Guilt

Originally posted by epiphinehas
Well said, but you are using choice theory to implicate God for the actions of free people, while scripture clearly states that God is above such reproach. Whether or not that is logically tenable to you or myself doesn't matter--it is God's word. I realize that you trust your own intellect over God's word, but I don't. Thus, our current disagreement. n I'm certainly not going to be of any help. Like I said, an open bible will suffice.

I realize that you trust your own intellect over God's word, but I don't.

I hope you don’t mean this quite the way you said it.

As for the rest, it simply reduces to something like:

“I believe it because it’s the word of God.”

“Why do you believe it’s the word of God?”

“Because it says it is. . .”

Then, in order to escape from the fact that you use your intellect (and the intellects of theologians who have gone before) in order to decide how the texts ought to be read (as allegory, story, myth, history, etc.), and the hermeneutical tools for understanding (making sense of) them at any of those levels, you invoke the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and/or the epistemic certainty of faith—an epistemic standard that cannot be applied to what you believe/faith in itself, since that has become the epistemic standard in a “Ptolemaic” system of discourse.

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Now I have come to two conclusions about the whole affair, after several years of debate on here, studying, wracking my own brain, etc. (not just from our discussions):

(1) When the words used in discourse are used in such a way that they are no longer accessible to “the grammar of our consciousness”—that they lose comprehensibility—then Wittgenstein’s dictum follows: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must keep silent.” At that point one has run up against the effability problem, and continued talk (including our own self-thought/talk) says nothing.

(2) When people try to talk across faith lines, they more often than not end up (metaphorically) “speaking in tongues” at one another—a "glossolalia" that may or may not be interpreted in a comprehensible way inside given faith lines, but is not at all comprehensible (at the most basic level, before one can even begin to apply one’s mental apparatus for understanding) to anyone outside those particular lines. Ergo, at best, people within those faith lines can only talk to one another.

Frankly, I am not convinced that you have not painted yourself into a corner where the Holy Spirit becomes the author of incomprehensibility even within your particular faith-lines. I think that, despite your own talented mind, you are coming awfully close to something like credo quiera absurdum est. However, I am standing outside the lines...

Our religio-philosophical impasse, although I trust still a very friendly one, is a divide far deeper than I (should have, perhaps) realized. And that is true vis-à-vis a lot of others on here with whom I have enjoyed many discussions.

Be well.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
Well said, but you are using choice theory to implicate God for the actions of free people, while scripture clearly states that God is above such reproach. Whether or not that is logically tenable to you or myself doesn't matter--it is God's word. I realize that you trust your own intellect over God's word, but I don't. Thus, our current disagreement.

How did you come to believe that the bible is God's word? Can you honestly say your intellect wasn't involved in that process?

Originally posted by telerion
[b]Whether or not that is logically tenable to you or myself doesn't matter--it is God's word . . . If God's word doesn't convince you otherwise, then I'm certainly going to be of no help. Like I said, an open bible will suffice.

. . . or not. That's the problem. Many of us here have read the entire Bible. I've read it several times over, but we ...[text shortened]... already a believer, but a non-believer cannot dismiss problems so easily.[/b]

True, and I understand your reasoning just fine. Just because I believe steadfastly in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Jesus, doesn't mean I'm ignorant of doubt and unbelief. Apologetics can only go so far. Skeptics can easily dismiss the entire biblical account if they wish, leaving me without a leg to stand on in defense of God's word. What I'm saying is simply that God as revealed biblically is not responsible for the fall of man and is not implicated in the evil which man commits. Your reasoning tells you differently, and that's fine. I understand your line of reasoning and admit that it makes sense on its own terms, but I nevertheless side with what is revealed scripturally rather than with human reasoning, be it my own or another's. I trust God and I trust Jesus. I'm not saying that just by reading the bible you are automatically going to trust in it for your salvation. That would certainly be naive, although I hope you would.

To each their own.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
True, and I understand your reasoning just fine. Just because I believe steadfastly in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Jesus, doesn't mean I'm ignorant of doubt and unbelief. Apologetics can only go so far. Skeptics can easily dismiss the entire biblical account if they wish, leaving me without a leg to stand on in defense of God's word. ...[text shortened]... lvation. That would certainly be naive, although I hope you would.

To each their own.

Fair enough. Thank you for the respectful conversation.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
God intended to make man in His own image and likeness. Being made in God's image this of course meant that man must possess free will (minus the omnipotence).

By necessity, if God truly intended for man to possess free will, this meant God had to purposefully self-limit His influence upon a portion of His creation. Now, God being God, if He creates n order for free will to exist, then you'll have to reframe the entire basis for your logic.

telerion and vistesd are doing just fine arguing their points.

Again, what I would like to point out is that your beliefs are ugly. Your claims have so perverted the concepts of freedom and love! Your view of "genuine free will" is seriously impoverished. Basically, your idea of "genuine" freedom is merely the ability to submit to the will of another to avoid tyrannical punishment. Yikes! That's a strange take on it, being that personal autonomy is literally supposed to be about how one governs oneself --as opposed to how one's actions may be governed by coercion imposed by another agent. If god wanted to create some minions who have "genuine" free will, then fine: you create some persons who have the capacity to act autonomously: they can deliberate in the absence of coercion and act on these deliberations to produce choices that reflect their own values and dispositional traits, their knowledge of the situation, their evaluative commitments, what they take to be reasons for acting, etc. What you don't do is create a bunch of persons and then dictate to them that you made the world such that they either enter into communion with you or they suffer horribly as a consequence. What's hard to understand about that? The same goes for loving us. We're not just moral agents, we're also moral patients. If you love someone you don't consider their basic interests to be irrelevant and disposable. On the contrary, you take their interests to be directly reason-giving, just like your own. No, sometimes people don't love you back, but that doesn't mean they deserve to suffer or that you can treat them just any old way you please.

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By the way, you and the bible got it backwards with the "we're made in God's image" stuff. The following is based on a saying. Triangles everywhere got together and thought up a god. And wouldn't you know it, He has exactly three sides.

Originally posted by telerion
Man, I really need to learn to write better. Thank you for explaining my point (and good many other points besides) more clearly than I did.

I think you write clearly and well.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]I realize that you trust your own intellect over God's word, but I don't.

I hope you don’t mean this quite the way you said it.

As for the rest, it simply reduces to something like:

“I believe it because it’s the word of God.”

“Why do you believe it’s the word of God?”

“Because it says it is. . .”

Then, in order to escape from the fa ...[text shortened]... rue vis-à-vis a lot of others on here with whom I have enjoyed many discussions.

Be well.[/b]

I hope you don’t mean this quite the way you said it.

I mean it in terms of an intellectual construct (i.e. choice theory) implicating God for all the evil in the world, versus the word of God's declaration that God is innocent of such evil. I'm assuming from our previous discussions that you do not trust the word of God as I do. That is, you do not take its declarations as preeminent over your own ideas about the way things are. Am I wrong to assume as much? I mean no offense.

Frankly, I am not convinced that you have not painted yourself into a corner where the Holy Spirit becomes the author of incomprehensibility even within your particular faith-lines.

Incomprehensibility, which you are aware, does not necessarily entail impossibility. Even among the faithful there are a great many things contained in God's word which are considered mysteries too great to grasp with the mind. Perhaps in this instance I am forced to paint myself into a corner, since to do otherwise would be to reason aloud about something which I have no authority to address. In this, I suppose, is revealed the limitations imposed on me by the faith which I proclaim. (A yoke I joyfully bear.)

This is precisely why I see my job here as merely a representative of God's word (to the best of my current ability, understanding and insight). God doesn't need me to defend Him, especially where His word is quite incomprehensible ("whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must keep silent" ), but nevertheless there are many issues which God's word can address in "the grammar of our consciousness" which, with adequate free time, nothing should prevent me from doing.

Now, it is another question whether or not I am entirely accurate in representing God's word, because I am still learning more about it every day. I strive, however, to be as accurate as possible in every thing I write.

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The divide that separates us is deep, vistesd, but that divide probably reveals itself in these forums infinitely more than it would if we were to meet in person. A handshake, a glass of wine, a few laughs, under a billion stars dusted over the black, and there'd be no worries. These forums can be pretty bleak at times, but words aren't people.

Peace.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]I hope you don’t mean this quite the way you said it.

I mean it in terms of an intellectual construct (i.e. choice theory) implicating God for all the evil in the world, versus the word of God's declaration that God is innocent of such evil. I'm assuming from our previous discussions that you do not trust the word of God as I do. That is, you ies. These forums can be pretty bleak at times, but words aren't people.

Peace.[/b]

The divide that separates us is deep, vistesd, but that divide probably reveals itself in these forums infinitely more than it would if we were to meet in person. A handshake, a glass of wine, a few laughs, under a billion stars dusted over the black, and there'd be no worries. These forums can be pretty bleak at times, but words aren't people. The divide that separates us is deep, vistesd, but that divide probably reveals itself in these forums infinitely more than it would if we were to meet in person. A handshake, a glass of wine, a few laughs, under a billion stars dusted over the black, and there'd be no worries. These forums can be pretty bleak at times, but words aren't people.

Well spoken. I wholeheartedly agree. I will tip my next glass of vino to you in toast.

Peace.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]The divide that separates us is deep, vistesd, but that divide probably reveals itself in these forums infinitely more than it would if we were to meet in person. A handshake, a glass of wine, a few laughs, under a billion stars dusted over the black, and there'd be no worries. These forums can be pretty bleak at times, but words aren't people. The divide ...[text shortened]... poken. I wholeheartedly agree. I will tip my next glass of vino to you in toast.

Peace.

It is true that the fact that people aren' t face to face in these forums, you get the opportunity to examine the true views of each individual person and evaluate their perspective of God and the universe respictively. You also get the opportunity to weigh the perspectives of other with that of your own and really come to grips with who you are religiously.

Originally posted by vistesd
The divide that separates us is deep, vistesd, but that divide probably reveals itself in these forums infinitely more than it would if we were to meet in person. A handshake, a glass of wine, a few laughs, under a billion stars dusted over the black, and there'd be no worries. These forums can be pretty bleak at times, but words aren't people. The divide poken. I wholeheartedly agree. I will tip my next glass of vino to you in toast.

Peace.

Warum denken Sie mich schreiben auf Deutsch? Daß bitten, es genügend Raum in der natürlichen Philosophie für das Bestehen des Gottes, besonders in den Quantum Mechanikern, also mich gibt, sind zur einzigen Zusammenfassung jede angemessene man(mindestens Hoffnung I gekommen, die ich eine angemessene Person) kann erreichen bin und die ist, daß das Universum eine Intelligenz ist nicht ohne den Reich der Möglichkeit entwickelt hat.

wow!!! does that translate badly ..lmao

Originally posted by LemonJello
telerion and vistesd are doing just fine arguing their points.

Again, what I would like to point out is that your beliefs are ugly. Your claims have so perverted the concepts of freedom and love! Your view of "genuine free will" is seriously impoverished. Basically, your idea of "genuine" freedom is merely the ability to submit to the will of ...[text shortened]... and thought up a god. And wouldn't you know it, He has exactly three sides.

Are you saying it is wrong of God to impose consequences for a person's actions?

Originally posted by epiphinehas
Are you saying it is wrong of God to impose consequences for a person's actions?

No, I'm saying just what I said: that I think your beliefs are ugly and pervert the concepts of love and freedom.

It wouldn't be wrong for god to impose consequences that are just and deserved. Show me through some argument how one can be deserving of eternal torment. Show how that's a just punishment for failing to love god.

Originally posted by LemonJello
No, I'm saying just what I said: that I think your beliefs are ugly and pervert the concepts of love and freedom.

It wouldn't be wrong for god to impose consequences that are just and deserved. Show me through some argument how one can be deserving of eternal torment. Show how that's a just punishment for failing to love god.

Yes, this problem has been discussed in the past. I have never heard anything close to a satisfactory answer. How can a just god impose infinite torment as punishment for a finite trangression*?

* - This is tied somewhat to the another question of mine. "If God really desires that all come to him, then why doesn't he forgive repentant dead souls? What's the difference to him whether their earthly bodies are gone? Maybe he could make them roast in a hell for some period of time (like a really bad grounding) before accepting their apology? Heck, I do that with my seven-year-old daughter all the time (grounding, not roasting in hell 🙂 ). It seems unnecessary and really out of character for a loving God who always has a perfect plan to leave so many souls in torment with no escape.

Originally posted by LemonJello
No, I'm saying just what I said: that I think your beliefs are ugly and pervert the concepts of love and freedom.

It wouldn't be wrong for god to impose consequences that are just and deserved. Show me through some argument how one can be deserving of eternal torment. Show how that's a just punishment for failing to love god.

Could it be that you underestimate the true heinousness of rejecting God? If God is just, then He can only give just recompense. And if eternal torment is just recompense for rejecting God, then perhaps you should reconsider your assumptions about what it is to reject God. If you don't understand its true heinousness, then of course you are going to chafe at the idea of being eternally condemned for "merely" rejecting God.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
Could it be that you underestimate the true heinousness of rejecting God? If God is just, then He can only give just recompense. And if eternal torment is just recompense for rejecting God, then perhaps you should reconsider your assumptions about what it is to reject God. If you don't understand its true heinousness, then of course you are going to chafe at the idea of being eternally condemned for "merely" rejecting God.

So you don't have such an argument, then?