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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/26/2008 7:20 PM (GMT -6) |   | Cool stuff, Feelin. I've never read Denys Turner before. Thanks for the resource!
Some of "Darkness of God" is here, y'all. Looks like great stuff!
Bruce,
Could you do me a favor? Could you scan some sections of Ware's "Orthodox Way" and post them here? I would type it all out but if you could do this, that'd be great.
Chap 1: God as Mystery, "God as Mystery" pp. 13-15
Chap 6: God as Prayer, "Darkness and Light" pp. 126-128
I'm thinking that Denys Turner (I've never read him before) is referring to some of this stuff when he's talking about the "apophatic" and "darkness" of God. From looking at what he's saying about Eckhart, I'd say so. Basically, Turner seems to be advocating for a MUNDANE ECSTASY like Loder talks about: where there is a "standing-more-deeply-within" the present moment of God's world...rather than removing oneself from the dynamism of God's world through seeking particular ecstatic "mystical" experiences. The "detachment" (Eckhart) or "benevolent detachment" (Loder) is a dimension of the "unknowing process" and the means of the radical transformation of human experience. Instead of just sitting in some blissed out state seeing "white light" all day somewhere trying to AVOID God's World and/or trying to have sensational "charismatic" experiences, the "unknowing" leads us directly INTO God's World as it really is...as we live in nepsis and the "sacrament of the present moment".
And the cool thing is neither of the concepts of the "apophatic" or "darkness" are separate from hesychastic process (ala Jesus prayer and "stillness" ). They are indeed what the process is about.
Thanks. 
So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them... Post Edited (Imago Dei) : 1/26/2008 6:45:33 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/28/2008 10:10 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Chap 1: God as Mystery, "God as Mystery" pp. 13-15
In the words of St Nicolas Cabasilas, God our King is
more affectionate than any friend,
more just than any ruler,
more loving than any father,
more a part of us than our own limbs,
more necessary to us than our own heart.4
_. These, then, are the two "poles" in man's experience of the Divine. God is both further from us, and nearer to us, than anything else. And we find, paradoxically, that these two "poles" do not cancel one another out: on the contrary, the more we are attracted to the one "pole", the more vividly we become aware of the other at the same time. Advancing on the Way, each finds that God grows ever more intimate and ever more distant, well known and yet unknown—well known to the smallest child, incomprehensible to the most brilliant theologian. God dwells in "light unapproachable", yet man stands in his presence with loving confidence and addresses him as friend. God is both end-point and starting-point. He is the host who welcomes us at the conclusion of the journey, yet he is also the companion who walks by our side at every step upon the Way. As St Nicolas Cabasilas puts it, "He is both the inn at which we rest for a night and the final end of our journey."
Mystery, yet person: let us consider these two aspects in turn.
God as Mystery
Unless we start out with a feeling of awe and astonishment—with what is often called a sense of the numinous—we shall make little progress on the Way. When Samuel Palmer first visited William Blake, the old man asked him how he approached the work of painting. "With fear and trembling", Palmer replied. "Then you'll do", said Blake.
The Greek Fathers liken man's encounter with God to the experience of someone walking over the mountains in the mist: he takes a step forward and suddenly finds that he is on the edge of a precipice, with no solid ground beneath his foot but only a bottomless abyss. Or else they use the example of a man standing at night in a darkened room: he opens the shutter over a window, and as he looks out there is a sudden flash of lightning, causing him to stagger backwards, momentarily blinded. Such is the effect of coming face to face with the living mystery of God: we are assailed by dizziness; all the familiar footholds vanish, and there seems nothing for us to grasp; our inward eyes are blinded, our normal assumptions shattered.
The Fathers also take, as symbols of the spiritual Way, the two Old Testament figures of Abraham and Moses. Abraham, living still in his ancestral home at Ur of the Chaldees, is told by God: "Go out from your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you" (Gen. 12:1). Accepting the divine call, he uproots himself from his familiar surroundings and ventures out into the unknown, without any clear conception of his final destination. He is simply commanded, "Go out...", and in faith he obeys. Moses receives in succession three visions of God: first he sees God in a vision of light at the Burning Bush (Exod. 3:2); next God is revealed to him through mingled light and darkness, in the "pillar of cloud and fire" which accompanies the people of Israel through the desert (Exod. 13:21); and then finally he meets God in a "non-vision", when he speaks with him in the "thick darkness" at the summit of Mount Sinai (Exod. 20:21).
Abraham journeys from his familiar home into an unknown country; Moses progresses from light into darkness. And so it proves to be for each one who follows the spiritual Way. We go out from the known to the unknown, we advance from light into darkness. We do not simply proceed from the darkness of ignorance into the light of knowledge, but we go forward from the light of partial knowledge into a greater knowledge which is so much more profound that it can only be described as the "darkness of unknowing." Like Socrates we begin to realize how little we understand. We see that it is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder. Quoting Psalm 8:1, "O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is thy name in all the earth", St Gregory of Nyssa states: "God's name is not known; it is wondered at."5
Recognizing that God is incomparably greater than anything we can say or think about him, we find it necessary to refer to him not just through direct statements but through pictures and images. Our theology is to a large extent symbolic. Yet symbols alone are insufficient to convey the transcendence and the "otherness" of God. To point at the mysterium tremendum, we need to use negative as well as affirmative statements, saying what God is not rather than what he is. Without this use of the way of negation, of what is termed the apophatic approach, our talk about God becomes gravely misleading. All that we affirm concerning God, however correct, falls far short of the living truth. If we say that he is good or just, we must at once add that his goodness or justice are not to be measured by our human standards. If we say that he exists, we must qualify this immediately by adding that he is not one existent object among many, that in his case the word "exist" bears a unique significance. So the way of affirmation is balanced by the way of negation. As Cardinal Newman puts it, we are continually "saying and unsaying to a positive effect." Having made an assertion about God, we must pass beyond it: the statement is not untrue, yet neither it nor any other form of words can contain the fullness of the transcendent God.
So the spiritual Way proves to be a path of repentance in the most radical sense. Metanoia, the Greek word for repentance, means literally "change of mind." In approaching God, we are to change our mind, stripping ourselves of all our habitual ways of
thinking. We are to be converted not only in our will but in our intellect. We need to reverse our interior perspective, to stand the pyramid on its head.
Yet the "thick darkness" into which we enter with Moses turns out to be a luminous or dazzling darkness. The apophatic way of "unknowing" brings us not to emptiness but to fullness. Our negations are in reality super-affirmations. Destructive in outward form, the apophatic approach is affirmative in its final effects: it helps us to reach out, beyond all statements positive or negative, beyond all language and all thought, towards an immediate experience of the living God.
This is implied, indeed, by the very word "mystery." In the proper religious sense of the term, "mystery" signifies not only hiddenness but disclosure. The Greek noun mysterion is linked with the verb myein, meaning "to close the eyes or mouth." The candidate for initiation into certain of the pagan mystery religions was first blindfolded and led through a maze of passages; then suddenly his eyes were uncovered and he saw, displayed all round him, the secret emblems of the cult. So, in the Christian context, we do not mean by a "mystery" merely that which is baffling and mysterious, an enigma or insoluble problem. A mystery is, on the contrary, something that is revealed for our understanding, but which we never understand exhaustively because it leads into the depth or the darkness of God. The eyes are closed—but they are also opened.
Thus, in speaking about God as mystery, we are brought to our second "pole." God is hidden from us, but he is also revealed to us: revealed as person and as love.
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
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| Posted 1/28/2008 10:19 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Chap 6: God as Prayer, "Darkness and Light" pp. 126-128
God as Prayer -- Darkness and Light pp. 126-128
In referring to this "union according to energy", which lies far beyo all that man can imagine or describe, the saints have perforce used tho language of paradox and symbolism. For human speech is adapted to delineate that which exists in space and time, and even here it can never provide an exhaustive description. As for what is infinite antj eternal, here human speech can do no more than point or hint.
The two chief "signs" or symbols employed by Fathers are those of darkness and light. Not, of course, that God as such is eitliffl light or darkness: we are speaking in parables or analogies. Accord ing to their preference for the one "sign" or the other, mystic" writers may be characterized as either "nocturnal" or "solar". Clement of Alexandria (drawing on the Jewish author Philo), Gregory of Nyssa and St Dionysius the Areopagite give prefercin to the "sign" of darkness; Origen, St Gregory the Theologm Evagrius, The Homilies of St Macarius, St Symeon the New T In u logian and St Gregory Palamas use chiefly the "sign" of light.
"Darkness" language, as applied to God, takes its ongn chiefly from the Biblical description of Moses upon Mount SIMHI when he is said to enter into the "thick darkness" where God wit (Exod. 20:21: compare p. 13). It is significant that in this pat: MI p. > it is not stated that God is darkness, but that he dwells in dmd ness: the darkness denotes, not the absence or unreality of (in but the inability of our human mind to grasp God's inner nature
The darkness is in us, and not in him.
The primary basis for "light" language is the sentence in St John, "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). God is revealed as light above all at the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor, when "his face shone as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light" (Matt. 17:2). This divine light, seen by the three disciples on the mountain—seen also by many of the saints during prayer—is nothing else than the uncreated energies of God. The light of Tabor, that is to say, is neither a physical and created light, nor yet a purely metaphorical "light of the intel¬lect". Although non-material, it is nevertheless an objectively existent reality. Being divine, the uncreated energies surpass our human powers of description; and so, in terming these energies | "light", we are inevitably employing the language of "sign" and symbol. Not that the energies are themselves merely symbolical. They genuinely exist, but cannot be described in words; in refer¬ring to them as "light" we use the least misleading term, but our language is not to be interpreted literally.
Although non-physical, the divine light can be seen by a man Ithrough his physical eyes, provided that his senses have been transformed by divine grace. His eyes do not behold the light by i he natural powers of perception, but through the power of the I loly Spirit acting within him.
"The body is deified at the same time as the soul"36 (St
Maximus the Confessor). He who beholds the divine light is perme-
ik-cl by it through and through, so that his body shines with the glory
i hat he contemplates. He himself becomes light. Vladimir Lossky
i not speaking merely in metaphors when he wrote: "The fire of
i a c, kindled in the hearts of Christians by the Holy Spirit, makes
' in-ill shine like tapers before the Son of God".37 The Homilies ofSt
\i,i>-<irius affirm concerning this transfiguration of man's body:
Just as the Lord's body was glorified, when he went up the mountain and was transfigured into the glory of God and into infinite light, so the saints' bodies also are glorified and shine as lightning..."The glory which thou hast given to me I have given to them" (John 17:22): just as many lamps are lit from one flame, so the bodies of the saints, being members of Christ, must needs be what Christ is, and nothing else...Our human nature is transformed Into the power of God, and it is kindled into fire and light.38
In the lives of the saints, Western as well as Eastern, there are numerous examples of such bodily glorification. When Moses came down from the darkness of Sinai, his face shone with such brilliance that no one could gaze upon it, and he had to place a veil over it when talking with others (Exod. 34:29-35). In The Sayings of the Desert Fathers we are told how a disciple looked through the window of Abba Arsenius' cell, and saw the old man "like a flame of fire". Of Abba Pambo it is said, "God so glorified him that no one could look at his face, because of the glory which his face had."39 Fourteen hundred years later, Nicolas Motovilov uses these words to describe a conversation with his starets St Seraphim of Sarov: "Imagine in the center of the sun, in the dazzling brilliance of its mid-day rays, the face of a man talking to you."40
In some writers the ideas of light and darkness are combined.
Henry Vaughan speaks of a "dazzling darkness" in God, while St
Dionysius uses the phrase "radiance of divine darkness" (p. 24).
Elsewhere St Dionysius says, "The divine darkness is the inac¬
cessible light in which God is said to dwell."41 There is no
self-contradiction about such language, for to God "the darkness
and the light are both alike" (Ps. 139:12). As Jacob Boehme puts
it, "The darkness is not the absence of light, but the terror that
comes from the blinding light."42 If God is said to dwell in
darkness, that does not mean that there is in God any lack or
privation, but that he is a fullness of glory and love beyond our
comprehension.
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/28/2008 10:43 AM (GMT -6) | | Chap 1: God as Mystery, "God as Mystery" pp. 13-15
In the words of St Nicolas Cabasilas, God our King is
' ' """ ''*.., t .
more affectionate than any friend,
more just than any ruler,
more loving than any father,
more a part of us than our own limbs,
more necessary to us than our own heart.4
_. These, then, are the two "poles" in man's experience of the Divine. God is both further from us, and nearer to us, than anything else. And we find, paradoxically, that these two "poles" do not cancel one another out: on the contrary, the more we are attracted to the one "pole", the more vividly we become aware of the other at the same time. Advancing on the Way, each finds that God grows ever more intimate and ever more distant, well known and yet unknown—well known to the smallest child, incomprehensible to the most brilliant theologian. God dwells in "light unapproachable", yet man stands in his presence with loving confidence and addresses him as friend. God is both end-point and starting-point. He is the host who welcomes us at the conclusion of the journey, yet he is also the companion who walks by our side at every step upon the Way. As St Nicolas Cabasilas puts it, "He is both the inn at which we rest for a night and the final end of our journey."
Mystery, yet person: let us consider these two aspects in turn.
God as Mystery
Unless we start out with a feeling of awe and astonishment—with what is often called a sense of the numinous—we shall make little progress on the Way. When Samuel Palmer first visited William Blake, the old man asked him how he approached the work of painting. "With fear and trembling", Palmer replied. "Then you'll do", said Blake.
The Greek Fathers liken man's encounter with God to the experience of someone walking over the mountains in the mist: he takes a step forward and suddenly finds that he is on the edge of a precipice, with no solid ground beneath his foot but only a bottomless abyss. Or else they use the example of a man standing at night in a darkened room: he opens the shutter over a window, and as he looks out there is a sudden flash of lightning, causing him to stagger backwards, momentarily blinded. Such is the effect of coming face to face with the living mystery of God: we are assailed by dizziness; all the familiar footholds vanish, and there seems nothing for us to grasp; our inward eyes are blinded, our normal assumptions shattered.
The Fathers also take, as symbols of the spiritual Way, the two Old Testament figures of Abraham and Moses. Abraham, living still in his ancestral home at Ur of the Chaldees, is told by God: "Go out from your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you" (Gen. 12:1). Accepting the divine call, he uproots himself from his familiar surroundings and ventures out into the unknown, without any clear conception of his final destination. He is simply commanded, "Go out...", and in faith he obeys. Moses receives in succession three visions of God: first he sees God in a vision of light at the Burning Bush (Exod. 3:2); next God is revealed to him through mingled light and darkness, in the "pillar of cloud and fire" which accompanies the people of Israel through the desert (Exod. 13:21); and then finally he meets God in a "non-vision", when he speaks with him in the "thick darkness" at the summit of Mount Sinai (Exod. 20:21).
Abraham journeys from his familiar home into an unknown country; Moses progresses from light into darkness. And so it proves to be for each one who follows the spiritual Way. We go out from the known to the unknown, we advance from light into darkness. We do not simply proceed from the darkness of ignorance into the light of knowledge, but we go forward from the light of partial knowledge into a greater knowledge which is so much more profound that it can only be described as the "darkness of unknowing." Like Socrates we begin to realize how little we understand. We see that it is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question, but to make us progressively aware of a mystery. God is not so much the object of our knowledge as the cause of our wonder. Quoting Psalm 8:1, "O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is thy name in all the earth", St Gregory of Nyssa states: "God's name is not known; it is wondered at."5
Recognizing that God is incomparably greater than anything we can say or think about him, we find it necessary to refer to him not just through direct statements but through pictures and images. Our theology is to a large extent symbolic. Yet symbols alone are insufficient to convey the transcendence and the "otherness" of God. To point at the mysterium tremendum, we need to use negative as well as affirmative statements, saying what God is not rather than what he is. Without this use of the way of negation, of what is termed the apophatic approach, our talk about God becomes gravely misleading. All that we affirm concerning God, however correct, falls far short of the living truth. If we say that he is good or just, we must at once add that his goodness or justice are not to be measured by our human standards. If we say that he exists, we must qualify this immediately by adding that he is not one existent object among many, that in his case the word "exist" bears a unique significance. So the way of affirmation is balanced by the way of negation. As Cardinal Newman puts it, we are continually "saying and unsaying to a positive effect." Having made an assertion about God, we must pass beyond it: the statement is not untrue, yet neither it nor any other form of words can contain the fullness of the transcendent God.
So the spiritual Way proves to be a path of repentance in the most radical sense. Metanoia, the Greek word for repentance, means literally "change of mind." In approaching God, we are to change our mind, stripping ourselves of all our habitual ways of
thinking. We are to be converted not only in our will but in our intellect. We need to reverse our interior perspective, to stand the pyramid on its head.
Yet the "thick darkness" into which we enter with Moses turns out to be a luminous or dazzling darkness. The apophatic way of "unknowing" brings us not to emptiness but to fullness. Our negations are in reality super-affirmations. Destructive in outward form, the apophatic approach is affirmative in its final effects: it helps us to reach out, beyond all statements positive or negative, beyond all language and all thought, towards an immediate experience of the living God.
This is implied, indeed, by the very word "mystery." In the proper religious sense of the term, "mystery" signifies not only hiddenness but disclosure. The Greek noun mysterion is linked with the verb myein, meaning "to close the eyes or mouth." The candidate for initiation into certain of the pagan mystery religions was first blindfolded and led through a maze of passages; then suddenly his eyes were uncovered and he saw, displayed all round him, the secret emblems of the cult. So, in the Christian context, we do not mean by a "mystery" merely that which is baffling and mysterious, an enigma or insoluble problem. A mystery is, on the contrary, something that is revealed for our understanding, but which we never understand exhaustively because it leads into the depth or the darkness of God. The eyes are closed—but they are also opened.
Thus, in speaking about God as mystery, we are brought to our second "pole." God is hidden from us, but he is also revealed to us: revealed as person and as love.
Chap 6: God as Prayer, "Darkness and Light" pp. 126-128
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/28/2008 12:01 PM (GMT -6) | | Ware:
Yet the "thick darkness" into which we enter with Moses turns out to be a luminous or dazzling darkness. The apophatic way of "unknowing" brings us not to emptiness but to fullness. Our negations are in reality super-affirmations. Destructive in outward form, the apophatic approach is affirmative in its final effects: it helps us to reach out, beyond all statements positive or negative, beyond all language and all thought, towards an immediate experience of the living God.
This is implied, indeed, by the very word "mystery." In the proper religious sense of the term, "mystery" signifies not only hiddenness but disclosure. The Greek noun mysterion is linked with the verb myein, meaning "to close the eyes or mouth." The candidate for initiation into certain of the pagan mystery religions was first blindfolded and led through a maze of passages; then suddenly his eyes were uncovered and he saw, displayed all round him, the secret emblems of the cult. So, in the Christian context, we do not mean by a "mystery" merely that which is baffling and mysterious, an enigma or insoluble problem. A mystery is, on the contrary, something that is revealed for our understanding, but which we never understand exhaustively because it leads into the depth or the darkness of God. The eyes are closed—but they are also opened.
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.
--James Loder, Knight's Move.
So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them... Post Edited (Imago Dei) : 1/28/2008 11:04:06 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/28/2008 12:15 PM (GMT -6) | |
Imago Dei said...
Ware:
This is implied, indeed, by the very word "mystery." In the proper religious sense of the term, "mystery" signifies not only hiddenness but disclosure. The Greek noun mysterion is linked with the verb myein, meaning "to close the eyes or mouth." The candidate for initiation into certain of the pagan mystery religions was first blindfolded and led through a maze of passages; then suddenly his eyes were uncovered and he saw, displayed all round him, the secret emblems of the cult. So, in the Christian context, we do not mean by a "mystery" merely that which is baffling and mysterious, an enigma or insoluble problem. A mystery is, on the contrary, something that is revealed for our understanding, but which we never understand exhaustively because it leads into the depth or the darkness of God. The eyes are closed—but they are also opened.
IN the underlined parts of Ware you quote here, I can see how they FIT with the simple statement of Ware that, "The darkness is in us, and not in him." Its like J.Packer saying that we should AVOID creating mental images of God as they become favorite IDOLS, which we then are prone to created relationships with, instead of carrying on a growing, living relationship with Christ by the Spirit.
Ware makes sense, to me. And he stakes out his point, and develops it.
BUT, I don't feel any assurance -- from your quote of him, here -- that Loder is doing anything but making a romantic drama of mysteriousness.
My critique, on first read, is that Ware is trying to "reveal" and Loder to "overpower."
$.02
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 1/28/2008 12:18 PM (GMT -6) | |
Imago Dei said...Thanks so much, Bruce.
You are welcome.
And you have permission to ignore me if you want.
I'm not being theoretical, or exploratory. I'm just observing how the information seems to invite participation with an audience. (Beauty in the eye of the beholder, and all that...)
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 1/28/2008 12:30 PM (GMT -6) | | Bruce:
IN the underlined parts of Ware you quote here, I can see how they FIT with the simple statement of Ware that, "The darkness is in us, and not in him." Its like J.Packer saying that we should AVOID creating mental images of God as they become favorite IDOLS, which we then are prone to created relationships with, instead of carrying on a growing, living relationship with Christ by the Spirit.
Ware makes sense, to me. And he stakes out his point, and develops it.
This is why only a LIFE of metanoia will do in living in Christ. To begin to put God in proverbial boxes and base one's sense of self, life, and/or well-being on those boxes... is to NOT live in God as mystery...or God as person.
****************************
Bruce:
BUT, I don't feel any assurance -- from your quote of him, here -- that Loder is doing anything but making a romantic drama of mysteriousness.
My critique, on first read, is that Ware is trying to "reveal" and Loder to "overpower."
Loder is describing the very sense of the "numinous" that Ware begins the subject with...
Unless we start out with a feeling of awe and astonishment—with what is often called a sense of the numinous—we shall make little progress on the Way. When Samuel Palmer first visited William Blake, the old man asked him how he approached the work of painting. "With fear and trembling", Palmer replied. "Then you'll do", said Blake.
In the experience of Absolute Unity of Being, this sense is basked in by the experiencer, more fully.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 1/28/2008 12:39 PM (GMT -6) | |
Imago Dei said...
...to NOT live in God as mystery...or God as person.
This is a campaign year. Which of these seems the more accessible and attractive?
- to live in God as mystery
...or
- to live in God as person.
I'll teke the second; and then, maybe, have the first explained to me, bit by bit, if not later.
$.02
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 1/28/2008 12:43 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 1/30/2008 7:54 AM (GMT -6) | | "He who always abides in a present now, in him does God [the Father] beget his Son without ceasing."
Meister Eckhart, as quoted by Kallistos Ware in "The Orthodox Way"
Redemption, therefore, can take place only when the creature makes room in his soul for the abstract experience and work of God; and the condition for that is the turning away from the finite. For God is ever ready to work in the soul, provided he is not hindered and the soul is susceptible to his influence (27, 25; 283, 23; 33, 29; 479, 31). The inner separation from everything casual, sensual, earthly and the yielding to the work of God in the heart, that is the seclusion or tranquillity of which Eckhart speaks again and again. For him this is the basis of all piety. But what is it that God accomplishes in the soul? The birth of the Son. As the soul is an image of the Deity, if it is to fulfill its destiny, then that process by which the deity develops into the three persons must take place in it. In the soul, the Father procreates the Son (44, 28; 175, 15-20; 479, 10; 13, 12). This takes place during the life of the soul in time; and, too, not merely at a particular moment, but rather continuously and repeatedly. This is not merely a copy or analogon of that inner divine process, but is in truth that very process itself, by which it becomes, through grace, what the Son of God is by nature (433, 32; 382, 7; 377, 17). From this view of Eckhart's follow a number of the most striking statements in which the soul is made to share in the attributes and works of God, including the creation (119, 28-40; 267, 4; 283, 37-284, 7). However, according to Eckhart, a complete fusion of the soul with the Deity never takes place (387, 3).Post Edited (Imago Dei) : 1/30/2008 7:04:07 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Penny
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| Posted 2/6/2008 7:02 PM (GMT -6) | | | I just finished reading this thread--the question caught my attention. There is certainly a danger in mistaking our thoughts for experiences, and probably a danger in mistaking either for mysticism, which seems to involve both thoughts and experiences in some sort of ecstatic encounter or revelation. Mystics are caught up in the divine mystery.....in a way that I guess I'm just not.
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"You are dust."
That's what the pastor said to me today as she made the sign of the cross on my forehead with ashes.
in God we trustPost Edited (Penny) : 2/6/2008 9:43:35 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Penny
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Date Joined Feb 2008
Total Posts : 14
| Posted 2/8/2008 12:34 AM (GMT -6) | | Damn. I never thought of Abraham ("I who am but dust and ashes"--Gen. 18:27) as a mystic before. His encounter with God doesn't have all the trappings usually associated with mysticism, but it does fit your description.
His example raises several interesting points:
Mystical encounters with the divine in the Bible seem to entail existentially wrenching apocalypses (ranging from personal to national to universal) more often than ecstatic unions. E.g. Jacob's wrestling match; Job and the wirlwind; Ezekiel--nuff said; Paul on the road to Damascus; etc.
These encounters are very personal and/or contextual--in most cases universalizing them would be impossible or disasterous.
Abraham is called the father of faith because he "believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness." But if mysticism is properly basic, what is its relationship to faith? (I may be misunderstanding "properly basic" here.)
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Corey
Five with a Four-wing
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1893
| Posted 2/8/2008 7:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Well, there's one thing that seems apparent to me in the biblical stories of people who encountered God: I don't recall many examples of people really wrestling with whether or not it was God talking. The wrestled with what to do about it, not whether they were imagining things.
Yes, it's very personal, very first-person. It's not something that can be contained and passed along in a formula. We find ourselves as single individuals relating to God, accountable in the most severe sense of the word. You can't hide in the crowd.
Does a properly basic relation with God preclude faith? I hardly think so, unless one would want to say that Abraham and others did not live by faith. To follow through in sustained obedience requires a lot of faith! Abraham, and even Jesus I think, had to choose to be faithful even though they knew God in a first-hand, properly basic way.
P.S. I take the term "properly basic" from Alvin Plantinga.
Before God, in grace, we will with all our power to be that which He shows us we are.Post Edited (Corey) : 2/8/2008 6:51:34 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Penny
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Date Joined Feb 2008
Total Posts : 14
| Posted 2/8/2008 11:28 AM (GMT -6) | | | Corey: Does a properly basic relation with God preclude faith? I hardly think so, unless one would want to say that Abraham and others did not live by faith. To follow through in sustained obedience requires a lot of faith!
Penny: Yes, Abraham was certainly obedient (almost freakishly so) but his belief is what makes him the father of faith. If Abraham's faith was dependent on properly basic mystical encounters, that seems like cheating.
Corey: Abraham, and even Jesus I think, had to choose to be faithful even though they knew God in a first-hand, properly basic way.
Penny: Agreed. So it seems that God's existence and initiative are properly basic in mystical encounters, but God's claims in the encounter can be doubted or believed. Abraham's obedience is a natural result of his belief in the promises God made to him, and the fact that these promises happened to be communicated through mystical encounters (which could not be doubted) is incidental to his belief in their content (which could be doubted).
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 2/9/2008 8:37 AM (GMT -6) | | | (The following was found in email this morning. It is not a response to the most recent posts of the most recent posters! But it is posted in relationship to the beginning posts of this thread, and to/with the thread topic. Thanks for understanding.)
QUOTE:
...as Vladimir Lossky learned from St. Gregory of Nyssa: "...every concept relative to God is a simulacrum, a false likeness, an idol."
(o)Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 2/9/2008 8:23:46 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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