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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3158 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 17, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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This is not a good argument, because Jesus is clear that we are all born again from God, that we all become a son of God with the same oneness as Jesus is the son of God (John 17:22-23). Of course we are not turned into sons of God in the sense that we are suddenly turned into a divine being. Neither are we the preeminent Son of God, the firstfruits. But it’s totally anachronistic to make this into an argument for his being God, and it just reads as someone trying to trick those unfamiliar with how words were actually used at the time period.

It is basically the same argument Gregory of Nyssa uses. I am far from an expert in ancient or Koine Greek, though, so it is hard for me to independently evaluate what is or is not anachronistic. I agree that we are all called to be sons of God, and also that there is one (Only Begotten) Son of God; we are to attain by grace what He is by nature. And I think that Christ's (eternal) divinity is necessary for salvation. Irenaeus, who stated that man was created in the image and to attain the likeness of God, says:

Jesus Christ was not a mere man, begotten from Joseph in the ordinary course of nature, but was very God, begotten of the Father most high, and very man, born of the Virgin.

  1. But again, those who assert that He was simply a mere man, begotten by Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of death having been not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving liberty through the Son, as He does Himself declare: If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. (John 8:36) But, being ignorant of Him who from the Virgin is Emmanuel, they are deprived of His gift, which is eternal life; (Romans 6:23) and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life. To whom the Word says, mentioning His own gift of grace: I said, You are all the sons of the Highest, and gods; but you shall die like men. He speaks undoubtedly these words to those who have not received the gift of adoption, but who despise the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, defraud human nature of promotion into God, and prove themselves ungrateful to the Word of God, who became flesh for them. For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other means could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons?

Ultimately, the importance of adoptionism and “low Christology” is not because it’s the oldest and original, but because it’s essential for the religion to actually have an effect.

Makes sense, I can see how an overemphasis on Christ's divinity causes problems. But I also think that part of the magic of the faith is its ability to hold certain opposites in tension.

Greg quotes 1 Corinthians 15:

”we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality […] the corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons”

But in the very line of thought in 1Cor15, Paul emphasizes that Jesus has to be a man for salvation to occur, because Adam was a man. There is no argument that Jesus has to be more than man for salvation to occur; that thought isn’t found. We read here:

[21] For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

By a man has come resurrection! Why would Paul not add that the man had to be divine? We see something of the opposite. The mere man Adam made us mortal; the mere man Christ made us immortal. (Adam is an interesting case when you think about it: a man given immortality while still being a man.)

We also find the notion that Jesus resurrecting is an auspicious indication for the general class of mortal men dying, such that because Jesus resurrected we are consequently sure that we all will be resurrected. This would be a bewildering argument to make unless both the author and audience were certain that Jesus is no more than a mortal man:

[12] Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised

Now, if the author and the audience believed that Christ were more than mortal, then it would be perfectly reasonable to hold that there is resurrection of the dead while still Christ resurrected. Because Christ, being divine, can be resurrected, as he belongs to a category of being beyond mere mortals. A being who is both God and Man being resurrected would not indicate anything for the whole class of mortal men. Yet Paul says that his resurrection indicates that all men are resurrected, and Paul considers it impossible for anyone to hold that (1) Christ can be resurrected, while (2) other mortals can’t be resurrected. In effect Paul says here: you must believe that mortal men are resurrected, because if you don’t, then there is no possible way for Christ to be resurrected. And he reaffirms this twice, which is pretty remarkable; it may be the only case of Paul ever repeating the same argument nearly verbatim.

We also find the notion, again in this chapter, that the original state of Jesus in heaven was as a man:

The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

So for Paul, even when talking about the heavenly origin of Jesus, there is no mention of anything except his being a man. This actually poses a problem for Trinitarianism which separates the two natures of Jesus as mortal and immortal, because afaik they believe that the mortal Jesus did not have his origin in heaven, only the Word. If the heavenly origin of Jesus is purely Word/God, then why is Paul speaking of a man from heaven? Even if this is technically logical(?), it’s a highly unusual way for someone to present the idea.

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