tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17617194.post4152426830543133968..comments2024-03-07T06:52:34.516+00:00Comments on Exiled Preacher: Edward Taylor against the hereticsGuy Davieshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09184743462264437085noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17617194.post-40584748838096561532012-05-13T21:15:30.123+01:002012-05-13T21:15:30.123+01:00I was visited by a few Jehovah's Witnesses las...I was visited by a few Jehovah's Witnesses last winter. They asked if I had read the Bible. I replied that I had. They asked if they could read the Bible with me. I told them that they could, but that I wanted to discuss the doctrine of the Trinity with them first. I asked if they denied the Trinity. They said they did. I asked them what they made of the many, many passages in the NT that teach the two natures of Christ, not to mention the Trinity. They asked for some passages. I mention a few from John's gospel and a few from Paul's letters, including Philippians 2:6. They said that they didn't know what to say about those passages and left. I was dumbfounded that these JWs could reject the Trinity and not even have an opinion on what to do with passages like these. Incredible! Anyway, I felt bad later that I didn't invite them in and make a greater effort to reason with them from the Scriptures. Anyway, thanks for posting this. <br /><br />For the record, I think that Paul teaches the divinity of Christ in many passages, and that he may even be doing this in 1 Colossians 15. I am a PhD student in philosophy, and I have spent a lot of time on Plato. I am not familiar with scholarly discusses of Plato's influence (or lack of influence) on Paul, but from a Platonic or neo-Platonic perspective, 1 Colossians 15 strongly implies Jesus is an earthly manifestation - or incarnation - of God. Of course, orthodox Christianity does not view the relationship between the Father and the Son in anything like the way that Plato envisaged the relationship between forms and the particulars that participate in them, and I don't think that Paul views the relationship between the Father and the Son in that way either. Nonetheless, I think that Paul likely had Plato's theory of forms in mind when he wrote Colossians 1:15, and that he intended his readers to notice the association and draw the inference that is so natural to students of Plato: Jesus is an earthly manifestation - an incarnation - of God. (If Paul is actually quoting an early Christian hymn in Colossians 1:15, as many scholars maintain, then I think that the same point would suggestion can be made for the authors of that hymn. Also, to be clear, Plato seems to have thought of forms in different ways in different dialogues; I mostly have the 'Phaedo' in mind here.)L https://www.blogger.com/profile/04903967140464360127noreply@blogger.com