tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post114151736314356497..comments2024-03-28T12:34:14.649-07:00Comments on dangerous idea: Charity, Hope, and the Argument from DesireVictor Repperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-31753166119946153442012-02-28T00:06:47.513-07:002012-02-28T00:06:47.513-07:00"Now in our case nature, owing to its being i..."Now in our case nature, owing to its being indigent of the Good, is aiming always at this which is still wanting to it--and this aiming at a still missing thing is the very habit of Desire--which our constitution displays equally, whether it is baulked of the real Good, or wins that which it is good to win.....Whenever the soul, then, having divested itself of the multifarious emotions incident to its nature, gets its Divine form and, mounting above Desire, <i>enters within that towards which it was once incited by that Desire</i>, it offers no harbor within itself either for hope or for memory. It holds the object of the one....Becoming by this assimilation to the Good all that the nature of that which it participates is, the soul will consequently, owing to there being no lack of any good in that thing itself which participates, be itself also in no lack of anything, and so will expel from within the activity and habit of Desire; for this [Desire] arises when the thing missed is not found."<br /><br />"On the Soul and Resurrection" by St. Gregory of Nyssa<br /><br />"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness..." <br /><br />All "desires" are really inadvertent desires for God Himself, since He made <i>all</i> things "good"; including "desire" itself.<br /><br />"And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, <i>though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being.</i>" --Acts 17:26-28Gregoryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15137226120164213020noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-34661580159406430292012-02-25T10:07:56.393-07:002012-02-25T10:07:56.393-07:00Ed: For Lewis, he wanted to not die and remain a p...Ed: For Lewis, he wanted to not die and remain a personal being with his own personal memories intact from this life, and able to build on them and experience further joy and happiness, greater than he has in this life, but aren't all of those hopes based on things he's experienced in the natural world?<br /><br /><br />VR: Nope, Ed, the desire simply to go on existing was NOT his desire. He makes that very clear in SBJ. He said that the one great thing about the atheist world-view was that you didn't have to go on existing forever, that there was "a door marked exit." <br /><br />This is a simple factual mistake I would have hoped that even you would avoid.Victor Repperthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-30887762027322734782012-02-25T06:46:48.101-07:002012-02-25T06:46:48.101-07:00Ed
" .. still others may discover joy and lo...Ed<br />" .. still others may discover joy and love in sects of various sorts (even small cults) rather than major religious faiths. What does it all prove? Damn if I know."<br /><br />One thing which we do know with some certainty is that pretty much all humans are capable of experiencing emotions and ecstatic states of consciousness, whether they are religious believers or otherwise. So it seems a belief in belief is singularly unnecessary and not a requisite for the expression of these charged emotive states.Papalintonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03818630173726146048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-88716547476362464212012-02-25T00:24:11.589-07:002012-02-25T00:24:11.589-07:00Vic, How is desire an argument for anything other ...Vic, How is desire an argument for anything other than a desire? We want to not die, and lots of animals would second that motion. And we want to be happy, and I'm sure there's elephants, dolphins and apes that would second that motion as well. <br /><br />For Lewis, he wanted to not die and remain a personal being with his own personal memories intact from this life, and able to build on them and experience further joy and happiness, greater than he has in this life, but aren't all of those hopes based on things he's experienced in the natural world?<br /><br />And if he means some sort of extraordinary joy that is unrelated to anything experienced in this life, then how does he know anything about that unless by analogy with his experiences of joy in this life? The word has to have a natural, this wordly referent to even be recognized as "joy." <br /><br />Certainly Christians want to be happy in the "arms of God" if you will. But not everyone loves Jesus, and/or a personal God like Christians do. <br /><br />While others may find joy and love Krishna, not Jesus. Like that Reformed Christian philosopher who recently <br />converted to a form of Krishna-love religion. I even read about a Catholic priest in India who couldn't help but think of God's love in the form of Krishna though he'd been a priest for decades. And another Catholic priest who ran a Christian-Hindu ashram, a fellow convert and lifelong friend of C. S. Lewis, Dom Bede Griffiths, and his books concerning a more universalistic spirituality and theological understanding than Lewis'. <br /><br />And still others may have ecstatic joyful experiences loving Amida Buddha (see The Inner Eye of Love by William Johnson, a Jesuit who has dialogued with Amida Buddhists) Conrad Hyers in one of his books mentioned a Zen sect that also experienced ecstatic love and joy that they described in very similar terms that Born Again Christians use, see Once Born Twice Born Zen. <br /><br />And still others may discover joy and love in sects of various sorts (even small cults) rather than major religious faiths. What does it all prove? Damn if I know. But it's not exactly an argument or proof of anything.Edwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-78573634126976635342012-02-23T20:47:45.248-07:002012-02-23T20:47:45.248-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12533263841520213358noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-1141807591328315232006-03-08T01:46:00.000-07:002006-03-08T01:46:00.000-07:00I was thinking of the Christian expression, "we de...I was thinking of the Christian expression, "we desire God and will not be satisfied until we rest in Him." <BR/><BR/>Desire for an afterlife, a "heaven" if you will, proves nothing, as I said in my original post.Edwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-1141691546974179472006-03-06T17:32:00.000-07:002006-03-06T17:32:00.000-07:00VIC [summing up Lewis] "If I have within myself a ...VIC [summing up Lewis] "If I have within myself a natural desire that cannot be satisfied in this world, so its satisfaction must be in store for me in the next world." <BR/><BR/>ED: Ask yourself what desires you truly have, apart from love and friendship, interacting with others--and pursuits of the "heart," mind, the arts, and seeking to discover new places, friends, etc.; and that such desires/pursuits may "not end?" <BR/><BR/>Is there a desire specifically for "God?" In what sense? By whose definitions of "God?" It seems to me that those who seek "God" the most devoutly and earnestly also are prone to either fanaticism and intolerance of others and their "God," or they are prone to universalistic mysticism. Neither is there any easy way to prove that the desire for "God" equals say, Lewis's particular ideas of "God" and his view of "Christian truth" and "worship."Edwardtbabinskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036816926421936940noreply@blogger.com