 Posted Wednesday, March 25, 2009 9:53 PM
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Jennifer,
What a loving and respectful response. Thank you for that. And for trying to help me understand what you are sure is the truth. One thing that occurred to me, maybe for the first time, is that you must think that by not calling Jesus God, we CS are making Jesus out to be less than what you think he is. I really don't think that's true, though. I think we completely acknowledge Jesus' perfection and divinity, the power of God that was, both literally and figuratively, at his fingertips, and the vital role he played (and still plays) in bringing salvation to mortals. Our man, Jesus, when understood as the spiritual reflection of the one Mind, is, I think, virtually the same as your God, Jesus, except in name. I totally accept Jesus as the Word (or Idea) of God made (manifest in the) flesh. The fact that he was the Word made flesh is the reason he could heal as he did. So, although I suppose no one here will find this acceptable, I still believe that our view of Jesus does not diminish his holiness, his mission or his importance in any way. More important, at least to me, is that our view of Jesus does not limit or diminish God either (whereas believing God to be even a fabulously good and pure human is very much limiting and diminishing His true spiritual glory), and allows for a much more cohesive reading of the Bible as well. When I tried to read the Bible from the perspective that Jesus was God in the flesh, rather than the idea of God in the flesh, I found too many conflicting statements and it just didn't work. But when I read it the other way, it all makes perfect sense. And even though Mrs. Eddy does make a conceptual separation between Jesus and the Christ, it's not a separation in fact. In fact, Mrs Eddy says, "Jesus was the highest human concept of the perfect man. He was inseparable from Christ, the Messiah,--the divine idea of God outside the flesh" (S&H 482). CS people understand that the Christ came to earth in the form of Jesus and that Jesus was absolutely necessary to deliver the Christ message and to fulfill Biblical prophesy concerning the coming of the Christ. I don't know what you mean when you say "you're open to anyone who wants to slip in and say they've got him" but I do know that there is plenty of disagreement regarding what the Bible says about the manner of Jesus' return, though perhaps it doesn't seem that way to you since I guess there is general agreement among Catholics about the meaning of what is said on this topic.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate your avoiding the route that would require you to argue in a way that attacks Mrs. Eddy. You are right to think that would turn me off. I know you think you now know how God intends for everyone to read the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's way is not it, so it must be hard to resist such impulses. Maybe it would make you feel better to know that I've heard it all already anyway, but it doesn't convince me because when it comes right down to it, for me anyway, your view simply does not make sense, and hers does. I wish I could convince you to consider the possibility that the Catholic view is not necessarily the way God intends for the Bible to be read. But I will leave you to think for yourself about your beliefs since you have kindly done the same for me.
Susan,
I understand you too feel you have found the truth, but I want you to know that I have always loved John too - John is my favorite of the gospels - because it seems to be the most spiritual account of Jesus' life. And when Doubting Thomas says My Lord and My God, well, it makes sense to me that he would see God in the idea of God and so this statement doesn't interfere with a CS reading of the text. The same goes, in my mind at least, for the passage in Isaiah. People will see the savior and see God's own likeness, and call him the Mighty God and the Everlasting Father because he reflects all the qualities embodied by those titles. But most importantly, I want to communicate my belief that saying God cannot dwell in a limited human body is not limiting God, infinite Spirit, in any way. It is only by confining Him (or His idea for that matter) to a limited human form that God can be seen as limited. Again, I suppose that will not make sense to you. It is really hard to discuss ideas with those who hold a fundamentally different belief system because words are not really adequate to explain spiritual ideas, at least that's my view. So I apologize if I have stepped on your toes in my clumsy attempt to try to explain my views.
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Posted Thursday, March 26, 2009 7:53 PM
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Anonymous,
I want to communicate my belief that saying God cannot dwell in a limited human body is not limiting God, infinite Spirit, in any way. It is only by confining Him (or His idea for that matter) to a limited human form that God can be seen as limited.
Christian Science does limit God in many ways especially in regard to His nature. For instance if God is all good He cannot see or know evil or if He is all perfect He cannot create imperfection. If God is truly ALL and in all then there is no place for any imperfection. There is not a single rock in the outskirts of perfection where imperfection can hide or manifest itself as it does in Genesis 2:6. If God is all Almighty then it seems to me that there is nothing that God could not do and that would include creating matter.
There is enough difficult subject matter in Christianity without trying to change the nature of God into something that in the end creates more problems than it solves.
May God Bless You,
Al
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Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 9:31 PM
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Hey Al,
It's so interesting to me to see how very different perspectives can be! It never would have occurred to me to think of not knowing evil as a limitation! Wow - that's kind of mind blowing for me; I'll have to give that some thought. I'm thinking that it's exactly because He's Almighty that he wouldn't have created limited and flawed matter. The Bible does say that He created man in his image and likeness, after all. How can limited, flawed matter be the image and likeness of Spirit? To me, material life seems majorly screwed up. Life in matter is nothing but a terminal disease, after all! But Life in God is exactly the opposite. Does it seriously make sense to you that the image and likeness of a perfect God would be so imperfect? I just don't get it. One thing you said I do agree with, sort of. I think since God is all powerful, that he could (theoretically) create matter if he wanted to. But why would he want to? It would be like Michelangelo making a drawing like the one on my refrigerator (created by a four-year old) instead of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Sure, he could do it, but it would definitely not reflect his amazing artistic abilities, so why would he? Why do something shoddy when he can do something amazing? The God in the Bible is definitely an amazing one - I don't think He would ever settle for shoddy work.
Please don't take this the wrong way - I'm not trying to slam your understanding. It's just really hard for me to grasp how this view of God as the creator of matter can seem sensible.
Peace
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Posted Sunday, April 05, 2009 9:41 PM
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Huh? Anonymous *1,
I don't understand what in the world are you talking about?
I live in a world of beautiful trees, majestic snow capped mountains, valleys filled with wild flowers, towns and cities populated with wonderful people, farms, gardens, factories and shops that provide me with every comfort and convenience known to man. Arts and sciences that blow the mind. Talented, gifted children and adults that do the most incredible things.......and you are telling us that this is a shoddy world? ? ? Hey, back up! The world is a mess because a small percentage of people got mean and greedy and tricked the rest of the people into fighting wars for them. It's as simple as that. It is not God's faulty workmanship!
This is a magnificent place, and people are fearfully and wonderfully made. Be grateful you're not in hell. I sure am grateful.
Your sentiments regarding God's handiwork seems down right ungrateful of you. The rain falls on the forests, on the gardens and we have growth! The clouds come and go. The sky is a beautiful movie all on its own. Because of the bees and butterflies we have flowers and fruits and foods. Listening to the birds is an absolute thrill! I am so grateful to be alive on this beautiful God-given planet, eating the fruits of the land, having health care at my disposal. Food on every street corner. Sanitation. Incredible entertainments, too. If you don't think this place is good enough for you why don't you just levitate yourself out of here?
................so glad I am not a CSist any more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Posted Monday, April 06, 2009 8:36 AM
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AMEN!
CS is so warped and I am also so happy not to have to spend untold hours,days,months and years trying to unsee everything that is around me and most of all my precious body that I can now take care of and love as it has allowed me to love.It's amazing to have woken up!
I won't even pretend to understand what God is and will NEVER AGAIN be told.I don't think anyone knows and most of all Mrs.Eddy.
Isn't it amazing how an unhappy and disturbed individual can essentially make up their own version of "the truth" and then people follow along like sheep putting their children and themselves at risk???!!!
Here's a toast to freedom!
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Posted Monday, April 06, 2009 4:59 PM
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If you folks are all going to stay anonymous, I guess I'll have to reply by #. Post 15878, I'd like to try to speak to your concerns, if you don't mind.
Actually other views can be refreshing, and inspiring, if taken with openness -and of course some
caution. Consider for a moment the beauty of a favorite tree. Picture the branches, bare in the winter, then with buds, and then in the summer fully green and whispering in the wind. Some love the autumn colors best. I love it all. The thing is, as soon as you go to draw or paint this tree, you find that nothing is as perfect as it appears. It's visual beauty is comprised of asymmetry, variety, shades of difference in size, color, shape... all kinds of things. This apparently material tree is anything but perfect, but it is perfect exactly that way. (Sit under lots of trees!) It was pure genius to make it that way. It attests to the omniscience of God. Infinite variety is one of the characteristics rampant on this earth. That must be some creator!
There's a prophet who questioned God about his ability to see evil. Habakkuk only has 3 chapters accredited to this conversation with God. His conclusions and answers are VERY INTERESTING. If God is of "too pure eyes" HOW or WHY would he look and see? As you consider Al's perspective, you might like to take Habakkuk's thoughts into account. (It'll mean more if you see it for yourself, so I won't attempt to summarize it, for risk of "ruining" it.)
As for material life seeming to be a mess, I think there's a lot to that perception. I don't know how we're going to get out of the mess we're in at the moment. To me, it's comforting to figure that God knows, and has the answers. Moreover, we can go to him (in prayer) and ask! He was patient in answering Habakkuk and Gideon; he's more than patient with us. I suspect there's a lot that God wants us to understand.
The origin of disease, as much as the Bible tells, seems to be traceable back to Genesis, when Adam and Eve fell to the temptation to disobey God and believe another's word over God's word... and they ate "the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Death was the penalty. Some conclude it wasn't their instant death, or that would have been a very short story. Thinking about it for a moment, old age never stopped anyone's life. Disease did. Injury to that same body could.
I'm not a theologian, but it isn't hard to see. John in Revelation describes a place where there is no disease or death. No sin either, and no serpent-dragon-devil. Coincidence?
I'm not going to draw any further conclusions here, since we are all from varying denominations, and I'd be treading on some toes! I can comment that we're not likely to feel all at home until we're forever in God's home.
As for mankind being image and likeness of God, I've heard some interesting thoughts on that. Physically we're each more different than snowflakes. Moses in Deut. 4 pointed out that when the Israelites heard God's voice at Horeb, they saw no shape. Yet Genesis 1 has us as image and likeness. No doubt it's true. However, it must mean something different than the obvious.
Jesus had all kinds of fun, working with and around matter. God's name could be glorified in all kinds of ways. This life may seem messed up, sometimes, but it's got the raw materials for the most important results of all. We can obey God, even in material bodies, with all kinds of problems surrounding us. We have opportunities to love our neighbors as ourselves, exactly because our neighbor can feel cold or hungry. I'm not saying that's the way we want to stay eternally. Just that it's got lots of room for creativity and reflecting God's goodness and love here and now.
I don't think matter is the generic bad guy, in life's situations. Disobedience to God is far worse. Matter is actually kind of neutral, when you think about it. Wind, fish, loaves, seasons, rotation of planets... all kinds of matter (and laws of nature) obey God's commands. IF they didn't we would be in a mess. Matter just exists, and only because God said so. No other reason. He knew the potential.
Don't take this wrong, but some very famous artists were of the opinion that all children are natural art geniuses. What they lack in precision, they often make up for in qualities portrayed, freedom, imagination and untarnished joy. Treasure their work if you're lucky enough to be given it. Children are special treasures to Jesus. Have fun with them, and don't miss more of their wonder than you have to!
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Posted Thursday, April 09, 2009 9:01 PM
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Hey Jennifer,
15787 here  . Thanks for your take on this. Just for the record, I agree that the profound beauty and infinite variety of nature attests to the genius of an omniscient creator. But I don't think the asymmetry, the variety, or the differences in size, color, and shape indicate imperfection. It's the sin, disease, and death that seem to go hand in hand with the beauty that I can't reconcile with an all-good, all-powerful creator. But that's no reason for me not to believe that God doesn't know the answers to the questions and problems of the world. I know He does. I just don't think those answers include God creating or using evil to accomplish His purposes.
So glad you can see that the words of the Bible can mean something other than the obvious! Usually we CS get a lot of flack for saying that  . I started to write out my take on Habakkuk, because I think it can mean something other than the obvious, but I decided that it's not very loving or helpful to try to make my view make sense to you, especially here at this site (if you want to get a CS view of that scripture, however, try posting a question on christianscience.com's discussion board!). But your comments about the snowflakes, hmmm.... you see, I would use those as an example of how something that is made in the image and likeness of something else can still take on an infinite variety of forms. Just like men and women, who take an infinite variety of forms, sizes, colors, talents, etc, and yet are still all made in His image and likeness. I agree that Jesus had all kinds of fun working with matter, but only because he could demonstrate through the instant transformation of matter that evil had no power to stand when confronted by the Christ.
About matter, well, I guess I think of matter as kind of neutral too, but not in the way you do. Matter is neutral, from my perspective, because I've come to see that it tends to behave however people believe it should. But all the good you see in matter, I just think that's the objectified view of spiritual good, and it's the evil, only, that is unreal.
About the kids, yeah, I didn't really mean there is anything wrong with a child's drawing. I have a beautiful drawing of a tree, a flower, a sun, and a little girl drawn by a four-year-old friend on my refrigerator at this moment, and believe me, I adore it! I've also framed tons of artwork that my own children have produced as they've been growing up and have hung it up all over my house. I don't think there is anything wrong with it - it is perfect! But for my perfect Heavenly Father to make me (or my sweet and innocent children, or you for that matter), to make any one of His loved children a miserable sinner, one who is bound to screw up and suffer the consequences, one He might or might not save - that is not perfection, not in my book.
Still, one thing I have learned from your posts is that there is a lot more of comfort in the Catholic faith than I ever realized before, and I'm glad to know because I have many friends who are Catholic, and I feel I understand better where there are coming from now.
All the best
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Posted Friday, April 10, 2009 10:56 AM
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Dear One And All,
warning: don't read this if you want sweet talk......
I thought this forum was a place where former CSists supported each other in directions other than back toward CS again. In my view the practicing CSists who are posting here, engaging others in debates are just like foxes in the hen house with all their intellectualizing trying to reason with us, not respecting any of us enough to even bother making up a cute little name for themselves so we could at least tell who was who and who said what to who or better yet, whose post to avoid reading!
As far as my time and emotions go I value them enormously; they are among my greatest treasures and enough of those treasures were wasted by the CS church rhetoric and intellectual blabber back in the days when I was still trying to understand them and be one of them.
Well, I failed miserably at understanding CS and trying to be one of them. And so, since I am such a CS failure, I am totally NOT interested in wasting my time now trying to sort through the posts here trying to figure out who is supportive of my emotions as a defector from CS and who is trying to reason people back into MBE's sticky horror show disguised as love, truth and compassion.
I think that the posters of the CS rhetoric that "everything-is-wonderful-nobody-is-bad-or-sick-or-going-to-die-and-Jesus-was-not-God-so-Happy -CS-let-me-shove-it-down-your-throat-with-sugar-and syrupy-talk" is blatantly inappropriate here. I thought this forum was for a new life APART from CS. ..................... Scold me if I am wrong.
It wastes my time trying to sort through posts about all the ways we ought to try rethinking our CS heritage and givie MBE another chance. Especially you long winded people who debate such CS stuff that most of us here are trying like real champions to recover from. If you CS drop-outs think you are going to save a practicing CS by reasoning with them I think you are simply helping them to hone their skills at talking more vulnerable seekers into the CS sticky web!! It's good for them, toxic for us .... Sorry Jen, but that is how I feel about your well-intended intellectual post to this sweet CSist with her own agenda to talk former CSists back into the web. It may be fun for the two of you, but it is inappropriate and unsupportive of the rest of us who may not have had such a strong or total recovery as we would like, and are still recoiling from CS; (avoiding is often the best antidote to poison; and I feel that CS style of reasoning is poison as well as a bonafide, full-fledged addiction ....... It is my view, if we wanted to hear the CS view we would be on the CS site and not on this forum! .......Again scold me if I am wrong.
I say all of this in love for all people, it is not people or souls or even intellectuals that I am at issue with.
Signed,
no more CS 4 me.
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Posted Friday, April 10, 2009 11:35 AM
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I thought this forum was a place where former CSists supported each other in directions other than back toward CS again. In my view the practicing CSists who are posting here, engaging others in debates are just like foxes in the hen house with all their intellectualizing trying to reason with us, not respecting any of us enough to even bother making up a cute little name for themselves so we could at least tell who was who and who said what to who or better yet, whose post to avoid reading! no more CS 4 me, I understand where you're coming from on this based on my own experience. There were times during my recovery when CS thinking patterns felt really toxic to me. It WOULD be helpful if all participants, including CSists, would put some sort of identifier on their anonymous posts. We broke the threads into categories in order to protect people who may not want to read about certain issues (like doctrine, for example). A thread entitled "What did Mrs. Eddy consider 'the inspired Word?' is bound to attract participation by CSists, so I'd recommend not getting involved in threads with this sort of title if you don't want to deal with CS logic.
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Posted Friday, April 10, 2009 3:33 PM
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CS 4 me,
I am (apparently) the “CS-let-me-shove-it-down-your-throat-with-sugar-and syrupy-talk,” so don’t read on if you don’t want to know what I have to say. But, here’s the thing – if this forum just concentrated on supporting ex-CSists in transitioning to another lifestyle, I wouldn’t post here. However, clearly there are a lot of former CSists who still want to think and talk about CS. And much of what is said about it seems so wrong (you know, from my perspective as a CSist). My agenda is not to “talk former CSists back into the web” as you say but simply to set the record straight, if possible, when CS is being misrepresented. I also naively hoped to be able to build some bridges between CS and former CS people, not to convert people back to the fold, but simply to allow for the possibility that we could all show respect for both perspectives. Since the forum announcements say that active CSists are welcome to participate, I assumed these motives were not out of line. But I guess that’s just wishful thinking on my part. And I suppose you are right about this kind of exchange being fundamentally pointless, so I will think about keeping my views to myself in the future.
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