Is Jesus unchanging?

[CrossofChrist]

In some aspects, Nagarjuna’s methods were similar to Socrates’. He asked questions of his opponent until the faults in the opponents’ position became obvious.

I am, in my own small way, following the same course. Any temporary action within time requires change: start, sustain and stop. Any unchanging entity cannot do all three, at most the unchanging entity can only do one. It is that contradiction that I am aiming at.

But it does make it a lot more difficult for non-Christians to accept:

Q: How can the Invisible Pink Unicorn be both pink and invisible?

A: It is a mystery, which she performs by the power of Her Holy Hooves.

Most unsatisfactory, as I’m sure you’ll agree.

rossum

Here’s an imperfect analogy (I’ve got a lotta work to do to get better with these ):

Imagine someone, maybe a child, who sees an airplane flying. They know the fact that the airplane is in the air, but they have no idea how it works, and they have no way of finding out. The only way they could possibly learn is waiting until they are older when they have the brain capacity to understand aerodynamics and whatnot.

Similarly (and IMO–if someone can demonstrate how we can understand this, awesome!), the only way we can possibly understand this mystery is if we wait until God reveals this to us after death (if he chooses to). Just because we can’t understand how doesn’t mean it is impossible.

 

[AndrewW94]

Because you are glutton for punishment, I include the below. Feel free to ignore it as per your usual strategy when you are in error.​

You would do well not to tell me what I am thinking. You do not have mind reading powers, and so far you have not shown any of my arguments to be wrong.

Actually I have, but that’s beside the point. I will be content with proving what I actually said. I never said that the mistakes were in your ‘main arguments’. I can think of several examples of your errors off the top of my head. Let’s take your claim that ‘->’ symbolized “standard logical implication.” (somewhere around page 5 if I recall correctly). You changed the subject when I corrected you. Not so much as a “thanks for telling me.” Are you really going to try to tell me that you weren’t wrong? How many books by experts in symbolic logic would it take for you to admit you were wrong? You’re obviously not well acquainted with the field, so I would say a reasonable number would be 1. **What is it? One? Two? Three? Five? A million? I suppose everyone else is wrong.

**MAIN POST​

Rossum, it doesn’t seem like you understand what I say. I can think of two reasons:

1. You don’t want to understand what I say.
2. You are unable to understand what I say.

Let’s take them separately.

1. Not much I can do other than praying for you. I do that, but you still have free will. I can’t make you want to understand.
2. This could be due either to a) a deficiency on my part or b) a deficiency on your part.

a) If this is due to a deficiency on my part, it would seem reasonable to ask you to explain what I can do better. So, taking the pradigmatic example that I selected, I have repeatedly asked you how you get from what I wrote:QUOTE: However, this doesn’t fit in very well with nominalism. I’ll wait for you to clarify whether you are a nominalist, or whether there are just similarities between nominalism and your position before going into the contradiction further (though it should be fairly obvious).
To what you wrote:QUOTE: You have implied that you do so by calling me “nominalist”.

So far, you have given no explanation. If you find my communications skills inadequate, why can’t you answer my question:

**What could I have said to make this more clear? **(And yes, I do really want an answer to that.)

b) If, however, your inability to understand me is due to a deficiency on your part, I’m afraid I can’t help you much.

I hope you agree that it is pointless continuing the discussion if you don’t understand me. Let’s assume there is something more I can do to help me communicate. It seems reasonable to ask you to clarify how you are misunderstanding what I think is perfectly clear. You refuse to explain how this:QUOTE: However, this doesn’t fit in very well with nominalism. I’ll wait for you to clarify whether you are a nominalist, or whether there are just similarities between nominalism and your position before going into the contradiction further (though it should be fairly obvious).
leads you to write this:QUOTE: You have implied that you do so by calling me “nominalist”.

The ball is in your court. If my communication skills aren’t good enough, surely you could oblige me by explaining how I could do better. Seriously, what could I have said to make this more clear? If the fault is yours, there’s not much I can do.

 

[rossum]

Here’s an imperfect analogy (I’ve got a lotta work to do to get better with these ):

Imagine someone, maybe a child, who sees an airplane flying. They know the fact that the airplane is in the air, but they have no idea how it works, and they have no way of finding out. The only way they could possibly learn is waiting until they are older when they have the brain capacity to understand aerodynamics and whatnot.

Similarly (and IMO–if someone can demonstrate how we can understand this, awesome!), the only way we can possibly understand this mystery is if we wait until God reveals this to us after death (if he chooses to). Just because we can’t understand how doesn’t mean it is impossible.

To me that seems like “Jam tomorrow but never jam today.” I am human, and I will only ever have a human brain. Any explanation which requires a non-human brain is useless to me.

“It is a mystery” is unsatisfactory because is does not allow me to separate true mysteries from false mysteries. Any argument which does not allow me to separate what is true from what is false is not satisfactory.

rossum

 

[rossum]

I’ll wait for you to clarify whether you are a nominalist, or whether there are just similarities between nominalism and your position

I have already clarified that I am a Madhyamika-Prasangika. It is up to you to determine how close that is to nominalism, since I am not well versed in the categories of Western philosophy. There is a good presentation of the Prasangika position in “The Emptiness of Emptiness” by Huntington and Wangchen

rossum

 

[CrossofChrist]

**

To me that seems like “Jam tomorrow but never jam today.” I am human, and I will only ever have a human brain. Any explanation which requires a non-human brain is useless to me.

Well, our whole existence requires a Divine Being.

“It is a mystery” is unsatisfactory because is does not allow me to separate true mysteries from false mysteries. Any argument which does not allow me to separate what is true from what is false is not satisfactory.

If you accept or don’t accept Catholicism it should be for reasons other than failing to understand something that the Church herself doesn’t offer an explanation for.

But if you want, Karl Rahner had some interesting ideas for understanding how God could become incarnate (going from eternity to time):

What does it mean to say that God became man? Does it mean that God is dressed up as a man or as a strange mixture of the divine and the human? Here the issue again is how to understand the meaning of being a human being. Rahner understands the phrase became man as assuming an individual human nature as God’s own. At this point, one may raise a question about how God become something other than Godhead for God is the immutable One who is not subject to change. Rahner escapes from this dilemma by emphasizing “the self-emptying of God, his becoming, the kenosis and genesis of God himself” (Rahner, 222). He says that

He can become insofar as, in establishing the other which comes from him, he himself becomes what has come from him, without having to become in his own and original self. Insofar as in his abiding and infinite fullness he empties himself, the other comes to be as God’s very own reality. . . . God “assumes by creating” and also “creates by assuming,”" that is, he creates by emptying himself, and therefore, of course, he himself is in the emptying. He creates the human reality by the very fact that he assumes it as his own. (Rahner, 222)

God’s creating-by-emptying act belongs to God’s power and freedom as the absolute One and to God’s self-giving love expressed in scripture (Rahner, 222). Therefore, it is legitimate for Rahner to assert that God “who is not subject to change in himself can himself be subject to change in something else” (Rahner, 220). This is what the doctrine of the Incarnation teaches us: “in and in spite of his immutability he can truly become something: he himself, he in time” (Rahner, 221). people.bu.edu/wwildman/bce/rahner.htm (bold emphasis mine)

I believe all the quotes from Rahner are from his Foundations of Christian Faith.

 

[rossum]

Well, our whole existence requires a Divine Being.

Not in Buddhism it does not.

If you accept or don’t accept Catholicism it should be for reasons other than failing to understand something that the Church herself doesn’t offer an explanation for.

I accept Buddhism because it works. I do not accept religions that do not work, and the Abrahamic religions do not work for me.
Rahner:

God “assumes by creating” and also “creates by assuming,”" that is, he creates by emptying himself, and therefore, of course, he himself is in the emptying. He creates the human reality by the very fact that he assumes it as his own.

This does not avoid the problem. We have a change from non-empty God to empty God. There is still the paradox of an (allegedly) immutable God changing from non-empty to empty.

rossum

 

[mdcpensive1]

What if God is not capable of being described in human language, hence invalidating all of scripture?

What if God does not conform to human logic, hence invalidating a great deal of theological speculation?

What is we are all in The Matrix/brain-in-a-jar(*) so nothing that we sense is actually real?

There are a great many what-ifs we could speculate about.

(*)I would highly recommend Steve Martin’s “The Man With Two Brains” in this context. In particular, Dr. Necessiter’s interior designer.

rossum

I do not subscribe to the school of non-absolutes. It is logical to think there is a God and a true purpose in life. God is the total logos in all thought and logic. But, my friend rossum, I don’t think you or I am applying true logic as that of the all knowing God.

God exists outside of time although you are not understanding it now. Time is not the absolute but God is. He always acts in the “now” even though we perceive things in the past and future. It is all “now” for God. He is above all things even time.

 

[rossum]

I do not subscribe to the school of non-absolutes.

We differ. Absolutes may, or may not exist. The problem is that we have no absolute source of knowledge we can rely on. We have many differing claims to absolute knowledge, but all these claims are supported by non-absolute arguments.

If X is absolutely true, then we need an absolute proof that X is absolutely true; call that proof Y. Is Y absolutely true? If so, then we need an absolute proof, Z, that Y is absolutely true. We have an infinite regress. There is no absolute proof of the existence of any absolutes. There are only contingent proofs of the existence of absolutes. Hence we cannot be absolutely sure that they exist, nor can we be absolutely sure that they do not exist. The only truths we can be sure of are contingent truths. Any proposed absolute can only be shown to be contingently true.

It is logical to think there is a God and a true purpose in life.

There are many thousands of gods, my scripture says so. Each living being can set their own purpose in life, whether wisely or unwisely. Whatever purpose they set will determine their future consequences for them. Your “true purpose” sounds a lot like an absolute or a reified concept. I have problems with both.

But, my friend rossum, I don’t think you or I am applying true logic as that of the all knowing God.

Possibly not, but since we can never absolutely know that “true logic”, then it is useless. All we can work with here is contingent human logic.

Time is not the absolute but God is.

And your absolute proof for this statement is…?

He always acts in the “now” even though we perceive things in the past and future. It is all “now” for God. He is above all things even time.

Then He is neither a cause nor an effect. A cause comes before an effect. A God who is always “now” cannot be “before” any effect, or “after” any cause, and hence He cannot be either. By being stuck in an eternal ‘now’, your version of God has forfeited any claim to be a creator or to take any actions within time.

rossum

 

[CrossofChrist]

Not in Buddhism it does not.

I accept Buddhism because it works. I do not accept religions that do not work, and the Abrahamic religions do not work for me.

I hope your wrestling with the Creation/Incarnation isn’t the reason why Catholicism doesn’t work.

 

[rossum]

I hope your wrestling with the Creation/Incarnation isn’t the reason why Catholicism doesn’t work.

Not really. What made the difference was the general approach of Indian religions, and of Buddhism in particular. Far less, “Believe it because I say so!” and a lot more, “Try this, it might work for you.”

On a theological level I had far more of a problem with an eternal hell than with the incarnation. Indian religions all have hells, but they are all temporary. More like nastier versions of Purgatory than the permanent Christian Hell. The downside is that the heavens are temporary as well.

rossum