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But there was also a second "leavening" which led to an even further reappraisal of Greek ontology. Not only was the being of the world traced back to personal freedom, but _the being of God Himself_ was identified with the person. This "leavening" was effected through the disputes on the Holy Trinity, mainly through the theology of the Cappadocian Fathers and above all by St. Basil. This theology does not concern us here except for one basic point, which unfortunately is usually overlooked. As a known, the final formulation of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity speaks of "one substance, three persons. One would therefore have said that the unity of God, the "ontology" of God, consists in the _substance_ of God. This would bring us back to the ancient Greek ontology: God first _is_ God (His substance or nature, His being), and then exists as Trinity, that is, as persons. This interpretation in fact prevailed in Western theology and unfortunately entered into modern Orthodox dogmatics with the arrangement in the dogmatic handbooks of the headings "On the One God" followed by "On the Trinity." The significance of this interpretation lies in the assumption that the ontological interpretation lies in the assumption that the ontological "principle" of God is not found in the person but in the substance, that is, in the "being" itself of God. Indeed the idea took shape in Western theology that that which constitutes the unity of God is the one divine substance, the one divinity; this is, as it were, the ontological "principle" of God.

But this interpretation represents a misunderstanding of the Patristic theology of the Trinity. Among the Greek Fathers the unity of God, the one God, and the ontological "principle" or "cause" of the being and life of God does not consist in the one substance of God but in the _hypostatasis_, that is, _the person of the Father_. the one God is not the one substance but the Father, who is both the "cause" both of the generation of the Son and of the procession of the Spirit. consequently, the ontological "principle" of God is traced back, once again, to the person. Thus when we say that God "is," God is not an ontological "necessity" or a simple "reality" for God--but we ascribe the being of God to His personal freedom. In a more analytical way this means that God, as Father and not as substance, perpetually confirms through "being" his _free_ will to exist. And it is precisely His Trinitarian existence that constitutes this confirmation: the Father our of love--that is, freely--begets the Son and brings forth the Spirit. Thus God as person--as the hypostasis of the Father--makes the one divine substance to be that which it is: the one God. This point is absolutely crucial. For it is precisely with this point that the new philosophical position of the Cappadocian Fathers, and of St. Basil in particular, is directly connected. That is to say, the substance never exists in a "naked" state, that is without hypostasis, without "a mode of existence. And the one divine substance is consequently the being of God only because it has these three modes of existence, which it owed not to the substance but to the person, the Father. Outside the Trinity there is no God, that is no divine substance, because the ontological "principle" of God is the Father. The personal existence of God (the Father) constitutes His substance, makes it hypostases. The being of God is identified with the person.

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But Monarchy is that which we hold in honour. It is, however, a Monarchy that is not limited to one Person, for it is possible for Unity if at variance with itself to come into a condition of plurality;2 but one which is made of an equality of Nature and a Union of mind. and an identity of motion, and a convergence of its elements to unity-a thing which is impossible to the created nature-so that though numerically distinct there is no severance of Essence. Therefore Unity3 having from all eternity arrived by motion at Duality, found its rest in Trinity. This is what we mean by Father and Son and Holy Ghost. The Father is the Begetter and the Emitter;4 without passion of course, and without reference to time, and not in a corporeal manner. The Son is the Begotten, and the Holy Ghost the Emission; for I know not how this could be expressed in terms altogether excluding visible things. For we shall not venture to speak of "an overflow of goodness," as one of the Greek Philosophers dared to say, as if it were a bowl overflowing, and this in plain words in his Discourse on the First and Second Causes.5 Let us not ever look on this Generation as involuntary, like some natural overflow, hard to be retained, and by no means befitting our conception of Deity. Therefore let us confine ourselves within our limits, and speak of the Unbegotten and the Begotten and That which proceeds from the Father, as somewhere God the Word Himself saith.

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"Man": Chapter 7 of Elements of Faith (T&T Clark: Edinburgh, 1991), pp. 53-88.
http://www.jbburnett.com/yannaras/yannaras-man.html


d. Person

We might dare to summarize the orthodox ecclesial interpretation of the "image" in the following formulation: Man has been endowed by God with the gift of being a person, with personhood, which is to exist in the same mode in which God exists. What constitutes the divinity of God is His personal Existence, the Trinity of Personal Hypostases which make up the divine Being, the diving Nature or Essence, in a life of love, which is a life of freedom from any necessity.

God is God since he is a Person, that is since his Existence does not depend on anything, not even his Nature or Essence. As a Person– that is freely– he constitutes his Essence or Nature; it is not his Nature or Essence which makes his Existence obligatory. He exists, since he freely wills to exist, and this willing is actualized as love, as a triadic communion. Therefore, God is love (1 Jn 4.16), his own Being is love.

And God has imprinted this same possiblity of personal existence on human nature. Human nature is created, a given; it is not the personal freedom of man which constitutes his being, which makes up his essence or nature. But this created nature exists only as a personal hypostasis of life; each one is a personal existence which can hypostasize life as love, that is as freedom from the limitations of his created nature, as freedom from every necessity– just like the uncreated God.

Still more schematically: God is a Nature and three Persons; man is a nature and "innumerable" persons. God is consubstantial and in three hypostases, man is consubstantial and in innumerable hypostases. The difference of natures, the difference of uncreated and created, can be transcended at the level of the common mode of existence, the mode of personal existence– and this truth has been revealed to us by the incarnation of God, by the Person of Jesus Christ. For man to be an image of God means that each one can realize his existence as Christ realizes life as love, as freedom and not as natural necessity. Each can realize his existence as a person, like the Persons of the triadic Divinity. Consequently, man can realize his existence as eternity and incorruptibility, just as the divine life of triadic co-inherence and communion is eternal and incorruptible.

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Love is not the only facet of God’s essential existence. Another facet of God’s essential existence is this “disposition” that “always desires to maximize, express, and experience LOVE in all facets.” What is this disposition that so “deals with” or “administrates” the execution of love? (And how is it not just arguing from the essence of love which you say you’re NOT doing? Don’t answer that. I’ll grant that this “disposition” is a separate argument.) It can’t be anything necessary to love itself because you’ve clearly conceded that God can remain omnibenevolent and NOT create. So it’s something else. And this you define (in my words) as that which God is essentially which seeks to maximize, express, and experience love in all facets. It’s not love, nor is it any other particular attribute. It’s a disposition that “deals with” (?) the attributes.

I have a question about this “disposition.” Does it deal with/administrate only God’s love, or does it administrate all of God’s attributes? This “essential will to maximize” which makes creating an open world a necessary consequence of the existence of a loving God, does it also make judging evil a necessary consequence of the existence of a just God? Is God free to NOT maximize his justice in every “conceivable” circumstance, say, that of a fallen world?

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Not to be oversimplistic, but God IS love, yes? God IS not justice. But God IS love. I’ve always been told this is a big deal. Are we prepared to say that a Being who is so identified with love that said being is OMNIbenevolent would not seek love’s maximization, expression, and varied experience? Hey, Doc, remember what you said about God being love in your books???

So, no bingo. The disposition is centered around love for just the reason that YOU, Tom, keep dealing with its essence. God IS love.

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Doc:

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Doc: I’ll grant the artist must express herself. But the point of my simple analogy is that God the artist can express himself in an infinite number of ways, the creation of a non-divine world simply being ONE of them.

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Wait a sec, Doc. You define what you mean by “God expressing Godself” and THEN we’ll see if it’s possible without a Creation. Something tells me that won’t be…but we’ll see.

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Now, come on, y’all. Doesn’t this fit just a little bit? Let’s use some imagination here!

God is in process. God is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, infinitely intelligent, etc. God also has the disposition of always desiring to maximize, express, and experience love in various ways. (If someone would like to argue against this, be my guest!) This disposition is centered on love because God IS love! At the state of reality where Creation was absent, God ETERNALLY conceptualized a reality where 1) God could EXPRESS (and non-God beings could reflect) God’s love 2) God would have NEW experiences in the domain of love 3) God would expand the COMPLEXITY (though not the INTENSITY) of God’s love experiences…all of which would contribute to God’s process of becoming. This reality was an open Creation with morally free beings…and it would fit the bill for the actualization process of God’s disposition. Actually, it was the ONLY type of non-God reality that would do so. Because of all this, God attributed value to this option OVER God not creating. God creates the open Creation with morally free beings at some point. Given God’s essential existence, it was INEVITABLE that God create and open Creation with morally free beings. This Creation was a NECESSARY, though not eternal, CONSEQUENT of God’s existence.

Notice that this doesn’t say that God can’t EXIST without a Creation. This would say that there is a necessary God/world relationship because of who God is. Notice I didn’t say that Creation was CO-ETERNAL with God. I said that the conceptualization was co-eternal with God (and this would be via God’s infinite intelligence)

Hey, SURE, this is darn close to being process theology on this point, but who cares…right???

Ok, now what?



PS: Oh, by the way, I’m in Minnesota now, chillin. I’m here for the long haul so, if you’re in the St. Paul area, holla at cha boy. I’m hangin with Modes and Electra. Be seein ya.


"Smile. It could be worse." --from a good friend.

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Among the Greek Fathers the unity of God, the one God, and the ontological "principle" or "cause" of the being and life of God does not consist in the one substance of God but in the _hypostatasis_, that is, _the person of the Father_. the one God is not the one substance but the Father, who is both the "cause" both of the generation of the Son and of the procession of the Spirit. consequently, the ontological "principle" of God is traced back, once again, to the person. Thus when we say that God "is," God is not an ontological "necessity" or a simple "reality" for God--but we ascribe the being of God to His personal freedom. In a more analytical way this means that God, as Father and not as substance, perpetually confirms through "being" his _free_ will to exist. And it is precisely His Trinitarian existence that constitutes this confirmation: the Father our of love--that is, freely--begets the Son and brings forth the Spirit. Thus God as person--as the hypostasis of the Father--makes the one divine substance to be that which it is: the one God. This point is absolutely crucial. For it is precisely with this point that the new philosophical position of the Cappadocian Fathers, and of St. Basil in particular, is directly connected. That is to say, the substance never exists in a "naked" state, that is without hypostasis, without "a mode of existence. And the one divine substance is consequently the being of God only because it has these three modes of existence, which it owed not to the substance but to the person, the Father. Outside the Trinity there is no God, that is no divine substance, because the ontological "principle" of God is the Father. The personal existence of God (the Father) constitutes His substance, makes it hypostases. The being of God is identified with the person.

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Not to be oversimplistic, but God IS love, yes? God IS not justice. But God IS love. I’ve always been told this is a big deal. Are we prepared to say that a Being who is so identified with love that said being is OMNIbenevolent would not seek love’s maximization, expression, and varied experience?

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OK, I went with questioning this “disposition” in relation to God’s other attributes because you earlier denied (on the slam-dunk thread) that your argument rested solely upon love (or the essence of love), but that it included other aspects and attributes of God. I was just trying to see how you would relate this “disposition” (which you say is not “love” itself but that which “deals with” loves expression) to God’s other attributes. I now understand that there is no relation. Whatever this disposition, this “will to maximize,” is, it a) is not love itself, but b) deals ONLY with love. It doesn’t affect the exercise of any other attribute of God.

I still think this view requires evil. You may escape having to claim that creation is eternal on the basis that God was in a temporal process that wasn’t mature enough to create until the right moment. But this won’t solve the problem of evil, for whereas the open view claims evil is only a possibility (or some argue a “statistical inevitability” entailed in God’s choosing to actualize this possibility) required of creating a world where finite beings may freely choose love, you have God reaching a stage in his process where expressing all possible aspects of love (i.e., forgiveness) is now a necessary consequence of God’s own existence. These are quite different. The “statistical inevitability” fits logically in the one but not in the other. You earlier fell back on “Well, we already said evil was inevitable on a statistical basis” to deflect this, but I don’t see that it works. That argument won’t work now because evil is no longer a statistical inevitability, it is now entailed in the necessary expression of God’s love (in the forgiveness of sin) which, of course, you have made a necessary consequence of God’s arriving at this stage in his process.

I’m repeating myself. Sorry.

Tom



Edited by - TGB on 05/28/2003 06:13:21 AM

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I still think this view requires evil. You may escape having to claim that creation is eternal on the basis that God was in a temporal process that wasn’t mature enough to create until the right moment. But this won’t solve the problem of evil, for whereas the open view claims evil is only a possibility (or some argue a “statistical inevitability” entailed in God’s choosing to actualize this possibility) required of creating a world where finite beings may freely choose love, you have God reaching a stage in his process where expressing all possible aspects of love (i.e., forgiveness) is now a necessary consequence of God’s own existence. These are quite different. The “statistical inevitability” fits logically in the one but not in the other. You earlier fell back on “Well, we already said evil was inevitable on a statistical basis” to deflect this, but I don’t see that it works. That argument won’t work now because evil is no longer a statistical inevitability, it is now entailed in the necessary expression of God’s love (in the forgiveness of sin) which, of course, you have made a necessary consequence of God’s arriving at this stage in his process.

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