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Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > (No Subject)
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Tom
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| Posted 12/2/2009 5:40 PM (GMT -6) |   | | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Asher
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Asher
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One Love
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Asher
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Tom
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| Posted 12/4/2009 12:32 PM (GMT -6) | | BUT...having said that...
Maximus gets into trouble (Introduction, second paragraph of p. 58 thu to p. 62). He can't make sense of the real contingency of the created world. He wants to say it's contingent because God FREELY determines to create, BUT he also wants to say that the inner triune life of God (especially the Son's identity) consists (partly) in the self-determination to be reflected in the created order. It's the whole question of time and sequence all over again. If all God's decisions are made in the act of self-determination that IS his existence, then there is no God sans the determination to create. Essentially, Maximus doesn't believe there can be logoi (possibilities) which are not actualized (i.e., not determined to become actual). Hart makes this same argument--NO UNREALIZED POTENTIAL in God. And THAT, D, is a problem. They want to distance themselves from the Neoplatonists and say the material world "came into existence" and is "contingent" and so reject the notion of an eternal or necessary relation between God and created things, BUT they also want to say God's determination to create IS eternal because the logoi exist (eternally) AS THE CONTENT of God's self-constituting act of self-reflection, i.e., as the Logos. Like Athanasius says, "God is eternally 'Creator'." But as far as I can see Maximus doesn't escape his own criticism of Neoplatonists. He doesn't succeed in defending the contingency of the created order. It's not enough to just say creation "comes into existence" (i.e., it isn't eternally ACTUAL) IF you also say there's nothing contingent about God's determination to creation. The determination to create HAS to be AS CONTINGENT AS the actualization of creation. And Maximus won't say THAT.
As Tollefsen says at the beginning of ch. 3, for Maximus "THAT God eternally wanted to be the Creator and Savior of the cosmos is a fact, but WHY is unanswerable." I think the WHY is answerable (at least enough to satisfy our curiosity) IF we abandon the believe that THAT God wanted to create was an eternally God-constituting determination. Yep.
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 12/4/2009 1:11:49 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
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| Posted 12/4/2009 2:27 PM (GMT -6) | | I can just imagine...
We all get to heaven (or the New Earth) and some one pipes up and asks God, "So, God, what's coming down the pike? I mean, what's the next thing you'll be doing?" And God says, "Well, as you know, if it can be created, I gotta do it, and, further more, that means I already know everything I will ever create in the..."future" (if I can borrow that word even though we're now outta the time thingie environment), but I don't want to spoil it for you or for me either...I guess." Then God thinks to Himself, "You know, I've really gotta figure out that determined-to-create thing being a must-be-therefore from eternity past...I mean, even My saying that is confusing."
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Tom
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| Posted 12/4/2009 2:47 PM (GMT -6) | | You're not far off the mark Starkman. I mean, I think there's really a sense in which it doesn't make sense. God is complete and self-sufficient as triune love and doesn't need creation. Creation is contingent because it comes into being, yes. But this is all compromised if we add to this what (Tollefsen says) Maximus and Orthodoxy believe, i.e., that the triune love isn't what it is apart from the free determination to create and incarnate. That's just nonsense. But the Orthodox (those I talk to, like Fr Behr in NY, and evidently Maximus and the Greek Fathers) all say that the question of whether God would exist as triune self-sufficient love APART from the determination to create is a MEANINGLESS question. But it's NOT obviously meaningless. On the contrary, several important applications for life follow from how the question is answered.
For example, Irenaeus speaks of Adam as a type of the one to come. Fine. But then he expands upon this with "the Savior existed [i.e., the Logos-to-become-Savior existed eternally] therefore he who would be saved needed to be created so that the Savior doesn't exist in vain". That's is just NOT good thinking IMO. But I'm no Church Father, so...
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 12/4/2009 1:55:50 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/4/2009 9:38 PM (GMT -6) | | | Does it come down to this, Tom?
For it to be true that God's determination to create is AS CONTINGENT AS the actualization of creation, it must be true that in the divine state of affairs sans Creation, God the Son existed as a totally "realized" divine person without having to be "Immanuel". In other words, it is has to be true that God the Son as uncreated hypostasis is "fulfilled" in his personal becoming in and through triune relationship WITHOUT being Immanuel...even though God the Son would always have the capability to be Immanuel. To say otherwise means that God the Son needed Creation to be "all he could be" as a divine person...which would make Creation functionally necessary to the personal becoming of God's ad intra reality.
Bottom line: There has to be some state of affairs in God's own independent reality where God the Son's personal reality is NOT constitutionally defined by being "Immanuel"...while always possessing the potential to become "Immanuel." Otherwise, there is, for all intents and purposes, a (at least functional) necessary God-world relationship for God's personal becoming...and the genuine contingency of Creation is not defended adequately.
Both God's aesity AND Creation's integrity are challenged.
Yes?
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All. Post Edited (One Love) : 12/4/2009 8:49:13 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/4/2009 9:43 PM (GMT -6) | | | Is there any way that you can think of, Tom...where Greg's dispositional ontology can help in reconciling these things?
Let me ask it this way:
Does Greg's dispositional ontology allow for God to have an uncreated "essential existence" where "what God does" is completely IDENTICAL to "who God is", such that God's essence IS God's existence...
and at the same time...
allow for God to eternally have potential to express said "essential existence" in contingent ways such that the divine "self-constitution act of self-reflection" can include a created order...without the exercise of said potential being necessary to the interpersonal or intrapersonal "fulness" of God's ad-intra being?
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All. Post Edited (One Love) : 12/4/2009 9:15:37 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/4/2009 10:10 PM (GMT -6) | | | And, Tom, as crazy as it may sound...do you see the similiarites between the Maximian idea of "God's contemplation of Himself as diffusive of good" with Greg's ideas of God being "summum bonum" in and through God's "diffusion" of the Divine Disposition?
I see some.
I. D. G. A. F.
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One Love
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| Posted 12/4/2009 11:16 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey, Tom. What if someone said this?
Given who God is and God's own understanding of his own potential to be "Immanuel" (this would be the 'content of God's self-consituting act as the Logos' ), it could be considered INEVITABLE, THOUGH NOT NECESSARY that such a overflowingly good God would want to be "with" created others. Saying that Creation is an inevitability given God's eternality and loving essential existence...is NOT the same thing as saying that God cannot define Godself without reference to some Creation. It's the same logic that we apply to the inevitability of sin's emergence: Given ample time and existential opportunity, the unactualized possibility has a high probability of actualization that approaches functional inevitability. And God would "know" that, right?
Remember the analogy from Torstein? I want to flip it a little. He said.
"The will to go for a walk is independent of the footprints I make if I actually go for a walk."
Using this, making footprints by walking is pretty much inevitable for a person who has the enduring, unimpeded desire and ability to go for a walk. However, the enduring, unimpeded desire and ability to go for a walk doesn't NECESSITATE walking and making footprints. That's why the footprints are independent of the intention for walking, though there is a solid linke between exercising the intention for walking and actively making footprints by walking.
Making Footprints = Creation
Wanting to Walk = Divine intention for Creation
Basically, Creation isn't necessary to God, but it may be an inevitable outcome of God's eternal essential existence.
See what I'm saying? Just having thoughts.
I. D. G. A. F.
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