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pia†desideria
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301

Posted 12/27/2001 9:26 AM (GMT -6)

If you had to “rank” sins, which sin would you consider the worst?

Traditionally, pride has been considered the worst sin. The adequacy of this association has recently and rather definitively been questioned, because it describes sins of self-assertion and aggression, but fails to account for sins of self-denigration and withdrawal.

Dante reserved the center of the inferno’s downward spiral for the sin of treachery. I think treachery is a more adequate understanding of sin than pride because it includes sins of commision and ommision, strength and weakness, assertion and withdrawal, and moral and natural evil.

Treachery gets at the fallen nature of all of creation. The very first human death was a fratricide and the dust itself has born the blood of Abel and countless others ever since, baptized into a tragic and vain existence. To be a human creature is to be a betrayer—to actively or passively nail our brother, our neighbor, our self, our creator to the cross.

I would like to know what other people think is the greatest sin. I think it’s important to explore the problem, because it shapes our understanding of the solution.

pia

~·•·~·•·~·•·~·•·~
“They behave strangely but they also look really weird” § Michael Vecchione, scientific expert for National Marine Fisheries Service and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington

PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 12/27/2001 4:25 PM (GMT -6)

Pia, Thunberg says much about Maximus. Here is a brief quote. I can add more later, but I want to leave room for others.

quote:
Thunberg, Man and the Cosmos, p.94

This is the Eastern hierarchy different from th Western one: pride is not its starting point but rather its culmination. The Evagrian-Maximian hierarchy thus consists of eight vices in the following order: gluttony, fornication, avarice, grief, wrath, listlessness, vainglory, and pride/.

Page 96 in Thunberg he says: Maximus writes: "Be no self-pleaser and you will not hate your brother; be no self-lover and you will love God."

The index in Man and the Cosmos has listings for both "vice" and "virtue."

- PoW

P.S. = Welcome back from vacation.

MrIndifference
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 144

Posted 12/27/2001 8:38 PM (GMT -6)

I don't know if this is what you were wanting for an answer, but I would have to say "Unrepentance". Unless I am mistaken, that is the only sin that God can't, or at least will not forgive.

MrI. :|
________________________________________
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.
Karl Marx Theses on Feuerbach

Pragma-Man
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Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 23

Posted 12/28/2001 7:36 AM (GMT -6)

I think the root of unrepentance is really pride.

I have thought about this many times over the last five years. I really think Pride is the worst sin.

When a person is faced with the choice to accept Christ, what's the only real reason not to? Pride.

To admit that I've been a sinner requires humilty - the antithesis of pride. To ask Jesus to be my Lord and run my life requires that I set my pride aside.

I'm not sure Pia's question is as profound as it seems at first. I think it's a no brainer - PRIDE!

I hate pride, I'm sick of it, but haven't trully shaken it either.

Pragma-Man

Jewgrass
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Date Joined Sep 2001
Total Posts : 113

Posted 12/28/2001 11:00 AM (GMT -6)

Pragma-Man says:

quote:

I think the root of unrepentance is really pride.

I have thought about this many times over the last five years. I really think Pride is the worst sin.

When a person is faced with the choice to accept Christ, what's the only real reason not to? Pride.

To admit that I've been a sinner requires humilty - the antithesis of pride. To ask Jesus to be my Lord and run my life requires that I set my pride aside.

I'm not sure Pia's question is as profound as it seems at first. I think it's a no brainer - PRIDE!

I hate pride, I'm sick of it, but haven't trully shaken it either.

This is the one philosophical argument I think Calvinism has going for it: if pride is what keeps people from accepting Christ, I don't see how anyone ever could since we're all slaves to sin. If this total depravity & "inability" of man is true, God's irresistable grace would be needed to unconditionally save the elect completely by God's grace. As an opponent of Calvinism, this one philosophical idea is something I'm still struggling through.

--Jewgrass

"If what the Bible says about man is true [man's sinful nature], how could anyone ever possibly be saved? There are two alternatives: the Bible and TULIP Calvinism." --Dr. Laurence M. Vance

Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747

Posted 12/28/2001 4:10 PM (GMT -6)

I'm with Mr. Indifference. I believe that unrepentance (due to pride but also many other things) is the unforgivable sin...part I! I believe part II of the unforgivable sin, thus making it the worse sin, too, is to have turned one's back against Christ, as Hebrews makes the note, after having tasted of the heavenly gift. Pride? Maybe the cause, but whatever it is, unrepentance in both areas is the worse in my opinion (and everyone knows I'm always right...always. I mean, I GAVE Charlie Brown the statement: "Am I right? I say, AM I RIGHT?" (hey, I heard one of you uttering under something under your breath about me being full of pride...who was it? WHO WAS IT?!) I don't have any pride! Boy, the nerve!

Starkman
(always right!)

Killem'; killem' all (Captain Hook)

Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 1/1/2002 12:53 PM (GMT -6)

Experiencing (seeing, hearing, feeling) good and judging it as evil.

The Pharisees experienced the Son of God making another person whole and they judged his action to be evil. "He casts out demons by the power of Beelzebub."

Just after this happens Jesus talks about the unforgivable sin: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. When we fully cut ourselves off from Life itself (the Holy Spirit), when we no longer have the ability to "see" good anymore, to "see" Life how then can we ever choose Life? When we directly experience Life (God) and unlike Adam after the fall who hid in shame we stand tall and proud and judge it (Him) as evil what further power, what further evidence, what further experience will cause us to realize that NO we are not God, we cannot judge good and evil, we cannot judge our brother, we cannot even judge ourselves and therefore we can no longer judge God?

Is this pride?

What is it about the Pharisee that caused Jesus to go after them so strongly?

What is it about the Pharisee that caused them to kill the author of Life?

Is it even about a particular "sin"? Did Jesus go after the Pharisees because they were guilty of a particular sin? Or was it rather what they had become?

If this is so is the concept of a MOST terrible sin even valid? Can any sin lead to this state? Or is this state itself a particular type of sin? An advanced form of pride??

Jesus seems to forgive sins and entire people right and left. But he seems to attack the very core of who the Pharisees are. How did they get this way?

It seems like they somehow became the very embodiment of Satan - the Adversary.

thanks,
Iconoclast

"Balance Inquiry With Advocacy" - Chris Argyris

Edited by - Iconoclast on 01/02/2002 12:00:01 AM

writerdad
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 448

Posted 1/1/2002 8:44 PM (GMT -6)

Are you talking in general, or how they effect others because torturing babies is high on my list of really bad sins...

Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 1/2/2002 10:49 AM (GMT -6)

quote:

Are you talking in general, or how they effect others because torturing babies is high on my list of really bad sins...

Wow - good point Writerdad - it just don't get much worse than that does it. Sort of makes pride look like a walk in the park.

I think it also takes us back to Pia suggesting Treachery as the worst category and perhaps torturing someone totally and completely innocent as the worst form of treachery? Or even through inaction allowing someone totally and completely innocent to be tortured.

thanks,
Iconoclast

"Balance Inquiry With Advocacy" - Chris Argyris

Magneton
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Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 132

Posted 1/3/2002 5:54 AM (GMT -6)

Iconoclast, I think you have a real insight that the worst sin is "Experiencing (seeing, hearing, feeling) good and judging it as evil." Generalizing it a little, one could say that the essence of all sin is:

Experiencing good and judging it as evil or worthless.
- or -
Experiencing what God values and judging it as evil or worthless.

Torturing babies is an extreme example of this; it is treating what God values highly as if it is of no value.

In a more general sense, sin is an indifference to or rejection of what we recognize that God would desire. Rather than transgression of some rules of behavior that God has set up, sin involves actually hurting God. (The Law was instituted to tell us what it is that hurts God.) The ultimate expression of this was found in the crucifixion. The net result of humankind's indifference and rejection of God up to that point was to create an environment in which God in the flesh would be killed. And no one stepped in to prevent it. The web of culpability extended to all of mankind, and the same thing would have happened today if we were in the same situation.

So we might be able to say that the worst sin is that which hurts God the most. It is a willingness for God to die.

My tentative thoughts, anyway.

Magneton

In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that he did not also limit his stupidity. Dean Acheson

GregBoyd
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 1/4/2002 11:38 AM (GMT -6)

Mr. Indifference: I don't know if this is what you were wanting for an answer, but I would have to say "Unrepentance". Unless I am mistaken, that is the only sin that God can't, or at least will not forgive.

Doc: I think MI is about right. Since the NT makes it clear that God is willing to forgive any sin we are willing to confess, the "worst" sin would have to be a sin that would prevent us from ever wanting to repent of it. I take this to be the "sin against the Holy Spirit," or "the unforgivable sin."

Pragma-man: I hate pride, I'm sick of it, but haven't trully shaken it either.

Doc: I have, and I’m proud of it.

Jewgrass: This is the one philosophical argument I think Calvinism has going for it: if pride is what keeps people from accepting Christ, I don't see how anyone ever could since we're all slaves to sin. If this total depravity & "inability" of man is true, God's irresistable grace would be needed to unconditionally save the elect completely by God's grace.

Doc: To say we cannot believe without God’s grace is not the same as saying that with God’s grace we MUST believe. The recognition that we are dead in sin requires the former, but not the latter.

Icon: Experiencing (seeing, hearing, feeling) good and judging it as evil [is the worst sin].

Doc: Is this the worst sin, or possible evidence that one has committed it? Icon is right in pointing out that this is precisely what the Pharisees did with Jesus (Mt 12). But Jesus then WARNS THEM about a sin that is unforgivable. He doesn’t conclude that they HAD in fact committed this sin, but given the depth of their blindness (to confuse metaphors) – they called a work of God a work of Satan! – it seems Jesus is worried that they have irrevocably resisted the Holy Spirit.

I stick with the worst sin being resisting the Holy Spirit so thoroughly, so repeatedly, that one has ensured that they will never WANT to do otherwise. NOW their doing of sin has become a BEING of sin.

My two cents
Doc

"Three is the magic number, oh yes it is, it's the Magic Number" - De La Soul

Vexen
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 55

Posted 1/16/2002 7:18 AM (GMT -6)

quote:

I stick with the worst sin being resisting the Holy Spirit so thoroughly, so repeatedly, that one has ensured that they will never WANT to do otherwise. NOW their doing of sin has become a BEING of sin.

This is something I agree, from an ultimate Christian perspective this seems to be one's ultimate undoing, to take yourself to a point where even at death you reject God.

I witnessed this in some people, for example some people have said "even if I did believe in souls, I don't think I have one"... this self-denying attitude I have called "deadism", a person who is a "deadite" will fervently reject the Holy spirit over a long period of time.

This deadism concept seems to match Boyd's definition of the unforgivable sin. It seems to me, though, that this *would* be forgivable if the individual repented and came round. The "unforgivable" aspect is that the person does not wish to be forgiven (which also superficially sounds like Pride, again), but the source is more in stubbornness and habitual disbelief.

It is obvious that such deadites are hardened (of heart) more and more when they are evangelized too, causing deeper resentment and longer-term denial.

Deadism is atheism's equivalent of the closed minded stereotype of fundamentalism, adherents (or vitims?) of both are unable to change their minds, it feels and seems beyond their control, a self reinforced system of thought. I do not know that once people are in such a state they can change their mind, so perhaps this is how it can be "unforgivable". It is unforgivable to let yourself go down a path that leads to an inability to accept change or new things.

I think.

Deadism: Unholy mankind

--
Vexen
http://www.vexen.co.uk

Semeia
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Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 522

Posted 1/16/2002 7:37 AM (GMT -6)

Vexen, on the link you provide on "deadism" in your post, you say that Vexen is a deadite. And yet you don't really come across as someone who is close-minded. You come across as someone who is humble and open to learning. Is "Vexen" a sort of virtual personality, that you use to try on ideas, whose views don't necessarily reflect your own? Or am I missing something, either on the link or on your posts here?

I ask out of confusion, not because I'm trying to get you to "declare yourself" in some way. We are all in process on quite a few things on this board.

Thanks,
Semeia

"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard

pia†desideria
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301

Posted 1/16/2002 5:16 PM (GMT -6)

Mr. I, Doc, and Vexen—you have convinced me. Some remain silent and sullen even when—regardless of whatever skeletons they do or do not have in their closet—the banquet host takes them off the street, gives them colorful robes to wear and offers them a seat at the table of a lavish feast that they could never ever afford and that never needs to end.

Why would anyone refuse forgiveness? I suppose there are lots of reasons, and I believe that God respects those reasons (with sorrow). That’s why I am not a universalist.

pia

~·•·~·•·~·•·~·•·~
“Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously…” § Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination

Edited by - pia†desideria on 01/16/2002 10:24:22 PM

Mephi2K
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713

Posted 1/16/2002 8:51 PM (GMT -6)

I want to make sure that I have this straight. Basically the chief sin is, at base, a SELF-CREATED, SELF-REINFORCED rejection of the things of God and decisions made on that premise. This would INCLUDE:

-Calling things that are of God NOT of God.
-Not accepting forgiveness
-Not being open to God at all.

Hmmm. This whole idea seems based on 2 strong presuppositions:

1. that God respects and values our freedom to choose MUCH MUCH more than our eternal station and happiness.

2. that God can try his ABSOLUTE HARDEST to convince a person and they can genuinely remain unconvinced.

Whowee, I got problems with this. First of all, it amazes me that our "freedom" to choose DAMNATION would matter so much to a Being who ultimately wants ALL of us to be with Him. Some versions of universalism seem to have CONFIDENCE in God's ability to break down all barriers like this, saying that God will EVENTUALLY change everyone's mind. Though I'm no universalist, this makes MUCH more sense to me. It gives God some reasonable credit in his persuasive ability. How could we generally believe the human will to be THAT powerful as to be able to withstand the FULL attempts of God to change us, whether pre or post mortem??

Bottom line: I think this position WAY overestimates the power of the human will and its ability to withstand persuasion.

Hmmmm...

Love God. Love People. Love Truth. Dedicate your all to that which you love.

Empiress
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 363

Posted 1/16/2002 10:39 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
First of all, it amazes me that our "freedom" to choose DAMNATION would matter so much to a Being who ultimately wants ALL of us to be with Him. Some versions of universalism seem to have CONFIDENCE in God's ability to break down all barriers like this, saying that God will EVENTUALLY change everyone's mind.

Mephi, I sympathize with your struggle on this one. I feel likewise! My own version of Universalism is of the type you mention (and yes I am aware of the free will arguments against it).

However God's love and very Being meets our deepest human wants and needs...would not all people freely choose God eventually when faced clearly with the alternative? Likewise, it seems a long suffering God would never give up on humans, wishing that "none should perish." Wouldn't God have the ability to persuade even the hardest of hearts over time? (or at least all but very few???) Would not Godly love melt our scorn and rejection eventually? I have a very hard time denying God that power or that manner of interaction with humanity.

I admit to *hoping* this to be the case and wanting it to be the case for pragmatic reasons, however this seem theologically and philosophically tenable of God's nature. I think it can be defended Scripturally and philosophically, but granted, it is not fool proof.

I guess I'm just interested in other's thoughts on this issue.

Empiress
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 363

Posted 1/16/2002 10:40 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
First of all, it amazes me that our "freedom" to choose DAMNATION would matter so much to a Being who ultimately wants ALL of us to be with Him. Some versions of universalism seem to have CONFIDENCE in God's ability to break down all barriers like this, saying that God will EVENTUALLY change everyone's mind.

pia†desideria
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301

Posted 1/17/2002 4:26 AM (GMT -6)

Mephi, I too sympathize with your struggle. So let’s work this out.

Who damns the damned?

As I see it, there are four options:
1. God damns them (which raises the spectre of double predestination)
2. They damn themselves (deadism…or blaming the victim?)
3. Incompetent evangelists damn them (do we really want to give them that much credit?…do we really want to let them off the hook?)
4. There are no damned (copout?)

Which do you choose? I’m uncomfortable with all of them, as I’m sure you are. However, if I have to choose between double predestination and deadism, I choose deadism. If we want to cash in on our inheritance here and now, and declare God as good as dead, God let’s us go (and waits at the gate for us to return). God is not the Borg Queen—our resistance is efficacious.

Although I agree with Vexen’s deadism theory, I hope and pray that we are wrong and that in the end there will be no damned. This is why when we get to the part in the creed where we confess that Jesus "descended into hell" I say that part loudest of all. He descended into hell! And therein lies my hope for the damned.

pia

~·•·~·•·~·•·~·•·~
“Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously…” § Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination

Semeia
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 522

Posted 1/17/2002 7:49 AM (GMT -6)

next post...

Edited by - Semeia on 01/17/2002 1:29:19 PM

Semeia
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 522

Posted 1/17/2002 8:25 AM (GMT -6)

Mephi said:

I want to make sure that I have this straight. Basically the chief sin is, at base, a SELF-CREATED, SELF-REINFORCED rejection of the things of God and decisions made on that premise. This would INCLUDE:

-Calling things that are of God NOT of God.
-Not accepting forgiveness
-Not being open to God at all.

Hmmm. This whole idea seems based on 2 strong presuppositions:

1. that God respects and values our freedom to choose MUCH MUCH more than our eternal station and happiness.

2. that God can try his ABSOLUTE HARDEST to convince a person and they can genuinely remain unconvinced.

Whowee, I got problems with this. First of all, it amazes me that our "freedom" to choose DAMNATION would matter so much to a Being who ultimately wants ALL of us to be with Him. Some versions of universalism seem to have CONFIDENCE in God's ability to break down all barriers like this, saying that God will EVENTUALLY change everyone's mind. Though I'm no universalist, this makes MUCH more sense to me. It gives God some reasonable credit in his persuasive ability. How could we generally believe the human will to be THAT powerful as to be able to withstand the FULL attempts of God to change us, whether pre or post mortem??

Bottom line: I think this position WAY overestimates the power of the human will and its ability to withstand persuasion.

Empiress said:

However God's love and very Being meets our deepest human wants and needs...would not all people freely choose God eventually when faced clearly with the alternative? Likewise, it seems a long suffering God would never give up on humans, wishing that "none should perish." Wouldn't God have the ability to persuade even the hardest of hearts over time? (or at least all but very few???) Would not Godly love melt our scorn and rejection eventually? I have a very hard time denying God that power or that manner of interaction with humanity.

Semeia: I think Iconoclast’s post from another thread bears repeating here:

Iconoclast:

I would argue that freewill entails that we are free to reject God which means of course that we would not be saved. The Pharisees come to mind as an example. Although I realize that not all Pharisees rejected Jesus. It seems to me that actually meeting God face to face, seeing him heal people, seeing his love and his wild freedom and then rejecting him as they did is exactly the choice that will confront all of us one day. When we meet God face to face with both his incredible Love AND his refusal to allow us to lie to ourselves about what we have done and who we have become, both the joy and the incredible sorrow and pain of the full consequences of our actions - will we accept his love which we may feel as harsh judgement at first - or will we run away in terror and shame like Adam did? Or will we judge God as being evil for the pain he is causing us?

I certainly like the idea that some day we will all come before God and we will all be free (as free as we have allowed ourselves to become) to accept his Love. Actually, I think we are doing this in little ways each and every day; with God and with each other.

Semeia:

First I would like to say that I am very sympathetic to the universalist position. I have always been appalled at the Christian notion that only a small number of people would be saved—and the people who hold that position always include THEMSELVES in that lucky few, of course, which should be the first clue. In fact I think that God will be able to save most of the people of the world, of ALL religions, as well as those WITHOUT religion. Even those people who only worked an hour or a few minutes are going to get their denari in God’s economy, and the thief and the murderer will be dining next to Mother Theresa at the great banquet.

But free will doesn’t really make sense if human beings don’t have the capacity to reject God. If we are not capable of rejecting God, then we really are ultimately DETERMINED by God, and no matter how big our playpen of the world has been, it is still just a playpen, with God looking down determining HOW FAR we can go. I don’t know why it is so difficult to imagine how God’s persuasive power might not work with everyone, when we have a clear record of how the most “religious” among us, the Pharisees, received Jesus Christ, God incarnate. They murdered him. It seems to me that Jesus’ persuasive power must have been very great indeed. He healed people and he loved people. (By the way, I am with Iconoclast that the worst sin is to “see” good (love, life) and call it evil (hate, death)—that is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that is unforgivable. It is not unforgivable because God lacks some capacity to forgive; it is unforgivable because forgiveness IS love, and if love is perceived as evil it can never be received. It is unforgivable because as Pia said, some people reject forgiveness, and because God in his love gives us free will, he does not override our free choice, and we are allowed to reject his forgiveness.)

Jesus said, “If you see me, you have seen the Father.” Surely love and forgiveness were OBVIOUS in the form of Jesus. And yet we murdered him. And even then, Jesus forgives. God never runs out of forgiveness, but at a certain point we run out of the ability to receive it.

One way I picture this is that at the end of our life we get to see the impact of our actions, the true nature of our life, in all its complexity. Every thought and action reverberates outward, like the circles expanding from the impact of a stone dropped into the smooth surface of a pond. But of course the world is not a smooth surface, and the complexity of their impact disappears into the chaos of everyone else’s thoughts and actions, like grains of sand dropped into the turbulent and ever-changing oceans of the world. I think when we die God extricates all of it for us, and we get to see the true nature of our thoughts and actions, both the good (life-enhancing) and evil (toward death). I think this will be a very painful experience for most and perhaps all people. Imagine what it must have been like for the Pharisees, who BELIEVED THAT THEY WERE FOLLOWING GOD’S WORD! Is it possible that when confronted with the true impact of their thoughts and actions (impact = they murdered the Son of Man = they murdered God), is it possible that some of them will be unable to accept this reality, and turn their backs on God (again) even in the face of his love and forgiveness, even though he still loves them, because the reality of what they did is simply too painful?

The Pharisees thought they were doing good. They were the religious people of their day. What am I doing in my life that I think is “good” that is actually destructive? What is the true impact of my thoughts and actions? I love God, but I fear the moment when he reveals the truth to me. I fear it not because I doubt his love and forgiveness, after all he both created me and laid down his life for me, but I fear it because I am afraid to see the truth of my life laid bare. I am afraid to discover how I hurt people, even those people whom I love the most. I am afraid to learn that the day I was impatient with the clerk in the checkout line was the last day of her life. I am afraid to learn that a careless word sent a person in the wrong direction, away from God. I am afraid to learn how I hurt my children, whom I love with all my heart. I am afraid to learn what I COULD HAVE BEEN, if I had stayed in step with God. I am afraid to learn that some of my deeply held beliefs are in fact mistaken. I am afraid to go from being a creature in flatland into God’s dimension, to see the real shape of things, and how I have misperceived so much.

But I do not live out of this fear. I live out of a desire to get in step with God, so that there will be a few things in the plus column… because I think my best hope of being able to withstand the truth of my life being laid bare at the end is to start receiving God’s love and forgiveness now, so that I can at least at moments operate out of that love in a way that spreads love to others, rather than destruction. And the goal isn’t really that complicated: “Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.” All theology drops away from that core, useful only up to a point. Much theology actually interferes with that core.

To back up for a moment, we might ask why does God require us to see the whole truth at the end of our life, as we stand at the edge of eternity? Why doesn’t God simply let us in, even in our darkness, even if we don’t understand, even if we reject him? I think the answer to that lies in the identity of God. God is Truth. God is Light. God is Life. The fall happened when we separated from God, when we asked the first theological question, “Did God say…?” The fall happened when we stole the knowledge of good and evil, and no longer simply lived the gift of life in union with God, but instead became judgers of God and each other. At death we return to God, through Jesus. There is no way to return to God without entering into Truth, since God is Truth. We will once again be naked before God. God will love us with all his heart, but we will still feel shame, and some will turn away. Jesus said, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” I take this quite literally, and I think it applies in this life and most especially as we stand on the brink of the next. I think “for with the judgment you make you will be judged” refers to the fact that it is our OWN judgment that is at issue in the end, NOT God’s judgment of us. And if the course of our whole life has been to judge others harshly, mercilessly, how will we judge ourselves when we see the true reality of what we have done? And when Jesus says “and the measure you give will be the measure you get” I think that this too tells us something about receiving God’s grace and forgiveness in the end. If we have been unforgiving and ungiving in this life, how shall we react when we discover that we, too, have participated in some way in “murdering” God?

Another image I have of meeting God at the end is this: God is light and truth, shining brilliantly down upon us. We have a choice: we can face God in our nakedness and become “transparent” in his love, thereby becoming filled by his love and radiantly become a “part” of God; or we can turn away instead, and look at our own deep shadow cast dark and looming on the wall, (ironically, it is our own self “against” God’s light that casts this shadow, and the reality we perceive is one created by our own blocking of God’s love, life, and truth) and choose that as the reality. Some day I am going to commission an artist to paint such a scene, and the title of the painting will be “Judgment”. When God asks us to be like little children, I think it is because children unquestioningly move toward the light, away from the shadow. (In this imagery, I guess we could say that satan is our own shadow… but that’s another discussion.)

So if this is how it works (let’s presuppose) and God is going to meet each person with all the force of his love and truth at the end, then what difference does it make whether one is a Christian or not? Well, in one sense it doesn’t matter. I mean, babies die all the time who are not “Christian” (no babies are really “Christian”) and it seems pretty obvious that a God of love would never reject any babies. Also, didn’t God say at one point NOT to go into China? My impression of that was that something was going on in China that he had a handle on, that he actually didn’t want the word spread there. I don’t know exactly what that means, except that I think God has an understanding of things that is too far beyond what we can comprehend, and we just have to take his word for it. Thirdly, I think that many religions, like Taoism and Buddhism (at least as far as I understand them), prepare people pretty well for becoming transparent in God’s love. And there are innumerable other instances where I can think of people not being Christian and yet it is inconceivable to me that God would not receive them. Like I said before, I think most people ARE saved. So why be Christian?

For me it is the knowledge that God became man and suffered along side of us, for us, in order to show us what love looks like. That knowledge helps me right now, this minute, to receive God’s love, so that I may love my brother. It is a love relationship, and no other religion has that. I don’t share Christianity because I think someone is going to go to hell if they don’t have it. I share Christianity because “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” That water is the love of God. If my own thirst is quenched, why would I not hold out a ladle to my brother? By loving him? As I am loved.

There is a question I am left with, however. If God can receive babies into eternal life with him, why doesn’t he receive us all as babies, and skip the holocaust and the child abuse and the torture and the poverty and the cancer and the suffering? Why don’t we all get the same chance as the stillbirth? A baby dies in the fallen world, surely God does not reject them, so why not us?

I don’t know the answer to that, but I trust that God WILL have an answer for me some day. His answer for the time being is the suffering and death of his only begotten Son on the cross. I think of my own three beautiful children whom I love. I think, what if one of them was Zosia, or Genie, and I was God, and there was something inherent in life that made it impossible for me to prevent their suffering at that terrible moment in history? What if life itself allowed such possibility, and the only way to TRULY prevent it would be to prevent LIFE? What if FREE WILL is an inherent quality of LIFE, without which is DEATH? I brought each of my three children into the world, even though the list of terrible things that could happen to them is very long. I took the risk. What if I am God, and they are Zosia? Perhaps all I can do at that point is enter into the pain, and allow myself to be nailed to the cross, to stand in the gap, for all humanity, until the answer comes.

Some very rambling thoughts,
Semeia

"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard

BJS
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 587

Posted 1/17/2002 9:07 AM (GMT -6)

You are truly a gifted writer, Semeia. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Brett

"Siste viator et memento mori."

Semeia
Registered Member

Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 522

Posted 1/17/2002 9:21 AM (GMT -6)

Thank you, Brett!

I was just rereading it, and I thought that somebody might object that God can't receive us all as babies because we need grown-ups to have babies! But my real question is, "Why do we need the world before eternity with God?" I think it is a fascinating question, about life and consciousness and the fall. My own suspicion is that the fall is "built in" to consciousness, and is the price paid for life itself... but that is another very, very, long discussion, and I actually had hopes of getting something done today, like laundry!

Thanks,
Semeia

"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard

Mephi2K
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713

Posted 1/17/2002 9:22 AM (GMT -6)

Some things.

1) I've got to be honest. I don't really have any struggle here. Sure, I'd like everyone to experience salvation, but the facts of the matter qua Scripture seem to be that that's not going to happen. SOMEONE'S going to be lost. Another fact of the matter is that it's all cruddy beyond belief if just ONE PERSON ends up suffering eternally. Forget whether there is "many" or "few." All it takes is ONE. As this is the case, all of the choices that include divine punishment are problematic. To me, choosing "deadism" over double predestination just seems like a way to 1) make US feel better about it by 2) getting God off the hook. I'm not just saying this all off the cuff, for those who are just new. I've spent many a post trying to show that, all things considered, the concept of people being allow to damn themselves is just as bad (in many of the same ways) as God damning them.

2) I think Wislawa's point keeps getting missed. He speaks about universal damnation instead of universal salvation. Now, I find this so amusing. I once said in a another post that God was unjust and unfair to most people in that people REALLY wouldn't have too much of a problem if God just forgave everyone and let them in to heaven...DESPITE all the indications that have been given to the contrary biblically. Justice, free will, all that could fly RIGHT OUT the window and VERY FEW, if any, people would have a problem. But when it comes to the possibility of God actually reaming us at the end of this thing, oh, we don't like that. We can't allow God THAT level of freedom. The excuse? God is love. God is Light. Yada, yada... So, God can be as unjust, and unfair as he wants...AS LONG AS HE'S BEING LOVING AS WE SEE IT. Again, to me, this is so hypocritical.

3) Semeia's point rings true and this is what bugs me:

quote:
But free will doesn’t really make sense if human beings don’t have the capacity to reject God. If we are not capable of rejecting God, then we really are ultimately DETERMINED by God, and no matter how big our playpen of the world has been, it is still just a playpen, with God looking down determining HOW FAR we can go.

I don't like the term "playpen" but you get the gist. THIS is exactly my problem. See, this whole open view thing was never about "FREEDOM" qua libertarian freedom...and it was never about mere ontological separtation from God. Why do I say that? Because, as Semeia notes, one could be granted BOTH of these things...and things still end up deterministic. (NOTE TO OPEN VIEW THEISTS: PLEASE NOTE THIS WELL) It had to be about giving non-divine sentient beings SUFFICIENT power to withstand God even when God operates at his ABSOLUTELY HIGHEST POSSIBLE LEVELS on a situation. If we go by the idea that God can eventually change ANY mind given time...AND we were REALLY convinced that God wanted everyone saved, the only conclusions that we could come to would be:

a) universalism will ensue

or

b) God didn't work equally hard on everyone (proportionally speaking)

So, we can see why this IMMENSE power of will over and against God is necessary for the sake of some people's theodicy. But I ask again, does this really make any sense, given God's power? For the sake of argument, I will grant character solidification. Let's just say that IN THIS LIFE, someone can so habitually do something that conventional ways of changing are out of the question. (I would contend that there have been cases of MIRACULOUS deliverances of various addictions by the Spirit of God...but I'll even leave THAT out.) So now we are looking post-mortem. Are really going to say that a human being's will is THAT RESOLUTE that it could reject God for eternity...even when God is doing ALL THAT HE CAN on that level to change the person's mind??? Remember, there would be no "mitigating circumstances" about human free will. As a matter of fact, according to Doc, most of the "free will" would be utterly COMPATIBILISTIC by then anyway. So, it would be NOTHING for God just to make them see the light. Again, this seems to be given non-divine will WAY TOO MUCH credit to me.

4) This seems to go back to the "Sun, Daisies, and Cockroaches" thing where basically God is just HIMSELF and ultimately it's OUR natures that determine whether we wither from him or not. If I'm not mistaken, that seems to be basically how many people round these parts want to view divine judgement. In essence, God's not really ACTIVELY judging anything. He is just letting nature "take its course" as it were. Now here's something interesting. Semeia ponders that at the end of this thing, some people will be so shameful at seeing the Truth of God that they will still turn away. Just like the cockroaches would writhe in the sunlight. But let's think about it. Wouldn't a good, OMNISCIENT, loving God REALIZE that even at THIS juncture, those persons wouldn't be able to handle seeing God in his holiness? Wouldn't a good loving God make some type of "purgatory" where these people could over MORE time receive more and more forgiveness from God? Think about it. That would be like me KNOWING that someone hasn't eaten solid food in about a month...and then just up and expecting them to be able to eat huge, hearty helpings of steak and potatoes with no problems. It would be inconsiderate, AT BEST. So why would our loving God do that? See the problem? Looking at God as unchangable "sun" here doesn't really help things too much, now does it?

Just thinking...

Love God. Love People. Love Truth. Dedicate your all to that which you love.

Vexen
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 55

Posted 1/17/2002 9:27 AM (GMT -6)

Selective quotes: (Vexen wished to remove some of the Christian-specific text)

quote:

I think of my own three beautiful children whom I love.
[...]
inherent in life that made it impossible for me to prevent their suffering
[...]? What if life itself allowed such possibility, and the only way to TRULY prevent it would be to prevent LIFE?
[...]
I brought each of my three children into the world, even though the list of terrible things that could happen to them is very long. I took the risk.

So the ultimate sin, in the light of this quote, would be for us to see the raising of children in love as evil?

*thinks so*

--
Vexen
http://www.vexen.co.uk

Mephi2K
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713

Posted 1/17/2002 9:30 AM (GMT -6)

Another brief thought: Sometimes I wonder if we just entertain ideas of universalism or a VAST majority of people being saved just to make us feel better existentially. It seems to wear on people that divine judgement exists at all...and even more that a Scripture like this would exist:

Mat 7:13-14, words of Jesus
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

It bothers us. And we have to do something about it. So we basically do what we are doing now. Find ways to ease the existential tension. Could this all just be some twisted way that we are creating Freudian archetypes for our own sanity? Hmmm...

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