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Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > (No Subject)
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
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| Posted 4/6/2010 9:19 AM (GMT -6) |   | I'd say it like this:
The ONE Uncreated Consciousness (God IS Spirit) eternally "speaks itself" into trinitarian being by the Father/Nous breathing out His Eternal Word/Logos of Self-Reflection (The Word is the Perfect Image of the Father) by way of His Eternal Spirit/Pneuma. In this self-speaking, he is eternally "I Am (That I Am)." Uncreated Consciousness just eternally IS (being uncreated)...and in relating itself to itself and it's fundamental choice to be itself, the THREE eternal persons of the ONE Uncreated Consiousness eternally are as well.
In other words, The Trinity is the "choice" of the perfectly free God choosing to be himself eternally. Creation is the "choice" of God to relate to something OTHER than God (that which must be CREATED)...a CONTINGENT choice grounded in God's eternal choosing of Godself.
Make sense?
Post Edited (One Love) : 4/6/2010 9:31:55 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 4/6/2010 12:12 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 4/6/2010 5:30 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Athanasius, Four Discourses Against the Arians; Discourse 1.29:
29. But, observe, say they, God was always a Maker, nor is the power of framing adventitious to Him; does it follow then, that, because He is the Framer of all, therefore His works also are eternal, and is it wicked to say of them too, that they were not before origination? Senseless are these Arians; for what likeness is there between Son and work, that they should parallel a father’s with a maker’s function? How is it that, with that difference between offspring and work, which has been shown, they remain so ill-instructed? Let it be repeated then, that a work is external to the nature, but a son is the proper offspring of the essence; it follows that a work need not have been always, for the workman frames it when he will; but an offspring is not subject to will, but is proper to the essence.
Athanasius grounds the divinity of the Son precisely in the fact that he is not begotten by the will of God as is the world. Therein lays the ontological distinction between God and the world…unless I’m really misreading things.
Tom
KIXYTΘEMTAPost Edited (Tom) : 4/6/2010 5:55:48 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 4/6/2010 9:07 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/6/2010 9:46 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/6/2010 9:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Let me say it this way...
Let's say that the relationship between Father and Son is one of "self-reflection." (like what JE was talking about). The Father sees the Perfect Image of himself in the Son, and the Son has the Father "in" him by being the Perfect Image of the Father. This is divine self-reflection, ok?
Now, what happens when the self-reflective relationship between the Father and Son RELATES TO ITSELF, by choosing to BE itself?
What do you think happens?
SK says something about a "self as a positive relationship."
Hmm...could that have anything to do with the Holy Spirit...being analogous to the human spirit, and it's role in self-knowledge, self-reflection, and self-choice? (No one knows the thoughts of God but the Spirit of God, like no one knows the thoughts of human being but the human spirit.)
Post Edited (One Love) : 4/6/2010 9:56:37 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 4/6/2010 10:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Nous
Nous (adj. noetic) in Orthodox Christianity is the eye of the soul. Just as the soul of man, is created by God, man's soul is intelligent and noetic. St. Thalassios wrote that God created beings "with a capacity to receive the Spirit and to attain knowledge of Himself; He has brought into existence the senses and sensory perception to serve such beings." Eastern Orthodox Christians hold that God did this by creating mankind with intelligence and noetic faculties. Angels have intelligence and nous, whereas men have reason, nous and sensory perception. This follows the idea that man is a microcosm and an expression of the whole creation or macrocosmos; it is through the healed and corrected nous and the intelligence that man knows and experiences God.
In this belief, soul is created in the image of God. Since God is Trinitarian, Mankind is Nous, Word and Spirit. The same is held true of the soul (or heart): it has nous, word and spirit. To understand this better first an understanding of St. Gregory Palamas's teaching that man is a representation of the trinitarian mystery should be addressed. This holds that God is not meant in the sense that the Trinity should be understood anthropomorphically, but man is to be understood in a triune way. Or, that the Trinitarian God is not to be interpreted from the point of view of individual man, but man is interpreted on the basis of the Trinitarian God. And this interpretation is revelatory not merely psychological and human. This means that it is only when a person is within the revelation, as all the saints lived, that he can grasp this understanding completely (see theoria). The second presupposition is that mankind has and is composed of nous, word and spirit like the trinitarian mode of being. Man's nous, word, and spirit are not hypostasis or individual existences or realities, but activities or energies of the soul. Where as in the case with God or the Persons of the Holy Trinity each are indeed hypostases. So these three components of each individual man are 'inseparable from one another' but they do not have a personal character" when in speaking of the being that is mankind.
The nous as the eye of the soul, which some Fathers also call the heart, is the center of man and is where true (spiritual) knowledge is validated. This is seen as true knowledge which is "implanted in the nous as always co-existing with it."
Post Edited (One Love) : 4/6/2010 10:51:27 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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