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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
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Posted 2/10/2010 2:44 PM (GMT -6)

Similtude:
Why can't we say there are contingent aspects of WHO God is that arise CONTINGENTLY.

"I Am...Immanuel."

This self-description of God wouldn't be possible without a Creator/Creation relationship...right?

Lord Jesus, have mercy.

One Love
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Posted 2/10/2010 2:46 PM (GMT -6)

As far as a possible reason that God created...

Maybe the Eternal Son wanted a "wife"...one he'd be willing to die for. And so the Son would leave his Father (and Mother), and CLEAVE to his wife...A Bride.

(We are the One Bride of Christ, yes?)

Lord Jesus, have mercy.

One Love
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Total Posts : 13888

Posted 2/10/2010 2:49 PM (GMT -6)

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, people have never hated their own bodies, but they feed and care for them, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

Lord Jesus, have mercy.

One Love
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Posted 2/10/2010 2:52 PM (GMT -6)

In short, The Son became "Immanuel" to be with a Created "Bride/Body", to the glory of the Father.

Lord Jesus, have mercy.

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 2/10/2010 2:52 PM (GMT -6)

I'm asking my brain to process TOO MUCH! Ha.

I got stuff with Greg/Alan and Bill Craig going on too. My brain hurts.

Ya'll, be in prayer for me the weekend of the 20th-21st. I should be flying home that weekend.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 2/10/2010 2:54 PM (GMT -6)

So D, you're agreeing with Jeff that there are contingent aspects to "who" God is. God is Emmannuel. Creation takes it place WITHIN (not WITHOUT) WHO God perceives himself to be.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Total Posts : 13888

Posted 2/10/2010 2:57 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
So D, you're agreeing with Jeff that there are contingent aspects to "who" God is. God is Emmannuel. Creation takes it place WITHIN (not WITHOUT) WHO God perceives himself to be.

It's pretty simple, I think. The Risen Jesus, I believe, knows himself as "Immanuel". God the Son's personal self-understanding is inextricably linked to Creation now. He CAN'T see himself any other way but as OUR Messiah. We are the "us" in the "God Is With Us." He will ETERNALLY be our Messiah, and HUSBAND of a created CHURCH...and the HEAD to His BODY.

Now, I'm willing to bet that "being a Messiah" and "Head of a Body" was NOT in the necessary self-understanding of "who" God the Son was in the Eternal Trinity sans Creation.

Would you agree?

Lord Jesus, have mercy.

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/10/2010 2:05:33 PM (GMT-6)

One Love
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Total Posts : 13888

Posted 2/10/2010 3:01 PM (GMT -6)

If God didn't have the POTENTIAL to experience Himself as "Immanuel"...then we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Lord Jesus, have mercy.

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 2/10/2010 3:03 PM (GMT -6)

I'll definitely pray for ya. Pray for me, too, yo. I'm preaching at Woodland that Weekend. (Much needed blessing!)

Lord Jesus, have mercy.

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 2/10/2010 3:08 PM (GMT -6)

Wow. I'm pretty surprised you're able to say this (about God's self-understanding). Where's there asymmetry then? Isn't the asymmetry ACTUALLY perceived and experienced? And wouldn't how God perceives Godself basically the ONLY place where this asymmetry figures in? But now you're saying the Logos can't conceive of himself, even as the Logos of the Father, apart from his being Emmanneul?

Whoooah.

You said it. For example, your being "Dwayne" (and male, and American, and black, and...so forth) doesn't figure into WHO you are. But the Logos' being a male Jew DOES figure into WHO the Logos believes himself to be?

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 2/10/2010 3:23 PM (GMT -6)

I cannot separate my "who" from it's envirnoment/embodiment. Isn't it the same for the Incarnate Word of God who is fully God and fully human?

If the Risen Jesus knows himself as fully God and fully human...and he knows the asymmetry of the Uncreated/Created relationship...then he would understand the asymmetry in his own being between the Holy Spirit and human spirit.

Lord Jesus, have mercy.

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 2/10/2010 4:05 PM (GMT -6)

D: I cannot separate my "who" from it's envirnoment/embodiment.

T: Speechless! Truly. Haven't you always been telling me that a "male" isn't WHO you are, that "black" isn't WHO you are, that "American" isn't WHO you are. Now they ARE who you are?

I realize there's no WHO apart from some nature concretely expressed. But that doesn't mean we conflate the WHAT and the WHO.

Wow. I'm really surprised. What happened to the asymmetrical in bipolar asymmetrical relational unity?

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968

Posted 2/10/2010 6:37 PM (GMT -6)

TOM: Sneaky Jeff! After I posted to Brandon I thought about that!

Where'd I say that? Got a thread location?

JEFF: I think it was in the very first post of this thread.

BBBCanada
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763

Posted 2/10/2010 7:44 PM (GMT -6)

Tom: I think this has to be true, if by governance we mean ‘how things are actually working out’ (i.e., everything taken into consideration). Yes, if things suck, God knows they suck. But if we just mean God’s part in it all, then I don’t think that’s diminished per se. His part (his acts in the world) are always perfectly loving, right? So they’re not diminished. But the governed world can be diminished, certainly.

Brandon: Right. I'm saying because things are not as they should be, then God's governance is diminished and if God's governance is diminished then so is his Lordship. And if his Lordship is diminished then how does this affect God's self-perception? In saying this I don't think God's acts aren't loving. I'm simply wondering because things suck as they do, that it is not a question of the governed world being diminished but somehow God's self-perception and in turn God's essential nature. In other words, I find it difficult to see how God can be God (in the fullest sense) apart from God's Lordship.

Brandon

It is the purpose that makes strong the vow, but vows to every purpose must not hold.--A friend.

To love without love is slavery--Mother Teresa

Tom
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Total Posts : 10353

Posted 2/14/2010 9:55 AM (GMT -6)

Here's what I'd say...

Everything WE do is either an EXPRESSION OF or an ATTEMPT AT (an attempt to achieve) personhood (personal identity).

Nothing GOD does can be AN ATTEMPT AT personhood, an attempt to ACHIEVE personal identity and to COME TO UNDERSTAND 'who' he is.

But everything God does is an EXPRESSION OF who he is. He's not looking to find himself through creation. So however God accommodates himself to us, opens himself to us, makes room for us within his interpersonal existence...I have trouble saying it amounts to our COMPLETING what is lacking in God. And whatever God thinks or feels about how the world sucks and however this figures into his self-perception, it doesn't eat away like rust as WHO God.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

PotOnWheel
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Total Posts : 9890

Posted 2/14/2010 4:58 PM (GMT -6)

nice, tom.

Tom said...
Here's what I'd say...

Everything WE do is either an EXPRESSION OF or an ATTEMPT AT (an attempt to achieve) personhood (personal identity).

Nothing GOD does can be AN ATTEMPT AT personhood, an attempt to ACHIEVE personal identity and to COME TO UNDERSTAND 'who' he is.

But everything God does is an EXPRESSION OF who he is. He's not looking to find himself through creation. So however God accommodates himself to us, opens himself to us, makes room for us within his interpersonal existence...I have trouble saying it amounts to our COMPLETING what is lacking in God. And whatever God thinks or feels about how the world sucks and however this figures into his self-perception, it doesn't eat away like rust as WHO God.

Tom

(o)

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