Brandon: That you need intimacy with God, but if you don't have right relations with others you still won't have maximization.

Namaste: 1) If you are talking about maximization of beautiful experience, I agree with the bolded statement.

Tom: Well, there we go then! Looks like we’ve got an agreement!

Namaste: 2) God's ultimate telos is to promote the divine life (self-glorification), in part via promoting the ultimate well-being of all others. God's telos for HUMANITY is to be conformed to the image of Christ, individually and as an organic whole...

Tom: This looks good to me, Brandon. You OK with this? So—a person can be as intimate and tight WITH JESUS as that person can possibly be WITH JESUS but still have SOME beauty left to maximize if ALL their human relations are less than they COULD be.

How about this?

(1) Let’s posit a TOTAL BEAUTY-INDEX for each individual person. Let’s take Susy as an example. Susy’s total BEAUTY-INDEX is all the possible beauty that could be reflecting through her life right now: ‘Susy-God’ beauty + ‘Susy-Other humans’ beauty + ‘Susy-Environment’ beauty.

(2) Each of these relations (God, Others, Environment) is its own factor in Susy’s existence and each has its own greatest possible beauty relative to Susy.

(3) The God-relation or God-factor is the source of beauty for the others. It’s just like the Trinity. Father is source and fountain of deity. The Son reflects (derives) deity from the Father. The Spirit likewise from Father AND Son.

(4) The relationship between the Susy-God relation and the other two relational factors in the Beauty Index is asymmetrical. That is, Susy’s TOTAL BEAUTY-INDEX may be less than it could be on account of the latter two relations (the ‘Human’ and the ‘Environment’) reflecting less than they each individually COULD (through no fault of Susy’s; say she’s doing all within her power rightly related God to maximize the beauty available in relating to others and the environment). But provided the Susy-God relation is all it can individually be Susy CAN live entirely despair- and anxiety-free because Jesus is her center and THAT is enough for despair-free living. Susy is doing all SHE can do to reflect all the beauty she can reflect. It’s just that while God’s doing all God can do to see that Susy’s BEAUTY-INDEX gets maximized all the way around, other people and the environment may not be doing all they can do to maximize her BEAUTY-INDEX. So long as the Susy-God relation is all IT can be, Susy can live despair free. The other two factors of the BEAUTY-INDEX are derivative (even if they’re created by God as sources of beauty) while the Susy-God relationship is primary.

But if Susy is intentionally neglecting her relationship with other humans and/or the environment, then her relationship with Jesus CAN’T be all it can be (I think Brandon thinks Namaste denies this). And that’s because SUSY isn’t all SUSY can be when she relates to others and the environment. But only GOD can transform Susy into all she can be in relation to others and the environment (I think Namaste thinks Brandon denies tihs). But it doesn’t work the other way (which is why the relationship between Susy-God and both the Susy-Others and Susy-Environment is asymmetrical). When others and the environment fail to contribute all they can to maximize Susy’s TOTAL BEAUTY-INDEX, it DOESN'T limit the beauty achievable in the Susy-God relation. However, if either God or Susy (obviously Susy, 'cause it won't be God--he's constant) fail to contribute all they can to the Susy-God relationship, it DOES limit the beauty achievable in the Susy-Others and Susy-Environmnet relations.

Pass out the beer and cirgars.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 10/26/2006 5:07:50 PM (GMT-5)

Dude, you are simply BRILLIANT, man!

Post Edited (Namaste) : 10/27/2006 6:46:55 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Namaste) : 10/27/2006 7:23:49 AM (GMT-5)

Wait.

Post Edited (Namaste) : 10/27/2006 10:23:13 AM (GMT-5)

We are to love the neighbor...AS...WE...LOVE...OURSELVES!

Damn, this is wonderful!

Post Edited (Namaste) : 10/27/2006 10:53:48 AM (GMT-5)

Tommy said: This looks good to me, Brandon. You OK with this? So—a person can be as intimate and tight WITH JESUS as that person can possibly be WITH JESUS but still have SOME beauty left to maximize if ALL their human relations are less than they COULD be.

Brandon: Yes! This is EXACTLY what I'm saying.

Tom: GREAT!

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Tommy said: (2) Each of these relations (God, Others, Environment) is its own factor in Susy’s existence and each has its own greatest possible beauty relative to Susy.

Brandon: OK. Now here is where I start to need some clarification. See, I don't know if I can get on board with your "Total Beauty-Index." It seems to me to be too much of a compartmentalization of the person. Yes. I think that I can agree that they are asymmetrical. But I'm basically COLLAPSING one relation into the other.

Tom: But relationships can’t be collapsed like this. They really ARE different things, even if they impact each other. Why is it that “nothing can separate us from the love of God” (Rom)? Sword, famine, pestilence, others, persecution, demons, angels, whatever. None of those events or the relations that mediate their influence on us can dissolve our relationship with God in Christ. Why is that? It’s because the Susy-God relationship can’t be collapsed into the others.

And if you agree with what I said above (in this post), you have to draw some line between the Individual-God relationship and other relationships the individual has, because you’re agreeing that the Individual-God relationship CAN be all it can be (= the individual and God can both be doing all they can do to maximize beauty vis-à-vis each other). So beauty in THAT relationship can be maxed out. But you agree that there’s still beauty to be had by the individual in OTHER relationships. If this is EXACTLY what you’re saying, then you’re saying there IS a beauty-index that measures all the beauty an individual can reflect through her relationships. I’m suggesting those relationships are basically God-ward, Other-ward, & Environment-ward.

-------------------

Brandon: For example, at the end of your post you say: When others and the environment fail to contribute all they can to maximize Susy’s TOTAL BEAUTY-INDEX, it DOESN'T limit the beauty achievable in the Susy-God relation. However, if either God or Susy (obviously Susy, 'cause it won't be God--he's constant) fail to contribute all they can to the Susy-God relationship, it DOES limit the beauty achievable in the Susy-Others and Susy-Environmnet relations.

Ah...but THIS IS my point! If for example Suzy is not in relation to others, this, it seems to me will effect the maximization of the reflected beautifcation of the image of God in her and thus in turn her Suzy-God relationship. Why? Because at this point, Suzy is "less human" because of it (the "ultimate human" being the reflected image of God). Thus, the environment and others have a profound effect on not only the TOTAL beauty index but HENCE (as a natural outcome) the God-human/human-God relationship that exists between Suzy and God. And it seems to me that all you are essentially doing is reiterating the same point over and over again, that Suzy can somehow have ultimate satisfaction and beautification (at least her Suzy God relationship) without relationship with others by simply being in "right-relation" with God.

Tom: I want to say what I think Paul is saying when he says nothing (outside of God and myself) can separate me from the love of God. There is a despair-free existence that is ours in Christ that nothing outside the relata (God and me) can dissolve.

Now, I think you have a point when you say there are things I learn from being in relationship to others that enable my relationship to God and so impact the beauty I can achieve in my relationship with God. Like Namaste says, where he is now with God wouldn’t have been possible apart from other people (like his wife). Could he really have achieved the intimacy he now has with God without her, and without ANY human being? If this is the case, then you’re point is

Namaste? Brandon is questioning this part of my comments: When others and the environment fail to contribute all they can to maximize Susy’s TOTAL BEAUTY-INDEX, it DOESN'T limit the beauty achievable in the Susy-God relation.

But it sure looks like your own present Individual-God beauty index was impacted by others. In fact, you’ve admitted that there’s a beauty to it that wouldn’t, COULDN’T, be there were it not for others.

This has to be welded together with Paul’s comments in Romans. There has to be an essential beauty, and essential experience of and security in God’s love for me as an individual that isn’t affected by others. At the same time, it seems obvious that our relationships to others (for good or for bad) do contribute something to who I become overall and that in turn affects the beauty I’m able to achieve God-ward.

Tom

Namaste: 2) Can spiritual beings be DESPAIR-FREE without any other created spiritual beings around if they have a unified relationship with God? Imagine a person stranded on a deserted island for 10 years.  It was just them and God.

Tom: They can be despair-free on an island just unified in God. Let’s assume that. But what Brandon is saying is that though they may be despair-free, there’s still some beauty TO THE Susy-God relationship that’s missing. Just like your God-ward beauty index is greater today because of your wife (and others) than it would have been had you and God done all you possibly could have done but without this input from others.

Think about post-rock bottomers in heaven. They’ll be despair free, but they’ll have a permanently smaller capacity to experience and reflect beauty in the Person-God relationship. They lived so disconnected with God and others over time, and had to come by way of fire, that the ceiling of their reflecting capacities are irrevocably damaged. Though redeemed (and so despair-free now) the Individual-God relationship is less than it could have been.

Tom

Namaste: Every human being has the ability to relate rightly TO THEMSELVES...and in so doing, they are relating rightly to a human being that they are in relationship with! They end up FULFILLING the constitutive dispositional drive in human beings to relate to all perceived human beings well...EVEN IF THEY ARE ALL BY THEMSELVES…

Tom: I don’t know. I don’t think so. Sure, there’s a sense in which relating to ourselves is a personal achievement, but I don’t think it can fulfill the dispositional drive to be in relationship with other human beings. Look, it took the D-Aki relationship to get the D-God relationship where it is today. Unless you really want to say that everything YOU are in relationship to God today was achievable without others, we’ll have to figure in the influence of others on our Individual-God relationship, not so much so that the Individual-God relationship is at the mercy of other relationships. It’s just that who and what I am able to become is partly determined by others in my life, and that means there’s a different ME in relationship to God.

I think what we can say is that the Tom-God relationship is impervious to others in the sense that the specific “Tom” under consideration (Tom at time t, given everything that’s going on) can do all within Tom’s power and capacities (at time t, given all this “Tom” is) to maximize beauty with God. I think that’s true. It’s just that OTHERS make for a different Tom, and when you change the “Tom” in the Tom-God relationship, you have a different beauty.

Tom

It’s like this:

All individuals have definitional dispositions through which beauty is achieved

1) Every individual is, independent of all other individuals, an irreducible center of sentient, volitional relationality.

2) This relationality faces possibilities with respect to God.

3) These possibilities are defined both by what God brings to the relationship and what the individual brings to the relationship.

4) Every individual can bring all the individual is to God and so achieve a maximum Individual-God beauty.

5) But individuals become more (they grow, mature, and expand) when in relationship to other human beings.

6) The more a human being is the more a “person” they bring to their Individual-God relationship.

7) The more “person” that is brought to the Individual-God relationship, the more possibilities there are and the more possible beauty there is to reflect.

See it Namaste? And GIVEN individual in any GIVEN context can achieve a maximal beauty in relationship to God and THAT cannot be dissolved or lessened by others. But any GIVEN person in any GIVEN context is in process. The person can become MORE through relationships with others and so be a different person (more a person) GIVEN different contexts. And others really do contribute unique things to the contexts in which persons become and grow and in turn makes us DIFFERENT PERSONS. But different persons means different possibilities with respect to God.

Tom

I’ve got it…

Namaste: God is MORE THAN ABLE to bring someone into a despair-free life without the aid of other humans.

Tom: Yes, this is possible. But (here it is): Not all despair-free creaturely existence reflects the same level of beauty. Distinguish between “despair-free” per se (and what’s required for a person to live despair-free) on the one hand, and the “maximal beauty” that an individual who is despair-free reflects. Two people both equally despair-free don’t necessarily reflect the same level, intensity, or amount of beauty in their Individual-God relationship. Even the same person despair-free can achieve greater beauty in their Individual-God relationship if THE PERSON becomes a different person. That’s just it. Others make us DIFFERENT PERSONS and so contribute to defining just WHO IT IS that stands in relationship to God.

Tom