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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/8/2006 9:32 AM (GMT -6) |   | Tom: Re: (1), I'd say a serial killer is still what he is even if you place him on a deserted island. The isolation actually constitutes part of the suffering. Why suppose we can suffer from our habituation only in social contexts but not in isolated ones? Are you thinking lustful people won't BE lustful people in hell if there are no babes to lust after?
Jeff: So just what does the luster have to DO post-mortem to reconcile with God? Does he have to completely lick his habit of lust? Tom, Christians don't even have to do that to reconcile with God.
Tom: (2) the heart follows the head. You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. What's the problem with understanding hell to be the sort of place where we are left to suffer through the truth about ourselves, no hidding from it being permitted, so that what's redeemable in us comes to face the truth.
Jeff: This is my argument. If change in head is all that is necessary, ultimately, what is the FACT that the head must ACKNOWLEDGE to be reconciled with God? And then explain why that FACT will take so long to GET. I mean, the demons believe there is one God and tremble even now.
Tom: It's then free to choose.
Jeff: Choose what, exactly? If the head has already ACKNOWLEDGED whatever fact it needs to ACKNOWLEDGE, what is left to CHOOSE? What, exactly, is the object of volition at that point?
Meph: 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.
Jeff: I think they're using the word proplerly--but MIND-BOGGLINGLY hypocritically. Changing vocabulary words won't solve that problem.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 10/8/2006 9:41:45 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/8/2006 11:27 AM (GMT -6) | | Ok. This is gonna sound a little weird.
But just go with it.
This is the FACT that is so hard for hellbound persons to get, Jeff.
Both angels AND humans.
Even though they have caused UNTOLD ugliness in God's beautiful creation...
even though they spit in God's face EVERY TIME he tried to show grace..
even though by PERFECTLY JUST standards, EVERYONE should be utterly TRAPPED in their disgusting compulsions becuase of their despair...over and against all the "data" that God provided for them...
Even after living lives like idolatrous WHORES before the living God, idolizing THEMSELVES...
God STILL loves them and wants to be with them FOREVER.
They can't believe it.
They just can't believe it.
It's too good to be true. (Ever heard THAT before???)
It would be hard enough to believe, even if they were in their right mind!
But...
They are too crazy with rage and self-condemnation...and from that, comes utter hatred of God.
They are IRRATIONAL. (Tom, you were right about sin being an IRRATIONAL act! You've always been right about that. Sorry, I didn't see it sooner.)
They are so compulsively crazy...that they need an INTERVENTION. (the rock-bottom experience)
An INTERVENTION that brings enough RATIONALITY BACK...
To make a "faith" leap into the hands of their Creator.
You see...
The condemnation of the self BY the self is a powerful INSANITY PRODUCING thing.
It's the seat of despair.
When you are SO out of touch with yourself that you choose to be DEFIANT against Reality itself.
You choose to IGNORE the reality of relationality...
And fall into the SOLIPSISTIC existence of narcissism...
Also called "radical individualism"
Where you define your existence OVER AND AGAINST everything else.
But just like Doc's book says...there's no WAY to do this...
To move AWAY from the reality of being related to God and others...
is to move TOWARDS believing lies...
And falling into Das Nichtige.
You choose to serve Das Nichtige...which doesn't exist.
This is...the HEIGHT OF DESPAIR
This is where Satan is.
He's stone crazy with despair. Utterly defiant against Reality.
Ever promoting Das Nichtige.
Ever trying to despoil God's good creation.
Ever trying to get God's "little images" to believe LIES...
Lies that cause despair and destruction.
Which is WHY it will take Satan probably the longest time of EVERYONE...
to believe the truth about what God being LONGSUFFERING and ALL-LOVING really means!
Actually, this kind of despair I'm talking about.
This was WHY Judas killed himself.
He didn't believe it was possible for him to be restored for his betrayal. He was in utter despair.
But Peter REPENTED.
He KNEW what he did was wrong...but he did NOT make the mistake of thinking that God would NEVER forgive him.
And he was restored by Jesus.
And God wants us to be like Peter...and not like Judas...
So we don't remain in our despair...right here and now.
but in the long run...
for those who just can't get it in this life...
have no fear...
God is into restoring Judases too. 
Do...you...see?
"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) : 10/8/2006 11:46:36 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/8/2006 12:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
I'm just not convinced that all Christians, even, really get it. I think there are people that really believe that Christ is Lord and ARE forgiven who don't see what you're saying.
You're right, Jeff. They DON'T get it.
Justification is WONDERUFUL, but there is a santification process.
And if one doesn't "work out their salvation with fear and trembling"...
They can fall into APOSTASY.
Yes.
To the extent that people don't understand the DEPTH of God's forgiveness...INCLUDING BELIEVERS...they will not forgive others fully...INCLUDING THEMSELVES...
(This is the lesson Jesus was sharing with his disciples using the woman who wept as his feet!)
And they remain in despair.
It's NEVER been just about saying "Jesus is Lord" to remove the despair FULLY. Sanctification is a PROCESS of despair removal. There are SOME "Lord-followers" who are SO in despair, that they don't even know it.
Doubt me?
Matthew 7:21-23
Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
We need to take this VERY, VERY seriously!
********************
Jeff:
I'm just thinking that belief in the lordship of Christ is enough to be justified, and Christians can be wrong on a great deal else--like Calvin, e.g. So I'm wondering why more is required of post-mortem unbelievers.
You are right about the justification part. But more is required of post-mortem unbelievers because, at the Judgement Time, the TIME for GRACE has ELAPSED. In the GRACE time, people could live IGNORANT of all the chaos that they'd created in God's contingent expression. Both believers and non-believers.
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' [b] As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' [c]
29 "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead." But... At the judgement time, "every idle word will be judged". God will have us to see ALL THE WAYS that we made God's contingent expression more beautiful...and all the ways that we made it more UGLY and SIN-STAINED. The people who have NOT accepted Jesus's justification by that time...will HAVE to endure this judgement WITHOUT "the blood of Jesus covering them" The wrath of God will be bearing down upon those people...hardcore. does this help?
"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) : 10/8/2006 12:27:08 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/8/2006 1:01 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
Yeah, as long as you posit some distinction between now and then to account for the difference in requirements for reconciliation. But I still think if what you're saying is true, Jesus was way off in his understanding of eschatology (and, apparently, his understanding of God's benevolence to the extent that it is related to the mode of judgment). So I guess it depends on to what extent one's theology tends to lean on Christ's understanding.
Since I see no malevolence in just judgment, I'm not yet prepared to dump his understanding. I have no a-priori problem with what you're saying because the atonement might be competent to ends I'm not privy to. I'm just allowing for the possibility that Christ really WAS privy to God's eschatological plans. Do you see a theodicy problem with Christ's perspective?
We are both talking about "just judgment", Jeff. Tom was right in his statement:
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
This was EXACTLY right!!
When described like this, there IS no malevolence there. THIS is why I agreed with you at first..because I thought that THIS is what you were saying.
I'd like to submit that, GIVEN TOM'S DESCRIPTION, I'm not against retributive punishment. It's just retributive punishment that is based on some ARTIFICIALLY CREATED STANDARD such that the "punishment" does NOT fit the "crime"
What we are talking about here does NOT ESSENTIALLY conflict with what Jesus taught about divine judgment and what Paul spoke about God's wrath. Not at all.
I think that we can come to agree on this, jeff.
I really do.
You've been indispensible in helping to hone my ideas.
Thanks.
"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) : 10/8/2006 1:08:17 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/8/2006 1:23 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Tom: 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.
Jeff: I totally agree with this, too, Meph. But the point of it, with respect to my contention, is that, reformed or not, my change of mind/heart will not make the sickness go away immediately. It will run its COURSE. That's all I'm saying. And this is totally consistent with Christ's wording. Christ doesn't rule out rehabilitative effects of consequences. But he does say that consequences have some kind of proportionality to their causes.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 10/8/2006 1:31:39 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/8/2006 1:35 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
I totally agree with this, too, Meph. But the point of it, with respect to my contention, is that, reformed or not, my change of mind/heart will not make the sickness go away. It will run its NATURAL COURSE. That's all I'm saying. And this is totally consistent with Christ's wording.
When it comes to the sickness of the SPIRIT/SOUL, Jeff...
It's like flicking on a light switch.
Metanoia.
The SICKNESS leaves whenever you change your posture towards God.
(It's ALL in SK's "Sickness Unto Death"
The "running of the natural course" exists in DIFFERENT WAYS given the epoch we are talking about, Jeff.
For example, on THIS side of the Judgement Day line, some of the EFFECTS of the essential sickness have to linger, even after despair has been removed because of the way the world works. There is STILL TONS of epistemic distance. If I kill someone, and I repent, I STILL have to deal with some of the ramifications of my actions in my FUTURE LIVING situation (namely I will be a felon and will have a hard time getting a job) Think "wheat and tares"
But..
On the OTHER side of the Judgement Day line, this will not be the case. In "hell", ALL of the previous action is brought down upon them. Their sickness is leading them towards a spiritual NARCISSISM unto UTTER SOLIPSISM. Utter unreality. Das Nichtige. When the sickness is relieved at this point, then there IS no further running of the natural course...because all that is is a journey into SELF-destruction. Any "metanoia" from that point can't be ANYTHING BUT positive and RESTORATIVE.
Do you get what I'm saying here?
You've almost got this.
"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) : 10/8/2006 1:44:17 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/8/2006 1:39 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff,
There IS proportionality, man.
Just like Tom said.
The proportionality of the consequences is BASED upon what we've done with what we've been entrusted (Hint: the Talents parable)
OUR ABILITY TO SELF-DISPOSE.
Remember Doc's 6 theses. One of them deals SPECIFICALLY with this kind of proportionality.
We can use our ability to self-dispose unto beautiful RELATIONALITY with God and Creation...or towards ugly, insane, SOLIPSISM of utter unreality.
The proportionality is there. Just like Jesus said.
"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
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/8/2006 1:57 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
Yes. Like process theists we know that God is ESSENTIALLY benevolent and does everything He can do to bring about the optimal, blissful harmony of all sentient beings. But UNLIKE process theists, we know He CAN do it.
THAT IS EXACTLY RIGHT, JEFF.
THIS is why Greg's reconstruction of process theism is so VERY, VERY important.
It's a friggin GOLD MINE...and Doc's just NOW seeing that! (Please here his sermon for this week [Oct 8] to see what I'm talking about!!!)
It has ALL of the strengths of process thought...but none of the weaknesses that prevent it from being compatible with Christian theology and eschatology.
Tom. Jeff. Corey.
GET THE DISSERTATION.
You'll be glad you did.
"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) : 10/8/2006 2:00:01 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/8/2006 2:05 PM (GMT -6) | | But let me say this...
I am in DEEP GRATITUDE to you, POW.
You've kept me from the brink of letting philosophic theological conceptualization...outweigh my RESPONSIBILITY as a shepherd of God's people. Including a healthy respect for the people who have come before us on this journey of faith in Our Lord. (The gift of Tradition)
And for that, I am extremely grateful. I don't have the words.
"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
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/8/2006 2:13 PM (GMT -6) | | Heh.
Doc's OFFICIAL POSITION is as follows:
In the end, everything that can be reconciled to God will be. And everything that cannot be reconciled to God will NOT be. All permeation of sin and it's effects will be judged. Following this judgment, God will be all in all.
This leaves things OPEN for all the evangelical views (ECT, Annihilationism, Universalism)
I believe that he is HOPEFUL that more things can be reconciled than we think. But he will not go beyond that.
That's his story and he's sticking to 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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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/8/2006 2:15 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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