Christopher Hansen: This article (I wrote) thoroughly demonstrates why your view of biblical inerrantism is flawed e.g. in Acts 17:16-32, Paul explicitly forbade the worship of Pagan gods. In High Christology we [k]now throughout its history there lays at the foundation something called pneumatology. Which pneuma (πνεῦμα) and logos (λόγος) are descriptors that derive from the Ancient and Koine Greek (Septuagint, LXX; New Testament). Far more than loanwords, these are metaphysical concepts that span centuries—predating the Jesus creation. In Stoicism, pantheistic thinkers such as Zeno (334 – 262 BC), Chrysippus (279 BC – 206 BC), and, Seneca (4 BC – C.E. 65) e.g. held that animate objects were infused with an all-pervading pneuma. And for the Stoa, this concept would come to symbolize the Holy Spirit or Soul or Breath of Life that permeated animate material. Indeed, the Stoics likewise formed worldviews based on another familiar concept: the Logos—the universe, the Stoics argued, was driven by a celestial force called Reason or Word or Mind and this Mind was what propagated the Cosmos and was [always] coeternal with her counterpart: Holy Spirit. In the Stoic view, these two concepts were inseparable functions that spun atoms and made worlds. We cant speak of generalities here, the Stoics lived and died according to what they held as the Four Cardinal Virtues: Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, Justice. Stoic metaphysics were such that they werent exactly fatalists, however, the modern mind imagines them to be strict determinists but this a misnomer—the proper moniker should be Compatibilists. The Stoic believes in a naturalistic universe. Indeed, forever pantheists to the core and throughout their history, the Stoics would come to embrace their Pantheistic God as Immanent e.g. here in the present, waiting to be discovered. Indeed, formalized through inspection of nature. Lets consider what Seneca laconically writes Lucilius (65 C.E.): God is near you, he is with you, he is within you. This is what I mean, Lucilius: a holy spirit indwells within us, one who marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian. As we treat this spirit, so are we treated by it. Indeed, no man can be good without the help of God. Can one rise superior to fortune unless God helps him to rise? (cf.Epistle 41) Enter First Century Judea. The Jewish land is being occupied by Roman rule. And to the Jewish diaspora, since the postexilic period, Hellenistic philosophies are beginning to syncretize and weave themselves into the fabric of their worldview ideologies. Now we arrive at the inception of Jesus and the Trinity. The New Testament writers, becoming influenced by and through Hellenism, will reshape the Stoics appreciation for what it meant to pay homage to God. The Logos and Holy Spirit. In Christian mythopoeic terms, these syncretistic components will become the Son of God—the creative force that is likened to a universal cohesive glue binding the pneuma or more proper the Holy Spirit. They realize the paradox of evil, and, its incongruent relationship to an omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipresent Creator. Thus resolving the issue of struggle and suffering and God (theodicy). But for writers of the Epistles and Gospels, they restructured the Stoic concept of an Immanent God, whereby e.g. Jesus becomes a Transcendent Cause—inside and outside the constructs of time and space. A heralding Savior and through His atoning sacrifice we get things like the kergyma (κηρύσσω) which will become the highest ideal. Whats interesting is that the Stoics didnt conceptualize their idea of Logos as being the Son of God or the Pneuma being part of a triadal function (Christian godhead). Thus while our early Stoic concepts were almost functionally indistinguishable in some respects, there were major differences (let me emphasize major) in how Christian thinkers will change and systematize the Stoic system of metaphysics—on a level that almost becomes unrecognizable. The Stoa championed an eternal universe whereas Christian and New Testament writers envision a universe created by God but this Gods presence is immaterial thus contrastably opposite to the Stoic view. plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 03:19:59 +0000
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