This is probably my greatest struggle. The Bible is clear on the issue, but I do not see the answer so clearly.
It is irrelevant what the church fathers say on the issue, or A.E. Knoch or Anthony Buzzard. I need to know what the Bible has to say. I don’t care about philosophy or feelings, but what did Paul believe about the issue, what did Peter think?
I don’t care about majority opinion, since it is usually nothing more than duplication of opinion. (it is almost always wrong)
I simply am troubled by the unscriptural terms used to support the position. A.E. Knoch wrote a booklet called 'The Pre-existence of Christ" Why did he feel obliged to use an unscriptural term for the title? If I remember correctly he also referred to Christ as ‘The celestial son of God’ (or something similar) Also not a scriptural term.
Non trinitarians like to point out that the term ‘Trinity’ is not found in the Bible. Why then do most non-trinitarians believe in the ‘pre-existence’ of Christ? I don’t debate anymore on the forums, but will ask questions.
I don’t know, but I know the Apostle John wrote a new creation narrative that included Jesus in John 1.
I don’t know who A.E. Knoch is, but the title may have been written that way to attract a certain seeker demographic. I don’t know that celestial is an unbiblical term.
That’s because the trinity isn’t a concept found in the words of the Bible; it’s a reasonable conclusion from all the evidence we have in the Bible.
My guess is that they separate ‘The Word’ that was with God from ‘God Himself’.
Colossians 3:15-17 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
So at least to Paul, Christ was the firstborn over all creation; at least in this way, Paul says that Christ pre-existed prior to 0 AD (circa).
To add your confusion: I believe we all pre-exist, yet we did not exist prior to being born in our present time. That is because the universe we are living in, dictates that everything is in a superpositional state until it is observed or measured.
Thanks for both your responses, rowinski, and AU. I assume it matters, but I will take your thought to heart AU. I am confused by your second reply, but will give it some good thought.
No worries. If something exists, then it had to been pre-existent in order for it to be in existent. Essentially, things are in a superposition until it is observed or measured.
I am following a few quantum theories, a ‘self-caused’ universe (which dictates that the universe exists only because life exists), a bio-centric universe (life created the universe), Anthropic principle and a few other well known scientific theories and laws which dictate our actual existence.
This is not to say that I don’t believe in God, Jesus, or Holy Spirit; or the soul of humanity, etc. nor does this mean I believe in reincarnation or number of other religious philosophies. It just means that I am open minded to scientific explanation of the origin of life or of life itself.
The question is why is a Pre-existing Christ important, I believe is summed up in the Trinity argument, which presently, I do not believe Jesus is God, but I do believe Christ was with God from the beginning, the first born life in which all life has it’s origin.
Just as Paul stated: "The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. "
God cannot be an eternal Lover without an eternally Beloved. When God speaks to himself, he is the Speaker, the Listener, and the Conversation. God cannot be self-conscious unless he is both the observer of God, the God being the observed, and the act of Observation. ie. Christ is the image of God reflected in the mirror of God’s mind, and the light flashing between (as it were) is the Holy Spirit. (To use a physics metaphor, the Spirit is the exchange particle, binding God together.)
Christ doesn’t exist (or pre-exist) in the sense that things exist. He is no thing. He is the source of all things.
I am a non-material mind living in intimate relation to a material body. I am also the mysterious something that mediates between body and mind. Suppose I think a non-material thought: a circle. This thought is somehow mediated to my muscles, and I draw said circle on a piece of paper. A real thought has been made real in the material world. It has moved from mind-space into material-space. The thought is not a muscle. The mediator that links the thought to my muscles is neither thought nor muscle, but something else again. The thought, the mediator and the muscle are all different, and they’re all me. An analogue, perhaps, of the Trinity.
In the same way, Christ mediates the mind of God to the material world. Christ speaks the words given him by the Father. This is his role. He makes God’s thoughts materially real. “By him were all things made.” He always has and always will. This suggests the material universe is an infinite and eternal creation. (According to Aquinas, this notion doesn’t challenge Genesis etc .)
So what we find there is that the ‘definition’ of a soul, is very much intrinsic to this answer of did Christ pre-exist.
So puddyarcher, what do you think the soul is? The biblical definition of being (as what we are is a soul, all breathe, blood, hair, bone and skin), or the soul (the living part of the person), or the soul (a combination of body and spirit) or soul (a part of man the others being spirit and body).
As it appears AllanS and I would disagree on what the soul is, we would have a different answer to what Paul was saying.
The answer is bound up in the nature of God. If Christ is God’s eternally Beloved, and God’s eternal self-image, then he is equal to God in every way. Just as it would be strange to ask if God is “pre-existent”, it would be equally silly to ask the question of Christ.
We either ditch the idea of a self-conscious, loving God, or we ditch the idea of the Trinity.
I find no question silly, and take them all serious. Not everyone believes Christ is God, despite being perfect and given authority by God. Christ is always in submission to a greater authority, and therefore that does not make him equal.
1 Corinthians 15:22-24,26-28 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he (Christ) hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.
For he “has put everything under his feet.”Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him (God) who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.
Luke 18:19 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone."
John 6:46 “No one has seen the Father except the one who is *from *God; only he has seen the Father.”
Romans 7:25 “Thanks be to God, who delivers me *through *Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Philippians 2:9-11 Therefore God exalted him (Christ) to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue knowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
I know this shouldn’t be a trinity debate, however, such things as Pre-existence of Christ always come this point. I believe Christ is important, He is the Head; He has the authority given to Him by God, but He himself is not God, but our Lord and He too is subject to God.
Just a thought given on the fly (all care taken but no responsibility accepted!)
God the Father gives everything to the Son. the Son gives everything in return to the Father, including Himself. Submission though doesn’t imply inferior; Christ ‘submitted’ at the Cross but was not inferior. It is in God’s nature to give to the uttermost.
By the way Allen I like your analogy of the Trinity.
In the fullness of time, my body will be in perfect subjection to my mind. Does this mean my mind is the real me, but not my body, or that my body isn’t really human, but merely some sort of non-essential add-on? That would be a very unbiblical view of the human person.
In terms of importance, my mind cannot exist without my body (hence the need for resurrection). Does that make my body superior to my mind? On the other hand, my body without my mind is nothing but meat. Does that make my mind superior to my body? Or are these sorts of questions silly because they attempt to break the unity essential to human persons.
My mind and my body (and the mystery that mediates between them) are all different, all essential, all 100% human, all me. It is possible to distinguish between them, but impossible to break their unity without destroying my life. So too with God, whose image I share. We can distinguish between Father, Son, and the Spirit who joins them. There can be no Father without a Son, no Son without a Father, and neither Father nor Son without the Spirit of Love. All are different, all essential, all 100% divine, all true God of true God), but we cannot break their unity.
As I said, your definition of the soul is what derives your answer and response. You believe that the Soul is tri-part, or dual-part and as such make analogy to the soul being divisible into parts such as the body and the mind, or body and spirit, etc. and so you see your body having a ‘mind of it’s own’ that needs to be in submission to the ‘real mind’ which is in your brain and connect them by saying they are somehow different and unique of their own, but in unity in one man. So your analogy would make a lot of sense to you because that is what you believe the soul to be, a multiple divisible parts in unity of one soul. I used to believe that too.
This is the reality:
Genesis 2:7
And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
1 Corinthians 15:45-47 “So also it is written, The first man became a living soul. The last man became a life-giving spirit. Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven.”
He is still a man. He is the last man, a spiritual man, He came from heaven instead of earth, but a man born of God, a Son in submission to His Father.
To create a strawman to argue against, is not particularly helpful.
I also see you continue to infer that these questions are silly, in order to somehow devalue them or make the person who questions in this manner, silly and should ‘smart up’. As if you are in the position to make such claims of what is a silly question or not. Just pointing this out.
Of course the Father and Son are in unity, this is not in dispute. The Scripture is very clear that the Son only does as the Father commands. It is also very clear that the Son is Lord and the Father is God, and the Son is the perfect image of the invisible God and distinctively never God himself. Christ is always in submission to God, as we will always be in submission to God; even when God is all in all, we will be in perfect harmony with God, yet we are not God and will not be God.
I used to believe in the orthodox Trinitarian position, just as I used to believe in the orthodox conditional salvation position. They are, in my opinion and experience, bad religion justifying more unsupportable doctrines and have very little scriptural support or logical sense in the greater picture of things.
At no time do I devalue who Jesus is, or his authority in which He was given over all things, except God Himself.
I agree. We don’t have a soul. We are a soul. But I do have an arm, an ear and a leg: united, distinct, interdependent, all equally human. In the same way, I have a mind (made from the breath of God) and a body made of dust (atoms etc). Body and mind are united, distinct, interdependent, both equally me, both equally human. There’s nothing dualistic about it, no more than arms and legs are dualistic.
God also consists of distinct “parts”, eternally co-existent, united, interdependent, all equally God.
An eternal Father is impossible without an eternal Son. There was never a “time” when God (who is Love) did not exist in loving relationship. Love is meaningless without relationship, since love is all about giving and receiving. The Father gives himself utterly to the other, to the Son, and the Son gives himself utterly to the Father. This divine love, this exchange, this endless, positive feedback loop, is the eternal life that lies at the heart of all reality. This is why the Son (at his Father’s bidding) gave himself utterly to us, and why he invites us to give ourselves utterly to him in return. To do so is eternal life. Refusing to do so will be ever deepening torment.
From another angle, we distinguish an image from the real thing by imperfections found in the image. But Christ is the perfect image of God, identical to his Father in every way that actually matters. ie. In essence, they are indistinguishable. Seeing the Son with the eyes of faith, we don’t see a man (no matter how virtuous). We see the Father.
Some questions are silly. How blue is three miles?
Good.
My body does as my mind commands. My body and mind are equally human.
My mind is Lord, and my body is Servant. Both body and mind are equally human, and equally me.
Yes. The perfect image. In essence, there is no difference between Father and Son. If there was an essential difference, the Son would be an imperfect image.
There’s an essential difference between the Creator and the Created. Though images of God, we can never be perfect images.
Never too late to do a re-think.
God sits in heaven. Sin is a big problem. What will he do? Will he get off his comfortable throne and descend into darkness. Will he fight sin and death? Will suffer for our sake? Will he restore his own broken handiwork, no matter the personal cost? No He won’t! Not at all. He’ll make a Son out of thin air. He’ll send this Son to do the heavy lifting. God will not dirty his hands. No. No. He is far too precious. Too delicate. Too holy to touch sin. Let Jesus die for the world. God will look on from a safe, sanitary distance, applaud Jesus’ great efforts, slap him on the back when all is done, promote him to Top Dog, and give him a serious prize for winning the day. All praise to the Great God, whose love is never tested in the fire, and who willingly sends others out to fight His battles.
You propose some intelligent arguments Allen, but could you explain what separates some your thinking from that of philosophy? Do you feel philosophy is important in leading us to an understanding of God, and ultimate truth? -thanks.
