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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Tearing down walls > Isaiah 60 | Forum Quick Jump
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 7/27/2008 11:11 AM (GMT -6) |   | Jeff: I agree, of course. I'm just saying that government is not a legitimate institution APART from it fulfilling God's ends for it. THat's NOT to say that it should attempt to do everything God is for, obviously. Even the Torah didn't do that. Indeed, couldn't have.
Brandon: Ends for what? I don't get it.
Jeff: Ends for GOVERNMENT. Doesn't God have ends for the institution of government? Or do you think it exists independent of any divine intention? To my mind, government, to the extent that it depends for its very existence on the use of force (few people would even pay taxes, otherwise), can only be a legitimate USE of force if that use of force serves, to some successful extent, God's purpose for it.
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Jeff: No, I'm meaning recognize as INTENDED. It is not clear that promiscuity is intended to the same degree that it seems that monogamy and long-range parenting are. That's all I'm saying. We are not equally warranted in all our claims. Banning is not at all what I was getting at.
Brandon: Not quite getting you here either. I realize that homosexuality is not intended by God that monogamy and long-range parenting are. But after that you lost me.  Don't know what your point is.
Jeff: As I've said previously, I don't think government should use force to compel any subsidization of or recognition of heterosexual marriage. But officers of the state, because they are human, ought to respectfully recognize the divine institution of marriage simply because it IS a divinely intended institution. |
Post Edited (Similtude) : 7/27/2008 6:24:51 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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BBBCanada
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 7/28/2008 2:31 PM (GMT -6) | | | Just from the get go Jeff, I think this: "To my mind, government, to the extent that it depends for its very existence on the use of force (few people would even pay taxes, otherwise), can only be a legitimate USE of force if that use of force serves, to some successful extent, God's purpose for it." is reductionistic. We should not think of power and authority merely in terms of the use of force. Think about it like this.
When you have a police state where the power to coerce via the sword is used too frequently, that state is said to be a fragile or weak state. It doesn't indicate a strong state. In other words, if the citizens of a particular state need to be cowed into submission, those citizens most likely have begun to doubt the government's right to exercise power or its authority. So there has to be a way in which force or what is called "commanding power" is not the rule. So we need to think about what power and authority is. There are different kinds of authority such as performatory authority which entails the right to act on someone else's half. There is epistemic authority which means having a high level of knowledge over a particular subject. To be authoritative in one's field is to possess a certain power OVER others but yet, it doesn't command obedience--commanding power. Even when you do have the power to command-to force, this does not always entail it's rightful exercise. You could have a some anarchists who believe that Al-Qaeda terrorist organizations and the police force are the same. But really, unless you are one of those anarchists, you can see that both possess coercive power, yet only one, the police possesses legitmate authority to use this power while the other doesn't. And that's the thing. There is a sense in which authority is a type of power in itself which is distinct from coercive force but is nontheless related to the power of the sword. That is to say, that when political authority ACTS JUSTLY WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE STATE, the state's power is said to be further enhanced. In this way, political power cannot be reduced to sword power. For example, the authority of the police is not felt by the presence of his gun (i.e. consequences if you don't pay taxes), but rather by his uniform and badge. These exert a certain subtle power over people which is not so easy to account for on a theoretical level but is easily intuited at the experiential level. Though there is the implication of threat in the event of disobedience to the law, the uniform and badge connote so much more than this. Most reflexively honor the uniform and what it stands for, i.e. the rule of law and the maintenance of public order and safety and in general doing justice.
So, I would say that the government's dependence does not depend on the exercise of force so much, but more so on gaining the respect for authority from it's citizens the ultimate end of which is to achieve a just state of affairs i.e. to do justice to the diversity of individuals and communities in the world. Thus, the intention of government's use of power and authority will be related to it's jural task which is intrinsic to it's make-up--what it is wired to do.
Brandon
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.
To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 7/28/2008 9:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Brandon: In this way, political power cannot be reduced to sword power. For example, the authority of the police is not felt by the presence of his gun (i.e. consequences if you don't pay taxes), but rather by his uniform and badge.
Jeff: You are right in a sense. But it is still true that apart from the "sword" there is anarchy. Apart from a relative monopoly of force, the state is impotent to attain any of its ends. Without that force, it will either be overcome by its own "subjects" or other states.
And in that sense, it is of no avail to know what WOULD be a good government if the people will not have it--remember, many of the Jews preferred Caesar over their own Messiah though he came healing and doing good; many preferred Pharoah over Moses; etc. All we can do, with respect to fulfilling our own duty, is to see what God meant for government to do and figure out how we can best relate to our own, given what it is actually like. The scripture suggests that a considerable amount of submissiveness and payment of taxes are two ways to do that.
In fact, I see myself as being for less force than most, in certain respects. No where in the bible do I see where transfers of property were compelled by the threat of force; not even in the Torah. Rather, God said He would bless them if they were merciful to the poor. He said those who gave to the poor were lending to Him. Likewise, in the NT, Christ said "he who shows no mercy will receive no mercy."
I don't think that most unmarried people would voluntarily pay those benefits to married people apart from the threat of force. IOW, if there was a line on our tax form where people could voluntarily contribute to assure that married spouses got social security benefits while their own non-legally-married, significant others received no such benefits, they would not contribute. It's the threat of FORCE that makes them do it.
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 7/29/2008 6:13 AM (GMT -6) | | When we look at Rom. 13, the words "fear", "sword", and "vengeance" have pertinent significance in Paul's argument as to HOW the state is a minister unto good. And this is simply because apart from a relative monopoly of force, the state is impotent to attain either Gods ends for it or its own sinful ends. Any view that entails the notion that God, by virtue of being loving, can not motivate with negative consequences must reject even the notion of the disciplining of "sons." And at that point, we have moved so far from textual perspicuity, we must proceed from philosophical axioms alone. And I'm thinking that is a pretty problematic starting point seeings how most people intuitively agree with certain kinds of discipline and negative consequences independent of texts, anyway. And I think Greg must ultimately go as far as Zach to be consistent. But Zach makes no bones about the fact that his scriptural views are "spiritually" discerned--i.e., he doesn't claim to find a coherent benevolent message from the gospels from deduction and induction alone. I wonder if Greg would ever say that from his podium.
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 7/30/2008 10:30 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 8/1/2008 9:36 AM (GMT -6) | | Here's an excerpt from that link, Tom. Care to comment?
The essay is a stunning intervention in the North American debate over open theism. McCormack sees exactly what is at stake in the debate, but he refuses to allow the debate to be conducted along the usual lines. He acknowledges that open theists (Clark Pinnock, John Sanders, et al.) have identified a real problem in the classical theistic doctrine of God, but then he transposes this problematic into an entirely different register, insisting that what it is really needed is a properly christological approach to the doctrine of God.
The problem with open theism is that it is not nearly radical enough; it critiques certain features of the classical-theistic doctrine of God, but never risks a fundamental break with the metaphysical apparatus of classical theism. This is why open theists finally prove incapable of resolving the doctrinal problems which they themselves have (rightly) identified: in spite of all their criticisms of “classical theism,” they continue to play the same game and to abide by the same metaphysical rules.
Before God, in grace, we will with all our power to be that which He shows us we are. | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
Megistered Rember
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 8/3/2008 4:36 PM (GMT -6) | | An oldie but a goodie.
www.jesusradicals.com/library/cavanaugh/telephone.pdf
"The urgent task of the Church, then, is to demystify the nation-state and to treat it like the telephone company. At its best, the nation-state may provide goods and services that contribute to a certain limited order—mail delivery is a positive good. The state is not the keeper of the common good, however, and we need to adjust our expectations accordingly. The Church must break its imagination out of captivity to the nation-state. The Church must constitute itself as an alternative social space, and not simply rely on the nation-state to be its social presence."
"In Greek usage, ekklesia named the assembly of those with citizen rights in a given polis. In calling itself ekklesia, the Church was identifying itself as fully public, refusing the available language for private associations (koinon or collegium). The Church was not gathered like a koinon around particular interests, but was concerned with the interests of the whole city, because it was the witness of God’s activity in history. At the same time, the Church was not simply another polis; it was rather an anticipation of the heavenly city on earth, in a way that complexified the bipolar calculus of public and private."
The phone company defines marriage as available to same-sex couples... ...but who cares how the phone company defines marriage? Since when is the phone company in the business of legitimating marriage? They might make that claim. And we might chuckle. I know a man who claims he is married to God. He even has a ring. Neither the phone company nor the state recognize this marriage. He doesn't care. No reason for him to care about what they thinks. They're wrong; so what?
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre | | Back to Top | | |
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