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Tom
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Posted 6/25/2008 6:51 PM (GMT -6)

Your conversion to what?

Tom

One Love
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Posted 6/25/2008 6:52 PM (GMT -6)

We're just going to differ on the whole "Real Presence" thing. You are much more memorialist than me...and we're going to see things differently to that degree, specifically with how "one" Christians can become with the Risen Christ.

Let's just say that. Right?

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God."

One Love
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Posted 6/25/2008 6:55 PM (GMT -6)

Dude, I don't disagree with you.

I accept the 1) multiple options and 2) creaturely self-determination of eucharistic activity (acts of creaturely gratitude) by the non-divine personal/gnomic will aspect of Christian believers.

I will also hold that it is rare, if ever that there only one "most loving thing" that can be done by a subject for given situations, pre or post Consummation.

See?

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

Tom
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Posted 6/25/2008 6:57 PM (GMT -6)

Start with persons-in-relation for crying out loud. Let THAT dictate what the Supper is.

I can't believe after all that we land on the elements. Sheesh.

I've gave all I got. I'm now kaput.

Gotta sleep.

Tom

One Love
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Posted 6/25/2008 6:58 PM (GMT -6)

Oy vay...

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

One Love
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Posted 6/25/2008 6:59 PM (GMT -6)

It's my thought that we agree MORE than we disagee here.

Did you look at Egan's stuff?

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

Tom
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Posted 6/25/2008 6:59 PM (GMT -6)

You and Bruce toss it around while I rest up. I'll be back.

T

One Love
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Posted 6/25/2008 7:02 PM (GMT -6)

Cool. Later.

Bruce. If you could, it would be great to see anything you can provide on the "skopos" that Payton talks about. Thanks.

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

Sahid
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Posted 6/25/2008 7:24 PM (GMT -6)

From what I'm reading here...I say that "US" (which respresents human persons) are able to make the "most loving, beauty-creating decisions possible."

I'm trying to see how this gets read as my SPECIFICALLY saying that there is only ONE most loving, beauty-creating things in EVERY situation. I'm trying to see where that's been said. As I'm reading this, nothing I've written above necessitates or maintains that there is ONLY one "most loving" thing to do at one time.

-----------

You could the "the" be replaced with "a" and still say what you intend? "THE most loving, beauty-creating decision possible" sounds definite. Grammatically it is definite.

Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre

PotOnWheel
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Posted 6/25/2008 9:05 PM (GMT -6)

Shekinah said...
Payton's book is SO AWESOME. Thanks for recommending it, Bruce. (I'd really recommend it, Tom. )

It's just what I needed. Spectacular.

He's all over the theosis/deification process. Nice.

Payton told me he'd written a book, and told me to get it.

(o)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 6/25/2008 9:08 PM (GMT -6)

Shekinah said...
Cool. Later.

Bruce. If you could, it would be great to see anything you can provide on the "skopos" that Payton talks about. Thanks.

I did provide the page number!!! PAGE 96.

(Guests from Pennsylvania are here visiting...)

(o)

Tom
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Posted 6/26/2008 8:34 AM (GMT -6)

Skopos = goal, purpose, telos, etc. Has a whole theology been built on the word? Just spit it out ya'll. Come on. If it's that good we'll know it in a paragraph. But I don’t have the time to chase down references. I got time for one or two sites. So give it to me.

As I asked before, if the number of possible courses of action we can make are all equally loving, why would a perfectly secure and loving God NOT WANT perfected loving creatures to determine for themselves which of those possibilities gets realized? I’m hesitant about D’s agreement that God DOES will the self-determined personal expression of creatures. I think that’s pretty big…if D means it (and doesn’t attempt to turn it back into something it’s not—sorry for being so skeptical).

Other questions that follow this believe now have to do with God’s purpose:

1) What are the consequences for our understanding of God’s purposes for creation and the nature of interpersonal relationality IF we suppose divine creativity in such a glorified context to be infinite, that is, to offer to creatures more loving options than they’ll ever be able to exhaust?

and

2) Is not the infinity of divine creativity itself constitutive of divine beauty itself? If so, then should we not assume, in a glorified context that no longer poses a challenge to the full expression of such creativity, where the actualization of all these beautiful possibilities gains a beauty which is achievable only when creatures freely determine which loving option shall be their own, unique, self-expressed worship to God, that God has in fact willed to create such a world and the one we're in is that world?

The second question is actually pretty much what D says he’s agreeing to—that we shall be free in the sense I’ve been arguing for. It just adds the point about the ‘beauty’ that’s behind it. The first question however is more important. If God’s chosen to create a world like this, what’s that tell us about our purpose?

I know what my answer would be, and it wouldn’t SIMPLY be “to be as one with God as possible.” A purpose statement ought actually to explain things, and in my view “to be as beautifully related to God and others as possible” says much more than “to be as one with God as possible.”

One Love
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Posted 6/26/2008 10:55 AM (GMT -6)

Really, really short version:

The deified humanity of Christ that was experienced on Mount Tabor (the Transfiguration of Christ) reveals the "skopos" for humanity to us in full expression. Jesus shows us what occurs when human nature (human "logos" included) is permeated with divine energies (God Himself working in us, Grace) via creative and re-creative Holy Spirit. Christ's humanity was fulfilled and deified...such that divine glory radiated from his humanity. Using an example I heard somewhere (maybe here), it would be like Jesus' humanity being a WHITE HOT metal rod radiating light and heat, the metal rod being suffused in fire.

As a living human being, you don't get more "one" with the Triune God that what we see at the Transfiguration. You don't get MORE interpersonal beauty in human existence on planet Earth than you see in the Transfiguration. (And that was BEFORE death on the Cross).

As I see it, the prescribed "skopos" for human beings is "conformity" to God's Image, Christ. Christ-the-Logos' personal will (working in and through Christ's human spirit) did the NATURAL MOVEMENT of the human will by being PERPETUALLY ALIGNED with the human "logos" for Christ's particular human existence. This worked out such that divine glory of the Father's Spirit permeated his human existence (even the flesh). Jesus' humanity was not only the humanity of the Person of Christ, but was also the actual "dwelling" of the whole Trinity via Christ's Anointing, God's Spirit.

In the Transfiguration, we get a glimpse at what we WILL BE in Christ.

In the Transfiguration, Christ was truly microcosm and mediator...living an existence as person in his humanity being in God's image.

This is what deification's all about, as I understand it: humanity (created, finite) experiencing and "disclosing" divine life from within it's preserved humanness...without being "absorbed" into divinity wholesale. Like what we see in the Transfiguration. This has been made possible for human beings because of the Incarnation.

Interesting thought...

ALL of the quarks, black holes, galaxies, stars, algae, dinosaurs, mammals...all of that had Christ as it's goal, specifically as we see Christ revealed in the Tranfiguration.

There are some nice quotes from Payton. I'll type it out later...

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

Post Edited (Shekinah) : 6/26/2008 11:07:09 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 6/26/2008 11:14 AM (GMT -6)

Maybe I can say it this way...

Humanity was created to continaully "turn its eyes unto the Lord", be utterly dependent in every way upon God's Spirit...and humbly "conformed" (by that same Spirit) into fullness of personhood permeated in and inseparable from divine glory, freedom, power, and love of God in all areas.

Jesus demonstrates this to the letter.

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 6/26/2008 11:29 AM (GMT -6)

D: As a living human being [Jesus], you don't get more “one” with the Triune God than what we see at the Transfiguration. You don't get MORE interpersonal beauty in human existence on planet Earth than you see in the Transfiguration.

Tom: Really? What “human person” stands in interpersonal relationship to the Trinity on the Mount?

D: As I see it, the prescribed “skopos” for human beings is “conformity” to God's Image, Christ.

Tom: And what this MEANS for you comes next…

D: …Christ-the-Logos' personal will did the NATURAL MOVEMENT of the human will by being PERPETUALLY ALIGNED with the human “logos” for Christ's particular human existence.

Tom: And you agree with me that our fulfillment in Christ entails our determining ourselves in loving expression?

The problem, D, is that you are trying to use a model, the Incarnation, which is void of human personhood determining itself as you agree we shall determine ourselves, as THE way to express what our persons are supposed to be and do, the “conformity” you say is our “skopos.” And that’s why freedom will continue to be a problem for your view. You’ve just said that the divine will “did”—which obviously MEANS “determined”—the divine will determined the natural movement of the human will in Christ. Fine. Now you want to say that our ‘purpose’ (skopos) is to be conformed TO THIS, that THIS sort of determining relationship (the divine “did” the human will in Christ and thus it will “do” our wills as well) shall be the case with us because the Incarnation is THE map of God-human relationality. Now this means the divine will SHALL determine our movements. But you said you agreed with me that the divine will SHALL NOT determine such movements.

The incarnation isn’t even a model of divine-human interpersonal relationality per se, D. There’s no non-divine human person standing in Christ relating to the divine persons in the self-determining freedom wherein we agree WE SHALL STAND as non-divine persons. If you agree we become freely creative non-divine persons-in-relation to the divine persons, then the Incarnation CANNOT be THE model for this since it is not this.

It seems to me, D, that for you “oneness with God” boils down to being “determined by God,” that is, to have one WILL (God’s) deciding (“doing” to use the word you chose to express conformity to Christ) the relationship (and its movements). That’s what happened with Jesus, and our goal is to be conformed to THAT, so THAT is what we become.

Tom

One Love
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Posted 6/26/2008 12:06 PM (GMT -6)

D: As a living human being [Jesus], you don't get more “one” with the Triune God than what we see at the Transfiguration. You don't get MORE interpersonal beauty in human existence on planet Earth than you see in the Transfiguration.

Tom: Really? What “human person” stands in interpersonal relationship to the Trinity on the Mount?

Any human believer. When a human believer is "Christified", the entire Trinity indwells them (3 divine persons and 1 human person unifed in love, remember) It's the union by energies (not union of person; fusion of personal/gnomic will) that Kallistos Ware talked about that you were so up on.

We were designed to "shine" like Jesus did.

**********************************

Tom:
The problem, D, is that you are trying to use a model, the Incarnation, which is void of human personhood determining itself as you agree we shall determine ourselves, as THE way to express what our persons are supposed to be and do, the “conformity” you say is our “skopos.” And that’s why freedom will continue to be a problem for your view. You’ve just said that the divine will “did”—which obviously MEANS “determined”—the divine will determined the natural movement of the human will in Christ. Fine. Now you want to say that our ‘purpose’ (skopos) is to be conformed TO THIS, that THIS sort of determining relationship (the divine “did” the human will in Christ and thus it will “do” our wills as well) shall be the case with us because the Incarnation is THE map of God-human relationality. Now this means the divine will SHALL determine our movements. But you said you agreed with me that the divine will SHALL NOT determine such movements.

The incarnation isn’t even a model of divine-human interpersonal relationality per se, D. There’s no non-divine human person standing in Christ relating to the divine persons in the self-determining freedom wherein we agree WE SHALL STAND as non-divine persons. If you agree we become freely creative non-divine persons-in-relation to the divine persons, then the Incarnation CANNOT be THE model for this since it is not this.

It seems to me, D, that for you “oneness with God” boils down to being “determined by God,” that is, to have one WILL (God’s) deciding (“doing” to use the word you chose to express conformity to Christ) the relationship (and its movements). That’s what happened with Jesus, and our goal is to be conformed to THAT, so THAT is what we become.

Listen closely to what I say, Tom.

1) The personal will of the Risen Christ does NOT assimiliate the personal wills of other human beings into himself. Neither are the personal wills of other humans obliterated by suffusion of Christ's Divine Presence, completely permeating their hypostatic unities (body and soul). People who become "one" with God in Christ need NOT lose their differentiated existence, even as they are "ingodded", using Ware's term. (Loder, Egan, and others I've posted keep saying this too.)

2) Talk about a human will existing in absolute submission to, openness to, and conformity to God's will..does NOT necessitate exhaustice determination of activity. It MAY do so in certain circumstances (as even you'd said) but it also may not.

3) For reiteration, I agree that God has "let us go" enough to have our own NON-DIVINE personal/gnomic wills (and responsible acts of those aspects our being) develop that are grounded in Christ, but not absorbed by Christ. Though glorified beings are compatibilistically, unconditionally godly, the personal/gnomic will of a human believer enables "freely determined elaborations and renditions" of "divine themes of love"

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

Post Edited (Shekinah) : 6/26/2008 12:24:00 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 6/26/2008 12:16 PM (GMT -6)

Human believers ARE NOT like the Incarnated Word in that WE (not like Jesus) have non-divine personal/gnomic wills that have the potential become "false selves". We have the freedom to destroy our true freedom, pushing ourselves away from our true nature. In short, Jesus could never dehumanize or objectify himself and/or others (even God the Father) for his own purposes...like fallen people do.

Human believers ARE like the Incarnated Word in that WE (just like Jesus) can use our Holy-Spirit empowered human wills to freely choose to participate in God's Grace by faith in God, and as a result, be permeated by divine glory, love, peace, power, light, and wisdom. We are LITERALLY meant to be "children of light" as we let the light shone in our hearts (and bodies!) by God into the world. The Tranfiguration shows this.

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

Post Edited (Shekinah) : 6/26/2008 12:27:04 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 6/26/2008 12:39 PM (GMT -6)

Just as the Lord's body was glorified, when he went up the mountain and was transfigured into the glory of God and into infinite light, so the saints' bodies also are glorified adn shine as lightning..."The glory which thou hast given to me I have given to them" (John 17:22): just as many lamps are lit from one flame, so the bodies of the saints, being members of Christ, must needs be what Christ is, and nothing else...Our human nature is transformed into the power of God, and it is kindled into fire and light.
--The Homilies of St. Macarius

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

One Love
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Posted 6/26/2008 12:42 PM (GMT -6)

The SAME Macarius who said...

"...Each of you has been anointed with the heavenly Chrism, and has become a Christ by grace; each is king and prophet of the heavenly mysteries."

and...

"Peter is Peter, Paul is Paul, Philip is Philip. Each one retains his own nature and personal identity, but they are all filled with the Spirit (of Christ)."

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 6/26/2008 1:26 PM (GMT -6)

If you mean the incarnation is our 'model'--something it is our 'skopos' to 'conform' to--in the sense that just as the PERSON of the Son managed to get human NATURE to it's fullest expressed potential in ways unique to his PERSON, so we can each as unique and unrepeatable PERSONS also get that same NATURE to its fullest expressed potential in ways unique to the PERSON each of us is...

...if THAT'S what you mean by "conformity to Christ," then I totally agree.

I'm cool with our being "little Christ's." It's analogical language, not a literal, metaphysical description. We don't "become Christ" IF it's the case that we are persons OTHER than Christ AND we determine, freely and creatively, what the fullest potential of human nature is to look like coming from us. We're "Christians," or Christ-like...conformed to his image in the sense that in making the fullest, God-intended use of our natures we are (a) doing what ONLY the PERSON of the Son was able to do through the self-sustaining power of his own identity (unlike us), and (b) able to do so by making our relationship to that PERSON the chief, central defining relation of our true self/person.

I've always said this.

I think we'll continue to disagree on the elements, because for me being bodily/materially distinct from the body of the incarnate Son follows necessarily from being personally distinct from the person of the Son. If our bodies define the created, natural scope within which our unique persons do their creative, free determining, then it seems to follow that there's a parallel between how 'one' your PERSON can be with the PERSON of the Son and how 'one' your BODY can be with the BODY of the Son. The SON'S incarnate body, whatever its location and status, is still THAT PERSON'S body to determine in ways uniquely expressive of THAT person. Likewise with OUR bodies. But if my body is to become literally the material body of the risen Christ, that is if there is no distinction between my physical body and Christ's, then one and the same body is the place where two different person's are each exercising their own self-determining influence. And that doesn't work. [Please don't bring up deformities like two-headed babies. Please. It's an exception which proves the rule I'm arguing for. Such cases only confirm that the fullest personal embodied expression requires its own "body" or "space."] So it seems to me you have an obvious correlation--my body and Christ's risen, glorfied body are as 'materially distinct' from one another as are the person I become and the person he is distinct from one another. You now agree that we're personally distinct from the Son, but you want us to be materially/bodily indistinct.

Be that as it may, I don't see myself as having moved since last Fall. I see you as having made some very significant changes (you now grant that we become persons distinct from God and you agree that God's intentions for the fullest expression of the persons we become are that we reflect God in the free and creative self-expression of love--two things you have NOT always agreed to).

Would you agree?

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 6/26/2008 1:44:22 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 6/26/2008 5:55 PM (GMT -6)

Sorry. I gotta take a break from this for a while.

Later...

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

"Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."

Sahid
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Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013

Posted 6/27/2008 2:27 AM (GMT -6)

"...be utterly dependent in every way upon God's Spirit..."

The text of this comment is dependent upon my choice of words. The determination of what is said here is dependent upon me.

This is one way that we are not utterly dependent upon God's Spirit. The determination of what we say here is not dependent in EVERY way upon God's Spirit.

If our final state is that we are dependent in every way upon God's Spirit, then it will be no longer true that "Peter is Peter, Paul is Paul, Philip is Philip. Each one retains his own nature and personal identity". 'Utter dependence in every way' and 'personal identity' cannot be reconciled with out emptying at least one of its meaning.

Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre

Tom
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Posted 6/27/2008 2:36 AM (GMT -6)

Whad'I say Bro?

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 6/27/2008 4:27:08 AM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 6/27/2008 4:33 AM (GMT -6)

Zach: This is one way that we are not utterly dependent upon God's Spirit.

Tom: In a sense, you're right. But in another important sense, God has something to do with your being alive at all, capable of making the determination in the first place. The more we recognize that God can't be taken out of the totality of factors that define any experience, and that God figures into that totality as a necessary factor for all else, the more humble and grateful we approach life. It's all a grace gift. That's what I take "utterly" to mean in "we should be utterly dependent upon God." It's recognizing all the time that all we do, even our free determinations, require the prior gracious gift of live and God's sustaining power. But if D were to say "utterly dependent" meant looking to God to prescribe what determinations creatures are to make, then I'd disagree. But I don't think that's what D means.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 6/27/2008 4:36:26 AM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 6/27/2008 10:38 AM (GMT -6)

Ran across this quote of Gregory of Nyssa (from Catechetical Oration):

“Out of his regard for man, the Sovereign of the universe left something under our own control and of which each of us is the sole master. I mean the will, a faculty which is free from bondage and independent, and is grounded in the freedom of the mind.”

Interesting, no?

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