quote:

---

Hey Laika:

You really crack me up. Your "Timeless God's cake recipe" was hillarious! Very clever.
Back to cause and effect, we all agree effects require causes, o.k.
Why must the cause precede the effect? Could you not imagine it any other way? If I could demonstrate backwards causation to you, would you abandon your "Universal Unidirectional God Imprisoning Sequentiality"?

---

Tell you what anewbeginning, if you can pray for my grandmother and she gets healed and comes and visits me, I WILL give up my "Universal Unidirectional God Imprisoning Sequentiality".

O.K.?


She died in 1980, but that shouldn't be a problem for ENIG (Eternal Now Impersonal God) should it?



Paul5388, I used to pull the key out of the ignition of the Ford 7000 grain truck as it was running. Yeah, I don't fall for diesel jokes. Another reason your IH might give you problems is because IH is lousy. Get a Deere or Ford.

Mick had one of these that I operated:


Today on CVM, Trash Talkin' Farmboys



Edited by - Laika on 07/17/2003 07:16:09 AM

quote:

---

Like a lot of other areas, you are way behind.

---

Yeah, I haven't operated a combine, tractor or airplane since the seventies.

quote:

---

BTW, boy, what did you learn to drive in?

---

Let's see:

first car I drove -- 1965 Dodge Coronet, slant six
first stick -- mid sixties Chevrolet pickup
solo and pilot's license -- Cherokee 140
first gas truck -- Chevrolet C60 (under-powered 350)
first diesel truck -- Ford 7000, Caterpillar
first tractor -- John Deere 'A'
first combine -- John Deere 7720

By the way, my dad can't stand John Deere, I had to twist his arm to get him to stop at a JD implement dealer so I could buy a couple hats for an ex-neighbor and his son last fall when we were visiting.

How I got to high school.........Holmenkollen 210s (X-C skis))

quote:

---

Tom

PoW-

I gotta know your take on this one. Please give me the low down (no pun intended):

1. Is there a distinction between a person's "essence" and "energies" (attributes, acts, etc.)?

2. Do we have access to other peoples' "essences"?

3. Is sexual union rightly understood as union with another person's "essence"?

4. Is the human essence/energies distinction similar to the divine essence/energies distinction? If yes, how? If no, how are they different?

Come on dude. Don't leave me hanging here. Paul and I are dying to know.

Tom

---

============================================

HERE'S GINA AND MY ANSWERS!!!!

============================================

quote:

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ReasonableDoubt


I'm not POW, but my 2 cents:

1.Yes
2.No
3. No
4. I don't understand your question.

I think of the essence as being a person's ontological being, their spirit, soul, etc. This no other human can have access to - and if it was as simple as just having sex with someone to get access- well then a lot of people would all have access to each other through multiple partners, etc.

You can't mistake the act -"sexual intercourse" - with the intent. If your intent is to be intimate and loving with someone, then the act corresponds with that. But the act in and of itself doesn't do anything other than its biological purpose.

Does a rapist, through the act of sexual intercourse, gain access to another's essence? I surely hope not.

Edited by - ReasonableDoubt on 07/17/2003 3:47:06 PM

---

============================================

quote:

---

PotOnWheel


I think that RD did as good a job as I can.

I'd add one more thing to that, to finish it off. That is, that the human essence is not a static all-by-itself thing. The human essence -- created nature (is) "a dynamic process oriented towards an eschatological goal--Chrsit the Incarnate Logos. As creator, the Logos stands as the "beginning" of creation, and as incarte, he is also its "end" when all things will exist not only "through Him," but "in Him." (Meyendorff, p.161)

There is no energy with out essence and no essence without energy. But humanity is ontologically "towards" Christ.

But what about Tom's wife????????????????????


I'd say that the good Sunday School lesson in all this is that we each have no "essence" that is rightly understood autonomistically anyways, then. Right. (above) But we ourselves ARE most truly and only completely when "in communion" with Christ. So, in marriage we share God's love. We share the image of God that is created in our nature/essence via the actions/energies that are our actions towards and with each other. We SHARE a common human nature, but we are each separate persons. And that human nature is NOT an autonomous nature. Our essence is not self-generating/self-sustaining. ONLY in God do we have our being.

Marriage is a union of THREE beings. The Orthodox marriage liturgy has the typical (for us) "Do you Tom take __________, and do you _________ take Tom. But it also has: Do thou, the same Lord, stretch out now also Thy hand from Thy holy dwelling place, and unit ehits They servant Tom and _________; for by Thee is the husband joined unto the wife. Unite them in one mind. Wed them into one flesh, granting them the fruit of the body and the procreation of fair children. For Thine is the majesty, and Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory; of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages.


TOUGH QUESTION, TOM.

Hope I did OK. RD did great!

---

============================================


Tom: I want your answer on Paul's sexual union = direct access to another person's "essence." Would you agree with that?

PoW: So, the simple answer, Tom, from both RD and me is "NO."


Tom: Would you deny the distinction between essence and attributes/energies/actions in the the act of sex?

PoW: "Deny the distinction" is almost like a double negative. If I don't read carefully I'll make a big mistake.

But as I said above, while essence and energies are different you don't have one without the other also. But since sex is an ACT it seems to be energetic (hopefully! ) As an act, then, HOPEFULLY it stems from something essentially Godly, like Love. And the Godly essence of Love only IS when it is acted.

Follow? (I think I do. Hope you do to!)


(For my next act...I'll institute peace in the Middle East!)




Edited by - PotOnWheel on 07/17/2003 4:30:49 PM

quote:

---

Tom,

"The two shall be one flesh" encompasses much more than sexual intimacy. You are just taking too narrow of a view and it needs to be expanded.

---

quote:

---

Paul

The formation of woman from man indicates there is something missing and it is only brought back together when "they shall be one flesh".

---

quote:

---

I'd say that the good Sunday School lesson in all this is that we each have no "essence" that is rightly understood autonomistically anyways, then. Right. (above) But we ourselves ARE most truly and only completely when "in communion" with Christ. So, in marriage we share God's love. We share the image of God that is created in our nature/essence via the actions/energies that are our actions towards and with each other. We SHARE a common human nature, but we are each separate persons. And that human nature is NOT an autonomous nature. Our essence is not self-generating/self-sustaining. ONLY in God do we have our being.

---

quote:

---

Laika,

See, you brought out some of my baser nature. I reacted to "FarmBOY" in a very unseemly manner.

---

Paul5388, I was referring to you AND me as "farmboys". That's why it was plural, "farmboys". Sorry, I will stay a square mile away from you in the future.

quote:

---

We don’t claim to have first hand knowledge of their (Hitler's and Mother Theresa's) “essences” as under a microscope, but we do claim to reason rightly FROM the actions of a person TO the person, to who and what they are AS persons.

---

quote:

---

Tell you what anewbeginning, if you can pray for my grandmother and she gets healed and comes and visits me, I WILL give up my "Universal Unidirectional God Imprisoning Sequentiality".

O.K.?


She died in 1980, but that shouldn't be a problem for ENIG (Eternal Now Impersonal God) should it?

---

quote:

---

Laika

quote:

---

Tell you what anewbeginning, if you can pray for my grandmother and she gets healed and comes and visits me, I WILL give up my "Universal Unidirectional God Imprisoning Sequentiality".

O.K.?


She died in 1980, but that shouldn't be a problem for ENIG (Eternal Now Impersonal God) should it?

---

Do you feel the Openness God incapable of this? Why?

---

She is dead. The past is past. God can't change the past.
She will be resurrected on judgement day but that is not the same as changing the past.

quote:

---

I've never described God as an "eternal now" being, that's not the view I hold to.

---

So what is your view?

quote:

---

Tom: Since the distinction between essence and energies holds for human/human relations without forbidding reasoning from attribute to essence, I’d like to know why you (PoW) hold that the distinction in divine/human relations forbids such a move.

PoW: I was thinking about that. The answer is not to hard.

---

I appreciate your responding, though it seems the answer is harder than you imagine, for I don’t see a clear answer.

PoW: We can tell a grape from a pear by externals and know differences in "essence" from what we learn "externally." Grape and pear are different in essence.

Tom: Very good.

PoW: Where, of course, each A. Hitler and Mother Theresa are unique human beings, their "essences" do not account for the differences between A. Hitler and Mother Theresa.

Tom: OK. Hitler and Theresa both share the same “human nature,” or what Thomas Morris calls “kind-essence.” They both possess the attributes constitutive of human being. But each human being possess her own unique “individual-essence.” Regarding this, you say: “But how to draw the line between what is our shared humanity (the respect in which there is one human nature, passed on) and the way in which we each have an essence that in unique is more than I want in my head right now.”

Fair enough. But we’ll have to go there sometime. It regards my question.

PoW: So comparisions of Adolf to Theresa must avoid static assessments of each. Their "essence" can not be examined in the same way a grape or pear is.

Tom: I’m not so sure our assessment of grapes and pears is static, or that Hitler and Theresa are so far removed from your comments regarding grapes and pears. The distinction you admit between human “kind-essence” (shared attributes constitutive of human being) and human “individual-essence” (that set of attributes and whatever else that constitutes a unique individual human being—which you didn’t comment on) is not at all different from the distinction between grape “kind-essence” and grape “individual-essence.” Whereas Hitler and Theresa both share the same “kind-essence,” grapes and pears don’t, but grapes and grapes do. So you ought to have offered observing the differences and similarities between two grapes or two pears on the one hand and Hitler and Theresa on the other instead of grapes and pears on the one hand and Hitler and Theresa on the other. Secondly, though grape-being isn’t human being, it does give and take as an individual grape to its environment and so become something unique in the world of grapes, not unlike humans. (Am I having this conversation?)

PoW: (I noted Paul's reference to the OTHER PAUL's connection between marriage and the mystical union of Christ's Body with the Lord.)

Tom: Yes, understanding THIS is what I’m after. The parallel is obvious, though it doesn't directly answer our question.

Pow: One of the things I was thinking about while writing the other post is that where "goodness" is an "essential" thing for US, for God "goodness" is an "energetic" attribute -- something that we can know of him -- and not of essence.

Tom: But your use of Hitler and Theresa suggests that “goodness” in humans is NOT an “essential” thing for us. If our “goodness” is an “essential” thing for us, then how is it others come to know of our goodness only via our actions and attributes? It’s knowledge “of other” humans I’m asking about. Seems to me that everything, goodness or evil, others know about us is known, just as with God, through our actions and attributes. No other person knows my goodness except through my actions. My point is simply this: Attributes (noun) attribute (verb). We rightly conclude that Hitler, though sharing the same kind-essence as Mother Thresea, was thoroughly evil in his individual-essence (in the uniqueness of his person) and THIS we only know through Hitler’s actions, not through direct, unmediated contact with the “stuff” of his personhood (whatever that it).

It seems to me that we face precisely the same thing in our relationship with God. Yes, he is creator and we are creatures. But this seems irrelevant to the point under discussion, that being that we are, in God’s image, persons (which is what makes personal intimacy with God even possible) and that we face the same essence/attributes distinction with divine/human relations that we do with human/human relations. We relate personally through actions and energies. The question remains: Why does this distinction not allow our understanding human attributes to faithfully reveal the essential human being but not allow us to understand divine attributes to faithfully reveal the essential divine being? I find no problem in affirming that divine attributes are just that, attributes OF the divine. They reveal God.

PoW: THAT marks a difference right there, between Creator and creature. We can know "about" God through his goodness. But we know him only through those acts/energies towards us.

Tom: Where’s the difference in this from creature/creature relations? We likewise have no knowledge of others except through their acts/energies.

PoW: I think that the difference between Creator and creature is under appreciated.

Tom: I think it’s all underappreciated. The differences and the “likeness” (“Let us create human being in our image/likes”). But we are like God; more like God than we are like a stone or a tree. My passion to see us embrace the truth that we are God’s image and likeness surely influences me as much as does your passion to see people embrace the truth that they are unlike God. Yes, we are finite. Yes, creatures. Yes, dust, and to dust we shall return. But as persons, persons in essence, we are more “like” God than we are “like” the dust.

PoW: Tom says that he would like "reasoning from attribute to essence."

Tom: I didn’t say I’d “like” this, I just observed that we DO it, which we most certainly do in human/human relations. I’m just wondering why not in divine/human relations, given that we are persons in God’s image, designed for intimacy with God.

PoW: I'm not sure that scripture invites us to do that. i'm pretty sure that scripture warns us not to. I don't know anyone in scripture that does so, successfully, and receives approval from God. Those to "receive" revelation from God (prophets) received such "in part" and waited in faith for the rest. They didn't act on their "reasonings" or extrapolate further "what must then be."

Tom: Ah, now we’re getting closer to the planet core. I didn’t suggest that our knowledge of God was other than “in part.” What we know of God we know via God’s revealing it to us.

I actually can think of several biblical examples of people reasoning from attribute to essence in precisely the manner I’m suggesting we do all the time in relating to other human persons (and as most of us do in relating to God). God tells Abraham Sodom is to be destroyed. Abraham objects, “Destroy the righteous with the wicket? Will not the Judge of all the Earth do justly?” Attributes (noun) attribute (verb). Abraham believed God was incapable of doing such a thing. We could simply disagree with Abraham I suppose, but I’ll not for the moment. Then when told to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham obeyed, reasoning that God was incapable of breaking such a promise, and concluding (we are told in Romans) on this basis that even if he killed Isaac, God would raise him back to life. This is precisely the sort of reasoning from attribute to essence that I’m advocating.

PoW: In fellow human beings we "reason from attribute to essence" to know that God's love is in the other person…

Tom: And in relating to and experiencing God we do not “reason from” the Cross to the declaration that “God is, in his essence, in his nature, on the inside love” and that THIS is what is revealed on the Cross?

It appears to me that what fundamentally divides here is that whereas I maintain that attributes (noun) attribute (verb), you essentially deny this. For you, God’s actions and attributes don’t point TO God, they simply point to themselves. They say nothing more than that “God did THIS action on THIS occasion.” But these acts don’t point to (attribute) or say anything at all about the actor, they only point to themselves as acts. We are not allowed to conclude on the basis of the Cross that God is, in his essential nature, LOVE. All we may conclude is that God loved us. Whatever God may BE we are not free to say (and are rather warned against trying), but we can say “God loved us.”

PoW: And in that we know that God is love and that we love that person and they us. We recognize in their essence something…

Tom: When you say “God IS love” does the word “is” describe anything beyond particular acts of love? In what sense “is” God’s essence/nature responsible for these acts of love?

PoW: To have "fellowship" with God we MUST have a MEDIATOR. Absolutely.

Tom: Absolutely.

PoW: We can ONLY have fellowship with God IN CHRIST.

Tom: Absolutely.

PoW: Our destiny is to participate in the divine love of the Trinity.

Tom: Which Trinity?

PoW: But THAT relationship is not via "reasoning from attribute to essence."

Tom: Misreading me again. I am not suggesting that our “reason” is our mediator.

PoW: We can know God directly, and not just "about" God.

Tom: By this you mean “know God’s energies directly.” No?

PoW: Baarlam reasoned with Aquinas that while we COULD reason all the way up to God's essence (TGB is sounding that way.)…

Tom: Misread me again. Ugh. I am not saying we can reason all the way up to God’s essence. I’m saying that when God reveals himself to us, we are justified in concluding that God is in his essence/nature what God reveals himself to be. I’m not putting “reason” in the place of Christ’s mediation. I'm not suggesting that there's nothing more to God than what God's revealed. I'm not suggesting that “reason” does away with the need for revelation. I’m saying that when God reveals Godself, it’s God who is revealed, as much about God as God wishes to reveal.

PoW: PART OF THE REASON WHY "the distinction in divine/human relations forbids such a move: reasoning from attribute to essence" IS IMPORTANT IS THAT HUMANITY IS NOT A STAND-ALONE. HUMANITY IS ONLY MEANINGFUL, ONLY REALIY EXISTS IN COMMUNION WITH GOD--AND THAT COMMUNION IS ONLY THROUGH THE SON, AND THROUGH THE SON WITH THE DIVINE UNCREATED LOVE OF THE WHOLE TRINITY.

Tom: What I got was this: We are not a stand-alone and we only have meaning in communion with God through Christ. I understand this to mean: “We cannot reason our way to God independently of God. We are dependent upon God for our knowledge of God. And we can never find meaning in life outside of God’s infinite triune love.”

And this you offer as part of the reason why we may not reason from God’s revealed love to the conclusion that God “as God,” in essence or nature, IS love?

PoW: THE OTHER PART OF THE REASON IS THAT WE ARE CREATURES AND GOD IS GOD. BUT 'THAT' BARRIER IS NO BARRIER AT ALL, AND NEVER WAS INTENDED TO BE.

Tom: If it’s no barrier at all then how is it a reason why we may not reason from attribute to essence?

You offer as a reason why we may not conclude from God’s revealed acts of love to the conclusion that God “as God,” in essence or nature, IS love, the fact that we are creatures and God is God. But this is no reason. How does my being a creature created in the image of God mean I am not permitted to make the move from revelation to revealer? From love to lover? From acts to actor? To speak of “revealER” and “lovER” is to move beyond acts to actOR, beyond energies to the energizER.

Bottom line: Attributes (noun) attribute (verb). If they don’t, they’re not attributes. Call them something else.

Tom

Edited by - TGB on 07/18/2003 4:49:36 PM

quote:

---

So what is your view?

---

quote:

---

PART OF THE REASON WHY "the distinction in divine/human relations forbids such a move: reasoning from attribute to essence" IS IMPORTANT IS THAT HUMANITY IS NOT A STAND-ALONE. HUMANITY IS ONLY MEANINGFUL, ONLY REALIY EXISTS IN COMMUNION WITH GOD--AND THAT COMMUNION IS ONLY THROUGH THE SON, AND THROUGH THE SON WITH THE DIVINE UNCREATED LOVE OF THE WHOLE TRINITY.

THE OTHER PART OF THE REASON IS THAT WE ARE CREATURES AND GOD IS GOD. BUT 'THAT' BARRIER IS NO BARRIER AT ALL, AND NEVER WAS INTENDED TO BE. THE ANSWER IS CHRIST.

Edited by - PotOnWheel on 07/18/2003 10:18:48 AM

---

Tom seems to have gotten 'thrown' by my last remark: 'THAT' BARRIER IS NO BARRIER AT ALL, AND NEVER WAS INTENDED TO BE. THE ANSWER IS CHRIST.

When I said "that barrier is not barrier at all" it was with the SAME venacular tone that one's grandmother calls putting fresh sheets on the bed and making a special trip to the market to get groceries for a much bigger dinner than she lets on: "Its no trouble "AT ALL." Understand, Tom? I gave the full answer too: "The answer is Christ." What was never intended to be a barier is that our non-communion with God was never intended--sin brought that. And from the beginning the incarnationwas planned--it was not merely a reaction to sin. The "gap' between Creator and creature was 'worked out' as "no trouble" before our arrival on the scene. "No trouble." THE ANSWER IS CHRIST.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

TGB
Posted - 07/18/2003 : 5:00:26 PM
---------------------------------
.

Edited by - TGB on 07/18/2003 6:44:00 PM

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PotOnWheel
Posted - 07/18/2003 : 5:12:47 PM
---------------------------------


Tom: You offer as a reason why we may not conclude from God’s revealed acts of love to the conclusion that God “as God,” in essence or nature, IS love, the fact that we are creatures and God is God. But this is no reason. How does my being a creature created in the image of God mean I am not permitted to make the move from revelation to revealer? From love to lover? From acts to actor? To speak of “revealER” and “lovER” is to move beyond acts to actOR, beyond energies to the energizER.

PoW: NO WAY!

Tom, I can't count how many times you have jumped to the assumption that I somehow think that what God reveals of himself is actually some sort of a lie. Are you accusing me of that again. If so, then we are done. It was never true "then," dispite how you ignored any response from me. And it is not true now.

You SWITCHED what you are saying. First, what I responded to was you phrasing: forbidding REASONING from attribute to essence; but now you used a much more acceptable phrase: "conclusion." Leave the dictionary on the desk. What I see in the first is an ongoing, lets see where I can go on a "Bill&Ted's excellent adventure." But in the second, and in your whole family-friendly paragraph that I've quoted above, who's parts are not found objectionable, is that what we know from our experience is "NOT A LIE" and "NOT A TRICK." And any one of the nasty things that you had the nerve or accusing me of before.

For you, Tom, this is an issue. You have gone into such a disconnect in the past. Lets see if one can be avoided now.

Waht we know of God personally, through his energies, is true of God (no lie). And as you yourself have said--and I remember you saying--we never know all of God. What God shows us is true.

But that does not--and you should understand this--mean that we can lay aside the direct knowledge we gain of God, and then go on an excellent adventure.

As I said, the answer is Christ. The danger is that we take part of God's will and try to use it as ammunition against the rest. (Several people tried to get Jesus to agree to their slant on things.)

Would I RECOMMEND: forbidding reasoning from attribute to essence? YES.

Do I have a problem concluding "from love to lover?" Not at all.


*** I hope you got this clearly this time. ***


Edited by - PotOnWheel on 07/18/2003 8:48:52 PM


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PotOnWheel
Posted - 07/18/2003 : 5:40:41 PM
---------------------------------


Tom asks above -- ***for the third time in six months***

quote:

---

The question remains: Why does this distinction not allow our understanding human attributes to faithfully reveal the essential human being but not allow us to understand divine attributes to faithfully reveal the essential divine being? I find no problem in affirming that divine attributes are just that, attributes OF the divine. They reveal God.

---

There you are, AGAIN, Tom. You accuse me of saying that revelation of God and relationship with God are UN-trustworthy and UN-faithful. CRAP!

The ONLY quibble I have with what you wrote (immediately above) is that (1) I prefer "They reveal God" to "reveal...essential divine being." It is the "classical view" that says that divine attributes are determinative of God's person. I accept the Greek view that it is God's Person that is determinative, and that attributes stem from that. Understand? Maybe you are saying that with the way your wrote "attributes 'OF' the divine." And, (2) "faithfully reveal the essential divine being" may imply more in degree than I am comfortable with. "Reveal" means to me something like pulling back a curtain. "Revelation of" means to me telling the truth.

How much are we on the same base on this, now?


Edited by - PotOnWheel on 07/18/2003 8:53:20 PM

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PotOnWheel
Posted - 07/18/2003 : 5:46:28 PM
---------------------------------

quote:

---

PoW: Tom says that he would like "reasoning from attribute to essence."

Tom: I didn’t say I’d “like” this, I just observed that we DO it, which we most certainly do in human/human relations. I’m just wondering why not in divine/human relations, given that we are persons in God’s image, designed for intimacy with God.

---

I'll agree if you put "concluding" from attribute to divine "person" on the table.


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PotOnWheel
Posted - 07/18/2003 : 5:47:32 PM
---------------------------------

quote:

---

PoW: I'm not sure that scripture invites us to do that. i'm pretty sure that scripture warns us not to. I don't know anyone in scripture that does so, successfully, and receives approval from God. Those to "receive" revelation from God (prophets) received such "in part" and waited in faith for the rest. They didn't act on their "reasonings" or extrapolate further "what must then be."

Tom: Ah, now we’re getting closer to the planet core. I didn’t suggest that our knowledge of God was other than “in part.” What we know of God we know via God’s revealing it to us.

---

Good!


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PotOnWheel
Posted - 07/18/2003 : 5:52:24 PM
---------------------------------

"Reasoning" as you use it here -- drawing a conclusion -- I find no problem with:

quote:

---

I actually can think of several biblical examples of people reasoning from attribute to essence in precisely the manner I’m suggesting we do all the time in relating to other human persons (and as most of us do in relating to God). God tells Abraham Sodom is to be destroyed. Abraham objects, “Destroy the righteous with the wicket? Will not the Judge of all the Earth do justly?” Attributes (noun) attribute (verb). Abraham believed God was incapable of doing such a thing. We could simply disagree with Abraham I suppose, but I’ll not for the moment. Then when told to sacrifice Isaac, Abraham obeyed, reasoning that God was incapable of breaking such a promise, and concluding (we are told in Romans) on this basis that even if he killed Isaac, God would raise him back to life. This is precisely the sort of reasoning from attribute to essence that I’m advocating.

---

But let me comment, Tom. Romans knew more than Abraham. I think that Abraham's faith was simpler. I think his faith was in God and God's "promise" in general -- that God would find a way, beyond understanding. You had to use the construction "and even if..." I think that for Abraham it wasn't so much in the negative of "incapable of" so much as the possitive of "would still."


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PotOnWheel
Posted - 07/18/2003 : 6:03:56 PM
---------------------------------


Tom: For you, God’s actions and attributes don’t point TO God, they simply point to themselves.

PoW: NO! And I hope you are clear on that, now, based on the above!!!

quote:

---

PoW: In fellow human beings we "reason from attribute to essence" to know that God's love is in the other person…

Tom: And in relating to and experiencing God we do not “reason from” the Cross to the declaration that “God is, in his essence, in his nature, on the inside love” and that THIS is what is revealed on the Cross?

---

PoW: We can conclude from the cross that God loves us.

If you say that it has to be "reasoned" (thought through in steps), then that would grow out of medieval preconceptions. If you presuppose, with Aquinas, that God's personal acts grow out of and "essential character that is anterier to his person" then you will "reason." But if you KNOW that God is love in your heart, and you learn of the cross, then you will conclude that the cross is God reaching out to you.

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


Tom: It appears to me that what fundamentally divides here is that whereas I maintain that attributes (noun) attribute (verb), you essentially deny this.

Pow: Fancy. But no.

Interesting to me, is that you are on both sides of this arguement. Sometimes with what I'm saying and sometimes back with the Western Scholastics.


Tom: We are not allowed to conclude on the basis of the Cross that God is, in his essential nature, LOVE.

PoW: Essence and Person go together. Imagining either as before the other is false. But we know that Love through God actually loving us.

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PotOnWheel
Posted - 07/18/2003 : 6:07:58 PM
---------------------------------

quote:

---

PoW: But THAT relationship is not via "reasoning from attribute to essence."

Tom: Misreading me again. I am not suggesting that our “reason” is our mediator.

PoW: We can know God directly, and not just "about" God.

Tom: By this you mean “know God’s energies directly.” No?

PoW: Baarlam reasoned with Aquinas that while we COULD reason all the way up to God's essence (TGB is sounding that way.)…

Tom: Misread me again. Ugh. I am not saying we can reason all the way up to God’s essence. I’m saying that when God reveals himself to us, we are justified in concluding that God is in his essence/nature what God reveals himself to be. I’m not putting “reason” in the place of Christ’s mediation. I'm not suggesting that there's nothing more to God than what God's revealed. I'm not suggesting that “reason” does away with the need for revelation. I’m saying that when God reveals Godself, it’s God who is revealed, as much about God as God wishes to reveal.

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Good.


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TGB
Posted - 07/18/2003 : 6:23:40 PM
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On vacation.

Edited by - TGB on 07/18/2003 6:46:16 PM

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PotOnWheel
Posted - 07/18/2003 : 6:32:33 PM
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Start with this: And this you offer as part of the reason why we may not reason from God’s revealed love to the conclusion that God “as God,” in essence or nature, IS love?

No it isn't for that purpose. Nonesuch is the focus of my attention.

quote:

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PoW: PART OF THE REASON WHY "the distinction in divine/human relations forbids such a move: reasoning from attribute to essence" IS IMPORTANT IS THAT HUMANITY IS NOT A STAND-ALONE. HUMANITY IS ONLY MEANINGFUL, ONLY REALIY EXISTS IN COMMUNION WITH GOD--AND THAT COMMUNION IS ONLY THROUGH THE SON, AND THROUGH THE SON WITH THE DIVINE UNCREATED LOVE OF THE WHOLE TRINITY.

Tom: What I got was this: We are not a stand-alone and we only have meaning in communion with God through Christ. I understand this to mean: “We cannot reason our way to God independently of God. We are dependent upon God for our knowledge of God. And we can never find meaning in life outside of God’s infinite triune love.”

And this you offer as part of the reason why we may not reason from God’s revealed love to the conclusion that God “as God,” in essence or nature, IS love?

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You repeated back: "we only have meaning in communion with God." Im not saying that meaning is added on top of our being if we are in communion... I'm repeating what I posted to Paul about communion being part of the very fabric of our being. Absence would be like taking out all of the hydrogen atoms in a carbohydrate molicule: leaves holes, and makes things not work right. Humanity-without-God would be that hydrogenless mass that is not in any way a "Carb."

You said: "...can never find meaning in life outside of God’s infinite triune love..." But I'd go further. Its not a matter of fulfillment (like having 'whiter teeth'), its a matter of our very "being." (Meph needs a LINK here to one of his "hell" threads.)

IF TOM WERE TRYING TO (HE KNOWS THAT i KNOW HE'S NOT) "REASON" BEYOND WHAT IS KNOWABLE BY HUMANS ABOUT GOD, PART OF THE PROBLEM WOULD BE THIS INVESTEDNESS IN HUMANITY BY GOD. hOW ARE WE GOING TO USE OUR HUMANITY TO MAKE AN OVJECTIVE MEASUREMENT OF GOD, WHEN GOD IS PART OF WHO WE ARE IN THE FIRST PLACE. OBJECTIVITY IS OUT THE WINDOW. RELATIONSHIP IS ALL THAT IS POSSIBLE.


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PotOnWheel
Posted - 07/18/2003 : 6:55:32 PM
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Other things...


Tom:

Regarding this, you say: “But how to draw the line between what is our shared humanity (the respect in which there is one human nature, passed on) and the way in which we each have an essence that in unique is more than I want in my head right now.”

PoW:

The UNIQUESSES of our "own" essence is highly related to the degree to which we have progressed in the process of embracing out calling of the "image of God." (Theresa and Adolf both had that same calling. One did not progress in it.)

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Tom:

I’m not so sure our assessment of grapes and pears is static, or that Hitler and Theresa are so far removed from your comments regarding grapes and pears. The distinction you admit between human “kind-essence” (shared attributes constitutive of human being) and human “individual-essence” (that set of attributes and whatever else that constitutes a unique individual human being—which you didn’t comment on) is not at all different from the distinction between grape “kind-essence” and grape “individual-essence.” Whereas Hitler and Theresa both share the same “kind-essence,” grapes and pears don’t, but grapes and grapes do. So you ought to have offered observing the differences and similarities between two grapes or two pears on the one hand and Hitler and Theresa on the other instead of grapes and pears on the one hand and Hitler and Theresa on the other. Secondly, though grape-being isn’t human being, it does give and take as an individual grape to its environment and so become something unique in the world of grapes, not unlike humans. (Am I having this conversation?)

PoW:

You are only having THAT conversation with yourself, Tom. Humans are unique in creation, in that they not only share in a dynamic relationship with their creator as part of the animal world, but they are also called to be "in communion" in a way that grapes are not. Humans are both a microcosm (sensible and intelligible, animal and rational) and a mediator (offering creation back to God in worship and in stewardship--tilling and tending). Other than that, where you wandered off to was unhelpful.

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Tom:

quote:

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PoW: (I noted Paul's reference to the OTHER PAUL's connection between marriage and the mystical union of Christ's Body with the Lord.)

Tom: Yes, understanding THIS is what I’m after. The parallel is obvious, though it doesn't directly answer our question.

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PoW:

Maybe more than you are thinking it does. (But it won't answer it completely--so don't look for that.)

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Tom:

quote:

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Pow: One of the things I was thinking about while writing the other post is that where "goodness" is an "essential" thing for US, for God "goodness" is an "energetic" attribute -- something that we can know of him -- and not of essence.

Tom: But your use of Hitler and Theresa suggests that “goodness” in humans is NOT an “essential” thing for us. If our “goodness” is an “essential” thing for us, then how is it others come to know of our goodness only via our actions and attributes? It’s knowledge “of other” humans I’m asking about. Seems to me that everything, goodness or evil, others know about us is known, just as with God, through our actions and attributes. No other person knows my goodness except through my actions.

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The statement "where 'goodness' is an 'essential' thing for US" refers back to this full-being versus less than full-being image (also the example of the impossibility of hydrogenless-carbs!). That image-bearing calling is part of our essence. Just because it true what you say about "others come to know of our goodness only via our actions and attributes" does not make that any less truly part of our essence.

We GROW INTO AND FULFILL OUR CREATED ESSENCE. God does not. Goodness is for us part and parcel of our becoming us. And here's a step--so watch yourself... But God does not 'become God' by loving his creation. Zizioulas does say that "Communion" is God's mode of being. And that does say that there is not a disconnect between God's essence and his personal "mode of being" (Which I'm hoping makes you happy and satisfies you, Tom!) that God freely does. But for US our own free act, our only truely free act of becoming ourselves in love, is different. I may be drifting here, having a few of my own thoughts--which I'm trying not to do; but our act of love is a completing of being connected to a process of growth. We connect to a source outside of ourselves. God IS that source. (I have to stop here.)

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Tom:

quote:

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PoW: THAT marks a difference right there, between Creator and creature. We can know "about" God through his goodness. But we know him only through those acts/energies towards us.

Tom: Where’s the difference in this from creature/creature relations? We likewise have no knowledge of others except through their acts/energies.

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PoW: With other humans we share kind. And we "are" with respect to communion with them. With God we also "are with respect to communion with" Christ; but the differences there are obvious. Right? (We aren't IN others in the way that we are, by the Spirit, IN Christ.)

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Edited by - PotOnWheel on 07/18/2003 9:18:21 PM

quote:

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Tom is out to lunch. The "Attribute" thread is closed.

Cheers,
Tom

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