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Originally posted by Freddy:
Me too. While I find this topic itself to be endlessly entertaining, it helps a lot to be discussing it with people who are not only smart but also gracious.

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As you also always are Freddy!

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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)

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Originally posted by Jamat:
The point he makes is that punishment is a necessity in its own right, apart from any reformation or deterrent or other positive spin-off since it is necessary for the moral integrity of the system involved.

Comments?

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Definition of punishment: AKA 1930's lecture series on the atonement by Leonard Hodgson DD Oxford Professor who says: (my paraphrase)

Punishment is NOT an issue between individuals such as is revenge. It is between an individual and his commnity. It is necessary in order to allow the community to divorce itself from the behaviour of a recalcitrant. Without it, the community would be accepting of evil and consequently compromising its own existence.

How relevant?

Well, he says that God must analogously punish the evil in man. Punishment has the value of divorcing God from evil which has entered he creation through sin. The gospel, though, allows for Christ, the God-man to subsume the punishment due to us into himself and consequently demonstrate his love and willingness to forgive.

The point he makes is that punishment is a necessity in its own right, apart from any reformation or deterrent or other positive spin-off since it is necessary for the moral integrity of the system involved.

Comments?

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Originally posted by Jamat:
The point he makes is that punishment is a necessity in its own right, apart from any reformation or deterrent or other positive spin-off since it is necessary for the moral integrity of the system involved.

Comments?

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
More seriously, I'd like to carry on JJ's and Freddy's discussion of scriptural preconditions for forgiveness - I think Freddy was pretty fair in his texts, but I'm still not sure how you both reconcile them?

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Originally posted by Freddy:

The alternative to this view, in my opinion, is a system in which God "punishes" evil in the same way that life "punishes" irresponsible living, disease "punishes" unhealthy lifestyles, or gravity "punishes" poor balance. There is no intention by God in these things to punish. The "punishment" is simply the consequence that is inherent in the disorder itself.

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G'day Freddy, (you see I'm learning a new language already )

I think I see your train of thought but don't you just create an even bigger problem? Namely the repeated NT assertion that (in Christ) God does not give us what we deserve. Sin is like gravity and if we fall off a cliff we should (by the 'laws' of physics) get squished. The great news of the gospel is that God 'lets us off' the consequences.

If you are right then where is the justice? How can God let some of us off and not others? (e.g. some drunk drivers get home safely, some do not.)

Hope you have some snow this Christmas!

John.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
I think I see your train of thought but don't you just create an even bigger problem? Namely the repeated NT assertion that (in Christ) God does not give us what we deserve.

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John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Sin is like gravity and if we fall off a cliff we should (by the 'laws' of physics) get squished. The great news of the gospel is that God 'lets us off' the consequences.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
If you are right then where is the justice? How can God let some of us off and not others? (e.g. some drunk drivers get home safely, some do not.)

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The justice is in the fact that the laws governing what we call, or what the Bible calls, "salvation" are perfectly universal and perfectly fair.

The same is true of the laws that govern whether drunks crash on the way home from the bar. Some do crash and some don't crash. It doesn't seem especially fair, nor is it fair from the point of view of whether one really "deserved" to crash. But it is perfectly fair in the sense that the physical laws governing intoxication and its effects on driving ability, as well as the laws that govern everything connected with how crashes happen, are perfectly constant and absolute. Gravity is never suspended, nor is double gravity ever imposed. Every drunk driver gets fair and equal treatment as far as gravity, and toxicology, are concerned.

The same is true of salvation. God's system is perfectly fair and equal. Everyone on earth is saved or not according to the conditions that Jesus describes in the Gospels. But note how general His conditions are, repeatedly referring to "wickedness" and "righteousness" in various ways. These are concepts that are commonly understood everywhere on earth. So salvation is possible everywhere.

But just as anti-venom is not universally available, knowledge and acceptance of the gospel can also be limited. It is important to spread the knowledge of the gospel in the same way that it is important to spread knowledge of physical cures and health practices.

In the end "faith" is the deciding factor in the same sense that universal standards and practices of good health, sanitation, nutrition, exercise and similar things are deciding factors for human physical health. Without these things a healthy human population is not possible, even if any individual can be healthy in almost any circumstances. Without faith a spiritually healthy human population is not possible, even if it is also true that a well-intentioned individual can be saved regardless of what they know or believe.

So God's system itself is perfectly just and fair - but just and fair only in the same sense that physical laws are just and fair. The purpose of the Incarnation is to work within that perfect system to extend the justice and fairness that comes with the knowledge of who God is and how He works. It is exactly parallel to the advantages that come with increasing knowledge of how the physical world works.

This is why the value of the Lord's coming is so frequently described in terms of light in the darkness and the benefits of that light. And light overcomes darkness, just as Jesus overcame the power of darkness. Knowledge will overcome ignorance, and the benefits of knowledge will overcome its dangers - or so the prophets tell us. It's a matter of trust.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
Hope you have some snow this Christmas!

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Not likely, unfortunately. It is so totally unfair.

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Originally posted by Freddy:

The same is true of salvation. God's system is perfectly fair and equal. Everyone on earth is saved or not according to the conditions that Jesus describes in the Gospels. But note how general His conditions are, repeatedly referring to "wickedness" and "righteousness" in various ways. These are concepts that are commonly understood everywhere on earth. So salvation is possible everywhere.

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Okay, I think I've got you.

This is probably going over old ground but if we believe in a theistic creator then didn't God make these 'physical laws' in the first place? As far as I can see your system falls back to a penal understanding too, just one step removed.

(But as I said, I think we might have had this conversation before ... indulge my amnesia. )

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Originally posted by Johnny S:

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Originally posted by Freddy:

The same is true of salvation. God's system is perfectly fair and equal. Everyone on earth is saved or not according to the conditions that Jesus describes in the Gospels. But note how general His conditions are, repeatedly referring to "wickedness" and "righteousness" in various ways. These are concepts that are commonly understood everywhere on earth. So salvation is possible everywhere.

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Okay, I think I've got you.

This is probably going over old ground but if we believe in a theistic creator then didn't God make these 'physical laws' in the first place? As far as I can see your system falls back to a penal understanding too, just one step removed.

(But as I said, I think we might have had this conversation before ... indulge my amnesia. )

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I'm sure we've had every possible related conversation before

Welcome back, John

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To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)

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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Freddy:
In the end "faith" is the deciding factor in the same sense that universal standards and practices of good health, sanitation, nutrition, exercise and similar things are deciding factors for human physical health. Without these things a healthy human population is not possible, even if any individual can be healthy in almost any circumstances. Without faith a spiritually healthy human population is not possible, even if it is also true that a well-intentioned individual can be saved regardless of what they know or believe.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
This is probably going over old ground but if we believe in a theistic creator then didn't God make these 'physical laws' in the first place? As far as I can see your system falls back to a penal understanding too, just one step removed.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
I have some problems with the 'analogy' reasoning though I can see the consistency of your thinking Freddy. To see God acting in terms of physical laws seems to beg the question of the supernatural transaction at the centre of the Gospel. The issue for me is the precise nature of that transaction and the reason for its necessity.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Think of John Ch 3. Jesus said to Nicodemus that he must be 'born again'...
So what exactly was Jesus demanding here of him and what is demanded of us, two millenia later and so very far removed from Judaism? Whatever it is, it takes in the heart of what we call the atonement would you agree?

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Ezekiel 11:19 Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh,

Ezekiel 18:31 Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
You also suggest in this clip that maybe a "well intentioned individual can be saved regardless of what they know or believe."

This implies, if you believe it, that Jesus is not, as he claimed, the 'only' way to the father, doesn't it?

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Originally posted by Freddy:

So, yes, this is in a sense a penal system. Jesus doesn't undo this system or negate its consequences. He just makes it possible for us to succeed within it - not by our power but by His, which is, and always was, the only power that exists.

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Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
I'm sure we've had every possible related conversation before

Welcome back, John

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Thanks JJ.

Sometimes having the same conversations again is boring and sometimes I notice for the first time what was obvious to you the first time you said it.

Mostly I just like the sound of my own voice.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
This all sounds incredibly like God is constrained by his own 'laws' ... something I thought opponents of PSA were very anti ...?

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Originally posted by Freddy:

This is different than the idea that justice must be satisfied, because it is not clear how this penal "justice" is consistent with love. I'm not saying that it is clear how everything that goes on in creation is consistent with love - much of it doesn't seem that way at all. But it is important, as I understand it, that these inconsistent features not be associated with God, but rather with hell.

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I suppose this is where we differ. I can see the logic of your argument but it surely leads to a form of dualism rejected by traditional Christianity - i.e. that evil is some kind of power or force which is an 'opposite' to God and outside of his control. It was this kind of dualism that was prevalent in gnostic thought and rejected by the early church councils.

So, we've been here before (thanks JJ ) but it does remind you that essentially these debates turn crucially on theodicy - how do we explain evil? CV and PSA seem to have very different answers here.

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Originally posted by Johnny S:
I can see the logic of your argument but it surely leads to a form of dualism rejected by traditional Christianity - i.e. that evil is some kind of power or force which is an 'opposite' to God and outside of his control.

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Evil is not a power except in the sense that it is the power of darkness, as Jesus says.

Evil is not outside the control of God. God permits evil to exist for the sake of a higher good, which is that humanity will freely choose good over evil. So God does not "wield" evil in the sense of directing it. Rather, He permits it to exist because the alternative is not as good, and therefore not as consistent with the divine will, or the divine love.

This is no kind of dualism. God is the only true force.

I would compare it to Durch Elm Disease. To the elms of the world, this disease is evil itself, a very powerful force. From their point of view, goodness is locked in a titanic struggle with this force. They see these two giant forces vying for control of the universe.

But from our point of view this disease is a pesky irritant, harmful to nothing except elm trees. The titanic struggle exists only from the point of view of the elms.

The same is true of the human struggle with evil. The power of evil is miniscule, and exists almost purely in human minds. It is in no way a threat to God, it is just a disease that afflicts humans. It is not a force. There is no dualism.

The whole point of the Incarnation is to help people with this disease, or to take away its power in human minds. The struggle is not really a struggle with evil, but a struggle to keep it from controlling us.

So how does PSA place evil within God's control?

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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg

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Originally posted by Freddy:
[QUOTE] As I see it, He IS the laws, and He is not constrained by them, He simply acts by means of them.

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His fundamental purpose springs from the fact that He is love itself, and the laws spring from the same source. They are the means by which love operates for the long term benefit of creation, which He loves. His ultimate purpose is to bring creation, especially humanity, into the happy state that is called heaven, or heaven on earth.

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Originally posted by Jamat:

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Originally posted by Freddy:
As I see it, He IS the laws, and He is not constrained by them, He simply acts by means of them.

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The problem here is that the Bible sees God's law as reflective of his very nature. He cannot stand apart from his laws without internal inconsistency which would be a form of schizophrenia. His acting by means of them logically means he must be constrained by them,or am I missing something?

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Just how do you define love then?

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• 1. Love requires an object that is not itself.
• 2. Love desires to make the object of its love happy.
• 3. Love desires to be joined freely with what is loved.

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The essence of love is not to love self, but to love others and through love to be joined with them. It is also the essence of love to be loved by others, for this is how this joining is achieved.

Love consists in willing what one has to be another's, and in feeling the other's delight as delight within oneself. That is what it is to love. In contrast, to feel one's own delight in another, and not the other's delight within oneself, is not to love; for this is loving self, whereas the first is loving the neighbor.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
God's love in the Bible is tough love surely. He acts in such a way as to divide his followers from his supporters. The harmony you seem to see as ideal is not often seen in scripture.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
Take Elisha's calling down fire from heaven on the troops sent to bring him in. This was God's man doing God's will in his age. What sort of love is demonstrated? Now you will no doubt suggest that Jesus wouldn't have done this. Well, no, not the Jesus of the gospels, but the Jesus of Revelation 1-3 is a more dangerous Jesus.

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Luke 9:53 But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. 54 And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?”
55 But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.

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Jehovah God or the Lord never curses anyone, is never angry with anyone, never leads anyone into temptation, and never punishes, let alone curses anybody. It is the devil's crew who do such things. Such things cannot possibly come from the fountain of mercy, peace, and goodness.

The reason why here and elsewhere in the Word it is said that Jehovah God not only turns His face away, is angry, punishes, and tempts, but also slays and even curses, is that people may believe that the Lord rules over and disposes every single thing in the whole world, including evil itself, punishments, and temptations.

And after people have grasped this very general concept, they may then learn in what ways He rules and disposes, and how He converts into good the evil inherent in punishment and the evil inherent in temptation.

In teaching and learning the Word very general concepts have to come first; and therefore the sense of the letter is full of such general concepts.

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Originally posted by Jamat:
The question is, is he the same Jesus? If not, then you are guilty of remodelling him into the image of the God you want him to be. In other words seeing only one aspect of his revelation of himself and thereby making him into a being of your own desire rather than the being set forth in the Bible.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
That's right. And I didn't even read Karl's answer before I wrote mine.

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Well in that case,The mouths of two or three witnesses have spoken. I must stand corrected. Happy Christmas.

--------------------
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)

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Originally posted by Freddy:
Happy Christmas Jamat, Johnny, and everyone!

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
if we're talking about bringing fire down on people, then I don't see any love there at all, either tough or otherwise, without putting more semantic stress on the word "love" than it can reasonably be asked to bear, as Sir Humphrey would say.

But fortunately, the Jesus I believe in (most of the time, stumblingly) told His disciples not only not to call fire down from heaven, as Elisha did, but also that their desire to do so showed they did not know what spirit they belonged to. I hope, that as we learn the spirit we do belong to, we will abandon seeing vengeance, death and destruction as being the outworkings of God's love.

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Originally posted by Freddy:

This is different than the idea that justice must be satisfied, because it is not clear how this penal "justice" is consistent with love. [/QB]

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Originally posted by infinite_monkey:
Bump?

The Thread that Dare Not Speak Its Name has a lot that I appreciated first time round in terms of the arguments being put forth now in the "Christ, PSA, and Hell" thread. I don't want to steal Karl's ideas and I don't know the etiquette of quoting other folks across threads, but I thought this:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
if we're talking about bringing fire down on people, then I don't see any love there at all, either tough or otherwise, without putting more semantic stress on the word "love" than it can reasonably be asked to bear, as Sir Humphrey would say.

But fortunately, the Jesus I believe in (most of the time, stumblingly) told His disciples not only not to call fire down from heaven, as Elisha did, but also that their desire to do so showed they did not know what spirit they belonged to. I hope, that as we learn the spirit we do belong to, we will abandon seeing vengeance, death and destruction as being the outworkings of God's love.

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was an especially good bit of food for thought.

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What have you done?

I'm not sure (obviously ) that it is as simple as Karl makes out.

The reference he makes to the rebuke over the disciples wanting to rebuke a Samaritan village comes in Luke 9. In the very next chapter, just a few verses later, Jesus sends out the 72. There he speaks a lot about the terrible judgment to come (on Korazin and Bethsaida for example).

How do we reconcile these passages? After all they are both the words of Jesus.

IMHO it makes much more sense of the text if the issue is delayed judgement. In Luke 9 the disciples were wanting present personal revenge. Jesus wants us to love our enemies so he rebukes them for that. Luke 10, OTOH, is about God's future judgment. Let's not conflate the two issues.

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Originally posted by Makepiece:
He does not punish because he hates but because he will not allow hate to continue forever. Yet he has persevered with those who hate to the point of offering to take their punishment for them and in doing so demonstrating his great love. Is that not right?

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
If Freddy and I virtually agree, it must be right.

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All that's left now is for you to actually agree.

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Originally posted by Call me Numpty:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
If Freddy and I virtually agree, it must be right.

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All that's left now is for you to actually agree.

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Johnny/Numpty - you are confirming what I said - inviting me to redefine the adjectives used to describe God until they bear little semantic relationship to any other use of them. There seems little point in describing God as "loving" if it means something completely different to what "loving" means in any other context. This is exactly parallel to asking me to redefine "faithful" so that I can reconcile it with shagging the bloke next door.

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Johnny/Numpty - you are confirming what I said - inviting me to redefine the adjectives used to describe God until they bear little semantic relationship to any other use of them. There seems little point in describing God as "loving" if it means something completely different to what "loving" means in any other context. This is exactly parallel to asking me to redefine "faithful" so that I can reconcile it with shagging the bloke next door.

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
2) We say that the revelation through Scripture is flawed.

The way some Con evos talk you'd think I'd never thought through their solutions Perhaps they just can't really "bellyfeel" that these solutions just do not convince me.

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Okay, but if we say that revelation is flawed, how do we tell which bits are?

I hear how frustrating you find con evos (don't forget that I have to mix with them all the time ) - as long as you realise that it is exactly the same in reverse ... these issues are hardly new to us as well and we don't 'get' the way you deal with them either.

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Originally posted by Freddy:
To my mind, the way out of seeming to ignore/abandon Scripture on this is to realize how problematic a literalistic interpretation is.

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I'm not hearing anyone suggest that we want such an interpretation.

As Karl rightly points out these are deep and painful issues. There are no easy or simplistic answers here.

I respect Karl's integrity and so know he will disagree (usually very eloquently too ) but I think that the liberal way out is the easy one... it comes across (even if not intended as such) as if we can just 're-write' the bits we don't like. I'd prefer the Prometheon ( ) task of continuing to wrestle.

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
That aside, that's a very different issue from what's giving me problems here. The Joshua slaughters cannot be interpreted as just; how can it be just to slaughter babes in arms?

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