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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 4/24/2004 5:30 AM (GMT -6) |   | TGB has mail on "Boyd's 'creatio ex mente Dei'?"
DID MY BEST!
- PoW | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 4/24/2004 2:59 PM (GMT -6) | | Here, Tom. I'll put a repost of the other two posts from the other thread right here.
PotOnWheel
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 4/24/2004 3:02 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Starkman: I've only conceded the terms as vehicles to communicate a concept, not to adhere hook, line and sinker to eastern doctrine about the Father begetting the Son all throughout eternity ...
if you also deny the Eastern doctrine that the Father eternally begets the Son?
PoW: What I'm going to raise is not meant to pick an arguement. Its meant to be thought-provoking.
John Zizioulas points out that St. Athanasius wrote: "Has God ever existed without his Son?" Zizioulas explains: This question has an extreme ontological importance. The word "ever" in the sentence is udes of course not temporally but logically, or rather ontologically. It refers not to a time in God, but to the nature of His being, to His being qua God. If God's being is by nature relational, and if it can be signified by the word "substance," can we not then concluded that almost inevitably that, given the intimate character of God's being for all ontology, substance, inasmuch as it signifies the ultimate character of being, can be conceived only as communion. . . . This is Athanasius' principle contribution to Christian ontology.
Isn't THAT different from the way your conversation is going? But isn't it more appealing, more vital. Matters more?
Starkey can draw a line from that to what concerned him --->
quote:
Starkman: Here my point: …it is simply to utilize the terms "Son" and "begotten" as a way to describe the relationship of the Trinity in eternity insofar as it says something about the indivisibility yet the unity of God in view of the primacy of the Father.
And I don't think Tom will have a problem either --->
quote:
Tom: That’s all the terms are meant to convey. If that’s what you’re saying, then what are you denying when you deny that the Son is the Son eternally?
I'D LIKE TO SEE STARKMAN BEGIN WITH THE ZIZIOULAS QUOTE.
BTW--where Starkman writes "...typical orthodox statements about the Godhead and the will each has, though in consonant with each other. I'd love for him to hear me out. That's not Orthodox; there is one will in God.
........... other things...........
quote:
Starkman: …the use of Logos takes us into the eternal existence of the second person of the Trinity without any color, flavor or garnishing as to "how" this is.
PoW: First, keep in mind, that I don't know much. I just try to be careful not to botch things up, and remember how to back out of my messes! ......... But, Reading that bit of history in Zizioulas the Logos term comes in early, contemporary with Origin. Then it gets chased out, and finally transformed while being grought back in -- all the while trying to construct a protective theology to both fit with the biblical record and protect against heretical threats to faith. Originally Logos would emphasize the unity between God and Creation -- and there were serious dangers of monism. Absent was the historical truth of God with us.
quote:
Starkman: The use of "Son," however, speaks of positioning the Logos for our understanding of the Godhead, at least as it concerns how the Trinity was (and is) to be involved with restoration of relationship between God and man.
PoW: NO, NO, NO. *At least insofar as what I really, really, really care about!* The Son/Father relationship (in Zizioulas quote above) is what reveals that the "substance" of God--God's ontology--is Communion/Love. This isn't necessarily soteriological. Its about God.
Tom: I thought John uses “logos” to make just the opposite point. When he says the logos was “with God” and “was God” he both distinguishes the logos from God (“was with God”) and identifies the logas as God (“was God”) and all of this preincarnate, before God gets involved in the world. So I don’t see how “logos” alone leaves us with the concept of three gods if we don’t include God’s acts in restoring us to himself. On the contrary I think, John’s opening paragraph about “logos” makes the point that apart from relationship to us there is one diverse God.
PoW: It took the Essenes and the Zoroastrian culture to give us the word Logos in a form that it could be understood personally. Tom's right about the "both." But centuries earlier what John could write would not have been imaginable. (Interesting to see God's hand in history. John Brecks' book on "Johannine Pneumatology" is interesting.)
quote:
Starkman: Let me state things this way (because I don't disagree with you): "No man has seen God at any time. The only Begotten Son of God has declared/revealed Him." <snip>
The use of Logos, as Tom points out, in John, also is "image." This is not just a statement about salvation. God is Truth and Life. The Word is the image of the Father. God subsists in Communion.God IS Father. And there is no Father without the Son.
Tom: I hear ya! Very complicated! As I understand the EO stuff, the “essence” of God is absolutely transcendent and unknown. You can’t even contemplate it. And this will always be the case even after glory. In the EO doctrine of deification, it’s the perfect uncreated “energies” of God (the economic God) we know and not God’s “essence” (not the immanent God). Glorification doesn’t mean crossing that bridge between economy and essence. That’s there forever.
PoW: Tom's right about us always being creatures. We can only "participate in" the Communion of the Trinity, "by grace." BUT it seems that we should not play that down. Through that participation we can KNOW the Triune God. God's love is ekstatic (Maximus), and it is God's will for us to be IN COMMUNION with God. There is no "downer" to our not communing in the essence of God. (We'd "fry.") But the wonder is that even without the fall there would have been a Christ. Without the Cross an incarnation.
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Tom's questions below call for CAREFUL THOUGHT. I'll try.
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What I can’t seem to get anybody to interact with is my question regarding this whole distinction between God’s economy/energies and his essence. The EO claims that this distinction is unique to our relationship with God. This distinction then influences what we say and believe about God. I’m saying that this distinction between “essence” and “economy” is not unique to our relationship to God. It defines the limits of our relating to and knowing ANYTHING outside ourselves. It even defines God’s knowledge and relation to us. It’s simply a matter of fact that knowledge and experience of personal beings by other personal beings (whether human-human or divine-human) excludes knowing that other as the other knows himself. So you can’t know God’s essence. You can’t experience him as he experiences himself. You can only know him personally if he chooses to open himself up to you. But instead of seeing this distinction as a unique characteristic of our knowledge of God that in turn becomes a theological grid through which we run all our God-talk, I see it as universally the case about our knowledge of any other person outside ourselves. You can’t know your wife’s essence either. You can’t experience her as she experiences herself. You can only know her personally if she chooses to open herself up to you. Same as with God. Same distinction. PoW refuses to consider the implications this has for the whole distinction between the immanent God and the economic God that he insists remains intact and is unlike the limits we face in knowing other people. It’s “my responsibility” to solve. Well, I’m not asking for his help to solve it. I wasn’t trying to solve it anyhow. It’s solved as far as I’m concerned. There is no distinction between God’s essence and his energies that limits our knowledge of God any differently than does the same distinction between energies and essence in other persons limit our knowledge and experience of them. We don’t make anything of that distinction or go around cautioning people to not talk about other peoples’ “essences,” telling them to limit their descriptions of other persons to those persons’ “energies.” What do we do? We just talk about them, the true them, the real them, without supposing there to be some unrevealed essence that’s unavailable and unknowable. I’m suggesting we do the same with God. Moreover, I’m suggesting we have no choice but to do the same with God.
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Later...next. | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 4/24/2004 3:04 PM (GMT -6) | |
Here ya'go, Tom. I'll try!
quote:
Originally posted by TGB
. . . What I can’t seem to get anybody to interact with is my question regarding this whole distinction between God’s economy/energies and his essence. The EO claims that this distinction is unique to our relationship with God. This distinction then influences what we say and believe about God. I’m saying that this distinction between “essence” and “economy” is not unique to our relationship to God. It defines the limits of our relating to and knowing ANYTHING outside ourselves. It even defines God’s knowledge and relation to us. Its simply a matter of fact that knowledge and experience of personal beings by other personal beings (whether human-human or divine-human) excludes knowing that other as the other knows himself. So you can't know God’s essence. You cant experience him as he experiences himself. You can only know him personally if he chooses to open himself up to you. But instead of seeing this distinction as a unique characteristic of our knowledge of God that in turn becomes a theological grid through which we run all our God-talk, I see it as universally the case about our knowledge of any other person outside ourselves. You can’t know your wife’s essence either. You can’t experience her as she experiences herself. You can only know her personally if she chooses to open herself up to you. Same as with God. Same distinction. PoW refuses to consider the implications this has for the whole distinction between the immanent God and the economic God that he insists remains intact and is unlike the limits we face in knowing other people. Its “my responsibility” to solve. Well, I'm not asking for his help to solve it. I wasn't trying to solve it anyhow. Its solved as far as I'm concerned. There is no distinction between God’s essence and his energies that limits our knowledge of God any differently than does the same distinction between energies and essence in other persons limit our knowledge and experience of them. We don't make anything of that distinction or go around cautioning people to not talk about other peoples’ “essences,” telling them to limit their descriptions of other persons to those persons’ “energies.” What do we do? We just talk about them, the true them, the real them, without supposing there to be some unrevealed essence that's unavailable and unknowable. I'm suggesting we do the same with God. Moreover, I'm suggesting we have no choice but to do the same with God.
T-1: The EO claims that this distinction (between energies and essence) is unique to our relationship with God.
Reply: I'm not smart enough to know whether this would be claimed. Terms "energies" and "essence" are not made up. I bet they are used, historically, to refer to other things too.
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T-2: I’m saying that this distinction between “essence” and “economy” is not unique to our relationship to God.
Reply: Probably not unique. Old, old words. Greek-thinkers would probably also say that your wife has an "essence" and "energies." I won't presume to define what they already define. (I guess you can look it up.)
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T-3: It defines the limits of our relating to and knowing ANYTHING outside ourselves.
Reply: Sure. But we can ADD some things too. God knows you and is "closer to you than you are to your own heart!" (Nicholas Cabasillas) Humanity, I presume, when not bound by sin, is a reflection of that. When we are not fragmented, when we are truly alive, I bet we are much more spiritual and unbounded than we seem to ourselves and each other to be. But God's got us beat. God is IN us.
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T-4: It even defines God’s knowledge and relation to us.
Reply: Since I'm not precisely sure what you are thinking here, I'll just recall (Zizioulas) that a difference between us and God is that while WE "participate in" God's communion (In Christ, not directly.) God DOES NOT "participate" in us. God has communion with us. This is not symmetrical. "Athanasius' ontology rests. . .on the assertion that between God and the world there exists an otherness founded on the fact that the world's being is based on the will, not the substance, of God. ... indispensable. . .in the development of an ontology along biblical lines. But. . .about the otherness within the very substance of God. . .implied by Athanasius' assertion that the Son has "always" belonged to God's being. Athanasius demonstrated ontological otherness is an inevitable result of the distinction between will and nature..."
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T-5: It even defines God’s knowledge and relation to us. It’s simply a matter of fact that knowledge and experience of personal beings by other personal beings (whether human-human or divine-human) excludes knowing that other as the other knows himself. So you can’t know God’s essence.
Reply: Ok.
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T-6: You can’t "experience him as he experiences himself."
Reply: First, I'm not sure you can even make that comment; it relies on imagining being God. "Ufda!" (Swedish) Second, maybe it is too pessimistic! I think that the Gospel is that we CAN "participate in" the Fellowship of the Trinity! So, while not directly an answer, it may be a better one.
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T-7: You can only know him personally if he chooses to open himself up to you.
Reply: First, I wonder whether this would be phrased this way without the Remonstrant/Dortrecht thing, or Augustine/Pelagius. Second, I am not a fan of the implication that God closes himself off. C.S. Lewis would put it differently in "The Great Divorce."
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T-8: You can’t know your wife’s essence either.
Reply: First, My gut instinct is that HERE is where MY ignorance advises me to slow down. Maybe you too. Maybe we "don't" know eachother's essences; or maybe since we all have the same essence we "do" know them. I'm in sore need of researching the topic. But I've got "reasonable doubt"--so I won't discount the possibility! Second, Neither on individual, nor one gender constitutes the essence of humanity. (The Bible tells me so.) So, you might say, that without your wife, you don't know your own (which is plural) essence either. Hmmmm.......
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T-9: You can only know her personally if she chooses to open herself up to you. Same as with God.
Reply: Here's where I get off the boat. Protestants (so Calvinistic) over-downplay the "image bearing" of our created-nature. Replace overly-Calvinistic understandings (as TULIP goes too far!) with that wonderful illustration of Augustine -- the God-shaped-hole -- is helpful. WE, even if in hell, still need God. God sustains Love. It is only our sin-caused distortions that crumple the image. (My Reformed, denominational curriculum writing friends do that with paper to illustrate "total depravity" to avoid the impression that the created-nature becomes bad.) God reveals himself -- we just don't listen.
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T-10: PoW refuses to consider the implications this has for the whole distinction between the immanent God and the economic God that he insists remains intact and is unlike the limits we face in knowing other people.
Reply: HERE'S WHERE YOU START USING LITERARY LICENSE, TOM. All that I can do is answer the words you use. (But I can't rely that they are your thoughts and not a rant.)
Obviously I do consider. That does not mean that I agree. Nor think it the best approach.
That our approaching God is different from approaching people. And the Son is of God's essence while we are of God's will. There are differences.
But you say "in knowing other"...
I think that a WHOLE LOT of attention needs to be paid by all of us, every day at confession and prayer about that "to know" means. "Know God," and not "know about" God, as the OT prophet told us.
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T-11: It’s “my responsibility” to solve.
Reply: I can answer. But it is not my responsibility to convince.
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T-12: There is no distinction between God’s essence and his energies that limits our knowledge of God any differently than does the same distinction between energies and essence in other persons limit our knowledge and experience of them.
Reply: While there is a distinction between God’s essence and his energies, you go on to address whether differences (whether existing or not) "(limit) our knowledge of God any differently than does the same distinction between energies and essence in other persons limit our knowledge and experience of them."
"Distinctions" (Knowledge by means of "will" versus "substance" in the Patristic synthesis) do not limit. Instead, the limiting factor is our own nature, and our being creatures.
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T-13: We don’t make anything of that distinction or go around cautioning people to not talk about other peoples’ “essences,” telling them to limit their descriptions of other persons to those persons’ “energies.” What do we do? We just talk about them, the true them, the real them, without supposing there to be some unrevealed essence that’s unavailable and unknowable.
Reply: < no reply > ... Just you collecting thoughts for what's next, I guess.
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T-8: I’m suggesting we do the same with God. Moreover, I’m suggesting we have no choice but to do the same with God.
Reply: Do WHAT with God. (I think this is mushy.)
Pretent that we aren't creatures? Pretend that we are of one essence, one substance with God. Return to the monism of the Greeks? What?
INSTEAD, lets pick up with the contribution of Athanasius, and recognize that in Christ the unity of God is united to the historical presence of God's Love. The "image" of the Father's Love has become one of us, REVEALING the Father to us. (Without us becoming God by nature; only by grace.)
================================
Now, Tom, THAT was a lot of work.
So, I EXPECT something of you, from you, in return.
1. Think about it.
2. Dont' be convinced unless you want to be.
3. Don't reply unless you want to.
(Here's where being "rubbed" by you in the past comes in...)
4. Don't shrug off what took me two days, and a lot of care to do. (That wouldn't be fair to me, or to my family!)
5. Don't think for a minute that I think I know a lot. I don't
. . .
Peace, brother! | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 4/24/2004 9:30 PM (GMT -6) | | PoW-
I do appreciate your responses and the time you took to make them. There’s too much to interact point for point. I hardly know what I believe about the Trinity anymore anyhow, so don’t be upset if I get too little back.
I like Zizioulas comment “There is no being for God apart from communion.”
JZ responds to Athanasius’ question “Has God ever existed without his Son?” by pointing out that of “course” Athanasius uses “used” not temporally but logically/ontologically. Though the question is meant ontologically, I’m again amazed that someone who says so much about the unknowable essence actually knows that God is not temporal. That’s fine. He wants to believe that. But he’s just incorporating it from his own presuppositions about God’s perfection requiring that he not be temporal. No biggie. I totally agree with him that “the ultimate character of God’s being can be conceived only as communion.” But I also find the ultimate nature of communion to require temporality.
PoW: Isn't THAT different from the way your conversation is going?
Tom: Not sure it’s different. I’m perfectly cool with what JZ says about being and communion. It’s what I see the fundamental point of social theories to be. God IS communion, and communion is personal diversity and interaction (consubstantial and inseparable in God’s case). One can try to argue such personal diversity can exist in absolute frozen timelessness if he wants. I can think of only one argument for this that has any bite to it (the impossibility of an actual infinite). But I can think of other reasons that argue against this too.
PoW: BTW--where Starkman writes "...typical orthodox statements about the Godhead and the will each has, though in consonant with each other. I'd love for him to hear me out. That's not Orthodox; there is one will in God.
Tom: I wouldn’t know whether there was one or three. I wouldn’t see how saying there were THREE (of anything in God!) would mess up a doctrine that already borders on the insane to most people.
PoW: PoW: NO, NO, NO. *At least insofar as what I really, really, really care about!* The Son/Father relationship (in Zizioulas quote above) is what reveals that the "substance" of God--God's ontology--is Communion/Love. This isn't necessarily soteriological. It’s about God.
Tom: My point to Starkman precisely.
PoW: BUT it seems that we should not play that down. Through that participation we can KNOW the Triune God. God's love is ekstatic (Maximus), and it is God's will for us to be IN COMMUNION with God. There is no "downer" to our not communing in the essence of God. (We'd "fry.")
Tom: Here again I just shake my head and say, Of course we are not touching the very essence of God. Same is true with the way we relate to other persons as well. What is being said here that needs more than a paragraph or two (unless we want to make the unknown essence a doorway where we can smuggle in other things about God that we believe, like his not being temporal)?
quote:
T-1: The EO claims that this distinction (between energies and essence) is unique to our relationship with God.
Reply: I'm not smart enough to know whether this would be claimed. Terms "energies" and "essence" are not made up. I bet they are used, historically, to refer to other things too.
That would support my point.
quote:
T-2: I’m saying that this distinction between “essence” and “economy” is not unique to our relationship to God.
Reply: Probably not unique. Old, old words. Greek-thinkers would probably also say that your wife has an "essence" and "energies." I won't presume to define what they already define. (I guess you can look it up.)
That would support my point.
quote:
T-4: It even defines God’s knowledge and relation to us.
Reply: Since I'm not precisely sure what you are thinking here, I'll just recall (Zizioulas) that a difference between us and God is that while WE "participate in" God's communion (In Christ, not directly.) God DOES NOT "participate" in us. God has communion with us. This is not symmetrical. "Athanasius' ontology rests. . .on the assertion that between God and the world there exists an otherness founded on the fact that the world's being is based on the will, not the substance, of God. ...indispensable. . .in the development of an ontology along biblical lines. But. . .about the otherness within the very substance of God. . .implied by Athanasius' assertion that the Son has "always" belonged to God's being. Athanasius demonstrated ontological otherness is an inevitable result of the distinction between will and nature..."
I will NOT explain this well. I grant this “otherness” between God and the world, but I don’t see why this should mean we “participate in God” but do not commune with him while God does “commune with us” but not “participate in us.” This suggests to me that the relationship between us and God is not mutually personal. It seems better to say that whatever metaphysical distinction exists between us and God, our being God’s “image” and “likeness” is enough of a bridge or basis upon which we can assume our personal relationship with God and God’s personal relationship with us travel along the same sort of routes. What God has with himself in terms of essence is not directly available to me (just as what I am in terms of essence is not directly available to my wife). But I don’t make this distinction between my “participating in” my wife and her “communing with” me. You argue the divine-human OTHERNESS means God must “commune with” (not “participate in”) us while we must “participate in God’s communion” (but not “commune with" God). I argue the divine-human LIKENESS means too many Eastern Orthodox monks drank too much of their wine for this to make any practical and meaningful sense to me.
quote:
T-5: It even defines God’s knowledge and relation to us. It’s simply a matter of fact that knowledge and experience of personal beings by other personal beings (whether human-human or divine-human) excludes knowing that other as the other knows himself. So you can’t know God’s essence.
Reply: Ok.
OK? (scratching my head)
quote:
T-6: You can’t "experience him as he experiences himself."
Reply: First, I'm not sure you can even make that comment; it relies on imagining being God.
I just made it above and you said “OK” to it. Everything you and JZ and Athanasius have been saying about the divine “otherness” meaning we only “participate” in God’s communion while God only “communes with us” means we can’t experience God the way he experiences himself.
quote:
T-7: You can only know him personally if he chooses to open himself up to you.
Reply: First, I wonder whether this would be phrased this way without the Remonstrant/Dortrecht thing, or Augustine/Pelagius. Second, I am not a fan of the implication that God closes himself off.
I don’t know anything about either of the things you mentioned, so they’re not influencing my language. Can you know God apart from his revealing himself to you? Apart from his “opening up to you”? No. That’s my point. Same applies to personal relationships with other persons. That the relationship is reciprocally personal depends on each person choosing to show up “personally” (as opposed to showing up in a coma on a table). Either party can render the relationship other than personal if she decides not to share herself (her desires, will, and emotions).
quote:
T-8: You can’t know your wife’s essence either.
Reply: First, My gut instinct is that HERE is where MY ignorance advises me to slow down. Maybe you too. Maybe we "don't" know eachother's essences; or maybe since we all have the same essence we "do" know them. I'm in sore need of researching the topic. But I've got "reasonable doubt"--so I won't discount the possibility! Second, Neither on individual, nor one gender constitutes the essence of humanity.
I’m not talking about the “essence” of humanity as a genus. I’m talking about the “essence” of a member of the genus. A person could conceivably know what human essence is without knowing ME personally. So it's knowledge of another person that constitutes a personal relationship with that person that is the sort of knowledge I’m interested in.
quote:
T-9: You can only know her personally if she chooses to open herself up to you. Same as with God.
Reply: Here's where I get off the boat. Protestants (so Calvinistic) over-downplay the "image bearing" of our created-nature. Replace overly-Calvinistic understandings (as TULIP goes too far!) with that wonderful illustration of Augustine -- the God-shaped-hole -- is helpful. WE, even if in hell, still need God. God sustains Love. It is only our sin-caused distortions that crumple the image. (My Reformed, denominational curriculum writing friends do that with paper to illustrate "total depravity" to avoid the impression that the created-nature becomes bad.) God reveals himself -- we just don't listen.
I honestly don’t understand your objecting (or the words you responded with). We don’t know God apart from his revealing. Sure we ignore his revelation and so don’t know him. But God didn’t have to reveal himself in such a way as to make available knowledge of him that in turn leads to a personal relationship with him. That was a choice he made (via the creation of a personal universe and the incarnation as a person). Apart from his making that choice (to create, to reveal, to incarnate) we wouldn’t be able to establish our own sources of information on him and in turn force a personal relationship upon him without his consent. God must choose to have a personal relationship with us and we must choose to have one with him. For the relationship to be mutual and reciprocally personal, both parties share a responsibility of choice without with such a relationship cannot exist. That’s all I’m saying.
quote:
T-10: PoW refuses to consider the implications this has for the whole distinction between the immanent God and the economic God that he insists remains intact and is unlike the limits we face in knowing other people.
Reply: HERE'S WHERE YOU START USING LITERARY LICENSE, TOM. All that I can do is answer the words you use. (But I can't rely that they are your thoughts and not a rant.)
They’re not a rant.
quote:
T-12: There is no distinction between God’s essence and his energies that limits our knowledge of God any differently than does the same distinction between energies and essence in other persons limit our knowledge and experience of them.
Reply: While there is a distinction between God’s essence and his energies, you go on to address whether differences (whether existing or not) "(limit) our knowledge of God any differently than does the same distinction between energies and essence in other persons limit our knowledge and experience of them." "Distinctions" (Knowledge by means of "will" versus "substance" in the Patristic synthesis) do not limit. Instead, the limiting factor is our own nature, and our being creatures.
But the distinction between essence and energies DOES limit our knowledge to energies. That much has come through clearly. To say we’re limited to God’s energies because we are created beings other than God doesn’t discount my point. I grant that we are other than God and that this limits us to experiencing him only as other-than-God created beings can experience God (which is different than the way God-as-God experiences Godself). No problemo. My point is that the same distinction applies to our knowledge of other persons and so renders the whole enterprise as applied to God other than unique and, in my view, a bit of a waste of time.
quote:
T-8: I’m suggesting we do the same with God. Moreover, I’m suggesting we have no choice but to do the same with God.
Reply: Do WHAT with God? (I think this is mushy.) Pretend that we aren't creatures?
No, no. Just assume that the revealed God we know and relate to IS God without bogging things down with talk of ad intra, ad extra, unknowable essences and uncreated energies. Do the same thing we do with other persons with whom we have personal relationships (apart from those things which being in an embodied form requires). How about talking with God? Loving God? Taking walks with God in the woods? Telling God how wonderful he is? Committing to God’s business and working for him? And doing it all without processing some theological construct about God’s unknowable essence? We relate fine to others without qualifying the relationship by telling ourselves, “Now, it’s only your energies I know, not your essence.” Why do it with God? What’s the point? If we are afraid of blurring the difference between us as finite creatures and God as infinite creator, then let’s just teach people using THOSE terms. Say what we mean: God is the infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, creator and we finite, created, fallible beings only bare his image. There, done. No ad intra. No ad extra. No unknowable essence and endless debates about energies. I’m not saying the distinction isn’t there. I’m just questioning its relevance really. There is a distinct distance between any two of Jupiter’s moons, but I don’t think it's relevant to our living and loving.
quote:
INSTEAD, lets pick up with the contribution of Athanasius, and recognize that in Christ the unity of God is united to the historical presence of God's Love. The "image" of the Father's Love has become one of us, REVEALING the Father to us.
Hey, if that was all that was said I’d shout for joy. That’s what I’m suggesting we “do with God.” Leave it at that.
quote:
Now, Tom, THAT was a lot of work.
Thanks for your time. I can’t keep it going, so I can’t promise much if anything else in reply. I guess I don't see the relevance of the doctrine of the Trinity. As a doctrine, it's like the relevance of the doctrine of relativity. People who are very smart tell me it defines the universe I live in and matters a WHOLE lot, but I personally don't understand the math behind relativity and don't relate to it. Heck, being able to affirm or deny the equations of its math is impossible for me. I guess those very smart people who say they do understand it aren't lying. I worship a Father, Jesus, and the Spirit because I can't deny their distinction, and I worship one God because I can't deny the Bible makes that claim about God, but to be honest I have absolutley no idea what I'm doing and it really ticks me off.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 4/25/2004 1:40 AM (GMT -6) | | This may be a total aside. But Lois Malcom at Luther Sem. had a nice piece one the internet about Rahner and Barth. I'll try to find it. Its very good.
Here is a bio page: www.nrit.org/bios/malcom_bio.htm. Modes-and-wife both had her as a prof. | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 4/25/2004 1:43 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 4/25/2004 1:46 AM (GMT -6) | | TGB: "to be honest I have absolutley no idea what I'm doing and it really ticks me off."
PoW: I can sympathize. (Ever watch someone trying to center clay. Its as bad as those miniature golf holes at the top of a volcano shaped hill. "Ooops.") | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 4/25/2004 1:52 AM (GMT -6) | | IMHO, If you put anthropomorphization of temporality at one end of the table, and "frozen timelessness" at the other, and don't yourself fall of the table...you are doing fine.
Wonderful thing is that we have Scripture, and we have Communion./Church. Those are our teachers to help us avoid the errors at the extrems. Things like growth and rest being understood to actually, together, to describe heaven for us... just isn't so offensive to logic when we know that it descibes something real--and revealed--and foretasted. | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 4/25/2004 2:13 AM (GMT -6) | | First, I'm VERY sympathetic to this whole thing being overwelming, and untimely. (Originally my idea was to post stuff, perhaps useful, that you might decide to read in a month..if you decided to then.)
Second, I'm not trying to win any arguement, or convince you. I'm just going to put one thing on the table.
TGB: But the distinction between essence and energies DOES limit our knowledge to energies. That much has come through clearly. To say we’re limited to God’s energies because we are created beings other than God doesn’t discount my point.
PoW: To my ears that sounds like you think this distinction is of difference. Like non-homoginized milk having cream at the top and not the bottom. If my impressions are right, s guy like Gregory Palamas, or like Maximus, or Basil, would say that the fullness of God is one-hundred parcent in his energies.
Now, this next part is a product of my own style of associative thinking -- hope its not "wacked."
So the difference is not of nouns, or adjectives (What), but of verbs (How). You said: DOES limit our knowledge to energies. Energies are just the TV. I'm talking about programing. The riches of what God shares is one-hundred percent.
We can't "know" God's essence (Rahner excepted.) becasue we are not IN the consubstantial Trinity. But we can know the CONTENT of the essential Trinity BY PARTICIPATION, IN CHRIST. "Know". kmowledge by communion, for us, is just through participation in Christ. But, again, that does not limit the content ANY. You said: "...the distinction between essence and energies DOES limit our knowledge to energies" UIn my thinking, here, our knowledge is not "TO" energies, but through energies know the content; and who cares whether it is through energies or essence. God is consubstantial and undivided. Energies, with Palamas, ARE participation in the "Divine" and "Uncreated."
I don't see any loss.
Blessings, Bro. And be safe out there in Leb. | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 4/25/2004 10:34 AM (GMT -6) | | PoW
quoting Starkman:
The use of "Son," however, speaks of positioning the Logos for our understanding of the Godhead, at least as it concerns how the Trinity was (and is) to be involved with restoration of relationship between God and man.
And PoW responds ...
PoW: NO, NO, NO. *At least insofar as what I really, really, really care about!* The Son/Father relationship (in Zizioulas quote above) is what reveals that the "substance" of God--God's ontology--is Communion/Love. This isn't necessarily soteriological. Its about God.
Starkman Wait! That WAS my whole point! The entire context for this discussion, insofar as the concept of Father/Son goes WAS to make the point that if John were to have left us with only the "Logos" and nothing more, there would not be the theological development of the communion/relationship! This does not negate, however, the fact that the the Father/Son language also speaks of adhering to both the indivisibility and unity of God, but none of that means anything apart from a first and foremost understanding that the reason ANY of this is revealed in Scripture is so that we might first understand the possibility of love and communion (a la the Trinity within itself) and of our place in this communal love BECAUSE of the Father ... Son ... and Spirit.
Well, I am NOT going to type my little fingers away into oblivion today. I gotta get to my studies! But ... there's always tomorrow!
Starkman | | Back to Top | | |
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