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PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/13/2007 10:07 AM (GMT -6)

Not knowing exactly where D. sees this going, but remembering T's concerns about robotism, THIS article--that I just saw--relates by showing how Constantinople says that both faith and works are vital (each in their own way) while Tubingen claimed "faith alone."

http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/faithalone.aspx?print=ok

I'm uncomforable with saying that creaturely actions ARE the essence of God. I won't do that.

(o)

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 7/13/2007 10:11:53 AM (GMT-5)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/13/2007 10:08 AM (GMT -6)

PoW said...

Creatures are creatures, and our relationships involve us. (We are not robots.)

So... while "heterogenous essence" of human beings have "at base" divine energy that is not all that is said about them. Remember, we are talking about music and flower arranging here!

Flower arranging is an expression of our essence which interacts with the flower which itself is both a homogeneous expression of God's essence in his creation, and a heterogenous expression in creation for us to see, and through which for us to make our lives full of eucharistic thanksgiving and worship.

Clear?

(Good stuff. Keep it simple, and familiar.)

(o)

Tom
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Posted 7/13/2007 10:38 AM (GMT -6)

My interest was more in epistemology. That is, if we can justifiably reason FROM our experience of the energies of entities TO some conclusion about their essences, then why not with God? The standard EO apophatic line is that nothing can be said positively about God's essence. That's entirely off limits to us. All we have is God's energies. Fine. But note how the reasoning goes. If being limited to the energies of God precludes our saying anything possitively about the essence of God, it can only be the case IF it's generally true that being limited to the energies of any X precludes our reasoning on the basis of X's energies something positive about X's essence. But we DO reason this way from human energies to human essences. I'm saying, if we can reason from energies to essence in the case of human beings, why not in the case of divine being? In fact, it seems positvely ludicrous to call what we do experience of God God's "energies" and then claim these energies tell us nothing of the "essence" they are energies of.

That was my thing. There's always more to God than we can say, but what we have of God in the experience of his energies not only may but MUST tell us something of his essence. That will put me outside the EO camp in spite of much else that I admire. I just don't buy the hard core apophaticism they insist on. I don't see that it's necessary. It actually looks contradictory to me. But this is an epistemological debate, not necessarily a metaphysical one.

But as for D's concern. I'm inclined to say that while human essences would not be what they are were it not for the divine energies, there is a real distinction between the divine energies and the human essence and the human essence is located IN THAT DISTINCTION though never cut off from the energies.

But what do I know?

Tom

Post Edited (MANY) : 7/13/2007 10:53:06 AM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Posted 7/13/2007 10:42 AM (GMT -6)

POW-

What D is saying is this. Human essences are the energies (not the essence) of God. Just like the photons of light that reach us are the energies of the sun, they are "sun." They are the stuff of the sun. So the energies, he views, are the stuff of God, the actions of God 'thrown off' so to speak as the sun throws off its energy in the form of photons. Human beings are comprised of the photons of God, divine energy thrown off in the form of logoi in the acts of creation and sustaining.

See his reasoning, B? God is divine. God's energies are God. So God's uncreated energies are divine. That much you agree with. But there's the conclusion: If we are the energies of God, we are as divine as are the energies. Just as the sun's photons are 'sun' in their constitution, though thrown off in 'acts of communication', so we are essentially divine in our constitutions, though thrown off in a free and contingent act of communication (creation).

Easy, right?

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

My concern earlier was with "energy" as an act of communication with respect to "essence." We cannot call God's acts in creation, redemption, and consummation 'energies' and then refuse to concede that these communicate something of who God 'essentially' is.

Tom

Post Edited (MANY) : 7/13/2007 10:51:40 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 7/13/2007 12:23 PM (GMT -6)

Tom:
What D is saying is this. Human essences are the energies (not the essence) of God. Just like the photons of light that reach us are the energies of the sun, they are "sun." They are the stuff of the sun. So the energies, he views, are the stuff of God, the actions of God 'thrown off' so to speak as the sun throws off its energy in the form of photons. Human beings are comprised of the photons of God, divine energy thrown off in the form of logoi in the acts of creation and sustaining.

See his reasoning, B? God is divine. God's energies are God. So God's uncreated energies are divine. That much you agree with. But there's the conclusion: If we are the energies of God, we are as divine as are the energies. Just as the sun's photons are 'sun' in their constitution, though thrown off in 'acts of communication', so we are essentially divine in our constitutions, though thrown off in a free and contingent act of communication (creation).

Easy, right?

Way to go, Tom. Good explanation.

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

Tom:
I'm inclined to say that while human essences would not be what they are were it not for the divine energies, there is a real distinction between the divine energies and the human essence and the human essence is located IN THAT DISTINCTION though never cut off from the energies.

What is this distinction between the "divine" and the "non-divine" except limitation of perspective and surpassability of beauty, like Greg says? The human essence seems to be is a particular mode of becoming where there are such and such dispositional limits and capabilities which allow for the centration of consciousness (and subjectivity) and the expression of interdependent relationship...where a "human" perspective emerges into the world. Ok, great. How is this not simply saying that humanity is a contingent form of divine creativity in imperfect becoming that is moving towards progressively perfect being-in-becoming?

No one's denying that a differentiation exists between the Absolute and the Relative. Only the Absolute has complete independence from anything. Complete self-existence. The web of contingent relationships that is Creation does NOT have self-existence. However, none of this negates the idea that both Absolute and Relative can be considered "God" in a meaningful way, right?

To me, it seems like the essential differentiation between a human spirit and the Holy Spirit is the limitation of perspective (including self-understanding) in play. The Holy Spirit cannot deny himself. Human spirits can. This is an important differentiation, but it doesn't mean that human subjectivity is truly SEPARATE from God's subjectivity at all. Actually, God's subjectivity undergirds ALL creaturely subjectivity...which is why God's perspective is in all and all is in God's perspective. Isn't that right?

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

Tom:
My interest was more in epistemology. That is, if we can justifiably reason FROM our experience of the energies of entities TO some conclusion about their essences, then why not with God? The standard EO apophatic line is that nothing can be said positively about God's essence. That's entirely off limits to us. All we have is God's energies. Fine. But note how the reasoning goes. If being limited to the energies of God precludes our saying anything possitively about the essence of God, it can only be the case IF it's generally true that being limited to the energies of any X precludes our reasoning on the basis of X's energies something positive about X's essence. But we DO reason this way from human energies to human essences. I'm saying, if we can reason from energies to essence in the case of human beings, why not in the case of divine being? In fact, it seems positvely ludicrous to call what we do experience of God God's "energies" and then claim these energies tell us nothing of the "essence" they are energies of.

That was my thing. There's always more to God than we can say, but what we have of God in the experience of his energies not only may but MUST tell us something of his essence. That will put me outside the EO camp in spite of much else that I admire. I just don't buy the hard core apophaticism they insist on. I don't see that it's necessary. It actually looks contradictory to me. But this is an epistemological debate, not necessarily a metaphysical one.

and...

My concern earlier was with "energy" as an act of communication with respect to "essence." We cannot call God's acts in creation, redemption, and consummation 'energies' and then refuse to concede that these communicate something of who God 'essentially' is.

I hear what you're saying. Maybe this whole thing (the apophaticism/cataphaticism issue) is a particular means of epistemological humility before God? I don't know.

"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.

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/13/2007 12:26 PM (GMT -6)

MANY said...
My interest was more in epistemology. That is, if we can justifiably reason FROM our experience of the energies of entities TO some conclusion about their essences, then why not with God?

Tom, i'm off to milkshake-land with the kids.

I didn't read past what I clipped. But maybe don't need to.

YES, "we can justifiably reason FROM our experience of the energies of entities TO some conclusion about their essences."

In the example heterogenous is energies for God and art/expression for us.

In BOTH cases SOME is revealed. Not all, and not the same at all times.

I'll try to read the rest later, and the second too.

(o)

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 7/13/2007 9:08:31 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 7/13/2007 3:07 PM (GMT -6)

For Tom, the Standardbearer of the Individual...

One analogy.

Humanity as "Snowflakes of Universal Consciousness/Will"

Different factors form the UNIQUENESS of any given snowflake's pattern of becoming. This uniqueness cannot be separated from how it is expressed in and by the snowflake itself.

Water (and all of it's capabilities and limitations) is the ONE ground of ALL snowflakes...and, in itself, defines parameters for the becoming of any particular snowflake.

What if we said that water here was analogous to the divine energies of God's projected consciousness and will...and the snowflakes would be analogous to unique concentrations or centers of consciousness and will whose uniqueness would be inseparable from their particular "human" expressions?

Hey, why not?

Post Edited (UNISON) : 7/13/2007 3:34:36 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 7/13/2007 3:26 PM (GMT -6)

And there's the whole "Humanity as "Eddies of Universal Consciousness/Will"

ed·dy /ˈɛdi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ed-ee] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, plural -dies, verb, -died, -dy·ing.
–noun 1. a current at variance with the main current in a stream of liquid or gas, esp. one having a rotary or whirling motion.
2. a small whirlpool.
3. any similar current, as of air, dust, or fog.
4. a current or trend, as of opinion or events, running counter to the main current.
–verb (used with object), verb (used without object) 5. to move or whirl in eddies.

This is more simple. Imagine a HUGE river with many eddies created within it as it flows along.

The current of the individual eddies can be differentiated from that of the overall river. And the current of individual eddies could be differentiated from each other. But no one would say that the eddies had any SEPARATE, INDEPENDENT EXISTENCE from the river by any means. Nor would any of the eddies have any independent existence from one another either, because of their common grounding in the river and the interdependent relationship that creates.

One could say that our created human natures would be like "eddies of consciousness and will" formed within God's energies.

Post Edited (UNISON) : 7/13/2007 3:33:30 PM (GMT-5)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/13/2007 9:26 PM (GMT -6)

MANY said...
. . . All we have is God's energies. Fine. But note how the reasoning goes. If being limited to the energies of God precludes our saying anything possitively about the essence of God, it can only be the case IF it's generally true that being limited to the energies of any X precludes our reasoning on the basis of X's energies something positive about X's essence. But we DO reason this way from human energies to human essences. I'm saying, if we can reason from energies to essence in the case of human beings, why not in the case of divine being? In fact, it seems positvely ludicrous to call what we do experience of God God's "energies" and then claim these energies tell us nothing of the "essence" they are energies of.

PoW responded...

Tom, I owe you an apollogy from years ago. We were in an arguement where I was trying to introduce this vocabulary to the board and you offered the same challenge. I could not agree with you then *because* I didn't know or wasn't sure. So in my conservatism I played it silent and did not really respond. Sorry.

I think its worth saying that we CAN "reason this way from human energies to human essences" just like "being limited to the energies of God [DOES NOT] preclude our saying anything possitively about the essence of God."

But let's look carefully and closely at what that is *in light of* new vocabulary on this thread. Yannaras clearified matters by saying that ART and MUSIC (and I offered flower arranging and garden design) are instances of "human energies" which tell us something about the human essence. So we CAN "reason our way" -- SOME! cheers

But lets look at what we knew about art and music before this thread. They do communicate, and tell the truth. But they also do so their own way, leaving other things to be communicated in *other* expressions of "energies."

MANY said...
That was my thing. There's always more to God than we can say, but what we have of God in the experience of his energies not only may but MUST tell us something of his essence.

PoW responded...

I agree. Sorry for being to long-coming on this, T.

MANY said...

That will put me outside the EO camp in spite of much else that I admire. I just don't buy the hard core apophaticism they insist on.

PoW responded...

I liked what Hopko borrowed from someone: "Saying and unsaying to a positive effect."

MANY said...
But as for D's concern. I'm inclined to say that while human essences would not be what they are were it not for the divine energies, there is a real distinction between the divine energies and the human essence and the human essence is located IN THAT DISTINCTION though never cut off from the energies.

PoW responded...

Yes. I agree. And this interests me a whole lot!

That was good, Tom.

(o)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/13/2007 9:47 PM (GMT -6)

MANY said...

PoW responded...

MANY said...

Easy, right?

PoW responded...

Yes. I see.

But in my ignorance and intellectual slowness (really) I am cautious!

My feeling is that we need MORE distinction between God's energies and our essence. I agree that we too often and too far separate them. But two reasons for some distinction come to mind. (I wish someone well versed for decades on this would step in!) The two reasons are: (1) that our essence is uniquely affected (I GUESS) by God's energies, and (2) here I get unclear, but it had something to do with our fallenness--even though that maybe affects more our energies than essence.

I'M UNCLEAR AND INCONSISTENT.

MANY said...

PoW responded...

Fwiw, I think (with you) that they DO communicate something of God's essence -- but as critics of 'westernisms' point out... essence "is neither posterior nor anterior to person.

They do communicate -- as I just posted -- "something" of the essence, just like human art communicates something of our essence.

(o)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/13/2007 9:50 PM (GMT -6)

UNISON said...
What is this distinction between the "divine" and the "non-divine" except limitation of perspective and surpassability of beauty, like Greg says? The human essence seems to be is a particular mode of becoming where there are such and such dispositional limits and capabilities which allow for the centration of consciousness (and subjectivity) and the expression of interdependent relationship...where a "human" perspective emerges into the world. Ok, great. How is this not simply saying that humanity is a contingent form of divine creativity in imperfect becoming that is moving towards progressively perfect being-in-becoming?

No one's denying that a differentiation exists between the Absolute and the Relative. Only the Absolute has complete independence from anything. Complete self-existence. The web of contingent relationships that is Creation does NOT have self-existence. However, none of this negates the idea that both Absolute and Relative can be considered "God" in a meaningful way, right?

To me, it seems like the essential differentiation between a human spirit and the Holy Spirit is the limitation of perspective (including self-understanding) in play. The Holy Spirit cannot deny himself. Human spirits can. This is an important differentiation, but it doesn't mean that human subjectivity is truly SEPARATE from God's subjectivity at all. Actually, God's subjectivity undergirds ALL creaturely subjectivity...which is why God's perspective is in all and all is in God's perspective. Isn't that right?

D. This made sense, and I liked it a lot.

(o)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/13/2007 9:52 PM (GMT -6)

Thanks, guys!

(o)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/13/2007 10:05 PM (GMT -6)

Along this line...

In most of the sacraments the Church takes material things — water, bread, wine, oil — and makes them a vehicle of the Spirit. In this way the sacraments look back to the Incarnation, when Christ took material flesh and made it a vehicle of the Spirit; and they look forward to, or rather they anticipate, the apocatastasis and the final redemption of matter at the Last Day.

(Ware, The Orthodox Church) http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/history_timothy_ware_2.htm#n5

CLICK THIS rtsp://realserver.goarch.org/en/organizations/crtl/programs/crtl071407.rm

(o)

Tom
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Posted 7/14/2007 6:51 AM (GMT -6)

POW-

Thanks for clarifying your position on our age-old debate! I appreciate that.

Tom

Tom
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Posted 7/14/2007 7:13 AM (GMT -6)

Unison: The Holy Spirit cannot deny himself. Human spirits can. This is an important differentiation, but it doesn't mean that human subjectivity is truly SEPARATE from God's subjectivity at all.

Tom: I don’t know what “truly” means here. I’m going to argue that whatever separation there is, it’s a true separation and not just an illusion.

Unison: Actually, God's subjectivity undergirds ALL creaturely subjectivity...which is why God's perspective is in all and all is in God's perspective. Isn't that right?

Tom: OK, this must be what you mean by the human spirit’s not being “truly” separated. I agree. We depend upon God, were created by God, are sustained by God, and are relative. God is self-existent. We are not.

Unison: What if we said that water here was analogous to the divine energies of God's projected consciousness and will...and the snowflakes would be analogous to unique concentrations or centers of consciousness and will whose uniqueness would be inseparable from their particular "human" expressions? Hey, why not?

And the next analogy:

Unison: The current of the individual eddies can be differentiated from that of the overall river. And the current of individual eddies could be differentiated from each other. But no one would say that the eddies had any SEPARATE, INDEPENDENT EXISTENCE from the river by any means.

Tom: OK, both of these analogies I think suffer from a fatal problem. They represent a unity SO indistinct at an ontological level that whatever gets said of one gets said of any one of the contingent forms (the human) gets said of the non-contingent (God). This might not be a problem in some cases. But in some cases it is a problem. Take sin and privation for example. If you dump waste into an eddy, you’ve polluted the RIVER. That’s too close.

And some things you want to say about God (the Holy Spirit cannot deny himself) and people as contingent forms of God (they can deny themselves) get overlapped and implicate each other in their attributes. If I’m essentially just a contingent form of God, I don’t see how my being logically “contingent” frees me to be and do what you say God cannot be and do. If God can’t deny Godself, that applies to God in all possible worlds, even contingently expressed ones. It would seem to me that holiness, for example, would hold throughout God’s essence and energies. If God can’t be privated, then that applies to God in all possible worlds, even contingently expressed ones. Essential properties can’t be laid aside. That’s why they’re essential.

So the problem is how to get enough ‘real’ distance, ‘ontological’ distance, between us and God so that we don’t have to attribute our privation and denial of self to God in order to maintain consistency.

You can’t answer by just saying that God just shuts his cognition down on one level of expressed form and that event is us, that we’re God (energies of course) but just without the essential properties of omniscience and intensity of beauty. When Greg says that what most fundamentally characterizes us from God is limited perspective and surpassable beauty, he was offering a reason to think we are not divine. But God's energies ARE divinine energies. If we’re just contingently expressed form of God’s energies, how do you attribute limited perspective and surpassable beauty to God’s energies? How do you attribute non-divine properties to a divine being?

Tom

Tom
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Posted 7/14/2007 8:02 AM (GMT -6)

D, did you get Nesteruk yet? When you do, buckle up baby!

Tom

One Love
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Posted 7/14/2007 8:02 AM (GMT -6)

Tom:
You can’t answer by just saying that God just shuts his cognition down on one level of expressed form and that event is us, that we’re God (energies of course) but just without the essential properties of omniscience and intensity of beauty.

and...

If we’re just contingently expressed form of God’s energies, how do you attribute limited perspective and surpassable beauty to God’s energies? How do you attribute non-divine properties to a divine being?

I think we're going to end up coming back to the Incarnation of Jesus. Speaking of his fully human nature, I'm assuming that you would say that Jesus did not exhibit omniscience, right? There must a metaphysical viability to kenosis if it's going to have any meaning, right? If we get that, then I think that we will have the steps towards our answer. So, how did Jesus "lay aside" omniscience, which is an essential property of God?

Post Edited (UNISON) : 7/14/2007 8:08:50 AM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Posted 7/14/2007 8:04 AM (GMT -6)

I'm reading it right now.

One Love
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Posted 7/14/2007 8:07 AM (GMT -6)

Would you agree that Jesus, being FULLY HUMAN, had a corresponding "limitation of perspective" to go along with that human nature?

One Love
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Posted 7/14/2007 8:18 AM (GMT -6)

"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
Mark 13:32

No omniscience exhibited there by Jesus, the Son of God. Right, Tom?

How do you metaphysically deal with this?

One Love
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Posted 7/14/2007 8:23 AM (GMT -6)

Some more stuff.

God cannot be tempted. But Jesus WAS tempted (though he never sinned in the temptation). From my perspective, temptation ITSELF works by limitation of perspective. It preys on the epistemic distance that people have with reality, attempting to make them reach for apparent goods. Otherwise, things would be so OBVIOUS that there would be no temptation.

So, the temptation of Jesus seems to me to be evidence of him NOT exhibiting omniscience, too.

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/14/2007 8:45 AM (GMT -6)

UNISON said...
Would you agree that Jesus, being FULLY HUMAN, had a corresponding "limitation of perspective" to go along with that human nature?

Yep.

And Athanasias pointed out how the Gospel writer used "partative exegesis" to take turns showing one nature and then the other. Good drama.

(o)

Similitude
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Posted 7/14/2007 8:54 AM (GMT -6)

He also "grew in wisdom" according to Luke. Yet he was God in the flesh. So, as far as I can tell, there are two logical possibilities. We have to either say:

1) that there really is a kenosis that rules out omniscience as a necessary divine attribute,

2) that there is diversity in the godhead such that the divine persons each ground created reality by virtue of being (in some sense) the causal agents of its existence, yet they are NOT identical in attributes.

I hold to the latter. The other claim that the Son held two forms--one perfect deity and the other not so--during the incarnation seems to entail the notion that the Son morphed into two persons. At the very least it seems to imply that the Son was not FULLY God in the flesh during the incarnation. Only the nonincarnated form of the Son was.

This seems needlessly problematic since it seems difficult to account for the relationality of the Father and the Son apart from recognizing diversity in the godhead, anyway. Once we allow for diversity, why not just ground the equivalence of divine attributes of the persons of the godhead in terms of their common attribute of being creator of all non-God reality? This seems to be as far as scripture takes it, anyway.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 7/14/2007 8:57:01 AM (GMT-5)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/14/2007 9:03 AM (GMT -6)

The kenosis IS his assuming humanity and suffering. (Scripture, rather than philosophy, says so.)

Last century people made it into something it was not.

(o)

PotOnWheel
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Posted 7/14/2007 9:10 AM (GMT -6)

Look at how 'kenosis' is treated below:

If somebody has the Jesus prayer, he discovers the hypostatic principle (meaning to discover he is a person, not an individual, his existence depends on others), results in his love for the whole world developing continually. And this is expressed by prayer and sacrifice for the whole world. His heart is aflame with love. Then the man oversteps the limited boundaries of his ego and from love and with love he enters into the hypostasis of the other. He lives the kenosis (=ultimate humility) of Christ to a degree, and Christ's agony in Gethsemane. He weeps for the whole world.
In the lives of many saints we see this sympathizing heart which they had for all creation, even for the devil. This sacrificial prayer, which takes place within the experience of seeing the divine and discovering the person, is called a royal priesthood, and all who pray noetically (means inside the mind) have what is called spiritual ordination.

(Excerpt from the book "The person in the Orthodox Church", by Bishop of Nafpaktos, Hierotheos)

(o)

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