[TruthTalk] On TOE -- Relational Theology

[Bill Taylor]

ï "Unfortunately my lunch break is over :)"   You're amazing, Jonathan. You do on lunch break what takes me a snow day to consider.   Judy asked, Why is it important? For this reason we also ... do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; ... giving thanks to the Father who ... has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. -- (See Col 1.9-20)   Comments in green below.   Bill ----- Original Message ----- From: Lance Muir To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 1:10 PM Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Two Covenants? I would appreciate responses on this from bill, slade & john. This is one (almost) fine piece and, warrants comments from (possibly) interested persons. ----- Original Message ----- From: Hughes Jonathan To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: November 19, 2004 13:58 Subject: RE: [TruthTalk] Two Covenants? Hi Izzy,   Hope this helps:   Wikipedia defines the TOE as: A theory of everything (TOE) is a theory of theoretical physics and mathematics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena (i.e. "everything").   This is a scientific construct designed to encapsulate all of our scientific knowledge.  Lance is asking what the theological counterpart of this scientific theory would be.  Actually he may even be taking a step beyond this.  I think he would say that the scientific theory of everything (TOE) would become a predicate (become part of, or a subset) of the theological theory of everything (TTOE).  What is the meaning of the cosmos, of creation?  We can sum up that meaning in the Person of Jesus Christ.  As we do not separate God's acts from God's being we can substitute the incarnation (God with us in space and time as the Godman, fully God and fully human) for the words Jesus Christ.  Lance is suggesting that we define all that we do and think through the lens of the incarnation.  The incarnation being the focal point out of which we come to understand our lives.  What we tend to do is use our theology to define our lives.  Lance is suggesting that we allow God to define our theology.  Lance goes on to suggest that in order to do this two things may need to occur:   1)  Move past (not ignore) external relations to think of internal relations, or onto-relations as he likes to call them when we speak.  The human person is defined by relationality.  To be fully human is to relate.  Out of these relations comes change and growth.   Just a few words of expansion: I will try not to stray too far from your point. During the early centuries of Christianity, the term "person" was coined to speak of the members of the Godhead; as such it was a relational term: the Father being the Father only as he is in his relation as Father of the Son; and the Son being the Son only as he is in his relation as Son of the Father. In other words, the word person was meaningful only when it meant a "being in relation." The Father was not the Father without the Son; the Son was not the Son without the Father -- it was the relationship that gave meaning to personhood.    During this period Christians began to recognize from Scripture an embedded definition of humanity that involved an embodiment of these same relational qualities. Throughout the Fourth and Fifth centuries the Church spoke of "man" in those relational terms: e.g. their definition of a human being was "a person in relation." This concept of person, applied in a unique way to God, and in another way to human beings who were personal in virtue of their relation to God and to one another within the interpersonal structure of humanity, stood unchallenged until the Sixth century, when Boetheus, a Roman Aristotelian philosopher, who believed that reason alone was a valid way of explaining reality, offered a new definition for the word human: a human being, he said, is an individual with the capacity to reason. With this definition came the birth of humanism -- man as the measure of all things (itself a form of TOE) -- and in it were the seeds of the individualism that runs rampant through Western culture today. Humans did not need relationships to know reality or where they stood in it; they needed only be thinking islands. Gone was the idea that personhood was defined in terms of relationality. Soon thereafter to be a person was first to be an individual.   When Jonathan writes that Lance would have the "incarnation being the focal point out of which we come to understand our lives," they are in part calling for a shift in our thinking that would take us back to this relational concept of personhood, wherein the relations define the persons and the persons are as real as the relationhips involved. Why is this important? Because the Father-Son relation is a oneness in being between the incarnate Son and the Father (in Nicene terminology it is the homoousion); theirs is an onto-relation or being constituting relation which is characteristic or defining of what the realities implicated in the relation really are. It is this inner relation between the incarnate Son and the Father which allows us, sinful and finite though we are, to approach God through the mediation of the Son and know God in a way that is godly and accurate: as forgiven sinners reconciled to God through Christ in accordance to the onto-relations constitutive of God's reality himself.   Blessings,   Bill    2)  Indwell the Scriptures.  The Word of God is capable of setting us free.  When we allow God's Word to indwell us in light of who He is we come into this internal relation.   Hope this helps.  Based on what I have said, can you see why Slade's response this morning came out of 'internal relations'?    Unfortunately my lunch break is over :)   Jonathan Hughes From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of ShieldsFamily Sent: Friday, November 19, 2004 11:49 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [TruthTalk] Two Covenants? Question:What is the theological counterpart to 'The Theory of Everything'? Answer:The Incarnation   It is well and wise to think of  internal relations. Do not stop with the external. Indwel the Scriptures.   Example of 'internal' thinking:Slade's post this morning. I cna think of a number of scriptures that support the above  --   soooooo, why is it imcumbant upon Lance to quote them.  Is it not enough that he incorporates the scriptures as he understands them into his writings?    John   Iâm not sure who you are asking, John.  But my answer would be that he should quote scriptures at least for those of us who might not understand or agree with what he says.  For instance, I have no idea what he means by what he said above.  And I donât recall what the Theory of Everything is. Izzy This e-mail and any attachments contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail, delete this e-mail and destroy any copies. 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