Recently, I heard a Christian leader claim that women and men are unequal in being. His conclusion seems to follow from at least two premises: (1) women are physically weaker than men; (2) women are less rational. Together, these make up the material (body) and immaterial (soul-reason) parts of a person.
What are the Missions of God?
The Bible teaches us about the sendings of the Persons of God. In Latin, the word sending translates missio, and so divine missions or divine sendings are the same things.
Augustine’s View on OT Theophanies in Anti-Arian Polemics
Augustine and Vidu have made me re-think the notion that the Son is the Person usually revealed in Old Testament theophanies. If we say this, it makes it sound as if the Son is visible unlike the Father and Spirit who invisible (1 Tim 6:16).
I now think that the God generally reveals himself in OT theophanies by a created form (fire in the bush, angel of the Lord, a thunderous voice, etc.).
Theophanies Reveal God
Some theophanies by appropriation may better fit one Person, I suppose. But generally, the one God—Father, Son, and Spirit—reveals himself in the burning bush, and who names himself as “I AM.” “I AM” is the one God of Israel—Father, Son, and Spirit.
Augustine particularly convinces me of this argument as it’s easy to think that the Son would pre-reveal himself in the OT because he alone as a Person infleshes. But God is Spirit, and no one has seen God. We see Christ and thus see the F. in a unique way in the Incarnation.
To see the Son is to see the Father in the face of Christ. But if God by nature is invisible (1 Tim 1:17), then the Son and Spirit must too be invisible by nature or we have three gods. But we have one God (Deut 6:4).
Therefore, it’s inappropriate to say that the Son by nature is more likely to be visible in OT theophanies. The Incarnation is a unique event. It’s fitting due to relations of origin, not because the Son is more visible than the invisible Father.
Augustine’s Theological Context
Why does Augustine believe that OT theophanies are created effects of the one God, not a revelation of the Son in particular? To answer that question, we need to look at his anti-Arian theological context.
Although scholars like Vidu and Michel Barnes clarify Augustine’s anti-Arian context in De Trinitate, I also think Augustine makes it clear in his debate with Maximinus as to why he takes theophanies to be of God, not the Son in particular.
In his debate with Maximinus (an Arian Bishop), Maximinus argues strongly that the only-begotten God cannot have the name nature as the one God, the Father, because the Son was made visible in the OT through theophanies, and the one God is invisible (e.g., 1 Tim 1:17).
This likely explains why in De Trinitate Book II-IV Augustine spends so much time on theophanies. He wants to show that theophanies of God in the OT are of God under the form of a created effect, and not the Son Himself in a pre-Incarnate revelation of Himself.
Were that true, it would both suggest that the Son is by nature visible (so not the one God who by nature is invisible and whom nobody has ever seen) and that the Incarnation is a sort of progressive event. Both can’t true, since the Son is the one God of Israel made flesh in time.
However, this position does not mean a theophany cannot by appropriation say something of one Person. Maybe Jesus’s Baptism would illustrate the point, I am not sure yet.
Conclusion
For now, I find myself persuaded by Augustine. Theophanies reveal God.
Is the Threefold Division of the Law Biblical?
While some people (today) disagree with the threefold division of mosaic law, all it is really saying is:
(1) The law regulates priestly service and rites (Hebrews says these are fulfilled in Jesus)
(2) The law regulates Israel’s political ordering, as God’s chosen people.
(3) The law contains eternal truths (e.g., the Ten Commandments) that are not temporary arrangements for Israelites like levitical rites and ceremonies or specific political arrangements for ancient Israel (like the ransom census of Exodus 30).
[Read more…] about Is the Threefold Division of the Law Biblical?
If Perfect love Casts out all fear, why Should we fear the Lord?
Maximus the Confessor is helping me understand the fear of the Lord better these days. I have found it a bit hard to understand how fear can be sinful, we should fear God, and yet love casts out all fear. The Bible speaks in different ways about fear.
Maximus goes straight to Jesus, as he always does, to clarify the idea of the fear in Scripture.
[Read more…] about If Perfect love Casts out all fear, why Should we fear the Lord?
Maximus the Confessor is helping me understand the fear of the Lord better these days. I have found it a bit hard to understand how fear can be sinful, we should fear God, and yet love casts out all fear. The Bible speaks in different ways about fear.
Maximus goes straight to Jesus, as he always does, to clarify the idea of the fear in Scripture.
[Read more…] about If Perfect love Casts out all fear, why Should we fear the Lord?
Does God have Emotions?
Christians claim God is impassible—without passions. For example, the Westminster Confession of Faith affirms, God is “without body, parts, or passions” (2.1). For most people, this seems to affirm God has no emotions under the reasonable assumption that passions are emotions.
But such a teaching, although everywhere present in the history of Christianity, seems at variance with biblical teaching. The Bible often says God is angry, for example. Does this mean God is a passionate and emotional God?
To answer that question, I want to reargue key reasons why Christians hold God to be impassible. Afterwards, I will answer the question, Does God have emotions? [Read more…] about Does God have Emotions?