Thursday, May 19, 2016

What the Son Knows-Final Part of a Dialogue with Barnabas

[Barnabas]
"and you raise the question, on what is supposedly, the ignorance of Jesus on certain things. Let's first of all understand that Jesus' knowledge was never on a level as our own limited awareness, people seem to just look at what Jesus appears not to know, and ignore what He does know. He knew an individual's undisclosed past (John 1:47; 4:29), and the thoughts of His enemies (Luke 6:8) and friends (Luke 9:47), which is a sole attribute of God (Acts 15:8; 2
Chron. 6:29; 1 Kings 8:38). And Jesus understood the Old Testament Scriptures in an unprecedented manner (Matt 22:29; 26:54-56; Luke 24;27).

[Edgar]
The Son of God certainly knew what was in the heart of humans (Jn 2:25). The question is, how did he know it? Was he omniscient? Alternatively, did God's spirit and his pre-existence as the first creature of God allow him to know the interior life of humans? The Scriptures answer that Jesus of Nazareth was anointed with God's spirit and power. Because of this fact, he was able to go through the land of Palestine doing good (Acts 10:38). The prophet Isaiah (11:1-3) foretold that the Messiah would be filled with "a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD [YHWH], and his delight shall be the fear of the LORD [YHWH]" (NAB).

[Barnabas]
"in fact Jesus even says this about Himself, "no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son will reveal Him" (Matt. 11:27). From this passage, both the omniscience and
incomprehensibility of Christ are declared by Himself. He who knows the Father is omniscient, and He who is known only by the Father is incomprehensible, we get glimpse of the divine nature only as Jesus will reveal."

[Edgar]
Again, I think you're reading far too much into this text, rather than extracting meaning from it, as one should do. If the Son fully knowing the Father and vice versa functions as proof of Christ's "omniscience and incomprehensibility," then what about the latter part of the passage? When Jesus reveals the Father to one of his disciples and the enlightened disciple comes to "fully know" the Father and Son, would you say that he/she then becomes omniscient or incomprehensible? Notice that OUDEIS (in Mt 11:27) is qualified by KAI hWi EAN BOULHTAI hO hUIOS APOKALUYAI.

[Barnabas]
"christ omniscience is further expressed in the fact that He hears and answers the prayers of His people (John 14:14). This ability to hear and answer the prayers of His disciples is a claim to omniscience. To be able to hear each prayer of His disciples—offered up to him night and day, day in and day out throughout the centuries—keep each request infallibly related to its petitioner, and answer each one in accordance with the divine mind and will, would require Him to be omniscient!"

[Edgar]
Jn 14:14 neither teaches that we should pray to Christ nor does it prove that he hears prayers. We are instructed to pray to God the Father through the Son in the spirit. Jesus taught us to pray, "Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified" (Mt 6:9 NWT). He did not encourage or exhort his disciples to offer prayers to him. Asking the Father for something in Jesus' name does not mean that we pray to Christ.

[Barnabas]
"but why does it show that Jesus didn't know certain things? Why for example, when His friend Lazarus died He knew about it without being told and set off for Bethany, but when He got there He asked where Lazarus had been laid (John 11)? The answer is quite simple. Just as in Genesis 18:20-21 and 22:12 where it is clear that God chooses to know and not know certain things, Jesus chooses not to know certain thing, that is He chooses not to exercising His omniscience. And so if we were to use the same line of reasoning that you employ that deny Jesus' Deity because it appears He has limited knowledge of certain things, then from Genesis 18:20-21 we can assume that Yahveh has limited knowledge and is not omniscient also."

[Edgar]
The two situations that you mention are not analogous. In the case of YHWH in the OT, we are told in no uncertain terms that He is "perfect in knowledge" (Job 37:16); no explicit statement of this sort is posited with respect to Christ. Furthermore, if your theory corresponded to reality, then one would expect that if the Father knows the day and hour, then the Son, if he is Almighty God, would also know the day and hour, which only the Father knows (Mt 24:36). To argue that the Son can choose not to know what the Father knows--yet they are supposedly hOMOOUSION--implies
that the Son has a different divine consciousness than the Father does, which implies tritheism rather than trinitarianism.

[Barnabas]
"my friend it seems that it is your theology that is getting in your way of understanding the scriptures; for only one that has a poor grasp of the idiom of certain phrases would read into the passage of Rev 3:14 that the subject was created."

[Edgar]
Evidently, BDAG Greek-English Lexicon also is controlled by the editor's theology and he also must have a poor grasp of the idiom in Rev 3:14 since this magisterial source states that the meaning "first created" for ARXH is "linguistically probable" which was upgraded from the older BAGD, which said this meaning is "linguistically possible."

6 comments:

Philip Fletcher said...

No matter how hard they try, when a trinitarian says Jesus what limited in human form, like it is ok to blaspheme the son but not the holy spirit, or the day and the hour unknown to him. They make it clear that somehow Jesus is 2 types of person in one. They separate him from there so-called trinity. But he is the same, only because that is what they suppose to and choose to believe. Complete nonscience.

Edgar Foster said...

They want to say 2 natures, but one person; however, many thingsd still don't add up, including the point you mention about blaspheming the Son. Some Trinitarians have honestly called the Incarnation of Christ a mystery or a contradiction.

Edgar Foster said...

And when they say "mystery," these writers don't necessarily mean in the sense of the Greek mysterion. See Rev. 10:7.

Philip Fletcher said...

I wonder if they feel the father has 2 natures, as well as the holy spirit. It would lead one to believe in a double triple/ triple double(not sure which) God. I don't know if they are either. On the serious side of things, it is amazing what the human mind can comprehend. Making up this 2 natures in one person thing. It is enough to give anyone trying to make sense of what is being said go crazy. The Trinity makes a reasonable person unsound in mind. I don't think God wants a people who are unsound in mind worshipping him. Just my thoughts.

Edgar Foster said...

From my experience with Trinitarians, they usually believe that only the Son has two natures: the Father only has one and it's the same for the holy spirit. The three persons are one substance, but each person is supposed to be distinct from the other, like Peter, James, and John are three humans, but three distinct persons. The Trinity is dizzying.

Matt13weedhacker said...

GREGORY OF NYSSA (circa. 335-395 C.E.): "...In truth, the question you propound to us is no small one, nor such that but small harm will follow if it meets with insufficient treatment. For by the force of the question, we are at first sight compelled to accept one or other of two erroneous opinions, and either to say “there are three Gods,” which is unlawful, or not to acknowledge the Godhead of the Son and the Holy Spirit, which is impious and absurd. The argument which you state is something like this: -- Peter, James, and John, -- being in one human nature, are called three men: and there is no absurdity in describing those who are united in nature, if they are more than one, by the plural number of the name derived from their nature. If, then, in the above case, custom admits this, and no one forbids us to speak of those who are two as two, or those who are more than two as three, how is it that in the case of our statements of the mysteries of the Faith, though confessing the Three Persons, and acknowledging no difference of nature between them, we are in some sense at variance with our confession, when we say that the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is one, and yet forbid men to say “there are three Gods”? The question is, as I said, very difficult to deal with: yet, if we should be able to find anything that may give support to the uncertainty of our mind, so that it may no longer totter and waver in this monstrous dilemma..." - (Paragraphs 2-3, Translated by H.A. Wilson. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.)

It's designed confusion. A more refined same *identity* heresy.