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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 10/16/2006 11:44 AM (GMT -6)

[Edited out by me: It's just too painful to have to pass by this over and over again and be reminded of it.]

Post Edited (TGB) : 10/17/2006 1:39:37 PM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 10/16/2006 11:55 AM (GMT -6)

[Edited out by me.]

Post Edited (TGB) : 10/17/2006 1:39:22 PM (GMT-5)

PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/16/2006 12:11 PM (GMT -6)

This could raise smiles:

http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/early_christian_fathers.htm

I. God

(a) The Unity of God

The Father of all is far removed from the emotions and passions which are common to men. He is simple, uncompounded, without diversity of parts; wholly identical and consistent; since he is all understanding, all spirit, all thought, all hearing, all seeing, all light, and the whole source of all that is good.

(o)

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 10/16/2006 12:18 PM (GMT -6)

I don't agree with the doctrine of divine simplicity (as you know), but I knew you'd come through! cheers

What about masculinity? Is it the Orthodox view (as some of these members have told me) that God is fundamentally "masculine"? Maybe God is a simple, uncompounded, masculine God.

Tom

PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/16/2006 12:20 PM (GMT -6)

You really want to converse with these people?

The first answer of mine was in fun. But the second presupposes some reflection on the part of the reader -- some silence.

This is from a section in the Cambridge "Documents in Early Christian Thought" my 10th grader is using for a report in school -- he was assigned Clement of Alexandria, of all people.

Here's something really good.

II. God the Father

Infinite and Inexpressible. Apprehended by Grace and Revelation

Since the first cause of anything is exceedingly difficult to discover, the original and supreme cause is hard to describe — the cause which is the reason for the coming to be and for the continued existence of all things. For how can that be spoken of which is not genus, differentia, species, individual, number, accident, subject of accident? One could not rightly describe him as the Whole, for the whole is a term applied to spatial extension, and he is the Father of the whole universe. Nor can one speak of him as having parts; for the One is indivisible, and therefore infinite, not in the sense of being inexhaustible to thought, but of being without dimension or limit. Thus the deity is without form and nameless. Though we ascribe names, they are not to be taken in their strict meaning; when we call him One, Good, Mind, Existence, Father, God, Creator, Lord, we are not conferring a name on him. Being unable to do more, we use these appellations of honour, in order that our thought may have something to rest on and not wander at random.

These taken singly do not express the being of God, but collectively they indicate the power of the Almighty. Descriptions derive either from qualities of things or from their relations to other things; neither of those is applicable to God. He cannot be comprehended by knowledge, which is based on previously known truths, whereas nothing can precede what is self-existent. It remains that the Unknown be apprehended by divine grace and the Word proceeding from him . . . [cf. Acts xvii. 22, 23].

Stromateis, v. xii (82, 4)

http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/early_christian_fathers.htm#_Toc96822019

(o)

PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/16/2006 12:21 PM (GMT -6)

Neither simplicity NOR complexity -- as above.

And "all" -- as below.

(o)

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 10/16/2006 12:30:03 PM (GMT-5)

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/16/2006 12:23 PM (GMT -6)

The part about "wander at random" seems to apply to those at your site.

(o)

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 10/16/2006 12:23 PM (GMT -6)

Yep. My interest in talking to them was like the interest of an anthropologist who lands in a previously undiscovered culture where people's beliefs were cut off from others and developed entirely on their own. I'm just gathering information to educate myself. I honestly never thought there were believers who thought these things.

Thanks POW!
Tom

PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/16/2006 12:26 PM (GMT -6)

Clement's Stromateis, iv. xxv (156, i)

God is undemonstrable and therefore is not an object of knowledge. But the Son is Wisdom and Knowledge and Truth and all that is akin to these, and he admits of demonstration and explanation. All the powers of the Spirit [i.e. the divine nature], gathered together into unity, complete the notion of the Son; but he is not completely expressed by our conception of each of his powers. He is not merely One, as Unity, nor Many, as having parts, but One as All. Hence he is All. For he is the circle of all powers, which in him are rounded and united.

(o)

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 10/16/2006 12:29:25 PM (GMT-5)

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/16/2006 12:28 PM (GMT -6)

You're welcome, Tom.

Ever read Pelikan's "The Christian Tradition" books (5 in the series)? I bought #1 yesterday, checked #2 from the library -- and plan to Amazon it to myself today.

(o)

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