Yes, B.  God IS the supercomputer!

Exousia said...

Yes, B.  God IS the supercomputer!

According to Lossky it is a 'yes,' but according to Zizioulas it is a 'no.' **

So... the jury is still out.    

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

** See "Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine Human Communion" by Aristotle Papanikolaou, University of Notre Dame Press, 2006  http://www.amazon.com/Being-God-Apophaticism-Divine-Human-Communion/dp/0268038317

WORTH EVERY PENNY.

Book Description
"Being With God is an exceedingly important and well-written book on Orthodox theology of the Trinity. It not only explains the work of two major contemporary Orthodox theologians; it also lends vital insight into the nature and character of contemporary Orthodox theology in general." —Vigen Guroian, Department of Theology, Loyola College in Maryland

"This is a splendid work of hard-won insights into crucial figures in the development of contemporary theology. Aristotle Papanikolaou makes an original contribution that will be of great interest not only to students in the area of Eastern Orthodox theology but to anyone studying Christian anthropology, metaphysics, trinitarian thought, or comparative theological method." —Mark McIntosh, Department of Theology, Loyola University of Chicago

The central task of Being With God is an analysis of the relation between apophaticism, trinitarian theology, and divine-human communion through a critical comparison of the trinitarian theologies of the Eastern Orthodox theologians Vladimir Lossky (1903–58) and John Zizioulas (1931–), arguably two of the most influential Orthodox theologians of the past century. Aristotle Papanikolaou shows how an ontology of divine-human communion is at the center of both Lossky's and Zizioulas's theological projects. He also shows how, for both theologians, this core belief is used as a self-identifying marker against "Western" theologies.

Papanikolaou maintains, however, that Lossky and Zizioulas hold profoundly different views on how to conceptualize God as the Trinity. Their key difference is over the use of apophaticism in theology in general and especially the relation of apophaticism to the doctrine of the Trinity. For Lossky, apophaticism is the central precondition for a trinitarian theology; for Zizioulas, apophaticism has a much more restricted role in theological discourse, and the God experienced in the eucharist is not the God beyond being but the immanent life of the trinitarian God. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

about the Author
ARISTOTLE PAPANIKOLAOU is assistant professor of theology at Fordham University.

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/18/2006 10:05:53 AM (GMT-6)

Exousia said...
Send all the information that you feel would be helpful, B!

 

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/18/2006 12:45:58 PM (GMT-6)

Zizioulas points to a quite different understanding of communion and freedom. They are the promise made by God to man, and the goal of the present and ongoing work of God for, and with, man. Mankind is not yet in possession of freedom. The real freedom and diversity promised to humanity has been inaugurated in the Church, the communion in which all diversity and otherness is being perfected, and through which the diversity and very existence of creation, comes.

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/19/2006 5:57:30 AM (GMT-6)

Because Christ really is ALL...

than any occasion you experience can be a moment to INTAKE the reality of Christ...

and RECEIVE God's grace in that intaking.

When I BREATHE, I feel like I am taking in Christ for my VERY LIFE...

and correspondingly, I'm grateful to Christ for every conscious breath I take.

I'm beginning to relate to Christ EVERY TIME I take something in to sustain my existence in any way!

And I cannot relate to Christ WITHOUT relating to Christ's Body in some real way...for Christ IS Christ's Body!

And I understand that I participate in a GREAT MYSTERY of Christ's Reign with COUNTLESS OTHERS...

(There is ALWAYS worship and glorification going on, even if WE don't see it!)

And I think about this whenever I CONSCIOUSLY REFLECT on my eating, drinking, breathing, communicating, etc.

Whenever I think about how DEPENDENT I am in the world, I know that I am dependent upon NOTHING ELSE but Christ!

Christ (The Head and the Body) is ALL.  And I relive this reality...whenever I take a conscious BREATH!

What is this BUT living "eucharistically"?

Post Edited (Exousia) : 12/19/2006 12:16:14 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/20/2006 9:49:03 AM (GMT-6)

Douglas Knight
Resources for Christian Theology
---------------------------
Archive for the 'Metropolitan John Zizioulas' Category
http://www.douglasknight.org/?cat=5

HERE'S A SHORT POST ON THE ABOVE SITE:

The Church is a participation in divine being
Thursday, May 11th, 2006

Here is another excerpt from ‘The Critics of ‘Being as Communion'’, Alan Brown chapter’s in Personhood and the Church: The Theology of John Zizoulas, due to appear at the end of this year:

“Baptism is a new birth in which the human being is newly hypostasised in the mode of being of Jesus Christ. This ontological re-constitution and in-corporation is not, however, a re-constitution and in-corporation into a separated and individualized hypostasis, but rather one into the hypostasis of the one who is the only-begotten of the Father, existing in and only in an absolute perichoretic reciprocity with the Father and the Holy Spirit. As such, the communion of the Church is a participation (an already eschatological participation) in the mode of divine being itself, the mode of catholic, koinonetic love. Consequently, for Zizioulas, it is not possible to ‘project’ the mode of being of the Church onto the divine being, since the mode of being of the Church already is the mode of being of divine being;

For Zizioulas, there are not ‘two communions’, one divine and one human – rather there is one divine communion, in which humans participate, this participation being the ecclesial mode of being that is the Church.”

Posted in Metropolitan John Zizioulas

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/19/2006 6:36:47 PM (GMT-6)

http://www.oodegr.com/english/dogmatiki1/perieh.htm

 

These are the notes that were taken from the lectures of Professor I. Zizioulas (current Metropolitan of Pergamus and Chairman of the Athens Academy) at the Poemantic Division of the Thessaloniki University’s School of Theology, during the academic year 1984-1985.

They are published with the blessing and the permission of the reverend Metropolitan.

The notes were published with the caring and the responsibility of the students, for use during their examinations.

Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki

Published by :  Publication Services

Because of its size, this series of Dogmatics will be presented by us in segments, in the hope that the entire text that we have in hand will be made available very soon.

 

It is with immense joy, that we are hosts to this significant piece of work in our website. We consider this presentation an honor, and acknowledge the extremely significant opus of the reverend Metropolitan of Pergamus. We are referring to the hand-typed notes of the reverend Metropolitan’s lessons at the University of Thessaloniki, which benefited us so much, that we wished to make them more broadly accessible. It is our fervent desire that you study these notes, which exude the fragrance of the Orthodox faith and are delivered with scientific precision, in a simple and comprehensible manner. We wish to thank with all our heart those who toiled and participated in the acquisition of these notes for us. May the blessing of God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ be with every person who seeks Him.

 

Α. ON DOGMATICS AND DOGMAS

1. Definition – Sources – Content and Method of Dogmatics:

a. Form and character of Dogmatics

b. Dogmatics as Hermeneutics (Interpretational)

c. The Dogmatics method

 

2. The term: «Dogma» and its significance

3. The affiliation of dogmas to the Holy Scriptures

4. The work of the Holy Spirit in the phrasing of the dogmas

5. The work of the Church in the phrasing of the dogmas

6. The prestige and the authority of the dogmas

 

 

Β. ON COGNIZANCE AND FAITH

I. On cognizance:

1. Cognizance of things

2. Cognizance of God

3. Cognizance through the Son and Logos 

4a. Cognizance «in persona»  part 1: The element of Freedom

4b. Cognizance «in persona»  part 2: The element of Love

 

II. On faith

 

 

 

C. ON GOD

 

1. The biblical premises

 

2. Basic principles of Patristic teaching:

a. Up to the Cappadocian Fathers

b. The contribution of the Cappadocians

c. Augustine’s views

d. Discerning between "Theology" and "Providence"

e. Existential interpretation

 

 

D. SUPPLEMENT

 

1. Discernments of the Cappadocians on the “being” of God:

a. The “whatever”, the “what” and the “how” of God

b. “Essence”, “energy” and “persona”

2. The transferal of the terms “essence”, “Energy” and “Persona” into Theology (The problem of freedom)

a. The prerequisites of the Patristic Synthesis

b. The contribution of the Cappadocian Fathers – The patristic notion of the persona

c. Augustin’s theology and the problem of the Filioque

d. The theological problem of the Filioque

e. The Filioque in Theology and in Providence

f. The dogma of creation

   1. The problem of Gnosticism

   2. The correction of Platonic ideas by the Christian faith

 

Ε. ON CREATION, SALVATION, CHRISTOLOGY AND ECCLESIOLOGY

1.  The dogma regarding Creation

 

2.  Creation from nil

 

3.  Existential consequences of the dogma on Creation

 

4.  The consequences of man’s downfall

 

5.  Christology

 

6.  Ecclesiology

 

E. ECCLESIOLOGICAL TOPICS

1.  Introduction

 

2.  Orthodox Ecclesiology topics :

 

A.     The eschatological identity of the Church

B. “Therapeutic” or “Liturgical”  Ecclesiology :

a.  The synthesis of Saint Maximus the Confessor

b.  Questions

C. The Trinitarian basis of Ecclesiology

D.  Imagery in ontology

      Questions

          Ε.  Formation and structure of the Church

 

           F.  The Local and worldwide Church – The Synodic institution

 

           G.  The functions of the Church

                 Questions

 

3.   Commentary on Western Ecclesiology :

 

          Α.   The dialectics of “the one” and “the many”  

                 The priority of a universal Church              

 

          Β.    The problem of priority between Christology and Pneumatology (of the Spirit)

                  Ecclesiological consequences

 

          C.    History and Eschatology  

                 Questions

QUOTE.............................................

http://www.leithart.com/archives/002006.php

Divine Energies and Orthodox Soteriology

In his new Being with God, Aristotle Papanikolaou points to differences between Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on the issue of divine energies. For Lossky, the doctrine of divine energies is designed to "protect the real character of communion with God" in theosis while also insisting that union with God does not mean union with His essence. By union with the Body of Christ, one shares in the work of Christ and receives a deified human nature. But this reception of deified nature is followed by growth toward perfect, which involves participation in the energies of God. As Papanikolaou puts it, "Personhood is the goal; the means are the energies of God conveyed through the person of the Holy Spirit. One assimilates more fully in personal existence the energies of God already present throughout the creation." Lossky insists that theotic union cannot take place through union with the essence, but he also rejects "the use of hypostasis, which indicates exclusively distinction within God's being." Further, to understand theosis under the rubric of hypostasis would be to deny the uniqueness of the union of divine and human in Christ. Lossky writes, "Even though we share the same human nature as Christ and receive in Him the name of Sons of God, we do not ourselves become the divine hypostasis of the Son by the fact of the Incarnation. We are unable, therefore, to participate in either the essence or the hypostasis of the Holy Trinity." Another distinction is needed to explain human participation in God - the distinction of esence and energies, the later being "forces proper to and inseparable from God's essence, in which He goes forth from Himself, manifests, communicates, and gives Himself."

Zizioulas, however, with his emphasis on the personal/communal character of being, does not give the energies nearly so prominent a role in theosis. He argues that when the energies are made "the controlling theological concept" then it makes "superfluous, if not suspect, any logos of person" (this latter phrase from Zizioulas). Papanikolaou summarizes Zizioulas's point:

First, he "emphatically affirms that an energy is never apersonal. The energies of God are communicated only through the persons of the Trinity. This emphasis on the personal character of energies is indicative of the primacy of an ontology of personhood and communion in Zizioulas's thought. Second, salvation is not described for Zizioulas as an increase in participation in the divine energies, but as the transformation of being into true personhood in the person of Christ. For Zizioulas, the essence/energies distinction is 'nothing else essentially, but a device created by the Greek Fathers to safeguard the absolute transcendence of God without alienating Him from the world.' The energies are God's actions in the world and are saving events. The ultimate saving event, though not excluding the divine energies, is not simply a matter of God's action, but a relational event of communion that constitutes human personhood as true personhood in the image of Christ."

Papanikolaou suggests that in subordinating the doctrine of energies to a communion ontology, and by insisting that hypostasis is not only a description of distinction in God but the site of divine-human encounter, Zizioulas is "initiating a revolution of his own in contemporary Eastern Orthodox theology."

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 at 11:13 AM

UNQUOTE.................................

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/19/2006 10:17:48 PM (GMT-6)

http://www.opentheismboard.org/default.aspx?f=10&m=89624