Re: Where are the dear departed? (was Re: [asa] Sin, animals, and salvation)

Opderbeck asked whether everthing had to experience time as I do. Of
course not. he sleeping soul could not experience time as the waking
soul, if one takes that approach.

I can understand the interest. There are regularly articles on what life
will be like in some coming year--usually wrong. I'm simply suggesting
that we're mostly inducging in guesses.
Dave (ASA)

On Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:23:59 +1100 Murray Hogg <muzhogg@netspace.net.au>
writes:
> David Opderbeck wrote:
> > David S. said: Unless one is doing meticulous exegesis, does it
> really
> > matter?
> >
> > I respond: Maybe it depends what you mean by "meticulous
> exegesis."
>
> Actually, it depends even more on what your interests are!
>
> Obviously I got involved because I queried the language of "going to
> heaven." The issue of time and how it is experienced by God and
> ourselves (pre- and post-mortem) is just a flow on from that
> discussion. As I've suggested, there seems to be implied in the idea
> of an immediate "being with the Lord" the a post-mortem judgment
> immediate upon death. And this seems to stand in no small tension
> with the idea of post-resurrection judgment in the future.
>
> I've said my piece on the original issue, but having gotten involved
> in the question of mortality, time, resurrection, etc, I'm now
> finding it a very intriguing question. And I'm having a not small
> amount of fun trying to work out what the problem is (if indeed
> there IS a problem - I'm not entirely sure about THAT yet!).
>
> So at least one of my responses to the question "does it matter?" is
> the question "why does it have to "matter"? Can't it just be fun?"
>
> That said, I was waxing lyrical about this topic at a weekend ISCAST
> meeting (ISCAST = "Australian version of ASA") and THEY found it to
> be very interesting, too. In the course of that discussion I
> suggested it might make for a rather light-hearted discussion or
> debate topic - to which one person responded that she knows people
> who are actually perturbed by this sort of question and it ought as
> a result to be taken quite seriously.
>
> I have to say that this took me by surprise, but it does make clear
> that the issue matters to different people in different ways. Having
> previously found it an amusing intellectual distraction, I now have
> to consider the question seriously from a pastoral perspective. I
> have incentive to do so as I managed to get collared into presenting
> a cursory conceptual paper on the subject early next year (with a
> mathematician and physicist as respondents). Which means suddenly
> it's not so much fun anymore... :)
>
> In consequence I shall be reflecting more on the topic and you all
> run the very real risk of being subjected to my manic rantings on
> the topic at a later date!
>
> It also demonstrates that one never knows whether a question
> "matters" until one gives it at least a small amount of reflection.
> Even if one is only in it for the shear pleasure of it, one can
> still be surprised as to how practical ones' reflections on such
> apparent trivialities can turn out to be.
>
> Blessings,
> Murray Hogg
> Pastor, East Camberwell Baptist Church, Victoria, Australia
> Post-Grad Student (MTh), Australian College of Theology
>
>
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>
>
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Received on Mon Nov 24 22:08:55 2008