[REBORN FROM THE ASHES][comment][01.04]

123runfordreamUID: 2697608

There is nothing in time that can embrace the entirety of his existence. He has no idea about tomorrow and has already lost his hold on the past. In this day-to-day life, he lives only in the transitory moment. Whatever is in time—even though, as Aristotle says, time had no beginning and has no ending and extends into infinity—is still not what may correctly be called ‘eternal.’ Its life may be infinitely long, but still it does not comprehend its entire extent simultaneously. It is still waiting for the future to reveal itself and it has let go of much of the past.



The endless and infinite changing of things in time is an attempt to imitate eternity, but it cannot equal its immobility and it fails to achieve the eternal present, producing only an infinite number of future and past moments.


from that high vantage point (a position or standpoint from which something is viewed or considered especially: POINT OF VIEW), he sees at once all things that were and are and are to come. You insist that those things of the future are inevitable if God can see them, but you must admit that not even men can make inevitable those things that they see. Your seeing them in the present does not confer any inevitability, does it?”


All I can tell you is that this future event from the point of view of divine knowledge is necessary, but from its own nature is utterly and entirely free. ——（大致会意了。）


Comment:
I don’t quite get the actual meaning about this “philosophy” article at first. Actually, that kind of article is not easy to understand in our mother language, not even in a foreign language we are studying. And I don’t think this would be a comment at all for I am not sure these pieces of tiny thoughts could be so called comment.
The part of explaining about necessities, to be honest, confused me a lot. When I came to the last paragraph, then, suddenly, the word “destiny” came into me. Maybe we consider too much about what God have seen in our life and always try to find out what exactly it is. When we fail down, we might think God knows it. It seems like that we can not escape from what have been designed in life by God. Realizing that would make us passive about our future and life.
In the conclusion, as what the author says, “Do not be deceived. It is required of you that you do good and that you remember that you live in the constant sight of a judge who sees all things”. Indeed, we suck, maybe just because we suck, for thinking too much about the undetermined things by ourselves.
I am curious about the destiny. Those comment words above are so facial. Someday, I can get more.

adammaksimUID: 2675466

A brief introduction about Beothius:

Boethius (circa 480-524), Roman philosopher and statesman. He gained the esteem and confidence of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, then the ruler of Rome, and in 510 was made a consul. Later Boethius was accused by his enemies of plotting treason, and, although innocent, was imprisoned in Pavia and executed. During his imprisonment he wrote De Consolatione Philosophiae (The Consolation of Philosophy, c. 523), a philosophic work that, although not explicitly a Christian text, contained so many elements of Christian ethics that it was highly regarded in Europe during medieval times. Many translations of the work were made, notably (in England) by King Alfred the Great and by the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Boethius also wrote treatises on logic that profoundly influenced the terminology of medieval logic; translations and commentaries on the works of Aristotle, from which medieval scholars largely derived their knowledge of the Greek philosopher; and works on music, arithmetic, and theology.

inkling hint,clue

dictum  n. 申明，格言

It is one thing to proceed through infinite time, as Plato posits, but quite another to embrace the whole of time in one simultaneous present.

confer v. 赐予

comments:

This article is much more obscure than Zhou's one though they are both about the philosophy. Boethius, a Roman philosopher, discussed something about the time, eternity free will and God with his logical reasoning. To be honest, as an atheist, if not so sincere, it's a little difficult for me to accept the author's claim. However, despite our difference in belief, I have to admit this work is much profound and inspiring although my understanding about it is intermittent. The main purpose of author may be persuading people to believe God is omnipresent and omnipotent and they should behave themselves because God can always keep an eye on them from on high. And I truly agree that we will achieve a better society with every its member realizing that all his virtue or wick is recorded and will result in the awards or punishments in the Judgment Day no matter whether from God or not.

splendidsunUID: 2723757

今天的好长~先占楼
1-4
According to my comprehending of this article, all happened in the world are inevitable. Even fleeting instant has been watched by the God from his eternal view. Although we feel that we have free will, all the outcomes are controlled by our own will. If we try our best to do one thing, we could gain what we need. Actually, that's not true at all. Everything has been arranged in proper orders. For us, we just play roles in the God's play. All the scene and plot have been edited by God. From my viewpoint, I couldn't agree with this point thoroughly. Although I thought that everything had been arranged by our fates and we performed different roles to show the various destiny. However, this point seems to be too pessimistic which couldn't encourage people to work hard and enjoy their life. We still have power to decide our own future, even though we just cheat ourselves in this way.


错字
Sence---Scene
情景
Throughtoutly---throughout/thoroughly

insofar as 在……范围
divine牧师，神学家，神圣的，记号的
have some inkling of 对……略有所知
embrace包含
simultaneously同时地
dictum格言
posit假设
cease to be 不再是
perpetual永久的
fleeting飞逝的
omnipresent无所不在的
foreknowledge先见之明
vantage point有利位置
inevitable不可避免的，必然的
otherwise than 与……不同

tantamount to 相当于
abruptly突然地
mete out 给与
deceive欺骗，糊弄



Aristotle says, time had no beginning and has no ending and extends into infinity.

KiKi~淇水滺滺UID: 2679824

恩 先留个地~

jinziqiUID: 2387034

New words
divine 神的
insofar as 在...的范围内
inkling 暗示；迹象
simultaneous 同时发生的
infinity 无限
dictum 名言
immobility 静止
omnipresent 无所不在的
tantamount 同等的
compulsion 强迫


Difficult sentences
Onewho lives in time progresses in the present from the past and into the future.
Itnever ceases to be and therefore is an imitation of eternity, but it isbalanced on the knife / edge of the present, the brief and fleeting instant,which we may call a kind of costume of eternity.
God is eternal but the world isperpetual.

Andit is similarly true that his observation does notaffect the things he sees that are present to him but future in terms of theflow of time.

Now,if you were to say that what God sees as going to occur cannot not occur andthat what cannot not occur happens of necessity, and make a problem of the word‘necessity,’ I will answer that it is absolutely true but is, indeed, aproblem, not so much for logicians as for theologians.
这些句子都好绕啊...
Itis not necessary that a man go for a walk, even though it is necessary, when heis walking, that he is walking. 纠结啊...


天啊。。我还需要多读几遍再写comment..

domudomuUID: 2670967

话说前几天的我都不知道哪里去了，结果一来就碰到难一点的了呃
God is eternal but the world is perpetual. Well, I think this idea is really cool, even when it is transformed into Chinese. Wow, I know every single world in this artical, but poorly, I can't understand the true meaning. It made me really cofusing and I can't say any comments now even after reading it for 4 times. I am so sorry.

prettywraithUID: 197049

Comments (2010-01-04):
Frankly, Philosophy is one of my favorite subjects. Until now, I still remember my first philosophy class contents, philosophy as "loving wisdom". Later, I fall in love with philosophy thoroughly, after I have attended one philosophy lecture given by one famous professor, the author of Introduction of Philosophy, whose name is Sun Zheng Yu. Of course, professor Sun's excellent lecture only guide me arrive the gate of philosophy palace, and the magic power of philosophy attract me explore the great palace. Floating in the philosophy world, I can think peacefully, find one indescribable consolation for my soul and feel unprecedented pleasure. Especially, when many confused concepts or answers of puzzles become clear in my mind, I experience huge enjoyment brought by achievement. As philosophy brings us the happiness, it also gives me pain. As you know, obsessed by obscure problems or disordered/jumbled logic, people always feel sad and despair. Accurately, although I just access the philosophy world, I think philosophy show me a world of pain with pleasure.

Far from the passage topic, I talk about many philosophy things in eyes. Let us start to look at this passage. Boethius is famous Christian philosopher in history, so does his book named after ”The Consolation of Philosophy”. In this passage, the author discusses "eternal" and "perpetual" two concepts in his eyes, which are different from the other philosophers such as Plato. For knowing this passage clearly, please notice the author's tow assumption, which are absolutely right in his perspective. The first one is "things are known not according to their natures but according to the nature of the one who is comprehending them"; the other is "whatever providence may have foreseen". If you confused with author's passage, it would not matter. After all, this is one philosophy book talking about many religion things.

Good sentences:
What may properly be called eternal is quite different, in that it has knowledge of the whole of life, can see the future, and has lost nothing of the past. 句子结构丰富，尤其in that的用法值得学习。

doodaUID: 2712643

Comment:
This is an article may write by a theologist. He tried to differentiate eternal from infinity. The eternal means the whole, simultaneous, perfect possession of limitless life. While infinity means no beginning and no end. But it has a nature of the past, the present and the future. The I think the infinity are equal to perpetual.

The writer means God is eternal which world is perpetual. I am a atheist and it pushes me to an association with Albert Einstein’s theory of parallel space. In this theory, all world extend like a group of parallel lines which are never meet together. Apply to this article, God just like a point over the line of the word. He can see all world at one time. On the other hand, the world like a line which have no beginning and end. But on a certain knifeedge of present, it has past before it and future after it.

We live in the world so we have the same perpetual attributions with it. God know everything and every stage of a thing at one time as a whole, according to the writer. He suggest finally that “It is required of you that you do good and that you remember that you live in the constant sight of a judge who sees all things.” This is an exhort to
readers.

海王泪UID: 2673613

Sentence and Phrases
【Comparison】
Eternity is the whole, simultaneous, perfect possession of limitless life, which we can better understand perhaps by comparing it to temporal things.
【Comparison - Examples for Man has free will】
Just as you can see at the same time a man walking on the ground and the sun rising in the sky, and, although the two sights coincide, you understand immediately that the man’s walking is willed and the sun’s rising is necessitated.
It is like the examples I proposed to you a moment ago of the rising sun and the walking man. While these things are happening, they cannot not be happening, but of the two, only one was bound to happen while the other was not.
Be bound to=must
the brief and fleeting instant
which embraces all the vistas of the future and the past
It is not pre-vision (praevidentia) but providence (providentia), because, from that high vantage point, he sees at once all things that were and are and are to come.
Vantage point
it turns out that they are tantamount to being necessary
be tantamount to=be equal to
whichever way you turn, so that you cannot avoid or evade divine foreknowledge, just as you cannot escape being seen by an eye that is focused on you,
avoid=evade=escape
God has prescience and is a spectator from on high, and as he looks down in his eternal present, heassigns rewards to the good and punishments to the wicked.

My Comment
This article is really difficult for me, because it seems like a maze and thus I lost in the logic of the author.
“God has prescience and is a spectator from on high, and as he looks down in his eternal present, he assigns rewards to the good and punishments to the wicked.”
If God cannot change anything but acting like a silent witness, why should we believe that it has the ability to assign rewards or punishments? I suddenly want to go for a walk, then I walk, and necessarily I walk. God can watch that, but he cannot stop my walking because I choose to walk!

What I think is that, God is everything. God is object. God is nature.
If we treat God as a witness, objectively we are wrong. But subjectively we are right.
God is only a concept in our mind. So arguing about that is meaningless. God is just a word we believe to exist. How can we treat it as a person or think it acts like a person?

In fact, we should place emphasis on free will of human. God is only a production of human mind. Men have free will. But God hasn’t. When we see the rising sun and the walking man, we know exactly the former is necessitated but the latter is willed. God is such a concept we created for watching our behavior in free will. But what can God do?

If God is omniscience, it knows our past, present and future as eternal and all this is destiny, the idea about men have free will is illusion because everything should be happened and we haven’t choices.
But if we have free will, until we make choices, everything is unpredictable, thus God do not know what would happened in the future and God is not omniscience.
Since two assumptions lead to an paradox. I ‘d like to believe that “God is omniscience” is just a concept created by our free will. Because of our free will, God exists.

I am sorry. I truly do not understand this essay. Time is up. I have fever today and I’d got to sleep.

hugeseaUID: 190158

Sentence and Phrases
【Comparison】
Eternity is the whole, simultaneous, perfect possession of limitless life, which we can better understand perhaps by comparing it to temporal things.
【Compariso ...

I have fever today and I’d got to sleep.
海王泪 发表于 2010-1-5 00:28

bless! 一顶不会是Swine flu的

fancywwUID: 2583671

单词都挺简单，拼到一起就不懂了。
仅根据我个人的理解写一点感想。

Comment：

This article reminds the movie the Final Destination. It tells a simple idea that no one can escape the punishment of the Death, in this case, the will of God. What a thrilling idea that God, just as the article says, runs ahead of everything and the result has be doomed to happen. And there seems to be a Chinese traditional version of this idea, that is the saying that:"Man proposes, God disposes." The God's complete knowledge does not need to change according to man's change, having already foreseen the change man made at the last moment. This agrees with the theme of ancient Greek tragedy. The ancient Greek believed that man cannot fight against destiny. Everything is predestined no matter what you do to change it, like in the famous tragedy "Oedipus the King".   

Even if I concede this thought on destiny and predestination, I still cannot understand why God can thereby assign rewards to the good and punishments to the wicked. Does God knows some people are born to be good and some are bad? Why cannot there be "the return of the prodigal son"? If someone turns over a new leaf and becomes a virtuous person, will God insist his original knowledge about this man? If God will not change his original intention as discussed above, so what is the meaning for all the praying and hoping since everything has already been decided?

AdelineShenUID: 2630498

Comments：
I cannot catch the true meaning of this article until the end when the author puts  
the conclusion:You must avoid wickedness and pursue the good. Lift up your  
mind in virtue and hope and, in humility, offer your prayers to the Lord. This is  
the consolation of philosophy.What the article wants to explain is that the divine  
knowledge is eternal and continuous and God knows everything from the past  
to the present to the future. Even when you change your ideas, divine  
prescience runs ahead of everything and recollects it to the eternal present of  
its own knowledge. What's more, things are universal and considered in  
themselves they are free from the compulsion of necessity. In this case, God's  
rewards and punishments are meted out fairly and our hopes and prayers are  
not at all in vain.

I once had a talk with an American girl who believes in Christianism. She is  
pious and never forget to spread the spirit of God. She has a Bible in both  
Chinese and English translations which is sorted out all by herself. She carefully  
explained the spirit of God to me with this book. She believes that human  
beings have original sins and it's Jesus who saved all the human beings. God  
is the highest and the only bridge to connect with the God is to do good and  
pray. God never compels you to do anything. But as you have original sin, you  
should do good to atone for your sin. God can see your behavior from the  
highest and your pray will not be in vain. God can hear your hope.

I always respect the Christians. Whenever I meet with a Christian who is  
spreading the spirit of God, I carefully listen to him or her. From their pious eyes I  
can see their strong belief. This strong belief pushes them to do good to get  
connection with the God. This strong belief makes them full of hopes toward  
life. This strong belief encourages them to face the difficulties in life. In this  
case, I always feel that Christianism is more than a religion. It gives its disciples  
the strongest belief, the strongest encouragement to overcome the difficulty and  
the strongest devotion to help the poor. In that way, God is creating a better and  
better world!~


错字：
continuous
compel
atone for your sin
disciple
encouragement

tequilawineUID: 2702008

have some inkling of 对···略有所知
simultaneous 同时的, 同时发生的
entirety
n. 全部; 完全
transitory
adj. 短暂的; 无常的; 瞬息的
let go of 释放,放开
in that 因为
have nothing of 不理睬

dictum
[dic·tum || 'dɪktəm]

n.
名言; 格言

posit
[pos·it || 'pɑzɪt /'pɒz-]

v.
安置, 断定, 布置

in the grasp of
在…掌握中

immobility
[im·mo·bil·i·ty || ɪ‚məʊ'bɪlətɪ]

n.
固定性, 静止

confer on
授予

abide in
〈旧〉在…居住〔逗留〕

succession
[suc·ces·sion || sək'seʃn]

n.
连续, 继位, 继承权

perpetual
[per·pet·u·al || pər'petʃʊəl /pə'p-]

adj.
永久的, 没完没了的, 不断的

omnipresent
[,om·ni'pres·ent || ‚ɑmnɪ'preznt /‚ɒ-]

adj.
无所不在的, 同时遍在的

surpass
[sur·pass || sər'pæs /sə'pɑːs]

v.
超越, 胜过

vista
[vis·ta || 'vɪstə]

n.
狭长的景色, 展望, 街景

in the act of   
正要做(某事)

providence
[prov·i·dence || 'prɑvɪdəns /'prɒ-]

n.
深谋远虑; 上帝; 天意

vantage point
n.
有利位置,优越地位,优势

willed
[wɪld]

adj.
有某种意志的

so much for
…到此为止

utterly
['ut·ter·ly || 'ʌtərlɪ]

adv.
完全, 绝对, 全然

tantamount
[tan·ta·mount || 'tæntəmaʊnt]

adj.
同等的, 相当于...的, 相等的

1 Let us consider, then, insofar as we can, what the nature of divine substance must be so that we can have some inkling of the kind of knowledge the divine mind has.
2 One who lives in time progresses in the present from the past and into the future.
今在昔在以后永在的神。
3 Whatever is in time—even though, as Aristotle says, time had no beginning and has no ending and extends into infinity—is still not what may correctly be called ‘eternal.’
4 Those philosophers are wrong, then, who took Plato’s dictum that the world had no beginning and had no end and inferred from that that the created world is co-eternal with the Creator.从句
5 It is one thing to proceed through infinite time, as Plato posits, but quite another to embrace the whole of time in one simultaneous present. 省略
6 It never ceases to be and therefore is an imitation of eternity, but it is balanced on the knifeedge of the present, the brief and fleeting instant, which we may call a kind of costume of eternity. 但是他永远也不可能停止将要所以他只是在效法永恒，但是他平衡在了现在的边缘，
短暂即逝的片刻，我们叫做一种永恒的外衣。
7 But since it is not equal to that eternal state, it falls from immobility to change, from the immediacy of a continuing present to the infinite extent of past and future moments, and it confers on whatever possesses it the appearance of what it imitates.
8 And since it could not abide in permanence, it seized instead on the infinite flow of time, an endless succession of moments, and in that way could appear to have a continuity, which is not the same as permanence.
9 You insist that those things of the future are inevitable if God can see them, but you must admit that not even men can make inevitable those things that they see.
10 And it is similarly true that his observation does not affect the things he sees that are present to him but future in terms of the flow of time.没搞懂
11 It is in this light that we can answer the question you posed a while back about our providing a part of God’s knowledge. 这句有点难.
12 In this way, our hopes and our prayers are not at all in vain. 上帝必垂听你的祈祷

Comment
The passage really impressed me with its clear mind and convincing testimony, which also intrigues us to dig into it for more. Coming without disappointing, we indulged in his talented spiritual cosmos with his companying to guide us to the divine paradise.

People may object his idealistic concept the whole prose based on and also the unbelievable illustration of god eternal and omniscient. But you cannot naysay to admit he, indeed, although may not comprehensively, give us a inner insight to the opposite of mundane world.

Starting up with introduction of nature of divine and the knowledge, hardly can we digest, we understand what he wanna tell us is about the totally different opinion of time between god and us. And all that is to say, that if we use proper terms, then, following Plato, we should say that God is eternal but the world is perpetual.

Conceding that judgment, you may insist that those things in future are inevitable if god can see them, but you must accept that not even man can make inevitable those things that they see. Although god foreknows what we are doing and will do, that in his way they are all coming simultaneously, he confer us the power to change it at the meantime, also under his prescience. So why is it important that they are not necessary if, from the aspect of divine knowledge, it turns out that they are tantamount to being necessary?

Maybe you define yourself as the atheist the one who don’t believe in god but rules; don’t trust any almighty spirit that intervenes and controls, whereas you learn the word by the science of the axioms which operates so perfectly manipulated as a machine that sometimes you wonder how could it happen, which also bring you into the dilemma. So next time when you say no, please make a one hundred percent sure.

hugeseaUID: 190158

have some inkling of 对···略有所知
simultaneous 同时的, 同时发生的
entirety
n. 全部; 完全
transitory
adj. 短暂的; 无常的; 瞬息的
let go of  释放,放开
in that 因为
have nothing of 不理睬
d ...

10And it is similarly true that his observation does not affect thethings he sees that are present to him but future in terms of the flowof time.没搞懂
11 It is in this light that we can answer the question you posed a while back about our providing a part of God’s knowledge. 这句有点难.
tequilawine 发表于 2010-1-5 10:26

10And it is similarly true that his observation does not affect thethings he sees that are present to him but future in terms of the flowof time.没搞懂

这句的意思大概是这样的：上帝只观察并不影响事情（经过结果）。就时间序列来说，这些事情发生在将来；但对于上帝来说，这些事情是发生在当前的。
11 It is in this light that we can answer the question you posed a while back about our providing a part of God’s knowledge. 这句有点难.

这句里面 a while back 是“前阵子”的意思，我查词典
从这个角度，我们可以回答你前阵子提出的问题：我们为上帝提供了一部分智慧。（其实作者对这个问题的答案是否定的，因为作者在文章说上帝的观察
并没有因为我们free will的选择的改变而改变，因为上帝对我们的观察根本就不需要改变，即使我们作出了different and unpredictable的改变，上帝也
是会在改变发生前的最后一刻预见到。也正因为如此，我们并不能为上帝提供一部分智慧。）

dingyi0311UID: 2627919

My comments
This article titled “ the consolation of philosophy” , in my judgment, intend to explain the existence of god in a philosophic perspective. In the first part, the author tells us what enternal and differenciate the enternal and perpertual. External person means that one can pretell the future rather than have a infinite live with which one can merely know the past and present. In the second part, the author make a painful strive to tell people two kinds of necessities. By doing so, he want to convince us that behaves controlled by free will is a in fact a necessity that inevitable if conditions was added. This make it possible that god can predict people’s behavior. In the ultimate part, the author answers some problems that may be proposed by opponents. People will change mind once the god know the final decision. But the author argue that god know the change once it was changed.
Although it was well presented and seems logical, it can not convince me.