D: Hey, now. I think I'm seeing something, Tom. You are basically saying…

…Am I right on this? Or am I misinterpreting you?

T: After one read with no checking, that’s it, yes.

After nine months, a ray of hope.

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 7/23/2008 1:03:53 AM (GMT-5)

Let's look at the chiastic structure of what Dwayne said!

Does that mean that the main point is '?'

 

---

(o)

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I (Christ) in them (human "hearts" of believers) and you (God the Father) in me (Christ)—so that they may be brought to complete unity.

Post Edited (Shekinah) : 7/23/2008 2:18:48 PM (GMT-5)

D: What if, by self-emptying (freely chosen “denial of self”), the created human person “avoids any action of his own, so much so that Christ-the-Logos’ hypostasis is manifest absolutely through the absolutely ‘transparent screen’ of the pure-hearted human person’s self-emptied hypostasis.” Such that “through this kenosis it becomes the ‘express image of Christ’ who IS the ‘express image of the Father’”?

T: Let’s see. I choose to absolutely relinquish any self-determining exercise of my will. I abdicate, so to speak, and give my will and all my faculties to another person to determine. I’d have to say that this would spell the end of me ‘as a hypostasis’. No question about it. To the extent that A determines B, B is A. Total determination equals utter identification. If B gives himself to A in this way, A’s hypostasis shines through B, yes. But it doesn’t shine through the ‘hypostasis’ of B, for B is no longer a ‘unique and unrepeatable’ hypostasis. Moving this into the ‘personal’ realm is disastrous for a relational ontology (if we’re still interested in one).

There’s some important biblical/theological work behind your post (Heb ch. 1, Phil 2) that would need a whole thread to itself. As for the Galatians passage (“I, not I, but…”), I can’t even admit it as evidence for anything in this conversation since I don’t believe Paul intended to say anything like so many of the EO understand him to be saying. So when I see the words “I, not I, but Christ” on the screen, I read past them. Even when it’s Loder. The application of these words to this conversation is invalid, in my opinion.

D: Again, it's important to realize that the created human person grounding the created "I" would NOT be "eliminated" or "absorbed"…

T: If not that, then what? The only way a ‘hypostasis’ endures as a ‘hypostasis’ is through the unique and unrepeatable exercise of its will. It is in such freedom that the ‘hypostasis’ is a ‘hypostasis’. But that’s just what you have us giving up in the interest of being fully unique and unrepeatable hypostases.

D: The self-emptying is a FREE CHOICE of the personal will of the non-divine/human person.

T: That doesn’t secure the continuation of the person ‘as a person’. That would end with the choice to abandon any unique and unrepeatable exercise of the will.

D: Just like Jesus' self-emptying was a free choice of his divine personal will.

T: Paul in Phil. 2 is talking about the Logos choice to incarnate. That’s pretty specific. How does this come to define the pre- or non-incarnate interpersonal relation between F and S so absolutely?

D: Again, the created self is indwelled by it's Divine Ground in such a way that they participate in each other, without conflating one another.

T: They might not conflate in as much as one is divine being and one is finite/created being. But just maintaining the creator/creature distinction doesn’t mean the created continues to be a ‘person’.

D: (SK, Loder, etc. As Loder said the created human "I" of the created human person remains DISTINCT from the Holy One, Christ...as Uncreated Person of Christ and the created human person relate intersubjectively.)

T: He can SAY the created “I” is distinct all he wants. But demonstrating that “I” as a person is an entirely different matter. Show me that distinction in ‘personal’ terms. Show me that unique and unrepeatable ‘hypostasis’ doing something ‘unique and unrepeatable’. That’s why hypostases are unique and unrepeatable at all. If you can’t show me that, then you’re not showing me a ‘person’, a ‘hypostasis’ (whatever else you might be showing me). It may be finite and created and not conflated with God in THAT sense. But so what? Being distinct from God doesn’t make us ‘persons’.

In short, if I don’t exercise my will in unique and unrepeatable ways, I’m not unique and unrepeatable am I? Obviously not. Then how am I enduring ‘as a hypostasis’? It would appear that I’m not.

-------------------------

D: What if I went ahead and AGREED WITH YOU, Tom, that a created human person's human will can NEVER, EVER fully "trace" the divine will in continual obedience like Jesus' did...

T: You mean like the incarnate SON did? The human will of Jesus is the will of a person, of one person…the Son. There’s no other ‘subject’ in Christ to speak of. So do you mean, what if you were to agree with me that as ‘persons’ in relation to God our RWE faculties cannot be determined by the divine Son the way the human and the divine related in Christ? If you agreed with me on that, you’d be a VERY smart person! ;o)

D: I said that we can come as near to that "perfect unison/conformance" as is possible...

T: No, D. Look, is the unity of two persons in love and who each exercise their wills in free creative ways one toward the other LESS than perfect union? Why do you think ‘unison’ means only ONE will has to do all the determining of what goes on between TWO persons? See? That’s the problem.

To be all God intended us to be IS the perfection God intends for us; it’s not “as near as possible” to our perfection. It IS our perfection.

D: This way the "choice" of whether or not to fully trust God and relinguish one's totality of self-becoming to God's is ALWAYS the CREATED HUMAN PERSON'S FREE CHOICE (though the choices are always empowered by Christ-the-Logos to some extent.) Genuine synergy.

T: What if God doesn’t want this? (And I have an impossible time imagining God wanting this.) What if God can’t have interpersonal relations with us by determining everything about us EVEN if we freely welcome such determination? Do you think this is just how the F and S relate to one another? That’s it? Do you think the SON eternally exercises the divine will in ANY way unique and definitive of his hypostasis and which is not also simply the EFFECT of the Father’s will?

T

Where is the created "person" ?, Tom keeps asking...

The unitive life is the last stage of mystical ascent.  The mystic becomes as closely united to God through God’s love as God is unified to his own being by nature.  Mystically married to God, the mystic becomes “God by participation.”  Nonetheless, this union remains differentiated, that is, God and the mystic become one while remaining distinctly two.  The mystic’s person does not dissolve into God.  In fact, the more deeply united to God the mystic becomes, the more the mystic’s individuality is confirmed and enhanced.

Mystical marriage bestows the conscious sharing in God’s own life and power and almost complete self-forgetfulness.  The mystic now seeks only God’s will and honor and desires to serve God totally.  Although external trials may continue, absolutely nothing can touch the peace and freedom at the deepest core of the mystic’s being.  The transformed mystic desires greatly to suffer, but in no way does this suffering disturb the peace that flows from the ever present, explicit awareness of living God’s very own life.  In fact, the only thing separating the mystic from the beatific vision is this life itself.

The mystic is experientially united to a love that communicates itself to all persons and to all things.  Therefore, the more deeply the mystic experiences union with God, the more deeply union with God’s creation is experienced.  Transformed by and into Love itself, the mystic becomes creative, totally self-giving, radically concerned about others—in short, spiritually fecund.

Hence, mystics heal in their own persons and through apostolic service the fragmentation found in so much of human life.  They become an even deeper part of the great process of life.  Wholly in God, yet totally in the world, they experience both absolute peace and a holy anxiety to serve God and God’s world. The mystics insist, however, that the mystical life is more than heroic virtue or service to the world.  These are the outward expressions of their union with God, the sacramental expression of their mystical lives.  They are socially and often politically active because they seek God and God alone.  Only this (seeking God and God alone)—not “experiences,” not a transformed personality, not serving the world—gives the mystical life its ultimate value.

Harvey Egan, S.J.
An Anthology of Christian Mysticism
"What is Christian Mysticism?"

Post Edited (Shekinah) : 7/23/2008 7:28:58 PM (GMT-5)

Mediating/saving personal presence of Christ-the-Logos <=> b

Fallen human condition/self-understanding <=> X

Self-willed negation of Created 'I' 's egoism and chosen recentering in the Divine Ground (God); Loder's "double-negation";SK's "removal of despair" ; poverty-of-spirit <=> a^-1

Christ is the Archetype (alpha) and the Telos.(omega)

Praise the Holy One!

Post Edited (Shekinah) : 7/23/2008 11:14:55 PM (GMT-5)

D: If we are talking about "unique and unrepeatable personal experience" (which I think we are), then we have everything we need. The human "self-as-spirit" (SK) in CHOOSING ITSELF in relating itself to it's Divine Ground (Christ, the Holy One) is making a unique and unrepeatable choice from an irreducibly personal perspective shared with NO ONE ELSE (but God, of course)...at every present moment.

T: I don’t think this choice buys you an enduring unique and unrepeatable hypostasis. You just reduce the “uniqueness and unrepeatable” nature of creative personal existence to ONE choice and that’s it, the choice to no longer be a chooser. I’d be making exactly the same choice with the same nature that every other human being would be making. True, their making this choice isn’t MY making the same choice. Is this what we're to expect the FULLEST expression of created personhood to be? That’s all you take “unique and unrepeatable” in interpersonal terms to mean?

D: You seem to want to locate the uniqueness and unrepeatability in things OTHER THAN the despair removing CHOICE of "self-denial", yielding all to Christ's Spirit moment to moment.

T: I don’t want to deny that we make the despair-removing choice to deny self. But what’s it mean to deny self? I don’t take as equivalent to what I’ll call your ‘perpetually chosen abdication of agency’ (or 'of creative expression'). It has a clear context when Christ uses it. Deny yourself, take up the cross, and “follow me.” The relationship to Christ now defines all those other relationships (marriage, family, work, etc.) and prioritizes them. They all become opportunities and means of expressing the permanency of our identity in-relation-to Christ (as opposed to being opportunities for our abdicated agency to give way to divine self-expression). So "death to self" isn't "death to creative expression." But it is on your account, becaues for those who make this "ultimate" choice you're describing, they are no longer determining centers of creative expression. God does the determining.

D: If you want to do that, fine. But that's not to say that posing what I'm posing removes the requisite self-determination that spells "hypostasis."

T: It does as far as I can tell. But I could be wrong of course. In other words, I can’t grant the inter-hypostatic nature of your vision of the God-world relationship. For those who make that choice, no enduring creative expression gets determined BY the creature; thus your 'dying to self' is just that, a "death of the self." More than just hints of Maximus I think.

-------------------------

D: 1) What if God allows US to choose this? What if God allows us to choose HOW MUCH of a "providential agent" we want to be? And what if SOME PEOPLE want this? Then what, homie?

T: Again, just going on my own understanding of God, I can’t say that it would be consistent with God’s being fully, interpersonally satiated, and with the unnecessary nature of his creating at all, to go on and say that God would permit us to choose our way out of ongoing, creative agency. I think we’ll eventually recognize that God WANTS us to be “creators” and “artists” and not just the “means” or the “medium” for the determination of his own creative expression. Once we SEE that this is what God wants, no glorified subject will want anything else.

D: Would God be WRONG for allowing such a choice to humans?

T: It would be uncharacteristic of him. ;o)

Dude, I understand where you're coming from. IF I shared your starting point--the believe in WHY God creates AT ALL--then I'd be with you all the way I suppose. But (a) I don't share the belief that creation is just about divine self-expression and self-realization, and (b) if I did share that belief, I wouldn't trouble myself by attempting to make it out to be something it isn't, viz., an 'inter-personal' relationship with creation.

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 7/24/2008 6:34:04 AM (GMT-5)

"Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!"

Post Edited (Shekinah) : 7/24/2008 7:33:51 AM (GMT-5)

T: I don't share the belief that creation is just about divine self-expression and self-realization

D: I don't believe that Creation is exclusively about divine self-expression and self-realization. It includes non-divine self-expression and self-realization as well.

T: Then show me an example, say, in the eschaton, of a creative act of self-expression determined by a non-divine person. Give me an example of such creatively self-determined loving expression, say, from you to me, in the eschaton. What would it look like?

But who determines the shape/form of non-divine self-expression for those who choose to relinquish any self-determining exercise of their wills and instead want God to be the one to determine everything about the shape/form their life takes? By definition, God does. Well, if God determines everything about me except for my choice to let him determine everything about me, then I’m not the one determining anything about me except the choice to let God determine everything else about me. Come on dude. If this is the fulfillment of creation, then creation IS most certainly exclusively about divine self-expression. The only necessary creaturely role is the creature’s choice to let itself be so determined by God. But that doesn’t ground creaturely self-expression, it negates such self-expression. That’s why I ask: Give me an example of creaturely self-expression.

If Jessica and I want to paint her room and she FREELY says, “Dad, you choose everything about painting the room—the colors, the brushes, where we start, every stroke I take, the composition of the picture, everything. Tell me exactly how to hold the brush, whether to stroke in an upward or a downward movement, when to paint side to side, everything. You decide it all Dad! The only choice I’ll make about this job is the choice to let you decide every movement I take. And I’ll be in a continuous state of renewing this choice with every movement!”

I say, “Hey, if that’s what you want, then that’s what you get.” So we do it. The room gets painted, beautifully. Nice colors, mixtures, and pictures of animals and tress, etc.

Of whom is the painting a self-expression?

Don’t even try to say Jessica’s ‘self’ is expressed in the painting.

For creation to be about creaturely self-expression in addition to divine self-expression, there have to be wills other than God’s determining the shape of loving expression. And that’s not done if the only choice creatures determine is the choice to relinquish to God all self-determining agency save the choice to so relinquish one’s self.

The only self-determined choice you have creatures making is, as I said, the choice not to be the one determining any other choice. You want God making all THOSE choices. THAT, to you, is what “denying to self” is.

I’m sorry, Bro. I don’t see any abiding unique and unrepeatable self-expression in this. I just don’t. I can't distinguish your “dying to self” from “the death of the self.”

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 7/24/2008 9:41:56 AM (GMT-5)

D: Let's say that Jessica understands you as "father" such that she really believes that you see "givens" in her that she may not be able to see. Just like a good student following a good teacher, when you give her the things to do, she ends up finding out that the beauty that has been created in her room PRECISELY MATCHES her unique, particular perspective on "what a beautiful room should feel like." It's like you were "in her head", taking her personal "history" into total account, as it were. But in the room, she can ALSO see how much of YOUR perspective she has taken on. She sees how much you have "inspired" her! In expressing herself, she actually expresses "you", too. She IS her father's daughter, after all.

T: Dude, this looks convoluted to me. Show me where in the scenario Jessica manifested having been ‘inspired by me’? It’s not there. For me to inspire her means for her to be motivated by what I mean to her to creative expression. THAT is inspiration. But there’s none of that in the room. It’s all me.

Now, what I hear you saying is, since we can never really know our ‘givens’ (our potential), all that’s left us to do essentially is to say, “God, you know what my potentialities are. I don’t know them. So I hereby want you to pick from among all my potentialities which one you know best ‘matches’ what a ‘perfect me’ looks like and just determine me in that particular form.”

I say, we’ll just have to take the needed time to discover ourselves, our potentialities, our gifts, and in understanding them, THEN to creatively express our love. There’s no short-cutting it. God can’t stand in for us in place of that needed self-discovery (discovery of our gifts and potentialities). Our creative self-expression requires US to connect to those. We’ve got plenty of time. This whooooole life and then whatever time in the eschaton we need to discover the creative capacities with which our unique histories with God and others endowed us. When we perceive those, we’ll be the artists God created us to be. But far be it from God to by-pass the process and just choose from among all the possible creative expressions we face which one we (well, he through us) actualize.

Tom