Thank you for your kind words!
I, too, appreciate those like yourself who think deeply about these things.
Because you are placing such emphasis on noumenon and phenomenon in this post and the others as "the necessary core discussion for understanding", I'll hold off commenting until you locate/link to some definitions or provide them live.
No hurry--take your time. I see a conceptual and metaphysical muddle with your explanation of the Incarnation but those definitions might help to clarify. I'll come back to it and explain what I mean and address the rest of your points if I don't hear back in the next few days just to keep the discussion moving.
I'm finding that discussion seems to have begun on phaino in post #2732, and has sporadically continued from then until the current posts on the topic. Here is the definition of phaino/phenomenon/noumenon from that post.
Phaino; to shine, to appear, be conspicuous, be seen, seem, be thought.
It indicates how a matter phenomenally shows and presents itself with no necessary assumption of any beholder at all. This suggests that something may shine without anybody necessarily seeing it, contrasted to something that exists but does not shine. Nooumenon is that which is conceived in the mind, but does not have any objective existence and does not necessarily manifest itself.
Phainomenon is that which manifests itself, appears or shines, and must have a reality behind it. It cannot be just the figment of the imagination. Therefore, phainomai is often synonymous with eimi, to be, and ginomai, to become. It may also have no substance, yet presupposes one.
Dokeo, to think, has in contrast the subjective estimate which may be formed of a thing, not the objective showing and seeming which it may actually possess. One may dokei (think) something which may not have an objective reality. However, something that shines, phainei, must exist objectively. |
The substance and objective reality behind God's uncreated phaino is His hypostasis, the foundational underlying substantial objective reality of existence.
Prosopon is face, presence, appearance, person. The Septuagint utilizes prosopon in reference to God's face when Moses asks to look upon God. And we know God has presence and appearance, for every hypostasis has its own proper prosopon; and Hebrews 1:3 tells us the Son is the express image (charakter) of God's hypostasis.
In abbreviated summary, this indicates that God is eternal transcendent uncreated Self-Noumenon (Self-Consciousness) and eternal transcendent uncreated Self-Phenomenon (Self-Existence). By His Logos, God is exhaustively and unabridegedly Self-Conscious of Himself as Self-Existent Spirit.
Rhema is the thing thought and spoken about, and the Logos is the intelligent comprehension and rational reasoned wise apprehension of the Rhema as subject matter. Since there's NO creation, including NO uncreated heaven, there's no thing (nothing) else for God to think and speak about except His hypostasis and all it underlies and presents. So God's Rhema (the -ma suffix meaning "result of", and reo meaning both "to speak" and the parallel of "to flow") is His (SINGULAR) hypostasis as the substance spoken forth by the Logos.
Both God and His inherent Logos are eternal uncreated phenomenon and noumenon as actuality of Self-Conscious Self-Existence. Creation is merely noumenon as potentiality, pending instantiation into actuality of existence when given phenomenon. And it is God's Rhema (of His dunamis) that carries forth and upholds creation, thrust as the Sword of the Spirit by the Logos.
God alone (and His literal Logos) is uncreated phenomenon. Heaven and the cosmos are created phenomena; the invisible and the visible creation. The intangible and the tangible.
In God's innate eternity, infinity, immutability, immateriality, aseity, and all other incommunicable attributes, He is Self-Noumenal Self-Phenomenal Spirit with Logos. His Spirit is both phenomenon and noumenon, as is His Logos.
The eternal uncreated Logos is phenomenally the Logos and noumenally the Son, just as God is phenomenally the Father AS Spirit and noumenally the Holy Spirit (though these are distribution into noumenal creation, not separation). So at the divine creative utterance, God spoke/breathed forth the noumenal Logos and Pneuma out from (exerchomai/ekporeuomai) His phenomenal "Self" as Spirit. And this expression/exhalation of His eternal uncreated Logos and Pneuma instantiated creation into phenomenal actuality of existence from noumenal potentiality of existence (Ex Nihilo) when/as the uncreated eternal Son and Holy Spirit proceeded forth/proceedeth.
It was at this instantiated existence of created phenomena that the eternal Logos proceeded forth as the eternal Son; just as the eternal noumenality of Himself as Spirit was set apart (hagios) into creation as the Holy Spirit.
God's Logos is relative to His own singular hypostasis, the hypostasis being the very subject matter as the content and substance of eternal intuitive expression by His Logos. When the Son came (heko), it was the arising of the Logos from God's uncreated phenomenal hypostasis into the created phenomena of heaven. The Son is not the Father, but is the literal eternal uncreated Logos of the Father; the same hypostasis disinct in another phenomenal existence as creation with a prosopon to appear and have presence in the phenomena of creation, later taking on human flesh in the Incarnation.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are phenomenally distinct, not hypostatically distinct. God is Uni-Hypostatic and Multi-Phenomenal. The Orthodox formulaic, like all anathemas, began after procession and creation, still attempting to include procession and creation.
It LOOKS and FUNCTIONS like there could be three hypostases/prosopa because of multi-phenomenal distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Father as phenomenal uncreated eternal Spirit co-inhered with the procession of the noumenal uncreated eternal setting apart of His Spirit into creation; just as He co-inheres with the eternal uncreated phenomenal Logos processed as the Son into noumenal creation.
A transcendent hypostasis with an in-shining transcendent prosopon as unapproachable light in which He dwells (Father). That same hypostasis risen (heko) into created phenomenon as the Son with localized heavenly presence as a distinct prosopon that is shared with the omnipresent Holy Spirit with which He qualitativley co-inheres. The only thing missing from the Orthodox formulaic is the individuated prospon for the Holy Spirit, which is why it took so long to declare one for Pneumatology.
This is just a blip of a summary. There's copious exegesis and lexicography that is too voluminous to present in this venue.
