John Zizioulas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

He continues that man initially exists as a biological hypostasis, ... points out where Vladimir Lossky and Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) differ on the ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zizioulas - 35k - Cached - Similar pages

Leithart.com | Divine Energies and Orthodox Soteriology

In his new Being with God, Aristotle Papanikolaou points to differences between Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on the issue of divine energies. ... www.leithart.com/archives/002006.php - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

Kyle David Bennett: Is Zizioulas a Docetist?

[3] He contends that Christ has a biological hypostasis (human) and an ... [1] Keep in mind, Lossky is appropriating Afanasiev and Zizioulas is ... kyledavidbennett.blogspot.com/2008/01/is-zizioulas-docetist.html - 58k - Cached - Similar pages

Post Edited (Tom) : 3/20/2008 1:31:09 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/20/2008 6:52:28 AM (GMT-5)

D: Love is oneness-in-differentiation.

Tom: It seems to me as if there is behind all of this for you a chance to solve the philosophical puzzle of the ages—the One and the Many. “Oneness” and “difference” are concepts, and I feel a bit off expressing love in such ‘dry’ terms. Can we make it more personal and relational? Isn’t that at the heart of love?

How about Love is persons-in-relation?

D: When multiple human beings CHOOSE to only identify ourselves as a "Spirit-born(e) Child of God's Love" (Abba, Father), then you have multiple human beings participating in ONE identity...which is also the eternal identity of God the Son. Christ is our BROTHER!

Tom: Our being Spirit-born children of God’s love is fine with me. I just see that as fulfilled in our being personS-in-relation, not in our being one-and-the-same-person-in-relation. You seem to be saying that latter, so that the ‘oneness’ between us and God is hypostatic, opting for Ware’s 2^nd form of ‘unity’ where we each embody one and the same ‘person’, where I opt for Ware’s 3^rd ‘unity’. So when I look at you, what am I to see? Yes, I see a brother in Christ. And that’s what I am too! Yes, that’s the same identity. BUT we’re not the SAME brother in Christ. Brothers (and sisters) of a family all share one and the same identity in as much as they all share the same Father, not in as much as they are all the same son or daughter. So yes, we have our being 'essesially' so to speak. But each is a unique, unrepeatable, and irreducible brother or sister, not a carbon copy of all the others. If each is (as you agreed recently) self-determining of the unique shape of love’s expressive form, then how can this unique aspect, this unique shape with each determines, not be that which differentiates each ‘personally’, hypostatically, from all other self-determining centers of experience, since self-determination in love IS what constitutes a unique hypostatic entity/person? If each does what a ‘person’ does, and each does it ‘uniquely’, and each determines that uniqueness ‘freely’, how can each not also be a unique person? We are each THAT (a son of God and brother of Christ). But we are each not the SAME that.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 3/20/2008 11:00:55 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/20/2008 3:12:11 PM (GMT-5)

Tom: So when I look at you, what am I to see?

D: "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." "Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." 

When I look at any human being, I am to see CHRIST!  First and foremost.

Tom: I just don’t read this passage the way you do, D. It doesn’t look to me like the unique created hypostatic identities of human beings are melded, enfolded, eradicated, or whatever, by Christ’s own hypostatic identity. All that’s said is that Christ identifies with these people, not that Christ IS these people. Christ treats their interests as his own. That in fact requires a personal distinction.

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

Tom: ...Since self-determination in love IS what constitutes a unique hypostatic entity/person.

D: Aha! This is what's catching you up. This is not accurate. There are 3 persons in the Godhead, but NOT 3 distinct centers of willing.

Tom: They also share one ‘essence’, ‘ousia’, or ‘nature’ (and “will” is an attribute of ‘nature’), which is not the case with us and God.

But my point was that where we DO have self-determining centers of experience who (not ‘that’) freely and creatively dispose themselves in love, whether we can avoid concluding that these are unique and irreducible ‘personal’ subjects. I say we can’t.

D: So self-determination is NOT constitutive of hypostatic personal being per se.

Tom: I didn’t say “self-determination” itself is constitutive of hypostatic personal being (though we can debate that; I’ll agree with Florovsky that “only persons are capable of evil”). But anyhow, what I said was “self-determination IN LOVE” constitutes hypostatic being, and I’ll stick by that. Where the self-determination is in love, it cannot BUT be personal being. Only personal being can self-dispose in love. Where there’s love, there’s personhood. It’s as simple as that. Show me a self-determining center of experience who disposes her natural capacities in freely creative and loving ways who is NOT a personal being.

Anybody come to mind? I didn’t think so.

Tom