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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/18/2009 5:32 AM (GMT -6) |   | D: I'm NOT dismissing the God of Scripture.
T: But you are! Ha.
D: I'm saying that the God of Scripture commands unconditionality of love.
T: That's what I'M saying, i.e., the GOD OF SCRIPTURE (of the Cross, of love, of character, of faithfulness, of truth, of selflessness, etc.). THAT GOD is the God we are to love unconditionally.
BUT you want to go on and, based on the Bible's command that we are to love God, say that the command holds FOR OTHER KINDS OF GODS, Gods NOT revealed in the Bible (like a God who is not love, who is not truth, who is selfish, who has no character, who is not light and in whom there is much darkness). You're saying even if we discovered God was THIS KIND OF GOD, the BIBLE commands us to love him.
The BIBLE commands no such thing.
T
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas Berdyaev | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/18/2009 5:50 AM (GMT -6) | | Let's go from your prayer to God, Tom...
God have mercy on me if I've selfishly wanted UR to be true. Forgive me for wanting it to be true that you really are more loving and patient and capable than I can imagine. I humbly admit that I could be wrong about THAT too. You might not be more loving than I can imagine, because my imagination is as sinful as anything about me. I can't trust myself. Piper might be right. Open theism might be heresy. God you know. I'm sorry for caring about any of this. If UR is wrong, I'm sorry for thinking it was true. If it's wrong, please forgive me for not wanting to give up the joy and beauty of its vision. For if it's false, then it's also ugly in a way I can't see, for you know Lord that all I see is the sheer beauty of everything won back and secure in your loving embrace. Help me see its ugliness Lord. Help me find that joy in contemplating the eternal annihilation of those you love, or some other option, or no option at all. Help me Father. I'm lost without you.
Now, I'm assuming that you meant this. Ok. Let's say you find out the UR isn't true. Does your love for Jesus become CONDITIONED by that? Would you want your love for the Risen Christ to be conditioned by that? Not if you believed your prayer. You would want God to help you see things His way so that you could continue relating to God in love, right?
"Creation is allowed in intimate love to speak to the Creator as if to a lover. As the Creator loves the creation, so the creation loves the Creator. The whole world has been embraced by this kiss."
Hildegard of Bingen
Know me, Eternal Lover...and help me to know You... Post Edited (One Love) : 11/18/2009 4:55:53 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/18/2009 6:08 AM (GMT -6) | | D: Now, I'm assuming that you meant this. Ok. Let's say you find out the UR isn't true. Does your love for Jesus become CONDITIONED by that? Would you want your love for the Risen Christ to be conditioned by that? Not if you believed your prayer. You would want God to help you see things His way so that you could continue relating to God in love, right?
T: Right. But D, the adjustments are all within the broad scope of what we're even capable of seeing as love. Annihilation, yeah. I can see that. It's possible. I can humbly admit within the scope of my finite understanding annihilation could turn out to be the BEST MOST LOVING thing I can imagine. But not all imagined scenarios can sustain a definition of LOVE. And the Scritpure that says God commands us to love him also insists that GOD IS LOVE.
I REPEAT: You want to maintain this command as inviolable in EVERY conceivable scenario, INCLUDING that in which God is NOT LOVE.
So there are limits. If I found out that those who repent go to hell and those to despise God are rewarded in heaven, that God doesn't love everybody, that he hates people like Mother Teresa who serves orphans and loves child-abuse, then I could not, GIVEN MY FUNDAMENTAL MAKE-UP, LOVE God. And given that make up I wouldn't be interested in loving THAT KIND OF GOD.
Now, if God is a child-abusing hateful spiteful insecure selfish thing BUT HAS ALL POWER, then I suppose he'll THEN rewire me so that I'll be a jacked up as he is and I'll OBEY him and lick his boots. But I won't LOVE him. Nobody will love. THere will literally be nooooo looooove in the universe. Do you get this D? If God isn't love, there IS NO LOVE, period. So you're LOVING a God who isn't love is an irrational illusion.
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 11/18/2009 5:18:50 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/18/2009 6:15 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
D: Now, I'm assuming that you meant this. Ok. Let's say you find out the UR isn't true. Does your love for Jesus become CONDITIONED by that? Would you want your love for the Risen Christ to be conditioned by that? Not if you believed your prayer. You would want God to help you see things His way so that you could continue relating to God in love, right?
T: Right. But D, the adjustments are all within the broad scope of what we're even capable of seeing as love. Annihilation, yeah. I can see that. It's possible. I can humbly admit within the scope of my finite understand I'll need to make some adjustments, and annihilation will turn out to be the BEST MOST LOVING thing I can imagine.
But there are limits.
How about ECT? This prayer allows for that, too, right?
Help me find that joy in contemplating the eternal annihilation of those you love, or some other option, or no option at all.
"Creation is allowed in intimate love to speak to the Creator as if to a lover. As the Creator loves the creation, so the creation loves the Creator. The whole world has been embraced by this kiss."
Hildegard of Bingen
Know me, Eternal Lover...and help me to know You... Post Edited (One Love) : 11/18/2009 5:19:06 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/18/2009 6:25 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
You tell me, D. You wake up on the other side and find out God is hate, God hates you, God hates people like Mother Teresa and instead rewards with heavenly bless all the unrepentance Hitlers of the world. God says to you, "I hate you. You disgust me. And even the command in the Bible that says, 'You shall love the Lord your God' is a freak joke. I don't give a rip what the hell you do. Go to hell!"
You're telling me that in THIS situation you were OBEY THE BIBLE and truly LOVE and WORHSIP God?
I'd be like "I choose to keep loving you. Loving is who I am now. So, send me where you will, Creator."
I mean, if God was a psychopathic liar...everything would be absurd anyways. Why not love?
"Creation is allowed in intimate love to speak to the Creator as if to a lover. As the Creator loves the creation, so the creation loves the Creator. The whole world has been embraced by this kiss."
Hildegard of Bingen
Know me, Eternal Lover...and help me to know You... Post Edited (One Love) : 11/18/2009 5:32:35 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/18/2009 6:29 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I don't know how ECT got into this conversation dude.
This whole "What does it mean for a human being to love God without any conditions?" tangent started from Asher's post which included...
Will you look back on the longsuffering love idea that you once held and see it as something less than what love turns out to be, that of a love that can torment?
I have real problems with it. To say God is love...and then to say that love tortures...because that's all ECT amounts to...and it is not even ambiguous like uses of state torture to gain information...there is no purpose to it except for the torment. At a minimum I think this has to push one toward the idea of annihilation.
"Creation is allowed in intimate love to speak to the Creator as if to a lover. As the Creator loves the creation, so the creation loves the Creator. The whole world has been embraced by this kiss."
Hildegard of Bingen
Know me, Eternal Lover...and help me to know You... | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/18/2009 6:46 AM (GMT -6) | | | Plus you've now reduced yourself to saying that your choice to love is made apart from the grace of God. If you admit the possibility that God may prove to be 'unlove' and you choose in the face of this to love nevertheless, then your love would be self-generated apart from the gracious presence and empowerment of God. Your love would be self-existent, a denial of your entire metaphysics.
Give it up dude.
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 11/18/2009 5:49:32 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/18/2009 7:05 AM (GMT -6) | | D: Given my metaphysics, without God's presence and empowerment, I would not exist at all. So ANY thing I'd be able to do would be because of God's presence and empowerment on some level, even if ECT obtained...
T: Forget ECT. Let's stick with MY example of conditions (since you say your love of God is unconditional). God is UNLOVE. God is hate. GOd hates you and you disgust him. God now commands you to abuse little babies. God NOW command you NOT to love him.
THIS GOD is now the presence which grounds your existence. ANY thing you're able to do would be because of the presence of THIS God.
WHO in this world would be the METAPHYSICAL ground of love? Would YOU be the ground of love in the universe? Would YOU self-gerate as LOVE? God wouldn't be the ground of love. God is hate. God is evil. Love would now be the privation of being since the necessarily existing God would be a lying cheating filthy womanizing slime bucket. But--rats--he got the power. He's the creator! So God now changes his mind and commands you to hate him.
He's your Creator now. What are you going to go? Earlier you said that AS CREATOR you owed him the obligation of obedience. NOW you're saying you'd disobey him.
You're the one insisting that this world be admitted into the scope of possible conditions under which we MUST admit we ought to still love God...and you do so on the basis of the command OF THIS GOD.
T
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 11/18/2009 6:11:22 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/18/2009 7:10 AM (GMT -6) | | Dude, either you think such a world is possible (and if so you'd choose to love God in that world) or you don't.
I don't think it's a possible world. So I won't admit that IF it became true I'd continue to love God. That's as ridiculous a thing as I can imagine.
YOU are insisting that loving God unconditionally means saying we'd love God in such a world.
Do you still think it's a possible world? If not, then what could it possibly mean to say you'd love God in it? It's like saying you'd love married bachelors.
It take ECT to as impossible a world as this one. So to ask me whether I'd love God if I found out ECT was true is like asking me if I'd be willing to love a married bachelor. I literally don't understand the question. Literally.
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 11/18/2009 6:14:53 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/18/2009 7:16 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Dude, either you think such a world is possible (and if so you'd choose to love God in that world) or you don't.
I don't think it's a possible world. So I won't admit that IF it became true I'd continue to love God. That's as ridiculous a thing as I can imagine.
YOU are insisting that loving God unconditionally means saying we'd love God in such a world, that this world must figure positively into the conditions in which we'd choose to still love God.
It's your world. Do you still think it's a possible world?
I don't believe that the "God AS Satan" view you've been talking about, Tom, is possible. I'm willing to say that ECT is a "implausible possibility"...and if that possibility came about, I'd still love God...unconditionally. I wouldn't stop loving Jesus is ECT or annihilationism somehow turned out to be true.
Ah...but that's it. You and Asher can no longer admit the possibility of ECT. I can understand that.
"Creation is allowed in intimate love to speak to the Creator as if to a lover. As the Creator loves the creation, so the creation loves the Creator. The whole world has been embraced by this kiss."
Hildegard of Bingen
Know me, Eternal Lover...and help me to know You... Post Edited (One Love) : 11/18/2009 6:21:23 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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