The Nature of Fallen Man

[RabbiKnife]

Oh, I fear that you mistake my antisesquipedalianism for disdain when nothing could be further from reality; however,  as this is a public forum, I try to write for the great unwashed and government school indoctrinated dumb masses.

I’m already impressed with my own brilliance!!

Alas, in my line of work, if I can’t explain the ridiculously complex to a sixth grader, I’m toast.

So my default is pedantic simple English; I have even , if late, been accused of being “simplistic.”

🤭

[CONSPICILLUM]

Have you read things like Gregory of Nyssa’s works on terms like noema, etc.? I see nothing and no one in the last half millennia that compares to such writings. Higher context languages result in thought that is much more expressive. As a linguist, I’ve found English to be one of the most restrictive points in understanding things beyond a baseline. But maybe my criteria is somewhat specialized because I rigorously pursue a more Philological foundation for thought and speech than others. I don’t personally think that’s a failing in this world of vaguery and dilution from Materialism, etc.

Maybe? I'm more familiar with the term through Husserl. Which of the Nyssen's work did you have in mind?

Absolutely there has been thaumaturgy and thaumaturgists throughout the history of the Church. God has done many miraculous things by, in, and through His people.

I'm not claiming that the family performed a miracle, but that God is as capable of hiding a family in plain view as He is of ensuring that flames bring no harm where they otherwise would. To what you were saying:

...Polycarp was taken for martyrdom and wouldn’t burn, and the blood from his spear-pierced side put out the fire. I don’t see any of those types running around.

I don't think the details of Polycarp's martyrdom somehow elevate him, any more than the family I know ought to be elevated. It's not the person, but the God who works through them. I would suspect that if one hasn't heard of miracles like the ones that happened during Polycarp's execution, then that's not because God has stopped acting in the world in those ways.

Husserl? Interesting. I don’t meet many who are familiar with Husserl. Gregory’s “Contraeunomium Vol. 2” in particular for nous and its epi- variants. It’s amazing (and he’s considered the “least” of the Cappadocians).

I’d insist there are many cases wherein it is the ontology of the Believer rather than intervening economy from God when the threat of death is present. I definitely elevate great men of God for their faith over those who are nominal pew-sitters. Honor to whom honor.

[CONSPICILLUM]

Oh, I fear that you mistake my antisesquipedalianism for disdain when nothing could be further from reality; however,  as this is a public forum, I try to write for the great unwashed and government school indoctrinated dumb masses.

I’m already impressed with my own brilliance!!

Alas, in my line of work, if I can’t explain the ridiculously complex to a sixth grader, I’m toast.

So my default is pedantic simple English; I have even , if late, been accused of being “simplistic.”

🤭

Yeah, well there are like 10 people (a generous estimate) active on this forum, and it looks like you and Athanasius are the only rational and orthodox among those few, so I wasn’t really considering “the masses”. LOL.

The requirement for explaining things to 6th graders is not something I adhere to. Imagine a world where all expression was the lowest common denominator for elementary school attendees being bombarded with CRT and Social Justice. We don’t have grade schoolers running industrial manufacturing facilities. We shouldn’t have theological expression at the Kindergarten-plus level as the default.

I wish I’d been taught the minutiae of theological terminology when I was young. But nooooooo…. I just got Late Great Planet Earth sensationalism and blood moons, because eschatology has to drive everyone’s jacked up hermeneutical world as we wait for a Dispensational secret rapture. ROFLOL.

[RabbiKnife]

But, the ontology of the believer is never about inherent power or position or purpose but always a direct and sole result of the believer’s position and purpose IN Christ.  Life and death are non-events to God in the grand scheme of things, and whether a believer is miraculously saved or martyred brings exactly the same glory to God.  Believers are just vessels, jars of clay, cracked pots containing the glory and power of God within the economy of God.

No believer is ontologically superior to any other , otherwise, we need to decide who is higher on the food chain, the guy in the fiery furnace of the dead guy with cannibal arrows sticking out of him and served as an appetizer.

[CONSPICILLUM]

But, the ontology of the believer is never about inherent power or position or purpose but always a direct and sole result of the believer’s position and purpose IN Christ.  Life and death are non-events to God in the grand scheme of things, and whether a believer is miraculously saved or martyred brings exactly the same glory to God.  Believers are just vessels, jars of clay, cracked pots containing the glory and power of God within the economy of God.

No believer is ontologically superior to any other , otherwise, we need to decide who is higher on the food chain, the guy in the fiery furnace of the dead guy with cannibal arrows sticking out of him and served as an appetizer.

I’m not proposing a superiority/inferiority paradigm. I’m saying I’m no St. Basil. That isn’t a faithless statement. Being and becoming is the Christian life. Though there is a proleptic already/not yet, there are certainly those who are more spiritually mature than others. It isn’t a measurement within soteriology. We’re all born from above. And if we’re all to come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, there are differences in the “coming to”.

[RabbiKnife]

Oh, I fear that you mistake my antisesquipedalianism for disdain when nothing could be further from reality; however,  as this is a public forum, I try to write for the great unwashed and government school indoctrinated dumb masses.

I’m already impressed with my own brilliance!!

Alas, in my line of work, if I can’t explain the ridiculously complex to a sixth grader, I’m toast.

So my default is pedantic simple English; I have even , if late, been accused of being “simplistic.”

🤭

Yeah, well there are like 10 people (a generous estimate) active on this forum, and it looks like you and Athanasius are the only rational and orthodox among those few, so I wasn’t really considering “the masses”. LOL.

The requirement for explaining things to 6th graders is not something I adhere to. Imagine a world where all expression was the lowest common denominator for elementary school attendees being bombarded with CRT and Social Justice. We don’t have grade schoolers running industrial manufacturing facilities. We shouldn’t have theological expression at the Kindergarten-plus level as the default.

I wish I’d been taught the minutiae of theological terminology when I was young. But nooooooo…. I just got Late Great Planet Earth sensationalism and blood moons, because eschatology has to drive everyone’s jacked up hermeneutical world as we wait for a Dispensational secret rapture. ROFLOL.

I’ll see your four blood moons and raise you old Christian church camp specialties like the “movie”  “Like A Thief In the Night” and “A Distant Thunder”… [Lets all sing along around the Friday night bonfire… ‘There’s no time to change your mind, the Son has come and you’ve been left behind”

Sorry.  I digress.   Unfortunately, we are missionaries to a nation of functionally uneducated, irrational, emotive theological dwarfs.  When we go to the Anek or Dao in New Guinea, we have to learn their language and culture in order to communicate the Gospel.  Sadly, we have reached the point in the post-Modern post-Christian USA where we must learn cross- cultural mission techniques in order to reach those in our own churches with theological truths.  I certainly appreciate the specificity of historic theological language, but alas, for most of our daily audience, using a word even as relatively simple as “ontological” or “soteriology” or even “sanctification” is like saying “third law of thermodynamics” to a naked guy wearing a gourd over his twig and berries not for cover but for decoration.

The lowest common denominator is here; we have to start there to have any hope of understanding and eventual clarity and specificity.

[CONSPICILLUM]

Oh, I fear that you mistake my antisesquipedalianism for disdain when nothing could be further from reality; however,  as this is a public forum, I try to write for the great unwashed and government school indoctrinated dumb masses.

I’m already impressed with my own brilliance!!

Alas, in my line of work, if I can’t explain the ridiculously complex to a sixth grader, I’m toast.

So my default is pedantic simple English; I have even , if late, been accused of being “simplistic.”

🤭

Yeah, well there are like 10 people (a generous estimate) active on this forum, and it looks like you and Athanasius are the only rational and orthodox among those few, so I wasn’t really considering “the masses”. LOL.

The requirement for explaining things to 6th graders is not something I adhere to. Imagine a world where all expression was the lowest common denominator for elementary school attendees being bombarded with CRT and Social Justice. We don’t have grade schoolers running industrial manufacturing facilities. We shouldn’t have theological expression at the Kindergarten-plus level as the default.

I wish I’d been taught the minutiae of theological terminology when I was young. But nooooooo…. I just got Late Great Planet Earth sensationalism and blood moons, because eschatology has to drive everyone’s jacked up hermeneutical world as we wait for a Dispensational secret rapture. ROFLOL.

I’ll see your four blood moons and raise you old Christian church camp specialties like the “movie”  “Like A Thief In the Night” and “A Distant Thunder”… [Lets all sing along around the Friday night bonfire… ‘There’s no time to change your mind, the Son has come and you’ve been left behind”

Sorry.  I digress.   Unfortunately, we are missionaries to a nation of functionally uneducated, irrational, emotive theological dwarfs.  When we go to the Anek or Dao in New Guinea, we have to learn their language and culture in order to communicate the Gospel.  Sadly, we have reached the point in the post-Modern post-Christian USA where we must learn cross- cultural mission techniques in order to reach those in our own churches with theological truths.  I certainly appreciate the specificity of historic theological language, but alas, for most of our daily audience, using a word even as relatively simple as “ontological” or “soteriology” or even “sanctification” is like saying “third law of thermodynamics” to a naked guy wearing a gourd over his twig and berries not for cover but for decoration.

The lowest common denominator is here; we have to start there to have any hope of understanding and eventual clarity and specificity.

Oh, I had to watch those movies several times myself. It was an annual ritual of some kind. And pass out those Chick tracts with doomsday gospel fully illustrated. Abysmal.

I spend my days teaching others in a “come up hither” manner, challenging them to rise out of the mediocrity and equipping them to do so. I’ll take a dozen of those dedicated to that over cities full of church entertainment in the pulpits. I would probably contend there is a lot more rebrobation and apostasy in the modern western church than you. Maybe I’m too pessimistic. But I don’t think a bunch of moderns walking around with elementary level theological understanding are representative of the Christian faith. I’m concerned that the lowest common denominator leaves them lost without Christ and ignorant of that fact because they or someone else on their behalf “did something” that makes them saved.

[RabbiKnife]

My personal estimate is that at least 50% of the ordained deacons and probably 70% of the average Sunday morning crowd may someday say “but Lord, we went to Sunday School in your name and left Chick tracts on top of the toilet paper dispenser at the restaurant in your name…”

That pessimistic enough for you? I have, after all, the spiritual gift of cynicism.

While. yes, we must try to train a remnant to train others, the spiritual blind still need shepherds…

Which is why the Body is not just an eye or just an ear…

Alas, I must leave for now.

Have to do something that leads to the acquisition of that which belongs to Caesar

[CONSPICILLUM]

My personal estimate is that at least 50% of the ordained deacons and probably 70% of the average Sunday morning crowd may someday say “but Lord, we went to Sunday School in your name and left Chick tracts on top of the toilet paper dispenser at the restaurant in your name…”

That pessimistic enough for you? I have, after all, the spiritual gift of cynicism.

While. yes, we must try to train a remnant to train others, the spiritual blind still need shepherds…

Which is why the Body is not just an eye or just an ear…

Alas, I must leave for now.

Have to do something that leads to the acquisition of that which belongs to Caesar

Fair enough. You are as cynical as I.

Godspeed to you in this corrupt world. Tell Caesar I said “Hey”.

[RandyPNW]

Oh, I fear that you mistake my antisesquipedalianism for disdain when nothing could be further from reality; however,  as this is a public forum, I try to write for the great unwashed and government school indoctrinated dumb masses.

I’m already impressed with my own brilliance!!

Alas, in my line of work, if I can’t explain the ridiculously complex to a sixth grader, I’m toast.

So my default is pedantic simple English; I have even , if late, been accused of being “simplistic.”

🤭

Reminder: as I recall, I suggested your approach to something was "too simplistic." That is not to be confused with accusing you of being "simple-minded!"

Please recognize the difference!

I don't remember actually what it was that I thought you were approaching too simplistically--perhaps I was even wrong about it. But in my defense I've long had to deal with people who defend theological formulas, without really understanding them.

To defend the Trinitarian formula, for example, it is as I see it an effort at defending a lifeless construction that makes logical sense, whether it confers faith on someone or not. If a person without faith argues for the Trinity, they are arguing for the construction, but not for anything of worth.

For that reason I feel the need to put things in fresh new words for my own benefit and hopefully for others, and hope I don't lose the original orthodoxy in the process. For what it's worth, I enjoy your posts--very thoughtful, and I agree with many of them.

[IMINXTC]

Well, my close friend, Martha just delivered a baby girl who will no doubt live to sin, but until the time she is able to formulate that decision she is without sin and does not carry a stigma of guilt under the forbidding gaze of a dark and angry God who has already destined her to condemnation.

She is a creature of hope and if destined for death in infancy, that hope will continue, to the chagrin of a dark orthodoxy.

[Athanasius]

I spend my days teaching others in a “come up hither” manner, challenging them to rise out of the mediocrity and equipping them to do so. I’ll take a dozen of those dedicated to that over cities full of church entertainment in the pulpits. I would probably contend there is a lot more rebrobation and apostasy in the modern western church than you. Maybe I’m too pessimistic. But I don’t think a bunch of moderns walking around with elementary level theological understanding are representative of the Christian faith. I’m concerned that the lowest common denominator leaves them lost without Christ and ignorant of that fact because they or someone else on their behalf “did something” that makes them saved.

Perhaps you are called to the dedicated that 'come up hither', while others are called to the mediocre Danish masses who don't quite know that they don't quite know what they believe in, except that they faith in Jesus - and faith is a terribly difficult thing.

[RabbiKnife]

Godspeed to you in this corrupt world. Tell Caesar I said “Hey”.

Caesar said "Hey," back.
And he said to tell you that you've got some stuff, and he would like to have more than his fair share.
He'll send a friend to pick it up.

[CONSPICILLUM]

Well, my close friend, Martha just delivered a baby girl who will no doubt live to sin, but until the time she is able to formulate that decision she is without sin and does not carry a stigma of guilt under the forbidding gaze of a dark and angry God who has already destined her to condemnation.

She is a creature of hope and if destined for death in infancy, that hope will continue, to the chagrin of a dark orthodoxy.

Like all other humans since the Edenic event, that infant was conceived in spiritual death and sin (the state of being and condition, not any action accomplished). But since scripture says there’s no sin imputed where there is no law (and the child can’t yet stand culpable according to the law), then the child has no guilt for sin until a later time.

No need to corrupt Christian doctrine so you can virtue signal and try to save all the babies and little kids. They are in a state of spiirtual death and sin but the sin isn’t yet imputed to them. That’s because God is a God of grace and mercy and great wisdom and provision.

The unborn dead, infants, and young children are not in danger of hellfire. Law has to impute sin, and that doesn’t happen in the womb, at birth, or in the earliest stages of life.

There. Now you can become an orthodox Christian and lay aside all your fears and false doctrine based upon ignorance.

[CONSPICILLUM]

I spend my days teaching others in a “come up hither” manner, challenging them to rise out of the mediocrity and equipping them to do so. I’ll take a dozen of those dedicated to that over cities full of church entertainment in the pulpits. I would probably contend there is a lot more rebrobation and apostasy in the modern western church than you. Maybe I’m too pessimistic. But I don’t think a bunch of moderns walking around with elementary level theological understanding are representative of the Christian faith. I’m concerned that the lowest common denominator leaves them lost without Christ and ignorant of that fact because they or someone else on their behalf “did something” that makes them saved.

Perhaps you are called to the dedicated that 'come up hither', while others are called to the mediocre Danish masses who don't quite know that they don't quite know what they believe in, except that they faith in Jesus - and faith is a terribly difficult thing.

Both are exactly true. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m called to labor in a different field for the harvest than others. My perspective comes from that weighty call as I watch everyone presume faith is a verb when it’s a noun. Faith will always be a struggle for everyone if they never realize it’s a noun and stop presuming faith is believING. The same is true for repentance and sin. Repentance isn’t repentING and sin isn’t sinnING.

Even the most simple can understand this if taught. Those who are never taught will likely never know. Greek anarthrous nouns are a cruel master to English speakers and their epistemology. But few want to listen to anything except what they think they already know. Life would be so much easier if such things were foundational teaching instead of general second-hand concepts alone. Sigh.