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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 1/7/2007 2:59 PM (GMT -6) |   | |
Exousia: Jeff:So the only way I can see how ill-desert is an erroneous notion is if it is literally impossible in this life to increase one's sentient satisfaction at another's expense.
I do believe it's impossible. That's probably our issue.
Jeff: This is certainly part of the issue. If you disagree here, then I see no point in adding on any other idea of accountability. If it is impossible to increase one's quantity of good at the expense of another, in this life, then what's the point of anything post-mortem but a change "in the twinkling of an eye" to immortality and incorruptibility? Is God not capable of such a change? If so, why the rehabilitation? What does it buy us?
I guess what I'm asking is this, "If we're all going to end up in a solidified state of holiness eventually, then what is it that God needs from this speck of time that compels Him to require post-mortem rehabilitation of us? I can see how a less than perfectly loving deity might get something out of it (maybe glory from inferiors), but I'm not seeing what people get out of it that God couldn't give them effortlessly.
Exousia: To acknowledge TRUTH in the most helpful way for GROWTH, RESPONSIBILITY has to be taken for actions done.
Taking RESPONSIBILITY helps free people from LIES.
Jeff: I don't know what it means to distinguish between acknowledging truth in a helpful way vs. a non-helpful way. As I see it, it is the acknowledgement of truth that is helpful--not a way or mode of acknowledging truth. Give me another example, if you can, of different ways of acknowledging truth that would be more or less helpful. I'm not following you.
To take responsibility seems, to me, to require a realization that we are responsible/accountable. If we are not accountable (and I don't even know what accountability means apart from the inevitability of consequences/loss due to misrelating), then it makes no sense to me to say we should take responsibility. To me, all it means to "take responsibility" is to do God's will for us, lest we experience negative consequences or loss.
So yeah, I would say that taking responsibility does lead to greater growth. But taking responsibility entails knowing what God's will is, up front. We don't learn what we need to do by taking responsibility. Taking responsibility is doing what we already know we need to do. It worked this way for Christ, I assume, as he grew in stature and wisdom. But I don't assume that it had anything to do, necessarily, with Christ being freed, thereby, from LIES. So taking responsibility, to my mind, is not instrumental to shedding lies.
And it seems clear to me that doing God's will can cause you to lose your very life. Hence, it seems that some consequences of "taking responsibility" have to be in the form of reward, post-mortem. Otherwise, there is no motivation to take reponsibility, because the consequences of dying to do God's will just and mere dying are identical. Unless, of course, we want to say that the motivation to die for God's will is the satisfaction of doing that which we know will benevolently affect others. But if this is true, then I think we have to let go of all of Paul's language about the sufferings of this life not being worthy to be compared with the satisfaction they result in. Cause if the fleeting satisfaction of dying for Christ or others is compared to the suffering of say, crucifixion, then I don't see why anyone would ever be crucified for anyone.
That's why, I think, Hebrews says Christ endured the cross for the joy set BEFORE HIM. He did not endure it for any satisfaction he was experiencing while on the cross. Do you think he would have endured the cross even if he knew his conscious, sentient existence would have terminated with his death? Christ asked who goeth to war without counting the costs? IOW, people are simply being rational to calculate whether sufferings are worth it for the sentient satisfaction they can occasion. So I'm wondering how a person would deem it worth it to cease mis-relating at 80 if he has advanced cancer AND if relating properly causes him to feel the discomfort of self-discipline.
It's cases like these that make me think post-mortem negative consequences are inevitable as rational motivators of rational behavior. Your idea of post-mortem rehabilitation is, as far as I can tell, just another version of post-mortem, negative consequences. Because I don't know what rehabilitation can do for me that God can't do without it, effortlessly.
Exousia: From my point of view, suffering is not necessary for people to take responsibility for past actions. Suffering can actually be EXTRANEOUS to the normal process. All that is necessary is acknowledgement of truth and taking responsibility as part of that.
Jeff: This is certainly true, pre-mortem. But surely there are physiological conditions that have to do with solidification. So why would God ressurect someone into a body with those solidified physiological characteristics in the first place? They will know at least some of the truth, post-mortem, cause they will face Christ, himself. So why have them face him with a body freshly designed with a nervous sytem solidified into the very dysfunctionality they already had? I'm not seeing the point of it.
Do you believe that habits are grounded, to some extent, in physiological correlative states? I saw one special on a girl who got amnesia. Prior to the amnesia, she had picked up a "cool" walk to imitate her peers. She had become a party girl. After the amnesia, she disliked her "cool" clothes, she didn't want to party anymore, and she walked like she had in her youth. I don't see how we can deny that solidification is tied to physiology. This makes Paul's whole theology of Spirit vs. Flesh crystal clear to me.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/7/2007 5:38:00 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 1/7/2007 6:27 PM (GMT -6) | | So here's where we're at, as I see it, D. God sees a bully hurt a little girl. I say God feels empathy with the girl. He also feels empathy with the bully to the extent that the bully is in despair, independent of knowledgeable sinning. If the bully is knowingly misrelating, then God also feels the negative feeling of anger. He might also feel disgust at the dysfunctionality of the SofA that could otherwise be characterized by beautiful harmony if each related properly.
If I understand you, you pretty much agree with the above, except that God feels no anger. So how is my view problematic for perfect love? How does the mere feeling of anger, conditioned by a unique aspect of a SofA, imply anything more or less about God's benevolence than God's feeling of disgust. Both are mere feelings. God is doing nothing to stop the SofA in either case. Anything He does do, He can do in either case.
So I sit here, with many others, having the distinct sense that personal/social emotions are distinct in quality from aesthetic emotions. I, with those many others, can not conceive of the Father-Son relationship in terms of aesthetic feelings, alone. Hence, we can not conceive of God's sentient nature being defined in terms of only two feelings--one positive and the other negative, with various degrees of intensity. Therefore, we see no reason to reject scriptural testimony or analogical reasonig in positing the possibility that God feels anger from certain conditions of certain SofA's.
How is this view so bizarre? I'm still not seeing it. I'm not seeing why this view is not a logical possibility. Not saying it's true--just possible. In which case I'm wanting to avoid criticizing it on grounds of perfect love until I see what the issue is.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/7/2007 6:08:12 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/7/2007 9:31 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
Both are mere feelings.
and...
Try to explain to me how a mere feeling can be OVER-AGAINST. As I understand feelings, they can be positive or negative; they can vary in intensity; but they can not be "for" or "against" other beings since feelings are not conscious, to my mind. Persons are conscious of feelings, but feelings, themselves, are not conscious. And I don't see how something unconscious can be for or against something.
Ok. Perhaps this is the lynchpin here. You think that feelings are NOT cognitively oriented states. I disagree. Feeling deals with sensation and interpretationof sensation.
Here's a journal article about "Feeling, Emotion, Affect"
journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/03-shouse.php
I believe that feelings inextricably deal with cognitive process on some level. They are affective states of consciousness.
And anger lies within this realm. Anger is essentially oppositional; meaning it usually leads to RESISTING that to which it's directed.
So, this is going to be a serious divide between us, Jeff. Can you explain to me why you think that feelings are non-cognitive?
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 1/7/2007 10:21 PM (GMT -6) | | | Don't know if I'm doing something wrong, but I can't get the link to show anything about feeling. Anyway, I would say that feelings are purely sentient in nature. Nothing intellectual about a feeling, per se. But a person will have a conscious desire to have pleasure continued/increased and displeasure stopped/decreased. Any other intellectual aspect would entail a knowledge of what means or conditions evoke what feelings. So, yeah, when God feels, His accurate perspective is such that He knows precisely what condition or subset of relations is evoking any given feeling.
Since God wants to decrease/stop displeasure, and since anger (like disgust) is displeasant, God has a conscious desire/impulse to decrease/stop anger or disgust. In some cases, to stop disgust, one must act upon a person like you described in the case of the hospital. In the case of the mentally incompetent person in a hospital, one would act upon that person for that person's sake as well as one's own sake by stopping his/her own disgust.
Anger, I would think, would impel to an action upon a person for the sake of one who is a victim of the person's misrelating. E.g., if I am knowingly causing senseless suffering to my neighbor, I would think the impulse God has for action is directed at me--to stop me from causing senseless suffering to my neighbor. In both of these cases, though, the act is benevolent. Each has some person's good as an object. And in each case, the actor (God, in my example, here) is decreasing his own sentient displeasure by decreasing the sentient displeasure of another.
That's why I don't see any lack of benevolence here. In neither case is God desiring or acting against any person's greatest good. Indeed, the longer God forebears a person's misrelating (by not acting off of the impulse to stop His displeasure), the greater chance there will be for greater solidification into dysfunctional habits. So if anything, God's intervention in anger would actually aid many people who need low epistemic distance to be motivated unto the good. We tend to be our own worst enemies because of our self-deceit.
I assume that God doesn't intervene often because of the interest that freedom occasions for Christ's sentient satisfaction in his temporal reign/glory. Apart from that, I think God would probably bring the so-called "probationary period" to a halt right now to stop the suffering for all concerned. I don't think God is in any need of creaturely freedom. This is the sense in which I think we are relatively meaningless to God--in the sense that we only exist as a gift to His Son.
He loves us nonetheless, though, because He is love. He could not do otherwise. But He is in no need of even one more person being born to satisfy Him sentiently. But once we exist, we can occasion either pleasure or displeasure for Him, insomuch as He is sentient and interested in the outcome of creation--because of it's role in the Son's sentient satisfaction.
In summary, I agree that the impulse associated with the feeling of anger is an impulse to resist. But so it was for you in the hospital when disgust was the feeling at hand (or even empathy, for that matter--we resist children all the time for their own good). Resistance, per se, is not necessarily a malevolent action. I would even posit a further possibility. Even if resistance is uncomfortable, it might still provide a decrease in epistemic distance that will bring the resisted one to a profitable enlightenment.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/7/2007 9:37:15 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/8/2007 7:58 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
Anyway, I would say that feelings are purely sentient in nature. Nothing intellectual about a feeling, per se. But a person will have a conscious desire to have pleasure continued/increased and displeasure stopped/decreased. Any other intellectual aspect would entail a knowledge of what means or conditions evoke what feelings. So, yeah, when God feels, His accurate perspective is such that He knows precisely what condition or subset of relations is evoking any given feeling.
Ok! I think we may be on agreement on this point. Feeling are EVOKED by a previously understood framework that has a certain UNDERSTANDING of relations including one's SELF-relation. This is exactly WHY I've been saying what I've been saying. Feelings don't emerge for no reason.
My contention is that God's accurate perspective PREVENTS God from experiencing "anger" with thing in creation.
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Jeff:
Anger, I would think, would impel to an action upon a person for the sake of one who is a victim of the person's misrelating. E.g., if I am knowingly causing senseless suffering to my neighbor, I would think the impulse God has for action is directed at me--to stop me from causing senseless suffering to my neighbor. In both of these cases, though, the act is benevolent. Each has some person's good as an object. And in each case, the actor (God, in my example, here) is decreasing his own sentient displeasure by decreasing the sentient displeasure of another.
That's why I don't see any lack of benevolence here. In neither case is God desiring or acting against any person's greatest good. Indeed, the longer God forebears a person's misrelating (by not acting off of the impulse to stop His displeasure), the greater chance there will be for greater solidification into dysfunctional habits. So if anything, God's intervention in anger would actually aid many people who need low epistemic distance to be motivated unto the good. We tend to be our own worst enemies because of our self-deceit.
All of the benevolent activity that you are talking about can EASILY be done without any anger at all. All one needs is a sense of REVUSION (disgust) towards a situation, as you've already said.
OVER AND OVER, I read stuff about anger. American Psychological Association material and other stuff. OVER AND OVER, I ask my wife (a licensed therapist) about anger. She's given me anger management materials to look at. She (and others) believe that anger essential comes from some aspects of FEAR. In other words, they say, if there is no fear (aspect of threat or devaluing) AND if there is perfect understanding of situations...there would be NO NEED for anger.
[Tom, I NEED you, man. PLEASE tell your thing about those psych people that you talked to. I need all the evidence I can get Please.]
Jeff, I am REALLY TRYING to see how anger is consonant with a perfectly free, infinitely intelligent, perfect rational, perfectly loving being. Seriously. I am NOT, for the life of me, seing it. One thing that I am CRYSTAL CLEAR on in all this is this: one cannot have anger without some sense of FELT OPPOSITION/"OVER AGAINST-ness" towards something that is DEPRIVING the person (either directly or indirectly) of SATISFACTION. Anger is a variation of displeasure from dissatisfaction. Anger is NOT just about resistence. The resistance comes as PART of the felt opposition. If I don't know anything else, I know that!!!
My issue is that God knows reality as it is. God knows that NOTHING is fundamentally opposed to ANYTHING ELSE. God also knows that NOTHING can threaten or devalue God in ANY way! God never has a emotional sense of "It's ME against Satan!" God knows that Satan is actually an contingent expressive form of divine reality itself...like everything else. Because of this, God is FOR everyone, including Satan.
For me to believe that God gets angry is for me to believe that God can say this in his mind...
"Because Exousia is knowingly causing senseless suffering to his neighbor, I am having the emotional state where I feel emotionally OPPOSED to what I feel is an active OPPOSITION that Exousia and his activities pose towards me."
At this point in my spiritual journey, I cannot fathom God saying this. At all. I cannot imagine God being emotionally OPPOSED to me and perceiving me as an OPPOSITION to God in any way. God is completely free, infinitely-intelligent, loving, and rational. God would have to believe FALSEHOODS to have the emotional response of OPPOSITION towards anything in creation. Just because I may act oppositional doesn't REQUIRE God to perceive me as such! Just like I understood when I was at the psych ward. Just because someone yells "F*#$ you, staff!" and spits in your face (happened to me) and is ACTIVELY OPPOSITIONAL to me...doesn't mean that I have to internalize that opposition towards me to the point where I FEEL opposed by this person when I KNOW that they are just working through their OWN issues in their OWN way. It would be totally crazy of me to be OFFENDED and ANGRY at their behavior...even if they knew exactly what they were doing! It's not even about me. I believe that God has the SAME SENSIBILITY...embodied in perfect love!
Maybe I'm just crazy, but perhaps that's why Jesus said love your "enemies"...
PERFECT LOVE HAS NO ENEMIES, EMOTIONALLY SPEAKING!
Love holds no grudges...which means it doesn't take occasion to hold beliefs of emotional opposition towards something (which are the GROUND of grudges!)
Jeff, anger is NOT just an abstract feeling that externalizes itself as resistance. It is an INTERNALIZED SENSE of opposition to a thing...that leads to resistance. I don't believe that God, being omniscience, would actually hold a FALSE PERSPECTIVE of reality where God ACTUALLY BELIEVES that opposition from Creation towards God actually devalues or threatens God in any way...and WARRANTS God to have felt opposition towards his Creation in any way.
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/8/2007 8:15 AM (GMT -6) | | Testimony time.
All of this discussion is reflective of my OWN change. I no longer see ANYONE or ANYTHING from an emotionally oppositional standpoint. There is a profound UNITY in ALL things! And because of this, I don't have ANY ENEMIES in my mind. Even if someone is ACTIVELY, KNOWINGLY trying to devalue or threaten me and deprive me of satisfaction. Someone could come up to me, call my wife a nigger (please don't get offended!), slap her upside the head, and I wouldn't feel emotionally oppositional towards the assailant. I would feel a tremendous revulsion...but also an incredible sense of sorrow for the state of the person doing the hitting. I would, of course, do everything I could to preserve the situation for all involved, even if that meant physically restraining or incapacitating the assailant. But I would never feel something like:
"How could you do something like this to my wife and me? How dare you disrespect us like that!"
Why would I internalize the CRAZY actions of an obviously despairing, hurt person??
I DON'T hold "grudges" by storing my OPPOSITIONAL feelings! I don't even have a framework anymore to feel opposed to any human being for any reason. I am REVULSED by many crazy things I see, but I am not emotionally OPPOSITIONAL towards anyone or anything at all.
And I'm just asking the honest question:
Am I growing TOWARDS being more like God or AWAY FROM being more like God?
So far, I'm hearing, by implication, that I am NOT being more like God by not being angry at injustice.
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/8/2007 7:22:18 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 1/8/2007 8:25 AM (GMT -6) | | Exousia: Revulsion (disgust) towards injustice is NOT ENOUGH. There has to be anger.
Corey: Okay, help me with the distinction. I don't think I'd mind using the word revulsion to label the emotive state that corresponds to injustice. But... to me, revulsion has the idea of moving away from.... which I do think is actually MORE incompatible with love than anger. Both seem to have an idea of opposition, though. It's easier for me to think, "I love you, but I'm angry with you" than to think, "I love you, but I'm revulsed by you." | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/8/2007 8:42 AM (GMT -6) | | Exousia: Revulsion (disgust) towards injustice is NOT ENOUGH. There has to be anger.
Corey: Okay, help me with the distinction. I don't think I'd mind using the word revulsion to label the emotive state that corresponds to injustice. But... to me, revulsion has the idea of moving away from.... which I do think is actually MORE incompatible with love than anger. Both seem to have an idea of opposition, though. It's easier for me to think, "I love you, but I'm angry with you" than to think, "I love you, but I'm revulsed by you."
I've been totally REVULSED by my children's dirty diapers...and there smell. My children have STUNK to the point that I've wanted to throw up.
But I love my children...and I want to clean them up.
So I may say..."Ooooh, baby. Stinky-winky!"
But I would never allow my repulsion to their filth to in ANY WAY overwhelm the love I have for them.
See my point?
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/8/2007 8:51 AM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
For sure, I think you are MORE God-like in your relations with offenders than you were before!
That's what I'm trying to figure out. Thanks, Corey.
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Corey:
If I were to describe it, though, I'd say that you have learned to lay down fleshly inclinations toward vengence. Anger and vengence are useful distinctions for me.
Anger is the SOURCE of desiring vengeance. (Vengeance is mine, says the Lord???)
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Corey:
I see you're point about the diapers. BUT... diapers and such are not injustice. OF COURSE one ought not experience ANGER in the face of such things. Revulsion corresponds to different things than anger does.
A person cannot feel ONLY revulsion and sorrow when it comes to injustice?
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/8/2007 9:10 AM (GMT -6) | | Ok. Let me go this route.
What are the BENEFITS of saying that God gets angry? There must be some reason why it's wanting to be kept as an idea. What are those benefits?
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 1/8/2007 9:20 AM (GMT -6) | | | All I'm after is that God is both rational and emotive. He not only rationally apprehends injustice, but also has the corresponding emotive state. The rational and emotive are unified. I also believe that the nature of that is one of opposition. In my usage, the word 'anger' is the label to describe that state.
As a plug, our SK reading this week talks about the "vengence is mine" idea. Post Edited (Corey) : 1/8/2007 9:38:04 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/8/2007 10:37 AM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
All I'm after is that God is both rational and emotive. He not only rationally apprehends injustice, but also has the corresponding emotional response. I also believe that the appropriate response to any injustice is one of opposition. In my usage, I use 'anger' as the label to describe that state.
Ok. Then this is the seat of our disagreement.
I can see that there ARE corresponding emotional responses to injustice. God IS, of course, rational and emotive. Sadness (Jesus weeping over Jerusalem). Disgust (Jesus turning over the tables) I DON'T see how having an emotional response where one is having internal FELT OPPOSITION/"OVER-AGAINST-ness" towards something is even HELPFUL for bringing about lasting justice (ultimately speaking)
I don't see it.
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/8/2007 9:42:21 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/8/2007 10:39 AM (GMT -6) | | Corey,
A person can OPERATE IN OPPOSITION to injustice without any internal sense of FELT OPPOSITION/OVER-AGAINST-ness towards the injustice and the people involved. And a person could do this while FULLY feeling negative emotion (disgust, sadness) about the injustice.
A person who has a LOVE for people and right-relatedness of all things will, by their loving actions, do things that are IN OPPOSITION to injustice. But this person doesn't have to have any INTERNAL SENSE of felt opposition in order to do this.
If someone can demonstrate to me any instance where a internal sense of FELT OPPOSITION/OVER-AGAINST-ness is absolutely necessary to pursuing justice, this would really help me.
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/8/2007 9:44:32 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/8/2007 10:49 AM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
This is what I'm saying!! I'm NOT saying God is opposed to the people involved! I'm only saying he's opposed to the misrelation itself.
I don't think we are saying the same things. I am saying that having internalized felt opposition is DISTINCT from doing ACTIVITIES that by the nature of what they are are working against something.
Example: I don't have to be ANTI-ABORTION in order to be PRO-LIFE. I don't have to be ANGRY WITH abortion in order to do things that work against abortion. I can be DISGUSTED and SADDENED by it. And...As I do all that I can to provide opportunities for women to be healthy and whole as they can possibly be, I know that my activities will be working AGAINST the idea of abortion being the "ONLY" solution. In this way, I would be working against a dimension of the UNreality of abortion.
I can do ALL OF THIS without ANGER with abortion (which some would perceive to be a grave injustice!)
See what I'm saying?
Let's get deep. Child molestation. Obviously an injustice. Are we saying that it's NOT ENOUGH to be disgusted and saddened by child molestation...and have a commitment to help ALL children (and adults) live in wholeness? No. I ALSO have to be ANGRY WITH child molestation, even though I KNOW it's an empowered lie? Is that right?
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/8/2007 9:55:44 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/8/2007 11:24 AM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
Maybe this is about move-away vs. move-toward. Both are legit motivations, and rarely is it purely one or the other; usually both are in play. You seem to be implying that God doesn't have any move-away motivation whatsoever.
Yes, it IS about move-away and move-toward. We see the principles of ATTRACTION/REPULSION everywhere. I believe that it's wired into reality.
But...
No, I am not implying that God doesn't have any move-away motivation. I have been saying that the emotional move-away motivation is REVULSION...which is in DISGUST.
But this move-away motivation does NOT need ANGER. Being revolted by something is NOT THE SAME THING as being emotionally OPPOSED to something...even though the action of RESISTANCE can occurs from both emotional states.
That's what I don't get. We have EVERYTHING WE NEED to say that God is fully emotionally involved when God prehends DISSONANCE with reality. Through his free, yet consistent relationality with us, he truly is TOUCHED BY our infirmaties. But he's NEVER angry with the DISSONANCE itself or with the people from whence the DISSONANCE is coming.
There's no NEED to be angry.
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/8/2007 1:31 PM (GMT -6) | | Actually, this will end the whole thing for me.
All someone has to do is illustrate for me an occasion of injustice where a perfectly loving being MUST experience internalized FELT OPPOSITION/"OVER AGAINST-ness" to the injustice in order to effectively restore wholeness to brokenness.
In other words, please show me JUST ONE EXAMPLE where "anger" is NECESSARY to
1) personally recognizing the existence of injustice,
2) having a full negative emotional response to that injustice, and
3) motivate the movement TOWARDS justice.
This will help me understand how perfect love MUST exhibit anger in the face of injustice.
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/8/2007 2:18 PM (GMT -6) | | From sorenkierkegaard.org/kw16.htm
D. Anthony Storm's Commentary.
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V: Love Hides the Multitude of Sins
Kierkegaard begins this chapter with a more metaphysical approach, dividing time into three aspects in contrast to eternity.
The temporal has three times and therefore essentially never is completely nor is completely in any one of the periods; the eternal is. A temporal object can have a multiplicity of varied characteristics; in a certain sense it can be said to have them simultaneously, insofar as in these definite characteristics it is that which it is. But reduplication in itself never has a temporal object; as the temporal disappears in time, so also it exists only in its characteristics. If, on the other hand, the eternal is in a man, the eternal reduplicates itself in him in a double mode: in an outward direction and in an inward direction back into itself, but in such a way that it is one and the same, for otherwise it is not reduplication. The eternal is not merely by virtue of its characteristics but in itself is in its characteristics; it does not merely have characteristics but exists in itself in having the characteristics.
So it is with love. What love does, it is; what it is, it does—at one and the same moment; simultaneously as it goes beyond itself (in an outward direction) it is in itself (in an inward direction), and simultaneously as it is in itself, it thereby goes beyond itself in such a way that this going beyond and this inward turning, this inward turning and this going beyond, are simultaneously one and the same (p. 261).
The works of love, as manifestations of God, are eternal, just as love is eternal. Love has its own being in an eternal sense, and its characteristics are not dependent upon temporality. When Kierkegaard says that the "eternal is not merely by virtue of its characteristics but in itself is in its characteristics", he gives support to a phrase that would later be assigned to describe a basic existentialist tenet: existence precedes essence. Kierkegaard is saying that the eternal in itself has its characteristics (its essence) aside from its natural existence as itself. It does not exist because of its essence, but it exists with it.
Laying such a groundwork Kierkegaard endeavors to show the efficacious nature of love, in that it has the power to hide the multitude of sins. This is achieved by reduplication, an outward motion toward others and motion back to the lover.
Note the reduplication here: what the lover does, he is or he becomes; what he gives, he is or, more accurately, this he acquires.... Yet someone may say, "It is not so remarkable that the lover has what he gives; it is always the case that what one does not have he certainly cannot give". Well, yes, but is it always the case that one retains what he gives or that one himself acquires what he gives to another, that one acquires precisely by giving and acquires the very same which he gives, so that the given and the received are one and the same?...
In this way love is always reduplicated in itself. This also holds when it is stated that love hides the multiplicity of sins....
Love hides the multiplicity of sins. For it does not discover sins; but not to discover what nevertheless must be there, insofar as it can be discovered, means to hide (262f.).
This chapter is directly related to the previous chapter on love believing all things. Kierkegaard likens love's hiding of sins to a child who is in a room with thieves. He observes everything that happens but is unaware of the criminal activity, even though he could describe in detail what had transpired during the day. Love hides the multiplicity of sins because love does not judge, and love believes all things.
Love hides the multiplicity of sins, for what it cannot avoid seeing or hearing, it hides in silence, in a mitigating explanation, in forgiveness (p. 268).
Blessed is the man of faith; he believes what he cannot see. Blessed is the lover; he believes away what he nevertheless can see!... But one is not unaware of that which is forgotten, for one is unaware of that which he does not know or never knew. What one has forgotten he has known. To forget in the highest sense is therefore the opposite—not of remembering but of hoping—because to hope means to give being by thinking and to forget is by thinking to take being away from that which nevertheless is, to blot it out.... What is hidden from my eyes I have never seen, but what is hidden behind my back I have seen. And this is the very way in which the lover forgives: he forgives, he forgets, he blots out the sin... (p. 274f.).
The reader needs perhaps to be reminded that during the following year Kierkegaard finally came to fully believe that God had forgotten as well as forgiven his sins. Perhaps the preparation for this work contributed to his understanding.
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Does this seem accurate, Corey?
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
Therefore (YOU) go and introduce all peoples into the Way, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and intstructing them in following everything I have commanded you. (Great Commandments!)
And surely I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."
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