If You Hitch a Ride on the Wild Bus of Anthropomorphism, It Can Take You Some Strange Places

 

Maybe the Ride Would be Like This

If You Hitch a Ride on the Wild Bus of Anthropomorphism, It Can Take You Some Strange Places 

Father, Son, Arianism and Armstrongism

By Scout

Now at the time spoken of here in John 1 and verse 1, the Word was not the Son of God. They were co-equals. There never was a time when the Word did not exist as a separate personage from God. And yet He, too, is God. Now later the one called God, here, became the Father and after Jesus was born as a human being He said, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased." Well, I've said that a few times about my son, Garner Ted. But, nevertheless, at this time, the Word had always existed. There never was a time He did not exist, so He could not have been a Son of God — otherwise God would have had to have existed first. Herbert W. Armstrong, “Our Calling”, Sermon, 1976 (Available Online)               ­

I have said these things to you in figures of speech.”  ― Jesus (NRSV, John 16:25)

Many Armstrongists will be surprised at Herbert W. Armstrong’s (HWA) statement above.  They are fond of quoting “The Father is greater than I” without regard to Jesus’ kenotic state of incarnation.  Subordinationism is a quite common view among Armstrongists.  Yet HWA apostolically asserts that God and the Word are co-equal – both God in some sense.  His statement, insofar as it goes, has a distinctly Nicene Christian ring to it. 

Armstrongism, then, has an internal inconsistency.  It asserts that God and the Word are co-equal persons.  And are both God.  Yet, the paradox is that there is a widespread belief in Armstrongists circles that Jesus the Son is inferior to God the Father.  I believe this is rooted in the anthropomorphic view of God held by Armstrongists and likely inherited from Arianism.   I will now step gingerly into metaphysics.  

Ontology and Economy

In theology, two metaphysical properties of God are ontology and economy.  Ontology refers to who God is.  Economy refers to what God does.  This is important in establishing how the Father and the Son are co-equal.  They are equal in ontology but differ in economy. 

An example is the number 1.  It is useful in counting chickens.  If you have one chicken you can count him using the number 1.  In ontology, the number 1 is like all other numbers.  It has magnitude and order.  But the number 1 with the same ontology can be used in binary arithmetic in the implementation of digital electronics.  It makes computer logic efficient. But it differs somewhat from the chicken-counting number 1.  In binary arithmetic, it is used to signify if an electronic gate is open.  The number 1 has the same ontology in both cases but a different economy in each case.  Just as the Father and the Son are both God in essence but the application of their perfections is different – one is Father and the other is Son.  They are the same in their essential being but differ in how they apply themselves. 

It is important to understand this principle.  It is the background for being able to interpret what Jesus means when he says “I and the Father are one” which implies equality.  And elsewhere he says “the Father is greater than I.”  This is not a contradiction.   The Father and the Son are the same in ontology but differ in economy.  In Nicene Christianity, this co-equality and sharing of essence is called Homoousion.

The Subordination of Jesus in Armstrongism

God is absolute. He is not just the strongest kid on the block.  He created the block, the kids and the concept of strength.  He calls things into existence. He creates reality.  He is incomparable rather than relative.  Another way of stating this is to say that God is not limited in any sense that we can think of a limit. He has absolute free will and he is what he is. 

There cannot be more than one absolute being.  If God the Father is absolute then Jesus cannot be absolute if he is a separate being.  And the reverse is true. There are a number of arguments concerning this but the one I will examine here is the Argument from Unlimitedness.  If there were to be two beings that were absolute, they would limit each other and the definition of absolute would be violated.  If one being is all-inclusive then there cannot be another being that is excluded.  The only way there can be more than one being that is absolute is for the multiple beings to have a shared essence and the Nicene doctrine of Homoousion is supported.

A corollary is that if God consists of more than one being but one being is absolute, then the rest are not.  So, if God the Father is absolute, and Jesus is a separate, distinct being, then Jesus is not absolute.  But Jesus is also “ho Theos” so God the Father and God the Son must have a shared essence and any form of polytheism, including the bitheism of Armstrongism, collapses. 

So, how then are Father and Son differentiated?  I don’t know.  I have a conjecture. Perhaps a difference in economy is really a difference in emphasis for beings who encompass all things.  The Father and the Son are both absolute, both all in all.  But economy is created when God the Father emphasizes certain perfections and Jesus emphasizes others though all perfections are jointly held.  

The Arian Pitfall of Anthropomorphism

Arius extended the anthropomorphic metaphor of father and son further than it could go.  Nothing in the physical realm is an exact duplication of God’s attributes.  In the physical, human realm, the father gives rise to the son as a result of human reproductive capability.  Arius concluded that Jesus, then, was created by God the Father, that Jesus was not really God-as-God-is-God.  Because he did not recognize metaphor, Arius thought he was being true to scripture and others were not.  But what Arius did do was commit the heresy of Heteroousion which the Nicene brothers had to correct.  

Arianism is an odd philosophy that afflicted various branches of the Millerite Movement.  When HWA joined a church after being convicted of the necessity to keep the seventh day, he joined an Arian church.  He boarded up on the bus. Robert Coulter, past president of the General Conference of the Church of God Seventh Day (CG7), in an interview with Dixon Cartwright, stated that the early CG7 was Arian, that is, they did not believe that Jesus was God.  CG7 was Arian when Herbert W. Armstrong joined it.  But HWA did not retain this Arianism in its explicit form. 

The major difference between Arianism and Armstrongism has to do with the transmissibility of the nature of God.  Arius had a unitarian view and believed that God is unique and his nature cannot be transmitted to others - even Christ.  HWA believed that the nature of God was ultimately going to be transmitted to nearly everyone.  So, one cannot assert that Armstrongism is directly Arianist.  But there is a subtle point of Arianist influence. Armstrongists seem to believe that Jesus is subordinate to the God the Father (in spite of HWA’s assertion of their co-equality) not only in Kenotic state but in essence.  As we have seen, this means that Jesus is not absolute.  This also means that Jesus is not God.   And this is incontrovertibly an Arianist viewpoint. 

The Summary Argument

Using HWA’s terminology from the quote at the top, two “separate personages” cannot be “co-equal” if they are absolute. There can be only one absolute being.  If the beings are co-inherent and co-essential we get into different territory.  Arius made the mistake of not recognizing the human father-son relationship as applied to God is anthropomorphic, a metaphor.  It is not that humans have the true father-son relationship and the relationship between the Father and Son is an imitation.  It’s the other way around.  The divine relationship transcends the human relationship.  We have the weak imitation in flesh.   We are the poetry, the metaphor.  And Arius made the mistake in rhetoric of not recognizing anthropomorphism when he saw it.