I think of it like this. I'm in a relationship with the godhead. It began at a point in time. Nevertheless, it proceeds eternally from that point of time. And whether I'm unconscious of that relationship due to sleep or anesthesia, that relationship is essentially intact and unbroken in the relevant senses of the relationship. So long as the periods of my unawareness of the relationship are finite, the relationship is still infinite in the sense that the time that I will be conscious of it can not be limited to a finite quantity.

Now, back to "Across the Spectrum" ... :)

Tom: I mean, if you met somebody who WAS a polytheist who believed in three gods who unfailingly loved each other (when they were conscious), how would distinguish your view of F, S, and SP as believe in one God from her belief in three gods? That would help conceptualize what you're thinking here.

Jeff: Let me start here and digress. I've answered this before. The Father is said to be the GOD of the Son. That's the distinction. There is only ONE God over all and in all--the Father. The scripture says this multiple times in multiple ways. Jesus said the Father was the ONE, TRUE GOD. That's the unity that philosophers prefer in monotheism. So the plurality of the godhead (creator of the world) does not undo that unity even if the plurality is a plurality of BEINGS. That said, the plurality still serves us philosophically by getting us around a necessary god-world relationship. It allows us to see creation as OUT of the one, true God but still THROUGH and FOR another person who is not part OF that creation.

So as I see it, the above is coherent and consistent with what scripture minimally says. If you want to say that this is polytheism in some sense, I say fine. Because it's also monotheism in the pertinent sense. So nothing is at stake philosophically or scripturally as far as I can tell. And again, Jesus himself used the very kind of argument I'm using: he specifically appealed to the SENSE in which one can legitimately be called "god" to make a point about himself. At no time (that I'm aware of) did Jesus ever talk like traditionalists who unnecessarily constrain themselves by extra-scriptural criteria.

Tom: Jeff, what do you think God is necessarily, then, because stuff is dropping right and left here--omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, consciousness (and with conscious awareness all those dispositions which are consciously exercised--knowing, relating, loving, etc.). If God's not irreducilbly triunely personal, what pray tell, is he irreducibly?

Jeff: God is essentially what we must believe He is to:

1) account for the validity of reason

and

2) to account for scripture.

With respect to 1), we must believe that one or more Designers IS/ARE (to account for the teleological relationality of the world that induction requires as an ultimate ground). This also includes the attributes of competence and benevolence since all inductive inferences are ultimately grounded, to some extent, in the criteria of ULTIMATE (i.e., predictably certain) SATISFACTION.

The competence involves knowledge and power, but only the knowledge and power necessary to ACCOUNT for the competent teleology (see Rom. 1, e.g.). Any additional knowledge and power is fine, but not necessary to account for 1) or 2). For that reason, it is not epistemologically relevant that the logos ever was or ever will know as much as the Father.

I also assume that God is eternal since to suppose otherwise is to require an intuitive criteria (which I'm not aware of) by which to determine when an origin event is caused or not.

With respect to 2), we now know from the scripturally-revealed plurality of the godhead that the creation does not imply a necessary god-world relationship since the relationship of the multiplicity of persons of the godhead account for creation without it. So that attribute of deity is eliminated by parsimony, per scripture, according to my exegetical approach.

And we still have a relevant monotheism required by scripture insomuch as Jesus himself (not to mention Paul) says the Father is the ONE GOD. In my opinion, there is an obvious reason why the NT prolifically uses the definite article with "god" when discussing the Father, but not so with the Logos. It's because in one SENSE, the Father IS the one God. In another sense, the logos is deity, for all things are through him and for him. All the scriptures are EASILY reconciled this way. Otherwise, difficulties arise, which is why councils are called to dictate a majority consensus that is passed off as epistemologically mandatory (when in fact, it is not, exegetically or epistemologically).

Finally, let me address D's claim that my view is ludicrous. To the "greek," the mystery of godliness (that god was manifested in the flesh) is FOOLISHNESS. There is a reason for that. It SEEMS ludicrous to us in some sense no matter how we hash it out. But ludicrous does not mean illogical.

The orthodox view y'all are defending is also ludicrous. First, to make the plurality of persons one being, they had to make divine persons NON-beings to render all three ONE being. But here, you're going further. To resolve the apparent contradiction of ONE omniscient person believing he is not omniscient, you have to go even further and say that beliefs are not attributes of beings or persons, per se, but attributes only of particular streams of consciousnesses of a person who is not a being, even though attributes are typically (and therefore possibly categorically) thought of as being attributable to BEINGS. People, THAT'S LUDICROUS. Does that mean it can't be coherent? Maybe not. But it IS ludicrous.

There's no getting around the fact that the incarnation is in some sense ludicrous to the way we tend to think/infer. And yet, we have no choice but believe in the incarnation if we are to be Christians. This is why the evidence for the historicity of the gospels and the evidential nature of signs and wonders as confirmatory of scriptural claims is SO important to the claim that Christianity is rational.

Otherwise, Christianity is, because of this seeming ludicrousness, not even plausible to those who have had no religious experience yet still hold to theistic views which resolve the problem of evil. And in that case, all belief that is COMMUNALLY obligatory, beyond believing in mere benevolent/competent theism, is ONLY private revelation--NOTHING communal! That can't work for Christians! Christianity is a communal religion precisely because it has its OWN scriptures that serve as the grounds for warranted COMMUNAL belief about divine revelation beyond what is philosophically ascertainable.

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

1) God the Father is a person.
2) God the Father is uncreated and antedates Creation
3) God the Word is the perfect image of the Father.
4) God the Word/Son is co-eternal with the God the Father. (This means that God the Word/Son is ESSENTIALLY uncreated and transcends Creation as the Father does)
5) Only the Son truly knows the Father...and only the Father knows the Son (This assumes an interpersonal relationship).

Adding one due to the discussion...

6) The interpersonal love relationship between the Father and Son is uncreated and antedates Creation.

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/16/2011 11:27:49 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Similitude) : 10/16/2011 11:33:27 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/16/2011 11:42:57 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Similitude) : 10/16/2011 11:42:03 AM (GMT-5)

AWESOME! 

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/16/2011 12:09:26 PM (GMT-5)

YES!!!!

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/16/2011 12:06:56 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Similitude) : 10/16/2011 12:14:01 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/16/2011 12:24:08 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/16/2011 12:36:22 PM (GMT-5)

The Kenoticists have a Kierkegaardianly DESPAIRING view that effectively collapses the "eternal" into the "temporal" in order to make things work "by virtue of reason".  But when they do they create more absurdities and problems that they started with! 

Post Edited (One Love) : 10/16/2011 12:45:39 PM (GMT-5)