Open Theism Discussion Board

Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Ethics, etc. > Bonhoeffer Chapter THREE -- finally!

Forum Quick Jump

260 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page :

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

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 7/15/2002 4:15 PM (GMT -6)

Modes

As I see it, this system misses in both directions. It shoots too high and too low.

Iconoclast

Surely you don't mean to say that we are being both like an ascetic and being like a drunkard at the same time.

But seriously, I am a bit lost on what "system" you are talking about. Would you be willing to state more explicitly what you are hearing?

I will continue to respond to points you are making in hopes of clarifying.

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 07/15/2002 9:16:39 PM

Springs
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 636

Posted 7/15/2002 4:31 PM (GMT -6)

Oh yeah! I'll get right on that! not.

Did I say how much I love all the Business, psych. vocab? How many complements do I have to give you to atone for my lumping you together, with a mad genius on meds? I really do love y'all and I have enjoyed this thread a great deal. I respect your writing skills. I just completed two papers for school. I wish it were as easy for me as it looks for you. (Is that ten yet?) But I don't have time right now to pull up the points you made with which I disagreed, and most likely, I lack the vocabulary that would be necessary for that endeavor.

-S

...but I have called you friends... Jn 15:15

Electra
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611

Posted 7/15/2002 5:15 PM (GMT -6)

Dear Iconoclast, thank you for your patient and helpful responses to my questions. I have a few more, but I think I am beginning to see why we seem to find each other’s views mutually baffling. I will say more later, but I would really like to give Doc a chance to weigh in.

Later,
Electra

~·• kyrie eleison ·~•~· christe eleison ·~•~· kyrie eleison •·~

Semeia
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 522

Posted 7/15/2002 5:43 PM (GMT -6)

Springs said:

If we ever needed a poll function, now is the time!

Semeia:

Wouldn't that be about as effective as the ETS voting on whether Open Theism is a valid view?

Springs said:

I realize this thread isn't even near completion, but it seems that Electra and Modes have summed up this portion really well.

Semeia:

Are you just meaning to say that you agree with their summary of their own viewpoint? Because based on their responses we don't seem to be communicating very well, and so far we haven't summarized each other's views in a way we all agree on.

Springs said:

I am very thankful for the loving hearts of Icon and Semeia and Doc, but I think they've gone off the deep end on this one.

Semeia:

Perhaps you could be more specific.

I'm still struggling to understand where Modes and Electra are coming from. The view they present I do not entirely comprehend. I think the conversation with Brandi progressed to a point where we found the crux of our disagreement. From Modes' and Electra's posts today I have gotten a much better idea of their view, but it is still going to be a piece of work to respond and clarify a) where they are misunderstanding us; and b) where we may be misunderstanding them.

Okay, I'll go with the poll idea... I just want everyone to know that anyone who votes for me has a lifetime guarantee that I won't poke them in the eye again on this website... and that I believe in world peace and I will wear my crown with pride... and there could be some money in it for you too, just talk to my Uncle Lenny - the guy in the dark suit out back... and I'll just be so happy it'll be like Sally Fields at the Academy Awards ("You like me, you really, really like me!")... I'll start working on my speech right now...

Thanks,
Semeia

"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard

Springs
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 636

Posted 7/15/2002 6:00 PM (GMT -6)

I vote for Semeia!

Yes, they did a good summary, and I just mean to say, that from what I understand I agree with them more than I do with you.

Springs

...but I have called you friends... Jn 15:15

Modes of Thought
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817

Posted 7/15/2002 7:01 PM (GMT -6)

quote:

Modes

As I see it, this system misses in both directions. It shoots too high and too low.

Iconoclast

Surely you don't mean to say that we are being both like an ascetic and being like a drunkard at the same time.

No. (Though it does seem that the ethical is still the dominant sphere of activity here which would explain the missing, perhaps merely underdeveloped?, categories at both ends--sin, and vocation.) But I do mean to say that the way that ideas are being presented, is riddled with theological weaknesses that are in serious need of reworking. I know this sounds arogant. I am truly sorry for that, but I feel convicted about pointing these things out. The core message against judgment is VERY important and needed today and it will not have the impact it can if it is not presented in a coherent and orthodox theological manner. I am very open to the possibility that I am simply misunderstanding everything but I do need to have someone show me that this is the case. My hope is still that I simply don't get it, and that it will all become clear to me in due time and conversation.

Icon:
But seriously, I am a bit lost on what "system" you are talking about. Would you be willing to state more explicitly what you are hearing?

Modes:
The system I speak of is the one that I find described by you, Semeia and doc. The system whereby we evaluate the impact of our actions, actions which we seem to have come up with somehow, and we do so by our own judgment (even though you claim that you are not judging when you do this, that claim has yet to be adequately defended), intuition, principles, and feedback from those whom we seek to impact. The system where we find ourselves, in principle, justified in judging those whom we percieve to be pharisaical--as though we are not pharisees ourselves! The system is self-correcting, which I think is a good and promising aspect to it. But it promises too much. It does this because it assumes too much.

[You are now using the rhetoric of "successful communication." The message (in terms of our vocational spreading of the message) is not about successful communication, but rather the awakening of others to the power, presence and person of God. We simply lead them to the one who set us free. It doesn't take a Ph.D., just a heart that knows the Lord. The language game of "successful communication" is not rich enough to capture this. POW knows this well. The beauty of church icons is that they function as windows into the divine, ways to meet God that are more concrete and accessible. Sacramental. God knows about successful communication. That's not our job. Our job is to do the specific actions that God calls us to do. Of all the churches in the world, some of the evagelical ones are the most rebellious in this regard. We almost completely neglect the sacraments. We are to eat Christ's flesh and drink Christ's blood, it is God who is communicating something in this. Not us. We are receiving. ]

There is a complex of ideas that pertain to this mode of living out what you are calling "love." I have been trying desperately to point out some of the problems with the location of the criterion and the quality control element in the system. Furthermore, I have been trying to point out that the inspiration for the good at the end (love successfully communicated--as we understand it) does not start where it should. At least not in the language I am hearing currently.

I believe the fundamental controversy is about whether to start with a certain understanding of the Great Commandment (positive instruction), or to start with the paradigmatic Christian definition "What does not proceed from faith is sin." You three are stressing the former and letting up on the latter. Some of the others of us are recalling the latter and reading the former in its light. I believe the latter is the better strategy since the Great Commandment starts with the order correct and the Christian definition implied: love the Lord your God with all that you are and love your neighbor as yourself. The second part of this depends on the first. It starts with God. God is a jealous God. Another reason that I keep the order--and the emphasis in this way is that it more consistantly plays out the common conviction that we share about being preceeding doing in some sense. (Though I do think that ultimately the being/doing dichotomy is false and both are better understood as subordinate to the concept of "becoming".)

Additionally, that stuff I dropped in the hat many moons ago about the importance of understanding the sacramental nature of reality pertains here as well. We where arguing about covenant at that time. Which by the way, is a qualification that I think could make the system you are promoting workable. That is, that we concede that love is not perfect unless it is God's love moving through us and all these attempts at facilitating a human version of that, even with Christ as an example, are bound to fail. God does not want a new social structure with better rules that are dynamic and love conducive. God wants actual intimacy with each of us and through each of us to each other. This means that it is incumbant upon us to KEEP the "God aspect" of Love in the picture at all times. After all, if we are not acting (wholely, unambiguously, unequivocally, completely, transparently, obediently) in that love, in that faith, in that person--Christ--then we are in sin. Sin is far more pervasive than we want to acknowledge, and this is part of the problem I see with the current system being proposed. We are simply not capable of doing it. But God is. And we need not be intellectual giants for God to do this through us. It is not about a learning curve. It is about a submission, a "yieldedness" curve.

Icon:
I will continue to respond to points you are making in hopes of clarifying.

thanks,
Iconoclast

Modes:
I do appreciate the spirit of this debate. Thanks to you all for keeping perspective and not letting me rattle your cages too easily.

Semeia,
You seem to imply that I don't understand you. Please clarify what you perceive to be my blind spot at this point. I am anxious to be unified in the common vision to help the church become more aware of its judgment problem and to do this together will require some work up front here.

Love to you all....
Modes

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

Edited by - ModesofThought on 07/28/2002 4:39:45 PM

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 7/15/2002 7:08 PM (GMT -6)

Modes

You assume the YOU know love when you see it,

Iconoclast

It seems to me that I put some strong qualifiers on this statement which you have stripped off here.

Are you saying that you don’t know love when you see it, ever?

So, we get to heaven and there is Jesus. How will we know Him if we don’t know love when we see it?

Now, I agree that if we are steeped in the knowledge of our own good and evil then we do not know love when we see it. This is what happened to the Pharisees. However, when we receive Jesus into our life and receive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, when we stop living out of our own knowledge of good and evil then how can we NOT know love when we see it?

Luke 12:54-59

He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘it is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

It seems to me that Jesus is making an analogy about their ability to understand “scientific” phenomenon and their UNWILLINGNESS to use that exact ability to see for themselves that Jesus IS the messiah. Their “detectors” aren’t broken, that’s not the problem. The problem is that they are being obedient to their own knowledge of good and evil rather than to the command of God – which is blocking their minds from attending to the evidence that is right there in front of their eyes.

Matt 7:9

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Jesus presupposes here that even us evil people are able to give good things to the people we want to. Is the problem really that we don’t know anything about how to love others, that we don’t know anything about what love looks like, or is the problem that we are not obeying God’s command to love even our enemy.

Modes

God wants you to refer to GOD in all things. To walk CONTINUALLY in God's Spirit. Yes, it is possible. Christ demonstrates this: "Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do NOTHING on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise." (John 5:19)

Iconoclast

I totally and completely agree with this. Bonhoeffer has a whole section on this issue and lays out very clearly the difference between the two kinds of “judgment” spoken about in the Bible: the kind that is condemnation and accusation and the kind that is pure and true action (action in Christ) that the Bible speaks about.

Modes

You don't get to judge whether something is loving or not. You don't get to judge whether or not to respond to, or how to respond to "feedback." You don't get to decide whether the results are loving or not and to what extent.

Iconoclast

I do not see how “true” action (action in Christ) in any way means that we are not responsible for assessing our impact on other people in order to find more loving ways to encourage them.

Bonhoeffer – The Pharisee - Pg. 33:

There is a spurious activity of man which is itself a judgement, and there is also, astonishingly enough, a judgement which is true activity of man, that is to say, a ‘judging’ which springs from the achievement of union with the origin, with Jesus Christ. There is a ‘knowing’ which arises from the knowledge of Jesus Christ as the Reconciler. ‘He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man’ (I Cor. 2.15), and again, ‘Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things’ (I John 2.20). This judgement and this knowledge spring from unity, not from disunion. They therefore create not further disunion, but reconciliation. Jesus Christ’s judgment consisted precisely in His having come not to condemn but to save; ‘And this is the judgement, that the light is come into the world’ (John 3.19 cf. verses 17 and 18), and likewise men who are reconciled with God and man in Christ will judge all things, as men who do not judge, and will know all things, as men who do not know good and evil. Their judgement will consist in brotherly help in lifting up the falling and in showing the way to the straying, in exhortation and in consolation (Gal. 6; Matt. 18.15ff.), and also, if the need arises, in a temporary suspension of fellowship, but in such a manner that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (I Cor. 5.5).
…
Bonhoeffer – Proving - Pg. 40

But when all this has been said it is still necessary really to examine what is the will of God, what is rightful in a given situation, what course is truly pleasing to God; for, after all, there have to be concrete life and action. Intelligence, discernment, attentive observation of the given facts, all these now come into lively operation, all will be embraced and pervaded by prayer. Particular experiences will afford correction and warning. Direct inspirations must in no case be heeded or expected, for this could all too easily lead to a man’s abandoning himself to self-deception. In view of what is at stake the must be a lofty spirit of sober self-control. Possibilities and consequences must be carefully assessed. In other words, the whole apparatus of human powers must be set in motion when it is a matter of proving what is the will of God. But in all this there will be no room for the torment of being confronted with insoluble conflicts, or even for the enthusiastic expectation and assertion of direct inspiration. There will be the belief that if a man asks God humbly God will give him certain knowledge of His will; and then, after all this earnest proving, there will also be the freedom to make a real decision, and with it the confidence that is is not man but God Himself who, through this proving, gives effect to His will. Anxiety as to whether one has done the right thing will not now become a desperate clinging to one’s own goodness or swing round into the assuredness of the knowledge of good and evil, but it will be dispelled in the knowledge of Jesus Christ who alone delivers the judgement of mercy; it will cause a man’s own goodness to lie hidden until the proper time in the knowledge and the mercy of the Judge.

Modes

I DO see the analogy with science and the fact that we do have to go on living and doing life in this world. And the point being that we do that best with a continual upgrading of out functioning analogies. BUT people, please say you see that these paradigms are SINFUL and JUDGING.

God does not want to impart a new wisdom to you.

Iconoclast

Are you saying that a doctor who studies the paradigm of how to treat cancer and applies that learning to skillfully judge when a tumor should be surgically removed and then executes that removal with amazing skill is using a SINFUL paradigm and JUDGING out of his own knowledge of good and evil?

"Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do NOTHING on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise." (John 5:19)

And what does the Father do? The Father created this entire universe in Wisdom and Love. The Father grows grapes that basically turn water into wine. Jesus does this at the wedding in Cana. The Father builds human bodies that heal. Jesus heals human bodies. Somewhere in the old testament: “It is God’s to cover, and the King’s to uncover.” The Father builds birds that can fly. Bernoulli discovers the basic principles that lead ultimately to the creation of airplanes that allow us to improve the lives of people. People discover some principles of how human bodies work and use that knowledge to heal human bodies.

I agree that God does not want to impart a new wisdom to us. He wants us to comprehend the wisdom that He has already given to us. It is all around us. We just have to ask. We just have to open our eyes. Ok, and maybe we also have to study, research, experiment, assess, dialogue, go to conferences and write posts on some seriously addictive website.

Modes

If God is silent, we may do the best we can, or we may do nothing, either way, we don't possess the criteria for knowing whether we did the most "right (loving/God glorifying) thing."

Iconoclast

I agree. What am I saying that makes you think that I believe that we can ever possess the criteria for knowing whether we did “the most ‘right (loving/God glorifying) 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

Modes of Thought
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817

Posted 7/15/2002 7:09 PM (GMT -6)

Springs! Thanks for the encouraging words.

It always feels good to have a cheering section.

Thanks for piping up. Feel free to continue....as long as you are cheering for the right team.

Electra just pointed out to me that my last post might have incuded some buzz words that Icon and Semeia might not jive with. My apologies. I hope that you can withhold judgment on what those words might mean in my sentences rather than importing what they may have meant in your exposure to those concepts. In particular I have in mind: sacrament, covenant, icons, etc....

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

Modes of Thought
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817

Posted 7/15/2002 7:47 PM (GMT -6)

Iconoclast

Are you saying that you don’t know love when you see it, ever?

So, we get to heaven and there is Jesus. How will we know Him if we don’t know love when we see it?

Modes:
I know love when I see it as God has revealed it to me. I know it in this, that while I was yet a sinner Christ died for me AND that death was effectual to overcome my sin and reunite me with God. Noone else can show me that kind of love. Furthermore, I cannot show anyone else that kind of love. I can only point them to Jesus.

Even though this is the case, we are still talking about the Jesus that was crucified for being love. This, I beleive sufficiently proves the point. When we see true, infinite, unconditional love, we kill it. We are threatened to the core. To the extent that we express love that approximates that in this world, we should expect to be killed for it.

Icon:
Now, I agree that if we are steeped in the knowledge of our own good and evil then we do not know love when we see it. This is what happened to the Pharisees. However, when we receive Jesus into our life and receive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, when we stop living out of our own knowledge of good and evil then how can we NOT know love when we see it?

Luke 12:54-59

He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘it is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

It seems to me that Jesus is making an analogy about their ability to understand “scientific” phenomenon and their UNWILLINGNESS to use that exact ability to see for themselves that Jesus IS the messiah. Their “detectors” aren’t broken, that’s not the problem. The problem is that they are being obedient to their own knowledge of good and evil rather than to the command of God – which is blocking their minds from attending to the evidence that is right there in front of their eyes.

Modes:
If their detectors are not broken then they would not have crucified him. I grant you that they are judging and that blocks them. My point is that we haven't licked that problem yet, and to suppose we have is to set ourselves up for pretty serious failure. We can live in Christ, but we rarely rest there fully and when we do, we don't remain there. We only visit. This is a very serious problem. Your system is predicated on a significant degree of success at living in Christ fully. My objections point us back to the more basic goal of recognizing where we are and then recognizing what the goal is. From there we can work out our faith in fear and trembling as God works in us to bring about God's plan in our life.

Let's look more closely at this argument: You are saying the hypocrisy is that they DO know good and evil and that they DO know how to give good gifts but yet they deny the true Good when they see it. But then you suggest that this very knowledge prevents them from seeing the truth. At each point? Didn't we just say that they did in fact know what is good and do it? If that is the case, what is Jesus doing here? My take on it is that this is a chastisement agains them for their ability to predict weather with some degree of accuracy but they are completely blind to the signs of the end times. That's what I think this is about.

Icon:
Matt 7:9

Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Jesus presupposes here that even us evil people are able to give good things to the people we want to. Is the problem really that we don’t know anything about how to love others, that we don’t know anything about what love looks like, or is the problem that we are not obeying God’s command to love even our enemy.

Modes:
Jesus has made the distinction between blessing those who are your friends, for even the evil do this, (and surely family here counts as friends) and blessing your enemies. This is about the comparison and then infinite contrast between the feeble good gifts of any human being toward their child and the "how much more" of God's ability and knowledge of what it truly is to give good gifts.

In both places, a given is mentioned: we can read signs, we can give good gifts to our own children. In both irony is used to mock us. We are being mocked for failing to see the signs of Christ and recognize who he is. We are being mocked as worldly givers (who, even though they be evil, give some good gifts to their children) who cannot even bring ourselves to expect great gifts from our heavenly father!!! Presummably because we know the frailty of what it means to give gifts as a human parent and frame God with that in mind.

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

Modes of Thought
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817

Posted 7/15/2002 8:12 PM (GMT -6)

quote:

Modes

You don't get to judge whether something is loving or not. You don't get to judge whether or not to respond to, or how to respond to "feedback." You don't get to decide whether the results are loving or not and to what extent.

Iconoclast

I do not see how “true” action (action in Christ) in any way means that we are not responsible for assessing our impact on other people in order to find more loving ways to encourage them.

Modes:
We are responsible for loving God. As a result of that we love others. True action is action that God does through us, often in spite of us. Our role in this is not to come up with the action, but to discern it, and then to cooporate with God in it. We work out our faith in fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in us.

Icon quoted:
Bonhoeffer – The Pharisee - Pg. 33:

There is a spurious activity of man which is itself a judgement, and there is also, astonishingly enough, a judgement which is true activity of man, that is to say, a ‘judging’ which springs from the achievement of union with the origin, with Jesus Christ. There is a ‘knowing’ which arises from the knowledge of Jesus Christ as the Reconciler. ‘He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man’ (I Cor. 2.15), and again, ‘Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things’ (I John 2.20). This judgement and this knowledge spring from unity, not from disunion. They therefore create not further disunion, but reconciliation. Jesus Christ’s judgment consisted precisely in His having come not to condemn but to save; ‘And this is the judgement, that the light is come into the world’ (John 3.19 cf. verses 17 and 18), and likewise men who are reconciled with God and man in Christ will judge all things, as men who do not judge, and will know all things, as men who do not know good and evil. Their judgement will consist in brotherly help in lifting up the falling and in showing the way to the straying, in exhortation and in consolation (Gal. 6; Matt. 18.15ff.), and also, if the need arises, in a temporary suspension of fellowship, but in such a manner that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (I Cor. 5.5).
…
Modes:
What does this activity spring from? THE ACHIEVEMENT of union with Jesus Christ. That is no small task. Whose knowledge are we speaking of? That of Christ. What do we have? An unction. From where? The Spirit. The remainder of this paragraph speaks in future tense. Why is this? Could it be because this perfection is not yet here? But rather it is held up as a goal an ideal, something to both point out our vocation and give us opportunity for self reflection and repentance? I see this passage as strongly supporting what I am concerned about.

Bonhoeffer – Proving - Pg. 40

But when all this has been said it is still necessary really to examine what is the will of God, what is rightful in a given situation, what course is truly pleasing to God; for, after all, there have to be concrete life and action. Intelligence, discernment, attentive observation of the given facts, all these now come into lively operation, all will be embraced and pervaded by prayer. Particular experiences will afford correction and warning. Direct inspirations must in no case be heeded or expected, for this could all too easily lead to a man’s abandoning himself to self-deception. In view of what is at stake the must be a lofty spirit of sober self-control. Possibilities and consequences must be carefully assessed. In other words, the whole apparatus of human powers must be set in motion when it is a matter of proving what is the will of God. But in all this there will be no room for the torment of being confronted with insoluble conflicts, or even for the enthusiastic expectation and assertion of direct inspiration. There will be the belief that if a man asks God humbly God will give him certain knowledge of His will; and then, after all this earnest proving, there will also be the freedom to make a real decision, and with it the confidence that is is not man but God Himself who, through this proving, gives effect to His will. Anxiety as to whether one has done the right thing will not now become a desperate clinging to one’s own goodness or swing round into the assuredness of the knowledge of good and evil, but it will be dispelled in the knowledge of Jesus Christ who alone delivers the judgement of mercy; it will cause a man’s own goodness to lie hidden until the proper time in the knowledge and the mercy of the Judge.

Modes:
Who's will must we examine? God's. Who must be pleased by the course taken? It is clear that there is a subordination and qualified use of the various human faculties. B. speaks clearly of the context: prayer, discerning the will of God, pleasing God, doing what God says is the rightful thing, etc. From here I think B. lapses into confused self-contradiction. At least it sounds like it to me. How are we to make sense of the last half of the paragraph? B. is describing compatibilistic freedom. God is giving effect to God's will. What is this business against inspiration when he just spoke of unctions of the spirit, hearing from God, etc. here he is simply not compelling to me. I expect that B. would have ironed this out if he had had opportunity to prepare this text fully for publication.

quote:

Modes

I DO see the analogy with science and the fact that we do have to go on living and doing life in this world. And the point being that we do that best with a continual upgrading of out functioning analogies. BUT people, please say you see that these paradigms are SINFUL and JUDGING.

God does not want to impart a new wisdom to you.

Iconoclast

Are you saying that a doctor who studies the paradigm of how to treat cancer and applies that learning to skillfully judge when a tumor should be surgically removed and then executes that removal with amazing skill is using a SINFUL paradigm and JUDGING out of his own knowledge of good and evil?

Modes:
Yes. (I can't pursue everything right now, so this will have to do for now.)

quote:

"Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do NOTHING on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise." (John 5:19)

And what does the Father do? The Father created this entire universe in Wisdom and Love. The Father grows grapes that basically turn water into wine. Jesus does this at the wedding in Cana. The Father builds human bodies that heal. Jesus heals human bodies. Somewhere in the old testament: “It is God’s to cover, and the King’s to uncover.” The Father builds birds that can fly. Bernoulli discovers the basic principles that lead ultimately to the creation of airplanes that allow us to improve the lives of people. People discover some principles of how human bodies work and use that knowledge to heal human bodies.

I agree that God does not want to impart a new wisdom to us. He wants us to comprehend the wisdom that He has already given to us. It is all around us. We just have to ask. We just have to open our eyes. Ok, and maybe we also have to study, research, experiment, assess, dialogue, go to conferences and write posts on some seriously addictive website.

Modes:
This is rhetorically interesting and provocative, but not particularly compelling. Jesus' claim is that he was obedient to the Father. Not imitating God but obeying. Jesus modeled FOR us what a human life in submission to God would look like. In fact, Phil. 2:1-11 express this point in almost these words. Jesus did not consider equality with God but gave up what it is to be God, obeying God unto death.

quote:

Modes

If God is silent, we may do the best we can, or we may do nothing, either way, we don't possess the criteria for knowing whether we did the most "right (loving/God glorifying) thing."

Iconoclast

I agree. What am I saying that makes you think that I believe that we can ever possess the criteria for knowing whether we did “the most ‘right (loving/God glorifying) thing.”

thanks,
Iconoclast

Well, for starters, your reading of B. seems quite different. B. states that we are to do the rightful thing that would please God. How do our human faculties make that will of God known to us? My assessment is that it is a matter of discernment, hearing God, prayer, walking in the Spirit, Unctions, inspiration, etc. B. is very inconsistant in his use of these, at least in the short snipets you offered for our consideration here. Paul does not warn against hearing from God via inspiration, rather he encourages it! Abraham heard from God and we call him the hero of faith! Yet who among us would dare imitate him? NO. We imitate the relationship, not the actions. And it is the relationship that makes it possible for us to discern what is the will of God and empowers us to obey it.

Blessings.

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

Modes of Thought
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817

Posted 7/15/2002 8:22 PM (GMT -6)

I feel like some of my more substantial points from earlier posts have been overlooked. I am not going to take the time to bring them up right now because I am lasping into a comma,,,,,

g'night.

And Yes Semeia, I like you, I really really like you.

And you married a very generous man!!

Meph would have a fit (fo' shizzle!) if he knew how many Krispy Kreme's Icon simply GAVE away after church one day! And it was VERY soon after Meph's visit too. Man, was his timing ever off.

Oh well, we'll get him back up here. But the forecast for Krispy Kreme's at church is ambiguous....

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

Electra
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611

Posted 7/16/2002 9:25 AM (GMT -6)

Egads!!!

Modes said to Iconoclast:

I believe the fundamental controversy is about whether to start with a certain understanding of the Great Commandment (positive instruction), or to start with the paradigmatic Christian definition "What does not proceed from faith is sin." You three are stressing the former and letting up on the latter. Some of the others of us are recalling the latter and reading the former in its light. I believe the latter is the better strategy since the Great Commandment starts with the order correct and the Christian definition implied: love the Lord your God with all that you are and love your neighbor as yourself. The second part of this depends on the first. It starts with God. God is a jealous God.

Electra’s attempt to clarify for Modes and Iconoclast (Lord have mercy):

Here’s how I understand what Modes is saying, and I suspect that Icon agrees. If we attempt to obey the Great Commandment without faith (source-center = self), it will function like any other law—it will simply serve to intensify our sin. However, if we act out of faith (source-center = Christ), we will naturally (ok, it’s not that simple, I will say more about this in another post) fulfill the Great Commandment. Faith must preceed our attempts to obey the command to love. I have been trying to express this by placing forgiveness chronologically prior to love (see chart). Please excuse the dogmatic jargon, but justification (dying to sin through faith in Christ) must preceed sanctification (works of love flowing from new life in Christ). Christ’s atonement (his once and for all forgiveness of sin) is what frees us to love others unconditionally as opposed to loving them according to our knowledge of good and evil.

Iconoclast, I suspect you have been presupposing the need for justification all along, but just haven’t spelled it out. However, given the fact that everyone likes to think of themselves as loving, everyone generally agrees that it’s important to love other people, and everyone has ideas about how they could be more loving, I think it is really important to explicitly stress the fact that whatever does not proceed from faith—even our attempts to be loving—is sin. The Pharisees probably thought of themselves as “loving”; and they were extremely rigorous in their intellectual, ethical, and religious standards for loving behavior; and they sought and valued others’ feedback about their performance. Faith in Christ (knowing forgiveness for yourself and others) rather than faith in self (knowing good and evil for yourself and others) is what qualitatively distinguishes your works of love from the Pharisees’ works of love. But if you don’t make that explicit, we can’t tell the difference if we just go by your description so far.

I hope that this is clarifying for all involved in this discussion. If not, let me know and let’s work it out. If so, I have more to say…..

Peace,
Electra

~·• kyrie eleison ·~•~· christe eleison ·~•~· kyrie eleison •·~

Edited by - Electra on 07/16/2002 2:27:22 PM

Electra
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611

Posted 7/16/2002 9:44 AM (GMT -6)

Question for Iconoclast:

You have argued that the criteria for successfully loving behavior is its outcome. I think this is intriguing (I especially liked how you expressed it on another post: “Perfect love pursues and pursues and pursues and pursues...”) because then the criteria becomes the other rather than the self. It is also intriguing given the fact that love must be chosen. Our ultimate success or failure is out of our hands if our goal is love. This gives me a new perspective on why love entails suffering.

But given what I said about the importance of justification above, what do you think of source (e.g. God rather than self) as a criteria for successfully loving behavior? When both source (= God) and outcome (= other) are criteria for our loving behavior, this gives me a new perspective on what it means to be an imitator of Christ. We mediate God’s love to the world.

Perhaps this has been a contributing factor to our mutual bewilderment: Modes and I have emphasized source as a criteria for love, whereas you are developing outcome as a criteria for love. I don’t know about you or Modes, but I think they work nicely together.

Electra

We conclude, therefore, that a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor...He lives in Christ through faith, in his neighbor through love. By faith he is caught up beyond himself into God. By love he descends beneath himself into his neighbor. Yet he always remains in God and in his love....
•·~ Luther, The Freedom of the Christian

~·• kyrie eleison ·~•~· christe eleison ·~•~· kyrie eleison •·~

Edited by - Electra on 07/16/2002 3:13:53 PM

BJS
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 587

Posted 7/16/2002 12:16 PM (GMT -6)

I am SO missing out on this dialogue. I'm doing my best to gather at least a semblance of knowledge about Bon's theory before I jump in, because I don't want to bog the discussion down, but processing all of this stuff is taking more time than I've had of late. So I have in no way finished reading "Ethics," nor have I completely analyzed the many great posts on these threads, but if I don't start asking some questions as I'm going along, I'm just going to get farther and farther out of the loop. SO. Please forgive me if I rehash things, and feel free to refer me to posts that may have already answered my questions! And THANKS for all the intellectual hard work that so many of you are putting into this. Kaia and I are really intrigued by this topic, and have enjoyed Doc's recent sermon series on the subject. We're just not sure about some of the details. . .

Here's my first quick question. If, as B. argues, absolute ethical standards are so ineffective for dealing with the complex reality of our existence, and therefore our only "ethic" should be the unique and independent application of God's love to individual life choices, then why did God ever give us His Law? Why not just give us the REAL ethic (i.e., love each other) to begin with?

In other words, before Christ, didn't God provide the Law with the expectation that his people should attempt to follow it? And doesn't this tell us that there are ethical principles that he expects us to strive for, even if we are never able to perfectly do so? Was the Law just a divine "straw man," set up to demonstrate the ineffectiveness and inapplicability of absolute ethical principles? If, as Paul tells us, the Law was meant to show us our inherent inability to meet God's standard, and hence our need for Christ's redemptive work, does this not tell us that those ethical standards were important to God?

Brett

"Siste viator et memento mori."

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 7/16/2002 2:31 PM (GMT -6)

Electra

Iconoclast, I suspect you have been presupposing the need for justification all along, but just haven’t spelled it out.

Iconoclast

Yes, I have indeed been assuming this. In fact, I thought I had been very explicit about it. I apologize for not saying this more clearly. Perhaps part of my problem is that I don’t like to use the “orthodox” sort of words in my communication (have you noticed my “name” on this board – that kind of says it all

).

“justification” – have you ever thought about this word? We die to sin in Christ by accepting Him into our life and therefore we are “justified”. Who is this word for? Who cares whether we are “justified” or not? Does God really care whether we are “justified” or does God just want us to repent, obey and therefore ultimately learn how to love? When our child steals from the store, do we care about him ever being "justified" or do we just want him to repent, obey and learn to love?

Now, if you suddenly hear me saying that we are not total and complete sinners in need of Christ’s sacrifice – that we cannot do it on our own – then I am saying it wrong. I am just saying that “justification” is really only a meaningful word to us who are stuck in the knowledge of good and evil. WE are the ones who think we need to be “justified” – this word is for us – and confirms that the real issue is that we try to live out of the knowledge of good and evil. It confirms that our own knowledge of good and evil requires to be “fulfilled”.

The word “justification” just doesn’t really communicate the reality of what is happening in my opinion. Union with God has a lot more meaning to me. When we live out of our own knowledge of good and evil we become disunited with God. When we accept Jesus into our lives – into our very being – when He comes and lives within us - well then – we are now in union again. Sure, our own knowledge of good and evil requires that we are “justified” – and God understands that and accommodates us – like He constantly accommodates the needs we acquired when we fell (for example: he clothed us when we suddenly had a problem with being naked).

But hey, true loving union with the creator of the universe - way cooler than merely being “justified”.

Just my “iconoclast” sort of take.

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 07/16/2002 7:33:24 PM

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 7/16/2002 3:12 PM (GMT -6)

BJS

Here's my first quick question. If, as B. argues, absolute ethical standards are so ineffective for dealing with the complex reality of our existence, and therefore our only "ethic" should be the unique and independent application of God's love to individual life choices, then why did God ever give us His Law? Why not just give us the REAL ethic (i.e., love each other) to begin with?

Iconoclast

He did. He put us in the garden and we just naturally loved each other because God loved us. It is all we knew and it worked … there was only one issue – the possibility that we might try and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A free will being by definition has this possibility so God lovingly told us not to eat of it.

Unfortunately we trespassed and ate of the forbidden tree. We now know good and evil for ourselves. This means we become judgers of good and evil, which means we judge God we judge ourselves and we judge each other. Judging each other means we separate from each other (for we can only judge from a superior position) which means we no longer know what it means to be totally and completely loved by God, which means we no longer know how to love each other. Judgement blocks love. Thus we need the Law. God’s law is an accommodation to allow us to live under the curse of our falleness (like clothing when we suddenly realized nakedness was no good anymore). God’s law is meant to help us because our own knowledge of good and evil would have us kill each other when the authority figure likes our “sacrifice” better than our brother’s.

We still have the REAL ethic in place. It never went away. It is still God’s command – Love God and Love your Neighbor. Jesus said that all the Law and Prophets are summed up in this command. All other laws are in service to this command. If they do not serve this command then they are not God’s law. Our confusion as people who still live in the knowledge of good and evil is that we think some particular law is in service to itself – we think it is an independent standard over and against its service to God’s command to love.

Imagine the law, the standard – “do not cross the road without looking both ways”. What is this in service to? It is in service to the goal of not getting run over by a car. Now if an axe murderer is breathing down our neck does anyone give a rip if we cross the road without looking both ways? And look at the confusion from the young child’s point of view when we go to enforce this rule. The young child does not understand that this rule is simply a tool to help them cross the road safely – that the rule by itself has no meaning apart from the goal. In fact, if the child could find a way to cross the road even more safely than by looking both ways then, of course, we would be delighted and we would discard the old rule in favor of the new.

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

Modes of Thought
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817

Posted 7/16/2002 3:49 PM (GMT -6)

Iconclast, I am glad you offered the statement that if I hear you as saying we are not total sinners in need of Christ's sacrifice I am hearing you wrong. I am grateful for this because that is exactly what I am hearing you say. I am also glad to see that you were able to anticipate that someone might get that message. That seems a sign of progress for the communication. Having said that, it sounds very much to me like you are saying that God sacrificed Christ to appease us and did not actually require sacrifice.

This whole concept I think is best grasped in Luther's happy exchange. The way you put it, it sounds as though there is no need for an objective atonement for sin. This is not the biblical assumption. Please do clarify what you think is objectively accomplished specifically in the death and resurrection of Christ.

The problem of justification has implicit in it that there are consequences for sin that must be accounted for. Your discussion seems to downplay this.

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

Edited by - ModesofThought on 07/16/2002 8:52:59 PM

BJS
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 587

Posted 7/16/2002 4:10 PM (GMT -6)

Icon:

quote:
He did. He put us in the garden and we just naturally loved each other because God loved us. It is all we knew and it worked … there was only one issue – the possibility that we might try and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A free will being by definition has this possibility so God lovingly told us not to eat of it.

Okay. I like that. Makes sense.

Icon:

quote:
Unfortunately we trespassed and ate of the forbidden tree. We now know good and evil for ourselves. This means we become judgers of good and evil, which means we judge God we judge ourselves and we judge each other. Judging each other means we separate from each other (for we can only judge from a superior position) which means we no longer know what it means to be totally and completely loved by God, which means we no longer know how to love each other. Judgement blocks love. Thus we need the Law. God’s law is an accommodation to allow us to live under the curse of our falleness (like clothing when we suddenly realized nakedness was no good anymore). God’s law is meant to help us because our own knowledge of good and evil would have us kill each other when the authority figure likes our “sacrifice” better than our brother’s.

All right. Here's where I'm not getting something. If, as you agree, we "need the Law," and the Law is necessary to "allow us to live under the curse of our falleness," then why is B. advocating the Law's disposal?

I agree that it is our human frailty that forced God to categorize choices as "right" and "wrong", "good" and "evil." If we were as God intended, we would know no categories, because all we would know is God. We cannot know to think of God as "good" until we know what is "not good." The term is not meaningful until we know what it is distinguished from.

But that perfect state was lost in the Garden, and as you point out, we are left with the harsh realities of a fallen world now, complete with the knowledge of good AND evil. And so we must distinguish. We must choose. We must have ethical principles. Right?

And to be honest, I think B. acknowledges this dilemma (Ethics, p. 40) and, in my opinion, never adequately resolves it. He just gives "judgment" another name: "proving the will of God." I am unclear as to how this is anything other than a semantic effort to get around the difficulties of an overly-broad thesis.

Be patient with me on this, Icon (not that you are ever impatient!). I'm really grappling with this. Thanks.

Brett

"Siste viator et memento mori."

Semeia
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 522

Posted 7/16/2002 4:19 PM (GMT -6)

Modes said:

Semeia,
You seem to imply that I don't understand you. Please clarify what you perceive to be my blind spot at this point.

Modes said:

(Though it does seem that the ethical is still the dominant sphere of activity here which would explain the missing, perhaps merely underdeveloped?, categories at both ends--sin, and vocation.)

Semeia:

I don’t know what you mean by this. By “sphere of activity” do you mean this discussion? We’re discussing Bonhoeffer’s Ethics, which is a revolutionary change in thinking about ethics. Or perhaps, like Electra, you make this equation: “It seems like your bottom line amounts to this: love successfully communicated (e.g. those who openly receive and correctly interpret the feedback they receive from the world around them) = good; love unsuccessfully communicated (e.g. Pharisees) = evil.” This is not an accurate depiction of our view. When we talk about love we are not talking about it in terms of good and evil – we are talking about it as God’s command, and what it means, and what it looks like. Our claim that love is recognizable is not a claim that we can judge people based on their love or lack of love (if we could even determine that in someone else). But it is a claim that God asks us to use all our faculties in addition to his leading in order to best obey his command.

I also don’t know what you mean when you say that we have left out the importance of sin. It seems that we have repeatedly, with hundreds of words in dozens of posts all over this website, talked about how one’s own sin is a log, and one’s brother’s sin is a speck. If we could be said to go “light” on sin it would be in that we have consistently pointed out the ratio that Jesus gives us regarding sin. No one is downplaying sin. But we have argued that the gospels powerfully depict the repeated message that we are to be much more concerned with looking inward to discover sin, not outward.

As far as leaving out the category of vocation, it hasn’t come up. If you think it is in some way central feel free to present your view in relation to this discussion. I really don’t know offhand how the subject of vocation connects with this particular view of ethics.

Modes said:

But I do mean to say that the way that ideas are being presented […] is riddled with theological weaknesses that are in serious need of reworking.I know this sounds arogant. I am truly sorry for that, but I feel convicted about pointing these things out.

Semeia:

Perhaps instead of making a generalization (“that the way these ideas are being presented […] is riddled with theological weaknesses […] in serious need of reworking”) you could stick to specific objections for which you give evidence and argument. When you make a broad negative generalization like that it comes across as an attack, in addition to which it is impossible to respond to because you have given no specific example as evidence for your claim.

Modes said:

The core message against judgment is VERY important and needed today and it will not have the impact it can if it is not presented in a coherent and orthodox theological manner.

Semeia:

This is very surprising in light of your argument. Haven’t you repeatedly said that it is not the impact that is important? Isn’t the important thing that we feel led by God to these views? Are you saying that it is not important whether or not someone is impacted positively by our attempts at love, but it IS important that they are impacted positively by our “orthodox theological” ideas? Which is likelier to bring someone closer to God – love or ideas? And yet you have repeatedly said that we needn’t be concerned about our impact on others, as long as we are being obedient to God, as if those two things are mutually exclusive. (To my mind they are mutually inclusive – we cannot be obedient to God without caring about our impact on others – these two things are inextricable in the highest commandment.)

Modes said:

The system I speak of is the one that I find described by you, Semeia and doc. The system whereby we evaluate the impact of our actions, actions which we seem to have come up with somehow …

Semeia:

Why do you say it this way? We have repeatedly talked about inspiration from God, intuition, learning, the full use of our faculties, etcetera. If you are trying to claim that we must get orders from God on each and every breath we take, then how is that substantively different from a predetermined view? If the highest goal is to be obedient to God in every action (with the implication that God has a specific agenda for us in every second of our lives) then where is man’s freedom? How would we be any different from robots, even if we could choose whether or not to accept God’s will for each action? If God has an instruction for us in every breath, every moment, every circumstance – but we have to accept of our own free will to accept that instruction (if we can be sure we are in fact hearing from God and not our own thought process or unconscious mind or untreated mental disturbance) – then how is that different from being actors in a play of God’s making, even if we belong to the free-willed actors union? Is that what we are? Do we need God’s permission to cross the street? Do we need God’s permission to love our child? If we love our child without getting down on our knees first and committing our thought and deed to God’s will, have we committed a sin? Or is it enough to have a faith in God whom we seek to listen to, whom we make the center of life and love, knowing full well that he doesn’t care if we decide to go to the park today instead of to the beach? If everything we do must be subjected to this idea of obedience to God, why did Jesus’ send people away and tell them to settle their own disputes? And notice that he didn’t send them away telling them to find God’s will for their disputes… he rather implied that they had the means to figure it out for themselves… it ain’t rocket science. Obedience to God does not mean that we get his permission every time we cross the street, or surgically remove a tumor for that matter. Of course we put our life in God’s hands, and we place our faith in God, but he does not require us to check our brain at the door.

Modes said:

The system I speak of is the one that I find described by you, Semeia and doc. The system whereby we evaluate the impact of our actions, actions which we seem to have come up with somehow, and we do so by our own judgment (even though you claim that you are not judging when you do this, that claim has yet to be adequately defended), intuition, principles, and feedback from those whom we seek to impact. The system where we find ourselves, in principle, justified in judging those whom we percieve to be pharisaical--as though we are not pharisees ourselves!

Semeia:

You keep saying that we are saying that we are “justified in judging those whom we perceive to be pharisaical.” I don’t know where you get that from. If we notice that someone close to us is an alcoholic and they are rapidly drinking themselves to death, and destroying their family, and driving drunk, would it be “judgmental” for us to do an intervention in a loving attempt to help them? It is not a “judgment” to identify a problem and seek to help in certain circumstances – although the factors are different in every concrete situation which is why principles are not universally applicable in every case. Now if while we seek to help an alcoholic we also tell them that we think they are going to hell for their sin, then we would certainly be judging them. But in our paradigm we are not helping someone based on our assessment of their “sin” – which is of course impossible for us to identify from our limited position anyway – but we are helping them based on our assessment of their “hurt” and their “need” to be loved and helped. This is a movement and action of compassion, not judgment.

If we are to believe biblical accounts, Jesus was very concerned about Pharisaical behavior both because of the harm it did to others and the harm that it did to the Pharisees themselves. If we perceive Pharisaical behavior and we see that ultimately it could lead to a rejection of God, why would we not interact in such a way as to positively influence or change those beliefs? Isn’t that what Jesus did? Of course we would always need to see our own limitations, and know that in any case it is not up to us to judge anyone, and know that we are rarely called to intervene given the limited scope of our relationships and our authority. We could never be quite as certain as Jesus was in any situation, because we simply don’t have a God’s eye view. And furthermore, any intervening would have nothing at all to do with their overall sin (which would be hypocritical given that our own sin is a log, and theirs is a speck) but it would only have to do with a desire to help someone in harm’s way. And if we intervened in an angry, attacking way we probably wouldn’t be very effective.

Modes said:

The system is self-correcting, which I think is a good and promising aspect to it. But it promises too much. It does this because it assumes too much.

Semeia:

Could you be more specific about what you think it promises and assumes – based on what we’ve said based on Bonhoeffer’s Ethics?

Modes said:

You are now using the rhetoric of "successful communication." The message (in terms of our vocational spreading of the message) is not about successful communication, but rather the awakening of others to the power, presence and person of God.

Semeia:

By definition, if we awaken someone to the power, presence and person of God, we have successfully communicated the “message” to them. What makes “successful communication” rhetoric, and “vocational spreading of the message” something else? How do you “spread the message” without communicating successfully? If one is unsuccessful at communicating a message, then by definition the message has not spread. All I take from this is that you prefer your own terms to ours, but it seems like a distinction without a difference.

Modes said:

We simply lead them to the one who set us free. It doesn't take a Ph.D., just a heart that knows the Lord.

Semeia:

Well, I’m very relieved, since neither Iconoclast nor I have a Ph.D.

Modes said:

The language game of "successful communication" is not rich enough to capture this. POW knows this well. The beauty of church icons is that they function as windows into the divine, ways to meet God that are more concrete and accessible. Sacramental. God knows about successful communication. That's not our job. Our job is to do the specific actions that God calls us to do. Of all the churches in the world, some of the evagelical ones are the most rebellious in this regard. We almost completely neglect the sacraments. We are to eat Christ's flesh and drink Christ's blood, it is God who is communicating something in this. Not us. We are receiving.

Semeia:

I’m not at all sure what your point is here. Do you think we are promoting the use of particular words? Because we are talking about the concept of intent and impact, and using psychology and science in this discussion that we are offering some sort of specific training that people need to achieve? Are you saying that church icons and communion are the best ways of communicating with God? I’m lost.

Modes said:

There is a complex of ideas that pertain to this mode of living out what you are calling "love." I have been trying desperately to point out some of the problems with the location of the criterion and the quality control element in the system. Furthermore, I have been trying to point out that the inspiration for the good at the end (love successfully communicated--as we understand it) does not start where it should. At least not in the language I am hearing currently.

I believe the fundamental controversy is about whether to start with a certain understanding of the Great Commandment (positive instruction), or to start with the paradigmatic Christian definition "What does not proceed from faith is sin." You three are stressing the former and letting up on the latter. Some of the others of us are recalling the latter and reading the former in its light. I believe the latter is the better strategy since the Great Commandment starts with the order correct and the Christian definition implied: love the Lord your God with all that you are and love your neighbor as yourself. The second part of this depends on the first. It starts with God. God is a jealous God. Another reason that I keep the order--and the emphasis in this way is that it more consistantly plays out the common conviction that we share about being preceeding doing in some sense. (Though I do think that ultimately the being/doing dichotomy is false and both are better understood as subordinate to the concept of "becoming".)

Semeia:

Can you show me where we have gotten the highest commandment backward? Can you show me where we have implied that loving God and living in Christ is not the most important thing? Have you read the first Ethics thread? I totally agree that “what does not proceed from faith is sin,” but I’m guessing that my interpretation of what that looks like is different from yours.

Modes said:

Additionally, that stuff I dropped in the hat many moons ago about the importance of understanding the sacramental nature of reality pertains here as well. We where arguing about covenant at that time. Which by the way, is a qualification that I think could make the system you are promoting workable. That is, that we concede that love is not perfect unless it is God's love moving through us and all these attempts at facilitating a human version of that, even with Christ as an example, are bound to fail. God does not want a new social structure with better rules that are dynamic and love conducive. God wants actual intimacy with each of us and through each of us to each other. This means that it is incumbant upon us to KEEP the "God aspect" of Love in the picture at all times. After all, if we are not acting (wholely, unambiguously, unequivocally, completely, transparently, obediently) in that love, in that faith, in that person--Christ--then we are in sin. Sin is far more pervasive than we want to acknowledge, and this is part of the problem I see with the current system being proposed. We are simply not capable of doing it. But God is. And we need not be intellectual giants for God to do this through us. It is not about a learning curve. It is about a submission, a "yieldedness" curve.

Semeia:

Once again I am confused about why you say we need not be “intellectual giants” for God to work through us, as if we are saying that we need to be. Do you think seeking to be aware of whether or not the things we are doing to love people are effective takes some kind of genius? I agree that learning how to communicate well takes skill, and one would hope that we would all learn something from our mistakes. But the bottom line is love, actual love. And I’m not sure exactly what you mean when you say to keep the “God aspect” of love in the picture at all times. Do you mean that if I look over affectionately at my child and tousle his hair, I need to simultaneously, every single time, be thinking of God? Please Modes, give me a concrete example of what you think I should be doing in a concrete situation. Give me an ordinary, everyday example of what that looks like.

Modes said:

I do appreciate the spirit of this debate.

Semeia:

I wish this were more of a dialogue.

Definition of Dialogue: A search for the truth.

Definition of Debate: I am reloading while you are firing.

Modes said:

I still think the problem here is very basic. The view being presented as I understand it doesn't take sin seriously enough.

Semeia:

Again, why do you think this? What is your evidence?

Modes said:

As it cashes out, you continue to be the ones who, through all sorts of intellectual/psychological and sociological resources are now the new possessors of a higher order of "knowledge." This knowledge DOES indeed fit the paradigm of "good" and "evil" as Electra points out.

Semeia:

Why do you say this? Where in the world do we hold up some higher level of knowledge as a judgment? How does this fit a paradigm of “good” and “evil”? How in the world does seeking to follow the highest commandment necessitate judgment? If it does, why does God forbid eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and yet command us to love God and love our neighbor as ourself, if they are the same thing?

Modes said:

You assume the YOU know love when you see it, even though you and I would have crucified Christ as surely as the first century folks did.

Semeia:

Jesus’ frustration with the Pharisees was that they did NOT know love when they saw it, and that is exactly what is so dangerous about Phariseeism. The prostitutes and the tax collectors, on the other hand, DID recognize love when they saw it. I have no doubt about the fact that my sinfulness is a log, and everyone else’s is a speck, but I just won’t go so far as to say categorically that I would have crucified Christ as surely as the first century folks did – because many first century people recognized Jesus and received his love.

Modes said:

the ONLY consistant position with this stuff is to give up ALL together on the judgment game. That means ALL of it. You don't get to judge whether something is loving or not. You don't get to judge whether or not to respond to, or how to respond to "feedback." You don't get to decide whether the results are loving or not and to what extent. IF doc is standing on anything at all with his complexity stuff this should be obvious.

Semeia:

This is all so bizarre to me. How is observing the impact of our behavior, and adjusting accordingly in order to express love in the most powerful way – how is that judging? You seem to have this idea that anything we do to use our brain is a judgment. But there is a huge difference between judgment as condemnation – which assumes that any of us can ever know all the factors about someone else to judge – and judgment which is a brain activity of the sort that allows us to walk across the street and pilot planes and carry on a conversation. It’s like saying that the pilot doesn’t get to decide if his action will fly the plane, because that would be judging. It’s odd to me. Where do you hear us say that we are going around evaluating how loving other people are? Giving feedback isn’t judgment of a person’s sinfulness, unless of course it is done in a condemnatory, judging way. In fact the whole point of separating IMPACT from INTENT is to NOT judge the person’s intent. And our whole focus in all of this is on US being more loving, not in getting OTHERS to be more loving.

Thanks,
Semeia

"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard

Edited by - Semeia on 07/17/2002 01:36:16 AM

Semeia
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 522

Posted 7/16/2002 5:09 PM (GMT -6)

Electra said:

This bottom line seems to presume that people recognize love when they see it—in spite of our agreement that knowledge of good and evil is the problem, not the solution! If that is the case, then why did we end up crucifying “the love that God is” when God showed up?

Semeia:

I believe that the unforgivable sin is when we look at love and call it evil. It is unforgivable not because God lacks forgiveness, but because forgiveness needs to be received. When the Pharisees watched Jesus heal and said it was from Beelzebub they were watching love happen and calling it evil. Love cannot be received if it is perceived as evil, and if you cannot receive the love of Christ you cannot receive the forgiveness that he offers and thus you cannot be saved. And it is precisely this which makes the Pharisaical behavior so dangerous.

Phariseeism has no natural negative consequences; in fact it is rewarded by religious culture and by the world.

The Pharisees did not recognize love when they saw it, but the prostitutes and the tax-collectors did. You seem to equate “recognizing love” with “knowledge of good and evil.” That really confuses me. How does love have anything to do with the knowledge of good and evil? God is love. He asks us to recognize him – he commands us to love him and love our neighbor as ourself - and yet he forbids us from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Clearly these are not synonymous.

Electra said:

2. The New Testament talks a lot about suffering for the sake of the gospel. Why would anyone whose prime directive was to successfully communicate love to others have to worry about suffering?

Semeia:

I can think of few things that are more painful than trying to communicate love and having it misunderstood and rejected. Anyone who has parented a child knows that pain with deep familiarity. I love my child by holding them back from the busy street, and all they feel is my control, and they resent me for the very thing I do to protect them. This hurts. But I try and I try and I try again, to give them a love that they really feel, to give them above all else a feeling that their parents love them. If all I cared about was “doing” the love, and not them “receiving” the love, then they could very well go out into the world feeling unloved. It is the oldest story of abuse: the parent says, “I did what I did for YOU” and the child says, “You hated me.” Finding a way to express love in a way that lands is everything. Jesus went as far as death on the cross.

I can only imagine Jesus’ pain at the rejection of his love, even to the point of death. Isn’t that what his suffering was all about? Why do you say that this doesn’t involve suffering? Not giving up on love when our love is being rejected is intensely painful.

Electra said:

And if their intention to successfully communicate love to others is misinterpreted, does that mean that they are really living out of the knowledge of good and evil after all?

Semeia:

No, of course not. But if love is our goal, why wouldn’t we learn and continue to seek to love in a way that is not misinterpreted? Why would we let it die on the vine?

Electra said:

3. We usually consider Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to be the supreme communication of love. However, lots of people “don’t get the message” and reject the cross. Does this “feedback” demonstrate that Christ’s noble intentions and good theory just didn’t quite cut it?

Semeia:

The feedback clearly demonstrates that God’s love didn’t reach everyone. And still he keeps loving, and trying anew to reach us in our hearts. He doesn’t seem satisfied to rest with his good intention. He is willing to go to inconceivable lengths to pursue us with his relentless love.

Electra said:

The Pharisees probably thought of themselves as “loving”; and they were extremely rigorous in their intellectual, ethical, and religious standards for loving behavior; and they sought and valued others’ feedback about their performance.

Semeia:

Although I would agree that the Pharisees were rigorous in the intellectual, ethical, and religious standards for “being good” – I see no evidence at all that they sought and valued others’ feedback about the impact of their behavior (especially in regards to love). They certainly showed no ability at all to respond to Jesus’ feedback.

Electra said:

Faith in Christ (knowing forgiveness for yourself and others) rather than faith in self (knowing good and evil for yourself and others) is what qualitatively distinguishes your works of love from the Pharisees’ works of love. But if you don’t make that explicit, we can’t tell the difference if we just go by your description so far.

Semeia:

This makes me really curious: have you and Modes read the first Bonhoeffer thread, on chapter one of Ethics? It seems that much foundation was laid on that thread, and I don’t have a lot of energy to rebuild that same discussion over here.

Electra said:

Modes and I have emphasized source as a criteria for love, whereas you are developing outcome as a criteria for love.

Semeia:

Much of the discussion on chapter one was about source – and about our disunion with God. I have been assuming in the discussion on this thread the foundation of the first thread.

Your last few posts were very helpful, Electra. Thank you for seeking to find agreement.

Thanks,
Semeia

"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 7/16/2002 5:46 PM (GMT -6)

Electra

Perhaps this has been a contributing factor to our mutual bewilderment: Modes and I have emphasized source as a criteria for love, whereas you are developing outcome as a criteria for love. I don’t know about you or Modes, but I think they work nicely together.

Iconoclast

I strongly agree that they work nicely together. In fact, I SO strongly agree that I go even farther to say that they are in fact two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other – or you really don’t have either. They are inseparable, they are “entangled particles”.

I think this is where Modes vehemently mismatches with what I am saying.

Before I forget let me say very explicitly: we MUST be in union with God or no action ever takes place. We MUST be in union with God or it is impossible to love. We MUST be in union with God or we are not acting out of faith. There is only one issue: being in union with God. Ok that being said:

Is it possible to love and NOT be in union with God in the moment that we are loving? I say no.

Is it possible to attempt to love and NOT be in union with God in the moment that we are attempting to love? I say yes, this is possible but not conclusive, we might be in union with God when attempting to love or we might not.

Is it possible that never even having heard of Jesus or God and upon seeing a child who is thirsty we can truly love them by giving them something to drink? I say yes. And further I say that in the moment we truly love this child we are in union with God.

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

BJS
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 587

Posted 7/16/2002 5:55 PM (GMT -6)

Semeia:

quote:
You seem to equate “recognizing love” with “knowledge of good and evil.” That really confuses me. How does love have anything to do with the knowledge of good and evil? God is love. He asks us to recognize him – he commands us to love him and love our neighbor as ourself - and yet he forbids us from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Clearly these are not synonymous.

This is definitely the point I do not understand about Bonhoeffer's thesis.

His position is that we are to reject the practice of categorizing choices into "good" and "evil" and instead merely make every decision in a way that most clearly expresses God's love.

But is this REALLY a substantive distinction? Can we not consider the LOVING choice to be GOOD, and the NON-LOVING choice to be EVIL? In other words, how can we avoid this categorization process that Bonhoeffer decries if his very method of "proving God's will" requires us to consider one choice better (read "gooder") than all others?

I think this ties in to the problem that Modes and Electra have (I think).

Brett

"Siste viator et memento mori."

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 7/16/2002 7:34 PM (GMT -6)

Brett

If, as you agree, we "need the Law," and the Law is necessary to "allow us to live under the curse of our falleness," then why is B. advocating the Law's disposal?

Iconoclast

I don’t understand B. as advocating the Law’s disposal. The key issue is whether the Sabbath was made for man or man for the Sabbath. The law is there for us to do it. When we do the law we receive the gift that it was intended to give us. When we use the law to try and get others to do it, as a judge, then we are, in fact, setting ourselves up as God. We are judging our brother for not doing the law, we are judging the law (that it does not have the power to take effect by itself) and we are judging God (that He is not capable of enforcing His law). This is what it means to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The result of this is that love is blocked, trust in God is destroyed and shockingly enough we ourselves now become the agent through which the Accuser (Satan) tears down God’s creation. We actually invite our brother to further his apostasy from God by accusing Him of not doing the law.

Brett

I agree that it is our human frailty that forced God to categorize choices as "right" and "wrong", "good" and "evil." If we were as God intended, we would know no categories, because all we would know is God. We cannot know to think of God as "good" until we know what is "not good." The term is not meaningful until we know what it is distinguished from.

Iconoclast

God always knew good and evil and therefore categorized choices as good or evil. When we stole the knowledge of good and evil then WE started categorizing choices as good and evil. We were not meant to do this. We are NOT good at it. We are NOT omniscient. It is impossible for us to correctly categorize good and evil. And it is not something God is willing to just immediately fix for us. Yes, he gave us His law to help us categorize better than just trying to do it on our own. In my view the story of Cain and Abel is what happens when we try to do it on our own – we judge based on pleasure=good and pain=evil. Cain blamed Abel for the pain of God’s comparison and killed him.

God’s law is perfectly good. However, it still requires an omniscient being to be able to actually implement it. The problem here is that we are neither omniscient nor are we even honestly trying to implement it. We are living out of our own knowledge of good and evil and thus we filter God’s law through our own totally self-serving “re-presentation” of it into our own minds. We self-select what we choose to give attention to and what we overlook – and we are mostly unaware that we even do this! None of us really grasp what God’s law is. This is witnessed by the simple fact that none of us even totally agree on exactly what it is!

Before we stole God’s knowledge of good and evil we simply lived in loving unity with God and each other. We didn’t think of God as good or evil we just knew that He delighted in us and we delighted in Him. When we stole the K of G&E we lost that unity. Now we tend to believe that God delights in us when we feel pleasure and is angry at us when we feel pain. And similarly with other people.

By the way – I highly recommend reading B. “Creation and Fall” as well. I found that this book really helped me understand “Ethics” and vice versa.

Brett

But that perfect state was lost in the Garden, and as you point out, we are left with the harsh realities of a fallen world now, complete with the knowledge of good AND evil. And so we must distinguish. We must choose. We must have ethical principles. Right?

Iconoclast

I would argue that the very idea of “ethical” principles gets us very confused due to ourselves being steeped in the knowledge of good and evil. The very idea invites us to live out of our own knowledge of good and evil. We confuse following an ethical principle for following God.

The way I like to think about it is that there is only one thing that is important and that is whether we choose life or death. It is my understanding that choosing life means to choose to recover our union with God. It means to choose to accept Christ into our life. It means to really have Him live within us. Now, it is not about good and evil. It is only about following Him. It is only about obeying His commandment. And what is His commandment: love one another. Jesus said that the law and the prophets could be summed up in the command to Love God and Love our neighbor.

So, we have our unity recovered, we now know what it means for God to delight in us and us to delight in God. We also have His command to love one another so we know what we are all about. Now we just need to continue to abide in Christ and to use every God given ability we have to love other people more fully. Principles in this context are simply tools that we use in service to this goal. If the principle is failing to produce the results then we need to modify it. When we realize that the principles of Newtonian mechanics cannot account for orbital irregularities then we must seek deeper understanding.

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 07/17/2002 12:49:01 AM

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 7/16/2002 8:04 PM (GMT -6)

Brett

And to be honest, I think B. acknowledges this dilemma (Ethics, p. 40) and, in my opinion, never adequately resolves it. He just gives "judgment" another name: "proving the will of God." I am unclear as to how this is anything other than a semantic effort to get around the difficulties of an overly-broad thesis.

Iconoclast

It is indeed a semantic effort and a very important one. The word “judgment” is an overloaded term. B. shows how the Bible talks about two kinds of judgment – one which is accusation and condemnation and one which is true loving action. He shows how these are polar opposites. How one comes from our own knowledge of good and evil and how one comes from union with Christ. (I posted this passage somewhere on page 8 of this thread, I believe I also posted some stuff on “proving the will of God” on the Chapter I thread which I highly recommend you read – especially Semeia’s post on Christopher Alexander on page 2).

When Jesus says “do not Judge lest ye be Judged” He is talking about accusation and condemnation. He is talking about using our own knowledge of good and evil as a justification to act in the place of God. B. shows that Jesus is NOT saying that we should no longer use our brains. We are absolutely called upon to make judgments. The doctor makes a judgment about whether your leg should be removed or not. Now, we sure hope he is basing His judgment on solid research, valid observation, and in complete unity with his goal to heal - in short we hope that he is using “sound” judgment rather than judging out of his own knowledge of good and evil!

By the way, does a doctor ever pronounce a judgment with 100% certainty? Or does a doctor’s judgment always contain probabilities with associated risks?

On the other hand, when we make an attribution toward another person, say, “He is being offensive”, are we typically assigning probabilities to that statement or are we really just 100% sure that he is indeed being offensive? And if we “know” we are right (100% sure) is this a “sound” judgment?

Great questions Brett. Thanks for asking and I hope these responses are helpful.

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 07/17/2002 01:08:31 AM

Modes of Thought
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817

Posted 7/16/2002 8:40 PM (GMT -6)

quote:

Iconoclast
....I think this is where Modes vehemently mismatches with what I am saying.

Before I forget let me say very explicitly: we MUST be in union with God or no action ever takes place. We MUST be in union with God or it is impossible to love. We MUST be in union with God or we are not acting out of faith. There is only one issue: being in union with God. Ok that being said:

Is it possible to love and NOT be in union with God in the moment that we are loving? I say no.

Modes:
Agreed.

quote:

Iconoclast:
Is it possible to attempt to love and NOT be in union with God in the moment that we are attempting to love? I say yes, this is possible but not conclusive, we might be in union with God when attempting to love or we might not.

Is it possible that never even having heard of Jesus or God and upon seeing a child who is thirsty we can truly love them by giving them something to drink? I say yes. And further I say that in the moment we truly love this child we are in union with God.

Modes:
I can't see how it is IMpossible to love without being in union with God in the first instance but it IS possible to love without being in union with God in the second. And then in the third, if we love, we are automatically in union with God. These illustrations do help me see where we are having trouble however.

I would certainly agree that it is "godly" (relatively speaking) to offer the drink to the thirsty child, but to jump from that to being in union with God jumps right over the problem I have been attempting to articulate. Sin is really serious. We are not united with God because we did something good once. Or even because we only did something against God's will just once. Christ is the only one who makes union with God possible. Period. Now, I know you believe this so what you need to do is find a way to faithfully articulate CHRIST'S role in the example above regarding the person who gives water to the thirsty child. HOW is it that you can say for certain that that person is united with God? How does Christ's happy exchange make reconciliation possible in that situation? You see, reconciliation with God is NEVER EVER a matter of us doing something good or changing behavior. (You see, in the third example, it is the act of giving water to the child that is decisive for union with God. This is theologically heretical. It is always and only Christ who is decisive with regard to our union with God. We can resist this but we cannot assist it. That's why it is called grace.) It ALWAYS and UNEQUIVOCALLY must be rooted in the reality of Christ. This articulation is missing in the above examples. You may need a Barthian universalist construction (not that I'd recommend this, but it seems to fit your intuitions) or something but you DO need something to account for the reconciliation in such a way as to show that it is Christ that makes union with God possible. This is what must be said for orthodoxy.

As you have it above, it would be difficult to avoid the conclusion that your understanding of God = Love works the other way around. Love = God. If I give the child a drink, now I too am reconciled to God. So my love makes me compatible with God. This is to misunderstand and radically underestimate the power and continuity and history of sin.

We're on the right track I think though.

Semeia, I have a lengthy response on the way for you as well.

Blessings on you both.

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

260 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page :

Forum Information

Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 11:48 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