Understanding Athanasius... Part 1 ?

Saturday January 14, In the year of our Lord 2012
My House, Caronport Saskatchewan
Attempting to digest reading, 12:44 AM
Weather = Cold and White and Windy


Where do I begin?

I am working through the post course work for my Theology of God and Creation mod. I am doing a research paper on why Athanasius insisted that the non-biblical word 'homoousios' was so crucial to the Church's understanding of the Trinity.

Well... I have just finished slogging through some of the toughest reading that I have ever done. I have been reading about one of the most difficult doctrines of Christian faith which was originally created using words and concepts that we don't have any more, translated into English and written about by the biggest theological heavy weights of our time (the likes of Karl Barth and T.F. Torrance). Before you start to be impressed by this accomplishment please keep in mind that it took me about 4 hours to get through 18 pages.

Here is my attempt to reformulate what I have learned to better understand it.

There are two angles that I could tackle this paper from. On the one hand I could focus on how the word 'homoousios' acted as an equivalent word that describes what all of Scripture is saying or on the other hand I could focus on how Athanasius use of 'homoousios' was a safeguard against the false ideas and heresies of his day. I will need to address both and maybe the focus should be spread between them, like a two part paper or something.

Anyway, I guess I should begin my discourse.


Homoousios means 'the same essence' or 'of one essence.' His understanding of the Trinity was that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are 'made up' of the same 'stuff,' as in they are the same being. To speak of The Father is to also speak of The Son and The Holy Spirit. The three divine persons co-inhabit each other.

The problem with 'homoousios' was that it was an unbiblical word. The word is never once mentioned in all of Scripture and Athanasius was asking the council to make it nominative for all Christianity! It was using a term that was never part of God's written or spoken revelation to describe not just a doctrine, but the very essence and being of God Himself!

But why did he think that this was so important?


To answer the question most simply Athanasius insisted that 'homoousios' was crucial to the understanding of the Trinity because he felt that it best described the self-revelation of God. He uses the writings of St. John to show his point where Jesus says "I and the Father are one" or that everything that The Father has he gives to The Son. I have a pile of Bible verses to draw on but I'm not going to look for them and pull them out at this hour.

Suffice it to say, his point is that this 'homoousios' is illustrated throughout Scripture and that it is a more accurate and faithful understanding of God than the other ideas. What other ideas? Well, the Arians believed that Jesus was a created being because they misinterpreted the Scriptures in light of Platonic thought. This is a flat out denial of everything Christianity stands for. Faith in the Christ, faith in God, the God who gives himself as the gift. If Jesus is a created being then we should not worship him but we are called to worship him and Jesus himself did not condemn his disciples when they worshiped him.

To prove this point Athanasius illustrates how The Son is in The Father and how everything that The Father has he gives to The Son and that everything that is said about The Son is also said of The Father. This is the bedrock of the doctrine of the Trinity right here. Read it again if you need to, I had to read it some 20 odd times in different places before I finally understood what it meant. The Son is 'homoousios' (of the same essence) as The Father!

Arianism was a direct and obvious error, but 'homoousios' also combated against more subtle heresies that were thriving in early Christianity. First of all it rejected Platonism which stated that 'an effect is never greater than its cause.' It is understood within the economy of the Trinity that the Father is the source of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father begets the Son and sends the Spirit. It is easy to make the logical distinction that since the Father is the source of the Son and the Spirit that the Father is the original 'God' and that the Son and the Spirit are lesser emanations, still divine 'God(s)' but lesser than the Father. 'Homoousios' rejects this idea and says that all three divine persons are completely equal.

Another thing it does is center the Godhead on the triune interrelationship of the three divine persons where previously the Godhead was thought to exist solely in the Father (Arius, Origen). Since the Father is in the Son and the Holy Spirit the source of deity is in them too. This was an especially difficult pill to swallow for the Eastern church which sought to preserve the monarchy of the Father.

The term also had cosmological consequences as well. In stating that all three divine persons are of the same essence required the rejection of Origen's theory of an eternal creation. It drew a thick line that divided Creator and creation with no intermediary phases in between. This is the norm for all Christian theology now.

In the end the council of Nicea agreed with Athanasius, although the flavor of 'homoousios' and how it should be used has created its own disagreements and issues over church history.

So that's my brief regurgitation on my studying of Athanasius.

Greg Out

A Theology of Gender Identity

Friday January 6, In the year of our Lord 2012

My House, Caronport Sasktachewan

Posting Pre-Written post, 6:31 PM

Weather = Pleasant for January

A Theology of Gender Identity

Part of my studies have been addressing an issue that is very popular and sometimes hotly debated these days. Gender Identity. It is impossible not to at least touch on this this topic given that Feminism has risen to be a strong voice both in society as well as in theology. I don’t think I will be able to articulate the truly Christian understanding of gender identities nearly as well as my professor Dr. David Guretzki or the esteemed Dr. Miroslav Volf who could very well be the Christian voice of our day on this very issue. But after taking Theology of God and Creation and reading Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace I am compelled to right about Gender Identity to make sure that I understand it for myself. I do not consider myself an expert and I willingly admit that I have not read any of the strong feminist authors.

First a very brief overview of Feminist thought. Historically societies have been patriarchal in nature. The head of the house hold, clan, tribe, nation, are generally males. The rich and powerful are also usually males. Females by contrast have been viewed as inferior, weaker, less holy, and are generally oppressed by the patriarchal systems inherent in culture. These oppressive undertones (or overtones) need to be rejected and a new egalitarian system of understanding is required to place females on equal footing with males thus liberating them from oppression. This push is very apparent in Canada as government, businesses, schools, and churches are attempting to overhaul patriarchal assumptions and systems. A perfect example is the class law suit of female RCMP officers against the force for years of sexual harassment, bullying, and being overlooked for promotions by their male officers. Ten years ago these sorts of things weren’t considered ‘injustices’ they were just the way things were, but feminist thought is changing all of that.

Now turning to feminist thought in theology. Christianity is often charged with being patriarchal. We meet in churches governed by male priests, pastors, bishops, board members, what-have-you. We worship a male God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). And we bar females from positions of authority relegating female leaders to ‘children’s ministry’ or ‘worship pastor,’ or ‘women’s leader.’ Some feminist theologians have suggested that we first of all allow women to be church leaders but that we also worship a Goddess (Mother, Daughter, Holy Spirit) or at least a gender neutral God (Parent, Child, Holy Spirit).

Now that there is a context for me to speak into, I will begin my explanation of a Christian theology of gender identity.

I will begin at the beginning in Genesis.

“So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.”

Human beings are created as a polarity of gender they are either male or female. The maleness of the male and the femaleness of the female is intrinsically part of who they are. They are different. Every human being is born with a ‘sexed’ body, either male or female. The difference is not just physical though, males think and feel differently than females and vice versa. Occasionally a child is born who’s physical gender is miscellaneous, but doctors can tell what gender he or she is by looking at the chromosomes in the DNA. Now, a man can be ‘feminine’ and a female can be ‘masculine’ but even so it is different than female femininity and male masculinity. So to start things off, a truly Christian understanding of gender identities is that gender is a polarity, an either or, not a scale with Masculine on one side and Feminine on the other with everyone sliding in between the two (which is a popular idea in secular gender theories).

The other thing we learn from this passage is that both male and female are created in the image of God. The male is just as much ‘the image of God’ as the female and the female is just as much ‘the image of God’ as the male. This means that the female and the male are radically equal despite being different. Paul’s command for husbands to love their wives as they love their own bodies builds on radical equality but also speaks of the fact that both sexes need each other. Relationally the male would not be male if there was no female and the female would not be female if there was no male. There is a tension that is necessary where male and female have their identities both in and of themselves but also in the other gender. (Volf) Men need women to be female for them to continue to be male and women need men to be male to continue to be female. If this balance were disturbed by say radical feminism where women tried to become like men and men tried to not be so male then both men and women would suffer identity crisis because 1) they are trying to be what they are not and 2) cannot be what they are because the other gender is not what it should be. But the question still remains, what then IS maleness or femaleness?

We could say that maleness is ‘being a father’ or femaleness is ‘being a mother’ and all that that entails but that wouldn’t be helpful. Historically the different views of gender roles can be placed on a scale with Complimentarian on the one side and Egalitarian on the other. The Complimentarian position states that the female is created to ‘compliment’ the male as a helper. The male is the leader the female is the follower. The Egalitarian view is that men and women share equal roles (women can be leaders just as men can). Both views can be legitimately supported by Scripture. Travel too far in either direction though and you traverse dangerous terrain. Emphasizing female submissiveness too strongly results in destroying gender equality (if not abusive lifestyles). Emphasizing gender equality too far destroys gender differences (the polarity between male and female) leading to a philosophy that is far more Leftist than it is Christian. I know that at this point I cannot articulate what ‘maleness’ or ‘femaleness’ fully means (if such things can truly be identified by human beings) and am comfortable with saying “I don’t know.” What I do know is that for a male to be male is to live out God’s will in his life and for a female to be female is to live out God’s will in her life because it is part of being the image of God.

Now about the so-called ‘male god’ of Christianity. The feminist reasoning is that the orthodox understanding of God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is a male understanding of God. What they want to do is create a female understanding of God (Mother, Daughter, Holy Spirit) so that females may also have a field of spiritual perfection to strive towards. However, according to a truly Christian understanding of God this is wrong headed on several levels.

First of all the idea of projecting an image onto God (maleness or femaleness) is not Christian. We do not project images onto God, God speaks and we are faithful to his revealing of himself and he has revealed himself to be neither male nor female.

Why then do we call him Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, why do we say ‘he’ instead of ‘it’?

The answer to this question can be found in the problem of language. God is a person so we must use personal language when we speak to him. Unfortunately the only other persons we have to speak to are human beings who are either male or female which means that our language will be either masculine or feminine. English at least doesn’t have a gender neutral way of addressing persons. It would be correct to refer to God as ‘it’ but also incorrect because ‘it’ is a term reserved for inanimate objects which is disrespectful and creates theological confusion about God’s personhood (as opposed to God being like ‘The Force,’ an impersonal entity.)

What then is wrong with referring to God in the feminine? After all, God has male qualities just as much as he has female qualities.

There have been several attempts within orthodox Christianity to call God Mother instead of Father and the ‘femininity’ of God has also been explored many times. The problem though is twofold. First of all the revelation of God in the Scriptures is that Jesus called God ‘Father,’ not ‘Mother,’ and not ‘Parent.’ This has nothing to do with God’s gender so much as it does with the relationship God has with The Son. Within the Holy Trinity God The Father is father of The Son and The Son is the son of The Father. The Father would not be The Father if he never begot The Son and The Son would not be The Son if he were not begotten by The Father. Since God is not gendered the term ‘Father’ is to be understood relationally and this is important to consider. For instance If Jesus had called God ‘Mother’ then the assumption would have immediately been that The Mother gave birth to The Son, which is NOT what Christian doctrine teaches. All persons of the Holy Trinity are equal and have existed together as one essence for all eternity, The Son was not created or birthed but begotten in eternity past. We also cannot call The Son ‘Daughter’ because the incarnation of The Son was Jesus who was male.

The second reason why referring to God as ‘Mother’ has generally not occurred in Christian orthodoxy is because it creates theological confusion with the relationship between God and creation. If we speak of God in the feminine, then we are quickly moving towards a pagan understanding of the goddess birthing creation, as though creation were in some way a part of Goddess or Goddess a part of creation the same way as a mother and her children. In this sense we are all children of the goddess and creation being birthed from the divine goddess is itself divine and therefore ought to be worshipped. This is Panentheism, a heresy that says that God is a part of creation or that creation is a part of God. A truly Christian understanding is that God is Creator and that creation is creation. God is NOT in the creation and the creation is NOT in God, God is distinct from and separate from (but still intimately involved with) the creation and referring to God in the feminine confuses this point.

The issue then isn’t gender equality or gender accuracy but theological accuracy.

The Christian God is the god of males just as much as he is the god of females for he created both genders in his very image and gives himself up for all humanity, male and female.

Now going back to Paul:

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

This does not mean that Christians are nationless, statusless, or somehow genderless, but that all religious, political, social and cultural barriers are removed in Christ. In Christ men and women are equal despite what is going on in society. If this is not true in the community of faith then Peter warns us that judgment begins with The House of God.

Now some people will point out that Paul also spoke as a typical patriarchal religious leader of his time:

“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve.”

This statement, which is often cited in conservative churches and by liberal critics, needs to be understood within the context of the rest of Paul’s writings as well as all of Scripture. We have already citied Paul’s declaration that in Christ there is neither male nor female in that they are both equal. This means that he has either changed his mind on this or that we do not understand how the two statements properly relate to each other. I do not think that Paul has suddenly changed his mind here, when he speaks about the spiritual gifts he does not discriminate between gender as if women could not have some gifts (teaching included) while men were somehow more privileged.

“Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.”

As a general rule of hermeneutics a doctrine should not be a doctrine if it can only be supported by one or two questionable verses. The literal interpretation of the verse in question IS questionable because of its context. Paul was writing to the church leader in Ephesus (Timothy) encouraging him and instructing him in his leadership. Ephesus at that time in history was home of the Temple of Artemis which had a notorious cult that worshipped ‘Femaleness.’ Paul was instructing Timothy in a way that would make a clear distinction between those who followed the way of faith in Jesus and those who worshiped in Artemis’ temple. It was thought that women were the superior gender because it is women who give birth to men but Paul seeks to confront them with the truth that it was God who created both men and women as equal, not woman who primordially birthed humanity and is therefore superior.

This verse needs to be read in its historical context and in context with the rest of Scripture, not blindly applied literally to all Christians at all times.

In Pauline societies women do teach and are equal. His understanding was that The Holy Spirit grants gifts and works through human beings regardless of their heritage, political / socioeconomic standing, or gender. Who are any of us to question God? If he gives someone the gift of teaching or authority than who are any of us to say “you cannot do that because you are a woman.”? And if you firmly believe that I am heretical right now then rest assured that God gives Spiritual Gifts as he pleases and that he can ably discern who should get what gift and how it should be used as well as how to communicate all these things to the community. Your response as well as mine is to continue to listen to The Holy Spirit who leads us into all truth and faithfully submit to God’s will.

To any Christian reading this we should beware, lest we harden our hearts against God saying “it must be this way,” if He has said “no, it is different than what you think.”

Often it is culture and tradition that erects these boundaries, never God. In Christ male and female are both different and equal. In Christ the male can be male without oppression and the female can be female without oppression.

As far as I can tell, that is a thoroughly Christian understanding of gender identities.

Engage

Thursday January 5, In the year of our Lord 2012
My House, Caronport Saskatchewan
Winding down to go to sleep, 2:07 AM
Weather = Very warm for January

The holidays were a little different this year. My Grandparents went to BC to spend time with my Uncle and his family so things were a little quiet. There was no World of Warcraft questing on New Years, but that's alright. I got to go home and eat lots of good food, spend time with a mother, father, sister, and two brothers who love me. There was lots of games, laughter, and fun. I even got a bunch of pre-course reading done. Oh yeah, I brought my fiancé with me too.

That's right, we're engaged! This was the best part of the holidays! Here's the story of how it went.

I had decided that I wanted to marry her in October. I had a plan.

1. Tell my parents and ask for their blessing.
2. Ask her father's permission
3. Get a ring
4. Propose

It was a fairly straight forward plan, and it was to be executed within two weeks time. Things didn't exactly stick to the time line though.

First of all my parents were very supportive which was fantastic. That part went according to plan.

Asking her father took a while, which was mostly my own nervousness. I decided to not ask him just yet because her mother was coming to visit and she was very busy with papers and such so I thought I would wait until these things had passed before asking the question that radically changes life's momentum. When I finally did work up the courage and thought that the time was right I phoned the house but he was either sick, or at work and I got to talk to her mother for an hour each time. Not a bad thing mind you, always very pleasant and encouraging, just not my initial objective. When I finally got a hold of him I tried to just cut the small talk and get to the chase, but what was supposed to be a friendly opening turned into a full five minutes of discussing weather, politics, cougars, and the fact that he never spends this much time on the phone with anyone. So after an eternity of beating around the bush I finally asked him and he said that he had already decided previous when I helped them move her in to her apartment. Yes.

Alright, so objectives 1 and 2 were complete. Now to get the ring. I went into town to search for rings. She liked white gold with amethyst. She explicitly told me that she wasn't interested in the more expensive rings, which naturally made me feel good inside. I found some 'ok' rings but nothing I was really satisfied with. I was going to drive out to Regina to see what they had when my two closest friends stopped me and told me about a guy in Ontario who builds engagement rings for manufacturers price and that they are far better quality than stock rings that you find in stores. I decided to go for that option and so began two full months of waiting...

First I couldn't get a hold of him because he was on vacation, then at some else's house, and so on. Finally we Facebooked his family to get him to contact me. He agreed to do business with me, much to my delight, and I got various friends to covertly discover her finger size, and pictures of the of rings that she was looking at. Discretion and accurate information take time, but they are worth it. Two weeks later I had what I needed  and then my ring maker friend disappeared for another half week.

Meanwhile I had let something slip in my talking with her. I told her that something was going to happen eventually. Well female intuition caught that really quick. The topic became known as 'eventually' and she brought it up every day for six weeks. "When's eventually?" "Is it eventually yet?" Instead of trying to sweep it under the rug and let on that I didn't want her to ask which would arouse even more suspicion I joked about it and brought it up on occasion myself. "Eventually is a time in the future probably before the Lord's return." She would roll her eyes and pout and sometimes glomp me to try and pry the information out. Nobody has ever been able to keep a secret from her and I was holding out very well, but it was difficult. I longed to tell her that I was waiting for our engagement ring, but of course I couldn't do that.

Eventually the ring maker got back to me and said that the ring was going for casting and that it should be done in two weeks. Ugh... I was growing sick with waiting and it burning inside of me. But two weeks is a defined time, a certainty. So I held out and did not ever let on what 'eventually' was. Two weeks went by and  the ring maker got busy and the ring did not get into the Friday mail. It got into the mail on Monday, my birthday in December and it was to arrive via Next AM Priority Post. Which, by the way, does not arrive next AM as the name would imply. I tracked the package, checking it every hour or every ten minutes. It was stuck in Halifax for three days...

It was agony! I had the proposal plan worked out perfectly but I was running out of time. I was leaving on Thursday to go home and I began to fear that the ring would be late or just lost somewhere within the bowels of the Halifax postal terminal. I was going to propose under the stars. I would wear my nice suit and wear my ratty red jacket over top so that she would not see it. Then as we would go out stargazing outside of town I would go 'grab a blanket' from the trunk of the car. I would then quickly take off my jacket, grab a rose already in the trunk and use the blanket to veil myself until I was close enough to wrap it around her. Then with a gasp of complete and utter surprise and delight she would see me and I would say "this is eventually,"
go down on one knee, propose my love to her and ask her to marry me. And there would be shooting stars and northern lights such as had not been seen or talked about since the night revival struck Caronport as the heavens themselves celebrated this blessed event!

It didn't happen this way.

The ring finally arrived Thursday morning. I was so relieved. I was a little over zealous in opening the package that I accidentally cut a chunk out of the official appraisal documents. It finally arrived, a beautiful solid ring, unique, the symbol of my love. I hadn't slept well for three nights but now it was finally here. There wouldn't be time for stargazing though, because we were leaving at 5:00. I decided that it was more important to be able to celebrate the event with our friends than to have my 'romantic fantasy.' I was so happy. I finished work early, got a rose from town, and put on my suit with the ratty red jacket as I had planned to do. The difference was that she would see it if she was observant, and there would be no time to slip out of the jacket without her seeing what I was doing. So I brought a gift with me. Lego Indiana Jones. She is a fan of the Lego series, so it would not be out of the ordinary.

When I came to her house I told her that I was on a very quick lunch break. She was caught up in her packing and was not having a good day because her suitcase was acting funny. I told her that I had another thing that she could put in the suitcase and handed her the game, but it came with instructions...

She had to go into the living room and face the TV
She then had to read a poem out loud
Inside the box was the definition of eventually

She hastily opened the box and pulled the paper out. It said this.

The Definition of Eventually:
When? Now!
Where? Here!
What? Turn Around...

She did so in a heart beat and that is when time stopped except for the country music coming out of her computer Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying."



There I stood, my suit, the rose, a soft face
She looked completely shocked and even startled
I took a few small steps closer and dropped to a knee
Her eyes widened even more in shock and she sat down quickly
I told her that I loved her, that I couldn't promise that I would ever be rich or successful or that she would never be disappointed with me, but I loved her and I wanted to spend my life with her. And then I reached into my pocket, produced the ring, and asked

"Victoria, will you marry me?"



She stared unbelieving, still completely shocked.

"Yes." She said abruptly, as if the verbal functions had been not been the first part of her brain to reboot. Then as soon as her mobility was back online she flying tackled me.

I had to steady myself and say "I love you" back to her several times with a mouth full of her hair. I had done it! All that waiting on both our parts, eventually was here! I could finally tell her now and she had never suspected. She had been too afraid to think that it could be my proposal lest she get her hopes up and be disappointed. I told her that she can dream freely now and hope fully. She phoned her mother and I heard her scream for joy across the room. She works at a long term care home and several co-workers and residents came to see if she was alright. Well I soon found out that she was better than alright, she thanked me in laughter and tears. She could not describe how happy she was, even though she described it many times and many ways over an extended period of time.

My love phoned her father, who was mourning the death of a close friend and mentor. His response was short and controlled, but he was deeply happy. (we could hear it in his voice)

We went over to our friend's place who lived right next to me because they knew what was going to happen and they had baked a cake and invited as many of our friends as were left in Caronport. Nobody else knew what had happened, until we walked in. So much happiness and celebration! Friends that were planning to leave that morning or who were far too busy all came out and got to share in our joy! Afterwards our house church pastors prayed for us and we went back to our packing.

Before leaving we got to share news with more friends like the post office ladies, the book store ladies, and more people from house church. My sister was so excited (she was at the initial gathering of friends). She could not contain her joy and it came out all the ride back home for Christmas in squeaks and giggles. Those two already love each other deeply as sisters, now they will be sisters!

Then finally we got to tell my parents when we arrived! If that wasn't enough we got to skype with my Grandparents and Uncle to tell them too. Such a joyful day!



So yes! We are engaged! Finally. I realize with amazement that all the prayers I have prayed for my future wife was for this women. This beautiful, amazing, awesome, woman.

And part of the fun is that it doesn't feel all that different. We are still Greg and Victoria as ever we were, but now we get to look forward to spending a life together. The wedding planning has begun, and I so look forward to it.

But enough for tonight, I have written for an hour and a half and I need to go to bed so that I can go to work in the morning.

I hope that you too may share in our joy as you read this account.

Greg Out