Post Edited (One Love) : 2/26/2009 12:21:20 PM (GMT-6)

St. Paul speaks of Christ “emptying” Himself in His voluntary sacrifice for us all (Philippians 2:5-11). It is the only place in the New Testament that speaks of this particular action of Christ - at least as an “emptying” (kenosis) but the concept has always played a large role in the Church’s understanding of Christ’s death on the Cross.

It is interesting to me that Father Sophrony, in his writings, takes this idea of kenosis and applies it as well to the “not-I-but-the-Father” sayings: “I live by the Father” (Jn. 6:57; cf 5:30, 7:18, 15:15).

Fr. Nicholas Sakharov says of Father Sophrony’s point:

Christ, though the incarnate God, avoids any “divine action” of his own, so much so that the Father’s hypostasis [Person] is manifest absolutely through the absolutely “transparent screen” of Christ’s self-emptied hypostasis. Through this kenosis it becomes the “express image of the Father” (Heb. 1:3).

This, it seems to me, says much to us about what it means to become “like Christ.”

and...

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.

Well, I guess that's that, then.   You don't believe that the "transparent screen" idea is theologically available, given what you think God's end aims are.  Therefore, if you are right, they are asking for something that just can't exist.  Well...I gotta go with Fr. Stephen and the others in thinking that the idea IS theologically available.  I just really think those guys are onto something.  But hey, we agree to disagree.  No biggie.  It's all love. 

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/26/2009 4:29:46 PM (GMT-6)

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Reposted thoughts for reflection. (For me...)

"...the purpose of the universe is not human beings considered in their natural condition, but unique creatures in whom the Logos is indwelling and who are chosen to transfigure the universe by bringing it to the ultimate union with God."

and...

"As Meister Eckhart teaches, "He who abides always in a present now, in him does God beget his Son without ceasing."
Kallistos Ware, Orthodox Way, 115

and...

Loder's The Knight's Move: The Relational Logic of the Spirit in Theology and Science, a section called "The Spiritual Recentering of Human Development."

Tom: 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. (Bold and underlining by D)

D: Well, I guess that's that, then. You don't believe that the "transparent screen" idea is theologically available, given what you think God's end aims are. Therefore, if you are right, they are asking for something that just can't exist. Well...I gotta go with Fr. Stephen and the others in thinking that the idea IS theologically available.

Tom: I didn’t say I don’t believe the “transparent screen” idea is theologically available. I said just the opposite: “If the worldview that informs them is allowable then I have to concede those prayers are allowable.” I don’t agree with parts of the view, but that’s not to say it’s not “theologically available.” Your view is a possible theological explanation of divine-human relations. What would NOT be theologically available to my mind would be something like a non-trinitarian view of God. I'm not going to admit that view at the table of viable Christian worldviews. But I would admit your view at that table.

But you don’t think the experience I’m promoting is there for the experiencing either, D. You keep saying you’re cool with BOTH being the available. But given your whole approach (based as it is on your Christology) you can’t concede this. For you, God’s telos for humankind is defined and laid bare within the constraints of your Christology. But that same Christology will not allow God’s telos to include leaving it up to us to decide whether we want to live in D’s world or Tom’s world. Given your view, my description of divine-human relationality isn’t compatible with your Christologically informed view of God’s telos for humanity because you don’t see happening between the human and the divine in Jesus what I’m saying we do and shall see happening between the human and the divine in us. So you have to say that the experience I’m promoting isn’t available for the experiencing, given your Christology. It didn’t happen with Jesus. Jesus is THE template. Therefore, it won’t be happening with us.

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Loder: "I" who says "I, not I, but Christ" is not lost, only recentered from the ego to the One…

Tom: Do it for me, D. Manifest this recentering of your “I” from ‘ego’ to ‘Christ’ so I can see it work. Describe for me what it is you perceive when you do this. How’s this “recentering” to be conceived—Spatially? In terms of importance and deferral? In terms ‘the emergent’ acknowledging ‘the ground’? If the “I” remains, and remains personally distinct, then what’s “transparent” about it? My only guess is that the transparency means it is no longer self-determining of any creative expression. The transparent entity offers itself to God as a blank slate upon which God composes and expresses himself creatively. So we surrender any role as ‘artist’ and embrace our role solely in terms of being ‘art’, composed and determined by God. The only self-determining choice one makes is the choice to not determine ourselves in any other way.

If this is close, then yeah, I’d reject this pretty categorically.

I don’t think it’s bad or evil. I just think it’s a view that misunderstands what it is God created us for. I don’t deny that God wants to see himself in us. I just see this self-reflection happening not in terms of God’s determining what we do, but in terms of us determining ourselves as God determines Godself, in loving expression which is the same thing God does. I look at my kids and see myself in them all the time without it being the case that I determine them. They have over time appropriated my likes/dislikes, beliefs, values, habits, etc., into their own way of living. That gives me great joy as a father. Determining them in the manner your view describes is far less appealing and inviting. But my intuitions and sensitivities could be all jacked up too. I could be a despairing wreck in supposing that God loves it when I creatively worship him (i.e., determine the form of my loving expression), for example. But as it stands right now I just don’t know how to get with your view on an existential level the way I get with the ways of love and personal interaction that presently make life and faith so satisfying right now.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 2/27/2009 6:21:15 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/27/2009 8:52:23 AM (GMT-6)

D: Christ would be personally involved in everything I do...and I would see myself ONLY in relationship to Divine Presence in Christ. My ego can't just take all credit for things that my human hypostasis does. I know that I'm being supported by Grace at every point as I receive that Grace by faith.

Tom: I got no problem here. There’s zero room in my view for anybody taking all credit for things they do. The same supporting grace is present at every point in my consciousness too.

D: I don't take unilateral credit for my sermons anymore...or anything else I do.

Tom: Neither do I. But let me ask: Do you think that my view of divine-human relationality leaves room for persons to take credit for what they do?

Thanks for sharing how you view your experience of it.

--------------------------

D: Since the divinized always act according to God's will, their actions are not merely their own, for God works in them "both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Phil 2:13). Thus their actions have a certain "divine" quality. Even as "the actions of Christ are both divine and human, theandric actions, so those of the just man are Godlike, performed at once by God and by man."

Tom: What if God tells me to paint him a picture and says, “Hey, surprise me. Pick the colors and medium and go spres yoself”? Now, if I do so, then:

a)      Have I acted according to God’s will? (Yes.) And in that case…

b)      How would we then understand the claim that my action (my painting for God) is “not merely my own” but also God’s?

I’d say my actions in this case are also God’s in the broad sense that a) God created the world freely, b) God wanted to see God’s own divine way of loving/living reflected in creation, c) God’s purpose was for this sort of free creativity to occur, and d) God’s presence and grace sustains me in the free determinations of my expression. My actions then are God’s because God’s presence and grace are the necessary (but not sufficient) means to my actions. Equally, they’re mine because the exercise of free determination is a necessary (but not sufficient) means to my actions also. THIS synergy is most relational I think because the end state in its actuality and diversity requires the creative exercise of will from both persons-in-relation and that brings novel states into being.

Tom

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/27/2009 10:41:05 AM (GMT-6)

D: I don't see how any of this eliminates the possibility for the human spirit to relate to divine themes (given via the Holy Spirit of Christ) in a free manner such that the human spirit retains the power to direct some creative expression within those themes.

Tom: Carefully. Very carefully.

First, let’s assume that some human being freely and creatively determines its loving expression. What do you call a thing that does that? I call it a ‘person’. There’s NO OTHER WORD for it, D. None. If X is freely and creatively determining its loving expression, X is a person. End of story. Anything human that determines itself freely in loving expression is most undoubtedly a PERSON.

Second, you don’t equate ‘spirit’ with ‘person’. These are NOT the same in your view. I remember that much! So it sounds strange to me to hear you talk of “the human spirit freely determining itself in love in relating to God.” See the problem?

Given that for you the ‘human spirit’ is not a ‘person’, how is this human spirit doing what cannot but be ascribed to ‘persons’, viz., freely determining itself in loving expression? How’s the human spirit do that if it’s only ‘persons’ who make such determinations and if the human spirit is not person? It just doesn’t make sense for you to say “the human spirit relating to divine themes freely,” unless such free determinations do not constitute a person in your view. But in that case, I’d love to know how in the world you avoid calling that which determines itself freely in loving expression a person?

So I just don’t see how you can agree that the human non-divine spirit of Jesus was able to determine itself freely in creative expression and relation to God. The human spirit is not ‘person’ on your view and only ‘person’ can make sort of determinations you ascribe to the human ‘spirit’.

Third, you’re saying that in your view how the human in Christ relates to the divine is how we as humans are to relate to the divine. And you’re granting that the human spirit of Jesus was free to determine itself in creative expression in ways undetermined by the Son. Now, you use Christ as the model. I know, because 99.9% of your objections to me have sounded like this: “But was that the case with Jesus?” or “But Jesus didn’t relate to God that way,” or some similar objection. You have steadfastly refused to say the human experience which is any one of us relates to God in a way that the human experience that was/is Jesus related/relates to God. Now, you can say this, but you can’t then also say that human beings are free to determine themselves in loving expression because that would both a) designate the non-divine as a ‘person’ (since anything that so determines itself is person), and b) require us to designate the non-divine human spirit of Jesus (so capable of determining itself freely in love) as a non-divine ‘person’ in addition to the divine Person of the Son. That’s a problem.

You either have to disallow that the non-divine human spirit in Christ can do what only ‘persons’ can do (and in so doing make a distinction between how the human and divine relate in Christ over and against how they relate in us—because we DO so determine ourselves as non-divine persons) OR you have to call the ‘non-divine human spirit’ of Jesus a ‘non-divine person’ since anything human that determines itself freely in loving expression is most undoubtedly a PERSON. And you can’t say that it’s the Person of the Son who determines the free expression of the non-divine human spirit. You just said this non-divine human spirit can determine itself freely. I’m asking, IF the non-divine human spirit of Jesus determines itself freely in loving expression, AND IF only persons can so determine loving expression, then doesn’t that make the non-divine spirit of Jesus a person? It sure does. So you’ve got to deny something (either that the human spirit of Jesus is capable of free and loving self-determination OR that such determinations indubitably constitute a ‘person’).

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 2/27/2009 10:49:23 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/27/2009 2:55:24 PM (GMT-6)

More on human and devine...

Speaking the Truth in Love

The Names of Jesus—Son of God

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/the_names_of_jesusson_of_god

Posted February 27, 2009

Fr. Tom discusses Christ's divinity. Jesus is human, yes, but he is also God!

Play in popup Download

 

So, Tom.  Perhaps YOU can help me put it all together.

*A human being is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation; the self is not the relation but is the relation's relating itself to itself. A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two. Considered in this way a human being is still not a self.... In the relation between two, the relation is the third as a negative unity, and the two relate to the relation and in the relation to the relation; thus under the qualification of the psychical the relation between the psychical and the physical is a relation. If, however, the relation relates itself to itself, this relation is the positive third, and this is the self 

SK, The Sickness Unto Death

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/27/2009 10:21:51 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/28/2009 12:32:59 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Tom) : 2/28/2009 7:35:42 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Tom) : 2/28/2009 7:48:30 AM (GMT-6)