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Electra

Iconoclast: In other words, love can be completely what you are living in and still take this action.

Electra: How can love be completely what I am living in if I make any exceptions about who I love?

Iconoclast

You are presupposing that taking this action is making an exception about who you love. You can be FOR someone and still determine that this action is best given the overall context. No action exists in isolation. Nor can we isolate any specific action after the fact and determine whether it is by itself 'life-affirming' or 'life-denying'. The very definition of life is about relationships. I think this is what honorman is getting at when he says there is a 'fourth' called community. I would simply add that we cannot make such discrete categorizations (i.e. God, ourself, the other, and community). It is really a 'fractal' sort of 'perspectival' chain of relationships where God is the very center and yet encompasses the whole. Maybe something like: Individual -> Couple -> conjugal family -> consanguine family -> town -> city -> county -> state -> nation -> God. Of course this set of sets of sets branches into a multitude of other groupings: Individual -> work unit -> department -> division -> company -> God. Couple -> small group -> church -> denomination -> Church -> God. And so on.

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These two things are true of every living center:

1. Each center gets its life, always, from the fact that it is helping to support and enliven some larger center.
2. The center becomes precious because of it.

"The Nature of Order - The Phenomenon of Life" - Christopher Alexander

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To love is to take action that is 'Life-affirming'. But 'life' IS this web of mutually supporting relationships. When an individual starts destroying this web of relationships - this 'life' all around them then what is the 'life-affirming' thing to do? Certainly the goal is to influence the individual to freely choose to take 'life-affirming' action. And it MAY be that the most effective way to do this is to allow the individual to kill you when you have the power to stop them by killing them. However, it must be remembered that 'life' is this web of interrelationships. Allowing the individual to kill you may actually be the most INEFFECTIVE thing you could do because this might influence other individuals to believe that people will not fight back and therefore can be used like doormats and thus start behaving like the individual that killed you. The key issue is that our actions are not only affecting the current individual and situation but they are also influencing other individuals as to what they can expect to happen given some set of circumstances.

When someone is 'power-aroused' becoming a doormat usually feeds that power-arousal. It makes it worse. The criminal likes to target 'victims' - people who will behave like a doormat. This gives them confidence to attack their next victim. The ideal scenario when confronted with a 'power-aroused' individual - whether the head of another department in your company or some vicious criminal - is to use your own power to block them. NOT to crush them, but to block them and frustrate their power game IN ORDER that you can then back down from your power position and negotiate.

For me it comes down to this. In the situation where a vicious criminal is attacking and the only way I can stop him is to kill him, I believe it is God's will that I stop the vicious criminal. In the situation where the state or some 'principality' or some sanctioned group is taking evil action then I believe that it is God's will that I oppose them at risk to my own life without using violent means to attack them back. Why? Because that is the most powerful way to influence not only THAT group that is doing evil but also all the other folks who are needed to risk their own lives in opposing the stray group. This is the power of non-violent resistance - it is an extremely effective influence strategy.

Because life is a web of interrelationships of free-will agents a key aspect of loving others is influencing them to take life-affirming action. In the case of the vicious criminal by stopping them at risk to yourself using ultimately violent force as a last resort is part of an influence strategy to influence all other potential victims to NOT be doormats but to take action to stop that behavior.

Potential terrorists should now know that if they pull out a box cutter on an airplane everyone on that airplane will risk their own life to stop them - no matter what. This is a powerful influence that will hopefully prevent some terrorist from even trying that. If all violent criminals knew that to victimize someone meant a violent struggle to the death in order to carry out their victimization, there would be a lot less of that sort of thing.

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 06/04/2003 11:42:23 PM

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I think it should also be noted that Jesus, while on earth, certainly showed partiality, as far as his love. He loved John with a special love and he had an inner circle of special disciples.

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Iconoclast

Yes to each individual's worth is ontologically determined by God.

I don't agree that 'the good of the whole is the realm of ethics.' The dictionary says that ethics is "a set of principles of right conduct." From this definition I understand ethics to simply be a guide, a knowledge base or a map to help us free-will agents come to some agreements on how we are going to conduct our relationships. It is as true a guide for the 'whole' as it is for individuals. Most importantly, it is a map, it is not the territory. Ethics is a map. God's living will for us is the territory.

thanks,
Iconoclast

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Electra

Iconoclast: In other words, love can be completely what you are living in and still take this action.

Electra: How can love be completely what I am living in if I make any exceptions about who I love?

Iconoclast

You are presupposing that taking this action is making an exception about who you love. You can be FOR someone and still determine that this action is best given the overall context.

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Try again, Modes. You're not even close. If you are not willing to address the issue in dialogue, then don't bother even posting. All the verses you quoted deal with salvation (or, in the case of the last one judgement). In these areas God doesn't show partiality. But in the case of Israel, God did. In the case of Jesus, as a human, Jesus certainly showed patiality. I would suggest you address the ideas I brought up rather than quoting scriptures you think refute them. Then again, it looks like you can't and simply gave up. If I were you, I'd go with the "etc." verses. Maybe they actually address what I am talking about.

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Modes,

I think perhaps you are overlooking the concept of defense of others. This is what it would seem to me that the passengers would be doing in subduing the hijackers. And, if they did not do any permanent harm to the hijackers in subduing them and let civil justice take its course, vigilanteeism (in the judgment sense) would be effectively avoided.

For one example, do you really think Jesus would sit idly by and let a man rape a woman? Molest a child? Destroy the lives of others? In choosing to allow a perpetrator to proceed with his crime, one by definition is devaluing his victims.

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BTW Modes: what is Christian love to you may not be for everybody.

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Modes: just thinking. Given that you came on and one, dismissed my argument as sin and then two, dismissed it completely, I think I'll bow out now. So you needn't bother addressing my question.

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So when you talk to the judge about your speeding ticket, what dose he say when you offer the explanation that the sign that says 55 was merely a guide, reflecting a principle? Does he respond with, yes, indeed, and God's will for us is the territory? I am confused by your references and definitions.

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Hmmm, okay Brett, I think you are right on that. What that means is that I chose a poor example. It is the Absolute character/nature of God that makes divine laws different from human ones. Maybe I should have used the example of the guy touching the ark of the covenant and dying. Even though he was trying to prevent it from being dropped. This reflects the "absolute" that I fear is being lost in this discussion.

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Iconoclast

Good point Brett. Even Ghandi said that the state must put down Criminal Disobedience else the state will break down and anarchy will result (which means more violence). This is why Ghandi was so focused on using ONLY Civil Disobedience. He agreed that it is appropriate for the state to use force to stop Criminal Disobedience. Our government is OUR government. We the people establish it and, in fact, UPHOLD it. The constitutional right to bear arms is an acknowledgement of this fact. In essence we the people are ultimately responsible to put down Criminal Disobedience. If we see someone hurting another we have a responsibility to stop them. Being trained in the appropriate use of force and being armed is very helpful in discharging this responsibility in extreme circumstances.

If 2% of Minnesotans choose to conceal and carry then on average out of every 50 people 1 person is armed and therefore able to be more effective in stopping extreme Criminal Disobedience.

Also, this means that in any group of 25 people there is a 50% chance that someone is armed. In a group of 10 people there is a 20% chance of someone being armed. I think this changes the calculations of those who would go on violent rampages or try to rob a bank at gun point.

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