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Old 06-10-2008, 02:32 PM   #41
Erick Mead
 
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Dojo: Big Green Drum (W. Florida Aikikai)
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Re: The poll on aikido spirituality

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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
Off the top of my head I can't think of any instance in the Bible when the Holy Spirit rested upon anyone in an oracular or prophetic way who was not a servant of Jehovah God.
A common mark of the prophet is reluctance to serve -- Jeremiah, Isaiah, and most famously Jonah, even Moses, initially -- all were dragged protesting into service ... And does not the teaching of grace say that no one can become a servant of Jehovah unless the Spirit first so moves him, while he was yet a pagan -- and/or an inveterate sinner -- or even, perhaps, (gasp) an outright killer of the followers of Christ?

[St. Paul, call your service ...]

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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
The Holy Spirit inspired followers of Christ to write what we know today as the N.T., not followers of some pagan god.
Do you have some "follower" in mind that you would make this judgment of him?

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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
I strongly doubt that Morihei Ueshiba was inspired by the Holy Spirit in the things he said about the relationship between the human and the divine. Mainly this is so because of the point I just made above, but also because much of what he said is directly contradicted by Scripture. God is not the author of confusion the Bible tells us, which is precisely what you get when you have a person espousing contradictory religious beliefs.
Lessee, Ueshiba said that he desired "to assimilate myself to this Creator" (one, and only one). To "assimilate" means to "make like or similar." It sure is a silly thing to think than man can become "like God." Perish the thought:

"God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." —Genesis 1:27

So, as far as Scripture contradicting that utterly, completely and obviously silly notion you must mean things like, say:

"Is it not written in your Law: I said, you are gods? So the Law uses the word gods of those to whom the word of God was addressed, and scripture cannot be rejected." John 10:34-35.

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, with our unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of the Lord, all grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect; this is the work of the Lord who is Spirit." —St. Paul, 2 Cor. 3:17-18.

"...if God has made you son, then he has made you heir. " —St. Paul, Gal. 4:7;

I guess that pretty much makes the idea of becoming one with kami a non-starter for us dyed-in-the-wool Christians, huh?

What did you think Kami is? Did you know that there is a Creator in Shinto, Lord of the Center Heaven? Did you know that the creator operated with two other personified creators (making a trinity)? Did you know that these two were responsible for the creation and right operation, respectively, of the visible (incarnate) world and in the invisible (spiritual) world of creation. Did you know that unlike all the other beings called "kami" the Creator Kami are not bound to "mono" -- loosely translated having a connection to a physical presence or locus. The three-fold Creator Kami, in contrast, are uniquely "hidden." There is much more you could profitably explore, if for no other reason than to properly evangelize.

Is it more or less charitable and humble to acknowledge that someone else may legitimately have a different -- but not inadmissible -- image of God that differs only because seen from a different angle through that same "dark glass." While there are images that are objectively erroneous, if one were to think that one's own image of God is the necessarily correct one -- to the exclusion of all others then, THAT is idolatry. If one were to instead carefully to understand the other view and the image that is seen -- then assimilating that view to your own may give you a more complete image of Truth. Paul preached the unknown God to the Athenians, and for good reason.

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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
... when a pagan religion or secular philosophy reveals an awareness of these truths, I don't assume that there has been some special divine dispensation of spiritual knowledge.
Why is that? You were a pagan once. So was I. Seems to me that without some "special divine dispensation of spiritual knowledge" we would remain one today, no? I think we even have a word for it ... "grace." And -- I think the mediator of that is commonly called -- the Holy Spirit. Theologically speaking, of course.

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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
Living and dying by the sword is not, in context, meant to be taken as a good thing to do. Christ speaks of it in rebuke of Peter and goes on to explain that Peter's violent action is the result of his misunderstanding the situation. Christ was laying down his life willingly; it was not being taken from him by force, so he didn't need Peter's sword to defend him.
"I come not to bring peace but a sword." Christ's life WAS a sword, a supreme act of budo, and thus did he die by the intrument he brought upon himself WILLINGLY. The difference is not in wielding the sword, but in wielding it as katsu-jinken "sword of life", whereas Peter wielded it in setsu-ninto "sword of death."

The True Way is narrow -- the width of the edge of the blade.

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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
The commandments of Scripture to Christians to be "harmless" and "gentle" and "to not strive" would, if obeyed, preclude a life "lived by the sword."
"Clever as serpents" -- you forgot that part.

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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
Not being familiar with Meister Eckhart's writing, I cannot comment on what he meant and whether or not it is applicable in matters of budo.
Well then, I commend him to you.

"Nothing hinders the soul so much in attaining to the knowledge of God as time and place. Therefore, if the soul is to know God, it must know Him outside time and place, since God is neither in this or that, but One and above them. If the soul is to see God, it must look at nothing in time; for while the soul is occupied with time or place or any image of the kind, it cannot recognize God." Eckhart's sermon on The Nearness of the Kingdom, tr. Claud Field.

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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
Thomas a Kempis in the quotation you gave appears to be speaking of spiritual warfare, not physical.
There is no difference. Wars are won in the will -- regardless of type.

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Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
You've shown me some of your thinking on the subject, but nothing that actually requires reversing or adjusting my own thinking. Thanks anyways.
I have no desire to alter your thinking, it is simply plain that you have foreclosed a line of inquiry that is very rich and provocative for your own way of thinking. It is true that one should be wary of superfical similarity, but the reverse is also true, one should understand a topic well enough to not be misjudging from superficial differences where there may lie a more fundamental relationship in two bodies of thought. I simply suggest you should delve deeper into the similarities and consonant thoughts, rather than be seduced into avoidance by superficialities of difference.

Last edited by Erick Mead : 06-10-2008 at 02:36 PM.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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