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Pow: One of the things I was thinking about while writing the other post is that where "goodness" is an "essential" thing for US, for God "goodness" is an "energetic" attribute -- something that we can know of him -- and not of essence.

Tom: But your use of Hitler and Theresa suggests that “goodness” in humans is NOT an “essential” thing for us. If our “goodness” is an “essential” thing for us, then how is it others come to know of our goodness only via our actions and attributes? It’s knowledge “of other” humans I’m asking about. Seems to me that everything, goodness or evil, others know about us is known, just as with God, through our actions and attributes. No other person knows my goodness except through my actions.

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This no longer belongs in the counterfactuals thread. I posted it (t)here because the post it responds to is here, but I've also started a new thread "Attributes attribue" under "Theology." If there's any more on this, let's carry it on over there.

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Tom: Since the distinction between essence and energies holds for human/human relations without forbidding reasoning from attribute to essence, I’d like to know why you (PoW) hold that the distinction in divine/human relations forbids such a move.

PoW: I was thinking about that. The answer is not to hard.

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I appreciate your responding, though it seems the answer is harder than you imagine, for I don’t see a clear answer.

PoW: We can tell a grape from a pear by externals and know differences in "essence" from what we learn "externally." Grape and pear are different in essence.

Tom: Very good.

PoW: Where, of course, each A. Hitler and Mother Theresa are unique human beings, their "essences" do not account for the differences between A. Hitler and Mother Theresa.

Tom: OK. Hitler and Theresa both share the same “human nature,” or what Thomas Morris calls “kind-essence.” They both possess the attributes constitutive of human being. But each human being possess her own unique “individual-essence.” Regarding this, you say: “But how to draw the line between what is our shared humanity (the respect in which there is one human nature, passed on) and the way in which we each have an essence that in unique is more than I want in my head right now.”

Fair enough. But we’ll have to go there sometime. It regards my question.

PoW: So comparisions of Adolf to Theresa must avoid static assessments of each. Their "essence" can not be examined in the same way a grape or pear is.

Tom: I’m not so sure our assessment of grapes and pears is static, or that Hitler and Theresa are so far removed from your comments regarding grapes and pears. The distinction you admit between human “kind-essence” (shared attributes constitutive of human being) and human “individual-essence” (that set of attributes and whatever else that constitutes a unique individual human being—which you didn’t comment on) is not at all different from the distinction between grape “kind-essence” and grape “individual-essence.” Whereas Hitler and Theresa both share the same “kind-essence,” grapes and pears don’t, but grapes and grapes do. So you ought to have offered observing the differences and similarities between two grapes or two pears on the one hand and Hitler and Theresa on the other instead of grapes and pears on the one hand and Hitler and Theresa on the other. Secondly, though grape-being isn’t human being, it does give and take as an individual grape to its environment and so become something unique in the world of grapes, not unlike humans. (Am I having this conversation?)

PoW: (I noted Paul's reference to the OTHER PAUL's connection between marriage and the mystical union of Christ's Body with the Lord.)

Tom: Yes, understanding THIS is what I’m after. The parallel is obvious, though it doesn't directly answer our question.

Pow: One of the things I was thinking about while writing the other post is that where "goodness" is an "essential" thing for US, for God "goodness" is an "energetic" attribute -- something that we can know of him -- and not of essence.

Tom: But your use of Hitler and Theresa suggests that “goodness” in humans is NOT an “essential” thing for us. If our “goodness” is an “essential” thing for us, then how is it others come to know of our goodness only via our actions and attributes? It’s knowledge “of other” humans I’m asking about. Seems to me that everything, goodness or evil, others know about us is known, just as with God, through our actions and attributes. No other person knows my goodness except through my actions. My point is simply this: Attributes (noun) attribute (verb). We rightly conclude that Hitler, though sharing the same kind-essence as Mother Thresea, was thoroughly evil in his individual-essence (in the uniqueness of his person) and THIS we only know through Hitler’s actions, not through direct, unmediated contact with the “stuff” of his personhood (whatever that it).

It seems to me that we face precisely the same thing in our relationship with God. Yes, he is creator and we are creatures. But this seems irrelevant to the point under discussion, that being that we are, in God’s image, persons (which is what makes personal intimacy with God even possible) and that we face the same essence/attributes distinction with divine/human relations that we do with human/human relations. We relate personally through actions and energies. The question remains: Why does this distinction not allow our understanding human attributes to faithfully reveal the essential human being but not allow us to understand divine attributes to faithfully reveal the essential divine being? I find no problem in affirming that divine attributes are just that, attributes OF the divine. They reveal God.

PoW: THAT marks a difference right there, between Creator and creature. We can know "about" God through his goodness. But we know him only through those acts/energies towards us.

Tom: Where’s the difference in this from creature/creature relations? We likewise have no knowledge of others except through their acts/energies.

PoW: I think that the difference between Creator and creature is under appreciated.

Tom: I think it’s all underappreciated. The differences and the “likeness” (“Let us create human being in our image/likes”). But we are like God; more like God than we are like a stone or a tree. My passion to see us embrace the truth that we are God’s image and likeness surely influences me as much as does your passion to see people embrace the truth that they are unlike God. Yes, we are finite. Yes, creatures. Yes, dust, and to dust we shall return. But as persons, persons in essence, we are more “like” God than we are “like” the dust.

PoW: Tom says that he would like "reasoning from attribute to essence."

Tom: I didn’t say I’d “like” this, I just observed that we DO it, which we most certainly do in human/human relations. I’m just wondering why not in divine/human relations, given that we are persons in God’s image, designed for intimacy with God.

PoW: I'm not sure that scripture invites us to do that. i'm pretty sure that scripture warns us not to. I don't know anyone in scripture that does so, successfully, and receives approval from God. Those to "receive" revelation from God (prophets) received such "in part" and waited in faith for the rest. They didn't act on their "reasonings" or extrapolate further "what must then be."

Tom: Ah, now we’re getting closer to the planet core. I didn’t suggest that our knowledge of God was other than “in part.” What we know of God we know via God’s revealing it to us.

I actually can think of several biblical examples of people reasoning from attribute to essence in precisely the manner I’m suggesting we do all the time in relating to other human persons (and as most of us do in relating to God). God tells Abraham Sodom is to be destroyed. Abraham objects, “Destroy the righteous with the wicket? Will not the Judge of all the Earth do justly?” Attributes (noun) attribute (verb). Abraham believed God was incapable of doing such a thing. We could simply disagree with Abraham I suppose, but I’ll not for the moment. Then when told to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham obeyed, reasoning that God was incapable of breaking such a promise, and concluding (we are told in Romans) on this basis that even if he killed Isaac, God would raise him back to life. This is precisely the sort of reasoning from attribute to essence that I’m advocating.

PoW: In fellow human beings we "reason from attribute to essence" to know that God's love is in the other person…

Tom: And in relating to and experiencing God we do not “reason from” the Cross to the declaration that “God is, in his essence, in his nature, on the inside love” and that THIS is what is revealed on the Cross?

It appears to me that what fundamentally divides here is that whereas I maintain that attributes (noun) attribute (verb), you essentially deny this. For you, God’s actions and attributes don’t point TO God, they simply point to themselves. They say nothing more than that “God did THIS action on THIS occasion.” But these acts don’t point to (attribute) or say anything at all about the actor, they only point to themselves as acts. We are not allowed to conclude on the basis of the Cross that God is, in his essential nature, LOVE. All we may conclude is that God loved us. Whatever God may BE we are not free to say (and are rather warned against trying), but we can say “God loved us.”

PoW: And in that we know that God is love and that we love that person and they us. We recognize in their essence something…

Tom: When you say “God IS love” does the word “is” describe anything beyond particular acts of love? In what sense “is” God’s essence/nature responsible for these acts of love?

PoW: To have "fellowship" with God we MUST have a MEDIATOR. Absolutely.

Tom: Absolutely.

PoW: We can ONLY have fellowship with God IN CHRIST.

Tom: Absolutely.

PoW: Our destiny is to participate in the divine love of the Trinity.

Tom: Which Trinity?

PoW: But THAT relationship is not via "reasoning from attribute to essence."

Tom: Misreading me again. I am not suggesting that our “reason” is our mediator.

PoW: We can know God directly, and not just "about" God.

Tom: By this you mean “know God’s energies directly.” No?

PoW: Baarlam reasoned with Aquinas that while we COULD reason all the way up to God's essence (TGB is sounding that way.)…

Tom: Misread me again. Ugh. I am not saying we can reason all the way up to God’s essence. I’m saying that when God reveals himself to us, we are justified in concluding that God is in his essence/nature what God reveals himself to be. I’m not putting “reason” in the place of Christ’s mediation. I'm not suggesting that there's nothing more to God than what God's revealed. I'm not suggesting that “reason” does away with the need for revelation. I’m saying that when God reveals Godself, it’s God who is revealed, as much about God as God wishes to reveal.

PoW: PART OF THE REASON WHY "the distinction in divine/human relations forbids such a move: reasoning from attribute to essence" IS IMPORTANT IS THAT HUMANITY IS NOT A STAND-ALONE. HUMANITY IS ONLY MEANINGFUL, ONLY REALIY EXISTS IN COMMUNION WITH GOD--AND THAT COMMUNION IS ONLY THROUGH THE SON, AND THROUGH THE SON WITH THE DIVINE UNCREATED LOVE OF THE WHOLE TRINITY.

Tom: What I got was this: We are not a stand-alone and we only have meaning in communion with God through Christ. I understand this to mean: “We cannot reason our way to God independently of God. We are dependent upon God for our knowledge of God. And we can never find meaning in life outside of God’s infinite triune love.”

And this you offer as part of the reason why we may not reason from God’s revealed love to the conclusion that God “as God,” in essence or nature, IS love?

PoW: THE OTHER PART OF THE REASON IS THAT WE ARE CREATURES AND GOD IS GOD. BUT 'THAT' BARRIER IS NO BARRIER AT ALL, AND NEVER WAS INTENDED TO BE.

Tom: If it’s no barrier at all then how is it a reason why we may not reason from attribute to essence?

You offer as a reason why we may not conclude from God’s revealed acts of love to the conclusion that God “as God,” in essence or nature, IS love, the fact that we are creatures and God is God. But this is no reason. How does my being a creature created in the image of God mean I am not permitted to make the move from revelation to revealer? From love to lover? From acts to actor? To speak of “revealER” and “lovER” is to move beyond acts to actOR, beyond energies to the energizER.

Bottom line: Attributes (noun) attribute (verb). If they don’t, they’re not attributes. Call them something else.

Tom

Edited by - TGB on 07/18/2003 4:49:36 PM

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God is Love!