“And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them”.
From a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus. (Luke:43-44)
Why we will not be “God as God is God” – Part 2
Against the Armstrongist Doctrine of Becoming God
By Scout
“God then purposed to reproduce himself, through humans, made in his image and likeness…” - Herbert W. Armstrong, Mystery of the Ages, p. 94, 1985.
“It cannot be repeated too often: We were born for the express purpose of literally becoming equal with the creator of the universe — members in the same eternally ruling God Family-Kingdom. But what will we be like? Like God! Exactly! Exactly like God!” - Robert L. Kuhn, “What it Means to be – Equal with God”, Tomorrow’s World Magazine, April 1971.
“Thus said the Lord, The King of Israel, their Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts, I am the first and the last, and there is no God but me…” - Isaiah 44:6, Jewish Study Bible, Second Edition.
Part 1 is at: Why We will not be “God as God is God” – Part 1
Section I (Continued): Ontological Differences between God and Resurrected Humans
Ontology refers to God’s eternal existential nature and essence. I believe this roughly corresponds to Robert L. Kuhn’s concept of being “qualitatively” like God. The question we seek to resolve is whether resurrected humans are ontologically the same as God. If resurrected humans are different from God ontologically, then the God-as-is-God trope fails. Below are some points at issue:
God is not constructed of parts and humans are: Humans are dependent on the functioning of internal body parts for life to be sustained. We are contingent on a beating heart. God does not have parts in his essence. He is not a composite. He is what Thomas Aquinas calls a simple being. A simple being is a free, necessary being. If God is reliant on eternal parts to sustain life, then he is not necessary. He is dependent on something and this means that he is not all powerful. And then there is the chicken and egg crisis. Did the necessary heart, if there were such, come first or did the necessary God come first? And then there is the origin question. Who designed and created the heart so God could have life? These are other similar questions must be resolved in order to support the theory that God has a composite body.
Ontology refers to God’s eternal existential nature and essence. I believe this roughly corresponds to Robert L. Kuhn’s concept of being “qualitatively” like God. The question we seek to resolve is whether resurrected humans are ontologically the same as God. If resurrected humans are different from God ontologically, then the God-as-is-God trope fails. Below are some points at issue:
God is not constructed of parts and humans are: Humans are dependent on the functioning of internal body parts for life to be sustained. We are contingent on a beating heart. God does not have parts in his essence. He is not a composite. He is what Thomas Aquinas calls a simple being. A simple being is a free, necessary being. If God is reliant on eternal parts to sustain life, then he is not necessary. He is dependent on something and this means that he is not all powerful. And then there is the chicken and egg crisis. Did the necessary heart, if there were such, come first or did the necessary God come first? And then there is the origin question. Who designed and created the heart so God could have life? These are other similar questions must be resolved in order to support the theory that God has a composite body.
Humans will have an embodied resurrection as Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 15. The implication of this, drawing on our human experience, is that we will be dependent on our bodies for the full experience of life. We might use the term “packaged” instead of embodied. Our sensory capabilities, for instance, will be packaged in our resurrection bodies. We will have seeing eyes. I doubt they will be there just for ornamentation. Maybe we will have super eyesight that we cannot now imagine but this sense will be implemented in our eyes. An embodied resurrection implies that our bodies will not be superfluous but will be an essential package of capabilities and attributes.
Jesus is fully God and fully man. He is God in essence but also has a body. We will have a body like his in the resurrection (Philippians 3:21). Jesus in his resurrected human manifestation ate fish with the disciples. This implies that his resurrection body had some internal parts that handled the processing of the fish like a human body, even though such processing might be very different from the processing we know. But Jesus, unlike us, is also fully God and so eating fish does not mean he is dependent on bodily functions such as food and a digesting stomach.
Further, if we are comprised of sarx (flesh), psuche (animating principle) and pneuma (spirit), as people in the time of Jesus believed, then our resurrected bodies will also be an assembly of parts. We will lose the perishable parts (sarx and psuche as the ancients believed) and these will be replaced by similar non-perishable parts in which the non-perishable pneuma (pneuma being our personality, consciousness, intellection and mentation) will be housed. At a minimum, in the resurrection humans will consist of two parts: resurrection body and pneuma. If God is not dependent on bodily parts and resurrected humans will be dependent on parts in their resurrected state, then resurrected humans will be ontologically different from God.
God alone is self-existent: God the Father is self-existent (John 5:26). Jesus in his pre-existent state as the Logos was self-existent (John 1:4). Jesus, fully God and fully man, in his present state is self-existent (John 5:26). Paul wrote, in Timothy 6:16, of God “Who only hath immortality (athanasia)”. The Persons of God are self-existent because they are uncreated. Humans will always possess a derivative and contingent existence because they are created (Col 1:16-17), whether in the flesh and blood state or the resurrected state. The uncreated God will create resurrected human beings but it stands to reason that he can also reverse the process and terminate resurrected human beings if he ever so willed. It is not logical that God could do something that he could not undo. This would violate his absoluteness. Because humans, even resurrected humans, have imparted life sustained by God rather than inherent, uncreated life, they are ontologically different from God.
Other issues could be considered. But for purposes of an elementary proof this should suffice. The upshot is that human beings in their resurrected state will substantially differ from God in ontology. And because the difference is in ontology, the very predicate of being, resurrected human beings will not be different from God in just degree but in category. Resurrected human beings will not be equal to God in any sense. They will be subordinate to God both ontologically and economically.
Section II: Our Participation in the Divine Economy
While resurrected humans are not going to share the ontology of God in the future, resurrected humans will share in the divine economy – what Kuhn refers to as being quantitatively like God. Resurrected humans will be immortal, not through self-existence, but through the faithful sustaining of God. Resurrected humans will be equipped for usefulness and servant leadership. And I expect God will delegate to resurrected humans work and responsibilities at a level that is appropriate. What resurrected humans do will be a finite and quantitative involvement and it will be spectacular, but it will not even remotely rise to the level of being God. Everything that God delegates to resurrected human beings will be something he could have done himself. Borrowing a concept from C.S. Lewis, God will give us the dignity of causation. He could do it all himself but he is going to let us participate.
Section III: Why Armstrongism Created the God-as-God-is-God Concept (God Reproducing Himself)
I don’t know.
Coda
God-as-God-is-God is something that even Armstrongists do not believe in without qualification. Robert L. Kuhn gave expanded definition to this topic back in the Seventies and stated that resurrected humans will have equality with God qualitatively (ontologically) but not quantitatively (in economy). It is actually the case that resurrected humans will be neither qualitatively nor quantitatively, in Kuhn’s parlance, equal to God. The equality term drops out of the equation. Resurrected humans will participate in the divine economy to a degree but will not be like God ontologically – like what he is in his existential nature. Resurrected humans will not be equal to God in the essence of his being but like him in the application of his energies – much scaled down. The God-as-God-is-God mantra should be replaced by simply referring to resurrected Christians as the “children of God” as the Bible most often does – partakers in but not full possessors of the Divine Nature. Being a child of God is not a bad future.
Afterword
I believe Armstrongists are unique among those who profess to believe in the God of the Bible in that to assert that God is actually much greater than what HWA thought him to be makes them angry. They seem to want to believe in a limited God who is nothing more than a more powerful human being. It’s as if God is just the big kid on the block. The big kid is just like all the little guys, he is just bigger and so gets his way. But one day, the little guys grow up. This reductionism applied to God, making God to be in our image, makes the idea of God-as-God-is-God seem attainable for humans. Armstrongists can be just like the big kid – maybe so close to being like God, it’s not worth mentioning – perhaps, differing in only a quarter of inch in height. Not only would they rather believe HWA’s words than the Bible, HWA’s homespun words actually suit them – it matches how they want to think about God. But, alas, God is absolute and scales of measurement do not apply to him and Armstrongists need to seriously revise their Doctrine of God if they continue to hold these views.
Kuhn, Robert L. “What it Means to be – Equal with God”, Tomorrow’s World Magazine, April 1971.
Sproul, R.C. “What’s the Difference Between the Ontological and Economic Trinity?”:
Note: This essay analyzes the doctrine of becoming God as presented in Classical Armstrongism. Robert L. Kuhn published in the Seventies. I do not know how denominations derived from the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) now state this doctrine. Also, the words “ontology” and “economy”, in the theological sense, are nowhere used in Armstrongist literature that I can find.
Gloria in Excelsis Deo
18 comments:
There is no limit to the puffed up rambling speculations of pesudo scholars and sophists. Nobody knows diddly about the next life, or even if there is one. Get a religion that faces reality, not one that revels in wishful thinking.
"Professing to be wise, they because fools" -- guess where that comes from.
The Father has no "body"? He has a form - John 5:37. This comment probably should be with Part 1. Jesus said to Philip you see Me you have seen the Father.
More damnable heresy to discredit Mr. Armstrong and lead people into trinitarian mumbo jumbo.
Everyoe believes their version to be right, it will all come out in the wash.
Anonymous 8:16 wrote, "The Father has no "body"? He has a form - John 5:37. This comment probably should be with Part 1. Jesus said to Philip you see Me you have seen the Father."
Here is the entire verse:
“And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.” (ESV)
This is not a direct affirmation that God has a shape. There is a logical problem. If I were to say that I had never seen your unicorn, it does not prove that you have a unicorn. Moreover, this could be a reference to a theophany – which I think it is. God can assume a shape at will. He has been seen in the OT as a pillar of fire. The real question is not whether he can have a shape but does he have a shape in his eternal essence. To start you on a contemplation of this concern, ask yourself why God would have a nose in his eternal essence when a nose is for breathing air which 1) is not eternal but rather created and 2) makes God dependent on air?
Jesus’ statement to Philip is introduced by this earlier passage:
“If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.”
They are speaking about knowing, understanding, discerning the Father. The verb "see" is rhetorical. Philip is not asking to see a physical, visible manifestation of the Father. That does not fit the context of their conversation. And it diminishes Philip’s statement to a child-like level where he wants to see something exciting – like fireworks. Philip was enough of a Jew to know that if God manifested himself that he would likely end up being a grease spot on the ground in Palestine. Theophanies are not taken lightly in the OT. Jesus is saying if you understand my message you understand the Father’s message.
Scout
8:28
I believe you have fully misunderstood what I wrote. I did not construct an argument that advocates the Trinity. What I did was exalt God beyond the limited status he has in Armstrongism. And it is not surprising that an Armstrongist would consider the exaltation of God to be a "damnable heresy". I know - God is not great unless Herbert says he is great. Read the Afterword at the end of my essay.
Scout
Anonymous 8:28
Your comment reminds me of this passage: Seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand!
You seem to be unable to discern what is heretical from what is what is true.
"This is not a direct affirmation that God has a shape"
______________________________________
Disagree. It is a direct affirmation.
Greetings, Scout!
As you allude to in your "note," yours is a historically based opinion piece, drawing chiefly on information gleaned from an article written by Robert L. Kuhn and published in 1971, now well over 50 years ago. It's interesting to note that Robert L. Kuhn is currently the creator, executive producer, writer, and host of the popular PBS series, "Closer to Truth," now in its 21st season. I highly recommend visiting his website and review the expansive list of discussion topics available therein. Like this one -- "Eternal Life is Like What?": https://closertotruth.com/video/morjp-008/?referrer=7913
BTW, I remember 1971. It seems like an eternity ago. It was before the Yom Kippur war. Before personal computers. Before Roe v Wade. Back when our scientific community was warning about the imminent coming ice age. NASA was still landing missions on the moon. We were still waging a land war in Vietnam. The average US household income was less than $10,000 and the median home cost $25,000.
1971 was a very, very, very, very long time ago.
Since the time when man learned to record his thoughts, there have been deep philosophical questions: Who am I, what am I, and where am I going?
The best and the worst thinkers have come up with seemingly plausible answers to these questions. Because none of them seem universally satisfying, there is at least a partial vacuum remaining to be filled. And, there are those who develop hypothetical explanations, sometimes basing these on new discoveries of our surrounding universe, or new understandings. And, of course, Herbert W. Armstrong certainly possessed the ego, if not the intelligence (he was anti-intellectual unless a particular intellectual was of value to his hypotheses) to aspire to be one of these.
There is one problem. There is a barrier between ourselves, and the next layer or layers (rooms in the mansion?) where the knowledge supposedly resides. It is impenetrable, although some look to one or more of the "Ascended Masters" for the answers.
HWA was not the modern day equivalent of an "Ascended Master". His followers deny his failures, and his personal flaws, and somehow continue to hold him up as the gold standard by which everything should be judged or discerned. If his commission was to warn the world, he was at least a couple of generations premature, if correct at all in anything that he "forecast". The man whom HWA chose as his successor, supposedly with the guidance of God, made complete corrections to everything which HWA taught. The splinters, so called preservationists of the original doctrines, have made corrections of their own. Even the vaunted "place of safety" has morphed from a virtually unknown location to a very popular tourist attraction. The "end" has been postponed so many times that global climate change has replaced it as being what a whole lot of humans fear the most.
The bottom line is that we humans won't have any accurate answers to the deep philosophical questions in this lifetime. Belief, no matter how sincere or intense, may or may not equate with fact. Confirmation or correction will only come with death. (or not). Best we can do is to be kind, respectful, and understanding of one another, and to set high standards for our own behavior to ensure that we are on the positive side rather than the negative. I am reminded of the excellent Tony Goldwyn film, "Joshua". The movie strongly implied that Joshua was Jesus Christ, living in our times. He performed miracles. Throughout the movie, Joshua visits all of the different Christian churches in the town, enjoys fellowshipping with them, and lovingly makes low key suggestions as further education. Everybody seems to think that if Jesus walked the earth today, He would exclusively visit their church. I believe it was an elegant, and high concept in the movie that Jesus would visit all those who believed they were following Him, not using picky little points to exclude any of them. There may be a lot of surprises in the future for those who believe that they are the only ones with "the truth" I always had a problem with the WCG gospel model of "Jesus Christ is going to return in YOUR lifetime, and boy is He pissed!" If ever there were an anthropomorphic concept replete with the most destructive human emotions, that is certainly it!
9:17
Bring it. Show me your argument.
Scout
Scout
Yahweh/Yehovah (Strong's 3068) is the Father. That subject is massive by itself; chief verses are Isa 45:5 and Ps 110:1. It is Yahweh who is speaking, not Jesus Christ, in Exodus 33:19-23. He is referring to His face and His back. The Hebrew words do have several meanings but the context is Yahweh, Himself.
Of course much is remaining to be learned of the spirit world. Just how does a young man, not aware of any chariots of fire presumably, has his eyes opened and he then sees the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire - 2Kings 6:17?
I cannot believe Jesus refers to "shape" that doesn't exist.
6:37
My guess is that you belong to some unitarian sect that is derived from the WCG. I think Ken Westby ran such an organization. First, you are right. The Father is Yahweh. And so is Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Yahweh is a name for the Triune God. That is why they have a joint name of authority in the NT. Explicitly, Jesus stated in John 8:58:
"Amen, amen, I tell you, before Abraham came to be, I AM."
The I AM is a reference to YHWH or Yahweh. I know you are not a classical Armstrongist because Armstrongists would say that the God of the OT was Jesus Christ. But they would not be able to give a plausible explanation for Isa 45:5. While they are not Trinitarian, they are Bi-theistic. Bi-theism cannot provide an explanation for Isa 45:5. Whereas, Bi-theism fits nicely with PS 110.
Exodus 33:19-23 is a theophany. It is Jesus representing himself bodily. God can have a body if he wants to. The issue is whether or not that body is a part of his existenial essence or a theophany. God also represented himself as a pillar of fire and a tornado. Nobody would contend that God is a tornado in his ontology.
Have a look at:
https://armstrongismlibrary.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-transcendence-of-god-and.html
Scout
Scout writes:
“It is Yahweh who is speaking, not Jesus Christ, in Exodus 33:19-23.”
Yahweh is speaking as “first cause,” but it is Jesus Christ, literally, speaking as “second cause”.
Or, Yahweh is speaking as “principal,” but it is Jesus Christ, literally, speaking as “agent”.
2Co 5:19a To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,
Jn 3:34a For he whom God hath sent [apostello] speaketh the words of God:
"At significant length, Jesus is shown to be the Father's commissioned "agent" one "sent" by him (e.g. Jn 3:17, 34; 5:23-24, 30, 36-38). Scholars often compare the Jewish institution of the saliah (an "agent"); beyond this comparison, the agency principle that the saliah embodies was pervasive in the ancient Mediterranean world..." (C. S. Keener, "The Gospel of John," Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, p.429).
For a person familiar with Second Temple exegesis it is surprising that you seem unaware of the agency principle.
Indirect Messianic prophecy:
Zec 14:3a Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations...
Zec 14:4a And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east...
1 Thess 3:13 at the coming of our Lord [kurios] Jesus
with all his holy ones
Zech 14:5 And shall come the Lord [kurios] my God
and all the holy ones with him [LXX]
Zechariah is writing from the ‘principal' perspective, while Paul is writing from the ‘agency' perspective. (Cp. the account of the ‘meeting’ of Jesus and the Centurion - Matthew wrote from the principal perspective, while Luke’s account is from the agency perspective; if one had only Matthew’s account, and did not appreciate the agency principle, one could be forgiven it one though that Jesus and the Centurion actually met face to face and spoke one to another).
"One of the four major categories of messianic prophecy is indirect messianic prophecy (the other three being direct, typical, and typical-prophetical). Indirect messianic prophecy refers to passages that can be literally and fully realized only through the person and work of the Messiah - e.g., passages that speak of a personal coming of God to his people, as in v.10 and 9:9 (cf. Isa 40:9-11; Mal 3:1). The same is true of references to the expression "the Lord reigns" or "will reign," so characteristic of the so-called Enthronement Psalms (e.g., 93, 95-99). These "eschatologically Yahwistic" psalms are probably best labeled theocratic, "Rule of God" Psalms. The point is that all passages that speak of a future rule of the Lord over Israel or to the earth, or that speak of a future rule of the Lord over Israel or over the whole earth, are ultimately messianic - indirectly or by extension - for to be fully and literally true, they require a future, literal messianic kingdom on the earth" (Kenneth L. Barker, Zechariah, EBC, Vol.7, p.619).
Unfortunately, one COG, not understanding the agency principle argues from Zechariah and 1 Thessalonians that both the Lord and Jesus will return together.
1Co 15:24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
1Co 15:25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
But the most unfortunate part is that believing that the Father was the God of the OT from a second cause perspective is that it suggest that they do not appreciate that God is so holy that he could not dwell with His people (Rev 21:3) until there is no more death and by extension ritual impurity.
1238
Another home run!!
The views expressed below may be subject to change after future learning more about the spirit world!:
We will not be God as the Father is God. Jesus said the Father is greater than Himself. We will be "lesser" gods, composed of spirit, "like" Jesus but still "lesser" because we were created, had a beginning. Jesus however was the Creator. The Father says there is no other God like Himself for He is greater than all - John 10:29; Isa 45:5.
There are two "I AM"s: the Father/Yahweh, and Jesus. The Holy Spirit is an extension, a "power" from Jesus and the Father. John writes the Holy Spirit was not yet given at one time because Jesus was not yet glorified - John 7:39, indicating the Holy Spirit is not a person.
Anonymous 12:38
First, let me state that I appreciate that your comments bring substance. It is typical of Armstrongists to present their viewpoint as sound bites – maybe one or two sentences based on booklet theology – and expect that to rise to the level of significant analysis and to be pre-emptive.
Second, I did not make the statement “It is Yahweh who is speaking, not Jesus Christ, in Exodus 33:19-23.” I, instead, responded to that statement.
I believe the concept of agency ill-fits the relationship between the Father and Christ – mostly because it is a narrow concept that characterizes only a part of their relationship and does not do that well. Jesus was “God as God is God”. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the only two beings to whom this glib phrase may be applied. Jesus underwent Kenosis and entered incarnate into the human, earthly realm and acted in that realm carrying out the plans of the Triune Yahweh. This is laden with far more meaning that a simple principal-agent concept although there may be a superficial resemblance.
You will find a rough anticipation of Jesus, in the Jewish concept of Memra. If you collapse the relationship between the Father and Jesus into a simple principal-agent relationship, you move quickly into the realm of Gnosticism and Jesus becomes a demiurge – a mistake that Philo made. But Philo was not the only one. Arianism, which was prominent in Adventism and the Church of God Seventh Day at one time, also cast Jesus in a demiurgic role - just an agent.
The Triune God is three Persons who are one in substance (essence). So which one is speaking? It depends on whether the voice emanates from the ontology or economy. In short, I think your principal-agent concept will need to be considerably enhanced if you move in the direction of Christianity but can probably remain as is for Armstrongism.
Scout
2:54
Two issues with what you wrote. First, it is orthodox Armstrongism. Second, it is incorrect.
Jesus is not one of the lesser gods. This is an Arianist viewpoint inherited by HWA from the Adventists and the Church of God Seventh day and transmitted, like an infection, to you. Jesus may be thought of as lesser than the Father when he was in his Kenotic state, that is, restricted by incarnation and dwelling on this planet. We would not know this except that Jesus said so. Jesus was co-equal with God in his pre-existence and is co-equal with God now (Phil 2:6, John 17:5).
While in his Kenotic state, Jesus said, "I and the Father are one". Elsewhere, he says the Father is greater than me. These two statements appear to be at odds. But actually these statements inform us of the nature of God. Jesus was one with the Father ontologically (being fully God) but differed from God in economy (being incarnate and to some degree subject to the earthly environment).
God in scripture may speak singularly or triunally. This can be usually understood from context. As for the Holy Spirit, see the following:
https://armstrongismlibrary.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-annealing-flame-of-salvation-notes.html
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