Posted on 06/22/2011 7:24:05 PM PDT by The Ignorant Fisherman
Thanks for the bump, dear Matchett-PI!
The Jewish mystics use the term Ayn Sof when speaking of God the Creator. The term literally means "no thing" and the point is that any term we mortals would use to describe Him (e.g. time) actually reduces our understanding of Him to whatever term we used.
Perhaps that precludes what I was going to say, which is this:
According to scripture God is Love, God is Truth, God is Life, God is The Way. Encapsulate that (Love, Truth, Life, The Way) into the Eternal Now, the way you describe it AG, feel It all at once and hold onto It and we should be getting closer. That seems to me to be where all religions are directing us. That also seems to incorporate all the Cosmos and Science as we know it, which is why I drug Einstein and E=MC2 into the picture, and lead us to I AM!
Thank you so much for sharing your testimony, dear brother in Christ!
It helped someone I was conversing with the other day when I used the analogy of time being like a cake mix being stirred in a mixing bowl. The bowl represents the limits beyond which time does not exist, while the internal mix is the volume of time which encompasses the linear and planar expressions of dimension time also. The bowl is the boundary within which time exists. The bowl is not time.
‘To summarise: time is not actually possible without eternity.’ ~ Gagdad Bob
MHGinTN: “Sorry, I cannot agree. That is like saying the volume of dimension space can only be unending if there is a somewhere for it to continue expanding into.
It helped someone I was conversing with the other day when I used the analogy of time being like a cake mix being stirred in a mixing bowl. The bowl represents the limits beyond which time does not exist, while the internal mix is the volume of time which encompasses the linear and planar expressions of dimension time also. The bowl is the boundary within which time exists. The bowl is not time.”
bettyboop wrote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2687844/posts?page=752#752
MHGinTN: “Sorry, I cannot agree. That is like saying the volume of dimension space can only be unending if there is a somewhere for it to continue expanding into."
I gather my dear brother in Christ MHGinTN looks at problems of time from the perspective of a scientist/mathematician of the classical (i.e., Newtonian) school.
And yet there is the problem of the "inflationary universe," a universe "expanding" at an accelerated rate in recent times. Into WHAT is the universe "expanding?" And why is the rate accelerating?
It looks to me that dimension space (and its related linear/planar time) is expanding into a "something." Or maybe a "no-thing" would be the better term. This relates to the Ayn Sof that Alamo-Girl has so ably described....
But this "no-thing" is such because it is not visualizable to the human mind and, therefore, remains incomprehensible by the mind. If we could visualize and comprehend such a thing, it would be a "something," not a "no-thing." And we could give it a name, and understand it.
But nobody knows what the universe is inflating "into." Science hasn't "seen" it; indeed, I doubt science, given its methods, ever possibly can see it....
Well, that's probably as clear as mud. But it's the best I can do for now.
Thank you ever so much, dear Matchett-PI, for linking back to the splendid insights (IMHO) of Wolfhart Pannenberg — and for your wonderful essay/post!
I so agree with Gagdad Bob — the clinical psychologist a/k/a Robert Godwin that is — on this point.
To be a Christian, it's not so much about what you know, it's about how you live.
There are biblical exegists who work exclusively (it seems) on the "horizontal line" so familiar to us through the routine and sundry application of the "scientific method" we have grown so used to in recent times, which eventuates in "flat" doctrines that are torn out of their living context — which is constituted by the "vertical," transcendent dimension that neither direct observation, experiment, nor mere language can ever capture.
It seems to me such folks are missing an important distinction: The Holy Scriptures are not some kind of "road map" to be literally interpreted to get from Point A to Point B. Rather, the Holy Scriptures tell the story of God and Man in their historical and eschatological relations....
In other words, perhaps people like the good Rev. Falwell conflate the "map" with the "territory" it describes.
And the danger there, as Gagdad Bob points out, is the lapse into bibliolatry: A condition where people put their ultimate faith in what the Holy Scriptures say (indeed, at the most literal, or "reduced" level), thereby eclipsing God and His Revelation.... Who told us that we must not separate ourselves from Him by erecting idols to which we falsely, wrongly give our love and devotion....
IMHO, Dr. Godwin puts this point so well here:
....this conflation of the Bible and the Word — or bibliolatry — is a modern deviation that essentially concedes all ground to the horizontal flatlanders. It is a reduction of that which can only by understood by the nous to that which may be understood by the material ego. ...."Thank you ever so much for writing, dear Matchett-PI!
Thanks for the pings to your good points and posts.
Simply contemplating the ever-present and eternal Now is enough to make my brain accelerate, expand and approach a Big Bang. Thankfully, I can fall back on Faith and Trust in God and stop worrying about all that.
That reminds me of Dr. Strangelove: or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb. Seems weirdly appropriate.
bookmark
I always try to convey this to my RCIA students: that the more I talk about God, the more danger there is that I will reduce Him to a system or an ideology, a tool, "news-I-can-use", rather than simply bow before His limitless being.
And yet I do keep talking :^}
--- oh well!
Happy, Blessed Christmas to you. Glory to our dear Lord, the Word made Flesh.
Dittos! A Blessed Christmas to you and yours, too!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.