Off-topic musings for the theologically inclined

[_cksalmon]

I'm just posting to say I don't find Chris boring. But, mainly, to show off my new sig line.

CKS

lol! nice.

My first blog post was about Ben Affleck and predestination. That one was for you.

That movie was based on a story by my favorite sci-fi writer, Philip K. Dick.

Dick was utterly obsessed with the notion of compulsion vis-a-vis freewill. Have you read him?

Should I mention here that Dick went absolutely bonkers and truly believed that God routinely rearranged the past, shored up the anachronistic ends, sending us all into a parallel universe, and that he, Dick, had actually caught glimpses of the prior world(s)?

I'd highly recommend The Man in the High Castle, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, and A Scanner Darkly.

And you can't go wrong with the Dues Irae series (the second novel of which, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, inspired the movie Blade Runner).

Tread lightly. He won't let you go easily.

Chris

[_Gadianton]

Gadianton, I find myself wondering why God would be interested in mud huts and disturbed by market forces, specialization of labor, trade and perhaps you could add technological developement found in cities. Perhaps I should ask Mr Ellul. I have read some theologians but not this particular fellow.

I am curious why cities should be seen as more of a problem than wandering herders. The general summary That God choosing Jerusalem (or is it going along with Davids choice?) is an example of God intending healing and Gods own faithfulness to purpose is a pretty standard observation. I find Jerusalem interesting because it is an example of culture melding. Its presence is strong counterexample of against belief in the value of lineage purity or Isrealite exclusivity.

If I knew a bit more about the reasons that Mr Ellul is troubled by cities it might be easier to discuss further. Marxist?

I was responding to CK's post wherin he said that God could build the New Jeruselem by himself. Why would God be interested in a city? No idea. But he could up and build one if he wanted to. So apparently, he has an interest in it.

I'm not suggesting God has a problem wit "market forces," per se, noting your words, "I find Jerusalem interesting because it is an example of culture melding." Yeah, God found it worthy to destroy over and over again for the same reason. Cultural melding = apostasy. Hence the strict prohibitions against any artifacts after sacking a city.

[_huckelberry]

went bonkers imagining that God is rearranging the past.

Say CKSalmon you are traditional believer. Have you felt you can make sense of the theory that God is outside of time? I am generally tradtional in my ideas of God but have never been able to cross over to imagining that God is outside of time. Is that an unshakable holdover from my Mormon upbring? I wonder this and very seriously doubt it though God being in time is fundamental LDS thinking. I just feel that if God can rearrange the past then the present does not actually exist but is a hypothetical fiction. Yet if God is outside of time would the past be changeable by God? Absurd.

My reaction seems to imply that I believe there is some sort of fundamental reality beyond God. Time. Well if time is the reality outside of God then I must be speaking something of the traditional view of God being ouside of time. Yet if God decides to create he is at that moment locked into the relationship with time. Is that not the same as being in time?

Ok the question seems like the ulitmate of obscure oddities. Yet it is one of the few remainders from Mormon thinking that I bump into in myself.

Actually I suspect my view is from science developed after Aquinas which has changed the way we think more than an LDS background.

[_cksalmon]

went bonkers imagining that God is rearranging the past.

Say CKSalmon you are traditional believer. Have you felt you can make sense of the theory that God is outside of time? I am generally tradtional in my ideas of God but have never been able to cross over to imagining that God is outside of time. Is that an unshakable holdover from my Mormon upbring? I wonder this and very seriously doubt it though God being in time is fundamental LDS thinking. I just feel that if God can rearrange the past then the present does not actually exist but is a hypothetical fiction. Yet if God is outside of time would the past be changeable by God? Absurd.

My reaction seems to imply that I believe there is some sort of fundamental reality beyond God. Time. Well if time is the reality outside of God then I must be speaking something of the traditional view of God being ouside of time. Yet if God decides to create he is at that moment locked into the relationship with time. Is that not the same as being in time?

Ok the question seems like the ulitmate of obscure oddities. Yet it is one of the few remainders from Mormon thinking that I bump into in myself.

Actually I suspect my view is from science developed after Aquinas which has changed the way we think more than an LDS background.

I dunno, Huck, about most of all that. I'm pretty dense.

(And, I'm as traditional as I need to be, I guess, at any given moment, I suppose.)

But, I can't see "time" as anything more than a quite-useful fiction--a human construct grounded in the movement of matter and human consciousness. Without either of those, to my way of thinking, there is no "time."

I'd agree that the "present" (broadly conceived) is a hypothetical fiction (as is the "past" and the "future").

Traditionally, the explanation is that God "views" all points in "time" as a unity--like, say (imperfectly), a bird's-eye view of an ant trail. It has a beginning point and an endpoint, but the bird sees the entire line at once. One wouldn't suggest that the bird irrevocably commits himself to one point on the trail by diving down into it at point C or D. The bird is obviously interested in point C, but can as easily orient himself to point J if he so desires.

CKS

[_huckelberry]

The title of the thread is off topic musing, that may be an excuse for my off topic digression. I might make the further excuse that the only time I have been in LDS chapel in receint decades is for funerals. Funerals seem to remind me of time. My father when he started ailing instructed me not to get old. When he died he left no instructions on how to not get old. Calling time a fiction does not seem to stop it.

The difficulty I see with the birds eye illustration is that it proposes an end. My father died wondering if it ends. He was unsure whether he wanted it to or not.