Jesus took our sins
Helen Hancox
I wonder if you could help a friend of mine who found themselves
discussing the following topic at a meeting, and got stuck!
>Jesus died and took all our sin upon him. If we are saved, we give the
>sin to him. He has already paid for it - we hand it over. However, if we
>are not Christians, he has still taken our sin upon him when he died,
>hasn't he?
>
>where does that sin go? I mean, if he has
>taken the sins of everyone, how come non-Christians are still judged
>according to the fact that they are burdened with sin (and not in a
>relationship with God)?
>
>We tried to answer by saying that although Jesus effectively took our
>sin, he actually paid for it and we still have to relinquish the hold
>that sin has on our lives. We "give the sin to him" and in return,
>receive his salvation. I don't know, Jon seemed to view sin as something
>concrete, like the sin is "here", then it goes "there". I got some
>really silly mental pictures about this - sin floating off to fill up
>some big sin-bin hole of crap in the sky, lots of little sins scuttling
>around... silly jokes about "sin busters" began to proliferate.
>
>Naomi tried to explain with an example from CS Lewis (narnia), I tried
>to explain with an example from the Lent Course - Green Shield stamps
>which you have to redeem. (This became a really useless and silly
>example.) But Jon still didn't seem to get it. Do you know of any bits
>in the Bible or anywhere else which could explain this to him, if in
>fact you understand what I/he am/is trying to say?
I explained to my friend who e-mailed me the above that Theology
is not my strong point. Please post any answers to the NG and I will
forward them to her.
Thanks
--
Helen Hancox
BA (Hons), MA in Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield
E-mail address recently changed to he...@hancox.demon.co.uk from
EnviroGuard.
Dave Shield
In article <9Wyq6GAq...@hancox.demon.co.uk>,
james.a...@hancox.demon.co.uk (Helen Hancox) writes:
OK- I'll take a stab at this.
[for a friend]
> >Jesus died and took all our sin upon him. If we are saved, we give the
> >sin to him. He has already paid for it - we hand it over. However, if we
> >are not Christians, he has still taken our sin upon him when he died,
> >hasn't he?
He has "taken" the sin of non-Christians in as much as they can now hand it
over to him. He hasn't "taken" it by going and removing it from them by force.
Think of it by analogy with the bin-men. Jesus has won the contract
for collecting our rubbish, but if we don't put it out for him, he won't
climb over the back gate to find it.
> >where does that sin go?
It's sitting in the back yard, growing larger and more stinking by the day.
(apart from the vegetable waste, which is on the compost heap, of course).
> > I mean, if he has
> >taken the sins of everyone, how come non-Christians are still judged
> >according to the fact that they are burdened with sin (and not in a
> >relationship with God)?
Because they haven't put the sin out to be collected.
> >We tried to answer by saying that although Jesus effectively took our
> >sin, he actually paid for it and we still have to relinquish the hold
> >that sin has on our lives. We "give the sin to him" and in return,
> >receive his salvation.
Yup - that sounds very similar to my picture above.
> I explained to my friend who e-mailed me the above that Theology
> is not my strong point.
So? It's not mine either (despite having just read the chapters on
Salvation and Sin in Alister McGrath's Introduction to Xian Theology),
but I never let a little thing like ignorance stop me:-)
Dave
Ben Edgington
>>>>> "HH" == Helen Hancox <james.a...@hancox.demon.co.uk> writes:
HH> I wonder if you could help a friend of mine who found themselves
HH> discussing the following topic at a meeting, and got stuck!
>> Jesus died and took all our sin upon him. If we are saved, we give
>> the sin to him. He has already paid for it - we hand it
>> over. However, if we are not Christians, he has still taken our sin
>> upon him when he died, hasn't he?
>>
>> where does that sin go? I mean, if he has taken the sins of everyone,
>> how come non-Christians are still judged according to the fact that
>> they are burdened with sin (and not in a relationship with God)?
Perhaps a distinction needs to be made between the "sin" and the
"punishment for sin". Jesus made provision for both on the cross, but
if we still hold onto our sin we are still liable for punishment
The way I see it (which may well be shallow or wrong!) is that Jesus
took the /punishment/ for our sins on the cross: he didn't take the sin
away from us. He can though: "Come to me all you who are burdened and
heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Applies as much to sin as to
everything else. (1 Peter 2:24 might contradict this POV!)
I like the analogy with cashing a cheque: Jesus has written the cheque
for our forgiveness (to pay our debt), but it's useless until we cash it
in. The funds are there, but we need to do something about it, that is,
to repent and believe.
There's no problem (apart from ours) in God's economy with sin being
punished twice - and if we hold onto it ourselves it will be. If we
choose to live out of relationship with God then that's our problem, He
will seal that decision of ours one day no matter what Christ has done
for us.
Why does it work like this? Well, I think that God wants us to be
involved in our salvation. It's more important to Him to have people in
relationship with Him than a production line producing saved souls.
This seems to be true throughout the Bible.
>> We tried to answer by saying that although Jesus effectively took our
>> sin, he actually paid for it and we still have to relinquish the hold
>> that sin has on our lives. We "give the sin to him" and in return,
>> receive his salvation. I don't know, Jon seemed to view sin as
>> something concrete, like the sin is "here", then it goes "there". I
>> got some really silly mental pictures about this - sin floating off
>> to fill up some big sin-bin hole of crap in the sky, lots of little
>> sins scuttling around... silly jokes about "sin busters" began to
>> proliferate.
Yes, I tend to think of sins as something "concrete", that's why the
atonement needed to be "substitutionary". John Stott in the Cross of
Christ is great on this.
>> Naomi tried to explain with an example from CS Lewis (narnia), I
>> tried to explain with an example from the Lent Course - Green Shield
>> stamps which you have to redeem. (This became a really useless and
>> silly example.) But Jon still didn't seem to get it. Do you know of
>> any bits in the Bible or anywhere else which could explain this to
>> him, if in fact you understand what I/he am/is trying to say?
A good study of Hebrews 9 and 10 might give you some material! The
point is that the sacrifice is perfect, but we still need to come to God
(contrast 10:19-25 and 10:26-31).
HH> I explained to my friend who e-mailed me the above that Theology is
HH> not my strong point. Please post any answers to the NG and I will
HH> forward them to her.
well, it's not my strong point either. These are some quick thoughts, I
hope I've understood the problem correctly.
--
Ben Edgington :- b...@met.rdg.ac.uk +
+++++
"The Lord is good and his love endures forever" +
(Ps 100:5) +
Annabel Smyth
On Tue, 18 Mar 1997, Helen Hancox wrote:
>I wonder if you could help a friend of mine who found themselves
>
>>Jesus died and took all our sin upon him. If we are saved, we give the
>>sin to him. He has already paid for it - we hand it over. However, if we
>>are not Christians, he has still taken our sin upon him when he died,
>>hasn't he?
>>
don't, I hope, just give our *sins* to Jesus, but we give all of
ourselves! We stop running our own lives, and hand ourselves over to
Jesus, lock, stock and barrel, and Jesus becomes the Lord of our lives,
bringing us forgiveness, healing and wholeness.
This, of course, can take a lifetime to happen! We have to make the
choice to go God's way rather than our own way over and over again. But
God's love doesn't fail - and God loves us so much that we are perfectly
free to go our own way if we'd rather do that.
Jesus didn't die only that our sins could be forgiven - it was part of
it, certainly, but only part. It is equally true to say that Jesus went
to the Cross to overcome the forces of evil, or to show us how much God
loves us. Basically, Jesus died for US, not just for our sins!
We are more than our sins, but without Jesus, we are something less than
we could be.
I'm rambling rather, but I hope this helps.
--
Annabel Smyth Ann...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Pharoah . . . was not heavily into good race relations (heard in a sermon,
March 1997)
Graham Weeks
I shall introduce the clear reasoning of the putitan vice-chancellor
of Oxford University. It answers he problem faced by the assumption
that Jesus died equally for all.
"The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent
punishment for, either:
1. The sins of all men.
2. All the sins of some men, or
3. Some of the sins of all men.
In which case it may be said:
a. That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer
for, and so none are saved.
b. That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead
suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world, and
this is the truth.
c. But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from
the punishment due unto their sins? You answer, Because of unbelief.
I ask, Is this unbelief a sin, or is it not? If it be, then Christ
suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not. If He did, why
must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died?
If He did not, He did not die for all their sins!"
Dr. John Owen
This is the clssic statement of particular redemption, Christ died for
His elect. Less accurately it is called limited atonement. That is a
misnomer as only univeralists do not limit the result of the
atonement. For the complete statement see Owen's book, The Death of
Death in the Death of Christ.
Graham J Weeks
Father Pharmacist Elder Councillor
********************************************************************
Receive this Orb set under the Cross, and remember that the whole
world is subject to the power and empire of Christ our redeemer.
Archbishop9s words to the Monarch in the Coronation
*******************************************************************
Lionel Jones
In article: <3330DC...@dircon.co.uk> wee...@dircon.co.uk (Graham Weeks) writes:
>
> (snip)
> c. But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from
> the punishment due unto their sins? You answer, Because of unbelief.
> I ask, Is this unbelief a sin, or is it not? If it be, then Christ
> suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not. If He did, why
> must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died?
> If He did not, He did not die for all their sins!"
But if unbelief is not a sin, the arguement falls down. I sorry but I don't
accept that unbelief necessarily constitutes wilful and knowing disobedience
of divine authority, which would be my working definition of sin.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Lionel Jones EMail lio...@ucott.demon.co.uk |
| |
| Jesus came to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable |
| which are you? |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Pellatt
On Wed, 19 Mar 1997 12:59:25 +0000, Annabel Smyth <Ann...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>On Tue, 18 Mar 1997, Helen Hancox wrote:
>>I wonder if you could help a friend of mine who found themselves
>>discussing the following topic at a meeting, and got stuck!
>>
>>>Jesus died and took all our sin upon him. If we are saved, we give the
>>>sin to him. He has already paid for it - we hand it over. However, if we
>>>are not Christians, he has still taken our sin upon him when he died,
>>>hasn't he?
[ snip ]
>Jesus didn't die only that our sins could be forgiven - it was part of
>it, certainly, but only part. It is equally true to say that Jesus went
>to the Cross to overcome the forces of evil, or to show us how much God
>loves us. Basically, Jesus died for US, not just for our sins!
>
>We are more than our sins, but without Jesus, we are something less than
>we could be.
>
>I'm rambling rather, but I hope this helps.
Very well said, Annabel. It's pretty obvious that, over the years,
different aspects of the Christian faith tend to receive over-emphasis,
particularly in the context of evangelism. In my youth, I think on the
back of the Billy Graham crusades, it was very much "become a Christian
and all your problems will be sorted out".
I wish :-)
I think this, in many ways, was a reaction against the "hellfire and
damnation" emphasis of earlier years.
--
Mike Pellatt
Richard Herring
In article <3330DC...@dircon.co.uk>, Graham Weeks <weeks-
g...@dircon.co.uk> wrote
>I shall introduce the clear reasoning of the putitan vice-chancellor
>of Oxford University.
presumably he lost that post at the Restoration?] With all due respect
to JO, his reasoning is not at all clear. Either it depends on unstated
assumptions rooted in his particular theology, on which I am not
qualified to comment, or it is riddled with fallacies.
>"The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent
>punishment for, either:
> 1. The sins of all men.
> 2. All the sins of some men, or
> 3. Some of the sins of all men.
First fallacy (false di-, or rather tri-chotomy.) There is also
4. None of the above.
But let's assume that it really must be one of these three cases, and
continue.
> In which case it may be said:
> a. That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer
>for, and so none are saved.
OK. So 3 is definitely wrong. No argument there. But it's really a
strawman: unless anyone really believes (or believed) that in the first
place, it's merely a rhetorical trick, and adds nothing to the argument.
> b. That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead
>suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world,
So far, so good - nothing has been proved yet except that 3 is false.
The choice appears to be between 1 and 2.
>and this is the truth.
This is merely Owen's opinion, which he is trying to prove, so we can
discount it.
> c. But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from
>the punishment due unto their sins?
Now he is taking for granted that "not all men are free..." But there is
an alternative, which is, quite simply "they are". This looks to me
like begging the question.
>You answer, Because of unbelief.
But what if I answer something different? Another unstated assumption.
But let's assume we got this far without disagreement: what happens
next?
>I ask, Is this unbelief a sin, or is it not?
Divide-and-conquer reasoning (what we techies call "top-down" :-). But
let's look closer. He breaks the question down into sub-categories and
deal with each in turn.
>If it be, then Christ
>suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not.
Call that (A) - unbelief is a sin.
> If He did, why
>must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died?
Then this is (A.a) - unbelief a sin, Christ suffered for it: so unbelief
isn't a special sin which disqualifies unbelievers from redemption.
Owen presumably wants us to infer that this contradicts (1) and is
therefore unacceptable. In fact, it's only a contradiction if the begged
question of (c) "not all men are free..." is true.
>If He did not, He did not die for all their sins!"
And this is (A.b) - unbelief is a sin, but Christ didn't suffer for it:)
Clearly contradicts the original premise (1), so this must be false.
But since (A.b) must be false, then if (A) is true (which is as yet
undecided), then so is (A.a), which he has *failed* to rule out.
(B - unbelief not a sin)
Oh dear. This possibility seems to have been overlooked. But if this is
so, the whole premise of Owen's argument (c) against case 1 fails.
So at the end of all that "logic" we seem to be left with several
possibilities:
Unbelief is a sin
Unbelief is not a sin
Christ suffered for all the sins of all men
Christ suffered for all the sins of some men
and none of the combinations of these sets of statements has ben
disproved. That's what happens to people who don't read the small print
before trying to construct a logical argument.
--
Richard Herring <ric...@clupeid.demon.co.uk>
Rhiannon Macfie
Annabel Smyth put quill to parchment and scratchily scribed:
> We are more than our sins, but without Jesus, we are something less than
> we could be.
This reminds me of a farewell ceilidh given by a church for one of their
members who was going to Hong Kong for a bit. (It was an interesting ceilidh
because I turned up at the door only to find three of the members of my
ceilidh band playing, and before long found myself playing as well.) At the
end, one woman got up to play. The prayer was something along the lines of:
'Lord Jesus, we know that on our own we are nothing. We are nothing without
you. But with you, we are everything. Thank you, Jesus, that without you
we are nothing but with you we are everything...'
This went on for about a minute. And all the time, I was thinking that since
God made us, is it true to say that we are nothing on our own? True, sin
corrupts, but does it make us completely worthless? To say that it does is
surely to place the power of sin above God's creative power, which made us
beautiful and perfect.
The way I think of it is the way CS Lewis put it in The Great Divorce:
Hell will reach back and corrupt even the good things in your life,
while Heaven will reach back and redeem even the worst situations. It's
not that of ourselves we are nothing, but with God we become who we are
meant to be.
Rhiannon
--
http://www.ed.ac.uk/~rhi ENTP
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
My disk space is valuable. I therefore charge a handling fee for any
unsolicited commercial email I receive. See my conditions at
http://www.ed.ac.uk/~rhi/conditions.html for further details.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Grey cats are usually blue.."
Martin Biddiscombe
Lionel Jones wrote:
:Graham Weeks wrote:
:>
:> (snip)
:> c. But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from
:> the punishment due unto their sins? You answer, Because of unbelief.
:> I ask, Is this unbelief a sin, or is it not? If it be, then Christ
:> suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not. If He did, why
:> must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died?
:(more snip)
:
:But if unbelief is not a sin, the arguement falls down. I sorry but I don't
:accept that unbelief necessarily constitutes wilful and knowing disobedience
:of divine authority, which would be my working definition of sin.
Indeed, I agree that sinfulness is wilful and knowing disobedience of divine
authority. But I'd definitely assert that unbelief falls into this category,
since we are in places commanded to believe - for instance: 1 John 3:23 "And
this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to
love one another as he commanded us." (NIV)
The bible is quite clear that unbelief is sin. Here are _some_ passages that
back up this assertation (NIV):
Romans 11
17 If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive
shoot, have been grafted in...
20 ...they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith.
...snip...
30 Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy
as a result of their disobedience,
31 so they too have now become disobedient...
Israel had received God's blessings in the past, but had refused to believe in
Christ.
(Compare Luke 10:16, where Jesus said: "He who listens to you listens to me;
he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent
me.") Therefore they were 'broken off' from the olive tree (which is clearly
representing God's chosen people throughout history). Their place is take by
the gentiles - the 'wild' olive shoots - who did believe. So, because they
didn't believe, they didn't receive God's mercy. Paul goes on in verses 30-31
to call this disbelief disobedience.
Romans 14:23
But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not
from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin.
Paul is explaining that eating certain foods is not in itself sinful, but if
your attitude towards it is wrong, then it is sinful _for you_.
"Everything that does not come from faith is sin". Unbelief is the opposite of
faith - so there is absolutely no way whatsoever that it could come from faith
- unbelief is therefore sin.
Genesis 3 (The fall)
How does Satan get Eve to take the fruit?
There are several ploys at work, but one of them is casting doubt on God's
word - tempting Eve towards unbelief - "Did God _really_ say ..."
Luke 12
40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when
you do not expect him."
41 Peter asked, "Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?"
42 The Lord answered, "Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the
master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the
proper time?
43 It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he
returns.
44 I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.
45 But suppose the servant says to himself, `My master is taking a long time
in coming,' and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to
eat and drink and get drunk.
46 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him
and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a
place with the unbelievers.
So, being an unbeliever has nasty consequences...
John 10:
25 Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do
in my Father's name speak for me,
26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.
27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch
them out of my hand.
Unbelief is our 'natural state'. We only believe if we are Christ's 'sheep'.
If we're not his sheep, we don't believe. Only those who are his sheep will be
given eternal life.
The passages above are just a selection of those that I could have used to
back up the assertion that unbelief is sinful.
Kind regards,
Martin Biddiscombe
--
Martin Biddiscombe
You could write: mailto:M.Bidd...@ucl.ac.uk
You could visit: http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~eemt6/
You could visit: http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~eemt6/hwec/hwec.html
Charlotte
In article <meq09XAt...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk>,
Annabel Smyth <Ann...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk> elucidated the
following.....
>On Tue, 18 Mar 1997, Helen Hancox wrote:
>>>
>>>Jesus died and took all our sin upon him. If we are saved, we give the
>>>sin to him. He has already paid for it - we hand it over. However, if we
>>>are not Christians, he has still taken our sin upon him when he died,
>>>hasn't he?
>>>
>don't, I hope, just give our *sins* to Jesus, but we give all of
>ourselves! We stop running our own lives, and hand ourselves over to
>Jesus, lock, stock and barrel, and Jesus becomes the Lord of our lives,
>bringing us forgiveness, healing and wholeness.
The question raised in our Bible Study was more of a metaphysical
thing. The bit snipped out of Helen's posting tries to explain this -
that the guy who asked the question seemed to see sin in concrete
terms and (a) wanted to know where they go when we hand them
over to Jesus; (b) debated the idea of Jesus "deleting" our sins if we
do not relinquish them to him (ie if we are non-Christians); (c)
questioned the continuance of sin in our lives even after we have
acknowledged that Jesus "paid for them" and we have given them
up to him.
>
>This, of course, can take a lifetime to happen! We have to make the
>choice to go God's way rather than our own way over and over again.
<snip>
This applies to (c). But I think that he (the guy asking the question)
knows this! He wasn't disputing that Jesus's death was more than a
global sin wipe-out, more exploring the consequences.
<snip>
>
>We are more than our sins, but without Jesus, we are something less than
>we could be.
>
true - but when we are less than we could be, he has still taken our
sin on him when he died: "You take away the sin of the world." For
those who do not accept him, where is their sin? Where was their
sin when Jesus was crucified? How many people's sin did he die for
which they have/will never "hand over" to him?
BTW all the people @ this Bible Study are Christians!
Charlotte - friend of Helen Hancox
Alan Zanker
wee...@dircon.co.uk (Graham Weeks) wrote:
>I shall introduce the clear reasoning of the putitan vice-chancellor
>of Oxford University. It answers he problem faced by the assumption
>that Jesus died equally for all.
>
>"The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent
>punishment for, either:
> 1. The sins of all men.
> 2. All the sins of some men, or
> 3. Some of the sins of all men.
<snip>
>This is the clssic statement of particular redemption, Christ died for
>His elect. Less accurately it is called limited atonement. That is a
>misnomer as only univeralists do not limit the result of the
>atonement. For the complete statement see Owen's book, The Death of
>Death in the Death of Christ.
Yes - I would agree with Graham here, with one small proviso. Since we
believe that God is all-loving, then all humankind are included in
'the elect'. Otherwise we are saying that God, as a loving parent,
deliberately condemns some of his children to eternal damnation (or at
least separation).
The proviso, of course, makes me a universalist.
Alan
--
Alan Zanker | e-mail:al...@bittern.demon.co.uk
Leeds |
Annabel Smyth
On Sat, 22 Mar 1997, Alan Zanker wrote:
>Yes - I would agree with Graham here, with one small proviso. Since we
>believe that God is all-loving, then all humankind are included in
>'the elect'. Otherwise we are saying that God, as a loving parent,
>deliberately condemns some of his children to eternal damnation (or at
>least separation).
>
>The proviso, of course, makes me a universalist.
>
deliberately turn away from their loving parent!
And we Methodists aren't supposed to believe in an elect, surely? We
are Arminians, not Calvinists, and our doctrines state that:
All need to be saved
All can be saved
All can know they are saved
All can be saved to the uttermost.
Annabel Smyth
On Fri, 21 Mar 1997, Rhiannon Macfie wrote:
[snip]
>The prayer was something along the lines of:
>'Lord Jesus, we know that on our own we are nothing. We are nothing without
>you. But with you, we are everything. Thank you, Jesus, that without you
>we are nothing but with you we are everything...'
>
>This went on for about a minute. And all the time, I was thinking that since
>God made us, is it true to say that we are nothing on our own? True, sin
>corrupts, but does it make us completely worthless? To say that it does is
>surely to place the power of sin above God's creative power, which made us
>beautiful and perfect.
I was taught, years ago, that we are nothing on our own. The trouble
was, I believed it! And it led to enormous problems for me, as I found
I could not acknowledge I had any good points at all! All the good
things about me (if there were any) came from Jesus; all the bad things
were mine alone. Which was marginally better than one friend, who
attributed all the good things about her to Jesus, and all the bad
things to the Enemy! But even still, it led to my having even less
sense of my own centre than I already had, and ended with my believing,
somehow, that God had made a terrible mistake creating someone so
worthless and evil as me, and really I ought to put matters right by
committing suicide. But suicide was a sin.....
But, of course, that was nonsense. God made me (and you who read this)
for His delight! God looked at what he had made, and saw that it was
good. OK, so we're human, and by ourselves we mess it up (sin), but God
still loves us! Because I thought that there was no good in anybody
without Jesus, I believed that God only loved us once we trusted Jesus
(and only then if we were absolutely perfect!).
To add to the confusion, I also read (in Watchman Nee, I think) that our
"natural" gifts were unredeemed and useless (as though God hadn't given
them to us in the first place), and only our "spiritual" gifts counted,
so that people who were good at preaching shouldn't do it, because it
was a natural gift, so they didn't rely on God.....
The thing is, in Christ we have the opportunity to start all over again,
when we need to; and in Christ, we can become the people God designed us
to be.
>
>The way I think of it is the way CS Lewis put it in The Great Divorce:
>Hell will reach back and corrupt even the good things in your life,
>while Heaven will reach back and redeem even the worst situations. It's
>not that of ourselves we are nothing, but with God we become who we are
>meant to be.
>
Amen!
Nigel Coke-Woods
Helen Hancox <james.a...@hancox.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I wonder if you could help a friend of mine who found themselves
> discussing the following topic at a meeting, and got stuck!
>
> >Jesus died and took all our sin upon him. If we are saved, we give the
> >sin to him. He has already paid for it - we hand it over. However, if we
> >are not Christians, he has still taken our sin upon him when he died,
> >hasn't he?
> >
> >where does that sin go? I mean, if he has
> >taken the sins of everyone, how come non-Christians are still judged
> >according to the fact that they are burdened with sin (and not in a
> >relationship with God)?
> >
> >We tried to answer by saying that although Jesus effectively took our
> >sin, he actually paid for it and we still have to relinquish the hold
> >that sin has on our lives. We "give the sin to him" and in return,
> >receive his salvation. I don't know, Jon seemed to view sin as something
> >concrete, like the sin is "here", then it goes "there". I got some
> >really silly mental pictures about this - sin floating off to fill up
> >some big sin-bin hole of crap in the sky, lots of little sins scuttling
> >around... silly jokes about "sin busters" began to proliferate.
> >
> >Naomi tried to explain with an example from CS Lewis (narnia), I tried
> >to explain with an example from the Lent Course - Green Shield stamps
> >which you have to redeem. (This became a really useless and silly
> >example.) But Jon still didn't seem to get it. Do you know of any bits
> >in the Bible or anywhere else which could explain this to him, if in
> >fact you understand what I/he am/is trying to say?
>
> I explained to my friend who e-mailed me the above that Theology
> is not my strong point. Please post any answers to the NG and I will
> forward them to her.
>
> Thanks
I think that some of the answers you are getting miss an important point
about being a Christian and what Christ has done for us. The point is
not so much that our sin is somehow transferred over to him, like a
piece of baggage, or rubbish for the binmen as someone has put it
elsewhere in this posting. To be a Christian is to be "in Christ" as St.
Paul puts it; to be in Christ means that God sees us no longer as we
humanly are, guilty of sin, but as we are in Christ. God no longer sees
our guilt, only Christ's sinless offering of himself. We are therefore
declared "not guilty". True, our sins are laid on Christ, for he
confronts the power, the guilt and the consequences of our sin on the
cross, but then he lays upon us his victory and his innocence ( his
vindication by God as Acts puts it). See it as gaining a new identity,
for "if anyone is in Chrsit Jesus there is a new creation (St. Paul).
--
Nigel Coke-Woods
Methodist Minister
Email: Ni...@cokery.demon.co.uk
Graham Weeks
Alan Zanker wrote:
snip
> Yes - I would agree with Graham here, with one small proviso. Since we
> believe that God is all-loving, then all humankind are included in
> 'the elect'. Otherwise we are saying that God, as a loving parent,
> deliberately condemns some of his children to eternal damnation (or at
> least separation).
>
> The proviso, of course, makes me a universalist.
>
Full marks for consistency, *but* are all goats in fact really sheep?
Annabel Smyth
On Fri, 21 Mar 1997, Charlotte wrote:
>The question raised in our Bible Study was more of a metaphysical
>thing. The bit snipped out of Helen's posting tries to explain this -
>that the guy who asked the question seemed to see sin in concrete
>terms and (a) wanted to know where they go when we hand them
>over to Jesus; (b) debated the idea of Jesus "deleting" our sins if we
>do not relinquish them to him (ie if we are non-Christians); (c)
>questioned the continuance of sin in our lives even after we have
>acknowledged that Jesus "paid for them" and we have given them
>up to him.
>
asking.
The Bible tells us that the answer to (a) is "So far as the East is from
the West, so far he has put our sins from us", and I remember singing a
chorus which told my that my sins were "Buried in the deepest sea".
As for (b), surely it's kind of like someone offering round their box of
Easter chocolates - you can say "Yes please" (hoping that all the hard
centres haven't already gone, but this is, after all, only an analogy),
or you can say "Thanks, but not just now", and not take a chocolate.
Or, putting it the other way about, it's as though you were carrying
very heavy bags and someone offered to carry them for you - you could
say "No thank you", after all....
For (c), I think your friend may be failing to distinguish the state of
being a sinner (i.e. not a Christian) from committing sin! In technical
theological terms, when you first say "yes" to Jesus, you are JUSTIFIED.
Modern translations of the Bible sometimes say "Made right with God",
and there is the old mnemnonic: "It's JUST AS IF I'D never sinned". And
the rest of your life you spend becoming SANCTIFIED, or made holy, made
whole, made perfect....
One analogy I found helpful was, supposing there was a law against
jumping in mud puddles. And you enjoyed jumping in mud puddles. So you
ended up not only guilty of breaking the law forbidding you to jump in
mud puddles, but also covred in mud! When you were justified, that took
care of the breaking the law aspect - but you were still covered in mud.
Becoming sanctified is the process of washing off the mud....
>>We are more than our sins, but without Jesus, we are something less than
>>we could be.
>>
>true - but when we are less than we could be, he has still taken our
>sin on him when he died: "You take away the sin of the world." For
>those who do not accept him, where is their sin? Where was their
>sin when Jesus was crucified? How many people's sin did he die for
>which they have/will never "hand over" to him?
I think their sin is where it always was - on their own shoulders. And
as for how many - well, it all goes to show what a gloriously
extravagant God we worship, doesn't it? And what a loving God. All too
many people have said "No thank you" to Jesus, but that doesn't mean
they are not loved.
Alan Zanker
wee...@dircon.co.uk (Graham Weeks) wrote:
>Full marks for consistency, *but* are all goats in fact really sheep?
Well, if God can resurrect Jesus, resuscitate Lazarus, and turn Cephas
into the Rock on whom the Church is built, surely he can *turn* goats
into sheep (given enough time)!
Michael J Davis
Charlotte <char...@hancox.demon.co.uk> writes
>In article <meq09XAt...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk>,
>Annabel Smyth <Ann...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk> elucidated the
>following.....
>>On Tue, 18 Mar 1997, Helen Hancox wrote:
>>>>
>>>>sin to him. He has already paid for it - we hand it over. However, if we
>>>>are not Christians, he has still taken our sin upon him when he died,
>>>>hasn't he?
>>>>
>>don't, I hope, just give our *sins* to Jesus, but we give all of
>>ourselves! We stop running our own lives, and hand ourselves over to
>>Jesus, lock, stock and barrel, and Jesus becomes the Lord of our lives,
>>bringing us forgiveness, healing and wholeness.
>
>thing. The bit snipped out of Helen's posting tries to explain this -
>that the guy who asked the question seemed to see sin in concrete
>terms and (a) wanted to know where they go when we hand them
>over to Jesus; (b) debated the idea of Jesus "deleting" our sins if we
>do not relinquish them to him (ie if we are non-Christians); (c)
>questioned the continuance of sin in our lives even after we have
>acknowledged that Jesus "paid for them" and we have given them
>up to him.
>
similar environment:-
Preparing for a talk I prayed. A picture came to mind. It seemed as
though I stood before the throne of my Father God in heaven. On my
right was an angelic figure reading from an open book. I could not
understand the language.
Curiosity overcame me, I stood on tiptoe (for I seemed strangely
diminutive in this scene) and peered over to look at the book. At first
all I could see was reddish scrawl, but then I realised that my
misdeeds, my sins, all my secret desires had all been carefully written
in the book. In ink? I leant across and frantically tried to erase a
few words. Nothing changed, it seemed indelible. I remembered that when
I was younger, we had "indelible" pencils that wrote like ordinary
pencils unless they were licked first, when no eraser would touch the
rich purple mark.
I understood that the figure with the book was the recording angel. It
appeared that I had been followed all my life and my deeds recorded.
Somehow, only the bad ones got written down. For this was no angel. This
was Satan, the accuser, standing before the very throne of God
persuading Him to release me to his power.
Again I looked and realised that the writing was blood. My blood? I
thought, and then realised that it was Jesus' blood. The enormity of
what I saw came home to me. Every wrong, each misdemeanour, and even my
little acts of thoughtlessness, had caused not just mental anguish, but
physical pain to my Lord. In spite of my acknowledging Him as Lord, I
had sinned, and had drawn blood for each one. This was being explained
in detail by Satan. On the side was the ink-well into which I saw
Jesus's blood still freshly pouring down from Him hanging on the cross.
"LET ME SEE!" thundered the voice from the throne, and I trembled. No
hope now. Even Satan was startled and, in jumping, knocked the inkstand
over, causing fresh ink to pour across the page. I groaned at the
profligate waste of the blood and the pain that Jesus had to incur. The
page, no - the book, was now uniformly drenched in red and I could no
longer make out any writing. The figure on the throne took it, looked
and said, "I can see no record of sin, all I see is the blood of my
Son." The accuser disappeared.
To me he smiled, "Come in!"
-------------------
You see, nothing can hide or cover the damage to ourselves or the pain
we cause God when we sin. God made the world in Goodness and Peace, and
when we go against that plan, we tear apart the universe that he made.
He made it - not from nothing - but from His Love. So our sin breaks
down the very structure of the universe. *Our* sin is written indelibly
on the whole of creation, unless we free creation from it by submitting
it to Jesus. That is why the world seems so distorted, full of sickness
and misery. God shows us that by revealing His love to us in Jesus, and
so His pain is shown both symbolically and in reality in His blood.
How can I make up for that pain? By being good? No! I was made for peace
and goodness, so being "good" would only restore me to where I should
be, and leave the evil still there.
Only by more than compensating - by renewing creation - can Jesus
restore us to the Father's kingdom as brothers and sisters of His Royal
family. That he has done by His death and shown us in His resurrection.
In that generosity He has offered me new life. But I must accept it.
Without my receiving it voluntarily, the accuser would not even have to
argue his case, I'd *already* be his.
[The talk was given at an ecumenical celebration in Glossop in 1985]
Mike
--
Michael J Davis Watchman Consulting Associates Ltd
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| "When the centurion and those who were guarding Jesus saw all |
| that had happened, they were terrified and exclaimed, |
| 'Surely he was the Son of God!'" Matt 27:54 |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
Alan Zanker
Ann...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk (Annabel Smyth) wrote:
>On Sat, 22 Mar 1997, Alan Zanker wrote:
>>Yes - I would agree with Graham here, with one small proviso. Since we
>>believe that God is all-loving, then all humankind are included in
>>'the elect'. Otherwise we are saying that God, as a loving parent,
>>deliberately condemns some of his children to eternal damnation (or at
>>least separation).
>>
>>The proviso, of course, makes me a universalist.
>>
>I don't think so, as you are not accounting for those children who
>deliberately turn away from their loving parent!
The question then may be 'how long can they remain turned away?' We
have the hymn about Christ having 'broken every barrier down' and I
really wonder whether the rebellion can be permanent.
>And we Methodists aren't supposed to believe in an elect, surely?
That Christ died for all (not some) was the Wesleys' distinctive
emphasis - so all are 'elect' in that sense. If 'elect' means some
only are eligible for salvation (so some have already been already
rejected, either before or after the Fall) then this was what John
Wesley described as a 'monstrous doctrine'.
>We are Arminians, not Calvinists, and our doctrines state that:
>All need to be saved
>All can be saved
>All can know they are saved
>All can be saved to the uttermost.
I fully accept nos 1) 2) and 4). (I've problems with the third because
I'm pretty sure that Wesley considered assurance to be a matter of
inner feeling rather than of faith.)
However, I don't see these doctrines as being inconsistent with
universalism. Our salvation is something which has already been
achieved for us - if we hear and understand that fact, we may respond
in faith and start living as ones who believe it and accept the joys,
sorrows and obligations of being servants of the Servant.
OTOH we may never hear, may not understand or may not believe it
anyway. That means we are not disciples - but does it invalidate our
salvation? Aren't we confusing being disciples of Jesus with escaping
damnation?
(Answers of no more than 6,000 words please (:-))
Lionel Jones
In article: <99755.97...@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk> M.Bidd...@ucl.ac.uk (Martin
Biddiscombe) writes:
>
(snip almost everything, for now)
>
> The passages above are just a selection of those that I could have used to
> back up the assertion that unbelief is sinful.
>
"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." Acts 16:31,
(I'm happy to stay with NIV since that is your choice.)
This is neither a command nor a law, it is the offer of mercy as the way
outfrom the consequences of the law. Unbelief is simply failing to accept
the offer of mercy, for whatever reason. In fact the behaviour of
Christians may sometimes be the cause of others failing to believe.
(see the thread in this newsgroup a little while ago) This might make the
unbelief of others a sin on the part of the Christian.
All of us have sinned, and therefore without belief in Christ we are
without mercy and stand condemned, but this does not make unbelief a sin.
Looking at your quotes in turn
Romans 11.
Paul is talking about why salvation is offered to gentiles as well as to
the children of Israel, who have been "broken off because of unbelief",
i.e they also needed mercy, but they could not believe that ancestry was
not sufficient. But it was still their human sinfulness thet needed
forgiveness, not their unbelief. It is you, not Paul, who equate unbelief
with disobedience in vs30-31.
(unless you are slipping back to the AV? )
Romans 14
Paul is talking about a Christian who has doubts about eating food which
has been dedicated to idols, not about "unbelief".
Genesis 3
Has nothing whatever to do with belief in Jesus.
Like 12 & John 10
I agree that unbelief has nasty consequences, you don't get mercy for your
sins, and it is our natural state. That still doesn't make unbelief a sin.
I would rephrase you comment and say if we don't believe we are not his
sheep, rather than if we are not his sheep we don't believe. Your phrasing
smacks of a predetermined elect, which I don't accept.
Regards to you also, and to my old college. I imagine it has changed a bit
in 35 yrs.
Patrick Herring
B.P.Ed...@reading.ac.uk writes in article <tg667yo...@met.rdg.ac.uk>:> HH> I wonder if you could help a friend of mine who found themselves
> HH> discussing the following topic at a meeting, and got stuck!
>
> >> Jesus died and took all our sin upon him. If we are saved, we give
> >> the sin to him. He has already paid for it - we hand it
> >> over. However, if we are not Christians, he has still taken our sin
> >> upon him when he died, hasn't he?
> >>
> >> how come non-Christians are still judged according to the fact that
> >> they are burdened with sin (and not in a relationship with God)?
>
> "punishment for sin". Jesus made provision for both on the cross, but
> if we still hold onto our sin we are still liable for punishment
>
> The way I see it (which may well be shallow or wrong!) is that Jesus
> took the /punishment/ for our sins on the cross: he didn't take the sin
> away from us. He can though: "Come to me all you who are burdened and
> heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Applies as much to sin as to
> everything else. (1 Peter 2:24 might contradict this POV!)
>
> I like the analogy with cashing a cheque: Jesus has written the cheque
> for our forgiveness (to pay our debt), but it's useless until we cash it
> in. The funds are there, but we need to do something about it, that is,
> to repent and believe.
I have to admit that I reckon this to be one of the greatest mistakes that
Christianity has made. IMHO It all comes from Paul's intellectualising, but
Paul was not part of the original experience. I really can't make any sense of
the idea that Jesus' death set up a sin-removal resource for us all to draw on
if we so choose. He died because of sinfulness OK, he showed that it was
possible to be human & be divine, ie sinless, OK, but that his death dealt
with potentially all possible sin is just not a real meaning of 'dealt'.
Firstly, if it worked that way we'd find an instant change to sinlessness on
accepting Jesus as our saviour, but that isn't what happens, we have to work
to 'let Jesus in' as some people put it. What's the difference between having
to work to 'let Jesus into our lives' to nullify the effects of sin, those
sins already having been dealt with by Jesus as far as God is concerned, and
having to work, with God's help, to nullify sinfulness just like Jesus did? In
result nothing at all IMHO except the latter is much simpler & makes much more
sense. To me Jesus is the great prover of what's possible, and I don't think
he was the first or the last, but that's another story.
Secondly, where does it say that God wishes to punish sins without also
saying, or implying, that being sinful is itself the 'punishment' because it
just means we are separated from God? Can I put in a plea for metaphysical
simplicity & clarity? Surely hell is here in us, as might be heaven? What's
our physical death got to do with it? These are timeless states of being.
yours, Patrick
_____________________________________________________________________________
Patrick Herring, Primrose Hill, London, UK
I tend to eat my UUCP feed once a day, so replies can take two days
Mark Goodge
Alan Zanker wrote:
>
> wee...@dircon.co.uk (Graham Weeks) wrote:
>
> >Full marks for consistency, *but* are all goats in fact really sheep?
>
> Well, if God can resurrect Jesus, resuscitate Lazarus, and turn Cephas
> into the Rock on whom the Church is built, surely he can *turn* goats
> into sheep (given enough time)!
How would you interpret the parable of the wheat and the tares, then?
Mark
--
Mark Goodge * m...@message.org * Message Internet *
http://www.message.org
'Shake off your golden shackles, children of time no more. Consider
now the crimson crown the Man of Sorrows wore' The Choir, 'Circle Slide'
Darlzie
Rhiannon Macfie wrote:
>
> Annabel Smyth put quill to parchment and scratchily scribed:
>
> > we could be.
> This went on for about a minute. And all the time, I was thinking that since
> God made us, is it true to say that we are nothing on our own? True, sin
> corrupts, but does it make us completely worthless? To say that it does is
> surely to place the power of sin above God's creative power, which made us
> beautiful and perfect.
>
> Hell will reach back and corrupt even the good things in your life,
> while Heaven will reach back and redeem even the worst situations. It's
> not that of ourselves we are nothing, but with God we become who we are
> meant to be.
That's the thing isn't it-the fall resulted in man knowing good AND
evil, not just one or the other. Therefore there is still something of
pre-fall man in each of us, and as pre-fall man was something, it
doesn't seem completely unreasonable to suggest that all mankind is
something on his own, albiet a lesser something (spiritually speaking,
anyway).
The problem a lot of us have is that we don't see the good
characteristics in most people, as we're all likely to criticize
someone's fallen aspects, but not praise their non-fallen ones.
--
Ian 'Darlzie' Darling
"Due to excess shoving, I have now left the human race...."
XNFP
Mark Goodge
> >His elect. Less accurately it is called limited atonement. That is a
> >misnomer as only univeralists do not limit the result of the
> >atonement. For the complete statement see Owen's book, The Death of
> >Death in the Death of Christ.
>
> believe that God is all-loving, then all humankind are included in
> 'the elect'. Otherwise we are saying that God, as a loving parent,
> deliberately condemns some of his children to eternal damnation (or at
> least separation).
>
> The proviso, of course, makes me a universalist.
Particular Redemption and Universalism are, in fact, flip sides of the
same coin, as they are both based on the same false assumption.
That assumption being, of course, that man has no role to play in his
own salvation - it's entirely the work of God.
One of the problems of Protestant theology, is that we have been so keen
to distance ourselves from salvation by works, that we reject anything
that might have overtones of "earned" salvation. But that's not how the
Bible presents it. Certainly, there is nothing we can do in terms of
physical activity ("good works", etc) that can earn us salvation. But
there are still "works" of faith than can, and must, be done in order to
accept the salvation that is available. The necessary act of faith is to
believe - without that, there is no salvation (no universal redemption).
But the capacity to believe is not itself a gift of God (ie, only for
the elect), it is part of the innate creation of humanity.
Otherwise, no-one would have been able to know God at all, prior to the
resurrection of Jesus. But that is obviously not the case, as the whole
of the Old Testament demonstrates.
Mark
--
Mark Goodge * m...@message.org * Message Internet *
http://www.message.org
'And your heart beats so slow, through the rain and fallen snow,
across the fields of morning to a light that's in the distance.
Oh don't sorrow, no don't weep, for tonight, at last,
I am coming home, I am coming home' U2, 'A Sort of Homecoming'
Mark Goodge
Annabel Smyth wrote:
>
> On Sat, 22 Mar 1997, Alan Zanker wrote:
> >believe that God is all-loving, then all humankind are included in
> >'the elect'. Otherwise we are saying that God, as a loving parent,
> >deliberately condemns some of his children to eternal damnation (or at
> >least separation).
> >
> >The proviso, of course, makes me a universalist.
> >
> deliberately turn away from their loving parent!
Or, as I've heard it put, God won't force anyone to go to heaven who
doesn't want to be there!
The love of God is demonstrated in the fact that he allows us our
freedom of choice, even when this means that some will reject him
eternally.
> And we Methodists aren't supposed to believe in an elect, surely? We
> are Arminians, not Calvinists, and our doctrines state that:
>
> All need to be saved
> All can be saved
> All can know they are saved
> All can be saved to the uttermost.
I'm not a Methodist, but I do rather like that little catechism. I think
it perfectly sums up the reality of our need for salvation and it's
universal availability.
Mark
--
Mark Goodge * m...@message.org * Message Internet *
http://www.message.org
Gareth McCaughan
Graham Weeks quoted John Owen's "proof" of particular redemption.
Richard Herring has already pointed out some logical errors in it;
here are some more.
> "The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent
> punishment for, either:
> 1. The sins of all men.
> 2. All the sins of some men, or
> 3. Some of the sins of all men.
> In which case it may be said:
> a. That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer
> for, and so none are saved.
That "and so" is rather dubious; it assumes that salvation requires
that all one's sins be answered for. I'm not aware that this is
anywhere stated in scripture, and it doesn't seem obviously true.
More specifically, consider[1] the following possibility: We are all
desperately wicked; the sheer volume of our sins, or perhaps some
specific sin which we have all committed, renders us fit only for
damnation. However, Christ's death on the cross has obtained for us
remission for the bulk of these sins, or for that one specific
particularly-awful sin; therefore it is enough to save; but there
are still sins which may not have been answered for.
This possibility seems to be (just about) consistent with scripture;
and it permits people to be saved without having all their sins
"answered for".
> b. That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead
> suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world, and
> this is the truth.
> c. But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from
> the punishment due unto their sins? You answer, Because of unbelief.
Perhaps they *are* free from the punishment due unto their sins. This
does *not*, in fact, require universalism; something of the sort is
clearly compatible with annihilationism.
> I ask, Is this unbelief a sin, or is it not? If it be, then Christ
> suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not. If He did, why
> must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died?
> If He did not, He did not die for all their sins!"
Richard H has already pointed out that there is no treatment here
of the possibility that unbelief is not a sin. Connected with this
is the fact that Owen clearly can't imagine anything that might
stop someone being saved other than sin; I think this is wrong.
[1] Please do not take this as a statement of what I personally
believe. That's not what it's for.
--
Gareth McCaughan Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gj...@dpmms.cam.ac.uk Cambridge University, England.
Andy McMullon
In article <33356869...@news.demon.co.uk>, Alan Zanker
>
> Well, if God can resurrect Jesus, resuscitate Lazarus, and turn Cephas
> into the Rock on whom the Church is built, surely he can *turn* goats
> into sheep (given enough time)!
>
God respects our freedom to say no to his love.
God's love conquers all.
The serious money has go to be on God finding a way to make it all
add up. "Will not the judgee of all the earth do right!"
- Andy
--
SkyPilot: an...@mcfamily.demon.co.uk
The long division of the saints
is set aside.
In the mathematics of the cross
all products, sums, and quotients
equal one. John Leax
Alan Zanker
ma...@good-stuff.co.uk (Mark Goodge) wrote:
>Alan Zanker wrote:
>> Well, if God can resurrect Jesus, resuscitate Lazarus, and turn Cephas
>> into the Rock on whom the Church is built, surely he can *turn* goats
>> into sheep (given enough time)!
>
>How would you interpret the parable of the wheat and the tares, then?
If we assume that the original parable (Matt 13.24-30) is from Jesus
himself, he *might*, in response to the disciples' question 'why
doesn't God do something about the evil in the world?', be arguing the
need for patience: God will put it all right when the Kingdom comes at
the close of the age - evil will be destroyed and only good will
remain. (Of course, it is quite possible that he thinks of the wheat
and the tares as good and evil people and not just the good and evil
which affect all of us.)
Matthew gives his own (or his Church's) interpretation in vv36-43, and
here the reference to good and evil people is explicit.
I would play down the second section and emphasise the first as a
promise for the ultimate eradication of evil in God's own good time
(but I guess you probably wouldn't agree (:-))
I have more trouble with Matt 25.31-46, though some commentators (eg
John Fenton) suggest that the vivid judgment language is used to
emphasise the vital importance of putting the law of love into action.
Regards
Alan
--
'... current physical theory pictures all things as drifting
apart and scattering away into dissolution and uniformity.
In about 10^30 years from now the cosmos is going to be
really *boring*.' (Don Cupitt - 'After All')
Andy McMullon
In article <333645...@good-stuff.co.uk>, Mark Goodge
<URL:mailto:ma...@good-stuff.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Alan Zanker wrote:
> >
> > wee...@dircon.co.uk (Graham Weeks) wrote:
> >
> > >Full marks for consistency, *but* are all goats in fact really sheep?
> >
> > into the Rock on whom the Church is built, surely he can *turn* goats
> > into sheep (given enough time)!
>
> How would you interpret the parable of the wheat and the tares, then?
>
involve the annihilation of all evil people any more than the
eradication of sickness need involve the extermination of all who are
sick.
It is possible to overcome the disease by bringing healing to all
mankind. Understood in this way God's judgement is a totally
positive thing which no-one need fear!
- Andy
--
SkyPilot: an...@mcfamily.demon.co.uk
We turn away. We always do.
It's what we turn into that matters. Alan Bold (Buchenwald)
Mark Goodge
>ma...@good-stuff.co.uk (Mark Goodge) wrote:
>
>>Alan Zanker wrote:
>
>>> Well, if God can resurrect Jesus, resuscitate Lazarus, and turn Cephas
>>> into the Rock on whom the Church is built, surely he can *turn* goats
>>> into sheep (given enough time)!
>>
>>How would you interpret the parable of the wheat and the tares, then?
>
>If we assume that the original parable (Matt 13.24-30) is from Jesus
>himself, he *might*, in response to the disciples' question 'why
>doesn't God do something about the evil in the world?', be arguing the
>need for patience: God will put it all right when the Kingdom comes at
>the close of the age - evil will be destroyed and only good will
>remain. (Of course, it is quite possible that he thinks of the wheat
>and the tares as good and evil people and not just the good and evil
>which affect all of us.)
>
>Matthew gives his own (or his Church's) interpretation in vv36-43, and
>here the reference to good and evil people is explicit.
But vv36-43 are presented as the words of Jesus, just as much as
vv24-30. I don't think it's possible, from the text, to argue that
Jesus told the parable but Matthew interpreted it. It seems pretty
clear that Jesus both told it, and explained it. (Unless, of course,
you don't think Jesus told it in the first place, but that's another
argument).
>I would play down the second section and emphasise the first as a
>promise for the ultimate eradication of evil in God's own good time
>(but I guess you probably wouldn't agree (:-))
You're right
(in assuming that I don't agree, that is :-) )
>I have more trouble with Matt 25.31-46, though some commentators (eg
>John Fenton) suggest that the vivid judgment language is used to
>emphasise the vital importance of putting the law of love into action.
It seems pretty clear to me (but then it would, I suppose).
The big challenge in this passage, for me, is the implication that
salvation a) cannot be assured, and b) depends on works (feeding the
hungry, visiting the sick, etc).
Alan Zanker
ma...@good-stuff.co.uk (Mark Goodge) wrote:
>Particular Redemption and Universalism are, in fact, flip sides of the
>same coin, as they are both based on the same false assumption.
>
>That assumption being, of course, that man has no role to play in his
>own salvation - it's entirely the work of God.
This appears to be the view of the writer of the letter to the
Ephesians - eg 2.8: 'For by grace you have been saved through faith;
and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God.' (RSV). (I
assume the 'gift' here refers to faith, not grace.)
<snip>
>Certainly, there is nothing we can do in terms of
>physical activity ("good works", etc) that can earn us salvation. But
>there are still "works" of faith than can, and must, be done in order to
>accept the salvation that is available. The necessary act of faith is to
>believe - without that, there is no salvation (no universal redemption).
>But the capacity to believe is not itself a gift of God (ie, only for
>the elect), it is part of the innate creation of humanity.
I'm not sure how orthodox a view that is theologically, but in any
case it doesn't seem to me to accord with experience. I would think
most believers in God are either raised as children in an atmosphere
of belief, or at some crucial stage in their lives have encounters
with people who believe, and come under their influence, and
subsequently mix with other believers - ie we first catch our faith
from someone else and then mutually encourage it by repetition and
habit.
To those who have not had such influences (or for one reason or
another have gone away from them) I would think belief in God seems to
be largely irrelevant - at best something which is worthy of respect
because believers in a religion are often trustworthy, unselfish and
charitable, but which is not for them.
(An aside - one of our preachers went with her husband to a restaurant
with one of his business associates, who there introduced her to
another as 'this is A... B..., she's very much into Church, you know!'
The man looked a little non-plussed then answered 'how fascinating, my
hobby's golf!')
Take two other facts: (i) the majority of the world's population would
not claim to be Christian (eg because they are of other faiths), (ii)
the prevailing world-view in the West is that this world and this life
is all there is. With these the cards are surely firmly stacked
against specifically *Christian* belief for the majority of people.
So my argument would be as before: faith is a gift which some receive
(one way or another) and others don't. A God who condemns some for not
having the gift he has withheld from them cannot be all-loving.
Therefore the gift is not to save us from being lost, but for some
other purpose (perhaps to be a light, or salt, or yeast to leaven the
lump, or a city set on a hill?).
>Otherwise, no-one would have been able to know God at all, prior to the
>resurrection of Jesus. But that is obviously not the case, as the whole
>of the Old Testament demonstrates.
I don't think Moses was actually looking for God when he met him in
the desert. Surely people knew God because he chose to reveal himself
to them (eg Heb 1.1).
Nigel Coke-Woods
Annabel Smyth <Ann...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> But, of course, that was nonsense. God made me (and you who read this)
> for His delight! God looked at what he had made, and saw that it was
> good. OK, so we're human, and by ourselves we mess it up (sin), but God
> still loves us! Because I thought that there was no good in anybody
> without Jesus, I believed that God only loved us once we trusted Jesus
> (and only then if we were absolutely perfect!).
>
> To add to the confusion, I also read (in Watchman Nee, I think) that our
> "natural" gifts were unredeemed and useless (as though God hadn't given
> them to us in the first place), and only our "spiritual" gifts counted,
> so that people who were good at preaching shouldn't do it, because it
> was a natural gift, so they didn't rely on God.....
>
> The thing is, in Christ we have the opportunity to start all over again,
> when we need to; and in Christ, we can become the people God designed us
> to be.
> >
> >Hell will reach back and corrupt even the good things in your life,
> >while Heaven will reach back and redeem even the worst situations. It's
> >not that of ourselves we are nothing, but with God we become who we are
> >meant to be.
> >
Hallejuh sister - right on!
Patrick Herring
wee...@dircon.co.uk writes in article <3334CC...@dircon.co.uk>:
>
> Alan Zanker wrote:
> snip
> > Yes - I would agree with Graham here, with one small proviso. Since we
> > believe that God is all-loving, then all humankind are included in
> > 'the elect'. Otherwise we are saying that God, as a loving parent,
> > deliberately condemns some of his children to eternal damnation (or at
> > least separation).
> >
> > The proviso, of course, makes me a universalist.
> >
>
I was once told, by someone doing a PhD in or close to biology, that the uses
of sheep in analogy in Biblical stories don't work well for us. Apparently in
Biblical times sheep were much more like goats are now. We've breed out all
the natural intelligence in sheep leaving them as the stupid & docile apology
for animated beings that they now are. If you go through all the places where
people are compared to sheep in the light of that it really makes a big
difference.
Alan Zanker
ma...@good-stuff.co.uk (Mark Goodge) wrote:
>On Mon, 24 Mar 1997 19:59:02 GMT, al...@bittern.demon.co.uk (Alan
>Zanker) wrote:
>>If we assume that the original parable (Matt 13.24-30) is from Jesus
>>himself, he *might*, in response to the disciples' question 'why
>>doesn't God do something about the evil in the world?', be arguing the
>>need for patience: God will put it all right when the Kingdom comes at
>>the close of the age - evil will be destroyed and only good will
>>remain. (Of course, it is quite possible that he thinks of the wheat
>>and the tares as good and evil people and not just the good and evil
>>which affect all of us.)
>>
>>Matthew gives his own (or his Church's) interpretation in vv36-43, and
>>here the reference to good and evil people is explicit.
>
>But vv36-43 are presented as the words of Jesus, just as much as
>vv24-30. I don't think it's possible, from the text, to argue that
>Jesus told the parable but Matthew interpreted it. It seems pretty
>clear that Jesus both told it, and explained it. (Unless, of course,
>you don't think Jesus told it in the first place, but that's another
>argument).
I was just stating the view of many (most?) NT scholars that the
evangelists were theologians who added their own or their churches'
interpretations to Jesus' words (or even more confusingly may well
have amended Jesus' words for this purpose). The parable of the sower
is another good example. This doesn't imply dishonesty on their part -
merely a valiant attempt to fit what they had heard of Jesus' teaching
to their contemporary situation (in Matthew's case possibly the
disputes between church and synagogue towards the end of the first
century).
In any case if Matthew was inspired by the Spirit when he wrote the
gospel, and the Church was guided by the Spirit when the NT books were
included in the canon, does it really matter (from your POV) whether
it was Jesus who said the words or not?
>>I have more trouble with Matt 25.31-46, though some commentators (eg
>>John Fenton) suggest that the vivid judgment language is used to
>>emphasise the vital importance of putting the law of love into action.
>The big challenge in this passage, for me, is the implication that
>salvation a) cannot be assured, and b) depends on works (feeding the
>hungry, visiting the sick, etc).
There may be a clue to this in 1 Cor 3 & 4 where Paul talks about the
fact that, although presumably considering himself 'saved' he could
still be judged and found wanting (eg 4.1-5) and that those who build
on the foundation of Christ may be judged to have failed (3.12-15).
To me the point is that whether our salvation depends on it or not, we
are failing terribly unless we do the sort of works you mention.
Martin Biddiscombe
Lionel Jones wrote:
>
>Looking at your quotes in turn
OK. I admit that several of my quotes weren't directly related to belief in
Christ.
However, I don't think that makes them entirely inappropriate, particularly
Romans 14:23.
("Everything that does not come from faith is sin")
You didn't look at all my quotes...what about 1 John 3:23 "And this is his
command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one
another as he commanded us." (NIV)
> Your phrasing smacks of a predetermined elect, which I don't accept.
OK. Hands up. That's my viewpoint, but it's one that I firmly believe is
biblical.
Hold on, while I sort out some references (again!)
John 17:6
I have revealed you [1] to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were
yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.
So, God has definitely chosen at least some out of the world. Even if this
only refers to Christ's close disciples. But, note: they were chosen "out of
the world" not "out of the believers" - "the world" generally referring to
sinful mankind which is separated from God. There was nothing special about
these ones God chose to give to Christ. God simply gave them to him.
John 15:16-19
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear
fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in
my name. This is my command: Love each other. "If the world hates you, keep in
mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you
as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you
out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
Similar reasoning applies here. However, why should these verses _only_ apply
to the first disciples? I'm sure we'd all agree that the rest of the passage
is applicable to all believers - love one another, be prepared to submit to
persecution from the 'world'.
John 6:44
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will
raise him up at the last day.
John 6:37
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will
never drive away.
These, to my mathematical viewpoint, seem to amount to both "necessary and
sufficient" conditions for coming to belief in Christ.
Necessary: No on can come unless God draws them.
Sufficient: All that God draws will come and will be accepted.
Romans 8:28-33
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,
who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also
predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the
firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those
he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What,
then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against
us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he
not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any
charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.
To my mind, this hardly needs explanation (at least in terms of asserting
predestination) - God knew beforehand, he chose some to be Christians
(conformed to the likeness of his Son). He then called them and justified
them. Their glorification is certain. (Anyway, since God is in some sense
'outside' of time...)
Romans 9:11-18
Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order
that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who
calls--she was told, "The older will serve the younger." [1] Just as it is
written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." [2] What then shall we say? Is God
unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have
mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." [3] It does not,
therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the
Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I
might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the
earth." [4] Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he
hardens whom he wants to harden.
1.12 Gen. 25:23 2.13 Mal. 1:2,3 3.15 Exodus 33:19 4.17
Exodus 9:16
Jesus' parables and miracles also make similar points. For example,
In the parable of the sower (stony soil, thorny soil, the path, good soil),
the same seed is distributed across each soil type. The soil has no means of
changing its type. Only the good soil is capable of receiving the seed and
producing a crop. Only those people whose hearts and minds have been suitably
prepared by God (like soil being dug and fertilised) can receive the gospel
'effectively'.
Thinking about the raising of Jairus' daughter and of Lazarus and the widow's
son: none of these people was able to do anything to initiate their healing -
they were dead. We are dead in our sins. We need new life. A corpse _cannot_
do _anything_ at all about its situation.
Again, these are just a selection of references.
The reason I have no 'intellectual' difficulty with predestination (other than
that I see it "writ large" in the bible) is that God is God. He is holy, just,
righteous and loving. We are all, by nature, sinners and far from him. He
would be absolutely entitled to leave us in that state and save none at all.
But, for the sake of his love, he has chosen to save some. As 'puny' humans,
we should not presume to make this out to be unjust of God in any way. If God
did not actively choose some, then none would come, even if the route were
available - since by nature we all _hate_ God.
>Regards to you also, and to my old college. I imagine it has changed a bit in
35 yrs.
I wouldn't know, not having been there 35 years ago!
Kind regards,
--
Martin Biddiscombe
You could write: mailto:M.Bidd...@ucl.ac.uk
You could visit: http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~eemt6/
You could visit: http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~eemt6/hwec/hwec.html
Mark Goodge
On Wed, 26 Mar 1997 21:41:51 GMT, al...@bittern.demon.co.uk (Alan
Zanker) wrote:
[re the parable of the tares]
>>>Matthew gives his own (or his Church's) interpretation in vv36-43, and
>>>here the reference to good and evil people is explicit.
>>
>>But vv36-43 are presented as the words of Jesus, just as much as
>>vv24-30. I don't think it's possible, from the text, to argue that
>>Jesus told the parable but Matthew interpreted it. It seems pretty
>>clear that Jesus both told it, and explained it. (Unless, of course,
>>you don't think Jesus told it in the first place, but that's another
>>argument).
>
>I was just stating the view of many (most?) NT scholars that the
>evangelists were theologians who added their own or their churches'
>interpretations to Jesus' words (or even more confusingly may well
>have amended Jesus' words for this purpose). The parable of the sower
>is another good example. This doesn't imply dishonesty on their part -
>merely a valiant attempt to fit what they had heard of Jesus' teaching
>to their contemporary situation (in Matthew's case possibly the
>disputes between church and synagogue towards the end of the first
>century).
I think it's probably 'many' rather than 'most'. The alternative
theory, that the gospel writers were simply giving a first-hand
account of their own experiences or research, is also pretty common.
>In any case if Matthew was inspired by the Spirit when he wrote the
>gospel, and the Church was guided by the Spirit when the NT books were
>included in the canon, does it really matter (from your POV) whether
>it was Jesus who said the words or not?
In one sense, no, it doesn't. But, on the other hand, why would the
Holy Spirit inspire a falsehood? This isn't a poetical or allegorical
passage, and if you accept the veracity/inspiration of the author,
then there's no obvious reason to assume that Jesus didn't say the
words attributed to him.
(Or at least, said something close enough to the recorded words -
after due allowance for translation and abbreviation).
Andy McMullon
In article <333ac083...@nnrp.news.uk.psi.net>, Mark Goodge
that the Gospel are not exact transcripts of the teaching of Jesus
does not mean that the Holy Spirit 'inspired a falsehood'. Where
does it claim that the Gospels are this sort of record??
Anyway there is plenty of evidence that the gospels writers felt
quite happy about being creative with their sources! That's the
heart of the so called 'synoptic problem' (which is only really a
problem if you believe that all the gospels contain word for word and
blow for blow accounts of the things that Jesus actually did!
Pre-suppositions are showing again - On both sides of this debate!
--
SkyPilot: an...@mcfamily.demon.co.uk
Nothing I give, nothing I do or say,
Nothing I am will make you love me more. James Fenton
Gareth McCaughan
Martin Biddiscombe wrote:
> The reason I have no 'intellectual' difficulty with predestination
> (other than that I see it "writ large" in the bible) is that God is
> God. He is holy, just, righteous and loving. We are all, by nature,
> sinners and far from him. He would be absolutely entitled to leave
> us in that state and save none at all. But, for the sake of his
> love, he has chosen to save some. As 'puny' humans, we should not
> presume to make this out to be unjust of God in any way. If God did
> not actively choose some, then none would come, even if the route
> were available - since by nature we all _hate_ God.
Whether or not predestination is right, I do not think any argument
that goes "God is much bigger and more powerful than we puny humans
are, so we must not question him" will do, because it amounts to a
declaration that might is right; that since God is omnipotent, this
means that he can do no ill.
The fact that we are puny does not of itself make us unimportant,
and it does not of itself mean that we should not ask questions.
I am not objecting here to the doctrine of predestination (as it
happens, I don't believe it; but I am not going to argue it here,
because this one always turns into a lengthy flamefest; if for some
reason you feel desperate to change my mind, do it by e-mail); just
to the arguments you are using here. Even if predestination is right,
those arguments are wrong.
Rhiannon Macfie
Patrick Herring put quill to parchment and scratchily scribed:
> I was once told, by someone doing a PhD in or close to biology, that the uses
> of sheep in analogy in Biblical stories don't work well for us. Apparently in
> Biblical times sheep were much more like goats are now. We've breed out all
> the natural intelligence in sheep leaving them as the stupid & docile apology
> for animated beings that they now are. If you go through all the places where
> people are compared to sheep in the light of that it really makes a big
> difference.
Yes indeed, and one of the main points about the PotS&G is that it was
actually quite difficult to tell the two apart!
However, I think even modern sheep aren't as stupid as we think they are.
Rhiannon
--
http://www.ed.ac.uk/~rhi ENTP
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My disk space is valuable. I therefore charge a handling fee for any
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"Rich teas are very religious biscuits, aren`t they?"
Simon Gray
rhia...@llais.demon.co.uk (Rhiannon Macfie) recently Re-Educated us in
the uk.religion.christian Facility thusly:
~ However, I think even modern sheep aren't as stupid as we think they are.
Especially the ones that go flying into the shower after being abducted
by aliens.
--
"That's not bad language, that's Socialism" - George Bernard Shaw
http://www.mahayana.demon.co.uk/ ENTP
weath...@pipeline.com
When Jesus takes your sins, where does he put them? Why does he want
them anyway? Wouldn't he rather collect stamps?
Andy McMullon
In article <33444139...@news.demon.co.uk>, Simon Gray
<URL:mailto:si...@star-one.org.uk> wrote:
>
> rhia...@llais.demon.co.uk (Rhiannon Macfie) recently Re-Educated us in
> the uk.religion.christian Facility thusly:
>
> ~ However, I think even modern sheep aren't as stupid as we think they are.
>
> Especially the ones that go flying into the shower after being abducted
> by aliens.
>
flock to lie down and form a bridge for the rest to walk over!!!!
- Andy
--
SkyPilot: an...@mcfamily.demon.co.uk
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires. William Blake
Martin Biddiscombe
Gareth McCaughan wrote:
>
> Whether or not predestination is right, I do not think any argument
> that goes "God is much bigger and more powerful than we puny humans
> are, so we must not question him" will do, because it amounts to a
> declaration that might is right; that since God is omnipotent, this
> means that he can do no ill.
>
"Might is right" was not really the argument I was trying to use in
favour of predestination (or that I'd use for anything else for that
matter). However, our inherent "puniness" in comparison to God is one of
the arguments I'd put forward against those who'd say "But I can't
believe that because it seems unfair/unreasonable/unjust" (about any
particular doctrine).
> The fact that we are puny does not of itself make us unimportant,
> and it does not of itself mean that we should not ask questions.
I agree. God has indeed given us enquiring minds and the ability to
reason and deduce.
However, one of the tendencies of sinful human nature is to elevate our
own reasoning abilities above, or on a par with, God and his Word. This
strikes me as being very similar to the temptation presented to Eve "You
will be like God - knowing good and evil". Pride - in one form or
another - very often lies at the root of sin.
When we come to Christ, we don't just accept his offer of forgiveness,
we must accept him as our Lord. This means submitting to him -
submitting our wills, emotions, desires and our minds to his authority.
This is why I said that, "As 'puny' humans ..." (perhaps I could have
worded it better).
Is this a better argument?
Perhaps I should ask: What arguments _should_ you use when explaining
doctrines or advocating courses of action which are 'distateful' in some
way to human nature? After all there are plenty of them (sin, hell, and
election for example).
Kind regards,
Martin
Mark Goodge
Simon Gray wrote:
>
> rhia...@llais.demon.co.uk (Rhiannon Macfie) recently Re-Educated us in
> the uk.religion.christian Facility thusly:
>
> ~ However, I think even modern sheep aren't as stupid as we think they are.
>
> Especially the ones that go flying into the shower after being abducted
> by aliens.
I dunno, they're still dumb enough to fall out of open windows!
Ben Edgington
Sorry for 10-day delay in replying... I've been away for a bit. Only
600 posts to read on my return, and almost all of them interesting!
p...@anweald.exnet.co.uk (Patrick Herring) writes:
> B.P.Ed...@reading.ac.uk writes in article <tg667yo...@met.rdg.ac.uk>:
> > Perhaps a distinction needs to be made between the "sin" and the
> > "punishment for sin". Jesus made provision for both on the cross, but
> > if we still hold onto our sin we are still liable for punishment
> >
> > The way I see it (which may well be shallow or wrong!) is that Jesus
> > took the /punishment/ for our sins on the cross: he didn't take the sin
> > away from us. He can though: "Come to me all you who are burdened and
> > heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Applies as much to sin as to
> > everything else. (1 Peter 2:24 might contradict this POV!)
> >
> > I like the analogy with cashing a cheque: Jesus has written the cheque
> > for our forgiveness (to pay our debt), but it's useless until we cash it
> > in. The funds are there, but we need to do something about it, that is,
> > to repent and believe.
>
> I have to admit that I reckon this to be one of the greatest mistakes that
> Christianity has made. IMHO It all comes from Paul's intellectualising, but
> Paul was not part of the original experience. I really can't make any sense of
> the idea that Jesus' death set up a sin-removal resource for us all to draw on
> if we so choose. He died because of sinfulness OK, he showed that it was
> possible to be human & be divine, ie sinless, OK, but that his death dealt
> with potentially all possible sin is just not a real meaning of 'dealt'.
Well, I have to say that I reckon that Jesus' /atoning/ death is the
masterpiece of Christianity! I went through all this with my
grandfather once ("I don't like all that 'blood' that St Paul introduced
into Christianity"): he's an ex-vicar.
The fact of the matter is that Isaiah sees the cross as atoning (Is
53:6); the writer to the Hebrews sees the cross as atoning (Heb 10:10);
Peter sees the cross as atoning (1 Pet 2:24); John sees the cross as
atoning (Rev 5:9, 1 John 2:2) and so on. I'll concede, perhaps, that
the /theology/ of atonement may have developed gradually (Jesus only
seemed to allude to it indirectly, eg. via Isaiah as he was "led like a
lamb to the slaughter", or via the link between the last supper and the
passover. Having said that, Matt 26:28 is pretty much atonement). But
so did the theology of the Trinity. Doesn't make it less true.
> Firstly, if it worked that way we'd find an instant change to sinlessness on
> accepting Jesus as our saviour, but that isn't what happens, we have to work
> to 'let Jesus in' as some people put it. What's the difference between having
> to work to 'let Jesus into our lives' to nullify the effects of sin, those
> sins already having been dealt with by Jesus as far as God is concerned, and
> having to work, with God's help, to nullify sinfulness just like Jesus did? In
> result nothing at all IMHO except the latter is much simpler & makes much more
> sense. To me Jesus is the great prover of what's possible, and I don't think
> he was the first or the last, but that's another story.
There are the well-known "three tenses of salvation"
(incidentally all to be found in 1 Peter 1:3-9)
I *have* been saved fron the *penalty* of sin: Justification
I *am* being saved from the *power* of sin: Sanctification
I *will* be saved from the *presence* of sin: Glorification
Don't forget the penalty! We like to thing of God as "love", which He
is. But he is also just. I think we underestimate our sin: it is
serious enough to engage God's *wrath*.
I don't understand what you mean by "nullifying sinfulness". Actually I
don't understand either of your statements. Neither view seems very
orthodox to me [which may be your position 8^) ]
> Secondly, where does it say that God wishes to punish sins without also
> saying, or implying, that being sinful is itself the 'punishment' because it
> just means we are separated from God? Can I put in a plea for metaphysical
> simplicity & clarity? Surely hell is here in us, as might be heaven? What's
> our physical death got to do with it? These are timeless states of being.
Hebrews 9:27 "...man is destined to die once and after that to face
judgement...". Yep, one in the eye for reincarnation too.
I hope I can make it to the get-together: I'm looking forward to meeting
you, Patrick, and seeing if our theologies have any common ground at
all! 8^)
God bless,
--
Ben Edgington :- b...@met.rdg.ac.uk +
+++++
"The Lord is good and his love endures forever" +
(Ps 100:5) +
Darlzie
Gareth McCaughan wrote:
> Martin Biddiscombe wrote:
> > The reason I have no 'intellectual' difficulty with predestination
> > (other than that I see it "writ large" in the bible) is that God is
> > God. He is holy, just, righteous and loving. We are all, by nature,
> > sinners and far from him. He would be absolutely entitled to leave
> > us in that state and save none at all. But, for the sake of his
> > love, he has chosen to save some. As 'puny' humans, we should not
> > presume to make this out to be unjust of God in any way. If God did
> > not actively choose some, then none would come, even if the route
> > were available - since by nature we all _hate_ God.
: Whether or not predestination is right, I do not think any argument
: that goes "God is much bigger and more powerful than we puny humans
: are, so we must not question him" will do, because it amounts to a
: declaration that might is right; that since God is omnipotent, this
: means that he can do no ill.
: The fact that we are puny does not of itself make us unimportant,
: and it does not of itself mean that we should not ask questions.
:
: happens, I don't believe it; but I am not going to argue it here,
: because this one always turns into a lengthy flamefest; if for some
: reason you feel desperate to change my mind, do it by e-mail); just
: to the arguments you are using here. Even if predestination is right,
: those arguments are wrong.
Well, I saw a program on C4 ages ago about fractal geometry, and
apparently the Mandelbrot set move inot smaller but almost identical
Mandelbrots. IIRC Arthur C. Clarke (who was presenting it) said
something about predestination and freewill being able to happen at the
same time, because even though the mandelbrot eqn [1] should result in
identical sets, you end up with slight variations. Now, to put this
topic on a _completely_ unscriptural basis, this means that if God has
an eqn for the universe, in the style of a fractal, then the resultant
picture always _looks_ similar, but has many variations on the detail.
Therefore the 'big picture' here (Christ-event, second coming etc) will
always happen but the little decisions that occur don't change that (God
did not decide what you guys were going to eat at the meet, and it
wouldn't matter if it were eating Chinese or Italian, because that would
have no effect on the 'big picture', only the detail surrounding it.
Or to put it another way - God is Lord over everything, including the
predestination/free-will paradox.
[1] z=z^2+c an amazing thing to get such infinite detail from this
rather simple eqn.
Gareth McCaughan
Mark Goodge wrote:
[sheep]
> I dunno, they're still dumb enough to fall out of open windows!
Unlike humans of course. (Acts 20:7-12.)
Simon Gray
darl...@aston.ac.uk (Darlzie) recently Re-Educated us in the
uk.religion.christian Facility thusly:
~ Therefore the 'big picture' here (Christ-event, second coming etc) will
~ always happen but the little decisions that occur don't change that (God
~ did not decide what you guys were going to eat at the meet, and it
~ wouldn't matter if it were eating Chinese or Italian, because that would
~ have no effect on the 'big picture', only the detail surrounding it.
Before I became a Christian I used to be of the opinion that everything
in the Universe worked to a path (had a 'destiny' if you like), but we
could slightly deviate from it - but only slightly. Imagine car driving
games - you can drive along the nice smooth road, & everything goes
swimmingly, but if you go onto the grass bit you find your progress much
impeded. So to take the analogy into Real Life, people are faced with
decisions all the time, & when they take the 'correct' decision they
stay on the road, when they take a dodgy decision they are moved onto
the grass, & start to find their life turbulent until they get the
opportunity to take another decision to put them back on the tarmac
again. I used to think that things such as severe mental breakdown were
caused by taking a decision that was so far off the 'correct path' that
one ended up motionless in the field on the other side of the fence,
requiring external assistance to bail one out.
I haven't now necessarily rejected this opinion, I have just yet to
formulate another one to supercede it based on faith...
--
Shakespeare's plots: There's this bloke, thinks he's cracked it, but he hasn't
http://www.mahayana.demon.co.uk/ <*>
Patrick Herring
In article <tg6n2rh...@met.rdg.ac.uk> you write:
> p...@anweald.exnet.co.uk (Patrick Herring) writes:
>
> > B.P.Ed...@reading.ac.uk writes in article <tg667yo...@met.rdg.ac.uk>:
> > > Perhaps a distinction needs to be made between the "sin" and the
> > > "punishment for sin". Jesus made provision for both on the cross, but
> > > if we still hold onto our sin we are still liable for punishment
...
> > I have to admit that I reckon this to be one of the greatest mistakes that
> > Christianity has made. IMHO It all comes from Paul's intellectualising, but
> > Paul was not part of the original experience. I really can't make any sense of
> > the idea that Jesus' death set up a sin-removal resource for us all to draw on
> > if we so choose. He died because of sinfulness OK, he showed that it was
> > possible to be human & be divine, ie sinless, OK, but that his death dealt
> > with potentially all possible sin is just not a real meaning of 'dealt'.
...
> The fact of the matter is that Isaiah sees the cross as atoning (Is
> 53:6); the writer to the Hebrews sees the cross as atoning (Heb 10:10);
> Peter sees the cross as atoning (1 Pet 2:24); John sees the cross as
> atoning (Rev 5:9, 1 John 2:2) and so on. I'll concede, perhaps, that
> the /theology/ of atonement may have developed gradually (Jesus only
> seemed to allude to it indirectly, eg. via Isaiah as he was "led like a
> lamb to the slaughter", or via the link between the last supper and the
> passover. Having said that, Matt 26:28 is pretty much atonement). But
> so did the theology of the Trinity. Doesn't make it less true.
Atoning in principle yes but actually dealing with my own sin? Surely not.
> > Firstly, if it worked that way we'd find an instant change to sinlessness on
> > accepting Jesus as our saviour, but that isn't what happens, we have to work
> > to 'let Jesus in' as some people put it. What's the difference between having
> > to work to 'let Jesus into our lives' to nullify the effects of sin, those
> > sins already having been dealt with by Jesus as far as God is concerned, and
> > having to work, with God's help, to nullify sinfulness just like Jesus did? In
> > result nothing at all IMHO except the latter is much simpler & makes much more
> > sense. To me Jesus is the great prover of what's possible, and I don't think
> > he was the first or the last, but that's another story.
>
> There are the well-known "three tenses of salvation"
> (incidentally all to be found in 1 Peter 1:3-9)
> I *have* been saved fron the *penalty* of sin: Justification
> I *am* being saved from the *power* of sin: Sanctification
> I *will* be saved from the *presence* of sin: Glorification
>
> Don't forget the penalty! We like to thing of God as "love", which He
> is. But he is also just. I think we underestimate our sin: it is
> serious enough to engage God's *wrath*.
This is the bit where I think I part from orthodoxy. I'm not aware of Jesus
saying anything about God needing to punish, even justly. He said 'the wages
of sin are death', which I understand as a tautology. The 'eternal damnation'
bit is that until our sinfulness is dealt with we will continue to experience
death, not that there's an everlasting punishment for having sinned, IMHO.
The other angle I approach this on is the free will one: the general
conclusion to that thread is, IMHO, that God has to allow us to make our own
mistakes else our lives & salvation are not meaningful ie being controlled
by another person leaves us as not responsible for our actions. Conversely if
God intervenes about our sin then that too makes our lives unmeaningful - we
have to take responsibility for our own sin & Jesus can have nothing to do
with it except by showing that we can in principle win through.
All the evidence points towards my interpretation IMHO. When have you observed
someone become sinless by 'accepting Jesus as Lord'? When have you observed
people suffering the consequences of their own sin & being better for having
overcome it? There must be Something Else besides 'accepting Jesus' for the
sin-removing factor to work, else we'd all be sinless, and that Something Else
needs clarification, to say the least.
> I don't understand what you mean by "nullifying sinfulness". Actually I
> don't understand either of your statements. Neither view seems very
> orthodox to me [which may be your position 8^) ]
I just meant 'to make it so that the sin never happened' which is what I
understand by your definition of Glorification & the idea that Jesus paid for
our sin on the Cross.
> > Secondly, where does it say that God wishes to punish sins without also
> > saying, or implying, that being sinful is itself the 'punishment' because it
> > just means we are separated from God? Can I put in a plea for metaphysical
> > simplicity & clarity? Surely hell is here in us, as might be heaven? What's
> > our physical death got to do with it? These are timeless states of being.
>
> Hebrews 9:27 "...man is destined to die once and after that to face
> judgement...". Yep, one in the eye for reincarnation too.
I disagree. I think I've written before that according to reincarnation 'man'
is our earthly existence whereas our Spirit is eternal, so this verse could
easily mean that you get judged after each earthly incarnation as to whether
you got that particular exercise right & if not you go back to do it again.
Seems quite straightforward & consistent with Christianity to me, though I
agree there's little support for such an interpretation in orthodoxy or the
Bible. <g>
> I hope I can make it to the get-together: I'm looking forward to meeting
> you, Patrick, and seeing if our theologies have any common ground at
> all! 8^)
Indeed!
yours, Patrick
_____________________________________________________________________________
Patrick Herring, Primrose Hill, London, UK
I tend to eat my UUCP feed once a day, so replies can take two days
--
Tom Tanner
In the Don Camillo books (Giovanni Guareschi) [there was a series from one
of the books on TV a while ago staring Brian Blessed and someone else who's
name I can't remember] Don Camillo had a conversation with Christ on the
Cross (the one in his church) about predestination. The view propounded by
the Christ was that you have absolutely no freedom in /what/ you do. You
will go to a particular place on a particular day, etc. The freedom of will
comes in /why/ you decide you will do it. Whether you do it for love, or for
God, or for yourself, etc. And that is what you will be judged upon in the
end.
Sometimes I find this view strangely convincing.
--
Thos
--
T. R. Tanner email: tteh...@argonet.co.uk; ZFC A; Clanorak and StrongArmed
web page: http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/ttehtann
Warning: Here be random taglines!
... I'm not nearly as think as you confused I am.
Annabel Smyth
Ben and Patrick are arguing:
(Ben's bits have two >s in front of them; Patrick's have one)
>> There are the well-known "three tenses of salvation"
>> (incidentally all to be found in 1 Peter 1:3-9)
>> I *have* been saved fron the *penalty* of sin: Justification
>> I *am* being saved from the *power* of sin: Sanctification
>> I *will* be saved from the *presence* of sin: Glorification
>>
>> Don't forget the penalty! We like to thing of God as "love", which He
>> is. But he is also just. I think we underestimate our sin: it is
>> serious enough to engage God's *wrath*.
>
>This is the bit where I think I part from orthodoxy. I'm not aware of Jesus
>saying anything about God needing to punish, even justly. He said 'the wages
>of sin are death', which I understand as a tautology. The 'eternal damnation'
>bit is that until our sinfulness is dealt with we will continue to experience
>death, not that there's an everlasting punishment for having sinned, IMHO.
>
Annabel jumps in:
The thing is, I wonder how much Jesus actually understood as to what he
was doing on the Cross! He knew he had to do it, and I think he was
fairly sure (most of the time) that God would raise him from death, but
he does not, as Patrick says, talk much about God needing to punish
(although I hate to point out that it was actually St Paul who said the
wages of sin is death, in Romans 6:23).
It was, however, St Paul who put the theology of what was happening into
words (okay, I know that's tautologous, but you know what I mean). Paul
had quite a lot to say about human sinfulness and the fact that the
Cross atoned for it, particularly in his letter to the Romans. And in
the letter to the Corinthians he writes "God was in Christ reconciling
the world to himself". It always blows my mind that he could write that
within 25 years of the crucifixion, when people who had witnessed it
would still be alive - perhaps even Jesus' mother, although she would be
rather elderly by then - who would be only too ready to refute Paul if
that *wasn't* what had happened.
However, there is also a strong tradition, dating back to Julian of
Norwich, that "there is no wrath in God". I refer you to some of the
excellent books by Robert Llewelyn, especially "Love bade me Welcome"
(Darton, Longman & Todd, 1984).
>The other angle I approach this on is the free will one: the general
>conclusion to that thread is, IMHO, that God has to allow us to make our own
>mistakes else our lives & salvation are not meaningful ie being controlled
>by another person leaves us as not responsible for our actions. Conversely if
>God intervenes about our sin then that too makes our lives unmeaningful - we
>have to take responsibility for our own sin & Jesus can have nothing to do
>with it except by showing that we can in principle win through.
I part company with you here. We have to take responsibility for our
own sin, yes, I agree. But we do so IN ORDER THAT we can then unload it
on to Jesus. We don't get stuck with it.
>
>All the evidence points towards my interpretation IMHO. When have you observed
>someone become sinless by 'accepting Jesus as Lord'? When have you observed
>people suffering the consequences of their own sin & being better for having
>overcome it? There must be Something Else besides 'accepting Jesus' for the
>sin-removing factor to work, else we'd all be sinless, and that Something Else
>needs clarification, to say the least.
We don't instantly become sinless, as well you know. But *God*
perceives us as sinless - I don't know how, or why, either, and like all
these truths about God it's only a partial picture.
Don't forget we distinguish between Justification - making it "Just as
if I'd" never sinned - and "Sanctification", the process of becoming
whole. The first is instantaneous, and can only happen by faith; the
second takes the rest of your life and perhaps, who knows, of eternity!
>> I hope I can make it to the get-together: I'm looking forward to meeting
>> you, Patrick, and seeing if our theologies have any common ground at
>> all! 8^)
>
The rest of us were looking forward to it, too.... For the benefit of
those who weren't there, they seemed to be getting on like a house on
fire every time I looked!
--
Annabel Smyth Ann...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
"Since the Other is patently exuberant in Her styles of creation, it seems
most unlike Him to have produced only one rational species" (Andrew M
Greeley)
Rhiannon Macfie
Tom Tanner put quill to parchment and scratchily scribed:
> In the Don Camillo books (Giovanni Guareschi)
I've read those! (My grandpa used to love them..) They're excellent!
Rhiannon
--
http://www.ed.ac.uk/~rhi ENTP
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"If you`re happy and you know it.. run up to a blind person at the crossing
and say - Beebeebeebeebeebeebeep! "
Rhiannon Macfie
Annabel Smyth put quill to parchment and scratchily scribed:
> Ben and Patrick are arguing:
> (Ben's bits have two >s in front of them; Patrick's have one)
> >> I hope I can make it to the get-together: I'm looking forward to meeting
> >> you, Patrick, and seeing if our theologies have any common ground at
> >> all! 8^)
> >
> The rest of us were looking forward to it, too.... For the benefit of
> those who weren't there, they seemed to be getting on like a house on
> fire every time I looked!
Flames, destruction, people running away screaming..
Rhiannon, who just *had* to post that..
--
http://www.ed.ac.uk/~rhi ENTP
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"Did you want a chat or did you want to speak to me?"
Robert Billing
In article <xaQxcdAt...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk>
Ann...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk "Annabel Smyth" writes:
> The thing is, I wonder how much Jesus actually understood as to what he
> was doing on the Cross!
I've always read "My God, why hast..." as being more exactly "Oh God,
it's not worked, I'm *dying for real*...", in other words, along with
all our sins Jesus experienced the sense of failure and separation that
is properly ours.
--
I am Robert Billing, Christian, inventor, traveller, cook and animal
lover, I live near 0:46W 51:22N. http://www.tnglwood.demon.co.uk/
"might there be some celestial tribunal at which a crafty advocate
could get a sinner off hell? ...my heart sank at the thought of
eternal work before a jury of prejudiced saints."
Robert Billing
In article <tg6zpvb...@met.rdg.ac.uk>
B.P.Ed...@reading.ac.uk "Ben Edgington" writes:
> Isn't God's wrath described as his "strange property" or something like
> that? It isn't a part of his nature, as love is, but is a reaction to
> sin.
If you think of sins as bugs in the universe that *have* to be fixed
if it is to run properly, it helps. Of course if God ever halts the
universe in the debugger to put a patch in, then we have a miracle...
Universe halted at breakpoint 42 at CA4A0000
>exam Jugs
Jugs[0:20]="Water"
>dep Jugs[0:20]="Decent plonk"
>continue
Universe continuing from breakpoint
Marc Read
In article <na.6e06af4776....@argonet.co.uk>, Tom Tanner
<tteh...@argonet.co.uk> writes
>In the Don Camillo books (Giovanni Guareschi) [there was a series from one
>of the books on TV a while ago staring Brian Blessed and someone else who's
>name I can't remember]
...Ah yes, I remember them (the books, not the TV series). "The Little
World of Don Camillo," no?...
>Don Camillo had a conversation with Christ on the
>Cross (the one in his church) about predestination. The view propounded by
>the Christ was that you have absolutely no freedom in /what/ you do. You
>will go to a particular place on a particular day, etc. The freedom of will
>comes in /why/ you decide you will do it. Whether you do it for love, or for
>God, or for yourself, etc. And that is what you will be judged upon in the
>end.
>
>Sometimes I find this view strangely convincing.
>
Hmmm. Indeed, that does sound attractive. However, it's still flawed -
why should someone's brain processes be qualitatively different from
their macroscopic physical movements?[1] (If anybody mentions Quantum
Mechanics, I'll scream.)
Freewill/Determinism is one of the few philosophical issues where I
really feel that I'm bashing my head against a brick wall whenever I
think about it. I'm convinced that we have freewill - I also cannot see
how that could possibly be the case. This sometimes worries me.
I've come to the compromise of insisting that it's an undecidable
question. Consider two possible worlds, A (where humans have freewill)
and B (where they don't). How could we possibly ever tell the difference
between them? People would still act in exactly the same way... It
confuses me when people say that whether we are free or not makes a
difference to how we should behave. This seems to be misunderstanding
the issue - if we *are* determined, we always have been. We *have* a
notion of moral responsibility, whether it's grounded in freewill or
causally determined structures.
I guess this makes me a Humean compatibilist[2]. And I always thought
that was such a *wishy-washy* position. Oh well, I s'pose it goes with
the Anglicanism[3]... <g>
Marc
[1] You'll note that I'm assuming some kind of mind/brain link here.
This would require separate arguing, but is a bit off the current topic.
[2] Someone who defines freedom as something like "feeling free" so that
the whole conflict disappears. See Hume's Enquiry Concerning the Human
Understading for the modern origin of this position. (Or his Treatise if
you're feeling strong.)
[3] A preacher I heard on the fact that the English always seek
compromise: "In Roman Catholic, or Lutheran, countries, non-believers
tend to be atheists. In Anglican countries, they are agnostics."
--
Marc Read http://www.rauko.demon.co.uk <*> ma...@rauko.demon.co.uk
"Do we ask what profit the little bird hopes for in singing? We know that
singing in itself is a joy for him because he was created for singing. We
must not ask therefore why the human spirit takes such trouble to find out
the secret of the skies." (Kepler, 1596)
Patrick Herring
B.P.Ed...@reading.ac.uk writes in article <tg6zpvb...@met.rdg.ac.uk>:> Well, I prefer to think of it as "constructively discussing".
Indeed. I used to be argumentative but now I'd have to take issue with that...
> > (Ben's bits have two >s in front of them; Patrick's have one)
> Now > >> > >
And now > > >> > > >
>
> > >> There are the well-known "three tenses of salvation"
> > >> (incidentally all to be found in 1 Peter 1:3-9)
> > >> I *have* been saved from the *penalty* of sin: Justification
> > >> I *am* being saved from the *power* of sin: Sanctification
> > >> I *will* be saved from the *presence* of sin: Glorification
> > >>
> > >> Don't forget the penalty! We like to think of God as "love", which He
> > >> is. But He is also just. I think we underestimate our sin: it is
> > >> serious enough to engage God's *wrath*.
> > >
> > >This is the bit where I think I part from orthodoxy. I'm not aware of Jesus
> > >saying anything about God needing to punish, even justly. He said 'the wages
> > >of sin are death', which I understand as a tautology. The 'eternal damnation'
> > >bit is that until our sinfulness is dealt with we will continue to experience
> > >death, not that there's an everlasting punishment for having sinned, IMHO.
> > >
> > Annabel jumps in:
> >
> > The thing is, I wonder how much Jesus actually understood as to what he
> > was doing on the Cross! He knew he had to do it, and I think he was
> > fairly sure (most of the time) that God would raise him from death, but
> > he does not, as Patrick says, talk much about God needing to punish
> > (although I hate to point out that it was actually St Paul who said the
> > wages of sin is death, in Romans 6:23).
Oh dear oh dear. I really must get one of those e-Bibles so I can check my
facts easily.
> Yes, I grant that he doesn't say a /lot/ --- I think it was implicit in
> Jewish thought anyway; the OT has an awful lot to say about God's
> judgment on sin --- he talks more about forgiveness for sins, and he
> clearly knew that the cross was to do with forgiveness of sins.
Yes but, as Annabel says, it isn't that clear. The're few clues in the Passion
narratives. The closest I can find is John 17:1-2: These words spake Jesus,
and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify
thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over
all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
But from nearby verses they whom 'thou hast given him' are the disciples, not
the whole human race. In John 16:7 Jesus explains that only if he 'departs'
(KJV) can he send them the Holy Spirit, and again he's talking only about the
disciples. This coheres with the view I've heard expressed in the esoteric
tradition that the crucifiction dealt only with the disciples' remaining karma
so that they could be unitied with God/become divine like Jesus had been in
order to carry on the work. Given the scale of what the human body can stand
this makes more sense to me.
> But I
> think it's hard to recast passages like the wheat and tares, or the
> sheep and the goats, or Matthew 18:8,9 in terms of reincarnation. The
> division between the two sides is absolute and unbridgeable (Eg the
> Lazarus and Dives story).
Hmm, don't quite see the problem with those texts. 'Everlasting' just means
'eternal' which just means 'outside time' ie at a higher level than the normal
level of human life. I dragged in r & k just for a side-point really, they're
not essential to my contribution here, though I find finding the concepts
meaningful a help. As you said on Saturday Christianity is definitely a
revealed religion, & reincarnation doesn't seem to have been included in Ver
1.0, though karma was ('as ye sow so shall ye reap').
> If Patrick's POV is correct then why do we need this forgiveness? What
> was Jesus doing on the cross? And a million other questions spring to
> mind...
I suppose we need forgiving because we need forgiving. We get stuck in guilt
for the things we do, and it becomes a barrier to progress. My POV is that
for the purpose of becoming closer to God the thing to do is to stop sinning &
to deal with the results of past sin; being forgiven doesn't achieve either of
those in itself.
> Reincarnation and good karma are simply inadequate to bring us
> to God, if He is just and holy as I take Him to be. No matter how many
> goes I get I am never going to get to God - I need to be rescued.by Him.
I'm sure r & k aren't enough (in fact one has to get rid of good karma as much
as bad - attachment is the cause of suffering, man) - they just give a
realistic timescale in which to imagine being able to get somewhere for real,
as opposed to having to get someone else to do the work. And I agree we can't
get to God by our own efforts. Rather I'm talking about the stages of
preparation, of stopping being sinful and of dealing with karma, which we have
to do ourselves essentially (I'm sure God helps us) otherwise it isn't real.
The last stage is a matter for God. I read recently (in 'Initiation' by
Elisabeth Haich - an excellent & intriguing read) the view that the last stage
(in her terms, becoming divine) consists of the divine recognising itself in
the person rather than the person themselves taking the final step. We
Christians express the stages of preparation in terms of 'letting Christ in'
eg the RC sets great store by Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ which
is essentially a series of exercises & advice for shifting the emotions
towards 'what they should be'. I'm not suggesting that that sort of thing is
sufficient but that it is necessary and that it involves real and concentrated
work & so I'm against the view that we should give up & hope that Jesus will
do it all for us.
> > It was, however, St Paul who put the theology of what was happening into
> > words (okay, I know that's tautologous, but you know what I mean). Paul
> > had quite a lot to say about human sinfulness and the fact that the
> > Cross atoned for it, particularly in his letter to the Romans. And in
> > the letter to the Corinthians he writes "God was in Christ reconciling
> > the world to himself". It always blows my mind that he could write that
> > within 25 years of the crucifixion, when people who had witnessed it
> > would still be alive - perhaps even Jesus' mother, although she would be
> > rather elderly by then - who would be only too ready to refute Paul if
> > that *wasn't* what had happened.
>
> Agreed!
My impression of Mary is that she wasn't the type to argue words, and even if
she did can we be sure that she would have got into print at that time?
> > However, there is also a strong tradition, dating back to Julian of
> > Norwich, that "there is no wrath in God". I refer you to some of the
> > excellent books by Robert Llewelyn, especially "Love bade me Welcome"
> > (Darton, Longman & Todd, 1984).
Interesting. And the phrase 'hate the sin, love the sinner' must go back right
to Jesus (well, not the exact words) since that seems to have been his
reaction to sinful people.
> Isn't God's wrath described as his "strange property" or something like
> that? It isn't a part of his nature, as love is, but is a reaction to
> sin.
Never heard of that. Surely if it's God's reaction it's part of God's nature
to so react... God's wrath is an OT way of putting it IMHO.
> <snip>
>
> > Don't forget we distinguish between Justification - making it "Just as
> > if I'd" never sinned - and "Sanctification", the process of becoming
> > whole. The first is instantaneous, and can only happen by faith; the
> > second takes the rest of your life and perhaps, who knows, of eternity!
>
> Don't forget Glorification (see three tenses at the top), that's when
> sanctification will end!
Why do I hear 'Justification' as meaning that without Jesus God would probably
just blow us away because he 'didn't like the look in our eye'? It's difficult
to square this apparent need to be persuaded even to consider us with his
having created & done so much for us. Can't we stop thinking of God as having
a monocle, a huge beard & a penchant for shouting 'Fire, damn you' at the
servants? I certainly don't hear it as meaning making it as if I'd never
sinned - that's what, to me, you've got 'Sanctification' as meaning.
> > >> I hope I can make it to the get-together: I'm looking forward to meeting
> > >> you, Patrick, and seeing if our theologies have any common ground at
> > >> all! 8^)
> > >
> > The rest of us were looking forward to it, too.... For the benefit of
> > those who weren't there, they seemed to be getting on like a house on
> > fire every time I looked!
>
> Well, due to tiredness, I think, we didn't cover a whole lot of ground.
> Pleased to find, though, that Patrick wasn't wearing orange robes, and
> either he hadn't shaved his head, or he had a very convincing wig 8^)
Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..........
Jenny Read
Well, back from the meet, and now that I've met quite a lot of you I
find that I want to post a lot more! Unfortunately, I've still got a
couple of hundred posts to read, and not a lot of time. But I may as
well start here! I would join in this interesting discussion on the
Atonement, but unfortunately this is one of the many areas of theology
where I just don't have a clue *what* to believe. I just have to trust
that somehow or another it's all taken care of! However, I've been
meaning to ask Patrick about reincarnation for a while...
Patrick Herring wrote:
> I disagree. I think I've written before that according to reincarnation 'man'
> is our earthly existence whereas our Spirit is eternal, so this verse could
> easily mean that you get judged after each earthly incarnation as to whether
> you got that particular exercise right & if not you go back to do it again.
> Seems quite straightforward & consistent with Christianity to me, though I
> agree there's little support for such an interpretation in orthodoxy or the
> Bible. <g>
>
The problem I have with reincarnation is trying to imagine *what* might
possibly be reincarnated. It has to be "me" in some meaningful sense,
otherwise it wouldn't be reincarnation, obviously! But who "I" am is
strongly influenced by the body "I" occupy, surely? Its genes, what's
happened to it during its life and so on. In fact, I don't think it
makes sense to talk of a soul that can be separated from its body at
all.
This is quite a departure for me, as previously (without thinking about
it a lot), I'd held quite a "Greek" view, in which the soul occupied the
body much as a pilot does a ship, in Aristotle's imagery. But I thought
quite a lot about the subject last year when I was doing an Open
University course on Brain & Behaviour, and I kept coming across
examples of how what was going on in your brain could affect *you* as a
person.
One way of understanding this is to take quite a dualistic view, as I
think CS Lewis does in eg "Mere Christianity". He seems to view a soul
as *in* a body, but separate from it. During our life what happens to
the body affects the soul, but the soul is then removed and "inspected"
independently of the body. Similarly you can't tell what the soul is
like from observing someone's physical actions, as their soul has been
"filtered" through their body. (I'm not putting this very well, but
suppose someone commits an atrocious act. You can't really judge the
state of their soul, because they may be subject to a terrible
temptation from their body which they have heroically resisted up till
now.) I think you must have to take a very extreme dualistic view in
order for reincarnation to be feasible.
However, I think I'd prefer to take a more unified view, in which what I
am is expressed by what my body is now - this could in theory include
the state of my synapses, levels of neurotransmitter, or indeed blood
sugar - all this expresses who I am. This finally helped me to make
sense of what had always seemed to me the problematic idea of the
resurrection of the body. Surely, when you die you leave space and time,
and join God in eternity? So how can you possibly have a physical body?
And yet Paul insists that we shall! I now understand the doctrine as
recognising the indivisibility of soul and body. Who I am is expressed
in my physical makeup, my genes, my brain chemistry. But God will
somehow or other preserve that identity even after the death of my
physical body.
I think this understanding is probably impossible to reconcile with
reincarnation, since if you put "me" into a different body with
different genes, different environment, different experience, it could
no longer be *me* at all!
I find thinking about all this stuff very confusing, so feel free to put
me right!
Jenny
Lionel Jones
In article: <860506...@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> uncl...@tnglwood.demon.co.uk (Robert
>
> In article <xaQxcdAt...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk>
> Ann...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk "Annabel Smyth" writes:
>
> > was doing on the Cross!
>
> it's not worked, I'm *dying for real*...", in other words, along with
> all our sins Jesus experienced the sense of failure and separation that
> is properly ours.
>
incompatible with omniscience. The man who died on the cross suffered as we
would have done, physically and mentally. He thought he had failed and that
was the end. I can't believe he hung there thinking "I know something you
don't know, I'll be back again in three days! It may hurt now but everything's
going to come out all right at the end of the film."
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Lionel Jones EMail lio...@ucott.demon.co.uk |
| |
| Jesus came to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable |
| which are you? |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael J Davis
In article <Yp01jPAv...@rauko.demon.co.uk>, Marc Read
<Ma...@rauko.demon.co.uk> writes
>
>Freewill/Determinism is one of the few philosophical issues where I
>really feel that I'm bashing my head against a brick wall whenever I
>think about it. I'm convinced that we have freewill - I also cannot see
>how that could possibly be the case. This sometimes worries me.
>
>I've come to the compromise of insisting that it's an undecidable
>question. Consider two possible worlds, A (where humans have freewill)
>and B (where they don't). How could we possibly ever tell the difference
>between them? People would still act in exactly the same way... It
>confuses me when people say that whether we are free or not makes a
>difference to how we should behave. This seems to be misunderstanding
>the issue - if we *are* determined, we always have been. We *have* a
>notion of moral responsibility, whether it's grounded in freewill or
>causally determined structures.
A couple of years ago, IIRC, there were a number of TV
programmes/debates about science v. Christianity. In one I remember two
Christians were arguing that we had freewill, and some scientist was
arguing that we couldn't behave any other way than we were made to by
our genes!
The scientist was becoming more and more frustrated at the apparent
recalcitrance of the christians, and eventually exploded with anger
saying that he couldn't understand how sensible people could believe
what they believed!
It was quite clear from his behaviour that he really did believe that
they had freewill! I've regretted ever since not having videoed it!
(If anyone recalls it, I'd like to know who it was....)
But then I just had to post this, didn't I? :-)
>
>I guess this makes me a Humean compatibilist[2]. And I always thought
>that was such a *wishy-washy* position. Oh well, I s'pose it goes with
>the Anglicanism[3]... <g>
>
>Marc
>
>[1] You'll note that I'm assuming some kind of mind/brain link here.
>This would require separate arguing, but is a bit off the current topic.
I'd tend to assume a God-mind link too!
[Marc's other intresting comments snipped]
Mike
--
Michael J Davis mi...@trustsof.demon.co.uk
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "One is sometimes glad not to be a great theologian; |
| one might so easily mistake it for being a good Christian." CSL |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Alan Zanker
lio...@ucott.demon.co.uk (Lionel Jones) wrote:
>Agreed! I have always felt that the humanity of 'Jesus the man' is
>incompatible with omniscience. The man who died on the cross suffered as we
>would have done, physically and mentally. He thought he had failed and that
>was the end. I can't believe he hung there thinking "I know something you
>don't know, I'll be back again in three days! It may hurt now but everything's
>going to come out all right at the end of the film."
I think you're right. A dark and hopeless sense of failure and
rejection is surely one of the things Jesus had to bear in order to
redeem us, though the writer to the Hebrews doesn't seem to agree -
Heb:12.2 'Jesus ... who for the joy that was set before him endured
the cross ...'
Alan
--
Alan Zanker | e-mail:al...@bittern.demon.co.uk
Leeds |
David Aldridge
Jenny Read wrote:
> However, I think I'd prefer to take a more unified view, in which what I
> am is expressed by what my body is now - this could in theory include
> the state of my synapses, levels of neurotransmitter, or indeed blood
> sugar - all this expresses who I am. This finally helped me to make
> sense of what had always seemed to me the problematic idea of the
> resurrection of the body. Surely, when you die you leave space and time,
> and join God in eternity? So how can you possibly have a physical body?
> And yet Paul insists that we shall! I now understand the doctrine as
> recognising the indivisibility of soul and body. Who I am is expressed
> in my physical makeup, my genes, my brain chemistry. But God will
> somehow or other preserve that identity even after the death of my
> physical body.
I'm not quite certian why the resurrection of the body is problematic.
Jesus body was resurrected, and though there were obviously some
differences (he could walk through walls, vanish without trace, etc)
there were also similarities (he ate and drank, was able to be touched,
still had his "mortal" wounds, etc).
Whether this is what it will be like for *us* when we are resurrected, I
don't know, but I think the idea of being one with God should be just as
possible as people with bodies as without, for God can indwell us
completely when we are made anew without sin.
There are certainly plenty of passages which imply we will be
resurrected back to a new earth to rule apon it, though I guess these
are also open to interpretation.
Thoughtfully.....
David
--
David C. Aldridge <><
email: emp...@brunel.ac.uk / d...@ray.npl.co.uk
WWW: http://http1.brunel.ac.uk:8080/~empgdca/
- To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion.
Annabel Smyth
On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Lionel Jones wrote:
>In article: <860506...@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> uncl...@tnglwood.demon.co.uk
>(Robert
>Billing) writes:
>>
>> I've always read "My God, why hast..." as being more exactly "Oh God,
>> it's not worked, I'm *dying for real*...", in other words, along with
>> all our sins Jesus experienced the sense of failure and separation that
>> is properly ours.
>>
>incompatible with omniscience. The man who died on the cross suffered as we
>would have done, physically and mentally. He thought he had failed and that
>was the end. I can't believe he hung there thinking "I know something you
>don't know, I'll be back again in three days! It may hurt now but everything's
>going to come out all right at the end of the film."
>
not at all sure if he could go through with it. In theory he may have
known that he would be raised - but knowing in theory and knowing in
your guts are two different things, and I don't think Jesus *did* know
it in his guts! He was as scared as you or I would have been.
--
Annabel Smyth Ann...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/ - updated 6 April 1997
Robert Billing
In article <334A9A...@thphys.ox.ac.uk>
re...@thphys.ox.ac.uk "Jenny Read" writes:
> One way of understanding this is to take quite a dualistic view, as I
> think CS Lewis does in eg "Mere Christianity". He seems to view a soul
> as *in* a body, but separate from it. During our life what happens to
> the body affects the soul, but the soul is then removed and "inspected"
If you think of the brain as a "thing" and the soul as a "state",
rather like a hard disk and the information contained on it, then what
I think happens is that God has a record of the state (a backup if you
like) which can be reinstalled in the new body after the resurrection.
However faults in the hardware can affect the state, and reinstalling
the backup under an OS that doesn't crash will help.
However the fact that God is taking backups will never show up when
you study the brain, so please allow the scientists to study mind &
brain without looking for the soul, because that isn't where it is.
Please feel free to extend this anology until it disintegrates...
BTW I wonder if anyone will identify *this* .sig quote?
Annabel Smyth
On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Jenny Read wrote:
>The problem I have with reincarnation is trying to imagine *what* might
>possibly be reincarnated. It has to be "me" in some meaningful sense,
>otherwise it wouldn't be reincarnation, obviously! But who "I" am is
>strongly influenced by the body "I" occupy, surely? Its genes, what's
>happened to it during its life and so on. In fact, I don't think it
>makes sense to talk of a soul that can be separated from its body at
>all.
>
but they can't be separated.
My own argument with reincarnation is that if I were to be born again
I'd still be human and sinful, and would still need the atoning power of
Jesus' death and resurrection. But Jesus already did that for me in
*this* life, so why would I need it in a potential future one? Plus, if
I have eternal life, as my Bible tells me I do, how can I be
reincarnated, since I don't ever stop being me?
Marc Read
In article <334A9A...@thphys.ox.ac.uk>, Jenny Read
<re...@thphys.ox.ac.uk> writes
<big big snip concerning 'Ghost in the Machine' Substance-Dualism>
>
>However, I think I'd prefer to take a more unified view, in which what I
>am is expressed by what my body is now - this could in theory include
>the state of my synapses, levels of neurotransmitter, or indeed blood
>sugar - all this expresses who I am.
Is this *all* that goes to "express you"? In other words, is soul (or
mind) completely reducible to physical states? If so, it might be hard
to retain a strong concept of free-will. I don't say that this is a
disadvantage, mind, just point it out as a consequence.
>This finally helped me to make
>sense of what had always seemed to me the problematic idea of the
>resurrection of the body. Surely, when you die you leave space and time,
>and join God in eternity? So how can you possibly have a physical body?
>And yet Paul insists that we shall! I now understand the doctrine as
>recognising the indivisibility of soul and body. Who I am is expressed
>in my physical makeup, my genes, my brain chemistry. But God will
>somehow or other preserve that identity even after the death of my
>physical body.
>
An attractive thought - maybe it's the relations between the various
physical bits and pieces that makes up "me", and so those relations
could be instantiated in other forms than a physical body.
However, this seems to run up against Searle's Chinese Room problem. [1]
Imagine a man locked in a room. People hand Chinese questions to him. He
doesn't understand them, but has a great big rulebook which tells him
exactly how to write Chinese squiggles that will answer the question.
The Room-and-man-system seems to "understand" Chinese; it instantiates
all the right relations. But, claims Searle, we wouldn't say that the
Room-and-man-system *understands* anything. In other words, the pattern
of relations needs to be instantiated in *the right sort of material* -
in this case, in a physical body.
>I think this understanding is probably impossible to reconcile with
>reincarnation, since if you put "me" into a different body with
>different genes, different environment, different experience, it could
>no longer be *me* at all!
>
True. An exercise for the reader: complete the everyday phrase "If I
were you..." (Answer: "...I would do exactly what you will, in fact,
do.")
>I find thinking about all this stuff very confusing, so feel free to put
>me right!
>
> Jenny
>
This is spooky. Following up my wife's post, when she is sitting three
feet to my right...
Marc
[1] John R. Searle, "Minds, Brains and Programs" (The Behavioural and
Brain Sciences 3 (1980): 417-24)
--
Marc Read http://www.rauko.demon.co.uk <*> ma...@rauko.demon.co.uk
"I beg you, my friends, do not condemn me completely to the drudgery of
arithmetical calculations, but allow me to have some time for philosophical
speculations, which are my only delight." (Kepler, 1619)
Rhiannon Macfie
Robert Billing put quill to parchment and scratchily scribed:
> Please feel free to extend this anology until it disintegrates...
>
> BTW I wonder if anyone will identify *this* .sig quote?
>
> --
> I am Robert Billing, Christian, inventor, traveller, cook and animal
> lover, I live near 0:46W 51:22N. http://www.tnglwood.demon.co.uk/
> "might there be some celestial tribunal at which a crafty advocate
> could get a sinner off hell? ...my heart sank at the thought of
> eternal work before a jury of prejudiced saints."
>
Sounds vaguely Rumpolian..
Rhiannon
--
http://www.ed.ac.uk/~rhi ENTP
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
My disk space is valuable. I therefore charge a handling fee for any
unsolicited commercial email I receive. See my conditions at
http://www.ed.ac.uk/~rhi/conditions.html for further details.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You can plug that in at the wall if you want"
"Thanks. Where's the wall?"
Mike Pellatt
On Tue, 08 Apr 97 13:39:47 GMT, Robert Billing <uncl...@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> If you think of sins as bugs in the universe that *have* to be fixed
>if it is to run properly, it helps. Of course if God ever halts the
>universe in the debugger to put a patch in, then we have a miracle...
>
> Universe halted at breakpoint 42 at CA4A0000
>>exam Jugs
>Jugs[0:20]="Water"
>>dep Jugs[0:20]="Decent plonk"
>>continue
>
> Universe continuing from breakpoint
What a loveley description of a miracle.
I like it.
--
Mike Pellatt
Jenny
In article <334B7C...@brunel.ac.uk>, David Aldridge
<emp...@brunel.ac.uk> writes
>Jenny Read wrote:
>
>> This finally helped me to make
>> sense of what had always seemed to me the problematic idea of the
>> resurrection of the body. Surely, when you die you leave space and time,
>> and join God in eternity? So how can you possibly have a physical body?
>> And yet Paul insists that we shall! I now understand the doctrine as
>> recognising the indivisibility of soul and body. Who I am is expressed
>> in my physical makeup, my genes, my brain chemistry. But God will
>> somehow or other preserve that identity even after the death of my
>> physical body.
>
>Jesus body was resurrected, and though there were obviously some
>differences (he could walk through walls, vanish without trace, etc)
>there were also similarities (he ate and drank, was able to be touched,
>still had his "mortal" wounds, etc).
>
>Whether this is what it will be like for *us* when we are resurrected,
I
>don't know, but I think the idea of being one with God should be just
as
>possible as people with bodies as without, for God can indwell us
>completely when we are made anew without sin.
>
>There are certainly plenty of passages which imply we will be
>resurrected back to a new earth to rule apon it, though I guess these
>are also open to interpretation.
Ah well, you see, I don't think I currently believe that we will be
resurrected back to this universe. For one thing, it's hard for me to
see how we could be truly united with God if this were so. I think we'll
probably leave all this spacetime stuff behind when we die! So, as I
tried to explain, the resurrection body can't be literally a body,
because that's a physical object, and hence cannot exist except in this
physical universe. That was my problem! It's yet another paradox: as
Annabel said, body-and-soul can't be separated, the body ceases to
function when we die, and yet what makes us *us* is somehow preserved. I
tend to interpret all the "new earth", heavenly city stuff as being
metaphorical - indeed, it could hardly be otherwise! But of course, like
everyone else, I really haven't a clue what happens when we die. It's
probably fruitless to speculate, except I find myself formulating ideas
on the subject almost unconsciously.
--
Jenny
Jenny
> If you think of the brain as a "thing" and the soul as a "state",
>rather like a hard disk and the information contained on it, then what
>I think happens is that God has a record of the state (a backup if you
>like) which can be reinstalled in the new body after the resurrection.
>However faults in the hardware can affect the state, and reinstalling
>the backup under an OS that doesn't crash will help.
I think this is the sort of view I was trying to put across - although
you put it in characteristically more computer-oriented terms :-)
>
> Please feel free to extend this anology until it disintegrates...
>
I rather like it!
> BTW I wonder if anyone will identify *this* .sig quote?
>
Hmm... One of the "Rumpole" books?
--
Jenny
Richard Herring
In article <860569...@tnglwood.demon.co.uk>, Robert Billing
<uncl...@tnglwood.demon.co.uk> wrote
>BTW I wonder if anyone will identify *this* .sig quote?
>could get a sinner off hell? ...my heart sank at the thought of
>eternal work before a jury of prejudiced saints."
>
At least it looks like Rumpole, and I think I know which one, though I
can't remember the title. Unfortunately my library is in chaos and
carrier bags, as a result of having the double-glazers in in November,
so I can't verify it.
But would the judge be Mr Justice "Mad Bull" Bullingham, or Somebody
altogether more awe-inspiring? Even so, I can hear Horace reminding the
jury that they alone are the judge of the facts...
--
Richard Herring <ric...@clupeid.demon.co.uk>
Ben Edgington
Lots snipped.
>>>>> "PH" == Patrick Herring <p...@anweald.exnet.co.uk> writes:
>>>>> "BE" == me (Ben Edgington)
BE> Yes, I grant that he doesn't say a /lot/ --- I think it was implicit
BE> in Jewish thought anyway; the OT has an awful lot to say about God's
BE> judgment on sin --- he talks more about forgiveness for sins, and he
BE> clearly knew that the cross was to do with forgiveness of sins.
PH> Yes but, as Annabel says, it isn't that clear. The're few clues in
PH> the Passion narratives. The closest I can find is John 17:1-2: These
PH> words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said,
PH> Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may
PH> glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he
PH> should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. But
PH> from nearby verses they whom 'thou hast given him' are the
PH> disciples, not the whole human race. In John 16:7 Jesus explains
PH> that only if he 'departs' (KJV) can he send them the Holy Spirit,
PH> and again he's talking only about the disciples. This coheres with
PH> the view I've heard expressed in the esoteric tradition that the
PH> crucifiction dealt only with the disciples' remaining karma so that
PH> they could be unitied with God/become divine like Jesus had been in
PH> order to carry on the work. Given the scale of what the human body
PH> can stand this makes more sense to me.
Well, there's Matt 26:28, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is
poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." This is pretty clear,
and I would find it hard to limit the "many" here to the disciples.
BE> But I think it's hard to recast passages like the wheat and tares,
BE> or the sheep and the goats, or Matthew 18:8,9 in terms of
BE> reincarnation. The division between the two sides is absolute and
BE> unbridgeable (Eg the Lazarus and Dives story).
PH> Hmm, don't quite see the problem with those texts. 'Everlasting'
PH> just means 'eternal' which just means 'outside time' ie at a higher
PH> level than the normal level of human life. I dragged in r & k just
PH> for a side-point really, they're not essential to my contribution
PH> here, though I find finding the concepts meaningful a help. As you
PH> said on Saturday Christianity is definitely a revealed religion, &
PH> reincarnation doesn't seem to have been included in Ver 1.0, though
PH> karma was ('as ye sow so shall ye reap').
The problem is the division: at some point people are divided into two
disjoint groups, with separate destinies, and no possibility of
change-over. Implicit, IMO, and sometimes explicit in the Bible is the
idea that this division occurs after our death: there is no second
chance. I can understand the impulse to soften this line, but feel that
in the end it is a dangerous thing to do.
BE> If Patrick's POV is correct then why do we need this forgiveness?
BE> What was Jesus doing on the cross? And a million other questions
BE> spring to mind...
PH> I suppose we need forgiving because we need forgiving. We get stuck
PH> in guilt for the things we do, and it becomes a barrier to
PH> progress. My POV is that for the purpose of becoming closer to God
PH> the thing to do is to stop sinning & to deal with the results of
PH> past sin; being forgiven doesn't achieve either of those in itself.
Yes, I sort of agree with you here... 8^)
BE> Reincarnation and good karma are simply inadequate to bring us to
BE> God, if He is just and holy as I take Him to be. No matter how many
BE> goes I get I am never going to get to God - I need to be rescued.by
BE> Him.
PH> I'm sure r & k aren't enough (in fact one has to get rid of good
PH> karma as much as bad - attachment is the cause of suffering, man) -
PH> they just give a realistic timescale in which to imagine being able
PH> to get somewhere for real, as opposed to having to get someone else
PH> to do the work. And I agree we can't get to God by our own
PH> efforts. Rather I'm talking about the stages of preparation, of
PH> stopping being sinful and of dealing with karma, which we have to do
PH> ourselves essentially (I'm sure God helps us) otherwise it isn't
PH> real. The last stage is a matter for God.
The thief on the cross is in my mind, as he was mentioned in another
thread. Would his "preparation" have been visible? I mean, he didn't
appear particularly prepared, or to have had long to become so. I don't
suppose he had been particularly interested in becoming sinless for
long, but in a matter of minutes he was "saved".
The pharisee and the tax collector is another one; the tax collector was
a sinful man. Thankfully, our working towards sinlessness is not a
preparation for salvation, but a result of it. The *first* stage is a
matter for God!
PH> I read recently (in
PH> 'Initiation' by Elisabeth Haich - an excellent & intriguing read)
PH> the view that the last stage (in her terms, becoming divine)
PH> consists of the divine recognising itself in the person rather than
PH> the person themselves taking the final step. We Christians express
PH> the stages of preparation in terms of 'letting Christ in' eg the RC
PH> sets great store by Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ which
PH> is essentially a series of exercises & advice for shifting the
PH> emotions towards 'what they should be'. I'm not suggesting that that
PH> sort of thing is sufficient but that it is necessary and that it
PH> involves real and concentrated work & so I'm against the view that
PH> we should give up & hope that Jesus will do it all for us.
Praise God! The RC's and I agree on something! "The Imitation of
Christ" is one of my favourite second-hand bookshop finds, the first
couple of books anyway, before he gets onto some of the dodgier stuff
about the mass. Wonderful stuff.
Again I think you've got things back to front: "letting Christ in" is
the /second/ tense of salvation. And I certainly agree that we should
not give up and hope that Jesus will do it all for us.
Eg look at Rom 8:1 "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus," because (v3) "God [sent] his own Son in the
likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering."
This is past, the first tense of salvation, but with present
consequences, v12,13 "Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it
is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live
according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you
put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,
<snip>
PH> Why do I hear 'Justification' as meaning that without Jesus God
PH> would probably just blow us away because he 'didn't like the look in
PH> our eye'? It's difficult to square this apparent need to be
PH> persuaded even to consider us with his having created & done so much
PH> for us.
That's exactly the point! God has done *so* much for us, and we have
dumped on Him in such an apalling way that we couldn't possibly expect
Him to save us. Yet He does! Wonderful, wonderful cross.
God's heart is broken by our sin. If you want a vivid and disturbing
picture of this then read Ezekiel chapter 16. Sometimes I cry when I
read this. (verse 63 is an amazing prophecy of the cross, after *all*
*this* God still wants us back!)
There is no sense at all in which people are basically OK, and God's got
a bit of a downer on us. Justification is a desperate remedy for our
desperate need. He didn't need to be persuaded to do it, He did it out
of His love for us. Without the cross there would literally be no way
to God - He was proactive in making that way, and the cost was born
entirely by Him. We have a great God.
PH> Can't we stop thinking of God as having a monocle, a huge
PH> beard & a penchant for shouting 'Fire, damn you' at the servants? I
PH> certainly don't hear it as meaning making it as if I'd never sinned
PH> - that's what, to me, you've got 'Sanctification' as meaning.
I'd be very happy for you to stop thinking about God like that ;^)
God bless,
Ben
--
Ben Edgington :- b...@met.rdg.ac.uk +
+++++
"The Lord is good and his love endures forever" +
(Ps 100:5) +
Robert Billing
In article <970409180...@llais.demon.co.uk>
rhia...@llais.demon.co.uk "Rhiannon Macfie" writes:
> Sounds vaguely Rumpolian..
"Rumpole and the angel of death", in fact.
--
I am Robert Billing, Christian, inventor, traveller, cook and animal
lover, I live near 0:46W 51:22N. http://www.tnglwood.demon.co.uk/
Gareth McCaughan
Marc Read wrote:
> However, this seems to run up against Searle's Chinese Room problem. [1]
> Imagine a man locked in a room. People hand Chinese questions to him. He
> doesn't understand them, but has a great big rulebook which tells him
> exactly how to write Chinese squiggles that will answer the question.
>
> The Room-and-man-system seems to "understand" Chinese; it instantiates
> all the right relations. But, claims Searle, we wouldn't say that the
> Room-and-man-system *understands* anything. In other words, the pattern
> of relations needs to be instantiated in *the right sort of material* -
> in this case, in a physical body.
Aargh. The Chinese room argument is just completely broken.
It doesn't prove anything at all. Surely everyone except Searle
realises this?
--
Gareth McCaughan Dept. of Pure Mathematics & Mathematical Statistics,
gj...@dpmms.cam.ac.uk Cambridge University, England.
Annabel Smyth
[snip what they actually did write]:
>This is spooky. Following up my wife's post, when she is sitting three
>feet to my right...
>
>Marc
>
Ah, but was she looking over your shoulder at the time, or doing
something completely different while you were hogging the computer?
Marc Read
In article <zxTCYCAR...@trustsof.demon.co.uk>, Michael J Davis
<mi...@trustsof.demon.co.uk> writes
>A couple of years ago, IIRC, there were a number of TV
>programmes/debates about science v. Christianity. In one I remember two
>Christians were arguing that we had freewill, and some scientist was
>arguing that we couldn't behave any other way than we were made to by
>our genes!
Oh... those sorts of programmes always make me curl up in embarassed
agony. I want to know where they *find* these people. As a physicist/phi
losopher/Christian [1], with a special interest in the history of
Science & Religion, I just start screaming "You're missing the *point*!"
at all the contributors.
>
>The scientist was becoming more and more frustrated at the apparent
>recalcitrance of the christians, and eventually exploded with anger
>saying that he couldn't understand how sensible people could believe
>what they believed!
>
>It was quite clear from his behaviour that he really did believe that
>they had freewill! I've regretted ever since not having videoed it!
>(If anyone recalls it, I'd like to know who it was....)
>
Ahhhh, but of course he was *determined* to lose his temper. Whatever
your position, then argument (debtae?) plays a useful role. If you're a
determinist, then you have no option but to hold the beliefs you
actually hold, and to attempt to convince others if that is your
(determined) fate. If you're not, then *obviously* you'll want to get at
those nasty determinists!
>But then I just had to post this, didn't I? :-)
>
Feel free to post anything you want...
Marc
[1] Jack of all trades, master of none. Except formally. <g>
Christopher J. Tolley
Michael J Davis <mi...@trustsof.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<zxTCYCAR...@trustsof.demon.co.uk>...< snip >
> A couple of years ago, IIRC, there were a number of TV
> programmes/debates about science v. Christianity. In one I remember two
> Christians were arguing that we had freewill, and some scientist was
> arguing that we couldn't behave any other way than we were made to by
> our genes!
>
> recalcitrance of the christians, and eventually exploded with anger
> saying that he couldn't understand how sensible people could believe
> what they believed!
>
> It was quite clear from his behaviour that he really did believe that
> they had freewill! I've regretted ever since not having videoed it!
> (If anyone recalls it, I'd like to know who it was....)
I didn't see this, but your description of the scientist brings
Richard Dawkins to mind. IIRC, he holds the professorship for the
public understanding of science at Oxford. (However, most of the
time he strikes me as being fixated on the creation v evolution
argument and its sequelae. His books, "The Selfish Gene" and
"The Blind Watchmaker" cover this territory.)
--
Regards,
Chris
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cj.tolley/contents.htm
(delete anti-spam hyphen in my return address to reply)
Marc Read
In article <6hhDCNAg...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk>, Annabel Smyth
<Ann...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk> writes
>On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Marc Read wrote:
>>In article <334A9A...@thphys.ox.ac.uk>, Jenny Read
>
>[snip what they actually did write]:
>
>>This is spooky. Following up my wife's post, when she is sitting three
>>feet to my right...
>>
>>Marc
>>
>Ah, but was she looking over your shoulder at the time, or doing
>something completely different while you were hogging the computer?
Doing something completely different on the *other* computer... <g>
Patrick Herring
re...@thphys.ox.ac.uk writes in article <334A9A...@thphys.ox.ac.uk>:
...
> Patrick Herring wrote:
> > I disagree. I think I've written before that according to reincarnation 'man'
> > is our earthly existence whereas our Spirit is eternal, so this verse could
> > easily mean that you get judged after each earthly incarnation as to whether
> > you got that particular exercise right & if not you go back to do it again.
> > Seems quite straightforward & consistent with Christianity to me, though I
> > agree there's little support for such an interpretation in orthodoxy or the
> > Bible. <g>
> >
>
> possibly be reincarnated. It has to be "me" in some meaningful sense,
> otherwise it wouldn't be reincarnation, obviously! But who "I" am is
> strongly influenced by the body "I" occupy, surely? Its genes, what's
> happened to it during its life and so on. In fact, I don't think it
> makes sense to talk of a soul that can be separated from its body at
> all.
I'm not sure what the orthodox view of reincarnation actually is, I mean what
those religions that have it consider to be the norm. My understanding is
almost entirely from 'new age' writers - Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Elisabeth Haich
etc. Even so all accounts connect reincarnation with the non-physical. In
Tibetan Buddhism the holiest title is Rimpoche which means 'Master' and
indicates someone who has conquered the physical by remembering a past life;
this is their equivalent, I assume, with our Christ Resurrected.
A common theme I've read is that there are four levels: physical, soul or
pysche, spiritual, & divine. The analogy given by several is: carriage for
body, horse for feelings & desires, driver for spirit & master for the divine
'I' behind it all (in Christian terms the level that can unite with God);
spirit seems to be the psyche considered as a whole whereas the psyche is
actually in several parts: physical instincts(movement), sexual desires, gut
reactions (solar plexus), the emotions, the voice, the intellect. I haven't
quite found an account that ties up all loose ends but I feel one should be
possible. Anyway what is supposed to be reincarnated is the essence of the
person, which is composed of the meanings of whatever elements of each level
that that person is. The idea is that the physical is nothing permanent & the
psyche is a by-product of being incarnated, but 'where the person is' is
something that can't be dissolved. My favourite analogy is suppose you write
something down on paper, and then scrumple the piece of paper up & throw it
away - what's happened to the meaning of the words you wrote? answer: nothing,
and that's just how reincarnation works - you get written down (In the
beginning was the Word - or am I being irreverent <g>?).
> This is quite a departure for me, as previously (without thinking about
> it a lot), I'd held quite a "Greek" view, in which the soul occupied the
> body much as a pilot does a ship, in Aristotle's imagery.
And there's that chapter of Plato's Republic that appears to hold with
reincarnation but which gets skipped over in classical studies <g>.
> But I thought
> quite a lot about the subject last year when I was doing an Open
> University course on Brain & Behaviour, and I kept coming across
> examples of how what was going on in your brain could affect *you* as a
> person.
Sure it does, particularly the endocrine system. But only the psyche - the
idea is that the real 'I' is at a much subtler level than that, in fact the
psyche is a collection of semi-autonomous processes so if you identify
yourself exclusively with your psyche you find yourself to be a mix of
competing impulses & desires - hardly the unique & indivisible 'I' that one
likes to imagine one is. Buddha's point about attachment is precisely about
identifying oneself with levels that are not the real person, and thereby
suffering from the confusion that results. This is the reason for dietary &
yogic regimes - they are supposed to change the bodily state & eventually you
gain control over it rather than be controlled by it, or so they say.
> One way of understanding this is to take quite a dualistic view, as I
> think CS Lewis does in eg "Mere Christianity". He seems to view a soul
> as *in* a body, but separate from it. During our life what happens to
> the body affects the soul, but the soul is then removed and "inspected"
> independently of the body.
I'd agree with this except it conflates all non-physical levels into one,
whereas some psychological parts must surely be just vehicles for meaning
rather than eternal in themselves; sexuality comes to mind for one.
> Similarly you can't tell what the soul is
> like from observing someone's physical actions, as their soul has been
> "filtered" through their body. (I'm not putting this very well, but
> suppose someone commits an atrocious act. You can't really judge the
> state of their soul, because they may be subject to a terrible
> temptation from their body which they have heroically resisted up till
> now.)
Yes, only God can really do this.
> I think you must have to take a very extreme dualistic view in
> order for reincarnation to be feasible.
Definitely! Pluralistic in fact, as far as I can see.
> However, I think I'd prefer to take a more unified view, in which what I
> am is expressed by what my body is now - this could in theory include
> the state of my synapses, levels of neurotransmitter, or indeed blood
> sugar - all this expresses who I am. This finally helped me to make
> sense of what had always seemed to me the problematic idea of the
> resurrection of the body. Surely, when you die you leave space and time,
> and join God in eternity? So how can you possibly have a physical body?
> And yet Paul insists that we shall! I now understand the doctrine as
> recognising the indivisibility of soul and body. Who I am is expressed
> in my physical makeup, my genes, my brain chemistry. But God will
> somehow or other preserve that identity even after the death of my
> physical body.
As Bob has put it, the identity can be reproduced in a body even though all
physical bodies are transitory. Maybe Paul was saying that the point of having
a human body is as a vehicle for teaching us to go beyond the physical to God,
and so that point will be reached when we are still in one. Well, maybe he
wasn't, but I would!
> I think this understanding is probably impossible to reconcile with
> reincarnation, since if you put "me" into a different body with
> different genes, different environment, different experience, it could
> no longer be *me* at all!
One corollary, or lemma perhaps, of reincarnation is that we choose our
parents and we'll choose physical natures & nurtures that we want. So the idea
is that we don't actually inherit personal characteristics but like attracts
like so that it will seem as if we take after our parents on more than a
physical level. In fact my understanding of the whole question of 'what will I
be next time' is that we get what we really want which comes from where
we really are on the scale of inert matter to divine ie it may not be what we
think we want.
> I find thinking about all this stuff very confusing, so feel free to put
> me right!
So did I but I've been thinking about it for a few years & now having
reincarnation in Christianity makes much more sense to me than not. I must say
that I'm not at all certain about it - I've no 'past life memories' as such
(apart from a few seconds worth which could be anything) - I just like playing
with ideas & interpretations to gain clarity. Certainly I see few problems
with putting the two together. We already believe in the main ingredients:
life after death ie life independent of the physical & Jesus' incarnating in a
human body is a model for what we would have to repeat. It does conflict with
some other interpretations, like not existing before this life and some
beliefs in physical resurrection 'at the last' but not with really essential
doctrines. There is a problem with it not being in the orthodox traditions but
being an INTJ gets me over that fairly quickly! The main advantages are that
it gets rid of the problem of evil & the problem of lack of time for actual
spiritual progress. Bad things happen to good people perhaps because some bad
thing way back can suddenly become solveable in this lifetime, or perhaps a
lot of karma spread thinly over many lifetimes is getting dealt with in one
go. Secondary advantages are that rather than having to give up on describing
heaven & hell etc we can describe them as identifiable states of being in
straightforward human terms, the eternal aspect being that we stay at whatever
level we are forever, and far from being pleasant it really is like being in
prison if you think about it at all seriously, which most people don't because
we kid ourselves that the next experience will be better than the last, or at
least keep us going, when in fact there's no change unless we open up to the
possibilities of the divine level.
I hope this sheds some light; I don't feel it has really (feeling a bit thick
& long-winded this evening) so please point out the particularly impenetrable
bits.
Marc Read
In article <864tder...@g.pet.cam.ac.uk>, Gareth McCaughan
<gj...@dpmms.cam.ac.uk> writes
>Aargh. The Chinese room argument is just completely broken.
>It doesn't prove anything at all. Surely everyone except Searle
>realises this?
>
I certainly agree that it doesn't prove the positive part of Searle's
paper. However, the consensus (at least, where I study) seems to be that
his purely negative arguments have some validity (although they have to
be slightly modified). Which particular bit do you think is broken,
Gareth? I might have some sort of an answer. Then again, you're probably
right... Please feel free to take this to email if you think we're
getting too far off topic.
Marc
Gareth McCaughan
Marc Read wrote:
> I certainly agree that it doesn't prove the positive part of Searle's
> paper. However, the consensus (at least, where I study) seems to be that
> his purely negative arguments have some validity (although they have to
> be slightly modified). Which particular bit do you think is broken,
> Gareth? I might have some sort of an answer. Then again, you're probably
> right... Please feel free to take this to email if you think we're
> getting too far off topic.
I'm not sure I know what the distinction between his "positive"
and "negative" arguments is meant to be. I consider that he's
totally wrong in saying that his Chinese room doesn't understand
Chinese. He insists (correctly, I suppose) that the *person* in
the room doesn't understand Chinese, but that's just not relevant.
I'm not sure whether you'd call what I'm objecting to positive
or negative. (It's a while since I read his paper, so I may be
forgetting some material that makes it obvious what the distinction
is.)
(And if the person memorised all the stuff necessary to carry on
the process? Then I would say we need to distinguish between two
sentient entities occupying the person's body; one understands
Chinese and the other doesn't. This is pretty counterintuitive;
but then so is the idea that anyone could memorise enough stuff
to simulate a fluent Chinese speaker without understanding any
of it. If you make silly assumptions then you get silly conclusions.)
Patrick Herring
Ann...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk writes in article <QlMJTWAS...@amsmyth.demon.co.uk>:
>
> On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Jenny Read wrote:
> >possibly be reincarnated. It has to be "me" in some meaningful sense,
> >otherwise it wouldn't be reincarnation, obviously! But who "I" am is
> >strongly influenced by the body "I" occupy, surely? Its genes, what's
> >happened to it during its life and so on. In fact, I don't think it
> >makes sense to talk of a soul that can be separated from its body at
> >all.
> >
> but they can't be separated.
What's the actual reference for that BTW (seeing as I need some help on
Bible-study)?
> My own argument with reincarnation is that if I were to be born again
> I'd still be human and sinful, and would still need the atoning power of
> Jesus' death and resurrection. But Jesus already did that for me in
> *this* life, so why would I need it in a potential future one?
Yes one does need a reason to include reincarnation in the system. I guess my
own reason is that I'm convinced that we need to do a lot more work on
ourselves in preparation for heaven than we normally accept. I don't mean that
we work our way to heaven but that it takes a very long time to get us to
'move aside' to let God in, and that that progression naturally takes place in
stages.
> Plus, if
> I have eternal life, as my Bible tells me I do, how can I be
> reincarnated, since I don't ever stop being me?
Hmmm, reincarnation is about where you don't stop being you, though if you
need your particular body to be you then how do you have eternal life? There
would have to be an interim even if you get it back in the end. Not sure why
everybody wants to stick with their bodies so much, I've always wanted to be a
seagull .... flap flap flap...
Patrick Herring
gj...@dpmms.cam.ac.uk writes in article <864tder...@g.pet.cam.ac.uk>:
>
> Marc Read wrote:
>
> > However, this seems to run up against Searle's Chinese Room problem. [1]
> > Imagine a man locked in a room. People hand Chinese questions to him. He
> > doesn't understand them, but has a great big rulebook which tells him
> > exactly how to write Chinese squiggles that will answer the question.
> >
> > The Room-and-man-system seems to "understand" Chinese; it instantiates
> > all the right relations. But, claims Searle, we wouldn't say that the
> > Room-and-man-system *understands* anything. In other words, the pattern
> > of relations needs to be instantiated in *the right sort of material* -
> > in this case, in a physical body.
>
> It doesn't prove anything at all. Surely everyone except Searle
> realises this?
Searle appears as a scratched record but I'm not sure it's his fault. There's
all these AI types who don't get it, they refuse to accept that simulating the
effect doesn't thereby 'regenerate' let alone simulate the cause. And this in
the face of the fact that physical reductionism has manifestly proved woefully
inadequate to explain anything to do with consciousness. I'm not sure they
ever will; the reductionist mind-set is so hard-baked that it would take a
huge leap out of the circle of mutually reinforcing ideas to break free.
Interested to know why you think it's broken though I agree it doesn't prove
anything, it's more of a 'demonstration by clarification'.
Andy McMullon
In article <J6jBXGA1...@rauko.demon.co.uk>, Marc Read
<URL:mailto:Ma...@rauko.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
> Ahhhh, but of course he was *determined* to lose his temper. Whatever
> your position, then argument (debtae?) plays a useful role. If you're a
> determinist, then you have no option but to hold the beliefs you
> actually hold, and to attempt to convince others if that is your
> (determined) fate. If you're not, then *obviously* you'll want to get at
> those nasty determinists!
>
> >But then I just had to post this, didn't I? :-)
> >
> Feel free to post anything you want...
>
the level of the mathematics!) I thought that determinism had been
routed. It is not possible to determine the outcome at any
particular point *before* the event but it is not random either
because retrospecively a clear pattern can be seen!
If true I think that helps quite a lot with the Predestination/Free
Will discussion.
- Andy
--
SkyPilot: an...@mcfamily.demon.co.uk
The World is full of places . . . . . why is it that I am here?
Wendell Berry
Mark Goodge
On Fri, 11 Apr 1997 08:41:28 +0100, Ma...@rauko.demon.co.uk (Marc Read)
wrote:
>... Please feel free to take this to email if you think we're
>getting too far off topic.
No, don't! I'm fascinated.... once I'm sure I understand what you're
saying, I might even chip in.
Mark
--
Mark Goodge * m...@message.org * Message Internet * http://www.message.org
'Shake off your golden shackles, children of time no more. Consider
now the crimson crown the Man of Sorrows wore' The Choir, 'Circle Slide'
N J MITCHELL
In article <864tder...@g.pet.cam.ac.uk>,
Gareth McCaughan <gj...@dpmms.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>Aargh. The Chinese room argument is just completely broken.
>It doesn't prove anything at all. Surely everyone except Searle
>realises this?
>
News to me (although I don't follow these things). Why does the Chinese
Room argument fail?
Regards,
Nick.
______________________________________________________________________________
N.J.Mitchell, |
Department of Physics, | tel: +44 (0)1970 622802
University of Wales, | fax: +44 (0)1970 622826
Aberystwyth, | e-mail: n...@aber.ac.uk
Ceredigion, |
SY23 3BZ, | Atmospheric/Ionospheric/Space Physics Group
UK. |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Goodge
On 10 Apr 1997 18:24:50 +0100, gj...@dpmms.cam.ac.uk (Gareth
McCaughan) wrote:
>Marc Read wrote:
>
>> However, this seems to run up against Searle's Chinese Room problem. [1]
>> Imagine a man locked in a room. People hand Chinese questions to him. He
>> doesn't understand them, but has a great big rulebook which tells him
>> exactly how to write Chinese squiggles that will answer the question.
>>
>> The Room-and-man-system seems to "understand" Chinese; it instantiates
>> all the right relations. But, claims Searle, we wouldn't say that the
>> Room-and-man-system *understands* anything. In other words, the pattern
>> of relations needs to be instantiated in *the right sort of material* -
>> in this case, in a physical body.
>
>Aargh. The Chinese room argument is just completely broken.
>It doesn't prove anything at all. Surely everyone except Searle
>realises this?
I'd never heard of the Chinese Room argument before, but it's
certainly quite interesting (even if it doesn't prove anything).
It reminds me a bit of the Turing test for whether a computer is
really thinking or not. Of course, that one is false, too.
Marc Read
In article <ant11061...@mcfamily.demon.co.uk>, Andy McMullon
<an...@mcfamily.demon.co.uk> writes
>Now in so far as I actually understand Chaos Theory (which I don't at
>the level of the mathematics!) I thought that determinism had been
>routed. It is not possible to determine the outcome at any
>particular point *before* the event but it is not random either
>because retrospecively a clear pattern can be seen!
I'm not so sure that this helps. Even in a non-chaotic universe, it is a
plausible position to maintain that all events are determined, but not
predictable in advance (because of the sheer complexity of the system).
I've always thought Chaos theory was a misleading name. The laws are
still deterministic, but just incredibly sensitive to variations in
initial condition.
(I'm just waiting for someone to mention Quantum Mechanics. Then I shall
scream very loudly, bash my head against the wall a few times, and try
breathing deeply.)
>
>If true I think that helps quite a lot with the Predestination/Free
>Will discussion.
>
>
It could certainly help to explain why it is that we *feel* free.
Marc Read
In article <86g1wxv...@g.pet.cam.ac.uk>, Gareth McCaughan
<gj...@dpmms.cam.ac.uk> writes
>Marc Read wrote:
>
>> I certainly agree that it doesn't prove the positive part of Searle's
>> paper. However, the consensus (at least, where I study) seems to be that
>> his purely negative arguments have some validity (although they have to
>> be slightly modified). Which particular bit do you think is broken,
>> Gareth? I might have some sort of an answer. Then again, you're probably
>> getting too far off topic.
>
>and "negative" arguments is meant to be. I consider that he's
>totally wrong in saying that his Chinese room doesn't understand
>Chinese. He insists (correctly, I suppose) that the *person* in
>the room doesn't understand Chinese, but that's just not relevant.
OK - sorry about my use of unexplained jargon. Negative argument -- that
criticising other people. Positive -- that advancing your own views to
put in the place of the theory you've just knocked down. In this case,
the negative argm't is the 'proof' the the Room (and by extension, any
formally specifiable system) doesn't understand Chinese. The positive
argm't is the claim that therefore understanding resides in having the
right sort of *causal* relations (being instantiated in a system made of
the right kind of stuff).
That the room as a whole *does* understand Chinese is one of the
objections he considers in the original paper. In this post, I will
confine myself to repeating his original view (which I'm not sure is
correct). I'm sure that you will then reply saying what you think is
wrong, and then I'll say how (if?) we could save Searle.
I know it's slightly intellectually dishonest to present and defend a
view you might not agree with, but hey, that's academic philosophy! At
least this way we maintain the distinction between (a) what Searle said,
(b) how we could attempt to 'save' him, and (c) what I think. Sorry if
this makes for a long-winded process, but it's easier than muddling all
sorts of views together. (fx: glances at a certain other thread he could
mention...)
>
>I'm not sure whether you'd call what I'm objecting to positive
>or negative. (It's a while since I read his paper, so I may be
>forgetting some material that makes it obvious what the distinction
>is.)
>
Searle writes: "My response to the systems theory is quite simple: let
the individual internalize all of these elemnts of the system. He
memorizes the rules in the ledger and that data banks of Chinese
symbols, and he does all the calculations in his head. The individual
then incorporates the entire system [...] All the same, he understands
nothing of the Chinese, and a fortiori neither does the system, because
there isn't anything in the system that isn't him."
You reply (before seeing the question - that's good, Gareth!):
>(And if the person memorised all the stuff necessary to carry on
>the process? Then I would say we need to distinguish between two
>sentient entities occupying the person's body; one understands
>Chinese and the other doesn't. This is pretty counterintuitive;
>but then so is the idea that anyone could memorise enough stuff
>to simulate a fluent Chinese speaker without understanding any
>of it. If you make silly assumptions then you get silly conclusions.)
>
I say (playing at being Searle): OK, OK... speaking Chinese is an
extreme and contentious example. Wouldn't it be possible, though, to
memorise a long list of numbers and sounds, and then when someone gives
you one of the numbers, to repeat the associated sounds? You could do
this without knowing what the numbers meant (or even that they *were*
numbers!) But from the outside, it seems like you (say) *know* the
entire road network for the UK. In this simple case do we have two
sentient entities in the same body?
Searle then continues: "Actually, I feel somewhat embarrassed to give
even this answer to the systems theory because the theory seems to me so
implausible to start with. The idea is that while a person doesn't
understand Chinese, somehow the *conjunction* of that person and bits of
paper might understand Chinese. It is not easy for me to imagine how
someone who was not in the grip of an ideology would find the idea at
all plausible."
(An ad hominem remark - comments?)
And later in the paper, on a view similar to your "two entities" view:
"The only motivation for saying that there *must* be a subsystem in me
that understands Chinese is that I have a program and I pass the Turing
-test [...] but precisely one of the points at issue is the adequacy of
the Turing-test."
Mark Goodge
On Sat, 12 Apr 1997 11:05:55 +0100, Ma...@rauko.demon.co.uk (Marc Read)
wrote:
>In article <ant11061...@mcfamily.demon.co.uk>, Andy McMullon
><an...@mcfamily.demon.co.uk> writes
>
>>Now in so far as I actually understand Chaos Theory (which I don't at
>>the level of the mathematics!) I thought that determinism had been
>>routed. It is not possible to determine the outcome at any
>>particular point *before* the event but it is not random either
>>because retrospecively a clear pattern can be seen!
>
>I'm not so sure that this helps. Even in a non-chaotic universe, it is a
>plausible position to maintain that all events are determined, but not
>predictable in advance (because of the sheer complexity of the system).
>
>I've always thought Chaos theory was a misleading name. The laws are
>still deterministic, but just incredibly sensitive to variations in
>initial condition.
That's true. In any case, the fact that something cannot be predicted
in advance, does not mean that it has not, in fact, been determined.
As far as physics goes, causality holds. If it did not, then the
consequences would probably undermine a vast amount of current
scientific theory. That's why determinism is so popular among
scientists of a philosophical nature (and humanist philosphers) -
because, from a purely physical/mathematical point of view, it is
quite obviously inevitable.
But, as Patrick has pointed out in another post, the scientific
world-view is by nature flawed, as it assumes that the basis of
everything is the material universe. Whereas, in fact, it's the
spiritual/divine that is the underlying reality. Determinism is
fundamentally a-theistic (hyphen intentional), while, on the other
hand, free will *requires* the existance of something beyond the
material (a theme taken up by C.S. Lewis in a number of his essays).
Predestination, then (which is what this thread started out
discussing), actually has more in common with a materialist world-view
than it's proponents would like to think. What it does, is to reduce
God to merely another factor in a mechanistic universe. Free will,
though, not only allows for, but requires, the active participation of
both God and creation in the day-to-day running of the universe - by
making choices which will have irrevocable consequences for the
future.
Chaos theory is pretty much a red herring when it comes to questions
of free-will/determinism. As is that other favourite of pop-science,
quantum mechanics.
>(I'm just waiting for someone to mention Quantum Mechanics. Then I shall
>scream very loudly, bash my head against the wall a few times, and try
>breathing deeply.)
Oops. Somebody pass the aspirin.....
Jenny Read
> > possibly be reincarnated. It has to be "me" in some meaningful sense,
> > otherwise it wouldn't be reincarnation, obviously! But who "I" am is
> > strongly influenced by the body "I" occupy, surely? Its genes, what's
> > happened to it during its life and so on. In fact, I don't think it
> > makes sense to talk of a soul that can be separated from its body at
> > all.
>
<snip>
>
> A common theme I've read is that there are four levels: physical, soul or
> pysche, spiritual, & divine. The analogy given by several is: carriage for
> body, horse for feelings & desires, driver for spirit & master for the divine
> 'I' behind it all (in Christian terms the level that can unite with God);
> spirit seems to be the psyche considered as a whole whereas the psyche is
> actually in several parts: physical instincts(movement), sexual desires, gut
> reactions (solar plexus), the emotions, the voice, the intellect. I haven't
> quite found an account that ties up all loose ends but I feel one should be
> possible.
Well, it might be. But human beings are such complicated things, why
should it be possible to parcel us up and label that bit "psyche", that
bit "spirit" and so on?
> Anyway what is supposed to be reincarnated is the essence of the
> person, which is composed of the meanings of whatever elements of each level
> that that person is.
You've lost me here, sorry!
> The idea is that the physical is nothing permanent & the
> psyche is a by-product of being incarnated, but 'where the person is' is
> something that can't be dissolved.
You seem to be saying that because "the psyche is a by-product of being
incarnated", it's somehow less important - less part of us. But I think
I'd argue that there are no "*by*-products" of being incarnate - our
incarnate nature is pretty essential to who we are.
> > This is quite a departure for me, as previously (without thinking about
> > it a lot), I'd held quite a "Greek" view, in which the soul occupied the
> > body much as a pilot does a ship, in Aristotle's imagery.
>
> And there's that chapter of Plato's Republic that appears to hold with
> reincarnation but which gets skipped over in classical studies <g>.
I don't remember that! But it doesn't seem terribly surprising - the
Greeks (as far as I'm aware) held a very dualistic view of mind and
spirit, so they presumably wouldn't have a problem with reincarnation.
> > But I thought
> > quite a lot about the subject last year when I was doing an Open
> > University course on Brain & Behaviour, and I kept coming across
> > examples of how what was going on in your brain could affect *you* as a
> > person.
>
> Sure it does, particularly the endocrine system. But only the psyche - the
> idea is that the real 'I' is at a much subtler level than that,
Here again we're at odds. I think the endocrine system etc. *does* affect
the real 'me'.
> in fact the
> psyche is a collection of semi-autonomous processes so if you identify
> yourself exclusively with your psyche you find yourself to be a mix of
> competing impulses & desires - hardly the unique & indivisible 'I' that one
> likes to imagine one is.
Hmmm... I don't know what it's like to be Patrick, but being Jenny doesn't
feel very unique and indivisible! There have been some experiments on
split-brain subjects that could be interpreted as indicating multiple
consciousnesses. If true, this wouldn't seem particularly surprising to
me, because I do in fact feel "a mix of competing impulses and desires" -
presumably this is a sign that I am not far enough along the road to
enlightenment!
> Buddha's point about attachment is precisely about
> identifying oneself with levels that are not the real person, and thereby
> suffering from the confusion that results. This is the reason for dietary &
> yogic regimes - they are supposed to change the bodily state & eventually you
> gain control over it rather than be controlled by it, or so they say.
>
> > One way of understanding this is to take quite a dualistic view, as I
> > think CS Lewis does in eg "Mere Christianity". He seems to view a soul
> > as *in* a body, but separate from it. During our life what happens to
> > the body affects the soul, but the soul is then removed and "inspected"
> > independently of the body.
>
> I'd agree with this except it conflates all non-physical levels into one,
> whereas some psychological parts must surely be just vehicles for meaning
> rather than eternal in themselves; sexuality comes to mind for one.>
You seem to be saying (along with your previous comments on the psyche)
that sexuality, intellect, emotions, all can be separated from the true
person. I'm not convinced that this is the case.
<big snip again>
> As Bob has put it, the identity can be reproduced in a body even though all
> physical bodies are transitory.
After I replied to Bob's article saying I liked his analogy, it occurred
to me it could be seen as supporting reincarnation - God backs up our data
to floppy and reinstalls it on a different hard drive! I'd counter this by
arguing that the correct analogy is not "body = hard drive", but "body =
hard drive plus pattern of magnetisation thereon". The process of
installing the data necessitates changes in the structure of the new hard
disk such that it becomes identical to the old one. Ie, I could agree with
reincarnation, but only if I were reincarnated back to a body identical to
my current one, since another body would not be capable of sustaining the
pattern which makes me who I am. Hmm - I can see I'm shortly going to get
into problems of identity here (given that my body is in any case changing
all the time) - so maybe I should stop!
> Maybe Paul was saying that the point of having
> a human body is as a vehicle for teaching us to go beyond the physical to God,
> and so that point will be reached when we are still in one. Well, maybe he
> wasn't, but I would!
:-)
> One corollary, or lemma perhaps, of reincarnation is that we choose our
> parents and we'll choose physical natures & nurtures that we want. So the idea
> is that we don't actually inherit personal characteristics but like attracts
> like so that it will seem as if we take after our parents on more than a
> physical level. In fact my understanding of the whole question of 'what will I
> be next time' is that we get what we really want which comes from where
> we really are on the scale of inert matter to divine ie it may not be what we
> think we want.
...<snip>...
> The main advantages are that
> it gets rid of the problem of evil & the problem of lack of time for actual
> spiritual progress. Bad things happen to good people perhaps because some bad
> thing way back can suddenly become solveable in this lifetime, or perhaps a
> lot of karma spread thinly over many lifetimes is getting dealt with in one
> go.
Hm. I don't really like the sound of this - it sounds as if you're making
people responsible for their own misfortune, even if they're born into a
really awful situation or have something dreadful happen to them. It's all
their fault really, even if only in a previous life.
>
> So did I but I've been thinking about it for a few years & now having
> reincarnation in Christianity makes much more sense to me than not.
Hmm. I remain sceptical!
> I hope this sheds some light; I don't feel it has really (feeling a bit thick
> & long-winded this evening) so please point out the particularly impenetrable
> bits.
One thing I was wondering is, when does this process stop? Only when we
finally get to a stage where we can open up to God and finally allow him
to save us?
Jenny
Steven Carr
on Fri, 11 Apr 97 11:07:41 GMT, p...@anweald.exnet.co.uk (Patrick
Herring) wrote :
>gj...@dpmms.cam.ac.uk writes in article <864tder...@g.pet.cam.ac.uk>:
>> Aargh. The Chinese room argument is just completely broken.
>> It doesn't prove anything at all. Surely everyone except Searle
>> realises this?
>Searle appears as a scratched record but I'm not sure it's his fault. There's
>all these AI types who don't get it, they refuse to accept that simulating the
>effect doesn't thereby 'regenerate' let alone simulate the cause.
Agreed. You can simulate an H-bomb on a computer, but you will never
obliterate anything. Possibly you could simulate a brain very,very
exactly indeed, still without ever producing any thoughts. A
simulation is not the real thing.
> And this in
>the face of the fact that physical reductionism has manifestly proved woefully
>inadequate to explain anything to do with consciousness.
One difficulty is that it is hard to carry out reductionist
experiments on human brains. Anybody fancy having their brains reduced
in the name of science? I thought not. Often people are left with just
studying stroke victims to try to see how the brain works. I agree
this is inadequate.
> I'm not sure they
>ever will; the reductionist mind-set is so hard-baked that it would take a
>huge leap out of the circle of mutually reinforcing ideas to break free.
What's wrong with reductionism? It works well enough in such subjects
as art, where painters reduce paintings to such things as colour,
brush-strokes, perspective etc. It works well enough in music where
musicians analyse music in 'fifths' and 'sub-dominants' etc. Why
should science be immune to reductionist explanations when the arts
use them all the time?
Richard Herring
In article <334e7d43...@nnrp.news.uk.psi.net>, Mark Goodge
<ma...@good-stuff.co.uk> wrote
>>Aargh. The Chinese room argument is just completely broken.
>>It doesn't prove anything at all. Surely everyone except Searle
>>realises this?
>
>certainly quite interesting (even if it doesn't prove anything).
>
>It reminds me a bit of the Turing test for whether a computer is
>really thinking or not.
It's the same argument in both cases. Searle started from the Turing
test but reduced it from "being intelligent" to speaking Chinese. So his
room has a recipe for speaking Chinese; Turing's machine has a recipe
for demonstrating "intelligence" by answering questions as a human being
would.
>Of course, that one is false, too.
Depends what you mean by "false" here. Searle's argument certainly is,
but Turing simply suggested a pragmatic test for machine "intelligence",
in order to stimulate a debate about the actual nature of intelligence,
and what it might mean for our notion of intelligence if a machine could
pass the test.
Searle substituted "language" for "intelligence" because (he believes)
language is understood well enough for us to analyse what is going on.
His point is not the obvious and uninteresting one that the *man* in the
Chinese room does not understand Chinese, but that not even the Room (ie
the system of man+rulebook) "understands" it. One of his arguments is
that the Room is only manipulating the syntax (the formal properties) of
the language symbols, not their semantics (their correspondence to the
real world). I don't think this holds water because he's trying to
discuss it all on one level, but the semantics of one level is just
syntax at the next, or maybe vice versa. I'm not expressing this very
clearly, but that's the general idea.
For anyone who's interested in the subject, I had a quick browse around
the Web looking for "Turing test" and found the following interesting
site:
http://www.ptproject.ilstu.edu/pt/index.htm is the starting page;
Searle's argument is summarised at
http://www.ptproject.ilstu.edu/pt/turing1.htm
the question "what is a person" is addressed at
http://www.ptproject.ilstu.edu/pt/prsnwht2.htm
and there's some dialogue which may be familiar to some readers at
http://www.ptproject.ilstu.edu/pt/startrk1.htm
--
Richard Herring <ric...@clupeid.demon.co.uk>
Patrick Herring
B.P.Ed...@reading.ac.uk writes in article <tg6encj...@met.rdg.ac.uk>:
>
> Lots snipped.
Very little snipped, so it's a bit long again I'm afraid.
> >>>>> "PH" == Patrick Herring <p...@anweald.exnet.co.uk> writes:
> >>>>> "BE" == me (Ben Edgington)
>
> BE> Yes, I grant that he doesn't say a /lot/ --- I think it was implicit
> BE> in Jewish thought anyway; the OT has an awful lot to say about God's
> BE> judgment on sin --- he talks more about forgiveness for sins, and he
> BE> clearly knew that the cross was to do with forgiveness of sins.
>
> PH> Yes but, as Annabel says, it isn't that clear. The're few clues in
> PH> the Passion narratives. The closest I can find is John 17:1-2: These
> PH> words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said,
> PH> Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may
> PH> glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he
> PH> should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. But
> PH> from nearby verses they whom 'thou hast given him' are the
> PH> disciples, not the whole human race. In John 16:7 Jesus explains
> PH> that only if he 'departs' (KJV) can he send them the Holy Spirit,
> PH> and again he's talking only about the disciples. This coheres with
> PH> the view I've heard expressed in the esoteric tradition that the
> PH> crucifiction dealt only with the disciples' remaining karma so that
> PH> they could be unitied with God/become divine like Jesus had been in
> PH> order to carry on the work. Given the scale of what the human body
> PH> can stand this makes more sense to me.
>
> Well, there's Matt 26:28, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is
> poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." This is pretty clear,
> and I would find it hard to limit the "many" here to the disciples.
Ah yes, you're right, I missed that one, it's a fair cop, I'll come quietly
guv...
But not yet! It's the difference between forgiveness & actually becoming less
sinful in nature that I think we are talking about. Instituting a ritual
through which many can come to feel that their sin is not the end is one
thing, but actually moving them forwards beyond that block is quite another &
I suppose I'm saying that the crucifixion is about persuading us that we are
not cut off from God but isn't actually effective in moving us towards God -
that must come essentially from within ourselves else it isn't real.
> BE> But I think it's hard to recast passages like the wheat and tares,
> BE> or the sheep and the goats, or Matthew 18:8,9 in terms of
> BE> reincarnation. The division between the two sides is absolute and
> BE> unbridgeable (Eg the Lazarus and Dives story).
>
> PH> Hmm, don't quite see the problem with those texts. 'Everlasting'
> PH> just means 'eternal' which just means 'outside time' ie at a higher
> PH> level than the normal level of human life. I dragged in r & k just
> PH> for a side-point really, they're not essential to my contribution
> PH> here, though I find finding the concepts meaningful a help. As you
> PH> said on Saturday Christianity is definitely a revealed religion, &
> PH> reincarnation doesn't seem to have been included in Ver 1.0, though
> PH> karma was ('as ye sow so shall ye reap').
>
> The problem is the division: at some point people are divided into two
> disjoint groups, with separate destinies, and no possibility of
> change-over. Implicit, IMO, and sometimes explicit in the Bible is the
> idea that this division occurs after our death: there is no second
> chance. I can understand the impulse to soften this line, but feel that
> in the end it is a dangerous thing to do.
The question is 'what does 'death' mean generally in the Bible?' - is it
physical or spiritual? I say the latter & that the former has little to do
with eternal truths.
> BE> If Patrick's POV is correct then why do we need this forgiveness?
> BE> What was Jesus doing on the cross? And a million other questions
> BE> spring to mind...
>
> PH> I suppose we need forgiving because we need forgiving. We get stuck
> PH> in guilt for the things we do, and it becomes a barrier to
> PH> progress. My POV is that for the purpose of becoming closer to God
> PH> the thing to do is to stop sinning & to deal with the results of
> PH> past sin; being forgiven doesn't achieve either of those in itself.
>
> Yes, I sort of agree with you here... 8^)
=:-O
> BE> Reincarnation and good karma are simply inadequate to bring us to
> BE> God, if He is just and holy as I take Him to be. No matter how many
> BE> goes I get I am never going to get to God - I need to be rescued.by
> BE> Him.
>
> PH> I'm sure r & k aren't enough (in fact one has to get rid of good
> PH> karma as much as bad - attachment is the cause of suffering, man) -
> PH> they just give a realistic timescale in which to imagine being able
> PH> to get somewhere for real, as opposed to having to get someone else
> PH> to do the work. And I agree we can't get to God by our own
> PH> efforts. Rather I'm talking about the stages of preparation, of
> PH> stopping being sinful and of dealing with karma, which we have to do
> PH> ourselves essentially (I'm sure God helps us) otherwise it isn't
> PH> real. The last stage is a matter for God.
>
> The thief on the cross is in my mind, as he was mentioned in another
> thread. Would his "preparation" have been visible? I mean, he didn't
> appear particularly prepared, or to have had long to become so. I don't
> suppose he had been particularly interested in becoming sinless for
> long, but in a matter of minutes he was "saved".
>
> The pharisee and the tax collector is another one; the tax collector was
> a sinful man. Thankfully, our working towards sinlessness is not a
> preparation for salvation, but a result of it. The *first* stage is a
> matter for God!
You mean that Jesus/God gave the world a massive hint, and now we are trying
to make real what was hinted at? Works for me.
An r&k-style interpretation of 'today you will be with me in paradise' is that
heaven & hell don't exist specifically after physical death. Things then are
much the same as now except we are more free to move spiritually. The reason
we come back here is simply that we like the (illusory) feeling of power that
being physical gives us, together with attachments to various things we felt
were 'us' or 'life giving'. So Jesus was saying that, initially, the thief &
he were going into the same state; it's what would happen afterwards that
would show the real state of each's being.
> PH> I read recently (in
> PH> 'Initiation' by Elisabeth Haich - an excellent & intriguing read)
> PH> the view that the last stage (in her terms, becoming divine)
> PH> consists of the divine recognising itself in the person rather than
> PH> the person themselves taking the final step. We Christians express
> PH> the stages of preparation in terms of 'letting Christ in' eg the RC
> PH> sets great store by Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ which
> PH> is essentially a series of exercises & advice for shifting the
> PH> emotions towards 'what they should be'. I'm not suggesting that that
> PH> sort of thing is sufficient but that it is necessary and that it
> PH> involves real and concentrated work & so I'm against the view that
> PH> we should give up & hope that Jesus will do it all for us.
>
> Praise God! The RC's and I agree on something! "The Imitation of
> Christ" is one of my favourite second-hand bookshop finds, the first
> couple of books anyway, before he gets onto some of the dodgier stuff
> about the mass. Wonderful stuff.
>
> Again I think you've got things back to front: "letting Christ in" is
> the /second/ tense of salvation. And I certainly agree that we should
> not give up and hope that Jesus will do it all for us.
Indeed he can't, because that wouldn't be real - it would be a salvation of a
PatrickHerring/Jesus composite.
> Eg look at Rom 8:1 "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those
> who are in Christ Jesus," because (v3) "God [sent] his own Son in the
> likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering."
>
> This is past, the first tense of salvation, but with present
> consequences, v12,13 "Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it
> is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live
> according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you
> put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,
An excellent passage - a similar thing is said in the Eesha Upanishad: 'They
that know and can distinguish between natural knowledge and supernatural
knowledge shall, by the first, cross the perishable in safety; shall, passing
beyond the second, attain immortal life.' 'Crossing the perishable in safety'
always makes me see an engineer cautiously crossing a wonky bridge all the
time consulting his tables of girder stress levels. A crucial difference is
the 'passing beyond the second' - I should think that thought is in the Bible
somewhere, probably in the Psalms, since it means that knowledge of how to get
to heaven is still a dual relationship - you have to become divine & therefore
unseparated from God.
If you actually tried to remove a propensity to live according to the sinful
nature in respect of a particular sin-event-type, what would you do & what
would tell you that you had got there ie living by the Spirit in that
particular department?
> <snip>
>
> PH> Why do I hear 'Justification' as meaning that without Jesus God
> PH> would probably just blow us away because he 'didn't like the look in
> PH> our eye'? It's difficult to square this apparent need to be
> PH> persuaded even to consider us with his having created & done so much
> PH> for us.
>
> That's exactly the point! God has done *so* much for us, and we have
> dumped on Him in such an apalling way that we couldn't possibly expect
> Him to save us. Yet He does! Wonderful, wonderful cross.
This sounds like the Justification is really about justifying ourselves to
ourselves ie persuading us that God is still interested, whereas it's normally
presented as being about justifying us to God. I agree with the first so I
suspect that it's been mis-represented to me in the past.
> God's heart is broken by our sin. If you want a vivid and disturbing
> picture of this then read Ezekiel chapter 16. Sometimes I cry when I
> read this. (verse 63 is an amazing prophecy of the cross, after *all*
> *this* God still wants us back!)
>
> There is no sense at all in which people are basically OK, and God's got
> a bit of a downer on us. Justification is a desperate remedy for our
> desperate need. He didn't need to be persuaded to do it, He did it out
> of His love for us. Without the cross there would literally be no way
> to God - He was proactive in making that way, and the cost was born
> entirely by Him. We have a great God.
Hmm I disagree here. We've agreed so far that the cross was about persuading
us that God is still interested in us being with him in heaven, but actually
getting us there (=the total cost) just can't have been born entirely by
Jesus' death else we wouldn't have to try not to sin. We would be able to tap
into this fund of grace so as to become sinless in nature without any real
effort on our part, but the fact that we can't indicates that there's more to
be done than what Jesus could possibly have achieved given the free-will-'it's
got to come from us' bit. I think it must be the sanctification bit that I'm
trying to elucidate since I see Christianity as a whole being convinced that
that too is up to God - we've just got to wait - which is what I find deeply
self-contradictory.
Annabel Smyth
On Fri, 11 Apr 1997, Patrick Herring wrote:
>> And this, of course, is the Bible view! We are body, mind and spirit,
>> but they can't be separated.
>
>What's the actual reference for that BTW (seeing as I need some help on
>Bible-study)?
>
presented. Paul, of course, separates "flesh" and "spirit", which we
tend to interpret as "body" and "soul", but I don't think that's what he
meant! The body/soul bit is Platonic, not Christian. Mind you, I
shouldn't wonder if St Paul wasn't something of a Platonist.
>Yes one does need a reason to include reincarnation in the system. I guess my
>own reason is that I'm convinced that we need to do a lot more work on
>ourselves in preparation for heaven than we normally accept. I don't mean that
>we work our way to heaven but that it takes a very long time to get us to
>'move aside' to let God in, and that that progression naturally takes place in
>stages.
BUT there is no thought of this in Scripture, as far as I can see. When
we are in Christ, we are told, we are a "new creation" (sorry, but I'm
far too tired to look up references; 1 Corinthians somewhere). Granted
we aren't always ready to let God in straight away, but we have, from
all I'm told, all eternity to do that. And, who knows, maybe when we
are in our resurrection bodies we can do it rather more easily than in
our present ones?
>
>> Plus, if
>> I have eternal life, as my Bible tells me I do, how can I be
>> reincarnated, since I don't ever stop being me?
>
>Hmmm, reincarnation is about where you don't stop being you, though if you
>need your particular body to be you then how do you have eternal life? There
>would have to be an interim even if you get it back in the end. Not sure why
>everybody wants to stick with their bodies so much, I've always wanted to be a
>seagull .... flap flap flap...
>
Again, nowhere in Scripture do you find any other body being given us
than our resurrection bodies (1 Corinthians 15 - I know that one without
looking!). Those we get, but I gather in the not-here place that we
call Heaven. Not, from what the Scripture teaches, another round here
on earth. In fact, quite the reverse; as C S Lewis so memorably put it,
the whole point of human birth is human death - the object of the
exercise is for us to finish our life here and be in heaven. "For me to
live is Christ, to die is gain" said St Paul to the Philippians.
I hope he's right - reincarnation simply doesn't appeal to me! I don't
want to have to go through *this* life again, thank you very much; once
was quite enough. No, I want to awake in Heaven with Jesus, whatever
that actually means when it happens.
Richard Herring
In article <334f7f78...@news.demon.co.uk>, Steven Carr
<ste...@bowness.demon.co.uk> wrote
>Agreed. You can simulate an H-bomb on a computer, but you will never
>obliterate anything. Possibly you could simulate a brain very,very
>exactly indeed, still without ever producing any thoughts. A
>simulation is not the real thing.
Not comparable. As you point out, the bomb simulation is only symbolic:
a brain (or should that be "mind"?) simulation could (in principle, and
making certain assumptions) be just as "real" as a real mind, in that it
would interact with the rest of the world in a way indistinguishable
from the real one. But "thought" is a product of self-consciousness. Is
the simulation self-conscious? There's no way of testing this, any more
than there is of testing that any other entity outside myself is truly
self-conscious.
>What's wrong with reductionism? It works well enough in such subjects
>as art, where painters reduce paintings to such things as colour,
>brush-strokes, perspective etc. It works well enough in music where
>musicians analyse music in 'fifths' and 'sub-dominants' etc. Why
>should science be immune to reductionist explanations when the arts
>use them all the time?
That's not reductionism, it's *analysis*. Reductionism is the
(fallacious IMO) assertion that a system is *nothing but* the sum of its
parts.
--
Richard Herring <ric...@clupeid.demon.co.uk>
Richard Herring
In article <R9u3GJAD...@rauko.demon.co.uk>, Marc Read
<Ma...@rauko.demon.co.uk> wrote
>In article <ant11061...@mcfamily.demon.co.uk>, Andy McMullon
><an...@mcfamily.demon.co.uk> writes
>
>>Now in so far as I actually understand Chaos Theory (which I don't at
>>the level of the mathematics!) I thought that determinism had been
>>routed. It is not possible to determine the outcome at any
>>particular point *before* the event but it is not random either
>>because retrospecively a clear pattern can be seen!
>
>I'm not so sure that this helps. Even in a non-chaotic universe, it is a
>plausible position to maintain that all events are determined, but not
>predictable in advance (because of the sheer complexity of the system).
>
simple and totally deterministic, but the results are not predictable
from the starting position except by following its evolution.
>
>(I'm just waiting for someone to mention Quantum Mechanics. Then I shall
>scream very loudly, bash my head against the wall a few times, and try
>breathing deeply.)
Quantum Mechanics.
There.
Feel better now?
--
Richard Herring <ric...@clupeid.demon.co.uk>
Nick Van Zyl
Richard Herring (ric...@clupeid.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: It's the same argument in both cases. Searle started from the Turing
: test but reduced it from "being intelligent" to speaking Chinese. So his
: room has a recipe for speaking Chinese; Turing's machine has a recipe
: for demonstrating "intelligence" by answering questions as a human being
: would.
: Depends what you mean by "false" here. Searle's argument certainly is,
: but Turing simply suggested a pragmatic test for machine "intelligence",
: in order to stimulate a debate about the actual nature of intelligence,
: and what it might mean for our notion of intelligence if a machine could
: pass the test.
Maybe at this point I should throw in Arthur C Clark's maxim that
'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'.
Steven Carr
on Sat, 12 Apr 1997 18:24:23 GMT, ma...@good-stuff.co.uk (Mark Goodge)
wrote :
>On Sat, 12 Apr 1997 11:05:55 +0100, Ma...@rauko.demon.co.uk (Marc Read)
>wrote:
<skip>
>>I've always thought Chaos theory was a misleading name. The laws are
>>still deterministic, but just incredibly sensitive to variations in
>>initial condition.
>That's true. In any case, the fact that something cannot be predicted
>in advance, does not mean that it has not, in fact, been determined.
>As far as physics goes, causality holds. If it did not, then the
>consequences would probably undermine a vast amount of current
>scientific theory. That's why determinism is so popular among
>scientists of a philosophical nature (and humanist philosphers) -
>because, from a purely physical/mathematical point of view, it is
>quite obviously inevitable.
Is it? Could you explain further please?
I don't know if the universe is deterministic or not. It is an open
question AFAIK.
>But, as Patrick has pointed out in another post, the scientific
>world-view is by nature flawed, as it assumes that the basis of
>everything is the material universe. Whereas, in fact, it's the
>spiritual/divine that is the underlying reality. Determinism is
>fundamentally a-theistic (hyphen intentional), while, on the other
>hand, free will *requires* the existance of something beyond the
>material (a theme taken up by C.S. Lewis in a number of his essays).
I don't see why, being a compatibilist (sp). If the Universe
determines my actions, then it is pretty clear that the part of the
Universe which is *most* responsible for determining my actions is
that part I call *me* (and other people call 'you' or sometimes 'Hey,
you') This is identical to the free-will position which is that I
choose what I want to do.
As all non-deterministic systems can be reduced to a deterministic
system plus a random number generator (Gareth might tell me if this is
correct or not), it is unclear to me why a non-deterministic world is
a morally better world than a deterministic one. All that you have
gained is that you now say that people do things at random. By random,
I mean really random. No factors, such as thought or consideration of
moral factors or intention, are present in the non-deterministic part.
Personally, I quite like the idea that my actions are *determined* by
my thoughts. I find the idea that my actions are not determined by
anything rather disturbing. Who knows what I might do next?
If I see an old lady drop her shopping, I might decide to help her
pick it up. In a deterministic universe, my decision would determine
my actions (and it would be *my* decision). In a non-deterministic
universe, I might then instead actually kill her and rob her purse,
*for absolutely no reason at all*. This is rather scary.
>Predestination, then (which is what this thread started out
>discussing), actually has more in common with a materialist world-view
>than it's proponents would like to think. What it does, is to reduce
>God to merely another factor in a mechanistic universe. Free will,
>though, not only allows for, but requires, the active participation of
>both God and creation in the day-to-day running of the universe - by
>making choices which will have irrevocable consequences for the
>future.
<skip QM>
Steven Carr ste...@bowness.demon.co.uk
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