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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Crucifixion: A Very Different Approach
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Then despair is not assumed and redeemed.
And how could I forget?
I don't want despair to be redeemed. I don't want it in the Kingdom of Heaven. I want it to be left behind. Don't you?
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
I have a problem with the quote in the OP because I can't believe that Jesus was forsaken on the cross - despite his own quote from the Psalm. Am I saying Jesus was wrong in how he felt? or that he meant something different to how what he said sounded to the listener? I don't know.
I don't get it. You know that Christ is reciting psalm 22 [21], and yet you write "despite his own quote"? It is by his own quote that we know that Christ had not despaired. Just read the entire psalm...
Steady on! I'm just getting over the shock of being called virtually sola scriptura on the other thread, and now I don't even read my Bible?! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Yes, maybe Jesus was giving - whether incidentally or deliberately - a final lesson before dying, in applying scripture practically, using himself as an example; as he did many times during his life. It would hardly have been unlike him. And maybe all that exposition of the Psalm with regard to his own situation was implicitly revealing itself as he hung on the cross. As Son of God his relationship to the scripture, his knowledge of his Father, his own self-awareness, would no doubt imply a more complex reading than if, say, anyone else in the same situation had muttered that particular phrase.
But who knows the mind of Christ at that moment? Did Jesus expect his auditors to hear and record his remark as a theological working out of the Psalm: 'I'm asking God why he's forsaking me, but they'll really know what I mean'?
Is there no room for the possibility that even the Son of God, as a man in a crap-load of pain, actually spoke those words and meant just those words at that moment, even while at another level God the Father was fulfilling the whole of the Psalm's meaning? How can we know, unless we know what Jesus was thinking?
There is an ambiguity here which, while it submits very nicely to our theological understanding as we look back and work it all out, still seems to present a definite mystery as to the actual experience of Christ at that time.
I think I'm arguing for that ambiguity of what Christ felt or meant, to be left at least ambiguous, rather than tidied neatly away as 'problem solved'.
FWIW,I know Jesus wasn't forsaken by God (at least I believe so), and I find it very difficult to think that Jesus did feel himself forsaken by his Father. But I don't know that for sure because I don't know what he was actually thinking at the time. And equally I think the same, when we claim that Jesus must've intended the whole of the Psalm's meaning to be taken into account when he quoted it. We just don't know that, no matter how true are the theological principles which explain God's working.
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
balaam. For God IS love. He has no other higher attributes. No 'rights', no Sovereignty that can remove OUR right to His love. To Him. He can't NOT love us.
That's not what you said. you said "God owes us love."
For us to be owed love we have to have done something to deserve it. We haven't.
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
For us to be owed love we have to have done something to deserve it.
Oh? I think I owe my dog good treatment and food and water. It hasn't done anything to deserve it. I owed him that the first day I brought him home, when he hadn't done anything yet for or with me.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Then despair is not assumed and redeemed.
And how could I forget?
I don't want despair to be redeemed. I don't want it in the Kingdom of Heaven. I want it to be left behind. Don't you?
A good sideshoot.
I think mousethief is right. A despairing person may yet be transformed, redeemed. But only by the loss of despair.
The wounds caused by experiences of despair are very great, yet if the person subject to despair is transformed, then they can be of great help to others going through it.
Martin, the picture we have of eternity with God is a place of no more tears, no more pain. The former things pass away. We may get there by the transforming move from despair to hope, inspired by love.
Makes me think of the cry of abandonment from the cross, followed by the "it is finished". Despair itself cannot be redeemed. But a despairing person can be.
Not sure how this works in Orthodox theology, but I think the wounds of despair may be "yet visible above" (as the hymn puts it), in the glorified Christ. Maybe something like that is what you are thinking about?
And all of this factors, somehow, into the the issue of the value of pain as a teacher of the redeeming power of the cross. It is undoubtedly true that people can be driven to despair by the prospect of no relief from suffering in this life. Any of us who has lived through that, or seen a loved one live through that, knows its apparent power to kill hope, even while we are still alive. But the power of hope is an eternal power. We find it in Julian of Norwich's extraordinary statement.
"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well".
[ 18. March 2013, 06:03: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Chaps, we are in complete agreement. My badly put point is that Jesus experienced the full horror of being human in His vile death at our hands, at the point of death, mind, faith robbingly alone.
THAT is redeemed. THAT is accepted. Not 'preserved'.
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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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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
But who knows the mind of Christ at that moment? Did Jesus expect his auditors to hear and record his remark as a theological working out of the Psalm: 'I'm asking God why he's forsaking me, but they'll really know what I mean'?
Is there no room for the possibility that even the Son of God, as a man in a crap-load of pain, actually spoke those words and meant just those words at that moment, even while at another level God the Father was fulfilling the whole of the Psalm's meaning? How can we know, unless we know what Jesus was thinking?
I assume that the psalmist was in a crap-load of pain when speaking these words. Or at least was recalling a crap-load of pain. Perhaps I'm saying that instead of "either-or" we should think "both-and". I think it is highly relevant that Christ expresses these feelings. After all, He could have just uttered some triumphant statement about fulfilling His mission or some such. But no, He is crying out from the bottom of human existence. Yet He is not simply cursing the Father for His plight. In this very bottom of human existence He still finds the words of scripture, and those are words that bridge from the despair of the moment to the ultimate triumph.
Crushed by torture and death, a scream that is both truly dark and bitter and truly pointing to hope and victory. When ground to His incarnational core, reduced to nothingness in His humanity, Christ dies with faith on His lips.
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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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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
But no, He is crying out from the bottom of human existence. Yet He is not simply cursing the Father for His plight. In this very bottom of human existence He still finds the words of scripture, and those are words that bridge from the despair of the moment to the ultimate triumph.
Crushed by torture and death, a scream that is both truly dark and bitter and truly pointing to hope and victory. When ground to His incarnational core, reduced to nothingness in His humanity, Christ dies with faith on His lips.
Nothing in your post I would even want to disagree with. 'Both/and' makes a lot of sense.
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Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
posted by Martin:
quote:
Oh, and fletcher christian, God OWES us love.
Owes, or is in his nature to love? I might 'owe' it to a pet to feed it to keep it alive, but I suspect it is love that compels me to do it. I guess I just feel uncomfortable about a God instead of choosing to love us, does it out of some sense of duty.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
posted by Martin:
quote:
Oh, and fletcher christian, God OWES us love.
Owes, or is in his nature to love? I might 'owe' it to a pet to feed it to keep it alive, but I suspect it is love that compels me to do it. I guess I just feel uncomfortable about a God instead of choosing to love us, does it out of some sense of duty.
How can God be said to "choose" something if it's in his nature to do it? That would mean he couldn't choose not to do it, in which case what exactly could be meant by "choice"?
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Because anything else would mean that God is not 'free' and consequently can't be God if not able to do as God wants?
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Because anything else would mean that God is not 'free' and consequently can't be God if not able to do as God wants?
Is God 'free'? Why? What can God possibly want except what is in accord with His nature?
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
IngoB. Beautiful.
Go mousethief!
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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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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
Because anything else would mean that God is not 'free' and consequently can't be God if not able to do as God wants?
Is God 'free'? Why? What can God possibly want except what is in accord with His nature?
I think Aquinas is particularly clear on this one:
quote:
Summa Theologiae Ia q19 a3
I answer that, There are two ways in which a thing is said to be necessary, namely, absolutely, and by supposition. We judge a thing to be absolutely necessary from the relation of the terms, as when the predicate forms part of the definition of the subject: thus it is absolutely necessary that man is an animal. It is the same when the subject forms part of the notion of the predicate; thus it is absolutely necessary that a number must be odd or even. In this way it is not necessary that Socrates sits: wherefore it is not necessary absolutely, though it may be so by supposition; for, granted that he is sitting, he must necessarily sit, as long as he is sitting. Accordingly as to things willed by God, we must observe that He wills something of absolute necessity: but this is not true of all that He wills. For the divine will has a necessary relation to the divine goodness, since that is its proper object. Hence God wills His own goodness necessarily, even as we will our own happiness necessarily, and as any other faculty has necessary relation to its proper and principal object, for instance the sight to color, since it tends to it by its own nature. But God wills things apart from Himself in so far as they are ordered to His own goodness as their end. Now in willing an end we do not necessarily will things that conduce to it, unless they are such that the end cannot be attained without them; as, we will to take food to preserve life, or to take ship in order to cross the sea. But we do not necessarily will things without which the end is attainable, such as a horse for a journey which we can take on foot, for we can make the journey without one. The same applies to other means. Hence, since the goodness of God is perfect, and can exist without other things inasmuch as no perfection can accrue to Him from them, it follows that His willing things apart from Himself is not absolutely necessary. Yet it can be necessary by supposition, for supposing that He wills a thing, then He is unable not to will it, as His will cannot change.
So it is not that God first makes us, and then chooses to love us. It is not an "after the fact" love, as we have. We make choices about what exists, including loving people. God's love is an "in the fact" love. God's choice is in making us and thereby we are loved. We are loved into existence, and that is God's choice. He could have not done so, since there is no absolute necessity that we exist. However, there is a necessity by supposition: given that God did in fact chose to love us into existence, we are in consequence necessarily loved. Also note that God's choice, unlike ours, is not temporal but "virtual". Since God is eternal and unchanging, there never has been a time when He changed His mind about loving us into existence. Rather, the choice is "virtual": no contradiction is involved in positing a God identical in essence to the actual God, but who has not loved us into existence. We cannot really understand how a decision can be made without the flow of time and a change, but this is what we must assert about God. (That once more points us to the fact that God is not a super-human like Jupiter.) Somehow God is reflected in His "I am"-ness beyond necessities of metaphysical calculus. (This is actually an argument for calling God a "Person" by analogy, rather than a "Power".)
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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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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
Ingo, I'm not disagreeing with any of that, what I'm uncomfortable with is the concept that God 'owes' it to us. A love from duty and a love from nature seem to be two very different things to me.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Much as I hate to disagree with the great Aquinas, how in the world can you say "Socrates sits necessarily if he's sitting" and expect to be taken seriously? Socrates only ever sits contingently, unless you're saying "tautologies are true" which isn't a terribly useful thing to say. What he has shown is that if you qualify a statement enough, it becomes a tautology. "It is necessary that all sitting people are sitting." Oh that's helpful. That proves (or even demonstrates) nothing about God. Clear on this? I don't think so.
Moving on to the substantial point, if it's more loving to create us than not, how can God not do it? Contrariwise if it's less loving to create than not, God cannot do it. Is it equally loving to either create us or not create us?
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Moving on to the substantial point, if it's more loving to create us than not, how can God not do it? Contrariwise if it's less loving to create than not, God cannot do it. Is it equally loving to either create us or not create us?
I'm not entirely sure I'm following this thread properly (this often happens to me when the words Thomas and Aquinas appear in close proximity) but I've often wondered how God being omniscient and good has any freedom of action at all. Given the knowledge of the ultimate consequences of any choice, how can a decision to make in full knowledge an ultimately sub-optimal choice ever be good? As you say, choice then requires multiple equally good outcomes.
Maybe if I read St Thomas one more time I'll get it...
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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