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Tom
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Posted 3/31/2010 2:21 AM (GMT -6)

That does help D. Yep. Thanks.

It just sounds strange to call God's energies/operations 'eternal' and 'uncreated'. It sounds like we're saying God never 'does' (i.e., operates) anything novel, that all his choices and actions throughout time are a single act of the will eternally accomplished but temporally felt by us. So God does "choose in time" to do this, now that, in response to us. Hopko argues that God eternally foreknows/foresees what we would freely do and just as eternally decides what his responses will be and so eternally responds. That's not what I mean by God experiencing the world, but I think it is what the EO intends.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Posted 3/31/2010 10:25 AM (GMT -6)

Tom:
It just sounds strange to call God's energies/operations 'eternal' and 'uncreated'. It sounds like we're saying God never 'does' (i.e., operates) anything novel, that all his choices and actions throughout time are a single act of the will eternally accomplished but temporally felt by us.

I know it sounds that way, but people like James R. Peyton Jr. (Light from the Christian East). Grace doesn't belong in the intertrinitarian communion, but it does belong in the outlet for expression of divine love that a completely dependent Creation allows. At the same time, the divine love that grounds Grace to Creation did NOT START with God's intention to create; this divine love is as ETERNAL as God Himself is...even though that to which it is directly is NOT eternal.

How about this? God's Energies can be considered "eternal" like unto same way as some universalists think of the Jude 7's "eternal fire" : the eternity is not simply talking about time duration, but more about the SOURCE of the fire endured by Sodom and Gomorrah, God Himself.

Lord Jesus, have mercy.

PotOnWheel
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Posted 3/31/2010 12:18 PM (GMT -6)

Tom said...
Bruce, you're agree with D that God has "novel" experiences? This introduces 'time' into God's experiences.

You'll want to locate all this in God's 'energies' I suppose. I'm not sure what that even means. Sometimes that just looks like a photocopied God located outside of the essential God and the photocopy does all the experiencing while the essential God remains untouched.

I just find the whole essence/energies thing very artificial.

Tom

Tom, I think something like THIS was read by me in either Evdokimov or Ware!

I think we'd want to say that God the Son's experience of creaturely reality in self-relationship is a NOVEL experience in the life of the Triune God.

It was then developed that the Father vicariously experiences the suffering and death of the Son. That is...the Father did not die--only the Son--but the Father "now" knows in another way that suffering...........though... "there was a cross in the heart of God before the foundation of the world"... TOO!

This is handled by a combination of possitive and via-negativa statements...

(now to read D.)

(o)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 3/31/2010 12:25 PM (GMT -6)

Great, Dwayne!

Good discussion, Tom!

(o)

Tom
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Posted 4/1/2010 3:47 PM (GMT -6)

B: Tom, I think something like THIS was read by me in either Evdokimov or Ware, "I think we'd want to say that God the Son's experience of creaturely reality in self-relationship is a NOVEL experience in the life of the Triune God."

Tom: If you can track down the exact quote, B, I'd love to know where it came from.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

PotOnWheel
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Posted 4/2/2010 9:47 PM (GMT -6)

I'll try to look. But...here's something to look at:

google this father vicarious passion god

http://books.google.com/books?id=TFUYu5c7a8QC&pg=PA247&lpg=PA247&dq=father+vicarious+passion+god&source=bl&ots=HzBuzQDtXV&sig=xBfX7LDlMKN-y4KRpAa0B-GVuKQ&hl=en&ei=uam2S5j4GZeQNb-ikYAK&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBcQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=father%20vicarious%20passion%20god&f=false

(o)

PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
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Posted 4/2/2010 10:29 PM (GMT -6)

Just plain 'worth it' book:

http://www.svspress.com/product_info.php?products_id=38

Compassion of the Father, The

Boris Bobrinskoy

In this work, Boris Bobrinskoy shows how by spiritual union to the life of Christ, we can be clothed with the Holy Spirit and filled with the infinite mercy of the Father, who far from pleasing himself in a blessed transcendence, suffers with humanity. This way of purification triumphs over all the deadly forces of division, darkness, and hate that dwell in the heart — a universe vaster than any other universe. The invocation of the Name, the asceticism of the body, and the baptism of the intellect constitute this long and difficult way of conversion and of cure: of unification with God, others, and even oneself.

(o)

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 4/3/2010 7:52 AM (GMT -6)

I appreciate how the question if impassibility has tended to center on Christology and the two natures of Christ (with him suffering in his human nature only). My question (and that of Weinandy's too) is larger. When you take all the Bible says in describing God as compassionate, joyful, grieved, angry, etc., we've stepped outside the human nature of Christ. In what sense does God experience the world emotionally (apart from the incarnation)? That's the bigger question. Part of Bobrinskoy's book look good too. Thanks B.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

PotOnWheel
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Posted 4/3/2010 6:02 PM (GMT -6)

You;re welcome1

(o)

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 4/9/2010 4:21 PM (GMT -6)

I was thinking about what divine ‘transcendence’ means. Of course, the terms isn’t found in the Bible. But neither is the term ‘Trinity’. Still, it’s a lot easier to find the trinity in the Bible than it is to find what’s often associated with divine transcendence, i.e., timelessness, immutability, impassibility, etc. In spite of that, I think we ought to affirm the truth that God transcends all the created order. It’s important especially for those of us who affirm creation ex nihilo and the fully personal and loving nature of God’s experience sans creation. It’s just saying what transcendence amounts to that’s the trick.

I’m inclined to say that God transcends the created order in that creation does not contribute to or otherwise determine WHO God is. That is, the divine persons/relations are actual and full regardless and in spite of anything that transpires in the created order. God transcends creation in the sense that WHO God is neither requires nor is affected by the created order. It’s WHO God is that transcends creation. So transcendence isn’t about God’s not being temporal, not experiencing changing states of mind or emotion, etc. All those can be possible without WHO God is as Father, Son and Spirit being changed or affected.

Isn’t it fundamentally that simple? If we make transcendence about ‘who’ God is, about his essential IDENTITY (IDENTITIES), we’re better off. Now, if there are arguments for thinking that if God were temporal and passible then WHO God is would change, then we need to deal with those. So the qualified sense of impassibility that we’re looking for ought to express the fundamental unchanging IDENTITIES of the divine persons (and their fully satisfied and personal experience of one another, which fullness determines their identities). But as far as I can see God can just be temporal without risking WHO God is (as Father, Son and Spirit). Indeed, I think that’s exactly what we see in the Bible.

Tom

KIXYTΘEMTA

One Love
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Total Posts : 13888

Posted 4/9/2010 7:16 PM (GMT -6)

Interestingly enough, if we make the transcendence about "who" God is (inseparable from God's infinitely intense self-experience), then we have an easier time of talking about what divine attributes are actually COMMUNICABLE to human beings...like unconditional love, glory, incorruptibility and eternal life.

See what I'm saying?

Also, I would say that "who" God is can have contingent expression (ie. God as Creator and "Immanuel" ) without in any way changing the essential existence of "who" God is.

As I think about it, it actually makes sense to argue this way if "personhood" is the ultimate reality. Naahmean? icon_bandit

Lord Jesus, have mercy.

Post Edited (One Love) : 4/9/2010 7:23:37 PM (GMT-5)

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