Acknowledged. One little tidbit, for what it’s worth, “charity” is not a verb. Signing off.
A witnessing thread, like it said in the initial titles? It sounds like you’re making a claim of Liberal being disingenuous, which is, frankly, ridiculous.
I mean, I disagree with Lib on most every definitional premise thus far, and yet I’ve managed to do as he asks and let him use his own definitions to build his thesis, and mostly not argued with the definitionals. I’m interested in where it goes, and I’m mostly shutting my trap until the debate thread. Hell, if I can accept kanicbird’s definitionals for the point of a good debate, this one is easy.
Okay, well thanks much to y’all for the encouragement. I will attempt to speed things along. But I feel the need, first, to deal with what is either a non sequitur or a failure to grasp a grammatical concept:
I certainly hope that nobody else presumed that I was arguing at any point that “love” must always be a verb and can never be a noun. I was merely saying, of course, that in the (imperative) sentence, “Love one another,” the verb of the sentence is “love”. That subject (as with any imperative) is implied: “you”. The object is the phrase “one another”. Love can certainly be a noun, but obviously only when it is used as one. For example, “God is love”. In that sentence, the subject is “God”, the verb is “is” (a copula), and the predicate nominative (the sentence has no object) is “love”. There, the word “love” is a noun, just like any other predicate nominative.
Okay, on with the epistemological discoveries:
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
John 8:3-6
We’ve discussed this passage more fully before, in terms of ethics and morality — the whole idea of Jesus turning their question about ethics (the law) back onto them in terms of a question about morality (for each of them individually and subjectively). We covered the “trap” part as well, but more in passing. So I want to stress here that the mission of the religion politicians was to put Jesus in either one of two equally bad positions: (1) telling them to go ahead and stone the woman, thereby contradicting His own command to love one another (let alone to forgive one another); or (2) telling them not to stone her, thereby causing Him to declare the circumvention of their law. Number (1) would have destroyed His reputation, and number (2) would have had him hauled to trial. His response, frankly, was Solomonly wise.
Next, we have this.
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8:12
It is noteworthy that Jesus had previously described light as that to which those who love Him gravitate. They love the light because they are unafraid that their essence be seen. Here, Jesus states another copula.
Incidentally, for whoever might not know, a copula is (basically, and as used here) a verb that is an identifier. It is the grammatical equivalent of an equals sign in math. In most languages, including English (and Greek) there is one copula: the simple present tense of “to be”. So, “I am Lib.” The word “am” is a copula. Or in the sentence, “She is (as) sweet as a Georgia peach,” the copula is “is”. (It suddenly all sounds so Clintonesque, but anyway.)
He, and the light of the world, are one and the same. An identity, as indicated by the copula. But it gets far more interesting than just that. Not only is He the light of the world, but those who believe in Him both (1) never walk in darkness, and (2) will have the light of life.
Now, we have defined life as reality (having essence, eternity, and necessity — all three.) Here, that “life” is the prepositional object of “light”. Therefore (and this is a bit part-V-ish) they will have the life of reality. And by implication, those who do not believe in Him are already dead and are not even real.
…that deserves a very long pause, as it is an astounding statement…
And now this:
The Pharisees challenged him, “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.”
Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid. I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.”
Then they asked him, “Where is your father?”
“You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”
John 8:13-19
There is an awful lot in this passage. An awful lot. Jesus is answering their challenge first of all by validating His own testimony (about God and such) by claiming to have knowledge they do not have. It is a classic epstitemic appeal. He says that his testimony is valid, even without a witness, since He knows where He came from and where He is going. And in the process informs them that they are ignorant of both. He has knowledge of His own essence. He is aware that He is God.
But, like a gadget commercial, that’s not all. He then tells them that the standards by which they judge (and it is clearly moral judgments that He is refering to specifically — more about that in a moment) are inadequate. He calls them “human standards”, evoking the part of man that is animal. His brain. Man judges with his brain. Jesus then declares that He judges no one, which is something we’ve covered before even though it is a fact that if He were to do so, His judgment would be correct. This implies that Jesus, to put it poetically, sees into our hearts. Or to put it more in lines with our terms, He knows our essences. And so He does know our morality, a thing of which we are incapable. And more importantly, He knows our aesthetics. He knows what we value.
And so, for Him, it is not a matter of judgment at all, but a matter of knowledge. And what supporting evidence does He give? Why, evidence that they most despise of course. He claims that His Father (which they clearly understand to mean Yahweh) is a witness on His behalf. He then cites their own law, which validates testimony when it is from two witnesses. One can only imagine how gobsmacked they must be at this moment. He produces for them what pretty much amounts to an invisible person as a witness on His behalf — in particular, an invisible person about which they must speak very carefully because the person is someone whom they allegedly worship. (Though they do not, at least not by our definition.)
One can almost hear the groans and grumbling as they stutter, “and just where IS your FATHER,” with some smirkiness added to the tone, in order to differentiate their supposed god from the God Who Jesus claims is standing by Him.
I mean, holy moly. And then the topper: his response. if you knew me, you’d know my father. He implies (actually, He states) a modus tolens: you don’t know my father; therefore, you don’t know me. It is an incredible leap in theological theory. One may come to know God personally by knowing Jesus. To know one is to know the other. Now, granted there is no biconditonal implication expressly stated here. But I believe it is implied.
John 8 is too rich to cover in one evening. I’m going to let the above sink in, since it is heavier than a cruise liner. But after this, with what we cover tomorrow, all hell breaks loose. Almost literally.
For clarification (if necesssary):
We are incapable, specifically, of seeing the morality of some person besides ourselves. The statement is weakly worded, and probably should be worded something more like this:
“And so He does know the morality of other free moral agents (like us, for example), whereas we are incapable of knowing the morality of free moral agents other than ourselves.”
This does not follow at all. He very specifically claims that god is the second witness, that is, another being. And, as we know from the recent Jewish-themed threads, there is no Jewish conception of a man also being god, there is no rational way to read this as a claim by Jesus that he is god.
That would certainly be a belief you would need to substantiate. In fact, alternate readings (e.g., that Jesus is a reformist rabbi who feels he has a better grasp of the message of god, so if you understood this message, you would get what he is saying) are much more reasonable.
It follows by syllogism. If He were to have knowledge of His own essence, He would be aware that He is God. He has knowledge of His own essence. Therefore, He is aware that He is God. The “A” proposition derives from “I know where I came from and where I am going”. He came from Heaven and that’s where He’s going. This is supported by John 6:31-33:
Jesus said to [His disciples], “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
He is the one Who came down from Heaven; He is therefore the one Who, well, came down from Heaven.
I don’t mean to harp on your grammar so much, but grammatical structures are formed, even in a non-prescriptivist spontaneous order, so that people can understand one another. Sentence way this wrote this if it understand would be I to hard. But. If I wrote this sentence this way it would NOT be hard to understand. There are certain conventions. You adopt, in particular, capitalizing the names of groups, like “Jewish”. And yet you do not capitalize the names of other entities, like deities. When “God” is used as the name for God, it should not be written as “god”. Since you know that it is proprer to capitalize proper names (as demonstrated by your capitalization of other proper names), it means that your decapitalization of God’s name is deliberate. Would you mind explaining why you single out “God” as a proper name that you do not capitalize? Is it intended to demean? To diminish? To make believers bristle? To express disrespect for believers and their deity?
You may consider the above line of questioning to be rhetorical if you wish. but your decapitalization of the name of God is conspicuous by its consistency. Perhaps it actually is an element of the language you genuinely do not understand, or perhaps English is your second language. If so, I apologize. And I’ll explain.
In English, the title of “god” happens to be a homonym of the name of “God”. That means they are spelled with the same letters, but they mean different things. Other examples are “rocky” and “Rocky”, “bob” and “Bob”, or “tide” and “Tide”. And of course, “john” and “John”. One key to telling when the word is being used as a proper name is when you use it without an article, as in “the tide” versus “Tide detergent”. Or “going to the john” versus “going to John”. Another key is that a person is identified by the word. For example, “the road is rocky” versus “That guy is Rocky”. Or “bob for apples” versus “Bob for apples”. (The last one assumes that Bob is an advocate for apples.)
At any rate, you yourself are about to hypothesize that Jesus could have been a “reformist rabbi”, which would mean that He could have different conceptions of God than those of traditionalist rabbis, including possibly the conception that God has the power (since, after all, He is omnipotent) to become man. It is entirely possible that Jesus saw the world much differently than His contemporary rabbis, just as Einstein saw time and space much differently than his contemporaries.
I believe it has been abundantly documented that He not only did not agree with much of His fellow rabbi’s teachings, but that He thought they were serpents and sons of hell. Matthew 24 (to step outside John again) is an entire chapter of dressing down His fellow rabbis as hypocrites, snakes, and opportunists who ruined people’s faith in God, who even stood as obstacles between man and God.
So no, there is no evidence whatsoever to assume that Jesus taught a contemporary Jewish message, and overwhelming evidence of the opposite.
With respect to citing “another being”, you are ignoring the stipulation (documented previously numerous times) that man is a dual creature: both physical and spritual. One spirit of God is not a separate being from another spirit of God. It is an understandable, but regretable, equivocation on your part.
I believe you should make up your mind. Which is more “reasonable”, Jesus as a reformist rabbi or Jesus as a traditionalist rabbi? I think you’re right that he’s the former. And with His penchant for speaking His mind, He could have easily said, “I understand my Father’s message better than you do.” But that isn’t what He said. He said that if you knew His Father, you would know Him.
The sustantiation that it is a biconditional implication is yet to come, but you will find it in John 10:30.
Of course, the biconditionality could also be construed from “You do not know me or my Father”, if it is interpreted as “You know neither me nor my father.”
This is all just a big circle jerk that means nothing unless you can establish that Jesus is god.
No, actually I’m not. But, since I’ll not hijack the thread with baseless condescension, I’ll not go into a long discourse about the meaning of “e.g.” but rather assume that you really do know that this means what follows is an example, say of alternate possible hypotheses to your interpretation.
Except, of course, Matthew 5, where he explicitly states that he has come not to abolish, but to fulfill the laws and the prophets. Certainly part of that law that is the recognition of the unity of god.
And yet that says nothing of the nature of god. And even if it did, it would say nothing about the situation as presented unless it is established that Jesus is god, or even is claiming to be god.
And with his penchant for speaking in parables and other figurative forms, it is just as valid, at least, the other way around. Hell, you have even praised his ability to speak very carefully and without being direct earlier in this thread.
:dubious:
Speak for yourself. You may be incapable of knowing the morality of “free moral agents” (I assume you mean “people”) but I and most other people are.
Normal people are perfectly capable of knowing the morality of other “free moral agents”. Heh: By their deeds, ye shall know them. You personally may not be able to judge a Pol Pot from Albert Schweitzer, but most of us can…and should.
In skimming my post, you might have missed the very last sentence, which referenced you to a verse you might not have clicked. And so, for your convenience, I will simply quote it here, despite that it is jumping ahead.
“I and the Father are one.”
John 10:30
There is no point in any condescension.
But as was discussed in the Jewish threads to which you previously referred, it is not necessary to interpret a unity as solitary in nature (i.e., comprising one and only one). There is unity in an orchestra, for example, when it plays together as one ensemble. There are, in fact, innumerable examples of such unity, including the United States. In fact, British speakers recognize this fact within their grammar structure, as when they say something like “The audience are wonderful.” There is only one audience, and yet they use a plural verb.
As you mention in your comments about condescension, there can be alternate interpretations. The whole point of this exercise — the entire span of five threads — is for me to give mine. Even the debate will not be about my interpretations, but about whether my argument, given my definitions and premises — all based on my interpretation — is valid and sound. That was stated early on.
The nature of God has already been established. It’s in this thread. God is spirit. That is His nature. The supporting verse is available for you to find and read.
I have never said that other points of view are invalid. What is so difficult to understand about the fact that I am writing out my witness? Other people are free to do what I am doing if they have points of view that differ. As I have already said, feel free to argue if arguing helps you to understand my point of view. But understanding my point of view is the whole point of the series. If my point of view does not interest you, why are you here?
That is exactly what I have been doing from the opening post of the first thread and onward.
Then who’s the “We” and “our” you’re speaking of? You got a mouse in your pocket?
Emphasis, mine of course.
If, in your posts, you want to being unable to tell moral from immoral be my guest, but don’t include the rest of the world. Most of us are quite capable of judging good from evil, moral from immoral.
Hell…I’m pretty sure that Matthew is pretty clear on this. We’re specifically required to do so: "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? " and “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.” Nothing about your thesis that it’s to hard to tell moral people from immoral so we should just leave it to God. Under Matthew, Christians are tasked with doing just that. Anything else is an abrogation of free will.
And good ol’ Matt requires it again here: 1"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." where he pretty clearly says “Judge people but don’t be a hypocrite 'cause you’ll be judged by the same standards.” which is fine by me.
I am giving my interpretation of what the Beloved (and a few other sources) says that Jesus teaches us all. It is MY interpretation that WE are incapable of judging one another’s morality. That particular interpretation is supported by how we defined “morality” in Part II of the series. And even if you skipped all parts of the series, which would severely handicap your understanding of what’s going on here, the Opening Post of THIS thread spells out how morality was defined. And it was by consensus, a long time ago.
Quoting from the OP:
Morality: internalized views of right and wrong, often correlated with a god or conscience
Since morality consists of internalized views, it follows that only a mind reader (or certainly, a person Who is omniscient) can know the morality of another person. It would benefit you greatly and make your contributions far more valuable if you would take the time to familiarize yourself with what we’re doing. And by “we”, I mean people like other-wise, MrDibble, a few others, and myself.
I’ve read MrDibble’s posts and say with 100% confidence that he has an “internalized view of right and wrong”. I have an “internalized view of right and wrong”. I’d suspect everyone out here does.
Or…wait? Are you trying to define “morality” as conscience? Why? “conscience” is a perfectly good word and if you co-opt morality, then what’s your word for the ability to tell whether other people’s actions are right or wrong?
And for that matter, who cares what’s in their heart? No-one’s a villain in their own mind. Hitler thought he was doing the right thing and by your definition was probably “moral”. So? Why difference does it make and why does anyone care if someone thinks they’re a swell fellow while murdering babies and killing puppies?
Are you proposing that God cares that someone feels swell about themselves and has actualized their gestalt and is “moral” (using your definition)? That’s irrelevant. By their fruits you shall know them, not “their internalized view of right and wrong.”
What, you mean the one just a few verses before he makes reference to god saying "You are gods, And all of you are sons of the Most High. " (Psalm 82: 6) Doesn’t seem to be a particularly strong claim to some special standing of Jesus at all. Oh, but that’s right, you’d actually have to be reading the text to pick that out.
And yet you find time to write out 3 paragraphs of nothing but!
Whether or not you can interpret unity as such, there is no way to do so with respect to Jewish views of their god. You’ve already conceded as much:
As that is already established as the state of Jewish thought, then it is absolutely part of what Jesus claims to be upholding.
And yet this says nothing within the context of that part of the discussion – which was that you made claims about the nature of god, backed up by your statement that the dualistic nature of man had already been established. As god is something other than man, the point does not follow.
Nothing is difficult to understand about that. What is so difficult to understand that, on a message board that is supposed to be dedicated to the fighting of ignorance, such an act of witnessing may not go unchallenged?
Tonight’s coverage will lead us tomorrow to the single most important epistemic discussion so far: a claim Jesus makes in John 8.
Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.”
John 8:21
We have defined both life and sin. We may assume that death is the opposite of life. So let’s define death.
Death: Lacking essence, eternity, and necessity.
And since life and reality are synonyms, death is the absence of reality. It goes without saying, for those who have kept up, that these are definitions of spiritual life and death, not physical life and death — a dichotomy drawn by Jesus in John 3, and covered in detail earlier.
So, if we substitute the definitions we now have into the statement Jesus made, we have this paraphrase:
I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will cease to be real in your opposition to love.
Paraphrase of John 8:21
This interpretive paraphrase highlights the metaphysical statement Jesus is making. We covered metaphysics and ontology in Part III, and there we established that reality is spiritual in nature, not physical. That is, reality is essential, eternal, and necessary. Jesus (we will see later) claims that He is life. (Actually, He made pretty much the same claim when He was with the Samaritan woman at the well, which we covered earlier.)
And so, He introduces a metaphysical law: those who oppose love (the flow and conveyance of goodness) cannot find Him. He is the reality. They do not seek reality; otherwise, they would facilitate love rather than oppose it.
The great question is whether it is not just a metaphysical statement, but an ontological one. Is Jesus saying that those who oppose love will cease to exist? Or more in keeping with His atemporality, is He saying that they do not exist right now? (Spiritually.) We know from previous epistemic revelations that He has said that those who do not believe in Him — by our definition, those who do not trust Him, rely on Him, nor cling to Him — are already dead.
It seems to me that the absence of reality suggests a state of nonexistence. BUT. Not necessarily. There could be dimensions of existence that are not real. (The universe is one example.) However, the only such dimension we know of — the physical world — is in a state of increasing entropy. Would there be an analogous existence on a spritual level? In other words, would there be a way to exist without being real? And the answer simply must be no, since such an existence cannot sustain itself for eternity. (Because if it were eternal, it would BE real, as per our defintion.)
But he continued, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.”
John 8:23-24
Recall from our previous discussion of John 8 that Jesus made an epistemic claim that the Pharisees did not know God because they did not know Him (Jesus). And thus, in their ignorance, they are “from below”. (Whether this refers to some sort of Hell or just plain earth makes no difference at this point.) He differentiates Himself as being “from above”, which they would likely have interpreted to mean “heaven”, and which Jesus clearly meant, having already claimed that He was from heaven. Just making sure we don’t lose the continuity.
And now Jesus draws another dichotomy between the physical world and the spiritual world by claiming that the Pharisees are of “this world” (the physical world), while He is of some other world (the spiritual world.) So, He has broadened considerably the scope of man’s dichotomy to a general dichotomy. Not just man the animal versus man the spirit (covered in John 3), but also the world of the physical and the world of the spiritual.
He is also making a direct testimonial claim in the phrase “the one I claim to be”. He is stating that He has made or is making a claim to be something. At this point, we already know that He has established a reality that involves the co-dependence — or more precisely, the co-existence — i.e., the unity of Himself, His Father, and His believers. He has not yet said, or at least, the Beloved has not yet revealed Him saying in direct terms that He and His Father are one and the same; that is, that He is God. But that is coming, and as long as we know that, we know what testimonial claim He is making.
To substantiate His claim, He must demonstrate that He is essential, eternal, and necessary. In these passages, He has demonstrated His essence: He is from heaven. He has also demonstrated His necessity: those who do not believe in Him will cease to be real. It follows that we are contingent on Him for our very lives (as we have defined life.) And so, all that remains is a demonstration that He is eternal.
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:31
We have already defined truth, and so we can produce a meaningful paraphrase:
Then you will know something (by revelation) of great value, and that knowledge will set you free.
Paraphrase of John 8:31
The question arises, what will we be set free FROM? And the answer, from context, is that we will be set free from death. We know from our Aesthetics thread (which was Part I) that the thing of greatest value is goodness. Therefore, what His believers will know is goodness, which we have defined as edification among free moral agents. With all these definitions, we can paraphrase even further:
Then you will know how to facilitate goodness, and that knowledge will assure you that you will never cease to be real.
Second paraphrase of John 8:31.
And so what Jesus is saying is that those who believe in Him will become LIKE Him — facilitators of goodness, edifying one another, and therefore growing in spirit. With edification (as discussed in Part I), goodness increases or multiplies. One kindness leads to another, and one is rewarded for one’s kindness as kindness in general grows.
In discussion with mainstream Christians, they have told me that this means to them that giving results in getting. That is, if you do good deeds, then by the nature of the spirit, you will receive good deeds in return. If, for example, you give a few bucks to a man in need, then you can expect an almost karmic sort of return on your investement.
And in a sense, they are right. But giving for the sake of receiving nullifies any edification, because you are seeking to increase your own riches. Recall the story about the Widow’s pittance that she tossed into the temple treasury. Jesus declared that she gave more than anyone, because she gave all she had. Thus, it is not a matter that those with much to give are rewarded simply because they give a pittance like the Widow. They are giving only their chump change, their disposable income. That’s not how the spirit grows.
In text outside John, (in fact, in all the other Gospels), Jesus tells a wealthy man who claims that he follows the spirit and the letter of every law that he still lacks one thing: namely, that he should sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor, and come follow Him. The wealthy man solemnly declined, as he was unwilling to let go of worldly things for the sake of lacking nothing. See Matthew 19:21, Mark 10:21, and Luke 18:22.
Note that the mainstream interpretation allows for the emergence of religion politicians who call upon people to give money (to the religion politicians) in order that they may be “blessed” by God.
Tomorrow, we will finish out our discussion of John 8. We will find out what claim Jesus is making — one that the Pharisees and their mob consider to be heresy, even blasphemy.
Liberal, the insult was unnecessary. In fact, you did say, “No, even in English it [love] is not used both as a noun and as a verb. It is a verb.” You’ve since restated the proposition as (paraphrasing), love is being used as a verb in the commandment, which indeed is obvious. But not what you said. Whereas I had said John uses the word both ways (one example having been discussed in my immediately preceding parapraph), which also is obvious.
The funny thing is that I deliberately pointed out the error in an obtuse way, confident you would get the point without needing to disrupt the thread. Objective one was achieved. Objective two was defeated by you. Congratulations.
Correction. My discussion of God is love wasn’t the immediately preceding paragraph in Post #91; it was in the first two paragraphs, but there was an intervening paragraph about John 3:16. Love being used as both a noun and a verb came in paragraph four.
I clicked your link, PBear, to Post 91, and I’m afraid I still don’t get it. Sorry. I’m not being obtuse (at least not deliberately). I’m just seeing a verb and only a verb in the imperative: “Love one another”. I previously pointed out each part of speech in the statement, not to insult you, but to support my position, which I would hope you would expect of me. Nevertheless, if you feel insulted, then it means that I did indeed insult you. I apologize. Sincerely.
You two are in agreement.