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Once you really understand someone’s model of the world then you can help them see areas where they might believe they don’t have choices but where they really do.

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I know about TNT and NLP but my question is what if a person does not see a need to change or see a need for other choices? Who are we to judge whether how someone else acts is appropriate given that in their mindset (deep structure) they believe that what they are doing is "right." For instance, what if someone has a deep structure that says that "sparing the rod is spoiling the child" and they interpret this to mean that LITERALLY they must use a rod...? When I first had children I TRIED to spank but I couldn't. I could not make myself believe that I could effectively train up my child by spanking (in my mindset and belief system spanking was a violent method) I could not justify this because I believed that giving time-outs was a way to "train up a child." My deep structure told me that the verse was not intended to be literal but that "training up my child" was what was intended by it. Another parent may take that verse VERY literally and believe way deep down that spanking (with a rod no less) is what God wants us to do.... Who am I to tell them (without judging) that this is inappropriate disciplinary action?

Or who are we to tell the terrorists that their belief and the motivating force behind the Sept. 11 event was wrong when in their deep structure they believe they were doing a noble act? I of course know that what they did was HORRIBLE but in a way aren't I "judging them" by wanting our country to do a "stop action" against their belief system? It often appears that we have had to do violent "stop actions" to get people to stop. We had the Civil War, we had W.W.II ... all for the sake of our belief systems BUT I am trying to figure out how we justify that our belief system is correct and that the other person has an incorrect belief system? We kill, in the name of defense because of our internal beliefs, people who kill for their own internal beliefs. These people do not see a need for choices.

My question is this: WHO ARE WE TO JUDGE ANOTHER PERSON'S INTERNAL DEEP STRUCTURAL BELIEFS? I believe there are definitely times that
we SHOULD but how do we decipher what is "right" beliefs and actions? And who are the "we" that decide this -- the majority rules? This can become VERY complicated if you want to counsel a person who has a totally different worldview or set of beliefs from yourself!

Do you see what I am struggling to understand?

Thanks,
~Brandi~

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One may add at this. point that salvation is not a matter of doing good things by will as opposed to the necessities of nature, but rather a renewal of the natural freedom of human nature itself. The doctrine of human will as distinguished from the necessary or natural appetites of human nature can be justified only within a moralistic complex in which correct choices in this life lead to the reward of happiness and motionless satisfaction in the next, which in reality is a final victory of what is taken as the necessary drive toward the contemplation of immutable realities. Motion and change are only of temporary significance and enable man freely to choose the exchange of his freedom of will for happiness. However, in the Orthodox tradition this is pure rubbish and leads to Monotheletism and Monenergism unless the perfection of Christ's human nature is sacrificed. Man's destiny is not happiness, but natural freedom. In Christ there was no "deliberative will" (èÝëçìá ãíùìéêüí), but a "natural will" (èÝëçìá öõóéêüí) and "natural freedom." In His human nature Christ was not free by an act of will. He was free by His very nature. Therefore, He really had or has two natural wills and energies, divine and human, without any connotation of sinfulness. For Platonized forms of Christianity, which understand the fall of man in terms of lack of happiness and immutability, this is not possible. Purity and sinlessness in the Bible are not immobility of a satisfied mind and will conjoined to immutable realities, but rather the freedom of the heart or, in modern terms, of the sub-conscious. A person can will good things all he wants, but unless his heart or subconscious is purified by the grace or glory of God, his works are of no avail and he is still a captive to demonic influences. Willful good works which are not products of a heart being purified by divine grace are not only not meritorious, but, much worse, they are satanic. Good works produced by a filthy sub-conscious and a rationalistic self-justifying self-assertiveness can be nothing else.

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Mephi

Brandi,

GREAT QUESTIONS!

Iconoclast

I agree. How would you answer?

thanks,
Iconoclast

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Hey, I want some feedback!

AND WHERE THE HECK IS DOC?!?!?

I look forward to some comments to my questions!
~Brandi~

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A consistent process theist would say that God COULD NOT have saved Zosia. I think that in S&PE Doc tries to show WHY WE CAN'T KNOW the answer to this question--namely, the complexity of creation, NOT the ambiguity of God's character. It seems like what Mephi has been saying is pretty consistent with this.

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I think someone could make a pretty strong case that having the power to save a child from being tortured, but nevertheless choosing not to do so is strait up evil. The only way to justify such a choice is to argue that it somehow prevented a greater evil/somehow made a greater good possible.

A consistent process theist would say that God COULD NOT have saved Zosia. I think that in S&PE Doc tries to show WHY WE CAN'T KNOW the answer to this question--namely, the complexity of creation, NOT the ambiguity of God's character. It seems like what Mephi has been saying is pretty consistent with this.

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Meph dances a jig, does two backward somersaults, break-dances, does a running forward flip while clapping his hands screaming "Hallelujah" at the top of his lungs...

and then says "Good answer, Electra."

Holla,

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DO I DISAGREE WITH EVERYONE HERE???

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Process theology has the potential to BLOW UP...for real … This type of theism has IMMENSE benefits in situations like these. The only problem is that we'd ultimately have to deny a God that ACTUALLY speaks and acts unilaterally...which means that any given religious experience (including God "talking" to you and miracles) would be more HUMAN INTERPRETATION OF and EXTRAORDINARY RESPONSE TO divinely initiated aims than anything else. So much for the Risen Christ actually having a CONVERSATION with someone...

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It seems to me that process theism means that God can’t come down to earth and have a conversation with Abraham and then go and bring down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. Mephi, correct me if I am wrong. (Hah – like I even needed to say THAT )

Clearly God is in control. He is omnipotent. He is the creator. He freely CHOSE to create us. And He freely CHOOSES to allow us to do evil. AND He has exquisite control over the creation AND sometimes He uses it. Witness the sun standing still. Witness the ten plagues. Witness the miracles by Jesus. Witness how He works in our lives. Who can deny this? Not Mephi.

Thus Mephi chooses Theistic Bootlicking.

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My continued solution for those who believe in a UNILATERALLY powerful, speaking, acting God: Theistic bootlicking.

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Electra

I think that in S&PE Doc tries to show WHY WE CAN'T KNOW the answer to this question--namely, the complexity of creation, NOT the ambiguity of God's character. It seems like what Mephi has been saying is pretty consistent with this.

Iconoclast

What Doc shows in S&PE is that God CHOOSES NOT to control free-will beings strictly in their ability to choose THAT which materially affects their character formation – their ability to love. He shows that God wants us to choose love because love MUST be chosen.

Thus when we see a free-will being torturing a little girl we know that God is allowing this because He is choosing NOT to stop that free-will being from choosing evil BECAUSE the stopping of the free-will being will destroy that free-will being’s ability to choose love and thus ultimately destroy the free-will being.

The reason the complexity of creation is even brought up is to explain why God sometimes intervenes and sometimes He doesn’t.

The next objection relates to prophecy. How can God prophesy and therefore partly settle the future without compatibilistically making free-will being do things? AND if He does THIS then how can we say that He CAN’T override the nazi guard’s free will which would mean that He is therefore COMPLICIT in the nazi guards evil?

This objection misses the nature of how free-will choices relate to character formation. MOST of our behavior is on autopilot – it is due to prior choices we already made – AND it is unconscious. Thus God could certainly directly cause our subconscious to choose to do things AND STILL BE CONSISTENT with the higher level choice. Let’s say we decide to go to work. The route we take, the speed we drive and so on is mostly unconscious – it is like riding a bike. What is the problem with God fine-tuning exactly how fast we drive that day? How does that change our character formation? It doesn’t. There is plenty of room in this concept for God to cause prophecy to come true and STILL abide by His choice to NOT stop free-will beings from choosing evil.

Even so, this doesn’t REALLY solve our ethical concerns because we know that God can make exceptions. Shoot, isn’t He all powerful? WHY does He have to abide by this RULE, this PRINCIPLE of His when a little girl is being tortured? He COULD stop it simply by saying “stop” yet He doesn’t AND WE KNOW that to NOT stop torture when you have the power to do so is to be complicit in that evil.

Now to get around this we want to say two things:

One) There is a hidden and mysterious “glory variable”. A “greater good” that God is aiming for – something along the lines of the “shape of history” such that it allows Him to intervene dynamically whenever He needs to in order attain this.

Two) It is OK to be complicit in evil as long as it is to prevent a greater evil (or equivalently attains a greater good). Unfortunately this leads to us seeing evil and calling it good. Which is a really bad idea given Jesus’ harsh words to the Pharisees regarding that subject. Or it leads us to saying that God sometimes does evil. Another really bad idea.

Back to the problem. What is known:

K1) We know that God is love.

K2) He loves us and wants the very best for us right here and right now.

K3) The very best for us to is to experience the kind of love He has.

K4) Love must be freely chosen.

K5) K4 entails that God must allow us to choose evil.

K6) To NOT stop evil when you CAN is to be complicit in evil.

K7) God chose to NOT stop the nazi guard from committing evil when He COULD have.

K8) God is never complicit in evil. He never does evil.

I think the reason we cannot resolve these knowns is that we are looking at this from a human perspective rather than from God’s perspective. What might God’s perspective be?

First of all I think we have to shift our thinking from assuming that Zosia and the nazi guard have Life. God said that in the day we eat of the fruit we shall surely die. So Zosia and the nazi guard are really dead. God then says that our days will be numbered and we will die. What can it mean that we die from this death except that we come to Life?

So for God to take someone’s life or for God to allow a life to be taken really means that God stops someone’s death or allows someone’s death to be stopped. (Warning: this logic ONLY applies to God – DO NOT try this at home – it has the exact opposite effect!)

We also know that when this death we are in is stopped we either go to Eternal Life or to Eternal Death based on our choice.

In its simplest form what we are missing in all this is God’s logic that we must die to live.

Therefore from God’s view the IMMINENT danger is NOT to Zosia but rather it is to the nazi guard. Zosia is not in danger of losing her Eternal Life. It is the nazi guard who is in danger of losing his Eternal Life. So why doesn’t God stop him so that he WON’T lose his Eternal Life? Because Eternal Life must be chosen. To stop the nazi guard from experiencing the full consequences of his choice here on earth MEANS to give him an Eternal Death sentence.

Therefore from God’s point of view we would say that God would be complicit in the evil of the nazi guard’s Eternal Death if He DOES stop him before he has fully chosen Eternal Death.

Therefore K7 is the real problem here. It is a radically confused idea about what is really happening – about what the real evil taking place is. The real evil from God’s point of view is the nazi guard choosing to take another major step toward his own full choice of Eternal Death. God CANNOT stop the evil of this choice without annihilating the nazi guard’s free will. Why? Because Love must be chosen.

Thus God COULD have saved Zosia but CHOSE not to BECAUSE He chose not to annihilate the nazi guard’s ability to choose love.

In other words God allowed the evil of the torture of Zosia because the only way to stop it was to do the greater evil of annihilating a free-will being (Eternal Death).

God chose to allow a lesser evil because he chose not to commit a greater evil.

In some sense this is a “greater good” argument. But only in the sense of why God created the whole thing to begin with – why God created the POSSIBILITY of free-will beings choosing evil. And it is no different than our logic of why we choose to have children even though bad things may happen to them or they may choose to do really bad things. The greater good is love – freely-chosen love (the only kind). It is NOT a “greater good” argument to justify God being complicit in evil because when we flip this around and look at Life and Death from God’s perspective we can see that God allowing evil never entails that he must be complicit in or in any way do evil in order to gain this greater good. Quite the contrary, this allows God to unilaterally take action wherever He can to influence us to choose love. And the more that we pray to Him to use us to accomplish His will the more He can actually take action through us in order to influence us and others.

thanks,
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Electra

The only way to justify such a choice is to argue that it somehow prevented a greater evil/somehow made a greater good possible.

Iconoclast

I disagree with this. The only justification I am aware of for doing evil or being complicit in evil is self-defense. This idea that it is OK to do evil in order to prevent a greater evil is not something our jurisprudence recognizes. The ONLY justification for being complicit in evil is when your life or someone else’s life is in IMMINENT danger. This is a very strict standard that our courts and juries uphold. Bottom line: It CAN’T BE THEORETICAL; else Andrea Yates would have been acquitted. It can’t even be probable – it must be IMMINENT.

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Hmmm...I think that you're still missing the point. You keep trying to get away from the greater good thing. This is still based on greater good/lesser evil logic....like so...

Commiting evil like HOMICIDE is morally justified if it is being done for a greater good (saving a life that is IMMINENTLY in danger) or preventing a greater evil (shooting someone who is going to shoot another person. [COP STUFF!!!])

The logic is still there, Iconoclast. Timeframe is not the main issue. You see this, right?


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Iconoclast:

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What Doc shows in S&PE is that God CHOOSES NOT to control free-will beings strictly in their ability to choose THAT which materially affects their character formation – their ability to love. He shows that God wants us to choose love because love MUST be chosen.

Thus when we see a free-will being torturing a little girl we know that God is allowing this because He is choosing NOT to stop that free-will being from choosing evil BECAUSE the stopping of the free-will being will destroy that free-will being’s ability to choose love and thus ultimately destroy the free-will being.

The reason the complexity of creation is even brought up is to explain why God sometimes intervenes and sometimes He doesn’t.

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I don't think that you are being complete here. Divine intervention doesn't NECESSITATE exerting compatibilism of any type. God would NOT have been stopping the Nazi's free-willed choices if God were to have divinely saved Zosia by some other means. The explanation of why God sometimes intervenes and sometimes doesn't MUST include this!

Let's get something clear. You say:

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In other words God allowed the evil of the torture of Zosia because the only way to stop it was to do the greater evil of annihilating a free-will being (Eternal Death).

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This seems patently FALSE. Do you mean to tell me that if God were to cause that Nazi to trip and hurt himself, perhaps causing him to NOT place so much emphasis ON Zosia...that God would be annihilating him as a free-willed being? Heck, let's go more dramatic than that. Do you mean to tell me that if God were to send an angel to give this man a unexplained blinding flash that distracted him from Zosia that THIS would have annihilated him as a free-willed being?? That makes no sense. The only way that your thought holds up is if you equate ALL divine intervention with ONE TYPE of compatibilism. But again, that's not the case.

This is VERY IMPORTANT.




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Now, I want to make REEEEEEALY sure that I get this next part...

Iconoclast:

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First of all I think we have to shift our thinking from assuming that Zosia and the nazi guard have Life. God said that in the day we eat of the fruit we shall surely die. So Zosia and the nazi guard are really dead. God then says that our days will be numbered and we will die. What can it mean that we die from this death except that we come to Life?

So for God to take someone’s life or for God to allow a life to be taken really means that God stops someone’s death or allows someone’s death to be stopped. (Warning: this logic ONLY applies to God – DO NOT try this at home – it has the exact opposite effect!)

We also know that when this death we are in is stopped we either go to Eternal Life or to Eternal Death based on our choice.

In its simplest form what we are missing in all this is God’s logic that we must die to live.

Therefore from God’s view the IMMINENT danger is NOT to Zosia but rather it is to the nazi guard. Zosia is not in danger of losing her Eternal Life. It is the nazi guard who is in danger of losing his Eternal Life. So why doesn’t God stop him so that he WON’T lose his Eternal Life? Because Eternal Life must be chosen. To stop the nazi guard from experiencing the full consequences of his choice here on earth MEANS to give him an Eternal Death sentence.

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This is what I'm hearing:

Ever since the fall, human beings are pretty much LIVING DEAD people. So whenever God either kills or ALLOWS death to persons, God is merely stopping our "living death" state, as it were. Killing what is already dead. There's nothing unethical or wrong with that. Moreover, by our choices in this state, we go to Eternal Life or Eternal Death after this living death that WE call life. And for God to stop someone SO THAT they won't lose their eternal life wouldn't WORK because love must be chosen.

Some things:

1) This line of thinking (the living death thing) seems just what SOME Calvinists would like to say. (I said SOME, Al... )

2) To the extent that your logic here is built upon the section I've discussed above, it is possibly wrong.

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Iconoclast:

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In other words God allowed the evil of the torture of Zosia because the only way to stop it was to do the greater evil of annihilating a free-will being (Eternal Death).

God chose to allow a lesser evil because he chose not to commit a greater evil.

In some sense this is a “greater good” argument. But only in the sense of why God created the whole thing to begin with – why God created the POSSIBILITY of free-will beings choosing evil. And it is no different than our logic of why we choose to have children even though bad things may happen to them or they may choose to do really bad things. The greater good is love – freely-chosen love (the only kind). It is NOT a “greater good” argument to justify God being complicit in evil because when we flip this around and look at Life and Death from God’s perspective we can see that God allowing evil never entails that he must be complicit in or in any way do evil in order to gain this greater good. Quite the contrary, this allows God to unilaterally take action wherever He can to influence us to choose love. And the more that we pray to Him to use us to accomplish His will the more He can actually take action through us in order to influence us and others.

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I just want to note that you ARE granting validity to the "greater good" idea. This is a big step. But I also want to highlight how you are working this thing. By looking at life and death "from God's perspective", God is exonerated, theodicy wise, because we are ALREADY dead. Any action God takes, then, is to help those who are in danger of STAYING dead, which may include many different allowances. This is creative, to be sure. But if I were you, I'd stash this idea. I think it may create MANY more problems than you want. Seriously.

And about being complicit in evil, look at Doc's post above mine. He said:

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How do we know when God can and can't intervene? We look. If he intervened, he obviously could have. If not, he couldn't.

What are the metaphysical constraints on God that condition his interaction with us? We can only guess. But I would argue they include * irrevocable but finite free will * the regularity of the laws of nature * the power allotted to prayer.

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The ONLY difference between what Doc has placed above and what I would say is the introduction of some variation of "glorification idea" And all of this IS within the "greater good" idea.

[On a side note, I DO think that process theists have an advantage because their "CAN'T" truly IS metaphysical in every sense. The "Christian theist" sense is ultimately SELF-CHOSEN, which means it's NOT metaphysical in every sense.]


Holla,


PS: Brandi, give me some time. Thanks for the patience.