The Wizard

Daniel Petersen · 06 Mar 2012, 23:06 · from 2012-March.txt.gz

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From: danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com (Daniel Petersen)
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2012 23:06:36 +0000
Subject: (urth) The Wizard
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Furthermore, the Christian God is deeply merciful at his core and perhaps
that too is 'dark' and 'scary' to people who would give everything to
neither receive that mercy nor be merciful to others (from the Christian
understanding).  That darkly merciful God comes through in Wolfe very
strongly to me ('dark' in the sense of *mysterious* also, the miracles of
incarnation and atonement being paradoxical and bizarre).

-DOJP

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 11:02 PM, Daniel Petersen <
danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:

> Uh, I think you guys may be getting a little confused here.  The Christian
> God is Good in a 'dark' and even 'scary' way because he is HOLY.  There is
> no 'nastiness' or 'meanness' in the Christian conception of God.  He
> doesn't delight in the death of the wicked as the prophet Ezekiel puts it.
>  In that sense 'in him there is no darkness at all' as 1 John chapter 1
> puts it.  Tread carefully here if you want to speak coherently about
> orthodox theology.  Not for sensibilities but for accuracy.  Pure goodness
> is nothing we've ever truly seen in fullness and the eternal Triune Love
> (as Christian theology would have it) is a degree of communion and
> self-giving glory we just cannot imagine ('he dwells in unapproachable
> light' as Paul put it).  Thus this kind of transcendent goodness can be
> downright terrifying to people enmeshed in spiritual darkness and sin
> (again from the Christian story).  That is what it means for God not to be
> 'safe' or 'tame'.  God's wildness is a terror to evil, not a participant in
> it.
>
> -DOJP
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 10:20 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>
>> > I believe one could make a case from the Christian point of view
>> > that God is good in a dark way, since he kills lots of people and
>> > condemns people to eternal torment.  I hope the Christians here will
>> > correct me if I'm wrong, but I can see Wolfe believing that God, who
>> > created space and the stars, is good in every way, including the dark
>> way.
>>
>> No correction from me. C.S. Lewis put it very succinctly: "Aslan is
>> not a _tame_ lion." God is good but he isn't _nice_.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
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>>
>
>
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