ECT Our triune God
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PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
Pure nominal philosophicalities. What makes you think all that is somehow authoritative?
Just simple etymology and definitions of a word you're contending means what it doesn't mean at the very basic level.
Shocking that you'd refer to it. Stephen Hawking? Seriously? (Yes, I have the book.)
I kind of like this...
I'm just saying the orthodox church recognizes (and accounts for) the distinction between eternality as an incommunicable attribute of God and everlasting (creation) and Eden/post-Eden (creation), in addition to recognizing (and accounting for) transcendence and immanence.
And Augustine, John of Damascus, Aquinas, Wycliffe (at a very minimum) all explained it just as you go on to explain in your posts to Arsenios. You call them "noumenon", they call them (in English) ideas.
Yes, I know...this is what the issue is (as nothing else hasn't been captured in classical Trinitarianism/classical theism for hundreds upon hundreds of years).
But Aquinas wasn't the only classical Trinitarian/theist... (And total aside, but if one wants to accept the "story" one should include the whole story... "You have written well of Me Thomas"...)
Just as you said, He "spoke" (actualized) whatever ideas He wished into existence (as you go on in your posts to Arsenios below) and they were created by His Word and and His Spirit--
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
The same reason the immutable Word does not change nor lose any divine attributes remaining firmly on the side of uncreated Deity when uniting even most intimately with created flesh, neither does God when creating.
As far as being present to creation--what's already been said (initial cause, sustaining cause, via His intimate knowledge of His creation and man's being known and knowing through his heart to the degree he receives the light which is the Logos of God, etc.)
Amen to all of this, PPS!--said for years in the church!
So it really comes down to the hypostases--and, focusing on the Word for the moment, I don't know why anyone should disagree with a substantial Word:
So then this one and only God is not Wordless. And possessing the Word, He will have it not as without a subsistence, nor as having had a beginning, nor as destined to cease to be. For there never was a time when God was not Word: but He ever possesses His own Word, begotten of Himself, not, as our word is, without a subsistence and dissolving into air, but having a subsistence in Him and life and perfection, not proceeding out of Himself but ever existing within Himself. For where could it be, if it were to go outside Him? For inasmuch as our nature is perishable and easily dissolved, our word is also without subsistence. But since God is everlasting and perfect, He will have His Word subsistent in Him, and everlasting and living, and possessed of all the attributes of the Begetter. For just as our word, proceeding as it does out of the mind, is neither wholly identical with the mind nor utterly diverse from it (for so far as it proceeds out of the mind it is different from it, while so far as it reveals the mind, it is no longer absolutely diverse from the mind, but being one in nature with the mind, it is yet to the subject diverse from it), so in the same manner also the Word of God in its independent subsistence is differentiated from Him from Whom it derives its subsistence : but inasmuch as it displays in itself the same attributes as are seen in God, it is of the same nature as God. For just as absolute perfection is contemplated in the Father, so also is it contemplated in the Word that is begotten of Him. (John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Book I)
Earlier you said "The Son as the charakter is the impression, not that which is being impressed. Not the wax, but the impression IN the wax. Not the markED, but the mark."
Where is the wax? I'm thinking for you it's on the side of creation.
As you see here with John (and any "psychological" models), it's the opposite.
That said, I'd say something like the rational structure of creation is processed through the Logos, not is the Logos--and that's one way man (if thinking properly) recognizes the Logos, however dim and dull and darkened from the fall his mind is:
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
Love him--looking at at least 3 of these on my bookshelf right now.
(Will add though that as great a theologian in writing as he is, he is much more in his element when preaching (not even sure if that's the best word--it probably needs to include positively soaring orator...) After supporting his ministry I received a CD several years ago in which he was expositing Genesis 22--grown men, non-Christian, in the car were in tears...)
Agree with both.
How's God's incommunicable attribute of eternal is a-temporal yet from the point of view of creation He's omnitemporal?
That's why I qualified it with IN GOD.
Co-opted symbols. Now I know what you were referring to. Agreed.
Well, I would suggest that words are symbols as well and they get co-opted the same way other symbols do.
Arsenios
Well-known member
A-temporality in God is incommunicable, so that eternal life is experienced by those who have felt of it as eternal, because we who are experiencing are created in time... Because God as a-temporal is as well the Creator of time while not in any manner being constrained by it.
"Everyday Saints" has a story about an elder lolligagging about a monastery prior to leaving for another one that was some six hours distant, and would close its gates at the beginning of vespers and open to no man... And he dallied and dawdled and piddled about to the point that they ended up leaving for that monastery with only two hours till Vespers would begin... And they drove straight through... It took them six hours, and they arrived with a half hour to spare to enter the gates...
So that time is subject to the Creator even in this fallen creation, and can be bypassed, compressed, or expanded, as God sees fit...
ymmv - Mine sure does... But time does alter even for professional athletes in competition... So does space... That little basketball hoop on a 3 point shot is seen by the shooter as a huge 20' loop that cannot be missed...
Arsenios
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
And I'm just saying it's easy to give lip service to that being a recognition and "accounting" for true multi-phenomenality, but it's a uni-phenomenal bare assertion that actually accounts for nothing as a "how". Making the Holy Spirit a distinct hypostasis would be the crowning evidence that uncreated and created phenomenon have never been truly distinguished and accounted for, IF one could ever step back and see what I've referred to as the whole Rubik's Cube rather than one single-colored side with bare assertions that it's the Cube.
Man's logos and pneuma, for example, are not distinct individuated hypostases from ourselves as a hypostasis. If we had the power and innate uncreatedness, we could speak and breathe forth a created reality of existence with the express image of our hypostasis proceeded forth into it (and our breath giving life to that creation).
You've accepted a uni-phenomenal accounting for multi-phenomenality and you can't recognize my criticism of it and reconciliation for it to the truth.
It's an entire phenomenal layer deeper than that. Multi-phenomenality was never truly considered and represented by any/all of them.
I'm not saying it wasn't their goal and intent, and all the rest. They simply omitted it in any manner of actually accounting for it, employing uni-phenomenal multi-hypostaticism to compensate for lacking the understanding for multi-phenomenal uni-hypostaticism.
Ideas (idea from oida) is only one facet of the "accounting". It's at the core of why the Classic Trinity doctrine is claimed to be multi-phenomenal while being only uni-phenomenal.
It seems uncharacteristic that this would be sarcasm from you, but I'm unsure.
This IS the issue. God is not multiple hypostases as one ousia, with perichoresis as a giant band-aid along with other compensatory formulaic assertions.
God's literal Logos and Pneuma are not distinct individuated hypostases from Himself as a hypostasis, whether internal or external.
No, he wasn't. But his "baseline" was set. There HAD to be three hypostases, so he looked no further. And as much as I can believe the account of his own words of his teaching being straw, I don't believe for one second that a Scholastic Latin heard the interactive and articulate voice of God in any manner, especially to confirm a uni-phenomenal accounting for multi-phenomenality with compensating multi-hypostaticism.
Who? Who is "He"? Who spoke? The Logos is spoken. The Logos didn't speak logos. Who's Logos was it? It certainly wasn't the Son's Logos. An idea spoke? Fiat spoke?
Surely you don't insist the "He" is the ousia or some perichoretic unison of alleged hypostases to avoid paradox.
But what about the actual Logos? Whose Logos was it?
Yes, that's a pivotal proof-text to expose the Uni-phenomenality of the Classic Trintity doctrine.
How is the Son God's literal Logos?
I'm sitting here seeing the entire 3D chasm of understanding that is missing from all you say from a 2D perspective that also insists it is the 3D accounting.
You're conveniently calling the Logos the Son and vice versa without accounting for multi-phenomenality.
Uncreated phenomenon does not and cannot "merge" with created phenomenon. That miracle is reserved for God's creation, the procession of the Son and Holy Spirit, and the Incarnation.
You don't and can't realize how that glorious miracle is diluted by multi-hypostaticism and the requisite naive assertion of the classic uni-phenomenal accounting of multi-phenomenality.
Yes, this is the historical gloss of bare assertions. Sigh.
Amen to all of this, PPS!--said for years in the church!
And all "said for years in the church" according to multi-hypostatic fallacy.
Right. There aren't three.
Of course it's substantial. It's just not another individuated substantiality.
And this is where the absurdity begins. The Logos isn't another individuated subsistence.
Time? For the timeless God? This is what happens when one is locked down to horizontality and linearity.
Not as an individuated hypostasis from Himself. It's a Tritheism band-aid. The anti-Trinitarians are right to criticize.
Seriously? Never proceeding out of Himself? Ek-/ex- aren't internal. The "self" is not somehow the ousia as a fourth component apart from the alleged three hypostases.
This is horrific.
And now the promotional of Panentheism, since creation itself would be internal to God, including heaven. Now God is a giant fishbowl for creation.
God's Word isn't without subsistence, it's innate as His very subsistence. Self-Conscious Self-Existence. It's certainly not an individuated subsistence from Him.
This is just hard to read it's so eisegetic and conceptual.
The Word doesn't proceed out of the mind, but out of the mouth. Ex-.
Shear and utter tripe of presupposed multiple hypostases. Tritheism "lite".
The Logos isn't begotten. The SON is begotten.
The wax is the Logos. God impressed His hypostasis in the wax, sealed with His Spirit. The wax is upon the decree within the parchment, which is creation.
The charakter is NOT another hypostasis. It's Him impressing His very hypostasis exactly upon His Logos.
No, that would be Arian-esque as a created Son.
Oh I've seen what it is. It's absurd and untenable, including the Panentheism.
Man doesn't understand at all with a three-hypostasis God. It destroys the fullness of ontology for the Gospel and invites conceptual dilution.
Gorilla-glued siamese triplets.
That's not as an individuated hypostasis. Centuries of fallacy, still corrupting the truth.
The really agonizing part is having a Classic Trinitarian attempt to justify the Holy Spirit as an individuated hypostasis from the One God and Father.
You don't realize I've reconciled every anathema formulaic while presenting the true Trinity.
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1Mind1Spirit
Literal lunatic
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
Exactly!!!!
Arsenios
Well-known member
I've reconciled every anathema formulaic
while presenting the true Trinity.
And in such total humility!
A wonder to behold...
A.
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
Ummm... We were given the ministry of reconciliation. It's obedience and faith. I'm supposed to do it.
The Orthodox certainly aren't humble, insisting there can be no greater deeper revelation than a handful of men had 17 centuries ago.
Basil could correct everybody, but can't be corrected subtly.
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
The Cappadocian Fathers aren't God.
No. You do strongly hold forth for what I can only call 2D Tritheism.
And some forms of Modalism are as close as the Classic Trinity, and closer than most modern perceptions of it that are functional Tritheism.
One man's reformer is another man's hairy tick ...
... with apologies to AMR ...
Dos Equis
http://www.dallascowboys.com/galler...s-dirks-heroes-celebrity-baseball-game#290311
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
DA 'BOYS!:rapture:
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
'Tis true.
But since the Orthodox themselves (whom I do love dearly) have insisted that Theology Proper is an apophatic pursuit with resulting descriptions not really being a definition; it's quite off-putting for them to insist there can be no deeper and further revelation of God's constitution than locked-down ancient declarations by a relatively small number of men who disagreed on much, and especially minutiae.