No I don't. A God who damns, who grounds the being of beings He cannot save, is not worthy of Love.
But you are being saved currently. By the people in the church you love and who believe in Love and in a God who may or may not exist. Whether that 'being saved' extends to beyond this life we may never know. But living as though we are created to love and be loved is not a bad way to live.
PS I am no academic or philosopher but a god who doesn't exist can't be a bastard because they can't be anything. No doubt I've misunderstood this!?
I'm being saved by the River Soar and this and Traces on BBC, Colony on Netflix, and hot muesli with plainest yoghurt after a big strong cup of tea, and Benjamin Myers The Perfect Golden Circle, pacing myself to the next Harry Bosch, too.
We have good things that we're both grateful for, and it's easier, more comfortable, more familiar to be grateful to someone out loud. But you get used to hearing yourself. I talk myself through the bad things too. As raw and then as coherently as possible. But not in the Co-op. Although two nights ago I said the Lord's Prayer out loud. Didn't hurt.
All this talk of God being love is great and all but he is also justice. Justice requires how does that fit here? Justice means something has to be made right. God alone can do this. He did it through the cross. No matter where you are on the candle that is basic.
Do we want all to be saved? What about the worst people of history. Those responsible for hundreds of deaths? Do they deserve salvation?
Salvation is justice. Universal salvation is universal justice. Is full restitution for all loss by all. Everything is made right. Love alone can do this. They'll do it beyond death. It doesn't get more basic, lower on the candle than that. Our wants are disordered. Hundreds is nothing. God is responsible for a hundred billion deaths on Earth alone. Why not? Does He?
No. But the 'justice' element is very much a juridical theme in Western Christianity. You can trace a line from Augustine of Hippo through Anselm and onto Aquinas and the Reformers and Counter-Reformers.
It's far less of an emphasis in Eastern Orthodoxy. There sin is more of a disease that needs healing rather than something that needs to be punished, as it were.
That's not to say that the Orthodox wink at sin and are not tough on sin, tough on the causes of sin (to adapt a well-known political phrase).
We've had plenty of threads on penal substitutionary atonement before and this subject used to be regularly thrashed out here in Purgatory.
As I've said upthread, I think, an Orthodox understanding might be phrased as follows:
'We may hope that all may be saved, but we cannot say for certs that all will be saved.'
At the risk of sounding like a cop-out, I'm more than happy to leave this to the Almighty. He's better placed to deal with this than I am.
I don't see that there's anything to be gained by speculating whether Kubla Khan, Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin or any other evil person will ultimately be saved, whether through some post-mortem purgation or secret death-bed conversion or other means.
Other Shipmates will undoubtedly disagree with me, but I don't see that the possibility that evildoers will face divine judgement - as will we all - makes God out to be capricious or unfair.
It's interesting that in the Parable of the Workers in the Field, the accusations of unfairness towards the landowner come because he treats everyone the same, whether they've worked a full day or only the last hour.
I'm not dismissing the 'justice' element entirely, simply saying that it's not quite as straightforward as it might appear. God has the capacity to surprise.
All this talk of God being love is great and all but he is also justice. Justice requires how does that fit here? Justice means something has to be made right. God alone can do this. He did it through the cross. No matter where you are on the candle that is basic.
Do we want all to be saved? What about the worst people of history. Those responsible for hundreds of deaths? Do they deserve salvation?
I thought the point was no-one deserved salvation. Salvation is the outworking of God's unfailing love, not a process of deciding who deserves it.
I think one of your problems is that Christianity has traditionally had binary destinations of Heaven and Hell - something more wonderful than you can imagine, or something more horrible than you can contemplate. It seems to me that human beings, as a mixture of good and bad within each and every one, are actually deserving of neither.
It's not so much that Hitler or Stalin or [insert convenient "but what about...?" figure here] deserve Heaven. It's that not even they deserve Hell. If God's justice is compromised by ultimately saving such people, it's equally compromised by infinite punishment. And since Mercy - which inevitably compromises Justice - is generally held to be an attribute of God, and vindictive sadism isn't, it seems that things point rather more to generous salvation than uncompromising damnation.
Yes, although the two themes are connected it seems to me. But yes, the threads seem to have done some kind of helix-like manouevre and swapped places.
No I don't. A God who damns, who grounds the being of beings He cannot save, is not worthy of Love.
But you are being saved currently. By the people in the church you love and who believe in Love and in a God who may or may not exist. Whether that 'being saved' extends to beyond this life we may never know. But living as though we are created to love and be loved is not a bad way to live.
PS I am no academic or philosopher but a god who doesn't exist can't be a bastard because they can't be anything. No doubt I've misunderstood this!?
I'm being saved by the River Soar and this and Traces on BBC, Colony on Netflix, and hot muesli with plainest yoghurt after a big strong cup of tea, and Benjamin Myers The Perfect Golden Circle, pacing myself to the next Harry Bosch, too.
I must be grateful.
Nah. Colony is 2nd rate. I hoped against hope. Now Katla was awesome!
Comments
I'm being saved by the River Soar and this and Traces on BBC, Colony on Netflix, and hot muesli with plainest yoghurt after a big strong cup of tea, and Benjamin Myers The Perfect Golden Circle, pacing myself to the next Harry Bosch, too.
I must be grateful.
Do we want all to be saved? What about the worst people of history. Those responsible for hundreds of deaths? Do they deserve salvation?
It's far less of an emphasis in Eastern Orthodoxy. There sin is more of a disease that needs healing rather than something that needs to be punished, as it were.
That's not to say that the Orthodox wink at sin and are not tough on sin, tough on the causes of sin (to adapt a well-known political phrase).
We've had plenty of threads on penal substitutionary atonement before and this subject used to be regularly thrashed out here in Purgatory.
As I've said upthread, I think, an Orthodox understanding might be phrased as follows:
'We may hope that all may be saved, but we cannot say for certs that all will be saved.'
At the risk of sounding like a cop-out, I'm more than happy to leave this to the Almighty. He's better placed to deal with this than I am.
I don't see that there's anything to be gained by speculating whether Kubla Khan, Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin or any other evil person will ultimately be saved, whether through some post-mortem purgation or secret death-bed conversion or other means.
Other Shipmates will undoubtedly disagree with me, but I don't see that the possibility that evildoers will face divine judgement - as will we all - makes God out to be capricious or unfair.
It's interesting that in the Parable of the Workers in the Field, the accusations of unfairness towards the landowner come because he treats everyone the same, whether they've worked a full day or only the last hour.
I'm not dismissing the 'justice' element entirely, simply saying that it's not quite as straightforward as it might appear. God has the capacity to surprise.
I thought the point was no-one deserved salvation. Salvation is the outworking of God's unfailing love, not a process of deciding who deserves it.
I think one of your problems is that Christianity has traditionally had binary destinations of Heaven and Hell - something more wonderful than you can imagine, or something more horrible than you can contemplate. It seems to me that human beings, as a mixture of good and bad within each and every one, are actually deserving of neither.
It's not so much that Hitler or Stalin or [insert convenient "but what about...?" figure here] deserve Heaven. It's that not even they deserve Hell. If God's justice is compromised by ultimately saving such people, it's equally compromised by infinite punishment. And since Mercy - which inevitably compromises Justice - is generally held to be an attribute of God, and vindictive sadism isn't, it seems that things point rather more to generous salvation than uncompromising damnation.
Nah. Colony is 2nd rate. I hoped against hope. Now Katla was awesome!