ECT Our triune God

[Lazy afternoon]

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

Arsenios

No.

LA

 

[Lazy afternoon]

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.​

It was Gods word which was made flesh to become Jesus.

Gods word was/ is eternal, but Jesus was born through Mary.

Gods word never changed.

It was God who created the world with Jesus in mind, Gods own singular person's eternal purpose.

You do not accept that because my Jesus is a glorified man, Gods son born 2000 years ago.

Your jesus is that of the invention of the RCC and is not a man at all.

LA

 

[Lazy afternoon]

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

Arsenios

No.

Jesus is first of many men to be made gods, that is men in the image of God, but not THE God.

Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Rom 8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Rom 8:30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
Rom 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Rom 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?


1Co 15:20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
1Co 15:21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.

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]

OK - So whose realm is it?

It wasn't possessive, it was stated as "of" God. You've been such a stickler with me for prepositions and the like, and now you gloss this.

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

It's a "where", and created angels dwell "there". "Wheres" are places/spaces, even if they're not physical.

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...

And yet... You've previously contended that heaven is created; insisting such is included in Holy Liturgy. So which is it?

And now that you're reverting to an UNcreated heaven, God is contained and constrained. Now heaven is a God jar that is greater than God and limits Him to that "where". Now heaven is transcendence, so created angels are IN transcendence apart from creation. Wow.

But don't forget this is another of your changed positions. It happens when I point out paradoxes, and you have to invert your previous position.

You want to call this heaven from which He descended created and everlasting...

Yes, of course. And you stated several times very insistently that heaven is created, and cited Liturgy as evidence.

Yet the Logos already WAS in "existence" IN the Beginning of existence and time, so that the I AM incarnated from something not created...

Right. The LOGOS. That's the eternal Logos that proceeded forth as the eternal Son. And of course the Son Incarnated from somethig not created. God. The Father. And you still maintain a Neo-Platonist non-existent God.

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 didn't "place" His Son in the created heaven; the Son proceeded forth into creation.

I think Hopko is simply saying that the un-created God has His Being in an un-created realm, for lack of better terms...

A realm is a "where" as a place/space; and he shouldn't lack better terms.

Not that he needs is, or possesses it OF Himself, but simply IS such...

IS? So the uncreated realm IS as existence, and contains God, who doesn't exist. Arrrgggghhhhh!!!! Insanity.

So you keep saying...

Yep.

This is what Hopko calls the realm of God, I should think...

And he's wrong. Very wrong. Why are the Orthodox (who don't all agree) infallible to you but everyone else is an intellectual sophist driven solely by vanity?

You would like to add more technical terms to it, like inherent transcendence... Does this give us more than the term "Realm of God"?

Yes, they're not the same; and you STILL miss the disinction between eternal and everlasting.

I do think it is purposively indeterminate,

Exactly. Passively obfuscational in ignorance. A gloss.

and that your term, by naming inherent and transcendence, seeks clearer human conceptual definition of something that defies such effort...

The Orthodox have made no effort. Protties are even worse. It's all smoke and mirrors, refusing to be corrected by truth while clinging to dogma.

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

Yes. Created phenomena was instantiated into reality of existence, distinct from God's uncreated Self-phenomenon.

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...

Right. And Christ doesn't reveal three hypostases.

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."

Right. So don't begin with three hypostases and pattern everything to retain that fallacy in spite of what Christ reveals.

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?

I don't know why you're obsessed with Psalm 82 to affirm Theology Proper.

Over-definition-alizing in technical language the discussion of the Trinity cannot avoid making of it a philosophic enterprise, I should think...

I guess you'll have to tell that to St. Basil and a good number of other Orthodoxians.

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...

Right. The express image OF God's hypostasis, not another hypostasis. And the Trinity didn't start with Christ, it was formulated to account for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit while retaining Monotheism.

And Christology wasn't settled until Chalcedon in 451AD; 126 years after Nicea and 70 uears after Constantinople. Seriously? Christology came long after Theology Proper.

There are always three WHOs...

Sigh. Inference. And ignorance of multi-phenomenality.

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...

Yeah, I'm the one who consistently maintains all that. You've waffled from one position to the other.

We join with Paul and call the Mystery of the Faith this and more, and you seem to want to definitionalize it much more...

The damage must be undone, and you don't represent Paul's mystery. And the mystery is revealed.

And I do not think it is amenable to that kind of enterprise... We just say there are three, and they are one...

No. You (the Orthodox) say exponentially more than that.

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

That is the only nominally valid view for the Multi-Hypostatic Trinity; and it's rare among professing Trinitarians. You've played both sides of that, just as with created versus uncreated heaven and other issues.

For man, impossible, yes?

For God, no problem!

Arsenios

No problem; but not accurate or true.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

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

Then they do not know the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent.

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

Again with the arrogant accusations that everyone else is demonized and vain except the Orthodox who don't all agree. Hopko is a clear example of that.

At least 50% of your posts are gigging me for demonic vanity.

One of his children is philosophy...

Sigh. More condescending provocation. It's a pretty good gig just to dis' everyone else as demonized with sophistry. It's the most demeaning insult of all to those who have intuitively and noetically searched for truth.

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

Right. I say it all the time. But I'm just a vain demonized sophist.:sigh:

 

[Arsenios]

But I'm just a vain demonized sophist.:sigh:

Only when you boast of yourself and make wagers against others...

When I do that, and I do, then I also am in your pile while YOU are doing so...

Compared to me, you are a lilly-white angel singing with the Cherubim...

But you fall off that cloud when you boast of yourself and wager against others...

ANYONE does...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Yes, of course. And you stated several times very insistently that heaven is created, and cited Liturgy as evidence.

So I am re-thinking these matters... Wanna borrow my meat-cleaver? Sheesh!

The LOGOS. That's the eternal Logos that proceeded forth as the eternal Son. And of course the Son Incarnated from something not created. God. The Father.

The Logos does not "proceed forth" as the eternal Son... His manner of being is by being BEGOTTEN, and NOT by your "proceeding forth"... ONLY the Holy Spirit has His Source from the Father by such "Proceeding", and it is ontological, and not merely ekonomical... Of course the son is sent forth, as is the Holy Spirit, but the proceeding of the Holy Spirit is how God functions as His Source...

Just as the Holy Spirit is not BEGOTTEN, but the son is...
So also the Son does not proceed from God, but the Holy Spirit does... This "proceed" is ekpoureomai, and not exerchomai...

BOTH have the latter... ONLY the Holy Spirit has the former as His manner of Being from God...

You have been consistently wrong in this throughout the thread... You have never even once, for instance, used the word BEGOTTEN of the Father, nor I believe BORN of the Virgin Mary... Two different words, as Hopko noted...

Did you read and digest the entire article?

A realm is a "where" as a place/space; and he shouldn't lack better terms.

The Kingdom of Heaven is Christ...
His realm is Himself...
He into Whom we are Baptized...
He Who incarnated into human flesh...
And AFTER His Resurrection, appeared and disappeared, passed through locked doors and walls, and ate fish and honey... Such that He can exist as flesh anywhere, and can be everywhere, and is nowhere, and on and on... This is the Risen Christ into Whose Body we are Baptized... This Body is at hand here and now...

So here is the kicker, you see... The Kingdom of Heaven is WITHIN you, and is NOT outside of you... Your BODY can be a Temple of God the Holy Spirit, but the Kingdom of Heaven is within YOU, and is NOT within your BODY, of your MIND, or your SOUL... Instead, it is within YOU... And YOU are a WHO... And THAT is the Mystery of the Person in the Orthodox Faith...

And in this context, a realm is where a king rules outwardly, and for Christians, is where Christ abides... "Where are you abiding, Lord?" the first called of John's disciples asked Him... And He did not say "Over here at Carl's place in the midst of sempiternity... Instead, He said: "Come... And 'see'" And they came and they knew... Without coming, they could not know... And what they knew, they could not speak...

IS? So the uncreated realm IS as existence, and contains God, who doesn't exist. Arrrgggghhhhh!!!! Insanity.

God IS the uncreated realm...
And its King...
Come and see...

You STILL miss the disinction between eternal and everlasting.

We understand God as timeless, and you understand Him as Eternal... You regard creation as everlasting, except our fallen creation, which has a beginning and an end... And you seem to think that this distinction is of some vast and cosmic import... We simply go along with Paul and say with him that the ascension to the third heaven shows things of which it is unlawful to speak... And you invent an entire vocabulary to speak of them...

The first heaven and the first earth will pass away...
And all things will be made new...
We will no longer be subject to demonic presence...

We do NOT know what it will all be... It is not our concern...
Our concern is here and now, which is God's time, where we can redeem the time... Time is in creation, you see, and you seem to want to place creation within time... Time itself is created, by the timeless Creator of time...

Passively obfuscational in ignorance. A gloss.

Not our concern, really - Our concern is repentance from sin and turning to God... And not to render the Trinity into a systematic and consistent philosophical whole according to human fallen cognition... We receive what God gives us, and do not pretend to improve on it with new ideas that will only suck us into the void of the vanity of intellectual brilliance... We desire marriage and obedience, and not logical consistency in systematic conceptual progression of ideas...

In a word, we desire what the Reality of God IS...

The Orthodox have made no effort. Protties are even worse. It's all smoke and mirrors, refusing to be corrected by truth while clinging to dogma.

You are not Truth... If God wants the Faith of Christ doctrinally corrected, He not only knows how to do so, but He HAS done so across the centuries... From heresy to heresy... But in the meanwhile, Salvation is ongoing, because correct doctrines do not give Salvation...

So don't begin with three hypostases and pattern everything to retain that fallacy in spite of what Christ reveals.

I think his point was to begin with Christ, which we do, Who prays to the Father, and Who sends the Holy Spirit... eg Can you count to three...?

I don't know why you're obsessed with Psalm 82 to affirm Theology Proper.

Nobody wants to tackle it, yet Christ used that very Psalm to rebuke the Jews... Remember? If WE are all, as men, are SONS of the Most High, then we need to grow up to become one with Christ...

Right. The express image OF God's hypostasis, not another hypostasis.

Got a Scripture for that?

You've waffled from one position to the other.

I just walk into these conversations... I don't set myself up as Miss Perfect and dare all others to prove me wrong... I am just looking at the issues, that's all, and from a particular perspective...

No problem; but not accurate or true.

Have you experienced two hypostases in one ousia? Or two ousia in one hypostasis? I mean, you say a person cannot be a person without a face, without some outward expression, including God, whose outward expression is His Glory, yes? The ideas just go round and round and round and round...

Perhaps talking with someone else would help... For me, all I can see is a juggling of concepts that never touch the ground...

And when they do make it to the ground, they bounce right back up into the air for more juggling...

Shape-shifters, the little darlings...

Time, for instance, and eternity... And timelessness, or a-temporality... When fallen man, who is in this fallen life still animalic, even when he is partaking of the Divine Nature, participates in the timelessness of God, one can say that time shifts... You want to call this shift in our experience of time Sempiternity, and assign it a separate quadrant of reality... I really do not see this proceeding from Scripture... God created creation, the heavens and the earth and everything between, and He created man in His iconic image to be Lord of this created creation... [Adam was naming the animals, for instance...] But man turned from God, and God cursed man and creation and the serpent... This does not create some sempiternity of time, but is a temporary state of time in which we live now... A fallen state... Nor did God's creation of creation create some sempiternity of time, with a beginninng but no end... It just created sequential time... Time is just a feature of creation...

I mean, you continually pound on the Orthodox for not taking sempiternity into account, yet you have not demonstrated why it is so important in your understanding... Nor have you shown in plain language, or Orthodox language, why WE SHOULD make some big special provision for it... We assume it to be a part of creation, and in fallen creation, a temporary part until the next Age, after the Last Judgement... We understand time to be eminently manipulable when we are conjoined with God... Nature itself being similarly manipulable...

We do not take fallen creation as a given, but turn from it to God...

THAT is repentance and the way to the Marriage of the Lamb...

Sempiternity is not a familiar term in this Faith of Orthodoxy...

Nor am I seeing any pressing need to establish it...

Arsenios

 

[patrick jane]

So I am re-thinking these matters... Wanna borrow my meat-cleaver? Sheesh!



The Logos does not "proceed forth" as the eternal Son... His manner of being is by being BEGOTTEN, and NOT by your "proceeding forth"... ONLY the Holy Spirit has His Source from the Father by such "Proceeding", and it is ontological, and not merely ekonomical... Of course the son is sent forth, as is the Holy Spirit, but the proceeding of the Holy Spirit is how God functions as His Source...

Just as the Holy Spirit is not BEGOTTEN, but the son is...
So also the Son does not proceed from God, but the Holy Spirit does... This "proceed" is ekpoureomai, and not exerchomai...

BOTH have the latter... ONLY the Holy Spirit has the former as His manner of Being from God...

You have been consistently wrong in this throughout the thread... You have never even once, for instance, used the word BEGOTTEN of the Father, nor I believe BORN of the Virgin Mary... Two different words, as Hopko noted...

Did you read and digest the entire article?



The Kingdom of Heaven is Christ...
His realm is Himself...
He into Whom we are Baptized...
He Who incarnated into human flesh...
And AFTER His Resurrection, appeared and disappeared, passed through locked doors and walls, and ate fish and honey... Such that He can exist as flesh anywhere, and can be everywhere, and is nowhere, and on and on... This is the Risen Christ into Whose Body we are Baptized... This Body is at hand here and now...

So here is the kicker, you see... The Kingdom of Heaven is WITHIN you, and is NOT outside of you... Your BODY can be a Temple of God the Holy Spirit, but the Kingdom of Heaven is within YOU, and is NOT within your BODY, of your MIND, or your SOUL... Instead, it is within YOU... And YOU are a WHO... And THAT is the Mystery of the Person in the Orthodox Faith...

And in this context, a realm is where a king rules outwardly, and for Christians, is where Christ abides... "Where are you abiding, Lord?" the first called of John's disciples asked Him... And He did not say "Over here at Carl's place in the midst of sempiternity... Instead, He said: "Come... And 'see'" And they came and they knew... Without coming, they could not know... And what they knew, they could not speak...



God IS the uncreated realm...
And its King...
Come and see...



We understand God as timeless, and you understand Him as Eternal... You regard creation as everlasting, except our fallen creation, which has a beginning and an end... And you seem to think that this distinction is of some vast and cosmic import... We simply go along with Paul and say with him that the ascension to the third heaven shows things of which it is unlawful to speak... And you invent an entire vocabulary to speak of them...

The first heaven and the first earth will pass away...
And all things will be made new...
We will no longer be subject to demonic presence...

We do NOT know what it will all be... It is not our concern...
Our concern is here and now, which is God's time, where we can redeem the time... Time is in creation, you see, and you seem to want to place creation within time... Time itself is created, by the timeless Creator of time...



Not our concern, really - Our concern is repentance from sin and turning to God... And not to render the Trinity into a systematic and consistent philosophical whole according to human fallen cognition... We receive what God gives us, and do not pretend to improve on it with new ideas that will only suck us into the void of the vanity of intellectual brilliance... We desire marriage and obedience, and not logical consistency in systematic conceptual progression of ideas...

In a word, we desire what the Reality of God IS...



You are not Truth... If God wants the Faith of Christ doctrinally corrected, He not only knows how to do so, but He HAS done so across the centuries... From heresy to heresy... But in the meanwhile, Salvation is ongoing, because correct doctrines do not give Salvation...



I think his point was to begin with Christ, which we do, Who prays to the Father, and Who sends the Holy Spirit... eg Can you count to three...?



Nobody wants to tackle it, yet Christ used that very Psalm to rebuke the Jews... Remember? If WE are all, as men, are SONS of the Most High, then we need to grow up to become one with Christ...



Got a Scripture for that?



I just walk into these conversations... I don't set myself up as Miss Perfect and dare all others to prove me wrong... I am just looking at the issues, that's all, and from a particular perspective...



Have you experienced two hypostases in one ousia? Or two ousia in one hypostasis? I mean, you say a person cannot be a person without a face, without some outward expression, including God, whose outward expression is His Glory, yes? The ideas just go round and round and round and round...

Perhaps talking with someone else would help... For me, all I can see is a juggling of concepts that never touch the ground...

And when they do make it to the ground, they bounce right back up into the air for more juggling...

Shape-shifters, the little darlings...

Time, for instance, and eternity... And timelessness, or a-temporality... When fallen man, who is in this fallen life still animalic, even when he is partaking of the Divine Nature, participates in the timelessness of God, one can say that time shifts... You want to call this shift in our experience of time Sempiternity, and assign it a separate quadrant of reality... I really do not see this proceeding from Scripture... God created creation, the heavens and the earth and everything between, and He created man in His iconic image to be Lord of this created creation... [Adam was naming the animals, for instance...] But man turned from God, and God cursed man and creation and the serpent... This does not create some sempiternity of time, but is a temporary state of time in which we live now... A fallen state... Nor did God's creation of creation create some sempiternity of time, with a beginninng but no end... It just created sequential time... Time is just a feature of creation...

I mean, you continually pound on the Orthodox for not taking sempiternity into account, yet you have not demonstrated why it is so important in your understanding... Nor have you shown in plain language, or Orthodox language, why WE SHOULD make some big special provision for it... We assume it to be a part of creation, and in fallen creation, a temporary part until the next Age, after the Last Judgement... We understand time to be eminently manipulable when we are conjoined with God... Nature itself being similarly manipulable...

We do not take fallen creation as a given, but turn from it to God...

THAT is repentance and the way to the Marriage of the Lamb...

Sempiternity is not a familiar term in this Faith of Orthodoxy...

Nor am I seeing any pressing need to invent it...

Arsenios

i haven't checked this thread lately. good post Arsenios - and down the stretch Arsenios is pulling away . . -match point ? - advantage Arsenios ? just kiddin' PPS ! -

 

[Arsenios]

i haven't checked this thread lately. good post Arsenios - and down the stretch Arsenios is pulling away . . -match point ? - advantage Arsenios ? just kiddin' PPS ! -

So did you read or listen to the Hopko lecture on the Holy Trinity?

http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/hopko/the_holy_trinity

He recently died, and was Dean Emeritus of St. Vladimir's Seminary and Professor emeritus of dogmatic theology, and his lectures are savvy, and they do better when heard than when read, but both ways, they bring great light, not without some heat, mind you...

His approach to the Trinity is worth the price of admission, for he begins it with the incarnation of the Person of Christ in two natures...

I would say it is a deuce, btw...

No Ad - in or out...

But ymmv...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

From Fr. Tom's talk, almost at the end of it, showing the importance of methodology in approaching these matters:

But the doctrine of the Trinity, the dogma of dogmas, begins with the Person of Jesus and begins with the contemplation of the biblical, scriptural texts. And that’s what we have to always remember and never forget. It begins with Christ, and it begins with the Scriptures. It begins with the activity of God in saving the world in the Person of Jesus. It begins with the question: “Who do you say that I am?” And when we answer and say, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” the result will be the dogma of the Holy Trinity, the Tri-Personal Godhead: the one God and Father, the one Lord Jesus Christ, and the one Holy Spirit, in perfect unity of the one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: one God, one divinity, one Godhead.

I have no idea how to improve on that...

Arsenios

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

From Fr. Tom's talk, almost at the end of it, showing the importance of methodology in approaching these matters:

But the doctrine of the Trinity, the dogma of dogmas, begins with the Person of Jesus and begins with the contemplation of the biblical, scriptural texts. And that’s what we have to always remember and never forget. It begins with Christ, and it begins with the Scriptures. It begins with the activity of God in saving the world in the Person of Jesus. It begins with the question: “Who do you say that I am?” And when we answer and say, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” the result will be the dogma of the Holy Trinity, the Tri-Personal Godhead: the one God and Father, the one Lord Jesus Christ, and the one Holy Spirit, in perfect unity of the one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: one God, one divinity, one Godhead.

I have no idea how to improve on that...

Arsenios

Leave out "Tri-Personal" (especially since it's adjectival) and I agree.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Only when you boast of yourself and make wagers against others...

When I do that, and I do, then I also am in your pile while YOU are doing so...

Compared to me, you are a lilly-white angel singing with the Cherubim...

But you fall off that cloud when you boast of yourself and wager against others...

ANYONE does...

Arsenios

It wasn't boasting of myself, and the wager was only a figure of speech.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

So I am re-thinking these matters...

But what about Liturgy? You were insisting on the Liturgy references to created heaven/s.

Wanna borrow my meat-cleaver? Sheesh!

No.

The Logos does not "proceed forth" as the eternal Son...

John 8:42 disagrees, and exerchomai is accompanied by heko and ek and apostello; whereas the Holy Spirit is ekporeuomai and para and pempo in John 15:26.

His manner of being is by being BEGOTTEN, and NOT by your "proceeding forth"...

Exerchomai and heko and ek ARE the begetting.

ONLY the Holy Spirit has His Source from the Father by such "Proceeding",

Nope. See John 8:42. The Logos arose (heko) out of/from (ek) God (the Father).

and it is ontological, and not merely ekonomical...

Of course. God's own literal Logos and Pneuma are inherently ontological. And ekporeuomai is in the middle voice, not the passive or active.

Of course the son is sent forth,

Exerchomai and heko/ek, and apostello. Proceeded forth AND sent.

as is the Holy Spirit, but the proceeding of the Holy Spirit is how God functions as His Source...

Ekporeuomai is emanation, while exerchomai and heko/ek are not.

Just as the Holy Spirit is not BEGOTTEN, but the son is...
So also the Son does not proceed from God, but the Holy Spirit does...

The Son proceeded forth.

This "proceed" is ekpoureomai, and not exerchomai...

They're different manners of procession. The former is synonymous with emanation, while the latter is arising out of and coming forth. The begetting.

BOTH have the latter... ONLY the Holy Spirit has the former as His manner of Being from God...

And I can explicilty delineate how.

You have been consistently wrong in this throughout the thread...

Not according to scripture.

You have never even once, for instance, used the word BEGOTTEN of the Father, nor I believe BORN of the Virgin Mary... Two different words, as Hopko noted...

Sure I have, in my Affirmation Statement. Here...

I affirm:
There is One Deity.
The Father is Deity.
The Holy Spirit is Deity.
The Word (Son) is Deity.
These are One Deity.

The Father is Eternally Pre-Existent.
The Holy Spirit is Eternally Pre-Existent.
The Word is Eternally Pre-Existent.

The Father is Uncreated and Unbegotten.
The Holy Sprit is Uncreated and Unbegotten.
The Son is Uncreated and the Only Begotten.

The Father is not the Holy Spirit nor the Son (Word).
The Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son (Word).
The Son (Word) is not the Fahter nor the Holy Spirit.

The Son proceeded forth and came from the Father, Sent by the Father.
The Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father, Sent by the Father and the Son.
(The Holy Spirit proceedeth NOT from both the Father and the Son [Filioque], though Sent by Both.)

Jesus is the Son of God and is Fully and Authentically Divine, Begotten of the Father by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus is the son of man and is fully and authentically human with a rational soul, born of the virgin by the Holy Spirit.
The Virgin Birth of Jesus was a Supernatural Procreative Act of God, NOT a Creative Act.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all distinct, uncreated, eternal, non-modal, non-sequential, concurrent, con-essential, con-substantial, inherently ontological Deity.

The Father is not the Son is not the Father (are not the Holy Spirit).

Did you read and digest the entire article?

Yes. Apart from the multiple "persons", I like it very much overall.

The Kingdom of Heaven is Christ...
His realm is Himself...

This is PanEntheism, and it means God is a giant fishbowl for angels and all else in this allegedly uncreated realm.

And... According to you previously, this conflicts with Liturgy.

He into Whom we are Baptized...
He Who incarnated into human flesh...
And AFTER His Resurrection, appeared and disappeared, passed through locked doors and walls, and ate fish and honey... Such that He can exist as flesh anywhere, and can be everywhere, and is nowhere, and on and on... This is the Risen Christ into Whose Body we are Baptized... This Body is at hand here and now...

Right.

So here is the kicker, you see... The Kingdom of Heaven is WITHIN you, and is NOT outside of you... Your BODY can be a Temple of God the Holy Spirit, but the Kingdom of Heaven is within YOU, and is NOT within your BODY, of your MIND, or your SOUL... Instead, it is within YOU... And YOU are a WHO... And THAT is the Mystery of the Person in the Orthodox Faith...

Yes, if you only knew...

And in this context, a realm is where a king rules outwardly, and for Christians, is where Christ abides... "Where are you abiding, Lord?" the first called of John's disciples asked Him... And He did not say "Over here at Carl's place in the midst of sempiternity... Instead, He said: "Come... And 'see'" And they came and they knew... Without coming, they could not know... And what they knew, they could not speak...

And this can all be delineating without being so nebulous.

God IS the uncreated realm...

No. God doesn't need a "realm" as a jar for Himself.

And its King...
Come and see...

I have. I do.

We understand God as timeless, and you understand Him as Eternal...

Eternal/ity IS timelessness. You exclude everlasting and skip from eternal to temporal. There are three considerations, not two. This is why the Patristics were wrong.

You regard creation as everlasting, except our fallen creation, which has a beginning and an end... And you seem to think that this distinction is of some vast and cosmic import...

It's a vital distinction. Analogously, you're looking at a cube as a piece of paper.

We simply go along with Paul

No. Paul knew what I'm referring to. He wrote of it. You just haven't accessed it.

and say with him that the ascension to the third heaven shows things of which it is unlawful to speak... And you invent an entire vocabulary to speak of them...

I only use the vocabulary of Greek lexicography for terms Paul utilized.

The first heaven and the first earth will pass away...
And all things will be made new...
We will no longer be subject to demonic presence...

We do NOT know what it will all be... It is not our concern...
Our concern is here and now, which is God's time, where we can redeem the time... Time is in creation, you see, and you seem to want to place creation within time... Time itself is created, by the timeless Creator of time...

I don't place creation within time. But this has been a perpetual impasse in getting you to vacate your caricatures and parodies of all I say.

Not our concern, really - Our concern is repentance from sin and turning to God...

We're not to lay again the foundation of repentance from dead works.

And not to render the Trinity into a systematic and consistent philosophical whole according to human fallen cognition...

Too late for that claim. That dog won't hunt, m'friend.

We receive what God gives us, and do not pretend to improve on it with new ideas that will only suck us into the void of the vanity of intellectual brilliance...

God didn't give it. Patristics formulated it noetically from some degree of revelation.

We desire marriage and obedience, and not logical consistency in systematic conceptual progression of ideas...

This is an artificial binary.

In a word, we desire what the Reality of God IS...

That would be the underlying foundational substantial objective reality. The hypostasis. The SINGULAR hypostasis.

You are not Truth...

I'm hypostatically joined to the truth. The Logos. God's Logos is truth.

If God wants the Faith of Christ doctrinally corrected, He not only knows how to do so, but He HAS done so across the centuries... From heresy to heresy... But in the meanwhile, Salvation is ongoing, because correct doctrines do not give Salvation...

The final correction has not yet come. It needs to.

I think his point was to begin with Christ, which we do, Who prays to the Father, and Who sends the Holy Spirit... eg Can you count to three...?

Yes, but that doesn't mean the three are individuated hypostases.

Nobody wants to tackle it, yet Christ used that very Psalm to rebuke the Jews... Remember? If WE are all, as men, are SONS of the Most High, then we need to grow up to become one with Christ...

Agreed. I don't know what the issue is.

Got a Scripture for that?

Yes. Hebrews 1:3.

I just walk into these conversations... I don't set myself up as Miss Perfect and dare all others to prove me wrong... I am just looking at the issues, that's all, and from a particular perspective...

Okay. But an uncreated heaven is paradoxically silly.

Have you experienced two hypostases in one ousia? Or two ousia in one hypostasis? I mean, you say a person cannot be a person without a face, without some outward expression, including God, whose outward expression is His Glory, yes? The ideas just go round and round and round and round...

I address the doctrinal isues that the Orthodox address. I've just reconciled it all to account for the omissions.

Perhaps talking with someone else would help... For me, all I can see is a juggling of concepts that never touch the ground...

Amazing how any other concept is juggling except the paradoxical and self-impugning concept of multiple hypostases.

And when they do make it to the ground, they bounce right back up into the air for more juggling...

Shape-shifters, the little darlings...

Yes, those fallacious three hypostases are pinging around everywhere.

Time, for instance, and eternity... And timelessness, or a-temporality... When fallen man, who is in this fallen life still animalic, even when he is partaking of the Divine Nature, participates in the timelessness of God, one can say that time shifts... You want to call this shift in our experience of time Sempiternity, and assign it a separate quadrant of reality...

No. We're off to the races again with your caricatures of all I've said.

I really do not see this proceeding from Scripture...

It's the disinction between aidios (eternal) and aionios (everlasting). I know you consider them synonymous, but they're distinct (though similar).

God created creation, the heavens and the earth and everything between,

You just said heaven was uncreated again. Now it's created.

and He created man in His iconic image to be Lord of this created creation... [Adam was naming the animals, for instance...] But man turned from God, and God cursed man

God cursed the serpent, the ground for man, and childbearing for women.

and creation and the serpent... This does not create some sempiternity of time, but is a temporary state of time in which we live now... A fallen state... Nor did God's creation of creation create some sempiternity of time, with a beginninng but no end... It just created sequential time... Time is just a feature of creation...

After seemingky aions of conversation, you STILL cannot comprehend the simplicity of what I've said about eternal and everlasting. And yet you converse based on presumptions that you do and end up in left field attempting to refute the caricature you've penned.

I mean, you continually pound on the Orthodox

And rightly so.

for not taking sempiternity into account, yet you have not demonstrated why it is so important in your understanding...

I have. And others have noted it. But you just don't understand while caricaturing it in various ways.

Nor have you shown in plain language, or Orthodox language, why WE SHOULD make some big special provision for it...

You don't have a grid for it. I've expended much energy to delineate it. You keep using a sheet of paper to attempt to understand a cube.

We assume it to be a part of creation, and in fallen creation, a temporary part until the next Age, after the Last Judgement... We understand time to be eminently manipulable when we are conjoined with God... Nature itself being similarly manipulable...

We do not take fallen creation as a given, but turn from it to God...

THAT is repentance and the way to the Marriage of the Lamb...

Sempiternity is not a familiar term in this Faith of Orthodoxy...

Nor am I seeing any pressing need to establish it...

Arsenios

I know. Nor did the Patristics. And that's why they're wrong. It's the saddest thing ever. I can't even begin to convey how it grieves me to the core of my being. My heart breaks for the error and blindness and incompleteness.

And it's paved the way for many to believe in multiple beings while presuming they're Trinitarians.

 

[Arsenios]

I have.
And others have noted it.
But you just don't understand
while caricaturing it in various ways.

OK - So please give it one more try...

So far, I understand sempiternity to be time that has a beginning without an end...

And I understand creation to also have a beginning, and no end...

And I understand thereby that time is created...

And that all creation is eternal...

And that God is not eternal, but timeless, which you conflate...

So we have this issue with eternal vs timeless...

We enter into eternal life, which the Son has...

And that fallen creation will be transformed...

And all things will be made new...

So talk about time and timeless and eternity and semi-eternity, in plain language,
and why you understand endless time which has a beginning,
which the Orthodox see as all time,
as lost to the Orthodox...

And how we thus have no 3D glasses
And live in the myopiccia of our shallow 2D world...

And why YOUR three times are so needed and worthwhile...

[T-0] God is NOT-temporal...
[T-1] Time came into existence with creation...
[T-2] We are now on a Temporary detour due to the Fall...

This is Orthodox understanding of time...

What are we missing?

Arsenios

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

OK - So please give it one more try...

Okay. After reading the transcript and listening to the podcast, Fr. Thomas brings out virtually every point I agree with. Apart from the multiple hypostases and the omission of the created heaven as sempiternity, I could be fully Orthodox. And I would welcome that more than you know. Alas... I am excluded, and thus saddened.

A few responsive clarifications, and then I'll attempt to start at the beginning...

So far, I understand sempiternity to be time that has a beginning without an end...

Close, but sempiternity is not time as we know it from current chronology. We can't know the exact means and properties of it, but it is some form of linearity of sequentiality and duration with elapsation. There is no chronological form of time until the Edenic scenario initiating temporality during the fallen earth aions of cosmological aionios.

And I understand creation to also have a beginning, and no end...

Right. Both the created invisible heaven and the created visible cosmos are sempiternal, with a beginning and no end. Everlasting, not eternal.

And I understand thereby that time is created...

Yes, but the original form of time in heaven and the cosmos is not chronology as we know it in the fallen earth ages of physical death as the wages of sin from spiritual death.

And that all creation is eternal...

NO. Eternal is without beginning or end. Creation (heaven and the cosmos) had a beginning; so though it has no end, it is NOT eternal but is everlasting.

And that God is not eternal, but timeless, which you conflate...

There is no conflation. Eternal/ity IS timelessness. Eternal is uncreated. Everlasting is created, with temporality being the fallen aions of aionios for the cosmos.

So we have this issue with eternal vs timeless...

NO. Eternal is timeless. The issue is you not understanding the created sempiternal heaven and cosmos contrasted with God alone as eternal/timeless.

We enter into eternal life, which the Son has...

Everlasting life. It's source is eternal. We each had a beginning and have everlasting life from its inception at our conversion. But the life itself is eternal with no beginning because it's the very life of God and His Logos, in whom we are.

And that fallen creation will be transformed...

And all things will be made new...

Yes.




BACK SOON TO FINISH.

So talk about time and timeless and eternity and semi-eternity, in plain language,

and why you understand endless time which has a beginning,
which the Orthodox see as all time,
as lost to the Orthodox...

And how we thus have no 3D glasses
And live in the myopiccia of our shallow 2D world...

And why YOUR three times are so needed and worthwhile...

[T-0] God is NOT-temporal...
[T-1] Time came into existence with creation...
[T-2] We are now on a Temporary detour due to the Fall...

This is Orthodox understanding of time...

What are we missing?

Arsenios

 

[1Mind1Spirit]

Who's got the beat?

Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Rhythm, Rhyme and Harmony.

I believe

Bump plus.

This is what Hypostatic sounds like.

Teddy keepin' his mouth shut, lol

 

[patrick jane]

well, her comes PPS, pouring it on ! ! he is 2 lengths ahead and gaining speed folks ! !

 

[Arsenios]

Okay. After reading the transcript and listening to the podcast, Fr. Thomas brings out virtually every point I agree with. Apart from the multiple hypostases and the omission of the created heaven as sempiternity, I could be fully Orthodox. And I would welcome that more than you know. Alas... I am excluded, and thus saddened.

I have to say that you are closer to him than I was to you, so we are learning through him that you are closer to Orthodox than I was??

That was JUST a joke...!!

Close, but sempiternity is not time as we know it from current chronology. We can't know the exact means and properties of it, but it is some form of linearity of sequentiality and duration with elapsation. There is no chronological form of time until the Edenic scenario initiating temporality during the fallen earth aions of cosmological aionios.

There is no difference in your distinctions... Linear sequences that endure and elapse IS chronology, and the temporary nature of creation during the age of the Fall of Adam is chronological as well... This condition will come to an end, but "Time marches on" in such sequential temporality...

It sounds like you are trying to place a temporal value on the pre-Fall vs the post-Fall creation, when the difference lies in the quality of life corrupting into death vs the quality of Eternal Life - "And this is life eternal, to know the one true God, and His Son, Jesus Christ..." The "know" here refers to the Marriage of the Lamb to man...

You had started out with NO time, then time without end, then time that ends...

I countered with NO time, then the creation of time with the creation of the cosmos [creation], and then the detour of the Fall of Adam, where time since the Fall is experienced as corrupted and animalistic leading to death... You want to make this a second KIND of time, rather than a secondary QUALITY of time caused by the Fall... I want to think that Adam could manipulate time prior to the Fall, but not after it... And today, some Saints can manipulate time in their supra-natural states of being... And can do all manner of "impossible" things...

I would be more sympathetic to your saying that before the Fall, Adam controlled time, and that after the Fall, time controlled Adam, and we in him... And in God's curse of creation in the wake of the Fall, time itself had to change somehow, from what it was to what it is, and then to what it will be, because there is, in this approach, a THIRD category of time, which is beyond Adamic time, for it is time in the Marriage of the Lamb, which itself is but a foretaste of the Time of the Age to Come...

So you can see how quickly time slips...

Both the created invisible heaven and the created visible cosmos are sempiternal, with a beginning and no end. Everlasting, not eternal.

That then makes John problematic:

John 17:3
And this is Life Eternal,
that they might know thee the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

Eternal Life means unending life... The word is aionic, which you assign to fallen existence...

Yes, but the original form of time in heaven and the cosmos is not chronology as we know it in the fallen earth ages of physical death as the wages of sin from spiritual death.

Perhaps not - I would agree... We are on a temporary detour, because the Physis of the Kosmos was ALTERED by God when Adam sinned... Adam KNEW what he had lost, and Holy Tradition has him sitting at the gates of Paradise in tears and grief until he died...

You could even say that Adam became Prodigal, and that the difference between the time he remembered and the time he suffered was the difference between the Father's House and the Pig-Styes where the Prodigal was not even allowed to eat what the pigs were eating... But whatever it WAS, we CANNOT know, except in an earnest, and we DO know that it has a different "feel" to it, but there is no way to know the cause of that feel, whether it is simply normal time experience in union with God, or if it is pre-Fall Adamic time native to an un-cursed cosmos, or first earth... Or if it is some combination of the two "contaminated" by the fact that we are still in our fallen flesh and souls...

We certainly cannot legitimately lump all that together and call it "ever-eternity" or everlasting or some such... It is aionic time, perhaps peculiar to this age and to no other... Given the limitation of our conditions, both universally and severally...

And btw, is that 3D enough for ya!?

Eternal is without beginning or end.

Then you cannot use the term "sempiternal" which combines semper with eternal and which you define as everlasting... Because if eternal is non-temporal, no beginning, no middle and no end within time, then it cannot be used of creation at all, because it can ONLY be attributed apophatically to God...

In fact, eternal means forever...
Timelessness applies to God...
Temporal applies to creation...
Temporary applies to the corruption of creation...

I hope you are having a good TIME reading this!

Jes' sayin'...

Arsenios

 

[Lazy afternoon]

" Holy Tradition has him sitting at the gates of Paradise in tears and grief until he died... "

More like unholy tradition.

God took a great deal of responsibility for what happened since He created man who He knew would fail in the conditions He made him.

LA

 

[Arsenios]

" Holy Tradition has him sitting at the gates of Paradise in tears and grief until he died... "

More like unholy tradition.

God took a great deal of responsibility for what happened since He created man who He knew would fail in the conditions He made him.

LA

He was the only man, besides Christ, who actually KNEW what he had lost... He could not go back into Paradise, because that would be unloving of God, lest he eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life, and make eternal what was now only temporary, and would end at death... He could not leave, lest the memory fade...

Actions have consequences unforseen...

God has taken full responsibility for creation...

And we in it, who were created in Adam to be gods of God, have responsibility for creation... And we worship sex and fat and tatoos and piercings and all manner of self-satisfactions... And we die by a 100... Adam lived a long time... And he died... You will too... And I as well...

I have said,
Ye are gods;
and all of you are children of the most High.
But ye shall die like men,
and fall like one of the princes.


Arsenios