LordsFire
Internet Wizard
What...
No, this is a ridiculous strawman. No wonder you couldn't wrap your head around it since I never said that!
Recall that you said:
I took this to mean "people are defined ONLY by their relationship with God. Their relationship with other human beings isn't that important to the question of their identity, only as a nice filler."
So I responded:
Human beings are fundamentally social creatures. God created us to be like this. God doesn't call on us to only have a relationship with Him with few exceptions (the Desert Fathers).
I never argued that we were supposed to exclusively have relationship with God. I argued that our relationship with God is that which defines is, and our relationship with people is subordinate to that. I never tried to argue that we should only have relationship with God; if you actually read my prior post, I clearly referenced having relationships with 'family... ...friends, church, government, and other human institutions.'
And yes, I argued and still argue that our identity is defined by who we are in Christ. It is affected by our human relationships, but that is all subordinate to the defining relationship with God. Thus, the most important parts of who I am will persist even as human relationships change, come, and go.
Our relationships with humans is not as important as our relationship with God. It's certainly not meaningless either, but it is in all ways secondary to the divine relationship.
I feel like there's this lack of communication going on between the two of us. So let me ask you again: do you or do you not think that one's self-identity as an "individual" with no intermediaries between the individual person and the Center (God) is destructive to the individual and to the social order surrounding the individual? Because that's what my entire thesis is based on.
I can't say whether I agree or disagree with it, because the language is so hard to parse. It seems to be trying to mash about four things together, and as a consequence I'm not sure what it's actually trying to say.
Is having a relationship with God with no human intermediaries destructive to the individual? No. it's essential for being a healthy individual.
Is having a relationship with God with no human intermediaries destructive to the social order surrounding the individual? That depends on the social order, and how you define 'destructive.'
If that social order is godless, and trying to force godless norms, it will be 'destructive' in the sense that it tears apart those norms, but constructive and healthy, in that it is a step towards godly and healthier norms.
If that social order is godly, founded and built on Love, then it will not be destructive, it will help build that social order up.
If you mean something else by that question, the meaning is not clear to me, and I can't answer.