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One Love
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| Posted 2/13/2009 9:37 AM (GMT -6) |   | Tom:
D's view is that when we're all eating the SAME main meal, some will remember the little Horse-de-oeuvres they got while others will remember the better Horse-de-oeuvres they got. But those who got the little ones will be just as happy about this as those who got the better ones. And both groups won't care about what Horse-de-oeuvres they got because the main dish will be so good.
Sounds good to me. God HIMSELF is the main course, baby. All else IS appetizers. Oh, TASTE and SEE that He is good!!!
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
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One Love
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| Posted 2/13/2009 9:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Links up with this...
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"The unitive life is the last stage of mystical ascent. The mystic becomes as closely united to God through God’s love as God is unified to his own being by nature. Mystically married to God, the mystic becomes “God by participation.” Nonetheless, this union remains differentiated, that is, God and the mystic become one while remaining distinctly two. The mystic’s person does not dissolve into God. In fact, the more deeply united to God the mystic becomes, the more the mystic’s individuality is confirmed and enhanced.
Mystical marriage bestows the conscious sharing in God’s own life and power and almost complete self-forgetfulness. The mystic now seeks only God’s will and honor and desires to serve God totally. Although external trials may continue, absolutely nothing can touch the peace and freedom at the deepest core of the mystic’s being. The transformed mystic desires greatly to suffer, but in no way does this suffering disturb the peace that flows from the ever present, explicit awareness of living God’s very own life. In fact, the only thing separating the mystic from the beatific vision is this life itself.
The mystic is experientially united to a love that communicates itself to all persons and to all things. Therefore, the more deeply the mystic experiences union with God, the more deeply union with God’s creation is experienced. Transformed by and into Love itself, the mystic becomes creative, totally self-giving, radically concerned about others—in short, spiritually fecund."
Harvey Egan, S.J.
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In the End of all Things, I see everyone living like this...without exception.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
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Tom
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| Posted 2/13/2009 9:45 AM (GMT -6) | | D: The bottom line is that the perfect happiness relativizes things such that NO one feels more or less "satisfied" than any one else.
T: Everybody IS satiated. Yes. That's my view. NO ONE can know what their sense of satiation is compared to anyone else. So it's meaningless to say no one feels "more satiated than" any one else. If I can't feel how satiation feels to you, I can't know I'm any more or less satiated. But we can all know that each of us is as satiated AS WE CAN BE.
D: This would be like unto saying that every individual has an unsurpassable level of satisfaction in their relationship to God and all others.
T: Unsurpassable given their capacity. Right.
D: Do you.
T: What does that mean anyhow, D? "Do you." Do me? Is that what you say to people who push their questions as honestly as they know how?
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One Love
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| Posted 2/13/2009 9:47 AM (GMT -6) | | D: Do you.
T: What does that mean anyhow, D? "Do you." Do me? Is that what you say to people who push their questions as honestly as they know how?
Do you feel like "Do you." is a disparaging comment? It's not. It's basically saying "Keep on keepin' on." or "Rock on." or something like that.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
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One Love
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| Posted 2/13/2009 9:49 AM (GMT -6) | | D: The bottom line is that the perfect happiness relativizes things such that NO one feels more or less "satisfied" than any one else.
T: Everybody IS satiated. Yes. That's my view. NO ONE can know what their sense of satiation is compared to anyone else. So it's meaningless to say no one feels "more satiated than" any one else. If I can't feel how satiation feels to you, I can't know I'm any more or less satiated. But we can all know that each of us is as satiated AS WE CAN BE.
D: This would be like unto saying that every individual has an unsurpassable level of satisfaction in their relationship to God and all others.
T: Unsurpassable given their capacity. Right.
Ok, then. If this is the case, then we have a way to say that the rewards, ACTUAL AS THEY ARE, are relatively meaningless to them JUST LIKE the beautiful experience that God gets from Creation (contingent expression), ACTUAL AS IT IS, is relatively meaningless to him, in relation to God's aesthetic satisfaction in God's self-relating. It fits all the way down.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
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Similitude
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| Posted 2/13/2009 10:47 PM (GMT -6) | | | Tom: Like Jeff said, we get rewards up front to party with for a while, but as soon as we start progressing in God, rewards are put out on the curb to be picked up. Rewards are just Horse-de-oeuvres to the main meal. Some get them. Some don't. Some get little Horse-de-oeuvres while others get fancy better tasting Horse-de-oeuvres. But everybody sits down to the same main dish, and eventually forgets the Horse-de-oeuvres anyhow.
Jeff: Sounds to me like you're calling the main dish, by which I'm guessing you mean the true eternal state, a reward. I'm not. As I hypothesize it, rewards are temporal because we REIGN with Christ because we SUFFER with him. And if Christ HIMSELF delivers the kingdom to God the Father, then it seems that there is even a TEMPORAL aspect to that glory which was set before Christ HIMSELF. IOW, once all temporal ends are attained, what wonder there is thereafter may just be the wonder entailed in being creatures loved by their Creator. I don't see the problem. I'm agreeing with you that the reward has to mean something truely distinctive. But if rewards for wrong-relating are finite in duration, why can't rewards for suffering for righteousness sake be finite in duration?
Post Edited (Similtude) : 2/13/2009 9:50:18 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 2/14/2009 12:26 AM (GMT -6) | | Corey: My understanding of “rewards” is that those who lived faithfully will eternally have more to praise God over. The stories of faith are jewels that will ongoingly delight the Lord as their recitation provides occasion for praise and glory. Those that did not live faithfully simply will not be able to praise in this way.
D: Yeppers.
Tom: I like that Corey. But D, are you sure you’re OK with this? God gets MORE pleasure from Mother Teresa than he does from Hitler? You see that, right? If God joys over and is pleased in our praise, if having us praise and bless God for specific victories is part of why God creates us, then there’s more of that for God in Mother Teresa than in Hitler. In terms of that for which we were created, God's experience of Mother Teresa is richer (and thus more pleasing) than God's experience of Hitler, or Satan. This doesn’t get relativized away by divine aseity. We’re talking now from within the horizon of those ways in which we’ve agreed God has allowed us to be meaningful to him. And rewards is one of those ways.
Jeff, I can agree with you on ‘reigning with Christ’. Revelation says, for example, that those who are martyred will reign with Christ for a thousand years, which means their reigning ends when that time period ends. Yeah, I see that. But not all rewards are ‘reigning’ rewards for suffering. I was just thinking, for example, of a passage in Revelation that describes a “new name” given by God to some, a name known only to God and the one to whom he gives the name. That hardly suggests a temporary enjoyment. Looks more like a permanent, discriminatory, and abiding blessing integral to one’s very identity (the biblical significance of ‘naming’ has to do with determining one’s identity).
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One Love
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| Posted 2/14/2009 12:42 AM (GMT -6) | | Corey: My understanding of “rewards” is that those who lived faithfully will eternally have more to praise God over. The stories of faith are jewels that will ongoingly delight the Lord as their recitation provides occasion for praise and glory. Those that did not live faithfully simply will not be able to praise in this way.
D: Yeppers.
Tom: I like that Corey. But D, are you sure you’re OK with this? God gets MORE pleasure from Mother Teresa than he does from Hitler? You see that, right? If God joys over and is pleased in our praise, if having us praise and bless God for specific victories is part of why God creates us, then there’s more of that for God in Mother Teresa than in Hitler. In terms of that for which we were created, God's experience of Mother Teresa is richer (and thus more pleasing) than God's experience of Hitler, or Satan. This doesn’t get relativized away by divine aseity. We’re talking now from within the horizon of those ways in which we’ve agreed God has allowed us to be meaningful to him. And rewards is one of those ways.
Um...so, the beautiful experience that is "relatively meaningless" to God (God's experience of Creation) can be multiplied by our "acts of faith" or diminished by the lack thereof? The Holy Spirit has different interpretations on the lives of people in Creation that contributes different amounts of beautiful contingent expressive experience for God, but NOTHING to God's essential existential experience? Ok. I got no problem with this. None at all.
Does this solve your issues or what, Tom? I think it should. You have the eternally significant ramifications from human persons upon the experience of God that deal directly with "rewards" and "losses". Problem solved, right?
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life." Post Edited (One Love) : 2/13/2009 11:52:56 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 2/14/2009 10:34 AM (GMT -6) | | | Tom, I still can see how the new name thang can be temporary. Jesus himself received a new name. It is a name above every name. But in one sense, his identity has not changed. What has changed is that he OBTAINED all authority over heavens and earth. He BECAME a quickening Spirit. All kinds of becoming happened and will continue to happen with Christ, even. But he still EVENTUALLY delivers the kingdom back to the Father that the Father may be ALL in ALL. If we can get ONE new name, why not more? As changes in future conditions warrant another change of name?
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One Love
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| Posted 2/14/2009 11:11 AM (GMT -6) | | D: Um...so, the beautiful experience that is "relatively meaningless" to God (God's experience of Creation) can be multiplied by our "acts of faith" or diminished by the lack thereof?
Tom: Relatively meaningFUL, D. To be relatively meaningless is to be meaingless relative to some X and meaningFUL relative to some Y. We're meaningless to God in one sense but meaningful go God in another. I'm talking about the sense in which we're meaningFUL to God. You agree, but you keep calling it relative meaninglessness instead of what it is, meaningFULness relative to God's experience of creation. Maybe different emphases. You want to keep reminding us we're meaningless relative to God's experience of Godself. I got that. I'm elsewhere now. I'd like to know what rewards have to do with the ways in which we can and do mean something to God (and ourselves).
It is a matter of emphases, which is pretty consistent with how our whole dynamic has been. You focus on the relatively meaningFULness of Creation (being God's free choice to enter into relationship with created existence). I focus on the relatively meaningLESSness of Creation (being God's "otherness" from the no-thingness that grounds the being of created existence [creatio ex nihilo] )...but it's still the same reality.
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D: The Holy Spirit has different interpretations on the lives of people in Creation that contribute different amounts of beautiful contingent expressive experience for God, but NOTHING to God's essential existential experience? OK. I got no problem with this. None at all.
Tom: Cool. I thought you did have problems with this. Our contributing different amounts of beautiful experience to God and each other is where I've tried to posit rewards. If you got no problem, great.
D: You have the eternally significant ramifications from human persons upon the experience of God that deal directly with "rewards" and "losses."
Tom: OK.
D: Problem solved, right?
Tom: Well, I'm glad we pinpointed an important agreement. That's cool. We could both be wrong of course, but it's nice to agree.
Alright. So now what?
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life." Post Edited (One Love) : 2/14/2009 10:21:11 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 2/14/2009 11:38 AM (GMT -6) | | D: Alright. So now what?
T: We move on to a new controversial issue! What's next?
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One Love
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| Posted 2/14/2009 10:22 PM (GMT -6) | | What's next, indeed.
I got it.
Let's talk about the nature of the Eucharist (Communion) and it's link with deification (theosis).
Memorialism or Christ's Real Presence?
Just a thought.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life." Post Edited (One Love) : 2/14/2009 9:26:11 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 2/15/2009 1:56 AM (GMT -6) | | Ugh. That one would wear me out. We've done it SO many times.
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By the way, I never understood where you were on the pacifism thing. Since your mystical turn. Are you with Greg on that now?
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
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| Posted 2/15/2009 8:04 AM (GMT -6) | | D: Let's talk about the nature of the Eucharist (Communion) and it's link with deification (theosis). Memorialism or Christ's Real Presence?
C: Both/And.
Then again, isn't Christ's Real Presence even here, even now -- in the mundane lives of believers?
Maybe they should say, "Christ's Real-special Presence" and argue that he's more present in the Eucharist, or something. But that doesn't make any sense, does it, unless you want to argue for a two-storey view.
So then if Christ's Real Presence is not unique to the Eucharist, what makes it special is the meaning of the event: we do this "in remembrance of me."
Just pokin' a stick in the hive... Post Edited (Corey) : 2/15/2009 8:56:17 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
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Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 2/15/2009 8:18 AM (GMT -6) | | | Anyway, back to this thread and this topic of rewards for a minute. I'm thinking about this language "as one who escapes through fire". Not so much made it through, right, compared to the faithful follower? But maybe the metaphor should be understood as referring to how much of one's "self" endures into the eschaton (i.e. not only their deeds in this life, but their actual being); there will remain a qualitative and quantitative difference. I'm thinking the "self" is more than merely our dispositional center, it also entails our dispositional history (actuality) and our dispositional potential (possibility). I'm speculating that the "self" that Hitler is will eternally be relatively less than the "self" that Mother Teresa is.
Actually, I think this is quite consistent with SK. If you don't intentionally dispose possibility and actuality, you're qualitatively and quantitatively less of a self.
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There's a memorable word-picture from our last SK reading that describes this. Pegasus (representing possibility) and an old nag (representing actuality) are yoked together to pull a wagon. Now, is the driver properly in the driver's seat, or he passed out as a drunk in the back? Post Edited (Corey) : 2/15/2009 8:55:13 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 2/15/2009 9:45 AM (GMT -6) | | On the Eucharist, Corey…
Mmwwaahahahahah! Yes. It is both/and. Liked your comments and questions.
Then…
C: I'm thinking about this language “as one who escapes through fire.” Not so much made it through, right, compared to the faithful follower? But maybe the metaphor should be understood as referring to how much of one's "self" endures into the eschaton (i.e. not only their deeds in this life, but their actual being); there will remain a qualitative and quantitative difference. I'm thinking the "self" is more than merely our dispositional center as SK and Loder envision, it also entails our dispositional history. I'm speculating that the "self" that Hitler is will eternally be relatively less than the "self" that Mother Teresa is.
T: I completely see your point.
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One Love
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| Posted 2/15/2009 10:07 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
By the way, I never understood where you were on the pacifism thing. Since your mystical turn. Are you with Greg on that now?
This is my thought: Any time that we make any decision without 1) directly and immediately involving God's Holy Spirit's Presence and previous working and 2) grounding every motive in and checking every motive for unconditional loving service for God, neighbor, and self, that decision will, to that degree, be the "wrong" decision.
My thought.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
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One Love
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| Posted 2/15/2009 10:10 AM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
Anyway, back to this thread and this topic of rewards for a minute. I'm thinking about this language "as one who escapes through fire". Not so much made it through, right, compared to the faithful follower? But maybe the metaphor should be understood as referring to how much of one's "self" endures into the eschaton (i.e. not only their deeds in this life, but their actual being); there will remain a qualitative and quantitative difference. I'm thinking the "self" is more than merely our dispositional center, it also entails our dispositional history (actuality) and our dispositional potential (possibility). I'm speculating that the "self" that Hitler is will eternally be relatively less than the "self" that Mother Teresa is.
Actually, I think this is quite consistent with SK. If you don't intentionally dispose possibility and actuality, you're qualitatively and quantitatively less of a self.
Hey, since we're talking SK, you know that he felt that the Devil was the perfect example of the despair of defiance. Questions:
1) Was Satan a "self" to SK?
2) It would seem, by your logic, that Satan would have the most impaired "self" of all...he will have the "least self". What does that look like to you?
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 2/15/2009 10:26 AM (GMT -6) | | Of course, as you know, "self" is used in various ways by SK. The self is not just the "third" -- the dispositional center -- but whole package: from the earlier illustration, it's the two horses plus the driver, all arranged in a particular configuration and oriented for a particular task.
So yes, Satan was a self. He wasn't a "negative third" ... the drunk along for the ride in the back of the wagon. No, he was in the driver's seat, but intentionally driving the wrong way, and without the epistemic distance that might leave room for "forgive him, for he knows not what he does." His defiance was maximal.
And yes, the overall self, the whole package (with emphasis on the particular Actuality that is uniquely his, and Possibility thus entailed), that would endure the flames of judgment would likely be the "least self". Eternally, he will not have -- both qualitatively and quantitatively -- the sort of stories of faith to offer up in his worship of God. He won't be able to "cast crowns" as, say, the 24 elders do. Post Edited (Corey) : 2/15/2009 9:56:12 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 2/15/2009 3:20 PM (GMT -6) | | D: This is my thought: Any time that we make any decision without 1) directly and immediately involving God's Holy Spirit's Presence and previous working and 2) grounding every motive in and checking every motive for unconditional loving service for God, neighbor, and self, that decision will, to that degree, be the "wrong" decision.
T: Don’t wanna get off onto pacifism way over here. But more to the point, let me ask it this way while I got you here:
Can you imagine any situation in which our choosing to employ violence would be consistent with both your (1) and (2)?
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Tom
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| Posted 2/16/2009 12:32 AM (GMT -6) | | D, where in the Bible do you get the idea that we're to be one "in body" with Jesus?
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