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One Love
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| Posted 7/21/2011 9:00 AM (GMT -6) |   | | Hey, y'all...
If you were to take away everything created from a human person--both corporeal or non-corporeal--, what would be left?
What is the UNcreated aspect of a human person?
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One Love
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| Posted 7/21/2011 12:11 PM (GMT -6) | | | The reason I'm thinking about this is I've been doing some reading on Meister Eckhart again. Basically he postulated that the ground of the soul was 1) uncreated and uncreatable and thus 2) one with God at that point.
Here's my take...
In one sense, I'd agree with the "nothing" answer. But I'm wondering. What about the whole Logos/logoi thing from Maximus? In other words, is the "logos of one's being" which form the context for an particular, individual created being CREATED or UNCREATED? I'd say uncreated. Creaturely particularity cannot be separated from the "logos" reality that undergirds and sustains it. Moreover, I would say that the "logos of one's being" is NOTHING OTHER THAN God Himself working in a particular manner, providing the "subjective aims" and the call for a particular reality to BE and BECOME.
Using Greg's Trinity and Process language, it's the point where God's disposition to be Immanuel (the disposition to create a non-divine reality) "diffuses itself" into "the multiplicity of dispositions towards non-divine realities that are themselves non-divine in their concrescence." It's also the dimension of our reality where attachment to the five senses and the will to receive (pleasure, existence, etc) is NOT operational.
When I listen to Thomas Merton's language, I can't help thinking it refers to this...
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.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/21/2011 12:31:08 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 7/21/2011 2:24 PM (GMT -6) | | D: Moreover, I would say that the "logos of one's being" is NOTHING OTHER THAN God Himself working in a particular manner, providing the "subjective aims" and the call for a particular reality to BE and BECOME.
J: I would say that the "logos of one's being" is the divinely pre-determined range of possibile states of that being that, as you say, results in the sustaining of it's "particularity" or "kind." That range is constrained by the limitations of the capacities of that being. And the capacities are limited either absolutely (if the being is non-volitional) or both absolutely and per natural tendencies (if the being is volitional).
For the volitional beings, the natural tendencies compel rational, volitional beings unto inductive generalizations that further constrain us normatively/teleologically to the extent that we volitionally choose to be bound by normative criteria. Those that defy those inductive generalizations (like the Golden Rule) via irrational denials or polyanna beliefs are doomed to experience states that, while consistent with the range of their capacities, are contrary to their highest good.
IOW, to my mind, the "logos" is not a being. It's a range of possible states that can not be exceeded because of the limits of capacities of the ontological or functional unit. This finite range is what constitutes the "particularity" of Jeff, human, etc.
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One Love
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| Posted 7/21/2011 2:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Similitude:
I would say that the "logos of one's being" is the divinely pre-determined range of possibile states of that being that, as you say, results in the sustaining of it's "particularity" or "kind." That range is constrained by the limitations of the capacities of that being. And the capacities are limited either absolutely (if the being is non-volitional) or both absolutely and per natural tendencies (if the being is volitional).
...
IOW, to my mind, the "logos" is not a being. It's a range of possible states that can not be exceeded because of the limits of capacities of the ontological or functional unit. This finite range is what constitutes the "particularity" of Jeff, human, etc.
The "divinely pre-determined range of possible states" God Himself acting on behalf of Creation. Divine "subjective aims". Meaning this activity is actually uncreated, right?
More Greg from T&P...
The divine ground defines the parameters within which the preordained role of the entity within the matrix of being can be played, through exactly how this creativity is in particular actualized is their own doing. The divine ground thus defines the essence of the non-divine creature without thereby undermining the autonomous integrity of the creature: indeed, it is the divine ground of the creature's essence which allows the creature space to be autonomous.
In other words, the "divinely pre-determined range of possible states" of a given being actually ANTEDATES the concrete existence of said being within the Logos.
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Similitude
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| Posted 7/21/2011 5:09 PM (GMT -6) | | Yes, I would say the "divine subjective aims" necessarily antedate the "existence of said being." The cause of our "logos" is not ourself, but God.
Noah Porter would say this is an aspect of teleology. Mere causality just means events (i.e., changes of state) have sufficient and necessary antecedent conditions--period. I.e., events don't just happen. Final causality, however, means event sequences are intentionally directed such that "particularities" can be "sustained" over time (which is a species of an "end" being attained by means). This is to say, our logos is intended by God, and the causes that sustain it are directed unto that end in accordance with divine, "subjective aims."
In short, the teleology is there no matter how we slice it ontologically/causally beyond that. So God is a corrollary of the teleological relationality of it at bare minimum.
But as Greg says in your quote of him, God is a ground of our volitional activity in the indirect sense that we only exist as volitional creatures because of Him, but not in the sense that He is responsible for our volitional choices in the way we are.
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Similitude
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| Posted 7/21/2011 7:37 PM (GMT -6) | | I may be misunderstanding Maximus. But from what I've read elsewhere, Maximus' thinking on logos/logoi is like modern day divine exemplarism, which is a species of neo-Platonism. If so, that's all entailed in what we mean by teleology. Teleology is unintelligible if there is not some likeness between the divine and the human mind.
Because to say a causal sequence is directed to specific (i.e., specific in any sense) SOFA's seems to compel the mind to concieve of, as a corrollary, an intent. Because without foresight, we can't conceive of what "directed" even means. But as soon as we talk about foresight, mind is the correlate thereof. Bertrand Russell even talked as if foresight is the real issue with freedom. IOW, no foresight, no freedom in the sense we mean by it (which is teleological).
I would diiffer with Russell as to what freedom means, but I agree that foresight is entailed IN it. That's why we can call it self-determinism and still be distinguishing it from determinism.
The problem with Plato's approach, as it's typically articulated, is that it's about "ideas" independent of a mind and, therefore, independent of intent. That makes no sense.
And here's the thing: open theism is what allows us to retain an intuitive notion of time that renders "intent" applicable to the divine mind. By trying to get around foreknowledge problems by positing divine states "outside of time," we lose meaning for words like "intent," even. In turn, we end up not being able to clearly conceive of any analogy between divine and human thought that can ground normative human thought that has anything to do with God. And at that point, teleology is vacuous in the sense that what we mean by "prediction" is indistinguishable from blind faith.
Every time we analyze our beliefs all the way down, we see that a benevolent, competent designer of the teleological world, of which we are part, is the ground of all those other beliefs. Otherwise, it's blind faith all the way down. The unique thing about Porter's approach is that he sees the Designer as a CORRELATE of the teleological mode of inference, just as the frames of reference we call time and space are correlates of the finite relations that apply to them.
So it's not like "the designer exists" is some fundamental proposition in our thinking. It's more like when we deny God the corrollary role He plays in our thinking, everything collapses into blind faith because there's nothing left to render inferred belief grounded in a WARRANTED way. No thought can then be intelligibly conceived of as WARRANTED. In short, the words "warranted" and "plausible" become meaningless because they have no non-arbitrary meaning any longer.
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One Love
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| Posted 7/24/2011 7:32 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I'll try to catch up. Been outta town. But real quickly, I think, D, that we should NOT reduce human persons to their divine ground. Yes, God grounds us. Yes, the logoi of all created things are just God acting to sustain and draw all things toward their perfection in the Logos. Yes. But some things ARE created. Some things really do come into being. And you don't have human persons without something coming into being. Sure, that can't happen WITHOUT the divine logoi. But the logoi do not constitute the ACTUAL perfection of God's intentions apart from the created, embodied and free contexts that make it possible for the possibilities/logoi of God's intentions to be fulfilled. Take away everything created from human persons and you have no human persons. You just have what God had before he created--the contemplation of possibilities.
The idea is not to reduce humanity to divinity...nor is it to deny the ultimate reality of the created. It's to say that the divine ground (God Himself working on our behalf via the Creator Spirit) is a NECESSARY ASPECT of Creation's existence in general--and humanity's in particular--as well as it's full realization. The "gate of heaven" within the human heart IS God's Presence working in us...which is why it is "never at our disposal" and it is where "God disposes of our lives".
I don't think that you are aware, Tom, of how many evangelical Christians don't understand or believe what you just said: that God ACTUALLY and TRULY grounds us at all times and that we are absolutely "no-thing" without God Himself working on our behalf continually. That God grounds even SATAN this way.
Hell, even Greg ain't getting THAT one...right?
And don't forget how God wasn't in poop before...  ************************ Tom: Logoi are abstract and conceptual (representing as they do God's intentions and purposes for created things SHOULD God create). But being God's intentions/aims for created beings, they by definition cannot in themselves BE the substance of their own fulfillment. Something non-logoi (i.e., non-eternal and non-divine) must come into being to make it possible for the divine logoi to be instantiated. Take all your created aspects away, D, and your logos is nothing but a dream. There is no "human person," for the non-divine person emerges as the concrete/embodied instantiation of the logoi. But the logoi, however utterly necessary and uncreated, are not themselves the created realities which cannot exist apart from them.Think of "logoi" in dispositional terms. Greg's language... "the multiplicity of dispositions towards non-divine realities that are themselves non-divine in their concrescence."
Basically, it's saying that divine activity is an ESSENTIAL aspect to human being and human becoming. In other words, though humanity and divinity are ontologically distinct, it is also the case that humanity is ontologically (and utterly) dependent upon divinity...such that Divine Presence is a necessary and central aspect of human existence. The Creator Spirit is the ground of Creation's being on every level at all times. Thus it is an ontological ERROR about what it means to be a creature--being "gifted" with hypostatically communicated existence by the Eternal Word of God--to believe that God Himself can ever be "separate" or "cut off" from anything created at any time. God cannot be personally AT A DISTANCE from anything created and sustained.
The Incarnate Logos reveals the ontological error about humanity for what it is. Just like a human is designed not to be "separate" from some kind of life-conducive atmosphere...spiritually speaking, humanity is designed to "breathe" the Spirit of God and know the truth about it's relationship to the Spirit of God.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/24/2011 8:36:26 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/24/2011 7:43 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
But the logoi do not constitute the ACTUAL perfection of God's intentions apart from the created, embodied and free contexts that make it possible for the possibilities/logoi of God's intentions to be fulfilled. Take away everything created from human persons and you have no human persons. You just have what God had before he created--the contemplation of possibilities.
Greg again...
"...the disposition to create a non-divine reality "diffuses itself" into the multiplicity of dispositions towards non-divine realities that are themselves non-divine in their concrescence."
...
"The divine ground defines the parameters within which the preordained role of the entity within the matrix of being can be played, through exactly how this creativity is in particular actualized is their own doing. The divine ground thus defines the essence of the non-divine creature without thereby undermining the autonomous integrity of the creature: indeed, it is the divine ground of the creature's essence which allows the creature space to be autonomous."
The "multiplicity of dispositions" and the divinely sustained "parameters" are not in and of themselves are not the actual perfection of creaturely being and becoming...and that "perfection" is essentially related to non-divine concretization of those divinely contemplated possibilities for non-divinity. In other words, what Maximus describes the relationship of Uncreated and Created in terms of Logos/logoi and logoi/tropoi, Greg describes in term of divine grounding disposition/"parameter" dispositions and "parameter" dispositions/range of self-disposition. Different terms for the same reality.
That's why I've kept saying...if only Greg had known about Maximus...and made THAT connection...yeah...
And how matter can be seen as "condensations" of the Logos (Nesteruk)...yeah...
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/24/2011 7:56:52 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/24/2011 7:51 AM (GMT -6) | | Though fascinated by the natural world and appreciating its great beauty, the Fathers clearly understood that if the mind were to be distracted by the puzzles of nature and to consider them as ends in themselves, then the knowledge of nature would itself become an obstacle in trying to know God. Thus a tension was created between the appreciation of nature and the danger of being trapped by its investigation. On the one hand, the natural world is accepted and affirmed, while, on the other, it is renounced as having no meaning without its spiritual ground. The necessity to rise above nature in order to find God was always experienced as the difficulty of being detached from a natural world that at the same time was highly appreciated.
In the contemplation of the logoi of creation (Maximus), the Greek Fathers found an ingenious way of resolving this tension, freeing themselves from the demands of nature, on the one hand, while enjoying nature, on the other. They never experienced any fear of nature, which was the creation of a God "who loves mankind." Their detachment from the material world provided a paradoxical freedom to treat this world in a way that never subverted their spiritual vision of reality, that is, their faith. The secret of the Greek Fathers' freedom to enjoy nature was their detachment from it. Their spiritual vision of nature freed them to love and appreciate nature without condemning its created origin and without fearing its demands, for the natural world, like all of creation, is good because everything done by God through his Word (Logos) is good.
Alexei V. Nesteruk
Light from the East: Theology, Science, and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition
Page 28
"Detachment from Nature and the Love of Nature"
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/24/2011 7:54:23 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/24/2011 8:00 AM (GMT -6) | | Wait a second...
"...the non-divine person emerges as the concrete/embodied instantiation of the logoi. But the logoi, however utterly necessary and uncreated, are not themselves the created realities which cannot exist apart from them."
How about some substitution?
"...the non-divine person emerges as the concrete/embodied instantiation of the multiplicity of divinely-provided definitional dispositions directly mediated by God the Logos' Personal Presence. But these divinely-provided definitional dispositions, however utterly necessary and uncreated, are not themselves the non-divine realities which cannot exist apart from them."
See that?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/24/2011 8:21:38 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/24/2011 8:12 AM (GMT -6) | | Actually, we can keep terminology consistent and say that there is a Loderian bi-polar asymmetrical relational unity between the logoi and the concrete/embodied instantiations of said logoi, where the former ground, empower, and define the latter...while the latter depend upon, reflect, and express the former.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/24/2011 8:24:33 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/24/2011 8:18 AM (GMT -6) | | From here. Quoting Maximus...
In such a person the apostolic word is fulfilled: In him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). For whoever does not violate the logosof his own existence that pre-existed in God is in God through diligence; and he movesin God according to the logos of his well-being that pre-existed in God when he lives virtuously; and he lives in God according to the logosof his eternal being that pre-existed in God. On the one hand, insofar as he is already irrevocably one with himself in his dispositions, he is free of unruly passions. But in the future age when graced with divinization, he will affectionately love and cleave to the logoi already mentioned that pre-existed in God, or rather, he will love God himself, in whom the logoi of beautiful things are securely grounded. In this way he becomes a “portion of God,” insofar as he exists through the logos of his being which is in God and insofar as he is good through the logos of his well-being which is in God; and insofar as he is God through the logos of his eternal being which is in God, he prizes the logoi and acts according to them. Through them he places himself wholly in God alone, wholly imprinting and forming God alone in himself, so that by grace he himself is God and is called God. By his gracious condescension God became man and is called man for the sake of man and by exchanging his condition for ours revealed the power that elevates man to God through his love for God and brings God down to man because of his love for man. By this blessed inversion, man is made God by divinization and God is made man by hominization. For the Word of God and God wills always and in all things to accomplish the mystery of his embodiment.
For analogy to dispositional terms, think about fulfillment of the "eschatological essence" When a created being is fully living in their eschatological essence they are literally everything that God desires, directs, and empowers them to be as his beloved creatures in His Spirit. They are consciously aware of God "willing" and "doing" in them actualizing divine possibility in human existence.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/24/2011 8:29:02 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/24/2011 8:29 AM (GMT -6) | | | You see all this, right, Tom?
---------------------------------
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8). Made in God's image, man is a mirror of the divine. He knows God by knowing himself; entering within himself, he sees God reflected in the purity of his own heart. The doctrine of man's creation according to the image means that within each person--within his or her truest and innermost self, often termed the "deep heart" or "ground of the soul"--there is a point of direct meeting and union with the Uncreated. "The Kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21).
The quest for the inward kingdom is one of the master themes found throughout the writings of the Fathers. "The greatest of all lessons", says St. Clement of Alexandria, "is to know oneself; for if someone know himself, he will know God; and if he knows God, he will become like God." St. Basil the Great writes: "When the intellect is no longer dissipated among external things or dispersed across the world through the senses, it returns to itself; and by means of itself it ascends to the thought of God." "He who know himself knows everything," says St. Issac the Syrian; elsewhere he writes:
Be at peace with your own soul; then heaven and earth will be at peace with you. Enter eagerly into the treasure house that is within you, and so you will see the things that are in heaven; for there is but one single entry to them both. The ladder that leads to the kingdom is hidden within your soul. Flee from sin, dive into yourself, and in your soul you will discover the stairs by which to ascend.
And to these passages we may add the testimony of a Western witness in our own day, Thomas Merton:
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.
Flee from sin. St. Issac insists; and these three words should be particularly noted. If we are to see God's face reflected within us, the mirror needs to be cleaned. Without repentance there can be no self-knowledge and no discovery of the inward kingdom. When I am told "Return into yourself: know yourself", it is necessary to inquire: Which "self" am I to discover? What is my true self? Psychoanalysis discloses to us one type of "self"; all too often, however, it guides us, not to the "ladder that leads to the kingdom,", but to the staircase that goes down to a dank and snake-infested cellar. "Know yourself" means "know yourself as God-sourced, God-rooted; know yourself in God". From the viewpoint of the Orthodox spiritual tradition it should be emphasized that we shall not discover this, our true self "according to the image", except through a death to our false and fallen self. "He who loses his life for my sake shall find it." (Matt. 16:25): only the one who sees his false self for what it is and rejects it, will be able to discern his true self, the self that God sees. Underlining this distinction between the false self and the true, St. Varsanuphius enjoins: "Forget yourself and know knowself."
Kallistos Ware.
The Orthodox Way.
"The Inner Kingdom"
pp.55-56
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To me, the "point of direct meeting and union with the Uncreated" within humans would have to be their unique, particular "logoi". It is HOW we are "sourced" and "rooted" in God...and it is the point at which the created "condenses" from the Uncreated Logos.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/24/2011 8:42:42 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/24/2011 8:54 AM (GMT -6) | | The human nature in Christ was operating within the reality of empirical space and historical time, whereas Christ's divine nature was always beyond the empirical and intelligible aeons, in the uncreated realm of the kingdom of God, which can be expressed symbolically in terms of the boundaries of the created if these boundaries are seen form the vertical (divine) dimension. It is from this "outside" that Christ the Logos of God coordinated the empirical space where he indwelled in the body with the rest of the created universe. This helps us to understand the space-time of the physical universe as the manifestation of the hypostatic mode of the relationship between God and the world.
One can rephase this idea by using a different analogy. Indeed, space and time are percieved by human beings from within creation. In this sense, one can speculate that this space-time is an internal form of the relation of the universe with the transcendent Divine. This internal form of space and time, being contingent and dependent on the interactions between the parts of the universe and being essential for the existence of human beings and their history, cannot be conceived, however, without its "external" counterpart, it's "boundary," which can be articulated only from "outside," from the perspective of the uncreated. This links empirical space and time with its moving "boundary" (which originates from the divine dimension), so that in no way are the space and time of the physical universe accomplished and fixed forever in the shapes that we can comprehend at present.
The question, then, is how the internal space-time of the universe is held in relation to the divine "environment" in which it is embedded, or, in other words, what is the principle of the borderline between the universe and its nonworldly ground associated with the external side of the space of the universe? Here, the analogy with the hypostatic union of two natures of Christ can be employed. Indeed, it is because of the hypostatic union of the divine and natural in Christ that one can argue by analogy that the interplay between the space and time of the universe and its uncreated ground in God is upheld also hypostatically by God in the course of God's economy of creation. The fulfillment of this economy took place in the incarnation of the Logos of God in flesh, which the link between the humanity of Christ (in space) and Christ's divinity as the Logos (which is beyond space but yet hold all space together) was established. This manifested that space and time are linked to the Divine. It is from this perspective that Torrance's assertions on the relational nature of space, as the form of rationality created by the Logos God to communicate his presence to us, receive further interpretation--namely, that the space and time of the universe manifest in natural (physical) terms the relation between the visible universe and it's "external" uncreated and divine "form," which constitutes the ground for the natural one. This implies that a particular appearance of space and time in the physical universe is not complete in itself and is open to the unfolding rationality of God, whose presence in the space and time of the universe has not an essential but a hypostatic character. Indeed, the very relation between the space and time of the universe and its uncreated ground is hypostatic; that is, it exists only in the hypostasis of the Logos God.
Alexei Nesteruk
Light from the East
Pages 232-233
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In other words, Creation is not a natural or essential "emanation" of God in any way...yet Creation is essentially grounded in the Personal Presence and hypostatic activity of God the Logos within and beyond it.
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Similitude
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| Posted 7/24/2011 9:02 AM (GMT -6) | | Though fascinated by the natural world and appreciating its great beauty, the Fathers clearly understood that if the mind were to be distracted by the puzzles of nature and to consider them as ends in themselves, then the knowledge of nature would itself become an obstacle in trying to know God. Thus a tension was created between the appreciation of nature and the danger of being trapped by its investigation. On the one hand, the natural world is accepted and affirmed, while, on the other, it is renounced as having no meaning without its spiritual ground. The necessity to rise above nature in order to find God was always experienced as the difficulty of being detached from a natural world that at the same time was highly appreciated.
In the contemplation of the logoi of creation (Maximus), the Greek Fathers found an ingenious way of resolving this tension, freeing themselves from the demands of nature, on the one hand, while enjoying nature, on the other. They never experienced any fear of nature, which was the creation of a God "who loves mankind." Their detachment from the material world provided a paradoxical freedom to treat this world in a way that never subverted their spiritual vision of reality, that is, their faith. The secret of the Greek Fathers' freedom to enjoy nature was their detachment from it. Their spiritual vision of nature freed them to love and appreciate nature without condemning its created origin and without fearing its demands, for the natural world, like all of creation, is good because everything done by God through his Word (Logos) is good.
Jeff: I agree with all of that. However, the reason why we get back TO the fact that "everything done by God ... is good" via faith is because professing to be wise we had BECOME fools. In fact, the benevolence and competence of the Designer of ourselves is always entailed in our beliefs insomuch as without that ground all our beliefs are arbitrary and blind. This is the beauty of the arguments of Porter, Plantinga, etal--they show that what we typically need faith to arrive at is what we actually could have known by proper analysis had we only remained intellectually honest prior to our faith-conversion.
In short, proper analysis of belief tells us that if we actually believe anything in a warranted way, then there is no problem of evil. That's where I agree that we should never argue about the apparent problem of evil as if there might actually BE such a problem. Rather, what we argue is which view or views seem more plausible in terms of induction. There can't actually BE a problem of evil if humans believe any proposition with warrant.
But this is precisely why we can never get around apologetics completely. Humans are inductive creatures. They either believe what makes them feel best only (in which case they aren't intellectually honest in the first place) or they prefer plausible beliefs over a-plausible or implausible ones. Either way, we are to walk in wisdom knowing how to answer every man. That injunction seems to imply that there is no single memorized discourse that God wants us to rattle off to every person.
But what I hear you saying, D, is that UR is entailed in what it means for the Designer to BE competent and benevolent. I think I would agree with that. But that's just another way of saying that the "here and now" is certainly NOT plausibly explicable in terms of a a benevolent Designer if there is no post-mortem experience. Hence, Paul can confidently say, "If we hope in Christ in this life only, we of all men are most miserable." IOW, we are destined to solve the problem of evil in terms of SPECIFC CLAIMS even though we know there is NO actual problem of evil if belief of any kind is warranted. And this is because we are inductive creatures by design. Paul, by arguing that a meaningful hope requires the belief in post-mortem experience, is admitting that certain views of natural evil, death, etc are indeed problematic for benevolent theism (and, therefore, Christianity).
Post Edited (Similitude) : 7/24/2011 9:19:40 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/24/2011 9:16 AM (GMT -6) | | Similtude:
In fact, the benevolence and competence of the Designer of ourselves is always entailed in our beliefs insomuch as without that ground all our beliefs are arbitrary and blind.
Basically, the benevolence, creativity, and competence of an Uncreated Personal Presence shows itself in being the immanent ground and ultimate presupposition of human intuition and rationality...And the powers of human intution and rationality "point to" a benevolent, creative, and competent Uncreated Personal Presence. Romans 1.
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Similtude:
In short, proper analysis of belief tells us that if we actually believe anything in a warranted way, then there is no problem of evil. That's where I agree that we should never argue about the apparent problem of evil as if there might actually BE such a problem. Rather, what we argue is which view or views seem more plausible in terms of induction. There can't actually BE a problem of evil if humans believe any proposition with warrant.
Yep. If God were NOT benevolent, we wouldn't have to ability to do ANY real movement of rational discourse forward at all.
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Similtude:
But what I hear you saying, D, is that UR is entailed in what it means for the Designer to BE competent and benevolent. I think I would agree with that. But that's just another way of saying that the "here and now" is certainly NOT explicable in terms of a a benevolent Designer if there are no post-mortem experience. Hence, "if we hope in Christ in this life only, we of all men are most miserable." IOW, we are destined to solve the problem of evil in terms of SPECIFC CLAIMS even though we know there is NO actual problem of evil if belief of any kind is warranted. And this is because we are inductive creatures by design. Paul, by arguing for the necessity of post-mortem experience for Christianity to be consistent with benevolent theism, is admitting that natural evil, death, etc are indeed problematic per certain views of them.
1) I would say that UR is entailed in Christ the Logos being the Designer and immanent ground of Creation. If that doesn't SHOW Him to be "competent" and "benevolent", I don't know what does! How is is possible for any created being to irrevocably cut themselves off from their "eschatological essence" mediated to them directly and personally by God? I don't see it being possible.
2) Christ clearly demonstrates that the benevolent power that CREATES is the same power that RESURRECTS...solidifying post-mortem experience as a human reality and rendering death "without hypostasis" (Zizioulas). The same gracious, merciful Power that "rains on the just and unjust" also resurrects and glorifies.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/24/2011 9:26:22 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/24/2011 9:19 AM (GMT -6) | | | Do you see, Jeff, how Greg and Maximus seem to be describing the same reality with different words?
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The disposition of God to create a non-divine reality--which is itself a contingent feature of God's necessary disposition to be God--is thus a disposition to create experiential centers of, and contributors to, non-divine beauty. It is a disposition to create a matrix of relations with ordinal centers, each of which enjoys and/or contributes to an approximation of divine beauty. The divine disposition "diffuses itself" (Edwards) into a multiplicity of dispositions which "aim at" a unique actualization, a unique perspective on reality, which is defined either as an contribution to, and/or an experience of, beauty.
It is at this point of this "diffusion" that the distinction between God and the non-divine world occurs. The multiplicity of dispositions towards non-divine realities are themselves non-divine in their concrescence. The "termini" of God's creative act is not (as with Neville) the creature act itself, but the beginning of the (not wholly determined) disposition of the creature which shall act. The non-divine disposition arises out of God--it is an aspect of God's self-disposition to delight in Godself--and results in what is not God.
As with Edwards, we can in this way assert that God's creativity is, in one sense,"the substance of bodies", the "ens entium" of all things, without thereby endorsing pantheism. But this in our scheme carried through more consistently than was possible in Edwards because we have not held that this creativity toward non-divine realities is in any sense necessary. The relative autonomy of the non-divine dispositions is manifested in their autonomous--viz. not divinely determined--creativity, though their relative dependence is manifested in their tie to the primordial disposition of God as the ground of their creativity. The divine ground defines the parameters within which the preordained role of the entity within the matrix of being can be played, through exactly how this creativity is in particular actualized is their own doing. The divine ground thus defines the essence of the non-divine creature without thereby undermining the autonomous integrity of the creature: indeed, it is the divine ground of the creature's essence which allows the creature space to be autonomous.
Greg
Trinity and Process
"God's Relationship to Non-Divine Reality"
pages 394-395
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/24/2011 9:25:11 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/24/2011 9:48 AM (GMT -6) | | | I actually like this picture I found on the net.
This is what we do to ourselves by our mental categories. It's supposed to show human separation from...
1) God
2) Nature/Creation
3) Neighbor
4) Oneself
Even religious beliefs make and KEEP these distinctions out of balance unto believed separation where separation and isolation of the distinctions don't truly exist. Most fundamentally, the mental separation/division of God from the World and that of Oneself from the World.
To me, the solution is to see God as the transcendent and immanent ground and presupposition of all the distinct, yet interrelated realities of 2-4.
Even thinking about the Genesis story. It was the perceived separation from the Presence of God (via the sinful perspective) that lead to all the later fragmentation. Take away the perceived separation of Creation from Divine Presence, you get to the root of the problem of ALL the other forms of separation, division, and isolation. Think about it. Even thinking story-wise, would Adam and Eve have tried to "hide" from God (or themselves) if they REALLY knew that God was permeating and sustaining every atom within them and all other things in the Garden? Nope.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 7/24/2011 10:03:44 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/24/2011 10:21 AM (GMT -6) | | Wow. Just thought of something. This is how this view dodges Apolinarianism. Greg in Trinity and Process again...
"...we might say that the dynamic essence of the man Jesus was wholly taken up into the dynamic essence of God so that God now “aims” at Godself—as God eternally does—but now God does so through this one man. In this one man, God achieves God anew. The necessary triune disposition for primordial satisfaction now encompasses this spontaneous feature: it now encompasses the person and work of this one man. The event of God, one might say, now includes the event of the man Jesus, and through him, the event of the entire creation. The Incarnation is thus must fundamentally the dynamic convergence of these two events.
Christ does not here cease to be a man, for his non-divine relationality, his non-divine perspective on, or role within being, is retained. The concrescence of his human disposition is yet what it is. But just as this human, God is disposed to be God. “The Word became flesh” (Jn. 1:14). Precisely through the subjective aim which constitutes the man Jesus, the subjective aim which constitutes God as God is creatively (viz. unnecessarily) achieved anew. The dynamic nature of dispositions allow this to be affirmed without the problematic connotations which the traditional substantival categories have for the modern mind. And it arrives at this dynamic conception without the radically unorthodox implications which, we have seen, the Process scheme necessitates."
In other words, the "subjective aim" that definitionally and constitutionally define Jesus' humanity is provided directly and personally by the One Logos of God...even as the subjective aim of the Logos (divine primordial satisfaction) is expressed and experienced through the actualized subjective aim of Jesus' humanity. The Logos isn't equivalent to Jesus' human "soul"; The Logos is the hypostatic undergirding reality of Jesus' human body and soul as "Immanuel."
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Similitude
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| Posted 7/24/2011 10:22 AM (GMT -6) | | Yeah I see now how they're saying simlar things. You would think Greg would have embraced UR by now! 
Porter showed that induction requires teleology. But what he didn't do is something I think is easier to understand. It can be shown that if fundamental, human intuition is either:
1) untrustworthy for axiomatic roles, or
2) non-inclusive of the teleological causal relation,
then there is no way to even get to the regularity of event sequences that we call the "uniformity of nature." People make the mistake of assuming the probability that event sequences are regular is at least .5 on the assumption that they either are or are not regular. But that is an over-simplification. There is an infinite set of radically non-regular event seqences that are logically consistent with our experience--and that assumes that all our memories are true, which is itself just a blind assumption if 1) and/or 2) are true.
Moreover, we can't even get to "frequency" probabilities for precisely that reason. IOW, if 1) and/or 2) are true, science is impossible. I've pointed this out to atheists, and they have no response. They end up falling back on what seems intuitive to them even after trashing intuition where it seems to entail a Designer. They want their cake and eat it too. And that's why they can't be taken seriously. They cheat at the most fundamental level of logic, thereby undermining the possibility of warranted belief at the root.
That's why these debates are almost always political rather than truth-oriented. They have to do with who is going to have State power and how it is to be wielded. That being the case, the tactics used tend to be political ones, not logical ones. In fact, I'm convinced, upon reflection, that teleology is not ultimately intelligible except in terms of open theism. But even the theistic camp would be resistant to concede that if true on account of the politics involved in defending traditions. I suspect open theism will continue to be vigorously resisted or enlisted in the cause of theistic views like process theology, etc which provide no grounds for believing God is competent enough to be rationally hoped in. ID'ists, even, tend to be quite antagonistic to open theism, erroneously associating it with the problems of radical process thought.
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