Ask Mr. Religion

I'll respond in the thread. It's difficult when the mandatory term for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is assigned as "persons" without exegetical support; and in English where all "persons" are, by definition, ALSO "beings". (The English term "person" does not and cannot differentiate between hypostasis and ousia, so all "persons" by default are both hypostases and ousios. I would hope you would understand my concerns, and recognize that hypostasis is a linguistically irreducible term into English.)

And one of the haunting unanswered questions is how God's Logos can be a distinct individuated hypostasis, since it would leave Him (the Father) without any functionality of intelligence or expression AS a hypostasis.

Ad intra is related to God's internal noumenal activity as uncreated phenomenon, while ad extra is related to His external activity regarding created phenomenon and His interface of timelessness with all forms of time.

The historical formulaic(S) all presume heaven to be eternally pre-existing, or posit some vague multiple eternality assertion (like Aquinas, the Scholastic). God wasn't in heaven, and there accomplishing ad intra activity. It was simulataneous with ad extra activity that heaven and the cosmos were instantiated into existence (Ex Nihilo is a good enough term).

The issue is that the Orthodox Trinity formulaic is belated in its beginning point; starting POST-procession and POST-creation, yet then attempting to account for procession and creation from a created and now-God-inhabited heaven. Heaven is not "the realm of God" or His "inherent state of being". There is linearity and sequentiality in heaven. Wheres, whens, and whats (as whos).

At this deferred beginning for formulation, God LOOKS and FUNCTIONS like three hypostases. But there's no consideration of God's timelessly eternal transcendent Self-existence; and creation is confined to bringing the cosmos into existence with God inherently in heaven, never validly accounting for the creation and inhabitation of heaven. God tents there as His everlasting abode, but heaven is created. Immanence. Non-transcendence.

I recognize these and have long understood their application in the historical formulaic(S); but God isn't three hypostases, so there isn't the same necessary application with the Uni-Hypostatic Multi-Phenomenal Trinity as with the Orthodox (and all other permutations) Multi-Hypostatic Uni-Phenomenal Trinity.

I'm not sure how I could utilize opera ad intra, opera ad extra, and opera divisa as a comparison to clarify Multi-Phenomenality. Since God isn't three "persons", it's not a direct correlation. When one understands that God is uncreated Self-Phenomenon and Self-Noumenon, that verticality replaces the horizontality of the alleged three hypostases.

It's what Sabellius and Arius (and others) were attempting to account for, but grievously failed and misrepresented. And it's what Binitarians and Pneumatomachians (and others) were attempting to resolve from other perspectives.

Curious. These work and the chatbox works, but when I hit Quote or Reply within a post I get a large gray field with no window to write in. :idunno:

See post #3243 in the Triune God thread. It may give you insight into how I deal with ad intra and ad extra.

Oops, sorry. I've been making a lot of those mistakes lately.

Going well. Sometimes God nudges us gently and sometimes he rips the band aid off...if with a sense of humor in my case. My best to you and yours, as always.

Definitely not Chimera phenomenal, which is biological/genetic. Also not Kantian, and anti-Hegelian; but ultimately Husserlian in some sense of application. Primarily lexical from phaino/phainomenon, and contrasted to noumenon. God is uncreated Self-phenomenon and Self-noumenon. This is one of the foundational truths omitted in Orthodox understanding of the Trinity; requiring compensatory lateral breadth as multiple hypostases instead of vertical phenomenalites as uncreated transcendence and within created immanence for God as a singular hypostasis.

Something like that. As I read on, something didn't fit and sounded I wasnt accurate in what I said. I'm sure im wrong but still wrong on the other end. I got tired real quick reading about it anyway.

Brinsmead is the father of new calvinism. How weird is that?

Brinsmead sounds like he's right up there with other bible "scholars" like Ehrman :

http://www.bobbrinsmead.com/t_The_Scandal_of_Joshua_Ben_Adam_Pt1.html
http://www.bobbrinsmead.com/t_The_Scandal_of_Joshua_Ben_Adam_Pt2.html
http://www.bobbrinsmead.com/t_The_Scandal_of_Joshua_Ben_Adam_Pt3.html
http://www.bobbrinsmead.com/t_The_Scandal_of_Joshua_Ben_Adam_Pt4.html

(Cont'd) Quickening, rather, sounds to me simply like what it says - made aware, alive, woken up. Psalm 119:50,93 seems to be a direct analog to Romans 10:17. The Word of God comes along, "wakes" one up, causes them to hear and see the truth and drops the seed in the heart. Calling, regeneration and faith, then seem to me to be more or less all at the same time. The spiritual senses are quickened in regeneration so that we are instantly and fully aware of our standing before God. The Word leads us to repentance and we receive it. Of course, then there's the matter of the soil it is dropped into...(grin)

Since I believe total depravity is utterly scriptural and that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, I find myself agreeing that faith cannot precede regeneration. But it's things like John 1:12 that seem to muddy the waters for me. When I think about salvation as a natural process (i.e. what should happen - one thing after another), regeneration and then faith makes sense but the role of regeneration seems (to me) to be no different than what the KJV calls quickening. That is (in my mind) it doesn't carry as much of the theological baggage as regeneration does. Regeneration seems to me to imply - in the fuller sense - being born again. (TBC...)

That makes good sense to me. I had it in mind that faith preceding regeneration was a hard and fast rule in the Reformed view of the ordo salutis. But faith contemporaneous with it (to man's view, anyway) seems to me to be the best explanation.

Appreciate the link. I'll get to it when the house is quiet. :chuckle: While I'm thinking on it, isn't there a way to cut the whole rep number out of your posting display?

thanks, i'll have a look when i get a chance, see ya in the forums

Yes! (part of it). I think there was another extension of it as well.

Re: no need to shout. I think she assumes that whatever she has people possess less of...so maybe that would explain it a bit.

I mean, I even laid out the cables, connectors, ventilation, shock mounts for each board stack, the motherboard, ribbon cables, etc. I did 95% of the CAD, my own drawings and some of electrical's layout drawings. I have never been so satisfied working on a project, before or since.

Years ago, I was in a forum with another PCA member who seemed much more liberal than you. That's the only reason I asked the question.

God Bless
Bob