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Modes of Thought
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 6/3/2003 7:32 PM (GMT -6) |   | It does seem that way at the moment. I am just posting stuff that I find that relates to your specific concern on inclusivism. I will try to respond more later to ways of putting this together....
"I don't feel a real urgent burden to get all the details of my ethics worked out until I've got the profundity of my love worked out in a Christ-like way." --doc
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Modes of Thought
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 6/4/2003 7:00 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi again Ross,
Here's what I am thinking currently about this. SK makes a clear distinction between religion "a" amd "b". "B" has specifically to do with Christ. "A" has Abramham as the key example, relating to the transcendent God who is absolutely different. "B" is God come near in Christ. The "condition" is a very clearly defined term for the Climacus where grace via revelation is meant. (The content of that revelation is the person of Jesus Christ, not the idea, but the actual historical person.) We cannot find or create the condition for our eternal happiness ourselves. That is, faith is a gift. But that gift is given in the "occasion/moment". We have some responsibility for providing the "occasion", through our proclamation of the Gospel.
But we are not introducing God into the situation, it may very well be that the person already relates to God as absolute, but does not yet know of Christ, the God incarnate. In this way, we facilitate the intensification of the person's current relation to God by revealing the fuller revelation of who God is to them (think Paul and his fuller revelation of the "unknown god" Acts 17:23 "What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you."). I don't think SK got hung up on the relation of salvation to the knowledge of the individual. Though this knowledge, and the experience that is essential to it (that is, a personal experience of Christ), are necessary for participation in religion b, that is, Christianity. From there the question is of imitation of Christ.
So the inclusivism question is asking a bit more than is being answered in the quotes above. I think that the idea of "to whom much is given, much is required" plays strong throughout the authorship. The more knowledge and experience of Christianity and Christ you have, the more responsibility you bear with that. Likewise, those who are excluded from the condition through no fault of their own, they will be judged as Abraham was, that is, according to their relation to the transcendent God who is not without witness in the world (as transcendent God, not necessarily specifically Christ). But even those, I do beleive, will have to encounter Christ somehow before entering the Kingdom of God. This is necessary because the Kingdom of God is marked by Christ and ruled by Christ. How that works is beyond me.
The process is one of intensification and the WAY of existing is just as important as to what you relate yourself. The esthete relates to himself as absolute. This may be passionate, but it is self-serving and lacks "spirit," this is death spiritually speaking in SK's view. The ethical person relates absolutely to the good of the whole, this is a step forward and marks the major "either/or" between esthetic life and all the ethical-religious categories. The either/or has to do with whether the criterion for life lies solely within the self or outside. The point is to see that it is outside and pursue it with the same passion (actually more) as the hedonist pursues enjoyment.
Once the move has been made to a criterion outside oneself, the process of intensification begins. The self who relates to the good of the whole finds out that even that is a relative good. God is absolute, and now that person relates absolutely to a true absolute. The outer criterion moved from a relative good (justice, peace, all of which can only be acheived to a certain degree in the world, but should and must be pursued!!!) to an absolute good, God. The next intensification is that God comes near to us in Christ, so near that God takes what we have and offers what God has. We are to be identified with God in Christ. Now we have to relate to a highly intensified God who manifests in the form of servant and requires imitation, not mere admiration. One could not imitate the God of the OT, but we must and shall imitate the God of the new. Finally, that imitation is called for in the form of a command, love. You shall love yourself rightly, love God and love your neighbor. All three must be present in order to fulfill the command to love.
All this is to say, if one is past the either/or I beleive that SK would say that they are "on the way." No one "arrives" in this lifetime, but we all have the same goal. Our "ethical" responsibility to bring our actual existence into agreement with what we know to be our criterion. As Christians, our job is to imitate Christ and witness to Christ as the fullness of God and the final criterion, the highest. But abraham surely was saved (see Hebrews 11, Romans 4, etc)and even Socrates is assumed to have become a Christian by SK because of the WAY he lived with such honesty and humility before the truth as he understood it. How you relate to what you know is at least as important as the content of what you know, in SK's writings. The devil knows more than we ever will, and the distance between his knowledge and his compliance with that knowledge is the most terrible thing to imagine!
Sorry, this doesn't help much, but that is where I am at currently. lots of assertions not much organizing structure.
"I don't feel a real urgent burden to get all the details of my ethics worked out until I've got the profundity of my love worked out in a Christ-like way." --doc
Edited by - ModesofThought on 06/04/2003 12:18:25 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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rossfadeinout
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 428
| Posted 6/4/2003 10:48 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks Modes, I think I'm following your thoughts...I'll try to respond when I get a little time.
Continuing to enjoy the topic!
Ross
"Let us remember how common the folly is of going from one faulty extreme into the opposite." -Thomas Reid | | Back to Top | | |
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Modes of Thought
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 6/4/2003 11:42 AM (GMT -6) | | It just struck me that one could do this with the three religious categories:
a. obedience of God
b. imitation of God in Christ
c. participation with God in the Spirit
SK describes his authorship (which in turn describes the stages) as his own spiritual upbringing. This seems fitting.
As a mother requires obedience of the young child, eventially the child comes to imitate the mother as a fellow human being, and finally the mature child is able to participate with the mother in the fullness of what it is to be a person in the community of God.
Of course, there is a "yes" and "no" to this analogy, but I thought I'd just put this out there...
"I don't feel a real urgent burden to get all the details of my ethics worked out until I've got the profundity of my love worked out in a Christ-like way." --doc
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