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One Love
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| Posted 10/2/2006 1:23 AM (GMT -6) |   | Think about this, POW.
1. Did the Son eternally UNDERSTAND HIMSELF as the "Only Begotten" of the Father...but NOT "proceeding" from the Father in the same manner as the Spirit?
2. Did the Spirit eternally UNDERSTAND "HIMSELF" as proceeding from the Father...but NOT being the "Only Begotten" of the Father?
3. Did the Son and Spirit eternally relate to each other from these distinct self-understandings?
If yes to all of these questions...then...
4. Is it theologically inappropriate to conceive of a metaphysical framework (complete with ontology of divine ad intra essential existence) that can articulate this reality within the Godhead coherently?
If yes to #4, why?
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/2/2006 7:53:07 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/2/2006 6:01 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph: Belief #2 only works it is ultimately the case that being A's self-glorification is NOT CONFLUENT with loving activity towards being B. (This is usually how we see fallen HUMANS work...)But as we see, God doesn't fit this bill. All of God's activity ultimately works towards loving activity towards all creatures. (God always works for the good of the whole...etc, etc...)
Once we see this, then we don't have to say that the Father ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT use the suffering of innocents as direct means to the Father's self-glorification. We don't have an less-than-helpful press to push the Father's gift-giving to the Son.
In my mind, this is very, very, very important to get.
Jeff: I'm totally with you, here. Although I doubt most folks who are troubled over theodicy will be able to get on board with our thinking. But my focus is on one specific kind of suffering--gratuituous suffering, especially for innocents. Any suffering that leads in some causal way as a means to a greater good can be accommodated into our theodicy with no problem.
But I'm not convinced that all suffering is a means to a greater good. We would have to explain how, e.g., an infant being tormented to death by its parents somehow contributed to its future good. I don't know how to do that. Such suffering seems horrific precisely because it seems gratuitious. The fact that God can ultimately save that infant into His benevolent, glorious presence seems to be pure love and compassion on God's part--not because that suffering fit into His plan for creation in the way suffering with Christ does. I don't see how the suffering was related to the infant's ultimate salvation. Only the existence of the infant conditioned that ultimate end, given God's nature.
So if the continuance of the project is motivated by God's desire to maximize Christ's glory, THEN those gratuitious sufferings are explicable in terms of God's love to Christ, at least. They are still gratuitous in on sense, but not ultimately. Of course we could say that the project needs to continue in order to make room for more persons to experience salvation. I just think it's easier to see creatures as being rooks relative to Christ than creatures being rooks relative to each other.
The latter seems more difficult to accomodate into a theodicy. Because I think it'll be hard enough to get people to see the coherence of our theodicy, given what seems to be gratuitous suffering. But when that gratuitous suffering is seen as a necessary condition for the good of other creatures, I think it will be less easy to understand. I think the hierarchical way I'm trying to defend makes sense to more people. Because most people intuitively understand, by analogy, that there are reasons for loving hierarchically--e.g., spouse and family first, etc. I may be wrong, but that's my gut take on it.
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One Love
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| Posted 10/2/2006 7:41 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff:
But I'm not convinced that all suffering is a means to a greater good. We would have to explain how, e.g., an infant being tormented to death by its parents somehow contributed to its future good. I don't know how to do that. Such suffering seems horrific precisely because it seems gratuitious. The fact that God can ultimately save that infant into His benevolent, glorious presence seems to be pure love and compassion on God's part--not because that suffering fit into His plan for creation in the way suffering with Christ does. I don't see how the suffering was related to the infant's ultimate salvation. Only the existence of the infant conditioned that ultimate end, given God's nature.
I'm not saying that ALL suffering are used as directly means to a greater good by God. This is why I say that gratuitous evil does, in fact, exist. I'm just saying that human suffering CAN be used a a direct means to a greater good by God.
*********************************
Jeff:
So if the continuance of the project is motivated by God's desire to maximize Christ's glory, THEN those gratuitious sufferings are explicable in terms of God's love to Christ, at least. They are still gratuitous in on sense, but not ultimately. Of course we could say that the project needs to continue in order to make room for more persons to experience salvation. I just think it's easier to see creatures as being rooks relative to Christ than creatures being rooks relative to each other.
The latter seems more difficult to accomodate into a theodicy. Because I think it'll be hard enough to get people to see the coherence of our theodicy, given what seems to be gratuitous suffering. But when that gratuitous suffering is seen as a necessary condition for the good of other creatures, I think it will be less easy to understand. I think the hierarchical way I'm trying to defend makes sense to more people. Because most people intuitively understand, by analogy, that there are reasons for loving hierarchically--e.g., spouse and family first, etc. I may be wrong, but that's my gut take on it.
1) What if the continuance of the project is ultimately motivated by the Father's desire to glorify Himself? Would that be a problem? and if so, why?
2) I'm wondering. Do you not think we can articulate ANY possible situations where God uses human suffering as a direct means to stemming a potentially GREATER amount of human suffering? I definitely think we can do this. The Carlie situation we discussed just this kind of thing.
3) I don't see how making everything rooks in relationship to Christ helps anything, theodicy-wise. If someone is struggling with seeing suffering of innocents being direct means of God's self-glorification, then it won't help to just say:
Oh...well, it's NOT for the Father himself (so it's not self-centered interest here) or for other creatures (so it's not inconsistent with what we can imagine[???])...it's all for Christ...so everything's ok.
This won't work. Not really. There are some forms of suffering that seem to people are SO destructive that to associate God with it causally in any way would cause them problems. Even if one were to locate the ultimate reason as direct means of glorification of the Son. I see your concern, but I don't think that it actually makes that much of a difference when things shake all the way out.
We'd just have to hope that people imaginations could expand a bit. I really think that sometimes we are so caught up in what we feel are pain-filled situations that we cannot even IMAGINE God possibly using them as direct means to God's glorification. (I am speaking FROM EXPERIENCE of doing this time and time again!) This is what drives a lot of the emotional drive of thinking through theodicy sometimes. This is, I believe, why people don't want to see God as participating in ANYTHING like that. But I would say that this is a fault of our JUDGMENT-LADEN imagination...NOT of the possibility of it being the case.
Let's think about this. The reason why theodicy is such a big deal is because we CONTINUALLY eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil! In some way, we are trying to JUDGE whether or not what God does is worthy of our appreciation and justification. We are not merely trying to conceptualize a possible state of affairs to articulate what's going on. And we are DEFINITELY not just trying to place ourselves in an humble posture before God saying something like "Lord, thou knowst...and that's enough." We are often implicitly judging God. I'm NOT saying that we should be ignorant of our intuitive sensibilities and the alignment of our theological perspective with those sensibilities. I really agree with Tom on that score! What I'm aware of is that if people are addicted to judging EACH OTHER and justifying others in their own mind...can we really expect those people to do ANY LESS when it comes to God?
Know what I mean?
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/2/2006 7:51:00 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/2/2006 7:53 AM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
In Doc's (and my) view, God's essential existence IS the ultimate depth of beautiful experience, which incorporates unity AND diversity. Diversity is an ESSENTIAL ELEMENT of divine reality...just as is fundamental unity. God IS One, insofar as there is only ONE eternal experience of divine perichoretic loving relationality between 3 distinct loci of self-understanding within the life of the Godhead. God IS single divine experience of the perfect loving sociality in God's ad intra existence. In other words, God IS love.
Metaphysically, Doc's view tries to deal with the reality of there being 3 loci of self-understanding in God. Unless we want to say that that Father, Son, and Spirit had absolutely NO separation in self-understanding from whence they related to one another (ie the Father could not see himself in any way separate from the Son), then it helps to have some metaphysical way of describing this reality. Orthodoxy, it seems, thinks that this concern is irrelevant. What's imporant is living in the ECONOMY of God's self-revelation and leaving it at that.
...
This divide between us, POW, is just gonna be there. Let's just recognize that.
M: This divide. . .is just gonna be there. Let's just recognize that.
P: Recognize I do. Spotted it right off long ago.
M: ONE eternal experience of divine perichoretic loving relationality between 3 distinct loci of self-understanding within the life of the Godhead.
P: First, I notice an invention of the use of of "perichoresis" that does not fit the word. For those, like you and GofM who make such an error the more 'native' term "coinherence" would be helpful 'therapy.'
I view yours and Doc's idea, which somehow you call "perichoretic" as being examples of the "social trinity" of Moltmann.
By Lossky says of this -- ironically for you -- that:
"The general character of this triadology may be described as a pre-eminence of natural unity over personal trinity, as an ontological primacy of the essence over the hypostases."
So, here you are saying that the Orthodox are more focused on the essence versus the personal, when all the while your system demotes the personal into its own theory of essence at some expense of the personal. Ironic.
And one would think that this is old stuff, since Moltman is so long ago. But in popular theology books on the Trinity (they sell, one supposes) the editors include Zizioulas to give the other ideas some aire of creedance. Yet Zizioulas is NOT a "social trinity" theologian. Quite the opposite!
.
(o)Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 10/2/2006 8:06:12 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/2/2006 8:04 AM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
Think about this, POW.
1. Did the Son eternally UNDERSTAND HIMSELF as the "Only Begotten" of the Father...but NOT "proceeding" from the Father in the same manner as the Spirit?
2. Did the Spirit eternally UNDERSTAND "HIMSELF" as proceeding from the Father...but NOT being the "Only Begotten" of the Father?
3. Did the Son and Spirit eternally relate to each other from these distinct self-understandings?
If yes to all of these questions...then...
4. Is it theologically inappropriate to conceive of a metaphysical framework (complete with ontology of divine ad intra essential existence) that can articulate this reality within the Godhead coherently?
If yes to #4, why?
Biblically, scripture asks rhetorically "who" can know this! So for you and me the above is NONSENSE. I would not at all ever dream to begin guessing what IS and IS NOT the "self-understanding" of those hypostasis you address them to.
Further, it can be fairly clearly shown that you are talking about "three personalities" and not three hypostasis.
That Egyptian guy said "give me a place to stand and I will move the world." But you have no 'place' from which to even ask the questions you write here, let alone answer them.
WHY do you feel that you NEED to ask such? Why?
(o) Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 10/2/2006 8:07:35 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/2/2006 8:11 AM (GMT -6) | | POW:
John Zizioulas' treatment in "Communion as Being" is NOT an example of the "social trinity." The historical founding of the social trinity would be the notion of defining the persons as defined by who they are not: what is called "relations of opposition."
A quote:
The attitude of Orthodox thought, when confronted with the mysterious name of the Holy Spirit, denoting a divine economy rather than a hypostatic mark of distinction, is far from
being simply a refusal to define his personal diversity. On the contrary, because that diversity, or (to speak more generally) the diversity of the Three Persons, is presented as something absolute, we refuse to admit a relation of origin which opposes the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son, taken as a single principle. If this were admitted, personal diversity in the Trinity in effect would be relativized: Inasmuch as the Holy Spirit is one hypostasis, the Holy Spirit only represents the unity of the two in their identical nature. Here the logical impossibility of any opposition between three terms intervenes, and the clarity of this triadological system shows itself to be extremely superficial. Indeed, on these lines, we cannot reach a mode of distinguishing the three hypostases from each another without confounding them in one way or another with the essence. In fact, the absolute diversity of the Three cannot be based on their relations of opposition without admitting, implicitly or explicitly, the primacy of the essence over the hypostases, by assuming a relative (and therefore secondary) basis for personal diversity, [78] in contrast to natural identity.{10} But that is exactly what Orthodox theology cannot admit.
How is admitting that each Person of the Trinity has a LOCUS OF SELF-UNDERSTANDING from whence they relate falling into diminishing "personal trinity"? Would you deny that there are 3 loci of self-understanding within the Godhead?
I believe that the consubstantiality DOES foremost come from the "monarchy of the Father"...but my framework expresses that in such a way that it makes SENSE of how there can be 3 loci of self-understanding within ONE divine being. I do NOT believe that there are 3 "divine individuals" such that the fundamental unity is SOLELY an EMERGENT PROPERTY of the relationship between the 3 "Gods" The unity and singularity of divine experience of loving sociality is HAD by the Father, who is the source of the consubstantiality! This is not to say that the Son and the Spirit don't experience the loving sociality. This IS to say that it is the Father's dispositional reality that is the GROUND of this whole thing in some real way...and that divine experience of loving sociality that the Father has is the locus for the aseity-creating AESTHETIC SATISFACTION of God.
Don't lump what I'm saying with the YOUR understanding of the social trinity. Please.
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/2/2006 8:19:11 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/2/2006 8:25 AM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
It seems to me that you are SO INTO by your view of God's incomprehensibility that you cannot really grant any legitimacy to metaphysical discussion of God's ad intra existence.
Again, this is the VERY DIVIDE that process theolgians and Orthodox theologians have.
Well, fine.
We differ here. And we will.
God bless both of us.
Let's just leave it at that. I'm not "so in" that I can't. But all the same I don't causually make things up either.
Theology is prayer. And prayer begins where we are. Now, someone could seek to do God a favor and make up a great ad camaigne with hot mass appeal. That's what social tinity and trinity in process seem to seek to do. But neither does God need an 'ad man,' nor is that the leading edge of what we need.
Yes, God bless both of us!
We need worship, repentance, community, and focus on the cross.
Let me say -- without your taking offense, please -- that none of what is necessary leads me to ask those hypothetical questions of yours.
So, while I'm "so into" what I describe immediately above, it is THAT and not some academic theology that I'm "into."
Bless you, D.
< where's the making the sign of the cross emoticon? >
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One Love
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| Posted 10/2/2006 8:26 AM (GMT -6) | | M: Don't lump what I'm saying with the YOUR understanding of the social trinity. Please.
P: I hear you. But now it is up to YOU to draw that distinction. I'm not seeing any.
Ok.
As I understand it, the inadequacy of the social trinity model is that it functionally NEGATES the unity of God with respect to all things coming from the Father...and being unto the Father.
My model doesn't do that. My model says that...
1) It is the case that the Father is the ultimate ground of God's essential existence. In other words, the Father is the "primordial pole" of the divine life of God, in a manner of speaking.
2) It is the aesthetic satisfaction of the Father's disposition that grounds the total self-sufficiency of God. The Son's begotten-ness and and Spirit's procession are the means by which the Father's eternal disposition are actualized into aesthetic satisifaction as an eternal event (process idea) There is only ONE EXPERIENCE that does this. And this is, along with the above, grounds the fundamental unity of God.
The difference that I see in our perspectives is that my way enables there to be real unity AND diversity in the triune life...whereas your way doesn't allow for ANY real diversity.
How's that?
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/2/2006 8:35:05 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/2/2006 8:30 AM (GMT -6) | | POW:
Theology is prayer. And prayer begins where we are. Now, someone could seek to do God a favor and make up a great ad camaigne with hot mass appeal. That's what social tinity and trinity in process seem to seek to do. But neither does God need an 'ad man,' nor is that the leading edge of what we need.
Yes, God bless both of us!
We need worship, repentance, community, and focus on the cross.
Let me say -- without your taking offense, please -- that none of what is necessary leads me to ask those hypothetical questions of yours.
So, while I'm "so into" what I describe immediately above, it is THAT and not some academic theology that I'm "into."
I can understand and respect your position here. Really. And I'd agree to a point. The understanding that is necessary is that which makes communion with God possible. One doesn't need metaphysical consideration of God's ad intra existence to do that. I'm with that.
I just choose to say that my expression of worship is pondering the divine life via metaphysical conceptualization. It's not about trying to "sell" God. It's about trying to understand (as much as I can) the God that I worship.
We're just different.
Bless you too, POW. 
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/2/2006 9:01 AM (GMT -6) | | | M: ...my expression of worship is pondering the divine life via metaphysical conceptualization.
P: I can't think of, recall, an instance where that is worship.
Can you point to any.
Otherwise, I think it is very rational to me to ask you WHY metaphysics are important to you. I mean really/actually; and not really/a-lot.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/2/2006 9:27 AM (GMT -6) | | FROM ANOTHER THREAD ON THIS BOARD:
http://www.opentheismboard.org/pr.aspx?f=5&m=60968
Posted By : Starkman - 12/27/2005 7:02 PM |
PoW,
If love only requires two persons, why is God three persons?
Starkman
My teacher used to say that whenever he read Scripture, he would always ask the question, "What does this have to say about the character of God?" Working off his thinking, as I read Scripture, I have come to ask, "What does this have to say about the heart and passion of God's desire for relationship for us?
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Posted By : PotOnWheel - 12/27/2005 9:29 PM |
Starkman said...
PoW,
If love only requires two persons, why is God three persons?
Starkman
I don't know. One is the sorce of the other two, and one is begotten, and one proceeds. All are without begenning, yet have their source in the first.
But I've read that the "three" is not so finite as our number three. The "tree" is a number to suggest unboundedness, rather than defined boundedness. This expression does not circumscribe God, but points to the unboundedness of God.
Like the Ware quotes shares, God's love is participated in, and the fellowship of the trinity is "coinherence" and sharing -- openness -- rather than possessing and shrinking.
But as to "why" the answer is only to point to the Father, who's will is common to the Son/Word and the Spirit.
Like the Creed says, "I believe in One God, the Father almighty... God is three because the Father, the source of all wills it.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
God is not a closed unit. God is not a unit, but a union. God is love in the sense of shared love, the mutual love of three Persons in one.
- God is not a unit, of three "persons" as we define "separate persons." God is a "union" of three hypostasis.
- God "shares" love. Not "separate persons" giving and losing love between themselves in a "social trinity" of "suffering love."
- The Trinity is mutuality. And we too are called to join in that "mutuality" through participation in the divine love IN CHRIST as members of Christ.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/2/2006 9:28 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/2/2006 9:35 AM (GMT -6) | | POW:
M: ...my expression of worship is pondering the divine life via metaphysical conceptualization.
P: I can't think of, recall, an instance where that is worship.
Can you point to any.
Otherwise, I think it is very rational to me to ask you WHY metaphysics are important to you. I mean really/actually; and not really/a-lot.
Why?
Can you just respect that THAT's the way that I do it?
We are both accountable to God for what we do with what we believe...and how we live from that. Romans 14 stuff.
I respect your position as being a legitimate position of a person faithful to God. I trust that you do the same for me...even though it's not in your experience.
************************
POW:
God is not a closed unit. God is not a unit, but a union. God is love in the sense of shared love, the mutual love of three Persons in one.
God is not a unit, of three "persons" as we define "separate persons." God is a "union" of three hypostasis.
God "shares" love. Not "separate persons" giving and losing love between themselves in a "social trinity" of "suffering love."
The Trinity is mutuality. And we too are called to join in that "mutuality" through participation in the divine love IN CHRIST as members of Christ.
Do you see that I'm NOT really disagreeing with this perspective?
If you don't see that, I'm sorry. But either way, let's just both be faithful to the Triune God in our own ways.
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/2/2006 9:48:03 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/2/2006 10:18 AM (GMT -6) | | Answer this...only if you choose to. I just thought of something.
Does it bother you, POW, that I talk about the "incomprehensible" inner life of God using technical, metaphysical jargon...whereas the Church Fathers long ago used intelligently-articulated, Spirit-led intuitions grounded in informed, faithful living out of God's salvation?
Do you somehow feel that my doing the former NECESSARILY takes away from healthy appreciation of the latter?
Does it feel to you that I am reaching for things "too high" for me as a finite human being...and this feeling bothers you?
Is that what this is about? What is your ultimate concern here with this?
"All is full of love." -- Bjork
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." -- 1 John 4:16b
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/2/2006 11:08 AM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
POW:
M: ...my expression of worship is pondering the divine life via metaphysical conceptualization.
P: I can't think of, recall, an instance where that is worship.
Can you point to any.
Otherwise, I think it is very rational to me to ask you WHY metaphysics are important to you. I mean really/actually; and not really/a-lot.
Why?
Can you just respect that THAT's the way that I do it?
No.
I think its rational to ask what HYMN or SCRIPTURE MESSAGE embodies that. Lex Orendi lex Credendi. I think its OK for me to ask that.
And short of an answer it just sounds self-gratifying for humans to speculate about God -- make God in our image.
And since "out there" such does take place, it is me RESPECTING YOU to ask.
Really.
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/2/2006 11:12 AM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
POW:
God is not a closed unit. God is not a unit, but a union. God is love in the sense of shared love, the mutual love of three Persons in one.
God is not a unit, of three "persons" as we define "separate persons." God is a "union" of three hypostasis.
God "shares" love. Not "separate persons" giving and losing love between themselves in a "social trinity" of "suffering love."
The Trinity is mutuality. And we too are called to join in that "mutuality" through participation in the divine love IN CHRIST as members of Christ.
Do you see that I'm NOT really disagreeing with this perspective?
If you don't see that, I'm sorry. But either way, let's just both be faithful to the Triune God in our own ways.
By posting that I did NOT say that you disagree with it. I think it is quite different from social trinity. And sofar as you distance yourself from social trinity my posting this is useful.
I posted it for you to deal with. Its more lucid and clear than I can ever manage personally.
Deal with it how you will.
BTW = You were in a mode of differentiating yourself from Orthodoxy. So, there, with an Orthocox view presented in front of your keyboard you can rethink a bit. Maybe.
$.02
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 10/2/2006 11:17 AM (GMT -6) | |
MephEternal said...
Answer this...only if you choose to. I just thought of something.
Does it bother you, POW, that I talk about the "incomprehensible" inner life of God using technical, metaphysical jargon...whereas the Church Fathers long ago used intelligently-articulated, Spirit-led intuitions grounded in informed, faithful living out of God's salvation?
Do you somehow feel that my doing the former NECESSARILY takes away from healthy appreciation of the latter?
Does it feel to you that I am reaching for things "too high" for me as a finite human being...and this feeling bothers you?
Is that what this is about? What is your ultimate concern here with this?
Solong as you can write a paragraph like the second above, I feel a *little* bit better. (Though I think you should not try to convince anyone else of your passing thoughts.)
But you should worry about your in fluence, then. How much hubris might others presume, to their detriment.
.
So, let me ask you this question? Do you expect to come up with anything "new."
.
WAIT! Did you just write "that I talk about the "incomprehensible" inner life of God using technical, metaphysical jargon" and NOT mean that the inner life is incomprehensible. (Then you fooled me.)
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