WinePusher wrote: You don't affirm it did historically happen.
Right. That should be amply clear by now.
Which is odd, because as a Christian I expect you believe in an omnipotent God that does actively intervene in the world.
I do affirm such a thing, but the details get a little dicey. The Christan God is a god of history. Absolutely. This is the concept. The Jewish one too of course. But honesty requires me to say that exactly what those interventions are is hard to pin down, and we look suspect or even foolish when we try, especially if we have to be anachronistically premodernly-minded in doing so.
What you refer to as "magical history" is what I would refer to as Divine Intervention.
Sure, fair enough. You're free to believe that. It's possible. AGAIN, I don't deny it. But I do think the details get dicey and it would be wrongheaded to take the magical tales in the Bible literally in this regard when 1. they strain credulity, differ frm all our other experience, 2. can be considered to have a literary symbolic function, and 3. that symbolic function reveals meaning that is just as rich. That's my judgement, your mileage may vary. Having said that, I have several things I my own life that feel something like the presence and guiding hand of an interventionsist personal divine agent, aka God. Could be. I try to be open and present myself. Not yet ready to shout it from the rooftops.
Events such as the incarnation (not the immaculate conception) the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth are all examples of divine intervention by a supernatural agent. So if you do believe in supernatural agent why do you not affirm the historicity of these events? Here are some possible answers:
This supernatural agent does not intervene, making your type of Christianity inherently deistic.
This supernatural agent is not capable of intervening, making your type of Christianity equivalent to naturalism.
You might think so, but let me offer a third possibility after commenting on these.
First I've always recoiled from Deism, because I think it gives a shallow answer to the wrong question. I think it's an artifact of the enlightenment, and sort of a casualty of the enlightenment best left in the 18th century. It's no more evidentiary than what it rejects and its strikes me as ultimately a coping strategy stuck in a halfway house. I think it's jive.
Second, no, not naturalism. Naturalism-as-religion is a reduction to ethics, which I reject.
What these two have in common is an evidentiary framework. They make and abide in positive truth claims about states of affairs that are unsupportable, and in doing so reduce religion and miss the point of religion.
The third possibility, and the one I embrace, is christian mysticism. This is a huge area, but pertaining to our discussion, the pertinant themes would be these:
- god is unknowable, even while present, and all our discussion of him must be symbolic and humble, radically inadequete.
- god is "beyond" God, beyond even notions like existence, simply because he/it cannot be reduced to earthly categories.
- so even while God can be said to be omnipotent and omnipresent, and yes a god of history, an
event paradigm is not the richest way to frame God. Rather, God is closer to a presence and ground than an actor/agent. This is NOT to say that God doesn't and can't do specific interventions, it simply says that our framing of God and experience of God is not best served by emphasiszing this aspect; it represents a common but more pedestrian notion that spiritual adepts and advanced students transcend, a missed opportunity.
- the bible stories are not meant to establish a historical record or prove to us the power of God. Rather they are meant to help us frame God, no matter our sophistication level, in order to affect a transformation and liberation, metanoia and salvation. It's not about what God does, except to say that God is underneath and behind all, and he does things in our hearts through the presence of grace (what rahner called the "transcendental existential," referencing Heidegger).
Over the decades, I have found this strain of christianity and world religion increasingly to be the most satisfying, compelling, and rich. It's not
about events and linear thinking (to affirm or deny); it's about shifting, overcoming death, and living a sanctified life, a mini-incarnation, leading with faith, hope, and love, out there at the edge of reason and knowability, falling into poetry and unreason and unknowability, trusting the void, after Kierkegaard. The Bible stories establish a framework, hold a record of faith development, and work for people in a sub-mystical frame of mind. (My only qualm is when otherwise intelligent and modern people start insisting on anachronistic literalism in a way that encroaches upon other people in politics, policy, and morality, and in doing so reduce the possibilities of their faith away from the sublime and toward the pedestrian).
FWIW, we see this same dynamic of literal-magical giving way to symbolic and mystical in other world religions too. People forget that hinduism and buddhism have all sorts of wild tales, and millions of simple peasant/craftsmen adherents who take them literally, including a virgin birth story or two. (BTW, my wife read an academic paper positively comparing catholicism and daosim, as sensual and positive, vs. protestantism and buddhism as austere and cold. I'll try to get my hands on it).
Slopeshoulder wrote:[strike]Lastly, I retract nazi and substitute fascist. It is more accurate (nazism is a subset of fascism) and less inflammatory.[/strike]
I don't care and I've striked out the personal comments you put up even after other Christian users have expressed concerns over the type of rhetoric both you and I presented in this thread. But I do laugh at the fact that you consider me some sort of facist extremist considering that you are pretty familiar with what my religious views actually are and how similar they are to yours, whether it be on creationism, biblical literalism and eschatology.
First, how DO you actually use the strike finction? Shermana and IAMALLIAM tempt me to make liberal use of it rather than bothering with these time consuming responses!
Let's put this to rest: I don't label you a fascist. I simply point out that, an inarguable fact, the hard right in america and elsewhere has fascist tendencies, inclinations, and analogies, by definition. And that I see some of this is your religous and political ideas, your hero's ideas, and your expression and tactics. If the shoe fits... I refer you to Umberto Eco's 14 points of universal fascism. It has many faces and looks different in each incarnation. For example, if this were the early 30's and you were in Spain, I find it hard to believe you would not be an activist supporter of Franco. Today, in America we see it taking other forms. This is not an insult, it is an analysis, and a warning to readers. I would be DELIGHTED to be wrong, I assure you. Give me a good old conservative any time.
Slopeshoulder wrote:As I posted way above, I do affirm the ressurection. Something happened, and it wasn't just paul fibbin' or being a visionary genius. but what is is is unknowable to us. But my humble judgment is that it wasn't a literal bodily resurrection, but rather a mass breaking through of transformative insight, based on the Jesus events and Jesus' ministry and the memory and impact of Jesus.
A line out of the book of John Dominic Crossan.
Possibly. But I've read very little Crossan. I don't like his reduction to politics, or his insistence.
It was a resurrection of belief in the disciples rather than a literal resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Sure, why not? That and more though.
This is a very interesting topic that deserves it's own thread. In my view, it was both. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead was the event that resurrected belief and conviction and enlightenment amoung the community of believers.
Sure, could be. I don't deny it or claim it is impossible. That would be an evidentiary reductionism that I reject. Or possibly the belief in it took hold as the insight got translated via a premodern mindset where deep meaning and tall tales intersected in myth in a way that is lost to us today. I find myth-based interpretations to be more compelling, and sufficiently orthodox if done with nuance and faithfulness.
It's puzzling though that you would hold the latter view without accepting the former for the following reasons: What was the "transformative insight?"
The briefest and barely adequate answer is that a crucifed inacarnated god-man held the key, through everything he said, did, was, and meant, to effective triumph over death, transform consciosuness, liberate us from sin and death, complete a covenant, shift an ethic, fark the Romans, and radically fulfill the divine-human project as envisioned by the Jews, for the whole world.
Actually, this answer can be found in historical writings. The "transformative insight" that fell upon the disciples was a sincere and strong belief in Jesus Christ as God, unless you have something different to add.
Yes, and all that means.
What was the cause of this "transformative insight?" You admittedly say that the cause of this new found insight is unknowable but that something happened.
I'd be speculating. I don't know. I read Josh McDowell's Evicence that Demands a Verdict some 30 years ago at some fundyfriend's insistence, and wasn't convinced. (That started my liberal journey, because while ol' Josh struck me as a clown, the christian existentialists had me by the throat).
It probably started with the sages/visionaries, fueled among the people responding to the roman boot and the messianic ethos, and spread like wildfire, aided by the premodern mindset (which is fine with me, I like myth and sometimes envy the premoderns). I'm not sure an actual physical ressurection is required once the symbolism amd mometum took hold. The ancients believed all sorts of magical things that were replete with meaning, including the greeks and romans, from the most simple to the most sophisticated person. The issue is: what are to make of it, and do with it, in our contemporary context? Liberals suggest that reappropriation is the most faithful thing we can do.
But this is a judgment call. The POINT is that we are both free to believe what we want, be called Christian, and have whatever derision we fling be based on ideas and perhaps the character of the person holding these ideas, NOT impugning one's status as a believeing, confessing, apologizing Christian, as you so odiously attempted in the OP and for which your recieved a SS Smackdown.
What prevents you from saying that this "something" was the resurrection of Jesus?
1. a modern mindset, or let's say a mindset that tries to balance the premodern, modern, and postmodern. For me that means reason, meets myth, meets presence/prayer, in equal measure, which BTW is a very catholic mindset.
2. satisfaction with other interpretations that focus on meaning rather than events.
3. confidence that at least one of these other interpretations passes orthodox muster. The challenge to the theologian is to find which one. Even I don't wish to be a heretic.
) Without naming names, they do not and never will represent my Christianity. Thus, I've come to the conclusion that distinctions need to be drawn within the Christian Faith.
Or do you justify this by saying God is spirit and only Christ's spirit was resurrected???
