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One Love
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| Posted 10/18/2005 10:18 AM (GMT -6) |   | Reinterpretation of the Paul/Antipas dialogue from Acts 26
At this point, the internet boardmembers interrupted Meph's defense of theistic existentialism and meaninglessness. "You are out of your mind, Mephi!" they shouted. "All this reading and learning you've done is driving you crazy, man!" 
"I am not insane, my peoples," Meph calmly, but firmly replied. "What I am saying is true and reasonable. Just think about it. This board has NEVER been punked out about discussing controversial theological stuff, and y'all are used to this kinda thing, and I can pontificate without fear here. I am convinced that y'all are hearing me, because it's not like this type of thing hasn't be seen before. My people, do you contemplate the writings of Kierkegaard and of Hartshorne and of Boyd? I know you have." 
Then Selah, the leader of the throng, said to Meph, "Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to believe in meaninglessness?" 
Meph replied, "Whether it's today, tomorrow, or a YEAR from now—I really hope that not only you but all who are listening to me today...Tom, Corey, Violin...ALL of them...may understand the logic of what I'm saying. And may become what I am, except for my carpal tunnel."
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selah
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| Posted 10/18/2005 10:23 AM (GMT -6) | | then selah realized what she just said and quickly corrected herself shouting ""YOU KNOW dear Meph that I believe in meaninglessness because I believe in scriptURE. What I meant to say was: Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to believe in MY OWN meaninglessness TO MY CREATOR?"
and then selah ran, as all good leaders do  | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/18/2005 10:45 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Corey may have landed on a good point. Hartshorne is constantly saying that "God is unsurpassable” is in fact true in the sense that God cannot be surpassed by another. But he can surpass himself.
Perhaps, Mephi, what constitutes God’s experience of his own aseity (a weird way to say it, but anyhow…) sans-creation is not what constitutes it post-creation. There’s an aesthetic satisfaction (can we just say God’s AS for short?) that’s necessary sans-creation, but perhaps God can surpass it post-creation. In a sense this is to surpass AS, but as Hartshorne says, it’s God surpassing himself, and that’s OK. This wouldn’t amount to an indictment of God’s sans-creation AS, since aseity sans-creation is defined by God’s experience of all that’s real sans-creation, and the rules out any contribution the world might make to God’s experience. However, once the world comes into the equation, what constitutes AS must take the world into account. So Corey might be on to something. In creating, God really does incarnate himself in a sense. And in doing so, God’s field of experience grows and so AS grows.
The question is, how can we say this and avoid the process conclusion that God necessarily creates? Perhaps the answer is profoundly simple. There’s a beauty to be had in necessary AS and there’s a beauty to be had in contingent AS. By the latter I mean MORE than the contingent ways which (in process thought) the ‘necessary’ creation gets expressed and experienced by God. I mean the contingent way any creation gets created at all as well as the contingent ways it changes and gets experienced by God. Ground the beauty of all non-divine reality in its CONTINGENCY and you might just be alright. So the question is, is contingency per se a value. If it is, then God can only experience it contingently. It can’t be had necessarily. You can’t say, “I necessarily must experience the value of ‘contingent’ beauty.”
So perhaps part of what constitutes the beauty to be had by God in divine-world relations entails the world’s (or any world’s) being contingent. Wouldn’t this implicate God’s sans-creational AS in being ‘less’ than what it could be? Perhaps not. Consider: there’s always the beauty of being able to create any world at all but refraining from creating! Perhaps that is just exchanged for the beauty of having created our world, so that God is always, regardless of the existence or non-existence of any non-divine reality, unsurpassably aesthetically satisfied.
Tom
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One Love
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| Posted 10/18/2005 10:53 AM (GMT -6) | | Finally.
Tom:
I tried to get Greg to check this discussion out (specifically the other thread you started “Theism and Ultimate Meaning”), but he’s busy. He read a bit and replied that he thought you were mistaken in thinking that God’s being necessarily and unsurpassably satisfied in himself meant he was indifferent to our existence or couldn’t engage in mutually influential personal relations with us. But you already knew that!
Hell, yeah, I already knew that. He specifically mentions that God is not INDIFFERENT to us...and uses an analogical example to show what he means. He says there's no necessary link between self-satisfaction and indifference. But this is NOT chiefly what I've been talking about. I've been talking about the sheer fact that there is absolutely NOTHING that we can do to increase or decrease God's unsurpassably intense experience of beauty via loving sociality exhibited in the Trinity. Read on.
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Tom:
Now, I’m inclined to agree (as I think Doc does) that whatever genuine effects of a personal nature we enjoy with God, it doesn’t amount to a material increase in God’s aseity or his enjoyment of triune, relational love. But there’s no reason to think that because we don’t substantially INCREASE what God is necessarily that we don’t matter to or affect God in a personal way. The seeds of this are still present in what you concede. You concede God cares about the fulfillment of his subjective aims. He rejoices and grieves in this respect. So let me ask again—where to do locate this in God? Consider all the contingent stuff God experiences: knowing, purposing, being grieved by (better than just “grieving”), being gladdened by (better than just “rejoicing”), being pushed to judgment (better than just “judging”), saving, having mercy, being moved to compassion (better than just “exercising compassion”), acknowledging prayer and answering it, speaking to us and guiding us, changing his mind in response to us, being worshipped by us, etc., and we could go on and on. These characteristic/actions are personal, relational, mutual in nature, contingent (since we are), AND loving. They are precisely what I take “God’s engaging in mutually influential love relations” with us to mean. God experiences our worship and obedience “as love” from persons to a person. How else would suggest he process such things?
I make a significant separation between loving interaction and mutually-influential love relationality. The two are NOT the same thing. The perichoretic nature of the Trinity is the PERFECT example of mutually-influential love relationality. Healthy marriage and parenting are IMPERFECT examples of the same. Both of these things are mutually-influential because there is undeniable and utter INTERDEPENDENCY with respect to how each party is related to the other parties. Interdependency demands a level of DEPENDENCY. In other words, for genuine interdependency to occur, there must be some level upon which there is unconditioned RELIANCE upon others. Human beings, being what we are, are interdependent beings (regardless of how we try to act) because of the way we RELY on our environment and others around us.
Now, taken to love relationships, love relationships are mutually-influential when the degree to which each person in the love relationship experiences a certain level of beauty (in the form of love) that RELIES ON the level of beauty experience (again, love) of others in the relationship. What this means is that there is an interdependence such that ONE persons happiness or unhappiness necessarily AFFECTS every other person. Like the Body of Christ analogy. If it is the case that one person in a loving interaction in no way RELIES ON anyone else's level of beautiful love experience for their own beautiful love experience to be maximized, interdependency does NOT exist. Therefore, mutually-influential love relationship does not exist.
Now ask yourself. Does dependency apply to God??
The ONLY being...and I mean the ONLY one...who wouldn't experience this on an essential level would be the Triune God. God is the ULTIMATE INDEPENDENT BEING. That's what aseity entails. God's inner sociality and other necessary attributes make God absolutely independent from anything else and the source of ALL else. This radical independence is obviously a necessary characteristic of God. Now couple this with Doc's exact words!
"God's essential and necessary existence is most basically defined by the unsurpassable intensity of aesthetic enjoyment which characterizes the triune sociality of God. God experiences Godself with an intensity with which can under no circumstances conceivably be improved upon. As with Hartshorne, we are here most fundamentally defining God's transcendence in terms of God's aesthetic satisfaction."
"Against Hartshorne, we are also affirming that this aesthetic satisfaction is the same whether or not there is a non-divine world for God to enjoy. God is no 'greater' for fellowshipping with the world, for it is God's fellowship with Godself, not the world, which constitutes and characterizes the necessary unsurpassability of God's aesthetic satisfaction. God's gracious fellowship with the non-divine world simply expresses this primordial eternal fellowship."
Point blank. God's beautiful loving experience is made unsurpassable by God's own being. Which means it CANNOT be possible for any OTHER being to influence it, either positively or negatively. It can never be the case that God's aesthetic satisfaction RELIES ON any other being. Therefore, God is utterly independent with respect to loving experience. God can appreciate loving experience from Creation, but never RELY on it for God's own body of aesthetically SATISFYING loving experience. And this radical independence takes God OUT of the running for genuinely mutually-influential love relationship.
What God does is lovingly interact with us! God shares his heart with us and interacts with us out of that heart (whereby we experience the passions of God.
But this is NOT a mutually-influential (INTERDEPENDENT) love relationship.
I hope that this is very clear.
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/18/2005 11:14:44 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/18/2005 11:12 AM (GMT -6) | | Excellent!
Tom: (emphases mine)
Corey may have landed on a good point. Hartshorne is constantly saying that "God is unsurpassable” is in fact true in the sense that God cannot be surpassed by another. But he can surpass himself.
Perhaps, Mephi, what constitutes God’s experience of his own aseity (a weird way to say it, but anyhow…) sans-creation is not what constitutes it post-creation. There’s an aesthetic satisfaction (can we just say God’s AS for short?) that’s necessary sans-creation, but perhaps God can surpass it post-creation. In a sense this is to surpass AS, but as Hartshorne says, it’s God surpassing himself, and that’s OK. This wouldn’t amount to an indictment of God’s sans-creation AS, since aseity sans-creation is defined by God’s experience of all that’s real sans-creation, and the rules out any contribution the world might make to God’s experience. However, once the world comes into the equation, what constitutes AS must take the world into account. So Corey might be on to something. In creating, God really does incarnate himself in a sense. And in doing so, God’s field of experience grows and so AS grows.
This is INDEED what Doc tries to say in his reconstruction of Hartshorne.
A Quote:
"So, we may, I believe conceive of God's relationship to the world. Since God has freely chosen to actualize God's potentiality to be Creator of a non-divine world, God can create and appreciate the aesthetic value (and hence the moral value) of a non-divine world. The world becomes part of God's concrete contingent experience, and is, in this sense, constitutive of God. To this extent we side with Hartshorne over and against the classical tradition. "
Wonderfully thought out, Tom! You brainiac INTP, you! 
But...there is, as always, a wrinkle.
All this does is enable God to actually appreciate the aesthetic value of Creation. The experience REALLY DOES constitute some of God's experience. Fine, well, and good. However, this does NOT solve the main problem. The NECESSARY aesthetic satisfaction that exists does so NECESSARILY and cannot be other! See, Hartshorne didn't have this in his schema. Doc put it there. An outworking of the implications of God's aseity.
What this means is that even though God can surpass himself in regards to the COMPLEXITY of experience...God cannot surpass Godself in regards to INTENSITY of experience. Laymen's terms: God can surpass ONE DIMENSION of divine experience but not both!
Because God's aesthetic satisfaction (dealing with intensity) is BASED ON God's experience of loving, perichoretic sociality within Godself...and this experience is a NECESSARY part of God...it cannot be changed, logically speaking. Doc knew that...and said that.
"Against Hartshorne, we are also affirming that this aesthetic satisfaction is the same whether or not there is a non-divine world for God to enjoy. God is no 'greater' for fellowshipping with the world, for it is God's fellowship with Godself, not the world, which constitutes and characterizes the necessary unsurpassability of God's aesthetic satisfaction. God's gracious fellowship with the non-divine world simply expresses this primordial eternal fellowship."
The idea of "God supassing Godself" gets us nowhere with this problem.
Been down that road, yo.
Hey, I'm telling you. I've got this one sewn up.
Trust me.
Heh.
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/18/2005 11:16:32 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/18/2005 11:28 AM (GMT -6) | | "Have you ever read something you wrote...or listened to something you said...and say to yourself...
'Am I REALLY this intelligent? A genius, never. But daaaaaaayam!!' "
---Statement made in the Reconfirmation of the "Brazen One"
Always repudiated, but never duplicated,
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One Love
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| Posted 10/18/2005 1:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom and peoples,
Concessions.
I will concede that we can affect God insofar as we provide aesthetic content that God can appreciate (negatively or positively) and interact with in God's contingent expression.
You will concede that we do not and CANNOT have an mutually-influential, INTERDEPENDENT love relationship with God where all parties affect each other's "intensity level" of beautiful experience consisting of delightful, loving sociality.
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I will concede that we can "matter to God" in contributing to God's contingent expression via our aligning with God's subjective aims.
You will concede that, with respect to God's experience of loving sociality and God's appreciation of that beautiful experience, our alignment to subjective aims dealing with loving sociality are utterly SUPERFLUOUS.
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I will concede that God experiences regret, sorrow, and loss over a "lost" person, in God's contingent expression.
You will concede that, with respect to God's aesthetic satisfaction in beautiful experience of delightful, loving sociality, eternally "lost" people are utterly irrelevant and insignificant.
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In short, we're a granule of sugar tasted by a person already having an enduring, unsurpassably intense, ultimate "sweetness" experience...but we are genuinely APPRECIATED as fully as a sugar granule could be in that situation, as we add aesthetic content to the total body of the person's experience! 
What do you think? Would this be enough for you?
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/18/2005 3:59:49 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/18/2005 2:29 PM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
Sorry. I'm sure I'm being thick here. But my internal model is still something like the wood-chipper... The branch that slowed down the machine was sin, especially as we consider Jesus words, "why have you forsaken me?!" as he DIED to overcome it. This would seem to be a definite hiccup in the aesthetic satisfaction of God. But what do I know... speaking of not up to speed!
Thought:
If we say that Jesus actually genuinely experienced FULL separation from the Father (thus, diminishing God's aesthetic satisfaction ad intra) wouldn't this also mean that divine perichoresis and God's loving inner sociality is NOT a necessary characteristic of God?
We can't do that...can we? God IS necessarily a triune being, right? | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/18/2005 6:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Hmmm..after talking to a friend, I'm thinking something.
Is the main problem the "meaningless" thing? It's THAT what keeps getting everyone's goat? Well, let's try something. What if I were to say the following:
With respect to being an aspect of God's contingent expression that God's experiences and appreciates, we are SUPERFLUOUS, YET SIGNIFICANT.
This means, again, that we are "meaningful" to God, insofar as we can help God expand the complexity of his contigent experience of loving relationality (God surpassing Godself ad extra) We can use our freedom to spread God's love or spread anti-love in multivariate ways...all of which God can aesthetically appreciate.
but...
With respect to contributing to God's aesthetically satifying body of beautiful experience via loving, interdependent relationality, we are SUPERFLUOUS and INSIGNIFICANT.
This means, again, that we are "meaningless" to God, insofar as we cannot at all impact the unsurpassably intense aesthetic satisfaction level of God's experience of beauty via loving relationality. No activity that we can ever do can make God inwardly "feel more loved" or "feel less loved". God has all the loving relationality he would ever need in Godself. No activity that we can ever do can make God inwardly "feel less delight" or "feel more delight." God feels the height of delight in and of Godself.
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su·per·flu·ous
adj.
Being beyond what is required or sufficient.
Synonyms: superfluous, excess, extra, spare, supernumerary, surplus
These adjectives mean being more than is needed, desired, required, or appropriate: delete superfluous words; trying to lose excess weight; found some extra change on the dresser; sleeping in the spare room; supernumerary ornamentation; distributed surplus food to the needy.
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in·sig·nif·i·cant
adj.
Not significant, especially:
Lacking in importance; trivial.
Lacking power, position, or value; worthy of little regard.
Small in size or amount.
Having little or no meaning.
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All this coheres with the concessions I placed earlier.
How does this sit? Selah????
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/18/2005 6:07:16 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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selah
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| Posted 10/18/2005 7:15 PM (GMT -6) | | Meph:
With respect to being an aspect of God's contingent expression that God's experiences and appreciates, we are SUPERFLUOUS, YET SIGNIFICANT.
This means, again, that we are "meaningful" to God, insofar as we can help God expand the complexity of his contigent experience of loving relationality (God surpassing Godself ad extra) We can use our freedom to spread God's love or spread anti-love in multivariate ways...all of which God can aesthetically appreciate.
selah:
Pretty good so far Mephi. Certainly better than "meaningless" BUT, (you knew that was coming  ) I just cant go with part two...
Meph:
With respect to contributing to God's aesthetically satifying body of beautiful experience via loving, interdependent relationality, we are SUPERFLUOUS and INSIGNIFICANT.
This means, again, that we are "meaningless" to God, insofar as we cannot at all impact the unsurpassably intense aesthetic satisfaction level of God's experience of beauty via loving relationality. No activity that we can ever do can make God inwardly "feel more loved" or "feel less loved". God has all the loving relationality he would ever need in Godself. No activity that we can ever do can make God inwardly "feel less delight" or "feel more delight." God feels the height of delight in and of Godself.
selah:
I think it helps to think of Jesus as our Heavenly Bridegroom. The Bride is pretty significant to the Bridegroom. What the Bride does or chooses not to do affects the Bridegroom. I have to think the love of the Bride is meaningful/significant to the bridegroom. hmmm maybe I'm just not orthodox...
Song of Solomon 4:9You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace...
Ravish. Meph. What do you make of that? As difficult as it is to believe, I really do think Jesus feels this way about us. Come on Mephi, admit it. You ravish his heart/Core! you ravisher you...
what now?Post Edited (selah) : 10/23/2005 7:43:33 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/18/2005 9:50 PM (GMT -6) | | Selah:
I think it helps to think of Jesus as our Heavenly Bridegroom. The Bride is pretty significant to the Bridegroom. What the Bride does or chooses not to do affects the Bridegroom. I have to think the love of the Bride is meaningful/significant to the bridegroom. hmmm maybe I'm just not orthodox...
Selah. Now, I've cut this back and restated this as "person-friendly" as possible. Throw me a bone here! You KNOW this is just true, given everything we've talked about...
With respect to contributing to God's aesthetically satifying body of beautiful experience via loving, interdependent relationality, we are SUPERFLUOUS and INSIGNIFICANT.
This means, again, that we are "meaningless" to God, insofar as we cannot at all impact the unsurpassably intense aesthetic satisfaction level of God's experience of beauty via loving relationality. No activity that we can ever do can make God inwardly "feel more loved" or "feel less loved". God has all the loving relationality he would ever need in Godself. No activity that we can ever do can make God inwardly "feel less delight" or "feel more delight." God feels the height of delight in and of Godself.
Come on, yo. Give me a BREAK here. I know for CERTAIN you understand exactly what I'm trying to convey here. Don't go all irrational on me with this. I'm doing all I can with this.
Look, FIND a word to substitute. Call it "gooblesnortleberry" instead of "insignifcant" I don't care. Just PLEASE affirm the meaning of the statement. (ie that there is NOTHING that human beings can do to diminish or enhance God's unsurpassably intense, aesthetically satisfying, experience of beauty via loving relationality)
Please...please...please...please...please...
Did I say please?
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/18/2005 9:53:38 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Violin for God
Luke, I am your father. --Nooooooooo!!!!!
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 690
| Posted 10/19/2005 3:41 AM (GMT -6) | | I'll just pitch another 2-pence in the bucket (viz my 2c)...
Hey Mephi... I gotta coupla questions (and again I haven't read most of the posts on this thread, but I think I understand a bit of what your point is) -
Even if God wasn't "infinite" and say even a very very big ocean, how big of a drop do we have to be in order to be "significant" to God? Ya see how relative it gets when we start thinking about deriving our significance from how much we impact Him? I do think we all impact Him in various ways...
First (and this is just one thing I thought of a few nights ago... nothing profound though) in as far as how I view creation, when God created us, He gave us value (meaning) that derives from Him personally. Yes, took some value from His infinite supply and put it in us. (Infinity minus 1 is still infinity, so this didn't take away from God to make Him less than He is) So if anything, from this alone, we're valuable/meaningful. Comes from "It is very good" from Genesis. Love desires other things that it recognizes as valuable. When that other thing rejects the Love, the Love still desires it while being grieved of this (but when eschatology comes into play, there's other stuff involved, but right now it's 1:35AM and I need sleep).
Second, how much we are "treasured" comes from How much we reflect & are faithful to Him, or give up that value.
Third, we affect His memories-- which He can't erase ever. We've forever impacted His memory.
Regarding the "unsurpassably intense, aesthetically satisfying experience of beauty via loving relationality", this is regarding God ad intra, right? (If I'm understanding "ad intra" correctly) That's where the infinite is found. But would you say the ad extra changes with time?
So all in all, I'm sorry Mephi, but I don't think I'll be converted into thinking that we're all ultimately meaningless. Just by sheer existence are we meaningful. (But you ARE getting me thinking about this, which is great. Thanks!  )
If you're going to be skeptical, be fair and be skeptical of skepticism.Post Edited (Violin for God) : 10/19/2005 3:46:00 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/19/2005 4:35 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Mephi-
My hunch is that you’re assuming incorrectly that “contingent, mutually influential, loving God-world relations” implicates God’s sans-creational aesthetic satisfaction in being somehow sub-par or defective because God’s experience of loving relationality is concretely different post-creation than it is sans-creation, suggesting that something must be defective with the former since the latter includes concrete experience of value that the former doesn’t. But I don’t see that that follows. The love God experiences from me doesn't 'surpass' IN VALUE God's own appreciation of relational and loving value sans-creation even if it enlarges the field of God's experience of loving relationship. God doesn't learn something about love from me that he doesn't already know. The influence I'm arguing isn't the freedom to educate or inform God's experience in that sense.
My question is: If you admit God “actually appreciates the aesthetic value of a contingent creation,” you’re admitting the contingent apprehension and appreciation of value by God. So how do you then account for the ‘divine appreciation of creation’s value’ at all? Where do you imagine God experiences this contingent value? Is it as ‘real’ and ‘personal’ an apprehension and appreciation of value as God’s necessary aesthetic value is ‘real’ and ‘personal’? I would think it has to be. If we don’t want to say the intensity of God’s necessary aesthetic satisfaction is surpassable or changeable, fine. You admit that the ‘complexity’ of God’s field of experience changes. You admit that field of divine experience includes the appreciation of contingent aesthetic value. I don’t know how to affirm this without assuming that God has one value-appreciating capacity which is necessarily unsurpassed in its experience of necessary aesthetic beauty and contingently surpassed by God in his contingent experience of creation’s aesthetic beauty. Therefore, God’s “value-appreciator” (if we can call it that) spans BOTH divine ‘poles’ (the necessary and the contingent), and aseity regards only the former.
So God’s necessary aesthetic satisfaction sans-creation carries on post-creation in that God is as ‘necessarily’ satisfied post-creation as he is sans-creation. But this doesn’t logically rule out his ALSO being as ‘contingently’ satisfied post-creation as he can be, given the freedom of creation and this experience of beauty being embraced by one divine reality in God. The latter appreciation of value is real and personal for God, as real and personal as whatever necessary satisfaction defines God’s necessary experience.
Tom
Post Edited (TGB) : 10/19/2005 4:54:30 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/19/2005 4:53 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
My hunch is that you’re assuming incorrectly that “contingent, mutually influential, loving God-world relations” implicates God’s sans-creational aesthetic satisfaction in being somehow sub-par or defective because God’s experience of loving relationality is concretely different post-creation than it is sans-creation, suggesting that something must be defective with the former since the latter includes concrete experience of value that the former doesn’t. But I don’t see that that follows.
No, I'm not saying this at all.
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Tom:
If you admit God “actually appreciates the aesthetic value of a contingent creation,” you’re admitting the contingent apprehension and appreciation of value by God. So how do you then account for the ‘divine appreciation of creation’s value’ at all? Where do you imagine God experiences this contingent value?Is it as ‘real’ and ‘personal’ an apprehension and appreciation of value as God’s necessary aesthetic value is ‘real’ and ‘personal’? I would think it has to be. If we don’t want to say the intensity of God’s necessary aesthetic satisfaction is surpassable or changeable, fine. You admit that the ‘complexity’ of God’s field of experience changes. You admit that field of divine experience includes the appreciation of contingent aesthetic value. I don’t know how to affirm this without assuming that God has one value-appreciating capacity which is necessarily unsurpassed in its experience of necessary aesthetic beauty and contingently surpassed by God in his contingent experience of creation’s aesthetic beauty. Therefore, God’s “value-appreciator” (if we can call it that) spans BOTH divine ‘poles’ (the necessary and the contingent), and aseity regards only the former.
Dude, do you really think I disagree with ANY of this, especially the bolded part? No way!
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Tom:
So God’s necessary aesthetic satisfaction sans-creation carries on post-creation in that God is as ‘necessarily’ satisfied post-creation as he is sans-creation. But this doesn’t logically rule out his ALSO being as ‘contingently’ satisfied post-creation as he can be, given the freedom of creation and this experience of beauty being embraced by one divine reality in God. The latter appreciation of value is real and personal for God, as real and personal as whatever necessary satisfaction defines God’s necessary experience.
NO.
There is ONLY ONE REALM where aesthetic satisfaction takes place...and that's intensity. The intensity CANNOT GO any higher. This is part of why IT is the defining aspect of God's nature. God surpassing Godself in contingent expression exists as INEXHAUSTIBILITY. There is no upper limit to it. Doc's quote.
"The entire process of the contingent, temporal order, then can be said to be constituted by God's aim at expressing Godself--the infinite delight of the triune sociality--ad extra. Since God's deity-defining intensity of aesthetic satisfaction is infinite, the potential for expressing this delightful beauty is inexhaustible.
Hartshorne rightly argues that the possibilities for finite harmonies has no upper limit. But the endlessness of these possibilities does not necessitate the endless increase of the intensity of God's self-defining experience: it rather necessitates the inexhaustible richness of the contingent ways in which God can express this One's unsurpassing intensity. An eternity of progress shall not exhaust it."
Translation: God doesn't try to get "satisfaction" from Creation. He's got that already. God just gets aesthetic APPRECIATION from the broadening of complexity in God's contingent expressions.
Get it?
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One Love
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| Posted 10/19/2005 4:57 AM (GMT -6) | | Dismantling Stuff...
I'm putting this in full. This is ALL that Doc had written in the book that deals with the reconciliation of God's eternal aesthetic satisfaction possibly clashing with giving meaning to our pain.
Before this...one more quote on something else.
"The goodness which characterizes God in any particular contingent circumstance, then, expresses (Doc's emphases), but does not essentially constitute, the concrete goodness of God. God does enjoy and appreciate the relative goodness of the world as God participates with it in overcoming evil, but God enjoys it as an external expression of this One's own eternally perfect goodness, not as an essential constituent in this One's experience of goodness."
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vii.2.2 Divine Suffering and the Beauty of the Trinity
Does this view that God is eternally and unsurpassably "satisfied" within God's eternal triune sociality imply that God does not partake in the suffering of the world? Is the portrait of God we have here painted a view of God as insensitively independent in God's own self-contentment? If God's self-experience is unsurpassably intense, regardless of the state of the world's state of affairs, is not the "virtuous mutability" of God undermined. Are we not back in the position of God as actus purus? I do not think so.
In chaper IV, we utilized the analogy of an experiential subject who was composed of actual occasions with differing "specious presents" to argue that a subject--viz. God--could be both actually necessary and actually contingent in differing respects. Against process thought, God's absoluteness need not only be abstract. And against the classical tradition, it being perfect and actual need not rule out it also having contingent elements. We may now expand upon this in addressing this present issue of the relationship between God's external satisfaction and temporal suffering.
There is, it seems, no contradiction in maintaining that a being can be self-content on one level, and yet suffer at another level. For example, a person need not sacrifice their self-love, their contentment with who they are, their own internal "fullness of life" in order to genuinely enter into the sufferings of another. Indeed, it seems that the person who enters into the sufferings of other with a sense of internal fullness is in a better position to genuinely enter into these sufferings than one who lacks such "fullness"
To speak more specifically, a person who suffers for another because she needs the other--e.g. needs this other to make her "feel good" about herself, to feel loved, and needed, etc.--is more inclined to yet have herself as the object of concern, and thus more inclined to be, to that extent, shut off to the real needs of the other. In contrast, one who enters into solidarity with a sufferer but who is self-content, who loves herself, who possesses an internal fullness which is not destroyed by the suffering, is free to have the sufferer as the sole object of her concern. She is free, in a sense, to "forget herself" in devotion to another.
In the case of the former person, one who "needs" the other to arrive at her self-love, the act of entering into solidarity with a sufferer is an expression of her deficiency. In the case of the latter person, however, the act of entering into solidarity with a sufferer is an expressoin of her wholeness. And the more whole she is, the more perfectly she can suffer with and for the other.
[Doc's note: The analogy has, of course, a limited application to God in that all humans need other humans to be full within themselves. Their social nature is actualized only in relation to other humans. God too is social, but this sociality is satisfied within Godself. But the analogy doe articulate that, as a person may enter into selfless solidarity with another out of fullness--so God can enter into selfless solidarity with suffering humanity out of a fullness "derived" from this One's "other" sociality--the eternal sociality God has within Godself]
There are, of course, millions of humans who hold to a superficial form of self-contentment to the exclusion of, or even at the expense of, others happiness. In fact, the instances of an opposite disposition are unfortunately rare. The prevalence of this attitude, especially in first world countries, is no doubt one of the reasons why we have such difficulty in seeing God as being both eternally self-satisfied and also temporally self-abased. But, as we have argued, there is no necessary (Boyd's emphasis) connection between self-contentment and insensitivity.
We may then conceive of God as one who is both unsurpassably self-content in God's essential sociality, while being, at the same time, fully incarnated in the sin and suffering of the world in God's expressive sociality. Indeed, implied in what we have argued thus far is the supposition that God is free to enter into and redeem the sufferings of the world fully precisely because God is eternally self-sufficient within Godself.
As Barth has so cogently argued, God is revealed as God precisely in the act of becoming human. God's "weakness," the weakness of the cross, reveals how "full" God eternally is! God is revealed as "Lord" precisely in the act of being revealed as "servant." God is not threatened in God's essential being in becoming vulnerable to another, in suffering with and for another, even when this solidarity means death. Rather, God's immanent involvement with the world in the core of its horrifying evils is an expression of God's self-defining abundance. "Virtuous mutability" thus implies "virtuous immutability."
_____________________________
Basic thoughts:
1) An apparent problem DOES arise. How can God genuinely "feel" the pain of the world if God is totally aesthetically satisfied in Godself? Doc recognizes the issue.
2) Doc asserts that there is no LOGICAL contradiction in saying that a being can be completely self-content at one level (necessary) and actually suffer at another (contingent).
3) Doc uses an analogy to show how only persons who truly have fullness in themselves can truly give themselves to others. Doc also recognizes the limitations of this analogy with respect to God.
4) Doc make the claim that the amount of God's suffering actually REVEALS how full and safe God is within God's essential being.
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Meph's Analysis:
1. I find it interesting that Doc so downplays the idea of aesthetic satisfaction. Elsewhere, he paints it as being like unto the HIGHEST form of delight, wonder, joy, and goodness that any being could possibly experience. But here he merely says "self-satisfaction" like it's just some inner tranquility and nothing more. To be sure, it does incorporate inner tranquility, but it is MUCH MORE than that. We are talking about a being reaching the utter epitome of beautiful experience here! This is no small matter. I hope the best here. But one could argue that it may have been known that if God were to paint the "aesthetic satisfaction" picture accurately in this section, there would produce even more of an INTUITIVE DISCONNECT that would short circuit the intution-relying argument. Could any of us imagine a person who was SO full of their own happiness, joy, and delight truly feeling the depths of our pain? Or being truly concerned with others when they are so ENAMORED with their own inner satisfaction?
This is, I believe, why Doc puts emphasis here...
There are, of course, millions of humans who hold to a superficial form of self-contentment to the exclusion of, or even at the expense of, others happiness. In fact, the instances of an opposite disposition are unfortunately rare. The prevalence of this attitude, especially in first world countries, is no doubt one of the reasons why we have such difficulty in seeing God as being both eternally self-satisfied and also temporally self-abased. But, as we have argued, ther is no NECESSARY connection between self-contentment and insensitivity.
On one hand, he uses human intuition heavily for one part of the argument, but tries to deconstruct it for the same as well! Hmmm...
2. Doc rightly talks about how God can experience lack of full goodness (suffering) in the contingent sphere, but cannot experience it in the necessary sphere. But he seems not to take the full implications of what this means, regarding what he's talking about.
For one thing, if it is indeed the case that only God's own experience within Godself fully CONSTITUTES the body of beautiful experience that satisfies God's dispositional telos, and God's utter relational independence is here affirmed, how could it ever be the case that there is a "two-way flow" such that we impact God's self-concept as far as his "feeling loved" or "not feeling loved"? Go back to Doc's first note. He notes the ubiquity of INTERDEPENDENCE among human beings. But then doesn't seem to notice how this concession can affect his entire argument! He concedes that ALL humans rely on OTHER humans for their fullness. This places interdependence at the core of it...and allows for mutually-influential love relationality. But he strips this away from God, noting that God's dispositional "need" for loving sociality is taken care of by God Godself such that God doesn't NEED anyone else. All this being the case, how can their ever be anything but a one-way flow of love and goodness FROM God TO others? Answer, it can't. And this would take out the idea of God participating in mutually-influential LOVING relationships with non-God beings.
3. Thought flowing from above. Time and time again, we've heard that this whole thing is about love. Love is the reason for it all, right? God wants us to be in love relationship with God, right? Ok. Doc says here that God is unsurpassably "satisfied" with God's experience of God's own beauty, such that God is "eternally self-sufficient" He even says that God's experience of beauty (via loving sociality, goodness,etc) within Godself is the SOLE CONTRIBUTING FACTOR it's God's inner life constitution. But he doesn't tease out the necessary implication: NO LEVEL of loving sociality that contingent beings extend to God (or lack thereof, for that matter) can [4]EVER[/4] contribute to God's aesthetically satisfying experience of beauty. Our praise, adoration, and love for God can never be one of the contributing factors to God being enduringly happy! While this can be the case for human beings (because of our interdependency), it cannot be the case with God. God can make US enduringly happy, but we cannot reciprocate. The only thing that we can do is give God different lifes experiences for God to appreciate. As we either align or misalign with God's subjective aims, we give God aesthetic material to work with and appreciate. But absolutely NONE of this makes any bit of difference to God's "ultimate-happiness-producing" body of beautiful experience. The sword of Doc's argument cuts both ways! Sure, God's inner life cannot be diminished by our pain and sin...and this enables God to give love FREELY But, it's also the case that God's inner life cannot be ENHANCED by our praise, love, and adoration...which makes God UNABLE to "receive" love they way we humans receive EACH OTHERS love! God will not feel "more loved" because we love God. AT ALL! What we can do is increase the VARIETY OF WAYS that God experiences Godself. That's it.
This may come as a HUGE disappointment to hardcore worshippers who want to "magnify" God!
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/19/2005 5:05:39 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/19/2005 5:20 AM (GMT -6) | | Violin:
Even if God wasn't "infinite" and say even a very very big ocean, how big of a drop do we have to be in order to be "significant" to God? Ya see how relative it gets when we start thinking about deriving our significance from how much we impact Him? I do think we all impact Him in various ways...
We both believe that God is infinite. So this point is moot, right?
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Violin:
First (and this is just one thing I thought of a few nights ago... nothing profound though) in as far as how I view creation, when God created us, He gave us value (meaning) that derives from Him personally. Yes, took some value from His infinite supply and put it in us. (Infinity minus 1 is still infinity, so this didn't take away from God to make Him less than He is) So if anything, from this alone, we're valuable/meaningful. Comes from "It is very good" from Genesis. Love desires other things that it recognizes as valuable. When that other thing rejects the Love, the Love still desires it while being grieved of this (but when eschatology comes into play, there's other stuff involved, but right now it's 1:35AM and I need sleep).
Second, how much we are "treasured" comes from How much we reflect & are faithful to Him, or give up that value.
Third, we affect His memories-- which He can't erase ever. We've forever impacted His memory.
All creation has value in SOME way or another, meaning that all Creation is aesthetically appreciated by God. Inasmuch as this is true, all creation has some "meaning" to God. However, (and this is what I'm trying to assert), there are dimensions in which some things are MEANINGLESS or INSIGNFICANT to God. I have already stated that I believe that we "matter to God" in some ways. But I'd like people to recognize that there are some ways in which we do NOT matter to God.
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Violin:
Regarding the "unsurpassably intense, aesthetically satisfying experience of beauty via loving relationality", this is regarding God ad intra, right? (If I'm understanding "ad intra" correctly) That's where the infinite is found. But would you say the ad extra changes with time?
Definitely.
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Violin:
So all in all, I'm sorry Mephi, but I don't think I'll be converted into thinking that we're all ultimately meaningless. Just by sheer existence are we meaningful.
I'd like you to open up to the possibility that, in a VERY IMPORTANT dimensions of our lives, we are meaningless to God. I'm not asserting that we are totally meaningless. Just in some areas. Glad I'm a catalyst for thought though.
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selah
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1210
| Posted 10/19/2005 5:20 AM (GMT -6) | | dear ravisher of the heart of God,
I DO understand what you are trying to say.
I DO not think there is NOTHING that human beings can do to diminish or enhance God's unsurpassably intense, aesthetically satisfying, experience of beauty within Himself. SO...
I DO struggle with your definition
I DO think we can find other words (REMEMBER you had the same trouble with the word "culpable" ... )
I DO think there's a possibility I'm not orthodox (because I don't believe in God's aseity - at least the way you define it) & I'm not kidding.
I DO believe Tom's hunches are important to consider (and I think he makes the best complete sentences and paragraphs!  )
I DO think VFG had one of the most important examples thus far!!! "Third, we affect His memories-- which He can't erase ever. We've forever impacted His memory." BRAVO VFG What about THAT dear ravisher? Do we ENHANCE or DIMINISH God via our actions that get stuck in HIS memory?
and
I DO test out as an INTP, but I have no doubt the F is close enough to the T that we could toss it out if that helps
oh, ,and I honestly don't get why this is so important. If it's true that he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them we may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature then it's all good. We affect God because we participate in God.Post Edited (selah) : 10/19/2005 5:24:59 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/19/2005 5:35 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Maybe I oughta just lay it out there like this. (Sorry, Selah...I tried...)
If what I'm saying about God's aseity (being grounded in God's aesthetic satisfaction in Godself via God's loving, perichoretic sociality) is true, then I believe that following things MUST be true...
1. If you are a God-believer who thinks that YOUR particular praise, adoration, love, obedience and esteem of God somehow affects God's self-perception such that God would say "I am feeling more loved, more esteemed, more delighted, and more satisfied because My servant is living for Me"...you are wrong.
2. If you are a BACKSLIDEN God-believer who thinks that YOUR particular sinful behavior, disobedience, and unloving activity towards God somehow affects God's self-perception such that God would say "I am feeling less loved, less esteemed, less delighted, and less satisfied because My child is far from Me"...you are wrong.
3. If you are a God-believer who really thought that you influence God's level of happiness, joy, peace, and delight IN THE SAME KIND OF WAY that God influences your level of happiness, joy, peace, and delight...you are wrong.
4. If you believe that God's inner ecstasy would EVER be affected by the reality of people enduring eternal punishment...you are wrong.
5. If you believe that God's inner ecstasy would EVER be affected by the reality of people living with God forever...you are wrong.
Insofar as you cannot affect God in the ways that I've mentioned above, your relationship to God demonstrates INSIGNIFCANCE in the scope of those ways.
This is why I kept saying that we are meaningless where it really counts, given the belief that loving relationship is the CENTRAL REASON for Creation.
There. I've said it.
If I'm wrong about this, PLEASE show me logically. Not with rhetoric. Not with emotional appeals. Just show me how to DO the thinking. Please. Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/19/2005 6:04:07 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 10/19/2005 5:57 AM (GMT -6) | | Let me say this, too. If you want to chuck ASEITY in order to affirm the beliefs above, go right ahead.
I honestly don't see how a person can do it and still believe in a necessary, triune, perichoretic (sociality sharing life and love), omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being and NOT come up with aseity...but, hey, that's me.
I'm just saying that you should KNOW that that's what you'll have to do.
Become a process theologian like Cobb (who holds a very interesting christology).
Become a process theologian like Griffin (who has a more symbolic "trinity" using process categories)
Fine by me.
Just know THAT you're making such a theological adjustment and WHY you're doing it.
Nuff said,
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