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To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 1 Corinthians 9:22 (KJV)
So much for farmer speak.
So much for farmer speak.
ECT Our triune God
- Thread starter Lon
- Start date
Lon
Well-known member
I spent every summer of my teenage life and most other vacations on my aunt's dairy farm. Naturally, the cows are as described but hormnes make the back productive more than 1/4. That wasn't why his comment was crude, it is simply a crude analogy for a thread about the nature and character of God. That and city-folk don't generally understand the nature of farm analogy, especially when much of it surrounds basal forms of repetition (we didn't say 'teat' everyday, even when I was milking or helping, every day). On TOL, I think this sort of talk is discouraged both because of the infrequency, and because of the unnecessity makes it crude. My particular concern was not to get debase when discussing the nature and character of God. We don't have to compare anything in this particular thread to the more crude descriptors of life and a lot of our youngsters as well as a few insensitive older males have no clue where to draw the line nor how to rise above the crude or unacceptable once that door is opened. It seems best, I believe, just to avoid such and say it without analogy. "'-Ism's' are problematic and get in the way" is much more effective and appropriate for this thread, imo. Because analogy isn't given, the actual point isn't lost in homology.
1Mind1Spirit
Literal lunatic
Derailing?
Now that Pnuema has laid out the baseline, I was merely moving further ahead with that understanding.
Him being a former preacher, Pnuema knows most of the isms which started out with a simple truth, till men thought they could drive the chariot and swerved from the path.
I left church at 11 years old asking people how you get saved, no man could answer.
One of my dads friends dubbed me Nicodemus.
Called me that up till he died.
So when it pleased God to reveal himself to me, I had no help from men.
I got it straight from the source.
So please forgive my lack of patience for those who have hindered the gospel.:wave:
Lon
Well-known member
No,not you derailing. That wasn't what I meant by 'until.' Poor choice of words. I hope most of that conveyed as positive with only a slight pointing out that dairy lingo would likely not be understood and to forego it, is all.
So, I wish to thank you and apologize if necessary, for not being clear.
The 'up until now' was only meant to be a 'thus far' kind of comment, of appreciation. Again, apologies for poor conveyance on my part. Please allow me to strike it from the record. Thanks.
-Lon
1Mind1Spirit
Literal lunatic
Virtually every belief or view is (or can be) an ism, though.
My concern is ascribing God more than one eternal divine sentient volitional consciousness (especially the Holy Spirit), regardless of labels.
Binitarianism is closer than mainline Trinitarianism.
LOL.
Yeah ole wordsponge has a special place in my heart
Arsenios
Well-known member
What you will find as you continue is that there is an interpenetration of person with person even at a human level that is ongoing... And that the Divine Essence is unutterably beyond any consciousness that it creates, has, or is or may be... Reducing God to Ultimate Consciousness falls into the category of anthropomorphics, because we are self-aware of our own consciousness of awareness... Apophatic Theology forbids ascribing even this to the God Who created it in us... At very best, it would be an image, but not the reality...
So that more than one conscious person being one unknowable God is not all that strange as it seems to you now... This is but patristic descriptive and empirical theology... The only way to prove it is to 'go there'... And I can't afford the ticket!
The issues are huge here...
Thanks to 1M1S for the reminder of that sentence of yours...
I have seen it a few times before, and finally picked up on it a little...
Arsenios
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PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
Here is where we differ, for I insist God spoke to us in these last days by His Son to reveal Himself to us rather than conceal Himself from us. Therefore, I consider apophaticism a valuable tool rather than a mandatory limitation of restraint.
God's inherent transcendent essence is indeed unknowable; but hypostatically joined to Christ we partake of His divine nature, which is of His essence. I don't acknowledge false mystery, and we can intuitively by revelation know everything that His energies have given ecomony.
And this would also work in the inverse. By your standard, one could never know there were three eternal centers for sentient volitional consciousness, either. So that would prevent the individuality of the alleged hypostases as anything considered "persons", and also call into question the long-iterated mutual love between them in any manner resembling quantitative threeness AS "persons".
I abhor Reductionism (or Deconstructionism), so I don't "reduce" God to Ultimate Consciousness at all. My approach is purely inquiry, not reduction; and God's inherent aseity and phenomenology can be approached to the extent they are relative to His physis rather than His ousia. We may intuitively know of the functionalities of His Logos, but not the faculty of His immutable nous itself.
We MUST commune with Him in His timelessness from temporal time, and that only happens because we're translated into Christ and He has gone to prepare that place (topos) for us. Sheathed in the scabbard from which the Rhema (as His hypostasis) sword was thrust as/by His Logos, which is the eternal Son.
God doesn't have multiple centers of sentient volitional consciousness, and Easterm Apophatic Theology can neither refute nor confirm that. Therefore, there can't be an Eastern position on the quantity, which is absurd and relegates a hypostasis meaningless if defined as a "person". And taking the inverse declared position would be multiple souls, which would more equate to multiple ouisos than multiple hypostases as one ousia.
Then there's the issue of the perichoresis band-aid. All around, mine is the simpler and more valid apologetic and hermeneutic, and is derived from intuitive revelation rather than intellect, reason, or sophistry.
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
This defies being able to apophatically address the quantity of volitional consciousnesses to even address a numerical quantity.
THIS is the singular reason I can never be Orthodox. I cannot acquiesce and capitulate to such double standards when doctrine reaches a wall.
It's not strange. It's wrong. One cannot apophatically avoid quantification of consciousnesses and then insist on quantification of consciousnesses.
Besides several falsely declared mysteries (created sempiternity, cosmogony and the Virgin Birth among them), this is the break-down point of the three-hypostases Trinity.
1Mind1Spirit
Literal lunatic
Epignosis.
Even after all the words of Jesus and the Apostles, it cannot be fully grasped.
He gives it to us as we need it.
I caint just call him up on the bat phone and make him give me what I want.
Especially those of us who strive for the mastery, which I sometimes wish he hadn't made me that way, must first be partakers.
I aint never been no time clock puncher and it carries over into my spiritual life.
Never went and tried to buy that gift either.
Just tryin' to give an idea of that territory I was talkin' bout the other day.
You be the first like minded brother I met on the narrow road that came up from the other side.
You gotta special place in my heart too.
any - is a really big word - anyism
ya know i like you 1 and 1 !!!
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
The truth is...
God very much LOOKS to be:
Arian
Semi-Arian
Sabellian
Semi-Sabellian
Unitarian
Binitarian
Trinitarian
...and any number of other potential possibilities from various limited perspectives.
That's because all historically-proposed options are just 2D aspects of the true 3D understanding needed.
Unless/until the types of phenomena and noumena are accounted for as I have done, the truth of Theology Proper can never be fully recognized for intuitive comprehension.
All of the above and every other Esoteric or Sophistric belief system can be reconciled to the truth; and totally apart from any form of Relativism, Pluralism, Subjectivism, or any degree of Syncretism.
God very much LOOKS to be:
Arian
Semi-Arian
Sabellian
Semi-Sabellian
Unitarian
Binitarian
Trinitarian
...and any number of other potential possibilities from various limited perspectives.
That's because all historically-proposed options are just 2D aspects of the true 3D understanding needed.
Unless/until the types of phenomena and noumena are accounted for as I have done, the truth of Theology Proper can never be fully recognized for intuitive comprehension.
All of the above and every other Esoteric or Sophistric belief system can be reconciled to the truth; and totally apart from any form of Relativism, Pluralism, Subjectivism, or any degree of Syncretism.
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
Epignosis is a synonym for pistis (faith). Love abounds in it while working faith, which underlies future-reaching hope. Faith, hope, and love; these three. (THERE's a Trinity.)
Epignosis is self-directing and self-regulating, being the clear and exact experiential knowledge from oida intuitive knowledge of our spirit in communion with God's own Spirit that was set apart (hagios / holy) for us in creation.
Most are so busy avoiding knowledge (gnosis) by misapplying 1Cor. 8:1, they don't have epignosis and can't ever get past elpis (hope/trust) to have faith (by which we have access into the grace wherein we stand).
Too many endless false binaries of doctrine have consumed the Body. The only hope against Relativism, Pluralism, Subjectivism, Syncretism, and "tolerance" is the one absolute and knowable truth without division.
Arsenios
Well-known member
It is actually but descriptive of what is empirically perceived...
Three Lights are perceived with the nous,
And...
These Three are perceived as One...
Revelation, not conceptual positing...
Not figured out...
But...
Observed noetically...
Of God, we only know what He reveals to us...
Arsenios
Lon
Well-known member
Those Following the thread
Those Following the thread
Please PM, use my message board, or (shameless plug) Pos rep me and let me know How This Thread Has Served You.
I pray it has, despite some distractions amidst its pages.
For me, It has been good to see Our Triune God fleshed out in a way that we'd love Him and appreciate Him and know Him with increase. I've Amen'ed and Worshipped, and Fellowshipped, and Appreciated the Incredible One who is Our Triune God.
Thanks, and I pray the same for all of you.
In Our Triune God,
-Lon
Those Following the thread
Please PM, use my message board, or (shameless plug) Pos rep me and let me know How This Thread Has Served You.
I pray it has, despite some distractions amidst its pages.
For me, It has been good to see Our Triune God fleshed out in a way that we'd love Him and appreciate Him and know Him with increase. I've Amen'ed and Worshipped, and Fellowshipped, and Appreciated the Incredible One who is Our Triune God.
Thanks, and I pray the same for all of you.
In Our Triune God,
-Lon
Lon
Well-known member
I'll let you and AMR hash this part out, but if it doesn't come up, I'll want to revisit it in another thread, but this thread isn't about binitarianism. For this purpose of this thread: Christ Jesus our Lord said 'he' regarding the Spirt and is distinct from the Father Who would send Him, in Our Lord's own words. He is also enumerated in many scriptural passages that demand, I believe, that Binitary cannot be tenuable.
Arsenios
Well-known member
Most of us came up from the other side on the narrow road...
Main streamers get to come later...
I thank God you were able to post this before being banned for your wrong-side ways!
You come back when it lifts, hear?
Arsenios
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
And yet I noetically perceive a 3D depth AND breadth of phenomena as qualitative distinctions rather than only a 2D breath while having to quantify numerically that which is one in both essence and substance.
This is "counting" God's simplicity according to sakhal, which is the pride of life from Genesis 3. Profitable to make one wise. The nous doesn't spiritually intuit quantity. That's the intellect, which is man's fallen inverse usage of the nous faculty.
This is still quantifying, and doing so via wrongly perceived multiple hypostases as breadth fallaciously compensating for missing depth. Noema would yield the depth of noumena relative to God and His Rhema, which IS His singular hypostasis.
Right. The multi-hypostatic Trinity is the latter.
Right. Not figured out like the Patristics did at the threshhold of their understanding when they had to still refute heresies that were also all based upon missing the same common thing...the omission of God creating sempiternity (the everlasting heaven and cosmos, from which the cosmos "fell" as temporality and will be purged and restored) while declaring to have included it and refusing to recognize the omission.
And I contend He did not stutter when He spoke to us by His eternal Logos, the eternally begotten Son. The only mystery is God's inherent transcendent ousia, and that's plenty of mystery without manufacturing layer upon layer of false mystery that is merely a non-understanding or mis-understanding.
Multiple hypostases is non-noetic. The threeness is qualitative amongst depths of phenomena that aren't congruent existence. God is uncreated and Self-existent, creating ALL according to The inherent and eternal noumena of His immutable nous by His Logos.
Looking at God as a sheet of paper from above as observed by the partial noema of the human nous would yield a quantitative threeness that appears to be multiple hypostases.
If one would have that noema by looking at the paper from the side on what is perceived as a flat edge with no depth, one could noetically intuit the depth of God's existence as another sheet of paper underlying the sheet of papaer perceived to be the founation for the threeness in that one dimensional perspective.
What the Patristics have noetically pursued has yet still this one omission that is posited by intellectual insertion. The overwhelming nature of apophaticism itself and other subtlties has obscured it in the pride of life on some minute level.
No one within Orthodoxy would dare challenge the Church and Patristics to bring this one omission to light. God has raised it up from without the boundaries of Orthodoxy because none dared turn the paper to noetically peer at its edge for fear of anathema.
Yes, the three are one... QUALitatively. Not quantitatively. God's Rhema IS His (singular) hypostasis. And His inherent phenomenological existence is incongruent with the flat sheet of paper that is created sempiternal heaven. What's relevant to sempiternity is His processed Logos as the Son with a prosopon, His processed Spirit that is co-inherent with the Logos and sharing the Son's localized prosopon (with man as the intended co-prosopon), and God's inherent phenomenologicality as Spirit (conjoined to His pierced and distributed noumenologicality as the Holy Spirit), dwelling in the unapproachable light of His in-shining transcendent prosopon.
This LOOKS like three hypostases relative to a non-noetic perception within creation as the flat sheet of paper. True noesis reveals the depth of God underlying it all as a singular hypostasis.
Man's noema should be focused upon God's noumena rather than being idled in a vacuum that can still be filled with some measure of pride of life.
It still comes down to the Patristics missing ONE thing, and then not understanding phenomena/noumena, qualitative/quantitative, and the applied definition of Rhema for God instead of "sayings" or "utterances" (though those are included).
The Orthodox Trinity is a shallow 2D view that avoids noesis at the deepest depth, putting God's inherent existence on the same planar existence with His creation.
This should be introduced and considered at the upcoming Ecumenical Council. It would reconcile everything and destroy Relativism.
PneumaPsucheSoma
TOL Subscriber
Follow this sequence...
God is eternity (aidios). Nothing else is eternal (a line). Heaven is created sempiternity (aionios - a ray), along with the cosmos until it "fell" to be temporality (a line segment as aion/s relative to the tangible of the aionios as the ray).
God is inherent transcendent phenomenological and noumenological existence. Self-conscious and Self-existent. There is nothing else but God unless/until He speaks to create. (But even this requires time terms from us. God is not relative to where/when/what. He created those. He IS.)
All creation, including heavenly sempiternity and the cosmos (whether in sempiternal or fallen temporal state), is noumena that was instantiated and GIVEN phenomological existence (Ex Nihilo and any subsequent Ex Materia).
God doesn't inherently exist as noumena ONLY; so since creation is inherently noumena and is only given phenomena by the Rhema of God's dunamis, God cannot inherently have existence in creation since He is inherent phenomena and creation is carried forth and upheld BY that phenomena.
So God's inherently phenomenological AND noumenological Logos and Pneuma were expressed/exhaled as the Son and Holy (hagios - set apart) Spirit in sempiternity. This singular two-fold procession is the noumena of the Logos and Pneuma, but with them retaining their inherent phenomena of uncreated Self-existence.
The Holy Spirit is God's noumena as Spirit, breathed forth to animate all life created by/through the Logos, which proceeded forth as the Son. God's inherent phenomena as Spirit is co-processed with the Holy Spirit as noumena into heaven as creation. He tents there as His everlasting abode, but remains transcendent to both sempiternal heaven and the comsos.
In His inherent transcendent Self-conscious Self-existence, God is a singular hypostasis underlying an ousia with a physis, outwardly having phaino as His prosopon. He has Logos and IS Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the noumena of His exhaustive Self-Conscious comprehension of Himself, apprehended by His own Logos. So when He spoke, both the Logos and Pneuma proceeded forth/proceedeth (exerchomai/ekporeuomai, respectively) when/as He instantiated creation.
By His Logos, God partitioned and distributed (merismos - divided asunder) the noumena of Himself out from the phenomena of Himself into created sempiternity, which was given its phenomena (having only been noumenon as potentiality of existence in God's mind). The Logos and Pneuma are noumenologically the Son and Holy Spirit, being His own inherent phenomenological Self-existence and Self-consciousness.
From sempiternity (after the divine creative utterance), Father, Son, and Holy Spirit LOOK like three hypostases on that planar level of existence. But the Son and Holy Spirit in sempiternity are the two-fold qualitative hypostatic distinctions resulting from God's Logos and Pneuma proceeding as noumena into noumenological creation.
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Lon
Well-known member
I was worried this was going to get long. I think it is manageable:
Another way: If I cloned a woman, I could use all of her parts to make the new person. We'd 'think' the 'replicant' (it isn't accurate to say that since all of the second being was always there in the first), a new being. That isn't correct. It is but an exact form of what already exists. This has to get back to the simplicity of God as such: Jesus' existence, even in the flesh, is eternal, because flesh comes but from God AND His eternality.
That is why the triune view isn't as accurate: the woman wouldn't be two beings or just one being, but both with and is, the same person in a way that language is no longer adequate to describe. We can appreciate the two/one idea, but we are limited to explain it.
The simplicity of God has to do with His nature of Spirit. Physical is an expression of that. We often think exactly backwards: that spirit/Spirit comes from the physical rather than vise-versa. Because of that, the Unitarian and modalist gets this wrong. It is physical from Spirit, NOT spirit or indeed His Spirit, from physical. AND to explain God's nature, it is Essential that we change this back the way it HAS to be: Physical FROM Spirit.
Back to my cloned woman analogy for a moment: We have 'two' representations, but not really. It is actually wrong to say there are 'two women.' Even "there are two woman" doesn't convey well because, specifically, there is yet isn't another woman after the cloning. Why? Because everything that we see was already there prior to the cloning. The cloning created a dichotomy. A Unitarian is right in a sense to say "two" but it is incredibly simplistic and really stuck in physical understanding and expression. They don't understand the Simplicity of God. He cannot be divided, much the same as this woman is not actually divided. She simply exists as two 'entities' (or persons if we stayed with that difficult term for a moment). She isn't two persons, though she can talk to herself, literally. It is weird, because we are finite and this kind of scenario is beyond our skill-set to adequately express without a LOT of description. That, imo, is why the Triune position is so misunderstood. It is very hard to express what we see when we see Father, Son, Spirit, as God. They don't 'share' divinity among three. "Three" is simply the way we say there is distinction.
I don't fault them but I do worry if they are not indwelled by God, as new creations. I believe Jesus reveals Himself as God to those He indwells and recreates. It worries me if they don't get that. It is a divine knowledge, we can't argue them into being new creations. This is the work of God.
In a philosophical sense of logic, this isn't true. That is, to the best of my mental ability to grasp, creation ex nihlo isn't, then a duality of reality. It is yet the reality of God, just with temporal finite parameters. Go back to your line analogy: This would be the segment 'within' the line (that's an incredibly limited 2-D analogy so should be understood with severe limitations as far as analogy goes).
Another way: If I cloned a woman, I could use all of her parts to make the new person. We'd 'think' the 'replicant' (it isn't accurate to say that since all of the second being was always there in the first), a new being. That isn't correct. It is but an exact form of what already exists. This has to get back to the simplicity of God as such: Jesus' existence, even in the flesh, is eternal, because flesh comes but from God AND His eternality.
That is why the triune view isn't as accurate: the woman wouldn't be two beings or just one being, but both with and is, the same person in a way that language is no longer adequate to describe. We can appreciate the two/one idea, but we are limited to explain it.
The simplicity of God has to do with His nature of Spirit. Physical is an expression of that. We often think exactly backwards: that spirit/Spirit comes from the physical rather than vise-versa. Because of that, the Unitarian and modalist gets this wrong. It is physical from Spirit, NOT spirit or indeed His Spirit, from physical. AND to explain God's nature, it is Essential that we change this back the way it HAS to be: Physical FROM Spirit.
It 'looks' like dualism to me. The segment exudes from the eternal and is part of that eternal line from our analogy. The reference isn't the segment, it is the line. We as part of the finite segment, are constricted in our understanding of the eternal line (again as reminder, the line/segment is very limited in conveyance but perhaps simple enough that most can follow the point of it).
Again, if I am following you, this seems to confuse the simplicity of God. The Simplicity of God states that God 'cannot' be broken up into 'parts.' As such, I've always appreciated your correction of 'persons.' God is one being, indivisible (being might also convey a finite restriction, I 'think' anything numerical relates to a finite universe). "Hear O Israel, the Lord Our God is One" is an exclusion, rather than a numerical expression, primarily, I believe. The Hebrew word isn't just/only translated 'One' but also 'exclusive' or 'alone.'
I don't believe that makes a 'binity' though. Remember the segment is 'within' the line such that is it subsumed by it. Again even "One" when referring to no beginning/no end, is beyond numerical expression. God is rather 'All.' Deuteronomy 6 is concerned with 'exclusive', I believe, rather than numerical.
Back to my cloned woman analogy for a moment: We have 'two' representations, but not really. It is actually wrong to say there are 'two women.' Even "there are two woman" doesn't convey well because, specifically, there is yet isn't another woman after the cloning. Why? Because everything that we see was already there prior to the cloning. The cloning created a dichotomy. A Unitarian is right in a sense to say "two" but it is incredibly simplistic and really stuck in physical understanding and expression. They don't understand the Simplicity of God. He cannot be divided, much the same as this woman is not actually divided. She simply exists as two 'entities' (or persons if we stayed with that difficult term for a moment). She isn't two persons, though she can talk to herself, literally. It is weird, because we are finite and this kind of scenario is beyond our skill-set to adequately express without a LOT of description. That, imo, is why the Triune position is so misunderstood. It is very hard to express what we see when we see Father, Son, Spirit, as God. They don't 'share' divinity among three. "Three" is simply the way we say there is distinction.
Yes, but when Jesus clarifies between Spirit, Himself, and Father, we have to account for those distinctions that a binity cannot accommodate, imho. I understand your point, because Spirit cannot be divided, but then we are back to simply a Modal God, expressed with distinction.
I believe even you said Spirit is indivisible so there has to be consistency here. "Distinction" isn't 'apart from.' Again, back to the line/segement: A segment is still part of the line. It isn't separate from it, other than as the two reference points. That, btw, is how Christ Jesus was limited as man on earth. He was, according to the analogy, simply within the confines of the segment. Philippians 2 makes better sense if we understand that the constraint was simply between the segment points of entering and leaving earth (the physical with is the segment of the eternal).
This is fair, and certainly not all can grasp metaphysical thinking so God expressed Himself as plainly as possible, but it is much like trying to come up with language for clone between one and two expressions. It is very difficult and I do understand why Unitarians, Modalists, and even Trinitarians don't always follow along.
I don't fault them but I do worry if they are not indwelled by God, as new creations. I believe Jesus reveals Himself as God to those He indwells and recreates. It worries me if they don't get that. It is a divine knowledge, we can't argue them into being new creations. This is the work of God.
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