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Tom
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| Posted 10/7/2006 12:45 PM (GMT -6) |   | Yes, von Belthassar. I've got his "beauty" books in my wish list! Yes. I'm not saying there isn't something about God that expressed BETTER, even BEST, with "beauty" than with "good." But I don't think "beauty" is a panacea that displaces all other expressions as contributing something important to the conversation.
I wouldn't call any 'PERSON' evil, but I would employ "evil" in peronal-situations. In fact, it's the ONLY situation in which I'd use the term "evil." THINGS aren't evil. Remember I talked about how evil as privation gets manifested in, through, and by PERSONS? Because "evil" is privation of relational beauty, it can ONLY be used in relational situations and that means PERSONS. But that doesn't mean saying the PERSON is evil. The PERSON is substantial, valuable, and loved. The EVIL is vacuous, privating, and to be hated. But the EVIL we hate hides in and feeds off of PERSONS.
So I don't mind saying Hitler was evil, but I'd qualify it in the way I just did. I think that's a lot better than saying Hitler wasn't evil and that evil belongs in discussions about non-personal things. Oh no. Evil ONLY belongs in converstaions about persons. This is what Bentley does. Privation of beauty enters our world through PERSONAL choice and continues to screw our world up through personal choice. That's all it is.
Tom
Post Edited (TGB) : 10/7/2006 12:49:55 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/7/2006 2:54 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I wouldn't call any 'PERSON' evil, but I would employ "evil" in peronal-situations. In fact, it's the ONLY situation in which I'd use the term "evil." THINGS aren't evil. Remember I talked about how evil as privation gets manifested in, through, and by PERSONS? Because "evil" is privation of relational beauty, it can ONLY be used in relational situations and that means PERSONS. But that doesn't mean saying the PERSON is evil. The PERSON is substantial, valuable, and loved. The EVIL is vacuous, privating, and to be hated. But the EVIL we hate hides in and feeds off of PERSONS.
So I don't mind saying Hitler was evil, but I'd qualify it in the way I just did. I think that's a lot better than saying Hitler wasn't evil and that evil belongs in discussions about non-personal things. Oh no. Evil ONLY belongs in converstaions about persons. This is what Bentley does. Privation of beauty enters our world through PERSONAL choice and continues to screw our world up through personal choice. That's all it is.
So, people are going to understand your reinterpretation of evil MORE THAN they would understand me using "sickness" to talk about people like Hitler???
It's easier to say that Hitler was a MADMAN than to say that he was relational beauty that was affected by a privation force, like you'd have to say! Ha!
I'd say that Hitler was a sinner, suffering from the sickness of sin. The MADDENING sickness of sin. And he destroyed many in his suffering of the weight of sin.
I'd also say that we've ALL sinned and come short of God's glory. And it's only by grace that we ALL haven't fallen into such depravity.
Look, man. Just keep using "evil" if you want to. It's no thang.
Personally, I think the world would be a better place without it's use.
But we are still cool. No worries.
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
"God is most glorified in us as we are most satisfied in God's nature." -- the new mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/7/2006 5:05 PM (GMT -6) | | | Meph: The coming of the law was DIVINE ACCOMODATION to our fallen state.
Jeff: I think I follow you on everything but this. When Paul says in Rom. 5 that sin is not imputed apart from Law, I think he's saying that the very notion of sin implies an end or law--whether or not the law has COME or been revealed. To be fallen, IOW, can only be properly conceived in terms of a law or end which we are "missing" in our walks.
So I say,
1) YEAH, we are to have the law of love in our hearts and we are to be motivated without fear, ultimately.
2) The Jews were to understand the written law by adjudicating it on the principle of love (including the proper attention to ones OX!).
3) And the law does STILL have a deterring effect on some people because of a fear of consequences in this life an beyond.
None of these is mutually exclusive with the other. And none of these is mutually exclusive with judgment being correlative with love in a teleological moral order. I don't say your concept of "ramifications" is illogical. I just don't think it's the most intuitive way to think about ramifications. And scripture, at least, has no hint of it. I remember one parable where Christ says those who don't forgive their debtors will be tormented until they have paid everything they owe (or something like that).
Christ did teach us that returning ill with good can be transforming to another. Paul even agrees that such a truth was recognized in the OT (Rom. 12). But neither of them (consider 1 Thess. 4:6, e.g.) took that fact to rule out post-mortem "vengeance," judgment, recompense, etc. And neither of them seemed to have assumed that government has no positive role to play. Neither of them, in short, saw any contradiction in all of the aspects of law you discuss and post-mortem accountability.
If it turns out that your view is true, I won't be mad. I'm just not prepared to abandon that much scriptural language when 1) so many people find just recompense intuitive, and 2) I can't see how it is counter-benevolent. The bottom line is, if people walk in love and are motivated by love, they will experience no judgment. Neither will they be judged for walking in the fear of the Lord or anticipating the future hope as a motivation. We should be constantly reminding ourselves, however, that it is our reasonable service to give our bodies as living sacrifices given what God has done for us! When this gets in our heart, the love of Christ will constrain us! It's just no sin to start from where we're at. And we're not always where we could have been had we walked faithfully without fail.
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One Love
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| Posted 10/7/2006 5:17 PM (GMT -6) | | Some people find KARMA is even MORE intuitive then retributive justice.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma
It actually seems more of the point to me then retributive justice.
Wasn't all Jesus was saying was this:
"Those who live by the sword, will die by the sword."
"Don't judge, lest you be judged."
"Give, and it will be multiplied back to you."
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
Does all this sound more like retributive justice, or more like the law of CAUSE and EFFECT?
And why can't vengeance, judgement, and recompense be seen from this perspective? One doesn't have to abandon the language. But one DOES have to deal with Jesus's flagrant denial of the retributive justice motif that was already understood by the Jewish people that he was talking to.
I mean, if we disagree, we disagree. That's fine with me. I just don't see divine wrath as being punitive or retributive. At all.
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
"God is most glorified in us as we are most satisfied in God's nature." -- the new mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/7/2006 5:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
If it turns out that your view is true, I won't be mad. I'm just not prepared to abandon that much scriptural language when 1) so many people find just recompense intuitive, and 2) I can't see how it is counter-benevolent. The bottom line is, if people walk in love and are motivated by love, they will experience no judgment. Neither will they be judged for walking in the fear of the Lord or anticipating the future hope as a motivation. We should be constantly reminding ourselves, however, that it is our reasonable service to give our bodies as living sacrifices given what God has done for us! When this gets in our heart, the love of Christ will constrain us! It's just no sin to start from where we're at. And we're not always where we could have been had we walked faithfully without fail.
This seems like a weaker/stronger believer issue where one should not judge the other. Everyone is before God, so we don't judge eath other by the ways that we relate to God. Some people don't operate by the moral law thing at all. Some people use the moral law faithfully as a portal to God. Neither are to be judged...for God knows the heart. Sounds fine to me.
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
"God is most glorified in us as we are most satisfied in God's nature." -- the new mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/7/2006 5:27 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
"Don't judge, lest you be judged," sounds like retribution to me. I know of no law that assures that. Similarly, I know of no cause-and-effect law that assures that those who don't forgive will not be forgiven, etc. To me karma IS retributive. It's just recompense--nothing more or less. It's simply justice worked out in the normal day-to-day living, as opposed to a post-mortem judgment. The difference is only timing, to my mind.
hmmm...
You think that the "law" is for assurance? Assurance of what?
It seems like there is some movement to try to assign consequences OTHER THAN those which naturally follow the action. Am I clear on that?
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
"God is most glorified in us as we are most satisfied in God's nature." -- the new mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/7/2006 5:33 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by "retributive." All I mean by it is that the judgment is just in proportion and occurs BECAUSE of our LFW works and without exception.
That's what I thought you meant before. That the ONLY AMOUNT of "judgment" experienced by any person is that amount to which they created for themselves. To the extent being A has caused X amount of damage to Creation, being A will have to accept responsibilty for that amount of damage. She will have to understand and REPENT of her previous activity...and whatever pain she endures to get that understanding IS the "just" amount. God renders EVERYONE the rewards or pain that they are due!
But, later, it seemed like you said that it could be possible for a being A to be ready to repent, but God's retributive justice NOT be satisfied yet. Like a person sentenced to 10 years...but has REPENTED and changed their orientation at year 5...and YET HAS to do the remaining 5. Like the justice is NOT based on being A unique negative contribution to Creation, but upon some abstract standard created by God that has to be served like prison time.
Which one is it?
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
"God is most glorified in us as we are most satisfied in God's nature." -- the new mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/7/2006 5:45 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
The latter. The language of scripture indicates that judgment is just. I don't know what that means apart from the accountability being proportional to what was DONE in the past. If it means something other than that, then the scriptural language is poor at communicating it. The rich man in hades was not spared of consequences because he saw the error of his ways.
So do you believe that perfect justice does NOT happen if...
1) a person suffers for the EXACT ramifications their activities have had in Creation. No more, no less.
and
2) they must take personal responsiblity for ALL of those activities before they can truly be said to have "repented"?
Are you saying that this is NOT just, Jeff?
I believe in DISTRIBUTIVE/REHABILITATIVE justice.
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
"God is most glorified in us as we are most satisfied in God's nature." -- the new mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :) Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/7/2006 5:53:00 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/7/2006 5:56 PM (GMT -6) | | Meph: So do you believe that perfect justice does NOT happen if...
1) a person suffers for the EXACT ramifications their activities have had in Creation. No more, no less.
and
2) they must take personal responsiblity for ALL of those activities before they can truly be said to have "repented"?
Are you saying that this is NOT just, Jeff?
Jeff: Regarding 1), I don't know how God calculates fitting consequences. I only know they render it pointless to try to improve one's lot at another's expense. Regarding 2), I'm not sure. I tend to think that pre-conversion works are disregarded. But I don't know for sure. Scripture seems to distinguish between the justification of LIFE and accountability of WORKS.
All I'm saying is, scripture doesn't even seem to hint at what you're saying about post-mortem existence. And since it speaks of future judgment of works for believers, I can only assume from scriptural language that such judgment is unavoidable. Common sense says we all WISH we wouldn't have to be judged. That's why Paul speaks of the fearfulness of it. It should deter us where love doesn't sufficiently motivate us.
Why would you think a person would not immediately repent upon appearance before the judgment seat of Christ? I'm interested in how you psychologically explain what goes on there. But I gotta run for now. I'll catch your response in a bit.
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/7/2006 7:21 PM (GMT -6) | | It seems that based on your wording, we have no way of ruling out that all volitional creatures, including Satan, might repent within 5 minutes of presence at the judgment seat. What grounds your sense that Satan will take a long time to repent? That's the part I'm not seeing. I see nothing in what you're saying that would lead me to believe anyone would take longer than 5 minutes to repent.
What goes in this world is different in that the suffering that is necessitated for righteousness is still a factor. This brings a different element to people's contemplation of whether life with God is worth it--since they can't work out a theodicy to make it seem trustworthy. So they don't want to gamble what they perceive as their happiness on an uncertain future. Others are dead certain that no theodicy is even possible. But how would any of that kind of rationalization be relevant at the very judgment seat of Christ?
What I hear you saying is that REAL repentance equals embracing God with love ONLY or some other very specific orientation, as if no other emotional orientation towards God could possibly constitute real conversion. If this is true, do you think C.S. Lewis was not truly repentant when he said he converted reluctantly? Or mightn't Paul have truly converted on the road to Damascus simply by believing that Christ truly was the LORD, independent of any other concurrent epistemic or emotional state or orientation? What scriptural language would you recommend to me to get a handle on just what are the specific elements of true heart repentance?
To me, believing in the heart that Jesus is lord is, itself, all that is required to constitute repentance. Because it implies that one has been (prior to believing) subject to something other than he to whom all submission is due. At the judgment seat of Christ, won't this be obvious to everyone? At least intellectually?
As for scriptural language, it always seems to refer to judgment that is determined by the work. Scripture never, to my knowledge, speaks of judgment having anything to do with rehabilitation.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 10/7/2006 7:42:08 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/7/2006 8:50 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
It seems that based on your wording, we have no way of ruling out that all volitional creatures, including Satan, might repent within 5 minutes of presence at the judgment seat. What grounds your sense that Satan will take a long time to repent? That's the part I'm not seeing. I see nothing in what you're saying that would lead me to believe anyone would take longer than 5 minutes to repent.
IF you were correct on this...what would it matter to you? You have your reward. If the Master is good and lets Satan in after 5 minutes of hell, do you call His eye "bad"?
I'm being serious. What would be your essential problem with GOD about this?
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Jeff:
What I hear you saying is that REAL repentance equals embracing God with love ONLY or some other very specific orientation, as if no other emotional orientation towards God could possibly constitute real conversion. If this is true, do you think C.S. Lewis was not truly repentant when he said he converted reluctantly? Or mightn't Paul have truly converted on the road to Damascus simply by believing that Christ truly was the LORD, independent of any other concurrent epistemic or emotional state or orientation? What scriptural language would you recommend to me to get a handle on just what are the specific elements of true heart repentance?
I should have been more clear. I am talking about the repentance that occurs at the rock-bottom experience. But as for the scriptural language about true heart repentance...all you have to do is go to the Scriptures that talk about how a CONTRITE HEART turned towards God is better than sacrifice...and obedience better than fatted rams...or something like that. A heart that is totally submitted and honorful of who God is. I think you can find these scriptures pretty easily.
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Jeff:
To me, believing in the heart that Jesus is lord is, itself, all that is required to constitute repentance. Because it implies that one has been (prior to believing) subject to something other than he to whom all submission is due. At the judgment seat of Christ, won't this be obvious to everyone? At least intellectually?
I think that you are underestimating the power of sin. But that's just me.
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Jeff:
As for scriptural language, it always seems to refer to judgment that is determined by the work. Scripture never, to my knowledge, speaks of judgment having anything to do with rehabilitation.
What do you think the "refiner's fire" concept is about?
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
"God is most glorified in us as we are most satisfied in God's nature." -- the new mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/7/2006 9:32 PM (GMT -6) | | | Meph: IF you were correct on this...what would it matter to you? You have your reward. If the Master is good and lets Satan in after 5 minutes of hell, do you call His eye "bad"?
I'm being serious. What would be your essential problem with GOD about this?
Jeff: I've already said that IF you're right, I'll have no problem with it. For all I know, the atonement renders it doable and inevitable. I just don't see it in scripture, and I see no reason why works-consequences is malevolent. When I see no philosophical reason to believe one way or another, I'll let scriptural language guide me.
Meph: But as for the scriptural language about true heart repentance...all you have to do is go to the Scriptures that talk about how a CONTRITE HEART turned towards God is better than sacrifice...and obedience better than fatted rams...or something like that. A heart that is totally submitted and honorful of who God is.
Jeff: I doubt that there are many Christians who have a heart that is totally submitted and honorful of who God is. So I don't see why that would be necessary post-mortem.
Meph: What do you think the "refiner's fire" concept is about?
Jeff: I'll try to read on the subject when I get time. Sounds closer to what you're saying.
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One Love
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| Posted 10/8/2006 7:43 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
I've already said that IF you're right, I'll have no problem with it. For all I know, the atonement renders it doable and inevitable. I just don't see it in scripture, and I see no reason why works-consequences is malevolent. When I see no philosophical reason to believe one way or another, I'll let scriptural language guide me. But you have said you thought angels would require a considerable amount of hell. I'm wondering what grounds that for you.
What's grounding that for me is the idea of the power of sin's bondage upon Satan and demons. I believe that Satan and demons are SO LOST in despair that it's probably going to take them a WHILE to get out of it. SK said that Satan's despair was the MOST INTENSE defiance. That's not going to go away in 5 mins, I'm betting.
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Jeff:
Jeff: I doubt that there are many Christians who have a heart that is totally submitted and honorful of who God is. So I don't see why that would be necessary post-mortem.
The Post-mortem judgement state is dealing with a RECKONING. It's not just about getting people to turn towards God at that time, regardless of how ignorant they were of their past behavior. (That was for the pre-judgement time.) At the post-mortem judgement state...repentance not only deals with merely turning towards God...but it also deals with them looking at the total waste that their life up to that point has been. They must take responsibility for their actions to God's contingent expression. And, again, we are talking about HELLBOUND people who are so trapped in despair that some of them don't even KNOW how in despair that they are. This is a process that, just like rehab, deals with getting people to face the truth of their futility by showing them the truth about their vacuous lives...and the pain they've caused in those lives.
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
"God is most glorified in us as we are most satisfied in God's nature." -- the new mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/8/2006 8:03 AM (GMT -6) | | | Meph: And, again, we are talking about HELLBOUND people who are so trapped in despair that some of them don't even KNOW how in despair that they are. This is a process that, just like rehab, deals with getting people to face the truth of their futility by showing them the truth about their vacuous lives...and the pain they've caused in those lives.
Jeff: I'm only familiar with one kind of rehab and that's the kind where you are freed from addictions. But in those cases, isn't the person already choosing to do it before they go in? And then the pain is caused by the body's own withdrawal, not by any outside agent. So how do you see this analogy working in post-mortem repentance? Do you see God as causing the pain or what?
I'm at a loss to see how pain, per se, causes repentance. Pain must be seen as an obstacle to a greater good to be a teacher. But it would seem to me to take no more than 5 minutes in a post-world environment where none of our normal choices are even an option to see what would cause our greater good. Even Pharoah, as hard as he was, did a double-take at the death of the firstborn. It was only because he was left in the same world with the same choices that he could fall back into hardening. There was some OPTION that made that choice doable.
One other thing that does seem troubling to me. If God is powerful enough to change a person's heart, why would He allow "ultimate harm" rather than just doing it? It seems you have trouble with just recompense as a means to maintain the rationality of the moral order but have no trouble with God being so determined to get beauty from an LFW choice that He would risk ultimate harm. I'm saying God wouldn't risk that at all. So I don't have any reason to abandon scriptural language until I see how this post-mortem rehab works, psychologically, and why it is more benevolent for God to risk "ultimate harm" because of preference for one kind of beauty. I mean, how much suffering does God permit for His own gratification?
This seems like a real theodicy issue to me. Is God really a junk-yard dog over LFW beauty to the point that He will watch suffering indefinitely? Even if I opted for a rehab view of post-mortem suffering over just recompense, I would still say that God would put an end to suffering unilaterally after the equivalent of just recompense was completed. Again, I just see harmony as the greatest beauty to God when Christ's glory and reign do not necessitate its lack. And I gather, from scripture, that the great white throne judgment doesn't begin until after Christ delivers up his kingdom to God anyway. So Christ's temporal glory will not be an issue, then.
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Tom
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| Posted 10/8/2006 8:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: It seems that based on your wording, we have no way of ruling out that all volitional creatures, including Satan, might repent within 5 minutes of presence at the judgment seat. What grounds your sense that Satan will take a long time to repent?
Tom: You and Mephi are moving too fast. My internet at the house is not running, so I'm having to go down to Panera.
I think the reason I'm confident that Satan will take some time (IF it's true that he has a possible future with God) to repent is because of the metaphysics of good/evil with respect to character solidification. I don't know how to unpack it at all, but:
(a) the whole retributive vs rehabilitative discussion you're having might be helped if we say that retribution (as Jeff says) is a just and appropriate consequence that follows the misuse of freedom. It's 'built in' to the cosmos. If I eat something bad, I suffer appropriate sickness (fever, stomach ache, vomiting). Is that retribution? Well, sure, it can be seen that way, especially if people TOLD me "Don't eat that! It'll make you sick. It's not good for you." Then my suffering is retributive. BUT I'm also in the place to be reformed by it. I can repent, decide to stop eating bad food, and get better. So the effects are also rehabilitative. The SAME effects. They are at once retributive--the re-attribute effects to me--and God designed the world to work this way--AND they are rehabilitative.
(b) What about Satan? Well, how long does it take to heal from food sickness? If you've just had a bite, it won't take too long. If you've fed yourself garbange for your whole lifetime, it'll take you longer. That's just the nature of things. I really do think that Hitler's deciding 5 minutes after entering his self-made hell to repent is out of the question. It's not out of the question affectively for me, no. Justice was taken care of by Christ. If he truly repented, fine. But I don't suspect that 5 minutes will get him free enough of his sickness to make the right choice. We "carry within us" the spiritual/moral DNA that determines the conditions and possibilties that define hell. Similarly, Satan has been feeding off of evil for, oh, how long? Millions of years? So long that he's as privated of good and personhood as any sentient being can be and still exist at all. So I suspect he's got some suffering to do to get to rock-bottom (gotta find another word for THAT Mephi!). But it's not as though God's in heaven and just decides how long to set the timer on Satan before he'll be allowed the opportunity to repent (assuming all of this is true, OK?). It's more like God designed the timer and hardwired it into us and WE set it over time, through choice.
Tom
Post Edited (TGB) : 10/8/2006 9:06:45 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/8/2006 9:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: So, people are going to understand your reinterpretation of evil MORE THAN they would understand me using "sickness" to talk about people like Hitler?
Tom: I’ve been trying to say that unlike you I’d never argue for a permanent vocabulary commitment. SOME people really will better understand the truth about Hitler as “evil.” Some won’t. But why in the world assume one map works for everybody?
As I said on my last post on page 3 (some stuff there you didn’t respond to, especially the point about your using “evil” only in non-personal situations and my using it only in personal situations—we must be thinking of “evil” then in entirely different ways; but I can hardly believe that!), “evil” is NOT so misunderstood that it’s useLESS. So I’m not reinterpreting it. I’m weeding out inaccuracies. It’s still a helpful term. And its embedded in the conversation like a tick. Besides, I don’t it’s so difficult for people to associate the word “evil” with the privation of beauty, or the presence of sickness, or whatever it is we’re thinking is a more theologically sustainable vocabulary. You seem to think people’s understanding of evil is so far gone there’s nothing (sorry for the pun) redeemable left! You think Satan’s redeemable but not the word “evil”? If that were the case, people universally would be calling Hitler good and Mother Teresa evil. But they don’t. What it is we’re trying to say people know intuitively. It’s there in ‘em. And they still connect evil and good to the right intuitions.
Tom
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One Love
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| Posted 10/8/2006 9:23 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I’ve been trying to say that unlike you I’d never argue for a permanent vocabulary commitment. SOME people really will better understand the truth about Hitler as “evil.” Some won’t. But why in the world assume one map works for everybody?
As I said on my last post on page 3 (some stuff there you didn’t respond to, especially the point about your using “evil” only in non-personal situations and my using it only in personal situations—we must be thinking of “evil” then in entirely different ways; but I can hardly believe that!), “evil” is NOT so misunderstood that it’s useLESS. So I’m not reinterpreting it. I’m weeding out inaccuracies. It’s still a helpful term. And its embedded in the conversation like a tick. Besides, I don’t it’s so difficult for people to associate the word “evil” with the privation of beauty, or the presence of sickness, or whatever it is we’re thinking is a more theologically sustainable vocabulary. You seem to think people’s understanding of evil is so far gone there’s nothing (sorry for the pun) redeemable left! You think Satan’s redeemable but not the word “evil”? If that were the case, people universally would be calling Hitler good and Mother Teresa evil. But they don’t. What it is we’re trying to say people know intuitively. It’s there in ‘em. And they still connect evil and good to the right intuitions.
I'll give you two more examples of symbolic terms where we can "weed out inaccuracies", but it would take TOO MUCH ENERGY and TIME for too little change.
1) swatiska
2) the term "racist"
I would say that even though one could try to restore the GENUINE, MORE NUANCED meaning (based on the real meaning and origin) of these symbolic terms...
But it would be an utter waste of time and energy.
When our country keeps talking about terrorists as EVIL. And you have media people like Sean Hannity or Al Franken talking about people being EVIL...millions of people around the world.
It makes no sense to try to fix peoples understanding of THAT WORD.
It's too far gone.
What makes since is to get people to think more about WHY the people they think are "evil" are that way.
And THEN we talk about DESPAIR.
Which I guarantee you people will understand.
Oh, and on that other post.
WELL SAID, TOM!!!
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
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