Epicurus said that we should be happy for “Death is nothing to us.”
What did he mean? [Read more…] about Epicurus: Death is nothing to us. So be happy!
A Change of Character, Not a Change of Air
What does Seneca say to a man who thinks travelling will fix all of his problems?
In this twenty-eighth letter to Lucilius, Seneca tells his friend, “A change of character, not a change of air, is what you need” (75). Something had happened to Lucilius, and he had tried to move to a new place to reset himself.
But Seneca warns, “whatever your destination you will be followed by your failings” (75). Lucilius apparently believed that by travelling, by going somewhere new, he would become a new man.
[Read more…] about A Change of Character, Not a Change of Air
Is Complementarianism Inherently Harmful?
During the last forty years, evangelicals have debated whether or not the Bible allows for women to occupy the role of elder or bishop. Egalitarians maintain that men and women may take the office of elder, while complementarians believe in a male-only episcopate. A host of other notions around gender and roles also appear in such discussions.
Yet I have noticed a recent shift in arguments. Yes, both sides still claim the Bible as their source for their conclusions. But egalitarians argue that complementarian teaching is inherently harmful or at least that it controls women. And since harming women is wrong (everyone agrees on this), it follows that complementarianism is wrong. [Read more…] about Is Complementarianism Inherently Harmful?
Are Men and Women Unequal in Being?
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.
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