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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > The raging debate continues here... > A Question For Greg Boyd. (About God being fundamentally opposed to evil.) | Forum Quick Jump
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/28/2005 3:01 PM (GMT -6) |   | Think about this, Tom.
Imagine some omniscient being possessing PERFECT wisdom, rationality, and conscience...WILLFULLY choosing to do something that goes against ALL of that PERFECT wisdom, rationality, and conscience and making a fundamentally sub-optimal choice. How can this not be the most spastic, irrational act anyone could ever imagine? It would through rational (and moral, for that matter) deliberation right out the window.
Surely, you see this, right?
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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One Love
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| Posted 4/28/2005 3:08 PM (GMT -6) | | John:
Ah, but James says "to him that KNOWETH to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."
Romans 1 says that people KNOW God, but do not WANT to retain the knowledge of God in their minds, and thus they SUPPRESS the truth in unrighteousness.
Exactly my idea...
Sin is primarily a function of dysfunctionally-oriented aesthetic evaluation, a DISCERNMENT problem which is ONLY possible in the context of some level of IGNORANCE about the totality of reality.
The bible seems to talk over and over again about people looking at the darkness and treasuring it as if it were light. THIS is the problem. The knowledge of sin to which James refers is the cognitive understanding of what is right. However cognitive understanding is not ALL that rationality is made of, as Finney so very aptly said. It involves the CONSCIENCE. People with dysfunctionally-oriented aesthetic evaluation can SEE the good, but do not UNDERSTAND it to be "good" in the core of their persons. They mistake evil for good and good for evil. This is HOW they "suppress the truth"
This is why the "rock bottom experience" seems like a NATURAL WAY to understand how all people can be saved. The suppression can only take place in a significant amount of epistemic distance. When that approaches (but not arrives at) 0, they can't hold on to their dysfunctionally-oriented aesthetic valuations anymore except through a big, giant leap into utter irrationality
See how ALL this stuff ties together for me!?! 
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/28/2005 3:18 PM (GMT -6) | | John:
So you're saying God condemns people for things they do out of ignorance? Even in the Old Covenant (Leviticus, to be precise) God carefully distinguished between sins of ignorance (unintentional) and "sinning with a high hand" or "sins of arrogance."
There are LEVELS of ignorance, as you well know. Some ignorance is genuinely innocent. However some ignorance is NOT innocent because it is CHOSEN in a real sense. Why? Because it's an amount of ignorance that could have been either minimized or reventable. It is possible to be WILLFULLY IGNORANT of something. (We can see it ALL the time in our significantly racialized, patriarchal, classist American society.) Or to so habituate oneself through willful ignorance into a deeper state of dysfunctionally-oriented aesthetic evaluation, that you are to be beaten "with many stripes" while others are beat with "few stripes"
See what I'm saying?
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 4/28/2005 3:21:14 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
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Total Posts : 1466
| Posted 4/28/2005 3:41 PM (GMT -6) | | Yes, I understand there are degrees or levels of ignorance, and of course I would say that WILLFUL ignorance of one's moral obligations would indeed be blameworthy.
However, Jesus' said the servant who KNEW his lord's will and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with "many stripes."
Luke 12:47 And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
I'm honestly having a hard time seeing how this servant acted in ignorance.
Dang! I said I couldn't spend much time here today. What can I say, though? It's due to my dysfunctionally oriented aesthetic evaluation. 
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.
JohnE
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/28/2005 4:20 PM (GMT -6) | | John:
However, Jesus' said the servant who KNEW his lord's will and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with "many stripes."
Luke 12:47 And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
I'm honestly having a hard time seeing how this servant acted in ignorance.
We have to think of "ignorance" in a robust sense. We cannot think of "ignorance" solely in the narrow sense of cognitively knowing about right and wrong. Had this person been of healthy conscience and wisdom, this person would have never thought it "better" to use his master's supposed delay to misuse his fellow workers, laze around and get drunk. Even though he cognitively KNEW what he was supposed to do as a servant, his dysfunctionally-oriented aesthetic evaluation told him that kindness and trust should be taken for weakness and presumed upon. This, in turn, influenced him to FORGO his graciously given duties and misuse his delegated authorities.
His behavior occured because of his LACK of wisdom and discernment. This lack of wisdom and discernment is a form of ignorance.
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I think that problem is that we don't have a very good understanding of what it means to "know the good." Knowing the good is NOT merely cognitive understanding of what one "should" or "should not" do. This would effectively be no more morally important than a person memorizing a bunch of superegoistic rules, "knowing" them to be true. Knowing the good is WAY deeper than that. Truly "knowing the good" encorporate accurate cognitive understanding, contextual appreciation (ala practical wisdom) AND wholistic aesthetic evaluation. Once a person "knows the good" in this way, it truly does have an almost compulsory effect, such that a subject actually wants to EMBODY what they perceive to be the good.
It's one thing for a person to "know" it's "bad" to smoke cigarettes. It's whole OTHER thing for a person to understand on a DEEP level how life-denying cigarette use truly is to oneself and one's loved ones and neighbors...even as they appreciate the God-blessed gift of healthy, efficient lungs! See the difference?
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/28/2005 8:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Jefscott,
Please give me a situation where a perfectly knowledgable, perfectly rational, perfectly wise, perfectly conscientious being will ever fail to be live in love. A situation where a being is PERFECTLY aware of the interrelationality of the universe, the nature of all sentient beings, the nature of love, and all aesthetic appreciation maximizing options at every moment...yet fails to make decisions according to any of this knowledge.
Spell it out. And after you do this, show me how the being in the situation you describe is not the most utterly irrational sentient being you've ever seen.
Thanks.
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 4/28/2005 8:37:05 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 4/28/2005 8:45 PM (GMT -6) | | Meph: Please give me a situation where a perfectly knowledgable, perfectly rational, perfectly wise, perfectly conscientious being will ever fail to be live in love. A situation where a being is PERFECTLY aware of the interrelationality of the universe, the nature of all sentient beings, the nature of love, and all aesthetic appreciation maximizing options at every moment...yet fails to make decisions according to any of this knowledge.
Jeff: To my mind, a being who is PERFECTLY aware of all those things in the list you gave would have to be a being who was PERFECTLY loving. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what seems clear to me. Assuming, of course, that we don't appeal to mystery. But it's conceivable to me that a self-existent being could be other than perfectly loving. Again, maybe I'm wrong about that. But in that case, such a self-existent being's omniscience would not entail awareness of all the things in your list.
wjs | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 4/28/2005 9:11 PM (GMT -6) | | Meph: Here are what I believe to be implications of all this:
1) For all sentient beings, love does NOT metaphysically require libertarian freedom to be genuine. TWT 1's history.
2) God is the "holy loving robot" who cannot refrain from loving every sentient being who exists...including Satan.
Jeff: I agree, except I don't see it as being robotish. His love is inevitable and yet chosen - just not in an LFW way. God always does what He must given His benevolent sensibilities and perfect intelligence. But it can be choice in the sense that He weighs things in light of His purposes and nature. And of course this only makes sense in the open view.
wjsPost Edited (jefscott) : 4/28/2005 9:15:48 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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JEE
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| Posted 4/29/2005 7:07 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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J.N.Darby
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Date Joined Feb 2005
Total Posts : 124
| Posted 5/4/2005 8:32 AM (GMT -6) | | Greetings in Christ.
Have any of you read any books by David W. Bercot? He promotes the idea that when seeking to understand the scripture all Christians should take into serious consideration the writings of the early Christian writers between the time of the New Testament and the Council of Nicea (the Ante-Nicene Christian writers) - especially those of the 2nd century.
I've recently read a couple of his books:
"Will The Real Heretics Please Stand Up: A New Look At Today's Evangelical Church in the Light of Early Christianity".
"Common Sense: A New Approach to Understanding scripture."
But his crowning achievement is a topical index of the early Christian writings titled "Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs." This only costs $20 and I believe it to be an invaluable addition to every Christian's collection.
Bercot's argument is that, since the early Christian writers were so close to the apostles (not only in time, but in culture and language [plus, a few actually personally knew one or more apostles]), that their writings should take priority over all later Christian writings as a source of commentary on the scripture. He doesn't say that the early Christian writers were inspired, nor that their writings are authoritative, but simply that they can help us understand how the earliest Christians understood the scripture and apostolic teaching, and that this is far preferable as a source of teaching than classic Christian writings after Nicea (such as Luther, Calvin, Augustine).
I've taken his challenge seriously, and I'm prayerfully re-examining my life and my beliefs in light of the early Christian writers. I already knew that they strongly taught Freewill-Theism and Premillennialism, both of which I strongly believe scripture teaches; but what's genuinely challenging is when they are expressing a belief that I would normally have disregarded offhandedly if it had come from any contemporary Christian. But I feel I'm learning a lot which will help me grow as a Christian and know God and His word better.
Bercot's books are mostly published by this company: http://www.scrollpublishing.com/
If any of you have read anything by him (or, if you haven't yet, after you've read something), please share your thoughts.
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