Conference lgp30::christian-perspective

    It sounds like it's one of those Poor Richard quotes from Ben Franklin.
    
    Peace,
    Richard

    
    Richard has it correct..
    
    this quote is from "Poor Richard's Almanac" June, 1736..
    
    ...was this really worth a topic unto itself, Sweeney?
    
    peter

    Peter
    
    Why not a topic unto itself? and was it necessary to  be rude
    to Pat?
    
    Bonnie

    I'd be curious to know how Ben Franklin came to this conclusion.
    From what I understand, like most of the Founding Fathers of America,
    he was a Deist.  This might have something to do with it.  
    

    bonnie,
    
    the base note asks a question which has a simple answer. the entire
    topic could be complete with the base note and one reply. if Pat
    wished to discuss the quote and what the members might think of it,
    then i could easily understand creating a new topic. since that is
    not what he apparently intended then why not either create a "nerd
    call" topic under which all manner of questions might be asked or
    perhaps (although it wouldn't fit very well) put the question into
    the Quotes topic.
    
    thanks for calling me rude...i really needed that
    
    peter
    
    

    Peter
    
    It appeared from the way you wrote your note, that you had
    an additional adgenda with Pat that went beyond the actual
    content of the note. I was attempting to point out how your
    note could have sounded to another person.
    
    Bonnie

    bonnie,
    
    if you were attempting to point out how my note might have been
    perceived perhaps that is what you should have written instead
    of characterizing me as you did.
    
    i took the time and effort to verify and answer Pat's question fully
    and completely. i could also question whether or not you have an
    additional agenda beyond your replies.
    
    peter

        I actually think that this question is good enough to spark
        off an entire topic (but NOT a topic on noting manners,
        IMHO!).

        This quote is part of the religious background of the US.  It
        affects and reflects how we think about the relationship
        between God and our everyday lives.

        I've often suspected that this quote of Franklin's was
        actually expressing skepticism about God's intervention in
        human affairs.  It is somewhat like saying:  "God and 25
        cents will buy you a cup of coffee."  (Which, in earlier days
        of less inflation, would be saying that God contributes
        nothing. -- You think that God is helping you, but in fact it
        is your own efforts that are accomplishing all the work.)

        Of course, this quote is more usually directed at people as a
        criticism, telling the listener to get off their seat and get
        to work, rather than sit around and let God take care of
        things.

        Bob

    Thanks, I didn't think it was in the Bible, and I wanted to establish
    that before proceeding with a discussion.
    
    Self-help and totally placing one's life in the hands of the Lord seem
    to be contradictory.
    
    The phrase, in my mind has many uses: directed at someone who isn't
    doing anything but expects the Lord's help.
    
    Or as a defense of one's Christianity from some who says that they are
    consumed with ambition and ignoring God.
    
    I'd also like to speculate that the author of the phrase isn't entirely
    comfortable with the idea that in God all trust is to be placed.

    Peter,
    
    I appologise for the poor wording of my reply.
    
    Bonnie

    Franklin's proverb has come in handy in justifying a second slice of
    pie for dessert...I just go ahead and help myself to it! ;-}
    
    Piece,
    Richard

    I'm not sure why this note is being thrashed, but let me revise and
    extend my remarks.

    We don't approach God proudly and say, through my own power, I have
    merited salvation.  Why did Christ die on the cross if we had the power
    to save ourselves all along?

    How is the act of "helping" ourselves reconciled to the Christian ideal
    of "thy will be done".

    What was Franklin's theology? "Let my will be done, and God, make it
    so"?

Patrick,

	My apologies for my levity in commenting on Franklin's proverb.
I think this is, in some measure, one of those seemingly paradoxical bits
of folk wisdom that have burrowed their way into our culture, such as,
on the one hand:

	Haste makes waste  (meaning do not hurry)

And on the other hand:

	He who hesitates is lost  (meaning you'd better hurry up)

	Personally, I realize my own complete dependancy upon the Sovereign.
At the same time, I am aware of a deep and holy responsibility to take an
active - rather than a passive - role in serving as an instrument of Divine
will.

Peace,
Richard

| Self-help and totally placing one's life in the hands of the Lord seem
| to be contradictory.

| The phrase, in my mind has many uses: directed at someone who isn't
| doing anything but expects the Lord's help.

	This is just my opinion, but I feel that God will help us if we ask for
it, but I also don't feel in cases where we could do something about it, and
don't, isn't right. By this I mean maybe by trying to get out of it, as long as
we remember that by trying, God is there helping us. I'll give an example of
this.

	I have been looking for an apartment to live in. I have looked and
looked, and asked God to help me find a place that would be best suited for me.
I gave no specifics, just let Him do the work. Now, I went out and looked,
thought several apartments were right for me, but none of the ones "I" thought
were good for me panned through. Then I did find one that would be ok, but
there were a couple of things about it that bothered me. One was the person
living there had a cat that used furniture as a scratching post, and he smoked.
But, where as nothing else panned out, I felt this is where God felt it would
be best. But, I kept looking up until the deadline, the 12th hour. I had just
gotten back from looking at studios, and I had the realtor drop me off at the
corner, instead of at my house. I walked across the street and ran into a
friend of mine. We started talking. It came out that he was looking for a
roomate, where there was no last or security deposit required, he knows the
landlords personally, and was within my price range. So, I took it. But, if I
didn't keep looking, it never would have happened. Again, this is just my
opinion, but I strongly feel as though God wants us to trust in Him, but also
doesn't want us to become lazy and just sit back and let Him take care of us.
This I feel is taking advantage of a good thing. How do others feel?



Glen

    Glen,
    
    You expressed and illustrated my understanding of this little 
    phrase *very* well.
    
    thanks,
    Karen

    I agree with Glen.  God gives us free will.  I do not believe He wants
    me to make no use of the talents He has given me.  He wants me to do
    everything I can, to the best of my ability and to channel this
    activity to His Glory.  So therefore, whatever I think is appropriate
    to what I believe He wants, is what I do in order to fulfil His
    purposes for me.
    
    It may be different for others, Contemplative Orders for example, but
    that's what I believe He wants me to do.  This I see as helping Him to
    help me.
    
    Love,
    
    Brian.
    

    Terrible things *do* happen in the world, to us and to other people. 
    The sun shines and the rain falls on the good and the evil alike, does
    it not?  While it may be comforting to believe otherwise, not
    everything that ever happens to us or to others is necessarily "for the
    best".  To assume that God is always working behind the scenes to
    manipulate the outcome of everything that happens is not consistent at
    all with the view that humans have free will.  It is also not
    consistent with reality, unless you want to claim that, for example,
    the Nazi holocaust was ultimately for the best, ultimately served God's
    will in some way we don't understand, and was ultimately willed by God.
    As we all know, short term benefits or harm may not coincide with an
    ultimate, higher benefit, so this view isn't at all simplistic, but I
    think that the magnitude of certain atrocities (like the holocaust)
    really stretch that argument a great deal.

    There are two different kinds of theodicy here that just don't
    coincide.  One view explains the existence of evil in the world by
    saying that we have free will, and thus are free to sin against God and
    against other human beings.  Another view claims that God intervenes in
    nature and in the world to manipulate the outcome of events in some way
    that is ultimately for the best--in other words, what we think is evil
    only *seems* to be evil.  Those two views attempt to solve the problem
    of evil in opposite, and I believe contradictory, ways.  Do we have
    free will or don't we?  The problem of evil will not go away as long as
    you believe in a God who controls the world behind the scenes.

    One variant on the view that God does manipulate the world is to assume
    that bad things happen to people because they lack faith, or because
    they haven't prayed often enough or hard enough.  This view holds that
    God can be finagled to manipulate the world around us, to our ultimate
    benefit, if we just pull the right strings.  This turns the issue of
    helping ourselves back onto our own shoulders.  It then becomes *our*
    responsibility to help ourselves by asking for God's help in the right
    way.  This does not coincide with my own view of either God or the
    world, however.

    I believe that we can (and should) turn to God for guidance, but we
    also have to accept the fact that the world doesn't always match our
    expectations (or God's will) of how it should be.  And it is up to us,
    as free creatures, to take responsibility for our actions and pursue
    the building of a more just world.  This means that we can't rely on
    God to serve as a deux ex machina who will intervene in some mysterious
    way such that we will get bailed out of every unpleasant situation. 
    Sometimes our lives can crumble under the strain of the world's
    pressures; sometimes what we wish for doesn't happen; sometimes things
    are not for the best.

    I therefore believe that we have to do what we can, with God's
    guidance, to make the world a better place.  We can do so, recognizes
    that God shares in our sorrows and suffers with us when we suffer,
    because God's sympathy and compassion knows no bounds.  But we cannot
    rely on God's guidance by sitting in a corner somewhere and waiting for
    it all to happen.  We have to make it happen, or at least try to make
    it happen.  That is all that God can ask for us to do.

    -- Mike

re Note 293.17 by DEMING::VALENZA:

>     To assume that God is always working behind the scenes to
>     manipulate the outcome of everything that happens is not consistent at
>     all with the view that humans have free will.  

        I do not assume that "God is manipulating everything for
        good", yet I do believe that God works (as we all should) to
        bring about good in the midst of and following bad
        circumstances.  Romans 8:28 states: "And we know that all
        things work together for good to them that love God...." 
        Does this mean that each and every thing, good, bad, and
        terrible, is willed by God?  I don't think so.  Does this
        mean that every thing produces some good result in and of
        itself?  It doesn't seem to be saying that.  Or does it mean
        that taken together, not separately, "all things" work for
        good?

        (I think it's a separate argument to say, "Hey, God's real
        powerful, right?  If God is so concerned about good outcomes,
        why doesn't God prevent the really bad things, like the 
        holocaust, instead of trying to fix things up afterward?"  I
        don't have a completely satisfying answer to that one, but I
        suspect it has something to do with human free will.)


>     Another view claims that God intervenes in
>     nature and in the world to manipulate the outcome of events in some way
>     that is ultimately for the best--in other words, what we think is evil
>     only *seems* to be evil.  

        I don't think that the premise warrants the conclusion.  Even
        if God (and human beings) are involved in fixing up the
        outcomes of events, it doesn't follow that what seemed like
        an evil event is really good.  Evil remains evil, but good
        followed for reasons other than the evil itself.


>     Those two views attempt to solve the problem
>     of evil in opposite, and I believe contradictory, ways.  Do we have
>     free will or don't we?  The problem of evil will not go away as long as
>     you believe in a God who controls the world behind the scenes.

        Mike, perhaps a dumb question:  what is "The problem of
        evil"?  I've seen this phrase so often, yet I'm never sure
        what kind of answer is expected.  Is it like a math problem,
        work it out and out comes the answer?  Is it like a problem
        with a car, find the right answer and the problem is gone? 
        Do the people who ask about "the problem of evil" expect evil
        to disappear if only we have the right solution?

        Bob

    Bob,

    I think the "problem of evil" is of a philosophical nature.  It isn't
    concerned with eliminating evil, but with explaining how we can have
    evil in the world if God is both benevolent and omnipotent.  We are
    told that an omnipotent God intervenes in the world, and yet evil
    clearly exists.  Tackling "the problem of evil" involves trying to
    provide an answer to this question. 

    The "problem of evil" was a serious reason why I rejected belief in God
    for a long time.  When I eventually came to believe in God again, it
    was only because I rejected the premises that were at the heart of my
    original objection to a belief in God--in particularly, the premise of
    divine omnipotence (at least as it is usually conceived).  We are told
    that, on the one hand, God brings about good in the world through His
    divine intervention, and yet this same omnipotent God refrains from
    intervening all the time, and certainly not in *every* case in which
    evil occurs.  The reality of the world is that evil exists.  And some
    people seem to believe that by praying to God, we can finagle Him to
    intervene on our behalf when He would otherwise not have done so.  I
    don't agree with either of those conceptions of God.

    What I had in mind by saying that God is assumed to be "manipulating
    everything for good" is that if God is omniscient and omnipotent, then
    every decision either to intervene or not to intervene in the world
    must be based on whatever is best for the world.  The decision *not* to
    act in the world, by an omniscient and omnipotent being, is still a
    decision.  It's sort of like the song says, when you've decided not to
    choose, you've still made a choice.  This is all the more true in the
    case of God.  I was particularly thinking of Leibnitz's "Best of all
    possible worlds" theory, which was how he tried to answer the problem
    of evil.

    I think you are correct that short-term evils can still be "evil", and
    yet produce a higher good.  On the other hand, it is possible to argue
    that some short term evils may only "seem" to be evil when they
    ultimately produce a higher good.  For example, one could argue that
    suffering builds character.  Certainly, in some instances it does build
    character, but I don't think it is in any way accurate to claim that it
    always does so.  Some evil seems to be completely senseless, and only
    leads to more evil.  In any case, if you accept the view that all
    apparent evils are really for the best, then it seems to me that you
    have to believe God is ultimately  responsible for *everything* that
    happens in the world, either by intervening when necessary, or choosing
    not to intervene when the best possible result is occurring  naturally.

    This concept of "intervening" seems (to me, anyway) to emphasize God's
    transcendance.  My take on the problem of evil is based on the views of
    process theology.  I view God's role as being one of influence rather
    than control.  He acts as a divine lure, who creatively interacts with
    each occasion of experience by offering the relevant possibilities. 
    Each occasion, however, is only partly determined by its "actual world"
    (to use a term from Whitehead), which consists of past events as well
    as God's presentation of possibilities.  Process thought thus views God
    as the source of novelty, but not the sole determiner of novel
    outcomes.  God influences, but does not control, according to process
    thought.  God, through his/her creative influence, has lured creation
    to ever greater levels of complexity of experience, over billions of
    years, and this has lead to the evolution of consciousness, and in
    particular human consciousness.  The higher degrees of complexity of
    experience carry with them the *possibility* of evil; this is an
    inherent aspect of the world as we know it.  The possibility of evil is
    a necessary part of this experience, though evil itself is not.  The
    possibility of evil is the price that we pay for living meaningful
    lives.  As free creatures, we have the responsibility to work to stop
    evil through our free choices.

    My view is that God therefore works through creation, who creatively
    participates in the world, who offers novelty.  I don't view God as
    acting by manipulating the world whenever desired in order to bring out
    some desired outcome.  I do think that the problem of evil is a serious
    one if you believe that God does intervene in the world.

    -- Mike

re Note 293.19 by DEMING::VALENZA:

>     I think you are correct that short-term evils can still be "evil", and
>     yet produce a higher good.  

        I thought that I explicitly stated that evils don't produce
        goods -- higher or otherwise.  That was one of my main
        points.  On the other hand, I suggested that given that an
        evil has occurred (or is occurring), God (or a human -- I
        don't see much fundamental difference between humans working
        for good and God working for good) can make a decision and
        take action to bring about good from the circumstances at
        hand.

        The only difference is that it would seem to us that a
        prescient God could have foreseen the evil and prevented it.


>     My view is that God therefore works through creation, who creatively
>     participates in the world, who offers novelty.  I don't view God as
>     acting by manipulating the world whenever desired in order to bring out
>     some desired outcome.  I do think that the problem of evil is a serious
>     one if you believe that God does intervene in the world.

        I am probably not that far from your position as it may at
        first seem.  I don't view God as "acting by manipulating the
        world whenever desired in order to bring out some desired
        outcome" any more than humans do.  We both have our limits; 
        ours may be due to our nature, God's may be due to nature or
        choice.

        Bob

    In "The Brothers Karamazov", there is a scene where Dmitri confesses his
    recent bad fortune to his brother Alyosha.  It seems that he has been
    openly cheating on the woman his engaged to, and even stole 3000 rubles
    that his fiance entrusted to him.  In his preface to this confession, he
    philosophizes on why has he did these things.

    Much like his father, he seems to feel compelled to live out a role. In
    fact, one of the interesting things about this novel is that many of the
    characters in the novel are caught up in their respective roles; the
    father, Fyodor Karamazov, plays the buffoon, for example. One of the
    problems with living out a role, doing things because that is what the
    role demands, that the actor seems to be absolving himself from any
    moral responsibility for his actions.  Dmitri Karamazov tells his
    brother how he, in assuming his role, has debased himself:

        "I go on and I don't know whether I'm going into darkness or to
        light and joy.  That's the trouble.  Everything in the world is a
        riddle!  And whenever I've happened to sink into the vilest
        degradation (and it's always been happening) I always read that
        poem about Ceres and man.  Has it reformed me?  Never!  For I am a
        Karamazov.  For when I do leap into the pit, I go headlong with my
        heels up, and I am pleased to be falling and pride myself on it. 
        And in the very depths of that degradation I begin a hymn of praise. 
        Let me be accursed.  Let me be vile and base, only let me kiss the
        hem of the veil in which my God is shrouded.  Though I may be
        following the devil, I am Thy son, O Lord, and I love Thee."

    He is not doing these things because they make him happy.  The woman
    he is cheating on is a good person; the other woman, Grushenka, is
    much less principled.  He admits this at one point, resigning himself to
    the fate that his role has commanded.  When he marries Grushenka, he
    will simply accept what happens:  "I'll be her husband if she will have
    me, and when lovers come, I'll go into the next room.  I'll clean her
    friends' galoshes, light their samovar, run their errands."
    
    Perhaps living out a role helps to solve the dilemmas that we are faced
    with, when decisions would otherwise become difficult.  Later in the
    same scene, Dmitri repeats his complaint:  "God sets before us nothing
    but riddles."

	I am not an educated nor cultured man, Alyosha, but I've thought a
	lot about this.  It's terrible what mysteries there are!  Too many
	riddles weigh men down on earth.  We must solve them as we can, and
	try to keep a dry skin in the water.
    
    Having gotten himself into hot water, Dmitri now wants Alyosha to help
    him.  Regarding the 3000 rubles that he owes his fiance, he asks
    Alyosha to convince their father (who Dmitri despises) to provide him
    that amount as a gift.  More importantly, both he and Alyosha turn to
    God for help. Alyosha says, "I believe that God will order things for
    the best, that nothing awful will happen."  Dmitri responds, "And I
    will sit and wait for the miracle."  Dmitri adds an implication,
    however, that if the miracle doesn't happen, he may play his role
    again, this time resorting to a drastic measure that is nevertheless
    consistent with the character he is assuming--murder.

    I think this incident in Dostoyevsky's novel (which I am currently
    reading, and still have a long way to go before I finish) bears
    directly on this discussion.  Dmitri was playing a role rather than
    taking responsibility for his actions, and then waiting for God to bail
    him out.  Alyosha, the monk, is deeply religious, and certainly places
    his trust in God to resolve everything for the best.  Herein lies the
    problem, as I see it.  Rather than expecting God to bail him out, it
    seems to me that it would have been better for Dmitri to have acted
    responsibly and morally from the beginning, and to thus accept the
    consequences, whatever they might be, knowing that he did the best that
    he could.  This comes with recognizing that it is his responsibility to
    take action as necessary, and thereby to act responsibly.  This,
    instead of simply relying on God to determine the outcome and hope that
    all will turn out for the best, seems to me to be a prime example of
    "the Lord helping those who help themselves."

    -- Mike