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kate_nepveu) wrote2006-10-12 08:57 pm
In which I display my stunning ignorance
Not once but twice!
These are serious questions, by the way—they might offend people but I'm not trying to make fun, I really am that ignorant and I really would like to know.
What was different about European colonialism?
It seems to me that European colonialism gets talked about in a different, more negative way than the various Empires that came and went in Europe, the Near East, and North Africa (Roman, Byzantine, Abbasid, etc.). First, is it the general consensus that European colonialism was either worse or bad in a different way, and second, how? Was it the method, or the timing, or something else?
How, according to Christian theology, does Jesus's death save humanity?
Okay, as I understand it, Christian theology states that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine as one part of the Trinity, one of the three beings/instances/presences that make up God. (Well, those parts of it that believe in the Trinity.) His death saved humanity.
I think the easiest way to get at my question is by contrast.
When I think of other instances where a single death saves a large group, I come up with two categories, which are basically drawn from fantasy novels. First, the death provides the, hmm, the necessary means for something to happen: life-force or energy to power a spell, a door for the gods to enter into the material world, a messenger to tell the gods that their help is really truly needed, something like that. Second, the death is part of a bargain: for that price (to demonstrate resolve or need, perhaps), the gods agree to intervene.
When it comes to Christianity, the first category doesn't seem to fit at all. Instead, the little bit of doctrine I'm familiar with seems to incline somewhat toward the second—but I can't follow the logic of such an argument. That is, Jesus is part of God, and why would you bargain with yourself or pay yourself a price? (Possibly this is another way of asking whether Jesus, as part of the Trinity, had free will.)
Is this related to the way original sin is transmitted (which I don't know either)? Or is this something not actually explained in doctrine, that needs to be taken on faith?
(I'm most interested in actual doctrinal answers to this question, but personal opinions are welcome too.)
(I am, by the way, thinking of making this my default icon for the next four to six weeks. And how are you?)
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Realize also that much of these answers (from anyone) will fall into the category that the Catholic Church refers to as "Mystery" meaning, a truth that lies above a natural, finite mind. The Trinity itself, by Catholic doctrine is an absolute mytery. Atheists like myself are not going to buy these answers.
Doctrinally, one simple way (but not the only way) to view the Redemption is the offering of an apology that God the Father could not fail to accept. There are a number of simple ways to view that, as well-- God could not fail to accept the sacrificial apology because the sacrificial apology was perfect, for instance. (That's perfect with a capital P.) And the apology had to he perfect because God's offense taken at original sin was also perfect... as it had to be, as everything a perfect God does must be perfect.
You got a lot of weird, but weirdly self-consistent, theology by starting with the assumption that God is perfect and then reasoning through the careful ramifications of that as though you were a Christian version of Aristotle.
The question of God's free will is also important, here. The Catholic doctrinal answer is, yes, God has free will. The important perfticble attributes of creatures can be reduced to intellect (whose object is truth-- you can see the Greek influences here, right?) and will (whose object is goodness.) God has a perfect intellect, knowing all truth, and a perfect will, willing all good. (Which itself is the core of the Catholic answer to the problem of theodicy.) It's not a will like a human free will, but a kind of a rough analog, because what God wills, is.
This loops back to the original question because, since God has free will, God must therefore have freely willed the redemption. But, having taken perfect offense to original sin, God required a perfect apology, which is beyond the ability of Man to provide, unless there is a convenient Incarnation there to offer that perfect sacrificial apology. You can get quite dewy-eyed chasing all the reverberations of that expression of how much God the Father loves Man and how much God the Son loves Man and how much God the Father loves God the Son and eventually you get back to the old Catholic guilt of you really suck, you ingrate, but it's okay.
Note: Becuase God has free will, God could have willed not to save mankind. (Otherwise, it wouldn't be a choice, would it?) But, in another stunning logical requirement of perfection, God exists outside of time, and so, having freely willed to save mankind, it was also foreordained. Try not to think too hard about that one, either.
Sorry you asked?
PS: All those who doubted that I actually had some theological instruction, let it be known: Yes, I can throw down when I want to....
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A pox on it.
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Dude, I know, but I gotta work with what I've got.
I don't expect to *believe* any answers, but I thought it possible that I might _understand_ them, given the premises. But no, I just can't get my head around the Trinity, I'm afraid.
God has a perfect intellect, knowing all truth, and a perfect will, willing all good. (Which itself is the core of the Catholic answer to the problem of theodicy.)
. . . is this different from the one in the Book of Job? Because maybe it's just that my brains are mush today, but otherwise I'm not getting it.
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Job is tough. It really reads like a bunch of poetry meant to answer the question of evil, to which a very clumsy prose prologue was tacked on.
Leaving the prose prologue aside, Job's not hard to interpret at all-- Job maintains his innocense in the face of the wrath of God, while his three friends take his suffering as proof of his sins. This goes back and forth, and then a guy named Elihu tells them they're all fools-- he tells Job and all the other three that none of them are qualified to judge at all. Then God appears and agrees with Elihu. The basic position is that man's imperfect intellect and imperfect will lead them, without always knowing how or why, to will that which is evil. God never bothers to tell Job what exactly it was that he did, he just browbeats Job in to admitting that he is not qualified to judge, and leaves it at that.
With the prose prologue, the one where God himself claims that Job is good and upstanding... well, that's tough enough that I had to go back and look some stuff up, but you have to handwave a little and fall back on Christian axioms not developed until way after Job was written. Namely, you havee to put it in a context of goodness and upstandingness for a mortal man in a state of original sin. Meaning, he's already screwed by default, God doesn't owe him anything, and he's destined for Hell anyway. No matter how good Job is, he can't be perfect. Then one of the weirder bits in Elihu's long rambly poem can be pounded into some semblance of sense: Job's suffering at God's hands is a purifying suffering, one which promotes virtue.
And behold! It is so! Because at the beginning, Job was (in strict theological terms) an arrogant hubristic prick who thought himself qualified to judge right from wrong-- his defenses are shot through with the idea that if only God would shut up and/or stop hiding and listen to him, he would plead his case and God would drop whatever snit he was in. After his suffering, he's been beaten down enough to drop the arrogance and admit that only God is qualified to make that judgement. Job is better, spiritually, for his sufferings after they take place. Without those sufferings, Elihu's speech would have fallen on deaf ears.
Now I personally think that line of reasoning sounds like a kid who's been beaten by his parents so often that he just assumes that everything is his fault. But it is fairly consistent. Me, myself, I think the whole thing reads like a parody. But I am a cynical bastard.
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