JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
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There are many concepts of who and what Jesus Christ is. Most of them I think are heretical in the view of the Catholic church, but I am no expert on that or Neoplatonism. These descriptions are simply my grasp of what the Trinity is and what it means to refer to God in the context of Christian theology.
We should really start with what is proclaimed by the Apostle John, the most favored of the Apostles by Jesus.
So St John makes several distinctions, and I am going to replace 'God' with 'Creator' to ease some of the obfuscation that comes from using 'God' to mean everything related to the Creator:
1. the Word was with the Creator in the beginning, and yet the Word is also the Creator in some fashion.
2. All things were made through the Word, and aside from him nothing was made.
3. the Word is in the closest relationship with Creator. This can only mean that the Word is somehow integral to the Creator.
To have a more complete understanding of Who and What Jesus was, we have to also look at the Hellenistic society of His time.
Aristotle Aristotle - Wikipedia lived from 380 to 322 BC and devised many of the concepts we have of the Creator.
For Aristotle, as I understand him, the Creator was known as the Prime Mover, or the First Cause, from which the universe came into being.
Unmoved mover - Wikipedia
The unmoved movers are, themselves, immaterial substance, (separate and individual beings), having neither parts nor magnitude. As such, it would be physically impossible for them to move material objects of any size by pushing, pulling or collision
After Aristotle, his heirs of Philosophical thought brought more development to the concept of the Nuos and the Logos.
Nous - Wikipedia
The Acts of the Apostles chapter 2
And so the exploration of the mind of Jesus Christ is in part to also investigate Nature and its laws, which gave rise to the Christian concept of Science.
So Jesus when He was conceived by the Creator was not a physical act so much as it was a creative act of Will by the Father to give life to the Logos and allow Him to experience first hand the trials of Mankind and thus give him the perfect basis on which to Judge Mankind and to also forgive us with His Grace.
This is what we celebrate tonight, the coming of the Divine Reason into human form so that we can be given the Creators Grace and forgiveness.
Merry Christmas everyone.
We should really start with what is proclaimed by the Apostle John, the most favored of the Apostles by Jesus.
John chapter 1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
So St John makes several distinctions, and I am going to replace 'God' with 'Creator' to ease some of the obfuscation that comes from using 'God' to mean everything related to the Creator:
1. the Word was with the Creator in the beginning, and yet the Word is also the Creator in some fashion.
2. All things were made through the Word, and aside from him nothing was made.
3. the Word is in the closest relationship with Creator. This can only mean that the Word is somehow integral to the Creator.
To have a more complete understanding of Who and What Jesus was, we have to also look at the Hellenistic society of His time.
Aristotle Aristotle - Wikipedia lived from 380 to 322 BC and devised many of the concepts we have of the Creator.
For Aristotle, as I understand him, the Creator was known as the Prime Mover, or the First Cause, from which the universe came into being.
Unmoved mover - Wikipedia
The unmoved movers, if they were anywhere, were said to fill the outer void, beyond the sphere of fixed stars:
It is clear then that there is neither place, nor void, nor time, outside the heaven. Hence whatever is there, is of such a nature as not to occupy any place, nor does time age it; nor is there any change in any of the things which lie beyond the outermost motion; they continue through their entire duration unalterable and unmodified, living the best and most self sufficient of lives… From [the fulfilment of the whole heaven] derive the being and life which other things, some more or less articulately but other feebly, enjoy."[15]
— Aristotle, De Caelo, I.9, 279 a17–30It is clear then that there is neither place, nor void, nor time, outside the heaven. Hence whatever is there, is of such a nature as not to occupy any place, nor does time age it; nor is there any change in any of the things which lie beyond the outermost motion; they continue through their entire duration unalterable and unmodified, living the best and most self sufficient of lives… From [the fulfilment of the whole heaven] derive the being and life which other things, some more or less articulately but other feebly, enjoy."[15]
The unmoved movers are, themselves, immaterial substance, (separate and individual beings), having neither parts nor magnitude. As such, it would be physically impossible for them to move material objects of any size by pushing, pulling or collision
After Aristotle, his heirs of Philosophical thought brought more development to the concept of the Nuos and the Logos.
Nous - Wikipedia
To the Stoics, more like Heraclitus than Anaxagoras, order in the cosmos comes from an entity called logos, the cosmic reason. But as in Anaxagoras this cosmic reason, like human reason but higher, is connected to the reason of individual humans. The Stoics however, did not invoke incorporeal causation, but attempted to explain physics and human thinking in terms of matter and forces. As in Aristotelianism, they explained the interpretation of sense data requiring the mind to be stamped or formed with ideas, and that people have shared conceptions that help them make sense of things (koine ennoia).[30] Nous for them is soul "somehow disposed" (pôs echon), the soul being somehow disposed pneuma, which is fire or air or a mixture. As in Plato, they treated nous as the ruling part of the soul.[31]
Again, I am no expert, but it would seem that the concept of the Logos is very similar to what John spoke of and the Nuos is the spirit of life and described in the Book of Acts as a tongue of fire or flame.The Acts of the Apostles chapter 2
The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost
2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.
Logos - Wikipedia2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.
Stoic philosophy began with Zeno of Citium c. 300 BC, in which the logos was the active reason pervading and animating the Universe. It was conceived as material and is usually identified with God or Nature. The Stoics also referred to the seminal logos ("logos spermatikos"), or the law of generation in the Universe, which was the principle of the active reason working in inanimate matter. Humans, too, each possess a portion of the divine logos.[29]
The Stoics took all activity to imply a logos or spiritual principle. As the operative principle of the world, the logos was anima mundi to them,
Later Emanationist theologians identified the Logos as the first thought or preconception of the Creator as He created the universe, much as a carpenter forms a thought of a chair before making it, so too the Creator formed a vision of the Universe He made, and this is the Logos, and the spirit of life He gave it was the Holy Spirit and all the three, the Creator that exists outside of time, the Logos which seems to be the manifestation of the Creator when He projects His Will into the flow of Space and Time. And the Holy Spirit is the Nuos, or spirit of life and love the Creator has for all He has made.The Stoics took all activity to imply a logos or spiritual principle. As the operative principle of the world, the logos was anima mundi to them,
And so the exploration of the mind of Jesus Christ is in part to also investigate Nature and its laws, which gave rise to the Christian concept of Science.
So Jesus when He was conceived by the Creator was not a physical act so much as it was a creative act of Will by the Father to give life to the Logos and allow Him to experience first hand the trials of Mankind and thus give him the perfect basis on which to Judge Mankind and to also forgive us with His Grace.
This is what we celebrate tonight, the coming of the Divine Reason into human form so that we can be given the Creators Grace and forgiveness.
Merry Christmas everyone.
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