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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/3/2010 10:31 AM (GMT -6) |   | | Just free-wheelin' here...
1) The Spirit-empowered human can say this:
"I have unconditional "will to good" for the "neighbor
grounded in...
unconditional "will to good" for myself
grounded in...
my God-empowered unconditional "will to good" for God
because of...
God's unconditional "will to good" for each ( "me" ) and all (Creation)."
In other words, once someone really grasps the uncontainable "knowledge" of God's love for them (by the power of the Spirit), then that one is truly able to love God BACK by loving themselves as God loves them. This is healthy self-love. When Our Lover, God tells us "You shall love your neighbor as yourself", then we hear "Love your neighbor the way you love yourself, which is reflective of the way I love you." As we have learned to receive God's unconditional love, respect, forgiveness, and acceptance...so we reflect that understanding and reception that to our neighbors, wherever we find them. We are no longer "wicked servants."
Because God loves us...we love God totally and ourselves rightly...and because we love God totally and ourselves rightly...then we are freed to love others with God's love and compassion...the love and compassion that we directly experience on a moment-by-moment basis.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that 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.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us (OL's Note: GRACE; God HIMSELF working within us!!!!!), to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
2) Theocentricity is parmount in the releasing of mere humanity into it's theandric reality (seen in Christ). For example, why do we want to receive God's love and Spirit? Merely because it will give us everything we want? (Isn't that how Simon Magus tried to operate?) Or do we want it primarily because it will bring God beautiful experience for us to receive what God's BEEN TRYING to give us. It's another way of asking: do we want salvation primarily for OUR OWN sakes...or for GOD's sake. Both "sakes" are involved...but which is primary? It seems to me that Jesus did everything he did for the sake of his Beloved Father...to lovingly please and glorify His Father. My thought is this: When the person who loves God knows that it brings beautiful experience to God when we receive (and give) his Love via his Spirit, wouldn't that God-loving person WANT to do what makes their Eternal Beloved has said experience? Wouldn't a husband that knows what brings his wife beautiful experience simply WANT to do that beceause he loved her...and WANTED her to have beautiful experience? I would think so. Why not the same logic for our Eternal Spouse, Christ. We receive God's love NOT for ourselves (even though we obviously do get something out of the deal), but because it pleases God and obeys Christ to give it and see us enjoy His love. God WANTS us to "abide" in His love. God WANTS us to give us his Spirit. When we want what God wants because we lovingly want to delight God--when theocentricity is the stance of humanity--then humanity is more fully THEANDRIC.
Short version: It brings beautiful experience to God when we receive his Love via his Spirit. And we live in theocentricity-unto-theandrism when we receive God's love NOT for ourselves, but because it pleases, honors, and glorifies God to give it to us and see us "perceive and enjoy His love forever."
*"You're here, there's nothing I fear
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart
And my heart will go on and on."
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/3/2010 10:47:02 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 10/3/2010 1:44 PM (GMT -6) | | The overall thrust is moving in the right direction. Let's ask some defining questions to see where we get...
Dwayne: 1) The Spirit-empowered human can say this: "I have unconditional "will to good" for the "neighbor"
A Spirit-empowered human. I know you always wanna get this in...and I basically have no problem with it, but I do always wonder if we're talking about the same thing...so let me ask:
Are there two types of humans: the Spirit-empowered and the not-Spirit-empowered?
And if so, the set of not-Spirit-empowered people...are they not-Spirit-empowered due to some choice or action of their own...or due to lack of Grace (which I assume you don't mean)...or is there some other reason, say bad circumstances,etc?
If they are not-Spirit-empowered due to some perspective or action of their own...does Spirit-empowerment just await that person getting the right perspective, etc? Is Spirit-empowerment THERE for the taking, and they just aren't taking? Or is it more complex, and how so?
Dwayne: "I have unconditional "will to good" for the "neighbor"
Can this statement ONLY be said (and meant) by someone who is Spirit-empowered?
Or is being able to say this indicative of someone who has taken on the right perspective and hence "tapped" into the ever-present Spirit-empowerment that was there to be had at all times?
For example...based on other things you have posted, I assume you would agree that people the world over...Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan, etc...are able to meaningfully say..."I have unconditional "will to good" for the "neighbor"...and if so, am I then to understand it that they are in fact Spirit-empowered?
Well, my timing on starting this wasn't the best...I have to go Dwayne...I'll try to return to this post later today, because there are lots of questions I have.
I don't think we are far off though  | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 10/3/2010 2:30 PM (GMT -6) | | And...
Isn't it wonderful and glorious that God, whom we have privilege to know, is the epitome of selflessness! He desires our attention not for self-centered reasons, but that we might come to fully know how selfless He is! His commandments that we love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, and that we have no other god before Him, and that we give ourselves fully over to Him—even so far as to "die" to our selves—is often seen as self-centered, in the eyes of those who do not know Him. For how can it be that one can experience freedom within such constraints?
In this world, we are human beings who stand upside down, thinking that everything is right side up. Until a person is enlightened by the Spirit of God, it is an unrealized truth that one must must die to live, must become weak to become strong, must become least to become the greatest, and must see God as Lord and Master in order to become free in one's expression of love. But do not unenlightened souls already love others?
The person who has yet to come to know God may indeed love his neighbor, but his love is framed in a different context than the love of God, even though that person's love stems from the same creative content as the one who knows God. For the unenlightened person has yet to learn that only in God Himself is found the ever ascending joy from from the knowledge that it is not about just loving—for anyone, as we can plainly see, can love—but it is the context of loving that is supreme. For as noble as it may be for the unenlightened to love one's neighbor, even at the cost of one's life, it is still a love that is without root, nourishment and growth in the God who Himself is love. It is a love that starts first from the outward looking inward instead of first from inward looking outward.
When Jesus told us "By your love will all men know that you are my disciples," He could not possibly have meant that the disciples did not already love others, or that they would now love others with some sort of new and different love. What Jesus was saying was that the context in which they would love others, regardless of how intense, or lack thereof, their love would be, it would now be grounded in God and not self.
When disciples of Jesus love others, they proclaims to the world that it is more than just love they offer; they are offering a connection to the One who is the epitome of love. They offer more than "I love you"; instead, they are saying, "I love you because you are made in His image and can come to know what that means by coming to know the Him, the source of all love." One disciple may not express this with quite the intensity that another disciple might, but the truth of what love is, where it comes from and what it really means is still properly contextualized, which is really the issue.
But isn't one still loving from a self-appointed context when one loves others as one loves one's self? Isn't that still self-centeredness driving the love?
God eternally exhibits pure and true love. He does this because it is who He is; for love is grounded in the nature of God Himself. So for Him to love others is to say that He loves from whom He is, from what He is...that is, from Himself. This is the only context in which, and from which, God loves others. Thus, God does not love from the outward looking inward, but from the inward looking outward; His love starts by first seeing Himself! His expression of love starts from His own being, which is to say, that as God loves others He is essentially saying, "Of and from Myself, where true and pure love is found, I love you." This is, then, God loving others as He loves Himself.
In this context, we can clearly see that when Jesus commands us to love others as we love our selves, and that by doing so all men will know that we are His disciples, He is telling us that insofar as we as disciples are now directly connected to the love of God, which streams forth from a pure context—grounded in God Himself—we, too, are to love others by starting from the same context God loves: looking from the inward to the outward. By inward first, we are really looking at the love of God shed in our hearts and then saying something about that love when we love others from within context. This is what it means to love others as we love "our selves.
The unenlightened person loves as well, as we have seen, but his context is from the outward looking inward; that is, he sees his own value and says, "I will love others as I value myself." This may seem as a selfless act, and it may seem that this person is loving from the inward to the outward, but it isn't. Yes, the soul of that person resides "inside," but the context of this love has started from valuation; from having seen the inward by having looked first from the outward. Though this love may be called noble, it can never say something about the God who is Himself love. It simply does not start with that as its context.
In our upside down world, we are quick to define love from the perspective of those who are standing on their heads; we see our selves and say, "I want to treat others as I would want to be treated," not realizing that this is, in fact, upside down. However, when we start with God's love as that which is of God Himself, we then stand right side up in our definition of love: From His love inside me, and my recognition of that love expressed as value one made in His image, I will now relate love to others in this context. We have then learned that loving others as we love ourselves is as selfless as it can get.
So, why, then, if love is something so pure and wonderful, does Jesus give us a commandment to love? Isn't love to be without commandment if it is to be selfless?
It is because of the very fact that human beings, even those redeemed, still live in the context (the world) in which love can come from both God (from the inward looking outward) and self (from the outward looking inward). How many times a day do we love in the context of self and not God? All the time! As those who are yet perfected in love—that is, to not yet have been completely consumed in God's love—we are in a constant battle to love in the Spirit just as we are reminded that we need to always pray in the Spirit. Such love is loving from the starting point of God. The other love is from the starting point of self (loving "respectfully," we might call it). It isn't that love from self is evil, it's just not able to say something about the love of God. Equally true is that there is praying "in" the Spirit (His mind being the content of our prayer), and there is praying "out" of the Spirit (our mind being the content of our prayer). And like our love from self, our prayer "out" of the Spirit is not evil; it just cannot breach the gap between God and man that only the prayer "in" the Spirit can do.
This is the conflict in which we reside: the Spirit against the flesh (and by "flesh" I mean something far more than the corporal body, as I hope is obvious). This is what Galatians 5 is really all about: two environments competing for our hearts, minds, souls and strengths.
To sum up here, God is love, and therefore love starts from within Him and moves outwardly. He asks that we connect with this context and move within the same frame work: love others as we love ourselves; that is, start from within, where God resides in you, and express love to others within this context. This is the true meaning of loving others as we love our selves.
Starkman | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/3/2010 3:09 PM (GMT -6) | | Asher:
Are there two types of humans: the Spirit-empowered and the not-Spirit-empowered?
Everyone is Spirit-empowered to some degree, obviously. When I say "Spirit-empowered", I more specifically mean what Kallistos Ware was talking about in "The Orthodox Way"..like so...
However careless and indifferent the baptized my be in their subsequent life, this indwelling presence of the Spirit is never totally withdrawn. But unless we cooperate with God's Grace---unless, through the exercise of our free will, we struggle to perform the commandments---it is likely that the Spirit's presence within us will remain hidden and unconscious. As pilgrims on the Way, then, it is our purpose to advance from the stage where the grace of the Spirit is present and active in us in a hidden way, to the point of conscious awareness, when we know the Spirit's power openly, directly, with the full perception of our heart.
Basically, Spirit-empowered people are the human beings that are not ignorant that the Creator Spirit lives within them, sustaining, empowering, and loving them. From this perspective, they consciously give more of themselves over to that divine Love, Life, and Power, such that they genuinely believe that they are living God's very Love, Life, and Power in human existence. They KNOW this because they have done the grace-filled work of the "struggle" of faith.
***************************************
Asher:
And if so, the set of not-Spirit-empowered people...are they not-Spirit-empowered due to some choice or action of their own...or due to lack of Grace (which I assume you don't mean)...or is there some other reason, say bad circumstances,etc?
Grace is appropriated by faith...even though Grace is previenient to faith and is the source of the "giftedness" of faith. So yes, there is a relationship between human choice and conscious awareness of and participation in God's very life.
*****************************************
Asher:
If they are not-Spirit-empowered due to some perspective or action of their own...does Spirit-empowerment just await that person getting the right perspective, etc? Is Spirit-empowerment THERE for the taking, and they just aren't taking? Or is it more complex, and how so?
Let's ask ourselves the question biblically: Does God want to give human beings the Holy Spirit? Well, that question seems answered very frankly from Old Testament Prophets and Jesus himself in the Gospels. The answer is affirmative.
Next, let's look at this another way. James...and what he says about Wisdom from God. It is simply the case that only by the Spirit of God can God's Wisdom be bestowed upon the human being...because only the Spirit of God knows the thoughts of God. (1 Cor 2:11) Here's what James says in James 1...
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
James makes it clear that God WANTS to GENEROUSLY give His Wisdom to us. The condition of reception of his Wisdom is our faith in God as the giver. God's wisdom is there for the taking...but it MUST be "taken." But then again in James 4...
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
What are the points made here? If you dont have from God, it's because either 1) you don't ask and 2) when you do ask, you ask wrongly. Either one of these options is specifically based upon the perspective and subsequent action of the recipient.
Taking all this thematically, it seems that we can say that God DOES want to bless people with His Presence and all that entails...but either people DON'T ASK for the Spirit...of if they do, they don't ask for it IN FAITH in HUMILITY before God.
Make sense?
*********************************************
Dwayne: "I have unconditional "will to good" for the "neighbor"
Can this statement ONLY be said (and meant) by someone who is Spirit-empowered?
Or is being able to say this indicative of someone who has taken on the right perspective and hence "tapped" into the ever-present Spirit-empowerment that was there to be had at all times?
For example...based on other things you have posted, I assume you would agree that people the world over...Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan, etc...are able to meaningfully say..."I have unconditional "will to good" for the "neighbor"...and if so, am I then to understand it that they are in fact Spirit-empowered?
I think that any Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Mahayana Buddhist mystic would say that the only way a human can have an unconditional "will to good" is by the power of the All-Compassionate divine spiritual reality that grounds Creation. For example...
Christ-Consciousness
So, once again I say that to empty oneself is to empty oneself of the materialised accretions that have apparently grown over the universality of the Spirit. And then, you are filled with a flood of the oceanic abundance of God-consciousness. When you rise to the level of God, you are filled with an ocean, as it were, inundating you from all sides with a nectarine taste, beauty, grandeur and magnificence. When God comes, He does not come like a man coming from one direction. He comes from all directions, because He is everywhere. He does not come only from the East or the, West. He is not a human being. He is the universal Spirit that enters your personality. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa used to say that God entering man is like a mad elephant entering a thatched hut. Another mystic said that it is like an ocean entering a drop or flooding the rivers. All these are only images to give an idea as to what the supreme magnificence of Spirit is. They all think alike, because they stand on the same pedestal of realisation. The more we succeed in thinking along these lines, the more are we spiritual, the more are we Yogins. Yoga is not becoming something in the social sense. It is not also doing something with your hands and feet. It is a transformation of your inner stuff of thinking and feeling, willing and understanding in a completeness that surpasses your present physical personality. That is where the Christ is born. We say that Christ and Krishna were born at midnight. They are never born when the sun is bright, which means to say, when it is day light to the senses. "Ya nisa sarvabhutanam tasyam jagarti samyami, yasyam jagrati bhutani sa nisa pasyato muneh"—says the Bhagavad Gita. What you see, the sages do not see; and what the sages see, you cannot see. What is day to you, is night to them; and what is day to them, is night to you. For you, God-consciousness is like darkness, a night of ignorance, and God does not exist at all. Therefore, many people go to the extent of even denying God. They cannot see Him. Whereas the sages see only God and nothing else. (OL's note: Think panentheism ala antinomial monodualism which retains the uncreated/created distinctions...Meaning "Liken this to human beings who, having purified nouses, see all things in, through, and by the Spirit, meaning contemplation of the "logoi" in love relationship with the One Logos of God, even unto seeing the uncreated light of God)They do not see the world as the world. A person who has been cured of his cataract in the eyes does not see two moons. He does not say: 'There were two moons and now one moon is lost.' There were no two moons, and there was only one moon. This is the truth. Likewise when the spiritual medicine is administered to the sick soul of the human being, it assumes the spiritual health which enables one to think in a new reoriented manner altogether, and man becomes a superman. A man who thinks in this way is a superman. He is not an ordinary man. He cannot be called a man at all. A superman is a temple enshrining the superhuman Spirit. When God thinks through man, we call him a superman. Such was Christ, Buddha and Krishna. But all the great wonderful masters of mankind were thoroughly misunderstood; their teachings were never understood, but misrepresented, misapplied and abused to the doom of man, towards which we seem to be heading today, unfortunately.
But God is great, and everything shall be well in the realm of God whose Omniscient eyes see everything. The recognition of the Spirit is, therefore, the recognition of God's omnipresent existence. And to be filled with God, is the same as to be filled with the Spirit. For that, we have to empty ourselves of all the externalised prejudice of objective thinking. We should not hang on objects, for our sustenance. Man does not live on bread alone, which means to say you do not live merely by the quantitative stuff of the world. You have something in you which is more than quantitative, which is superior to even the entire quantity of the cosmos. The Spirit is larger than the universe itself. The universe is after all a quantity. And Spirit is larger than that. 'Atyatishtad-dasan-gulam—the Spirit is above the universe,' says the Purusha Sukta.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/3/2010 3:25:49 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/3/2010 3:29 PM (GMT -6) | |
DetachmentPosted April 02, 2009 
Matthew examines the necessity of loving Christ above all.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/3/2010 3:58 PM (GMT -6) | | Starkman:
When disciples of Jesus love others, they proclaims to the world that it is more than just love they offer; they are offering a connection to the One who is the epitome of love. They offer more than "I love you"; instead, they are saying, "I love you because you are made in His image and can come to know what that means by coming to know the Him, the source of all love." One disciple may not express this with quite the intensity that another disciple might, but the truth of what love is, where it comes from and what it really means is still properly contextualized, which is really the issue.
"Worldly wisdom thinks that love is a relationship between man and man. Christianity teachers that love is a relationship between: man-God-man, that is, that God is the middle term. However beautiful the love-relationship has been between two or more people, however complete all their enjoyment and all their bliss in mutual devotion and affection have been for them, even if all men have praised their relationship—if God and the relationship to God have been left out, then, Christianly understood, this has not been love but a mutual and enchanting illusion of love. For to love God is to love oneself in truth; to help another human being to love God is to love another man; to be helped by another human being to love God is to be loved."
Soren Kierkegaard
"Works of Love"
Page 112.
************************************
Starkman:
God eternally exhibits pure and true love. He does this because it is who He is; for love is grounded in the nature of God Himself. So for Him to love others is to say that He loves from whom He is, from what He is...that is, from Himself. This is the only context in which, and from which, God loves others. Thus, God does not love from the outward looking inward, but from the inward looking outward; His love starts by first seeing Himself! His expression of love starts from His own being, which is to say, that as God loves others He is essentially saying, "Of and from Myself, where true and pure love is found, I love you." This is, then, God loving others as He loves Himself.
In this context, we can clearly see that when Jesus commands us to love others as we love our selves, and that by doing so all men will know that we are His disciples, He is telling us that insofar as we as disciples are now directly connected to the love of God, which streams forth from a pure context—grounded in God Himself—we, too, are to love others by starting from the same context God loves: looking from the inward to the outward. By inward first, we are really looking at the love of God shed in our hearts and then saying something about that love when we love others from within context. This is what it means to love others as we love "our selves.
Yep. 
*********************************** Starkman: The unenlightened person loves as well, as we have seen, but his context is from the outward looking inward; that is, he sees his own value and says, "I will love others as I value myself." This may seem as a selfless act, and it may seem that this person is loving from the inward to the outward, but it isn't. Yes, the soul of that person resides "inside," but the context of this love has started from valuation; from having seen the inward by having looked first from the outward. Though this love may be called noble, it can never say something about the God who is Himself love. It simply does not start with that as its context.
In our upside down world, we are quick to define love from the perspective of those who are standing on their heads; we see our selves and say, "I want to treat others as I would want to be treated," not realizing that this is, in fact, upside down. However, when we start with God's love as that which is of God Himself, we then stand right side up in our definition of love: From His love inside me, and my recognition of that love expressed as value one made in His image, I will now relate love to others in this context. We have then learned that loving others as we love ourselves is as selfless as it can get.As I see it, if one sees themselves as being made in the image of the Source of all love who indwells them...and values themselves wholly on that self-perception...then the idea of "loving others as I value myself" isn't that bad off. But that's just it. One cannot fully see themselves this way without the revelation and wisdom of the Spirit of God. ************************************** Starkman: To sum up here, God is love, and therefore love starts from within Him and moves outwardly. He asks that we connect with this context and move within the same frame work: love others as we love ourselves; that is, start from within, where God resides in you, and express love to others within this context. This is the true meaning of loving others as we love our selves.I dig it. LIVE and LOVE as a temple of the Holy Spirit...which we are. 
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 10/4/2010 3:26 AM (GMT -6) | | Maybe I shouldn't write at all, I don't know. I hate being the curmudgeon all the time...
My main problem is that much of "Christian speak" about these and many other issues is at best a confusion of common usage of words and can seem to me to border on the downright dishonest use of language. When I question and you guys respond with fuller elaboration then most of the time I don't have a problem with and actually agree with what you are saying, which is probably the case in this thread.
However, what I think often happens, is that the "vagueing" up of language so that it doesn't mean the most straightforward meaning of the words...leads to a situation in which a number of possible options could be meant by what is being said...so that when other "Christians" hear the statements they say "I agree with you" and everyone goes along in "communion" when I don't think there is actually any communion at all. I think the vagueness allows broad agreement, like a political party platform, so that a diverse amount of thinking on the subjects can be seen as actually agreeing.
And here's some other problematic statements for me:
Dwayne: 1) The Spirit-empowered human can say this:
"I have unconditional "will to good" for the "neighbor
grounded in...
unconditional "will to good" for myself
grounded in...
my God-empowered unconditional "will to good" for God
I can have benevolence toward the neighbor...grounded in...benevolence toward myself...grounded in...benevolence toward God? This seems a confusion to me. Who is God, if not the ultimate neighbor? Which makes this circular.
This is an example of separation when no separation is warranted. I-Thou...is fundamental. They cannot be separated...there is no I without a Thou, and no Thou without an I. Whenever I speak, I say the "I" in I-Thou first...not because I am giving the "I' preference over the "Thou", but because the I is my subjective perspective...AND IT CANNOT BE ANY DIFFERENT THAN THAT...it is the only way that I can proceed METHODOLOGICALLY. The I and the Thou are entangled, so that it is impossible to give one or the other complete ONTOLOGICAL primacy without damaging the entanglement. With reference to God there is of course the "primacy" of God as a necessary being...and hence also having a temporal "before" in relation to me...and me being a contingent being, and thus beginning "after" God...also of God as being the ground of my existence (I am dependent upon Him for existence, but not vice-versa) but that is the ONLY ways in which God as part of the entangled I-Thou with me has ontological primacy. Does He know more than me...yes. Is His moral development superior to mine (leaving aside the inconsistency of referring to His moral state as in any way having developed)...yes. Should I seek His counsel and wisdom...yes.
I have primacy over my son in that I existed before he did. And although he now does not have dependency upon me for his continued existence, I did and always will have primacy over his existence in that the initiation of his existence was my act. I know more than my son. I have a fuller moral development than my son. He should seek my counsel and wisdom. I have no need to exert primacy in ANY OF THE WAYS in which we engage. We are entangled. I do not engage my son in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER with what could be called "selflessness" My self is fully engaged. To actually act selflessly towards my son DESTROYS the I-Thou entanglement, by stressing only the Thou, and eradicating the I. Our interests do not conflict. I don't think there can actually be conflictual interests when this is understood aright. But when there are "conflictual interests" between two people...one or both are probably making some kind of logical mistake, or at least acting from a place of evil (using Tom's new definition of evil in the thread "Defining Evil" when such a situation arises it is not "correct" for someone who is trying to act "Christianly" to engage the situation "selflessly" The self should be fully engaged. Overcome evil with good...not by giving in to evil and letting it have it's way...but by standing in the position of superiority over evil, by letting the good permeate and shine forth from your self.
Much confusion comes from the fact that in any situation of "conflicts of interest" between people...both people are acting from their self...as we have said, methodologically this is the ONLY way possible for EVERYONE. But one or both parties are acting from a place of evil (I'm really diggin' your new definition Tom ) It's the evil that must be made less of, not the self. To make less of the self ACTUALLY makes MORE of the evil. Both the one acting from good (guarding himself that he doesn't fall into an evil while assisting someone in need) and the one acting from evil...have need of their self being enhanced, not diminished.
Job 40:7 Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
God is not acting "selfless" here towards Job. God is demanding of Job. God is standing firm, he cannot give in to Job's argumentation against Him. At the same time God is saying to Job...be fortified in your self, so that you can overcome the evil that is at play in your argumentation. Only Job's self can overcome the evil. God can assist. God can lay out proper argumentation. God can encourage. He can say "gird up your loins" as an expression of solidarity and benevolence towards Job. But Job has to be the self that "girds" and the self that "declares" against evil.
Starkman: "God, whom we have privilege to know, is the epitome of selflessness. He desires our attention not for self-centered reasons, but that we might come to fully know how selfless He is!"
God is the most "selfed" person there is, not the most selfless. Any time there is a case of "self-centered reasons" that conflict with someone else's "self-centered reasons", one or both parties are acting from evil. Since this is IMPOSSIBLE on God's part, since He has no "unfulfilled potential" (Thanks Tom!) then God's "self-centered reasons" are what is right and good and whatever is in conflict is evil. God wants our attentions TOTALLY for self-centered reasons...and to act otherwise would be for Him to allow evil into the mix...and to destroy the I-Thou entanglement.
Now, do we mean anywhere close to the same thing? Or do I have such a radically different take, that I should surrender the use of the term "Christian"? This is what I meant by my questioning in the other thread Dwayne. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/4/2010 6:12 AM (GMT -6) | | Asher: I can have benevolence toward the neighbor...grounded in...benevolence toward myself...grounded in...benevolence toward God? This seems a confusion to me.
Tom: I think all D means is that if you don't love (and respect and value) yourself you can't love (respect and value) others. So proper/healthy SELF-estimate is required to have proper OTHER-estimate. The question THEN becomes, how to I proper love/respect/value myself? And the answer is God. Our perception of our self is grounded in God (in God's perception of us, which is infinitely loving and unconditional). If that's true, THEN we can love others "as we have been loved" (St. Paul).
So, when D says: 1) The Spirit-empowered human can say "I have unconditional 'will to good' for the "neighbor" grounded in unconditional "will to good" for myself grounded in my God-empowered unconditional "will to good" for God
...I think he means:
I'm able to love others because I'm able to love myself, and I'm able to love myself because God unconditinally loves me.
True, D says it all is "...grounded in my will to good for God." But I wouldn't say it that way (even with the qualifying "my God-empowered will-to-good...." I don't think our love for self and others is grounded in our love for God however conceived. I think it's grounded in God's love for us. We love because he first loved us, not because we love God. I mean, if we're connecting the dots and talking about how one act of love grounds or makes possible another, then we ought to end up grounded in God's love for us.
Tom
KIXYTΘEMTAPost Edited (Tom) : 10/4/2010 6:58:17 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/4/2010 7:20 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Asher: I do not engage my son in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER with what could be called "selflessness" My self is fully engaged. To actually act selflessly towards my son DESTROYS the I-Thou entanglement, by stressing only the Thou, and eradicating the I.
Tom: Didn’t we go over this? You’re of course right, Asher, in a very strict literally sense. “Self-less” means “without a self.” And nothing that is not a “self” can love. So to love is to act “self-fully” not “self-lessly.” But people don’t always use words with such philosophically rigorous and literal meanings. Words develop meanings over time according to usage. The question is what do PEOPLE MEAN when they say, “Oh, she acts so selflessly.” They mean she’s secure enough a self that she doesn’t objectify people (i.e., treat them as less than selves) in order to secure her own needs and desires. I suggest we let “selfless” mean what common folk mean and not something so philosophically literal.
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Starkman: "God, whom we have privilege to know, is the epitome of selflessness. He desires our attention not for self-centered reasons, but that we might come to fully know how selfless He is!"
Asher: God is the most "selfed" person there is, not the most selfless…
Tom: But you and Starkman are using “selfless” differently Asher. He’s using it the way everybody out there uses it. You’re giving the word a more thought-out, literal, philosophically rigorous definition, taking “-less” to mean the absence or non-existence of what precedes (i.e., “self-”). Of course, considered THAT way, God is not self-less. But Starkman just means God doesn’t de-personalize people by objectifying them in order to satisfy his own needs and wants.
Asher: God wants our attentions TOTALLY for self-centered reasons...
Tom: Understood rightly, yes. But self-centered reasons don’t destroy concern or joy for the other which in a genuine sense ends IN the other. In other words, it can be an EXPRESSION of the truly secure self to enjoy other selves in their own right for their own sake. This expression serves the grounding self, true. This self is "enjoying" others and that means this self "gets" something "from" the others. BUT it doesn’t objectify others in doing so. Other are truly recognized as selves and enjoyed as such. This is why I think a contingent creation is so crucial (against process folk), for without a free and unnecessary creation, there's not graciousness (gratuitous) overflow of Godself toward us. All is necessary and grace disappears. But as it is, a gratuitous creation can BOTH end in God’s enjoyment OF us as free selves who are enjoying God. This “letting go” IS the enjoyment God seeks. Or to make it worse (hehe), God enjoys us enjoying him. (David Hart deals with this when he talks about the concept of divine "gift" contra Derrida).
Asher: Now, do we mean anywhere close to the same thing? Or do I have such a radically different take, that I should surrender the use of the term "Christian”?
Tom: Do you believe in the Triune God, and the incarnate Son who died to make us true loving ‘selves’ in relation to God? If so, keep using the term Christian. If not, drop it. I personally don’t see anything problematic in what you’re saying. But I do think you’re insisting on a strict, literal meaning to “selfless” that is more likely to confuse people than help them. Forget wooden literalness. Just ask how people are using the term, what they actual mean by it. I think you’ll find that “selfless” is meant to express something positive and good and FULLY personal, not something void of personal being (which is what your literal self-LESS-ness would mean). But if we want to talk literal meaning, I think you're right...and pretty Christian to me.
Tom
KIXYTΘEMTAPost Edited (Tom) : 10/5/2010 6:27:21 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/4/2010 9:37 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I think all D means is that if you don't love (and respect and value) yourself you can't love (respect and value) others. So proper/healthy SELF-estimate is required to have proper OTHER-estimate. The question THEN becomes, how to I proper love/respect/value myself? And the answer is God. Our perception of our self is grounded in God (in God's perception of us, which is infinitely loving and unconditional). If that's true, THEN we can love others "as we have been loved" (St. Paul).
So, when D says: 1) The Spirit-empowered human can say "I have unconditional 'will to good' for the "neighbor" grounded in unconditional "will to good" for myself grounded in my God-empowered unconditional "will to good" for God
...I think he means:
I'm able to love others because I'm able to love myself, and I'm able to love myself because God unconditinally loves me.
Yup.
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Tom:
True, D says it all is "...grounded in my will to good for God." But I wouldn't say it that way (even with the qualifying "my God-empowered will-to-good...." I don't think our love for self and others is grounded in our love for God however conceived. I think it's grounded in God's love for us. We love because he first loved us, not because we love God. I mean, if we're connecting the dots and talking about how one act of love grounds or makes possible another, then we ought to end up grounded in God's love for us.
This was the WHOLE series of thought...
"I have unconditional "will to good" for the "neighbor
grounded in...
unconditional "will to good" for myself
grounded in...
my God-empowered unconditional "will to good" for God
because of...
God's unconditional "will to good" for each ( "me" ) and all (Creation)."
In other words, because of God's love for all Creation, including "me" , I am empowered to love God. In my love for God, I agree with God's perspective about me, namely that I am unconditionally loved and unconditionally lovaBLE. This means that I begin loving myself unconditionally. And because I love myself unconditionally, I can be free to love my neighbor as myself, loving THEM unconditionally.
Everything DOES end up grounded in God's love for us, in my view. See that?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
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| Posted 10/5/2010 6:28 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom: Didn’t we go over this? You’re of course right, Asher, in a very strict literally sense. “Self-less” means “without a self.” And nothing that is not a “self” can love. So to love is to act “self-fully” not “self-lessly.” But people don’t always use words with such philosophically rigorous and literal meanings. Words develop meanings over time according to usage. The question is what do PEOPLE MEAN when they say, “Oh, she acts so selflessly.” They mean she’s secure enough a self that she doesn’t objectify people (i.e., treat them as less than selves) in order to secure her own needs and desires. I suggest we let “selfless” mean what common folk mean and not something so philosophically literal.
Tom: But you and Starkman are using “selfless” differently Asher. He’s using it the way everybody out there uses it. You’re giving the word a more thought-out, literal, philosophically rigorous definition, taking “-less” to mean the absence or non-existence of what precedes (i.e., “self-”). Of course, considered THAT way, God is not self-less. But Starkman just means God doesn’t de-personalize people by objectifying them in order to satisfy his own needs and wants.
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This is all very obtuse.
Selfless
Selfed...a word I had to "make up" because there is nothing that means that...selfish, which is generally seen as the opposite of selfless, does not work here, so I am gonna use the word "selfed"
Selfless...we will use to notate what you, Dwayne, and Starkman are describing
Selfed...we will use to describe what I am saying
I have already plainly said that more than likely we are talking about the same state. The problem I am pointing to is that the truth is actually no where near what you, Tom, are saying it is. The "common folk" if presented with just Dwayne's, Starkman's, and your own posts...and then presented with just my posts...would have no clear idea that we are talking about the same state. The "common folk" are not Christian intelligentsia...you know that we are talking about the same thing because you have quite a large body of knowledge that informs you when you say the word "selfless"
For the "common folk" (and I'm talking about both Christian "common folk" and the general "common folk" of American society) the word selfless...has MULTIPLE possible meanings.
The "common folk" have read very little of the Bible, and have no clear idea of any comprehensive consistency to it's message...only taking the Christian intelligentsia at their word that it does, and to the nature of that message. They have not read Watchman Nee or any Keswick writers. They may have read some kind of Christian devotional material, but that's about it.
They have a vagueish idea of the "Christianized" meaning of the word selfless.
They also have a vagueish idea of what scientific materialism means when it tells them they are selfless...a highly developed animal, with no self, but with the composite of their experiences making up a false idea of them having a self...so that the truth, according to materialism is that they are REALLY selfless.
They also have a vagueish idea of what psychological post-modern thought adds as a layer onto base materialism...the idea of "will to power" struggles that everyone engages in and cannot escape...because that's all we all are. And to embrace the idea of deconstruction of the selfishly constructed "self" of modernism...to embrace all thought as valid, with no thought as having any superiority...or meta-narrative capabilities. They are to be selfless in de-entrenching them"selves" from bad modernistic thought.
They also have a vagueish idea of the eastern philosophical thought that has permeated society...that the self and the world are maya-illusion...that they should seek to escape the illusion by right here and now detaching themselves from their "selves" with final hopes of letting the water-drop of their "self" fall into the "nirvana" ocean of the unitive primal consciousness...where they will then be selfless but "all".
See...selfless...means ALL of those things to the "common folk"
And when I say what I am saying...which may be rigorous and literal (I have no problem with being precise and clear)...they definitely do not confuse the idea with any of the other above meanings...it stands distinct from them...and however rigorous it is, it is not hard to understand.
So, you are not doing the "common folk" any favors by using the Christian words and ideas associated with being "selfless"...you are only blending in with all those other possible meanings of "selfless"Post Edited (Asher) : 10/5/2010 6:34:15 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/5/2010 12:48 PM (GMT -6) | | What do you think of this variation of "selflessness", Asher?
American Buddhist monk Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote:
“The real meaning of upekkha is equanimity, not indifference in the sense of unconcern for others. As a spiritual virtue, upekkha means equanimity in the face of the fluctuations of worldly fortune. It is evenness of mind, unshakeable freedom of mind, a state of inner equipoise that cannot be upset by gain and loss, honor and dishonor, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. Upekkha is freedom from all points of self-reference; it is indifference only to the demands of the ego-self with its craving for pleasure and position, not to the well-being of one's fellow human beings. True equanimity is the pinnacle of the four social attitudes that the Buddhist texts call the 'divine abodes': boundless loving-kindness, compassion, altruistic joy, and equanimity. The last does not override and negate the preceding three, but perfects and consummates them.”
This is analogous to Christian "disapassion" or divinely graced "apatheia", when the Christian "dies daily" to earthly passions.
Perhaps apatheia can best be translated "purity of heart." It signifies advancing frong instability to stability, from duplicity to simplicity or singleness of heart, from the immaturity of fear and suspicion to the maturity of innocence and trust. For Evagris dispassion and love are integrally connected, as two sides of a coin. If you lust, you cannot love. Dispassion means that we are no longer dominated by selfishness and uncontrolled desire, and so we become capable of true love.
The "dispassioned" person, so far from being apathetic, is the one whose hearts burns with love for God, for other humans, for every living creature, for all that God has made.
The Christian has "freedom from all points of self-reference" because of their transparent love relationship to God Himself (Grace). The Christian IS a "self" in Christ...a "self" before God like SK talks about. The self wants to be what it is: a personal, "living" temple of the Holy Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. But the Christian is a self who's identity is "hidden in Christ", such that (as I saw somewhere) her self-sufficiency is nothing but Christ's sufficiency. The Christian truly believes that Grace (God Himself working for Creation) is their complete sufficiency. They have died utterly to the idea of creaturely self-sufficiency, but they haven't given up upon SELF-sufficiency. Because true self-sufficiency is only freed when God is one's sufficiency. This understanding frees them from any ego-driven, inordinate self-concern, so that they are free to REALLY think about the "other" (God and created "neighbors" ): true love, not just variations of egoic striving for self-destruction, self-protection, self-satisfaction, or self-gratification.
If you think about it, it just makes sense. God is totally fulfilled and satisfied in Godself, right? (In dispositional language, God has achieved unsurpassably intense experience beauty in and through God's own self-relationship, and thus experiencing complete aesthetic satisfcation through that experience.) It's because of this that Grace can exist as God's continual FREE GIFT to Creation. Creation was not a SELFISHly intended undertaking for God...it is essentially GRACIOUSLY intended. God didn't creation Creation because God needed more beautiful experience to achieve God's own potential of reception of beautiful experience. No. God created Creation as free gift as an expression of God's own aesthetic satisfaction in God's self-experience...with the INTENTION that Creation (humans) would understand that it's own aesthetic satisfaction can only be found in our relationship with God.
So...God's freedom from inordinate self-concern in God's relationship with Creation is grounded on God's experience of Godself. Creaturely (human) freedom from inordinate self-concern is grounded on it's loving experience of God as God truly is (Grace). So human beings are freed by this love relationship with God to truly love themselves and their other created "neighbors", without inordinate self-concern. The love of God has quenched the soul, and freed one from the passions and inordinate self-concern (via the fruit of the Spirit) so as to give true love even at the ultimate sacrifice of one's "self."
Christ's love (choosing the Cross) is "selfless" in that regard.
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/5/2010 2:07:55 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/5/2010 1:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Think about this. How free from self-concern and self-interest would the Uncreated Father have to be to give His Only-Begotten Son into unrelenting assault and withdrawl by indifferent or antagonistic sinning creatures?
If the heart of God had overwhelming self-concern and self-seeking disposition, would God have given up God's only Son for sinners?
Use the Bible if you want.
If the Prodigal Son's father had overwhelming self-concern and self-seeking disposition, would he have run out to meet his self-concerned, self-seeking son back? Nope. But I can definitely see his actions in light of free, loving graciousness towards his wayward son. So if the Prodigal's Father is supposed to be an analogy for what God the Father is like...and...we are to be compassionate like the Father is compassionate...then...
Reeeeeeeeeeeealy think about it.
I'd say that God's activities are "dispassionately selfless"...meaning "freely, lovingly gracious."
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/5/2010 1:57:29 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/5/2010 4:25 PM (GMT -6) | | My mind hurts! ;o)
Asher, I don't deny the examples you gave (or others we could mention) where the "self" is variously understood. They're out there. But in my own experience (English-speaking), I've never met a person who thought "selfless" meant anything other than the opposite of "selfish"--or at the very least didn't make this the default meaning (unless contextual constraints required a different meaning). Sure, postmodernists and Hindus CAN discuss the "self" in other ways, and they MAY press "selfLESS" to express not being or not having a "self," but I've never run into anyone who spoke English that didn't know the prevailing use of "selfless" connoted a positive, loving way of serving others and sacrificing on their behalf.
But even if I'm wrong, it dudn't matter. Once we define what we're talking about, we're good. And I don't see anything unChristian about what you've described. What do YOU see in your view that's less than Christian? I ask because you asked us if we thought your views were non-Christian.
D: So...God's freedom from inordinate self-concern in God's relationship with Creation is grounded on God's experience of Godself.
Tom: Exactly. God has a truthful/accurate estaimate of his own worth (which is infinite) and experiences the full enjoyment of himself as this 'supreme good'.
Asher, are you thinking this makes it impossible for God to have a genuine concern for human beings as persons (as personal selves)? It sounded like this was your issue. You were thinking that because God is the most fully selfed self, nothing God does ad extra could have as its aim anything OTHER than his own self, which seems to imply that God can't REALLY affirm the personal/selfed independence of others (i.e., God can't see others in anything other than purely utilitarian terms). Is that your issue?
I can agree that all God's actions have Godself as their ultimate end in an important sense. And I could agree that the Creator/Created relationship is exclusively utilitarian at base. I think this is what Paul is getting at when he says all (created) things are from God, through God, to/for God, etc.
But a) this is just a way of expressing the ontological dependence of all things upon God, of all art upon the artist, and b) it doesn't preclude God's viewing us as "ends" in a meaningful sense since "God is love." That is, love's utility IS valuing others as others, i.e., love's own SELF-interests are the interests of the OTHER. [I keep editing this sentence to make it clearer --> In making God's 'self' (as God's own interest) complete in the other to be the supreme value, God makes Godself the ground of truly disinterested love for the other, since true 'selfhood' is ecstatic. As such, the self's best interests are fundmentally ecstatic. God IS 'self' and 'other'.
So because God is love, he cannot be a prisoner of his own value and thus be incapable of truly loving us. It's precisely the already full quality of God's experience (as ecastatic love) that makes it possible for God to value and affirm us in grace, for God doesn't NEED us to complete Godself. God doesn't "become" God through the world. If he did, then we'd be in deep doodoo, for God would need us to be a 'person' just as we need God, in which case fully realized personhood would forever remain out of the reach of both parties.
Sorry if I'm still misunderstanding you though.
D: Christ's love (choosing the Cross) is "selfless" in that regard. Tom: "...in that regard," right. But he's not selfless in the particular sense that Asher is focusing on. In that sense Christ is never self-LESS. He's always a fully realized self. Tom
KIXYTΘEMTA Post Edited (Tom) : 10/6/2010 6:00:24 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/5/2010 7:27 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
That is, love's utility IS valuing others as others, i.e., love's own SELF-interests are the interests of the OTHER. In making Godself God's own interests as the supreme value, God makes Godself the ground of truly disinterested love for the other. God IS 'self' and 'other'.
Flashback. "Mephi's" definition of love...remixed.
Love is when a person A acknowledges another person B’s unique existence, and on that basis,
1) attributes positive aesthetic appreciation to person B’s individual, unique existence,
2) has some form of personal (sharing) relationship with person B and,
3) seeks, whenever possible, to empower the other person B to have the ability to become more of a person before the Supreme Beauty and him/herself...in such a way that the empowered person B is NOT dysfunctionally reliant upon the empowering person A.
and…
4) seeks to, whenever possible, enhance the intensity of beautiful experience for person B.
Love doesn't absorb another person in the hopes of union with the other.. Love values and empowers the other as other, forming true union and communion with the other.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/5/2010 7:33:23 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/5/2010 9:48 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
So because God is love, he cannot be a prisoner of his own value and thus be incapable of truly loving us.
The egoistic, self-centered being IS a prisoner of their own value...and is incapable of truly loving themselves or others. They cannot be a "thou" to another person's "I" (ie they cannot see anyone else's intrinsic value because they cannot see their own). And so they can never truly be self-giving or empathetic to the other. Walking a mile in another moccassins, so to speak.
But God is NOT so locked into his own beauty. And therefore was free to lovingly walk a mile in our moccassins ala the Incarnation of the Only Begotten Son.
Nice.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/5/2010 9:51:57 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/6/2010 2:08 AM (GMT -6) | | Another random thought. I liked this...
O you soul, then, most beautiful of creatures, who so long to know the place where your Beloved is, that you may seek Him, and be united to Him, you know now that you are yourself that very tabernacle where He dwells, the secret chamber of His retreat where He is hidden. Rejoice, therefore, and exult, because all your good and all your hope is so near you as to be within you; or, to speak more accurately, that you can not be without it, “for lo, the kingdom of God is within you.” So says the Bridegroom Himself, and His servant, St. Paul, adds: “You are the temple of the living God.” What joy for the soul to learn that God never abandons it, even in mortal sin; how much less in a state of grace! …Courage, then, O soul most beautiful, you know now that your Beloved, Whom you desire, dwells hidden within your breast; strive, therefore, to be truly hidden with Him, and then you shall embrace Him, and be conscious of His presence with loving affection.
Saint John of the Cross, The Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ.
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 10/9/2010 12:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Random...but I liked it.
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Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. – (Psalm 51:11)
This desperate cry is from King David to God in his deep sorrow for his sin with Bathsheba and his cry for God’s forgiveness. The king before David, Saul, had blatantly disobeyed God and sought to rationalize his sin. God took his Holy Spirit from Saul. So David’s cry is understandable: in the Old Testament, God’s Spirit didn’t come to dwell in his people permanently.
However, I believe that the New Testament teaches that when the Holy Spirit comes into a person at his or her conversion, this gift of the Spirit is permanent. They can grieve, quench, resist, and ignore the Spirit’s influence, but God doesn’t take the Spirit away from them. Jesus promised that the gift of the Spirit would be with us forever (John14:14-16). Paul talks about nothing separating us from the love of God in Christ Jesus in the context of a chapter focusing upon the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:37-39).
We shouldn’t have the concern David voices as followers of Jesus in whom the Holy Spirit lives. Instead, when we hear David’s heart-wrenching cry, we need to be reminded of two things.
First, we need to be thankful for this precious gift of God’s presence within us to be with us until we return home to the Father (Eph. 1:13-14; 2 Cor. 2:2). Second, we need to be reminded of the hurtfulness of sin to the Spirit of God living within us and commit to honor God with what we do, think, and say (Eph. 4:30; 1 Cor. 6:19-20).
Prayer : O Father, I cannot fully comprehend the wonder of you coming to live inside me through your Holy Spirit. I commit to live my live more aware that every breath, every thought, every action is part of my worship to you as the Temple in which you live by the Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/9/2010 12:17 AM (GMT -6) | | More random thoughts...
1) Freedom exists whenever one's sense of personal significance is ONLY found in the love of God (inseparable from the Holy Spirit). Why? Because when one's sense of personal significance is grounded in God's uncreated, infinite, eternal love, it is absolutely immutable, indestructible, and incorruptible. No sin one can ever commit before God can diminish or remove that free gift of significance from God. Nothing can stop God from granting us the grace-gift of particular, individual significance even in the midst of our actual no-thingness. The self-as-spirit grounded in God can remain emotionally vulnerable to all kinds of marginization, minimization, and dehumanization without failing to choose to love...because one's security, identity, meaning, and significance is "separate" (Holy) from the created by way of the Holy Spirit within them.
2) Creation is the corresponsive reality (continuously sustained by God Himself working) to God's own desire for free, loving graciousness to an "other." That's why human beings, made in God's image, are meant to express free, loving reception of and gratitude for that graciousness before it's Creator and experience a free, loving graciousness toward one's neighbor and oneself as a RESPONSE to that continuous free, loving Grace...eucharistic living in the Presence of God living within them. If you think about it, gratitude is something that HAS to be freely given to have any meaning at all...just like love. So, free, loving gratitude has to be the essence of what we get to "mean" to God as created persons. Free, loving gratitude for one's "otherness" from God is something God could never experience without Creation. It doesn't "complete" God to experience this...but it does bring forth an avenue for God's infinitely intense love to be contingently expressed in and through an "other" with the possibility of being reciprocated, which can (and does) give God beautiful experience.
Whatcha think, Tom?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/9/2010 2:27:19 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/10/2010 1:50 AM (GMT -6) | | The utterly individual, particular, personal "leap of faith" disposition of a creaturely "I" before the Uncreated "I Am"
"I love you and I thank you."
If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.
Meister Eckhart
Gratitude
Check this out...
Gratitude is an emotion that occurs after people receive help, depending on how they interpret the situation. Specifically, gratitude is experienced if people perceive the help they receive as (a) valuable to them, (b) costly to their benefactor, and (c) given by the benefactor with benevolent intentions (rather than ulterior motives).
Following this description, let's think about ungrateful theistic believers. Hmmm...what can explain the ungrateful theist? How about these possibilities?
1) They are locked into a two-storey model of reality impairs them from seeing how the God actively does anything valuable or even relevant to their daily existence because they are largely ignorant of the magnitude of what God is actually doing for them at every moment. "What has God done for me lately?" they may say.
2) They cannot see Creation really costing God anything because he or she may see God as indifferent to his gift-giving of Creation. From their perspective, it costs and /or risks God nothing to be beneficent to them because God's all-powerful. In other words, the person has a problem seeing God's provision as truly and meaningfully sacrificial for God, given God's immensity.
3) They cannot believe that God is free from God's own value enough to be truly "for them"...and not solely using them impersonally as a means to an end for God's own increased glorification.
I can see these people having these beliefs NOT being thankful to God, even while believing in God. However, when I flip things I get this:
1) The grateful theist sees God himself continually providing everything they value in their lives. "Great is Your Faithfulness to me!", they may say.
2) The grateful theist sees the long-suffering of a God who genuinely cares about the self-destructive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of His beloved offspring...and sees God's longsuffering as sacrificial love. The grateful theist believes that God truly empathetically "bears our burdens" through God's "suffering love."
3) A grateful theist will know that God is freely, genuinely good in God's love for every particular person...with no need for ulterior motives because of God's freedom from inordinate self-concern. They will trust God in God's compassion and kindness.
In my mind, seeing the Spiritual Presence of Jesus Christ as "God's Grace To Humankind" motivates a person to a rationally-accepted, emotionally-connected sense of gratitude to God. Basically, to know God as God is to love God. It fills all of those categories pretty squarely.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/10/2010 3:30:39 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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