#Opposite of noteworthy how to#
#Opposite of noteworthy free#

Yet this is the result of a forgetfulness. 'Why do you insist on imposing your artificial, mythical categories on this great mystery? Why do you try to possess, control this great 'What' with the machinations of your puny language? You, who try to make god into someone like yourself-are you not just a metaphysical colonist? Have you not sabotaged our rational reflection with a human desire? While we are thinking, are you not merely emoting?'

#Opposite of noteworthy how to#

Nobody reads Heidegger anymore but everybody knows his critique, and how to lobby it against believers in a personal deity. But whatever it is, it is never 'personal'-such is an insult, either to the ineffable grouund of all being, or to the process of reasoning about it (which, funny enough, are sometimes hard to distinguish).

The only difference is that the 'god of the philosophers', if it is spoken about at all, is sometimes called a fifth dimension, or else it takes on Heidegger's critique and becomes the ineffable 'Ereignis'. I should say, not so much 'birth' but rather resucitation-these are nothing more than Aristotle's 'unmoved mover' and the deities of the Illiad, respectively. The result of this is the birth of two false gods: the god of the philosophers, and the god of process theology-either the impersonal, rationally necessary, ineffable One Beyond Being which has no will, does not command or reveal, or the personal, dynamic, changing, sympathetic, finite god(s) who are the objects of worship, and have demonstrable freedom, but always veer on the edge of absurdity, or else topple over it. In my opinion, the beginning of modernity corresponded with a forgetfulness of the non-competitive otherness of God a forgetfulness that God is that which is greater than that than which nothing greater can be thought.

#Opposite of noteworthy free#

Ockham's description of God as free is the seed of creeping modern despair at the self-revelation of God. The God who saves through a scratch on Jesus's hand or through incarnation as a mule, is a God who says one thing and does another who confounds his creatures, who indeed does not reveal himself. Part of the blame for this may lie on William of Ockham, who distorted God's freedom into a sort of a joke he thought he could glorify God's freedom by describing God as if he had total freedom but no love, no honesty, no self-consistency, who had no purpose for creation.

God's own freedom is a notion in theology which tends to be shoved to the back. Look-you can see them here as slaves to logic, and this man on the hill comes to free them.' Thus Christians are set apart by this, and it is acting out of thankfulness which is the singular, inique, concrete way that God breaks in upon a world, offends the logic of sin, to 'proclaim liberty to captives' and 'let the oppressed go free.' See: I, Robot, Sunny's explanaion of his dream: 'This is the place where robots meet. This is not merely an invisible, individual teaching, but in the Church, the Spirit teaches us to thank God in a way that is truly pleasing to him. But the Spirit teaches us to pray, for 'we do not know how to pray as we ought' (Rom 8:26). Yet presented with so unsurpassable a gift, we should be totally powerless to thank God were it not for the Holy Spirit, God's sacrifice of his Son could be an occasion for despair. He is also aware of God's ultimate self-gift in his Son, who truly makes our breathing worthwhile. The Christian is aware not only of the gift of God's continuous creation-that God gives us each breath of air that we breathe. The Christian has a source, a wellspring for infinite self-gift and good works, and its name is thankfulness to God. Thus as deep as our charity-our friendship with the divine-is, that strong our thankfulness will be. Christians are aware by faith of a God who is all self-giving. The beautiful irony is that, inasmuch as it separates and distinguishes Christians, it unites the whole human family. Thankfulness has one element that not only separates theists from atheists, but in fact, sets apart Christians from the human race.

(Wonderfully, the very idea of gift-something freely given without expectation of return, explodes categories of commerce so totally as to be an important core to the New Evangelization, but more on that later). Of course I don't ignore that being thankful is a natural human phenomenon in fact, anthropologists write whole books on the oddly universal nature of Gift and Return. Thankfulness is a unique and distinctively Christian ability.