This forum was closed on October 1st, 2010. However, the archives are open to the public and filled with vast amounts of good reading and information for you to enjoy. If you wish to meet some Wardrobians, please visit the Into the Wardrobe Facebook group.

The Lord Less High

The Lord Less High

Postby AllanS » May 18th, 2009, 11:46 pm

Suppose there exists a god who is Omnieverything minus 1. Almost absolute, but not quite. Perhaps every trillion years he tells a white lie. Or if it came to a contest of power with the Lord Most High, he would be weaker by one microgram.

Would we be able to tell the difference between the Lord Less High and the Lord Most High? And would it matter?

Putting it another way, if Jesus did sin, just the tiniest tiniest bit, what would have happened? Would the universe have blinked out? Would God have imploded? Or is the question meaningless?
“And turn their grief into song?" he replied. "That would be a gracious act and a good beginning."

Quid and Harmony: a fund-raising project for the Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. www.smithysbook.com
User avatar
AllanS
 
Posts: 1093
Joined: Jul 2004
Location: Hobart Tasmania

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby Stanley Anderson » May 19th, 2009, 2:10 pm

Certainly for mathematical systems, if you can demonstrate the (seemingly) tiniest contradiction anywhere in the system, you can demonstrate that that contradiction "ripples" through the entire system making anything and everything inconsistent and contradictory. For example if you were somehow able to demonstrate that something we might never "actually" run across in a million years, say, that "pi to the hundred millionth power equals pi to the hundred millionth power plus 1", such a demonstration would immediately allow you to prove any other mathematical condition, say, 1+1=5 or 7 = 5,000,007 or anything at all. It would be cataclysmic for that system.

Can one extrapolate from there to a theological idea about God? I certainly would myself, but that's about as far as I could go in terms of a "convincing argument" to give to someone else. Something like this is probably what Lewis had in mind when he had Aslan respond in LWW to the suggestion that he simply take the traitor Edmund back from the White Witch about the consequences of such a seemingly simple action.

And of course one could wander into all sorts of interesting (but probably ultimately unanswerable) speculations about how something like this is apparently exactly what happened to the otherwise impenetrable gates of death when the innocent lamb of God was slain -- the whole world was turned upside down and reborn (and then given a slap on the butt to start it breathing in the new atmosphere it was born into?:-)

--Stanley
…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
User avatar
Stanley Anderson
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 3251
Joined: Aug 1996
Location: Southern California

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby Bluegoat » May 19th, 2009, 6:14 pm

User avatar
Bluegoat
 
Posts: 206
Joined: Dec 2008
Location: Nova Scotia

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby Tuke » May 19th, 2009, 8:39 pm

"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

2 Corinthians IV.17 The Weight of Glory
User avatar
Tuke
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 971
Joined: Jun 2007
Location: Florida

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby AllanS » May 19th, 2009, 10:59 pm

“And turn their grief into song?" he replied. "That would be a gracious act and a good beginning."

Quid and Harmony: a fund-raising project for the Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. www.smithysbook.com
User avatar
AllanS
 
Posts: 1093
Joined: Jul 2004
Location: Hobart Tasmania

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby cyranorox » May 20th, 2009, 5:00 pm

Apocatastasis Now!
cyranorox
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 283
Joined: Dec 2007
Location: a garret over a moonlit street

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby Tuke » May 20th, 2009, 9:03 pm

"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

2 Corinthians IV.17 The Weight of Glory
User avatar
Tuke
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 971
Joined: Jun 2007
Location: Florida

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby AllanS » May 20th, 2009, 9:52 pm

“And turn their grief into song?" he replied. "That would be a gracious act and a good beginning."

Quid and Harmony: a fund-raising project for the Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. www.smithysbook.com
User avatar
AllanS
 
Posts: 1093
Joined: Jul 2004
Location: Hobart Tasmania

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby cyranorox » May 21st, 2009, 12:59 am

Apocatastasis Now!
cyranorox
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 283
Joined: Dec 2007
Location: a garret over a moonlit street

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby AllanS » May 21st, 2009, 6:42 am

“And turn their grief into song?" he replied. "That would be a gracious act and a good beginning."

Quid and Harmony: a fund-raising project for the Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. www.smithysbook.com
User avatar
AllanS
 
Posts: 1093
Joined: Jul 2004
Location: Hobart Tasmania

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby Bluegoat » May 21st, 2009, 10:39 am

User avatar
Bluegoat
 
Posts: 206
Joined: Dec 2008
Location: Nova Scotia

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby cyranorox » May 22nd, 2009, 3:55 pm

Apocatastasis Now!
cyranorox
Wardrobian
 
Posts: 283
Joined: Dec 2007
Location: a garret over a moonlit street

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby sehoy » May 23rd, 2009, 11:05 pm

I know you want to hash it out. so have at it, but...

You have to read, if you haven't already, "Jesus of Nazareth" by Joseph Ratzinger. On page 33 he starts talking about the first temptation of Jesus, and in two pages front and back he knocks it out of the ballpark.
cor meum vigilat
User avatar
sehoy
 
Posts: 586
Joined: Nov 1999
Location: TN, USA

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby AllanS » May 23rd, 2009, 11:54 pm

Hi Chris,

Thanks for that recommendation.

As for hashing the question out, I don't think so. Whenever I try to get a handle on God, I end up drowning. I get confused and increasingly depressed. I can't lift that mountain. I love Ps 131. The writer says he's given up trying to understand. Instead, he rests his soul in God's loving arms. Let God be God, and Man be Man.

Here are some things I do understand (enough, at least, to enjoy them). That's Levi, grandchild #3. And my magnificent Kubota.

Image
“And turn their grief into song?" he replied. "That would be a gracious act and a good beginning."

Quid and Harmony: a fund-raising project for the Fistula Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. www.smithysbook.com
User avatar
AllanS
 
Posts: 1093
Joined: Jul 2004
Location: Hobart Tasmania

Re: The Lord Less High

Postby sehoy » May 24th, 2009, 11:03 pm

cor meum vigilat
User avatar
sehoy
 
Posts: 586
Joined: Nov 1999
Location: TN, USA

Next

Return to Religion, Science, and Philosophy

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered members and 16 guests

cron