Meister Eckhart

[derek]

Sorry for taking so long to reply, uni has just started in Australia

IMO:
God first created the angels, and gave them free will. In doing so, he created evil, as the angels were able to be evil. God could have created evil beforehand by being evil himself, but that is against his nature. The necessity of free will can be put into context by considering one's own situation: If all your friends and family (partner and/or children if applicable) had to love you, wouldn't that devalue their love? Surely the fact that they make the choice to love you is of the most importance.
As for God's need to create others, I believe that he created us for our benefit, not (just) his, as its a selfless act, not a selfish one, to let others share in your glory and majesty, rather than live alone
/imo off

Feel free to pick my argument to pieces

Brad

That does not make free will necessary. It only makes it a vehicle for your values to be thrust upon.

 

[Hubster]

In doing so, he created evil, as the angels were able to be evil. God could have created evil beforehand by being evil himself, but that is against his nature.

To create evil is to be evil, regardless of whether it is done in the first person or not. To press the button which detonates the bomb is akin to being there and killing everyone with your own hands.

Then again, to rebutt my own statement above, is a hypothetical mother whose son is a serial killer guilty of murder as well?

 

[Dushan S]

I very much agree. That makes Eckhart quite an interesting figure - He tried to recapture the gnostic, spiritual influences of early christianity but perhaps did not realise the irony in trying to make them more dogmatic in nature.

And he had some serious balls for sure It also shows that early gnostic christian ideas were still alive at the time, even there were centuries of destroying old documents and killing oponents od mainstream christianity.

As for the first post, I agree that god created evil, but not as a mistake; if there were no evil, man would love god because he knew no better, it is the choice to love god over satan (or the world) that matters to god

This "problem" can not be logicaly solved because of basic premise in the Islam and Christianity that polarities of any kind are one against another. We have come that far to twist polarities into one that is acceptable and desirable (good) and one that is destructive and corruptive (evil) and further, we have ongoing process of sorting reality into those two groups even if it is impossible most of the time.
On the other hand if we take that polarities are collaborating (for instance, destructive forces are necessary to destroy something if we wont to build something better) than we have a picture of universe that is working together on a development and creation. Even some forces are not plesant and desirable from a subjective point, they are always neccessary from a higher point of view and have their purpose and meaning. So on a funny note, it is quite unfair from a fellow christian to not liking the Satan. God has someone to do all his dirty and nasty work, poor guy is someone that stinks, looks ugly and has to spend his time underground in not so nice hot place that is not well ventilated, and on the top of the things no one ever comes to shake his hand and say anything nice and encouraging about his work for god. Those Satanists are even worst and more discouraging, cause they are not even getting what his work is about and think he is some kind of enemy to his Boss and not an employee. On the other hand Christian god takes everything nice for himself, and is washing his hands from having anything to do with ugly things happening everyday.
Christianity is actually very amusing sometimes

also the tao doesn't define something as evil or something as good, because when you know something as good, then evil appears, and backwards.
so if you get to talk about evil and good, they are a unity that is tracended by the tao. at the end, things are.

it has happen(not always) that in occidental religions some people relate the trascendental experience to the more knowledge of teology they adquire related to the history of the religion or the misteries of the bible and so on.
so what you think or what you know about the religion is very important in the way you relate to it.

orient's view seems more practical

True. I am quoting it because of connection with what I was just saying. I personaly do avoid to compare Christianity and eastern Philosophies, because it is quite unfair. Christianity is full of philosphical flows, one thing is against another, a lot of illogical stuff, iregularities, Old testament completely against new testament etc. It is probably most schizophrenic of all religions because if you want to be real Christian by the book, you simply cannot win, no way. At least if you are not only about becoming saint and leave everyday life behind. On the other hand I think that we have to deal with christianity if we are born in christian part of world because it is part of our heritage. At least what I have found is that even if I was very disliking christianity at the beginning, I have had to come back full circle at one point, and start working on understanding it better, and learn to love it and appreciate good things in it, because denying christianity completely denies part of our own personalities, whenever we turn around, we see a western civilization and way of life that has christian roots and morality hard coded in it, all together with all the flows.

And sorry for going off topic, most of my post was not really about Ekhart

 

[proglodite]

God cannot be free to go against his nature. That is like saying that God is free to decide not to be God, that Godliness is not his very essence. It's absurd.

You misunderstand me: God did not create evil beforehand, because he can't go against his nature (ie. we agree)

That does not make free will necessary. It only makes it a vehicle for your values to be thrust upon.

How so?

 

[proglodite]

Ok, so: What IS evil?

Imo, 'good' is 'of god' ie. motivated by a love for god, thus 'evil' is 'not of god' ie. motivated by other things, against god.
Therefore, evil is inherent in free will, but - contrary to popular belief - is not 'of satan', and so satan is no more evil than you or me, but merely the most powerful of those opposed to god. When 'bad' things happen that are caused by those that are 'evil' it can serve to turn people towards god, god might allow this to happen but is in no ways shirking responsibility: look at job. All know that if such a god exists he is almighty, thus he is ultimately responsible for all suffering.

 

[derek]

You misunderstand me: God did not create evil beforehand, because he can't go against his nature (ie. we agree)



How so?

Insomuch as the only reason you have for appealing to the concept of free will is to escape the charge that your God is not all-loving, knowing and powerful as you'd have us believe. In essence its passing the buck.

 

[derek]

Ok, so: What IS evil?

Imo, 'good' is 'of god' ie. motivated by a love for god, thus 'evil' is 'not of god' ie. motivated by other things, against god.
Therefore, evil is inherent in free will, but - contrary to popular belief - is not 'of satan', and so satan is no more evil than you or me, but merely the most powerful of those opposed to god. When 'bad' things happen that are caused by those that are 'evil' it can serve to turn people towards god, god might allow this to happen but is in no ways shirking responsibility: look at job. All know that if such a god exists he is almighty, thus he is ultimately responsible for all suffering.

Yet it's possible to imagine a situation where someone never exposed to religion or more particuarly monotheism, could do good totally extrinsic to the love for god.

 

[proglodite]

Insomuch as the only reason you have for appealing to the concept of free will is to escape the charge that your God is not all-loving, knowing and powerful as you'd have us believe. In essence its passing the buck.

Are you suggesting that man does not have free will?

Yet it's possible to imagine a situation where someone never exposed to religion or more particuarly monotheism, could do good totally extrinsic to the love for god.

You would be surprised how many "unchurched" (filthy word ) cultures have traditional teachings of god, which do not conflict with the bible (australian aboriginies for example); in fact the church has been found guilty countless times of not bringing this into consideration, and just brainwashing. (In case you hadn't guessed, I'm defending god here, certainly not the church)

 

[derek]

Are you suggesting that man does not have free will?



You would be surprised how many "unchurched" (filthy word ) cultures have traditional teachings of god, which do not conflict with the bible (australian aboriginies for example); in fact the church has been found guilty countless times of not bringing this into consideration, and just brainwashing. (In case you hadn't guessed, I'm defending god here, certainly not the church)

In answer to the first question: Yes.

Also, these other cultures have a totally different notion of God, assimilating it as if they are Christians but just don't know it is quite ignorant.

 

[proglodite]

In answer to the first question: Yes.

Also, these other cultures have a totally different notion of God, assimilating it as if they are Christians but just don't know it is quite ignorant.

So there is some giant puppet master up there controlling your desires, thoughts and actions? I'm curious as to your reasoning behind this

'Christian' means 'of christ' so if they have no notion of a resurrected christ then they cannot be 'Christians' as such. However *some* cultures have a traditional knowledge of a god which fits in with biblical teachings.

Brad

 

[derek]

So there is some giant puppet master up there controlling your desires, thoughts and actions? I'm curious as to your reasoning behind this

'Christian' means 'of christ' so if they have no notion of a resurrected christ then they cannot be 'Christians' as such. However *some* cultures have a traditional knowledge of a god which fits in with biblical teachings.

Brad

My belief is that free-will is nothing more than our desire to believe we have free choice. In essence, I see everything as predetermined and it is only due to the poverty of our imaginations that we need to have control. There is a value judgement in saying it means more if we choose it, than if we do not...That I don't agree with.

Question: Are you taking these people to have similar views to your own, only not as western-world, lucky to be born Christian, in origin?

 

[proglodite]

You could then argue that a murderer should not be punished, as he was predestined to kill, and should not be held accountable for his actions.

As for your other question, I must apologise as I again don't follow.

Brad

 

[LORD_RED_DRAGON]

You could then argue that a murderer should not be punished, as he was predestined to kill, and should not be held accountable for his actions.

no, i think the idea is prolly more like

when a killer kills someone, the dead person was pre-destined to die at some point durring that day, that week, or maybe that month, so that if someone's death is murder, his absense shouldn't be dwelled on too much, because he was going to die anyway

but a person being "predestined to kill" is a hard(er?) concept to believe because

people having the desire to kill other people is a mutation of the natural instinct to kill animals that has somehow remained the human psyche from the time immedietely preceding "the agricultural revolution" (aprox 2 mill years ago i think) when the human digestive tract was totally different and a human could (only?) survive on a completely carnivirous diet

 

[derek]

You could then argue that a murderer should not be punished, as he was predestined to kill, and should not be held accountable for his actions.

As for your other question, I must apologise as I again don't follow.

Brad

But the fact remains a murderer has killed someone, and it can be proved to be so. In that respect, the criminal justice system would still work.

 

[proglodite]

My belief is that free-will is nothing more than our desire to believe we have free choice. In essence, I see everything as predetermined and it is only due to the poverty of our imaginations that we need to have control. There is a value judgement in saying it means more if we choose it, than if we do not...That I don't agree with.

Question: Are you taking these people to have similar views to your own, only not as western-world, lucky to be born Christian, in origin?

Even if our minds are not advanced enough to see past free will, the fact that we think we have control means that we have the ability to choose evil over good.
And that question...?

 

[En Vind Av Sorg]

Perhaps we believe that we have that choice of "good over evil" or vice versa, simply in an effort to comfort ourselves that our mind can discern such a question.

 

[derek]

Even if our minds are not advanced enough to see past free will, the fact that we think we have control means that we have the ability to choose evil over good.
And that question...?

Yes, but we still do not have free will, which needs to be fully proved in order to ascribe evil to our free will instead of God. My original criticism was that you appeal to free will simply to maintain the idea of a benevolent god.

the question was: Do you regard these peoples as proto-Christians?

 

[infoterror]

Are you suggesting that man does not have free will?

Hint to any debating free will in ANY philosophical setting: carefully define what you mean.

Absolute free will? LOL, hell no, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Ability to choose within limits of experience, genetic-neural limits, and the like? Of course.

 

[infoterror]

Do you regard these peoples as proto-Christians?

As Eckhardt shows us, there is not one single Christianity... although there probably is for a genius like Blake, Eckhardt, Emerson or Bach.

Hmm.

 

[derek]

As Eckhardt shows us, there is not one single Christianity... although there probably is for a genius like Blake, Eckhardt, Emerson or Bach.

Hmm.

I meant it in a more simple manner. I was curious as to whether Brad was was taking an inclusivist angle.