Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

 

Would he roast in hell for 10,000 years...defiantly resisting the reality before him?  Really?

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,  built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

 

So subjectivity IS the ultimate objectivity--viz., God's subjective apprehension of himself because the ground for all other individual apprehensions/subjectivities. God's state of mind is the content of what we CALL 'what is true objectively'. There is no non-subjective objectivity (or metanarrative) that grounds ALL subjective meaning.

Tom

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Rape is basically some person or persons who objectifies and "overwhelms" non-consensual others, by whatever means, for their own sexual gratification. Taking the evil out of it, we could just as well talk about a beloved wife being "overwhelmed" by the loving woo of her loving self-sacrficial husband.  Either way, we are talking about being faced with a force that breaks down one's defenses against the other, being left vulnerable and susceptible to the overpowering force. Either one could be considered a form of conquest.

Looked at THAT way, I would say that Jesus has, is, and will continue to "overwhelmingly woo" all nations. That is to say, the Kingdom of God will "overwhelm" and "conquer" all earthly kingdoms one day...but NOT in a way that abidges our freedom, but affirms and strengthens it.

 

Get me?

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Post Edited (One Love) : 10/28/2010 1:46:21 PM (GMT-5)

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

 

I'm guessing you agree God can't pass out of existence by any means (suicide, murder, old age, whatever). Given the existence of God, he exists necessarily. If God exists necessarily, then, do you think there are ANY necessary attributes of God OR is everything about this necessary God contingent and negotiable? If there are ANY necessary attributes definitive of deity (and wouldn't there HAVE to be if God exists necessarily?), what are they? Greg argues that God's 'character/'integrity' is one of the things that defines God necessarily. Indeed, if God's 'character' and integrity can shift (by an act of will) from good to evil, then how do any of the other attributes sustain themselves? God IS love.

 

If God CAN choose to do some evil (to disobey this objective standard of goodness one might want to posit alongside God), then surely he must be MOTIVATED to do so. But as we know, to be motivated to do evil requires a certain IGNORANCE (epistemic distance), a certain lack of understanding of one's own nature and purpose and the nature and purpose of things. Otherwise misrelation never gets off the ground. That's HOW one misrelates. But in that case how could God be motivated to choose evil? He'd have to first give up omniscience, espectially with regard to God's own SELF. And that would have to be done freely and volitionally. But why would God do THAT (i.e., choose to abandon his omniscience SO THAT he could THEN be motivated to do evil)? What would motivate God to choose to become ignorant of his own self so that he could then be motivated to do evil? Do you find anything problematic about such a thing in God's case? I do. Among other things, I see an infinite regress involved in what would have to transpire in order for God to be sufficiently motivated to choose not to conform to 'the good'. Given that free moral choice is motivated, and given that motivation to evil requires a sufficient epistemic distance (space to ground one's justification to one's self for sinning), and given that God would have to be motivated to surrender perfect knowledge of all things in the first place, I don't see how God can ever GET there, viz., to the place where he has properly and freely abandoned full knowledge of himself for the purpose of sinning. (Do you see this Dwayne?)

 

What of this "objective standard"? What sort of entity is it (if not God himself)? What sort of entities or objects are "standards" anyhow? In what does this "objective standard" to which God himself conforms consist? Does it exist as such 'necessarily'? Can IT be other than it is? Why not? Why wouldn't the freedom to become what one is not apply to this standard?

 

What I hear you saying is that God is a reflection OF this objective non-God standard of goodness. God conforms TO it. D and I would say God REFLECTS nothing but Godself. There can be no "standard" outside Godself to which God can be held accountable. God's goodness is not a conformity of God to some non-God standard that hovers ore' top his head and monitors his behavior.

 

If you're going to posit a necessary, unchanging (standard of) goodness to which God conforms, how does the standard escape all the criticisms you level against the claim that GOD is himself that standard?

Tom

 

If a person wants to say that God could choose evil WITHOUT any motivation at all but by sheer act of will (if one can even posit such), then this makes God's choice for evil to be devoid of anything by which the choice could be called morally deliberative or morally significant.  To make a choice from absolutely no motivation would be akin to spontaneous, random exertion of will...no more morally significant than a spasm or flatulance.

 

So to me it's this: To posit that God can choose anti-love either ends in problems of 1) infinite regress of motivation or 2) nullification of moral significance.

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Post Edited (One Love) : 10/29/2010 8:50:08 AM (GMT-5)

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PARALLELS WITH HOSPICE

The St. Anthony approach is anathema to treatment programs, which are based on abstinence as the path to recovery. They believe any alcoholic can stop, and should try to.

"AA does not give up on people," said Tom Noerper, director of the St. Paul Area Intergroup, which refers alcoholics to AA meetings through a hot line.

"We will talk to anyone who wants to talk to us. Even if they were dying, we would want to be with them, as long as they want to see us."

Hazelden's Moyers said that even if St. Anthony's men refuse treatment, housing them with public money is a tacit acceptance of their drinking.

"This is just a place to allow chronic alcoholics to keep drinking and steal from them any sense of hope or redemption," Moyers said.

Jan Hennings, spokeswoman for the Minnesota Hospital Association, questioned whether the wet-house model was humane. "I know some people would say we should keep trying — eight times or whatever — until we break through," she said.

But other experts say the bottomless optimism is naive.

The St. Anthony model accepts the obvious — that a certain number of alcoholics are indeed hopeless, said Katie Tuione, program manager at Dorothy Day Center in St. Paul, a homeless shelter.

"This is about meeting people where they are and loving them. It's not rocket science," she said. "They still grieve, love and hurt. They still need food and shelter. They are you and I."

Dr. Steven Miles, professor of medicine and bioethics at the University of Minnesota, agreed.

The reason to support St. Anthony is not the money saved but the kindness extended to the residents. "It is the humanity of it, just like humanity drives the hospice system," he said.

He said seeing people drink themselves to death is like watching chemotherapy patients gathering outside hospitals to smoke.

"Certainly no one encourages them to do this. But this is a society where people get to make their own choices, however bad they are," Miles said. St. Anthony's, he said, "is a rational response to meeting people's needs."

The approach, manager Hockenberger said, isn't treatment at all, but a "harm-reduction model."

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.