h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Toxx - on the other point...
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Well, I agree with the second part of the argument. But on the first, I'm not clear that if he didn't have human motivations he would have been an angel. True, he would have been unusual - we know that already.

Typo! I meant *contradictory* human motivations...

"It's fallen human nature that has original sin, not human nature per se. "

Sorry to be picky, Andrew, but that's not what you said, which was: "HS, original sin attaches to human nature, which is not body or soul (everything has a nature, including things without souls)."

"And it was not transmitted to Jesus."

Yeah, I know you've said that before, but I still think the theological explanations are unreasonable.

"Christianity (in common with Islam) simply abhors the misuse of sex, and the use of it in inhuman and inhumane ways. (Rape, pornography, incest, adultery etc.)"

But what is innately wrong with pornography or adultery? Not all porn involves exploitation (assuming that is what you were condemning, which is not the same thing).

Adultery is simply a technical term for sex for a person who is married having sex outwith the marriage e.g. A Catholic who hasn't lived with his/her spouse for years but whose church will not grant divorce or annulment; someone in an open relationship; someone whose spouse may be spending the rest of their life in an institution and the other souse will not desert/divorce them but has another relationship at the same time. Are all these uses inhuman and inhumane?

Hi HS!
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Yes, sorry, I realised I wasn't very exact earlier. Being picky is fine by me.

HS. I strongly agree with this:

Porn is in the eye of the beholder. In my view, the unacceptable form is that which involves photos or vids of criminal activity. That takes in violence, and non consensual sex with children - pretty much the norm under the age/stage of puberty, at least. Is someone who can get pregnant a child? Not in the case of any creature other than humans. I mean, of course, a puppy, kitten or whatever. I've never heard of a pregnant puppy or kitten.

toxx

Well OK, Andy. If he didn't have human motivations, which you seem to concede, then he wasn't completely human. Forget 'angel'; it still defeats the point of the incarnation.

toxx

Sorry for sounding like an Arian Heretic, but, how can he have human motivations if he is the same as the other parts of the Trinity?--he is immortal and knows it so he cannot fear death (as opposed to pain of dieing on the cross)--and he is omniscient, so he can't fear an unknown future--he knows exactly what will happen. If he is the same as the "Father" and "Holy Spirit", how can Jesus "Christ" have human motivations?

What's an "Arian Heratic"?

there were lots of disputes in the early Christian church about whether Jesus was human or divine
the Arians favoured the former
the church seeking to please everyone eventually went for both
the Goths and Vandals were both followers of the Arian heresy

Thanks, Blackberry Cat. I think I've heard of it somewhere, but I don't know where and I only remembered the name vaguely, nothing about what it was.

my post is a massive over-simplification
I've just finished a book that had a lot about it and I've already forgotten most of the theology
theology and philosophy seem to have that effect on me

From http://www.fact-index.com/c/ch/christology.html

The Chalcedonian view is that Christ possesses two natures, divine and human, which were united in the one person of Jesus Christ without either nature losing any of its properties. This view is the dogma of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, having been defined by the Council of Chalcedon. It is also the view of the Anglican church and the vast majority of Protestant churches.

The Arian view is that Christ is not fully divine, but was created by God for the purpose of accomplishing our salvation.
The Docetist view is that Christ was never fully human, but only appeared to be human.

The Adoptionist view is that Christ was born a man only, but became God's son by adoption when he was baptized in the Jordan.

The Nestorian view is that the Son of God, and the man, Jesus, shared the same body but retained two separate personhoods.


Alji

"Sorry for sounding like an Arian Heretic, but, how can he have human motivations if he is the same as the other parts of the Trinity?--he is immortal"

RDO, that's the opposite of Arianism, which denied the divinity in favour of the humanity. There was a major row in the Christian Church at the time about a single dipthong in the Greek which determined what was the orthodox and what the heretical view, and which resulted in the Nicene Creed.

All rather silly, really, as none of it makes sense. But blood was shed at the time.

OK, Alji, since we're getting into this:

the Eutychians believed that Jesus's humanity was not the same as 'normal' humanity, so redemption was not possible through him.

the Monophysites believed that Jesus's nature was completely Divine and not human. They broke with the Catholic Church in the 6th Century and became the Coptic, Abyssinian, Syrian Jacobite and Armenian Churches.

In other words, what you believe depends on which Church you were brought up in. Orthodoxy is in the eye of the beholder.

No, az. I think Christianity, Islam and Judaism are based on the divinity of God the god. As I said before, He isn't of the male sex but just, perhaps arbitrarily, of the masculine gender.

toxx

Hi Andrew.

I see this particular doctrine as an awkward but understandable attempt to distance God from sin and evil. God creates man with freewill and then man sins. So God created man less than perfect. God wouldn't do that! So the story is that only *after* man sinned did he *become* less than perfect. In effect, he recreated himself in an image other than God's. Where he obtained this self-recreating power is conveniently skipped over! Why would God have given him this power that was used just once in the history of the human race?

Today I think we have a better understanding of why God 'had' to create us with freewill and capable of sin all along. This was better than His creating sinless semi-automata. We no longer need the special 'distancing' story of original sin. It's just an explanatory device for the less sophisticated. For us it raises more questions than it answers as is shown by this discussion.

On another topic entirely, and naming no names, I notice that the word 'infer' has sneaked intended to mean 'imply'. Things imply, people infer; as in: "His symptoms implied that he had an infection and that is what I inferred".

toxx

"RDO, that's the opposite of Arianism, which denied the divinity in favour of the humanity. There was a major row in the Christian Church at the time about a single dipthong in the Greek which determined what was the orthodox and what the heretical view, and which resulted in the Nicene Creed."

No--you read my point backwards, probably because I was unclear--I was arguing that Jesus "Christ" couldn't be the same entity as Jehovah because for the idea of salvation by his death to make any sence (not that it makes much) he would have to be human. I should have clarified it better--I pointed out a contradiction but didn't say what I thought it showed.

Thanks RDO - I think you hit the nail on the head, although my conclusions are different.

The difficulty has always been, how could God show himself to us in human form (assuming he did). If he had manifested himself as the sun, or moon, or a waterfall or rainbow, as he could have done, there would be much less of a difficulty: he could just take over the object, and it would be easy to understand how he could be true God and true waterfall, or whatever (well, maybe not trivial). But if he took to himself a human body the whole thing becomes much more complicated to work out, because a human nature is much more involved, having free will, being able to do good and evil, etc.

Howver (in this thought experiment, if you will) the person of Jesus is still God. Hence, as you say, he cannot do evil any more than God can, even though he has taken human nature (or waterfall nature). Is he free? If God is free, Jesus must be, although not to do just anything because he cannot act contrary to his divine nature, which is good. And how does all this allow for his human nature?

These are the basic reasons why theologians have tied themselves in knots over these questions for centuries: it's really an attempt to work out how such a thing as the incarnation could happen without doing violence to one or other basic philosophical concept. But at the root there is always going to be some mystery or other.

Arius tried to get round this, saying that Jesus was not really God uncreated (although he was still special) because he couldn't have been. I think Arius began from the wrong starting point: assuming God exists, he could take on human form; the question is 'how'?

Hi Toxx

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I agree with most of what you say; and that the doctrine of original sin is, in a sense, not absolutely necessary. Interestingly some prominent theologians over the millennia have argued that Jesus would have come anyway, even without original sin to redeem (although this is a grey area, I think).

But although not necessary, I do think original is *consistent with* the basic position reachable through philosophy. Call it part of the superstructure.