Unison: The concresence of these dispositions ends up being "non-divine" (meaning "limited in perspective" and "surpassable in beauty" ) As such, the possibility for MISRELATION occurs. (Not misrelation itself, the POSSIBILITY for it.)

Corey: I don't see how the (continued) possibility for misrelation is necessarily entailed by being "non-divine". Can't we know "enough" of God to not possibly misrelate without knowing "all" of God?

To me, it seems more beautiful to eternally discover new beauty in God. I can envision thinking, "After all these years... wow! Still didn't see that coming!" Continual new fuel for my fire of praise. The idea of "arriving" or "final state" seems less appealing to me. Back to temperament types, huh? My picture as a "P" is different than yours as a "J".

Post Edited (Corey) : 6/27/2007 11:04:44 AM (GMT-5)

My picture is indeterminancy within parameters, such that whatever is possible remains within the bounds of right relation with God. Misrelation is not even a logical possibility.

Post Edited (Corey) : 6/27/2007 11:34:30 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 6/27/2007 12:11:14 PM (GMT-5)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I mentioned Greeks above; here's a link to Thomas Aquinas: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1093.htm

Question 93. The end or term of the production of man

1. Is the image of God in man?
2. Is the image of God in irrational creatures?
3. Is the image of God in the angels more than in man?
4. Is the image of God in every man?
5. Is the image of God in man by comparison with the Essence, or with all the Divine Persons, or with one of them?
6. Is the image of God in man, as to his mind only?
7. Is the image of God in man's power or in his habits and acts?
8. Is the image of God in man by comparison with every object?
9. The difference between "image" and "likeness"

CLICK THEM.

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 6/27/2007 12:22:42 PM (GMT-5)

MORE ON IMAGE AND LIKENESS.

http://www.antiochian.org/image-and-likeness

We Orthodox believe that we are indeed created with much more than physical attributes that allow us to carry God’s image and likeness. After all, God Himself is more than a physical existence. He must have given us beauty that is more than skin deep. And He most certainly did!

The answer to this question is found in many places. There is one place with which we all should not only have familiarity, but where we regularly hear exactly what that “image and likeness” of God actually is. We may not choose to accept to act upon this “image and likeness”, but it has been offered to us as a magnificent gift from God. The place in which we shall look is where we worship and receive the Sacred Gifts - the Divine Liturgy.

We believe in a Triune God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the undivided Trinity. It is one of the most oft repeated parts of the Liturgy. A living God. And a God within Whom there is a relationship amongst the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What is this relationship? Well, the priest expresses it clearly when he blesses us saying, “May the Grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all”. Grace, Love and Communion. What beautiful attributes! And this is not communicated to us once, but in slightly different wordings on many other occasions. “that our God, Who loveth mankind”, “Send down His Divine Grace”, “Through the grace, and mercy and loving kindness of Thine Only –begotten Son” are amongst the examples of the “image and likeness of God” that are communicated to us during the Liturgy.”

It is so very superficial and actually tragic to only think of our likeness to God in physical terms. For it is the grace that we should exhibit, the love that we should share and the communion we should practice that makes us more and more perfect in our having been created “in the image and likeness of God.” We are created in the image and likeness of a God in Whom there is an eternally pre-existing relationship of Grace, Love and Communion within the undivided Holy Trinity.

. . .

We are all created in His image and likeness, and we must therefore see God in the face of everyone we encounter. In the Sermon of the Last Judgment, Christ said: Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me’. Our failure to see the image and likeness of God in everyone is a failure to see God Himself! We must respond to the needy without reservation and with generosity. Not just send help, but GIVE it, as often as we can. We must be gracious to each and every person, not just those in need. Grace, Love, Communion.

. . .

And we must be in communion with God, our neighbor and all of His creation, gracefully loving all as we love ourselves. This is the very heart of the Orthodox concept of theosis – becoming more and more like God. Grace, Love, Communion.

. . .

From THAT I learn that when we construct word-models of what life will be like after the Judgement we would do well to not imagine only us and God together, and fret over that. We would do better to reckon that we will recognize God in everyone. And interact with God in everyone--even in ourselves.

The original version of this page can be found at : http://www.opentheismboard.org/default.aspx?f=5&m=47650

Posted By : PotOnWheel - 11/5/2004 6:25 AM

“The Theology of the Image” http://jbburnett.com/resources/lossky/lossky-theol-image.pdf (from Chapter 7 of In the Image and Likeness of God, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press: 1974), pp. 125-139.) quote: <end> . . .Man created “in the image” is the person capable of manifesting God in the extent to which his nature allows itself to be penetrated by deifying grace. Thus the image— which is inalienable—can become similar or dissimilar, to the extreme limits: that of union with God, when deified man shows in himself by grace what God is by nature, according to the expression of St. Maximus; or indeed that of the extremity of falling-away which Plotinus called “the place of dissimilarity” (topos tes anomoiotetos), placing it in the gloomy abyss of Hades. These are the two extremes between which the personal destiny of man may veer in the working-out of his salvation, which is already realized in hope for everyone in the incarnate Image of the God who willed to create man in His own image

Unison: Let's follow your logic out. If we are MORE LIKE GOD when we are improvising relationally with God...and we believe that God WANTS us to be a much like Him as we can...wouldn't that mean that God would allow us the maximal about of time improvising, doing that more than anything else?

Tom: I’m saying that we’re more like God when improvising relationally is PART of how we relate. How much a part? I don’t know. I earlier said that I wonder (suspect?) that it’ll be quite a bit. I honestly don’t know. I’m sure you’re right, D, God will score the music of divine-human relationality just right. Some measures will tightly designed by God’s will to be played exactly as he wants. Other measures will have the time and key signatures with just the note, “Tom’s gonna take it here and improvise! Let’s enjoy!” exactly as God wants. Both ways, the will and presence of God defines it all and its fulfillment possesses all creation.

But to answer your question, no, there’s no reason to insist that improvising will fundamentally characterize the relationship.

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

Unison: Actually, for the sake of what you believe to be maximal beauty, God would most likely choose not to unilaterally determine any our choices or activities…

Tom: No no no. I’ve always said maximal relational beauty between God and us would preclude God’s ALWAYS unilaterally determining everything about the relationship, not that it precludes God’s determining any of our activities.

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

Unison: From your perspective, you've said time and again that you don't believe that there would be any real reason for us to be unilaterally determined by God...your words

(Tom): In the eternal state (as I’m envisioning it), when we freely replicate love in creative ways not unilaterally determined by God we ARE completely aligned with God’s will because THAT KIND OF FREE, LOVING CREATIVITY is the end state that God wills. Give me a reason, D, to believe God would at all be interested in determining every step that glorified, perfected saints take. In fact, I’ll go farther. I’ll venture to say that God will prescribe/determine very little about our choices and activities in the eternal state—perhaps nothing at all.

Tom: Ouch! I said all that? Well, given the jazz analogy, I’ll have to strike me “perhaps nothing at all.” There has to be the presence of a given, some overarching score or direction that we play too, that directs our improvising but doesn’t determine it. That’s music. Back to God, this is the both/and I’ve most recently hammered on. I have no problem thinking that much of the divine-human relationship will be provided by God. But why think it all has to be?

I did say this: “It can’t ALL be improvisation. There has to be deference to some overarching, prescribed but general rhythm and melody.”

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

Unison: If you think that maximal beauty for God ONLY OCCURS when people when we are "more like God" (and you've made that very clear, Tom), then it stands to reason that God would allow MAXIMAL relational improvisation…

Tom: Maximal beauty occurs in the interrelatedness of our relationship to God. God determines himself and determines us. But we also determine ourselves AND we determine God. This has to be true IF we improvise in self-determined ways. If this is God’s design, and God responds to it and takes pleasure in it, then we are in our small way determining something of God’s enjoyment of creation. But I never said maximal beauty for God ONLY OCCURS when people improvise. I’m saying it's part of what occurs in relationships of an inter-personal nature where each party affects and is affected by the other.

Unison: In other words, the glorified state would be a "divine jazz piece" that gave JUST ENOUGH structure to have a "overarching, prescribed but general rhythm and melody"...but NOTHING MORE THAN THAT. God's prescription would be VERY general and allow for ENDLESS improvisational solos, trios, quartets, whatever.

Tom: I don’t know how must “just enough” is. I’ll plead ignorance and take the apophatic way! But THAT the relationship is comprised of both is all I want to say.

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

Unison: So, from your perspective, I don't see how you can fail to say that God, for the sake of maximizing the beauty of Creation, would allow glorified human beings maximal creative license for relational improvisation.

Tom: Absolutely. But there are also maximally (divinely) prescribed dimensions to it. Whatever aspects and dimensions of a personal nature constitute the perfected divine-human relationship, I’m sure it will be maximally proportioned. A sufficiently determined context (and we’re part of our contexts, so we’re included) for a sufficiently free celebration.

Unison: As a corrolary to this, I also don't see how you can fail to say that any effort of God to go beyond "just enough" structure into more unilateral determination of glorified human beings would be a giant step backwards to God's accomplishing his true will for glorified human beings.

Tom: Why of course it would be a huge mistake for God to go beyond what he knows is best. Whatever the ratio of interpersonal given-and-take there will be to the divine-human relationship after glorification (I don’t like thinking in terms of ratios anyhow, we don’t approach relationships that way), I’m sure it will be “just enough” across the board. A sufficiently determined context for a sufficiently free celebration.

Unison: So, let's lose the "God lets us improvise at least some of the time" thought. Let's say "God lets us always improvise in some way." No unilateral determination of any of our choices and activities. That's the only thing that ends up making sense in your view consistently. Isn't that right?

Tom: Not at all. You’ve followed the both/and all the way through. We’ve said God provides “just enough” of this and allows “just enough” of that for maximal, relational beauty. Why should I have to admit now that it’s ALL improvisation?

Tom

Post Edited (MANY) : 6/27/2007 9:52:47 PM (GMT-5)

Tom: In fact, I’ll go farther. I’ll venture to say that God will prescribe/determine very little about our choices and activities in the eternal state—perhaps nothing at all.

Ouch! I said all that? Well, given the jazz analogy, I’ll have to strike me “perhaps nothing at all.”

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 6/27/2007 8:01:59 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 6/27/2007 9:47:48 PM (GMT-5)

OTHERWISE YOU CAN GET AT COMPLICATED AS THIS! (from page one of the Time thread):

quote:

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Ethos of trinitarian communion
(CHRISTOS YANNARAS)
from "The Freedom of Morality", SVS Press, NY


In the life of the Church, God reveals Himself as the hypostasis of being, the personal hypostasis of eternal life, exhaustive expression of the truth of being. It is not the essence of the energy of God which constitutes being, But His personal mode of existence: God as person is the hypostasis and life: God is not a vague supreme being, and impersonal essence which may be approached only through the intellect or the emotions. Nor is He a "prime mover," a blind energy which sets in motion the mechanism of the world; not yet an image of man exalted into an absolute, and infinite magnification of the individual characteristics and psychological demands of the human being. The God of whom the Church has experience is the God who reveals Himself in history as personal existence, as distinctiveness and freedom. God is person, and He speaks with man "face to grace, as a man speaketh unto his friend" (Ex 33:11).

It is precisely as personal existence, as distinctiveness and freedom from any predetermination by essence or nature, that God constitutes being and is the hypostasis of being. When Moses asks the identity of the God whose will he is to proclaim to the Israelites, the answer is "I am He who is" (Ex 3:14. God identifies the truth of existence, the reality of being, with His personal hypostasis. This means that the divine essence or nature is not an ontological reality prior to God's personal existence and determining it: God's being is not an ontological datum, anterior to the distinctiveness and freedom of the divine person. Rather, it is the personal expression of His being. :And when speaking to Moses, God did not say, 'I am essence; but, 'I am He who is': for He who is,, is not from the essence, but the essence is from Him who is. He who is has comprehended within Himself all being."(1)

(1--Gregory Palamas, In Defense of the Holy Hesychasts; 3, 2-12)

The identification of being with the personal existence of God -- as identification with vital consequences for the truth of man and human morality -- explains the revelation of the God of the Church, who is one and at the same time trinitarian. The one God is not one divine nature of essence, but primarily one person: the one person of God the Father. The personal existence of God (the Father) constitutes His essence or being, making it into "hypsostasis": freely and from love He begets the Son and causes the Holy Spirit to proceed.(2) Consequently, being stems not from the essence, which would make it an ontological necessity, but from the person and the freedom of its love which "hypostasizes" being into a personal and trinitarian communion, God the Father's mode of being constitutes existence and life as a fact of love and personal communion.

The identification of being with the freedom of love -- of that love which forms being into hypostases -- reveals that the truth of the ethos or morality is equivalent to the truth of being. When we speak of the unity and communion of the three divine persons, we are referring to God's mode of being, which is the ethos of divine life. And the ethos of God is identical with this being. When the Christian revelation declares that "God is love" (1 Jn 4:16), it is not referring to one among many properties of God's "behavior," but to what God is as the fullness of trinitarian and personal communion.

(2--"God the Father, moved outside time and in love, proceeded to a distinction in hypsostasis, remaining without division or diminution) in the wholeness proper to Him, supremely unifies and supremely simple": Maxiums the Confessor, Scholia on the Divine Names, PG 4, 221A.)

Thus love is singled out as the ontological category par excellence, the only possibility for existence, since it is through love that God gives substance to His essence, and constitutes His being. Any other definition of God's ethos with evaluative content is ontologically unfounded: it applies a priori conventional predicates, taken from philosophical thought or social experience, to the mode of divine existence, which is nothing other than personal distinctiveness and the freedom of love. If we accept evaluative definitions of the Godhead, we make the personal distinctives of divine love subordinate to them, and consequently do away with it. Evaluative categories could refer only to nature or essence, but then personal distinctiveness would be subordinated to the necessity imposed by natural definitions, and consequently, once again, it would be non-existant or substantially curtailed.. In that case, the person of God would "undergo" whatever happened to the nature. The "accidents" of the nature would be "passions" of the person -- things undergone passively. This is why St. Maximus the Confessor affirms of the Godhead: "It is neither beautiful nor good: for these are as it were passions, and conditions and accidents." (3)

(3--Scholia on the Divine Names, PG 4, 412BC. Cf also Dionysius the Areopagite, On Mystical Theology 5, PG 3, 1045D-1048AB.)

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AND

quote:

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Vladimir Lossky’s “In the Image and Likeness of God” (Chapter 4: The Procession of the Holy Spirit , Section 4), pp. 80-83

If personal diversity in God presents itself as a primordial fact, not to be deduced from any other principle or based on any other idea, that does not mean that the essential identity of the Three is ontologically posterior to their hypostatic diversity. Orthodox triadology is not a counter-blast to Filioquism; it does not run to the other extreme. As we already have said, relations of origin signify the personal diversity of the Three, but they indicate no less their essential identity. In that the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinguished from the Father, we venerate three Persons; in that they are one with Him, we confess their consubstantiality16 Thus the monarchy of the Father maintains the perfect equilibrium between the nature and the persons, without coming down too heavily on either side.17 There is neither an impersonal substance nor non-consubstantial persons. The one nature and the three hypostases are presented simultaneously to our understanding, with neither prior to the other. The origin of the hypostases is not impersonal, since it is referred to the person of the Father; but it is unthinkable apart from their common possession of the same essence, the "divinity in division undivided”18 Otherwise we should have Three Divine Individuals, Three Gods bound together by an abstract idea of Godhead. On the other hand, since consubstantiality is the non-hypostatic identity of the Three, in that they have (or rather are) a common essence, the unity of the three hypostases is inconceivable apart from the monarchy of the Father, who is the principle of the common possession of the same one essence. Otherwise we should be concerned with a simple essence, differentiated by relationships. 19

It may be asked whether, in seeking to avoid the semi-Sabellianism of the Latins, their Greek adversaries did not fall into subordinationism because of their emphasis on the monarchy of the Father. This might perhaps seem all the more likely to happen, because in Greek patristic literature

16 "For us there is one God, for the Godhead is one, and the Three in whom we believe proceed from and are referred to the One... Thus when we look at the Godhead, the First Cause, and the Monarchy, the One appears to us; but when we look at the Persons in whom the Godhead is, who timelessly and with equal glory come forth from the First Cause, we adore the Three." St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 31, 14; P.G. 36, cols. 148D-149A.

17 ”St. Photius compares the Trinity to a pair of scales, in which the needle represents the Father, and the two platforms represent the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amphilochia qu. 181; P.G. 101, col. 896.

18 “St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 31, 14; P.G. 36, col. l48D.

19 “The one nature in the Three is God; but the union (^vcooiq) is the Father, from whom the others proceed and to whom they refer, not so as to be confounded but rather to have all in common with Him, without distinction of time, will, or power." St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 42; P.G. 36, col. 476B.


one often finds the idea of causality applied to the person of the Father. The Father is called the cause (cciTicc) of the hypostases of the Son and the Holy Spirit, or even the "God-head-source" (TTT^yaioc OsoTriq). Sometimes He is designated simply as "God," with the definite article 6 OEOC;, or even as auroO'soc;.

It is worthwhile to recall here what we have said before about the negative approach characteristic of Orthodox thought—an approach which radically changes the value of philosophical terms applied to God. Not only the image of "cause," but also such terms as "production," "procession," and "origin" ought to be seen as inadequate expressions of a reality which is foreign to all becoming, to all process, to all beginning. Just as relations of origin mean something different from relations of opposition, so causality is nothing but a somewhat defective image, which tries to express the personal unity which determines the origins of the Son and the Holy Spirit. This unique cause is not prior to his effects, for in the Trinity there is no priority and posteriority. He is not superior to his effects, for the perfect cause cannot produce inferior effects. He is thus the cause of their equality with himself.20 The causality ascribed to the person of the Father, who eternally begets the Son and eternally causes the Holy Spirit to proceed, expresses the same idea as the monarchy of the Father: that the Father is the personal principle of unity of the Three, the source of their common possession of the same content, of the same essence.

The expressions "Godhead-source" and "source of the Godhead" do not mean that the divine essence is subject to the person of the Father, but only that the person of the Father is the basis of common possession of the same essence, because the person of the Father, not being the sole person of the Godhead, is not to be identified with the essence. In a certain sense it can be said the Father is this possession of


20 "For He would be the origin (drpy^) of petty and unworthy things, or rather the term 'origin
• would be used in a petty and unworthy sense, if He were not the origin of the Godhead (Tf)<; ©£6Tr(TO(; APX^) and of the goodness contemplated in the Son and in the Spirit: in the former as Son and Word, in the latter as Spirit which proceeds without separation." St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 2, 38; P.G. 35, col. 445.

\
the divine essence in common with the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that he would not be a divine Person if he were only a monad: he would then be identified with the divine Essence. Here it may be useful to recall that St. Cyril of Alexandria regarded the name "Father" as superior to the name "God," because the name "God" is given to God in respect of his relations with beings of a different nature.21

If the Father is sometimes called simply God—6 e£6<; or even ocuTo5£5(;—nevertheless we cannot find in orthodox writers expressions which treat consubstantiality as participation by the Son and the Holy Spirit in the essence of the Father.22 Each Person is God by nature, not by participation in the nature of another.

The Father is the cause of the other hypostases in that He is not His essence, i.e. in that He does not have His essence for Himself alone. What the image of causality wishes to express is the idea that the Father, being not merely an essence but a person, is by that very fact the cause of the other consubstantial Persons, who have the same essence as He has.


1 Thesaurus, assert. 5; P.G. 75, cols. 65, 68.
22 Such a concept may be found in the works of Ongen, e.g. Commentary on St. John 2, 2; P.G. 14, col. 109. On this subject the excellent work of Th. Lieske, Theologie der Logosmystik bet Off gen (Munster, 1938), may be usefully consulted.



(The scanning operator apologizes that his divice can’t read Greek. But aren’t all those substitutions creative on its part?)


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Post Edited (MANY) : 6/27/2007 10:53:48 PM (GMT-5)