Brandon: As the Master Carpenter perfoms his duties he has different tools for differing purposes. Whether it be a hammer or a saw, as the tool is in the Master's Hand the tool "becomes" by way of extension a part of his arm as if to almost be one with the arm. The "energies" of the Master Carpenter are carried through to the tool so as to perform it's duty. However, there is a distinction between the tool itself and the Carpenter. But when they properly relate they become "one." Which is why I want to say that I can jump on board with bi-polar RELATIONAL unity. I can't jump on board with there being no distinction between them.

Tom: As soon as I read this I knew One would like it. Yep. I don’t like it so much, and One knows why. Don’t you One?  

One: Maybe this will help me. If what Tom has written is correct, what are the MAIN THINGS that we lose that we don't want to lose?

Tom: You mean what do we lose if YOU'RE correct? My answer would be: Existence. "We" lose everything, because the "we" we think exists doesn't exist AT ALL. There's no negotiating a truce that I can see. Either this "I" exists as a non-God person or it don't exist.

One: "God is loving Godself in us." We can still fellowship, right?

Tom: Whose the "we" (God and God, or God and I, or you and I)? If either the second or third, yes, "we" can fellowship. If the first, no, not in any meaningful way I can understand. On your view there’s only ONE person, ONE disposition in your view—the divine disposition, in which case it’s God fellowshipping with God. “I” am just God blindfolded (but who in your case knows he’s blindfolded and celebrates it!).

(I saw a missed call from ya. Sorry. My cell is on vibwate!)

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 4/19/2007 11:17:17 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One) : 4/19/2007 11:40:44 AM (GMT-5)

One: There's NO POSSIBLE both/and here?

Tom: I don’t think so. I think there’s a real contradiction between us.

One: Also, Tom. Am I to gather from what you are saying that INNER DIALOGUE WITH ONESELF (Self-relation in self-communication) is NOT genuinely "inter-personal mutually influential" relationship?

Tom: Right. When I self-relate I don’t relate to a self OTHER than myself. I SELF-relate. In other words, the relationship is not interpersonally mutual in the sense that two persons, like you and me, are interpersonal. We’re certainly influenced by the conclusions we reach through self-relating (talking to ourselves, thinking out loud, etc.), but self-relation isn’t two persons relating. Did you think it was?

One: All we are saying is that the logoi have no MEANING in and of themselves without reference to the Logos from whence they come.

Tom: Ah, come on Bro. You’re certainly saying more than this. I can say this. I can agree that the non-God persons that we are have no meaning without reference to God. To have meaning without reference to anything outside One’s self is to be self-existent. And only God is that. He doesn’t derive his meaning from anything outside of God. We DO derive our meaning from what is outside ourselves. But this doesn’t get you your whole system.

One: This is NOT about removing taking away self-hood from a human being.

Tom: Whose selfhood does a human being have? That’s the question. A human being is a self, sure. You don’t deny that. But WHO is the self? On your view, we are just the divine self, the divine disposition, blindfolded some freely instantiated form. So though I instantiate selfhood on your view, it’s God’s selfhood that I instantiate. I’m not “my” (non-God) self. I’m Godself.

One: This is about EXPANDING THE PERSPECTIVE of it's own self-relationship, and showing them their bi-polar relational unity to the Great Self.

Tom: We know this is what it’s about. But does it make sense?

One: Instead of being little cancer cells (thinking ourselves individuals and misrelating because of that faulty belief), we are healthy INTERDEPENDENT cells…

Tom: You keep assuming your position in the defense of it. I mean, look at what’s here. See the either/or you place between “cancerous cells that are individuals” and “healthy interdependent cells”? To think you’re an “individual” is a cancerous misrelation. Why think that? Then what we shold be is “healthy interdependent cells.” But “cells” is the analogue. So what happened to the “individual”? We’re interdependent, yes. But interdependent what? Why not interdependent individuals? On your view, there’s just one individual, God; just the one divine disposition instantiated in limited ways.

Tom

I think I’m about spent, One. Reached the end of my capacities. You win by virtue of fatique!

Soren Kierkegaard: No, I refuse to be erased; I will stand as a witness against you, a witness that you are a second-rate author."

One: The egoic self WANTS to stay in power. It WANTS to continue feeding itself in order to stay alive.

Tom: And in your mind this means there’s no conceiving of a non-God self that is not misrelating?

One: That's why we keep seeking out the SAME OLD dysfunctional ways of doing things over and over and over again...

Tom: And in your mind this means there’s no conceiving of a non-God self that is not dysfunctional?

One: The parasitic egoic self...wanting to continue it's collective dysfunctional existence. The egoic, satanic mind has a hard time letting go... That's why personal transformation is SOOOO hard. You really do have to DIE to get new life.

Tom: This is all well and good, One. What’s it got to do with establishing your denial of an objective, non-God self that is the human being?

One: Jesus asks us to BE Him to other people that we are supposed to see AS Him. Incarnational presence, right?

Tom: Come now, One. You have to know that this simply directive of Jesus doesn’t entail the kind of metaphysical system you’re describing. Can you not imagine any meaningful way of thinking how your actions/inactions with respect to other people affect Christ? The ONLY way this makes sense is to suppose the everybody IS God?

Let’s see. The United States government is duly in, with, and represented by its ambassadors around the world. Ambassadors are the United States in their respective countries in a real sense. But they don’t on that account cease being REALLY distinct from the United States in an equally real sense.

One: Even if Creation being contingent forms of God relating to Godself in various ways isn't ultimately true, we are supposed to PRETEND it's true ANYWAYS!

Tom: Close, but no cigar!

------------------------

Tom: When I self-relate I don’t relate to a self OTHER than myself. I SELF-relate. In other words, the relationship is not interpersonally mutual in the sense that two persons, like you and me, are interpersonal. We’re certainly influenced by the conclusions we reach through self-relating (talking to ourselves, thinking out loud, etc.), but self-relation isn’t two persons relating. Did you think it was?

One: Then the human being Jesus relating to God the Father CANNOT be considered divine self-relationship. Jesus CANNOT be God.

Tom: Jesus cannot be the Father. They are distinct “persons” (or so orthodoxy tells us), but both equally “divine” or “God.” If this doesn’t entail the truth that they are one and distinct in DIFFERENT sense, then the doctrine is hopeless. They’re one “in a sense.” They’re distinct “in a different sense.” They can’t be one AND distinct in the SAME senses.

------------------------

One: Go with me. If self-relationship CANNOT EXIST where two "separate" persons are relating.

Tom: If they’re separate persons, they’re not the same person. If they’re not the same person, they’re not the same self. If they’re not the same self, their relating can’t be SELF relating.

One: So for us to say that Jesus was a person who related to the Father who was a person...we absolutely CANNOT consider this communication "self-relationship" in any meaningful way.

Tom: I knew you’d come to this. So here we both stand before the mystery of the Trinity. I don’t want to play the mystery card to avoid debate, but come on. We know that we don’t know enough about God to know we ought to exercise a bit of caution. I honestly don’t know what to call God. All our calling is describing and all our describing is language and all our language is just mapping, and NO map captures the reality. Is the triune God a “person”? Well, I’d like to say so. But then again, Father, Son, and Spirit are each distinct “persons.” So what is the ONE God whom the three constitute? A person? I don’t know. That would make four persons wouldn’t it? The persons seem to be exhausted in the distinctness of Father, Son, and Spirit.

When we say “one triune God,” I’m no longer sure I know what the “one” maps and what the “three” maps. One what? One God? What’s “God”? Well, one “divine subject” or “bearer of divine perfections”? Really? Just one of those? Don’t each of the three bear divine perfections? Well, yeah, but only insofar as they do the perichoretic dance. Oh, OK. But isn’t a “subject” a “person”? Yeah, I suppose. Well then if there’s one “subject” (one divine bearer of divine perfections), then there’s one person. Oh, well, there are three persons actually. Oh, three persons! Well then, surely a “person” is a “subject.” So three persons = three subjects. Right. Then whence ONE? I don’t know.

Two things:

1) In the previous paragraph, I was talking myself through things. How many “persons” were talking? One or two? How many “persons” am I? You said humans retain “personhood.” How many personhoods? I mean, how many whatever-personhood-is-that-constitutes-a-person personhoods?

2) The ANALOGY of my perceiving myself helps. But just in the sense that analogies are supposed to help. The Father perceives himself. I can get with that. The “image” he gets of himself is no less personal than he is. OK that helps. Beyond that my head is in a complete fog. I honestly think that to use this analogy to ground a whole metaphysic is, well…you go for it. I wouldn’t know how to express or defend it. Analogies are not arguments. They’re supposed to help explain arguments. Take away all the analogies and you should still be left with a substantial argument. You get that down on paper and I’ll pay to read it, because I know how brilliant you are.

One: We CANNOT say that God was relating to Himself here...and consider the relationship interpersonal for self-relation is NOT interpersonal…

Tom: I only know that self-relation, FOR ME, isn’t two distinct persons, each possessing their own volition, mind, emotions, each a center of volition over and against the other in the way that ANY TWO HUMAN BEINGS are with respect to each other. I’m not THAT.

Tom

Here's THE issue folks, and I mean THE issue.

D refuses to grant that there could be fundamentally different KINDS or MODES of existence, not just MODALLY DIFFERENT ways of existing (viz., necessary vs contingent), but fundamentally different KINDS of existence (divine vs non-divine). It comes down to this: Could God create a reality that is fundamentally different from GODSELF? Not just a contingent expression OF himself, but a rality OVER-AND-AGAINST himself?

I can't see any logical contradiction generated by supposing God could do this. So I have to at least concede the metaphysical possibility of his doing this. And I have other reasons (mentioned here) for thinking God in fact DID actualize this possibility.

Jeff?

Tom

I believe that there can only be RELATIVE AUTONOMY such that there is "with-and-through" relationship rather than a full-on "over-and-against".  And this "with-and-through" relationship exists on a continuum where we are MORE or LESS consonant with our Ground in our becoming.  The "over-and-against" is a PERSPECTIVE on the relationship between God and Creation.

***************

Tom:
I can't see any logical contradiction generated by supposing God could do this. So I have to at least concede the metaphysical possibility of his doing this. And I have other reasons (mentioned here) for thinking God in fact DID actualize this possibility.

Sounds fine to me, Tom. In my mind, it all washes out pretty much the same way, practically speaking.

It REALLY, REALLY doesn't matter to me if people want to believe in a "non-God reality". It really doesn't. As long as people strive to be one with Jesus as they understand it, I'm fine. Let's just live in love for real.

Post Edited (One) : 4/19/2007 4:18:03 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One) : 4/19/2007 5:17:37 PM (GMT-5)

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

 

In Christ, human nature is united with the hypostasis of the Logos and while remaining fully itself is liberated from sin, the source of which is the gnomic will. Because it is "en-hypostasized" in Logos Himself, Christ’s humanity is perfect humanity. In the mysterious process, which started with His conception in the Virgin’s womb, Jesus passed through natural growth, ignorance, suffering, and even death — all of experiences of the fallen humanity, which He had come to save, and He fulfilled through the resurrection the ultimate human destiny. Christ could thus be truly the saviour of humanity because in Him there could never be any contradiction between natural will and gnomic will. Through the hypostatic union, His human will, precisely because it always conforms itself to the divine, also performs the "natural movement" of human nature.

The doctrine of "deification" in Maximus is based upon the fundamental patristic presupposition that communion with God does not diminish or destroy humanity but makes it fully human. In Christ the hypostatic union the communication of idioms (perichõresis tõn idiõmatõn). The characteristics of divinity and humanity express themselves "in communion with each other" (Chalcedonian definition), and human actions, "energies," have God Himself as their personal agent. Therefore, it can be said that "God was born," that Mary is the Theotokos, and that the "Logos was crucified" while birth and death remain purely human realities. But it can and must also be said that a man rose from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father having acquired characteristics, which "naturally" belong to God alone: immortality and glory. Through Christ’s humanity deified according to its hypostatic union with the Logos, all members of the Body of Christ have access to "deification" by grace through the operation of the Spirit in Christ’s Church.

The essential elements of Maximian Christology provided the permanent terminological and philosophical framework for Byzantine thought and spirituality. They were adopted with the Trinitarian doctrine of the great Cappadocian Fathers together in the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith of John of Damascus (first half of the eighth century), which served as a standard doctrinal textbook in Byzantium. They also provided the most authoritative frame of reference in most of the doctrinal controversies, which arose in the East during the Middle Ages.

 

 

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 4/19/2007 7:57:29 PM (GMT-5)

Here's another paragraph, a few paragraphs down:

The very technical Christological discussions of the twelfth century, in fact, reconsidered all the major issues, which had been debated in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries. The Byzantine Church remained fundamentally faithful to the notion of what George Florovsky once called an "asymmetrical union" of God and man in Christ: while the hypostatic source of life — the goal and pattern — remains divine, man is not diminished or swallowed by the union; he becomes again fully human. This notion is also expressed in the Eucharistic sacrifice, a unique act in which no single action of Christ’s is represented in isolation or reduced to purely human concepts, such as an "exchange," or a "satisfaction." Christ as the Synodikon proclaims every year on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, "reconciled us to Himself by means of the whole mystery of the economy, by Himself, and in Himself and reconciled us also to His God and Father and of course to the most holy and life-giving Spirit."⁵

And

But if one keeps in mind the Greek patristic notion that the true nature of man means life in God realized once and for all through the Holy Spirit in the hypostatic union of the man Jesus with the Logos and made accessible to all men through the same Holy Spirit in the humanity of Christ and in His body, the Church, Christology acquires a new and universal dimension. It cannot be isolated any longer from either the doctrine of the Holy Spirit or the doctrine of man, and it becomes a key for the understanding of the Gospel as a whole.