Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxjobox
...using terms that I don’t find in scripture to make definitions and then get a following to buy into terms scares me.
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I understand, and hope it didn't seem like I was trying to get you to use non-scriptural terms. I was just trying to find a decent phraseology to better understand your POV.
I don't disagree with most of what you are saying. I think the reason people get up in arms is precisely about the point you said you don't want to discuss - Jesus is God or not God.
Here is an excerpt from C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" that I think better explains what I was trying to say in my previous post. He speaks of God the Father, and the Son of God, but then clarifies that since the Son is
begotten, and not made or created, the Son of God is of the same "kind". In other words, just as man begets man, so does God beget God. It doesn't mean the thing begotten IS what begot it, but simply that they are the same kind.
Here is the quote. Thoughts?
=========excerpt============
We don't use the words begetting or begotten much in modern English, but everyone still knows what they mean. To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a wireless set—or he may make something more like himself than a wireless set: say, a statue. If he is a clever enough carver he may make a statue which is very like a man indeed. But, of course, it is not a real man; it only looks like one. It cannot breathe or think. It is not alive. Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man. That is why men are not Sons of God in the sense that Christ is. They may be like God in certain ways, but they are not things of the same kind. They are more like statues or pictures of God.
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The last chapter was about the difference between begetting and making. A man begets a child, but he only makes a statue. God begets Christ but He only makes men. But by saying that, I have illustrated only one point about God, namely, that what God the Father begets is God, something of the same kind as Himself. In that way it is like a human father begetting a human son. But not quite like it. So I must try to explain a little more.