Tom: I’ve become a bit more pessimistic about the EO. My guess is that Hopko will say, “God decides it all. You’re only creative in the sense that God directly determines his own creative expression through you. You don’t determine the shape of creative expression in ways not previously determined for you by God.” And with that I cannot agree.

B: Taking a cue from what you just wrote above, it looks like (1) God decides it all--You’re only creative in the sense that God directly determines his own creative expression through you…

Tom: If we’re only creative in the sense that God directly determines his own expression through us, then that’s what I’m disagreeing with.

B: only on "this side", BUT…

Tom: What side of what?

B: But that includes God letting us fall so that we can learn to want to get up, and so that it is our will that is becoming con-formed to his;

Tom: I’m talking about the end state, God’s ultimate purposes for fully realized human beings. So I’m not following ya.

B: …and (2) it will still be true in the freedom you describe of the eschaton that it is God's will experienced now that remains congruent to our conformed will freely lived then. How's that?

Tom: (1) isn't what I believe at all (if I'm following ya), and I didn’t get (2).

I think you’re moving the shingles on me again! I said I wouldn’t do this, and here I am!

T

Post Edited (HumanHypostasis) : 3/3/2008 7:31:41 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (HumanHypostasis) : 3/4/2008 4:46:18 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (Spinning Pot-spinner) : 3/4/2008 6:35:13 AM (GMT-6)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/4/2008 3:02:33 PM (GMT-6)

Post Edited (HumanHypostasis) : 3/5/2008 12:07:54 AM (GMT-6)

I told Corey to ban me from the site if I engaged you again on this subject for some time. Don’t know if he’d do it, and I don’t wanna be banned!

But friendship is more important to me. I can’t wound or offend you intentionally, and you really want a comment form me, so I’ll pipe up. It’s just that we’ve been over this so many times with nothing new introduced (not even now), and the last round in which you just kept demanding an answer from me and refusing to accept my replies was just unacceptable to me. I’m not doing another round of that with you.

But I’ll try to answer you. So then…

Tom: Ah, OK. So, what you're saying is that so long as we are on this side of the Jordan, not consummately redeemed and not glorified, that God has to (as I tried to express) exercise more a hands on approach to keep things on track. But that when we on the OTHER side of the Jordan there will be no need for such an approach. If that's it, then yeah, I agree.

D: For the sake of discussion, I grant this idea fully.

Now...

1) If you (Tom) and me are on "this side of the Jordan" in this fallen world (which we are)...and we know that God can work with us providentially with a "hands on approach to keep things on track" in the world...through our spirits being differentially united with God's Spirit...such that particular human activity, in it's own self-expression, accomplishes corresponding particular divine intention, wouldn't it make the most sense to be continuously opening oneself to this end so that the most healing can come to the world?

2) Is it possible that this way of being is WHAT we solidify into over time? Can our characters be eternally "solidified" into being providential agencies for God?

Tom: What happened to granting my idea for the sake of argument? I don’t see my idea anywhere in your (1) or (2).

On your (1), by a “hands-on” approach I don’t mean what you mean, or at least what you seem to mean, that is, that God works “through our spirits being differentially united with God’s Spirit such that…” etc. All I mean is simply God’s instructing us on what to do. “Do this, now.” “Do that.” “Come here. Go there. Say this. Say that.” No big metaphysical jumps to make, no complexities. Just God giving ‘law’, God telling us what to do on this side of the river because we’re not glorified, because we’re prone to screw things up, because we live in a fallen context, and because 99% of the time we cannot possibly understand all the contributing factors and so render a judgment about what the most appropriate action is. This side of the river, we CAN’T be left alone or let go, not in THIS world. We need to be instructed and led by the hand, TOLD what to do, where to go, what to say. Given all that, one can expect God to lead us by the hand and tell us what the best next step is. But in heaven, none of the factors that require God to take this approach will exist. So why should the approach exist?

So no, I don’t think it makes the most sense to expect God to continue with such an approach after heaven. I think it makes the most sense to expect God will NOT continue with such an approach. He’ll let us GO. He’ll turn us LOSE. The themes of love will be written on our hearts, sealed by glorification, and there’ll be no need to ‘prescribe’ anything. No need to say, “Know ye the Lord,” for we will all know the Lord. We will be freely creative, compatibilistically loving, and unhampered by all that presently hampers us and requires a hands-on approach. We’ll be what I think we were designed to become.

But I DO argue, and have always argued, that particular human activity, in it's own self-expression, accomplishes corresponding particular divine intention. When I ask my daughter to create some picture for me, the particular picture she composes (undetermined by me) IS, in its specificity, the specific fulfillment of my intentions. It’s just that her ‘creating it’ IS my intention.

On (2), when you say we “solidify into being providential agencies for God” I hear you describing the same hands-on approach of (1). And that’s what I think comes to an end. I have no problems with our being “providential agencies for God.” Who would want to refuse participating in God’s administration of the universe? The question is how? In a glorified context I don’t believe that’ll mean a continuation of the same hands-on approach.

Again, “hands-on approach” is just a metaphor. Just trying to paint a picture.

You know what I envision the glorified state to be.

Tom

Post Edited (Corey) : 3/5/2008 10:07:51 AM (GMT-6)

Thanks for the response, Tom. 

Tom:
On your (1), by a “hands-on” approach I don’t mean what you mean, or at least what you seem to mean, that is, that God works “through our spirits being differentially united with God’s Spirit such that…” etc. All I mean is simply God’s instructing us on what to do. “Do this, now.” “Do that.” “Come here. Go there. Say this. Say that.” No big metaphysical jumps to make, no complexities. Just God giving ‘law’, God telling us what to do on this side of the river because we’re not glorified, because we’re prone to screw things up, because we live in a fallen context, and because 99% of the time we cannot possibly understand all the contributing factors and so render a judgment about what the most appropriate action is. This side of the river, we CAN’T be left alone or let go, not in THIS world. We need to be instructed and led by the hand, TOLD what to do, where to go, what to say. Given all that, one can expect God to lead us by the hand and tell us what the best next step is.

There's a type of divine guidance that doesn't need conversation of words like what you portray...but that's ok. I believe I hear what you're saying...and I think we are agreeing on the main premise of my questions. It seems that we agree that in this fallen world, it makes more sense to continuously open ourselves the specific providential leading of God, however that ends up taking place...so that the most healing (by us following God's continual leading) to the world.


*******************************

Tom:
So no, I don’t think it makes the most sense to expect God to continue with such an approach after heaven. I think it makes the most sense to expect God will NOT continue with such an approach. He’ll let us GO. He’ll turn us LOSE. The themes of love will be written on our hearts, sealed by glorification, and there’ll be no need to ‘prescribe’ anything. No need to say, “Know ye the Lord,” for we will all know the Lord. We will be freely creative, compatibilistically loving, and unhampered by all that presently hampers us and requires a hands-on approach. We’ll be what I think we were designed to become.

This response ACTUALLY answers my #2...not my #1. But cool enough! To you, the only real compatibilism that will be existing in glorified human existence is that all perceptions, evaluations, and meaning-making will only be able to be within the "divine themes" (meaning love, joy, peace, beauty, wisdom, etc) and they would not be free to choose outside of those "divine themes" in their human perceiving, evaluating, and meaning-making. However, within that compatibilism, I hear you say (using some of your descriptions), our human "true ‘self’, our ‘logos’" actually acts "as the gift of creative capacities to interpret the divine themes of love, not specific determinations minutely prescribed" In other words, the glorified human 'self' or 'logos' can freely choose options within the parameters of the "divine themes" and even "particular divine intention"...WITHOUT there being meticulous "linetracing" of divine intention by the human being in the Eschaton.

Cool beans. 

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/6/2008 7:25:47 AM (GMT-6)

D: There's a type of divine guidance that doesn't need conversation of words like what you portray...but that's ok.

Tom: No, you’re right. It’s important. And I thought when I posted, “He’s gonna say ‘There’s a type of guidance that doesn’t require an illocutionary act of any kind.” I should have added then what I’ll offer now. The issue isn’t with God’s prescribing via illocutionary acts (or visions, dreams, etc.) his directions regarding specific courses of action. It’s not the mode of communicating the specific shape/expression we are to take that’s at issue. God might communicate that (as you say) without words, but the problem would still remain. It’s the source of the determination of the specific shape/expression we take that’s my concern. It’s ‘Who’ shall decide the shape, the specific shape, which our concrete loving expression shall take?

On the one hand all possible forms of goodness and expressive form are just the themes of love, and are creations of God. God’s the source of any particular shape we take. We can take that ‘shape’ because God already is that shape, or, that shape is a possible form of love because the infinite God of creative love grounds (or makes room for) all those possibilities. We can’t (I don’t think) create in this sense. But we can decide WHICH shape our loving expression takes, which possibility (among all those which God created us to explore and express) our concrete particularity takes on.

Apply this to the uniqueness of our present fallen context. Why does the Spirit prescribe, as it were, the ONE right way for us? Because the nature of our contex,  being as fallen and conflicted as it is, means there really is only one right way through the maze. And we don't always know that way. Hence, God leads by way of direction. If sometimes there really is more than one good way, like you said, God’s comfortable saying, “Hey, choose. Go for it.” Therein lies the clue to the sort of relationship we might expect in a fully redeemed and glorified state where there is no maze, no conflicted contorted fallen structures aimed at our demise. All is well. All is good. The future branches out into only good, loving possibilities. No pitfalls we’re ignorant of and so need to be taken by the hand. Just an endless sea of beautiful possibilities to explore.

D: I believe I hear what you're saying...and I think we are agreeing on the main premise of my questions. It seems that we agree that in this fallen world, it makes more sense to continuously open ourselves the specific providential leading of God, however that ends up taking place...so that the most healing (by us following God's continual leading) to the world.

Tom: But that all describes a temporary mission we engage in so long as we’re in this fallen world. It’s not our ‘destiny’ to be forever bringing healing to the sick and fallen. We’ll be beyond that some day. What then? Whatever it is, that is our destiny, and that’s what I’ve always been focused on.

So I’m not sure we can conclude what the nature of God’s determining involvement will be in our fully realized glorified state just by looking at what sort of involvement our present fallen context requires of him.

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

D: To you, the only real compatibilism that will be existing in glorified human existence is that all perceptions, evaluations, and meaning-making will only be able to be within the "divine themes" (meaning love, joy, peace, beauty, wisdom, etc) and they would not be free to choose outside of those "divine themes" in their human perceiving, evaluating, and meaning-making.

Tom: That’s what I’ve always understood our becoming ‘compatibilistically loving’ to mean. It’s what I’ve always understood God’s being compatibilistically loving to mean as well.

D: However, within that compatibilism, I hear you say (using some of your descriptions), our human “true ‘self’, our ‘logos’” actually acts as IS [if I may edit to clarify what I’m saying] “a gift of creative capacities to interpret the divine themes of love, not specific determinations minutely prescribed.” In other words, the glorified human ‘self’ or ‘logos’ can freely choose options within the parameters of the “divine themes” and even “particular divine intention” ... WITHOUT there being  meticulous "linetracing" of divine intention by the human being in the Eschaton.

Tom: Couldn’t have said it better myself. Just one thing though. I’m not sure what you mean by “and even ‘particular divine intention.” If God intends some particular form of expression for us, then that’s that. I don’t think that can’t happen. All relationships have some of that from time to time I suppose. But if you just mean God’s intending a specific range within a particular theme (I’m stuck on music) and intend us to explore the possibilities and expression our creative selves and so reflect him…then yeah. But then that isn’t any different from the “divine themes” and precedes the phrase, and your “even” means “particular divine intension” is something other than the “divine themes.” Other than that, sounds good.

T

Post Edited (HumanHypostasis) : 3/6/2008 8:37:46 AM (GMT-6)

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Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/6/2008 10:15:41 AM (GMT-6)

D: Wonderful! We're on the same pages.

Tom: I’m not at all convinced!

D: To my mind, the only telos that I see for human beings is Christ. Like really. That's it. Christ.

Tom: That can mean different things in concrete experiential terms, though. Until you fill it out, I don’t know what it means. And I think we have different experiential templates or expectations into which we’re trying to fit “Christ is the telos” in our attempt to describe what our being fully for Christ as our ‘telos’ looks like.

D: …and we epicletically participate in that self-revelation and self-sharing continually in God's Time in God's World by God's Spirit as God's Children in Christ.

Tom: There’s the epicletical thing again. Maybe this is where the road divides between you and me. Dunno. For you this has lead to a particular kind of relationship, one I don’t aspire to.

D: The New Humanity IS Christ's Body, having Christ's "Nous", being "anointed" by Father's Spirit...always seeking to bring glory to the Father.

Tom: Again, tokens for deeper ideas we handle differently I think.

D: I know you'd agree with that.

Tom: With the ‘language’, yeah. I mean, I don’t want to abandon biblical metaphors. But I’m not sure we understand them the same way.

D: The thing is this: How much "determining involvement" does God possess in a human being who experiences the fullness of this reality?

Tom: That’s my question. I hope you understand WHY that’s an important question to me. I can’t believe you agree with me on WHY this is an important question, though, since our notions of personhood and God’s purpose for creation are so different.  That is, what motivates me to ask the question about the level of determining involvement (if that’s a good phrase) are beliefs you don’t share, like our being persons in ‘face to face’ relation to God.

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

Tom: So I’m not sure we can conclude what the nature of God’s determining involvement will be in our fully realized glorified state just by looking at what sort of involvement our present fallen context requires of him.

D: Right.

Tom: Then why do you make these conclusions?

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

D: Now, because of the telos that we are dealing with [Christ]...and because Christ is literally the Archetype of Humanity, the absolute last word and definer of what it means to be human...I feel like we have to consider his divine humanity in this whole thing. This leads to some implications for me.

Tom: Just jumping in for a second before you get to those implications:

If one says that human beings remain forever free to determine the shape their loving expression takes, then Christ as ‘telos’ of human existence HAS to be understood carefully. It can’t mean a kind of Hegelian ‘return’ of creation into God, nor a collapse of identity (because there’s no collapse of sources that determine the choice to express (viz., the shape of loving expression). Christ as ‘telos’ has to be consistent with a certain ‘letting go’ or ‘letting be’ of self-determining centers of experience. Those quotes of David Hart I posted get to the importance of this point.

Perhaps what ‘participation’ means comes in here. In my view, participation occurs when an entity is defined by its relation to some other entity. That’s all participation is. And that definition comes from Normal Russell’s book on Deification (the book Behr said was the best one volume survey there is). But this entails (rather than precludes) self-determination for both entities. If one wholly determines the other, there’s no more participation of one in the other to speak of. In other words, participation and determination are incompatible. Participation implies a certain ‘distance’ and ‘difference’ which is the space required for participation to occur.

For example (more music analogies), if I play (interpret) a Gershwin tune, I’m participating in Gershwin (as it were). I’m letting myself be defined by him. He provides the themes, key signatures, etc., but I’m there to, not collapsed into Gershwin. People know it’s a Gershwin’s theme (he’s the source and original creator of the score, the theme), but they distinguish between Gershwin and me. Given this, if I were to say Gershwin is my ‘telos’, I could only mean (a) that my creative expression, whose concrete form is made actual by me, is perceived for what it is, an ‘interpretation’ and ‘free expression’ of Gershwin; and (b) that I purpose all I do (as Paul says, “whatever you do, do heartily, as for the Lord”) for Gershwin, as a gift of love and gratitude offered BACK to him. But since we’re determining the shape of our music, played in his honor, there’s something in the music when we play it back to him that isn’t there when he gives it to us. And what that something is is the self-determined shape of creative expression. And I think that’s what God is after. Creation IS a gift of the Father to the Son, yes. But what the gift is is others who do creatively and freely by grace what Father and Son do creatively and freely by nature, not others who are the mere instrumentality for the determinations of divine expression.

I’m doing a poor job at this, but I hope it’s clear.

OK, your three points.

D: 1) Christ-the-Logos is homoousias with our human energy and nature. Everything that we are, humanly speaking (excluding sin and gnomic will)...Jesus was and is, as the Risen Lord.

Tom:  Jesus shares the kind-essential properties of human nature. Yes.

D: Christ's human "logos" was the "unifying center of consciousness" for his self-understood Messianic existence as "Jesus of Nazereth" walked the streets of Jerusalem. This means that he had to have the same "creative capacities to interpret the divine themes of love, not specific determinations minutely prescribed" as what we are talking about right now. Jesus had a human "logos" for meaning-making just like you (Tom), me, Jeff, Corey...any other human being. Had to.

Tom: I’ll remain silent. Not because I’m sure I disagree. But because I don’t know.

D: He wouldn't be fully human otherwise.

Tom: I’m not sure that follows. But I understand where you’re coming from. My hesitation is motivated by the Nestorian feel of it. Looks like you have God assuming another person.

D: This is why Christ-the-Logos' human "logos" (like every OTHER human "logos", Theotokos included)…

Tom: Her name was Mary.

D: …had to FREELY CHOOSE to obey the divine will in Gethsemane. Moreover, that's how he had the ability to percieve himself as differeniated from God, even unto experiencing human "sorrow unto death" in his soul and abandonment by God...while BEING God Himself! (My soul feels sorrowful unto death...My God, My God...Why do you call me good...etc)

Tom: The depth of the water is too deep for me. Can’t swim out that far.

D: 2) It's interesting to me that all of this occurs...even to the point of creaturely creative interpretation of "divine themes"...while there is no created human person in Jesus.

Tom: That’s unintelligible to ME, for the creaturely determination of self-expression is what constitutes human personhood, and we’re denying a human person in the case of Christ.

D: Jesus's humanity was "enhypostasized" by God the Logos. Anhypostasis/enhypostasis. The person of the human hypostasis "Jesus of Nazereth" was Christ-the-Logos (a divine person)...who experienced human reality through Christ-the-Logos' human energy: Jesus' human "logos". A human beings "logos" was the way by which Christ-the-Logos fully experienced subjective, first-person created order experience...but no corresponding human person emerged. This seems to indicate that a human "logos" is not equivalent to a human person.

Tom: Not sure. If I can make these things mean what I’d like them to me, then “logos” is nothing more or less than the presence of God saying, “This is your room to be.” My ‘logos’ is God’s dream for me, God’s intentions for me. So it’s not a human person, no. BUT it’s not a concrete anything. It’s the conceptual content of what God wants to see concretized. The ‘person’ is what we call the concretization of those intensions. And here we run into a problem when we say there was a separate, non-divine, concrete creaturely entity who actualizes the ‘logos’ for the human Jesus.

I can’t go out any farther from shore.

D: Wherever created human personhood lies, it cannot lie specifically in the human "logos" or it's noetic exercise.  Our "logos", as important as it is to ego development and personal expression, is NOT the SOURCE of the human "person".

Tom: I’m inclined to see them a lot closer than you are.

D: 3) Obviously, Jesus is the ARCHETYPE of kind of human "logos"/ Holy Spirit perichoretic interpenetration humanity is designed to exist in. I can actually get with this. Really.

Tom: I’m not sure I even understand it. I will say this though, and I think I’m on solid ground. Both Russell and, hmm, who else was I reading? Oh yeah, Torrance (The Christian Doctrine of God), and Gunton as well, all differentiated between the perichoresis definitive of the divine persons and perichoresis definitive of our relationship to God. It’s not exactly the same thing. Some object to using the word to describe our relationship to God for just this reason, it originally meant to describe the unique metaphysical/ontological unity of the divine persons, precisely in the way we were recognized as NOT sharing in God’s life.

D: You may have convinced me of your position, dude.

Tom: Then I must not understand anything, because I can’t see which part of my position you agree with.

T

I still think we agree on things more than disagree.


************************

Tom:
Perhaps what ‘participation’ means comes in here. In my view, participation occurs when an entity is defined by its relation to some other entity. That’s all participation is. And that definition comes from Normal Russell’s book on Deification (the book Behr said was the best one volume survey there is). But this entails (rather than precludes) self-determination for both entities. If one wholly determines the other, there’s no more participation of one in the other to speak of. In other words, participation and determination are incompatible. Participation implies a certain ‘distance’ and ‘difference’ which is the space required for participation to occur.

I'm totally with your idea of participation.  Jesus' creaturely, non-divine spiritual nature participated in the uncreated, divine Holy Spirit, continually. Two energies in Jesus. Two wills in Jesus. Two "minds" in Jesus. There is self-determination seen in BOTH SPIRITS...and...there is a certain "distance" and "difference" between Jesus' human spirit and the God's Holy Spirit.

Makes sense.

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/6/2008 4:01:50 PM (GMT-6)

Again, Jesus is my main thing.  Jesus is the epitome of what it means to be human.  He is the very Archetype of Humanity, as Nesteruk would say.  Ware is emphatic that Jesus has the  same human makeup that we do, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, etc...just with no sin or gnomic will.  Homoousias.  So whatever we say about ourselves that deals with what it fundamentally means to be a human being...it MUST be applied to Jesus' humanness.  It simply must.

So, I'm willing to say that Jesus' human nature (human spirit/soul/body) PARTICIPATED in Jesus' divine nature (God the Son/Logos) via the human nature's indwelling of the Holy Spirit...such that Jesus'  “true ‘self’...his ‘logos’... actually IS “a gift of creative capacities to interpret the divine themes of love, not specific determinations minutely prescribed.” In other words, Jesus' human ‘self’ or ‘logos’ can freely choose options within the parameters of the “divine themes” and even “particular divine intention” ... WITHOUT there being meticulous "linetracing" of divine intention by the human being in the Eschaton.

This would be AGREEING with you, Tom. 

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/6/2008 9:51:58 PM (GMT-6)