Marcion

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A thoroughly dodgy theologian. Most notable for hating the God of the OT, whom he thought nasty and spiteful. His "Bible" was roughly Paul's letters with all the OT references left out. How much that left him, I'm not sure.

Mjb67: Just done a bit of web trawling:

It seems he thought that there were 2 gods: The God of creation (and the OT), and the good God of love, unknown until Jesus. He taught that both were uncreated, eternal, etc., but that because of redemption, the good God would always be the more powerful of the two.

And yes, he basically thought that Paul's Epistles were the only thing you could rely on, and that the Old Testament was a literal history of the Jews. To Marcion, the Messiah predictions in the OT were referring to a Jewish Messiah who had not yet come.

The Marcions were extremely ascetic - they had incredibly strict laws about food and drink, and sex was forbidden.

I strongly object to the description "a thoroughly dodgy theologian". That is Completely subjective based on your personal beliefs. Who is orthodox and who is heretical is only determined by later tradition i.e. the people who won.

Except not. Assuming that there is an objective truth to theology (God is either like this, or like that, he either exists or he doesn't) then the dodginess of a particular theology is not subjective. Orthodoxy may be determined by later tradition, but truth is not.

: MoonShadow: That way lies dangerous ground. It is generally hard, in matters of theology in particular and religion in general, to tell between orthodoxy, personal opinion and truth. It is even harder to convince someone else who thinks they know otherwise of the validity of your views (and, likewise, for them to convince you). In general, the likely response to someone asserting "God is like this" is "you are confusing orthdoxy/your own personal opinion with the truth" - and unless God has revealed himself in the particular fashion you describe both to you and the person you are talking to, you will usually get nowhere. In this way, sadly, theology is totally subjective.

And it's as well to remember that when you make an objective statement you might be wrong. However, that doesn't make the statement any less objective; God either is like this or isn't. You can't confuse personal opinion with truth as long as you remember that any statement is personal opion, which can be backed to a greater or lesser degree with evidence, while 'truth' is something else entirely.

: MoonShadow: I assert that the notion of an objective statement on a subject which is either inherently unknowable, or knowledge about which is not objectively transferrable, is irrelevant an unhelpful in a real-world argument. The statement "there is an objective truth to theology (God is either like this, or like that, he either exists or he doesn't)", coupled with a statement about what God is like, is equivalent to saying "I know the objective truth about what God is like, and it is this, and what's more because you disagree with me, you are wrong and are denying the objective truth about God". I don't really think there is a single human on this planet qualified to make such a statement, except possibly in terms so broad as to be irrelevant to any specific argument.
: On the other hand, I do not see how saying "it is my personal opinion that God is like this" can possibly be an objective statement! It's subjective - it's your opinion; and the fact that there is a particular way that God actually is which may or may not be the way you describe is irrelevant to that.
: Objective: Of or having to do with a material object. Based on observable phenomena.
: Subjective: Proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world. Particular to a given person; personal.
: Moreover, I assert it is generally irrelevant that there is a particular way God is. The way God is is not observable in a testable, falsifiable way, therefore the only statements you can make about the way God is are of the subjective kind. If it were otherwise, no intervention from God would be required in order to convert people to Christianity, and everyone would be Christian - they are not, and the Bible explicitly states that intervention is required (Ephesians? Galatians? I'll look up chapter and verse if someone really wants me to.)
: The Bible is yet another case. You can make objective statements about its text. As soon as you start interpreting it or trying to apply it to your life, those statements become subjective. This is the reason why the Bible itself states you need God's help to interpret and apply it. This is also the reason why we observe a divided church with factions that have no real means of convincing each other of the validity of their respective creeds. If the interpretations of the Bible that each faction's creed is based on were objective statements, rather than subjective statements about objective reality, each creed would quickly be rejected or kept by a single unified church, with a very few radical groups that chose to ignore some observable facts - exactly like mainstream science with its fringe flatearthers and perpetual-motion-engine builders, in fact.

And for your information, many would argue that althugh the church officially rejected Marcion, it was functionally Marcionite until WWII and possibly some of the more anti-semitic elements of it still are.

: The term Dodgy is used as a compliment on this wiki. Your objection to the use of this term on this page is prejudiced, subjective and anti-Marcionite, and I strongly object to it on those grounds. ;) -- MoonShadow

: (PeterTaylor) I think cutting bits you don't like out of Paul's letters is dodgy, however orthodox it may or may not be. So unless you want to debate the textual criticism issues wrt whether Marcion cut them out or everyone else put them in...

That was the WHOLE point I was making about being "functionally marcionite". How often do churches read out Levitical laws nd do sermons on them? How often do they talk with any meaning about what Matthew means when he says none of the law shall be removed? How often do we read out bits about it being hard for the rich to get into heaven? We effectively cut out bits we don't like by not looking at them.And I suggest my grasp of text criticism is up to any debate you might wish to throw at me. Don't mess with me.

Mustn't I? But I'm sure it would be such fun.