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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Universalism: The case against
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Look back at the post. "we" refers to Lutherans. The historic Lutheran position is that "Scripture cannot be broken," and therefore it can be relied upon in matters such as these (e.g. whether anyone ever goes to hell). Remains only to establish WHAT the Scripture is saying, which is not always crystal clear--for example, there is no statement I can recall that says flat out, "Some people are going to hell." But the warning is ever-present, and we have at least one fictional character in a parable who winds up in the flames,as well as Judas being described as "lost". Those passages are troubling to a believer in the historic Lutheran position who nevertheless hopes against hope that all will, in the end, be saved. I'm one of them.
So why not go back a step and consider that Scripture can be broken, because not only the interpretation but also the writing was by fallible people who could be wrong?
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
I fundamentally disagree with this analysis. I don't thik that the nature of this life fits your understanding at all. This life is so much more than a test. This life is built around the beauty being in the journey, not the destination.
Of course life is more than just a test. But we were talking about how life relates to salvation, i.e., we were considering a specific aspect of life. And with regards to that, life is best characterised as a kind of test. That point of view is of course eminently scriptural, in particular Pauline. (And frankly, I hate "the way is the goal" speak. And I say that as sometime martial artist and former Zen practitioner. That sort of language is almost invariably a sign of incompetent and impotent Western romanticism, not of healthy 'Eastern' wisdom and practice.)
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
This world is about growth, life and death. It's about learning and enjoying. It's about maturing.
That does not in any way contradict the statement that this life is a salvation-determining test. It simply says something about the kind of test life is.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
If this life is just a test, then it's an incredibly unfair one. One where some people are given all the answers, others none. Some are given decades to complete the test, others seconds. Most people's results depend on the answers someone else gives. If mortality was truly built to test people and sort everyone into two categories, pass and fail, then it would look very different to this existence. This life is far too messy.
It is in my opinion an essential lesson for every believer to stop thinking in human categories of "fairness" as far the God's creation goes. As I keep saying, read Job. More generally, the modern "personalist" conception of God is simply not intellectually defensible in my opinion, but is definitely not identical to classical theism. In many ways, Universalism is a stop gap measure to patch over all the horrid difficulties that arise from considering God as "Sky Daddy" in a direct extrapolation from human experience. I agree with Brain Davies, Denys Turner and others in saying that classical theism (in particular Thomism) does not consider God as a moral agent, and does not believe that God is "good" in the sense of being "morally well behaved". That just is false "personalist" notions of God spilling over into the moral sphere. If God basically is a bigger and better version of a human being, then one can ask whether his moral behaviour is accordingly bigger and better. But God is not that. God's goodness is essentially being the cause of the goodness of creatures. God is Good is hence basically the same as saying that God is Creator.
Anyway, to get back to concrete claim: This "test" life is indeed not much like a exam set in school. In particular, while the consequences of passing or failing this test strike the individual, the ability to pass or fail it is strongly conditioned communally. This is actually at the heart of the salvation story, it sets up the opposing salvation camps, where death is brought by Adam and life is brought by Christ. It is at heart of traditional Christian orthopraxis, from infant baptism to sending missionaries all over the world. It is at the core of "loving your neighbour", it governs the millstones that are placed around people's neck and St Paul's concern that those strong in faith must be careful to not make the weaker ones stumble. So it is good to think about all this, in part because it is so odd for the loose collection of islands that man has become in the West. But when all is said and done, we may still find that a zygote that failed to implant ends up as a being in limbo, not heaven, and we may still find that "unfair" in human terms. At that point we really have to face the fact that God as God is not one of us, not even in a remote sense, and that we cannot ultimately "get" Him. At least not in this life and without the beatific vision induced by His grace. Even as Christians, in this life we are as Job.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
However, as a starting point on a journey of growth, with a striving, a movement towards, and a hope for ultimate maturity for all, this life does make more sense. Our corporate existence becomes a responsibility to support, help and learn from each other, rather than an unfair responsibiltiy where one might accidently damn the other. Every good thing becomes valuable as part of a path to God, rather than something disposable to be thrown away if we fail. This life (and, IMV Scripture) reflects that interpretation much more than your sorting machine does. Machines should be far much more efficient.
The sorting is 100% efficient. And all you are doing here is trying to claim all goodness and sweetness for yourself, in the hope of letting my position appear all cold and mean. But I have said nothing that would speak against supporting, helping and learning from each other. All I'm saying is that there is an edge to all that. It is not some kind of hobby, a nice thing to do to pass the time until we reconvene in heaven. It is an urgent matter, and it has eternal consequences. We are not playing games here. Now, I agree that doing good and living a good life should ideally transcend our desire to avoid hell. It should become something that we do for its own sake and to please God (which are in a sense the same thing). However, in order to transcend something, it has to be there first! It is by going beyond our "survival instinct" as far as eternity is concerned that we can achieve "heroic sanctity", but that does not mean that that survival instinct is mistaken.
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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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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
This world is about growth, life and death. It's about learning and enjoying. It's about maturing.
That does not in any way contradict the statement that this life is a salvation-determining test. It simply says something about the kind of test life is.
Well, no. Because the test in your system is so important that whether you pass or fail overrules any of that other good stuff. Think of two friends in this life, who spend it supporting each other, helping each other, learning from each other. But then, at the end, they both fail the test. All that beautiful, good, Godly interaction becomes nothing, chucked away as worthless. No-one is fully good and no-one is fully evil. So, for the damned, the good and the evil in them are both deemed inadequate and thrown away. So maturity doesn't matter, Christlikeness doesn't matter (saying they do matter from the point of view of the saved is not enough - from the point of view of the damned, your perspective basically says "all this goodness is not worth keeping, because it is unredeemable").
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
It is in my opinion an essential lesson for every believer to stop thinking in human categories of "fairness" as far the God's creation goes. As I keep saying, read Job.
We've done this to death before, and I'm not sure what else there is to say, other than that because we are made in God's image, we can get a glimpse of what God is like through our humanity. God's goodness and fairness is endless levels above our own, but they are not in totally different, alien categories. In Scripture God constantly talks to people on their level, according to their understandings. When we talk about God as Father, God as Good, God as Love, those things of course mean something more than human understandings of those things, but not different categories altogether. The Prophets (and Jesus) reveal God as incredibly interested in fairness and justice. Those things come out of who God is, what he is like. For me, throwing our hands up and saying "God's Fairness is so other from our own that we can't even bother trying to comprehend it" is a cop-out, and more importantly, at serious odds with the picture of God that we get in Scripture (Job or no Job).
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
And all you are doing here is trying to claim all goodness and sweetness for yourself, in the hope of letting my position appear all cold and mean. But I have said nothing that would speak against supporting, helping and learning from each other. All I'm saying is that there is an edge to all that. It is not some kind of hobby, a nice thing to do to pass the time until we reconvene in heaven. It is an urgent matter, and it has eternal consequences. We are not playing games here.
And you're now again playing the "if it's not eternal then it's inconsequential" card again, which is patently nonsense. It is an urgent matter, and of course we are not playing games. Judgement day is going to be serious, sin is serious. Injustice is serious. The difference is not the severity, but what God does about those things, and whether his salvation plan has the potential to be big enough for all, or just some.
We could argue again about the use of language the gospel writers chose. For me, the thing that is remarkable is that they had a whole raft of contemporary, unending-retributive-punishment words to choose from, eirgmon aidion, timoria adialepton, athanaton timorion (eternal imprisonment, unending torment, deathless torment). Instead, they (Jesus?) chose aionion kolasin, age-enduring discipline. It is still a big deal, it is still not a game. The punishment is real, but it is for a reason, it is for discipline, growth, salvation. And it does not have to last forever. Hell is not the last word. There is still a Hope beyond even Hell and punishment, that in the end there will be salvation.
The thing is as well, as lovely as you are, your position is cold and mean. I don't need to paint it that way; that's simply how it comes across to many, many people. That's why countless people won't even consider Christianity (or have left it), and why many Christians live in a state of cognitive dissonance where they can't reconcile the pictures of God being both Love, and yet also worst than the most unreasonable human parent. It's also why many Christians (myself included) have left that way of thinking and encountered a more real God and Gospel that has saved our faith. And that Gospel was always there, in Scripture, in the Christian tradition; it was just a case of discovering it.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
It is still a big deal, it is still not a game. The punishment is real, but it is for a reason, it is for discipline, growth, salvation. And it does not have to last forever. Hell is not the last word. There is still a Hope beyond even Hell and punishment, that in the end there will be salvation.
And this is the gospel, the Good News, thanks be to God.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
Let's go full out "Pelagian"...why does anyone need to be forgiven by God in the first place, before any of us have committed any sin ourselves in our lives? And since sin causes no harm to God, why does he need to forgive us for it? If God is just acting as the judge for the government of the universe, whose law he wrote, I see no indication from reason or my conscience that eternal damnation with no chance if escape is a just punishment for anything. Original sin makes no sense other than merely being the imperfection of being a created being with free will that needs God's grace in order to do good (ie, act out of love) and not stumble along blindly and selfishly - since God is love itself. How is the idea of being born condemned to eternal damnation self evident? How is the idea of life being a test to avoid damnation self evident? If it's not self evident, how is it so easy to see for people who don't accept the Aristotelian-Augustinian-Thomist way of looking at the world?
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
And what if it isn't? Well, this thought crossed my mind the other day in response to a blog post, by someone whose conservative friends (evangelical in this case) were telling here she believed in a "different Gospel". I was put in mind of Puddleglum in The Silver Chair, and (perhaps poorly) adapted his speech (in this case it was in the context of a couple of Dead Horses, but you'll get the gist nevertheless), thusly:
"All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up this other gospel of love, acceptance and tolerance. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up gospel values seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this tiny gospel of bigotry is the only one. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just silly liberals making up a touchy-feely gospel, if you're right. But silly liberals playing a game can make a gospel which licks your real gospel hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the touchy feely liberal gospel. I'm on the side of love and tolerance even if there isn't any loving, accepting, forgiving God to lead it"
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
I see no indication from reason or my conscience that eternal damnation with no chance if escape is a just punishment for anything.
Quite. I'm much more strongly anti-eternal-punishment, pro-post-mortem-conversion, pro-God-as-parent than I am staunchly pro-universalism. However, the universalism I have flows primarily out of those three things.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Well, no. Because the test in your system is so important that whether you pass or fail overrules any of that other good stuff. Think of two friends in this life, who spend it supporting each other, helping each other, learning from each other. But then, at the end, they both fail the test. All that beautiful, good, Godly interaction becomes nothing, chucked away as worthless. No-one is fully good and no-one is fully evil. So, for the damned, the good and the evil in them are both deemed inadequate and thrown away. So maturity doesn't matter, Christlikeness doesn't matter (saying they do matter from the point of view of the saved is not enough - from the point of view of the damned, your perspective basically says "all this goodness is not worth keeping, because it is unredeemable").
This is exactly as ridiculous as saying that mathematics does not matter for a maths exam, because one can understand some mathematics and yet fail that exam. And your universalist answer is like concluding that one hence must simply let everybody pass the math exam, no matter what they got wrong or right. It is irrelevant as well that even David Hilbert would occasionally make a maths error, and that Ryan Gosling would occasionally get some maths right. The cut is not whether one is completely and totally evil, or not. In fact, according to traditional theology it is strictly impossible to be completely and totally evil, because all evil is privation and something completely and totally lacking also lacks existence. So yes, if your ever so sweet and beautiful friends (perhaps we could add some muzak to your idyllic depiction?) manage to sin mortally - grave matter, full knowledge and deliberate consent, no less - and do not repent, then they can contemplate eternally in hell why all their friendship, support, help and learning could not even get them to the most basic recognition of God's law and obedience to it. And frankly, I'm fine with that even though it is as threatening to me as to next guy. One can lead a horse to water, but one cannot make it drink.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
We've done this to death before, and I'm not sure what else there is to say, other than that because we are made in God's image, we can get a glimpse of what God is like through our humanity. God's goodness and fairness is endless levels above our own, but they are not in totally different, alien categories. In Scripture God constantly talks to people on their level, according to their understandings. When we talk about God as Father, God as Good, God as Love, those things of course mean something more than human understandings of those things, but not different categories altogether. The Prophets (and Jesus) reveal God as incredibly interested in fairness and justice. Those things come out of who God is, what he is like. For me, throwing our hands up and saying "God's Fairness is so other from our own that we can't even bother trying to comprehend it" is a cop-out, and more importantly, at serious odds with the picture of God that we get in Scripture (Job or no Job).
Well, you are simply wrong. It is important to realise that there is a third option besides univocal or equivocal description, namely analogical one. Hence to say that it is not possible to univocally describe God and man is not to say that we are equivocating, it is to say that we are using analogy when we talk about God. Furthermore, much of the language we use about God is to be simply understood as a labelling of the effects that God causes by the disposition a human actor causing such effects would likely have. So if we say that God shows His wrath, then what we mean is that what God is doing seems to us like what a wrathful human might do. It does not mean that God is actually wrathful.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
And you're now again playing the "if it's not eternal then it's inconsequential" card again, which is patently nonsense.
It is a killer argument against universalism, so it doesn't surprise me that you try to belittle it.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
It is an urgent matter, and of course we are not playing games. Judgement day is going to be serious, sin is serious. Injustice is serious.
I'll tell you what I'll do at "judgement" day if universalism is true. Yawn. Twiddle my thumbs. Wait in generalised boredom for the empty ceremony of universal embarrassment to end. And what is the most God then can do to still make me care? Why, it is of course to threaten me with as much hell as you allow God to have. You might go "hah, but you will pay dearly for all your sins by suffering in purgatory". Well, at least you would probably end there after I shrugged at your afterlife opportunities to mature and grow. But anyway, none of this will really matter. I already know that I'm going to heaven, so I will take whatever you throw at me in the same spirit as a root canal. And the interesting bit is that going back to this life, this is only mildly deterrent. For it is true, maybe I would get scared off some minor misdeed if I knew that I would have to pay dearly for that in purgatory (or in your language of sweetness and delight, work through my issues for a long time). But let's say I really want to screw this married woman, and she would be more than happy to let me. Now, can your finite purgatory deter me from that? The point is that the opportunity to commit adultery with her is unique and concrete, and in the here and now. Whereas the punishment of purgatory is distant and vague. And in particular, there will not be hell to pay for this. Just some temporary time spent in purgatorial correction camps until I get to be in heaven with everybody else. In a way, no purgatorial correction can take away that unique pleasure of this concrete sin in my life. It will always be there as that thing her and I did, an eternal memory of some forbidden fruit I managed to taste, and got away with. Your purgatory is not in fact like the traditional one, where one has already rued what one did even while still alive, and where in purgatory the ongoing repentance and the temporal effects are merely completed and perfected so as to allow entrance to heaven. Your purgatory is powerless to deter me in this life, and to reform me in the afterlife, for I know that all its threats are empty and that I will get away with murder. Literally, if it comes to that.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
The punishment is real, but it is for a reason, it is for discipline, growth, salvation. And it does not have to last forever. Hell is not the last word. There is still a Hope beyond even Hell and punishment, that in the end there will be salvation.
Fantastic. And apropos of nothing, would you happen to have an attractive wife (or be one, I guess...)?
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
The thing is as well, as lovely as you are, your position is cold and mean. I don't need to paint it that way; that's simply how it comes across to many, many people. That's why countless people won't even consider Christianity (or have left it), and why many Christians live in a state of cognitive dissonance where they can't reconcile the pictures of God being both Love, and yet also worst than the most unreasonable human parent. It's also why many Christians (myself included) have left that way of thinking and encountered a more real God and Gospel that has saved our faith. And that Gospel was always there, in Scripture, in the Christian tradition; it was just a case of discovering it.
As far as "cognitive dissonances" go, the traditional picture is entirely coherent. It may not allow you to maintain the delusion of God as some kind of benevolent super-human, whose activity univocally can be described in human terms. But it sure as heck is compatible with scripture and with the observed world, and is internally consistent and compatible with philosophical analysis. Most Christians wouldn't know the first thing about it though. As far as being cold and mean goes, well, I prefer to start with reality and then see what accommodations can be made. I don't start with the accommodations I would like to see, and then busy myself declaring them to be reality. You may find your God comforting, but I don't think that your conceptions about Him make any sense at all. This world was not made by a benevolent super-human kind of entity, as is demonstrated by the simple fact that every human being past the age of reason will easily come up with multiple valid ideas for a much better world. Your ideas about God are hence incompatible with observable reality, and your universalism is little more than one aspect of the strained fudge that tries to make all-loving and ever-sweet Sky Daddy compatible with the not indifferent and often bitter world of experience.
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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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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
Ingo B,
How is your view of the afterlife consistent with the observed world?
What makes you think that it is obvious to the human way of seeing things that there could be a better world?
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Dubious Thomas
Shipmate
# 10144
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I'll tell you what I'll do at "judgement" day if universalism is true. Yawn.
I'm feeling like I'm experiencing "realized eschatology," because this thread is really starting to make me yawn with boredom at the same points being made over and over, just in different ways. It's like rearranging furniture. That sofa really can only go in two or three places!
That "snark" out of my system -- more or less -- I'll say this: IngoB's speculation about how he'll act on "judgment" day if universalism is true really exposes the fundamental problem with his approach. His "God" is really small and weak. His only real power is his ability to "stick it" to his enemies by sending them into an eternity of suffering. That's pretty damn petty. This "God" isn't much better than Marduk or Zeus on a bad day -- I mean, the Olympian gods were able to stick it to Sisyphus and Prometheus by imposing eternal punishments ... and Marduk sure gave it to Tiamat! And IngoB's "God" is going to do nasty things to folks like me! Good for him! ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
So, IngoB can only imagine that the God believed in and trusted by universalists is just as small and petty (and, frankly, pagan) as his "God," and he can only think that he'll yawn at such a deity.
But God -- the Real One -- just isn't that small, and weak, and petty. He's the One Who has redeemed the entire universe. He's infinitely more terrifying than the one who can turn human beings into eternally roasting marshmallows. Infinitely more!
So, go ahead, IngoB, plan to yawn! I look forward to watching you try! ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
[ 09. April 2014, 16:17: Message edited by: Dubious Thomas ]
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שפך חמתך אל־הגוים אשר לא־ידעוך
Psalm 79:6
Posts: 979 | Registered: Aug 2005
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
We could argue again about the use of language the gospel writers chose. For me, the thing that is remarkable is that they had a whole raft of contemporary, unending-retributive-punishment words to choose from, eirgmon aidion, timoria adialepton, athanaton timorion (eternal imprisonment, unending torment, deathless torment). Instead, they (Jesus?) chose aionion kolasin, age-enduring discipline.
I'm surprised that this hasn't already come up on this thread. Those who claim that the plain words of Jesus talk of eternal punishment often overlook the liguistic arguement that he may have said no such thing. I have little doubt that those who die in need of correction may suffer for their sins. Perhaps Hitler has to suffer for every one of the 45 million deaths he's alleged to have caused. But even that could have an age-enduring limit. I'm not at all convinced that Jesus meant that punishments are eternal.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
How is your view of the afterlife consistent with the observed world?
It is not clear to me what sort of answer you expect here. Nothing that I say about the afterlife is in contradiction with what can be observed about the world. In that way my view is consistent. In particular, what I say about God and the afterlife, and about God and this world, can be said using the same concept of God.
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
What makes you think that it is obvious to the human way of seeing things that there could be a better world?
Are you saying that you cannot think of anything that is not illogical but would make the world a better place? I find that hard to believe...
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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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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
But God -- the Real One -- just isn't that small, and weak, and petty. He's the One Who has redeemed the entire universe. He's infinitely more terrifying than the one who can turn human beings into eternally roasting marshmallows. Infinitely more!
He has really, really bad breath?
But wait, you seem to say that the redemption of the universe is infinitely more terrifying than eternal hell fire. I guess I was simply misunderstanding your usage of the term "redemption" then. See, for me "redemption" means something good, a thing that would fill one with joy, not terror. So my best guess is now that "redemption" means something like "world-eating" to you, and that you are actually a Cthulhu worshipper...
quote:
Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
So, go ahead, IngoB, plan to yawn! I look forward to watching you try!
Oh, I won't be yawning, don't worry. But that's because your God does not exist.
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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
PaulTH*
It will be a bearable judgement for Hitler as for Sodom. He suffered for, was punished by, being himself, he lived and died in hell.
What more punishment does he need? What more suffering? The punishment you describe is my dread favourite in Ian M. Banks' awesome Excession, meeted out by the 'psychopathically righteous' GCU Grey Area to a future Hitler. You can only have it if you allow him to experience the 45 million resurrections too.
Jesus met His culture well within its limitations. He meets ours anew.
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dubious Thomas
Shipmate
# 10144
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
But wait, you seem to say that the redemption of the universe is infinitely more terrifying than eternal hell fire.
BINGO! You go to the head of the class!
That's right, infinitely more terrifying than eternal fire.
"For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Corinthians 15:25-26).
Terrifying! And wonderful!
quote:
Oh, I won't be "yawning," don't worry. But that's because your God does not exist.
I know you are, but what am I? ... Um, I mean ... No, IngoB, it's your god who doesn't exist. I'm afraid of your god to just about the extent I'm afraid of Zeus, Marduk, or Vishnu. Which is, not much.
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שפך חמתך אל־הגוים אשר לא־ידעוך
Psalm 79:6
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stonespring
Shipmate
# 15530
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
How is your view of the afterlife consistent with the observed world?
It is not clear to me what sort of answer you expect here. Nothing that I say about the afterlife is in contradiction with what can be observed about the world. In that way my view is consistent. In particular, what I say about God and the afterlife, and about God and this world, can be said using the same concept of God.
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
What makes you think that it is obvious to the human way of seeing things that there could be a better world?
Are you saying that you cannot think of anything that is not illogical but would make the world a better place? I find that hard to believe...
But you've said multiple times that the observable world seems more aligned with your view of the afterlife than with any form of universalism (or with my somewhat Pelagian spin on things which seems to question why we have any original sin to be forgiven in the first place). How is this so?
The world could certainly become better through human or other means that are in this world - but you asked universalists why God hasn't made everything and everyone perfect to begin with if everyone is going to wind up in heaven anyway, and if it seems to humans that God could have made the world any better than universalism is absurd.
I'm not sure that God could have made creation any "better" than He has. In this world, natural processes are allowed to operate even when they cause suffering and beings with free will are allowed to make harmful choices even though they cause suffering. Is a world where no suffering ever occurs, from the beginning, better than this world? I don't know. Any world in which everyone is always able to escape their suffering at some point is better than any world with suffering in which that is not the case. That I'm pretty sure about though. Why? It seems to come from that part of me that I think is "God's law written on my soul" - just like you think that you have a part of you that is God's law written on your soul that says that punishment for punishment's sake is just.
Posts: 1537 | Registered: Mar 2010
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
That's right, infinitely more terrifying than eternal fire. "For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Corinthians 15:25-26).
How is that terrifying, unless you happen to be an enemy of the Lord?
quote:
Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
Terrifying! And wonderful!
You are probably looking for the word "terrific" then...
quote:
Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
No, IngoB, it's your god who doesn't exist. I'm afraid of your god to just about the extent I'm afraid of Zeus, Marduk, or Vishnu. Which is, not much.
Well, this is the difficulty of the Christian afterlife in a nutshell. The proper response to this is of course to wait patiently till judgement day, and when you are led away with the goats to go all neener-neener on your ass. Unfortunately, this very act at that point in time would mean that one finds oneself among the goats as well. To escape this fate and be counted among the sheep then, one must even hope now that you shall be a rather confused sheep yourself. And obviously then one will have to be overjoyed that somehow you made the herd, rather than going all neener-neener on your ass among the sheep. So this raises the deep theological question, since you so utterly deserve that somebody will go neener-neener on your ass, when and how will God allow it?! Is that perhaps what purgatory is all about, the place where we can get the necessary neener-neeners out of our system? Oh, the mysteries of faith...
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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
It's all about what you would do if you were God.
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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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Dubious Thomas
Shipmate
# 10144
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
...since you so utterly deserve that somebody will go neener-neener on your ass....
Must be nice to know just what someone else deserves!
Me -- I'm far from certain what you deserve. I have a hunch about what you need, but to express that would involve making an observation about your personality ... and "Hell" is the only appropriate place for such things here on the Ship ... but what I'd like to say isn't really "Hellish" ... so .... Never mind!
But, I pledge that when I see you standing before the One True God, trying to yawn, I won't neener-neener you! Well, I'll try not to!
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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שפך חמתך אל־הגוים אשר לא־ידעוך
Psalm 79:6
Posts: 979 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Dubious Thomas
Shipmate
# 10144
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
It's all about what you would do if you were God.
I find myself thinking more and more of six-year-old Anthony Freemont in the Twilight Zone episode, "It's a Good Life"!
Interestingly, a recent viewer of the clips wrote this: quote:
If you think about it, the little boy in this episode describes the christian god and the relationship his followers have with him to perfection.
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שפך חמתך אל־הגוים אשר לא־ידעוך
Psalm 79:6
Posts: 979 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
One of my ALL time favourites. I read it years before I saw it on the Twilight Zone. By Jerome Bixby. If Satan were God. Which for many, the vast majority, he is ...
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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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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
One cannot be saved if one is not in danger. Strictly speaking, there is no salvation at all in universalism.
If every single passenger and crew member is saved from a sinking ship, does that mean they were never really in danger at all?
Well put. I kept reading to see if anyone would address it, but nobody seems to have.
I can only add "exactly!" because I agree.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I responded immediately and then couldn't be bothered after half an hour of mulling. Which, believe it or not, is often the case.
What is the danger for Sodom in its bearable, post-mortem judgement?
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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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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Well, no. Because the test in your system is so important that whether you pass or fail overrules any of that other good stuff. Think of two friends in this life, who spend it supporting each other, helping each other, learning from each other. But then, at the end, they both fail the test. All that beautiful, good, Godly interaction becomes nothing, chucked away as worthless. No-one is fully good and no-one is fully evil. So, for the damned, the good and the evil in them are both deemed inadequate and thrown away. So maturity doesn't matter, Christlikeness doesn't matter (saying they do matter from the point of view of the saved is not enough - from the point of view of the damned, your perspective basically says "all this goodness is not worth keeping, because it is unredeemable").
This is exactly as ridiculous as saying that mathematics does not matter for a maths exam, because one can understand some mathematics and yet fail that exam. And your universalist answer is like concluding that one hence must simply let everybody pass the math exam, no matter what they got wrong or right. It is irrelevant as well that even David Hilbert would occasionally make a maths error, and that Ryan Gosling would occasionally get some maths right. The cut is not whether one is completely and totally evil, or not.
You're talking in the context of your exam analogy as if I agree it's accurate or useful. My point is that it's not useful at all. In your mathematics exam, any maths learning that Ryan Gosling did is wasted and disposable. It was pointless, because he didn't pass. And so, in your eschatology, a vast sea of good, Godly things get chucked into Gehenna. That's my criticism. And so Godliness and goodness is undervalued, and your impotent God has to throw away that which he had intially created and called 'good'.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Well, you are simply wrong. It is important to realise that there is a third option besides univocal or equivocal description, namely analogical one. Hence to say that it is not possible to univocally describe God and man is not to say that we are equivocating, it is to say that we are using analogy when we talk about God. Furthermore, much of the language we use about God is to be simply understood as a labelling of the effects that God causes by the disposition a human actor causing such effects would likely have. So if we say that God shows His wrath, then what we mean is that what God is doing seems to us like what a wrathful human might do. It does not mean that God is actually wrathful.
But those analogies mean something. They help us understand God. You have gone too far into making God unknowable. We might as well call God 'Evil', 'Hateful' and 'Unjust', but say that those descriptions are different to our human understandings too. Everything becomes arbitrary. God is both knowable and unknowable, but God has revealed Godself to us in Jesus. I struggle to see how our discussing this is going to become anything other than assertion and counter-assertion, though.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I'll tell you what I'll do at "judgement" day if universalism is true. Yawn. Twiddle my thumbs. Wait in generalised boredom for the empty ceremony of universal embarrassment to end. And what is the most God then can do to still make me care? Why, it is of course to threaten me with as much hell as you allow God to have. You might go "hah, but you will pay dearly for all your sins by suffering in purgatory". Well, at least you would probably end there after I shrugged at your afterlife opportunities to mature and grow. But anyway, none of this will really matter. I already know that I'm going to heaven, so I will take whatever you throw at me in the same spirit as a root canal. And the interesting bit is that going back to this life, this is only mildly deterrent. For it is true, maybe I would get scared off some minor misdeed if I knew that I would have to pay dearly for that in purgatory (or in your language of sweetness and delight, work through my issues for a long time). But let's say I really want to screw this married woman, and she would be more than happy to let me. Now, can your finite purgatory deter me from that? The point is that the opportunity to commit adultery with her is unique and concrete, and in the here and now. Whereas the punishment of purgatory is distant and vague. And in particular, there will not be hell to pay for this. Just some temporary time spent in purgatorial correction camps until I get to be in heaven with everybody else. In a way, no purgatorial correction can take away that unique pleasure of this concrete sin in my life. It will always be there as that thing her and I did, an eternal memory of some forbidden fruit I managed to taste, and got away with. Your purgatory is not in fact like the traditional one, where one has already rued what one did even while still alive, and where in purgatory the ongoing repentance and the temporal effects are merely completed and perfected so as to allow entrance to heaven. Your purgatory is powerless to deter me in this life, and to reform me in the afterlife, for I know that all its threats are empty and that I will get away with murder. Literally, if it comes to that.
Where to begin... Well, since you've already questioned my repentance on this thread, it's only fair to reciprocate. I've heard it said that unless one genuinely asks the question Paul asks in Romans 6:1 ("Shall we go on sinning?"), then they haven't grasped the gospel. If that's really what your attitude ends up being, then I have a hunch that you'll end up sitting outside the gates of the heavenly city, and it'll be a long time before you're allowed in...
But there's something more fundamental wrong with your description. Your "if universalism is true" reminds me of the comedy line (I think it was from The Meaning of Life) where the presenter reveals "and the correct religion was...". That's simply not how it works. The only time we'll know if Universalism is true is when it has actually happened, and everyone is finally sanctified. Up until that point, it's still speculation. At Judgement Day, be assured that you, I and everyone else can still be scared shitless. Because there's no way that Universalism will be true then, because there will still be a lot to work to do. You seem to be talking as if I believe that God will declare on Judgement Day "It's alright everyone, Universalism was true after all", and will ignore sin and injustice. That's simply not the case.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
The punishment is real, but it is for a reason, it is for discipline, growth, salvation. And it does not have to last forever. Hell is not the last word. There is still a Hope beyond even Hell and punishment, that in the end there will be salvation.
Fantastic. And apropos of nothing, would you happen to have an attractive wife (or be one, I guess...)?
I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. Please can you explain?
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
tries to make all-loving and ever-sweet Sky Daddy
Well, firstly, it was Jesus who revealed God to be a Heavenly Father, who called him Abba, as did Paul. So, if you're criticizing the idea of God as a loving parent, then you should probably be looking for a religion other than Christianity. It's pretty central to the whole thing...
Secondly, all-loving, no probs. Ever-sweet, probably not. Being a father is damn difficult (I believe you're discovering that at the moment?). Being a father of rebellious kids even harder. Your digs of my view of things as saccharine sweet are off the mark. When I'm talking about Love, I'm not talking about sentimental nonsense, but the real, vast, aching, sacrificial, near-suicidal disposition that God has towards his creatures. A real father isn't one who gives up on his rebellious kids, but one who gives every good thing of himself for them (even when they throw it back in his face), who waits for them, gives them freedom to fail, forgives them etc. etc. etc. The Father God that Christ revealed to his disciples.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Look back at the post. "we" refers to Lutherans. The historic Lutheran position is that "Scripture cannot be broken," and therefore it can be relied upon in matters such as these (e.g. whether anyone ever goes to hell). Remains only to establish WHAT the Scripture is saying, which is not always crystal clear--for example, there is no statement I can recall that says flat out, "Some people are going to hell." But the warning is ever-present, and we have at least one fictional character in a parable who winds up in the flames,as well as Judas being described as "lost". Those passages are troubling to a believer in the historic Lutheran position who nevertheless hopes against hope that all will, in the end, be saved. I'm one of them.
So why not go back a step and consider that Scripture can be broken, because not only the interpretation but also the writing was by fallible people who could be wrong?
Because faith is not a matter of choice--not for me, anyway. I believe what I believe BECAUSE I believe it. That is what reality looks like to me. I can no more choose to believe that Scripture is broken than I can choose to believe that there is no sun. My brain just doesn't bend that way.
I think I'm going to go start a thread--I've heard other people talk about "choosing to believe" something before, and it just sounds really odd to me.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Scripture declares itself fallible and that it will be 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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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
We see through a glass fallibly.
Prophecy will fail.
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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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Dubious Thomas
Shipmate
# 10144
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
So why not go back a step and consider that Scripture can be broken, because not only the interpretation but also the writing was by fallible people who could be wrong?
Because faith is not a matter of choice--not for me, anyway. I believe what I believe BECAUSE I believe it. That is what reality looks like to me. I can no more choose to believe that Scripture is broken than I can choose to believe that there is no sun. My brain just doesn't bend that way.
I might be starting to understand the issue here (see my post in the other thread)....
Lamb Chopped, I think you've misunderstood Boogie's challenge. As best I can tell, it wasn't a suggestion that you choose to believe something different. It was a suggestion that you consider that your current belief is in error.
Let me rewrite Boogie's suggestion as if addressed to a Muslim, who has asserted that she knows that Jesus isn't God, because the Holy Qur'an clearly states that he isn't:
quote:
So why not go back a step and consider that the Qur'an could be wrong, because not only the interpretation but also the writing was by a fallible person who could be wrong?
This isn't a case of asking the Muslim to choose to believe something different, but simply to consider whether existing beliefs are right.
I'll tell you that I'm just as firmly convinced that the Bible is fallible as you (apparently) are convinced that it's infallible. I don't "choose" to believe the Bible is fallible, as if I could just as easily "choose" to believe that it is infallible. I believe what I believe because I am convinced by the evidence. But I continue to think about the alternative.
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שפך חמתך אל־הגוים אשר לא־ידעוך
Psalm 79:6
Posts: 979 | Registered: Aug 2005
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
One cannot be saved if one is not in danger. Strictly speaking, there is no salvation at all in universalism.
If every single passenger and crew member is saved from a sinking ship, does that mean they were never really in danger at all?
Well put. I kept reading to see if anyone would address it, but nobody seems to have. I can only add "exactly!" because I agree.
If you know in advance that you are going to be "saved" from the ship at the time when it lands, it's not called "being saved". It's called disembarking. You can tell me all sorts of elaborate stories about that being some supposed rescue mission. But if it is just the pier, and we are all going to step out when we get there, and nobody is in the slightest danger of drowning, and the worst that can happen to anybody is to be kept waiting by one of the officers until their paperwork checks out, then there simply is no reason to be concerned at all.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
And so, in your eschatology, a vast sea of good, Godly things get chucked into Gehenna. That's my criticism. And so Godliness and goodness is undervalued, and your impotent God has to throw away that which he had intially created and called 'good'.
There's nothing good being lost here that an impotent God would have loved to keep, there's a punishing of something bad that an infinitely potent God wants to see burned. God wants to save every individual human being, true, but not at all costs and certainly on His terms and not on ours. That the doomed burn in hell is not some kind of cosmic failure mode, it is the very execution of the will of God. He is not being thwarted, He is thwarting. If I am trying to throw a bad apple in the trash can, you are trying to stay my hand, going on about how there is some nutritional value in that rotten fruit, how I could suck some calories out of that decaying organic matter still. But I do have good apples to eat, and I have no need for bad ones. Sure, if there is just some small blemish, I will cut that off and then eat the rest of the apple. But if it is rotten and mouldy, I'm not gobbling that down just because it is not totally foul in every cubic millimetre. I take it and throw it in the bin. And there's no impotence in that. Apples can go bad, and I knew that when I planted that apple tree. There's no such thing as a real organic apple without the possibility of rotting. But apples can be good, too, and I wanted to have some tasty apples. It's all my choice. My apple tree. My apples. My taste. My bin.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
We might as well call God 'Evil', 'Hateful' and 'Unjust', but say that those descriptions are different to our human understandings too. Everything becomes arbitrary
Nonsense. Neither analogies, nor labelling by similar effects, is arbitrary.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
If that's really what your attitude ends up being, then I have a hunch that you'll end up sitting outside the gates of the heavenly city, and it'll be a long time before you're allowed in...
Who cares? At that point a long time is just an infinitesimal inconvenience. Unlike now, I would then be sure that I am going to eternal heaven.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
At Judgement Day, be assured that you, I and everyone else can still be scared shitless. Because there's no way that Universalism will be true then, because there will still be a lot to work to do. You seem to be talking as if I believe that God will declare on Judgement Day "It's alright everyone, Universalism was true after all", and will ignore sin and injustice. That's simply not the case.
You will be scared shitless about what? About being confronted with your sins? It's not like you don't know them. About being embarrassed in front of others? It's not like their dirty laundry is not being washed at the same time. Just tell God to make a bullet point extract of the relevant entries in the book of life, sign that off, and be done with it. Or if God feels the need to make you jump through some hoops, jump through the hoops. Hug you enemies seven times seventy times, or whatever He wants. It is after all just so much ado about nothing, for whatever you have done and are doing now, eventually the result will always be heaven. God doesn't have any say in that, really.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. Please can you explain?
I had just explained to you how vague threats of transient consequences are not a sufficient deterrent to attractive sins like adultery.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Well, firstly, it was Jesus who revealed God to be a Heavenly Father, who called him Abba, as did Paul. So, if you're criticizing the idea of God as a loving parent, then you should probably be looking for a religion other than Christianity. It's pretty central to the whole thing...
Oh, I think that analogy was quite fitting, in particular in the ancient Middle Eastern context. It does not fit that much into the modern Western context though. There always was a tension between "Abba" and other things Jesus and the rest of scripture said about the Father. But with modern conceptions, the Father becomes positively schizophrenic.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Being a father is damn difficult (I believe you're discovering that at the moment?).
Huh? Whatever gave you that strange idea? My son is a delight.
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
A real father isn't one who gives up on his rebellious kids, but one who gives every good thing of himself for them (even when they throw it back in his face), who waits for them, gives them freedom to fail, forgives them etc. etc. etc. The Father God that Christ revealed to his disciples.
Up to a point, Lord Copper. If we take the story of the prodigal son, which no doubt you find paradigmatic for all that, we note what the father there does not do. He does not follow his son into the far country to extract him from his sinful life. Rather, he considers this son dead, as he says to the servants and to the elder son. Only when that son decides to repent and return to the Father, then he gets an almost too generous welcome. What would happened to that son if he had not returned to the father? He would have starved in that foreign land, separated from his father. That's what.
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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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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
Lamb Chopped, I think you've misunderstood Boogie's challenge. As best I can tell, it wasn't a suggestion that you choose to believe something different. It was a suggestion that you consider that your current belief is in error.
Let me rewrite Boogie's suggestion as if addressed to a Muslim, who has asserted that she knows that Jesus isn't God, because the Holy Qur'an clearly states that he isn't:
quote:
So why not go back a step and consider that the Qur'an could be wrong, because not only the interpretation but also the writing was by a fallible person who could be wrong?
This isn't a case of asking the Muslim to choose to believe something different, but simply to consider whether existing beliefs are right.
I'll tell you that I'm just as firmly convinced that the Bible is fallible as you (apparently) are convinced that it's infallible. I don't "choose" to believe the Bible is fallible, as if I could just as easily "choose" to believe that it is infallible. I believe what I believe because I am convinced by the evidence. But I continue to think about the alternative.
Yes, of course I have considered that suggestion. I considered it so strongly that I spent years learning the original languages just so I can be sure nobody's pulling the wool over my eyes in a translation! I have spent the last thirty-odd years learning as much as I can about the history, culture, and languages precisely because the truth thing matters so much to me. if Boogie means what you think she means, well... I don't think she'd say such a thing, myself--as if she thought I'd never considered it at all.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
...If we take the story of the prodigal son, which no doubt you find paradigmatic for all that, we note what the father there does not do. He does not follow his son into the far country to extract him from his sinful life. Rather, he considers this son dead, as he says to the servants and to the elder son. Only when that son decides to repent and return to the Father, then he gets an almost too generous welcome.
If we take the story of the Lost Sheep (part of the same passage) the shepherd goes after the sheep and carries it back. In the story of the Lost Coin the coin doesn't even lose itself, its not sentient, the woman loses it, then finds it again. But there is still rejoicing in heaven.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Dubious Thomas
Shipmate
# 10144
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Yes, of course I have considered that suggestion. I considered it so strongly that I spent years learning the original languages just so I can be sure nobody's pulling the wool over my eyes in a translation! I have spent the last thirty-odd years learning as much as I can about the history, culture, and languages precisely because the truth thing matters so much to me. if Boogie means what you think she means, well... I don't think she'd say such a thing, myself--as if she thought I'd never considered it at all.
Okay, perhaps you haven't misunderstood Boogie at all -- of course, she's the only one who can really say. I hope she'll post soon to clarify things!
I do think you have misunderstood me. I had no intention of suggesting that you had "never considered it [biblical fallibility] at all," and I didn't (and still don't) interpret Boogie as suggesting that. Rather, I was working with the assumption that you had considered the possibility of biblical fallibility -- just as I have considered (many times!) the possibility of biblical infallibility. And I didn't see anything wrong with someone asking you to consider, again, that you might be mistaken! I'm frequently asked to reconsider my views, and I try very hard not to take offense or be defensive in response to such challenges. In academia, it's taken for granted that well-considered views might still be reconsidered.
Speaking of which, you've gone on record with me about your relevant education. I'll do the same. I have also spent years studying the original biblical languages (starting with much the same motivation), and I'll quote your words to say that I, too, "have spent the last thirty-odd years learning as much as I can about the history, culture, and languages." I went so far as to earn a doctorate from one of the "Ivy League" universities, and I've managed to become a tenured professor at a not-too-shabby research university. As I labor on this note, fussing over getting it "just right," I'm thinking that I probably should be working on my latest research project, instead of fooling around on the Ship.
Anyway, like you, I care about the truth thing. But my studies led me to quite different conclusions about what the truth is with regard to the Bible. My conclusions could be wrong. How about yours?
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שפך חמתך אל־הגוים אשר לא־ידעוך
Psalm 79:6
Posts: 979 | Registered: Aug 2005
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
If we take the story of the Lost Sheep (part of the same passage) the shepherd goes after the sheep and carries it back. In the story of the Lost Coin the coin doesn't even lose itself, its not sentient, the woman loses it, then finds it again. But there is still rejoicing in heaven.
Exactly. First Christ talks about pastoral care, explicitly in response to the question of the Pharisees why he eats with the sinners. Then as consequence of these efforts he gets to talk about repentance, and note that he says explicitly that the sinner has to repent. It is not so that Christ simply forgives the sinner; the heavens rejoice over any sinner that can be brought to repentance, not about any sinner who is being forgiven. And then he tells a parable that illustrate repentance. And yes, even there the Father comes rushing to the prodigal son as he approaches his old home. But it is the prodigal son who has to abandon his ways and return home first. If he doesn't, then he will starve a foreigner wishing that he could eat pig fodder. So the passage as a whole in fact puts a limit on the responsibility of bringing back the "lost sheep": sinners must repent or they will not be saved, and one cannot ultimately make them repent, just make it as easy as possible. (Of course, there are other passages as well which show that even one's pastoral efforts cannot be infinite, and that there comes a time when one has to shake the dust from one's feet and leave.)
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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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Good for Nothing
Apprentice
# 17722
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
It's all about what you would do if you were God.
It's also about how I could enjoy an eternal bliss from which my unbelieving or undeserving brother was forever excluded.
Posts: 20 | From: Lancashire | Registered: Jun 2013
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Your purgatory is powerless to deter me in this life, and to reform me in the afterlife, for I know that all its threats are empty and that I will get away with murder. Literally, if it comes to that.
This seems to be at odds with your view that this life is nothing more than a test to determine who goes where in the afterlife, because if that is true then nothing we do in this life actually matters in this life - it's all about the next. That being the case, why would we need a deterrent to prevent us from doing bad things whose only negative effect on others is in this tiny, insignificantly finite portion of our eternal existence?
And it's not a very good deterrent anyway. You've already brought up the parable of the prodigal son, and what is that if not a message that screwing your neighbour's hot wife is perfectly OK so long as you then repent and return to the Father for some fatted calf fun time? In both cases there is no eternal consequence whatsoever for the sin, and the only difference is whether the repentance part comes before or after death.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
Re: the prodigal son thing. The son does not repent, his self dialogue during the long walk back is entirely self-serving. He doesn't care about the Father at all, all he's worried about is filling his belly. Nor, for that matter, does the Father consider the son dead, any more than the shepherd of the lost sheep consider his beast dead. On the contrary, he hitches up His skirts and runs to embrace the son. Effectively, He is saying, "I don't care about all that. All that matters is you're here." Which is, I suggest, a heightened version of that which any parent would feel, and it is this that gives the story its power.
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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)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
This seems to be at odds with your view that this life is nothing more than a test to determine who goes where in the afterlife, because if that is true then nothing we do in this life actually matters in this life - it's all about the next. That being the case, why would we need a deterrent to prevent us from doing bad things whose only negative effect on others is in this tiny, insignificantly finite portion of our eternal existence?
I seriously, not rhetorically, have no idea what you are talking about. It is, of course, an exaggeration to say that this life matter only as far as the next one goes. Precisely in and through its function to determine our eternal life it acquires a significance of its own. But anyway, the test just is what we do in this finite portion of our existence. Thus on one hand it is correct to say that this temporal domain is as nothing compared to eternity, if we merely compare the "duration" of what happens. And thus universalism has not explanation for this life, because for universalism our life is one thing, and the afterlife is another thing, and ultimately what happens in the latter does not depend on the former. So the comparison there indeed boils down to comparing the "durations", leaving this life as a pointless nothingness. But on the other hand, in the traditional scheme all of eternity depends on our "performance" in this finite period of time. Thus the exact opposite holds to the situation for universalism. Here the entire significance of eternity gets crammed into the finite temporal space, loading up this life with infinite significance. The mere comparison of "durations" is not valid, because there is a strict causal connection between the domains, they are not independent, but one follows directly and exactly from the other.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
And it's not a very good deterrent anyway. You've already brought up the parable of the prodigal son, and what is that if not a message that screwing your neighbour's hot wife is perfectly OK so long as you then repent and return to the Father for some fatted calf fun time? In both cases there is no eternal consequence whatsoever for the sin, and the only difference is whether the repentance part comes before or after death.
This is formally correct. You can sin in whatever way and how often you want, if you manage to sincerely repent of these sins, you will go to heaven. But here is the kicker. You don't know your hour. Death will come knocking, but you cannot be sure when. So it's a risky game to rack up mortal sins in the assumption that you will be able to repent of them in time. Maybe a van will run you over, and that will be that. Furthermore, you are not some kind of memory-free agent. The first thing you will learn about yourself if you ever try to combat a sin is that you are a creature of habit. So if you fancy the high risk, high reward game of sinning freely and then repenting just in time before your death, you most likely will find that you just can't stop sinning. Once the habits are there, it is tremendously difficult to get rid of them again. In fact, the whole Christian (traditional) orthopraxis is basically one massive and coherent attempt to disrupt bad habits and establish good habits. For example, the fasting that you should be doing right now in Lent traditionally (before modern wussification) would by now have left you so hungry for food that your body in reaction would have largely shut down the primary cause of sin: your sexual desires and impulses. It's a simple physiological reaction, as your body goes into survival mode against starvation, it shuts down the energy usually directed towards procreation. Finally, of course we are not talking about the corrupted Protestant version of repentance either. Oh no. Again, the real Christianity has put something in place there that on close examination has deep significance. You have to name and shame your sins, in kind and number, before another person (namely the priest in confession). You cannot just "ask God in prayer for forgiveness". Apart from sacramental questions, there is some serious psychology going on in this one as well. This bringing out in the open of what you have done, before another, is in and by itself a cathartic step. It is is tremendously easy to fake and fudge that in a mere prayer to God, because the difference between that and you simply forgiving yourself is really just a little mental sleight of hand. And that particularly comes to the fore as you struggle with bad habits. But go to the same priest again and again stating the same sins again and again, and feel the pressure build. Because you are a human, an embodied creature, and things become real to you in other physical beings. Playing mind games with yourself is endless, interactions with other people are not.
And so my answer to you is that yes, as in the parable of the workers in the vineyard, you can get the full reward with much less work than others. You might even get away with murder. But this is not an infinite game with 100% certain win, as universalism proposes. The day draws to an end, and the master of the vineyard will stop hiring. And it turn out that practically speaking, precisely due to your temporal and physical limitations, the sin game really is not a game worth playing.
Finally, while it is good and proper to start with such "salavation calculations", this is not where all of this ends. It is good and proper because once more people are like that. Christianity - traditional version - is not actually idealistic. It is very realistic. It starts with what people do naturally, looking out for their advantage. It just opens the field of calculation to higher things. But this is a beginning. Again, the parable of the prodigal son tells us where this is supposed to go, namely in the interaction of the elder son with the father. The elder son precisely complains that the prodigal son has sneaked into a "double win", first blowing his inheritance on a life of sin and then getting a second go for free from the father. Well, the father reminds the son of what the goal actually is, namely being with him. And that the elder son always had, whereas the prodigal son lost it and only now regained it. So who is the winner? But this is strangely hard for the elder son, and we are much like the elder son if we have not been challenged massively by sin. Whereas the prodigal son would now have understood what the father said to the elder son all too clearly. For the riches that the father now heaps on him are almost an embarrassment, almost an accusation in being so underserved. Likewise, it is precisely in our pitiful struggles against basic sinfulness that we can easily find our feet for higher things. The idea that you just start with doing it "all for God" is asking for a delusional faith. It is in rather in trying to making the salvation ends meet, in the sad little attempts to stomp out bad habits that most of us can find a path to God for God's sake.
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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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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
Ok, Ingo, it seems that you're still working under the assumption that the Universalism I'm talking about is a knowledge, a certainty, or a doctrinal belief. It's not. It's a hope, an inkling, a kind of belief even. It's not a certainty. As I have said, the only point at which Universalism will be shown to be true is if and when it finally happens (which is why you can't possibly 'discover' on Judgement Day that Universalism is true, because it still won't have happened). Hence:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you know in advance that you are going to be "saved" from the ship at the time when it lands, it's not called "being saved".
You don't know in advance. That's the point. You hope you (and everyone else) will be, and you trust in the rescue mission, in their expertise that they will save you. But the danger is still real.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If I am trying to throw a bad apple in the trash can, you are trying to stay my hand, going on about how there is some nutritional value in that rotten fruit, how I could suck some calories out of that decaying organic matter still. But I do have good apples to eat, and I have no need for bad ones.
But we're not talking about apples, we're talking about people, God's children. One's attitude to a piece of fruit that you consume is very different to one's attitude to your own children. I appreciate you could probably point to the parable of the sower here to back up what you're saying, but you're talking apples and oranges (well, apples and people) here.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
If that's really what your attitude ends up being, then I have a hunch that you'll end up sitting outside the gates of the heavenly city, and it'll be a long time before you're allowed in...
Who cares? At that point a long time is just an infinitesimal inconvenience. Unlike now, I would then be sure that I am going to eternal heaven.
Again, you won't know, and you won't be sure. Universal Hope is not a certainty. It's a Hope, that for me, best fits my understanding of God and his creatures.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. Please can you explain?
I had just explained to you how vague threats of transient consequences are not a sufficient deterrent to attractive sins like adultery.
Okay, so I hope I'm following your line of reasoning here (it's very strange). Because I believe that God will ultimately forgive everyone (in fact, already has), I'm more likely to commit adultery because I know that I'll 'get away with it' in the end? But only if I don't have an attractive wife, because I would be content and wouldn't want to play away (because people with attractive spouses never cheat...)? And you have some kind of statistical knowledge that people who believe in eternal punishment sin less than Universalists?
Actually, I think that belief in eternal punishment has no affect on moral behaviour. Because, I think, most people project the pass mark for your exam at a position just a few marks below their own. People who believe that great swathes of people will burn forever in Hell, but the righteous will enjoy heaven, most frequently put themselves in the latter camp, not the former. Funny that (though I'm prepared that you might consider yourself an exception to that).
What actually changes behaviour is security and maturity. Knowing that we are loved, accepted and forgiven by Father God motivates us to be more like him, and act more like him. Carrots are a lot more effective than sticks.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
Being a father is damn difficult (I believe you're discovering that at the moment?).
Huh? Whatever gave you that strange idea? My son is a delight.
Well, of course he's a delight. That's my point. Being a parent magnifies everything. Our joy from the tiniest of things is massive, our love is enlarged. But our sorrow over their bad choices is also magnified. Everything is bigger. And so, how much more with God towards his children?
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
A real father isn't one who gives up on his rebellious kids, but one who gives every good thing of himself for them (even when they throw it back in his face), who waits for them, gives them freedom to fail, forgives them etc. etc. etc. The Father God that Christ revealed to his disciples.
Up to a point, Lord Copper. If we take the story of the prodigal son, which no doubt you find paradigmatic for all that, we note what the father there does not do. He does not follow his son into the far country to extract him from his sinful life ...(snip)... What would happened to that son if he had not returned to the father? He would have starved in that foreign land, separated from his father. That's what.
Well, yes, of course. I don't know why you think I'd disagree with that. As Ken has pointed out though, a good, wise parent knows when to pursue, and also when to wait (and the various parables illustrate that).
But we're talking about eternity. Once we dispose of inconsistency of denying post-mortem conversion, then we can ask two questions. Firstly, would the Father ever change in his disposition towards his child, and ultimately give up on him? Eternal punishment says "yes", which essentially makes out God to be a worse parent than most human parents.
Secondly, assuming the answer is "no", and that God will wait forever for his children to repent, then the question simply becomes "will they all, and if so, when?". Which is why, as mousethief (I think) pointed out earlier in the thread, the biggest opposition to universalism isn't God's nature or disposition, it's people. We get to decide if universalism will become true, not God. From his side, there is no issue. There is no problem. He has already forgiven us, accepted us. And that's where Grace comes in too, that despite the fact that he has done no wrong, and needs to do nothing to fix the relationship from his side, nevertheless, he is the one that initiates the resolution and reconciliation.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I seriously, not rhetorically, have no idea what you are talking about.
I'm referring to your defence of damnation on the grounds that it provides a deterrence against sin in this life, as if we should welcome it because it will prevent people from hurting us. But if - as you assert - this life has relevance only as a "sorting hat" for the afterlife, then so long as we manage to get sorted into the right place it is irrelevant whether we get hurt or not during the process.
If this life matters for itself, regardless of any eternal consequences, then that is just as true in a universalist system as in yours. If it doesn't - which you appear to be affirming with your stance of "if there's no damnation then I can hurt whomever I want" - then that is also just as true in a damnationist system, which means any deterrent effect that only protects us in this life is irrelevant.
quote:
Finally, while it is good and proper to start with such "salavation calculations", this is not where all of this ends.
You could have fooled me. Why else would you assert that if salvation is guaranteed then nothing else matters?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
Okay, perhaps you haven't misunderstood Boogie at all -- of course, she's the only one who can really say. I hope she'll post soon to clarify things!
I do think you have misunderstood me. I had no intention of suggesting that you had "never considered it [biblical fallibility] at all," and I didn't (and still don't) interpret Boogie as suggesting that. Rather, I was working with the assumption that you had considered the possibility of biblical fallibility -- just as I have considered (many times!) the possibility of biblical infallibility. And I didn't see anything wrong with someone asking you to consider, again, that you might be mistaken! I'm frequently asked to reconsider my views, and I try very hard not to take offense or be defensive in response to such challenges. In academia, it's taken for granted that well-considered views might still be reconsidered.
Speaking of which, you've gone on record with me about your relevant education. I'll do the same. I have also spent years studying the original biblical languages (starting with much the same motivation), and I'll quote your words to say that I, too, "have spent the last thirty-odd years learning as much as I can about the history, culture, and languages." I went so far as to earn a doctorate from one of the "Ivy League" universities, and I've managed to become a tenured professor at a not-too-shabby research university. As I labor on this note, fussing over getting it "just right," I'm thinking that I probably should be working on my latest research project, instead of fooling around on the Ship.
Anyway, like you, I care about the truth thing. But my studies led me to quite different conclusions about what the truth is with regard to the Bible. My conclusions could be wrong. How about yours?
Yes, of course they could. That's why we call it faith and not knowledge. And of course my conclusions are open to reconsideration at any time new evidence comes to view. I'd be terrified to do anything else. I've had enough people lying to me in my life (with catastrophic results) that the first hint of that sends me rushing to re-evaluation.
I'm glad you weren't saying what I thought you were. Forgive me for misreading.
As for the education thing, well, you know the proverb: Two scholars, three opinions. But that's what makes discussion fun!
I will say that there is one aspect in which our positions probably disagree with one another. When I was still in the initial period of evaluating Christianity (and Judaism, actually, I became a believer through the OT long before I reached the NT), I could consider the positions involved dispassionately. But having made the leap, and come to know the Lord as a person, it takes a fair amount of evidence to shake me now. Someone (Lewis?) described this as the logic of personal relations. A woman contemplating an arranged marriage might sit down and tot up the evidence on both sides for whether this will be a sound choice of spouse, and any negative evidence that comes up will have a pretty large impact unless conclusively disproven. But once the woman has married and come to love her husband, the same evidence (for example, a rumor of unfaithfulness) will have to meet a much higher standard before her faith in him is shaken--because now she knows him. Not in a dispassionate way, but in a personal way. And so the bar for evidence is higher.
That's how it is for me in matters regarding the Lord. Because I know him now, when the universe throws up occasional evidence to suggest that Christianity is not true, I do not immediately start overhauling my faith. Instead I stick the new problem in a pile to be investigated and do so at leisure. I'm interested, but not worried. I would only consider "divorce" if the evidence became considerably stronger.
Does that make any sense?
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
IngoB, I'd probably derail the whole thread if I sat down and began a defense of the Lutheran position on repentance, confession and forgiveness, so I won't do it here. But this is just a placeholder post to note for the rest of us that there ARE some major differences, and your position is not representative of Christianity as a whole. I'm sticking it in because on the subject of universalism, I tend to agree with you (and wish I did not, but if wishes were horses and all that...). (If anybody does want to discuss it, we could maybe start another thread.)
[ 10. April 2014, 13:16: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
That's how it is for me in matters regarding the Lord. Because I know him now, when the universe throws up occasional evidence to suggest that Christianity is not true, I do not immediately start overhauling my faith. Instead I stick the new problem in a pile to be investigated and do so at leisure. I'm interested, but not worried. I would only consider "divorce" if the evidence became considerably stronger.
Does that make any sense?
Yes, of course it does. But universalism isn't suggesting Christianity is not true. Just that there are far fewer certainties than some Churches would have us believe.
ETA Yes, Dubious Thomas, that's exactly what I was getting at ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
[ 10. April 2014, 13:20: Message edited by: Boogie ]
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
But that's because your God does not exist.
quote:
Originally posted by Dubious Thomas:
No, IngoB, it's your god who doesn't exist .
Will the real God please stand up! Let's face it and admit that nobody really knows if God exists at all. Ask Laura Mersini-Houghton what hr infinite multiuniverse theory tell her about God, and she'll tell you He doesn't exist. Not that I agree with her, but we all need some humility in our assertions about what God and the afterlife are like. It's a given in all religious traditions that God is unknowable, and we only have glimpses, through a glasss darkly, about any ultimate reality.
I sincerely hope IngoB's God doesn't exist. I'd much rather live in an impersonal universe in which I can return to the dust from where I came. That, at least can't hurt, once the dying process is over. Most of our images of God are taken from the tradition to which we belong, with our own personal insights added. But it's important to remember that it's just an image. Those who come closest to touching the hem of God's robe are the mystics, and their insights are probably the biggest reason why I believe in God. They mostly experience Him as pure Love.
This is even more so of the afterlife. Jesus, during His earthly ministry, was subject to kenosis in that He gave up His divine omniscience and lived in an earthly body with a human brain. It's very likely inded that His ideas about the afterlife were drawn from the culture around Him, and it's quite significant that post resurrection, when he'd preached to the captives, there's no further mention of eternal damnation. That's if He ever meant eternal, rather than age enduring, which could make hell into a type of purgatory.
So by far the best way to live is to stop obsessing too much about the afterlife, which has always been a huge negative in Christianity, and concentrate on doing God's will in the present, in trust that for God all things are possible, even rescuing us from death and damnation.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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Dubious Thomas
Shipmate
# 10144
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Finally, of course we are not talking about the corrupted Protestant version of repentance either.
I hope IngoB's various jabs at biblical Christianity (i.e., Protestantism) aren't being missed in the flood of verbiage. They're of vital importance, because they point to the real issue here, which is not "universalism," but the Roman Catholic religion's system of institutionally-managed works righteousness, so well-described by IngoB. IngoB is right! In authentic Roman Catholicism, there is absolutely no place for "universalism," with its doctrine of absolute, unmerited grace. Roman Catholics who tend toward universalism should give what IngoB asserts careful consideration -- and they've got to ask themselves a hard question: Is the authentic Roman Catholic religion the one Jesus founded, which the Apostles propagated?
IngoB may be right about universalism being wrong. But that wouldn't make his authentic Roman Catholicism right. It would still be a betrayal of the Gospel of Jesus and His Apostles.
The issue here is Grace, and authentic Roman Catholicism negates Grace: "But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace" (Romans 11:6).
[So that I'm not misunderstood: I'm not saying Roman Catholics aren't Christians. Clearly, there are many, many millions of Roman Catholics who have a genuine relationship with God through Christ -- including the present Pope. But these RCs have this relationship because, as Catholic traditionalists rightly point out, they have abandoned most of the authentic religion in favor of biblical Christianity. Grace is alive and well in Roman Catholicism, not because of, but in spite of, the religion!]
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שפך חמתך אל־הגוים אשר לא־ידעוך
Psalm 79:6
Posts: 979 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
I sincerely hope IngoB's God doesn't exist. I'd much rather live in an impersonal universe in which I can return to the dust from where I came.
So would I. The atheist's universe is far, far preferable to IngoB's. But is IngoB's that of the Catholic Church? If so, why do so many people continue to attend it?
(cross posted by Dubious Thomas' answer which is a good one )
[ 10. April 2014, 13:33: Message edited by: Boogie ]
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
But universalism isn't suggesting Christianity is not true. Just that there are far fewer certainties than some Churches would have us believe.
Yes, I agree with that. I am a "hope it's true though I can't prove it" person when it comes to universalism. As another poster said, we are the ones who get to decide whether universalism is true or not through our choices--God has already made his desire very clear.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dubious Thomas
Shipmate
# 10144
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I'm glad you weren't saying what I thought you were. Forgive me for misreading.
Done! No problem, really. Let's just agree to try to read one another with a hermeneutic of good-will from now on -- this really applies mostly to my approach to you!
I think we agree about more things than we disagree about: see my latest comment on IngoB's posts. Yes, okay, it's a bit over-the-top! ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif) But IngoB has a wonderful gift for bringing out the 16th century Protestant fulminator in me! It's probably because he has his 16th century Counter Reformation fulminator on full display.
quote:
As for the education thing, well, you know the proverb: Two scholars, three opinions. But that's what makes discussion fun!
My specialty is Judaism! That proverb is often rendered as, "Two Jews, three opinions!" Imagine a conversation involving Jewish scholars!
quote:
I will say that there is one aspect in which our positions probably disagree with one another.... Does that make any sense?
(I "snipped" the rest of your comment here just for the sake of "space.")
Yes, it makes sense. But I don't think we're really that far apart on the fundamental issue. Rather, I think we have different ideas about the practical implications of the fundamental issue.
For me, acceptance of biblical fallibility isn't a threat to my faith in and relationship with the Lord, precisely because of the "logic of personal relations." It appears to me, and my genuine apology if I am out-of-line on this, that you see the two things as more necessarily linked.
I have a personal "history" with this -- originally, I was going to "narrate" it here. But nobody is interested in my spiritual autobiography, I'm sure! So, I'll leave it at this.
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שפך חמתך אל־הגוים אשר לא־ידעוך
Psalm 79:6
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Works for me! And yes, I re-rendered the proverb from the original "Two Jews..." Having browsed the Talmud, that is most certainly true. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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CL
Shipmate
# 16145
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
And what if it isn't? Well, this thought crossed my mind the other day in response to a blog post, by someone whose conservative friends (evangelical in this case) were telling here she believed in a "different Gospel". I was put in mind of Puddleglum in The Silver Chair, and (perhaps poorly) adapted his speech (in this case it was in the context of a couple of Dead Horses, but you'll get the gist nevertheless), thusly:
"All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up this other gospel of love, acceptance and tolerance. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up gospel values seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this tiny gospel of bigotry is the only one. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just silly liberals making up a touchy-feely gospel, if you're right. But silly liberals playing a game can make a gospel which licks your real gospel hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the touchy feely liberal gospel. I'm on the side of love and tolerance even if there isn't any loving, accepting, forgiving God to lead it"
That is called shaping a god in ones own image rather than accepting God for what he actually is, i.e. the god of Me instead of the God of Scripture. Of course it all boils down once more to Chesterton's observation about Christian ideals (that is actual Christian ideals) not being tried and found wanting but rather being found difficult and left untried.
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"Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ." - Athanasius of Alexandria
Posts: 647 | From: Ireland | Registered: Jan 2011
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