Posted on 01/23/2004 5:41:11 PM PST by xzins
I should really get to bed now. G'night. ;)
My two cents: Jesus was alive in the Spirit while He was also “in” the physical realm. In a like fashion, this is the transcendent feeling I experience from being born again (John 3). But Jesus was, of course, much much more than this. His memory was instant, knowing the Father, their experiences, and from whence He came and where He would return and why. Although Christ is the first and through Him everything that was made, was made (John 1) and although He and the Father are One (John 17) – and although Christ is the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person (Hebrews 1:2) - Jesus also makes it clear that all that He is and all that He knows is according to the Father’s discretion (John 5) Therefore, it does not surprise me that there are certain things the Father has chosen to keep to Himself.
One other point, Jesus said it was necessary for Him to return to the Father in order for the Comforter to be sent to us. (John 16:7) I’m still praying and meditating on why this was so.
The Grammarian: Thank you so much for the url! Sleep well!
The anchoring of a ship at sea is, to me, a decent allegory for "my two cents" on the relationship between the spiritual realm and the physical realm.
The vessel is a metaphor for a being, a soul - the sea is the upper boundary of the firmament which separates the spiritual realm from the physical, the ocean floor is the physical realm and the anchor is our physical existence. The anchoring limits the movement of the ship to a small, surface-like area in the spiritual realm. Hence, the length of the anchor chain limits a mortal's spiritual awareness and sense of freedom.
IOW, I see Jesus taking on such anchor through physical birth though fully aware of the sea and His existence and freedom "beyond". In like fashion, Adam was anchored (grounded) for disobedience with a very short anchor chain, so short perhaps that the vessel would have difficulty surfacing at all.
As a believer grows in his faith and love for God, that anchor chain is lengthened and when his physical life is ended the chain is cut entirely.
The allegory falls short in one important respect. In "my two cents" the vessel is not merely ocean-going but is utterly free.
If you think the allegory only muddies the picture, then please ignore it. LOL!
Perhaps. Actually, the philosophers have said that all we know of the ideal is in time. And Plato tended to think that only the ideal is real.
Exhibit #1 - Bill Clinton.
Exhibit B - Jimmuh Carter.
Another step would be at least to understand as much as we can what the best minds have understood so far and that that what has been understood so far has not been entirely consistent usage, not least because they have not always talked about the same thing. If undertaken honestly, that step would likewise show how the terms subject and object have been flipped. What was once considered object has become subject and vice versa. Likewise the terms real or ideal.
Another step would recognize that we are not talking of just two things whenever we try to distinguish the usage of real and ideal. Since the Enlightenment, epistemology itself has been confused with the ideal and this as given the illusion that the distinction between the ideal $100 in your mind and the real $100 in your pocket is pretty near zilch. Kant said existence adds nothing to the concept.
Well, that's a start.
How a person answers that question reveals much of his worldview, his moral and political compass, his attitude towards math and science and his likely response to philosophy and Christ's offer of redemption.
LOL, A-G! Guess I really did unload on those guys. :^) Hey, what can I say -- I just think they're both "intellectual swindlers," "black magicians...." For whatever that's worth!
Guess I need to clarify! The Unknown Tetragrammatical God (i.e., the Father) is not in time; but certainly the Son of God entered time and history with the Incarnation. Then He was crucified, died, and was buried; yet on the third day, he rose from the dead; and soon thereafter ascended into Heaven -- i.e., he left space/time. But then the Comforter, the Holy Spirit (the third Person of the divine Trinity) entered the world, and has never left it since. But in any case, with respect to the Holy Spirit, we might be able truly to say that even He isn't "in time"; for He abides with us, in the souls of men, in their consciousness -- and strictly speaking, these are not "in time" themselves; rather, they are participations in eternity.... FWIW.
With all due respect, this is still incomplete. What has been left undealt with is the OT theophanies and the Spirit coming upon the prophets.
"Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me." (Psalms 51:11)
IMHO, a scientist who arrives at a strong determinist conclusion from the limitations of his discipline (or ignorance) is one thing, but these two (and Singer) have let their political agenda and evangelistic atheism overtake their science. And it shows...
Responding to the question, "In other words, except for science, we haven’t really gotten much further than Descartes when it comes to grounding meaning and existence?" .... Yes, in some sense. But what’s the alternative? It’s not as if there is some coherent alternative that we’re abandoning. It’s not as if God decreed on the day of creation that this is the meaning of life. The same curiosity that leads you to step outside yourself to ask, "Why do we have moral intuitions?" also makes you step outside God’s world and ask, "Well, what told God to create that as the meaning of our existence?" So you still have that gnawing existential anxiety. But let me go back to the question of whether seeing morality as a product of the brain licenses amorality. In practice, it is less dangerous than the idea that morality is ultimately vested in the commands of a religious authority. 9/11 is only the most recent example of a case where morality derived from religion leads to horrible atrocities. - Pinker Reason Interview
Responding to the question, “You are an atheist, although less strident about it than your fellow evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins. Do you ever worry that by pitting Darwin vs. God, mano a mano, evolutionists are encouraging Creationism, since an awful lot of Americans would pick God if forced to choose?” …My criticism of religion in "The Blank Slate" was defensive, meant to counter the argument that morality can only come from a belief in a soul that accepts God's purpose and is rewarded or punished in an afterlife. I think the evidence suggests that this doctrine is false both logically and factually. I don't make a point of criticizing religion in general. Some hard-headed biologists and evolutionary theorists believe that an abstract conception of a divine power is consistent with conventional Darwinism. - Singer UPI Interview
BTW, on the subject of the Holy Spirit being active (in a limited sense) in Old Testament times v. Christ having to return to heaven so that the Comforter might come - I don't yet have a definitive understanding, but I am drawn to these passages:
And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and [there were] seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. - Revelation 4:5
I met Alamo-girl at the MFJ.
You are right. We deny the notion of predestination all day long in the very way that we live, and so do they. The idea that we are without free will is a way of excusing the otherwise difficult to excuse.
Nevertheless, there is an element of truth. As organisms we are designed to respond a certain way to certain stimuli in our hardwired motor responses, and you could say that our firmware is designed such that we will tend to react a certain way to certain situations.
We are afterall rather well designed creatures who can be predicted to do certain things under certain circumstances, and even if individuals vary, in the agregate we are very predictable.
But proving that we operate according to design does not eliminate free will, because that is also a part of the design. Its part of the distributed intelligence built into the design. Each part of the system must have the capability of judging the unique situation it finds itself in and acting on its own initiative. To say that free will is part of the design doesn't eliminate free will, obviously.
There is a risk in this approach of allowing individual initiative at the point of the spear, so to speak, but it is in many ways self-correcting. The autonomous actors have the ability to recognize error and correct for it, and they have the ability to recognize error in their fellows and help them to correct themselves, and even to destroy those who have become toxic to the whole.
And they have the ability to absorb higher truths which are broadcast to the whole by means of individuals who either self-select for that, from their fellows, from their families, and we of course believe from the Creator himself. These higher truths go a long way toward assuring that the free actors out at the edges will generally tend to go where they ought. But although much in their internal design and much in reality itself will tend to direct them where they need to go, they nonetheless can and do apply themselves as they see fit, or fail to do so as they see fit.
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