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Sahid
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Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 12/31/2005 6:02 AM (GMT -6) |   | Why does everything about God have to be necessarily true? The very approach of viewing God as perfect love, to my mind, throws necessity out the window. There is no proof of which I am aware that shows that a loving God must by necessity exist. Given the fact that creation is what it is we might work back and describe what God must be like to get things this way, but that's not logical necessity. What if we just decided to believe that God was, is, and will be who he is? Without proof or logical necessity.
Alan, I like your model very much. Just change it from prescriptive of what God must be to descriptive. In the process you can drop the idea of a person being objectively better than an inanimate object. You don't have to say that either Y or Z are necessarily persons. That's not the Christian faith, properly speaking. The essential Christian doctine of the Trinity (to my mind) is that Y and Z are persons, not that they must logically be so.
Oh, and the cherry on top is the reminder that this is not a sequence of events, but a description of who God is, was, and always will be. But everyone already knew that.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre | | Back to Top | | |
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timlings
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Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 130
| Posted 1/29/2006 5:55 PM (GMT -6) | | Greetings
What's wrong with the social trinity model? I probably don't know the exact ins and outs of it, so could someone explain?
My view on the trinity is that a good model is given in Gen 1:27
"God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."
It seems like a married couple gives us an amazing picture - they are 2 separate personalities yet joined in a union, a one-ness that is ultimately (though not exclusively) expressed in one-fleshness of sexual union.
The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Father. The Father is not the Spirit, nor is the Son the Spirit. They are separate, distinct persons, with distinct wills and minds. [I'll fend of questions later...;-) ] Yet they are eternally joined in loving, deep, fellowship and union. It's a dance that's been going on for all eternity and we get to join into it.
So, POW, I love the stuff you're coming up with.
I think we in the West get hung up about the 'oneness' of God, forgetting that 1x1x1=1.
Has anyone here read 'Trinity' by Roger T. Forster? Or 'Flame of Love' by Clarke Pinnock? They have some good things to say about the trinity.
Blessings
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Humphrey Bogart
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| Posted 1/31/2006 9:22 PM (GMT -6) | | | I think the approach Alan is taking here is helpful, but incomplete. That is, it explains some aspects of the Trinity, but leaves others unexplained and arbitrary. Let's focus on the "Fatherness" of the Father and the "Sonness" of the son for a moment.
Of course, there are some more radical theologians nowadays who would deny that the first and second persons of the Trinity are, in their essence, a father and a son. They would claim that this is just how they revealed themselves to humans and acted in relation to humans, rather than reflecting their essential being and nature. I'm going to set that view aside, because I don't think it does justice to Biblical revelation, and, indeed, renders Biblical revelation not revelation at all, but rather, masking.
So if we accept that, for want of a better term, person no. 1 and person no. 2 of the trinity are, in their essence, father and son, is there an explanation for this, other than that it represents an arbitrary fact? I think there is, but it is unpalatable to modern, egalitarian ideologies which most of us have absorbed throughout our education. The explanation, is that whenever there are a group of people interacting, then either de facto or de jure, there must be a hierarchy in operation. Sometimes, two people's wills will come into conflict. There must be a mechanism for resolving such conflicts, either explicit in law (de jure) or simply in practice (de facto).
Some might argue that the Father and the Son are in such perfect harmony that conflict could never occur. Perhaps "conflict" is the wrong word here, but a difference of wills is what I mean, not a dispute. If we accept that perfect goodness does not dictate only one course of action in any given circumstance, i.e. that there are multiple equally good things that a person can do, then the possibility of a "divergence of wills" arises. For instance, God the Father might like to create winged unicorns, but that might be logically incompatible with creation envisaged by God the Son. Is it morally right or wrong to create winged unicorns? It seems to be a matter of moral indifference, that God could choose either to create them or not do so, and still be perfectly good.
So the question of a divergence of wills must arise necessarily in the Trinity. One must give way to the other. I propose that this leads logically to a headship-submission relationship between these two persons.
To approach this from another angle, Alan has pointed out that God must express perfect love. I would argue that to be morally perfect, God must also express both perfect headship and also perfect submission and servanthood. Expressing both of these requires two persons, since one cannot be in submission to oneself.
As for the Holy Spirit, his function is as the spirit of unity, the animating force of both the Father and the Son. He proceeds from (or is breathed by) the Father into the Son. His function is a spirit of unity between the head and the servant.
One final thing: I don't think you can seperate function and essence. There is a Western tendency to make "essence" the Divine Nature (the "4th element of the Trinity" ) and function the domain of the hypostasis or person expressing the Divine Nature. That, I think, is incorrect. The Divine Nature is the nature of the Father, not an abstract "4th element". The Son inherits the same Divine Nature because he is begotten from the Father, just as I inherit the same human nature that my parents had. The Holy Spirit possesses the Divine Nature because He is the Father's Spirit, which is "emanated" or "externalized". Each of the persons of the Trinity possess an essence which is bound to their function. Hence, the fact that the Son is begotten of the Father (a fact of essence), logically entails his submission to the Father (a fact of function). Who he is and what he does are inextricably bound up together. Therefore, I don't like the term "functional subordinationism". I would prefer the term "hypostatic subordinationism". I don't think subordination in any way implies less greatness or divinity. Those who attack hypostatic subordinationism base their arguments on the assumption that to be in submission implies a lesser status, which has no Biblical foundation (it is based on modernist preconceptions which are alien to Biblical thought) and denigrates servanthood.
I could spark even more controversy by pointing out that the Trinity is not only hierarchical, but obviously patriarchal, but that would be going too far ...
Post Edited (Humphrey Bogart) : 1/31/2006 8:28:43 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 2/3/2006 8:48 PM (GMT -6) | | |
HB: I would argue that to be morally perfect, God must also express both perfect headship and also perfect submission and servanthood. Expressing both of these requires two persons, since one cannot be in submission to oneself.
Jeff: I think the above is what makes it feasible that the Father purposed creation primarily to glorify the Son by providing for him that pleasure which is derived from subordinates which volitionally submit and glorify their head. In John we are told that Christ glorified the Father and that the Father glorified him. But Christ glorified the Father as one submissive to Him, whereas Christ will be glorified by creatures which are submissive to him.
If this is possible, then the Father is perfectly loving insomuch as He perfectly glorifies the Son as an expression of that love. This way we can avoid the seeming implausibility of the greater good theodicy which views all providence as being directed at some greater good of creatures only. Such a greater good criteria would only come into play secondarily to the greatest glory of the Son. And the greatest glory of the Son would entail much of the LFW theodicy on account of the fact that glory can not be attained apart from volitional creatures whole-heartedly adoring their creator/lord/head for his praise-worthy attributes.
But by adding such a criteria, we can account for a different layer of complexity in the theodicy that is REVEALED, rather than speculative. It also reconciles love and glory into a kind of correlative TELOS. And this is only possible because the godhead is a plurality.
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Acolyte
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Date Joined Jun 2005
Total Posts : 42
| Posted 2/4/2006 6:30 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Humphry,
Some suggestions.
It can’t be right to speak of the Father and Son as being so “in their essence” since they share the same essence. What I think you mean to say is that they are constituted by specific hypostatic properties. The distinction is grounded in causal properties. The Father is the source and is not caused whereas the Son is caused by the Father in a specific way. What it is to be the Son is just to be caused in that way. The underlying premise is that cause and effect must differ in terms of equality otherwise there is no way to differentiate the two. So the Son and the Father are equal in so far as they both subsist in the same essence but the Father is greater than the Son because the Father is caused by no one where as the Son is.
As for the divine will, since will is a natural faculty there is only one will between the three persons of the Trinity. As for the Son willing other than the Father, that takes place in the Passion where Christ clearly wills in his human faculty of will, other than the Father in willing to preserve his own life. The reason why people think that Christ willing other than the Father is problematic is that they are thinking of the good as a simple object. If goodness is just one thing then to will other than the good is to will the evil. If freedom requires a plurality of options, then being fixed in goodness would imply a loss of freedom. A permanent freedom would likewise imply a persisting possibility of an evil choice. So if Christ chooses other than the good, then it seems as if he could sin. The problem is in viewing the Good as simple. If we view the Good as plural, then there are many things that God wills, such as the preservation of human life and Christ going to the Cross so that Christ willing one or the other doesn’t imply sin. Both options are good allowing Christ to freely choose between them with his human will. Both options are likewise willed by the three Persons of the Trinity in their divine will as eternal predeterminations or predestinations. The Three Persons never will contrary to each other because their faculty or power of will is the same. Turning it the other way around, it is from their common activities of will that we infer indirectly their common essence.
God never ceases from good works because he never began them. www.energeticprocession.com
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Humphrey Bogart
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| Posted 2/5/2006 4:25 AM (GMT -6) | | Jefscott, as far as I can see you're pretty much spot on!
Acolyte said...
It can’t be right to speak of the Father and Son as being so “in their essence” since they share the same essence. What I think you mean to say is that they are constituted by specific hypostatic properties. The distinction is grounded in causal properties. The Father is the source and is not caused whereas the Son is caused by the Father in a specific way. What it is to be the Son is just to be caused in that way. The underlying premise is that cause and effect must differ in terms of equality otherwise there is no way to differentiate the two. So the Son and the Father are equal in so far as they both subsist in the same essence but the Father is greater than the Son because the Father is caused by no one where as the Son is.
On the issue of essence, I think we merely have a terminological difference reflecting a different doctrine of universals. I was using "essence" to speak of that which distinctly comprises a particular person or hypostasis (i.e the essence of the person, rather than the essence of the nature), but you want to restrict the term to the nature. You distinguish "essence" from "specific hypostatic properties", but as a nominalist, I don't subscribe to ideas of an underlying form or essence apart from the particular properties of the thing. As regards the unity of the persons of the Trinity, their being "one substance", my view essentially is in line with nominalists such as William of Ockham. I do not accept Platonist explanations, as are often found in the Fathers. I do not think that the members of the Trinity are one substance in the same sense as human individuals are one substance, which seems to have been the position of the Cappadocian Fathers, and was implied by parallelism although not outright stated at Chalcedon. In my (and Ockham's view), such reasoning is an attempt by human reason to understand something that is not rationally comprehensible by human reason, and therefore distorts the truth. In other words, I do not think a comprehensive rational account of the Trinity is possible. It transcends human reasoning. It cannot be explained in terms of "properties", "attributes", "essences", "substances" and so forth - at least not satisfactorily. We can only ever have a partial comprehension of this. Ockham, somewhat like Kierkegaard and existentialists, regarded human reason as fundamentally limited and unable to grasp reality comprehensively. I agree. In Kantian terms, I think we can understand the phenomenal world, not the noumenal world. But the concept of person transcends the phenomenal world, although it has a phenomenal reflection, which is what we can see. We can say, therefore, that in reality, in the noumenal world, there are three persons, and we can say (based on revelation) that they are one God. We cannot, however, say how that can be so, since we are limited only to phenomenal descriptions.
As for cause, what you say is true, but incomplete. It is not merely that the Father causes the Son, it is a specific kind of causation, namely, begetting. Begetting involves some kind of impartation or duplication of the essence of the Father to the Son. The Son inherits the nature of the Father. But otherwise I agree with what you say.
Acolyte said...
As for the divine will, since will is a natural faculty there is only one will between the three persons of the Trinity.
This I completely disagree with, both on scriptural and logical grounds. Will is not an attribute of nature but of person. Indeed, to be a person is to have a will; if there is only one will, then there is only one person. But this is also made clear in scripture:
Jesus said in John 5:30: I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me (NRSV; in both cases the Greek word for will is thelema, and the context certainly suggests the meaning "will" in the sense of determined course of action or choice).
Obviously, then, the will of Jesus and the will of the Father are distinct.
Acolyte said...
As for the Son willing other than the Father, that takes place in the Passion where Christ clearly wills in his human faculty of will, other than the Father in willing to preserve his own life.
Now this seems to me to be Nestorian. John 5:30 does not read "I seek to do not my human faculty of will, but the will of him who sent me, which is actually the same will as my own divine will". Such a reading is required by your view and is bizarre. The personal pronoun "I" (ego) refers to the person, not the nature. That is why it is called a personal pronoun. When someone says "I", "me" or whatever, they are always referring to their person, never to some particular aspect of their nature which they possess. To interpret language in this way is to force a theological construct onto the text that is utterly foreign to it.
In every single case, where Jesus says "I", "me" and so forth, he is obviously referring to his person, including both his human and divine natures. Everything that Jesus did expressed both his divinity and his humanity. If his human will were distinct from his divine will, then what he did as an expression of that will did not reveal his divinity. You have a Nestorian division of the person, and a consequent entailment that Jesus did not reveal divinity to us at all.
Apart from this, I think we are in agreement on the point that goodness does not dictate a single course of action in all cases. Unless I have misunderstood your point!
One other point: on my view - which incidentally I think most modern thinkers would agree with - Christ being one person logically entails that he had only one will. Hence, I might be accused of being a monothelemite. There are two points in response to this. Firstly, the ancients used the term will in a rather different manner to moderns. The modern idea of will is just the faculty of choosing itself, whereas the ancient idea was more extensive. So it is questionable whether moderns such as I can be accused of being monothelemites in the ancient sense. The second point I would make is that the monothelemites were only condemned centuries after the Council of Chalcedon. It is entirely arguable, therefore, whether their position is consistent with Chalcedon or not, and if it is, then it is questionable whether it should have been condemned at all.
In any case I maintain my position is absolutely consistent with Chalcedon, and more importantly, with scripture. I don't see how anyone who claims that the three persons of the Trinity have a single will can really be said to be Trinitarian - they are (though perhaps unwittingly), actually Sabellians. Keep in mind, though, that the term "will" underwent radical revision with the emergence of modern philosophy in the writings of Descartes, and the idea of subjective phenomenal consciousness, which the ancients simply never grasped.Post Edited (Humphrey Bogart) : 2/5/2006 3:47:06 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Acolyte
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Date Joined Jun 2005
Total Posts : 42
| Posted 2/6/2006 1:36 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Humphrey,
Terms
You are quite right that I was so using the term essence. I can restrict myself to ousia and hypostasis since those are the condified terms. As a Realist I am not uncomfortable with such a usage. Your challenge of course will be as a nominalist to try to come up with a coherent account that can map on to the traditional Christological and triadological definitions without lapsing into explicit heterodoxy. Good luck with that. 
Not Three Gods
I don’t think the Fathers take the persons of the Trinity to be of one ousia in the same way that all humans are. In fact I think they go out of their way to say that they aren’t. Gregory of Nyssa says so explicitly in his On Not Three Gods. As for Platonism there are historically lots of different types of it. It is a very plastic system. One could even argue that Nominalism is just a mark on say Plotinus’ chain of being. I digress.
Nominalism and its Cause
Ockham’s Nominalism is by and large a product of his voluntarism, which in turn is a product of his views on divine simplicity. Ockham’s God is thus very similar to the God of Islam, a deity that is so simple so as not to even have an essence. Such a deity is pure will and thus every taxonomy is contingent on the divine will. Viola! Nominalism.  I just find it simpler, more Biblical, philosophically more satisfying to just dump divine simplicity. It isn’t an essential part (DOUBLE PUN!)  of the traditional Christian teaching about God. Moving on, this is why Ockham took such reasoning to be a waste of time. It is no wonder that the Lutherans basically took on this Ockhamisic attitude, for Luther was an Ockhamist. Though admittedly, Luther became a Manichean and Ockhamist wasn’t, though both waxed Pelagian in their pre-lasparian anthropology. 
The Sun
I never argued that a comprehensive rational account of the Trinity was possible. (I only argued for a consistent rational account, not a comprehensive one btw.) Any good Platonist has reason for thinking that such a thing isn’t possible (See Republic 509b) One doesn’t have to be a nominalist to make such a claim. The reason why such an account isn’t possible is because reason grasps being, and God is no being at all. God is hyper ousia-ousia, beyond being-being. Since God ad intra is not being as either verb (nominalist) or noun (realist) such an account is not possible.
Consequently my own view of the via negativa or the apophatic way doesn’t imply that that which is negated is false, just inadequate . The way you seem to gloss the epistemic distance is that our rational knowledge of God is always distorting. But since I don’t view the knowledge of God in Pelagian terms of our reaching up to lay hold of God but rather God reaching down to us, I have no reason to think that our knowledge is necessarily distorting. (BTW Kant didn’t think the Categories distorted reality either.)
To spell out the metaphysical grid with which I am working a bit more, I only speak of the divine ousia in terms of a causal designator. The three place metaphysic is that of essence, power and activity/energy. The idea is every object has an essence (ousia) which has intrinsic or first order powers. These powers are inseparable from the essence of the object. So the power of fire is heat. It is not possible for fire to be fire and not have the power of heat.
But the power or dunameis of fire isn't always manifested or instantiated. When it is, the power of fire is active, it is energetic. Fire also has secondary powers such as producing the dry. But other objects can also produce the dry and so the dry is something of a contingent production of the essence and power of fire. So what we know of God we know of his energies or activities and never his essence. Consequently there is no beatific vision. But the three persons are always present in the their activities-creation, redemption, etc. so that we indirectly infer a common essence. This is how we know the Three Persons are the One God and not three gods. Ousia then denotes the transcendent cause of the energies by the three persons.
As to attributes, I have no place for them. What we know of God is truly God. The divine energies or activities are no less deity than the divine ousia for they are God in act. Attributes are judgments of the mind about some appearance. But since the divine energies are not limp sensible species or phantasme, I have no need of the category of attributes. By contrast, a Nominalist like yourself can’t seem to do without them. 
Causation
I quite agree that the Father causes the Son with a specific kind of causation. But being begotten doesn’t involve duplication because the Son is not the duplicate of the Father. Impartation is also inadequate since there is no potency to receive the act. As Nyssa and Basil made clear, there is nothing we can know of what constitutes the mode of hypostatic causation.
Monothelitism
Your denial of a natural human will in Christ amounts to an endorsement of Apollinarianism as well as Monothelitism. If Christ lacks a human will, then he lacks that which is natural to being human. And a denial of two wills in Christ implies an exegesis that puts the doctrine of the Trinity at risk as well since now there is a conflict of wills in the Trinity not to mention undercuts any reason for thinking that they have a common nature. In any case, a denial of two wills in Christ is straight up monothelitism. You may still wish to choose that belief because after all, heresy does literally mean "choice." 
Fist Pounding
As for logic, fist pounding isn’t generally accepted as a truth preserving inference. Simply stating that will is an attribute of person isn’t an argument. Moreover, I never said it was an attribute since attributes are judgments of the mind, not features of objects. I said that will was a faculty or energia of a nature. While it may be true that to be a person is to have a will, it doesn’t follow that will is identical to person because we could say the same thing about intellect, which is obviously different than will. I agree that persons always have wills, but that doesn’t establish that the will is hypostatic rather than natural.
Exegesis? No Problemo
Your exegesis of John 5:30 leaves something to be desired, namely the exegesis part. If Jesus has two wills, then John 5:30 won’t show that he doesn’t since it differentiates two wills. On the Christian view, Jesus shares one faculty of will with the Father and the Spirit and has another faculty of will per his humanity. Persons use their faculties, one of which is their will, but persons transcend the essences in which they subsist and consequently their faculties. Everything I will is an expression of me, but that doesn’t make me my will. What I use my hand for expresses me, but my hand isn't me. 
We don’t Serve Nestorians 
Actually my view isn’t Nestorian at all and it is quite anti-Nestorian. Nestorians identified Nous with hypostasis. Then supplied the premise that nous was natural and consequently there were two hypostasis. (Eutychairns agreed byt just denied that there were two natures after the union-ek but not en) But while affirming that nous is natural I deny nous is identical with hypostasis and hence I am not Nestorian. Jesus is one hypostasis with two nous’. My position is actually that of St. Maximus the Confessor, who’s Christology was upheld and confirmed by the 6th Ecumenical Council and so it is hardly Nestorian. This council’s Christology is also upheld by Catholics, Orthodox and all major Protestant traditions so I am afriad you are the one on the short end of the ecclesiastical stick. 
My view fits very easily with John 5:30. I still think there is one “I” doing the willing. There is one subject, one hypostasis using a specific will or power of operation. Jesus can will according to either will or power of operation as the 6th Council states.
"...one and the same Christ our Lord the only-begotten Son of two natures un-confusedly, unchangeably, inseparably indivisibly to be recognized, the peculiarities of neither nature being lost by the union but rather the proprieties of each nature being preserved, concurring in one Person and in one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons but one and the same only-begotten Son of God, the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, according as the Prophets of old have taught us and as our Lord Jesus Christ himself hath instructed us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers hath delivered to us; defining all this we likewise declare that in him are two natural wills and two natural operations [energies] indivisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, inconfusedly, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers. And these two natural wills are not contrary the one to the other (God forbid!) as the impious heretics assert, but his human will follows and that not as resisting and reluctant, but rather as subject to his divine and omnipotent will. For it was right that the flesh should be moved but subject to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius. For as his flesh is called and is the flesh of God the Word, so also the natural will of his flesh is called and is the proper will of God the Word, as he himself says: "I came down from heaven, not that I might do mine own will but the will of the Father which sent me!" where he calls his own will the will of his flesh, inasmuch as his flesh was also his own. For as his most holy and immaculate animated flesh was not destroyed because it was deified but continued in its own state and nature, so also his human will, although deified, was not suppressed, but was rather preserved according to the saying of Gregory Theologus: "His will [i.e., the Saviour's] is not contrary to God but altogether deified." http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-128.htm#P5887_1300670
So the pronoun picks out the subject in the energia or activity. (Incidentally, this is the implicit assumption in say Lockean view of labor where I put something of myself into my labor.)The energy is natural, its employment is personal. Thus there is nothing being imposed on Jn 5:30. The problem is that you are conceiving of persons as their faculties, which is the common assumption of Nestorians, Eutychians as well as Arians.
In every single case Jesus is always referring to his one person but not always to something true of both natures. Mark 13:32 certainly isn’t referring to the divine nature. How did Jesus’ ignorance express his divine ousia seeing that divinity is beyond ignorance? And it is just a non-sequitor to argue that if Jesus has two wills then his human acts do not reveal his divinity. First because the same hyposatsis subsists in both natures and both natures are united to one hypostasis. Since the person or hypostasis is a divine person, it follows that his using his human faculties reveals his divinity because he uses them in a personal divine way.
Ad Vericundium
By modern thinkers, I am not sure who you have in mind. In philosophy of religion I know this isn’t so. See Thom Morris’ The Logic of God Incarnate, for instance. Morris sticks with dyothelitism. If you think that Christ being one person logically entails the existence of one will, then you need to specify the entailment relation. The ancient idea of will varied as does the modern one though they have a set of common roots. The notion I am working with is the one endorsed by Maximus and the 6th Council. Which specific modern notion of will did you have in mind? I am not sure what the relevance of monothelitism being condemned after Chalcedon is. Chalcedon was centuries later after Nicea. Does this therefore imply that Nestorianism and Eutychianism are therefore acceptable? I don’t see how. The fact is that 3rd Constantinople was taken by the Chalcedonians as the official explication of Chalcedon against the Monophysites and the Nestorians. So I don’t see how you can historically argue for a warrant to think that Monothelitism is permissible. And it wasn’t as if the debates after Chalcedon stopped. 3rd Constantinople is a part of the continued debate. Moreover, I don’t see how especially on a nominalist gloss, one could hold to dyophysitism if there isn’t a human will. What makes the human nature human? Not a human will. Not a human intellect. What then? Its just another form of Apollinarianism and Docetism. If you think that Monothelitism is consistent with Chalcedonian dyophysitism then you will have to make that argument.
No Monadology Here Please
I can easily say that there is a single will in the Trinity because I don’t identify will with personhood. This is the position of the Cappadocians for instance as well as Athanasius and others. Such a view isn’t Sabellian, actually its opposite. Sabellians generally identify person with natural faculties so that the persons are just expressions of a nature, like modes of relations.
Try Plotinus
I don’t think that the “revision” of the notion of will was all that revisionary in the modern period. It is generally a rehash of Platonic work on the soul. And if you spend some time in Plotinus’ Fourth Ennead, where he discusses the soul and perception quite a lot, it will become obvious (or at least it should) that much of Cartestian and consequently modern psychology isn’t all that new. What generally differs for the ancients and moderns is that the moderns do away with the intelligible species in the passive intellect.
Ciao 
God never ceases from good works because he never began them. www.energeticprocession.com
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Humphrey Bogart
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Date Joined Jun 2003
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| Posted 2/7/2006 8:26 AM (GMT -6) | | Acolyte said...
Your challenge of course will be as a nominalist to try to come up with a coherent account that can map on to the traditional Christological and triadological definitions without lapsing into explicit heterodoxy.
Nope, that's not my challenge; indeed, I deny that any such coherent account is possible. Nominalists, in general, deny the rational comprehensibility of the doctrine of the Trinity. Furthermore, even if we accept realism, I would argue that it cannot give us a coherent account of the Trinity without lapsing into heterodoxy, either.
Acolyte said...
I don’t think the Fathers take the persons of the Trinity to be of one ousia in the same way that all humans are. In fact I think they go out of their way to say that they aren’t.
The problem is what you mean by "the same". Chalcedon declared that Jesus was "one substance" with the Father as regards his divinity, and "one substance" with us as regards his humanity. That implies that the way in which Jesus is united with the Father is the same way that he is united in his humanity with other humans. Which implies that all humans are in fact "one substance" in the same way that the persons of the Trinity are "one substance". And Gregory of Nyssa quite explicitly teaches that the persons of the Trinity are instantiations of the one divine form or substance in the same way that individual humans are instantiations of the one form or substance "human nature". I haven't got time tonight to find the quote, but I can do so if you doubt it.
This gave rise to the very obvious problem that he deals with in "On Not Three Gods". We ordinarily speak of each instantiation of human nature as being a distinct human. We say that you are one human, and I am another human, and so forth. But, given the parallel he sets up, this means that it would be legitimate to speak of each instantiation of the divine nature as a god. So the Father would be one god, Jesus would be another god, and the Holy Spirit another god, just as I am one human, you are another human, and so forth.
Gregory of Nyssa admits that this question is, quote, "very difficult to deal with", and he devotes the whole of "On Not Three Gods" to dealing with it. The problem is, his argument, which is essentially semantic, is totally unsatisfactory. Neither have I heard any other realist give a vaguely plausible answer to this problem. In short, the realist account of the Trinity, if pushed to its logical conclusion, yields tritheism, and this is why Western theologians have often accused the East of just that view.
Accolyte said...
I never argued that a comprehensive rational account of the Trinity was possible. (I only argued for a consistent rational account, not a comprehensive one btw.)
And I maintain that "a consistent rational account" is not possible, because human reasoning is too limited. This leads to all sorts of important issues, but I'll leave it aside for the moment.
Accolyte said...
The reason why such an account isn’t possible is because reason grasps being, and God is no being at all. God is hyper ousia-ousia, beyond being-being. Since God ad intra is not being as either verb (nominalist) or noun (realist) such an account is not possible.
God is "no being at all"? I think we're living on different planets. But anyway, "being" for me resolves down to personal subjectivity a la Heidegger.
Accolyte said...
Consequently my own view of the via negativa or the apophatic way doesn’t imply that that which is negated is false, just inadequate . The way you seem to gloss the epistemic distance is that our rational knowledge of God is always distorting. But since I don’t view the knowledge of God in Pelagian terms of our reaching up to lay hold of God but rather God reaching down to us, I have no reason to think that our knowledge is necessarily distorting. (BTW Kant didn’t think the Categories distorted reality either.)
I think I have to say something here to clarify my views. Let's take the distinction that Russell made between "knowledge by acquaintance" and "propositional knowledge". I would call these "concrete" phenomenal, experienced knowing and verbal, linguistic knowing. In my opinion, the Trinity, and for that matter many other things, cannot be understood by us in concrete terms. We can never form a "mental image" of those things, if you like. But language, I think, can take us beyond the phenomenal; but is thereby condemned to always be language. To put it another way: we can state the doctrine of the Trinity, but we can't clearly comprehend it.
Suppose that you had never experienced the colour green. Somebody tells you that there is a colour unlike any you have ever experienced, which is called "green", and then tells you that "trees are green". You could then say, and even claim to know in a propositional sense (if your source was trustworthy etc), that "trees are green". But you wouldn't be able to comprehend what that meant. I think our claims that "God is a Trinity" are like a man who has never experienced green saying "trees are green".
Acolyte said...
I have no need of the category of attributes. By contrast, a Nominalist like yourself can’t seem to do without them.
Indeed, the world, at least the phenomenal world, consists of bundles of attributes and nothing else.
Acolyte said...
quite agree that the Father causes the Son with a specific kind of causation. But being begotten doesn’t involve duplication because the Son is not the duplicate of the Father.
Answering this involves some careful terminology, because as a nominalist I have a different view of things to you. I can see why "duplication" would not be an appropriate term for a realist. But I think duplication of person is appropriate for a nominalist, because it does not imply functional equivalence - the fact that one person (the Father) was the begetter and the other (the Son) the begetee would imply different functional roles expressing the same perfect goodness.
Acolyte said...
Your denial of a natural human will in Christ amounts to an endorsement of Apollinarianism as well as Monothelitism. If Christ lacks a human will, then he lacks that which is natural to being human. And a denial of two wills in Christ implies an exegesis that puts the doctrine of the Trinity at risk as well since now there is a conflict of wills in the Trinity not to mention undercuts any reason for thinking that they have a common nature. In any case, a denial of two wills in Christ is straight up monothelitism.
Nope, it's not an endorsement of Apollinarianism, because "will" (on my view) does not belong to nature, neither human, nor divine. "Will" belongs to the person. DEFINITION: A person is a free-will agent. Whatever has a will, is a person, and the number of wills = the number of persons. I'm happy to be accused of "monthelitism" if you like. Only this view naturally fits the scriptures. Please cite me scriptural evidence that Jesus had two wills! The whole "two-will" doctrine is based entirely on flawed philosophical reasoning.
Acolyte said...
As for logic, fist pounding isn’t generally accepted as a truth preserving inference. Simply stating that will is an attribute of person isn’t an argument.
I'm not saying will is an attribute of person, I'm saying it IS personhood. In other words, by definition, a person is a being with a will. You can, of course, hold a different definition of personhood if you want to, but you'll have to expound upon what it is.
Acolyte said...
If Jesus has two wills, then John 5:30 won’t show that he doesn’t since it differentiates two wills.
Excuse me, but Jesus plainly refers to "my will" SINGULAR. To argue that this is compatible with him having two wills is plainly ludicrous. If you want to do that, fine! My view just takes the simple, obvious meaning. Furthermore, in verse 37, Jesus refers to the Father sending "me" (again, that personal pronoun). Obviously, therefore, he is talking about his eternally preexistent personal identity, not just his human nature, since you can't send something that doesn't exist yet! If Jesus possessed two wills, how could he speak of "my will" being such-and-such, without being totally misleading and deceptive? Wouldn't he have had to say "my human will"?
Acolyte said...
On the Christian view
I'm not a Christian now?
Acolyte said...
Jesus can will according to either will or power of operation
OK, let's just think about this logically for a moment, shall we? Jesus can "will" according to either "will". So what will does he use to choose which will to will by? There must be a single will that stands behind the other two wills that determines which of these two wills is going to be used to will. The whole notion is incoherent, because a person can logically only have one will! If there are two wills, there are two persons.
Acolyte said...
I am not sure what the relevance of monothelitism being condemned after Chalcedon is. Chalcedon was centuries later after Nicea. Does this therefore imply that Nestorianism and Eutychianism are therefore acceptable? I don’t see how.
It's very relevant. The fact that Nestorianism and Eutychianism were condemned after Nicea, means that if someone said "I hold only to church councils up to and including Nicea", then Nestorianism and Eutychianism would certainly be open to them to adopt. Since I hold only to the Councils up to and including Chalcedon, I am not obliged to accept the decrees of later councils. In any case, as a Protestant, I believe that Councils are not infallible and can err, and that includes all the councils. So the argument isn't that important from my perspective.
One final, important point. Please note that I am not accusing you of explictly being a Nestorian or whatever. I am sure your profession of faith is thoroughly orthodox. I'm just pointing out what I think are the logical implications of your position. No doubt you think there are all sorts of heterodox implications of my position, but hopefully you can be satisfied that my profession of faith is orthodox (at least, up to and including the Council of Chalcedon - I'm not prepared to accept anything beyond that myself). And, incidentally, I'm at least more orthodox than all the Oriental Orthodox Churches (Coptic, Armenian, etc), because they never accepted the Council of Chalcedon. And their orthodoxy has since been acknowledged by the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.Post Edited (Humphrey Bogart) : 2/7/2006 8:08:40 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/7/2006 6:12 PM (GMT -6) | | |
PotOnWheel --
For me to post is at least anticlimactic. I'm no scholar, nor formally a student. I've an MFA in clay, and I teach special ed. kids to use pointy scissors successfully.
I'm a fan of John Meyendorff, however. "Christ in Eastern Christian Thought" and "Byzatine Theology" were wonderful books. (So I mainly side with Acolyte -- though "essence/power/energies" may or may not be the same as "essence/hypostasis/energies" that I THINK I'm familiar with. Then I've gotten song lyrics wrong before too, so I'm open to correction. Acolyte, would Meyendorff or Florevsky recognize "essence/power/energies"?)
.
So, for whatever its worth, and hopefully not to confuse anything....
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Humphrey Bogart said...
Chalcedon declared that Jesus was "one substance" with the Father as regards his divinity, and "one substance" with us as regards his humanity. That implies that the way in which Jesus is united with the Father is the same way that he is united in his humanity with other humans. Which implies that all humans are in fact "one substance" in the same way that the persons of the Trinity are "one substance".
PotOnWheel - HB, I think that this is where actual history comes in. Again, I'm glad that my first two Orthodox books were Meyendorff's "The Orthodox Church" (which is a very frank history book) and Ware's "the Orthodox Way." NEITHER is a theology book!
Historically, there is a line, a trajectory that was struggled over and through to draw. And that was Orthodoxy. Right worship -- not just right creed. Lex Orandi Lex Credendi. And were Orthodoxy to have charted the direction HB says ("Jesus is united with the Father is the same way that he is united in his humanity") -- and here I BEG recognition that I'm both not a scholar and make really HUGE mistakes that I don't mean to make, sometimes... -- there would be some coming-up-short that would affect the faith.
"Asymmetrical union" is a term Meyendorff uses:
The very technical Christological discussions of the twelfth century, in fact, reconsidered all the major issues, which had been debated in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries. The Byzantine Church remained fundamentally faithful to the notion of what George Florovsky once called an "asymmetrical union" of God and man in Christ: while the hypostatic source of life — the goal and pattern — remains divine, man is not diminished or swallowed by the union; he becomes again fully human. This notion is also expressed in the Eucharistic sacrifice, a unique act in which no single action of Christ’s is represented in isolation or reduced to purely human concepts, such as an "exchange," or a "satisfaction." Christ as the Synodikon proclaims every year on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, "reconciled us to Himself by means of the whole mystery of the economy, by Himself, and in Himself and reconciled us also to His God and Father and of course to the most holy and life-giving Spirit."5
(Section on The Christological Issue -- found by the
LINK http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/byzantine_theology_j_meyendorf.htm )
I think I'll just say "never mind" if this is not relevant!
MUCH MORE TO SAY CAN BE DRAWN FROM THIS QUOTE. But it's not just "theological" and academic.
While we don't believe that Christ's union with us is lacking in any way, and that he "holds his humanity so closely to himself that we are united with him and can be his Body, yet, there is no confusion or change in his divine nature.
Some modern theologians will disagree. I think the "kenotic" exagerations are among them.
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Humphrey Bogart said...
I think our claims that "God is a Trinity" are like a man who has never experienced green saying "trees are green".
PotOnWheel - I can see that -- in a manner of speaking. Yet I also agree with what Acolyte was saying. I exchanged with a convert to Catholicism for a while, and he pointed out that the followers of Aquinas had made much more of "created grace" than Thomas ever did. Acolyte knows I'm thinking of Gregory Palamas -- whom Catholics are interested in too. HB, you probably know who he is too.
One way or another, through Christ we experience Life and Love and Fellowship IN God. We obviously aren't "God" yet we experience the divine.
A ocntemporary Greek theolgian chose the term "Christification" for a chapter, instead of the word "theosis." The focus that allows is to connect in the reader's mind the unity of humanity and divinity that Christ -- for the first time in human history, did 'for us and our salvation.'
Important, as far as I can tell, is that Christ was truly human, all the while also being divine. This points my attention to two things: First, and maybe it should be second, humanity is by creational-nature compatable for fellowship with God, without humanity crubling under the weight of it. Second, that humanity can be indwelt without being overwhelmed by divinity. Where there is Christ that is not just God acting like man, men can have hope of being "Christified" by divine life and light, and transformed -- not into something foreign -- but into what we were always intended to be.
I wonder how I'm do'en so far!
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Acolyte said...
I have no need of the category of attributes. By contrast, a Nominalist like yourself can’t seem to do without them.
Humphrey Bogart said...
Indeed, the world, at least the phenomenal world, consists of bundles of attributes and nothing else.
PotOnWheel - I was reading "attributes" as being human constructs that human expect to see consistently on a consistent basis. Well meaning phrases intended to complement God, but really make us feel better. But which are pretty much -- surprisingly -- unbiblical.
God is merciful, and his judgement is not consistent. (Ask Jonah.) God in the OT shows himself to be unbounded by place, or even people. He loves those "in" the camp but comes to them often from "outside" it. Sometimes he is patient, and other times he says 'enough."
I think on this site attributes are known as the "OMNIs" -- but, as Monk says on TV, "I could be wrong."
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Acolyte said...
Your denial of a natural human will in Christ amounts to an endorsement of . . .
Humphrey Bogart said...
"will" (on my view) does not belong to nature, neither human, nor divine. "Will" belongs to the person.
PotOnWheel - All a non-academic like me can comtribute is to MENTION that when Orthodox theologians say "will" they do not mean the kind of "will" that is in "will power." Maximus did not use it that way.
So, HB, you can't object when Acolyte uses "will" two ways in one sentence.
Neither should ANY of us object to the distinctions and agreements between the Etheoplians and Russian at the Orthodox Church I attend on Saturday nights. The Etheopian Copts -- as HB knows -- are on a personal, individual basis totally free to recite the full Nicene-Constantinoplean Creed -- the original -- and to commune fully in that congregation. Now days they are accepting of what each other meant. And each pretty much agrees with both their own side of what they'd historically affirmed, AND also what the "other" had found necessary to till and tend too.
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Acolyte said...
If Jesus has two wills, then John 5:30 won’t show that he doesn’t since it differentiates two wills.
Humphrey Bogart said...
Excuse me, but Jesus plainly refers to "my will" SINGULAR. To argue that this is compatible with him having two wills is plainly ludicrous. If you want to do that, fine! My view just takes the simple, obvious meaning. Furthermore, in verse 37, Jesus refers to the Father sending "me" (again, that personal pronoun). Obviously, therefore, he is talking about his eternally preexistent personal identity, not just his human nature, since you can't send something that doesn't exist yet! If Jesus possessed two wills, how could he speak of "my will" being such-and-such, without being totally misleading and deceptive? Wouldn't he have had to say "my human will"?
PotOnWheel -
I won't try to take up any particular arguement here.
I'll just mention the notion of "partitive exigesis" that Behr mentions about Athanasias. In the Gospels, for clarity of event, or emphasis of truths, sometimes the writer highlights or features one nature at a time; with both receiving ample due.
And I'm not looking hard right now, but some of the "sending" issue may, or may not be due to the will of God from before the foundation of the world for Christ to suffer. Again, I'm not looking hard to make up my mind, so I won't challenge you. Instead I just want to mention that this "eternal" plan has to be on the table too -- whethe related to your issue or not.
And, again, as above. The two "wills" were not the kind of will that a "strong willed" child has. They are discussions perhaps more akin to the will a bar of iron has, or that a particular piece of wood.
OR A PIECE OF POTTERY WHEN I THROW IT -- at last, something I know about .  Will in the Garden describes the "fiber" of his humanity, that did not want to die.
And, again, if all the theologians will sit down for a minute, this is relavant to all of us humans. Christ suffered in the garden. He suffered because his human will/fibre was being asked to bend in ways that were unnatural to it. He wouldn't go quietly, as the poem says, "... do not go gently into that good night rage rage against the dying of the light..." And Christ did. Yet the OTHER DEFINITION of "WILL" also is in the narrative. Isnt' it. Yes. It was his human decision, of will that goes beyond mere nature (And here we all agree with HB.) that said "NOT MY FIBRE BUT YOUR GLORY." (If there hasn't been a version of the Bible...yet...then there won't be any copyright issues.) Not my will but yours.
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Acolyte said...
Jesus can will according to either will or power of operation
Humphrey Bogart said...
OK, let's just think about this logically for a moment, shall we? Jesus can "will" according to either "will". So what will does he use to choose which will to will by? There must be a single will that stands behind the other two wills that determines which of these two wills is going to be used to will. The whole notion is incoherent, because a person can logically only have one will! If there are two wills, there are two persons.
PotOnWheel - OK, Acolyte needs glosarry. Maybe he wears one on the front of hiw teeshirt. But for what he's saying I think he's right.
..........BY ACCIDENT OF HISTORY.............
But... then... History really, really, really helps!
Thanks.
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Humphrey Bogart
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 205
| Posted 2/9/2006 8:34 AM (GMT -6) | | I know Acolyte hasn't responded yet, but I thought I'd respond to PoW and add some more detail in relation to the wills issue.
PoW said...
All a non-academic like me can comtribute is to MENTION that when Orthodox theologians say "will" they do not mean the kind of "will" that is in "will power." Maximus did not use it that way.
Right, and that is why I am not really sure whether it is accurate even to class me as a "monothelemite". I am not particularly bothered by labels, but when I mean will, I mean the faculty of choosing. So if this is not what Orthodox theologians mean, which it seems to me it isn't, then I can't see how I can be properly identified as a "monothelemite".
I maintain it is logically impossible for any person to have two wills. Acolyte didn't like table-thumping, and wanted proof, so here are two:
PROOF #1:
(a) If Christ possesses two wills, and can employ either of them, then before he wills with either will he must first choose which to use. But that choice, by definition, involves a will. So we have an initial willing to decide which of the two wills to use (I'll call this the primary willing), followed by a secondary willing by the divine or human will.
(b) In order to decide which will to employ, the primary willing would need to consider all the circumstances and the action to be undertaken. It could not just select the divine or human will blindly, because the circumstance might demand, say, a human will response, and the primary will would need to ensure that this was selected. It would be impossible for the primary will to select the appropriate secondary willing and always be accurate unless it considered all the circumstances and formulated the course of action to be taken.
(c) But in that case, what is left for the secondary will (either divine or human) to choose? Nothing! All the choosing has already been done by the primary will. All that is left for the divine or human will is to execute the decision. But merely executing a decision is not the function of a will. A will, in order to be a will, is the faculty that actually chooses. So the "divine will" and "human will" turn out not to be wills at all. There is only one will: the primary will.
(d) Suppose you say that the primary willing is done by the divine will. In that case, only the divine will will turn out to be real, and you have Apollinarianism. On the other hand, if the primary willing is done by the human will, then Jesus is not fully divine. So the will cannot belong to either nature. The will, which is the expression of the subject, lies behind nature. Nature is objective; personhood is subjective.
PROOF #2 (this one depends on the principle of the identity of indistinguishables, which I accept, but not everyone does):
(a) Suppose that Jesus uses his divine will to choose X. We can, therefore, fairly say that "Jesus chose X". Suppose that he then chooses Y with his human will. We can also fairly say "Jesus chose Y".
(b) Now we ask, what is the difference between Jesus choosing X and Jesus choosing Y, that allows us to say one involved a divine will and the other a human will? I cannot see anything at all. Choosing is choosing; and that is all a will does. There seems to be no difference in terms of the choosing between Jesus choosing X and Jesus choosing Y. So surely we can only talk of Jesus' single will, not his divine will or his human will. Whatever is indistinguishable, is identical.
PoW said...
I'll just mention the notion of "partitive exigesis" that Behr mentions about Athanasias. In the Gospels, for clarity of event, or emphasis of truths, sometimes the writer highlights or features one nature at a time; with both receiving ample due.
The problem is, I don't see any evidence at all in the text that the writer had such a distinction in mind. It seems to me to be a theological imposition on the text, in order to get around problem texts. The Gospel writers, it seems to me, always focus on the person and what he did. They don't enter into speculation about natures and which was involved. That whole concept came centuries later.
As a matter of interest - everybody else - Sahid, Tom, Alan and you all - I'd be interested to know how you would answer this question:
Online Survey Quiz:
How many wills do you think Jesus has?
(a) One
(b) Two
(c) More than two
(d) All of the above
I'm just curious how much influence the condemnation of monothelitism actually has nowadays.
Answer to quiz:
If you answered (a), then you are allegedly a monothelite heretic.
If you answered (b), then you are allegedly orthodox.
If you answered (c), then you are confused.
If you answered (d), then you are a postmodern theologian.
You know, come to think of it, I just haven't heard enough sermons of late concerning the number of wills that Jesus has. I'll have to make that my next topic for preaching
 Post Edited (Humphrey Bogart) : 2/9/2006 7:46:09 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/9/2006 6:43 PM (GMT -6) | | PoW said...
PoW: I'll just mention the notion of "partitive exigesis" that Behr mentions about Athanasias. In the Gospels, for clarity of event, or emphasis of truths, sometimes the writer highlights or features one nature at a time; with both receiving ample due.
H.B.: The problem is, I don't see any evidence at all in the text that the writer had such a distinction in mind. It seems to me to be a theological imposition on the text, in order to get around problem texts. The Gospel writers, it seems to me, always focus on the person and what he did. They don't enter into speculation about natures and which was involved. That whole concept came centuries later.
Pow responding: Easy. And basic. When he commanded the waves to still, that was his divinity doing it. And when he hungered, that was his humanity. In each of those instances the two natures are allowed to come to the fore, for the sake of what was being presented. Partative exegesis is for the sake of the READER.
So, no, NO, its not to get around a problem text. The writers didn't face that. Athanasias faced problem heresies, and so pointed out each nature, from the text, as they could be found separately featured. He did this for the sake of arguement. But unless one believes that Christ didn't have both human and divine natures, then there is no speculation to do.
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As to your survey, YOU know its bogus. Orthodoxy does NOT say that Christ has two "minds"/wills. By now, clearly the definition of "will" for Maximus is tightly connected to nature. And the Christian is CALLED to go beyond what is natural and "will" to take up his Cross and follow Christ in death.
We aren't abstract academics...........we are followers of Jesus Christ.
And our speech should reflect that. And we can bring out studies to the table to help each other in our walk with the Lord. Otherwise what possible good is all that.
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Humphrey Bogart
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 205
| Posted 2/10/2006 3:46 AM (GMT -6) | | PoW said...
Easy. And basic. When he commanded the waves to still, that was his divinity doing it. And when he hungered, that was his humanity. In each of those instances the two natures are allowed to come to the fore, for the sake of what was being presented. Partative exegesis is for the sake of the READER.
But PoW, the problem is that the text doesn't say that when he stilled the waves, that was his divinity, and when hungered, that was his humanity. It doesn't hint it, it doesn't imply it, it doesn't suggest it in even the most remote possible hint. The text just says that Jesus stilled the waves and Jesus hungered. I can tell you, that there is no New Testament scholar in the field of Johannine studies, anywhere, who would believe that the author of John actually thought in terms of two natures united in one person. There is not the slightest evidence of it anywhere in the gospel. That whole idea developed much later as people did theology using the gospel and the rest of the NT as a starting point.
In addition, theologically speaking, I think that everything that Jesus did, was only done by virtue of his humanity. His divinity expressed itself in a human way, so that what was a purely human act also perfectly expressed the divine nature. He never invoked his own supernatural divine powers at any stage during his incarnation. It was the Father who worked miracles at his request. Why did Jesus pray to the Father to raise Lazarus from the dead, if he could do it using his own power? When Jesus cursed the fig tree, and the disciples asked him how he did it, he didn't say, "Oh I'm God, I can do that sort of thing, you know". He said, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' it will be done". In other words, it was something they, ordinary humans, could also do, if they had faith. Jesus' works, like his teachings, were "from the Father". There is nothing that Jesus did, that could not be done by a perfectly sinless human (Jn. 14:12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father). He was not "superman", he was an ordinary man.
PoW said...
So, no, NO, its not to get around a problem text. The writers didn't face that. Athanasias faced problem heresies, and so pointed out each nature, from the text, as they could be found separately featured. He did this for the sake of arguement. But unless one believes that Christ didn't have both human and divine natures, then there is no speculation to do.
Athanasius carefully crafted a theology that attempted to be consistent with all the texts, and he critiqued his opponents theologies that were not consistent with all the texts. Theology is not just exegesis. We don't just go and read the text, and, there we have it, we have theology. Exegesis is only step one. We then have to use the intellectual tools at our disposal to try and synthesize and develop a theory, which we then go back and test against the text. The Fathers used the intellectual tools available to them, supplied by ancient Greek philosophy. I respect what they did - indeed, I'm in awe of what they did - but I think we need to theologize in a modern context, with the tools supplied by modern philosophy, which they never had access to.
Pow said...
H.B.,
I really WOULD be interested in your thoughtful considerations of what Maximus the Confessor really THOUGHT about this all. And NOT just your arguements with a few words here or there. I mean an engagement with the ideas AND the necessity of what he and the Roman Pope were, together, willing to die for, and which an Eccumenical Council exhonorated him for.
From what I can make of it, the term "will" was used by Maximus and Pyrrhus in a different way to the way I am using it (which is also the way it is used in modern philosophy). Indeed, for a time the key word was "energeia" rather than "thelema". Unfortunately, however, some of these heresy disputes involved a lot of misrepresentation by one side of the other's position, so that it is absolutely necessary to read both sides of the dispute, and not just one. Unfortunately, this is often difficult, since the church destroyed the writings of those it had decided were heretics, so we're only left with the "orthodox" representation of their opponents, and not the opponent's words themselves. What is also sad is that the behaviour of those on both sides of such disputes often left a lot to be desired. Again, later writers of hagiographies often presented the orthodox side as being wonderfully noble and the heterodox side as being wicked in every way, but such descriptions have to be taken with caution. You know the quote, "history is written by the victors".
But anyway, here is a quote from Berkhof's "the History of Christian Doctrines" on the subject:
"Strictly speaking, we mean by "will" the faculty of volition, of self-determination, and of choice. But the word is often used in a broader sense, as including the instincts, appetites, desires and affections, with their corresponding aversions. All this was covered by the term "will" in the ancient controversy, so that this included the question, whether Christ was capable of fear and of shrinking from suffering and death. The denial of the human will in Christ would therefore give His humanity a somewhat docetic character".
And this is precisely the point. The ancients involved in the dispute simply did not operate with the modern philosophical concept of will. Indeed, one could argue that the whole debate was so messy and unclear precisely because they had not yet clearly formulated the modern concept of will. In my opinion, both sides made valid points, and the monothelites intuitively realized what I have argued above, that a person can only have one will in the modern sense. Unfortunately, they didn't formulate this properly because of their incorrect concept of "will". I would not be able to accept monothelitism as it was presented at the time, because I would certainly not want to deny that Jesus, say, was capable of fear and so forth. But I just don't think "instincts, appetites, desires and affections" are properly included in the term "will". In my view, the monothelites were actually on the right track, but the issue got confused by including more in the concept of "will" than was necessary.
PoW said...
Merely picking sides -- as if we are playing dodgeball -- and throwing dueling "wills" at each other is fruitless.
With respect, I think it is useful. It's only when a position is pursued to its logical limits that its validity can really be tested, and, in my experience, this doesn't happen except in discussion with someone who holds the opposing view. As John Stuart Mill said:
"Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being "pushed to an extreme"; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case."
I'm happy to be persuaded to the two-will theory if reasons (both scriptural and logical) can be given to support it.
Pow said...
Both Orthodox and Ethiopean Copts now understand what tore at the Egyptians, that there are two natures (EACH WITH THEIR OWN 'WILL' PER NATURE) and is a unifying "will" (YOUR DEFINITION THIS TIME) in Chirst. BOTH are true and to be affirmed. Further, BOTH IN THEIR OWN WAY HAVE BEEN PRESERVING BOTH. And now we know that. And there is at least one saint that both sides affirm, ironically, because both sides understand that saint to represent their view, each for different reasons.
The Copts have never been happy with the "two nature" formulae, although they also deny being monophysites, but call themselves "miaphysites". But I think they would be more "radical" than I am, in the sense that they are closer to monophysitism than I am. However, it all gets very confusing as to who is precisely saying what.Post Edited (Humphrey Bogart) : 2/10/2006 3:18:23 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 2/10/2006 6:55 AM (GMT -6) | | HB: But PoW, the problem is that the text doesn't say that when he stilled the waves, that was his divinity, and when hungered, that was his humanity. It doesn't hint it, it doesn't imply it, it doesn't suggest it in even the most remote possible hint.
PoW: Really?
Text: Mark 4:41 "And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”
Beyond THAT I'd like to add that the job of the text is to make US, the reader, wonder and yearn for salvation.
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Photios
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| Posted 2/11/2006 7:40 PM (GMT -6) | | A couple of things and if I have time I'll comment more later:
A. In Maximus the Confessor thinking, there is tripartite distinction of the will: 1) the will as the natural faculty, 2) the will as the mode of willing, and 3) the will as the object of the will.
B. The Natural wills don't choose anything, they present possible courses of action to the agent, who then employs the will (mode of willing) towards the object of the will.
C. Without those key distinctions, you end up confusing ousia and hypostasis or ousia and energy.
Something to motivate your thinking:
http://www.energeticprocession.com/archives/Synergy%20in%20Christ%20According%20to%20Saint%20Maximus%20the%20Confessor.pdf
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Photios
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| Posted 2/11/2006 7:50 PM (GMT -6) | | Oh and I forgot to add one more thing:
D) Maximus solution to monotheletism and Christ supposed determinism at the passion by the monothelites was not one sided. If the will is solely natural, Christ taking on human nature than drags everybody to a healthy ever-well-being. In other words, we have a apokatastasis at the level of nature and person (the latter being reducible into the former if the will is solely natural). For Maximus, the will is both natural and hypostatic. The former being irresistible (logos of being toward the good) and the latter being free (tropos: mode of employment; which can be real or apparent depending on inquiry and examination of the good). The apokatastasis doctrine is then broke up and also maintained. At the level of nature, every single person gains solely by Christ’s recapitulation an ever-being, but with respect to one’s hypostatic state one receives ever-well or ever-ill Being depends on their hypostatic employment.
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Humphrey Bogart
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| Posted 2/13/2006 12:13 AM (GMT -6) | | PoW said...
PoW: Really?
Text: Mark 4:41 "And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”
Beyond THAT I'd like to add that the job of the text is to make US, the reader, wonder and yearn for salvation.
Mark 4:41 certainly indicates that the people thought that Jesus was someone special, although nobody seemed quite sure precisely why (Mt. 16:13-14). But in any case, the idea of chopping up Jesus' life into "divine bits" and "human bits" (so stilling the storm is divine but hungering is human) is unsatisfactory, because (besides having no foundation in the text) it implies a kind of functional Nestorianism. If it were true that some of Jesus' acts were an expression of his divine nature, but others of his human nature, with this being mutually exclusive, then there is functionally at least a division in the person (since personality is expressed primarily through one's actions). I think that all of Jesus' acts were an expression of both his divine and human natures, so that the one person, expressed through these actions, was both fully divine and fully human. His divine nature did not express itself in supernatural feats, but in his perfect moral qualities. The perfect goodness which every act of Jesus expressed was a true expression of divinity, but was also something human. Indeed, this would seem to be required by the Eastern concept of "divinization": "God became what we are, in order that we might become what he is". This does not mean that we will one day have supernatural powers of omnipotence. It means we will perfectly express the divine nature, which is not found in power or might, but in perfect love. If Jesus' acts were divided into "divine actions" on the one hand, and "human actions" on the other, haven't you just re-established the very gap between God and man which the incarnation was designed to bridge?
Regarding your and Photios' other comments, while I obviously have a different way of conceptualizing the will than did Maximus, I think we can all (i.e. PoW, Photios, Maximus, and me) agree on the basic issues now. These are:
(a) Monothelitism as it was expressed in the 6th-7th centuries was heretical in the sense that it merged stuff that properly should have remained distinct, such as what Berkhof calls "instincts, appetites, desires and affections". Therefore Maximus was right to oppose this movement.
(b) Notwithstanding this, there is a different sense of will, which predominates in modern thought, which might be called the "minimalist" sense, which sees the will merely as the faculty of choosing, and it seems we can agree that Jesus only had one will in this sense (although Maximum might not be happy granting much of an ontological status to this will). As for Maximus' precise views, I'm not able to assist much more at this point. I'll have to do some more reading, as I'm not really up to speed on Maximus scholarship.
(c) Therefore, those who insist (as I do) that Jesus had only one will, are not properly called "monothelites" in the ancient sense. Neither does my insistance that there are three wills in the Trinity, really have anything much to do with the ancient insistence on only one divine will.
And finally, here is a point which I would add, but I don't think PoW or Photios would agree with:
(d) The ancient formulations depended on a fundamentally flawed philosophical system inherited from ancient Greece, and therefore leave a lot to be desired. We can be completely Biblical faithful and retain the essence of the theology they rightly developed (e.g. three persons who are one God, two natures united in one person), but reformulate our theology using modern philosophical concepts. I don't believe that ancient Greek philosophy is any more "sanctified" than modern philosophy, merely because it formed the Father's conceptual thought world.
Indeed, it seems to me that the whole "open theism" movement is an attempt to reformulate some aspects of the doctrine of God using modern philosophical understandings rather than ancient ones. Of course, in the process, it is attempting to improve fidelity to scripture also. This is what I also seek to do in speaking of the will in the way that I do.
P.S. Thanks for the link, Photios. I've downloaded the PDF and will have a look at it - it looks interesting.
Post Edited (Humphrey Bogart) : 2/12/2006 11:34:05 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Humphrey Bogart
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| Posted 2/13/2006 4:07 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi Photios,
Have read the article you linked to now. It is excellent! But, the whole debate between Maximus and Pyrrhus seems to me to formulated in terms that are utterly alien to the way I think about things, and very implausible, to boot. So it becomes difficult for me to say who I agree with. I agree with both sides on some things, and neither on many things. It seems that the two-sided nature of the debate is forced by a whole series of assumptions which both sides share.
I'm going to have to think more about how to map my worldview onto Maximus' worldview. I think a fairly complex transform will be required to do the job. But if you could help me, that would be great, if you are interested!
Incidentally, it seems to me that Maximus and Pyrrhus both share assumptions that are totally incompatible with open theism. For example, the idea of one will in the divine nature seems rooted in the doctrine of divine immutability and changelessness. I suspect that open theism may require a far more thorough-going reworking of traditional orthodoxy than we might suspect.
But let me summarise my nominalist account of the Trinity and the hypostatic union:
(1) All theoretical concepts employed have their origin in our own phenomenal consciousness. We cannot "think outside the box" of our consciousness. We cannot start our theorizing with ideas of God or "the One". We can only start with ourselves. Revelation can take us "outside the box", but only by employing concepts derived inside the box (so God has to condescend to talk to us in our own terms). Furthermore, what is revealed about "outside the box" can never be comprehended by us and will often appear paradoxical. In short, this is a bottom-up approach, not a top-down approach.
(2) The Humean/Kantian revolution: Speaking phenomenologically, there is no such thing as "substance" and universals have no ontological status. The concept of "nature" is merely an abstraction; "divine nature" per se does not exist, but only particular instances of divine nature (just like I would say there is no "ideal kangaroo" somewhere out there in Platonic heaven; there are only individual kangaroos, from which we abstract a concept of "kangaroo nature", which has no reality apart from in thought). There are three particular persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each of whom perfectly displays particular instance of the divine nature (which relates to moral qualities, not things like omnipotence etc). For me, one of TS Eliot's "hollow men" who stand in the shadow of modernity, there can be no going back to the premodern systems found in writers like Maximus, anymore than I can go back to thinking that the sun revolves around the earth.
(3) A person is an unanalyzable free subject that "stands behind" phenomenal consciousness and the transcendental unity of apperception. That is, I hold to an existentialist view of persons. The "will" is just the subject acting intentionally in the world. It is in this sense that I say that there are three wills in the Trinity and one will in Christ. It might be better to say there are three subjects in the Trinity than three wills, and one subject who is Christ rather than one will in Christ.
(4) Phenomenologically, the only explanation for the unity of the persons of the Trinity I can come up with is a shared phenomenal consciousness. That is, they experience literally identical consciousness in all respects. They see the same thing, hear the same thing, and so forth. This must be the case, because, being divine, they apprehend everything directly, and there is only one "everything". So, using the objective/subjective distinction of existentialism, I could say that they are "one objectively but three subjectively". However, this breaks down for Jesus during the incarnation, if we accept something kenotic about the incarnation. If pushed on this point, I could (a) take a hyper-kenotic point of view and deny Christ's actual deity during the incarnation - I've tried that in the past but abandoned it on scriptural grounds, or (b) adopt an idea of unity of the divine nature based on a more social moral or coinherence - but that seems pretty weak, or (c) say that the three persons of the Trinity are actually one noumenally, but we cannot understand this and know it only by revelation (so the doctrine of the Trinity is communicable but incomprehensible). I tend for the third.
Finally, an important point. The above briefly sketches the way I think about the Trinity. However, none of this should be considered as part of a Christian article of faith. But neither should talk of substances and hypostases be part of the Christian articles of faith. As long as a person believes that there are three persons who are one God, each fully God, and that the second person of the Trinity was incarnate and is both God and man without mixing or dividing those characteristics, I think that is enough as far as Christian confessions should go. Philosophical speculation is good for some purposes (such as the intellectual defence of the faith), but nothing should be required of believers except what is clearly set out in scripture.Post Edited (Humphrey Bogart) : 2/13/2006 3:12:40 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Photios
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| Posted 2/13/2006 11:25 AM (GMT -6) | | HB,
For Maximus there is one power or will in the Trinity as a natural faculty, but this power has infinite 'objects of the will' : the eternal logoi of the Logos. An actualized dunameis is energetic: that is, when the natural faculty is employed toward the object of the will by the person (mode of willing). This is why Maximus calls the logoi--along with Dionysius--"predeterminations and wills," although strictly they are not the natural faculty itself. One power in the Trinity, 3 persons and 3 modes of willing, and infinite objects of the will (logoi). This is how God has libertarian freedom (and as I would argue the only way he can, between this robust distinction between nature/hypostasis/dunameis) and the basis for libertarian freedom for creatures (built on the imago Dei). An act of will--irrespective of creations--is also the Orthodox "answer" to the filioque problem (eternal manifestation of the Spirit). An act of will is one that is common to all 3 persons. It is only at this level that the economic Trinity parallels the theologial Trinity.
Maximus says in his Chapters on Knowledge, "God never ceases from the GOODS because he never BEGAN them."
Think hard about what that statement means.
Our project is to maintain libertarian freedom for God and creatures, and what we think we have identified as the problem for Western debates regarding predestination/free-will/the problem of evil: That is the Neo-Platonic doctrine of simplicity.
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Photios
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| Posted 2/13/2006 1:09 PM (GMT -6) | | Another point, Maximus didn't take his view to be "philosophical" speculation, but is precisely a rejection of the Hellenization of dogma and its dialectic. Maximus' view is grounded in his existential experience (apodictic) with God through asceticism. In other words, He knows the scriptures and its correct interpretation because he knows God in his uncreated energy (not much difference here than Moses encounter with the Logos in the burning bush), which is not a dialectical knowledge. about all dialectic is good for in knowledge of theology for Maximus is reductio ad absurdum against heretical views.
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