Differences with Older Views
This page explains, expands and discusses our answer to the question "Is this New View not just older views with certain bits bolted on? After all, creation, fall, redemption occur there too."
- Creation and the role of humankind: it is fundamentally different that the authority that humankind has is to serve rather than to use as resource.
- Creation as a whole: relatedness of all things is no longer secondary or missing, as it was in both mediaeval Christianity and in modern individualism, but is a central plank. The notion of Fall is also significantly different and it no longer suggests that God is peevish. Under older views God's love and justice/wrath seem inconsistent with each other, but under the New View, one is directly implied by the other.
- Representation: This notion is crucial to an understanding of how it is that transcendent God can be experienced by his creation, and it brings together many strands in God's revelation that otherwise seem distinct; older views gloss over it.
- Redemption: Granted, the themes of no condemnation because of Christ's work and of the Holy Spirit living within us are found in other views, but too often, even in those views, it is difficult to keep them together and avoid emphasizing one over the other. With the New View, not only are these brought together intrinsically, but they come together with a third theme, that of mature sons of God treating creation as God would. Moreover, it is this that highlights the intrinsic link back to the Genesis 1 mandate, which, under the older views, is treated as secondary.
If you remove any of these, then the whole New View becomes disjointed, distorted out of recognition, and is no longer an harmonious whole. More to be written.
The difference extends beyond specific theological points to the world view, the way of seeing things. More to be written.
These pages present 'New View' theology. Comments, queries welcome, to "xn @ basden . u-net . com".
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Copyright (c) Andrew Basden 2003-4, but you may copy this page as long as every copy includes this full copyright notice, and the copying is not for financial gain.
Created: 30 December 2003.
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