Reformational Resurgence » Philosophy

Freedom and restriction, can you tell the difference?

Whiskeyjack — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 04:37:51 +0000

Have you ever wondered if criminals really commit crimes or simply suffer from dissociative ethics? I mean what do laws really serve other than holding at bay the hungry jaws of anarchistic dissolution and despotic oppression? Don’t you think that it would be so much easier if we dispensed with all the restricting regimes of order and justice and simply relied on the goodness of man to promote peace and harmony among mankind?

God? Justice?

Whiskeyjack — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 21:18:21 +0000

A God of love divorced from justice and wrath towards transgression is lunacy. It does not provide for the protection of his people, nor the absolution of the their transgressions of his law. But as well, he would cease to be a God worthy of worship, for he himself would, though possessed of a love of his own glory, not be able to demand his glory. For in truth, a God of love divorced from justice would love sin, having no other course of action by which to respond, and in doing so cease to be a moral creator.

Thus love without law is hedonism reigning as the only ethic and God would die and man would reap the consequence. The rise of the supra-man, the embarkation of the ship of power out into the sea of nihilism. But this is the sociological dimension, the noetic influence of the fall onto the minds of man. Because God never nor can he die, but the image of God seen in creation is obscured to the point of perversion and denotative realignment.

And so we perceive the depth and true motivation of liberal theology; the obscuring and eventual disembodiment of the revealed nature of God, as well as the divine nature of Jesus. Furthermore, if those who see Christ see the Father, and the Son is the only way to the Father, but yet the Son possesses no divine nature, then the kingdom of God and the entrance into it are merely moral. Thus making Jesus the definitive moralist. And in doing so they reduce the kingdom from adoptive/eschatological to nihilistic , wherein the construct of law/gospel is replaced by personal liberty/hedonism, with the only deterrent being the termination of personal intention by an ego greater than oneself.

In short, love without law is the reduction and self-conscious dismantling of Christianity and must be viewed as such.

Thoughts on coming and going

Whiskeyjack — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 04:21:53 +0000

Situationalism, or the proposition that subjectivity is the only constant itself is, albeit subconsciously and without intent, predicated on the inherent understanding of concrete or objective reality. The very concept and or endeavor of the metaphysical interpretation of life involves the application of principles which require a referent of concrete veracity. Meaning may not be apprehended in the flux but in the telos, in the “How shall we then live” of the law and gospel. the ethics of word and sacrament.

What is Good?

Whiskeyjack — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 09:47:00 +0000

A friend recently asked me to define “good” for him, he seems to be under the impression that it is not possible; an apparent paradox of this life. My initial response was that God was good and that the question itself pressupposed not only the possibility of definition but one actually. My supposition was that in regards to language, that content precedes communication and thus an actual, historically valid concept of good exists.

Yet, the more that I thought about it, the more I thought about how we know anything in regards to what is good. Now, this is a work in progress and thus might at times lack cogency, but I think that the general problem I have is that I think that the question itself is invalid, that rather one must ask who is good rather than what is good and in doing so we come to Paul rather than Athens, remembering that he said that no one was good – referring to created persons – and that all had fallen short of the glory of God. This being so we must assume that God alone is good and that that is displayed to us in both his speech and his actions; that our knowledge of good and thus evil find reference in what God does and says and what those who are not God do and say. So our knowledge is participatory and revelational rather than rationalistic; in this sense I mean attained by contemplation and speculation.

Some might say that answering the question, “What is good”, would be a rather easy one. That one might say that good is ultimate perfection, allowing for no moral or ethical failure. Yet it seems to me that an answer like that would simply beg the question. Rather I follow a principle of epistemology that I believe is found in the early chapters of the book of Genesis, that creation- or in this conversation, content- precedes communication and identification. And in doing so I think that it follows that we must ask who is good, because behind that I believe lies the answer as to how we can formulate such a question.

So in this first post I am attempting to reformulate the question into a legitimate query. For the question. “What is good”; seems arrogant and autonomously oriented.