Redfin
New member
Balder said:Redfin is reading this thread. Maybe he'll set me straight. He has a way of presenting logical, cogent arguments that I can make sense of.
(waking from a doze) Who? What? Uh... 1492? :crackup:
Balder said:Redfin is reading this thread. Maybe he'll set me straight. He has a way of presenting logical, cogent arguments that I can make sense of.
Balder said:Redfin is reading this thread. Maybe he'll set me straight. He has a way of presenting logical, cogent arguments that I can make sense of.
Nineveh said:...consequences to actions are pretty easy for God to know
Iconasostacles said:What's easier for Him to know?
Don't do as I do, do as I say! Yep, I've heard that one before. No wonder he wants to be called "Father"!Redfin said:Here's my proposition -
The prerogatives of God as Creator are unique, and should not be understood as setting precedents for His creatures, even when He utilizes them in exercising those prerogatives.
Nineveh said:The hearts of men.
Balder said:Seriously, what is your take on the level of his involvement in this "utilization" of people to exercise his prerogatives and his will?
Balder said:Thanks, Redfin. Without getting in to a discussion of the moral dimensions of this, do you agree with my interpretation of Zechariah -- that it appears to suggest that God played an active, influential role in bringing judgment on the people of Jerusalem in the form of invading alien nations? That "I will gather" means he had a hand in orchestrating the attack as an expression of his wrath, and as a means of weeding out the 2/3rds of his people who had fallen away from him?
Is this reading of Zechariah an unreasonable one -- and if so, why?
Redfin said:Here's my proposition -
The prerogatives of God as Creator are unique, and should not be understood as setting precedents for His creatures, even when He utilizes them in exercising those prerogatives.
Iconasostacles said:This requires some form of selection criteria which allows us to distinguish those perogatives which are indicative of His free will uniquely and those which do set precedents for the manifest creatures.
Iconasostacles said:Man, in particular, is conceptualized as partially duplicating God's morphology ("image") and therefore partakes of His status to a lesser degree. Some perogatives of the Creator would thus be duplicated but clearly not All of them.
Iconasostacles said:The relevance of the inquiry then shifts to the question of what quality or qualities distinguish the two classes of perogatives.
Iconasostacles said:This is largely identical to the inquiry: To what degree is "Creator" a created position/identity (i.e. of a common nature with Creations)?
Redfin said:I believe the phrase "as Creator" fulfills that requirement.
Redfin said:I would be first interested in distinguishing the classes of beings, and determining the prerogatives therefrom.
Redfin said:I could use some expansion on and clarification of this question (This is largely identical to the inquiry: To what degree is "Creator" a created position/identity). What are the ramifications of some probable responses?
Hi, Dave,Dave Miller said:Balder,
Genuine curiosity, does the Universe take an active or passive role in karma?
Or is it just willing to take resonsibility for it
Dave
Balder said:Hi, Dave,
Sorry to have been slow to respond to your question. From a Buddhist perspective, the universe -- if you mean the manifest world -- is not considered to be a singular, monolithic entity with its own distinct will, so it wouldn't make sense to choose either option. There is no single place called "the universe." Worldspaces and sentient beings are co-arising and co-determining.
Leaving aside the notion of universe, I think you are asking if ultimate reality takes an active or passive role in the operation of karma. Again, from a strictly Buddhist perspective, karma is not "meted out" by a singular sentient agent; it is understood in more naturalistic and individualistic terms, as one of the "laws" of sentience.
If I were to adopt a more trans-religious perspective, where I admitted that there might indeed be something we can call Spirit that can be legitimately related to as an intelligent Other, then I think the perspective you espouse is a distinctly moving and powerful one -- though I understand it causes more traditional or conservative-minded Christians some discomfort...
But even adopting your perspective, it seems there is a difference between "accepting responsibility" and actively orchestrating events by using human evil to accomplish certain ends...
Best wishes,
Balder
Dave Miller said:But scripture tells us over and over that we need to trust God to take care of bringingtruth and justice, while we ourselves strive to forgive and love. Otherwise, the cycle of retribution goes on and on, and escalates, until the Original Sin is
forgotton altogether, and all that's left is blame and retribution in the form of escalating
attrocities.
I think evil does self-toxify and self-cancel. Unfortunatley this does not mean that it immediately self-eliminates. If evil "merely" destroyed itself then the requirement of voluntary alignment with Divine Will would have little meaning. It is a matter of intelligence. We know, for example, that harbouring evil-oriented feelings creates pain and suffering in the body, imbalance, etc. Terrorists kill themselves to an astonishing degree. Serial killers often want to get caught and tend to take increasing "risks" over time. None of this removes the Terrible from our world -- and there are certainly zones in which a tragic cycle of bad intention > pain inflicted > new bad intentions occurs -- but this "karmic" tendency seems to exist whereby evil works against itself. By "missing the mark" it interferes with other systems and with the overall pull of the Divine Attractor, generating countless accumulating problems for itself. These problems, among others effects, tend to decrease intelligence, vitality, relationality, etc. The guidance of a beneficient Creator has an enormous amount of time and flexibility with which to work. Its guidance must allow for local volition in terms of alignment which means that evil can arise and even exist for long periods but constantly generates negative feedback and internal problems which work against it.Dave Miller said:Excellent rejoinder, thankyou.
Would that evil in actuality self toxified, reality seems to rather bear witness to evil
being self motivated.
Unless your talking about total annihilation being the self toxification that
alleviates evil. This would be true, but it doesn't speak well for a beneficient
Creator guiding things...
Dave
Iconasostacles said:I think evil does self-toxify and self-cancel. Unfortunatley this does not mean that it immediately self-eliminates. If evil "merely" destroyed itself then the requirement of voluntary alignment with Divine Will would have little meaning. It is a matter of intelligence. We know, for example, that harbouring evil-oriented feelings creates pain and suffering in the body, imbalance, etc. Terrorists kill themselves to an astonishing degree. Serial killers often want to get caught and tend to take increasing "risks" over time. None of this removes the Terrible from our world -- and there are certainly zones in which a tragic cycle of bad intention > pain inflicted > new bad intentions occurs -- but this "karmic" tendency seems to exist whereby evil works against itself. By "missing the mark" it interferes with other systems and with the overall pull of the Divine Attractor, generating countless accumulating problems for itself. These problems, among others effects, tend to decrease intelligence, vitality, relationality, etc. The guidance of a beneficient Creator has an enormous amount of time and flexibility with which to work. Its guidance must allow for local volition in terms of alignment which means that evil can arise and even exist for long periods but constantly generates negative feedback and internal problems which work against it.