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Modes of Thought
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817

Posted 4/4/2002 7:41 AM (GMT -6)

Not for the faint of heart! This discussion is pertinent to intuitions and arguments used by Miss E and others but also has some bearing on the Ethics discussion more generally. First will be a quote from Kant and then a section from Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling” from the section bearing the same title as this thread. It’s long and difficult so bear with me. It should prove worthwhile. Forgive the gender insensitivities please, these writings are hundreds of years old:

In Immanuel Kant’s “Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals” Kant writes:

Even the Holy One of the Gospel must be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before He is recognized as such; even He says of Himself, “Why call ye Me (whom you see) good? None is good (the archetype of the good) except God only (whom you do not see).” But whence do we have the concept of God as the highest Good? Solely from the idea that moral perfection which reason formulates a priori and which it inseparably connects with the concept of a free will.

If we now look back upon all previous attempts which have ever been undertaken to discover the principle of morality, it is not to be wondered at that they all had to fail. Man was seen to be bound to laws by his duty, but it was not seen that he is subject only to his own, yet universal, legislation, and that he is only bound to act in accordance with his own will, which is, however, designed by nature to be a will giving universal laws. For if one thought of him as subject only to a law (whatever it may be), this necessarily implied some interest as a stimulus or compulsion to obedience because the law did not arise from his will. Rather, his will was constrained by something else according to a law to act in a certain way. By this strictly necessary consequence, however, all the labor of finding a supreme ground for duty was irrevocably lost, and one never arrived at duty but only at the necessity of action from a certain interest. This might be his own interest or that of another, but in either case the imperative always had to be conditional and could not at all serve as a moral command. This principle I will call the principle of “autonomy” of the will in contrast to all other principles which I accordingly count under “heteronomy.”

The essence of things is not changed by their external relations, and without reference to these relations a man must be judged only by what constitutes his absolute worth; and this is true whoever his judge is, even if it be the Supreme Being. Morality is thus the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will, i.e., to possible universal lawgiving by maxims of the will. The action which can be compatible with the autonomy of the will is permitted; that which does not agree with it is prohibited. The will whose maxims necessarily are in harmony with the laws of autonomy is a holy will or an absolutely good will.

Now here’s something from Kierkegaard:

Is there an Absolute Duty to God?

The ethical is the universal, and as such it is also the divine. Thus it is proper to say that every duty is essentially duty to God, but if no more can be said than this, then it is also said that I actually have no duty to God. The duty becomes duty by being traced back to God, but in the duty itself I do not enter into relation to God. For example, it is a duty to love one’s neighbor. It is a duty by its being traced back to God, but in the duty I enter into relation not to God but to the neighbor I love. If in this connection I then say that it is my duty to love God, I am actually pronouncing only a tautology, inasmuch as “God” in a totally abstract sense is here understood as the divine—that is, the universal, that is, the duty. The whole existence of the human race rounds itself off as a perfect, self-contained sphere, and then the ethical is that which limits and fills at one and the same time. God comes to be an invisible vanishing point, an impotent thought; his power is only in the ethical, which fills all of existence. Insofar, then, as someone might wish to love God in another way, this love would be as implausible as the love Rousseau mentions, whereby a person loves Kaffirs instead of loving his neighbor.

Now if this train of thought is sound, if there is nothing incommensurable in a human life, and if the incommensurable that is present is there only by an accident from which nothing results insofar as existence is viewed from the idea, then Hegel was right. But he was not right in speaking about faith or in permitting Abraham to be regarded as its father, for in the latter case he has pronounced judgment both on Abraham and on faith. In Hegelian Philosophy, “the outer/the externalization” is higher than “the inner”. This is frequently illustrated by an example. The child is “the inner”, the adult “the outer”, with the result that the child is determined by the external and, conversely, the adult as “the outer” by “the inner”. But faith is the paradox that interiority is higher than exteriority….

Thus in the ethical view of life, it is the task of the single individual to strip himself of the qualification of interiority and to express this in something external. Every time the individual shrinks from it, every time he withholds himself in or slips down again into the qualifications of feeling, mood, etc. that belong to interiority, he trespasses, he is immersed in spiritual trial. The paradox of faith is that there is an interiority that is incommensurable with exteriority, an interiority that is not identical, please note, with the first [first immediacy] but is a new interiority [second immediacy]. This must not be overlooked. Recent philosophy has allowed itself simply to substitute the immediate [first immediacy] for “faith”. If that is done, then it is ridiculous to deny that there has always been faith. This puts faith in the rather commonplace company of feelings, moods, idiosyncrasies, vapeurs [vagaries], etc. If so, philosophy may be correct in saying that one ought not to stop there. But nothing justifies philosophy in using this language. Faith is preceded by a movement of infinity; only then does faith commence, nec opinate [unexpected] , by virtue of the absurd. This I can certainly understand without consequently maintaining that I have faith. If faith is nothing more than philosophy makes it out to be, then even Socrates went further, much further, instead of the reverse—that he did not attain it. In an intellectual sense, he did make the movement of infinity. His ignorance is the infinite resignation. This task alone is a suitable one for human capabilities, even though it is disdained these days; but only when this has been done, only when the individual has emptied himself in the infinite, only then has the point been reached where faith can break through.

The paradox of faith, then, is this: that the single individual is higher than the universal, that the single individual—to recall a distinction in dogmatics rather rare these days—determines his relation to the universal by his relation to the absolute, not his relation to the absolute by his relation to the universal. The paradox may also be expressed in this way: that there is an absolute duty to God, for in this relationship of duty the individual relates himself as the single individual absolutely to the absolute. In this connection, to say that it is a duty to love God means something different from the above, for if this duty is absolute, then the ethical is reduced to the relative. From this it does not follow that the ethical should be invalidated; rather, the ethical receives a completely different expression, a paradoxical expression, such as, for example, that love to God may bring the knight of faith to give his love to the neighbor—an expression opposite to that which, ethically speaking, is duty.

If this is not the case, then faith has no place in existence, the faith is a spiritual trial and Abraham is lost, inasmuch as he gave into it.

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

churchmouse522
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Total Posts : 163

Posted 4/4/2002 10:56 AM (GMT -6)

So, in other words, when push comes to shove, I am alone in my relationship with God and the faith that proceeds from it. I cannot count on the advice of those around me or the "greater morality" to guide me. As a matter of fact, these sources may very well misunderstand and judge me for something that truely proceeds from faith.

Am I on the right track or am I hopelessly lost? I'll have more to say, but I want to make sure that I understand this much.

Mouse

"We're never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy." Seal

GregBoyd
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Total Posts : 1818

Posted 4/5/2002 3:07 AM (GMT -6)

Is God a cosmic Richard Nixon who is "above the law"?

Kierkegaard, Medieval nominalists, and most forms of classic Calvinism have, in one way or another, said yes. Hence, there can be an absolute duty to God that make involve action that breaks ethical norms (like being willing to sacrifice your son!). The danger here, of course, is that we can no longer know what it means to call God (or Richard Nixon) GOOD. Good is simply what God commands, because he commands it, even if it looks evil. The other danger is that this would in principle justify (if not encourage) anyone doing anything "in the name of God." We arrested a lady last month in Minnesota for doing what Abraham was willing to do, and she did it (killed her son) for the very reasons Abraham gave – "God told me…"

Yet, if God is not above the law (law here = something like universal principles of goodness) , it seems he must be under it. In which case we should be worshipping the law, not God. A la Kant, we idealize moral perfection and live our life in service to this "god" – the god of the knowledge of good and evil – rather than the real God.

My question is this: WHY accept the dichotomous presupposition that God is EITHER above the law or below it? Couldn’t God’s eternal character BE universal goodness? "God IS love" – and all ethical principles, in the end, are simply different facets/ patterns/ principles of love. If we accept this, we can in a sense say that BOTH Kant and Kierkegaard were hitting on an important element of truth. We do have an absolute duty to universal ethical principles and an absolute duty to God, for they are one and the same.

The issue this leaves unanswered is how we KNOW God, how we KNOW universal ethical principles, and how we LIVE. On my reading, the primary manifestation of the fall is that we think we know good and evil apart from God. WE become the standard of good and evil, rather than God. We arrive at principles and try to fit all concrete experiences life into tthis procrustean bed. This invariably results in very Pharisaical, unloving (hence unethical) behavior! The better we get at being "good" on our own, the farther we get from God -- "who is love." The primary healing of the disunion from God is abandon one’s autonomous "knowing" of good and evil and to know only Jesus Christ and him crucified. You here know that, apart from God, you are condemned and forgiven. You despair of being good and are freed from being evil. Good and evil are no longer the operative categories any more. Christ alone is.

So, without admitting any ontological distinction between God and goodness (love), it seems that the thrust of the biblical revelation would be decidely in favor of Kierkegaard, at least on an existential and epistemological level. Indeed, Kant’s attempt to arrive at an autonomous universal ethical principle which commands our absolute allegiance must be judged as the epitome of evil! It is the FALL all over again, but with a philosophical vengeance. Against him, we must surrender our knowing and our action to Jesus Christ and let him live HIS life THROUGH US.

Having said this, I will confess that I don’t have ANY answer as to how Abraham would answer the psychiatrist who interviewed him after his testing. And this worries me.

Doc

"Three is the magic number, oh yes it is, it's the Magic Number" - De La Soul

Edited by - GregBoyd on 04/05/2002 08:10:51 AM

Edited by - GregBoyd on 04/05/2002 08:12:19 AM

Electra
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Total Posts : 611

Posted 4/5/2002 3:32 AM (GMT -6)

The story of Abraham and Isaac shows that God, by virtue of being God, has the right to require any duty of us. But doesn’t the story of Abraham and Isaac also show that God relinquishes that requirement? God does not want to be that kind of a God for us.

In the end, absolute duty to God does not seem to be religious at all.

With what shall I come before the Lord,
    and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
    with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
    with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love mercy,
    and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6–8; cf. Amos 5:21–24; ; Isa. 1:10–17; 1 Cor. 13)

Loving the Lord our God is bound up with loving our neighbor. We cannot have one without the other.

So does faithfulness to God mean the end of ethics…or the end of religion?

Now my theological dyslexia is acting up again.

Electra

~·•·~·•·~·•·~·•·~
I thought I could organize freedom—
how Scandinavian of me. •·~ Bjørk

Edited by - Electra on 04/05/2002 4:19:44 PM

Modes of Thought
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817

Posted 4/5/2002 7:30 AM (GMT -6)

One of the profound insights that SK has into the Abraham delimma is this:

Abraham obeyed God not once but repeatedly. He went to Mount Moriah with the intention of sacrificing his son, but he didn't carry this through with single-minded determination as though that were the last word, Abraham REMAINED obedient to God so that when God said "stop" Abraham was still listening. SK calls this an "agile willingness." It seems Abe would have had a good excuse if he would have gone ahead and sacrificed Isaac (God said to!), but he was still listening, perhaps even still holding out hope, but certainly still trusting God.

We hear "A" from God and we move quickly to "B" on our own and then act on "B" (or simply the process of "A-B" which goes beyond God's "A"). If Abraham would have done that (had that sort of self-generated ambition), Isaac would have been lost. There is an intimacy between God and Abraham that enables the sort of dynamic Abe and God had. Abe had walked with God for a century. SK has a line that fits very well, Abe could say something like this to God, "You know how to give the best, and you know how to claim the best." Abe did not receive the best for 100 years, but he still believed it would occur, Abe still walked in this same faith even on the way to Mt. Moriah.

The question SK raises is not whether we have blind faith and stupidly follow without thinking. Rather, have we made a decision that is so profound with regard to God that we give our whole allegience (absolute duty) without reservation? We can find out easily enough by letting the Abraham and Isaac story read us. As Miss E would quickly and correctly point out, we did give our allegience to God (meaning in a significant sense, we chose this arrangment), but this question goes further and asks, did we really?

A military analogy works particularly well. It is easy to conceive of times where commands come quickly and may seem to contradict each other. The General, or Captian or whomever, knows something [or wants to know something] and it requires action that may appear rediculous. But well trained troops do what they are told precisely, with an "agile willingness".

What's embarassing is that I can think of times in my life where I have learned to respond quickly and effectively to commands from superiors and having made the decision to relate in that way, I offered tremendous allegiance and "agile willingness". But the carrot at the end of the stick was always my own benefit, either in the eyes of an employer or a person whom I would like to please for some other reason. I have not lived in such a way that my relationship to God is so intimate that I can relate to God in that way Abraham seemed to. I am still learning what it means to hear Christ's voice as meant in the words "My (the Good Shepherd, another appropriate image) sheep hear my voice..." Perhaps beyond that (hearing Christ's voice in the intimacy of personal relations) there is a place where I can hear God even when God is not reduced to shouting at me. By this I mean, there have been times where I feel I have clearly heard from God, but the clarity had to do with the great lengths God had to go to to get through to me rather than my own sensitivity to God's leading and speaking.

As far as the question doc wrestles with, if your conviction is that God is good-all the time, this changes nothing in terms of your behavior, as you noted. Having an absolute duty to God will not always make sense to us, in fact, in this world we shouldn't expect it to. The point is to get the criterion right (God) and to relate to it fully. If God truly is the principle of Goodness, then relating absolutely is the good thing to do. But obviously the Abe story challenges this assumption insofar as it seems that God can require what we would not want to call "good". Here it becomes a matter of loyalty and integrity, do we really have our allegience to God or to the principle of Goodness? If one acts in faith to God even when it seems impossible for that action to be good (Abe/Isaac) one demonstrates fidelity to God and God alone, and all things will be added unto you if it turns out that God is indeed good as well. But of course, if you decline from obedience to God because you determine the action to be less than good, then you have passed judegment upon both God and your own faith, and now have become the criterion for good and evil to boot.

My suggestion thus far is not to dismiss the Abe/Isaac story but to strive to have a relationship with God that is so much like Abe's that you could act with the same confidence that Abe was able to act in under any circumstances. If we don't set the goal higher than we currently stand, well, then there is nothing to strive for and the implication is that perhaps you have "arrived". As Electra mentioned, if God is God, then there is nothing that we have that we are entitled to over and against God. God can, of course, require whatever God pleases from us. The record has it, however, that God does this graciously and is merciful. I would resist, however, the idea that we can sort through God's words to us on the basis of other texts or conversations. If God is going to require something dramatic and perhaps even terrible as with Abe, we will have to trust that God will speak clearly to us and that we will understand what is required. It may not be good (in terms of our assessment) for the neighbor (Isaac, neighboring nations that are annihilated, etc).

The offensiveness of faith to the world is that it truly does put the individual's relation to God above the universal good of the whole, at least from our perspective (existentially/epistemologically, and that is saying enough to live by). This is the meaning of the teleological suspension of the ethical.

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

Modes of Thought
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817

Posted 4/5/2002 7:31 AM (GMT -6)

Mouse, in other words: "yes."

"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK

churchmouse522
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 163

Posted 4/5/2002 7:57 AM (GMT -6)

Thanks Modes. I thought I recognized a "yes" in there. I'll come back with more on this when I've let it cook for a while.

Mouse

"For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that is seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than the increasing discovery of my own ignorance."
˜ Descartes as quoted by Kierkegaard

selah
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210

Posted 4/5/2002 10:05 AM (GMT -6)

Modes,

I was very blessed by both your post
and your teaching last night. Maybe it's
the way I frame it, but this is by far my favorite SK book/subject/thread!
Gotta go,
I'll be back!
love,
selah

"Faith, what a trip" selah

Mephi2K
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713

Posted 4/5/2002 11:28 AM (GMT -6)

Modes, my man, I could KISS you for that last post! I especially like this (emphases mine):

quote:
As far as the question doc wrestles with, if your conviction is that God is good-all the time, this changes nothing in terms of your behavior, as you noted. Having an absolute duty to God will not always make sense to us, in fact, in this world we shouldn't expect it to. The point is to get the criterion right (God) and to relate to it fully. If God truly is the principle of Goodness, then relating absolutely is the good thing to do. But obviously the Abe story challenges this assumption insofar as it seems that God can require what we would not want to call "good". Here it becomes a matter of loyalty and integrity, do we really have our allegience to God or to the principle of Goodness? If one acts in faith to God even when it seems impossible for that action to be good (Abe/Isaac) one demonstrates fidelity to God and God alone, and all things will be added unto you if it turns out that God is indeed good as well. But of course, if you decline from obedience to God because you determine the action to be less than good, then you have passed judegment upon both God and your own faith, and now have become the criterion for good and evil to boot.

Way to go, Modes! Apparently SOMEBODY here remembered some of the conclusions we came to by the end of the "Omnibenevolence" and "Glorification Idea" discussions! :::Cutting eyes at Doc:::

Peace out and darn good to see you,

PS: Modes brings up something very appropriate. It's one thing to seek to be "good" and another to want unity with God. Modes doesn't seem to want the former, but the latter...while recognizing that unity with God seems to not really be possible without radical obedience to God. In my mind, the reconcilation with B. is that SK's thought is built upon a strong sense of "detecting" the reality of God. Though one may know GENERALLY what God desires from things like Scripture and all that, there also comes a time when the PARTICULARITY of a situation goes beyond that (like Doc's decision to leave Bethel) And one is faced with a choice while keeping their ear to the Lord: obey the leading or disobey it. For example, Jesus and the disciples did pluck the ears of corn on the Sabbath...and from B's standpoint, there was good reason...but do you think they would (or SHOULD) have done so if a Voice from heaven SPECIFICALLY told them not to do so? Heck, no. That's my thing. Just a thought.

Edited by - Mephi2K on 04/05/2002 4:37:59 PM

Edited by - Mephi2K on 04/05/2002 4:38:29 PM

Mephi2K
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713

Posted 4/5/2002 11:56 AM (GMT -6)

This may or may not apply! Let's see.

Acts 16:6-7
Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.

Wow. Now what would a good missionary minded person about NOT going somewhere where people needed to hear the Word? "HEY, get over there! We are called to give the Gospel to ALL people! Don't you guys remember the Great Commission and all that? Get going over there!" And think about it. Didn't God WANT the knowledge of Jesus spread all over? Wouldn't Paul have been using his good "thinking" to ASSUME that this "hinderance" could NOT have been from God BECAUSE God wants his word to go forth? But that's not the conclusion Paul comes to. He believed that it WAS the Spirit SPECIFICALLY that had contrained them, by whatever means, from going to preach in Bithynia. Now here's the thing. There HAD to be some discernment going on. We can't just say that EVERY TIME Paul was stopped from going somewhere, it was God. Check it out.

1 Thes 2:17-18
But, brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. For we wanted to come to you-- certainly I, Paul, did, again and again-- but Satan stopped us.

VERY interesting. So there was, in both cases, a similar "stopping" action that prevent Paul from the destination. that he wanted to go. One, he directly interpreted as being leading of the Spirit, the other the hinderance of Satan. He would be wrong to think of EVERY blockage from intended goals as divine providence OR as just satanic hinderance. There seemed to be a keen DISCERNMENT of the reality of the situation. And Paul seemed to have been keen to keep his ear to the Lord to do SPECIFICALLY what God wanted him to do.

We often cannot isolate a principle to follow God ("If it's "good" to my moral wiring, it MUST BE God" or "If it's against my moral wiring, it's definitely NOT God.) We just have to keep our ears inclined and follow God as best we can, leaving things up to His grace and understanding our hearts.

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 4/5/2002 6:17 PM (GMT -6)

[Modes: if you decline from obedience to God because you determine the action to be less than good, then you have passed judgment upon both God and your own faith, and now have become the criterion for good and evil to boot.

Doc: True enough. (This is roughly what we’re arriving at on the Bonhoeffer thread as well). What I don’t yet get – here or there – is how we (or Abe) KNEW FOR SURE it was God. If I KNEW FOR SURE it was God telling me to do it, I’d do it, believing it was SOMEHOW good in the long wrong, even if it looked evil in the short run. But acquiring this certainty – especially in a world where many claim to be certain God is telling them to blow themselves up and take as many others as they can with them – is the problem for me.

Modes: My suggestion thus far is … to strive to have a relationship with God that is so much like Abe's that you could act with the same confidence that Abe was able to act in under any circumstances. If we don't set the goal higher than we currently stand, well, then there is nothing to strive for and the implication is that perhaps you have "arrived".

Doc: Amen to the goal. This has got to be the central goal of life: union with God. But Modes, if you EVER start talking of sacrificing your firstborn…

Modes: The offensiveness of faith to the world is that it truly does put the individual's relation to God above the universal good of the whole, at least from our perspective (existentially/epistemologically, and that is saying enough to live by). This is the meaning of the teleological suspension of the ethical.

Doc: So we might more accurately say, It puts the individual’s relation to God above WHAT WE MIGHT OTHERWISE THINK is the universal good of the whole. But if the individual is indeed obeying GOD, and God is GOOD, the trust is that in fact following God is the WAY to the "universal good of the whole" – whether we see it or not.

Meph: We often cannot isolate a principle to follow God ("If it's "good" to my moral wiring, it MUST BE God" or "If it's against my moral wiring, it's definitely NOT God.) We just have to keep our ears inclined and follow God as best we can, leaving things up to His grace and understanding our hearts.

Doc: I actually agree with you Meph, especially in the light of the Bonhoeffer thread. I agree that principles can never fully encompass the particularity of a situation, and that God is always interested in the particular. Hence we need to listen. And sometimes what we hear may not seem rational, or even moral.

At the same time, I have a hesitancy. I have spent the last 29 years surrounded by charismatic/pentecostal Christians who are supremely confident they hear from God – and sometimes I KNOW it ain’t God. Moreover, we all know about terrorists and just your run-of-the-mill crazies who are confident they are obeying God – and it ain’t God. Now, I certainly don’t want to allow this to call my own relationship with God into question. But, at the same time, I want to have checks and balances in my own life, and in the life of others, to at least question whether or not what we think we hear – and maybe even feel certain about – is really God.

SO, how do we arrive at an Abraham-like faith while yet maintaining a critical-realist perspective on faith??????

Doc

"Three is the magic number, oh yes it is, it's the Magic Number" - De La Soul

trosie
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 550

Posted 4/6/2002 5:55 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Modes: if you decline from obedience to God because you determine the action to be less than good, then you have passed judgment upon both God and your own faith, and now have become the criterion for good and evil to boot.
Doc: True enough. (This is roughly what we’re arriving at on the Bonhoeffer thread as well). What I don’t yet get – here or there – is how we (or Abe) KNEW FOR SURE it was God. If I KNEW FOR SURE it was God telling me to do it, I’d do it, believing it was SOMEHOW good in the long wrong, even if it looked evil in the short run. But acquiring this certainty – especially in a world where many claim to be certain God is telling them to blow themselves up and take as many others as they can with them – is the problem for me.

This is the problem for me too. I can't figure out how a person can know when they are definitely hearing from God. What if they are attending to what they interpret God saying from their internal filtering systems? (And this will differ for each person.)

When 9-11 happened, as bad as that what the terrorists did, I kept thinking that to them they must have believed that this horrendous act was noble and pleaseing based on their belief about God. We all have different beliefs and values that have been installed at such young ages that it makes it VERY difficult many times to know for certain that it is indeed God speaking -- DON'T YOU THINK???

quote:
Mephi:We just have to keep our ears inclined and follow God as best we can, leaving things up to His grace and understanding our hearts.

It would be a whole lot easier if God would just speak to each of us from some burning bush or cloud in the sky when we have big decisions to make... This process is SO MUCH WORK!

trosie

Starkman
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Total Posts : 1747

Posted 4/6/2002 11:26 AM (GMT -6)

Some recent articles I've read utilize the book of Acts as a precendent for both the early and latter church; led by the Spirit incidences (or something similar, i.e. angels, etc.) were relatively few compared to those times the diciples simply acted. According to the article, there's approximately 16 times when there is supernatural prompting but 70 times when the individual(s) acted without supernatural prompting. Paul's desire to go to Asia--the attempt to act it out, and the prohibition--show he wasn't led by the Spirit here. (Hmm! Could a case from silence be made here that initially God had intended Paul to go to Asia but later changed His mind; the initial desire not being expressed in the text? Hmmm! Just an OVer's thinking, that's all!)

I've since come to the conclusion that to storm both the gates of heaven and hell without the concern of trying to decipher God's personal voice or leading demands an even stronger faith than to have heard God's voice, or to instrumentalize it, as part of my walk. If He speaks, hey, I'm here. If He doesn't, however, I have concluded from Scripture--having become disenchanted with "God told me" both from others and from my own lips, only to find it wasn't God after all--that a person will find he/she will arrive exactly where God wants one to be and will have done what God wants one to have done if one has...faith, trust and love for God! Mistakes of action are found on both the supernatural and non-supernatural sides of the camp. Ah! But safer to be on the side where the lips and mind wait for the God of heaven and earth to take up His responsibility as it's needed. I've both lost too much personally and have caused too much struggle in the lives of others to try and follow the voice of God anymore (God told me). I simply walk by faith. Oh, I get a prompting here and there--like Doc's urge to leave Bethel, I have felt the need to not be doing this, that or the other, and just do what I'm urged to do--but enough, in my own life, at least, of "God told me". It simply just hasn't been the truth in my life. And yet, I know I'm in His will because He's NOT saying I'm not.

I guess, more sadly or painfully, is that I want to have that kind of intimacy with God. We all do, I think. However, I'm far more safer (emotionally and spiritually) to trust that He has concerned Himself with what is or isn't His will in my life, and that He will insure the results are accordingly if I trust Him. Wisdom precedes obedience.

How does one know when it's God who's spoken, or if someone has even spoken at all? I don't think we are taught in Scripture to concern ourselves with that question or approach in our service to God; the mere fact that we struggle over and over--we who are fierce enough to brave it head on--prove, at least existentially and epistemologically, that we should concern ourselves (more so) with faith in a God who's big enough to oversee our insufficiency. God will make sure HE speaks if it's necessary. "Do not worry about what to say...the words will be given to you".

Well, this is challening for me, for sure. Adding Abraham into the picture enforces, in my mind, the need to solitify my faith and not a voice. And my faith should be in the certitude of God's written Word. I can only act upon that for the good as I understand good. But to act upon the voices, particularly when they seem to go against the good, is shakey. But, if I were to have heard God speak as Abraham did--sheesh, he sat down and ate with supernatual beings. That surely pushes one outside of faith ("For what a man sees, why does he yet hope for)--I'd to follow through. Well, wait, I'm still trying to get the obedience side of all this walk-the-walk stuff down. Maybe I'd choke and gasp on it! Oh well, I'm trying!

For the voices who aren't there...at least I don't think they are!

Starkman

Seymour
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105

Posted 4/6/2002 6:31 PM (GMT -6)

Today’s title is:
A Tandem Post
Today’s subtitle is:
Ethics, Autonomy, and a Radical Heteronomy

To supplement the quotes of Kant and S.K that begins this thread, here is a quote from Jacques Derrida’s The Gift of Death.

As soon as I enter into a relation with the other, with the gaze, look, request, love, command, or call of the other, I know that I can respond only by sacrificing ethics, that is, by sacrificing whatever obliges me to also respond, in the same way, in the same instant, to all the others. I offer a gift of death, I betray, I don’t need to raise my knife over my son on Mount Moriah for that. Day and night, at every instant, on all the Mount Moriahs of this world, I am doing that, raising my knife over what I love and must love, over those to whom I owe absolute fidelity, incommensurably. Abraham is faithful to God only in his absolute treachery, in the betrayal of his own and of the uniqueness of each one of them, exemplified here in this only beloved son. He would not be able to opt for fidelity to his own, or to his son, unless he were to betray the absolute other: God, if you wish.

Let us not look for examples, there would be too many of them, at every step we took. By preferring my work, simply by giving it my time and attention, by preferring my activity as a citizen or as a professorial and professional philosopher, writing and speaking here in a public language, French in my case, I am perhaps fulfilling my duty. But I am sacrificing and betraying at every moment all my other obligations: my obligations to the other others whom I know or don’t know, the billions of my fellows (without mentioning the animals that are even more other others than my fellows), my fellows who are dying of starvation or sickness. I betray my fidelity or my obligations to other citizens, to those who don’t speak my language and to whom I neither speak nor respond, to each of those who listen or read, and to whom I neither respond nor address myself in the proper manner, that is, in a singular manner (this for the so-called public space to which I sacrifice my so-called private space), thus also to those I love in private, my own, my family, may son, each of whom is the only son I sacrifice to the other, everyone one being sacrificed to every one else in this land of Moriah that is our habitat every second of every day…

The sacrifice of Isaac is an abomination in the eyes of all, and it should continue to be seen for what it is—atrocious, criminal, unforgivable; Kierkegaard insists on that. The ethical point of view must remain valid: Abraham is a murderer. However, it is not true that the spectacle of this murder, which seems intolerable in the denseness and rhythm of its theatricality, is at the same time the most common event in the world? Is it not inscribed in the structure of our existence to the extent of no longer constituting an event? It will be said that it would be most improbable for the sacrifice of Isaac to be repeated in our day; and it certainly seems that way. We can hardly imagine a father taking his son to be sacrificed on the top of the hill at Montmartre. If God didn’t send a lamb as a substitute or an angel to hold back his arm, there would still be a prosecutor, preferably with expertise in Middle Eastern violence, to accuse him of infanticide or first-degree murder; and if a psychiatrist who was both something of a psychoanalyst and something of a journalist declared that the father was “responsible,” carrying on as if psychoanalysis had done nothing to upset the order of discourse on intention, conscience, good will, etc., the criminal father would have no chance of getting away with it. he might claim that [God] had ordered him to do it, and perhaps in secret (how would he know that?), in order to test his faith, but it would make no difference. Things are such that this man would surely be condemned by any civilized society. On the other hand, the smooth functioning of such a society, the monotonous complacency of its discoursed on morality, politics, and the law, and the exercise of its rights (whether public, private, national or international), are in no way impaired by the fact that, because of the structure of the law as of the market that society has instituted and controls, because of the mechanisms of external debt and other similar inequities, that same “society” puts to death or (but failing to help someone in distress accounts for only a minor difference) allows to die of hunger and disease tens of millions of children (those neighbors or fellow humans that ethics or the discourse of the rights of man refer to) without any moral or legal tribunal ever being considered competent to judge such a sacrifice, that sacrifice of others to avoid being sacrificed oneself. Not only is it true that such a society participated in this incalculable sacrifice, it actually organizes it. the smooth functioning of its economic, political, and legal affairs, the smooth functioning of its moral discourse and good conscience presupposes the permanent operation of this sacrifice. And such a sacrifice is not even invisible, form from time to time television shows us, while keeping them at a distance, a series of intolerable images, and a few voices are raised to bring it all to our attention. But those images and voices are completely powerless to induce the slightest effective change in the situation, to assign the least responsibly, to furnish anything more than a convenient alibi. That this order is founded upon a bottomless chaos (the abyss or open mouth) is something that will necessarily be brought home one day to those who just as necessarily forget the same. We are not even talking about wars, the less recent or most recent ones, in which cases one can wait an eternity for morality or international law (whether violated with impunity or invoked hypocritically) to determine with any degree of certainty who is responsible or guilty for the hundreds of thousands of victims who are sacrificed for what or whom one knows not, countless victims, each of whose singularity becomes each time infinitely singular, every other being absolutly other [tout autre etre tout autre], whether they be victims of the Iraqi state or victims of the international coalition that accuses the latter of not respecting the law.

—Jacques Derrida (Translation slightly altered) The Gift of Death Trans. David Wills (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press), pp. 68-9, 85-6.

EMILY: “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?--every, every minute?”
STAGE MANAGER: “No. The saints and poets, maybe--they do some.”

Edited by - Seymour on 04/06/2002 11:32:41 PM

Seymour
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105

Posted 4/6/2002 6:35 PM (GMT -6)

Today’s title is:
The Very Height of the Fall
Today’s subtitle is:
I’ve Killed Isaac, or Things Not to Say to the Authorities, Rather, We’re All Going to Hell in, “This Land of Moriah That is Our Habitat Every Second of Every Day”

I want to argue several things. I won’t get to all of them in this post. This post will in part (but only in part) serve as a preface to another thread which I shall someday start in which I shall argue that we are all going to hell because none of us can justify our existence, yet all of us try to justify our existence, and this self-righteousness is unavoidable and ultimately damns us.

But in this post I want to eventually argue that every thing that we have ever ever done is wrong, absolutely wrong. We have never done anything right, and what is more we can never do anything right no matter how hard we try. Me typing this, you reading this, both engage (as I have said before) in murdering our only son. It is wrong what we have been doing here, participating on this site. It is wrong and we must confess it. But confession is wrong too. And typing the sentence, “But confession is wrong too.” is also wrong. Everything is wrong. And you have proved it yourselves.

Doc:

quote:

We arrested a lady last month in Minnesota for doing what Abraham was willing to do, and she did it (killed her son) for the very reasons Abraham gave – "God told me…"
[…]
Having said this, I will confess that I don’t have ANY answer as to how Abraham would answer the psychiatrist who interviewed him after his testing. And this worries me.

quote:

It will be said that it would be most improbable for the sacrifice of Isaac to be repeated in our day; and it certainly seems that way. We can hardly imagine a father taking his son to be sacrificed on the top of the hill at Montmartre. If God didn’t send a lamb as a substitute or an angel to hold back his arm, there would still be a prosecutor, preferably with expertise in Middle Eastern violence, to accuse him of infanticide or first-degree murder; and if a psychiatrist who was both something of a psychoanalyst and something of a journalist declared that the father was “responsible,” carrying on as if psychoanalysis had done nothing to upset the order of discourse on intention, conscience, good will, etc., the criminal father would have no chance of getting away with it. he might claim that [God] had ordered him to do it, and perhaps in secret (how would he know that?), in order to test his faith, but it would make no difference. Things are such that this man would surely be condemned by any civilized society.

--Jacques Derrida The Gift of Death Trans. David Wills (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press), 85.

Doc:

quote:

My question is this: WHY accept the dichotomous presupposition that God is EITHER above the law or below it? Couldn’t God’s eternal character BE universal goodness? "God IS love" – and all ethical principles, in the end, are simply different facets/ patterns/ principles of love. If we accept this, we can in a sense say that BOTH Kant and Kierkegaard were hitting on an important element of truth. We do have an absolute duty to universal ethical principles and an absolute duty to God, for they are one and the same.

Sounds like a good law. (Lets worship it!) You’re in danger of simply divinizing Kantian ethics here.

All of this goes back to a post that Pia started (two posts actually, the first one didn’t get much response) about whether God chooses the Good because it is good or whether the Good is the Good because God chooses it.

Doc:

quote:

The better we get at being "good" on our own, the farther we get from God -- "who is love." The primary healing of the disunion from God is abandon one’s autonomous "knowing" of good and evil and to know only Jesus Christ and him crucified. You here know that, apart from God, you are condemned and forgiven. You despair of being good and are freed from being evil. Good and evil are no longer the operative categories any more. Christ alone is.

So you think you’ve escaped? This is just more Pharisaical self-justification. Sure it’s a different formula, but it is of the same kind. There is no escaping, it’s a catch-22, were already in Hell and part of the punishment of Hell is this thinking that there is hope of Heaven.

Electra:

quote:

In the end, absolute duty to God does not seem to be religious at all.
[Some Bible verse, seriously you Bible majors always have to squeeze these in somehow into an otherwise healthy theological endeavor]
So does faithfulness to God mean the end of ethics…or the end of religion?

Yes. John D. Caputo, one of my favorites, has written a book called “Against Ethics” in which he argues that we should do away with all of ethics as we have known them thus far because, a) faithfulness in the form S.K. speaks of literally puts ethics to death, and b) much of our ethical thought has been used to get us to act in rather unethical ways. The more ethically advanced civilizations tend to be, the more evil they tend to do. Odd isn’t it? Not really if S.K. is right.

Modes:

quote:

What's embarassing is that I can think of times in my life where I have learned to respond quickly and effectively to commands from superiors and having made the decision to relate in that way, I offered tremendous allegiance and "agile willingness". But the carrot at the end of the stick was always my own benefit, either in the eyes of an employer or a person whom I would like to please for some other reason.

In other words, as Kant already has been quoted saying, you were driven by “some interest as a stimulus or compulsion to obedience because the law did not arise from [your] will. Rather, [your] will was constrained by something else according to a law to act in a certain way.”

As I examine myself I too see that my driving motivation is to please God. I want him to be happy with me. I want to hear God say, “Well done good and faithful servant.” But he plays favorites and I am not one of them. Nothing I do pleases him. I sin and he is displeased. I try to be good but he is displeased because I am a Pharisee. The Pharisees were just trying to please God the best they knew how as well. And the more I read the Ethics tread the more I feel confirmed that I am a Pharisee, among other Pharisees (some of whom, like Doc are in denial, or think they have found a loophole, which itself is a legal maneuver, it is the legalistic mentality to the greatest degree! It is the most Pharisitical where it thinks it is the least Pharisitical. It is the very hight of the fall.)

But as I further examine myself I see that behind this motivation to please God is the selfish ambition to go to Heaven coupled with a good old fashioned fear of Hell. And as Semeia says, some of us in trying to act out of the motivation of our fear end up realizing this fear. If only I didn’t study theology so much I might not go to Hell! But alas, I have lost myself by gaining myself, I have lost myself thru theology.

Modes:

quote:

Here it becomes a matter of loyalty and integrity, do we really have our allegience to God or to the principle of Goodness?

If only it integrity were so simple. See the K. quote below. Can we ever really say with any form of confidence that we were loyal? That we had integrity? Or is it all a wonderful mystery? Might we simply not know if we are good or bad? Its just a mystery, and wonderful. Wonderful mystery mystery wonderful.

Modes:

quote:

But of course, if you decline from obedience to God because you determine the action to be less than good, then you have passed judegment upon both God and your own faith, and now have become the criterion for good and evil to boot.

If only the pilots who hijacked the planes on Sept. 11 had become the criterion for good and evil and transgressed what pleases Allah! (And don’t think that Christians do the same every day).

So you see even the question of when we ought to question God’s ethics and when we ought not to question them becomes a gamble. It is Russian Roulette. Were playing a game. The stakes are our eternal souls (if you believe in eternal souls, at any rate the stakes are ourselves).

Modes:

quote:

My suggestion thus far is not to dismiss the Abe/Isaac story but to strive to have a relationship with God that is so much like Abe's that you could act with the same confidence that Abe was able to act in under any circumstances.

Perhaps I’m being a bit too repetitious here but need I remind everyone of how the Pharisees idolized Abe and strove to have “a relationship with God that is so much like Abe's that you could act with the same confidence that Abe was able to act in under any circumstances.” They also really really like Moses.

Modes:

quote:

As Electra mentioned, if God is God, then there is nothing that we have that we are entitled to over and against God. God can, of course, require whatever God pleases from us.

Which is why I want to question the Kant’s whole autonomy of the will verses the heteronomy of duty to the other. The other approaches the will, it brings with it an ethical imperative, it opens the will—cuts into it—circumscribes it. The will is no longer its own boss, rather it us justify itself in the face of the other. The other ushers in a supreme heteronomy, a radical heteronomy, an absolute heteronomy. Relating absolutely to the absolute requires a heteronomy. One in which we owe an infinite duty yet only have finite resources, one in which we are damned by our very service to God! Every offering we give to God (even the offering of withholding an offering) only increases our debt to him, everything we give him puts us further behind in account with him.

Doc:

quote:

If I KNEW FOR SURE it was God telling me to do it, I’d do it, believing it was SOMEHOW good in the long wrong, even if it looked evil in the short run.

Are you saying that God will draw strait paths with crooked lines? Will he allow or even will evil for some higher harmony? Will he work all things together for the good? Wow we’ve got you speaking like a Calvinist now!!! Didn’t you write a few books arguing AGAINST this mentality???

Doc:

quote:

So we might more accurately say, It puts the individual’s relation to God above WHAT WE MIGHT OTHERWISE THINK is the universal good of the whole.

What if “what we otherwise might think is the universal good” IS to teleologically suspend ethics for the individual? Now we’re in an infinite regress. Are there times when we must teleologically suspend the teleological suspension of the ethical in order to act in accordance with the universal? (You might otherwise think so!)

Doc:

quote:

Moreover, we all know about terrorists and just your run-of-the-mill crazies who are confident they are obeying God – and it ain’t God.

I object to your quick dismissal of the run-of-the-mill crazies. You’d have to be crazy to really follow Jesus. That’s why the rest of us don’t but play another game that is carefully put together to resemble following Jesus. Would you classify any of the prophets as run-of-the-mill crazies if you ran into them in the street? What about John the Baptist? I don’t know about you, but I’m still holding out hope that the Messiah, that all to crazy to be run-of-the-mill, will come. You condemn the avant garde of faith, and such a condemnation could only come from the someone in the rear like yourself! (I’ll probably go to hell for saying that but hey there’s no stopping me now?)

trosie:

quote:

When 9-11 happened, as bad as that what the terrorists did, I kept thinking that to them they must have believed that this horrendous act was noble and pleaseing based on their belief about God. We all have different beliefs and values that have been installed at such young ages that it makes it VERY difficult many times to know for certain that it is indeed God speaking -- DON'T YOU THINK???

Bingo. But the converse is true as well.

I’m very seriously thinking about giving in completely to my hedonistic desires, heaven be damned, and joining Mother Teresa’s order. I figure if I’m going to hell why should I work in a job that slowly kills me, that I hate with a passion, and praying that I die every night before I slowly drift into an ordinary unfulfilled very compromised life. I don’t want to work and die for The Man, but I don’t have any alternative. Mother Teresa might offer an alternative, and it would be the only job that I am both capable of (well I don’t know if I’m capable of it yet, I’ve been warned that its some of the hardest work ever) that I would enjoy. I figure if I’m going to hell I might as well enjoy the trip. And an average well paying job just leaves me unfulfilled. Food leaves me unfulfilled, money leaves me unfulfilled, I image that sex would too, so I have nothing to loss right (nothing except my soul that is). I’m currently looking for a job for this summer and the more I look the more depressed I get. I can’t do this! (by the way anyone know of any good job openings?) The more I have to deal with the real world the more convinced I am that I’ll end up homeless or working in Mother’s order. I’m about 80% sure I’ll at least try to join someday.

But the point is this. Serving the poor and the dying is generally considered by us Christians to be doing something good and serving God and something that is pleasing to God. But doing what WE think is good might indeed be evil on the level of Sept. 11. After all we’re both driven by the same motive. We Christians want to serve God. The pilots of the airplanes wanted to serve God too. Both of us THINK that were doing good by serving God. Now we Christians feel that what those pilots did was very evil. What arrogance is there on my part if I think that by serving the poor I too am not inadvertently doing evil in the eyes of the other, and what arrogance is there in me that would insist that I am right? I am taking a gamble by serving the poor. For all I know I’m damning my soul, and I probably am. PoW will like this. In the Orthodox tradition the work done by those who have joined an order is often refereed to as “saving one’s soul.” For in saving our souls we will lose them, and in losing them we shall save them.

Joining Mother’s order could be sealing my fate as one of the damned. Perhaps a what I really need is some good old-fashioned sin? Check out my other post about whether or not sin can save us.

Modes:

quote:

The question SK raises is not whether we have blind faith and stupidly follow without thinking. Rather, have we made a decision that is so profound with regard to God that we give our whole allegience (absolute duty) without reservation? We can find out easily enough by letting the Abraham and Isaac story read us. As Miss E would quickly and correctly point out, we did give our allegience to God (meaning in a significant sense, we chose this arrangment), but this question goes further and asks, did we really?

Indeed “DID WE REALLY?” I killed Isaac (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), I feed a sick baby (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), I coveted another’s goods (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), I wash a dying man (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), I lust after another man’s wife (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), I pray each morning to bless their marriage (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), I worked for money (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), I meditate on Scripture (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), I shamed my mother (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), I share kind words with a bitter old woman, (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), I refrain from indulging the flesh (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), I killed my sister in spirit (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), I cheated someone out of what they earned (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?-), I crossed a saint (did I really give my whole allegiance to God?), etc., etc., etc….

In conclusion we can never know the will of God, we can never know if we’ve followed it, we can never know if we are good or bad and this is because each action is suspended in a wonderful mystery. Like my last confession: “I crossed a saint” it is undecidable. Did I cross paths with a saint? This is a good thing right? Or is it? Perhaps I crossed a saint in the sense that I transgressed a saint? This is bad right? Or is it? Every action of our lives is suspended in ethical mystery, and despite this all signs say that we’re going to hell. Every action falls short, we can never pay our infinite debt to God, we are hopelessly treading quicksand, every action is evil, even feeding the starving and clothing the naked damns us.

In the end we know nothing of ethics until we’ve seen the Decalogue because at the end of each Decalogue we know that the characters both upheld and transgressed the law, which is what we do with every every action, upholding and transgressing, even in speaking the law we break the law. And so I leave you with a quote from the dreamer of the Decalogue who says it all better than I can on the impossibility of knowing one has integrity.

quote:

I think that all people—and this is irrespective of the political system—have two faces. They wear one face in the street, at work, in the cinema, in the bus or car, in the West, that’s the face of someone who is energetic, the face of someone who’s successful or will be successful in the near future. That’s the appropriate face to wear on the outside, and the appropriate face for strangers.

I think integrity is an extremely complicated combination and we can never ultimately say ‘I was honest’ or ‘I wasn’t honest’. In all our actions and all the different situations in which we find ourselves, we find ourselves in a position form which there’s really no way out—and even if there is, it’s not a better way out, a good way out, it’s only relatively better than the other options, or, to put it another way, the lesser evil. This, of course, defines integrity. One would like to be ultimately honest, but one can’t. With all the decisions you make every day, you can never be ultimately honest.
[…]
All my films, from the first to the most recent ones, are about individuals who can’t quite find their bearings, who don’t quite know how to live, who don’t really know what’s right or wrong and are desperately looking. Looking for answers to such basic questions as: What’s all this for? Why get up in the morning? Why go to bed in at night? Why get up again? How to spend the time between one awakening and another? How to spend it in order to be able to shave or make yourself up peacefully in the morning?

--K.

Let us be like those characters who “don’t really know what’s right or wrong and are desperately looking” and let these films comfort us and lead us into the deep and wonderful mystery that is Christian ethics.

EMILY: “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?--every, every minute?”
STAGE MANAGER: “No. The saints and poets, maybe--they do some.”

Edited by - Seymour on 04/06/2002 11:43:02 PM

selah
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210

Posted 4/7/2002 3:17 AM (GMT -6)

I've been wondering if it's even possible to have faith like Abraham in our day and age.
Could the spiritual realm be so full of demonic counterfeits that our "reception" is clouded?
If wickedness is multiplied in the last days,could demonic activity be on the increase as well?

Maybe Abe didn't have it so rough

Matthew 24
11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
12 And because wickedness is multiplied, most men's love will grow cold.
13 But he who endures to the end will be saved.

I guess it is wise to pray "Be magnified o Lord!"

Blessings,
selah

Edited by - selah on 04/07/2002 7:50:00 PM

GregBoyd
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 4/7/2002 6:37 PM (GMT -6)

1. Starkman, good point. I have had debates with Christians who assume that one’s default setting should be to do nothing "unless God distinctly moves us." I rather argue that one should seek God’s will, but if nothing distinct arises in a reasonable amount of time, do what seems best. If its sitting still, fine. But if its moving forward in a certain direction, do it. My conviction is based on a) God gave us a brain for a REASON; and b) he promises that if we delight in him he will give us the desires of our heart – our desires will be the ones HE GAVE US.

2. Meph points out that sometimes the Holy Spirit leads and stops people. Other times an angel stops people. And sometimes Satan stops people. So we need spiritual discernment.

I think this is true, but even MORE complex than Meph portrays it. Consider this passage.
Acts 21:10-15 While we were staying there for several days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. He came to us and took Paul’s belt, bound his own feet and hands with it, and said, "Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’" When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, "What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." Since he would not be persuaded, we remained silent except to say, "The Lord’s will be done."

Agabus gives a prophecy of what will happen to Paul. The narrative assumes it is truly a prophecy spoken by the Spirit. Paul will be bound. Paul’s friends therefore encourage Paul not to go. It seems that God was giving Paul a choice. God didn’t say go or not. He could go, in which case the prophecy would be a prediction, or not, in which case the prophecy would be a warning of what would have happened. As it turned out, he went. And then, just to break our modern evangelical assumptions about what prophecy means, things didn’t transpire exactly as the Holy Spirit said they would! (Paul wasn’t bound by the Jews and turned over to the Romans. He was almost killed by the Jews and rescued by the Romans).

The point is that following God’s will isn’t a simple matter. Even if we are listening perfectly, sometimes he leads or stops absolutely. Other times he leads or stops influentially, leaving us choice. And sometimes it seems he just says, make your own decision.

How does this relate to our "absolute duty" to God? If it relates at all, it is this way. Our absolutely duty to God can only mean to be absolutely committed to giving our whole self to further the cause of his kingdom and rely on him as best we can, in the power of Christ.

Doc

"Three is the magic number, oh yes it is, it's the Magic Number" - De La Soul

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 4/8/2002 8:14 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
[Modes]: But obviously the Abe story challenges this assumption insofar as it seems that God can require what we would not want to call "good". Here it becomes a matter of loyalty and integrity, do we really have our allegience to God or to the principle of Goodness? If one acts in faith to God even when it seems impossible for that action to be good (Abe/Isaac) one demonstrates fidelity to God and God alone, and all things will be added unto you if it turns out that God is indeed good as well. But of course, if you decline from obedience to God because you determine the action to be less than good, then you have passed judegment upon both God and your own faith, and now have become the criterion for good and evil to boot.

Hi all-

Here are my oft’ repeated thoughts regarding Abraham. I haven’t had a chance to read the Bonhoeffer thread at all and have only glanced at this thread. So if what I say is off in left field then ignore me.

quote:
Heb. 11.17-19: “17 By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, 18 of whom he had been told, ‘It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.’ 19 He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead-- and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.”

And Gen. 18.25: “25 Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?"

I don’t see that Abraham’s test was designed to test Abraham’s willingness to obey God even if God should asked us to do what is evil. It seems to me to be testing Abraham’s willingness to place Isaac in a situation in which God alone must act to fulfill the promise. The test was designed to explore the depths of Abraham’s attachment to the means by which God would fulfill his promise. Thus, faith interprets the request. Abraham previously failed at this same juncture when he and Sarah attempted to safeguard/maintain the promise independent of God. Abraham comes full circle again and faces essentially the same issue. Will he take his hands off of Isaac and trust God completely to fulfill his promise? Or does he still believe God needs his help?

For sure, the test pushes Abraham to the limit. But Hebrews shows us exactly how Abraham reasoned through his obedience to God. Abraham did not believe God was capable of permanently taking Isaac from him. He did not believe that God’s request that he sacrifice Isaac amounted to what his pagan neighbors were in fact doing to their children. He believed that if the knife plunged into Isaac’s body and took his life,God would raise him from the dead. Even if the fire consumed his body on the altar, God would raise him again. Why? Because of the KIND of God God was. What else can the Hebrews passage mean? Evidently, Abraham believed God was NOT what the request to sacrifice Isaac in itself appeared to make God out to be. The Hebrews passage ought to figure into our reasoning here. Completely how, I’m not exactly sure. I’m into exegesis and have shown myself to be pretty clumsy when it comes to philosophy. So there!

Modes, I love the “agile willingness” you referred to. Excellent.

I think the Gen. 18 passage also reflects Abraham’s belief that God was absolutely incapable of injustice defined as “giving the righteous what the wicked deserve.” This God could not do, so Abraham reasoned. Of course, we could always reason that Abraham fundamentally misunderstood God’s nature here. Toward the end of the above quote, Modes comments:

quote:
But of course, if you decline from obedience to God because you determine the action to be less than good, then you have passed judgment upon both God and your own faith, and now have become the criterion for good and evil to boot.

But consider (this may be somewhat related)—Isn’t this precisely what Abraham does when he intercedes for Sodom and Gomorrah? “God, no! That’s not like you. Surely the judge of all the earth will do rightly!” Is Abraham passing judgment on God here?

The question I’m asking (regarding prayer) is this: If Abraham believed the judge of all the earth always does what is right, why does he bother interceding. Say good-bye to the angel and go back to your lamb stew. Don’t worry about what God plans on doing. It’ll be what’s right. This whole discussion about absolute duty to God visa-visa-(and American Express too) God’s omnibenevolence in of interest to me precisely as it all relates to the urgency and efficaciousness of prayer. I’m still working on that.

Blessings,
Tom

Edited by - TGB on 04/08/2002 1:20:02 PM

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 4/10/2002 9:04 AM (GMT -6)

Did I kill this thread? Am I the Great Discussion Killer? I've noticed that when I comment on a thread it begins to give up the ghost.

I HAVE THE COOTIES! Arrghhhhh!

Tom

Edited by - tgb on 04/10/2002 2:07:34 PM

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 4/12/2002 5:50 PM (GMT -6)

Selah wants me to post this picture.

(I'm pushing that little "picture" button, seventh button from the left now, Selah. Just to the right of that button with the little envelop and the two arrows. I'm going to push it, and then insert the html for the picture's address that I got by pointing to a picture anywhere on the internet and right-clicking on it, and then cliding the curser down to "properties" where I got the html. You try it, and practice, Selah!!!)

Selah wants me to put up what I said about Rembrandt chosing to portray the individual person at the moment of their interior decision; chosing that rather than dramatic movement that Rubens and many other Baroque artists chose to do.

selah
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210

Posted 4/13/2002 1:44 AM (GMT -6)

~~and selah is very thankful!

U the Man PoW!

ps. Thanks also for the tips and encouragement. I'll practice later, when I find another picture that moves me.

I only wish I could write with both hands, so as not to forget one thing while I am saying another. (Saint Teresa of Avila)

Seymour
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105

Posted 4/13/2002 12:57 PM (GMT -6)

I like Rembrant's etching better then the painting, but i couldn't find it on the net.

Heres another one that i like

EMILY: “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?--every, every minute?”
STAGE MANAGER: “No. The saints and poets, maybe--they do some.”

Edited by - Seymour on 04/13/2002 6:05:13 PM

Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635

Posted 4/13/2002 5:38 PM (GMT -6)

Tom,

You did well; I was about to go there, if you had not.

In God’s Love,

Tim

Mic 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what [is] good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 4/13/2002 7:09 PM (GMT -6)

http://cedar.evansville.edu/~ecoleweb/imagesA.html
Patriarch Abraham: (their list below)

Brunelleschi, Filippo: The Sacrifice of Abraham (bronze relief) ---Web Gallery of Art
http://sunserv.kfki.hu/~arthp/art/b/brunelle/abraham.jpg

da Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi: The Sacrifice of Isaac ---The WebMuseum
http://sunsite.unc.edu/wm/paint/auth/caravaggio/isaac.jpg

Chagall, Marc: Abraham and the Three Angels ---James Grattan

Domenichino: Abraham Leading Isaac to Sacrifice ---Kimball Museum of Art

Donatello: The Sacrifice of Isaac (marble statue) ---Web Gallery of Art
http://sunserv.kfki.hu/~arthp/art/d/donatell/1_early/duomo/6isaac.jpg

Ferenczy, Károly: The Sacrifice of Isaac ---Fine Arts in Hungary

Ghiberti, Lorenzo: The Sacrifice of Abraham (bronze relief) ---Web Gallery of Art (ALSO POSTED BY SEYMOUR ABOVE!)
http://sunserv.kfki.hu/~arthp/art/g/ghiberti/1sacrifi.jpg

de La Hire, Laurent: Abraham Sacrificing Isaac ---The WebMuseum

Rembrandt: Abraham and Isaac ---The WebMuseum

Rembrandt: Abraham's Sacrifice ---National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA

Italian church setting or sacrifice, and Abraham with Trinity
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~rs2/Images/Christian/abraham.jpg

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 4/14/2002 2:16 AM (GMT -6)

Leave it to Tom to kill the discussion. And leave it to POW to turn the thread into an art gallery

Just kidding.

Excellent point Tom (and nice pictures ya'll). So far as I can see, TGB's reading of the Abraham story pretty much kills the "teleological suspension of the ethical" deal in Kierkegaard. End of discussion. (not that the question of absolute duty can't be raised on OTHER fronts...).

Modes? Meph? care to reply?

Otherwise, we shall take your silence as an acknowledgement of the clear superiority of TGB's wisdom on this matter [B).

OMNIBENEVOLENCE RULES

Doc

"Three is the magic number, oh yes it is, it's the Magic Number" - De La Soul

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