Post Edited (Tom) : 12/13/2008 6:39:50 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (One Love) : 12/13/2008 6:43:22 AM (GMT-6)

Whatcha say, Mr. Kallistos Ware?

“On the walls of the catacombs in Rome there is sometimes painted the figure of a woman praying, the Orans. She is gazing towards heaven, her open hands raised with the palms upwards. This is one of the most ancient of Christian ikons. Whom does she represent—the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Church, or the soul at prayer? Or perhaps all three at once? However, it is interpreted, this ikon depicts a basic Christian attitude: that of invocation or epiclesis, of calling down or waiting upon the Holy Spirit.

There are three main positions that we can assume with our hands, and each has its own symbolic meaning. Our hands may be closed, our fists clenched, as a gesture of defiance or in an effort to grasp and to hold fast, thus expressing aggression or fear. At the other extreme our hands may hang listlessly by our sides, neither defiant nor receptive. Or else, as a third possibility, our hands may be lifted up like those of the Orans, no longer clenched by open, no longer listless but ready to receive the gifts of the Spirit. An all-important lesson upon the spiritual Way is understanding how to unclench our fists and to open our hands.

Each hour and minute we are to make our own the action of the Orans: invisibly we are to lift our opened hands to heaven, saying to the Spirit, Come.

The whole aim of the Christian life is to be a Spirit-bearer, to live in the Spirit of God, to breathe the Spirit of God.”

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Only a few Christians in each generation become elders, and still fewer become fools in Christ. But all the baptized without exception are Spirit-bearers. "Do you know realize or understand your own nobility?" ask The Homilies of St. Macarius. "...Each of you has been anointed with the heavenly Chrism, and has become a Christ by grace; each is king and prophet of the heavenly mysteries."

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Just as the Spirit sends the Son at the Annunciation, the Baptism, and the Transfiguration, and just as the Son in his turn sends the Spirit at Pentecost, so after Pentecost it is the Spirit's task to bear witness to Christ, rendering the risen Lord ever present among us. If the aim of the Incarnation is the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost, [then] the aim of Pentecost is the continuing of Christ's Incarnation within the life of the Church. This is precisely what the Spirit does at the epiclesis in the Eucharistic consecration; and this consecratory epiclesis serves as a model and paradigm for what is happening throughout our whole life in Christ.

"Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt 18:20). How is Christ present in our midst? Through the Holy Spirit. "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world" (Matt 28:20) How is Christ always with us? Through the Holy Spirit. Because of the Comforter's presence in our heart, we do not simply know Christ at fourth of fifth hand, as a distant figure from long ago, about whom we possess factual information through written records; but we know him directly, here and now, in the present, as our personal savior and our friend. With the Apostle Thomas, we can affirm "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28). We do not merely say "Christ was born"--once, very long ago; we say "Christ is born"--now, at this moment, in my own heart. We do not say merely "Christ died" but "Christ died for me". We do not say merely "Christ rose" but "Christ is risen"--he lives now, for me and in me. This immediacy and personal directness in our relationship with Jesus is precisely the work of the Spirit."

Oh, well.  I'm still crazy.  I do know that...

Post Edited (One Love) : 12/13/2008 8:12:29 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Asher) : 12/13/2008 9:51:20 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (One Love) : 12/14/2008 7:26:03 AM (GMT-6)

D-

First, if all you’re doing with your repeated warnings to not give in to myth of ‘self-possession’ or be deceived by the lure of ‘self-ownership’, etc., is issue a general warning to us all, well, hey, fine. I guess it just comes across differently to me (and others). Perhaps because the warnings so often come on the heels of (or appear to be motivated by) arguments I make about our having (= possessing) a unique perspective. So it’s difficult not to conclude you’re specifically targeting these arguments of mine as the ‘illusion’ you want to warn us all about.

The Father IS a ‘self’, for example, so our default assumption can’t be that ‘self-possession’ is a bad thing. We have to begin by assuming it’s a good thing. Zizzy stresses the innate human drive to be (= to possess) a self, to be a person. The question is how the self is possessed, independently or interdependently? Obviously the latter. Even if we say our identity and personhood are had intersubjectively (which I agree with), we’re still talking ‘self-possession’. You seem to have it out for the word “possession.” Why is that? Shoot, I’d say ‘self-possession’ and ‘salvation’ are pretty much the same thing if the ‘self’ is possessed in relation to God. It’s the false self that doesn’t truly ‘possess’ anything, or offers us possession of nothing substantial.

Secondly, I had to smile when you said that all you’ve written here the past 18 months is basically just about taking seriously the idea that we’re temples of the Holy Spirit, here:

“All I'm doing, Tom, is taking very seriously the truth that human beings are created to be the ‘temple of the Holy Spirit.”

Dude. You’re doing so much more than just trying to take that seriously. And here:

“It's not about trying to dissect things, as you say.”

Ha! Which threads are you reading? Come on. There’s nothing left—no experience, no perception, no corner of subjectivity, nuttin’—that hasn’t seen your (and to some extent my) scalpel. What’s left that you haven’t dissected? Sure, it’s not “about” dissecting. Didn’t say it was. But you’re dissecting nonetheless.

You take a biblical analogy that’s limited by context and intended to make a simple point, and milk it (I’m not being disrespectful mind ya) for God knows how much metaphysical ore. I mean really. What’s happened to your exegesis? You used to be more careful and mindful of context.

The Corinthians are sleeping around (and doing other unhelpful things with their bodies), which concerns Paul. They’re divorcing salvation (which they equate with being ‘spiritual’) from the life of the body. Standard stuff. So Paul says, “Hey guys, look. Don’t do that with your bodies. God loves embodiment and intends the life of faith to involve a new way of using our bodies. Salvation can’t be divorced from embodiment. Those bodies are gonna be glorified someday (ch. 15). So everything you have—your body included—is God’s. Oh I know, here’s an analogy that’ll help you. Treat your body like a temple God lives in. Respect it as something sacred. Get it?”

It seems more than a stretch to think that Paul had in mind (or believed that taking him seriously included) the mountains of metaphysics about matter, process, actual occasions, subjectivity/interiority, and bipolar asymmetries that you’ve explored in taking this metaphor seriously. It seems to me that all the seriousness the analogy warrants is exhausted in what we do with our bodies. We take the analogy seriously by not sleeping around, by honoring God with our bodies, by not denying our spouses (another issue Paul mentions). Given the over-realized eschatology at Corinth and their fuddled beliefs about embodiment, it makes perfect sense for Paul to remind them that God loves the body and intends the life of faith to involve a new way of using that body as the means by which we dispose of our true identities. But you’re telling me that the analogy “we are temples of the Holy Spirit” spawns all the metaphysical speculation we’ve drummed up here? Wow.

Thirdly, whatever “putting God in all things” (and/or “all things in God”) means (and we only have the ‘language’ in Scripture to deal with, no real explanation in metaphysical terms), it can’t undermine the integrity of the sense in which God addresses us as an “other” (a free, personal other). If God says “you” to us (as non-divine beings), then that has to mean at least that God isn’t to be identified as the “you” he’s addressing. That’s nonsensical. But I could just as easily ask you (and I have), Well, if God perceives us as others he addresses and relates to, then what happens to God’s being on the inside of our interiority? I’m sure none of us really knows exactly how to resolves this. But the answer can’t be to put God ‘subjectively’ on both sides, on ALL sides of every interpersonal engagement, every address and response, so that there’s no address which is not addressed TO God and no response which is not a response FROM God. When you do that you can also seriously mean to say we have subjective perspectives that are not God’s. That’s when things start looking pantheistic.

Even if the theater analogy has any truth to it as a way to help us understand how God knows our thoughts, we still end up with a creaturely perspective which is not God’s perspective. You conceded this. Well, then there are subjective perspectives which are not God’s perspective. Whose are they? They’re ours. That looks like ‘self-possession’ to me—not of a false self, but of a true self-in-relation to God.

Even with the ‘body’ analogy of us being cells in God’s body having our own experience but somehow constituting God’s overall experience of himself at the same time, you still don’t get a fine-tuned metaphysic. The analogy is vaguely helpful I suppose. But at best we can only “point” at what we think is the case. We can’t put our finger on the “fact of the matter” as it is.

God knows our thoughts, sure. Does that require God to be ‘on the inside’? In some way (a way we don’t and can’t pinpoint), yes. Do you know how? No.

It’s JUST AS TRUE that God addresses us and relates to us as personal ‘others’, and just like God’s knowing our thoughts requires us to say God is on our ‘inside’ somehow, saying God perceives and addresses us as personal others makes requires us to posit a uniqueness to the ‘other’ whom God addresses ‘from the outside’ so to speak. So our uniqueness qualifies what we’re able to say regarding God’s being on the inside just the way God’s knowledge of our interiority qualifies what we’re able to say about God’s being on the outside. But this gets us the broadest of brush strokes at best. In the end, all we NEED to say is that God knows the very thoughts of those he addresses as ‘others’. After all the dissecting, that’s where we come back to. So what’s the point?

Fourthly, I like much of what all the guys you named write. But I had to laugh. You named all the guys you like and then basically said that my disagreements with you and them boil down to just ‘ME’, or something like that. There I am standing all alone on my side of the debate and on your side are all the Saints, theologians, and mystics of the ages, and the Bible too I guess! Talk about underdog! Where’s Tom? Well, he just chooses to disagree. Gets me. No reasons or arguments.

At least there’s some humor left in us!

I think Ware came out and sided with me on some important issues. Zizzy too. As for Maximus, hey, what can I say but ‘Ed Moore’ (and Louth, a Maximus expert) if just to point out that not everybody within that tradition thinks Maximus is right on all the key points and that somebody other than me feels the same pantheistic influence/tendency that I do. To use your favorite phrase, “I’m not making this up!” As for David Hart, I’ll stand him up on my side where it counts. The posts are all out there. Not bad company.

Tom