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The Anglican Implosion, Part 894,897,345

According to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, one need not believe in the Virgin Birth in order to be accounted a Christian.

During the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, the Deacon intones solemnly, before the recitation of the Creed, the Symbol of Faith, "The doors, the doors! In wisdom let us attend." The significance of this is that is a reminder of a period of Church history in which the substance of the faith was not disclosed to just anyone, as a topic of ordinary conversation, but was disclosed to the catechumens, the initiates, only gradually; as such, one could not have the congregation loudly professing their common faith in such a manner as to lay its sacred mysteries before the unbelieving world. The Creed, therefore, was so integral to the identity of the Church that she was unthinkable without it, and one could not join her unless one professed the Creed without reservation.

This, Rowan Williams effectively considers as a sort of menu, from which one may select and reject according to one's preferences. Must one also pray to Christ? May one not also pray to Buddha, or the earth-mother? Oh, wait...

(HT: Auster.)

Comments (106)

It does not seem to me that disbelief in the virgin birth is a deal-breaker. Faith in the justification of the unworthy sinner through the sacrifice of the Cross is the sine qua non.

Christian orthodoxy - and on this point, it does not much matter whether one prefers Athansius or Anselm - has been uniform in maintaining that man's alienation from God, and from his own created nature, in sin and death, could not be overcome save by one Who, in His human nature, was not subject to that same alienation, in which we all participate by natural generation. Hence, the Virgin Birth.

John 6:42 shows that the nativity story was not familiar among the Jewish people, which is a little strange if so many portents and sightings occurred. Jesus responded to their skepticism with statements about the Father who sent me, that he had seen the Father in heaven. Neither of those requires a virgin birth, it only affirms the mission as Savior was authorized by God, that his role was that of a son implementing the will of a father.

A person can always claim, of course, to be professing Christianity. But he can't decide for himself what is essential to the Christian faith. The Virgin Birth is an essential question answered a long, long time ago, just like the Trinity. You can deny the Trinity, and you can claim to be Christian, but you can't speak both of them in truth. To deny this is to deny that there literally is no such thing as a religion or even a philosophy. I cannot, however much I would like, claim to be a Kantian moralist while claiming that the categorical imperative and its underpinnings are nonsense.

The virgin birth is a deal-breaker as far as being a Christian. Whether God will deal with the souls of some non-Christians (of various degrees of error and culpability for their own error) in some special way so as to bring them to be Christians in the end (there are no non-Christians in heaven) is something we aren't told and a conjecture to which I am open. But it's a conjecture, and everybody in heaven believes in the virgin birth. So sez exclusionary I.

But shd. we be surprised about this from Williams? Isn't Williams the chap who participated in some Druid rite, too?

"and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man...."

This is the teaching of Christianity. Believe it or do not believe it, it remains the teaching of the Church. To disbelieve it is to stray from the Church and the fullness of faith.

Merry Christmas!

The virgin birth is a deal-breaker as far as being a Christian.

I don't think so. I will concede that the virgin birth is a must for one to be considered a orthodox Christian. But I don't believe that orthodoxy is a necessary condition for salvation. I don't believe that God's will can be itemized, defined, and packaged for consumption in that way.

You can deny the Trinity, and you can claim to be Christian, but you can't speak both of them in truth.

No, one can't deny the Trinity and claim to be a Christian. Christ professes the Father and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Triune God is not in question. One cannot believe in the redemptive power of grace without the Trinity, because one cannot believe in Christ without the Trinity.

The virgin birth is a deal-breaker as far as being a Christian.

I don't think so. I will concede that the virgin birth is a must for one to be considered a orthodox Christian. But I don't believe that orthodoxy is a necessary condition for salvation. I don't believe that God's will can be itemized, defined, and packaged for consumption in that way.

there are no non-Christians in heaven

So nobody from the Old Testament made it into heaven eh? If only they had been born a few thousand years later.

there are no non-Christians in heaven

Did Jesus not say that the Father was the God of Abraham and the God only of the living? If Abraham is living, and not in heaven, then where is Abraham?

Abraham's a Christian now. "Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad."

But Abraham was already in heaven, from whence he saw the day, when the day came, was he not?

It seems clear from Scripture that the chosen people of the Old Testament were in a special category in that they were brought into the presence of God by the light and the means that he ordained for them at that time--sacrifice, etc. Presumably he made more clear to them in their glorified state, as in the case of Abraham as attested by Our Lord. But that was a highly particular and special case, in that God chose to reveal himself in a limited way (not even including the Trinity) at that time in human history to the people to whom he himself had reached out. Now, post-Christ (as it were), a person who rejects God's subsequent revelation is in a particularly perilous state vis a vis his soul and is not at all in the same position as a person in the Old Testament who followed the revelation God had given to date at that time.
"God who at sundry times and in divers manners hath spoken unto the fathers by the prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, by whom also he made the worlds," etc. And the author of Hebrews goes on to say almost exactly what I have been saying--if those who failed to obey the Law were liable to punishment, how much graver is the danger of those who reject the greater revelation of the Son himself?

By the way, this comment of Williams's reminds me of a comment by one of the Emergent Church leaders (whose name, perhaps mercifully, escapes me at the moment--I believe he wrote Blue Like Jazz) to the effect that it wouldn't really make much of a difference to Christianity if we found out that Jesus had a father named Larry.

The denial of the Virgin Birth leads logically into the netherworld of the Christological heresies, for, if Christ, in His humanity, was a man like other men, the issue of natural generation, then it follows that at some point in time the man Jesus was assumed by/subsumed under the divinity of the second person of the Trinity; a human being, who otherwise would have been like any one of us, was elevated to the status of the second person of the Godhead. The Virgin Birth has always been an integral element of the faith.

Maximos--
Do you find the doctrine of Perpetual Virginity to be equally as crucial?

It is obviously not as fundamental to the maintenance of the essential mysteries of the faith, as symbolized in the Creed; myriads of Christians - Protestants - affirm those mysteries and yet deny the perpetual virginity of the Mother of God. Nevertheless, as this doctrine is an aspect of the Tradition that stretches back into antiquity, I affirm it unreservedly.

[A] human being, who otherwise would have been like any one of us, was elevated to the status of the second person of the Godhead. A good point that I had not thought of in just those terms before. And if one tries to avoid that error by saying that his soul simply was the second person of the Godhead, one veers into the error of denying the reality of the hypostatic union. Not that I know the names for most of these. I have to confess that my vocabulary of Christological errors is very shaky. Dorothy Sayers has a rather funny essay about this, imagining people talking about Jesus and falling into heresy with every other sentence.

I've read more than a few histories of the period, and of the elaboration of Christian doctrine, and yet I always stumble over the bewildering profusion of errors; hence, the generality of my phrasing.

I fail to see how making a goddess of Jesus' mother (which the Gospels plainly do not depict her as having been), is a necessary condition of Jesus' divinity. From this it follows, then, that Mary must be the Immaculate Conception. But, how does it stop there? It would seem that a regression of spotless motherhood, going all the way back to Eve would be necessary, and.... Oh, but wait. Eve wasn't "spotless"... Uh....
I, in fact, profess that Mary conceived Jesus by the Holy Spirit, as a virgin. That is what the Bible says. She was chosen for that role. But I do not think that if a person is able to believe in redemption through the Cross, but for some quirky reason does not believe in the virgin birth, that the person is, ergo, beyond that redemption.
A virgin birth is a miracle in terms of biology (since Jesus is wholly human). Does the Holy Spirit possess DNA? If not, if Jesus were a clone of Mary, He would have to be female. But if no ovum of Mary's is involved, it is hard to see how Jesus is wholly human. It is even hard to see how Mary is "human" if she is without Original Sin, which is as much an inherent human characteristic as ten fingers, ten toes.
The point is, all of this stuff is Mysterious. We aren't meant to understand it. And every person's belief is engendered by the grace of God. Not everybody's portion is equal. In the end, belief in justification through the Cross, or at least a genuine desire to believe in it, is the only necessary condition for salvation. God's mercy dwarfs human ability.

So, Rodak, a person can disbelieve the plain words of Scripture with respect to the Virgin Birth, but remain a Christian? What other words of the New Testament can the Christian simply disregard as perfectly false? You make the argument that because the Bible does not appear to depict Mary in this or that light, then it cannot be faithfully professed that she actually was this or that. Then you go on to argue from Scripture that the plain words of the Bible state that Christ was born of a Virgin.

Then you say that a believing Christian can disregard the Virgin birth. Well, which is it? Is Scripture authoritative or isn't it? You seem to believe it is when you call on it to denigrate Catholicism. If Scripture is only a reliable guide to the Christian faith where it agrees with you, then it is superfluous, and has no authority, and moreover it makes no sense to argue from Scripture at all if you believe that a believing Christian can deny its plain meaning with respect to the Nativity.

And yes, before you object to the word "denigrate," you're trading in pure, incendiary anti-Catholic hostility when you talk of making a "goddess" of the Virgin. What's more, you know that you are doing so. You know perfectly well than any Catholic will deny it, and you know perfectly well what his reason would be--that he does not believe Mary to be a goddess. Using that sort of hyperbole might be gratifying to those of anti-clerical bent, but it doesn't make them appear more rigorous or more discerning in their own witness.

I meant no offense. I apologize for having offended.

Yes, Rodak, can the anti-Catholic rhetoric. We already had our Protestant-Catholic thread last week (was it?) and no one questions where people stand on that stuff.

So, yes, the Virgin Birth was a miracle. Nobody denies that. Presumably God fashioned the other DNA. No problem for Him. So was turning water into wine a miracle. I guess he had to, y'know, make some wine. So was the feeding of the five thousand. He had to make a bit of extra bread and fish there, right? As far as the purely _physical_ side of it, the virgin birth is a physical miracle like many others. The incarnation is a theological mystery, though by "mystery" I do not mean anything like "irrational."

But I do not think that if a person is able to believe in redemption through the Cross, but for some quirky reason does not believe in the virgin birth, that the person is, ergo, beyond that redemption.

So do you think a person is beyond redemption if he doesn't believe that Jesus is God? You already indicated that that one is central in your book. Well, I agree heartily that it's central, but the whole "beyond redemption" thing seems to me a red herring. Prima facie, both doctrines are part of what needs to be believed, in this age of God's revelation, for salvation. This doesn't preclude God's finding various ways of convincing people or even convincing them at the last moment. How God saves an individual is really, in one important sense, a separate question from what is required to be a Christian. After all, the question of the salvation of an individual is in some ways _more_ worriesome for a person in some obscure place who has never heard of Jesus Christ at all through no fault of his own than for an individual who has access to the whole shebang but rejects the Virgin Birth "for some quirky reason." I'm a lot more concerned about how God either saves or damns the former than the latter, so why bring the issue of "being beyond redemption" up at all?

Thank you, Rodak. Consider it humbly accepted.

Thank you, Sage--
I was, very clumsily I now see, trying to demonstrate how the Archbishop of Canterbury could possibly say what he said and be taken seriously. I do believe that one can be considered a Christian based on what he is able to believe, and on what he hopes to be able to believe.
I also do not think it impossible, by any means, for God to accept non-Christians who are, nonetheless, God-oriented in the conduct of their lives, but were never gifted with direct knowledge of Christ.
I should definitely have chosen my examples and words much more prudently. You are gracious to accept my apology.

I find these discussions interesting, but refrain from chiming because I am the quintessential uber-heretic (I say that with dry sarcasm as I don't think "heresy" even exists).

But I think it is reasonable to interpret the Virgin Birth as poetic or even an extension of the classical mythology of the age, as still be "Christian."

The Virgin Birth does not appear in the Gospel of Mark, which scholars tell me is the first Gospel and hence, most accurate. Rather, Mark begins with Jesus as an adult and being welcomed as God's son. Read in isolation from the later-written Gospels, one can easily conclude that Jesus is the "adoptive" son of God.

Now, this "heresy" was stamped out centuries ago, before the Bible was canonized. But I give it the benefit of the doubt because in the formative years of the Christian church, there would have been people who relied solely on the book of Mark (either because the other Gospels were not yet written, or were not available in a particular church, which was very common pre-canonization).

Can people be Christian (and hence, be saved) by reading Mark in isolation?

That is not my place to judge, but I suspect, yes.

(Happy Holidays to all)

"[W]hich scholars tell me is the first Gospel and hence, most accurate."

Actually, Royale, that is a highly contentious question in scholarly circles. There is quite good evidence for Matthew's having been the earliest gospel, probably written originally in Aramaic. For the most part, the scholars who take Mark to be earliest do so for ideological rather than for scholarly reasons. In any event, all of the gospels were finished before the second century and were widely available and widely quoted _long_, _long_ before the Nicene Creed or any of that. If you have some notion of decades and decades, or even a full century, of people's having just Mark or something like that, you need to correct that. The attempt to put a radically late date on any of the gospels is just flat historically untenable. For a brief introduction to this stuff, I recommend the "textual assumptions" section of Tim's and my paper to which I posted a link here on W4 and then, for further reading, following some of the references in there.

For what it is worth, it would appear that many of the characteristic tropes of higher criticism originated in the politico-religious controversies concerning the authority of the Scriptural text and the Christian tradition in the early modern period, as discussed in Reventlow's The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World. It is scarcely surprising that so many of those tropes, so bereft of evidential foundations, were not exactly the products of disinterested scholarship. As they are not in the present.

For one thing, very often gospels are automatically dated as post-70 (destruction of Jerusalem) _because_ Christ appears in a gospel to predict the destruction of Jerusalem. This is circular, because whether Jesus was capable of prophecy is of course one of the things in question. Suffice it to say that the virgin birth appears to have been taught very early. Luke's gospel appears to be pre-62, as 62 is a plausible date for Acts, which appears to have been written after Luke.

Just a reminder that it wasn't whether the Virgin Birth is doctrinal or not that was in question. It obviously was doctrinal, early-on. The question was whether one must believe every orthodox doctrine in order to be considered "Christian." If one must, then most of the people currently thinking of themselves as Christian probably aren't Christians. Only the one confession professing the complete and entirely accurate set of doctrines would be Christian--if such a group exists.
Or, conversely, we would have to know which doctrines are indispensable, and which are optional, in order to know who's Christian and who's deluded in thinking himself to be Christian.
It seems to me that had the baby Jesus been found in a basket in the Temple, mother and father unknown, it would not make a whole lot of difference to the core beliefs of the Christian faith, once His identity was disclosed at His baptism.

LOL. Royale and Rodak have my assent on one thing at least: A person who denies the Virgin Birth can be a "Christian," but never a Christian. But then, I prefer my fish to be fresh, not "fresh." :)

But, a person who is starving will gratefully eat his fish "fresh."

A good analogy, Rodak, and true enough. Of course, if he chooses to subsist on such fare, it is likely to kill him only a bit less surely than starvation. The important point is--the genuine article is available to him, for free, and has a big blinking sign over it indicating as much. Why risk sickness and death?

I would prefer something like "core" and "not core" rather than "essential" and "optional." The doctrine of the virgin birth is core. The doctrine (I'll pick a Protestant one that I believe so as, hopefully, not to offend anyone else) that believers can be forgiven of all their sins, mortal, venial, etc., without auricular confession is not core.

@Lydia
I would prefer something like "core" and "not core" rather than "essential" and "optional." The doctrine of the virgin birth is core. The doctrine (I'll pick a Protestant one that I believe so as, hopefully, not to offend anyone else) that believers can be forgiven of all their sins, mortal, venial, etc., without auricular confession is not core.


The words you are looking for are Dogma and Doctrine. Scary words, I know. Dogma are those doctrines revealed by God in either Scripture or Tradition, that cannot be denied without endangering the soul. One need not believe in the Virgin Birth, but one may not deny it. That is perhaps a subtle distinction, but salvation of souls often rests on a razor's edge.


And, of course, culpability for any sin, including heresy, is based on the sinner's knowledge and intent, and therefore unknowable in this life. One who denies the Virgin Birth because he does not understand the Dogma in it's fullness is not very culpable. One who denies the Virgin Birth in order to disestablish the idea of Christ as God-in-Man, knowing full well that the church Christ established teaches the Virgin Birth as a necessary component of the faith, is fully culpable not only for his own denial, but for the souls of any others he leads astray.


Doctrine, on the other hand, are the truths of the Faith, which the church teaches, but which are not necessary to the Faith. A good example is papal primacy. It is proposed by the Catholic Church as a truth, with arguments, but is not a revelation from God, and those who do not believe it (the Orthodox) are not endangering their souls by denying it.

I'm not sure, Danby, if that's exactly the distinction I'm looking for. Without giving examples, I can say that there are teachings of Scripture that I consider pretty much crystalline in their clarity but which some of my Christian brethren of other persuasions do deny. They don't, of course, agree that those things are taught in Scripture, which influences what I regard as culpability, but there it is. I have to be willing to accept a certain amount of divergence over things that _I_ think are indeed taught in Scripture while still admitting that the other person should properly be regarded as a Christian. I'm afraid what this means is that I cannot get along without making some sort of core/not core distinction.

But here: Here's an example that should offend nobody, as it is not a Protestant/non-Protestant issue and as many of us in this thread would be agreed on the subject. Consider the fact that St. Paul clearly teaches that only males can be ordained as pastors. Now, I think that's an absolutely clear scriptural teaching. Faithful Catholics also affirm it, in part because the Church teaches it but perhaps also because they find it in Scripture. The Orthodox do not ordain women, either. Okay, now imagine some feminist who believes in women's ordination. Can she be a Christian? I'm inclined to say, she's got real problems, but if we're _just_ talking about that issue, yes, she can still be a Christian. I would suspect that she probably has more doctrinal problems than that. These things don't usually come singly. But male-only ordination, while taught clearly in Scripture and while very important (and I want to stress that I think it _very_ important and would never attend a church of any kind with a female "pastor"), is not core in the same sense as the deity of Christ or the virgin birth.

The sad thing about Archbishop Williams comments is that he is an Archbishop, and therefore speaks for the Church in an official capacity.

Individual Christians can believe things that are in error and still be Christians. The Church may not teach error. If she does then she lapses into apostacy. This is especially true if the doctrine has been established by a Council of the Church.

That's not all! The Archbishop also says that the Magi were only a legend.

By the way, it's amazing to me that the conservative branches of Anglicanism haven't bolted once and for all yet. Really, how much punishment can they take? It's well past the point of absurdity. There's simply no point to sticking around in hopes of guiding the errant branches of this church back to orthodoxy when its international leader is himself this much of a liberal squish. That fight is already finished and lost. The CoE is past the point of no return.

The only sensible thing is for the conservative branches to get as far away from this nauseating wreckage as they can, and then pick up the pieces and build something decent elsewhere. Speaking as a PCA member, abandoning the sinking PCUSA ship was the best thing we ever did, and the CoE is certainly further into loony-land than the PCUSA was at the time.

Well, yes, some of them have (bolted), including the ACC, of which I am a member (though myself of very Protestant sympathies).

I'm an Anglican and not terribly happy with Dr. Williams, but much of what's being reported about what he said just isn't fair. The Telegraph reported that he called the nativity "a legend." The story linked above says that he dismisses the Wise Men as a legend. Both are caricatures of the Bp.'s statements. With the exception of a bit of mealy-mouthing on the Virgin birth though he (thankfully) seems to affirm it, just about everything he said is consistent with what I've heard some pretty conservative Biblical scholars at places like Talbot/Biola say.

A transcript of this PR debacle is below:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=SHLSK2HUH5PRXQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/12/20/nwise220.xml

I continue to maintain that the ABC is not incorrect. Jesus Christ is God. As such, it is not possible that Jesus Christ is God because He was born of a virgin. God's nature and being are contingent upon nothing. He may have been born of a virgin as a sign to help a spiritually lame and chronically incredulous humanity see the truth; but those who see the truth without the sign only see the truth that much more directly.

The Son was not incarnate from all eternity. The Son is eternal, but the incarnation took place in time. The question then is whether it was possible that the second person of the Trinity should be truly incarnate in a man conceived in the ordinary way of two human parents. By "truly incarnate" I mean that I am not referring to some sort of inspiration or indwelling, where the man himself remains a separate being. Jesus said to all Christians that he would come in and be with them--evangelicals refer to this as "having Jesus in your heart." But the incarnation is a different matter altogether. Jesus the son of Mary, a man of flesh and bones, did not exist before approximately 5 B.C., whereas the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, always was. It seems to make sense metaphysically that the eternal Son could be incarnate, could become man, only by way of having God for his father in the incarnation in the sense of having no human father.

It seems to make sense metaphysically

Fine. That's a sign. It may signify, but it's not a necessary condition, that one knows, or believes, the mother to have been a virgin. There is no ontological reason why Jesus could not have been Mary's third child, although, in this instance, fathered by the Holy Spirit.

I suppose, there's no ontological reason God could not have saved mankind in any number of ways. But he did not.

He chose a particular girl at a particular time and place. He chose a virgin. It isn't a sign or anything else. It is the faith.

The supposed alternatives are just curiosities at best.

It is the faith.

Discipulus--

Yes. That isn't in question. What is in question is whether knowledge of and/or belief in the virgin birth is a necessary condition for being a Christian, and thus, for probable salvation.
Is there a formula according to which some precise sum of epistemological quantities equals salvation? While there is clearly the sine qua non of belief in redemption through the sacrifice of the Cross, the ABC apparently thinks there is not such a formula, and I tend to agree with him.

Truth to tell, and having read the longer version of the interview, I think ol' Rowan was talking about what he would or wouldn't require for Confirmation. ("Be signed up.") Whether that's the same thing as "be a Christian" or not is a nice question--as in, delicate. The Anglican church, especially the one in England, has never been terribly, shall we say, _creedal_ in its requirements for Confirmation. My own small continuing Anglican denomination does require affirmation of the Apostles' Creed (which of course include the virgin birth) for Confirmation. Whether the Canturburian variety has required even that for some time is worth asking.

Okay, I shouldn't say "never." Change that to "has for a while now not been terribly creedal in its requirements," etc.

"Is there a formula according to which some precise sum of epistemological quantities equals salvation?"

No, there's not, but neither should we be speculating on how much we can get away with not believing, especially regarding beliefs on which the Church has spoken definitively. The Church has spoken in such a way on the Virgin Birth -- it's in the Creed, for heaven's sake, and Constantinople II (the fifth ecumenical council) anathematized those who reject it. What gives Rowan the right to gainsay it or any other of the doctrines that the Church has seen fit to dogmatize? This is dangerous territory, IMO, in more ways than one.

As to the perpetual virginity of Mary, the patristic reading of the prophecy in Ezekiel 44 links the perpetual virginity of the mother with the divinity of the Son.

Shooting from the hip, I would say that the manner in which Xian doctrine is formulated is analogous to how descriptive statements are articulated when observing a living organism. There is an organism that is being observed, that organism has a boundary in which it has its being. Those who observe this organism can formulate observations that are either correct or incorrect. If they are incorrect it could be because they fail to understand the relationship of the different parts of the organism and how they function together, or it could be because they have gone beyond the boundary of the organism and are attributing things to the organism that do not belong to it. This furthermore means that among those who are in error, some are viewing the same organism but are misunderstanding what they are seeing, and others are viewing a different organism but calling it by the same name.

Regarding the virgin birth, it is organically a part of the Christian witness regarding the person and work of Christ. You cannot have a genuine doctrine of incarnation without it. Moreover, an impaired understanding of the incarnation will negatively influence the doctrine of salvation. This is just like cancer in an organism, in which cancer in one part of an organism can have systemic effects across the whole organism. Some may fail to see this organic connection and still be Christian, although this failure will impact the development of their Christian life. Others don’t see this connection because they are indeed looking at something different, an organism that has many similar features perhaps, but in the end is a different species. Between these two types of errors, it is not always easy to tell who is making what kind of error. And so, I would say that you can be Christian and not necessarily believe the virgin birth, but it is organic to Christianity, which is to say that genuine Christianity requires it.

genuine Christianity requires it.


Anthony--

I don't see how one can say that it is possible to be a Christian if one's Christianity is not "genuine." If something is not genuine, it's fake--a facsmile, at best. To be a fake Christian is worse than to make no assumptions about Christianity at all.

How about "not complete", as in lacking in fullness, rendering one a crypto or pseudo-Christian? One can genuinely believe in one's pseudo-Christianity.

William--
By my understanding "not complete," in the sense of "immature" would work to sum up the ABC's position. "Incomplete," however, would better refer to the knowledge base of the Jews and the Muslims, who have a concept of the God of Abraham that is correct in some aspects, but wholly lacking in the most crucial One. They are not Christians. The man who knows Christ, but does not (yet) know Mary, in the fullness of her being, possesses (so I think) the essential minimum for salvation. His Christianity may be a childish one, but it is a genuine one: he is a lamb, not a goat.

I do wish people wouldn't make those analogies between the Muslims and the Jews. The idea is "Hey, they're both monotheistic religions, so they both worship God but don't understand that he's Triune." This is incorrect, IMO, because of reasons I gave above about Islam's being based on a false revelation claim. I think we have every reason to question whether Muslims and Jews worship the same God in any relevant sense.

Lydia--
Say what you will about it, to the Muslims Jesus is an important prophet, second only to Mohammed. They accept that He was the Jewish Messiah; they believe that He will be in charge of the Last Judgement. To the Jews, officially, Jesus is nothing. Nothing at all, unless, maybe, a false prophet. For historical reasons, as well as religious ones, many Jews actively hate Jesus. OTOH, Muslims, while for historical reasons they may hate Christians, cannot, because of the Koran, hate Jesus. Them's the facts, whether you like 'em, or not.
BTW, a truth, even if it's embedded in a lie, is remains true. And a truth, even if uttered by a liar, is nonetheless true.

The "Jesus" they do not hate is not the Jesus I worship.

And the God you worship in not the God the Jews worship.

To go back to the original topic, the Muslims do--unaffected by the liberal failings of the ABC--believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus.

"And the God you worship in not the God the Jews worship."

False. I already went into this up above. You even seemed to agree, but now I think you don't get it. I won't repeat myself. God revealed himself in Jesus Christ _as_ the God of the Jews.

Lydia--
In the same way that the Jewish concept of God is incomplete, lacking the concept of the Trinity, the Muslim concept of Jesus is incomplete, lacking the concept of Him as the Second Person of the Trinity. Neither the Jews nor the Muslims accept Christ as God. The Muslims do, however, give Him a "cosmic" role, which the Jews do not.
Jesus knew that the Triune God was the God of Abraham, but the Jews have never accepted that the God of Abraham is Triune.
Therefore, you may know that you're worshipping the God of the Jews, but the Jews do not know that.

I do not acknowledge that Allah is God, but Yahweh of the Jews is. Of course I realize that a devout, traditional Jew would question whether _I'm_ worshiping the same God he is. From his perspective, I'm the one with the new religion. I realize that. But I can look at it the other way, and I have reasons for doing so. I don't, however, view Allah in the same light.

"Allah" is "God"--linguistically, anyway. I know of no theological differences between Allah and Yahweh. If you know of some, please share them.

You don't? Wow. No, Rodak, that would be going too far down the threadjack trail.

You don't need to provide an exhaustive list; just describe one or two theological differences.

It is understood, I assume, that we are speaking here of Yahweh as conceived of by the Jews, and Allah as conceived of by the Muslims; i.e. we are speaking of neither as conceived of by Christians.

Rodak,

Yahweh of the Jews was revealed by Yahweh to the Jews.

Yahweh of Christianity was taken from that Revelation and enhanced by further Revelation from Yahweh and Jesus Christ. One Revelation is less complete than the other, but they are the same God.

Allah was invented out of an amalgamation of texts and cultures. The texts were mostly Gnostic corruptions and contrary to the Christian texts. Even if you say that revelation was handed to Mohammed (which would be heresy on your part), that revelation would not be in continuity with Yahweh of that of the Jews or of Christianity.

I don't know if Allah of the Muslims can credibly be categorized as the God of Abraham, or not. I lean toward it being an invention that was only attributed to Abraham by virtue of the originating texts, but that it is not the same at all.

Whatever the case, the Muslim Allah has the furthest separation from Revelation, and it gives Allah vastly different attributes than both Judaism and Christianity. (It is amazing that you would say otherwise.) The Judaic God is closer to the Christian God than that of Islam--no contest.

Putting Jesus "in the divine plan" does nothing to help place the Muslim Allah closer to the real One. Buddhists would include Jesus in the divine plan. So what?

"The man who knows Christ, but does not (yet) know Mary, in the fullness of her being, possesses (so I think) the essential minimum for salvation."

Since God works differently in the life of each person, and each person is on a different point in their journey, there is no 'essential minimum for salvation' objectively speaking. The Church, however, has stated unequivocally that the Virgin Birth is non-negotiable, therefore we must follow suit in saying so. While God is perfectly free to 'relax his standards' out of mercy towards the person who has invincible ignorance, we are not, and must abide by what the Church has determined. Thus it would never be correct for a bishop, pastor, or other Christian to state that a given creedal or conciliar doctrine is not necessary for salvation when the Church has said that it is.

Silly Interloper--
Please see my comment @2:03 p.m.

Since God works differently in the life of each person, and each person is on a different point in their journey, there is no 'essential minimum for salvation' objectively speaking.

Isn't that what the ABC was saying? I don't think that he was trivializing belief in the Virgin Birth; I think that he was merely saying that such belief might not, in some circumstances, be present and the person lacking it still be a Christian.

vastly different attributes than both Judaism and Christianity

Really? Leaving the Christian attributes of God out of it, since they are different from both the Muslim and the Hebrew, what are those "vastly different" attributes? It seems they are like Bush's WMD--everybody "knows" they exist, but nobody can define them.

"Isn't that what the ABC was saying?"

I don't believe so. In any case, if becoming a Christian requires adherence to the Creed, why should one get a pass on that one element of it?
It seems to me that Rowan is relaxing the standard in a manner in which he does not have the authority or right to do so.

if becoming a Christian requires adherence to the Creed

Does it? That is part of what I was questioning above. Certainly adherence to the Creed (or to a Creed) is required for full membership in "The" Church, and to most of the other churches. But, does not formally belonging to any of the organized churches preclude one's being a Christian?

Okay, Rodak, I'll give you two, but I'm not going to get into some sort of "What's your textual source for that? Let's dig down into this" type of debate, or any further debate, really, because I feel that would be going way too far off-topic and, frankly, I don't have the time:

First, extreme transcendance vs. self-revelation and personal involvement to the point of being "friends" with man. This latter is evident even in the Old Testament. God walks with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. He speaks with Moses "as a man speaks with his friend." He has debates with Abraham. It is no coincidence that Muslims regard not only Christianity but also Judaism as perversions of Islam, which was on their view the ur-religion:

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NzYwMDNjZDRiMTRkODUyMTQ1ZWYwMjA4OWI3NjYwMTM=

Second, the imperative of jihad, not simply to take some one particular Holy Land but over the infidels generally. See Jihad Watch's Islam 101 and their discussion of "abrogation" for evidence re. Allah's revelation to and through Mohammed re. jihad.

Lydia--
Thank you. The extreme transcendence point is an interesting one. I don't know if I buy the second point, however. The difference there is pretty much in favor of Islam, I think. The Hebrew genocide were pure land-grabs; they were not out to spread the Truth about God, as they had received it, as are "Muslim fanatics."

It is also true that by the time of Christ, God had pretty much stopped communicating directly to men. He communicated with Joseph and Mary through dreams and angels, for instance. And He certainly wasn't strolling in any gardens at that point.
The Holy Spirit is pretty abstract and non-verbal.

"does not formally belonging to any of the organized churches preclude one's being a Christian?"

Depends on one's understanding. But what we're speaking of is what is normative. While it may be possible, in God's mercy, to be in some sense a Christian without believing the creed, it's not normative, and it shouldn't be proclaimed as if it, or certain aspects of it, are optional.

Rodak, you are entitled to your preference. I was not arguing a preference but listing a difference, as you requested.

Lydia--
I said that your transcendence point was a good one. I have no preference for Islam. I am just trying to speak to the facts, based on readings.

Rob G.--
It is certainly not optional for any person who wants to join and congregation and recite the Creed.

Rodak - To say that genuine Christianity requires the virgin birth, does not necessarily mean that a genuine Christian is required to understand, believe or assent to it, or at least not initially. In the Christian faith, the mystical dimension takes priority over the cognitive dimension. In modern Evangelical parlance, what matters most is a relationship with God. It is possible to have a relationship with someone and yet not cognitively know all about that person. Moreover, it is possible to have a relationship with someone and to misunderstand him or her in some profound ways. However, if the relationship is genuine, and there is communication happening, then ignorance and misunderstanding will eventually be overcome. Consequently, I can see how a person can have a relationship with Jesus and yet be ignorant of him or misunderstand him. However, as I said, such matters will eventually be overcome if the relationship is genuine and healthy. So, perhaps I need to qualify my initial assertion. A person can be a genuine Christian, insofar as they have a genuine relationship with Jesus, and yet in ignorance or misunderstanding not affirm the virgin birth. If the relationship is genuine, however, I would think that said person would eventually come around to an affirmation of the virgin birth.

The distinction between the mystical and the cognitive dimension is what I meant to delineate in my analogy regarding descriptive statements being derived from observation of a living organism. The implication of this analogy is that the observer has some kind of relationship to the thing she or he is observing. This is somewhat different than the knowledge that a person might have who read a book by another person who was an eyewitness to the living organism being observed. The person reading a book would have cognitive knowledge, but not relational knowledge. Such a person's knowledge would be propositional in nature. In the end, I don't think that our salvation is grounded upon the rightness of our concept of God, but rather on a genuine relationship with him. This is not to say that concepts regarding God don't matter, but rather that our concepts of God should be that which are derived from a relationship grounded upon faith that expresses itself through obedience. Again, when a person has a relationship with someone, overtime that person will have a pretty accurate concept of who that someone is by being in that other person's presence and by being a witness to that other person's life.

Silly Interloper--
Please see my comment @2:03 p.m.

Rodak--I do not know what you are saying with that post. Could you elaborate?

Silly Interloper--
I am saying that the difference between the Christian concept of the Triune God and either the Jewish or the Muslim concept is a given, so don't bother explaining that in the context of refuting my point.
My point is that the Muslim God and the Jewish God are to a great degree similar in their differences from the Christian God, and, therefore, are essentially similar to each other, and the same God--the God of Abraham--as the Muslims proclaim.
Lydia has since pointed out that one difference between the Muslim Allah and the Yahweh of the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures is the utter transcendence of Allah. Yahweh, she points out, in the very old stories of the OT, walked with men, apparently in a body.
I pointed out, then, that Yahweh/God becomes more and more transcendent in the Jewish tradition until, by the time of Christ, Gof the Father is nearly as transcendent as Allah. Jesus says that none knows the Father, except through Him (Jesus). God the Father, the First Person of the Trinity (the only aspect of God that Jews or Muslims know), then, similarly to Allah, no longer speaks directly to men by the time of Christ--600+ years prior to the founding of Islam.
I believe it's the case that the Jews have had no new revelations, no new prophets, since well before Christ. So, there again, God has become transcendent, like Allah.

Anthony--
I don't think that we really have any fundamental disagreement here. If one considers what the ABC says below, in the light of your position that if the relationship is genuine, and there is communication happening, then ignorance and misunderstanding will eventually be overcome I think that it will be seen that you, the ABC, and I are saying much the same thing. The ABC is quoted as having said:

...he was committed to belief in the Virgin Birth “as part of what I have inherited”. But belief in the Virgin Birth should not be a “hurdle” over which new Christians had to jump before they were accepted.

He hinted that decades ago he was not “too fussed” with the literal truth of the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. But as time went on, he developed a “deeper sense” of what the Virgin Birth was all about.

What was true for the ABC, I believe he meant to say, could be true for any "immature" Christian, who is on the path to a more full knowledge of, and faith in, Christ that has begun with an initial attraction to the Truth that is manifest in Christ alone. I agree.

Note: the paragraph above beginning with "He hinted that..." should also have been in italics, indicating that it is quoted like the one immediately preceding it. My bad.

I didn't mean that in those passages God literally had a body. Just so as not to be misunderstood.

I didn't mean that in those passages God literally had a body. Just so as not to be misunderstood.

Right. But it kind of weakens your point that He didn't have a body, don't you think?

Btw, Lydia, I just finished reading Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra at your instigation from our earlier discussion of Adam and Eve and Original Sin. I had read the triology years ago; but I enjoyed the re-reading immensely. I started That Hideous Strength today.
Lewis addresses all of the points I was making very directly, as you said. In the end, though, his resolution is not quite satifactory. That the prohibition against living on the fixed land is the one rule that isn't obeyed simply because the Queen wants to obey it anyway, does not seem to me a good analogy for eating the Forbidden Fruit in order to obtain wisdom through gaining the knowledge of good and evil. The set-up in Perelandra has Maleldil imposing an arbitrary and intrinsically meaningless prohibition merely as a test of a good and utterly trusting creature; it seems petty and almost paranoid. And the resolution of Ransom destroying the body of Weston as a way to rid the planet of Satan is not convincing.
All that said, though, Lewis does do a great job of exploring the issue of Original Sin. I thank you for prompting me to re-read the Space Triology.

I am saying that the difference between the Christian concept of the Triune God and either the Jewish or the Muslim concept is a given, so don't bother explaining that in the context of refuting my point.

I didn't provide that explanation, so I'm still not sure why you refer me back to it.

I think you are presuming too much ability in understanding the significance of eternal attributes. It is entirely possible that the Godhood between Judaism and Christianity is infinitely more similar than the Godhood of Islam, while the way we know God through three Persons has less infinite implications. Or maybe that's pure folly. Since we are dealing with infinite attributes, the differences between the Judaic Yahweh and the Christian Yahweh may be just as infinite as the differences between the Judaic Yahweh and the Muslim Allah. There's no possible way to measure it. I simply don't buy this notion that an eternal monotheism trumps the other differences between the God of the Jews, the God of Islam, and the God of Christianity--especially since Christianity still believes in the monotheistic One God.

I just don't think you can possibly make these kinds of judgments, which makes us rely upon more earthly ways to recognize differences. Earthly ways of origin, Revelation, and personal relationships seem to generally favor a similarity between Judaism and Christianity, and separate them from Islam.

I didn't provide that explanation, so I'm still not sure why you refer me back to it.

Silly Interloper--

You said this:

The Judaic God is closer to the Christian God than that of Islam--no contest.

Be that as it may, both Islam, and now, Judaism, have been introduced to the concept of the Triune God, and have rejected it. Islam explicitly rejects it in the Koran. Regardless of our human inability to fully comprehend all that is meant by the word "God" or "Allah," we are able to make a distinction between "One Person" and "Three Persons." And in that lies the difference of the Christian concept of God from both the Jewish and the Islamic concepts. I contend that the concept of the Triune God is so essential to Christianity, and so much the focus of both the Jewish and the Muslim rejections of Christ's divinity, that the Islamic Allah and the Jewish Yahweh are clearly more similar to each other than they are to the Christian Trinity. I don't think that you will find many Jews or Muslims who would disagree with me on that point, despite the animus between them. Many Jews, btw, are less than amused by the Christian practice of reading references to Christian theology into their sacred books.

I'll give you that the rejection of Christ is a salient point, but I think it says more about the religions in general than determining the distinquishing attributes in the nature of Yahweh. The Jews still started with the One True God as He was revealed to them, which the Muslim's didn't. I believe that's more significant, and it's more accessible to human understanding.

I might entertain your point of view if we were to posit that the Jews abandoned the revealed One True God when they rejected Christ, and have since morphed their God into something else. But I don't think that has been posited, and I'm not sure how reasonable an assertion that would be. It might also be argued that the Jewish revelation has within it some of the nature of the Three Persons even if they do not recognize it as such.

Trying to categorize the eternal attributes to differentiate between two is one thing. But trying to measure the eternal attributes to decide which is more different seems like folly to me. Eternal attributes by there very nature are unfathomable and out of reach of our discussion.

It might also be argued that the Jewish revelation has within it some of the nature of the Three Persons even if they do not recognize it as such.

Why could not the same be true of Allah, then? The Muslims at least believe in the Virgin Birth, and that Jesus was the Messiah, and will be the Judge at the End of Time.

to decide which is more different

But, again, I'm not trying to show which is more different from the Trinity, I'm trying to show which two of the three are more the same. That's a different comparison.

I'll give you that the rejection of Christ is a salient point

Silly Interloper, don't cede any ground on this point. The manner of rejection was entirely different. Islam grants Christ the phony prominence of Prophet for the sole purpose of dethroning Him, then creating an amalgam of its two predecessors so as to appear the true and final revelation of God to man. The Jewish manner of rejection was more honest: He was not the Messiah, end of discussion. The Mohammedan attempt to turn Him into something else is simple heresy in all its wickedness.

The Jewish manner of rejection was more honest: He was not the Messiah, end of discussion.

William--
The Jewish Messiah was not expected to also be God. The Muslims assign to Jesus all of His true roles, save that of divinity. The Jews account Him as nothing. Less than othing. A crucified blasphemer.
Your argument is emotional, not rational.

The Muslims assign to Jesus all of His true roles, save that of divinity.

Yes, they assign to him roles that mean nothing in the absence of the only one that counts.

I advise you to just make your point. If you call me irrational again, I will take the emotionally rational step of deleting your comments.

"Islam grants Christ the phony prominence of Prophet for the sole purpose of dethroning Him, then creating an amalgam of its two predecessors so as to appear the true and final revelation of God to man."

Amen, Bill, amen.

I think Rodak is trying to _define_ Judaism as involving the rejection of Jesus Christ and the insistence that God in his essence is non-Triune. This would entail that the God of the Old Testament cannot be the God of the New Testament. But given the rejection of the Marcionite heresy by the Christian church, the traditional view of Christians themselves is that Judaism is not to be thus defined.

r"...the emotionally rational step of deleting your comments."

Go right ahead, big guy. I don't much enjoy the company of [insult censored] in any case.

Ciao.

Wiedersehen.

This would entail that the God of the Old Testament cannot be the God of the New Testament.

God is God. To the Jews and to the Muslims, God is non-Triune. [supercilious condescension redacted].

Just can't help yourself, can you?

Rodak, it seems quite obvious to me that figuring out the magnitude of sameness is directly related to figuring out the magnitude of difference. I'm really not sure why that isn't obvious to you.

And, Bill, I think you are quite right, but I certainly didn't intend to concede anything by admitting that the rejection of Christ is an observable thing.

It shouldn't surprise us that Rodak, who believes that he can *command* the Holy Spirit to ensure his interpretation of scripture is correct, is also willing to claim godlike knowledge about the eternal attributes of God.

Rodak, it seems quite obvious to me that figuring out the magnitude of sameness is directly related to figuring out the magnitude of difference. I'm really not sure why that isn't obvious to you.

Silly Interloper--

The Jews reject Christ as God. The Muslims reject Christ as God. In this they are the same. (In this they are each equally different from Christianity.) The Jews reject the Triune God. The Muslims reject the Triune God. In this they are the same. (In this they are each equally different from Christianity.) Does this satisfy your concerns re: "sameness" and "difference"?

I certainly didn't intend to concede anything by admitting that the rejection of Christ is an observable thing.

Question: What do you mean by "an observable thing" here?


Since this discussion has strayed a bit into claims about the Old Testament, Yale is offering a free online course on the Hebrew Bible that might be of some interest to readers. I have not read all the material, so don't shoot the messenger.

http://open.yale.edu/courses/religious_studies/introduction-to-the-old-testament-hebrew-bible/sessions.html

So Rodak is a Marcionite. Does that explain a lot? I haven't decided yet.

Lydia--
I'm not a Marcionite. But, I invite you, if you believe the Old Testament to provide testimony to the Triune God, to ask any Jew about it. It is their revelation, where it is revealed, and their composition, where it is composed. The Jews were strict monotheists (like the Muslims) in the First Century, and they are so today. Is this controversial?

The Jews reject Christ as God. The Muslims reject Christ as God. In this they are the same. (In this they are each equally different from Christianity.) The Jews reject the Triune God. The Muslims reject the Triune God. In this they are the same. (In this they are each equally different from Christianity.) Does this satisfy your concerns re: "sameness" and "difference"?

No.

You cannot possibly expect a few observations that seem the same (but are not), and expect us to ignore the differences as if they were irrelevant, while claiming that your case is made. It's a ridiculous notion. The Muslims *started* with a different conception of God based upon nothing close to Jewish and Christian revelation of the One God. It was and is an utterly different conception of the One God. They *added* Jesus as something other than part of the Trinity--their rejection of His Godhood has an entirely different dynamic to it from the Jews. That is orders of magnitude different from starting from the Revealed Truth handed to the Jews by the **SAME** One True God that revealed Christianity to us.

If a Jews drive Lamborginis, but denies it has an engine--he's still driving a Lamborgini. The Christians who drive the same Lamborgini after discovering the magnificent engine under the hood are also still driving a Lamborgini. If a Muslim picks up a Lamborgini engine and uses it as a hood ornament for their Datsun B210, while simultaineously denying the validity of the Lamborgini religions--They are NOT driving a Lamborgini. To say the Jewish car is more similar to the Muslim car because the Muslim's also reject the engine is ridiculous.

You can pick at all kinds of religions and find sameness in them. So what? It proves nothing the way you are trying to prove it. This exercise of yours is pure bosh.

their rejection of His Godhood has an entirely different dynamic to it from the Jews.

That statement is false. Both the Jews and the Muslims reject the divinity of Christ based on the notion that God is One and indivisible: one person, not three. The Muslims took that notion directly from the Jews, even if they "stole" it.

That statement is false.

The man who claims godlike omniscience and commands the Holy Spirit has spoken.

Silly Interloper--

I'll say one thing for you; you chose your cybersphere handle appropriately and with remarkable honesty.

That's actually a pretty neat link, Step 2. I can read the text, listen to the audio, or watch the video. Of course, I do not actually have time to take the course... Here's the course summary and teacher's bio page.

I love your car analogy, Silly. Seals it for me.

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