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One Love
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Posted 8/14/2011 7:28 AM (GMT -6)

Quick question, Jeff. What are (if any) the relationship(s) between the Incarnation and God's teleological competence?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 8/14/2011 8:12 AM (GMT -6)

Tom:
when you let God be unfailingly happy in himself, THEN we have a savior.

This is where John Piper has been right all these years on this specific point. But he articulated it from a despairing perspective of God ala God is "unfailingly happy" in divine self-righteousness and the ability to do whatever he wants (sovereignty). Greg (ala T&P) would say that God was "unfailingly happy" in the unsurpassably intense beautiful experience of love, joy, and peace within divine self-relationship within the One Triune God experienced in the Divine Persons of the Trinity.

Greg was MUCH CLOSER to Jonathon Edward's spirit (and EO!) than Piper was. Though BOTH really like Edwards. Funny...

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Post Edited (One Love) : 8/14/2011 8:38:15 AM (GMT-5)

Similitude
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Posted 8/14/2011 8:19 AM (GMT -6)

I would take the incarnation of Jesus to be effectual in the very ways scripture says it is:

1) He was a prophet whose words were confirmed by signs and wonders,

2) He fulfilled some scripture, further confirming certain words of past prophets.

3) He was an effectual teacher.

4) He was a perfect example of love.

5) His death was a means to atonement.

6) His obedience unto death rendered him fitted to have lordship over heaven and earth.

All these (and more) are means to the necessary conditions that render the creational project maximally satisfying to God, Jesus, and us.

One Love
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Posted 8/14/2011 8:21 AM (GMT -6)

I'm feeling that.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One Love
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Posted 8/14/2011 8:25 AM (GMT -6)

I would add that the incarnation of Jesus irrevocably unites the uncreated and created, and that it was the intention from the foundation of the world that this union occur. God's used his wisdom and power and he brought it to pass.

He is truly and eternally Immanuel... "God with us."

I mean, you don't get much more teleologically competent than that, right? reading

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Post Edited (One Love) : 8/14/2011 8:37:47 AM (GMT-5)

Similitude
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Posted 8/14/2011 8:26 AM (GMT -6)

If God is not satisfied with creation, it MEANS that He believes He is failing, teleologically. Obviously He isn't AS successful as He would like to be. Otherwise, there would be no such conceivable thing as acting contrary to His will/desire. But on the other hand, He is obviously satisfied with creation in the sense that it WILL ultimately satisfy Him and the Son sufficiently to render the project worthwhile.

Greg is trying to make sense of the language about violating God's "will." But we have to also make sense of the fact that the very fruit of God's own Spirit is JOY. Teleologically considered, that joy has to do with the hope of creation. That's why Paul explicitly speaks of REJOICING in HOPE.

Similitude
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Posted 8/14/2011 8:27 AM (GMT -6)

D: I would add that the incarnation of Jesus irrevocably unites the uncreated and created, and that it was the intention from the foundation of the world that this union occur.

He is truly "God with us."

J: Yes, because the exercise of his lordship over us, rightly understood, is an act of profound service TO US!!!!! Gives me chill bumps thinking of it.

His subjecting all things to himself is nothing more than bringing us into that ordered arrangement where social harmony is maximized. At that point, we are one as he and the Father are one.

Post Edited (Similitude) : 8/14/2011 8:46:16 AM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 8/14/2011 8:49 AM (GMT -6)

Jeff, remember we agree that a perfectly loving God who didn't need to create (because there was no lack of the enjoyment of any good thing in him) would not create sentient beings if it meant risking the permanent loss of a single being. It's not a knock down proof for UR, but once you're in UR from other arguments, it makes sense. I know we went over this above, but it also seems to me to suggest that God's teleological competence (which makes it impossible to degrade his decision-making in the face of human suffering and evil) is grounded BEFORE he creates and not just AFTER he creates (as the joy set before him). In other words, HOW does he KNOW the joy set before him will be worth it? He knows because that joy is a subspecies of the delight he already is. The only different is that the joy before him will include others in it. WE are the new element. I think Hebrews even elaborates on what the joy before him is---bringing many sons to glory. But there has to be an already actual fulness to God that grounds the creation if God goes into it KNOWING that the joy he'll experience will be worth it.

T

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 8/14/2011 9:03 AM (GMT -6)

Tom:
In other words, HOW does he KNOW the joy set before him will be worth it? He knows because that joy is a subspecies of the delight he already is. The only different is that the joy before him will include others in it. WE are the new element. I think Hebrews even elaborates on what the joy before him is---bringing many sons to glory. But there has to be an already actual fulness to God that grounds the creation if God goes into it KNOWING that the joy he'll experience will be worth it.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Similitude
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Posted 8/14/2011 9:35 AM (GMT -6)

Tom: In other words, HOW does he KNOW the joy set before him will be worth it? He knows because that joy is a subspecies of the delight he already is.

Jeff: Right. God would never create something that involved a risk of less than sufficient satisfaction with the outcome. And He simply must be conceived of as having that kind of knowledge UP FRONT, prior to creation.

Remember that my approach is to argue that we must know that God is this KIND of being to even GET to warranted discursive argument AT ALL. The particulars can be worked out in terms of Judaeo-Christian thought. I'm just saying that a lot of the generic picture is literally ENTAILED in benevolent-competent theism independent of WHO the Designer is in particular. Christianity fills in blanks as to SPECIFICS. It doesn't get us TO benevolent-competent theism. Rom. 1 is telling us that. That's why we can DO apologetics at all.

If we couldn't get to benevolent-competent theism independent of Christian historical claims, those historical claims would have no convincing power to a rational mind. But we are to present our claims in rational language precisely because those claims ARE rational. It may be that it still takes divine revelation to penetrate into the darkness of our minds and hearts. But that's beside the point. Christianity IS rational. Indeed, it is the MOST rational explanation there is, because it explains what needs to be explained MOST parsimoniously.

Similitude
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Posted 8/14/2011 9:39 AM (GMT -6)

And I'm thinking UR really IS entailed in benevolent theism. I'm not sure exactly how to articulate it other than to say that the human need to account for such things as "baby universalism," etc is most parsimoniously explained if UR is true, given the fact that natural evil seems to render infant death, etc literally inevitable. Why else do humans trouble over infant death with respect to post-mortem experience if it's not something that is virtually intuitively known to have to do with divine benevolence?

Post Edited (Similitude) : 8/14/2011 10:19:07 AM (GMT-5)

Similitude
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Posted 8/14/2011 9:46 AM (GMT -6)

One more thing. Remember that I'm contending that ONLY creation can clearly be seen to be an act of volition for God. That means that ONLY teleology involved in creation clearly involves God's freedom. Sans creation, there was no truly libertian free act of God we can conceive of--at least that would involve a possibility of being less than benevolent. IOW, God can never knowingly act unto less than the greatest possible satisfaction of others, even if that "others" consists only of one other person. If He could, He would not be PERFECTLY and NATURALLY benevolent/competent.

So the reason why I'm making much of teleology is because teleology has to do with FINAL CAUSALITY--i.e., libertarianly free causality. And only creation is intuitively known to involve divine final causality. That's why we have to talk about teleology as a unique mode of divine action. If we could know that God had to act with libertarianly-free causality to interact socially sans creation, then the same language would apply there. I'm just not sure that God did act with final causality sans creation. I mean, what would have entailed risk or sacrifice for God, sans creation? Even if there were such choices, I can't imagine what they would have been. So that has to be irrelevant to my theology. Creation involved final causality. That's enough to get us where we need to get, epistemologically.

Post Edited (Similitude) : 8/14/2011 10:04:50 AM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 8/14/2011 8:32 PM (GMT -6)

If you haven't read David Hart's article on apetheia, oh my goodness. He gives a LOT of people (open theists included) a bad spanking. Still, I'd tweak a thing or too (which he would argue collapses his entire point like a house of cards), but nevertheless, the experience time per se is not threat to apetheia. But that's another issue. Still, his general point makes me feel like I'm caught with my theological pants down.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46770946/David-B-Hart-No-Shadow-of-Turning-on-Divine-Impassibility

If you can't download it, email me. I'll email you the pdf. It might take time to read it online.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

Tom
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Posted 8/22/2011 8:55 PM (GMT -6)

Another thought. Paul says that the suffering of the present is not worth comparing to the glory that shall be revealed in us. If that’s true, then how are the sufferings of the present moment worth God’s comparing to Godself who IS the glory that shall be revealed in us?

KIXYTΘEMTA

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