ECT Our triune God

[Arsenios]

My "beef" is that so exceedingly few others know those distinctions
and (INSTEAD) believe in their hearts that God is three beings
without even being aware of it.

Do you think that the Orthodox believe that God is three beings (ousia)?

I think that you can confuse hypostasis and ousia in your approach to them...

Because you think a person is a being...

When person is hypostatically anterior to being...

And is the cause of being...

Being the hypostasis of being...

'Being' being the effect of the cause...

How do you read Psalm 82?


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

So what happens when a person dies and loses the body?
Do we then have an hypostasis without a prosopon?

For Believers, their hypostases have a prosopon. It's the prosopon of Christ they've put on when hypostatically translated; until redemption of the purchased possession, to whit the resurrection of the body to be glorified and then clothed upon with immortality and incorruptibility.

And for unbelievers?

An hypostasis without prosopon?

So that they lose their personhood?

Or do they just become faceless persons?

I mean, IF, for humans, as you say, the prosopon is physically outward expression of the hypostasis, then when the body dies, the prosopon goes out of existence, because all that is outward ceases...

Since chronology is within the fallen cosmos, there's no duration of time that elapses for the departed unregenerate until judgment, whereupon they are in their own prosopa in the enopion presence of God for all everlasting.

Yet here you are saying that they are IN their PROSOPON at the Last Judgement before the Face of God... Are you referring to God giving them their prosopon back in the general Resurrection of all?? Or did they have it all along, except that there is no longer sequential time after death? You did say there is no longer sequential time after death, yes?

Experiencing the love and presence of God is torment for them as they're in outer darkness with no perceptive sight. Everlasting spiritual death as no communion with God. "Before" Him, but not IN Christ.

Not in the Orthodox Faith... Christ is Himself the Lake of Fire for the workers of iniquity, but for us who love Him, He is Love and Joy...

The afterlife is an intense exegetical teaching, and it reflects the ancient Orthodox understanding straight from lexicography.

Perhaps not...

Why do you think there is no sequential time after death?

Arsenios

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Do you think that the Orthodox believe that God is three beings (ousia)?

Anyone who believes the alleged hypostases each have/are an individuated sentient consciousness are highly vulnerable to conceptualizing the Trinity as functional tritheism as the true belief of their heart, Orthodox or not.

I think that you can confuse hypostasis and ousia in your approach to them...

I'm not the one who would confuse hypostasis and ousia. The mind and will are faculties in the physis of the ousia; so it's the multi-mind proponents who are at risk of unbelief.

Because you think a person is a being...

No, I most certainly do not. It's the English term person that doesn't make that distinction.

When person is hypostatically anterior to being...

And is the cause of being...

Being the hypostasis of being...

'Being' being the effect of the cause...

And yet you insist there are three sentient volitional consciousness centers for the alleged hypostases.

How do you read Psalm 82?

Arsenios

I read it as poetry that demonstrates man's divinization without being or becoming an inherently ontological divine uncreated ousia while being in hypostatic union with Christ and partaking of God's divine nature.

Elohim is applied to men in many OT references.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

And for unbelievers?

An hypostasis without prosopon?

So that they lose their personhood?

Or do they just become faceless persons?

More English, all based on the term person. In English, all persons are beings; so you can't differentiate.

I mean, IF, for humans, as you say, the prosopon is physically outward expression of the hypostasis, then when the body dies, the prosopon goes out of existence, because all that is outward ceases...

Therefore, they lose any opportunity to put on the prosopon of Christ, which must happen by faith during physical life. You're projecting chronological time into the afterlife rather than recognizing the immediacy of judgment and final destination.

The afterlife is another subject unto itself. You don't yet even comprehend what I've said about life, or about eternity versus sempiternity.

Yet here you are saying that they are IN their PROSOPON at the Last Judgement before the Face of God... Are you referring to God giving them their prosopon back in the general Resurrection of all?? Or did they have it all along, except that there is no longer sequential time after death? You did say there is no longer sequential time after death, yes?

There is no chronological time in the afterlife. Any sequentiality is beyond our current understanding as a perpetual qualitative "nowness".

Not in the Orthodox Faith... Christ is Himself the Lake of Fire for the workers of iniquity, but for us who love Him, He is Love and Joy...

This conflicts with the various Orthodox sources I've accessed in recent years; and with all I've discussed with Father James, who has also forwarded Orthodox writings.

Perhaps not...

Why do you think there is no sequential time after death?

Arsenios

Why do you think there IS? And there can be some sense of sequential linearity that is distinct from chronological time that is measured within the fallen cosmos.

 

[Arsenios]

Anyone who believes the alleged hypostases each have/are an individuated sentient consciousness are (sic) highly vulnerable to conceptualizing the Trinity as functional tritheism as the true belief of their heart, Orthodox or not.

So you think that we do this, and are thereby at risk in our hearts?

I mean, we confess the Three Persons as One God, distinct without separation or confusion. And functionally, we do pray to each One, knowing that each One is One with the other Two, mind you... And we pray to all Three as One [eg O Most Holy Trinity SAVE us..."], and we confess One God, the Father Almighty, and One Lord, and the Holy Spirit...

Consciousness, sentience, and individuation are categories of creation, btw, and not of God... And for that matter, so also is Person/Hypostasis... But this has been revealed to us to be USED by us as a CONDESCENSION for OUR individuated sentience and consciousness to best DESCRIBE the Three as One... We do not take the step that you are taking, of insisting that because person means one thing for human persons, that by this we can limit God to human categories... And in this manner, while giving cataphatic descriptives, we avoid cataphatic delineations, and maintain strict apophaticism...

Similarly, when we say "God is Love" we in no way limit God by what WE mean by love, but instead mean that the term love is the closest that we can come in describing the Love that God revealed Himself to be in His Creation of all creation (cosmos)...

So that when you come along and insist God has a Prosopon, and by this mean what that means for fallen man, except abstracted and cleand up conceptually so as to fit Divine phenomena, and in this insist that you have proven God to have a Face, an outerness, that combines with His Innerness to form a Person with particular attributions, etc etc, it all sounds pretty much blaringly off-key... And especially so when words are being used that form a kind of language that is only understood by those who have been taught it by the one who deduced and derived it all by himself...

So perhaps you can see why I approach the matter slowly and don't jump immediately off into your long strings of conceptual chains describing matters that are not apprehended in long and arcane conceptual chains...

YOU, for instance, did not, by your own account, apprehend them in this manner, but had a noetic encounter where the understanding was given to you...

I'm not the one who would confuse hypostasis and ousia.

You think you can't because you will not ingest the term person into your terminology...

The mind and will are faculties in the physis of the ousia;

You are speaking absolutely here, and so I hesitate, because you may mean for man, or, you may mean for God, this physis and ousia, and the rules change in your application when you go from one to the other... Plus, physis can mean material in the concrete, and general nature, or conceptual attributes, when extended, so to use physis without defining it for your inner-circle language meaning only obfuscates by smoke that which needs the light of a flame...

Likewise ousia, without a common language gloss, leaves those of us who see it as having two meanings at a loss... To wit, it can mean:
1 - Mind and will are contained in the nature of essence...
2 - Mind and will are contained in the nature of being...
3 - Mind and will are capabilities of 1 or 2...
4 - Mind and will are inherent functions of 1 0r 2...
5 - Mind and will are powers of 1 or 2...
6 - Mind and will are contained in the construction of essence AND being...

I mean, for you, it is obvious that what you just said has a slam dunk meaning and I have not been paying attention... But since I do not think in these terms of yours which form a private language, and I do not have much in language skills, I have to translate into normal English, and this you do not wish to do, preferring your own, private, and arcane language in which I struggle and fail...

Again...

The mind and will are faculties in the physis of the ousia;

I simply cannot relate to these words at all... When I first read them, I said to myself: Mind and will faculties IN the physics OF the Essence??? Nature is physis, and means physical nature, you know... It is ALL outward... And so now, you are LOCATING mind WITHIN the outward??? When mind is INWARD??? And are you speaking of God here??? That WAS the context, after all... And God has no physis, but created physis...

So in all, this is pretty messed up... You need to speak slowly, kindly, and patiently, as if you are explaining something to a 9 year old kid whose loving older brother you ARE... Otherwise, the kid will end up playing baseball or hide and seek or cops and robbers... You had started to do so, but in matters like these, where precision in language is so important, you jumped back into arcane private-language formulaics, and to this old man, these are not helpful at all...

so it's the multi-mind proponents who are at risk of unbelief.

The Orthodox do not speak of multi-mind...

Do you understand Truth as a Person?
Do you understand knowledge as union?
Do you understand "to know" as "to be"?

Do you understand these three as non-conceptual?

And yet you insist there are three sentient volitional consciousness centers for the alleged hypostases.

Actually, that is YOUR insistence that you insist is mine... I never mentioned "three sentient volitional consciousness centers" ever... You brought them up and introduced them and insisted I was insisting on them... I insist I was not... Insisting, that is...

I insist on three Persons... YOU insist on three "sentient volitional consciousness centers" as the meaning of three persons... What does Hierotheos say about that?

You see, you cannot reduce Hypostasis to sentience, volition, consciousness and center... It is the BASIS of these... It stands under them... They are consequences...

I read it as poetry that demonstrates man's divinization without being or becoming an inherently ontological divine uncreated ousia while being in hypostatic union with Christ and partaking of God's divine nature.

I read it as prophesy...

Can you take it line by line and show who is who in each of the pronouns?

Psalm 82:1 begins with O Theos...

God stood in the Synagog of gods
in the midst of gods He is judging.

And it ends in 8

Arise O God judge the earth
For You shall inherit all the Nations!

It seems to be liturgically constructed, yes?

Designed to be antiphonally chanted perhaps?

I mean, who are these gods?

Are they to be One in God (o theos)?

Many hypostases in one Ousia?

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

There is no chronological time in the afterlife.
Any sequentiality is beyond our current understanding
as a perpetual qualitative "nowness".

Why do you think there IS?

Because we are created...

A.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

So you think that we do this, and are thereby at risk in our hearts?

Some are, some aren't. As I said, it depends upon the heart and true belief. It's quite easy, and an epidemic, to believe the alleged multiple persons are multiple beings.

I mean, we confess the Three Persons as One God, distinct without separation or confusion.

And confessing can be rote recitation without the hypostasis of faith.

And functionally, we do pray to each One,

Eek. There is no scriptural or Apostolic precedent for praying to the Holy Spirit (especially without the articular).

knowing that each One is One with the other Two, mind you... And we pray to all Three as One [eg O Most Holy Trinity SAVE us..."],

I know. Very disturbing.

and we confess One God, the Father Almighty, and One Lord, and the Holy Spirit...

No biggie on its own.

Consciousness, sentience, and individuation are categories of creation, btw, and not of God...

Really? And how would you know? Besides... Lexicography indicates otherwise.

And for that matter, so also is Person/Hypostasis...

Same. Again... Lexicography. If God's Holy Spirit said the Son is the express image of God's hypostasis, I'm gonna have to believe that.

But this has been revealed to us to be USED by us as a CONDESCENSION for OUR individuated sentience and consciousness to best DESCRIBE the Three as One...

Then the best you could do would be to say you don't and can't know whether He is or isn't any of those terms/things. You could not say He isn't, for how would you know?

We do not take the step that you are taking, of insisting that because person means one thing for human persons, that by this we can limit God to human categories...

I don't insist hypostasis means one thing for God and another thing for humans. And you can't then say one way or the other, even to say God isn't.

You take cataphatic steps. It's impossible not to.

And in this manner, while giving cataphatic descriptives, we avoid cataphatic delineations, and maintain strict apophaticism...

No, it's quite selective, and laced with cataphaticism. Even apophatics have a tinge of the cataphatic. There's really no such thing as a pure apophatic.

You can't say whether God is actually any of those terms or not if you claim they're all condescension, etc. That's a bit of a rabbit hole. I prefer to take God at His word in scripture.

And, unlike others, I'm quite thankful that the Eastern Church is the source for compiling that inspired scripture, even if minutiae of doctrinal formulaic had subsequent omissions.

Similarly, when we say "God is Love" we in no way limit God by what WE mean by love, but instead mean that the term love is the closest that we can come in describing the Love that God revealed Himself to be in His Creation of all creation (cosmos)...

Again, lexicography goes a long way here, as always.

So that when you come along and insist God has a Prosopon,

Me? God Himself insisted so to Moses, declaring no man could look upon His prosopon and live. You've even made reference to it in the past on another thread.

and by this mean what that means for fallen man,

Nope. His transcendent in-shining prosopon cannot be beheld. It isn't the schema of a man, fallen or not.

except abstracted and cleand up conceptually so as to fit Divine phenomena,

No. Just referencing scripture.

and in this insist that you have proven God to have a Face, an outerness, that combines with His Innerness to form a Person with particular attributions, etc etc, it all sounds pretty much blaringly off-key...

No. It sounds like your neglect of scripture and lexicography.

And especially so when words are being used that form a kind of language that is only understood by those who have been taught it by the one who deduced and derived it all by himself...

This would apply at some point to all usage of words, including Orthodoxy. St. Basil standardized definitions from multiple possibilities, as have numerous others.

For one who so adamantly embraces the nebulous English term person, you get mighty stringent about other stuff.

So perhaps you can see why I approach the matter slowly and don't jump immediately off into your long strings of conceptual chains describing matters that are not apprehended in long and arcane conceptual chains...

They're not conceptual, they're purely lexicographical. Huge difference. It's the doctrine of three persons that is purely conceptual.

The Orthodox Trinity is very lateral in its alleged threeness. There's no verticality. It's all Uni-Phenomenal. 2D. No depth, just false breadth.

YOU, for instance, did not, by your own account, apprehend them in this manner, but had a noetic encounter where the understanding was given to you...

True. But I also didn't have anyone laying it all out for me, and dispelling what is false by the ministry of reconciliation. Notice that by that same source, I wholly reject all anathemas and focus instead on the Trinity formulaic.

You think you can't because you will not ingest the term person into your terminology...

And you somehow disregard my copious understanding of the superior irreducible Greek term instead. I know what a "person" is. It's just so mangled I refuse to touch it. Ten-foot poles aren't near long enough.

You are speaking absolutely here, and so I hesitate, because you may mean for man, or, you may mean for God, this physis and ousia, and the rules change in your application when you go from one to the other... Plus, physis can mean material in the concrete, and general nature, or conceptual attributes, when extended, so to use physis without defining it for your inner-circle language meaning only obfuscates by smoke that which needs the light of a flame...

And yet you embrace "person". Sigh.

Likewise ousia, without a common language gloss, leaves those of us who see it as having two meanings at a loss... To wit, it can mean:
1 - Mind and will are contained in the nature of essence...
2 - Mind and will are contained in the nature of being...
3 - Mind and will are capabilities of 1 or 2...
4 - Mind and will are inherent functions of 1 0r 2...
5 - Mind and will are powers of 1 or 2...
6 - Mind and will are contained in the construction of essence AND being...

I'll have to figure out how to represent it in YOUR private language, so I'll work on it.

I mean, for you, it is obvious that what you just said has a slam dunk meaning and I have not been paying attention... But since I do not think in these terms of yours which form a private language, and I do not have much in language skills, I have to translate into normal English, and this you do not wish to do, preferring your own, private, and arcane language in which I struggle and fail...

It's lexicography, not a private language. The Orthodox have the private language, you see; not me.

Again...

I simply cannot relate to these words at all... When I first read them, I said to myself: Mind and will faculties IN the physics OF the Essence??? Nature is physis, and means physical nature, you know... It is ALL outward... And so now, you are LOCATING mind WITHIN the outward??? When mind is INWARD??? And are you speaking of God here???

The physis is not merely physical, though represented outwardly (and physically by humans who are physical).

That WAS the context, after all... And God has no physis, but created physis...

2Peter 1:4. There's a divine nature for us to partake of.

So in all, this is pretty messed up... You need to speak slowly, kindly, and patiently, as if you are explaining something to a 9 year old kid whose loving older brother you ARE... Otherwise, the kid will end up playing baseball or hide and seek or cops and robbers...

I do try diligently.

You had started to do so, but in matters like these, where precision in language is so important, you jumped back into arcane private-language formulaics, and to this old man, these are not helpful at all...

Well... Okay.

The Orthodox do not speak of multi-mind...

But they represent it functionally.

Do you understand Truth as a Person?

Aletheia (truth) is the unveiled reality lying at the basis of, and agreeing with, an appearance; the manifest or veritable essence of matter.

Thy Logos is truth.

The prosopon of Christ unveils the reality (hypostasis) lying at the basis of, and agreeing with, that appearance; and is the manifest essence of God, the source of all truth who cannot lie.

The truth is God, and thus Christ. One is a hypostasis, the other is the express image OF that hypostasis. Not lateral multiple hypostases, but vertical uncreated phenomenalities.

Do you understand knowledge as union?

Oida is intuitive spiritual knowledge by communion. Gnosis is not.

Do you understand "to know" as "to be"?

Intuitively, yes. Intellectually, no.

Do you understand these three as non-conceptual?

What do you mean by non-conceptual, since the Trinity IS conceptual.

Actually, that is YOUR insistence that you insist is mine... I never mentioned "three sentient volitional consciousness centers" ever... You brought them up and introduced them and insisted I was insisting on them... I insist I was not... Insisting, that is...

You have previously insisted upon individuated minds and wills. Recently, you don't.

I insist on three Persons... YOU insist on three "sentient volitional consciousness centers" as the meaning of three persons...

You've said both in some sense.

What does Hierotheos say about that?

He represents persons as individuals with distinct minds and wills.

You see, you cannot reduce Hypostasis to sentience, volition, consciousness and center... It is the BASIS of these... It stands under them... They are consequences...

I haven't done so. You misunderstand. That's my point. There aren't three distinct divine minds and wills. THAT's what many insist upon; and you have said it in the past.

I read it as prophesy...

Can you take it line by line and show who is who in each of the pronouns?

Psalm 82:1 begins with O Theos...

God stood in the Synagog of gods
in the midst of gods He is judging.

And it ends in 8

Arise O God judge the earth
For You shall inherit all the Nations!

If I have time later, I'll do so.

It seems to be liturgically constructed, yes?

Designed to be antiphonally chanted perhaps?

Likely and likely.

I mean, who are these gods?

Are they to be One in God (o theos)?

Many hypostases in one Ousia?

Arsenios

The Syriac text indicates angels. I'll take some time later and break it down.

 

[Arsenios]

The following is taken from a lecture given by Fr. Thomas Hopko, who reposed a little over a month ago... He was Dean Emiritus and Prof. Emeritus of Dogmatic Theology at St. Vladimir's Russian Orthodox Theological Seminary, and is worth listening to... This lecture is titled The Holy Trinity, and can be read or heard here: http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/the_holy_trinity

He is describing his student years when he complained to his dogmatics professor that the doctrine of the Trinity is not to be found in Scripture... And he agrees with PPS that we do not to the Trinity as if it were a single God, and agrees with me that we pray to each of the members of the Trinity, but that the One God is the Father, with His Son and His Spirit... He then goes on to show HOW to correctly derive the doctrine of the Trinity... But I cut it off as it began, a naked attempt at a tease for anyone to listen to the lecture, or read it at the site...

I must say, I am not entirely comfortable with how much Hopko seems to sympathize with YOU, PPS,

Mind you...

Here is Father Tom - In transcription from his lecture...

When I was a seminarian, many years ago, I went to my professor of dogmatic theology, Professor Serge Verhovskoy, and I said to him, “Prof”—everybody called him “Prof”—“I don’t find the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the Bible. I don’t think it’s in the Bible.” Of course, in those days, I had a very skewed idea of the Trinity. I thought of the Trinity as sort of one God who is somehow three. I thought of it as like three-leaf clovers or like three elements of water, that water could be liquid, water could be steam, and water could be ice. Actually, I came to learn that, in fact, those symbolisms are Modalistic. They’re Modalistic symbolisms; they’re not accurate. You can speak of God as fountain and stream or something like fire and heat and warmth and so on, as emanating from the one God and Father through his Son and his Spirit, but not all analogies are apt, not all are good ones, and three-leaf clovers and three forms of H2O and so on, those are not happy images, because they give the very wrong idea. To understand it properly, you begin with Jesus, and you read the Scriptures. And then you can contemplate how the one God is God the Father and his Son and his Holy Spirit, how he is one God with his Son and with his Holy Spirit.

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

The Syriac text indicates angels. I'll take some time later and break it down.

Don't you like the Hebraic Greek text?

Granted, it is an older and even more commonized Greek...
A kind of pidgeon-Alexandrian-koine Greek...
We call it the LXX Greek...

1 - ὁ θεός ἵστημι ἐν συναγωγή θεός

God stood in the Synagogue of gods...

.....ἐν μέσος δέ θεός διακρίνω

In the(ir) midst gods is He judging!


Anarthous gods and THE God...

Sons of the Most High...

To die like anthropo-dogs for lack of compassion...

Wouldn't you say?

Arsenios

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

The following is taken from a lecture given by Fr. Thomas Hopko, who reposed a little over a month ago... He was Dean Emiritus and Prof. Emeritus of Dogmatic Theology at St. Vladimir's Russian Orthodox Theological Seminary, and is worth listening to... This lecture is titled The Holy Trinity, and can be read or heard here: http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/the_holy_trinity

He is describing his student years when he complained to his dogmatics professor that the doctrine of the Trinity is not to be found in Scripture... And he agrees with PPS that we do not to the Trinity as if it were a single God, and agrees with me that we pray to each of the members of the Trinity, but that the One God is the Father, with His Son and His Spirit... He then goes on to show HOW to correctly derive the doctrine of the Trinity... But I cut it off as it began, a naked attempt at a tease for anyone to listen to the lecture, or read it at the site...

I shall. But I'd surmise he stops well short of deference toward three hypostases, though he may be closer to truth than many.

I must say, I am not entirely comfortable with how much Hopko seems to sympathize with YOU, PPS,

Very endearing from my perspective. And much more lexically sound according to scripture.

Mind you...

Here is Father Tom - In transcription from his lecture...

When I was a seminarian, many years ago, I went to my professor of dogmatic theology, Professor Serge Verhovskoy, and I said to him, “Prof”—everybody called him “Prof”—“I don’t find the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the Bible. I don’t think it’s in the Bible.” Of course, in those days, I had a very skewed idea of the Trinity. I thought of the Trinity as sort of one God who is somehow three. I thought of it as like three-leaf clovers or like three elements of water, that water could be liquid, water could be steam, and water could be ice. Actually, I came to learn that, in fact, those symbolisms are Modalistic. They’re Modalistic symbolisms; they’re not accurate. You can speak of God as fountain and stream or something like fire and heat and warmth and so on, as emanating from the one God and Father through his Son and his Spirit, but not all analogies are apt, not all are good ones, and three-leaf clovers and three forms of H2O and so on, those are not happy images, because they give the very wrong idea. To understand it properly, you begin with Jesus, and you read the Scriptures. And then you can contemplate how the one God is God the Father and his Son and his Holy Spirit, how he is one God with his Son and with his Holy Spirit.

Arsenios

It's a start.

I'd wager that if I presented a completed published dissertation at the Holy Mountain, an Ecumenical Council would affirm the presentation and adapt Orthodoxy to the deeper truth.

 

[Lazy afternoon]

The following is taken from a lecture given by Fr. Thomas Hopko, who reposed a little over a month ago... He was Dean Emiritus and Prof. Emeritus of Dogmatic Theology at St. Vladimir's Russian Orthodox Theological Seminary, and is worth listening to... This lecture is titled The Holy Trinity, and can be read or heard here: http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/the_holy_trinity

He is describing his student years when he complained to his dogmatics professor that the doctrine of the Trinity is not to be found in Scripture... And he agrees with PPS that we do not to the Trinity as if it were a single God, and agrees with me that we pray to each of the members of the Trinity, but that the One God is the Father, with His Son and His Spirit... He then goes on to show HOW to correctly derive the doctrine of the Trinity... But I cut it off as it began, a naked attempt at a tease for anyone to listen to the lecture, or read it at the site...

I must say, I am not entirely comfortable with how much Hopko seems to sympathize with YOU, PPS,

Mind you...

Here is Father Tom - In transcription from his lecture...

When I was a seminarian, many years ago, I went to my professor of dogmatic theology, Professor Serge Verhovskoy, and I said to him, “Prof”—everybody called him “Prof”—“I don’t find the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the Bible. I don’t think it’s in the Bible.” Of course, in those days, I had a very skewed idea of the Trinity. I thought of the Trinity as sort of one God who is somehow three. I thought of it as like three-leaf clovers or like three elements of water, that water could be liquid, water could be steam, and water could be ice. Actually, I came to learn that, in fact, those symbolisms are Modalistic. They’re Modalistic symbolisms; they’re not accurate. You can speak of God as fountain and stream or something like fire and heat and warmth and so on, as emanating from the one God and Father through his Son and his Spirit, but not all analogies are apt, not all are good ones, and three-leaf clovers and three forms of H2O and so on, those are not happy images, because they give the very wrong idea. To understand it properly, you begin with Jesus, and you read the Scriptures. And then you can contemplate how the one God is God the Father and his Son and his Holy Spirit, how he is one God with his Son and with his Holy Spirit.

Arsenios

Jesus is the first of many men to be made eternal.

1Co 15:21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. 1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
1Co 15:23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming.
1Co 15:24 Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.
1Co 15:25 For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.
1Co 15:26 The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.
1Co 15:27 For "HE HAS PUT ALL THINGS UNDER HIS FEET." But when He says "all things are put under Him," it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted.
1Co 15:28 Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

LA

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

The following is taken from a lecture given by Fr. Thomas Hopko, who reposed a little over a month ago... He was Dean Emiritus and Prof. Emeritus of Dogmatic Theology at St. Vladimir's Russian Orthodox Theological Seminary, and is worth listening to... This lecture is titled The Holy Trinity, and can be read or heard here: http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/the_holy_trinity

He is describing his student years when he complained to his dogmatics professor that the doctrine of the Trinity is not to be found in Scripture... And he agrees with PPS that we do not to the Trinity as if it were a single God, and agrees with me that we pray to each of the members of the Trinity, but that the One God is the Father, with His Son and His Spirit... He then goes on to show HOW to correctly derive the doctrine of the Trinity... But I cut it off as it began, a naked attempt at a tease for anyone to listen to the lecture, or read it at the site...

I must say, I am not entirely comfortable with how much Hopko seems to sympathize with YOU, PPS,

Mind you...

Here is Father Tom - In transcription from his lecture...

When I was a seminarian, many years ago, I went to my professor of dogmatic theology, Professor Serge Verhovskoy, and I said to him, “Prof”—everybody called him “Prof”—“I don’t find the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the Bible. I don’t think it’s in the Bible.” Of course, in those days, I had a very skewed idea of the Trinity. I thought of the Trinity as sort of one God who is somehow three. I thought of it as like three-leaf clovers or like three elements of water, that water could be liquid, water could be steam, and water could be ice. Actually, I came to learn that, in fact, those symbolisms are Modalistic. They’re Modalistic symbolisms; they’re not accurate. You can speak of God as fountain and stream or something like fire and heat and warmth and so on, as emanating from the one God and Father through his Son and his Spirit, but not all analogies are apt, not all are good ones, and three-leaf clovers and three forms of H2O and so on, those are not happy images, because they give the very wrong idea. To understand it properly, you begin with Jesus, and you read the Scriptures. And then you can contemplate how the one God is God the Father and his Son and his Holy Spirit, how he is one God with his Son and with his Holy Spirit.

Arsenios

From that site...

Now here we have to see a very important point for Trinitarian theology, and that is that in the Bible, in the Scriptures, and then, therefore, in the creeds—and particularly the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which became the credal statement for ancient Christianity and remains the baptismal, liturgical creed for Eastern Orthodox churches and most Christian churches to this very day, as it was formulated and put together and received from the first two Ecumenical Councils (Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381)—that [is] in this creed and as it is proclaimed in liturgical prayers—and certainly in the liturgical prayer, the anaphora (which is a word that means “raising up” or “offering up,” which is a technical term for the Eucharistic prayer, the Eucharistic canon, where the bread and wine, the prosphora, are first elevated and offered to God as we lift up our hearts and have our hearts on high when we remember the saving activity of Christ at the holy Eucharistic service)—in the Bible, in the creeds, and in the Liturgy, it’s very important, really critically important, to note and to affirm and to remember that the one God in whom we believe, strictly speaking, is not the Holy Trinity. The one God is God the Father. In the Bible, the one God is the Father of Jesus Christ. He is God who sends his only-begotten Son into the world, and Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Then, of course, in a parallel manner, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is the Spirit of God, that the Holy Spirit, being the Spirit of God, is therefore also the Spirit of Christ, the Messiah, because the Christ is the Son of God, upon whom God the Father sends and affirms his Holy Spirit.

The bolded and underlined are significant.

On the other hand, there is another terrible error, and the other terrible error, usually called Modalism in technical theological terminology, is where people say there is one God who is the Holy Trinity: there is he who is the Trinity. And we Orthodox Christians, following Scripture and the credal statements and the liturgical prayers, can never say there is one God who is the Trinity. There is one God who is the Father, and this one God who is the Father has with him eternally, whom he begets timelessly before all ages, his only-begotten Son, who is also his Logos, his Word, and also his Ḥokmot, his Sophia, his Wisdom, also his Eikona, his Icon, his Image.
But this Wisdom and Word and Image and Icon of God is divine with the very same divinity as God, the one, true, and living God, because he is who he is, and he’s another who from the Father. There are three whos. There is he who is the Father, he who is the Son, and he who is the Holy Spirit. Those three whos are called the three Persons or three Hypostases. Probably the term “hypostases” is a better term, because it means three instance of divine life in a perfect and total unity.

More significant bolded and underlined emphases.

Came from the realm of God. That’s what heaven means. It’s not a geographical, physical, located space. “Came down from heaven” means comes from the realm of God.

And THIS is a huge part of the problem... Heaven is NOT "the realm of God". Heaven is created and everlasting, having an inception. God doesn't need a "realm" to be "of"; nor is heaven "of" Him. He is Self-existent and Self-sufficient. The uncaused and/or Self-caused cause.

THIS is the omission of the Patristics, though then declaring all heavens to be created. And all creation was sempiternal, both the invisible (heaven) and the visible (cosmos).

God in His inherent transcendence was all that had/was existence until the Divine Utterance to create. I've accounted for God, who IS eternity, creating sempiternity (everlastingness) as heaven and the cosmos (invisible and visible).

The cosmos is NOT temporality until the Edenic scenario. It was created as aionios (everlasting), but with spiritual death and sin it became temporal. These are the "fallen" earth aions (ages) of the aionios cosmos.

If all creation is temporal/ity, then heaven must also be temporal; for heaven is created. God tents there as His everlasting abode, but is eternally transcendent TO the created heaven.

The one God is the Father, and His Logos and Spirit are the Son and Holy (set-apart) Spirit in the created heaven and cosmos. This is NOT a Monadic reference to God, for the eternal Logos is the eternal Son.

If one does not recognize and understand the interface between God's inherent timelessness and all forms of created time, one can never comprehend to true verticality of God as a singular hypostasis and the Son as the express image OF that hypostasis.

For God is transcendent uncreated Self-phenomenality and Self-noumenality, and the processed Logos and Pneuma as the eternal Son and Holy Spirit are qualitative distinctions in the singular divine hypostasis; and the latter is the perichoretic between the Father and His eternally begotten Son; interpenetrating the uncreated in all layers of phenonema.

The express image OF the divine uncreated transcendent hypostasis is that exact divine uncreated hypostasis processed into created phenomena when/as it is instantiated into created phenomenal existence. The internal Logos proceeded forth as the external Son, having a distinct sempiternal prosopon from the Father's transcendent prosopon.

God's Logos is not a distinct hypostasis from Himself, nor is His Pneuma. He IS Spirit, and from Himself as Self-phenomenal and Self-noumenal Spirit He set apart the noumenon of Himself as the Holy Spirit into creation. THAT's non-/anti-Filioque ekporeuomai/para/pempo/erchomai. His noumenon was alongside His phenomenon in transcendence, and His Logos pierced through Himself to partition and distribute the noumenon from the phenomenon into Ex Nihilo creation when/as it was instantiated into created phenomena as actuality from being noumenal potentiality in God's immutable nous. And by that omnipresent Holy Spirit was breathed animating life into all creation.

God is a Uni-Hypostatic Multi-Phenomenal Trinity.

 

[Arsenios]

Jesus is the first of many men to be made eternal.

1Co 15:21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. 1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
1Co 15:23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming.
1Co 15:24 Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.
1Co 15:25 For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.
1Co 15:26 The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.
1Co 15:27 For "HE HAS PUT ALL THINGS UNDER HIS FEET." But when He says "all things are put under Him," it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted.
1Co 15:28 Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

LA

There is no question that God created man for eternal life, and that we can enter into it here and now on earth...

So how do you read Psalm 82?

 

[Lazy afternoon]

There is no question that God created man for eternal life, and that we can enter into it here and now on earth...

So how do you read Psalm 82?

What particular aspect?

Oba 1:18 The house of Jacob shall be a fire, And the house of Joseph a flame; But the house of Esau shall be stubble; They shall kindle them and devour them, And no survivor shall remain of the house of Esau," For the LORD has spoken.
Oba 1:19 The South shall possess the mountains of Esau, And the Lowland shall possess Philistia. They shall possess the fields of Ephraim And the fields of Samaria. Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
Oba 1:20 And the captives of this host of the children of Israel Shall possess the land of the Canaanites As far as Zarephath. The captives of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad Shall possess the cities of the South.
Oba 1:21 Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion To judge the mountains of Esau, And the kingdom shall be the LORD's.

 

[Arsenios]

And THIS is a huge part of the problem... Heaven is NOT "the realm of God".

OK - So whose realm is it?

The "Realm of God", heaven, was juxtaposed in opposition to "a geographical, physical, located space." Do you think it is such a space?

Heaven is created and everlasting, having an inception.

Well, the context here is perhaps n important factor, because if we say that Christ incarnated into His creation, and that he incarnated by coming down from Heaven, then He came into His creation FROM an UN-created Heaven... You want to call this heaven from which He descended created and everlasting... Yet the Logos already WAS in "existence" IN the Beginning of existence and time, so that the I AM incarnated from something not created...

You seem to be arguing that God created Heaven and placed His Son in it, and from there, within this creation, the Son incarnated into creation...

God doesn't need a "realm" to be "of"; nor is heaven "of" Him. He is Self-existent and Self-sufficient. The uncaused and/or Self-caused cause.

I think Hopko is simply saying that the un-created God has His Being in an un-created realm, for lack of better terms... Not that he needs is, or possesses it OF Himself, but simply IS such...

THIS is the omission of the Patristics, though then declaring all heavens to be created. And all creation was sempiternal, both the invisible (heaven) and the visible (cosmos).

So you keep saying...

God in His inherent transcendence was all that had/was existence

This is what Hopko calls the realm of God, I should think... You would like to add more technical terms to it, like inherent transcendence... Does this give us more than the term "Realm of God"? I do think it is purposively indeterminate, and that your term, by naming inherent and transcendence, seeks clearer human conceptual definition of something that defies such effort...

until the Divine Utterance to create.

Then suddenly there was additional existence besides God... Got it...

God is revealed according to Hopko - First by creation itself, then by the Prophets variously, and finally, by God Himself... So that his starting point is Christ, that from Christ the Trinity can be perceived...

He said:

"The doctrine of the Trinity and the word “trinity, triados,” it is not a New Testamental word;
it is not a biblical word.
It is a word that emerged in Christian history very early—pretty early:
second, third century—but certainly it’s not a biblical word.
It is an expression that has to be properly understood,
and it can only be properly understood when one begins,
as a Christian ought always to begin,
in every single subject that they contemplate or think about or try to understand,
and that is with the Person of Jesus."

Which brings us to Psalm 82:

I said "Ye are gods, and all sons of the Most High..."

Is the "I" above referring to Christ?

And the "all" to fallen mankind?

Over-definition-alizing in technical language the discussion of the Trinity cannot avoid making of it a philosophic enterprise, I should think... It takes great precision and economy of terms, and as Fr. Tom insists, it must begin with the Person of Jesus, Who is the ultimate Revelation to mankind of the Father...

There are always three WHOs... Father, Son and Holy Spirit... They are always acting as One... And they are always with one another... They have the same mind and will, the one with the other two...

We join with Paul and call the Mystery of the Faith this and more, and you seem to want to definitionalize it much more... And I do not think it is amenable to that kind of enterprise... We just say there are three, and they are one...

Tell me, PPS, do you have trouble with the idea that three hypostasis can have one mind and will, and even awareness?

For man, impossible, yes?

For God, no problem!

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

What particular aspect?

Oba 1:18 The house of Jacob shall be a fire, And the house of Joseph a flame; But the house of Esau shall be stubble; They shall kindle them and devour them, And no survivor shall remain of the house of Esau," For the LORD has spoken.
Oba 1:19 The South shall possess the mountains of Esau, And the Lowland shall possess Philistia. They shall possess the fields of Ephraim And the fields of Samaria. Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
Oba 1:20 And the captives of this host of the children of Israel Shall possess the land of the Canaanites As far as Zarephath. The captives of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad Shall possess the cities of the South.
Oba 1:21 Then saviors shall come to Mount Zion To judge the mountains of Esau, And the kingdom shall be the LORD's.

Psalm 82 begins with, in the KJV:

KJV – [A Psalm of Asaph.]
God standeth in the congregation of the mighty;
he judgeth among the gods.

Who is God and who the gods?

Arsenios

 

[glorydaz]

Jesus is the first of many men to be made eternal.


LA

How convenient of you to ignore the whole truth. He wasn't "made eternal". The Lord our God is ONE LORD. He became flesh and dwelt among us. John 1:14

And His name is called the Word of God. Rev. 19:13

John 1:1-3
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.​

By Him were all things created. He is before all things.

Col. 1:16-17
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.​

 

[Arsenios]

Jesus is the first of many men to be made eternal.

Would you also say He was the first God to be made man?

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

How convenient of you to ignore the whole truth. He wasn't "made eternal". The Lord our God is ONE LORD. He became flesh and dwelt among us. John 1:14

And His name is called the Word of God. Rev. 19:13

John 1:1-3
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.​

By Him were all things created. He is before all things.

Col. 1:16-17
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.​

:up:

A.

 

[Arsenios]

I'd wager that if I presented a completed published dissertation at the Holy Mountain, an Ecumenical Council would affirm the presentation and adapt Orthodoxy to the deeper truth.

PPS - That wager would be their refutation of your presentation...

It is an old and well known demon known as Vanity of Intellect...

One of his children is Philosophy...

The simple Truth is that there is one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible... And He has one Son, our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, the eternal Logos, and He has one Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life...

Arsenios