D: One must pray like this: “O Lord, may you live in me, may you speak through me, may you act through me’.”

Questions for Tom:

1) Do you believe that the One Triune God CAN answer this honest believer's prayer? 

2) Do you believe that the One Triune God WOULD answer this honest believer's prayer?

3) Do you believe that we believers can pray this prayer all the time, if they so chose?

Tom: I believe God answers prayers that seek his will.

What’s God’s will?

I want God to live “in me.” Can we be truly Christian and want otherwise? I don’t think so. God speaking and acting (same things) through me? Well, sure. I want that.

But must my acting in/through the agency of another mean I determined everything about the agency of that other? I don’t see why. There can be situations that might demand that kind of minute detail. But I can imagine situations in which that would be unnecessary. It all depends on what one wants. If I need to paint the kitchen for Anita, I can paint it myself. Or I can have my kids paint it with me. Or I could have them hold the brush and then hold their hands in mine and direct every stroke they make, so that effectively it’s really just ME painting through the abdicated agency of my children (not abdicated in the sense that they don’t freely choose to relinquish all self-determined creative expression—they do that much—but abdicated in all other senses). Or I could just tell them, “Hey, let’s paint the room” and let them do it (deciding the colors, etc.) with me.

It all goes back to what it is one thinks God is up to. Why does God create at all? How that is answered determines what one means when one prays “Speak and act through me.” One doesn’t pray that without SOME model of agency and partnership in mind (even unconsciously perhaps). My models are interpersonally relational because I think God created to have us live in the tropos of divine love, God’s “way of living and loving.” And that’s freely creative. Our being freely creative IS THE POINT. That is what God’s after (in my mind). We’re not instruments used by God for some OTHER means, some end beyond the freely determined movements of love. That IS the end.

So I believe God can and would and will answer prayers that seek his will.

T

"Concession."  Heh.  The Russian "starets" was just doing the best he could I suppose...and God just accommodated the "lower" request then, right? 

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/25/2009 3:50:12 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/25/2009 5:45:03 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Corey) : 2/25/2009 7:25:25 PM (GMT-6)

Bruce: I don't get what the argument is about.

Tom: I’m not sure I do either!

D: Tom and Corey are saying that the prayers we are talking about would be against the “ultimate” telos of creative free expression by the created human self as ABSOLUTELY DISTINCT from Christ’s personal expression because it has Christ working and acting in and through the self, directing the will, thoughts, and emotions of the believer, effectively making them a veritable "function of the Godhead" with respect to the Son. They don't like that.

Tom: Couple things. First, I don’t think that in a relational ontology there can even be such a thing as an “absolute distinction.” So no, creative free expression determined by us can’t be absolutely distinct from Christ’s personal expression. It’s distinct in terms of ‘who’ finally arbitrates the transition between possibility to actuality, BUT since Christ is definitive for my understanding of ‘who’ I am, that places Christ at the scene of all my own free determinations. He’s just not at the scene AS THE DETERMINER. But again, in a relational ontology, there’s no saying ‘who’ I am without saying who Christ is. And this means Christ (his presence and meaning) are definitive for my own presence and meaning. It's just that Christ isn't the ONLY reality definitive of my own presence and meaning.

Second, I don’t mind the text of the prayers per se. More on that below. I can certainly see the appropriateness of praying them NOW (for reasons I try to express below), and I can also see a way to give them meaning THEN (in a fully redeemed and risk-free eschaton), but the meaning THEN would be expressive of the sort of creaturely free expression I see heaven being and so might not reflect as close an identification between us and Christ as we’d get if Christ were doing all the determining.

Corey: I'm not asserting that this is a “lower” prayer. You've misunderstood. I'm asserting that these questions don't serve to inform us one way or another. I'm wary of question-begging here.

Tom: Couldn’t have said it better myself. Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking as well. It’s not like we’re trying to grade prayers. It’s just that prayers a) are a conversation that takes place within the constraints of some context, and b) are grounded in a person's beliefs about the sort of world we live in the sort of plans God has for us.  

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D, what gives prayer integrity is the honesty and sincerity of the heart’s cry. Prayers don’t lose integrity if by change something we’ve asked for isn’t God’s will. Prayer is talking to and listening to God. If the convo is honest and heartfelt it’s got relational integrity.

I’m not questioning the integrity of anybody’s prayer. After 35 years of faith, I still feel like a novice and hesitate to make these sorts of judgments about ‘prayer’.

D: Well, let me ask you both this. Would either of YOU ever pray this prayer in your lives...like right now? If not, why not? (I think I know the answer already...but let's see.)

Tom: Of course I pray this prayer. I pray it every day. I don’t want to “lean on my own understanding.” I want to “acknowledge God in all my ways,” and have the Spirit “live in me” and lead me and use me and direct me. Come on Bro. In a fracked up world like ours, how could I NOT want this? I don’t see my blind spots. I’m still fallen. I screw up. I’m tempted. I don’t perceive Satan’s deceptive ways. There are dangers and pitfalls. ALL of this is more than enough reason for me to defer to God in pretty much everything I do. So I pray in a manner appropriate to the fallen world I’m in given the still broken faculties of my own heart and mind. That said, D, I think that where you see this way of praying as prescriptive for divine-human relationality in all possible contexts, I see it as relevant to this present evil age. The point is to escape all that and enter into a conversation with God appropriate to the world to come.

Like I’ve said a million times, I don’t expect to live in a fracked up world forever. I expect the world one day to be glorified, redeemed, and populated with people who can’t even contemplate evil; a fully redeemed and risk-free environment. In such a world, what dangers will I need to ask God to guard me from? What snares of the devil will endanger me then? See my point?

For example, here’s a prayer we’re told to pray by Jesus himself: “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Well, we pray THAT now. Will we pray it THEN? No. Why not? Because we won’t need to pray it then. See?

Just because a way of approaching, relating to, and conversing with God is appropriate, even necessary, NOW doesn’t mean it will be so THEN. If somebody wants to go around in a fully redeemed and risk-free world praying, “God protect me, keep me safe from harm and guard my mind from the influence of the world. You take charge of my will and thoughts and feelings. I can’t navigate life without you doing it for me” what would you say? I’d say, “Yo, what are you doing? Why are you talking like that up here? What kind of place do you think this is?”

I get the same general feeling regarding the main flow of what you’re suggesting our fundamental approach and relation to God will be in heaven. It’s like you expect life forever to be characterized by the same need to defer to God in this way. But if none of what occasions our need to defer to God in this particular way continues to be the case, then why should we continue to relate and pray to God as if it does? But don’t understand this as some kind of “absolute distinction” where “I” get to be ME and determine MYSELF without any interference from God. Naw. There are no such absolute distinctions in a relational ontology, and I ONLY value the determining of personal distinction underneath creative expression by the creature because I’m convinced God cherishes it so. So we shall conform utterly and without remainder to the divine will. It’s just that the divine will has decided it doesn’t want to decide every movement we make. We shall do what God wills when we determine our creative expression. EVEN IF the divine will has to adopt a more hands on approach NOW, that won't be the case I don't think THEN.

The day will come when we won’t need Dad to run alongside the bicycle with one hand on the Sissy bar and another on the handle bar. The day will come when the darkness that engulfs this world won’t obscure our paths, when the falleness and engrained habituation that make us vulnerable to failure won’t exist anymore. How will prayer (our conversation with God) change then? I just don’t see Proverbs 3 having any relevance then. The falleness that we ask God to guide us through by taking the reins (so to speak) will no longer exist.

Prayer is a conversation, and conversations take place in some context. When the context changes, the conversation changes.  When we are no longer in danger, we won’t need to talk to God about being in danger. When we no longer need guidance and direction for the dark paths we travel, we won’t need to seek such guidance. When we’re solidified in love and joyful celebration, why pray for God to take the reins from us so that we don’t fall and sin?

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D: 1) Will you at least concede, Tom, that Fr. Zachariah's prayer is ALLOWABLE (meaning acceptable by God) within the context of Orthodox Christianity...and is a reality that is OPEN for the believer to live?  Will you concede that?

Tom: OK:

a) I don’t think God’s purposes for creating include the possibility that God would want to micro-manage fully redeemed persons in a risk-free environment. So I don’t think we’ll be asking God to “guide our steps” so that our paths don’t stray. This is heaven we’re talking about.

But b) I could be wrong about the sort of place heaven will be and about God’s wanting this (though I find it nearly impossible to imagine eternity being the sort of place that would require such requests). In that case God may want a world in which God just lets us decide whether God micro-manages us (if that’s what we really wanted) or not. We get to decide and God gives us what we want.

I’m for everybody praying in ways that are consistent with their beliefs about the sort of world we live in, about the sort of relationship we have with God, and about the purposes God has for us. That's the only way any of us can pray. I think the prayers of the Orthodox guys you shared are perfectly consistent with their beliefs about our world and God’s purposes for the world. And I concede that I might be wrong in thinking that key elements of that worldview are wrong. So yes, I have to concede those prayers allowable. If the worldview that informs them is allowable, then the prayers are allowable. I just don’t share that worldview, so I can't agree that the reality that defines that worldview is in fact a reality open for experience. If that's the way the world is, then sure, it's there to be experienced. But I don't think that's the way the world is. So I don't think it's there for the experiencing.

What I can’t imagine, though, is a fully redeemed mind in a fully risk-free world, having perceived that God’s desire for them is not to be so micro-managed, preferring to be so managed nonetheless. Fully redeemed folk want what God wants. I think God wants to let go of our bikes eventually. I could be wrong. IF you’re right and God’s purpose is to let us decide how micro-managed we are to be, then cool. I have real problems conceiving of it, but maybe that’s just me.

Love ya!

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 2/26/2009 3:06:31 AM (GMT-6)

Your quote: When we’re solidified in love and joyful celebration, why pray for God to take the reins from us so that we don’t fall and sin?

For you, Tom, if anyone "self-empties" their hypostasis by self-disposition before the Spirit of Christ-the-Logos such that Christ is ultimate "determiner" for the creative expression the self-emptier...then, in your mind, they would still effectively be "functions of the Godhead", specifically living extensions of the Person of Christ-the-Logos. You don't seem to mind this much, for occasions of spiritual warfare in this life. You said...

I don’t want to “lean on my own understanding.” I want to “acknowledge God in all my ways,” and have the Spirit “live in me” and lead me and use me and direct me. Come on Bro. In a fracked up world like ours, how could I NOT want this? I don’t see my blind spots. I’m still fallen. I screw up. I’m tempted. I don’t perceive Satan’s deceptive ways. There are dangers and pitfalls. ALL of this is more than enough reason for me to defer to God in pretty much everything I do. So I pray in a manner appropriate to the fallen world I’m in given the still broken faculties of my own heart and mind. That said, D, I think that where you see this way of praying as prescriptive for divine-human relationality in all possible contexts, I see it as relevant to this present evil age. The point is to escape all that and enter into a conversation with God appropriate to the world to come.

Like Greg, you are willing for pockets of functional exhaustive determination by God for the sake of spiritual warfare in the current probationary period...but not after that. You want to say that this is like training wheels that we won't need later.

But...

is the creaturely self-emptying (that allows for being a "transparent screen" for Divine Presence) merely a tool of war? Isn't it the case that the Incarnate Word, the full expression of human being, demonstrates that this JUST IS how the rightly-related human will and desire is supposed to work? Let me put it like this: When the Eschaton is fully here, will the human being Jesus just STOP being the "transparent screen" of the Father's hypostasis? Will the Son basically say...

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/26/2009 4:08:14 AM (GMT-6)

Arghghgh! There are like five really important issues here which each deserve their own thread!

I might miss some stuff. See if this hits the hightlights.

D: Like Greg, you are willing for pockets of functional exhaustive determination by God for the sake of spiritual warfare in the current probationary period...but not after that. You want to say that this is like training wheels that we won't need later. But is the creaturely self-emptying (that allows for being a "transparent screen" for Divine Presence) merely a tool of war?

Tom: I don’t think I’d equate this-worldly determinations of us by God with a self-emptying that makes us simply “transparent screens” for God. But maybe I don’t know or remember just what sort of experience you have in mind. I can say to God, “Father, if I get too hard-headed to hear you and you really need me to move left or right or saying something a particular way, then go for it. You just fix me however you wish.” I’m sure that happens sometimes. But like I said, I can’t conceive of this as the goal of divine-human relationality per se or of a divine policy describing how God wants to run things all the time.

D: Isn't it the case that the Incarnate Word, the full expression of human being, demonstrates that this JUST IS how the human will and desire is supposed to work?

Tom: No, I don’t think so. At least I wouldn’t say that without qualification. That’s our difference. But I thought we solved this. You agreed that we all come to be non-divine persons. But that’s not possible if the human beings we are function in relation to God EXACTLY as the human in Christ functions with respect to God. I think we should qualify the sense in which Christ demonstrates the fulfillment of human nature, because while the relation of human to divine in Christ functions solely on the level of ‘nature’, the relation of human to divine in US functions on the level of ‘person’. If we’re non-divine persons who dispose of our identities in terms of our human nature and Jesus is a divine person who disposes of his identity in terms of his human (and divine) nature(s), how can it not be the case that these personal distinctions entail a determination of nature by the person? I don’t know how else to distinguish between ‘persons’ other than in the free exercise of will with respect to nature. Honestly D. If person F determines everything about S without remainder, whatever S is, it can’t be personally distinct from G. And that goes for the Trinity too.

D: Let me put it like this: When the Eschaton is fully here, will the human being Jesus just STOP being the "transparent screen" of the Father's hypostasis?

Tom: The Son won’t stop being the express image of the Father, no. Of course not. But only a ‘person’ can image the ‘person’ of the Father. And that person is the Son. Jesus argued this explicitly in John’s Gospel. The human being Jesus IS the divine Logos, the Son. One person who is the image of the Father.

D: Will the Son basically say, “Ok, Father. Enough with the training wheels. The Devil's beaten and sin is no more. I can now reclaim my ‘divine right and prerogative of independent divine action’ now so I can do things on my own. I don't need you doing things through me like that anymore.”

Tom: Maybe I deserve this caricature of my view because of how I describe your view. I hope picture your view at its best. Help me do that. But your description of my view here looks like it’s designed to bring out the worst possible shades of meaning. I mean, even if God were to say to me explicitly, “Tom, I want you to freely decide to do x, y and z. I’m not going to dictate your actions,” it wouldn’t be the case that in obeying God I’d be “claiming some prerogative of independent action” or doing things “on my own” because I “don’t need your doing things through me.” That sounds selfish and excluding to me. In my view, when I imagine fulfilled human beings freely expressing love, I imagine we’re doing “God’s way” laying claim to a divine prerogative that grace empowers us to exercise. We’re anything but isolated selves who don’t need others.

I don’t know where to strike the balance, D, between how much one can be determined by another and how free one can be and still retain a unique and irreducible personhood. We went through all this before. But I think that there is a balance to be struck.

What about Jesus? It’s my feeling that the incarnation of the Son into our fallen world involved some new arrangement or prioritizing of outcomes and procedures specifically relative to the fallen state in which the Son’s mission had to be carried out. And when the incarnate Son returned to the glory that was his before the world began, I imagine those adjustments and arrangements unique to accomplishing his task in our fallen world were no longer necessary. I can see that, but that’s because I posit freedom in the Trinitarian relations too. So maybe I just don’t buy into this “self-emptying unto transparent screen” model of interpersonal relations that you hold to.

I think we need a theology that helps us express our experience. And my own experience of God is irreducibly interpersonal and free. I may accept the idea of being micro-managed by the Spirit when needed, but I don’t adopt that as the fundamental structure of a relational ontology. I never identify myself as being the Son. It’s that simple.

D: I think that it will eternally be the case that Jesus’ human nature (via Christ's human spirit) will FREELY FOLLOW the divine nature (via Christ's Divine Spirit) such that the Incarnate Word will ALWAYS be a "transparent screen" for…

Tom: Natures don’t freely follow other natures. Persons freely follow other persons. “Freely following” is an irreducibly person act. But I don’t want to nitpick. Of course the human nature of the Logos will always conform to/follow the divine nature. Why is that? It’s because one and same person animates and determines both natures. One and the same person (the Son) is disposing of one and the same identity through two modes of being. No problem.

But this can’t delineate the structure of divine-human relationship in our case because in our case there are non-divine persons in the equation. There is no such entity in the divine-human equation in Christ.

D: If we will be LIKE CHRIST in the eschaton, then what does that mean?  Does it mean that we, in our creatureliness, will get to be a "transparent screen" for God the Son in human flesh via the Holy Spirit?  I tend to think so.  In the end, Christ will have ONE New Humanity which will be His ONE Body...for eternity.

Tom: He doesn’t need non-divine PERSONS to get that. But if he wants persons with whom to relate, persons who without having to be micro-managed reproduce the same loving ‘way of being’ that is God’s? I think God wants that. I can’t imagine him not wanting that, and that’s where we differ.

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Tom: In that case God may want a world in which God just lets us decide whether God micro-manages us (if that’s what we really wanted) or not. We get to decide and God gives us what we want.

D: I could see God allowing this. As “Christ-ones” in the eschaton, we’d have the choice of how transparently we re-present the uncreated Divine Presence (Christ-the-Logos) in and through our particular created expressive potentials. No harm, no foul for anybody.

Tom: That’s so contrary to your WHOLE Christology, D. Given your view on Christology as determinative for God’s telos for human being, you simply can’t agree that God would allow us to decide how transparently we represent Christ in the eschaton. You end up saying one thing with your Christology and denying it with your eschatology.

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D: This is what I hear you say: When there's no evil to fight, why would we need God to direct our will, thoughts, and feelings...effectively determining our creative expressions? After all evil is dealt with, there will be no context to ask God to contextualize us to such a degree.

Tom: That sounds like me, yeah.

D: Christ will eternally say “Anyone who sees me sees the Father.” Christians will eternally say “Anyone who sees us sees Christ.”

Tom: Dude, let me say this. I don’t need to suppose that the Father determined every act of volition in Jesus in order to agree that in seeing Jesus you see the Father. I mean, you can’t argue back from the fact that in seeing Jesus you see a perfect revelation of the Father, a disclosure of the Father’s will and character, to the determination of Jesus by the Father’s will. Seeing the Father in Jesus doesn’t necessary preclude such determination. I’m just saying it doesn’t entail it. If the Son has the same nature, character and love as the Father because the Son is divine, then of course we’re going to see the Father in Jesus. Like most filial relations, son and daughters can reveal the heart, soul, will, nature, and character of their parents without having to be determined BY their parents.

I’m just thinking out loud as I write.

Thanks for praying for David.

Pax,

T