addressing two aspects...
Timothy Sutter
# and your trust is well placed.
this ends up addressing two aspects.
first you address the nature of this trust
and find it can be traced back to God and the
beginning of creation and then you find that
because you can trace this sort of detail back
to the same old story, that you can say that
this strengthens the view of the same old story
as that much more representative of the 'truth'.
meaning, because you can add another detail
to your description, that your description more
and more resembles the way things are.
so anyway;
there's trust, and for you, the human being who
is just waking up from a long nap, this trust is
centered entirely in you. meaning, you have yet
to actually place your trust in anyone as of yet.
so, you decide to trust another person whom
you've only just met and of whom you have
limited prior knowledge .
at first, this trust is purely, faith based, on your part.
to keep this as simple as possible for now,
we won't mention that you don't know yourself
all that well seeing as how you just woke up
from a long nap and you've never placed your
trust in anyone else before.
so, just stash that detail in the back of your mind.
right now, as a given, we say that you can trust your self.
this because we first want to address how God
could see things, and then, maybe we can come
back and look at what can go wrong.
like we keep one variable fixed so we can
look at the way an other variable behaves.
our old convoluted friend.
just remember, everyone knows and
can cite what dear Paul said about things;
"now, we see thru a glass and darkly,
but then clearly for we shall
see God as God is"
so, we've never denied that we, as
human beings, get a filtered image.
we simply suggest that as we use and hone
our sensory apparatus, both physical and spiritual,
that we can place more credence in what these tell us.
and that is the second part of the first sentence.
anyway, in the same manner as we traced "Love"
back to an image of God, and said that God as
complete 'parental' figure could be viewed as having
a nature that seems to be a Unity of two unique and
complementary identities that together form a third
total identitity which is all simply One God,
we can now look at trust as if that stems
from this perfect Love which is God.
just as if you were to call both
of your parents, together as one, "the Father"
only "the Father" is Justice and Mercy,
Word and Spirit, Love and Love and
sees no conflict.
whereas, human beings are lacking completeness,
and so, in general and quite often, the parental
figure we see is disjointed and polarized.
right off the bat, you see two people, where in God,
no one at all knows the full depths of God but God
and to whomever God reveals God.
so, i wrote a piece on a view of God
analogous to a marriage of sorts.
what's sort of funny, is that we never 'see'
any thing of the complete "the Father"
but have been gifted with "the Son"
who is that perfected -Image- of the
complete "the Father"
God doesn't need to split imagery up
into pink is for boys and blue is for girls.
God doesn't say, "Mercy is a female
quality and Justice is a male quality"
this because these qualities have zero
dependance upon sexual gender identification.
not even sure that a billy goat actually
could recognize such a thing as justice
or that a lady lion has any knowledge
of that which is mercy.
so, when and if we suggest that "the Father"
is a -complete- parental figure, we still don't
split this figure up into light and dark meat.
we have no right to categorize aspects
of God's own spirit into classes that are
dictated by our own flesh.
so, anyway, God trusts God as if the knowledge
were so intimate that no apparent component
could possibly hide anything from the other.
'they' have always known each other
so much so that no thing else can even
distinguish that there is any sort
of bifurcation at all.
so, back to you and other human beings.
obviously, you cannot claim an intimate
knowledge with someone you have just met,
and you can claim that there are, most definitely,
two people and not some singular entity.
but, in this example, you can claim that you
have trust and that you know what trust is
and that you can use your trust with someone
whom you have only just met.
long story short;
what begins as a 'faith' issue on your part
grows into a 'knowledge' issue on both parts.
where your faith is transformed into knowledge
by successful interactions of uncertain designs
coming into fruition.
uncertain only because they have yet to appear.
i haven't finished this.
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=======================================
> #> you trust this person,
> #> and your trust is well placed.
> first you address the nature of this trust
> and find it can be traced back to God and the
> beginning of creation and then you find that
> because you can trace this sort of detail back
> to the same old story, that you can say that
> this strengthens the view of the same old story
> as that much more representative of the 'truth'.
anyway, as a side note;
as an example,
for no good reason,
there are 65 people with red/green color blindness
and 3 people with regular twenty-twenty vision.
independantly, all of them look at an
array of spots that are red and green.
65 people see a blur and 3 people see
a picture of a red apple on a green pie plate.
by consensus, the 'true' representation
is taken to be that of the blur.
but the 3 people who see the apple on
the pie plate offer up a consistent and
detailed description of what they see.
so what?
can anyone convince, with persuasive language,
that the 65 who see a blur are not seeing a blur?
they are seeing a blur.
for them, what they see is a blur and
that is what the array represents to them.
for them, the blur is the 'truth'
what may trouble you here is
the idea of 'truth by consensus'
not that each individual does or
does not see what they see.
but which group understanding
more closely represents reality?
and you have 4% of people saying;
"it's an apple on a pie plate"
and 96% saying; "it's a blur"
and the simple fact that the 4% can never
use persuasive language, nor forceful action,
to make the 96% see the apple on the pie plate.
and by consensus, the 'truth' is taken to be; 'it's a blur'
so, what the 4% decide is to change the colors
of the apple on the pie plate to black and white
and then show that to the 96%.
the 96% all see the image of the apple on the plate.
and now, by concensus, the 'truth' is that the
image represents an apple on a pie plate.
and they all lived happily ever after.
of course, we could have said that the 4% were color blind
and the 96% saw the apple on the pie plate and the 4% wormed
their way into academia and proclaimed that everyone who believed
what they saw was a clear and distinct image were all stupid
and uneducated into the fact that the image was a blur and
that the truth of the blur was the only truth and that this
truth must be spread to all people regardless of any fact
such as their seeing a clear and distinct image of an apple
on a pie plate, even going so far as to openly persecute
anyone who said they saw an apple on a pie plate.
but then you'd have to cut out the part
about them all living happily ever after.
-------------------------------------------
==========================================
> anyway, in the same manner as we traced "Love"
> back to an image of God, and said that God as
> complete 'parental' figure could be viewed as having
> a nature that seems to be a Unity of two unique and
> complementary identities that together form a third
> total identitity which is all simply One God,
> we can now look at trust as if that stems
> from this perfect Love which is God.
as another little side remark, what may
be sort of funny is that God is something
like the twisted helical stranded structure
of the dna molecule.
and i mean -like-
not identical to.
like this sort of thing;
fixed width font;
___ ___ ___
...___/ \____/ \___/ \___...
\___/ \___/ \___/
look, there are places where it's just one line
and then branchings which give a virtual impression
of duality, and union joining and separations
are inherent aspects of God's own make-up.
and you see this sort of thing
over and over again in Genesis.
divide unify divide unify divide unify...
the immediate conclusion we -don't-
jump to is that God is at war with God.
no moreso than one could conclude that
cell division is a phenomenon associated
with conflict and animosities.
just that this idea of apparent division is
that phenomenon which proves that God
is One God.
Love as Justice and Mercy more reflects
the splitting of white light into component
colors than any disintegration into total darkness.
but you've heard these things before.
and we can begin to see the forms
of God's initiation of the creation.
as examples, not that God
-is- electromagnetic radiation,
but that God's own personality and
Spirit may -resemble- things of this nature.
so, say we do have something like
white light splitting into multiplex colors.
and then we have God, splitting out a variety
of independant personality structures which
each resemble -like- a color.
like several independant facets of God's
own nature each get a being of their own,
not that God cedes away this facet of God's
personality, but that God recognizes it as a
structured portion, splits it out and gives
it a spirit of it's own.
God still maintaining God's totallity.
i'm still meddling with this bit.
------------------------------------
Faithfulness
/ \
Mercy Kindness \ Justice
/ \ / \ / \
/ Patience Joy \
/ \
Spirit Word
\ /
\ Self-control Peace /
\ / \ / \ /
Justice Gentleness / Mercy
\ /
\ /
Love
/ \
/ \
Justice Gentleness \ Mercy
/ \ / \ / \
/ Self-control Peace \
/ \
Word Spirit
\ /
\ Patience Joy /
\ / \ / \ /
Mercy Kindness / Justice
\ /
Faithfulness
> look, there are places where it's just one line
> and then branchings which give a virtual impression
> of duality, and union joining and separations
> are inherent aspects of God's own make-up.
> Love as Justice and Mercy more reflects
> the splitting of white light into component
> colors than any disintegration into total darkness.
just as a for instance;
Mercy ------ Joy ------ Justice
/ \ / \
/ \ / \
Spirit \ / Word
/ \ / \ /
/ \Justice --- Patience--- Mercy/
Love__/_____________\____________________/_________Love
\ / \
\ /Mercy --- Patience--- Justice\
\ / \ / \
Word / \ Spirit
\ / \ /
\ / \ /
Justice ------ Joy ------ Mercy
anyway, i could add in things like
peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control, and make
a very fine wiring diagram.
seeing as these would be
considered 'fruit of the Spirit'
then we can safely consider
them as attributes the
Spirit has or is.
but, "my words are spirit"
so, anyway, you get the general idea.
it's just that in God as Total Preeminent Being,
God is Both God and 'neighbor', that is,
Love for God and Love for 'neighbor' are
tied together in an apparent duality of sorts.
but 'they' are One God,
and we can't even suggest that a given
attribute is the sole possession of 'part'
of God, because 'they' are not parted.
but we can speak of it as a complementary
nature with apparent forks which are, in themselves,
expressions of this Love which is God in totallity.
and then we come to address the Creation.
again.
i'll work on it...
---------------------------------------
anyway, it seemed compelling so i tried to meddle with it.
whats funny is that to a first approximation,
this diagram below sort of models the "Mind of Christ."
it is funny because it seems to have two hemispheres
and it's all interconnected and convoluted like a brain.
'first approximation'
> just as a for instance; [fixed width font]
=================
Faithfulness
/ \
Mercy Kindness \ Justice
/ \ / \ / \
/ Patience Joy \
/ \
Spirit Word
\ /
\ Self-control Peace /
\ / \ / \ /
Justice Gentleness / Mercy
\ /
\ /
Love
/ \
/ \
Justice Gentleness \ Mercy
/ \ / \ / \
/ Self-control Peace \
/ \
Word Spirit
\ /
\ Patience Joy /
\ / \ / \ /
Mercy Kindness / Justice
\ /
Faithfulness
===================
see, if you consider that God thinks in a manner somewhat
generalized by this diagram, you can easily see that God
is not in some interminable argument with God.
and God's Creativity is an expression of this Love.
see, the interpersonal adversary forsook
this Love for a parade of Self.
which i would like to look at in a bit.
the mind of the adversary takes
on a quarrelsome and conflicted nature.
internally darkened.
in a bit...
Spirit Word
Mercy Justice
Joy Peace
Faithfulness Kindness
Self-control Goodness
Patience Gentleness
--------------------------------
and we define the Creation as an act of Love.
love <---> creation
just as an example, God lets 7 aspects
of God's own unified and singular Spirit
express themselves as seven independant
'colors' each of which carry God's Glory.
Christ is the stamped image of God even
if we as human beings cannot see all there
is to see, God can see it all and
God approves, entirely.