It's not a line between two points, but rather like the circle representing the middle term in a venn diagram. By being in Christ we are in the Father. Such an understanding of mediation makes much better sense of the fact that Christ taught us to pray, "Our Father": he didn't tell us to say, "Lord Jesus, please tell your Father for us..." In fact, the linebetweentwopoints conception puts the Father in a hostile position. The use of the first understanding of mediation by Protestant critics of the Catholic practice of honoring the saints belies a lack of intimacy with the Father.
Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...
Comments