ECT Our triune God

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

ETERNAL

adjective
1.
without beginning or end;
lasting forever;
always existing
(opposed to temporal ):
eternal life.
2.
perpetual;
ceaseless;
endless:
eternal quarreling;
eternal chatter.
3.
enduring;
immutable:
eternal principles.
4.
Metaphysics.
existing outside all relations of time;
not subject to change.
noun
5.
something that is eternal.
6.
the Eternal, God.

PPS - I do understand that in your own technical language
you can designate any definition you like for any words you like,
but your usage of eternal to mean timeless drives me bats...

Eternal means ongoing, without beginning or ending - eg everlasting...

It does not mean timeless, or a-temporal...

It is a category of time...

So there you have my tuppence...

A.

...as you utterly ignore the created heaven to argue over English terms for timelessness and time. Seriously?

First, I've posted the lexicography for aidios and aionios. English is irrelevant, as it is for "person/s".

The English definitions for person ALL qualify as beings, so your penchant for English is absurd.

But notice it says... The Eternal. God. And "without beginning or end" isn't everlasting. That's merely without end.

You tuppence is that you will refuse to understand because you won't risk Orthodoxy being wrong. Every definition, even in English can apply to timelessness AND contrasts to aeviternal AND temporal.

I don't really care at this point what the three distinctions are labeled, as long as we're not left with your fallacious UNcreated heaven and only eternality and temporality as two distinctions instead of three.

The Patristics missed it. And it's not like I could ever be considered as one of the anathemas. I'm quote obviously not Semi-/Sabellian or Semi-/Arian or Unitarian or Binitarian or any of a number of other historical formulaics.

Let's look at your posted English definitions...
adjective
1.
without beginning or end; YES
lasting forever; YES
always existing YES
(opposed to temporal ): YES
eternal life. YES
2.
perpetual; YES
ceaseless; YES
endless: YES
eternal quarreling; ?
eternal chatter. ?
3.
enduring; YES
immutable: YES
eternal principles. ?
4.
Metaphysics.
existing outside all relations of time; YES
not subject to change. YES
noun
5.
something that is eternal. YES
6.
the Eternal, God. YES

Sure looks like eternal (which also encompasses everlasting) is timelessness. You just presume all non-eternality isn't subsumed within eternality.

This isn't this hard. I've had several of my students look at our exchanges, and they're baffled that you don't get it.

Sigh.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

ETERNAL

adjective
1.
without beginning or end;
lasting forever;
always existing
(opposed to temporal ):
eternal life.
2.
perpetual;
ceaseless;
endless:
eternal quarreling;
eternal chatter.
3.
enduring;
immutable:
eternal principles.
4.
Metaphysics.
existing outside all relations of time;
not subject to change.
noun
5.
something that is eternal.
6.
the Eternal, God.

PPS - I do understand that in your own technical language
you can designate any definition you like for any words you like,
but your usage of eternal to mean timeless drives me bats...

Eternal means ongoing, without beginning or ending - eg everlasting...

It does not mean timeless, or a-temporal...

It is a category of time...

So there you have my tuppence...

A.

At the least, the bolded are definitely timeless, even if one ignores the subsumation of everlasting as included within eternal.

No beginning or end is timelessness. And immutability is included, which creation is not (including heaven).

Heaven is not timeless, eternal, or uncreated.

 

[Arsenios]

I've posted the lexicography for aidios and aionios.
English is irrelevant...

Then if English is irrelevant, the Greek words mean the same thing. Unless you don't like Liddell-Scott?

Aidios/on - everlasting, a contraction of aeidios, which means a quality or condition of IF-privative... a-ei, or aei = ai- ALWAYS

Aionios/a/on - Lasting, eternal

The latter carries a sense of being the lasting eternality of an Age, and the former of a more primal unendingness...

But I never did 'get' your big difference which is not in the Greek usage when the Greeks are speaking these terms...

It is as if you are dissecting the Greek roots to extract the meaning you want so as to bypass English without embracing actual Greek usage... And then using the result to establish a separate language based then on your private vision... So please forgive me for being plodding...

The English definitions for person ALL qualify as beings, so your penchant for English is absurd.

Does this mean you scorn persons as beings?
Or that you embrace being-less hypostases?

As I recall, we were looking a the term PERSON as recognizably relevant to each person reading the text about hypostasis, and with the use of hypostasis understanding person as radically deeper than the shallow usage it so often has in English...

My penchant for English is to be understandable in simple terms...

Timeless vs Time I can live with...
A person having being I can stomach...

But some NON-OUSIATIC HYPOSTASIS is just too wierd for me...
And I qualify as fairly wierd, OK?
Your big criticism of the English term 'person' was this:

"The English definitions for person ALL qualify as beings."

And therefore my use of "Person" is ABSURD...

So you want hypostasis to mean beingless...

What in your wildest of wilds is a BEINGLESS HYPOSTASIS???

But notice it says... The Eternal. God. And "without beginning or end" isn't everlasting. That's merely without end.

It is ongoing without end, which you deny is everlasting...

You tuppence is that you will refuse to understand because you won't risk Orthodoxy being wrong.

Psychologizing my motivations is not helpful...

Every definition, even in English can apply to timelessness AND contrasts to aeviternal AND temporal.

Each and every one of them was DERIVED FROM creation, and thereby CANNOT apply to the UN-created Creator of creation...

I don't really care at this point what the three distinctions are labeled, as long as we're not left with your fallacious UNcreated heaven and only eternality and temporality as two distinctions instead of three.

We are discussing time... Whether it is created or uncreated... And we determined that it is created, and not uncreated... Do you agree that ALL time is created?

The Patristics missed it. And it's not like I could ever be considered as one of the anathemas. I'm quote obviously not Semi-/Sabellian or Semi-/Arian or Unitarian or Binitarian or any of a number of other historical formulaics.

Save your bicycle...

Let's look at your posted English definitions...
adjective
1.
without beginning or end; YES
lasting forever; YES
always existing YES
(opposed to temporal ): YES
eternal life. YES
2.
perpetual; YES
ceaseless; YES
endless: YES
eternal quarreling; ?
eternal chatter. ?
3.
enduring; YES
immutable: YES
eternal principles. ?
4.
Metaphysics.
existing outside all relations of time; YES
not subject to change. YES
noun
5.
something that is eternal. YES
6.
the Eternal, God. YES

These are all categories of time...

Except in metaphysics, where eternal means existing outside all relations of time, not subject to change... And this is the way you are using it, one definition that lives in contradistinction to all the others...

Sure looks like eternal (which also encompasses everlasting) is timelessness.

Therein lies the rub, you see - #4 above is the exception, and is technical and philosophic... None of the other categories apply, except by analogy, to God... And you then scramble the timelessness of God with the temporality of creation when you coin the term sempiternal...

You just presume all non-eternality isn't subsumed within eternality.

It is not a component concept, because timeless is not comprised of time... It is just a sloppy way of assigning words to concepts...

This isn't this hard. I've had several of my students look at our exchanges, and they're baffled that you don't get it.

Sigh.

I feel your pain, and I would add this - In human terms, of course God is everlasting and eternal and ongoing without end...

But then we say that creation is without end and everlasting and eternally ongoing... But God has no beginning, so that in terms of time, on this approach, the only difference between God and creation regarding time is the absence of any beginning with God... And that is false...

Creation and time are both created...

God is NOT created...

The difference is radical and total...

Hence the Orthodox need to say God is not eternally God, but God is timeless and a-temporal... This permits precision of terminology... The term eternal is just too epistemologically sleezy...

Arsenios

 

[patrick jane]

one of the first things i hammered on, early in my soon exiting tol experience was - Time Doesn't Matter To God. We made time up, we measure time; mankind. i know God is not created, The Son; Christ Jesus and God's Holy Spirit proceeded forth, emanated, expressed, IS, WAS, AM, ONE. you guys are defining and clarifying very important words - the Word of God no less. but if you can't get past time - being - person - TIME -then this thread may be eternal, everlasting, infinitely, perpetually ongoing. and it could even last forever. it's like ur trying to describe "Being There" WITH God before He IS, Before God Created. i understand (generally) what's being said here and where it may go (i think). i will stay tuned -

 

[Arsenios]

one of the first things i hammered on, early in my soon exiting tol experience was - Time Doesn't Matter To God. We made time up, we measure time; mankind. i know God is not created, The Son; Christ Jesus and God's Holy Spirit proceeded forth, emanated, expressed, IS, WAS, AM, ONE. you guys are defining and clarifying very important words - the Word of God no less. but if you can't get past time - being - person - TIME -then this thread may be eternal, everlasting, infinitely, perpetually ongoing. and it could even last forever. it's like ur trying to describe "Being There" WITH God before He IS, Before God Created. i understand (generally) what's being said here and where it may go (i think). i will stay tuned -

Here are Fr. John's words on this:

But then this same St. Gregory said, "However, when it comes to God, when it comes to theologia, theology, not oikonomia, but when it comes to contemplating how the one God and Father relates to the only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit", he said: "Then you’d better get it right, because if you don’t get that right, then everything is skewed; everything is wrong. All of the other doctrines— understanding Incarnation, Resurrection, glorification, the Holy Spirit within us, the activity of the Holy Trinity in our lives— it is rooted and grounded in the right understanding of the relationship and the communion that exists between the one God and Father and his one, only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

It has to be crisp...
It has to be clear...
Unambiguous...
And precise...

No sloppy slorpers...
But as well, no OCPDers either...

Economy with words...
Clarity in brevity...
Simplicity...
Accuracy...

My rant goes on!

Arsenios

 

[patrick jane]

Good question.

Luke 11:13 KJV

13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

i heard all that - atrol: you can have your own ideas, but there is a trinity no matter how you describe it. you just don't like the word. my prayers are with you sir -

View attachment 19686

View attachment 19687

 

[1Mind1Spirit]

Then if English is irrelevant, the Greek words mean the same thing. Unless you don't like Liddell-Scott?


It is as if you are dissecting the Greek roots to extract the meaning you want so as to bypass English without embracing actual Greek usage... And then using the result to establish a separate language based then on your private vision... So please forgive me for being plodding...



Does this mean you scorn persons as beings?
Or that you embrace being-less hypostases?

As I recall, we were looking a the term PERSON as recognizably relevant to each person reading the text about hypostasis, and with the use of hypostasis understanding person as radically deeper than the shallow usage it so often has in English...

My penchant for English is to be understandable in simple terms...

Timeless vs Time I can live with...
A person having being I can stomach...

But some NON-OUSIATIC HYPOSTASIS is just too wierd for me...
And I qualify as fairly wierd, OK?
Your big criticism of the English term 'person' was this:



And therefore my use of "Person" is ABSURD...

So you want hypostasis to mean beingless...

What in your wildest of wilds is a BEINGLESS HYPOSTASIS???


Arsenios

Being is not a noun.

Ouisa is not a noun.

They denote action.

It is Satan's false rhema to say human being as a noun.

Example: I'm a human being.

It is false.

I am an human.

What I am being is action.

I cannot be a human being.



Acts 17:28 KJV

28 For in him we live , and move , and have our being ; as certain also of your own poets have said , For we are also his offspring.


http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/those-irritating-verbs-as-nouns/?_r=0

 

[1Mind1Spirit]

i heard all that - atrol: you can have your own ideas, but there is a trinity no matter how you describe it. you just don't like the word. my prayers are with you sir -

View attachment 19686

View attachment 19687

I'll stay with one God who sent his son and Holy Spirit to make Himself known to us.

Appreciate the prayers.

 

[Lazy afternoon]

I'll stay with one God who sent his son and Holy Spirit to make Himself known to us.

Appreciate the prayers.

Yes, very simple.

LA

 

[Arsenios]

Being is not a noun.

The Greek is ousia, and is a noun, and is variously translated essence or being...

Ousia is not a noun.

It means substance, wealth, estate

They denote action.

They derive from the verb to be, and being is action in that sense...

It is Satan's false rhema to say human being as a noun.

Better to say being human?

Example: I'm a human being.

It is false.

I am an human.

I am being a human would be better?

So if I am being a human then human is action?

I cannot be a human being.

Ouch...

But you are still being human...

Just not a human being?

Arsenios

 

[patrick jane]

Yes, very simple.

LA

i can't believe it. a 3 word post from LA ! is this a first ? Town ?

 

[Ps82]

I do not think of the term "soul" exactly the way that most people consider it. However I don not quibble with others who see it differently.

When I read Genesis 1 and 2 this is what I see. (can give scripture examples to support my ideas ... but that is too cumbersome and long for readers) .

Gen. 1 God established mankind (male / female). They were totally existing IN God in a living spiritual state, because God is able to impart measures of himself (who is LIFE) to his created creatures. Therefore mankind was first a bodiless living SPIRIT.

Then in Genesis 2 God finally formed one body (a male presence) for a dual mankind (male/female). We can discover that God added a mist of water to the ground before he formed that body. Since I believe the phrase "mist of water" is a figurative way to talk about a measured portion of spiritual life, then I believe that God had created a living body for the already existing living spiritual essence of mankind.

So far mankind has two aspects to his created nature. An invisible unique living inner personality ... and an outer visible living body.

When these two aspects were combined, it was then that man became a living soul.

My thinking is that mankind wasn't a soul before he had the body, but became a soul when the two living parts were joined.

Do you realize that God says he has a soul?

This means that God's invisible spiritual living nature would need to be associated with a outer visible living bodily form!
So read this and think about what it might meanGod is speaking about himself)

Lev. 26:11 And I will set my tabernacle (a dwelling place) among you: and my soul shall not abhor you.

To me this means: The invisible God had a way to manifest his visible presence and dwell within a literal structure. After all, he said that he would dwell upon the mercy seat inside the tabernacle/temple.

Now, I've only mentioned a dual existence of man rather than three ... but I certainly believe that spiritual mankind as a living creature were each given unique talents and knowledge from God.

(IOW people have unique personalities, various abilities, that are coupled with freewill thinking) . This might be considered by some as a third aspect of man's nature. I usually just think of two.

But God is not limited as is mankind to what he can accomplish. He did accomplish a trinity existence ... while remaining the ONE God.

 

[Ps82]

one of the first things i hammered on, early in my soon exiting tol experience was - Time Doesn't Matter To God. We made time up, we measure time; mankind. i know God is not created, The Son; Christ Jesus and God's Holy Spirit proceeded forth, emanated, expressed, IS, WAS, AM, ONE. you guys are defining and clarifying very important words - the Word of God no less. but if you can't get past time - being - person - TIME -then this thread may be eternal, everlasting, infinitely, perpetually ongoing. and it could even last forever. it's like ur trying to describe "Being There" WITH God before He IS, Before God Created. i understand (generally) what's being said here and where it may go (i think). i will stay tuned -

I have a thought:
God created time when he established processes that evolved over time. God is not affected by time ... but the creatures that experience these processes are affected by time.

Some things he created that involve time are: The revolution and rotation of the heavenly bodies.
Being born and dying.
Growing from a babe to an adult.
Plant cycles.

Creation was subjected to time by God ... and I think that is why God says things like about earthly matters and when he will step in to work among men:
"Until the times are fulfilled."

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Then if English is irrelevant, the Greek words mean the same thing. Unless you don't like Liddell-Scott?

Not a hater, but not a fan.

Aidios/on - everlasting, a contraction of aeidios, which means a quality or condition of IF-privative... a-ei, or aei = ai- ALWAYS

Aionios/a/on - Lasting, eternal

The latter carries a sense of being the lasting eternality of an Age, and the former of a more primal unendingness...

A more primal unendingness? Wow.

Yes, I know there's a disparity of lexicography for both terms, but it's because of the omission of understanding I've been referring to.

But I never did 'get' your big difference which is not in the Greek usage when the Greeks are speaking these terms...

I know. You think heaven is uncreated.

It is as if you are dissecting the Greek roots to extract the meaning you want so as to bypass English without embracing actual Greek usage...

No. I spent over two years exhaustively looking at every permutation of lexicography and translational options for accuracy.

And then using the result to establish a separate language based then on your private vision... So please forgive me for being plodding...

It's not me establishing a separate language at all. There's a clear distinction between that which has BOTH no beginning and end, and that which has a beginning but no end; just as there is a distinction between each of those and that which has both a beginning and an end.

Three distinctions, whatever they're labeled.

Does this mean you scorn persons as beings?

No, no scorn whatsoever. All individuated "persons" are INDIVIDUATED "beings". In English, each person is a being.

Or that you embrace being-less hypostases?

No, that's absurd; just as a prosopon-less hypostasis would be absurd.

As I recall, we were looking a the term PERSON as recognizably relevant to each person reading the text about hypostasis, and with the use of hypostasis understanding person as radically deeper than the shallow usage it so often has in English...

Yeppers.

My penchant for English is to be understandable in simple terms...

Timeless vs Time I can live with...
A person having being I can stomach...

Now you're obfuscating. There is clearly timelessness and time; but there's also a third distinct demarcation. And in English, all individuated persons are individuated beings.

But some NON-OUSIATIC HYPOSTASIS is just too wierd for me...

It should be, since the issue is English and the fact that all individuated persons are beings.

And I qualify as fairly wierd, OK?

That's why I hold you in such high regard. :guitar::cheers:

Your big criticism of the English term 'person' was this:

And therefore my use of "Person" is ABSURD...

So you want hypostasis to mean beingless...

Nope. I've clearly indicated that in English ALL individuated persons are beings, by definition. In English, a person is literally a human being.

I've said nothing of wanting hypostasis to mean beingless. I've said that the English term person definitively qualifies every person as a being. So there can't be individuated persons as one being in English.

What in your wildest of wilds is a BEINGLESS HYPOSTASIS???

I wouldn't know. I've never referred to any such thing. What I've said is that in English all individuated persons qualify as individuated beings.

It is ongoing without end, which you deny is everlasting...

You ignore the FIRST definition, which indicates eternal means without beginning or end. With no demarcations to initiate and conclude such existence, eternal is timelessness. Beginning and end are time terms. Neither are applicable to eternality. And that's the first definition.

Psychologizing my motivations is not helpful...

Semi-intentional cognitive dissonance is a stubborn and cruel master. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, outgrew it, made it a carwash rag.atrol:

Each and every one of them was DERIVED FROM creation, and thereby CANNOT apply to the UN-created Creator of creation...

Nope. But I don't care, as long as there are three distinctions rather than two.

We are discussing time... Whether it is created or uncreated... And we determined that it is created, and not uncreated... Do you agree that ALL time is created?

I agree everything but God is created. And we don't know what other forms of time there are.

Save your bicycle...

It's a UNIcycle. Halloooooooooooooooooo!:toad: (Uni-... Like God is a Unihypostatic Trinity.:cheers:

These are all categories of time...

No.

Except in metaphysics, where eternal means existing outside all relations of time, not subject to change... And this is the way you are using it, one definition that lives in contradistinction to all the others...

Without beginning or end. The first definition. Timelessness. That's what I use.

Therein lies the rub, you see - #4 above is the exception, and is technical and philosophic... None of the other categories apply, except by analogy, to God... And you then scramble the timelessness of God with the temporality of creation when you coin the term sempiternal...

I don't scramble anything. There are three distinctions, not two. To an extent, I don't care what labels go on them, as long as there are three.

It is not a component concept, because timeless is not comprised of time... It is just a sloppy way of assigning words to concepts...

Eternality is without beginning or end. Timeless. Timelessness.

I feel your pain, and I would add this - In human terms, of course God is everlasting and eternal and ongoing without end...

All lesser is subsumed within the greater.

But then we say that creation is without end and everlasting and eternally ongoing... But God has no beginning,

Eternal has no beginning. Everlasting has a beginning. Duh. You just used the FIRST definition of eternal for God.

so that in terms of time, on this approach, the only difference between God and creation regarding time is the absence of any beginning with God... And that is false...

I've never said that. It's your caricature. AGAIN.

Creation and time are both created...

Duh.:cheers:

God is NOT created...

Duh again.:cheers:

The difference is radical and total...

And the Duh trifecta.:cheers:

Hence the Orthodox need to say God is not eternally God, but God is timeless and a-temporal... This permits precision of terminology... The term eternal is just too epistemologically sleezy...

Arsenios

Whatever you say, there are three distinctions:
WITHOUT beginning or end.
WITH beginning and WITHOUT end.
WITH beginning and end.

Eternal and everlasting are not the same. But if they are both created, then transcendent would contrast to that AND temporality. Eternality cannot be temporality. So if you insist God is not eternal, then there are three distinctions... Just as I've indicated.

Here...
The timeless God created eternality and temporality. In any case, heaven is created.


WOW, that's exhausting.:bang::rain::guitar::second::cheers:

 

[1Mind1Spirit]

The Greek is ousia, and is a noun, and is variously translated essence or being...



It means substance, wealth, estate



They derive from the verb to be, and being is action in that sense...




Arsenios

Let's look at the definition of being as a noun.

being
[bee-ing]
IPA Syllables
Examples Word Origin
noun
1.
the fact of existing; existence (as opposed to nonexistence).


This is another oxymoron.

We all learned in grade school that a noun is a tangible person, place, or thing.

A fact cannot be a noun.

nouns

One can verbalize a noun like God did when he said tell them I am sent you.

But one cannot turn a verb into a noun.

verbs

Sorry Lon, but sum thymes we need to revisit third grade.:guitar:

Luke 18:17 KJV

17 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein .

 

[1Mind1Spirit]

Ouch...

But you are still being human...

Just not a human being?

Arsenios

I was a human creature being human.

I am now a new creature being transformed into a son of God.

 

[Arsenios]

A more primal unendingness? Wow.

Somebody had to say it...

You think heaven is uncreated.

Psalm 82...

I really do not have it thought through and understood... God is uncreated... We are created in the ikon of God... "Ye are gods, the sons of the Most High..." So that the relationship between the uncreated God and the created gods consists in some kind of relationship between them and Him... That is Jesus Christ in the flesh, and in Spirit, the Holy Spirit...

So to say that heaven is created for us who are one in the Body of Christ in the Holy Spirit would seem to be both created and uncreated, but with the Body of the Risen and Ascended Christ not being the Body of the pre-arisen and non-ascended Christ... THIS Body, you see, is now the Master of the materiality of the world, passing through walls, disappearing, healing by mere presence, even a shadow, and on and on...

And in all this, a solid "I DON"T KNOW" is a really good answer... What we do know for an earthly fact in this fallen creation is that when one gets to the upper end of Salvation in Christ, one's life becomes Life in Christ, and one's earthly life seems to be really terrible, as Paul wrote of those called to be Apostles... It is in this deterioration of one's earthly estate [being/ousia] that the elevation of one's heavenly estate flourishes... "My Strength is perfected in (human) weakness..."

So is heaven created or uncreated?

The only answer I have come up with so far is: "Yes."

And this BECAUSE:

1 We have the uncreated God...

2 And we have creation that is not-God...

3 And we have man created in the Ikon of God...

4 And we have fallen man as we now are on earth...

And from the mental fallen-ness of this last,
YOU want to establish three categories of time...

Eternal...

Eternally everlasting...

And Temporary...

And you really want to resist calling them:

Timeless...

Eternal...

And Temporary...

You see, MAN can have Eternal Life...
By union with the Timeless God...
And therein rise from this temporary fallen life that is death...

No. I spent over two years exhaustively looking at every permutation of lexicography and translational options for accuracy.

That just argues for your personal authority...

It's not me establishing a separate language at all. There's a clear distinction between that which has BOTH no beginning and end, and that which has a beginning but no end; just as there is a distinction between each of those and that which has both a beginning and an end.

Three distinctions, whatever they're labeled.

Then if you are sincere, call them timeless, eternal, and temporary, and take them out of the philosophical category of nouns that now assign "realm" to them by saying we have the realm of ETERNITY, and the realm of SEMPITERNITY, and the realm of TEMPITERNITY...

That IS what you are arguing, yes?

All individuated "persons" are INDIVIDUATED "beings". In English, each person is a being...

Now you're obfuscating. There is clearly timelessness and time; but there's also a third distinct demarcation. And in English, all individuated persons are individuated beings.

It should be, since the issue is English and the fact that all individuated persons are beings.

So your beef is with the INDIVIDUATION of being in the human person??? eg That the human being is INDIVIDUATED???

Are you SERIOUS???

WHAT, my dear fellow sophmorticizer, do you think the FALL is all about, if not the DIVISION of man from his COMMUNION with God??? It is this very individuation that carries the image of God, and in Communion with God, there is BEING... And outside it there is only non-Being... And until we are in, we are out, yet even as individuals, we CARRY the power as PERSONS to do good and to do evil... And in this you who are a person are going to avoid the term person in understanding the Ikon of God in Which He created each and every one of us, unique and unrepeatable?

God is a Person...

And so are YOU...

And in the Communion of God, persons interpenetrate and are not ISOLATED in their INDIVIDUATION, but are ONE with one another... Sharing toys is a step in this direction, you see...

I've clearly indicated that in English ALL individuated persons are beings, by definition. In English, a person is literally a human being.

See above...

I've said nothing of wanting hypostasis to mean beingless. I've said that the English term person definitively qualifies every person as a being. So there can't be individuated persons as one being in English.

You are, in this assessment, permitting a fallen English definition to determine your non-usage of the term person, and in it, you are throwing out the Baby with the bath water, because what is needed is to bring the isolated individual person into the Communion of God, and in that Communion, he will find union with the individuations you so recklessly scorn...

I wouldn't know. I've never referred to any such thing. What I've said is that in English all individuated persons qualify as individuated beings.

That oneness CAN, if in Christ, become a oneness with one another...

You ignore the FIRST definition, which indicates eternal means without beginning or end. With no demarcations to initiate and conclude such existence, eternal is timelessness. Beginning and end are time terms. Neither are applicable to eternality. And that's the first definition.

Definitions schmefinitions... It is a bunch of blah blah to me at this point... Jugglement of differentiata for schmooziness of ongoing verbalities has me reaching for the bottle...

Semi-intentional cognitive dissonance is a stubborn and cruel master. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, outgrew it, made it a carwash rag.atrol:

Good - I burned mine... Drive a dirty car...

Nope. But I don't care, as long as there are three distinctions rather than two.

Apophatic vs cataphatic vs cataphatic-fallen...

Enjoy!

Whatever you say, there are three distinctions:
WITHOUT beginning or end.
WITH beginning and WITHOUT end.
WITH beginning and end.

Eternal and everlasting are not the same. But if they are both created, then transcendent would contrast to that AND temporality. Eternality cannot be temporality. So if you insist God is not eternal, then there are three distinctions... Just as I've indicated.

I insist that "eternal" is epistemologically sleezy, having two lovers, timelessness and time...

Timelessness and time suffer irreconcilable differences in the same component concept...

You see...

Here...
The timeless God created eternality and temporality. In any case, heaven is created.

See above...

Heaven for us who are created in the image of God does seem to be both created and uncreated, where we are to become lords of creation in the Kingdom of God, which is obedience to Christ the King...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

I was a human creature being human.

I am now a new creature being transformed into a son of God.

Well, so much for MY theory!

I thought ALL human beings are creatures...

And in Christ are New Creations...

But wait!!!

That's what you just said...

Without the beans...

I mean, the beings!

Gimme the beans!

Arsenios

 

[1Mind1Spirit]

Well, so much for MY theory!

I thought ALL human beings are creatures...

And in Christ are New Creations...

But wait!!!

That's what you just said...

Without the beans...

I mean, the beings!

Gimme the beans!

Arsenios

Beans are nouns.

No such thing as beings as nouns.

Paul did not pluralize being.

In God we have our being.

He pluarlized the creature, not the being that each creature has.

Nouns are tangible not philisophical.

 

[Ps82]

Arsenios,

quote:

I really do not have it thought through and understood... God is uncreated... We are created in the ikon of God... "Ye are gods, the sons of the Most High..." So that the relationship between the uncreated God and the created gods consists in some kind of relationship between them and Him... That is Jesus Christ in the flesh, and in Spirit, the Holy Spirit...

I have Ps 82 thought through thoroughly and can show you exactly what was going on in the chapter and who the different characters were who were taking part in th event.

Also, people are related to God in, at least, this one major way: Our bodies were formed after the likeness of God's own created image. God created a male image for his own personal use, but chose to share its likeness with Adam Later God used his same image again when He came as the Savior.