D: In your perspective, the PERSON of God the Logos says ‘not my will’ through the human will. From your perspective, the ‘my’ is representative of PERSONAL ownership such that God the Logos ‘owns’ the human will of Jesus.

Tom: You dispute any of this? Did God the Logos assume a human will or not? If so, the Logos not only can but MUST say “my” will with respect to this human will. And if it’s assumed by the person of the Logos, then yes, it’s the Logos’ will.

D: And you say that the ‘your will’ representative of God the Father's PERSONAL ownership of the divine will prehended by Jesus.

Tom: Not sure I followed that. I’m just suggesting that in the Garden two PERSONS are having a conversation. And the only two around are God the Son and God the Father. This much has to be the case. Only PERSONS dispose responsibly of the faculty of ‘will’, only persons make ‘choices’ (of this sort at least). So the “my” has to refer to a PERSON, a responsible subject/agent, the ‘who’ who is disposing of ‘will’ in this case. And there simply is no one else on the horizon but God the Son, the only such person around.

So the “my” has to refer to God the Son. If it’s true that God has one will which is in no way differentiated in its exercise (as I’m wondering might be the case, but let’s say it’s not), and clearly there is reference here to two ‘wills’ or faculties of volition, then we just assign a will to each of the two PERSONS having this conversation. One will to the Father and one will to the Son. The Father is easy to account for. That’s the eternal will of God. Fine. Well, “my” will then has to be the only OTHER will available—that human will assumed BY THE SON.

Do you agree D that God (now that the Son is incarnate) has TWO wills and not one?

What’s the problem then?

D: This means that God the Logos (A DIVINE PERSON), in your view, is the ‘center of willing’ is DISTINCT and RELATIVELY AUTONOMOUS from the ‘center of willing’ of God the Father (ALSO A DIVINE PERSON) such that God the Logos can actually DENY his own will to TAKE UPON HIMSELF the Father's will.

Do you see the implicit tritheism there?

Tom: I don’t particularly see the threat of tritheism here, no. But that doesn’t mean I won’t have to be careful, or address these issues. If I have to bail some water, so does everybody!

Tom

D: During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

Tom: Great passage.

D: WHO was the One who could save Jesus from death?

Tom: The same one to whom he offered his prayers, God the Father.

D: WHO heard Jesus?

Tom: The same, God the Father.

D: WHAT NATURE of Jesus wanted to be ‘saved from death’?

Tom: I think this is clearly a reference to the Garden, so we’re back to that passage. But I’m a bit uncomfortable with the question. Wouldn’t it make more sense to ask “WHO wants to be saved from death?” not “What ‘nature’ wants to be saved from death?” We don’t usually talk about ‘natures’ going around wanting things and offering prayers.

But D, look the most important phrase in the whole passage: “Son though he was…” That’s huge. That fixes the identity of the one offering these prayers, learning these lessons, and yes, even being perfected through suffering. And the very manner of expression (the adversative “though”) assumes the objection, “Hey wait a sec, this is God the Son we’re talking about. You can’t say he learned or was ‘perfected’.” The writer anticipates this in “Son though he was.” In other words, the author is saying, “I’m saying these thing about God the Son, no someone else, “Though it was God the Son who is offering these prayers, learning these lessons, being perfected in his human nature….”

Great title for a new book on Christology: Son Though He Was. Oooo. I like that. There’s a lot riding on the adversative “though.” It’s big.

Tom

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/30/2008 1:25:38 AM (GMT-5)

B, I’ve like the two episodes I’ve heard so far. Nothing objectionable at the heart of what they’re saying. But I think that when D is finished interpreting them for me, I’ll have a lot to object to. I’ll just say this. If what they MEAN to say is what D is saying, then they’re lousy communicators, ‘cause they surely give me the impression of believing that we enjoy personal relationships TO God (not AS God) (i.e., inter-personal relations).

Tom

Post Edited (Sahid) : 3/30/2008 2:21:43 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/30/2008 11:07:30 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/30/2008 11:20:34 AM (GMT-5)

D: THAT'S why Tom's program won't work.

Tom: I have a program? ;o)

D: Tom posits that God the Logos has a INDIVIDUAL DIVINE center of self-consciousness and self-determination that incarnated…

Tom: I’m not sure on the terms. I think the Son incarnated, yes, assuming human nature, yes. I hope that’s not bad. The Son is a conscious, volitional person, no? So wouldn’t the self-conscious person of the Son be incarnated in/through human nature? That’s bad?

D: …in the human, Jesus of Nazareth...taking the place of a human "heart" common in nature with all other humans.

Tom: Not sure what you mean by ‘heart’ (is that the mind/nous/heart/logos?). But I think HOW you define it includes all the things I’d want to say a ‘person’ is. But when I ask you what ‘person’ is over and against this ‘heart’, this self who freely determines its loving and creative expression to God, I can’t get an answer. So it looks to me, D, as if what you’re calling a mere attribute of human nature I’m calling the person.

D: …No human "logos"…

Tom: Well, I specifically tried to stay away from the technical terms. What I tried to express was the idea that the Son/Logos does not intend the humanity of Jesus to stand in a person-to-person relationship with himself (as IS God’s intention for us). THAT is what I’M saying when I suggest Christ didn’t have a human logos, nothing more. This is the disagreement that stands between us. I will not relinquish the interpersonal nature of our relationship to God.

If ‘logos’ has something to do with this concern of mine, then I’m open to saying the Logos doesn’t prescribe a ‘logos’ for his own personal incarnate becoming. BUT if ‘logos’ is something else (that I’m not understanding, and that might be likely!), if it’s just a kind-essential property of human nature per se, then sure, the Logos assumed a human ‘logos’ (as strange as that sounds). Please understand me D. I don’t want to deny Christ any kind-essential properties. If I’m a heretic, I’m an honest one who wants to believe the truth and is trying to find it. If the Church excommunicates people like that, then, well, God help us all. ;o)

D: And this Divine Person related to God the Father's INDIVIDUAL DIVINE center of self-consciousness and self-determination throughout his life...and demonstrated in Gethsemane. "Not my will, but Your Will be done."

Tom: I gave a bit of attention to one suggestion, just thinking out loud, regarding how it might be the case that God has one faculty of will, as it were, that each divine person disposes of in ways unique and definitive of his/her own personhood. Gee, I don’t know. Yes I should have this all nailed down and boxed up before I do a PhD. Maybe I won’t do a PhD if I have to have the Trinity boxed up!

D, I just don’t know how to conceive (we’re talking just trinitarian relations now) of two ‘persons’ in loving relationship to one another if one does all the willing, period. It’s just inconceivable to me. I could repeat the words for you, but I’d have no idea what I was saying. Interpersonal, loving, other-affirming, relationships (or something more wonderful than this that these poor words aim at describing) in which there’s no ‘agreement’, no choosing to love, no disposing of will definitive of personal expression? I might as well be speaking Martian to say this is what I think God is.

But I don’t want to be a polytheist either. I might never figure it out. But I’ll remain a worshipper of Jesus, as true a lover as I can be, and dig my claws into the Cross as my only hope. That’ll get me home and maybe someday I’ll understand who the Trinity is.

Maxime: “…which makes man god to the same degree as God Himself became man…”

Tom: OK, so Christ was a divine person with a human nature. To make the degree symmetrical, the ‘exchange’, we should be human persons with divine natures. Is that it?

Tom

One being...experiencing self-differentiation, self-understanding, and self-communication in one's self-experience of self-relationship.  (That's a mouthful...)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/30/2008 12:53:11 PM (GMT-5)

I ask a sensual man, “Who are you?” and he replies, “I am I,” and he thinks of his body.

I ask a thinking man, “Who are you?” and he replies, “I see two sides in myself and I make my way between them, associating first with one and then the other,” and he is thinking of his instinctive and conscious soul.

I ask a spiritual man, “Who are you?” and he replies, “There is someone in the depths of my soul. I stretch out my hand to grasp him but see that to do that I would need arms longer than the universe. Ask him who I am.”

St. Nicholai of Zicha (Velimirovich)

http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2007/12/04/who-am-i/