Open Theism Discussion Board

Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > Meph's CRAZY Take on the Trinity

Forum Quick Jump

32 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2

[ << Previous Thread | Next Thread >> | Show Newest Post First ]

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 9/12/2002 1:25 PM (GMT -6)

MEPH! Get yourself a copy of this article, from the LINK below. (I'm including a sample paragraph. But the article is actually history, and very good.)

quote:
www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/christou_doubleknowl.html

. . .

From this last observation it already appears that philosophy is not entirely valueless, but that the difference between it and theology is fundamental because philosophy has to do with names, i. e. the outward cover, while theology has to do with things, i. e. with essentials. «Thus, since there are two kinds of truth, he says, -one of names and the other of things, -some people prefer the names, viz. Those that are engaged in the beauty of speech, i. e. the Greek philosophers, while the things are investigated by us, the barbarians». [vii] Nevertheless knowledge constitutes a chain in which the elementary lessons serve philosophy as their mistress, while philosophy itself serves theology as its mistress. [viii] Borrowing from Philo, [ix]he employs as representative types Agar the slave and Sarah her mistress, both of whom in turn gave Abraham lovable children but of unequal worth. [x] To Sarah burning with jealousy Abraham says, »although I embrace the worldly paideia both as younger and as your handmaid on one hand, on the other hand I honour and respect your science as a perfect lady»[xi]. It is obvious that, according to Clement, whereas the philosophical systems possess a part of the truth, theology possesses the whole of it. Diadochos of Photi?e, examining this dismemberment from a different point of view, attributes it to the fall of man and considers it as a division between truth and error. By his fall man «was divided in the doubleness of knowledge»[xii]

. . .
----------------------------------------------------------------------

(Double Knowledge According to Gregory Palamas
by Panayiotis Christou
On Line Library of the Church of Greece
ÈåïëïãéêÜ ÌåëåôÞìáôá 3, ÍçðôéêÜ êáé Çóõ÷áóôéêÜ, Èåóóáëïíßêç 1977)

Mephi2K
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 713

Posted 9/13/2002 5:05 AM (GMT -6)

I have more to shell out...but let me say this important thing.

Eastern Orthodoxy would NOT like PROCESS PHILOSOPHY (Whitehead, Hartshorne), OR PROCESS THEOLOGY (Cobb, Griffin, etc.) at all!

Think about it.

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 9/17/2002 6:21 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
Eastern Orthodoxy would NOT like PROCESS PHILOSOPHY (Whitehead, Hartshorne), OR PROCESS THEOLOGY (Cobb, Griffin, etc.) at all!

Think about it.

I guess I'd agree with that Meph. But I'm neither Process nor "Open." (I define the openness of God in ways other than mechanical.)

Here is the list compiled by that Center for Process Studies at Clarement which, from their point of view were things EO and Process had in common -- at least as values. (I think the list is a bit 'rosy', as how these flesh out in each is different on some points.)

quote:
The ideas on which a sense of affinity was felt on both sides included the following:

· Human salvation involves as process, called "deification" by Orthodoxy, in which God really enters into and transforms us.

· This process necessarily involves synergy or co-operation between God and human freedom, albeit a co-operation which is asymmetrical, since the human activity presupposes the presence of prior divine energies.

· The more God is present in us, the more (not the less) free and human we are.

· Humans and the rest of creation are regarded non-dualistically, as a unified creation, in which all aspects are internally related to all others, and God is present in all. Hence, the divine transfiguring process involves the whole cosmos.

· Since nature without grace cannot exist, grace is not to be thought of as something added to an otherwise autonomously existing nature. Every natural thing is a symbol or icon which is a window to God, thereby bringing God and other things together.

· Likewise, theology is to be thought of as a unified activity based on revelation throughout, not as a two-story enterprise, with revealed truths added to a purely natural theology.

· In parallel with the non-dualistic view of creation, God is to be conceived as transcending the physical-spiritual distinction, not as being more like the mental or spiritual pole of creatures than their physical or material aspect.

· One of the most striking similarities is the idea that there are two modes to the divine existence--called the "subjective" and "superjective" by process theology and called the "divine essence" and the "divine energies" by Orthodoxy. The latter mode follows from the former, but is equally necessary, equally divine.

· God is not static. Deit in and for itself is dynamic but non-temporal; deity as manifest to the world is creative and temporal.

· God, being loving and creative, cannot exist alone, but only in relation.

It is on that last one, especially, that EO and Process are on different trains. But apparently they did have a good time talking about it.

Some other rosy remarks worth reading from that Center for Process Studies report are:

quote:
The major differences between the two theological approaches turned out to be the ones suspected the outset to be crucial. Substantively, the correlative issues of trinity and christology were at the center of the discussion. Orthodoxy considers it essential to think in terms of three divine hypostases who can interact with each other, whereas most process theologians find the union of this affirmation with that of God's unity to be inconceivable. Orthodoxy affirms that Jesus was one of these centers of consciousness and agency in its subjectivity become human, whereas process theologians can conceive of the divine as incarnate in its superjective mode of existence. Closely related to Orthodoxy's trinity is its affirmation of creatio ex nihilo: to say that God cannot exist alone does not mean that a realm finite actualities exists necessarily, since God is internally social. Finally, Orthodoxy combines the assertion of human freedom with that of divine foreknowledge, whereas process theologians find this compatibility inconceivable. The major difference between the two approaches formally is the weight put on tradition as opposed to conceivability. Process theologians are inclined to reform traditional formulations if they do not seem genuinely conceivable, whereas Orthodox theologians consider the formulations worked out in the patristic period as generally normative and do not consider human inability to understand them to be a sufficient reason for reforming the traditional doctrines.

At the same time, the sharpness of these differences is greatly softened by the apophatic sensibilities of the two traditions. The Orthodox theologians do not consider their doctrines to be adequate to the truth in any literal, fundamentalist sense, but as at best the least inadequate attempts to formulate mysteries which exceed the human grasp. Process theologians refer often to Whitehead's view that language is necessarily metaphorical and elliptical, appealing for an imaginative leap. Also, Orthodox theologians agree that doctrines cannot involve outright contradictions, as in round squares. So, they agree that conceivability is a desideratum, while process theologians agree that deciding upon genuine inconceivability is no simple matter.

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 9/24/2002 5:12 AM (GMT -6)

I'll observe that some of the things that Process is "allergic" to are toxic. For me that is the extent of its contribution.

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 9/24/2002 5:15 AM (GMT -6)

A. Rublev's Trinity

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 9/28/2002 5:45 AM (GMT -6)

Meph, I posted this on the "Book Recommendation" thread because of the beauty of what it says about the Father. Here's a beauty from Lossky's "Procession" chapter (linked above).

quote:
It is worthwhile to recall here what we have said before about the negative approach characteristic of Orthodox thought– an approach which radically changes the value of philosophical terms applied to God. Not only the image of – cause," but also such terms as "production," "procession," and "origin" ought to be seen as inadequate expressions of a reality which is foreign to all becoming, to all process, to all beginning. just as relations of origin mean something different from relations of opposition, so causality is nothing but a somewhat defective image, which tries to express the personal unity which determines the origins of the Son and the Holy Spirit. This unique cause is not prior to his effects, for in the Trinity there is no priority and posteriority. He is not superior to his effects, for the perfect cause cannot produce inferior effects. He is thus the cause of their equality with himself.{20} The causality ascribed to the person of the Father, who eternally begets the Son and eternally causes the Holy Spirit to proceed, expresses the same idea as the monarchy of the Father: that the Father is the personal principle of unity of the Three, the source of their common possession of the same content, of the same essence.

The expressions "Godhead-source" and "source of the Godhead" do not mean that the divine essence is subject to the person of the Father, but only that the person of the Father is the basis of common possession of the same essence, because the person of the Father, not being the sole person of the Godhead, is not to be identified with the essence. In a certain sense it can be said the Father is this possession of [83] the divine essence in common with the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that he would not be a divine Person if he were only a monad: he would then be identified with the divine Essence. Here it may be useful to recall that St. Cyril of Alexandria regarded the name "Father" as superior to the name "God," because the name "God" is given to God in respect of his relations with beings of a different nature.{21}

If the Father is sometimes called simply God– ho Theos, or even autotheos– nevertheless we cannot find in orthodox writers expressions which treat consubstantiality as participation by the Son and the Holy Spirit in the essence of the Father.{22} Each Person is God by nature, not by participation in the nature of another.

The Father is the cause of the other hypostases in that He is not His essence, i.e. in that He does not have His essence for Himself alone. What the image of causality wishes to express is the idea that the Father, being not merely an essence but a person, is by that very fact the cause of the other consubstantial Persons, who have the same essence as He has.

5

With reference to the Father, causality expresses the idea that He is God– Person, in that He is the cause of other divine persons– the idea that He could not be fully and absolutely Person unless the Son and the Holy Spirit are equal to Him in possession of the same nature and are that same nature. This might lead to the idea that each person of the Trinity could be regarded as the cause of the other two, in that each person is not the common essence; this would amount to a new relativization of the hypostases, transforming them into conventional and interchangeable signs of three diversities. Roman Catholic theology avoids this personal relativism by [84] professing belief in the procession of the Holy Spirit ab utroque, i.e. by falling into an impersonal relativism, that of relations of opposition, which are regarded as the basis of the three persons in the unity of a simple essence. Orthodox theology, while taking as its starting-point the initial antinomy of essence and hypostasis, avoids personal relativism by attributing causality to the Father alone. The monarchy of the Father thus sets up irreversible relationships, which enable us to distinguish the two other hypostases from the Father, and yet to relate them to the Father, as a concrete principle of unity in the Trinity. There is not only unity of the same one nature in the Three, but also unity of the Three Persons of the same one nature. St. Gregory of Nazianzus expresses this neatly: "Each considered in himself is wholly God, as the Father so the Son, as the Son so the Holy Spirit, but each preserves his own properties; considered together the Three are God; each (considered in himself is) God because of the consubstantiality, the Three (considered together are) God because of the monarchy."{23}

According to St. Maximus, God is "identically a monad and a triad."{24} He is not merely one and three; he is 1=3 and 3=1. That is to say, here we are not concerned with number as signifying quantity: absolute diversities cannot be made the subjects of sums of addition; they have not even opposition in common. If, as we have said, a personal God cannot be a monad– if he must be more than a single person– neither can he be a dyad. The dyad is always an opposition of two terms, and, in that sense, it cannot signify an absolute diversity. When we say that God is Trinity we are emerging from the series of countable or calculable numbers.{25} The procession of the Holy Spirit is an infinite [85] passage beyond the dyad, which consecrates the absolute (as opposed to relative) diversity of the persons. This passage beyond the dyad is not an infinite series of persons but the infinity of the procession of the Third Person: the Triad suffices to denote the Living God of revelation.{26} If God is a monad equal to a triad, there is no place in him for a dyad. Thus the seemingly necessary opposition between the Father and the Son, which gives rise to a dyad, is purely artificial, the result of an illicit abstraction. Where the Trinity is concerned, we are in the presence of the One or of the Three, but never of two.

The procession of the Holy Spirit ab utroque does not signify passage beyond the dyad but rather re-absorption of the dyad in the monad, the return of the monad upon itself. It is a dialectic of the monad opening out into the dyad and closing again into its simplicity.{27} On the other hand, procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone, by emphasizing the monarchy of the Father as the concrete principle of the unity of the Three, passes beyond the dyad without a return to primordial unity, without the necessity of God retiring into the simplicity of the essence. For this reason the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone confronts us with the mystery of the "Tri-Unity." We have here not a simple, self-enclosed essence, upon which relations of opposition have been superimposed in order to masquerade a god of philosophy as the God of Christian revelation. We say "the simple Trinity," and this antinomic expression, characteristic of Orthodox hymnography,{28} points out a simplicity which the absolute diversity of the three persons can in no way relativize.

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 9/28/2002 10:15 AM (GMT -6)

AS TO "ENERGIES":

quote:

(Lossky, "Procession", just before section 8)

Every name except those of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit– even the names of "Word" and "Paraclete"– is inappropriate for designating the special characteristics of the hypostases in the inaccessible existence of the Trinity, and refers rather [90] to the external aspect of God, to His manifestation,{32} or even to His economy. The dogma of the Trinity marks the summit of theology, where our thought stands still before the primordial mystery of the existence of the Personal God. Apart from the names denoting the three hypostases and the common name of the Trinity, the innumerable names which we apply to God– the "divine names" which textbook theology calls his attributes– denote God not in his inaccessible Being but in "that which surrounds the essence" (ta peri tes ousias).{33} This is the eternal radiance of the common content of the Three Persons, who reveal their incommunicable nature in "energies." This technical term of Byzantine theology, denoting a mode of divine existence besides essence, introduces no new philosophical notion alien to revelation. The Bible, in its concrete language, speaks of nothing other than "energies" when it tells us of the "glory of God"– a glory with innumerable names which surrounds the inaccessible Being of God, making Him known outside Himself, while concealing what He is in Himself. This is the eternal glory which belongs to the Three Persons, which the Son "had before the world was." And when we speak of the divine energies in relation to the human beings to whom they are communicated and given and by whom they are appropriated, this divine and uncreated reality within us is called Grace.

32 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2

Forum Information

Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 3:17 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads

Need Support? | Forum Help Manual