spamandham

I've seen it argued that the phrase in question is of gnostic origin, and that the reason no-one knows the father except those who know Jesus, is that Jesus' father is not who is indicated by a plain reading, but is instead Satan...and Jesus is the resurrection of Cain sent to deceive the world with the same old false promises - to trick people into thinking they could be like God. Only those who recognize who Jesus really is know who his father really is. This is why in Revelation, there are 7 judgements, they are the vengeances promised to be released on anyone who killed Cain.

Genesis 4:15

But the LORD said to him, "Not so ; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over."

I don't know if I totally buy the argument, but there seems to be some merit to it.

Elijah

Yea sorry my language is more than a little biased there, I was trying to make the distinction between a superstitious understanding and more reasonable understanding to see where you fell. I wasn’t trying to insult your beliefs if your understanding of God is anthropomorphic/temporal. And I don’t mean to make it personal by talking about your beliefs but what your understanding of God is here will be the most important factor in how you are interpreting the story.

What do you think is the best example of Jesus speaking of God that indicates he believed in an anthropomorphic/temporal god that you think should be taken literally?

For me, given the ideological influences Judaism was going thru with exposure to Rome it seems more likely that he was a believer in a more educated understanding. This explains why he is at such odds with the general religious authority of the times understanding of god. Now if he had the western unknowable god or the eastern all is one (e.g. NoRobots) is a tossup but it’s hard to imagine him just going with a dated understanding of God in a time when Philo is trying to do the something similar by incorporating a new understanding of God into Judaism and dealing with the ramifications of that new idea on their belief system.

Now Jesus could have just been an average Joe, who believed in a guy in the sky watching over, approving and disapproving of his actions that they made to look more philosophical by later Christians who were more educated because they could write. That’s always a possibility but Christianity itself I think needs to be understood from the perspective of the unknowable god that is constant or you are going to end up with a story that isn’t’ going to make a lot of sense. The rational reason for Jews to start worshiping a guy or a guy to say worship him is that the old way of worshiping God had become obsolete since it’s impossible to conceive of God now.

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It’s irrelevant if Paul spoke of bringing about the kingdom or even thought he was a part of it, but he was. And so was every other Christian who laid their life down in trying to establish the faith. It seems strange to look past all that sooooo many Christians have contributed towards this, but stranger to imagine some type of magical intervention by whatever your understanding of God is.

No Robots

I should point out that Brunner's take on Christ's Father is not universally accepted. Even the President of the Brunner Institute, Dr. Jürgen Stenzel questions it, writing:

Brunner's interpretation conveys many good points, even though it should be questioned whether he interpreted Christ accurately (Did Christ really think of something like Brunner's absolute or cogitans when he thought of the "heavenly father"?).--Introduction to the Philosophy of Constantin Brunner

There has been very little scholarly attention paid to Brunner's argument. The one treatment that I can find is that of Protestant theologian Kornelis Miskotte, who writes:

Constantin Brunner declared that when Jesus said 'Father,' this was a veiled rejection of the religion of the disciples and a hidden profession of 'atheistic' salvation. Naturally this raised a storm of indignation among the religious liberals. We too believe that Brunner's assertion is untenable, but that it comes closer to the mystery of this giving of a new name to God than does the interpretation which regards the name 'Father' as the apex of general religious experience.--When the gods are silent (or via: amazon.co.uk)

I do find Brunner's position both convincing and useful.

andrewcriddle

Hi Elijah

The sayings by Jesus that seem to involve belief in a more-or-less literal Kingdom of Heaven established more-or-less directly by God are passages like this from Luke 13 and this from Luke 17 There is clearly an element of symbolism in these passages but they seem IMO to be intended more literally than say the passages in Mark 13 etc about the stars falling.
You make some good points here. I'll only comment that our tendency to take such material in a very non-literal way may make us over ready to think Jesus did the same.


Andrew Criddle

Elijah

I’m down with an actual kingdom being built, (I think that’s the point of all the churches) the question is this kingdom going to be built by my men or by (a super powered entity understanding of) god involving himself in the world. I’m not seeing an indication of that expectation unless you are saying that the son of man and the Lord isn’t Christ but God or that the expected tribulations are a sign of supernatural God’s intervention.
It’s not about literal or non literal so much here, even though that seems to be a difficult art to master when it comes to understanding scripture. The question is; was Jesus part of the movement that was brought about by the new ideas about God being introduced into Judaism? Or is he just preaching the same understanding of God as the Pharisees?

“It is necessary therefore, that every created thing should at times be changed. For this is a property of every created thing, just as it is an attribute of God to be unchangeable” Philo Allegorical interpretation 2

“Old Man: But what do you call God?

Justin: That which always maintains the same nature, and in the same manner, and is the cause of all other things—that, indeed, is God.” Justin Martyr Letter to Typhro

Is he part of the ideological movement that Philo and Justin are parts of or was he a believer in what they are trying to correct about the understanding of God? I think if you can’t find specific evidence that he was a believer in the anthropomorphic/temporal understanding of God then you should give it serious consideration that he was exposed to some philosophical principals that was spreading around the known world and incorporated those ideas into his understanding of Judaism which allowed him to view it differently than those around him at the time.

The superstitious assumption just isn’t going to give you a rational understanding of Christianity IMO. You have to consider some of the philosophical and political changes that was going on back then to properly understand why they were using a dead guy on a cross as the intermediary between man and god and as their messiah. All this needs to be examined and understood rationally, not with the assumption they believed nonsense because then you are just going to get a nonsense interpretation of what they were saying.

Yes they believed in a lot of stuff that we could consider superstitious now because of a lack of understanding of the material world but the idea that God was constant and unknowable is the idea that was spreading that made a lot of those superstitions obsolete, such as sacrifice or appeasing god with worship. This along with the dead king political movement, I think are the two most important things to grasp so that you can understand the Christian movement and what’s going on with it.

I’m beating a hobby horse as they say here but just trying to inject some reason into the understanding of Christianity and looking for allies. Can’t really get onto the atheists for not understanding Christianity when none of the Christians seem to.