And I've avoided Spinoza's definition because of the attachment to an external cause required by it - defining it that way does not fit in with the Christian picture where God = Love. — Agustino
Love in this way cannot have an external cause, because there is nothing external to love to begin with. — Agustino
In the "Christian picture" love cannot equal God, — Metaphysician Undercover
In the "Christian picture" love cannot equal God, because love is something that we as human beings can possess, or do. — Metaphysician Undercover
This.'He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.' John 4:8 — Wayfarer
Well okay, but I think joy is different than the feeling you have from - say - helping an old lady cross the street. That is pleasure (whether "higher" or "lower"), but what I mean by joy is different than that. Joy is experiencing your life as inherently meaningful - worthwhile. Joy is unconcerned with pain or pleasure - it's something that has to do with a deeper attitude of gratitude, and, as Spinoza would say, perceiving yourself however dimly sub specie aeternitatis. Feeling "at home" in the world, instead of "alien". Not sure exactly how best to describe what I'm trying to convey by it. But as an experience, it's different from pleasure and pain.It is just that joy is commonly understood to be a "higher" kind of pleasure; possibly an ethical or intellectual pleasure, as opposed to the lower sensual pleasures. — John
Ah yes, of course! It's strange but when I first wrote the answer to MU, the first thing that crossed my mind was Spinoza's definition of love too. I developed the distinction I tried to make between pleasure/joy out of that.In any case it seems as though you are rejecting Spinoza's definition of love, which is fine; I would probably tend to agree about that as well. I only cited it because the exchange between you and MU reminded me of it and its pertinence. — John
I think joy is different than the feeling you have from - say - helping an old lady cross the street. That is pleasure (whether "higher" or "lower"), but what I mean by joy is different than that. Joy is experiencing your life as inherently meaningful - worthwhile. Joy is unconcerned with pain or pleasure -
I can agree with that I think :PPerhaps pleasure and pain are somatic intensities and joy is the cognitive assignment of these feelings under the united concept of joy. — Cavacava
Yes, agreed :D Peace and serenity - a certain confidence in life - silence and stillness of the mind - are parts of joy for certain.My understanding of joy is that it's one of many default states we can find ourselves in. That, when nothing is happening, one is content, or comfortable, in themselves (though not, I would say, with themselves...)
I suppose that for me, I gauge whether or not I'm living a joyous life when I lay in bed at night, wherein that moment it's just me and the dark (and my snoring dog.) At present, I'm usually very conflicted, frustrated, and often times emotionally twinged. Were I to be joyous, I think I'd be able to have a calmed mind, to be able to embrace a kind of silence and stillness that, perhaps as the Christian mystics would say, is me moving more toward God. So, pleasure has nothing to do with joy. — Heister Eggcart
What do you take to be the core of Jesus' teachings? Please site a verse or two to support your view — Bitter Crank
There is often a tendency amongst philosophers to confuse the Christian God of Abraham with the Neoplatonist God of the Philosophers. — Agustino
I find it ironic and sad that Jesus died alone, abandoned by God who he loved and believed in while so many after him died in relative peace by believing in him. — TheMadFool
Joy is unconcerned with pain or pleasure - it's something that has to do with a deeper attitude of gratitude, and, as Spinoza would say, perceiving yourself however dimly sub specie aeternitatis. Feeling "at home" in the world, instead of "alien". — Agustino
So defining Love with respect to something external is a grave mistake according to the Christian - much like something external cannot be used to define Substance. — Agustino
There is often a tendency amongst philosophers to confuse the Christian God of Abraham with the Neoplatonist God of the Philosophers. — Agustino
At the bitter end he was ALONE - God didn't save him from his enemies. I find it ironic and sad that Jesus died alone, abandoned by God who he loved and believed in while so many after him died in relative peace by believing in him. — TheMadFool
I believe that you can quote scriptures to support just about anything. But we can know quite clearly, that according to Christian doctrine, God cannot be equated with love — Metaphysician Undercover
I've read a large stack of Christian theology, and I've only come across God is a Trinity. The three members of the Trinity are interpreted in numerous different ways, but I haven't yet come across an interpretation which claims Love as one of the members of the Trinity. Therefore I have to disagree with your claim. I think your mistaken — Metaphysician Undercover
That's because I think you're considering love from the human point of view. But from God's perspective, God loved before there was any external world to love.Contrary to this, I believe it is a mistake to remove the relationship of an external object from "love". — Metaphysician Undercover
Of course, but remember the commandment to "love your neighbour as yourself"? That presupposes that you first love yourself. So I don't think love necessarily entails an external, especially from the divine point of view. The essence of the Triune God of Christianity is Love, and was so even before there was any external creation.There must be something loved, or you have a meaningless "love". — Metaphysician Undercover
Okay, so how do we go about apprehending what is and what isn't good then? If you don't have a loving heart, you may apprehend domination over your fellow men as a good. Does that mean that it's loving to dominate your fellow men because it is apprehended as good? Clearly apprehension of good and evil isn't a straightforward matter.They can carry out actions for no purpose other than that the acts are apprehended as good, and these are acts of love. — Metaphysician Undercover
So this claimed distinction between a Christian God and a Neo-Platonist God is completely unjustified. — Metaphysician Undercover
So I'm not so sure that the Neo-Platonic God set up by St. Augustine is the most faithful representation of God as found in the Scriptures.Year of grace 1654, Monday 23 November, feast of St. Clement . . . from about half past ten at night to about half an hour after midnight, FIRE. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of philosophers and scholars. Certitude, heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. God of Jesus Christ. "My God and your God." . . . Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy. . . Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. May I never be separated from him. — Blaise Pascal
The equivalence between Love and God is essential to Christianity. It's almost the very heart of Christian revelation. Kierkegaard for example discusses this at length in Works of Love.I've read a large stack of Christian theology, and I've only come across God is a Trinity. The three members of the Trinity are interpreted in numerous different ways, but I haven't yet come across an interpretation which claims Love as one of the members of the Trinity. Therefore I have to disagree with your claim. I think your mistaken — Metaphysician Undercover
I think it does. I don't know about you for example, but I've had moments when I gladly did something painful, and undertook suffering, knowing that it was the right thing to do. So beyond the pain and suffering, there was a sense of joy at what I'm doing. Obviously all this pales in comparison to the suffering that Jesus had to take on, but I think the principle still holds.does it seem right to think that Christ experienced joy on the cross? — John
I find it hard to say what my greatest joys were. Two come to mind. Achieving something that others thought was impossible and seeing other people inspired by it. And a time when I was 16-17 watching my girlfriend playing in the dust while I sat on a bench next to her. Very close to those two came listening to a great classical music concert, praying, attending a service on Mt. Athos, working in the field building houses for handicapped people (I used to dig ditches), other moments with my girlfriend and some similar experiences. Making love itself would rank after all these for me. It's intense (perhaps more intense than the other experiences), but, for me at least, followed by sadness, exactly as described by Spinoza. This is interesting. It feels similar to getting something you don't deserve, and then losing it.For myself, I would say that possibly the greatest joys I have experienced were when making love. — John
I agree.In any case I think all these 'emotion' words are nuanced in complex ways. It seems to me that only one-sidedness or confusion will result if we fall into hypostatizing words as kinds of absolute essences. — John
It could be that way, and it definitely is that way in Christianity, however, just from the fact that God is Love it doesn't follow that God is a person in the same way you and me are persons, or that God experiences love.Does it mean that God experiences love, or that God emanates or bestows love? — John
Yes I agree.For me, it is certainly true that only when we love do we feel "at home" in the world; we go out of ourselves, released from narrow self-concern, and then we can truly be in the world. I also think it is true that there is no self-pain in love, although we may certainly feel the pain of others; which is a very different thing; this is where love becomes compassion. — John
but I think there's a lot of neoplatonism in mainstream Christian theology to this day.
— Wayfarer
Yes but is this a good thing? — Agustino
HE who has found this way of love, seeks no other. He who turns on this pivot is on that account a prisoner, in that his foot and hand and mouth and eyes and heart, and all his human faculties, belong to God. And, therefore, you can overcome the flesh in no better way, so that it may not shame you, than by love. This is why it is written, Love is as strong as death, as hard as hell. Death separates the soul from the body, but love separates all things from the soul. She suffers nought to come near her, that is not God nor God-like. Happy is he who is thus imprisoned; the more you are a prisoner, the more will you be freed. That we may be so imprisoned, and so freed, may He help us, Who Himself is Love. — Meister Eckhardt
The Trinity isn't found in the Gospels. — Bitter Crank
Love is manifested by God. God loved the world so much, He sacrificed his Son for the salvation of the world. Love is the reason for keeping God's commandments. John 14:15 -- If ye love me, keep my commandments.And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever. Love is the beginning and end of the story. Right? — Bitter Crank
The equivalence between Love and God is essential to Christianity. It's almost the very heart of Christian revelation. Kierkegaard for example discusses this at length in Works of Love. — Agustino
But regardless, I suggest you look at what Christianity teaches - NOT the philosophers. — Agustino
I think the 'nominalists', contrarily, are far less compatible with Platonist thinking, and, therefore, much more inclined towards fundamentalism — Wayfarer
Mind you, this is all speculative but it's not a bad theory, right? — schopenhauer1
That Love is not equated with any person of the Trinity is evidence that God is not equated with Love. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think one of the cardinal differences between Orthodox and Catholic theology, is that the former is more Platonist, the latter more Aristotelean — Wayfarer
William of Ockham and others like him were not fundamentalists. In fact, William anticipated many features of liberalism. — Thorongil
Yes I've read quite a bit on it as well, but I'm primarily interested in what you personally think here.Essay question! 'Comment on the attraction of Plotinus to the early Greek-speaking theologians, and the ways that they agreed with, and differentiated, themselves from him, in the formation of orthodox theology in the early period of the Church'.
You have 10,000 words. Get cracking! (Only kidding.)
Do you know about the writings of 'pseudo-Dionysius', and how important they were in the formation of Christian theology in the early to medieval period?
I think we have mentioned that book, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, by Lossky, previously. I haven't read it although have read passages from it, and am familiar with the general drift. But, as you have affinities with Orthodoxy, I'm sure you would find some discussion in there of the part played by various Platonist and neo-Platonist ideas in the work of the Church Fathers, especially of course the Greek-speaking fathers.
I think one of the cardinal differences between Orthodox and Catholic theology, is that the former is more Platonist, the latter more Aristotelean. Actually I did run this past an Orthodox Father one day, and he emphatically agreed.
I think the 'nominalists', contrarily, are far less compatible with Platonist thinking, and, therefore, much more inclined towards fundamentalism. That is why, I think, we have this strongly dichotomising tendency between 'religion and science', 'mind and matter', and all the other debilitating dualities of current Western thinking. If Platonism had retained greater influence, it might have all worked out radically differently to that. But all of this is highly speculative, of course.
A note from Eckhardt. — Wayfarer
So the Scriptures state unequivocally that God is Love and you do not believe it? What kind of other evidence would you want that Christianity holds that God is Love?But I do not believe that the equivalence of God and Love is essential to Christianity. You are denying that I can call myself Christian, because I think that God is the Trinity rather than God is Love, and that's completely ridiculous. — Metaphysician Undercover
Okay but the passages certainly don't require references to Platonic Forms and the like to be explained, right? The Bible can be taken and understood on its own terms.Even if Christians draw their teachings directly from the Gospels, the passages need to be interpreted, and they are interpreted by means of philosophy. So in the case of religion, you cannot distinguish between what Christianity teaches, and what the philosophers teach, because it is all the teachings of philosophers. It is however the case, that some philosophers teach a different thing than others. — Metaphysician Undercover
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