rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
Eusebius of Caesarea argued similarly:
But the Father precedes the Son, and has preceded Him in existence, inasmuch as He alone is unbegotten. The One, perfect in Himself and first in order as Father, and the cause of the Son's existence, receives nothing towards the completeness of His Godhead from the Son: the Other, as a Son begotten of Him that caused His being, came second to Him, Whose Son He is, receiving from the Father both His Being, and the character of His Being .
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
Tertullian believed God always had his Reason or his Word AND that God was alone before he brought his Son into existence. He said both things and clearly believed both. It’s only if you impose a strict idea that Word=Son that there is a problem and you have to negate one or the other of Tertullian’s statements. Tertullian made a distinction between God’s Reason which he always had, and his Son which he brought into existence and thereby became a Father. Tertullian did believe that Jesus is divine in some sense, just as JWs do, even God from God, if you like. This sits alongside his view that there was a time when the Son didn’t exist and that the Son is distinct from God and subordinate to him. Tertullian is eminently clear on these points:
I am, moreover, obliged to say this, when (extolling the Monarchy at the expense of the Economy) they contend for the identity of the Father and Son and Spirit, that it is not by way of diversity that the Son differs from the Father, but by distribution: it is not by division that He is different, but by distinction; because the Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: My Father is greater than I. Against Praxeas 14
can anyone watch the whole of koyaanisqatsi are seriously not conclude that humanity doomed?
it’s simply the most incredible film.
i saw it first as a child, and i had the privilege of seeing it performed live by philip glass himself around ten years ago.
Can anyone watch the whole of Koyaanisqatsi are seriously not conclude that humanity doomed? It’s simply the most incredible film. I saw it first as a child, and I had the privilege of seeing it performed live by Philip Glass himself around ten years ago.
I rewatched it today and I think it’s even more relevant today than it’s ever been, in view of impending doom by AI, world war, or both.
But as I was watching it this time, I noticed, and I was wondering, does anyone know, is the building in view at around 30 seconds in this part the old Watchtower building in Brooklyn?
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
What Tertullian said about the subject (for some reason you avoid quoting the passage directly) was the following:
Because God is in like manner a Father, and He is also a Judge; but He has not always been Father and Judge, merely on the ground of His having always been God. For He could not have been the Father previous to the Son, nor a Judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin existed with Him, nor the Son; the former of which was to constitute the Lord a Judge, and the latter a Father. In this way He was not Lord previous to those things of which He was to be the Lord. But He was only to become Lord at some future time: just as He became the Father by the Son, and a Judge by sin, so also did He become Lord by means of those things which He had made, in order that they might serve Him. Against Hermogenes 3
Who does Tertullian sound like here, someone who believes Jesus came into existence or a Trinitarian? If we’re being honest I think the answer is very obvious.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
Yes I agree, Halcon, 1 Cor 11.3 is a good verse. It clearly shows that Jesus is subject to God. If I remember correctly the Greek word “head” can also involve the sense of “foundation”, and some ancient authors took it that way, which would also obviously make sense as God is the origin of Jesus (as creator), Jesus is the origin of man (as the one through whom God created everything), and man is the origin of woman (as woman was taken from the side of man in the Genesis story).
I also agree that we cannot extrapolate from human understanding of personhood and consciousness to say that God can’t do this or that, such as be alone.
JWs also have a particular explanation (I don’t know if others share the same view) for verses that say God finds things out, is disappointed, regrets and so on. They believe that, while God can of course in principle know everything in the future, Jehovah has selectively chosen not to know the outcome of human choices in order to leave room for free will.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
Ah ChatGPT enters the thread …
To respond to the earlier point about God’s attributes: early Christian writers expressed different views on this. Some early writers (I think Tertullian) said that there was a time when God wasn’t Father because he didn’t become Father until the only begotten son came into existence. Later Trinitarians would turn this on its head and argue that God must always have been Father and therefore in fact the Son didn’t come into existence. Intuition, common sense, and the language of scripture indicates (to me at least) that the first position advocated by Tertullian makes more sense. One of the fundamental attributes of fathers is that they are older than their sons, and scripture talks about Wisdom being begotten long ago as the first of God’s acts of creation (Prov 8.22), that the Word was “in the beginning” (John 1.1), that Jesus lives “because of the Father” (John 5.67), is “the firstborn of all creation” (Col 1.15), and is “the beginning of the creation of God” (Rev 3.14). If all those expressions are not meant to convey that Jesus is God’s first creation then it’s an odd choice of language. No wonder a majority of ordinary Christians when polled agree with JWs that Jesus is God’s first creation. It takes a lot of strained argumentation from Trinitarian apologists committed to Nicene orthodoxy to convince a person otherwise.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
Rowan Williams is an impressive thinker. He has thought deeply about the issues of God’s existence, suffering, and meaning, and is sincere in sharing his conclusions. He wrote a significant book on Arius and, while Williams is obviously a Trinitarian, he presents a fair account of Arianism. He acknowledges that in the fourth century Christological debate it was Arius who was the theological conservative standing up for the traditional teaching that Jesus is subordinate to God. And he was such a good Archbishop of Canterbury compared with the latest scumbag Welby who never had a significant thought for anything other than himself.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
As Williams explains, God is not an additional thing in the universe that requires explanation. He is the explanation. To insist on the question of what caused God is not an argument against God, it's simply another way of saying that you don't believe in God. Because if there was an answer to the question "what caused God", then that God wouldn't be God, because God by definition doesn't have a cause. It initially seems like a clever question, "what caused God" , but it rather misses the point.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
God is sufficient in himself. He doesn't require another, but he chooses to create others as an expression of love, that's the point. If God had the experience of others regardless of his will then it couldn't be said to be a choice or an expression of love to share existence with others. Anything we say about God is obviously tentative, but among the things we can say it seems to make more sense that God shared existence by an active choice and that it was motivated by love. Asking if God had love before that doesn't seem like a defeater because it's not clear that "before" means anything to God if he created time at the creation. Or even if his expression of love was preceded by a period (if period means something here) of intention before action, that seems preferable to saying that God had no choice in the matter and was compelled to share existence as a necessary state of affairs.
