VII. Johannine Dualism

1. VII. Johannine Dualism

2. Above: Light – God, good Below: Darkness – demons, evil Age to Come (Kingdom of God) Parousia Cross / Res. Christians Present evil age (Satan) Age to come (God) Present Evil Age • 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

3. The World • World – neutral/positive (1:9; 3:16; 16:21; 17:24) • God created world; loves world. • World not negated because physical. • World – negative (8:12, 23; 9:39; 12:31, 46; 14:17; 16:11). • “This world” is opposed to God; in darkness; under Satan’s power; subject to judgment. • Symbolizes unbelief – rejection of God’s revelation in Christ. • Jn’s 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 dualismas 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 (16:8-9) – rejection of God’s revelation in Christ (!5:22, 24). • Spiritual blindness – symbolized by darkness. • Leads to death (8:24). • Faith in Jesus delivers from sin and death; brings life.

4. The Jews – 71x; often negative • Positive (4:22; 5:46; 11:45). • Negative(5:16; 8:31, 37-38, 44-47, 57-59; 10:31-39; 18:12; 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. 7:11-13). • “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.

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

6. 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.

7. 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 3:16) • 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 God’s call – all depends on human response. • Salvation viewed from divine perspective vs. human perspective.

8. 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 God’s creature. Darkness, then, means that a man does not seize this possibility—that 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 one’s self up against the light. It is turning away from the origin of one’s existence, away from that which alone offers the possibility of illumining one’s existence. When the world shuts itself up against the light it thereby rebels against God, making itself independent of God—i.e. it attempts to do so, vainly imagines that it can do so…”

9. 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 man’s Whence, his Whither is also determined; they who are ‘from below,’ ‘of the world,’ will die in their sins (8:21-23); ‘the world’ and its ‘lust’ pass away (I Jn. 2:17). 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

10. Johannine Determinism(Bultmann, Theology of NT, vol. 2, p. 24) “John’s 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 one’s own self-assertion, then the believer can understand his faith not as the accomplishment of his own purposeful act, but only as God’s 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…”

11. John Calvin 3:16-21 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 God’s 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.