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PS: It's interesting. Wifey, some friends and I were just talking theology. And we came up with a scenario. What if we died and found out that there WAS a monotheistic God, but that God was nothing more than a mischievious Loki type beings. Like Al Pacino said in "The Devil's Advocate", "God just likes to watch" and "laughs his --- off" What would we do? Nette said she'd try to kick God's butt. (I laughed at that) One guy said that nothing would matter anymore so he could go wherever. For my answer I thought about it. And I figured I'd do something like this: I'd tell God "Well, I hope you got some good laughs. Where am I headed?" What ELSE would there be to say? Curse him? Cry? Fall into despair? All useless ideas, in my opinion (though justifiable given some people's ardent expectations.) The more I think about it...I have an interesting view of God, death, and reality: We often say "reality bites" or "---- happens" to illustrate that ambiguity of reality is something to just be accepted. Tragedy and triumph are viable possibilities. We hope for the best, but make adequate preparation for the worst. No guarantees. I feel the same way about God and death. Just deal with it. Hmmmm...

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Do you remember your question on the old board that you posted that was posed to the Open Viewers on here and it was something along the lines of "What if you got to heaven and found out that all the crummy stuff in life- the Holocaust, gratutitous evil, people dying unsaved, yadda yadda- WAS because of God's explicit degree, and when you asked 'what's up with that' God says 'you don't need to know and I'm not going to tell you', what would you say to God in light of that?"

That particular statement reminded me of that. If I remember right, you were extremely shocked by Doc's answer, I would be interesting to see if anyone else who remembers that has changed his/her thinking on that topic since then.

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Indeed, I remember that one well. That thread is where I introduced the idea here of the "theistic bootlicker" Doc basically said, IF determinism was true such that God WAS behind all evil for his purposes...and told us this was so, that he would oppose God because his "moral wiring" was so fixed to do so...which, to me, seemed very noble from an purely existentialist point of view, but foolhardy as a from that of a realist. Why would one seek to oppose the one true, infinite, omniscient, omnipresent God whom one could NOT hope to oppose or even really affect? It seemed a ludicrous sentiment.

Actually, it still does. But that's just my opinion. To each, his/her own, though.

Blessings,


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

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he would oppose God because his "moral wiring" was so fixed to do so...which, to me, seemed very noble from an purely existentialist point of view, but foolhardy as a from that of a realist.

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Actually, you would be in a movie, and the sinister background music would confirm that suspicion. Run! And it would be the devil having infiltrated that movie, and pretending to be God. Run! Just Run!



Actually (I mean it this time.), it reminds me a bit of a thread I'd posted on Job:Job Questions....God Answers

Job Questions....God Answers
Edited by - potonwheel on 02/02/2002 10:26:13 AM

From Paul Evdokimov's "Women and the Salvation of the World", St.Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1994

(p.200-201))

After this exposition of a few aspect of Jung's thoughts, we should examine very carefully his recent study, "Antwort aur Hiob" (1952), "Answer to Job. It presents a very personal, very original analysis of the biblical theme of Job. Jung sees in it three great dramatic acts. He takes as his guiding principle the thesis of Soren Kierkegaard that the pious man is not one who acknowledges his guilt before God, but one who, like Job, fights for God against God. What this means is that the man discovers in his awareness an inner contradiction that incites him to transcend it; if he does not, his life becomes an unbearable disharmony. Everything Jung says refers not to God himself, but to the religious experience of man, his reactions, the projection of God in his soul.

The life and death question for Job is his basic conviction that he will find in God a defender against Yahweh, a witness who lives for him. There is, on the one hand, "What reply can I give to thee, I who carry no weight? I put my finger to my lips" (Job 4:4), and on the other, "But in my heart I know that my vindicator lives, and that he will rise last to speak in court (19:25). In Act One, his advocate made a contract that governs fidelity on both sides. But "Yahweh, quite without reason, had let himself be influenced by one of his sons, by doubting thought, personified in Satan. An amazing bet is made on the back of a poor, powerless creature, Job. Yahweh strangely insists on his omnipotence. A rapid movie, with the fearsome Leviathan in the lead role, plays before Job's frightened eyes. In it, he discovers Yahweh's inhuman dimension: "His heart is firm as a rock" (41:24)/ Job is laid low, and yet he hears: "I will ask questions, and you shall answer. Tell me: (38:3). Job is elevated to the exalted rank of Yahweh's interrogator. But the profile shadow of Satan, the doubter, is projected against the background of the scene; and the amazing wager leads Jung to believe that the doubter's doubt is contaminating even Yahweh's own fidelity.

(Good stuff.........it takes off from there........)

(p.207)

Over the centuries, the "friends" of Job have polished and honed their concepts until they possess an amazing perfection of logical clarity. "In their system...widespread everywhere today, God is not killed; He is assimilated." (Lubac, 1954) Cartesianism makes of God a downright mathematical and perfect machine of divine perfection; what is absent from this view is the "suffering God" (panthon theos) of St. Gregory of Nazianzus. In such "organized reality," the Gospel paradox, with its explosive truth, is conjured away. But the entire miracle of the [iTheotokos lies in the synergy by which God-with -humans, the God-Man, is himself in labor to give birth. He passes through the pains of His own birth. "The Lamb slain since the beginning of the world" is the human image of the eternal divine birth in love. God, himself lies on Job's pallet to bring Job His answer ("The Son of man has nowhere to lie his head," Lk 9:58). God experiences in Himself what Yahweh had inflicted upon his servant Job. Here is the cry of abandonment of the divine job: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Ps 22:1). The true greatness and sovereignty of God lies in the transcendence of His own transcendence. "I am as great as God; He is as little as I am," Angelius Silesius says. While Christ is God-Man, and while in him there is "neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female" (Gal 3:28), the Virgin is entirely human. As the predestined manifestation of God's Wisdom, Sophia, she is "the Gate of Paradise," she is Jacob's ladder extended, she changes heaven and earth. She gives birth to the divine form on earth, and to the human form in heaven (this is the very specific meaning of the liturgical expression, "Queen of heaven and earth"). Carl Jung had an astounding intuition when he said that the event of the Assumption contains all the elements of the answer to Job. The key to the story of Job lies in the remembrance of Sophia. The overwhelming revelation of the humanization of Yahweh is possible only within the heart of the Trinity. Sophia prompts Yahweh to reveal himself as Trinity. This revelation, by means of the Incarnation, is articulated in Mariology, which alone clarifies and specifies the deepest foundations of Christology. In Dante, the Theotokos is "termino fisso d'etterno conciglio," of the eternal design, the Cornerstone (Paradiso 33:3).

Edited by - PotOnWheel on 03/17/2002 2:24:02 PM