(Untitled)

[priestwarrior]

 So this conversation occurs all the time everywhere.
            Woman: “...yeah, right, because I’m totally that skinny [note: heavy sarcasm]”

Hapless Bystander: “What? No, you’re thin and beautiful.”

Woman: “Yeah, whatever. You’re just saying that, blah blah blah blah...”

People, shut the hell up. I have never heard anyone

Comments

Thoughts

[ext_119696]

I like your first suggestion about avoiding positive reinforcement; I have to agree, the reductio ad absurdum method you advocate is probably more effective.

Regarding "wrestling with God":

Absolutely, all the time, God will thwart any reduction of Himself in our minds and hearts. Whether that reduction is to moralistic terms, to the requirement that he answer prayers in plainly discernible ways, to mere creeds, or to mere social programs, He will thwart it.

Regarding the mystery of prayer unanswered:

All we can say, at any point in time, is not answered yet; or, in the case of the Vietnamese man who died, not answered within the "closed system" of our world. I think our suffering will be relieved in part by a broader perception beyond the grave.
"But if not..." (Daniel 3)
In Christ all things are yours; therefore if something is withheld, it is for your own good, God disciplining His sons, even if it's not apparent why, making us more Christlike through suffering; this should be a source of strength, and grace, God justifying us more and more; yet there is something dangerously fideistic to disengage from "wrestling" (as you put it) with this state of things, seeking to overcome the world and know more of God's ways.

I think you have well outlined the importance of this dynamic of the Christian life. Still, I see a potential danger with it:
"Wrestling" could devolve into spiritual pride. Follow me in this line of thinking: *I* am wrestling with *God*. *I* become more fully Christian and alive through it. *I* am making myself more Christian. We wind up at pride, the opposite of grace. But, if we consider that on the Cross God is wrestling with Himself, and that in grace, God is working in us, genuinely within the *I*, then the "I am wrestling with God" can receive some of the "God is wrestling with God", and in that we can genuinely become more Christlike. His grace could appear in us wrestling with Him, not in spite of the wrestling, but positively through it. Again, as with what you pointed out, this must be carefully distinguished from rebellion.

Lastly: I shall go listen to "Bullet the Blue Sky" at once.

Re: Thoughts

[ext_119696]

Oh, don't take my "reduction" comment the wrong way. All the things mentioned there are good and necessary (except that I would distinguish morals from moralism), though any of them in isolation come nowhere near constituting full faith.

Re: Thoughts

[priestwarrior]

Yes, wrestling with God is a dangerous concept. So's grace - "shall we go on sinning that grace may abound?" This is one of the things that makes Christianity make so much sense to me - it never shies away from dangerous ideas. The paradoxes central to Christianity arise because it refuses to let go of either dangerous extreme: Christ was fully God, yet also fully man - the Trinity is three yet one - and so on. I completely agree that we must view struggling with God in the light of the fact that it is he who enables us to struggle. Thanks.

Yeah. I tend to take some flak for liking U2, and I agree that Bono is ridiculous and bombastic, but I don't care as long as he keeps writing lyrics like that. Up there with Morrison.