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  1. Awesome discussion! I loved how Tom, although not in our tradition, described perfectly the wrestle I am experiencing with staying while knowing the ugly warts of my faith. It reminded me how there is so much we share with other faith traditions including faith transitions and not accepting some of the teachings and practices that are fed to us. I ate up the discussion on the nature of God as well. My faith crisis has left me not knowing who or what or even if God is and it gave me some interesting thoughts and ideas to keep searching with.

  2. At some point each of us is going to die. With our death, the God of time and space will cease to exist but every indication is that our consciousness will continue on past the death of our body and that that consciousness will experience love. What this says to me is that while in mortality we may (or may not) associate love with the God that we have created in our image as mortal beings, love exists, and has always existed, outside of physical reality. What is the source of this love if it is not the God of time and space? We, of course, are incapable of describing what this might be, because our language is restricted to a description of a material world. Even those who claim to have had pure conscious experiences of an alternate reality beyond this physical world, when they return to physical reality, if they make any attempt to describe their experience at all, must do so using metaphors of our physical world that have meaning to us who at this point in time know only a physical reality. But we all do this because we have experiences, sometimes the experience of God’s love, and we want to share those experiences with others. However, we should realize that it is all metaphor. The God of time and space exists only as long as we are experiencing time and space, but love is eternal, and when we die we will likely develop new metaphors in our attempt to describe the source of that love. This does not mean that we should not continue on with what we are doing and saying as best we can, considering the circumstances. We really have no other alternative.

    Tom D

    1. Tom D,

      You and I have a different understanding of God’s relation to time and space. I think God is everlasting, which means time is real for God always. So I don’t think there will ever be a time in which time and space disappear. Thanks for your comments. Tom

  3. Hello, my question is for Mr. Oord:

    First, thank you for joining Dan in this most intriguing discussion. Second, and to my question, I mostly share your belief in a God who is uncontrolling. Yet, I would like to know, why your justification for the uncontrolling nature is love? Could it not be honor or fidelity – to not be hipocritical in declaring the supremecy of freedom God surely could not revoke that of another and furthermore, were He to so restrict the freedom of another, would lose the honor and respect of all other beings? Or could it not be the value which He places on the worthiness and dignity of other agents? I would be obliged if you could expound on the belief that His love precludes him and not some other force, and how critical knowing the why may be.

    Thank you,

    JMS

    1. Jms,

      Thanks for your note. I’m not sure I’m understanding your question well. But it sounds like you and I are on the same page. What makes my position different from some is that I think God’s nature comes before God’s will logically. That means the “respecting the freedom of others” is something God does by nature. Those who think God could choose not to respect the freedom of others because God’s will comes first have a different view from mine. Does that help? Tom

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