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Similitude
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| Posted 7/29/2009 7:50 PM (GMT -6) |   | Tom: Over the years here I’ve learned that you perceive things right away. And if we're debating something, if I haven’t convinced you after 1 or 2 exchanges, it ain’t happnin!
Jeff: I may not come to your particular view of a thing. But believe me, I've changed my mind about a lot because of our exchanges on this forum.
I think our major difference on the issue at hand is that I don't know what it means to say that God is "beckoning" an inanimate object towards it's telos. I also don't know whether inanimate entities have an ultimate and future telos that I can affect. What I'm pretty sure of is that the creation is heading to some purposed STATE which serves as an appropriate environ for our glorified condition. But beyond that, I'm not aware of any more details on the matter.
One thing seems clear to me about God's purposes for us humans. We can attain them in DEGREES. Because we can be partly faithful without being perfectly faithful, e.g. Obviously, God purposes for us to be PERFECT as HE is. And the Spirit renders that possible. But that doesn't mean it happens. So I don't see things in terms of a single, future telos for my life. The telos for my life is to rightly-relate to God and my neighbor--which can be attained in various degrees of success.
Likewise, God is trying to maximize the satisfaction of the Son. But that will be done with contingent degrees of success. What is NOT contingent, is that the DEGREE of that success will be WORTH the suffering. That is where the competence comes in. THat is the non-negotiable in the teleological providence of God. But to say that all creatures PERFECTLY attain the telos of their existence means, to my mind, that there is no such thing as sin.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 7/29/2009 9:14:38 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
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| Posted 7/29/2009 8:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom said...
Alan. Give us your take! Where'd he go?
Hi guys, sorry for dropping out of the discussion. I've been working hard on trying to finish my rebuttal to Alex Pruss's critique of the open future view, and I haven't kept up with the exchanges between Tom, Dwayne, and Jeff.
Nevertheless, I'll try to say a bit about my take on verses like Heb. 1:3 ("Christ sustains all things by his powerful word." ) and Col. 1:17 ("In him all things hold together." ).
Do such verses imply continuous creation? I don't think so. I think that reads too much into them. First, "all things" has obviously got to be qualified. At the very least, it has to be restricted to "created" things, since it's incoherent to think that God holds himself together.
Second, if there is one unstated qualification, there may be others. Consider, for example, what the readers of those epistles would have understood by "things". Presumably, this includes the macroscopic objects of everyday experience. But what about electrons, quarks, gravity, or superstrings? What about non-physical things like angels and souls? What about abstracta like numbers and propositions? Are those included in "all things"? Not obviously.
Suppose that theistic conceptualism is correct and that abstracta exist in the mind of God. Well then God would sustain them after a fashion. So let's set them aside. Abstracta excluded, I find it plausible that "all things" might be limited to physical composites. (This is especially plausible for Col. 1:17, which speaks of things "holding together".) That would leave only nonphysical entities (angels and souls) and physical simples. Physical composites obviously depend on their constituents for their continued existence. God could sustain them by, for example, ensuring that the laws of nature governing the simples that compose them stay in effect (e.g., without the strong and weak nuclear forces, the nuclei of atoms would disintegrate; without electromagnetism, there would be no chemical bonding and no molecules; without gravity, planets, solar systems, and galaxies would fly apart). Christ's sustaining "powerful word", on this idea, might simply consist in his sustaining a system of natural laws.
Tom's teleological idea seems plausible to me, but to work there have to be things "to" which ends can be proposed, things not wholly constituted by the proposing of those ends. So we're necessarily left with a residue of some sort, a residue of created things (souls and physical simples?) that are sustained, if at all, in a merely passive rather than an active sense.
Grammar must be based in logic, logic in ontology, ontology in onto-theology.
-- Bill VallicellaPost Edited (Alan Rhoda) : 7/29/2009 8:28:11 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 7/30/2009 12:59 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: One thing seems clear to me about God's purposes for us humans. We can attain them in DEGREES.
Tom: For sure. I see that too.
Jeff: So I don't see things in terms of a single, future telos for my life. The telos for my life is to rightly-relate to God and my neighbor--which can be attained in various degrees of success.
Tom: I think you mean in a variety of diverse expressions, or ways. I mean, we're assuming that we eventually arrive, right? The day will come when we will perfectly comform, i.e., rightly-relate to God and your neighbor, without any degree of misrelation. If that's what God wants, then that's your single telos. Degrees of 'success' will be behind us. But beyond that, God's intended telos can be a range of states of affairs (Greg argues this). It might be the case that the ONE thing God wants you to do is love your neighbor. But that might be fulfilled in a variety of ways--by mowing his lawn, helping him paint his house, or washing his car. You choose. Where there are equally loving options, no variance in degree of success would qualify my choosing any one over the other. Is that what you mean?
Jeff: Likewise, God is trying to maximize the satisfaction of the Son. But that will be done with contingent degrees of success.
Tom: It's done with contingent and varying degrees of success for now. But assuming UR, creation will some day satisfy God as fully as it can, as fully as it was designed to.
Jeff: What is NOT contingent, is that the DEGREE of that success will be WORTH the suffering.
Tom: Yeah, I agree. I don't know how to agree though IF we don't say the degree of success will some day be unfailingly full.
TomPost Edited (Tom) : 7/30/2009 3:16:10 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 7/30/2009 1:07 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: I don't know what it means to say that God is "beckoning" an inanimate object towards it's telos.
Tom: But neither do you know what it means to say God "speaks" the material world into existence ex nihilo to begin with, and yet you affirm he did so. So we're all in the same boat in not really comprehending the nuts and bolts of how God's word effects its ends.
This might be too simple or silly, but I have this picture of a parent holding out his arms to a child learning to take his first few steps, saying, "Come on! Come on! You can do it." That's kinda what I imagine God does with creation. It's not a good analogy because parents eventually stop doing that of course, but we don't stop using words or speech-acts to influence outcomes, to influence the shape of things to come, how the world turns out.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 7/30/2009 9:17 AM (GMT -6) | | Alan: Tom's teleological idea seems plausible to me, but...
Tom:   
Never mind the "but...."
;o) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 7/30/2009 9:34 AM (GMT -6) | | Alan: I find it plausible that “all things” might be limited to physical composites. (This is especially plausible for Col. 1:17, which speaks of things “holding together.”) That would leave only nonphysical entities (angels and souls) and physical simples.
Tom: I LOVE Col. 1. Great universalist passage by the way.
But the problem with limiting the “all things” of v. 17 to physical composites because of “hold together” is, of course, the context. One can hardly limit “all things” in v. 17 to physical composites given its use in v. 16. And in v. 16 it’s literally all created entities, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, personal and inanimate, etc., “all things.”
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15 He is the image of the invisible God
the firstborn over all creation.
16 For by him all things were created:
things in heaven and on earth
visible and invisible
whether thrones or powers or rules or authorities
all things were created by him and for him.
17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
18 He is the head of the body, the church
He is the beginning and the firstborn from the dead
so that in all things he might have the supremacy.
19 For God was pleased
to have all his fullness dwell in him
20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things
on earth or things in heaven
by making peace
through his blood
shed on the cross.
All things were created…
BY HIM
FOR HIM
And in him HOLD TOGETHER
He is BEFORE ALL THINGS
He has supremacy IN ALL THINGS
by reconciling all things to himself through the Cross.
Wow!
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Tom
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| Posted 7/30/2009 9:40 AM (GMT -6) | | Col. 1.17 "hold together' (sunisteimi, coinhere? Cohere in?) is similar to Acts 17.28's "in him [God] will live, and move, and have our being." The "have our being" is literally just the plural verb to be (eimi). In God we live, and move, and "are." We are in God.
I don't know what to do with it! Ha!
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/30/2009 11:05 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
Lovin' everything you are saying. Especially about the Logos/logoi stuff. The only difference that I'd say that we have at this point is the whole CC/IM thing.
And having said all this, I’d describe this view as Alan’s second ‘infusion’ model, not creatio continua, because I don’t think each successive state of the world needs to be called out of nothingness into being.
I have to believe that my current perspective is being informed by my spiritual journeying, inclduing the whole "hesychasm" thing and my reading of the Eastern Saints. I can't separate that experience from this discussion. The idea is this. The human being can percieve that ALL Creation is ACTUALLY God's Grace...and everything is upheld by grace ALONE. Through the Logos/logoi contemplation you now know about, Tom.
This is a possible experience of reality. I catch glimpses of it...sometimes....
A quote...
"The Spirit so radically expands the horizons of awareness, of space and time, of life and death (as noted by Calvin and others in the Reformed tradition such as Torrence and Barth), that such reductionistic notions become almost trivial. Thus, it should be stressed that the main thrust of 1 Cor. 2 is not a negative but overwhelmingly affirmative. It is not to denegrate nous or mind but to proclaim what is in the nous Christou. It is here that one sees and participates in "what eye has not seen and ear has not heard." What has not entered into the human mind, God has prepared for those who love him. This is open to those whose spirits, in agreement with the Holy Spirit, search out the deep things of Creation and of God, and whose relationship to God preserves the vital relationality that marks them as bearers of the image of God. To be endowed by the Holy Spirit with the nous Christou is not other-worldly, but it is instead to perceive and to behold this world as if for the first time because it is knowing that world through the Logos, the One through whom all things have been made. The natural order then becomes, remarkably, the creation of God in which every moment is sustained by God's Grace alone.
Thus, by an analogia spiritus, Paul is declaring the radical transformation of all human horizons of reality. This is not designed to take the Corinthians out of the world but to restore them to their true humanityh in the world through the Spirit of Christ. This is not to reduce discord and dissension to the lowest common denominator, but it is to raise humanity into its image status so the human spirit, by the power of the Holy Spirit, may become true to its potentially Christomorphic nature."
James E. Loder
The Knight's Move: The Relational Logic of the Spirit in Theology and Sciece
Page 49
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We know about the kingdom of God and the ultimate destiny of this world because we know the Christ-event. Christ through the cross, resurrection, and ascension left us with historical memory of the event and liturgical memory of the kingdom. The condescension fo the Logos of God into the world through the incarnation in Christ, and Christ's coming back to the kingdom through the resurrection and ascension, provide Christians with the typology of events that will happen to human beings, in particular with the image of the end of the world and the human being, as both transfigured and united back to God, leaving behind the images of the world in it's present state of flowing time.
One can imagine that when human beings reintegrate their personhood in God, so that their hypostatic constitution will no longer resemble the divisions in creation, human apprehension will change fundamentally. The vision of the universe, its articulation in space and in time, will cease to function at all, resembling more and more the hypostatic "apprehension" of the universe by the Logos himself, for whom the whole universe in its spatial and temporal span exists as an instant of truth, as the "eighth" boundless day, the aeon with no duration.
Alexei Nesteruk
-----------------------------
This was Loder's perspective...and I can really see how he got it. I can see how Ware got it. I can see how Nesteruk got it.
I share it.
Yeah...
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) : 7/30/2009 11:35:05 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/30/2009 11:26 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom,
It "feels" like this...
Bitul hayesh ("nullification of [one's] somethingness" ) constitutes a lower form of bitul whereby one is consciously involved in the process of nullifying the outer layer of self (ego). This is accomplished by the concentrated effort to experience the continual recreation of all reality, including oneself, as "something from nothing." This impresses upon one's consciousness that there is no independent reality attached to one's sense of "somethingness."
This is when the hesychast experiences the uncreated light that permeates all things, the Absolute Unity of Being.
The Universe is no longer "just" the Universe to the hesychast. It truly IS a Theophany, a big Burning Bush unrecognized for it's implicit holiness.
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) : 7/30/2009 11:30:10 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 7/30/2009 11:34 AM (GMT -6) | | I'm not sure how your experience requires CC. The IM model is all grace too. You're experience actually entails an explication of itself in terms of CC?
Can't argue with that. ;o)
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/30/2009 11:38 AM (GMT -6) | | All I can say is that other people who have had the same type of experiences seem to come to the same conclusions about this, both Christian mystics AND non-Christian mystics.
Experiencing the "boundary" of our contingent existence...which IS God Himself in his uncreated light and energies...and experiencing the utter dependency on God in that. Experiencing that "point of nothingness" that Merton was talking about, but experiencing the truth that that "point of nothingness" exists in ALL PARTICULAR THINGS in Creation.
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 7/30/2009 11:50 AM (GMT -6) | | That's why I can't argue it...and I ain't gonna try to.
Kallistos Ware
The Orthodox Way
Chapter 2: God as Creator
"The Bridge of Diamond"
Pages 44-47
Gimme some feedback on it, 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 7/30/2009 11:59 AM (GMT -6) | | Got something to help you, Tom.
All we are really talking about is the CONTINUAL REMEMBRANCE OF DEATH (non-being)....along with the continually REMEMBRANCE OF RESURRECTION HOPE and POWER (God). We just thinking of it in the most expansive terms.
Contemplating the "futility" that has been laid within Creation (not by it's own choice) by the One who subjected it, IN HOPE.
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 7/30/2009 5:53 PM (GMT -6) | | Thanks, Bruce. Well, 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 7/30/2009 6:00 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
Human beings are unique as rational creatures in that, in addition to having their own unique ‘logos’ that expresses the perfection of their being and becoming, they are ‘logikoi’, or ‘meaning-makers’. They’re able to apprehend the ‘logoi’ of created things, this ‘way the world is’, and in apprehending it, contribute to the realization of the ‘telos’ of created things. In other words, part of the ‘logoi’ of all non-human created entities, part of their purpose, is to be apprehended and affirmed as meaningful by human beings and in being apprehended (and even enjoyed we might say, but let’s leave that for now) they reach their ‘telos’. And of course this apprehending, meaning-perceiving, meaning-making capacity in human beings is part of the ‘telos’ of human being. It’s our purpose to discern and contemplate our own ‘logoi’ and the ‘logoi’ of created things and in turn offer ourselves (and all creation by virtue of our having contemplated it meaningfully) to God for whom, and by whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things! Creation finds its fulfillment in human being rightly related to God. This is why Paul says, for example, that Creation groans waiting for the redemption of the sons of God. It can’t be redeemed until we are, and it is redeemed IN and THROUGH our redemption. We literally mediate creation’s fulfillment and purpose to it and back to God. Simply put, the enjoyment God seeks from created things God intends to get through the instrumentation of human beings contemplating, apprehending, and enjoying their own being and the being of all other entities. Of course, humankind only reaches ITS fulfillment "in Christ," the Incarnate One.
From "ashes of dead stars" to "living Eucharists", human beings who are perichoretic, loving spiritual union with the Spiritual Presence of Christ the Logos.
Creation's come a long way, yes? Yeah! 
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) : 7/30/2009 6:05:10 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 7/30/2009 8:51 PM (GMT -6) | | TOM: Col. 1.17 "hold together' (sunisteimi, coinhere? Cohere in?) is similar to Acts 17.28's "in him [God] will live, and move, and have our being." The "have our being" is literally just the plural verb to be (eimi). In God we live, and move, and "are." We are in God.
I don't know what to do with it! Ha!
JEFF: Why, again, can't the "in" in those verses be instrumental? If they're instrumental, then it can be because of God's teleological activity that we are even here at all. For apart from that teleological, divine activity, the project would have brought on it's own destruction by now. God truly IS acting in such a way to perpetuate the project longer than it would have without HIM providentially acting. To me, that's what the whole OT is saying. In the the Fall account, the Flood account, the Babel account, possibly the earth dividing in Peleg's day (if that was distinct from the Babel incident), the Exodous, the Conquest, we see various ways that God is intervening to keep the project going and on teleological track. Christ is part and parcel OF that teleological role of divine activity.
That is the sense, AT LEAST, in which God's TELEOLOGICAL presence IS necessary. He does what He needs to do to ensure that the project's purpose is attainable, which includes its very ability to continue on in time. If it wasn't moving toward some end (even if that end is a DEGREE of satisfaction), it would cease to exist in the FORMS of "cohering" that it does. But God is competent. There never was a possibility that God's goal would be ultimately undermined. I don't understand how what I'm saying is NOT relational. His goals are what they are BECAUSE He is relational. The "offspring" analogy of Acts is actually a very good analogy BOTH for the TELEOLOGICAL reason why infants exist in the world for any length of time AND for the RELATIONAL grounds of that teleology. Parents have a NATURAL affection for their offspring. Hence, they spend enormous amounts of energy in behalf of the infants continued existence and well-being. And in that sense, the infant "lives, moves, and has its being" because of its parents. How much more relational can you get?
I'll try to address your other posts later this week.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 7/30/2009 9:03:29 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/31/2009 9:03 AM (GMT -6) | | about that CC-prone experience I was talking about...
From the Vincent Rossi article...Page 73-74
"Hagioritic Tome ideas" also called "Doctrines of the Saints"
Quote...
"Who are the saints whose teaching most authoritatively grounds the practice of Hesychasm, according to the Hagioritic Tome? Only eight names appear in the text of the Tom. In order of appearance, though not necessarily in order of importance, they are:
Dionysios the Areopagite
Maximos the Confessor
Marcarios of the Macarian Homilies
Athanasios the Great
Gregory of Nyssa
John of Damaskos
Diadochos of Photiki
Gregory of Nazianos the Theologian.
None of them is later than the eighth century, three are great doctrinal masters of Nicene Orthdoxy, all are undisputed doctrinal and spiritual Fathers, and all are understood by the later Hesychast tradition to be entirely grounded in the experiential realization of the mysteries of the Spirit, and entirely reliable sources of the way of Hesychasm."
Take a look at the list, yo. No slouchers or slackers there, baby.
Now, what are the beliefs they ALL agreed on? Let's see...
1) Salvation consists in participation in the complete reality of the uncreated, ungenerated, deifying grace of God.
2) Perfect union with God is possible in this life, equally in the body as well as the soul and spirit
3) The Grace of deification is infinitely above nature, virtue, and knowledge
4) The intellect seated in the heart is the very organ of revelation for the human microcosm
5) The light of the Transfiguration of Christ revealed on Mount Tabor and the light experienced by the Hesychast are one and the same, and that this light is "ineffable, uncreated, eternal, timeless, unapproachable, boundless, infinite, limitless, archetypal, and unchanging beauty, the glory of God, the glory of Christ, and the glory of the Spirit
6) Just as the essence of God is uncreated, so are the eternal Divine energies
7) Spiritual dispositions are stamped upon the body as a result of the gifts of the Spirit, and that dispassion or apatheia is thus the key to deification, and therefore, as a result, the possibility of enjoying an embodied life of incorruption in the age to come requires equally the possibility of the body's participation in the gifts of deification in this life as well.
I like #2. Perfect union with God (Christ) is possible in this life for the whole human being. If it be the Lord's will, and glorifying to Jesus' Name, I would want nothing more than this. For real...
Becoming a "living Eucharist":
Terms:
theosis (Union with Christ, Christification, Image and Likeness, etc)
hesychasm (Jesus Prayer)
epiklesis (Eucharist)
synapheia* (between Christ and human believing "heart")
mimicry (identification and free expressionn of acquired personal values, concepts and behaviors from interpersonal relationship)
re-presentation (multiple contextualized expressions of singular content)
Method:
Through practicing the "Sacrament of the Present Moment" in "orans"-like humble, active reception of the Holy Spirit, focusing on Divine Presence (Jesus Prayer, etc) and experiencing inner "stillness" and "apatheia" in God in one's "heart" (hesychasm), the core of us beyond all sensory or intellectual deliberation, one can experience one's own "logoi", thereby experiencing the Holy Spirit of Christ-the-Logos, the Divine Center of All Things, in the deepest center of our most unique and particular "selves." The meeting place of the created "I am" and the Uncreated "I AM...Immanuel" within oneself. In that holy sanctuary of the Self, we offer the whole of ourselves as "living sacrifices" to God in faith, we experience God "willing" and "doing" in us, as Christ-the-Logos lives "in, as, and through" us...and we actively participate in God's energies, in God's very life. We are truly "one with the Lord in Spirit."
We become most ourselves when we have a transparent relationship to our Divine Center...when the deepest core of ourselves is sealed into a love covenant with God...when we become irreducibly unique, creative living pray-ers to God.
*Nestorius' "Synapheia" Idea:
--Conjunction by interrelation of ontologically distinct prosopa "founded on the freedom of mutual love, not the necessities of nature"
--Indwelling
--Appropriation
--Habituated possession of the human prosopon by the prosopon of the Logos--at the level of prosopon not of ousia
--The Logos binding himself to a human prosopon in an intimate love union, "without destroying any of the free capacities of the human life he graces with his unlimited power and presence."
--An "association rooted in the 'good pleasure' of God, that is, God's grace, favour, and loving delight wherewith he commits himself to the life of a man."
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) : 7/31/2009 9:26:06 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 7/31/2009 9:44 AM (GMT -6) | | ON.
LOCK.
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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Similitude
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| Posted 8/1/2009 10:15 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: So I don't see things in terms of a single, future telos for my life. The telos for my life is to rightly-relate to God and my neighbor--which can be attained in various degrees of success.
Tom: I think you mean in a variety of diverse expressions, or ways.
Jeff: In my view it is BOTH diversity of expression AND degree of success. Because humans don't always perfectly relate to their neighbors no matter what kind of relation it is. So there is degree of success no matter what, as far as I can tell.
Tom: I mean, we're assuming that we eventually arrive, right?
Jeff: I'm agreeing that we all end up with the divine nature. But I'm not saying that that was the end of creation. To my mind, the ultimate end of creation is the pleasure the Father and Son get from it. Now I agree that God will derive pleasure from creation throughout eternity. But you and I agree, also, that there is something about this temporal lead up to the time when all have the divine nature that is essential in the way God gets pleasure from creation. But we conceive of that differently.
As I understand you, you are saying that the telos of creation is the final state of ultimate reconciliation--a reconciliation which was not really necessary since the probability of sin was less than 1. Indeed, the Colossians passage you posted says that that reconciliation is done IN THE BLOOD of Jesus. There we have the idea of redemption from a NON-intended, alienated state of things.
But you explain the necessity of the temporal lead up to the divine nature in terms of the supposed impossibility of a created being partaking of the divine nature by pure grace--that such a partaking for a created being requires a volitional becoming INTO that state with the help of God, but not by the pure GIFT of God, in the sense of a purely divine imparting of that divine nature. I don't know why God couldn't truly just create beings with the divine nature, though I don't know, either, whether God would ever be motivated to do so.
Scripture gives us hints at a KIND of sentient pleasure that the godhead might derive from a created order involving significant freedom. The Son and the Father are not identical. There is diversity in the godhead. In particular, the Son will reassume a natural submission to the Father when he delivers the kingdom to the Father so that the Father may be all in all. But as the Colossian passage shows (as does other verses), Christ's work on earth fits him to be all in all, until then, in a way that he could not be MERELY because all things were created through him and for him. This is because, I think, that the creation HAD to be reconciled to the Father (as the Colossian passage indicates) if it were to continue its very existence. Christ "obtained" IN TIME a NECESSARY CONDITION of that ultimate reconciliation, and was therefore given a name above every name and ALL authority in heaven and earth. Perhaps he was merely redeeming back what was already his in another sense. But the point is, he wouldn't have had to SUFFER had creation remained sinless. So Christ "earned" a kingdom by suffering for it.
It's the same old Christus Victor stuff that Greg talks about. Christ truly OBTAINED something. THAT is why he can be all in all for some finite duration. That is what the NT reveals--that this second person of the godhead was PART and PARCEL of the very purpose and sustenance of the creation. As he for whom the creation exists, he always was one who grounded its very reason of continuing through time. But as its reconciler, he was that ground in a more SPECIFIC way than by MERELY being its co-creator.
So to my mind, it is not the final state that God is most interested in with respect to WHY He created this particular creation. Otherwise, I have to wonder why He didn't just create it in a that final state and avoid all the suffering. The only way I know to get around that conundrum is to look for something about the KIND of pleasure the Son derives from the specific kind of love entailed in SIGNIFICANT freedom--freedom we won't have once we partake of the divine nature. And the unique kind of satisfaction that Christ, at least (maybe the Father as well), received may have had to do with significantly voluntary love/submission.
Significantly free love and/or possibly loving submission qualify as kinds of relationality that the Son could not experience apart from creation. We are also told he will be honored in judgment. But this may be because assenting submission will result from that judgment, for as scripture says,
1) Every mouth will be stopped
2) Every knee will be bow
3) Every mouth will confess
So the final state of all being at peace with God is, to me, what a loving God does once He creates. But it need not be the TELOS of that creation. Because I would have to explain, consistently with my intuitions, why He couldn't create us with the divine nature in the first place without the risk. And I don't know how to do that. For all I know, God actually has created that way before. I have no intuition that says He isn't capable of it.
Thus, the significant freedom entailed in this temporal lead up to that final reconciliation IS what renders this creation fit for its original purpose. Its this temporal part that provides to the godhead those kinds of relationality (with their associated KINDS of sentient pleasures) that they don't already experience between themselves WITHOUT a creation. Thus, it is our day-to-day sinless living that is our TELOS, as I see it. Not a future state. To sin IS to miss our TELOS. Hence, I have to see God's competence NOT in terms of attaining some SPECIFIC state, but in terms of obtaining some DEGREE of satisfaction that rendered the risk worthwhile.
Jeff: Likewise, God is trying to maximize the satisfaction of the Son. But that will be done with contingent degrees of success.
Tom: It's done with contingent and varying degrees of success for now. But assuming UR, creation will some day satisfy God as fully as it can, as fully as it was designed to.
Jeff: I hope my explanation above shows why our final state was never, IMO, the PURPOSE of our existence. That final state is a side-effect of being created by a benevolent and competent Creator, to my mind. It is our continual success at LIVING in the temporal leadup that was the true ground of that divine satisfaction that MOTIVATED the act of creation. There can be other KINDS of satisfaction derived from this creation. But those KINDS of satisfaction didn't necessitate the existence of volitional beings as far as I can tell.
Jeff: What is NOT contingent, is that the DEGREE of that success will be WORTH the suffering.
Tom: Yeah, I agree. I don't know how to agree though IF we don't say the degree of success will some day be unfailingly full.
Jeff: As I see it, Christ considered the JOY set before him to render his suffering WORTHWHILE. I think that JOY is the KINGDOM that he will have as he who is ALL in ALL. Once he delivers the kingdom to the Father, the Father will be ALL in ALL. IOW, the joy set before Christ was never some eternal state. It was the kingdom he OBTAINED by being Christus Victor. And that is a TEMPORAL kingdom that he will deliver to God at some point. That temporal kingdom will, of itself, render his suffering WORTHWHILE.
Again, I think the godhead derives pleasure from the ultimately reconciled creation. I just don't think that explains why significant freedom was risked. Because, unlike you, I don't see it as intuitive that God can't create without the risk. You may be right, I just don't know how to rule out the contrary.
In short, Tom, I think we reverse the place where God acts in pure grace. To you, creation, PER SE, is an act of PURE grace (i.e., creation is NOT FOR God), because God can't create beings with a divine nature. To my mind, God might very well be able to create beings with a divine nature, though He may not be motivated to do so, and scripture SAYS that creation is FOR God.. So to me, the place for pure grace (i.e., divine actions that are not FOR Himself) is AFTER the temporal ends are attained.
IOW, Tom, I see WHY you explain things in the way you do. I'm not trying to suggest that I can prove your intuition wrong. What I'm writing all these words for is to help you see WHY I see things the way I do. Because I don't have your intuitions. Consequently, I have to render my account of the NT in a way that is consistent with MY intuitions. Hopefully I've said enough words this time to help you see exactly HOW and WHERE our difference in intuitions cause us to diverge to different ending points.
Convergence is desirable. But to get to convergence, we have to see WHY and WHERE we diverge. We need not ever agree. But just understanding how we render our arguments coherently helps us get better at really paying attention to what other people are saying. It helps us really look hard for what intuitions might be preventing convergence. This allows us to be more patient and to save time and frustration. Agreement is not all that debate is about. It's about getting to be better at listening and articulating WHY we disagree in a RESPECTFUL manner. I know we batter each other in fun. But I like to believe that these exercises are making us better at having serious debate (apologetics) in a spirit of meekness with others, realizing that they are probably more coherent than they seem to us, once we see clearly the intuitions that are driving their conclusions. And once we see the impasse is at the level of intuition, we won't waste as many words.
That's why D is so right. We don't have time to be arguing futilely. There is too much else to be done that requires TIME. But we do have to PRACTICE articulating our views to get to where we can do that CLEARLY to those who differ from us--at least those of us like me who aren't good with words. That's what this forum is really good for. It also helps us BECOME coherent. Sometimes just writing it down forces us to clarify our own thinking. It's good stuff. I appreciate your engagement for that very reason. You're HELPING me.
Jeff: I don't know what it means to say that God is "beckoning" an inanimate object towards it's telos.
Tom: But neither do you know what it means to say God "speaks" the material world into existence ex nihilo to begin with, and yet you affirm he did so. So we're all in the same boat in not really comprehending the nuts and bolts of how God's word effects its ends.
Jeff: I'm not talking nuts and bolts. I'm meaning that to ACTUALLY beckon is to APPEAL to a motivation of a being that is conscious and VOLITIONAL. If beckon means something other than that, I'm wrong on the definition. This is why I never could get Process. It doesn't seem to posit enough to make it coherent--i.e., if they see significant numbers of beings as LESS than volitional. Consciousness and sentience are not sufficient capacities to be able to beckon a thing, to my mind. And if they are compatibilistic, because of having natural IMPULSES, then we're still not dealing with divine "beckoning" so much as purely competent, divine motivating. Because an omniscient being would know how to SPECIFICALLY motivate a compatibilistic being unto a desired activity/state. Unless, of course, some other VOLITIONAL beings are frustrating that. But still, I don't see how the conventional meaning of "beckon" is what would most accurately describe how God gets non-volitional beings to behave in some specific way. I'm not opposed, in principle, to saying that all beings are volitional. But I thought even Process did not posit such a SOFA.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 8/1/2009 12:10:29 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/1/2009 11:43 AM (GMT -6) | | D, I don't see CC in any of the experiences you describe. I can agree to them all without buying into CC.
Jeff, I too see the pleasure God gets from creation as the end purpose of human being. I just think the "degree of success" that now characterizes us will somebody pass. All I mean by that is that some day we will please God as fully as God created us to please God. We shall be all God intends us to be (whatever that means) and God will get all the pleasure he desires from creation without any "degree of FAILURE" characterizing us. If you have an intuition that tells you we shall forever "fail to some degree" to please God, I don't know where you get it and don't share it of course.
I'm en route off base. Had to read through your post VERY quickly. Forgive me if I'm missing something. I'll try to get back to ya.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 8/1/2009 2:36 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
D, I don't see CC in any of the experiences you describe. I can agree to them all without buying into CC.
"There is a recognition and acceptance of personal differences as manifestations of the divine interest in particularity. Thus individuals with differences of opinion may well be content, at least for a scanning interlude, with an agreement to disagree. Unity in the koinonia does not depend on conformity or on any other socially constructed reality. It depends solely on the Authority of Christ to gather and sustain his people. Strategically, unity (not uniformity) is more desirable than difference, except where difference may commense the dynamics of convictional knowing. In which cases, confronting difference is in the service of unity, driving it deeper into the underlying life of Christ." (OL's Note: Iron sharpening Iron)
James Loder
The Transforming Moment
Page 194
Talking about the ChurchTHIS is what has made this particular discussion board so good for this long. Bless 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 | | Back to Top | | |
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