Interventionist God or Non Interventionist God?

[revsdd]

Why do your posts sound like commercial breaks, repeating your website everytime?

Actually, @Dave Henderson has posted 6 times in this thread and has mentioned his website once. Not every time. Even in the thread he started to announce United With God, by my count he's made 26 posts of which only 5 directly mention his website. Again - not every time. Not even close to every time.

 

[PilgrimsProgress]

What does God's influence look like? And how do you know it's God?

It's not clever to join in a conversation that has been ongoing -without yet reading everything - but, as Process theology is the framework that works best for my faith I'll try and answer this.......
God's influence doesn't necessarily coincide with what you want to do. It's an inner calling that, if ignored, will come again. It can come through other people, dreams, signs, "coincidences". It's referred to as God's lure, and you are free to reject or accept it. Often it seems very challenging, and you thus might originally reject it, which also means you might accept it on a later occasion.

 

[PilgrimsProgress]

God is an interventionist being even if we do not believe she is actively so. That is because God's very being - even the concept of his being - intervenes in our thoughts, our feelings, our perceptions of life, the world, the divine. But however you answer Waterfall's questions, it leads to the inevitable questions already thrown into this soup pot by previous posters: If God is interventionist, why all the suffering? If God is interventionist, how can it be quantified? Boy, are we a gaggle of deep thinkers.

In the framework of Process Theology God doesn't intervene. God's role is one of support. Power in the sense of being in control, being able to intervene, is decidedly a human concept of power. God's power resides in unconditional love and in relationship with us.

 

[Luce NDs]

It's certainly something we've all asked ourselves in our valley journeys Bette the Red. So many of the Psalms in my sacred scriptures begin with hurting people crying out; "How can you let this happen? Why haven't you reached out? Where ARE you?" (paraphrased) Any attempt to justify or explain God's inaction in the context of loss, always sound trite and superficial to me. When faced with the sorrow of death, Jesus wept. Like we all do. Where was Jesus when my sister drowned? I don't know. But I do know He was at my shoulder, weeping with me in my sorrow.

Because we don't love the alternate intervention ... as a sheave of intelligence leading to a thorn of pain of knowing a beta path?

One should have a partner in crime of learning something strange ... like love itself as a mystery or myth that appears to have replaced itself with hate, anger and fear in the human race to succeeding in the normal business of living ... beating the crap of thought out of the other ... tis a threat to a stunned state! If you've been struck by excessive passions ...

 

[Luce NDs]

In the framework of Process Theology God doesn't intervene. God's role is one of support. Power in the sense of being in control, being able to intervene, is decidedly a human concept of power. God's power resides in unconditional love and in relationship with us.

Is this a different process, a progress away from crazy love, towards a moderate love? Would polity (extreme) supporters allow that to go on? Thus they believe it must end ... however there may be eternal entanglements at the termination of one part ... thus immaterial extensions and psychic vacuity! This may be abstract in the form of incubus and succubus if you felt that drawing towards knowing better ... they are a mental pairing in the Baucus of Sophia ... encounter with unknown wisdom in the passions of man a denied immaterial stuff ... but one is not supposed to believe in non-substantial ghosts ... like Shadows of thought! Inserts black spots in the glow Erie of passion that too ... is right out of here ... the mill? The grind goes on ... as abstraction ... once one has been knocked about!

 

[revsdd]

In the framework of Process Theology God doesn't intervene. God's role is one of support. Power in the sense of being in control, being able to intervene, is decidedly a human concept of power. God's power resides in unconditional love and in relationship with us.

I can accept that to the extent that you say that "God doesn't intervene." In other words, it's a divine choice. But where you go from there (this is not a criticism, by the way, just an observation of the differences between us) is why I cannot be a follower of Process theology. I believe that God can intervene directly and decisively if God chooses to, and I believe that God has at times and in some situation done so. I would also say that "luring" or "influencing" is a form of divine intervention, which leaves it to the person being lured to make the decision of whether or not to be lured. Thus, free will. I did think that these words:

God's influence doesn't necessarily coincide with what you want to do. It's an inner calling that, if ignored, will come again. It can come through other people, dreams, signs, "coincidences". It's referred to as God's lure, and you are free to reject or accept it. Often it seems very challenging, and you thus might originally reject it, which also means you might accept it on a later occasion.

are a good summary of what I would consider quite mainstream Christian faith. God lures, God calls, but God does not coerce. I believe God's plan is more of a "big picture" plan that will be worked out and that God is directing, but I do not believe that God micromanages our lives or creation. In effect, God has created conditions that will lead to a certain and definite outcome, but there are variables in terms of how that outcome comes about.

I liked your two posts, even if I didn't completely agree with the second. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

 

[Luce NDs]

I like the use of "ignore" in denial most mortals miss so much and thus myst-Eire and myth! Causes Eris in curios ... as to what was unnaturally pressed on as being pure as sextant ... chaste as to where one is headed if you don't know the blind source?

Tis a wild passion ... kills many persona's ... like house held violence ... the desire for power ... IT corrupts the presence of thought!

 

[Dave Henderson]

Actually, @Dave Henderson has posted 6 times in this thread and has mentioned his website once. Not every time. Even in the thread he started to announce United With God, by my count he's made 26 posts of which only 5 directly mention his website. Again - not every time. Not even close to every time.

Hi revsdd, I mentioned my website in this thread only as a quasi- humorous response to Chansen.

 

[revsdd]

Hi revsdd, I mentioned my website in this thread only as a quasi- humorous response to Chansen.

I get that Dave. I guess I'm just both a bit bemused and a bit bothered that promoting a website that essentially says a church should celebrate God as described in its own statements of faith actually seems to grate on some people.

 

[Dave Henderson]

Why do your posts sound like commercial breaks, repeating your website everytime?

Hi Mrs. Anteater, I mentioned the website in this thread only as a quasi-humorous response to a post by Chansen. Having said that, I certainly don't want to become an irritant regarding the United With God campaign. I pledge myself to ensure that I do not.

 

[Mendalla]

I would also say that "luring" or "influencing" is a form of divine intervention, which leaves it to the person being lured to make the decision of whether or not to be lured. Thus, free will.

Exactly. While "divine intervention" is often taken to be direct action like miracles and burning bushes and the like, the mere act of God communicating with humanity through any means for the purpose of advancing God's purpose is an intervention. Process, if anything, proposes a God who is very actively and constantly intervening in the world, just not normally in a way that is directly visible as being God since it consists of inspiring other beings to action rather than of acting directly.

 

[Mendalla]

Exactly. While "divine intervention" is often taken to be direct action like miracles and burning bushes and the like, the mere act of God communicating with humanity through any means for the purpose of advancing God's purpose is an intervention. Process, if anything, proposes a God who is very actively and constantly intervening in the world, just not normally in a way that is directly visible as being God since it consists of inspiring other beings to action rather than of acting directly.

And, really, that's what make process (and panentheism in general) appealing to me as a vision of a personal God. You don't need to see big, splashy events to see God being active in the world in process. God's presence is felt in the little nudges and small beauties, an ongoing quiet "lure" rather than a finger of God from the sky. It is felt in people working for justice and love anywhere and regardless of what they believe. It fits well with the world as I see it.

So why don't I believe it now?

Because I don't see a transcendent personal presence in the little nudges and beauties or in the people working for love and justice. I simply see a complex, beautiful existence and people recognizing and being guided by what is best in our humanity.

Perhaps that transcendent personal presence is there and I'm just feeling it "wrong" but this is how I see things.

And even if I did, I'm not sure it would lead me to Christianity. Process came out of contemporary philosophy, not the Bible, and while the idea of God's message being incarnate in a human being (a kind of lure) doesn't violate process theology, it certainly is not required by it either. One could be Hindu, Jew, Muslim, pagan, or whatever and follow a process vision of God. There is nothing that especially ties process theology to Christianity other than the fact that the early process thinkers came from that background.

 

[Tabitha]

Came across this song in a movie. I like it. It speaks of not believing in an interventionist God-but knowing others do. Well worth a listen.

 

[Waterfall]

Thanks Tabitha, I almost posted that song in the OP. It's a good song.

 

[Dave Henderson]

In the framework of Process Theology God doesn't intervene. God's role is one of support. Power in the sense of being in control, being able to intervene, is decidedly a human concept of power. God's power resides in unconditional love and in relationship with us.

Hi Pilgrim's Progress, The point I am making is that the very presence of God, or the concept of God is interventionist. We are all sitting at our leedle keyboards and devices talking about God. God has intervened in our day just by her presence. As for intervention being a concept of human power, I respectfully disagree. As a living, sentient being, God does have the ability to intervene and does so. I understand this may be an essential point of divergence for us, and one where we may have to agree to disagree.

 

[Waterfall]

Hi Pilgrim's Progress, The point I am making is that the very presence of God, or the concept of God is interventionist. We are all sitting at our leedle keyboards and devices talking about God. God has intervened in our day just by her presence. As for intervention being a concept of human power, I respectfully disagree. As a living, sentient being, God does have the ability to intervene and does so. I understand this may be an essential point of divergence for us, and one where we may have to agree to disagree.

Of course then you're left with the concept that God chooses not to intervene quite a bit. What do you do with that?

 

[Luce NDs]

Of course then you're left with the concept that God chooses not to intervene quite a bit. What do you do with that?

Oh Lord let it be ...

 

[chansen]

Hi Pilgrim's Progress, The point I am making is that the very presence of God, or the concept of God is interventionist. We are all sitting at our leedle keyboards and devices talking about God. God has intervened in our day just by her presence. As for intervention being a concept of human power, I respectfully disagree. As a living, sentient being, God does have the ability to intervene and does so. I understand this may be an essential point of divergence for us, and one where we may have to agree to disagree.

If we talk about Harry Potter, then Harry Potter has intervend in our lives. What you're saying can be applied to any fictional character, immediately becoming a "presense".

More truthfully, JK Rowling and the authors, translators and editors of the bible still have a presense.

 

[chansen]

Fair enough Chansen...I look forward to future backup.

I look forward to evidence of your proclamations as well.

 

[paradox3]

Thanks Tabitha, I almost posted that song in the OP. It's a good song.

Yes, it's lovely. Reminded me of Cohen.