Selah, HELP!

Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/13/2007 8:27:50 AM (GMT-6)

Exousia: Is it even possible for a person to have a perspective such that whenever misrelation occurs, they fully experience disgust and sadness as they perceive the misrelation...but they do NOT experience any sense of feeling "opposed" by the misrelation...and, in so doing, they do NOT experience any sense of wishing to express the oppositional feeling they already possess via working against the misrelation.

Tom: I want to try to explain carefully why I’d answer what I think you’re asking with “No.” I don’t think there can be willful misrelation that does not oppose God in some sense. Misrelation is by definition a failure of God’s subjective aim. God’s subjective aims are an expression of his overall purpose to maximize aesthetic satisfaction. Long story short, God WANTS to get pleasure from our freely pursuing and fulfilling his subjective aims for us.

On one level God will not feel opposed by ANY failure of his subjective aims. God’s necessarily unsurprassably fulfilled. His subjective aims, fulfilled or failed, don’t add to or substract from what God essentially is. So there’s no opposition on this level.

But where God in grace says, “I’m opening up myself to creation and am going to let them mean something to me, affect me; I want to ‘feel’ pleased by them” then yeah, I think we have to understand that all “willful misrelation” is then an opposing of God (an opposing of his subjective aims). I think some misrelation is the natural consequence of ignorance, and I think God only feels disgust at misrelating to the extent that it is “willful” misrelating, and to the extend that it’s willful it’s an “opposition to” God. So no, I don’t see how God would feel negative emotions about willful misrelating and not on some level be motivated by this emotion. But I think the negative emotions are a function of loving relationality, so (a) God cannot NOT feel them, and (b) whatever consequent action God takes, it’s strictly speaking motivated by a whole, indivisible web of emotions that express God’s perspective and intentionality regarding the various complex aspects of any given situation.

Now, you’re question is more specific. You want to say God really does emotionally respond to willful misrelating (he’s hurt and disgusted by it) but these emotions don’t “motivate” God. They don’t figure into God’s perspective on or understanding of the actions God takes to address creation. I guess I’d say two things: (1) Once you posit God’s really feeling disgust or revulsion, Exousia, what do you gain by saying these feelings are absent from God’s perspective on or understanding of the actions God takes to respond to what disgusts him? More specifically, what do you gain by saying this and also saying that these negative feelings are not dysfunctional; that is, they’re actually a function of perfect love wanting to save, heal, and protect us? I ask this because (2) the separation you want to make seems to violate what seems to me to be the very definition of an emotion. There’s a link between ‘emotion’ and ‘impulse’ (or ‘motivation’). You posit non-motivating emotions. God “feel” but isn’t at all “motivated” by what he feels. I don’t see what sense that makes. Why should you say God even feels disgust or revulsion? What is “revulsion” that motivates nothing?

I could be wrong of course. I’m just trying to keep as much IN my description of God as is needed to explain things.

D, why don’t you define “oppose” (“opposed to” and “oppositional”) for me? I’m not convinced we mean the same thing. Or if we mean the same thing, you seem to think any “opposition” has to be the ultimate purpose and explanation of a thing, as if one can’t oppose unless ALL one wants to do is oppose. I don’t see that.

Exousia: I have no problem saying that God does things that "operate in opposition".

Tom: But E, there’s no difference in saying “God does THINGS that operate in opposition to” and “God operates in opposition to” (or “God opposes”). They’re the same thing. I know you try to avoid this by saying I can’t turn on the light switch with nothing in mind but my love of the light (without having to relate my action in definitional terms to the darkness; see that?). But to my mind that’s just splitting hairs. An omniscient perspective WOULD relate its actions (in terms of definition and purpose) to that which disgusts it or endangers its enjoyment. But that’s ALL it means to be motivated to act.

Exousia: I don't understand why God has to be EMOTIONALLY MOTIVATED by wishing to "minimize evil", such that God feels OPPOSED.

Tom: Because he’s omniscient and perfectly loving.

Exousia: I feel like it's inconsistent with perfect love to be motivated towards doing right-relatedness by feeling oppositional towards (and opposed by) privation.

Tom: You’d be right IF (IF IF IF!) we were considering the negative or oppositional feels ALONE. This is reeealy important, and I mentioned it a few posts back. Negative feelings (disgust, revulsion, whatever) cannot themselves be the sufficient motivation for working for right relatedness. They might motivate WRONG relatedness. I’m disgusted by child abuse and so I torture the abuser. That won’t work. So “disgust” can’t be the SUFFICIENT cause or motivation for right-relatedness. If all you say is “God’s disgusted by X” you don’t have enough to explain why it is that God always responds to X by working for right relatedness. You’re absolutely right. But we’re not just considering divine disgust or revulsion on its own. We’re not saying, “God’s disgust provides all the explanation we need for why God invariably works for right relatedness.” We’re considering disgust as a NECESSARY but NON-SUFFICIENT cause or motivation. But your saying God feels disgust but isn’t at all motivated by it actually leaves us with no reason for even positing the necessity of the emotion. You should go on to deny that God ever feels ANYTHING negative.

Exousia: If I KNOW that maximizing evil is ABSOLUTELY EQUAL minimizing evil, what does it ADD to me to emotionally orienting myself AGAINST EVIL when I can do the exact SAME ACTION orienting myself for the maximization of good? Why should I take a perspective where I am FEELING opposed to?

Tom: I think the answer is found in explaining why it is God ever feels disgust or revulsion at all? Why do you posit such emotions in God? If they’re not a necessary part of God’s perspective and actions, then why DO you say God feels them? What problems would you face if you denied God ever experienced such emotions?

Exousia: All we are saying is that God is NEVER emotionally adversarial towards anything...while God ALWAYS "operates in opposition" to ANYTHING that doesn't maximize good. As God works to maximize good, by definition, anything that doesn't maximize good will be effectively and practically "opposed"

Tom: Maybe we are saying the same thing but don’t know it. I don’t know. But I wouldn’t say God ever perceives himself as “adversarial” in ANY sense (emotionally or behaviorally) of that term. That’s not part of my conception of God’s “opposing” us or our actions. The problem I have is your saying God experiences negative emotions like disgust or revulsion but that’s the end of those emotions. They don’t motivate, define, figure into, and aren’t otherwise perceived by God in the larger, complex apprehension of the reality he’s opposing.

Tom

PS Couldn't answer the phone! I was writing. Now I gotta do breakfast with Anita! Sorry.

Exousia: Is it even possible for a person to have a perspective such that whenever misrelation occurs, they fully experience disgust and sadness as they perceive the misrelation...but they do NOT experience any sense of feeling "opposed" by the misrelation

Jeff: I think I'm defining all negative emotion just this way, D. As I defined emotional experience in my last post, there is no such thing as an oppositional feeling. Opposition is activity that the sentient self knows will diminish or cease the unpleasant negative feeling. Hence, the sentient self can intelligently direct the impulse to diminish negative feeling to an act of opposition. But feelings, per se, don't know anything.

Anger, then, to my mind, depends on empathy for its experience. No empathy, no anger. God is essentially relational. He can not, to my mind, even create without creating for another. Thus, anger is tied directly to His capacity for empathy. God can not create, much less get angry, for Himself alone--as an essentially relational being, He can not purpose or be motivated in a radical individualistic way. That's why I say that apart from the interest of Christ for which this creation exists, God would have already terminated the project and brought about the eschatological state. It is for the sake of Christ that God even continues to forebear the "probationary period" at all.

Exousia: ...and, in so doing, they do NOT experience any sense of wishing to express the oppositional feeling they already possess via working against the misrelation.

Jeff: Since I don't believe feelings are knowledgeable, and hence oppositional, I can't make sense out of this statement. I think God does wish to act in ways that will cease those conditions that evoke negative feelings in Himself. But He forebears rather than acts oppositionally for the most part. When He does act during this "probationary" period it is to accomplish for Christ a revelatory glory. God's intervention can reveal His character and, thereby, reveal Christ's character. Revelation is always a decrease in epistemic distance, which always results in the good of those who receive the revelation. 

I assume He forebears because freedom occasions pleasure for Christ, primarily, and those who reign with him, secondarily. Once we rule out any concept of desert, however, this makes no sense. The whole idea of reigning with him because we suffer with him is shot, as far as I can tell. This is why I tie desert to the temporal end of Christ's temporal reign. The salvation of all others would, then, independent of suffering with Christ. That is to say, it will have nothing to do with desert. Nothing but pure grace grounded in the sentient satisfaction it occasions for God/Christ.

Tom: I like the three essential components to emotion. I think those are right on. I don't know enough psychology to unravel any particular emotion bit for bit, but it generally seems that given God's perfect love and perspective on reality, some emotions would be impossible for him to feel, like "fear" for example.

Jeff: Right. God could never have the intellectual component of the experience of fear. I assume He might be able to feel the mere feeling. But He can never believe He has anything to be afraid of. There is no risk for God in that sense. The only sense in which God consciously risks, I think, is the risk of suffering--never the risk of total frustration of purpose. This is why, for me, forebearance is part of how God attains His purpose. And since God is essentially relational, His purposes are always for some other. Hence, God's purposes and actions always have love as part of their package. So God is, to my mind, truly constrained. He is doing all He can, given the constraints of His purpose--namely, the interests that others have in that purpose.

Tom: I feel like we could better opine on whether "anger" is some God ever feels if we first have really clear definitions or descriptions of what's necessary to and involved in feeling anger. If it's defined in such a way as to require a perceived threat to one's existence or a misperception of reality, then I'm going to side with Exousia and say God doesn't get angry.

Jeff: I take Paul's explanation as sufficient. It is merely a feeling evoked by God's apprehension of a knowing sin. It just doesn't seem counter-intuitive to me that God would know conscious sinning (i.e., transgression) is worse for the moral order than a sin of ignorance. Transgression leads to desensitization/hardness. It is qualitatively different than a sin of ignorance. And since, desensitization/hardness leads to ignorance, transgression is especially destructive of the contribution we are meant to supply to God's/Christ's sentient satisfaction. This is why, IMO, Paul says transgression is exceeding sinful.

Tom:  Here's the thing, Exousia thinks misperceiving is necessary to ANY oppositoinal feeling. That would require God's perceiving a real opposition and that in turn is incompatible with Emmanuel, God with/for us.  For E, God is FOR us; he loves and values us and does everything he does to maximize the realization and communication of that love and value. How do you fit God's "oppossing us" into THAT perspective?

Jeff: I don't believe feelings, per se, are oppositional. Opposition requires intellectual apprehension. And opposition can be for God's sentient satisfaction AND the sinners sentient satisfaction. Why can't opposition minimize the desensitization of the transgressor? Why can't it diminish epistemic distance for the transgressor? Why, IOW, can't opposition be positive for God AND the transgressor? Why can't anger always be diminished in God by correcting the transgressor for his own good? I'm not seeing the necessary either/or that D. is seeing. Regardless, God, for the most part, doesn't act oppositionally. Rather, He forebears.

Tom: I prefer to see all emotions as motivational by definition.

Jeff: Me, too. This, to me, explains why He is self-disposing. No necessary relation of feeling to motivational impulse--no self-disposition. That simple. But the fundamental object of the motivational impulse is to increase/originate pleasure and/or stop/decrease displeasure. Opposition, then, is a secondary means to that end under certain social conditions. Opposition is never a fundamental object of desire or motivation.

Tom: If evil evokes disgust and revulsion within God, these emotions only partly motivate God.

Jeff: Right. God always has the ultimate end of creation in mind. This end trumps many sentient interests for God in the short term. God would not forebear except for this long-range interest of creation. It is analogous to saying Christ endured the shame for the joy set before him. The Father does this same thing, and we do too. We have to see our sentient interests in terms of a long-range perspective to know how to maximize those interests.

Tom: Why can't God genuinely oppose certain states (i.e., intend his actions to oppose the actualizing or continuance of undesired states) on one level, one perceptual level, while also intending those actions on another level to affect healing and restoration? I don't see why God can't process both these perceptions in one complex apprehension of the fallen world he loves and acts to redeem. If asked why God MUST process these perceptions in this way, I suppose I'd say that I don't view the negative emotions as working indepdently of God's love or motivating their own unique course of action independent of love. For me it's about filling in the picture as completely as possible, and I don't know how to avoid attributing both perspectives to an omniscienct all-loving God.

Jeff: Exactly. I literally have to suppose God is processing negative and positive emotions simultaneously all the time to even account for Him being a sentient, self-disposing person. We have a limitied analogy for this. We can enjoy a piece of music, aesthetically, while being sad, and so on. But we can't process very many different feelings at once with any significant degree of intensity. I suppose that God can.

Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/13/2007 9:31:47 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/13/2007 9:52:13 AM (GMT-6)

Jeff: …there is no such thing as an oppositional feeling. Opposition is activity that the sentient self knows will diminish or cease the unpleasant negative feeling. Hence, the sentient self can intelligently direct the impulse to diminish negative feeling to an act of opposition. But feelings, per se, don't know anything.

Tom: I can get with that, but see below.

Jeff: Anger, then, to my mind, depends on empathy for its experience. No empathy, no anger. God is essentially relational. He can not, to my mind, even create without creating for another. Thus, anger is tied directly to His capacity for empathy. God can not create, much less get angry, for Himself alone--as an essentially relational being, He can not purpose or be motivated in a radical individualistic way.

Tom: I can get with that too (if somebody really nails down “anger” for me).

Jeff: I think God does wish to act in ways that will cease those conditions that evoke negative feelings in Himself. But He forebears rather than acts oppositionally for the most part.

Tom: For the most part, perhaps. But whatever God does it’s designed to maximize his experience of loving relationality and embrace creation in an experience of that as well.

Tom: I feel like we could better opine on whether "anger" is some God ever feels if we first have really clear definitions or descriptions of what's necessary to and involved in feeling anger. If it's defined in such a way as to require a perceived threat to one's existence or a misperception of reality, then I'm going to side with Exousia and say God doesn't get angry.

Jeff: I take Paul's explanation as sufficient. It is merely a feeling evoked by God's apprehension of a knowing sin.

Tom: That’s the occasion of anger, not its definition. God’s knowing sin occasions compassion too. So what is unique to “anger”?

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

Tom:  Here's the thing, Exousia thinks misperceiving is necessary to ANY oppositoinal feeling. That would require God's perceiving a real opposition and that in turn is incompatible with Emmanuel, God with/for us.  For E, God is FOR us; he loves and values us and does everything he does to maximize the realization and communication of that love and value. How do you fit God's "oppossing us" into THAT perspective?

Jeff: I don't believe feelings, per se, are oppositional. Opposition requires intellectual apprehension.

Tom: Even so, pure emotions (your step 1) may stand alone definitionally, but they’re never not simultaneously apprehended sentiently. I mean, your three steps are a seemless cloth died with three different colors, not three different pieces of cloth sewn together. (OK, so I stink at analogies!) It would be difficult to posit unapprehended pure emotion in God, wouldn’t your agree? Anyhow, all I mean by “emotionally opposed to” is a negative emotion, a sense or feeling of displeasure that’s set within a perspective on its cause and purposes relevant to God’s purposes possible courses of action. But since I don’t think God ever fails to intellectually apprehend his emotions, I assume that negative emotions or displeasure is always related to possible courses of action, and since all the possible courses of action that arise from God’s displeasure are related within God’s perspective to bringing to an end those states that displease him, I’m comfortable saying that God is “emotionally opposed to” this or that. I see your point though.

Jeff: Opposition, then, is a secondary means to that end under certain social conditions. Opposition is never a fundamental object of desire or motivation.

Tom: Thank you. That’s what I’ve been trying to say.

Tom: If evil evokes disgust and revulsion within God, these emotions only partly motivate God.

Jeff: Right. God always has the ultimate end of creation in mind. This end trumps many sentient interests for God in the short term. God would not forebear except for this long-range interest of creation.

Tom: Exactly.

Post Edited (Exousia) : 1/13/2007 10:43:48 AM (GMT-6)

Exousia: Ok. Tom, I do believe that disgust is a motivation factor for God. ALL emotionals motivate in some way. That's what they do. It contributes to the ZEAL God has for right-relatedness.

Tom: See what you just did? You moved disgust underneath zeal. It contributes to the zeal God has. It may do this. I don’t doubt that emotions pile up and relate like this. But you still seem reluctant to say disgust may motivate action. That’s different that saying it contributes to God’s zeal.

Exousia: When I talk about God being "adversarial", I'm talking about God having a perspective of reality where he EMOTIONALLY believes that things in Creation can "oppose" him, and whenever Creation does actions that God interprets as oppositional, he then gets negative feelings himself about the oppositional activity, and he RESPONDS with God's own "opposing" feeling towards that which he believes opposes him. This oppositional feeling, in turn, expresses itself in actions intended to MINIMIZE the oppositional behavior of Creation.

Tom: That’s not how I understand “adversarial.” But that’s OK. It’s not important. What you actually end up describing IS something I think God experiences. It’s seems obvious to me that agents willfully “oppose” God and that God knows and experiences this as real opposition. There real failure of God’s subjective aims and so real loss (sometimes [always?] irrevocable loss) of desired beauty. And in such cases agents are sufficiently informed and willful in their opposition to God. What falsehood could possibly be involved in God’s knowing this? It doesn’t at all negate the fact that God loves and values those responsible for willfully marring creation. It doesn’t at all negate their true potential for good, nor does it negate God’s ultimate subjective aim for them. It doesn’t at all implicate God in not knowing the essential relatedness of all things in God and their ultimate reconciliation. It just means that within the boundaries of the freedom God gives us, we really do oppose God, endanger his enjoyment of creation, and are sometimes responsible for an irrevocable loss of beauty. What falsehood is entailed in saying “God opposes such things”?

It seems to me that this is the ONLY thing that can evoke negative responses in God. If God cannot believe he is really opposed (i.e., his enjoyment of the fulfillment of subjective aims is really endangered and threatened), then he could feel no disgust or revulsion. It seems equally obvious to me that whatever negative feelings God experiences, they motivate actions that are on ONE level designed to eradicate those states that evoke disgust in God. But you seem to be intent on drawing this hard line, this either/or position—either God acts to bring right-relatedness OR God acts to stop misrelatedness, as if God can’t knowingly intend BOTH. Why are you doing that? If all God’s emotions are motivational, and if God experiences negative and positive emotions, then admit all the emotions into the explanation of God’s purposes, intents, and actions.

Exousia: I don't believe the perfectly loving, infinitely-intelligent, perfectly rational God can have that kind of perspective WITHOUT believing some kind of falsehood.

Tom: What falsehood would God have to believe in order to (a) perceive willful misrelating as a genuine threat (danger or opposition) to his experiencing enjoyment from the fulfillment of his subjective aims, and to (b) relate the negative emotions such misrelation evokes in him along with those positive emotions that the responsible agent occasions in him all of which establishes those necessary and sufficient conditions that constitute the complex web of relations that just are God’s perspective on reality?

In other words, D, tell me what truth about creation you think God cannot know given my explanation of things. We’ll see if I can’t agree that God knows it.

Tom