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One Love
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| Posted 3/5/2009 3:15 PM (GMT -6) |   | | Whoa.
"I can think of no blacker state of despair than one in which I am dependent absolutely upon another being, incapable of acting on my own. When Maximus speaks of our absolute dependence upon God as a remedy for despair, he is lapsing into a fascistic conception of God..."
I'd really like to talk about the sentiment of that bolded statement. What do y'all think of this?
Tom, do you agree with this sentiment of Moore's? That for a person to, by faith, be absolutely dependent upon God is a "black state of despair"?
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Contrition before God and the need for not depending upon our piety and our strength:
Father Moses (St. Moses the Black) increased in piety and in the struggle with himself to a great extent; but in spite of these desperate measures, the vigilance and the defeat of the self, he could not avoid imagining the lustful ghosts that were intensified as his struggle increased. His additional abstentions were probably without the permission of his spiritual mentor, for when he went to him to complain about his situation, he said to him, "My son, stop fighting the devils for the human being's strength has its limits. (One Love's Thought: Only God is infinitely strong.) However, if God does not have mercy upon you and He alone gives victory over them, you will never overpower them. Go now and submit yourself to God with repentance before Him. Persevere in humility, He will have mercy upon you." Moses answered,
"I trust in God in whom I have placed all my hope that I be constantly armed against the devils*, and never stop fighting them until they depart from me."
When St. Isidorus saw this faith in him, he said, "And I also believe in my Lord Jesus Christ, and in the name of Jesus Christ, from this moment the devils will stop fighting you." He added, "Go to the Holy church and partake of the Holy Sacraments." St. Moses continued to do as the Elder had said with perseverance, and God gave him a great blessing, humility and serenity. (One Love's Thought: The "Peace" that passes all understanding.) The power of thought came upon him, and from that moment Moses lived in peace and grew in wisdom.
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* Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
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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.
Thomas Merton
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 3/5/2009 2:22:20 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 3/5/2009 9:18 PM (GMT -6) | | As I see it from the context of what he's saying (on that page 180 link I gave), he feels like Maximus is lapsing into fascistic view of God in that he suggests that absolute dependence upon another being (God) is a "remedy for despair". Moore seems to link this type of thinking to a type of felt helplessness by someone that allows that one to 1) "long for a protector" to the point of being willing to 2) give up "individual freedom and even justice" for the sake of being taken care of. Like someone willing to be bossed around and told everything to do because they are too afraid to want to choose for themselves.
My first thought is this: If Moore really thinks that the only reason someone would have absolute dependence upon God in such a way is out of that kind of fear, then I'd have to cordially DISAGREE with him on that.
Next thought: For Moore, it seems that if human activity can ever be "reducible to divine function" (supposedly even by self-willing the same), then human being itself is pretty much not worth it and subject to being called a "black state of despair." Frankly, I think this is quite shortsighted...but what do I know? 
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 3/5/2009 8:25:08 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 3/6/2009 1:14 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: I can see where he could be meaning that without free-will we have some real epistemological problems, but despair? Unless he's saying that if there is no free-will, then God is essentially the author of all that we call volitionally-caused suffering. Is it about the existence of human free-will in the context of the quote? Is that all he's getting at?
Tom: Ed's thesis is a comparison of Origen's and Maximus' eschatologies (Ed sides with Origen, though he tweaks it a bit). So the black state he's thinking about is the Maximian END STATE of human beings in the eschaton, one in which all creaturely movements are determined by God ane in which the human ego is displace by the absolute presence of God.
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Tom
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| Posted 3/6/2009 1:20 AM (GMT -6) | | I think he calls it a black state of despair, D, becuase he, like you pointd out, might be theorizing on WHY someone would want such a thing. I try not to go there. I want to find positive arguments for thinking such an abdication of self to be an undesirable state (more aesthetic arguments about diversity and synergy determined by 'many' wills, not just one will). I wouldn't want to depend for my view upon supposed states of mind motivating people who want God to absolutely determine them. I might have my ideas in the regard, but one can never make an argument out of such things. You can't get inside other peoples' heads.
But I DO agree with him that the end state imagined by Maximus is a less beautiful and depersonalizing arrangment. I can't imagine a, let's say, LESS DESIRABLE glorified state than that.
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Tom
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| Posted 3/6/2009 1:27 AM (GMT -6) | | D, you responded to Ed with a lot of stuff about contrition, humility, and dependence upon God--as if you think of Ed as questioning that. It makes me wonder whether you think humility and dependence upon God entails determination by God. You say no, but you tend to respond to people who reject absolute divine determination (in the eschaton) by talking about humility and dependence upon God. Hmmm.
Ed said: "I am dependent absolutely upon another being, incapable of acting on my own." The "absolute" dependency upon God Ed's rejecting is explained by him as "incapable of acting on my own." And you know he means the same thing I've been arguing for--creaturely free determination of creativie expression. No one of us can live in that without humility and dependence upon God.
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One Love
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| Posted 3/6/2009 3:30 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I think he calls it a black state of despair, D, becuase he, like you pointd out, might be theorizing on WHY someone would want such a thing. I try not to go there. I want to find positive arguments for thinking such an abdication of self to be an undesirable state (more aesthetic arguments about diversity and synergy determined by 'many' wills, not just one will). I wouldn't want to depend for my view upon supposed states of mind motivating people who want God to absolutely determine them. I might have my ideas in the regard, but one can never make an argument out of such things. You can't get inside other peoples' heads.
But I DO agree with him that the end state imagined by Maximus is a less beautiful and depersonalizing arrangment. I can't imagine a, let's say, LESS DESIRABLE glorified state than that.
I couldn't agree with you less on that score...but hey, everyone's entitled to their own beliefs.
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Tom:
D, you responded to Ed with a lot of stuff about contrition, humility, and dependence upon God--as if you think of Ed as questioning that. It makes me wonder whether you think humility and dependence upon God entails determination by God. You say no, but you tend to respond to people who reject absolute divine determination (in the eschaton) by talking about humility and dependence upon God. Hmmm.
Ed said: "I am dependent absolutely upon another being, incapable of acting on my own." The "absolute" dependency upon God Ed's rejecting is explained by him as "incapable of acting on my own." And you know he means the same thing I've been arguing for--creaturely free determination of creativie expression. No one of us can live in that without humility and dependence upon God.
I'm responding to the sense that I get from Ed that unless he's given "himself" to a certain degree, then God ain't good enough for him...and that God's creation ain't good enough for him. I'm like "Whatever, buddy." That doesn't seem very humble to me. It would be nice for him to AT LEAST be OPEN to that kind of determination by God without God being called some kind of fascist in that scenario.
Sheesh... 
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 3/6/2009 2:34:03 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 3/6/2009 9:32 AM (GMT -6) | | Ed's assuming a particular explanation for why someone would want to be wholly determined by God. And his assumption is that only someone manifesting a certain level of despair would want that. And to be forever sealed within THAT would be the worst imaginable thing. I see his point. I just don't agree with his explanation, nor do I think it helpful to theorizing like he does on it. Facism and all. Yeah, a bit much.
I don't think God could determine us in a state of utter joy because I think joy is an interpersonal reality, and I don't think there's anything interpersonal left in a relationship in which one partner wholly determines the other. But that's just me.
I know we disagree on the desirability of our two respective eschatologies, D. But I won't attribute a despairing motivation to yours as Moore does.
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One Love
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| Posted 3/6/2009 11:35 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom: Ed's thesis is a comparison of Origen's and Maximus' eschatologies (Ed sides with Origen, though he tweaks it a bit). So the black state he's thinking about is the Maximian END STATE of human beings in the eschaton, one in which all creaturely movements are determined by God ane in which the human ego is displace by the absolute presence of God.
Jeff: I don't think we'll be completely determined by God in the eschaton. But I don't see why if we were that would be a state of despair, much less the worst state of despair imaginable. God could determine us to be in state of utter joy.
Exactly. How can self-reflectively experiencing union with Perfect Love, Freedom, and Goodness unto having all creaturely movements being expressions of Christ-the-Logos be seen as "bad", especially if a person loves God with single eye? I mean, I get the fact that some people believe that human freedom will be irreducible to divine activity in the eschaton. That's fine. But this idea that somehow being functionally determined by God (who IS Love) is some kind of black despair seems nonsensical, particularly given God being the Supreme Good. Seriously, if I realize that whenever I make my decisions that, whether I think it or not, I am truly being guided in all things by the Spiritual Presence of Christ, I'm not gonna be feeling like God is selling me short at all. Maybe someone else would, but I wouldn't.
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Tom:
I don't think God could determine us in a state of utter joy because I think joy is an interpersonal reality, and I don't think there's anything interpersonal left in a relationship in which one partner wholly determines the other. But that's just me.
So, your logic is as follows: If a God-loving person is, by their own continous choice, functionally determined by God, then
1) that person cannot be considered in an loving interpersonal relationship with God, in self-reflective self-understanding
2) the determined person cannot experience utter joy in God's Presence in such a state.
3) God cannot experience joy in the determined person in such a state.
I don't see or experience this logic, man. Sorry.
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Tom:
I know we disagree on the desirability of our two respective eschatologies, D. But I won't attribute a despairing motivation to yours as Moore does.
The main difference between you and me, Tom, is that YOU don't "desire" my eschatology. I've told you time and again don't have an existential problem with yours. All I want is to be as unified with God as he allows us to be. I want to be as one with Christ as I can being of His One Bride/Body. If that's to only the level you think, then fine. If more, than fine. Now, it may be that our eschatologies are mutually exclusive, and that I'm wrong and God wants to remove all opportunities for us being completely (or almost completely) determined by God. If that's the case, sweet. But I just don't have the negative energy against your perspective that you've constantly seemed to have against mine. Do you see this pattern?
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 3/6/2009 10:38:13 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 3/6/2009 11:57 AM (GMT -6) | | Something else...
Tom:
So the black state he's thinking about is the Maximian END STATE of human beings in the eschaton, one in which all creaturely movements are determined by God ane in which the human ego is displace by the absolute presence of God.
As I've said before, Maximus' paradigm does NOT WARRANT complete displacement of the ego, only it's relativization in it's continuing "indwelling" relationship to the Divine Center, the Holy Spirit of Christ-the-Logos. I'm not going to belabor all the Loder that I've put up here over the YEARS now...but just know that it's the case. Do you remember that time you contacted Moore a while back, Tom? I still remember that. And from what I gather, Moore's main consideration was the preservation of "the memory of our earthly existence" that "will provide us with the continuity of personality necessary for creative expression in the eskhaton." Moore says (didn't think you'd mind this...)
If our ego becomes overwhelmed by the absolute presence of God (as Lars Thunberg has put it) then I see no possibility for creative expression, nor even celebration; for we have become, as I write in my book (and elsewhere), "functions of the Godhead." We must retain our freedom as persons, which means we must retain memory of the historical development that led us to the eskhaton.
In other words, no one gets a divine lobotomy whenever their are suffused in God's divine Presence. Their ability to self-relfect and self-relate as creaturely historical beings (grounded in ego activity) is not removed. Their egos (and ego historical memory) REMAIN and continue into the eschaton...AND our egos will remember HOW they got to the eschaton, even as we are "filled" with God Himself in his energies.
But guess what...
This is EXACTLY what happens in Loder's belief in the bi-polar assymetrical relational unity between the Divine Center and the ego periphery in human beings!
So that's why Moore's essential problem doesn't even necessarily OBTAIN in my eschatological belief anyway. 
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 3/6/2009 11:04:20 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 3/7/2009 4:47 AM (GMT -6) | | |
D: Exactly. How can self-reflectively experiencing union with Perfect Love, Freedom, and Goodness unto having all creaturely movements being expressions of Christ-the-Logos be seen as "bad"...
Tom: I told you how. You're not limiting your reaction to Ed's intended point.
D: I don't see or experience this logic, man. Sorry.
Tom: Cool. We both know we've got different reasonng going on.
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Tom: I know we disagree on the desirability of our two respective eschatologies, D. But I won't attribute a despairing motivation to yours as Moore does.
D: The main difference between you and me, Tom, is that YOU don't "desire" my eschatology.
Tom: I can't desire what I can't conceive of. And I can't conceive of interpersonal relations in terms of your eschatology. It's not that I SEEEE the meaningfulness of it, GRANT that it's fully interpersonal, but just don't want God messing with my freedom. If you think that, then you're interpreting me as uncharitably as you think Moore is interpreting Maximus (and you).
D: I've told you time and again don't have an existential problem with yours.
Tom: I'm not supposing you do.
D: All I want is to be as unified with God as he allows us to be. I want to be as one with Christ as I can being of His One Bride/Body.
Tom: So do I. We just dissagree on what the possible options are. You think fully interpersonal relations can be found along the whole continuum of determinism/indeterminism. I don't. I'm not open to any form of union with God that destroys the interpersonal nature of the relation because I think that's what God created us for. And I see your view as undermining the interpersonal nature of the relation. So I literally CAN'T want it, not until I can perceive it as interpersonal. But I can certainly agree that we ought to want to be AS UNIFIED WITH GOD AS POSSIBLE (while still remaining persons-in-relation).
D: If that's to only the level you think, then fine. If more, than fine. Now, it may be that our eschatologies are mutually exclusive, and that I'm wrong and God wants to remove all opportunities for us being completely (or almost completely) determined by God. If that's the case, sweet. But I just don't have the negative energy against your perspective that you've constantly seemed to have against mine. Do you see this pattern?
Tom: What's "negative energy"? Don't get that. I disagree that utter and complete determination of X by Y can result in interpersonal relations. I don't have negative energy against your view. I just don't see it.
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Tom
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| Posted 3/7/2009 4:50 AM (GMT -6) | | D: As I've said before, Maximus' paradigm does NOT WARRANT complete displacement of the ego, only it's relativization in it's continuing "indwelling" relationship to the Divine Center, the Holy Spirit of Christ-the-Logos.
Tom: Well, Moore, Louth, and Thunberg disagree with you regarding Maximus. But you could be right. I'm not a Maximus scholar, but I'll have to side with their interpretation of Maximus for now. So I'll view your and Loder's view as a correction of Maximus if you like. But as soon as you posit complete determination of the creation...sorry.
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One Love
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| Posted 3/7/2009 9:46 AM (GMT -6) | | D: All I want is to be as unified with God as he allows us to be. I want to be as one with Christ as I can being of His One Bride/Body.
Tom: So do I. We just dissagree on what the possible options are. You think fully interpersonal relations can be found along the whole continuum of determinism/indeterminism. I don't. I'm not open to any form of union with God that destroys the interpersonal nature of the relation because I think that's what God created us for. And I see your view as undermining the interpersonal nature of the relation. So I literally CAN'T want it, not until I can perceive it as interpersonal. But I can certainly agree that we ought to want to be AS UNIFIED WITH GOD AS POSSIBLE (while still remaining persons-in-relation).
Ok, then. So, in the end, one of two things is going on...
1) I'm (OL) open to a reality that is not available, given God's telos, thus I will not experience it, either here or in the afterlife. After all, one can't experience what ain't there to experience. (I'm hoping that if this is the case, that God will clearly reveal such. See prayer below...)
2) You (Tom) are not open to a reality that is available, given God's telos, thus you will not experience it (at least not here in this life.) Your current lack of intelligibility of the concept will prevent you from experiencing it, until God reveals different to you later. I suppose you can't live in something you can't make sense of.
So, my honest prayer...
Lord Jesus, if I'm open to something that is just NOT REAL, just show me clearly. I think I know what I'm experiencing...at the same time, I don't want to be self-deceived. Jesus, please let me know what the truth is on this matter. No one can make things clear like you can! Thanks, Creator! 
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 3/7/2009 8:49:39 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 3/7/2009 9:53 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
So I'll view your and Loder's view as a correction of Maximus if you like. But as soon as you posit complete determination of the creation...sorry.
I hesitate to call if a correction more than a clarification. But that's fine.
And remember, it doesn't have to be complete determination for you to have problems. There is a certain (unknown) DEGREE of divine determination that becomes HIGH ENOUGH that (as you said) significant freedom is removed, even if there is no complete determination. Remember that? Again, you said you couldn't assign HOW MUCH divine guidance in human activity would constitute "too much" determination...but you just knew such a line existed.
Basically, what I'm saying is this, Tom: If I were to say that 98% of human activities in the eschaton were divinely determined (leaving us the 2%) I still think you'd have problems. But you've said that before.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 3/8/2009 2:28 AM (GMT -6) | | D: And remember, it doesn't have to be complete determination for you to have problems. There is a certain (unknown) DEGREE of divine determination that becomes HIGH ENOUGH that (as you said) significant freedom is removed, even if there is no complete determination. Remember that?
Tom: Yeah, I remember we discussed this.
D: Basically, what I'm saying is this, Tom: If I were to say that 98% of human activities in the eschaton were divinely determined (leaving us the 2%) I still think you'd have problems. But you've said that before.
Tom: Right. I don’t want to rule out the possibility that there may on occasion arise a situation in which God’s will for us will prescribe one and only one possible course of action. In that case, God would essentially determine the outcome. In my gut, though, I think such instances may come along once every 10 million years or so. My whole understanding of the perfections of a glorified and risk free creation along with what I think our (interpersonal) telos is, make it very difficult for me to see any reason for God’s determining us. My hunch is that perfected persons, solidified in love and goodness, will be let go. Fly. Sore. Run. Play. Go for it. You’re home. You’re free. No risk. We’ll be perfected, and the whole created order with us.
It seems that when you conceive of ‘union’ with God you do so in terms of one of the unified parties determining the other. It’s like “Union with God? Oh, God determines everything I think, feel, say, and do. I’ll be ‘one’ with God when I’m that.” Why D? Where are you getting this idea from? Why think it AT ALL?
True, you SAY both (being determined and remaining self-determined) are perfectly compatible with your notion of the fullest possible ‘union’ with God, but you obviously prefer to be determined by God. Why? It has to be because you feel that God, or you, or both of you are getting something through such determination that can’t be gotten otherwise. And that tells me both modes are NOT equally compatible in your mind with the fullest possible ‘union’ with God. You have to believe that one who is determined by God is more ‘one with’ God than otherwise.
I’ll say this though Bro. If there’s a DEEPER oneness that’s MORE interpersonal and which is had only in our being utterly determined by God, then I want that because I want to be as interpersonally whole and related to God as possible. It’s THAT truest yearning that God will fulfill, not my systematic constructs (which may or may not accurately capture the truth of such union). But if I DO need to adjust my beliefs to make that possible, God’ll give me the insights to see them when the time comes. Since we both want the fullest interpersonal union possible we'll both get that in spite of disagreeing now on what such union means in terms of creaturely freedom/determinism, etc. You could be wrong about determinism. I could be wrong as well. But we can't be wrong in believing that the fullest interpersonal union with God we long for will one day be ours.
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One Love
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| Posted 3/8/2009 7:48 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
If there’s a DEEPER oneness that’s MORE interpersonal and which is had only in our being utterly determined by God, then I want that because I want to be as interpersonally whole and related to God as possible. It’s THAT truest yearning that God will fulfill, not my systematic constructs (which may or may not accurately capture the truth of such union). But if I DO need to adjust my beliefs to make that possible, God’ll give me the insights to see them when the time comes. Since we both want the fullest interpersonal union possible we'll both get that in spite of disagreeing now on what such union means in terms of creaturely freedom/determinism, etc. You could be wrong about determinism. I could be wrong as well. But we can't be wrong in believing that the fullest interpersonal union with God we long for will one day be ours.
Amen to all that, Tom.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 3/8/2009 7:56 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
It seems that when you conceive of ‘union’ with God you do so in terms of one of the unified parties determining the other. It’s like “Union with God? Oh, God determines everything I think, feel, say, and do. I’ll be ‘one’ with God when I’m that.” Why D? Where are you getting this idea from? Why think it AT ALL?
Randomly throwing thoughts...
My mind thinks about the Trinity perichoretically "indwelling" the human hypostasis (which both you and I would agree is the end state for glorified humans, right? The Transfiguration was the big hint...). What does it end up meaning when the very Divine Presence of all three divine persons suffuses the believer's human consciousness...when the Knower knows the known to the max? How would that person conceptualize themselves and their world. How would they understand the Grace of God working in them at all times? How would they understand their relationship to God the Logos/Word/Son?
So my mind thinks about all that...then I read these prayers of saints and god-knowers of the Church. And I see the ideas of the Orans...and epiclesis. "The Eternal Liturgy" And make a prayer of my own...
God and Father,
In Your Son's Name alone, according to your Will alone, and for Your Glory alone, fill my being with Your Holy Spirit, indwelling all of who I am with Your Divine Presence.
Along with the "Come, Holy Spirit", "Jesus" and other prayers of dedication/consecration, I try to say this particular one as much as possible believing by faith that God IS granting this. That's a task in and of itself...one where only utter dependency on God is non-negotiable. One just ends up begging for Grace all the time...for everything. My reasoning goes further. If God answers this prayer, then Christ-the-Logo's very Real Presence can exist in my human hypostasis via the Holy Spirit. The Trinity would objectively exist within the human via the Spirit-to-spirit connection that produces the "Abba, Father" self-understanding in the human. It was JUST LIKE Fowler said...(which is why I have his idea as a signature)...
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian."
Perfectly stated. Theoria / theosis is basically existing in this Knowledge of the Father (which is eternal life) though the Son by the Spirit that one can exist in...even in this life. It is by the Holy Spirit of the Son that WE are able to say "Abba, Father." And that, my good people, is eternal life. Living in that Abba-ness with the Father in Christ via the Spirit. And the Presence of Christ Himself does this in us, his Body and Bride, via Grace.
Here is a statement by Paul Endokimov...
It is not difficult to see that the mystical state transcends one's creaturely condition, through our participation in the divine. God is nearer to man that man is to himself; and life in the divine is more supernaturally natural to man than life simply in the human. In one who is baptized, Christ is an inner reality. This is the antinomian experience of nothingness and or absolute being. Although the gap of the ontological abyss is not eliminated, Being overcomes it by His presence: "By nature, I am a man, and god by grace." A being, coming from nothingness, lives the conditions of the divine life. God transcends His own transcendence: "He appears suddenly, and without confusion, becomes one with me...My hands are those of an unhappy creature; I move my hand, and my hand is all Christ" (St. Symeon the New Theologian). Through such a descent--the parousia of Christ in the soul--the soul is formed in His image: "There is God, there are the angels, there life and the kingdom, there light, there the treasures of grace, there are all things." [From note: St. Macarius] This is what John of Damascus calls "the return of what is contrary to nature to what is proper to it."
All that's bomb...but did you catch that by St. Symeon? "I move my hand, and my hand is all Christ." That statement. Yeah. Thinking about it, it's not some random crazy statement. Actually, it's just the logical extension of someone who regularly participates in the Divine Liturgy, having Christ's very Presence empowering their human hypostases as the Grace of God to them. Epicletic life. Human beings who can rightfully say "Christ-the-Logos' Life is mine! Blessed Assurance!", who know and are known of God. Humans who self-reflectively compose their sense of identity around the realities that "man has God as the innermost center of his being" and "the divine is the determining element of our humanity." (Ware)
I think about the fulfillment of all that...and it leads MORE TOWARDS an idea of a state where our human ego-peripheries are purified, integrated, self-chosen, self-reflective conscious "bearers"/"temple" of the Spirital Presence of Christ-the-Logos, where we are "like Him" as He lives His life in us via the Holy Spirit...which communicates eternal life to beings of nothingness (Us who are products of creation ex nihilo)...just like Endokimov said. We live as "living sacrifices" in whom Christ "re-presents" Himself. We shine with Christ's divine humanity as His Body and Bride. And I don't think this stops in the Eschaton...but is fulfilled.
So this is where my eschatology is, I think. It seems like yours deals much more with a sense of an eternal, infinite creative expression and expansion of victorious, purified, loving, glorified humans in a post-evil context where God (Christ) effectively says..."Fly. Soar. Run. Play. Go for it. You’re home. You’re free. No risk. Creation is yours to glorify me with! Create beautiful things for me and love wildly!" Would I be right on that?
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 3/8/2009 9:58:57 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 3/8/2009 8:17 AM (GMT -6) | | I got it, Tom. A way to conceptualize my eschatological view. Just go with this.
Remember the Transfiguration of Jesus? Now, apply that to YOUR human hypostasis, post-resurrection/judgment. Where the Trinity inhabits your human hypostasis and God perfectly "shines through" your deified humanity. (This is what happened with Jesus!) Now, imagine the Consumation where many humans shine with this glory. Doesn't it look like...
"No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever."
You would eternally "know" God as Father, Son, and Spirit...and God would eternally know you as his lover, a genuine "temple" for the Divine Presence. And our union with Christ would reach it's highest possible realization...and be sustained forever and ever.
Maybe? 
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 3/8/2009 9:52:07 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 3/8/2009 10:23 AM (GMT -6) | | from here...
In the Kingdom of Christ to come, there will no longer be need for receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, for all who have been vouchsafed it will be in closest converse with Him and will enjoy the pre-eternal light of the Life originating Trinity, experiencing that blessedness which no tongue can express, and which is incomprehensible to our feeble mind. For this reason after partaking of the Holy Mysteries at Liturgy, in the altar is always pronounced the prayer which we sing on Paschal days: "O Christ, Thou great and most sacred Pascha! O Wisdom, Word and Power of God! Grant us to partake of Thee more fully in the unwaning day of Thy kingdom" (Pachal Canon, 9th Ode).
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 3/9/2009 1:07 PM (GMT -6) | | I trust your reading of SK, Corey. I can't say anything on that score. I think you get Moore's point about despair.
D, perhaps you can just write Moore and ask him if he thinks it would still be an act of despair to WANT to be so determined by God? I don't know. Want his email? I wrote him last week about a book recommendation and haven't heard back. He might be out of town or someting, Dunno.
T | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 3/9/2009 1:58 PM (GMT -6) | | Corey:
The "remedy for despair" is to "rest in the power which establishes it". Now, it would be a mistake to equate that sort of rest with utter aquiesence, such that one is "incapable of acting on my own". Willing to be in such a state, especially as intensified here, would be an expression of "willing to not be oneself". It would be a sort of suicide, which indeed is darkest despair, paralleled only by the converse of willing to be oneself (the demonic). So it's not the worst form of despair, but tied for it!
To be utterly determined by another is equivalent to choosing to be the drunk in the back of the wagon instead of the driver, as we were intended.
There is a difference between choosing to be the drunk in the back of the wagon instead of the driver...and choosing to be the driver who is only the driver that the navigator (God) wants them to be. Likewise there is a difference between self-rejection before God and self-emptying before God.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."
"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler Post Edited (One Love) : 3/9/2009 2:01:42 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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