Following Christ

Originally posted by lucifershammer
How do they reconcile this with parts of the Bible where Jesus himself speaks of unquenchable fires and sins that are not forgiven in this life or the next?

The only “unquenchable fire” quote for Jesus that I found was with regard to wheat/chaff in Matthew 3:12 and Luke 3:17. The wheat and chaff (or wheat and weeds in the Matthew 13 parable) are taken as aspects of all of us; not as whole individuals. Even in the wheat/weeds parable, is the evil one able to “sow” whole people?

The only sin I am aware of off hand that Jesus said would not be forgiven is blasphemy against the holy spirit. Does that mean that one cannot not even repent in such a case? (I’m not exactly sure what constitutes blasphemy against the holy spirit.)

Even there, remember Jonah:

NRS Jonah 3:9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish." 10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

NRS Jonah 4:1 But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.

(God did not tell the people of Nineveh, through Jonah, to “repent”—he said their destruction was certain.)

I think the Orthodox are very leery of a scriptural hermeneutic that limits God, even to what is said in the biblical texts (even in the mouth of Jesus). In addition, the Orthodox notion of salvation is not as juridical as in the west; soterias means making whole or making well.

Originally posted by vistesd
The only “unquenchable fire” quote for Jesus that I found was with regard to wheat/chaff in Matthew 3:12 and Luke 3:17. The wheat and chaff (or wheat and weeds in the Matthew 13 parable) are taken as aspects of all of us; not as whole individuals. Even in the wheat/weeds parable, is the evil one able to “sow” whole people?

The only sin I am aware of o lvation is not as juridical as in the west; soterias means making whole or making well.

Catholic theology is not opposed to authentic Orthodox expressions of the faith. The idea of justification as "making whole" or "making holy" can be found (and is, in fact, the preferred mode of expression) in the Catholic Church (and even, IIRC, in some Protestant denominations like the Methodists). Indeed the whole juridical idea of "snow on dung" was categorically rejected by the RCC.

Going back to the "wheat and chaff" bit, Matthew also has the goats and sheep (a very similar parable). Unless those are also aspects of ourselves...

EDIT: If the Orthodox are leery of scriptural hermeneutics (even from the mouth of Jesus??!! Are they saying he lied?), they certainly can't be leery of Sacred Tradition -- which pretty unequivocally backs Hell (Augustine is also a Father in the Eastern Church, remember?)

It's quite funny in a way. I remember reading somewhere that, in the Early Church, all the philosophers and apologists (Justin Martyr, Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria, Augustine etc.) were Eastern Fathers but, starting from Leo, the Eastern Church moved away from considerations of reason in faith while the Western Church started its own movement towards a harmonisation of the two (peaking, of course, with the Scholastics and Aquinas).

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Catholic theology is not opposed to authentic Orthodox expressions of the faith. The idea of justification as "making whole" or "making holy" can be found (and is, in fact, the preferred mode of expression) in the Catholic Church (and even, IIRC, in some Protestant denominations like the Methodists). Indeed the whole juridical idea of "snow on dung" w rds a harmonisation of the two (peaking, of course, with the Scholastics and Aquinas).

Lutherans pretty much lost it, though. A few years ago there was a project among some Finnish Lutheran theologians to recover Luther’s doctrine of sanctification, which they said got suppressed by Melancthon and others after Luther’s death—apparently there is a whole corpus of Luther’s writings that were not even widely published in German, let alone translated. According to the Finns, Luther’s doctrine of sanctification, though perhaps not worked out as thoroughly as his (very juridical) doctrine of justification, appeared to be close to the Orthodox.

I never got the goats/sheep parable, frankly. I have concluded that Jesus must’ve been a “townie”—any goat-herder or sheepherder would say that sheep are incapable individually of making such decisions (have goats, as you know). It was once explained to me (admittedly by a goat person) like this: a sheep will wander accidentally through an open gate, then stand outside and bawl because they can’t figure out how to walk back in; a goat will pick the lock, sneak out, and slip back in before you know they were gone...

With that said, I would say that we generally act sometimes like the goats in the parable, and sometimes like the sheep. So, if I lift that parable out of the whole schema, and take it as the message, what does that mean?

I take parables as a kind of metaphorical speech, subject to multi-level interpretations. Even the explanations that Jesus gave to the disciples in private may not be the only ones, or even the deepest ones, but explanations that he gave to “jump-start” them, so to speak.

EDIT: Just saw your edit. Augustine is called the "Western Father," and certainly part of the tradition. They just don't think he always got it right. Gregory of Nyssa is a saint in the eastern church; is he in the RCC as well?

Did God have Jonah lie to the people of Nineveh? If Jonah was delivering, as the story says he was, God's message, did God lie to the Ninevens, or to Jonah? I know this is a sticky question in terms of the Definition of Chalcedon, but did Jesus ever speak from strictly human nature, as opposed to divine nature (even assuming the texts are correct in recording what Jesus said)? Too many questions, in my mind, to insist on whom God must condemn to eternal hell...

EDIT EDIT: The above thoughts are mine--not those necessarily of the Orthodox church...

Re Aquinas: when he had that experience, in the light of which he called all that he had written “like straw,” why did he never communicate that? Do Thomists read Thomas with a bit of reserve based on his own statement?

There’s no doubt that the Orthodox leave questions open that others seem to have closed—even when their theologians take positions. With regard to reason, I think you’re somewhat correct. I recall reading of a priest who was asked about Orthodox theology; his response: “Just study our icons—it’s all there.” That’s almost like saying, “Listen to the music instead of the words.” In that sense, I do think the Orthodox are a bit more “right-brained” (not to say mystical) in there approach. (One seems to see Peudo-Dionysus quoted more often among Orthodox; on the other hand, there is Meister Eckhart...) The RCC seems to stand somewhere between them and the Protestants.

Originally posted by vistesd
Re Aquinas: when he had that experience, in the light of which he called all that he had written “like straw,” why did he never communicate that? Do Thomists read Thomas with a bit of reserve based on his own statement?

There’s no doubt that the Orthodox leave questions open that others seem to have closed—even when their theologians take positions. W ...[text shortened]... there is Meister Eckhart...) The RCC seems to stand somewhere between them and the Protestants.

The Western Church (and Westerners in general) wants to turn religion into a mathematical formula. The Eastern Church wants to turn it into a beauty pageant.

No wonder JPII kept on and on about "two lungs" of Christianity.

Just a thought. 😉

EDIT: I don't think Thomists read Thomism with reserve because of that. They realise full well that Truth (or Mystery) is far more than philosophy or theology -- but that doesn't make the philosophy or theology incorrect, just inadequate.

Calling the sun a "bright sphere" is not incorrect, just inadequate.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
The Western Church (and Westerners in general) wants to turn religion into a mathematical formula. The Eastern Church wants to turn it into a beauty pageant.

No wonder JPII kept on and on about "two lungs" of Christianity.

Just a thought. 😉

EDIT: I don't think Thomists read Thomism with reserve because of that. They realise full well that Tr , just inadequate.

Calling the sun a "bright sphere" is not incorrect, just inadequate.

Frankly, I’ll take the beauty pageant. 😉

To say that “the sun crosses the sky” is, however, incorrect. The problem is, how do we apply terms like “correct” to metaphorical language? Can a metaphor be said to be “adequate” but “incorrect?”

Something is a mystery—as opposed to merely a puzzle—because it transcends our cognitive abilities (whether or not it is supernatural). How far can we push insistence on the accuracy of our cognitive descriptions before we lapse into a conceptual idolatry?

A so-called “mystical” experience* is such because it occurs at the noncognitive, preconceptual level of awareness. Subsequently (or near-simultaneously) the brain/mind attempts to “translate” it into some sort of cognitively accessible imagery (visions, auditions, perhaps of the “as if” variety, etc.), in its efforts to compose some meaning. Sometimes, these translations may consist of some testable insights—but they should not be taken at face value, no matter how “profound” they might seem, no matter how in accord (or not) they seem to be with one’s a priori (with respect to the experience) religious beliefs.

I’m not convinced that such experiences get at any kind of “noumenal” thing-in-itself beyond (behind) a kind of naked phenomenal awareness. The sense that I take away from such “ground level” states (or one of the senses) is summed up well by Dame Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and every manner of thing shall be well.” But, (1) that sense may itself be such a translation as I describe above, and (2) I can’t put that into any kind of propositional explanation—I don’t know what it “means,” though I don’t think it points to any kind of individual after-life; perhaps it is just a sense of the general harmony or coherence of the universe in/of which I am.

All of which makes such considerations problematic doctrinally, but not (for me) aesthetically. And how I live out my existence has a lot more to do with aesthetics than logic. I don’t know why Beethoven’s Ninth (or Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar playing ragas together, or Hasidic niggun, or Byzantine chant) moves me to the extent that I cannot listen to it as “background music.” Poetry is the same. Take these lines from Dylan Thomas:

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower,
drives my green age...

Imagine someone trying to interpret that literally: well, the stem really is a kind of hollow “fuse” through which the elan vital pushes the... And there was an age at which the poet was really the color green... etc., etc.

I treat all religious language the way I treat those lines of Dylan. Beyond that, I assert or deny nothing; and everything I say—even about theology, Christology and soteriology—should be taken somewhat in that sense... It is the religious “mathematics,” as you say, that insists on something more that bothers me. Hafiz was right. I sing of the ineffable only in poetry, or sometimes story)—

How silly for the flame to fear
annihilation in the fire...

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* I think I can use that word because you and I both treat it in the same “technical” sense.

Originally posted by vistesd
Frankly, I’ll take the beauty pageant. 😉

To say that “the sun crosses the sky” is, however, incorrect. The problem is, how do we apply terms like “correct” to metaphorical language? Can a metaphor be said to be “adequate” but “incorrect?”

Something is a mystery—as opposed to merely a puzzle—because it transcends our cognitive abilities (whe ...[text shortened]...

* I think I can use that word because you and I both treat it in the same “technical” sense.

I think metaphors, like analogies, are good to the extent that they are isomorphic to the object, with the structural similarities indexed in importance based upon our interests.

Originally posted by bbarr
I think metaphors, like analogies, are good to the extent that they are isomorphic to the object, with the structural similarities indexed in importance based upon our interests.

Good to have you back!!! Hope you and yours are well.

The question is: what are the metaphors isomorphic to when we hit the ground of the ineffable? I can only say that the metaphors that I used above, for example, are isomorphic to the experience itself. I know of no mystic—Zen, Vedantic, Sufic, Christian, whatever—whose experiences are total chaos, rather than in some sense unitive. I agree about interests--I would add, our own individual aesthetic sensibilities.

Kabir said something to the effect that: “the holy one manifests in a myriad forms; I sing the glory of the forms.”

This is my “sufic” attempt:

Fana

As long as there is herself and myself
—beloved and lover, an imagined mirage
cast in a dream of two mirrors—
love is the desperate, jealous flame of desire.

When the images join in a singular fire
—returning to only ourself and no other—
then love is the passion and pulsation of One,
forgetful of dreams imprisoned in a mirror.

And it begins again until it ends,
This rhythm of form and fullness and form.

How silly for the flame to fear
annihilation in the fire—

Originally posted by vistesd
Good to have you back!!! Hope you and yours are well.

The question is: what are the metaphors isomorphic to when we hit the ground of the ineffable? I can only say that the metaphors that I used above, for example, are isomorphic to the experience itself. I know of no mystic—Zen, Vedantic, Sufic, Christian, whatever—whose experiences are total chaos, ...[text shortened]... thm of form and fullness and form.

How silly for the flame to fear
annihilation in the fire—

When you reach spiritual bedrock, metaphors no longer serve their normal purpose. They are no longer explanatory or descriptive, but rather are (for lack of a better term) elicitive. They aim at inspiring in the audience a nacent (or in the case of Koans, a robust) experience of the very thing at issue.

Also, I hope you and yours are well. I take consistent delight in reading your posts.

Originally posted by bbarr
When you reach spiritual bedrock, metaphors no longer serve their normal purpose. They are no longer explanatory or descriptive, but rather are (for lack of a better term) elicitive. They aim at inspiring in the audience a nacent (or in the case of Koans, a robust) experience of the very thing at issue.

Also, I hope you and yours are well. I take consistent delight in reading your posts.

Elicitive! Good word. Thank you (and for the compliment as well.)

One cannot presume what will be elicitive for someone else; I believe that you warned me on this point many moons ago. I write off my frustration to my own spiritual egoism...

Originally posted by vistesd
To say that “the sun crosses the sky” is, however, incorrect. The problem is, how do we apply terms like “correct” to metaphorical language? Can a metaphor be said to be “adequate” but “incorrect?”

Something is a mystery—as opposed to merely a puzzle—because it transcends our cognitive abilities (whether or not it is supernatural). How far can ...[text shortened]... ce[/i] on the accuracy of our cognitive descriptions before we lapse into a conceptual idolatry?

What does "conceptual idolatory" mean? Is it conceptual idolatory to say that an egg is, indeed, an egg?

If something completely transcends our cognitive abilities then how can we even know it exists? If it doesn't completely transcend our cognitive abilities, then we can know that it exists and that we can perceive something about it.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
What does "conceptual idolatory" mean?

One definition: "the creation or the adoption of a concept or idea that we take to be equivalent to God and thus worship as God" (Bruce Benson).

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
One definition: "the creation or the adoption of a concept or idea that we take to be equivalent to God and thus worship as God" (Bruce Benson).

I'll take that--with the caveat that I'm never sure what "worship" means; both the Hebrew and Greek words are related to work and service.

I might use the word "identification." One does not identify an icon with the divine; but one identifies an idol with the divine.

The danger that I was referring to is identifying our concepts with the reality, and--well, yes, worshipping those concepts.

Originally posted by vistesd
The danger that I was referring to is identifying our concepts with the reality, and--well, yes, worshipping those concepts.

So are you saying that our concepts can have no correlation whatsoever with the reality (of God)?

Originally posted by lucifershammer
What does "conceptual idolatory" mean? Is it conceptual idolatory to say that an egg is, indeed, an egg?

If something completely transcends our cognitive abilities then how can we even know it exists? If it doesn't completely transcend our cognitive abilities, then we can know that it exists and that we can perceive something about it.

I intended “noncognitive” in the strict sense of incapable of being assigned a propositional truth value (as the term seems generally to be used in ethical and theological noncognitivism). Hence, the spiritual ground point can only be spoken of in expressive (or as bbarr put it, elicitive) language of poetry, or the highly paradoxical language of koans, say—or, perhaps, according to the Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan anyway, music. (I would also, tentatively admit “seems as if” expressions, which at least seem to move toward cognitive statements.)

Read Pseudo-Dionysus’ “On the Names of God,” or take a look at the Definition of Chalcedon for paradoxical language:

The Definition of the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D)

Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us. (my bold)


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However, a quick search across dictionaries shows that cognition is generally a broad term that also includes simple attention and perception, as well as abstract thought and conceptualization.

Therefore, I am happy to drop the term, and stick with such terms as ineffable and nonconceptual.

Note also my reply to BdN re “concept-idolatry.”