Post Edited (One Love) : 2/10/2009 7:15:30 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Tom) : 2/10/2009 11:00:22 AM (GMT-6)

One more brief example. I’m not capturing it, but I am aiming at it.

Think of vocabularies and poetry. Some poets have vast vocabularies which means they have more ways to express themselves. Other poets have narrower vocabularies. But the variety of expression depends somewhat on one’s vocabulary, and perhaps to some extent on one’s familiarity with grammar. Now, a poet with the narrower vocabulary may write beautiful poetry, sublime even. But the poet with the greater vocabulary and grammatical dexterity will produce a more varied expression. If poetry is the stuff of divine life common to us all, I’m suggesting that a consequence of applying one’s self to poetry over a period of time within the epistemic space that defines life pre-mortem compared to one whose personal becoming occurs within the epistemic distance that define life post-mortem would simply be the fact that the two groups makes possible different vocabularies relative to their contexts and histories. There’s an integrity to the grammar of freedom and personal becoming that abides given the context (pre- or post-mortem).

Enough from me. Tell me about the place and role that ‘rewards’ have in your understanding of the eschaton. What’s THAT look like to you?

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 2/10/2009 11:03:29 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/11/2009 10:04:15 AM (GMT-6)

In the end, Hitler will have just as much satisfaction in God's love for him...as Mother Teresa does in God's love for her.

I KNOW that God WANTS Hitler (and every other evil person) to have full satisfaction in Him...and I don't see any metaphysical reason why that ain't possible, given EUR.

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/11/2009 10:05:42 AM (GMT-6)

To me, the "reward" that a person has (as opposed to loss) is the knowledge of how they contributed to the Kingdom of God on earth. As 1 Corinthians 3 talks about, they will be shown how their work withstood the test and brought others into the Kingdom. The "loss" that a person has is the knowledge of the futility of their actions to contributing to the Kingdom of God on earth. Let's take Mother Teresa v. Hitler again. Mother Teresa will have the knowledge of all the times she served Christ through other people, and God's "congratulations", carrying the experience of being with God on the earth with her into the hereafter. Hitler, on the other hand, will have knowledge of all the "lost opportunities" to build God's Kingdom, carrying the LACK of experience of being with God on the earth. But, given the eternity and infinity of God, regardless of how far "behind" Hitler is behind Teresa as far as living in Grace, it's assured that, given enough existence with God, he will be just as "well off" as anyone else there.

To me, it's like saying that, at the judgement, Mother Teresa can see 10 million shades of blue and Hitler can see only 1 million...but given the eternity with God, BOTH AMOUNTS pale in comparision because both will be stretching towards the Infinite God, making any comparisons between themselves irrelevant.

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/11/2009 10:32:51 AM (GMT-6)

D: To me, the "reward" that a person has (as opposed to loss) is the knowledge of how they contributed to the Kingdom of God on earth.

T: A reward is just my memory? Let’s let this stand. Fine. I think that’s an incomplete understanding of rewards in the eschaton, but I’ll go with it.

D: The "loss" that a person has is the knowledge of the futility of their actions to contributing to the Kingdom of God on earth. Let's take Mother Teresa v. Hitler again. Mother Teresa will have the knowledge of all the times she served Christ through other people, and God's "congratulations", carrying the experience of being with God on the earth with her into the hereafter.

T: This enjoyment of God’s congratulations continues FOREVER?

D: Hitler, on the other hand, will have knowledge of all the "lost opportunities" to build God's Kingdom, carrying the LACK of experience of being with God on the earth.

T: And Hitler perceives and understands this FOREVER?

So what’s this mean then? Surely these varied ‘perceptions’ ground a varied ‘enjoyments’. That is, rewards (even on your explanation) constitute an enduring difference in experience. Sure looks like that’s what you just said. I mean, it doesn’t mean much to say Teresa will have “God’s congratulations” (and have it forever, as you say) if she doesn’t forever ‘experience’ this congratulations. And it means little to say she experiences this but that it has nothing to do with intensity of experience. See? If it’s not that, what the heck kind of “reward” is it?

In the same way, it doesn’t make sense to say Hitler is unrewarded in a sense he might have been if this absence of “congratulations” doesn’t constitute the absence of some intensity of experience. Come on now. But if experienced, then Teresa has a pleasure uniquely grounded in her own past and God’s present “congratulations” that Hitler doesn’t have. And if abiding, then the unending progress into God’s infinity doesn’t erase it. Given what you’ve said, I’d say that a reward is discriminating, abiding, intensity of experience. But I know that’s exactly what you do NOT want to say.

Here comes the undoing of rewards…

D: But, given the eternity and infinity of God, regardless of how far "behind" Hitler is behind Teresa as far as living in Grace, it's assured that, given enough existence with God, he will be just as "well off" as anyone else there.

T: I don’t know what this means. What’s “well off” even mean?

If Hitler eventually has Teresa’s pleasure, then he eventually has Teresa’s reward, which kinda empties rewards of their very meaning, doesn’t it? So it looks to me like you want everybody having precisely the SAME experience. You don’t want abiding, discriminating intensities of experience.

Dude, I totally understand that. I don’t necessarily warm to the idea either. But I’m trying to think my way through this consistently given the very meaningfulness of the term “reward” and it’s eschatological fulfillment.

So it seems that on your view rewards are at best temporary, discriminating intensities of experience. The infinity of God overcomes them. But surely this is strange. God’s infinity overcomes heaven’s rewards?

D: To me, it's like saying that, at the judgement, Mother Teresa can see 10 million shades of blue and Hitler can see only 1 million...but given the eternity with God, BOTH AMOUNTS pale in comparision because both will be stretching towards the Infinite God, making any comparisons between themselves irrelevant.

T: Then you have to say, D, that heaven makes rewards irrelevant. But surely this is contrary to the NT’s idea. Heaven makes rewards relevant. Exactly how? Heck if I know. I’m just shooting buckshot trying to hit something here!

I like G of Nyssa’s notion of the saints never ending progress into the infinity of God. A lot. That may wash out all rewards then. And that sucks (only because the NT seems to hold out the abiding relevancy of rewards, whatever they are).

Maybe we’re done here. I don’t have anything else I guess. But there’s still a good conversation here:

- How are eschatological rewards both discriminatory and abiding if it’s also true that the saints forever progress into God’s infinity?

- What sort of reward would abide and discriminate (as seems entailed in the very notion of a ‘heavenly reward’) while it was also the case that all continue to progress in God?

- Why should what heaven is constitute the slow but eventual complete erosion of rewards (of varieties of intensity of experience)?

And if we’re relatively meaningless to God anyhow, couldn’t one argue that it’s just as likely that human beings will each mean something relatively different to God (in terms of God’s experience of creation) simply because abiding consequences are the price tag of freedom? (Maybe THIS is the right way to apply the whole argument from 'proportionality'. Hmmm). I don’t see how our relative meaninglessness to God makes your this any less likely than your view.

Anybody else feeling me here?

D: Let's use your example... Ok. Given both poets have eternity and infinite opportunity to learn all possible vocabularies…

T: I’m saying there’s as aspect of our capacity that’s locked. We live with our vocabularies. That’s what grounds the abiding discriminatory nature of rewards. Otherwise, the rewards are ephemeral and fading, which hardly makes them suitable as heavenly rewards.

T

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/11/2009 1:12:44 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/12/2009 7:53:06 AM (GMT-6)

Dude, I feel ya. Believe me.

You say God is our only “reward to seek.” Who wants to disagree with that sentiment? Not me. I’m with ya. But there’s an equivocation on the term “reward” here. I’m not disputing the singular nature of our passion and love for God and I’m not ‘seeking’ extra jewels in my crown. We love and worship God alone. Whatever biblical rewards are, they don’t displace that. But I don’t see how we can say they just ARE God.

If God just is what he NT describes as various rewards, and if all of us get the same intensity of experience of God (i.e., we get the same “God” and all do so with the same “getting” ), then we all get the same reward. Given what the NT texts say about rewards, D, does that make sense to you? Does the NT say all get one and the same reward? Or does the NT discriminate between reward and reward? I think we have to say the latter. But if the latter…

See? I’m not gonna pretend to have the answer. I just wanna get the question right for now. But you seem very committed to a view of fulfilled human existence in Christ that precludes any real abiding distinction between rewards. It’s like you sewed it all up before taking all the biblical evidence into consideration…maybe?

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 2/12/2009 9:38:29 AM (GMT-6)