I do declare!
each: Is that a southern accent I detect? (she says, in pure New England Yankee dialect lol)
It was, though now neutralized by a decade elsewhere. Alas, I'm now boringly devoid of much of any accent.
I truly have no idea who might consider transcendence heaven--
First, the majority consider God to have been IN heaven as eternity, and from heaven He created the cosmos. Not much further consideration is given to any whats or hows.
And for those who do understand heaven as created, it's very much merely lip eservice with no attendant "how" whatsoever.
unless someone hasn't read Genesis. Heaven is so very clearly creation--right there in Gen 1:1!
Many would initially or ultimately agree that heaven is created, but still cannot do anything but assert such with no accounting for how.
He is metaphysically indepedendent of His creation but is the very reason it exists and continues to exist as He is the very one sustaining it.
Of course this is true, and most would concur even if they couldn't articulate it themselves.
In general, I do take issue with the term metaphysical (bolded) because it really is a horrific term for contrast. First, all creation is not physical and innately tangible. Heaven and the angelic host are not physical, unless we indicate a definition that refers to physis (nature) rather than materiality. As intangible non-material created phenomenon, the angelic host may manifest an appearance in the material realm but do not and must not necessarily do so to be created phenomenon.
And meta- (being the preposition governing the accusative and genitive) has a primary meaning as mid, amid, in the midst, with, among; implying accompaniment and thus differing from sun-.
And this is part of the reason most don't truly consider heaven as created. First, creation is most often generally considered to be ONLY all physical materiality. And second, God isn't intrinsically amidst phenomenal creation. He is innately anterior to heaven and the cosmos as uncreated phenomenon. Self-Conscious Self-Existence. A hypostasis underlying an ousia (having a physis), and shining forth as a transcendent prospon.
I know you think we will, but we actually won't. Classical Trinitarianism will run its course straight into a wall that demands unfounded and unsupported presumptive assertion at the precipice of either personal understanding, obfuscation, or declared mystery.
But first trying to understand your ontological system.
And you are in rare air to be openly attempting to do so, and more so with any level of understanding. Two millennia of uni-phenomenal perceptive reasoning always gets in the way as cognitive dissonance for most. You are incredibly resilient to that, which is one way I know of your renewed mind in Christ.
Classical theism doesn't agree that God is omnipresent?
Of course Classical Theism agrees God is omnipresent, to the extent it applies omnipresence to either physicality of the cosmos and/or that God is omnipresent once there are wheres AS presence for His "omni".
(And I was inferring the abbreviation as Classical Trinitarianism rather than Classical Theism.)
Yeesh, PPS, I don't think we have the same understanding of terms.
Well... Only because we have different understandings of phenomenon and noumenon. God is noumenally omnipresent before He even instantiates phenomenal creation into existence.
All I'm indicating is the insufficiency of the term and its overall usage. Unltil there were "wheres", God was not physically omnipresent. There was no presence of creation (heaven of the cosmos) for His omni-.
God is--I think we agree--(at minimum) transcendent, immutable, metaphysically simple, impassible, immaterial, infinite, and atemporal.
Yes, and more. Eternity is one key incommunicable attribute that you omitted, and is culpable as causing the great confusion to which I so often refer.
There is no eternity but God. It is incommunicable to His creation. And THAT is the distinction most lack; and it's the distinction omitted by the Patristics and later butchered by Aquinas.
There aren't two "kinds" of eternity, God and heaven. God alone is eternal, and He created the everlasting heaven (and cosmos, which "fell" to temporality).
Without getting into an argument over whether aidios and aionois are respectively depicting uncreated timelessness verses all created forms of time OR both being applied synonyms for created time... Eternity as God's incommunicable attribute is innate only to Him and His Self-Conscious Self-Existence.
Heaven is not eternity. Heaven is everlasting. The cosmos was everlasting. Spiritual death, sin, and physical death brought temporality to the physical creation.
These need to be carefully and explicitly delineated. The English term "eternity" is part of the problem. It either needs to be distinct from the term "everlasting", as a line is to a ray in geometry; or it needs to not be applied as the term of God's incommunicable timelessness.
Though not as egregious as the English term "person" for hypostasis, this is a huge issue for vital clarity. God's incommunicable attribute cannot be confused with any created attribute, property, functionality, etc.
Either God alone is eternity, or His incommunicable attribute of timelessness needs another term. And this applies to "eternal" life in the context of salvation. It either needs to rigrously be "everlasting" life, or "eternal" needs to never be applied to God as an incommunicable attribute.
It would be far better to utilize "eternal" exclusively for God and "everlasting" for all else, while contrasting temporality to BOTH. This is the issue between uni-phenomenality and multi-phenomenality. Uni- unites eternity and aeviternity (everlasting), with the disastrous consequences of not being able to distinguish God's incommunicable attribute from some portion of creation.
Hence, there is no "eternity past". God is eternity. Timelessness. The arrears-reaching time from the present is everlastingness back to its created inception only.
He is pure be-ing in pure act--no unrealized potential in Him. He is holding every last particle of matter together and if He didn't we'd poof out of existence.
Yes. But you do not and cannot yet realize that God as uncreated phenomenon being compatible with created phenomenon is a huge thing to account for. One cannot simply say something like, "God bulit and occupied a house.", even while also asserting He was also outside the house while in the house. For the "house" as heaven and the cosmos is not the same phenomenon of existence as Him.
There must be a "formatting" (the best descriptor I can employ at present) of God's uncreatedness for compatibility with createdness. THIS is the problem with ALL historical attempts for a Theology Proper formulaic, not just Classical Trinitarianism (which is NOT what most modern professing Trinitarians understand anyway).
Just to be sure were on the same page:
Judeo-Christian beliefs constitute a third opinion on omnipresence. To both mainstream Jewish and Christian religions, God is omnipresent. However, the major difference between these monotheistic religions and other religious systems is that God is still transcendent to His creation and yet immanent in relating to creation.
Stopping here... This gives lip service to the disinction between transcendence and immanent creation, but no "how". There's never been an appropriate "how", including Aquinas' epic fail.
God is not immersed in the substance of creation, even though he is able to interact with it as he chooses. He cannot be excluded from any location or object in creation.[6] God's presence is continuous throughout all of creation, though it may not be revealed in the same way at the same time to people everywhere. At times, he may be actively present in a situation, while he may not reveal that he is present in another circumstance in some other area.
is this how you understand omnipresence?
Yes, though it's incredibly incomplete. AND... this type of definition is always directed toward material creation and ignoring intangible creation (heaven).
Now I'm pretty sure we're not understanding terms the same way.
The disparity is beyond that.
Are you in agreement that God is not subject to time, matter, or space (or any other created dimension)?
Yes.
When you say "inhabit", that means to me that He is.
No. He tents in heaven as His everlasting abode, also remaining eternally transcendent to heavenly and cosmological creation.
And, yes, Aquinas did account for it and many others. (Just a snip)--
I know you think He did. Many think so. Sigh. He did not. He provided extensive and copious vagueries from a uni-phenomenal perspective ATTEMPTING to present multi-phenomenality. That's why I consider him the most epic failure of all besides Augustine and the plethora of modern theosophologians currently hybridizing the Faith with Esotericism, etc.
God is said to be in all things by essence, not indeed by the essence of the things themselves, as if He were of their essence; but by His own essence; because His substance is present to all things as the cause of their being.
Poorly stated, but okay. We'd have to discuss the essence portion, along with including heaven as a consideration in this or any description/definition.
Ah--this is an interesting development (for me).
Was just trying to focus on rhema and logos right now as applied to a human being to get those concepts straight before applying them to God.
But...now we need an ontology of the book first!
There must be ontologically substantial objective reality for existence. There are two phenomena of existence: uncreated phenomenon and created phenomenon. They cannot be addressed as homogenous. They must be understood as multi-phenomenal considerations, not as a uni-phenomenal consideration. Creation has no innate objective reality of existence of its own. The Creator IS the true and only foundational underlying substantial objective reality of existence. And it is His Rhema that carried forth and perpetually upholds created objective reality as phenomena.
When you say a book is "not just noumenon" in what sense is it noumenon at all?
To be conceived in the mind for representation (re-presentation). Noumenon is predicated upon objective reality.
There would be no subjective creation given phenomenal existence if it weren't for God's uncreated Self-Phenomenon and Self-Noumenon. Our noumenon has no innate Self-Phenomenal existence, though we are created phenomenon.
You earlier defined noumenon as "that which is conceived in the mind, but does not have any objective existence".
The noumenon has no objective reality. The objective reality is that of the object. For God, His Logos is both uncreated phenomenon AND noumenon. Whatever He thinks and wills is accompanied by the ontology and power to accomplish it coming into existence. Our noumenon is not Self-phenomenal or with such innate power.
Our logos may only subjectively re-present objective reality, OR the noumenon can only be a figment of the imagination.
This is so fundamental to your ontology of God that it really needs to be understood to understand the rest.
Agreed.
Our noumenon is not phenomenon. Our logos is not the means of our noumenon being based on intrinsic Self-Phenomenon. Our logos can only re-present phenomenality in words. We cannot innately create.
So the word "book" is only the re-presentation of the object's objective reality as the subjective realization that is a word.
There also seems to be a particular theory of perception/and or epistemology here operating as a hidden assumption (I don't mean that subversively, of course! I just mean unstated.)
We're beginning to uncover that. It's the foundational distinction between multi- and uni- phenomenality.
For example, I wouldn't say "The ONLY true objective reality is God"--I'd say, "that book over there? It really is objectively a book existing in reality, viewed by a subject."
Can you clarify?
Yes, simply for now. All created objective reality is still ultimately subjective to God, who is the ONLY TRUE objective reality. Better said, all created objective reality is subject to the one UNcreated objective reality... GOD.
We'll need to talk about the scabbard for the sword of the Spirit. The sword and its scabbard are one.
