D, it seems to me that definitive of God’s thoughts is the determination of those thoughts by the God whose thoughts they are. That is, what makes God’s thoughts the thoughts OF God is that those thoughts are expressive of divine agency. They dispose the divine nature. God's "thinking" is God’s determination of God's self, ontologically speaking. Where ELSE do we locate the quintessential act of divine self-determination? Right.

I don’t think WE get to determine THAT for God. But that’s what you essentially have with a theistic idealism that posits creaturely freedom. If we are merely thoughts God is having and maintaining, how is it we are self-determining? If we are self-determining in any respect, then it seems to follow that God is not determining us in that respect. But that means then that God is having thoughts that God is not determining or God is having thoughts which are not the disposing of God’s nature. That sounds meaningless to me.

T

Post Edited (One Love) : 1/25/2009 9:00:24 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Tom) : 1/25/2009 10:19:24 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Tom) : 1/25/2009 10:42:05 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (One Love) : 1/25/2009 11:41:18 AM (GMT-6)

I thought about that too...with Greg's recent sermon on annihilationism.  Greg's must have moved away from his former position from SATPOE on the inherent eternality of the human soul.

Post Edited (One Love) : 1/25/2009 11:48:07 AM (GMT-6)

This completely goes against the idea that "immortality" and "indestructibility" are ONLY in God...and promotes the despairing falsehood that eternity lies naturally in human existence.  It doesn't.

Post Edited (Tom) : 1/26/2009 4:50:59 AM (GMT-6)

D: My point is not that God if God were to cease to exist, Creation would continue on without God. Greg would never believe that God could cease to exist anyways.

T: Right. So…

D: He DID (does?) believe that immortality and indestructibility became INNATE to human beings because of the way God created them initially. That's the error, Tom...and it's a significant one. It's surprising to me that you don't see the ramifications, positing the inherent eternality of the soul, that is.

T: If “inherent” means “independently immortal” (i.e., able to live forever irrespective of God’s sustaining grace and presence), then yeah, that’s pretty objectionable.

But if we all agree that the soul would cease to exist if (theoretically) God ceased to exist, then it’s obvious that nobody thinks souls are inherently immortal in this sense. The innate (if we’re gonna use the word “innate”) immortality of the soul can only refer to God’s irrevocable commit to sustain the soul’s existence. The soul’s immortality can’t be grounded in any creaturely attribute or choice. It can only be grounded in the continued will of God in grace to sustain it. If somebody wants to say, “No, the immortality of the soul doesn’t depend upon God; immorality inheres in human nature irrespective of divine action” then why would they also agree that the soul would cease to exist should God cease to exist? Conceding the latter is possible only because EVERYTHING about human being—innate to us or not—depends upon God’s sustaining grace.

[Just got a note from Greg. He won’t mind:

I never denied the necessity of ongoing creation, nor would the argument for irrevocable immortality on the basis of the principle of proportionality require me to. It’s not “inherent immortality” but “IRREVOCABLE” immortality. In any event, I put it forth as a possibility in SATPOE...]

Does that help? Are you OK with “irrevocable immortality”? You have to be. As a proponent of UR you HAVE to believe it! Ha!

It’s like this. Do you think there are ANY innate or inherent attributes or qualities of human being? Any at all? Sure you do. But you also believe those qualities depend upon the same sustaining grace and presence of God, right? Well, there ya go. You believe in something “innate” to us but which also depends for its continued existence upon God. But you still use the word “innate.” Why can’t the immortality of human being reflect the same thing? It doesn’t have to involve a denial of this continued dependence upon God. If somebody makes that mistake, I’ll be the first one to slam dunk ‘em. But I don’t think there are many around who believe that “innate” immorality = an immorality independent of God’s sustaining grace.

Look, you don’t doubt that God is free to decide to sustain the human soul under any circumstances he wants? Right? In fact, you and I both believe God HAS decided to sustain the human soul come hell or high water. We both believe as firmly as we can that in creating, God freely committed irrevocably to sustain our existence eternally. That just IS God’s decision to create. Now, I can see how somebody would take THIS view as positing the innate immorality of soul too. But it’s only innate or inherent in the sense that God freely and graciously—but irrevocably—commits to embrace us at the deepest level of our being and THERE refuses to ever let us go; so, innate in the sense that the dependency upon the sustaining presence you’re insisting on will, by God’s free choice, endure forever for everyone. Innate roughly implies irrevocable here. I’m fine with someone using “innate” to describe this enduring quality of human being. It means this grace is irrevocably linked to creaturely existence. If not “innate,” what do you want to call it? Of course, if somebody thinks “innate” entails the idea that our existence is possible independent of God’s gracious presence, then I’d disagree. That’s nutso.

------------------------

D: But I don't fully understand what the question even means? Seriously. That God cannot have “thoughts” that are ontologically “non-divine” in nature? The Incarnation shows us that.

T: I’ll try it this way.

What determines the nature of one’s thoughts? It would be the nature of the thinker. Thoughts dispose/reflect/express the thinker. That’s my point. God’s thought are divine, no? Of course they are. And definitive of God’s thoughts is the determination of those thoughts by the God whose thoughts they are. That is, what makes God’s thoughts the thoughts OF God is that those thoughts are expressive of God’s agency and identity. God’s thoughts dispose the divine nature. God’s “thinking” is God’s determination of God's self, ontologically speaking. Where ELSE do we locate the quintessential act of divine self-determination if not in the perceptions and thoughts of God?

Well, YOU’RE the one saying all created entities are “thoughts God is thinking.” You do the math.

D: What does this question mean? What are you trying to get at with this question?

T: I’m trying to explain the difficulty I’m having with the idea that we’re all just thoughts God is thinking. My difficulty, again, is that we are non-divine, freely determining agents. But for you these very descriptions of us are just attributes of “thoughts God is thinking.” But if that’s all we are, we would then HAVE to add as attributes of ourselves any attributes definitive of God’s very thoughts (since thoughts of God is all we are) and visa versa. Any attribute qualifying creaturely existence would become an attribute of God since any attribute of a thought of God is an attribute of God, and 'thoughts' of God is all we are.

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 1/26/2009 10:18:00 AM (GMT-6)

Remember, Tom.  In SATPOE, Greg argues that eternal created existence in solidified evil is possible and actual BECAUSE OF the metaphysical requirements.  It didn't have to do with "grace."

Greg's whole thing about eternal torment in SATPOE is based on the idea of an "innate immortality" and "inherent immortality" (both phrases are his words) based on the idea that God HAD to make beings with the built-in capacity of eternal existence in "das Nichtige" in order to make any beings with the capacity of eternal existence in God.  Like two sides of the same coin.  This had less to do with the way God chooses to relate to the human soul, more than how human beings were initially designed.  Remember...Greg proposed this whole thing because of the Revelation 20 stuff. (tortured forever and ever) He didn't put full stock in this idea...but felt like because of Revelation, he had to.  He believed that the reason that God HAD to tolerate beings that were totally solidified against God was because of the way they were created originally, NOT because God WANTED to hold them in existence by some free commitment.  Greg never says that.  It was a METAPHYSICAL limitation on God because of the creatures God wanted, Greg said.  Otherwise, God would have just annihilated them when they became totally solidified in evil. In other words, Greg was saying that God had a metaphysical inability to put them out of existence, not some free yet "irrevocable" decision.

Post Edited (One Love) : 1/26/2009 2:41:16 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Tom) : 1/27/2009 7:14:24 AM (GMT-6)

All of us have to live within the constraints of our sense perceptions and intuitions (freedom, choices, consequences, etc.). Whatever might be the actual nature of the created world (idealist or not), in the end it doesn’t change this reality. We all—idealists and non-idealists—live, choose and relate in the same manner and under the same rules (i.e., cause and effect, freedom of choice, responsibility, relationship, truth/falsehood, perceived temporality, the concrete/abstract distinction, the possibility/actuality distinction, etc.). It is this lived experience with which we must do and that we have to manage given the categories that govern it.

In my view, the skills necessary to managing our experience successfully (freely, responsibly, lovingly, etc.) are unrelated to one’s either knowing about, or having any firm convictions regarding, the truth/falsity of idealism. The required skills are instead evident and learned within the lived world of our sense perceptions (physical and intuitional/spiritual) with all the diversities of appearance and distinctions between objects that ground their place and meaningfulness in our experience.

So we’re having a particular experience from which we cannot escape governed by categories and rules we cannot avoid or deny and thus have to presuppose the real distinctions between us and others, our choices and the choices of others, the predictable movements of bodies and consequences for actions, etc. Now, if all this manifold of experience with its laws and diversity of appearances in actuality reduces to mere spiritual/mental properties of the mind of God, it ultimately doesn’t matter to the ‘way’ we have to live. And it seems to me that God is interested in the ‘way’ of our living in THAT world, the success with which we engage our experience under the categories entailed in the very experiences we have.

This is why I’m having trouble getting motivated to conclude the truth of the matter regarding idealism. What I DO want to agree to however is that we’re utterly dependent for our existence, meaning, and identity upon God’s gracious sustaining will (because that belief directly affects how well we manage our experience). THAT makes a difference to our living. But idealists and non-idealists can equally affirm this dependency. In light of that, D, tell me what you think is at stake in this debate? Are YOU unable to affirm this dependency apart from idealism? Why? What do YOU get from idealism that makes possible a way of living for God in the world that’s not possible for you apart from idealism? I'm asking because I get the impression that affirming your dependency upon God is part of WHY you're an idealist. Maybe I'm wrong.

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 1/28/2009 7:28:07 AM (GMT-6)