Virgin Birth - Original Sin (Christ)

[Paidion]

What do you mean when you say that Christ retained only His identity when He became man (but, no longer was a Divine Person)?]

Indeed, the Council of Ephesus (back in 431) succinctly affirmed both the divinity and the humanity of Christ by asserting that Jesus' Mother, Mary, can be most fittingly referred to as, "The Mother of God".

I will comment on your statement first, and then address your question.
You are right, and that was unwise. Originally the assertion was not that Mary was "The Mother of God", but that she was "ο θεοτοκος" (the theotokos) "The God-bearer". She bore the one who was God, the one who had been God prior to his birth. He was fully Man while he was a human being on earth, and referred to himself usually as "the son of man" and seldom as "the son of God". However, in one sense, He was God while on earth in virtue of His identity!

So let me explain from the beginning. We should be very clear what we mean when we say that Jesus is God. In what sense is he God? Surely not in the modalist sense, id est, that he is the same divine Individual as the Father, and that this one God expresses Himself as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that these three may be compared to three actor's masks which he puts on. The masks look different, but there is only one man behind them . If you are a trinitarian, you think of God not as a divine Person, but as a mysterious "substance" or "essence" made up of three divine Persons, each one of whom is God because each is in some way made up of this Divine Substance which is confined to those three alone.

Now let me share my understanding of the first and second-century Christians concerning the son of God. They taught that God begat his son "before all ages". They understood it as a single act. I believe that it was not only "before all ages" but that that single act marked the beginning of time. There was no "before" the beginning of time. For the word "before" indicates a relation to some event which has occurred in time. At the beginning of time, God existed (we can't say He existed "before" the beginning of time, because there was no "before" so that would be nonsense). Instantly at the beginning of time, God begat his son. So there was no time at which the son of God did not exist (as the Arians affirmed). Now dogs beget dogs, and their offspring are canine. Man begets man, and his offspring is human. God begets God and his offspring is divine. This is the sense in which the son of God was God. Justin Martyr who discussed Christ for days with a group of Jewish men headed by Trypho, gave this explanation:

"I shall give you another testimony, my friends," said I, "from the scriptures, that God begat before all created things, a Beginning, a certain rational power from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos; and on another occasion, He calls Himself Captain, when He appeared in Human form to Joshua the son of Nave. For He can be called by all those names, since He ministers to the Father's will, and since He was begotten of the Father by an act of will;... just as we see happening in the case of a fire, which is not lessened when it has kindled [another], but remains the same; and that which has been kindled by it likewise appears to exists by itself, not diminishing that from which it was kindled." Justin Martyr (110-165 A.D.) Dialogue with Trypho Chapter 61 from the Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 1

So Justin compared the begetting of the Son to that of a fire being started from a larger fire. Both fires are of the same "substance". So the Father and the Son are both "God" in essence. But when the Son of God was born as a human being he divested himself of all of his divine attributes.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:5-8 RSV

So was this great self-emptying not an emptying of himself of his divine attributes, so that practically he was no longer divine. He was unable to perform any miracles, though the Father performed many miracles through Him. He got hungry and thirsty like everyone else. As a baby, he cried (in spite of "Away in a Manger"), and he wet his diapers (or whatever the equivalent was) just like any other baby. He did not stand up at 10 months old and give great orations as the gnostics affirmed. He was FULLY human in every way. He was tempted in ALL ways just as we are, but was without sin for he was filled with the spirit of God and chose not to sin on each and every occasion when he was tempted. What do I mean when I say that he retained his identity? He was still that same individual person whom God begat at the beginning of time. He knew about his pre-existance; he knew that he was the son of God, at least when he was older. He said, "Before Abraham was, I am."

So is it correct to say that Jesus was God while he walked this earth? Yes, it is correct in this sense. He was that same divine individual who was begotten as the Son of God, and event which marked the beginning of time. But to think of him, while he was on earth, as God in the sense that he had intrinsic divine powers apart from the Father's work in and through him, would be an error.

[TK]

Paidion wrote:

So is it correct to say that Jesus was God while he walked this earth? Yes, it is correct in this sense. He was that same divine individual who was begotten as the Son of God, and event which marked the beginning of time. But to think of him, while he was on earth, as God in the sense that he had intrinsic divine powers apart from the Father's work in and through him, would be an error.

This is a nice summation of what I think as well. I am still not sure about the "beginning of time part"(you have discussed this elsewhere) but probably only because my mind cannot comprehend such a thing.

TK

[Paidion]

This is a nice summation of what I think as well. I am still not sure about the "beginning of time part"(you have discussed this elsewhere) but probably only because my mind cannot comprehend such a thing.

Yes, the idea that time had a beginning is difficult to comprehend. But for me, the concepts of an infinite regression of time into the past, and God existing "outside of time" is utterly incoherent.

[Homer]

Hi Paidion,

You wrote:

Yes, the idea that time had a beginning is difficult to comprehend. But for me, the concepts of an infinite regression of time into the past, and God existing "outside of time" is utterly incoherent.

If time had a beginning (not arguing whether it did or not), and God existing outside of time is incoherant, it would then seem that you would have a hard time conceiving of God existing at all before time began. Outside time would be the only possible existence He could have.

[Paidion]

it would then seem that you would have a hard time conceiving of God existing at all before time began.

Before time began! That's an oxymoron. "Before" is a temporal term. If time had an actual beginning (and I believe it did) then there is no "before".

If time began at T1, and there was time prior to T1, then time didn't begin at T1 but some prior time. We seem to have a lot of difficulty in getting our minds around the concept of time having a beginning with no time and no events and no existence before that beginning simply because there was no "before". I thinking many of us may be psychologically incapable of thinking in terms of a beginning to time because of the fact that we all have been educated to believe in an infinite regression of time into the past ---- a concept which I see as incoherent.

[Homer]

Hi Paidion,

You wrote:

Before time began! That's an oxymoron. "Before" is a temporal term. If time had an actual beginning (and I believe it did) then there is no "before".

Yes, we normally think of time in terms such as "before and after", "sooner and later", etc. There is a sequence to events.

In an earlier post you wrote:

He was still that same individual person whom God begat at the beginning of time.

This has been your consistent position all along. As I understand you, Jesus came into existence instantaneously when time began. Do you think God came into existance at the beginning of time also? And if not, and He existed prior to the beginning of time, could He do anything? For example, something before and something after? Could He think a new thought?

[Amyfree]

I asked another Keith Greene (a mormon neighbor) ten years ago where God actually did come from, he admitted no one really knows!

[Paidion]

This has been your consistent position all along. As I understand you, Jesus came into existence instantaneously when time began. Do you think God came into existance at the beginning of time also?

No. The early Christians put it this way: "The Son of God was begotten before all ages, but the Father is unbegotten." All I can say is that God the Father simply EXISTED at the beginning of time. Nor did He exist even a nanosecond before the Son. He begat the Son EXACTLY at the beginning of time. As a wise man put it, "God preceded the Son causally, but not temporally." So contrary to Arius, there was not a time at which the Son did not exist. Is it any more difficult to conceive of God simply existing at the beginning of time that to conceive of His existing during an infinite past time, or worse yet "outside of time"?

And if not, and He existed prior to the beginning of time, could He do anything? For example, something before and something after? Could He think a new thought?

The position that God did not come into existence at the beginning of time does not imply that He existed before the beginning of time. As I have repeatedly stated, "THERE WAS NO 'BEFORE'! " To revisit this thinking, let's call the beginning of time "T1". If there had been ANY period of time before T1 during which the Father or anyone else could have existed or done anything, then T1 was NOT the beginning of time, but some point of time T, which was prior to T1.

Now if you think this reasoning concerning the beginning of time is difficult to comprehend, consider the position of one who believes that God exists outside of time, hereafter called an "eternalist". Let's be clear that an "eternalist" is not necessarily one who believes that there is an infinite regression of time into the past, but one who believes that God and perhaps some other things exist "outside of time". Paul Helm is such an eternalist. He seems to believe that the creation itself might exist outside of time. He wrote :But according to the eternalist, there need be no temporal first moment of creation, and so the universe need not have begun (temporally) to exist, for from the divine standpoint, the universe is eternal, even though it exists contingently. --- [From an essay "Divine Timeless Eternity" by Paul Helm taken from the book God and Time Four Views edited by Gregory E. Ganssle ©2001 by Gregory E. Ganssle]. When Helm says "from the divine standpoint the universe is eternal", he seems to mean that the universe was created outside of time. Oh, oh. I can't use "was"; that implies a past action. I will revise that: "he seems to mean that the universe is created outside of time."

But Helm goes on to say, And even if we suppose a first moment of creation it does not follow that God existed before the creation, before that first moment. For if there was a first moment of creation, then there was no time prior to the first moment during which God might exist. So you can see that Helm's reasoning here parallels my own explanation as to why there can be no existence "before" the beginning of time.

But eternalism goes much further than saying that God did not exist "before" creation. It affirms that God does not exist NOW! He exists only outide of time. In his reponse to Helm's essay, Nicholas Wolterstorff wrote: Now let's consider that thesis: never is it true to say that God now exists; always the true thing to say is that it's not the case that God now exists. Why isn't that just atheism? The eternalist might reply that the reason it's not just atheism is that, though he agrees with the atheist that it's never true to say "God now exists," he disagrees in holding that it's nonetheless now true that God exists"; that's always the true thing to say. Wolterstorff then remarked (if I understood his remark correctly) that it seemed to him that for an entity to exist "at" a time is tantamount to saying that at that time, the entity exists. He then stated, "So I conclude that eternalism is incoherent."

Nor does Paul Helm seem to believe that there was a time at which the Son of God existed prior to the incarnation. He wrote in the same essay quoted from above: But could it not happen that Moses could say, "Jesus does not exist yet but the Son of God does"? And would this give some sense to the idea that the Son of God exists before the incarnation? Not really. For as McCabe says, it is necessary to distinguish between saying "It is true now the Son of God exists" and saying "The Son of God exists now." There is no time at which the Son of God exists in a preincarnate form.

So I suppose Helm could agree with the Arians that "There was a time at which the Son of God did not exist," although not meaning it in the same way. The Arians believed that there was a time prior to His begetting during which the Son did not exist. But, as I understand Helm, he believes that during the time prior to His incarnation the Son did not exist temporally, but had (and still has) an eternal existence outside of time. Make sense?

[Homer]

Hi Paidion,

Thanks for your reply, but it only raises more questions. Like, if God did not exist prior to time, how did time (and God) begin? You explanation would seem to suggest that time had a beginning, and thus God also had a beginning. It seems like you are erecting a "wall" at what you call the beginning of time, a wall beyond which no further regression is possible.

God and time is an extremely difficult subject, and mankind would appear to be "in over our head" in trying to figure it out. This paper is about the best I have read on the subject; it references Boyd, Helm, Pinnock, Lane, etc, and strikes a middle ground:

http://internal.ccuniversity.edu/seminary/Cottrell.pdf

Cottrell is at least humble enough not to be too dogmatic.

[Paidion]

Thank you, Homer, for the link to that paper. I didn't find much in it that was new. I became acquainted with the philosophical thinking in the book to which I referred: God and Time: Four Views. The paper you shared puts things more in layman's terms, and it deals with the ramifications of each view. Being intensely interested in the subject, I began reading God and Time: Four Views with much zeal. However, I found it "over my head" and laid it down for a long time. But recently, I picked it up again. My experience in philosophical thinking, having minored in it at university, helped me a great deal. It was just that I had not done much reasoning in that particular area. To my surprise, when I began to read the book again, I found I could understand it perhaps to the degree that it ought to be understood (by that I mean to the extent that it's coherent). The two "extremes" to which your paper refers seem to be "eternalism", the view that God and some other things exist outside of time, and "sempiternalism", the view that everything exists within time, but that time extends infinitely into the past and the future. I would have thought that the latter view was the traditional view (it was the view I was taught both by religious and educational authorities). But the traditional view is apparently the former, espoused by Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas. That was the biggest surprise to me in my reading. I am not sure that the paper you shared "strikes a middle ground". I see William Craig as taking the middle ground. He believes that prior to the moment of creation, God was timeless, but thereafter was temporal. To my mind, the views of the author of the paper you shared differ very little from semipiternalism.

My own view is dissimilar to either extreme, and so definitely does not fit anywhere between the two.

Thanks for your reply, but it only raises more questions. Like, if God did not exist prior to time, how did time (and God) begin?

God didn't begin. But otherwise, this is an excellent question, probably the prime question with regard to my view. Unfortunately, I have no answer except to say that God's first act of begetting His Son, initiated the roll of time. But then, the question of course is, "How was God able to act to initiate His first act, unless He were outside of time." Okay. You've got me! I have thought long and hard about these questions and have not arrived at a satisfying answer. I have to relegate it to the status of "perhaps the greatest mystery of all time and perhaps non-time as well." I think the problem lies in the fact that we think something has to temporally precede that first act of God. All I can say if God didn't act within time, then He did the only thing He ever did "outside of time" and by doing so, thus got time rolling. I regret that I am incapable of understanding this to the extent that I can give a satisfying answer.

You explanation would seem to suggest that time had a beginning, and thus God also had a beginning.

I definitely affirm that time had a beginning. But again, that doesn't imply that God had a beginning. God WAS the beginning, in that He was able to beget His Son and thus begin time itself.

It seems like you are erecting a "wall" at what you call the beginning of time, a wall beyond which no further regression is possible.

I suppose one could put it that way. It would be a one-sided wall, whose side could be viewed only from the standpoint of time.