Human beings are subservient to God in every respect. Our worship as well as our interaction with God is dependent upon our recognition of where we stand in relationship to our Creator.  "He must increase, but I must decrease”, right? I didn't hear anything in these broadcasts claiming that Christians are anything but subservient to God.

Grace and Peace, Joe

Nothing shall be said to be "impossible" for God!

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 4/3/2008 7:28:45 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 4/3/2008 8:26:39 AM (GMT-5)

D, I don’t think you’re crazy, so don’t worry about that.

How I read ‘em:

“The many logoi are the single divine Logos passed through the prism of God’s creative act and broken into innumerable separate beams.”

I just don’t know what this means. I shiver at what I think it means. I know what “the many logoi are the single divine Logos” means, and that’s pantheism. So somewhere after the word “Logos” you get from pantheism to biblical creation. I’m just wondering where it happens. Given the grammar, it’s the single divine Logos who is “passed through the prism of a creative act.” The Logos passed through a creative act? And this act “breaks [the Logos] into innumerable separate beams.”

I’m lost. What I seem to understand looks like pantheism. All is the single Logos, just broken into beams through a creative act. If the single Logos goes in one side, it looks to me like the Logos comes out the other side, just broken into separate beams (like a single block of playdough that you push through a grater that separate it into beams or chunks or little balls).

And this:

“Their collective meaning is simply the Logos Himself as He is manifested in creation.”

You really are surprised that this looks like pantheism? The words “simply” and “as he is manifested in creation” don’t do much to empty to word “creation” of meaning. What’s created?

“As St. Maximus puts it, ‘the one Logos is many logoi, and the many logoi are one Logos’.’

And that’s all there is? Looks like pantheism or some kind of theology of emanation.

NOW, Greg:

Greg: The disposition of God to create a non-divine reality--which is itself a contingent feature of God's necessary disposition to be God (I am's note: Self-Relationship!)--…

Tom: On your note…Self-relationship? Where the heck do you see that? We debated this a year ago and Greg clarified it. That which is a “contingent feature” here is not the “non-divine reality,” but rather the exercise of God’s creativity in bringing about a non-divine reality. Greg’s not saying here that creation is a “contingent feature of God.” He’s saying creation is the result of a contingent exercise of an essential divine creativity.

Greg: …is thus a disposition to create experiential centers of, and contributors to, non-divine beauty. It is a disposition to create a matrix of relations with ordinal centers, each of which enjoys and/or contributes to an approximation of divine beauty. The divine disposition "diffuses itself" (Edwards) into a multiplicity of dispositions which "aim at" a unique actualization, a unique perspective on reality, which is defined either as an contribution to, and/or an experience of, beauty.

Tom: That’s why Greg agrees with me that we are personally distinct from God, because these ordinal centers “contribute” through self-determination and a free and unique creativity and perspective. Greg would call such ‘centers’ persons; self-determining, self-perceiving, freely creative lovers and beauty-makers.

Greg: It is at this point of this "diffusion" that the distinction between God and the non-divine world occurs. The multiplicity of dispositions towards non-divine realities are themselves non-divine in their concrescence.

Tom: In their personhood, yes. Their concrete, freely-determined and creatively form/self. I’ll give you $100 if Greg would not agree with me.

Greg: The "termini" of God's creative act is not (as with Neville) the creature act itself…

Tom: Right. You’re on record here as agreeing with Neville that our acts (thoughts, choices, etc.) ARE the termini of the divine will. Do you think Maximus would agree with Greg that fully realized human being remains forever self-determining in its creative expression of love?

Greg: …but the beginning of the (not wholly determined) disposition of the creature which shall act. The non-divine disposition arises out of God--it is an aspect of God's self-disposition to delight in Godself--and results in what is not God.

Tom: I’d be interested in checking with Greg. By “non-divine disposition” he obviously means the “creature’s free and creative exercise of natural capacities.”

On the one hand, D, ANY word we use to try to “capture” the very essence of the creative act in the moment God ‘lets go’ so that creation ‘comes into being’ is going to come up short. I mean, come on, diffusion? I personally told Greg I don’t like “diffuse” at all. And “arises out of God” is nebulous too. What’s that even mean? BUT…when Greg does get down to the level of the creature things are clearer. It’s clear for example that our disposition for creative expression is a “non-divine” disposition. That leaves open the question of what it means for this disposition to “arise out of God” and be an “aspect of God’s self-delight.” Greg would have to weight in. I’d say God’s choice to create non-divine dispositional realities who, like God, dispose themselves freely and creatively (which is what non-divine persons are in my view) is an expression of God’s disposition to delight in Godself the way parents decide to have children as an aspect and participation of their own marital bliss.

Greg: The relative autonomy of the non-divine dispositions is manifested in their autonomous--viz. not divinely determined--creativity, though their relative dependence is manifested in their tie to the primordial disposition of God as the ground of their creativity.

Tom: Nobody doubts are “tie to the primordial disposition of God.” We’re not self-existent. We cannot generate our own existence and personal being. But this dependence upon God doesn’t mean we aren’t personally distinct from God. That we are freely creative in the expression of love DOES mean we are personally distinct from God.

You underline all the parts that SOUND like they support your claim that we aren’t non-divine persons. I don’t dispute these portions. They capture our dependency upon God. But I focus on the parts that can only make sense (to me) if we are personally distinct from God.

I think part of our problem is that you see what is unique to each human being as a “ego-periphery,” so that ‘difference,’ ‘uniqueness,’ ‘unrepeatability’, ‘irreducibility’ all are PERIPHERAL. You clearly like Plotinus’ (and other Greeks) tendency to view ‘oneness’ and ‘unity’ are ontologically prior to ‘diversity’  and ‘differentiation’. I mean, look at your expression of it. The ‘difference’ gets pushed to the periphery, away from the ‘center’ which is the ONE, the Logos, etc.

Tom

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 4/3/2008 10:13:52 AM (GMT-5)

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Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 4/3/2008 2:07:38 PM (GMT-5)