How Orthodoxy Imports Literal Preexistence…
June 1st, 2008 by JohnO
Presented by Sir Anthony Buzzard at the One God Conference, Seattle WA June 1st 2008, commentary by John Obelenus. Click here to listen.
Anthony opens up talking about singular pronouns, that echad really means one, and that elohim is not a collective noun - no Hebrew scholar says it is. He goes through some personal correspondence and scholarly works in which more and more Socinian Scriptural points are being conceded by self-professed Trinitarian important scholars. None of the approximately 11,000 occurrences of any of the words commonly used for God can be demonstrated to mean the triune God. And Trinitarian commentators are agreeing with this!
He also brings up Augustine actually changing the text of John 17.3 in his homilies to explicitly call Jesus God, instead of calling the Father God. Anthony says he must blow the whistle on this - you are treading on dangerous ground when you have to change the text to support your theological construct. We must listen to Gabriel’s announcement in Luke 1.35 as to *why* Jesus is the son of God, because of his birth via holy spirit, not any pre-existence, or pre-existence as God or a person of God. And Jesus has gone on record with agreeing to the Jewish understanding of the Shema in Mark 12. And of course we have Colin Brown “to be called Son of God in the New Testament means you are not God”.
In thinking about the first verse of John, we can’t say the Logos is an eternal son. Then you end up with the Son is the Father, and that isn’t right either. Rather the logos is the divine purpose, the plan, the reason - that comes into existence as flesh. And all the scholars are in agreement on this. Yet again in John’s epistles he corrects misunderstandings others are having about his gospel.
Have you guys interacted with Simon J. Gathercole’s The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (Eerdmans, 2006; ISBN#: 0-8028-2901-5)?
Here is the page for the book.
Gathercole also lectured (in 2004) at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on the topic “The Synoptic ‘I Have Come’ Sayings of Jesus and Pre-Existence.” There are three parts.
I haven’t Jeff, its on my wishlist now…
In a review I found this intriguing:
“As Gathercole observes, there is a big difference between a personal preexistence and the preexistence of a personification. ”
Of course I have to agree, and it seems to be his thesis that it was a personal one. At this point I have to entirely disagree as it does not fit within the cultural context of Second Temple Judaism. It seems to be a category mistake to compare the Hebrews use of greek phrases against the Greek understanding of those phrases, considering the fight of the Hebrews against Hellenization and their pride in their culture and tradition. But I’ll have to wait and see what his arguments rest on. Of course, if pre-existence is true - that does not necessitate that Jesus is God. We have many who believe that Jesus pre-existed and is not God. It only allows for the possibility. Jesus couldn’t be God if he has not always existed.
Of course, if pre-existence is true - that does not necessitate that Jesus is God.
But that wasn’t my point. The point of the main post was that preexistence rest on only a few verses and it seems, that only in John. This is simply mistaken, and to put a presentation together, posts these things on the internet, continue to repeat these things over and over, without consulting latest research (an easy book to find and now over a few years old), is simply not good scholarship.
JohnO,
You said:
“At this point I have to entirely disagree as it does not fit within the cultural context of Second Temple Judaism.”
Maybe I am misunderstanding your point but it sounds a bit like the classical, “Second Temple Judaism didn’t think, believe, or conceive or A, therefore A must be false” argument. If this is the case then Jesus couldn’t have been the Messiah as the cultural context of Second Temple Judaism did not anticipate the Messiah coming as Jesus did.
Thankfully God is not bound by the “cultural context of Second Temple Judaism” and is able to reveal new ideas.
Scott,
You said that 2nd Temple Judaism did not expect Jesus to come as he did.
Can you give any evidence for that big statement?
Dustin
The fact that the religious authorities of 2nd Temple Judaism (and the VAST majority of Jews in that era) rejected Christ seems pretty conclusive.
On Gathercole’s book, please see James Dunn’s review. The vast majority of scholars see no pre-existence in the synoptics and from what I can tell Gathercole’s attempt has not been convincing.
Regarding Scott’s point about 2nd temple Judaism…I think you are confusing two different points. When doing historical exegesis we must first ask the question about what the people believed who were writing and reading the documents. The issue is that we cannot and should not read later theological bias anachronistically into the text. Nor is our goal to read the text without any bias whatsoever (which is impossible of course). The goal is to determine to the best of our capability what people generally understood about key elements of their world and then to read the NT documents in light of that.
The fact is that 2nd temple Jews were fiercely monotheistic. This means that they believe that Yahweh alone is the one who is God. They were not trinitarians. Please note, that Jesus never confronted or argued against the standard Jewish definition of who God is (or how many he is). In fact, he agreed with them on their definition of God (Mark 12 and other places). Christianity did confront Judaism with new revealed truth (i.e. dying and rising Messiah) but this is explicitly laid out in Scripture and there are plenty of documented cases where the primitive Christians argued these points (especially in their sermons in Acts but also in the Epistles). However, the gospel did not include that God was now somehow mysteriously three. Apparently the earliest Christians saw no reason to challenge the hallmark creed of Jewish monotheism–the Shema (which the Jews have always understood in a mono-personal way).
What concerns us about the Trinity is that it was a development. Some Christians who began to get off track and read their greco-roman ideas into Scripture. They began to find 2 Gods (the Father God and the Son God). Thus, a serious problem developed. How do we remain monotheists and yet believe in two who are fully God? The Trinity (or should I say Binity) was the solution that carried the day at Nicea (a.d. 325). Even so the third person (which often gets left out of these discussions) had to wait until a.d. 381 for the Constantinopolitan Creed and the philosophical genius of the three Cappadocians before it became dogma. It is our contention that we need to read the New Testament in the context of 2nd Temple Judaism in order to understand how Christians accepting or challenged various reigning thought patterns.
As for 2nd Temple Judaism:
1QSa 2:11 speaks of a time when “God will beget the Messiah.”
Sounds like conception christology.
Dustin
Well said Sean, and Scott that is exactly my point. We must say, the topics that get argued about in the Scriptures by Jewish Christians are the ones that challenged the wider viewpoints. Notice that viewpoints is plural. If you’ve done any reading you know that there was no single expectation of who/what Messiah is/does. Which is why Jesus was accepted by some, and denied by others. And why a Pharisee like Paul can see the light of revelation and understand Jesus’ ministry Messianically without saying his tradition never expected anything like Jesus - aka Jesus is not *really* The Messiah of Israel, we (Christians) are just going to call him that, and we (Christians) are going to change the meaning of that word entirely. Of course we feel the Trinity does exactly that, when the Messiah = God.
Therefore, when we find zero argument in Scripture, like we find no argument about changing who or how many God is - we cannot conclude that the wider viewpoint (and notice viewpoint here is singular because the view of God by ALL variants of Judaism was the same) was changed. There is no evidence whatsoever.
and from what I can tell Gathercole’s attempt has not been convincing.
And you conclude (”tell”) this by reading a review? Interesting!
“The vast majority of scholars…” These types of statements are amazing to me. As if you’ve suveyed the vast majority, when you haven’t even look at Gathercole’s book and seem to only take note of Dunn’s review recently (probably a google search last night).
I guess the vast majority of scholars that I would consider good scholars are different from your vast majority.
Another note about the Trinity. We have to keep in mind that this doctrine was constructed to explain how Christians could believe in two (or three) who are God and yet not believe in multiple Gods. The Trinity was constructed with the Scripture in mind as a solution to this problem. Thus, it is notoriously difficult to argue against the Trinity because it was constructed by people who made great efforts to devise it so that it would be compatible (supported by) the Bible. But, of course, this does not guarantee its veracity. We have seen throughout the history of Christianity that doctrines were concocted in such a way that they are compatible with Scripture but were untrue (i.e. praying to saints, infant baptism, relics, etc.). This is why it is so important to get into the heads of the biblical writers, to see the world the way they saw it, to grapple with the Scriptures from the inside as much as possible. Anyone can concoct a theory that is biblically supported and yet untrue. Finding “supporting” verses is not the same as “proving” the case:
For example, suppose I believe that Peter pre-existed as the serpent. I would support this theory with the following premises:
- According to Jesus, Peter is Satan (Mt 16.23)
- According to Rev 12.9 Satan is the serpent of old
- According to Gen 3 the Serpent is the one who tempted Eve
Thus, Peter in his pre-incarnate state was the serpent. This theory is quite difficult to disprove–especially if I tack on a dual natures doctrine and so on.
Jeff,
Please interact with my points rather than attacking me. I have been aware of Gathercole’s book and Dunn’s review for several months now. Furthermore, in Dunn’s review he is the one who says, “His [Gathercole’s] case is, briefly, that, in contrast to the dominant strain of English-language scholarship on the subject, there is substantial evidence for the view that the Synoptic Evangelists thought of Christ as preexistent.”
Here is what Robert Letham states,
“Based on our discussion so far, we must revise the consensus, held until recently, that belief in Christ’s personal preexistence was a gradual development, crystallizing only relatively late in the composition of the NT. Certainly the later NT contains much material along these lines. In Hebrews 1:3-4, the Son is said to be “the radiance of the glory of God.” In the same chapter, the author cites Psalm 45:6-7, God’s address to his Son as God, and applies it to Christ as the Son. Peter says that Christ existed with God before the creation, not merely in the mind of God (1 Peter 1:20). 1 John 1:1-4 is a passage not without ambiguity, but in the end it clearly refers to Jesus Christ. The exalted Christ is depicted in Revelation 1: 17 as the first and the last, implying pretemporal existence, while the similar statement in 22:13 links protology and eschatology. Revelation 3: 14 points to Christ as the origin or cause of creation.
Typical of this consensus is James D. G. Dunn. Dunn argues that a full view of Christ’s personal preexistence is not found in Paul, but only in Hebrews and John, which he regards as significantly later documents. In particular, he argues, the locus classicus, Philippians 2:5ff., does not refer to the claimed pretemporal existence of Christ at all. Paul here contrasts Christ with Adam. Adam wanted to be like God and, in self-assertiveness, grasped the prize of the forbidden fruit. In utter contrast, Christ refused to act like this. Dunn concludes that since Paul compares Christ with the temporal Adam, there is no need to seek any pretemporal reference in the passage. Opposed to Dunn is Kim, who considers Paul to be the author of the teaching of preexistence. Martin also favors the claim that Paul teaches pre-existence here.36 Hurtado points out that, while Dunn makes some evocative points, it is a logical fallacy to assume that even if Paul refers to Adam, preexistence is thereby precluded. More over, he claims that the Adamic reference is not explicit, and point out that the majority of exegetes hold that preexistence is in view. Dunn fails to do justice to the force of the language, Hurtado comments. The Remarkable conclusion that follows Hurtado’s evaluation is that, if this passage is an early Christian hymn, as is commonly supposed and as is probable, then most likely its liturgical use was widespread. It follows that its teaching was widely accepted a considerable time before Paul wrote Philippians. Thus, Hurtado concludes that belief in Christ’s preexistence originated “remarkably early” and was “an uncontested and familiar view of Christ in Paul’s churches.”
This puts other Pauline passages in a different light. With the evaporation of Dunn’s argument, statements such as Paul’s in Romans 8:3 and Galatians 4:4 can be seen afresh to refer to the coming of the preexistent Christ for our salvation. Together with ill • great prologue to the gospel of John and the exalted introduction to Hebrews, they reflect a belief that was present in the church II nl11 the very start, that Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem was the coming into the world of God the Son as man. Paul was not foisting a novelty on the church, but giving voice, clarity, and development to what it already believed.”
Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship (P&R, 2004), 48-49 .
It is interesting that you continue to make a “majority scholars state” argument, since from what I’ve looked at in my own library (just flipping through various systematic theologies), I don’t see it.
The last paragraph above should have said “so few verses, so few scholars”, I don’t see it.
It appears that you changed the title of your post, eliminating “…for the son in a few verses only.” Why would you do such a thing?
By the way, I was reminded of this book yesterday He Came Down from Heaven: The Preexistence of Christ And the Christian Faith (IVP, 2005).
I saw it mentioned again (on another thread) regarding recent scholarship and how Trinitarians are Old School. This is simply (on one hand) a dishonest comments and (2) simply to broad of comment to really interact without writing a long post.
Again, the recent scholars I’ve looked at (which includes scholars like Hurtado) acknowledge Jesus’ preexistence. Here is the TOC which includes excerpts from the book. The book includes a chapter on “The Preexistence of Christ and Modern Theology.”
This discussion reminds me of Harry Truman’s quote “Give me a one-armed economist!” It seems that when he asked an economist for advice, the economist would lay out a plan, and then say “on the other hand …” and lay out a completely different plan!
My point being, that anyone can find their cabal of scholars to support one particular interpretation over another, or one linguistic analysis over another.
What becomes the criteria for “recent scholarship” or “most scholars” or “repudible scholars?” Why, it is exactly those scholars that agree with me!
As I’m sure that you know, I can produce the names of hundreds of impeccably credentialed scholars who can prove that Jesus never said the things attributed to him, nor did the apostles write the books of the Bible that bear their names! You will respond: “Well, those guys are liberal!” Not a very compelling argument!
What appeals to me in the Biblical unitarian position is the independence from the reams of academic clutter that surrounds the trinitarian position. Armed with a concordance and maybe a lexicon, and some common sense, the Biblical unitarian position is what emerges from the entirety of the Bible.
I would further argue that armed with solely the Bible and a mind freed from church dogma one will inevitably arrive at the simple conclusion that the Father is the only true God. We meet people regularly who come to believe in unitarianism solely on the basis of their reading of Scripture. The trinity cannot be derived from Scripture alone; it must be taught!
Here’s the flow of thinking as I see it:
1. The Jews believed God was one person.
2. Jesus also believed that, and claimed he was the Son of God, not God the Son.
3. He’s only called God twice for certain in Scripture, and both passages CAN be interpreted as being in a representational sense.
4. Contrast that with the MANY passages of Scripture that call him the Son of God.
5. Everyone agrees that the trinity, and Christ’s pre-existance were ideas which came about at least LATE in the Christian church period, if not afterward; they were not there from the start.
6. Where and when did these ideas come about? Such ideas that go against the previous consensus must have been revealed at some point.
7. When they were revealed they would have met with some opposition, and needed to be explained. Yet there is no record of these new ideas being revealed, or explained, anywhere in the New Testament, or in any writings for a few hundred years.
8. Contrast that with the many new ideas that WERE revealed and explained in the NT, such as the New Covenant, no longer needing to keep the Mosaic Law, Gentiles being included, the Church as the Temple and the Body of Christ, to name but a few.
9. Why would God leave such revelation and explanation to post-Biblical writers if His aim was to make Himself known in the Scriptures?
10. As we have said time and time again, there is NOT ONE unequivocal Scripture that reveals a triune nature of God, or that Jesus is THE God, the Creator. There are, on the other hand, many unequivocal Scriptures that reveal that Jesus is the only-begotten SON of God.
11. In order to make the trinity fit with the Scriptures, the very meanings of words must be changed from their normal meanings, such as “one,” “oneness,” “person,” “born,” “birth,” “conceive,” “father,” and “son,” not to mention the invention of entirely new words, such as “consubstantial” and “triune.”
12. A simple reading of the Bible, without reading post-Biblical doctrine back into it, reveals God as one person and Jesus as His Son.
Mark on you point #3…I would add that in the second instance of Jesus being called “God” (Heb 1.8) it is not only possible that it is using the word “God” in a representational sense…it is necessary. There is no question that the quotation in Heb 1.8-9 (i.e. Ps 45.6-7) was where the davidic king (possibly Solomon?) is called “God” in a representational sense. Thus, if the writer of Hebrews uses this proof-text of Jesus then of course he is calling Jesus “God” in the same sense as was the psalmist. To exegete the passage otherwise would be to break it off from its OT context for the sake of later creedal commitments.
We should also add, that Jesus even claimed to be “God” in a representational sense in John 10 when he was accused of making himself out to be God by the Jews. (note: Jesus actually claimed to be the Son of God but in the context of Ps 82 the “sons of the Most High” are “Gods” cf. Ps 82.6). Thus, if we will listen to Jesus on this issue we can hear him saying, “you don’t understand….does not the Scripture say that one who receives the word of God (i.e. represents God to the people) is God?”
I came across a reference to Ps 45 in The Scepter and the Star, by Collins, and he also sees representative sense there as well.