ECT Our triune God

[TFTn5280]

... and love is not relational, it's ontological. God IS love. ... it's the willful direction of His desire toward His inevitable creation as He who exists to covenant.

... the two-fold singular procession of God's Logos and Pneuma into creation when/as it was instantiated into existence from noumenon into phenomenon demonstrates that ...

Beza couldn't have said it better himself...

Nor Kant for that matter.

I'll be tracking your and aMR's discussion with great interest.

Cheers

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Beza couldn't have said it better himself...

Nor Kant for that matter.

I'll be tracking your and aMR's discussion with great interest.

Cheers

This is beyond disappointing. I was truly hoping you would address my comments and questions regarding your presumptions and assertions to demonstrate scriptural foundation for them rather than acquired conceptualization.

It would have been better than likening me to non-peers who don't represent my understanding in the least. (Beza and Kant? Seriously? I'm not even Reformed, and I reject several foundational Augustinian fallacies, including his version of Original Sin.)

Would you do that, please? Would you address my points after first providing scriptural exegesis for the pre-existence of multiple hypostases that can be contrasted to the ousia?

As I've indicated, personal pronouns, arthrous substantives, pros accusatives, and the Comma Johanneum aren't sufficient to do so, even in aggregate.

 

[TFTn5280]

Would you address my points after first providing scriptural exegesis for the pre-existence of multiple hypostases that can be contrasted to the ousia?

I, unlike you, do not consider the Patristics the first word on the matter; that I reserve for Scripture (although as I have told you, I have great respect for them, especially Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen).

Nor, unlike you, do I consider mine to be the last word on the same matter; that I also reserve for Scripture.

So I do not feel compelled either by you or the Patristics to find biblical support for their or your terminology.

That said, when I read the NT I see an affectionate exchange which takes place between the Son and the Father and the Father and the Son and from them to us through the Holy Spirit. That exchange is Divine, relational, and best defined as loving. Yes, love is ontological: God IS love, precisely because he IS relational. But deny that perichoretic flow and what remains is a God who must create in order to BE what he IS, as exemplified in your definition of his love: love being the "willful direction of His desire toward His inevitable creation as He who exists to covenant." He who exists to Covenant? With whom would he covenant relative to eternity, were it not for the inner-relations of the hypostases?

BTW, I will accept your suggestion that the Greek does not explicitly attribute hypostasis to the three (I haven't taken time to research it myself), but I will not accept a charge that that must therefore determine that the three are not distinct hypostasis/es. I see more evidence in the inner-relations of Jesus with his Father to suggest distinct hypostasis than to the contrary: "My God, my God, why hath thou forsaken me?"

As I take their relationship with me back to the OT, I see, as I have said elsewhere, things like the plural identifiers "Elohim" for God and "Adonai," the Hebrew substitute for YHWH. I see them declaring, "Let us make humankind in our image." And I see Moses using echad to describe not only the unity of evening and morning, one day; and the unity of a husband and wife, one flesh, but also to speak to the unity of a complexity in Yahweh: "Here, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is echad." All of that to say, I see not three God's but one, his ousia revealed to us only by the inseparable union of the hypostases.

That is to say, of course the hypostases underlie his ousia, but when we look up to him, we see first the hypostases and only through them into the ousia of God.

I hope this is helpful,

T

 

[TFTn5280]

PPS defines God as a singular transcendent hypostasis underlying an ousia, his Logos and Pneuma being the two-fold ~ while also singular ~ procession of his hypostasis into creation when and as He spoke to create. His “knowledge” of God begins in the book of Genesis and extrapolates outwardly from there. I would assert that this is very consistent with Latin Christianity after the time of Augustine to Aquinas to and through the Reformation to himself. I would also assert that it is consistent with most of your, the readers of this post, knowledge and thus definitions of God; that being, your knowledge of God begins in the OT with Genesis 1.1 and grows from there.

I define God as a multi-hypostasis underlying ousia, consisting of Father and Son, the union and perichoretic procession of whom is the Holy Spirit, as revealed to us in the inner-personal relations of Jesus with his heavenly Father: my premise being that there is but one Mediator of truth between God and humanity, and thus humanity and God, he being Jesus Christ. That is to say, there is no true knowledge of God apart from his Son. Hence my knowledge of God begins in the NT in the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth and moves up and out from there. As such I follow a different stream in the flow of Christian history, that being the one which begins in the Eastern, Greek speaking Church and flows through the Patristics to and through numerous Western theologians, as well as Eastern Orthodoxy, including John Mcleod Campbell to Karl Barth to Thomas F. Torrance to and through his students to me.

Whose definition is better? You can answer that one yourselves. I am very content to stay where I am. But this I know. PPS starts with an impersonal Word and Spirit, the God above speaking and blowing his creation into existence. There he stays, with unwavering insistence upon language specific, precise formulations, to the refusal and exclusion of personal relational language, and thereby, relationships: his God a reflection of who he is himself as a person.

I start with an inseparably close personal relationship between the only one who is qualified to speak to the reality of God: Jesus Christ and His Father; Christ Jesus, in his incarnate person, being my Mediator in such a way that he contains both sides of the mediating relationship, he being God of God and human of human in one and the same person. He the image of God reveals both upwardly and outwardly as he relates to his Father and to me in precise, definite language, uniting us all in inseparable relations, relations which become my definition of God, and of myself as a person.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

I, unlike you, do not consider the Patristics the first word on the matter;

They may not be the LAST word on the matter, but I'm unsure who else could be validly considered the FIRST word on the matter. This is kinda pointless.

that I reserve for Scripture (although as I have told you, I have great respect for them, especially Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen).

You don't consider scripture the first (or last) word on the matter or you'd adhere to the available terms and their quantity represented in scripture rather than resorting to conceptual inference and speculative assertion.

Nor, unlike you, do I consider mine to be the last word on the same matter; that I also reserve for Scripture.

Unlike you, scripture as the last word IS my last word; so they're the same, as I've divested my opinion for that truth.

So I do not feel compelled either by you or the Patristics to find biblical support for their or your terminology.

Their terminology was based on scripture, so unlike you I'm compelled by scripture.

Scripture gives us... A hypostasis for God. An ousia for God. The Logos (not the Son) in the beginning, and becoming flesh. Jesus as a prosopon, and the express image OF God's hypostasis.

A hypostasis underlies an ousia; the ousia does not "have" the hypostasis. The latter is Neo-Platonism and is close to Valentinian Gnosticism in nomenclature.

That said, when I read the NT I see an affectionate exchange which takes place between the Son and the Father and the Father and the Son and from them to us through the Holy Spirit. That exchange is Divine, relational, and best defined as loving.

Please cite these examples of first-person interaction between Father and Son in scripture; especially any that are relative to pre-existence rather than the Incarnation when the Son took on a human nature and had a human rational soul while being authentically and fully both human and divine.

Yes, love is ontological: God IS love, precisely because he IS relational.

Doing comes from being. There can "be" no expression of love without its ontological reality. You have it inverted. Economy ( energies) succeed ontology (essence). One cannot do to be. God didn't do relational love to BE love.

But deny that perichoretic flow and what remains is a God who must create in order to BE what he IS, as exemplified in your definition of his love: love being the "willful direction of His desire toward His inevitable creation as He who exists to covenant."

No. See the above. Because God IS love, He created. He DID according to His BEING, which is love. Again, you have this inverted.

He who exists to Covenant? With whom would he covenant throughout eternity, were it not for the inner-relations of the hypostases?

Throughout eternity? Eternity is created and had a beginning. God is inherently timeless, so there is no "throughout" eternity relative His pre-existent UNcreated transcendent Self-existence. You're thinking of post-creation as transcendence.

You make God's ontology dependent upon economy. And you have NO scriptural substantiation for multiple hypostases beyond contrived inference for an eisegetic concept based upon predetermined dogma (which you yourself challenge in every manner).

Your basis is your own logic to produce content (rhema) from your own concepts (logos). Backwards again.

BTW, I will accept your suggestion that the Greek does not explicitly attribute hypostasis to the three (I haven't taken time to research it myself),

Then this brings us to an abrupt end of anything that could be considered an exegetical apologetic for your postulations. And I'm genuinely shocked that someone with your exposure to formalized information wouldn't know that there aren't three hypostases in the text.

but I will not accept a charge that that must therefore determine that the three are not distinct hypostasis/es.

And yet you, like all before you, quantify an immeasurable and indivisible God into these three perichoresised "parts"; and this from immanent creation relative to an inherently transcendent God. Wow.

I see more evidence in the inner-relations of Jesus with his Father to suggest distinct hypostasis than to the contrary: "My God, my God, why hath thou forsaken me?"

All of historical O/orthodoxy would legitimately recognize this example as the rational soul of the humanity (in accord with His divinity) of Theanthropos interacting with God as His Father

As I take their relationship with me back to the OT, I see, as I have said elsewhere, things like the plural identifiers "Elohim" for God and "Adonai," the Hebrew substitute for YHWH. I see them declaring, "Let us make humankind in our image." And I see Moses using echad to describe not only the unity of evening and morning, one day; and the unity of a husband and wife, one flesh, but also to speak to the unity of a complexity in Yahweh: "Here, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is echad." All of that to say, I see not three God's but one, his ousia revealed to us only by the inseparable union of the hypostases.

And I think if you're honest, you'll admit that's all you've looked for and haven't searched for much else because you can't even fathom what I'm now presenting.

And what does three ousios have to do with anything? And yet... Three hypostasis that are inter-relational would require inherent eternal multiple minds/wills, which would indicate multiple souls which would BE multiple ousios.

Uh-oh.

That is to say, of course the hypostases underlie his ousia, but when we look up to him, we see first the hypostases and only through them the ousia of God.

This is at odds with your intermittent expression of the ousia "having" the (alleged) hypostases.

I hope this is helpful,

T

It helps me see you've randomly reconfigured the existing formulaic without considering many layers of paradox.

Your God has no means of creating and inhabiting His creation; meanwhile having a being that depends upon doing.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

PPS defines God as a singular transcendent hypostasis underlying an ousia, his Logos and Pneuma being the two-fold ~ while also singular ~ procession of his hypostasis into creation when and as He spoke to create. His “knowledge” of God begins in the book of Genesis and extrapolates outwardly from there. I would assert that this is very consistent with Latin Christianity after the time of Augustine to Aquinas to and through the Reformation to himself. I would also assert that it is consistent with most of your, the readers of this post, knowledge and thus definitions of God; that being, your knowledge of God begins in the OT with Genesis 1.1 and grows from there.

Wholly incorrect and misrepresentational, though assuredly not intentional.

I define God as a multi-hypostasis ousia, consisting of Father and Son, the union and perichoretic procession of whom is the Holy Spirit,

This is Neo-Platonism.

as revealed to us in the inner-personal relations of Jesus with his heavenly Father:

Pending any scriptural examples of first-person interaction of the alleged hypostases relative to anything but the Incarnation and the rational soul of the humanity of Theanthropos.

my premise being that there is but one Mediator of truth between God and humanity, and thus humanity and God, he being Jesus Christ. That is to say, there is no true knowledge of God apart from his Son. Hence my knowledge of God begins in the NT in the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth and moves up and out from there. As such I follow a different stream in the flow of Christian history, that being the one which begins in the Eastern, Greek speaking Church and flows through the Patristics to and through numerous Western theologians, as well as Eastern Orthodoxy, including John Mcleod Campbell to Karl Barth to Thomas F. Torrance to and through his students to me.

Not really, but you're somehow convinced of that grid.

Whose definition is better? You can answer that one yourselves. I am very content to stay where I am. But this I know. PPS starts with an impersonal Word and Spirit,

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop caricaturing and assigning my position according to your premature misrepresentations. And there's nothing MORE personal than a hypostasis, which is outwardly presented by a prosopon (PERSON) which "has" the hypostasis. The Logos and Pneuma of a God ARE His hypostasis (qualitatively distinct from God's inherent phenomenological hypostasis as being both phenomenological AND noumenological).

The Logos and Pneuma are utterly and wholly "personal".

the God above

Above? Above is a spatial reference. God is inherently transcendent to "wheres" as spatial references.

You don't understand the Self-existence of God, assigning Him spatiality.

speaking and blowing his creation into existence.

Not at all as you depict. The Logos isn't merely the act of speaking, nor is it a mere fiat.

There he stays, with unwavering insistence upon language specific, precise formulations, to the refusal and exclusion of personal relational language, and thereby, relationships: his God a reflection of who he is himself as a person.

Wow, what an erroneous caricature. I'm not sure there's enough server space for the necessary rebuttal of this exponential misperception.

You've so misrepresented what I've initially begun to convey, I don't know if there's sufficient chronological time left in creation to correct the asserted fallacies.

I start with an inseparably close personal relationship between the only one who is qualified to speak to the reality of God: Jesus Christ and His Father; Christ Jesus, in his incarnate person, being my Mediator in such a way that he contains both sides of the mediating relationship, he being God of God and human of human in one and the same person. He the image of God reveals both upwardly and outwardly as he relates to his Father and to me in precise, definite language, uniting us all in inseparable relations, relations which become my definition of God, and of myself as a person.

This is but a concept as rhetoric, representing little more than bare assertion as opinion that can't even be converted to exegesis and presented as a valid apologetic.

I'm truly shocked with disappointment. Rather than this being a contest, I'd thought it to be a rare opportunity to converse with someone who grasped the necessary terms and meanings, and also had the courage to challenge the status quo in a reconciliatory manner.

I blame Fuller. Fuller did this to you. You really should know the truth about your alma matter, but I doubt you'd receive it.

All I really wanted from you was a summary scriptural framework of your formulaic. I don't respond to low-context-based concepts that self-produce content. I only hear God's Rhema, from which faith comes.

Your concept is Triadist/Tritheistic, though you could never see that.

Be blessed and have a great week.

 

[TFTn5280]

I wrote: PPS starts with an impersonal Word and Spirit, the God above speaking and blowing his creation into existence.

Above? Above is a spatial reference. God is inherently transcendent to "wheres" as spatial references.

Symbolism. Silly me, I simply meant as it relates to an "underlying" hypostasis (which of course is non-spatial too).

 

[TFTn5280]

Your God has no means of creating and inhabiting His creation; meanwhile having a being that depends upon doing.

Well ... Bye

 

[TFTn5280]

This is at odds with your intermittent expression of the ousia "having" the (alleged) hypostases.

A hypostasis underlies an ousia; the ousia does not "have" the hypostasis. The latter is Neo-Platonism and is close to Valentinian Gnosticism in nomenclature.

I have in no way intended to convey an ousia "having" hypostases. Being misrepresentational? T.F. Torrance, "The Trinitarian Faith" You might ought to read it.

Please cite these examples of first-person interaction between Father and Son in scripture; especially any that are relative to pre-existence rather than the Incarnation when the Son took on a human nature and had a human rational soul while being authentically and fully both human and divine.

John 17:5 "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

"Rather than the incarnation"? There is no knowledge of God other than that which came to us in the Incarnation.

John 6:44-46 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father."

"Have I been with you so long, ... He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (Joh 14.9).

Throughout eternity? Eternity is created and had a beginning.

Oh? I am speaking of aidos. Did you not yourself say, "there is clear distinction between eternal (aidios: without beginning or end) [and] everlasting (aionios: having a beginning, but without end)"?

God is inherently timeless, so there is no "throughout" eternity relative His pre-existent UNcreated transcendent Self-existence. You're thinking of post-creation as transcendence.

To the contrary, I am aware that prior to light and matter there was no time.

 

[TFTn5280]

I wrote: There he stays, with unwavering insistence upon language specific, precise formulations, to the refusal and exclusion of personal relational language, and thereby, relationships: his God a reflection of who he is himself as a person.

To which you respond.

Wow, what an erroneous caricature.

:nono: I am in no way trying to mischaracterize you. Have you not listened to your readers? I simply draw a synthesis from that which you say relative to God and the way in which you treat those subject to you. My sincere apologizes if in doing so I have created an erroneous caricature of you.

 

[TFTn5280]

I blame Fuller. Fuller did this to you. You really should know the truth about your alma matter, but I doubt you'd receive it.

Be blessed and have a great week.

I invite you to do this via a private exchange. I am genuinely open to learning relative to pertinent information.

You have a great week too,

Blessings,

T

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

I wrote: PPS starts with an impersonal Word and Spirit, the God above speaking and blowing his creation into existence.

But you have the paradox of determining who spoke at the creative utterance. Most multi-hypostatic Trinitarians don't realize what a quandary this is.

Is the Logos spoken or does the Logos speak?

And it's always odd how Ho Logos is just a meaningless title to conventional Trinitarians for the Son.

The Apostle John clearly indicates Ho Logos (the Word) was with and was a God, not Ho Huios (the Son).

Symbolism. Silly me, I simply meant as it relates to an "underlying" hypostasis (which of course is non-spatial too).

Speaking reflects thinking. Time/space/matter terms can't be randomly applied to transcendence.

Well ... Bye

My observation was correct. You can't account for the means of God creating and inhabiting that creation, which includes the created everlasting realm of "heaven" and eternity as its durative endless time property.

And I'm confused why you would here bid me farewell and then make three more posts. Again, it may seem I'm being terse by my style, but I'm not.

I have in no way intended to convey an ousia "having" hypostases.

A multi-hypostasis ousia is what you expressed. That's what I was referring to, and it indicates an ousia "having" multiple hypostases.

Being misrepresentational? T.F. Torrance, "Trinitarian Theology" You might ought to read it.

I'm not much of a fan of most more modern treatments of the Trinity, which end up being conceptual rhetoric from English-based thought and preference.

John 17:5 "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

"Glory with" is hardly relationally interactive. I see no first-person reciprocal relationship, only directional prayer from Theanthropos mentioning a proximity.

"Rather than the incarnation"? There is no knowledge of God other than that which came to us in the Incarnation.

Exactly my point. So why would you so elaborately extrapolate an eternal transcendent relationality that you insist is represented in scripture, and build an entire concept of love as God DOING to BE?

John 6:44-46 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father."

"Sent" and "seen" don't represent much intimate relational eternal interactivity you insist upon as scriptural and the foundation for God's Self-existence and ontology of love.

"Have I been with you so long, ... He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (Joh 14.9).

Looks more genuinely equivocal (and referencing third-party observation) than relational.

Your concept doesn't appear to be predicated upon scripture at all, which is why I always ask for such scripture. God is most often addressing us with any mention of the Son.

Can you provide examples of the Father speaking to the Son or Holy Spirit? Or of the Son and Holy Spirit speaking to each other? I'd be very interested in seeing those passages.

Oh? I am speaking of aidos. Did you not yourself say, "there is clear distinction between eternal (aidios: without beginning or end) [and] everlasting (aionios: having a beginning, but without end)"?

Right, and there is no "throughout" for God's innate eternality (which you refer to as eternity), as that's another durative time term applied to timelessness. There is no time component to eternality (an adjectival noun).

The problem is the English terms eternal and eternity. The former is aidios, but is most often used to depict aionios.

In math terms...
God, and God alone, is eternal. Line. No beginning/no end. Aidios.
Heaven is everlasting. Ray. Beginning/no end. Aionios.
The cosmos is temporal. Line segment. Beginning/end. Aion(s).

Eternity is most often applied to heaven, and then also applied to God. But God is timeless (aidios) and heaven had an inception and some form of durative endless time (aionios). Both are, unfortunately, referred to in English as eternity (noun), while eternal (adjective) can only be applied to God. (There is no "eternity past".)

God, as aidios, created aionios.

To the contrary, I am aware that prior to light and matter there was no time.

I think you acknowledge it, but you don't really understand what it really entails.

God created the intangible realm along with the tangible realm, and He inhabited them both when/as He instantiated them into existence.

The internal processions of the multi-hypostatic Trinity cannot account for creation, and ex-/ek- are external. Your a God has no means of creating and entering immanence from His transcendent Self-existence.

You've run headlong into the singular omission of the Patristics, and why there were other formulaics competing for orthodoxy. There is only one answer, and it requires understanding what God's Rhema and Logos actually are.

I wrote: There he stays, with unwavering insistence upon language specific, precise formulations, to the refusal and exclusion of personal relational language, and thereby, relationships: his God a reflection of who he is himself as a person.

To which you respond.

:nono: I am in no way trying to mischaracterize you. Have you not listened to your readers? I simply draw a synthesis from that which you say relative to God and the way in which you treat those subject to you. My sincere apologizes if in doing so I have created an erroneous caricature of you.

I was simply informing you of your caricature of what I've expressed. It's difficult for others with two-dimensional thought to convert to three-dimensional thought.

I invite you to do this via a private exchange. I am genuinely open to learning relative to pertinent information.

You have a great week too,

Blessings,

T

Okay.

 

[TFTn5280]

And I'm confused why you would here bid me farewell and then make three more posts. Again, it may seem I'm being terse by my style, but I'm not.

My intent was indicative of demonstrating that if you summarily discount my doctrine of God, what is left but a bid farewell? Sorry for the miscommunication on my part.

A multi-hypostasis ousia is what you expressed.

I again apologize for any miscommunications on my part. I have since edited that statement to better reflect the underlying aspect of hypostasis. Thanks for pointing out the deficiency in my prose.


As pertains to T.F. Torrance:

I'm not much of a fan of most more modern treatments of the Trinity, which end up being conceptual rhetoric from English-based thought and preference.

I suggest that your reluctance opens the door to subtle, and yet undetected, historic influences from pervasive theologies/philosophies in our inheritance relative to Church history. No offence, but I detect Augustinianism in your doctrines of God and humanity both, and you as being deeply saturated in Federal Calvinism, even in your rejection of Reformed theology, as well influenced by Kantian categories of thought. Again, no offence. If not identified and addressed, all of us are subject to inherited influences in regards to our thought processes. They are indeed our presuppositions. Theology/philosophy may be conceived on mountain tops, but there the snow melts and their waters run down stream to us, where we drink of that water unsuspectingly. Again, you really should be reading T.F. Torrance. He is/was contemporary theology's premier historical theologian, having written many hundreds of pages on such topics as Patristic theology, historic Doctrines of God and the Person of Jesus Christ, and the flow of those doctrines "down stream" to us. He edited both the translations of Calvin's commentaries and Barth's Dogmatics into English. Perhaps a primer would be more up your alley: "The Mediation of Christ."

"Glory with" is hardly relationally interactive. I see no first-person reciprocal relationship ...

I read Jesus quite differently than you. His prayer is deeply personal, his desires for us deeply relational and just as personal. The "glory" he experienced beforehand was absolutely relational in terms of physis, i.e., "substance" or "nature." That you are unable to pick up on this is disconcerting to me.

Exactly my point. So why would you so elaborately extrapolate an eternal transcendent relationality that you insist is represented in scripture, and build an entire concept of love as God DOING to BE?

See above:

Can you provide examples of the Father speaking to the Son or Holy Spirit? Or of the Son and Holy Spirit speaking to each other? I'd be very interested in seeing those passages.

No. Other than, "This is my Son in whom I am well pleased." Edit: And being the perichoretic of Father and Son both, the "Holy" Spirit never speaks in first hand. If he speaks at all, it is the voice of the Father or the Son that we are hearing.

The problem is the English terms eternal and eternity. The former is aidios, but is most often used to depict aionios...God, as aidios, created aionios.

Agreed.

Again I wish you farewell and peace,

T

Okay.

 

[TFTn5280]

PPS, I thought the following encouragement from Karl Barth may be appropriate to you:

"The inexplicable solitude of theology and the theologian has definite consequences. Often enough, the theologian will experience visible proofs or justifications for his feeling that he stands alone in this calling. He alone seems involved in what we described in the second series of these lectures as the wonderment, concern, and commitment that make a man a theologian. Even in the community and, worst of all, among all too many of his fellow theologians, the theologian seems to stand and persevere alone. Perhaps he is not so completely alone as he, at especially troubled moments, may assume! . . . The real cause, however, for the loneliness of the man concerned with theology is the special theological thinking that is invariably demanded of him. What leads him again and again into solitude is precisely the special character of the intellectus fidei. How could there be, even among those who have been freed from faith, a great many men ready and able to appropriate the sole possible method for the performance of the intellectus fidei? How should very many ever be willing to make the turn of 180 degrees that is required, not just once, but every day anew? . . . If the theologian is really concerned about theology, he should not regret having to swim against the stream of fellow theologians and non-theological opinions and methods. If the results of his work are not to be trivialities, he dare not feel sorry about the pain and the cost of enduring a continuous solitude" (Evangelical Theology, pp 115 – 118).

 

[TFTn5280]

BTW, PPS, in Acts 2.25, Jesus is identified as the Yahweh of the OT Scriptures. Hence in the OT, there we see much love and concern in his Covenantal relations with Israel, he being Go'el, the Kinsmen Redeemer of His people. No, this is not first person one-on-one with his Father but it is certainly a reflection of the relational aspect at the "heart" of God for Israel and by extension all of humanity.

How too, may I ask, should Jesus Christ's Mediation of us to the Father be relationally personal and his Mediation of God to us be any less so? When he prays that his disciples be one with the Father as he and the Father are one with each other, how could that inclusion be not personal and relational in character? His relationship with them was certainly deeply relational. It is appropriate to project in the statements, "I am in the Father and he in me," and "I and the Father are one," that the Son is relationally of the same Spirit with the Father that he is with humanity; that being deeply personal.

I just think you are missing it on this one.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

My intent was indicative of demonstrating that if you summarily discount my doctrine of God, what is left but a bid farewell? Sorry for the miscommunication on my part.

Since there is only one truth and only one means by which the one true transcendent God instantiated into existence all of creation, simultaneously inhabiting the heavenly realm for all everlasting, yours isn't the only formulaic that must be summarily dismissed.

The universal problem is the procession/s and the Logos being merely a title, and not knowing what God's a Rhema is.

I again apologize for any miscommunications on my part. I have since edited that statement to better reflect the underlying aspect of hypostasis. Thanks for pointing out the deficiency in my prose.

Good correction.

As pertains to T.F. Torrance:

I suggest that your reluctance opens the door to subtle, and yet undetected, historic influences from pervasive theologies/philosophies in our inheritance relative to Church history.

No. I've spent more time and energy in divestiture of such as apophatic ism than in the pursuits of cataphatic formulation. And The foundation is nullifying the effects of low-context language on my heart and mind.

No offence, but I detect Augustinianism in your doctrines of God and humanity both, and you as being deeply saturated in Federal Calvinism, even in your rejection of Reformed theology,

LOL. Nope. Augustine is, IMHO, among the worst blights on the historical Christian faith. He is grandfather of the Filioque and the progenitor of an egregious foundational version of original sin. I am just short of despising him, actually.

as well influenced by Kantian categories of thought.

Kant was, again IMHO, completely illiterate as both a philosopher and theologian. Among those who consider themselves my direct disciples, two are Post-grad Comp Lit students who just happened to be with me when I was residing your post about Kant last evening. We were eating and they nearly spewed their food laughing when I read your post to them. They have both read Kant and a bazillion others and confirmed Adamantly that all I have in common with him is that we are both Homo sapiens (presuming Kant is, of course...LOL).

So... No. Not even close.

Again, no offence. If not identified and addressed, all of us are subject to inherited influences in regards to our thought processes.

As I said, I've spent more time and energy doing so than in deep study of lexicography, which is my source rather than period authors and their influences. The latter reflects your approach, presuming it to be mine.

They are indeed our presuppositions. Theology/philosophy may be conceived on mountain tops, but there the snow melts and their waters run down stream to us, where we drink of that water unsuspectingly. Again, you really should be reading T.F. Torrance.

No. I should be continually reading scripture and lexicography rather than a man's authored works.

He is/was contemporary theology's premier historical theologian, having written many hundreds of pages on such topics as Patristic theology, historic Doctrines of God and the Person of Jesus Christ, and the flow of those doctrines "down stream" to us.

I'll take God's Rhema over his or any man's logos.

He edited both the translations of Calvin's commentaries and Barth's Dogmatics into English. Perhaps a primer would be more up your alley: "The Mediation of Christ."

Thanks, but no.

I read Jesus quite differently than you. His prayer is deeply personal,

Of course it's deeply personal. He's the very processed hypostasis of the transcendent God. You simply can't grasp what I've begun to convey.

his desires for us deeply relational and just as personal. The "glory" he experienced beforehand was absolutely relational in terms of physis, i.e., "substance" or "nature." That you are unable to pick up on this is disconcerting to me.

I do. You don't know what I'm saying because of your two-dimensional comprehension. The Son is distinct from the Father in every way you represent; just not an individuated hypostasis.

See above:

No. Other than, "This is my Son in whom I am well pleased."

Right. This should affect your concept-based eisegetic, but it seldom does. I understand. I was a conventional Trinitarian for 28 years. Lost without Christ.

Edit: And being the perichoretic of Father and Son both,

And you'll never be able to even remotely exegete this beyond the bare assertion you present. No-go.

the "Holy" Spirit never speaks in first hand. If he speaks at all, it is the voice of the Father or the Son that we are hearing.

Ahhhh. Celestial ventriloquism. It's hard to argue with that.

Agreed.

But without knowing what it entails. I know. I deal with it all the time.

Again I wish you farewell and peace,

T

Same-same. Glory to our God and Savior Jesus Christ the Righteous.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

PPS, I thought the following encouragement from Karl Barth may be appropriate to you:

"The inexplicable solitude of theology and the theologian has definite consequences. Often enough, the theologian will experience visible proofs or justifications for his feeling that he stands alone in this calling. He alone seems involved in what we described in the second series of these lectures as the wonderment, concern, and commitment that make a man a theologian. Even in the community and, worst of all, among all too many of his fellow theologians, the theologian seems to stand and persevere alone. Perhaps he is not so completely alone as he, at especially troubled moments, may assume! . . . The real cause, however, for the loneliness of the man concerned with theology is the special theological thinking that is invariably demanded of him. What leads him again and again into solitude is precisely the special character of the intellectus fidei. How could there be, even among those who have been freed from faith, a great many men ready and able to appropriate the sole possible method for the performance of the intellectus fidei? How should very many ever be willing to make the turn of 180 degrees that is required, not just once, but every day anew? . . . If the theologian is really concerned about theology, he should not regret having to swim against the stream of fellow theologians and non-theological opinions and methods. If the results of his work are not to be trivialities, he dare not feel sorry about the pain and the cost of enduring a continuous solitude" (Evangelical Theology, pp 115 – 118).

A bit of a mixture, that. I'm most definitely the most intense type of upstreamer possible in humanity. It's about seeking the absolute depth, breadth, height, and glory of God and His Logos made flesh via the ontological Gospel of Paul (not Barth and others) instead of adhering to the doctrines and dogma of men (and of devils).

The searching and yielding honors God if it's all about Him.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

BTW, PPS, in Acts 2.25, Jesus is identified as the Yahweh of the OT Scriptures. Hence in the OT, there we see much love and concern in his Covenantal relations with Israel, he being Go'el, the Kinsmen Redeemer of His people. No, this is not first person one-on-one with his Father but it is certainly a reflection of the relational aspect at the "heart" of God for Israel and by extension all of humanity.

How too, may I ask, should Jesus Christ's Mediation of us to the Father be relationally personal and his Mediation of God to us be any less so? When he prays that his disciples be one with the Father as he and the Father are one with each other, how could that inclusion be not personal and relational in character? His relationship with them was certainly deeply relational. It is appropriate to project in the statements, "I am in the Father and he in me," and "I and the Father are one," that the Son is relationally of the same Spirit with the Father that he is with humanity; that being deeply personal.

I just think you are missing it on this one.

You presume much and cannot grasp that an inherently phenomenological hypostasis would not be compatible with noumenologically-derived existence as creation. The Logos and Pneuma must be both, and processed as qualitative distinctions ex-/ek- from transcendence into immanence as it was instantiated.

Functionally, post-creation, nothing is different. You (and all others) just start post-creation and post-procession while still attempting to address both. All other formulaics are an unreduced fraction with no lowest denominator.

You have not yet been to the precipice of immanent creation and peered toward the beyondness of God in His uncreated Self-existence that is unknowable as His essence. Your still have dogma goggles on.

Subtly, you and others are Semi-Emanationists who cannot account for the creation of the intangible and attribute it varying status of divinity.

 

[TFTn5280]

You presume much and cannot grasp that an inherently phenomenological hypostasis would not be compatible with noumenologically-derived existence as creation. The Logos and Pneuma must be both, and processed as qualitative distinctions ex-/ek- from transcendence into immanence as it was instantiated.

Functionally, post-creation, nothing is different. You (and all others) just start post-creation and post-procession while still attempting to address both. All other formulaics are an unreduced fraction with no lowest denominator.

You have not yet been to the precipice of immanent creation and peered toward the beyondness of God in His uncreated Self-existence that is unknowable as His essence. Your still have dogma goggles on.

Subtly, you and others are Semi-Emanationists who cannot account for the creation of the intangible and attribute it varying status of divinity.

Your excuse that you cannot help being terse, no, me not intentionally condescending, no no, is worn out on me, PP. No one can be as rude as you without knowing it. That said, I think our conversation has run it's course and in order that I don't spew all over you my disdain concerning your arrogance, I will just block you instead. Cheers

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Your excuse that you cannot help being terse, no, me not intentionally condescending, no no, is worn out on me, PP. No one can be as rude as you without knowing it. That said, I think our conversation has run it's course and in order that I don't spew all over you my disdain concerning your arrogance, I will just block you instead. Cheers

Unfortunately, you mistake pistis (faith) and it's attendant epignosis (knowledge) for gnosis, presuming me to be puffed-up. Not one thing I've said is terse or rude.

Puffed-up gnosis projects itself onto others, which is why you erroneously presume my faith is arrogance.