Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/12/2008 6:45:58 PM (GMT-5)

D: The human potential for “personhood” is fully released in “the hypostasis of ecclesial existence” meaning “epicletic life in Christ-the-Logos.”

Tom: A couple more Q’s, D. (1) Wouldn’t the fulfillment of a “potential for personhood” BE personhood? I think so. (2) I have no problems with that fulfillment obtaining and existing in community with others. Exactly. I just say the ‘person’ in our case is created, not divine. Even Zizy recognizes the necessity of differentiation into particularity. Particularity, particular persons that is, have their being, their personhood, in communion with others. So ecclesial existence doesn’t preclude the genuine otherness of human personhood (in relationship of course). There’s still an irreducible and unrepeatable personal entity that is the particular. It’s just fulfilled ecstatically. (3) I’m still looking for what you’d add to

·         non—divine centers of experience,

·         thinking, feeling, choosing beings,

·         self-determining/self-disposing in the freely creative expression of love,

·         self-perceiving in our apprehension of all of the above,

·         stand, in all of the above, in relationship to God.

to get ‘persons’. You never said. You talk about the ‘human potential for personhood’. Is that a potential for something NOT listed in the above five points? You agree the above five is what we shall be but disagree that we constitute persons. So…what’s missing from these five points that constitutes the fulfillment of the human potential for personhood?

In other words, D, I don’t see that you can have a ‘corporate person’ as it were that’s constituted by ‘non-personal particulars’. That’s not what ‘ecclesial existence’ is. You can’t add together a bunch of non-persons/non-personal beings and get one corporate person. You get the corporate identity/person in Christ because of what it is that each particular brings to and receives from all the others. When those particulars relate in their personal capacities, you have the Body of Christ.

D:  Christ didn't have "ecclesial existence" because Jesus IS the Incarnate Word, THE Divine Human. He is the Archetype and Image of whom we are "images".

Tom: That’s a claim, not an explanation. It doesn’t explain how the HUMAN Jesus is NOT a ‘son in the Son’ as we are.

D: We are adopted into CHRIST-THE-LOGOS HIMSELF via the perichoretic indwelling of our human spirit with the Holy Spirit. As we integrate our personhood in God in Christ, we become whole persons...

Tom: You still have a problem. You remind us that Jesus’ human spirit ALSO perichoretically indwells with the Holy Spirit (just as ours does, or ought to), integrating his identity in God (just as is the case with us). But where this indwelling constitutes the ‘adoption’ of the human spirit and human soulish make-up as a ‘son’ in our case, the same human reality in Christ isn't so adopted?  How is it, D, that if the non-divine human spirit of Jesus is what our human spirit is and the mode of relationality (perichoresis) is identical, the human Jesus was not a ‘son in the Son’ as is the case with us? Our human spirits perichoretically indwell with the Holy Spirit and that makes us sons in the Son. But Jesus’ human spirit perichoretically indwelling the same doesn’t make the human in Christ a ‘son in the Son’? One and the same human reality perichoretically indwells the Spirit in our case and constitutes the adoption of the human as a ‘son’ in the ‘Son’, but the same thing with the human Jesus (same entities, same human nature and realities, same perichoresis, same relationship, same Spirit, same EVERYTHING) you say does not constitute a ‘son’ in the ‘Son’. How’s so? What would it be about Jesus’ human make-up (which is identical to ours) or its perichoretic indwelling with the Logos (to which ours is also identical), that accounts for OUR being ‘sons in the Son’ but Jesus’ human reality NOT being adopted as a son in the Son? What DIFFERENCE (and it has to be some difference, of humanity, of identity, of mode of relationality, etc.) accounts for the fact that divine-human relationality as instantiated in Christ on one hand and us on the other hand means we have ‘sons in the Son’ in our case but ‘nothing but the Son’ in Christ’s case?

Your denial that Jesus was a ‘son in the Son’ seems straight up arbitrary to me.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 3/15/2008 12:16:39 PM (GMT-5)

Taking the ideas of enhominization (Incarnation) and epicletic participation in Christ's Incarnation unto theosis (deification)...

What do you understand this to mean?

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/15/2008 3:50:33 PM (GMT-5)

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

Ask Greg about this.

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/15/2008 5:18:22 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/15/2008 6:45:49 PM (GMT-5)

;o)

Post Edited (Tom) : 3/16/2008 12:59:05 AM (GMT-5)

I’m not trying to suggest you have adoptionistic tendencies. I’m not trying to suggest anything. I’m just asking questions.

I don’t think we should say that the human in Christ constitutes a ‘son’ in the ‘Son’ as is the case with us. But if we’re going to say this, I think it has to be grounded in the human side of the equation, not the divine side. You keep saying the human in Christ doesn’t constitute a ‘son’ in the ‘Son’ because of who the ‘Son’ was (eternal Son of God, etc.). I’m not disputing the identity of the divine Logos. But I don't see how the identity of the 'Son' determines in Christ's case that the human shall not become a 'son' while in our case the human does become a 'son'. The identity of the 'Son' to whom/in whom human spirits  (whether Christ's non-divine human spirit or our non-divine human spirits) perichoretically indwell is the same. I’m asking about the identity of the human that is assumed by the Logos. Why does the human spirit of Jesus  (that is everything we are) not qualify to become a ‘son’ as we do?

You have full human nature (non-divine human spirit, mind, body, etc.) that perichoretically indwells with the divine. And this same divine-human relationality (as it’s instantiated in Christ) is exactly what divine-human relationality is to be in our case. What Jesus’s human constitution and related realities were as a human individual, so are we. How the human in Christ perichoretically indwells the divine in Christ is how the human in us perichoretically indwells the divine. So, you say, Jesus’ HUMANITY is the model; it’s everything we are to become. But where in our case this indwelling of the human and the divine makes the human a ‘son’, this doesn’t occur in the case of the human and the divine in Christ’s case--though the human constitution is identity and the mode of relationship the same. I’m wondering why. But it’s no answer to identify the ‘Son’ as uniquely eternal. The question is, why does a non-divine human spirit perichoretically indwelling the divine not become adopted as a ‘son’ in Christ’s case while it DOES become a ‘son’ in our case? What explains why a non-divine human spirit and center of experience perichoretically indwelling the divine in YOUR case makes that non-divine spirit a 'son', but a non-divine human spirit and center of experience perichoretically indwelling the divine in Christ's case does NOT become a 'son'. It cant' be because the 'Son' is eternal. We're not talking about the Son. We're talking about one and the same non-divine reality (the human spirit) relating TO the divine in one and same manner (perichoretically).

That seems like a fair question. But I don’t see how pointing to the eternal sonship of the Logos provides an answer. There has to be something on the human side of the equation that explains why the human in Christ doesn’t qualify for adoption and why the human in us does.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 3/16/2008 1:44:39 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/16/2008 2:52:31 AM (GMT-5)

PS: I pray for this young man.  If he consumes himself with his self-destructive tendencies (because the people around him want MONEY more than his psychological and physical well-being), it'd be a real crime.  Pray as you feel lead, y'all.

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/16/2008 9:34:23 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/16/2008 9:12:20 AM (GMT-5)