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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 12/7/2006 9:22 AM (GMT -6) |   | | Yo Namaste-
Recall that we're saying irrevocable solidification in evil is impossible. Recall too that we explain this basically by saying:
(a) Human persons are by defintion dispositional centers of sentient experience.
(b) Dispositions by definition mediate between possibility and actuality.
We basically use (a) and (b) to say:
(c) Human being can solidify so completely that every possibility for personal becoming is foreclosed save one: the possibility of Godward becoming.
We've bee theorizing, philosophizing, and theologizing on this, but I've been wondering where in the Bible we might find evidence of the idea that "Godward becoming" cannot be excluded from the field of possibilities human being faces so long as a person is a human being.
I found it: 2Cor. 3.17--"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."
The paragraph: 15 Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their minds; 16 but when a man turns to the Lord the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."
Do you see it? Look at it and think on it before finishing this post...
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Wherever God is, God brings to that situation "freeom" or "libertary"? What might that mean? It has to mean AT LEAST this (on the assumption of omnipresenece): that any non-God reality faces at least ONE possibility--the freedom to dispose Godward. What freedom is left is this is denied? Exactly. God can't be present without creating for that to which God is present the possibily of Godward becoming. This is metaphysically the case.
It would presummably be true in all conceivable worlds, including hell. As we've been postulating: ECT is conceivable in the sense that it's conceivable that a person in hell would renew her rejection of God on a moment by moment basis. A person could conceivably repeat this infinitely. What she could not do is (as Jerry Walls says HAS to be the case to make sense of ECT at all) once-and-for-all freely choose to irrevocably reject God, to irrevocably solidify in evil. Walls argues this IS an option for human choice. But he's wrong. Such an irrevocable state of affaris could not be possible, for it denies two things:
(1) The person's being a human person, which minimally requires sentient dispositoinal capacity to mediate between possibilty and actuality. To "be" a person at all is to possess this capacity to face "the possible" (but "the possible" is denied by ECT). If that capacity is gone, the "person" is gone, and that's annihilation.
And more importantly...
(2) It ignores or denies 2Cor 3.17, namely, that "where God is there is freedom"; that wherever God is present in creation, God brings "freedom" to that created reality--i.e., the possibilty to "become" God-ward. This seems to rule out the possibility of annihilation (which only follows from irrevocably solidified wickedness or irredeemable states).
And we HAVE to extend (2) to those in hell. On ECT it is human persons who in hell remain at least minimally conscious and sentient. That's what makes it possible for them to suffer so. But what created reality can exist apart from God's sustaining presence? None can. It's ruled out by defintion. The omniscient/omnipresent God must be in hell, sentiently present, providentially present in sustaining the existence of the wicked in their sufferings. God could not withdrawal his presence from the wicked ABSOLUTELY without annihilating them since no creature can exist independently of God. To continue to exist, any creaturely reality would have to sustain its own existence, and THAT is quite impossible on a Christian theistic worldview.
So for persons the exist at all in hell, God has to be present in sustaining their existence. And we agree God IS so present.
But once we put God into the equation, you put the freedom of "Godward becoming." Yep. It's 2Cor. 3.17 baby. Wherever God is...ALL that God is (necessarily and potentially) is there, and that includes there in hell, in the experience of the suffering wicked. Wherever the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom--i.e., wherever God is, there is at least ONE possibility for becoming, namely, God-ward becoming.
What's irrevocable about human being is its dispositional character; more specifically, the sentient and relational capacties of human dispositional constitution for personal, relational becoming. To be human is to be an autonomous center of experience that's free to "become" relationally and personally. To not be THAT is to not exist as human being. And the only personal being that exists necessarily is God. For any existing human being, sustained in existence by the presence of God, God remains within that person's dispositional field of possibilies as that one reality constituing the possibilty toward which the person must be free to dispose herself so long as she exists.
Dude, 2Cor. 3.17 bolsters the position. If the case for humans as dispositional centers of sentient experience is weak, 2Cor. 3.17 makes the case. GOD can't be in/with anything, any situation without creating for that being or situation a certain FREEDOM. Dude, we could make a case for the impossibilty of irrevocable ECT entirely without the dispositional argument just on the basis of God's presence necessarily introducing freedom to any and all non-God realities God is present to. And God is OMNIpresent baby.
So, the possibility of ECT is logically coherent given the dispositional realities that define human being. What's impossible is IRREVOCABILITY of ECT. The combination of (a) God's presence sustaining the wicked in hell, and (b) 2Cor 3.17 (which as I see it basiclally posits the necessary disposition to freely become Godward for any non-God reality in God's presence) fasifies the possibilty of irrevocable solidification into evil.
---------------
The only objections to this I can see are:
(1) Construing 2Cor. 3.17 (and the implications God's being present to some created reality would have) so as to exclude the possibility of Godward becoming. I'd like to see that.
(2) Construing ECT in such a way that persons are no longer "persons" or "human" in the sense of being dispositional centers of sentient experience. But what is that if not annihilation? The "person" is gone, doesn't exist. Whatever would continue to exist on this view would be incapable of the sort of "conscious suffering" that proponents of ECT want to insist upon. It's the agent, the PERSON, who has to suffering the consequences of their choice. You have to keep enough of the person (conscious, sentient, and experiencing) in tact to make her the proper 'subject' of just consequence. The person is suffering qua person for personal choices made. But once you introduce enough of a PERSON to qualify as a sentient, conscious subject of suffering experience whose existence is sustained by the presence of God, the creative possibilities which Paul says inevitably flow from God's presence get introduced into the persons field of possibilities. They MIGHT/MIGHT not dispose Godward.
Tom
Post Edited (TGB) : 12/7/2006 8:56:29 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/7/2006 10:19 AM (GMT -6) | | Absolutely BRILLIANT, Tom!
I was just talking to "you know who" about something like this yesterday. Specifically about the NATURAL ramifications of the Spirit of Jesus being the Creation's Dispositional Equilibrium...and how ALL sentient being are now made "dispositionally well" in Christ. That because Jesus continues to exist, it is INEVITABLE that his work would affect the possibilities of God-ward movement open to all Creation. That got a thumbs up.
When you put Christ's dispositional "righting" of Creation's transcendental wholes...AND the impossibility of the irrevocability of ECT together...
So....
1. Spiritual creatures CANNOT utter solidify themselves against God.
2. The Spirit of Christ (where there is freedom) is ACTIVELY pulling all Creation into his dispositional equilibrium at all times.
But let's add one more reason...
I've been reading Greg's book about PERSPECTIVITY. Remember that, in Greg's reconstruction, PERSPECTIVITY is more fundamental than EXPERIENCE (pace Hartshorne). He says that dispositions have to be defined perspectivally. That is to say, that when we speak of dispositions, we CANNOT speak of them outside of speaking of how they are related to some "other order of being". And because all dispositions are aesthetic subjective aims, it stands that ALL dispositional beings (the definititional, incorporeal, mediating, abiding reality that comprises the spirit and soul) are UNCHANGABLY related to God because God is the sustainer of the whole relationship. It is METAPHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE that a being can self-dispose itself OUT OF the relation. A being can only MISRELATE in the relation...not destroy the relation.
This means that it's METAPHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for a spiritual being to self-annihilate! God would have to "pull the plug"
But God cANNOT pull the plug. Why?
Because God's superjective activity NATURALLY FLOWS to God's creation from God...like the rays of the Sun flow naturally to the Earth. Think about it. There is NO WAY that the Earth can be "totally unaware" of the Sun when it has it's ORBIT and LIFE coming from the Sun each moment of it's existence! In like manner, no non-divine perspective can be "totally unaware" of it's DEPENDENCE upon something else for it's own existence! God cannot cease being omnipresent given panentheism. So, God's presence of "freedom" CANNOT be removed from any existing perspective. IT HAS to be there and the existent perspective HAS to deal with it...eventually.
Remember, God CREATED spiritual beings to be ETERNAL...and that means the ability to eternally be RELATED to God in relating in their dispositional relation!What grounds the LOGICAL POSSIBILITY of ECT is also what grounds the inability of a non-divine perspective to annihilate itself: the nature of perspectivity with respect to spirit beings. So... 1. Solidification into irrevocable turning against God is IMPOSSIBLE. 2. The Spirit of Christ (where there is freedom) is ACTIVELY pulling all Creation into his dispositional equilibrium at all times. AND... 3. It is metaphysically impossible, given the nature of perspectivity (an a priori idea), that a non-divine perspective can annihilate itself by "removing itself" from it's relation to itself and it's relation to God because this relation is a function of panentheism, not self-disposition. Given these three things, it is UTTERLY REASONABLE for someone to say that eventual universal reconciliation (where all things come into equilibrium with God through the Spirit of Christ) is the case. It's a wrap, 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 love." -- the newest mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :)
Everything that will be well...is well already! Post Edited (Namaste 2.0) : 12/7/2006 9:24:55 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/7/2006 10:52 AM (GMT -6) | | WOW!
Look at this psalm with DISPOSITIONAL EYES!!!
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1 You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, [a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
"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 love." -- the newest mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :)
Everything that will be well...is well already! | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/7/2006 11:59 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
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| Posted 12/7/2006 3:41 PM (GMT -6) | | Read and SEE.
Commentary on Soren Kierkegaard's "A Sickness Unto Death"
http://sorenkierkegaard.org/kw19.htm
DESPAIR IS "THE SICKNESS UNTO DEATH"
This is why Kierkegaard can call despair a sickness: It was not inherent in original man. That man has a kinetic and relating self, whose components form a synthesis, that relates or transacts itself with itself, does not alone explain despair. It is the misrelation of the synthesis that posits despair. Just as actual sin leads to the state of sinfulness (see The Concept of Anxiety), the actuality of despair leads to a state of being in despair. This is why Kierkegaard can call it a sickness. This does not mean, however, that we are caught unawares or are not responsible. He calls it a despair unto death because it brings ruination in the self—not that it actually kills us. "On the contrary, the torment of despair is precisely this inability to die".
An individual in despair despairs over something. So it seems for a moment, but only for a moment; in the same moment the true despair or despair in its true form shows itself. In despairing over something, he really despaired over himself, and now he wants to get rid of himself. For example, when the ambitious man whose slogan is "Either Caesar or nothing" does not get to be Caesar, he despairs over it. But this also means something else: precisely because he did not get to be Caesar, he now cannot bear to be himself. Consequently he does not despair because he did not get to be Caesar but despairs over himself because he did not get to be Caesar.... Consequently, to despair over something is still not despair proper.... To despair over oneself, in despair to will to be rid of oneself—this is the formula for all despair (p. 19f.).
By striving for a different state of the self—which is a different self—a person is rejecting his self.
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One Love
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| Posted 12/7/2006 6:20 PM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
This is one of the forms (despair in not willing to be oneself); I wonder how the other (despair in willing to be oneself) plays in...
Quote...
"No despair is entirely free of defiance; indeed, the very phrase "not to will to be" implies defiance. On the other had, even despair's most extreme defiance is never really free of weakness. So the distinction is only relative.... This form of despair is: in despair not to will to be oneself. Or even lower: in despair not to will to be a self. Or lowest of all: in despair to will to be someone else, to wish for a new self." (p. 49, 52f.)
It's ALL about the WILLING against what God has for you.
Willing against the "eschatological essence" that has already been prepared for you.
Do you see it?
*******************
Bruce,
I understand. I really DON'T need OV anymore.
Why?
Because I know.
I KNOW.
All Creation is of God's energies.
God's ad extra "energies" are God's CONTINGENT EXPRESSIONS in the form of AESTHETIC SUBJECTIVE AIMS that can actualize into NON-DIVINE, relatively autonomous reality.
(Logoi, sumbebekos)
The whole predestination/foreknowledge debate is missing the friggin point.
The main point is ECONOMY.
And with that GRACE...
Which is why CREATION is the SUPERJECTIVE intergration of non-divine perspectives into the One divine perspective of God.
Rahner was RIGHT!
------------------------- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_RahnerPerhaps one of the most important of his essays was The Trinity, which asserted that "the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity." What Rahner means is that the God of self-gift (hence "economic" )is for Christianity the same God as God is in His self ("immanent" ). The fulfillment of human existence occurs in receiving God's gift of Himself, only fully through the beatific vision at the end of time, but present now as seed in grace.
The basis for Rahner's theology is that all human beings have a latent ("unthematic" ) awareness of God in any experiences of limitation in knowledge or freedom as finite subjects. Because such an experience is necessary, i.e., constitutes the "condition of possibility" for any knowledge or freedom as such, Rahner borrows the language of Kant to describe this experience as "transcendental experience."
Such is the extent of Rahner's idea of the "natural knowledge of God" — what can be known by reason prior to the advent of revelation. God is only approached asymptotically, in the mode of what Rahner calls "absolute mystery." While one may try to furnish proofs for God's existence, these explicit proofs only refer back to the inescapable orientation to mystery which constitute &mdas; by transcendental necessity — the very nature of being human.
For Rahner the central doctrine of Christianity is that of grace. This is a technical term to describe the central message of the gospel: God has communicated Himself. The presence of God's self-gift, guaranteed as persistent and infallible in the Christ-event, and only prevented from the errors of depraved and idolatrous interpretations by this event, is the center-point of the doctrine of grace. Grace for Rahner is given by God not only as a reality communicated from without, but as the constitutive element both of the objective reality of revelation (the Word proclaimed) and the subjective principle of the hearing (the Spirit within). Thus grace lies at both sides — without and within.
Rahner's particular interpretation of the mode in which grace makes itself present is that grace is a permanent modification of human nature in a supernatural existential (to borrow the term from Heidegger). Grace, in light of Christianity, is a constitutive element in man's existence. For this reason, Rahner doubts the real possibility of a state of pure nature (natura pura, human existence without being-involved with grace), which for him is a mere counterfactual.----------------------------
God IS All. God is IN all...and all is IN God. This is NOT a pantheistic statement. It is a panENtheistic statement. We are NOT saying that everything is UNCREATED. Only God is Uncreated!! We are saying that everything that exists in Creation has it's BEING in God's aesthetic subjective aims. But, even METAPHYSICALLY, those aesthetic subjective aims ARE God in some real way because of God's superjective activity. Just like the EO say about God's energies. As all becomes what it is...all WILL see the Truth. God will be All IN THE INDIVIDUAL PERSPECTIVES OF ALL.Every tongue shall confess...and every knee shall bow... No longer will people say "Know the Lord" because ALL will know him...from the least to the greatest. Yes!
"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 love." -- the newest mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :)
Everything that will be well...is well already! Post Edited (Namaste 2.0) : 12/7/2006 5:38:11 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 12/7/2006 6:29 PM (GMT -6) | |
selah said...
... tgb maybe we can talk about this in person, eh? Namaste? Corey? etc...
I'm interested! I guess I'm needing some processing time too. What do you think, is there a game night in our future? A.n.i.t.a?  Blessings! Hey, clue me in on when the "eve" will take place. I got two cars, both of which are working, and the wife and I need to get away from home for a few days and visit the Cities. Clue me in, Tom, if something's going down!
Starkman
My teacher used to say that whenever he read Scripture, he would always ask the question, "What does this have to say about the character of God?" Working off his thinking, as I read Scripture, I have come to ask, "What does this have to say about the heart and passion of God's desire for relationship with us? | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/7/2006 6:43 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/7/2006 6:45 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
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| Posted 12/7/2006 6:47 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 12/7/2006 7:00 PM (GMT -6) | | I go back to what I said many moons ago in our discussions about the Open View: we are not as free as we think we are. Right from the get go Genesis opens with restrictive reins on our so-called freedom.
Let me say in my own words what I sense this thread is summing up.
Because of our metaphysical makeup, we are created without the ability to exist soley on our own, either while we are on earth or when we pass into the after-life. This means that where ever we are, we are dependant upon God for our existence, not in the particulars, so to speak (viz., in every breath we take), but in the general sense where life itself takes place.
In that we are not autonomous, we discover that the heart of this matter is found in the unseen but clearly demonstrated perception of a Proper that watches over and directs us. What we try to find as our own concept of Proper, our conscience testifies for or against us that we either are or are not in the Proper. It is frustrating that there is no clear delimiter to prove the Proper one way or another, but the concensus of life itself tells us there is, in deed, the Proper to be followed. The All-Seeing-Eye of the Proper is with us everywhere we go. We may stray from it, and even have concluded that we are free from it, but life itself (Romans 1) testifies whether we are correct or not in our assessment; for there is no available path unto life where one can create for himself and others a road that leads to meaning and purpose without someone else eventually objecting to the nature of that path.
We can neither escape this Proper nor find freedom within our command to create our own Proper. Because of this, we are ultimately destined to be tied to the Proper - it can be no other way - and we are ultimately destined to be in relationship with the Proper. We may not like this, but this is part of what we call "life." More than just living in our own proper, we are intricately woven into the Proper of another.
We should not be afraid to declare that though time has made its way open for eternity for anyone to go against the Proper, it can never be that someone can stare eternity in the eye, looking away from the Proper, and find freedom to either create another Proper or to find relationship without the Proper. What has become apparent to some, while they live on this earth, is that we weren't made to be free from the Proper in the first place. More so, it only makes sense to gravitate to the Proper, which is to say that it does not make sense to do otherwise.
Indeed, we are not as free as we think we are.
Starkman
My teacher used to say that whenever he read Scripture, he would always ask the question, "What does this have to say about the character of God?" Working off his thinking, as I read Scripture, I have come to ask, "What does this have to say about the heart and passion of God's desire for relationship with us? | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/7/2006 7:12 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/7/2006 9:47 PM (GMT -6) | | | I never NEEDED the open view, and I don't understand what saying "I don't NEED it" is supposed to mean. Does "not needing it" mean "not needing it to be true," or "its being true is irrelevant," or what?
So are you saying the OV is not true, N? That its truth isn't helpful in any sense? True but not helpful? Not true and not harmful? True but not needful?
I don't know what "I don't need the open view" is supposed to mean.
Tom
Post Edited (TGB) : 12/7/2006 8:51:01 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/7/2006 11:22 PM (GMT -6) | | I can say what I mean by "I don't need OV."
Because of the "Logoi" and "sumbebekos" concepts that I understand, I don't need to try to explain HOW human freedom and divine sovereignty intersect.
I KNOW how they intersect.
And if I were to completely THROW AWAY everything I know about theories of time and all that...but remember the "logoi", "sumbebekos", energies/essence concepts with the Orthodox view of the Triune God...
I could still live in a fully DISPOSITIONAL way!
This is what POW was hinting at, I think.
See, any person who NEVER EVER READ ANYTHING about open view theism...but understood this knowledge within the Church (having understandings of logoi and sumbebekos) could live in the reality of DISPOSITIONS...by understanding that there is indeed a HIGH CALLING upon each human being...the calling of THEOSIS!
When I look at this, all that we are doing is given a solid METAPHYSICAL SYSTEM that coincides with the divine truth revealed in the HISTORICAL WITNESS OF THE CHURCH.
And about the Timelessness of God...
No one is saying that God doesn't experience ANY logical sucession, Tom. Also no one is saying that the Triune God in NO WAY experiences temporality.
All that is being said, I believe, is that KRONOS is the working out of Creation's "logoi" becoming itself.
God is OUTSIDE OF THAT "becoming," in that the Primoridal Hypostasis (from whence ALL thing come) is UNAPPROACHABLE. Totally other! The Fount of ASEITY. And God is the one who ASSIGNS all of the dispositional realities for the logoi's becoming. God is OUTSIDE that for which he sets the parameters!
KRONOS only occurs in God's ad extra existence of CONTINGENT EXPRESSION.
Not in the ad-intra NECESSARY ESSENTIAL EXISTENCE of God.
That's KAIROS. Eternal KAIROS.
The ETERNAL ACT of relationally-appropriate intimacy!
Thats why, as Reardon said, that our "present moment" is an ICON of eternal life!
But...
God is also IN KRONOS though, too.
How?
Via his energies...also called the superjective activity of God.
Ain't that right, Bruce?
Do you see what I'm saying, 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
"God is most glorified in us as we are most satisfied in God's love." -- the newest mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :)
Everything that will be well...is well already! Post Edited (Namaste 2.0) : 12/7/2006 10:25:38 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/8/2006 6:44 AM (GMT -6) | |
Namaste 2.0 said...
This is what POW was hinting at, I think.
Ain't that right, Bruce?
Yep.
(o) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/8/2006 9:49 AM (GMT -6) | | N: All that is being said, I believe, is that KRONOS is the working out of Creation's "logoi" becoming itself. God is OUTSIDE OF THAT "becoming," in that the Primoridal Hypostasis.
Tom: Well, heck, I’ll go farther than that. I’ll say Son and Spirit are ALSO outside of THAT “becoming.” The Son and Spirit have become (so to speak) what “Son” and “Spirit” are, eternally and irrespective of creation. The Son doesn’t “become” what Son is by relating to creation. Likewise the Spirit. They experiencing the becoming of creation, yes; they ‘have experiences’ with creation, yes, but this doesn’t contribute to defining what it means to BE “Son” or BE “Spirit.” Those are defined ad intrally.
But this says nothing necessarily about the temporal nature of the ad intra trinitarian relationships. This is what I’ve been trying to say. You can’t reason that since we need time to become what we are not (that is, to grow into our eschatological purpose) that the ad intra trinitarian experience itself cannot be temporal because it’s necessarily what it is and does need to become what it’s not. That doesn’t follow logically. You have to rule on the question of time with respect to the ad intra trinitarian life on the basis of what that life and experience are, not on the basis of our needing time to become. And as far as I can tell, what the ad intra life and experience are requires time. Not only does “becoming” require time, but “being” requires time, especially if the being is personal, loving, related being.
And I’ll say again that the distinction between chronos and kairos is an abstract one, not a substantive one. They both describe aspects of one fundamental reality—time (called by any name you like).
N: I can say what I mean by "I don't need OV." Because of the "Logoi" and "sumbebekos" concepts that I understand, I don't need to try to explain HOW human freedom and divine sovereignty intersect. I KNOW how they intersect. And if I were to completely THROW AWAY everything I know about theories of time and all that...but remember the "logoi", "sumbebekos", energies/essence concepts with the Orthodox view of the Triune God... I could still live in a fully DISPOSITIONAL way!
Tom: Dude, the OV was N-E-V-E-R about “explaining HOW human freedom and divine sovereignty intersect” and never actually explained this anyhow. Not only do you not need the OV for this explanation, the OV CANNOT be an explanation of this. To suppose the OV has explained this is bad history. It was just about unpacking the consequences of our freedom with respect to God’s knowledge. That’s all. There are some implications in this for our understanding of providence, yes, and we get to those abductively. But the OV as an affirmation of a partly open future doesn’t purport to “explain” the actual HOW of the God-world relationship.
N: I believe that open theism (an ontologically "open" future) is TRUE, but not NECESSARY with respect to the content of one's faith that helps towards growing towards THEOSIS.
Tom: Come now N. Nobody has ever claimed that you need the OV to grow towards theosis. Piper can grow towards theosis for goodness sake! If we want to talk about growing toward theosis, heck, you don’t even need to hold to a dispositional ontology! Yes, it needs to BE the case that we’re dispositional beings, but it doesn’t need to be believed to be the case.
So what are you really saying?
But if you’re talking about truth per se, then of course the OV is a necessary to your dispositional ontology. To demonstrate this, I’ll just ask you to try to affirm a dispositional ontology of growing towards theosis while denying the OV. Just try.
You can’t do it. Why? Because the OV is entailed in your dispositional ontology. That makes it a necessary part of your dispositional ontology.
Now, sure, somebody could conceivably get with the dispositional becoming Godward without having ever considered the main OV question of what this means for God’s knowledge of the future. So you could, say, consciously affirming a dispositional ontology without consciously affirming the OV (though I find it very difficult to imagine somebody’s understanding enough to grasp dispositions while having no opinion or awareness of the implications this has for God’s knowledge of the future).
So as I see it, it’s just mistaken to talk of “not needing” the OV since you’ve “got dispositions.” They both support each other and entail one another. All you’ve done is gotten TO the OV by a different route. You get there by way of a dispositional ontology of becoming Godward as opposed to the way most other get to the OV (i.e., by way of incompatability arguments).
To tell you the truth, N, I can as easily grow Godward apart from consciously embracing a dispositional ontology as an open theist. I just wouldn’t understand HOW it all works. So I might just as easily say that I don’t need sumbebekos or logoi or dispositions. I know I’m free to become and not locked into a blueprint and that’s that.
So if one want to understand the nuts and bolts of WHY the OV is true, she can now see it in a dispositional ontology. But seeing the ontology of it would never make me want to say “I don’t need the OV now.”
Lastly, N. Do you agree with POW that whatever God eternally knows as logoi will be fulfilled? I don’t. And I don’t see how you could agree as an OVer.
Tom
PS I honestly think that you guys are afraid of time, unnecessarily afraid of what an ad intra trinitarian TEMPORAL experience of Godself would do to God. I think these fears are false. So...why don't you tell me WHAT the unacceptable consequences of such a divine experience would be.
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/8/2006 10:53 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom and I just chatted. I think we got some stuff cleared up.
"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 love." -- the newest mantra of the Evangelical Universalist :)
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