UBB.classicTM 6.5.0
quote:Mark 12:29-30
“The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
quote:That of course raises the question whether or not the rather ordinary English words have the precise nuance of the original Hebrew words.
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
However, that doesn't get around the primary problem you have identified, which is how is it possible to love to order? How can that be genuine love? I suspect the circle can only be squared by coming up with rather novel interpretations of rather ordinary English words.
quote:Loving God and loving our neighbors are supposed to be the ends of human life. In commanding us to love him, God is not issuing an arbitrary decree, but calling us to order ourselves to our proper ends.
The problem I have with this is that you cannot command 'love' and genuine heartfelt commitment. You can command fear and obedience, but absolute committed love?
quote:They're actually the Ten Expectations. They're not written in the imperative but in the future indicative.
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
If the Ten Commandments are merely Ten Commendations ("I do suggest that you ought to consider whether it's really a good idea to covert your neighbour's ass.") it tends to pull out the rug from under centuries of fire and brimstone sermons.
quote:But the problem concerns the idea of "God respecting our freedom". We are to love freely, from the heart, but how is this possible if the failure to do this results in a fate that is incomprehensibly horrific? Surely many people turn to God out of sheer fear, and try to effect some kind of 'love' for Him in order to avoid hell. In other words, they have failed to keep the first commandment, even though they desperately want to avoid going to hell (and who can blame them?). This is surely the very antithesis of freedom. If they were truly free, they would be honest in their attitude towards God, but then they would be punished for being honest!
Originally posted by Zach82
Loving God and loving our neighbors are supposed to be the ends of human life. In commanding us to love him, God is not issuing an arbitrary decree, but calling us to order ourselves to our proper ends.
quote:Mistakenly, perhaps. If it is intentionally doing nasty things, then it isn't love.
Originally posted by Penny S:
There is a problem if love is an action without the feeling behind it - like obedience, it could be masking very unlovely things.
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
There's only a problem with the first commandment if love is an emotion. Obviously you can't command emotion. But if love is actually a habitual way of action, then there is no problem.
quote:
“The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall go through the motions with the Lord your God with adequate diligence’
quote:I went to an amusent park with a close friend. He fully participated in everything, but gave little emotional feedback. I had thought he had a less than stellar experience. It lessened my experience as I felt a lack of connection. I learned years later from his wife that he rated it as one of the best such experiences he'd had. So, no, the motions are not enough.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Emotions are often of no practical use to the person being "emoted at". Your feeling of warm fuzziness may be of less importance to your child than the knowledge to them that they can rely on you to clothe, feed, and nurture them.
quote:
The Perfection of Love of God That is Necessary to Salvation
In another way we love God with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, if nothing in us is lacking to divine love, if there is nothing which we do not, actually or habitually, refer to God. And a precept is given concerning this divine love.
First, man should refer all things to God as his end, as the Apostle says: "Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Cor 10:31). One fulfills this when one orders his life to God's service, and thus all the things that he does for himself, he virtually orders to God, unless they are things that lead away from God, such as sins: thus man loves God with his whole heart.
Secondly, man should subject his intellect to God, believing those things that are divinely revealed, according to the Apostle: "taking understanding captivity, unto the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor 10:5). Thus man loves God with his whole mind.
Thirdly, all the things a man loves, he should love in God, and universally refer all his affection to the love of God; hence the Apostle says "whether we be transported in mind it is to God, or whether we be sober, it is for you; for the charity of Christ presses us" (2 Cor. v. 13). Thus man loves God with his whole soul.
Fourthly, man should derive all his external works, words and deeds from divine love, according to the Apostle: "Let all your things be done in love" (1 Cor 16:14), and thus a man loves God with all his strength.
This is, then, the third mode of perfect divine love, to which all are bound by the necessity of precept. But the second mode [The Perfection of Love of God That Belongs to Those Who Enjoy Beatitude] is not possible to anyone in this life, unless he is at the same time a wayfarer and an enjoyer of beatitude, as was our Lord Jesus Christ.
quote:I think Adeodatus has hit on what this is actually about. It's a mistake to regard love, as in love of God and neighbour, as an emotion. It's a will to good and a call to action. If I love my neighbour, I can never harm him or her, and would will all good for him at all times. This doesn't mean that I have to like him. It isn't human nature for us to like all people equally. But Christian love requires us to treat all people with equal dignity and care. But we can't do it without bucketloads of divine grace. I think the same is true of forgiveness. It doesn't mean that we stop hurting from wrong which has been done to us. Just that we don't take it into account in our dealings with the forgiven. Thus divine love is restored.
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
There's only a problem with the first commandment if love is an emotion. Obviously you can't command emotion. But if love is actually a habitual way of action, then there is no problem.
quote:I agree with Gwai that prayer and devotion can be acts we perform Godwardn in part to show our love. But in Jesus command, "if you love me, keep my commandments," and His revelation that His comand is "love one another as I have loved you," he is telling us that it's mainly through love of neighbour that we show our love for God. That's why the two commandments, which don't appear together in the OT, are linked by Jesus. They're inseperable.
Originally posted by Martin PC not...:
Brilliant, no problem. ... Apart from how does one love God apart from loving neighbour? What habitual way of action can be taken toward God apart from that?
quote:What, like God does?
Originally posted by Gwai:
Seems hard to claim to love someone you never bother to try to communicate with at all.
quote:The Israelites were invited by God into covenant relationship. They accepted as a community, and were bound by its terms in community. Through Jesus individuals of every are and creed are invited into loving relationship. If we accept, then by our free will we accept the terms, with no coercion. There would be no point in paying lip service to worship, as if God wouldn't know!
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But nothing in the discussion so far answers the question as to how we can love God freely if the alternative is so horrific. Unless, of course, we abolish hell, which admittedly takes some doing, biblically speaking.
quote:I think God does try to communicate. Sometimes we occasionally even notice and understand. To be fair, I don't think most of us spend very long listening for God. I'm not Charismatic, but I do think we hear from God more often than we think.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:What, like God does?
Originally posted by Gwai:
Seems hard to claim to love someone you never bother to try to communicate with at all.
quote:So presumably, if there is no coercion, then if we do not accept the terms, we will not face any negative consequences?
Originally posted by Raptor Eye
If we accept, then by our free will we accept the terms, with no coercion.
quote:I was just using that as an example of the threat of torture, which isn't even really comparable to the horrors of hell, but falls far short of it.
Originally posted by Raptor Eye
Where have you got the idea from that your eyes would be gouged out?
quote:So one of the benefits of this 'love' relationship is simply that of "not being tortured"? That seems very strange to me. It does seem very much the case that this benefit is being offered by coercion, given that the threat of torture is generally reckoned to be a tool of coercion.
If a relationship that's offered includes benefits, but you don't want the relationship, would you still expect the benefits?
quote:Consider that God is hidden. Of course, once you do realise that God exists, and what God is and wants of you, then you are kind of coerced. Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and all that. But in a quite practical way, God only appears as a potential threat to you if you already have decided to believe that He is even around. Further, I think you will find that even if you sort of believe that God exists, you do not necessarily believe in Him in a way that will make you do X and avoid Y. You can believe in God quite the same way as you believe in the Andromeda galaxy, as a distant entity. And again, in some sense it is your own mind that must bring God closer. You must start to worry about whether God wants you to do X and avoid Y. And if you are there, then again you may find that there's also Z to consider in God. But just knowing Z will not do it for you, you need to realise Z in God for yourself. Etc.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So presumably, if there is no coercion, then if we do not accept the terms, we will not face any negative consequences?
After all, if someone asked me very politely and graciously to love him, but added that if I didn't he would gouge my eyes out, could I really say that my response to that invitation would be genuinely free?
quote:You imagine a hell in which someone is physically tortured. Where do you get this idea from? Why do you believe it?
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I was just using that as an example of the threat of torture, which isn't even really comparable to the horrors of hell, but falls far short of it.
quote:I don't and haven't associated God with torture, you have. The benefits of a loving relationship with God are many and various, but they include the hope of the gift of eternal life with God. Would you hope for that gift, if you didn't want relationship with God?
So one of the benefits of this 'love' relationship is simply that of "not being tortured"? That seems very strange to me. It does seem very much the case that this benefit is being offered by coercion, given that the threat of torture is generally reckoned to be a tool of coercion.
quote:Damn straight it was the great guitar!
Originally posted by Gwai:
For instance, if you go to church stressed and go home feeling much more on top of things, maybe it was just the great guitar, but are you sure that's all it is? I don't know.
quote:He does. It's called the Bible.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But seriously, I'm not the first person to say that if God wants us to be in a relationship with Him, it wouldn't kill Him to pick up the phone once in a while.
quote:Can you imagine a father who never actually talks to his child, but who wrote a book before the child was born full of his thoughts, laws and sentiments, and the only way the child can 'engage' with his father is to read that book?
Originally posted by daronmedway
quote:He does. It's called the Bible.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But seriously, I'm not the first person to say that if God wants us to be in a relationship with Him, it wouldn't kill Him to pick up the phone once in a while.
quote:The gallery mistress knows all, see.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:Damn straight it was the great guitar!
Originally posted by Gwai:
For instance, if you go to church stressed and go home feeling much more on top of things, maybe it was just the great guitar, but are you sure that's all it is? I don't know.
Marvin
Church guitarist
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
quote:Yes - like it is so crystal clear - not
Originally posted by daronmedway:
quote:He does. It's called the Bible.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But seriously, I'm not the first person to say that if God wants us to be in a relationship with Him, it wouldn't kill Him to pick up the phone once in a while.
quote:The message, present in Christianity from the very beginning, of "turn or burn," belies this absurd claim. When the possibility of the existence of God is wrapped up in a hermetically-sealed package with the threat of eternal torment, you (generic "you") are asking, begging, expecting, and DEMANDING that people feel threatened. You are leading with threat; you are using the threat to impel the belief. It's not "first you got the belief, then sometime later you get the threat." Christian evangelism has from Day One been in the form of a club with the words "Believe in God" in large friendly letters on the business end.
Originally posted by IngoB:
But in a quite practical way, God only appears as a potential threat to you if you already have decided to believe that He is even around.
quote:It's not obvious from the book of Acts that, 'You're all going to Hell; teeth will be provided,' was the major theme of Paul's preaching.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Christian evangelism has from Day One been in the form of a club with the words "Believe in God" in large friendly letters on the business end.
quote:Uhh, no? If one doesn't believe in the existence of the Christian God, then obviously "turn or burn" is a meaningless threat. As I've said in the preceding sentence which you did not choose to quote - once one does believe in God, one indeed starts with a fear of God (and certain evangelism strategies may well emphasize that). However, as the post went on, this fear is often skin deep and ... Well, I tell you what, why don't you just read my previous post if you are interested?
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:The message, present in Christianity from the very beginning, of "turn or burn," belies this absurd claim.
Originally posted by IngoB:
But in a quite practical way, God only appears as a potential threat to you if you already have decided to believe that He is even around.
quote:Tell you what. I did. And one doesn't need to quote the whole of someone's post to respond to it. That's stupid. And I explained how the people who use this threat mean it to be meaningful. Which you didn't address. So thanks for playing. Sorry, thanks for NOT playing because you didn't engage with me at all.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Uhh, no? If one doesn't believe in the existence of the Christian God, then obviously "turn or burn" is a meaningless threat. As I've said in the preceding sentence which you did not choose to quote - once one does believe in God, one indeed starts with a fear of God (and certain evangelism strategies may well emphasize that). However, as the post went on, this fear is often skin deep and ... Well, I tell you what, why don't you just read my previous post if you are interested?
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:The message, present in Christianity from the very beginning, of "turn or burn," belies this absurd claim.
Originally posted by IngoB:
But in a quite practical way, God only appears as a potential threat to you if you already have decided to believe that He is even around.
quote:I think that, in a weak sense, we are coerced to accept and receive the love of God. I say in a 'weak' sense, because it is possible wilfully to reject that love and thereby be damned (however we may understand damnation, which is clearly not a pleasant fate). 'Strong' coercion would be for God to make us love him such that we could not possibly reject that love (the programming of automatons).
Originally posted by Zach82
You know, I am not sure that love demands a free choice. I don't think I ever freely chose to love my mother, and I can't say that I am freely choosing to continue loving her. I love her because she's my mom, and she's nice and makes S.O.S. I love her because of things completely out of my control. It's the same with my wife. I didn't make her beautiful or gentle, or able to withstand my sarcasm or constant feelings of dread, but those things compel me to love her.
On the other hand, I doesn't seem to me that one cannot have free choice just because the wrong choice comes with threat of punishment. In fact, I would say refusing to grant people the consequences of the choices they make is to deprive them of agency.
quote:I don't think it is. Nourishment is not called "love" with all that attaches to that word.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Now if this is a fair analogy of the love of God (and it seems to me that it is, in the context of this discussion),
quote:But the aftermath of not loving God is presented not as a natural consequence but as a punishment, which seems to me to move it out of the "weak" category pretty decisively.
But the refusal to receive the love of God does have extreme and terrible consequences. Therefore, its rejection can be likened to the rejection of one of the necessities of life, such as food. A necessity of life is imposed on us by means of weak coercion.
quote:I was just using the analogy of food to illustrate the idea of something as a necessity, the refusal of which has dire consequences.
Originally posted by mousethief
quote:I don't think it is. Nourishment is not called "love" with all that attaches to that word.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Now if this is a fair analogy of the love of God (and it seems to me that it is, in the context of this discussion),
quote:Well, we can argue about the difference between consequence and punishment, but I was using the term 'weak coercion' to mean something that we have the ability to reject, but the rejection of which results in horrific consequences / punishment. 'Strong coercion' was used to denote the programming of an automaton, in other words, the total denial of free will.
But the aftermath of not loving God is presented not as a natural consequence but as a punishment, which seems to me to move it out of the "weak" category pretty decisively.
quote:Then your distinction is not the only, and possibly not the more important, distinction that should be made.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Well, we can argue about the difference between consequence and punishment, but I was using the term 'weak coercion' to mean something that we have the ability to reject, but the rejection of which results in horrific consequences / punishment. 'Strong coercion' was used to denote the programming of an automaton, in other words, the total denial of free will.
quote:I don't believe that's the sole consistent line of all Christian theologians, even all traditional Christian theologians. C.S.Lewis' Great Divorce, for instance, doesn't depict Hell as a punishment inflicted by God. While there is always use of language of punishment, there's quite a lot of theology that makes use of natural consequence language as well. My impression is that Eastern Orthodox theology uses both; as does Dante. Aquinas tends towards natural consequence language too.
Originally posted by mousethief:
But the aftermath of not loving God is presented not as a natural consequence but as a punishment, which seems to me to move it out of the "weak" category pretty decisively.
quote:But the analogy does not hold, and for the reason I've pointed out above. God is hidden in this world, and the the coercion that you perceive (no matter how weak or strong) is already a function of your faith in God. Food, and your need for food, is not hidden at all in this world. If you are in any doubt about it, stop eating, and it will become undeniably present to you within a day or two. The same cannot be said about God. People can go through their entire lives without engaging at all with God. We can talk about how there seems to be a "spiritual longing" that tends to make most people seek some kind of "beyond the ordinary" satisfaction. Yet that is in the end just that. People can and do fulfil this longing in all sorts of ways, from simply ignoring it to putting a crystal pyramid next to their pillow to becoming a Buddhist. And again, even you who believe in God and may feel coerced to do this and that, are just one step away from not being coerced at all. Stop believing in God, or at least in the God who coerces you, and this coercion just pops out of existence like a soap bubble. All this is as solid as you would make it, it has no intrinsic strength at all. God is hidden, and any coercion accrues from you trying to find him. Of course, in times past there was strong social coercion to follow particular religious expressions. But that is largely gone now, and even when it was present it could do no more than producing the social following of norms. Anything beyond that was also then up to the individual, at least in principle. (In practice people are creatures of habit.)
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
A good way of illustrating this is to consider food. We all need to eat, and if we don't eat the consequences will become increasingly serious. Therefore we are compelled to eat according to 'weak' coercion. We certainly have the option of going on hunger strike, thereby submitting to self-torture, but this is generally not an attractive option. But if we recoil from the idea of such long-term fasting, and therefore feel compelled to eat, we still happily choose to eat, and usually with a positive appetite. We can also choose what kind of foods to eat. Now if this is a fair analogy of the love of God (and it seems to me that it is, in the context of this discussion), then we need to reject any notion of the love of God as something objectively presented as an option, which we can 'choose' in the same way we would choose a pair of shoes, a new car (if we had the money) or a holiday destination.
quote:I can see your point, but I find it problematic. God is hidden from "the natural man", because the carnal mind (as the Apostle Paul refers to it) cannot grasp spiritual things. But then how could man in his natural state possibly find this hidden God? The only way would be for God to reveal Himself to him in some way and convict him, thus countering the effect of his natural mind. Any choice would be a response to God's initiative. This is how the grace of God works. God takes the lead and man ought to respond.
Originally posted by IngoB
quote:But the analogy does not hold, and for the reason I've pointed out above. God is hidden in this world, and the the coercion that you perceive (no matter how weak or strong) is already a function of your faith in God. Food, and your need for food, is not hidden at all in this world. If you are in any doubt about it, stop eating, and it will become undeniably present to you within a day or two. The same cannot be said about God. People can go through their entire lives without engaging at all with God. We can talk about how there seems to be a "spiritual longing" that tends to make most people seek some kind of "beyond the ordinary" satisfaction. Yet that is in the end just that. People can and do fulfil this longing in all sorts of ways, from simply ignoring it to putting a crystal pyramid next to their pillow to becoming a Buddhist. And again, even you who believe in God and may feel coerced to do this and that, are just one step away from not being coerced at all. Stop believing in God, or at least in the God who coerces you, and this coercion just pops out of existence like a soap bubble.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
A good way of illustrating this is to consider food. We all need to eat, and if we don't eat the consequences will become increasingly serious. Therefore we are compelled to eat according to 'weak' coercion. ...
quote:If the hidden God condemns someone who has, for whatever reason, failed to choose to seek Him and thus realise His reality, and who felt no spiritual conviction as to the reality of God, or at least, the error of his ways, then it could be argued that this God is deceitful. God would not be respecting that person's freedom, since that person had no freedom, not feeling the slightest necessity to seek God or believe in Him. Thus the fate of hell would be imposed unjustly. A punishment that is imposed about which the condemned knew nothing - and about which he could not reasonably be expected to know anything (and he could not have known that the errors he committed were even wrong) - is a punishment imposed unjustly. His moral responsibility is upheld when he is apprised of the law and its just consequences. And if the consequences are severe enough, then one could argue that he is being (weakly) coerced into obeying the law (after all, how many people obey the law of the land willingly, rather than grudgingly?). He may happily and joyfully obey the law, but one could hardly say that it is an obedience arising from a completely free choice, in the sense that one would choose one meal rather than another off a restaurant menu (in which the choice of any does not entail negative consequences, but is merely a matter of taste, unlike the choice between a wholesame meal and a plate of human waste).
So again I ask you, where is the coercion? If I decide tomorrow that the Christian God is bunk and never again pay the slightest heed to anything Christian, who will coerce me how? If you say that God may throw me into hell for that, then you are invoking something that I have decided to be bunk. How can that bind me? And yes, if this is then reality it will catch up with me. But after my death. In this world, the reality of God requires realisation. And since I am the one doing the realising, there can never be any coercion here but self-coercion. Again, there can be religiously motivated social coercion, but that's really a different matter. Because the people that would coerce me so, be it my neighbours or the Holy Inquisition, are very much not hidden. God however is hidden and a hidden entity cannot coerce you other than through your choice to seek it out.
quote:I remember that as I began the descent into post-natal depression after the birth of my son 7 years ago, I asked my own mother *why* the baby loved me.
Originally posted by Zach82:
You know, I am not sure that love demands a free choice. I don't think I ever freely chose to love my mother, and I can't say that I am freely choosing to continue loving her. I love her because she's my mom, and she's nice and makes S.O.S.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
quote:Well, I believe that that is what I have been trying to say. God takes the initiative by His grace, and this grace is something in which "we live and move and have our being" - in other words, it's the prime necessity of life. We can, however, choose to resist this grace, but that choice is rather different from the idea that it's down to us to take the initiative to search out the 'hidden God' (or to respond, by means of fake freedom, to "turn or burn", as if God's grace can be objectified like a marketed product in this way).
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
But grace is always there. And not so much our own working to discover God or to find "salvation", but rather the persistent reaching out of the Trinity to us: the God in whom we live and move and have our being.
quote:But it is still all bullshit then, yeah? In the context of the Christian God, to create said situation is coercion, is punishment. The most hideous example of Hobson's choice ever devised.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Like the utility of food, or the love of one's parents, God's love is a necessity of life, which comes to all of us in different ways, and, in a sense, it is 'forced' on us. Because to reject such a necessity (in fact, the greatest necessity of all) is to be damned.
quote:No, it's not bullshit. The "turn or burn" message is bullshit, because that is based on the idea of "damnation by default". It assumes that everyone who is not a 'proper' professing Christian lives in a natural state of reprobation, and from this position needs to "freely and joyfully choose" the grace of God in Jesus Christ, failure to do so resulting in being slung into the pit of burning sulphur for all eternity. Now that clearly is coercion and a travesty of the idea of "free choice".
Originally posted by lilBuddha
quote:But it is still all bullshit then, yeah? In the context of the Christian God, to create said situation is coercion, is punishment. The most hideous example of Hobson's choice ever devised.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Like the utility of food, or the love of one's parents, God's love is a necessity of life, which comes to all of us in different ways, and, in a sense, it is 'forced' on us. Because to reject such a necessity (in fact, the greatest necessity of all) is to be damned.
quote:This is where double predestination is so handy! God doesn't love the ones who end up suffering; they were created to suffer and sucks to be them.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
It would be Hobson's fault if he created the situation.
You are standing on a crumbling precipice above a pit of molten lava and God kindly extends his hand to bring you in to his loving embrace if you but choose to take it.
This would be wonderful if God had not created the lava, precipice and placed you on its edge.*
In this scenario, the Christian God is as needy, cruel and sadistic as any god ever worshiped by the Romans.
Why would a "loving" god create a situation in which those he loves could end up suffering?
quote:Sure, God reveals Himself through grace (though also actually through the natural moral law). But precisely not in a coercive manner. It's not like Richard Dawkins gets visited by Archangel Gabriel, who slaps him around the room a bit until Dawkins sees the errors of his ways. There will be sufficient grace, sufficient "revealing of God" if you wish, provided also to Dawkins. He could see the errors of his ways. But it is just a possibility, and in the end a matter of choice and faith. God is not in Dawkins' face, God remains hidden enough in the sense of regular human evidence even in any revealing grace given. It is really the case that Dawkins must want to be coerced by God, before he will be coerced by God. It's not like the floor of his bedroom falls out in a Divine vision, revealing the fires of hell underneath his feet. Indeed, powerful visions like that are just given to those who do not need them themselves. Somebody well advanced on the way to sainthood may see that sort of thing, and then tell Dawkins about it. That would be a revealing grace given to Dawkins (from God through that saint), but it is obviously something that Dawkins can easily choose to ignore. And this seems to me to be the general rule.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But then how could man in his natural state possibly find this hidden God? The only way would be for God to reveal Himself to him in some way and convict him, thus countering the effect of his natural mind. Any choice would be a response to God's initiative. This is how the grace of God works. God takes the lead and man ought to respond.
quote:I think that's a simple fact. Of course, if you count every single occasion of grace or the mildest spiritual experience as "engaging with God", then indeed probably every human being has some moments. Everybody has gazed at a sunset in awe, or something like that. But I'm talking about an actual conscious and intentional engagement, some effort to really "make contact" with something higher (not necessarily the Christian God). I have little doubt that plenty of people never do anything like that in their lives, including properly a fair number of people officially registered with some religion.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I dispute the claim that people go through their entire lives without engaging at all with God.
quote:I never said that it is. But I think you are way overdoing the "push" of God in all this. From the very beginning, see Adam and Eve, man is given space with God being as "away" as God can be to make his own decisions. We really do have a choice, Pascal's wager is an intellectual game not a visceral reality.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I don't accept that the love of God is optional for anyone.
quote:Bollocks. As someone who grew up in an agnostic / atheist household, I can honestly tell you that talk about hell was something I considered mildly ridiculous, and mostly an embarrassment to the person talking in that way (and probably telling us something nasty about their character). There was zero impact of that sort of thing, or if there was impact, then only the usual social evasion one performs when meeting unpleasant characters. Of course I had a conscience back then, but I did not see it in any way as connected to God, much less to some conception of heaven and hell. Morals were a simple self-justifying thing: one does good because it is good to be a good person. Yes, I can poke philosophical hole in that myself now. That's not the point. I'm telling you that this sort of hell stuff was sliding off like oil on teflon while I had no faith.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
It may superficially be true that someone who does not believe in God (for whatever reason), may not feel any coercion to make a decision for God, but that is to ignore the role of conscience.
quote:God is hidden, but not hidden in that way. God is not entirely absent. Richard Dawkins knows full well what people say about God. He just doesn't believe it. If God would write in fiery letters into the sky over Oxford "Dawkins, you fool, I'm right here." and the transported him into the air and held him there levitating until the message had sunk in, then God would not be hidden in the sense that I mean. God would rapidly become an undeniable fact. Everybody would know that God is there, and what He wants, because He would be in their faces. But it is not like that. Evidence for God is usually finely balanced. Most of the time there is plausible deniability. (I don't think that it is "plausible" in a rational sense, ultimately, but it is certainly plausible in terms of the typical state of mind of most people.) There's nothing in the world that normally screams 'God' at you. Sure, there may be people that scream 'God' at you. But we all know that people scream all sorts of things, why should this be any different?
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If the hidden God condemns someone who has, for whatever reason, failed to choose to seek Him and thus realise His reality, and who felt no spiritual conviction as to the reality of God, or at least, the error of his ways, then it could be argued that this God is deceitful. God would not be respecting that person's freedom, since that person had no freedom, not feeling the slightest necessity to seek God or believe in Him. Thus the fate of hell would be imposed unjustly. A punishment that is imposed about which the condemned knew nothing - and about which he could not reasonably be expected to know anything (and he could not have known that the errors he committed were even wrong) - is a punishment imposed unjustly.
quote:The alleged freedom is created by the withholding of information. In fact, according to this argument, some measure of doubt and unbelief is a necessary condition for the operation of freedom. I say this, because if everyone was acutely conscious that if they resisted God's demands, they would be burnt alive forever, then freedom would be abrogated. If a criminal puts a gun to my head and demands my money "or I'll shoot", am I really truly free to say "no"? Pedantically speaking, I am still free to refuse his demand, but what sort of 'freedom' is this?
Originally posted by IngoB
On one hand, there is what you describe: an injustice by virtue of punishing what cannot reasonably be expected to have been known. On the other hand, there is Pascal's wager, an overpowering coercion by the threat of infinite punishment and the promise of infinite reward. God is hidden such that neither of them can take hold of most people. It is a fine balance, but God is neither an indisputable fact nor a complete unknown. He is a shadow, a hint, something in the air. You have to decide to get into that. It is in fact as free a choice as is possible. Amazingly free, really, given the circumstances.
quote:You can call it whatever you please. It is an undeniable fact that God is not currently present to us in an overwhelmingly compelling fashion. Indeed, God is not even present to most of us in a particularly accessible manner. This fact is fully acknowledged in the traditional Christian teaching that without God's grace one cannot come to full faith in God. It is consequently not an undeniable fact that we are going to be faced with heaven or hell after death, since that is a teaching of faith. But of course this is the traditional Christian teaching, and for the sake of our discussion here we are assuming this to be true in order to find out how much freedom it affords. Finally, it is a in my opinion a well established fact that people can feel essentially free to choose or nor choose their beliefs in God (or other "higher things"). I certainly did not feel constrained in doing so, when I did. If people feel compelled to make choices in religion, then in my opinion arguably only by social pressure from other people, not (usually) by any direct pressure from God. God may in grace make present such a choice, and provide inspiration for the correct option, but it is simply not the case that the right way to jump is thereby becoming obvious to all but the most heartless of morons. Experientially, it is more the case that faith becomes an option at all by Divine intervention (in spite of a lack of compelling evidence). Hence I maintain that my analysis is little more than a stringing together of facts that are undeniable, assumed as true for the sake of discussion, or easily established. You can then rage against such realities, since they do not fulfil some ill-conceived ideals of yours. But that's no skin off my nose, and I suspect God is not particular interested in your complaints either.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But suppose there is some kind of vague threat communicated to me, about which I am not completely certain, which demands my money "or else...". Because of the uncertainty, I decide to exercise my freedom to resist that demand and to hope that no adverse consequences will ensue. But in reality the threat is real, and some time after my refusal I end up being shot dead. I may have had a greater sense of freedom to resist the demand, but this experience was entirely illusory. To suggest that this hidden and doubtful threat is the method by which God allows us freedom, is to impute deceit to Him.
quote:You are now just making my argument for me. It is indeed near impossible for people to remain free in their choices if the eternal consequences of those choices are compelling present to them. And since love involves a choice, it is then near impossible to truly love God. One would have to love God in spite of being excessively forced to "love" God. However, you are simply speaking the untruth about the alternative, and knowingly so. For it is not at all the case that you just "do not know" about heaven and hell. You know lots and lots about heaven and hell, and about who claims what about it. You could probably write a little history and a sociological analysis about it off the top of your head. And it would be very easy for you indeed to close any remaining gaps in your understanding. Still, all this knowing does not come together into an undeniable case. It comes together into a meaningful choice. There's just enough there for you to reasonably worry about it, but not enough to decide the matter.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If everyone on the planet went through life acutely and entirely conscious that if they spurned God's advances, they would fall into a hideous pit of burning sulphur, and they could see this pit under their feet every moment - as if walking on a transparent surface - then who in their right mind would not comply? In reality, people would be 'mugged' into loving God. But then to argue that the choice is real and legitimate only because people don't know that this fate awaits them, is tantamount to saying that God's idea of true freedom is an illusory freedom, in which people are deliberately kept in a state of ignorance, unaware of the unspeakably serious peril they are in. What sort of sadistic trickster is this God?
quote:Except Jesus didn't say just that. Here's the actual John 8:31-32: Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." Note the condition, which determines what comes next. Just hearing the truth about heaven and hell does not make you free. You have to continue in that word you have heard, you have to make it your own, and then you will actually know the truth and become free because of it. The power of truth arises from making the active choice to pursue it. On its own, truth is largely impotent to change your life. Plenty of atheists know the bible, and some know it well. But that is not enough.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
How can true freedom only work within the framework of unbelief and ignorance? Jesus said: "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free". Here it is truth - knowledge, wisdom and understanding - which produces freedom. So how can the hiddenness of God produce freedom?
quote:That is true only if you define 'God' as "the conscious knowledge of God in the human mind". That, of course, is not a definition of God by any stretch of the imagination. God is certainly very present to us - otherwise nothing would exist or function at all - and it is also the case that this presence influences the way people live their lives, even those who may not have the benefit of a theological explanation for their experiences.
Originally posted by IngoB
It is an undeniable fact that God is not currently present to us in an overwhelmingly compelling fashion.
quote:You can, of course, only speak for yourself.
Indeed, God is not even present to most of us in a particularly accessible manner.
quote:Depends what we mean by 'faith', and I certainly would not like to limit the operation of God's grace to that which is carefully prescribed by a religious institution (with its control agenda - i.e. its need to know who are those who are consciously "with us").
This fact is fully acknowledged in the traditional Christian teaching that without God's grace one cannot come to full faith in God.
quote:Of course, people can 'feel' free. It's whether they actually are free which matters.
Finally, it is a in my opinion a well established fact that people can feel essentially free to choose or nor choose their beliefs in God (or other "higher things").
quote:I didn't realise I was 'raging'! As for God not being interested in my complaints, well, I rather think that is down to God - and not you - to make that known to me. You can assume the right to speak on behalf of God if you like, but I generally don't have much respect for those who resort to that rather tired device (also known as the religious cop-out).
You can then rage against such realities, since they do not fulfil some ill-conceived ideals of yours. But that's no skin off my nose, and I suspect God is not particular interested in your complaints either.
quote:Well, that seems to confirm my point that 'freedom' to love God is dependent on ignorance and illusion, because those who think they are making a free choice to decline this love do not realise that actually a terrifying fate awaits them, and if they had known about it, they would probably have not made that choice.
It is indeed near impossible for people to remain free in their choices if the eternal consequences of those choices are compelling present to them. And since love involves a choice, it is then near impossible to truly love God. One would have to love God in spite of being excessively forced to "love" God.
quote:I am not denying that we can seek to know more of God. It is obvious that God, to some extent, will always be hidden, because we cannot fully know God for obvious reasons. But this is not a soteriological issue. As a child I grew up getting to know more about my parents, but their love was there for me right from the beginning as a 'given'. And as a necessity! I never chose to love my parents at this fundamental level. Later in life I have been presented with the choice of continuing to love them - and especially at times when the relationship has been strained - but I have never been in the position where I started in a state of 'non-love' towards my parents and then I had to 'seek them out' on my own initiative to prove the point that my love for them was genuine and freely chosen.
In order to for us to actually walk the way to a life in truth, God must be hidden and discovered through our own (inspired) agency.
quote:Oh, don't connect me to such heretical ideas. Humankind is lost to sin. We do not love God, for no one who loves God could ever be as hateful and wicked as we humans tend to be. We have to come to love of God.
Actually your premise that "love involves a choice" is false anyway. Zach82 made that point well... The only 'choice' we have is to reject it, in the same way that someone may reject the necessity of food and go on hunger strike.
quote:It's anathema to the Christian faith. We live not because we love God, but because God loves us. Second, we have no way of knowing Him without the Holy Scriptures, which means obeying the "agenda of religion" which you find tedious.
I know this view is probably anathema to the RCC, because it implies that it is possible to know the love of God outside the control mechanisms of that religious institution. But I am not interested in the agenda of religion (which frankly is one of the most tedious things on the planet), but I am very interested in what actually makes logical sense.
quote:No, not even Christians can really know God in God's true nature. I would never mean that by "know God."
Rather, it is only that Christians know the nature of God through the scriptural presentation of His Incarnation in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. It is not, however, the case that only those who follow the institutional Christian religion may experience and know God in God's true nature.
quote:What a narrow view of the salvific work of God in Christ this conveys.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Oh yes, I do. "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?" Romans 10:14
You can't come to the conclusion "Jesus Christ has risen from the dead" by meditating under the Bodhi tree for 40 years.
quote:Oh, I am guilty of deifying some part of my experience too. I've "changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." Romans 1:25 Shouldn't we both repent of idolatry rather than dress it up in theological language?
Through the revelation of Jesus, Christians are able to have intellectual knowldge at least about what God is like and indeed that God's essential nature is love. Mystical experience and intuitive insight helps further-- apparently a great deal further, actually -- and it is this latter that is potentially available to all humans, in addition to the essential truths revealed in their own spiritual traditions.
quote:Narrower than you imagine- impossible for any human, actually. The eye of a needle and all that.
What a narrow view of the salvific work of God in Christ this conveys.
quote:I can't even imagine what you are on about-- it shouldn't be that much of a threat to you to say that God is known in Jesus Christ alone, through the preaching of the prophets of Israel and the apostles.
Surely you are no longer aiming for the priesthood of the Episcopal Church; I should think you'd feel quite uncomfortable there. Or is it just that you are playing here at being a Protestant IngoB, or perchance a daronmedway clone.
quote:That's great, now if only you would accept the conclusion "And therefore it's not up to having some mystical experience available to all humankind."
And as I have already said, it's all up to the grace of God.
quote:But since I was neither defining God nor discussing how God gives us being, I see little point in your reply. Human freedom is usually being considered in terms of the conscious workings of the human mind.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
That is true only if you define 'God' as "the conscious knowledge of God in the human mind". That, of course, is not a definition of God by any stretch of the imagination.
quote:No, I'm indeed claiming to speak for most people here. The number of people who say that God's presence in their life is a clear and loud voice in their heads telling them what is right and wrong is rather small. As is the number of people who have apparitions of the Divine, or are otherwise filled with constant visions of Divine truth. Are you perhaps one of these people? Well, most of us are more pedestrian in their approach to God and find that our communication with God through the means of prayer, worship, scripture reading etc. is more like looking through a rather dark mirror. The direct experience of God in mystical union is a rare event, whereas the experience of spiritual dryness is all too common. You should take serious the ubiquitous complaint that "God is not talking back", which you will have read on SoF many times in many different ways. That is an experience most of us can relate to.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:You can, of course, only speak for yourself.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Indeed, God is not even present to most of us in a particularly accessible manner.
quote:Interesting. Let's hear that clearly, please. You do believe that one come to some kind of faith in God without the help of God's grace? Please do explain what you mean by "faith" there. And I certainly do not believe that the operation of God's grace is limited to say the RCC either. But I do believe that orthodox teaching about the impossibility of faith without grace, as maintained among others by the RCC, is correct.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:Depends what we mean by 'faith', and I certainly would not like to limit the operation of God's grace to that which is carefully prescribed by a religious institution (with its control agenda - i.e. its need to know who are those who are consciously "with us").
Originally posted by IngoB:
This fact is fully acknowledged in the traditional Christian teaching that without God's grace one cannot come to full faith in God.
quote:It seems to me that a human of sound and clear mind who feels free to make a decision is free to make a decision. We assume that there is a real human capacity there and we cannot ultimately dismiss the opinion of the one exercising it. If someone puts a gun to my head, to use your earlier example, then I do not feel free to make my decision. Perhaps we can also make a case that if I am addicted to heroin, then my choice to shoot some more is not truly free even if my corrupted mind thinks so. But in general if I say that I felt free in deciding this or that, then this has to stand as true, for neither you nor indeed I can probe the subconscious depths of my mind to calculate some kind of objective "freedom score" for my decision.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Of course, people can 'feel' free. It's whether they actually are free which matters.
quote:I was giving you the benefit of doubt. If you meant to call God deceitful, a sadistic trickster, etc. in cold blood, then that is quite worrisome spiritually. And if you have been using this merely to gain the upper hand in a debate by emotional appeal, then that was piss-poor rhetoric. Whatever may be the case there, this is best avoided.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I didn't realise I was 'raging'!
quote:First, you continue to misrepresent the situation, it is not the case that people simply "do not know". But you just do not get the the key difficulty, do you? Neither complete ignorance nor complete knowledge would allow humans to operate in freedom here. If God wants to be freely chosen, freely loved, then He can neither be utterly absent from the conscious mind nor be the only conceivable choice. Of the following three, which one is a choice?
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Well, that seems to confirm my point that 'freedom' to love God is dependent on ignorance and illusion, because those who think they are making a free choice to decline this love do not realise that actually a terrifying fate awaits them, and if they had known about it, they would probably have not made that choice.
quote:Our loving of God may be the fundamental moral imperative, but it sure as hell is not a fundamental necessity of human life. Richard Dawkins conspicuously fails to drop dead due to his atheism. Indeed, there would be little for us to discuss here if religion was as uncontroversial as breathing, drinking, or eating.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
The idea that the love of God is not the absolute fundamental necessity of human life, but rather a kind of luxury or optional extra, that we have to 'choose', is really quite absurd.
quote:No, it is precisely not "all lies". Lies do not survive for long, half-truths do. Atheists are not simply insane, they do not ignore undeniable realities that are easily accessible to all. Their stance is quite defensible, given the way the world is. I think one can demonstrate that atheism is unreasonable, but some serious intellectual work is required for that. Give people, including atheists, agnostics, apathetics and indeed heretics, some credit. This is not "2+2=4" or "water is wet" territory.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
This is playing in to the hands of the atheists, who see God as an add-on - obviously an unnecessary add-on. They claim that everything can be explained adequately without reference to God, who is relegated to the status of a being in the same epistemic category as the invisible pink unicorn. This is all lies.
quote:"Love of God" can mean the love we have for God, which is Christ's First Great Commandment, and which is what we have been discussing. Or it can be the love that God has (for us). We have not been discussing the latter, and these two are not identical in meaning. Obviously God's love is necessary for all existence, including ours. But not all that God loves into existence loves Him back. And that's what we have been discussing here.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Without the love of God - which is the nature of God - nothing would exist and nothing would function at all.
quote:Nobody has claimed here that we have a choice about the love that God has for us. God's love is indeed just what it is. What we have been discussing is the part where some of us reject this love, i.e., do not love God back. In terms of your analogy, God does give us the freedom to go on a hunger strike. He does not force-feed us, we are not getting food rammed down our throats. This has the terrifying consequence that we can starve.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
We can no more 'choose' the love of God, than we can choose our own bodies or our own consciousness. The only 'choice' we have is to reject it, in the same way that someone may reject the necessity of food and go on hunger strike.
quote:And therefore it follows that the analogy does not hold. Or at least it does not hold necessarily. There may be some who gain their love of God smoothly in their upbringing, and who never were in a state of conscious 'non-love' of God. Maybe in the heydays of Christendom there were many like that. But that is not always the case now, and it clearly was not the case in the beginning of Christianity. Many people, probably now most people in the West, start in a position of 'non-love' towards God. I certainly did not love God in the first thirty years of my life. He barely registered, He had about the status that Morris dancing has for me now: a cultural curiosity that I had vaguely heard about, which apparently some people were into.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Later in life I have been presented with the choice of continuing to love them - and especially at times when the relationship has been strained - but I have never been in the position where I started in a state of 'non-love' towards my parents
quote:As it happens, I'm way more positive about mystical experience and indeed sitting under a Bodhi tree than Zach82 appears to be. But do carry on, I wouldn't want to disturb your small-minded prejudices about me any further...
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Or is it just that you are playing here at being a Protestant IngoB, or perchance a daronmedway clone.
quote:My mistake was to just put the link to your post rather than quote the relevant part from that post. I apologise for that. However you did write the following:
Originally posted by Zach82
quote:Oh, don't connect me to such heretical ideas. Humankind is lost to sin. We do not love God, for no one who loves God could ever be as hateful and wicked as we humans tend to be. We have to come to love of God.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
Actually your premise that "love involves a choice" is false anyway. Zach82 made that point well... The only 'choice' we have is to reject it, in the same way that someone may reject the necessity of food and go on hunger strike.
quote:I agree that you then went on to say...
You know, I am not sure that love demands a free choice. I don't think I ever freely chose to love my mother, and I can't say that I am freely choosing to continue loving her. I love her because she's my mom, and she's nice and makes S.O.S. I love her because of things completely out of my control. It's the same with my wife. I didn't make her beautiful or gentle, or able to withstand my sarcasm or constant feelings of dread, but those things compel me to love her.
quote:I have actually always affirmed that we have some kind of rudimentary choice to reject the love of God, with the terrifying consequences that that entails, hence my reference to "weak coercion". What I dispute is the idea that we have to seek out and positively choose the love of the hidden God. This is manifestly wrong, because it is God who takes the initiative by His grace; it is He who draws us to Himself; it is He who elects us. I cannot imagine that this constitutes heresy, and I could fire all the relevant verses at you, but I suspect you know them all anyway.
On the other hand, I doesn't seem to me that one cannot have free choice just because the wrong choice comes with threat of punishment. In fact, I would say refusing to grant people the consequences of the choices they make is to deprive them of agency.
quote:No, the ways of God are not at all tedious - quite the opposite. But religion - which seeks to control those ways through the imposition of human conditions, and which seems to take a perverse delight in excluding people who fail to tick all the right boxes - is certainly utterly tedious.
Second, we have no way of knowing Him without the Holy Scriptures, which means obeying the "agenda of religion" which you find tedious.
quote:You have two options.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
The problem I have with this is that you cannot command 'love' and genuine heartfelt commitment. You can command fear and obedience, but absolute committed love?
quote:What you say is orthodox enough, but you fail to understand the relevant levels of description here. While it is sound doctrine to claim that all good we do arises from God, and all bad we do is found in the rejection of God, this does not abolish the usual descriptions of human choice in religious matters. It is simply not the case that we are mere puppets who get to flip a binary "yes-no" switch on behavioural programming streamed Matrix-like into our brains by God. That's not how that works, as you should know from your own inner experience. Rather, it is your innate human capability of discernment plus inspiration by God to consider the truths of (Christian) faith that are the good of God's grace, and it is your potential failure to make the right choice which is the rejection of this good. You are an instrument of God's grace, but it is precisely part of the good that is human to be a self-directed, a free instrument of this grace. The grace of God is realised or rejected in human freedom, it is not imposed over and against human freedom. We are not "grace robots". Again, please refer back to Adam and Eve in Genesis. It is in its own way a very precise account of how human freedom and God's grace hang together.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
What I dispute is the idea that we have to seek out and positively choose the love of the hidden God. This is manifestly wrong, because it is God who takes the initiative by His grace; it is He who draws us to Himself; it is He who elects us. I cannot imagine that this constitutes heresy, and I could fire all the relevant verses at you, but I suspect you know them all anyway.
quote:Again you are equivocating painfully hard on "God's love". There is a difference between God loving us into being, and us loving God back. The former is fundamental to our existence, a sine qua non for anything we do at all. The latter is something we can do or fail to do, as is rather obviously demonstrated by Jewish scripture and Christ Himself by making it the fundamental Commandment for us. There is no need whatsoever to command what is the case anyway. This is commanded most stringently precisely because we are very good at not doing it. It is simply and strictly false to claim that humans necessarily love God. The evidence that they often do not is everywhere, and that is the reason for making it a moral imperative. And while I would agree that our relationship with God is not "romantic", even if it indeed is loving, there are clear parallels to romantic love in this relationship that justify the - eminently scriptural - analogy. That is so because of us humans, not because of God. Nevertheless, the Song of Songs for example is not included in the bible because some ancient marketing department decided that scripture needed to be sexed up to sell. The pursuit of romantic love does reflect much of the human interaction with God, on a poetic not literal level.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
We don't have a 'relationship' with God in the sense that we have when we enter into a romance with another human being. Romantic love may be deeply wonderful and horribly hurtful when it fails, but it is still nevertheless optional in the greater scheme of things. God's love can never be 'optional'. It's the most compulsory thing imaginable, because God is the basis for the whole of reality, and He does not have love, but actually is love.
quote:It is however too simplistic to only identify with the wounded man there. After all, Christ is telling this parable to motivate His listeners to imitate the Samaritan. As far as the actual "loving one's neighbour" goes, this parable contrasts the concerns with ritual purity with the concerns for basic needs of human beings, and is a lesson in how to imitate Christ (the Samaritan) properly. This parable is both a promise that Christ will come to tend to us in our need as we lie incapacitated in our sins, and a call to action for us to tend to others in their real needs as Christ-ians, Christ imitators. You cannot shorten it to only the former, and derive a stance of passivity from it.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Given that this parable is Jesus' answer to a question about "loving one's neighbour", and given that all love comes from God, and love for one's neighbour is a manifestation of the love of God, then it is not stretching the parable to reason that the actions of the Samaritan reveal something of the working of the love of God. This love was not at all dependent on anything the wounded man did or thought about. The Samaritan took the initiative, and I suppose later on, the wounded man could decide to be completely ungrateful for the love shown to him and despise the one who helped him.
quote:I like this; it's how I read it.
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
'With' is the important word, I think. It's telling us HOW to love God, rather than telling us to love God.
quote:How fascinating. Leaving aside the language of caricature and sarcasm (of which I, admittedly, am also frequently guilty), it's interesting how you define the presence of God. Who ever said that God's presence must be "a clear and loud voice in their heads telling them what is right and wrong"? Or that it must involve "apparitions of the Divine" or "constant visions of Divine truth"? Or "constantly guided Divine visions" and being "filled to the brim with God's voice explaining every detail" or "God dictating the truth"?
Originally posted by IngoB
No, I'm indeed claiming to speak for most people here. The number of people who say that God's presence in their life is a clear and loud voice in their heads telling them what is right and wrong is rather small. As is the number of people who have apparitions of the Divine, or are otherwise filled with constant visions of Divine truth. Are you perhaps one of these people? Well, most of us are more pedestrian in their approach to God and find that our communication with God through the means of prayer, worship, scripture reading etc. is more like looking through a rather dark mirror. The direct experience of God in mystical union is a rare event, whereas the experience of spiritual dryness is all too common. You should take serious the ubiquitous complaint that "God is not talking back", which you will have read on SoF many times in many different ways. That is an experience most of us can relate to.
And even if we were all like you, constantly guided Divine visions and filled to the brim with God's voice explaining every detail, the problem would still be that these graces are all happening in your head. God is not dictating the truth to you in a manner that I can witness easily. It's not like He's standing there in front of both of us, talking to both of us, allowing us to share this inspiration directly. No, in order to access this direct line that you have to God, I first need to believe that you are a modern day prophet. And I find that hard to believe. So while the angels may consult you as a font of Divine wisdom, I still struggle listening to God's wisdom even as it is dripping from your mouth.
quote:My comment about 'God' being deceitful and a sadistic trickster is neither an emotional appeal or the manifestation of spiritual degeneracy. I say this, because I was describing a certain mistaken view of God - a false God, masquerading as the true God. Of course, if I truly believe that God is deceitful and a trickster, then that would indeed be a serious act of rebellion. But it is precisely because I know that God is not like this, that I reject a view of God, whose implications drive me to that conclusion!
If you meant to call God deceitful, a sadistic trickster, etc. in cold blood, then that is quite worrisome spiritually. And if you have been using this merely to gain the upper hand in a debate by emotional appeal, then that was piss-poor rhetoric.
quote:Well, you have just affirmed that some measure of ignorance is a necessary condition for the operation of freedom. Does that mean that the more knowledgeable we become, the less free we become? This seems nonsensical to me. If a particular option necessarily leads to a horrific consequence, then that is an objective reality, and playing around with the subjective side of it (namely, our levels of knowledge of it) does not change the facts of the case. If an authority figure wants me to obey him, he can persuade me to do so by explaining clearly that if I do not obey him, I will suffer appalling consequences. I still have a kind of rudimentary freedom to disobey him, but I am nevertheless subject to some measure of coercion (what I term "weak coercion"). If this authority desires that I choose to obey him freely - in other words, I really really want to, as opposed to having to - then he must remove that element of coercion. But the only way he can do that is either to remove the destructive consequences of not obeying him, or to seem to remove them. Either they are removed objectively and subjectively or subjectively only. If the former, then the authority figure has rejected his own moral position, and if the latter, then he is creating an illusion by allowing a feeling of freedom to be fabricated through the deliberate withholding of vital information. But this feeling of freedom is a delusion, because it gives the impression that I am not being coerced into obeying him, which implies that there are no serious consequences to that course of action, whereas in fact, there are very serious consequences to rebellion. Neither of these are worthy of the God of all righteousness.
First, you continue to misrepresent the situation, it is not the case that people simply "do not know". But you just do not get the the key difficulty, do you? Neither complete ignorance nor complete knowledge would allow humans to operate in freedom here. If God wants to be freely chosen, freely loved, then He can neither be utterly absent from the conscious mind nor be the only conceivable choice. Of the following three, which one is a choice?
" "
"A or B?"
"A."
God needs to find the middle path there, or there is no freedom of choice. It is not faith in God if I feel the heat of hell fire on my face and run the other way. It is however a beginning of faith in God if in the absence of any change to room temperature I believe that I may burn in hell for my sins and should turn away from them.
quote:I've been a Christian for 33 years and have never had "an awareness of His presence," whatever exactly that means. I would submit that if you have such an awareness, you are projecting it onto all Christians without warrant.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
The Holy Spirit renews the mind of the believer; He gives him peace, joy, confidence and an awareness of His presence of love and holiness.
quote:Actually, I was simply being sarcastic about God being particularly accessible to you. Since that was what we were talking about...
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
There seem to be certain assumptions here about the way God manifests Himself, and the emphasis seems to be on the cerebral, which aids personal guidance obviating the need for the believer to think for himself, and also mystical visions.
quote:I don't know how to have a conversation with you while you adamantly deny the most plain realities. The reality of heaven and hell is not present to the majority of people in a compelling and commanding manner. That's a simple and brute fact of life. Could God make this reality present to most, indeed all, people in a compelling and commanding manner? Certainly, but He doesn't. Thus either there is no heaven and hell, or God is in your estimation some horrible trickster. Either way, you are wrong.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
It is because God is just and utterly righteous and upright in all His ways, that He does not play tricks on people, by hiding the terrifying consequences of a supposedly free choice.
quote:It appears that you think that freedom consists in having one option that is 100% positive, and another that is 100% negative, so that one will without fail choose the positive one. But the freedom in question here is not freedom from all possibility of error. One can be free and wrong.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If people are to make a genuinely free choice, then they need to understand the consequences of their decision.
quote:Well, then you will just have to adjust the way you look at things. Because it is simply undeniable that God remains fairly hidden, and that the execution of His judgement is near impenetrably hidden from us behind death. God does in fact require of you to make decisions in absence of perfect information, He forces you to have faith and operate on it, if you wish to be saved.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If God facilitates the freedom of the choice by remaining hidden, and by keeping the execution of His judgment hidden, then He is granting the feeling of freedom on the basis of a wilful illusion. That doesn't look to me like the actions of a God of truth, integrity and righteousness.
quote:Rather, there is only so much truth you can handle in a particular mind state. As you become more God-like (or indeed anti-God-like), you can deal with less filter. Again, this is not rocket science. If God faced you right here and now with the full reality of heaven and hell, it would be obvious what you would choose. But that's just your fears and desires short-circuiting your decision making. That "choice" reveals next to nothing about whether you want to draw near to God or remove yourself from him. But heaven and hell is about that, not about your visceral instincts for survival. Now imagine that you have perfect love, or indeed perfect hate, of God. Then revealing the full reality of heaven and hell does nothing to your state of mind, because basically you already have arrived in heaven or hell, respectively. Human beings in this world are in some state between the extremes of purely survival instinct and purely clear decision. So a limited revelation allows them to make a decision for or against God with their head and heart, rather than gut.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Well, you have just affirmed that some measure of ignorance is a necessary condition for the operation of freedom. Does that mean that the more knowledgeable we become, the less free we become? This seems nonsensical to me.
quote:Of course God requires loving obedience from us, nobody has doubted that. The question is however whether you are lovingly obeying God if you do His will merely to escape hell fire. And the answer is that no, you are not lovingly obeying God there much, it's more fearful obedience to hell fire then. God does not really want that sort of obedience, because it is not really about Him at all. And people cannot really develop the right kind of loving obedience if they are confronted from the start with the full reality of heaven and hell. Then fear and desire will just overrule all.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
God is not expecting to be loved and obeyed as a result of a completely free choice. The contradiction has been created by the false premise. God, as the absolute authority requires that we love and obey Him, whether we feel we want to or not. If this is not the case, then why did Jesus warn people about hell? Isn't this warning a form of coercion?
quote:I appreciate that you attempt to grab the orthodox high ground, too few people care about that these days. Still, the simple fact of the matter is that nothing in what I say contradicts the idea that all good is due to the grace of God. To repeat, we are not grace-bots. The grace of God operates in humans through their freedom, not against it.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
It is sheer hubris on the part of man to imagine that anyone can claim to be "sold out for God" and utterly and genuinely committed to Him on the basis of their own free choice. Everything we have is due to the grace of God. Even the desire to love Him comes from Him.
quote:This has nothing to do with what we have been discussing.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I remember a Pentecostal fellowship I was involved with for a number of years, and the leader often used to play mind games with us concerning the genuineness of our commitment to Christ.
quote:Rather, that is the perfect response to God's grace.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Of course, we respond to God's grace ... but this response is rather different from the idea that we freely seek out and choose God.
quote:To love and respect one's parents out of a sense of duty is a beginning, it is not the end, much less perfection. Indeed, perfect love and respect for one's parents is free of all considerations of duty, just as perfect love and worship of God is free of all aspects of fear. This is the case in spite of the fact that the ties of blood and upbringing and the reality of heaven and hell, respectively, remain entirely untouched. Rather, perfect love fulfills all obligations to one's parents and avoids all sins, respectively. Perfect love is in fact the only way of ever obeying the law, any good law, in letter and spirit. Because it does spontaneously what is demanded.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Our relationship with God is a parental one. I did not choose my human parents, and they expect me to love and respect them, as indeed I do - albeit imperfectly.
quote:I am only wrong if I accept your assumptions.
Originally posted by IngoB
I don't know how to have a conversation with you while you adamantly deny the most plain realities. The reality of heaven and hell is not present to the majority of people in a compelling and commanding manner. That's a simple and brute fact of life. Could God make this reality present to most, indeed all, people in a compelling and commanding manner? Certainly, but He doesn't. Thus either there is no heaven and hell, or God is in your estimation some horrible trickster. Either way, you are wrong.
quote:The only assumptions I've made there is that heaven and hell exist, and that God is omnipotent. If you wish to deny these, then you could avoid being wrong (logically speaking - since the assumptions are true, you are wrong, of course).
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I am only wrong if I accept your assumptions.
quote:The key problem here is that in your analogy heaven and hell become something outrageously unjust, namely the torture of political opponents. Whether heaven and hell are "just" has been endlessly debated on SoF, and I do not intend to get into that here. I simply take them as a given for the sake of argument here. But without the moral outrage borrowed from the mere existence of heaven and hell, your analogy starts to crumble. Now, the key problem is actually what heaven and hell are for. And they are precisely not just for some formal pledge of allegiance to God and the devil, respectively. Heaven is for those who love God, at least a little bit. Hell is for those who hate God, bitterly enough. You cannot make a "contract" for membership in either place, you cannot literally sign away your soul to the devil (as in some old stories). So now God has the ultimate millionaire's problem ("does she love me, or does she love my money?"). Well, since God can read your heart and mind perfectly, it is actually you who has the ultimate millionaire's problem. Do you truly love God? Or are you merely speculating on eternal gain? However, if you could really see hell, then how can you love God? I don't mean how can you love a God who allows a hell to exist. Remember, I'm setting aside that morality issues. I mean how can your mind have the space to come to a love of God, if it is flooded with the sensory threat of hell fire? Your survival instincts will kick in, you will react animal-like. But that is self-defeating. A decision for God that has the cognitive status of a rabbit running from a wildfire is not actually what heaven and hell are about. You need some room to work things out. Not in the absence of facts (even though you keep claiming this, it is simply not true that we are ignorant about heaven and hell), but with sufficient distance to allow you to choose as a real human being. This world is that room. Here you can work out whether you love God or not. Perhaps work it out in fear and trembling, but then so because you have drawn closer to the truth, not because it has been dumped on you to totally overwhelm you.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Let me give the example of an election. So we have a country in which the president is being elected, and we imagine two scenarios: 1) The ruling party declares that anyone who supports its opponents will be tortured to death, and given the track record of this party, the electorate believes that this threat will certainly be carried out. Clearly such an election could not be 'free' by any stretch of the imagination. 2) The ruling party certainly does torture its opponents in the most hideous way, but it decides to keep this fact well hidden from the electorate, in order to give the impression that the election is truly free and democratic, and because the president wants to convince himself that the people genuinely love him "from their hearts". So he dupes the electorate into thinking that he is a really nice guy, who will fully respect and honour the decisions of the people. In reality, of course, he will do no such thing, because he will never concede defeat and relinquish power to his opponent and he will certainly torture those who voted against him.
quote:You can evaluate the inescapable truth however you like, you can still not escape from it. It is just plain fact that neither God nor heaven and hell are obvious to man in this world. Matters Divine are hidden, removing direct constraints on man's decisions, including on those that will determine his eternal fate. All I do here is to provide good, and fairly obvious, reasons why God has arranged matters in this way for this world. You have not provided an alternative explanation, so there really is nothing to discuss here.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Although technically man has the capacity to reject the authority of God, one could hardly call this a 'free' decision devoid of any element of coercion. The idea that this absolute ruler plays mind games with man (a bit like the pentecostal leader of the fellowship I mentioned in my previous post - hence the relevance of that comment, which you didn't seem to understand), by trying to get man to "love him freely and genuinely" while never being in a position to offer man objectively authentic freedom, is absurd and unworthy of a God of righteousness.
quote:Oh. Good. I accept your full retraction of the various criticisms you have raised against this claim, which I have maintained from the outset.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Now I have never denied that God keeps His distance from people, in order to give us space to function on the human level. I agree that God does give us freedom.
quote:Since nobody has claimed this, certainly not me, this really has no further relevance for anything. The concrete criteria of judgement that God might use are simply an entirely different topic to why the reality of this judgement is obscured in this world. For what it's worth, I find it quite possible that people of Muslim faith make it into heaven, and so does my Church.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But what I emphatically do not accept is that God does not respect human choices that are made in good faith. For example, someone finds himself in a situation in which he believes that, say, Islam is the truth about God and spiritual matters. In good faith he pursues this belief, and is convinced that he is rightly serving God. He is acting in freedom (although it may be true that his freedom is often undermined by the attitudes and actions of many of his co-religionists). He may have a certain respect for the one whom he calls the prophet Jesus. God observes this, and does not act to undermine the freedom of this man. But once this poor soul dies, that very same God, who so respected his freedom, casts him into the fires of everlasting hell, because he failed to believe in Jesus Christ in the doctrinally correct way.
quote:Oh, so you haven't seen the error of your ways after all, in spite of already admitting my central thesis and not being able to offer any alternative explanation? What does it take then?
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
This is what facilitates true freedom, not the absurd practice of spiritual "hide and seek" that you seem to be advocating.
quote:Let's not, because it is nothing more than a bit of smoke and mirrors for you to hide behind.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But let's go back to my example of the Muslim.
quote:You seem to have this deep-seated desire to be a "more Christian and right than the orthodox" heretic. Well, pick a different topic.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If this position makes me 'non-orthodox' or a 'non-exclusive' Christian, then so be it. I am not at all interested in orthodoxy (which through the ages has been spitefully enforced by rack, sword and fire - I wonder why!), but I am very interested in what is actually true. That is all that matters.
quote:<Crickets>
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:I've been a Christian for 33 years and have never had "an awareness of His presence," whatever exactly that means. I would submit that if you have such an awareness, you are projecting it onto all Christians without warrant.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
The Holy Spirit renews the mind of the believer; He gives him peace, joy, confidence and an awareness of His presence of love and holiness.
quote:I don't imagine you will be much gratified by such a thing from the likes of me, but I can echo your unfamiliarity with this "awareness of God's presence" business.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:<Crickets>
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:I've been a Christian for 33 years and have never had "an awareness of His presence," whatever exactly that means. I would submit that if you have such an awareness, you are projecting it onto all Christians without warrant.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
The Holy Spirit renews the mind of the believer; He gives him peace, joy, confidence and an awareness of His presence of love and holiness.
quote:Well, it's not like there is no method to be had here, or rather, many methods. What have you concretely done in the hope to elicit such an experience?
Originally posted by Zach82:
I don't imagine you will be much gratified by such a thing from the likes of me, but I can echo your unfamiliarity with this "awareness of God's presence" business.
quote:Hmm. Maybe it is also a bit vain to expect that God will present Himself with unimaginable grandeur? Maybe such an encounter will also not be an instant solution to all problems one has in faith?
Originally posted by Zach82:
How vain it would be to claim that was God - the "experience of God" must be far above and against that.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
I have felt this feeling of pious certainty before the Eucharist many times, but there are other Sundays when I feel little more than impatience for the service to be over. Yet, I have Jesus' promise that he is present to me in this service, and this promise holds whether I feel it or not. Since God can be present when I do not feel this pious certainty, and not present when I or others do feel it, I can't see that it is really connected to the presence of God.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
quote:I can't speak for EE, but your experience there didn't sound particularly like my experiences of God's presence. However, it is very difficult to put these things into words and I cannot look inside your head but through words. So I do not claim that I can judge this other than saying that your words didn't ring my bell on this matter.
Originally posted by Zach82:
I described this experience of mine just to show that I am entirely familiar with what I imagine your and EE are calling an experience of God.
quote:If you want to visit somebody in the valley, running up the hill really hard is not going to get you there. Maybe there are other ways that would work better for you, and maybe "extreme effort" is not really required.
Originally posted by Zach82:
I used such an extreme example to show that it isn't from lack of trying that I feel I cannot describe this as an actual experience of God.
quote:This statement is problematic at multiple levels. First, you are simply assuming that your experience is the same, qualitatively, as those of all these people. But you do not know that. Second, you are assuming that God never shows Himself but to Christians (and Jews, I guess). But you do not know that. Third, you assume that a wrong belief (like in the existence of Krishna, if this is then a wrong belief) precludes the experience of God. But you do not know that. Fourth, and I'm deducing this as implicit, you are assuming that experiencing God is like being shown a biometric passport proving the exact theological identity of the Divine. But you do not know that.
Originally posted by Zach82:
On one hand, people can feel this way about anything. People have felt that way about Baal, Thor, Tezcatlipoca, and even the Beatles. Worshipers of Krishna describe experiences just like mine, but they can't be experiencing God, because Krishna doesn't exist.
quote:I'm not sure how "pious certainty" about something like the Real Presence got into the mix here. Experiencing God is not necessarily the same as having particularly open and sharp eyes of faith. Furthermore, in general terms it seems to me like you are arguing that because you are partially deaf and tend to have bouts of hard hearing, and because some people are hearing voices where there are none, that there is nothing worth listening to and perhaps even no real sound at all.
Originally posted by Zach82:
On the other hand, I have felt this feeling of pious certainty before the Eucharist many times, but there are other Sundays when I feel little more than impatience for the service to be over. Yet, I have Jesus' promise that he is present to me in this service, and this promise holds whether I feel it or not. Since God can be present when I do not feel this pious certainty, and not present when I or others do feel it, I can't see that it is really connected to the presence of God.
quote:And you are assuming that all those other people had the same experience with one another.
Originally posted by IngoB:
First, you are simply assuming that your experience is the same, qualitatively, as those of all these people. But you do not know that.
quote:I can't speak for Zach82, but it seems this is exactly what HE was saying.
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, I would point out that we should not simply discount circumstance in all this.
quote:No. I'm saying that some of these experiences may well have the same origin, could be about or of the same entity (namely God). This does not necessarily mean that the experiences themselves are the same. I presumably experience you rather differently from your wife, but that does not mean that you are two persons.
Originally posted by mousethief:
And you are assuming that all those other people had the same experience with one another.
quote:Except that the "blue" example proves exactly the contrary. That we can communicate through otherwise arbitrary labels like "blue" means that there is sufficient shared and repeatable experience between people to create such a distinct and recognisable reference to an aspect of reality. If you call something orange "blue", then I will not assume that somehow it is orange for me but blue for you. Rather I will assume that one of us is colour-blind, or perhaps has problems with English vocabulary. Or maybe some magician has done something clever to make us see different things. The disagreement in labels points to some defect in either the experiences or the descriptions thereof, it does not justify sensory quasi-solipsism.
Originally posted by mousethief:
In the end, nobody can be sure their experiences are the same as anybody else's. Hell, we don't even know if my experience of what we both call "blue" is the same as yours. What I call "blue" may look to you like what I call "orange" and vice versa. Similarly what seems a numinous experience to Zach82 may feel like constipation to you, and vice versa. That you both use the same words is irrelevant, as the "blue" example proves.
quote:First, to me the term "experience" as opposed to say "thought" necessarily involves some kind of bodily sensation. However, I see no particularly reason why a supernatural entity should not cause bodily sensations, and systematically so. However we may encounter supernature, our own being is embodied, and thus I would consider it normal to see such encounters reflected as experience involving bodily sensations. Second, we could likewise claim that people merely mistake various bodily sensations with "experiencing a melon". While it is entirely possible to argue against the existence of melons, since experiences are no proof, that is just one step on the pointless road to solipsism or dreams of a "Matrix". We must trust that mostly people experience melons when they report melon-experience. I see no a priori reason why I should treat reports of God-experience with greater suspicion. Or rather, the greater suspicion I in fact have is related to the greater difficulties with those experiences. God-experiences are less frequent and coherent than melon-experiences, but I think they are more frequent and coherent than for example Bigfoot-experiences.
Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm not sure what benefit there is in pressing this line of argument. It rather opens the possibility that there is no such thing as experience of God at all, just various people mistaking various bodily sensations with "experiencing God."
quote:I don't think so, but if so, then I rejoice in our agreement.
Originally posted by mousethief:
I can't speak for Zach82, but it seems this is exactly what HE was saying.
quote:Fair enough, the problem with the example is that blue is objective and God is not. More on this anon.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Except that the "blue" example proves exactly the contrary. That we can communicate through otherwise arbitrary labels like "blue" means that there is sufficient shared and repeatable experience between people to create such a distinct and recognisable reference to an aspect of reality.
quote:Again true but not relevant.
I see no particularly reason why a supernatural entity should not cause bodily sensations, and systematically so.
quote:Here's the thing. If I am experiencing a melon, I can grab somebody else and say, "Come here, look, feel," and show them and hand them the melon. I can't do that with God. If you think you are having a God-experience, you can't show it to me in a way that I can experience it the same way (or, indeed, at all). You may call your experience "God" and I may call mine "God" but because we cannot share these experiences, it is still an open question whether they have the same cause or referent. So yes, there is a HUGE reason to treat reports of God-experience with greater suspicion than melon-experience.
Second, we could likewise claim that people merely mistake various bodily sensations with "experiencing a melon". While it is entirely possible to argue against the existence of melons, since experiences are no proof, that is just one step on the pointless road to solipsism or dreams of a "Matrix". We must trust that mostly people experience melons when they report melon-experience. I see no a priori reason why I should treat reports of God-experience with greater suspicion.
quote:You are making two false assumptions there. First, that God-experience is not at all reproducible between people. That is simply not true. Rather, it happens at all sorts of levels and intensities. From me here discussing with Zach82 whether his hunger rebound was such an experience to for example the systematic method, training and practice of your Orthodox hesychasts. Second, you assume that all entities we generally accept are easily reproducible between people. Already I mentioned Bigfoot. Now, I think Bigfoot probably doesn't exist. But I'm not sure, and I'm not sure precisely because the reports of experiencing Bigfoot are flimsy but not in themselves totally incoherent. Also there is some plausibility of such experiences in the light of others, e.g., there are other apes and there were other "walking apes" in prehistory. So even if God-experiences were that remote, and I really do not think that they are, I would not dismiss them out of hand. But more importantly, there are entities that we treat with near certainty while our own personal experience is practically non-existent and we usually have no serious way of changing that. Take atoms. Why would I believe that there are such things? The answer is quite complicated, of course, but it surely involves a massively privileging of the experiences and interpretations other people have based on considering them authoritative. And I would say that a Christian cannot have an entirely sceptical stance to God-experiences for the same reason, they are really part of the "religious DNA" of his faith.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Here's the thing. If I am experiencing a melon, I can grab somebody else and say, "Come here, look, feel," and show them and hand them the melon. I can't do that with God. If you think you are having a God-experience, you can't show it to me in a way that I can experience it the same way (or, indeed, at all). You may call your experience "God" and I may call mine "God" but because we cannot share these experiences, it is still an open question whether they have the same cause or referent. So yes, there is a HUGE reason to treat reports of God-experience with greater suspicion than melon-experience.
quote:I am not assuming that, I am deducing that from the impossibility of showing each other our God experiences.
Originally posted by IngoB:
You are making two false assumptions there. First, that God-experience is not at all reproducible between people.
quote:No, I am not. I didn't talk about bigfoot at all because it's not relevant to my point. There is not a spectrum on which melons, Bigfoots, and God are all situated, melons being at the far left end, God at the far right end, and Bigfoots somewhere in between. Melons and God are completely different sorts of entities (if God is an entity at all, as per apophatic theologies) and do not lie on any common spectrum. So coming up with some bizarre border case between them is not relevant because it's not possible.
Second, you assume that all entities we generally accept are easily reproducible between people.
quote:And yet here you are. And you are not the first person to throw this in my teeth, and won't be the last.
To me this is small and gentle and precious, not something one throws at people.
quote:In an ultimate sense, we cannot show each other any of our experiences. What we can do is to communicate with each other about the experiences that we do have, and come to an agreement that our experiences refer to the same entity in, or aspect of, reality. "This is blue. That is a car. The heating system consumes lots of energy. He really loves her, doesn't he?" These are all statements we may agree upon, based on our own experiences. But we have no means to look at each other's experiences in doing so. And these statements build rather differently on our experiences. We do not normally limit our range of experiences to the most basic of sensory inputs ("blue"), so I see no reason why we should suddenly do so when talking about God.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:I am not assuming that, I am deducing that from the impossibility of showing each other our God experiences.
Originally posted by IngoB:
You are making two false assumptions there. First, that God-experience is not at all reproducible between people.
quote:Indeed, the spectrum would be more melons far to the left, Bigfoots far to the right, and God somewhere in between. Experience of God are more common, coherent and systematic than experiences of Bigfoots, though arguably much less so than experiences of melons.
Originally posted by mousethief:
There is not a spectrum on which melons, Bigfoots, and God are all situated, melons being at the far left end, God at the far right end, and Bigfoots somewhere in between.
quote:However, experiences of these entities (or super-entities if you insist) are entirely comparable. Because experiences are human, finite, related to embodiment and generally quite comprehensible to us. It is, admittedly, speculative to say that such experiences can point to God, because God is not a creature. However, first we are not talking about proving (the existence of) God here. The experiences of God that are to be had in this world are not sufficiently dense and overwhelming so as to blow sceptical atheism out of the water. We are merely saying that such experiences point sufficiently to God, so as to be identifiable by believers. I don't have to posit temporal lobe epilepsy or other repeated brain malfunctions as cause of my God experiences, as some atheists would do. They arise in my religious practice, and since God is available as causal origin for them to me, I can associate them with Him in a quite natural manner. Second, we do not just identify melons from our experiences. We identify quite "abstract" entities from our experiences, like love or gravity or the concept of a triangle. While all these are still created, they do show that entities referenced from experiences are not simply limited to material objects. And since God is an incorporeal Spirit (but for the Incarnation), this does make the speculation involved much less daring. Third, if one trusts both Christian scripture and tradition, then of course God experiences are simply an undeniable feature of faith. Such experiences do occur in the interactions of God with humanity, God is not simply an abstract concept accessible only through logic. He is realised in human life, particularly but not exclusively so in the Incarnation. Moses' burning bush was an experience. St Paul had an experience on the road to Damascus. Etc.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Melons and God are completely different sorts of entities (if God is an entity at all, as per apophatic theologies) and do not lie on any common spectrum. So coming up with some bizarre border case between them is not relevant because it's not possible.
quote:I deny this claim. I do not deny of course that it is a lot easier to come to an agreement about visual experiences obtained at the same time in basically the same place, as compared to individual experiences at different times and places that have a more varied and complicated sensory impact. But I deny that there is no way to verify that various God experiences refer to the same entity, God. That simply is much more difficult. One would carefully consider the circumstances, the reported experiences themselves, and the consequences to build a case that this is coming from the same source. There is an entire Christian science related to that, called the "discernment of spirits", see for example Jordan Aumann's discussion. Before you wave this aside too easily as not a proper kind of verification, please again consider the example of atoms, or for that matter human relationships. We really do stretch quite far from our basic sensory input on a regular basis, and it is simply not the case that our lives operate only on "I see it, you see it, therefore it is" type of evidence. I think it is just inappropriate to measure these experiences with some quasi-modern-science standard of data gathering. That is really a very small slice of human operations on experiences, and as long as I do not claim that I have an empirical proof of God in these experiences, I do not see why I should be limited to that.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Three people standing together seeing the same Bigfoot -- having parallel "Bigfoot experiences" if you insist -- are having the same experience in a different way from three people who all claim to have private experiences of God. And one of the biggest and most obvious differences is the ability to all three look at something outside them and point together and say, "Yes, I see it," and see that the others are all pointing at the same place in the spacetime continuum. In a word, verifiability. There is no way to verify that your experience of God is the same as (say) EE's experience of God.
quote:I do not understand. I really have been consciously careful here to avoid offence, and indeed any sort of patronising attitude. If simply talking about the possibility and actuality of such experiences is "throwing this in your teeth", then I would say that you are judging unfairly. However, if I have gone beyond the limits I have set myself here, then I apologise. I have no problems with slugging things out in general, because I think doctrine, ecclesiology, etc. are solid matters that can take a robust debate. But this is something fragile and tender, and I do not wish to bust it up, for myself or anybody else.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:And yet here you are. And you are not the first person to throw this in my teeth, and won't be the last.
Originally posted by IngoB:
To me this is small and gentle and precious, not something one throws at people.