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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Priestly genitalia [Ordination of Women]
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
mousethief: I see. We're more on the same side of this divide than opposite ones, then. Pax.
I think so too.
Group hug! Group hug! ![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
That seems irreconcilable with your other positions stated thus far. One of the Christian God's characteristics is that He's omnipotent. If He "desires that all be saved", then all will be saved.
That only follows if you imagine God will abrogate free will.
God does indeed desire your salvation. He wants you to trust in him, and walk in his ways. The door has been opened, and he stands ready to welcome you. He won't close the door - even if you slam it in his face - but nor will he drag you through against your will. You have to choose to go in.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
But does god need to change other things in the universe based on whether he decides that 'working' means 'the cog catches' or 'it doesn't catch'? Is either of these choices consistent with divine perfection?
I don't think that these are useful questions. We were not really discussing any concrete world plan (with cogs), so we also cannot give a concrete answer. In general the answer is presumably 'yes' and 'yes'. I note in passing to avoid potential confusion that "Divine perfection" usually means something else than "avoiding contradiction in the creative act."
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
It would be good if we could define 'a minimal way' in a mathematical sense, but that's nitpicking here.
Well, with that flow diagram S would be full to the brim. But it also would not have any interesting properties. For example, you have no idea then how many changes were actually made to any universe in S.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
This isn't the first time I have the feeling that you don't understand what 'eternal' or 'out of time' means.
I have lots of feelings about the people I discuss with. I try to not let that interfere with my arguments though, and I rarely find it useful to mention these feelings to them.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
But this is exactly the glaring contradiction in your reasoning. You say that god cannot be held to moral standards. Yet you repeatedly hold him to dpca standards.
Rather this is your glaring misunderstanding of my reasoning. I don't hold God to any standards. I rather simply analyse what God's known (non-moral) properties imply for His actions in this world.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Wrong, choice implies morals. If a stone falls on my head and hurts me, I cannot blame it because it doesn't have a choice. If a dog bites me, I cannot blame it because it doesn't have a choice either. However, if someone slaps me in the face I can blame him. I don't care what his ends are, or even if he has ends. He chose to slap me, and that's a moral choice.
It is correct to say that you need to have choice in order to act as a moral agent. It is incorrect to say that all choices are moral. Only if some good of the agent is involved, then the choice becomes moral. Whether I will have vanilla or chocolate as ice cream is not a moral matter, whether I have ice cream at all may be (via the good of my health).
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Of course, god can make it so that slapping someone in the face is the morally good thing. But if he doesn't do that, it's morally wrong. You talk a lot about consistence, but this is what consistence means to me: whenever God interacts with us, His choices are consistent with the morals He gave us. Not because He has to, but because He chooses to.
Once more, you are repeating back to me what I first told you, so I cannot but agree. The only minor issue you missed is that God is not "choosing' to be consistent. In that sense He has no choice at all. It is the same eternal creative act that makes all, and God doesn't make any errors, hence all is consistent simply by being created together.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Your argumentation about the Eucharist comes down to: "God (maybe) chose that Eucharist doesn't work when performed by a woman. Him being eternal means he can't change that decision. And him having no end means we can't question this decision morally." That's bollocks.
There are various things not quite right with your summary, but most importantly you have made no headway whatsoever in showing that this is bollocks.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Leaving out the spiders, this is, on a first and second reading, very similar to my way of looking at the question.
As a matter of fact, this (ChastMastr's five point summary) is not terribly incompatible with what I've been saying. The main problems I have with it is: 1) Point two lacks the realisation that the reason why God cannot create evil is not that He creates what is good, but rather that what He creates is good, by His definition. There is no way God could create evil, because in creating He also creates the very criteria of "good". The current statement stops short of realising the full extent of what it means to not obeying a law outside of oneself. 2) Point five is subtly wrong and not applied properly in practice even assuming it is right. We are not a dim reflection of God's goodness, we are a full on expression of His goodness. Of course, there is also the fall to contend with, so this expression has been disfigured. But we are not some kind of "second rate" good a priori. However, we are of course finite and created. We do have a priori limits that God doesn't. But importantly, a "perfect human" is not a contradiction in terms. That what it means to be a human can indeed be realised perfectly. Furthermore, what people here are in practice doing is to take this "dim reflection" of God's goodness, project it back on God, and assume that a proper moral judgment results, rather than just nonsense. This is clearly invalid even if one buys into the premises of this point.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
My position is that whatever divine perfection, consistency or appropriateness mean, it is God that gives these things their meaning. So it is absurd to think that when He designed the universe, He was bound by them.
God did not choose to be perfect. God did not choose to be eternal. These are part of His essence, of what it means to be God. The only way God could not be these things is by not being God, and that is not a choice He has.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
My argument is this:- God has a choice on how to design the universe. This choice is determined by Him alone, He isn't limited by outside factors.
- He can design the universe in such a way that either Eucharist will work both performed by a man or a woman, or that it will work only work performed by a man (given the right other conditions).
- This choice affects us, so it has moral consequences.
I agree with all of that. The only problem is that you think it has moral consequences for God, whereas it rather has moral consequences for us.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
This is where I differ from both you and IngoB. I don't believe God has choice in any meaningful sense. God's actions derive from his nature. The only choices would be, from our point of view, inconsequential. Anything that has a moral component, God has no choice. God's actions and God's person cannot be distinguished.
This seems to me to come dangerously close to declaring God to be a kind of impersonal force. And it still assumes implicitly some kind of external moral law that binds God in saying "anything that has a moral component, God has no choice." Who or what determined that "God's nature" is shaped in this specific way? Whatever that is, I will call the actual God, whereas I will call that entity which is bound by its shaped nature a demiurge instead.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
However, if I understand IngoB's arguments well (but my head is spinning already), God could have said hurting people was good, but in this case we would also find that hurting people was good because we got our morals from Him. Or something like that.
Basically. The problem is that you think of this as a kind of brainwashing operation, as if God hired the KGB and they did something to your brain so that you think hurting people is good though it really isn't. That's not what I'm saying at all though. What I'm saying is that your very idea of what "hurting people" means is part of what God constructed into the universe, and into people specifically. So if we consider a hypothetical other universe, where from our perspective in that universe people would be hurting each other, then from the perspective of the people in the other universe, they wouldn't be hurting each other at all. Because what "hurting" means depends on what the universe and people are like. So if the universe and people change as compared to what we are used to, then our judgements of this changed universe become invalid. There is no universal and absolute moral law that somehow towers over all possible universes, and hence dictates that our judgement here is valid applied to any thinkable universe. The moral law rather arises out of what the universe is like, or more precisely, out of what the conscious and voluntary agents within it are like. Change that and the moral law changes with it.
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
Now I am beginning to get a clearer picture of what is wrong. For a while I thought that you and I were following different religions. Now I see that the problem is that we are inhabiting different universes. At least, that's the only rational explanation I can come up with. What you've said is just crazy. Things like child abuse are wrong not because God has so decided it, but because it is wrong full stop. Your concept of morality is bizarre.
Imagine a universe in which gravity does not attract, but repels. Can you do that? Let us assume that some other forces keep large bodies of mass together so that I can say the following: In this universe, if we manage to keep standing on the face of some large planet, we will see that things fall up (away from the ground). Agreed? Now, is it crazy to say "things fall up"? It is crazy in this universe, sure. As everybody knows, things fall down. But it is not crazy in that other universe, in fact it is what we rationally predict given that gravity there does not attract, but repels. So if we imagine that God instead of this universe with our kind of gravity made that other universe with its kind of gravity, then our concept of "falling" would be literally turned upside down. Yet there is no madness involved there, and it does not say anything crazy about God. It simply acknowledges that God as Creator gets to pick what sort of gravity He wants in His universe.
Now, I believe that "morals" are no different to "physical law" in this regard. They merely are about different entities. One governs what physical objects regularly must do, the other governs what conscious and voluntary agents regularly ought to do. Yet these rules also remain subject to God's free choice. And it is not crazy to imagine a universe in which things work differently on a moral level. Rather it is invalid to take our morals and project them onto such a different universe.
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
"Thou shalt not murder" was not a surprise to the Israelites. This was not news. They didn't need to be told it because they couldn't work it out otherwise. It was a confirmation of what they (and just about every other society) had known.
That's correct, but it does not really address anything I have said.
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
If God is arbitrary, then quite frankly I think i would prefer to be an atheist. For that makes God little better than the Devil.
But God is not arbitrary in terms of what He in fact has made (or at least not much). Again, with rare exceptions like Jesus walking on water, things do fall down in this universe. Gravity is not sort of flipping between different modes. That's not the kind of "arbitrary" we are talking about here. The point is not that God is playing around with gravity, the point is that God could have chosen a different kind of gravity if He had wanted to. There was nothing that restrained His creative choice. Exactly the same is true for "morals". And if the universe was different, then the devil also would be different. The devil is an evil being in terms of what this universe is like. If those terms change, then whatever entity we would like to call devil in this hypothetical different universe would have to change accordingly to still be an evil being.
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
"Higher" always implies a comparison. "Other" indicates that there is NO comparison.
Presumably you mean "evaluation" instead of "comparison"?
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
We are made "in the image of God". Therefore, it is reasonable to suppose that - in our best state - we can share an inkling of the nature and purpose of God. So it is reasonable to suppose that our sense of morality should connect with God's morality.
All this is true, except that God does not have a morality in the sense that we do. What we are connecting with is rather God's plan for our own morality. And yes, we can from this make some predictions about how God will act in the world. But that's not because God "follows human morality", but rather because human morality and other actions of God follow the same plan. God's plan.
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
What Job DOES tell us is that it is foolish to think that we can know all there is about God or about the ways of the world and the reasons for evil. But Job's complaints about the perceived LACK of morality on God's part are still valid.
That's not what the bible says, which shows Job repenting of his complaints. Job does not consider his error of perception to be justified, even if it is understandable. The bible also shows God engaging in a deal with the devil to kick things off, which at very least would be considered morally shady if a human ruler did something similar.
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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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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Originally posted by mousethief: quote:
This is where I differ from both you and IngoB. I don't believe God has choice in any meaningful sense. God's actions derive from his nature. The only choices would be, from our point of view, inconsequential. Anything that has a moral component, God has no choice. God's actions and God's person cannot be distinguished.
This seems to me to come dangerously close to declaring God to be a kind of impersonal force. And it still assumes implicitly some kind of external moral law that binds God in saying "anything that has a moral component, God has no choice." Who or what determined that "God's nature" is shaped in this specific way? Whatever that is, I will call the actual God, whereas I will call that entity which is bound by its shaped nature a demiurge instead.
Not at all. The Bible says that God cannot be tempted by evil (James 1:13) - presumably, therefore, God cannot do evil, either. It also says God is light and in Him there is no darkness (1 John 1:5). So God cannot act according to darkness either. In both cases, Scripture seems to be saying what mousethief has claimed, that God's own nature in a sense constrains how He acts: He cannot do what is evil, He cannot do that which belongs to darkness because neither of those things are in His nature.
So, in answer to your point to Oscar the Grouch, God couldn't have created a universe where a different set of morals are in operation (assuming we set God's morals as normative in this universe - as dimly as we often understand them). He simply couldn't create a system which operated against His lack-of-evilness and His lack-of-darkness, it isn't possible.
(That's leaving aside the qualities of faithfulness and consistency that we ascribe to God - that God is not only good, but is faithfully and consistently good in a way we can never be.)
Does this truly constrain God? Surely not. Because sin (which I'm using to encompass "evil" and "darkness" mentioned above) and the ability to sin are not positive things, scripturally at least; it is not a good thing to be able to sin (however noble that makes the choice not to sin). To sin, according to Paul, is to become a slave to sin: how can God be a slave to sin, or to anything else, for that matter? For God to "only" be able to act out of His nature faithfully and consistently, perfectly if you like, is surely something makes God, God. We are constrained by our liability to sin, by our inconsistency and our faithlessness; God is constrained by none of those things because they are not part of His nature.
So God is not "arbitrary" in His creation of the physical universe and the "moral universe" (if your assumption about the equivalence of the 2 is correct - I'm not sure).
[ 22. July 2014, 12:11: Message edited by: Stejjie ]
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
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Oscar the Grouch
Adopted Cascadian
# 1916
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Posted
Dear IngoB,
I just wanted you to know that I don't expect to be posting on this thread again. But I don't want you to think that you have, in any way, "won". It's just that I really have more important things to do than read your posts. For a start, there's a fence I have just creosoted which I want to watch dry.
But I do want to thank you for giving me a greater insight into how some Roman Catholics look at questions of morality. I now know just why it is that the RCC has historically accommodated so many kiddy fiddlers.
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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu
Posts: 3871 | From: Gamma Quadrant, just to the left of Galifrey | Registered: Dec 2001
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CL
Shipmate
# 16145
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
Dear IngoB,
I just wanted you to know that I don't expect to be posting on this thread again. But I don't want you to think that you have, in any way, "won". It's just that I really have more important things to do than read your posts. For a start, there's a fence I have just creosoted which I want to watch dry.
But I do want to thank you for giving me a greater insight into how some Roman Catholics look at questions of morality. I now know just why it is that the RCC has historically accommodated so many kiddy fiddlers.
/yawn
Posts: 647 | From: Ireland | Registered: Jan 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
And it still assumes implicitly some kind of external moral law that binds God in saying "anything that has a moral component, God has no choice." Who or what determined that "God's nature" is shaped in this specific way? Whatever that is, I will call the actual God, whereas I will call that entity which is bound by its shaped nature a demiurge instead.
You have exactly this same problem if you think God has a specific, unchanging nature. That I draw the natural and obvious consequences of this belief does not make the belief ("God has a specific and unchanging nature") any more or less problematic. If God's unchanging nature is a problem for my theology, it is exactly the same problem for yours.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If God's unchanging nature is a problem for my theology, it is exactly the same problem for yours.
How is it a problem for you?
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
The Bible says that God cannot be tempted by evil (James 1:13) - presumably, therefore, God cannot do evil, either.
I agree that God cannot do evil, and this follows naturally in my scheme. Since God's creating establishes the good for all things, He does only good in that sense, basically by definition. And since He is eternal and perfect, whatever other "interferences" one can attribute to God will be consistent with these goods He has established, and hence will be good.
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
It also says God is light and in Him there is no darkness (1 John 1:5). So God cannot act according to darkness either. In both cases, Scripture seems to be saying what mousethief has claimed, that God's own nature in a sense constrains how He acts: He cannot do what is evil, He cannot do that which belongs to darkness because neither of those things are in His nature.
This is true if one uses a sufficiently abstracted version of "good" which respects God's creative freedom. So if you mean that it is God's nature to wish good for all else, then that is OK. That is basically a restatement of what I've just said above. However, if you now go around and take human morals as you know them, and say that it is God's nature to follow those, then you have de facto limited God's creative freedom to the very creation that you know. But God was under no constraints to create the universe that He did in fact create. He is an artist, not a builder. We cannot speak about the realm of all possible worlds God could have created, and simply talk in terms of this universe about them. I agree that God would create good and do good in those hypothetical worlds as well. But what "good" means in those worlds is potentially very different from what it means in our actual world. And the person who decides on what "good" gets to mean in each and every case is God Himself.
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
So, in answer to your point to Oscar the Grouch, God couldn't have created a universe where a different set of morals are in operation (assuming we set God's morals as normative in this universe - as dimly as we often understand them). He simply couldn't create a system which operated against His lack-of-evilness and His lack-of-darkness, it isn't possible.
And this is exactly where you go wrong. Not because God could create darkness, but because you believe darkness is some kind of fixed thing. You may accept that we humans only imperfectly know what darkness is, but that just means that we have blurry vision of this fixed thing, whereas God would have clear vision. Yet that's not the fundamental issue. The fundamental issue is that (logically, note temporally) before God there simply is nothing. "And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night." (Gen 1:3-5) It's all God doing this. There is no pre-existent light or darkness that God merely instantiates. God defines into being what is light, and consequentially, what is darkness. Of course, once this is done, we can say that God is Light. We can take what He has created as good as realised representation of His Goodness. But light does not restrain God in His creative power, rather by His creative power light became what it is.
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
(That's leaving aside the qualities of faithfulness and consistency that we ascribe to God - that God is not only good, but is faithfully and consistently good in a way we can never be.)
As I keep stressing, and as the bible does as well incidentally, it is exactly this "feature" of God which carries the weight of our moral analogies about God. Because God is consistent and true to His word, we can talk about God as being good in a human moral sense.
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
So God is not "arbitrary" in His creation of the physical universe and the "moral universe" (if your assumption about the equivalence of the 2 is correct - I'm not sure).
God is of course entirely "arbitrary" in His creation. Nothing exists that could possibly constrain Him in this. If you say that "Good" constrains Him, then you are unduly projecting back the outcome of His creation onto Him. It is true that God can only create good. But that is because His creating determines good. It is not because Good exists as some kind of measure external to God that could be applied to Him. You can also say that God is Good, and therefore that creation flows as from His nature in a good way. Fine. But then you also need to realise that this "Good" of His nature you are talking about is not simply the good that your mother taught you. This world is not a necessary act of God, this world is not something God had to make, nor something God had to make this way. That is deep and horribly heresy, it turns the Creator into a mechanism. What you have to do instead is to abstract this Divine Good away from the actual realisation to a general statement, something like God is the perfect exemplar of all the goodness that may exist in the world. But that in the end is just a restatement of God's creative power, that which attains being indeed has its perfect exemplar in God, whatever it may be.
In truth, we can only ever really say one thing about God, in an affirmative sense. We can deny many things about God, that is easy. But our positive propositions about God can all be seen to reduce to each other, ultimately. They are words trying to capture a central truth from different angles. God is the Uncaused Cause. God is Creator. God's Essence is Existence. God is One. God is Unchanging. God is Perfect. God is Love. God is Good. God is Truth. God is Beauty. Etc. It's all the same idea expressed in many different ways.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You have exactly this same problem if you think God has a specific, unchanging nature. That I draw the natural and obvious consequences of this belief does not make the belief ("God has a specific and unchanging nature") any more or less problematic. If God's unchanging nature is a problem for my theology, it is exactly the same problem for yours.
I don't have a problem with claiming an unchanging nature for God. I have a problem with claiming a specific nature for God, where those specifications are derived from creation as we know it and are not sufficiently abstracted (i.e., retain created detail). To keep it in Orthodox terms, I think you are confusing (in the sense of "mixing") God's energies with God's essence here. We cannot take a commandment like "thou shalt not commit adultery" and directly project it all the way into God's essence. Of course, that God should command this has to do with His essence, I am not denying that. I'm not even denying that we can in some very abstract way reverse-engineering from such concrete detail to God's essence. But we cannot just flip around the causal arrow and expect to see the essence of God revealed in this. This commandment is something that operates within the limits and feature space of the creation God has made by His free choice. There could be a universe where there is no such thing as adultery, since there is no such thing as sex. You cannot point at this commandment and say "God is constrained by that." That is wrong not because God can be expected to commit or make others commit adultery left, right and centre. But because saying that reverse the actual order, it turns the Governor into the governed.
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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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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Today I made a discovery. If you scroll past IngoB's posts this thread makes a lot more sense.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Also true of the whole forum.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If God's unchanging nature is a problem for my theology, it is exactly the same problem for yours.
How is it a problem for you?
It's not. IngoB thinks it is. In his response he shows he does not at all understand what use I was making of it. But I am late out the door. Maybe later.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
hosting
Hello people,
There is a perfectly good open Hell thread if you are less than thrilled and delighted with IngoB and his manner of posting.
If you post on this thread you are meant to be engaging with other posters. Do not post to say variants of 'Lalalalala! I am ignoring you' to any poster. If you want to ignore a poster - ignore them. Ignoring someone or dropping an argument is fine, ostentatiously telling people you're ignoring them is opening up or advertising a personal conflict.
As a general rule, once you get to the point where you're posting about how much you dislike somebody else's posting style, rather than the topic of the thread, you should consider moving your grievances to Hell.
thanks,
Louise
Dead Horses Host
hosting off
[ 23. July 2014, 17:55: Message edited by: Louise ]
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
So back to the actual topic...
I've never understood the need to make an actual separate ruling for female bishops once female priests were approved, but perhaps things are just done differently in the UK.
One thing I wonder... here in the US, we had a lot of people leave the Episcopal Church for some splinter groups calling themselves "continuing Anglicans" (but not all leaving for one breakaway church--there were several), and it was over a period of time pretty much from the original Ordination of Women in 1977 till basically now. Some of those groups went on to join the RCC recently when Pope Benedict set up a provision for them to come over as well. There have even been lawsuits about whether church property (the land, the buildings, etc.) belong to the congregation (and thus can leave the Episcopal Church with them) or to the Episcopal Church itself (which is what's been basically established).
What's the situation in the UK regarding breakaway groups?
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
I've never understood the need to make an actual separate ruling for female bishops once female priests were approved, but perhaps things are just done differently in the UK.
The principle was decided a long time ago. The recent debacle has been about how it should be implemented. This is why those in favour of women Bishops have been so incensed - because many of those opposed have been trying to rehash the old arguments that were settled years ago rather than focus on the practicalities.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Yes. And I distinctly remember, back in the early 90s, opponents of (the then proposals for) women priests saying that if women were ordained to the priesthood there would be no reason for them not to be able to be consecrated as bishops. But then a lot of that crowd- whether BiB or CE- have never exactly been known for consistency.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
I have no idea what Anglicans past or present may have said about this. But since the minister of ordination is a bishop, not a priest, there is a distinct difference between an invalid ordination to the episcopate and to the priesthood. Basically, whatever spiritual damage an invalidly ordained priest may do, it will always remain limited to the immediate actions of that priest. Whereas an invalidly ordained bishop will in addition ordain invalidly, and thus spread this state to other individuals. If we compare this to a disease, then bishops are infectious, priests are not.
On can deal with invalidly ordained priest by simply going elsewhere, to a validly ordained priest. One cannot do so with an invalidly ordained bishop, at least not in the long run. At normal levels of episcopal activity, it may only take a few generations before the entire episcopate and all priests are invalidly ordained.
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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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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
What's the situation in the UK regarding breakaway groups?
In the UK the era of disgruntled congregations in mainstream denominations going their own way seems to be largely in the past. The Baptists probably do it more often than most, but their congregationalist system must make it less of a problem than in more centralised denominations.
To tell the truth, ongoing church decline has probably made many congregations more reliant on their institutional structures rather than less. Despite attempts to 'equip the laity' in the face of overworked clergy I don't have much sense that lay church leaders are becoming more powerful than before. In addition, neither the CofE nor the Methodists are used to tithing, so there's no culture of paying the ministers' salary directly out of the congregations' pockets.
My guess is that it's the biggest, most confident and most dynamic of the mainstream church congregations that have something to gain from independence. Such churches are almost always evangelical. But are they majorly concerned about women bishops? From what I've read here it's not a top priority for CofE evangelicals. Disestablishment is more likely to be the cause of the CofE breaking up.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
... At normal levels of episcopal activity, it may only take a few generations before the entire episcopate and all priests are invalidly ordained.
But surely you think that this is the case with the CofE already, don't you? Or are CofE ordinations/ consecrations merely illicit from your POV ('Dutch touch' and all that)?
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
hosting
Hello people,
There is a perfectly good open Hell thread if you are less than thrilled and delighted with IngoB and his manner of posting.
Sorry, I got this confused with the Hell thread. Apologies to all.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
Alright, here I go again.
quote:
IngoB: I don't think that these are useful questions. We were not really discussing any concrete world plan (with cogs), so we also cannot give a concrete answer.
Wait a minute. So now a machine with cogs isn't a good analogy anymore? Remind me who brought it up.
quote:
IngoB: Well, with that flow diagram S would be full to the brim. But it also would not have any interesting properties. For example, you have no idea then how many changes were actually made to any universe in S.
I'm glad you understand now that there was no contradiction. The cardinality of S would be infinite of course, but it would still be infinitely smaller than the set of all hypothetically possible universes. Don't tell me I need to instruct you on set theory.
quote:
IngoB: I have lots of feelings about the people I discuss with. I try to not let that interfere with my arguments though, and I rarely find it useful to mention these feelings to them.
Good idea to focus on the word 'feeling' here.
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IngoB: The problem is that you think of this as a kind of brainwashing operation, as if God hired the KGB and they did something to your brain so that you think hurting people is good though it really isn't.
No, I understand that part.
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IngoB: Rather this is your glaring misunderstanding of my reasoning. I don't hold God to any standards. I rather simply analyse what God's known (non-moral) properties imply for His actions in this world.
We're getting lost in semantics here. Let's try an axiomatic approach.- God is perfect.
- What 'perfect' means is defined by god. There's no external standard of perfection he adheres to.
- God created the universe in accordance with his perfection, with us in it.
- God imbued us with a set of morals which derives from how he made this universe. What 'good' and 'bad' mean depends on this universe.
- From these morals follow a set of rules that the church adheres to.
- We cannot call these rules immoral, because morality doesn't apply to god.
Is that more or less it?
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I don't have a problem with claiming an unchanging nature for God.
Just with me claiming an unchanging nature for God, then.
quote:
I have a problem with claiming a specific nature for God, where those specifications are derived from creation as we know it and are not sufficiently abstracted (i.e., retain created detail).
I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. The specific nature of God that I claim is derived from revelation, although St. Paul says God's nature can be known from what He has created.
quote:
To keep it in Orthodox terms, I think you are confusing (in the sense of "mixing") God's energies with God's essence here. We cannot take a commandment like "thou shalt not commit adultery" and directly project it all the way into God's essence. Of course, that God should command this has to do with His essence, I am not denying that. I'm not even denying that we can in some very abstract way reverse-engineering from such concrete detail to God's essence. But we cannot just flip around the causal arrow and expect to see the essence of God revealed in this. This commandment is something that operates within the limits and feature space of the creation God has made by His free choice. There could be a universe where there is no such thing as adultery, since there is no such thing as sex. You cannot point at this commandment and say "God is constrained by that." That is wrong not because God can be expected to commit or make others commit adultery left, right and centre. But because saying that reverse the actual order, it turns the Governor into the governed.
I completely fail to follow this. What exactly do you think I said that you are refuting?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
What's the situation in the UK regarding breakaway groups?
In the UK the era of disgruntled congregations in mainstream denominations going their own way seems to be largely in the past. The Baptists probably do it more often than most, but their congregationalist system must make it less of a problem than in more centralised denominations.
To tell the truth, ongoing church decline has probably made many congregations more reliant on their institutional structures rather than less. Despite attempts to 'equip the laity' in the face of overworked clergy I don't have much sense that lay church leaders are becoming more powerful than before. In addition, neither the CofE nor the Methodists are used to tithing, so there's no culture of paying the ministers' salary directly out of the congregations' pockets.
My guess is that it's the biggest, most confident and most dynamic of the mainstream church congregations that have something to gain from independence. Such churches are almost always evangelical. But are they majorly concerned about women bishops? From what I've read here it's not a top priority for CofE evangelicals. Disestablishment is more likely to be the cause of the CofE breaking up.
I would say that the majority of CoE evangelicals are fine with women bishops. They would tend to not have a high view of the episcopate, but also wouldn't generally believe in male headship - so to them a bishop is more like a secular boss. Most evangelicals would be fine with a female boss in a secular job, and so it's the same with a bishop. It's the evangelicals who believe in male headship who have issues with women bishops - IME they are a minority, just loud.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Byron
Shipmate
# 15532
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Yes. And I distinctly remember, back in the early 90s, opponents of (the then proposals for) women priests saying that if women were ordained to the priesthood there would be no reason for them not to be able to be consecrated as bishops. But then a lot of that crowd- whether BiB or CE- have never exactly been known for consistency.
The "compromise" never made any sense. If women can be priests, they can, ipso facto, be bishops.
Two decades of "reception" have done enormous harm to the church. If anything ought to disabuse it of its laissez-faire tolerance, it ought to be the harm done to its members and its reputation by coddling the intolerant.
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
But surely you think that this is the case with the CofE already, don't you? Or are CofE ordinations/ consecrations merely illicit from your POV ('Dutch touch' and all that)?
My comment was not about what I think of CofE ordinations. It was saying that if some Anglicans think that invalidly ordaining a bishop is more problematic than invalidly ordaining a priest, then I think they have a point.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I'm glad you understand now that there was no contradiction. The cardinality of S would be infinite of course, but it would still be infinitely smaller than the set of all hypothetically possible universes. Don't tell me I need to instruct you on set theory.
There certainly was a contradiction in what you wrote. But if the flow diagram is what you meant, then fine. And yes, while I certainly am no expert in set theory, I understand what you are saying. I just doubt that it will contribute anything to our discussion here. Surprise me, I guess.
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
We're getting lost in semantics here. Let's try an axiomatic approach.- God is perfect.
- What 'perfect' means is defined by god. There's no external standard of perfection he adheres to.
- God created the universe in accordance with his perfection, with us in it.
- God imbued us with a set of morals which derives from how he made this universe. What 'good' and 'bad' mean depends on this universe.
- From these morals follow a set of rules that the church adheres to.
- We cannot call these rules immoral, because morality doesn't apply to god.
Is that more or less it?
Not really, sorry. Your use of "perfect" in the above (points 1-3) may or may not be OK in its own right. It is interesting that the first part of point 2 is probably intended to reflect my thinking, but it actually would be for me the most obvious error here. Anyway, this simply does not represent the way I have used God's perfection in my argument so far. I have used God's perfection to argue against internal incoherence in the universe and in God's interaction with the universe. Point 4 is also off, namely because it seems to use "universe" in contrast to "us", when in fact the morals we have to obey basically depends on how we were made, rather than how other things were made. Point 6 is weird. We call these rules "moral", not just "not immoral", if by your own definition they are identical or at least closely and validly derived from the morals given to us.
You are still working towards saying "these rules are immoral, hence they cannot be from God." My basic counterpoint is that it makes no sense to call creation immoral. "Water is wet" is not a moral statement even if you are drowning. I think you are over-attacking by trying to make everything moral, and I'm over-defending by going on about God's moral status. The real question here is quite simply whether we can guess with sufficient confidence an imperceptible, supernatural reality (who is given the grace to provide sacraments) from a perceptible natural / cultural one (modern ideas about work place equality, essentially). My answer is "no", your answer is "yes". And ultimately this boils down to the question how confident we are that we have understood God. Ironically, for all my preoccupation with doctrines and theology, and all your disinterest in them, it turns out that it is you who is a lot more confident about having understood God.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I don't have a problem with claiming an unchanging nature for God.
Just with me claiming an unchanging nature for God, then.
No, with you claiming more than that. Specifically, you said
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I don't believe God has choice in any meaningful sense. God's actions derive from his nature. The only choices would be, from our point of view, inconsequential. Anything that has a moral component, God has no choice. God's actions and God's person cannot be distinguished.
Clearly, there is a lot more going on there than just that God is unchanging. In fact, this is not even mentioned here though it could possibly be derived from what is being said. Now, I have plenty of issues with what you say there. Basically I think every single sentence there is wrong, or at least misleading. However, for the case at hand I think the key statement is "Anything that has a moral component, God has no choice." This I consider wrong (or perhaps better inapplicable) in principle, since God is no moral agent. Furthermore, even if we allow this as a kind of effective description of God's coherence, this has the practical problem of you imposing on God your creaturely ideas of what it means to be moral. This is what I meant earlier with projecting very specific constraints on the nature of God. I really think that this makes little sense, and that the book of Job is an antidote to such thinking.
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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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The Man with a Stick
Shipmate
# 12664
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
So back to the actual topic...
I've never understood the need to make an actual separate ruling for female bishops once female priests were approved, but perhaps things are just done differently in the UK.
One thing I wonder... here in the US, we had a lot of people leave the Episcopal Church for some splinter groups calling themselves "continuing Anglicans" (but not all leaving for one breakaway church--there were several), and it was over a period of time pretty much from the original Ordination of Women in 1977 till basically now. Some of those groups went on to join the RCC recently when Pope Benedict set up a provision for them to come over as well. There have even been lawsuits about whether church property (the land, the buildings, etc.) belong to the congregation (and thus can leave the Episcopal Church with them) or to the Episcopal Church itself (which is what's been basically established).
What's the situation in the UK regarding breakaway groups?
There have been, and remain, a few groupings of "continuing Anglican", but it has never caught on in the same way as it has in the States. There's a few of reasons for this, I think.
1) The Security of the "Parson's Freehold" has allowed many priests simply to continue to do what they have always done and (largely) say what they like without consequences for their income and accommodation. They (and their congregations) are largely happy to stay in such circumstances.
2) The established, top-down nature of the temporal structure of the CofE makes it pretty much impossible for any departing group to even attempt to take property with them. It's a non-starter. Thus continuing groups would have no buildings and would have to start from scratch. I think there's also a little less of a rich philanthropist streak in British society than in American. A continuing church in the States might have a congregation member who gifts land for a new church. That is much rarer over here. Higher land prices probably also play a part in that.
3.) Lack of growth begat lack of growth. Those continuing churches that sprung up in the early 90s are hardly visible. I think anybody who might otherwise think about doing something similar in 2014 may look at those groups and think twice.
If a new continuing church is to appear, I think it would be a grouping of conservative low-churches - the disciples of the illegal church plants of the 1980s and early 1990s who are not willing to play ball with the Dioceses to a sufficient extent to play nicely within the "Fresh Expressions" tent.
Posts: 335 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
hosting
Hello people,
There is a perfectly good open Hell thread if you are less than thrilled and delighted with IngoB and his manner of posting.
Sorry, I got this confused with the Hell thread. Apologies to all.
Same here. My apologies.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I don't have a problem with claiming an unchanging nature for God.
Just with me claiming an unchanging nature for God, then.
No, with you claiming more than that. Specifically, you said
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I don't believe God has choice in any meaningful sense. God's actions derive from his nature. The only choices would be, from our point of view, inconsequential. Anything that has a moral component, God has no choice. God's actions and God's person cannot be distinguished.
Clearly, there is a lot more going on there than just that God is unchanging. In fact, this is not even mentioned here though it could possibly be derived from what is being said. Now, I have plenty of issues with what you say there. Basically I think every single sentence there is wrong, or at least misleading. However, for the case at hand I think the key statement is "Anything that has a moral component, God has no choice." This I consider wrong (or perhaps better inapplicable) in principle, since God is no moral agent.
You are misrepresenting me. Whether or not God is a "moral agent," her actions toward us can be (or rather could be, in a logical sense) either kindly or hostile, from whatever point of view you want to use. But can God act arbitrarily? Can God say, "Well, yesterday I gave good things to Man, but today I'm going to be an asshole"? No. Everything God does reflects God's character. God cannot not be God. In this sense God does not have a choice. God can't choose to be evil. Not because there is something external to God saying, "No, Jehovah, you dolt, you are not allowed to be evil." That's a straw man of the first degree. But because God is God and is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Do you think God can do something that goes against her character? And do not the things God does to us, whether strictly speaking "moral" or not (your choke-hold definition of that word can be a topic for another day), at least seem to us to be in keeping (or not in keeping as the case may be) with what we understand of a god of whom we can say, "God is Love"? You keep arguing against something I'm not saying, and don't address this.
quote:
Furthermore, even if we allow this as a kind of effective description of God's coherence, this has the practical problem of you imposing on God your creaturely ideas of what it means to be moral.
No, not really. I'm saying in this argument that WHATEVER God's nature is, God cannot act against it.
I am further saying that if we can trust the revelation we have been given by the Holy Spirit, then we must be able to say, in some sense or other, that God is Love. If that's imposing creaturely ideas of what it means to be moral, then talk to St. John, not me. If "love" is merely a moral term, and morality doesn't apply to God, then that statement is meaningless, as is much of both Testaments. Further, if "love" is so different from anything we understand in our creaturely minds to be "love" -- if "love" as applied to God is some code word that we have no access to at all, then this statement is meaningless. Why do we have all these scriptures telling us what God is like if they're not actually telling us what God is like?
You appear to want to say that God's nature is completely opaque, and cannot, contrary to St. Paul and St. John and all the prophets, be determined in any way, shape, or form. I mean apophatic theology is all well and good, but we DO have God's energies, and we DO have the created realm, and we DO have the Scriptures and the teachings of the Fathers. If absolutely none of these can tell us anything at all about God, then God is a cipher and we are worshipping the hole in the middle of a doughnut.
"Will not the judge of the whole earth do what is right?" That has to actually mean something that we can understand, or at least partially understand, or there's no point in reading the Bible at all, at least to find out what God is like. All that's left are some derivative mythology, a bit of droll history, a fair bit of decent poetry, and a lot of moral platitudes. Oh, and Ecclesiastes, which says all the rest of it is nonsense. Perhaps it's the only book we should have, and toss the rest.
And if nothing else, the Bible appears at least to show us that God is the sort of god who would give us this particular set of moral platitudes.
quote:
This is what I meant earlier with projecting very specific constraints on the nature of God. I really think that this makes little sense, and that the book of Job is an antidote to such thinking.
I don't want my constraints to constrain God. I am arguing that God's very nature constrains God. If that makes little sense about your god, then your god is not God. And don't pull out some bullshit about "well then whoever made God's nature constrains God." We both believe that nobody made God, and that God's nature is intrinsic in God, and from everlasting, and not of anybody's devising, even God's. God is what God is. Always has been, always will be. And I daresay God is comfortable enough in her skin not to chafe at her nature.
Vis-a-vis Job, God commends Job for insisting on God's righteousness, and commands his false comforters to honor him (Job). And further displays His might to Job, as if that answers the question of what her character is like. In fact Job shows exactly the opposite of your claim.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
IngoB: Not really, sorry.
Alright, could you help me then? I don't understand what "Your use of 'perfect' in the above (points 1-3) may or may not be OK in its own right" means. Could you explain that? And if the first part of point 2 is my most obvious error, how should I reformulate it?
I'm still wondering about how I should formulate point 4. There obviously is a link between the universe and morals in your beliefs. I mean, you have to make the step from "a woman cannot consecrate the bread" to "a woman should not (try to) consecrate the bread" somewhere. The first may be a natural fact, but the second is very much a rule.
I mean, I don't arrive easily at a rule, starting from "water is wet". "People should not try to make water dry" doesn't make any sense.
From "I cannot lift a 500lb stone", no rule derives that says "I should not (try to) lift a 500lb stone".
Or, from "men can't get pregnant" no rules are derived. There is no rule "men should not try to get pregnant". That's just nonsense.
It becomes even more obvious when I read what you've been saying about homosexuality (I'm glad we're in DH already, so I can bring this up). You seem to make the step from "homosexuality isn't natural" to "people shouldn't practice it".
So, how do you do that? How do you go from the natural to the moral?
Would it be better if I formulated the last points like this? (Unfortunately, UBB Code doesn't seem to allow me to start a list at number 4.)
- ...
- ...
- ...
- From the way the universe —with us in it— was created, a set of morals derives.
- The church has encoded these morals in a set of rules.
- We cannot call these rules immoral, since they derive directly from the nature of the universe. We wouldn't call "water is wet" immoral either.
Something like this?
Of course I'm planning to attack your system, but I haven't decided on my strategy yet. I don't think it's going to be "these rules are immoral, hence they cannot be from god". I haven't guessed anything about a supernatural reality here, nor am I claiming to understand anything about god at this point.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Two decades of "reception" have done enormous harm to the church. If anything ought to disabuse it of its laissez-faire tolerance, it ought to be the harm done to its members and its reputation by coddling the intolerant.
I think this has been the case in its own way in the US. Essentially, if someone (including priests and bishops) did not accept the validity of women's ordination, they didn't have to, which meant that we had this weird tug of war for decades in which one batch of clergy didn't believe the other batch of clergy were real clergy, in which bishops could basically say that their dioceses were women's-ordination-free, in which the whole thing was treated as a non-settled issue, and so on. Eventually a lot of them left but not without decades of conflict and increasing nastiness on both sides--if it had simply been set up that women were now going to be ordained and everyone had to accept that, it might have taken longer to set up, but people leaving might have been a bit of a clean break rather than a festering wound.
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
God cannot not be God. In this sense God does not have a choice. God can't choose to be evil. Not because there is something external to God saying, "No, Jehovah, you dolt, you are not allowed to be evil." That's a straw man of the first degree. But because God is God and is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
I've argued this very idea throughout all my explanations.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Do you think God can do something that goes against her character?
Here however we start to part ways. I don't think that God has a character, other than in a loose manner of speaking. A man might be brave or craven, but God is just God. There is no modifier that one could apply.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
And do not the things God does to us, whether strictly speaking "moral" or not (your choke-hold definition of that word can be a topic for another day), at least seem to us to be in keeping (or not in keeping as the case may be) with what we understand of a god of whom we can say, "God is Love"?
I have addressed this several times. Indeed, in general one would expect that God interacts with humans in ways that are aligned with the goods God has given to humans. So in general we would expect to experience God as "loving" (in a simple sense). However, God can act aligned with other goods in the universe, with other supernatural goods, or indeed with our supernatural goods. And these acts may well not feel "loving" to us. God may do something aligned with a different good, which severely disrupts our good, and the we may even experience Him as "uncaring" or "punishing" (in a simple sense). And often the goods God is pursuing may be entirely opaque to us, so that God appears to act "arbitrarily". If "God is Love" is a purely experiential truth to you, then you lead a very blessed life. Few humans experience life like that, and the bible (in particular but not only the OT) doesn't read like that. "God is Love" is a programmatic statement, almost defiant. Considered as regular speech, I see it in the mode of the psalms ("WTF God?! but I know you will come through for me"). Of course, one can also give consistent philosophical meaning to that. But probably John didn't have that in mind when he said it.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
If "love" is merely a moral term, and morality doesn't apply to God, then that statement is meaningless, as is much of both Testaments. Further, if "love" is so different from anything we understand in our creaturely minds to be "love" -- if "love" as applied to God is some code word that we have no access to at all, then this statement is meaningless. Why do we have all these scriptures telling us what God is like if they're not actually telling us what God is like?
The main point of saying that God is not a moral agent is not to say that God acts immorally, but to say that there is no external force, no moral handbook, that dictates terms to God. Furthermore, that God does not act plain immorally does not require the presence of some external moral law to restrain Him. It simply is a matter of God being consistent with Himself. He cannot in general write a law on our heart and then make us act against. God is not divided against Himself. Consequently we can understand a lot about what God does in the world - as far as we are concerned, at least. Because it will be aligned with our goods. But one has to be careful not to push this too far. God does not in the end become a kind of superhuman, who is guided by human morals in His actions but very powerful. God's "action range" is much greater than what the human moral system can contain, and even so where humans are concerned.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You appear to want to say that God's nature is completely opaque, and cannot, contrary to St. Paul and St. John and all the prophets, be determined in any way, shape, or form. I mean apophatic theology is all well and good, but we DO have God's energies, and we DO have the created realm, and we DO have the Scriptures and the teachings of the Fathers. If absolutely none of these can tell us anything at all about God, then God is a cipher and we are worshipping the hole in the middle of a doughnut.
Yes, but we have also plenty of hard sayings of Jesus, we have an OT which leaves many modern "God is Love" Christians as de facto Marcionists, and we have the poetic books like the psalms and Job which paint a rather different picture of God than being "Love" in the sense of being Super-Mom. And well, I guess most of us have personal experiences that are not exactly compatible with a simplistic concept of God as All-Powerful Loving Machine. I'm not denying your human descriptors, I have no problems with the evangelists and prophets. But I am making room in these descriptors, I open up their regular usage, so as to catch all that is there. "God is Love" indeed must remain comprehensible, otherwise why say it? But before we into apologetic overdrive to explain why that isn't a lot more obvious, I think we need to consider that scripture isn't really that simplistic. A much fuller picture is painted in the bible, and if we adjust our philosophy, our meanings of words to accommodate all that is there, then I think lots of apology turns out to be quite unnecessary.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I don't want my constraints to constrain God. I am arguing that God's very nature constrains God. If that makes little sense about your god, then your god is not God. And don't pull out some bullshit about "well then whoever made God's nature constrains God." We both believe that nobody made God, and that God's nature is intrinsic in God, and from everlasting, and not of anybody's devising, even God's. God is what God is. Always has been, always will be. And I daresay God is comfortable enough in her skin not to chafe at her nature.
The problem is here that you cannot speak like that about God's nature, in a principle sense. God's nature basically is to be. That's it. That sort of nature delivers no constraint whatsoever but that God is. This is not just good philosophy, by the way, but revealed through God naming Himself before Moses (giving a name has a much deeper significance there than just assigning a sound, of course). Creation just is not part of God's nature, properly speaking. What we are discussing is something like a non-essential operation of God's nature, an expression, an energy I guess. And we are discussing how God appears in that process. So I'm not saying that you are wrong to demand that God is good by nature. But I'm saying that you are already discussing more than just God's nature as such, you are discussing a work of God, and that is important.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Vis-a-vis Job, God commends Job for insisting on God's righteousness, and commands his false comforters to honor him (Job). And further displays His might to Job, as if that answers the question of what her character is like. In fact Job shows exactly the opposite of your claim.
God does all this after Job repents unreservedly. My claim presumably stands (I don't know what my claim is supposed to be, but I bet it didn't topple).
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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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CL
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# 16145
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Posted
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Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Two decades of "reception" have done enormous harm to the church. If anything ought to disabuse it of its laissez-faire tolerance, it ought to be the harm done to its members and its reputation by coddling the intolerant.
I think this has been the case in its own way in the US. Essentially, if someone (including priests and bishops) did not accept the validity of women's ordination, they didn't have to, which meant that we had this weird tug of war for decades in which one batch of clergy didn't believe the other batch of clergy were real clergy, in which bishops could basically say that their dioceses were women's-ordination-free, in which the whole thing was treated as a non-settled issue, and so on. Eventually a lot of them left but not without decades of conflict and increasing nastiness on both sides--if it had simply been set up that women were now going to be ordained and everyone had to accept that, it might have taken longer to set up, but people leaving might have been a bit of a clean break rather than a festering wound.
You seem to be ignoring the role of the Dennis Canon in determining if and when opponents of WO left.
Posts: 647 | From: Ireland | Registered: Jan 2011
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ChastMastr
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# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CL:
You seem to be ignoring the role of the Dennis Canon in determining if and when opponents of WO left.
No, I've never heard of it. This is just my observation of the Episcopal Church from around 1985 till now, and having been on both side of the fence on the issue of WO, plus having various friends and clergy I have known (Bishop Iker was once my parish priest in Sarasota; one old (alas, now former) friend jumped ship from the Episcopal Church to the Anglican Church in America and now his whole parish has joined with Rome; and so on...).
(Looks up Dennis Canon)
Oh, that! I hadn't actually thought of church building and land property rights affecting when people would leave--I thought of it mainly as a matter of doctrine, conscience, etc. Certainly the anti-WO people I have known who were staying seemed to think that perhaps WO would ... blow over someday, or something. (And others on the opposite side sometimes seemed to be just waiting for the others to die off, which wasn't too charitable...)
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Mark Betts
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# 17074
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Posted
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Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
...That only follows if you imagine God will abrogate free will.
God does indeed desire your salvation. He wants you to trust in him, and walk in his ways. The door has been opened, and he stands ready to welcome you. He won't close the door - even if you slam it in his face - but nor will he drag you through against your will. You have to choose to go in.
[TANGENT]I thought it was your door which you had to open. Or possibly your church's door.[/TANGENT]
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
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Mark Betts
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# 17074
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Posted
It always seemed ambiguous to me that opponents of WO in the anglican church have to acknowledge women priests as "priests indeed", yet at the same time they can be opposed to them. How does that work?
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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ChastMastr
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# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
It always seemed ambiguous to me that opponents of WO in the anglican church have to acknowledge women priests as "priests indeed", yet at the same time they can be opposed to them. How does that work?
I would think by believing that ordaining them was a mistake, but that the ordination "took" regardless?
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
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Amos
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# 44
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Posted
Over here the opponents of women's ordination don't have to acknowledge that ordained women are 'priests indeed'. They are allowed to assert that such women are lay-workers labouring under a misapprehension, to whom it is necessary to be gracious.
[ 05. August 2014, 05:40: Message edited by: Amos ]
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
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ChastMastr
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# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
Over here the opponents of women's ordination don't have to acknowledge that ordained women are 'priests indeed'. They are allowed to assert that such women are lay-workers labouring under a misapprehension, to whom it is necessary to be gracious.
Oh, I think it's been like that here in the US too--but if someone was against WO yet believed that women had been truly ordained, then I thought that would be their logical position.
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
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Steve Langton
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# 17601
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Posted
by ;
quote:
I would think by believing that ordaining them was a mistake, but that the ordination "took" regardless?
This illustrates one of the major issues here, namely what is 'ordination' in the first place?
If it is conceived as a 'recognition' of gifts, then it's not a major problem to consider women may have the gifts needed.
If on the other hand 'ordination' is thought to confer some special status or powers - such as the consecration of holy water, or what I saw one (then) would-be woman priest refer to some years ago as 'making God' in the 'Mass' (i.e., 'transubstantiation') then it's hard to see how that could happen whatever we humans thought and no matter how much we might go on about equality. If women were inherently dis-qualified in God's eyes, how would the 'magic' work?
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ChastMastr
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# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
If women were inherently dis-qualified in God's eyes, how would the 'magic' work?
And many opposed to WO believe that, but my thought process here was that if "opponents of WO in the anglican church have to acknowledge women priests as "priests indeed", yet at the same time they can be opposed to them" then therefore they'd have to believe that ordination "took" even though it was a mistake. I suppose it might be, in that case, like someone marrying someone who was not a good match--but the marriage would still be valid, and one would have to make the best of it.
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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anne
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# 73
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
If women were inherently dis-qualified in God's eyes, how would the 'magic' work?
And many opposed to WO believe that, but my thought process here was that if "opponents of WO in the anglican church have to acknowledge women priests as "priests indeed", yet at the same time they can be opposed to them" then therefore they'd have to believe that ordination "took" even though it was a mistake. I suppose it might be, in that case, like someone marrying someone who was not a good match--but the marriage would still be valid, and one would have to make the best of it.
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‘I would have given the Church my head, my hand, my heart. She would not have them. She did not know what to do with them. She told me to go back and do crochet' Florence Nightingale
Posts: 338 | From: Devon | Registered: May 2001
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anne
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# 73
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Posted
Apologies for the mis-post above.
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
If women were inherently dis-qualified in God's eyes, how would the 'magic' work?
And many opposed to WO believe that, but my thought process here was that if "opponents of WO in the anglican church have to acknowledge women priests as "priests indeed", yet at the same time they can be opposed to them" then therefore they'd have to believe that ordination "took" even though it was a mistake. I suppose it might be, in that case, like someone marrying someone who was not a good match--but the marriage would still be valid, and one would have to make the best of it.
I think that there are those who hold the position that the Anglican church can - and has - ordain women as priests but that for ecumenical or other reasons it should not. From that position it would be reasonable to acknowledge duly ordained women as 'priests indeed' but still consider that it was a mistake for the church to ordain them.
[ 05. August 2014, 15:32: Message edited by: anne ]
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‘I would have given the Church my head, my hand, my heart. She would not have them. She did not know what to do with them. She told me to go back and do crochet' Florence Nightingale
Posts: 338 | From: Devon | Registered: May 2001
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ChastMastr
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# 716
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Posted
I should note--and indeed it is one of the things that got me more open to WO--that in C.S. Lewis' article "Priestesses in the Church?" in which he argued against WO, not once did he say that they could not be ordained, unlike many opponents today--only that they should not. He seemed to treat it as an unwise move by the church but not one it could not take.
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Arethosemyfeet
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# 17047
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Posted
Having read that article for the first time it occurs to me that the argument could easily have been summed up as "You musn't, it's bad and wrong and will ruin everything" and not lost any particular argument or detail of importance.
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ChastMastr
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# 716
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Posted
I don't agree, but my point is that--despite a lot of the modern anti-WO people's approach--nowhere did Lewis say that women couldn't be ordained. To me that's a quite critical distinction--if it's a question of "this is not the best idea" vs. "this is completely impossible" then there's a lot more room to sort things out, and I think things were indeed sorted out fairly well as far as the basic approach in the C of E, which didn't involve any change in theology, just in practice. I actually think that much of the argument on the "women intrinsically cannot ever be ordained" side is frankly kind of its own "innovation," much as--for example--Fundamentalist Christianity is also an "innovation" over the last century or so.
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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ChastMastr
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# 716
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Posted
(I, too, found the arguments used by many in the US on the "pro" side--which really often have been "women can do all sorts of jobs men can" and things involving earthly social matters--as unconvincing as the "anti" side.)
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anne:
Apologies for the mis-post above.
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
If women were inherently dis-qualified in God's eyes, how would the 'magic' work?
And many opposed to WO believe that, but my thought process here was that if "opponents of WO in the anglican church have to acknowledge women priests as "priests indeed", yet at the same time they can be opposed to them" then therefore they'd have to believe that ordination "took" even though it was a mistake. I suppose it might be, in that case, like someone marrying someone who was not a good match--but the marriage would still be valid, and one would have to make the best of it.
I think that there are those who hold the position that the Anglican church can - and has - ordain women as priests but that for ecumenical or other reasons it should not. From that position it would be reasonable to acknowledge duly ordained women as 'priests indeed' but still consider that it was a mistake for the church to ordain them.
IME that tends to be the Conservative Evangelical* position, though naturally they don't believe in an ontological change at ordination anyway.
*used in the opposing-OoW sense - are there any outside Reform et al who oppose OoW? Maybe some charismatics?
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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