Answering Adoptionism

[Jimbo7]

I’ve come across the view that Adoptionism is the oldest view of Jesus’ nature.

Basically, it’s the notion that Jesus was just a mortal man until his baptism. At that time, be was infused with the Holy Spirit and became the Son of God. This is why he performed no miracles until that point. Some seem to regard Jesus as being chosen because of his just life while others simply see him as having been chosen by God. The Nativity is regarded as a later invention. To support this, they note that among scholars the Gospel of Mark is generally considered the oldest, yet it omits the Nativity. They obviously consider the other Gospels as including later, less authentic teachings.

They also say that early Christian writings support an Adoptionist view. For example, the Shepherd of Hermas (which even Catholic Answers cites) seems to support an Adoptionist view:

“The Holy Pre-existent Spirit. Which created the whole creation, God made to dwell in flesh that He desired. This flesh, therefore, in which the Holy Spirit dwelt, was subject unto the Spirit, walking honorably in holiness and purity, without in any way defiling the Spirit. When then it had lived honorably in chastity, and had labored with the Spirit, and had cooperated with it in everything, behaving itself boldly and bravely, He chose it as a partner with the Holy Spirit; for the career of this flesh pleased [the Lord], seeing that, as possessing the Holy Spirit, it was not defiled upon the earth. He therefore took the son as adviser and the glorious angels also, that this flesh too, having served the Spirit unblamably, might have some place of sojourn, and might not seem to have lost the reward for its service; for all flesh, which is found undefiled and unspotted, wherein the Holy Spirit dwelt, shall receive a reward.” (c. 80 AD)

How would one answer Adoptionism from a Catholic point of view? Generally, what is there to support Jesus’ pre-existence / the Nativity as being the older teaching? Did any of the Church Fathers write about this? Thanks!

 

[grannymh]

I’ve come across the view that Adoptionism is the oldest view of Jesus’ nature.

Basically, it’s the notion that Jesus was just a mortal man until his baptism. At that time, be was infused with the Holy Spirit and became the Son of God. This is why he performed no miracles until that point. Some seem to regard Jesus as being chosen because of his just life while others simply see him as having been chosen by God. The Nativity is regarded as a later invention. To support this, they note that among scholars the Gospel of Mark is generally considered the oldest, yet it omits the Nativity. They obviously consider the other Gospels as including later, less authentic teachings.

They also say that early Christian writings support an Adoptionist view. For example, the Shepherd of Hermas (which even Catholic Answers cites) seems to support an Adoptionist view:

“The Holy Pre-existent Spirit. Which created the whole creation, God made to dwell in flesh that He desired. This flesh, therefore, in which the Holy Spirit dwelt, was subject unto the Spirit, walking honorably in holiness and purity, without in any way defiling the Spirit. When then it had lived honorably in chastity, and had labored with the Spirit, and had cooperated with it in everything, behaving itself boldly and bravely, He chose it as a partner with the Holy Spirit; for the career of this flesh pleased [the Lord], seeing that, as possessing the Holy Spirit, it was not defiled upon the earth. He therefore took the son as adviser and the glorious angels also, that this flesh too, having served the Spirit unblamably, might have some place of sojourn, and might not seem to have lost the reward for its service; for all flesh, which is found undefiled and unspotted, wherein the Holy Spirit dwelt, shall receive a reward.” (c. 80 AD)

How would one answer Adoptionism from a Catholic point of view? Generally, what is there to support Jesus’ pre-existence / the Nativity as being the older teaching? Did any of the Church Fathers write about this? Thanks!

Adoptionism is the new and improved name for the heresy called Arianism which is one of the first heresies to be refuted by Catholicism.

 

[grannymh]

what is there to support Jesus’ pre-existence / the Nativity as being the older teaching? Did any of the Church Fathers write about this? Thanks!

The answers you are looking for are basic Catholicism.
Buy a copy of* Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition*, ISBN: 1-57455-109-4
Find the chapter “I believe in Jesus Christ”. You will find sources, including the Fathers, in the footnotes. The numbers in the margins refer to related paragraphs. Check out “Christ” in the index as well as other topics you mentioned.

The following link is the Catechism on line. Use the search bar and you will find lots of ways to answer questions.


Blessings,
granny

All human life is worthy of profound respect from the moment of conception.

 

[StrawberryJam]

It just sounds silly to me. As if the act of baptism did something to change Jesus in some way. That just sounds weird.

 

[Geaux_LSU]

I never really understood why God the Father said, “Today, I have begotten You.” Do y’all know why He said that, since Jesus is eternal?

 

[Trishie]

God is not subject to time. Time is a created thing. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, are all the same to God, “**For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.” Psalm 90:4
**
John Chapter 1
The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of** the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth**.

15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known."

 

[jschutzm]

Adoptionism is the new and improved name for the heresy called Arianism which is one of the first heresies to be refuted by Catholicism.

Yeah, I’d tend to agree.

The Arians were represented by a minority of Bishops at the council of Nicea. They had their chance to argue their case. The Bishops specifically crafted the Nicean Creed (aka “the profesion of faith”) that is recited at every Catholic Mass since 325AD specifically to refrute this idea and to cement the idea that Jesus is consubstantial with the father (of the same substance)

These heresies pop up every now and again, under new terms, but really there is nothing new about them.

The Bishops who had Apostolic sucession and were in some cases taught by the Apostles or those who knew the apostles rejected this idea. If, being closer to the exact time of the Apostles and the central events which created Christianity, they saw no reason to accept that view… I see even less reason NOW to entertain the notion, either.

 

[EricFilmer]

I’ve come across the view that Adoptionism is the oldest view of Jesus’ nature…

…They also say that early Christian writings support an Adoptionist view. For example, the Shepherd of Hermas (which even Catholic Answers cites) seems to support an Adoptionist view:

In order to address this aspect of your post, my first step was to see what other scholars say about the origins of Adoptionism. Here is what I found:

Adoptionism describes any doctrine held by some Christians (and sympathetic non-Christians) that Jesus was God the Father’s “adopted” son. In other words, he was a man of special powers, consciousness, or holiness that God raised to divine status. Adoptionism appeared in Rome in the late second century, a reaction against gnosticism, or docetism…

…The Christian writer Epiphanius labeled a man known as Theodotus the Tanner, originally from the eastern part of the empire (hence his Greek name), as the first Adoptionist teacher. Theodotus taught that Jesus was a “mere man” (in Greek, psilos anthropos) who received his divine status at baptism. Theodotus was excommunicated by Victor, the bishop of Rome between 189-198.

• Chas S. Clifton, Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics (Barnes & Noble: New York, 1998), 5.

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (1997 edition) ascribes a much later origin for Adoptionism (actually, it spells it as Adoptianism): the 8th Century in Spain. Nevertheless, this same book has a separate listing for Theodotus, and does label him as a 2nd Century Adoptionist (and Monarchian).

Henry Chadwick does not use the term “Adoptionism” in his work, The Early Church, but he does list it in the index, directing the reader to a description of a reaction of certain Monarchists to Justin Martyr’s Logos theology:

“…they could say that Jesus was a man like other men, differentiated in being indwelt by the Spirit of God to an absolute and unique degree.”

• Henry Chadwick, The Early Church (Penguin Books: New York, 1993), 86.

Therefore, in a roundabout way, Chadwick relates Adoptionism as something arising in the 2nd Century.

And finally, the esteemed scholar J.N.D. Kelly states the following:

The closing decades of the second century witnessed the emergence of two forms of teaching which, though fundamentally different, have been brought together by modern historians under the common name of monarchianism. ‘Dynamic’ monarchianism, more accurately called adoptionism, was the theory that Christ was a ‘mere man’ (tfiiXos avOptuiros: hence ‘psilanthropism’) upon whom God’s Spirit had descended. It was essentially a Christological heresy…

…The originator of dynamic monarchianism is said to have been a learned Byzantine leather-merchant, Thoedotus, who brought it to Rome about 190.

• J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (Harper: San Francisco, 1978), 115-116.

None of these authors address a correlation between Adoptionism and the Shepherd of Hermas, and none of them date the origins of Adoptionism earlier than the 2nd Century. Apparently, not even the Adoptionists of the Early Church cited the Shepherd of Hermas to defend their theology. In light of all this, I do not think Adoptionism can be considered the oldest view of the nature of Christ. It seems that attempts to demonstrate otherwise simply involve reading an Adoptionist viewpoint into certain 1st Century texts.

 

[EricFilmer]

The Nativity is regarded as a later invention. To support this, they note that among scholars the Gospel of Mark is generally considered the oldest, yet it omits the Nativity.

Here’s the problem with their view on Mark. In a subtle, and yet still in a very real way, Mark states that Jesus is Yahweh. Here’s why I say this:

In Isaiah we read:

A voice cries:
"In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” (Isaiah 40:3, RSV)

In the original Hebrew, the word “Lord” was specifically written as YHWH (Yahweh). Therefore this prophecy states that a voice in the wilderness will prepare the way of the Eternal God himself.

The Gospel of Mark begins in the following way:

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way;
the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight – " (Mark 1:1-3, RSV)

Mark then goes on to describe the encounter between John the Baptist and Jesus. If we plug this into Isaiah, John the Baptist is the voice in the wilderness and Jesus is YHWH. We see the exact same thing in Matthew (chapters 3&4), Luke (chapter 3) and John (chapter 1). If Mark thought that Jesus was Yahweh then he obviously could not have believed in Adoptionism, because Adoptionism teaches that Jesus is not the Eternal Living God (YHWH), but rather “adopted” by him.

How would one answer Adoptionism from a Catholic point of view? Generally, what is there to support Jesus’ pre-existence / the Nativity as being the older teaching? Did any of the Church Fathers write about this? Thanks!

Maybe my answer here will seem to be a little too simple for some, but from a Catholic point of view, Adoptionism has been officially denounced by the Church as a heresy and the pre-existence of Jesus is a doctrine of the faith. Therefore, a Catholic need not have any further reason to reject the former and believe the latter. But I understand that you are desiring a deeper elaboration drawing from the Bible and the ECFs, so I hope the other material I have posted in this discussion has proved helpful.

 

[EricFilmer]

I never really understood why God the Father said, “Today, I have begotten You.” Do y’all know why He said that, since Jesus is eternal?

To begin with, here is the source of the Bible passage in question:

I will tell of the decree of the LORD:
He said to me, "You are my son,
today I have begotten you. (Psalm 2:7, RSV)

In the Letter to the Hebrews 1:5, we see this passage applied to Christ.

What we are seeing here is biblical typology. Psalm 2 is a brief record of the promises that God gave to David, who served as a biblical “type” of Christ. Therefore, the son in this passage refers to David, and, by extension, the future Davidic Messiah (Jesus). If one decides that the passage’s use of the term “today I have begotten you” indicates that the son was begotten in a moment in time (and therefore the son is not eternal) then it could simply be concluded that this described an aspect of David (who was, indeed, begotten in time) but not Jesus. Even though David is a biblical “type” of Christ, there is obviously not a direct correlation between the two.

The Navarre Bible’s commentary on Psalm 2:7 may prove useful in this discussion as well:

God’s election of the king is described in terms of human generation: “You are my Son,” and the coronation day is the “today” when God promises to David find fulfillment (cf. 2Samuel 7:14). This allegorical way of speaking is open to a fuller meaning when the moment comes, the “today”, when the promises will definitely come true. Thus, the divine decree that forms the core of the psalm was enunciated again by God when Christ was baptized in the Jordan (cf. Mt 3:17 and par.) and when he was transfigured on Thabor (cf. Mt 17:5 and par.). Christ is the Son in whom the Father is well pleased. By raising him from the dead God fulfilled that decree which originally was a statement of intent (cf. Acts 13:32-33). The actual words of v. 7 are quoted in the Letter to the Hebrews to make the point that Christ is above the angels because he is the Son of God (cf. Heb 1:5).

• Jose Maria Casciaro, general ed., The Navarre Bible: The Psalms (Scepter Publishers: New York, 2003), 41.

Therefore, based on what the Navarre Bible states, Christ is eternal and was not begotten in time, but the promises that the Father gave to David (and the future Davidic Messiah) were. The “begetting” refers to Christ’s coronation as the Messianic King (which happened when he was anointed by the Holy Spirit at his baptism) and the ensuing fulfillment of the Father’s promises.