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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
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|  Posted 8/30/2006 3:47 AM (GMT -6) |   | Ok.
I realize that this is going to sound weird. But I really want y'all to think about this.
This MAY be a paradigm shifter.
Ok.
We see in Scripture that God gets angry. Actually, there are some sections of Scripture that seems to catch God in a fit of rage. (Particularly, some stuff in the OT)
Now, what exactly IS anger? I think this is a pretty good start...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anger
www.apa.org/topics/controlanger.html
Now...here's what I'm understanding about God...
1) God is omnipotent.
2) God is omniscient (which implies that God fully understands EVERY circumstance that ever has existed or will come to exists)
3) God has aseity (which for our purposes implies that God has FUNDAMENTAL emotional equilibrium)
Ok.
Given all this about God, can anyone here think of any reason why God would be angry at ANY being?
Now, please don't get all biblicistic on me. I KNOW what Scripture says about God getting angry, alright? I'm just thinking this through here. Here's my thought...
Because of God's omniscience, God would UNDERSTAND the craziness that exists in our world. He wouldn't LIKE the craziness, but he would understand the DEPTH of it such that he would easily realize how TRAPPED Creation is in the craziness. So, even though God would respond, even severely, to things, it doesn't seem that God would have the faulty understanding of things (this includes self-understanding!) to have faulty EXPECTATIONS which often lead to anger. Moreover, God doesn't have screwed up emotional thinking, like we humans do. God wouldn't have INAPPROPRIATE emotional responses. Unfortunately, human beings have a very hard time separating responsible action from faulty expectations or self-understandings...which often lead to anger issues. God wouldn't have to worry about this. Moreover, God would NEVER ultimately be "threatened" by anything, because of God's omnipotence and aseity. Remember that God, in the core of Godself, constantly experiences the epitome of loving sociality and serenity.
In other words, God would be able to locate things that he is against and work against those things (perhaps even taking severe, painful measures when necessary) WITHOUT being emotionally attached to those things in the sense of being angry. It's one thing to say that God hates sin. It's completely another thing to say that God gets ANGRY at people who sin.
So...I think to myself...if all this is the case, why would God get angry at anyone?
Try this. Take you. Take you doing any kind of sin. Now, think of God knowing absolutely EVERYTHING that their is to know about you. How socialized you are. The subconscious and unconcious hurts and pains that you unknowingly act out of. Your generally emotionally and spiritual immaturity. Do you think that God would be ANGRY with you for sinning? Why? Even if you wanted to (for some reason) take the idea of free will to the hilt so as to heighten the idea of moral responsibility...do you think that God, being God, would see your sin as such a disruption to the scheme of things that it would trigger God's becoming ANGRY with you? Really?
I can see finite human beings getting angry as a result of our human limitation. But God, who is spirit? Hmmm...
I have more ideas on this than I've shared here. But I think this is enough to get the convo started.
Share your perspective on this.
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One Love
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| Posted 8/30/2006 4:01 AM (GMT -6) | | Oh...
And on "righteous anger"
I don't see that even existing. One can perform what they believe to be responsible, corrective (even seemingly harsh) behavior without being angry. Isn't that true, parents?
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
Live in Christ's love, the Spirit's empowerment, and the Father's grace.
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One Love
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| Posted 8/30/2006 4:46 AM (GMT -6) | | Here is the deeper question:
Does having moral faculties NECESSARILY include actually getting angry?
Can we imagine a being who NEVER gets angry at situations or people, yet responds to all opposition in responsible, evil-reducing (possibly very forceful) ways?
Can we imagine a being who NEVER subjectively internalizes or "receives" offense from the actions of others, yet responds effectively to counterproductive thoughts and behavior directed towards itself?
I can.
Can you?
Reminders:
1) The passionate desire for justice is NOT EQUIVALENT to anger.
2) The passionate desire for elimination of evil is NOT EQUIVALENT to anger.
3) The passionate disdain for sin is NOT EQUIVALENT to anger.
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 8/30/2006 4:57:29 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 8/30/2006 7:51 AM (GMT -6) | | Wait.
I'm assuming that some here may do what Millard Erickson (and others) tried to do in his treatment of God's anger. From page 623 of Christian Theology...
From the foregoing it is evident that God looks with disfavor upon sin, indeed, that sin occasions anger or wrath or displeasure within him. Two additional comments should be made, however. The first is that anger is not something that God chooses to feel. His disapproval of sin is not an arbitrary matter, for his very nature is one of holiness; it automatically rejects sin. He is, as we have suggested in another place, "allergic to sin," as it were. The second comment is that we must avoid thinking that God's anger as being excessively emotional. It is not as if he is seething with anger, his temper virtually surging out of control. He is capable of exercising patience and long-suffering, and does so. Nor is God to be thought of as somehow frustrated by our sin. Disappointment is perhaps a more accurate way of characterizing his reaction.
My thoughts:
1) The passionate disapproval of sin is NOT SYNONYMOUS with being angry towards sinners. It is conceivable to hate the harmful ramifications of an activity WITHOUT hating the people doing the activity.
2) Saying that God's anger isn't "excessively emotional" doesn't address the issue. (And this term becomes very relative when you think of how God's anger against David counting the men lead to the deaths of thousands of people!) The issue is this: does it even make SENSE to say that God has an ANGRY emotional reaction to occurances, given God's aseity, omnipotence, and omniscience?
3) dis-ap-point
–verb (used with object) 1. to fail to fulfill the expectations or wishes of: His gross ingratitude disappointed us.
2. to defeat the fulfillment of (hopes, plans, etc.); thwart; frustrate: to be disappointed in love.
–verb (used without object) 3. to bring or cause disappointment.
As you probably read on the APA page I gave, disappointment can often turn into anger. But..to be disappointed deals with an emotional reaction to UNFULFILLED EXPECTATIONS. And, from what I'm understanding, usually the depth of disappointment is correlated to the depth of expectations held for something. What doesn't make sense to me is this: if God knows EVERY FACTOR that goes into every decision that people make, how could God's expectations be HIGH ENOUGH to warrant serious disappointment? Think about this. God knows absolutely EVERY dysfunction that we have. Every dysfunctional neural-net that's ever been formed. Every unconscious, subconscious, and pre-conscious issue that we have. More than we'd even care to know about! Do we really think that God foolishly sets expectations on our behavior in his own mind that he pretty much KNOWS we couldn't meet on a good day...and THEN get angry or disappointed with us because we don't meet the expectations? Does that make any sense? That's like me working in a psych ward and getting angry at a patient with diagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder...for acting compulsively! No sense, y'all.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
Live in Christ's love, the Spirit's empowerment, and the Father's grace.
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Starkman
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| Posted 8/30/2006 8:06 AM (GMT -6) | | Why stop with just anger—can we imagine a being who never feels...anything? I suppose we could say that love doesn't have to have any emotions, but then how does God love us more than anyone else...by mere consistencyt?
God's display of emotion as noted in Scripture must have some validity with regard to what drives it. The stuff of relationships is more than knowledge. Merely because God is omniscient doesn't place Him in the camp of Star Trek aliens who do not feel emotion. One-on-one relationship between personalities, including God's, is dynamic, and that dynamic involves the highest level of sentients for God. God would never be able to sympathize, have sorrow, express joy or love (as we backfill our love with emotion) much less relate to us about anything we go through that involves emotions (not just anger).
Starkman
My teacher used to say that whenever he read Scripture, he would always ask the question, "What does this have to say about the character of God?" Working off his thinking, as I read Scripture, I have come to ask, "What does this have to say about the heart and passion of God's desire for relationship for us? | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 8/30/2006 8:28 AM (GMT -6) | | Starkman
Why stop with just anger—can we imagine a being who never feels...anything? I suppose we could say that love doesn't have to have any emotions, but then how does God love us more than anyone else...by mere consistencyt?
We don't have to go that far. No one is saying that omniscience REMOVES the capacity for emotionality. That doesn't make sense. What I'm saying is this: there seem to be certain CIRCUMSTANCES that allow for anger to come forth from within a person. I'm wondering if God, given all of his divine characteristics, would ever have times where those circumstances come about for God to get angry at someone.
This would help me, Starkman: Please give me a reason why God would be angry with someone. Spell it out and make it plain. Taking into account the IMPLICATIONS of God's nature, what is a set of conditions where we could say that it is comprehensible that God would be "angry" at someone.
The ONLY thing that I can come up with so far is this scenario. And it would HAVE to presume open view theism is true. There would be absolutely NO reason for God to be angry if everything were determined by God. Now...
For some reason, all knowledge about agent X up to time 0 indicates that X most likely will do action Y if placed in situation Z. It's not CERTAIN, but let's say there is an OVERWHELMING amount of data that informs God in the direction of X doing action Y if placed in situation Z. God places agent X in situation Z. Based upon this understanding, God sets an expectation for agent X doing Y. By some crazy quirk of freedom-based longshot activity (or whatever), the agent does action T instead of Y. GASP! God's expectations didn't happen!
but wait...
Isn't God infinitely intelligent? Didn't God already have contingency plans upon contingency plans about this possibility occuring? Wouldn't God know IMMEDIATELY what he would do after the agent "unexpectantly" did action T instead of action Y? Wouldn't this mean that God wouldn't see ANY action as an outright threat to his grander schemes? Wouldn't all this decrease the emotional tie that God has to ANY expectation that God has, with respect to our open, chaotic, finite existence?
Wherein would be the deep anger...even in THIS situation???
But you try, Starkman. Help me out.
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One Love
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| Posted 8/30/2006 8:57 AM (GMT -6) | | I feel like I should say this.
I'm NOT saying that God doesn't care about sin. I believe that God DEEPLY despises sin because of what it does to God's creation. This would be an aspect of God's LOVE for Creation. And I believe that, from this emotional engagement standpoint, God does whatever God can do to halt the growth and emergence of sin. Sometimes this may involve some serious "tough love", to say the least.
But...
this DOESN'T require the emotionally personal God to internally...
--become offended at sinners
--become angry with sinners
--wish vengeance upon sinners
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
Live in Christ's love, the Spirit's empowerment, and the Father's grace.
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One Love
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| Posted 8/30/2006 5:16 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
We did all this on the aseity thing, remember Mephi? We're relatively meaningless to God. He freely creates us. And we can do nothing to disturbe the loving relational socieaty that constitutes God's experience of Godself. Fine. But we went on to agree that God can IN GRACE, freely decide to let us affect him, and I don't see why this can't include emotional responses.
No one is saying that God can't have emotional responses. God is person and has emotionality. My specific issue is with the idea of ANGER as a divine emotional response. Is ANGER (as expressed in fits of rage) even viable when it comes to God? That's the question.
***********************************
Tom:
I can't imagine what it means to say God's opposition to sin is "passionate" but that God doesn't get "angry."
Hmmmm...
Did you check out the descriptions of anger from the websites? How about this. To say that God has passionate disdain for sin is NOT the same thing as saying that God is ANGRY at people who sin OR at particular episodes of sin.
These two statements are not the same...
God HATES sin.
God is ANGRY with a person who sins.
We conflate these, but these ideas are distinct.
************************************
Tom:
What word would you use distinguish divine passion vis-a-vis our willfully sinning from divine passion vis-a-vis our willingly loving?
Hate.
God hates sin.
Hate is like a form is "disgust"
But this is NOT synonymous with ANGER.
God hates sin because of his nature. It does NOT necessarily follow that God is ANGRY with people who sin.
Do you see what I'm trying to say?
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
Live in Christ's love, the Spirit's empowerment, and the Father's grace.
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One Love
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| Posted 8/31/2006 9:23 AM (GMT -6) | | SELAH!
I really want to hear from you.
You too, Corey.
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One Love
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| Posted 9/1/2006 6:34 PM (GMT -6) | | Any more comments? Anyone?
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
Live in Christ's love, the Spirit's empowerment, and the Father's grace.
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 9/1/2006 10:36 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Meph: Any more comments? Anyone?
Jeff: I so resonate with your argument that I've moved from being agnostic about God's supposed eternal foreknowledge of all contingencies to being more inclined to doubt that God has foreknown contingencies eternally--especially since I've never been able to understand what, other than tradition, grounds that claim. And, true, one could say as Tom does that God can choose to allow us to affect Him, but such a choice seems to imply that such emotion is not inherently part of His essential nature--which just seems to make your point, I think. I.e., in such a case, God is not really angry.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 9/2/2006 8:11:27 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 9/2/2006 10:29 AM (GMT -6) | | If the only emotional state that can be called "anger" is a sinful, disfunctional one, then "anger" is by defintion sin, and of course we'd all agree God has never and will never be angry.
I'm not convinced this is the only possible "passionate state" to which the word "anger" may justifiably be applied, so I'm not entirely on board. Mepih and I tossed this around the other day. Yes, I agree God doesn't throw temper tantrums, "lose it," get "pi**ed off," or get angry in any of the sinful or disfunctional ways we do. It seems that this is what Mephi is essentially concerned to show. And I agree that far. In fact, when you specify the sinful dysfuntional nature of the sort of passion being considered, I wonder who would disagree and say, "Heck yeah, God does that!"
But Paul (no slouch or idiot when it came to human psychology but as thoughtful and reflective on such matters as anybody) does describe an appropate, non-sinful "anger" ("be angry and sin not"). If modern psychology has no way to conceptualize an "anger" that is not irrational or dysfunctional, then chalk that up to the weaknesses and limitations of modern psychology. All we need say is that what the biblical authors call "anger" with respect to God is that passionate state that accompanies appropriate judgement. That passion is obviously not joy or happiness. But it's not equivalent to grief or hurt either. But neither is it irrational rage or passionate dysfunction.
So I'm agreeing in substance with Mephi, but we disagree about whether the word "anger" can usefully describe what God DOES feel in such situations. And I don't think I'm ready to say the biblical authors, since they were not trained psychologist, just unreflectively (and falsely) thought of God as being as dysfunctional as they were.
Come on guys. Work it a while. An answer is out there.
--------------
Jeff: I so resonate with your argument that I've moved from being agnostic about God's supposed eternal foreknowledge of all contingencies to being more inclined to doubt that God has foreknown contingencies eternally--especially since I've never been able to understand what, other than tradition, grounds that claim.
Tom:  You've never even understood the arguments Alan, I and others put forward for thinking God knows all possibilities? Ugh.
Jeff: And, true, one could say as Tom does that God can choose to allow us to affect Him, but such a choice seems to imply that such emotion is not inherently part of His essential nature--which just seems to make your point, I think. I.e., in such a case, God is not really angry.
Tom: I don't follow this. I don't see how the question about some particular divine passion has anything to do with divine knowledge of possibilities. But anyhow, Mephi agrees, Jeff, that God 'chooses' to allow us to affect him. But the choice to allow us to affect him is equivalent to create this particular kind of world. The point is that we can never affect God is ways he has not already freely decided are ways we MAY affect him, and he made that choice when he created. As for divine passions/emotions, I'm not sure what you mean by their being an "inherent part of God's essential nature." To me somethng is "inherently essential to one's nature" if that something follows necessary from the possession of the nature in question, in which case God would ALWAYS feel this or that passion if feeling. But who thinks that? The question is, does God possess passions or not? And can we affect God at this leve. I say yes, but since I and the world are contingent creations, I don't see how God's passionate responses to us can be an "inherently essential part of God's nature." I don't think they are. They're an inherently non-essential part of God's nature.
Tom
Post Edited (TGB) : 9/2/2006 10:47:18 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 9/2/2006 11:52 AM (GMT -6) | | | Tom: Come on guys. Work it a while. An answer is out there.
Jeff: I'm open to an answer. But currently, I'm also open to the possibility that whatever attributes of divinity are not entailed in God's revelation through nature and scripture might very well be beyond our ability to conceptualize or deduce/infer. Tom: You've never even understood the arguments Alan, I and others put forward for thinking God knows all possibilities? Ugh.
Jeff: All I remember Alan using is the ontological argument which I find to be circular. I don't remember you saying anything different than Alan. And don't we at least agree that scripture doesn't say much about God's knowledge, sans-creation? And there were those problems of the infinitely continuous abstraction required to account for the eternality of foreknowledge.
That great site you posted for us a while back has a section on the ontological argument. One of the defenders (Plantinga) says that argument doesn't convince many people because it seems like a parlor trick. Aquinas, per my recent reading of him, also rejected the ontological argument on the grounds that most people don't believe in God in that way. I would also be willing to bet that if I were to buy that book "Why we believe" by that atheist editor of the Skeptic magazine, most of the reasons listed there have nothing to do with the ontological argument.
But I am open-minded to being convinced otherwise. I suspect most people believe that nothing short of a powerful and intelligent being (person?) could account for the universe. But, to my mind, these attributes do not entail or imply eternal foreknowledge--either definite or contingent. But I am open. So don't give up on me, yet! 
Jeff: And, true, one could say as Tom does that God can choose to allow us to affect Him, but such a choice seems to imply that such emotion is not inherently part of His essential nature--which just seems to make your point, I think. I.e., in such a case, God is not really angry.
Tom: I don't follow this. I don't see how the question about some particular divine passion has anything to do with divine knowledge of possibilities.
Jeff: It doesn't in any kind of deductive sense. It's just that since I don't know what grounds a belief in eternal foreknowledge, I don't see any reason to embrace the difficulty of understanding why God would abstract (remember, even Alan says future contingencies must be abstracted if they're related to God's will) conscious thoughts of matters despicable to Himself before they are relevant to any purpose He is about to implement.
And so I don't see any reason to assume that there are any specific purposes that are eternal. All that I see as requiring eternality is a disposition for loving sociality and multiple persons to commune in that loving sociality. But such a disposition might involve dynamic creativity in the truest sense. Or at least that seems like a logical possibility to me.
Tom: But anyhow, Mephi agrees, Jeff, that God 'chooses' to allow us to affect him. But the choice to allow us to affect him is equivalent to create this particular kind of world. The point is that we can never affect God is ways he has not already freely decided are ways we MAY affect him, and he made that choice when he created.
Jeff: What I don't understand is this: How can we know that God chooses how we might affect Him if God is not free to focus His attention on subsets of reality. To my mind, if God exhaustively apprehends all reality in all of its relations necessarily, why would I think that God would not exhaustively respond to it with His essential sentient nature necessarily also? To think otherwise seems to create difficulties unnecessarily. Or, to put it another way, it seems ad-hoc to say God volitionally limits what He will feel but that He can't volitionally limit His attention on subsets of reality.
And again, I don't see volitionally limiting one's attention as equivalent to voluntary nescience. It would be voluntary nescience only if the object of God's volition is to be ignorant. But we focus our attention all the time without any such object, don't we? Granted, we could say that we have to focus since we're not omniscient. But if God must know all that His intellectual capacities can apprehend, might He not also feel all that His sentient capacities can feel under given conditions? I don't see what warrants us in positing one and not the other.
Tom: As for divine passions/emotions, I'm not sure what you mean by their being an "inherent part of God's essential nature." To me somethng is "inherently essential to one's nature" if that something follows necessary from the possession of the nature in question, in which case God would ALWAYS feel this or that passion if feeling. But who thinks that?
Jeff: I would also say that an emotion could be necessary in the sense that it is necessarily evoked under certain conditions. If those conditions are not eternal, then the emotion would not be eternal. To me, this is the most natural way to think of God's sensibilities. Once we say that God can choose how to feel, it would seem those feelings are not true indicators of His sentient nature.
Isn't this part of the problem of evil--that the sufferings of the world seem to imply that God is indifferent to us? IOW, people naturally relate conditions to how they think an essentially benevolent being should feel about them.
Tom: The question is, does God possess passions or not? And can we affect God at this leve. I say yes, but since I and the world are contingent creations, I don't see how God's passionate responses to us can be an "inherently essential part of God's nature." I don't think they are. They're an inherently non-essential part of God's nature.
Jeff: I would say God's emotional responses to us are contingent insomuch as our existence was voluntary on God's part. But I would say God's sensibilities are necessary insomuch as they are part of His nature. Hence, although our world provides contingent conditions, His response to them is necessary to the extent that He apprehends the conditions of our contingent reality.
For humans, sentient response follows apprehension as night does day. Why would we assume it doesn't in God? What problem do we solve by positing that?
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One Love
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| Posted 9/2/2006 12:30 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
If modern psychology has no way to conceptualize an "anger" that is not irrational or dysfunctional, then chalk that up to the weaknesses and limitations of modern psychology.
Damn. What about all discovered "truth" (partial as it may be) being God's truth? Hmmm...
*****************************
Tom:
All we need say is that what the biblical authors call "anger" with respect to God is that passionate state that accompanies appropriate judgement. That passion is obviously not joy or happiness. But it's not equivalent to grief or hurt either. But neither is it irrational rage or passionate dysfunction.
It would seem to me that passionate states that accompany appropriate RELATIONALITY (in the end, judgement and/or discernment are factors of relationality) of an all-loving being would boil down to much one thing:
Internalized desire for well-being of self and others
This is a healthy ground for all type of emotional responses, like hurt, joy, etc. As I thought about it, the CHIEF reason why an all-loving being would WANT justice or to stem evil...would be the same reason why God would disdain sin: God wants the BEST for Creation. This is simply another way for talking about God seeking the increase of beauty in Creation. Ideally, human being would have ALL of their choices come from such a center. And ideally, as I shared with Tom and Selah, human beings would NOT have to operate out of any anger whatsoever. We had a discussion about a mode of parenting where emotionally stable parents can 1) own their own feelings of hurt, surprise, disapproval, etc [which are NOT anger] and 2) act more freely WITHOUT falling into anger.
In other words, what I'm saying is that I do believe that it's conceivable to imagine a being who has emotional responses out of an internalized desire for the well-being (beauty, harmony, all that) of self and other reality....BUT, at the same time...who does not have any emotional response that assumes a self-concept where...
1) internalization of personal grievance or offence is taken upon oneself
2) some reality is seen fundamentally as a threat to the self
and...
3) high emotional ties are made to expectations that are disproportionately related to reality
I believe that God, being omniscient, all-loving, and infinitely-intelligent, would not have a reason to have a self-concept that allows for any of these problematic ideas.
Something else...
This is what you have to deal with, Tom. There are many people who think that the Bible says that God is OFFENDED by sinners (not just sin). That God genuinely takes personal offence when we sin because when we sin we are NOT attribute the true worth to God that he is due. Actually, this is what, I've heard, grounds the severity of God's angry activities. Now, hopefully you can see the issue, Tom. Why would an being like God take personal offense at our sins? Do we really believe that God gets OFFENDED when we don't attribute the worth due to God? Isn't it possible that God can be emotionally engaged with us in our sins WITHOUT internalizing personal offense from our actions. (This, Tom, is what it means for a person to feel significant hurt or loss without falling into anger!)
Again, I'm not saying that God doesn't have a passionate displeasure for sin and it's effects. That's very true. I'm saying that it is possible to a person to have such a passionate displeasure WITHOUT interpreting sinful activity as a personal affront and then act out of that interpretation.
But that's EXACTLY what some people say that the Bible says about God! That God's internal sense of dignity is so affected by whether or not we sin, that he gets ANGRY when we commit any kind of sin/idolatry. God MUST be worshipped...or he will get offended and angry. Do you see what I'm trying to say? **************************** Tom: But Paul (no slouch or idiot when it came to human psychology but as thoughtful and reflective on such matters as anybody) does describe an appropate, non-sinful "anger" ("be angry and sin not" . I'd be willing to bet when Paul said "be angry and sin not", it was the idea of maintaining a high sense of passionate, emotional vigilance against sin and/or evil where we passionately despise sin, want justice, and want to minimize sin's effects. Unfortunately, like I told you and Selah when we met, it's VERY, VERY hard for human beings to hold these passions within falling into the temptation of being ANGRY with sinful situations or people. But it's possible. Even for human beings. And that means it's possible for an omniscient, all-loving, infinitely-intelligent God. And check something. No one is saying that Paul is an idiot. But can we, like you suggested before, that Paul's analysis was phenomenological, contextually circumscribed by what he understood about things? That makes sense, right? For example... 1 Corinthians 11:13-16
Judge for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering. If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice—nor do the churches of God. Now, when Paul spoke about gender issues (long hair and all that), he had no idea about the DEEP ambiguity of actual physiological and psychological issues dealing with sexual development. Do we just say that Paul must have been right about his discourse on what is "natural" for a man and woman, with respect to the length of hair...just because he was a biblical author? OR Do we rethink about what it means for the bible to be a HUMAN and divine book? What do you think, Tom? Post Edited (MephEternal) : 9/2/2006 12:37:02 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 9/2/2006 1:12 PM (GMT -6) | | Numbers 16
1 Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and certain Reubenites—Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth—became insolent [a] 2 and rose up against Moses. With them were 250 Israelite men, well-known community leaders who had been appointed members of the council. 3 They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, "You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the LORD's assembly?"
4 When Moses heard this, he fell facedown. 5 Then he said to Korah and all his followers: "In the morning the LORD will show who belongs to him and who is holy, and he will have that person come near him. The one he chooses he will cause to come near him. 6 You, Korah, and all your followers are to do this: Take censers 7 and tomorrow put burning coals and incense in them before the LORD. The man the LORD chooses will be the one who is holy. You Levites have gone too far!"
8 Moses also said to Korah, "Now listen, you Levites! 9 Isn't it enough for you that the God of Israel has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community and brought you near himself to do the work at the LORD's tabernacle and to stand before the community and minister to them? 10 He has brought you and all your fellow Levites near himself, but now you are trying to get the priesthood too. 11 It is against the LORD that you and all your followers have banded together. Who is Aaron that you should grumble against him?"
12 Then Moses summoned Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab. But they said, "We will not come! 13 Isn't it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness? And now you also want to lord it over us! 14 Moreover, you haven't brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Do you want to treat these men like slaves ? No, we will not come!"
15 Then Moses became very angry and said to the LORD, "Do not accept their offering. I have not taken so much as a donkey from them, nor have I wronged any of them."
16 Moses said to Korah, "You and all your followers are to appear before the LORD tomorrow—you and they and Aaron. 17 Each one is to take his censer and put incense in it—250 censers in all—and present it before the LORD. You and Aaron are to present your censers also." 18 So each one took his censer, put burning coals and incense in it, and stood with Moses and Aaron at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 19 When Korah had gathered all his followers in opposition to them at the entrance to the tent of meeting, the glory of the LORD appeared to the entire assembly. 20 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 21 "Separate yourselves from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once."
22 But Moses and Aaron fell facedown and cried out, "O God, God of every human spirit, will you be angry with the entire assembly when only one man sins?"
23 Then the LORD said to Moses, 24 "Say to the assembly, 'Move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.' "
25 Moses got up and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him. 26 He warned the assembly, "Move back from the tents of these wicked men! Do not touch anything belonging to them, or you will be swept away because of all their sins." 27 So they moved away from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. Dathan and Abiram had come out and were standing with their wives, children and little ones at the entrances to their tents.
28 Then Moses said, "This is how you will know that the LORD has sent me to do all these things and that it was not my idea: 29 If these men die a natural death and suffer the common fate of all human beings, then the LORD has not sent me. 30 But if the LORD brings about something totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the realm of the dead, then you will know that these men have treated the LORD with contempt."
31 As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart 32 and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households, and all those associated with Korah, together with their possessions. 33 They went down alive into the realm of the dead, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community. 34 At their cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting, "The earth is going to swallow us too!"
35 And fire came out from the LORD and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense.
[c] 36 The LORD said to Moses, 37 "Tell Eleazar son of Aaron, the priest, to remove the censers from the charred remains and scatter the coals some distance away, for the censers are holy— 38 the censers of the men who sinned at the cost of their lives. Hammer the censers into sheets to overlay the altar, for they were presented before the LORD and have become holy. Let them be a sign to the Israelites."
39 So Eleazar the priest collected the bronze censers brought by those who had been burned to death, and he had them hammered out to overlay the altar, 40 as the LORD directed him through Moses. This was to remind the Israelites that no one except a descendant of Aaron should come to burn incense before the LORD, or he would become like Korah and his followers.
41 The next day the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. "You have killed the LORD's people," they said.
42 But when the assembly gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron and turned toward the tent of meeting, suddenly the cloud covered it and the glory of the LORD appeared. 43 Then Moses and Aaron went to the front of the tent of meeting, 44 and the LORD said to Moses, 45 "Get away from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once." And they fell facedown.
46 Then Moses said to Aaron, "Take your censer and put incense in it, along with burning coals from the altar, and hurry to the assembly to make atonement for them. Wrath has come out from the LORD; the plague has started." 47 So Aaron did as Moses said, and ran into the midst of the assembly. The plague had already started among the people, but Aaron offered the incense and made atonement for them. 48 He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped. 49 But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah. 50 Then Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance to the tent of meeting, for the plague had stopped.
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Damn. Maybe both God and Moses needed an anger management course, huh?
On the real though, check this out...
www.tniv.info/bible/wordsearch.php?word_request=anger+Lord&match_type=all&selected_version=tniv&limit=500&sortby=bookorder&limit_select=span&start_book=1&end_book=73
If you were a NON-BELIEVER and you looked at some of the Scriptures that talks about the Lord's anger...what would you think about God?
Hmmm...
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 9/2/2006 1:16:13 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 9/2/2006 1:43 PM (GMT -6) | | Meph: Is it possible to conceive of the aesthetically-satisfied, emotionally stable, all-loving, omniscient, infinitely-intelligent God...
1) internally feeling PERSONALLY DEVALUED by a person who sins against God
and...
2) having an active emotional response that exhibits divine displeasure towards said person BECAUSE of the internalized feeling of being devalued?
Jeff: In saying that God is aesthetically-satisfied, are you assuming that we are relatively meaningless to God? If so, I follow you. If not, how do we know that God is currently aesthetically satisfied? 1 Cor. says love suffers long. Couldn't it be a logical possibility, then, that God created to glorify Christ and that God is suffering in the short run until Christ gets the glory due him?
In this case, God is not offended because He is not getting His due, per se. Rather, God is angry because Christ, for whom are all things, is not getting his due. IOW, God gets His satisfaction primarily from the glory of Christ, but Christ gets his glory from the creation. This is in agreement with the verses that speak of God "giving" followers and brethren to Christ. Is this not at least a logical possibility? If not, why not?
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One Love
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| Posted 9/2/2006 1:52 PM (GMT -6) | | Jef: (emphasis mine)
In saying that God is aesthetically-satisfied, are you assuming that we are relatively meaningless to God? If so, I follow you.
Exactamundo! Way to go, dude.
******************************
Jef:
Couldn't it be a logical possibility, then, that God created to glorify Christ and that God is suffering in the short run until Christ gets the glory due him?
In this case, God is not offended because He is not getting His due, per se. Rather, God is angry because Christ, for whom are all things, is not getting his due. IOW, God gets His satisfaction primarily from the glory of Christ, but Christ gets his glory from the creation. This is in agreement with the verses that speak of God "giving" followers and brethren to Christ.
Nope. This doesn't work. Christ being glorified IS the Father being glorified. God would ULTIMATELY be getting offended because the TRIUNE GOD wasn't getting the worth due to God. It's the same problem...just a different form.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
Live in Christ's love, the Spirit's empowerment, and the Father's grace.
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 9/2/2006 2:00 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Jef:
Couldn't it be a logical possibility, then, that God created to glorify Christ and that God is suffering in the short run until Christ gets the glory due him?
In this case, God is not offended because He is not getting His due, per se. Rather, God is angry because Christ, for whom are all things, is not getting his due. IOW, God gets His satisfaction primarily from the glory of Christ, but Christ gets his glory from the creation. This is in agreement with the verses that speak of God "giving" followers and brethren to Christ.
Meph: Nope. This doesn't work. Christ being glorified IS the Father being glorified. God would ULTIMATELY be getting offended because the TRIUNE GOD wasn't getting the worth due to God. It's the same problem...just a different form.
Jeff: Why do we have to assume that distinct persons have identical experiences? Wasn't the incarnated experience of the Son a distinct experience from the Father's concurrent experience? I don't see how they could be identical. And if they're not necessarily identical, why can't the Father create to glorify the Son as the primary motive of creation? Granted, the Father will be glorified. But it might be accomplished via the glorification of the Son as a side-effect, without having been the original motivation for creation.
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/2/2006 2:17 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
Why do we have to assume that distinct persons have identical experiences? Wasn't the incarnated experience of the Son a distinct experience from the Father's concurrent experience? I don't see how they could be identical.
Ah, but given the enigmatic, paradoxical nature of the doctrine of the Trinity, you can never shut the door on their experiences somehow having experiences such that there is distinction with no functional difference.
Welcome to the mystery of the Trinity.
But let me grant you this for a sec, ok. Going down.
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Jeff:
And if they're not necessarily identical, why can't the Father create to glorify the Son as the primary motive of creation? Granted, the Father will be glorified. But it might be accomplished via the glorification of the Son as a side-effect, without having been the original motivation for creation.
The telos for God's creating creation and it's relationship to the Son has NOTHING to do with what we are talking about. I would actually say that you are correct in saying that the Father created Creation, in some part, for glorification of the Son. But this is a distinct conversation from saying whether or not the Father gets angry at people because something doesn't go his way. In other words, just because God's plans about Creation glorifying Christ are sometimes frustrated does NOT emotionally require God to get ANGRY with anyone.
Tell me you're seeing this, dude. I think you're tracking with me.
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
Live in Christ's love, the Spirit's empowerment, and the Father's grace.
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/2/2006 2:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Seriously, y'all. Let's just bell the cat right here!
God's loving relationship within Godself provides God aesthetic satisfaction that makes Creation "relatively meaningless" to God
...AND...
God's omniscience, omnipotence, vast-intelligence (I won't say infinite intelligence for YOUR sake, Jeff ;o) ), and all-loving character [God's contingent expression of God's ad intra nature] make for God being the most emotionally healthy and balanced being in relating oneself to Creation.
These two things strongly lead to the idea that God would NOT meet any of the quite limiting criteria needed for God to subjectively internalize (and later, actively externalize) devaluation that comes from God's creation. In short, I can't see God getting emotionally "caught up" enough to fall into ANGER with Creation...because Creation constantly "disrespects" God, as it were.
I'm just not seeing it. Can someone help me?
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
Live in Christ's love, the Spirit's empowerment, and the Father's grace.
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 9/2/2006 2:29:38 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/2/2006 2:33 PM (GMT -6) | | POW,
Yo. I know that you can help me here.
I figure that you know what I'm trying to say here...
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
Live in Christ's love, the Spirit's empowerment, and the Father's grace.
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/2/2006 2:43 PM (GMT -6) | | POW:
I'm trying to understand how God, being God, could ever subjectively internalize personal devaluation and externalize an negative emotional reaction because of that devaluation. In Christianese, I'm trying to understand how God can truly be angered by sin and idolatry. Not hurt. Not surprised. Angered.
Is this is paradoxical situation where we basically have to say that God gets angered at and offended by people who sin...even though there seems to be no valid theological reason (with respect to what we understand about God's nature) for why God would be angry?
Kinda like when some compatibilists assert that it's a paradox that genuine human freedom is compossible with exhaustive definite foreknowledge...
Hmmm...
I don't know.
Help?
The newest mantra:
God graciously FINDS us meaningful when God doesn't need to do it and we, in ourselves, can't do it.
Live in Christ's love, the Spirit's empowerment, and the Father's grace.
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