quote:

---

Antinomies

Dooyeweerd suggested that one way to separate out the ASPECTS was to look for antinomies (fundamental contradictions and paradoxes) that occur when two aspects are wrongly conflated. For instance, he explains the Xeno's famous paradox of the hare and tortoise as a conflation of the spatial and kinematic aspects.

---

quote:

---

Al, thanks for your thoughts. When it comes to christology, we are all neophytes. Finitum capax infinitum refers to the finite’s capacity for the infinite. My favorite definition of the capax dei (capacity for God) is from a Roman Catholic theologian: “human capacity to know and love insuperable difference” (Alejandro García-Rivera, The Community of the Beautiful: A Theological Aesthetics, 76). I think Zizioulas develops this theme as well, in Being and Communion. Electra

---

quote:

---

So too, when someone (e.g. us) say that Jesus Christ is one person who is fully God and fully human IN SUCH A WAY that neither his divinity nor his humanity is changed, or mixed, or separated," it is encumbent upon us to specify what coherent concept is conveyed by this "IN SUCH A WAY."

This is not arrogant human reason raising its ugly rebel head against the mysteries of the almighty. It's simply human reason saying "what the heck are you talking about?" It's the mind trying to distinguish a coherent belief from "shebotoglich ichna so so rama."

Doc

---

quote:

---

Meyendorff: "...communion with God does not diminish or destroy humanity, but makes it fully human...

---

quote:

---

...when someone (e.g. us) say that Jesus Christ is one person who is fully God and fully human...

---

quote:

---

P1: To be a single "person" is to have a single mind and location.
P2: God is infinite in mind, presence and power.
P3: Humans are finite in mind, presence and power.
P4: It is a contradiction to say that something is finite and infinite at the same time.
Hence: The claim that Jesus is fully God and fully human is either a contradiction (from 4) or is not a single person (from 1).

One way out of the dilemma, which I prefer, is to deny P2. No, I don't deny that God IS infinite in mind, presence and power, but I deny that God HAS to be IN EVERY RESPECT infinite in mind, presence and power.... God (unlike Jesus alone) is not ONE person, he is THREE persons. So you can affirm that ONE of the person's who is God LAID ASIDE the infinite of his mind, presence and power and BECAME finite in mind, presence and power--viz. he became a man. He took on a fully human mind, locality and strength. This is the KENOTIC view of the Incarnation.

---

quote:

---

I was a clueless writer. But one day I discovered verbs. Here's one: CONCUR.

Meyendorff** writes: In Christ, the union of the two natures is hypostatic: they "concur into one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis," according to the Fathers of Chalcedon.

The two natures "concur." Neither is diminished.

There is no conflict in that. ('Co-inherence'; not 'incoherence!' )

---

Fred, I concur !

Alan

quote:

---

Doc: But is THE EXERCISE of infinite mind, presence, power and love all essential to deity? ... God is omnipotent, and therefore has the capacity to exercise this OR NOT. Why not think the same about omniscience and omnipresence?

Tom: Take just the exercise of infinite mind. To choose not to exercise this attribute (it seems to me) is to choose not to know some slice of reality, to choose to know less than all that is knowable. But if this is the case, then this lack of exercise of omniscience amounts to a lack of omniscience. I don’t see the difference between laying aside the “exercise” of infinite mind and laying aside the attribute of infinite mind. Besides, God has to know what to choose to not know. This seems very odd.

Doc: Yet, do you not hold that, because of the kind of world God created, he is many times not able to do what he would love to do? Isn’t there a sort of "kenosis" implied in creation?

Tom: But omniscience and omnipotence seem dissimilar in this regard. Omnipotence permits both capacity and exercise while omniscience (it seems) is pure exercise. You either know or don’t know. One need not DO in order to be omnipotent. One need only be ABLE to do. A being who CAN move mountains but who does not move mountains is still omnipotent. But is a being who does not know there’s a mountain still omniscient? Does saying this being is “choosing” not to know there’s a mountain save omniscience? So it seems that to give up the exercise of omniscience is to give up omniscience.

---

quote:

---

Doc: Yet, do you not hold that, because of the kind of world God created, he is many times not able to do what he would love to do? Isn’t there a sort of "kenosis" implied in creation?

---

Remember, I keep bringing up Maximus' discussion of there being THREE Incarnations (Creation, Revealed Word, Jesus). So you'll believe me when I say how happy I am to see you raise the 'matter of Matter.'

But since from where I am (and Alan?) you seem skewed on the Christic incarnation (diminishing God) I'm waiting "for the other shoe" when it comes to Creation then too. (But I hope its not necessary.)

Plain and simple: God is the Creator, and not the "first cause." Creation NEVER existed without humanity in mind. So while it is easily arguable (I'll take on all Calvinist "comers!") that "predestination is for St Paul nothing but a conventional form for designating the mystery of God's love, and this love determines or predestines God and not humanity, if one wants to use the concept. " (Evdokimov). And...

quote:

---

For the Eastern Church, God is never the primary cause, but the Creator. It is creation "in the image" of the Creator which places the "second freedom" outside any causal determinism, and the patristic conception of humankind as autexousia, self authoritative, rightly defines its mysterious capacity to transcend every necessity and the very condition of the creature over against divine freedom: to see oneself as microtheos, as God-in-miniature. One can even say that God, the Lover of humankind, is much more determined himself by his creation and his covenants than the creature by his Creator: "The Lord has sworn and he will not change his mind" (Ps 110:4). The Incarnation appears as God's reply to his own promise: the divinizing of his creature. The fall of man reveals the titanic fullness of our freedom, which in turn, determines our own destiny. Satan did not lie in saying: "You will be as gods." Man has created something which never existed before. We created evil and introduced it into our innocent nature. What is more, our salvation determines the shape of the Incarnation as Love crucified. Divine blood has been shed to safeguard our freedom in grace, for, according to the Fathers' saying, "God is not able to force anyone to love him."

---

That's convincing to me. So...while that is easily arguable, it should not even be entertained to what abstract extent the Creation is "meant" to function independent of God. Instead, humanity, microtheos/God-in-miniature is created as the microcosm and mediator who in gives all back to God in worshipful eucharist/thanksgiving. That's literally the beginning and the end of it.


Doc writes: "...he is many times not able to do what he would love to do..." TRUE! How True!

Along this line (I think) Evdokimov has several things to say:

• ...God, the Lover of humankind, is much more determined himself by his creation and his covenants than the creature by his Creator: "The Lord has sworn and he will not change his mind" (Ps 110:4).


• ...according to the Fathers' saying, "God is not able to force anyone to love him."


• AND...
  
  God created man as "another freedom" and the risk God has taken is already to be seen in the suffering of Christ, the "Man of sorrows," in the shadow of the cross, for according to the Fathers, "God does everything except to constrain us to love him." In expectation of this love God renounces all his power, empties himself in the figure of the Lamb sacrificed. God's destiny with us depends on our "yes," ouifiat. To assure the complete freedom of such love, Christ even renounces his omniscience, leaves the abyss of silence and gives his life. The impassible, that is nonsuffering, quality of a hidden God is only apparent, for according co Gregory of Nazianzus, the God who seems unable to suffer nevertheless does suffer. God sees the sadness ahead, and his love is no less vigilant, because man is able to refuse him and build a whole life upon this rejection, upon an atheistic revolt against him. Which then is more important, love or freedom? The two are infinite and hell bears this question in its fire.

So...IMHO "kenosis" DOES have a place with respect to the Creation, (Doc's, ""kenosis" implied in creation"); but ONLY within a Biblical understanding of Creation: with a Biblical anthropology attached.


Thanks, guys!


Fred

(I edited this to change that last comma to a semicolon. Important detail!)


Edited by - fred on 12/16/2002 11:20:15 AM

quote:

---

ps. Fred, I can't tell you how much it means that you liked at least SOME of my post. You're adorable. You know that, don't you?

---

quote:

---

It affirmed, on the contrary, following Cyril of Alexandria, that Christ's unique hypostasis is the pre-existing hypostasis of the Logos; that is, that the term is used in Christology with exactly the same meaning as in the Trinitarian theology of the Cappadocian Fathers: one of the three eternal hypostascs of the Trinity "took flesh," while remaining essentially the same in its divinity. The hypostasis of Christ, therefore, pre-existed in its divinity, but it acquired humanity by the Virgin Mary.

This fundamental position has two important implications, (a) There is no absolute symmetry between divinity and humanity in Christ because the unique hypostasis is only divine and because the human will follows the divine. It is precisely a "symmetrical" Christology which was rejected as Nestorian in Ephesus (431). This "assymetry" of Orthodox Christology reflects an idea which Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria stressed so strongly; only God can save, while humanity can only cooperate with the saving acts and will of God. However, as we emphasized earlier, in the patristic concept of man, "theocentricity" is a natural character of humanity; thus assymetry does not prevent the fact that Christ was fully and "actively" man.

(b) The human nature of Christ is not personalized into a separate human hypostasis, which means that the concept of hypostasis is not an expression of natural existence, either in God or in man, but it designates personal existence. Post-Chalcedonian Christology postulates that Christ was fully man and also that He was a human individual, but it rejects the Nestorian view that He was a human hypostasis, or person. A fully human individual life was en-hypostasized in the hypostasis of the Logos, without losing any of its human characteristics.

---

That deserves a moment to carefully consider.



Then, so does this:

quote:

---

The fact that the notion of hypostasis is irreducible to the concepts of "particular nature," or to the notion of "individuality," is crucially important not only in Christology but also in Trinitarian theology. Hypostasis is the personal, "acting" source of natural life; but it is not "nature," or life itself.

---

The essence/nature-based Triology that comes from Western theology is a real problem. That is, at its very least, NOT what the Cappadocian Fathers were talking about. And, IMHO, it leads us, here, sometimes, down blind alleys. So: "Hypostasis is the personal, "acting" source of natural life; but it is not "nature," or life itself." And, "the notion of hypostasis is irreducible to the concepts of "particular nature," or to the notion of "individuality." "

When Electra wrote, "So because of Christ, we are stuck with making sense out of an eternal God who enters history. Although the Greeks considered this claim to be foolishness, the Jews have always confessed belief in the living God. Electra", I think that she was aptly representing this matrix of blind alleys that Western theology has had to grapple with, lacking the Cappadocian Fathers' perspective. Confusing phypostasis with "particular nature" or "individuality" or modern concepts of personhood lead to the problem she identifies. But they were not a problem for the Cappadocian Fathers.

If we insist on their thought to fit INSIDE our own, then it is no wonder that we discover (rightly) that it does not fit.



And, so, then this...

quote:

---

. In the hypostasis, the two natures of Christ accomplish a union without confusion. They retain their natural characteristics; but, because they share a common hypostatic life, there is a "communication of idioms," or perichoresis, which for example, enables some of Christ's human actions —words or gestures—to carry consequences which only God could have provoked. The clay made out of His spittle, for example, restores sight to the blind man.

---

WITHOUT confusion, their union was based on the common hypostatic life, of the one hypostasis of the Word; not on "individuality." AND I EONDER IF THAT IS NOT THE 'RUB' FOR US MODERN FOLK. (We want the humanity of Christ to be individualistic.) But, says John of Damascus, "the divinity which communicates its privileges to the body, remaining itself outside the passions o£ the flesh." THAT OFFENDS US!



Meyendorff goes on:

quote:

---

"The hypostatic union implies also that the Logos made humanity His own in its totality; thus the Second Person of the Trinity was indeed the subject, or agent, of the human experiences, or acts, of Jesus."

---

IT OFFENDS US THAT HE MADE OUR HUMANITY 'HIS' OWN, AND YET HIS DIVINITY DID NOT CHANGE.

PART OF THAT OFFENSE IS THAT WE CONCEIVE OF HIS DIVINITY AS BEING SUPERIOR TO HIS DIVINE HYPOSTASIS. (The Cappadocian Fathers) did not mwake that mistake. And beginning from that mistake, how could one of the Trinity DIE? And one of the Trinity did indeed die -- but not all of them.

Meyndorff continues, on THIS very topic:

quote:

---

Exactly the same problem arose in connection with the death of Christ: impassibility and immortality were indeed characteristics of the divine nature. How, then, asked the theologians of Antioch, could the Son of God ? Obviously, the "subject" of Christ's death was only His humanity. Against this point of view, and following Cyril, the Fifth Council (553) affirms; "If anyone does not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified in the flesh is true God and the Lord of Glory and one of the Holy Trinity, let him be anathema."8 This conciliar text, which paraphrases 1 Corinthians 2:8 ("If they had understood, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory"), inspired the hymn "The Only-begotten Son," attributed to Emperor Justinian and sung at every Byzantine Eucharistic liturgy: "One of the Holy Trinity, you were crucified for us."

---

Wonderful hymn, BTW!



Meyendorff continues, on this topic as pertinent to Christology as it is, indeed, to Trinitarian theology:

quote:

---

...the characteristics of the divine essence -- impassibility, immutability, etc. -- are not absolutely binding upon the personal, or hypostatic, existence of God. Later we shall see the importance of this fact for the patristic and Byzantine understanding of God. Meanwhile, on the level of soteriology, the affirmation that the Son of God indeed "died in the flesh" reflects, better than any other Christological formula, the boundlessness of God's love for man, the reality of the "appropriation" by the Logos of fallen and mortal humanity -- i.e., the very mystery of salvation.

---

IS THAT TOO LONG A QUOTE FOR TOM TO PUT AS HIS SIGNATURE?



That's all for today. (from Meyendorff's Byzantine Theology, pages 153-157)

Fred

quote:

---

Thoughts? Specifically, does Shorty’s only “pretending” to be a scientist call the entire analogy into question, since Christ did not “pretend” to be human?

---