Another contribution to the endless controversy

[Tom Eckstein]

Maybe I'm missing something here about the end-game, ie "eternity" from the before and after side of time.  In eternity, is there a functional subordination of the Son to the Father?  My brain says No.  The unity of the Trinity in all regards will then be, as before the beginning, beyond sin, death, destruction and time.  No functional subordination left.  No?

God reigning, God enthroned, and yet and still God wiping away every tear from every eye. 

Dave Benke

I’m not understanding how a lack of sin, death, destruction, and time puts an end to subordination. Is the Son less than Father with respect to His humanity to all eternity or just within time? Or is He not human in eternity? Or is humanity not less than God the Father?

It seems to me somewhat Satanic to object to rank/subordination in the abstract, as though the distinction between angels and archangels were a result of the Fall.

Peter, you have now cleared up my confusion.  In your previous post I thought you were trying to suggest that the result of Christ's incarnation was that He was "God in the Flesh" also in eternity PAST.  I realize now you were correctly asserting that Christ is "God in human flesh" for all eternity -  NOW and FUTURE.

But even before Christ's incarnation, in eternity PAST, I think there is good biblical support for and much evidence from the early Church fathers that Christ was FUNCTIONALLY subordinate to the Father while being ONTOLOGIALL equal.

Finally, I agree with you 100% that subordination of any kind is not the result of the fall but something that can fit well with the Pre-fall creation as well as the future New Creation.

[GalRevRedux]

Jeff simply notes:

now 17+ pages of regurgitating the same arguments that have been used by both sides time and again.  Might it be time to shut this one down?  Moderators, what say you?

Please.

Amen.

[peter_speckhard]

I locked the thread about CN because it was personal. This thread, I think, though indeed on a tired topic, is worth leaving open because previous incarnations of the same topic included different people and in any event are not readily visible to lurkers.

[mariemeyer]

Jeff simply notes:

now 17+ pages of regurgitating the same arguments that have been used by both sides time and again.  Might it be time to shut this one down?  Moderators, what say you?

Please.

Amen.

If only the thread would recognize how, within the LCMS, natural human reason misuses the written and Incarnate Word to justify a pre-Fall order of creation that mirrors a chain of being world view.  I understand your frustration.  To understand mine I would encourage you to obtain a copy of THE Lutheran Study Bible published by CPH.  The study notes, beginning with Genesis, weave a thread supporting an ideology where the human man displaces God's rightful place in the life of woman. 

My thinking is informed by Luther's Commentary on Galatians, his Magnificat Commentary, Let God Be God by Philip Watson and Grace and Reason by Bryan Gerrish.   

I never aspired to be ordained. Consecrated as a Deaconess in 1960, I served a parish for two years prior to marrying my husband after his vicarage year.  After that my calling was  "home maker" (aka wife and mom) and volunteer when opportunities presented themselves.  This included several years on the ALPB Board, the Board of Lutheran Bible Translators, LIRS and Board for Lutheran Social Services of New York City.

Along the way a completed a year of CPE at the Nassau County Medical Center. Within the LCMS this was perceived by some as a first step toward ordination.  In truth, it was my desire to better understand the LCMS as a family system as well as my place in my Otten family of origin. My life experience taught me that there are times one has to love a brother in Christ enough to question how they arrive at a chain of being world view on the basis of Genesis 1-5  where God is said to have assigned woman a subordinate identity, function and place in relation to man. 

Marie Meyer

[Charles Austin]

Billy Graham’s daughter on women preaching and ordination. She preaches, but does not feel called to the “authority” conferred by ordination.
https://religionnews.com/2021/06/09/anne-graham-lotz-i-just-have-to-follow-the-lord-and-what-hes-called-me-to-do/

[Rev. Edward Engelbrecht]

Jeff simply notes:

now 17+ pages of regurgitating the same arguments that have been used by both sides time and again.  Might it be time to shut this one down?  Moderators, what say you?

Please.

Amen.

If only the thread would recognize how, within the LCMS, natural human reason misuses the written and Incarnate Word to justify a pre-Fall order of creation that mirrors a chain of being world view.  I understand your frustration.  To understand mine I would encourage you to obtain a copy of THE Lutheran Study Bible published by CPH.  The study notes, beginning with Genesis, weave a thread supporting an ideology where the human man displaces God's rightful place in the life of woman. 

My thinking is informed by Luther's Commentary on Galatians, his Magnificat Commentary, Let God Be God by Philip Watson and Grace and Reason by Bryan Gerrish.   

I never aspired to be ordained. Consecrated as a Deaconess in 1960, I served a parish for two years prior to marrying my husband after his vicarage year.  After that my calling was  "home maker" (aka wife and mom) and volunteer when opportunities presented themselves.  This included several years on the ALPB Board, the Board of Lutheran Bible Translators, LIRS and Board for Lutheran Social Services of New York City.

Along the way a completed a year of CPE at the Nassau County Medical Center. Within the LCMS this was perceived by some as a first step toward ordination.  In truth, it was my desire to better understand the LCMS as a family system as well as my place in my Otten family of origin. My life experience taught me that there are times one has to love a brother in Christ enough to question how they arrive at a chain of being world view on the basis of Genesis 1-5  where God is said to have assigned woman a subordinate identity, function and place in relation to man. 

Marie Meyer

Thank you for serving, Marie.

[Dave Benke]

Is the Son less than Father with respect to His humanity to all eternity or just within time? Or is He not human in eternity? Or is humanity not less than God the Father?

Fortunately, the Formula of Concord provides unambiguous answers to these questions.

Hence also the human nature, after the resurrection from the dead, has its exaltation above all creatures in heaven and on earth; which is nothing else than that He entirely laid aside the form of a servant, and yet did not lay aside His human nature, but retains it to eternity, and is put in the full possession and use of the divine majesty according to His assumed human nature.

Christ is equal to the Father only according to the divine nature, while according to the assumed human nature He is beneath God; from which it is manifest that we make no confusionem, exaequationem, abolitionem, that is, no confusion, equalization, or abolition of natures in Christ

As Lutherans we thus believe, teach, and confess that Christ retains His human nature for all eternity, and according to that nature He is beneath (German unter, Latin sub) God the Father.

The phrase "to eternity" is of interest.  The reason I've brought it up at all is the connection between "eternal" "functional" subordination of the Son to the Father and its connection to the eternal subordination of woman to man as what Tom has called vocation. 

The Son is no longer going to redeem the world in eternity.  That has been accomplished.  The vocation to "do the will of the Father" through redemption is complete. 

Mark 12:24, 25 lets us know that in heaven we - humanity - will not be marrying but will be as angels:  οταν γαρ εκ νεκρων αναστωσιν ουτε γαμουσιν ουτε γαμισκονται αλλ εισιν ως αγγελοι οι εν τοις ουρανοις.   Ergo the vocation of husband/wife will have been completed in time, so not eternal.

So aren't those the two bookends when it comes to the use of vocation and subordination?  Why not?  Or, based on Mark 12:24, 25 even if analysis of the texts and tradition demonstrate that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father, don't the words of Jesus tell us that the male/female vocational roles of super/sub-ordination have been completed at the end of time?

Dave Benke

[peter_speckhard]

Just as an aside to tie some threads together, Matt 22:29 “You are wrong because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God,” would make a great confirmation verse for some 8th graders I’ve known.

I’m not sure the vocation of the Son to do the will of the Father can ever be completed. Jesus’ self-sacrificial mission is simply a function of His eternal being/person. He claims to imitate the Father or to limit Himself to what He sees the Father doing, to have a united will with the Father, etc. Even to sit at the right hand of the Father implies doing the Father’s will. In a way it is meaningless; they will the same thing. In eternity, whether the Father is doing the will of the Son or the Son is doing the will of the Father is moot. Because of the perfection of the reciprocal love that is God, it couldn’t be otherwise.

They are neither married nor given in marriage in the resurrection. Are they therefore neither male nor female in heaven? That would imply something odd about the resurrection of the body as well as the nature and purpose of male/female. Was Adam male before Eve was created? Certainly they were male and female before the Fall.

[Dave Benke]

They are neither married nor given in marriage in the resurrection. Are they therefore neither male nor female in heaven? That would imply something odd about the resurrection of the body as well as the nature and purpose of male/female. Was Adam male before Eve was created? Certainly they were male and female before the Fall.

That's why I copied the Greek text - ως αγγελοι - anthropocentricity is what we do best.  Because it's who we are.  When we're not that any more - when we're as angels, why would we need to divvy up angelically into male and female? 

Instead of phone a friend, maybe we need to ask an angel.

Dave Benke

[pearson]

I think the Creedal formulations make clear that not every category is an ontological category. The persons of the Trinity are distinct yet ontologically the same. Male and female are distinct yet ontologically the same. So I think you’re reading too much into it too a ontological difference when TLSB refers to Eve as a category of being. The point is that Eve was ontologically the same — flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone— and yet distinct and different. It wasn’t just Eve who is called Woman but everyone in the same category of being— female humans as opposed to male humans— who are being named by Adam as Woman.

What happens if vocation (invoked earlier by Pr. Speckhard) possesses an ontological status, instead of merely a functional status, alongside of (or instead of) male-female dichotomy possessing an ontological status?  That is, what happens if creation has been endowed with embedded structures of vocational roles, all possessing equal ontological validity?  What happens if the possibilities of Adam securing his life through painful toil and Eve the privilege of childbirth were present in Creation from the beginning, as eternal ontological possibilities?   Why should anyone think that the ontological arrangements of Creation were confined to the Garden of Eden?  Furthermore, ontology isn't limited to the expression of stratified hierarchies.  How about vocational roles instead of sexual rank?

Tom Pearson

[Dave Benke]

What happens if the possibilities of Adam securing his life through painful toil and Eve the privilege of childbirth were present in Creation from the beginning, as eternal ontological possibilities? 

Sounds like an ontologically divine "Plan B" - So "let's say they never eat from the tree of good and evil.  No pain, all gain.  But let's say they do eat from that tree.  Let's imbed in their very being the possibility of pain - sweating for the guy, childbirth pains for the Rib.  That'll work."

The texts don't help you out with that thought, since Adam's already the Gardener (or The Rev. Dr. Gardener), and since the word "cursed" is there at the beginning for The Snake. 

Secondly, "eternal" is tough when it comes to "eternal ontological possibilities,"  since it would lead to the potential for pain, sweat and toil in eternal bliss, which would change the definition of the word "bliss", no?

Dave Benke

[peter_speckhard]

They are neither married nor given in marriage in the resurrection. Are they therefore neither male nor female in heaven? That would imply something odd about the resurrection of the body as well as the nature and purpose of male/female. Was Adam male before Eve was created? Certainly they were male and female before the Fall.

That's why I copied the Greek text - ως αγγελοι - anthropocentricity is what we do best.  Because it's who we are.  When we're not that any more - when we're as angels, why would we need to divvy up angelically into male and female? 

Instead of phone a friend, maybe we need to ask an angel.

Dave Benke

We wouldn’t need to, but it wouldn’t be us doing the divvying, it would be the Creator. And why wouldn’t He? Is there no value to maleness and femaleness apart from biological function? Are they meaningful categories in isolation from each other? The male/female distinction was good in Paradise and still a first article gift in this fallen world. Why would it somehow stop being good just because it was not biologically necessary in eternity? Jesus never needed the procreative biological function of maleness in His earthly life or in the resurrection. But He was still male. Why wouldn’t the same be true of women, that they are female in this life and in the resurrection apart from any need for pro creative biological function?

Jesus didn’t need feet to get around. He could disappear and appear whenever. But He still had feet. We won’t really “need” any body parts in the resurrection, but if it is a resurrection of the body, it is the resurrection of human bodies, which are by definition male or female.

[Dave Benke]

They are neither married nor given in marriage in the resurrection. Are they therefore neither male nor female in heaven? That would imply something odd about the resurrection of the body as well as the nature and purpose of male/female. Was Adam male before Eve was created? Certainly they were male and female before the Fall.

That's why I copied the Greek text - ως αγγελοι - anthropocentricity is what we do best.  Because it's who we are.  When we're not that any more - when we're as angels, why would we need to divvy up angelically into male and female? 

Instead of phone a friend, maybe we need to ask an angel.

Dave Benke

We wouldn’t need to, but it wouldn’t be us doing the divvying, it would be the Creator. And why wouldn’t He? Is there no value to maleness and femaleness apart from biological function? Are they meaningful categories in isolation from each other? The male/female distinction was good in Paradise and still a first article gift in this fallen world. Why would it somehow stop being good just because it was not biologically necessary in eternity? Jesus never needed the procreative biological function of maleness in His earthly life or in the resurrection. But He was still male. Why wouldn’t the same be true of women, that they are female in this life and in the resurrection apart from any need for pro creative biological function?

Jesus didn’t need feet to get around. He could disappear and appear whenever. But He still had feet. We won’t really “need” any body parts in the resurrection, but if it is a resurrection of the body, it is the resurrection of human bodies, which are by definition male or female.

Because - and you're not either willing or able to acknowledge this - we will be αλλ εισιν ως αγγελοι οι εν τοις ουρανοις according to our Lord.  Bodies, yes, but what kinds of bodies?  Angelic. 

I believe I can fly.

Dave Benke

[Brian Stoffregen]

They are neither married nor given in marriage in the resurrection. Are they therefore neither male nor female in heaven? That would imply something odd about the resurrection of the body as well as the nature and purpose of male/female. Was Adam male before Eve was created? Certainly they were male and female before the Fall.

From The Torah: A Modern Commentary

From the Midrash:
Man and woman were originally undivided, that is, the first human was created with the characteristics of both sexes, a hermaphrodite [Gen. R. 8:1].

[pearson]

Thanks for this, Pr. Benke.

Sounds like an ontologically divine "Plan B" - So "let's say they never eat from the tree of good and evil.  No pain, all gain.  But let's say they do eat from that tree.  Let's imbed in their very being the possibility of pain - sweating for the guy, childbirth pains for the Rib.  That'll work."

I've been mulling over that which has become fairly standard in some contemporary theological literature -- that "possibilities" are real existents -- that "possibilities" are actual things -- that God created an eternal range of "possibilities," some of which, as we receive them, become instantiated in our world.  It's a derivative of "possible worlds" talk.  So, according to this approach, the "possibility" that Adam and Eve would violate God's command and bring to an end their time in the Garden, with the result that Adam and Eve would have to struggle to survive outside the Garden, was built into Creation as real, existing possibilities.  Thus, vocational roles were integral to the order of things in the Garden, finally manifested in their current form after the Fall.  It's all rather speculative, of course -- but, then again, so was homoousion.   

The texts don't help you out with that thought, since Adam's already the Gardener (or The Rev. Dr. Gardener), and since the word "cursed" is there at the beginning for The Snake. 

I'm not sure how cursing the serpent (or, "cursed is the ground," later) might negate what was built into the ontological structures of Creation.  Can you elaborate?

Secondly, "eternal" is tough when it comes to "eternal ontological possibilities,"  since it would lead to the potential for pain, sweat and toil in eternal bliss, which would change the definition of the word "bliss", no?

That's a good point.  But it seems that not all "eternal ontological possibilities" are realized within the context of human existence.  It's the "possibilities" that are eternal, and woven into the essential structures of Creation; and not the realization of those "possibilities."  Does that make sense?

Tom Pearson