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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 1/23/2012 4:33 PM (GMT -6)

You're no "I" until you're concretly manifested in some unique and irreplaceable way. That's my thing...the "I" is not to be identified with a single immaterial something that all of us are. Whatever immaterial entity we all share, and I don't doubt that we all participate in one and the same divine ground (so we have to be one at that level), that entity is not your "I." Your "I" is what unique and freely determined expressive form you take.

T

"The aesthetic value the world has for God is in expressing, not constituting, the aesthetic value God eternally finds within Godself." Greg Boyd

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 1/23/2012 4:54 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
You're no "I" until you're concretly manifested in some unique and irreplaceable way. That's my thing...the "I" is not to be identified with a single immaterial something that all of us are. Whatever immaterial entity we all share, and I don't doubt that we all participate in one and the same divine ground (so we have to be one at that level), that entity is not your "I." Your "I" is what unique and freely determined expressive form you take.

I hear ya. The "I" as relationality between immaterial and material. So, then if a Christian gets killed via incineration, their particular "I" effectively ceases to exist...until resurrection and re-embodiment? The human "soul" (an emergent reality) effectively ceases to exist at death, pre-resurrection. In those terms, it is only the BRAIN/BODY that is actually "brought back" that interacts AGAIN with the "single immaterial something that all of us are." In other words, the idea that when "I" physically die before the general resurrection, my "I" (complete with some personality amalgam) will continue to exist somewhere away from my body cannot be true, whether in some Purgatory or whatever.

And let's not forget...the "I" of a person doesn't belong to the WHOLE body, just the brain (given the implications of brain transfer). If Tom and I successfully switched brains, NO ONE HERE would say that "I" would BECOME Tom because my brain was in his body or vice versa. At most, we'd have to get used to the new CONTEXTS in which our "I"s would live. sombrero-smiley2

We'll have to re-think resurrection, it seems. For we cannot say that Jesus' FULLY HUMAN "I" (complete with human personality amalgam) actually ENDURED after his death. If what we are saying is true, then the "soul" of Jesus or his "I" must have CEASED TO EXIST at his death...and it was "restarted" when the Holy Spirit did his thing unifying the immaterial and material again. The human "soul" or "I" is NOT inherently enduring...only the BUILDING BLOCKS of that "soul" (the "logos", etc).

Christian mortalism

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

Post Edited (One Love) : 1/23/2012 4:13:11 PM (GMT-6)

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 1/23/2012 6:10 PM (GMT -6)

At the same time...

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

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 1/23/2012 6:18 PM (GMT -6)

D: I hear ya. The "I" as relationality between immaterial and material. So, then if a Christian gets killed via incineration, their particular "I" effectively ceases to exist...until resurrection and re-embodiment?

T: I don't know that I'd reduce the "I" to the relation between the immaterial and material. God certainly intends the "I" in all its fulness to be embodied. BUT that's not to say that particularity and diversity are impossible on a purely immaterial level. YOU seem to think this. But I don't see the impossibility of it. I think angels (forgetting Satan) are localized spirits. There you have it. But true, God doesn't intend embodiment for them the way he does for us.

I honestly don't know what particular, unique form disembodied human consciousness takes. I don't want to REDUCE all particularity and diversity to embodiment. So let me say, you're not a FULLY REALIZED "I" until you're...etc.

Tom

"The aesthetic value the world has for God is in expressing, not constituting, the aesthetic value God eternally finds within Godself." Greg Boyd

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 1/24/2012 3:13 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
I honestly don't know what particular, unique form disembodied human consciousness takes. I don't want to REDUCE all particularity and diversity to embodiment. So let me say, you're not a FULLY REALIZED "I" until you're...etc.

Perhaps there are localized "regions" of the singular ranges of consciousness/will that fit the bill. Like cells in a body.

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

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