Are These Mainstream Doctrines In Need of Reform?

[rjs330]

First problem. I've provided scripture-based arguments that you ignore. Why should I keep repeating myself?

Second problem. EVERY reality that I encounter in life is finite and material and, if alive, has a finite amount of knowledge acquired over a finite period of time. I don't even know what it MEANS to speak of an infinite object (much less an immaterial one). Is it still growing? This is gibberish - it's like you're defining Him as the flying spaghetti monster, and then you tell me that I am the one with the burden of proof, I have to prove to you that He is NOT the flying spaghetti monster. Does anyone see the absurdity of this?

Give me one irrefutable proof from Scripture that your flying spaghetti monster (i.e. an infinite immaterial God) exists. Cause I've never seen one of those.

You have not given scriptures and provided a cogent argument using scripture for a finite God. I'd like to know where if you have because I haven't seen it.

The reality of life is NOT a logical argument for a finite God. Just because we are finite and lack understanding doesn't mean anything. His ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. Our wisdom is foolishness to him. Paul also tells us we see through a glass darkly right now. So from a scriptural perspective it tells us clearly we cannot fully grasp who God is or fully grasp how he works. Your arguments fall flat because you lean on your own finite mind. If you can put together a legitimate argument from scripture that shows you have aligned your thinking to scripture then we can talk. Until then, you are the one talking gibberish.

 

[JAL]

You have not given scriptures and provided a cogent argument using scripture for a finite God. I'd like to know where if you have because I haven't seen it.

What do you mean by legitimate argument? Apodictic proof, apparently - the very thing whose possibility I repeatedly deny. How convenient.

The reality of life is NOT a logical argument for a finite God. Just because we are finite and lack understanding doesn't mean anything. His ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. Our wisdom is foolishness to him.

(Sigh) Scripture lacks the word Trinity. Theologians had to REASON their way to this conclusion. That's how Christian theology proceeds. It begins with some biblical data and then attempts to EXTRAPOLATE it.

That's what I've done. I didn't start from sheer logic in my arguments. For example I didn't try to prove:
1. God exists.
2. God created the world.
3. God is love and holiness.
4. God incarnated His Son.
5. God has merit and merits praise (is worthy of it).
Rather I'm (implicitly) STARTING WITH ALL THE SCRIPTURES suppporting these claims (admittedly I didn't bother to make a list of all those hundreds of verses), and then I EXTRAPOLATED. My position is THEREFORE BASED ON SCRIPTURE.

Now, if you say it's ok for mainstream theologians to use extrapolation, but JAL's not allowed, then you're a total hypocrite, right?

(Sigh). So here's an example of extrapolation given earlier. The mainstream claim is that God has INNATE, IMMUTABLE infinite knowledge. Is this the MOST PLAUSIBLE extrapolation? (Again, I can't give you apodictic proofs, all I can do is try to identify the position most plausible in terms of harmony with the data).

No it is clearly NOT the most plausible claim because it SEEMS to flatly contradict the Incarnation, because if God is IMMUTABLY omniscient, then He can't CHANGE Himself into an ignorant babe. To solve this, mainstream theologians EXTRAPOLATE to a 'hypostatic union' - which they themselves admit to be incomprehensible! To the human mind it's gibberish!

In the incarnate Son, we find ABSOLUTE PROOF (or at least as close to apodicticity as one could aspire to) of the concept of a GOD FINITE IN KNOWLEDGE WHO LEARNS OVER TIME. That's a FACT of Scripture. And it's just ONE example of a cogent biblical based (albeit extrapolated) argument presented on this thread. I provided several.

Second example. Do you believe in material objects of infnite size? Still growing? That's seems like nonsense. So the most plausible position is that if an object is material, it's FINITE. On this thread, I've provided PLENTY of biblical evidence for a material God, and you conveniently IGNORE it.

Meanwhile, you can't seem to furnish ONE SHRED of convincing evidence for an infinite immaterial God.

 

[JAL]

There is none, whatever the soul is made of it's of a substance far beyond the material plane. Yet transcends time, space and the physical aspects of being.



This is really starting to sound like dialectical materialism, everything has to have a naturalistic explanation, no matter how much of a strain it is on logic.



Clearly Paul is talking about inordinate bodily appetites, exaggerated and inflamed due to suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness. When you worship and serve the creature rather then the creator he can turn you over to those vanities as an act of judgment. The dead are inanimate, devoid of desire and thus, incapable of satisfying the cravings of the natural man.



When Adam was cursed God said, 'surly you will die'. The Hebrew expression literally means, 'dying you shall die'. Pursuing the carnality of the sinful nature deadens the spirit, quenching the spirit by directing your energies from the things of God. The conscience is deadened as well, becoming unresponsive at the seat of moral reflection. Putting to death the flesh is a euphemism for abandoning the gratification of those vain imaginations. Sin is never what it seems, it's the proverbial carrot on a stick, in striving to reach some fleeting satisfaction the appetites are exaggerated and restraint is consumed. Repentance starves those inordinate affections, responding as it were, as a dead man.



A good example, the Law tells Paul, 'thou shalt not covet', sin seizes the opportunity to suppress that truth in unrighteousness. If thy foot offend thee, cut it off. If thy hand offend thee cut it off, if they eye offend then pluck it out. Why? Because we look, we desire what we see, we pursue and then we reach out to have. That is why looking at a woman with lust in your heart is the same thing as the act of adultery, it's the same morality.



Tempted in all ways, except without sin, that's the point.



The sinful nature is the lust of the flesh, natural desire distorted into unnatural affection, covetousness and the old English word for it is evil concupiscence.

Desire (Noun and Verb), Desirous: "a desire, craving, longing, mostly of evil desires," frequently translated "lust," is used in the following, of good "desires:" of the Lord's "wish" concerning the last Passover, Luk 22:15; of Paul's "desire" to be with Christ, Phl 1:23; of his "desire" to see the saints at Thessalonica again, 1Th 2:17. With regard to evil "desires," in Col 3:5 the RV has "desire," for the AV, "concupiscence;" in 1Th 4:5, RV, "lust," for AV, "concupiscence;" there the preceding word pathos is translated "passion," RV, for AV, "lust" (see AFFECTION); also in Col 3:5 pathos and epithumia are associated, RV, "passion," for AV, "inordinate affection." Epithumia is combined with pathema, in Gal 5:24; for the AV, "affections and lusts," the RV has "passions, and the lusts thereof." Epithumia is the more comprehensive term, including all manner of "lusts and desires;" pathema denotes suffering; in the passage in Gal. (l.c.) the sufferings are those produced by yielding to the flesh; pathos points more to the evil state from which "lusts" spring. Cp. orexis, "lust," Rom 1:27. (Vine’s Dictionary G1939 epithymia)​

The Greek term for desire here is qualified by being a 'pathos' desire, an evil concupiscence, an inordinate affection, that promise pleasure but in the end cause suffering and quench the spirit.



Jesus tells us if you call your brother a fool you are in danger of hell fire, even murder itself isn't so great a sin. From the words we speak terrible calamity can occur. It's much easier to destroy then it is to build. Just light a match and the whole house can be reduced to ashes, building another house is not so simple a matter. I really don't know where you are trying to go with this material/immaterial thing but I suspect we are off on a tangent.



What would concern me about the distinction between material and immaterial? I really don't get such a long trip to a less then substantive point.



Materialism? Really? That was what you were trying to drive home with this? The presence in Catholic communion is a spiritual one, it's a way of reflecting on being in the very presence of God. While I do enjoy some of your wranglings with this matters I do hope your not trying to promote a materialist worldview and impose it on the testimony of Scripture. That would be a very disappointing end to this rambling but mildly searching discussion.

Sorry Mark, you may think you're fooling others with your long aimless ramblings, but "you ain't fooling me honey".

Until you respond appropriately - a scripture-by-scripture, point-by-point rebuttal of my actual arguments, I'm not going to dignify this patronizing nonsense with a substantial response.

What I WILL do, out of courtesy, when I have a moment, is to re-read it to see if missed anything, to see if I can find even ONE cogent AND RELEVANT rebuttal or argument. Because so far I haven't seen anything directly refuting the force of my arguments on this thread.

All you're doing, it seems to me, is regurgitating 2,000 years of indoctrination - the very doctrines I'm challenging.

 

[JAL]

Thanks. I've gone one step further and also downloaded your book. I was going to suggest to you to put it into a book, and so I found you already had.

As a professional writer I have some suggestions that you might find useful. Firstly, you need to build your arguments a bit more slowly. You address too many big concepts too quickly. You need to first find a point that connects you with your reader. Since most (if not all) of your readers will not be materialists as you are, you need to (1) outlay the argument for immaterialism, then (2) show why it's logically flawed, and then (3) outlay your alternative, and (4) show why your alternative is superior. You need to do this logically and slowly. What you are doing (and this is just me trying to be a helpful critic) is trying to do all four things at once, and it loses your reader.

That's just some free advice from a professional of eleven years. You can do what you like with that advice. You don't have to reply to this. But if you went a little slower and made things in bite-size 'chunks' for people, you will find yourself much less frustrated.

Okay, onward!

Yeah believe me I ruminated on those sorts of considerations, but couldn't decide if the book would quickly grow too large and thus be too daunting for ANY reader to undertake. So I took an approach I've seen elsewhere - summarize the main points in the chapter, and then provide some of the details in the footnotes. Still have no idea whether I made the right move...

I do remember saying something about 'nitpicking'. What I meant was simply to say that if something incomprehensible to me it doesn't mean it is illogical or unrealistic. The flaw might remain with me. For example, if someone comes and speaks to me in Khoisan, it's going to be incomprehensible to me, but that does not make it nonsense or gibberish. The fault lies with me because I am unable to grasp it. In time I might learn. This is why theologians such as Erickson will admit that certain orthodox ideas are logically "absurb from a human standpoint". But in time we might find that it is perfectly logical, when we have more data.

Yeah but it's kinda silly,no, irresponsible for me to accept a Chinese doctrine that I'm SURE I don't understand when there is an English one that I DID understand.

You have stated that this idea is not a good one because we must be good exegetes with the information we might have. I agree with that, but from my point of view, it's clear God has deliberately left out a great deal of information. The Bible does not give us tons of information. It does not tell us much about physics, for instance. It does not tell us how food is digested. It didn't even tell us about germs. God left much up to us to discover and to speculate on. Likewise, theology in the Bible is not all there is to know - a great many things will only be discovered by us in eternity.

Again, irrelevant, for the reason just stated.

Look, I'm not TOTALLY opposed to the notion of, when faced with two claims, occasionally accepting the one less clear because, as mentioned earler, the ULTIMATE authority is conscience (it could be the Third Person convicting/convincing your conscience). However, CALL IT WHAT IT IS. Don't pretend you got it from a careful analysis of Scripture. THAT'S my main complaint. For example, we have people on this thread DEMANDING of me gigantic amounts of biblical proof for my position - and they can't seem to provide a SHRED of evidence for theirs!

So if a doctrine came from conscience, or sheerly from an infatuation with Platonic philosophy, CALL IT WHAT IT IS. Don't pretend it came from Scripture if it seems to fly in the face of the biblical data.

One nice thing about the Orthodox Church (although I'm obviously not a member!), they DO acknowledge the rampant materialism in Scripture. They call it the Energies of God. Of course they claim that BEHIND ALL THE BIBLICAL DATA, lies an immaterial spirit (the puppeteer pulling the strings), which sounds like gibberish to me.

More to come.

 

[JAL]

A. I disagree that God deserves praise for BECOMING / WORKING towards holiness...

But then you're flatly contradicting the unanimous definition of merit. (Sigh) Here's an example cited earlier. Imagine two sons. One is a lazy sloth filthy rich by inheritance, the other one dirt poor but labors for many years to acquire wealth. Which of the two sons merited accolades in their acquisition of wealth? (Again, you can't have two sets of mutually contradictory virtues/values, one for God, one for man, see post #41).

This concept of merit is foundational to virtually every Christian sermon preached in the last 2,000 years. Who is suddenly balking 2,000 years of mainstream teaching now? Me? Or you?

It's a fundamental contradiction in mainstream theology, and as I see below, you're going to make some stabs at resolving it, but I'll expose the flaws.

....This is because I'm in a fundamental disagreement with you, it seems, on what holiness is. I don't see holiness as something that must be worked towards. Humanity's problem is that it continues to try and climb some ladder of virtue. Virtue is something you can get better at, yes. Virtue is endless, yes (goodness has no end). But fundamentally, holiness is something God gives you from his very nature. We do not work for it or towards it, and God did not work for it or towards it. Praise is not due to God because He is Holy as much as praise goes to Him because He makes us holy from his own grace.

Whoa baby! Let's not mix apples and oranges here. WHO is meriting the praise? Do you have divine holiness in view here, or human holiness? Human holiness is DERIVED holiness (it is RECEIVED from God as GIFT) and thus MERITS NO PRAISE (more on this later if I have time). For example, no one should praise me for my new birth, since God was the one who did the work.

Mixing apples and oranges is hardly an effective way to prove your point. You're still contradicting the unanimous definition of merit.

 

[JAL]

Next you wax EXCEEDINGLY Platonic. Let's bear in the mind that the notion of 'the good' (virtues such as love) understood to be an OBJECTIVE EXISTING REALITY, a subsistence-in-itself, is a purely Platonic fabrication utterly devoid of both biblical foundation and empirical verifiability, not to mention the common-sense objections potentially adduced against it.

B. You've failed, at least from the reading I've now done, to account for the EXISTENCE of something called 'holiness' (as you have for 'love' and several other ideas). If God worked to become holy then there is some standard he was / is working towards that exists outside of Himself (objectively). This standard is not found within what you have called the Totality, as it seems (according to what I can understand from reading your posts and book) the Totality's consciousness appears to be neutral (I'd argue there is no such thing as morally neutral, but let's try and focus).

Your term EXISTENCE says it all. If that isn't Plato speaking, I don't know what it is. For one thing, it seems to be gibberish - I see this after having taken an (admittedly 101) philosophy class (and admittedly 30 years ago) whose (Christian) professor was a baldy staunch Platonist and said so in open class.

Gibberish because it contradicts the definition of merit. Here's what you seem to be saying:
(1) God exists
(2) Also exists a subsistence called Holiness ('the good').
(3) Therefore God merits praise.
These three premises are COMPLETELY DISJOINTED - but this is my fault, reading down further, you DO talk about WORK.

But the notion that something EXISTS OUTSIDE OF GOD (with an eternal subsistence much like my own doctrine of eternal matter) contradicts the mainstream claim that God, prior to His acts of creation, was the ONLY thing to exist.

Yes, I understand that, from a philosophical standpoint, we Christians would LIKE the idea of a very factual 'objective standard' of morality. We want this neat and tidy worldview that Plato promised to us. But it just MAY be the case that no such thing exists.

I think God awoke in the Totality and reached the same conclusion that I myself have reached - the only practical theory of moral virtue is heeding conscience - a conscience which, fortunately, is already convinced that virtue consists of making every effort to minimize suffering.

There has to be a perfect version of holiness that God must be working to become. Otherwise the concept of 'holiness' is just nonsense, because it is actually nothing...

So now we have God WORKING TO BECOME HOLY again? This is your big rebuttal of me - basically conceding my main point?

... You can only say that whatever God has become is holy, but then you will strip the praise from God away anyway because he didn't have to 'work' towards becoming this thing, simple 'time' and evolution got him there.

First of all, biblical holiness conforms to the human concept of virtues outlined at post #41 (love, kindness,mercy, gentleness, self-control). So let's not pretend that two different kinds of holiness are in view here - except for your wholly gratuitous Platonic claim that holiness has an EXISTENCE in itself. So:
(1) I say that God works toward holiness as any Christian would define the term.
(2) You say the same, but add that it EXISTS.
So? Oddly you then misrepresent my position, by saying that God DIDN'T work to it by free will, you accuse that my version of God merely EVOLVED into it via evolution. I didn't say 'evolution' - I said 'self-evolutionary self-development' and I REPEATEDLY emphasized free will and VOLUNTARY self-sacrificial behavior. I said,REPEATEDLY, that if it wasn't voluntary, it wouldn't merit praise. In fact, that was the WHOLE ARGUMENT.

 

[HatGuy]

Next you wax EXCEEDINGLY Platonic. Let's bear in the mind that the notion of 'the good' (virtues such as love) understood to be an OBJECTIVE EXISTING REALITY, a subsistence-in-itself, is a purely Platonic fabrication utterly devoid of both biblical foundation and empirical verifiability, not to mention the common-sense objections potentially adduced against it.

Your term EXISTENCE says it all. If that isn't Plato speaking, I don't know what it is. For one thing, it seems to be gibberish - I see this after having taken an (admittedly 101) philosophy class (and admittedly 30 years ago) whose (Christian) professor was a baldy staunch Platonist and said so in open class.

Gibberish because it contradicts the definition of merit. Here's what you seem to be saying:
(1) God exists
(2) Also exists a subsistence called Holiness ('the good').
(3) Therefore God merits praise.
These three premises are COMPLETELY DISJOINTED - but this is my fault, reading down further, you DO talk about WORK.

But the notion that something EXISTS OUTSIDE OF GOD (with an eternal subsistence much like my own doctrine of eternal matter) contradicts the mainstream claim that God, prior to His acts of creation, was the ONLY thing to exist.

Yes, I understand that, from a philosophical standpoint, we Christians would LIKE the idea of a very factual 'objective standard' of morality. We want this neat and tidy worldview that Plato promised to us. But it just MAY be the case that no such thing exists.

I think God awoke in the Totality and reached the same conclusion that I myself have reached - the only practical theory of moral virtue is heeding conscience - a conscience which, fortunately, is already convinced that virtue consists of making every effort to minimize suffering.


So now we have God WORKING TO BECOME HOLY again? This is your big rebuttal of me - basically conceding my main point?

First of all, biblical holiness conforms to the human concept of virtues outlined at post #41 (love, kindness,mercy, gentleness, self-control). So let's not pretend that two different kinds of holiness are in view here - except for your wholly gratuitous Platonic claim that holiness has an EXISTENCE in itself. So:
(1) I say that God works toward holiness as any Christian would define the term.
(2) You say the same, but add that it EXISTS.
So? Oddly you then misrepresent my position, by saying that God DIDN'T work to it by free will, you accuse that my version of God merely EVOLVED into it via evolution. I didn't say 'evolution' - I said 'self-evolutionary self-development' and I REPEATEDLY emphasized free will and VOLUNTARY self-sacrificial behavior. I said,REPEATEDLY, that if it wasn't voluntary, it wouldn't merit praise. In fact, that was the WHOLE ARGUMENT.

You appear to be confusing my critique of your views with my actual views. I was outlining how your theology seems to fit together and highlighting where it doesn't, systematically.

 

[JAL]

There has to be a perfect version of holiness that God must be working to become. Otherwise the concept of 'holiness' is just nonsense, because it is actually nothing...

So kindness, love, self-sacrifice are all just USELESS and PURE NONSENSE unless 'the good' EXISTS AS AN ACTUAL SUBSISTENCE? So if someone rapes your children:
(1) It's fine if Plato was wrong about 'the good' existing.
(2) Otherwise it's morally wrong.
Huh? You know it's a good thing that human courts would disagree with you. A lot pedophiles would be walking free.

Look, I'm asking of you two things.
(1) Be consistent with your own values - YOUR human understanding of love,kindness,etc. Surely it doesn't include pedophilia.
(2) If you have a doctrine born of Plato, CALL IT WHAT IT IS. Don't pretend you got it from Scripture.

Without any objective standard to work towards that comes from outside of God, there is no reason to praise God for what it is he simply became because that's just the way things went.

Evolved? But that's not my position. I said REPEATEDLY that free will is the ONLY initiator of material impetus. All other material dynamics are subsequent to that volitional initiatoin (e.g. rebounds cause by collisions).

Thus, for example, even gravity is the hand of God (in my view), and thus is His free will at work.

C. You have also not accounted for the existence of evil. If God has, over billions of years, laboured to become good, then evil exists as some sort of eternal concept because he has laboured against it for all this time. But why?

Eternal existence of evil? Excuse me, I think it should be clear that I am NOT the Platonist in this circle. YOU are. I define evil as freely choosing to disobey conscience defined as a feeling of certainty as to what is right and wrong. In other words an evil man is someone who, being already convinced that choice A is evil, and choice B is morally upright, opts for choice-A nonetheless.

Why did he make this choice? Why was there a choice to begin with? Where does evil actually come from in this scheme? I proposed that your solution may have to do with randomness / chaos (which is what Process Theologians say) but you appear to have rejected that. (I found that a surprise, given that you don't seem to believe in creation ex nihilo).

See above. In my view, there is no 'objective standard' of evil that 'exists/subsists' somewhere OUT THERE in Platonic fashion, sitting alongside God from all eternity. Rather God reached the same conclusion that anyone, in my view, would reach - we can only judge a man evil in terms of conscience.

Instead, you've stated that free will moves matter. Ah, but now we have a problem. You see, at some point you are dealing with infinite concepts. You are simply swapping what is infinite with something else, but trying to keep it within the framework of the finite. It is not working, though. You've rejected God as the person as being infinite, but you've made concepts such as goodness and evil and love and free will to appear out of thin air. Unless you can account for why they exist under your scheme, I'd say you're dead in the water. However, since these are immaterial concepts, I've no way of seeing you resolve this problem.

You seem to be rambling here, arbitrarily conflating and intermixing cocnepts such as infinitude with eternality, free will, and immaterialism vs materialism. It's hard to respond to an argument whose premises seem disjointed.


Secondly, whether a 'concept' is immaterial is not the point. The question is whether the human mind itself is material. I've shown that the notion of an immaterial mind interacting with a material body (e.g. causing the body to move this way and that) appears to be a logical impossibility (for example Charles Hodge admitted he had no solution) - and also seems to contradict significant portions of Scripture discussed earlier.

Given the available data, the most PLAUSIBLE claim is a material mind. I'm just asking people to be honest about where the data is principally pointing.

You've rejected God as the person as being infinite, but you've made concepts such as goodness and evil and love and free will to appear out of thin air.

Yes, if you mean that I reject Plato's (seemingly ridiculous) claim that these virtues are ONTOLOGICAL (his claim that they subsist IN the air somewhere I know not where), apparently alongside of God. True, I do reject such nonsense.

My claim is that evil is not a substance, it's a CHOICE. And I've about 1,000 pages of Scripture to back me up on that point.

Ok. Under your scheme, it appears that free will is an infinite concept.

Use precise language please. It sounds like you're trying to shove the word 'infinite' down my throat, hoping that I will concede to it and thus 'support' mainstream nonnsense doctrines of infinity.

A more appropriate word would have been 'eternal'. Matter is etenral in my view and is inherently volitional, even as it is inherently tangible. In fact, in my opinion it is INESCAPABLY volitional. It is ALWAYS trying to reach out for a 'grasp' of reality (like any embryo having its first thought, and then reaching out even harder when it becomes a fetus).

Thus even a rock isn't dead in the ABSOLUTE sense. But it is NEGLIGIBLY alive. Even a plant, which is far more awake than a rock, is NEGLIGIBLY alive (hence we should feel no remorse about consuming it). A rock isn't awake only in the sense there is no SIGNIFICANT awakening. That might change someday when, as the Scripture says, "All trees of the field shall clap their hands." At this point, God seems to be in control of which pieces of matter are permitted to awaken.


You surmise of my view:

Under your scheme, it appears that free will is an infinite concept. Why? Because free will is what moves matter. But free will cannot be free will unless there is choice, right? Otherwise, what is the 'will' doing? Free will is acting according to discretion. There would have to be choices - either A or B. There cannot have been only one choice, because that is nonsense. Choice means more than one direction can be followed. But where do such choices come from? In this case, you've certainly implied quite strongly that God made the free will choice to move towards goodness rather than evil. But here goodness and evil appear, again, to be infinite concepts if I pick apart your view. Because they have no basis whatsoever in a material world. They cannot exist on their own. They are abstract concepts that seem to appear to pre-date not only God but the Totality. The trouble with all these concepts is they require personality to make them true. Free will can only be possessed by personal agents.

Seems to be more rambling,and more misuse of 'infinite'.

But here goodness and evil appear, again, to be infinite concepts if I pick apart your view. Because they have no basis whatsoever in a material world. They cannot exist on their own.

Exist on their own? Evil is a substance that exists? Was Plato right about such things? Or maybe 1,000 pages of Scripture were correct when they alluded to evil as a FREE CHOICE.

I'll take my chances on Scripture.

 

[JAL]

D. The Totality appears to have been conscious for eternity times past (or however you view time) which means that the Totality is a personal being of some kind. This is why I said there were gnostic concepts coming out here. It appears one kind of god has given birth to another. (A part of the Totality awoke and became 'God'). But surely you can understand that if you give all of material a consciousness you have pretty much articulated pantheism, which leads you into the same problems of pantheism. At best, your view may be articulated as panentheism (since God seems to have at least some kind of transcendence, although I can't see exactly how) but nevertheless, it then runs into the same sort of criticism as pantheism and panentheism.

This non-sequitir - the mistaken assumption that materialism necessitates pantheism - is a common misconception, and perhaps partly responsible for the reluctance of mainstream theologians to consider it seriously.

Although your criticism is an understandable, knee-jerk reaction, my response is simple.

- No, there is no corporate consciousness. I don't know what you're thinking, for example, and therefore I couldn't possibly be culpable of your sins in the sense of FREELY CHOOSING to engage them. Nor you mine. In fact one reason I regard pantheism as silly is because it postulates a corporate consciousness that contradicts the actual facts of life! Admittedly there are times that I WISH I KNEW what God were thinking, but the FACT is, we are two separate minds.

Now, I imagine that, due to the logistics of how physical minds work, it might be theoretically possible to speculate that, if God physically melded His mind into mine, I would know His thoughts.

Would I then be God? I think people fail to realize that such a question isn't terribly relevant. And this irrelevance explains why the charge of pantheism shouldn't be viewed as carrying any real weight. Here's why it's irrelevant. The real question shouldn't be, "Would I, after a meld, actually be God?", but rather, "WAS I one of the constituent pieces of matter that labored, as Yahweh, for 13 billion years to become holy, and thus merit praise?" Clearly I was not. And that's what's important.

And we could ask the same question of God. "Lord, if you melded with JAL, would you then be JAL?" And He would likewise respond, "Was I one of those constituent pieces of JAL that freely chose to engage in all those sins of his, over several decades?" Of course the answer is No. In fact, He was trying to dissuade me of those choices!

So there is no relevance to the charge that, because Jal and God are all part of the same Totality, that Jal is God, and God is Jal, in a pantheistic sense. Even if someone could prove SOME degree of truth to the assertion that the Totality is in SOME SENSE one man, it has no PRACTICAL RELEVANCE.

Free will moves matter. Those pieces of matter that used their free will to do evil, merit punishment. Those who used it to do good (i.e. heeded conscience), merit praise. That's all that's really relevant, in the larger scheme of things. Whether or not the Totality is, IN SOME REMOTE SENSE, describable as one person, simply has no practical relevance.

If you're stuck on that point about pantheism, sorry there's probably not much more I can say to assuage your concerns. But I myself don't see the relevance.

Unfortunately, your view is also not accounting for the original consciousness of the Totality. Why did it gain consciousness? Where did consciousness come from? How could it have even 'gained' such consciousness?

How did YOUR God gain consciousness? I say, consciousness is innate. I'm not a materialist in the TRADITIONAL, ATHEISTIC sense of the term. I don't believe that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter (i.e. arises from innately dead matter). Rather, I hold that matter is innately conscious/volitional, just as you hold of YOUR version of God.

Unfortunately, your analogy of a fetus in a mother's womb leads you into trouble, as the mother is conscious itself. Your Totality, then, is actually the real God, whereas who you know as God is secondary to it.

How does that lead me into trouble? Are you saying that, because the fetus is geographically proximate to the mother, the two are (pantheistically) one person? Thus for any sins the mother commits, we should spank the fetus as well? All you're doing is confirming my claim that such pantheistic assertions fail to describe the facts of the case and thus function as irrelevant charges.

This is an example of my criticism above. It appears maliciousness (evil) here is some sort of eternal abstract concept (even though evil requires conscious, personal agents to be anything). You need to account for where evil comes from in your scheme and what evil even means. If it simply comes from the Totality as a part of the very nature of existence, then you have to account why evil is actually evil, and not just simply the way things are. Concepts such as love and so one fall under the same issues in your scheme.

Platonsim. Already addresed.

Sorry dude, this is mind-boggling. God awoke from the Totality, realised that the Totality could be used for evil (yet evil comes from...?) and decides to judge the Totality. But yet he had to work to become holy so he could do so. But where did he gain the understanding of what holiness is? And if he realised that he had to become holy to judge the totality, where / when did he acquire enough holiness to realise that the Totality could be manipulated in such a way and therefore pass his first judgement and make his free will decision to actually now become holy?

This is really silly. You find it mind boggling that an embryo (to make an analogy) slowly awakens to full awareness and begins to learn some things, form some opinions, and draw some conclusions? You find that to be a logical impossibility? Gibberish perhaps? This is really your big rebuttal of my position?

Look, if there's some sort of real rebuttal here, you'll have to be more clear on what it is. Because I can't seem to find one in that last statement.

 

[JAL]

Hatguy,

Admittedly there is definitely one point that I can be charged with contradiction and probably SHOULD be.

In my own defense, however, let me make a few points.
(1) In defense of charges about John Calvin contradicting himself, one theologian made the surprising statement that we should EXPECT any theologian whose theology is in some sense verbose or expansive, to occasionally contradict himself. He claimed it's quite common for this to happen, simply because we're fallible human beings who, as such, lose sight of earlier conclusions, or even vacillate on some of those issues.
(2) I've found this true of myself, from time to time, and it's compounded by a condition destructive to my memory, which now functions as a kind of learning disability. Sometimes I actually have to go back to my old notes, at times, to find out my stance on a given doctrine!

To be specific, over the years I've vacillated over these two possibilities, because I'm not sure which is most defensible. I now recall that in the last version of my book, I leaned toward #2.
(1) Yahweh cogitated the very first thought in the Totality, thus beginning time.
(2) All matter always strives to move, and thus the whole Totality began time jointly (simultaneously launched each of their first motions/thoughts).

In either case, I believe that Yahweh was the first to awaken in the real sense of the term (i.e. to full self-awareness). In this sense He had no real companionship at first, He was all alone.

 

[JAL]

You appear to be confusing my critique of your views with my actual views. I was outlining how your theology seems to fit together and highlighting where it doesn't, systematically.

Perhaps that's actually what you just did? I wasn't saying that YOU believed in evolution.

 

[JAL]

Unfortunately, your analogy of a fetus in a mother's womb leads you into trouble, as the mother is conscious itself. Your Totality, then, is actually the real God, whereas who you know as God is secondary to it.

Sorry if I missed the force of this objection (not sure if I did).

I try to never be evasive, I always try to meet objections head on (if they are relevant to the debate), so let me know if you think I missed one.

Maybe your objection is that, since the Totality, in its original state, precedes 'Yahweh' (in the sense of Him having become a holy individual), the Totality allegedly MERITS being called God. If that's your objection, it contradicts the unanimous definition of merit. Merit is a status achieved by freely choosing to labor/suffer for a righteous cause, over an extended period of time, as Yahweh did.

Or if you're making a philosophical argument of some kind that Yahweh had no right to assume Kingship over the Totality, let's bear in mind some things.
(1) In my view, right and wrong are concepts whose definitions, in the final analysis, must take conscience into account. You cannot fault someone who is behaving in good conscience. Period. End of story.
(2). Which means that we have an obligation to Yahweh, because He has stamped Himself upon our conscience as our God.

I realize that this schema of morality wouldn't sit well with Plato, but it seems to be the most realistic system, given the facts of life, the biblical data, etc.

Also my system is flexible. For example we don't need to maintain that Yahweh fashioned us out of unawakened matter and thus FORCED His will on us. It could be (for example), that Yahweh, in the early days of His youth, scraped off a bit of His OWN matter (thus un-melding it from His mind) to be reserved later (held in suspended animation) until He was ready to function as Creator. That's not my current position, but the point is that the possibilities are many. It's a flexible system.

 

[Tayla]

Conclusion: If we can find even ONE PASSAGE where physical wind/breath is mentioned in the context of third-person activity, we can JUSTIFIABLY CONCLUDE that His title is "The Holy Wind/Breath".

The Church has already determined the truth of this issue via the doctrine of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed. There is no point to try to revisit this topic.

 

[JAL]

The Church has already determined the truth of this issue via the doctrine of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed. There is no point to try to revisit this topic.

Sorry but the motto of the Reformation was, "Reformed, and always reforming." Which is the correct modus operandi, for anyone convinced of universal human fallibility. Which would include me.

 

[JAL]

If God needed a reward to work to becoming holy, then I'm in question about the perfection of his love.

Sure, if you define perfect loving according to some impossibly high standard that historically existing beings have never been capable of achieving, then God failed of 'perfection' as YOU define it.

Whereas I define it as a realization of one's full potential for love.

God is HUGE (if astronomists are even remotely approximate to the actual size of our universe). Thus having planet Earth as His church/reward is MINIMAL compensation.

You know what? I love it when a woman freely chooses ME, she wants ME as her boyfriend. The thrill of it is crazy intoxicating. So as for me, being the selfish guy that I am, guess what I would have done, if I had been in Yahweh's shoes? I would have cultivated Adam-Eve scenarios for all eternity. I would NEVER have let it all come to an eschatological end. (Just being honest).

But that's not what Yahweh did. His rationale was, "FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION. I MUST BECOME HOLY to prevent the Totality from being a place of eternal warfare and suffering. Therefore, in order to increase the chances of success (reduce the likelihood that I quit the job halfway for loss of insanity caused by loneliness, emotional exhaustion, and no hope of reward), I PROMISE myself, at the outset, a bride."

You can fault Him for that all you want, but let's put this into perspective. Suppose I asked you to do 13 billion years of labor for me. You then ask, "What's my salary?" I respond, "You get a bride."

Is that really fair compensation? Doesn't seem fair to me. To me it seems SELF-SACRIFICIAL. Seems like I got the better end of the deal - by far.

Admittedly if failure were an option, Yahweh probably would have worked that 13 billion years for free. But since it wasn't, He made the the most generous, self-sacrificial effort that seemed feasible to Him. Within such predefined limits (unfortunate as they may be), He gave of Himself to the maximum extent that seemed possible to Him. If that violates your high standards of perfection, I'm confident He'll one day apologize to you at heaven's gates.

Secondly, if God could become 'insane' this implies the existence of chaos in your theory. Which you appear to have rejected.

Again, misuse of language. You're confounding chaos, as a technical metaphysical term for explaining why matter moves, with an emotional malady. If there's an objection here, you'll need to be more clear on what it is.

Also, 'sanity' is a measurable term. Which means that God has something to measure his state of mind / emotions against. He cannot measure it against the Totality, so what / who is He measuring it against? The others in the Trinity? But this still falls into the same problem as to why sanity is sanity in the first place. Regardless of whether God is one or three, you are now approaching an idea that closely resembles the infinite.

Again, randomly trying to shove this infinity-term down my throat, without recourse to the context.

What does he measure sanity against? You seem to be assuming that Yahweh's self-education left Him too stupid to figure out what insanity is. Certainly things COULD have turned out that way, but fortunately they didn't. He figured it out and steered clear of it - by allowing Himself to have a bride (or at least some angelic companionship for starters).

The immune system idea appears to be circular. The Holy Breath appears to be the better god of the three, or the best part of God, since he is the one making sure that the other two don't step out of line.

The Immune System, as stated, confers immunity upon itself as well. Consider your own immune system. Suppose one blood cell of it becomes infected. The REMAINDER of the immune system will attempt to zap that infection. This is the immune system conferring immunity upon the immune system. Same with God. I thought I was clear on that point.

Secondly, I don't believe that any one of Three is more skilled than the other two. It's more a question of assigned roles. The Father plays a role. The Son plays a role.The Holy Breath plays a role.

Somehow, I don't know how under your scheme, the Holy Spirit has discovered what holiness really is. How it was 'discovered' if it didn't exist before God himself became it, I can't grasp. Admittedly, I don't think you've used the word 'discovered', but the problem is (once again) that holiness has to be a standard existent somewhere for the Holy Spirit to understand that God must become that thing.

I can only surmise that you presume me to be an epiphenomenalist, for whom concepts such as 'holiness' must arise out of dead matter. I am not. I only believe in CONSCIOUS matter, wherein consciousness has the power of INTUITION which, in large part, involves CREATIVE THINKING. By 'holiness' I merely mean the same kinds of intuitions that the word invokes in our own minds - virtues of all kinds. Obviously holiness is merely an English term, so I'm pretty sure that God didn't intuit that word at that ancient time. He simply intuited the various virtues which we now refer to as holiness. It's just intuition.

In your book, you've stated that God has set up his own immune system (the Holy Breath being the one who actions this) by his own intent and design. But how could he have designed something for himself that resembled perfection when he was still learning what perfection actually looks like (becoming holy). And then, where does 'perfection' come from if God has to 'learn' it?

Well Jesus is God, but as an ignorant babe, He presumably had to learn about perfection. Do you know of any babes who understand perfection from birth? I don't. Here's what Hebrews said:

"Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect..." (Heb 5:8).

So yes, it was a learning process. Which means that even Yahweh's CONCEPT of perfection became more refined/perfected over time. So what? Why do you see that fact as such a huge rebuttal of my system? Divine learning isn't a rebuttal of my system, it's an integral part of precisely how I defined it.

But at the outset the BASICS of His definition were pretty straightforward and intuitive (so I really think you're way-over-complicating the issue). Perfection as a goal would simply mean 'perfect ruler' defined as:
(1) Incorruptible - incapable of violating conscience.
(2) Fully committed to minimizing suffering.
(3) Skilled enough to be flawless in that endeavor to fulfill #2 (except perhaps allowing negligible amounts of undue impact which, as such, wouldn't even fit the definition of suffering).
(4) Perfectly just - that means knowing (i.e. hearing) all of our thoughts well enough to make accurate judgment as to whether we had freely chosen to sin.

And so on. This seems like pretty simple stuff. Am I missing something here?

You've said he remains unchanging (Heb 13:8) since he achieved irreversible moral purity. But where the idea of 'moral purity' and the standard of it came from, I can't understand. You don't seem to answer this lingering and pervasive question.

Because you keep demanding a Platonic response about how 'the good' must exist in itself alongside God. I don't buy into such notions.

Unfortunately, I would say the example you've used is total nonsense Can God forget a language? Maybe, if He chooses to.

No it's not total nonsense. This would be unfair tactics. So you're going to assert a specific quantification (infinity), but act like I'm not supposed to use normal debating tactics? Essentially, I'm not allowed to critique your point of view by appealing to actual numbers? How convenient. Let's simplify the objection like this. Let's take God out of the picture.

Let's imagine an infinite amount of coins. A thief steals one billion of them. How much is left. Infinity, right? The same amount we started with? That's total nonsense!

You might respond, 'No one can imagine an infinite amount of coins. It's just gibberish", to which I'll respond, "Precisely my point." Why don't we all try to stick to doctrines that we CAN comprehend, as much as possible? Why all this senseless gibberish?

But it's the same as asking if God can create a rock He cannot move. It's just a nonsense question.

As I just demonstrated, MY question hinges on the definition of infinitude (regardless of whether God exists). Whether the rock-issue is a nonsense question has NOTHING to do with whether MY question is legitimate.

You have CALLED the rock-issue a nonsense-question, but PROVING it to be so is a different matter. Officially it's called the Omnipotence Paradox, and despite your attempt to dismiss it in a most cavalier manner, some of history's most prominent theologians considered it worthy of discussion and debate. But what's especially worth noting here is that a finite God isn't vulnerable to such objections and charges of contradictions because His limitations are pre-acknowledged from the getgo. He is definitely not omnipotent (in the sense of infinite power) and thus He is not REQUIRED to be capable of making a rock so big that He can't pick it up. Whether He CAN do it or CANNOT do it simply doesn't contradict the definition of a finite God. A finite God cannot, by definition, do EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING, and thus isn't EXPECTED to.

What He IS expected to do is rule with justice, fairness, integrity, and skilled hands, as to minimize suffering over the long haul. That's all.

So despite your unconvincing attempt to conveniently dismiss the paradoxes (the apparent self-contradictions) of infinitude in a cavalier fashion, here too it seems obvious that, from a logical stand-point, a finite system is ineffably more plausible in the sense of being comparatively problem-free logically speaking.

There is enough philosophy in this world to address this question, so I don't want to get bogged down with it. Obviously, if your presupposition is matter only exists, it's going to be difficult to get out of that. But since you can't equate for where concepts like holiness and love and even free will actually come from, I think you're going to run into philosophical trouble with sticking to materialism.

More Platonistic assumptions.

Unfortunately, I have to close by saying that your moving towards pantheism / panentheism does not solve the problem of evil. You are not managing to crack the nut of theodicy so far.

Addressed above.

I've spent about three hours making this reply, in addition to the reading I've done both of your posts and your book. I think that warrants for a fair response. I'm not really keen to spend much more time on this, though, and would kindly ask that you focus in your debate(s) here and keep things limited to the main issues.

I'm away on vacation for a week, and I won't be spending it on these forums, so you won't hear from me for awhile.

OK.

 

[mark kennedy]

Sorry Mark, you may think you're fooling others with your long aimless ramblings, but "you ain't fooling me honey".

Until you respond appropriately - a scripture-by-scripture, point-by-point rebuttal of my actual arguments, I'm not going to dignify this patronizing nonsense with a substantial response.

What I WILL do, out of courtesy, when I have a moment, is to re-read it to see if missed anything, to see if I can find even ONE cogent AND RELEVANT rebuttal or argument. Because so far I haven't seen anything directly refuting the force of my arguments on this thread.

All you're doing, it seems to me, is regurgitating 2,000 years of indoctrination - the very doctrines I'm challenging.

No problem 'honey', I know the Scriptures and have no problem refuting a rhetorical joust. Would you like to see my exegetical treatment of the text because I would be happy to match it against yours anytime. That is if you actually have one which I doubt seriously.

 

[JAL]

Your post struck me as an intellectually dishonest attempt to skirt the force of my objections, but I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt in terms of your sincerity. So here goes.

There is none, whatever the soul is made of it's of a substance far beyond the material plane. Yet transcends time, space and the physical aspects of being.

This conclusion logically contradicts the facts. I can cause your mind to fail a math test by spiking your food with drugs. You're claiming it's outside of space and time - and yet, in point of fact, it's impacted by ordinary matter in the here and now?

WE can look at TONS of examples - going two ways:
(1) The mind impacts the body.
(2) The body impacts the mind.

Example of #1. Suppose your bladder gets full. When and where is it discharged? Your mind has a lot to say about that. By exerting the power of free will, your mind exerts a tight physical grip on the bladder, constricting it.

You can try to push it back one step further by claiming that your mind impacts the brain which, in turn, impacts the bladder. But that doesn't solve the problem, as it still leaves unexplained, "How can an immaterial mind impact the brain in such ways"? This is the classic mind-body problem, and no one has solved it. Charles Hodge admitted he had no solution.

The problem doesn't exist for a materialist like me.

This is really starting to sound like dialectical materialism, everything has to have a naturalistic explanation, no matter how much of a strain it is on logic.

(Sigh) All religious and philosophical systems have points of intersection. At some points they all 'sound like one another'. So you're not actually saying anything helpful or specific.

Clearly Paul is talking about inordinate bodily appetites, exaggerated and inflamed due to suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness. When you worship and serve the creature rather then the creator he can turn you over to those vanities as an act of judgment. The dead are inanimate, devoid of desire and thus, incapable of satisfying the cravings of the natural man.

Consider a Platonic philosopher (an immaterialist). Would he EVER refer to the immaterial realm as 'the flesh'? That's the exact WORSE POSSIBLE WORD TO USE FOR AN IMMATERIAL SUBSTANCE, because it always connotes matter (when used to denote a substance). The Greek term sarx (flesh) is used 150 times in Scripture and IS ALWAYS USED IN A LITERAL FLESHY sense. The only place where this is denied is when Paul is speaking about about our sinful lusts - in these few passages it's denied only because acknowledging it would contradict the notion of an immaterial soul!!! The point is that the driving force for making these unwarranted exceptions is PLATONIC ASSUMPTIONS, not exegesis.

If Paul used the term 'flesh' to describe an IMMATERIAL SINFUL NATURE, then he was perhaps the most stupid writer who ever lived. Period.

In fact Paul's language is so decisively somatic in character that a noted Christian preacher and writer (I think it was John Maccarthur as I seem to recall) actually drew the conclusion that inanimate matter (the human body in the purely molecular sense) IS the sinful nature.

When Adam was cursed God said, 'surly you will die'. The Hebrew expression literally means, 'dying you shall die'. Pursuing the carnality of the sinful nature deadens the spirit, quenching the spirit by directing your energies from the things of God. The conscience is deadened as well, becoming unresponsive at the seat of moral reflection. Putting to death the flesh is a euphemism for abandoning the gratification of those vain imaginations. Sin is never what it seems, it's the proverbial carrot on a stick, in striving to reach some fleeting satisfaction the appetites are exaggerated and restraint is consumed. Repentance starves those inordinate affections, responding as it were, as a dead man.

The epistles are mostly literal texts. Don't talk to me about euphemisms. Repeatedly, 'flesh' was Paul's term for the sinful nature. I'm sorry you don't like the implications. Your issue is with Paul, not with me. I'm just going where the biblical data seems to be pointing. You seem to be headed in the opposite direction. That's your choice. Nothing I can do about it.

The sinful nature is the lust of the flesh, natural desire distorted into unnatural affection, covetousness and the old English word for it is evil concupiscence.

Desire (Noun and Verb), Desirous: "a desire, craving, longing, mostly of evil desires," frequently translated "lust," is used in the following, of good "desires:" of the Lord's "wish" concerning the last Passover, Luk 22:15; of Paul's "desire" to be with Christ, Phl 1:23; of his "desire" to see the saints at Thessalonica again, 1Th 2:17. With regard to evil "desires," in Col 3:5 the RV has "desire," for the AV, "concupiscence;" in 1Th 4:5, RV, "lust," for AV, "concupiscence;" there the preceding word pathos is translated "passion," RV, for AV, "lust" (see AFFECTION); also in Col 3:5 pathos and epithumia are associated, RV, "passion," for AV, "inordinate affection." Epithumia is combined with pathema, in Gal 5:24; for the AV, "affections and lusts," the RV has "passions, and the lusts thereof." Epithumia is the more comprehensive term, including all manner of "lusts and desires;" pathema denotes suffering; in the passage in Gal. (l.c.) the sufferings are those produced by yielding to the flesh; pathos points more to the evil state from which "lusts" spring. Cp. orexis, "lust," Rom 1:27. (Vine’s Dictionary G1939 epithymia)​

The Greek term for desire here is qualified by being a 'pathos' desire, an evil concupiscence, an inordinate affection, that promise pleasure but in the end cause suffering and quench the spirit.

The lust of the flesh? That's what you said right? Yes because that's what Paul said. But how can dead, inanimate matter lust? That's like saying, after your soul is removed from your body at death, "I wonder what my body is now lusting after."
Doesn't make sense, right? WHO is in the body doing the lusting, if the soul is now removed?

So we we see that, it's totally inappropriate and misleading for Paul to speak of the lust of the flesh unless we do, in fact, have a fleshy soul.

Jesus tells us if you call your brother a fool you are in danger of hell fire, even murder itself isn't so great a sin. From the words we speak terrible calamity can occur. It's much easier to destroy then it is to build. Just light a match and the whole house can be reduced to ashes, building another house is not so simple a matter. I really don't know where you are trying to go with this material/immaterial thing but I suspect we are off on a tangent...What would concern me about the distinction between material and immaterial? I really don't get such a long trip to a less then substantive point.

It potentially changes our whole view of God. It's all part of a larger theological system introduced on this thread. And it has some interesting repurcussions for sanctification, as I expect to discuss later.

Materialism? Really? That was what you were trying to drive home with this? The presence in Catholic communion is a spiritual one, it's a way of reflecting on being in the very presence of God. While I do enjoy some of your wranglings with this matters I do hope your not trying to promote a materialist worldview and impose it on the testimony of Scripture. That would be a very disappointing end to this rambling but mildly searching discussion.

You don't want me to impose doctrine on Scripture? Sort of like how traditionalists have imposed immaterialism onto the pages of the Bible despite how it flies in the face of all the biblical data? That kind of thing?

 

[JAL]

No problem 'honey', I know the Scriptures and have no problem refuting a rhetorical joust. Would you like to see my exegetical treatment of the text because I would be happy to match it against yours anytime. That is if you actually have one which I doubt seriously.

But that's my point. Your so-called exegesis seems to be a mere regurgitation of traditionalism. But when I challenge those conclusions (for example my discussion of Paul's use of sarx, or the biblical usage of 'filled') you don't seem to meet my objections head-on. You skate right over my arguments - you jump right over the biblical data that I presented to you - and just reassert your conclusions.

Yes you quote tons of Scripture - but merely for the sake of reasserting traditional conclusions. It's just assertion, not argument, and not real debate.

 

[HatGuy]

Goodness Jal, you can't account for the existence and reasons for so much stuff in your theories, and all you've done is insisted that you don't even need to (because apparently that's a Platonic way of speaking, and you're happy to incorporate every other realm of philosophy into your thinking except Platonism of any kind).

You continue to write off valid criticism as irrelevant, and insist that doing this is a valid defense of your theories?

Your overall theory doesn't stand up to philosophical scrutiny; is theologically faulty (it's certainly not the God of the Bible. It's a self made pantheism); and would result in a disaster pastorally. It provides zero resolution to evil (a criticism you've completely ignored).

I've attempted to show you some of the places where it falls short, but you've ignored these or projected your thoughts over them. I honestly think you just can't even see the problems. You've invested so much time and energy in your theories and in your own thoughts that any criticism whatsoever may be too painful to deal with. Unfortunately, you've placed yourself in your own echo chamber and bizarrely refuse to admit it.

I also suspect you read the responses here too quickly and actually don't take the time to seriously consider what others are saying. You've closed your mind to any alternative thought to your own.

In your book, you've called the church a cult and insisted that Christian thought over the last 2000 years is cultish and incorrect. The irony in that. You are displaying ALL the hallmarks of a cult. You really can't claim that you alone hold some special revelation while everyone else doesn't, and then claim they're involved in a cult. Cult leaders always have this kind of superiority complex.

Ad hominem? Perhaps. But even Jesus resorted to ad hominem at some stage when he encountered hardness of heart.

I don't come to these forums to win debates, but to learn. I usually hope I'll find something I've never heard before, understand Christianity better, and sharpen my intellectual skills.

In this thread I've learned that orthodox Christianity holds up to tremendous scrutiny, makes better sense pastorally, and God is truly bigger than our finite minds can grasp.

So in answer to your original question: "are these mainstream doctrines in need of reform?" The answer is no, they seem to hold up exceedingly well. Also, to reform means to go back to the source, the original. You certainly are not doing that.

To anyone else looking to join this thread: don't waste your time. It's really no use. You'll have more fruitful discussion elsewhere.

I'm unfollowing this thread and am going on vacation. I will not reply to any further discussion on this thread.

 

[JAL]

Goodness Jal, you can't account for the existence and reasons for so much stuff in your theories, and all you've done is insisted that you don't even need to (because apparently that's a Platonic way of speaking, and you're happy to incorporate every other realm of philosophy into your thinking except Platonism of any kind).

You continue to write off valid criticism as irrelevant, and insist that doing this is a valid defense of your theories?

Your overall theory doesn't stand up to philosophical scrutiny; is theologically faulty (it's certainly not the God of the Bible. It's a self made pantheism); and would result in a disaster pastorally. It provides zero resolution to evil (a criticism you've completely ignored).

I've attempted to show you some of the places where it falls short, but you've ignored these or projected your thoughts over them. I honestly think you just can't even see the problems. You've invested so much time and energy in your theories and in your own thoughts that any criticism whatsoever may be too painful to deal with. Unfortunately, you've placed yourself in your own echo chamber and bizarrely refuse to admit it.

I also suspect you read the responses here too quickly and actually don't take the time to seriously consider what others are saying. You've closed your mind to any alternative thought to your own.

In your book, you've called the church a cult and insisted that Christian thought over the last 2000 years is cultish and incorrect. The irony in that. You are displaying ALL the hallmarks of a cult. You really can't claim that you alone hold some special revelation while everyone else doesn't, and then claim they're involved in a cult. Cult leaders always have this kind of superiority complex.

Ad hominem? Perhaps. But even Jesus resorted to ad hominem at some stage when he encountered hardness of heart.

I don't come to these forums to win debates, but to learn. I usually hope I'll find something I've never heard before, understand Christianity better, and sharpen my intellectual skills.

In this thread I've learned that orthodox Christianity holds up to tremendous scrutiny, makes better sense pastorally, and God is truly bigger than our finite minds can grasp.

So in answer to your original question: "are these mainstream doctrines in need of reform?" The answer is no, they seem to hold up exceedingly well. Also, to reform means to go back to the source, the original. You certainly are not doing that.

To anyone else looking to join this thread: don't waste your time. It's really no use. You'll have more fruitful discussion elsewhere.

I'm unfollowing this thread and am going on vacation. I will not reply to any further discussion on this thread.

But when you end with a bunch of ad hominem generalizations without a bill of particulars, how does that not just confirm my conclusions? I gave you a point by point by rebuttal, I even begged you that, if I failed to rebut any of your arguments, please remind me because it was not intentional, and yet you depart with - nothing specific? Just more of the sort of ad hominem trash that I myself try so hard not to stoop to?

Again, how is that NOT supposed to do anything more than confirm my conclusions?

I'm not saying that all your posts were trash and that you never made any formidable objections. Had that been the situation, I wouldn't have responded so long. But I'm pretty sure that, in every case, I provided solutions to any problem areas (such as the charge of pantheism, which I myself admitted to be an understandable knee-jerk reaction), or at least exposed a misunderstanding of my point of view.

Sorry, but when you leave this way I am inclined to think that it's really due to a growing realization that you really DON'T have any telling objections.

And this notion that the several mainstream views in question here held up perfectly to my scrutiny is total nonsense. It appears to be intellectually dishonest since the MAINSTREAM SCHOLARS THEMSELVES confess their own 'solutions' to be humanly incomprehensible. I've already mentioned G.C. Berkouwer. Two statements from Millard J. Erickson are pertinent here, first that the mainstream Trinity is logically "absurd from the human standpoint" and that the hypostatic union asks us to believe that "2 +1 = 2". Really? This is all perfectly cogent stuff to you? Whatever dude. And finally Charles Lee Feinburg who admits that the hypostatic union is so incomprehensible that "No sane study of Christology even pretends to fathom it" (Charles Lee Feinberg, "The Hypostatic Union: Part 2," Bibliotheca Sacra, (1935), p. 412, Galaxie Software). As a matter of fact, I never even ventured into a serious evaluation of the hypostatic union, for fear that Staff would delete this thread for a second time if I became too critical of it. My hands were tied. And yet, even with two hands tied behind my back, I STILL managed to surface and expose several issues in traditional systems. (And I'm by no means finished yet).

Charles Hodge admitted that neither he nor any other theologian in history can solve the mind-body problem, a problem which doesn't even exist in my system.

I could go on. If this is your notion of holding up perfectly well to scrutiny, it's a complete joke, unless you're referring to the 'scrutiny' of someone wearing blinders and determined to keep them on. That would be your choice. Certainly nothing I can do about it.