I work with many Mormons; a religion that has a different understanding of God and of Jesus Christ (OK, so call me a master of the intuitively obvious to the casual observer). It's hard to pin down a member of that religion on just when Jesus attained his Good-hood (or is that God-head?); you know, when the man became a God. Before the crucifixion? After? I even had one fellow try and convince me that Jesus always was, but only just gradually became aware of his "God-hood" (perhaps this fellow was been a convert from liberal Catholicism?).
But in all this musing, I realized that I had the same problem with the term "Deicide" as my old buddy Nestorius had with "Theotokos" - he objected that Mary could not be the mother of God because God pre-existed Mary; but Mary gave birth to Jesus, and since Jesus is God, and Mary gave Him birth, Mary is the mother of God; we have to set aside our preconceptions and put Truth above our pre-conceived notions.
I never realized until now that my discomort with the term "Deicide" was because "death of God" was bringing up an unformed and unstated understanding of "the person of God no longer exists" - something that of course is not so. Nestorius understood the truth, but rejected the truth of the term "Theotokos, "because of what he feared would be the false conclusions drawn by the unlearned from it. Bad move; never sacrifice Truth, come what may. I've never argued against the term "Deicide," but never understood what it was that made me uncomfortable about it either. Just as God truly pre-exists Mary but was born of Mary, so God truly died on the cross for our salvation, but did not cease to exist.
As Paul says, Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
I must be having a Sphedoinkle day.
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Just as God truly pre-exists Mary but was born of Mary, so God truly died on the cross for our salvation, but did not cease to exist.
ReplyDeleteYou know...WE don't cease to exist when we die, either! And we never did, even before the Crucifixion.
I recognized that when I wrote this, and there are two things here:
ReplyDelete1)my background includes the despair of denial of the immortality of the soul (why do we profess that we will live forever, but live as though we will not?), and,
2) the rather cumbersome bit of the "human being" made of body and soul, which, without a body, at death is not; until body and soul are again re-united; but this goes deeper, beyond where my understanding has gone.
It's not entirely that I've ducked this, but that, as St. Paul says, "eye has not seen, nor has it entered into the mind of man..."
I must confess to never having viewed the world through that lens, even though I have at times had doubts and fears about whether there really is anything after this life. I don't think it has ever occurred to me to consider God as having been annihilated at the Crucifixion, even in the midst of such doubts; intellectually, though, I can see how that relates to a belief in the annihilation of man at death.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it has ever occurred to me to consider God as having been annihilated at the Crucifixion,
ReplyDeleteneither did it occur to me;
Stepping back a bit, the unease was caused a false implication from the term.
Nestorius did not think we should call Mary the mother of God because people would mistakenly believe that Mary pre-existed God; he never believed that himself, but by objecting, actually reinforced that belief through the error of man becoming God (sound familiar?) as the logical consequence of not affirming the truth.
My unease with the term "Deicide" was not because I even vaguely considered God to have been annihilated, but that the term would perhaps imply it, as with the "God is dead" crowd.
So, then, what you're describing is...embarrassment?
ReplyDeleteThe "God is dead" crowd that glad pronounced this 40 years ago, nad the like-minded cadre is passing.
ReplyDeleteNot embarassment. More like discovering that the reason the chord did not sound right was that a key was broken and striking the wrong wire; A slight adjustment, and the proper harmony restored.
ReplyDeleteMormons, eh? Let's be friends.
ReplyDeleteHello Brad. Nice site!
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.defensorveritatis.net/