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From: amigo@iwlc6.UUCP (John Hobson)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Salvation
Message-ID: <132@iwlc6.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Apr-84 14:14:32 EST
Article-I.D.: iwlc6.132
Posted: Mon Apr 16 14:14:32 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Apr-84 07:49:29 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 105

Here is the first of a series of articles on a Christian view of
salvation.  I am sending it out in two parts as it is fairly long.

The Mystery that is God is stubbornly, maddenly mysterious.  Not
that we don't have an existential grip on it:  we touch it all the
time--and not just in religious ways.  It isn't only by anointing
the feet of Jesus while he was on earth , or by remembering his
Sacrifice of his Body and Blood that we grasp it.  It is in us,
with us and under us every moment of our being--and in, with, and
under everything else too.  We all have an intuitive feeling for
it, call it God, or humanity, or nature or whatever.  It's when we
try to talk about it that we find we can be clearer about what is
is not rather than what it is.  The best we can do is refine and
reinterpret the images by which we figure it--go over our figures,
if you like, and check them for false results.

Let us take an example.  Take a phrase from the Anthanasian Creed: 
"When, in the fullness of time, God became man..."  There is a
suble implication here, that God says "Well, the time is ripe, I
now decide to incarnate myself."

On one level, saying "when God decided" is perfectly all right.  It
is anthropomorphism, jsut as every other usage about God is.  To
use it wisely, you simply have to bear in mind that deciding at a
certain time is a lusy image of what God does.  He doesn't sit
around wondering, and then one day makes up his mind.  He just
wills.  And whatever he wills, he wills from all eternity.  His
mind is never anything but fully made up.

On anther level, however, this is bound to make trouble, because
the "time" imagery is so strong that it keeps knocking at every
door in the house until somebody ets it in.  Perhaps you think that
that's all right--as long as it doesn't track its time-mired feet
in the front room, where God is, it can be let into the kitchen,
where creation is.  After all, the world is temporal, and God acts
in history, and revelation comes by degrees.  Why don't you just
put an unexpressed parenthesis in the phrase to clean it up?  Why
can't you say: "When (from our point of view) God decided"? 
Doesn't that succeed in keeping the mud out of the parlour?

No, because even with its feet thus parked on a mat, it's just
biding its time.  The moment you turn your back it will roam all
over the place.  Watch.

Jesus of Nazereth was born in the back of a stable near Bethelehem
in about the year 4 B.C.  (It may have been as early as 12 BC, but
4 is the generally accepted year.  Mercifully, this is not a
paradox; but rather the result of a mistake somebody made when the
calendar was changed.)  In any case, Christians believe that this
same Jesus is the Word made flesh; he is God become man. 
Accordingly, it seems perfectly safe to hold that his birth is a
new departure in which God himself comes on stage in the
incarnation--that "when (from our point of view) God decided to
become man," a new Mystery went into effect.

For most Christians, no doubt, this sounds cautious enough.  It
predicates time of God only in connection with something he did in
time.  He always willed to do it; but in this world, he did it on a
certain day.  But hold on.  There is am implication there just
itching to put its muddy feet all over your theology.  If you don't
watch it, yopu will find yourself saying that, accordingly, this
Mystery became operative only in 4 BC and only in Jesus.

Does that still sound all right?  Watch some more.  It this mystery
only went to work in 4 BC, then it was unavailable to all the
people who lived before that date.  And if it is operative only in
Jesus then that means that Jews, Greeks, or Infidels who died in
200 BC, or Eskimos who died in 50 AD, were never in touch with it. 
And that in turn means that the whole untimely lot of them are out
of luck as far as getting hotel accomodations in the New Jerusalem
is concerned.  And that means they can all go to hell.

Notice how nicely we're progressing.  We have now arrived at one of
the the more detestable enormities in the history of theology.  And
we have run into direct opposition to Jesus' own words:  "I ...
will draw all men unto me."

Since most of the theologians who embraced this monster were
basicaly nice people (really!), they had the grace to feel bad
about not having room in the celestial Holiday Inn for so many
people.  So they proceeded to build, not with the hard cash of
Scripture, but almost entirely on speculation, a couple of cheap
hotels along the New Jerusalem road.  These were run by Conrad
Limbo, Inc.  There was the Limbus Patrum, or Limbo of the Fathers,
for all the ancient Greek worthies like Socrates; and there was the
Limbus Puerorm (interesting how in Latin, a generic child is a
boy), or Limbo of the Children, for all those little tykes who
cashed in their chips before they had a chance to commit any sins.

Things are going swimmingly.  We have reached the point of saying
that God will give you a cut-rate bliss on the outer marches of his
favour, just for being a good egg.  Which, of course, is exactly
what Jesus did not say:  "I am the way, the truth, and the life: 
no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."  Morality, not
forgiveness--Law, not Grace--has become the promise of your gospel.
You are about to skid yourself into the world's all time pileup on
the Jersey Turnpike of theology:  A dump truck (Galatians) and a
tractor trailor (Romans) owned by Paul & Co. are going to jump the
divider and smash into you.  All because you thought it was safe to
take your eye off "when God decided..."

				John Hobson
				AT&T Bell Labs--Naperville, IL
				ihnp4!iwlc6!amigo