Page 43..."Burning Love" from the "Scandalous Love" series...

Introduction: Sadly, many think that God is behind every tragedy that happens to them. This can’t help but negatively affect their view of God. To maintain a Christ-like view of God, we need to understand that God is good all the time and that all evil in the world originates in human and angelic wills, not God’s will. Yet, God is passionately involved in our lives moment-by-moment, bringing good out of evil, healing our wounds, and sometimes using hardships to free us from sin and transform us into the likeness of Christ. We need to understand that God’s love is sometimes experienced as a fire that burns away everything that oppresses us and separates us from God’s love.

Scripture: Hebrews 12:28-29 – Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”

AAAAAAAhahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! 

Yo, Tom.  Come to Woodland that weekend (May 9th)...and let's you and me have a little convo with homie after the service?  You bring "Trinity And Process", I'll bring Payton's "Light from the Christian East", and we'll hit him up. It might be "nail in the coffin" time.  Whacha say?

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/1/2010 12:30:21 AM (GMT-5)

This is gonna get interesting!

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/1/2010 2:34:58 AM (GMT-5)

I think I'll bring a brochure when we talk. HA! 

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/1/2010 2:59:25 AM (GMT-5)

"At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It its so to speak his name written on us, as our poverty, as our indigence, and our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond , blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions or points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely…The gate of heaven is everywhere."
Thomas Merton

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/1/2010 3:16:23 AM (GMT-5)

Woodland Hills Church Mission Statement
To advance the Kingdom of God against the kingdom of darkness
By loving God,
By embodying God's love for each other,
And by proclaiming God's love to the world.

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/1/2010 3:48:16 AM (GMT-5)

D: We’re gonna love bomb the eternal suffering monster…

Tom: Is “love bomb” anything like this? Ahahahaaa!

Greg: We need to understand that God’s love is sometimes experienced as a fire that burns away everything that oppresses us and separates us from God’s love.

Tom: Well, just this much of what he says is right, you know. This IS the EO view of hell. Hell is a manifestation of the love of God that burns away all the lies. Greg just thinks it’s possible that either a) the fire can consume people completely because 100% of the content of their reality is self-incapsulated (if you go annihilation), or b) people so incapsulated are irrevocably beyond the pale of Godward movement, so they suffer forever (SATPOE’s ‘the nothingness’). But just saying that hell is God’s love burning away what’s no of him is good so far as it goes.

Can’t meet ya on the 9^th. I’m in DaVita till the 10^th.

Tom

Post Edited (Daniel M) : 5/1/2010 9:18:26 AM (GMT-5)

Some comments of Pseudo-Denys (late 5^th century):

Perfect goodness reaches out to all things and not simply to immediate good neighbors. It extends as far as the lowliest of things. In some beings it is present in full measure, to a lesser extent in others, and in the least measure in yet others. It is there in proportion to the capacity to receive it. Some share completely in the Good, others participate in it more or less, others have a slight portion only, and to others, again, the Good is a far-off echo. The Good is present in proportion to capacity…

Yet, the immeasurable greatness of his good power is shown by the fact that it gives power even to the very things lacking it, insofar as they participate in it. And, if we must speak the full truth, even the things that resist it owe their being and their capacity for resistance to its power…

To put the matter briefly. All beings, to the extent that they exist, are good and come from the Good and they fall short of goodness and being in proportion to their remoteness from the Good…

But with entities generally, if a quality is lost for them, or was never there in fact, it is still the case that these entities possess being and subsistence. However, that which is totally bereft of the Good never had, does not have, never shall have, never can have any kind of being at all…

Abolish the Good and you will abolish being, life, desire, movement, everything….

For that which totally lacks a share in the Good has neither being nor a place in existence, whereas that which has a composite nature owes to the Good whatever place it has among beings, and its place among them and the extent of its being are directly proportionate to the share it has of this Good. In other words, all things in being will have more or less of being according as they share more or less in the Good. For in regard to being, that which possesses no being in any respect will not exist at all, and that which possesses being in some respect, though not in some other, does not exist to the extent that it has fallen away from eternal being, but insofar as it has a share in that being, then to that extent it has existence and its whole being and nonbeing are protected and preserved.

The same applies to evil. What has fallen away totally from the Good can have no place among the things which are more or less good. Whatever is good in some respect and not in some other is in conflict with a particular good but not with the totality of the Good. It is protected by having within it some participation of the Good so that the Good gives substance to what lacks itself precisely for the eventual full share of itself. Remove the Good entirely and there will be nothing—good, or mixed with something else, or absolutely evil. For if evil is imperfect Goodness, the complete absence of the Good will do away with complete and incomplete goodness. Evil will only be and be seen by contrast with what it opposes, for it will be distinct from them, since they are good. The fact is that things of the same kind cannot wholly contradict each other in the same respect. And so it is that evil is not a being.

Nor does evil inhere in beings, for if all beings derive from the Good and if the Good is inherent in and embraces all beings, then evil has no place among the things that have being or else it is to be located in the Good. But it can no more have a place in the Good than cold may be found in fire.

Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names 4 716D – 721C

Post Edited (Tom) : 5/1/2010 3:23:23 PM (GMT-5)

Tom: But God remains an irreducible part of whatever we become. So sets the limits to what we can FINALLY become. This is so because as ‘created’ we cannot choose our way out of the conditions of our createdness, and (what we’re saying is that) part of the conditions of created being is having unfailing love as the ground of your existence.

Daniel: That’s why annihilationism makes perfect sense.
 

Tom:  

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Tom: Whatever we choose, then, has to be possible, and whatever is possible is grounded in God; so (I think) whatever is possible is made so by infinite love.

Daniel: I don’t see why Infinite love could not be the grounding of being for the choice of its enduring rejection. 1 Cor 13 seems to make this perfectly sensible. “love does not insist in its own way.”

Tom: I completely agree. At any given time a person is free to choose to respond TO God they’re free to choose to reject God as well. I’m not denying that; I’m insisting upon it. God IS the ground of being for creatures who choose to reject God so long as they’re choosing to reject God, and that’s POTENTIALLY forever. But what this grounding doesn’t require (what it precludes, I think) is the creature’s getting to a place where choosing God is no longer possible, where we’re not free to choose God. The same grounding in God that makes our rejecting God possible (as I agree with you) also makes our accepting God possible.

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Tom: The question then is: Is it coherent to say that infinite, unfailing love can be the very ground and source of being its own irrevocable denial (however the irrevocability be accomplished)? That is, can an irrevocable love sustain in being an irrevocable hopelessness? I don't think so.

Daniel: I don’t see how that follows. If love is something that does not insist on its own way then it can certainly be the grounding of being for irrevocable hopelessness. That’s what it means for the grounding of being to be love, that a genuine irrevocable hopelessness IS possible. However, I don’t think that irrevocable hopelessness has an enduring presence in being. It leads to the irrevocable nonbeing.

Tom: My view doesn’t entail that God ‘insists’ on his own way or insists that creatures accept and love him. Creatures are always free to say ‘no’. I just don’t see that this same love requires the beloved be capable of irrevocably self-annihilating. One may simply choose against God. That much is sufficient to fulfill the requirements of the choice’s being ‘free’ in the necessary sense as well as it remaining the case that God's not insisting that we accept and love him.

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Tom: This isn’t risked because God, being who and what God is, literally can’t be the ground of his own irrevocable rejection, since AS LOVE, God just is a constant and irrevocable invitation to being. To exist, to be—as created—is to be invited. And to be invited is to face the possibility of attending the party. Thus, there can never be an utterly or absolutely hopeless state of being.

Daniel: I think you are moving the goal posts slightly. I agree with everything in your statement, except your last sentence seems to shift the dimensions of the statement. To be created is to be invited into a loving relationship with God. But the word “invite” itself is only coherent within a world where denial or acceptance of the invitation are both genuine, enduring, possibilities.

Tom: You say “…within a world were denial or acceptance are both…enduring possibilities.” But as I see it, Daniel, you’re denying this since you argue that the “possibility of acceptance” is NOT an enduring possibility. You believe it can be foreclosed by irrevocable solidification into evil. Nor do you think the "possibility of rejection" is an enduring possibility, since you agree (as I do) that those who are glorified in Christ really do become irrevocably free not to sin, so future 'falls' are precluded. I guess we're disagreeing over the nature of creaturely freedom, specifically, how does being a human being whose existence and natural capacities are determined by God delimit the scope of possibilites for human becoming? I think you're motivated by a kind of law of contrast to insist that if God offers us irrevocable life and bliss, God must also offer us irrevocable death and torment.

But (A) given the asymmetry of being grounded in God as source of our life (and not visa versa), and the nature of God "as love," I'm not sure this principle of contrast (or whatever it is) holds in this case. If we're consistent with it, we'd have to concede metaphysical dualism--if absolute Goodness exists, so much absolute Evil exist (holding that the principle of contrast apply to concrete actualities). But we're not dualists in this sense. And then (B), assuming a kind of symmetry to the contrasting offers God makes, I should think annihilation wouldn't qualify as a proper contrast to irrevocable eternal bliss. I should think irrevocable eternal torment is the appropriate counter offer. Annihilation seems to me to be an escape from the very logic of contrast that motivates your argument for annihilation. How is absolute non-existence contrary to eternal life? The logical (and existential) contrary of irrevocable existential bliss is irrevocable existential torment, not non-existence. No?

Anyhow, I don’t see how annihilation or irrevocable solidification against God is possible if God’s act of sustaining me just is my invitation to be. That would seem to make existence per se an invariable invitation to become Godward. Created being is irreducibly open to God in some minimal measure (whatever that measure is, we don't know). It’s not God who positively annihilates the wicked then. So if any are annihilated, it must be the creature, exercising powers of nature endowed it by God, who annihilate themselves. But whence this power to self-annihilate, to use the very powers that constitute our invitation, to self-dispose out of being invited? The capacities of our nature, our possibilities for being and for evil, all togehter constitue an invitation to become Godward. (Just thinking out loud.)

From my perspective, Daniel, what you’re essentially saying is that in order for us to be free to say ‘no’ to God’s invitation (and I agree the wicked are free to continue to say no to God), we have to be free to prevent God’s even inviting us, i.e., we have to be free to say “God, you cannot invite me any more. Stop inviting me! Stop loving me!” and God has to submit to our wish and withdrawal his invitation or else he doesn’t really love us. But this means that my loving you entails the willingness to give up on you, to stop loving you, just in case you should want me not to love you. But why should love require that? I don’t see that this is what “does not insist on its own way” means.

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Daniel: I think “irrevocably solidifying toward God” is only coherent within a world where “irrevocably solidifying against God” is possible. If all being can ONLY solidify toward God, then we never become what we choose. Or rather, we can never choose against God, and so we can never solidify against God. If we can choose against God then I think it has to be possible to solidify against God, and dissolve into nonbeing.

Tom: Thus the asymmetry of divine and created being and the ‘grounding’ of the latter in the former ONLY (not the former in the latter). To posit ‘grounding’ is by definition to posit a certain asymmetry. This asymmetry delimits the nature, capacities, and possibilities for created being. It’s why one can eventually rest irrevocably in one's ground but not travel irrevocably away from one's ground, why we can put relational distance between us and God (i.e., suffer the existential consequences of rejecting God, fail to enjoy God, etc.), but cannot put ontological distance [I'm talking about grounding; I don't mean to say God and we aren't ontologically different] bewteen us and God as the ground of our being. However far we travel away from God we travel IN GOD. However desperately we solidify against God, our powers of solidification remain God's sustained invitation to us.

As you say, Daniel, there are probably deeper assumptions and intuitions about ‘being’ and ‘grounding’ that are behind our disagreements.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 5/1/2010 4:14:10 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Daniel M) : 5/2/2010 12:24:37 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Tom) : 5/2/2010 2:39:41 PM (GMT-5)