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One Love
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Posted 8/9/2008 6:52 AM (GMT -6)

Soren Kierkegaard.

Muhummad Iqbal.

"The Self"

Read.

(Other version.)

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

One Love
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Posted 8/10/2008 9:04 AM (GMT -6)

Tom, I'd love to know what you thought about this.

Good stuff. And you introduced me to Iqbal, remember?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

One Love
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Posted 8/10/2008 9:23 AM (GMT -6)

Is this a crazy statement?

My deepest "self"...the personal presence within the deepest interiority of my consciousness...the Heart "within" my heart...is God Himself, particularly Christ-the-Logos, the intermediary between the Uncreated and Created.

Crazy, Tom?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

One Love
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Posted 8/10/2008 9:27 AM (GMT -6)

Can I say "I, not I, but Christ" to refer to this reality, when "I" do "works of Love"?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

One Love
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Posted 8/10/2008 9:34 AM (GMT -6)

Baqaa

Wahdat-ul-Wujood

The English word Pantheism means All is God but the Arabic word wahdat ul-wujood emphasizes that there is just a single being in existence and this single being is God. However, wahdat ul-wujood maybe closer to panentheism, because it states that while the Universe is part of God or God's mind, God is still greater than his creation.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Post Edited (Love's Child) : 8/10/2008 9:40:28 AM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 8/10/2008 11:16 AM (GMT -6)

One Love
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Posted 8/10/2008 11:27 AM (GMT -6)

D: Is this a crazy statement? My deepest "self"...the personal presence within the deepest interiority of my consciousness...the Heart "within" my heart...is God Himself, particularly Christ-the-Logos, the intermediary between the Uncreated and Created.

Crazy, Tom?

T: Not crazy, just monistic in 'relational' or 'personal' terms. You've reduced human personhood to a mere function of divinity. That's not crazy. It's just wrong.

I'm saying that God is in our deepest "self"...and I'm wrong?

St. John of the Cross

"The person who is detached from creatures and things is not disturbed during contemplation or otherwise.... But the covetous person runs hither and yon within the limits of the chain binding the heart. Despite all efforts, such a one can scarcely be free even for a moment from the bondage of thoughts, which run constantly to the place where the heart has been fixed. When a person is purged of all attachment to things, then the judgment is left clear as the sky when the mists have dispersed. The joy of such a person is not dependent on creatures, for while the heart is set on none of them, all of them are possessed."

Dude...you've GOT to read these Christian mystics, homie. For real.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

One Love
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Posted 8/10/2008 11:38 AM (GMT -6)

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8). Made in God's image, man is a mirror of the divine. He knows God by knowing himself; entering within himself, he sees God reflected in the purity of his own heart. The doctrine of man's creation according to the image means that within each person--within his or her truest and innermost self, often termed the "deep heart" or "ground of the soul"--there is a point of direct meeting and union with the Uncreated. "The Kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21).

The quest for the inward kingdom is one of the master themes found throughout the writings of the Fathers. "The greatest of all lessons", says St. Clement of Alexandria, "is to know oneself; for if someone know himself, he will know God; and if he knows God, he will become like God." St. Basil the Great writes: "When the intellect is no longer dissipated among external things or dispersed across the world through the senses, it returns to itself; and by means of itself it ascends to the thought of God." "He who know himself knows everything," says St. Issac the Syrian; elsewhere he writes:

Be at peace with your own soul; then heaven and earth will be at peace with you. Enter eagerly into the treasure house that is within you, and so you will see the things that are in heaven; for there is but one single entry to them both. The ladder that leads to the kingdom is hidden within your soul. Flee from sin, dive into yourself, and in your soul you will discover the stairs by which to ascend.

And to these passages we may add the testimony of a Western witness in our own day, Thomas Merton:

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It its so to speak his name written on us, as our poverty, as our indigence, and our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond , blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions or points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely…The gate of heaven is everywhere.

Flee from sin. St. Issac insists; and these three words should be particularly noted. If we are to see God's face reflected within us, the mirror needs to be cleaned. Without repentance there can be no self-knowledge and no discovery of the inward kingdom. When I am told "Return into yourself: know yourself", it is necessary to inquire: Which "self" am I to discover? What is my true self? (Kallisto's emphasis on the "is" there) Psychoanalysis discloses to us one type of "self"; all too often, however, it guides us, not to the "ladder that leads to the kingdom,", but to the staircase that goes down to a dank and snake-infested cellar. "Know yourself" means "know yourself as God-sourced, God-rooted; know yourself in God". From the viewpoint of the Orthodox spiritual tradition it should be emphasized that we shall not discover this, our true self "according to the image", except through a death to our false and fallen self. "He who loses his life for my sake shall find it." (Matt. 16:25): only the one who sees his false self for what it is and rejects it, will be able to discern his true self, the self that God sees. Underlining this distinction between the false self and the true, St. Varsanuphius enjoins: "Forget yourself and know knowself."

Kallistos Ware. Orthodox Way. "The Inner Kingdom" pp.55-56

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Tom
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Posted 8/11/2008 2:56 AM (GMT -6)

D: I'm saying that God is in our deepest "self"...and I'm wrong?

T: Well, I say our deepest 'self' is not God and you think I'm wrong. So....?

One of us is wrong. I thought we agreed one of us was wrong but that it wouldn't really matter when we got to heaven.

D: You have to read the mystics.

T: Right. They're infallible. Dang. I keep forgetting that. Sorry.

If a mystic says his experience entails "X" metaphysics, he's right because he's a mystic. But what of other Christians whose experience is overwhelmingly interpersonal (something your version is not). They're experience doesn't entail the truth of a contrary "Y" metaphysics? Hmmm.

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 8/11/2008 3:06:20 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 8/11/2008 5:49 AM (GMT -6)

Tom:
If a mystic says his experience entails "X" metaphysics, he's right because he's a mystic. But what of other Christians whose experience is overwhelmingly interpersonal (something your version is not). They're experience doesn't entail the truth of a contrary "Y" metaphysics? Hmmm.

Actually, even those Christian mystics who experience an aspect of "impersonality" in experiencing a vision of God never diminish the personality of the Triune God. The experience of "impersonal" divine light (or something like that) is not mutually exclusive from the personal love experience.

And, of course, mystics aren't infallible. But they are of HISTORICAL RECORD and definitely give us means of discerning the Spirit's movements in the Church. And the evidence seems OVERWHELMING to me in my mind about the validity of this stuff. I'm quite surprised that you don't give all that more credence...but hey, do what you do. Lord willing, I'm gonna swim as far into God's Ocean of Love until I am "transformed by and into Love itself" whereby which I am purified by God to become "creative, totally self-giving, radically concerned about others—in short, spiritually fecund."

What is Christian Mysticism?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Post Edited (Love's Child) : 8/11/2008 5:56:11 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 8/11/2008 6:05 AM (GMT -6)

And something else that gets me. All the stuff that you talk about (particularly the distinction between the created, emergent "reality" [not merely "property" ] of the human soul and the Uncreated reality of the Holy Spirit...and the personal distinction between Christ as "Holy One" and the non-Christ human soul) is COMPATIBLE with the ideas I have. A form of attributive monism/mentalism (that is panENtheistic) that YOU agreed to long ago, Tom. Moreover, I'm RIGHT ALONG WITH all the Ecumenical Councils, epiklesis, and all that, too.

Dude, I wish you'd jump in this with me...but of COURSE that's what I'd like!

As we've said, God can sort it out later for us. No biggie.

Still, I believe that the author of the paper was RIGHT ON POINT about the similiarities in Kierkegaard and Iqbal. Totally. See Loder again...Knight's Move of the Spirit...

"The Self's Experiential Appropriation of Trinitarian Life", pp.299-300

Let us now summarize the experiential appropriation of trinitarian life by way of the same three levels Torrance used to describe the emergence fo the doctrine of the Trinity. First, the spontaneous creative work of consciousness which is both autobiographical (involving the "I" ) and symbolically constructed (not merely awareness as shared with lower animals) is, as we have suggested, implicitly but not sufficiently perichoretic. It is already the bearer of despair. Second, intentional efforts to created a new frame of knowledge vis-a-vis any given situation or problem, as in Einstein's productive thought, approaches ever more profoundly, but still insufficiently, the perichoretic potential in the mind and self of the knower. Even great creative efforts do not elude despair. Third, for Kierkegaard, is the decisive level in which the Divine Presence is able, in turn, to indwell the self via the Holy Spirit. That is, the Holy Spirit generates an open-ended reality that replicates in human nature the Divine nature of the Trinity. Here the image indwells its Original and, at the same time, and because of that indwelling, becomes a reflection of it. The transparently grounded self is thus sustained as such by the Divine nature and at the same time is transcended by it as Original transcends image.

I can't believe this DOESN'T make sense after all this time! reading

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Post Edited (Love's Child) : 8/11/2008 6:10:57 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 8/11/2008 6:32 AM (GMT -6)

Let me ask this.

Is there ANYONE OUT THERE that believes that what I'm saying makes sense?

Anyone? drowning

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

One Love
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Posted 8/11/2008 7:49 AM (GMT -6)

Nice old school. I remember the church mothers singing this...

None But The Righteous

Aaron Hall

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE62hzYOoO4

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Tom
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Posted 8/11/2008 7:59 AM (GMT -6)

D, it makes 'sense' if you mean to ask, Is it logically consistent? or Can God create finite centers of rationality the 'who', the 'identity', of which is GOD and all the particular expressions of which are determined soley BY God? The answer to those questions is, I think, yes. I can't think of a contradiction that's generated by supposing such a world.

BUT...

If you're asking if it makes sense of what we should expect of a self-sufficient God of love who doesn't need to create us anyhow, I'd say no. If you want to know if it actualizes the greatest amount of created beauty possible, I'd say no. If you're asking if it makes sense of 'interpersonal loving relations', I'd say no. If you're asking if there's any biblical evidence for thinking God actually chose to create that sort of world, I'd especially say no.

D: Lord willing, I'm gonna swim as far into God's Ocean of Love until I am "transformed by and into Love itself" whereby which I am purified by God to become "creative, totally self-giving, radically concerned about others—in short, spiritually fecund."

Tom: Who is this "I" of whom you speak? You've just said that this "I" is fundamentally "God." Now you juxtapose this same "I" with "God."

Never mind. Anyhow...

...you'll be anything BUT "creative." To be creative you have to be the 'personal determiner' of the expression and form of love, and you don't have that. You don't even want that. You've explicitly renounced any interest in that. You want God to be the determiner of all your particulars and forms. That means God is being creative and just using your to express Godself. That's different than 'you' being creative (unless you just insist, as you do, that 'you' ARE 'God').

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 8/11/2008 8:07:45 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 8/11/2008 11:30 AM (GMT -6)

Tom:
If you're asking if it makes sense of what we should expect of a self-sufficient God of love who doesn't need to create us anyhow, I'd say no. If you want to know if it actualizes the greatest amount of created beauty possible, I'd say no. If you're asking if it makes sense of 'interpersonal loving relations', I'd say no. If you're asking if there's any biblical evidence for thinking God actually chose to create that sort of world, I'd especially say no.

Let me make sure to write Professor Egan and tell him that.

******************************************

Tom:
Who is this "I" of whom you speak? You've just said that this "I" is fundamentally "God." Now you juxtapose this same "I" with "God."

Silly wabbit. nono

The "I" of whom I speak is the creaturely "I" (the created personal will linked to "my" particular mind/brain interpenetration) who is an EMERGENT REALITY of a matrix of God's energies, that are NOT REDUCIBLE to God (in his energies).

Irreducibly related to God, but NOT God.

I believe in THEOSIS, not HENOSIS.

***********************************

Tom:
you'll be anything BUT "creative." To be creative you have to be the 'personal determiner' of the expression and form of love, and you don't have that. You don't even want that. You've explicitly renounced any interest in that. You want God to be the determiner of all your particulars and forms. That means God is being creative and just using your to express Godself. That's different than 'you' being creative (unless you just insist, as you do, that 'you' ARE 'God').

1) I don't see how Creative Freedom (God) can "indwell" my members as I continually "surrender" myself to God...and for my liberated "self" NOT be free and creative.

2) As YOU DO, Tom, I want to be as unified and "one" with God as it possible, given the INTERPERSONALITY of the union. I've quoted Egan SAYING that this is not lost...you won't believe me...DESPITE what I keep showing you...

The unitive life is the last stage of mystical ascent. The mystic becomes as closely united to God through God’s love as God is unified to his own being by nature. Mystically married to God, the mystic becomes “God by participation.” Nonetheless, this union remains differentiated, that is, God and the mystic become one while remaining distinctly two. The mystic’s person does not dissolve into God. In fact, the more deeply united to God the mystic becomes, the more the mystic’s individuality is confirmed and enhanced.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Tom
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Posted 8/12/2008 9:35 AM (GMT -6)

On the run...

D,

1) Is your creaturely "I" a non-divine "person"?
2) If it is not reducible to God, then how is it the case that this "I" is, as you say, at its most fundamental reality/identity "God"? If it's not reducible "to God," it can't be most fundamentally God in its "identity."
3) As far as the creativity of this "I," I rest my case. This I will not be, on your scheme, a "creative" I (i.e., a self-determining creative I). It will do whatever God determines it will do. Whatever creativity attaches to your existence after glorification, it will be definitive of "God" who determines all your particulars and not of you as a created "I."
4) The closest you and Eagan do to demonstrating that the created "I" is not dissolved into God is claim that it is so. Even in your quote of him, all that's there is the "claim" that it is not so. There's no demonstration that it is not so. I'll ask Eagan the same thing I asked you...SHOW ME this created, creative "I" creating something, determining its loving expression uniquely and irreplacably. If you can't describe THAT, then do you really believe in THAT? I don't think so.
5) Given your failure at (4), there's nothing "inter-personal" about your eschatology. "Inter-personal" means "beween two persons," and the way to dissolve one person into another is to have the one determine the other (as you do).

Say hi to Eagan for me.

Tom

One Love
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Posted 8/12/2008 11:15 AM (GMT -6)

I'll fill this out...but I'll say it now.

My view is interpersonal because I believe that the NON-DIVINE faith-filled, Grace-receptive human "heart" is the SPOUSE of the One Uncreated Triune God via our Bridegroom, the DIVINE PERSON Christ-the-Logos.

Christ, the BRIDEGROOM...relating to Christ's BRIDE.

So, how can my view NOT be interpersonal?

More later...I'll use MYSTICAL MARRIAGE as a context for what I mean.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

One Love
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Posted 8/12/2008 12:46 PM (GMT -6)

Essentially, we are talking about the MARRIAGE of the human "heart"--the core of human relationality---and the One Triune God's Heart. Two personal, self-relational beings. (One Uncreated Tri-personal God [F,S,Sp]) and one human "heart" in a human being)

Now, you're married, Tom. So you'll know what I'm talking about here. In marriage, you have the mystery of two individual persons becoming "one", in flesh and other ways. Anyways, in any marriage, the people INDWELL and INTERPENTRATE each other over time. Each personal being affects and is affected by the other. And personality characteristics can CHANGE based on the growth (or lack thereof) of one or both spouses. In some ways, the spouses "become" each other...even able to finish each other sentences or "swap places" sometimes, even as they retain their own individuality. Think about Adam and Eve BEFORE the fall: bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.

I'll give a great example. My wife, Aki, loves Hello Kitty. (I think you and Anita know this about here, Tom) She's loved Hello Kitty ever since WAAAAAAY before I met her, like when she was 5 years old. I never gave a damn about Hello Kitty before I started being her friend while in seminary. When initially introduced to Hello Kitty, I balked and minimized the significance of what Hello Kitty actually represents, particularly in the Japanese culture. (My wife was born and initally raised in Japan.) I thought it was bull*(%^...for real. But to be with Aki, I had to LEARN to tolerate and appreciate Hello Kitty. I had to EMPTY MYSELF of my own perspective, "taking on" another perspective to do this. Over the years of us being friends and spouses, I have come to TRULY LOVE Hello Kitty FOR MYSELF. Genuinely and authentically. After really "indwelling" the reality of Hello Kitty and what she symbolizes through Aki, I have "taken on" Aki's passion and love for Hello Kitty as my own passion and love. As I thought about it, if my wife were to die, I would STILL have Hello Kitty stickers and trinkets around on my own, not for some sentimental reason involving Aki, but because I have assimiliated the CONVICTION and APPRECIATION that long defined how Aki sees herself. "I" believe in Hello Kitty's message MYSELF.

So, whenever we go to a place with a lot of Hello Kitty, we BOTH end up looking at the same things and BOTH end up saying what's cute and what's cool almost with uncanny oneness...where this was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO not the case before. Hell, I can go to a store and pick out EXACTLY what kind of things she would like...because I've come to like those things for myself. Now, would it make sense to say that Aki is making my decisions for me...even though I would be making pretty much ALL the same choices about Hello Kitty that she would be making? Nope. I don't think so. I, making my OWN irreducibly unique choices concerning which kinds of Hello Kitty to purchase, expresses AKI'S beliefs and convictions, even though they are my own. I participate in Aki's "Hello Kitty-ness", as it were, such that even when she's NOT with me...she IS with me in that way.

Now, in my mind, all this is paralleled with how the believing human heart can be "one" with Christ-the-Logos, "mind", "body/blood", and "spirit." because we are MARRIED to God in Christ. So, What if the believing human heart, who is married to Christ-the-Logos who is within us has the SAME TYPE OF THING going on that we saw with me and Hello Kitty? In other words, our believing human hearts "empty themselves" of their own perspectives through self-chosen, self-renunciation by NOT leaning on their own understanding of virtue, beauty, and goodness...such that Christ, who IS all virtue, fills us completely with his virtue, beauty, and goodness. Being "filled with the Spirit" IS being "filled with Christ." Christ's divine life and virtue becomes mine in the sense that Christ "indwells" my very being as the ground of my being via the Holy Spirit. [Note: human persons CANNOT "permeate" divine reality, but divine reality can permeate human persons through interpenetration of divine reality.] When this happens, I have an "alien righteousness" (Luther), meaning EGO-alien. I take on the characteristics of my Beloved Spouse...even as He remains unchanging. God's perspective about Creation and it's activity (at least, as much of that perspective as God's Spirit allows my particularity to have) become MY OWN perspective on the same things. To that point where, even when "I" make decisions, Christ's Wisdom, Love, and Power are grounding "energies" of any and all decisions I make.

What would this look like? Basically, A BELIEVING HUMAN "HEART" IN HOLY SPIRIT-LED LIVING, PRESENT MOMENT-TO-PRESENT MOMENT BEFORE GOD. I, the created "spouse" of God, wholly give all of myself to God...and he gives all of himself to me via his Trinitarian Presence. God's Spirit in, for, and with the created human "self." It's an intimate, interpersonal exchange. I give God all of myself. God gives me all of Godself. Unio Mystica.

Let's let this simmer for a bit...

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Post Edited (Love's Child) : 8/12/2008 1:39:34 PM (GMT-5)

might-be-don
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Posted 8/13/2008 11:17 AM (GMT -6)

D, maybe you have proved Tom's point... why is it that Aki didn't obtain your disinterest in all things Hello Kitty ?

peace, don

^{The world's perfect, wouldn't change a thing.}

One Love
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Posted 8/13/2008 12:40 PM (GMT -6)

Don:
D, maybe you have proved Tom's point... why is it that Aki didn't obtain your disinterest in all things Hello Kitty ?

Probably the same reason that Christ, with his perfect perspective, doesn't gain my troubling disinterest of being virtuous: my perspective was based from ignorance and unbelief. In short, I didn't really know what the heck I was "disinterested" in. It was not a conscious, thoughtful aversion at all. I did NOT understand what Hello Kitty really meant to many people of Japan...or even what it was meant to convey. AND I was so trapped in my socialization of "no-pink-frilly-girlie-things-for-ME" hyper-masculine facade, that I couldn't see Hello Kitty's iconic nature for what it was.

As I dropped my own prejudices and LEARNED MORE TRUTH about some things...I NATURALLY began appreciating it more. For Aki (who, again, was RAISED in Japan in her early childhood...while I've never been there) would have to deny all of what she experientially knew about Hello Kitty in order to join me in my ignorant, opinionated, short-sighted beliefs. And guess what she told me one day. She told me that, even though I used to pretty much scoff at Hello Kitty at first...because she knew that since I was a learner, had somewhat of an open mind, AND was an ENFJ...she believed it was only a matter of TIME and EXPOSURE before I actually saw value in Hello Kitty.

and whaddaya know...she was right.

In the same way, Christ cannot deny himself. He is the Truth. When His Truth encounters my egoic truncated perspectives and beliefs about God's World in a "truth encounter", Christ doesn't gain an interest in sin and self-centeredness from me. Why? Because, among other things, he simply knows reality more accurately. But I definitely get PURIFIED by taking on his beliefs about reality, provided to me in Grace by the Holy Spirit.

See what I'm saying?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Post Edited (Love's Child) : 8/13/2008 12:49:08 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 8/13/2008 6:25 PM (GMT -6)

"Grace is the Mother of us all..."

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

One Love
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Posted 8/13/2008 6:28 PM (GMT -6)

Quoting Bruce from another thread. Monster.

One thing the The Emptiness of Christ post does NOT say is that it is our own effort at ethics, or our skill level that is the source of power for right living. The divine energies of God working in us is that strength. Even when we wipe-out to sin we must pray immediately and ask God's help--God wil give it. (The devil will lie that we not only are not worthy but not worth it.)

Another thing the post does not say is that it is not our willing (to be emptied in the way described) but is some sort of robotic takeover. It's not.

God's grace IS God's active presence (not an at-a-distance effecting). And this is God's grace given opportunity by our will.

Yessir, homie...

cheers

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Post Edited (Divine Progeny) : 8/13/2008 6:44:03 PM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 8/14/2008 3:43 AM (GMT -6)

Yeah, the marriage analogy goes nowhere. There's no creative expression for creatures on D's view. None. God determines all outcomes and creaturely personhood is reduced to a function of divinity--personal monism. One can shout as loudly as one likes (quoting Loder and Eagan and a host of others) that this is not so, call it theosis or whatever you wish, but until you actually offers an example that points to the creature's creating something freely, you can't say the creature is a creative, personal entity. We'll, at least I'll not agree to call it that (which of course matters to nobody on the larger scale of things!).

T

One Love
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Posted 8/14/2008 5:34 AM (GMT -6)

It seems very apparent that the only way that you will be satisfied, Tom, is if deified human hearts are functionally SEPARATE from Christ-the-Logos, with respect to all willed thoughts, feelings, and bodily action. You want there to be pretty much TOTAL self-determination of the deified human's ego over it's own expresssions of love, while using the "divine themes" from God to do so. What I mean by this, Tom, is that you believe that, in theosis, we will have MINIMAL directional, determining influence by God on what loving things we choose to do. You feel that God would have no reason to tell a deified human heart exactly what to do...even if that person were deified on earth. This is how it would go for you. For any given situation where a creative choice to be made...

Human believing heart speaking:
So, Jesus, what would you do in this situation?

Jesus responding:
Well, there's a million equally loving things that "I" might do in your situation. BUT IT'S NOT MY SITUATION...IT'S YOURS! You are NOT me, dear beloved...and I am not you. I'm a totally distinct person from you...and as such, your situation is not "mine" to choose within. YOU are free (and healed enough) to decide how YOU want to determine your thoughts, feelings, and bodily actions in whatever loving means of expression the situation allows for the Father's glory. So, YOU use YOUR purified vision and heart...and YOU choose what to do. I'll trust you and empower you to do what YOU to creatively decide what YOU want. Do what you believe and/or feel in your deified heart...and that will be fine!

Anything more "determining" than this, you're gonna bristle at...no matter who says different. (Loder, Maximus, Willard, Nesteruk, Ware, Shultz, Egan, various mystics, etc)

Let me try to give an example of how I see this playing out. Let's assume a deified person on earth. A "saint" of whatever. Let's further say that this person wants to create some kind of pottery this week to honor God. Basically, this person's ego-activity would determine pretty much every dimension of how the pottery would come out...without God doing anything but empowering the creative action. But this is what God wants, right? God would want us to use our purified hearts (self-directing all of our own thoughts, feelings, and bodily actions) to create for ourselves...not just being "channels of God's divine will" as it were. THAT'S THE LAST THING GOD WOULD WANT FOR THE DEIFIED HUMAN HEART ON EARTH! No, we "lean upon our own understanding" for everything...because we can trust our own understandings now. God might give us some "themes" to work with, but not much more beyond that. God would not be determining the creation itself (in it's particular "coming forth" ) at all, as God would (per your thought, Tom) only be satisfied if the pottery were the complete self-expression of the deified person's ego-activity...and NOT a self-expression of God's activity.

Am I right on all this, Tom?

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Post Edited (Divine Progeny) : 8/14/2008 5:57:46 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 8/14/2008 5:58 AM (GMT -6)

Am I at least close, Tom? heh...

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

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