Re: Christians I talk to think that the virgin birth is proof of Jesus being God in h
( a ) "Eternally begotten" can mean either "begotten in a way that transcends time and occupies all of past, present, and future" or "begotten throughout all time in a process that never ends". Either way, the begetting would never have ceased and the son never be fully begotten. It's like calling something a grown chicken that you insist is an eternally hatching egg.
( b ) How? What do you mean it's the process by which this redemption begins? How is it?
( c ) And this doesn't equally apply to the Islamic conception of it with Jesus (P) as a prophet how?
( d ) If I had just one single penny for every time an evangelist talked down to me like I'm some complete newbie to Christian doctrine just because I disbelieve in it and point out the holes in it I could feed all the starving children of the whole world. I am not merely an ex-Christian; I was never casual as a Christian in my adult life. You might consider the possibility that I know more about your religion than you do. I just don't buy the semantic gymnastics involved, especially with the Trinity, which consists of literally nothing else.
( a ) now i'm quite sure that i've gone over this but let us try once again. your principle mistake (as highlighted by your analogy actually) is you don't at all deal with what god's nature would entail. as opposed to the egg god's nature entails eternality and completeness, so if the son were to have the nature of god and be eternally begotten it would imply completeness of being. in your analogy you simply ignore this and go on to say that he would be incomplete without making mention how this could at all be if the son possesses the very nature of god. if we actually were to factor in the christian understanding, then your analogy falls short. instead of dealing with the attributes of god you instead choose to deal with the attributes of creations of god. if then you are so sure of your argument please begin to attack my analogy instead of ignoring the concept and attributes of god whatsoever and effectively setting up a strawman.
( b ) the christian understanding is that in being incarnated, the second person of the trinity was thus able to atone for the sins of the world. the fact that you seem to be unaware of this is quite disheartening because it makes me feel as if i'm discussing with an individual who does not possess an adequate understanding of christianity.
( c ) i'm incredulous as to why you would bring this up. did i ever say anything to the contrary? you're attacking something which i have never said and that is rather deplorable. if as you claim you understood christianity so well then you would have known that christians believe that islam does contain some truth such as in it's agreement of the fundamental facts of the virgin birth. let us focus on what has actually been said instead of what is only our imagination.
( d ) rather than posting supposed credentials, let your arguments bear proof of this. as is, you were unable to articulate the christological doctrine of the incarnation properly and denied the matter when i pointed this out the first time. i then quoted your very own words and discussed at length how even your own example of demon possession showed your framing of the incarnation to be faulty. you have not done anything to show my words to be false other than to simply call them semantics. yet i must add that simply saying so does not make this true and the fact that this is not accompanied by an argument to prove your position speaks volumes. yet you would have me believe that you somehow possess adequate knowledge of christianity and this may actually be true and so i will give you the benefit of a doubt. but begin to let this knowledge come through in your posts seeing as whether intentional or accidental, you could not in your posts articulate the incarnation properly and merely fell in along the lines of a strain of adoptionism.
Sol, the question was why a virgin birth should have anything to do with the sonship status if it is sonship in no biological sense whatsoever. Stop dodging it with your endless semantics! [...] You still haven't answered the question. I refer you to the top of this post.
the above is fairly interesting in that you seem to imply that i have never given you an answer. let us see about that.
( a ) once again i'd like to first move the discussion to an examination of what the virgin birth really is. all it says is that the human was born without a father. on this point at the very least i think that we are both in agreement. if christ is eternally the son of god who deems himself fit to be born a man through a virgin birth he would in fact then have no father. the bible and christian doctrine is quite clear in the regard that when christ is called fatherless or anything of the sort it is meant in terms of him not being the product of a union between a man and a woman. the fact that he is eternally the son of the father is quite compatible with the fact that his humanity is not produced through the participation of a human male who could claim the status of biological parent to him.
[...] i think that it is safe to say that the above explanations are satisfactory for the both of us and that i can now move on to the supposed problem that is brought about by the term "son of god" given that christ, biologically, has no father. it ought to be said once more that the term son of god does not refer to a sexual union (biology) and so that aspect of the problem is rendered null but rather it describes the eternal relationship which the second person of trinity has always had to that of the first in that he is said to be begotten of the father. to repeat what i had posted in another thread concerning the word begotten:
It is the Greek word “monogeneis.” This is not simply “begotten,” for that expression can be applied to all believers, those who have been begotten or born again by the Spirit. This is a unique expression for a unique person, the only-begotten Son of God. The expression appears in John 1:14, 1:18, 3:16, and 3:18. It would literally mean the “only generated one.” This is the key expression for the doctrine of “the eternal generation of the Son,” meaning, he always was the only begotten Son. The expression does not refer to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, because he is the Son from eternity past.
from the above, the fact that i had actually answered your question in multiple occasions becomes quite clear. i maintained that it is not the virgin birth which the doctrine of the sonship of christ rests on. what we should note is how you ignore these replies and repeatedly ask
"why a virgin birth should have anything to do with the sonship status if it is sonship in no biological sense whatsoever" when i never argued that it did. you keep arguing against things i have never said and so i would very much like for you to give us a quote wherein i said anything of the sort. on that note, you seem to believe that christianity teaches that the virgin birth is the basis for the sonship of christ and if you were as well-read as you claim to be can you show us the source for such a belief? sure in hindsight i can see how one could propose such a thought but please give us a proper source which claims that the primary evidence for the sonship of christ is the miracle of the virgin birth?
in light of the above, can we begin to actually engage what i have written instead of attacking claims i have never made? i maintain that you have made some rather serious though quite basic errors in your posts and although this may sound rather harsh i do not mean this in a disrespectful fashion. the point is to simply understand each other if it is the case that we cannot come to an agreement and this goal will only get subverted if we refuse or are unable to represent the beliefs of our interlocutors accurately.
