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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/18/2009 7:28 AM (GMT -6) |   | D: I don't believe that the "God AS Satan" view you've been talking about, Tom, is possible.
T: Good. So you also don't believe that you're deciding to love such a God anyhow is possible, though you imagined it so.
D: 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.
T: To say ECT is 'possible' is to say it's compatible with what we believe to be true about God. We don't want to generate contradictions by saying ECT is possible. So it's not about ECT. It's about God. Given what I believe about God, I cannot SEE the possibility of ECT.
BUT I will admit a different sort of possibility, and that's the possibility that I don't understand GOD, that God may be Piper's God, NOT an unsurpassable loving sociality, i.e., as Piper and Sproul and Don Carson all claim--"God is love" just means God sometimes loves, and that when he loves he's being consistent with his nature. But it doesn't mean God loves all, or unfailingly. God also hates, just because he's free to do so (Esau/Jacob per deterministic election).
I'm finite. I could be wrong about allllllllllll this. Piper could be right.
I'll lump ECT's possibility in there with the SAME sense in which I'd admit theological determinism is possible.
Satisfied?
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 6:57:50 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 11/18/2009 7:56 AM (GMT -6) | | Is my memory correct that Hebrews says it it appointed to man to face the judgment and then DIE? If so, then death is not the same thing as judgment for works. Even Revelation talks of TWO books. One of life and another for works. Thus, there is something about work-judgment that seems to be necessarily finite even per scripture. Death terminates EVEN THAT (the second death, in the case of unbelievers, etc). But ressurection from the dead happens. Thus, it can happen from a second death for all we can tell from texts, per se.
Thus, UR is consistent with the very straight-forward reading of the language. So then it gets to this: why would we choose, from multiple logical possibilities, any other view than the most benevolent one? I can't think of a good reason.
Indeed, Porter would say that we make inferences unto interpretations that are maximally rational (inductive) AND maximally benevolent. But I contend that rational ends are just a subset of benevolent ends. Everything we believe is, in some sense, grounded in what seems to be most VALUABLE to us. It's just that there's no way to remain logically consistent in that approach without giving induction and deduction (and the categorical relations that ground them) it's due place in our inferences.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 11/18/2009 7:02:13 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 11/18/2009 8:09 AM (GMT -6) | | | the wages of sin id DEATH. the wages of works is justice.
But let me be clear about that. As D. has argued, it's not that we DESERVE accountability in some fundamental sense independent of love. It's that God is love and therefore motivates in a way that is maximally understandable to analogically-inferring beings. Thus, the most plausible way God would motivate one to love another as oneself is by justice. That's the epitome of analogical thought applied to motivation. That's why virtually all people claim to be for it when they're not on the winning side of an unjust SOFA. That's why even most people advocating injustice CALL it justice. It would be ignored otherwise.
So when we talk about what people deserve, we're really saying that God motivates unto loving action BECAUSE He is loving, and He does so in the most readily discernable way for our epistemological nature BECAUSE He is loving.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 11/18/2009 7:14:44 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 11/18/2009 9:48 AM (GMT -6) | | T: I think it’s locked from the inside and that our unlocking it is always within reach. So, not irrevocably locked.
C: My take is still a little different, mostly driven by things like the "last penny" parable and other passages. I think there's a different mode of relating coming in the judgment. The sentance will be imposed, not self-chosen from the inside. People will weep and gnash teeth wanting "out", but they can't. They'll want to traverse the gulf, but they can't. We can either willingly and freely repent now, or unwillingly face the imposed remedy later.
My picture of the sort of faith that is required to escape that hell is a suicide of sorts. A total dying to self. A disposition that hopes in faith in the love of God (faith, hope, love abide!) that even now God can and will resurrect me when I die this second death. You don't get out through the same door you came in.
Post Edited (Corey) : 11/18/2009 8:58:17 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 11:30 AM (GMT -6) | | I like it. Basically, NO ONE can see God without self-denying or "death to self." Given God's kenotic nature, I think that makes sense.
"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 2:42:37 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/18/2009 3:45 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey, thought, y'all.
Remember how the Scripture says that Jesus was PERFECTED by his suffering?
We do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Was this part of his "death to self" process? I'd say yep. So would Marcus Borg. (Jesus: A New Vision) GOTTA get y'all his quote on Jesus and the "death to self" he displayed!
NO creaturely being can see God without "dying". Not even the Incarnate Son, who was fully human. And Jesus exemplied "death to self" for the sake of God in every way...for ALL to follow. Obedient unto death...and all that.
Ha! 
"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 3:09:47 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/18/2009 3:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Forget it...I'll type it out. It's way worth it. Straight bomb. 
It's called "The Way of Death" Yeeeeaaaah...
"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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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/18/2009 4:44 PM (GMT -6) | | "Repentance did not mean primarily remorse or regret for sin, but a radical turning to God, that is, a radical centering in God. To become as a servant meant to become as a "slave," that is, a person who had no will of his or her own, but only the will of the master; one could be a slave of either God or "mammon." The paradoxical sayings about humbling/exalting (Luke 14:11, 18:14b; Matthew 18:4, 23:12 and first/last (Mark 10:31, Matthew 19:30 and 20:16, Luke 13:30) have a similar thrust. To be humble meant to be "empty" of internal possessions and therefore able to be filled with God; those who put themselves first shall be last, and vice-versa. Similarly, the images of becoming as a child and being born anew are frequent and natural images for the new life that flows out of the path of dying; one becoms a new person with a new heart centered in God, and not in self or culture."
Marcus Borg
Jesus: A New Vision--Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship
Page 122 (All italics Borg)
Sound like "freedom from biological hypostasis" to you, Tom? 
"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
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/19/2009 10:36 AM (GMT -6) | | D: 1) Don't forget that the 2nd Person of the Trinity took on FALLEN human nature, which was why is was capable of the physical and psychological struggles that we have. I have a Ware quote if ya want. He was like us in all ways, yet without sin.
T: If without sin, then not sinFUL. In what sense was his human nature sinful?
D: So, the self-death thing would apply there anyway.
T: Gosh. ANOTHER disagreement! Arghghgh. I can't take it. Haha!
D: 2)You can't separate Calvary from Gethsemane...or the Wilderness. In other words, it was the "daily dying" that Jesus did before his Father's Will that ALLOWED for the freely chosen physical and spiritual death that...
T: Dude, are we talking what the TEXT says and means of theologizing outside the text? Sure, in order for Jesus to DIE on the cross as our savior he had to live the LIFE of a savior (so he could GET to the cross). That doesn't mean that everything we say about the death on the cross is being equally said about the life leading up to it.
D: He endures on the Cross. Jesus wouldn't have told us to do something that he wasn't doing, right?
T: Sure: "Go and sin no more." Ceasing sinful behavior wasn't something Jesus did. But he commanded it.
D: So when he tells us to die daily, I'm betting he's the human exemplification of what that means.
T: No doubt Jesus had to face temptation and make choices, struggle, suffer in saying no to even adopting a false self, etc. THAT'S different that saying Jesus had false selves he "died" to.
If you really SEE all this in Heb. 9, cool. I don't. I just see Jesus' redemptive work (Jesus as our Savior) being perfected in his death on the Cross. I don't think the author's thinking about all the false selves Jesus died to (or even fought off). I'm open to the latter thing, I just don't think Hebrews is talking about that.
T
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/19/2009 11:03 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Bro, what's with the skull-head avatar?
A quote... The condition we find ourselves in can best be described as one of entanglement. By contrast, the condition we must move to is that is single-minded focus upon doing the will of God in everything, distracted by nothing.
C.T. Studd once upset some of his missionary comrades in the Congo by what he called his “DCD Campaign.” “DCD” stood for “Don’t Care a Damn” for anything but Christ. He made up a skull and crossbones insignia and imposed “DCD” upon it, to wear on jackets and caps and to stick on buildings and equipment. “His intention was that he and his missionary team should care for nothing before Christ (not even his family and friends). Nothing should be allowed to detract from that or conflict with it. All lesser desires had to be done to death (hence the macabre badge!) “ Some people, of course, were more concerned about language they thought was wrong than about hearts not set wholly on Christ.
In our fallen world, we have very few people live with a focused will, even a will focused on an evil. We have heard from W.B. Yeats that “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” But, in fact—and we can be thankful for this—even “the worst” rarely have much intensity about them. There are always the “Hitlers” of this world, however. Evil people who are genuinely focused can gain the great power they do over others because of the fact that good people and evil people alike are, for the most part, simply drifting through life.
The “CEO” of the self has abandoned its post to other dimensions of the self and is dragged hither and thither by them. In our culture today the direction of the self is usually left to feelings; and the will, if it is recognized at all, is either identified with feelings or else regarded as helpless in the face of feelings. The cognitive side of the mind is hijacked to rationalize it all by producing or borrowing suitable “insights”, usually lying ready to hand in surrounding culture.
David Hume’s eighteenth-century claim that “reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions” was prophetic of a world to come—our present world—to the existence of which he significantly contributed: a world of perpetual drift in which manipulation and entanglement of the will is simply unavoidable.
“Purity of heart,” Kierkegaard once said, “is to will one thing.” Before we can come to rest in such single-mindedness as the habitual orientation of all dimensions of our being, to allow it and to sustain it, a serious battle is required. But the call of grace and wisdom is nonetheless to “lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and … run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2) and on his own example of single-minded pursuit of God’s will, even to the point of death.
“No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life,” Paul reminded Timothy, “so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier” (2 Timothy 2:4). Dear Martha was “worried and bothered about so many things,” as Jesus pointed out, while only a few things are necessary, really only one, “Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42). And Paul’s own testimony was that he really did only one thing, which was to “press on toward the goal for the prized of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phillipians 3:13-14).
Dallas Willard. Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. Pp. 152-153
"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) : 11/19/2009 5:56:37 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/20/2009 12:15 AM (GMT -6) | | Totally separate stuff. Yo, Tom. I know how to convince you that I am in no way a monist. Check it...
Eternally, Jesus is the only human who can say "I am Immanuel." It will eternally be the case that "I" will say "Jesus, YOU are Immanuel. I am the created person you are "with."
It will also be the case that I will say "Jesus, Blessed Creator, you and I are one in Spirit."
Feel me? See the non-monism? See the interpersonal communication between Jesus and "I." Yeah. Just wanted to RE-CONFIRM this to ya...
"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) : 11/19/2009 11:18:06 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/20/2009 12:37 PM (GMT -6) | | St. Albert the Great.
What the perfection of man consist of in this life
Now the more the mind is concerned about thinking and dealing with what is merely lower and human, the more it is separated from the experience in the intimacy of devotion of what is higher and heavenly, while the more fervently the memory, desire and intellect is withdrawn from what is below to what is above, the more perfect will be our prayer, and the purer our contemplation, since the two directions of our interest cannot both be perfect at the same time, being as different as light and darkness. He who cleaves to God is indeed translated into the light, while he who clings to the world is in the dark. So the supreme perfection of man in this life is to be so united to God that all his soul with all its faculties and powers are so gathered into the Lord God that he becomes one spirit with him, and remembers nothing except God, is aware of and recognises nothing but God, but with all his desires unified by the joy of love, he rests contentedly in the enjoyment of his Maker alone.
Now the image of God as found in the soul consists of these three faculties, namely reason, memory and will, and so long as they are not completely stamped with God, the soul is not yet deiform in accordance with the initial creation of the soul. For the true pattern of the soul is God, with whom it must be imprinted, like wax with a seal, and carry the mark of his impress. But this can never be complete until the intellect is perfectly illuminated, according to its capacity, with the knowledge of God, who is perfect truth, until the will is perfectly focused on the love of the perfect good, and until the memory is fully absorbed in turning to and enjoying eternal happiness, and in gladly and contentedly resting in it. And since the glory of the beatitude which is achieved in our heavenly homeland consists in the complete fulfilment of these three faculties, it follows that perfect initiation of them is perfection in this life.
"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
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