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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > General Chat > Thomas Hopko | Forum Quick Jump
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One Love
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| Posted 2/8/2010 2:38 PM (GMT -6) |   | Good stuff...
Imagine to yourself a man poor and destitute who wishes to receive alms from some rich person. What does he say when he comes to the rich person? Something like: "Have mercy on me! Pity my poverty and set my life in order." Or someone has a debt and has nothing to pay it with. Wishing to be delivered from this burden he comes to the decision to ask his creditor to forgive him his debt. He approaches him and what does he say? Also simply: "Have mercy on me! Pity my poverty and forgive me the debt that I owe you." Similarly, when anyone is at fault in some matter before another and wishes to receive his forgiveness, what does he do? He comes to the person against whom he has sinned and says: "Have mercy of me! Forgive me for what I did against you."
All such people know what they are asking for and why they are asking, and they receive their petitions according to circumstances, and what they receive they turn to good account for themselves.
Now take on the other hand a sinner who is spiritually poor and in debt before God and has frequently offended Him. If he cries as if to God: Have mercy on Me! but meanwhile does not understand what he is saying and why he is speaking, and does not even know what that mercy consists of which he wishes to receive from God and the use of it to him, but simply from habit cries: Lord, have mercy! then how can God give him mercy when he cannot even recognise what he has received and therefore will not turn his attention to it and will make ill use of it or will augment still more that by which he became a sinner?
The mercy of God is nothing else but the grace of the Holy Spirit which we sinners must ask from God, unceasingly crying to Him: Have mercy on me! Show Thy mercy, my Lord, to me a sinner, in the pitiful state in which I am, and accept me again into Thy grace. Give me the Spirit of power that He may strengthen me in resisting the temptations of the devil and my sinful bad habits. Give me the Spirit of Counsel that I may become prudent and come to feeling and amend my life. Give me the Spirit of fear, that I may fear to offend Thee, and may fulfil Thy commandments. Give me the Spirit of peace, that I may guard the peace of my soul, and gather all my reasonings and be quiet and untroubled by thoughts. Give me the Spirit of purity, that He may keep me pure from all defilement. Give me the Spirit of meekness, that I may be gentle-minded in my relations with my Christian brethren and restrained from anger. Give me the Spirit of humility, that I may not think highly of myself and that I may not be proud.
Whoever knows and feels how necessary is all that has been said and, asking it of the most merciful God, cries: Lord, have mercy! will surely receive what he asks and be granted the mercy of God and His grace. But whoever knows nothing of what we have said and merely from habit cries: Lord, have mercy! for him it is not possible to receive any mercy from God. For he had already previously received many mercies from God but he was unaware of it and did not thank God who gave him them. He received the Divine mercy when he was created and became a man. He received mercy when he was recreated in baptism and became an Orthodox Christian. He receive mercy when he was delivered from so many perils of soul and body which he experience in life. He received the Divine mercy every time he was granted to partake of the most pure Mysteries. He receive the mercy of God every time he sinned before God and grieved Him by His sins, and was not destroyed and not punished as was due. He received the Divine mercy when so many different benefits were bestowed on him by God, but either he was not aware of it or he forgot. How can such a Christian receive further mercy from God when he does not know and does not feel that he has received so many mercies from Him? And now even if he cries: Lord, have mercy, he does not know what he is saying and pronounces these words without any thought or aim, but simply from habit.
It seems like asking the Lord Jesus for mercy is like unto asking the Holy Spirit to "Come." It's all epicletic.
Post Edited (One Love) : 2/8/2010 1:42:25 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 2/9/2010 2:39 PM (GMT -6) | | How's Hopko's dis. going now? Still tight?
Something I'm on now...
Way of the Ascetics
February 05, 2010 Length: 13:45
Nicholas Chapman reviews Way of the Ascetics by Tito Colliander, published by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.
 Direct link  Download
Looking good. (Googlebooks)
Read Chapter 5: "On the Denial of Self and the Cleansing of the Heart"
On point, yo. 
Post Edited (One Love) : 2/9/2010 1:54:37 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 2/9/2010 2:55 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 2/9/2010 2:55 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 2/11/2010 11:41 AM (GMT -6) | |
Tom said...Even the incarnation is eternally realized and actual in God's experience. I don't look at the negative side of that. I look at what it ADDS to my appreciation of God's relationsihp with me and me with God.
I would not want to lose this. !!!
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 2/11/2010 11:46 AM (GMT -6) | | Ideas have consequences, and lineages.
Harnack is the smoking gun.
Tom said...I'm not saying Hopko (and the EO) are MERELY Hellenism rehashed. No way. I know too well how drastically the Fathers criticized and reworked the Hellenistic worldview, saying about the Triune God things that could not be said about Plotinus' One. ON THE OTHER HAND, much was inadequately baptized and brought in, virtually wholesale. And there's nowhere they could have gotten these ideas BUT from Hellenism. Hopko argues that they actually got the whole timeless notion of God's eternally actualized response to the world from the Bible and from Christian experience. But whether that's the case is debatable. While I think Greg will not AFFIRM the tradition as positively as it can and ought to be affirmed (and that in itself will distract many traditional readers), he thesis that traditional core beliefs about God were unwittingly determined by Hellenistic concepts is RIGHT ON THE MONEY. Tom
If they were TRyIng to be philosophers and their endgoal was to produce a philosophy, THEN you'd have a point. hmmm...........
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 2/11/2010 11:53 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/11/2010 11:55 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 2/11/2010 12:35 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 2/11/2010 1:26 PM (GMT -6) | | I'm much more about Greg's NEO-Molinism than Hopko's Molinism. Seems to fit the bill...
In the neo-Molinist model, then, we may say that from all eternity God planned his perfectly wise response to what he knows shall occur as well as to what he knows may occur. And because of his infinite intelligence, his response to the latter is not one iota less perfect than his response to the former. Whatever comes to pass, the neo-Molinist may say with confidence that “from all eternity, God was preparing for just this event,” whether the event was certain to occur or was simply a possibility. Indeed, with classical Molinists, neo-Molinist may conceive of God sovereignly choosing the world he created on the basis of his middle knowledge of creaturely free acts as well as his knowledge of how he could responsively weave these acts into his sovereign plan. The only difference is that the neo-Molinist does not exclude might-counterfactuals from God’s middle knowledge. But he is as perfectly prepared for the might-counterfactuals as he is for the would-counterfactuals as well as the future certainties. For an infinitely intelligent being, there is no difference in terms of preparedness in any of these categories of events.
Though God's infinite intelligence, God "experiences" all potential...or something like that.
Post Edited (One Love) : 2/11/2010 12:33:18 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 2/11/2010 1:42 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Greg: So intimate is his involvement that he knows our thoughts before we utter them
Bruce: I understand Greg to be limited to nominalisically focusing on the number and intricacy of observations, rather than number AND quaality.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 2/11/2010 1:45 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/11/2010 3:43 PM (GMT -6) | |
I don't want to loose the same thing Greg values.
As to the negative that I don't think i have to embrace--that would be the riggor of full-classical.
does that help?
Tom said...Tom: Even the incarnation is eternally realized and actual in God's experience. POW: I don't look at the negative side of that. Tom: What's the negative side if this? POW: I look at what it ADDS to my appreciation of God's relationsihp with me and me with God. I would not want to lose this! Tom: Just what is that, B? What is it that you don't want to lose? Tom
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 2/11/2010 3:55 PM (GMT -6) | | Yes, I see that. And I wouldn't embrace N-M.
But there are SOME things D. embraes that also conflict with N-M.
Tom said...Um, Bruce, my questions? D, Neo-Molinism is fine and dandy, but it REQUIRES the denial of Hopko's understanding. You see this, right? Tom
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