Selaphiel

Hi Sela.

It's going well enough, thank you for asking. How are your days settling out?

I started to reply to your PM yesterday and had to set it aside, I was frustrated at my inability to express myself. I'll try again, though. Hopefully tonight.

The rep comment: Yes... yes it is. :chuckle:

You're welcome. :e4e:

Thanks. No rush on the other.

My best wishes for tomorrow, that all good will come of it in every way.

Good morning, Sela.

I have a quiet day today, so I'm going to start on that reply.

If I have it right, your first sermon is this weekend. I hope and pray your preparation is going well. :cheers:

I'm well. Life is incredibly busy, in a good way.

How are you?

I hope to get to your message soon.

I read a funny story about Norway the other day. It was about refugees coming into Norway on bicycles because that is a loophole in the border law. The law talks about other methods of crossing, but not bicycles. :chuckle:

Hope you are doing well.

:e4e:

No, they're spoiled by being able to spend their day with you.

I hope it's all going well, I know you're busy with good things.

No worries. Take your time and I hope your busyness is a good one.

:e4e:

Thank you for the PM, Sela, and I'll write back when I have have the time to think it through. I know you're busy too, and with far more important and interesting things.

I finished Jenson's book. Some of this is pretty far over my theological head. :chuckle:

Hope you're having a good weekend. :e4e:

Going to try to write that up right now. Summer is, for all intents and purposed, over for me too.

I'm very glad your busy is a good busy.

"Not sure if I can see an aspect where all men are touched by Christ's sacrifice at the present. I'm more of a universalist in the sense that I believe that eventually, God will reveal himself in the culmination of creation as the redeemer and goal of all things."

Let's leave aside all people of all time. Would your answer change if I change the scope to all people who existed during/before the time of Jesus? Thinking about the verse I already quoted but then also something like this - Rom 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

Or this - Heb 9:15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

"As for relation within the Trinity. It is important to remember that it is God, which for Jenson and classically is irreducably Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that is apathetic. The internal dynamic or relation among Father, Son and Holy Spirit are eternal, they cannot change."

So apatheia is just about the internal relations and not about God's relation with the world?

I got to a part where Jenson talks about the logos asarkos. It's interesting. But if the Trinity is "the Father and the man Jesus and their Spirit", then doesn't the Trinity lose all meaning prior to when Jesus became flesh? It's just the Father. The Son would have just existed as a plan, God's Word and Wisdom, but not as a person. I don't have a problem with saying something like that, but it doesn't seem very Orthodox based on my understanding.

I agree with what you say about process thought. I remember one of your concerns about process thought is lack of a strong eschatology, correct? But is you concern a complete lack of possibility or just a lack of confidence in the God of process thought?

How have you been?

:e4e:

Good evening...lain:

I thought you might enjoy this recent musical discovery of mine that merges modernity with classical tonality rather beguilingly IMNSHO...some gorgeous harmonies and chords at times in again MNSHO...

tFE7imJMfx0

Hope things are well.

:e4e:

lain:

.....reconciliation was while we were yet enemies, estranged from God. But true life and salvation comes later. On some level Adam's sin tainted all of mankind by association up until that point and Christ's sacrifice wiped that away by being the new Adam. Or something to that effect. :chuckle:

The Trinity/relation question was prompted by Jenson's book. Basically...can the Trinity be called relational in any way that can be applied to us? Or is it a completely different kind of relation? Also, going back to divine apatheia that you said Jenson believes in, it seems like inner relation in the Trinity would go against that as well.

:e4e:

I like that Conor quote. The Eastern Orthodox book I read is actually what I had in mind when I said I could agree to the incarnation being necessary, but not the fall. The distinction it talked about was Image vs Likeness. And I think that can exist without the fall. Without Adam having sinned at all. But as long as the incarnation is necessary then I Jenson can probably say that God is he who identifies himself through the Son. Crucifixion doesn't make much sense without the fall though.

You think that eventually all will bow, and in that respect Christ's sacrifice will touch everyone, but do you see an aspect of Christ's sacrifice that touches all men now? I think of verses like this.....Rom 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

Thank you so much. When I've had time to turn it all over in my mind a few times, I'll write back.