Hacker News Reader

Comment by jact | Hacker News Reader

Some seem to intuit that divine freedom is in competition with creaturely freedom. The assumption is that when God is acting, that necessarily drives out the action and initiative of creatures, and vice versa. The ancient Christian conception is that human freedom cooperates (synergizes) with God. Jesus illustrates this concept most clearly, being both divine and human and fully free in both respects. This union is an essential part of the whole plan in this view, that God would be present in His own creation and not infinitely apart from it. In this model the free action and cooperation of created things is essential to accomplishing the divine purpose.

On the other hand, if God really does just determine everything, you basically get pantheism where everything is an immediate and direct expression of “God.” That sounds like atheism with steps.

View on HN

"On the other hand, if God really does just determine everything, you basically get pantheism where everything is an immediate and direct expression of “God.” "

Yes, or mysticism. We all exist within the mind of god. I do like those concepts more to be honest, but is indeed a quite different concept from the creator up in the clouds ruling the universe.

I do not think I share your view of what mysticism is, but this:

> the creator up in the clouds ruling the universe

is what e.g. the olympic gods were, i.e. something that Christianity decries as idols, doesn't accept to be the truth and intends to overcome.

But the olympian gods surely were not portrayed as perfect or almighty, but full of flaws.

Not as perfect, although their origins were, but almighty as in unaccountable, unquestionable, and above any natural limits, yes.

As the other reply said neither the classical Jewish or Christian view is that God is some guy literally up in the heavens sitting around all day.

Hm, as far as I know, it is sort of debated what the "classical christian view" is. But I certainly have seen lots of pictures from god in churches portrayed as the bearded guy up in the sky. It is definitely the common concept. Father, son and holy spirit. Plays a strong role with catholics

Maybe you can educate as what other "classical christian view" you know of. The pictures show a symbol for a property of God, they are not supposed to be taken literally, or do you also think, that Mary used to stand on a sickle on top of a miniature earth holding baby Jesus, which in turn holds a golden apple with a cross and in the other hand a lance that he pokes at snakes? Or that the Holy Spirit is a literal pigeon? That's not what is depicted in those images, but that would be the literal description.

Well, I don't believe any of it.

But other people certainly do. And it is not just pictures, the lords prayer literally starts with "Our Father in heaven.."

> the lords prayer literally starts with "Our Father in heaven.."

Yep. It however does not say "Our Father in sky". In English you literally have that distinction.

This is actually the crux of the argument for iconoclasm. This is why faiths like Judaism and some sects of Islam strictly forbid any representation of creation or humanity, especially to "represent" the divine or spiritual realities.

If you begin personifying everything, if you represent spiritual/invisible concepts in concrete, human terms, if you reduce transcendent concepts to the pragmatic and the visible product of a sculptor's hands, people can get really confused. I promise.

People can lose sight of that transcendence and eternal meaning behind the symbols. They can get really wrapped up in the physical manifestations. This is also the central problem with the autism spectrum and such.

Aniconism attempts to free the mind from these limiting images. If you're Muslim and you contemplate a building with nothing but artistic words and text scrawled all over it, you obtain a far different result than contemplating a richly symbolic statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Many people have the intellect and the insight to go beyond that concrete imagery, but not all.

True. The reason why Christianity broke that is that Jesus was a human physically existing on earth. I think seeing Jesus as a white european, a black african, and a chinese person or in Renaissance clothes should bring the point across that it is not about what is literally depicted, but yeah some people might not get it. The question is would they get it without the imagery or do the simply lack the will or ability to perceive God as transcendent?

St. Augustine on “seeing” God:

“Do not imagine God according to the lust of your eyes. If you do, you will create for yourself a huge form or an incalculable magnitude which (like the light which you see with your bodily eyes) extends in every direction. Your imagination lets it fill realm after realm of space, all the vastness you can conceive of. Or maybe you picture for yourself a venerable-looking old man. Do not imagine any of these things. If you would see God, here is what you should imagine: God is love“

Reply on news.ycombinator.com