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But to construe the issue as "winners vs. losers" a la Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code isn't a very good way of framing the issue, I'm afraid. I wonder if you really do want to go there? I'm willing. I�m scratching my head and trying to figure out how I now got cast into the role of Dan Brown. I feel like I�m being debated with as if I were a surrogate for Jim. Apparently by probing into the nuances between orthodoxy and heterodoxy I�ve set myself up as a proponent for postmodernism. It seems that if I�m not specifically siding with you and WC on this issue that I�m assumed to have all the baggage of Jim�s position and that I have to then carry it. Well, sorry. I�m done with this conversation. No hard feelings, but the typical thing around here is to dump words in my mouth and then ask me to defend them. No thanks. | ||||
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Brad, I'm sorry you're feeling misunderstood; I certainly don't mean to be "putting words in your mouth," but you're using terms in ways that the rest of us are not, and it has nothing to do with post-modernism. E.g., My point, assuming I have one, is a bit in the direction of "the winners write the histories and therefore orthodoxy may be worth probing and questioning, even orthodoxy that appears to be rock-solid and obviously correct." You're using "orthodoxy" in a very different way than w.c., JB, Jim Marion and I have been, which is to evaluate teaching in the Catholic, Christian tradition. Who the winners and losers are historically is irrelevant, and so is your point about what "appears to be rock-solid and obviously correct" is way off the mark. It seems you're thinking of orthodoxy more in terms of which group(s) of early Christians are closer to what Jesus actually taught, etc., and that's not what we're talking about. So let's clear up the semantics and you can see if you really want to continue participating: Christian Church = Apostolic Christianity, which is the stream that gave us the world religion, the New Testament, Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity and Protestantism. For 99.5% of the people of the world, the terms Christian and Church refer to this stream, which was dominant among all the disparite groups before the end of the first century, A.D. There were other groups around, for sure, just as there still are, but they were "losers" primarily because they couldn't attract the following that Apostolic Christianity did. The A.C. groups condemned the teachings of non-A.C. groups (and vice versa), but this didn't prevent them from meeting or circulating their literature, which we have available to us today. A.C. groups had no political power or status until the 4th C., so the "losers" lost because their ideas didn't sell very well. We can discuss why that is, if you'd like, but that's a whole other conversation with no relevance to what we've been talking about. Dogma, in this discussion, pertains to the essential beliefs of A.C Christians. These are found summarized in the various Creeds, which touch on the main ones, but do not represent a comprehensive listing of them. Non-A.C. groups have their dogmas as well, as do almost all groups. But we're using the term in a more specific context, here -- in reference to A.C. Orthodoxy refers to teachings that are congruent with dogma as understood above. I believe St. Irenaus was the first to use the term late in the 1st Century. Heterodoxy/unorthodoxy refers to teachings that are incongruent with the dogmatic teachings of A.C. A prevailing theme in my dialogues with Jim Marion pertained to whether his view of Christ's divine nature was orthodox in the sense I expressed above. If he were not saying that it was congruent with Catholic teaching (or, an "open question," as he would probably put it), I wouldn't care a whit. I hope that all makes sense and helps to clarify. What's happened is that you jumped into what is essentially an "in-house" squabble without understanding how we're using these terms, nor even seeming to care about what the stakes really are. Maybe another thread on how Apostolic Christianity emerged as the dominant Christian stream would be more to the point of your real concern/interest. | ||||
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Thanks, Asher, and see my post to Brad above, which maybe helps to clarify more what we've been meaning by "orthodoxy" in this discussion. | ||||
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Thanks for the info, Phil. Perhaps it would be better, if this thread is to move on, to discuss a specific issue or thought from Jim's book. This meta-discussion (as such things tend to do) could go round in circles for quite some time before any resolution. | ||||
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I just finished reading Putting on the Mind of Christ: The Inner Work of Christian Spirituality (Paperback) by Jim Marion, but have not read the Death of the Muthic God. HOLY GUACAMOLE!!!!!!!!!!  I have rarely encountered such a generosity in the depth of personal sharing in this largely autobiographical account of the so-called path of consciousness from a Christian perspective. The greatest gift I received in the unwrapping of this package was a confirmation of my previous analysis of Ken Wilber's so-called integral approach. Jim Marion did a superb job of popularizing the wilberian master template. He also presented a mostly faithful recapitulation of much of modern developmental psychology. Jim also presented many ideas contained in the literature of the Christian formative spirituality, and chronicled his own journey in these terms. The breadth of his acquaintance with philosophical, metaphysical, psychological, theological and formatively spiritual concepts is only exceeded by the shallowness of their association, by Marion, to the wilberian hermeneutic. I already described the variance between his views to the implicit epistemology and metaphysical realism of Christian dogma, in this book, moral realism perishes also: I do not have the time to participate in this forum but I do feel some responsibility for following up after having read the book. I am sitting here at a loss for what to say. (And that, alone, should tell you something, those who know me well.) I just sat here for 10 minutes trying to type a paragraph ... I am literally dumbfounded and cannot seriously engage his thought. I will never again seriously engage Ken Wilber's thought unless and until he prints a retraction of his endorsement of Marion's thought. I am not going to bother reading __Death of the Mythic God__ . Everything I have previously posted, I can see, had almost nothing to do with the concrete reality of the Jim Marion, whom I encountered in Putting on the Mind, but simply addressed my charitable projection of some idealized notion of an advaitan Catholic. I don't disclaim such notion and its theoretical probabilities, in general, but I certainly can no longer hope or imagine that it has somehow been concretized in Marion's presentation of his own views. When the other book arrives, I have no intention of reading it and they are both going in the trash. I have seen enough. I can tell you this, there is NO need to deliberate over his presentation of any individual points of dogma and it likely would not be fruitful to further analyze his motivations because the wilberian epistemology and metaphysics are SO FAR astray from conventional, scholarly, academic peer review and consensus regarding same that these erroneous fundamental principles, alone, guarantee inconsistency and incoherency. END OF BOOK REVIEW Below is my end of a private correspondence with Phil, BEFORE I read this book, his portion redacted: I am, flabbergasted    jb | ||||
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God knowing us from within His own uncreated Being, prior to our own creation and the appearance of consciousness, is a transcendental presence/supernatural grace (able to create out of nothing; hence our faculties cannot acquire that state of being as consciousness); as such, we can't see Him sustaining our being within His being from His uncreated pov. So as our being inheres in what we cannot know, non-dual awareness can only see its sustained being as its own mirror, but not as being sustained by His uncreated Being.This message has been edited. Last edited by: w.c., | ||
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JB, is that first part of your post above a review you're posting on Amazon or some other place, or is it just for here? I haven't read Putting on the Mind of Christ, but it sounds like you picked up on precisely the concerns I had about Death of the Mythic God. For sure, there's no doubting the depth of Jim's spiritual practice nor the breadth of his knowledge about a variety of disciplines. My problem all along has been how this is "re-packaged" in a Wilberian/Hindu paradigm, then presented as though it were still compatible with basic Christian dogmatic affirmations re. the nature of Christ, human nature, Christian contemplative writers, and so forth. This is nothing analagous to, say, Thomas Aquinas' use of Aristotle to explicate Catholic doctrine; rather, it's a morphing of Christian language to signify and support a Hindu-like metaphysics and mysticism. Your follow-up essay speaks to some of the issues we've already addressed on the "Wilber thread" in the Morality and Theology forum, only (as usual), you provide a much more concise philsophical critique than we have. If you don't mind copy/pasting it there as well, I think it would be good to have archived on that thread for those who might not read this one. Ultimately, this all goes back, too, to issues floating around in the early days of Christianity. While the various gnostic groups rooted the validity of their gospel message in mystical experience, the Apostolic Church that emerged as the world religion rooted it in history: what Jesus taught, did, etc. There are names, places and events strewn throughout the Christian scriptures, but the gnostic literature has very little of this, emphasizing more certain sayings of Jesus, some of which are found in the Gospels, but many are not. Jim and I did not cover this much in our discussions, but a quote from his book will suffice to show that his leanings are with the gnostics. Okey dokey. But keep in mind, all, that these "exoteric Christians" had no political or military power, but were often martyred by the Romans. Their opposition to the gnostics was mostly a reaction to its coming into their communities. Gnostics could continue meeting, writing (we have numerous samples of their literature) and proselytizing. If the wild-eyed exoterics gave them grief on their own turf, they simply went elsewhere. Keep in mind, too, that these so-called "exoterics" were not without their own inner experiences, and that an authentically Christian gnosis/mysticism was highly prized and encouraged. As to whom these low-life leaders Jim is referring to might be . . . that's anyone's guess. But as John the Evangelist wrote to oppose gnosticism, I guess he'd have to be included in the mix, along with Irenaus, Clement, and maybe even the Apostles? The earliest hymns and creeds of the Apostolic tradition (50 AD onward) are already significantly different in many respects from what the gnostics were teaching. "New Age Christianity" is very much in the lineage of the early gnostic groups, which have never really been annihilated. It touts the Gospel of Thomas and other extra-canonical works as being more in line with Christ and his (secret) teachings than the New Testament works. It also emphasizes mystical gnosis as the real terms of assessing the truth of a teaching. You don't have to look to hard to find that in Jim's dialogues with me. All of which is fine with me, really. If someone wants to be a New Age Christian, gnostic, or whatever, go to it. Let's just not call this Catholic mysticism or claim any kind of lineage in the Apostolic Christian tradition. Those matters were settled a long, long time ago -- well before Constantine came on the scene. Anyway, I think it's pretty clear in light of the discussions here and in the dialogue between Jim and I what's going on. My hope is that he would re-think his teaching in light of the feedback we've given him, but extrarational gnosticism is generally impervious to correction, which is also what bugged the meanie exoterics in the first century. | ||||
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"God knowing us from within His own uncreated Being, prior to our own creation and the appearance of consciousness, is a transcendental presence/supernatural grace (able to create out of nothing; hence our faculties cannot acquire that state of being as consciousness); as such, we can't see Him sustaining our being within His being from His uncreated pov. So as our being inheres in what we cannot know, non-dual awareness can only see its sustained being as its own mirror, but not as being sustained by His uncreated Being." [/qb][/QUOTE]You aren't being presumptuous w.c. but stated with precision what some of us believe, properly relating faculty psychology and our dogma. There is probably not another place in cyberspace that more exhaustively treats the East-West dialogue with as much breadth and depth as Shalomplace. You and Phil provide remarkable insight and especially illuminate and emphasize the practical theological perspective on this subject by bringing to the discussion both your own personal journeys and your own professional experiences. All of this anchored by Jim Arraj's theological and philosophical perspectives, in which Phil is heavily invested, combines to provide a foundational and systematic approach that just gets better and better nuanced every time it treats the latest ... ... I'm searching for the right word ... ... patient.<br /><br />This isn't then a new thread, in many ways. What is novel is that Jim Marion's work, as expressed in his books and dialogue with Phil, presents us with the paragon of what y'all have been saying for years: If you proceed with such ascesis combined with such presuppositions, however explicit or implicit, then here are the perils and pitfalls that await. What we see here, today, is evidence for that hypothesis playing out in real life with scary practical implications for any who'd be misled by such "guidance."<br /><br />There has always been a problem with stage paradigms and developmental theories and it is that they invite a narcissistic shoehorning of one's journey into the highest levels described in an effort to be somebody while short-circuiting the effort to become somebody. It is a true spiritual emergency issue which Merton would say involves a crisis of continuity and a crisis of creativity. <br /><br />The crisis of continuity, of course, is really the issue of discontinuity, iow, death. The crisis of creativity involves our basic need to make a difference. We do not transist past our mere humanization and mere socialization (False Self), ordinarily, without getting to that point in our lives, all too often thrust upon us mostly by external circumstances, where we experience the need for prayer as acutely as we would experience the need for a breath of air when underwater (my Merton memory). At this juncture of our journey, our spiritual emergency MAY become a spiritual emergence, birthing a transformed True Self. <br /><br />It is a False Self in a death rattle that over-rationalizes all past failures to cooperate with nature and grace as mere error and not sin, that reconceptualizes every moment of secular conversion and personal growth in terms of teresian mansions, sanjuanian nights and theosophical levels. <br /><br />In my last post, I really should have quit writing. It was late (early a.m.) and I was not really disposed to treating the issue that followed this: Marion, and I'm only supposing Wilber, do maintain our empirical and phenomenal personhoods. I was trying to explicate the difference between what they were calling phenomenal and empirical versus what they call real. Actually, I buy the distinction and prefer, for instance, the "Reality" of God to the "Existence" of God. The subtle difference is that I consider existence to be a valid metaphysical subcategory of reality and they consider it to be a phenomenal illusion. Hence, they reject another implicit philosophical presupposition of dogma, which is a metaphysical realism. Marion also rejects yet another, which is a moral realism (maybe Phil could prevail upon Marion's generosity and have him post Chapter 19 of Putting on the Mind of Christ: The Problem of Good & Evil).<br /><br />Finally, I failed to mention that there was another failure of consistency in Marion's wilberian presentation and that was that he strayed from the hegelian dialectical analysis of both modern philosophy and modern theology [that is he strayed from the wilberian dialectic, which I do not endorse anyway. This is only to say that, on one hand, he was not self-consistent, while, otoh, he made serious errors of omission by not properly engaging modern systematic theology.]. He did treat practical theology from the standpoint of formative spirituality and along with much of developmental psychology. He TOTALLY ignored the other categories, which are indispensable for anyone to robustly engage the thesis-antithesis prior to spitting out one's synthesis. There is no mention of Lonergan, Rahner, Kung, Maritain, Hartshorne, Whitehead, Emile Mersch, Henri de Lubac, Jean Dani�lou, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar. Catholicism, as such, was not engaged and reformulated. It wasn't engaged at all except in the most superficial sense of drawing analogues between developmental psychology and formative spirituality and then grossly misapplying them to his own life, in particular, and wilberian thought, in general. To paraphrase Chesterton, Marion's Catholicism hasn't been tried and found lacking, it hasn't been tried at all, except in kangaroo court of his own twisted sophistries.<br /><br />What you have, then, is someone playing theological air guitar, shooting baskets without a hoop, playing tennis without a net, kicking field goals with no goal posts, pole vaulting without a crossbar, hitting homeruns without anyone in position at LF, CF, RF, SS, 1B, 2B, 3B, C and tossing the theological ball up in the air, thus pitching to himself.<br /><br />So, again, thanks w.c and Phil. It is good that you are here.<br /><br />pax!<br />jbThis message has been edited. Last edited by: w.c., | ||||
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Phil, it takes too much time for me to translate what I consider to be very highly nuanced arguments into accessible language. I do not have the gift or the inclination to popularize. And usually, in a charism, these things go together. So, no, I have no intention of posting on Amazon and I don't see much use in me putting my stream of consciousness blather (to most others, anyway) re: Wilber on the other thread. I prefer to restrict my contributions to a few private correspondents, who are good popularizers, and who can translate any of those thoughts of mine that they find insightful and useful into their own style and into the context of their own substance. I do not engage this stuff casually or even merely intellectually, but also existentially, It is of great import. However, I do not feel it is appropriate for me to post here what I have mostly constructed for private correspondence, because it has the potential to offend charity and because it often embarrasses me by giving a wide audience only a very unidimensional experience of who I really am, which I trust is not as arrogant as I clearly can come across. Hey, we write like we read and I write like a medieval metaphysicisn. What I would really like you to do, or w.c. as moderator, is to remove my contributions from this thread. If I have truly provided at least the two of you any new insights, then you might translate and post them in an executive summary style or simply let them influence your future thoughts and contributions. This is not my chosen written medium, which is private correspondence with the few and not public discourse with the many. I hope you appreciate my request and I thank you for affirming any truth and goodness in my contributions while abiding with any human shortfalls. Deep peace, jb | ||||
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Johnboy, deleting your posts would pretty much wreck the thread, as I and others are responding to your contributions in many places. I will go now and assign you moderator status for this forum and you can edit as you see fit, preserving at least those parts of your posts that others have used. FWIW, I don't think there's an arrogant spirit to what you write; the terminilogy you use doesn't seem intended to show off. As I noted yesterday, this is how pro-level philosophical analysis goes, and we've all come through the years to know that this is how you express yourself. | ||||
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If you save nothing else, save: HOLY GUACAMOLE!!!!!!!!!! | ||||
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Fair enough. I just want to be very clear that I in no way presume to have an inkling as to Marion's motivations or where he has come from or where he is going to on his journey. Any references and musings to what some of those dynamics might often entail were evoked by considering issues raised by this exchange and not otherwise mined from any psychospiritual insights into his or any of our journeys, for that matter. The bottom bottomline is that Wilber is spot on in describing pre-trans fallacies, and then commits the same himself. Wilber is spot on in decrying the absolutizing of any of the quadrants, and then, apparently unwittingly, did that also, erroneously absolutizing nondual awareness as the privileged phenomenal state, as the desired ontological brain structure and as the highest level of consciousness development. Wilber overcame some of his own early pre-trans fallacies. Let's hope he can overcome this one, too. I hope that Thomas Keating and David Steindl-Rast are separating the wilberian wheat from the chaff because, if you get your epistemology wrong (and I know epistemology is my fetish), then you are going to get almost everything else wrong. I say almost everything else because most people are unconsciously competent to an extent and get epistemology correct in practice even if they cannot properly articulate it in theory. The real peril lies in the fact that we can, if we work at it hard enough, make ourselves, through inappropriate ascetical practice coupled with erroneous beliefs, unconsciously incompetent. And that above paragraph is my executive summary of what I think is going on here. Now, Phil, if you would restate it ... pax, amor et bonum jb | ||||
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I agree with your boldface point above, JB, and also that judgments of motives are out of bounds, here. Overall, I think the dialogue and even this discussion have succeeded in avoiding ad hominems by focusing critique on what people have actually written, what one agrees/disagrees with, and why. If anyone thinks any particular contributions are inappropriate, however, let me know and I'll take care of it. Now I am ready to move on to other conversations, and to spend a little more time in silence and reading. | ||||
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Just wanted to say that I agree, and it was great reading jb's stuff again  . (Well, and everyone elses, but you know what I mean  )Terri | ||||
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There is an antidote to wilberitis  available here "This brilliant, scholarly, and breakthrough book is a tour de force in the solid establishment of a scientific spirituality. Helminiak's encompassing mind, using the complex constructs of Lonergan, frames a vision of a scientific revolution in spirituality and the human sciences. In this process, Helminiak is at his best in a thorough and well balanced critique of the Evangelical integration project of Crabb, the religio-ethical analyses of psychologies by Browning, and the transpersonal psychology of Wilber." -- Merle R. Jordan, Th.D., Professor Emeritus of Pastoral Psychology, Boston University School of Theology "Helminiak is the West's answer to Ken Wilber--encyclopedic and incisive in his treatment of cutting edge spiritual/psychological trends, their insights and distortions. He offers to all the players, scientific and religious, Eastern and Western, his own profound and challenging synthesis. I am especially appreciative of his theoretical grounding of counseling and psychotherapy, in both their secular and religious expressions." -- Homer A. Bain, Ph.D., Director of Education, Ecumenical Center for Religion and Health, San Antonio, Texas "At last someone has given us a framework for 'precisely and coherently interrelating religious concerns and the human sciences.' Daniel Helminiak has done what Lonergan dreamed and challenged us to do: give flesh to general empirical method in interdisciplinary dialogue. Those working in the area of spirituality cannot afford to miss chapter two's 'theotic viewpoint.' The text is clean, clear, and direct. It will afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted who have been seeking a way out of a maze of ambiguity." -- Carla Mae Streeter, O.P., Th.D., Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Spirituality, Aquinas Institute of Theology "A critical dialogue in transpersonal psychology seeks to delineate the relationship between religion, spirituality, and the human sciences. Building on the work of Bernard Lonergan, Dr. Helminiak gives that dialogue a powerful western philosophical perspective. The book contributes to foundational discussion by offering a new and stimulating analysis of Ken Wilber's thought. It adds a significant new voice to East-West discussions. It offers an effective model to situate within the human sciences the study of religion and spirituality. Thank you, Dr. Helminiak. This book, together with your other volumes, offers a valuable contribution to an extremely important topic." -- Bob Schmitt, Ph.D., Academic Dean, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology Daniel A. Helminiak holds Ph.D.'s in both psychology and theology. He is Assistant Professor of Psychology at State University of West Georgia. Didn't want to critique without offering a positive alternative, which has a thread elsewhere at Shalomplace re: Helminiak. Note to Terri - greetings back at ya and many thanks for always taking the bait when I am fishing for compliments  pax! jb | ||||
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JB et al, you can find a summary of some of the points in Helminiak's critique of Wilber at this URL: - http://www.visionsofdaniel.net/R&HSch4.htm Helminiak's books do offer a viable alternative to Wilber based on the philosophy and theology of Bernard Lonergan. Good, solid stuff! | ||||
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I'll be checking the mailbox daily, waiting for the check  | ||||
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Added above in an edit, but not to be missed, from Marion's __Putting on the Mind of Christ__
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from __Putting on the Mind__ pg 133 - Prelude to the Dark Night -- Breakthrough to the Cuasal Level: Many have to hit rock bottom to reach the pivotal existential crises described by Merton as that of dis/continuity and creativity and to experience the spiritual emergence that can be gifted by a spiritual emergency, but in confounding, on one hand, our finitude and the errors/mistakes we make, with, otoh, sin, which is a willful refusal to cooperate with nature and grace, Marion has lost all sense of sin. Even if one believes in universal salvation, the follower of Jesus --- who would see Him more clearly, love Him more dearly, follow Him more nearly, who would, per Ignatius' Three Degrees of Humility, not only not want a serious breach with God, much less a minor breach, but even to imitate Him in every way --- is drawn to ad majorem Dei gloriam (AMDG, the Jesuit motto, the greatest possible glory of God)? Is what Marion describes above AMDG not just for the one gaining awareness via the fast lane, but for all the people and situations that suffer the collateral damage? What happens here is that one takes the position that all is transformative, when, in fact, we know that some things are formative, some reformative, some deformative and some transformative. [Where is his awareness of developmental psychology and lonerganian conversion, now?] While all things can work together for the good (for those who love the Lord), we are moreso invested in realizing the greatest possible good and this would seem to me to be the path of devotion and compassion and surrender whereby we do not otherwise presume on God's goodness because all will be transformed. It is not a subtle nuance involved in the distinction between "all is transformative" and "all will be transformed." At the least we can see the difference between getting dragged along kicking and screaming, through umpteen levels of hell and puurgatory (which Marion also describes) versus going willingly and cooperatively into His banquet hall, where the banner over us is love? Is not the latter scenario AMDG and not rather the former? Some may, in their struggle to come to grips with inadequate analyses of moral objects in terms of ontic evil, pre-moral evil and intrinsically disordered natural law formulations (and they ARE often inadequate), find the quickest route to an unburdened conscience is the rejection of any idea of evil whatsoever. It seems positively incoherent that anyone could suggest such an indifferentism, vis a vis AMDG even if not vis a vis one's salvation, to HOW our growth in awareness takes place and focuses only on THAT it will take place under any circumstances, ergo, get there as fast as you can anyway you can. This is, of course, not logically inconsistent, if your premise is that there is no such thing as sin, only invincible ignorance. I'm not saying Marion has thus sinned ... but from my pov, he is at least ignorant in some regards, hopefully not invincibly so. He's a great intellect and gets a LOT of other stuff right. That's what's so confusing, I suppose. It is when he starts describing postformal consciousness that all truly scientific rigor dissolves and, by that time, the unwary reader may have been lulled into a sense of complacency ... caveat emptor. Oh well ... facile syncretism, insidious indifferentism, false irenicism ... jb | ||||
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Well now this is interesting. I don't know if you all remember a phenomenon called the "Lay Witness Movement." When I was about 13 or 14, over 30 years ago anyway, this "movement" was very prevalent. It consisted of groups of Christian college kids going from town to town (sponsored by churches, usually the Baptist--of which I was a member at the time) having these wonderful meetings. And they were wonderful. There were occasions when it was as though you could literally reach out and touch the fire of the Holy Spirit. They had great success in witnessing to teens, and many young people went on to become missionaries, youth ministers, or have some other occupation in the ministry. Then a very strange thing began to happen. Some years after the movement had begun, we started hearing reports of drug use and sex being advocated as alternate "routes" to experiencing God. I'm not sure just how bad it got, but it was bad enough that within just a short time, the Lay Witness Movement ceased to exist. A fella from our town here was one that was involved in this. He had traveled with a certain group of them to various states. He was one of the ones that got caught up in the drug thing. It pretty much ruined his life, although shortly before his death a year or so ago, he had been clean for a few years and had returned to God. Anyway, it almost sounds like a similarity between what the Lay Witness folks got into and what is being advocated in the above paragraph. Although the reasoning is a bit different. While I agree that hitting rock bottom, as you said, is many times the catalyst God uses to rescue us, to deliberately place oneself in this position for that purpose sounds almost like tempting God. I'm puzzled, to say the least. God bless, Terri | ||||
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Okay...I'm speechless. | ||||
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Regarding, specifically, the following quote from Jim (remember�I haven�t read the book): While I agree that hitting rock bottom, as you said, is many times the catalyst God uses to rescue us, to deliberately place oneself in this position for that purpose sounds almost like tempting God. I'm puzzled, to say the least. I�m being very brave here, Terri. I�m going to take the side of Jim�or at least take the side that I see here that perhaps could be better advocated. But it�s a tough challenge! First off, what I see that has the potential to happen is that the revulsion caused by coming across views such as Jim�s (which may also parallel a revulsion we have towards the harshness of life) can send us straight to our home base of wherever thinking "Boy, I had doubts before about what I believed, but I�m sure now that I�m right." That could tend us toward fundamentalism, close-mindedness, or self-righteousness when perhaps there is something on display that we really need to take a look at. Pushing it away as "evil" and thus distancing ourselves from the problem might be the common thread of both Jesus and Jim here. I will say it, even though I don�t have to, that I don�t mean you in any way, shape, or form, Dear Terri. I�m simply bouncing my comments off you at the moment. Hope you�re wearing your rubber suit. Projecting a sympathetic attitude onto people (as Jim appears to be doing) who may be real dirt-bags is probably both wrong and right on the mark. In the midst of suffering a sensitive person can, and will, see past the sunken, hollow eyes of someone in the midst of depravity and see the humanity dying to reach out. And, odd as it may be, we will often try to express ourselves through some very controversial means, including sexual depravity. When I look at the above paragraph from Jim it makes me think of the fine line between genius and lunacy. For Jesus himself to not distance himself from prostitutes was considered very controversial at the time, right? Well, I think that Jim has a little bit of that going here and it�s drawing controversy as well. Of course, that is NOT to say that he has gotten his message right or articulated that message very well. That message, in all probability, is implicit in his writing even if that writing is coming from a bit more of a mixed up place. | ||||
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Okay, that one�s gonna be a little bit tougher. No doubt that�s what you get from the unitive or non-dual mind�or whatever beanie one has on at the time. There�s obviously LOTS of projection going on here, trying to interpret the rest of the world through our way of experiencing it and thus normalizing whatever our propensities and characteristics are. That�s nothing new, but that does seem to be a fairly large trend these days. Objective standards are given the boot and "personal experience" is the norm by which we live by. And yet I would be the first (maybe second) person to say to not throw away our own experience of the world and simply to pick up somebody else�s, particularly if that somebody else is simply an authority. That�s how one loses one�s self and all kinds of corruption can and does arise from that. Okay, I�m still trying. To say that there is no sin is a reach. It reminds me of a joke someone sent me recently: I do believe there is a perspective out there where perhaps good and evil dissolve back into something else. But we are not gods, unitive consciousness notwithstanding. We may have a glimpse at theoretical places, and these glimpses may soften us and make us more charitable, but we have to be very careful about trying to make those glimpses too literal in our physical world. | ||||
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This requires parsing. re: #1) Not enough info there to discern what's going on. re: #2) Right on, pecan. re: #3) We report. You decide. re: #4) This sentence, itself, requires parsing and nuance. The simplest distinction is that Jesus was making a descriptive and not rather a prescriptive statement? It also ignores the followup context of "Go and sin no more!" or, for those who do not believe in sin: "Go and do not repeat this mistake!." It is not an invitation to presume on God's goodness, or as some say: To tempt, God. re: a) Perhaps there are some things to look at. re: b) Not very controversial once considering it is supposed to be some type of counterpoint to Terry. The true controversy is in number 3. And I do not think there is any ambiguity about what he means by "allowing oneself to experience the extremes." This is to be clearly distinguished, then, from what may have been going on in #1, which could have been a social outreach ministry for all I know. Finally, taken against the backdrop of Marion's position re: good and evil and sin and mistakes, he very much appears to be asking: Wherein lies the non/virtue? You are both right because you were addressing two distinguishable elements in the anecdote. pax! jb | ||||
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