Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/30/2008 7:48:01 AM (GMT-5)

Help!

B: What's the philosophical term behind Augustine's determinism being based on connection will with nature? Help!

Tom: Determinism? Augustinianism?

Heresy?

Zach, I’m surprised you couldn’t find any definition of human ‘nature’ that included the ‘will’. That sounds strange. Will not an attribute of human nature? Not sure. Like I said, the idea that ‘will’ is not an attribute of nature but rather to be located in the divine ‘energies’ sounds a bit strange. But when they explained what it was they were trying to avoid by saying this, I can see their point. If the exercise of the will is, as they say, ‘determined by nature’, if the ‘choices you make are determined by your nature’, then those choices can’t be libertarian. So to avoid this the Orthodox relocate the ‘will’ in the divine energies/actions of God.

But in the podcast Steve did say that we (and God): “express our will through the energy of our actions.” That’s a bit different.

What I would like to say is that ‘will’ IS a faculty of nature, a disposition, a capacity to dispose one’s self but that this doesn’t mean nature ‘determines’ the exercise of will in the way Steve and Bill think. Steve and Bill think that whatever is an attribute of divine nature is fixed and determinate because they understand that nature as fixed and determinate or absolutely immutable. And in a sense it IS unchanging, but perhaps all that means is the unchanging capacity of the divine persons to dispose themselves freely. We CAN locate the faculty of will in the divine nature (and probably should IF we want to keep saying there's only ONE divine will) AND avoid deterministic implications IF we view that nature as including the capacity/disposition for free expression. In other words, it is an unchanging feature of God’s nature to express or dispose Godself freely. After all, what is nature but the dispositional capacities, the tools, by which the PERSON expresses his/her identity and relates to others?

This still lets us say God’s nature is unchanging, just unchangingly free. So the ‘faculty’ of will or ‘capacity for disposition’ is located in the nature, but its ‘exercise’ is determined by the person. That’s how I’ve always seen it. WHO we perceive ourselves to be determines HOW we exercise our will (our natures). That’s why we can never choose outside of how we fundamentally view ourselves, why changing our self-perception is how we break habits of choice. See? How God perceives God’s identity, God’s self-perception, the PERSON (F, S, or SP) determines the exercise of the divine will. But that ‘will’, as a ‘capacity’ or ‘faculty’ by which the divine persons dispose or express themselves, is a property of the divine nature; it’s just that it’s exercise is determined freely by the persons, or the personal identities, of God. I think explained this way Steve and Bill might agree. Don’t know.

And this I think might give us a way to agree that God, as one ultimate being, one God as opposed to three, has one such ‘faculty of will’ while also saying (what you and I wanna say) that the ‘unique exercise of will’ is part of the distinctive identities of each divine person. So it’s the Father’s ‘faculty’ so to speak (because he’s the fount or source for both Son and Spirit), but it’s exercised uniquely in ways determined by the personal identities of each. In other words, the divine will is expressed in unique ways expressive of, say, SONSHIP, determined by the person, the identity of, the Son which are not expressly definitive of FATHERHOOD or the SPIRIT. That doesn’t mean that all three don’t share in what any one does. It just means that the unique identities of God (F, S, and SP) determine the divine will in diverse ways, determined BY each identity.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 3/31/2008 12:47:33 AM (GMT-5)

The persons are mutually defining, right? A ‘father’ can only BE a ‘father’ by relating to a ‘son’. So though the Father generates the Son, the Son also contributes to the definition of ‘father’. So I don’t see the problem in saying there’s ‘one divine will’ in the sense that the Father’s will is the source and fountainhead of the others, and that the capacity to dispose of the identities of Son and Spirit as capacities is derived necessarily from the Father in a way that defines the Father’s own identity. To BE a ‘father’ just is to generate personal others, others in whom the father possesses/has his identity AS father. But unless this capacity for identity disposition is differentiated in its exercise to and through Son and Spirit (in addition to Father), can there really be a distinction of persons between them? That’s what’s behind Zach and my prodding on the issue of will. But where Zach may want to say each of the three has his/her own ‘will’ exercised independently of the others (i.e., three wills), that’s too much for me. I want to find a way to differentiate the exercise of the one will in unique ways reflective of the personal distinctions between them, and that may be too much for D and B (and Orthodoxy).

T

D: I like the disposition idea, Tom. I think that can actually work.

Tom: Pause…

…aaahhhhhh…

Just wanna enjoy that agreement for one moment.

D: It would make sense: God the Father is unchangeably free...and is the "dispositional actuality" of being so.

Tom: Right. The question then is how the one will gets differentiated in its exercise in Son and Spirit, because person (and all three are distinct persons) is disposed volitionally.

D: Maybe we should ask these questions:

Is God the Father ever an "Object" as well as "Subject"?
Is God the Son ever an "Object" as well as "Subject"?

Tom: I’m taking “object” roughly to stand in for “thou” (as in one addressed as personally distinct by the person doing the addressing), and not “objectified” (which is depersonalizing), just to be clear. In other words, to perceive another as an “object” isn’t to “objectify” them, it’s just to recognize them as personally distinct. And I take “subject” roughly as an “I” (as in one addressing another as personally distinct). No one is a person whose identity is not possessed in the act of BOTH addressing (as an “I”) and being addressed (as a “thou”), that’s the give-and-take of interpersonal relationality.

So yes, I’d say God’s personal nature can be understood in terms of inter-personal “I-thou” address and response. Apart from this personal address and response, the distinction of persons in loving relation is unintelligible (in my uneducated pre-PhD undecided opinion).

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 3/31/2008 1:41:44 PM (GMT-5)

Browse through this, carefully.

I'm not sure what's there; but I'm sure it is worth a look, and a careful bit of looking.

http://christianforums.com/t1700325-oo-vs-eo.html&page=2

FOUND.   Click on the long LINKS.

dr david bradshaw, university of kentucky

"The Concept of the Divine Energies."  A talk that summarizes some of the main ideas of my book, Aristotle East and West:  Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom.  Presented to Philosophy departments at  Purdue University and the University of Pennsylvania, Fall 2006

http://www.uky.edu/~dbradsh/papers/Concept of the Divine Energies.doc

.

"A Christian Approach to the Philosophy of Time."  Describes the thought of the Greek Fathers on time & eternity, with a brief suggestion for how it can be applied to the problem of human freedom & divine foreknowledge.  Presented at a conference on Christian approaches to metaphysics, June 2006.

http://www.uky.edu/~dbradsh/papers/Christian Approach to Phil of Time.pdf

.

"Christianity East & West:  Some Philosophical Differences."  Summarizes the basic differences between the Augustinian, Thomistic, and Greek patristic traditions, viewing them in relation to their common sources in Plato.  Presented at Asbury College, November 1999. 

http://www.uky.edu/~dbradsh/papers/Christianity East & West.doc

.

"The Divine Glory and the Divine Energies."  Discusses the divine glory as a source for the doctrine of the divine energies.  Forthcoming in Faith and Philosophy, the journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers.

http://www.uky.edu/~dbradsh/papers/Divine Glory and Divine Energies.doc

.

"On Drawing the Mind into the Heart:  Psychic Wholeness in the Greek Patristic Tradition."  An introduction to the idea of "drawing the mind into the heart" in the Greek patristic tradition.  Presented at the Sino-American Symposium on Philosophy & Religious Studies, Peking University, July 2006.

http://www.uky.edu/~dbradsh/papers/Drawing the Mind into the Heart.doc

.

"Christianity During the First Millennium."  Briefly describes the origin of practices such as fasting, confession, and veneration of saints in the ancient church.  Written for my classes on the Middle Ages & Renaissance in the U.K. Honors Program. 

http://www.uky.edu/~dbradsh/papers/Christianity During the First Millenium.doc

 

BRADSHAW IS MENTIONED IN THE LAST TWO-FIFTHS OF STEVE AND BILL'S PODCAST No.5!

Essence and Energy, Relics Part 5

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

We continue the discussion of essence and energy and give a very broad overview of the influence of the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle on Augustine and Aquinas and how philosophy has influenced the views of God in the West. . We also discuss how the East and West's views of God manifest themselves in how we view creation and the human being's relationship to God.

Post Edited (praying4tom) : 3/31/2008 6:27:53 PM (GMT-5)

WHAT WAS...

 

http://www.uky.edu/~dbradsh/papers/Christian%20<b></b>Approach%20<b></b>to%20<b></b>Phil%20<b></b>of%20<b></b>Time.pdf

 

BECOMES...

 

http://www.uky.edu/~dbradsh/papers/Christian Approach to Phil of Time.pdf

 

Post Edited (praying4tom) : 3/31/2008 6:29:23 PM (GMT-5)

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Could this be "uniting ourselves to the Person of Christ" such that we "realize our personhood in the way the God intended it to be"...that Steve and Bill talked about?

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 4/1/2008 9:25:45 AM (GMT-5)