ECT Our triune God

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

How would "one What, three Whos" be represented using these terms?

Prosopon - Cannot per PERSON

Ousia > Physis WHO - PERSON

Hypostasis - WHAT

Or is PERSON encircling all the above?

Perhaps you could draw it electronically in Powerpoint or Paint and paste/attach the image.

AMR

For me, this is one of the most frustrating questions, because it’s a question predicated upon an eventual understanding (by moderns) of a previous formulaic (by ancients). And the ancients were not subject to the many linguistic and cultural innovations of the last 1.5+ millennia.

Though I have acquiesced to the historical formulaic for purposes of authentic orthodoxy and the problems associated with coming against the formulaic as seeming magisterial rather than ministerial, I nonetheless still prefer to omit the English term “person” from usage because it is almost universally presumed to be a stand-alone entity or being in a gradient of tritheistic conceptualization.

I would prefer the adjectival expressions “personal hypostasis” or “impersonal hypostasis” relative to animate or inanimate nouns rather than attempting to word-for-word translate a Greek word as “person”. (Again I acquiesce to all creedal expresssions, only withholding personal expression as it pertains to my eventual presentations of Multi-Phenomenality and Uni-Hypostaticism for Theology Proper.

But the best possible answer as you have framed the question is that the whole man (whether expressed as hypostasis/ousia/physis/sarx/prosopon or spirit/soul/body) is a “person”. Therefore, it is both appropriate and inappropriate to refer to the hypostasis or prosopon as “person”, depending upon whether someone is attempting to be Reductionist and point to Partialism.

I think the creedal jargon is the best extant. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved in some manner.

The best way to say “One what, three whos” is the historical formulaic of one ousia, three hypostases. But I wouldn’t really want to quantify God and technically violate His Simplicity and other incommunicable attributes.

How can any aspects of God be counted in a capital manner and it not be at least some hint of Partialism as a God composed of “parts”?

But attempting to communicate Uni-Hypostatic Multi-Phenomenality is the most daunting task I’ve ever engaged in. And I’ve isolated the several most preeminent reasons why so that I can teach an appropriate hermeneutic to correct the impaired lenses of moderns.

But back to your question... IF a hypostasis is a “person”, then it would follow that all it underlies and determines the qualitative existence of (including economies of action) would also be the “person”. Without the essential wealth of “what-ness” as existence (ousia) and its nature (physis) and appearance (prosopon), there would be no valid “person”.

And if the simplest and most direct hermeneutic is the best and most authentic/accurate, then my position would end up being the best hermeneutic. Multi-Phenomenal Uni-Hypostaticism for Theology Proper retains EVERY minutiae vital to Patristic thought and formulaic; all while avoiding the few potential problems still remaining (especially in translation for modern low-context languages and lack of translational theory understanding).

I still cringe a bit when theologically illiterate novices regurgitate the term “persons” for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, because I know they are thinking and expressing a semi-tritheistic comprehension that is not Patristic or O/orthodox (despite the terms).

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

^ So BTW, the above means that the formulaic of three hypostases/one ousia is problematic if hypostasis is “person”; for each hypostasis would then have its own proper ousia. That would be three entities or beings.

This is the summary of my long-standing criticism of the English term “person” for hypostasis (or at all regarding Theology Proper, now that modern linguistics have tainted the term).

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

In teaching, I refer to the hypostasis as the underlying (personal) individuality. I refer to the ousia as the humanity (for man) or the divinity (for God). Each has a nature and presence/appearance.

The individuality is the “who-ness” underlying the “what-ness” of the humanity or divinity, respectively. It’s much more cogent and concise, and lexically more accurate as well.

The English term “person” has so much ridiculous baggage, it’s virtually unusable without extensive deprogramming of both active and passive presuppositions.

 

[George Affleck]

Open Theism is a poor answer to wrong questions based upon lexical ignorance and stubborn refusal to set aside presuppositions that are grossly in error.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Other than that, it's OK huh?

:chuckle:

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Other than that, it's OK huh?

:chuckle:

Exactly. LOL

 

[George Affleck]

The English term “person” has so much ridiculous baggage, it’s virtually unusable without extensive deprogramming of both active and passive presuppositions.

I'm going to play DA for a moment.

If this is true it must be impossible to represent the pure word of God in English or any other language without admixture of error. This must mean that we should learn to speak, read and think in the original languages.

Indeed, how can we assume that any of the over 6000 language translations (Wycliffe Bible Translators for example) of the Bible both captures the truth of God's intent and anticipates the presuppositions of any given culture? Or are we stuck having to settle for dynamic equivalence?

 

[Idolater]

Further clarifying...

The ontology of our salvation is exclusively in the hypostasis of God (and of Christ and of the Holy Spirit), so the economy of its occasion an occurance relative to our temporal existence in this lapsed realm is wholly secondary. Time and concurrence are merely means and manners of attempting to express non-temporal things in temporal terms via human language.

So... The being and doing are disinct considerations, though they are also at once absolutely inseparable. This leads to all kinds of false concepts of attempted explanations and pseudo-systematics in theological meanderings.

God accomplishes our salvation economically as He has fore-ordained, and it is a being and becoming as much as it is a punctiliar event. Salvation is not only cosmic, it is a perpetuity in chronological time as we know and experience it.

I see what you're saying. We have childlike faith because we were children, it came with the package. Childlike faith has a purpose, theology is specifying that purpose.

One of the famous atheists said that Christians are those who believe that Jesus of Nazareth ('IN' on a crucifix is abbreviated from the Latin name of Jesus, that starts with an I, and the N is from Nazareth, so the 'IN' in 'INRI' is 'Jesus of Nazareth,' this was His name to Romans) is the Son of God, died for our sins, and rose from the dead. Anyone who denied these could not be called in any meaningful sense a Christian.

This is an outsider's view, unless he was only acting like an atheist. It was instructive to know what a thoughtful and well read non-Christian thought of us, wrt what uniquely identifies us.

I'm in trouble in another thread because I've argued that believing in the Resurrection alone saves. And that is the faith of Abraham, and the faith of Christians. God provided the sacrifice, the One that ended the Levitical priesthood's 'raison d'être' (that's funny---the Latin for 'reason for being' is simply 'cur,' but we instead use the French :chuckle: smh), His Passion and cross, and instituted in its place the Church's priesthood, whose 'cur' is offering the sacrifice of the Eucharist, proclaiming His death and Resurrection in remembrance of Him til He comes.

This is what Christians did, in celebration ultimately of resurrection, of God, Who raises the dead. Christianity is confirmed by Christ's Resurrection. Whatever anybody preaches, if they die, and then rise again, what they were saying before they died, was true. Well that's all that Christians are saying wrt Jesus. He is risen from the dead. God raises the dead, we're equal to Pharisees to that point, but we're accomplished Pharisees, we're fulfilled Pharisees, Abraham was a Pharisee, he was a good one, there were other good Pharisees, mentioned in Acts, Christianity is Pharisee in that sense, and not Sadducee. Sadducees don't believe God raises the dead, that's why they're so sad you see (). No, the Pharisees believed God raises the dead, like Abraham, and like every Christian, according to my view wrt what constitutes believing the Gospel in a nutshell.

Childlike faith has a purpose, to believe in Jesus Christ, not the Pharisee and Abrahamic faith; Islam; believing God raises the dead, but believing He raises the dead and He His Son is risen from the dead. God defeated death. Childlike faith, is to believe in that, that is the purpose of childlike faith, which we are conceived with. Jesus of Nazareth revealed to humanity in an object lesson to end all object lessons, exactly what it was for, our childlike faith.

It is to believe in Him. He is risen. x 3 Mt28:6KJV Mk16:6KJV Lk24:6KJV What we do about that? We go to Mass, and partake of the offering made on the valid altar to Yahweh. 'THIS IS MY BODY' x 4 Priesthood of Melchizedek. Not Levi. Levi's altar was pulverized twice, the second time, approaching two thousand years ago, right around the same time that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. Almost like, He was there to usher in something brand new, just in time, because the old was pulverized, what now looks to be an astoundingly coincidentally brief time later; 40 years tops.

Those who are and will be saved have always been saved.

If we have childlike faith that Christ's Resurrection is an historical fact, nonfiction phenomenon. I know it's difficult for people to understand what it would be to have evidence of the Resurrection, but just because we've never seen a giant hunk of iron come shooting out of the sky and smash its way miles deep into bedrock, scientists say there's evidence that it is an historical fact, nonfiction phenomenon. They inspect the rock where it hit, and they see the evidence. The shape left in the rock tells them that it was made by the giant hunk of iron, that just appeared one day out of the sky, and pounded instantly, deeply into the rocky crust of the earth. The earth survived, and life survived, but not all life survived, and certainly, if this collision is nonfiction, many individuals did not survive at all, some instantly crushed so quickly as to have imploded, and with even less identifiable results, but surely many more were ended by less direct causes, such as earthquakes, massive tsunamis, and 'nuclear winter' which darkens the sun for years until all the light debris launched into the atmosphere settles back down to earth. All that death, all caused by an instant, a freak instant. Scientists say it happened. They say there's evidence, because they looked at the rock. All the other rock looks 'natural,' but they say this part of the rock is distinctive, they say this was caused by a hunk of iron the size of things that you don't associate in your mind with 'a hunk of iron,' things like 'cities.' A hunk of iron the size of a small city. Can you imagine that? I can't imagine that, at least I can't confidently imagine that.

They look at the rock, they say the iron did this to the rock, you can see it. Christ's tomb was chiseled out of bedrock, and His cross was mounted on bedrock. Both sites are within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We look at the rock too, to establish the evidence for something that happened long ago, that without this evidence, it'd be like telling us that iron objects the size of cities, occasionally just shoot out of the sky into the ground, many times faster than if it were shot out of a rifle.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

I'm going to play DA for a moment.

If this is true it must be impossible to represent the pure word of God in English or any other language without admixture of error. This must mean that we should learn to speak, read and think in the original languages.

Indeed, how can we assume that any of the over 6000 language translations (Wycliffe Bible Translators for example) of the Bible both captures the truth of God's intent and anticipates the presuppositions of any given culture? Or are we stuck having to settle for dynamic equivalence?

This is a non-Philological Neo-Theoretical Neo-Empiricist text-to-reader based statement, which is a product of the deterioration of progression in modern western linguistics.

In translational theory (paleo-theoretical, NOT neo-theoretical, not that any modern westerns really know what that means), there are two prevalent emphases: text-to-reader translation and reader-to-text translation. Modern English translations are almost exclusively the former, befitting the modern decayed state of linguistics in western low-context languages.

To become successively more and more engaged in a reader-to-text manner of translational understanding is the vital key. The entitlement of having the text always presented to the reader in the terms of his own language with all its grammatical forms is the height of Enlightenment error of individualism as an anthropological focus displacing cosmological focus.

The initial understandings of text-to-reader translational perspectives are necessary and preliminary. But this should not be the highest denominator for lexical truth. To demand the receptor language be the final arbitrage for expression is Modernism run amok.

We must indeed make every attempt to comprehend the nuances of form and meaning from the original biblical languages. There are unprecedented resources for doing so, and the hindrances to this approach are culturally corrupted epistemics at a high level.

We’re not stuck with dynamic equivalence, though there is always some validity to such when attempting to accomplish a direct equivalence.

“Person” came from Latin, not the divinely inspired text. It was what was assigned in Latin as persona when translating Greek into Latin had to avoid the use of substance because it was already being utilized for another term in translation.

So the argument fails in demanding even direct translation, since Greek to English doesn’t require Latin. Indeed, this is my argument to the contrary. Why utilize a Latin-derived middle term when a direct Greek equivalence can be made by using substanding reality.

The REAL translation problem is the English demand for singular words to represent singular words, when word clusters are often necessary to compensate for what English lacks in both form (grammar) and terms (semantics).

The fact remains... functionally and conceptually, most moderns conflate the English term “person” with a stand-alone entity or being, NOT an appropriate recognition of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in their individuality as one divinity.

 

[George Affleck]

Wonderful answer.

Thanks

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

I see what you're saying. We have childlike faith because we were children, it came with the package. Childlike faith has a purpose, theology is specifying that purpose.

One of the famous atheists said that Christians are those who believe that Jesus of Nazareth ('IN' on a crucifix is abbreviated from the Latin name of Jesus, that starts with an I, and the N is from Nazareth, so the 'IN' in 'INRI' is 'Jesus of Nazareth,' this was His name to Romans) is the Son of God, died for our sins, and rose from the dead. Anyone who denied these could not be called in any meaningful sense a Christian.

This is an outsider's view, unless he was only acting like an atheist. It was instructive to know what a thoughtful and well read non-Christian thought of us, wrt what uniquely identifies us.

I'm in trouble in another thread because I've argued that believing in the Resurrection alone saves. And that is the faith of Abraham, and the faith of Christians. God provided the sacrifice, the One that ended the Levitical priesthood's 'raison d'être' (that's funny---the Latin for 'reason for being' is simply 'cur,' but we instead use the French :chuckle: smh), His Passion and cross, and instituted in its place the Church's priesthood, whose 'cur' is offering the sacrifice of the Eucharist, proclaiming His death and Resurrection in remembrance of Him til He comes.

This is what Christians did, in celebration ultimately of resurrection, of God, Who raises the dead. Christianity is confirmed by Christ's Resurrection. Whatever anybody preaches, if they die, and then rise again, what they were saying before they died, was true. Well that's all that Christians are saying wrt Jesus. He is risen from the dead. God raises the dead, we're equal to Pharisees to that point, but we're accomplished Pharisees, we're fulfilled Pharisees, Abraham was a Pharisee, he was a good one, there were other good Pharisees, mentioned in Acts, Christianity is Pharisee in that sense, and not Sadducee. Sadducees don't believe God raises the dead, that's why they're so sad you see (). No, the Pharisees believed God raises the dead, like Abraham, and like every Christian, according to my view wrt what constitutes believing the Gospel in a nutshell.

Childlike faith has a purpose, to believe in Jesus Christ, not the Pharisee and Abrahamic faith; Islam; believing God raises the dead, but believing He raises the dead and He His Son is risen from the dead. God defeated death. Childlike faith, is to believe in that, that is the purpose of childlike faith, which we are conceived with. Jesus of Nazareth revealed to humanity in an object lesson to end all object lessons, exactly what it was for, our childlike faith.

It is to believe in Him. He is risen. x 3 Mt28:6KJV Mk16:6KJV Lk24:6KJV What we do about that? We go to Mass, and partake of the offering made on the valid altar to Yahweh. 'THIS IS MY BODY' x 4 Priesthood of Melchizedek. Not Levi. Levi's altar was pulverized twice, the second time, approaching two thousand years ago, right around the same time that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. Almost like, He was there to usher in something brand new, just in time, because the old was pulverized, what now looks to be an astoundingly coincidentally brief time later; 40 years tops.
If we have childlike faith that Christ's Resurrection is an historical fact, nonfiction phenomenon. I know it's difficult for people to understand what it would be to have evidence of the Resurrection, but just because we've never seen a giant hunk of iron come shooting out of the sky and smash its way miles deep into bedrock, scientists say there's evidence that it is an historical fact, nonfiction phenomenon. They inspect the rock where it hit, and they see the evidence. The shape left in the rock tells them that it was made by the giant hunk of iron, that just appeared one day out of the sky, and pounded instantly, deeply into the rocky crust of the earth. The earth survived, and life survived, but not all life survived, and certainly, if this collision is nonfiction, many individuals did not survive at all, some instantly crushed so quickly as to have imploded, and with even less identifiable results, but surely many more were ended by less direct causes, such as earthquakes, massive tsunamis, and 'nuclear winter' which darkens the sun for years until all the light debris launched into the atmosphere settles back down to earth. All that death, all caused by an instant, a freak instant. Scientists say it happened. They say there's evidence, because they looked at the rock. All the other rock looks 'natural,' but they say this part of the rock is distinctive, they say this was caused by a hunk of iron the size of things that you don't associate in your mind with 'a hunk of iron,' things like 'cities.' A hunk of iron the size of a small city. Can you imagine that? I can't imagine that, at least I can't confidently imagine that.

They look at the rock, they say the iron did this to the rock, you can see it. Christ's tomb was chiseled out of bedrock, and His cross was mounted on bedrock. Both sites are within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We look at the rock too, to establish the evidence for something that happened long ago, that without this evidence, it'd be like telling us that iron objects the size of cities, occasionally just shoot out of the sky into the ground, many times faster than if it were shot out of a rifle.

Though I see your point in regard to the resurrection, I have to contend that salvific faith will be focused upon more than solely the resurrection (though it cannot exclude the resurrection).

The real fallacy most moderns engage in is conceptualizing nouns as verbs, thus transferring all ontological understanding into merely economic understanding. Faith is a noun. Faith is not believING. The outward economy of believING is something that comes forth from faith itself.

IOW, we don’t believe. Faith believes. We only believe because we have the thing that does the believING, which is faith. And that faith as the thing believed comes out of the thing heard, which comes by means of the Rhema of God/Christ.

So the verb of believING does not save us. Faith does. And then faith believes, so we believe because we “have” the thing that does the believING.

We don’t make cell phone calls. Phones do the calling. They have the hardward and software compatible with the cellular network. We only make the calls because we “have” the thing that does the actual act of calling.

We don’t chop trees. Axes chop trees. We can only chop trees because we have the things that do the action.

So if man indeed believes, it is because God has given him the faith that does the believING. Otherwise, man cannot do that action, for he does not have the thing that actually does the actING as believING.

English doesn’t have this functionality, instead appearing to make nouns into verbs when English translations are rendered.

Your real argument might more accurately be that if there is faith for the resurrection, then that faith will include other facets that are vital to salvation. Something like that.

 

[Idolater]

Though I see your point in regard to the resurrection, I have to contend that salvific faith will be focused upon more than solely the resurrection (though it cannot exclude the resurrection).

It cannot. Docetists, Muslims, these people even deny that His Passion was real, let alone His Resurrection. It isn't Christian faith.

The real fallacy most moderns engage in is conceptualizing nouns as verbs, thus transferring all ontological understanding into merely economic understanding. Faith is a noun. Faith is not believING. The outward economy of believING is something that comes forth from faith itself.

IOW, we don’t believe. Faith believes. We only believe because we have the thing that does the believING, which is faith. And that faith as the thing believed comes out of the thing heard, which comes by means of the Rhema of God/Christ.

So the verb of believING does not save us. Faith does. And then faith believes, so we believe because we “have” the thing that does the believING.

We don’t make cell phone calls. Phones do the calling. They have the hardward and software compatible with the cellular network. We only make the calls because we “have” the thing that does the actual act of calling.

We don’t chop trees. Axes chop trees. We can only chop trees because we have the things that do the action.

So if man indeed believes, it is because God has given him the faith that does the believING. Otherwise, man cannot do that action, for he does not have the thing that actually does the actING as believING.

English doesn’t have this functionality, instead appearing to make nouns into verbs when English translations are rendered.

Your real argument might more accurately be that if there is faith for the resurrection, then that faith will include other facets that are vital to salvation. Something like that.

That's part of what I try to set out, yes. I talk about belief in the Resurrection 'containing' the rest of the one, authentic Christian faith, whether we know it and accept it, or not. I think there's grace for those who don't believe all the right things about the faith; so long as they believe Christ Jesus is risen from the dead, He can work with us.

So it sounds to me like you believe people with faith come about that faith strictly apart from their own choice in the matter, is that accurate?

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

It cannot. Docetists, Muslims, these people even deny that His Passion was real, let alone His Resurrection. It isn't Christian faith.

But most won’t comprehend that you’re trying to exclude these, and will likely contend that you are excluding some aspect of the Gospel. Especially if you’re talking about the heretical MADists on TOL. They are among the least lexically sound I’ve ever encountered.

That's part of what I try to set out, yes. I talk about belief in the Resurrection 'containing' the rest of the one, authentic Christian faith, whether we know it and accept it, or not. I think there's grace for those who don't believe all the right things about the faith; so long as they believe Christ Jesus is risen from the dead, He can work with us.

I’d have to say that’s quite broad, and might need additional qualifications. To whom much is given, much is required. This means (on the opposite edge of the sword) that to whom much is NOT given, much is NOT required. Anyone in the modern western world with access to the voluminous resources available in modernity has been given much. The modern west is the most widely literate culture ever, though according to the lowest-context languages ever. So I’d contend that your assertions need a measure of refining.

If someone can spend the time and energy to know everything about their vocation or hobby in intricate detail, then they are culpable for their theological illiteracy.

So it sounds to me like you believe people with faith come about that faith strictly apart from their own choice in the matter, is that accurate?

Faith is a thing given by God, as is repentance (the NOUN), and just as grace is by His inclination alone. Man cannot work up the act of believING. Faith itself believes. Without faith and repentance and grace and other nouns, man has no means of taking action. That’s the very Philological foundation for the Christian faith and all else.

It doesn’t mean man doesn’t choose. It means man’s choice is enabled by God alone.

 

[fishrovmen]

Though I see your point in regard to the resurrection, I have to contend that salvific faith will be focused upon more than solely the resurrection (though it cannot exclude the resurrection).

The real fallacy most moderns engage in is conceptualizing nouns as verbs, thus transferring all ontological understanding into merely economic understanding. Faith is a noun. Faith is not believING. The outward economy of believING is something that comes forth from faith itself.

IOW, we don’t believe. Faith believes. We only believe because we have the thing that does the believING, which is faith. And that faith as the thing believed comes out of the thing heard, which comes by means of the Rhema of God/Christ.

So the verb of believING does not save us. Faith does. And then faith believes, so we believe because we “have” the thing that does the believING.

We don’t make cell phone calls. Phones do the calling. They have the hardward and software compatible with the cellular network. We only make the calls because we “have” the thing that does the actual act of calling.

We don’t chop trees. Axes chop trees. We can only chop trees because we have the things that do the action.

So if man indeed believes, it is because God has given him the faith that does the believING. Otherwise, man cannot do that action, for he does not have the thing that actually does the actING as believING.

English doesn’t have this functionality, instead appearing to make nouns into verbs when English translations are rendered.

Your real argument might more accurately be that if there is faith for the resurrection, then that faith will include other facets that are vital to salvation. Something like that.

PPS, you had said a few times that the church at large has mistaken elpis for pistis and also that the ontological Gospel of Paul cannot be rightly understood apart from the correct understanding of Rhema, Logos, hypostasis and prosopon.
There are many here who quote 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 as what they believe to be "Paul's Gospel of grace", but I believe that you may have much more in mind when you speak of the ontological Gospel of Paul.
Have you gone into detail about this in another thread somewhere?
I really don't want to get off topic in this thread.
Thanks

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

PPS, you had said a few times that the church at large has mistaken elpis for pistis and also that the ontological Gospel of Paul cannot be rightly understood apart from the correct understanding of Rhema, Logos, hypostasis and prosopon.
There are many here who quote 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 as what they believe to be "Paul's Gospel of grace", but I believe that you may have much more in mind when you speak of the ontological Gospel of Paul.
Have you gone into detail about this in another thread somewhere?
I really don't want to get off topic in this thread.
Thanks

Okay, one piece at a time in the order presented. :

The conflated misunderstanding of elpis and pistis is a real problem for those doing so, which is the vast majority of modern Engish speakers who are text-to-reader semi-illiterates when it comes to linguistics and translation theory applications. (This is calm objective observation and statement of fact, not blanket condemnatory rhetoric.)

Form (grammatical structure) and terms (semantics/meaning) are much more vital than an entitled expectation that English translations bring the text to the reader in the recipient language with no attempt at reciprocity for the reader to go to the text and stringently understanding every facet of a valid hermeneutical method.

Those on TOL who are doing what you say in exclusively quoting 1Cor 15 as the epitome of the Gospel are all heterodox/heretical extreme Dispensationalists who confine prolepsis to conjured segments of oikonomia (“dispensationa”, which is a horrible translation of the Greek as a single word) as periods of time. Thus, they turn the qualitative characteristics of THE Gospel into fragmented multiple and variable mini-gospels throughout the panorama of time.

They also ignorantly dismiss law based upon a modern conceptual understanding that is not philological, and thus not lexical. So let me start with Law and Gospel and work from there to the rest. Lon as the OP can put a halt to this trajectory, but it’s all the same thing relative to God’s ontology according to Theology Proper. The Gospel is ontological, not merely economic.

The “Law” given to biblical Israel was covenantal. Law (in Greek, to have a better understanding for westerners) is nomos, which means distribution, allocation, allotment, apportionment. That which is distributed and apportioned is a standard for inner character and resulting outer conduct. Law is the informative of this standard. And the form of the law as given to Moses was a written record etched by the very finger of God.

The Mosaic Law was the addendum covenant paired with the Abrahamic Covenant of faith. The Abrahamic Covenant was unilateral and unconditional. God perfomed the covenant between Himself and man. The Mosaic Covenant was bilateral and conditional. God empowered them to keep it, as it was promissory rather than mere emphatic codification.

So these modern MADists are pure Antinomians, not understanding that Christ Himself is the final form of the Law as the distribution of the personified standard of God’s righteousness, and into whom we are translated and imputed that righteouness with faith that performs the believING and all else in economies of action.

The Arminian position subjects God’s sovereignty to man’s will in a manner that denies spiritual death and sin with the need for resurrection. And all of man’s alleged synergy is from the prime source of God’s monergistic economies in accomplishing man’s ontological change by/in/from/through/for Christ.

Few comprehend the ontology of our salvation depicted briefly in the above posts in our correspondence. For most, it is an economy of action accomplished by themselves, even if they do lip service to the finished work of Christ in some manner or to some degree.

Rhema and Logos are related to the summary above of faith as an hypostasis translating us into Christ. Not understanding Greek anarthrous nouns means few have any recognition of what atonement doctrine is applied to and for. So Hamartiology is where some of this has to begin.

It’s not that 1Cor 15 isn’t the Gospel, but that it isn’t understood according to the entire qualitative scope of the Gospel by hyper-Dispensationalists and others.

And most moderns have only an eschatological and anthropological perspective of the redemptive work of Christ rather than an overarching apocaplyptic and cosmological perspective. Salvation is for the entire lapsed cosmos, with mankind as the crown jewel and centerpiece. It isn’t merely a personal application for individuals in a myopic limited Modernism sense at all. Redemption is for the whole cosmos.

To omit the ontological functionalities of the Gospel is to not truly know the Gospel, and ultimately present another in ignorance of a zeal of God that is not according to knowledge (epignosis, not just gnosis).

The core problem is that moderns are not philological in their foundational understanding, preeminently holding langauge and literature to be magisterial rather than their own reasoning and neo-empirical personal experiences and preferences of presupposition. It’s a calamitous epidemic of pseudo-truth.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

I would prefer the adjectival expressions “personal hypostasis” or “impersonal hypostasis” relative to animate or inanimate nouns rather than attempting to word-for-word translate a Greek word as “person”. (Again I acquiesce to all creedal expresssions, only withholding personal expression as it pertains to my eventual presentations of Multi-Phenomenality and Uni-Hypostaticism for Theology Proper..

So, given the human nature assumed by the Divine Logos was not individuated (re: anhypostasis), would you say that what was taken up was an "impersonal hypostasis"?

AMR

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

So, given the human nature assumed by the Divine Logos was not individuated (re: anhypostasis), would you say that what was taken up was an "impersonal hypostasis"?

AMR

No, I wouldn’t begin to dare say that at all. As a singular hypostasis, there’s no manner in which one aspect (divinity) would be considered personal and another aspect (humanity) would be considered impersonal. The hypostasis is indivisible in that manner, though there were two natures undivided and unmixed.

This is where Multi-Phenomenality must be applied rather than multiple hypostases; and all while avoiding any hint or gradient of Sabellian or Arian or Tritheistic implications.

God cannot be counted in a cardinal manner of quantification. He is beyond ennumeration. He is beyond one, though that singularity is the only manner in which we may authentically speak of Him according to human language.

The elephant in the room has always been, and continues to be, the ennumeration of the alleged hypostases. My efforts are to resolve that quandry and contradiction in a manner similar to Basil and the Cappadocians; NOT to challenge orthodoxy in the matter whatsoever. I’m speaking of a better expression and formulaic with a distinct lexical understanding that was never considered (and thus never anathematized).

If a council of peers capable of evaluating my presentations would examine the content and point up that it is indeed a problematic departure from orthodoxy, I would immediately recant in true repentance. So this is not me holding out for some extant heresy from the ancient past in differing terms as a masquerade. It’s a true attempt to present a reconicliation of all those heretical tangents by providing a superior eventual hermeneutic that embraces all the Patristics were trying to say, both cataphatically and apophatically.

This has always been my trajectory, though not always my outward behavior. The latter has been tempered, and is still being so by the Holy Spirit and the Word.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

^ *cardinal. (Not capital. God cannot be counted as ennumeration in a cardinal manner. Hen, neuter; not heis.)

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

And I think the potentially simplest and most direct way to express my concerns regarding modern conceptualizations about the Trinity is that most moderns think of God as TRIune rather than triUNE. The cardinal three-ness has become so preeminent (largely because of the English term “person”) that most are unable to see the authentic one-ness (not UPC one-ness/Jesus Only) of God (AS Spirit) and His eternal (literal, not merely titular) Logos; and thus they also embrace a Christology that is Nestorian to either a kenotic or docetic extreme.

 

[Idolater]

But most won’t comprehend that you’re trying to exclude these, and will likely contend that you are excluding some aspect of the Gospel. Especially if you’re talking about the heretical MADists on TOL.

It's not just the Dispies who resist my contention though, plenty of Clavinists do too. I believe the whole Gospel/the whole Word of God, to be clear, but what I'm saying is that, if you're going to summarize the Gospel, then most everybody includes 1st Corinthians 15:3-4 KJV, Christ's Passion for our sins, along with His Resurrection. My reasoning is simple. Only one of these is just an impartial fact of history, His Resurrection. What His Passion and Resurrection mean, is theological in nature, and not historical, at least not impartially. Whether or not the Resurrection occurred, while believing that it did has religious implications, is a question for historians as much as for Christians. The theology surrounding this historical event is not the bailiwick of history, but of Christian religion.

So since I don't accept that saving faith must depend upon any more theology than Romans 10:9 KJV indicates; namely, that we must think of Christ as our 'Lord,' which at minimum means, that He is not our peer in every sense, but that He is our superior; I conclude, combined with Paul's argument that the Resurrection is the faith's 'sine qua non' (1Co15:14KJV etc.), that saving faith Is believing that Jesus of Nazareth is risen from the dead, full stop.

I’d have to say that’s quite broad, and might need additional qualifications.

It is exceptionally broad, yes. Here's a question: Can you honestly believe that person who believes that Christ is risen from the dead, is Not a Christian? In some way? I just cannot conceive of a person who believes that Jesus is risen from the dead, but who is not in some way, shape, or form, my sibling in Christ; no matter how otherwise wayward. otoh, people who somehow believe in Christianity but who don't think the Resurrection is nonfiction, they are not the same as me.

To whom much is given, much is required. This means (on the opposite edge of the sword) that to whom much is NOT given, much is NOT required. Anyone in the modern western world with access to the voluminous resources available in modernity has been given much. The modern west is the most widely literate culture ever, though according to the lowest-context languages ever.

I prefer low-context language, after having considered it, since you've raised the issue some years ago. I think it makes for clearer communication, because ambiguity is easier to avoid/prevent.

But at the same time, I've come to realize that while English may be a lower context language, it is inherently rife with ambiguity, due to rampant homonymy. We've come to accept as normal, our dictionaries having multiple definitions for word entries. These are not 'different definitions for the same word,' but are actually different homonyms, and the context must be inspected to determine which homonym the author is using, which is something that we native English speakers do automatically, so it is something that we resist when we hear that our language is inherently very ambiguous, because in many ways, it just isn't that ambiguous at all, for us native English speakers.

Confer 'the' word 'set.' It's claimed to be the word in English with 'the most definitions,' but I see it as the most popular homonym. Each definition of 'set' is a different 'set,' is my position.

So I’d contend that your assertions need a measure of refining.

I grant as much. I devote some of my work to that very thing.

If someone can spend the time and energy to know everything about their vocation or hobby in intricate detail, then they are culpable for their theological illiteracy.

Well, I also see the other side of the coin. Not everyone was gifted with a natural theological interest. Now you and I and most others on TOL were gifted thusly, and we work here on TOL to try to determine correct theology, through arguing and insulting and sometimes civilly debating, but always working accidentally together to further the field. We alone know that theology is the study of the highest things that concern humanity, and it is thankless. We know that it is the highest pursuit because everybody from other fields, whenever they attempt to enter the fray, are always dispatched with great ease. People learned in their fields sometimes come to realize that in order to make a lasting difference, they must address theological questions, and so they come here or other discussion boards to make a go at it, and they find that the very peaks of their own profession, only serves as the doormat of the halls of theology, where their expertise in medicine, or law, or science/cosmology only goes so far, and no farther, into the discussions.

It's interesting to me that the Catholic Church teaches the sin of 'sloth' doesn't only apply to physical laziness, but more importantly, to a religious sloth, a lack of trying, in matters of faith and morals.

Faith is a thing given by God, as is repentance (the NOUN), and just as grace is by His inclination alone. Man cannot work up the act of believING. Faith itself believes. Without faith and repentance and grace and other nouns, man has no means of taking action. That’s the very Philological foundation for the Christian faith and all else.

It doesn’t mean man doesn’t choose. It means man’s choice is enabled by God alone.

So would you consider yourself 'Semi-Pelagian,' or 'Augustinian,' or something else? Is it like wanting to possess the faith that believes the Gospel, and God grants faith to those who desire to possess it, but we can't actually believe it, unless it is given to us?

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

At the risk of having so many of us renting our shirts and throwing dust in the air at such blasphemy, there is no doubt where Jerry stands:

It was as Man that the Lord Jesus came down from heaven. That means that He was Man before He was born of Mary.And this verse teaches practically the same thing:

"What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" (Jn.6:62).​

The Lord Jesus was in heaven as Man before He came down to earth and was born of Mary.

It was as Man that the Lord Jesus came down from heaven. That means that He was Man before He was born of Mary.

We also know that the Lord Jesus Himself said this:

"What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" (Jn.6:62).​

So by the Lord's own words He was in heaven as Man before He came down to the earth and was born of Mary.

The Lord Jesus as Man and as God existed in eternity. So neither nature was dependant on the other. After all, we see that the Lord Jesus does not change:

"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" (Heb.13:8).​

So by the Lord's own words He was in heaven as Man before He came down to the earth and was born of Mary.

The Lord Jesus has always been both God and Man. So that Human was not created.

Is that all you can say after I presented you the evidence that the Lord Jesus existed as Man before He was born of Mary?

...and so many more in the same thread above.

Sadly, Jerry is hung up, erroneously, on "Son of Man" usage in Scripture:
http://theologyonline.com/showthread.php?74351-Our-triune-God&p=4358561&viewfull=1#post4358561

Read and heed, Jerry:

Spoiler

Our Lord was (is) fully God and fully man in an indissoluble union whereby the second subsistence of the Trinity assumed a human nature that cannot be separated, divided, mixed, or confused.


One can best understand this mystical union (hypostatic union, together united in one distinguishable subsistence) by examining what it is not, thus from the process of elimination determine what it must be.


The mystical union of the divine and human natures of Our Lord is not:


1. a denial that our Lord was truly God (Ebionites, Elkasites, Arians);
2. a dissimilar or different substance (anomoios) with the Father (semi-Arianism);
3. a denial that our Lord had a genuine human soul (Apollinarians);
4. a denial of a distinct subsistence in the Trinity (Dynamic Monarchianism);
5. God acting merely in the forms of the Son and Spirit (Modalistic Monarchianism/Sabellianism/United Pentecostal Church);
6. a mixture or change when the two natures were united (Eutychianism/Monophysitism);
7. two distinct subsistences (often called persons) (Nestorianism);
8. a denial of the true humanity of Christ (docetism);
9. a view that God the Son laid aside all or some of His divine attributes (kenoticism);
10. a view that there was a communication of the attributes between the divine and human natures (Lutheranism's genus maiestaticum, with respect to the Lord's Supper); and
11. a view that our Lord existed independently as a human before God entered His body (Adoptionism).


The Chalcedonian Definition is one of the few statements that all of orthodox Christendom recognizes as the most faithful summary of the teachings of the Scriptures on the matter of the Incarnate Christ. The Chalcedonian Definition was the answer to the many heterodoxies identified above during the third century.

AMR