Post Edited (Imago Dei) : 1/21/2008 6:10:35 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Imago Dei) : 1/21/2008 6:09:28 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Imago Dei) : 1/21/2008 6:38:50 AM (GMT-6)

D: In YOUR relationship with God, "who's" doing the relating?

Tom: God and I. You have to have two ‘Whos’ to make an INTERpersonal (inter-Who) relationship.

D: Describe this "who". Essentially, "who" are you? What defines your "person"? Maybe another way to ask it this: What desginates your "personhood" as utterly unique from all others?

Tom: I explained this earlier. As I understand it, a ‘person’ is an ‘identity’, or as I expressed it, ‘my meaning’, the meaning of my existence. I ‘mean’ something. What I ‘mean’ is my ‘person’. My meaning is determined by the interrelational exchange of thoughts, feelings, and desires I have with others.

D: It cannot be anything that is of human nature (biological, psychological, etc), because that's common to all human beings.

Tom: It’s what I ‘make’ of my natural capacities through their exercise.

D: Yes, all human hypostases are radically unique, but all human hypostases (including Jesus) have some SAME human ways of becoming. In line with this, it also can't be any human category like "husband", "wife", "cousin", etc. You can't say "I will be 'Tom Belt' before God."

Tom: What does Process tell us? That the actual occasion includes all the previous contributing factors, plus that irreducible creative freedom of the moment, to yield the next moment of becoming, and so forth.

Husband, wife, son, translator, etc., all these are relationships that define identities, yes. They’re form my identity as well. Sometimes poorly, sometimes positively. I can lose those identities (through a bump on the head), yes, and so I’ll start over again doing what finite, derived hypostases do—seek my meaning in the world. No earthly relationship however can deliver me to the fullest expression of personal meaning. They can either point me toward or away from this full expression of personal meaning, but that can’t deliver it. The experience of that fullness is derived from only one relation—my relationship to God.

D: However...It DOES have to be related to the Father's Spirit. The human spirit is inseparable from the activity of Father's Spirit and Father's Word. And the reality of this relationship would have to form SOME of your eternally held identity.

Tom: Indeed. More than that. Not only is the human spirit (whatever that is) inseparable from the activity of the Spirit, so it is with all things. NOTHING is separable from God. I already got that.

So…my meaning can only be found, fulfilled, and enjoyed through relating to the Father, in Christ, through the Spirit.

D: Also because of this, God has the most INTIMATE PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE of every human spirit...which is why God's perspective encompassess ALL perspectives.

Tom: Here we will begin to part a bit. I don’t deny that God apprehends all things, evil and suffering included. In that sense God’s perspective encompasses all perspectives. But this doesn’t mean God is personally defined by what he apprehends (remember, God’s ‘personhood’, God’s meaning or identity, is a se—unsurpassably intense relational satisfaction) OR that when we perceive as God does that we assume God’s identity.

D: God is in the "center' of all personal "centers of willing", and, as such, God is inherent in all personal perspectives. As Greg would say, God is "immanent in the subjectivity of the creature." And our human self-knowledge would reflect that understanding.

Tom: God is immanent in all things, right. But God can be immanent in willing the relative autonomy necessary to creative loving expression.

D: So when you boil down the core of "your" personhood, what is it? Who is the "you" that God wants to interpersonally? Describe "yourself" to me.

Tom: A finite, perceiving, object of God’s infinite love, a redeemed storehouse of creative capacities designed to reflect God’s own creative love through being creatively loving, through the giving and receiving of my creative capacities to God and others and to offer all I am and do to God as the worship he desires.

D: Let me describe myself. I'm going to try to describe my PERSONHOOD.

Tom: Go for it!

D: When I take away family titles, memories, nationality, gender, sexuality, preferences, emotional judgments on perceived physical characteristics, sensory information, etc...

I'm left with surprisingly little.

Tom: OK, D. We may need another 50 pages for this, but here’s the problem. This world you’re imagining—one in which all the contingent, creaturely, embodied diversities which at one time or another (or always for that matter) constituted the stuff and context of your life-experience are, as you say, “taken away”—has never and can never exist.

Why take all the unique creaturely fixtures that accompany any concrete hypostatic existence away? Who told you to do that? You think there’s a realm of concrete, conscious existence awaiting you in which these things don’t exist?

When I’m next online, I’d like to post a few quotes from David Bently Hart’s book I’m reading on this point.

D: Pretty much just this: A sense of "I Am"

Tom: And you identity that with God?

D: All "I" have is a silent sense of self-consciousness that self-perceives and self-evaluates expressing one's self-perception and self-evaluation to oneself, relating oneself to oneself. But this self-relationship is necessarily related to the GROUND of any and all self-relationship.

Tom: What’s the NATURE of the relationship? Does it permit the emergence of interpersonal relationality? How can you say no, especially in light of the fact that the only necessary, divine act—that which defines God—is the begetting and proceeding of interrelationality?

D: And that would be the Eternal, Divine Self-Consciousness. Is that what you come up with, "Tom"?

Tom: I’ve always understood this was your self-perception. It’s not what I come up with Bro. But I still love you!

Given what you’ve said here, D, how can you grant even the possibility of non-divine persons who are centers of creative love and who determine the shape their loving expression takes in ways not determined by God? Such “letting go” of created beings by God would seem to contradict your self-perception.

T

I was NOT joking.  This NEEDS to be a part of Church experience!

In solitude and retirement the Hesychast repeats the Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." The Hesychast prays the Jesus Prayer 'with the heart'—with meaning, with intent, 'for real'. He never treats the Jesus Prayer as a string of syllables whose 'surface' or overt verbal meaning is secondary or unimportant. He considers bare repetition of the Jesus Prayer as a mere string of syllables, perhaps with a 'mystical' inner meaning beyond the overt verbal meaning, to be worthless or even dangerous. This emphasis on the actual, real invocation of Jesus Christ marks a divergence from Eastern forms of meditation.

There is a very great emphasis on humility in the practice of the Jesus Prayer, great cautions being given in the texts about the disaster that will befall the would-be Hesychast if he proceeds in pride, arrogance or conceit. It is also assumed in the Hesychast texts that the Hesychast is a member of the Orthodox Church in good standing.

While he maintains his practice of the Jesus Prayer, which becomes automatic and continues twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the Hesychast cultivates sobriety (Gr. nepsis). Sobriety is the mental ascesis described above that rejects the tempting thoughts; it puts a great emphasis on focus and attention. The Hesychast is to pay extreme attention to the consciousness of his inner world and to the words of the Jesus Prayer, not letting his mind wander in any way at all.

(Imago's Note: This is HUGE for someone that had ADHD like my brain did!!)

The Hesychast is to attach Eros (Gr. eros), that is, "yearning", to his practice of sobriety so as to overcome the temptation to accidie (sloth). He is also to use an extremely directed and controlled anger against the tempting thoughts, although to obliterate them entirely he is to invoke Jesus Christ via the Jesus Prayer.

The Hesychast is to bring his mind (Gr. nous) into his heart so as to practise both the Jesus Prayer and sobriety with his mind in his heart. The descent of the mind into the heart is taken quite literally by the practitioners of Hesychasm and is not at all considered to be a metaphorical expression. Some of the psychophysical techniques described in the texts are to assist the descent of the mind into the heart at those times that only with difficulty it descends on its own.

The goal at this stage is a practice of the Jesus Prayer with the mind in the heart, which practice is free of images (see Pros Theodoulon). What this means is that by the exercise of sobriety (the mental ascesis against tempting thoughts), the Hesychast arrives at a continual practice of the Jesus Prayer with his mind in his heart and where his consciousness is no longer encumbered by the spontaneous inception of images: his mind has a certain stillness and emptiness that is punctuated only by the eternal repetition of the Jesus Prayer.

This stage is called the guard of the mind. This is a very advanced stage of ascetical and spiritual practice, and attempting to accomplish this prematurely, especially with psychophysical techniques, can cause very serious spiritual and emotional harm to the would-be Hesychast. St Theophan the Recluse once remarked that bodily postures and breathing techniques were virtually forbidden in his youth, since, instead of gaining the Spirit of God, people succeeded only "in ruining their lungs."

The guard of the mind is the practical goal of the Hesychast. It is the condition in which he remains as a matter of course throughout his day, every day until he dies. It is from the guard of the mind that he is raised to contemplation by the Grace of God.

The Hesychast usually experiences the contemplation of God as light, the Uncreated Light of the theology of St Gregory Palamas. The Hesychast, when he has by the mercy of God been granted such an experience, does not remain in that experience for a very long time (there are exceptions—see for example the Life of St Savas the Fool for Christ (14th Century), written by St Philotheos Kokkinos (14th Century)), but he returns 'to earth' and continues to practise the guard of the mind.

The Uncreated Light that the Hesychast experiences is identified with the Holy Spirit. Experiences of the Uncreated Light are allied to the 'acquisition of the Holy Spirit'. Notable accounts of encounters with the Holy Spirit in this fashion are found in St Symeon the New Theologian's account of the illumination of 'George' (considered a pseudonym of St Symeon himself); in the 'conversation with Motovilov' in the Life of St Seraphim of Sarov (1759 – 1833); and, more recently, in the reminiscences of Elder Porphyrios (Wounded by Love pp. 27 – 31).

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Loder on Absolute Unity of Being." Knight's Move.  Pg. 273

Beyond vision, in the fourth and final phase of the journey of intensification, is the numinous, imageless passage into the absolute unity of all things. Here no-thingness (cf. Eckhart's Ohne bild) is experienced as more real that than the reality of the ordinary state, even after self-consciousness returns to phase 1. Although imageless, its impact most often leaves the after-image of radiant white light, so vivid it cannot be described except perhaps by a kind of via negativa. For this phase there is no language, only silence--favete linguis (hold your tongue), says Kierkegaard. For this phase there is still differentiated self-consciousness, but beyond that only a reaction of awe as before the Holy who both fascinates and overpowers at the same time. This corresponds to the vision of God in Augustine, Hildegaard, Teresa (of Avila), Eckhart, and several others.

Post Edited (Imago Dei) : 1/21/2008 7:21:44 AM (GMT-6)

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Post Edited (Imago Dei) : 1/21/2008 7:51:02 AM (GMT-6)

Ware. Orthodox Way. 123-124.

So the Jesus prayer begins as an oral prayer like any other. But the rhythmic repetition of the same short phrase enables the hesychast, by the very simplicity of the words which he uses, to advance beyond all language and images into the mystery of God. In this way, the Jesus Prayer develops, with God's help, into what Western writers call "prayer of loving attention" or "prayer of simple gaze", where the sould rests in God without a constantly varying succession of images, ideas, and feelings. Beyond this there is a further stage, when the hesychast's prayer ceases to be the result of his own efforts, and becomes--at any rate from time to time--what Orthodox writers call "self-acting" and Western writers call "infused". It ceases, in other words, to be "my" prayer and becomes to a greater or lesser extent the prayer of Christ in me.

Yet it is not to be imagined that this transition from oral prayer to prayer of silence, or from "active" to "self-acting" prayer, is rapidly and easily made. The anonymous author of "The Way of the Pilgrim" was granted continual "self-acting" prayer only after a few weeks of practicing the Invocation of the Name of Jesus, but his case is altogether most exceptional and should on no account be regarded as the norm. More commonly, those who recite the Jesus Prayer are granted from time to time moments of "rapture", coming unexpectedly as a free gift, when the word of prayer recede into the background or disappear altogether, and are replaced by an immediate sense of God's presence and love. But for the great majority this experience is only a brief glimpse, not a continuous state. It would in any case be most unwise to attempt to induce by artificial means what can only come about as the fruit of God's direct action. The best course, when invoking the Holy Name, is to consecrate our full efforts upon the recitation of the words; otherwise, in our premature attempts to attain wordless prayer of the heart, we may find that we end up not really praying at all, but merely sitting half asleep.

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I believe that it's INTENDED to be a continous state meant for human hypostases who "...reintegrate their personhood in God, so that their hypostatic constitution will no longer resemble the divisions in creation..." (Nesteruk)

D: When I take away family titles, memories, nationality, gender, sexuality, preferences, emotional judgments on perceived physical characteristics, sensory information, etc...I'm left with surprisingly little.

Tom: OK, D. We may need another 50 pages for this, but here’s the problem. This world you’re imagining—one in which all the contingent, creaturely, embodied diversities which at one time or another (or always for that matter) constituted the stuff and context of your life-experience are, as you say, “taken away”—has never and can never exist.

Why take all the unique creaturely fixtures that accompany any concrete hypostatic existence away? Who told you to do that? You think there’s a realm of concrete, conscious existence awaiting you in which these things don’t exist?

D: It's like I told you, dude. The “stillness” removes ALL of the things that could TEMPT a human being into getting their “personhood” from the things of this world.

I've experienced the results MYSELF. It's DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP, man!

Tom: I can’t comment on your experience.

I can agree that the ‘things’ of the world are often pursued illegitimately by us as a source for our meaning and fulfillment. And that’s a mistake. But they were never MEANT by God to be this, so you can’t argue that they’re meaning for us as God intended it to be is found in our detaching from them. That’s not fair to creation. In a redeemed context the created diversity of the world poses NO SUCH THREAT OR TEMPTATION TO US. So I don’t think we’re justified in defining our ‘identity’ by extracting ourselves from the created diversity of the world. I’m not saying they define our personal identity as such. I’m saying there’s no finding our identity in God apart from the created context in which nature is hypostacized. Since that’s the world we want to actualize, our job is to engage its diversity and celebrate it, not demonize it as the enemy of personal becoming, because, D, there’s no becoming apart from becoming in, with, and through the created diversity of the world, including the diversity that is our embodied state.

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D: And if "I" wanted to give God anything...it could only really be the silent "center of willing" that composes the center of "I-ness"...because that's the only thing that I truly POSSESS to GIVE to God.

Tom: That’s your problem Bro. I don’t know how to fix that for you. You think there’s no surrender of the ‘self’, the ‘I’, to God, no ‘gift’ of the self to God, so long as we remain free to determine ourselves in ways NOT directly decided by God and so long as this free determination serves as the ground for a self-perception that DOESN’T collapse into the Divine.

So the ONLY real gift we possess to give God (or anyone else for that matter, to be consistent) if our perspective, our perception of ourselves as ‘other’ than those ‘to whom’ we offer our love.

By way of analogy, if my daughter creates a beautiful picture for me, or shapes a ceramic bowl and gives it to me, are you telling me she has made no offer of her ‘self’ to me? That unless she abandons her identity as an ‘other’ in relationship to me, that there can be no genuine love, no interpersonal self-giving and self-receiving? If my son offers his time, his talent, his industry, his energies to become a beautiful and godly man and in the end thanks ME for the small part I had to play in his life, you’re telling me there’s no genuine gift of one’s self in this?

I don’t know where you picked up the erroneous notion that we give God nothing unless we give him our perception of ourselves as interpersonally related to him.

D: If we give up our "lives" (meaning our perspectives), we find True Life (True Perspective as Person).

Tom: Long breath and sigh.

Bro, all kinds of crazy love for ya. I’m hopeless on this, so just give up on me. You go soaring as high as you like and chase as many red pills down as many rabbit holes as you like. Don’t mind me. You got for it.

T

Does this look and/or sound familiar?

Hint: Does God do this?

Post Edited (Imago Dei) : 1/21/2008 10:40:33 AM (GMT-6)