This-essay is a7803132.htm which is available at the web-site www.essayz.com. See more notes at the bottom. Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay By-Months By-Years By-Words Webs of Like-&-Un-Like ESSAYS <==> Like-&-UN-Like This-One ========================================================== %VALIDATION THROUGH PERMANENCE 780313 God is said to be eternal and unchanging. Being eternal and unchanging is thus taken to be good. That which is temporary and changeable is regarded as of lesser importance and value. We therefore aspire to permanence in our personhood, relationships, possessions, memories, and accomplishments. We regard as defective that which comes to pass; i.e., is essentially temporary. Only that which is essentially permanent is highly valued because God is seen as essentially permanent. The effort to affirm only that which presumes to be essentially permanent leads to idolatry. Nothing within the domain of objective human experience is essentially permanent---eventually the earth will be vaporized as the sun becomes a red giant star in it's old age. To pretend that anything which we are familiar with in an objective way is essentially permanent is to deceive ourselves, and to become idolatrous. Such pretentions are collusive and dishonest. They are not wise; i.e., they do not promote human welfare with love, power, and justice. Human relationships are not objective realities and have aspects which transcend human understanding and control. Perhaps there are aspects of human relationships which transcend temporal measurement; i.e., regarding which duration measurements are not significant and which cannot be so measured in any meaningful way. A compulsive preoccupation with objective permanence, is likely to obscure such aspects of human relationships. To view aspects of human relationships which transcend the measurement of time objectively---while at that time being compulsively concerned with objective permanence is likely to lead to efforts to affirm such transcendent aspects by regarding them as eternal, lasting forever, unchanging in objective time, permanent. Such an effort is likely to freeze the dance of life, and so terminate those aspects which were to be made permanent. Attempts to validate creations through permanence are idolatrous and futile. This is true even of efforts to make permanent theological images of the nature of God. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================
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