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Post by Josh on Dec 28, 2009 21:24:22 GMT -8
Throughout Christian history there has always been a tension or a pendulum swing between the tendency toward mysticism (with a focus on experiential knowledge and mystery) and the tendency toward intellectualism (with a focus on rational knowledge).
It's my contention that the mature Christian appreciates both. Though not everyone can operate equally in both spheres, we should at least spend some time developing both aspects of our faith. I don't believe either approach is superior, but both are necessary to the full understanding and experience of our faith.
Here's a quote from Chesterton along these lines:
"The mystic is right in saying that the relation of God and Man is essentially a love story; the pattern and type of all love-stories. The... rationalist is equally right in saying that the intellect is at home in the topmost heavens; and that the appetite for truth may outlast and even devour all the duller appetites of man."
-Thomas Aquinas, the Dumb Ox
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Post by yeshuafreak on Jan 24, 2010 13:18:26 GMT -8
I am a very rational person. However, I consider myself a mystic. I am more along the lines of "invisible college" rationality. So i agree with your statement.
-John
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Post by Josh on Jan 26, 2010 12:53:23 GMT -8
But do you really see the relationship between God and man as more of a love story than any mere romance? In other words do you see that the "love metaphor" (as you are quick to point out) is not employed as a pale copy of human love but because human love is a pale copy of God's love? God's love is more vivid and passionate that ours, not less. Your conception of God seems to be increasingly dispassionate and that troubles me.
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Post by yeshuafreak on Jan 26, 2010 13:53:52 GMT -8
how I understand god is very very loving. But i have to realize that any understanding of him is above me. He transcends my comprehension.
-john
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Post by carebear on Jan 26, 2010 16:29:28 GMT -8
John wrote: "But i have to realize that any understanding of him is above me. He transcends my comprehension."
So does the Holy Spirit (who is above us) help our spirit to "understand" the love of God more.....transcending our comprehension and showing us something beyond ourselves?
carrie
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Post by carebear on Jan 26, 2010 19:58:55 GMT -8
I think God is rational and mystic, ignoring any of those leave u with 50% of your understanding of God, and what we don't understand we miss, unless we give it a try and take a risk into mysticism and hard work in rationalism.
vio
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Post by yeshuafreak on Jan 27, 2010 17:33:14 GMT -8
yes and very nicely put.
The mystical path of "love" that leads us to God is not love that we know. It is far more encompassing than that, so much more profound. Love is one of the closest things that can allude to the Presence.
God becomes part of man (Ruach HaKodesh) so that man can become part of God (Devekut). We join with Yeshua, who represents Love, and consummate our marriage with him. In this we become one in body and ascend to YHVH together. In union with Love/Yeshua, we are given the fire of God- Holy Spirit- and we feel his presence.
Oneness is described as emptiness by some. It is both empty and full. Without love and with it. It is so beyond my voacabulary that I cannot explain it.
Mystic I am, though a very empirical one.
-John
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Post by carebear on Jan 27, 2010 18:22:17 GMT -8
I like what you wrote John. And how awesome that we can experience all that here and now on earth. When I first experienced the tangible love of God a few years ago, my life with God changed forever.
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Post by Josh on Jan 27, 2010 18:34:07 GMT -8
God becomes part of man (Ruach HaKodesh) so that man can become part of God (Devekut). We join with Yeshua, who represents Love, and consummate our marriage with him. In this we become one in body and ascend to YHVH together. In union with Love/Yeshua, we are given the fire of God- Holy Spirit- and we feel his presence. Oneness is described as emptiness by some. It is both empty and full. Without love and with it. It is so beyond my voacabulary that I cannot explain it. -John Yet you don't think Jesus is the only begotten son of God/ the unique incarnation of God, so you must mean these things in a very general way. And when you say we become one with God you mean in a pantheist sense which orthodox Christianity denies. The Christian does not aspire to be identical or coequal with God. I don't think you and carebear are really talking about the same thing, Yoda  You're using the same words but pouring very different meanings into them. |
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Post by yeshuafreak on Jan 28, 2010 4:05:58 GMT -8
you read alot into my words that I do not necessarily put there. So i dont know if I really am saying things that much different from carebear or if I have lead you to aassume things about what I say that I am not meaning.
Jesus IS the begotten son of God, but no not an incarnation. The Historical Jesus is nothe one I speak of. I am talking about Pauls metaphorical Jesus who we die and rise with, commune with, and rise to God with. And even then I do mean everything I say in a very general way.
When we are one with God i see it as semi-pantheist. It accepts "God is all and all is God," but it is in a very chasidic way of thnking about pantheism. We are never identical with the force above us. There is always the reciever and the one who gives. We are just trying to join with a collective reciever which some now call God.
Got to go to english midterms
-John
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Post by Josh on Jan 28, 2010 9:26:54 GMT -8
I read into what you're saying from other things you've said! And you prove my point in your next paragraph: When above you said "god became part of man", it would be very natural for carebear to assume you mean the Christian view of the incarnation, but that's definitely not what you mean. And when I spoke of Jesus being the "begotten" son of God, I said "only" to indicate the view that He was the unique Son of God (the historical and mystical Jesus). As to whether Paul speaks of a metaphorical dying and rising Jesus, I believe that is demonstrably false and would love to have you join a conversation on that topic (please, please do): Resurrection in Paul: spiritual or physical?Orthodox monotheistic religions also do not accept the phrase "God is all and all is God". By dileniating what is orthodox I'm not trying to disprove you, I'm just pointing out for others who are joining in the discussion where the real dividing lines between our thinking are. It would be easy to miss them with the language you employ. |
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Post by carebear on Jan 28, 2010 10:34:59 GMT -8
Interesting, interesting. I do see that we have two different views.
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Post by yeshuafreak on Jan 28, 2010 15:05:04 GMT -8
well... God DID become man in Yeshua. But he is always in the state of becoming man, and incarnation applies not only to Yeshua HaMashiach.
I understand your intentions now. And no I am not very orthodox. And yes my language is one called the "Language of Branches." It means that I use physical terms (used in older traditions or slef-invented) to express the spiritual. Often people understand it in a different state of mind than I because the words have multiple meanings. which ties into my next reply:
Yes. But does it matter? If we percieve things differently, does it really matter? I see a play and you see the same play. Depending on the many influences in our lives up to and at that point, we see different things within that play, and different parts are emphasized in our mind. But we are still seeing the same play.
I employ language that can have multiple meanings precisely because what I am saying is going to have different meanings depending on who I am speaking to. I might as well make what I am saying be able to work within multiple healthy mindsets so people can get what they need out of it, and make the unhealthy mindsets adapt their thoughts to what is being said if they are to accept it.
(NOTE: in judaism, when one says people are "face to face"- panim vpanim- it means they are understanding each other. "back to back"- achor vachor- means they are not. There is no connection. There is also "achor vpanim", vice versa).
I am trying to be panim vpanim with as many people as possible while still saying things that might have their minds grow. At the same time, I let what other people say let my mind grow as well. But those who are in an unhealthy mindset either must turn from panim to achor if they are not to accept it, or they must adapt their beliefs to what I am saying if they are.
I am not trying to be decieving, though. The point in changing our mindset is not to increase the thickness of the veil between us and God/reality, but to remove the veils. By adding to the thickness of illusion (hindus- "maya") than we "die".
John
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Post by Josh on Jan 28, 2010 20:57:19 GMT -8
obviously a point of disagreement between your view and scripture, needless to say.
As to your final points, I'm not saying you are being purposefully deceiving. However, I think it behooves us in this kind of conversation to be careful to define our terms.
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Post by Josh on Jan 28, 2010 22:43:56 GMT -8
John wrote: "But i have to realize that any understanding of him is above me. He transcends my comprehension." So does the Holy Spirit (who is above us) help our spirit to "understand" the love of God more.....transcending our comprehension and showing us something beyond ourselves? carrie I think this comment from Carrie deserves more focus. John, mightn't your emphasis on the unknowableness of God overlook God's ability to reveal Himself? If God wants to make Himself known to whatever degree, who's to say He can't? Heb. 8:11 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. |
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Post by yeshuafreak on Jan 29, 2010 7:52:18 GMT -8
That is the age old problem. God wants to reveal himself, but we cannot grasp his essence. So how do we know him if we accept both of these things?
Emanation.
Without limiting himself or causing himself to be anything less than who he is, certain qualities about himself are emanated from his essence. They are like the colors of light through a prism.
-John
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Post by Josh on Jan 29, 2010 8:12:12 GMT -8
I agree that reflections of God can be seen throughout creation, however, Paul explains how God overcame your dilemma through the incarnation:
Phil. 2:5-8
5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
According to Christian teaching, God did limit Himself when he came in the flesh through the Father's unique Son. And in this way He can be fully known.
John 1: 1-5, 10-18
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.
14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " 16From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only,who is at the Father's side, has made him known.
1 John 1: 1-4
1That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4We write this to make our joy complete.
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You're using the same words but pouring very different meanings into them.