I’ll start with this…

Unison: I've been saying "both/and" for HOW LONG now???

Tom: Well, I’m not so sure. If your “both ____ and ____” were filled in the way I’m filling them in, you would simply have responded to my last post with “Yes, that’s it.” But you couldn’t. You disagree with what I posted. The essential concerns I expressed didn’t set well with you. That can only be the case because you think what I've expressed fails to sustain a genuine "unison of wills" and free surrender of ourselves to God, and you think that because you still think determinism is where it's at baby! The concerns I expressed don’t figure into either blank that needs to be filled in here. You believe our wanting to be in perfect unison with God’s will and wanting only what God wants means never being the final arbiter in any loving expression, period. That in itself undermines the perfect sort of unison you're thinkgin of. So your both/and is: we are BOTH determined meticulously by the divine will as the final arbiter in all occurences AND we are nevertheless fully actualized persons who are free because we WANT to be determined by God in such fashion. It's the only manner of relating that you feel you can describe as a 'perfect unison of wills'. I totally respect your feeling like this is the most beautiful thing you can want, Bro. But it’s not at all my hope or expectation.

Different understandings of God’s WHY for creating us = different dreams of WHAT the end will be.

POW, as sincere as you are in saying D and I are both right because the truth about this is a both/and and D is describing one element of the both/and and I'm describing the other, D and I are not (it should now be clear) positing two sides of the same both/and reality. We really do have a disagreement.

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Unison: “What would you like me to draw you Daddy?” Ask yourself this, Tom: If she was in the deepest possible relational pattern of spiritual intimacy possible with her father on a continuing basis (and the father was the same with her), would the question itself ever arise?

Tom: Now that’s a funny question, because you’ve used the same analogy and similar ones to describe the final sort of surrender of our wills to God. But anyway, I don’t know if the “question” would arise; it was an analogy after all. I suspect it won’t arise. But the metaphysics would be there. So that as we go about our way loving and serving and worshipping (whatever that will look like), I believe (here’s my both/and) that we BOTH continue to at least sometimes determine the form our loving expression takes AND are in perfect unison with the divine will. That’s my both/and. And they’re perfectly compatible.

I’m not even arguing that we have to know or be told or informed what the metaphysical status of each and every choice will be. Perhaps we’ll just live and choose by default as it were without consciously inquiring after every single choice. I suspect that’s closer to the truth. But I think we will perceive ourselves as freely determining individual persons who, in mutual relationship with God, unfailingly choose to love and celebrate and serve in whatever ways present themselves to us. I don’t think we’ll be theologically parsing it all out as we are now. But that isn't justification for assuming that God is prescribing one and only one specific course of action, the one we take. Perhaps the daughter will know her father well enough by then to know how much he enjoys her offering up whatever beautiful little drawing she can come up with using whatever colors and brushes she has on hand. Nothing freely drawn by an innocent and loving intention can fail at THAT point to be in unison with the father’s will, though not unilaterally determined by that will.

I don’t know why you can’t get this, Bro. You just can’t let go the boot-licking assumption that what God is really after, what’s REEEALLY glorifying and beautiful to him, what God REEALLY wants, is to be the exclusive and final arbiter for everything that occurs in the God-human relationship. That’s just what he created us for. I mean, for you to just say the words, “deepest possible relational intimacy” means having to go straight to assuming that it entails being determined by God. Why do you do that? What is there about the any of the words “deepest possible relational intimacy” that makes you think in deterministic categories? Amazing.

Tom

Post Edited (MANY) : 6/25/2007 1:59:35 PM (GMT-5)

Is anybody even reading what I write?

I’m the one arguing that the divine will shall BOTH unilaterally prescribe specific outcomes on occasion and leave us to be the final arbiter of other outcomes on occasion. That’s MY position. It has been from the beginning and it’s repeated on nearly every post I’ve put up.

It hasn’t been your position. You’ve agreed (reluctantly) that both are ‘possible’ with “Yeah, if it turns out that God lets us determine some outcomes, fine, I haven’t lost anything.” See the difference? It seems to me that conceding this possibility is something you have to grant because you can’t disprove it. But nothing about your hope or expectation DESIRES it and nothing about your understanding of perfected God-human relationality REQUIRES it. You can take or leave our being the final arbiter on occasion. You don’t lose anything if it turns out to be the case on occasion NOR do you lose anything if it turns out NEVER to be the case.

I on the other hand desire and require it. It’s a building block for me, not just an ornament I can take or leave. So I’m not arguing just for this or that logical possibility. I’m arguing a position: exhaustively and unilaterally determined God-human relationships are not relationally beautiful. THAT’S why I argue for both/and. The BEAUTY is in the both/and. It’s not an option for me.

And I’ve always agreed that where we are left free to determine the form our loving expression takes, God is the absolute referent (if I’m following this phrase correctly). I’ve said that even when we act in self-determining ways we aim our intention at pleasing God and at being one with him. We are offering our wills to him in so doing. I’ve argued it a million times—my keyboard types the sentences on its own so often have I hammered on it!—we are NO LESS one with God, NO LESS possessed of the Spirit, NO LESS in perfect unison with the divine will when we’re deciding what picture we draw God than we are when we willingly draw a picture whose content and every stroke are unilaterally determined for us by the divine will. Do you or do you not agree with this? I can't tell.

Tom

Post Edited (MANY) : 6/25/2007 4:51:26 PM (GMT-5)

A.  God brought the original state of creation into existence through unilateral determination. Fine. That's not less than beautiful. It's not unilateral determination PER SE that's an ugly thing. Unilateral determination is all around us and a beautiful part of how we function in the world. But the relationship God comes into with creation at the moment he creates (like the relationship we have with things we unilaterally determine) isn't a mutually personal relationship.

B.  ...unilateral determination of persons (thoughts, intentions, choices, actions, etc.) supposedly engaging in mutually personal relationships.

C.  both "A" and "B."

D.  none of the above

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 6/26/2007 10:07:19 AM (GMT-5)