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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/23/2010 8:55 AM (GMT -6) |   | | Thought:
Living in God necessitates a limited being having the willingness to be constantly "overwhelmed" by God's infinite Love. And it's impossible for us to handle being "overwhelmed" by God's infinite Love without the conscious dependence upon the Empowering Spirit of Love.
| 4/18/2010 – God Is Love, Greg Boyd – sermon length is 44:14 minutes |
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The love of God expressed in Christ on the cross was “foolishness to the Gentiles” and “a stumbling block to the Jews”. God’s love is scandalous to us all in different ways.
Focus Scripture – 1 John 4:8 |
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Greg and me are so alike in the "mania" sometimes...whatcha'll think? I wish I could turn it off sometimes too! HAHA!!!  |
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 4/23/2010 8:57 AM (GMT -6) | | Flashthought.
Imagine all possible variations of "love" being actualized by the power of God Himself in the context of Marriage.
It's just sublime.
And from what I see...The One New Humanity is the Bride of God...and through their covenantal relationship, all Creation is blessed by the Union.
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Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
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“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything. “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
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Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
...
Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed— on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
...
And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.
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Bride of Christ (wiki)
Paul of Tarsus used similar imagery elsewhere in his epistles. In his epistle to the Church at Ephesus Paul exhorts the men to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. After further exhortation on marriage Paul quotes Genesis 2:24, for a man to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife to become one flesh with her. Paul calls this a mystery because marriage between a man and a woman is a prophetic act of the depth of our relationship with Jesus. This love surpasses our knowledge.[Eph 3:19]
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about "Marriage" Union with God in Christ...
The unitive life is the last stage of mystical ascent. The mystic becomes as closely united to God through God’s love as God is unified to his own being by nature. Mystically married to God, the mystic becomes “God by participation.” Nonetheless, this union remains differentiated, that is, God and the mystic become one while remaining distinctly two. The mystic’s person does not dissolve into God. In fact, the more deeply united to God the mystic becomes, the more the mystic’s individuality is confirmed and enhanced.
Mystical marriage bestows the conscious sharing in God’s own life and power and almost complete self-forgetfulness. The mystic now seeks only God’s will and honor and desires to serve God totally. Although external trials may continue, absolutely nothing can touch the peace and freedom at the deepest core of the mystic’s being. The transformed mystic desires greatly to suffer, but in no way does this suffering disturb the peace that flows from the ever present, explicit awareness of living God’s very own life. In fact, the only thing separating the mystic from the beatific vision is this life itself.
The mystic is experientially united to a love that communicates itself to all persons and to all things. Therefore, the more deeply the mystic experiences union with God, the more deeply union with God’s creation is experienced. Transformed by and into Love itself, the mystic becomes creative, totally self-giving, radically concerned about others—in short, spiritually fecund.
Hence, mystics heal in their own persons and through apostolic service the fragmentation found in so much of human life. They become an even deeper part of the great process of life. Wholly in God, yet totally in the world, they experience both absolute peace and a holy anxiety to serve God and God’s world.
The mystics insist, however, that the mystical life is more than heroic virtue or service to the world. These are the outward expressions of their union with God, the sacramental expression of their mystical lives. They are socially and often politically active because they seek God and God alone. Only this—not “experiences,” not a transformed personality, not serving the world—gives the mystical life its ultimate value.
Nonetheless, the mystics are the most impressive servants of humanity the world has ever seen. These deified, christified, spirit-filled persons are the amplifiers of every person’s more hidden life of faith, hope, and love. Their lives help us bear the interior whispers and see the faint flickers of divine truth and love in ourselves and others. The Christian mystics point the way to fully authentic human life by illustrating what it means to be a human being, what life means: eternal union (which begins here) with the God of love.
Harvey Egan, S.J.
An Anthology of Christian Mysticism (Amazon link)
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Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/23/2010 9:24:09 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/23/2010 12:16 PM (GMT -6) | | Hmmmm...
I had a thought about Greg's look at Matthew 11:27...
All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
Basically, it's correlation to this Scripture...
1 Corinthians 2:10b-11
For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
What this means is this:
The Father's loving knowledge of the Son, the Son's loving knowledge of the Father, and the Son's revelation of the Father to "those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" are all mediated by the Presence and Activity of the Holy Spirit of God. In other words, a human being cannot get "more" of God than being continually "filled" with the Holy Spirit of God...and "walking" that Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can empower finite beings to "comprehend" God's overwhelming, infinite Love...and for finitude to be "filled to the full" with Infinite Love.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every familyin heaven and on earth is named, hat according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Therefore, it should be of top priority for our relationship to God and God's World to do everything we can for "acquisition" of the Holy Spirit of Love, including doing everything possible to refrain from "grieving" this beautiful Divine Person.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/23/2010 12:41:07 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/23/2010 12:39 PM (GMT -6) | | | Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
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Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.
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For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
HOW did the Father reveal the Son's reality to Peter? HOW will each one be able to "know the Lord"? HOW can anyone participate subjectively in the Lordship of Jesus?
Hint: "Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts."
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/23/2010 1:21:18 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 4/23/2010 3:51 PM (GMT -6) | | a) I don't buy the classical argument about a distinctive divine love as "agape" (the whole "agape" is chosen love for the good of the other). But that's no biggie.
b) Given what Greg said about God 'BEING' love, on what basis does he hold annihilation is a possibility? Greg says there's "nothing you can do that would make God love you any more or less." But then he grants that we can irrevocably solidify into evil and so either be 1) positively annihilated by God (because there's nothing to love), OR 2) pass into non-existence (because we've annihilated ourselves). Either way, we're doing something that brings God's loving us to an end. Now, Greg can't go for 2) because, as I understand him, he already believes Satan to be irrevocably solidified AND existent. So Greg doesn't think 'irrevocable solidification' is equivalent to 'passing out of existence' (or 'solidifying into non-existence', whatever that would mean). So Greg has to believe that the God OF LOVE holds in existence those who are irrevocably solidified into evil (which for Greg means "there's nothing there to love" ). So Greg thinks BOTH that "God just IS love" (which should mean God loves whatever exists) and that there are some creatures that exist (Satan at the very least) who are not loved by God because they've done something (viz., irrevocably solidify themselves into evil) that CAUSED God to stop loving them. As it stands, it looks like Greg believes that God is not God so far as some existent creatures (Satan) are concerned. God exist as pure infinite love. Satan exists. God doesn't love Satan. Hence, Manicheanism (metaphysical dualism a ultimate good, God, and ultimate evil, Satan).
You tell him D.
Tom
KIXYTΘEMTAPost Edited (Tom) : 4/23/2010 4:04:08 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/23/2010 4:09 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Given what Greg said about God 'BEING' love, on what basis does he hold annihilation is a possibility? Greg says there's "nothing you can do that would make God love you any more or less." But then he grants that we can irrevocably solidify into evil and so either be positively annihilated by God (because there's nothing to love OR pass into non-existence (because we've annihilated ourselves). Either way, we're doing something that brings God's loving us to an end.
You tell him D.
Already there, baby. I already sent him an email about the whole Revelation 21 thing we've been talking about. Yeah.  Also, I'm gonna just take "Satan and the Problem of Evil" to him...and tell him to be CONSISTENT with what he ALREADY BELIEVES. Greg supposedly already BELIEVES in a form of "eternality" of the human soul due to TWT #5 "Power to Influence is IRREVOCABLE". Basically, he said in SATPOE that if God created human beings with the capacity to "enjoy him forever", then that power could NOT be revoked by God. He has a whole section on it called "The Eternal Dignity of the Creature" (pp 342-343). Greg says this:
"In giving creatures the irrevocable potential to accept his love eternally, God gives his creatures the irrevocable potential to reject his love eternally."
All WE (Tom) need to tell Greg is that the concept of the "logos" GROUNDS this idea as a part of God's "commitment of eternality" to Creation in and through the Logos, in God's very decision to incarnate.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/23/2010 5:08:27 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/23/2010 4:16 PM (GMT -6) | | | Where we will DISAGREE with Greg right now is simple: You (Tom) and I don't believe that it's possible to irrevocably eliminate the OPEN POSSIBILITY of reciprocal love with God because God as Creator is the ground of all being via the "logoi" of Christ the Logos. In short, it's IMPOSSIBLE to TOTALLY ignore God...to absolutely and irrevocably destroy the possibility of receiving God's love. In SATPOE, Greg tries to argue that it is GENUINELY POSSIBLE to perceive oneself as a self OUTSIDE of God such that, at the end, there is no "shared reality" between the damned sinner and anyone else including God. Literally, these beings would be "objects of nothingness" that are just wills to negation against the reality of God. Thus, they are effectively "annihilated." We will argue that's IMPOSSIBLE because God is the absolute ground of the deepest uniqueness and particularities of all created selves...ala the logoi. One cannot truly know oneself as a self WITHOUT God. This is an unavoidable truth. Even Kiekegaard says that Satan (the highest form of despairing defiance) only DEFIES and REBELS AGAINST God as his Ground...not that Satan becomes some ultimate solipsist who can no longer experience God.
And I KNOW that Greg respects SK! 
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/23/2010 4:25:01 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 4/23/2010 4:20 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
UR is the only way for Greg to hold on to TWT5. Hahahaha!
That's exactly right. So when you put that together with...
1) Revelation 21-22 (by way of Isaiah 60)
2) the Logos/logos concepts
3) the Essence/Energies concepts
4) the full implications of Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor...
It's about a wrap, buddy.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/23/2010 8:53:08 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/23/2010 4:27 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/23/2010 4:34 PM (GMT -6) | | | Basically, Tom, we are going to say "Greg, there is no "contentless eternal existence" (ala page 345) for any human being who experiences "hell." A person cannot truly be "self-centered" without being "God-centered" because God is the ABSOLUTE CENTER AND GROUND OF THE SELF! Thus, God is always part of the "content" of any created being genuine self-reflection.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
and...
Now the Lordis the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/23/2010 4:39:26 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/23/2010 5:13 PM (GMT -6) | | |
G. of Nyssa's "epektasis" is all over this...
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/23/2010 5:24:12 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/23/2010 6:12 PM (GMT -6) | | This is exactly what Greg is talking about in the sermon above...
"...any effort of the distorted self by itself to comprehend the nature of Jesus as the self-revelation of God will merely produce a vision reflecting the distortions immanent in the beholding self and not presenting Jesus as the self-expression of God. Such distortion in the self is despair; moreover, such distortion of humanity before God is sin, and the consequent distortion of God is a formula for the demonic.
James Loder
The Knight's Move
Page 296
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Trying to look at Jesus with the "eye of the soul" without the "corrective lenses" of the Holy Spirit will always end up with distorted vision of God and humanity.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/23/2010 6:16:57 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/23/2010 6:50 PM (GMT -6) | | Thought:
Isn't the Triune God universally reconciling all humans to Godself...the MOST "scandalous" love of all?
I'd sure say so.
And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/23/2010 7:12:34 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 4/23/2010 8:14 PM (GMT -6) | | Greg's Note. Satan and the Problem of Evil. Page 354. Note 29.
In this light, we can describe the state of being of these "remains" as being self-conscious only by analogically stretching the term, for they cannot be conscious in the same sense that humans are conscious now. Our present experience of self-consciousness is intrinsically bound up with our connection to a shared medium. We experience ourselves as a relatively autonomous and continuous center of consciousness only because we experience ourselves in relation to people and a world outside of ourselves. It is, in short, our openess to what is other than ourselves that gives us our sense of self. In the view of hell I am proposing, however, all of this is lacking. The self in hell is utterly enclosed in its own unreality. There is no real relationship to anything outside itself.
Bottom line: I think Greg's inaccurate here. If the Divine Center and Ground of the self is the ground of EVERYTHING ELSE in Creation, then to be rightly relating oneself TO oneself as a "self" would HAVE to involve the Divine Center. Consider it a "narcissistic inversion". A person can be a self-centered and self-oriented as they want to...but once they realize that the very Center and Ground of that self upon which they are trying to be centered is in EVERY OTHER human being as THEIR Center and Ground, indeed in all Creation...then they necessarily deal with "Another." In relating to one's own Ground/Center, one is ALREADY in real relationship to something "OUTSIDE" itself: God and His Uncreated Energy.
The Holy Spirit of God is the "shared medium" of all reality, both divine and non-divine...and that "medium" cannot be removed from any created center of consciousness.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 4/23/2010 8:30:12 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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