I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.
The thing is, IMHO, that this verse is all about the context. If you are preaching to an audience of people who know and believe--really believe--in the Tri-UNITY, as opposed to a vague tritheism, then you're probably okay. But to just stick that verse out there with no context from the Gospel or other Christian learning, in a world where abuse is common, well... I think a lot of people are going to misread it. I'd prefer to use the one about "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself," personally.
The same person who wrote John 3.16 also wrote "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Not quite. The author of the Gospel is, in chapter 3, quoting Jesus' words, not his own. The Johannine Prologue is, one assumes, in the author's words.
I agree that neither passage is easy to understand...
In the absence of quotation marks in Greek, it's pretty much impossible to know where exactly Jesus leaves off and the narrator picks up in John 3.
But leaving that aside--
My point is that a Christianity-illiterate audience is not likely to understand John 3:16 correctly, which is why it's probably not the world's best choice for something to paint on a public sign, etc. They are far more familiar with the concept of child abuse than they are with the concept of intercoherent Persons of the Godhead. So, for all that verse comforts us wonderfully, it may be doing just the opposite to Joe Blow down the street who has never darkened a church door in his life.
I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.
The thing is, IMHO, that this verse is all about the context. If you are preaching to an audience of people who know and believe--really believe--in the Tri-UNITY, as opposed to a vague tritheism, then you're probably okay. But to just stick that verse out there with no context from the Gospel or other Christian learning, in a world where abuse is common, well... I think a lot of people are going to misread it. I'd prefer to use the one about "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself," personally.
The same person who wrote John 3.16 also wrote "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Not quite. The author of the Gospel is, in chapter 3, quoting Jesus' words, not his own. The Johannine Prologue is, one assumes, in the author's words.
I agree that neither passage is easy to understand...
The same author who recorded Jesus as saying "I and the Father are one.” John 10.30. I have always assumed that the Prologue is based on statements like this
I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.
The thing is, IMHO, that this verse is all about the context. If you are preaching to an audience of people who know and believe--really believe--in the Tri-UNITY, as opposed to a vague tritheism, then you're probably okay. But to just stick that verse out there with no context from the Gospel or other Christian learning, in a world where abuse is common, well... I think a lot of people are going to misread it. I'd prefer to use the one about "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself," personally.
The same person who wrote John 3.16 also wrote "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Not quite. The author of the Gospel is, in chapter 3, quoting Jesus' words, not his own. The Johannine Prologue is, one assumes, in the author's words.
I thought the same until an Orthodox friend said he had never seen it phrased as a quote from Jesus, but a parenthetical note from the author of John. Some Googling on my part revealed that it depends on the translation you use.
I'll argue with anyone, authors of gospels (or their tranlators) down - or possibly up. There is scriptural backing for arguing with God, after all. I've a Jewish friend who detects Jewishness in that in me. Probably wrongly.
LC has got it.
The most awful, poster at that church was a hand written one in two parts.
"God Loves You" on one half.
"If you don't love Him, you will go to hell." on the other. I paraphrase here, but the message was that unambiguous. Not the message in that Francis Xavier hymn. Loving God is not because of heaven or hell, it is because that is the true response to God's love.
That was ages ago, and since then, that writer of wayside sermons has been kept off the signs.
I've seen Abraham and Isaac used as a sort of prevision of Christ's self sacrifice, when I have been given to understand that the point of that story (and the Islamic version with Ishmael) is that killing your sons is not required, whatever the heathen do.
I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.
The thing is, IMHO, that this verse is all about the context. If you are preaching to an audience of people who know and believe--really believe--in the Tri-UNITY, as opposed to a vague tritheism, then you're probably okay. But to just stick that verse out there with no context from the Gospel or other Christian learning, in a world where abuse is common, well... I think a lot of people are going to misread it. I'd prefer to use the one about "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself," personally.
The same person who wrote John 3.16 also wrote "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Not quite. The author of the Gospel is, in chapter 3, quoting Jesus' words, not his own. The Johannine Prologue is, one assumes, in the author's words.
I thought the same until an Orthodox friend said he had never seen it phrased as a quote from Jesus, but a parenthetical note from the author of John. Some Googling on my part revealed that it depends on the translation you use.
My thanks to you and @Lamb Chopped for the correction.
I should have said *seems* or *appears to be quoting Jesus' own words*...
Ohhhhh no he wasn't. But weren't you @Bishops Finger? They are eternally prevenient of, to, on as in upon as in He's beholden to them, God. He has no choice but to comply with them, He can only instantiate them. Including the measurable only fundamental dimensioned (and dimensionless) physical constants I'll wager, unless God has to om in the keys of c, G & h (& k & K & epsilon & mu nought, & alpha and beta and other arcana like 15 fundamental particle masses).
Actually, I wasn't being facetious - although I'm not sure I fully
understand your explanation...
The laws of physics are independent of God. He has to humbly comply with them and therefore always has. Even the stuff that looks fine tuned, like the speed of light, the universal constant of gravitation, Planck's constant, vacuum electrical and magnetic properties, fundamental particle masses, is self tuned, crystallizes out at the intersections, the vertices as soon as God instantiates the minimal phenomena. Reality changeth not.
I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.
The thing is, IMHO, that this verse is all about the context. If you are preaching to an audience of people who know and believe--really believe--in the Tri-UNITY, as opposed to a vague tritheism, then you're probably okay. But to just stick that verse out there with no context from the Gospel or other Christian learning, in a world where abuse is common, well... I think a lot of people are going to misread it. I'd prefer to use the one about "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself," personally.
The same person who wrote John 3.16 also wrote "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Not quite. The author of the Gospel is, in chapter 3, quoting Jesus' words, not his own. The Johannine Prologue is, one assumes, in the author's words.
I agree that neither passage is easy to understand...
The same author who recorded Jesus as saying "I and the Father are one.” John 10.30. I have always assumed that the Prologue is based on statements like this
Well, it seems that what I've thought - and was taught - were Jesus' own words may be those of the author, so who knows?
Ohhhhh no he wasn't. But weren't you @Bishops Finger? They are eternally prevenient of, to, on as in upon as in He's beholden to them, God. He has no choice but to comply with them, He can only instantiate them. Including the measurable only fundamental dimensioned (and dimensionless) physical constants I'll wager, unless God has to om in the keys of c, G & h (& k & K & epsilon & mu nought, & alpha and beta and other arcana like 15 fundamental particle masses).
Actually, I wasn't being facetious - although I'm not sure I fully
understand your explanation...
The laws of physics are independent of God. He has to humbly comply with them and therefore always has. Even the stuff that looks fine tuned, like the speed of light, the universal constant of gravitation, Planck's constant, vacuum electrical and magnetic properties, fundamental particle masses, is self tuned, crystallizes out at the intersections, the vertices as soon as God instantiates the minimal phenomena. Reality changeth not.
Yes, I see, but the question still remains in my one functioning brain cell - how did those laws come into existence, and still remain independent of God? This may be rather off-topic, I suppose...
I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.
But Jesus was fully God and fully human. In some ways he was God and I’m some ways his son. He is a special case.
That should be in some way his son which makes more sense
I understood your meaning, but, as so many others have found down the years, I still don't quite see how Jesus was fully God and fully human actually works!
We are not God so we cannot understand God fully and understand what he is fully capable of. If God is omnipotent then there is nothing he cannot do.
Making himself human makes him more relatable to the people he meets. We relate more to human figure. If God showed his full nature we would not be able to cope. So he made himself human to relate better
Rowan Williams argues that God isn't in any kind of conflict with creation: so there's no conflict between being fully God and being fully human.
God is completely different from created things which means that there's no logical contradiction. (The logical term is that being God is a different category from being human: human is a type of thing, and one can't be two different types of thing at the same time, but God isn't any type of thing.)
Yes, but is it not the case that in order to share our human experience *in the flesh*, he laid aside much of his divinity?
IOW, whilst he was fully human, he was (in a sense) not fully God.
To answer this no. You are applying human limitations to God who as Dafyd points out is not human. Why can God not be fully human and fully God if he is omnipotent. It is not logical as we see it as humans but God is not human.
Why can God not be fully human and fully God if he is omnipotent. It is not logical as we see it as humans but God is not human.
That's not actually what I was saying. Omnipotence doesn't mean God can bring about logical contradictions. The argument is that there isn't actually a logical contradiction between being God and being human. There would be a contradiction if God were some kind of superhuman being like Zeus but God isn't that either.
I get really worried about the emphasis on the text from John "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." currently adorning a church on the South Circular. As LC said above, it is Himself, not a separate entity who ends up on the cross.
The thing is, IMHO, that this verse is all about the context. If you are preaching to an audience of people who know and believe--really believe--in the Tri-UNITY, as opposed to a vague tritheism, then you're probably okay. But to just stick that verse out there with no context from the Gospel or other Christian learning, in a world where abuse is common, well... I think a lot of people are going to misread it. I'd prefer to use the one about "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself," personally.
The same person who wrote John 3.16 also wrote "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
Not quite. The author of the Gospel is, in chapter 3, quoting Jesus' words, not his own. The Johannine Prologue is, one assumes, in the author's words.
I agree that neither passage is easy to understand...
The same author who recorded Jesus as saying "I and the Father are one.” John 10.30. I have always assumed that the Prologue is based on statements like this
Well, it seems that what I've thought - and was taught - were Jesus' own words may be those of the author, so who knows?
Ohhhhh no he wasn't. But weren't you @Bishops Finger? They are eternally prevenient of, to, on as in upon as in He's beholden to them, God. He has no choice but to comply with them, He can only instantiate them. Including the measurable only fundamental dimensioned (and dimensionless) physical constants I'll wager, unless God has to om in the keys of c, G & h (& k & K & epsilon & mu nought, & alpha and beta and other arcana like 15 fundamental particle masses).
Actually, I wasn't being facetious - although I'm not sure I fully
understand your explanation...
The laws of physics are independent of God. He has to humbly comply with them and therefore always has. Even the stuff that looks fine tuned, like the speed of light, the universal constant of gravitation, Planck's constant, vacuum electrical and magnetic properties, fundamental particle masses, is self tuned, crystallizes out at the intersections, the vertices as soon as God instantiates the minimal phenomena. Reality changeth not.
Yes, I see, but the question still remains in my one functioning brain cell - how did those laws come into existence, and still remain independent of God? This may be rather off-topic, I suppose...
Taking on the tangent, just for a moment--
the laws are not SENIOR to God--they come into being as a result of God's nature, and they do not constrain him except in so far as his own nature constrains him. Which is to say, God is free to do whatever God wants to do. That is what omnipotence (with omniscience) means--that there is nothing to stop you doing what you want to do.
Nonsense
It does NOT mean that you can carry out any action some idiot has found a way to bundle into words, regardless of whether it is nonsense or not. Something self-contradictory is not a Thing at all, to be desired or done by anybody. How can anybody, even God, both want and not want the exact same thing at the same time? As Lewis put it, "Nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God."
What God Dislikes
It is also wrong to claim that God's omnipotence is disproven because he does not (cannot, will not, take your pick) do thing X that is an affront to his own nature. Acting in character is freedom, not slavery; when a person acts out of character, we routinely look for the constraint that is forcing him to do so (brain cancer, a gun to the head, poverty, what have you).
In the case of God, we can see that he
delights in order, elegance, sense (as opposed to nonsense), and wisdom. So it's not at all surprising to find a universe made by him will show these traits. And it is unlikely in the highest degree that God himself will do anything that is at bottom counter to order, elegance, sense, wisdom, holiness, goodness, and etc. etc. etc. Whenever we see something that looks like that, we rightly dig deeper, and find that the allegedly-contradicted trait is still there, just on a deeper and subtler level. (This leaves aside the problem of a fallen universe, where wills other than God's are free to act. That gets more complicated.)
Keeping His Own Rules
So being the kind of person he is, it is no surprise to find him "obeying" the laws of physics, etc. instead of just randomly tossing them into the bin because he's feeling ornery. He set up those laws, they reflect his own personality and nature, and to set them aside would require a motive rooted in an even deeper part of his nature (for example, Christ's miracles, which flow from compassion and also serve as a "sign" of his identity and mission; it takes something this important for God to suspend the natural laws he set up.)
Yes, but is it not the case that in order to share our human experience *in the flesh*, he laid aside much of his divinity?
IOW, whilst he was fully human, he was (in a sense) not fully God.
To answer this no. You are applying human limitations to God who as Dafyd points out is not human. Why can God not be fully human and fully God if he is omnipotent. It is not logical as we see it as humans but God is not human.
We've got a lot of confusion and even category errors going on in this discussion, as some people have pointed out. Would it help to point you to the analogy of an author who inserts herself as a character into her own story?
If I do so, I remain myself (the author) and yet am fully the character at the same time. There is no contradiction between "I, the author" and "I, the character"; we are on two different levels of existence, which do not rule each other out. I can be both at once.
As for laying aside his deity/divinity--
The reference is not to him laying aside his own nature (who can do that, even God? God ceasing to be God? It's nonsense, as I pointed out above). The reference is rather to him laying aside much of his perquisites (if I may use the term) AS God. Which is to say, he is still omni-whatzit, but deliberately chooses not to access that part of his nature most of the time. So he doesn't turn stones into bread to satisfy his own hunger, though he will cheerfully multiply bread and fish for the sake of other people; he occasionally reads minds and hearts, but only for the good of other people who are basically in deep shit and need some sorting out (I take it that most of the time he simply infers what people are thinking from what they say and do, like ordinary human beings must). He knows the future as it pertains to his mission (the cross and resurrection, mainly) but doesn't bother trying to predict the hockey scores. And so on, and so forth. He "plays fair" when it comes to being a man. What Godly liberties he takes, he takes for the sake of other people and for their wellbeing.
It's entirely possible to do this. We all see how you can limit yourself from certain abilities you actually have--for instance, handicapping yourself with special rules so that you can play kickball with a grandchild and not win by sheer brute force. And even knowledge can be sequestered in some situations. I think of the many times I have heard the opening notes of a tune I know and despise coming on the radio, and the quick lunge to turn it off before I am forced to fully recognize it, bring it into consciousness, and end up with an earworm for the next three days. I make the lunge because I DO know the tune (and hate it); but I also make it because at that second in time, I do NOT yet "know" the tune--it hasn't come fully into my consciousness, just a single toe or a scaly tail of it--and I can prevent real, full knowledge at this point if I really want to. And I do.
Comments
In the absence of quotation marks in Greek, it's pretty much impossible to know where exactly Jesus leaves off and the narrator picks up in John 3.
But leaving that aside--
My point is that a Christianity-illiterate audience is not likely to understand John 3:16 correctly, which is why it's probably not the world's best choice for something to paint on a public sign, etc. They are far more familiar with the concept of child abuse than they are with the concept of intercoherent Persons of the Godhead. So, for all that verse comforts us wonderfully, it may be doing just the opposite to Joe Blow down the street who has never darkened a church door in his life.
The same author who recorded Jesus as saying "I and the Father are one.” John 10.30. I have always assumed that the Prologue is based on statements like this
I thought the same until an Orthodox friend said he had never seen it phrased as a quote from Jesus, but a parenthetical note from the author of John. Some Googling on my part revealed that it depends on the translation you use.
LC has got it.
The most awful, poster at that church was a hand written one in two parts.
"God Loves You" on one half.
"If you don't love Him, you will go to hell." on the other. I paraphrase here, but the message was that unambiguous. Not the message in that Francis Xavier hymn. Loving God is not because of heaven or hell, it is because that is the true response to God's love.
That was ages ago, and since then, that writer of wayside sermons has been kept off the signs.
I've seen Abraham and Isaac used as a sort of prevision of Christ's self sacrifice, when I have been given to understand that the point of that story (and the Islamic version with Ishmael) is that killing your sons is not required, whatever the heathen do.
My thanks to you and @Lamb Chopped for the correction.
I should have said *seems* or *appears to be quoting Jesus' own words*...
The laws of physics are independent of God. He has to humbly comply with them and therefore always has. Even the stuff that looks fine tuned, like the speed of light, the universal constant of gravitation, Planck's constant, vacuum electrical and magnetic properties, fundamental particle masses, is self tuned, crystallizes out at the intersections, the vertices as soon as God instantiates the minimal phenomena. Reality changeth not.
Well, it seems that what I've thought - and was taught - were Jesus' own words may be those of the author, so who knows?
Yes, I see, but the question still remains in my one functioning brain cell - how did those laws come into existence, and still remain independent of God? This may be rather off-topic, I suppose...
That should be in some way his son which makes more sense
Making himself human makes him more relatable to the people he meets. We relate more to human figure. If God showed his full nature we would not be able to cope. So he made himself human to relate better
Yes, but is it not the case that in order to share our human experience *in the flesh*, he laid aside much of his divinity?
IOW, whilst he was fully human, he was (in a sense) not fully God.
God is completely different from created things which means that there's no logical contradiction. (The logical term is that being God is a different category from being human: human is a type of thing, and one can't be two different types of thing at the same time, but God isn't any type of thing.)
To answer this no. You are applying human limitations to God who as Dafyd points out is not human. Why can God not be fully human and fully God if he is omnipotent. It is not logical as we see it as humans but God is not human.
Taking on the tangent, just for a moment--
the laws are not SENIOR to God--they come into being as a result of God's nature, and they do not constrain him except in so far as his own nature constrains him. Which is to say, God is free to do whatever God wants to do. That is what omnipotence (with omniscience) means--that there is nothing to stop you doing what you want to do.
Nonsense
It does NOT mean that you can carry out any action some idiot has found a way to bundle into words, regardless of whether it is nonsense or not. Something self-contradictory is not a Thing at all, to be desired or done by anybody. How can anybody, even God, both want and not want the exact same thing at the same time? As Lewis put it, "Nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God."
What God Dislikes
It is also wrong to claim that God's omnipotence is disproven because he does not (cannot, will not, take your pick) do thing X that is an affront to his own nature. Acting in character is freedom, not slavery; when a person acts out of character, we routinely look for the constraint that is forcing him to do so (brain cancer, a gun to the head, poverty, what have you).
In the case of God, we can see that he
delights in order, elegance, sense (as opposed to nonsense), and wisdom. So it's not at all surprising to find a universe made by him will show these traits. And it is unlikely in the highest degree that God himself will do anything that is at bottom counter to order, elegance, sense, wisdom, holiness, goodness, and etc. etc. etc. Whenever we see something that looks like that, we rightly dig deeper, and find that the allegedly-contradicted trait is still there, just on a deeper and subtler level. (This leaves aside the problem of a fallen universe, where wills other than God's are free to act. That gets more complicated.)
Keeping His Own Rules
So being the kind of person he is, it is no surprise to find him "obeying" the laws of physics, etc. instead of just randomly tossing them into the bin because he's feeling ornery. He set up those laws, they reflect his own personality and nature, and to set them aside would require a motive rooted in an even deeper part of his nature (for example, Christ's miracles, which flow from compassion and also serve as a "sign" of his identity and mission; it takes something this important for God to suspend the natural laws he set up.)
We've got a lot of confusion and even category errors going on in this discussion, as some people have pointed out. Would it help to point you to the analogy of an author who inserts herself as a character into her own story?
If I do so, I remain myself (the author) and yet am fully the character at the same time. There is no contradiction between "I, the author" and "I, the character"; we are on two different levels of existence, which do not rule each other out. I can be both at once.
As for laying aside his deity/divinity--
The reference is not to him laying aside his own nature (who can do that, even God? God ceasing to be God? It's nonsense, as I pointed out above). The reference is rather to him laying aside much of his perquisites (if I may use the term) AS God. Which is to say, he is still omni-whatzit, but deliberately chooses not to access that part of his nature most of the time. So he doesn't turn stones into bread to satisfy his own hunger, though he will cheerfully multiply bread and fish for the sake of other people; he occasionally reads minds and hearts, but only for the good of other people who are basically in deep shit and need some sorting out (I take it that most of the time he simply infers what people are thinking from what they say and do, like ordinary human beings must). He knows the future as it pertains to his mission (the cross and resurrection, mainly) but doesn't bother trying to predict the hockey scores. And so on, and so forth. He "plays fair" when it comes to being a man. What Godly liberties he takes, he takes for the sake of other people and for their wellbeing.
It's entirely possible to do this. We all see how you can limit yourself from certain abilities you actually have--for instance, handicapping yourself with special rules so that you can play kickball with a grandchild and not win by sheer brute force. And even knowledge can be sequestered in some situations. I think of the many times I have heard the opening notes of a tune I know and despise coming on the radio, and the quick lunge to turn it off before I am forced to fully recognize it, bring it into consciousness, and end up with an earworm for the next three days. I make the lunge because I DO know the tune (and hate it); but I also make it because at that second in time, I do NOT yet "know" the tune--it hasn't come fully into my consciousness, just a single toe or a scaly tail of it--and I can prevent real, full knowledge at this point if I really want to. And I do.
Jesus can do the same.
Thank you - a lot to take in, and to think about, but very helpful.