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Newcomb
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Date Joined Jul 2001
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| Posted 12/1/2003 7:54 AM (GMT -6) |   | In Satan and the Problem of Evil, Doc proposes we revive Barth's das Nichtige, with modification, to explain hell (at least the eternality of it not its temporary state) as being "the nothingness."
I have no complaint about that at this point, while the concept is new to me (annihilationism) I rather like the idea itself (though my approval is irrelevant to reality), this does make more sense in the light of "God is love" motif.
My point here is the methodology of the approach (and I have just read p.340, no further in the book). Doc presents it thusly, the emphases are his:
p.339
1. quote:
The act of bringing forth created reality produced an alternative realm of unreality. The divine choice for this to exist entails the negation of that as something that does not exist.
2. . . .quote:
Negated possibilities can in and of themselves do nothing and thus can threaten no one. By definition, negated possibilities have no actual being and thus can possess no power to influence, no say so.
3. p.340 . . .quote:
Possibilities that God has negated become actualized if wills overturn the divine negation and "impute" reality to these negated possibilities by choosing them. Now "the nothingness" acquires authority, for now a free agent with authority has invested itself into it. nothing has now become something. What was negated by God is affirmed by a creature, and thus the possibility of something opposing God-the possibility of evil-becomes actualized.
This seems to be a euphonic game much like Barth played that equivocates a term, euphonic, in the sense that it sounds good.
Argument:
Assume that God is developing his plan for creation (assume OV parameters, that is, he is deciding how to create it, not what I will do thousands of years later, etc.) and he has, for simplicity, two designs, design X and design Y. (with each is all the possibilities that come with the design, the organic system, how many free will being types exist, etc.) He chooses design X and negates design Y.
The ideas he had for design Y he did not create, he choose to create X, therefore X exists and Y is negated. Quote 1 sentence 1 used the terms this way and calls my design Y "unreality" and says divine choice for (X) to exist entails the negation of (Y) as something that does not exist. Agreed, a different world, designed under a different plan does not exist. This world exists, not the other or not another world.
Quote 2 above will support this also. Quote 3 however seems to equivocate the term 'negate' into something that we can create or choose to create. That is to say, the term is used in the sense of not choosing to create design Y, then used as if it means simply saying yes to what God said no to.
If God had said "I want to oil paint a picture of a tree on canvas" and then did not, I can choose this instead and I can paint the tree using oil paint on canvas (leave off whether it would be the "same" painting or not). However, the subject does not seem to be one of things I can choose to create on my own. While we are creative, there are serious limitations to that creativity. We do not have the ability to create ex nihilo. We cannot create things God has not created unless it is within out authority to do so. I cannot create design Y.
Using 'nothing' as if it is something is the euphonic game. Nothing is nothing, it is not something. A=A, A does not=non-A, either A or non-A. In this case, we ignore this and create non-A out of A by calling nothing "the nothing" as if it is a created something, which it is not as supported by quote 1 above, it was not created by the creator, therefore does not exist, it is truly nothing at all. Yet we now have "the nothing" = something which is the equivocation. Why? Nothing=nothing (true), we replace this with nothing="the nothing" but "the nothing"=something, therefore nothing=something, which equivocates the term 'nothing,' and is, in fact, false, since Adoes not=non-A.
Quote 3 can only be true of things we have authority over such as an oil painting, not over creating ex nihilo, so it can be true of some things and not of others.
Disobedience, that is, saying yes to things God said no to us about is something we have authority to perform as free will beings but this does not entail creation, it entails using our God created free wills to choose a possibility God created.
God created sex. He tells us how it is to be used and how it is not, it is a conditional "yes" or a "yes" to this and a "no" to that use. I can choose to abuse it, though I have not, I have said yes to what God said yes to and I have said no to what God has said no to. My father did not do this, he said yes to both. My father did not create something new, although he did procreate by disobedience to God’s instructions. He abused creation, he did not create.
God created the possibility and probability of abuse of the system by making free wills and telling us certain things were off limits.
Let me assume for a moment that hell is nothingness much like the Hindu version of Nirvana, so, hell=nothing, therefore, going to hell = going back into nothingness. This is not something, it is nothing and in this sense we can say there is "the" nothingness which is a state of a former being who has been annihilated. We can state that, in this sense there is a "the nothingness" because there used to be beings who are no more, however, if something of them continues to exist the term "the nothingness" may be a title improperly tagged on this state but it is a specific state of being and is not nothing.
Go back to 1900 when none of us on this list existed (my apologies to any 103 year olds that may be on the list), it could be said in 1900 that we were nothing just as we can say that all potential people are nothing, that is, they are nothing at all just as the children of all possible couples that have never conceived together in the history of the world are also nothing because they do not exist at all. (This is a huge number of possibilities, more in fact than there are fundamental particles in the universe.) It would be an abuse of language, a euphonic game, if you will, to say these non-existing beings are in "the nothingness" as if they had some kind of existence of which to speak.
If I understand what Doc will conclude, that is, 'something' of the unsaved continues on in some state, it is not the same as those potential beings that never come into being at all. If, however, the unsaved are completely annihilated, then, it is indeed the same state and they become nothing at all, except that they had a history, so could be remembered. God in the far future could say "once, Adolf Hitler existed and he was evil."
If then, "the nothingness" is actually something, that is, some state of being, it ought to be given a proper descriptive title, not one that equivocates the term "nothing" because nothing=nothing and nothing does not= something.
As for the last part of quote 3, nothing cannot become something. The subject is not an oil painting that many could create. It is not the case that we create design Y and make something he decided not to make. The subject is not sin, that is, saying yes to what God said no to relating to something he created being used improperly. Evil is just that, abuse of the system he created, it is not creating something else, though sin may create a new being, but again, this is abusing something God created for good.
Am I missing something? This seems to be a euphonic equivocation.
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Newcomb
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| Posted 12/14/2003 2:34 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Iconoclast
Negated possibilities can in and of themselves do nothing and thus can threaten no one. By definition, negated possibilities have no actual being and thus can possess no power to influence, no say so.
Iconoclast
The channel that it did not fall into becomes ‘inactive information’ or a probability of behavior where the probability falls to zero and thus is now cut off from ever becoming an actuality - das nichtige?
This is my point.
Only God creates from nothing. Other free will beings he made creative (humans) can use some of this creation to procreate, or bring into being things built out of this creation, say, buildings made of wood from trees, tar and gravel (roof), copper wires, etc., or as above, we can make cloth, put it into a frame, make paints from pigments and oil, and make a bruch to apply it making something ‘new’ from these, that is a ‘whole’ painting that is greater than the sum of its parts so it is now a picture where before it was components, etc. We do not have the ability to create from nothing.
Those things God choose not to create are things that would have been created from nothing. This is a class of things that only God could create and are not in the field of possibilities for us to choose.
Existentialists use the word ‘Nothingness’ as if it were a noun, as if it were ‘something’ which is different from ‘nothing.’ But this is a ridiculous concept that should be rejected.
Those things God negated in Doc’s sense of use, were not created. Contingent beings do not have any way to choose those things because we cannot create ex nihilo, from nothing, therefore, this is not a possibility for the explanation of hell, that is, it cannot be choosing one of those ideas God didn’t create.
I can’t quite figure this out because Doc is usually so well thought out, and this is what I mean by a euphonic game. The euphonics comes in by making something out of nothing, that is, making ‘The Nothingness’ as if it is actually something that exists in some state other than an idea God once had.
I wouldn’t have the same type of objection if one wished to call an annihilationist hell ‘the nothingness’ in another type of verbal game because being annihilation is similar to being nothing at all, like never existing, with the exception that those being have a history and the history can be remembered. In that case the word game is harmless because it is, again, a similar state of being and the game is merely to differentiate those that never existed and those that used to exist. (I am not commenting on whether hell really is annihilation, again, the idea is new to me.)
But I don’t think this wipes out the concept itself, I just don’t think this is a valid way to argue it. Some other arguments are interesting possibilities but not really dependent on the das nichtige entanglement. Others as, in my opinion, just as bad in that they are based on a similar misuse of words: About the soul Doc writes on page 342:
quote:
In this view it can continue to exist, but this existence can only be the existence of utter negation.
He later makes it clear this ‘negation’ is choosing negated possibilities. But again, those were defined earlier as things God didn’t create, not as things he told us not to abuse.
Now, negation can be what I am attempting to do to Doc’s argument, that is trying to show it is false, or it can be the absence of something actual, which is how he defines it by stating the nothingness is what God did not create.
God also did not create sin, which is well defined as saying ‘yes’ to what God says ‘no’ to, or vice versa, but the possibility of disobedience by creating free wills, but this is not “nothing” it is disobedience and is defined either as an action or an inaction (sin of omission).
If hell is a state of being something at all, that is, if there is anything left other than a history or memory which is a thought, then it is not nothing because A=A and A does not equal non-A, therefore something cannot equal something.
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 12/14/2003 8:31 PM (GMT -6) | | Insightful critique Newcomb. John Hick had made a similar critique of Barth in his Evil and the God of Love, saying that he "hypostasized nothingness." When we look inside our refigerator and "see that nothing is there," we aren't SEEING SOMETHING CALLED A "NOTHING." We're just simply the ABSENCE of things.
Yet, I stand by my application of Barth to the unreality of hell. For I DO believe we in a sense share the capacity to create ex nihilo. A free decision creatively transcends antecedent causes, and this creativity brings into being something new. Yes, we always have to use pre-existing material, but WHAT we create with it is NEW.
When the NEW thing we create is something God does not will -- a possibility God has negated -- we have chosen to make real something God wills as an unreality. When in the eschaton God's loving will defines the whole of reality, what he wills as an unreality will BE an unreality. The only thing that will remain is the sheer fact that we WILLED it.
Hence the view of the damned as infinitely enclosed in their own nothingness.
-- Now, having said this, I'm not myself convinced even the infinitely small point remains. I think there's scriptural warrant for the conclusion that God justly and mercifully puts these beings out of their conscious misery.
Could go either way on this one at this point.
Blessings
Doc
Doc
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Newcomb
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| Posted 12/21/2003 4:57 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
Yet, I stand by my application of Barth to the unreality of hell. For I DO believe we in a sense share the capacity to create ex nihilo. . .
Thanks for the compliment Doc, but when I see verbiage being complicated unnecessarily (apologies to Ockham) I wonder why.
Here you seem to do it again (apologies to Doc).
Ex nihilo means from nothing or out of nothing. It has never been demonstrated by man, nor implied by scripture that we have the ability to make anything starting without matter that already exists. Perhaps you can explain what we can make out of nothing, that may clarify it.
quote:
A free decision creatively transcends antecedent causes, and this creativity brings into being something new.
Lets simplify the language again. An antecedent cause is something that is necessary for an effect if the effect is fully dependent on the antecedent, or in the case of an actual effect existing, is an actual cause such as in the case that a little girl had both clavicles broken, an antecedent cause was me turning to look to the left. Of course, me being 50 feet behind her and looking left is not necessary for her to break her clavicles, she could have done so in a number of ways, but this time I was traveling at 40mph as was she in her fathers car, an other antecedent causes played into the effect: 1) the car in front of her slammed on its brakes slightly before I turned to look left; 2) her father slammed on his brakes; 3) he opted to take the small club cab truck that day, she opted to be n the back seated sideways; 4) each of the three cars opted to be in that lane at those speeds and distances from each other, etc. These contributed to my kinetic energy making rubble out of two vehicles and damaging a third, in the process breaking the girl’s clavicles. So here we have an example of an effect and description of the antecedent causes, but she could have done this, say, riding a horse.
Doc, you seem to be playing the euphonics here. It sounds good but it doesn’t really mean anything until we look at the next line:
quote:
Yes, we always have to use pre-existing material, but WHAT we create with it is NEW.
I took glass, cut it, stacked it, fused it together and made a plate. The plate was a new entity, a "thing: this is new, though I created it, no molecule was new. What we call “plate” was a new arrangement of molecules that pre existed, that we have the power to do. To create hell, we do not, even if hell is the absence of being, we do not create it by choosing not to accept salvation from it, the possibility already exists. God created it by creating “X” as opposed to “Y.”
So, going back two quotes, we creatively transcend antecedent causes, the word “creatively” modifies the verb “transcends” so we could reword this and say “A free decision creatively goes beyond the limits of the causes that go before and make something new.”
So the statements are true, however, when understood in the sense that they are true, add nothing to the conversation per se without the next part:
quote:
When the NEW thing we create is something God does not will -- a possibility God has negated -- we have chosen to make real something God wills as an unreality.
Here it gets Piled higher and Deeper (cute). Doc, I don’t mean to bash you, you are one of the best, but this is gibberish. This changes the conversation into something else by equivocating the new thing being created by changing the sense in which you use the “new thing” because the “new thing” now changes categories into something we do not have power to make. This isn’t the plate; you are implying we are making hell by not choosing salvation. We don’t create a state of being simply by choosing the antecedents needed to get to that state of being. I didn’t create the condition of broken clavicles by crashing into that car, many other people have had that condition, I did create in her the condition because I was part of the antecedent chain that eventuated in altering her previously unbroken clavicle condition.
The possibility of the condition you speak of (again, not debating your description of hell) existed because of the antecedent conditions of God creating beings with certain powers. It hales back to God’s creation (which, separately, I would argue was in 6 -24 hr periods) under the conditions he alone choose (free will, spiritual beings, etc.), again, X vs. Y creation. Perhaps God didn’t create a location or entity we call “hell” perhaps this is merely destruction, but I can’t create destruction, I merely go there because I negate salvation from that state.
quote:
When in the eschaton God's loving will defines the whole of reality, what he wills as an unreality will BE an unreality. The only thing that will remain is the sheer fact that we WILLED it.
Sentence one is double talk. It states A=A, “unreality will BE an unreality”
But again, I completely disagree because it uses a sense of words that was used by the existentialists to literally make something out of nothing because “nothing” is the subject and they tried to describe how it was something. They changed the sense in which it was a noun, that is, instead of the noun being a state of being (in this case, non-being), it became an entity, a different kind of noun.
Unreality is the lack of being, but the sense in which it is used here makes it euphonically sound as if it describes an entity, a different sense of being a noun.
Existentialism invented, reinvented, redefined, or re-described words to make it sound like they were saying something with meaning or substance. Karl Barth was one of them.
The term “unreality” means a limited number of things. It is the lack of being real, or substantive, or, in this case, the lack of being created by God. Again, assuming Doc’s concept of hell is correct, we may choose hell (becoming formerly real beings, or changing state into non-existence) by negating (not willing to accept) salvation, but the state of being is a real state of being created by God choosing to create us in the form he did. Why do we need to go into this language confusion to describe it?
We don’t need the complexity to get to this concept of hell. Simply describe it and support it with scripture.
Still need to finish the book. . .
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GregBoyd
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| Posted 12/29/2003 7:59 PM (GMT -6) | |
Newcomb: Ex nihilo means from nothing or out of nothing. It has never been demonstrated by man, nor implied by scripture that we have the ability to make anything starting without matter that already exists. Perhaps you can explain what we can make out of nothing, that may clarify it.
Doc: I obvious don't believe humans can create something without using preexisting material. But we can create something that transcends all preexisting causes. IN this sense we create ex nihilo.
Suppose I decide tomorrow to buy my wife flowers, just for the heck of it. And, let us assume, this act is genuinely FREE. Now, there is no material or spiritual line of causation that exhaustively explains my free act. THE ACT came into being "from nothing." True, I created the act from my own volition, but its also true that God created the world by his free act, and yet we say the world was created "ex nihilo." My point is that the CREATIVITY of the ACT is genuinely NEW and not NECESSITATED by any antecedent line of causes.
If you have a better word to express this creativity while emphaszing that it transcends antecedent causes, dude, I'm all ears! 
Newcomb: To create hell, we do not, even if hell is the absence of being, we do not create it by choosing not to accept salvation from it, the possibility already exists. God created it by creating “X” as opposed to “Y.”
Doc: God created the POSSIBILITY of sin and hell by creating free will, true. But WE created the ACTUALITY of sin and hell by investing these POSSIBILITES with our ACTUAL WILL. The possibilities are what God does NOT will, but what we DO will. Hence I say in SATPE that we say "yes" to God's "know" and give reality to "das nichtige."
Newcomb: Doc, I don’t mean to bash you, you are one of the best, but this is gibberish...you are implying we are making hell by not choosing salvation....The possibility of the condition you speak of...existed because of the antecedent conditions of God creating beings with certain powers.
Doc: Sorry it sounds gibberish to you, but after all your explaining I can't see why. Yes God creates THE POSSIBILITY of hell. But the possibility IS simply that we will say YES to what God says NO to and NO to what God yes to. We give actuality to a possibility God negates.
Newcomb: I can’t create destruction, I merely go there because I negate salvation from that state.
Doc: Here's our disagreement, perhaps. I don't see destruction as a place we "go". I see destruction as one and the same as negating salvation. To say NO to God IS to say YES to destruction.
Newcomb: Unreality is the lack of being, but the sense in which it is used here makes it euphonically sound as if it describes an entity, a different sense of being a noun.
Doc: Lets try an analogy. (its ONLY an analogy). I doubt that Aliens exist, but some people base their lives on the conviction that they DO exist. Let us suppose I'm right. We would in this case say that INSOFAR as a person is structuring their life around non-existent aliens, they are LIVING IN AN UNREALITY. That are saying "Yes" to something that is actually a "no." But INSOFAR AS THEIR LIFE IS REALLY IMPACTING BY THEIR YES, they give reality to what is in fact an unreality.
Okay, the language is a bit twisted.... but look, its hard to describe the ontological status of something that a) actually has no being but b) yet functions as a impacting force in peoples lives.
Hope this helps a bit.
Blessings
Doc
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Newcomb
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| Posted 12/31/2003 8:17 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
quote:
Doc: Suppose I decide tomorrow to buy my wife flowers, just for the heck of it. And, let us assume, this act is genuinely FREE. Now, there is no material or spiritual line of causation that exhaustively explains my free act. THE ACT came into being "from nothing." True, I created the act from my own volition, but its also true that God created the world by his free act, and yet we say the world was created "ex nihilo." My point is that the CREATIVITY of the ACT is genuinely NEW and not NECESSITATED by any antecedent line of causes.
OK, now I see how you are using the term. I think there must be a better term somewhere than ex nihilo simply because the term is pointed to matter, that is, its normal usage is opposing the idea that God started to create the physical universe with other matter, or, in evolutionary parlance, there has always been matter, it is merely recycled (this is not a popular belief, most simply ignore the question of where matter came from).
I fully agree that the origin of our own free thoughts is our mind or brain, however you wish to define that process, that they are from nothing, as you state, however, these are only thoughts. If we act on them (flower example above) then the resulting act is something new (I do the flower thing periodically and usually for no reason other than I love my wife and she likes flowers) however, using the term ex nihilo for every free act is rather severe.
Yesterday son went to dinner with an Ethiopian friend from school, this idea and act would then be an ex nihilo act of creation. He decided to come in and meet us, I decided to sit and talk to him in the living room, they decided to play guitars, they went to an Ethiopian restaurant, they ordered certain foods, they drove a certain route to the restaurant. All these fit into that description. To refer to all these as ex nihilo acts of creation over-defines how we use the terms ‘idea,’ ‘choice,’ ‘free will,’ and other related terms because it is generally assumes that these thoughts come from our own mind/brain, unless this is the subject of the debate with the classical view side of the isle. If I were speaking to a Calvinist or other classical view person about the process of thinking I can see how the term might be used in context to indicate the source of the thoughts of man.
The problem I have is using it about hell which is spoken of in scripture as a location/condition/state, whatever.
quote:
Doc: God created the POSSIBILITY of sin and hell by creating free will, true. But WE created the ACTUALITY of sin and hell by investing these POSSIBILITES with our ACTUAL WILL. The possibilities are what God does NOT will, but what we DO will. Hence I say in SATPE that we say "yes" to God's "know" and give reality to "das nichtige."
(sic)
Here is were I would disagree. We would create the actuality in our own case, but not the case itself. Nothing physical at all, that is, no universe, is the natural state of things. God created the universe, then God created man and the possibility of sin and (if you are right about hell) the possibility that humans would be procreated and then return to the stat of non-existence, let’s call them transient humans versus eternal humans (those who receive eternal life). God knew this possibility existed before he started to create. The state of non-existence of humans was already the case at that time. God creates the universe ex nihilo, created man from dust, and man has a new state of being: actuality. So man went from an idea, to a developed concept, into reality or actuality. I can’t see how returning to an idea/though/memory (annihilation hell) is making something new, it is very similar to the previous state of just being a thought in God’s mind before creating.
But again, sin, I agree is saying the opposite of hat God says about something, that is, saying yes to something God tells us not to do or vice versa, however, this is not creating something new unless you are the first person to do it, then the state of sinning in a certain manner exists. The next person is merely following suit. I don’t see why we would go to the trouble of creating subcategories from here, that is, Eve was the first to sin, then Adam. The category of sin was done by Eve, why bother with saying Adam created the state of “Adam sin” or “Adam sin eating fruit” then “Adam sin running from God” etc. etc. ad nauseum ad infinitum, in utter defiance of Occam’s razor :)
This is like describing the movement of every air molecule in the world as opposed to looking at macro systems in weather predictions. There is value to a physicist in understanding molecular movements of gasses, but much less value in understanding the weather.
The point is that to say we create the actuality of hell would be reduced to defining it for every person who achieves this as being something new and different, i.e. there is a new reality of heal for person ‘A’ and person ‘B’ and person ‘C’ and person ‘D’ and . . .6 to 10 billion others. So The Nothingness of person B is a new creation different from The Nothingness of person A.
quote:
Doc: Here's our disagreement, perhaps. I don't see destruction as a place we "go". I see destruction as one and the same as negating salvation. To say NO to God IS to say YES to destruction
But God didn’t say NO to hell, he said YES to it for all those who choose not to believe or accept his salvation from it because salvation is an exclusive state, hell is inclusive of all who do not achieve/receive salvation. Hell, as you describe it, would be the natural state of non-existence as it is for all people who have never been conceived (I assume life begins at conception), such as all the potential children between me and all the women I did not marry or have relations with. They are all non-existing. Or, alternatively, it is the state of all the unsaved who have died. Another problem exists here. If this state exists only after the final judgment, then we do not create it at all, it remains a mere possibility until after the judgment when God created it by sending the lost to that state again, from whence they came before procreation by their parents.
Let’s look at two examples.
1) I learned last weak that an old girlfriend of mine died. If I had married her we would have had a different set of children than those I actually have. None of those potential children exist and the possibility of any is now extinguished. Those children were only possibilities and thoughts, mostly in the mind of her father and mother, who have not died yet, but the hope of grandchildren from her is extinguished.
2) I learned last night that a friend’s daughter is breaking up with a guy we were all convinced was a great match for her. The possibility of an uncertain (OV) set of children still exists between them because they are both still alive.
So the only difference in the state of hell and the state of never existing is that there is a memory of those who did once exist.
[quote]Doc: Lets try an analogy. (its ONLY an analogy). I doubt that Aliens exist, but some people base their lives on the conviction that they DO exist. Let us suppose I'm right. We would in this case say that INSOFAR as a person is structuring their life around non-existent aliens, they are LIVING IN AN UNREALITY. That are saying "Yes" to something that is actually a "no." But INSOFAR AS THEIR LIFE IS REALLY IMPACTING BY THEIR YES, they give reality to what is in fact an unreality.
Okay, the language is a bit twisted.... but look, its hard to describe the ontological status of something that a) actually has no being but b) yet functions as a impacting force in peoples lives. .
This leads me to ask, How would I describe that state differently? Again, I am new to the annihilationist idea, while I like certain aspects of it, I need to examine the evidences for and against it before making a decision, but let’s say I do believe it, how would I describe it?
As above I would say that annihilationist’s hell is a state of being that can be described. Ontologically, it is the state of not existing, like the thoughts of potential children from other women, those children do not exist, they exist only as thought entities or possibilities, many of which are not even possibilities any longer. Alternatively, it is the state of no longer existing, like dead animals because, as far as we understand, this is the state of every animal that has died, of every plant that has died. The fact that we have an eternal potential doesn’t alter this once we have died if this idea of hell is correct. I don’t think this is hard to comprehend or in need of a foreign language term to describe. English has far more words to use in descriptions than any other language, this is part of my statement about euphonics. Medicine uses Latin to make it sound as though there is something mysterious about conditions and only those who understand the ‘code’ can help. Doctors become priest like speaking a language unique to themselves. ‘Gastritis’ is used instead of ‘upset stomach.’ ‘Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis’ is used as opposed to ‘nerve related muscular weakness,’ and this has advantages (easier for international communications, often the name remains stable), and disadvantages (the old term means the disease is not related to muscular nutrition and affects the lateral muscles, when it is actually nerve related and affects all muscles). The Catholic Church uses Latin for mass. Why? To keep the people ignorant and the priest in power, these are euphonic games.
This is perhaps my gripe. Why not just describe it using simple English? Why use terms that many find hard to understand? It isn’t hard to describe this concept.
This is one of my problems with the classical view. They redefine terms and use them to cover concepts that would not stand when brought into simple English. The KJV helps them accomplish this because it uses terms not used in modern English. For instance, sovereignty means supreme power or the freedom from external control, but it is used as if it justifies any immoral activity of God or kings. The classical view makes God out to need such a defense. The word is sprinkled on accusations against the classical views doctrines as if ‘sovereign’ corrected an immoral or irrational situation. It is an escape for them as opposed to merely yielding the doctrine because it implies the immoral situation God would be causing by the doctrine. This again is a euphonic game because people do not know what the word means, we rarely use it in common parlance.
I hope we (OV people) can avoid this type of confusion, we simply don’t need it.
An advantage we have is that we speak in church as if OV is true. We speak about choices we make, about God hearing and responding to prayer, etc. If we use common language to communicate the simple truths of the OV, people respond without understanding the conflict of OV versus classical views. The classical views will loose simply by becoming irrelevant.
If we start to use complex terms to describe simple concepts we lose the common link we have. A PhD can use common terminology, where, say, a high school graduate cannot use the more complex terms. For instance, as I shared this conversation with my wife, she repeatedly says “who cares?” She doesn’t want to deal with the fine details. Either the concept makes sense or she doesn’t want to deal with it. Most people in churches are like this.
I realize the book is not necessarily meant for the average person, however, simplifying the concept and language will improve the communication of ideas. Even after these communications added to the book I am not totally understanding the concepts simply because synthetic complexity (putting together complex languages phrases) demands detailed analysis for thorough understanding.
Back to Occam, when I see unneeded complexity I start to wonder why it is there and if it is a defense of some type. In this case, hell is not unreality, though it may well be a state of no longer existing, that state is very real, all of this is masked by the complexity of the words used.
I hope you have a blessed new year.
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