I trusteth that thoueth art restedeth frometh thy vacationeth.:wave2:
Logos in Liddell, and as I understand it--"(A) the word or that by which the inward thought is expressed, Lat. oratio; and, (B) the inward thought itself, Lat. ratio."
Yes. The inward thought of the thinker. So "who" is the Thinker? The Father or the Son? And... In this Self-conscious Self-understanding... "who" is the object of understanding as the "who" that is being understood?
God's Logos must be His, and thus Him. The focus upon (pros accusative) would not be upon another hypostasis. That intent Self-focus would be God consummately apprehending and comprehending Himself.
There are a number of ways to apophatically address this for elimination, just as you've rightly insisted there are a number of ways for you to present what you're attempting to convey cataphatically.
So... The entire premise that self-conscious "ideation" is another internal hypostasis is fallacious and untenable, especially if/when that alleged filiation has individuated sentient volition and consciousness.
For classical Trinitarians, the image of the Father's hypostasis is another hypostasis
And this is the problem. Image is not EXPRESS image.
just like in Gen 2 & 5--Adam (as hypostasis) is the image of God, Seth (as hypostasis) is the image of Adam and Col 1:15 "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation".
Charakter is, of course, distinct from eikon, homoioma, morphe, schema, huparcho, etc. Charakter can in no way be an individuating of another hypostasis. It's the inscribing and inscription of God's hypostasis upon and in His Logos.
This is all about the communication of essence/ousia or how it is that they are consubstantial.
And three hypostases are not required for this. By default, a simpler formulaic (not of apprehended concept, but of fewer or lesser considerations or components) is the superior apologetic. If innascibility, paternity/filiation, spiration/procession can be wholly accounted for exegetically with God as a non-modal, non-sequential singular hypostasis, then that apologetic would prevail.
What if this has historically never been considered, and largely because of the established status quo as a mandated false foundation, and the perceptions of degrees of Sabellianism or Arianism, etc.?
I (think) I could agree with this as relates the economy but it's heavy on metaphor standing in for ontology and I'd have to review again where you explained what the wax is.
It's actually lexicography coupled with etymology. What I've said is exactly the meaning and application of charakter. The etymology is from the tool making the impress, and later was inclusive of the imprint itself.
The wax is the (internal) Logos, sealed with the Holy Spirit upon the scroll of creation as noumenon. This is the crux of why it is so vital to understand God as eternal uncreated phenomenon and noumenon. He is not just mind. The physis of His ousia is the "seat" of His mind as His all-pervading faculty of Self-Consciousness for Self-Existence. And the functionality of that nous faculty is within His (singular) hypostasis.
And this is also why it is crucial to understand the objective Rhema and subjective Rhema as scabbard and sword, thrust by the Logos.
In the classical Trinitarian view, God does internally spirate.
Yes, I know. This spiration is His "sighing". He isn't sighing within Himself.
In my specific (Western) view, the way the Son is begotten is by internal spiration
All of this bypasses the fundamental considerations of God as both uncreated phenomenon and noumenon, though presuming to account for it and compensate for the omission (though unknowingly).
(as Gregory of Nazianzus says "the Spirit is the middle term between the Unbegotten and the Begotten).
And THIS conflates and interposes filiation and passive spiration (procession). The Son spirated by the Father and/or Holy Spirit, but allegedly co-spirating the Holy Spirit with the Father. I smell a confounding of "persons".
As God is nous/intellect/mind,
This is where there's not enough. God is not "just" nous/intellect/mind. God is hypostasis underlying ousia with physis, and prosopon.
the Logos is the product of the act (spiration) of the Father understanding Himself.
But this would be the Father understanding Himself AS the Son. It occurs to me that this is an odd sequentially cumulative internal Modalism.
We could say the Spirit presents the Son to the Father.
In some way, this is internal Contingency in a non-Contingent God.
This is the same issue as innascibility relative to paternity. "When" was God not a Father? Making it all Opera Ad Intra doesn't remove the paradoxes of God having to be a "non-Father" hypostasis (fontal plenitude?) "before" engaging in paternity for filiation (which also means engaging in spiration for procession).
I know the Augustinians, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Aquinians, et al have seemingly worked through all the various problems, but they've all presumed much. And Latin Scholasticism is ultimately a bit of a mess.
The intellect analogy here being what goes on in a person's own mind in the act of cognition turning toward his being and understanding it--wherein the person is both subject/object or patient/agent.
Right. The Rhema is both subject and object. Logos is that which conveys object AS subject. The object is not the Logos. The Logos is conveying and re-presenting the object as subject. (Sword being wielded/thrust from scabbard.)
The subject is not another "person" (hypostasis), but the "person" Himself. It is God understanding Himself, not God understanding another hypostasis. (This is where I make a personal necessary distinction between the synonyms hypostaTizing and hypostaSizing. More on that later, if we get that far.)
If it must need be that the Father cannot be immanent as the Uncreated in creation then I agree with that last.
You're some fraction of the way there then. And of course I didn't expect you to affirm the first part.
LOL! No, just Maine
"Just" Maine? I see. Maine is incomparable in ways.
The "place" (which isn't a place in the spatio-temporal sense) is God as mind.
This alone would mean the Son is only in God's mind, with no phenomenality as actuality of existence. Yet another issue with the classical "psychological" models and their shared fundamental tenet of mandated multiple hypostases.
God as mind is immaterial (and, it is argued at least in the West, so is our mind as a constituent of immaterial soul).
And that's the problem. God is not merely mind, and the focus on mind has excluded other considerations as the three hypostases have been considered mandatory in the formulaic.
God's Self-Consciousness is not the Son as an individuated hypostasis with the paradox of whether the Son is spirated or is co-spirating the Holy Spirit. It's the express image OF God's hypostasis. The exact hypostatic impress upon God's Logos to be externally re-presented in creation (heaven and the cosmos).
Exerchomai in the middle voice as in "internal processing" in Matthew 15:19 where it remains in the subject and is not transitive (and this I found which is a nice way to explain it although perhaps Arsenios can chime in),:
The problem begins with this passage not being about God or about processed hypostases. The only really appropriate exegetical consideration would be exerchomai in John 8:42, which is aina (both aorist and active, not present and middle).
The fact that the grammatical subject is a patient is what the middle-marking indicates in this instance, and it should be noted that this construction is essentially reflexive; in many languages reflexive constructions are employed in a manner very much like middle-marking in Greek. Traditional Greek grammar terms this usage “direct reflexive.”
Middle-marking may also be employed when
the grammatical subject is not only the agent but also the beneficiary of the action or process. (e.g. κτᾶται ὁ ἀνὴρ ἵππον “The man acquires a horse (for himself).”) Traditional Greek grammar terms this usage “indirect reflexive.” When the subject is an experiencer engaged in receiving and mentally processing experiential data (feeling, tasting, smelling, sensing generally, e.g. αἰσθάνεσθαι, γεύεσθαι, ὀσφραίνεσθαι) or responding emotionally to some stimulus (fear, anger, desire, pleasure, pain, etc., e.g., φοβεῖσθαι, ὀργίζεσθαι, ὀρέγεσθαι, ἥδεσθαι, λυπεῖσθαι),
or engaged in the cognitive processing of information (pondering, planning, reaching a conclusion, etc., e.g. λογίζεσθαι, βουλεύεσθαι, ἡγεῖσθαι), or in speech in response to another or others in a critical confrontation of some sort (blame, accusation, , answering, commanding, etc., e.g. μέμφεσθαι, αἰτιᾶσθαι, ἀποκρίνεσθαι, ἐντέλλεσθαι), the verb’s middle-marking indicates the grammatical subject’s deeper involvement in the verbal process. Interaction with another or others (dialogue, interrogation, combat, etc., διαλέγεσθαι, ἐρίζεσθαι, μάχεσθαι) and reciprocal actions (gathering, dispersal and collective behavior generally, e.g., συναγείρεσθαι, διαμερίζεσθαι) also commonly are associated with middle-marking of the verbs. When the grammatical subject is an undergoer of a process, whether a voluntary action (e.g. body movement (καθίζεσθαι, ἱστασθαι) or locomotion (πορεύεσθαι) or of a spontaneous process (e.g. birth – γενέσθαι or spoiling (of something organic – σήπεσθαι), middle-marking is commonly found in the verb-form.
http://ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=2459&start=30#p15092
But "engaging in the cognitive processing of information (pondering, planning, reaching a conclusion, etc.)" is much more akin to the Unitarian application. A "plan" or "processing of information" or "pondered conclusion" is not an additional individuated hypostasis, especially internally.
And that passage is regarding man bringing forth evil things from his heart. Murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies aren't an individuating of hypostases, especially internally. They are a re-presentation outwardly of what is inward within the heart.
Yes, God is not subject to space and time and those limitations (in addition to Be-ing in full actuality) which is why we say eternally begotton and eternally proceeding.
And yet... There is a vital and necessary sequence that ultimately indicates non-eternality.
All those "local motions" are collapsed and immediate.
Collapsed and immediate are, themselves, terms of spatiality and sequentiality as space and time. God is timeless and non-contingent. This is immensely paradoxical, denying God's Immensity. "Pure act" is self-refuting. God is "Be-ing". "Do-ing" is inevitable, but not "Be-ing". "Do-ing" the Son isn't an appropriate foundation.
These operations ad intra are in the logical order not the spatio-temporal order.
What logical "order"? In God's immense, infinite, eternal, immutable, non-contingent mind?
No.
The thinker is simply logically prior to His thoughts.
If you knew how Gnostic this is, you'd be appalled. What, then, would prevent God's thoughts from having thoughts which have thoughts which have thoughts (in endless emanation, all as individuated hypostases), and them all being Aeons and demi-urges, etc.?
God's Self-Conscious thoughts of His Self-Existence are not another individuated hypostasis. God's thoughts aren't the Son. The object OF His thought (His singular hypostasis) is exaclty impressed upon/in His Logos.
We've not even yet broached the innate uncreated phenomenality and noumenality of God in distinction. ALL of this has been uni-phenomenal.
