N.T. Wright on sin

[RJM]

But the point is our place is not in some numinous sitting-on-the-clouds, its here. The idea was that we would nurture paradise in the here and now.

To me this implies a future perfect world. It's what the JW believe. I personally don't see it happening. I think the experience of the dimension of Nature is a sort of school of the soul.

I get the 'samahadi' idea of perfect peace in but not of the world. But I believe there are many other dimensions of experience. Dimensions that we as natural creatures cannot even begin to conceive of.

The greater wheel of Spirit turns the lesser wheel of nature, but is not turned by it. We are contained and limited by time and space, etc?

 

[Thomas]

The only thing I'm dubious about is the pride.

LOL, OK. It's not a deal-breaker ...

I would say more like ignorance?

That we fell out of ignorance?

I hesitate only cos God would not condemn someone who acted out of 'invincible ignorance' if you know the moral theological term? ('Invincible ignorance is when someone cannot be condemned for not knowing, 'vincible ignorance' is when, had one thought about it, one would have known.) I think we're getting into complex origins territory here, and I can agree with you in some respects.

The Bible, and Greek philosophy, regards man as being created in a Perfect State, then something happened, and man fell.

To try to let God take over completely is something that has to be learned? Often by loss? Someone once said it to me and it has stuck.

That's my experience. We are our greatest enemy.

 

[Thomas]

To me this implies a future perfect world.

You don't accept the General Resurrection?

I get the 'samahadi' idea of perfect peace in but not of the world. But I believe there are many other dimensions of experience. Dimensions that we as natural creatures cannot even begin to conceive of.

Quite, but if we are in God, as it were, then where else would you want to be?

The greater wheel of Spirit turns the lesser wheel of nature, but is not turned by it. We are contained and limited by time and space, etc?

But we live in both worlds, I think, that's the point. That is our perfection, not in retreating from or abandoning this one ...

 

[RJM]

The Bible, and Greek philosophy, regards man as being created in a Perfect State, then something happened, and man fell.

But a natural state cannot be perfect. Nature is about limitation. We're not going anywhere but the grave?

 

[RJM]

You don't accept the General Resurrection?

In the sense that souls live on that do not die. But probably not often in this dimension. Rebirth.

Quite, but if we are in God, as it were, then where else would you want to be?

There's always a better, higher place to be? Even the brightest angel looks up to a higher light?

 

[Thomas]

But a natural state cannot be perfect. Nature is about limitation. We're not going anywhere but the grave?

Well 'God alone is good' (cf Mark 10:18, Matthew 19:17, Luke 18:19), and we are not God, therefore we can never be perfect in the absolute sense, but we can participate in perfection, that's what theosis is all about.

 

[Thomas]

In the sense that souls live on that do not die...

The question then is how can a disembodied soul be perfect, if incomplete?

There's always a better, higher place to be? Even the brightest angel looks up to a higher light?

Well they look towards God, surely, and if one is with God, if the Holy Spirit indwells, then one is as high as one can get, wherever one is.

No time now but I'll look out some of Wright's arguments. There's a journalistic view here.

Our contemporary idea of the afterlife owes more to the Hellenic world and the speculations of the Middle Ages. It would seem the Early Church believed in the near-immediate return of Christ and the 'world made anew'. As time went on, this idea began to lose its grip and had to been re-positioned.

So now the General Resurrection is at some indeterminate End Times, off in the far distant future, and the ideas of hell, purgatory and heaven, of demons and angels and this and that has emerged to fill the void, as it were, to the point where it's all about going to heaven now, and the General Resurrection is hardly considered at all.

 

[Cino]

Does that make sense?

Yes, you expressed my point very well.

So knowing this twisted paradox at the heart of loss, is this data knowledge or participatory knowledge? If the latter, then there's an interesting dependency there, I think, in that data is required for the other knowledge to arise. (Which is admittedly a very Buddhist way of putting it)

 

[wil]

We discuss things we believe, things we don't know.

It isn't like we have to arguw weather 2+2=4 or weather the earth is flat?

 

[RJM]

I like to think of the Adam and Eve story as an account of the spiritual events leading to the birth of man in the natural dimension and receiving a 'coat of skin'.

It is told in symbols because, like the mystery of the Cross -- that is the only way to describe spiritual events? Imo

 

[RJM]

So knowing this twisted paradox at the heart of loss, is this data knowledge or participatory knowledge? If the latter, then there's an interesting dependency there, I think, in that data is required for the other knowledge to arise...

Simple: it’s like throwing a ball for a dog and the dog won't give it back. Game over, lol?

But the dog has to learn to give it back?

 

[AlanT]

Am I a little angry with this god I don't believe in?

Why don't you address the comment instead of the commenter?

 

[AlanT]

I think the anger is often part of the reason folks don't believe...

... and often not? Where does that get us?

 

[RJM]

Why don't you address the comment instead of the commenter?

Because it's like a flea trying to reason why the dog it's on does anything it does. Why does God allow cancer? How should I know. I'm just a small creature on a big planet in a big universe. Shaking my fist at the sky about the injustice of it all isn't going to get me any answers?

The point is I can ask 'how' the universe, but it is out of my range to ask 'why' the universe?

 

[Cino]

Simple: it’s like throwing a ball for a dog and the dog won't give it back. Game over, lol?

But the dog has to learn to give it back?

Why? So you can throw it again?

 

[wil]

Why? So you can throw it again?

Of course, once you've been trained.

 

[RJM]

Why? So you can throw it again?

And again and again until your arm is falling off -- you'll get bored long before the dog does, lol

EDIT
I wonder if there's any profundity in that observation, lol?

 

[Thomas]

I like to think of the Adam and Eve story as an account of the spiritual events leading to the birth of man in the natural dimension and receiving a 'coat of skin'.

Very close to the Platonic idea ... and Gnostic thinking, but in my view the 2nd century gnostics muddled mythos and logos and got themselves in something of a mess.

But there's a huge discussion for Christianity here. The Christian world generally has assumed Hellenic dualism and reads Scripture through that lens. So the soul is something other than the body, man is a spiritual being who 'falls' and at some point the soul is embodied to arrest that descent (for reasons either punitive or pedagogic). At death, the soul once again is disembodied and continues ...

But this really isn't Hebrew in the sense of Scripture.

According to Genesis, we are shaped from matter and by the breath of life then becomes a living soul (Genesis 2:7). There is no soul before this event; God does not imbue a soul into a body.

Throughout the account of creation, God sees what He has made as good. Each day is seen as 'good' and the complete creation as 'very good'.

The question then is why would God create a corporeal cosmos, if the incorporeal is the more perfect state? And if the corporeal is less than perfect, why place man there? For Hellenic dualism, the world is a place the soul must escape. How then, can the cosmos be good, indeed very good, and yet the whole edifice is there to be escaped from or abandoned? If the point of creation is to get the soul from A to B, why not create the soul at B from the get-go?

Personally I think the 'coat of skin' might indeed have some resonance, but not if it effectively writes off creation as a stepping stone to some better state.

If the created cosmos was devoid of spirit, then I could agree, but it is not. God is immanently present and transcendently accessible. The human being is open to God. Theosis is a possibility, by the Divine indwelling in the soul. That union of the Uncreate in the created — nothing transcends that, and that lies within us right here, right now.

 

[Thomas]

Yes, you expressed my point very well.
So knowing this twisted paradox at the heart of loss, is this data knowledge or participatory knowledge?

If I haven't misunderstood — is the 'forbidden knowledge' of the tree — death — data knowledge? Yes. The sense of loss is the loss of the participation.

If the latter, then there's an interesting dependency there, I think, in that data is required for the other knowledge to arise. (Which is admittedly a very Buddhist way of putting it)

The point is that data knowledge is always lesser knowledge.

"And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity (Gk: agape), I am nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:2).

 

[RJM]

Very close to the Platonic idea ... and Gnostic thinking, but in my view the 2nd century gnostics muddled mythos and logos and got themselves in something of a mess ...

... According to Genesis, we are shaped from matter and by the breath of life then becomes a living soul (Genesis 2:7). There is no soul before this event; God does not imbue a soul into a body.

What happens to the soul after death of the body?

Does the soul go into 'hibernation' until reunited with the body at the final resurrection of the dead?