***Dawg’s First Caveat of Theology:
God is so very different from the ‘categories’ of the human mind that He isn’t even ‘one’ the way we usually think of ‘one’***
If this were the case then God could never had revealed himself. This has never been the position of the Church. God condescends to reveal himself mediated through the categories of the human mind and not that we can utterly know his essence but we certainly are capable of knowing of his nature otherwise we could say nothing about him.
***Just for clarification:
“allowed” by whom, by a “thinker” or what?***
Yes, by a person. Some persons will reject any notion of a god and base all sense experience only upon the universe or their own construct of that universe while others will allow for a god that is only part and parcel of the universe.
***The rest of my differences would fall under the head of “falsely exhaustive alternatives”... I would say there are many similar problems. Often, from my POV, some Protestants seem to be saying, “It’s either A or B,” and I want to say, “Whoa, hold on, are those the only choices?”***
Yes, from a Christian viewpoint those are the only two alternatives; either God is part and parcel of the universe or he is the grounds of the universe.
***About freedom and God’s control, and freedom as something which sort of goes through stages:
I was once free to marry. I could choose to marry this person, or that person or no person at all. Or I could dither and never make up my mind. If I never chose, it would be like my freedom never matured, or was never used. If I chose wrongly, well, that would be a shame, possibly a disaster (though it seems that nothing is beyond God’s redeeming reach). But if I chose rightly and stuck by the choice, then my freedom, which seems to have been lost or “used up” when I got married blossoms into parenthood (or not) and a life of working out what matrimony means.So somewhere in the middle of what you say I want to suggest that there might be a kind of freedom entrusted to us which is only properly used if we immediately hand it back to God. (and we never do, because we’re broken, etc.)***
This the perfect example of what I spelled out in my post is the problem with the Romanist, et al, thinking and that is you start from experience and try to move to revelation instead of starting with revelation and interpret all facts through the prism of revelation.
***I’m probably misunderstanding you (there’s a lot of that going around) but isn’t the Incarnation an instance of God mysteriously becoming sort of kind of dependent on mankind and on His creation?***
No, I would categorize this as the foolishness of God which is wiser than the wisdom of man.
***Just as God isn’t “one” the way we expected, but includes within his simplicity a society of persons,...***
Is it really that unexpected? The ancient philosophers struggled with the problem of the One and the Many and yet through revelation we can see it perfectly realized within God himself.
***so maybe omnipotence doesn’t work out as we might think it does.***
What does the revelation of God say?
***kosta: the_conscience is pulling all this out of a hat. He gives no references, no sources.***
I referenced the Bible. I know you reference the Bible when it fits your purposes and trash it when it hurts but I don’t engage in such incoherent logic. Besides, I wasn’t writing a doctrinal thesis I was trying to make a concise point. Do I really need to quote the Patristics to show they believed in the freedom of man? Since you repeatedly assert it is so why would I need to quote them?
***kosta: But, that’s not our theology, as t_c claims.
***
My post showed the logical conclusions of holding to the freedom of man and it still holds, to your chagrin
T_c: If this were the case then God could never had revealed himself. This has never been the position of the Church
Wrong. The Church always taught that God is incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, eternal, etc., in other words something other than creation.
God condescends to reveal himself mediated through the categories of the human mind...God is so very different from the ‘categories’ of the human mind that He isn’t even ‘one’ the way we usually think of ‘one’*** If this were the case then God could never had revealed himself. This has never been the position of the Church. God condescends to reveal himself mediated through the categories of the human mind...
Yes, God did condescend (finally, after the Jews failed Him over and over), by taking on the human nature and appearing to us as a rather unlikely man, poor, born of a teenage unwed mother, almost as a reminder than that our fancy should not "create" God the way we want Him to be.
BTW, the Old Testament God was abything but condescending.
and not that we can utterly know his essence but we certainly are capable of knowing of his nature...
That's an oxymoron. Nature and essence are one and the same thing. We can enver know His essence/or nature.
otherwise we could say nothing about him.
What we can say about God is what the believers hold was revealed. No single word can describe Him, nor can a thousand words descirbe Him. Nothing can describe Him.
But there is really very little we can say about God as He really is.
I referenced the Bible. I know you reference the Bible when it fits your purposes and trash it when it hurts but I don’t engage in such incoherent logic
Nothing in the bible says anything that you concocted.
I don't trash the Bible. I call it the way it is. I don't worship it as some do.
kosta: But, that’s not our theology, as t_c claims.
t_c: My post showed the logical conclusions of holding to the freedom of man and it still holds, to your chagrin
Your logical conclusion is wrong. It does not accurately describe our theology.
***Dawg’s First Caveat of Theology: God is so very different from the "categories" of the human mind that He isn’t even ‘one’ the way we usually think of ‘one***Then:If this were the case then God could never had revealed himself. This has never been the position of the Church. God condescends to reveal himself mediated through the categories of the human mind and not that we can utterly know his essence but we certainly are capable of knowing of his nature otherwise we could say nothing about him.
***About freedom and God's control, and freedom as something which sort of goes through stages: I was once free to marry.
…
So somewhere in the middle of what you say I want to suggest that there might be a kind of freedom entrusted to us
…
***This the perfect example of what I spelled out in my post is the problem with the Romanist, et al, thinking and that is you start from experience and try to move to revelation instead of starting with revelation and interpret all facts through the prism of revelation.
On a micro level, I just don't think I did that. After the part you quoted about "one" I said:
Consequently, at every step of the way, we have. so to speak, to look around, pat our pockets, gather our belongings, count our change, and make sure no little one has wandered off, and we have both our gloves.In other words, I did NOT say it's impossible. I said we have to be careful.
And then I use, as our Lord does, an experience from life to make a comment about n aspect of the Spiritual life, and you SEEM to say (but I might have gotten this wrong) that I an trying to make sense of things
" based only on [my] own senses independent of God, …"
What I would say first is "ONLY?" What "only?"? What's "only" about what I'm doing? And that leads to my sense that this seems to demonstrate MY observation that the Reform weltanschaaung has trouble with both nuances and mystery, and a kind of aversion (whether right or wrong would be a matter for discussion) toward the concept of what might be called "process" (By which I do not mean anything to do with Whitehead.)
This last comment might bear some adumbration: We see human fathers. We see Ephesians 3:14-15. We pray to God and think about Him. Little by little we see that He is a REAL Father, and we guy-type parents are to him as Rams are to us, when it comes to Fatherhood. HE is the reality, WE are the "sorta-like".
I fear think the rest of your post may also have some hastily drawn conclusions based on falsely exhaustive alternatives.
Yes, the Eleatics and Parmenides and Plato and Plotinus and the rest ponder the one and the many. But I have still been called a polytheist by Muslims and Jews, and a few Protestants right here on FR seem almost ready to agree with them about us Catholics! So, yeah, I'll stick with "unexpected". Finally we have:
***so maybe omnipotence doesnÂ’t work out as we might think it does.***I hold that Scripture says that omnipotence is very like a baby who needs his diapers changed or a man hanging on a cross, or like someone who was "an hungered". And when it is so revealed, it is not much esteemed, and many, to this day, think it feckless and passively masochistic. (Or passive-aggressive: I once was shearing a small flock of sheep and their owner said she thought IHS came to earth and got Himself crucified to make us feel guilty!) A bruise reed He - Lord of Lords, Pantocrator - will not break.What does the revelation of God say?
Yeah I think omnipotence isn't what we thought it would be.
SO here's the REAL question: I say something, and you shake your head and say, Can't he see he's doing exactly what I said?
And I read your response and shake my head and say almost exactly the same thing!
To me this suggests that we are missing the true area of our differences. THAT, to me, is the interesting area of question. There is SO much misunderstanding. Some of it is willful; some is a kind of giving up - "I've had it, whatever I say they don't listen; they don't get it; they don't WANT to get it!"; and some of it is because maybe we've been looking in the wrong place.
Sure, some would rather win in Hell than lose in heaven. There's not much hope there. But some, I think would love at the very least to be able to delineate, clearly and in a manner with which both sides agreed, the matters of difference.
Of course, for some it's an article of religion that we are evil. That's gonna leave a mark.