For Christians, Jesus is divine, and a creator: he created Heaven, and made it possible for us to resurrect to eternal life.
But Jesus is not the same creator as created the reality that existed before Jesus.
The God-before-Jesus on the one hand, and Jesus himself on the other hand, are different individuals: different Beings.
To claim that Jesus is the same divinity as that who created before Jesus, is to negate the significance and essential quality of Jesus.
Christianity entails (surely) that Jesus changed the fundamental structure of reality, and that this change happened as a consequence of Jesus, therefore after a particular time.
Christianity entails a before, and an after.
For Christianity to be both true and distinctive; something about the birth/ life/ death/ resurrection/ ascension of Jesus must make a difference!
Because reality was already-created before the advent of Jesus - and (for example) many generations of humans had existed before Jesus, and many generations of not-Christians have existed since Jesus; this implies that the Second Creation of Jesus is "optional".
Resurrection is a possibility, a choice - and not to choose is also possible - as happened while Jesus was alive, even among the disciples.
And that choice is made in the context of, against the backdrop of, already-existing and continuing reality.
Jesus came into already-creation; and offered new possibilities for those who desired to follow him - but the option remained open for people who did Not desire to follow Jesus, to continue to dwell in the already-existent First Creation.
Christianity was and is opt-in. For this to be the case - it must be (and is) a viable option to decline the offer.
Jesus's claim is that it is better to follow him, better for those who want what he offers - but Jesus does not claim that a failure to follow him would result in the end of reality, the end of all existence.
A real and created "reality" preceded Jesus, and has not stopped - and the majority who are ignorant-of, ignore, or reject Jesus - continue to inhabit that reality.
I mean that these not-Christians orientate their lives to the First Creation; and choose Not to live in accordance with the expectation of eternal resurrected life in Heaven.
All this is possible exactly because Jesus is not the same entity as the creator God whom Jesus is recorded as addressing as his Father.
taking only the Lazarus Gospel, doesn't Jesus speak constantly of doing what the Father did and what he saw his Father do (including raising the dead), and that he is ascending to the Father, etc?
ReplyDeleteLaeth (sorry but google doesn't let me sign in to comment)
@Laeth - Yes. But it does not seem to me (it never crossed my mind) that Jesus was describing the creation of experienced reality, when he does so.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the idea seems alien to me because if Jesus did only and all that this Father had done and did, then there would be no need for Jesus - and nothing for Jesus to do.
Comment from Laeth:
ReplyDelete"it seems to me that a plain reading is saying precisely that. however, contra traditional theology (but as Joseph Smith says), there can be multiple worlds/creations. and Jesus is both the creator of this world (the Yahweh of the OT), and the redeemer of it, once he has dared to enter it as a participant, not just creator (and like his Father was and did for another, from whom Jesus learned). this seems to me more according with a plain reading, and more narratively coherent."
@Laeth - Fair enough. If that, and its implications, make sense to you; then go with it.
ReplyDelete