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Neoplatonist
Guest
“They weren’t just sitting around”
You mean like, hanging out in a boat fishing? Sure were.
You mean like, hanging out in a boat fishing? Sure were.
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N
Neoplatonist
Guest
“Why should our understanding dictate the mode of God’s communication?”
Because even fallible, imperfect human teachers and parents know that you have to put something in terms your children can understand and relate to if you want them to learn and grow. There’s a reason we don’t use metaphors and hearsay to teach our kindergartners math or reading.
Because even fallible, imperfect human teachers and parents know that you have to put something in terms your children can understand and relate to if you want them to learn and grow. There’s a reason we don’t use metaphors and hearsay to teach our kindergartners math or reading.
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oomgowah
Guest
I get where you’re coming from. I liken trying to figure out God’s will for me to be like being a blind deaf person entering a house I’ve never been in before. If I knew directly what He wanted me to do at any given moment, I wouldn’t feel so much like I’m stumbling around and tripping up making so many mistakes that I have to go and get Penance for. But I’ve read original sin is to blame. It seems weird to spend our lives trying to figure out His will for us then going to Heaven to see if our ideas of what we thought was coming through from Him matched up with His actual plan for us. Don’t get me wrong though. I give my full assent of faith to the Catholic Church, but it just confounds me sometimes. I guess that’s why they call it a mystery.
~oom
~oom
N
Neoplatonist
Guest
But why would I study hard to get into college if I’ve never seen a college, met a college graduate, or talked to a single, live professor, much less the president of the college?
Even if God is too busy (a placeholding analogy) to talk to us, surely our Guardian Angel, whose schedule is already full of hanging around us anyway, could manage to offer a few audible words, or a shimmering flap of wings (metaphorically speaking) to reassure us?
Even if God is too busy (a placeholding analogy) to talk to us, surely our Guardian Angel, whose schedule is already full of hanging around us anyway, could manage to offer a few audible words, or a shimmering flap of wings (metaphorically speaking) to reassure us?
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LilyM
Guest
And even fallible imperfect human teachers know that 999 times out of 1000 it will be the student who is refusing to listen or resistant to learning as opposed to being unable to understand due to the flawed methods of the teacher.
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LilyM
Guest
But in regards God we have all met “graduates” (devout and knowledgeable religious people) and most of us have talked to “professors” (priests), so we can’t claim that sort of ignorance.
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sires6
Guest
Who says that He doesn’t?
1 Kings 19:12 -13 After the earthquake a fire passed; but Yahweh was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
You have but to listen. He is there and He can hear you. Can you hear him?
N
Neoplatonist
Guest
999 out of 1000? So if I start teaching a group of kindergartners their math today by leaving them clues around the room, not explaining, and by using subtle metaphors, 99.9% of those who don’t get it are being stubborn or unwilling to learn?
I don’t have enough coffee in my to even wrap my brain around how a view like that would play out.
I don’t have enough coffee in my to even wrap my brain around how a view like that would play out.
N
Neoplatonist
Guest
Those religious people aren’t graduates who have gone to college, those are people who have read a lot about college. And the priests aren’t professors who work at the college - in this case Heaven. These are examples of, at best, 3rd graders expounding to the kindergartners all about how colleges work.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
My thought is that you are complicating things enormously.
Perhaps what we are talking about is, essentially, a kind of reverse blind taste test. Instead of Coke and Pepsi, we have good (extensibly, eternal life), and evil (extensibly, death) set before us. The tester gives us no calculus by which to know definitively his choice in the matter, because it is by this blind process that you work out your preference in the matter. He does not “communicate with us directly” because that would nullify the entire point of this blind taste test. Do you prefer good and life or evil and death? That is for you to determine by every act and choice you make through your life. To ask for the tester’s preference so that you could know where he stands is to miss the point because you are trying to absolve yourself from making the kind of choices (your own) necessary to complete the test. He knows where he stands, he wants to know where you stand. Your choices are precisely what will let him know that.
Second, this demand to have God communicate with us directly is a kind of cop out and depends upon a “calculating” model of ethics and spiritual good. The question, though, should be asked, “Does this need to calculate not presume an ‘ego’ to make the calculations?” It is based upon a kind of rational “self-interest” calculus that acts to preserve the ego in its calculations. What if the ‘ego’ is precisely what God wants us to dispense with, to be rid of?
Suppose you were walking down the street and saw a frail old woman struggling with heavy parcels. It seems to me that even stopping to figure out, “Should I help or not?” is invoking this “self-interested” calculus rather than just helping the woman.
Jesus lauded the poor widow who gave her last mite in the Temple. This woman did not stop to do any “goodness” calculations, didn’t wait for a sign from heaven, she just gave her mite.
When Jesus was baptized by John, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved son, listen to him.” There is the direct communication people are asking for. If someone, like Sophion, wishes to treat it as “hearsay” that is all fine and good, but recall the blind taste test. God wants us to make the choice, not determine it for us.
Not good enough? Still need signs and miracles…
In John 9:22-33, Jesus addresses the efficacy of miracles for those engaged in the ”blind” taste test, who are, in fact, showing themselves to be blind:
Clearly, if someone wishes to listen to historians over the voice of Jesus, then the reason for that is clear from the above passage. "You do not believe because you are not my sheep…" The clarity of truth is in the fact that the motives behind doubts are addressed by Jesus. The truth is there, but where do you stand relative to it? Beware of the calculating mind! At least, be aware of the reasons you are invoking it!
N
Neoplatonist
Guest
I like your line of reasoning about the blind taste test. I think it can not really work in this case, though, because we would have to imagine a blind taste test where the person falls into an eternity of sadness and torment if they pick the wrong one. ?!] It is exactly the existence of potential consequences on that scale that makes the blindness an absurd feature.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
I suspect it’s not a “falling into” but more of a very extensive series of challenges by which each person self-determines by their choices where they stand regarding good and evil. It isn’t merely “pick[ing] the wrong one” but determining over time who and what you are, defining yourself so to speak, which places you where you “belong” as the final outcome.
Looked at in a different way, perhaps God has placed himself in the position of the blind testee. He deliberately blindfolds himself from us by allowing our free will as an autonomous and essentially “hidden (in the sense of not determined) from him” kind of phenomenon, but through the course of events and choices in our lives he “tastes” for our goodness, adding spices and ingredients (graces and life circumstances) that will improve our palatability and to which we can respond in the direction of improving our goodness or not. In the end, our “tastiness” becomes the determination of whether we are suitable for eternal communion with God. After all, he has to put up with us for eternity. The final banquet may mean we are responsible, as good guests, for providing at least the wine or an appetizer.
A passage from Revelation (3:15-20) comes to mind here (especially the bold-faced red portion):
What is interesting here is the “come in and eat with him, and him with me” statement. If Jesus gives himself, body and blood, to us to eat, then perhaps our responsibility is to become tasty (i.e., good) so that we can return the hospitality and allow God to “eat us up.” One thing we wouldn’t want is to taste so foul, we will be spewed or spit from his mouth (see the Revelation quote). God seems to have a preference against bland foods.
I guess what I am saying is that the “blind taste test” may operate in both directions. God may not “show himself” completely but through free will neither does he control our choices completely. He gives us just enough of a hint to show his preferences, but not so much that it becomes fully his own “stew,” so to speak. He may appreciate the gift of a surprise ending determined by us for him. By communicating directly, he would be putting too much of himself as an ingredient into the outcome that would ruin our contribution for which he waits with "baited breath!"
N
Neoplatonist
Guest
Wrapped inside your argument, here, is the idea that God’s more direct communication with us (or my guardian angel, or any of the departed saints, or Mary, or . . . ) would somehow undermine our free will.
Even if we step around that issue, we have the fact that we are still being judged tasty according to some standard that is vague at best and inscrutable at its worst. “Hints” ? This falls into the same concern area as mentioned above with teaching by metaphor. I don’t use “hints” to help my children learn to become great students. If they aren’t getting it, or are missing my meaning, I change my approach (differentiated instruction) and make my meaning more explicit and my presence as a guiding light more tangible to them - not less.
Even if we step around that issue, we have the fact that we are still being judged tasty according to some standard that is vague at best and inscrutable at its worst. “Hints” ? This falls into the same concern area as mentioned above with teaching by metaphor. I don’t use “hints” to help my children learn to become great students. If they aren’t getting it, or are missing my meaning, I change my approach (differentiated instruction) and make my meaning more explicit and my presence as a guiding light more tangible to them - not less.
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sophion
Guest
excellent point!
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Justice_Mercy
Guest
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. -Romans 1:20
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LilyM
Guest
What part of God coming to earth in person - in the form of Jesus Christ - and uttering statements along the lines of ‘thou shalt not kill/steal/falsely accuse’ and ‘feed the hungry/clothe the naked/visit the imprisoned’ - is in any way vague? Or a hint? You can’t get more explicit!
Yes you can bleat and moan about the Bible being ‘hearsay’ - yet you happily believe that Alexander the Great existed and conquered huge swathes of Asia on no better evidence.
And not one in a hundred of us could say that we truly comprehend Einstein’s theory on relativity, yet we all take his word for it that e=mc2.
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sophion
Guest
of course. but thats beside the point. even if you believe in god, he does not communicate to you. all you have is your imagination.
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Justice_Mercy
Guest
I do not think it is “beside the point”, but rather asserting that in some way God communicates to us every day through his creation. Other ways that he communicates to us I did not mention.
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Justice_Mercy
Guest
Excellent point.
John 10:2-5 “The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”
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sophion
Guest
you see what you want to see. doesnt mean its real.
thats why theres thousands of competing religions out there.
each one assuming that god is telling them something.
- Status