 |
| 
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 7/21/2003 6:46 PM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
only to protect an arbitrary definition of divine perfection
I think that there is more than one concept "out there", contemporaneous or before-but-kicking, and certainly some others that came after, for what "divine perfection" meant to Gregory.
What do YOU think it was?
If you allow a reading back into time of later definitions, well....
And if one thinks that Gregory just "went with the flow" of everything (middle platonic?) that was around, indiscriminantly; well, he and his buds didn't do that with other things.
Gregory was writing this thing in retirement. (Consider the possibilities, for years from now, Greg  ) And he had quite a mind, and enjoyed writing these Orations. But this was not just theoretical stuff. It was stand-and-fight stuff against enemies who formed moving targets who were working divisively in far off places, sometimes points of power, working to undermine the good work that had been done.............all without an age of communication. Frudstrating, like Paul having to send his letters when he would rathe go himself.
GIVE IT SOME MORE TIME.
But I think your sense is right, if you are thinking that understanding what the issue he MEANS to be talking about as "time" has to be understood against a broader backdrop. THAT's the way I take it.
PotOnWheel. | | Back to Top | | |
 |
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 7/21/2003 6:59 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Sources of Time are not subject to time
Works for me.
The source of matter is not subject to matter too.
And the source of movement is not subject to movement (in the sense that the Cappadocians would use the word "movement").
And the source of change is not...
But we are destined to participate in the "rest" that....
(Need a quote -- because I really think you, Greg, might otherwise choose to take a single word and use it as opportunity to 'dis' the whole thing... Unfair, I know. Sorry!!!)
quote:
Vladimir Lossky writing:
St. Gregory Nazianzen speaks in his oration on baptism: 'No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendour of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the One. When I think of any One of the Three, I think of Him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking of escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of that One so as to attribute a greater greatness to the rest. When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided light.4 Our thought must be in continuous motion, pursuing now the one, now the three, and returning again to the unity; it must swing ceaselessly between the two poles of the antinomy, in order to attain to the contemplation of the sovereign repose of this threefold monad. How can the antinomy of unity and trinity be contained in an image? How can this mystery be grasped save by the aid of an idea— be it that of movement or of development— which is inadmissible? Nazianzen's conscious adoption of the language of Plotinus can delude only those unimaginative and pedestrian souls who are incapable of rising above rational concepts: those who ransack the thought of the Fathers for traces of 'Platonism' or 'Aristotelianism'. St. Gregory speaks to the philosophers as a philosopher, that he may win the philosopher to the contemplation of the Trinity. 'The monad is set in motion in virtue of its richness; the dyad is surpassed (for the deity is above matter and form); the triad contains itself in perfection, for it is the first which surpasses the composition of the dyad. Thus, the Godhead does not dwell within bounds, nor does it spread itself indefinitely. The one would be without honour, the other would be contrary to order. The one would be wholly Judaic, the other Hellenistic and polytheistic.'5 One gains a glimpse of the mystery of the number, three; the deity is neither one nor many; its perfection goes beyond the multiplicity of which duality is the root (we recall the interminable dyads of the gnostics, and the dualism of the Platonists), and expresses itself in the Trinity. The term 'expresses itself' is improper, for the divinity has no need to manifest its perfection, either to itself or to others. It is the Trinity, and this fact can be deduced from no principle nor explained by any sufficient reason, for there are neither principles nor causes anterior to the Trinity.
Vladimir Lossky, "God in Trinity," Chapter 3 of The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY (1976), pp. 44-67.
Vladimir Lossky
God in Trinity
Chapter 3 of The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church:
St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, NY (1976), pp. 44-67.
THANKS FOR READING THIS.
PotOnWheel.
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 07/22/2003 12:03:29 AM | | Back to Top | | |
|
GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 7/22/2003 5:27 AM (GMT -6) | | POW: if one thinks that Gregory just "went with the flow" of everything (middle platonic?) that was around, indiscriminantly; well, he and his buds didn't do that with other things.
Doc: I agree. The Cappadocians in particular greatly modified Greek concepts to better express the Gospel. No problemos on that one. They just didn't go far enough on the time issue. In my opinion, treating "time" as thing, like "matter," and asserting that God is "above it," is a)biblically unwarranted; b)hellenistic; c) philosophically indefensible, leading to my earlier noted unresolvable and unnecessary paradoxes.
A better approach, I think, is to see "time" measured sequence. Sequence isn't like a finite thing about which it is virtuous to transcend. (OUR WAY of measuring it, of course, is limited... hence in this sense God is above OUR "time").
there ya go.
Greg
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10. | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 7/22/2003 8:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Doc: The whole thing strikes me as an unnecessary thought experiment generating a quagmire of strained terms with unresolvably paradoxical relations that serves only to protect an arbitrary definition of divine perfection.
Tom: Doc, we WERE linked in our former lives. Had to have been.
| | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 7/22/2003 9:15 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom, Doc did MUCH BETTER in his second post. The first one is mildly offensive, as if they really were "thought experiments." Doc says enough in the second post to make me believe he does not think this.
Also, many of the "unresolvably paradoxical relations" are not solved by eaither a simpolistic form of OV or the care/thoughtful refleciton of Doc's second post. There really is a lot of aspects of God the mystery pf which neither you, not I, nor Doc expects to become tame. Not just time.
I rather like the sequence -- AS AN ANALOGY. And as an analogy I could accept it.
I "hear: Gregory "treating 'time' as thing, like 'matter'" loosely, in much the same way that I can loosely listed to Greg say "strikes me as an..."
Here is a poem, with an interesting use of the word "Time." I think it is GOOD EXERCISE for the practice of listening to thoughts about time that are not stiff and rigid -- which is what you have to do with the present topic!!!
quote:
116.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to move:
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his highth be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
. + .
"Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom."
. + .
Change and Constancy.
Unresolvably paradoxical relations... but NOT "an arbitrary definition."
. + .
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 07/22/2003 2:24:59 PM | | Back to Top | | |
|
Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 7/22/2003 9:55 AM (GMT -6) | | PoW-
I guess the open view IS wrong because I KNEW you'd post immediately followng my note to Doc. At least THAT part of the future was certain.
TGB
| | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 7/22/2003 10:16 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom, I've been mulling over what I posted from Wm. Shakespeare.
quote:
"Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom."
It is not TIME that has change and yet also constancy. Maybe Doc's "Sequence" does. The Father's understanding of a combination of rest and growth did. It is LOVE that has constancy in the midst of change.
If Doc's sequence is an analogy for Love, then there is some discussion ahead.
PoW
(I just know you are going to read this...of your own free will. ) | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 7/22/2003 10:43 AM (GMT -6) | | Something that always catches me by surprise when I'm reading Orthodox authors is where they point out the truly surprising reality that redeemed mankind are called to participate in the life of the Trinity, and in so doing to "become uncreated." That -- to "become uncreated" -- looks SO strange to my tender Evangelical eyes. But those eyes do love the Lord; and something in them knows the light that shines from that thought. "You are what you eat." Or, like someone receiving a blood transfusion from Superman, there is unbegotten life in those veins.
Here is something off of an OCA site:
quote:
From the Christology of the icon we come to know -- to see -- that each of us has been created to reflect the person of the incarnate Son and Word of God. From the Christology of the icon all of humanity -- male and female -- is called to be a living image of Jesus Christ. Thus, in its lines and colors, the icon proclaims the Good News of Christ's saving dispensation. Put in a very concise way -- the icon confirms that the human person has been created to participate in the divine life of God. And this is made possible because God has become a human being.
By understanding the icon as confirmation and proclamation of the Gospel, we come to appreciate the true reason of why we refer to this feast as the Triumph of Orthodoxy. For the triumph of Orthodoxy is nothing less than the victory of Jesus Christ over sin and death. This is the Gospel which is to be proclaimed to all people in all places at all times. The Triumph of Orthodoxy joyfully announces that in Christ the image and likeness of God has been restored. Consequently, our humanity, distorted by sin and imprisoned by death, has been restored and liberated through the incarnation.
While today's feast announces the renewal of the image and likeness of God in the human person, it is Great Lent that becomes our response to this marvelous gift. Emphasis on repentance and asceticism has no meaning apart from our desire to be living icons of Jesus Christ. When asceticism becomes an end in itself it ceases to manifest virtue and instead fills one with pride and arrogance. If our celebration is not rooted in the desire to be made whole -- to be made new and to abide in the Kingdom of God -- then the feast risks being reduced to empty rhetoric. What emerges is the all too familiar extoling of past triumphs at the expense of ignoring the need for a living Church in the present.
http://www.oca.org/pages/ocaadmin/documents/Sermons/1998-BOSHTK-Sunday-Orthodoxy-Vespers-0308.html
Jesus said "Come unto me and I will give you REST." We are called to "participate in that divine Rest. And in that Rest to have Life.
Edited by - PotOnWheel on 07/22/2003 3:59:34 PM | | Back to Top | | |
|
the_rickster
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 9/13/2003 9:19 AM (GMT -6) | |
Fred (signed my others too)
" It is a pagan Greek way of thinking (that infects much of Western Christianity--including Aquinas) that says that God's person is determined by some "divine nature" -- thereby that nature preceding God's person, and making God less than free."
It seems you are trying to say this, and therefore it is false. That is called the genetic fallacy. Deciding the truth of a claim based on its origin. You're going to need to argue for this. Second, I think you're wrong. Aquinas wouldn't and doesn't say that from and in what I have read.
Pot on Wheel-
"Timelessness" is such an interesting word: tied to its own contradiction; measured by what it denies."
Again, I think I missed the argument, I only skimmed the long quotations you put in. It seems you guys are trying to comprehend (fully understand) what timelessness is. That's not a possibility for changing, temporal, finite creatures. BUT, that doesn't make the concept unpredicable. The orthodox understanding of eternality or timelessness is simply NOT-temporal. It just denies this of God. Related to the Trinity. We can't comprehend how there can be three who's in one what. BUT we can know it is true.
If I'm way off, please let me know your arguments for the assertion above.
Peace and Love-
the rickster | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 9/14/2003 1:25 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by the_rickster
The orthodox understanding of eternality or timelessness is simply NOT-temporal. It just denies this of God. Related to the Trinity. We can't comprehend how there can be three who's in one what. BUT we can know it is true.
I like what you posted there, rick. I'm comfortable with it -- with the addend that time is Goc's creation, and that the economy happens in time.
(I'm NOT of the OV.) | | Back to Top | | |
|
the_rickster
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 19
| Posted 9/14/2003 10:05 AM (GMT -6) | | PoW-
What do you mean by the economy happens in time?
Thanks
Rickster | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 9/14/2003 12:06 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by the_rickster
PoW- What do you mean by the economy happens in time?
Mind you, I speak as one who feels quite sure that the OV is entirely unneccesary, and a needless distraction............
Let me just answer your question, Rick, by way of contrasting the two things that the Western tradition have confused in the filoque: the procession of the Spirit as to source ("by the Father" alone--according to the Nicene Creed) and the sending of the Spirit by Christ to his Church ("through the Son"). The economy of salvation is what God did, as Trinity, to save us. In THAT respect, the "economy happens in time." Althought the eternal/pre-eternal/whatever is not a matter of temporality any more than God is........ that work of the Spirit that He does as Christ's agent is within time.
I trust that you agree. | | Back to Top | | |
|
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 9/14/2003 12:50 PM (GMT -6) | | Rick, I posted this on another thread. Strange as it may seem, I feel comfortable posting things that merely parallel a topic, and that are not central to it. That's what I'm doing here. The hymn says" "Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father; There is no shaddow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not, Thy compasions they fail not. As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be."
If that describes "immutability" then this post is dead on the money. Ok?
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by PotOnWheel
. . .
Ecclesiastes 3:11 is a significant verse, for everyone at every part of life.
quote:
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
He has also set eternity in the hearts of men;
yet they cannot fathom
what God has done
from beginning to end.
Everything, says Ecclesiates, comes from the hand of God.
And everything, whether it endures as long as we might wish, or is as big or small as we might hope, is good and from the hand of God. And the length of days is also as good. (Read the book and see.)
I wonder whether the hopes that went along with the Month-based fertility cults (like the Philistine Baal) and the hopes that were wrapped up in the Sun-god religion (like the Egyptian Ra) are redressed in the opening chapter--seems so to me. Yet even when things don't last, and when effort does not ensure survival, it is trust in the CREATOR that matters!
Ecclesiastes 3:11 says: "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."
Dispite whatever doesn't fit our own standards, even that is from the hand of God. Pretty or ugly, it is "beautiful in its time" for those with spiritual vision to "see" (as Christ said). Yet, men "cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end" and fail to see that which is "timeless" (Catholic Bible) in their own midst.
Now, THAT definition of "timeless" is the less technical one; different from most of this thread. It is what one might say of fine jewelry, dinnerware, or a classic automobile! Timeless. Enduring. It is a far more Eastern than Western definition: a state of being. It is a matter of "eternity. . .set. . .in the hearts of men".
For the gatherer of wisdom for Ecclesiastes, that which the hand finds to do is GOOD just because it is the made "beautiful in its time" by God, and made for the sole benefit of men who can see with the organ of the "eternity in the hearts" put there by God according to the Wisdom (incidently by His Word/Son) that is "from beginning to end."
Our modern failure is that we insist on focusing on the first part at to the neglect of the second and third parts of that verse.
The OV is an attemped corrective to an imbalanced treatment, the so-called "classical view" in the first portion. So, no, God's ordination is not for a standard that meets human standards. Christians can be rained on, or not, just like the rest of humanity. But Ecclesiates says that surface perfection is not the point at all. (Through out all modern attempts to explain/excuse evil.) "Classical" and "OV" make the same mistake--just in different ways to different extreems. Ecclesistes says that we can not stop with the "everything beautiful." By saying "everything beautiful in its time" we are asked to look beyond the mere static state. (God's world is one of ultimate ends, not of still-photography and photo-retouch.) "In its time" includes a lot more. It combines the present particulars given us "by God's hand" with "what God has done from beginning to end."
Notably, it includes what can only be seen by the "eternity (set) in the hearts of men" by the Spirit.
Hmmm.........
Attempts at devising perfect systems just amount to "chasing after the wind."
| | Back to Top | | |
| 38 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 8:49 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 |
|
|