- Dec 27, 2015
- 3,057
- 1,896
- 69
- Country
- Australia
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
I'm not sure where this belongs if anywhere, but I was feeling a bit frustrated, so I started skimming through a book on my shelves "Wrestling with the Divine - A Jewish Response to Suffering" by Shmuel Boteach (An American Orthodox Jewish Rabbi with an Australian wife who lived in Oxford UK at the time of writing - 1995. What you might call an internationalist).
Shmuley Boteach - Wikipedia
But one of the chapters is "The Nature of Nothingness; The Need for God in Creation", and this sparked a train of thought.
To begin he wrote -
He was stating that the stone will only fly if we keep picking it up and throwing it. It cannot retain the quality of flight unless we keep sustaining that quality ourselves. In short for this universe to continue to exist, God has to continue to sustain it. That fact that is a "sum zero energy universe" lends credence to it's continued nothingness.
The next time you throw a stone, give a thought for God. He's doing the same thing on a much bigger basis - all the time.
This brings me to the spiritual world. Is God continually sustaining it also? If so, we would have the absurd situation where God continues to sustain Satan, His malignant and depraved enemy and all the demons, as well as the archangels, angels etc.
This defies common sense. Why would God want to eternally sustain the Devil?
So it would seem the spiritual world is not dependent on God sustaining it, but has its own existence. Which implies it is made of the same essence as God Himself ie. Spirit, and as such shares in His eternal nature.
Since it is eternal, any place of reward or judgement must also be eternal by virtue of its character ie. it cannot be destroyed.
That is to say Heaven and Hell are eternal.
I told you I was feeling frustrated.
Shmuley Boteach - Wikipedia
But one of the chapters is "The Nature of Nothingness; The Need for God in Creation", and this sparked a train of thought.
To begin he wrote -
... It is not sufficient to say that God is the original existence. He is, He was, and He always will be, while the rest of creation emanates from God and didn't always exist and this makes God unique ...
... The word creation and the act of creation indicate that there was a need for something to be created out of total nothingness, and that this thing that was created had no existence prior to its coming into being. This is the true meaning of creation - the emergence of something from nothing, the technical term for which is creation ex nihilo.
... But when one takes nothing and gives it character, what is there that can possibly retain the character given to it. What is the it? What is going to maintain the shape that one has created or the property that one introduces?...
... Had God started with some existing matter, and merely reformed and refashioned it according to His liking, it could be sustained without his active involvement. But because He started with nothing, He must constantly suspend and animate the world if it is not to revert to nothingness.
... In Hasidic thought an appropriate example (of the above) is provided. Suppose a person throws a stone into the air giving it, temporarily, the nature of flight and lightness, rather than the heaviness and immobility that is intrinsic to the stone. This imposed nature, this given talent, of lightness and movement does not take hold in the stone. The stone cannot acquire this talent permanently. In short, it cannot learn to fly. And although what one has helped it to fly and given it movement, it cannot retain what has given it.
He was stating that the stone will only fly if we keep picking it up and throwing it. It cannot retain the quality of flight unless we keep sustaining that quality ourselves. In short for this universe to continue to exist, God has to continue to sustain it. That fact that is a "sum zero energy universe" lends credence to it's continued nothingness.
The next time you throw a stone, give a thought for God. He's doing the same thing on a much bigger basis - all the time.
This brings me to the spiritual world. Is God continually sustaining it also? If so, we would have the absurd situation where God continues to sustain Satan, His malignant and depraved enemy and all the demons, as well as the archangels, angels etc.
This defies common sense. Why would God want to eternally sustain the Devil?
So it would seem the spiritual world is not dependent on God sustaining it, but has its own existence. Which implies it is made of the same essence as God Himself ie. Spirit, and as such shares in His eternal nature.
Since it is eternal, any place of reward or judgement must also be eternal by virtue of its character ie. it cannot be destroyed.
That is to say Heaven and Hell are eternal.
I told you I was feeling frustrated.