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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/16/2005 6:46 PM (GMT -6) |   | Answering questions.
Tom:
Where’s the grounds for the utter superfluity of creation? I don’t see it. I really am reading you closely here, Mephi. But you’re just choosing to make this assumption. It doesn’t follow. We are utterly superfluous with regard to God’s aseity, yes. But it’s NOT true that God’s aseity is what we need to affect if we are to be at all meaningful to God.
Hopefully, my last posts have explained how, WITHIN PROCESS CATEGORIES (where Doc's theology lies), God's aseity and our meaning, with respect to how our moral existences affect God's aesthetic satisfaction for loving sociality, are inextricably linked.
If God doesn't need us to contibute to the intensity of God's beautiful experience with loving relationality...and this whole thing is about love...then we are superfluous with respect to this.
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Tom:
Tell me what it is about God, Mephi, that makes you think his saving everybody would be a “better” expression of God than his dumping everybody into hell? What MAKES the former a BETTER expression of God?
First off, let me quote Doc at length. The Expressed Delight of God in Suffering Grace. page 381-2
The beauty of grace. The beauty of God's eternal sociality is expressed in the beauty of the unnecessary, radical act which shows the unthinkable extreme to which God will go to establish sociality with another--another who in sin wants nothing more than to be rid of this sociality! The intensity of the social union of the Trinity is, when it is turned outward, the suffering intensity of God's gracious love for social union with free and fallen humanity. The enormity of the gulf and the extremity of the sacrifice needed to cross it, all reveals outwardly in time the intensity of the love and beauty which defines God inwardly throughout eternity. The suffering intensity ad extra is an expression of the divine intensity ad intra.
The intense love manifested in the cross expresses in its own way the intensity of the love which binds the eternal Trinity. But it does not yet express the intense delight (emphasis his) of God ad intra. This is shall do, however. God does not, of course, delight in dying on a cross as a man. But God does delight in the harmonic sociality between God and God's creation which this act shall bring about and is already in the process of bringing about. The cross expresses the intensity of God's social love, and it brings about the expression of God's social delight in the ultimate victory of the Kingdom of God.
That pretty much says is all. The ultimate contingent EXPRESSION of God's ad intra life would be the consummation of "harmonic sociality" between God and God's creation. The trinification of Creation.
For God to ordain a universal hell would not EXPRESS the ad intra. I would argue that for God to ultimately allow room for ANY person to experience eternal destruction would not fully EXPRESS the ad intra, if that's what God is freely choosing to do. Just look at what Doc says.
Notice NONE of this says that we "matter" to God as far as a mutually influential love relationship. All it says is that the ultimate ad extra expression of God's inner life would be to consummate God's "social delight" by bringing Creation into the triune dance to partake in the divine life. A straight up CALVINIST could say this.
Anyways, that's my answer to that.
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/16/2005 6:54 PM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: But, NONE of this value that God appreciates would affect (either negatively or positively) God's "inner life" of emotion.
Tom: Again, what I thought I had been saying all along, in agreement with Doc. Now, how you want to split hairs after this is less important I suppose. You refer to God's "inner life of emotion" which you claim can't possibly be disturbed. But you also say "God appreicates the value of fulfilled subjective aims" for Creation. How's God do this "appreciating"? Where's he do it? Is it at all emotional? Are you saying God's impassible now?
Yes and no. God can "feel" in relation to the world. It's just that that "feeling" doesn't affect God's aesthetic satisfaction.
God can feel joy over a sinner saved or loss over a sinner lost. But these feelings PALE in comparison to God's ecstatic joy, bliss, and delight over Godself. And these contingent feelings do NOTHING to disturb any of the calm that satisfies God's "soul"
Can't you accept this?
To all heresy-hunters and general lames...
"I'm connected nationwide, but from the South...
Respect game, and keep my name outcha mouth!"
--adapted from T.I. From P$C's "I'm a King"
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/16/2005 7:03 PM (GMT -6) | | Violin:
Can one continue loving another only if that love is reciprocated? Does love require reciprocation?
(My answer is: the love has to be reciprocated because love is sharing in communion with one another)
I'll go the SK route. "Can you love a dead person?"
From an online commentary on "IX: The Work of Love in Remembering One Dead" from Works of Love..
This oddly titled chapter is to some extent odd in content. Kierkegaard argues that when one remembers the dead, it is the most unselfish act, because the dead cannot repay kindness. Moreover, in human relationships, one lover may claim that the other has changed. Not so here. For the dead person, who is remembered, is beyond change. It is difficult to determine whether Kierkegaard is jesting or simply taking his views to what he thinks is their logical conclusion.
sorenkierkegaard.org/kw16_9.htm
I've believed the latter. Love is essentially a UNILATERAL activity that has the hope of reciprocation. Love DOESN'T NEED reciprocation in order to be love. If love required communion, then unrequited love would be a nonsensical claim, for unrequited love is love which is not returned.
Also, Christ's unrequited love couldn't be "love" because the LOVE is in the fact that while we were yet enemies of God Christ still died for us.
Now, one can argue that the consummation of loving relationality requires reciprocation. But here's something else. Reciprocation of love is not necessarily the same thing as participating in a mutually-influential love relationship. But that's another story.
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 10/16/2005 7:06 PM (GMT -6) | | Meph: In laymen's terms, God is dispositionally "wired" to enjoy God's own internal sociality as the basis for God's aesthetic appreciation and satisfaction.
Jeff: I think we would all agree that the internal society is the BASIS. That's what I was getting at earlier by saying that maybe the Father creates FOR Himself precisely INSOMUCH as He creates for the Son. The latter may be the BASIS for the former.
Meph: But, NONE of this value that God appreciates would affect (either negatively or positively) God's "inner life" of emotion.
Jeff: As far as the constancy of love, yes. But the suffering of the Son would necessarily cause heart-break to the Father even IF their harmonious relationship maintains a kind of loving PEACE in the midst of that storm. Even humans can experience those contrasted emotions in parallel. That doesn't rule out the SIGNIFICANCE of either.
For example, my "pride" and love for a loved-one can actually be MOST INTENSE when he/she is suffering for me. But the pain I feel for the loved one's suffering is truly significant, nonetheless. It's bitter-sweet because BOTH the love AND the suffering are intense, SIMULTANEOUSLY. So, YES, the "SWEET" is a constant, in that sense.
Meph: This would be like your spouse to tell you that they will be completely, utterly, supremely satisfied with life regardless of anything you did, positive or negative.
Jeff: It would seem to be more analogous for the spouse to say that they will be supremely satisfied with the MARITAL RELATIONSHIP regardless of what the WORLD does, positive or negative.
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/16/2005 7:09 PM (GMT -6) | | Think about this. Why do you think Doc, in his sermons and in "Repenting of Religion" talks about God placing us (the Bride) "in Christ" into the love that the Father ALREADY has for the Son??
Jonathon Edwards 101.
There's no mutual influence going on. We RECEIVE God's grace and participate in the divine nature as we rely on God's work.
To all heresy-hunters and general lames...
"I'm connected nationwide, but from the South...
Respect game, and keep my name outcha mouth!"
--adapted from T.I. From P$C's "I'm a King"
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/16/2005 7:16 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I might end up going process. Don't know. I can sooner give up a contingnet non-divine other than I can embrace a God who does not "feel" in relation to the world.
God have mercy on my soul.
But what's it matter to him, right?
Hmmm...interesting.  Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/16/2005 7:25:09 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/16/2005 7:21 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Tom: Accept it? Mephi, I've been arguing it. My only beef would be to point out that you are not in a position to determine just what God's experience of joy in fulfilled subjective aims would or wouldn't be, except to say that it is and that's it real. Can we let God enjoy creation without telling him how little he's allowed to enjoy it?
Can we let God enjoy Godself as much as God would like, regardless of what that ultimately means for us puny humans?
I can use rhetoric too. Heh.
But seriously, dude. This is just a matter of dealing with the implications of God's aseity from the perspective of the process metaphysic. I didn't make the rules. I'm just playing them out. ********************** Tom: It all depends on what one means by "bringing Creation into...." If it's an unconditionally determined "bringing" of creation, then whatever harmony of sociality we are determined into it's not a loving and personal harmony of experience. You and I are NOT going to agree on the metaphysics of love where contingent creatures are concerned, so I'll just leave it at that.Fine by me. No biggie. Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/16/2005 7:24:05 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/16/2005 7:27 PM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: Love is essentially a UNILATERAL activity that has the hope of reciprocation. Love DOESN'T NEED reciprocation in order to be love.
Tom: True.
Mephi: Christ's unrequited love couldn't be "love" because the LOVE is in the fact that while we were yet enemies of God Christ still died for us.
Tom: Paul calls it love, Mephi. And you just said it doesn't have to be requited to be love. It can only hope for reciprocation. And Christ's dying for us while we were sinners doesn't entail his NOT hoping we'd reciprocate. So assuming God hopes we reciprocate his love, his love is love.
Mephi: Now, one can argue that the consummation of loving relationality requires reciprocation.
Tom: Not just the 'consummation' of loving relationality. But the establishment and enjoyment of loving relationality also. Reciprocation defines relationality between persons.
Mephi: But here's something else. Reciprocation of love is not necessarily the same thing as participating in a mutually-influential love relationship.
Tom: If an anonymous somebody loves me in my need by sending me $100 gift, I can send a thank-you note expressing my gratitude via a third-part who DOES know the giver. In a sense that's reciprocated love that's not a mutually-influential love relationship. But Mephi, come on. That's not where we are.
And if by "influence" you mean our affecting God's eternal aestheic satisfaction with Godself, true. But you've already said God really rejoices in the fulfillment of his subjective aims. Now, where the fulfillment of those loving aims is determined by US, we do influence God's enjoyment of subjective aims and do relate mutually to God. The whole affair is a "personal" one. One person, God, influences our experience as choosing and feeling persons, offers himself as life, and in determining ourselves favorably with respect to God's subjective aim that we choose our way into celebrating that life, that person (God), we influence that person's experience as a subjective aimer. It's clinical, but that's what I call a mutually-influential love relationship. Tom
Post Edited (TGB) : 10/16/2005 7:44:41 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/16/2005 7:49 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
And if by "influence" you mean our affecting God's eternal aestheic satisfaction with Godself, true. But you've already said God really rejoices in the fulfillment of his subjective aims. Now, where the fulfillment of those loving aims is determined by US, we do influence God's enjoyment of subjective aims and do relate mutually to God. The whole affair is a "personal" one. One person, God, influences our experience as choosing and feeling persons, offers love and life, and in determining ourselves favorably with respect to God's subjective aim that we choose our way into celebrating that life, THAT PERSON (God), we influence that person's experience as a subjective aimer. It's clinical, but that's what I call a mutually-influential love relationship.
Yep. We can give God the half-teaspoon of God's favorite ice cream, if we choose to...and he appreciates it, at least as much as a pleasure/happiness enthralled person who is lost in supreme self-satisfaction person can do so.
How you can see that as a mutually-influential love relationship is beyond me. It's meaningless to me.
Again, the main thing to me is this: God, in God's heart, would be JUST AS HAPPY and SATISFIED had I never existed...as he would be if I went to Heaven...as he would be if I went to Hell.
Wouldn't you agree with this? Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/16/2005 7:57:04 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/16/2005 8:08 PM (GMT -6) | | You gotta be kidding me Mephi. Where's you J-consistency. You admit God rejoices in the fulfillment of his subjective aims. You admit his subjective aims for us are personal and relational in nature. You admit the fulfillment of his subjective aims is not determined exhaustively by God but also by us. Be consistent Mr. Consistent. This means we influence God.
I am a mosquito, Mephi. That's what I am. I'm less than a mosquito in comparison to God. But to a mosquito, being a mosquito is something. So a mosquito's contribution is all the output I can muster. I can't be as happy in God as God is happy in God. But I can be as happy as I can be in God, and for me that's unbelievably wonderful. What makes it wonderful, what makes it meaningful AT ALL is knowing that a God who doesn't need my measy existence chose to create me in his image and put an infintisimally small "drop" of himself in me, to equip me, a drop of water, to take my place in the ocean of God's enjoyment. A drop isn't much to an ocean the size of the universe. But it's something. It's a drop. And to the drop, knowing this makes life meaningful.
By the way, what DO you do with God's putting his 'image' in us? God, the unsurpassably entralled one who needs nothing and relativizes us into meaninglessness, puts a drop of himself into us. Is a drop of God valuable to God?
I'll take what one measy mosquito can get. If you want to embrace the meaninglessness of your existence, show us how its done.
Tom
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One Love
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| Posted 10/16/2005 8:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
You gotta be kidding me Mephi. Where's you J-consistency. You admit God rejoices in the fulfillment of his subjective aims. You admit his subjective aims for us are personal and relational in nature. You admit the fulfillment of his subjective aims is not determined exhaustively by God but also by us. Be consistent Mr. Consistent. This means we influence God.
We cannot influence God where it counts, dude. God's experience of loving relationality is NOT "better off" for my having existed, though my life is definitely better for God's having existed. This is NOT mutually-influential. Point blank.
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Tom:
I am a mosquito, Mephi. That's what I am. I'm less than a mosquito in comparison to God. But to a mosquito, being a mosquito is something. So a mosquito's contribution is all the output I can muster. I can't be as happy in God as God is happy in God. But I can be as happy as I can be in God, and for me that's unbelievably wonderful. What makes it wonderful, what makes it meaningful AT ALL is knowing that a God who doesn't need my measy existence chose to create me in his image and put an infintisimally small "drop" of himself in me, to equip me, a drop of water, to take my place in the ocean of God's enjoyment. A drop isn't much to an ocean the size of the universe. But it's something. It's a drop. And to the drop, knowing this makes life meaningful.
This is a very existentialist perspective. Believe it or not, you don't even need a God to feel this way. Exchange the word "God" with "Existence"
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Tom:
By the way, what DO you do with God's putting his 'image' in us? God, the unsurpassably entralled one who needs nothing and relativizes us into meaninglessness, puts a drop of himself into us. Is a drop of God valuable to God?
Could God have done JUST AS WELL without those drops of God? What else does aseity MEAN?
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Tom:
I'll take what one measy mosquito can get. If you want to embrace the meaninglessness of your existence, show us how its done.
No problem. Read Qoheleth, Camus, and Sartre.
Recognizing one's meaninglessness can be very interesting...and humbling.
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selah
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 10/16/2005 8:30 PM (GMT -6) | | I'm reminded of the little thumb prints with little faces on them that kids make in sunday school ...
Just above the thumbprint they write "I am thumbody special"
believe it and receive it y'all
God loves you and so do I
selah | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
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| Posted 10/16/2005 9:35 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/16/2005 9:49 PM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
God don't make junk.
for cryin out loud, are you serious with all this???
If you are, maybe it's due to your lower view of scripture.
I think OUr worth/significance is very clear in scripture...but, of course, I accept scripture much more
readily...
can a mother forget her child...I tell you I WILL NEVER FORGet you
If an unjust judge will give... how much more will your father in heaven...blah blah..
lilies of the field and birds of the air..blah
we mean nothing to God huh? no. on this one you are just wrong. so there. how's that?
We have significance and we have worth. That's just a fact. And we are supposed to affirm
our worth: love your neighbor AS yourself. Love your wife AS you love yourself... come on..
this isn't a neurotic fetish for significance. it is healthy and good.
Remember how I warned you about the slippery slope... Well...
poor sk's probably turning over in his grave
Geez. What is the DEAL here? We just doin' simply THEOLOGY here.
YOU answer the questions, Selah. Given YOUR belief in God's aseity (I'm assuming that you do)...
Does anything you do as a Christian ultimately affect God's infinitely intense beautiful experience of loving relationality,either positively or negatively?
Would God be JUST AS HAPPY AND SATISFIED in God's heart SANS your existence as God would WITH your existence?
Would God be JUST AS HAPPY AND SATISFIED in God's heart if you went to hell as if you went to Heaven?
Just think about it.
To all heresy-hunters and general lames...
"I'm connected nationwide, but from the South...
Respect game, and keep my name outcha mouth!"
--adapted from T.I. From P$C's "I'm a King"
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/16/2005 9:52 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey. If we feel THIS DEEPLY about it, then let's just ditch the idea of God's aseity.
Let's just say that God REALLY DOES "need" Creation in some sense...and Creation really DOES contribute to God's experience of beauty that comprises God's heart.
Fine by me. I just want us to understand that this IS what we'd have to do, if that's what we want. | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
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Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 10/16/2005 9:59 PM (GMT -6) | | sorry mephi, I'm getting crabby. I don't think I like playing with theology very much. I ALSO
think if anything is a fetish it's our REASON fetish...
subjective faith experiences, touching God, seeing Jesus... all that has to be factored in to your
reasoning processes. You can't do it, so you can't do what you're setting out to do IN MY OPINION.
Also, what benefit is it for the Body, anyway?
again with the scripture
whatsoever is good, pure, lovely...think ON THESE THINGS...y'know? | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/16/2005 10:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
sorry mephi, I'm getting crabby. I don't think I like playing with theology very much. I ALSO think if anything is a fetish it's our REASON fetish...
subjective faith experiences, touching God, seeing Jesus... all that has to be factored in to your
reasoning processes. You can't do it, so you can't do what you're setting out to do IN MY OPINION.
Also, what benefit is it for the body, anyway?
I hear ya. No problem. Tell ya what. Can you just answer those questions? I'm extremely interested to know how YOU answer them?
Does anything you do as a Christian ultimately affect God's infinitely intense beautiful experience of loving relationality,either positively or negatively?
Would God be JUST AS HAPPY AND SATISFIED in God's heart SANS your existence as God would WITH your existence?
Would God be JUST AS HAPPY AND SATISFIED in God's heart if you went to hell as if you went to Heaven?
Let's not forget that John Piper and other Calvinists are devout Christians who would answer one way...
To all heresy-hunters and general lames...
"I'm connected nationwide, but from the South...
Respect game, and keep my name outcha mouth!"
--adapted from T.I. From P$C's "I'm a King"
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Violin for God
Luke, I am your father. --Nooooooooo!!!!!
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 690
| Posted 10/16/2005 11:51 PM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
Hey. If we feel THIS DEEPLY about it, then let's just ditch the idea of God's aseity.
Let's just say that God REALLY DOES "need" Creation in some sense...and Creation really DOES contribute to God's experience of beauty that comprises God's heart.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding this whole dialogue y'all are having (haven't read every post... I have to save my eyes from falling out) But why can't we say that God simply DESIRES a relationship with us? Why do we have to find our worth in how much we affect God?
We do have influence on His memories and play a role in bringing others to Him; His memories are affected as time passes. Heck, for one thing, I'd say some of our worth comes from what we can do for the kingdom and for His glory. It doesn't have to be how much we affect God Himself, does it?
If you're going to be skeptical, be fair and be skeptical of skepticism. | | Back to Top | | |
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