Monday, May 11, 2009
God & Man
This post will continue the thread started in the "Welcome" post. The Forum will, as promised, begin new threads when topics head in a new direction. To facilitate that The Forum will also copy and paste relevant comments into the first comment of that section. Finally, as a refresher, Lou has begun a discussion on the relationship between the idea of God (be that the Judeo-Christian God or any other conceptualization of God) and mankind.
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Louis said...
ReplyDeleteLet me start with this opening question: is God (in whatever form you my believe) a provider of gifts? For instance, can one say, "God gave me the job I asked for?".
Anthony Allen said...
Great question. I personally believe (and this is off my dome w/no research) that God does not promise us gifts or an abundance of anything. All we are promised is that our needs will be supplied. Which our needs would be surprisingly basic. But this is subject is much deeper than I originally anticipated when I first read it. When speaking of jobs and what not. But to answer this, one would have to answer if our accomplishments in life are destin, or are they by our own works (Pretty much the whole basis of the movie Forrest Gump)
Matt Scoles said...
So I have been thinking about this all day and this is such a multi dimensional question. On one hand, my head tells me "no, god is not a divine Santa Claus." But at the same time I am moved to ask "why not?" Whay can't a believer attribute some positive change in thier life, be it health, a new job, general good fortune, etc. to a divine source? In my personal life I tend to give credit for the less tangible gifts like friends and family to God. Yet, part of me still resists the idea that God is distributing gifts (and probably conversly punishments) as if the world were little more than a giant, celestial, Skinner Box. Does the free will issue come into play here?
Louis said...
And so it seems to come down to this: is God (or god) a persona or not? I.E. Does God bestow wishes and desires as a parent bestows what is good for a child to the child at the best time for the child's well being and growth. Or is god a life giving force (or maybe even life) in the universe that experiences that universe through the experiences of all life forces. Monolithic God or zen-like god - - - that is the question.
Matt Scoles said...
I would have to go with something a little closer to the latter...In the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas presents the Knowable qualities of the Christian God as well as the necessary conditions for such a God to exist. One of his basic suppositions is that for an all-powerful and all knowing God to be all knowing and all powerful that diety must be a first mover. In the words of Brennan Manning, this means that "God only acts, he never reacts." God is turning and never re-turning. This of course would argue for the latter perception of God. Although an idea I have come to recently is the idea that our human flaw (going back to origianl sin) is that we believe that we are the arbiter of what is "good" and what is "evil." The truth is that aas far as God is concerned we have no idea. Thus what we percieve as gifts may not be at all and what we see as curses may be for good. Its tough to place our trust so fully in God that we can see cancer as a gift...it hard to trust God enough to beleive that mosquitos and poison ivy were created as good. Many people question how God can allow evil. "how can God justify the millions that die from sickness and war?" to me it seems that the answer is that God doesn't justify it...God REDEEMS it
John Scoles said...
From where I sit, both Matt and Lou have made tremendous leaps of faith. God either exists or he does not. No one can or will ever be able to answer that question and they choose to former where I choose the latter. I demand evidence. Many say that all I need do is "look around and see you will see Gods work", but they too make that great leap.
I believe that our minds are so meager that we cannot comprehend what is in front of our nose, let alone what the meaning of life (and so on) is.
Matt Scoles said...
John (is it cool to call you Dad on here?) I don't deny making a leap of faith and i certainly agree that our meager minds have difficulty in comprehension. But I don't have any qualm in making that leap, nor do i see it contradicting with my own demands for evidence. I am simply willing to wait for that evidence whenever it comes and (as i recently heard from a dear friend) i am willing to be totally screwed if that evidence that I wait for doesn't arrive. that being said, I don't think that a demand for evidence right here and right now is unreasonable. I know that is not necessarly true about some people of faith. All the while, even evidence demands a little faith. Einstein had to wait for decades for any evidence that the theory of relativity had validity.
Louis said...
Wow! This is great! I'm a little sorry I started this in the "Welcome" section. Maybe we should move this to the "Politics and Religion" section. No matter - - - here's my thoughts for now.
John, I'll even go one step further with your main point of the existence of god. My journey into Buddhism gives me this teaching: "That if you have been pierced by a poisoned spear, shouldn't you be more concerned in getting the spear out of you then the color of the eyes or length of the hair of one that threw it?" I interpret that to mean that the way we react to the things life presents (the "good" and "bad") is more important than the "why" it happens. There is natural karma (cause and effect"), but a god that rewards or punishes. Ahh, not so much. I hope other bloggers roll in on this.
I like that idea...I have actually taken to refering to myself as an "existential Christian." I think that too often the perception (and sometimes the reality) is that Christians are too concerned with what is next. It has been a longtime criticism of Christians that the idea of "heaven" somehow justifies crappy things happening. Old timey hymns completely reinforce this notion, to wit, "When We All Get to Heaven." It would seem based on this theological model that the Kingdom is yet to come so suffer on through the trials and tribulations of this world. However, I believe that what happens here matters too. Not necessarily who is throwing the spears, or even why they are throwing them, to borrow from Louis' quote, but how do I respond to the spear. Taking it a step further; how do I respond to those around me? Do I throw spears in return? Or do I embrace them and join them to minimize the damages of the spearrs? The question I constantly ask myself is this: Will I wait for Heaven to make things better or will I be an agent of the Kingdom here on earth, and making the lives of those around me as close to heaven as possible? In this, "Heaven" ceases to be a reward or even a finish line but actually a perfecting of the continuing process of creation.
ReplyDeleteI just want to say that I would appreciate it if the Forum used gender inclusive language. "Man" and "Mankind" are antiquated terms that do not represent the whole of humanity.
ReplyDeleteFair enough...what term would you prefer?
ReplyDeletehuman, humanity, humankind... any of those :)
ReplyDeleteGreat point Darcy. Feel free to help me out if I slip on this point.
ReplyDeleteSo what do you think about what's been said so far?
Luke 17:21 (King James Version)
ReplyDelete21Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Kinda Buddhist-like, eh? And Matt, I think Jesus would wholeheartedly agree with you.
I have quick thoughts before work:
ReplyDeleteIf we cannot say what is good and bad, then we are left saying nothing. We are bound by our constructions. If we decide to follow a rule of God, at the end of the day we are left--at least--saying that following a proscription from God is good. Does that make it good? It is like Socrates asked: is something good because God likes it, or does God like something because it is good (or something like that)? When we suggest God wants us to do something because it is "good," we just remove accountability one level away. I.e., the gays are bad because God says so, despite the possibility that there is deep goodness there.
We cannot ascribe goodness or badness to the gifts of God because it becomes linguistically meaningless. We determine what we consider a gift. Likewise, we ascribe its worth.
In the end, search for the good. You'll find God there. And if given the choice between the good and Jesus, always choose the good. You'll find he was there all along.
Tangents tangents tangents! Now I'm late!
Why is my name bioethics?
ReplyDeleteBioethics - are you a student? Or a doctor? Is that 18 out of my 20?
ReplyDeleteI should be a doctor by now...sigh. I'm getting a master's in philosophy (for bioethics). I got a master's in Genetics before this.
ReplyDelete