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Asher
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 11/12/2008 8:18 PM (GMT -6) |   | One Love:
"I am not a person of privilege in this regard"
No, you are an advocate for the people of privilege, aka the dead babies.
One Love:
"I'm sure that you realize that the idea in the Scripture is about the landowner being seen as unfair by the grumbling workers who had endured the "burden of the work and the heat of the day." And that the landowner confronted the envious, unfaithful attitude of the grumblers...right? Yeah, you see all that, I know."
You are misapplying it. ALL...ALL...ALL...the workers agreed to work for the pay they agreed to. The landowner can GIVE his money to whoever he wants. If he did not pay me what he agreed to pay me, THEN he is unjust.
In the dead babies situation...I am born into slavery. I have to work (deal with the shit). I have no choice about coming into a contract with the landowner. He sets ALL the terms. He owns me. I have no say.
Unless, you want to advocate suicide as an escape into the realm of the dead babies.
Paying me what you agreed is not unfair. Paying others more than me is not unfair. Enslaving me is unfair.
Well apart from your misapplication, what do you think would happen in future instances when I have the option of entering into contract with said landowner? | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/12/2008 8:31 PM (GMT -6) | | Asher:
You are misapplying it. ALL...ALL...ALL...the workers agreed to work for the pay they agreed to. The landowner can GIVE his money to whoever he wants. If he did not pay me what he agreed to pay me, THEN he is unjust.
In the dead babies situation...I am born into slavery. I have to work (deal with the shit). I have no choice about coming into a contract with the landowner. He sets ALL the terms. He owns me. I have no say.
Jesus, are you unjust? Holla at us right now. Seriously, Spirit. Speak up on this. We are asking for your direct presence here right now.
Let's pray. I bet the Spirit will speak.
But could you clarify for me just a bit more how I've made a misapplication? I thought that part of the point was that God is not unjust for effectively saying..."I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion"...and people who find that unjust have an attitude problem.
In this situation, I imagined the dead babies who hadn't lived long enough to bear the "burden of the work and the heat of the day" of temporal human existence...receiving the SAME END PAYMENT as everyone else, God's Presence and ever-moving rest and infinite growth in God. And people articulating the unfairness/immorality of that choice. Is that not being talked about there?
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." Post Edited (One Love) : 11/12/2008 7:48:27 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/12/2008 8:47 PM (GMT -6) | | | Asher:
I am born into slavery. I have to work (deal with the shit). I have no choice about coming into a contract with the landowner. He sets ALL the terms. He owns me. I have no say.
and..
Enslaving me is unfair.
Probably another misapplication...
One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?" But who are you, a mere human being, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "
Just thinking about the attitude of the hypothetical question asker that Paul notes...
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." Post Edited (One Love) : 11/12/2008 7:53:24 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 11/12/2008 9:01 PM (GMT -6) | | I am not saying that Jesus IS unjust. I am saying that since He isn't, your dead babies scenario can't be right.
As to your misapplication...
You used a scenario in which different parties enter into contracts. The landowner met his end of the contract, and the workers still grumbled. They, of course, had no just basis to grumble. The landowner MET his side of the contract.
In the dead babies scenario, there are no contracts mutually entered into. I'm born a slave, i.e. I have no choice in the matter. The dead babies aren't the ones being unjust, they had no say in the matter either. God is the one unjust in this scenario, which is why I don't believe it to be the case. Neither am I saying that the dead babies have no access. The exact nature of the access, I am unsure of...but it can't be that they automatically enter into everything I will receive after having lived my entire life...tested, tempted, etc.
Questions:
Why not kill more babies, bypassing their need for the suffering?
Why not commit suicide?
Also, we may just be talking around each other, because I don't buy into your whole system of person development.
There is something in me that does the choosing, and that is what is responsible. If you call that thing the ego, then I say we have no other choice but to act from our ego. We choose rightly or wrongly from the ego, if that is what does the choosing. Or do we have multiple parts that can all do acts of choice?
There are values. Those things we want to gain and maintain. We choose for the values, or we choose anti-values.
Peace is a value. Talking to God is a value. Having God as our first love and first consideration is a value. If however, God is irrational, then He cannot be a value. If God is not love, He cannot be a value. If God is not just, He cannot be a value. | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 11/12/2008 9:06 PM (GMT -6) | | Can God be unjust?
If He cannot, what is the nature of his ability to be just? Is He just always right, no matter what He says or does? Irrationally. Subject to whim?
If something is immoral for me, can God do it and not be immoral? | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/12/2008 9:10 PM (GMT -6) | | Asher:
Questions:
Why not kill more babies, bypassing their need for the suffering?
Why not commit suicide?
and...
Peace is a value. Talking to God is a value. Having God as our first love and first consideration is a value. If however, God is irrational, then He cannot be a value. If God is not love, He cannot be a value. If God is not just, He cannot be a value.
and...
The exact nature of the access, I am unsure of...but it can't be that they automatically enter into everything I will receive after having lived my entire life...tested, tempted, etc.Tell you what, homie. We are not on the same page...and we probably aren't going to be on the same page. I've already taken this thread too far afield already. Y'all just go on, ok? Cool... 
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/12/2008 10:53 PM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
D ... are you preaching this week?
Nope. Not that I know of. It'd be cool though.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/12/2008 11:01 PM (GMT -6) | | Cool stuff, lady! I'll ask her about what's goin' on, for these next coupla weeks, and get at you soon. We can decide the place and time then. It'd be really sweet to get together!
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." Post Edited (One Love) : 11/12/2008 10:08:35 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/12/2008 11:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
really... right out of the gate That's interesting.
I already talked to Greg before. I told him that he could count on me to be a "go-to person" if he needed one. If he got sick or had to travel. I'm sittin' on 2 sermons right now...ready to go. God's just been doin' stuff, ya know.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/12/2008 11:11 PM (GMT -6) | | | Why do little children die?
In answer to that question, St. Athanasios the Great speculated "The infants that leave here in purity will receive salvation there in eternity. Perhaps God called them early to be near Him by intention to avoid living a very sinful life." But, as the Holy Scripture says, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord?" (Romans 11: 33- 34).
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/13/2008 12:47 AM (GMT -6) | | D: "The workers who were hired…began to grumble against the landowner. But he answered one of them? Or are you envious because I am generous?'
T: D, I’m not sure when it happened, but sometime during your migrating into mysticism your interpreting skills went out the window. Asher gets it. This passages has nothing to do with my objections. Except I’m not asking ‘Why not kill more babies?’ as much as I’m asking ‘Why didn’t God make the post-mortem context in which babies come to relate to God without risk of failure THE context all human being comes to relate to God’? Wouldn’t that be something a loving God would do? What sort of love, D, risks great suffering for others needlessly? Whatever you suppose the payoff is for God and others from the risk you admit is possible for God and others apart from such risk.[/
I ask ‘So why the risk?’ and you accuse me of complaining to the landowner about his kindness.
Dude, please, if you don’t wanna do theodicy and aren’t concerned about these sorts of questions, I’m cool with that. But don’t characterize my sincere questions as some kind of selfish complaining about God’s graciousness. I’ve endured crap for my belief in the universal graciousness of God. You’re gonna tell me now I’m as selfish as a hired hand?
I love you bro, in Christ. But I don’t think dialogue with you is that possible anymore.
Pahtna, you might want to get some kind of grip. I wasn't even talking to you. OUR conversation was over, I thought. You said you were done. I took that as you being done. From then, I was talking to Asher and HIS quote. What's with you? 
But I tell you what. If you don't feel dialogue with me is possible, then so be it. God's richest blessings on you...always.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/13/2008 8:08 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
T: You quote the gospel passage (and others) to criticize a view you perceive as Asher’s…and mine. It’s my view as well. I wasn’t in the discussion, but when you characterize people who hold a particular view as essentially complaining to God about his kindness (by letting infants into heaven without having them face any of the risks adults on earth do), I’m included. So yeah, that’s gonna bring me off the bench and into the game.
1) I PM'd you and told you what I was responding to in Asher's quote. Do you get that it wasn't specifically about the view per se, but the "personal tone" that I was interpreting from Asher's stuff to which I was responding? (why the hell do I have to deal with the shit..."damn babies" being "people of privilege" , etc) Did I not make that clear to you, in that PM? If you choose to take my quote as a blanket statement about the questioning itself (and bringing yourself into that via that line of thinking), I guess that's what you are going to do. Just be aware of what I've tried to clarify. Please understand that you brought yourself into something that was in no way directed at you or your conversation with me, but with Asher specifically. If I misinterpreted what he was trying to articulate with that, that's on me and I can take that. Fine with me. Just for noting, though, the scripture reference(s) was NOT MEANT to argue against the actual "risk" thought itself.
2) I'm going to say this...again. If you or anyone else feels it necessary for WHATEVER REASON to believe that there has to be a functional infant purgatory to make things work in your head, then go for it. Like I've said, it may well be true. It doesn't make sense to me now...but that don't mean it can't be true. If it was true, I wouldn't really care. So much the better for God.
For the sake of the truth.
Lord, have mercy. 
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." Post Edited (One Love) : 11/13/2008 7:17:58 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/13/2008 9:25 AM (GMT -6) | | Got your PM and clarification. Thanks. I have issues with your approach, but I don't wish to push things.
Be blessed.
T | | Back to Top | | |
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Asher
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477
| Posted 11/13/2008 5:51 PM (GMT -6) | | One Love:
I PM'd you and told you what I was responding to in Asher's quote. Do you get that it wasn't specifically about the view per se, but the "personal tone" that I was interpreting from Asher's stuff to which I was responding? (why the hell do I have to deal with the shit..."damn babies" being "people of privilege" , etc)
Man, sometimes you seem so disingenuous to me. I said that I was personalizing the argument. And I was speaking in what was clearly hyperbole.
And if that was what you had issue with, then why didn't you say the above quote to me, instead of to Tom.
I think I'm beginning to get it. You only want to dialogue with Tom. I get that. It is easier to deal with someone you personally know. OK, point taken. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/13/2008 6:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Asher:
Man, sometimes you seem so disingenuous to me. I said that I was personalizing the argument. And I was speaking in what was clearly hyperbole.
And if that was what you had issue with, then why didn't you say the above quote to me, instead of to Tom.
I think I'm beginning to get it. You only want to dialogue with Tom. I get that. It is easier to deal with someone you personally know. OK, point taken.
Some things for clarification.
1) I'm sorry that I seem "disingenuous" to you. Seeing as you've taken such time to know who I am by my interactions, I'm sure you'd agree that I don't try to waste my time doing that. (As you've stated, you've followed my correspondence for some time now...) The fact of the matter is that I MISSED the hyperbole and thought you were being more serious than you obviously were. Charge that to my naivete...not me being disingenuous, if you please. Thanks for the grace.
2) As far as I could see, Tom's point of view lead him to say that dialogue was no longer possible. That's some serious business to me. I was going to be like "alright" with it...but I wanted him to clearly understand where I was and where I wasn't. That's why I PMed him in clarification. With you, I just ended up saying that you and I were on different pages...and that was cool. There was a difference in interaction there.
3) No, Asher. I don't want to only dialogue with Tom. That wasn't any point at all.
I sincerely hope this clarifies things. Sincerely.
Blessings,
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/19/2008 12:48 PM (GMT -6) | | Becoming Present: An Inquiry into the Christian Sense of the Presence of God
Ingolf Dalferth
(expensive, but it looks good)
John Webster’s review of the book on Ars Disputandi (http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000302/article.pdf):
“…the central affirmation to which the book’s various strands of argument keep returning is the Christian apprehension of God’s presence as free gracious self-bestowal. And it is here that theological engagement with the book might begin. A couple of lines of reflection might be pursued. The first concerns the dominance of eschatology in the book’s construal of Christian faith. One undoubted strength of the book is the link which it makes between divine presence and human creative activity in time—picking up some themes from, inter alia, Austin Farrer, Dalferth suggests that divine presence is a gift of possibilities to the creature, a divine making which enables creatures to become other than they are….”
Yep.
Portions of Dalferth’s book are available to read on Google:
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=hNFlu4jHQf4C&dq=Ingolf+Dalferth+Becoming+Present&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=WDSVqb031E&sig=yhaD8p-7_U4PGJfcN0ICAsPQwyQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
I’ve shared my views on omnipresence and hell over on the new discussion group “The Evangelical Universalist” (after Gregory MacDonald’s book, and he’s on there too), but a) there’s no much going on there, and b) the argument isn’t as easy as I thought. It takes some explaining.
T | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/19/2008 1:16 PM (GMT -6) | | | Thanks for this, Tom!! I think I'm gonna like this already...just doing a little scan through...
Dalferth has a whole section called "Re-Presenting God's Presence"...with a chapter called "Pluriform Self-Presentation": The Spirit as Mediation" Pages 231-235. Read it, if you get a chance. Just so on the money. Here's a quote I found terribly interesting...
To live a life of faith is to live consciously in the presence of God, i.e. to worship God in the widest possible sense of integrating all our thoughts and purposes, all valuations and meanings, all perceptions and conceptions into a consciously unitary response to God. (OL's Note: Purity of heart is to "will one thing"; the pure in heart will see God, etc)
Accompanying note citing Charles Hartshorne (of all people)....
This, according to Chrsitian faith, is not something we can do by ourselves. Unless God enables us to realize the presence of his love we do not enter into a loving relationship to God. But God's saving action in Christ opens our eyes to the presence of his love so that we can freely enter into a personal relationship with God the Spirit in our own life and thus fully develop our potential as persons.
When I read this section, I remembered something...
"The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love."
Meister Eckhart
To me, the "eye" that Eckhart is talking about...is nothing other than the "All-Seeing Eye" of the One, Omnipresent Holy Spirit of God, the Divine Presence.
Yeah, baby. 
Thanks for the book info, Tom! Nice one, dude. 
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." Post Edited (One Love) : 11/19/2008 12:20:00 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/20/2008 8:40 AM (GMT -6) | | I feel much better about what I’ve been saying on my own regarding omnipresence after reading portions of Dalferth. At least I’m not the first to come up with the necessary link between the presence of God and human freedom per se. True, I haven’t heard anybody apply this to hell. That seems to be new. I might even try to track Dalferth down and ask him. Hmmm. My guess is he’ll say: “Why of course! That makes perfect sense.”
Maybe it's a good thing I dropped the PhD idea. I keep finding things I wanted to say already said by others. Imagine all the money I'll save.
T | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/20/2008 12:06 PM (GMT -6) | | |
I wrote Dalferth. Here’s part of my email:
“So my question is, Have you considered applying this to the traditional view of hell as ‘irrevocable’? If it’s the case that wherever God is God brings to that situation a certain ‘freedom’ or ‘range of possibilities’ for becoming, then what might that mean for the notion of irrevocable solidification into evil which is at the heart of the traditional view of hell? It would seem to preclude such a possibility. On the assumption of omnipresence, any non-God reality would always face at least one possibility—the freedom to dispose Godward (however incrementally), the idea being that God cannot be present without creating for that to which God is present the possibility of Godward becoming. God just IS this invitation to become. And this would apply to any sentient being in hell, since God would be present in hell sustaining the existence of the wicked in their sufferings (in whatever remedial form they might take). And once we put God into the equation, we posit the freedom of ‘Godward becoming’. So to exist as such is to have God present, and to have God present is to face the possibility of Godward becoming. And such universal possibility entails the impossibility of irrevocable conscious torment…Yes? No?”
Dalferth answered my email. He wrote just one word:
Dalferth: “Yes.”
T Post Edited (Tom) : 11/20/2008 11:36:25 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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