God can write straight with crooked lines.

[Limnor]

And we want things so black and white and tidy. If it's not, then...what?

I don’t object to ambiguity. I just don’t understand why growth would require it. Children don’t lose freedom because they’re certain their parents exist. Why would trust depend on uncertainty rather than on something solid enough to anchor it?

I’m also wondering about your “individual calibration” model. If ambiguity is adjusted person by person, how would you know when enough “sand” has accumulated to make faith unnecessary? My original post was poking at this idea.

[Limnor]

And let’s not forget God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. In Exodus 9:12 and 10:1, the text states that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not let the Israelites go. Dan McClellan has an interesting video about this incident and compares it to God using Pharaoh as his personal string puppet, after stripping the Pharaoh of his free will.

Yeah that doesn’t look like calibrated ambiguity at all. Even dramatic miracles—Lazarus raised from the dead, thousands miraculously fed—didn't result in everyone accepting Jesus. So it seems like freedom can exist even with overwhelming evidence. Apparently you can know something is true and still refuse it, but I wouldn’t call that lack of freedom. In fact it’s the exercise of it. Well, with the exception of Pharaoh.

[Gadianton]

I just don’t understand why growth would require it

This is an interesting statement and kind of gets to the heart of the problem. My question is, why do we need "growth?" God created angels and sentinels, do they need growth? God = God, did he need growth? He came down as Jesus, I suppose, but to say he "grew" would imply he was less than God before.

Obviously, when thrown into a world that appears to have evolved from creatures that are best categorized by fine distinctions in jaws and teeth, for the purpose of eating other creatures, we arrive at a set of virtues that include self-reliance, when possible, bravery, a capacity to suffer while remaining optimistic, and pooling resources in terms of community that can stand against predators. But this is all after the fact. Before the fact, we start off with God and nothing. The blank slate is quite daunting. A being who can't be improved and completely actualized in every way just happening to exist, decides to "create something" and he created angels and so on, okay...? Why do I need a concept of "self improvement" at this point? Biology adapts to environment. I'm out of my depth here in your domain, but I think about a gifted soldier who fights for country who comes home and is totally lost. Fitness for the worst environment can be a problem if the environment changes to something much better. "growth" is one of those solutions in search of a problem, to me, if you go back to the beginning.

[Gadianton]

And let’s not forget God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. In Exodus 9:12 and 10:1, the text states that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not let the Israelites go.

Not according to the JST. BURN! on you and Dan M.

[Limnor]

I just don’t understand why growth would require it

This is an interesting statement and kind of gets to the heart of the problem. My question is, why do we need "growth?" God created angels and sentinels, do they need growth? God = God, did he need growth? He came down as Jesus, I suppose, but to say he "grew" would imply he was less than God before.

Obviously, when thrown into a world that appears to have evolved from creatures that are best categorized by fine distinctions in jaws and teeth, for the purpose of eating other creatures, we arrive at a set of virtues that include self-reliance, when possible, bravery, a capacity to suffer while remaining optimistic, and pooling resources in terms of community that can stand against predators. But this is all after the fact. Before the fact, we start off with God and nothing. The blank slate is quite daunting. A being who can't be improved and completely actualized in every way just happening to exist, decides to "create something" and he created angels and so on, okay...? Why do I need a concept of "self improvement" at this point? Biology adapts to environment. I'm out of my depth here in your domain, but I think about a gifted soldier who fights for country who comes home and is totally lost. Fitness for the worst environment can be a problem if the environment changes to something much better. "growth" is one of those solutions in search of a problem, to me, if you go back to the beginning.

I think of growth differently than the Mormon model. There is a line that says “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord” that I read as the more you rely on mercy and being loved by God, the more merciful you become, not climbing a moral ladder or calibrated ambiguity, or developing your own virtue through your own efforts.

If God is love, it’s learning to be a conduit from a source outside yourself—grace, mercy, and love acting to change you. You could be 100% convinced that God exists and still struggle to forgive or refuse to grant mercy, so I don’t think of growth as self-improvement under ambiguity. I think of it as deeper reliance on grace and being forgiven in a way that makes you able to forgive.

From lived experience and background in the military—on a personal note I was none too enthusiastic about doing the things I did. I’ve wrestled with it and ended up resting where I do now. I read Romans 7 very personally as a deep internal conflict that resonates with me. Growth there doesn’t mean achieving perfect execution but more like I refused to become numb to it. The kind of reliance on grace I’m talking about—being forgiven so you can forgive—is not abstract to me. It’s existential, and certainly not from a place of self admiration. It’s trying to be honest about who I am and what I’ve done and who I want to be—growing in grace.

[bill4long]

Faith.

If there is a creator(s), given what occurs on this planet, isn't this the most likely scenario, unless it's all a game/adventure?...

"We must inspire various religions and philosophies and ideologies amongst the humans, and keep them at competition and war, until the Next Phase. And by all means, get them to have strong faith and "spiritual experiences" in the religions." --Something Karellen probably said that got cut from the script, Childhood's End.



The only use for the kind of Faith you guys are discussing is to keep people on the hook for things where no sufficient rational evidence is available warranting the existence of the object of Faith. Hope is rational. Or at least isn't anti-rational. Faith is not, and is the cause of endless mischief.

[I Have Questions]

It strikes me that MG makes an interesting point, albeit unwittingly. God answering prayers, blessing people etc is an erosion of faith. A Mormon appealing to God for intervention in an illness or a bad situation, or in any way whatsoever, shows a lack of faith.

This might be a Sorites situation. If constant intervention removes the need for faith, then slightly less intervention preserves it, we could suppose. But how much less? If God intervened one time a day, would faith still be necessary? Once a year? Once per century?

At what point does intervention become a heap where faith is no longer necessary?

The biggest red flag for me is that if God intervenes in any material way, he does with the consistency of a Magic 8 Ball. Is inconsistency and unreliability the hallmarks God wants to be known for? The best explanation is that God doesn’t intervene at all, but that outsourcing one’s situational difficulty to the idea of a supernatural being helps a person mentally deal with difficult situations. Regardless of whether or not the object of their belief is real. Placebos sometimes work, right?

[Limnor]

This might be a Sorites situation. If constant intervention removes the need for faith, then slightly less intervention preserves it, we could suppose. But how much less? If God intervened one time a day, would faith still be necessary? Once a year? Once per century?

At what point does intervention become a heap where faith is no longer necessary?

The biggest red flag for me is that if God intervenes in any material way, he does with the consistency of a Magic 8 Ball. Is inconsistency and unreliability the hallmarks God wants to be known for? The best explanation is that God doesn’t intervene at all, but that outsourcing one’s situational difficulty to the idea of a supernatural being helps a person mentally deal with difficult situations. Regardless of whether or not the object of their belief is real. Placebos sometimes work, right?

My suspicion and unease would be trying to turn God into some sort of vending machine.

For me there is a fundamental question about the purpose of Christianity or a biblical reading from the text alone about what it claims to be.

Is the goal external intervention to shape acceptable outcomes, or internal transformation of persons to bring about mercy and love in the world?

If the latter is the case, then intervention may look different than the former’s expectation.

[I Have Questions]

The biggest red flag for me is that if God intervenes in any material way, he does with the consistency of a Magic 8 Ball. Is inconsistency and unreliability the hallmarks God wants to be known for? The best explanation is that God doesn’t intervene at all, but that outsourcing one’s situational difficulty to the idea of a supernatural being helps a person mentally deal with difficult situations. Regardless of whether or not the object of their belief is real. Placebos sometimes work, right?

My suspicion and unease would be trying to turn God into some sort of vending machine.

For me there is a fundamental question about the purpose of Christianity or a biblical reading from the text alone about what it claims to be.

Is the goal external intervention to shape acceptable outcomes, or internal transformation of persons to bring about mercy and love in the world?

If the latter is the case, then intervention may look different than the former’s expectation.

I think we are saying similar things. If God's intervention starts and ends with having an internal influence on an individual's mentality and approach to others then that is fine. It is obviously subject to the filter of that individual and their desire to a. listen, and b. act, upon the suggested change of approach. And God doesn't need to be real for such a process of change to work. It only needs the believer to think that God is real.

[MG 2.0]

And we want things so black and white and tidy. If it's not, then...what?

I don’t object to ambiguity. I just don’t understand why growth would require it. Children don’t lose freedom because they’re certain their parents exist. Why would trust depend on uncertainty rather than on something solid enough to anchor it?

I’m also wondering about your “individual calibration” model. If ambiguity is adjusted person by person, how would you know when enough “sand” has accumulated to make faith unnecessary? My original post was poking at this idea.

The last number of posts seem, at least to me, to demonstrate that a compromise might be in order. One in which we might allow for at least the possibility that God's aim is to steer things in such a way that the end result...or ongoing result...is forming/molding people whose trust is freely given and deepened within a world that by design never stops being messy. God can meet people in different ways, some with dramatic clarity, and some with quieter (and yes, ambiguous) experiences.

If we look at it from this perspective the point isn't to create and/or engineer the disappearance of faith but to build a framework by which faith is based on trust. Even when one doesn't know the full picture. And the way that God meets different individuals is going to be as unique as each one of us are.

I'm hearing some folks coming back to the 'one size fits all' transactional formula and even questioning whether individual growth is even necessary and/or the 'end game'. As one looks at how the world works and how outcomes match with choices that result in character/moral growth, or not, this simply doesn't make sense on its surface.

I've heard some here harp on the idea that 'the church' is transactional rather than relational. I don't think that is true. For some, can 'what it looks like' simply appear transactional? Sure. It can appear that way from the outside looking in. More and more conference talks, however, are focusing more on a trust in God based on a relationship with Him rather than jumping through hoops simply for the reward or consequence for having done so.

Course corrections from an earlier time when members were more focused on living the letter of the law in all respects without really understanding the reasons for doing so completely. Fortunately, things have evolved, just like in so many other aspects of human evolution and progress.

Regards,
MG