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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 9/20/2008 11:46 AM (GMT -6) |   | Greg Boyd would like to hear this by Matthew Gallatin.
Sola Scriptura And Philosophical Christianity - Part 17September 18, 2008
Matthew reveals that God shows redemptive love, not vindictive vengeance, to those he punishes-- especially to children.
Since Greg has on his blog this:
Someone please point him to it! Thanks.
September 18th, 2008
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dc:title="Sola Scriptura And Philosophical Christianity - Part 17"
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 9/20/2008 3:36 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Greg: But what if (try to keep an open mind) when the Bible says God did these things it didn’t mean he actually did them, only that he allowed them and accepts responsibility for them?
Jeff: It menas that everytime the OT said "And the Lord spoke unto X, saying, ...." concerning violence, that it is saying something flatly false. And that therefore, it may be equally false when other injunctions are prefaced with "And God said ..." Why doesn't Greg just have the guts to say scripture is more of a hindrance than a help in understanding God? Whe doesn't he just say that God is love, and if anything attributed to God in scripture contradicts our definition of love, we should reject it. Why waste all this time? Because that's really all he's saying when it boils down to it. But then to be consistent, he should not only oppose christians being involved in forceful state action, he should oppose ALL forceful state action. As I told Zach, I think he will one day get there. He's jumping through hoops to find an inductive-scriptural rationale, and to no avail.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 9/20/2008 3:45:52 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 9/20/2008 3:57 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Sahid
Megistered Rember
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 9/20/2008 7:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: It menas that everytime the OT said "And the Lord spoke unto X, saying, ...." concerning violence, that it is saying something flatly false.
Zach: This misses the entire point. It's not all or nothing. | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 9/20/2008 8:42 PM (GMT -6) | | Zach: This misses the entire point. It's not all or nothing.
Jeff: Lets re-look at what I actually said:
It menas that everytime the OT said "And the Lord spoke unto X, saying, ...." concerning violence, that it is saying something flatly false. And that therefore, it may be equally false when other injunctions are prefaced with "And God said ..."
"May be" MEANS it's not all or nothing. But Greg is apparently not comfortable as you telling a mega-church that he has some special relationship with GOd such that he can tell which verses are true. I'm NOT saying that God doesn't tell you or Greg such things, though He clearly doesn't do so comprehensively since you two disagree on matters yourselves. The point is, if you're not going to say that, WHY THE CONTINUAL WASTE OF TIME pretending that the OT can plausibly be interpreted that way from an inductive, exegetical approach? It can't.
The OT does not have a few anamolous instances of divine force/violence/judgment. The whole OT is literally full of them, as is the NT. It would take private revelation to trump the clear implications of those texts about the divine nature. For even if they're just parabolic, they still seem to suggest what the rest of scripture suggests--that it is not inconsistent with God's nature to intentionally bring suffering to humans in certain ways under certain circumstances. And how is violence objectionable except in terms of the suffering it causes?
I mean, even the point he's arguing--that God takes responsibility for the violence--is, itself, an admission that God has no problem taking responsibility for the violence. THen why would it be inconsistent with His nature to BE violent? It makes no sense. Greg just looks sillier the harder he tries.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 9/20/2008 9:07:09 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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BBBCanada
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 9/21/2008 8:55 AM (GMT -6) | | Powerful stuff Bruce. I remember as a child living in Toronto (and not having any parental oversight at the time) watching a program about how the world could possibly come to an end by the year 2000 because of our destructive tendencies. I ran into the kitchen and grab a big honk'n family Bible off some book shelves and hugged it and said, "I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" Just at that moment a peace came over me like I had never experienced and I was fine after that. So I can attest that I've experienced this in my life a few times as to what Gallatin says is true. Judson Cornwall, who spoke at Christ for the Nations and flies many miles spoke of being on planes in which engines have fallen off and it never phased him because of the peace of that God provides.
Brandon
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.
To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa
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Tom
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| Posted 9/21/2008 9:00 AM (GMT -6) | | I gotta say that Jeff has a point. Thought much of the same thing when I read Greg's post. Don't have any answers myself either.
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/21/2008 10:38 AM (GMT -6) | | | You have to understand. Greg really cares about the animal suffering of the evolutionary process. It doesn't start with humans for him. He does NOT want to say that God was ultimately behind all that animal suffering that leads to us (and passing on that genetic memory of all that suffering and pain). He wants to say that ALL OF THAT is from Satan. That's why when you ask him "What does God have to do with the emergent creation of the Candiru fish...he will say "Nothing. That was Satan's doing...and God just has to deal with that."
This emotional tendency, I believe, is behind some of his thinking.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." Post Edited (One Love) : 9/21/2008 10:50:34 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 9/21/2008 10:43 AM (GMT -6) | | | Said another way, Greg doesn't see his loving image of Jesus (Lion laying down with the lamb in peace, etc) being behind animal cruelty and suffering. This EXPANDS to all forms of human violence.
Which is what is weird to me. Jesus (Christ-the-Logos) has ALWAYS been in the "interiority" and "center" of ALL THINGS, including dinosaurs and mammals being eaten.
It's not like God the Son is just INACTIVE in the whole thing...but is actually the sustaining power of every quark of energy in this creation "from the inside", as it were. And the Son is guiding the overall process to an end. (God is the Lord of Human History).
But somehow, Greg wants to SEPARATE God's loving, providential activity from any active role in suffering and pain that "seems" gratuitous to the human ego's perception.
We disagree on this. And I think we always have, to some degree.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." Post Edited (One Love) : 9/21/2008 10:52:01 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 9/21/2008 1:07 PM (GMT -6) | | |
D: But somehow, Greg wants to SEPARATE God's loving, providential activity from any active role in suffering and pain that "seems" gratuitous to the human ego's perception.
Jeff: Exactly, D. If we go by what "SEEMS" to be gratuitous, we're hosed. This is the whole problem of fighting the texts. It's not as though once we get rid of, or otherwise neutralize, texts that we're left with a world that doesn't have what "SEEMS" to be gratuitous suffering. The world is STILL full of just such suffering--suffering that "SEEMS" gratuitious. Why people can't see that is beyond me. It seems obvious to me.
I will say this about Zach. He at least has gone the distance in trying to be logically consistent in a way that Greg has not. Once Greg agreed with Zach that it is unloving to intervene forcefully, if necessary, to even save your own child from a thug/molester, it was irrational for him to still suppose that State force could be benevolent in any sense. And once you accept that force, including State force, is INHERENTLY malevolent, as opposed to circumstantially so, in what way can voting ever be justified?
Post Edited (Similtude) : 9/21/2008 1:20:10 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 9/21/2008 4:14 PM (GMT -6) | | Gosh I wish Greg still hung out here. He needs to hear this.
Or maybe he has? Oh well.
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BBBCanada
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 9/22/2008 8:24 AM (GMT -6) | | Here's an interesting question. Gallatin says that our life is not our own and that God can take it when he wants. He then speaks of the experience of the early Christian martyrs, his own experience and the experience of others whom God "showered with peace" and he basically sees no reason why he could not do the same for little Canaanite children. However, what then does it mean to suffer if suffering is essentially not suffering? Second, why should we expect that God WILL do this? Are there not counter examples in which this is not the case? So I wonder if Gallatin has really helped his case via going this route.
Brandon
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.
To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa
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BBBCanada
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Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 9/22/2008 8:31 AM (GMT -6) | | I mean think of the greatest example of them all. As much as we don't like concentrating on the actual suffering of Christ around here, ie. "The Passion of Christ" movie, the fact remains that when Christ hung on the cross, it was a rather painful death. I don't think anyone could deny this. Gallatin seems to propose some sort of "spiritual anesthesia." Personally, I think that we should continue to reasonably believe that when these Canaanite children died they possibly died horrible deaths. I still think that there is a better way and that seems to me to be that at the end of history there will be "absorbed" evils. In other words, basically the evils that have occurred while in this life are not COMPARABLE to the new life that we will participate in.
Brandon
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.
To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 9/22/2008 11:22 AM (GMT -6) | | | Brandon: In other words, basically the evils that have occurred while in this life are not COMPARABLE to the new life that we will participate in.
Jeff: Exactly. That way we can see reality without rose-colored glasses and still see that in some sense there is no ABSOLUTELY futile suffering. At some level, God forebears because it is not only in His and Christ's interest to do so, but ours as well, however difficult it might be to determine all the particulars about that. Though I think the fact that creation was a gift to the Son (all things were created FOR him) goes a long ways towards explaining much of the detail.
That recent book on theodicy we were discussing basically quotes different philosophers saying just what you're saying Brandon. It is the only realistic way to provide a PLAUSIBLE solution to the problem.
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