Open Theism Discussion Board

Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Ethics, etc. > (No Subject)

Forum Quick Jump

[ << Previous Thread | Next Thread >> | Show Newest Post First ]

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 10/13/2002 6:30 PM (GMT -6)

The following excerpt is from the book "On Creativity" by David Bohm. This excerpt comes from a chapter titled "On art, science, mathematics, and their general significance for "the good."

I thought it worth posting here because of the similarity of Bohm's thought to the problem of the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge of good and evil is the force of fragmentation. Love is the force of "fitting together", it requires that we let go of our own fragmentary notion of "the good."

Bold emphasis is mine. Italics is his.

Enjoy:

Pg 81

A very good case in point is provided by considering the word “art.” The original meaning of this word is “to fit.” This meaning survives in articulate, article, artisan, artifact and so on.

Pg 86

This notion of fitting extends into all aspects of life, including even those that have been called “moral” or “ethical” and which have to do with “the good.” The word “good” is indeed derived from an Anglo-Saxon root (the same as that of “gather” and “together”) which means “to join.” And so it may be suggested that early notions of “the good” implied some kind of “fitting together” in all that man does. The fact that the Latin word “bene,” meaning “good,” and the word “bellus,” meaning “beauty,” are related in origin further confirms the suggestion that this is generally how people may have looked on such questions. Recalling that beauty means “to fit in every respect,” we could say that such a significance of “the good” is still relevant today. In other words, the good is that which fits, not only in practical function and in our feelings and aesthetic sensibilities, but also that which, by its action, leads to an ever-wider and deeper sort of fitting, in every phase of life, both for the individual and for society as a whole.

As Socrates pointed out, all men desire the good. Indeed, how could a man possibly desire that which he sees as not properly fitting, in contexts which he feels to be important? Even a man who is self-centered, ruthless, and ambitious will, for example, generally be found to look on what he is trying to do as good.

The difficulty is, of course, that men have confused and fragmentary notions as to what is the good. Such fragmentary notions of the good will inevitably divide men, both in themselves and from each other, and so must lead to unending conflict. Thus, what is at the origin of evil is just the fact that each man pursues his own fragmentary notion of the good.

To end this fragmentation is clearly of crucial importance if man is to cease to accomplish evil in the very act in which he pursues the good. So, what is needed is to pause and to inquire into the origin of this fragmentation in a mode of thought in which the separation of art, science, and mathematics from each other and from questions of morals and ethics plays a key role.

It is widely believed, for example, that in some sense, art, science, and mathematics are “morally neutral.” Thus, it is said that scientific knowledge may be used either for good or for evil ends, according to the decisions of those who control public affairs, while artistic skills can similarly be used either for true cultural enlightenment or for making propaganda that twists men’s minds in destructive ways. But such a separation between the content of men’s work and its ultimate human significance is itself a result of the overall condition of fragmentation that has largely prevailed throughout the ages. Indeed, if men were generally considering knowledge as an unbroken whole (as is implied, for example, in the original meaning of philosophy as “love of wisdom”) they would understand that this whole has to fit in every aspect of life. So it would be clear that there is no meaning to such a notion of overall fitting if its end is not “the good.” To give primary emphasis to the question of whether or not science and art, in their present fragmented states, are “morally neutral” is evidently, then, to take attention away from the key point. This is that each individual has in his own mind to see the need to be an unbroken whole, and not a being who is separated, for example, into technological, sociological, and psychological fragments.

To expect that men will cease to engage in this sort of fragmentation through moral exhortation, through compulsion, through being convinced of what is right, or through a new organization of society is to try to solve the problem of fragmentation by engaging in more of the fragmentary mode of thought that produces the problem. Rather, what we have to do is to give serious and sustained attention to this mode of thought itself. And this is what we are beginning to do when we see how we have been conditioned to split art, science, mathematics, and the desire for “the good” into separate compartments of life, so that we are not able to see the oneness of the deep impulse toward “fitting” that is behind all of these.

thanks,
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Edited by - Iconoclast on 10/13/2002 11:36:13 PM

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/15/2002 11:07 AM (GMT -6)

Icon,

One of the books I read in college and again in graduate school is "Zen and the Birds of Appetite" by Thomas Merton. The end portion was a dialog he had with D. T. Susuki. (a formost apologist of Zen Budhism to the West) It that dialog it comes out that while Zen is fery good at steering one away from lettings one's individuality and fragmentary thinking rule, Zen does not recognize that such a thing as "sin" exists.

I would, likewise, agree with much of the observations in the selection above. Yet, it reminds me of Susuki in that way. Here's why.

Creation is this world minus sin. And most of creation (its design, its essence) remains. But like a smeared mirror, or one bent so as to distort the likeness of what it reflects, man, and because and through man creation needs redemption. That redemption is now in how we offer creation back to God in thanksgiving, praise, tending (care) and tilling (reponsible development).

So far, so good.

Where I would like to suggest, ever so poorly in my own words, is that the issue is not merely one of stepping out of the way of our habit of fragmentation (Zen), but of ackowledging God's creative Word in the Creation. (alla Abe Kuyper, and countless Christian monks)

Icon, I thought that the use of word origins and definitions was interesting. It reminded me of something I was reading lately. This quote pertains to holiness, AND also pertains to the nature of the Creation.

quote:
God is holy because God is love (l John 4:8,16). This New Testament revelation makes understandable God's jealousy towards humanity In the Old Testament God reveals this love for all human beings through Israel. In the New Testament God's love is realized in the person of Jesus Christ. God's love towards people is the same, but its saving power is manifested in different ways. In the Old Testament God is faithful to Israel despite her apostasy. When God's people act wrongly, he exposes their sin. God promises in holiness (Amos 4:2) to remain faithful to the covenant by punishing Israel. Fulfilling the law means life; fulfilling the law means remaining faithful to God. Remaining faithful to God means seeking God permanently, which grants life (Amos 5:6).

In Slavonic holy is svjat, and in Sanskrit it means "pure," "shine," and "bright." Everything holy is bright, it shines; that is to say, it is visible, transparent, not hidden.

Its meaning is close to the Akkadian word qadasu (to be bright, to shine). The same word in Bulgarian is used also to denote "world," everything that is visible, that can be recognized by the senses and the mind, everything which is intelligible. Therefore holiness is the opposite of darkness. From the same root, the word for priest is also derived. In Slavonic holiness also corresponds to the creative activity of God. One of the very first things which God creates is the light (Genesis 1:3). Light is equivalent to life, so God creates life that exists in its absolute state in the person of Jesus Christ, who is light (John 1:4). Light penetrates everything and makes it transparent. Therefore holiness, understood as light, enlightens everything. People who have holy life, who are enlightened, cannot remain unnoticed (Matthew 5:14-16). Holiness enlightens the people, through spreading Christ's light.

Further, holiness obviously has much in common with truth, life, and knowledge, and in the Old and New Testaments God is revealed as the Giver of Life. The prophet Isaiah speaks about the One, who "created the heavens," who "formed the earth and made it," who "established it," who "formed it to be inhabited!"(Isaiah 45:18). God in the New Testament, as Giver of Life, is fully revealed in the face of the incarnate Logos, lesus Christ, as expressed in the Gospel of John: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).

The same idea of holiness is behind the term "light." Jesus Christ is life and light simultaneously. He created life which is light. "In him was life and the life was light of all people" (John 1:4). He is the light that shines in the world. This same light shines in the Old Testament as confirmed by God: "I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness" (Isaiah 45:19). The New Testament reveals it according to new conditions: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it" (John 1:5). Therefore, holiness that radiates from God is the same in the Old Testament and New Testament but is revealed in different ways, depending on God's plan for saving the world.

(from "The Way of Holiness," by Dimitar Popmarinov Kirov)

I notice the references to how appreciating the Creation is connected to our having a connection with appreciating God's will and our relationship to God. CLEARLY, neither a dualistic attitude nor fragmentary thinking will suffice.

Other quotes related to holiness and the creation are: (5 of them)

quote:
God is the author of life itself. In this sense the whole meaning of creation is life-perfect life meant to become holy is the purpose of the creation. The holiness of God derives, radiates from, God's life, from the Divine Being. The purpose of the person is to take part in God's given life, to strive to become holy. The one who attains holiness becomes perfect. This is what Jesus Christ wishes from his followers: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).

(from "Holiness in the Perspective of Eucharistic Theology," by
Petros Vassiliadis)

quote:
John Zizioulas writes: "The Church is catholic not as community which aims at a certain ethical achievement (being open, serving the world, and so forth, but as a community which experiences and reveals the unity of all creation insofar as this unity constitutes a reality in the person of Christ."2

(from "Holiness in the Perspective of Eucharistic Theology," by
Petros Vassiliadis)

quote:
Trinitarian theology points to the fact that God is in God's own self a life of communion and that God's involvement in history aims at drawing humanity and the whole ot creation into this communion, into God's very life. The implications of this assertion for a profound understanding of holiness are extremely important: holiness does not primarily aim at individual perfection, but at sharing of the life of communion that exists in God.14

(from "Holiness in the Perspective of Eucharistic Theology," by
Petros Vassiliadis)

quote:
The holiness of God is related to God's creation of life and therefore is dynamic, not static. Through his divine energies, God goes beyond divine transcendence and makes possible relations with created beings.

(from "The Way of Holiness," by Dimitar Popmarinov Kirov)

quote:
. In this sense the whole meaning of creation is life-perfect life meant to ecome holy is the purpose of the creation. The holiness of God derives, radiates from, God's life, from the Divine Being. The purpose of the person is to take part in God's given life, to strive to become holy. The one who attains holiness becomes perfect. This is what Jesus Christ wishes from his followers: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).

(from "The Way of Holiness," by Dimitar Popmarinov Kirov)

+

Note: Feel free to tinker with anything I wrote about Zen Budhism. It was 1979 when I read Merton. Oh my gray beard!

Al

Edited by - Al2Si2H4O9 on 10/15/2002 4:27:18 PM

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/15/2002 11:14 AM (GMT -6)

I think that what I posted above was a bit incomplete.

The limitation, or, possibly, distortion that see in the Zen approach is that by postulating a Creation without sin -- and we have to remember that we can only view the world from our own state -- is that we humans, historically, then, have always postulated a Creation contained in itself. A Creation of clockwork (maybe not identical to "Uhrwerk") where Creation does not need God, and where it can exist without God energetically in Creation by His Word.

That is where the Christian revelation is absolutely necessary. All Creation, under the curse, waited for the "right time" for that revelation. And it offered a Star and a Cave to host that revelation -- in style. And the Sky darkened in response to the shame.

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/16/2002 11:47 AM (GMT -6)

Icon quotes Bohm:

The word “good” is indeed derived from an Anglo-Saxon root (the same as that of “gather” and “together”) which means “to join.” And so it may be suggested that early notions of “the good” implied some kind of “fitting together” in all that man does. The fact that the Latin word “bene,” meaning “good,” and the word “bellus,” meaning “beauty,” are related in origin further confirms the suggestion that this is generally how people may have looked on such questions.

From another language/cultures quoted in post two is:

The same word (holiness) in Bulgarian is used also to denote "world," everything that is visible, that can be recognized by the senses and the mind, everything which is intelligible. Therefore holiness is the opposite of darkness.

Seems to regard creation as holy.

More:

In Slavonic holy is svjat
in Sanskrit it means "pure," "shine," and "bright." Everything holy is bright, it shines; that is to say, it is visible, transparent, not hidden.
and ... close to the Akkadian word qadasu (to be bright, to shine

Interesting.

GregBoyd
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 10/17/2002 2:11 PM (GMT -6)

Okay, I'm getting back to this soon as I get a chance (which is not now). This is good stuff Icon.

Preliminary question: Cannot EVIL have its own unity? Indeed, isn't it MORE evil when it has "the good" of unity? The Nazi machine ran with incredible inner congruity and harmony.

The kingdom of Satan is not divided against itself... which is why it yet stands.

hmmmm.

Doc

"In Christ...the ONLY THING that matters is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 10/17/2002 5:25 PM (GMT -6)

Doc

Preliminary question: Cannot EVIL have its own unity? Indeed, isn't it MORE evil when it has "the good" of unity? The Nazi machine ran with incredible inner congruity and harmony.

Iconoclast

Notice that you called it the “Nazi MACHINE”. This is exactly what it was – a machine. It was a “mechanized” kind of order. As a machine its “inner congruity and harmony” was in total disharmony with all the other “order” that it came into contact with. Indeed, it killed all this other “order”. Thus it is was a mechanized kind of order along the lines of a cancer. It was an “order” that was fragmented from life and set up as THE “order”.

This seems very much like the nature of the stolen knowledge of good and evil. It is setting up some “good” (its own inner congruity and order) as an absolute. Thus it violates the real “good” (fitting together) because it must reject all other “order” that it comes into contact with BECAUSE that other order will necessitate it changing “its own inner congruity and order”. Its “good” (its own order) is incompatible with the real “good” (fitting together with other orders).

Bohm:

quote:

Thus, what is at the origin of evil is just the fact that each man pursues his own fragmentary notion of the good.

Pursuing our own fragmentary notion of the good leads to setting up that fragmented order as an absolute. A fragment of the overall order becomes a “mechanized” and isolated order. It is cut off from the source of life. Why? Because the only way to remain a fragmented order is to deny that other orders ought to affect OUR order. This is judgement.

This suggests some interesting implications.

It suggests that we must “fit together” in some way with ALL orders. It suggests that we CANNOT DENY that some order OUGHT NOT to affect us. But what about orders that are fragmented orders that are themselves denying other orders? Should these affect us? If so, how? What does love have to say about this?

Charles Sanders Peirce:

quote:

God is love. There is no logic in this, unless it means that God loves all men. In the preceding paragraph, he had said, “God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” We are to understand, then, that as darkness is merely the defect of light, so hatred and evil are mere imperfect stages of love and loveliness. This concords with that utterance reported in John’s Gospel: “God sent not the Son in to the world to judge the world; but that the world should through him be saved. He that believeth on him is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already. . . . And this is the judgement, that the light is come into the world, and that men loved darkness rather than the light.” That is to say, God visits no punishment on them; they punish themselves, by their natural affinity for the defective. Thus, the love that God is, is not a love of which hatred is the contrary; otherwise Satan would be a co-ordinate power; but it is a love which embraces hatred as an imperfect stage of it.

This suggests that we are to embrace these fragmented orders as an imperfect stage of a fully integrated order. Notice the presupposition here. We are to presuppose that fragmented orders can and will become integrated orders.

I don’t think this means that they NECESSARILY will. I just think it means that this is what love does because love always hopes and trusts in its own power to bring the fragmented order into the overall order. And BY DOING SO it is itself a part of the overall order. I think this is also the nature of the self-fulfilling prophecy – the “pygmalion” effect. See, Do, Get. When we “See” this, we behave (“Do”), in such a way as to “Get” the result.

Charles Sanders Peirce:

quote:

Everybody can see that the statement of St. John is the formula of an evolutionary philosophy, which teaches that growth comes only from love, from – I will not say self-sacrifice, but from the ardent impulse to fulfil another’s highest impulse.

When we add this view we end up with the thought that the fragmented order’s highest impulse is really to “fit together”. The fragmented order’s highest impulse IS for the “good” – it just doesn’t recognize that this “good” is ONLY found by “fitting together” with the overall order. That “good” cannot be isolated from the overall order – even other orders that are themselves fragmented!

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

We are to be “in” the world (seeking to “fit together” even with other fragmented orders) but not “of” the world (seeking the “good” AS our own fragmented order).

Charles Sanders Peirce:

quote:

The philosophy we draw from John’s gospel is that this is the way mind develops; and as for the cosmos, only so far as it yet is mind, and so has life, is it capable of further evolution. Love, recognizing germs of loveliness in the hateful, gradually warms it into life, and makes it lovely. That is the sort of evolution which every careful student of my essay “The Law of Mind,” must see that synechism calls for.

thanks,
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Edited by - Iconoclast on 10/17/2002 10:39:33 PM

BJS
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 587

Posted 10/18/2002 4:14 AM (GMT -6)

Interesting thread, Iconoclast! A question:

Pierce wrote:

quote:
Thus, the love that God is, is not a love of which hatred is the contrary; otherwise Satan would be a co-ordinate power; but it is a love which embraces hatred as an imperfect stage of it.

What I think this means is this: Real love, whether expressed by God himself or human beings, recognizes all things as being part of God's overall order, and therefore hates nothing, but merely appreciates that Satan and hatred and anything else that rejects God's overall order are merely mired in "imperfect stages" of their place in the overall order (a.k.a. love). Am I understanding correctly?

If the above is a correct understanding of Pierce's point, I am wondering: Doesn't God express hatred for sin? Doesn't God at some point completely reject rather than "embrace" those who refuse to "fit" into God's overall order of love? Is Pierce a universalist?
Wouldn't he have to be to hold his position here?

In process,

Brett

"Siste viator et memento mori."

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 10/18/2002 11:45 AM (GMT -6)

BJS

If the above is a correct understanding of Pierce's point, I am wondering: Doesn't God express hatred for sin?

Iconoclast

“Hatred for sin” is an equivalent phrase to “Love for all things.” “Sin” is when the “thing” misses the mark of its own existence.

BJS

Doesn't God at some point completely reject rather than "embrace" those who refuse to "fit" into God's overall order of love? Is Peirce a universalist?
Wouldn't he have to be to hold his position here?

Iconoclast

I don’t know if Peirce is a universalist or not. It does not, however, seem to me that he would need to be to hold his position.

His position is that WE create our own judgement. God never rejects us but continues to love us. WE, however, may continue to reject him, which in my view, ultimately leads either to our eternal separation, OUT OF OUR OWN CHOICE, or, it leads to annihilation, which would be to say that eternal separation from the source of Life is a choice to go back to being a rock (non-conscious and ultimately non-existent).

thanks,
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/29/2002 5:53 AM (GMT -6)

Icon, perhaps you have a thought along this line? The EO writers I've read prefer, I think, the "becoming" as opposed to anything 'static', pointing out that static is never so...but is a slipping backwards. Any thoughts on this as per "fit?"

Al

Edited by - Al2Si2H4O9 on 10/29/2002 10:54:18 AM

GregBoyd
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 10/30/2002 6:57 PM (GMT -6)

Good thought provoking stuff.

I initially was going to pose the possibility of pursuing evil for evil's sake as a counter-example to the idea that all evil is pursuing one's own fragmented good -- but upon reflection, this simply seems to be a case of someone concluding "evil be thou my good" (Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost). One delights in sheer destruction, calling it "good."

More to say, but gotta go...

love and kisses
Doc

ps. okay, just this... do all free acts inevitably contribute to "the good" of the whole... or are there "unharmonizable" deeds, and possibly beings? Which is to say, does gratuitous evil exist?

"In Christ...the ONLY THING that matters is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/31/2002 12:48 AM (GMT -6)

IMHO its simple.

quote:
love and kisses
Doc

ps. okay, just this... do all free acts inevitably contribute to "the good" of the whole... or are there "unharmonizable" deeds, and possibly beings? Which is to say, does gratuitous evil exist?

Seems to me that the Fall was a "free act" that did NOT move in the direction of the "good of the whole." Reformed Calvinists speak of "structure" and "direction"; and I think that "direction" is a very useful concept. Adam and Eve's free act did not "contribute to 'the good' of the whole."

:-)

GregBoyd
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 11/1/2002 6:48 PM (GMT -6)

That's the question. When a free agent choses evil, God will certainly work to bring good OUT OF it. But is the good redeemed ALWAYS GAURANTEED to result in a "surplus" if you will? Can't there be sheer LOSS? And if there CAN be sheer LOSS, then, AS I READ IT, this would count against the Bohm/Icon thesis. There IS gratuitous evil in the sense that there are at least ASPECTS of it that simply worsen the state of the whole and are not necessary, planned, harmonious, or any other such thing.

Greg

"In Christ...the ONLY THING that matters is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 11/2/2002 2:24 AM (GMT -6)

Greg, I think I follow you:

quote:
That's the question. When a free agent choses evil, God will certainly work to bring good OUT OF it. But is the good redeemed ALWAYS GAURANTEED to result in a "surplus" if you will? Can't there be sheer LOSS? And if there CAN be sheer LOSS, then, AS I READ IT, this would count against the Bohm/Icon thesis. There IS gratuitous evil in the sense that there are at least ASPECTS of it that simply worsen the state of the whole and are not necessary, planned, harmonious, or any other such thing.

Greg

Especially the part about "there CAN be sheer LOSS."

But a part of your post that I want to pause on is where you consider whether "of it that simply worsen the state of the whole..." This reads on first look as an assumption of equilibrium, or at least a bottom-lint talley sheet. (If not, my mistake.) My reason for not liking that is that it seems to me to oppose the mature of the person, both outside of community AND INSIDE community. It seems to oppose the nature or community, which I belive does superceed sin. Sin can only be a parasite upon creation, and not a thing in itself. So, the nature of what is community superceeds. (So, obviously, I'm reading "whole" as being a balance of good and bad that has to--by some system--balance to justify or even have a possitive balance at the 'end of the day.' And I reject that.)

Forum Information

Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 6:12 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads

Need Support? | Forum Help Manual