Open Theism Discussion Board

D: If I said this: Brahman (The True Being) is to Atman...as...the One Logos is to the Multiple logoi. "Buddha-Nature" would be like the Personal Reality of the Eternal Logos of Creation demonstrated in ALL individual human logoi. One Consciousness. The Divine Center of all sentient beings, allowing for emergent individuating, self-relational consciousness in human mind/brain relational unities in individual human hypostases. Created Consciousness (Created "I"s) come from the emergent relationship of the mind/brain assymetrical relational unity in self-referential operation.

Please tell me this makes sense and I ain't crazy.

Tom: It makes sense, yes. But do not expect to find strict parallels without having to qualify and correct. I’d be VERY skeptical about saying Buddha-dattu = the Personal Logos OR that atman = the logos of a created thing. I don’t know enough about Buddhism to say Buddhist schools of thought relate and distinguish between the two in the same way Christian theology relates and distinguishes the Son from Creation.

There’s a good decade or two of research there. Write a thesis on it. Until then, don’t preach it. ;o)

However, I still get the feeling that you view the logoi in too substantialist of terms. To me they’re just abstractions, patterns of ways of created being that define the telos to which we’re called. But the ACTUAL me that becomes that is, though it conforms to that pattern, far more than just that pattern, as any ‘actual’ thing is more than its ‘possibility’. Hence, I am more than my possibility. In other words, I’m the fulfillment and actualization of my logos, which means I’m more than just that logos. I’m something that my logos is not—i.e., actual. A painter ‘conceives’ (logos) and then ‘paints’ (actuality). I’ve forgotten most everything about Buddhism, but wouldn’t the atman be comparable more to the fulfilled/actual entity than to its possibility (logos)? My atman is the ACTUAL me so far as it conforms to its possibilities of becoming, not simply the possible me. But my logos is the possible me, pure and simple. So perhaps atman is not comparable to individual logoi, but rather to their actualizations.

D: Accept those whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person's faith allows them to eat everything, but another person, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted that person.

Tom: I always thought it was strange that Paul would tell those who do not eat everything not to judge those who do. The latter do so because they are free(er), I think, than the former. The former tend to judge as a matter of policy. In other words, given all that Paul says about believing you need to eat meat, I always thought Paul was expecting too much from those who abstain from eating meat in telling them not to judge those who do eat meat. But I wish the abstainers would indeed stop judging the partakers.