May 19, 2013

I’m kind of surprised that I didn’t end up a Calvinist.  The parts of the Bible I’ve rarely struggled with are more conducive to that interpretation.

May 15, 2013

An interesting Paradox of preaching the truth about Christianity was seen quite clearly by Aquinas in Question 1 of the Summa.  The things that are the most like God that we encounter are the big, intellectual and deep things.  God is certainly far more like (in a certain sense) a knowledgeable man (or woman), a Holy woman (or man), a beautiful vista or even the Angelic and spiritual powers than stones, animals or the impoverished elements of the human life.

However, practically speaking,  simple and material analogies are far better at promoting understanding of God than more esoteric or distant examples.  Aside from the obvious benefit that people know far more about simple and material things than the nature of saints and sages- there is a more general reason.  With high and mighty things, there is always a temptation to deify these things, either directly or by making God like them.  The excessive use of analogies to such things confuses the mind, by collapsing God into the other good things in a confounding way.  By making analogies to the weak things and the insignificant things, we are not so tempted, and instead seek the truth about God in the example, rather than trying to conflate God with the analogy in overly-enthusiastic ways.

A similar consideration may be why the weak and broken tend to pursue God, and why God in turn tends to pursue the weak and broken.  Those who see clearly their weakness are unlikely to think themselves divine and independent in the sense needed to think God’s existence or non-existence is irrelevant (granted, they may think the evil in the world is quite adequate evidence that God isn’t present, and perhaps that’s why the world is very often going to shit but I digress). 

In return, it seems that God chooses to work through and live with the weak in preference to the strong and wise.  Perhaps it is because the weak often seek God in their weakness, and God seems far more interested in being with people who seek him than people might be like him in other ways.  For whatever reason, God prefers to be with and work through those who are the least like him of themselves, to help them become more like him.  I’ve speculated as to why, but ultimately, I think it comes down to that God wants to invite people into the supreme divine family/kingdom/kindom/relationship/eternal bliss of perfect love that goes beyond all human unity that is being-with the Trinity.  And he only wants people who want that relationship- as Aquinas supposedly said, who ‘only’ want God himself- not those who merely imitate what they do not seek in full.

 

May 15, 2013
Hollow and Deceptive Philosophy?: biblicalbelief: clockocean: biblicalbelief reblogged your post: If...

clockocean:

biblicalbelief:

clockocean:

biblicalbelief reblogged your post: If youre a fan of The Lord of the Rings and…

. . Who is this?

Formerly known as The Flood Behind.

dude, when did you become so… right-wing? idk, i’m bad with political spectrums, but you seem oddly far…

I’m not into corporatism: “the love of money is the root of all evil.” But I’m also not into socialism, as it seems to go hand-in-hand with political corruption and moral degeneracy.

My views coalign most with anarcho-monarchism

Fair enough.  Just to be clear, I wasn’t attributing Socialism to you, just indicating that monarchism is disjoined from the modern political spectrum to some extent.

May 15, 2013

If I wanted to sum up the last post:  Just like the only meaningful disproof of God is a reverse ontological argument (showing the impossibility of God), the only meaningful disproof of Sin is a reverse phenomenological argument (showing the impossibility of Sin being a way of human existence that is meaningful or contentful).  I doubt that either argument is possible. 

May 15, 2013

If you treat sin as some concept defined from other terms, rather than a basic existential reality on a similar level as truth, goodness, unity and whatever else you want to put on the list, you probably aren’t talking about the same things as Christians. 

Of course, you are always welcome to declare that you aren’t interested in talking about the concept and engage in rhetorical practices to convince others to avoid talking about it as well.  And of course, if you are right, than your opponents are clustering around some type of delusion which should be accounted for descriptively.  But, since for Christians sin is fundamental and inescapably part of the experience of being-in-the-world, showing me some definition of it is inadequate does not disprove it. 

The only rational disproof of sin possible, like the other existential concepts, would be a proof of its impossibility.  With a few of them (God comes to mind) such a proof is at least imaginable, though with others I’m rather dubious whether such a proof could really be sustained.  And Sin seems to fall into the first category for a non-believer; and I certainly encourage you to argue against the plausibility of the absolute negation and unworthiness which is one aspect (of many) one can talk about with regards to Sin as a contentful approach to the world.  Perhaps I will turn out to be wrong, and what I think is a reality is mere epiphenomena or impression without content.

However, from where I stand Sin is not only possible, it is actual in my life.  I see it in my constant and virtually inescapable failure to pursue the good that I believe entirely in (even in mundane things) for less meaningful versions of those very same things (superficial exchanges over friendship, tidbits of knowledge over actual integral understanding etc.).  I see it in my constant infliction of injury upon those I care about because of my self-interested pursuits.  And I see it in the fact that I must struggle to even live a life absent horrendous evil; to even avoid being directly implicate in enormous harm to others requires some degree of effort. 

Somewhat more importantly, I see this in others as well, and the testimony of history shows that we are not an age alone in this manner.  Whatever its origin, every person is systematically aimed at failure and self-destruction in their personal life.  Sure, on aggregate we produce lots of cool stuff and knowledge- I entirely believe that humanity is made in the imago dei, and the sheer beauty and majesty of what we create is incredible.  But very few individuals- and sin is in large part a question of our actual existence take this beauty and knowledge and internalize it- they remain marred and deeply broken even as they produce and study things of incredible beauty and power. 

Because I am lazy, there are many aspects of sin to discuss, that I have not mentioned here.  Like Truth, or Goodness or anything else really important and essential to our existence*, talk about these things cannot exhaust their essence because they are the basis for our interactions with objects, and are necessarily present, however indirectly, in all that we do and say.   

*Granted, the inexhaustibly of sin, on the Christian perspective is because Sin is that which blocks the way to our highest End, God.  and just as God is infinite, there are infinitely many ways to deny him.

May 15, 2013

biblicalbelief:

clockocean:

biblicalbelief reblogged your post: If youre a fan of The Lord of the Rings and…

. . Who is this?

Formerly known as The Flood Behind.

dude, when did you become so… right-wing? idk, i’m bad with political spectrums, but you seem oddly far more conservative than I remember… what happened to the buddha quotes? 

Hey, you don’t have to be right-wing to be a Monarchist. Most of the Monarchists I know are socialists of some sort.  Distrust for oligarchies and democracy rarely works well on the odd mix of corporatism and populism that generally characterizes right-wing movements today.

May 14, 2013
lukexvx: How heretical is this?

lukexvx:

hollowandeceptivephilosophy:

lukexvx:

You should be able to make basic theological points without needing the Bible to give you your answers. Obviously this doesn’t include stuff like the Trinity, Jesus’ primacy, things you only really find there—biblical stuff. I’m thinking specifically in terms of the applied, practical, whatever…

Though I do disagree with this point as well.  The point of Revelation is that there are truths we do not know, and might not have access to.  I’m quite dubious of our supposed “knowledge” of the sort of justice claims that this post makes (considering that there is enormous dispute on every matter of ethics). …

Appreciate the thought, though I see where people who’ve responded to my OP took it differently than what I was trying to say. I’m just a little exasperated where, for example, when I talk to a friend about veganism as a Christian ethic, I can give a great argument to the person I’m talking to and see in their eyes and their body language that they—against their will—agree: “Yes, I suppose it’s not necessary for me to eat animals, and unnecessary violence is wrong” or “Yes, I suppose Jesus’ radically inclusive love means I shouldn’t exclude animals from my circle of compassion” and so on and so on. But every time, they fall back to a verse about Noah or a verse about Adam and Eve’s clothes or a verse about Peter’s vision or a verse about Jesus eating fish. It ends the conversation—they have no argument except to hide behind a prooftexted, out-of-context Bible verse. No humility or openness to a new interpretation.

This is the context of what I’m saying, if that makes it any clearer.

Ah, so your point was against proof-texting, rather than letting interpretations of the Bible be elements in our moral reasoning?

I can get on board with that.

May 13, 2013
lukexvx: How heretical is this?

lukexvx:

You should be able to make basic theological points without needing the Bible to give you your answers. Obviously this doesn’t include stuff like the Trinity, Jesus’ primacy, things you only really find there—biblical stuff. I’m thinking specifically in terms of the applied, practical, whatever…

Though I do disagree with this point as well.  The point of Revelation is that there are truths we do not know, and might not have access to.  I’m quite dubious of our supposed “knowledge” of the sort of justice claims that this post makes (considering that there is enormous dispute on every matter of ethics).

So, given our lack of knowledge on the subject the idea that  Revelation is irrelevant on these matters seems rather dubious to me.  Furthermore, a deeper understanding of God does affect what ethical options are open to us (for example, I would contend that outside of a Christian or other eschatological perspective, absolute non-violence is not only morally impermissible, but is actually a sign of a deep failure in moral reasoning).

SO, in short, I don’t think this is really an option for Christians trying to reason about these matters, though I appreciate the idea.

May 13, 2013
lukexvx: How heretical is this?

theweightofemptiness:

lukexvx:

You should be able to make basic theological points without needing the Bible to give you your answers. Obviously this doesn’t include stuff like the Trinity, Jesus’ primacy, things you only really find there—biblical stuff. I’m thinking specifically in terms of the applied, practical, whatever…

This is almost like saying that if you can’t spell without a dictionary, you don’t know English.

That’s right though.  If you can’t spell without using the dictionary you don’t know how to write English.

May 13, 2013
Reblog if you want your followers to ask you anything they’re curious about.

(Source: okdubu, via heatherhates)

Liked posts on Tumblr: More liked posts »