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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: jlg's despair and death
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I can't work out why you're asking that rhetorical question. Sorry.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
If Satan is not God's creation, where did it / he / she come from?
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Er, WHAT ? You're biblically literate. Again so why do you, too, ask what HAS to be a rhetorical question ?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Humanity concedes power to savage predator who seeks to hit humanity with stick. Humanity unaware of predicament. Loving omnipresent being reveals humanity's parlous state and provides protection but humanity too arrogant to see its predicament or accept provided bolt hole.
You missed out the part at the beginning where God creates the savage predator in the full knowledge that it will take up a position of power over humanity.
You really do have a big hole in your bucket over the area of free choice.
Can you not accept that a created being can become evil by choosing evil without being originally evil?
It would save you some grief.
Biblically there is mystery here. We are told by James God cannot author evil. Thisonly leaves the possibility that though it ccomes from a being he created, he is not responsible for that being's choices.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Words, words, words. You are left with a religion that is powerless to explain the horrors that overwhelm Jen and others without resorting to jargon and logical constructs that make no sense to anyone outside your own corner of christanity.
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Does secular humanism explain those horrors?
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
I believe that the secular humanist position is that it does not have to explain evil and disaster, because these are inherent in the world as it has evolved.
Secular humanists don't have to ask why evil exists and provide an explanation for it?
Why is that?
Talk about a cop out!
And I suspect, untrue. If a humanist has goals and ideals, a humanist will have an opposite of that.
Evil comes from a lapse in reason or education perhaps?
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
Humans have the capacity for good and evil and can go either way (or for most, somewhere in the middle, depending on circumstances.
Religious people believe this too. It's called free will.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
To be Christian is to know that you and every one, ever, are personally, eternally significant, healed, infinitely potentiated, immortal, loved.
Obviously we have very different definitions of the word healed.
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Secular humanists don't have to ask why evil exists and provide an explanation for it?
Why is that?
Talk about a cop out!
Theists are claiming an explanation for good in their omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good God. Indeed it is suggested that God should be worshipped on those grounds. Given those attributes, and their claim that their God is also unique, theists are inevitably faced with the challenge of where does evil come from in that case.
Secular humanists on the other hand are not claiming to know why good exists or providing an explanation for it. They are not claiming an external foundation for an objective moral framework.
Put in another way, someone who is not involved in the promotional advertising for a product does not have to be in a position to justify why it went wrong.
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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Can you not accept that a created being can become evil by choosing evil without being originally evil?
No - it must have had at the very least the ability to become evil, and logically it must have been created with that ability.
If you lock someone in a room with two identical doors, one being the exit and one containing a hungry tiger, and they choose poorly and get eaten, then you can't deny all responsibility for their death on the grounds that it was their own free choice to open that door.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Er, WHAT ? You're biblically literate. Again so why do you, too, ask what HAS to be a rhetorical question ?
Probably because you're ducking the obvious conclusion of your arguments.
If you're blaming evil on Satan, you have two choices: either God created Satan (in which case, God remains culpable), or He didn't. If He didn't, He's either unable to do anything about it (not omnipotent) or He could, but chooses not to, so the existence or otherwise of the pantomime villain known as Satan is no explanation or excuse, unless you choose to roll back 2,000 years of Christian doctrine and claim that God isn't actually omnipotent after all.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
Sometimes Martin PC not sounds suspiciously like one of those bots which has ended up by mistake inside a theological college.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
TGG - what, because God in His real omnipotence, i.e. over that which is actually possible (not absurdities about rocks and their equivalent), created a perfect entity, the most powerfully attributed entity it is possible to create, with the full knowledge that such an entity could and in fact would, given enough instances, go freely morally haywire, means God created evil ?
And let that evil loose over a more vulnerable perfect creation ?
OK. Fine. So ? Creation is obviously not possible without entailing evil and suffering. They are in fact as much evidence for God (the great and good) as they are against it if not more so.
Love hurts. Every one. Appallingly. As bad as it can possibly get. As for jlg. There is no choice if you create.
And Love makes it all better. Where it is wanted. jlg will want it. She's got it.
Failing the Turing test since 1998 - Martin
[ 24. January 2012, 12:04: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
Theists are claiming an explanation for good in their omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good God. Indeed it is suggested that God should be worshipped on those grounds. Given those attributes, and their claim that their God is also unique, theists are inevitably faced with the challenge of where does evil come from in that case.
Quite so.
My first unit assignment in theology degree asked exactly this question.
We were presented with a number of alternatives and were told to make a case. I think I eventually settled on Richard Swindburne's "best of all possible worlds" in my essay but certainly didn't feel like I had The Answer. And I suspect most Christians don't feel like they have The Answer either.
Theodicy is indeed a very, very hard theological question.
quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
Secular humanists on the other hand are not claiming to know why good exists or providing an explanation for it. They are not claiming an external foundation for an objective moral framework.
Put in another way, someone who is not involved in the promotional advertising for a product does not have to be in a position to justify why it went wrong.
I don't think you have this right. I think passionate and faithful secular humanists certainly do have a belief system and a metanarrative that they use to explain all sorts of things including what the end result and direction of humanity is and should lead to.
They have ideals and goals just like religious people do.
The only difference is that they don't necessarily rely on revelation.
If you reject Christianity on the basis that there is no adequate explanation for theodicy amongst all the myriad of them in Christian history, then fair enough.
If you go on to adopt secular humanism in it's place however and do not attempt to explain suffering or evil that is a present reality then it sounds to me like the philosophy is hollow and lacks depth.
But like I said earlier, I suspect they do have a theodicy. But I don't think Laura's answer covered it.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Theobot here, surely no explanation of suffering is necessary unless it's in order to try and alleviate it. Secularism doesn't have to do the impossible: it cannot possibly explain suffering or anything else ultimately. Secularism doesn't end in meaninglessness, it ends in nullness. It can't alleviate that. Neither, of course, can Christianity explain anything even in full dialogue with eternally ineffable God. Wittgenstein. Goedel. But Christianity - Love - alleviates it regardless.
Or are we really going to be unhappy about that in eternity ?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
TGG - what, because God in His real omnipotence, i.e. over that which is actually possible (not absurdities about rocks and their equivalent), created a perfect entity, the most powerfully attributed entity it is possible to create, with the full knowledge that such an entity could and in fact would, given enough instances, go freely morally haywire, means God created evil ?
Yes.
quote:
And let that evil loose over a more vulnerable perfect creation ?
Yes.
quote:
OK. Fine. So ?
So your facile response to the problem of evil that "Satan done it" is just hot air when you believe that God created "Satan", and is both omniscient and omnipotent. You believe He knows all - even knew what would happen before He did it - and could destroy "Satan" whenever He wanted. But He doesn't.
quote:
Creation is obviously not possible without entailing evil and suffering.
Unless you deny the existence of heaven, our existence evidently is possible without entailing evil and suffering.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The 'facility' is entirely yours Sir. In the sub-sophomoric definition of omniscience and omnipotence for a start. Which is de rigueur round here I realise.
And I FULLY, demonstrably accepted that God is FULLY responsible for evil coming in to being, creating evil if you will, by creating.
Heaven is without evil eh?
Well it is NOW.
I'm ASTOUNDED at the biblical illiteracy around here.
[ 24. January 2012, 17:55: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Oh and George, why so ? Know anyone who isn't broken ?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Martin, do you personally know anyone who believes that the Godhead has the nature that you believe they have? I'm not being sarcastic. I'd like to know. The Ship has a pretty wide swath of views and yet most of the Ship doesn't seem to "get" your viewpoint, or if they do, agree with it.
Someday (maybe well past the honeymoon ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) ) you could start a thread that gives your very best effort to make clear the unclear to the rest of us. I, for one, would read it with great interest. I realize that this could open up a can of worms for you emotionally, since some people have very fierce feelings about the opinions you have revealed through the years. Not to mention it might burst your mystique ![[Biased]](wink.gif) . But if you are up to it, I think many of us would find a clearer discussion fascinating.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
must have had at the very least the ability to become evil, and logically it must have been created with that ability.
Quite..Which is called a moral ability for which the chooser takes responsibility for the choice not the creator of the chooser.
The doors analagy might work only if the chooser was warned what was behind each door and chose to take on the tiger anyway.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Er, WHAT ? You're biblically literate. Again so why do you, too, ask what HAS to be a rhetorical question ?
I don't think anyone has ever before accused me of being Biblically literate. While I'm not sure what that means, precisely, I'm fairly sure I don't actually deserve the possible compliment implied.
However, it appears to me that you are playing fast and loose with some terminology in order to avoid dealing with some basic contradictions. You seem to be claiming that the all-powerful God you believe in is constrained; that God is "all-powerful" only within the limits of "the possible," whatever that includes.
Does that mean there are no miracles, then? Water didn't turn to wine at Cana? Wine doesn't turn to the blood of Christ at Eucharist?
In other words, just as I cannot touch my right elbow with my right hand (at least without severe and painful damage), God cannot prevent or destroy evil, despite the fact that believers are instructed, as a matter of routine, to pray for deliverance from same. Why would God urge us to pray that he deliver us from evil when he can do no such thing?
Neither Christians nor anybody else, whether they pray for this outcome or not, get delivered from evil on request.
In Biblical terms (to the extent I have any fragile handle on same), evil turns up as a personified (or at least being-i-fied) independent force in two major OT scenarios: in the soon-to-turn-snake being which tempts Eve, and in the Book of Job (which something I read once suggested is the oldest book in the canon).
Satan, or evil, or Lucifer, or who-have-you, tortures Job for no better reason than to see what will make Job crack. He does this with God's knowledge and permission, as a wager. They converse about it.
Are you willing to say that what this story really tells us is that God has to take this bet? He couldn't say "no dice" to Satan? He couldn't say, no, that's my creature Job; if he stumbles, yes, he'll get hurt; but meantime I have more regard for him than to just sit by watching you wreck him just to see him writhe.
I wonder what this does to free will: God doesn't have any? In addition to your all-powerful God having no power over evil? For humanity to have free will, God had to surrender his?
Job loses everything -- health, wealth, his children. He doesn't crack, even at his wife's urging, even under his friends' horrible "comforting."
And what happens? Job gets more children . . . eventually . . . as though all these sons were interchangeable spare parts. God replaces the sons, and Job lives long and prospers.
Well, you and I are human too; we've had pain and losses of our own. Even though these have also sometimes been succeeded by recoveries or rewards, we're not left unmarked, and we're not "restored" by subsequent joys. Those pains and losses change us, sometimes break us down. It's what pain and loss do.
Upthread, you claimed that this is a God who "suffers with us." How could a God "suffer with us" or be "all-knowing" who doesn't know how deeply we form attachments to individuals, who doesn't realize that a lost loved one is not, never has been, and never will be, replaceable? We may form new attachments, yes; but that hardly addresses the grief we suffer, and which this "loving" God is either willing to have visited upon us as a species of experiment, or is helpless -- excuse me, all-powerful within the limits of the possible -- to do anything but watch. I find that a a most unconvincing definition of "all-powerful."
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Apocalypso - lovely rhetoric, 11/10. But logic?!
Omnipotence: does God know the spin of the electrons he's currently thinking that the universe doesn't ? Does He know if it's going to rain tomorrow ?
I accept all the miracles of Christ and then some. How does God's rational, real, proper omnipotence prevent Him from performing any miracles ?
He has delivered and delivers and will deliver us from evil. Completely. It is finished. I am delivered constantly from and in evil. By requesting I am ALWAYS delivered from, in evil.
I have eternal life while I die.
Job: God's choice.
Free will ? Meaningless except as the 'choice' between autonomy and adoption.
Your penultimate para. 'Tell me about it.'
Your ultimate: this is the crux. Of course He knows. Realises. Feels. He can't not. He's thinking us. He's omnipathic.
The time is coming of the restitution of all things. All our inevitable loss will be more than compensated for.
THAT'S omnipotence.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
Not the whole thread, Leo. Some posts feel more like opportunistic sanctimony.
Martin, are you saying that you believe in divine power wherein it is possible to transform matter (water into wine) but not know the future (tomorrow's weather)? Fair enough if you do, but it seems like you are being oddly arbitrary about what is and isn't reasonable to expect from a god.
You assert that you are delivered from evil because you have life after death. If I threw that out as a Christian position and then explained all that is wrong with it, I would be accused of arguing against a straw man. Your position devalues this life and this world.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I suppose it is natural, when someone dies in tragic circumstances, for members of the family to ask 'Why?' but I find this discussion unsavoury, given that most here never knew her. It feels like masturbatory speculation.
Really? I'll have to take your word for it, because I don't know what masturbatory speculation feels like.
You don't have to know someone well, to ask the question 'why?' about a tragic and terrible death. I find the idea from a teacher that that's "unsavoury" quite mind boggling - and then there's the question of why you bother to read or post on this thread if it upsets you. But I feel disinclined to speculate about that, with or without masturbation.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Please explain away Scot. Or get off the pot.
And turning - thinking - water in to wine is in a completely different category to passively knowing the indeterminate future, which is meaninglessly impossible. There's nothing to know. No comparison whatsoever.
I'm delivered from evil as we all are. In Christ. Regardless of all the evil that I'm in the middle of. Nearer the end of actually. Thank God.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned that none of the challenging aspects of the Judeo-Christian narrative (aka 'The Bible'), like 95% of it, can be true if God is as nearly as nice as they are. God isn't jaw-droppingly pragmatic, He just allows us to evolve in our projection of our idealized selves on to Him.
Or some such.
And Qlib ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
[ 25. January 2012, 21:54: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
And Scot, I'm not delivered from evil because I have eternal life, which I am, but I am delivered from evil in the midst of evil with worse to come and with horror and loss past that one just is moved on from, iteratively, as I die in eternal life.
[ 25. January 2012, 21:59: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And turning - thinking - water in to wine is in a completely different category to passively knowing the indeterminate future, which is meaninglessly impossible. There's nothing to know. No comparison whatsoever.
Sure there is a comparison. Both feats are impossible within the natural realm, at least in the sense of which we are speaking. How can you say with such certainty that a deity can do this impossible thing but not that one? Unless you can provide something to support your claim, I believe that you are just making things up.
Simply repeating your assertion about being delivered from evil is not a very helpful explanation of your meaning, or a convincing rebuttal of my criticism.
What, exactly, are you challenging me to either explain or vacate the commode?
[ETA: I have no idea what your second post meant. I can't even parse the grammar.]
[ 25. January 2012, 22:11: Message edited by: Scot ]
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
Posts: 9515 | From: Southern California | Registered: Jan 2002
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Possible glimmerings of understanding of Martin's point-of-view:
--Martin takes in all of the Old Testament/Hebrew scriptures' God, and accepts every bit. Hence, God is neither nice nor good in *our* understanding of those words. But we project our understanding onto God.
--I'm no physicist, but I was reminded of various bits of science crumbs about quantum physics, becoming and simultaneously being present, etc. So I did a search on "physics becoming and present", and found:
~~Being and Becoming in Modern Physics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). I've only skimmed it, but there's good stuff about the "Metaphysics of Time".
~~ Present (Wikipedia)
Good stuff, including this:
quote:
Christianity and eternity
For some Christians God is viewed as being outside of time and, from the divine perspective past, present and future are actualized in the now of eternity. This trans-temporal conception of God has been proposed as a solution to the problem of divine foreknowledge (i.e. how can God know what we will do in the future without us being determined to do it) since at least Boethius.[9] Thomas Aquinas offers the metaphor of a watchman, representing God, standing on a height looking down on a valley to a road where past present and future, represented by the individuals and their actions strung out along its length, are all visible simultaneously to God.[10] Therefore, God's knowledge is not tied to any particular date.[11]
--We live in time, so we have a sense of time, but the good stuff is already true.
Martin, is that anywhere in the neighborhood of your ideas??
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
--Martin takes in all of the Old Testament/Hebrew scriptures' God, and accepts every bit. Hence, God is neither nice nor good in *our* understanding of those words. But we project our understanding onto God.
This middle sentence is an ongoing problem I have with Christian apologetics. The English language - and all other languages - is something that has been developed by humans for human use, it is not seomthing that has been handed down by God. Therefore "our" understanding of the words nice or good are the only understandings there are. If the biblical God does not fit within the human understanding of those human words then the conclusion must be that he is not nice or good. You should use adjectives which, in "our" understanding of their meanings, do fit the biblical God, rather than inventing your own new definition of "good" so you can carrying on claiming that "God is good". It would be rather more honest for a start.
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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And turning - thinking - water in to wine is in a completely different category to passively knowing the indeterminate future, which is meaninglessly impossible. There's nothing to know. No comparison whatsoever.
Sure there is a comparison. Both feats are impossible within the natural realm, at least in the sense of which we are speaking. How can you say with such certainty that a deity can do this impossible thing but not that one?
I think Martin is referring to Open Theism, which is, very crudely speaking, the idea that God can't know the future because it's not there to be known. From the Wikipedia article: quote:
...open theists do not believe that God does not know the future, but rather that the future does not exist to be known by anyone. For the open theist the future simply has not happened yet, not for anyone, and thus is unknowable in the common sense. Thus, to say that God does not know the future is akin to saying that God does not know about square circles.
In this view, 'knowing the future' is a logical impossibility unless God has already determined it. I think.
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
So it is also a logical impossibility for God, or anyone else, to say that God is eternal?
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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Apocalypso - lovely rhetoric, 11/10. But logic?!
Well, I'm bamboozled. You want logic from me, but then respond with what looks to me like lovely, albeit empty, rhetoric.
Look, I'm frankly growing increasingly uncomfortable with this discussion. As I stated before, I am not particularly invested in dissuading you from your belief, even as your defense of that belief draws me further and further into what feels like an effort to dissuade. I admire your passionate defense, and what looks (from here) like a seamless faith in some ultimate divine wholeness. What appeals to me about your view is not terribly different from what appeals to me when admiring a powerfully-executed work of art: it's beautiful, magnificent, moving.
And just as I would not care to take scissors to a great painting or start chipping with a chisel at a wonderful sculpture, I do not care to try to dismantle your belief system; I'd rather leave it standing whole.
But just as I cannot sculpt or paint a masterwork of my own, neither can I produce a Christian belief system of my own which isn't a shallow sophomoric cartoon. I also find myself unable to simply adopt someone else's, even yours, whole-cloth.
For one thing, I don't understand yours.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
So it is also a logical impossibility for God, or anyone else, to say that God is eternal?
Not following you, sorry! Would you explain what you mean, please?
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
So it is also a logical impossibility for God, or anyone else, to say that God is eternal?
Not following you, sorry! Would you explain what you mean, please?
It was following on from the Open Theism ideas. If the future does not exist so cannot be known by anyone, including God, then God cannot know if he will still be existing tomorrow or a week on Tuesday. Therefore he cannot know whether or not he is eternal. And as humans presumably cannot know more than God they also cannot say that God is eternal.
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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
Ah, I see - thanks for explaining. Not sure I agree, though. A triangle can never be four-sided, by its very nature. Were it to become four-sided, it would cease to be a triangle. God, by his very nature, is eternal... therefore he knows that tomorrow, next week, next millennium, he will be alive and still be God... Unless God could cease to be God... <Train of thought hits buffers>
I guess one could say that part of God's nature is that he is unchanging in essence, therefore he knows both that he is eternal now and will always be eternal. Does that work, logically?
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
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Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
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Posted
Ah, but if he knows he is eternal because it his nature (rather than because it's something he fancies would be quite nice to be) then he also knows that the future will exist eternally and that he will be always part of it. Therefore it is not possible to say of him that he cannot know the future because he does know at least part of it.
[ 26. January 2012, 17:42: Message edited by: Pre-cambrian ]
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"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
I think the idea with open theism is that the future is only 'there' already if God has determined it. So, for example, take the prophecies in the Old Testament that people think are about Jesus; these prophecies are God determining certain limited aspects of the future. But everything else, that God has not pre-determined, is literally not there yet, therefore to speak of knowing these aspects of the future is to speak of logical impossibilities... If I've understood open theism correctly, of course!
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Oh and George, why so ? Know anyone who isn't broken ?
The complete opposit. I look around me and see countless broken people.
I then read your claim that "To be Christian is to know that you and every one, ever, are personally, eternally significant, healed".
I'm not sure how I can put this any clearer than to say that the broken people I see make a complete mockery of the claim that everyone is eternally healed.
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C.S. Lewis's Head is just a tool for the Devil. (And you can quote me on that.) ~
Philip Purser Hallard
http://www.thoughtplay.com/infinitarian/gbsfatb.html
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Just briefly tuning it because I've found Marvin's God caught on camera, and perhaps also Marvin's alter ego. Watch The Legend of Hobo, in particular episodes 1-3...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Ploughing upstream.
George Spigot (don't think you fool me, I know who you really are, the remake is rubbish). Thank you. First class as ever. Perfectly rational and true. And all ARE healed, all is healed in Christ. ALL healing is complete in Christ. It's done. It is finished. From the beginning of the world. Sorted. Fixed. Was, is and shall be. Aorist. And yes I am that utterly inarticulate. But you will get my point as you have already, you can't not. But you can't believe it. The sun scorches. Birds devour. Weeds flourish. For you too.
In every sense except the mere mechanistically literal (as the future hasn't happened anywhere else in God yet), our healing in Christ, in God made flesh, is outside time.
Our full experience and realisation of that will come when we meet Him, when He lifts us up from the grave. I am extremely broken. Objectively 3 or 4 / 10. Marred. Scarred. Dysfunctional. Sick. Old. I have been unbelievably depraved to the extent that I can only discuss that, after decades, with God. Since I was young. The damage is done, irrevocably, in my mind and relationships. I'm utterly helpless to fix those I encounter or have had to walk away from who are yet more broken. I have encountered suffering that has deranged me more than once. It would derange you or anyone.
There are limits. We die.
And I am completely ransomed, healed, forgiven. Immortal. My EXPERIENCE is of partial healing of my inner self harm wounds nonetheless, an earnest of things to be fully realised. I can testify of the head space I have gained, immense blue skies, around my loss and suffering and affliction. Not constantly by any means. There are dark days and darker. There is fear and sadness nearly every day. Just about every day.
And here is the place where I am MOST articulate. What a joke eh?
Thank you for the therapy. Therapeuo. Worship.
ALL will be well. For ALL. ALL are saved. Whether they know it or not. All will. Jesus saves. And He's barely started yet in anyone's experience. Him busting Himself down to human and meeting us at our psychotic worst was the start. And finish. From the beginning. In between is happening. Aorist indeed.
I'll plough on up if I may.
Scot first and then drift downstream to Golden Key.
Scot. I can say it because this is the game of rhetoric we're in. And you are wrong. You fail to differentiate two utterly different categories. Now and the future. I'm sure this will come to NOTHING, all such rhetorical games do, especially here. It's like trying to argue for or against the existence of God or for anything else significant here, it always plays to a draw.
You will be younger, smarter, better educated and still wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
To discommode you.
My first premiss: God is ALL there is. All is God. God thinks, thinks us autonomously thinking, wills everything in to being. Now. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. That's my second premiss.
God is as outside time as He can be but all our happened past is unrepeatable, unreplayable except as 'mere' sensurround, Heraclitean feelie-loop and all our unhappened future does not exist and never has.
So God can think water in to Château Musar, but NOT the 2012 vintage. Although we couldn't POSSIBLY distinguish.
The ONLY way I can be wrong, and not you, is that the future has already happened.
It hasn't.
How can I say that ? Common sense mate. A tad of parsimony. Every tick of future eternity has not tocked in the Deus ex clock.
Virtually everyone here disagrees. The really, really smart guys especially. IngoB the good Thomist doctor. Alan the Nuke. Not out of superior intellect or with superior rhetoric, but out of disposition. Took slug-brain me about 10 years to realise that.
Simple me. A simplistic simpleton I'm sure and yes I KNOW, thanks to challenges here, that parsimony is a mere heuristic, not 'so'.
Parsable? Or do you need another comma or two? One might have helped you before.
I feel the need for a couple of slabs of fried pork pie coming up. In their own lard of course. And a mug of tea.
(Just had a call from a bereaved friend. Her daughter, had some ghastly genetic abnormality like Tay-Sachs but succumbed to a ferocious uterine sarcoma. I was in tears, she was truly bubbly with looking forward to meeting her whole daughter. I was amazed to hear God lifting her up in her voice.)
Definitely pork pie time. Hang on. Ohhhhh. Bliss. Stale, frozen, nuke-defrosted, fried. Dollops of Dijon (no English, sorry!).
Gently down the stream.
Golden Key. Close, but for the country mile. God cannot see, from 'outside' time, what hasn't happened, except by computing it or willing it to happen. Tomorrow's wine exists in today's water.
Martin
Rats! My perspicuity missed you Apocalypso! Next time.
[ 28. January 2012, 12:58: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I can't wait Apocalypso, I just can't wait. You are ENTIRELY too kind. Gracious. PLEASE do your worst. We are both, ALL, engaged here in a work of art, daubing on the cave wall with human exudates. If that doesn't work I'll have to insult you at having the arrogance to think that your scissors could do any damage. That you can damage faith. What have you got ?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And all ARE healed, all is healed in Christ. ALL healing is complete in Christ. It's done. It is finished. From the beginning of the world. Sorted. Fixed. Was, is and shall be. Aorist.
Here is an example of two phenomena: one (sorry, but:), using repetition in place of argument, and two, rhetoric which is beautiful, and which I do not doubt for one minute is over-the-brim ravishingly full for you, but is empty, or rather simply means nothing, for me (and perhaps others).
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
But you can't believe it. The sun scorches. Birds devour. Weeds flourish.
Exactly. Your faith, to the miniscule extent I understand it, seems to exist outside of time. (Possibly, in your experience of yourself, you do, too?) I don’t; I live in the now. Yes, yes, I know, even as I suffer, that the suffering will eventually end, or, put another way, will be “healed.” But that doesn’t subtract a single iota of the suffering I experience now.
In the ordered, purposely-lovingly-created universe you seem to believe in, though, what is the loving, purposeful intent behind so many kinds and degrees of suffering and, if I am indeed the image of that Intender, why am I myself so loath to inflict suffering on those I love? (Not that I don’t do this, of course; despicably, I do; but nearly always it’s through some blindness or mistake; I don’t set forth to do it, and I don’t, or at least try not, to do it deliberately. Certainly, I do my best to avoid setting conditions for others that inevitably produce suffering.)
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
In every sense except the mere mechanistically literal (as the future hasn't happened anywhere else in God yet), our healing in Christ, in God made flesh, is outside time.
Our full experience and realisation of that will come when we meet Him, when He lifts us up from the grave. I am extremely broken. Objectively 3 or 4 / 10. Marred. Scarred. Dysfunctional. Sick. Old. I have been unbelievably depraved to the extent that I can only discuss that, after decades, with God. Since I was young. The damage is done, irrevocably, in my mind and relationships. I'm utterly helpless to fix those I encounter or have had to walk away from who are yet more broken. I have encountered suffering that has deranged me more than once. It would derange you or anyone.
There are limits. We die.
And I am completely ransomed, healed, forgiven. Immortal. My EXPERIENCE is of partial healing of my inner self harm wounds nonetheless, an earnest of things to be fully realised. I can testify of the head space I have gained, immense blue skies, around my loss and suffering and affliction. Not constantly by any means. There are dark days and darker. There is fear and sadness nearly every day. Just about every day.
And here is the place where I am MOST articulate. What a joke eh?
Yes; you do articulate, and very well. What you are articulating so beautifully is the faith which, however hard come-by, you have conceived, constructed, find-your-own-verb, for yourself (with, I am sure you believe, essential aid from the love-object). That faith, though, explains nothing; rather it seems (at least to some of us) to require as much explanation as theodicy itself.
Which is why I liken your experience to falling in love. You seem to be a man sincerely besotted with God, and like any of us in the throes of love, you see the love-object wrapped in glory, and simply cannot or will not notice those habits and tics that ultimately has driven other lovers away.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Martin: as noted, I have no desire to take scissors or chisel to your faith.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I find myself more and more moved by you. For you. Thank you very much again. We'll know when we meet.
I should shut up there, but there's a thought coalescing, clotting. I more than suspect that I'm naturally darker, more saturnine to say the least. More broken. More fearful and sad. Have done more damage. Encountered more suffering. Or I'm just more susceptible to whatever load, which may be less. That's not a badge of rank. I'm therefore more prone to swing to an opposite extreme, hence my proclaiming that despair and death are 'proof' of their full restitution.
I admire the courage of those who exist terminally, 'meaninglessly'. I could not bear it.
Peace - Martin
[ 28. January 2012, 15:14: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And here is the place where I am MOST articulate.
Have you ever thought of taking up poetry?
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And here is the place where I am MOST articulate.
Have you ever thought of taking up poetry?
No, I think he should write children's books.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And here is the place where I am MOST articulate.
Have you ever thought of taking up poetry?
IMHO, his posts *are* poetry, and need to be approached that way. Go out beyond the words, find where lines connect, etc.
Martin, I'm sorry for your suffering. I'm glad you've found something that works for you. And I, too, hope for the healing of all things, however that plays out in physics and metaphysics.
![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif) ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And here is the place where I am MOST articulate.
Have you ever thought of taking up poetry?
IMHO, his posts *are* poetry
That was rather my point.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Ploughing upstream.
George Spigot (don't think you fool me, I know who you really are, the remake is rubbish).
Indeed it was.
quote:
Thank you. First class as ever. Perfectly rational and true. And all ARE healed, all is healed in Christ. ALL healing is complete in Christ. It's done. It is finished.
It didn't work.
You seem to be saying that this healing happens through all time and is eternal. But also that it hasn't happend yet? This i think is where my confusion comes from.
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Qlib, Laura, Golden Key. Thank you. Taking you all at face value. Especially Laura (forgive me if I have a side bet on you being wickedly arch).
George, if I may be familiar, it couldn't not work. Jesus saves. No limit. He embraced our light affliction and lifted us up to the heavenlies, to our Father's arms. That's where we ALL are.
That's what NONE of us believes George. You are just more consistent. Some of us have moments of faith.
Have you ever ? Doubted doubt ? Ever had a moment where you melted in ecstasy at the thought of it being so ? Writing that has me hot eyed. For you George. For the homeless heroin addict who stayed after we fed him Friday night. He got it for an instant. Tears. It was snatched away.
Just a dream eh ? A fantasy. Whistling in the dark.
And George, yes of course I'm saying that. What's true and our experience are two entirely different things.
Jesus saves.
[ 29. January 2012, 12:30: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
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