Tempting God

Dale

Spectacularly point-missing. The post was about reading Mark by itself, and assuming only things that first century Jews would assume about God, e.g. he knows all, he can't die.

i) Is Dale really that simple-minded? Yes, God is omniscient and immortal. 

But let's take a comparison: can a man get from L.A. to Seattle in two hours? Well, a man can't walk from L.A to Seattle in two hours. He can't run that fast. A man qua man can't traverse that distance in two hours. But a man can fly a plane from L. A. to Seattle in two hours. 

God qua God can't die. God qua God can't be ignorant. But Mark presents both the humanity and divinity of Christ. The Son qua God can't die, but the Son qua Incarnate can die. The Son qua God can't be ignorant, but the Son qua Incarnate can be ignorant. 

ii) It's because Mark makes some statements about Jesus that are incompatible with divinity that we affirm the humanity of Christ. Conversely, it's because Mark makes some statements about Jesus that are incompatible with humanity that we affirm the divinity of Christ. 

For Dale to say Christ can't be God because God can't die or be ignorant misses the point. Yes, we know that. And it's because Mark makes statements about Jesus that are inconsistent if Jesus is only human or only divine that we believe Jesus to be both human and divine. 

BTW, since Tuggy is an open theist, he doesn't believe God knows the future.  

To *argue against* Chalcedonian christology would, of course, require a lot more than a quick overview of Mark. We don't bring in later catholic two-natures theory in expounding Mark's meaning, because, that whole theoretical project just anywhere to be found there. You gents just don't want to take time to understand Mark in his own terms - you want to do systematic theology and polemical apologetics. But, first things first. 

i) Except that Dale doesn't take the time to understand Mark on his own terms. Take major commentaries on Mark by R. T. France and Robert Stein. Notice how they exegete the deity of Christ in Mark from Mk 1:1-4. They make the effort to understand Mark on his own terms, using grammatico-historical exegesis. Or consider the way Sigurd Grindheim exegetes the deity of Christ in Mark in his grammatico-historical monograph: Christology in the Synoptic Gospels, chap. 2. Grindheim takes the time to understand Mark on his own terms, using contextual and intertextual clues.  

ii) I didn't resort to systematic theology or Chalcedonian Christology in my response to Dale. 

Yes, I referred to the two natures of Christ, but that's just a case of using extrabiblical terminology to summarize Scripture. It's not as if Dale limits himself to Biblical terminology when he talks about "humanitarian unitarianism."

Mark treats Jesus as simultaneously human and divine.

By the way, even as late as Irenaeus, it seems that many catholics happily accepted that Jesus didn't know the day or hour (full stop). http://trinities.org/blog/archives/4365 

A red herring.

Tempting God to sin is not the same as putting God to the test (i.e. try his patience). Surely you don't want to say that 1st c. Jews thought God could be tempted to sin. (How could all all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-around perfect being be motivated to sin?) But this is what the reader assumes Satan to be doing to Jesus in Mark 1.

i) Once again, is Dale really that simple-minded? He fails to draw an elementary distinction between subjective and objective temptation. Can God feel temptation? No. Can an external agent try to tempt God? Yes.

Even if Jesus was merely God, that's perfectly consistent with Satan trying to tempt him. Because that's something Satan does with God, not something that motivates God. It comes from the outside, not the inside. 

ii) Furthermore, since Jesus isn't merely God, because Jesus is also a man, it's possible for Jesus to feel human temptations. 

iii) Finally, to feel tempted is not inherently sinful.