 |
Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > General Chat > (No Subject)
| Forum Quick Jump
|
| 
One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/6/2006 8:42 AM (GMT -6) |   | Ok. Let's do this.
1) Death as non-existence or oblivion doesn't exist. Death only exists as a temporary stage in our life journeys toward the Love of God.
and...
2) The terms "good" and "evil" don't exist in reality. They are FALSE CATEGORIES originated by the FALL.
Oh, boy. How am I going to explain THESE?
Ok.
1) Jesus' resurrection shows us that death has no power. Meaning that the separation of our physical aspects and non-physical aspects is NOT the end of human life. Not only that, but given eventual universal reconciliation, ALL human death is a MEANS to resurrected bodily LIFE in Christ. Christ's resurrection is the prima facie evidence of this.
Satan uses the FEAR of death...more than death itself...to keep people in despair. But people that know Jesus know that death is NOT anything to fear at all. If anything it's just the next step on our life journey in relationship to God. This is why Paul can be like "To live is Christ and to die is gain!" Death is NOT something to be feared...at all. Jesus showed that.
Now the next one...
2) Let's say that SK was right. That sin really is a dis-ease of the soul. (It's interesting how even Jesus seemed to use that terminology!) So there are only TWO POSSIBLE STATES that lie on a continuum of human existence. Being in despair or NOT being in despair.
NOT "good" and "evil"
But...
SHALOM and the MISSING THE MARK OF SHALOM
WELLNESS/PEACE vs. SICKNESS/DIS-EASE
Think about it. We use the ideas of good and evil to judge things. To demonize things. But the terms WELLNESS and DIS-EASE are NOT judgement terms. If anything, it just describes the reality of what's going on within someone. And it almost calls out for GRACE.
I don't think the terms "good" and "evil" are helpful terms to use. And I think the fact that the tree is called the "tree of the knowledge of GOOD and EVIL" gives a hint to that.
Think about it. Wisdom deals with what is REAL. Good and evil are OUR created terms. What is really necessary is discerning trajectories of thought and behavior that either tend towards "shalom" (for one and all) or move away from "shalom". (This is what Brandon's intuitions have already been saying to him.)
Good and evil are NOT HELPFUL as terms by which we JUDGE each other and ourselves. It is MORE TRUE and MORE HELPFUL to see the truth: we are ALL SICK to some degree or another...and Jesus is the means of our HEALING!
This is why Jesus is the Great PHYSICIAN...not the Great ETHICIST!
So...
What would happen if Christians solidly believed that...
1) death is only a transitional state into what will ultimately be a BETTER LIFE for all (The last enemy to be destroyed is death...meaning that ALL LIVE.)
and...
2) the categories of "good" and "evil" are lies of the Devil. The ONLY categories that exist are Shalom or deviation from Shalom.
Wouldn't Christians be a LOT BETTER OFF?
Thoughts?
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
| | Back to Top | | |
 |
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/6/2006 9:12 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph: This is why Jesus is the Great PHYSICIAN...not the Great ETHICIST!
Jeff: I think there's another way to look at it. There is no system of rules that can exhaustively explain what is good and evil. There is only love or a lack of love, ultimately. But under typical conditions and circumstances, there are some generalizations that sufficiently describe HOW to love one as oneself, because humans are sufficiently similar. This seems to be the gist of Christ's teaching. Under normal conditions, the Jew was to keep the sabbath, tithe, etc as part of the covenant. But if their ox was in the ditch, the sabbath could be "profaned" and they would still be "blameless."
Paul does the same thing in a non-Mosaic context (children obey your parents). But he allows for the general principle of love to transcend the "rules." "All kinds of things are permitted, but NOT all things are profitable."
IOW, rules are sufficient for normal states of affairs where human nature is our best guide for benevolent action in a social context, whereas Love is the fundamental ground that explains the exceptions to those rules. But humans, being conceptual creatures and relatively similar in constitution, will always need SOME generalizations to guide them in adjudicating difficult circumstances.
Case in point using your analogy of a physician: We would think that a doctor seeing someone naked in a medical context is OK. But we wouldn't think it was OK for the doctor to see that same person naked in other contexts. But the former is seen as an exceptional case because of the exigencies of a Fallen world--not because of anything about human nature and human sensibilities, per se.
To my mind, to say otherwise seems to deny our similarity as humans. There is room for some diversity within the moral order. But if diversity is too great, a rational being can not know HOW to love another. Because then the well-being of one would be attainable only at the expense of another. And this brings us to an impossible utilitarian calculus. But sufficient similarity is what explains the usefulness of some generalizations about behavior under normal conditions. And in this sense, there is room for ethics, so long as they are not seen as absolutes.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 10/6/2006 9:27:20 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/6/2006 9:41 AM (GMT -6) | | ETHICS is not the point.
WISDOM is the point.
Just read Proverbs 1 and 2.
WISDOM has "trajectories" that describe reality in ways that allow rational deliberation on loving activity. "Rules of wisdom" if you will.
Even think about the way that we interpret wisdom literature. We take them as GENERAL TRAJECTORIES of human reality...but we don't make deontological "bible promises" out of them.
Doesn't this give us some clue?
Can we both agree, though, that the terms "good" and "evil" are not helpful?
********************************
Jeff:
IOW, rules are sufficient for normal states of affairs where human nature is our best guide for benevolent action in a social context, whereas Love is the fundamental ground that explains the exceptions to those rules. But humans, being conceptual creatures and relatively similar in constitution, will always need SOME generalizations to guide them in adjudicating difficult circumstances.
I'm not disagreeing with this. These are the "trajectories" that we generalize and make into "principles" that we use for directing our lives. All I'm saying is that this is WISDOM...not necessarily ETHICS.
Here's a definition I found in the dictionary and I think it's a representative one...
Ethics: that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.
THIS...IS...MY...ISSUE!
[b]Ethical deliberation is FODDER for our JUDGEMENT mechanisms.[/b]
Wisdom is what the Bible speaks of, NOT ethics.
See what I'm talking about, Jeff?
"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) : 10/6/2006 10:02:40 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/6/2006 9:51 AM (GMT -6) | | | The "moral order", I would submit, is nothing more than the disposition that God has for living in PERFECT SHALOM: the flourishing of God's contingent expression (including Creation) through right-relatedness. Anything that heads towards that is in line with God's nature. Anything that heads AWAY from that is NOT in line with God's nature...and falls into Das Nichtige.
This is why some people say that the moral order is grounded by God's holy nature being the "standard". They are accurate in saying that our sense of moral order is grounded upon our being like God...but then they are INACCURATE in actually thinking that it's about certain deontologic STANDARDS.
It has NOTHING TO DO with "good" and "evil" as categories.
"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 | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/6/2006 10:29 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph: They are accurate in saying that our sense of moral order is grounded upon our being like God...but then they are INACCURATE in actually thinking that it's about certain deontologic STANDARDS.
It has NOTHING TO DO with "good" and "evil" as categories.
Jeff: I think we're saying the same thing. The whole idea of sickness vs. wellness fits with the idea that some things are "bad" for us or "good" for us. But there are no absolute standards. So I would agree that "good" and "evil" as categories is misleading in that sense.
But it also communicates something true, also--namely, that wellness is associated with GOOD feelings and illness is associated with BAD feelings. Granted, righteousness can result in certain sufferings--but only because they lead, ultimately, to maximal GOOD feelings--Christian HEDONISM, IOW. The bottom line is, sentience is the ground that makes the concepts of sickness, wellness, good, evil, etc, intelligible at all. I assume that's what you're saying, too. Right?
| | Back to Top | | |
|
One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/6/2006 10:37 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
I think we're saying the same thing. The whole idea of sickness vs. wellness fits with the idea that some things are "bad" for us or "good" for us. But there are no absolute standards. So I would agree that "good" and "evil" as categories is misleading in that sense.
But it also communicates something true, also--namely, that wellness is associated with GOOD feelings and illness is associated with BAD feelings. Granted, righteousness can result in certain sufferings--but only because they lead, ultimately, to maximal GOOD feelings--Christian HEDONISM, IOW. The bottom line is, sentience is the ground that makes the concepts of sickness, wellness, good, evil, etc, intelligible at all. I assume that's what you're saying, too. Right?
We're almost on the same page, I think.
The way that we use "good" and "bad" in terms of HEALTH...is different fro the way we use "good" and "evil" in estimating someone's personal worth. Unfortunately, we use the latter too friggin much.
What happens when you describe some other people as an "axis of evil"? Objectification, perhaps?
Hmmm...
Moreover, there is often too close an association between "GOOD FEELINGS" and what is truly "good" for us. Sometimes things that feel "bad" can be the best things for us! This is why "good" and "bad" aren't helpful categories. But "sickness/dis-ease/mark-missing relation" and "wellness/peace/proper relation" ARE.
"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) : 10/6/2006 10:42:06 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/6/2006 10:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Ok. I think I've got it.
The terms "bad/evil/wrong" and "good/right" are just NOT HELPFUL when we are talking about persons! We fall WAY too easily into judgement and condemnation of each other by our categories!
The terms SICKNESS and WELLNESS are much more HELPFUL categories to think through the human condition.
Let's change our LANGUAGE USAGE such that we represent reality...but in a way that doesn't LEND ITSELF to us "eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"
"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 | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/6/2006 10:50 AM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: Think about it. We use the ideas of good and evil to judge things. To demonize things. But the terms WELLNESS and DIS-EASE are NOT judgement terms. If anything, it just describes the reality of what's going on within someone.
Tom: Map (verb) it however you like; it's the underlying realities that matter. And in that respect I think a move to "welness/dis-ease" leaves something out that has to stay in our minds. Welness/dis-ease describe states without saying anything necessarily about what brings such states about. And when discussing 'sin' (or dis-ease) the emphasis should always be on what it is we're doing (or thinking) that lands us in dis-ease. I don't associate "sin" with the consequence (dispair or dis-ease), though they're obviously related--the former results in the latter. I want to associate "sin" with CHOICE and "dis-ease" or "dispair" with the resulting "states" of existence.
Whatever avoiding the temptation to assume the role of 'judger' and partake of the tree might mean, I don't think it means avoiding discussing the role of 'choice' as opposed to those states which are the consequence of choice. I wanna talk about CHOICE, not just CONSEQUENCES.
Jeff: I think we're saying the same thing. The whole idea of sickness vs. wellness fits with the idea that some things are "bad" for us or "good" for us.
Tom: But "sickness" and "wellness" don't fit with the idea that these states are the consequence of CHOICES (it's not true that every sickness we experience is the result of choices we make; sometimes we're just innocent victims so far as "sicknesses" are concerned). But were "sin" is concerned we are never the victim. We CHOOSE (at some level) our sickness. And that's why, in my mind, "sickness" and "wellness" are not adequate ways to describe "good" and "evil." Describe them in consequential terms, OK, but in terms that force people to see them as consequences of CHOICE.
Tom
Post Edited (TGB) : 10/6/2006 10:56:42 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/6/2006 10:55 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph: Moreover, there is often too close an association between "GOOD FEELINGS" and what is truly "good" for us. Sometimes things that feel "bad" can be the best things for us! This is why "good" and "bad" aren't helpful categories. But "sickness/dis-ease/mark-missing relation" and "wellness/peace/proper relation" ARE.
AND...
Why should we keep "good/right" and "bad/evil/wrong" as categories BY WHICH WE JUDGE OURSELVES and our activities??
Jeff: I think people probably do misuse the terms. But I also think the average person senses that moral "rightness" is necessarily associated with maximal sentient satisfaction when all our sentient experience is considered as a whole. That's why I say some suffering is consistent with wellness and rightness--similarly, some pleasure is associated with sickness and wrongness. So I think people, including Jesus, are just using language parsimoniously when they use "good" and "evil" to talk about morality/religion/self-actualization/etc. Because they know the moral order REQUIRES that their greatest sentient satisfaction result from "righteousness."
The bottom line for me is this: teleology entails the concept of "right." When we say our car isn't running right, all we mean is that it isn't running the way it was INTENDED to run. So yeah, wellness is what God INTENDS, teleologically, whereas sickness is NOT what God intends. But that's equivalent, in most folks vocabulary I think, to saying that some LFW choices are "right" insomuch as they are conducive to HEALTH--which is the true intent of our Creator.
| | Back to Top | | |
|
One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/6/2006 10:56 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Tom: Map (verb) it however you like; it's the underlying realities that matter. And in that respect I think a move to "welness/dis-ease" leaves something out that has to stay in our minds. Welness/dis-ease describe states without saying anything necessarily about what brings such states about. And when discussing 'sin' (or dis-ease) the emphasis should always be on what it is we're doing (or thinking) that lands us in dis-ease. I don't associate "sin" with the consequence (dispair or dis-ease), though they're obviously related--the former results in the latter. I want to associate "sin" with CHOICE and "dis-ease" or "dispair" with the resulting "states" of existence.
Whatever avoiding the temptation to assume the role of 'judger' and partake of the tree might mean, I don't think it means avoiding discussing the role of 'choice' as opposed to those states which are the consequence of choice. Adam and Eve had to CHOOSE whether to judge or not. I wanna talk about CHOICE, not just CONSEQUENCES.
You'd better keep reading SK, Tom. 
Sin is fundamentally about our CHOSEN POSTURE towards God and reality. It's ALL about volition. SK is the father of existential philosophy AND psychology, remember??
We fall into SICKNESS UNTO DEATH when we make the choice to leap out of mere ANXIETY...into INTENSIFIED ANXIETY that we call "despair." Surely, compulsions come after that point. But being in despair is a volitional thing...that exists moment by moment...and pushes us into LESS CONSCIOUS FORMS of despair.
Commentary on SK's "The Sickness Unto Death"
sorenkierkegaard.org/kw19.htm
What I'm describing is based on the idea that, as SK puts it, sin is a POSITION not a NEGATION.
And SK had it right. Despair is REMOVED when we CHOOSE to relate ourselves to the Absolute (God) absolutely...and we "rest transparently in the power that created us"
"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) : 10/6/2006 11:00:15 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/6/2006 10:59 AM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: You'd better keep reading SK, Tom. Sin is fundamentally about our CHOSEN POSTURE towards God and reality. It's ALL about volition.
Tom: If we're going to assume everybody out there we talk to reads and understands SK, fine. But not everybody does. Notice that "I" don't. So I couldn't follow your assumption that postures are chosen. Certainly not all "sicknesses" are chosen (I reworded my post after you posted). Can't we find words that laypersons unfamiliar with SK would understand?
I say make the important truths you want to communicate to MOST people as 'accessible' as possible. And SK is definitely NOT accessible. I wouldn't frame things in terms that require an understanding of SK (unless it's just a group of SK fans doing theology--that's cool; but I guess I thought you were talking about whole new way of talking to the WORLD). So "good' and "evil" are perfectly fine words. They're more accessible than anything else. And it makes more sense to me to just qualify what we MEAN when we use those words. That's easier than tossing them and introducing new terms that work only if you understand 19th century Danish guy who went out of his way to make his point as inaccessible as possible! 
Tom
Post Edited (TGB) : 10/6/2006 11:05:50 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/6/2006 11:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
If we're going to assume everybody out there we talk to reads and understands SK, fine. But not everybody does. Notice that "I" don't. So I couldn't follow your assumption that postures are chosen. Certainly not all "sicknesses" are chosen (I reworded my post after you posted). Can't we find words that laypersons unfamiliar with SK would understand?
Ok. What language would YOU use to convey the sense? I'm open for suggestions.
Here's how I want to say it.
From BIRTH, we are placed into positions where we begin to learn that our environments are NOT TRUSTWORTHY. We move from the constant security, nourishment, and protection of the womb...to a noisy, cold, and scary world where we have to CRY to be fed.
This is the FIRST TIME that we experience our world as MISTRUSTFUL.
See...http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/development/erickson.shtml for Erikson's 8 Stages of Human Development
That essentially pessimistic orientation towards the "other" sticks with us throughout our growth. Now compound this with the dysfunctional socialization we get from our parent/guardians?
(Think Original Sin, the Fall, and Adam having a son "in his image")
To the degree that we REMAIN in this fundmentally mistrustful state about our environment...and we actually lay this mistrustful state towards God...WE ARE IN SICKNESS.
Faith is coming to a place where, by grace, we OVERCOME the original pessimism that we were forced into by our birth...to leap into choosing to TRUST God.
God provides an OCCASION for us to leap OUT of our despair...and into faith...through God's work in Christ.
"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) : 10/6/2006 11:19:11 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
|
One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/6/2006 11:15 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Loving vs unloving
or
constructive vs destructive
or
personal vs impersonal
or
relationally connect vs relational disconnected
All of these desccribe 'states' but without letting people avoid the truth that they're states we get into through personal CHOICE.
If you look at all of your categories, all they are is parsing out directions of movement either TOWARDS God's nature...or AWAY from God's nature.
It's basically SHALOM-oriented movement or DESPAIR-oriented movement that characterize our lives as a result of our volitional apprehension of reality.
It's about movement...not abstract categories. It's a DIALECTICAL TENSION that we are in.
"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 | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/6/2006 11:19 AM (GMT -6) | | I guess I'm not quite as pessimistic about socialization as you are Mephi. A lot of good, loving, constructive socialization goes on too. A baby cries to get its needs met. But it also enjoy the comforting warmth of a mother's breast, and the unconditional embrace of parents. Those are categories most people really do understood as good, right, and wholesome. In fact, I think there's just as much (or at least enough) in most people's worlds that's functional and trusting as there is dysfunctional and mistrusting. Otherwise grace would never have anything concrete in our world to provide handle by which we conceive of grace and embrace it when it's offered. Without adequate handles, concrete experiences, even only at some unerasable inuitional level, whereby grace and love and trust are meaningful, we'd never move toward God.
I guess I'm wondering why we shouldn't by as or MORE optimistic than we are pessimistic about the maps most people end up with once they reach adulthood.
Tom
| | Back to Top | | |
|
One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/6/2006 11:24 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I guess I'm not quite as pessimistic about socialization as you are Mephi. A lot of good, loving, constructive socialization goes on too. A baby cries to get its needs met. But it also enjoy the comforting warmth of a mother's breast, and the unconditional embrace of parents. Those are categories most people really do understood as good, right, and wholesome. In fact, I think there's just as much (or at least enough) in most people's worlds that's functional and trusting as there is dysfunctional and mistrusting. Otherwise grace would never have anything concrete in our world to provide handle by which we conceive of grace and embrace it when it's offered. Without adequate handles, concrete experiences, even only at some unerasable inuitional level, whereby grace and love and trust are meaningful, we'd never move toward God.
I guess I'm wondering why we shouldn't by as or MORE optimistic than we are pessimistic about the maps most people end up with once they reach adulthood.
What you are describing, Tom, is my conception of an aspect of God's PREVENIENT GRACE in operation.
All I'm saying is that there is REASON to understand what the Bible says about how human beings MISTRUST God FROM BIRTH onward...even though God has given plenty of "data" to internalize that reality CAN be trusted...including God.
Doesn't this make sense of a LOT of things?
Romans 1
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of human beings who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human beings and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.
Some people never leap out of despair. And those people become COMPULSIVELY LINKED to their despair.
Isn't this making SENSE, yo? 
"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) : 10/6/2006 11:30:44 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
| 128 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 3:01 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|