Posted on 07/24/2012 4:50:47 PM PDT by wmfights
I thought this author did a terrific job of illustrating why the Spiritual Vision Model is wrong and how various churches have fallen into this error. The more I think about our physical presence, as well as our spiritual, in God's new creation the more excited I become.
I thought this comment was particularly poignant:
“Satan need not convince us that Heaven doesn’t exist. He need only convince us that Heaven is a place of boring, unearthly existence.
Sorry, your false religion nor any religion will be substituting anything God has revealed to us in the scriptures...
God Bless you Brother!
What I found so interesting in studying these different views of eschatology is how they view Scripture. The allegorical method has so twisted itself into knots that they can't see the forest for the trees. If the Kingdom isn't physical, why did Jesus Christ return in a resurrected body and why did He eat and drink with His disciples?
It's comforting to learn that the literal interpretation of Scripture and belief in Premillenialism is not new and was the dominant belief in the Apostolic Era and the generations immediately following.
aruanan brings up theological dualism (Manichaean, good and evil) and you bring up philosophical dualism (mind-body problem, et al) - of which, there are many forms and arguments for and against.
I find myself in disagreement both with the above article and the critics of philosophical dualism on both Scriptural grounds and the grounds of mathematics and physics.
All other physical cosmologies (multi-verse, multi-world, imaginary time, ekpyrotic, etc.) fail for their inability to explain the beginning of real space and real time: in the absence of space, things cannot exist; in the absence of time, events cannot occur; both space and time are required for physical causation.
There is also the issue that since the 1960's forward, cosmic microwave background measurements agree that space/time does not pre-exist but is created as the universe expands. That is the most theological statement ever to come out of modern science, i.e. that there was a beginning of space/time - "In the beginning, God created..."
Indeed, the whole concept of linear time, which the author of the article posits as truth, is observer dependent. Or to put it another way, that we mortal observers sense time as an arrow, linear and moving in one direction does not mean ipso facto that additional dimensions of time (Wesson, Vafa) do not exist or that God is in anyway constrained by "time."
In other words, space/time is part of the Creation not a property or restriction on the Creator of it.
Finally, as a personal testimony, I have observed the separating of the spirit from the body in physical death. In both my mother and sister's passing - as they slipped into the final coma - I felt them both passing through me, comforting me, assuring me that they were very much alive and happy.
And I was with my husband scuba diving when he passed diving in the "emerald sea" as it is called off the coast of Panama City, Florida. The water is greenish there and as the diver descends it turns an ever-deepening blue. He had fallen back to 75 feet of water and as I approached him the area immediately surrounding him was bright and yellowish, as if a spotlight were shining on him. I'm certain the light was his spirit separating from his body. And I'm certain that God mercifully let me see this to comfort me as he was calling him home.
I am not alone in this testimony as many children have also spoken of such a separation of their soul and body during their near death experiences. We might expect adults to conjure stories whether intentional or not - but children having similar experiences defies such reasoning.
God's Name is I AM.
Amen to that...
I can't believe these apparent 'leaders' in their religion bring forth news of their ghosts and seers who have supernatural knowledge that debunks and changes the God breathed words given to His church...
Those revelations are not from God and I'm sure the ones pushing the agenda know they are not from the God of Creation...
Eph 6:16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
Eph 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
I also disagree, on precisely the grounds you name.
It seems to me that the created universe is shot through with "dualisms," the most significant represented by man himself, who was created "dualistically" as a synergistic enterprise of both body (organized matter) and soul (spirit).
Dualism is only a problem if one is chained to Aristotle's Third Law, the Law of the Excluded Middle. Under this law, there are only two possible answers to any question: True or False.
Which in the present case means that either the premillenialists or the amillenialists are "right." The Third Law forces us to choose: For only ONE of these views can be "true." Which means the other is "false."
But I think BOTH are "true" as far as they go.
Quantum theory has introduced a third possibility: Entities thought to be in irreconcilable opposition to one another are actually, naturally complementarities: They need one another in order to describe the fulness of possibilities playing out in the Creation. The observer chooses to see one or the other, because of the limitations of the human mind. But because the observer may choose to focus on "body" doesn't render "spirit" a nullity. It is only held in abeyance in the particular observation.
The point is, as Niels Bohr pointed out, particle and wave are different views of the same system. The observer chooses which of the dynamical partners he wishes to observe. Focusing on one does not extinguish the other; it only holds the other partner in abeyance for the duration of the observation.
Thus the Law of the Excluded Middle — so cherished in science (which is primed to answer true/false questions)— is the wrong tool for understanding such dynamics.
It's not a question of which is "right" and which is "wrong." It's a question of BOTH being right.
And thank God for that! For how could we imagine a man who is "all body and no soul," or vice versa? God created man as a dynamic, synergistic compendium of BOTH body and spirit.
And the Incarnation of Christ should remove all doubt on that question.
My favorite statement extracted from the posted article was Culver's: “I find myself now, after a long life of reflecting on the biblical materials, very reluctant to say much about the eternity to come. It seems presumptuous to do so.”
Presumptuous, indeed! As if any finite human mind can compass the unlimited (infinite) Mind of God, and compress such findings into human language and call it "Truth."
But of course, I am also keenly aware that what man most wants and needs is "certainty," especially about his post-death future. But the fact is, this is precisely the sort of information he cannot have so long as he dwells in a mortal body.
And that is where pure Faith can save us.
Just some thoughts, dearest sister in Christ! Thank you ever so much for your outstanding essay/post!
p.s.: I would so much love to explore another "false dichotomy": The much bruited about "war" between Plato and Aristotle. [Aided and abetted by Ayn Rand in recent times.] The ONLY difference between these two guys, when you boil it all down, is one said that "form" was transcendent to the body, while the other said that "form" was immanent to the body. (E.g., DNA. So Aristotle was right. Or was he? For he leaves unanswered the question: "Whence came the DNA?" What is the Source of ITS order?)
But it seems Plato and Aristotle mainly agreed about just about everything else. Which I suppose might be the result of a 27-year friendship and collaboration between the two men....
I want to say (whether rightly or wrongly I don't know) that the problem of monotheism is theological, spiritual, intellectual, and psychological (since our psyches are fallen, after all.) So it's bound, as I see it, to show up in heresies and errors.
So, despite the disparaging remarks of this writer, I admire Plotinus because he stuck to his neo-Platonism with rigor and contended with dualistic gnosticism, pagan philosopher though he was.
It always strikes me as funny that the colors of my order are black and white, but Dominicans are very refined and nice in their perceptions of shades of gray.
I like to say (with an eye to Chinese Buddhism) about humankind and creation, "Not good, not bad, both good and bad, neither good nor bad ...but FALLEN -- but in their origin and destiny (as offered, though some will despise it) very good, as God himself said."
Truly, we mere mortals get caught up all the time with false dichotomies.
You mentioned wave-particle duality as the classic example in physics. Excellent choice!
And theology is not exempt either, as in the predestination v free will debates - as if God could not do both. (And I do hope not to derail the conversation with that remark.)
Indeed, most people I believe would acknowledge that a man is greater than the sum of his parts. While we are cutting the man down into his components, he dies. And we cannot put him back together again.
I would also love to see a discussion on the great Plato v Aristotle debate on forms. I think it would add a lot to the discussion of dualism.
Plato, for instance, would have said that pi exists and the geometer came along and found it. Aristotle, on the other hand, would say the geometer created pi to describe what he saw.
I am very Platonist in my math and physics.
Indeed, I aver the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences" (Wigner) is like God's copyright notice on the cosmos.
God's Name is I AM.
After all, God intentionally put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the midst of the Garden of Eden.
I wasn’t addressing origins but rather proposing a Biblical term which affirms the “Very good” of Genesis while avoiding simple dualism and addressing the evil we see within and without.
And no doubt it has to do with His justice and therefore, Satan's destiny.
The new heaven and earth, the "Final Cause," will have none of the evil:
And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. - Rev 21:1-8
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [his] purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. - Romans 8:18-23 and 28-30
But I also contrasted it with bad.
Okay, dearest sister in Christ, please do feel free to "twist my arm!" :^)
This is a huge topic. Must start somewhere, just to get the ball rolling....
For openers, I do not believe that there was any huge "debate" between Plato and Aristotle, in the sense that the two men fundamentally disagreed WRT the ultimate nature of the Universe.
We must start with Plato — Aristotle's teacher, and later long-time associate and colleague:
God, purposing to make the universe most nearly like the every way perfect and fairest of intelligible beings, created one visible living being, containing within itself all living beings of the same natural order.Thus does Plato (d. 347 B.C.) succinctly describe how all that exists is the creation of a creator God "beyond" the cosmos. At Timaeus 20, he goes on to say:
“There exists: first, the unchanging form, uncreated and indestructible, admitting no modification and entering no combination [i.e., Being, God Creator]… second, that which bears the same name as the form and resembles it [i.e., Becoming, the created things] … and third, space which is eternal and indestructible, which provides a position for everything that comes to be [the matrix of the becoming of the created things].”And thus we find a description of the universe in which Being and Existence (Becoming) — the one God and the multiplicity of things — are bound together as a single living reality whose extension is mediated by Space (which for us moderns implicates Time).
Thus the ultimate duality in the Universe is eternal Being (God) and finite, contingent Becoming (the created existent things).
It is clear that for Plato, God is the “Beyond” of the universe, or in other words, utterly transcendent, perfectly self-subsistent Being, the “uncaused cause” of all the multiplicity of existents in the universe. In yet other words we can say that, for Plato, the cosmos is a theophany, a manifestation or “presence” of the divine Idea — in Christian parlance, the Logos if I might draw that association — in the natural world.
The distinction between Being and Existence — or Being and Becoming — is a concept so difficult that it comes close to eluding our grasp altogether. Being is utterly beyond space and time; imperishable; entirely self-subsistent, needing nothing from outside itself in order to be complete; essential; immutable; and eternally perduring. Contrast this with the concept of existence (the realm of the becoming things), regarding which Plato asks “how can that which is never in the same state be anything?” And this is the clue to the profound difference between being and existence: The existing things of this world are mutable and transient; but they are participations in immutable, eternal (changeless) Being. That is to say, GOD.
As Plato put it,
We must in my opinion begin by distinguishing between that which always is and never becomes from that which is always becoming but never is. The one is apprehensible by intelligence with the aid of reasoning, being eternally the same, the other is the object of opinion and irrational sensation, coming to be and ceasing to be, but never fully real. In addition, everything that becomes or changes must do so owing to some cause; for nothing can come to be without a cause. [Timaeus, 3:28]Wolfgang Smith explicates the existent or “becoming” things:
“… they come upon the scene, we know not from whence; they grow, change, and decay; and at last they disappear, to be seen no more. The physical cosmos itself, we are told, is a case in point: it, too, has made its appearance, perhaps some twenty billion years ago, and will eventually cease to exist [i.e., finally succumbing, we are told, to thermodynamic entropy or “heat death”]. What is more, even now, at this very moment, all things are passing away. ‘Dead is the man of yesterday,’ wrote Plutarch, ‘for he dies into the man of today: and the man of today is dying into the man of tomorrow.’ Indeed, ‘to be in time’ is a sure symptom of mortality. It is indicative, not of being, but of becoming, of ceaseless flux.”All the multiplicity of existents in the universe are in a state of becoming and passing away. But Plato’s great insight is that all things in the state of becoming — that is, all existing things — are whatever they are because they are participations in Being. That is to say, “we perceive the trace of being in all that exists,” writes Smith, “and that is why we say, with reference to any particular thing, that it is.” Existence, in other words, is contingent on Being.
Thus we have the relation Taxia–Ataxia: That which does not change (God), and that which ceaselessly changes (the natural world). (This strikes me as analogous to the relations obtaining between the First and Second Laws of thermodynamics. But I won't push that analogy here.)
Aristotle did not reject Plato's cosmology; he did not reject "transcendence" in favor of "immanence." He did not see this as an "either/or" situation, as he makes clear in the following passage:
Of things constituted by nature some are ungenerated, imperishable, and eternal, while others are subject to generation and decay. The former are excellent beyond compare and divine, but less accessible to knowledge. The evidence that might throw light on them, and on the problems which we long to solve respecting them, is furnished but scantily by sensation; whereas respecting perishable plants and animals we have abundant information, living as we do in their midst, and ample data may be collected concerning all their various kinds, if only we are willing to take sufficient pains. Both departments, however, have their special charm. The scanty conceptions to which we can attain of celestial things give us, from their excellence, more pleasure than all our knowledge of the world in which we live.... On the other hand, in certitude and in completeness our knowledge of terrestrial things has the advantage. Moreover, their greater nearness and affinity to us balances somewhat the loftier interest of the heavenly things that are the objects of the higher philosophy. Having already treated of the celestial world, as far as our conjectures could reach, we proceed to treat of animals, without omitting, to the best of our ability, any member of the kingdom, however ignoble. For if some have no graces to charm the sense, yet even these, by disclosing to intellectual perception the artistic spirit that designed them, give immense pleasure to all who can trace links of causation, and are inclined to philosophy. Indeed, it would be strange if mimic representations of them were attractive, because they disclose the mimetic skill of the painter or sculptor, and the original realities themselves were not more interesting, to all at any rate who have eyes to discern the reasons that determined their formation. We therefore must not recoil with childish aversion from the examination of the humbler animals. Every realm of nature is marvellous: and as Heraclitus, when the strangers who came to visit him found him warming himself at the furnace in the kitchen and hesitated to go in, reported to have bidden them not to be afraid to enter, as even in that kitchen divinities were present, so we should venture on the study of every kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will reveal to us something natural and something beautiful. Absence of haphazard and conduciveness of everything to an end are to be found in Nature's works in the highest degree, and the resultant end of her generations and combinations is a form of the beautiful. — Aristotle, De Partibus Animalium, Book V. [Emphasis added.]The "difference" between Plato and Aristotle mainly consists of Aristotle's "shift of attention" from transcendent, universal Being — the Creator — to the immanent world of existents in nature (the Creation). This became Aristotle's basic modus operandi. But clearly he sees that the immanent world of nature is an "epiphany" of the transcendent divine, the image or reflection of the Uncaused Cause of all that exists.
Aristotle's "shift of attention" actually laid the very basis of modern science. But that shift in no way detracts from the profound insights of Plato, into the ultimate nature of Reality.
Must leave it there for now — I'm running on long (again).
Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for your splendid essay/post!
Have you ever read Paul Tillich?
There are huge gaps in my reading! (So many books out there...and life is short.)
I have read Francis Schaeffer, however, and hold him in the highest esteem.
Tillich is said to be the father of modern theology. He defined God or faith in God, as the “Ultimate Concern”. He was required reading for me in my freshman year of college, but I have never found anyone else who has actually read him. The discussions about Plato and Aristotle and their philosophy of a higher power, reminded me of Tillich.
Our survey of religion course didn’t go back as far as Plato and Aristotle. It started with Thomas Aquinas and How many Angels can dance on the head of a pin and ended with Paul Tillich, who I am embarrassed to admit was still alive at the time.
Well I'm in perfect agreement with Tillich on that score!
However, it seems to me that Plato and Aristotle were not at all concerned about a "higher power" — a very modern neologism, and therefore a tad anachronistic in terms of this discussion. Plato and Aristotle were concerned about the very foundations of Reality and its Truth, which both men saw as having a divine origin.
It is simply amazing to me that Plato "saw" the Logos of God-created Reality some four hundred years before the Incarnation of the Logos — our Lord Jesus Christ.
Which is just further proof to me that the Logos is, indeed, "in" the World of Creation, and has been so from the very Beginning, unto the very End of time....
Is there a particular book by Tillich you'd like to recommend? I'll be glad to read it!
p.s.: I don't think Thomas Aquinas, Saint and Doctor of the Church, was particularly interested in "how many angels could dance on the head of a pin." AT ALL. He mainly saw Natural Law as an epiphany of God....
Tillich was an existentialist, for whom his belief in a higher power grew out of questions of human existence. That is why your discussion of Plato and Aristotle reminded me of Tillich. Tillich believed that the answers to the questions of human existence were derived from question concerning human existence and that the answers to those questions were found in the fact of human existence.
We never read whole books by Tillich, we were given handouts, excerpts from various works. I believe that we read excerpts from his, Dynamics of Faith, Systematic Theology.
As I recall, the major focus of our discussion was on rituals of Christian service and the reason behind them. In other words, Tillich was not a fundamentalist, who believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible.
Wikipedia has an excellent article on Tillich, with a synopsis of his philosophy.
Thank you for pointing me to Tillich!
Exactly! BTTT
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.