As an agnostic, I see my achievements in part from my own genes and DNA, gifts from my ancestors - and also as a result of my very own struggles, motivations and doings (for lack of a better word at the moment.
That’s not to say that all of that stardust that descended from wherever was not full of possibility - obviously it was.
It took two years from the time that God’s grace entered the captain of that slave ship and had his spiritual epiphany - you know, the one who wrote Amazing Grace - to eventually stop his slave trading.
I suppose that finances pawn grace. But I know that human consciousness does not always work in leaps and bounds. I suppose that it is also possible that we do not see the gift which has been given so freely…both to ourselves and others.
Who said "everything?
Anyway, phyllo, it hasn’t actually been established that grace necessarily comes from God (speaking as an agnostic). It might be nothing more than being in the right place at the right time and a highly conscious realization and awareness flows into our “entire” beings as a result of some sense of qualia pervading our higher spirits. Like any epiphany, it might appear to come out of the blue, but I do not intuit that this is the way that epiphanys or transformations come to us. They have been seething and working underground for quite awhile.
If i were ever to “see” a God again, it would be a highly impersonal one so grace for me would be as i described above. More like an interface between mind/emotions being and the workings of the universe.
There are more things in heaven (deep space lol) and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio
And if there is a God and this God sends grace, again, meaning free, for me, it is presupposed that the person receiving the grace also has the freedom to reject it. How can one receive grace and be a puppet at the same time.
Doesn’t one have to see the value of something in order to accept it?
When I give a gift, especially if I do not know if the person will like it, I always keep the receipt and I tell them that naturally they can return that gift if they want to. It was freely given and it can be freely taken back for something else. If I feel that way, why would a God not feel that way?
Well, if there IS a God, that would depend on the individual but I daresay it might also depend on the omniscience (if there be such a quality) of that God and how pragmatic and non-wasteful that God is.
Why waste grace on someone who sees no value in it.Is grace simply for the use of the person him/her -self or for the whole of humanity or at least a small area of it?
I’m with Patrick Henry - “Give me liberty or give me death.”
Why would we have evolved into consciousness, conscious thought, the freedom to make our own choices - we can after all do this to more than a certain degree - if EVERTHING is attributed to a god’s grace?
That would seem to be illogical to me.
That seems to come from a “Daddy in the sky” issue to me. Daddy does everything, gives everything.
How can an individual grow and mature under the albeit even the benign control of a god?
I choose NOT to be a part of the Borg.
I prefer the deists’ view of things, the hands-off laissez faire view.
As a teacher, I predetermine the conditions for each child’s growth based on each individual child’s needs and through this hidden process the child grows and matures and hopefully, as they age, they remain as students and are lifelong learners (as I view myself).