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In the previous post I made a claim about the nature of our origins. Often this claim is not well received in the public discussion—by Christians or Atheists. The claim I made boils down to the opinion that the history of the universe is a study best left to the scientific community. Likewise, the search for God and our relationship to Him is an endeavor the faithful must undertake. Faith is not concerned with the material processes through which the universe formed, only that it was the work of our Creator. Science in turn cannot delve into experiments regarding an Uncreated Deity so has nothing to say in regards to God’s Being. People on both sides of the debate find this unacceptable. The Atheist is not satisfied with a dependence on ignorance for understanding the universe. Christians are uncomfortable with handing over an understanding of the universe to those not concerned with faith. I believe this is a false dichotomy.
Classifying the distinction between science and religion’s goals is not meant to divide people into separate camps. When it is said that science and faith are not asking the same questions it does not mean scientists must remain over here with their science and the faithful must stay over there with their Bibles. I do not want people to leave the advances of science to the secular community so the faithful can enter into a ghetto of ignorance regarding those advances. It is not an attempt to tell people they have no need of science in regards to their faith so they should ignore it altogether. Science is an art. The ability to use our faculties of reason to dive into the micro and macro-cosmic happenings of the universe is a gift from God. What if preventing those who have the desire for exploration is stifling an individual’s gifts? We would not protest a composer’s innovation in musical arrangements. The faithful need not cast science to the wind, believing it does not concern them. The vocation of the scientist should not hinder their faith as they enter into worship of the One who transcends those discoveries. Classifying the end goals of science and faith only aims to strip away a manufactured opposition between them.
I understand why the opposition is there though. It would be ignorant to disregard the fact that Darwinism, Neo-Darwinism, Natural Selection, and modern science in general have been presented as the “more reasonable” counterpart to faith in God. Atheists have used these scientific theories as a way to undermine the Christian worldview. In a reactionary response, Christians declare heresy and in turn develop their own scientific theories in order to prove God exists. They do not need to.
I spent many years as a Young Earth Creationist so I do understand the emotional and theological thought processes involved with this belief. I have had many debates as a Creationist with those who believe the universe is billions of years old. What I found is what I stated in the beginning of this entire discussion. The debate goes nowhere and in the end, all I have accomplished has been to set a stumbling block in front of a person who has not come to the faith. Sometimes these stumbling blocks are unavoidable, but I wanted to be sure about this one. I came across one question which allowed me to “lay down my arms.” If the universe is billions of years old instead of six to ten thousand, how does that affect the nature of the Christ? The only honest answer I could find was, “It doesn’t.” Some may say that the Bible becomes unreliable if we do not take a Creationist position. I disagree and will hopefully tackle this issue in upcoming posts.
Michelangelo illustrates the unbridgeable gap between created and uncreated as the fingers do not quite touch.
It is hard to describe how I felt when letting this burden go. No longer did I have to ride on this dizzying merry-go-round and was able to move forward with matters of actual truth. Not scientific truth, although, as a lifelong lover of science, I did enjoy embracing the complexities of God’s creation along with the new discoveries we make every day. No, I am referring to spiritual truths. The weight of the creation debate blocks everyone from focusing on the actual theological realities found in the early chapters of Genesis. Young Earth Creationists will claim science lacks the ability to answer the questions about our being, and they are right. Though listening to the apologists I never hear a discussion on ontology and this is the tragedy of that debate. Our ontological (study of the nature of our being) origins become an aimless search for our cosmological (study of the evolution of the material universe) origins and so the experience of God does not reach its full potential. Even if we are able, as Christians, to separate the two on our own, we neglect to give the truly important information to the world because we are so concerned with a phantom threat to our faith. I have personally chosen to ignore that threat, and in turn have found that it lost interest in me.
Go to the first post in this discussion.
The Grand Inquisitive 
“If the universe is billions of years old instead of six to ten thousand, how does that affect the nature of the Christ? The only honest answer I could find was, ‘It doesn’t.’”
– Hear hear!, I agree. Also agree with your comments on ontology. Thanks. FB
Thank you for stopping in to say hello!
If evolution is true, rather than creation, then it affects the nature of the Christ in that there’s nothing for Christ to do, since there would have been no fall, only a steady rise.
Linuxgal,
Thank you for engaging with the post.
Evolution and a universe that is billions of years old does not mean that God at some point did not breathe the Holy Spirit into a man named Adam thus creating the man in His image. We are still every bit God’s creation.
And yet we are told in scripture (rather than merely by the speculation of men) athat the Holy Spirit only first came upon the followers of Christ on the day of Pentecost, and subsequently with baptism and the laying on of hands. If the Holy Spirit came upon Adam from the beginning, transforming him from a simple primate to the very image of God, then when he fell, he and his children reverted to primates one more, but when Christians are regenerated they would be in the first state of Adam. Yet they continue to sin and die, just like primates.
Linuxgal,
The Orthodox interpretation of the scriptures would claim that the Holy Spirit came back to humanity at Pentecost. The tongues of fire were the final act of restoration, much like Passover was not complete until the Israelites passed through the Red Sea and then received the law. We also would not say that Adam ceased to be the image of God when he fell, only that the Image was corrupted and now needs a physician.
The Fall did move us closer to simple primates in a sense. We are no longer in communion with the Will of God but are driven by our appetites and our passions. The regeneration of Baptism and the coming of the Holy Spirit begins that process of moving us back into communion with the Will of God. This is the first state of Adam. We continue to die because we still sin but the saving work of Christ conquered death.
God formed humanity out of the dust but was not finished until He breathed through Adams nostrils. It was at that point Adam became a “living being.” So if that formation from the dust took longer than we once thought it is okay, because it was that Breath which gave us being. The being was then corrupted. Actually God did not finish humanity until Eve was created since woman was the means through which humanity would be saved.
When you say the ‘saving work of Christ conquered death’ you must be talking about the Second Death, since humans still die the First Death. And the Second Death is the action of God (who casts into the lake of fire). So Christ is saving us from the action of his own Father. I imagine you will counter with something about God being perfectly just, and hence unable to simply declare everyone saved, but that leads to my second objection, where you write the God created Eve to be the means through which humanity would be saved. This seems to indicate that God had the fall planned from the git-go. And if that was the case, I find it difficult to worship a God who holds man accountable for a thing that he planned from the beginning.
Linuxgal,
Thank you for your frank response.
You are correct. I am speaking about the second death, or perhaps better stated, spiritual death. You are referring to the view of salvation called, Substitutionary Atonement. The idea that Christ was sent to Earth to save us from his angry Father. I also have problems with this. This view is often given precedence in the Catholic and Protestant churches in the Western world, especially in the Evangelical churches. There is another view which is called Christus Victor or Christ the Conqueror. If you already know about these forgive me. The Christus Victor view of salvation teaches that Christ came to conquer death. He did this by being a perfect image of His Father, perfectly aligned to the Father’s will in all things. The way we were created from the start. Since He was a God-man, death was unable to have power over Him. So He is a savior because He showed us how death is defeated, by aligning our will to the Will of the Creator, and dying to the oppression of sin and the fear of death. So Jesus did not die to appease an angry God, He died to show us how to live. This view has been around since the beginning of Christianity.
To your second objection, we (the Orthodox Church) would not say the Fall was “planned.” Foreknowledge in our view does not equal Choreography. Part of having been made in the image of God is autonomy of self. We would not be free without the will to choose, but yes this is a paradox. Choosing to free one’s self from their Source of life results in the oppression of death. So the lake of fire is a phrase used where words cannot suffice. When we die the first death, we see God for who He is, Light. Preparing for that light is what Jesus showed us how to do. For some, the Light is love, while for others the same love is terrifying. Anyway, that foreknowledge was like the foreknowledge at the end of Interstellar if you saw it. A higher dimension where time is accessible at all points. Even if it was accessible, it did not change the freedom of those still following linear time. Basically, we are accountable for our own actions.
I had not known your background is Orthodox. I recall that Orthodox Christians have a view of the afterlife that could be summarized as saying heaven and hell are not literal places, but that after we die, we experience the afterlife in a way commensurate with our attitude toward God, since God will be the central reality at that point. If we love God, the overwhelming presence of God will be heavenly. If we hate God, the overwhelming presence of God will be hellish. This is provocative and interesting, and certainly a deeper philosophical understanding of it than is found in my own Catholic background, however, it remains anchored in a Greek notion of a disembodied human identity post mortem which I do not find in scriptures except within 1 Corinthians were Paul attempts to merge the body-based notion of a general resurrection with the Plato-influenced ideas of the folks in Corinth, and you get your “spiritual body”, whatever that is.
Linuxgal,
You are partly right about our view of the afterlife. Our experience is tied to our attitude toward God, but it is a literal place. By “literal” I am assuming you mean physical. Yes it is a physical resurrection. It is true that the critics of Christus Victor will tie it to neo-Platonist philosophies and their dualist ontology. I believe it was Pseudo-Dionysious who articulated the distinction between the Christian and neo-Platonist views. I have read some Pseudo-Dionysious but my familiarity lacks the ability to regurgitate it at a whim.
Certainly 1 Corinthians is essential to this doctrine, but it is an exposition of the truths found in the Resurrection accounts. Christ was not a disembodied spirit after the Resurrection. The Gospels made sure to point this out and Paul, then Dionysius, theologized. Paul points out that the act of dying brings the body and the spirit back into unity: “And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man (15:49).” It is not a “spiritual body” but a deified body he speaks of. Back in verse 45 he says, “The first man Adam became a living-being. The last Adam became a life giving spirit.” He acknowledges first the duality in place due to the fall, but the duality is erased through Christ’s victory over death.
Perhaps he was wooing the Corinthians but that doesn’t change the revelation. The doctrine of Christus Victor finds its core in the teachings about Theosis within the Orthodox Church.
Correction: Dualism was found in the Platonic philosophy and not neo-Platonist. Pseudo-Dionysius was articulating the difference between understandings of the “One”. Paul was dealing with dualism. I hope I haven’t been too incoherent.
When you say that “Paul points out that the act of dying brings the body and the spirit back into unity” I don’t quite understand what you mean. Eccl. 12:7 says, ” Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” Certainly this presents the act of dying as a process of dividing the mind-body unity of a living person in two, and even Paul highlights this division in 1 Cor. 5:5 when he says, “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Again we see Peter touch on this in 1 Peter 4:6 “For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.” It seems, rather, from the scriptures, that the mind-body dualism is only nullified in a promised general resurrection at the end of human history, and this is not limited to those who have been received into Christ, since the wicked are resurrected as well, Daniel 12:2 “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
Linuxgal,
Busy day.
It seems that in Ecclesiastes, the Preacher is lamenting the futility of his life, and life in general without the Wisdom of God. There was not yet a complete doctrine or revelation of the resurrection at this point, though a glimpse was given. For the Orthodox, all of scriptures begin at the Passion accounts and must be read in light of them.
In 1 Cor 5:5 there is a division between the spirit and the flesh, but flesh here is not the same as the body, which is mentioned just before in verse 3. The flesh (sarx) is delivered to Satan, in other words, allowed to suffer purification. The body (soma) is a separate part of man. Obviously this is a command for excommunication though the counsel applies to all Christians since purification of the senses is necessary for growth. This is what Peter was speaking about as well.
You are correct though, we still do not receive the complete deification of the body until the general resurrection at the second coming. Though the process begins now. Also true is that everyone will be resurrected though their experience will differ. Of course, there is not much else to say on the matter from a Christian standpoint since we have not been there yet.
So the mind (nous)-body is brought back into union through the regeneration of Baptism, an act of dying to the flesh (sarx) and its passions, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. A sacramental, ascetical, and prayer filled life continues the process toward union between the mind and body, but only through union with God. At least according to the Orthodox Christian.
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