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Tom
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| Posted 12/21/2009 3:34 AM (GMT -6) |   | I think what Asher's point is, D, can be located (for example) in the insistence that the telos of human being is theosis (i.e., becoming divine). Try to see it from the point of view of somebody on the outside listening in. It can easily be understood (or misunderstood, as the case may be) as a kind of deprecation of human being AS A TELOS. That's Asher's point. It makes more sense to say the goal of human being is just fullly HUMAN being, not some OTHER kind of being. You might say, "Well, of course. But that's all 'theosis' means." Unfortunately, it's not obvious that that's what it means. There's a big fat "theos" in the word "theosis." There's nothing HUMAN in or about the word, which can be taken to mean that the fullness of human being is something other than human being, or even MORE than human being. This is my BIG problem with the 'language' of 'theosis'. We don't become God or gods or whatever (the exegesis of the texts here on the EO side is just, well, bad). We just become fully human, everything God intended HUMAN to be--immortal, fully reflective of God, one with God, all the SAME features you hang on the term "theosis." We don't become other or more than what it means to be HUMAN when we become these things. So why not call it 'humanization' instead of 'deification'?
I mean, I can appreciate how easily mystics like Eckhart are understood to be pantheists. Actually, I'm not convinced he shouldn't be thought of as a pantheist. But I wouldn't say all who believe in theosis are pantheists who deprecate human being per se. But I DO think Orthodoxy is in desperate need of a PR overhaul, and I'd begin by finding a NEW LANGUAGE to express things. Christians showed they could appropriate the philosophical language around them in the first place. So just do it again. It really would HELP communicate the core truths much better than "deification." You wouldn't have to spend so much time clearing the field (of the conversation) of mines before you could communicate.
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 12/21/2009 2:48:35 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/21/2009 4:09 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
I think what Asher's point is, D, can be located (for example) in the insistence that the telos of human being is theosis (i.e., becoming divine). Try to see it from the point of view of somebody on the outside listening in. It can easily be understood (or misunderstood, as the case may be) as a kind of deprecation of human being AS A TELOS. That's Asher's point. It makes more sense to say the goal of human being is just fullly HUMAN being, not some OTHER kind of being. You might say, "Well, of course. But that's all 'theosis' means." Unfortunately, it's not obvious that that's what it means. There's a big fat "theos" in the word "theosis." There's nothing HUMAN in or about the word, which can be taken to mean that the fullness of human being is something other than human being, or even MORE than human being. This is my BIG problem with the 'language' of 'theosis'. We don't become God or gods or whatever (the exegesis of the texts here on the EO side is just, well, bad). We just become fully human, everything God intended HUMAN to be--immortal, fully reflective of God, one with God, all the SAME features you hang on the term "theosis." We don't become other or more than what it means to be HUMAN when we become these things. So why not call it 'humanization' instead of 'deification'?
What is the only way that a human ANIMAL can exhibit full humanity and full personhood? Only through God Himself working in the human animal, freeing it's noetic powers, to be such...yes? In other words, the more filled with God a human animal is, the more of a human PERSON they are. The Spirtitual Presence of Christ is absolutely essential to prevent humanity from being "trapped in the created nature." (Lossky)
So, only "in-Godded" humanity is fully actualized humanity at all. Looking at all that, the language of "theosis" makes sense to me.
Honestly, Tom, I don't think that many Christians understand exactly HOW our humanity's exercise DEPENDS upon the Spirit's activity within us. Actually, I bet many think that genuine humanity is somehow INDEPENDENT of God's direct working in and through the human...like the Holy Spirit is just a "supercharger" to our own innate humanity. (Maybe that's a language problem...)
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
"God resists the proud, and give His grace to the humble." Post Edited (One Love) : 12/21/2009 3:22:58 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/21/2009 4:14 AM (GMT -6) | | Besides, we are talking about Christian mysticism here, which is grounded on the God-Man Christ. In Christ we see that "the glory of God is a human being fully alive." (Irenaeus) So how could misanthropy-as-telos even obtain? It can't. Not unless you are misunderstanding Christianity itself.
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
"God resists the proud, and give His grace to the humble." Post Edited (One Love) : 12/21/2009 3:19:34 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/21/2009 5:31 AM (GMT -6) | | D: What is the only way that a human ANIMAL can exhibit full humanity and full personhood? Only through God Himself working in the human animal, freeing its noetic powers to be such...yes?
T: Right. But that doesn’t make the ‘human’ other or more than ‘human’. That’s just saying that ‘human’ can’t be all it was intended to be ‘as human’ without relating to God.
D: In other words, the more filled with God a human animal is, the more of a human PERSON they are.
T: Sure. The more of a ‘human’ person they become. But it’s in, and it IS, human nature to become this. It is our nature to be immortal, one with God, etc.
D: The Spiritual Presence of Christ is absolutely essential to prevent humanity from being "trapped in the created nature." (Lossky)
T: To be trapped in the confines of the created nature sans God, yes. But when human beings connect to God, they’re not doing something their nature disallows or wasn’t designed to do. That’s Asher’s point. All the stuff we get to be and enjoy when we’re fully participating in the divine life lies within our human nature to be and do. It’s ‘human’ to be immortal, ‘human’ to be one with God, ‘human’ to a full person who loves, etc. On the only hand, it's LESS than human to misrelate, to be privated by sin, to die, to experience corruption (although it lies within our nature to determine this freely--Athanasius--privation is just that, something UNNATURAL).
D: So, only "in-Godded" humanity is fully actualized humanity at all.
T: Only in-Godded ANYTHING that’s created can be fully what it was created to be—rocks, stones , worms, cows. Once you posit the all-present grace of God sustaining things, and the logoi of the Logos at the core of the core in ALL created things, then it’s universally the case that concrete entities only fulfill their natural capacities by disposing into their given logos. Sure, the logos of human being includes a far wider scope and kind of experience than does the logos of a cow. But it’s true of BOTH that they become all they can be in terms of concretizing their logos which defines the capacities and limitations of their NATURE.
So, it’s “human nature” to do and be all the in-godded things you’re describing. That ‘in-goddedness’ is just another way of describing the logos of human being. So, saying created beings only fulfill their natures as they conform to their logoi doesn’t mean they step OUT of their created natures. It means they step INTO their created natures. When we’re immortal, unfailingly loving, one with God, etc., we’ll FINALLY be FULLY ‘human’. Not more than human. Not other than human. Just created beings who fully conform to their logoi. This is DEFINITIONAL. I'm not denying that personhood is ecstatic.
D: Honestly, Tom, I don't think that many Christians understand exactly HOW our humanity's exercise DEPENDS upon the Spirit's activity within us.
T: This doesn’t get you something OTHER than the created nature of human beings, because the same thing is true of rocks and cows. I don’t think many Christians understand exactly HOW a cow’s nature DEPENDS upon the Spirit’s activity within them either. See? Same Spirit, same fundamental sustaining activity, just different logoi (i.e., different intentions for different created beings). But not even God can make a created being other than a created being. If we come to be immortal, unfailingly loving, one with God, and permeated by the divine presence…it’s not because we’ve become something more or other than “created” (i.e., human). We’re just finally all that ‘human’ was created to be as created. There’s NO difference between us in what we’re saying the ‘content’ of full human experience in the eschaton will be. We just disagree over what to ‘call’ it. I don’t think “deification” or “becoming God” is helpful. It’s far easier and less trouble to tell someone “The full person you were created to be will only see the light of day the more grounded in God and connected to his indwelling presence you become…” than it is to tell them “the god you were created to become will only see the light of day as you’re deified.” I mean, come on. Sure, once you indoctrinate people into exactly what you mean by ‘god’ and ‘deification’ or whatever, THEN you can use those words. But folks have to be indoctrinated into a right understanding of those terms, ‘cause calling people a ‘god’ or ‘divine’ today doesn’t mean what it meant in the first century. Why ignore that? Why insist on dragging 1st century language into the 21st century? I don’t get it.
I'm looking to communicate with people (unbelievers, new believers who aren't members of the Orthodox Church). In that respect, insisting upon using "theosis" or "deification" unnecessarily complicates the job. You, it seems, are thinking about educating catechists in the history of theology, because you can't believe that using the GREEK WORD "theosis" or the English word "deification" is the only or best way to get ENGLISH SPEAKERS into the fullest experience of God.
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas BerdyaevPost Edited (Tom) : 12/21/2009 4:54:40 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/21/2009 12:05 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey, if we are just talking pedagogical practice, then I guess whatever's easiest.
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 12/21/2009 2:08 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/22/2009 8:54 AM (GMT -6) | | | AMEN, B.
We would both agree with that broadcast, right, Tom?
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
"God resists the proud, and give His grace to the humble." Post Edited (One Love) : 12/22/2009 7:57:27 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/22/2009 8:59 AM (GMT -6) | | "the mystery of godliness"
YEAH!
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
"God resists the proud, and give His grace to the humble." Post Edited (One Love) : 12/22/2009 8:04:54 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/22/2009 9:15 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey, Tom.
Does Christian "apatheia" relate to "godliness with contentment"? If so, could this not be an analogue for how God is "impassably passible"?
In BOTH situations (Creator and Creation), there is a type of peaceful psychological immutability that is grounded only in one's experience of God. God is totally SELF-sufficient by his self-experience...and we have ALL of our suffiency in God as we love him "with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength." At the same time, the Creator/Created bounds are not erased. Moreover, there is no emotionless "apathy" to the other in EITHER case.
See what I mean?
I believe THIS would go with you and Greg's conversation. Greg REALLY needs to research the EXPERIENTIAL Eastern view of apatheia. Badly.
PS: Check your email, Tom. 
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
"God resists the proud, and give His grace to the humble." Post Edited (One Love) : 12/22/2009 9:09:52 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/22/2009 9:26 AM (GMT -6) | | If someone mistakes "apathy/apathetic" for Orthodox "apatheia"...and tries to make that stick..
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOdoggie!
Not a good look.
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
"God resists the proud, and give His grace to the humble." Post Edited (One Love) : 12/22/2009 9:04:40 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/22/2009 9:58 AM (GMT -6) | | Look at who Evagrius was influenced by and who he influenced...
yeah...
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
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One Love
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| Posted 12/22/2009 9:59 AM (GMT -6) | | Feelin' me, T and B?
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One Love
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| Posted 12/22/2009 10:06 AM (GMT -6) | | ...mixed bag...
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Tom
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| Posted 12/22/2009 10:20 AM (GMT -6) | | I don't think Greg's gonna get it 'right' like you and I see it.
He's read Gavrilyuk. Didn't buy it. Says Gav and others like him are simply rewriting history trying to make 'apatheia' (as taught by the Fathers) into something palatable and not the Neoplatonic cosmic 'stuffed shirt' picture of God that it is. He agrees that in narrative theology (down on the grass roots level) they'd talk about God having compassion, loving us, being angry (there was a big patristic deal over divine anger when Marcion showed up). But in the end they'd always "take it back."
He has a couple of good arguments though too. For example, if the Fathers all REALLY saw apatheia in terms you and I are now describing it (say, in terms of God having emotions and feeling things but never being overwhelmed or imposed upon, etc.), then why the big debate against patripasianism? If the infinitey of God's own felt beauty and can experience emotion relative to what's going on in the world, why the need to LIMIT God's experience of suffering to the human nature of Christ? And why distance the Father from all suffering? I know you see what his point is. And I have to agree. I do not believe that God suffers ONLY in the human nature of Christ. I don't think God has his FIRST emotional experience as a human being. I think the Incarnation REVEALS the sorts of experience (including emotion) that's the Bible clearly attributes to him.
Personally, I think the Fathers are a mixed bag. Sometimes they really perceived it right on (maybe even a lot of the time, or maybe even MOST of the time, I don't know). But sometimes they slipped and stood on the Neoplatonist side of the divide. They weren't perfect.
If all they were ALL saying is what you and I are saying, then why would David Bentley Hart deny that God 'experiences emotion' and say God is IMMUNE to actually FEEEEELING or experiencing emotion.
Greg's other point (and I've always said this), is that the patristic buy-in to 'timelessness' as a necessary feature of God can ONLY come from the Neoplatonists. You cannot get that (not in the full-blown patristic sense) from Scripture. No way.
This is mind boggling sometimes. Behr keeps saying, "The fathers are so great because they refuse to step OUT of the biblical narrative and attribute to God stuff the Bible doesn't attribute to him." And they didn't like unbiblical terms either. But that's just not true. My goodness. apatheia is attributed to God in the Bible? But it's a KEY philosophical terms of the Neoplatonists? Timeless comes from the Bible? No. But it's fundamental to the Hellenistic view of God. I could go on and on. They did NOT always succeed in perceiving and rejecting all the bad stuff from Neoplatonism. They did a hell of a job. Amazing really. They DO generally baptize Hellenistic 'terms' and full them with new meaning. Obviously their trinitarian vocabulary was revolutionary. I love them. But I won't refuse to disagree with them. And when it comes to apatheia, sometimes they get it right, sometimes they caved in to the Neoplatonic vision of God a timeless, absolutely immutable being.
Dude, in talking to Behr. We were talking about the Incarnation. I said God "became" incarnate, right? Straight out of John. The Word "became" flesh, etc. Behr said he would never say God "became" (or "becomes" ) anything. God doesn't make choices in time, choosing to do this, then that, feeling this, THEN feeling that. All that we see God doing in the temporal unfolding of Creation, all God's part in this, is just the unfolding of a single, eternal choice. Boom.
I can't buy that. But I'm pretty sure THAT'S what people also mean by apatheia.
I wouldn't go as far as Greg. But I don't know that I can agree with everything Gav says. There's a bit of whitewashing going on there. But I may change my mind. I'll be re-reading him several times in the next couple of years.
Tom
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One Love
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| Posted 12/22/2009 10:24 AM (GMT -6) | | | Is Greg just gonna IGNORE Ware and the like?
Screw it. Has Greg even READ "The Orthodox Church" and "The Orthodox Way"?
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
"God resists the proud, and give His grace to the humble." Post Edited (One Love) : 12/22/2009 9:33:39 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/22/2009 10:35 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
It's IN HIS PHD THESIS!!! Arrghghghgh!
I know, dawg. He uses the SAME TYPE of "total pathos" example in the dang thing.
I can't see why he don't see this.
Slooooooooow traaaaaaaain wreeeeeeck.
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
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One Love
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| Posted 12/22/2009 10:46 AM (GMT -6) | | I thought the arguments against Patripassionism was against saying in any way that the Father himself was on the Cross in some "mode" (Sabellianism). It's a form of modalism, right?
In other words, the Father didn't endure the PASSION of CHRIST, the Father's SON.
What's wrong with that?
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
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One Love
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| Posted 12/22/2009 10:48 AM (GMT -6) | | Fr. John Breck
"Can God Suffer?"
Struggling with this question, some third-century theologians developed a heretical doctrine referred to as "patripassionism" ("suffering of the Father"). This is a heresy that refused to accept a Trinitarian conception of God three divine Persons united in a single divine Essence or Nature but tended to identify the Father and the Son, so that it could be affirmed that both the Father and the Son suffered on the Cross ("He who is called Father and Son [they hold] is one and the same, not one from the other, but He from Himself, called by name Father and Son according to the figure of the times..." Hippolytus, "Refutation of all Heresies," 9:10). In reaction to this threat posed to Orthodox Trinitarian theology, the Church condemned "patripassionism" and affirmed that only the Son suffered and died on the Cross.
This is a conviction we must uphold today every bit as much as Orthodox theologians did in the third century. Yet it needs to be stated as well that in a particular sense, God the Father indeed "suffered" at the Crucifixion. A child will ask: "Why did God send His Son to die and not come Himself?" The question reflects a double misunderstanding. On the one hand, He who died on the Cross was indeed God: the eternal Son of the Father. Yet when the apostle Paul speaks of "God" and "Christ," he is referring respectively to the Father and the Son. Thus he can declare, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself" (2 Cor 5:19). To answer the child's question, it is enough to point out that no father could sacrifice his son without undergoing the same or even greater suffering than the son himself is called to bear. In other words, God the Father, in His infinite compassion and boundless love, endured a degree of personal suffering at the Crucifixion that was no less than the suffering borne by His Son, Jesus.
That subjective suffering, borne by each Person of the Holy Trinity, is not limited to the historical moment of the Cross. Like divine Love, divine suffering is a reality that characterizes God's personal existence as He relates to the world He has made. Consequently, there is no human or cosmic suffering that is not part of God's own personal experience. This is not "patripassionism." It is the simple Gospel truth that the triune God indeed shares in He knows and drinks to the bitter dregs the cup of our suffering, whatever its cause, however devastating to us it might be.
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
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One Love
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| Posted 12/22/2009 10:53 AM (GMT -6) | | And...it seems here...that EO don't limit God's suffering to Christ's human flesh.
AT ALL.
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All.
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