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Seymour
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105
| Posted 6/17/2002 8:58 AM (GMT -6) |   |
I know that I promised I was going to stick only to Germans from here on out but I think I'm going to have to let a Swiss in, and maybe a French kid, and an Englishmen too. Here's the English one.
But note that everything i'm posting on this thread i'm just trying out, floating more balloons and all that. Its a rough draft in progress, maybe at the end with some help i'll be able to organize it formally the way i want to.
Some folks dance cool, all angels and swaying hips, Sensual as all get out and in. Me, I'm a hick, and I dance like one, I just kinda jump around and grin.
--Greg Brown
Edited by - Seymour on 06/27/2002 11:31:56 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/17/2002 10:55 AM (GMT -6) | | Either way, the balloons still float!
SEYMOUR, WHICH ONE(S) DO YOU WISH TO HAVE STAY HERE?
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 06/17/2002 3:59:39 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Seymour
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105
| Posted 6/27/2002 6:34 AM (GMT -6) | | POW, i like the mazel tov ones the best, but the rest can stay too. thanks.
Some folks dance cool, all angels and swaying hips, Sensual as all get out and in. Me, I'm a hick, and I dance like one, I just kinda jump around and grin.
--Greg Brown | | Back to Top | | |
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Seymour
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105
| Posted 6/27/2002 6:36 AM (GMT -6) | | Okay, i'm not entirely confident with this one, rough draft people, rough draft,
flinching, flinching, don't do that
Some folks dance cool, all angels and swaying hips, Sensual as all get out and in. Me, I'm a hick, and I dance like one, I just kinda jump around and grin.
--Greg Brown | | Back to Top | | |
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Seymour
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105
| Posted 6/27/2002 6:38 AM (GMT -6) | | “I should say having been is the surest kind of being.”
–Viktor E. Frankl
“[The wicked] shall be as though they had never been.”
–Obadiah 16
Edited by - Seymour on 06/27/2002 11:40:00 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Seymour
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105
| Posted 6/27/2002 6:42 AM (GMT -6) | | Threeness and Das Nichtige
Barth early on in his discussion of God and nothingness wants to avoid a misconception of nothingness as mere negation.
quote:
We must indicate and remove a serious confusion which has been of far reaching effect in the history of theology. Light exists as well as shadow; there is a positive as will as a negative aspect of creation and creatureyly occurrence (cf. C.D. , III, I 42, 3). When the first biblical account of creation distinguishes and opposes day and night, and land and water, it unmistakably indicates this twofold character and aspect of creaturely existence. Viewed form its negative aspect, creation is as it were on the frontier of nothingness and orientated towards it. Creation is continually confronted by this menace. It is continually reminded that as God’s creation it has not only a positive but also a negative side. Yet this negative side is not to be identified with nothingness, nor must it be postulated that the latter belongs to the essence of creaturely nature and may somehow be understood and interpreted as a mark of its character and perfection (C.D., III, III 50, 2).
Barth is here making sure that we do not supposed that there is anything morally wrong with negation. That it is natural and good that creation is made up of the positive and the negative. This is of course part of the threeness of things as Doc would say it. It is simply how reality works and must work. The reality that God says Yes to is a reality made up of a Yes and a No as well as the relation of this opposition. It is this Yes/No pair that God says Yes to, and it is this Yes/No pair that das Nichtige says No to. Das Nichtige (which is evil) is not identifiable with the natural No in creation, but it is rather a giant No to the whole lot—to reality—to the positive/negative pair—to the threeness of things all together. Das Nichtige, we must say, exists at a right angle to the Trinitarian nature of reality.
We have a tendency to attach negative connotations to the idea of the negative. But Barth is trying to combat this. For every good and perfect Yes in creation there is a good and perfect No and both the day and the night show forth God’s glory. Das Nichtige does not partake of this reality, but in order to understand this we must affirm the good and perfect negative.
quote:
Though we may err and deceive ourselves and others by seeking nothingness in the negative side of creation, this does not alter the fact that this negative side also belongs to God’s good and perfect creation (C.D., III, III 50, 2).
Being and non-being are also part of this good creation and it is into both aspects that Christ incarnated himself.
quote:
Since God’s Word became flesh, He Himself has acknowledged that the distinct reality of the world created by Him is in both its forms, with its Yes and its No, that of the world which He willed. He has thus revealed its right to this twofold form, and therefore the goodness of creation…We cannot ignore the fact that in Jesus Christ God has again and expressly claimed the whole of creation as His work, adopting and as it were taking it to heart in both its positive and negative aspects (C.D., III, III 50, 2).
So Barth wants to make clear we are not to look for das Nichtige in being or non-being, but rather das Nichtige exists in a kind of “third way.” This third way, however, should not be confused with the relationship between being and non-being, das Nichtige is not their difference, but rather stands as it were at a right angle to this difference.
But how does das Nichtige work exactly? Well Heidegger has more to say about this then Barth does, but Barth says briefly something that more or less correlates with Heidegger’s concept of nothingness. Barth writes of das Nichtige that it is,
quote:
the left which is not the counterpoised by any right (C.D., III, III 50, 3).
Das Nichtige is das Nichtige precisely because negation has broken down. Selfhood, identity, being—all are no longer possible because in das Nichtige it is not possible to contrast one thing with something else. It is no longer possible to say that something is not something else, and therefore it is no longer possible to say what any-thing really is—this is the essence of nothingness. Verbs like ‘is’ don’t work inside das Nichtige. Negation doesn’t work in das Nichtige, it is a “left which is not the counterpoised by any right,” a ‘yes’ without a ‘no’, an ‘up’ without a ‘down’, a ‘day’ without a ‘night.’ For Heidegger within nothingness the difference between identity and difference is obliterated. In otherwords the identity of identity and difference is lost, confused and fused. It is no longer possible to talk in terms of an ‘us’, ‘them’, ‘we’, ‘I’, ‘you’ etc., because the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ no longer exists. To put it back in Doc’s terms, if reality is marked by threeness, and das Nichtige is the “reality of unreality” (SATPOE 339), it is unreal precisely because threeness doesn’t hold there.
So what does any of this have to do with universalism? Just as the distinctions between ‘us’, and ‘them’, and ‘you’ break down in das Nichtige, so do all things which rely on threeness (which on some level is everything). This includes any talk of existence in time in terms of ‘past’, ‘present’ or ‘future.’ The annihilation will be so complete that even the “surest kind of being” will be naught. It will be impossible to talk about the past existence of the damned because in terms of the eschaton not even that will exist anymore. ‘Past’ can no loner be distinguished from ‘present’ or future.’ The are confused. Which is why Barth sometimes says that a better word for das Nichtige would be chaos (here he is following Hegel, both found a correlation between nothingness and the chaos that was an active evil in the creation account). The damned will be thoroughly uprooted. It will truly be “as though they had never been” (Obadiah 16).
The reason that Doc’s view of hell worked is that it introduced multiple perspectives from which to interpret the scriptural motifs on hell. From the perspective of the damned it will be eternal conscious suffering. (On a side note: the question of consciousness within das Nichtige becomes problematic for certain conceptions of nothingness. This is especially true for Sartre for whom consciousness arises out of negation with the world. Without negation, however, it becomes hard to describe what kind of consciousness might be possible. In the spirit of Lewis we might wonder what a soul so folded in on itself looks like if it cannot even see beyond itslef to distingish itself from the world. How can a soul like this be conscious? It becomes difficult even to try to say since what ever it might mean it has nothing to do with what it means to us, it is on the other side of the great divorce.) From the perspective of heaven the damned will no longer exist. But what about that third motif in scripture, those pesky verses that (by themselves) seem to suggest universal salvation? Usually it is difficult to affirm them since we can’t take them by themselves but rather have to reconcile them to the other two motifs. However even when we let the other motifs trump these verses we can never quite completely get rid of the problems that they make for us. But if das Nichtige annihilates even the past being of the damned then, from the perspective of heaven, we will be able to affirm the statement: Everyone who ever existed was saved. And this, is how Doc opens up an new way to affirm universalism.
Some folks dance cool, all angels and swaying hips, Sensual as all get out and in. Me, I'm a hick, and I dance like one, I just kinda jump around and grin.
--Greg Brown
Edited by - Seymour on 06/27/2002 11:43:50 AM
Edited by - Seymour on 06/27/2002 11:52:06 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Seymour
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105
| Posted 6/27/2002 6:56 AM (GMT -6) | |
The Naughty Shall be Naught
Even in this time before the eschaton how does past existence persist? If something once existed but is now naught how can it exist for us in the present or in the future? Is not memory the way we represent the past in the present? And will not even our memories (and God’s memory) according to scripture be altered in regards to the damned?
In SATPOE Doc sometimes writes things that affirm this position. For example:
quote:
As scripture says, they are extinct, reduced to ashes, forever forgotten, and one could not find them even if one looked for them (Ps 1:4, 6; 9:6; 34:16, 21; 37:9-10; Dan 2:35; Nahum 1:10). (pp. 352-3).
and
quote:
Even our memories of them [the damned] will have been transformed (Ps 9:6; 34:16, 21). (p. 357).
It seems as though neither God, nor the saints will be able to remember the past existence of others who were not saved like they themselves were. For indeed if a memory of the damned existed in heaven, then, in a way, the damned also exist in heaven.
But at other times Doc writes about the past existence of the damned:
quote:
In fact, as I will soon argue, form the perspective of reality in the eschaton all that can be said about those who reject reality must be said in the past tense. They used to exist. (pp. 246-7).
And again:
quote:
For the perspective of the kingdom, the most we will be able to say about this loathsome figure [Satan] is that he once was but that he is now so utterly pathetic he does not even recognize this. (pp. 356).
I wonder though how we will be able to say this about Satan if even our memories of him have been altered, as Doc says. What precisely will we remember, if anything, about this present war?
If this is so what are we to make of Obadiah 16? Is it just a hyperbole?
Some folks dance cool, all angels and swaying hips, Sensual as all get out and in. Me, I'm a hick, and I dance like one, I just kinda jump around and grin.
--Greg Brown
Edited by - Seymour on 06/27/2002 12:02:15 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Seymour
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105
| Posted 6/27/2002 6:59 AM (GMT -6) | | Everything and Nothing
To begin with das Nichtige poses the question of a totality, of an everything or universal quality. Barth recognizes that the concept of nothing not only stands in relation to something but also stands in relation to universal statements, that is to say nothing can find its opposition in the concept of everything. This created a miniature problem for Barth because he is exploring how God’s providence, which is supposed to extend to everything, relates to this idea of nothing. But for the scope of Barth’s concern he only treats this relationship in its present state of war, he never raises the question of how nothing will relate to everything in the eschaton. It is in this sense, however, that we can interpret the universal salvation texts in scripture. When the Bible seems to suggest that everyone will be saved those who have been absorbed into nothingness will not even show up on the radar screen of that statement. Hell, as C.S. Lewis said, will be too small to even be contrasted with the largeness of everything real. It is in reference to this universal reality that we can affirm universal salvation, the damned are not large enough to be counted.
Some folks dance cool, all angels and swaying hips, Sensual as all get out and in. Me, I'm a hick, and I dance like one, I just kinda jump around and grin.
--Greg Brown
Edited by - Seymour on 06/27/2002 12:01:26 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Seymour
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 105
| Posted 7/1/2002 10:21 AM (GMT -6) | | They should come up with a new emicolon that is a little wimpering puppy-dog face that is sad and pathetic because no one is responding. Until then I guess we'll have to use our imaginations.
Oh and another verse I found:
quote:
Nevertheless they perished and became as though they had not been, and their spirits descended into Sheol in tribulation. (I Enoch 102:6--8, 11)
Some folks dance cool, all angels and swaying hips, Sensual as all get out and in. Me, I'm a hick, and I dance like one, I just kinda jump around and grin.
--Greg Brown | | Back to Top | | |
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