Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
We use the term but seldom really understand it as something tangible and real. . . we claim it as a fact but have no idea what it really is.
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And this goes right back to the issue of names, or lack thereof. What importance names may actually have on the ground is long gone in the fixation on simply "getting the name issue right." As if that would somehow magically issue in reality, and "God's blessing" and outpoured Spirit.
And this also goes to another point, on another thread running concurrently, about the idea of deification, which is why I dragged it over here in the first place. Deification in Lee's hands became the equivalent of Little Jack Horner, sitting in a corner and pulling out a Christmas plum. "Oh, what a good boy am I!" he exclaimed. Or in this case, "What fine 'high peak' theology I've developed!" But all of it completely divorced from any actuality on the ground. So the argument was irrelevant.
Which brings us to a peril of the Greek Fathers, including Athanasius, but also in my eyes ones like Origen and Clement of Alexandria. Nigel Tomes never goes into this; unfortunately probably neither he nor any of us here are capable of treating the subject adequately. But a few words nonetheless - they were thinkers and good ones, and were well versed in the Hebrew texts, the Greek Septuagint, all the classical philosophies of the day, and were determined to bring them together in a magisterium which would roll over the thinking world.
Some of it's quite impressive, and much is arguably even good, i.e. providing explanatory power for what happened on the ground there, with Jesus the Galilean. But none of it replaces the need to obey God, to take care of our living, and succor those who are unable to meet God's demand. Because that's what Jesus did for us, and what He charged the disciples to do. Yes there is teaching, thinking and exposition, but that is at best the handmaiden to good works. In the case of Lee it entirely supplanted them.
So we have powerful and carefully argued broadsides on nomenclature, and theology, and eschatology, etc etc, and little if any reality. Apart from reality (works, continually done -
'abide in the vine', don't just occasionally visit), the superposition of Greek philosophical thought on Hebrew religious tradition is a false trail. And it's also a cautionary tale for us here, who type forth ideas and critiques of ideas (and behaviors).