This is astute, @pease , but what, then, is the implication for God's love, mercy, forgiveness etc being conditional or unconditional?
Hmm. By way of some thoughts:
I imagine there's a difference between "knowing" the future and "being responsible" for the future and "reacting" to the future, from an atemporal perspective. As to what that might possibly look like in practice...
In relation to a post on another thread, I was reading John 11 - Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. It occurred to me that this is Jesus at both His most non-human (or divine) and human - and, because I was also thinking about your question, that he seems almost to be occupying both the atemporal (eternal) realm and the temporal human realm. As if He sees the events as occurring concurrently. His perspective seems to encompass both an apparently dispassionate view of the purpose served by Lazarus' sickness and death, and one where He inhabits his humanity and weeps with Mary and the others. (Which is reassuring.)
I was also considering Jesus "who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped..." in relation to the aspects of His divine nature He retained.
Back on your question, I suppose conditionality itself is (or can be) a temporal concept, and what we think of as the conditionality or unconditionality of God's provision is just how atemporal qualities appear in a temporal context.
There are several references to belief in the chapter, and from this perspective, maybe it's possible to see "whoever lives by believing in me will never die" as not being about conditionality, but a description or explanation of how we (entirely?) temporal beings experience God's atemporal love, mercy and forgiveness.
This is astute, @pease , but what, then, is the implication for God's love, mercy, forgiveness etc being conditional or unconditional?
Hmm. By way of some thoughts:
I imagine there's a difference between "knowing" the future and "being responsible" for the future and "reacting" to the future, from an atemporal perspective. As to what that might possibly look like in practice...
In relation to a post on another thread, I was reading John 11 - Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. It occurred to me that this is Jesus at both His most non-human (or divine) and human - and, because I was also thinking about your question, that he seems almost to be occupying both the atemporal (eternal) realm and the temporal human realm. As if He sees the events as occurring concurrently. His perspective seems to encompass both an apparently dispassionate view of the purpose served by Lazarus' sickness and death, and one where He inhabits his humanity and weeps with Mary and the others. (Which is reassuring.)
I was also considering Jesus "who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped..." in relation to the aspects of His divine nature He retained.
Back on your question, I suppose conditionality itself is (or can be) a temporal concept, and what we think of as the conditionality or unconditionality of God's provision is just how atemporal qualities appear in a temporal context.
There are several references to belief in the chapter, and from this perspective, maybe it's possible to see "whoever lives by believing in me will never die" as not being about conditionality, but a description or explanation of how we (entirely?) temporal beings experience God's atemporal love, mercy and forgiveness.
Thanks. Nice food for thought. And I'm certainly getting your last paragraph.
God cannot anticipate before creation what the outcome of that creation will be - which beings will spend eternity with him, and which beings will not - because, in a timeless eternity, there is no "before". In a timeless eternity, there is only existence or non-existence. There is no before or after, no past or future.
I don't think enough information is available about 'eternity' to understand how the decrees of God actually function. Time as we exist within it is clearly part of the created order as is space, but we don't really understand how it relates to 'eternity' or what kind of properties 'eternity' might have. A good example here:
He can pre-consider the outcome, because that requires the existence of the thing that He is considering. Everything about that individual comes into being in the act of creation itself.
(I assume you meant to say 'He can't pre-consider ..'), as there is no 'before' one might be tempted to say that the act of creation itself always existed, but to do so might be to mischaracterise the relationship between the created order and 'eternity'.
God cannot anticipate before creation what the outcome of that creation will be - which beings will spend eternity with him, and which beings will not - because, in a timeless eternity, there is no "before". In a timeless eternity, there is only existence or non-existence. There is no before or after, no past or future.
I don't think enough information is available about 'eternity' to understand how the decrees of God actually function.
And then some - it's imaginative guessing. There are obviously problems with trying to conceive of eternity from a temporal human perspective. But if we eliminate all the temporal human concepts, we're left with an empty void, which isn't very reassuring.
Time as we exist within it is clearly part of the created order as is space, but we don't really understand how it relates to 'eternity' or what kind of properties 'eternity' might have.
Indeed - being creatures of time. Although I've also wondered whether, at some level, we are also (or can become) creatures of eternity.
A good example here:
He can pre-consider the outcome, because that requires the existence of the thing that He is considering. Everything about that individual comes into being in the act of creation itself.
(I assume you meant to say 'He can't pre-consider ..'),
Ah - yes. Thanks.
as there is no 'before' one might be tempted to say that the act of creation itself always existed, but to do so might be to mischaracterise the relationship between the created order and 'eternity'.
Yup - who knows? In a timeless eternity, when something exists, it "always" will have existed; and when it doesn't exist, it "never" will have existed. But I'm not sure that necessarily leads to stasis. The concept of creation suggests that there can be a transition between non-existance and existence - that it is possible. "Let there be light", and everything that comes with that.
Yup - who knows? In a timeless eternity, when something exists, it "always" will have existed; and when it doesn't exist, it "never" will have existed. But I'm not sure that necessarily leads to stasis. The concept of creation suggests that there can be a transition between non-existance and existence - that it is possible. "Let there be light", and everything that comes with that.
The idea of transition involves the notion of 'before' and 'after' or - if you prefer - 'with' and 'without' which is why I'm not sure the reasoning in your original post is sound.
I'd agree that causality obviously works somewhat differently, we are ignorant about how precisely the eternal realm interacts with this time bound one and that any language we use about God is by its very nature analogical at the very least, but I don't think this is necessarily a reason to throw out @pablito1954's arguments.
Yup - who knows? In a timeless eternity, when something exists, it "always" will have existed; and when it doesn't exist, it "never" will have existed. But I'm not sure that necessarily leads to stasis. The concept of creation suggests that there can be a transition between non-existance and existence - that it is possible. "Let there be light", and everything that comes with that.
The idea of transition involves the notion of 'before' and 'after' or - if you prefer - 'with' and 'without' which is why I'm not sure the reasoning in your original post is sound.
I think it's partly a failure of language - we don't have words for contemplating different states of existence that don't invoke the concept of time.
I'd agree that causality obviously works somewhat differently, we are ignorant about how precisely the eternal realm interacts with this time bound one and that any language we use about God is by its very nature analogical at the very least, but I don't think this is necessarily a reason to throw out @pablito1954's arguments.
pablito1954's conception is a possibility, although it struck me as being somewhat selective in the application of temporal concepts and causality:
So in spite of being a God of eternal love, He creates sentient beings knowing that they will spend eternity in conscious torment. So we may as well say that He creates such beings for the purpose of seeing them tortured for eternity.
But the issue is more that that it forms the basis of an argument for universalism:
So for me unless God saves everything He creates, He isn't worthy of the name.
and that rests on that conception being the only possible description of how the eternal realm interacts with the temporal.
Just because simultaneity is relative, does not mean that the infinity of points and each ones infinite views, in infinite spacetime, is present. God or no. Where are all my other nows? A moment's common sense says the fuzzy now, which is all there is, is where the unhappened future becomes the dead past. In God or no. Now does not contain all previous or future nows. That's just silly. But the majority of the learned believe it. Go figure.
Yup - who knows? In a timeless eternity, when something exists, it "always" will have existed; and when it doesn't exist, it "never" will have existed. But I'm not sure that necessarily leads to stasis. The concept of creation suggests that there can be a transition between non-existance and existence - that it is possible. "Let there be light", and everything that comes with that.
The idea of transition involves the notion of 'before' and 'after' or - if you prefer - 'with' and 'without' which is why I'm not sure the reasoning in your original post is sound.
I think it's partly a failure of language - we don't have words for contemplating different states of existence that don't invoke the concept of time.
Well even so, once one abandons the notion of stasis, there was a state in which something was not and another state in which it was. Similarly each act of creation is either necessary or is a choice and if that a choice to bring it into being together with all the temporal events it entails.
But the issue is more that that it forms the basis of an argument for universalism:
So for me unless God saves everything He creates, He isn't worthy of the name.
and that rests on that conception being the only possible description of how the eternal realm interacts with the temporal.
As above I think there ways of getting to the same result while avoiding that language; though the ultimate conclusion still has to deal with the assumption about the character of God (and in that context all the various clobber verses).
Yup - who knows? In a timeless eternity, when something exists, it "always" will have existed; and when it doesn't exist, it "never" will have existed. But I'm not sure that necessarily leads to stasis. The concept of creation suggests that there can be a transition between non-existance and existence - that it is possible. "Let there be light", and everything that comes with that.
The idea of transition involves the notion of 'before' and 'after' or - if you prefer - 'with' and 'without' which is why I'm not sure the reasoning in your original post is sound.
I think it's partly a failure of language - we don't have words for contemplating different states of existence that don't invoke the concept of time.
Well even so, once one abandons the notion of stasis, there was a state in which something was not and another state in which it was. Similarly each act of creation is either necessary or is a choice and if that a choice to bring it into being together with all the temporal events it entails.
I think you're here reading back from our own temporal understanding of creation, for which we only have temporal words and concepts, to a conclusion that creation is only possible in a temporal context.
But if we believe that God creates out of a timeless eternity (which doesn't seem particularly controversial), then it doesn't seem unreasonable to conclude that creation can have a non-temporal meaning (or aspect or quality).
But the issue is more that that it forms the basis of an argument for universalism:
So for me unless God saves everything He creates, He isn't worthy of the name.
and that rests on that conception being the only possible description of how the eternal realm interacts with the temporal.
As above I think there ways of getting to the same result while avoiding that language; though the ultimate conclusion still has to deal with the assumption about the character of God (and in that context all the various clobber verses).
Maybe. Arguments around the character of God seem to depend on conceiving of God in human terms, as being both a temporal agent and a moral agent. I think the underlying argument is around the nature of God, in that He is neither a temporal agent nor a moral agent.
Yup - who knows? In a timeless eternity, when something exists, it "always" will have existed; and when it doesn't exist, it "never" will have existed. But I'm not sure that necessarily leads to stasis. The concept of creation suggests that there can be a transition between non-existance and existence - that it is possible. "Let there be light", and everything that comes with that.
The idea of transition involves the notion of 'before' and 'after' or - if you prefer - 'with' and 'without' which is why I'm not sure the reasoning in your original post is sound.
I think it's partly a failure of language - we don't have words for contemplating different states of existence that don't invoke the concept of time.
Well even so, once one abandons the notion of stasis, there was a state in which something was not and another state in which it was. Similarly each act of creation is either necessary or is a choice and if that a choice to bring it into being together with all the temporal events it entails.
I think you're here reading back from our own temporal understanding of creation, for which we only have temporal words and concepts, to a conclusion that creation is only possible in a temporal context.
I don't believe so; once one introduces the possibility of change one has to consider over what aspect/quality/property that change occurs.
But if we believe that God creates out of a timeless eternity (which doesn't seem particularly controversial), then it doesn't seem unreasonable to conclude that creation can have a non-temporal meaning (or aspect or quality).
Sure, but this is an argument apart from whether a particular bit of creation has a temporal or non-temporal aspect.
On the question of whether God is a moral agent despite not being in time:
This is where Aquinas' argument about analogical and figurative language are relevant.
Aquinas' argument is that it is impossible to say anything literally about God: no word applies to both God and created beings in the same sense. But we can use figurative language to say what God's actions in creation are like; for example, God is a rock.
But some other terms apply not merely figuratively but analogically.
Thus when we say God is love or good or God exists or God is an agent, we're not just saying that God's actions are as if good or loving; rather goodness and love are words that properly apply to God and created goodness and love are created beings imitating God in so far as they are able. That being the case, God is properly the only created agent.
We know what God looks like translated into created being: God is Jesus. Jesus is certainly a moral agent. We cannot, using created language and having created minds, do an end run round Jesus to get a better understanding of God's character and action.
Yup - who knows? In a timeless eternity, when something exists, it "always" will have existed; and when it doesn't exist, it "never" will have existed. But I'm not sure that necessarily leads to stasis. The concept of creation suggests that there can be a transition between non-existance and existence - that it is possible. "Let there be light", and everything that comes with that.
The idea of transition involves the notion of 'before' and 'after' or - if you prefer - 'with' and 'without' which is why I'm not sure the reasoning in your original post is sound.
I think it's partly a failure of language - we don't have words for contemplating different states of existence that don't invoke the concept of time.
Well even so, once one abandons the notion of stasis, there was a state in which something was not and another state in which it was. Similarly each act of creation is either necessary or is a choice and if that a choice to bring it into being together with all the temporal events it entails.
I think you're here reading back from our own temporal understanding of creation, for which we only have temporal words and concepts, to a conclusion that creation is only possible in a temporal context.
I don't believe so; once one introduces the possibility of change one has to consider over what aspect/quality/property that change occurs.
Yes - it is quite hard to imagine creation without change, and change without some property over which change occurs. That property doesn't have to be time, though.
But if we believe that God creates out of a timeless eternity (which doesn't seem particularly controversial), then it doesn't seem unreasonable to conclude that creation can have a non-temporal meaning (or aspect or quality).
Sure, but this is an argument apart from whether a particular bit of creation has a temporal or non-temporal aspect.
Ah - I thought you were suggesting that all acts of creation entail temporal events.
Nature creates with every entropy increasing change.
Presumably the corollary of that is that creation has been going on for the last 3.7 billion years.
And another 10 of our space-time bubble. Of which there are unquestionably infinite to the infinitetth power and again at least. We're not allowed to be presentists remember. So every Planck tick of change in our universe and the infinite infinities of others is real now. I know that sounds silly, but everyone except me believes it, so it must be true.
On the question of whether God is a moral agent despite not being in time:
I wasn't considering whether there was any contingency, just observing that both aspects of God's nature seem relevant to the issue of the character of God and universalism.
This is where Aquinas' argument about analogical and figurative language are relevant.
Aquinas' argument is that it is impossible to say anything literally about God: no word applies to both God and created beings in the same sense. But we can use figurative language to say what God's actions in creation are like; for example, God is a rock.
But some other terms apply not merely figuratively but analogically.
Thus when we say God is love or good or God exists or God is an agent, we're not just saying that God's actions are as if good or loving; rather goodness and love are words that properly apply to God and created goodness and love are created beings imitating God in so far as they are able. That being the case, God is properly the only created agent.
Err. Don't you mean God is the only real (or uncreated) agent? And that all other agents are created agents.
We know what God looks like translated into created being:
I'd say that we know what God looks like as incarnate being, but that the concept expressed in the phrase "eternally begotten" (for example) suggests that "created" might not be appropriate.
God is Jesus. Jesus is certainly a moral agent.
Why? It doesn't seem to be a completely straightforward assertion.
Jesus (in human form) is both "in very nature God", and (self) limiting, "he made himself nothing". So, in some unexplained way, both different and not-different.
If the moral order emerges from Jesus's nature in the same way that it emerges from God's nature (which may or may not be the case), then Jesus wouldn't be a moral agent any differently from God not being a moral agent.
We cannot, using created language and having created minds, do an end run round Jesus to get a better understanding of God's character and action.
I've usually understand the situation to be more a case that the nature of Jesus communicates to us everything we *need* to know about God's nature, in contrast to communicating everything we *want* to know.
Yup - who knows? In a timeless eternity, when something exists, it "always" will have existed; and when it doesn't exist, it "never" will have existed. But I'm not sure that necessarily leads to stasis. The concept of creation suggests that there can be a transition between non-existance and existence - that it is possible. "Let there be light", and everything that comes with that.
The idea of transition involves the notion of 'before' and 'after' or - if you prefer - 'with' and 'without' which is why I'm not sure the reasoning in your original post is sound.
I think it's partly a failure of language - we don't have words for contemplating different states of existence that don't invoke the concept of time.
Well even so, once one abandons the notion of stasis, there was a state in which something was not and another state in which it was. Similarly each act of creation is either necessary or is a choice and if that a choice to bring it into being together with all the temporal events it entails.
I think you're here reading back from our own temporal understanding of creation, for which we only have temporal words and concepts, to a conclusion that creation is only possible in a temporal context.
I don't believe so; once one introduces the possibility of change one has to consider over what aspect/quality/property that change occurs.
Yes - it is quite hard to imagine creation without change, and change without some property over which change occurs.
Yes, and at that point either the change comes into existence without any intervention on God's part, or it's willed by God in some way, in which case presumably God could choose not to will it.
That property doesn't have to be time, though.
Of course, and outside this particular space/time bubble, time doesn't exist - or at least the particular dimension of time that we experience. I don't think that necessarily makes it wrong to use some form of causal language even if only by analogy, after all we use the language of perception about God ("God sees", "God hears") while inside creation perception of the outside world is largely built on causal processes.
As particularity cannot apply in any regard, time as a dimension of space-time, a direction of change, exists infinitely instantiated in the infinity of space-time bubbles. I.e. universes. Presumably the direction of change operates from the ground of that matrix' being too, form the infinite negative entropy that changes null to not null.
For a femptosecond I thought I could follow this thread. 🙃
It's not moving in any particular direction -- just existing in Time. Reminds me of the joke about the student who, sitting at the feet of a teacher, asked, "Where was god before he created heaven and earth?" The teacher replied, "He was creating Hell for those who would ask such questions."
For a femptosecond I thought I could follow this thread. 🙃
Happens a lot these days. Threads dissolve into unfollowable and unfathomable whiffling about epsioteleometaphysicalsoteriological methodicalempiricaldialecticism or some such.
For a femptosecond I thought I could follow this thread. 🙃
Happens a lot these days. Threads dissolve into unfollowable and unfathomable whiffling about epsioteleometaphysicalsoteriological methodicalempiricaldialecticism or some such.
For a femptosecond I thought I could follow this thread. 🙃
Happens a lot these days. Threads dissolve into unfollowable and unfathomable whiffling about epsioteleometaphysicalsoteriological methodicalempiricaldialecticism or some such.
For a femptosecond I thought I could follow this thread. 🙃
Happens a lot these days. Threads dissolve into unfollowable and unfathomable whiffling about epsioteleometaphysicalsoteriological methodicalempiricaldialecticism or some such.
For a femptosecond I thought I could follow this thread. 🙃
Happens a lot these days. Threads dissolve into unfollowable and unfathomable whiffling about epsioteleometaphysicalsoteriological methodicalempiricaldialecticism or some such.
When did that start on this one do you think?
When was your first post in it?
You may joke, but I checked back and there was "Rogerian" and even once I knew what it meant I couldn't relate it to the rest of the post, so it might actually have been...
For a femptosecond I thought I could follow this thread. 🙃
Happens a lot these days. Threads dissolve into unfollowable and unfathomable whiffling about epsioteleometaphysicalsoteriological methodicalempiricaldialecticism or some such.
When did that start on this one do you think?
When was your first post in it?
It's just word salad as you know. Like words beginning with 'epsio'. Now 'episio'... Oooh! Epsilonic.
I would like to invoke Matthew 5:13 'You are the salt of the earth' to support my universalist leanings.
The latin word for salt 'sal' forms the first 3 letters of several latin words such as:
salvare: to save
salve: greet
salus: safe
salvere: good health
salutaris: wholesome
So I guess some etymological roots?
As long as there are some believers we are all 'saved'. Because, as per the late Lesslie Newbigin, believers are 'gift-bearers' on behalf of all humanity.
I would like to invoke Matthew 5:13 'You are the salt of the earth' to support my universalist leanings.
The latin word for salt 'sal' forms the first 3 letters of several latin words such as:
salvare: to save
salve: greet
salus: safe
salvere: good health
salutaris: wholesome
So I guess some etymological roots?
As long as there are some believers we are all 'saved'. Because, as per the late Lesslie Newbigin, believers are 'gift-bearers' on behalf of all humanity.
Salvare etc. from PIE *solh₂, meaning whole;
Sal from PIE *séh₂ls, meaning salt.
Different etymological roots.
Nice thought, but the Gospels are in Greek and Jesus spoke Aramaic, so I'm not sure that a Latin correspondence would mean much anyway
The h with a number in subscript refers to a series of pharyngeal consonants that became vowels in the extant languages.
But what if you are wrong about what you are owed? What if it turns out not that you are owed, but that you owe?
Owe who what? If God made me, He owes me. Parents owe their children.
Well, one of the Gamaliellettes isn't speaking to me at the moment. That hurts.
I'm not getting into Patrippassianism by analogy. I'd kill the fatted calf for her - figuratively speaking, as she's vegetarian - if she turned up tomorrow.
I'm not sure this juridical 'owe' imagery gets us very far. Theist or non-theist.
But what if you are wrong about what you are owed? What if it turns out not that you are owed, but that you owe?
Owe who what? If God made me, He owes me. Parents owe their children.
Well, one of the Gamaliellettes isn't speaking to me at the moment. That hurts.
I'm not getting into Patrippassianism by analogy. I'd kill the fatted calf for her - figuratively speaking, as she's vegetarian - if she turned up tomorrow.
I'm not sure this juridical 'owe' imagery gets us very far. Theist or non-theist.
That is bloody awful mate. I've survived three failed marriages (I'm that superficial), but couldn't survive that.
It's not juridical, it's what Love owes. If Love is the ground of being, It owes. All of our alienation from Love is on Love. Even if one is the prodigal's father, in Jesus' most beautiful parable, i.e. a good one, and the child is mature enough to be immature on their own recognisance, or we are the child of such a decent father, there is no parallel with Love and us. The parable is woefully inadequate. I didn't go astray from Love. I don't know anyone who did.
For a femptosecond I thought I could follow this thread. 🙃
It's not moving in any particular direction -- just existing in Time. Reminds me of the joke about the student who, sitting at the feet of a teacher, asked, "Where was god before he created heaven and earth?" The teacher replied, "He was creating Hell for those who would ask such questions."
Luther was once asked what did God do before he made the heavens and the earth? Luther answered God made willow switches for those that asked such questions.
For a femptosecond I thought I could follow this thread. 🙃
It's not moving in any particular direction -- just existing in Time. Reminds me of the joke about the student who, sitting at the feet of a teacher, asked, "Where was god before he created heaven and earth?" The teacher replied, "He was creating Hell for those who would ask such questions."
Luther was once asked what did God do before he made the heavens and the earth? Luther answered God made willow switches for those that asked such questions.
What a pathetic cop-out eh? That more than implicitly operates even here.
I don't believe so; once one introduces the possibility of change one has to consider over what aspect/quality/property that change occurs.
Yes - it is quite hard to imagine creation without change, and change without some property over which change occurs.
Yes, and at that point either the change comes into existence without any intervention on God's part, or it's willed by God in some way, in which case presumably God could choose not to will it.
That property doesn't have to be time, though.
Of course, and outside this particular space/time bubble, time doesn't exist - or at least the particular dimension of time that we experience. I don't think that necessarily makes it wrong to use some form of causal language even if only by analogy, after all we use the language of perception about God ("God sees", "God hears") while inside creation perception of the outside world is largely built on causal processes.
It's true that we don't have much in the way of other language. But I think that the appropriateness of using familiar language and analogy in this way depends on what we want to do with it - what we're using it for.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to use analogy for suggesting some characterisation if the alternative is having no characterisation. Having an incomplete, imperfect idea of what God is like - seeing through a glass dimly - seems more reassuring than having no idea. Human beings don't like the unknown.
But things look more tenuous if we're using these kind of analogies as a basis for making further arguments. (Although that's something that human beings do all the time.) In the context of belief, I'm inclined to think they're less useful for arguing that something *is* the case than for arguing that something *isn't* the case.
On a "scale" going from God being completely like us at one end, to being completely unlike us at the other, I find analogies often take us too close to the "God is like us" end of the scale.
God is far more unlike our best selves than God is like our best selves, that is true.
But the problem comes if we are so keen to make out that God is unlike our best selves we make out than God is more like an impersonal force, or worse our worst selves.
God is more like our best selves than God is like anything else we can comprehend.
God is far more unlike our best selves than God is like our best selves, that is true.
But the problem comes if we are so keen to make out that God is unlike our best selves we make out than God is more like an impersonal force, or worse our worst selves.
God is more like our best selves than God is like anything else we can comprehend.
Quite. I get very nervous when people use "God isn't like us" for love to look rather more like hate, kindness cruelty, justice injustice, mercy vindictiveness by claiming that God's ideas of love, kindness, justice and mercy aren't like our mere human ones.
Comments
I imagine there's a difference between "knowing" the future and "being responsible" for the future and "reacting" to the future, from an atemporal perspective. As to what that might possibly look like in practice...
In relation to a post on another thread, I was reading John 11 - Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. It occurred to me that this is Jesus at both His most non-human (or divine) and human - and, because I was also thinking about your question, that he seems almost to be occupying both the atemporal (eternal) realm and the temporal human realm. As if He sees the events as occurring concurrently. His perspective seems to encompass both an apparently dispassionate view of the purpose served by Lazarus' sickness and death, and one where He inhabits his humanity and weeps with Mary and the others. (Which is reassuring.)
I was also considering Jesus "who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped..." in relation to the aspects of His divine nature He retained.
Back on your question, I suppose conditionality itself is (or can be) a temporal concept, and what we think of as the conditionality or unconditionality of God's provision is just how atemporal qualities appear in a temporal context.
There are several references to belief in the chapter, and from this perspective, maybe it's possible to see "whoever lives by believing in me will never die" as not being about conditionality, but a description or explanation of how we (entirely?) temporal beings experience God's atemporal love, mercy and forgiveness.
Thanks. Nice food for thought. And I'm certainly getting your last paragraph.
Of course. To which the answer is: it's a mystery. Or a Mystery as the Orthodox might put it with their penchant for capital letters.
I don't think enough information is available about 'eternity' to understand how the decrees of God actually function. Time as we exist within it is clearly part of the created order as is space, but we don't really understand how it relates to 'eternity' or what kind of properties 'eternity' might have. A good example here:
(I assume you meant to say 'He can't pre-consider ..'), as there is no 'before' one might be tempted to say that the act of creation itself always existed, but to do so might be to mischaracterise the relationship between the created order and 'eternity'.
Indeed - being creatures of time. Although I've also wondered whether, at some level, we are also (or can become) creatures of eternity.
Ah - yes. Thanks. Yup - who knows? In a timeless eternity, when something exists, it "always" will have existed; and when it doesn't exist, it "never" will have existed. But I'm not sure that necessarily leads to stasis. The concept of creation suggests that there can be a transition between non-existance and existence - that it is possible. "Let there be light", and everything that comes with that.
The idea of transition involves the notion of 'before' and 'after' or - if you prefer - 'with' and 'without' which is why I'm not sure the reasoning in your original post is sound.
I'd agree that causality obviously works somewhat differently, we are ignorant about how precisely the eternal realm interacts with this time bound one and that any language we use about God is by its very nature analogical at the very least, but I don't think this is necessarily a reason to throw out @pablito1954's arguments.
pablito1954's conception is a possibility, although it struck me as being somewhat selective in the application of temporal concepts and causality: But the issue is more that that it forms the basis of an argument for universalism: and that rests on that conception being the only possible description of how the eternal realm interacts with the temporal.
Well even so, once one abandons the notion of stasis, there was a state in which something was not and another state in which it was. Similarly each act of creation is either necessary or is a choice and if that a choice to bring it into being together with all the temporal events it entails.
As above I think there ways of getting to the same result while avoiding that language; though the ultimate conclusion still has to deal with the assumption about the character of God (and in that context all the various clobber verses).
But if we believe that God creates out of a timeless eternity (which doesn't seem particularly controversial), then it doesn't seem unreasonable to conclude that creation can have a non-temporal meaning (or aspect or quality).
Maybe. Arguments around the character of God seem to depend on conceiving of God in human terms, as being both a temporal agent and a moral agent. I think the underlying argument is around the nature of God, in that He is neither a temporal agent nor a moral agent.
I don't believe so; once one introduces the possibility of change one has to consider over what aspect/quality/property that change occurs.
Sure, but this is an argument apart from whether a particular bit of creation has a temporal or non-temporal aspect.
This is where Aquinas' argument about analogical and figurative language are relevant.
Aquinas' argument is that it is impossible to say anything literally about God: no word applies to both God and created beings in the same sense. But we can use figurative language to say what God's actions in creation are like; for example, God is a rock.
But some other terms apply not merely figuratively but analogically.
Thus when we say God is love or good or God exists or God is an agent, we're not just saying that God's actions are as if good or loving; rather goodness and love are words that properly apply to God and created goodness and love are created beings imitating God in so far as they are able. That being the case, God is properly the only created agent.
We know what God looks like translated into created being: God is Jesus. Jesus is certainly a moral agent. We cannot, using created language and having created minds, do an end run round Jesus to get a better understanding of God's character and action.
Presumably the corollary of that is that creation has been going on for the last 3.7 billion years.
And another 10 of our space-time bubble. Of which there are unquestionably infinite to the infinitetth power and again at least. We're not allowed to be presentists remember. So every Planck tick of change in our universe and the infinite infinities of others is real now. I know that sounds silly, but everyone except me believes it, so it must be true.
Err. Don't you mean God is the only real (or uncreated) agent? And that all other agents are created agents.
I'd say that we know what God looks like as incarnate being, but that the concept expressed in the phrase "eternally begotten" (for example) suggests that "created" might not be appropriate.
Why? It doesn't seem to be a completely straightforward assertion.
Jesus (in human form) is both "in very nature God", and (self) limiting, "he made himself nothing". So, in some unexplained way, both different and not-different.
If the moral order emerges from Jesus's nature in the same way that it emerges from God's nature (which may or may not be the case), then Jesus wouldn't be a moral agent any differently from God not being a moral agent.
I've usually understand the situation to be more a case that the nature of Jesus communicates to us everything we *need* to know about God's nature, in contrast to communicating everything we *want* to know.
Yes, and at that point either the change comes into existence without any intervention on God's part, or it's willed by God in some way, in which case presumably God could choose not to will it.
Of course, and outside this particular space/time bubble, time doesn't exist - or at least the particular dimension of time that we experience. I don't think that necessarily makes it wrong to use some form of causal language even if only by analogy, after all we use the language of perception about God ("God sees", "God hears") while inside creation perception of the outside world is largely built on causal processes.
It's not moving in any particular direction -- just existing in Time.
Happens a lot these days. Threads dissolve into unfollowable and unfathomable whiffling about epsioteleometaphysicalsoteriological methodicalempiricaldialecticism or some such.
When did that start on this one do you think?
When was your first post in it?
You may joke, but I checked back and there was "Rogerian" and even once I knew what it meant I couldn't relate it to the rest of the post, so it might actually have been...
It's just word salad as you know. Like words beginning with 'epsio'. Now 'episio'... Oooh! Epsilonic.
The latin word for salt 'sal' forms the first 3 letters of several latin words such as:
salvare: to save
salve: greet
salus: safe
salvere: good health
salutaris: wholesome
So I guess some etymological roots?
As long as there are some believers we are all 'saved'. Because, as per the late Lesslie Newbigin, believers are 'gift-bearers' on behalf of all humanity.
Owe who what? If God made me, He owes me. Parents owe their children.
Salvare etc. from PIE *solh₂, meaning whole;
Sal from PIE *séh₂ls, meaning salt.
Different etymological roots.
Nice thought, but the Gospels are in Greek and Jesus spoke Aramaic, so I'm not sure that a Latin correspondence would mean much anyway
The h with a number in subscript refers to a series of pharyngeal consonants that became vowels in the extant languages.
Well, one of the Gamaliellettes isn't speaking to me at the moment. That hurts.
I'm not getting into Patrippassianism by analogy. I'd kill the fatted calf for her - figuratively speaking, as she's vegetarian - if she turned up tomorrow.
I'm not sure this juridical 'owe' imagery gets us very far. Theist or non-theist.
That's how I feel about my children. Yours didn't do a Philip Larkin on you then?
Lucky man. I come from a long line.
That is bloody awful mate. I've survived three failed marriages (I'm that superficial), but couldn't survive that.
It's not juridical, it's what Love owes. If Love is the ground of being, It owes. All of our alienation from Love is on Love. Even if one is the prodigal's father, in Jesus' most beautiful parable, i.e. a good one, and the child is mature enough to be immature on their own recognisance, or we are the child of such a decent father, there is no parallel with Love and us. The parable is woefully inadequate. I didn't go astray from Love. I don't know anyone who did.
Luther was once asked what did God do before he made the heavens and the earth? Luther answered God made willow switches for those that asked such questions.
What a pathetic cop-out eh? That more than implicitly operates even here.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to use analogy for suggesting some characterisation if the alternative is having no characterisation. Having an incomplete, imperfect idea of what God is like - seeing through a glass dimly - seems more reassuring than having no idea. Human beings don't like the unknown.
But things look more tenuous if we're using these kind of analogies as a basis for making further arguments. (Although that's something that human beings do all the time.) In the context of belief, I'm inclined to think they're less useful for arguing that something *is* the case than for arguing that something *isn't* the case.
On a "scale" going from God being completely like us at one end, to being completely unlike us at the other, I find analogies often take us too close to the "God is like us" end of the scale.
But the problem comes if we are so keen to make out that God is unlike our best selves we make out than God is more like an impersonal force, or worse our worst selves.
God is more like our best selves than God is like anything else we can comprehend.
Quite. I get very nervous when people use "God isn't like us" for love to look rather more like hate, kindness cruelty, justice injustice, mercy vindictiveness by claiming that God's ideas of love, kindness, justice and mercy aren't like our mere human ones.
Wow!