DUALISM
30/04/23 09:24
DOCETISM was a heresy that appeared in early Christianity. It held that Christ’s humanity was illusory and that His true nature was divine - too divine to be really human.
TOO HOLY TO BE HUMAN
A brief survey of the word reveals that Docetism has a somewhat ambiguous meaning and is difficult to pin down. What is apparent, however is that the connotation of the word is synonymous with the notion that God is too Holy to be too human – an idea that surfaces often in religiosity, particularly religion tainted with the platonic notion that matter is bad and mind is good – mind in this context being seen as the closest to spirituality.
WALKING DEAD
There was a man at a church I attended once who lived that Godliness was mainly defined as oldness and dullness. He lived a stoic life as an accountant and was a man with a dead heart and a dead life.
HUMANITY SANCTIFIED
I read a book many years ago entitled, ‘For God’s Sake Be Human.’ The author had it right. The son of God was a human being – and still is. A human being is a member of the trinity, and we are in Him. God came among us as a human being and is incarnated in us. Christ come in our flesh is the difference between religion and Godliness.*
BAD LENS
Mind-body dualism has surfaced in Catholicism and Puritanism. It’s is a staple of fundamentalism and the writings of false prophets are full of it. Dualism is a function of seeing by the lens of the knowledge of good and evil where the God-Life and our life is separated and dichotomised to produce the typically fragmented and compartmentalised mindset of the fundamentalist.
Dualism is responsible for the sacred/secular illusion that posits the exaggerated importance of holy places and holy times. Sacred/secular is a most pervasive dualism and a relic of Adamic good/evil dichotomy. In Christ you have a Sabbath life.
KNOWLEDGE TREE THEOLOGY
This artificial dichotomy grows from the garden of the knowledge of good and evil and its bi-furcation’s. The greatest rebuttal to this heresy is that Christ has come in the flesh. Our flesh. He lived with humans, was a human and is a human living in each of us and in the company of the Father and the Holy Spirit. He has joined us to God and to life in Himself.
ATONEMENT/INCARNATION negates dualism full stop. Christ in us and with us means that God is in us and with us and in the ordinary affairs of life. There is no sacred versus secular, no compartments of holy and unholy because all is Holy in the sovereignty of Christ. Holy is where you are as son/daughter of God. Ephesians 1.10 makes it plain that Jesus draws all things into communion with Himself. This is the new creation of oneness, spirit and life.
Our privilege is to be holy in the incarnation and ignite all things with His spirit and life. We could start with religion.
Thomas Torrance observes, “The docetic approach to Christ, on the other hand, in seeking to commend the relevance of the Christian message to mankind tended to cut itself off from its starting point in the Deity of Christ and thus to transmute itself into human speculation or mythological constructs projected into God from below.” (1)
PECULIAR TEACHING
A notable mythological construct is the reification of the law as the unifying principle of salvation and the new earth. Quite the contrary. The law is an emanation of the fall and the knowledge of good and evil. Its nature is separation and condemnation. There is no salvation, no life and no healing in the law. But there is condemnation and separation from God and each other.
MEANING OF LIFE
The enterprise of the trinity side-stepped the law and drew humanity into themselves in the person of Jesus Christ. By believing Christ we participate in the communion that is His in the Family of God. It is the trinity and its oneness in plurality that has become our oneness with God. As sons we are part of God yet growing ever more fully into the selves we were created to be.
The new creation and the new earth has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with our agreeing with Christ that we have been drawn into His life – unto oneness with Father, son and Holy Spirit. This is the meaning of life and engine of the new creation.
* Paul’s use of the flesh refers to our life in Adam. Our life in Christ is the trinity embodied in human flesh.
Torrance, Thomas F.. The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (T&T Clark Cornerstones) (p. 114). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
