Pain is a positive existence and creation, not a deprivation of anything

Started by Kreuzritter, February 07, 2020, 06:56:10 AM

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dellery

Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 08, 2020, 07:21:04 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AMOr the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.

Point taken, but wouldn't that contradict the notions of God's omnipotence and omniscience?  They are kind of the same thing, I suppose, but this would seem to go against at least one of the two, if not both.

QuoteAt first the words toû kósmou were added to distinguish the great Workman from others, but gradually demiourgós became the technical term for the Maker of heaven and earth. In this sense it is used frequently by Plato in his "Timæus". Although often loosely employed by the Fathers and others to indicate the Creator, the word never strictly meant "one who produces out of nothing" (for this the Greeks used ktístes), but only "one who fashions, shapes, and models". A creator in the sense of Christian theology has no place in heathen philosophy, which always presupposes the existence of matter. Moreover, according to Greek philosophy the world-maker is not necessarily identical with God, as first and supreme source of all things; he may be distinct from and inferior to the supreme spirit, though he may also be the practical expression of the reason of God, the Logos as operative in the harmony of the universe. In this sense, i.e. that of a world-maker distinct from the Supreme God, Demiurge became a common term in Gnosticism. The Gnostics, however, were not satisfied merely to emphasize the distinction between the Supreme God, or God the Father, and the Demiurge, but in many of their systems they conceived the relation of the Demiurge to the Supreme God as one of actual antagonism, and the Demiurge became the personification of the power of evil, the Satan of Gnosticism, with whom the faithful had to wage war to the end that they might be pleasing to the Good God. The Gnostic Demiurge then assumes a surprising likeness to Ahriman, the evil counter-creator of Ormuzd in Mazdean philosophy. The character of the Gnostic Demiurge became still more complicated when in some systems he was identified with Jehovah, the God of the Jews or of the Old Testament, and was brought in opposition to Christ of the New Testament, the Only-Begotten Son of the Supreme and Good God. The purpose of Christ's coming as Saviour and Redeemer was to rescue us from the power of the Demiurge, the lord of the world of this darkness, and bring us to the light of the Good God, His Father in heaven. The last development in the character of the Demiurge was due to Jehovah being primarily considered as he who gave the Law on Sinai, and hence as the originator of all restraint on the human will. As the Demiurge was essentially evil, all his work was such; in consequence all law was intrinsically evil and the duty of the children of the Good God was to transgress this law and to trample upon its precepts. This led to the wildest orgies of Antinomian Gnosticism.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04707b.htm

It appears as if Kreuzritter is straying toward Gnosticism, if not there already.
Blessed are those who plant trees under whose shade they will never sit.

The closer you get to life the better death will be; the closer you get to death the better life will be.

Nous Defions
St. Phillip Neri, pray for us.

Mono no aware

Quote from: dellery on February 08, 2020, 07:35:43 AMIt appears as if Kreuzritter is straying toward Gnosticism, if not there already.

I'm not so sure.  He is insistent that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the one, good, and true God, whereas the classical Christian Gnostic systems posit the opposite.  What he might be saying that is the one, good, and true God is less than perfectly omnipotent.  That would be interesting if so.

Kreuzritter

Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 08, 2020, 07:21:04 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AMOr the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.

Point taken, but wouldn't that contradict the notions of God's omnipotence and omniscience?  They are kind of the same thing, I suppose, but this would seem to go against at least one of the two, if not both.

Omnipotence and omniscience cannot include what is nonsensical or logically impossible. There's a presumption that "foreknowing" such acts is meaningful and possible. But it's not even clear what "foreknowledge" is supposed to mean here when God is eternal. Yes, God knew me "before" my conception (Jeremiah 1:5, although one could also read that verse in the sense of the spiritual subject being an eternal creation and God knowing it in its eternal transcendence "before" incarnation) from my temporal perspective, but such foreknowledge wouldn't entail from the eternal perspective knowing what a creation would do "before" it is created; indeed, even if there is an order of being there is no "before" in eternity. To the point in parentheses, the subject considered as such, as it is with the "atman", would be indestructible again because for it in itself there is no before and after; before and after are only part of its experience of the temporal world.

Kreuzritter

Quote from: dellery on February 08, 2020, 07:35:43 AM
Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 08, 2020, 07:21:04 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AMOr the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.

Point taken, but wouldn't that contradict the notions of God's omnipotence and omniscience?  They are kind of the same thing, I suppose, but this would seem to go against at least one of the two, if not both.

QuoteAt first the words toû kósmou were added to distinguish the great Workman from others, but gradually demiourgós became the technical term for the Maker of heaven and earth. In this sense it is used frequently by Plato in his "Timæus". Although often loosely employed by the Fathers and others to indicate the Creator, the word never strictly meant "one who produces out of nothing" (for this the Greeks used ktístes), but only "one who fashions, shapes, and models". A creator in the sense of Christian theology has no place in heathen philosophy, which always presupposes the existence of matter. Moreover, according to Greek philosophy the world-maker is not necessarily identical with God, as first and supreme source of all things; he may be distinct from and inferior to the supreme spirit, though he may also be the practical expression of the reason of God, the Logos as operative in the harmony of the universe. In this sense, i.e. that of a world-maker distinct from the Supreme God, Demiurge became a common term in Gnosticism. The Gnostics, however, were not satisfied merely to emphasize the distinction between the Supreme God, or God the Father, and the Demiurge, but in many of their systems they conceived the relation of the Demiurge to the Supreme God as one of actual antagonism, and the Demiurge became the personification of the power of evil, the Satan of Gnosticism, with whom the faithful had to wage war to the end that they might be pleasing to the Good God. The Gnostic Demiurge then assumes a surprising likeness to Ahriman, the evil counter-creator of Ormuzd in Mazdean philosophy. The character of the Gnostic Demiurge became still more complicated when in some systems he was identified with Jehovah, the God of the Jews or of the Old Testament, and was brought in opposition to Christ of the New Testament, the Only-Begotten Son of the Supreme and Good God. The purpose of Christ's coming as Saviour and Redeemer was to rescue us from the power of the Demiurge, the lord of the world of this darkness, and bring us to the light of the Good God, His Father in heaven. The last development in the character of the Demiurge was due to Jehovah being primarily considered as he who gave the Law on Sinai, and hence as the originator of all restraint on the human will. As the Demiurge was essentially evil, all his work was such; in consequence all law was intrinsically evil and the duty of the children of the Good God was to transgress this law and to trample upon its precepts. This led to the wildest orgies of Antinomian Gnosticism.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04707b.htm

It appears as if Kreuzritter is straying toward Gnosticism, if not there already.


Insofar as that means identifying this particular physical world and its laws as the work of an ultimately deranged being identifiable as "Satan", sure. I've spoken along such lines before. But I wouldn't identify the creation of Genesis 1 with this world, nor the God of Abraham with Satan, nor materiality (depending on what one means by that) as an evil creation and Jesus' incarnation and death as mere "appearance".

Indeed, as I've said before, if evolution with "theistic" design is in any way correct, then the "God" behind it is most certainly, as I would regard him, a devil. 

Exsurge Domine

Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AM
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.

Heresy. Reported.
"Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of Antichrist." - Our Lady of La Salette

John Lamb

This seems like metaphysical quibbling. I don't think saying that pain is a privation implies that it is not real. Like Dellery's being cut off from his daughter: that was clearly a privation, but obviously real. Also note that pain is never pure privation. Pure privation is simply nothingness, non-existence. Pain is in something that positively exists, but which is defective or incomplete in some way. So if one bears a great deal of self-loathing: obviously, that hatred positively exists in one's heart and brain, but metaphysically speaking it is still a privation of something ~ a right relation with oneself. The mystery is why God creates defective creatures, ones that undergo pain, deformation, and destruction. The Bible in a way is written almost entirely to answer that very question.

I've been reading a Catholic psychology book called "Healing: Psychological Healing in the Catholic Mystic Tradition", which has been helping me. Written by Dr. Raymond Lloyd Richmond, who works with traditional Catholic communities in the US (San Francisco, I think). Here's his website: http://www.chastitysf.com/
I want to post an excerpt on victimization, because I think it relates to what Kreuzritter is saying about making God out to be a "diabolical beast".

QuoteVictimization and Abuse

Many persons, especially those who have been abused emotionally, physically, or sexually, tend to recoil from the idea of suffering, primarily because they unconsciously equate suffering with punishment—the same unjust, unfair, and irrational punishment they received at the hands of their abusers. It was this irrational punishment that caused their pain to sink down into the terrifying depths of resentment and anger, to be hidden in the dark corners of the unconscious, shrouded in victimization. Therefore, there can always be a resentful part of us that seeks some recognition of our pain and some compensation for any hurt we suffer.

Consequently, the resentment underlying this victimization—that  is, the  resentment for unfair and unjust punishment—can spawn either of two pernicious attitudes to life: disobedience and false obedience.

In disobedience, a person rebels against authority, using tactics such as protest, the undermining of traditional beliefs, and the flouting of traditional moral values. Such persons derive recognition from being seen as "free thinkers"—or sociopaths—and they derive compensation for their wounds from watching harm come to others.

In false obedience a person gives the appearance of obedience but instead of acting from love acts from spite: "All right. So you're going to treat me miserably? Well, I'll show you! I'll take everything you can dish out, and I'll take it without a murmur, even if it kills me. So there!" This is spite because, rather than being freely accepted, the mistreatment is merely tolerated as something imposed unfairly. Such persons derive satisfaction from seeing themselves as "victims" of unfair treatment; the danger here is that they tend to slip into the belief that if only they suffer enough then those who have been unfairly rejecting them will eventually be moved to accept them—and this leads into the fruitless self-destruction of masochism.

The biggest problem with masochism is that it clings to the false belief that personal suffering is somehow redemptive, and so it ignores the true redemption worked out in Christ's passion, death, and resurrection. Christ accepted all suffering willingly, not as a victim15, and, in carrying the cross, He willingly bore for our sake the pain of all unfair, unjust, and irrational punishment. He gave meaning to suffering. That is, He bore it all openly and without anger, for the sake of our redemption from sin, and, in doing so, He showed us that real love means the willingness to bear the emotional pain of others, suffering for them in the hope of their salvation. Remember, the pain others afflict on you is really their own disavowed pain; by accepting your suffering willingly you make your suffering into your prayer that eventually their hearts will be open to contrition.

If only you would pray for others and take up your suffering as Christ did—not as self-punishment, but as a gift of forgiveness to others—then you would no longer need to hide your pain and you would no longer be terrified of your own capacity for anger; then you could listen honestly to your family and friends, you could tolerate their anger without flinching from it, and you could help them heal their pain and take up their own crosses.


15. Christ was, and is, a victim in the ancient sense of the term, which referred to an animal offered in sacrifice: as the Paschal Lamb, Christ willingly offered Himself in sacrifice on the cross for our salvation. Keep in mind, though, that in His sacrifice, Christ neither lost anything nor was He cheated or duped. Thus He was not victimized.


QuoteSpiritual Purgation

All of us, in the process of growing from children to adults, require encouragement, reassurance, appreciation, approval, and acceptance from others. Classic psychological theory calls these things narcissistic supplies. Yet most of us, as we become adults, develop an inner sense of confidence and self-esteem which does not depend on constant external reinforcement.

There will be times, however, when it seems that these narcissistic supplies have been lost, whether through loss of love, or loss of security, or loss of self-esteem itself. Most often these losses occur in childhood because of ordinary parental distractions and failures, but they can occur because of emotional pain inflicted by siblings, friends, teachers, bosses, and religious superiors. Moreover, we can experience these losses as adults because of various failures and betrayals from others. However it occurs, we will tend to get angry. Normally, the anger is directed towards the person responsible for the loss we feel. But it can be that we feel guilty and ashamed of our anger, and so the anger can get turned against ourselves.

Why does anger get turned towards the self? Well, it might occur out of a perception that you could have done something to protect yourself from being so vulnerable to loss, and, having failed to do so, you feel deserving of condemnation and punishment. It could be that someone in your past treated you like an object for his or her own pleasure, and you have come to believe that you are nothing but garbage and don't deserve to be treated respectfully. It could be that the person responsible for the hurt in the first place was someone loved, and it might feel too psychologically risky to be angry at such a person, for the fear that the person might withdraw "love" in retaliation. Or it might be that the hurt was caused by some trauma or disaster, and, though you might blame God, if you're at all religious you will feel bad for being angry with God, and so you will blame yourself for being "bad" or "defective" for having blasphemous thoughts.

So there you are, trapped in self-hatred, a lonely victim stuck in "anger turned inwards," right in the middle of depression.

Now, as described by Saint John of the Cross, spiritual purgation can afflict souls with "abandonment, supreme poverty, dryness, cold, and sometimes heat. They find relief in nothing, nor does any thought console them . . ." Although this sounds quite a bit like depression, there is a big difference.

As Saint John of the Cross points out, the oppressive afflictions experienced in purgation are caused by the very flame of God which imparts His love. Purgation is, therefore, an act of God's love, and even though our narcissistic supplies may be stripped from us as a process of spiritual pruning, the purpose of it all is to bring the soul's infirmities to light: "they are set before its eyes to be felt and healed."

In depression there is nothing but darkness, yet it is not seen as darkness or recognized as darkness. Blind to divine reality, this darkness seems to be the only reality. "For it is impossible to perceive one's darknesses without the divine light focusing on them."

In contrast to being trapped in depression and self-blame, in our turning to God, seeking enlightenment, and willingly accepting our spiritual purgation we can recognize darkness for what it really is: an experience of something lacking in our lives, not an ill-fated defect in our being.

With the darkness illuminate, we can stop believing that darkness is the totality of our being. Consequently, we can stop believing that we are "bad" and undeserving of love. We can see these are false, negative beliefs, created in childhood to protect us from emotional pain. We can see that we made a mistake in creating negative beliefs about ourselves, and that, because we created those false beliefs, we can now create new, positive, and spiritually true beliefs. Once we feel the sorrow for punishing ourselves for having been hurt in childhood, we can cry out to God for mercy. We can change our beliefs about ourselves. Through Christ, our lack can be healed.

In facing up to our own darknesses, however difficult the process may be, we can experience divine love and mercy, not the dreaded wrath of an angry parent. Nor does spiritual purgation cause misery or self-hatred, because the sorrow we feel for our sins and inadequacies has nothing to do with self-blame or self-punishment. Rather than being an obstacle to our progress, sorrow for our past behavior, as will be shown in the next chapter, is the first step on the path to learning how to love.

Moreover, keeping in mind that spiritual purgation is a form of spiritual pruning meant to stimulate the growth of love, you can understand the true spiritual meaning of sacrifice. Sacrifice is something you give up or do in order to make your life or an other's more productive. Sacrifice isn't deprivation or loss; it's an act of love—and it's the only path away from being a "victim."


I think turning God into a pitiless tyrant is in large part a psychological problem like those described here. I think it especially occurs in self-hatred and self-victimization, where you tell yourself that you deserve all the misery and suffering you've experienced, then come to believe on some level that God hates you and that you have to keep punishing yourself masochistically to satisfy Him. Then sometimes you get angry and blame God for being so hard on you, so unfair and tyrannical, whereas in reality it's you that's being so hard and cruel to yourself, not God. By far the greatest pains are the ones that we inflict on each other and on ourselves, and God is not willing this at all (in fact He forbids it).
"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

Kreuzritter

Quote from: Pon de Replay on February 08, 2020, 07:49:30 AM
Quote from: dellery on February 08, 2020, 07:35:43 AMIt appears as if Kreuzritter is straying toward Gnosticism, if not there already.

I'm not so sure.  He is insistent that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the one, good, and true God, whereas the classical Christian Gnostic systems posit the opposite.  What he might be saying that is the one, good, and true God is less than perfectly omnipotent.  That would be interesting if so.

The only answer to why a benevolent God would create beings that turn to such evil in the first place seems to be such a compromise on the ideas of omnipotence and omniscience. As you've indicated before, passing through all imaginable arguments about such things, one eventually comes up against the final question: why did God create this Lucifer character at all, and why did God create any beings destined for reprobation in the first place?

Kreuzritter

Quote from: John Lamb on February 08, 2020, 08:13:23 AM
This seems like metaphysical quibbling. I don't think saying that pain is a privation implies that it is not real. Like Dellery's being cut off from his daughter: that was clearly a privation, but obviously real.

I never used the word "real". You are confusing things. Dellery being cut off from his daughter is not a thing, an essence, like the colour I see or the taste in my mouth, which pain is.

QuoteAlso note that pain is never pure privation.

Pain isn't privation at all. The experience of it may be a result of a privation, but the pain in itself is not.

QuotePure privation is simply nothingness, non-existence. Pain is in something that positively exists, but which is defective or incomplete in some way.

No. Pain is what it is. One doesn't obtain what pain is by taking something away.  One can't derive it from some "good" like one deduces a conclusion from a set of premises, or like taking 2 away from 3 to be left with 1. Even if adding something into a person's experience changed the experience of pain to an experience of something else, one would have merely changed the experience, not the object that was experienced.

Kreuzritter

Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:12:52 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AM
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.

Heresy. Reported.

Read the name of this subforum again, moron.

Exsurge Domine

Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 08:28:11 AM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:12:52 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AM
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.

Heresy. Reported.

Read the name of this subforum again, moron.

Error has no rights. You'll be dealt with if the moderation has anything Catholic left in it. This whole thread is a scandal.
"Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of Antichrist." - Our Lady of La Salette

Kreuzritter

Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:32:41 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 08:28:11 AM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:12:52 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AM
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.

Heresy. Reported.

Read the name of this subforum again, moron.

Error has no rights. You'll be dealt with if the moderation has anything Catholic left in it. This whole thread is a scandal.

What's going to happened is you're going to be banned for being a disruptive, spamming, rude and insufferable troll. In every single thread, even something so innocuous as "what are you listening to" and "trad kids", you appear just to criticise and spew vitriol. What an unsavoury bastard you must be and what a miserable existence you must lead because of it. And you probably wonder why you have no friends and no woman wants so much as to touch you. Being an ideological asshat is your crutch.

John Lamb

Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:32:41 AM
Error has no rights. You'll be dealt with if the moderation has anything Catholic left in it. This whole thread is a scandal.

I've noticed that you have failed to denounce the infamous Antipope Bergoglio in the last three of your posts.
Rest assured that you shall be reported—and summarily executed—by the Holy Inquisition, on suspicion of schism & heresy.
"Let all bitterness and animosity and indignation and defamation be removed from you, together with every evil. And become helpfully kind to one another, inwardly compassionate, forgiving among yourselves, just as God also graciously forgave you in the Anointed." – St. Paul

Exsurge Domine

Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 08:44:19 AM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:32:41 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 08:28:11 AM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:12:52 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AM
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.

Heresy. Reported.

Read the name of this subforum again, moron.

Error has no rights. You'll be dealt with if the moderation has anything Catholic left in it. This whole thread is a scandal.

What's going to happened is you're going to be banned for being a disruptive, spamming, rude and insufferable troll. In every single thread, even something so innocuous as "what are you listening to" and "trad kids", you appear just to criticise and spew vitriol. What an unsavoury bastard you must be and what a miserable existence you must lead because of it. And you probably wonder why you have no friends and no woman wants so much as to touch you. Being an ideological asshat is your crutch.

Swiveling like a little snake when exposed. You can't bear the light can you? If you look like a heretic and quack like a heretic, then you are one.
"Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of Antichrist." - Our Lady of La Salette

Kreuzritter

Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:54:12 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 08:44:19 AM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:32:41 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 08:28:11 AM
Quote from: Exsurge Domine on February 08, 2020, 08:12:52 AM
Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 07:11:01 AM
Or the creator doesn't have power to foreknow the free and unconditioned acts of autonomous subjects or the power to destroy them.

Heresy. Reported.

Read the name of this subforum again, moron.

Error has no rights. You'll be dealt with if the moderation has anything Catholic left in it. This whole thread is a scandal.

What's going to happened is you're going to be banned for being a disruptive, spamming, rude and insufferable troll. In every single thread, even something so innocuous as "what are you listening to" and "trad kids", you appear just to criticise and spew vitriol. What an unsavoury bastard you must be and what a miserable existence you must lead because of it. And you probably wonder why you have no friends and no woman wants so much as to touch you. Being an ideological asshat is your crutch.

Swiveling like a little snake when exposed. You can't bear the light can you? If you look like a heretic and quack like a heretic, then you are one.

What? I would never deny rejecting your ideology and its tangible darkness. The only question is, did you come to believe it because you're revolting, or are you revolting as a result of believing it?

Exsurge Domine

Quote from: Kreuzritter on February 08, 2020, 09:04:30 AM
I would never deny rejecting your ideology and its tangible darkness.

Yes, everyone realizes you're not a Catholic. The question is, what are you still doing here?
"Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of Antichrist." - Our Lady of La Salette