Don’t be bothered by a slow start Dave. I’ve been watching this thread in the background. I’ve recently gone through The Hope of the Gospel a couple times and have been fascinated by what George MacDonald had to say from the start.
But as I thought on my answer and then read again what you said following the question, it seemed you answered it pretty close to how I was thinking.
Grace and peace.
Thanks for the encouragement. We’ll just keep planting seeds. 
GMac has a way of making everything larger and grander. His vision of what the Father is doing in us, in our darkness and confusion, is so much bigger than our narrow and dimly lit mind-corridors can conceive.
Too eager I must not be to understand.
How should the work the master goes about
Fit the vague sketch my compasses have planned?
I am his house–for him to go in and out.
He builds me now–and if I cannot see
At any time what he is doing with me,
'Tis that he makes the house for me too grand.
The house is not for me–it is for him.
His royal thoughts require many a stair,
Many a tower, many an outlook fair,
Of which I have no thought, and need no care.
Where I am most perplexed, it may be there
Thou mak’st a secret chamber, holy-dim,
Where thou wilt come to help my deepest prayer.
I think George MacDonald would be in full agreement with ‘skeptical theism’… 
(Of course there’s more of the ‘soul-making’ idea here than skeptical theism, I suppose)
MacDonald uses the symbol of a house with various rooms etc. for human personality and spirit quite a bit in his works. Is this a Jungian idea as well? I’m not really up on Jung but I have a vague recollection that it* might* be… 
Hey Dave
Don’t give up on this great thread. I’ve been what Jason always refers to as “out of pocket” for a few days, so I’ve only just discovered this little gem. And like with Jeremiah, you never know how many good folk are reading along quietly and anonymously.
Cheers
Johnny
Okey-dokey!!
It is passing strange to me that GMac, the man whose fantasies (and Phantastes) have awoken such hope in me, would also be the man whose Book of Strife contains a power of exorcism over the very non-fantastic but oh so real demons that never rest. His writings in this little book seek out the dark places, shine a light on them, and help to drive them away. I actually mean that. For me, it is a book of Power.
Christ is the pledge that I shall one day see;
That one day, still with him, I shall awake,
And know my God, at one with him and free.
O lordly essence, come to life in me;
The will-throb let me feel that doth me make;
Now have I many a mighty hope in thee,
Then shall I rest although the universe should quake.
Haste to me, Lord, when this fool-heart of mine
Begins to gnaw itself with selfish craving;
Or, like a foul thing scarcely worth the saving,
Swoln up with wrath, desireth vengeance fine.
Haste, Lord, to help, when reason favours wrong;
Haste when thy soul, the high-born thing divine,
Is torn by passion’s raving, maniac throng.
Fair freshness of the God-breathed spirit air,
Pass through my soul, and make it strong to love;
Wither with gracious cold what demons dare
Shoot from my hell into my world above;
Let them drop down, like leaves the sun doth sear,
And flutter far into the inane and bare,
Leaving my middle-earth calm, wise, and clear.
LOVE the reference to middle-earth.
Haven’t commented DaveB but your thread prompted me to download GMacs Book of Strife…silence doesn’t always denote lack of interest!
Much appreciated.
Cheers S
Thanks Sturmy - I’m going to carry on with it.
Just what I needed to hear today, Dave. Thanks.
These are words from an earlier post on this thread:
Henceforth all things thy dealings are with me
For out of thee is nothing, or can be,
And all things are to draw us home to thee.
It strikes me today that the ‘all things’ in GMac’s theodicy is troubling in the way that the ‘all’ verses in Paul’s writings are troubling to some.
In Paul, the ‘all’ troubles those who think it is too large a word; that it cannot mean ‘all’ - for instance in Romans 5.
In GMac, the ‘all’ troubles those of us who think it is too large a word also. It troubles me.
But in both cases the ‘troubling’ is a good thing. One case stimulates us to larger hope and gladness.
The other case stimulates us to greater understanding and equips us to interpret what, in reality, is the extent of Providence.
A simple illustration of that is the prayer for patience - and the answer comes in things that sorely try our patience!! If we can remember that we asked for it, we will approach the trials with better understanding.
And things we don’t ask for - sickness, troubled minds - can we see these as part of the ‘all things thy dealings are with me’?
How many helps thou giv’st to those would learn!
To some sore pain, to others a sinking heart;
To some a weariness worse than any smart;
To some a haunting, fearing, blind concern;
I’d sure like to hear your comments on this.
I dunno, Dave. When you’re in the middle of it, that kind of help hurts like hell. Once you’re through it (for a few minutes, hours, days, whatever), you see the gain of it, but personally, I dread to be given any more of such blessings. Lucky for us, I suppose, we don’t get asked. Once we place ourselves in His hands (or even if we don’t), He’ll do whatever it takes to bring us to maturity and perfection. I apparently have a long way to go, but I guess we all do.
It always feels better when it stops hurting. You’d think it wouldn’t really. You’d think the memory of pain would destroy joy, but it doesn’t. Once the pain is gone, it’s gone and it simply doesn’t matter any more. Only the benefit remains. (Until the next time of course, but let’s not think about THAT!)
I’m not sure our pain is always for our own benefit though. (Although I do believe we are benefited whether we are the primary object or not.) Sometimes it may be we suffer pain for the sake of others. That makes it better, I think. If we think of the pain as always being allowed for the purpose of maturing US, then it becomes all about us (which isn’t always very mature). We could also develop a false guilt and a hopelessness to think that whatever we do, however hard we try to follow Him, it will never begin to approach our Father’s approval. True we will always have miles to go, but I don’t think it’s a true picture of Him to think He’s a parent who cannot be pleased with our toddler efforts.
Thinking of all our trials as being presented to us for our own correction – could that foster a false guilt sometimes? Paul said something about his sufferings completing the sufferings of Christ for His body, the ekklesia. I think maybe suffering could be more easily borne if we could sometimes see that it will help someone else.
It’s difficult to see, though, how the suffering of a child being abused could be a justifiable way to bring her to maturity. It seems to me that this suffering could only serve to hamper her way and cause her not only pain but actual damage – spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. In the long run, after healing and recovery, maybe having gone though horrible things will make her a more compassionate, loving and wise person than she could have been had she never suffered in that way. But isn’t it true that such a strength is only necessary to help others who are also suffering? – and how can that be justified? If no children were abused, then no abuse survivors would be needed to comfort and help to heal them. Could it be that the abused child’s pain somehow helps the abuser? Helps him to come to the realization of his own depravity and his need for a new heart? I think that’s plausible, especially given an evolutionary framework in which we’re all struggling to rise above the beast mentality (or should be struggling to achieve that).
(Sorry for my rambling – I’m trying to figure this out.)
Jason points out in his Sword to the Heart that we may also suffer for the benefit of rebel angels. Now THAT’S a heck of a thought. I’m not sure how I feel about it. My natural bent wants to ask, “Who would ever imagine that THEY would be awakened to their guilt, by our sufferings arousing an inkling of the horror of their deeds? Why would they care? Why would they ever begin to care?” But then I know practically nothing of angels, fallen or otherwise. I do believe they’ll be redeemed, but that’s only (as it seems to me) the logical conclusion of the scriptures. I can’t honestly and truly say that I give a fig about rebel angels. If Father wills that we endure suffering for their sakes, then I submit to that for His sake (not that I have much of a choice), but I have a hard time working up any compassion for rebel angels. They’re just not on my radar, and I’ve only ever seen them portrayed as irredeemably wicked and callous. Still, it would explain a lot. Jesus is the sacrificial Lamb for humanity and the ekklesia (ultimately all of humanity?) is His body. Could it be we’re the ones to redeem the lost “sons of God”? Are we the 'scape goat, the sacrificial lamb for them? I would think that would entail us being willing, but maybe in Christ we are willing enough. He’s the head, and it’s the head that matters I suppose. When we’re all finally joined in Him, will willingness spread back through all human history? P’rhaps it will. I don’t know, but looking at the behavior of quantum particles/waves, it could fit.
It’s all got to work together. All these things are necessary for creation to be completed, maybe – for all the creatures of God to be one in Him. The birth pangs Paul talks about in Romans 8 ARE pangs. When you’re in the midst of them you think you can’t possibly endure them a moment longer, but since you have no choice, you do endure them. (Well, I did anyway – epidurals weren’t as popular back then.) Right now I could do with an epidural (and I think I might just accept one if offered) but as GMac says, it behooves us to trust our Father as knowing best. We have ground to travel and it’s as good to run straight ahead as to creep along hoping to avoid any large concentrations of difficulty. It comes out the same in the end. What we’ve got to get through has got to be got through, and we will get through it. When the child is born, we’ll forget all the anguish for joy.
Jesus “learned obedience by the things He suffered,” and He was never disobedient in any degree. Perhaps we don’t truly learn until we’ve had opposition and difficulty, and gotten through without compromising the things we know to be good and true. It’s easy to hold the fort when no one’s storming it. Ultimately, I suppose that some degree at least of suffering is necessary to our developing a sense of person-hood at all. A higher degree, perhaps, is required for a higher character. If we want to be among the good and noble, courageous and true, we probably had better prepare to suffer because maybe that’s the only way that can ever happen.
If it makes any sense, then that’s a wonder, since you’re reading my inner musings. My brain is sometimes a scary place – also messy and cluttered. 
Feel free to point out incoherency – I’m sure there’s some here somewhere.
Love, Cindy
Cindy - I’m with you all the way on that, I think.
I know we have to discriminate between chastisement - which is, really, ‘training’ if I understand it correctly, and is not any fun while it is running its course - which can only be understood as ‘training’ by those who have committed themselves to the Father, who chastens every son/daughter that He receives - and the afflictions God will sometimes bring on people that are meant as very loud ‘wake-up calls’. (I’m leaving aside for the nonce the question of Why does God Allow Evil).
GMac is talking to ‘those who would learn’ - I think he means that the ‘believer’ is being asked to interpret all things as Providential.
“For out (outside) of Thee is nothing, nor can be”.
I try to distinguish the Problem of Pain from the Problem of Evil. For the first, I think GMac is spot on, though I am as much a wimp about trials and emotional and physical pain as anyone; for the second - I just don’t know. According to St. Paul, even the creation is subject to corruption because of the corruption of mankind.
We can all imagine terrible scenarios - and a number of us have done so on other threads - where there seems to be no justification at all for the suffering involved. I don’t think GMac is going there - he’s talking I think about the 'Normal Christian life" - perhaps there is more on the general problem of suffering as we go along in the BOS?
This passage has one of my favorite lines in all of GMac:
Nothing is alien in thy world immense–
No look of sky or earth or man or beast;
“In the great hand of God I stand, and thence”
Look out on life, his endless, holy feast.
To try to feel is but to court despair,
To dig for a sun within a garden-fence:
Who does thy will, O God, he lives upon thy air.
Those underlined words sum up, for me, a whole psychological/spiritual way of life.
My brother and I (he’s still visiting.) were talking about toothaches and the drugs the Dentist prescribe for the pain. I took one of those pain pills a while back for a toothache, and went to work. My wife Ronda called later on to see how I was doing, and I told her that every single thing was exactly the way it should be - no matter what happened, angry customers, phones not working, computer crash - each thing was exactly right.
She laughed and said it sounded like a good drug, and it was. No high, just a calm acceptance.
But it was no ‘me’, unfortunately. I bring this up because GMac is speaking of that kind of acceptance, and a way of seeing that prescribes an Rx that is drug-free.
Some day I hope to attain that calmness of mind and outlook, based on faith and growth. But as he says, trying to work up the feeling directly is not the way; joyfully doing the Father’s will is the way.
This really resonates with me as well, Dave, and I’m trying more and more to live by the obedience he describes. I think this type of obedience leads to new insight into God in an individual and also results in ‘experiential’ evidence of God, a different type of “knowing” than the empirical evidence skeptics seek about God. But as MacDonald points out, it’s fruitless to try and manufacture the feelings and knowledge. I don’t think this kind of knowing is really “gnostic” in any meaningful sense, either.
And of course it was Christ who said “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you."
I happened to be reading GMac’s Sir Gibbie last night and came across this bit where GMac speaks in an aside to us:
I hadn’t specifically associated MacDonald’s thoughts on obedience with the scripture I quoted above, but can see exactly that in this quote.
Excellent! I haven’t read SG, I’d better get on it!!
It will be so–ah, so it is not now!
Who seeks thee for a little lazy peace,
Then, like a man all weary of the plough,
That leaves it standing in the furrow’s crease,
Turns from thy presence for a foolish while,
Till comes again the rasp of unrest’s file,
From liberty is distant many a mile.
True, faithful action only is the life,
The grapes for which we feel the pruning knife.
Thoughts are but leaves; they fall and feed the ground.
The holy seasons, swift and slow, go round;
The ministering leaves return, fresh, large, and rife–
But fresher, larger, more thoughts to the brain:–
Farewell, my dove!–come back, hope-laden, through the rain.
Why won’t GMac just leave me alone?? He is a constant nag about doing doing doing instead of sitting on my sofa and thinking thinking thinking.
Thank God he does!!
Too true,Dave! 
What can there be so close as making and made?
Nought twinned can be so near; thou art more nigh
To me, my God, than is this thinking I
To that I mean when I by me is said;
Thou art more near me, than is my ready will
Near to my love, though both one place do fill;–
Yet, till we are one,–Ah me! the long until!
Then shall my heart behold thee everywhere.
The vision rises of a speechless thing,
A perfectness of bliss beyond compare!
A time when I nor breathe nor think nor move,
But I do breathe and think and feel thy love,
The soul of all the songs the saints do sing!–
And life dies out in bliss, to come again in prayer.
His thoughts on Providence are mind-blowing enough; his thoughts on immanence even more so. If I wanted to sound Tillichian (?) I would say that GMac thinks God is the ground of all Being; more so, He is the ground of ALL beings.
Spot on, Dave! I’m going to be starting a thread on GMac and his panentheism soon. What he says here is a good example of that…