VII. Johannine Dualism

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VII. Johannine Dualism
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• Types of dualism
• Cosmic dualism divides cosmos into world
  above and world below
• Gnosticism
• Division may be eternal or have origin in
  primordial time.
• Temporal dualism divides time into present
  age and age to come
• Apocalyptic Qumran.
• This is modified dualism evil is real but
  destined to be destroyed.
• Early Christians adopted/modified New Age
  inaugurated by Jesus death/res. fully arrives
  at Parousia now live in interim.
• Metaphysical dualism divides into physical
  (evil) and spiritual (good)
• Gnosticism physical/flesh inherently evil.
• Ethical dualism evil exists as result of sin
  world is fallen.
• Qumran 2 ways doctrine people belong to God or
  Satan based on conduct

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• The World
• World neutral/positive (19 316 1621
  1724)
• God created world loves world.
• World not negated because physical.
• World negative (812, 23 939 1231, 46
  1417 1611).
• This world is opposed to God in darkness
  under Satans power subject to judgment.
• Symbolizes unbelief rejection of Gods
  revelation in Christ.
• Jns negative view of world is not metaphysical
  but ethical dualism not negated because it is
  physical, but because it has turned away from
  God.
• Bultmann Creation becomes this world when it
  rejects its creaturehood and tries to live unto
  itself. (Theology of NT, vol. 2)
• Cosmic dualism as metaphor for proper
  relationship with God
• In Synoptics and Paul, temporal dualism
  predominates.
• In John, cosmic dualism predominates (only
  vestiges of temporal).
• Sin
• Primarily unbelief (168-9) rejection of Gods
  revelation in Christ (!522, 24).
• Spiritual blindness symbolized by darkness.
• Leads to death (824).
• Faith in Jesus delivers from sin and death
  brings life.

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• The Jews 71x often negative
• Positive (422 546 1145).
• Negative (516 831, 37-38, 44-47, 57-59
  1031-39 1812 etc).
• Jews misunderstand, reject, persecute, crucify
  Jesus.
• Does Jn. teach hatred of Jews?
• Who are the Ioudaioi? not an ethnic slur
  cannot always refer to Jewish people as a whole
  (cf. 711-13).
• Jews by birth, race, or religion.
• Judeans as opposed to Samaritans or
  Galileans.
• Brown Religious authorities or Jerusalem
  leaders.
• Kysar Stylized types of those who reject
  Jesus.
• Reasons for not viewing FG as anti-Semitic
• FG reflects background of synagogue conflict at
  time of writing largely responding to attacks
  from synagogue.
• Author, reader, characters are all Jews
  internal Jewish dispute.
• FG opposes unbelief, not Jewishness as such.
• Yet, FG has often been used to justify
  anti-Semitism.

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• The Jews cont.
• 5. What can we do about it?
• Better translations.
• More sensitive interpretation.
• Sermons against anti-Semitism.

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• Freedom and Determinism in FG
• Determinism passages (see handout)
• Imply predestination response is predetermined.
• Only those chosen by God can believe.
• Gnostic interpretation people divided by innate
  nature
• Sarkikoi (fleshly)
• Psychikoi (soulish)
• Pneumatikoi (spiritual) only they are capable
  of responding to saving gnosis.
• Freedom passages (see handout)
• Imply freedom to believe or not.
• Invitation is open to all response is free
  choice.

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• Freedom and Determinism cont.
• 3. Four possible ways to reconcile
• Historical explanation (Kysar)
• Freedom texts older tradition period of
  successful mission.
• Determinism later tradition after Jewish
  hostility crystalized.
• Calvinistic explanation
• Takes determinism texts as primary explains
  freedom texts in light of them.
• God calls only some for salvation only they have
  freedom to respond. (John Calvin 316)
• Arminian explanation
• Takes freedom texts as primary explains
  determinism texts in light of them.
• God calls all for salvation all are free to
  respond deterministic language emphasizes divine
  initiative in salvation.
• Dialectical explanation (cf. Bultmann, NT
  Theology, vol. 2, pp. 23-24)
• Paradox of Divine Sovereignty and Human
  Responsibility.
• All depends on Gods call all depends on human
  response.
• Salvation viewed from divine perspective vs.
  human perspective.

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How Creation Becomes This World(Bultmann,
Theology of NT, vol. 2, p. 18)

• Since creation is a revelation of God and
  (since) the Word is at work as the light in
  that which was created, then man is given the
  possibility of a genuine self-understanding in
  the possibility of understanding himself as Gods
  creature. Darkness, then, means that a man does
  not seize this possibilitythat he shuts himself
  up against the God revealed in the creation. It
  means that instead of understanding himself as
  creature he arrogates to himself a
  self-sovereignty that belongs to the Creator
  alone. Darkness is nothing other than shutting
  ones self up against the light. It is turning
  away from the origin of ones existence, away
  from that which alone offers the possibility of
  illumining ones existence. When the world shuts
  itself up against the light it thereby rebels
  against God, making itself independent of
  Godi.e. it attempts to do so, vainly imagines
  that it can do so

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How Creation Becomes This World(Bultmann,
Theology of NT, vol. 2, pp. 20-21)

• (A person) has only one alternative to exist
  either from God (reality) or from the world
  (unreality). By mans Whence, his Whither is also
  determined they who are from below, of the
  world, will die in their sins (821-23) the
  world and its lust pass away (I Jn. 217). The
  bondage, therefore, to which the world has
  surrendered itself, consists in this that by
  disavowing God the Creator as its origin it falls
  into the hands of Nothing.
• Each man is, or once was, confronted with
  deciding for or against God and he is confronted
  anew with this decision by the revelation of God
  in Jesus. The cosmological dualism of Gnosticism
  has become in John a dualism of decision.
• By its opposition to the Revealer the world
  definitively constitutes itself as world
• Return

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Johannine Determinism(Bultmann, Theology of NT,
vol. 2, p. 24)

• Johns predestinatory formulations mean that
  the decision of faith is not a choice between
  possibilities within this world that arise from
  inner-worldly impulses, and also mean that the
  believer in the presence of God cannot rely on
  his own faith. He never has his security in
  himself, but always in God alone. So if faith is
  such a surrender of ones own self-assertion,
  then the believer can understand his faith not as
  the accomplishment of his own purposeful act, but
  only as Gods working upon him. This and nothing
  else is the meaning of the statements that only
  he comes to Jesus to whom it is granted by the
  Father

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John Calvin 316-21 By David D. Flowers, The
Wittenburg Door

• For God so loved the elect, that He gave his
  only begotten Son, that whosoever of the elect
  believeth in Him shall not perish in the fire God
  created for those he hath predestined to burneth
  for all eternity, but have everlasting life.
•      For God sent his Son into the world to
  condemn the heathen to hell and save only those
  who acknowledge they have no choice but to repent
  and do exactly as God says.
•      Whosoever be amongeth the elect is not
  condemned, but whosoever is among the damned
  stands condemned already because Gods
  sovereignty wills it.
•      This is the verdict Light has come unto the
  elect, but all the other men loved darkness
  instead of light because their deeds were
  predestined to be evil.
•      For everyone who doeth evil must hateth the
  light, and shall not come into the light because
  they have no choice but to doeth evil.
•      So he that doeth truth cometh to the light
  by the TULIP, that his deeds may be made manifest
  through reformed theology, that they are all
  forced by God.
• This article was first published in The
  Wittenburg Door, March/April, 2007. To read more
  satire or subscribe go to www.WittenburgDoor.com.