Christian Philosopher of Religion converts?????

[_mfbukowski]

To bad you are no longer on your William James kick and parading around as a Pragmaticist, because I was borrowing an idea from one of those people you name drop but never read

Hawt watah burn baybee?

Perhaps you are mistaken.

[_mfbukowski]

More from Varieties:
http://csp.org/experience/james-varieti ... .html#20-4

The world of our experience consists at all times of two parts, an objective and a subjective part, of which the former may be incalculably more extensive than the latter, and yet the latter can never be omitted or suppressed. The objective part is the sum total of whatsoever at any given time we may be thinking of, the subjective part is the inner 'state' in which the thinking comes to pass. What we think of may be enormous, the cosmic times and spaces, for example,- whereas the inner state may be the most fugitive and paltry activity of mind. Yet the cosmic objects, so far as the experience yields them, are but ideal pictures of something whose existence we do not inwardly possess but only point at outwardly, while the inner state is our very experience itself; its reality and that of our experience are one. A conscious field plus its object as felt or thought of plus an attitude towards the object plus the sense of a self to whom the attitude belongs- such a concrete bit of personal experience may be a small bit, but it is a solid bit as long as it lasts; not hollow, not a mere abstract element of experience, such as the 'object' is when taken all alone. It is a full fact, even though it be an insignificant fact; it is of the kind to which all realities whatsoever must belong; the motor currents of the world run through the like of it; it is on the line connecting real events with real events. That unsharable feeling which each one of us has of the pinch of his individual destiny as he privately feels it rolling out on fortune's wheel may be disparaged for its egotism, may be sneered at as unscientific, but it is the one thing that fills up the measure of our concrete actuality, and any would-be existent that should lack such a feeling, or its analogue, would be a piece of reality only half made up. 6

If this be true, it is absurd for science to say that the egotistic elements of experience should be suppressed. The axis of reality runs solely through the egotistic places,- they are strung upon it like so many beads. To describe the world with all the various feelings of the individual pinch of destiny, all the various spiritual attitudes, left out from the description- they being as describable as anything else- would be something like offering a printed bill of fare as the equivalent for a solid meal. Religion makes no such blunder. The individual's religion may be egotistic, and those private realities which it keeps in touch with may be narrow enough; but at any rate it always remains infinitely less hollow and abstract, as far as it goes, than a science which prides itself on taking no account of anything private at all.

[_zeezrom]

That is exactly what makes this so interesting, this isn’t just some dude off the street, this was a guy who helped write some pretty strong philosophical criticisms of Natural Theology, and defend Reformed Epistemology from some of the sharpest critics. It’s not often guys like Sudduth make such a drastic turn in their beliefs and when they do and decide to go public with it, it’s fascinating to watch.

I wonder how Hinduism became such a option for him, for me, it’s a religion I could almost care less about and would never dream converting to.

Stak,

While I visited many Hindu temples and the Hare Krishna mecca, I felt a deep connection and found their teachings profound. I still do. I agree with you that it is fascinating to observe such a transformation.

I wish more people would see the value of Hinduism.

[_Samantabhadra]

(Note that the creedal trinity is alien to Tertullian)

NO IT IS NOT.

You have failed in all your scattershot of mined quotations to identify a single place where Tertullian presents a model of the Trinity that is substantially different from that found in the Nicene Creed. This is impossible since Tertullian was the one of the main sources for the model in the Nicene Creed. Have you actually read Adversus Praxean in Latin (or English, for that matter), or are you just using a standard manual of out-of-context quotations supplied by BYU/the GAs?

Also the idea that somehow Irenaeus is arguing for human deification is risible. I will not go point-by-point through your cherry-picked out-of-context quotations since they all fail to support your argument in more or less exactly the same way; Irenaeus is probably the most important of the authorities you cite, and the one with whom I am the most familiar, so I will limit myself to explaining how just one of your cherry-picked quotations from Irenaeus is completely indefensible as evidence for what you think Irenaeus is saying, once his words have been situated in their proper context.

You quote from Adversus Haereses, book IV, chapter 38. This chapter is devoted to the question, "Why did God not make man perfect?"

You supplied this quotation from verse 4:

"We have not been made Gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length Gods..."

in order to support your larger point, underlined above it, called "The Deification of Man."

Let's take a look at the beginning of verse 4, shall we?

4. Irrational, therefore, in every respect, are they who await not the time of increase, but ascribe to God the infirmity of their nature. Such persons know neither God nor themselves, being insatiable and ungrateful, unwilling to be at the outset what they have also been created—men subject to passions; but go beyond the law of the human race, and before that they become men, they wish to be even now like God their Creator, and they who are more destitute of reason than dumb animals [insist] that there is no distinction between the uncreated God and man, a creature of to-day.

So Irenaeus is actually arguing against the idea that there is "no distinction" between God and man, against the "infirm" humans who "wish to be even now like God." Literally his whole point here is that it is extremely spiritually immature, and "irrational," for "men subject to passions" (who are "unwilling" to recognize themselves as such) to attempt to "go beyond the law of the human race."

Irenaeus continues:

For these, [the dumb animals], bring no charge against God for not having made them men; but each one, just as he has been created, gives thanks that he has been created. For we cast blame upon Him, because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods."

So the quotation that you provided is preceded, in the actual text, by the phrase "For we cast blame upon Him." The entire point of verse 4 is to criticize the people who blame God for their own imperfection/humanity/corruptibility. It is not to say that men can become deified. Irenaeus is making literally the opposite point: that people who seek deification are worse than dumb animals, because animals at least are thankful for being created, while people who seek deification are ungrateful, irrational, and blame God ("For we cast blame upon Him") for "not [having] been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods." Irenaeus concludes chapter 38 by quoting from Psalm 82 v. 6-7 ("“I have said, Ye are gods; and ye are all sons of the Highest / But ye shall die like men."), reinforcing the point that there is an unbridgeable gap between man and God, yet we might still attain the fruit of eternal life through the paschal mystery of our Lord Jesus Christ. So unless you want to claim BOTH that a) the Psalms taught human deification AND that b) eternal life in the Christian sense means becoming a god like Brigham Young's Adam, there is no way to square Irenaeus with your own beliefs.

What you are missing in all this is that Joseph Smith was exactly the kind of heretic (and fraud) that Irenaeus wrote against.

[_bcspace]

(Note that the creedal trinity is alien to Tertullian)

NO IT IS NOT.

Yes it is.

It quite anachronistic to think of Tertullian as a witness for Nicene trinitarians:

1) While Tertullian had abandoned the earlier Jewish-Christian notion that God has a body in human form, he still believed that the "Divine Substance" was a "material" substance, and

2) he believed that there was once a time when the Son and Spirit did not exist as such:

"Writers who are usually reckoned orthodox but who lived a century or two centuries before the outbreak of the Arian Controversy, such as Irenaeus and Tertullian and Novatian and Justin Martyr, held some views which would later, in the fourth century, have been branded heretical.... Irenaeus and Tertullian both believed that God had not always been a Trinity but had at some point put forth the Son and the Spirit so as to be distinct from him. Tertullian, borrowing from Stoicism, believed that God was material (though only of a very refined material, a kind of thinking gas), so that his statement that Father, Son and Spirit were 'of one substance', beautifully orthodox though it sounds, was of a corporeality which would have profoundly shocked Origen, Athanasius and the Cappadocian theologians, had they known of it."
[Hansen, R., "The Achievement of Orthodoxy in the Fourth Century AD", in Williams, ed., The Making of Orthodoxy, pp. 151-152.]

"For from the moment when those things began to exist, over which the power of a Lord was to act, God, by the accession of that power, both became Lord and received the name thereof. Because God is in like manner a Father, and He is also a Judge; but He has not always been Father and Judge, merely on the ground of His having always been God. For He could not have been the Father previous to the Son, nor a Judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin existed with Him, nor the Son; the former of which was to constitute the Lord a Judge, and the latter a Father."
[Tertullian, Against Hermogenes 3, in ANF 3:478.]

3) Since the Son and Spirit were considered portions of the "Divine Substance", rather than interpenetrating "centers of consciousness" in a simple, indivisible "Divine Substance", consequently, the Father was considered first in rank and glory, while the Son and Spirit were considered second and third, respectively. Such subordinationism on Tertullian's part was suppressed by the end of the fourth century:

"For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: "My Father is greater than I." [T]he Paraclete [is] distinct from Himself, even as we say that the Son is also distinct from the Father; so that He showed a third degree in the Paraclete, as we believe the second degree is in the Son, by reason of the order observed in the Economy."
[Tertullian, Against Praxeas 9, in ANF 3:603-604.]

"Whatever, therefore, was the substance of the Word that I designate a Person, I claim for it the name of Son; and while I recognize the Son, I assert His distinction as second to the Father."
[Tertullian, Against Praxeas 7, in ANF 3:602.]

So Tertullian is no witness for Nicene orthodoxy, and of curse he was no Mormon either. However, it can easily be seen that his theology was an important stepping-stone between the two sides of the stream - and this is exactly what one should expect in the development of the universal apostasy.

On the other hand, this is NOT what mainstream Christians would expect. If you want us to believe that the Bible itself preaches "one substance" in the Nicene sense, why didn't ANYONE preach Nicene orthodoxy before the fourth century? The massive changes in Christian theology over the first few centuries are impossible to explain without postulating some sort of apostasy.

I will not go point-by-point through your cherry-picked out-of-context quotations since they all fail to support your argument in more or less exactly the same way;

Read: "I cannot possibly withstand the numerous historical witnesses against traditional christianity so I'll try to minimize the damage."

But you're in WAY over your head as none of these quotes is cherry-picked and are in context. I notice you have nothing to gainsay the fact that Theophilus and Tertullian held to significant doctrines that a trinitarian would consider heretical. That was part of your original denial. Let's stick to that and test your mettle before we move on to the other subjects I brought up to illustrate to you how fruitless your denials about historical christianity will be.

[_Samantabhadra]

If you want us to believe that the Bible itself preaches "one substance" in the Nicene sense, why didn't ANYONE preach Nicene orthodoxy before the fourth century?

Because the purpose of the Council of Nicea was to gather the disparate strands of the different traditions of the multiple, competing Christianities that were all running around at that time. The point of the Council of Nicea was to establish a baseline of what could be considered orthodox. The fact that certain pre-Nicene fathers were later canonized does not in any way mean that everything they ever wrote would have been acceptable, or even intelligible, in the light of what was determined to be Christian orthodoxy. But the only "anachronism" here is in applying a post-Nicene standard of orthodoxy to the ante-Nicene Fathers. Tertullian was one of the most important sources for the received doctrine of the Trinity and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous in the extreme. No he did not articulate it in exactly the same way as would eventually be deemed orthodox at Nicea, but that does not diminish his role in the formulation of just that doctrine.

Your claim is, essentially, that because there were subordinationist and modalist tendencies in various pre-Nicene writings by figures later deemed authoritative, that subordinationism and modalism are the real (i.e. non-apostasized) Christian doctrine, when in fact those very figures you cite argued (as in the case of Irenaeus, above) against the views you espouse and for the necessity of e.g. apostolic succession. The point is, it is very easy to account for the uncertainty and variety in Christian doctrine over the first few centuries, without positing some kind of universal apostasy, if you haven't already decided that there was some such apostasy and then determined to read that supposed apostasy back into history.

And no the Bible does not teach "one substance" in the Nicene sense; again, that is what the Council of Nicea was for.

[_Samantabhadra]

Read: "I cannot possibly withstand the numerous historical witnesses against traditional christianity so I'll try to minimize the damage.""

If it really matters that much to you I will go point by point but you haven't even said a single word about my refutation of your out-of-context citation from Irenaeus. That quote was deliberately misleading and you know it.

[_bcspace]

Read: "I cannot possibly withstand the numerous historical witnesses against traditional christianity so I'll try to minimize the damage.""

If it really matters that much to you I will go point by point but you haven't even said a single word about my refutation of your out-of-context citation from Irenaeus. That quote was deliberately misleading and you know it.

Read: "I can't defend my defense of Tertullian and Theophilus so I will change the subject as soon as the opportunity arises."

And no the Bible does not teach "one substance" in the Nicene sense; again, that is what the Council of Nicea was for.

To help complete the change of original doctrine, yes I know.

So Irenaeus is actually arguing against the idea that there is "no distinction" between God and man, against the "infirm" humans who "wish to be even now like God." Literally his whole point here is that it is extremely spiritually immature, and "irrational," for "men subject to passions" (who are "unwilling" to recognize themselves as such) to attempt to "go beyond the law of the human race."

No, he is saying that man’s human nature should not prevent him from becoming a partaker of the divine. And that happens to be one of the common annotations that come with this verse in online versions such as the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Let's look at it in full. I have highlighted the part which contradicts your erroneous interpretation of an earlier part:

4. Irrational, therefore, in every respect, are they who await not the time of increase, but ascribe to God the infirmity of their nature. Such persons know neither God nor themselves, being insatiable and ungrateful, unwilling to be at the outset what they have also been created—men subject to passions; but go beyond the law of the human race, and before that they become men, they wish to be even now like God their Creator, and they who are more destitute of reason than dumb animals [insist] that there is no distinction between the uncreated God and man, a creature of to-day. For these, [the dumb animals], bring no charge against God for not having made them men; but each one, just as he has been created, gives thanks that he has been created. For we cast blame upon Him, because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; although God has adopted this course out of His pure benevolence, that no one may impute to Him invidiousness or grudgingness. He declares, “I have said, Ye are gods; and ye are all sons of the Highest.”4419 But since we could not sustain the power of divinity, He adds, “But ye shall die like men,” setting forth both truths—the kindness of His free gift, and our weakness, and also that we were possessed of power over ourselves. For after His great kindness He graciously conferred good [upon us], and made men like to Himself, [that is] in their own power; while at the same time by His prescience He knew the infirmity of human beings, and the consequences which would flow from it; but through [His] love and [His] power, He shall overcome the substance of created nature.4420 For it was necessary, at first, that nature should be exhibited; then, after that, that what was mortal should be conquered and swallowed up by immortality, and the corruptible by incorruptibility, and that man should be made after the image and likeness of God, having received the knowledge of good and evil.

Of course it all comes back to my original quote in which I included "we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods" with which your cherry-picked interpretation also conflicts.

We could indeed go through the list one by one, but it will prove fruitless on your part. Other nonLDS scholars have already come to the same conclusion and some of those I have quoted as well.

[_Samantabhadra]

The gloss on your highlighted phrase in my edition reads, "That is, that man's human nature should not prevent him from being a partaker of the divine."

Irenaeus is not saying that men cannot partake of the divine--otherwise what on earth would be the point of the Eucharist--but "to partake of" and "to become" are not the same thing. Or are you asserting that partaking of bread and wine means becoming bread and wine?

Irenaeus never claims that humans can become divine. Far from it: the whole point of verse 4 is to argue against the idea that humans can become divine. Yes, humans can partake of divinity, but that is not the same thing.

http://orthodoxwiki.org/Theosis

Does Irenaeus occasionally make statements that sound vaguely henotheistic? Sure. Is it accurate to describe Irenaeus as a henotheist? Only by distorting both his words and the words that he struggled so hard to protect. Henotheism was never acceptable, even prior to the Council of Nicea, and no amount of discarded context can turn Irenaeus into a henotheist.

[_cksalmon]

BC space observed,
Protestant Christian = Telestial glory
Hinduism = Telestial glory

So no change in destination. One needs to become LDS (or the ancient equivalent) before the Judgement to inherit the Terrestrial or Celestial.

Ck Salmon,
I am puzzled to understand what you are hearing BC space saying. (1) I hear him saying that you are as apostate as you understand this previous Christian philosopher to be. (2) You, like him will be seperated from God for eternity unless your apostasy ends.

(1) Not really. I'm unaware of any Mormon analog to the largely-Protestant idea of federal headship that would attach to the dupes who orchestrated (or succumbed to) the universal apostasy of Mormon lore. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. (Think: Adam's federal headship. Islam has something of a similar concept, but one with which I'm almost completely unfamiliar.)

On Mormonism, I'm not an apostate. Nor is Sudduth. We belong to degenerate religious movements. But that's an issue different from personal apostasy.

"[A]s apostate" is not a meaningful comparison.

(2) The idea of movement between kingdoms is controversial among Mormons. I have no preference for one view over the other. That said, bcspace's view strikes me as pretty conventional.

But, I'm not, individually, an apostate on Mormonism. Correction welcomed, but if I'm wrong, it would just demonstrate my point more directly: bcspace is highlighting the idiosyncratic view of Mormonism here, either way.

Apparently, Sudduth and I are in the same camp. But that constitutes a fundamentally-different appraisal of the situation.

That was my point.