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Sahid
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| Posted 1/15/2008 7:33 PM (GMT -6) |   | A vote to lower taxes is a vote to force the government to refrain from taxing. It is an exercise of power-over those who want power over.
If I tell my neighbor that exerting power over those who would raise taxes is a lesser sin than actually raising taxes, then I have not engaged in either of the two evils. If I myself exert power over those who would raise taxes, then I have engaged in the lesser of two evils.
Don't get me wrong, I would be happy to see America move in a more Christian direction. But the Church is not just to be "less bland" or "less dark" than the world. We are to be salt and light.
Forcing others not to force others. I apply the same test to this. If the Father allows evil people to make evil choices, how can we do otherwise? Or, how does this fail to apply to voting? It's not just an opinion poll or a survey. It's a legal decision backed by quite a bit of physical force.
I personally, choose not to compel the American people to pay me a cut of their income, nor do I choose to compel the American people to quit taxing each other. Of course that's not such a great temptation for me seeing as how my arsenal is not quite large enough to enforce such a decision. But on a corporative level we have more than enough weaponry to enforce either decision. Still, that's not how the Father acts and it's not how Christ acts, so how can we?
To put it bluntly but, hopefully, clearly... if the good moral thing to do is lower taxes, then why hasn't God already done it? Is he not good? Is he not capable?
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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Similitude
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| Posted 1/15/2008 8:40 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Z: A vote to lower taxes is a vote to force the government to refrain from taxing. It is an exercise of power-over those who want power over.
J: I don't see why this follows. My vote doesn't force anyone to do anything. It is an expression of my preference. It's only influence is upon men who dutifully submit to their job description. Elected officials actually have job descriptions, unlike tyrants. But neither I nor the electorate has any leverage over government officials except by revolution. But neither votes nor expressed preferences constitute revolutionary acts.
From what you're saying, I would take it that you think it's wrong for a christian to be a supervisor because they have to tell people what they want them to do, or to be a teacher because they are obligated to maintain some modicum of order in the classroom. I was thinking you deemed these modes of activity as non-power-over because no force is used to ENFORCE the directives.
Z: To put it bluntly but, hopefully, clearly... if the good moral thing to do is lower taxes, then why hasn't God already done it? Is he not good? Is he not capable?
J: Why can't it be asked why God hasn't already done those positive acts of good He commands you to do before you get around to it, assuming you do them at all? Like feed your enemy? Isn't He capable of doing it faster and more reliably than you? Seems, to me, that this argument proves too much.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/15/2008 7:46:52 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
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| Posted 1/16/2008 12:39 AM (GMT -6) | | J: My vote doesn't force anyone to do anything. It is an expression of my preference. It's only influence is upon men who dutifully submit to their job description. Elected officials actually have job descriptions, unlike tyrants. But neither I nor the electorate has any leverage over government officials except by revolution. But neither votes nor expressed preferences constitute revolutionary acts.
Z: I see the vote as the means by which we give illegitimate power to candidates. At least theoretically, this country is governed by it's people, and through voting the majority installs a person in the position of lord. Now you can point to a process the final step of which the voter is not involved in. And from that point of view, I can almost agree.
Perhaps this is too simplistic, but I see it as me appointing a person to be lord over another. Sure, I'm not doing the coercion myself, but the whole process is ludicrous. The subjected person never belonged to me in the first place; he was never mine to give. Technically, the vote doesn't do the actual appointing. So I can see that point. It is, however, appointing the appointers, which to my mind has the same problems. At any link in the chain that finally, ends in direct coercion someone could stop. But this doesn't excuse the motives of our hearts. By this logic Hitler is absolved of quite a bit, because he did not preform certain acts himself, he only gave orders within a subjective construct of authority which any of his inferiors could have set aside. So too our electors could set aside the Constitution or the promises they've made. Or the elected president or those who execute orders on the local level. But this American construct is well established and there is an assumed meaning of voting within this construct that is essentially power-over.
They way you've expressed it (or the way I'm misinterpreting you), your vote is not a willing that the candidate have power-over others, but instead is an expression that the candidate is the closest one to being ideal. And more bluntly, that you do NOT want the candidate to do what he/she has pledged to do, but you want it less than you want to pledged actions of others.
I can go with this if the voter does not hide this alternate meaning. I can't see any problem with that right now (but who knows about tomorrow 
J: From what you're saying, I would take it that you think it's wrong for a christian to be a supervisor because they have to tell people what they want them to do, or to be a teacher because they are obligated to maintain some modicum of order in the classroom. I was thinking you deemed these modes of activity as non-power-over because no force is used to ENFORCE the directives.
Z: You are correct. I was taking the vote as an authorization to use power-over. If your vote means something else then the analogy is lost. It's much like Paul's discussion of eating food sacrificed to idols. Doesn't mean anything to us, but outsiders and weaker brothers will easily misinterpret it, so we should be very careful.
J: Why can't it be asked why God hasn't already done those positive acts of good He commands you to do before you get around to it, assuming you do them at all? Like feed your enemy? Isn't He capable of doing it faster and more reliably than you? Seems, to me, that this argument proves too much.
Z: This is a live question for me. I don't know. I'm told we are made to wait because of God's desire that none should perish. I don't have much faith and I'm always on the verge of losing what I've got, but what I have - I spend all of it on the problem of evil, or in this case the problem of withheld good. He must know something we don't know about what such increased manifestation of the Kingdom will do to us at this point. I don't much like my own answer.
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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Similitude
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| Posted 1/17/2008 8:15 AM (GMT -6) | | | Z: I see the vote as the means by which we give illegitimate power to candidates.
J: I guess I would say that no one individual delegates legitimate or illegitimate power to the state. That kind of power is delegated by virtue of the fact that most people approve of the weilding of that power--even most people who don't vote. My individual vote, then, against, say, a tax increase, is a vote for LESS power-over action. That's how I see it, anyway.
Z: I'm told we are made to wait because of God's desire that none should perish.
J: Well, if we're going to count statements by people other than Christ, I would say we're told more than that. We're told that Christ came to redeem for himself a people. This is part of why I can't explain ALL longsuffering in terms of what is best for all people.
Z: I don't have much faith and I'm always on the verge of losing what I've got, but what I have - I spend all of it on the problem of evil, or in this case the problem of withheld good.
J: I have no idea how to account for it except in terms of universalism. In which case, God knows that the future renders present suffering "worth it" in the same way it did for Christ. But that also means that I have to posit the ultimate universal reconciliation as being beyond any specific prophecies of scripture.
But I think I'm somewhat warranted in thinking this way. Christ, in Matt. 5, seems to say that the passing away of this heaven and earth will correspond to the fulfillment of all things written in the law and the prophets. Yet those writings used the same "age-abiding" language as the NT does. This tells me that "age-abiding" does NOT mean eternal. So the same would, presumably, be the case for the NT.
Therefore, the farthest the NT takes is to that part where Christ delivers his kingdom to the Father. But if Christ's kingdom was finite in duration, maybe the Father's is too. In that case, there may be a time yet future to that, even, when all reigning, due to suffering, will be over. I hope that at that time, universalism will be actualized. This would completely resolve the problem of withheld good for me.
The other thing that helps me think this way IS the fact that reigning is associated with voluntary suffering for righteousness sake. So if even Christ's suffering results in a temporal reign, then I find it plausible that the whole scriptural idea of reign is temporal. In fact, the idea of reign doesn't seem to be particularly clear in the Garden of Eden, e.g.
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Sahid
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| Posted 1/17/2008 5:22 PM (GMT -6) | | J: I guess I would say that no one individual delegates legitimate or illegitimate power to the state. That kind of power is delegated by virtue of the fact that most people approve of the weilding of that power--even most people who don't vote. My individual vote, then, against, say, a tax increase, is a vote for LESS power-over action. That's how I see it, anyway.
Z: If voting is inconsequential, then it is a waste of time, and we shouldn't do it for that reason alone. My arguments assume the fiction that my vote matters in the election of a candidate to a position of power. If that fiction were true, then voting would be opposed to the teachings of Christ. If the vast majority of our neighbors subscribe to the fiction, then we need to be very wary of voting. If the desired (non-power-over-granting) consequences are less substantial than are the consequences of posting in this thread (and I think they are), then I don't see how such a microscopic advantage is worth the disadvantages of misunderstanding and "leading weaker brothers astray."
I'm with you in theory, but in reality it seems to me that you have the vote equaling a statement of RELATIVE preference, when in fact our true preference is for people to stop spending so much time, energy, and money trying to rule over each other. This true preference is almost surely lost on those who might see the message in 1,000,001 votes for Ron Paul instead of 1,000,000.
The idea of God deciding for others if present suffering is worth future rewards is a very hard one for me to swallow. Why not skip the suffering and get to the good times? The only good answers I've ever heard to this question have something to do with human free will. But how is God securing our free will if he does so by means of ignoring our free will at the most crucial point?. Seems to be you either must posit some gnostic, pre-existant choice on the part of the future victim of natural evil or you've got to support the ethical acceptability of suicide with annihilation as the consequence. If God is destroying our free will at this most crucial point, then we've lost all the capital that was gained through open theism. Might as well go back to Calvinism.
POW, I'll check it out.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - StavesacrePost Edited (Sahid) : 1/17/2008 4:25:35 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
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| Posted 1/17/2008 6:06 PM (GMT -6) | | John Chrysostom was hard for me to follow (probably because of the King James sounding translation I was reading).
"For until He shall have done all these things, “He must reign;” not saying this, that after He hath brought it to pass He doth not reign; but establishing this other, that even if it be not now, undoubtedly it will be."
This sounds like he expects Jesus to reign in the future after he has put all things including death under his feet.
"For His kingdom is not cut off: yea, He rules and prevails and abides until He shall have set to right all things."
And now this sounds like he sees Jesus as presently reigning. And this one little sentence is the only one that gives me this impression. He immediately then goes into an explanation of why "until" doesn't mean "until and not after." It's hard for me to make heads or tails of it.
What is more clear to me is the text which he expounds.
"For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ, the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming, then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For HE HAS PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET But when He says, "All things are put in subjection," it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all."
I don't think that the message of "abolish[ing] all rule and all authority and power... all His enemies" is communicated by voting.
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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Similitude
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| Posted 1/17/2008 7:34 PM (GMT -6) | | | Z: If voting is inconsequential, then it is a waste of time, and we shouldn't do it for that reason alone.
J: My take from the get-go has been consequential. That is, most votes can not be sufficiently known to be better or worse because of the sheer complexity of the issues involved--and this because of the many injustices committed by the state via policies that many people approve of. That fact alone, independent of any power-over theory, renders most voting problematic to me. IOW, apart from pacifism, why be complicit in the injustice unless one can sufficiently know that one's vote is effectual UNTO justice? It's the argument Greg pretty much makes in his "Christian anarchy" post he did recently. That's the one I can get on board with.
Z: But how is God securing our free will if he does so by means of ignoring our free will at the most crucial point?.
J: My take is to ask, who are we to decide what the "most crucial point" of human volition is? Why not let scripture tell us that? And scripture says all things are created for the Father and the Son. Our volitional obedience, pre-Fall, would have occasioned sentient satisfaction for the Father and the Son, in harmony with our own sentient satisfaction. The Fall, having occurred, renders our volitional suffering, with Christ's necessary sufferings, as the means fitted to maximizing the Father's and Son's sentient satisfaction from contingent reality.
The more we volitionally obey, and hence suffer with Christ, the more Christ is glorified and sentiently satisfied--and the more, therefore, the Father is glorified and sentiently satisfied. We, then, attain a glory not worthy to be compared to with our own sufferings. Therefore, whether pre-Fall or post-Fall, the same axiom holds true: The voluntarily-chosen means to the highest sentient satisfaction of any one sentient being is consistent with and conducive to the highest sentient satisfaction of all other sentient beings. In the post-Fall case, though, momentary suffering is necessary to get to the highest OVERALL sentient satisfaction.
But if these ends are temporal (ends pretty much are attained at some point in time, by definition), then what follows the attainment of these temporal ends may not be conditioned upon volition in the same way as the temporal project. But for this view to work, it must be true that both God and Christ HAD to suffer to attain these ends. Various verses (like some notable ones in Hebrews), to this effect, come to mind. If this is true, all else makes sense, to me.
In short, God has a nature and a creational goal. These, in conjunction with the voluntary choices of created beings, constrain and limit the divine means to the goal.
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Similitude
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| Posted 1/19/2008 10:15 AM (GMT -6) | | |
PostScript:
I have never understood why it is supposedly reasonable to posit automatic salvation for babies or post-mortem second chances for them if it is not equally reasonable to posit universalism. But now you have made it clear why you distinguish between the two. You have what you consider to be the "most crucial point" of free-will. I'm curious, Zach, as to just what you think the "most crucial point" of free-will is, and what grounds that belief for you. Maybe that's what we need to talk about to get anywhere on the issue of UR and how it might provide a solution to withheld good. If you're game, we can start a new thread.
I, for one, always took the divine directive, in Eden, to fill up the earth as an indication of true temporal finality to the plan, so much as it entailed reproduction. But if that much of the plan could have been temporal, I don't see why the "test" aspect of the forbidden tree might not have been temporal. IOW, why not believe that Peter was right about God wishing all come to repentance AS WELL AS that there will be a time when people will partake of the divine nature? I don't see how anything Christ said contradicts either one of those claims. In fact, the OT seems to back Peter up more clearly on the latter claim than on the former one.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 1/19/2008 9:24:55 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
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| Posted 1/19/2008 4:25 PM (GMT -6) | | I'll have to read Greg's new stuff. I haven't yet. But if he's advocating anarchy, then I'm excited.
Concerning inconsequential voting: You said that no individual grants illegitimate power. I take it you said this to show that the individual vote should not make one culpable for the results of the election (should your candidate win). Otherwise my point still stands. Either the one vote does matter (a power-over act) or it does not matter (so why bother). You answered the why bother question by saying that the vote makes a statement against power-over. My response is that the statement is a whisper in a storm and an almost universally unintelligible whisper at that. (A vote for Ron Paul sends a libertarian or Republican statement more than a Kingdom of God statement.)
If I misunderstood you, then please correct me. I see how theoretically, if we could all explain our votes to each other, then voting is acceptable, but in reality I still don't think it is the wisest thing to do.
On the free will stuff, you are going to have to talk to me at a lower level. I couldn't catch most of it. But it seems to me the narrative you offer is too limited. Pre-fall, God offers Adam and Eve a choice: live under my rules or die. Put those words in the mouth of another lord. They don't sound so loving anymore. What if president Bush said, "Live under my rules or die"? What if an even less popular lord said it? Certain people have said it, and we hate them for it. We call them oppressive and sinful.
All this to say: referring to God's offer of a pre-fall choice does nothing for me when it comes to justifying the situation we find ourselves in. Even if we take the story metaphorically, referring to an age of accountability in each individual, there is still no room in that story for someone to decline having this life-or-death choice thrust upon him. Short of gnostic pre-existence choosing, leaving room for legitimate suicide ending in annihilation is the only possible way I can see of drawing a distinction between God and a dictator who believes in the morality of his actions. If you want to get into this on another thread, that's great. I'm happy to learn of some other options.
To put it another way, I disagree with this: "The voluntarily-chosen means to the highest sentient satisfaction of any one sentient being is consistent with and conducive to the highest sentient satisfaction of all other sentient beings."
This implies that no one can prefer non-existence to obedience and death. I find that hard to believe.
What you said about Christ having to suffer went over my head. Could you slow that down for me?
As for the "most crucial point," I mean by this the fundamental choice to exist and make choices in the first place. I can understand that we must be created in order to be granted this freedom at all. But if it's a choice with no alternatives, then it is not a choice at all. When it comes to "Do you want to live under God's laws and consequences?" we must be given a choice or God is morally equivalent to a tyrant. Maybe a benevolent, well-meaning tyrant, but still a tyrant. And I don't see how properly-termed love can be directed toward a tyrant by a subject.
More common views, I think boil down to: God creates us in a situation where suffering is inevitable either in this life or the next. This is not a loving thing to do unless we re-define love or suffering so that it is loving to force pain on others rather than allowing them to sleep. I'm actually exploring this possibility now, but I don't know where it will take me. Can we say that there is benefit to a sufferer even if that sufferer prefers annihilation to being refined by fire? I hope so, it would make things easier to understand, but I don't yet buy it.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - StavesacrePost Edited (Sahid) : 1/19/2008 3:32:12 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 1/19/2008 8:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Z: Either the one vote does matter (a power-over act) or it does not matter (so why bother).
J: I'm not bothering. I'm not registered as a Republican, and in my state, that means I couldn't vote for Ron Paul, anyway. I could have re-registered in time to do that. But, like you say, why bother? Ron Paul can't win. And the odds of my one vote making a difference is lower than the odds of getting in a car accident going to vote. And Ron Paul would be undermined by his "own" party if he did win--assuming he wasn't assassinated.
My argument against involvement in government is consequential only. That's why it is not absolute. Maybe someone sees what I can't. But I would be interested in their reasoning if they claim they do. But, if someone sees it as a no-brainer as to which establish candidate should win the election, I'm REALLY interested in their reasoning. Because I am at a complete loss to see THAT on my own.
I'll start another thread about UR when I get time to respond to your comments about it.
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Sahid
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| Posted 1/21/2008 4:55 AM (GMT -6) | | I'm not quite on board with the post-millennial overtones, but this is interesting and I think mostly on target.
Adin Ballou said...
We have a class of friends who say they are heartily sick of politics, but they continue in them for the purpose of reforming the government - a very laudable end, but rather questionable means. They say they shall lose all effective influence in the political world, if they take the Non-Resistant position.
A few words to those friends. What is it you are so much afraid of losing? Your influence! And what is your influence in the political world now? You feel the force of Christian principle and moral obligation. Do your political parties feel it? Will they permit you to apply your Christian principles to anyone of their favorite doctrines or measures? Will they allow you to direct, or even to qualify materially any one of those measures? Will they allow you to lead or to advise them? Will they suffer your scruples to interfere with a single unprincipled scheme they chance to embrace? Never. Do they come to you to inquire who are suitable men for office? Never. And when you object to their candidates, on the ground that they are immoral men, will they give way to your objections? Never.
The only chance you have to acquire consequence among them is to yield your scruples, compromise your principles, and support their measures. Then they can use you. Then your Christian profession, and good moral character, serve them well. They are proud of you; and by the help of your respectability, they can hold up their heads in their iniquity. "See," say they, "don't you see what good Christian people, what honest, upright, worthy men belong to our party! Would they be with us if we were so very corrupt!" Thus you serve them as cloaks to hide their deformity, and are the veriest tools in their hands - the tail, and not the head of the party. Is not this the naked truth?
What, then, is your influence? Nothing for good, but much for evil. You cannot lead. Your advice weighs nothing. But your respectability is first rate capital in the hands of selfish demagogues. Take yourselves out of the way, every one of you. Stand on your own ground. Withdraw your respectability, and make it felt in reproof, rebuke, and utter disfellowship of wickedness. Then you will have some influence on the right side. Then you will give a check to popular wrong and folly, which politicians themselves will not know how to overcome.
"But will not bad men do all the voting, and hold all the offices?" And what if they should? How much worse will the conditions of things be than now? The only difference will be that bad men will then work with their cloak off, and without good men to back them up. The consequence would be that their reign would be disgraceful and brief. They would soon fall into a quarrel and devour one another. Meantime the eyes of the multitude would be opened; and they would call for a new and better order of things - for a government of justice, mercy, love and peace. Therefore the influence of good men does not lie in voting at the tail of corrupt party organizations, nor even in holding a few inferior offices at the expense of Christian principle, but in falling back upon moral power, and unitedly insisting on righteousness, equity and goodness, as the basis of individual; social and national happiness.
"But what can so few do?" What do they now do where they are? Mischief, absolute mischief. Standing by themselves, they will become a mighty moral host; increasing every year in numbers and influence, till the world shall recognize them as its true friends. If every town in the United States had an average of fifty men in it, of stern, unbending moral integrity - standing aloof from its ballot-box, and its cartridge-box - ever vigilantly watching its political and legal proceedings, approving the good and rebuking the evil, would the effect be injurious to society? Would not those moral power bands be the greatest conservators of social order and prosperity in their respective neighborhoods? No doubt of it. To this complexion things will gradually come; and from such a complexion they will advance to a peaceful but complete revolution of political institutions. Then will civil government become a simple, efficient and perfectly beneficent means of promoting universal rectitude and happiness in the earth.
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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