 |
| 
GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 6/25/2004 5:38 AM (GMT -6) |   | POW: If you make God into an infinite computer, like Greg, then you have overlapping "changing states of emotion" and fluctuating need.
Doc: How the *&^$%@!?? did my analogy AGAINST God being a cosmic computer get transformed into me EMBRACING God as "an infinite computer"? Very odd.
In any case, THIS is not as mysterious as why POW thinks that God changing emotional states in response to changing situations represents a form of neediness on God's part that is beneath God having. Indeed, more mysterious than even THIS is how God could genuinely RESPOND to changing states WITHOUT ever changing his emotional states. POW grants the former, but not the latter.
State #1: Girl is being loved by her daddy. God responds and is happy.
State #2. Daddy gets drunk and beats the little girl to release his frustrations over his life. God responds... and what... is still happy?
What does it mean to say that God authentically RESPONDS if it doesn't affect his emotions? ESPECIALLY sense POW grants that God DOES experience love. What does "love" mean here if its invulnerable to the change states of the beloved?
And, finally, how is it that it DOESN'T represent neediness for God to love, but DOES represent neediness for God to have his bliss affected by the changing states of those he loves.
So I, with others, am as mystified by POW's "God has passion in an immutable way" as I am by every church father he quotes in support of this view.
Doc
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10. | | Back to Top | | |
 |
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2004 5:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Dear Tom (my favorite missionary in Lebanon--who owes me a tee-shirt of a mug),
I really appreciated Greg's thoughts just now on the "Can Christians disagree without wounds resulting?" thread (page two www.christusvictorministries.org/gbfront/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3360&whichpage=2) He distinguishes between a word's definition and its usage.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
GregBoyd - Posted - 06/25/2004 : 10:22:29 AM
...I think he/she (larris) is basically right about the etymology of "church" and how it is different from "ecclesia." (as has the devil).
Greg
ps. Just FYI, most linguists agree that the meaning of a word is not to be found in its etymology, but in its contemporary USE. Words get called into service for a variety of different reasons and they evolve over time. Words are in this respect like "customs." Why do we shake hands when we meet someone? Its no longer to declare we're unarmed! So, while the etymology of the word "church" might be interesting, the case that "the church" doesn't represent the true "ecclesia" has to be forged on OTHER grounds -- e.g. LOOK AT IT. Does it look like Jesus Christ. When it does, to the extent that it does, its true ecclesia, the embodiment of the Kingdom of God. When it doesn't, its a religious version of the world.
Tom,
You reacted to the bracketing of St. Anthony, who built a barrier against our thinking that God reacts (in OUR words, that: "God doesn't "NEED" to respond to creation." while still including that God acts -- in Anthony's words, that God "is good, and . . . bestows blessings.")
As Doc's thought on the other thread councels, we have to see how the AUTHOR and the end-users handle the words, and not consider terms to be mechanical things.
And, such bracketing is a noble tradition: "The infinite lays down in a crib...he who is without measure grows to three cubits..."
Pease to you!
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Truth Aficionado
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 6/25/2004 5:54 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
POW: If you make God into an infinite computer, like Greg, then you have overlapping "changing states of emotion" and fluctuating need.
Doc: How the *&^$%@!?? did my analogy AGAINST God being a cosmic computer get transformed into me EMBRACING God as "an infinite computer"? Very odd.
Clarification is such a beautiful thing. It's a breath of fresh air to have you around again, welcome . | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2004 6:21 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
Greg: "So I. . .am as mystified by. . ."God has passion in an immutable way" as I am by every church father (who) support of this view."
Doc
PoW: Then you need to take your own medicine and study how they -- the contemporaries of the usage -- are using it, and why they are using it.........and not be stuck on your own contemporary usage! (Doc, heal thyself!"  ) | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2004 6:27 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
POW: If you make God into an infinite computer, like Greg, then you have overlapping "changing states of emotion" and fluctuating need.
Doc: How the *&^$%@!?? did my analogy AGAINST God being a cosmic computer get transformed into me EMBRACING God as "an infinite computer"? Very odd.
PoW: Calm down.
I'm not "saying" that you think God is a computer. I observe that your model retains elements of that in it. All this reduction of God's WISDOM to mathematical numerations..... has that aspect to it. God's wisdom is unsearchable -- but some try to reduce it to a math model functioning within a timeframe. (Sounds to computer-ish to leave me comfortable.)
I'd just suggest that either you or some others hold incompatable models simultaneously. But I'm not condemning -- its not my business. I'm just observing that currous weakness.
quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
In any case, THIS is not as mysterious as why POW thinks that God changing emotional states in response to changing situations represents a form of neediness on God's part that is beneath God having. Indeed, more mysterious than even THIS is how God could genuinely RESPOND to changing states WITHOUT ever changing his emotional states. POW grants the former, but not the latter.
PoW: I also grant that the the infinite became man -- and THAT is a mystery. The creator of the universe dwelling in the virgin's womb is a mystery. But I don't project human emotions and creaturely mechanics into the eternal God. Doing so troubles me. And I see no need to do so.
You think that for God to "RESPOND to changing states" in his creation that he has to have "ever changing. . .emotional states."
That is novel. And wrong. It illustrates "creating God in man's image. Sad.
.
BUT WE ARE WAY OFF TOPIC TO WHAT MATTERS HERE, GREG! This is merely a carryover of what you argue about with such as Piper, etc. Its NOT what I've been poitning to repeated;y on this thread.
LETS GET TO WHAT MATTERS........
quote:
BUT, WHAT INTERESTS ME, IS WHY IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN IMPORTANT FOR THE CHURCH TO: (1) AFFIRM THE 'IMMUTABILITY' AND 'IMPASSIBILITY' OF CHRIST'S DIVINE NATURE IN THE INCARNATION; AND, (2) AFFIRM THAT DISCIPLESHIP IS A MOVEMENT FROM BONDAGE TO "PASSIONS" ('NEEDING TO'--LIKE A 'JUNKY') TO FREEDOM FROM PASSIONS -- E.G., BECOMING PASSIONATE FOR GOD BY FREE WILL.
But if you want to follow me in this discussion you have to recognize the two millenia old tradition of using pairs of words, as if guard-rails, to brackets the truth and protect it from the precipice of wandering error.
God is passionate (loves) without having passion (need).
Christ suffered and died in his human nature, which was and is a true hypostasis of the Divine Word, but yet did not undergo change in his immutable, impassible divinity.
quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
State #1: Girl is being loved by her daddy. God responds and is happy.
State #2. Daddy gets drunk and beats the little girl to release his frustrations over his life. God responds... and what... is still happy?
PoW: Did God hate the 'second theif'?
St. Anthony would say no, that God did not hate the second theif - but rather died besides him.
Does God love MORE the one who is nice than the one that acts in an evil way?
St. Anthony is saying no: "He is good, and He only bestows blessings and never does harm, remaining always the same."
God's love is that "Big!"
quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
What does it mean to say that God authentically RESPONDS if it doesn't affect his emotions? ESPECIALLY sense POW grants that God DOES experience love. What does "love" mean here if its invulnerable to the change states of the beloved?
PoW: His love endures FOREVER !
God's love is Trinitarian Love -- perichoretic love, "co-inherrence." (Read Gregory of Nyssa's "On There Are Not Three Gods.") God's Trinitarian Love does NOT have "change of states."
quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
And, finally, how is it that it DOESN'T represent neediness for God to love, but DOES represent neediness for God to have his bliss affected by the changing states of those he loves.
PoW: "Have his bliss affected?" Did you really say that?
Seems that both of those in your equation are the same thing.
But I hold neither.
READ THIS, GREG:
quote:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PoW: God's "wrath" is a bad translation. God's "zeal" is more like it.
quote:
---------------------------------------
ANOTHER SITE:
An earlier post referred to the so-called "wrath of the Lamb" and "wrath of the Father" in Revelations. Again, from an Eastern Orthodox perspective which is that of our original Greek (the West has a long history of forming its theology without being fluent in the original Greek that the East has always been), this is a mistranslation. The word in Greek is thymos. It occurs five times in the New Testament writings of St. Paul, once in Hebrews, twice in the Gospel according to Luke, and 10 times in Revelations. In general, thymos is the courageous power of the warrior and a part of the soul in Greek thought. It is also means to boil up and is a force that breaks bonds and obstacles. Thymos, even in Homer and Plato and the Bible, is the courage to overcome the fear of death. Thymos is means passion. The "passion of the Lamb" is how the Greek reads. Tou theou (so-called "wrath of God") is the "passion of God". If any of you know your early Church doctrinal history about the controversy of whether or not the "Father suffered"? Its scriptural basis was this expression in Revelations "tou theou" -- the "passion of God" (NOT "!
wrath of God") because everyone in the early Church read it as "passion of God" which is what the Greek means. Its the western mistranslations that screws up the west here. The early Latin translations of thymos was ardentio (ardent striving) and/or passio (passion). Later, in the middle ages after Anselm, iracundia (wrath, irate) and furor (anger) came into usage to interpret the Latin Bible's ardentio and passio christi. Protestants naively picked it up even despite the fact that a few of their Greek scholars pointed out it was wrong (bad theology drove scriptural mistranslation).
---------------------------------------
KEEP THE TERMINOLOGY STAIGHT -- GOD HAS "PASSION" BUT IS ALSO IMPASSIBLE!!!! :-)
.....
Another:
quote:
---------------------------------------
Simple. The action of God provokes others to anger (ogre). Literally, it is the reactive upsurge (usually human) to God's butting in, interfering. In the OT, especially in the LXX, ogre is the human reaction/perception of God's thymos. If this was God's anger, the Greek words kotos, cholos, or menis would have been used. Orge is basically evil's incompatibility with God's goodness. Thus in the active form, orgizo means God's actions/interventions makes people angry as does the noun form parorgisma (provocation to anger). Thus, God's protection of Israel from other nations fills them with vexation (orge) as does God's commitment to justice fills an astray Israel with vexation (ogre). In Genesis, God allows fallen humanity to have its way (give them enough rope to hang themselves) which vexes humanity (ogre). The Holiness of God vexes (ogre) unjust sinners. Thus, the justice of God (dikaiokrisis) has the effect of ogre on humans. Ogre is the effect on sinners of God's dikaiokr!
isis and ekdikesis (Lk, 21:22 and Rom. 2:5). Again, thymos = passion; ogre, orgizo, parorgizo, and parorgisma (provoked to anger and vexation -- royally "pissed off" following the Hebrew word "to pee in another's well") is the effect God has on others. Thus the numerous genitive constructions orge tou thymou (the vexation/anger provoked by God's passion) or orge thymoutai (the angry effect of God's passion). Thus, the justice, love, and holiness of God's passion is "vexful" for Israel (Mt: 3:7; Lk 21:23) and all sinners (Eph. 2:3), the rich and powerful (Rev. 6:15), and His salvation, symbolized by the Cup, "stupefies" (Rev. 14:8); ogre is the "feedback" of attempting to block or oppose God or despising God's love/justice.
---------------------------------------
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Truth Aficionado
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2003
Total Posts : 1544
| Posted 6/25/2004 6:33 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by PotOnWheel
(Doc, heal thyself!"
LOL, that’s funny POW . Would the come back be something like: Hey Pot, put your self back On the Wheel and reform your thoughts... just kidding.
| | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2004 6:46 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by sparknheart
quote:
Originally posted by PotOnWheel
(Doc, heal thyself!"
LOL, that’s funny POW. Would the come back be something like: Hey Pot, put your self back On the Wheel and reform your thoughts... just kidding.
You're GREAT sparkinheart!!!! | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2004 6:51 AM (GMT -6) | |
I wonder whether Tom and Greg are actually going to READ what I posted on page four, or just say that thy are "mystified" and post ideas from the ether and pretend that they are my views.
Hope they read.
Hope they don't cop-out.
| | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2004 7:12 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Ignatius of Antioch (died 98/117). Bishop of Antioch. He wrote much in defense of Christianity.
"In Christ Jesus our Lord, by whom and with whom be glory and power to the Father with the Holy Spirit for ever" (n. 7; PG 5.988).
"We have also as a Physician the Lord our God Jesus the Christ the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin. For ‘the Word was made flesh.' Being incorporeal, He was in the body; being impassible, He was in a passable body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts."
(Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., The ante-Nicene Fathers, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975 rpt., Vol. 1, p. 52, Ephesians 7.)
The contrast is the thing! | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2004 7:15 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2004 7:20 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
The Epistle of St. Ignatus to Polycarp
:7 Await Him that is above every season, the Eternal, the Invisible, who became visible for our sake, the Impalpable, the Impassible, who suffered for our sake, who endured in all ways for our sake.
http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/fathers/ante-nic/ignatius/polycarp.htm
| | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2004 7:29 AM (GMT -6) | | Brightman’s view of God is SAD.
Brightman says that: "The evils of life ... come from God and ... are thus due to his nature."
This is a variety of the Passible God view.
www.fiu.edu/~religion/forgod.htm
quote:
quote:
"God is a conscious Person of perfect good will. He is the source of all value and so is worthy of worship and devotion. He is the creator of all other persons and gives them the power of free choice. . . There is within him, in addition to his reason and his active creative will, a passive element which enters into every one of his conscious states, as sensation, instinct, and impulse enter into ours, and constitutes a problem for him. This element we call The Given. The evils of life and the delays in the attainment of value, insofar as they come from God and not from human freedom, are thus due to his nature, yet not wholly to his deliberate choice. His will and reason acting on The Given produce the world and achieve value in it."
This definition may be put more concisely in the following terms:
God is a Person supremely conscious, supremely valuable, and supremely creative, yet limited both by the free choices of other persons and by restrictions within his own nature.
| | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2004 7:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Psalm 145:
Praise the Lord, O my soul.
I will praise the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
Put not your trust in rulers,
in the sons of men,
in whom there is no salvation.
His spirit departs and returns to its earth;
on that day all his projects perish.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God.
Who made heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that is in them;
Who keeps troth for ever:
Who executes judgment for those who are wronged,
Who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord releases those who are bound.
The Lord makes wise the blind;
the Lord straightens those who are bent;
the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord protects strangers,
He supports the orphan and the widow;
and wipes out the way of sinners.
The Lord will reign for ever,
Thy God, O Sion, throughout all generations.
"The Lord is compassionate and merciful, long-suffering and of great mercy"
 | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2004 9:32 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/25/2004 9:36 AM (GMT -6) | |
“For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed (Malachi 3.6).”
Heb 6:17-18
Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
(RSV -- Heb 6:17-18)
17] So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he interposed with an oath, [18] so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should prove false, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us.
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Bobber
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 199
| Posted 6/26/2004 11:08 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Found the Star Trek sites, didja?
Never really liked the Star Trek series too much especially the new ones. Worf and his turtle head is hard on the eyes to look at….Well they did try to inject certain things of true physics in how some of the Star Trek shows were done, when it comes to certain aspects of time travel etc.
quote:
Show us one (1) backwards causation in scripture, or one (1) changing of the past after it's occurred.
Well because it doesn’t come right out and say so doesn’t mean for a fact that it didn’t occur. Scripture states we don’t see all things but through a glass darkly at the present time. I don’t think God was primarily interested in getting too much in the details of how science works, when it comes to his word. It was truly meant to be a revealing of Gods redemptive purposes and any actual talking of science is limitied at best. Where in scripture does it speak of say, DNA? It doesn’t but of course God designed things to work by it. 
| | Back to Top | | |
|
GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 6/26/2004 8:36 PM (GMT -6) | | (Sorry for the script changes in this post, but I copied my comments into POW's post and he uses all this fancy script changing stuff I know nothing about. Its POWS fault. ALL his fault. Shame on POW. Badddd eastern orthodox person!!!)
POW: Hope they [Tom and Greg] don't cop out.
Greg: Duuuudeeee... cope out? Like... gee, we can't take the challenge POW is issuing us... better run away? Come on.
POW: You think that for God to "RESPOND to changing states" in his creation that he has to have "ever changing. . .emotional states."That is novel. And wrong. It illustrates "creating God in man's image. Sad.
Greg: Is this your answer to my question? "novel," "wrong" " creating God in man's image"? I confess this doesn't quite persuade me.
POW: God is passionate (loves) without having passion (need).Christ suffered and died in his human nature, which was and is a true hypostasis of the Divine Word, but yet did not undergo change in his immutable, impassible divinity.
Greg: The "and yet" part lost me. Sorry. What exactly is so bad about experiencing changing emotions, passions, pain, being vulnerable, experiencing weaknes etc...? Seems to me if we START with Christ rather than an a priori conception of what God "is supposed" to be like (a la Hellenistic tradition) we come to the exact opposite conclusion. Namely, God's divinity includes changing emotions, passions, pain, being vulnerable, experiencing weakness, etc. Let Calvary define God.
quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
State #1: Girl is being loved by her daddy. God responds and is happy.
State #2. Daddy gets drunk and beats the little girl to release his frustrations over his life. God responds... and what... is still happy?
PoW responds: Did God hate the 'second theif'? St. Anthony would say no, that God did not hate the second theif - but rather died besides him.
Greg: And your point is...?
Does God love MORE the one who is nice than the one that acts in an evil way? St. Anthony is saying no: "He is good, and He only bestows blessings and never does harm, remaining always the same."
Greg: Precisely because God's love is constant, his emotions in response to us changes. Because he's perfect love, He's not HAPPY when we kill. Because he's perfect love, He IS when we love. When we move from being loving to killing, his response to us changes. Do you agree with this?
Greg:
What does it mean to say that God authentically RESPONDS if it doesn't affect his emotions? ESPECIALLY sense POW grants that God DOES experience love. What does "love" mean here if its invulnerable to the change states of the beloved?
PoW responds: His love endures FOREVER !
Greg: Indeed. But what does that have to do with God's emotional responses to us? Do you think God's love is an "emotion"? We both agree God's love is unchanging. Got it. But do you agree that God's disposition to us can change... anger to acceptance, pleased to displeased, etc...?
POW: KEEP THE TERMINOLOGY STAIGHT -- GOD HAS "PASSION" BUT IS ALSO IMPASSIBLE!!!!
Greg: THIS is "keeping the terminology STRAIGHT"? Impassible means "without passions." That's what the word MEANS, which is precisely why it was used by the church fathers. For you to say "God HAS passions" (which most church fathers denied) and yet "is without passions" strikes some of us as... well.. . a wee bit "paradoxical." More honestly, it strikes me as having the exact same meaning as "God loving detests all married bachlers who exist in non-being for ever and never." Just being honest. Talk about God becoming a man "and yet" "in such a way" he remains unchanged is on the same level. I don't so much disagree with it as I can't form a coherent conception in my head in response to the words. (This has always been my problem with God predestines people to do evil "in such a way" that they are reponsible for the evil they do and God is all good for predestining them to do it. I can't even disagree, for the words are to me devoid of content.)
Maybe I'm just too rationalistic. I don't know. But it seems to me even mystics have to use intelligible language. Don't they? 
Blessings,
Greg
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10. | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/27/2004 2:39 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
(Sorry for the script changes in this post, but I copied my comments into POW's post and he uses all this fancy script changing stuff I know nothing about. Its POWS fault. ALL his fault. Shame on POW. Badddd eastern orthodox person!!!)
GUILTY!  | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/27/2004 7:15 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Sahid
Thank you PotOnWheel. I thought I was disagreeing with you, but maybe not. I think a lot of people on this thread are saying the same thing just in different lanuages. I have to agree with Doc. The language should at least make sense. "Passible" and "Impassible" are opposites (something that is impassible has no passion), and our understanding of God should be defined by Jesus. But I also agree with PotOnWheel that some things about God are just plain mysterious (God is spirit - He also has a body and enjoys eating fish on the beach). All of God in a human body makes no sense, but it makes all the sense in the world for God to come to us as a human. It's just the kind of thing he would do. It also makes no sense (at least to me) that Jesus could not have been God. One idea that kinda makes sense is that God is everywhere in full to begin with, so he can also be in a man in full. I think I first heard that in Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard (a pretty good book). So anyway, back to my point... Cheat Commandos, Rock Rock On!
Yes, langage has to make sense. And it has to communicate, and be useful for the next person to communicate on down the line.
Notice that you yourself quickly identified several things that are totally true, but can easily -- when just the term is read -- seem contary. But true they are: divine-man, everywhere and in a manger, spirit...while eating fish with his corporeal body.
Notice that the literary tradition that grew up made use of easily locatable, loud-shouting pairs of terms. They are like sign-posts that leave no misunderstanding that the author is putting them together on purpose, "means it" and has thought it through.
So, where you say "The language should at least make sense. "Passible" and "Impassible" are opposites (something that is impassible has no passion), and our understanding of God should be defined by Jesus." we have to step back, recognize the sign-post, and ponder to think.
They mean to say that God who does not act on the kind of basis that Creatures act upon -- passions (even for God) -- by virtue of the fact that he became FULLY MAN while remaining fully God, assumed our passionate nature. While the Love of God can be said, anthropomporphically to be "Passionate" -- and indead seems so from our perspective; nevertheless, God's enduring love has no "shaddows" that turn it based on purposed external to His Love. God is "impassive."
But God IS LOVE!
And that is just so wonderful that it is worth letting the words fly in the face of enthroned reason, to upset it, and perpare the throne for its rightful sitter: God's Love.
Back to the Story: The impassive God assumed fully our humanity, passion and all, body and soul, will... and with passion died, rose victorious, ascended...and reigns! | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/27/2004 7:33 PM (GMT -6) | | Greg: Blessings, Greg
PoW: Good place to begin!
Now...
quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
POW: God is passionate (loves) without having passion (need).Christ suffered and died in his human nature, which was and is a true hypostasis of the Divine Word, but yet did not undergo change in his immutable, impassible divinity.
Greg: The "and yet" part lost me. Sorry. What exactly is so bad about experiencing changing emotions, passions, pain, being vulnerable, experiencing weaknes etc...? Seems to me if we START with Christ rather than an a priori conception of what God "is supposed" to be like (a la Hellenistic tradition) we come to the exact opposite conclusion. Namely, God's divinity includes changing emotions, passions, pain, being vulnerable, experiencing weakness, etc. Let Calvary define God.
PoW: Noting is "bad" about experiening emotions: we are created with them. But that does not mean that God "experiences weakness." We can speak, in our intellectual examinations, of the vulnerable "position" that God accepted in creating us (Evdokimov remarks that Creation "predestined" God to die on the cross" because of God's love -- the only legitimate use of the P-word...) But that is just our small minds doing their best, paling before God's unsearchable wisdom! There is the anthopomorphic thing too. But the vastness of God's wisdom seems most appropriate to remember!
quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
Greg:
State #1: Girl is being loved by her daddy. God responds and is happy.
State #2. Daddy gets drunk and beats the little girl to release his frustrations over his life. God responds... and what... is still happy?
PoW responds: Did God hate the 'second theif'? St. Anthony would say no, that God did not hate the second theif - but rather died besides him.
Greg: And your point is...?
PoW: God CONTINUES TO LOVE BOTH THIEVES.
(C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce" echo's St. Athony, and Issac the Syrian!)
quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
Does God love MORE the one who is nice than the one that acts in an evil way? St. Anthony is saying no: "He is good, and He only bestows blessings and never does harm, remaining always the same."
Greg: Precisely because God's love is constant, his emotions in response to us changes. Because he's perfect love, He's not HAPPY when we kill. Because he's perfect love, He IS when we love. When we move from being loving to killing, his response to us changes. Do you agree with this?
PoW: You say here that God's love is "constant." Why that term? (Calvinist influence?)
God's mercy is unsearchable. Beyond comperhension! Vast, unbounded.
Saint Peter the Damascene writes:
"We all receive God's blessings equally. But some of us,
receiving God's fire, that is, His word, become soft
like beeswax, while the others like clay become hard as
stone. And if we do not want Him, He does not force any
of us, but like the sun He sends His rays and illuminates
the whole world, and he who wants to see Him, sees Him,
whereas the one who does not want to see Him, is not
forced by Him. And no one is responsible for this privation
of light except the one who does not want to have it. God
created the sun and the eye. Man is free to receive the
sun's light or not. The same is true here. God sends the
light of knowledge like rays to all, but He also gave us
faith like an eye. The one who wants to receive knowledge
through faith, keeps it by his works, and so God gives
him more willingness, knowledge, and power"
(Philokalia, vol. 3, p. 8).
PoW: God's zeal to save us is seen in his ciscipline. Some, when disciplined repent and soften. Some harden. God's "response" shows his un-ending love. But our actions do not cause God to falter in loving us.
quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
Greg:
What does it mean to say that God authentically RESPONDS if it doesn't affect his emotions? ESPECIALLY sense POW grants that God DOES experience love. What does "love" mean here if its invulnerable to the change states of the beloved?
PoW responds: His love endures FOREVER !
Greg: Indeed. But what does that have to do with God's emotional responses to us? Do you think God's love is an "emotion"? We both agree God's love is unchanging. Got it. But do you agree that God's disposition to us can change... anger to acceptance, pleased to displeased, etc...?
PoW: God's 'response' is what we call it. "God's disposition" towards us does not change; just the prescription that we need -- our "medicine." The OT Narratives as seen throught the Prism of the NT revelation and the Cross show this. God chastens those whom he loves (which is all of us).
quote:
Originally posted by GregBoyd
POW: KEEP THE TERMINOLOGY STAIGHT -- GOD HAS "PASSION" BUT IS ALSO IMPASSIBLE!!!!
Greg: THIS is "keeping the terminology STRAIGHT"? Impassible means "without passions." That's what the word MEANS, which is precisely why it was used by the church fathers. For you to say "God HAS passions" (which most church fathers denied) and yet "is without passions" strikes some of us as... well.. . a wee bit "paradoxical." <snip (off-topic)> Talk about God becoming a man "and yet" "in such a way" he remains unchanged is on the same level. I don't so much disagree with it as I can't form a coherent conception in my head in response to the words. <snip (off-topic)>
Maybe I'm just too rationalistic. I don't know. But it seems to me even mystics have to use intelligible language. Don't they?
PoW: We can 'describe' God as passionate. And what other word has such power. But as to the idea which considers vacilation, conditional response, that doesn't fit the Creator. it fits his creatues.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
PoW: Now, here's a problem. I notice that you write: "Talk about God becoming a man "and yet" "in such a way" he remains unchanged..."That strikes me as having heretical implications.
God became man, without his divinity changing. And when he bacame human, neither did humanity alter into something else. Had the later been true, it would have been hybreds that can be saved, and not you and me. And had the divine nature been altered, Christ would not have so much to offer us.
The incarnation is _assymmetrical_. Our humanity is given the healing Christ won for us on the Cross. But it is also true that our humanity -- created after all in God's image -- is naturally receptive to God dwelling in us; so Christ's human will 'naturally' could will God's will. Even so, Christ allowed himself to be tempted, and voluntarily took all our weaknesses upon himself.
Christ died, even though he could have stopped it. His humanity, carrying our weakness, prayed for anothe way; but continued to will to glorify God in our salvation. The humanity and divinity of Christ is seen in the Garden. | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 6/27/2004 8:13 PM (GMT -6) | | GregBoyd: Here's the difference between paradox and unintelligible speech.
GregBoyd: God became a man. Paradox, but not unintelligible speech (contradicdtion). For "God" does not by definition rule out also being "human" and "human" does not by definition rule out also being "God."
pOw: WE AGREE.
GregBoyd: Impassible with passion. Contradiction. Unintelligible speech. Im (not) passible (experience passion). Passion (not impassible).
pOw: These two words came from different sources. I beleive both were posted on this thread. (1) "Impassible" is a technical term shaped within the Alexandrian context, molded to include recongnition of the Living God while preserving God's 'otherness. (2) "Passionate" is a word borrowed from an Orthodox website describing God's loving actions (which can be disciplinarian too).
You COPPED OUT! You didn't read the postings to see how words were USED. You just looked at the surface, at the definition. (After your advice to others.)
Doc, "heal thyself!"
| | Back to Top | | |
| 142 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 12:10 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|