Re: Acceptance and growth

On Jul 8, 12:01 pm, jjsarg...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
> On Jun 28, 8:38=A0am, Bob Crowley <bobcrow...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> [snip most]
>
> [quoting Simone Weil:]
>
> > The spectacle of this world is another, more certain proof. =A0Pure
> > goodness is not anywhere to be found in it. =A0Either God is not
> > almighty, or he is not absolutely good, or else he does not command
> > everywhere where he has the power to do so.
>
> If God does not command where He can, and therefore
> chooses to let evil go on and hurt people, and therefore
> gives His implicit sup****t to evil, the third case reduces
> to the second, that He is not absolutely good.

I fail to see where He gives implicit sup****t to evil by simply not
commanding everywhere where he can.  To command everywhere where He
can is to entirely remover our freedom of choice.  We'd have as much
choice as the Honda Robot, no matter how cleverly designed.

To use a hackneyed example, a parent lets go of his or her children in
the HOPE that they'll make right decisions, but they make well make
very bad decisions.  But it's their choice.  That doesn't mean the
parent sup****ts the drug dealer who enslaves them, or the siren who
allures them into a destructive relation****p.  But it's the parents
will that the risk be taken.

To say that He Himself is not absolutely good is not logical.  His own
behaviour is absolutely good.  But by the very fact He restricts
Himself, He therefore allows room for what the Catholic Church calls
the "Mystery of Iniquity".  Clearly the same rule applies to the
spiritual world as well, for rebellion was permitted even there.

We keep forgetting however that He has promised to punish such
behaviour.  There is a day of reckoning.  He's given us the freedom,
but we're all going to answer for what we've done with it.

>
> I find Nietzsche's description of his sufferings and his
> handling thereof (e.g., in his odd autobiography,
> _Ecce Homo_) much more helpful than any Christian
> theodicy; as I've said before, theodicy (such as that
> of Weil's which you quoted) is always unconvincing.
> Indeed, I find Nietzsche's writings in general more
> bracing and healthful than Christian writings.
> I would not go so far as to say of *all* Christians
> what Nietzsche wrote -- that he felt the need to
> wash his hands after contact with religious people --
> but I can see his point.  I have gradually come to
> feel freer and healthier since I left Christianity than
> I ever did while I was a Christian; perhaps I might
> still have gotten some of the insights I have gotten
> had I remained a Christian, but I believe having the
> latitude to be secular has really been helpful.
> (Indeed, Harvey Cox in his classic [1965] book
> _The Secular City_ suggested that secularization --
> the disappearance of Christianity from its total
> influence over every aspect of society -- is a
> realization of the Kingdom of God.)

Bonhoeffer wrote of a world coming of age.  After 2000 years I suppose
God might have hoped the laity would be sufficiently christianised
that Man would make moral choices.

It doesn't seem that Man is making good moral choices, but we're
certainly far more aware of what might be called "Ethics".  It's a
field of tertiary study these days.

In short perhaps God wants the sheep to start making their own right
choices and stop leaving all the responsibility to the shepherds.


>
> Ernest Renan, who wrote a controversial
> _Life of Jesus_ in the 1800s, imagined Christ
> saying to him, "You must leave Me if you would
> be My disciple."  Even Voltaire, who regarding
> the Church famously said "Ecrasez l'infame!"
> (Crush the infamous thing!), prayed to God,
> "I am not a Christian but that is to love You
> better."  Perhaps I am in the same line as those
> two Frenchmen, despite having very little French
> ancestry....
>
> -- Jeffrey J. Sargent

Well, I suppose with the ascension, Christ in a sense left the
apostles.  He said as much - "If I do not go, I cannot send the Holy
Spiriit."

They had to assume the role of leader****p that He had formerly taken
on.  He was with them still spiritually, but that's not quite the same
thing as having your trusted compatriot walking right by your physical
side.

He might be expecting you to stand on your own two feet as a
Christian, rather than complaining all the time.