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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 9/24/2002 2:17 PM (GMT -6) |   | AL/Pow/(o) (I know them all well, my boy!)
Um, well, I guess I'd write off "get mad."
I mean, God does get angry, but mad could be broader than worth the time to try and limit.
However, I agree with your point about trying to find the extent and way by which God feels or expresses these emotions. That we'll have to wait and find out come the big day (Rapture or Second Coming from my perspective.)
For His (and our) emotions,
Starkman
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Newcomb
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 116
| Posted 10/14/2002 11:38 AM (GMT -6) | | Some great posts! Good to have a guy arguing Geisler’s on the site, good to have your input Jason. Starkman, Alan, keep up the good work.
The most basic classifications of being, that is, “physical” and “spiritual,” are based on which domain they exist in, the physical domain or the spiritual domain. (There may be others.) Domains are things that can contain real things. Domains exist where two or more dimensions exist. Our domain has at least four.
Domains and dimensions are necessary things. That is, they necessarily exist, as God does. They cannot not-exist. God, the only necessary being, exists in the spiritual domain.
For two domains to interrelate they must share certain commonalities, specifically dimensions. If they do not share those dimensions, then there can be no type of interaction between them because there is no relationship between them. Angels have appeared to man, therefore we know that certain dimensions are common to both.
In Genesis 1-3 God relates the story of his creation of the universe and life, etc. (for clarity, I take it to be accurate as we read it in plain, simple, Midwestern English [this from a 2nd generation San Diegan] ). He did this in the physical domain which was, up to that point in time, empty. “In the beginning” does not refer to the beginning of the time dimension because it cannot have been a created thing lest we have no sequencing at all.
Eternity is a subset of time, not vice versa, so for anyone to confuse those things for theological constructs is an error. Geisler (God bless him) does exactly this because of his preconceptions. He states that before time existed there was only eternity. You cannot have a daughter concept if you kill the parent concept, so he is, in fact, in error on this point.
Jason starts out trying to apply an idea to we OV people that we humans bias our interpretations based on our preconceived ideas. Geisler does this constantly (see below) also. We all filter ideas through different filters but this isn’t the issue, the issue is, is it true or false? Hopefully we all filter everything through the basic idea that the Word of God is true and is revealed knowledge.
Jason wrote:
quote:
When I use the word 'analogy' I am referring to the philosophical/theological use of that term. Geisler has a chapter on analogy is his Philosophy of Religion and his Systematic Theology Vol.I. So, I am not talking about metahpors or anthropormorphisms.
An analog is proportional or related to something else, regardless of what discipline it is used in, and, as Alan well pointed out, analogy is a form of literal discourse. It is a method of pointing to a different source of similar knowledge or structure or function, etc. as evidence for a literal position. Mathematically, of course, we write them with colons thusly: 1:4, 4:16, or, one is to four as four is to sixteen. Math, is, of course, literal as is logic.
I am willing to see what type of analogy one might use to explain God getting mad at his people, or God interacting with the physical domain in ways that seem to indicate time is passing for him also, but I have never seen anyone complete the thought and tell me what is analogous to this in the spiritual realm.
Geisler’s statement that eternity was all there was before time was created imply that eternity progresses in a linear fashion along a dimension but it doesn’t describe the dimension that is used. Of course, length, width, and height are not the dimension used because they do not sequence or have motion, you need time to sequence along them (i.e. to move). So, I am open for someone to defend this idea that eternity (‘time without end’) has an analog in the spiritual realm, but I don’t know how you would know that information without revealed knowledge, which doesn’t indicate it is an analogy.
So, what is in the spiritual domain that is the analog to time? For instance, when John says he was in heaven and for one half hour and nothing happened then. What was happening, or sequencing if not time? What is time an analogy to in the spiritual domain and why isn’t it time itself?
This is often the case in arguing theology, people make truth claims but stop at telling the other person that the idea is wrong and it usually ends up with some form of “you just don’t understand.” To which I have made the statement before on this board that this is mysticism in the broad sense of the word, that is; there seems to be some form of secret that only those who follow a certain theology (the initiated people) can understand, and it goes without explanation, just take Hermes’ word for it. (An unexplained shift in the hermeneutic.) So Geisler never tells what is analogous, he merely make the claim it is and moves on as if to say “you don’t understand, I do, so follow my understanding without explanation.”
That is inadequate.
This is what Starkman was stating when he was simply laying out the scripture. LaHaye used to quote an old teacher that told him “When the plain sense of scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense.” K.I.S.S.
Make sense of this statement from “Come, Let Us Reason” p.20:
quote:
We still experience our choices as free-as our decisions-even though God both knew what we would decide and chose that we would decide it long before we did. Forced freedom is a contradiction, but God determinately choosing that I make a free choice is not.
This is absurd. A=A.
A free choice is not free to a person who didn’t have the freedom to choose it freely.
Here in San Diego, David Westerfield made some terrible choices that led to the death of a little girl. So, a set of jurors made another choice that is placed on him, the choice to die by lethal injection. The analogy is God:humans as Jury:Westerfield (“God is to humans as Jury is to Westerfield) that is, the one making the choice is God or Jury and the ones it is applied to are humans and Westerfield. Who made the choice? In Geisler’s case and in the Westerfield trial, it certainly was not the ones the choice was applied, or forced on. Geisler states that God chose. While two people can both choose to turn left at the traffic light, two people cannot both be the choosers for a person to do something.
In this case, Geisler’s categorical position (“God . . . chose what we would decide”) implies that we did not do the choosing from a free will position (God did) any more than the person who designs a maze and the rat running the maze both choose the path the maze takes. Of course Geisler must recognize that we are punished for using our free will against God’s stated will, and free will is obvious, so he is stuck trying to rationally explain the irrational position he theologically holds.
Another issue is that of confusing an issue by using different words. Since “decide” and “choose” are synonyms, and A=A we can replace one with the other. See if these two statements even make sense when we replace one with the other:
“God . . . chose what we would decide” becomes:
a) God . . . decided what we would decide, or
b) God . . . chose what we would choose.
Of course, we can choose to follow God. He said, don’t commit adultery, I choose not to, so there is free will agreement, however, the converse doesn’t follow when we replace the word “sin” with “violate God’s will.” We would be absurd to say “God choose for me to violate God’s will.” It is self contradictory. Or, again, “God choose for people to go to hell” when the scriptures clearly states “God is not willing that any would perish.” The first statement contradicts the expressed will of God. Yet these are all implied by Geisler’s statement on page 20.
This is the classical case of someone doggedly (dogmatically?) defending their position regardless of rational thought, even though he teaches rational thought.
Newcomb
P.S., What's with the aluminum silicate handle? Feldspar? Flint? Chert?
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 10/14/2002 4:37 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Newcomb,
You said "So, what is in the spiritual domain that is the analog to time? For instance, when John says he was in heaven and for one half hour and nothing happened then. What was happening, or sequencing if not time? What is time an analogy to in the spiritual domain and why isn’t it time itself?"
I'm trying to grasp something here. Bare with me . . .
Okay, height, width and length are not necessary dimensions, correct?
Time, on the other hand, is; as long as God has been, time has been, correct?
You stated: "Domains are things that can contain real things. Domains exist where two or more dimensions exist." What are the two domains that are necessary? Time and ___? I gather that whatever they are, they must be because God is; time, for instance, must be because God has always been sequencing, correct? (Or were you talking about two totally different types of domains? Help me out here!)
I started to grab hold of the idea that when when John talked about a 1/2 hour of time passing in heaven with nothing happening, there is something being said about time being a necessary dimension. I realize that sequence must have taken place (I still contend that it may have been his concept and understanding of a 1/2 of earth's time passing). I find that I want to tie this in to God someway, though, because I cannot yet place dimension equal with God, i.e., something that is eternal--sequence--being in existance without God. And if God is before all else, or rather, always has been, then sequence should be either par with God or subservient to Him, in that it exists because He exists, not the other way around.
Okay, with that said, what about the second dimension to which you refer but didn't specify? What is it, and how, if in any manner as I've discussed time, does it fit with with God?
Oh, and what about space in the sense of it being nothing, or rather, containing nothing? Would this be necessary as time/sequence is; that is, nothing has always been until God creates something. But what is nothing if it isn't the occupation, in one manner or the other, of space? Can what was nothing before God created something be spaceless? If space and the universe itself disapeared, what happens to the space that was there? If it's gone, what then exists?
I ask this because I'm trying to make some connections here between time, John's 1/2 hour in heaven, and what is verses what isn't as concerns being necessary as God is necessary.
Well, if you understand this, Newcomb (anybody, for that matter), I'm only half as crazy as I thought I was!
For sequence,
Starkman
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Questioning
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 37
| Posted 11/2/2002 4:59 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Some great posts! Good to have a guy arguing Geisler’s on the site, good to have your input Jason. Starkman, Alan, keep up the good work.
This is a great thread. Keep up the good work!
I want to add Newcomb to the above quote. Everyone has been contributed some very insightful information.
Some people are like cement. All mixed up and permanently set. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 11/2/2002 5:27 AM (GMT -6) | | Newcomb-
Like Starkman, I’m haven’t trouble hanging in there. You write too fast!
You said:quote:
The most basic classifications of being, that is, “physical” and “spiritual,” are based on which domain they exist in, the physical domain or the spiritual domain. (There may be others.) Domains are things that can contain real things. Domains exist where two or more dimensions exist. Our domain has at least four. Domains and dimensions are necessary things. That is, they necessarily exist, as God does. They cannot not-exist. God, the only necessary being, exists in the spiritual domain.
This seems confused to me. Domains, you claim, are “necessary” things. Their existence, like God’s, is necessary. You then speak of the “physical domain.” So, I gather that you believe the physical domain is, like God, necessary and eternal. Yet God, the only necessary being, exists in the “spiritual domain.” How then is the “physical domain” you speak of necessary?
Did you want to say this?
Tom
"Every saint has a history and every sinner a future." Oscar Wilde | | Back to Top | | |
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Boyoms
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 4
| Posted 12/31/2002 10:43 AM (GMT -6) | | I have been following this conversation for a while and thought I would jump in. To start, I have yet another comment on this quote:
"The most basic classifications of being, that is, “physical” and “spiritual,” are based on which domain they exist in, the physical domain or the spiritual domain."
A thing isn't classified by what domain they are in. Rather, they are classified based on what they are. A thing is physical because it has the characteristics of physicality, i.e. has size, has mass, etc. A domain is not a real thing existing outside of the mind. It is merely a class of which things sharing certain common characteristic are said to take part. Domains are based on what things are, what things are does is not determined by what domain they are said to be in. (I think).
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 1/1/2003 2:19 AM (GMT -6) | | Being New Year's day, I can only say welcome to the site Boyoms. Good to have you aboard!
Blessings,
Tom
"When you mix things up they get messy" Fred | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 1/1/2003 5:12 AM (GMT -6) | | Welcome Boyoms. I think Boyoms makes a good point. This is what Whitehead called "the fallacy of misplaced concreteness."
Also, Newcomb, you state that Eternity is a subset of time, not vice versa. But this isn't self-evident is it? (Though I think I agree with you).
Doc
"In Christ...the ONLY THING that matters is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6 | | Back to Top | | |
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fyodor
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 179
| Posted 1/1/2003 9:15 PM (GMT -6) | | Q for Greg or others who could help:
I notice you mention Whitehead here...
After reading God of the Possible I notice you gave some mention (I believe two paragraphs in ch.1) to Process Thought. I'm interested to learn more about Whitehead than I did in that one week of Contemporary Theology back in college...Do you know a good source for process thought and perhaps its relationship to the open-view. The relationship seems obvious but I'm interested in the nuances.....
Any Help...Thanks
Bye the way to all, I'm learning alot by reading through these threads , thank you for your discussions....
>>>"And even as each one of you stands alone in God's knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth." Kahlil Gibran from THE PROPHET | | Back to Top | | |
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Tiggers
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 219
| Posted 1/2/2003 4:17 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Q for Greg or others who could help:
I notice you mention Whitehead here...
After reading God of the Possible I notice you gave some mention (I believe two paragraphs in ch.1) to Process Thought. I'm interested to learn more about Whitehead than I did in that one week of Contemporary Theology back in college...Do you know a good source for process thought and perhaps its relationship to the open-view. The relationship seems obvious but I'm interested in the nuances.....
Any Help...Thanks
Bye the way to all, I'm learning alot by reading through these threads , thank you for your discussions....
>>>"And even as each one of you stands alone in God's knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth." Kahlil Gibran from THE PROPHET
Hey check out this book... 
"Searching for an Adequate God: A Dialogue Between Process and Free Will Theists" edited by John B. Cobb & Clark Pinnock
Warmly in Christ,
Tiggers
“The notion that God uses evils as a means to such higher goods is, … incompatible with the doctrine that he is omnipotent, and therefore does not need to use deplorable means to achieve his ends” (J.L. Mackie). | | Back to Top | | |
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fyodor
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 179
| Posted 1/2/2003 4:43 PM (GMT -6) | | Thanks Tiggers!
>>>"And even as each one of you stands alone in God's knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth." Kahlil Gibran from THE PROPHET | | Back to Top | | |
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