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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > God's Love, Part Deux | Forum Quick Jump
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PotOnWheel
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Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/4/2003 2:10 AM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Originally posted by trosie
POW quote:
Maybe part of that problem is that we have formed a habit of thinking of "judgement" as being devoid of love. Working from the end of what might be a spectrum (not saying it is--I won't know), "judgment" can be the corrective for those soft-hearted enough to turn. That "judgement" was also "mercy." Maybe that is why some monks felt lead to pray even for the devil.
But, the bible has already laid out the plan of what will happen to all the evil and to those who have chosen hell. What would be the purpose to pray for the devil? Don't you think eventually a person's heart is solidified one way or the other? Here's a scripture that says "yes" -- people choose one way or the other until this decision is solidified.
John 3:18 "Whoever believes in the Son is not judged; but whoever does not believe has already been judged, because he has not believed in God's only Son. This is how the judgment works: the light has come into the world, but people love the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil. Anyone who does evil things hates the light and will not come into the light, because he does not want his evil deeds to be shown up. But whoever does what is true comes to the light in order that the light may show that what he did was in obedience to God."
. . .
This discussion is so interesting!
trosie
I agree, Trosie. Here's what I posted on another thread:
quote:
Originally posted by PotOnWheel
Whatever is the case, NOTHING sets aside the onging battle and the fact that evil spirits are evil and the enemy. Nothing changes the prayers, and the promises concerning them.
quote:
"Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour." (1 Pet 5:8)
"Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places..." (Eph 6:11-12).
STOMP THAT SERPANT'S HEAD.
I'm struck by the combination of two things. But those two things stand separate, and not mixed. A few super-kind-hearted saints dared to pray even for the salvation of the demons. Their love compelled them to look past the impossibility of "solidification" to the possibility that God's powerful love might be received, and those in hell saved. Their love compelled them to pray that God replace those who suffer by substituting themselves for the lost. Wow! (Can we possibly imagine what those saints were like?) BUT... when we get all hopeful we sometimes loose sight of God's judgement, and the sureness of it. We are so mesmerized by the assurance of salvation that we loose sight sometimes of praying for our own salvation. We have not corssed the finish line. We can loose. "Eternal security" and "solidification" asside, this is a battle and a race. If we think "we stand" we will fall. The only foundation is Jesus, the Christ who was crucified and resurrected. He is the worthy judge. Rejecting His salvation IS, as Trosie quoted from John, Judgement itself. And the kind of picture that we have of eternal judgement is as "over-the-horizon" as the "over-the-horizon" image of God's eternal love is. It is "over-the-horizon" and out of our sight how "final" the eternal judgement is. We have to only use the word "destroyed." But I don't think that "annihilation" is the case. I think that it is eternal destruction.
HOW the two horizons come together...I don't know. But I think that both of these "over-the-horizon" vistas are true. And we should shudder, pray for the lost, bring them the good news, and pray for while working out our own salvation.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 8/4/2003 2:13 AM (GMT -6) | | I think that THIS is very useful to keep in mind:
quote:
The apostles of Christ and the saints of the Church knew from direct experience Satan's powers against man for Man's own destruction. They knew as well Satan's lack of power and his own ultimate destruction when man is with God, filled with the Holy Spirit of Christ. According to Orthodox doctrine there is no middle road between God and Satan. Ultimately, and at any given moment, man is either with God or the devil, serving one or the other.
The ultimate victory belongs to God and to those with Him. Satan and his hosts are finally destroyed.
http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/orthodox-faith/doctrine/angels-and-evil-spirits.html
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 8/4/2003 5:52 AM (GMT -6) | | Icon: Okay - Doc, would you at least agree that "Satan as a metaphor" is a better metaphorical "fit" with our understanding of reality than the "Satan as a sentient being" metaphorical mapping?
Doc: Dude, if I agreed with this ‘at least,’ I’d be selling the store! This is the point of dispute. I’m not sure I even agree that saying that "Satan is a sentient being" is a metaphor, at least not as Meph describe ‘sentient’ earlier. He’s depicted in Scripture as a being who THINKS, CHOOSES and ACTS.
I don’t find your "ha satan as a metaphor" view incoherent or impossible. But what "I lose" if I adapt the "metaphor for complex systems" view is
a) exegetical efficiency in interpreting the NT language about Satan, angels, etc.
b) a theodicy angle that can view the principality and powers as acting AGAINST all humans (not just generalizations OF us) and against God, as well as …
c) an explanation for cosmic evil (you will disagree with me on this, but I’m thinking of e.g. animal suffering before humans, natural evils, etc.)
Meph: To the extent God MOURNS for Satan, God is exhibiting LOVE for Satan. Period.
Doc: I see God’s mourning as being rooted in his love for what Lucifer WAS, what he COULD HAVE BEEN, and what his destiny now is.
Meph: You seem to be trying to make a disjunct between God loving Satan and God mourning Satan. There’s not one. God utterly hates anti-love and sin, but God doesn’t MOURN them. God lovingly mourns the PERSONS that are wholly solidified in them.
Doc: If a being IS anti-love, there’s nothing there to love. But he could yet MOURN for them, for he loves what they could have been and hates what they now are and what their destiny will be.
Meph: Sorry, Doc. You are AGREEING with me. Just bite the bullet and say that God unconditionally LOVES Satan.
Doc: I won’t I won’t I won’t I won’t. 
Meph: This needs to be stated very plainly:
God does NOT love sin and anti-love
God does love PERSONS who are solidified in sin and anti-love
This is simple as A B C, y'all...
Doc: If you agreed that the PERSONS were reduced to anti-love without remainder, would you agree God does not love them? Here’s my counter syllogism:
God does NOT love sin and anti-love (same thing)
Person’s can become reduced to anti-love without remainder
-> God does not love such persons.
This is simple as A B C, y’all.
Meph: Hey, if ANYONE can prove to me how an unconditionally loving God can NOT love in ANY WAY a sentient being who is solidified in sin and anti-love, then I will concede the point.
Doc: See above syllogism. Sorry, Meph. Just bite the bullet and say that God does not LOVE Satan. 
Trosie: In 1John 4:4 Satan is referred to as a spirit. "But you belong to God, my children, and have defeated the false prophets, because the Spirit who is in you is more powerful than the spirit in those who belong to the world." I believe the spirit world has more to do with Genesis 1:1 -- the light and the darkness. Iconoclast, to me you are making so much sense!
Doc: I honestly can’t see anything to the "good/evil" interpretation of Gen. 1, but I think you’re making a good point about the parallel between "the spirit in the world" and the Holy Spirit in us. Icon, wouldn’t’ consistency require that you interpret the Holy Spirit to be a metaphor in just the same way as the Evil Spirit is a metaphor?
Trosie: Hey, how does this type of verse fit into God's unconditional love? Proverbs 3:32 "because the Lord HATES people who do evil, but he takes righteous men into his confidence."
Doc: BINGO. I don’t see any OUT on this one for Meph. But I think I have one. When people are reduced to evil – they "do" evil out of their soldified NATURE – there’s nothing left to love. They have made themselves the anti-love that God hates. God mourns for this loss, mourns for their fate, mourns because he knows what they could have been. But his hatred toward anti-love is now directly toward them, because they ARE anti-love.
Final point: Seems to me this discussion has clarified that God’s unconditional love means that God unconditionally loves all that is consistent with love and hates all that is inconsistent with it. His hatred is itself a form of lovel. The question I pose to Meph is this: if you agree that people and spirits can MAKE THEMSELVES anti-love, WHAT is it that God loves in loving them? There is ONLY anti-love there. Precisely because God is love he hates anti-love, and thus in love hates all that these beings have reduced themselves to.
Blessings
Doc
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One Love
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| Posted 8/4/2003 8:21 AM (GMT -6) | | THANK YOU, MIGHT BE DON! Great catch! Hit the nail on the head.
Doc:
quote:
Final point: Seems to me this discussion has clarified that God’s unconditional love means that God unconditionally loves all that is consistent with love and hates all that is inconsistent with it. His hatred is itself a form of lovel. The question I pose to Meph is this: if you agree that people and spirits can MAKE THEMSELVES anti-love, WHAT is it that God loves in loving them? There is ONLY anti-love there. Precisely because God is love he hates anti-love, and thus in love hates all that these beings have reduced themselves to.
Doc, do you realize what you are saying? You are basically saying that personhood can be OBJECTIFIED according to one’s solidification. That SUBJECTS can become complete OBJECTS. Personhood (the center of which is the WILL) does NOT disappear just because a person becomes solidified in sin. You know this just ain’t true, Doc. Are you completely willing to dismiss the “love the sinner, hate the sin” idea?
God loves PERSONS. Personhood is NOT abolished by solidification.
All this JUST to say that God doesn’t love Satan? What IS this???
Fine. Since we have to go here, I guess that I’ll have to press the reducio ad absurdum. You say that it is possible for human beings to solidify themselves against God IN THIS LIFE, right? So that means there may be some people walking around on earth that are solidified in anti-love. So by your thought, God doesn’t love those persons. But what happens if THOSE people are our neighbors?? We are then COMMANDED to love those people! Unconditionally.
Catch the absudity? It can actually be the case that we are COMMANDED to love people that even GOD cannot love! Can we say “problem”? And I won’t even get into the praxeological issues here…
Come on, Doc. I know this is tough, man. But YO. Are you really willing to take it this far JUST to say that God doesn’t love Satan?
I’m absolutely, positively baffled!
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Tom
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| Posted 8/4/2003 8:37 AM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: You say that it is possible for human beings to solidify themselves against God IN THIS LIFE, right? So that means there may be some people walking around on earth that are solidified in anti-love. So by your thought, God doesn’t love those persons. But what happens if THOSE people are our neighbors?
Tom: Move to a new neighborhood as quickly as possible!
Actually, making judgments about whether a person is or isn't solidified without remainder is never a judgment call we can make. So we'll never find ourselves in the situation of wondering how to relate to people WE know are solidified without remainder. We just love people. I honestly don't know that solidification without remainder is possible in this life. God knows. I doubt you'll ever have a neighbor who is so solidified (unless you move to Beirut!).
Meph: Sorry, Doc. Just bite the bullet and say that God unconditionally LOVES Satan.
Doc: I won’t I won’t I won’t I won’t.
Tom: Don't do it Doc! Don't fall in love with Satan!
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One Love
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| Posted 8/4/2003 8:39 AM (GMT -6) | | Hmmm...
Your scripture:
Proverbs 3:32 "because the Lord HATES people who do evil, but he takes righteous men into his confidence."
My Scripture:
Romans 1. Paul QUOTING the psalms…
What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, 10 as it is written:
“There is no one who is righteous, not even one
11 there is no one who has understanding,
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned aside, together they have become worthless;
there is no one who shows kindness,
there is not even one.”
13 “Their throats are opened graves;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of vipers is under their lips.”
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery are in their paths,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
So does God hate us ALL???
What. What! Whaaaaaat!!!!!
Hehe.
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One Love
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| Posted 8/4/2003 8:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Question:
Does solidified character REMOVES personhood, reducing the former person to the merely OBJECTIVE TRAITS belonging to said person?
If so, then God can be love, but CANNOT BE A PERSON.
Now what?
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Modes of Thought
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| Posted 8/4/2003 12:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Maybe this has been brought up already, but I think it is clarifying to keep the question of the "imago dei" in this discussion.
One issue is whether Satan is "like" us, and here according to the "image of God" criteria the answer is no. But as far as a "fellow sentient being", the concensus here is yes.
The other way the image of God idea is pertinent is in the very question of solidification that Greg is leaning on so heavily. As I understand it, Greg, you are of the opinion that God is love necessarily, that is, by nature. We are able to become participants in that love by choice. That is, we can become participants in love contingently, but finally and irrevocably.
Here is the question for Greg. Do humans LOSE the image of God when the solidify themselves against God's love? Furthermore, does losing this image somehow allow God to relate in a way that is less than loving toward them? (Something like the way God relates to other sentient beings in this state? ie. Satan and demons...) Seems strange to suggest this. As POW and others have suggested, Love does not always look the way we think it should. It can be expressed as judgement. This says nothing about God's losing love for the one judged. Our emotional response to whether or not we feel we can love Satan is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
I am suspecting that Meph is saying no, we don't lose the image of God when we solidify our selves. I agree with him. Seems obvious to me. We are aways going to be in the image of God, but we may forfeit our chance to participate in the life (Love) of God.
So, my conclusions so far are that God does indeed love all people made in the image of God. That is clear. Unconditional love requires this. Anything less is not worthy of the name unconditional love. I would disagree that we control our "being" in the manner described by Greg. No, our being is that we are made in the image of God. Our loyalty is what is at issue. We do not "become" anti-love. That is very abstract and impersonal. We are and will remain persons, if only shadows thereof.
As far as Satan and the other "sentient beings" that are not created in the image of God, I would have to suspect that the same applies to them. (Though I did bring up the image of God here just to show where the ambiguity lies in my mind.) I would never hesitate to say that God loves anyone or anything at all. This is clear if we understand the language of "unconditional love." the ambiguity is in whether the development of a "being" that is angelic is somehow different in terms of how their choices relate to their being. I can imagine that what Greg says about humans and demons is only true of demons, but cannot apply to humans because of the image of God.
BTW: does anyone else find it comical that Mephi (of all people!!!) is out doing Greg in terms of God's love? That's gotta make someone besides me smile.
"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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GregBoyd
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| Posted 8/4/2003 2:19 PM (GMT -6) | | Might be Don: Doc says:
quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
But his hatred toward anti-love is now directly toward them, because they ARE anti-love.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
So the whole "hate the sin,love the sinner" thing eventually goes away.
Doc: Good insight Donny boy.
Meph: THANK YOU, MIGHT BE DON! Great catch! Hit the nail on the head.
Doc: I agree. For my whole thesis is that "love the sin, hate the sinner" works so long as there is something to the sinner over and beyond the sin.
Meph: Doc, do you realize what you are saying?
Doc: Probably not. 
Meph: You are basically
Doc: DON’T SAY "BASICALLY" you KNOW I love you. [:X]
Meph: saying that personhood can be OBJECTIFIED according to one’s solidification.
Doc: Better, "it can be "DESTROYED" according to one’s solidification.
Meph: Personhood (the center of which is the WILL) does NOT disappear just because a person becomes solidified in sin. You know this just ain’t true, Doc.
Doc: What if PERSONHOOD IS the capacity for love? Hmmm?
Meph: Are you completely willing to dismiss the "love the sinner, hate the sin" idea?
Doc: Not dismiss. Just contextualize. It has a true application, but its not a metaphysical (hence timeless universal) truth.
Meph: You say that it is possible for human beings to solidify themselves against God IN THIS LIFE, right? So that means there may be some people walking around on earth that are solidified in anti-love. So by your thought, God doesn’t love those persons. But what happens if THOSE people are our neighbors?? We are then COMMANDED to love those people! Unconditionally.
TGB responds: Actually, making judgments about whether a person is or isn't solidified without remainder is never a judgment call we can make. So we'll never find ourselves in the situation of wondering how to relate to people WE know are solidified without remainder. We just love people.
Doc: My pre-existent twin sizes it up. This is why WE are forbidden to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. WE are not God.
Meph: Catch the absudity? It can actually be the case that we are COMMANDED to love people that even GOD cannot love! Can we say "problem"?
Doc:brazen fellow "P-R-O-B-L-E-M." THERE. NOT. Just as a Christian’s spirit may be solIdified toward God, yet there are aspects of their whole person that are inconsistent with God (and shall be burned away), so a person’s ultimate nature (spirit) may be solidified against God, but there are aspects of their whole person that ARE consistent with God. God loves these. We love these. And BECAUSE WE ARE GOD WE AREN’T IN A POSITION TO KNOW THEIR INNERMOST BEING. SO we do as we are commanded: DON’T EAT OF THE FRIGG’N TREE!!!!
Meph: Does solidified character REMOVES personhood, reducing the former person to the merely OBJECTIVE TRAITS belonging to said person?
If so, then God can be love, but CANNOT BE A PERSON.
Now what?
Doc: huh?
Might-be-Donny: So does God hate us ALL???
An excellent arguement for universal salvation. In Adam (hate), In Christ (love).
Doc: I would have thought it was an excellent argument for universal damnation! (And, by the way, I didn’t quite get your point meph in quoting Rom. 3. Is it that God hates and loves all?
Modes: Do humans LOSE the image of God when the solidify themselves against God's love? Furthermore, does losing this image somehow allow God to relate in a way that is less than loving toward them?
Doc: I agree with Lewis that what goes into hell are not HUMANS, but the "refuse of what used to be human." I think the "imago dei" is annhilated.
Modes: I would disagree that we control our "being" in the manner described by Greg. No, our being is that we are made in the image of God. Our loyalty is what is at issue. We do not "become" anti-love. That is very abstract and impersonal. We are and will remain persons, if only shadows thereof.
Doc: If we can talk about growing INTO and fulfilling our calling to live in the imago dei, how can we NOT talk about LOOSING the imago die? Now, when you talk about the "shadow" of the imago dei, I’m not sure what you mean. If you mean what USED TO BE and what COULD HAVE BEEN the image of God, I agree. But, if there is now no potential to ever recover what was lost, that is something to love only in terms of a mournful memory, not in a positive sense. If you mean something POSITIVE that remains, what does this positiveness consist? In some potential to yet love? If so, are you willing to grant that hell is never closed?
I grant that so long as a person or spirit being has ANY potential to live in REALITY, to LOVE, God loves THIS. But, my supposition is, there is a zenith point that beings reach were the potential is UTTERLY GONE. There is nothing to love. They ARE only anti-love. And in this case, they either endure eternal existence in anti-love (the traditional view) or cease to exist (annihilation).
Here I stand. I can do not other!!!
Well, until tomorrow maybe.
Doc
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One Love
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| Posted 8/4/2003 3:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Let’s cut to the chase of how I see you attempting to get out of this.
Meph, I am saying that God loves the “potential for love” in all persons. Personhood is not just sentience. It is the sentient capacity to love. Actually, THIS is the Image of God. This is the OBJECT of God’s love in all sentient beings. To the extent that sentient beings, for whatever reason, don’t have this object of God’s love, there is nothing there for God to love. Therefore, God doesn’t love them.
This is just to let you know that I know what you are saying. Now…
Think back, Doc. Think back to “Works of Love”
Wouldn’t what you are describing above not be anything but SELF-LOVE as defined by Kiekegaard?? You know the book, Doc.
Think about it. All you are saying is that God ONLY loves the “God-factor” in us. Not only does this completely negate the idea of unconditional love for God, but this also makes it quite clear that God really doesn’t love INDIVIDUAL SUBJECTS in all their distinctiveness at all. He loves LOCI OF LOVING POTENTIAL within some people.
So, God doesn’t really love US (sinful, human beings), God loves the “God” in us, no matter how small it is. And when that’s gone, so is God’s love.
So, instead of saying that God loves all sentient beings including Satan…instead of saying that God loves every thinking, feeling, self-aware, choosing being IN all their distinctiveness unconditionally…regardless of WHO they are, WHAT choices they've made, or HOW they've wasted their lives...you would rather say that God:
1) ONLY ultimately possesses SELF-LOVE of a telelogical sort, not true love for the OTHER qua other…
and…
2) doesn’t love individual persons in their particular distinctiveness, just their abstract potential loci.
All this to get out of saying that God loves Satan. **shakes head**
I’m flabbergasted. For real. I just can’t believe it. Really.
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One Love
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| Posted 8/4/2003 3:43 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc:
quote:
brazen fellow "P-R-O-B-L-E-M." THERE. NOT. Just as a Christian’s spirit may be solIdified toward God, yet there are aspects of their whole person that are inconsistent with God (and shall be burned away), so a person’s ultimate nature (spirit) may be solidified against God, but there are aspects of their whole person that ARE consistent with God. God loves these. We love these.
So, you are saying that even though the very CORE of a being is solidified in anti-love…that God can find some things about their behavior or life habits that may be compatible with love…and love those things. And we can love those things.
Just a note about how very inconsistent you’re being. You infer that personhood is the sentient capacity for love. You also say that for any beings that no longer have this capacity, there is nothing left there for God to love.
But now, you want to say that for such a solidified person who no longer has the capacity for love, there IS something left to God to love.
You’re contradicting yourself.
All this to say that Satan is not loved by God.
Doc, you’re slipping fast, sir. Come on back to rationality.
Mad Love from your Brazen Understudy,
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John Earp
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| Posted 8/4/2003 3:45 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by MephEternal
Hmmm...
Your scripture:
Proverbs 3:32 "because the Lord HATES people who do evil, but he takes righteous men into his confidence."
My Scripture:
Romans 1. Paul QUOTING the psalms…
What then? Are we any better off? No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, 10 as it is written:
“There is no one who is righteous, not even one
11 there is no one who has understanding,
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned aside, together they have become worthless;
there is no one who shows kindness,
there is not even one.”
13 “Their throats are opened graves;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of vipers is under their lips.”
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery are in their paths,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
So does God hate us ALL???
God hates those who PERSIST in evil. As long as they do so, they cannot receive the love of God, for they reject it and He will not force it on them.
"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.
revivaltheology.net
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One Love
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| Posted 8/4/2003 3:54 PM (GMT -6) | | | So, John. Should I hate people who persist in evil? Honest question. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 8/4/2003 4:02 PM (GMT -6) | | What I honestly think we need to understand is that this theological topic does have PRAXEOLOGICAL implications. Just trying to play the “We don’t know, we’re not God” card doesn’t work. To say that God REALLY does hate PERSONS who persist in evil. To say that God truly does indulge in SELF-LOVE ultimately speaking rather than genuine love for the other as "other". To say that there really MAY be people on earth that God doesn’t love. To in any way imply that God’s giving of love really does have conditions. This has very important implications on our thought life.
Loving our enemies (including Satan) in the way that I’ve described emerges from a THEOLOGICAL premise that God loves the same way. If God hates PEOPLE who persist in evil..why shouldn't I?
I’m not say that praxis dictates my belief here. I think the logic speaks for itself. I’m just noticing that there ARE real-world, real-life implications that come from this.
Surely, someone else sees this…right?
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Laika
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| Posted 8/4/2003 4:09 PM (GMT -6) | | Meph, how long can God love people who hate Him and want Him to leave them alone? "Go away, I want no part of you". He says, OK, I'm gone. Because He loves them, He gives them what they want. Now they are without God and His love is gone as well.
To me, love cannot persist forever by being pushed, there eventually has to be some pull. If you make a socket connect call and no port answers, there is no connection made, nothing can transfer from one to the other.
They get what they want, eternal separation from God. Does God hate them? Not really, there's an absence of love which is passive. Hate is active.
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
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One Love
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| Posted 8/4/2003 4:16 PM (GMT -6) | | Laika:
quote:
Meph, how long can God love people who hate Him and want Him to leave them alone? "Go away, I want no part of you". He says, OK, I'm gone. Because He loves them, He gives them what they want. Now they are without God and His love is gone as well.
To me, love cannot persist forever by being pushed, there eventually has to be some pull. If you make a socket connect call and no port answers, there is no connection made, nothing can transfer from one to the other.
They get what they want, eternal separation from God. Does God hate them? Not really, there's an absence of love which is passive. Hate is active.
Hmmm…unrequited love may last FOREVER. Even if you were to say that God “lets them go”, that has NOTHING to do with God not loving them.
Are we saying that unless love is CONSCIOUSLY acknowledged by the beloved that it ISN’T love? That when God loves people who ignore him, that love is completely vacuous? I should think not. God’s love stands whether ANYONE recognizes it or not. Because its his nature.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/4/2003 4:32 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by ModesofThought
BTW: does anyone else find it comical that Mephi (of all people!!!) is out doing Greg in terms of God's love? That's gotta make someone besides me smile.
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Iconoclast
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 8/4/2003 4:48 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc
He’s depicted in Scripture as a being who THINKS, CHOOSES and ACTS.
Iconoclast
Yes. This is why the "Satan as a being" metaphor is an apt one. We can understand this however simply as the amalgamation of how WE think, choose and act. When we operate out of the knowledge of good and evil by judging and accusing isn't that the THINKING, CHOOSING and ACTING that Satan is depicted as doing?
Doc
I don’t find your "ha satan as a metaphor" view incoherent or impossible. But what "I lose" if I adapt the "metaphor for complex systems" view is
a) exegetical efficiency in interpreting the NT language about Satan, angels, etc.
Iconoclast
The whole point of understanding "Satan as a being" (the metaphor) is for the very purpose of being able to talk efficiently. This is what metaphors allow us to do. You do not lose this. You simply become aware that this is what we are all doing.
Doc
b) a theodicy angle that can view the principality and powers as acting AGAINST all humans (not just generalizations OF us) and against God, as well as …
Iconoclast
The principalities and powers ARE our corporate / cultural behavior that acts against ACTUAL other humans and God. Individual behavior collectively produces inflation which harms actual individual people.
Now we get a theodicy that shows how our little individual behaviors - the little gossip we do - or the little accusations we do - or the little negativity we show - corporately produces great evil, great harm to other actual individuals. It greatly heightens how responsible we are for the evil in the world. We have found the enemy - and it is us.
Chris Argyris wrote many books showing exactly how this phenomenon happens.
Doc
c) an explanation for cosmic evil (you will disagree with me on this, but I’m thinking of e.g. animal suffering before humans, natural evils, etc.)
Iconoclast
If in perfect unity with God we humans were meant to subdue the world then would we still have "natural evil"? Jesus said that if we had the faith of a mustard seed we could say to this mountain go jump into the sea. Imagine if we had the faith of perfect unity with God - would there be any "natural" evil? Wouldn't we be able to support and co-create a "very good" / "unified order" along with God?
Doesn't "Satan as a metaphor for our corporate disunity from God" imply that corporately we have the power to create "natural" evil - and thus suggest that if we were in perfect corporate unity with God there would be no "natural" evil?
Besides - surely it is better than saying that God loves Satan of all things!
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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Iconoclast
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 8/4/2003 5:17 PM (GMT -6) | | Laika
Satan is a metaphor?
A metaphor stands before the throne and accuses the saints?
Revelation 12:10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night."
Iconoclast
If "Satan (literally "ha satan" - the accuser) as a being" was really metaphorical speech to help us humans conceptualize how our judgment and accusation of God and each other is pure evil then what would the interpretation of this passage be?
Wouldn't it mean that WE - really "the accuser" / "the judger" WITHIN us be thrown down? That WE will no longer accuse each other before our God day and night? Doesn't this make more sense?
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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