My attempt:

 

For me, with regard to the incarnation, I keep it much more simple:  THAT mankind could be joined by the divine Son shows that we are intended for relationship with God in the first place. That tells me that any dispondency or pessimism is unnecessary, and that the Gospel is for me.

 

The incarnation is the model FOR HUMANITY of our being joined to Christ's salvation in the Holy Spirit. I learned the fourty-dollar word "enhypostasized" and took it to mean that the "en" meant that we were made benificiaries of the hypostasis of God the Son, and could therefore benefit from the uncreated life of the Trinity -- through the grace of Jesus Christ by his Spirit.

 

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 4/12/2008 12:51:30 PM (GMT-5)

Wherein is the quest for AUTONOMY OF WILL in here???

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 4/12/2008 12:54:29 PM (GMT-5)

B: The background to my queery is this, that we do not just make ourselves, but make each other and are made by each other.

Tom: Yes. No ‘self-made’ persons. We become persons ecstatically, by a movement outward toward others and receiving of others.

B: Rembling...it is more than just freedom that defines our uniquenss…

Tom: I didn’t suggest it was JUST freedom that defined our uniqueness. I agreed (with Zizioulas) that personal uniqueness isn’t defined WITHOUT such freedom.

B: I don't know what a "sharing of personhood" would have been.

Tom: Nor do I. But D finds it meaningful I think.

D: Tom believes that for a human being to have a human center of consciousness and willing (a human spirit/heart/nous) IS for them to necessarily have a human PERSON in them.

Tom: Spirit, heart, nous…

…I don’t discuss the ‘parts’. Didn’t bring ‘em up. You keep bringing them up. I’m not there right now. Don’t care to even try to define them. I’m not taking that approach.

But for the record…I do NOT equate consciousness and violition with ‘personhood’. I’m happy with saying we ‘become’ persons ecstatically, in relation to other persons. Are you reading my posts Bro? To be a person is to relate, not just to be conscious and volitional (though of course there’s no personhood apart from conscious loving choice either; would you like to argue for a form of personhood that is metaphysically asleep and bereft of volition? Of course not).

D: This IS what he thinks...because he has made relative autonomy of willing as a necessary part of what DEFINES personhood per se.

Tom: Oh my D. Dude, just read Zizioulas on freedom and personhood. Read Papanikolaou’s final chapter on Zizioulas and Lossky from what I posted under the Theology section, OK?

D: I've tried to say that this has TRITHEISTIC implications when the logic is taking out consistently with the 3 PERSONS in the Trinity.

Tom: No such implications though, Bro. We did that. Check out Papanikolaou on the free exercise of each divine person to affirm their existence vis-à-vis the others as constitutive of the Trinity. I ain’t the only one saying this stuff.

T

Post Edited (plato's_playdough) : 4/12/2008 1:36:14 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 4/13/2008 7:02:56 AM (GMT-5)

Do you like the idea of ONE PERSON who has TWO DISTINCT centers of consciousness and will within themselves that FREELY RELATE, one to the other?

D: My question is this: does the human center of consciousness and willing in the Jesus relate FREELY to…

Tom: I’ll try my best. You like to focus in on the ‘parts’ and work out to the larger relational conclusions. I work from the larger relational givens back inward. Who knows.

To “relate freely in love” is to be a person. Only persons do this. So if the human center of consciousness in Christ “relates freely [in love]” to the Father, then it stands “as a person” in-relation-to the Father. And if we’re going to continue to limit the number of ‘persons’ in Christ to ‘one’, then the person “relating freely to the Father” via this human center of consciousness IS the Son and no other. So your question (to me) simply becomes, “Does the Son relate freely to the Father?” That you qualify it with “in his human center of consciousness” is beside the point.

I’m going to say yes (without claiming to understand all the in’s and out’s just now), the Son relates freely in love to the Father. If the Son relates freely to the Father in love, then its time to adjust our thinking about the divine will, freedom and love, and how these constitute trinitarian personhood and existence. Don’t you find the several interesting comments about this made by Papanikolaou on the Being with God thread interesting? God freely determines his own existence? That even God’s existing is beyond ‘necessity’? That the Son and the Spirit each freely affirm their personal existence in response to the Father? Are you picking up on Zizioulas’s equating of freedom and personhood? Come on Bro!

D: …the Father’s “themes of love” while being “LET GO by the Father to determine the composition beyond those essential elements.” Is this what it means to say that Jesus’ human will was “FREELY OBEDIENT” to the Divine Will?

Tom: Again, given one person in Christ (the Son), and the fact that only ‘persons’ possess the fullness of nature in love and freedom…your question can only mean (to me), “Is the Son allowed by the Father to determine the composition of expressive form with regard to the Son’s human nature?” I’ll say yes, the Son does possess this freedom.

The question is the relationship between the exercise of those human natural capacities and the divine person of the Son (not the Father). I could say, “Sure, Jesus exercises his will freely with respect to the Father” and this wouldn’t solve our problem IF it’s the case that as personally distinct from the Father, the Son freely determines the exercise of the divine will vis-à-vis the Father. Any free exercise of the human will in Christ vis-à-vis the Father would just be attributed to the Son. It wouldn’t imply an additional person or identity that emerges in-relationship-to the Son as well (as is the case with us). So the important question is not how the human in Christ relates to the Father, it’s how the human in Christ relates to the Son, and then, do we each relate to the Son this same way? That is, NOT as persons to the person of the Son, but as mere emdodied natures assumed BY the person of the Son. You say yes. This should mean for you that each of us repeats exactly the divine-human arrangement that is God-incarnate, that is, one person—two natures. If not, you’re not holding strictly to your claim that the incarnation is the model for all divine-human relationality—one divine person, two natures, are you?

However, I say that as each of us relates/disposes of his/her nature to Christ, there emerges a person non-identical to the person of the Son. This has to be so because the free and responsible exercise of will in our case is not attributable to the Son (as is the case with Jesus). We are not God-incarnate. Jesus was.

D: What does it mean that the human (NON-DIVINE) will of Jesus FREELY RELATED to the divine will of the Trinity?

Tom: The answer is determined by the number of persons involved. If we assume first that Christ is one person, two natures, then the human will of Jesus is related to the divine will as an additional natural capacity of and the same person. (I’m stretching language I know.) So there is no free exercise of the human will vis-à-vis the divine will, for THAT would mean (per Zizioulas’s insistence that “to be a person is to relate freely”) an additional human person.

The will is determined by identity, D. Right? That is, our wills are at the disposal of our identities. It’s the person, the perceived identity, that animates and determines the exercise of the will. In Christ’s case the SAME identity, SAME person, stands behind the exercise of BOTH wills (human and divine). So for me, D, this means that there is no free relating of the human will to the divine will in the sense your question seems to imply (viz., in the same sense that we relate ourselves freely to the divine will, a free exercise of wills constitutive of persons-in-relation, which we do not have with divine-human communion in Christ).  

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 4/13/2008 7:50:10 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 4/13/2008 8:00:47 AM (GMT-5)

Tom: The will is determined by identity, D. Right? That is, our wills are at the disposal of our identities. It’s the person, the perceived identity, that animates and determines the exercise of the will.

D: How many IDENTITIES are their in God, Tom?

Tom: The ‘will’ qua ‘faculty’, in and of itself, determines nothing of its own exercise. Wills don’t determine themselves, persons (either genuine or false) do. The point is to say that you and I dispose of our identities through our faculty of choice, through the exercise of our wills. We exercise our wills as an expression of how we perceive ourselves or who we believe ourselves to be.

Having said that, I’ll answer your Q: There are three persons who are the one God.

D: So...given what you say, about wills being correlative to “identities,” how many DIVINE WILLS (coming from centers of willing and consciousness) are there in God? Probably as many "Persons"... 3. Right?

Tom: I’m not saying that, and don’t wanna say that. I want to express the same thing Papanikolaou said (in discussing Zizy/Lossky):

“To be hypostatic is, thus, to be unique, as each person is not defined by what is common, but possesses what is common in a unique way.”

He’s talking about the divine persons here. F, S, and SP together dispose of a common will, but each does so in a unique way. Zizioulas/Lossky/AP might be wrong about this, but it seems clear that this is what they’re saying. The divine will is common. That would mean one ‘will’. But each person possesses that will “in a unique way.” That doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t mean that each person disposes of or exercises that will in ways uniquely expressive of and definitive of their distinct identities.