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One Love
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| Posted 9/22/2003 6:11 AM (GMT -6) |   | Yo, I think this is GENIUS. This is the product of some great discussion with Electra! Thanks, lady! 
Prism Analogy!
Let’s say that you have the sun as a light souce. And you have10 uniquely crafted prisms. As each of the prisms can capture the light and reflect the light uniquely. Now, let’s say that, by some means, the prisms can exhibit some level of self-determination as follows: EACH prism has the genuine ability to adjust it’s transparency! What this means is that you can actually have a prism that can become more and more “cloudy” until it goes from being transparent to translucent to being completely opaque! How this works out is that each prism’s abilty to choose determines how much of the sun’s light that they can reflect.
Notice that the “genuineness” of the light is NOT in question. The sun, by being what it is, gives of light NATURALLY. ALL of the light comes from the sun, and not by any choice. The sun just does what it does… And that is recognized. The issue is how MUCH of the sun’s light can be reflected by each prism. The self-determining prism’s ability to change its transparency has NOTHING to do with the “genuineness” of the light coming from it!
Now…
Let say that 10 more prisms are created…but these prisms are UNCHANGABLY transparent. They still reflect light uniquely…but cannot help but reflect the sun’s light perfectly.
NONE of the prisms are the sun. ALL of the prisms are LITTLE REFLECTORS of the sun’s light.
Here we go…
Sun = God
Light = LOVE
Prisms = Sentient, created beings
Self-determining prisms = morally deliberating sentient, created beings.
Unchangably transparent prisms = sentient, created beings that do NOT morally deliberate.
This is what I’m talking about. This SEPARATES finitude from fallibility significantly…which Tatian does NOT DO!!! (This is primarily Electra’s intuition!) It IS possible to conceive of a finite thing that unchangabely reflects the love of God...JUST LIKE it is possible to conceive of a prism that unchangably reflects the light of the sun! In defining the genuineness of love BY ITS SOURCE, we don’t run into these problems of “unchosen love not being genuine”! Love is genuine to the extent that it is from God! PERIOD. Moreover, we can easily see, analogically, that being CONTINGENT and FINITE doesn’t NECESSITATE fallibility with respect to love.
Hopefully, this will help show these things...
1) Love does NOT need to be chosen to be genuine
and
2) Finitude does NOT necessitate fallibility in all aspects of a finite being, particularly with having an unchangably loving nature.
Feeling like Vince Carter at a slam dunk contest,
"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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One Love
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| Posted 9/22/2003 6:14 AM (GMT -6) | | LOVE
DOES
NOT
HAVE
TO
BE
CHOSEN
IN
ORDER
TO
BE
GENUINE!!!
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One Love
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| Posted 9/22/2003 6:46 AM (GMT -6) | | A particular argument that get used a lot…
Well, Meph. What is praiseworthy about the sun just being what it is and giving light? What is praiseworthy about an unchangeably transparent prism just being what it is and reflecting light perfect in unique ways? It seems to me that neither of these things CAN be praiseworthy because they are just being and cannot be otherwise!
My response: I think this is just as fundamentally wrongheaded as saying that light is NOT GOOD IN ITSELF unless the sources of that light don’t have the ability to turn off or dim at will. How foolish! Why can’t we just say that LOVE is an inherent good that it praiseworthy as a virtue IN AND OF ITSELF?!?! Moreover, to the extent that we say that God is the Absolute, who is worthy of praise by BEING so…AND God being the ideal of the virtue “love”…there’s no reason to define praiseworthiness outside of the context of God. God is praiseworthy by BEING GOD…period!
How utterly self-centered and anthropocentically AMERICAN to try to attribute praiseworthiness to the power of individual choice. We are such spoiled brats.
"I truly think that the modern mind is literally insane."
--John Cobb, Jr., speaking about the rampant sense of individualism in many so-called modern people in light of clear and present danger to the Earth on many levels. Lecture at Luther Seminary, Sept. 21, 2003.
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Springs
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| Posted 9/22/2003 11:43 AM (GMT -6) | | For Laika, cause I couldn't find a flamming Z!
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One Love
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| Posted 9/22/2003 12:00 PM (GMT -6) | | More on the Prism Analogy.
This is why I think the Prism Analogy works well!
This is my presupposition. I believe that ALL genuine love comes from God and is OF God. We cannot produce love, in and of ourselves. We can ONLY reflect God’s love. God has created each of us UNIQUELY to UNIQUELY reflect God’s love to God and to others. Because we were created with the ability to morally deliberate, we can either choose to DIE to ourselves (analogous to becoming more transparent) so that the love of God can more aptly come through us…OR we can choose to live in the false self (analogous to becoming more opaque) making it harder for the love of God to come through us.
Our participation in God’s love lies on TWO levels, because we are sentient, contingent, morally deliberating beings: 1) in a POSITIVE SENSE, our unique reflecting of God’s love and 2)in a NEGATIVE SENSE, our removing the sin from our lives, becoming more transparent to let God’s love shine through.
My point is that it is conceivable that a sentient, contingent being can be conceived that ONLY participates in God’s love in the POSITIVE sense. And if this can be conceived, then genuineness of love within sentient, contingent beings is NOT based on the ability to choose AGAINST love.
Get it?
"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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One Love
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| Posted 9/22/2003 5:12 PM (GMT -6) | | Laika,
I'm not getting the humor. My bad on that. But if you have a problem with what I'm saying, could you spell it out concisely so that I can answer the issue? Thanks.
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Laika
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| Posted 9/22/2003 6:07 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by MephEternal
Laika,
I'm not getting the humor. My bad on that. But if you have a problem with what I'm saying, could you spell it out concisely so that I can answer the issue? Thanks.
Sorry, I just think you push the analogy too far. Like prisms just reflect light, we just reflect God's love. Okie Dokie. But to say some prisms "are UNCHANGABLY transparent", where'd that come from? Couldn't we also say some prisms are UNCHANGABLY opaque instead? How do we decide? Analogies have to have some relation to what they're representing.
If I said, as prisms have three sides, we also have three natures, our moral, our spiritual and our physical, and as the prism can be rotated so too are our natures can be rotated, wouldn't that start to sound ludicrous? That's what I mean by pushing analogies too far.
I'm not refuting your "Love does NOT have to be chosen to be genuine" argument. I just think you've pushed the prism analogy too far. One example of love possibly not being chosen is filial.
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
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One Love
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| Posted 9/22/2003 6:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Laika:
quote:
Sorry, I just think you push the analogy too far. Like prisms just reflect light, we just reflect God's love. Okie Dokie. But to say some prisms "are UNCHANGABLY transparent", where'd that come from? Couldn't we also say some prisms are UNCHANGABLY opaque instead? How do we decide? Analogies have to have some relation to what they're representing.
If I said, as prisms have three sides, we also have three natures, our moral, our spiritual and our physical, and as the prism can be rotated so too are our natures can be rotated, wouldn't that start to sound ludicrous? That's what I mean by pushing analogies too far.
I don’t think the analogy is being pushed too far at all. Part of the point is that it is conceivable that God could have created human beings with the ability to PERFECTLY receive and reflect God’s love (analogous to being unchangably transparent)…rather than having the ability to morally deliberate (analogous to being able to change transparency).
See what I’m saying?
"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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Tom
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| Posted 9/22/2003 7:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: It IS possible to conceive of a finite thing that unchangabely reflects the love of God
Tom: Again, there’s no debate over whether or not this is conceivable. It is conceivable.
Mephi: In defining the genuineness of love BY ITS SOURCE, we don’t run into these problems of “unchosen love not being genuine”! Love is genuine to the extent that it is from God!
Tom: These "problems" of unchosen love not being genuine? What problems? What problem is solved by denying that we must choose love for that love to be genuine? I missed that.
What love “IS” (that is how it is identified as love) is defined by its source. But this doesn’t mean love is “genuine” if God (the source) were to unconditionally determine that we love.
Reflecting light does not fall within the influence of what the prism determines. So love in this case is absolutely divorced from morality. You’ve already admitted this. Indeed, you argue for it. So whatever else the world you’re imagining would be, it wouldn’t be a moral universe. Of course, this is one reason why I think it wouldn’t be a world wherein love existed either. Give me an analogy with PEOPLE (who choose, live, act, and reason) in it, Mephi, and not one with impersonal clumps of matter reflecting impersonal light waves. Your analogy leaves us as impersonal and mechanical as prisms.
Yes, God is the source of love and people can only love by connecting to the source. Yes, we reflect God’s love. That part is fine. No problem. The question is the connectedness, the causal joint, that makes us a reflection of a source other than ourselves. We’re not impersonal clumps of matter reflecting light waves. We’re persons reflecting PERSONAL relationship. We ARE a source as well. Everything about love tells us that this connectedness is metaphysically personal. Wwhen I speak of the metaphysics of love, I speak of the metaphysics of persons in relationship. That’s the ONLY context in which love can exist (which is why your analogy fails--to make your point about love you simply must find an analogy involving persons in relationship). Since we are persons OTHER than God, what love for God is not chosen by us in relationship with God is not US loving God. It's just God loving himself through us. This is not to deny God remains the source of love. It’s just to recognize the distinction between the ultimate source of love and us. Because love is metaphysically personal and relational, and because persons are less personal to the extent they are determined by others (to the extent they are nothing but instruments of another person) we would be less personal to the extent God determined that we love.
So, in the world you are imagining, one in which THAT we love is determined for us by God, not only are we not moral persons, we are not even persons.
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One Love
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| Posted 9/22/2003 7:27 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
quote:
Reflecting light does not fall within the influence of what the prism determines. So love in this case is absolutely divorced from morality. You’ve already admitted this. Indeed, you argue for it. So whatever else the world you’re imagining would be, it wouldn’t be a moral universe. Of course, this is one reason why I think it wouldn’t be a world wherein love existed either. Give me an analogy with PEOPLE (who choose, live, act, and reason) in it, Mephi, and not one with impersonal clumps of matter reflecting impersonal light waves. Your analogy leaves us as impersonal and mechanical as prisms.
Tom, you need to answer my questions to you on that other thread. I’ll put them here for you…
1) Does God’s choice to love come from God’s essential existence…or from pure exercise of will?
2) Is God “praiseworthy” for his loving us? If so, why?
3) Is God morally responsible for his loving us? If so, why?
If you answer these questions a certain way, then there’s no reason to say that genuine love necessarily entails moral deliberation. None at all.
And as far as an analogy with people as opposed to prisms, I tried to use JESUS as an analogy. A being who as a FULL HUMAN BEING and KENOTIC with respect to His deity, was able to have an unchangably loving nature WHILE…
--being able to grow and change physically
--being able to develop in rational exercise
--being able to grow and change intellectually
--being able to express love in a MYRIAD amount of ways.
I tried to describe my view of this type of world populated with such beings. The ONLY difference between these beings and Jesus would be that none of those beings would BE God.
There’s your analogy.
***********************************
Tom:
quote:
Yes, God is the source of love and people can only love by connecting to the source. Yes, we reflect God’s love. That part is fine. No problem. The question is the connectedness, the causal joint, that makes us a reflection of a source other than ourselves. We’re not impersonal clumps of matter reflecting light waves. We’re persons reflecting PERSONAL relationship. We ARE a source as well. Everything about love tells us that this connectedness is metaphysically personal. And when I speak of the metaphysics of love, I speak of the metaphysics of persons in relationship. And persons are sources in and of themselves. That’s the ONLY context in which love can exist (which is why your analogy fails). If it is not chosen by us in relationship to God, then what comes of it is not ours. It’s not US loving. This is not to deny God remains the source of love. It’s just to recognize the distinction between the ultimate source of love and us. Because love is metaphysically personal and relational, and because persons are less personal to the extent they are determined by others, to the extent they are nothing but instruments of another person, we would be less personal to the extent God determined that we love.
We are going to come to a fundamental disagreement here. I DENY that we are a source of love. We are NOT a source of love. We are unique personal beings that reflect God’s love back to God and to others. Look at what I said earlier, Tom…
Our participation in God’s love lies on TWO levels, because we are sentient, contingent, morally deliberating beings: 1) in a POSITIVE SENSE, our unique reflecting of God’s love and 2)in a NEGATIVE SENSE, our removing the sin from our lives, becoming more transparent to let God’s love shine through.
I figured that you, of ALL people, would agree with this. We don’t choose to love as much as we choose to, to a lesser or greater extent, let the love of God flow IN us and THROUGH us. We are NOT a source of love, but a personal locus of love CONDUCTIVITY.
We work WITH God in synergistic form by choosing to OPEN ourselves to the work of the Spirit in our lives and cease living by the false self. (this is analogous to becoming more and more transparent) But this is the NEGATIVE sense. Jesus (and WE, post-Consummation) only participated in God’s love in the POSITIVE sense.
I am arguing that our genuine participation in God’s love is NOT based upon the NEGATIVE sense, but primarily on the POSITIVE sense. Morally responsible beings end up having to deal with the positive and negative sense of participating in God’s love. But this is NOT the only possible state of contingent, sentient existence!
You are thinking of this whole thing MUCH more impersonally than is necessary, Tom. Honestly.
"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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One Love
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| Posted 9/22/2003 7:40 PM (GMT -6) | | Let’s make this more personal for YOU, Tom.
When I love God, myself, and others, what I feel I’m actually doing is ALIGNING MYSELF with God’s activity in me, via the Spirit of God. I’m surrendering to God and denying to self. I’m like the prism who chooses to become MORE TRANSPARENT. I recognize that it is GOD working in me to love God, myself, and others. And it is GOD’S love that is the source. But I also recognize that I will REFLECT God’s love to God, myself, and others in a way that NO ONE ELSE ON EARTH can, and in that manner, the love is genuinely FROM me! Why? Because my particular reflection of God's love would NOT EXIST without me.
My relationship with God is my BECOMING more of what God wants me to be, through my moral deliberation: a unique configured, yet transparent vessel that can reflect his love to God and the world…and thus participate in the triunification of Creation!
More concrete for you?
"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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One Love
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| Posted 9/22/2003 7:52 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
quote:
We’re persons reflecting PERSONAL relationship. We ARE a source as well. Everything about love tells us that this connectedness is metaphysically personal. Wwhen I speak of the metaphysics of love, I speak of the metaphysics of persons in relationship. That’s the ONLY context in which love can exist (which is why your analogy fails--to make your point about love you simply must find an analogy involving persons in relationship). Since we are persons OTHER than God, what love for God is not chosen by us in relationship with God is not US loving God. It's just God loving himself through us. This is not to deny God remains the source of love. It’s just to recognize the distinction between the ultimate source of love and us. Because love is metaphysically personal and relational, and because persons are less personal to the extent they are determined by others (to the extent they are nothing but instruments of another person) we would be less personal to the extent God determined that we love.
Your embolded statement IGNORES the particularity of our personhood that expresses itself in the unique, personal way that we reflect God’s love back to God. This is NOT an impersonal affair. That’s why I believe that a PRISM is a better analogy for this than a MIRROR. It is not just God loving himself through us. It is God loving US in our distinctiveness…in that energizing love, we, hopefully being the transparent beings we should be, naturally reflect that love uniquely back to God and to others. It’s a natural, yet PERSONAL affair.
You do see this, don’t you, Tom??
Moreover, you need to check the other thread where I quoted Doc in Trinity and Process…
From Chap. VI, vii.3.1 The Concept of Disposition, p. 383-384. Emphasis mine.
“We have previously maintained that we must, for a number of reasons, postulate the existence of a reality which is neither fully actual nor merely possible, but which mediates between these two (III.ii.3). Hartshorne’s categories of concreteness and abstractness, we have seen, do not themselves render reality intelligible. Neither does appealing to the category of creativity help, for this reality too is abstract. Nor does appealing to God’s vectoral nature help, for the subjective aim preceeds the subject.
Rather, to state it in a word, we have maintained that creativity is explanatorally advantageous only when a) it is understood in a realist fashion (not as abstraction); b) it is understood in a manner that isn’t wholly indeterminate—it is telelogically predisposed in multifariously particular ways; c) it is not reduced to atomistic units but can be understood to explain phenomenological wholes as well; d) it is not divorced from the subjective aim; and e) it is seen as being constitutive of the antecedent essence of the becoming subject. And when all this is done, we have argued, we have a category which is neither concrete, nor abstract, but which mediates the two and which renders intelligible, without necessitating, the movement from one to the other.
In continuity with a large segment of the dynamistic strand of Western philosophy, a strand best exemplified in a theological context by Jonathon Edwards, we have opted to call this reality “disposition.” It is, as we have argued, this concept alone which can render causality, becoming, spontaneity, and freedom intelligible. It is the reality of dispositions which constitutes the enduring dynamic essence of “beings,” though their actuality is in constant flux. And it is this reality which functions as their sufficient reason, without thereby necessitating their every action or every detail which characterizes their actuality. (Meph’s Note: IMPORTANT, TOM!) The ontological parity of being and becoming are grounded in the reality of dispositions which mediates between them.”
God creating us such that we would unchangably appropriate God’s loving subjective aim would NOT be depersonalizing as it is NOT exhaustively determining any being, especially their particular occasions of loving. So no sense of personality would be lost, Tom.
"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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Tom
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| Posted 9/22/2003 10:59 PM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: 1) Does God’s choice to love come from God’s essential existence…or from pure exercise of will? 2) Is God “praiseworthy” for his loving us? If so, why? 3) Is God morally responsible for his loving us? If so, why? If you answer these questions a certain way, then there’s no reason to say that genuine love necessarily entails moral deliberation. None at all.
Tom: Hmm. Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
On #1: Essential existence, I think. God is love.
On #2: Yes, God is praiseworthy.
On #3: No, God is not morally responsible for loving us if you mean is God responsible to a standard of good other than himself.
I’m relatively certain God does not possess libertarian free will, and neither did Jesus. If someone wants to suggest that God does possess libertarian free will, then I think that person owes us an explanation accounting for what would happen were God to exercise his freedom in unloving ways. If this is inconceivable, if no sense can be made of God’s choosing other than good, then I don’t find it helpful to suggest he possesses libertarian free will.
I was just reading Vincent Brummer again yesterday (good stuff). He was discussing the difference between absolute and relative values in his chapter on God’s impeccability. I’m still tossing it around. But it seemed to me that he was affirming what I’ve been thinking. God is Love. We are not. What this means for God and for us, and the difference (whatever it is) between these ought to warn us that there is likely to be some difference in the context out of which we love and the sort of freedom required for love. I wouldn’t say God is morally responsible for his loving because God IS the standard (whereas we are not). Moral responsibility entails a moral “response” to some standard other than ourselves. This applies to us but not to God, whose love is not a response to some standard that measures him (as is ours); his love IS the measure in the absolute sense. The law reflects the character of God. In this sense the law IS moral (ala Paul, the law is holy, just, and good) but is itself not morally responsible to another. Thus, God is a moral being, but not morally responsible in the sense that his loving is a response to a command or to a relationship outside himself. But all creaturely decisions to love ARE a response to this measure. God's are not. God is love. We are not.
So, your three questions really skirt the issue. If God loves essentially, by nature, this cannot tell us that WE therefore can love by nature, without choosing. The creator/creature distinction IS significant. It perfectly accounts for why libertarian freedom is necessary for love in our case but not in God’s. I’m really baffled by your insistence that this distinction means nothing here. But greater minds than mine will have to take this further. I’m a simple duuuuuuuude.
Mephi: And as far as an analogy with people as opposed to prisms, I tried to use JESUS as an analogy. A being who as a FULL HUMAN BEING and KENOTIC with respect to His deity, was able to have an unchangably loving nature…
Tom: I don’t think Jesus is an analogy of the sort of thing your proposing because Jesus IS God, incarnate yes, kenotic, yes; but NOT kenotic with respect to moral character. I know the question of Jesus’ impeccability is debated, and perhaps you can see why I come down on the side of Jesus’ impeccability.
Mephi: I tried to describe my view of this type of world populated with such beings. The ONLY difference between these beings and Jesus would be that none of those beings would BE God.
Tom: I totally embrace your view of the world populated with beings who love compatibilisitically. What you admit is the ONLY difference between these beings and Jesus (namely, Jesus is God and we are not) is, in my veiw, the very thing that makes libertarian choice necessary to our BECOMING beings who love compatibilistically (as opposed to just BEING a being who loves compatibilistically). The divine/human distinction is not to be set aside so.
Mephi: We are going to come to a fundamental disagreement here. I DENY that we are a source of love. We are NOT a source of love. We are unique personal beings that reflect God’s love back to God and to others.
Tom: I was careful to avoid saying we are a source “of love.” All I said was we are “sources” in our own right. Sorry I was unclear. I meant “sources of determining choice, moral choice.” The ONLY context out of which love can flow, and the very context destroyed if one party in the relationship determines the love of the other, is personal relationships. If you think of love in personal and relational terms, then the belief that God determines THAT we love at all is the belief that God determines THAT we relate at all. Such determination renders the relationship other than loving (love would not be a "response" we determine), moral, and personal. The subjective aim of God you talk about is in my view NOT loving "acts" viewed in themselves, but relating personally to God. Why would you think God could determine THAT we relate lovingly to him?
Now, I think your prism analogy leaves us each “unique” and “distinct” beings. But personal? Each prism is unique from the next, but it’s still a prism and not a person. Were God to leave us free to determine for ourselves the unique manner in which we each express that love but still unconditionally determine THAT we love (by giving us natures that love unfailingly), we would not on this account be persons. The uniqueness you're talking about isn't enough to account for fully personal human existence. A fully interpersonal relationship of love requires freedom with regard to the “THAT we love” question and not merely freedom with regard to "HOW we love," i.e., the unique ways we express it (I by bringing you roses and another by baking you a cake; freedom at this level alone is not the stuff of which personal relationships of love are made or rendered intelligible to us).
Mephi: I figured that you, of ALL people, would agree with this. We don’t choose to love as much as we choose to, to a lesser or greater extent, let the love of God flow IN us and THROUGH us. We are NOT a source of love, but a personal locus of love CONDUCTIVITY.
Tom: I totally agree. By calling us independent “sources” I didn’t mean to suggest we were sources of love. We reflect love. But it’s LOVE that we reflect only because we choose to do so.
Mephi: I am arguing that our genuine participation in God’s love is NOT based upon the NEGATIVE sense, but primarily on the POSITIVE sense. Morally responsible beings end up having to deal with the positive and negative sense of participating in God’s love. But this is NOT the only possible state of contingent, sentient existence!
Tom: Libertarian free will (your “negative sense”) may not be the only possible STATE of contingent, sentient, loving (let’s put “loving” in here, otherwise cows and dogs qualify) existence, but it may be the only possible ROUTE to achieving this state of existence. You keep positing the final GOAL (the STATE) as an argument in itself for denying that there necessarily BE a route at all. God could simply have created the final product. But THAT such a state is possible for us itself says nothing about what might or might not be required of us to get there. And we have nothing in our experience, no intuitions or analogies, that would suggest contingent, sentient beings can be created loving from the get-go. We have plenty of experience and analogy to tell us they can get there, but not that they can start there.
Mephi:In the same way, God's love comes to us and we reflect that love to God and others in a UNIQUE dimension that is particularized to OUR individual personhoods. This process makes it GENUINELY "our" love in that it's a unique dimension of love that would have otherwise NOT existed without us…
…Your embolded statement IGNORES the particularity of our personhood that expresses itself in the unique, personal way that we reflect God’s love back to God. This is NOT an impersonal affair. That’s why I believe that a PRISM is a better analogy for this than a MIRROR. It is not just God loving himself through us. It is God loving US in our distinctiveness…in that energizing love, we, hopefully being the transparent beings we should be, naturally reflect that love uniquely back to God and to others. It’s a natural, yet PERSONAL affair.
You do see this, don’t you, Tom?
Tom: ‘Fraid not Bro. I’m not ignoring the particularity of each prism and the unique way each reflects light. However, all prisms remain equally determined TO REFLECT LIGHT (by analogy, we remain equally determined TO LOVE). The unique way each prism casts light is hardly analogous to what is unique about each person's personal relationship of love to God and to others. In the world you’re imagining (one populated by beings GIVEN compatibilistically loving characters), we would all remain equally void of morality and would be less than personal but each in his or her own unique way. That's where you end up positing individual uniqueness--in the how of "love" and not in the "that" of love (which in my view removes love completely). You’re right on to recognize the necessity of each person’s unique individuality, and right also in believing this uniqueness will manifest itself in ways appropriate to each person's unique personality. But in suggesting that God determines THAT we all love, what freedom is left us (the freedom to determine only the unique expressions of love) is not enough, in my view, to secure that our relationship to God is either truly moral or fully personal. We require more.
You have God unconditionally determining our characters for us while leaving us each free to manifest that predetermined character in individually unique ways. Of course, in such a world the freedom we exercise in determining the unique ways in which we express love would not be morally responsible behavior either. Like I said, since the THAT (i.e., THAT we love at all) is determined for us, I fail to see that the freedom left us to determine the individually unique ways we express ourselves is able to secure a truly interpersonal relationship at all.
Mephi: Let’s make this more personal for YOU, Tom. When I love God, myself, and others, what I feel I’m actually doing is ALIGNING MYSELF with God’s activity in me, via the Spirit of God. I’m surrendering to God and denying to self. I’m like the prism who chooses…
Tom: A prism who chooses? I don't know what this means.
If God determines you (by given you a compatibilistically loving nature) to love, then the question of “aligning one’s self” and “denying one’s self” never arises. THAT self is aligned IS what is given by God. And if the character is determined by God, then there IS no self to DENY. All is compliance. We love unfailingly by nature. That we do so in individually unique ways is irrelevant.
Now, don’t respond by saying, “But, Tom, you don’t attribute such freedom to God’s loving.” I’ve already admitted I don’t and explained why the difference between LOVE AS THE MEASURE (i.e., God) cannot be thought of as being other than what it is while WE AS THE MEASURED must be thought of as capable of being other than loving.
Doc, who loves ya baby? Who understands his twin brother? Tell me it’s so! Talk to me. I think I...I...eh...I think I love you.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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Springs
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 636
| Posted 9/23/2003 5:52 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/23/2003 8:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
quote:
I was just reading Vincent Brummer again yesterday (good stuff). He was discussing the difference between absolute and relative values in his chapter on God’s impeccability. I’m still tossing it around. But it seemed to me that he was affirming what I’ve been thinking. God is Love. We are not. What this means for God and for us, and the difference (whatever it is) between these ought to warn us that there is likely to be some difference in the context out of which we love and the sort of freedom required for love. I wouldn’t say God is morally responsible for his loving because God IS the standard (whereas we are not). Moral responsibility entails a moral “response” to some standard other than ourselves. This applies to us but not to God, whose love is not a response to some standard that measures him (as is ours); his love IS the measure in the absolute sense. The law reflects the character of God. In this sense the law IS moral (ala Paul, the law is holy, just, and good) but is itself not morally responsible to another. Thus, God is a moral being, but not morally responsible in the sense that his loving is a response to a command or to a relationship outside himself. But all creaturely decisions to love ARE a response to this measure. God's are not. God is love. We are not.
So, your three questions really skirt the issue. If God loves essentially, by nature, this cannot tell us that WE therefore can love by nature, without choosing. The creator/creature distinction IS significant. It perfectly accounts for why libertarian freedom is necessary for love in our case but not in God’s. I’m really baffled by your insistence that this distinction means nothing here. But greater minds than mine will have to take this further. I’m a simple duuuuuuuude.
and…
quote:
Now, don’t respond by saying, “But, Tom, you don’t attribute such freedom to God’s loving.” I’ve already admitted I don’t and explained why the difference between LOVE AS THE MEASURE (i.e., God) cannot be thought of as being other than what it is while WE AS THE MEASURED must be thought of as capable of being other than loving.
I don’t think your that simple, Tom. I KNOW you can get this, if you want to.  Moral responsibility (or moral sensibility, rather, as you are describing it) is nothing more than one’s own perception of dissonance from the subjective aim of God…which is based on God’s own loving disposition which is the ideal of love. But here’s the thing. Your idea ASSUMES a NECESSARY dissonance between contingent, sentient beings’ disposition and the subjective aim of God, with respect to loving. This does NOT have to be the case! That contingent beings are “measured” against the standard (which would be God’s loving disposition) does NOT mean that they by definition cannot measure up in this area.
The only way that your line of thinking works is to demonstrate that that having God’s disposition being the standard of measure and contingent, sentient beings’ disposition (with respect to loving) being “measured” by that standard metaphysically necessitates a dissonance between the two. And guess what, Tom. You can’t do that. Nope. Ya can’t. The only thing that you can say is that it MAY be the case that sentient beings’ disposition are dissonant with the subjective aim of God. That’s ALL.
There is a very good reason why I’m saying all this, Tom. See, to the extent the contingent creature/necessary Creator distinction argument is done away with as INEFFECTIVE, I am free to make the next point.
Which is…
If it can be said that God’s love to Creation does NOT have to be chosen to be genuine to Creation, then LOVE in itself does NOT have to be chosen to be genuine. Because this is the case, and there is NO GOOD REASON why this idea shouldn’t apply to sentient, contingent beings as it does to God, then love in itself does not have to be chosen to be genuine with respect to them as well. The ONLY way that love MUST be chosen is if a Creation is being intended such that MORAL DELIBERATION and DEVELOPMENT OF MORAL CHARACTER are intended to exist. But it is important to note that love does NOT require moral deliberation or development of moral character…because God does NEITHER.
Tom, I KNOW you can get this. I know you can.
"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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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/23/2003 11:48 PM (GMT -6) | | I love your mind and persistence so much! I'm just sorry that you're WRONG!! 
Mephi: I don’t think your that simple, Tom. I KNOW you can get this, if you want to.
Tom: I AM that simple. Am to, am to, am to! 
Actually, I think I do get it. I just disagree.
Mephi: Moral responsibility (or moral sensibility, rather, as you are describing it) is nothing more than one’s own perception of dissonance from the subjective aim of God…which is based on God’s own loving disposition which is the ideal of love.
Tom: I would describe it as one’s perception only of the POSSIBLE dissonance from the subjective aim of God as well as one’s perception of one’s own personal responsibility relative to this possibility. Without these perceptions I have no framework, no context, for existentially managing personal relationships of love. Neither do you.
I think Doc’s question over in the “Hereafter” thread is where we’re headed: Is it really the relationship between love and morality we ought to be discussing? I think so.
Mephi: But here’s the thing. Your idea ASSUMES a NECESSARY dissonance between contingent, sentient beings’ disposition and the subjective aim of God, with respect to loving.
Tom: Not a necessary dissonance between our disposition and God, just the necessary possibility of such dissonance and the understanding of my responsibility relative to this possibility.
Mephi: This does NOT have to be the case! That contingent beings are “measured” against the standard (which would be God’s loving disposition) does NOT mean that they by definition cannot measure up in this area.
Tom: (Hmm. Well, I think I'd disagree with part of this. Measurement PRESUMES the possibility of difference. We don't measure if we assume there's no possibility of difference, certainly not if we are certain there is none. But this isn't important to my point, which is...) Of course it doesn’t mean they by definition cannot measure up to the standard. But neither does it allow (as you argue could have been the case) that they by definition be unable to NOT measure up. I’m arguing the contraries of both must be true for contingent beings. We must be by definition able to measure up and able not to measure up, otherwise measuring up (i.e., loving) is personally and relationally meaningless for us. If we were unable by definition to measure up (that is, unable by definition to love, viz. to relate personally to God) then love would be as out of our reach as it would be were we unable by definition to NOT measure up. To the extent either option is by definition (that is, by definition of the nature God determines for us) closed to us, we are in that respect not able to relate personally or lovingly to God and others. I have only to ask you whether you would a) condemn someone for not loving who is by definition unable to love, or b) accept as the basis for a truly personal relationship of love the love of somebody who was by definition unable to do other than love you. How would such a person not qualify as robotic in this instance?
Mephi: But it is important to note that love does NOT require moral deliberation or development of moral character because God does NEITHER.
Tom: And our not being God, our not existing necessarily as love, has nothing whatsoever to do with the comparison? On the contrary, it seems to have everything to do with why the MEASURE and the MEASURED are different on this score precisely because what is measured is relationship itself and not behavior performance.
Being the MEASURE of loving relationship, God doesn’t need to do develop personal relationship by measured choice. But as the MEASURED, the exercise of such free choice with respect to love and personal relationship in our case IS ITSELF WHAT CONSTITUTES OUR BEING MEASURED. There's no other way for us to "get there." Without free choice there IS no basis for measurement. And without measurement, there is no basis for our relating personally in love.
Doc, who loves ya baby?  Come on, chime in on this one.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/24/2003 4:35 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
quote:
I think Doc’s question over in the “Hereafter” thread is where we’re headed: Is it really the relationship between love and morality we ought to be discussing? I think so.
I do too. And I don’t think that love NECESSARILY entails morality, IF by that we mean that love (for contingent beings) REQUIRES the ability to morally deliberate.
********************************
Tom:
quote:
Being the MEASURE of loving relationship, God doesn’t need to do develop personal relationship by measured choice. But as the MEASURED, the exercise of such free choice with respect to love and personal relationship in our case IS ITSELF WHAT CONSTITUTES OUR BEING MEASURED. There's no other way for us to "get there." Without free choice there IS no basis for measurement. And without measurement, there is no basis for our relating personally in love.
Tom, the reason why we are disagreeing is that you are linking personhood INEXTRICABLY with moral deliberation. You’re argumentation is flowing from your ASSUMPTIONS…which I believe are flowing from your EXPERIENCE and INTUITIONS. But as I’ve tried to say. All of our intuitions are grounded on the reality in which WE experience ourselves. We have ample warrants to believe that we are in a Creation where moral deliberation and libertarian free will are in place. But this says NOTHING about this being the NECESSARY state of existence for genuinely loving sentient, contingent beings!
Tom, the intuitions and experience that you have are CORRECT, in this manner:
Moral deliberation and the pursuit (not immediate possession) of God’s all-loving character REQUIRES freedom.
You and I would agree on this. I do believe that this is TRUE. I believe that God created a world such that moral deliberation and the pursuit of God’s all-loving character would obtain. ALL of our intuitions seem to warrant this conclusion.
HOWEVER…
It is WAY too far an extension from this to say that love for contingent beings MUST be chosen in order to be genuine. WAY too far. I’m willing to say that if God would have created a world where all sentient creatures developed rationally, physically, emotionally, and intellection, but also ALWAYS appropriated the subjective aim from God, with respect to loving…that THAT love would have been just to “genuine” to God as his OWN love is genuine to Godself and to us!
I don’t see ANY REASON that God (or we, for that matter) would consider our love any less genuine because we were created with the SAME “freedom” that God has! From Doc:
Does it change anything if instead of referring to God’s "inability" to choose non-love, we speak of his freedom to choose ONLY love. In my view, libertarian freedom is not the highest form of freedom. Freedom to love without the possibility of doing otherwise is the highest freedom (and being locked in anti-love without the possibility of doing otherwise the highest bondage). So, its not so much that God’s love is genuine even though he’s "not able" to choose against it. It’s all the more genuine because he is free not to have to struggle with any impulse to choose against it.
What is SO WRONG with God granting us the beautiful “freedom” that God HIMSELF has in this regard from the getgo??? If this statement really is true, and freedom to choose ONLY LOVE is the HIGHEST FREEDOM…
then what’s the friggin problem??
I know what the problem is for Doc. For Doc to grant my argumentation is to bring up the question about WHY God didn’t allow sentient creatures this “freedom” to only love…if God genuinely COULD HAVE. And instead of just saying “God did it for a wise reason only known to God.”, Doc won’t go for that. THEODICY.
But l don’t think YOU have those concerns, Tom. I think that you just really can’t interpret love being WITHOUT moral deliberation for sentient, contingent beings because our our common human intuitions. I’m asking you to be MORE DISTINCTIVE in what we are saying about those intuitions only. Remember, it would NOT be “love” for US to program each other to do loving actions, because the WHOLE PROCESS is artificial. However, if God were to so construct our very beings such that we would PERFECTLY REFLECT the love of God to God and to each other, like a big ecosystem of love…this would NOT be artificial or not genuine. Why? Because of who GOD IS.
Tom, trust me. Personhood is NOT being sacrificed here. At all. The only thing being sacrificed with this whole thing is the THEODICY which says that God HAD NO CHOICE but to create a Creation with morally deliberating sentient creatures BECAUSE, without doing so, love would NOT EXIST in that Creation. This is balderdash! Genuine love COULD HAVE existed in Creation without sentient beings having the ability to morally deliberate!
The all-wise, all-loving God needs NO justification for his wise decision to do what God has done, contrary to what theodicy people would tell us. Surely, you agree with this, Tom.
"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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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 9/24/2003 5:19 AM (GMT -6) | | Mephi:What is SO WRONG with God granting us the beautiful “freedom” that God HIMSELF has in this regard from the getgo?
Tom: Shoot man, I dooo love ya. Can’t wait till my visit. I’m outta amo, so Doc’ll have to jump in here.
Mephi: I know what the problem is for Doc…THEODICY. But l don’t think YOU have those concerns, Tom. I think that you just really can’t interpret love being WITHOUT moral deliberation for sentient, contingent beings because our our common human intuitions.
Tom: Knowing my eternal twin as I do (who loves ya Doc?), I would say Doc’s FIRST problem is the same as mine—namely, the metaphysics of personal relationships of love. That’s first. Secondly it’s theodicy. Assuming you’re right, and God could have gone this route, why didn’t he? That’s secondary.
Mephi:Remember, it would NOT be “love” for US to program each other to do loving actions, because the WHOLE PROCESS is artificial. However, if God were to so construct our very beings such that we would PERFECTLY REFLECT the love of God to God and to each other, like a big ecosystem of love…this would NOT be artificial or not genuine. Why? Because of who GOD IS.
Tom: Oh, NOW the creator/creature distinction means something! For crying out loud! If God determined us to love…we genuinely love…but if another contingent being determined us to love…our love is artificial, even though in BOTH cases we are not free to do other than we do. Jimminy Cricket!
Love ya, love ya, love ya...
Show Mephi the way Lord!
Tom
Hey Electra, isn't this YOUR analogy? What d'ya think? | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/24/2003 5:51 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
quote:
Oh, NOW the creator/creature distinction means something! For crying out loud! If God determined us to love…we genuinely love…but if another contingent being determined us to love…our love is artificial, even though in BOTH cases we are not free to do other than we do. Jimminy Cricket!
Love ya, love ya, love ya...
Heh. Love ya tooooo.
I never said that the creator/creature distinction meant nothing at all. Never said that. I’ve always said that there is a significant distinction there. Mainly, what I’ve been saying is that the “God is love, we are not” argument as it applies to the genuineness of unchosen love doesn’t work…BECAUSE all love is from and of God. For God to construct us such that, with respect to loving, we perfectly appropriate and reflect God’s subjective aim would NOT diminish the genuineness of the love. Nor would it diminish the PERSONAL RELATION involved in that love. Think about it, Tom. My point it not that obtuse. How can WE, sin-filled creatures, program another being to LOVE PERFECTLY? The notion is ITSELF impossible! Only GOD, the measure of perfect love, could REALLY created all-loving beings...and God wouldn't be doing that by "programming"
Oh, yes. October, buddy.
"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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