godrulz said:
On the subscriber's thread by Clete, some suggest that salvation is ontological.
Sin is not a substance (ontological/metaphysics). If one thinks that it is, it will lead to wrong assumptions about salvation and the nature of being 'born again'.
Salvation is not metaphysical; it is in the realm of morals (as understood by theologians/philosophers). Salvation is relational, a reciprocal, restored love relationship between Creator and creature.
Your statement contradicts almost every parable that Jesus speaks in the scriptures. Salvation is an ontological reality for Christ, in which the rule of God is established "on earth as it is in Heaven." When Jesus speaks of salvation he never uses relationships to illustrate it, but in fact equates salvation to an ontological reality, i.e. the Kingdom of God. Even in the case of healing people salvation becomes an ontological reality. For example, the woman who had been bleeding for most of her life is saved, not in a relationship to Christ, but in the healing of her infirmity which had once alienated her from everyone else(she had no honor). Though relationship is involved in her salvation (she could associate with other people as a woman who had regained her "clean" status before others), but the salvation was primarily an ontological question: is she going to be considered to be clean or unclean before her peers (cleanliness and uncleanliness being states of reality in the Jewish mindset, not simply an attributive quality; if one is unclean, one's very nature has been altered).
Sin is also an ontological issue. Not that sin places one within a distinct ontology (like "evil," for instance; evil cannot be a reality in itself, for no one can cease to be a Creation of God, not even Satan has accomplished such a task). Sin is a corruption of the ontological reality of Creation, and in as much as it corrupts the good, it is ontologically defined (unless you define good through morality, and do not understand the good in an ontological way). Sin is not a relational problem in the scriptures. When Adam and Eve take from the tree in the garden they do not cease to be in relation to God (they don't even cease to be a Creation of God; that ceasation would come through death, which in both Hebrew and Greek signifies an undoing of what has already been created; death is destruction [and it isn't brought merely upon one's soul]). God even continues to commune with humans after "the fall." How is it that God can speak with Cain and with Able (directly, as he had done in the garden) if there had been a relational disjunction caused by sin? God does not cease to be in relationship with the Creation; as I said before one who sins cannot cease to be a Creation (unless they are destroyed; unless they die). Sin fundamentally changes the teleology of humanity, in that sin sets us on the path of destruction (through the upbuilding of certain political frameworks as well as through the development of certain practices within that framework). In many ways sin is more teleological in nature (as well as is Salvation, since salvation ultimately consists of a
telos, as does sin). But
telos and substance are united within the scriptures. Jesus describes this in a very practical way when he says that you are what you produce; a tree's nature cannot be divorced from its fruit. In the same way a person is known by the fruit that a person produces. If you produce bad fruit, you are by nature false (evil). If, however, you produce good fruit, you are by very nature good. For no good tree will bear bad fruit, nor will a bad tree bear good fruit, but the tree is known by its fruit. And if we are by nature bad trees, our fruit will be bad. Even moral people in their morality can produce bad fruit (need I point out the Pharisees). Morality is not the prerequisite for "goodness" in the scriptures. The good is held in one alone, that is God, and all those who find goodness appart from their Creator have at most participated in a lesser good, and at worst have actively distorted the good. The good is ontologically defined within God (not attributively), and God actively brings about the good in the Creation. The Creation does not simply participate in goodness; the Creation is the good (the
tov; i.e. that which is pleasing).
And lest you think I am preaching some false works-righteousness, I would certainly emphasize a right ordering of nature and works. We do not attach grapes to thornbushes in order to transform the thornbush into a grape-vine. In order for the grapes to be produced by the thornbush, the very nature of the thornbush must be altered; the thornbush must become a grape-vine. In the same way, a person's nature (whether evil or good) cannot be altered by attaching good or bad works to them. A fundamental change must occur so that the very nature of the person who once produced "thorns" (metaphorically speaking) is altered. I'm not talking about a "soul change" here, either, but I am emphasizing a wholistic transformation. One who once practiced unrighteousness (a sinner) must be transformed into a righteous person. And this transformation is not attributive (i.e. the blood of Christ gets painted over us so that we attributively take on Christ's nature). The transformation is a real one (not a nominal one) so that we truly become righteous people before God, who practice righteousness. Christ doesn't "take our place;" Christ calls us to "follow him."
Peace,
Michael
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