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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 7/18/2007 10:56 AM (GMT -6) |   |
MANY said...
Thanks POW. The whole question of how creation AFFECTS God wasn't answered to my satisfaction. I've got God related to creation in ways that I don't think Nesteruk would approve of. But that's cool. He doesn't have to live in my skin and I don't have to live in his.
Tom
 I agree with you that we disagree on that.
But I'm sympathetic to your underlying sentiment.
Its just that the CHRISTOLOGICAL angle solves that.
(And its definitely the anchor that D. needs to hang onto to not be drifted off by the currents.)
We need a "maximalist Christology" (in Fr. Georges Florovsky's words)
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One Love
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| Posted 7/18/2007 1:13 PM (GMT -6) | | For Tom, the Turtle...
Nesteruk, page 243, "Humanity as Hypostatis of the Universe"
about the ULTIMATE DIFFERENTIATION between Christ and the rest of humanity. Christ, our idea about Christ, is the perfect model by reference to which we can answer the question about who we are. He is the man, "the first-born of every creature," (Col. 1:15), the archetype of which every human being is, in terms of his or her potentialities, the image. The difference between Christ and us is that Christ is eternally God's son, while we are God's sons because we are created in the image of Christ's divine humanity. To be a son of God is to have the Divine as the determining element of our being, that is, to be inherent in the divine hypostasis. It is precisely this that makes us human and that constitutes our humanity. To the degree to which we fail to attain a full realization of this, we fail to be human.Jesus of Nazareth never failed to be truly human. All other humans HAVE failed to be human. There is only ONE Eternal Offspring of God who is fully incarnated in ONE human being...and we all inhere IN that Beautiful Offspring. Is everyone happy? Are we putting away the torches now? LOL  Unison, the Scissortail 
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be One, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be One as we are One— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete UNIty. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to SONship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.Post Edited (UNISON) : 7/18/2007 1:16:06 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 7/18/2007 1:39 PM (GMT -6) | | You got it right, D.
Notice that humanity does not come as automatically to us as mushroom-ness does to mushrooms.
As someone on ancientfaithradio.com said recently... being born with human DNA does NOT, ever, guarantee that we image Christ--are in the image of God. Only in being born again does this happen, that we image and show the likeness of God.
That is our faith.
.
Were this Hinduism wouldn't different things be said? (I don't know H., so I do not know.) Can you answer that?
B.
(o)Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 7/18/2007 2:08:45 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 7/18/2007 1:59 PM (GMT -6) | | FROM GOOGLE
Alexei V. Nesteruk is a researcher in cosmology and quantum physics in the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, England...
The John Templeton Foundation BIO:
___ A senior lecturer in mathematics at the University of Portsmouth, where his research is focused on problems in foundations of cosmology and quantum physics, Alexei V. Nesteruk has turned increasingly to writing about science from the perspective of his own Eastern Orthodox tradition. A native of Russia, he completed baccalaureate studies in physics and mathematics in St. Petersburg and received a master's of science degree with honors in physics from St. Petersburg State University and a Ph.D. in theoretical and mathematical physics from St. Petersburg State Technical University in 1983. For the next six years, he worked as a research scientist in the department for theoretical physics at S. I. Vavilov State Optical Institute and, during the latter part of that period, pursued graduate level studies in philosophy at St. Petersburg State University. After spending a year as a research fellow with the Group in General Relativity at the Free University of Brussels, he was appointed an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Economics and Finance of St. Petersburg. In 1993, he undertook research on the philosophical and theological implications of an anthropological approach to the origins of the universe as a fellow in the College of Human and Social Sciences at St. Petersburg State Marine Technical University. Named a Royal Society Postdoctoral Fellow, he pursued research on gravitational entropy and quantum field theory at the Mathematical Institute at Oxford University. Dr. Nesteruk accepted his present position in 1994. He subsequently studied theology at the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies at Cambridge University, and is currently a visiting lecturer there as well as teaching at Portsmouth. A corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy on the History of Science and Technology, he has received several awards from the John Templeton Foundation, including a Science and Religion Course Program grant. Dr. Nesteruk is the author of some eighty articles in mathematical physics, cosmology, philosophy of science, and science and theology. His book, Light from the East: Theology, Science and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, which was published in by Augsburg Fortress in 2003, develops a neo-patristic synthesis of theology and science.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 7/18/2007 4:18 PM (GMT -6) | |
UNISON said...
Part II of “The Universe as ‘Hypostatic Inherence’ in the Logos of God”
from Light from the East: Theology, Science, and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, Alexei Nesteruk
Pages 144-117
I got to thinking this afternoon. I thought about how SIN does not have to be a completed action...it can be just a thought...and even a thought about thinking another thought.
Surely temptation that suddenly happens without plan is not sin, if we do not give into it. But we also must not dwell thinking on it.
It is part of what D. posted that brought this truth to mind.
...what the existence in a hypostasis or person means, can be brought from a sphere of theological anthropology, which asserts that man is hypostasis of the cosmos, is conscious and person self-expression; it is he who gives meaning to things and who has to transfigure them.
. . .
The universe as the expressed and articulated existence is possible only in human hypostasis, that is, it acquires some qualities of existence if it is reflected in the personality of humanity. Using the words of Masximus the Confessor, every intellection about the universe inheres as a quality in an apprehending being. The universe thus acquires qualitative existence in the being who apprehends it.
What this means is that without our thoughts the cosmos is not completed. Adam and Eve sinned, basically, by eating without saying grace--without taking bread, breaking it, and giving thanks. (Note Christ at Emmaus did this.) Not being thankful gave cosmos an independence from God's meaning. Mankind as priest, prophet and king has a God-given role in Creation...one without with the creation is not complete. Thoughts can be sin. They can mal-form what God created. Take the example of Adam's naming business. He shaped the meaning of things. But bullies in the school yard deform through their names.
So, take every thought captive. In everything give thanks. And be transformed by the renewing of your mind, in Christ Jesus!
.
SO ENDS TODAY'S HOMILY.
(o)Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 7/18/2007 6:10:02 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 7/18/2007 6:38 PM (GMT -6) | | |
D-
Taking Greg’s definition of non-divine reality as characterized by limitation of perspective (LP) and surpassability of beauty (SB), consider:
1) LP and SB are properties. Some properties are essential to a thing’s being what it is and some are accidental to a thing’s being what it is. Rationality is an essential property of human being for example. The ability to speak, on the other hand, is an accidental property. In the case of all non-divine beings, LP and SB are essential properties. LP and SB are not the reality, the thing, itself of course. As ‘properties’, they characterize some bearer of properties, in this case some non-divine bearer of properties. OK so far?
2) I take it that divine being has the contrary essential properties to LP and SB, that is, God is essentially (and necessarily) unlimited in perspective (UP) and unsurpassable in beauty (UB). To bear these properties is to be God. To fail to bear them (and to bear LP and SB in stead) is to be non-God, or non-divine.
3) All bearers of properties (let’s call any discrete bearer of a property a ‘being’ [a discrete entity, thing, or substance; that discrete dispositional center that is the metaphysical space where discrete events occur as possibilities transition to actualities] are fundamentally dispositional. That is, all entities, all property bearers bear dispositional capacities; that is, they bear their properties dispositionally. In the case of non-divine beings, LP and SB are definitional dispositional capacities, In the case of divine beings, UP and UB are definitional dispositional capacities.
Does anybody see where this is going logically? D wants to say of all created entities that they are contingent expressive forms of divine being. But UP and UB essentially characterize divine being. To not bear these properties is to not be a divine being. How then do created beings that bear LP and SB come to be called God if God essentially bears UB and UP? LP/SB and UB/UP are not compossible properties (at least not so far as I can see).
D wants to say that the essence/energies distinction solves the impasse. I suppose the argument is something like this. God essentially bears UP and UB. But God’s uncreated energies aren’t characterized by UP and UB. There, poof. It’s solved. So we can essentially BE the energies of God, and so be God (in contingently expressed form), but fail to bear UP and UB (and bear LP and SB instead). I don’t see how this doesn’t flat out contradict the definitions of divine and non-divine being that D’s agreed to.
I don’t see how the essence/energies distinction solves anything. I feel like a frickin idiot here because D and POW are drooling all over this like it’s the best thing since sliced bread. But it just does NOTHING for me in resolving the relationship between God and creation given the claim that creation is just God’s energies contingently expressed.
Tom
Post Edited (MANY) : 7/18/2007 10:26:43 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 7/18/2007 6:50 PM (GMT -6) | | | Responding to Tom...
(I'm not a trained philosopher and get lost in many of the paragraphs Tom worked so hard on; but I'll bring my thoughts from up till now to the table.)
Tom, I don't think that "essence/energies" solves all of the issues. And so in that I suspect you are correct.
But the other thing newly on the table is a maximalist CHRISTOLOGY as outlined by Alexei Nesteruk. Christ is the answer.
It repeatedly seems to me that (1) while you are correct in your criticism of most humans, (2) your criticism is evaded by one human, who not only in his divinity escapes the lacks you see, but also in his own humanity fits the bill, and so spans this gap that you correctly are concerned about.
(I hope that I'm not presumptuous to engage in such a technical discusion.)
I'd love to see D's remarks on what I've just posted here.
B.
(o) Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 7/18/2007 6:57:51 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 7/18/2007 6:59 PM (GMT -6) | | | Corey, you're definitely in my prayers, bro.
POW: You wrote "Glory can be thought of as an attribute in terms of "brightness," etc." Sure. But taking "brightness--which I'll argree with you that for your sentence can be an attribute--and then going to Scripture that brightness is far more than merely an attribute. In the scriptures, notably, there are key events (like Moses on Sinai and Jesus on Tabor--which Mark consciously links together) were brightness/illumination/radiance/glory are NOT attributes but the energetic presence of God at work. (The glory of Sinai's counterpart in Mark is Our Lord Himself.)
Jeff: Here's the thing with phenomenological perception. We say grass is green. But when it gets down to it, green is a purely subjective experience if science is even in the ballpark on the matter. Supposedly, grass is composed of particles arranged and moving in such a way that photons emit and/or behave in certain ways when they interact with grass particles such that my own sensorium sends certain nerve impulses to my brain such that my own spirit causes the experience of green and so on. Given that "green" is a mediated subjective experience, how do I know that when Jesus was seen in glory that the phenomenological perception of it was not mediated through the apostles' own nervous systems? In which case we're right back to the fact that all we really know is that there are causes of events--events being effects. If so, the word "energy" is not anything we can get a handle on to make large theological conclusions from.
I see no need in making this stuff more complex than it needs to be until I see what important matter is at stake if it's as simple as it appears from where I'm sitting.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 7/18/2007 7:11 PM (GMT -6) | |
jefscott said...
Corey, you're definitely in my prayers, bro.
POW: You wrote "Glory can be thought of as an attribute in terms of "brightness," etc." Sure. But taking "brightness--which I'll argree with you that for your sentence can be an attribute--and then going to Scripture that brightness is far more than merely an attribute. In the scriptures, notably, there are key events (like Moses on Sinai and Jesus on Tabor--which Mark consciously links together) were brightness/illumination/radiance/glory are NOT attributes but the energetic presence of God at work. (The glory of Sinai's counterpart in Mark is Our Lord Himself.)
Jeff: Here's the thing with phenomenological perception. We say grass is green. But when it gets down to it, green is a purely subjective experience if science is even in the ballpark on the matter. Supposedly, grass is composed of particles arranged and moving in such a way that photons emit and/or behave in certain ways when they interact with grass particles such that my own sensorium sends certain nerve impulses to my brain such that my own spirit causes the experience of green and so on. Given that "green" is a mediated subjective experience, how do I know that when Jesus was seen in glory that the phenomenological perception of it was not mediated through the apostles' own nervous systems? In which case we're right back to the fact that all we really know is that there are causes of events--events being effects. If so, the word "energy" is not anything we can get a handle on to make large theological conclusions from.
I see no need in making this stuff more complex than it needs to be until I see what important matter is at stake if it's as simple as it appears from where I'm sitting.
We're not talking about clorofille and Kentucky blue grass here. We are talking about the Transfiguration. It is not a subjective experience.
In fact it is a miracle. (That's an important enough matter for me. You wait until...if you wish.) This was a "he who has eyes to see" event. And there are others too. Balaam's donkey was not an energies event--there was an angel. But the carnal eyes could not see without help. This world is as spiritual as it is physical. Light blinded Saul on that Damascus road. Those hearing mere thunder at Christ's baptism missed what the Father was saying -- but some there had the "ears to hear" to remember and record it later. Remember Elijah's arms riased.
Aren't these the very things to "make large theological conclusions on?
I think so. That's what scripture is for.
B.
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Similitude
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| Posted 7/18/2007 8:51 PM (GMT -6) | | | But if Jesus of Nazarene was one being with the Father with limited perspective, how do we make that work? Tom, do you think Jesus of Nazareth had LP and was yet one being with the Father? In the post above, do you mean "in which caseS?"
I'm still satisfied that the Father and the Son can be separate necessary beings who are essentially relational and in love (i.e., complete relational unity) with each other. This makes the incarnation doable without even positing an Eternal Logos separate from the incarnated Son. The Father is the One God in the senses that the NT says He is. We have monotheism with the variation that the One God loves one through whom and for whom He creates. Thus, the Son is deity, too, of our creation. And yet, the Father is his God. But it can not be said that the Son is the Father's god. They are not identical in attributes, though they both have similar attributes of deity with respect to creation.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 7/18/2007 9:04:35 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 7/18/2007 9:38 PM (GMT -6) | | | It might not be Nicea, but hey, since meaningfulness doesn't seem to be a requirement of theological talk, who cares? Let's just say there's a personal ultimate first cause who as far as we can tell has set things up such that if we spend ourselves selfishly we do not pass go but go straight to jail until we reconcile to him, and if we spend ourselves trusting in him and yielding to the voice of conscience as humbly as we can we don't go to jail but go straight to the party. I mean come on, after 2,000 friggin years the best we can come up with is a headache inducing metaphysic that only very brilliant people can even articulate or come close to understanding and the end of which is: "Eh, we've studied this really hard for a long time, and folks, in the end it's just a mind-boggling paradox! Yeah, it looks like irrational nonesense, but since believing it turns bad people into good people, what the hell? Isn't HOW we live what God is after anyhow?"
Come on now people. Isn't this REALLY what it all amounts to? Let's be honest. Why complicate it more than that?
Tom
Post Edited (MANY) : 7/18/2007 9:51:35 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 7/19/2007 5:50 AM (GMT -6) | | | I think you've hit onto something very important. When we had that discussion on omniscience a while back, I ran into that infinite regress problem of how to account, NOT for God's omniscience, but just His KNOWLEDGE (since God can't ground the competence of His "faculties" in competent design, as we can for ours). I've come to think that our categories can only get us to a small subset of what God is like. But this subset is quite sufficient to endow us with awe, adoration, and motivation to love. We can still know Him as a benevolent person. And that in of itself carries us a LONG way. In the end, we want to know what is knowable so we can walk in wisdom that we might know how to answer every man. But, for ourselves, we know enough to persuade us that trusting God is a very rational and, indeed, wise thing. Right?
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One Love
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| Posted 7/19/2007 6:58 AM (GMT -6) | | Hmmmm...
We want to say that Jesus had a divine nature (which would include UP and UB). We also want to say that Jesus had a human [non-divine] nature (which would include LP and SB.) As we've been talking about it, these two things are held in ONE person having TWO distinct natures. Let's just lay that out there. ONE person, TWO different natures. If we want to stay "orthodox". I think it's important to keep this solid.
You said this, Tom:
LP/SB and UB/UP are not compossible properties (at least not so far as I can see).
Is it possible for a being with UB and UP to volitionally LIMIT their operations in situations to "parallel" SB and LP activity? In other words, is it possible for a being with UP, having all perspectives, to operate according to LP (for certain purposes), while still having access to all other perspectives? In other words, let's deal with divine self-limitation.
How does self-limitation of a being with UB and UP look like? or is it even possible in your mind? If divine self-limitation is NOT POSSIBLE, then we'd better know that now.
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be One, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be One as we are One— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete UNIty. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to SONship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. | | Back to Top | | |
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