Sin/Salvation (redux)

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]In that case, while they are still “sane,” they cannot be choosing knowingly, in the face of the prospect of eternal torment. Therefore, they are choosing in ignorance.

I beg to differ. Your logical extrapolations, though they make sense within their own propositional universe, suffer from insufficient scriptural data. None will be without exc illed in her.

If her choices bring her to the edge of ruin and beyond, I can only mourn.[/b]

Thanks, Epi. I won’t repeat all my arguments—I just see a sort of disconnect when you wonderfully describe your love for your daughter, and then put God in a similar human position, almost as if, for God, there is a similar point at which God can do nothing. (If you recall it, my reading of the story of the Good Samaritan seems on point here.)

The other thing is, you would not create an eternal hell for your daughter—whether she would end up there of her own choice, or as a result of your punishment. I certainly don't believe that you would adjudicate such a punishment.

You say you will always be watching—and I believe you. For you and I, death is a bar for that kind of hope. For God, it need not be.

It ends up being a real non-sequiter for me.

______________________________________________

With that said, I’ve been wondering why this argument, which has spanned several threads, has seemed so much more frustrating than our “Great Debate.” I suspect that it is because, on the one hand, I am challenging the very validity of the claims you are making for your God (whether they are Biblical or not); and on the other hand, you have been challenging everything that I know of love in my own life--at least when you apply the term to God.

This may sound presumptuous as hell, but I affirm your description of your love for your daughter. That I can call love. But your God I cannot call love—unless, of course, you want to bite the bullet on God’s omnipotence, in the sense that death has a power that God cannot—and I mean cannot—overcome.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]In that case, while they are still “sane,” they cannot be choosing knowingly, in the face of the prospect of eternal torment. Therefore, they are choosing in ignorance.

I beg to differ. Your logical extrapolations, though they make sense within their own propositional universe, suffer from insufficient scriptural data. None will be without exc illed in her.

If her choices bring her to the edge of ruin and beyond, I can only mourn.[/b]

I beg to differ. Your logical extrapolations, though they make sense within their own propositional universe, suffer from insufficient scriptural data.

I find your scriptural data insufficient in terms of describing (and ascribing to God) a paltry and jealous form of “love.” They are also insufficient to keep billions of people from rejecting—not your God, but the very notion of his existence.

I believed in your God (or a variation thereof) for—well, let’s take a rough stab and say 40 years. I prayed to him; I worshipped; I had stunning experiences that I ascribed to his presence. Then I realized that none of it made any sense at all—and that the source of my experiences was the nexus of my own mind with the larger reality of which it is, and the translations made by my mind of those experiences based solely on being locked into that religious paradigm.

I am by nature a contemplative. I am daily in contact with that pre-conceptual, expansive reality that bbarr once called “the divine real,” and realize (nice pun there) that I am of that; and practice to deepen that realization. It is not your God. I suspect it is a kind of lingering post-hypnotic hangover that leads me once in awhile to ask the questions again: but it is not your God.

I suppose it's safe to say that there are those who look in the mirror and see their reflection.

There are also those who look at the mirror and see that which inhibits their reflection.

There are others still who look intently in the mirror and see the multiple reflections of the reflection within.

Then there are those who look at the mirror and wonder, "How in the hell am I able to see?"

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]God has yet to ask me a question, but when He does you can be sure I will consider my answer carefully.

If there is a God, wouldn't He be able to cure lepers, give sight to the blind, heal cripples, and raise the dead? Christ did these things, acts which only God could accomplish, and had many witnesses. By every conceivable standard the bibli ...[text shortened]... on to assume Christ and the Easter Bunny are on equal footing, to say the least.[/b]

Accusations that Christ's ministry was divinized by later disciples is unrealistic. Someone could only have done so 150-200 years after Christ's ministry; any earlier and such claims would have been refuted by those who followed the "real" merely human Jesus (there is no record of such a refutation).

After my first tongue-in-cheek response, I just wanted to add that your history is faulty. Christ’s divinity was far from settled during the period you’re talking about—so much so that the word “refutation” could be applied to those who later would come to be called Nicene (or Chalcedonian, or “orthodox” ) Christians, finding the need to refute what was sometimes the majority view that Jesus was not divine—as well as a plethora of understandings about what such “divinity” might mean.

You could take a look at any number of books on the history of the development of Christological doctrine: John Meyendorff’s Christ in the Eastern Orthodox Church, for example, is detailed and scholarly. Jaroslav Pelikan details the various positions in volume 1 of his history of church doctrine. You could also read Richard E. Rubenstein’s more provocative, but historically accurate, When Jesus Became God.

I have also before cited works on how the early first-century Christians read the texts that would later be called “the Bible”. Those who were closest to the period of Christ’s ministry, and that of the apostles, and for whom we have surviving records, did not read those scriptures in the same way as conventional modern Protestantism—neither the divinizers nor the non-divinizers. In fact, I have given examples of how they, and their post-apostolic successors into the 4th and 5th centuries, read it on here.

The earliest Christians (those who eventually decided which scriptures were and were not inspired, and which were more inspired than others, and in what ways) were not sola scripturists; they did not read the scriptures in any literalist/historicist fashion; they did not hold to a strictly juridical soteriology—in sum, they were not modern evangelical Protestants.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
I suppose it's safe to say that there are those who look in the mirror and see their reflection.

There are also those who look at the mirror and see that which inhibits their reflection.

There are others still who look intently in the mirror and see the multiple reflections of the reflection within.

Then there are those who look at the mirror and wonder, "How in the hell am I able to see?"

With the qualification that I have never used that kind of mirror-mind analogy (and that, in the Buddhist metaphor, it is what you have as the looking-mind that is the mirror, mirroring the larger reality; still, I find that to be a limited metaphor that does not capture the dynamics of the mind)—

I like your presentation. Again, however, I can understand it in strictly Buddhist terms. In answer to the question in your final line: “What you’re looking for is what you’re looking with.”

Originally posted by vistesd
Thanks, Epi. I won’t repeat all my arguments—I just see a sort of disconnect when you wonderfully describe your love for your daughter, and then put God in a similar human position, almost as if, for God, there is a similar point at which God can do nothing. (If you recall it, my reading of the story of the Good Samaritan seems on point here.)

Th potence, in the sense that death has a power that God cannot—and I mean cannot—overcome.

The other thing is, you would not create an eternal hell for your daughter—whether she would end up there of her own choice, or as a result of your punishment. I certainly don't believe that you would adjudicate such a punishment.

Forgive me if this sounds trite, but the simple fact is that I am not God. In this instance I lack the pure objectivity to judge my own daughter. Indeed, if I had my own way, she would make it to heaven regardless of how she lived her life or who/what she placed her trust in. But God declares that without repentance and a saving faith in Jesus Christ there is simply no salvation. The way is narrow which leads to life, and the way is broad which leads to destruction.

The only revelation we have that God is love is in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Him, and only in Him, is God's wrath against sin infinitely satisfied. Christ's suffering reveals that God's love is not a sentimental or an intellectual love, but a consuming fire. Not only that, but that God is also righteous, in that the demands of God's holy law require either the sinner's death or Christ's death -- the power to forgive sins and to transform lives is clearly displayed in Christ's resurrection from death.

If Christ is the way which God provides to forgiveness and life, and God's law is perfectly fulfilled in Him, then how can anyone accuse the Lord of injustice? Has He not provided a way out? His anger against sin is assuaged in Christ and He is beckoning everyone to come and freely take of Him, to freely partake of eternal life!

"On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water"" (John 7:37-38).

I see no sense in rejecting God's offer just because my neighbor might suffer the agony of refusing it. Am I more righteous than God? Can I not trust Him to fulfill all righteousness? Even if He were to condemn me to eternal torment, I would have to acknowledge that His judgment is just -- how could I not?

The trouble with superimposing our own conceptions of love onto God is that we become confused by the data. My earthbound conception of the earth is that it is flat, but the data tells me otherwise. I see refusing to accept the data that the earth is round in favor of a flat earth to be comparable to holding onto my own conception of God's love rather than what scripture reveals. If I think it is unjust for God to condemn unrepentant, unbelieving sinners to eternal separation from His presence, then I am favoring my own conception even though it doesn't fit the data. Scripture says that God alone is just, and therefore my conceptions are in error. If I say that a God of love would not condemn people in the said manner, then I am again contradicting the data, since scripture reveals that God is love. If I were to truly glean anything from the scriptural data, I must not ignore any part of it, and develop a new concept to fit.

I suspect that it is because, on the one hand, I am challenging the very validity of the claims you are making for your God (whether they are Biblical or not); and on the other hand, you have been challenging everything that I know of love in my own life--at least when you apply the term to God.

And I'm sure you would agree that these kinds of challenges are a good thing.

I know how shocking/disturbing it is to the system to realize that God is not a "respecter of persons." This simple idea will revolutionize anyone's conception of God's love. The self-righteous religious people are put to shame by God's elevation of notorious sinners to co-equal status in Christ; similarly, the sinners who reject Christ are put to shame by the elevation of the sinners who placed their faith in Christ. God is not a respecter of persons. His judgments are just and He is true to His promises despite what anyone on earth says or does.

But your God I cannot call love—unless, of course, you want to bite the bullet on God’s omnipotence, in the sense that death has a power that God cannot—and I mean cannot—overcome.

You can probably see this coming from a mile away, but God has already overcome death in Christ Jesus. It is only through Him that anyone can likewise overcome the curse of death. And it is only in this life that we are able to humble ourselves, turn from sin, place our faith in and act on Christ's behalf. After death it is too late for these things...

All the dead will be resurrected at the Last Day, but for the sake of judgment, not repentance. Christ will judge based on the works which men have done before death, not after it.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]I beg to differ. Your logical extrapolations, though they make sense within their own propositional universe, suffer from insufficient scriptural data.

I find your scriptural data insufficient in terms of describing (and ascribing to God) a paltry and jealous form of “love.” They are also insufficient to keep billions of people from rejecting—not ...[text shortened]... notic hangover that leads me once in awhile to ask the questions again: but it is not your God.[/b]

I find your scriptural data insufficient in terms of describing (and ascribing to God) a paltry and jealous form of “love.” They are also insufficient to keep billions of people from rejecting—not your God, but the very notion of his existence.

To me, the prodigal son's father is the perfect example of God's love: always waiting, always hoping, always watching for his son to return; ready to run to meet him with open arms. There is nothing paltry or jealous about Him. If the prodigal son refused to humble himself and return to his father, would the father be any less the loving patriarch? No. In the same way, we cannot accuse God the Father of being paltry or jealous just because some of his "prodigal sons" refuse to humble themselves and return to Him.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]Accusations that Christ's ministry was divinized by later disciples is unrealistic. Someone could only have done so 150-200 years after Christ's ministry; any earlier and such claims would have been refuted by those who followed the "real" merely human Jesus (there is no record of such a refutation).

After my first tongue-in-cheek response, I just ...[text shortened]... ld to a strictly juridical soteriology—in sum, they were not modern evangelical Protestants.[/b]

The earliest Christians (those who eventually decided which scriptures were and were not inspired, and which were more inspired than others, and in what ways) were not sola scripturists; they did not read the scriptures in any literalist/historicist fashion; they did not hold to a strictly juridical soteriology—in sum, they were not modern evangelical Protestants.

Would you say that Paul is a literalist? Did Paul hold to a strictly juridical soteriology?

You can probably see this coming from a mile away, but God has already overcome death in Christ Jesus.

I suspect we’re now both seeing each other’s pitches coming from a mile away, e.g.: “As all die in Adam, some will be made alive in Christ.” 😉

I do agree that these kinds of challenges are a good thing.

Would you say that Paul is a literalist? Did Paul hold to a strictly juridical soteriology?

As to the first question, clearly no: he himself said that the Hagar-Sarah story was an allegory, which he proceeded to interpret. I would say that Paul, following in his Jewish tradition, was a brilliant midrashist.

As to the second question: Frankly, I’d have to search again through the Pauline corpus with that specific question in mind.

I know how shocking/disturbing it is to the system to realize that God is not a "respecter of persons."

Neither is the Tao. However, I have never claimed that the Tao, or Brahman, is love. I don’t think such a statement revolutionizes the concept of love—I think it does away with it. Unless you want to offer a definition of love that would be consistent with this notion, at the present time I have no idea what it might be.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]You can probably see this coming from a mile away, but God has already overcome death in Christ Jesus.

I suspect we’re now both seeing each other’s pitches coming from a mile away, e.g.: “As all die in Adam, some will be made alive in Christ.” 😉

I do agree that these kinds of challenges are a good thing.

Would you say that Paul i hat would be consistent with this notion, at the present time I have no idea what it might be.

[/b]As to the second question, No.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]The other thing is, you would not create an eternal hell for your daughter—whether she would end up there of her own choice, or as a result of your punishment. I certainly don't believe that you would adjudicate such a punishment.

Forgive me if this sounds trite, but the simple fact is that I am not God. In this instance I lack the pure object ...[text shortened]... l judge based on the works which men have done before death, not after it.[/b]

The only revelation we have that God is love is in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In Him, and only in Him, is God's wrath against sin infinitely satisfied. Christ's suffering reveals that God's love is not a sentimental or an intellectual love, but a consuming fire. Not only that, but that God is also righteous, in that the demands of God's holy law require either the sinner's death or Christ's death -- the power to forgive sins and to transform lives is clearly displayed in Christ's resurrection from death.

I’m sorry to be piecemealing this so much.

(1) No, according to your soteriology, God’s “wrath against sin” is not “infinitely satisfied”.

(2) Re: “but that God is also righteous”—nowhere is God called righteousness. There is no identification as there is with God as agape. Once again, it is a matter of essence versus attributes that must stem from that essence. This is the case whether agape implies universal salvation or not. John says that God is agape—without adding any “but...”.

—agape is a real word with real layers of meaning in the Greek language. I don’t know how one can say that it means something totally at odds with those layers of meaning when it applies to God. It seems to me a bit like saying that “love means love—except when it means something else”.

(3) Re: “either the sinner’s death or Christ’s death”—(a) I think what you really mean to say is: (i) the sinner’s death, or (ii) Christ’s death plus (iii) the believer’s belief.

(b) Just to point out, from a Trinitarian perspective, Christ’s death is God’s death: God himself making the satisfaction.

(c) Simple death is not the issue, since the wages of sin are not death but eternal suffering.


Note: I think I may have an answer to the aionios issue—other than the strictly specific one that I gave in terms of the Matthean text—but I’m not sure yet whether or not it is consistent with the scriptural usages, so I have to research it.

______________________________________

In your view, God’s love is no more than an attribute alongside righteousness, wrath, etc. In fact, God’s love seems subservient to God’s “righteous wrath.” Contra Paul, it is not God’s will that all be saved—or else God’s will is not perfectly efficacious; contra Jesus, all people will not be drawn to [in company with] him; and contra Paul again, only some will be made alive in Christ.

Now, I know you believe your reading of the scriptures to be the correct one (which text is context for which other texts, which statements are to be taken at face value and which are metaphorical, etc.): but there have been plenty of bright minds among faithful Christians for centuries who have not read them that way. You are a bright mind too, but my point is that I don’t stand alone here—nor did I come up with this stuff myself; nor is it new.

I’ll let you have the last word on this one, Epi. I find that I’m just saying the same things over and over, with different words and phrases. I’m tired of it. (Not of you! 🙂 )

If I come up with something new, I’ll let you know. And I’ll certainly read whatever you post in response to my last comments.

Be well.

PS: You seem to have been absent from the late-night hours lately, and I have been attending them too much. 🙂 Hope you’re well.

Originally posted by vistesd
I’ll let you have the last word on this one, Epi. I find that I’m just saying the same things over and over, with different words and phrases. I’m tired of it. (Not of you! 🙂 )

If I come up with something new, I’ll let you know. And I’ll certainly read whatever you post in response to my last comments.

Be well.

PS: You seem to have been absent ...[text shortened]... rom the late-night hours lately, and I have been attending them too much. 🙂 Hope you’re well.

I feel the same way entirely: it grows more and more difficult to work up the gumption to rewrite certain points. We probably know the content and tenaciousness of each other's positions well enough as it is anyway, to where getting the "last word" cannot be considered any kind of victory. I'd like to believe that we're both mature enough to have moved passed simple oneupmanship.

Hell is not my favorite topic, as it is so difficult to defend. It would be nice to just do away with it, since the idea of losing someone forever to eternal torment is just too sorrowful of a prospect for anyone to bear. Be that as it may, without the reality of eternal damnation I see the internal integrity of scripture unraveling pretty quickly. My defense of hell, far from being driven by a preference for the damnation of sinners, is driven primarily by the need to preserve the efficacy of other scriptural elements, such as the relative significance of Christ's sacrifice and the urgency of repentance.

Our discussions usually have good staying power, so if we don't finish up here, I have no doubt somewhere down the line we'll pick up where we left off. 🙂

Originally posted by epiphinehas
I feel the same way entirely: it grows more and more difficult to work up the gumption to rewrite certain points. We probably know the content and tenaciousness of each other's positions well enough as it is anyway, to where getting the "last word" cannot be considered any kind of victory. I'd like to believe that we're both mature enough to have moved ish up here, I have no doubt somewhere down the line we'll pick up where we left off. 🙂

I'd like to believe that we're both mature enough to have moved passed simple oneupmanship.

I lied. 😉

Yeah, I think we’re long past that. Not what I meant by “last word.” As I recall, I had the “last word” in our “Great Debate”, which only meant that I had the last post in what was an honest impasse. That’s all I really meant...

My defense of hell, far from being driven by a preference for the damnation of sinners, is driven primarily by the need to preserve the efficacy of other scriptural elements, such as the relative significance of Christ's sacrifice and the urgency of repentance.

I never thought it was otherwise.