous birth were a solution to a Christological problem that arose in the primitive community. This problem had to do with the conflict between the terms ‘Messiah’ and ‘Son of God’.

    Contemporary Theologians

    According to Boslooper, Emil Brunner, Nels Ferré, and Paul Tillich oversimplify the problem of interpretation. They underestimate the significance of the virgin birth by linking it to the early Christian doctrine of the sinlessness of Jesus. This association was not a positive development in their opinion. They thought it stood in the way of a true understanding of the incarnation.

    For Brunner and Ferré, the virgin birth obscures and obstructs the fact of Jesus’ true humanity.2 For Tillich, it represents one of the New Testament’s rationalizations. He thought it changed a positive religious concept into a negative form.3

    Positive and Negative Aspects in the Interpretation of the Virgin Birth

    On the negative side, the history of interpretation has been a history of error. The Old Roman Catholic Church maligned the Biblical narratives by transferring the chief emphasis from Jesus to Mary and from marriage to virginity. Following the Protestant Reformation, the rationalistic naturalists underestimated the importance of the narrative through their a priori judgments against miracle, and the theological supernaturalists by attaching the virgin birth to the deity of Christ and by insisting on the ‘literal historicity’ of the story removed Jesus’ origin from the context of history. Historical critics, by being obsessed with the compulsion to demonstrate what was the source from which the Biblical narrative was ‘derived,’ tended to deprive the church of the significance of the content of the story of Jesus’ virgin birth. (Boslooper pp. 20-21)

    But the history of interpretation has also had positive effects. Boslooper argues that it has provided insight and contributed to our understanding of the Biblical narratives.

    The Roman Catholic Church preserved the relevance of the virgin birth to personal morality. The naturalists have helped the church recognize the true moral character of the narratives and helped curb the abuses that appeared through apocryphal tradition. The supernaturalists have insisted on the importance of the story of Jesus’ origin and demanded that the church take the doctrine seriously. Historical criticism gave a proper literary classification to the virgin birth. It eventually recognized its true role in the world and provided the basis for understanding the content of its message. (Boslooper p. 21)

    The Crux of the Problem (In Boslooper’s View)

    Boslooper argued that both the Roman Catholic and Protestant positions took the virgin birth in the gospels as literal history. In this way they weakened the thrust of its morally redemptive message.

    The Catholics produced a Docetic theology of Mary, questioned the sanctity of sex, and idealized virginity. The Protestants used the virgin birth to prove the deity of Christ and to set forth a moral idealism attached solely to the person of Jesus. In these approaches the original message was lost. The original message was that moral order is to be established within the marriage bond.

    Boslooper’s Objection to the Literal Historical View

    Boslooper argued that ‘The virgin birth is ‘myth, in the highest and best sense of the word’. He thought both Roman Catholics and Protestants were wrong to insist on the ‘literal historicity of the narratives’. For him, the universal message of Jesus’ origin is the important thing. The ‘truth’ in Boslooper’s opinion, is found somewhere between the Roman Catholic tradition and the Protestant tradition.

    My Conclusion

    I will point out that Boslooper goes beyond presenting a history of interpretations of the virgin birth when he tries to explain the purpose of the story. It seems to me he exceeded his stated purpose with mere speculation.

    Why do I say this? The statement that the virgin birth is myth ‘in the highest and best sense of the word’ is one thing. Defining its purpose and limiting its influence to the attestation of the humanity of Jesus and the sanctity of sex and marriage is a bit high-handed. For one thing, even assuming it is myth, the inspirations or motivations behind the story can’t be known.

    However, the main problem might be that the question of Jesus’ divinity has been forgotten entirely. In what way is he divine? How might this divinity be possible for a human born to a woman?

    The Perspective of Faith

    The faithful who experience his divinity probably don’t need an explanation for it. Maybe that’s why so many scholars have treated it as unimportant or detachable from the rest of the story. The most I can do at this point is acknowledge that the virgin birth really is a difficult subject. One might argue whether it is a myth in the best sense of the word, but the virgin birth is definitely a mystery in the best sense of the word.

    1. Nels F. S. Ferré, The Sun and the Umbrella (1953), pp. 28-29. ↩︎
    2. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2 (1957), pp. 126-127, 149. ↩︎

  • Isaiah 43:19

    Isaiah 43:19: Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?

    I think of this verse whenever I hear someone say that Jesus was at work in the world before the Christian era. If he was always here, how can he be a new thing? This is important because of the promises Jesus has given Christians. It is also important because there is another entity who has been here at least since the world was created: the prince of this world.

    In this article I will expand on Isaiah’s revelation of ‘the new thing’.

    The following is the entire passage from Isaiah 43:16-22.

    16 Thus saith the LORD, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; 
    17 Which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow. 
    18 Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. 
    19 Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. 
    20 The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. 
    21 This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise. 
    22 But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel. 
    (Isaiah 43:16-22  KJV)

    Political Theology

    When I wrote Justice of the Rupture, I was inspired by an article on the Political Theology Website. The article seemed to agree with my understanding that the birth of Jesus was a new thing in this world.

    Was Jesus a New Thing or Has He Always Existed?

    As I understand it, the claim that the Christ has always existed has two distinct sources. It can refer to a teaching of Hermeticism or to the decision of the First Council of Nicaea.

    The following is the decision of the First council of Nicaea:

    We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten (γεννηθέντα), not made, being of one substance (ὁμοούσιον, consubstantialem) with the Father. By whom all things were made, both which be in heaven and in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down [from heaven] and was incarnate and was made man. He suffered and the third day he rose again, and ascended into heaven. And he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead. And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost. And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not (ἤν ποτε ὅτε οὐκ ἦν), or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence [from the Father] or that he is a creature, or subject to change or conversion [τρεπτὸν in Greek; convertibilem in Latin] — all that so say, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them.

    First Council of Nicæa (A.D. 325)

    My Paraphrase of the Decision and a Request for Correction if Necessary

    I understand this decision to say that Jesus was begotten of the substance of the Father. He has always existed, just as the Father has always existed. Therefore, it is not correct to say there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that before he was begotten he did not exist. Or that he is made of a different substance or essence from the Father.

    I’m not a theologian and normally I would not attempt to analyze theology. However, an understanding of the Council’s decision has bearing on who and how we worship. I could be wrong, but the decision doesn’t seem to be explicit about Jesus’s pre-Christian working in the world, independent from the person of the Father.

    The Christ of Hermeticism

    One problem I see with Hermeticism’s claim that ‘the Christ’ operated in the world from the beginning, is the effect it has on our view of pre-Christian religions. If the Christ has always existed and he has taken part in the world from its creation, pre-Christian believers in those religions were wrong or evil. On the other hand, if Jesus was truly a new thing the ancient people were not at fault. They couldn’t be expected to conform to our understanding of the Christian religion. It is likely they were pressured to conform to the demands of another deity.

    Ancient Egyptians Were Compelled to Obey Their Gods

    The burial practices of ancient Egypt suggest that the Egyptians did not love their god or gods the way we love Jesus. Their deities compelled them to perform certain rituals in order to gain eternal life. And they found ways of hedging their bets.

    For example, it is interesting that the ancient Egyptians disguised the gender of women in their burial ceremonies. It was apparently the only way women could attain eternal life. If those deities had their way, women would not have been allowed in at all.

    In the ancient Egyptian mindset, only male divine beings such as Atum, Osiris, or Re had access to the powers of creation or resurrection (Bryan 1996; Roth 2000). Goddesses were believed to be protective vessels.1

    The Egyptians clearly knew what their deities demanded and yet they defied them in behalf of their women. I propose that those deities represented the prince of this world. If I’m correct about this identification, the prince of this world does not like women.

    I would argue that the Egyptian deities represent a hostile and indifferent cosmos; the same cosmos that was hostile to Jesus.

    The Baptism of Jesus

    According to the first chapter of Mark, something remarkable happened at the baptism of Jesus.

    In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:9-11)

    In the Political Theology article cited above, J. Leavitt Pearl argued that when the heavens were torn open it was an apocalypse. The voice from heaven had to burst through the cosmic order for the Spirit to descend on Jesus like a dove.

    Wikipedia’s Struggle Over the Virgin Birth Article

    When I wrote about my work on Wikipedia’s Miraculous Births article I concluded that Wikipedia’s editors must have an unspoken agreement that the Virgin Birth article should remain empty of content. Maybe they think such an article would be offensive to believers. (Wikipedia now has a separate article entitled Virgin Birth of Jesus. But the article, Virgin Birth, is still empty.)

    In my opinion, it is not necessary for Christians to deny virgin birth stories from other cultures. Those stories might resemble the pattern of the Christian story but their heroes are not comparable to Jesus. They belong to the ideology of earthly empires and have a different character. More importantly, they are not opposed to the prince of this world.

    The West’s Dalliance With Empire

    In this light, it is ironic that the West is currently being presented with the bellowing of empire-minded officials. It is especially revealing that their ideology comes complete with the denigration of women. Fortunately, their error has been carefully defined by scholars such as Robert Eisler.

    It seems our current ideologues have mixed up the metaphors not to mention the religions involved. They apparently don’t have the empathy shown by the ancient Egyptians. They have taken the side of the prince of this world.

    Orpheus the Fisher

    In his book, Orpheus the Fisher2, Robert Eisler had this to say about the development of Christianity:

    …I have certainly been deceived in my expectations of discovering early extensive and important Pagan influences on the initial formation of Christian ritual and cult symbolism. In 1908 I was still under the illusion–which I am afraid is even today cherished by many students of comparative religion–that primitive Christianity was, to a great extent, a syncretistic religion. In particular I had been strongly impressed by the statement of Eichhorn and other scholars, that we must look out for a pagan or, more exactly, an Oriental prototype for the Eucharist, since a sacramental, not to speak of a theophagic rite is unknown to the Jewish cult-system.(Eisler, Preface p. v)

    Here Eisler is telling us that due to the scholarly influence of his time he mistakenly connected the sacramental eating of fish and bread by Jesus’s disciples, with a hypothetical ritual of bread and fish-eating in pre-historic Canaan. But when he gave a lecture on this hypothesis he was criticized by a scholar named von Dobschutz-Strassburg. After further study, he came to the conclusion that the criticism was correct.

    By the time Orpheus the Fisher was published Eisler no longer believed in a connection between the Canaanite ritual and Christianity. He admits that there were later developments into a mystic theophagy and these had Pagan parallels, but pagan influences were not at work in the initial stage of Christian origin. Instead, the source of the Eucharistic rite is a purely Jewish ritual.

    Eisler went on to modify his views on similar problems. For example, he explains that although the deities of the mysteries seem to be similar to the Christian fisherman, those deities are cruel and unforgiving. Therefore, they do not resemble the character of God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.

    Jesus was not cruel. He was Isaiah’s ‘new thing’.

    1. Kathlyn (Kara) Cooney, Gender Transformation in Death: A Case Study of Coffins from Ramesside Period Egypt ↩︎

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