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Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 7/29/2002 7:04 PM (GMT -6)

Electra

Here are some areas of agreement I see:

As creator, sustainer, and redeemer, God is present and active in every aspect of creation.

In order to be intelligible, the divine impulse must have reference to the whole nexus of relationship; God must communicate to creatures in and through creation.

God should be supported (obeyed) as the center.

Iconoclast

Thank you for restating this – that was very helpful, and yes I agree with the way you restated.

Electra

From a Model Two perspective, Model One does not sufficiently accounting for fallibility or finitude. Regarding fallibility: Although God is present and active in every aspect of creation, Jesus Christ is the only creature to have fully actualized the divine impulse perfectly. I think you would probably agree with this so far, but the implications of this for accurately assessing the “Word of God” based on the nexus of relations as a whole need to be taken seriously, even from a position that presupposes God-centeredness (which is true of both Models according to their self-understanding).

Iconoclast

Totally agree. If Model One is not sufficiently accounting for fallibility or finitude it needs to be clarified or modified.

Electra

The divine impulse is resisted to varying degrees by all other creatures within the whole nexus of relationship. Since the divine impulse is imperfectly actualized by each particular relation within the nexus, an assessment of the whole nexus of relations, would not yield an accurate understanding of the divine impulse (recall Doc’s analogy of the money he loaned his daughter in S&PE).

Iconoclast

I agree. I am not trying to suggest that it is possible to assess the whole nexus of relations.

Electra

Regarding finitude: Even after our own fallibility (as in fallenness, not mistakenness) is redeemed, our finitude ensures us that an assessment of the whole nexus of relations is impossible. The potential to be surprised by the divine impulse (which is offered from the perspective of One who is able to assess the whole nexus) is as large as our perspective of the nexus is limited. From a Model Two perspective, a recognition of our finitude should yield a maximal openness to any possibility offered from any place (Kierkegaard calls this “agile willingness”). Given our finitude, our assessment of our slice of the nexus must be preceded by humility and openness. Even when we are as practiced at hearing the voice of God as Abraham was by the time God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac, the divine impulse can still be unexpected, inexplicable, and excruciatingly difficult to actualize. I would not fault a faithful, God-centered person for viewing the divine impulse this way, because it is an entirely appropriate response given our finitude. Even Jesus struggled so much with the divine impulse he received that he asked the Father why he had forsaken him.

Iconoclast

Totally agree.

Electra

What if the divine impulse becomes more difficult to discern and implement rather than less as we become more faithful?

Iconoclast

There is certainly a way in which I understand this to be true. On the implement side I believe that as we become more competent we are given more responsibility. Which is no different than saying that the more love we give (out of the more love we allow ourselves to receive) the more need we see, which out of love means the more desire we have to help. God asks us to do harder and harder things. Yet the more we rely on God the more trust we have in Him to help us do them. So, in a way, they become easier. We are able to do things that we could never do before.

In terms of the divine impulse I would say that we always become more sensitive to the divine impulse (as we yield to it) yet even out of this sensitivity the divine impulse becomes more nuanced and therefore more difficult to precisely discern. And yet it is always the simple Will of God that we are seeking to do – as we know His voice – we know that we can act out of freedom – freedom from the world of torturous conflict and anxiety.

Electra

Our current way of interpreting the nexus of relations is based on the scientific method: it verifies conclusions via repeatability for the sake of establishing predictability. This information is very instrumentally useful.

Iconoclast

Ahhh…This right here may be a big source of the disconnect. This is the “cartesian” way of looking at the world – the scientific method. And yes, this method has been a big source of progress in our society. At the same time it has give us the most horribly architected buildings known to man. This is taking “objective” to an extreme. In fact, this is now how we understand the term “objective”.

I am not in any way intending to say that this should be our methodology for assessing things. Nor do I understand Bonhoeffer to be saying this. You pulled a great quote from Bonhoeffer that would reject this way of “proving the Will of God”. To solely use this method would indeed pull us off course and back into our own knowledge of good and evil – and now we would think we have conclusive “scientific evidence” on our side.

Fortunately even this “scientific method” is leading itself into a realm where the very methods must be challenged. Christopher Alexander (the Architect) has discovered this problem and so to some extent have the folks who wrote “Philosophy in the Flesh”. Alexander is even somewhat embarrassed (being an engineer at heart) at the conclusions he has drawn.

Your quote from Bonhoeffer:

"Reason and conscience, responsibility and piety all stood in the way, and even the law and "scriptural authority" itself were obstacles which pretended to defend them from going to the extremes of antinomianism and "enthusiasms." But the call of Jesus made short work of all these barriers, and created obedience. That call was the Word of God himself, and all that it required was a single-minded obedience (87).

Electra

But Jesus compares the Spirit to the wind; no one knows where it comes from or where it is going.

Iconoclast

Yes. I love this. We absolutely cannot comprehend the whole nexus of relationships and furthermore it is not necessary to do this. We are fundamentally “associative” beings. What is important is the set of forces acting on us in the concrete situation and moment. It is neither totally objective and neither is it totally subjective. It is also neither totally without any past, nor is it without potential futures. We can map past experiences and we can map potential outcomes. We can in short recognize the forces and we can recognize the Spirit within us that moves us to action. We cannot recognize all of this consciously. The forces are too many and much too complex. The knowledge of good and evil within us lies to us and makes us think that being our own god we should be able to consciously know what is the “right” thing to do and what is the “good” thing to do. But to believe this means that we must suppress all of our other “detectors” – we must suppress all of the other evidence before our eyes and thus we are blocked to operating out of unity with the Spirit.

To act out of the Spirit is to act in total union with all these forces. We can neither comprehend where they all came from nor where they all are going BUT when in unity we can “detect” the Spirit moving and we can move in union, we can move toward more Life, toward more Love. We only have to let go of our judgment and allow ourselves to use the full capabilities God has given us to “detect” His Spirit within us.

Does this mean that we don’t need to learn? Absolutely not. We must train ourselves to be open. We must train ourselves to recognize patterns – to see what it means for something to have more Life. And we must take action and learn from that action. What actions create more Life – what actions are helpful – what action will have the most powerful and loving impact given these set of forces interacting.

Electra

Implementing unprecedented and unverified hypotheses is scientifically very foolish and unlikely to yield successful results. But spiritually—when the hypothesis is not our own, but God’s—we trust it is worth risking implementation. Not because of the results (telos) it will yield (not that these are unimportant!), but rather because of the source of the hypothesis.

Iconoclast

I struggle a bit with how to understand you here. Perhaps I have a polarized filter on but I hear you jumping from the extreme of objectivism to the extreme of subjectivism.

I agree that we may indeed encounter a set of forces and detect the Spirit suggesting a course of action that we have no experience with. And yes, we may then determine to give it a shot depending on our assessment of the risks. But if it fails miserably to produce loving results and that is extremely clear to us – in other words we then hear the Spirit clearly telling us that the impact was not desirable – what do we do?

Do we then decide that we really didn’t hear the Spirit to begin with? Do we deny that the Spirit is now telling us accurately about the results? In short, do we judge? Or do we learn? Do we suspend judgement altogether in order to calmly assess the pattern of forces, our action and the resulting impact we had in order to try and determine a better course of action for the next time?

Also, because we know we are fallible in hearing God, aren’t we also using some “objective” analysis of whether what we are hearing is indeed from God? Don’t we, in fact, come to know His voice because we recognize that it is in alignment with what we have read about Him in scripture, that God is Love? That his Will is that we love each other? And that God is for Life and more abundant Life?

What I hear Bonhoeffer saying is that we must use all of our faculties to “prove the Will of God”. Not just our conscious rationality and scientific method. And not just our totally unconscious and subjective intuitions. Neither our objectivity nor our subjectivity but rather our total being. That when we use our total being without reference to our own knowledge of good and evil – when we allow our conscious and subconscious processes to be open to God and trusting in God – then and only then can we in union, prove the Will of 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

brandi
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 118

Posted 7/30/2002 1:09 AM (GMT -6)

Here are some of my reflections and questions that I still have after interacting a bit with a few of you. I appreciate the interactions.

BJS

quote:
Yes, we are forced to categorize choices into good and evil, right and wrong, loving and unloving (call it what you like). What B. is saying is essentially that we are not to use that process on anyone but ourselves. Our interaction with others should not involve a labeling of their choices into good and evil, because we are assuming authority and ability that is only God's. All we can do is love them by identifying and appreciating the infinite worth that God has ascribed to each of us.
And this is more profound than it first seemed to me. Initially, I didn't think this was all that revolutionary. Hate the sin, not the sinner, right? Heard that before. But B. offers us a reason WHY. One, we are unable to judge effectively because we lack God's omniscient understanding. Two, our actions, good or bad, are IRRELEVANT to our worth in God's eyes. We are worthy because the Giver of worth is worthy.

I am not able to understand how we could honor good deeds done or punish crimes committed if we did not label other people's choices as good and evil? We punish crime and honor heroes and do so by assessing what is good (honorable) and what is evil (punishable). I'm still not clear on what Bonhoeffer would say about standards and laws? How can we avoid labeling and acknowledging good and evil?

Since the bible instructs us to exhort one another how can we possibly do this without acknowledging and assessing the good/evil acts of others? How can we possibly exhort one another and encourage one another on in the journey if we do not operate with this knowledge of good and evil?

What use is the gift of discernment if it is not meant to help us discern good from evil? I agree that we are unable to JUDGE effectively but we ARE able to discern through the Holy Spirit within us.

Doc

quote:
The nexus of relationships isn’t the absolute. God is. What is relativized is our CONFIDENCE that we are hearing or sensing the divine impulse correctly. Also, even if we ARE hearing or sensing the divine impulse correctly, I’m suggesting that there is no reason to isolate this divine impulse from the total nexus of relationships. The impulse, rather, is TO INTERACT to the total nexus of relationships in a certain way: namely, with Christ-like love

I agree with you, Doc, we need to be relating with others with a Christlike love! What I'm hearing you say (and perhaps I'm hearing wrongly) is that the interaction in our relationships is what will help us know if we are hearing and sensing God. I cannot seem to get passed thinking that the interaction and impact cannot be our ultimate guide, however. Would you agree? If we become obsessed in worrying about the impact then we become a "doing" instead of "being." I understand a disciple of Christ to be a proactive rather than a reactive role. Proactive people live by inner guidance and grow as God continues the work in them. Reactive people are more concerned with taking their cues from people and circumstances (impact) and acting accordingly.

Although I still have questions, I feel that I've made some progress in understanding a little bit more what Bonhoeffer had to say thanks to the interactions on this thread, especially to Iconoclast and his patience in explaining about the need to use all of our faculties in assessing our interactions. I agree that we need to evaluate the impact our actions have on others to consider whether our impact was hurtful or harming... YET, where I cannot seem to agree is that if we design our actions to save feelings and to have the most loving impact on people, sometimes I can't help but believe that we can actually cause more harm. Of course we should strive to speak softly and tenderly to one another but to avoid topics, conversations ... because of the impact it might have may cause the person more harm. I cannot get passed the fact that we need to exhort and encourage others and speak truth in love. The impact is less important (but is important) than obedience and submission.

Thanks,
~Brandi~

brandi
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 118

Posted 7/30/2002 1:16 AM (GMT -6)

In all honesty, I am not sure why I am so hung up with this IMPACT deal and it's bugging me that I even care enough to have to continue to post and pursue this! Perhaps it could be because I feel that relying on the external cannot be a true measuring stick since we live in a fallen world. And, given the fallen world we live in, concentrating and/or fixating on the external (the impact)too much can misguide our internal spiritual walk hence leading us to walk in the "twilight" where we can easily start to compromise and become complacent.

Thanks again,
~Brandi~

Edited by - brandi on 07/30/2002 07:21:29 AM

GregBoyd
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 7/30/2002 2:57 AM (GMT -6)

* Semeia, thanks for taking my loving rebuke so sweetly.

* Electra, I confess I have had to fight off a deeply rooted impulse (God?) to endorse your model 3, simply because it is number 3.
* BJS and Brandi: The world is fallen, we are no longer innocent, so we ARE strapped with a world full of good and evil that needs to be discerned. I don't take Bon to mean that we aren't to discern the good and evil impact of actions, even in others. But we are not to JUDGE people as good or evil, as though we knew what God alone knows, as though we were more righteous than any other person, or as though it is our right and responsibility to be Judge. Our only job is to ascribe unsurpassable worth to people on the basis of the worth God ascribes to them on Calvary. We assess impact to effectively respond in love and refrain altogether from judging people because our call is to love.

The profundity of B, I believe, lies partly in the link he draws between the knowledge of good and evil and judgment, and his insight that this is the origin and essence of sin.

* I was once associated with a group that had the expression, "Pray with your eyes wide open." The point was that when you pray for someone or something, be attentive to the impact it is making, the response people are making, the response the enemy is making, and the overall changing circumstances, so that you may continue to pray intelligently and effectively for the situation. The Spirit leads us, but he does it in part through the information we gather about the situation we are praying for and in.

This is what model ONE (I got it right?) is saying about love. LOVE with "your eyes wide open."

* I think you are right, Icon, to hit on the modernist polarization of objective and subjective as a possible "disconnect" between Model One and Models Two and Three. Discerning love is like discerning beauty (a la Alexander). You attend to deep intuitions and impressions, but also to the "outside" ("objective") world. As Alexander shows, attending the impressions is not "merely subjective," but is the way to ACCESS a true "objective" feature of the world -- beauty. And attending to the outside world -- actual buildings, landscapes, etc. is not merely objective, but is simply the other pole of the internal impression.

In other words, "subjective" and "objective" are simply two sides of the same coin. It is an artificial Cartesian construct to divorce these two, and has caused a TON of epistemological problems.

What Model One is saying is that we follow the Spirits like we discern beauty. Our eyes must be open to everything. God's voice is not over-and-against the world, but encompasses the world.

* Brandi, I hope this helps in showing why Model One is not advocating (say) avoiding tough subjects "for the sake of love." To be sure, there are people who think it is "unloving" to ever ruffle someones fethers, stir up the pot, tick someone off, etc... But the problem here is that they have a dysfunction understanding of love. Its the "peace at all costs" mindset. Love often stirs the pot. Love is not fearful. But if love stirs the pot, it does so with a motivation of love, in the hopes that more LIFE will result from the stirring. If it stirs the pot, it wants to make sure it is stirring the right pot for the right reasons -- and thus would be attentive to any possible miscommunications, hitting buzzers that perhaps don't need to be hit, etc...

Gotta run.

Doc

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

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 7/30/2002 5:12 PM (GMT -6)

brandi

I agree that we need to evaluate the impact our actions have on others to consider whether our impact was hurtful or harming... YET, where I cannot seem to agree is that if we design our actions to save feelings and to have the most loving impact on people, sometimes I can't help but believe that we can actually cause more harm. Of course we should strive to speak softly and tenderly to one another but to avoid topics, conversations ... because of the impact it might have may cause the person more harm.

Iconoclast

I totally agree with you that to design our actions to save feelings can actually cause more harm. In fact, I would argue that it very often does cause more harm and that doing this is a direct consequence of acting out of our own knowledge of good and evil. It is neither caring nor respectful in my opinion to attribute an inability to handle negative feedback to other people. At the same time this doesn’t mean that we tell others all that we think or feel about them either. If what we think or feel is a judgment (an unillustrated and untestable accusation) then we are causing as much harm as seeking to save their feelings. Both of these come from what Argyris calls “Model I” behavior (NOT to be confused with other “Models” recently discussed on this thread!).

Brandi, I hear you equating “saving feelings” with “having the most loving impact”. If so, then I hope this post shows that these are quite different – that focusing on impact does not entail that we focus on managing other people’s feelings.

I have copied here a post I did on one of the other Bonhoeffer threads. Notice especially the “Model I – Caring-Integrity Blow-up Cycle”. It shows how our impulse to save others’ feelings often leads to becoming angry and taking unilateral action.

Here it is – sorry about the length:

In many ways I hear B. saying that there are two kinds of knowledge:

One) Knowledge for Judgement - Our own knowledge of good and evil.
Two) Knowledge for Action - God’s will.

There is some good research that I believe forms a solid theoretical basis for these two kinds of knowledge. I have presented this material on other threads a couple of times and am copying it here with some additional commentary.

This work come from Chris Argyris who is James Bryant Conant Professor of Education and Organizational Behavior at Harvard University. Argyris has been studying and writing about organizational behavior since the late 50’s. His best work in my opinion is found in “Knowledge for Action”, “Overcoming Organizational Defensiveness” and “On Organizational Learning”.

His basic concept is that everyone has two theories of behavior: their “espoused theory” and their “theory-in-use”. What is not shocking is that everyone pretty much has a different espoused theory of behavior. And we of course argue about it incessantly. What is absolutely and totally shocking in my opinion is that Argyris has shown that everyone the world over (culture makes no difference) has the same “theory-in-use”. That is, when a person’s behavior is actually measured under a variety of conditions it can be shown to be consistent with what Argyris calls “Model I” behavior theory. We all like to talk about how we should behave but fundamentally when the rubber meets the road – we all pretty much operate out of the same basic model. Now clearly this model (Model I) gives rise to an enormous range of actual behaviors. But it also gives rise to very standard failure patterns when it comes to organizational (or any systemic) behavior. Patterns that are self-fulfilling and self-reinforcing.

Model I theory-in-use, this behavioral model that everyone the world over actually uses in their day-to-day life is, I believe, a manifestation of our own knowledge of good and evil. Everyone the world over uses this single theory which gives rise to an enormous number of “espoused theories”. Examples of “espoused theories” are such things as “puritan ethics”, “southern baptist ethics” and so on. And, of course, all their manifold varieties. The Pharisees had espoused theories of behavior. Jesus said it is OK to do what they say, but do not do what they do. Their espoused theory is great but don’t use their actual theory-in-use – it is bad stuff – it is the knowledge of good and evil. And really, the only thing that matters is our actual theory-in-use.

Argyris shows very concretely how individual’s behavior gives rise to the organizational defensive patterns that I would guess we all have experienced. In other words – if you are in the midst of some negative organizational stuff going on – finger pointing, credit stealing, CYA and so on – the data has shown very clearly where the problem lies – it lies with us – and we are completely unaware of how it is that we are causing it.

This is the core issue, our sinful behavior gives rise to evil and we are unaware of how we are producing it. This is the fundamental question: how do we become aware and how do we change. How do we take each thought captive, how do we know if it is a good thought or a bad thought? More fundamentally, how do we produce ‘Kingdom Behavior’?

Here is the really tough problem: Argyris has shown that even once a group of individuals is educated on exactly how their behavior is causing the organizational defensive patterns AND they are educated on exactly how they need to behave to fix it they STILL cannot produce those behaviors. Even when they really, really want to!

Trosie – you nailed this issue with the quote from Romans 7:7-25:

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from sin, law is death. Once I was alive apart from the law; but then the commandment came sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So, then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.
Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do sin, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do -- this I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my INNER being I delight in God's law; but I see the law of my mind making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

The law which is good interacts with my propensity to set it up as a ‘clearly-known’ good (my own knowledge of good and evil) which leads to me not doing the law. This sin living in me IS the knowledge of good and evil which B. is talking about. The ‘law of sin’ is that I set up God’s law, God’s knowledge of good and evil, as my own ‘clearly-known’ knowledge of good and evil.

Model 1 theory-in-use is an unconscious set of programs in our brain that produce “skilled” behavior. That is, behavior that happens faster than conscious thought. No different than the programs in our head that allow us to ride a bicycle.

Argyris has come up with a new “Model II” theory-in-use that leads to healthy and effective organizational patterns. It turns out that to actually produce the behaviors of Model II theory-in-use one has to be re-trained. And I mean re-trained in the sense of learning how to ride a Unicycle that is 5 feet tall. It takes role modelling, training and practice, practice, practice.

Hebrews 5:11-14

"About this (Christ's suffering, obedience, and process of perfecting from verses 7-10) we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil."

Let me suggest a different way of saying all this: Model I behavior is fundamentally sinful. It is built-in hamartia (missing the mark). It is sinful because it is not in accordance with reality. It is setting ourselves up as the criteria for good and evil. It IS the knowledge of good and evil and it separates us from God. This individual sinful (disunited) behavior results in corporate evil – enduring defensive patterns that hurt people and kill life. The only way to change this is for individuals to first understand that they are sinful (that their behavior is responsible for this evil) then to understand what it should look like (Jesus behavior) and even then they can’t produce this behavior until the renewing of their mind (metanoia) takes place. They must be transformed but even this doesn’t just happen all at once – one first learns the first few steps and then it is a life-long effort of re-learning effective behavior.

So what specifically is this Model I Theory-in-Use (Knowledge for Judgement) and this Model II Theory-in-Use (Knowledge for Action).

Knowledge for Judgement: Model I Theory-in-Use

This is the theory-in-use found around the world.

Governing Values:
1. Achieve your intended purpose.
2. Maximize winning and minimize losing.
3. Suppress negative feelings.
4. Behave according to what you consider rational.

Action Strategies:
Advocate your position.
Evaluate the thoughts and actions of others (and your own thoughts and actions).
Attribute causes for whatever you are trying to understand.

Consequences:
Model I theory-in-use instructs people to be in unilateral control, to win, and not to upset people.

It recommends action strategies that are primarily selling and persuading and, when necessary, strategies that save their own and others’ face.

This leads to a dilemma and a paradox.

Dilemma: it is not possible to save someone’s face and tell the person that is your intention. If you say, “I am going to save your face,” then you are not saving the person’s face. Face-saving requires designed lying, called white lies, as well as a cover-up of the white lies. It goes against reality.

The paradox is related to the unilateral, authoritarian features of the theory-in-use. In order for Model I to be implemented effectively, the recipients must be willing to accept being submissive, passive, and dependent. These characteristics are the opposite of Model I. If Model I is defined as the effective theory of action, the paradox is that implementing this theory requires other people to act in ways that are ineffective by the very terms of Model I. (Iconoclast: pronouncing judgements which we think are helpful on ourselves or others actually prevents us or others from doing the law.) It is as if the users say:

1. I will use Model I to influence you.
2. If I succeed, then I will control you and win you over. This will lead you to be submissive to and dependent on me.
3. It is effective for me to make you ineffective.
4. The Paradox: If you were to act toward me in the way I act toward you,
then I could not act in the way I intend. My theory of effectiveness will ultimately make me and other people ineffective.

Iconoclast: Model I Theory-in-use / action strategies are what concretely separate us from God and each other. It is both caused by our setting ourselves up as the Judge (accusation / condemnation) and it comes about because of others judgement (embarrassment and threat).

Iconoclast: This is similar to Doc’s “self-enclosure, closedness to God and others” (Satan and the Problem of Evil)

Model I Social Virtues:
Human beings cannot learn Model I without a lot of support from the society in which they live. The support comes from the social virtues that are especially important in dealing with embarrassment or threat.

Caring, Help, Support:
Give approval and praise to other people. Tell others what you believe will make them feel good about themselves. Reduce their feelings of hurt by telling them how much you care and, if possible, agree with them that the others acted improperly.

Respect for Others:
Defer to other people and do not confront their reasoning or actions.

Honesty:
Tell other people no lies or tell others all you think and feel.

Strength:
Advocate your position in order to win. Hold your own position in the face of others’ advocacy. Feeling vulnerable is a sign of weakness.

Integrity:
Stick to your principles, values, and beliefs.

Model I - Caring-Integrity Blow-up Cycle:

Model I “caring” leads to uncaring consequences.

People start with caring in order to indicate support, help, caring and respect. When little progress is made on substantive issues people soon feel frustrated and bewildered. They then move toward strength and integrity. They now advocate their position in order to win, and they stick to their principles (Iconoclast: Power Aroused). They act strongly in order not to feel vulnerable. (Iconoclast: this is where our own knowledge of good and evil backed up by some authority is used as an instrument of evil towards others – the Pharisees.)

Start with caring, support and respect; if this doesn’t work, use strength and integrity. Under these conditions the loudest most forceful wins. This trickles down in the organization producing more fear of embarrassment and threat.

Iconoclast: Deming: “Drive out fear”. Jesus: “fear not them which kill the body, but rather fear Him which is able to… The fear of embarrassment and threat is one of the major things which takes us back into Model I behavior – our own knowledge of good and evil. In fear we retreat to a ‘clearly-known’ good that we can stand upon – either to give us motive force for vengeance or motive force to become a doormat.

Knowledge for Action: Model II Theory-in-Use

Governing Values:
1. Valid Information. (Learning orientation)
2. Informed choice.
3. Responsibility to monitor how well the choice is implemented. Vigilant at detecting and correcting error.

Action Strategies:

Same as in Model I: advocate, evaluate and attribute.

However, Model II behaviors are crafted into action strategies that openly illustrate how the actors reached their evaluations or attributions and how they crafted them to encourage inquiry and testing by others.

Advocate your position and encourage inquiry or confirmation of it. (Balance Inquiry with Advocacy).

Minimize taking unilateral face-saving actions. This is an act of mistrust of the other person’s capabilities. Such acts ought to be tested; otherwise we are playing God with other human beings. There may be occasions when a sound test leads us to conclude that the other person would be seriously harmed by learning the truth, and thus it would not make sense to be candid.

Telling the truth does not mean that people should make public exactly what they sensor and hide. If what people hide are unillustrated and untested negative evaluations (“we failed”, “he messed up”) or unillustrated and untested attributions (“he’s handing me a line or is playing a power game”), then to make these evaluations and attributions public as they are would be to act consistently with Model I.

Iconoclast: unillustrated and untested attributions are HOW we operate out of our own knowledge of good and evil. Detecting a possible problem (“he is lying” or even “I am lying to myself”) is our apparatus operating. To then attribute that potential problem in an unillustrated and untestable way is to presume that we are the judge – that we know what clearly-good and clearly-evil are.

Our ‘total apparatus’ of human knowledge, our ability to learn and grow is God’s gift to us to help us detect and correct errors.

Luke 12:55-59

”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?

“And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? Thus, when you go with your accuser before a magistrate, on the way make an effort to settle the case, or you may be dragged before the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.”

Jesus grounds our knowledge here in the reality of the particular situation. He is saying both: “trust your knowledge of reality” as well as “do not stand on some ‘clearly-known good’”. And what can he possibly mean by, ”you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.”? Could he mean that if we stand on what we know is the ‘clearly-known good’ that we may then be stuck in this position against all of reality and that the cost will be great indeed until we finally let go of this “clearly-known good”?

Epistemological humility combined with bold and unassuming action.
Confidence in the competence that God gives us because we have confidence in God’s competence to lead us.

Model II Social Virtues:

Caring, Help, Support:
Increase the others’ capacity to confront their own ideas, to create a window into their own mind, and to face their unsurfaced assumptions, biases, and fears by acting in these ways toward other people.

Respect for Others:
Attribute to other people a high capacity for self-reflection and self-examination without becoming so upset that they lose their effectiveness and their sense of self-responsibility and choice. Keep testing this attribution openly.

Honesty:
Advocate your position and combine it with inquiry and self-reflection. Feeling vulnerable while encouraging inquiry is a sign of strength.

Strength:
Encourage yourself and other people to say what they know yet fear to say. Minimize what would otherwise be subject to distortion and cover-up of the distortion.

Integrity:
Advocate your principles, values, and beliefs in a way that invites inquiry into them and encourages other people to do the same

Iconoclast: “Be ye transparent.”

Consequences of Model II:

Iconoclast: Doc’s “openness to God and others” (Satan and Problem of Evil)

Iconoclast: We are no longer “judgers” operating out of the knowledge of good and evil. We are now able to use our ‘total apparatus’ to detect God’s will in the reality he has given us to operate in. Reality is now God’s servant to guide us. We can now work effectively together. Effectively meeting my governing values helps others effectively meet their governing values. We “detect and correct” all things without judgement for ourselves and others but rather with a deep respect for our own and the other person’s ability to responsibly “detect and correct” for themselves.

Deming is responsible for the manufacturing methodologies that the Japanese used to outperform America after WWII. His philosophy was brought to America some time later under such acronyms as TQM (Total Quality Management). It radically changed our ability to organize and produce products with much higher quality and more efficiently as well as radically changing working conditions for the better. One of the key principles is the idea that people are fundamentally good and want to do a good job. That people are in fact responsible and competent and should be treated as such. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is self-fulfilling when we apply it to others and it is self-fulfilling when we apply it to ourselves.

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 07/30/2002 10:32:58 PM

Electra
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611

Posted 7/30/2002 8:30 PM (GMT -6)

Doc: Here is perhaps a fundamental difference between the two models. Model [One] assumes that, if a person is open to love (open to God), they recognize it, and this is in fact at least in continuity with, if not identical with, recognizing the divine impulse.

Electra: I can see why confidence in our ability to recognize true love is essential to Model One. I would agree that the divine impulse is loving, and that it is important to be open to love. But I think this can only be known by faith, not by sight. If love is directly recognizable, why would anyone refuse it?

Doc: It is true, as you say, that "Jesus reveals to his disciples the possibility of a demonic faith which produces wonderful works quite indistinguishable from the works of the true disciples, works of charity, miracles, perhaps even of personal sanctification, but which is nevertheless a denial of Jesus and of the life of discipleship." But I don’t think this entails that a person who love’s genuinely is indistinguishable from a person who acts or speaks lovingly for ulterior motives. At the very least, I certainly don’t think it entails that WE OURSELVES can’t tell when WE are loving genuinely verses loving for ulterior motives.

Electra: Bonhoeffer says that there IS a way for WE OURSELVES to tell when WE are loving genuinely verses loving for ulterior motives: “The genuine work of love is always a hidden work. Take heed therefore that you know it not, for only so is it the goodness of God. If we want to know our own goodness or love, it has already ceased to be love….This voluntary blindness in the Christian (which is really sight illuminated by Christ) is his certainty, and the fact that his life is hidden from his sight is the ground of his assurance” (Cost of Discipleship, 177).

Doc: Being loving could become simply a surrogate way for "being good." Since the "pattern of this world" (Rom 12:2) is structured on the knowledge of good and evil, this is an ever-present danger that must be guarded against. But the crucial difference between being loving and being good is MOTIVATION. If I truly seek to love others, I am not trying to calculate my goodness, which is what the knowledge of good and evil is all about.

Electra: I thought that according to Model One, the crucial difference between being loving and being good was successful IMPACT (as assessed via feedback) rather than INTENT (MOTIVATION)? If INTENT is a factor in genuine love, then in order to truly assess whether or not an action is loving, we would have to draw conclusions about the intention behind the impact. But this information is not available to our “sight.”

Doc: The difference between us, I believe, is that the obedience that is demanded of us is TO LOVE, which is RELATIONAL, hence entails COMMUNICATION which always involves FEEDBACK.

Electra: Model Three would agree that obedience entails love and that love is relational and involves communication which includes feedback, but would state it much more strongly. Obedience entails perfect fulfillment of the law, which is summarized in the Greatest Commandment to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. This is impossible. Good communication and openness to feedback can help us be good, but not perfect. Those who strive to fulfill the law—to be genuinely loving—by any means other than Christ alone will either despair or deceive themselves (this is why there are so many hypocrites in the church). We are only perfectly obedient—genuinely loving toward God and neighbor—in and through Christ. Good communication, including care for others’ feedback about impact, naturally flows out of union with Christ.

Doc: I can easily see how you derive from this the conclusion that we can only know obedience, not whether our actions are loving or not. But an alternative interpretation is simply that we can’t know the DEFINITIVE NATURE of our actions, just as we can’t know the definitive judgment of GOOD and EVIL, though we can "detect" whether any given state of affairs is good or evil.

Electra: I’m not sure I follow here. It sounds like you agree that we can’t know the DEFINITIVE NATURE of our actions (because this is analogous to judging good and evil). You also agree that MOTIVATION is what makes the decisive difference between being loving and being good. What is the basis for Model One’s confidence in our ability to recognize love (as long as we’re open to it) without assessing the definitive nature of, or the motivation behind, our actions?

Doc: The nexus of relationships isn’t the absolute. God is. What is relativized is our CONFIDENCE that we are hearing or sensing the divine impulse correctly.

Electra: Of the three models, it seems that Model One is the MOST confident in our ability to sense the divine impulse correctly. You characterized this confidence thus: “Model [One] assumes that, if a person is open to love (open to God), they recognize it, and this is in fact at least in continuity with, if not identical with, recognizing the divine impulse.”

Doc: Also, even if we ARE hearing or sensing the divine impulse correctly, I’m suggesting that there is no reason to isolate this divine impulse from the total nexus of relationships. The impulse, rather, is TO INTERACT to the total nexus of relationships in a certain way: namely, with Christ-like love.

Electra: I think both Model Two and Model Three would agree that the divine impulse calls us into loving relationship within the nexus. However, they would state the nature of this love more strongly: Christ is not only the model for love (leaving it at that would just make the cross into another expression of the law), but also the condition for love (the cross is what fulfills the law and frees us to love—to take up our own cross).

Doc (responding to Iconoclast): Model Two, I think, radically individualizes and isolates the "divine impulse," thus leveraging ones confidence in hearing the impulse correctly AGAINST their ability to get feedback from the total nexus of relationships.

Electra: It is true that Model Two emphasizes the infinite qualitative difference between the creature and the creator. Model Two also emphasizes the infinite worth of each individual creature within the total nexus of relationships. Model Two would consider “the nexus” to be an abstraction, and therefore the relationship of the individual before God is higher than the total nexus of relationships. These two relations (the individual’s relation to God and to the nexus) would only come into conflict during a time of testing.

Doc (responding to Iconoclast): Model One understands the divine impulse IN RELATIONSHIP with the total nexus, trusting that the God who speaks to them in the divine impulse also speaks to them through the total nexus of relationships.

Electra: Model Two agrees that in order for the divine impulse to be intelligible, it must be communicated in and through creation. It also holds that in order to create faith in individuals, the divine impulse must be communicated indirectly (otherwise there would be no choice and a love relationship would not be possible).

Doc (responding to Iconoclast): Or rather, the divine impulse ENCOMPASSES both the subjective hearing and the objective feedback.

Electra: I’m not sure what this means.

Doc (responding to Iconoclast): Model Two advocates certainly don’t INTEND to put themselves in the center, but rather want to emphasize that GOD is the center. Still, by interpreting the divine impulse as being OVER AND AGAINST the nexus, they are putting their ability to hear the divine impulse at the center. Whether aspects of B.’s thought can be used to support this or not (see Electra’s quotes above), I think this is dangerous in that it could make an idol of our subjective impressions. I also think it arbitrary, for the one who speaks to us through divine impulses is also the Creator and Sustainer of the world.

Electra: I’m not sure what you mean when you characterize Model Two as “interpreting the divine impulse as being OVER AND AGAINST the nexus,” and I’m not sure how it follows that therefore it places the “ability to hear the divine impulse at the center” rather than God. As I mentioned above, it seems that of the three models, Model One is most confident in its ability to hear the divine impulse.

Doc (responding to Semeia): [E]ven if we were hearing God PERFECTLY (which I’m not sure we could ever know that we do), it would still entail getting feedback.

Electra: Isn’t this a tautology within Model One? How would hearing God perfectly be any different than perfectly assessing feedback from the nexus according to Model One?

Doc (responding to Semeia): In my view, Model [Two] is intrinsically NON-OPENNESS.

Electra: I think this is true of Model Two as represented by Bonhoeffer (but not intrinsically). But as I mentioned above, Model Three holds that the divine impulse must be communicated indirectly in order to offer the individual a choice. Responding to the divine impulse in faith rather than offense is what makes love possible.

Thanks Doc,
Electra

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

Edited by - Electra on 07/31/2002 01:46:11 AM

GregBoyd
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 7/31/2002 2:54 AM (GMT -6)

Electra: I can see why confidence in our ability to recognize true love is essential to Model One. I would agree that the divine impulse is loving, and that it is important to be open to love. But I think this can only be known by faith, not by sight. If love is directly recognizable, why would anyone refuse it?

Doc: Free Will. It requires dying to self (self-centered living). Your question presupposes that the only reason people don’t love is because its not clear to them what the loving thing is. I doubt this. Sin is not ignorance, but choosing against what you know, or at least can know if you will to know, to be love.

Electra: If INTENT is a factor in genuine love, then in order to truly assess whether or not an action is loving, we would have to draw conclusions about the intention behind the impact. But this information is not available to our "sight."

Doc: The intent of OTHER PEOPLE is hidden from me, but not MY OWN. To be sure, it is impossible to even know your own heart definitively. The heart, like the universe, is unfathomably complex. In any given act I have to be open to the possibility that non-loving motivations were in fact in play. Getting FEEDBACK helps the process of self-discovery. But I CAN nevertheless know, in any given situation, that I WANT to be loving (whether it turns out that, as a matter of fact, I was not wholly loving).

Elecdtra: We are only perfectly obedient—genuinely loving toward God and neighbor—in and through Christ. Good communication, including care for others’ feedback about impact, naturally flows out of union with Christ.

Doc: So long as you INCLUDE care for others feedback about impact, I’m in total agreement.

Elecdtra: What is the basis for Model One’s confidence in our ability to recognize love (as long as we’re open to it) without assessing the definitive nature of, or the motivation behind, our actions?

Doc: A person can commit to being loving without striving to be "good." And a person can commit to being loving without knowing definitively that, in any given situation, that actually were totally loving. In other words, I believe we know love if we want to. But its everything else about us that we don’t know. Otherwise we’d have to conclude that we can’t know love at all, unless we are omniscient.

Electra: Of the three models, it seems that Model One is the MOST confident in our ability to sense the divine impulse correctly.

Doc: I’m afraid I don’t see this. One of the reasons why we should look for feedback (according to Model One) is because we cannot be confident our intuitions are reliable. As I see it, Model Two leverages everything on our ability to KNOW the divine impulse IS a divine impulse.

Electra: These two relations (the individual’s relation to God and to the nexus) would only come into conflict during a time of testing.

Doc: So is this whole debate about the nature of divine testing? Are you conceding that Model One represents how people should ORDINARILY live?

Electra: I’m not sure what you mean when you characterize Model Two as "interpreting the divine impulse as being OVER AND AGAINST the nexus," and I’m not sure how it follows that therefore it places the "ability to hear the divine impulse at the center" rather than God. As I mentioned above, it seems that of the three models, Model One is most confident in its ability to hear the divine impulse.

Doc: I heard you to be arguing that in Model Two one must attend (at last in times of testing?) only to the divine impulse, not to feedback. Indeed, everything about the nexus of relationships might tell you NOT to do with the divine impulse is telling you to do. This is what I mean by "over and against," and it seems to me that THIS idea is the one that places the most confidence in our ability to discern "the divine impulse."

Electra: But as I mentioned above, Model Three holds that the divine impulse must be communicated indirectly in order to offer the individual a choice. Responding to the divine impulse in faith rather than offense is what makes love possible.
Doc: I’m not sure what "indirectly" means here. If it means something like "mediated," then I’m confused. For I thought Model Two (the existential view – I think you, following me, got themswitched) was leveraging everything on the IMPULSE – not mediated by "the nexus of relationships."

In any case, my point was simply this: If you agree that God acts responsively (viz. By getting feedback) then you have to concede that WE have to be open to feedback, even if we are walking perfectly with God. Openness is intrinsically tied to action, impact and feedback.

Got to run. Thanks for the insightful reflections Electra.

Greg

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

Electra
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611

Posted 7/31/2002 12:54 PM (GMT -6)

Doc: Your question presupposes that the only reason people don’t love is because its not clear to them what the loving thing is. I doubt this. Sin is not ignorance, but choosing against what you know, or at least can know if you will to know, to be love.

Electra: I’m not sure how I gave you the impression that I think ignorance is sin. On the contrary, I was trying to suggest that action based on sight (what we think we know) rather than faith was sin. The reason people don’t love is not because they lack knowledge, but rather that they lack faith. Bonhoeffer quotes Luther’s characterization of the yoke and burden Christ offers: “Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend—it must transcend all comprehension….Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge…..Behold, that is the way of the cross. You cannot find it yourself, so you must let me lead you as though you were a blind man. Wherefore it is not you, no man, no living creature, but I myself, who instruct you by my word and Spirit in the way you should go. Not the work which you choose, not the suffering you devise, but the road which is clean contrary to all that you choose or contrive or desire—that is the road you must take. To that I call you and in that you must be my disciple” (Cost of Discipleship, 103–104).

In direct opposition to the claim that feedback from the nexus and the divine impulse are commensureable, Bonhoeffer claims, “The call of Jesus teaches us that our relation to the world has been built on an illusion. All the time we thought we had enjoyed a direct relation with men and things. This is what had hindered us from faith and obedience. Now we learn that in the most intimate relationships of life, in our kinship with father and mother, brothers and sisters, in married love, and in our duty to the community, direct relationships are impossible.…We cannot establish direct contact outside ourselves except through him, through his word, and through our following of him. To think otherwise is to deceive ourselves….[I’m skipping a big chunk that I quoted in support of Model 3’s point 4]…We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempts to overcome it by means of natural association or emotional or spiritual union. There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology, however frank and open our behavior, we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships….”

Doc: The intent of OTHER PEOPLE is hidden from me, but not MY OWN. To be sure, it is impossible to even know your own heart definitively. The heart, like the universe, is unfathomably complex. In any given act I have to be open to the possibility that non-loving motivations were in fact in play. Getting FEEDBACK helps the process of self-discovery….

Electra: Bonhoeffer argues that the process of self-discovery is accomplished by Christ’s call which severs us from “all the natural ties of life”: “Through the call of Jesus men become individuals. Willy-nilly, they are compelled to decide, and that decision can only be made by themselves. It is no choice of their own that makes them individuals: it is Christ who makes them individuals by calling them. Every man is called separately, and must follow alone. But men are frightened of solitude, and they try to protect themselves from it by merging themselves in the society of their follow-men and in their material environment. They become suddenly aware of their responsibilities and duties, and are loath to part with them. But all this is only a cloak to protect them from having to make a decision. They are unwilling to stand alone before Jesus and to be compelled to decide with their eyes fixed on him alone. Yet neither father not mother, neither wife not child, neither nationality nor tradition, can protect a man at the moment of his call. It is Christ’s will that he should be thus isolated, and that he should fix his eyes solely upon him.

“At the very moment of their call, men find that they have already broken with all the natural ties of life. This is not their own doing, but his who calls them. For Christ has delivered them from immediacy with the world, and brought them into immediacy with himself. We cannot follow Christ unless we are prepared to accept and affirm that breach as a fait accompli. It is no arbitrary choice on the disciple’s part, but Christ himself, who compels him thus to break with his past.

“Why is this necessary? Why are we not allowed to grow slowly, gradually, uninterruptedly in progressive sanctification out of the natural order into the fellowship of Christ? What is this power which so angrily comes between a man and the natural life in which it had pleased God to place him? Surely such a breach with the past is a legalistic technique and surely contempt for the good gifts of God, a technique far removed from the “liberty of the Christian man”? We must face up to the truth that the call of Christ does set up a barrier between man and his natural life. But this barrier is no surly contempt for life, no legalistic piety, it is the life which is life indeed, the gospel, the person of Jesus Christ…By calling us he has cut us off from all immediacy with the things of this world. He wants to be the centre, through him alone all things shall come to pass. He stands between us and God, and for that very reason he stands between us and all other men and things. He is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality…..

“It is the call of Jesus, regarded not as an ideal, but as the word of a Mediator, which effects in us this complete breach with the world. If it were only a question of weighing one ideal against another, we should naturally hanker for a compromise. In that case the Christian ideal might come out on top, but its claim could never be absolute. If we were only concerned with ideals, if we gave due regard to our natural responsibilities, we should never be justified in giving the Christian ideal a priority over the natural ordinances of life. On the contrary, a case could be made for exactly the opposite evaluation, even from the standpoint of a Christian idealism, or a Christian ethic of duty or conscience [e.g. Kant]. But we are concerned not with ideals, duties or values, but with the recognition and acceptance of a fait accompli, namely of the person of the Mediator himself who has come between us and the world. There can only be a complete breach with the immediacies of life: the call of Christ brings us as individuals face to face with the Mediator.”

Doc: One of the reasons why we should look for feedback (according to Model One) is because we cannot be confident our intuitions are reliable. As I see it, Model Two leverages everything on our ability to KNOW the divine impulse IS a divine impulse.

Electra: Model Three does not levverage anything on what we KNOW. Whereas Model One claims that our lack of confidence in the reliability of our intuitions should lead us to seek feedback from the nexus, Model Three claims that this lack of confidence should lead us to seek FAITH in Christ. Model Three does not seek compensation for, or augmentation of, the unreliable knowledge we already have. It calls us to forsake this knowledge completely and act out of faith in Christ rather than knowledge of the nexus.

Doc: So is this whole debate about the nature of divine testing? Are you conceding that Model One represents how people should ORDINARILY live?

Electra: Good question. I think it gets at the heart of what Bonhoeffer was arguing in The Cost of Discipleship. The “breach with all our immediate relationships” created by the call of Christ must pervade our entire lives. He uses Abraham of an example to explain that God may call individual disciples to outwardly manifest their inward faith in Christ as the mediator between the individual and the nexus at any time: “This breach with all our immediate relationships is inescapable. It may take the form of an external breach with family or nation; in that case we shall be called upon to bear visibly the reproach of Christ, the odium generis humani. Or it may be a hidden and a secret breach. But even then we must always be ready to come into the open. In the last resort it makes no difference whether the breach be secret or open. Abraham is an example of both…..Abraham had left all and followed Christ, and as he follows him he is allowed to go back and live in the world as he had done before. Outwardly the picture is unchanged, but the old is passed away, and behold all things are new. Everything has had to pass through Christ….It is not for us to choose which way we shall follow. That depends on the will of Christ. But this at least is certain: in one way or the other we shall have to leave the immediacy of the world and become individuals, whether secretly or openly.”

Doc: I heard you to be arguing that in Model Two one must attend (at last in times of testing?) only to the divine impulse, not to feedback. Indeed, everything about the nexus of relationships might tell you NOT to do with the divine impulse is telling you to do. This is what I mean by "over and against," and it seems to me that THIS idea is the one that places the most confidence in our ability to discern "the divine impulse."

Electra: Yes, Model Two does claim that the individual’s relationship with God is qualitatively different than the individual’s relationship to the nexus. But this is an existential, not epistemological claim (this claim does have epistemological implications, but I would like to bracket the question of discernment for now).

Doc: I’m not sure what "indirectly" means here. If it means something like "mediated," then I’m confused. For I thought Model Two (the existential view – I think you, following me, got themswitched) was leveraging everything on the IMPULSE – not mediated by "the nexus of relationships."

Electra: No one is arguing about whether or not the divine impulse is mediated. All models agree that in order to be intelligible, the God must call us in and through creation. The reason the divine impulse must be offered indirectly is not epistemological, but rather existential: Love presupposes the possibility of offense—if love is not chosen in faith, then whatever it is, it is not love.

Doc: In any case, my point was simply this: If you agree that God acts responsively (viz. By getting feedback) then you have to concede that WE have to be open to feedback, even if we are walking perfectly with God. Openness is intrinsically tied to action, impact and feedback.

Electra: I agree that God acts responsively and that we should be open to feedback. I’m not arguing against these things. I’m just saying that action, impact, and feedback naturally flow out of faith in Christ.

Conclusion: Technically, I would say that the distinction between Model One and Models Two and Three is dialectical. Model One employs a positive dialectic which sublates the distinction between subjective and objective, infinite and finite, creature and creation—they are commensurable; whereas both Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer employ a negative dialectic which intensifies the distinction—they are infinitely qualitatively different. Models Two and Three view sublation as the problem, not the solution; commensurability confuses the issue rather than clarifying it; the positive dialectic is an identification, not a relation. Any synthesis of divinity and humanity necessarily entails an abridgment of reality, an abstraction; whereas Jesus Christ, the God-man, is a revelation of reality, and is the condition for authentic existence.

Thanks,
Electra

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

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 7/31/2002 2:51 PM (GMT -6)

Electra

Model Three does not seek compensation for, or augmentation of, the unreliable knowledge we already have. It calls us to forsake this knowledge completely and act out of faith in Christ rather than knowledge of the nexus.

Iconoclast

I don't understand what you mean by this. Can you give an example of what this would look like?

Electra

Model One employs a positive dialectic which sublates the distinction between subjective and objective ... Bonhoeffer employ a negative dialectic which intensifies the distinction

Iconoclast

Two questions:

1. What exactly do you mean by "sublates the distinction"? I would guess that you don't mean "unifies these two in an unbroken wholeness"?

2. What did Bonhoeffer say that led you to this conclusion?

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 08/01/2002 12:42:33 AM

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 7/31/2002 6:12 PM (GMT -6)

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 7/31/2002 7:34 PM (GMT -6)

Electra

Models Two and Three view sublation as the problem, not the solution; commensurability confuses the issue rather than clarifying it; the positive dialectic is an identification, not a relation.

Iconoclast

Are there only two possibilities: that two things are entirely distinct or that they are one and the same?

Is it possible for two things to be distinct and yet be integrally bound up in a whole that cannot be adequately described by the parts?

I would say that Objective and Subjective are not distinct “things” except as hollow abstractions. Rather, they are the two end points of a spectrum. They are the boundaries of a continuum. To say that they have a “center” that unifies them in unbroken wholeness is not to deny their distinction but is rather to say that the very distinction exists in order to give meaning to the “center”. I would like to suggest that it is our very own knowledge of good and evil that seeks to set these up as absolute distinct categories. How else in our finiteness could we possibly determine absolute good and absolute evil with having absolute categories? Why, it would be mayhem … we fear.

Bonhoeffer: Move into the storm of event, sustained only by the commandment of God and your faith, and freedom will receive your spirit with exultation.

Electra

Any synthesis of divinity and humanity necessarily entails an abridgment of reality, an abstraction; whereas Jesus Christ, the God-man, is a revelation of reality, and is the condition for authentic existence.

Iconoclast

Synthesis: The combining of separate elements or substances to form a coherent whole.

I agree that when WE try to combine divinity and humanity we get US trying to be god – I think this is the call of our own knowledge of good and evil.

We are humanity, God is divinity, Jesus Christ is the center. To be in unity in my understanding is to accept Jesus Christ as OUR center (denying the shadow life we derive from being our own center) and thus we now exist in unbroken wholeness with Him. We are now part of THE “nexus” rather than trying to create our own “nexus” where we are the center. We are a branch, He is the vine. Very “organic” concept.

I don’t understand Model One as negating the distinctions amongst the things you mentioned. I see Model One as saying that there is THE “nexus” where Christ is the center and there is the apostate “nexus” that each individual tries to create and sustain out of our own knowledge of good and evil. I also see Model One as saying that the nature of THE “nexus” is that it is made up of “centers” that relate to each other in unbroken wholeness. That it cannot be defined by its boundaries for that is to try and tear it apart but at the same time it celebrates its distinctions, its diversity for that is where more abundant life is enjoyed.

Is this saying something radically different than Model Two or Model Three?

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 08/01/2002 12:37:23 AM

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 8/1/2002 1:11 AM (GMT -6)

Electra: Model Three does not leverage anything on what we KNOW. Whereas Model One claims that our lack of confidence in the reliability of our intuitions should lead us to seek feedback from the nexus, Model Three claims that this lack of confidence should lead us to seek FAITH in Christ.

Doc: yes, our only confidence is faith in Christ. But, it seems to me, the issue at hand is how this faith translates into particular actions here-and-now. How does FAITH relate to the "impulse"? And my worry is that models two AND three equate faith in Christ with a faith in the impulse. My grounds are that acting without being attentive to feedback on the grounds that one is "lead by Christ" (= received a divine impulse) presupposes faith that ones impulse is very very reliable.

Electra: Model Two does claim that the individual’s relationship with God is qualitatively different than the individual’s relationship to the nexus. But this is an existential, not epistemological claim (this claim does have epistemological implications, but I would like to bracket the question of discernment for now).

Doc: Fair enough. But my concern is with the epistemological. This has been my primary issue all along.

Electra: I’m just saying that action, impact, and feedback naturally flow out of faith in Christ.

Doc: Then sis, we is in total agreement. I’m not saying that we ADD impact and feedback TO faith in Christ. I’m saying (and I think Icon and Semeia are saying) that impact and feedback flow out of faith in Christ.

Electra: Model One employs a positive dialectic which sublates the distinction between subjective and objective, infinite and finite, creature and creation—they are commensurable; whereas both Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer employ a negative dialectic which intensifies the distinction—they are infinitely qualitatively different… the positive dialectic is an identification, not a relation.

Icon responds: I would say that Objective and Subjective are not distinct "things" except as hollow abstractions. Rather, they are the two end points of a spectrum. They are the boundaries of a continuum. To say that they have a "center" that unifies them in unbroken wholeness is not to deny their distinction but is rather to say that the very distinction exists in order to give meaning to the "center".

Doc: ditto. I would only add that I want the distinction between God and humanity is in a different category than the distinction between objective and subjective. The unity amidst distinction with the former is Jesus Christ, not "humanity in itself" or "the world in itself." By contrast, the dialectial relation between subjective and objective is natural, simply two poles of a spectrum. Yet, the "center" for both the God-human relation on the subjective-objective distinction is Jesus Christ.

Conclusion: I’m beginning to suspect that most of the differences between Electra and I (I can only speak for myself here) is because in speaking about the "divine impulse" I am concerned with epistemological – even psychological – issues, whereas Electra is thinking of existential issues.

Blessings
Doc

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

brandi
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Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 118

Posted 8/1/2002 5:42 AM (GMT -6)

Thank you Doc and Iconoclast for your responses! I, like many of the rest, am still trying to process Bonhoeffer's book. I appreciate the respectful dialogue we are exchanging.

Would you be willing to answer a couple more questions and reflections from your recent post? I would appreciate that.

Doc

quote:
The profundity of B, I believe, lies partly in the link he draws between the knowledge of good and evil and judgment, and his insight that this is the origin and essence of sin.

I have always understood the origin of sin to be "disobedience." Repeatedly throughout the bible God addresses the importance of "submission." Satan on the other hand is a master at trying to get God's people to disobey. Adam and Eve were persuaded by Satan to "disobey" God and ate of the fruit on the tree instead of "submitting" to God's instruction. The whole purpose of submitting is to spare us of the consequences. And the consequence of this act of disobedience was that now they had the burden of the knowledge of good and evil. To me the knowledge of good and evil was a consequence while the act of disobedience was the origin and essence of sin. What am I missing?

Iconoclast

quote:
One of the key principles is the idea that people are fundamentally good and want to do a good job.

quote:
Conclusion: I’m beginning to suspect that most of the differences between Electra and I (I can only speak for myself here) is because in speaking about the "divine impulse" I am concerned with epistemological – even psychological – issues, whereas Electra is thinking of existential issues.

I am sorry to interfere here but don't you think this is HUGE? Doesn't it get down to who are we relying on -- ourselves or God? Wouldn't the one be actually operating out of our own knowledge base which is what Bonhoeffer is addressing? Perhaps I am way off and please forgive me for interfering in your dialogue.

~Brandi~

Electra
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Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611

Posted 8/1/2002 12:50 PM (GMT -6)

Doc: Electra, I confess I have had to fight off a deeply rooted impulse (God?) to endorse your model 3, simply because it is number 3.

Electra: Hmm, is the nigh-irresistable impulse toward threeness epistemologically or existentially rooted? Either way Doc, don’t fight it off—Think Three. BE THREE.

Iconoclast, thank you for the questions, comments, and especially for the translation of Doc, who really had me going. I’m working on a response. But I’m also WAY (emphatically, not taoistically) behind on my 1,247-page reading assignment. So it might take me a while.

Threely,
Electra

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

Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 8/1/2002 2:40 PM (GMT -6)

Doc

Doc: ditto. I would only add that I want the distinction between God and humanity is in a different category than the distinction between objective and subjective.

Iconoclast

Agree. So would that distinction be [the Peircean categories of] discrimination, prescission or disassociation?

It seems like the distinction between objective and subjective is discrimination. No different than the color spectrum.

Is there any possible sense in which humanity is related to God through prescission? Could "Imago Dei" in any way mean this? Could there be any chance that disunity with God breaks the "prescission" type relationship and now we are in a "disassociation" type relationship which means whether we seek association ("many will say to me 'Lord, Lord'") or disassociation we are really dead.

Or does this turn Peirce's concept of "prescission" on it head?

The simple understanding of prescission is that of "red" and "color". They are in a hierarchical relationship. You can prescind "red" from "color" but you cannot prescind "color" from "red". The nominalist way of thinking about this is that "color" is an abstraction of "red". When we have "red" we imply "color". But when we have "color" we do not imply "red".

From a nominalist perspective clearly we are NOT in a prescission relationship with God.

But from Peirce's perspective it looks different:

"Does this conception of the universal condemn us to an aggravated form of nominalism? I do not think so, for the reason that the opposition between nominalism and realism has no longer any sense since pragmatism defined the idea as what it does. We are beyond nominalism and realism. The mind is in the world and in continuity with it. The law is a natural as well as a logical process. As a third without occurrences, the law is empty and as a second, the occurrence without law is blind." - from a commentary on Peirce.

“pragmatism defined the idea as what it does” – that is an interesting thought – think of how that relates to “God is Love”.

Thus the "abstraction" in this sense is no “abstraction” at all! It is really the "first". It has the "most" reality. God is the ultimate "first". WE imply God but God does NOT imply us. ALL things imply God as God is the "ground" of all being. Does "all knees shall bend" support this notion?

What does it mean to be "in" Christ or Christ to be "in" us? "Prescission" might just be a useful concept to see these two relations as hierarchical rather than equivalent. Association is true in both directions but prescission is not. Does this clarify "Christ as our center". Clearly a hierarchical relationship (prescission) yet equivalently connected (association) at the same time. Is this what B. means by “union”?

Does this require a concept of "volitional prescission"? A free will being has the ability to "act against" a "prescission" relationship?

I didn't mean to go off into the weeds here - I am just trying to comprehend Peirce at the moment.

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 08/01/2002 7:41:36 PM

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 8/1/2002 7:08 PM (GMT -6)

Brandi: To me the knowledge of good and evil was a consequence while the act of disobedience was the origin and essence of sin. What am I missing?

Doc: I don’t think your missing anything Brandi. That’s why "the sailors say, ‘Brandi, you’re a fine girl. What a good wife you would be. But you know, the love of my life, is the sea’" (or something like that. Its been about 30 years since the song was a hit. How many old folks out there know the name of the one-hit-wonder group that produced it?

).

Back on track. As I read it, the knowledge of good and evil is the most fundamental aspect of what disobedience to good looks like. So we can say "disobedience to God is the root of all sin" and "the knowledge of good and evil is the essence of all sin." We can also say that the knowledge of good and evil is the most fundamental consequence of disobedience. We become severed from the center, and thus operate as our own center. When we do this, we tend to operate as the arbiter of moral matters, dividing the world up into self-serving categories of good and evil.

Brandi: (On my view that the main difference between Electra and myself is that she is concerned with existential issues while I am worried about epistemological issues) Doesn't it get down to who are we relying on -- ourselves or God? Wouldn't the one be actually operating out of our own knowledge base which is what Bonhoeffer is addressing? Perhaps I am way off and please forgive me for interfering in your dialogue.

Doc: Brandi, this is a DISCUSSION board, so there’s no such thing as "interfering" with another’s dialogue. It’s public precisely so others will contribute. So, THANKS for "interfering." Now butt out!

Just kidding. I’m not sure which model you think is relying on ourselves and which is relying on God. All models want to say they are "relying on God." The epistemological question, as I see it, is HOW do we know we are relying on God? How reliable is the "divine impulse"? What role, if any, should be given to assessing feedback as we live trying to discern the "divine impulse."

Icon: What does it mean to be "in" Christ or Christ to be "in" us? "Prescission" might just be a useful concept to see these two relations as hierarchical rather than equivalent. Association is true in both directions but prescission is not. Does this clarify "Christ as our center". Clearly a hierarchical relationship (prescission) yet equivalently connected (association) at the same time. Is this what B. means by "union"? Does this require a concept of "volitional prescission"? A free will being has the ability to "act against" a "prescission" relationship?

Doc: In case Bonhoeffer isn’t confusing enough, Icon wants to introduce Pierce. Delightful.

Nothing like trying to tame a fire with propane. Actually, I love it. But I think we owe it to the five or so valiant readers who remain on this thread to flag that we are here taking a wee bit of a detour. Wee bit.

I like your concept of "volitional prescission," to the point that I think we should apply it not only to the human relationship with God, but to God as the free agent who created its possibility. The reason is that my one concern with bringing in the Peircian category of prescission into the relationship of God to us is that Piercian categories are metaphysical, which makes it seem that the relationship between us and God is metaphysical. And if something is metaphysical, in Piercian terms, it is necessary. In this case humans would be to God what the color red is to the category of color… a sort of sub-species. But this comes close to pantheism. So, to retain the category as useful to Christian discourse, I think it important to emphasize your idea of volitional precscission.

Given this provisio, I think the concept could have a lot of applicability to our relationship with Christ. A fundamental thesis I work with (as a heuristic model) is that everything in creation is, or is meant to be, a fractal replication of the Trinity. (Three three three!) In this case, the relationship between us and God fractaly mirrors the relationship that constitutes the eternal triune God. The concept of precission, I think, fits in well with this. We participate in Christ’s relationship with Father in the Spirit. But we don't do it as a metaphysical relationship. We do it as a personal relationship of love, which involves choice on both sides. God freely chooses to invite us into the relationship, and we choose to accept, or not.

I like it. Far as I am concerned, you can throw Peircian propane on any firey discussion you want.

In his love,

Doc

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

brandi
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Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 118

Posted 8/1/2002 11:17 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
How many old folks out there know the name of the one-hit-wonder group that produced it?

And the answer is.... (drum roll please) Looking Glass?

Doc

quote:
The epistemological question, as I see it, is HOW do we know we are relying on God? How reliable is the "divine impulse"? What role, if any, should be given to assessing feedback as we live trying to discern the "divine impulse."

I would like to share with you a few bible verses (OUT OF THE BIBLE NOT TAOISM

) Please note the bold part because I believe the bible makes it clear that this is the crux of where our assessing must be centered:

2 Corinthians 3:18"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

2 Corintians 4:6-7"6.For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 7. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and NOT from us.

The Spirit is the one doing in us. We rely on God's Spirit to change us and make us more loving in our interactions... Of course we can look at feedback and impact but when push comes to shove we must rely on the internal not the external. "Faith is the evidence of things not seen..." Faith comes from God. Sometimes the obvious isn't always the real. Appearances are deceiving so we must rely on the internal.

~Brandi~

Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 8/2/2002 5:46 PM (GMT -6)

brandi

Iconoclast

quote:

One of the key principles is the idea that people are fundamentally good and want to do a good job.

Thank you for the informative post! The above quote didn't land right for me though and I have been thinking about that. I wish so much I could believe this statement to be truth but the bible speaks otherwise. The bible tells us that "all have sinned" "there are none worthy, no not one" We are born into the sin nature of man and are in and of ourselves predestined for hell without the loving intervention of Christ. The only way to be considered "good" or perhaps a better word for it would be "sanctified" is through faith in Christ. This is sometimes such a difficult truth for me to grasp because I know so many GREAT people who are clueless or resistant to a relationship with Christ while at the same time knowing of some "Christians" that I question where in the world the Spirit of love is within them.

Iconoclast

How do we know if a tree is good or not?

Before Deming and the Total Quality Movement the prevailing attitude of management was that workers were to be distrusted – that they did not want to do good work – that they were lazy and thus that they needed to be controlled and punished when they did not work hard enough or do good work. In many ways this was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Who wants to work hard when management treats you like this? Who is willing to take responsibility in this kind of an environment?

Deming came along and told management that they were wrong to believe that people didn’t really want to do good work. He told management that if they changed their beliefs and attitudes toward workers – if they trusted workers to good work – and most importantly if out of their trust they built systems whereby workers could monitor themselves in terms of whether they were doing good work or not (gain direct non-judgmental feedback on their performance) that then workers would take responsibility and outperform management’s expectations. This worked – it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

America didn’t believe Deming. The Japanese did. The Japanese used his system to crush us in manufacturing after WWII (notice all the Japanese cars on the road). We of course changed our minds about what Deming had to say after we noticed that the Japanese system was far superior to our own. Witness Ford’s “Quality Circles” initiative. Now Deming’s basic philosophy is pretty much standard practice in most successful companies.

When we judge others as bad (as having little worth) we invite them to behave poorly. When we ascribe unsurpassable worth to others (shoot – even if we just believe in them enough to think they are actually trustworthy enough to be responsible) then we invite them to behave responsibly.

“Seeing” people as bad we invite them to be bad.
“Seeing” people as good we invite them to be good.

“See” –> “Do” –> “Get” or “Worldview” –> “Behavior” –> “Results”

Our worldview (what we “see”) influences our behavior (what we do) which produces results (what we get). This is why judgement blocks love. When we see another as bad it changes how we behave toward them in ways that strongly influence them to be bad. This is why parents are very concerned about how a teacher “sees” their child. It is standard knowledge that when a kid is labeled a “troublemaker” or “slow” then the teacher behaves in ways that “causes” (strongly invites) those very behaviors. And the teacher is completely unaware that he or she is doing this and will insist that they were not doing anything different – until, of course, they see the videotape – it turns out that the behavioral changes are rather subtle and mostly unconscious – a frown here, a disapproving look there.

Kierkegaard wrote a great chapter in his book “Works of Love” called “Love Hides the Multiplicity of Sins”. It is well worth the read.

brandi

My question is this: If everyone is fundamentally good then what would the need for Christ be? Wouldn't the idea of this be simply living of our own knowledge base as self in the center?

Iconoclast

Yes, we know that WE are not good. WE are total and complete sinners. OUR righteousness is as filthy rags. WE have a log in our eye. But THEY have a speck in theirs. Maybe compared to US, THEY are fundamentally good?

Now compared to God THEY are not good either. But then again God Himself ascribes unsurpassable worth to THEM by dying on a cross while THEY were yet sinners.

Maybe the problem here is with the word “good”. No one is “good”. Even Jesus didn’t let that person call Him “good”. He said we should only ascribe “goodness” to God in heaven. Maybe this is because “good” is inextricably bound up with judgment. Maybe we should only ascribe “unsurpassable worth” to others – this seems to bypass judgment – or rather, maybe it overcomes our judgment because it is more a term that is inextricably bound up with love.

Another thought:

If an individual IS living out of their own knowledge of good and evil would they think that everyone was fundamentally good? Or would they judge some to be good and some to be bad? Thereby “helping” some to be good and “helping” some to be bad?

If no one was living out of their own knowledge of good and evil would anyone be fundamentally good? Would it even be a meaningful category?

Since we are all living out of our knowledge of good and evil we absolutely need Christ to save us from seeking to be “good”. Only God is good.

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

GregBoyd
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 8/2/2002 6:50 PM (GMT -6)

[
Brandi: And the answer is.... (drum roll please) Looking Glass?

Doc: YOU WIN!. WHAT do you win? Absolutely nothing... but praise and adoration from the millions who will read this thread in the future. Congrats!!!

Brandi: Sometimes the obvious isn't always the real. Appearances are deceiving so we must rely on the internal.

Doc: Agh good lady. But isn't "the internal" sometimes just "appearances"?

Still, I totally agree that we need to cultivate our ability to sense tinternal witness of the Spirit. Yet, the way we develop our spiritual sense, I believe, is by stepping out and "testing it." We WATCH and SEE what results when we step out. Over time, our ability to hear God's voice improves. We learn how to distinquish it from the myriad of other voices in our head. Still, I am not convinced we EVER outgrow the need for feedback. God didn't.

Doc

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

brandi
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Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 118

Posted 8/3/2002 1:08 AM (GMT -6)

One more time, thank you both for your positive dialogue (which has had a positive IMPACT

) It has been a pleasure to discuss this with you! I believe, unless I read more that stirs something in me, I have come to some peace on this thread. I want to share with you my summary of what I have gained and learned through this enjoyable dialogue. Feel free to positively critique my reflections (which I know you both would do so positively since this has been the constant exchange -- thanks again!)

Iconoclast

quote:
When we judge others as bad (as having little worth) we invite them to behave poorly. When we ascribe unsurpassable worth to others (shoot – even if we just believe in them enough to think they are actually trustworthy enough to be responsible) then we invite them to behave responsibly.

I agree with this. The fruit we sow will be the fruit we reap.

We are NOT to judge anyone. We are given the Spirit to discern but NOT to judge anyone else. As with the log and speck (we are too unworthy to judge anyone else as being unworthy...) Discernment is an entire different discussion than judgment.

Iconoclast

quote:
Maybe the problem here is with the word “good”. No one is “good”. Even Jesus didn’t let that person call Him “good”. He said we should only ascribe “goodness” to God in heaven. Maybe this is because “good” is inextricably bound up with judgment.

Okay, I think I get the gist. No one is worthy. When we start to assess who is "good" and who is "bad" we are acting out of judgment. We can say that NO ONE is WORTHY without Christ redemption.

Doc

quote:
Still, I am not convinced we EVER outgrow the need for feedback. God didn't.

I agree with you!

My whole objection to the "impact" and "feedback" idea has been on how much weight we give it. We are to be in the world but not a part of it. We are to live by faith and not by sight. Live by the Spirit with our eyes wide open. Take in the external but filter it through the internal. Ultimately, for me it gets down to who gets the final word. We cannot rely on our assessment since we are fallible so we must trust on something beyond our own selves to show us the way.

Here is my summary:We were created to live in union with God (submission) yet God did not MAKE us be in this union hence we were given freewill (we could choose to submit or rebel). Satan too had freewill and used it to rebel and thereby fell from heaven.

With the fall in the garden people as a whole (since Adam and Eve represented humankind) chose to sin (gave in to the rebellious spirit) and the consequence of choosing this rebellion was living under the knowledge of good and evil.

Since we bought into the rebellious spirit we were doomed for hell (we were unworthy) yet God loved us too much to allow us this fate (He subscribed unsurpassable worth to us unworthy beings) so God sent Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice to redeem us back and offer us a way back to union with him. Jesus is the way back (the tree of life in the garden). We must SUBMIT to the Spirit in order to find life and break free from death. We must admit that we are sinners, turn from our rebelliousness, and submit to the Father (through accepting the act that Jesus did on the cross) in order to be reconciled back to living in union -- which is what we were created for.

Sin = rebellion
Reconciliation = accepting the act that Jesus died on the cross
Life = submission to God

This is a constant thing and not a one time deal, however. As long as we are in this world we will be stuck with the consequence of knowledge of good and evil thus have to continually CHOOSE to submit to the Spirit. The choices we make will more and more become and define who we are and our ultimate destiny. Our hearts will become harder, and we will hear God's knocking on the door of our heart less and less, if we stay in our own rebellion by living as self as center.

The whole reason I have been so passionate at resisting the idea of giving impact and feedback a lot of weight is not because I think we should be insensitive nor careless with our actions and speech. No, it's because impact is LESS important than submission to the Spirit's leading. If we allow impact to have the final authority then we are allowing ourselves to be judge of the events in our lives BUT if we submit to the Spirit of God within us we are allowing the internal to have the ultimate authority in assessing the event. The purpose for the bible and the Spirit is to show us the way (offer us light unto our path) As we allow this light to nurture and grow within us we too become lights for the world. "Let your light so shine before men (and women) that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Our end purpose is to glorify the Lord. All praise and honor and blessing and glory belong unto the Lord forever and ever!

Thank you!
~Brandi~

Edited by - brandi on 08/04/2002 01:06:30 AM

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 8/4/2002 3:49 PM (GMT -6)

WELL folks, are we ready to move onto the next chapter?

doc

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

Electra
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Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611

Posted 8/6/2002 9:04 AM (GMT -6)

I have a response to Iconoclast (and Doc) pending on this thread. But by all means, move on to the next chapter in the mean time. Electra

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

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 8/7/2002 6:28 PM (GMT -6)

Actually, my plate is so full I want to thank you Electra for giving me a good excuse to postpone moving on.

Leave it to ELECTRA to hold up the party!

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

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 8/7/2002 11:48 PM (GMT -6)

Hi-

Sorry to come in so late. And sorry to if I'm mentioning something you guys have all solved already. I'm still reading through this thread.

I loved Mephi’s analogy of the donkey and the carrot earlier in the thread. That really spoke to me. If we’re concerned about right and wrong for right and wrong’s sake, then this seems to liken us to progressing via the carrot without really knowing where we’ve been or where we’re going.

I admit to not have given much thought to ethics, period. Just reading through these is a challenge. But I have a comment (which may help or which may miss the mark completely). I hope it’s not too off the subject.

Jesus said, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.” I find this interesting. Might this suggest that law and morality exit to serve us, not visa versa. For example, I break the speed limit to get to a movie. I’m ticketed (and rightly so). But I break the speed limit rushing my wife to the hospital and am escorted there by the police.

Getting back to Brandon’s example about lying to Nazi’s not being lying. Wouldn’t the speeding analogy apply? What judge, realizing I was speeding to rush my wife to the hospital, would feel I had “broken the law”? Was I exceeding the speed limit? Yes. Was this breaking the law? No. I lie to a Nazi to save a life. Was I lying? Yes. Was I breaking God’s law? No.

Tom

"Every saint has a history and every sinner a future." Oscar Wilde

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 8/8/2002 1:42 AM (GMT -6)

TGB, we could formalize the principle as something like: "When a 'lower' law must be broken to obey a 'higher' law, the breaking of the 'lower' law isn't breaking the law."

And, conversely, "When a 'higher' law is disobeyed in order to obey a 'lower' law, the breaking of the 'higher' law IS breaking the law."

The 'lower' law in the Nazi analogy is lying.
The 'higher' law is protecting life.

Two things need to be said about this, however. First, who says what is "higher" and what is "lower"? The answer, I believe, is GOD working in us. And how do we know when God is working in us? The answer, I believe, is intuition, or divine impulse, or something like that. I don't think its possible to ground a hierarchy of ethical principles outside of ourselves . Fortunately, morally healthy people generally agree on the basic contours of the hierarchy. Only a damaged or jaded person would object to speeding to save your spouse.

Second, and related to this, a lot depends on what we mean by "law." If we mean by "law" a set of codes to be obeyed, then we again have no way of ranking "higher" and "lower" laws. And even if the "law" contained such a ranking, obeying it would not transform us. We might obey it as a way of getting life, or at leat avoiding death. But we wouldn't be transformed into moral beings by it.

What other law can there be? It is "the royal law" (James), the law written in our heart. This is the law of love. Hence Scripture repeatedly teaches us that if we love like Christ loves, we fulfill all moral codes.

To ask about "higher" or "lower" laws in any particular context is simply to ask, "What does love look like here and now?" The answer can't be gotten at by searching for a system of abstract ethical principles. Indeed, the thrust of Bonhoeffer's thought is to say that in the attempt to live out of ethical principles in any given situation, we loose the capacity to live out of love in that situation.

Doc

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

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