tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post3109318809989231841..comments2024-03-25T02:16:16.247-07:00Comments on Christ the Tao: Lao Zi: closet atheist, or God-fearing Republican? Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-89543100425088989742012-10-14T13:59:37.951-07:002012-10-14T13:59:37.951-07:00Brian: Sorry for the slow response; it's been ...Brian: Sorry for the slow response; it's been a busy week. <br /><br />What you say about Dao is all somewhat mistaken, or one-sided. Lao Zi describes Dao as doing all these things, though admittedly with more subtlety and nuance (valuable, I think, in light of present creation theories) than a naive understanding of Judeo-Christian cosmology. <br /><br />One cannot cite Zhuang Zi to prove a contention about Lao Zi. <br /><br />It is more historically reasonable to read Lao Zi in light of previous Chinese philosophy and literature, which he certainly read, and which he often seems to reference. <br /><br />John Wu, author of the ROC Constitution, recognized both personal and impersonal impulses in DDJ:<br /><br />"Tao is beyond the distinction of personal and impersonal. It is neither and both . . . All words we employ in speaking about the Tao must be taken analogically and evocatively." (Wu 1965: 70-71).<br /><br />After thirty pages of close examination, I conclude my discussion of Lao Zi's Dao: <br /><br />"Like the Classical High God, Dao is ultimate, self-existent, gives ‘birth,’ is the focus of faith, the source of morality, and of central importance for happiness. He cares for humanity, rewards good over evil (but seeks and saves the lost!), though His work is often hidden and obscure. Indeed, Dao’s effortless, hidden creativity becomes an increasingly attractive picture of God in light of modern cosmology . . . "<br /><br />I am tempted to just copy and paste the whole discussion in a post here. I can't do that; the full argument should be saved for print. But I may go through DDJ in more detail than I have yet above, and show why, while certainly "less personal" than the biblical portrait of God - as is to be expected, given that Lao Zi experienced a less concrete revelation, it seems -- Dao is, nevertheless, portrayed as caring, morally good, intentional, and as speaking to and through the Sage. If so, I'll put that in a new post. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-30399286583164511692012-10-08T11:42:07.584-07:002012-10-08T11:42:07.584-07:00David, perhaps we need to clarify exactly what we ...David, perhaps we need to clarify exactly what we are disagreeing about here?<br /><br />My first contention is that the Tao is, to say the least, significantly less personal than the God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Tao is NOT described as speaking, nor as saying anything, nor as issuing commandments, nor as experiencing emotions, nor as acting, nor as doing anything resulting from volition, nor as willing anything, nor as intending anything, nor as desiring anything.<br /><br />Yes, those who know the Tao and follow the Tao benefit enormously, but that is entirely consistent with an impersonal God, as with the Stoics and Spinoza.<br /><br />My second contention is that Taoism is significantly less dualist and more monist than Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Platonism. The whole tendency of Taoism is to overcome opposites, and to blur rigid distinctions. A couple quotes from Zhuangzi are enough to demonstrate this:<br /><br /> “Only the truly intelligent understand this principle of the levelling of all things into One. They discard the distinctions and take refuge in the common and ordinary things. The common and ordinary things serve certain functions and therefore retain the wholeness of nature. From this wholeness, one comprehends, and from comprehension, one to the Tao. There it stops. To stop without knowing how it stops -- this is Tao.”<br /><br />"Take, for instance, a twig and a pillar, or the ugly person and the great beauty, and all the strange and monstrous transformations. These are all levelled together by Tao. Division is the same as creation; creation is the same as destruction. There is no such thing as creation or destruction, for these conditions are again levelled together into One."<br /><br />Another passage speaks of fools who "wear out one's intellect in an obstinate adherence to the individuality of things, not recognizing the fact that all things are One."<br /><br />As for the Sage, he resembles the Tao in that he is given to non-action, he is without desires (ch57 sentence 5, ch 64 sentence 6), he is impartial (ch5 sentence 1), he overcomes his ego and sense of “self”, he does not regard his own body as his self, he has no mind of his own (ch49 sentence 1), is indifferent to all (ch 49 sentence 4), does not attempt great or dazzling deeds, does not meddle or grasp, and is obscure. <br /><br />What do you object to here? Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-77977858724561362372012-10-08T04:52:00.653-07:002012-10-08T04:52:00.653-07:00@David, yes, that was the phrase. I can see that m...@David, yes, that was the phrase. I can see that making out what it means would use context from the rest of the text.Rudyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04691715150100698476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-33682705706854127322012-10-07T18:06:32.906-07:002012-10-07T18:06:32.906-07:00Rudy: Some passages of DDJ are difficult even for ...Rudy: Some passages of DDJ are difficult even for experts in classical Chinese to translate, and are legitimately debated. Not only is the book concise and elliptical, while there are some unusual characters, most of the text uses pretty simple vocabulary, but the meaning of some of those key terms seem ambiguous: Dao being the most obvious. <br /><br />I guess you're talking about this phrase: <br /><br />愛以身為天下<br /><br />Brian quoted someone translating this equally concisely: "values the self as the world." <br /><br />This does not seem to make sense, in light of the chapter as a whole. <br /><br />Legge, Lin, and Yan (also Yuan Zhiming) read this instead as meaning valuing the world as one naturally values oneself: <br /><br />"Honouring (the kingdom) as he honours his own person." <br /><br />That's pretty consise. But this translation, from Yan, is longer: <br /><br />"If a person is willing to sacrifice himself in service to the people of the world, then you can entrust him with the world."<br /><br />There's a larger element of interpretation here, obviously. (And I'm translating from modern Chinese.) Yan (and Yuan) are understanding Lao Zi's meaning in this specific text from what he says elsewhere in the book about the same subject -- including no doubt in passages I pointed out here earlier. Lao Zi does talk about the sage sacrificing himself quite clearly in DDJ 78, which is about the weakness of water "conquering" by its pliability: <br /><br />"This is why the Sage says, he who takes on himself the sins of the nation is worthy of acting as Lord of the Sacrifice. One who takes upon himself the misfortune of the natoin can be called King of the World." <br /><br />This is straightforward. (Though what Lao Zi meant is more difficult.) DDJ 13 is a little more cryptic, but obviously points in the same direction, which makes it easy for Yan and Yuan to add a bit of interpretation. Legge does not, but still contradicts Derek Lin's reading. <br /><br />So to answer your question, specific passages can often be interpreted in light of how key terms and ideas are developed elsewhere in the text. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-77006168114991905782012-10-07T17:31:05.124-07:002012-10-07T17:31:05.124-07:00@David, I'm late to this party, but how do tra...@David, I'm late to this party, but how do translators ever figure out what texts like the DDJ actually say, as terse as the texts are in classical Chinese? You quote a phrase upthread somewhere about 6 characters long that turns, in the translations, into an unbelievably long English sentence. <br /><br />I'm not quibbling about the translation (I knew most of the characters, but I am pretty useless at Chinese), just wondering how scholars get around that. My college instructor used to tell us how ellipitical classical Chinese was (of course having way more characters than modern Chinese probably helped fix that a bit.)Rudyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04691715150100698476noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-64319803541796853092012-10-07T16:42:57.047-07:002012-10-07T16:42:57.047-07:00Brian: I find it a little irritating that, having ...Brian: I find it a little irritating that, having taken the time to show why each your interpretations are wrong, and why in many cases you were misquoting DDJ, using a bad translation, or reading it blatantly out of context -- picking out part of a chapter and ignoring the rest, for instance -- you just shrug off the facts I've cited, and say, "Well, that's your opinion, and this is mine." <br /><br />On other subjects, say Spinoza or probably Kant, I'll bow to your superior knowledge. In this case, your view on how to interpret the DDJ, as we have seen, just isn't worth much. Don't ask me how to repair cars, but I've given enough of the facts above for an open-minded person to actually change their minds -- and yours doesn't appear to have budged. <br /><br />This is my field. I expect my dissertation to change the mind of credentialed scholars of ancient Chinese thought. You are not such a scholar, and until you can refute the actual facts I have cited above, let's not pretend our opinions about the DDJ are equally valid. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-53501771221642732042012-10-07T11:09:07.155-07:002012-10-07T11:09:07.155-07:00Bob - Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands ...Bob - Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands all have very healthy public finances, as does Germany. They are not living beyond their means. Greece was living beyond its means - mostly because it doesn't have a proper tax collection system. Spain and Ireland had very healthy public finances (budget surpluses in Ireland) until the global economic crash - which was caused by unregulated private banks. What screwed up the Irish economy and public finances was the private sector banks, and the subsequent bailouts of those banks.<br /><br />Bob, you are an utter moron and you haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about.Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-23215717376863546232012-10-07T10:56:29.759-07:002012-10-07T10:56:29.759-07:00David, yes, there is no doubt that these are all m...David, yes, there is no doubt that these are all massively complex systems of thought. What can be said is that on the spectrum between pure dualism (which I believe to be more theistic) and pure monism (which I believe to be more atheistic) some of these philosophies are generally closer to dualism than to monism (and therefore more theistic), and others are closer to monism than to dualism (and therefore more atheistic).<br /><br />Now, I hold to the view that Taoism is markedly less dualistic and less theistic than, for example, Christianity. The Taoist is not required to believe in a theistic God, or to hold any form of metaphysical dualism. You disagree, but I am just not persuaded by your arguments --we've gone through it quite thoroughly, so we had better just agree to disagree at this stage!<br /><br />You're correct that some forms of Hinduism are more dualist and theist than others - but again if we place Hinduism on the "spectrum" it is in many of its forms more monist and atheistic (especially in many of its most sophisticated and influential philosophical forms) than are, for example, Christianity and Islam. You seem to agree with this.<br /><br />Stoicism tends to be deterministic, naturalistic, monistic, pantheistic etc. and the ethical approach tends to emphasise acceptance and the annihilation of desire. Sure, you might be able to find some quotes or passages that don't entirely fit that description, but where Stoicism fits on the "spectrum" is revealed when you compare it with, for example, Platonism.Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-45226743750599996642012-10-07T10:33:02.579-07:002012-10-07T10:33:02.579-07:00"In any event the passage you quoted sounds t..."In any event the passage you quoted sounds to me very like, say, contemporary ultra-liberal Netherlands, Norway, Sweden or Denmark - there are very few prohibitions, almost everything is legal,"<br /><br />Brian, despite the humorous aspect of this that apparently the most important aspect of "freedom" for you is smoking pot, the preceding statement is pretty misleading. But perhaps you are just ignorant. Just google "Ake Green" and tell us again how free these "enlightened" societies are.<br /><br />I also like the "very low poverty rates". <br /><br />Do you consider it a "low" rate of poverty if you get away with living beyond your means for a few years and then have to live under austerity measures? <br /><br />Europe (and Ireland) are demonstrating before your very eyes that big government cannot legislate wealth into being, and yet your head is still implanted too firmly in the sand for you to see it. You really are a piece of work.Bob Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11041854732299447489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-29049283673440307592012-10-07T10:11:17.628-07:002012-10-07T10:11:17.628-07:00Brian: I would say I specifically object to 1) any...Brian: I would say I specifically object to 1) any idea that our chief hope is in some ethereal existence rather than the Resurrection, and 2) the Platonic view of the soul as naturally immortal and superior to the body. Platonism is a convenient and much maligned bogeyman, but there are things in Plato's thought I appreciate. I just don't think one can accept it in an uncritical way. Likewise St. Augustine was a great teacher and Father of the Church, but there are a number of subjects on which I believe he erred.Southern Anglicanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08455266898847197606noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-59627332309262564502012-10-07T07:36:54.723-07:002012-10-07T07:36:54.723-07:00"What I regard as more Thisworldly, monist ph..."What I regard as more Thisworldly, monist philosophies such as Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Stoicism and Spinozism."<br /><br />You're not going to let new facts challenge your scheme? <br /><br />This-worldly, maybe. But as I have shown (to a limited but I think significant degree in this forum), Taoism in its original conception was not a monist philosophy, but something resembling a form of theism. In theory the God of Stoicism could be thought of as part of a monist scheme in some senses, but in practice -- most of Epictetus, Cleanthe's Hymn to Zeus -- Stoics often also prayed to a God very like that of Christians. <br /><br />"Hinduism" is a family of beliefs related more by common origin than theology. Monism is associated with it, but there are strong strands of theism there, too, even (one could argue) in the Bhagavad Gita. <br /><br />But you do distance yourself from saying simply calling them "monist philosophies," and it is no doubt true that they are "more monist" in a relative sense, than Judeo-Christianity, for instance, just as I am (very slightly) more liberal than Sarah Palin. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-31036380379953732422012-10-07T04:52:23.423-07:002012-10-07T04:52:23.423-07:00Thank you both for your very interesting comments....Thank you both for your very interesting comments. My impression is that you both object to 'Platonic' Christianity, and therefore your vision of Christianity is indeed less otherworldly and less dualist than that of many other Christians. Of course, Western Christianity at least has been heavily infused with Platonism since at least Augustine and Clement, so my impression is that your way of viewing this differs somewhat from most Christians I know. <br /><br />And in my view, the mere fact that Christians believe that this world was created by a conscious being in an act of will or volition makes Christianity somewhat dualist - since this means that consciousness, mind, the spiritual or whatever one wishes to call it, comes BEFORE matter, the physical world etc. It means that mind, the soul, consciousness etc. can exist without the physical or the material. That, to my mind is the essence of dualism and otherworldism, and it is precisely this that the Thisworldly, monist or more materialist philosophies reject.<br /><br />I would strongly stress that otherworldliness does NOT, in my view, imply disinterest in this life and this world. On the contrary it invests everything that happens in this world with supreme significance. In fact, resignation, <br />acceptance and indifference are far more common in what I regard as more Thisworldly, monist philosophies such as Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Stoicism and Spinozism. What I regard as more dualist philosophies, such as Platonism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Cartesianism are far, far more active, dynamic, and invested with the hope that this world can be fundamentally altered or improved. Whereas the thisworldly philosophies tend to think that reality is just the way it is and that it is not going to change in any essential way - so they tend to emphasise becoming unified with reality as it is, rather than emphasising changing reality. The Thisworldly, monist philosophies emphasise ACCEPTANCE much more so that the otherworldly, dualist philosophies.Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-61652003669760879472012-10-06T16:28:47.508-07:002012-10-06T16:28:47.508-07:00Brian,
The popular picture of the Christian under...Brian,<br /><br />The popular picture of the Christian understanding of afterlife (Christian dies, Christian’s soul goes to heaven) does owe something to popular preachers and teachers who don’t know any better. This does not, however, change the fact that it is wrong and has never been the teaching of the Orthodox Church. The NT documents come out of the literary world of the Second Temple Jewish period. Read the works of scholars like Wright and Bauckham who show the NT’s connections with contemporaneous literature on subjects like the resurrection. <br /><br />I think you mean to say that Christianity’s cosmology is dualistic. A more correct term would be “layered.” A religious dualism would be Zoroastrianism. Where the forces of good and evil, right and wrong, oppose each other with equal strength and necessity in the universe.<br /><br />But back to the point. Your original comments contrasted Daoism with Christianity. You said:<br /><br />“The whole point of Christianity is that this world IS lacking, it is not the soul's true home - the soul's true home, for the Christian, is another world that is separate from this world. In contrast, Taoism is entirely about being completely at home in this world.”<br /><br />So your original comments didn’t have anything to do with cosmology, but about how Daoism is this-worldly (in the sense that it accepts the reality that this world is our home) whereas Christianity is other-worldly (in the sense that Christians wait for an ethereal existence that is in another place). What could you have meant here but heaven?<br /><br />There is simply no support for this claim. Those within Christianity who still espouse this narrative would need to provide extensive exegetical arguments from all over the NT to support it, and that just ain’t gonna happen. Southern Anglican covered the bases really well. But even he doesn’t realize how correct he is. For example, he says:<br /><br />“I think it makes good sense and coheres nicely with the Hebraic idea of the spirit mainly having to do with life itself rather than an immortal soul in the Platonic sense. But I would not impose this view on anyone's conscience and I could not prove it by scripture. It is a private opinion of my own. But I think it shows that one can hold a notion of the soul and of spiritual realities that does not depend on this spiritual world/physical world division you see in Christianity. That sounds to me more like shamanism than the faith I know.”<br /><br />This is the meat of the problem. Those Christians who say foolish things like “I am waiting for heaven” do not understand the NT within it social historical context. Nor do they understand the social historical contexts of the ancient Semitic worlds that the OT belongs to (which, in-turn, influenced the Second Temple and Early Christian contexts). <br /><br />JP Holding explains the Semitic-Totality concept here on his page on Baptism:<br /><br />http://www.tektonics.org/af/baptismneed.html<br /><br />“To put it another way, man does not have a body; man is a body, and what we regard as constituent elements of spirit and body were looked upon by the Hebrews as a fundamental unity. Man was not made from dust, but is dust that has, "by the in-breathing of God, acquired the characteristics of self-conscious being."”<br /><br />Christians, like Jews, believe that God made the world good. He put humans on this world. But both our bodies, and our world, need to be cleansed from the imperfections of sin. As Paul says in 1 Cor 15:53 “this mortal body must put on immortality.” This is the resurrection of the dead. It is physical, not spiritual. Semitic, not Greek. THIS world is our home, and it will be our home after God has brought everything back to Himself. <br /><br />Revelation, as the last book of the Scriptures, looks back to Genesis to describe the “new earth.” Trees producing fruit, a river flowing through the city as through Eden, and most importantly, God will dwell among humans (Rev. 21:3).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-31126369933541686712012-10-06T13:13:36.125-07:002012-10-06T13:13:36.125-07:00Brian: never mind, I see that you have. Silly me. ...Brian: never mind, I see that you have. Silly me. Sure. I don't think that is really accurate, but at least in the sense that we are focused on God, who is not a creature of this world or identical with this world, one could say we are 'otherworldly.'Southern Anglicanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08455266898847197606noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-61550711063921730182012-10-06T13:13:01.099-07:002012-10-06T13:13:01.099-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Southern Anglicanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08455266898847197606noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-40070167526560417892012-10-06T12:10:45.980-07:002012-10-06T12:10:45.980-07:00Now you may say, "Very well, Mr Anglican, but...Now you may say, "Very well, Mr Anglican, but it still remains that in your view God is an invisible reality, separate from the world. And union with God is the goal of Christianity. Therefore Christianity is otherworldly. Likewise God created other worlds such as heaven, as I have already asserted, and it is there that believers will dwell, at least until the eschaton. Therefore Christianity is otherworldly. And finally, though you may have shown that a Christian need not believe in spiritual substances, you nevertheless concede that souls go on after death. Therefore Christianity is otherworldly."<br /><br />In the first place, our communion with God does not begin when we leave this world. To glorify God and enjoy him for ever is the chief end of man both in this life and in the next; and of course we have responsibilities. We cannot pine away wishing for that blessedness which awaits us or I should venture to say we may find ourselves disqualified from the race. God is very much concerned with how we conduct ourselves here, in this world. He wishes us to worship him now in this world, to act virtuously now in this world, to spread the Gospel now in this world, to raise families, attend to our vocations, be kind to kittens and elderly persons, and so on. We may have a hope in the life to come, but if that is all you mean by saying we are otherworldly, well, I guess I can live with the label. Because what concerns me about the label is the implication that the Christian should be DISINTERESTED in this life. And I think that's very, very wrong. That is why I have spent so much time writing this reply.<br /><br />In the second place I would contest the notion that God created a separate world called Heaven, where believers go when they die. The 'world to come' to which I look forward, the world to come referenced in the Nicene Creed, is simply this world restored to its pristine state, united to Heaven - that is to say, this world and humanity in communion with God. Because that is my understanding of the word 'Heaven'. I grant I could be wrong and God could conceivably have created a place called Heaven, and this is where the dead in Christ dwell, in a geographic sense, until the coming eschaton. But I do not positively believe this, it is not a part of my faith, and I do not think a Christian need believe it to be orthodox. In fact most Christians I've met tend to share my sentiments. All we really know about the positive side of the intermediate state, what is called Abraham's Bosom, is that in that state or place we shall be with Christ. And that is the only important thing.<br /><br />In the third place, we do indeed say that something of a person goes on after death; but this 'in-between' existence is hardly the hope of believers and indeed it is profoundly unnatural. Humans were created as a unity of body and soul. We look forward to the resurrection of our bodies and the renewal of creation, not some half-existence as a form separated from its matter. And this hardly constitutes an existence in invisible worlds, by which I imagine you mean some sort of alternate dimension, like the Elysian Fields or Valhalla. And anyway what goes on after death is simply what makes a person a person, not an invisible substance conjoined to their bodies. And so I do not think Christianity is otherworldly by this light, either.<br /><br />I hope I have not belabored my point overmuch, and if I have, that what I have written is at least clear and in some way helpful. Thank for your this exchange. If you wish to continue, perhaps you could clarify what you mean by 'otherworldly', as I should have asked you to do at the outset. Though honestly, I do not know what I could add to this, except proofs from scripture - and interpreting whole passages of scripture is probably too ambitious a goal for a combox exchange.<br /><br />Regards.Southern Anglicanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08455266898847197606noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-47716459802684977762012-10-06T12:09:48.115-07:002012-10-06T12:09:48.115-07:00You may gather from what has already been said tha...You may gather from what has already been said that for St. Thomas, 'the soul is the form of the body.' It is what makes the body a living thing, a human person, rather than a hunk of dead matter. A rock has a form and a corpse has a form, and the difference between their forms and the form of a living being is simply life (not 'lifeforce' in a vitalistic sense) and nothing else. So a soul is just a kind of form, like the pulp out of which my paper is made and the colour of my wallpaper. And life, this mysterious stuff which allows us to speak of things as having souls, is simply self-determination; 'all things are said to be alive that determine themselves to movement or operation of any kind.'<br /><br />Now with plants or animals we do not speak of continued existence after death, but with humans we do. This is because humans possess a rational faculty which plants and animals lack; and for St. Thomas the intellect's operation is at least partially independent of the body. We need not get into all the reasons St. Thomas thinks so, as this post is quite long enough already. Suffice it to say that for St. Thomas the intellect is a subsistent form which does not require matter to function, and this depends more on the nature of intellection that the body's role in carrying it out. I myself believe that the human soul is not naturally immortal but is preserved by God directly.<br /><br />Now I embarked on this little excursus in order to illustrate a view (which I myself hold) on the nature of the soul that does not require positing any immaterial soul-substance. I would emphasize that this is NOT Christian dogma. It is a philosophical view that Aristotle, St Thomas Aquinas and I all share, and it is called hylemorphic dualism. I think it makes good sense and coheres nicely with the Hebraic idea of the spirit mainly having to do with life itself rather than an immortal soul in the Platonic sense. But I would not impose this view on anyone's conscience and I could not prove it by scripture. It is a private opinion of my own. But I think it shows that one can hold a notion of the soul and of spiritual realities that does not depend on this spiritual world/physical world division you see in Christianity. That sounds to me more like shamanism than the faith I know. Christian dogma only requires I admit that that there are realities I cannot see; God is one, angels another. But in the case of God, he is so radically different from all creation that I think it is misleading to say 'God is spirit' full stop. He is spirit, yes. He is also perfect goodness, truth, mercy, love, justice, etc. These descriptions are analogical. They do not express the essence of God. They are true in that there is a sort of correspondence or analogy between what we know of goodness and what God is. But his transcendence prohibits us from thinking these words can express the totality of his divine attributes. Therefore I do not count God as being a spirit 'along with' angels, demons, souls, etc. I think he must be considered in himself, so far as it is possible to us.<br /><br />(continued below)Southern Anglicanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08455266898847197606noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-87305824764720806872012-10-06T12:06:40.420-07:002012-10-06T12:06:40.420-07:00Brian Barrington:
"Thanks Southern Anglican ...Brian Barrington:<br /><br />"Thanks Southern Anglican for you comments. I wonder would the following be a fair thing to say about the Christians worldview."<br /><br />The first part looks good, though we should probably keep in mind that when we say God has 'thoughts', we mean that there is something in God which corresponds, however roughly, to our powers of intellection. Terms predicated of God and created beings are always analogical, never equivocal. My thoughts and God's thoughts are not the same kinds of thoughts. God is very different from all created things, and that is actually putting it mildly.<br /><br />We could also refine your claim and simply say that nothing exists apart from God's creating and sustaining it, but both of these are minor quibbles. The substance of your statement is pretty good and orthodox until this part:<br /><br />"Either way, God is fundamentally different from non-conscious physical objects like planets and stones - which is what is meant by saying that God is a spiritual being. And we humans are also fundamentally different from non-conscious objects like rocks and stones, since we have souls, which are not material entities, and these souls were given to us by God. That is what makes us also spiritual beings, and why we are to some extent created in the image of God, in contrast to the rest of his creation."<br /><br />There are several problems with this statement. It reflects an idea that is widely held by Christians, but it is hardly obligatory and does not constitute the essential difference between God and created things or between God and dumb matter. For instance, St. Thomas Aquinas believed, with Aristotle, that plants possess 'vegetative souls' and animals possess 'sensitive souls'. This does not refer to some distinct spiritual stuff inhering in them, but rather to their substantial forms. Put simply, in this view matter is the underlying 'stuff' of which physical things are composed. It does not exist in abstract. There is no 'prime matter' out there somewhere. It must be joined to form, which orders the stuff as whatever kind of stuff it happens to be (its substance) and whatever little quirks it happens to possess (its accidents). So, for instance, right now I have at my desk a piece of paper. It is white (accidental, for it could be painted over and still be paper), rectangular (accidental, for I could rip it up and it would still be paper), and composed of an organic pulp (substantial, for if I were to light it on fire and turn it to ash, it would no longer be paper at all). Likewise, plants order their biological processes in certain ways, and this is what is meant by 'vegetative soul.' Animals have minds, sensory powers, and self-directed movement, and this is what is meant by 'sensitive soul.' Humans have both these things, and additionally possess rational faculties which supersede these other qualities and so in humans we speak of a 'rational soul.'<br /><br />(continued below)Southern Anglicanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08455266898847197606noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-72004601885579512002012-10-06T12:04:16.093-07:002012-10-06T12:04:16.093-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Southern Anglicanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08455266898847197606noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-2557244076256358682012-10-06T09:06:15.303-07:002012-10-06T09:06:15.303-07:00Brian: Lin Yutang, unorthodox? That's an inte...Brian: Lin Yutang, unorthodox? That's an interesting site, but I don't see anything on it that disconfirms Lin's almost always excellent translation. Nor do I see it in the original, which I read first. <br /><br />David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-49834521112673981382012-10-06T09:02:56.607-07:002012-10-06T09:02:56.607-07:00Hi Southern Anglican, thanks for your comments. I ...Hi Southern Anglican, thanks for your comments. I see what you are saying - I didn't mean to imply that other non-earthly worlds or realities are all spatial or temporal. <br /><br />In any case, God existed before this world and he created this material world, so he existed or can exist as a reality that is fundamentally different from this world - an essentially spiritual non-material reality, which is God himself. And God also appears to have created worlds (heaven etc.) that are also separate and different from this world, at least for the moment. And humans can exist as souls without bodies I.e. as non-material entities e.g. in the period after death but before the resurrection.<br /><br />So again, Christianity presents an essentially dualist, two-world (at least) vision of reality, and is in that sense "otherworldly".Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-34239956393554358182012-10-06T08:47:58.645-07:002012-10-06T08:47:58.645-07:00David, the specific translation of verse 37assets ...David, the specific translation of verse 37assets a tad unorthodox when compared to the 25 or so translations below.<br /><br />http://wayist.org/ttc%20compared/chap37.htm#top<br /><br />In any event the passage you quoted sounds to me very like, say, contemporary ultra-liberal Netherlands, Norway, Sweden or Denmark - there are very few prohibitions, almost everything is legal, there are very few weapons, very little chaos, very low poverty rates, very few police, highly educated populations, hardly anyone is in prison (the Netherlands has been closing down its prisons because it can't find anyone to put into them) and so on. As close as you will find to the peaceful, harmonious, stable, ungreedy, moderate society advocated by the DDJ :-)Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-64263742386587607342012-10-06T08:00:31.381-07:002012-10-06T08:00:31.381-07:00Brian Barrington:
You said: "After all, God ...Brian Barrington:<br /><br />You said: "After all, God consciously CREATED this physical world and this physical reality - so there must be other realities and worlds where God exists or existed, as a conscious, thinking being, before he created this world and this reality."<br /><br />This strikes me as a very odd claim, and it's certainly not something I believe. Heaven may or may not be a 'place.' We are given very few concrete facts about Heaven; the main point of Heaven is that God is there, but whether this means Heaven is a place where God is located or that Heaven is the state wherein we glorify God and enjoy him for ever is not clarified. I am inclined to the latter view, in part because the God of the Scriptures is obviously non-local apart from the Incarnation. He is spirit, he is omnipresent, and, I think, we do not have warrant to suppose things about Heaven or other dimensions because of the logical problems it might solve. For instance, if Heaven is a state and not a place, then where is Jesus' body located? Well, I don't know and neither do you. Let us leave it at that.<br /><br />Further, before God created the world there was literally nothing. That's the point. Everything that exists and is not God was created by God. Angels, humans, dogs, rocks, fairies if they exist, and so on. If there are other dimensions, he created those too. If it is true, as you seem to assume, that God needed a physical place to /be/ before he created the world, then according to Christian teaching that place was also necessarily created by him; 'all things were made through him (i.e. the Word), and without him was not any thing made that was made.' But then we just have an infinite sequence of places God made to locate himself in, which is clearly nonsense. It makes more sense to say simply that prior to the creation of the world God existed and nothing else did; no space or time, no matter or energy. God is not in need of those things, after all.<br /><br />Now regarding heaven and the intermediate state. It seems clear that we enjoy some kind of blessedness before the Resurrection, for to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And this is what is usually thought of as Heaven, rather than the new earth where earth and Heaven come together for all time. We do not know very much about it. Anthony Hoekema summarizes pretty well what we do know in The Bible And The Future:<br /><br />"Paul does not tell us exactly how we shall experience this closeness with Christ after death. We have no description of the nature of this fellowship; we can form no image of it. Since we shall no longer be in the body, we shall be delivered from the sufferings, imperfections, and sins which haunt this present life. But our glorification will not be complete until the resurrection of the body will have taken place. Therefore the condition of believers during the intermediate state, as Calvin taught, is a condition of incompleteness, of anticipation, of provisional blessedness.<br /><br />"The Bible does not have an independent doctrine of the intermediate state. Its teaching on this state is never to be separated from its teaching on the resurrection of the body and the renewal of the earth. Therefore, as Berkouwer points out, the believer should have, not a 'twofold expectation of the future, but a 'single expectation.' We look forward to an eternal, glorious existence with Christ after death, an existence which will culminate in the resurrection. Intermediate state and resurrection are therefore thought of as two aspects of a unitary expectation.<br /><br />"At the same time, biblical teaching on the intermediate state is of great significance. Believers who have died are 'the dead in Christ' (I Thess. 4:16); whether they live or die, they are the Lord's (Rom 14:8). Neither life nor death, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:38-39)."Southern Anglicanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08455266898847197606noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-24404431195942918452012-10-06T07:56:19.635-07:002012-10-06T07:56:19.635-07:00Thanks Southern Anglican for you comments. I wonde...Thanks Southern Anglican for you comments. I wonder would the following be a fair thing to say about the Christians worldview: For Christians God is a conscious, thinking, willing being, with free will and volition who made a free decision to create this world and this universe. God voluntarily, through an act of will, created this physical, mundane world of material beings. He had and has complete command over the matter he created. God existed before and outside this material world, either in heaven or not. Either way, God is fundamentally different from non-conscious physical objects like planets and stones - which is what is meant by saying that God is a spiritual being. And we humans are also fundamentally different from non-conscious objects like rocks and stones, since we have souls, which are not material entities, and these souls were given to us by God. That is what makes us also spiritual beings, and why we are to some extent created in the image of God, in contrast to the rest of his creation.<br /><br />All in all then, Christianity presents an essentially dualist, two-world vision of reality. It rejects the materialist or monist vision of reality. Thus, to me it seems justifiable to describe Christianity as otherworldly.Brian Barringtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11025043345722806768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-45352199594125848462012-10-06T07:13:18.313-07:002012-10-06T07:13:18.313-07:00SA: You're welcome to post a link here somewhe...SA: You're welcome to post a link here somewhere, when you have it written. I would have to tell Brian, that I honestly don't know much about heaven or hell. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.com