Why JESUS? Why YAHWEH?

[Astronaut]

Consider my thought experiment:

Why do you say Jesus is good? Is it because he is just? Then why put Jesus above justice? Why do you say Jesus is good? Is it because he is merciful? Then why put Jesus before mercy? Suppose it should turn out that no such person as Christ ever lived. What harm would that do justice or mercy? Wouldn't the tear of pity be as pure as now, and wouldn't justice be as noble, as admirable as now? Is it not better to love justice and mercy than to love a name, and when you put a name above justice, above mercy, are you sure that you are serving truth?

Why not love justice, mercy, and remediation -- cutting names out of the picture?

[Orthosdoxa]

Christ is so much more than just a name, or social justice concepts.

He is the Tree of Life.

[Greg the byzantine]

He is the Tree of Life.
I absolutely love the icon, of Christ the Tree of life. http://www.cenacle.co.uk/lists/..%5Cimages%5Ci0114.jpg

[StChristopherofPalestine]

Consider my thought experiment:

Why do you say Jesus is good? Is it because he is just? Then why put Jesus above justice? Why do you say Jesus is good? Is it because he is merciful? Then why put Jesus before mercy? Suppose it should turn out that no such person as Christ ever lived. What harm would that do justice or mercy? Wouldn't the tear of pity be as pure as now, and wouldn't justice be as noble, as admirable as now? Is it not better to love justice and mercy than to love a name, and when you put a name above justice, above mercy, are you sure that you are serving truth?

Why not love justice, mercy, and remediation -- cutting names out of the picture?

Because these things are meaningless without the All-Holy Trinity. They have no value if we are purely matter and cosmic accident. Without God, there is Nihilism and nothing matters. With God, all things are vitalized and gain meaning.

[Rilian]

Why not love justice, mercy, and remediation -- cutting names out of the picture?

The fact is without a central defining truth all of these words mean nothing – justice, mercy and so on. Perhaps to me without God it is merciful to kill a child born with down’s syndrome, or to you it is just that thieves have their hands cut off. Who can say we’re right or wrong? Nobody. All you can hope for is some kind of consensus to form around what you believe is “true”. There are no absolutes, just shifting opinions about what may be right or wrong. Everything is provisional.

The promise of the modern world is that ethics can be divorced from theism and can be found in ourselves. The great horrors and tragedies of the 20th century however showed us that the greatness of man is built on the destruction of other men. When we turn from God, we inevitably turn on ourselves.

Christ is what he is to us because he is truth and he is real. The Incarnation is a dividing line between what was and what will be. Theology is not a speculative set of propositions, it is a lived reality. Christ is just and merciful not as the example of an abstract ideal, he is the ideal himself. Truth revealed in flesh.

Pilate asked the question that resonates with us still “what is truth”, unaware of course that he was confronted directly with the imposition of ultimate truth in to the affairs of men. To him, it may just have been another day at the office.

[gzt]

because we don't believe in an impersonal good and an impersonal justice and an impersonal love. we are relational beings and only know good, love, justice in the context of persons, and the perfect knowledge of good, love, and justice is in the experience of the energies of God and the sharing of the divine life of the Trinity.

[Astronaut]

I love all of your answers so far -- please give me more of your thoughts! When salvation is "theosis" rather than forensic justification, one starts to wonder why "theosis" does not simply collapse into "becoming a patient and loving person" -- which would be a daunting and worthwhile task on its own.

[Photios]

This reminds me of the Socratic question as to if something is good because God (he used the term gods) approves of it, or if God approves becuase it is good.

We would object to the question. Our answer is that all that is good is of God, and that He is the source of all good. He doesn't approve, becuase it is a part of His nature. Therefore, without Christ, without God, there is no such thing as good, no such thing as mercy, or justice, peace, etc.

Chris is right. Without God there is no meaning, and all you have is the empty contradictory universe of Nihilism.

[icxn]

I love all of your answers so far -- please give me more of your thoughts! When salvation is "theosis" rather than forensic justification, one starts to wonder why "theosis" does not simply collapse into "becoming a patient and loving person" -- which would be a daunting and worthwhile task on its own.

Becoming a patient and loving person is the means not the purpose. Buddhists value these things and also humility and charity and self-control which are all good, if they are done for the right reason/motive, namely for Christ.

[Marjorie]

Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15.) He is a Person who became one of us and died and rose again so that our human nature (and indeed all of Creation through us) was deified and death became a passage into Resurrection. Vague concepts of 'justice' and 'mercy' are just IDEAS. Christ is not an idea but the PERSONAL REALITY of Love, Mercy, Justice, Compassion in human flesh... not an idea but the Unapproachable God made approachable. When we say God is personal we don't mean that He is comprehensible; we mean that He can love and give as a subject. And the Trinity is the Father eternally giving of Himself to two other Persons who are willed into existence by Him from before all the ages, all giving, all subjects with no apparent object. That is why "God is love" (1 John 4:8.)

Vague concepts of 'love,' 'mercy,' 'justice'-- they could not raise us into life eternal, which is to say life deified-- resurrection not just generally but resurrection with Christ, who is our Life and the Life of our life. It is not just 'being a good person' but the eternal Source of All loving us literally to death and we responding by giving all we are and all of us giving to each other in an eternal dance of self-giving, all through the Life that is His Life, for we do not exist from ourselves but from the Lord who loves us, through His great love, mercy, and compassion towards mankind.

Theosis doesn't mean just becoming a good person. Those who we seen who have really reached theosis are SAINTLY-- which is something completely different than 'being nice.' They break down all barriers with love and complete self-giving. They seem to bend reality itself through their power of sanctity and humility. This is possible because God Himself-- the Reality beyond Reality-- joined Himself to fallen man, and fallen Creation, so all Creation was brought into infinitely beautiful Life, now and ever and unto ages of ages.

In IC XC,
Marjorie

[Astronaut]

Because these things are meaningless without the All-Holy Trinity. They have no value if we are purely matter and cosmic accident. Without God, there is Nihilism and nothing matters. With God, all things are vitalized and gain meaning.
This reminds me of a George MacDonald quote:

"The universe would be to me no more than a pasteboard scene, all surface and no deepness, on the stage, if I did not hope in God. I will not say believe, for that is a big word, and it means so much more than my low beginnings of confidence. But a little faith may wake a great big hope, and I look for great things from him whose perfection breathed me out that I might be a perfect thing one day. The more we trust, the more reasonable we find it to trust."

[_Petros_]

This reminds me of a George MacDonald quote:


"The universe would be to me no more than a pasteboard scene, all surface and no deepness, on the stage, if I did not hope in God. I will not say believe, for that is a big word, and it means so much more than my low beginnings of confidence. But a little faith may wake a great big hope, and I look for great things from him whose perfection breathed me out that I might be a perfect thing one day. The more we trust, the more reasonable we find it to trust."


I really like that quote. It makes my heart sing.

[Astronaut]

I really like that quote. It makes my heart sing.
What I love most about MacDonald is his humility and total lack of pretense. He claims only to have "hope," "low beginnings of confidence," and "a little faith," -- but not belief. How many Christians are so secure in God's trustworthiness that they can be this honest? Does it make him less of a Christian that he denies that he believes? I think it may make him one of the few Christians among us.

[Marjorie]

This reminds me of a George MacDonald quote:


"The universe would be to me no more than a pasteboard scene, all surface and no deepness, on the stage, if I did not hope in God. I will not say believe, for that is a big word, and it means so much more than my low beginnings of confidence. But a little faith may wake a great big hope, and I look for great things from him whose perfection breathed me out that I might be a perfect thing one day. The more we trust, the more reasonable we find it to trust."




I can definitely see why Lewis loved him so much. :thumbsup:

In IC XC,

Marjorie