Anything that exists can be “teleios,” if it just is all it can/should/was created to be. The Greek word can even express gradation and the superlative: “perfect,” “more perfect,” “most perfect.” That might not make much sense in English, but it does in Greek because the word expresses a thing’s capacities for being and becoming which change and mature over time for us, but they don’t for God. So an “infant” can be a “perfect” human being as it is, but if it’s ten years old and in the same physical or mental state, it’s no longer “perfect.”

So the idea is, as I read it, “[always] be what you can be,” “be all you were created to be,” “be fully actualized” just as God is all God can be. But what actual states or attributes this will mean for us and for God will be different. I don’t think Jesus meant to say “come to possess the very same perfections that define God; be perfect divinity!” God’s perfections are non-contingent. But however perfect we can be we'll always be contingent. God’s being perfect, let’s say, includes being omniscient. Ours never will be that. God’s perfections include being fully, consciously, and personally related to all things. We can’t become that. But we can be fully and personally related so far as our capacities allow.

I think that’s the point. But One notes the context, which is living in love in all contexts. That’s we’re our capacities take US. A rock can be perfect without perceiving the needs of others and freely disposing itself to meet those needs in personal ways. That’s cool for a rock. Its ‘telos’ doesn’t include such capacities. But we DO have the capacity to do such things, so being perfect for us, fully engaged “as” persons, means loving.

Jesus took human being to its fully actualized state, he got out of such being all that can be gotten out of it, perfected its capacities, demonstrated its real potential, and lived “as human being was ‘telossed’ [to turn the Greek into an English verb] to lived.”

One: It seems to me that the perfection of love in a particular created being ends up being the Spirit of Christ effortlessly flowing in and through a person's dispositional uniqueness.  I believe that the bi-polar relational unity is in full effect such that the "lower end" (human spirit) is in complete, moment-to-moment alignment with the "higher end" (Holy Spirit) as demonstrated by the Unmanifest Reality of God being manifested in visible ways in Creation.

Tom: I’m not going to agree that creation is God just manifested in visible ways. I can agree with what you say if I define “uniqueness” in a way that permits an “over-and-againstness” to the human spirit and its creativity, the exercise of which is libertarianly determined by the person and not prescribed and/or determined by the divine will. (See my father/daughter analogy.) There would be a range of ‘lovingly relational possibilities’ prescribed by the divine character (into which we will have freely solidified ourselves over time; a process that ends irreversibly in glorification); but we continue to perceive ourselves as selves over-and-against God and others. This much is required, so far as I can tell, for the kind of mutual interdependent relationships and loving creativity that I think God is after.

I don’t see how the triune perichoretic relations undermine this. If I understand him, D wants to say that since Father and Son are distinct as persons (or in some genuinely personal way) but yet one God, so WE can be the one God contingently expressed is personally distinct ways. He argues that since “being God” doesn’t destroy the unique, personal distinction between Father, Son, and Spirit, we shouldn’t think that our being God destroys OUR unique personal distinction.

I don’t think this works, and can’t stop now to say why! Gotta go to school!

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 4/18/2007 7:58:57 AM (GMT-5)

All of it's willing is COMPLETELY CONSONANT with the Will of God and God's Spirit.  (I'm talking RANGE OF OPERATION..not just one option, Tom.   )

Post Edited (One) : 4/18/2007 10:35:02 AM (GMT-5)

One: At this state of being, what is the effective difference in the dispositional existence of the glorified human and that of God...

Tom: That’s easy. The difference is in “that which” does the determining of my actions. Whatever we call this “that which” (i.e., the individual human spirit, my disposition, whatever it is), it’s not numerically identical with “that in God which” determines the exercise of God’s actions. I think this distinction is what constitutes the personal over-and-againstness that Greg and I want to posit.

But on your view all the human center is is God, the divine disposition, deciding to limit ITSELF in terms of knowledge. It's that ITSELF that's the problem. We want to posit ANOTHER self that is not the divine self. That's the whole of our disagreement.

One: …save the dispositional limitations that CONTINUE to allow for relative autonomy of the human being?

Tom: But all “human being” is on your account is “limited divine being.”

One: Yes, this being can perceive itself to be actually distinct from its Ground...

Tom: but…

One: …but this being would also understand itself to be in perfect CONSONANCE and HARMONY with the Ground, such that the Ground actually defines all of the human's becoming because of the choices of the human being itself.

Tom: If the Ground defines ALL of the human being’s “becoming,” then there IS NO DISTINCTION between the ground and the human being, except the fact that the lines of influence and determination run unilaterally from “ground” to “human.” But that’s what needs NOT to be the case where mutually personal relationships are concerned. What counts as the “distinction” we need (the distinction sufficient for mutual, inter-personal relationships) is just this very thing—that what’s determining my actions is not itself determined by something other than me. (I’m assuming we will forever “become” in the sense that we’ll forever “relate” in creative ways even if the probability range of our actions is irreversibly loving through glorification).

One: It would pretty much be God-in-human. We would be LIKE CHRIST.

Tom: God ‘in’ human I can live with. God ‘as’ human is different. And you’re definitely saying something much more like the latter.

One: If God IS love...and we become "love", doesn't this mean that we "become" God, in that respect at least?

Tom: I don’t think we ever “become love” in the sense that God is love.

One: Would perfectly loving glorified beings BE "God" insofar as they were living in the perfect love by God's Spirit?

Tom: Why should that follow? Is a contradiction generated if we say non-divine beings perfectly reflect God?

Bro, you have to start getting this all down in organized, publishable fashion. Even if you don’t ever intend to publish it, all the core people you bounce your ideas off of need to see a more ordered, systematic argument for your views. I must insist that you set yourself to getting this all down, on paper: premise 1, premise 2, therefore A, premise 3, premise 4, therefore B; if A and B, then C; A and B, therefore C!

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 4/18/2007 11:04:45 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One) : 4/18/2007 1:04:05 PM (GMT-5)

Let’s try this.

Let’s talk about the necessity/contingency distinction. I’m out of my depth here because these are very complex and even unresolved philosophical issues. Everybody agrees on some of what goes into defining them, but there are some real deep rifts too.

I think One is viewing “existence” per se as necessary, so that the only thing that exists is what exists necessarily. “No new existence,” if you follow me, is at the heart of One’s view. Existence qua existence is a necessary state of affairs. Therefore, everything THAT exists IS just necessary existence in one form or another. Hang with me for a sec, OK?

And ‘form’ is where D places contingency. Now, there might be a better word than “form,” so let me describe what I mean and we can choose a better word if you want. A ‘form’ is some particular instantiation of existence. The contingent 'forms', or 'ways' in which necessary existence instantiates itself are angelic, human, non-human animal, plant, chemical, quantum particles, etc. These ‘forms’ are contingent. When we say they “exist” contingently we don’t mean to say that some objective reality “came into existence.” That’s impossible on One’s view. Nothing “comes into existence" per se. What really is the case is that existence (which is necessary) comes into some new “form” or "way of being." But the existence these contingent forms instantiate is necessary. That's crucial.

And only God is necessary. God just IS existence. The Trinity is God instantiated necessarily in the form of Father, Son, and Spirit (all I mean by “form” here is some “way of existing,” and Father, Son, and Spirit are the necessary form of existence). Beyond this Trinitarian form, all other forms are contingent forms, but they are no less an instantiation of the one divine existence.

One, tweak this where I’m wrong. But I think I hit your bull’s eye. I know you too well.

See, all this time One has been talking about “necessary existence” and I’ve been taking him to mean (as I might mean) existence is in God’s case qualified by necessity and in our case qualified by contingency. But that’s not really One’s view. When One talks of “necessary existence” he means “existence per se, which happens to be necessary.” There’s no such thing as contingent existence on One's view. There’s just existence, which IS God, changing shape and adopting different ways of existing, ways of doing existence. These 'ways' or 'forms' are all instantiated freely and unnecessarily. The only necessary 'forms' or 'ways of existing' are instantiated by Father, Son, and Spirit.

You all with me? OK...

Consider the Law of Conservation of Mass which states that matter is neither created nor destroyed. Burn a log of wood. The wood disappears. Well, not really. All the energy and matter (whatever matter is) that constituted the log still exist, just in different forms of energy. The Law of Conservation of Energy is similar. It states that you can neither increase nor decrease the total sum of energy in the universe. There you have it.

What D is arguing is a kind of Law of Conservation of Existence which states (this is rough, OK?) that “existence is neither created nor destroyed.” There’s only so much of it (in the logical sense, careful!) to go around. Only God can, has ever, or will ever EXIST in the strict sense of the word. We (all creation, angels included) only constitute the contingent 'forms' or 'ways' God freely decides to instantiate his existence. And lastly, it happens that in instantiating Godself as angelic and human being, God decides to adopt a form of existing, a way of dispositing the divine disposition (imagine!) that is capable of doing what is impossible for the Trinitarian form of existence to do, namely, sin.

For reasons I've already expressed, I think this whole scheme is untenable. The sort of limitation D supposes God adopts in instantiating contingent, fallible, ignorant and ultimately sinful forms contradicts the very necessary qualities (aseity) that One wants to say define the divine disposition--i.e., the disposition to unfailingly perceive and pursue loving relationality. If this, or something like it, constitutes divine dispositional existence, then it has to be everywhere and in all cases characteristic of existence IN ALL ITS FORMS. That's the problem. Remember, all that we are is the contingent forms through which God (necessary existence), i.e., the divine disposition (limited by choosing to negatively prehend reality which in turn constitutes our capacity to misrelate) determines itself. When "I" misrelate, when "I" freely dispose away from love, I am God (instantitated in limited form) disposing the divine disposition in unloving and privated ways. All the human spirit is is the divine disposition contingently expressed by God's freely choosing to negatively prehend reality in a particular 'form' or 'way' of being, say human being, so that the sin, misrelation, and privation which are impossible for necessary existence in triune form now become possible for necessary existence in human form.

And this solves problems?

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 4/18/2007 6:27:46 PM (GMT-5)

Hey, whatever...

Let's just love people. Ha!

Post Edited (One) : 4/18/2007 6:50:03 PM (GMT-5)

Just thinking...

Post Edited (One) : 4/18/2007 7:08:15 PM (GMT-5)