Good evening, PPS!
Good morning/afternoon!
I'll try not to but you defined noumenon as "that which is conceived in the mind, but does not have any objective existence" so how can nothing (?) have any phenomenon?
God's Logos is both noumenon and phenomenon. The innate phenomenon is the objective existence for the noumenon. They cannot be separated.
Creation has no intrinsic phenomenon, only being given it by its Creator. So the pre-utterance noumenal creation has no phenomenon "until" it is carried forth and upheld by God's Rhema.
The Logos was with (pros, accusative) God. Toward, as in intensive focus. And the focused "thing thought and spoken about" by the Logos is the Rhema. Rhema is both the subjective realization as evidence AND the objective reality underlying the subjective. Logos is the means of conveying the objective (hypostasis) as the subjective.
This subjective is not an estimate as thought or imagining (dokei), but the actual substantial conveyance from objective reality to subjective representation (re-presentation), phenomenon to phenomenon. This re-presentation is the express image OF God's hypostasis as it rises/comes (heko) from uncreated phenomenality into created phenomenality with a prosopon that appears/shines that is distinct to created phenomenon.
Same hypostasis. Different phenomenon. Distinct prosopon. The Son is not the Father, being the Logos OF the Father.
I think if you define "objective existence" that would help.
God's objective existence is distinct from creation's objective existence, for all created objective existence is still subject to its Creator.
God's objective existence is His uncreated eternal Self-Conscious Self-Existence. All other objects have created everlasting or temporal existence which is subject to God but given objective reality.
Interesting. I would like to see the full treatment if you can direct me anywhere on-line since the way I'd view phenomenon, it would have an underlying existence and Zodhiates confirms with "Therefore, phainomai is often synonymous with eimi, to be, and ginomai, to become."
I'll look around for more.
:thumb::wave::wave2::banana:
Okay--getting closer (I think) to what you mean by noumenon and objective existence. The Logos as noumenon remains in the Father's mind, so-to-speak (until you get into processions as you describe them)?
I think you're representing it, yes.
I don't see how a self-conscious subject in any form isn't a hypostasis.
It IS. Just not an individuated additional hypostasis. There is only one sentient volitional center of consciousness for God. The nous is a faculty of the physis of an ousia, though the functionality would be the hypostasis.
No multi-minded, multi-willed God.
The economic processions.
Exactly how, though. How did God as uncreated phenomenon inhabit created phenomenon?
Ad intra is an eisegetic conceptual "band-aid" in its application for uni-phenomenal multi-hypostaticism.
What I'm asking about is exactly how an uncreated God inhabited, occupied, and dwells is created phenomenon while still remaining transcendent to created phenomenon, totally uncontained and constrained.
How, specifically, did God create heaven as His everlasting abode to tent with us?
No void. The Father is thinking thought of Himself (the Son/Logos) and the Spirit proceeds as love (or will) internally (is one model).
Exerchomai is "from" some"where" "to" some"where". God created all "where". There is no "where" for "from" or "to" internally; and once exerchomai and ekporeuomai are "used" up for eisegetic internal application, there's no ad extra left for economic procession.
I understand that's your position, but it's not mine. I have a subject/center of action (and like you, the subject is self-conscious) in the Logos--a hypostasis.
Your/my logos is most definitely not an individuated hypostasis from "me" as another "me". The Son is the very eternal uncreated Logos of God, not another Logos. There are not mutliple self-consciousnesses for God.
Got it. So the Logos has no prosopon/presence until creation.
Sure it does. Phaino is to shine, to appear, to be conspicuous,
to seem, to be thought. The Logos is toward the Rhema as God's singular hypostasis and all it underlies. This seeming is the eternal apparentness of the Son that shines forth when/as creation is instantiated into existence.
Internal eternal uncreated phaino, which was externalized with creation. THAT's ad intra, not exerchomai. The Son's eternal phaino was noumenal Logos.
Disagree, but I think I got the distinction between phenomenon and prosopon as you're using them.
Partly. Not yet multi-phenomeonally, though.
I think the least we can say about prosopon/presence is that it is certainly a phenomenon which may (or may not be according to your definition) seen.
Multi-phenomenality accounts for this. The Orthodox multi-hypostaticism cannot, as it's a compensation for not accounting for the created heaven.
They're there--and when they appear they are heavy and pregnant with meaning.
Yes, but always misapplied according to the eisegesis of multiple hypostases and uni-phenomenality.
But I would still like to see "phenomenon" and "noumenon" as used in Scripture, if at all. I'll do some browsing around.
Okay--I can accept the use of "mind" in discussions with those who don't drag along any New Age junk. (I'll probably continue to use intellect (btw, that's how Aquinas translated nous in Latin--
intellectus) so you'll forgive me I'm sure.
)
I eschew Scholasticism, and Aquinas most of all. He internally damaged the faith more than anyone but maybe Augustine until later Thesophologians.
Potat-o, potaht-o, LOL! (Not at all but okay.) I'll think "aseity" since it's short and sweet and try to remember you add "perseconsciosity" (wow!), i.e., self-consciousness.
From-Self-Ity is nice shorthand if all facets are represented, which they seldom are.
We may have to agree to just disagree here. Logos is seriously elastic with a huge semantic range.
But highly influenced by Philo, don't forget.
And if we look at the historical environment John was writing in and how he may have understood it, we'd find the notion of Logos leans even further than either of us are going here toward a fairly concrete personal existence.
I would even highly emphasize this more. The Logos is the very hypostasis of God. It doesn't get more personal or existent than that. It's the distinction between accurately recognizing the Son as the express image OF God's (singular) hypostasis from phenomenon into phenomenon with a distinct prosopon for transcendent uncreation and creation; NOT another uni-phenomenal hypostasis.
The express image (charakter) OF God's hypostasis is the Logos re-presenting that singular hypostasis into created phenomenon with a distinct prosopon.
It's the royal signet ring of God, with His Logos stamping His hypostasis into the wax of creation as the Son. Same hypostasis.
Well thank you! But sure He did!
"He" sure didn't as a multi-hypostatic uni-phenomenal God with multiple eternal minds/wills.
How did God create? Specifically. How is the Holy Spirit a distinct individuated hypostasis?
None I "know" or "have met". Until you.
By being the Father's thought of Himself in hypostasis. The Father spoke through the Son. Economic processions.
Not tenable. Uni-phenomenal.
You have a potentiality in God becoming an actuality concurrent with creation.
No. God's innate noumenon is intrinsic to His phenomenon. Yours is a time-based construct and division of God that you can't recognize.
If God didn't create, the Son wouldn't have proceeded.
Incorrect. This is time-based perception. Once it exists, creation has "always" existed. For God, there is no "always". He's nowhen, yet "after" He creates, He's also everywhere "while" He's nowhen.
The Son eternally proceeded. All tenses are time.
Trinitarianism straight-up doesn't have that problem.
I'm a Trintarian. What I've illustrated doesn't have that problem. Multi-hypostaticism constrains God to time and projects it upon Him.
Not thinking in uni-phenomenal(ity?) at all. Each hypostasis has its own proper prosopon with it's own proper phenomenon.
That's not multi-phenomenality. And God's singular hypostasis has it's own proper transcendent prosopon (Father) as uncreated phenomenon AND it's own proper crestion-immanent eternal prosopon (Son), the latter "shared" with the Holy (set-apart) Spirit in created phenomenon.
The phenomenal Logos re-presents God's hypostasis as the Son within crestion that was noumenal until given phenomenon at the divine utterance. The re-presentation was the noumenal Logos as the Son.
Sabellians were attempting to present this aspect, but uni-phenomenally and it turned ugly in various ways. Arians just represented the procession of the Logos as a crestive act, which it was not.
Homoousios!!!! Homohypostatic!!!! Multi-phenomenal. No sequential or dynamic modes.
In your view, there is no hypostasis of the Son to unite with human nature and give it subsistence.
But of course there is. It's the processed hypostasis of God; the Logos as the Son.
The only hypostasis is the Father.
No. It would be constituent parts for God to be multiple hypostases. The express image OF that hypostasis is not another hypostasis. It's the coming of that hypostasis into created phenomenality to inhere God to His creation by the Holy Spirit.
So in your words tell me what, exactly, was incarnate and became man.
The express image OF God's hypostasis. The Son. Same hypostasis, different phenomeon. Distinct prosopon.
Just like you have a thought in your mind, it's within you and not external. You have internal operations.
My thoughts certainly don't have Self-consciousness and aren't an internal or external individuated hypostasis from me. And my spirit certainly isn't, either.
A self-conscious internal distinct Logos as an individuated hypostasis leads quickly and easily down the slippery slope of thoughts having thoughts, which is the platform for all Gnostic mythologies. Valentinius (and maybe others) was even multi-hypostatic (allegedly, since the writings are not extant).
The formulation is manifestly not post-creation.
I didn't say you did or would recognize it as such, but it is.
LOL--there is no need whatsoever to imagine 3 people.
Three sentient volitional self-conscious hypostases is nothing BUT that. The singular ousia is just a fudge-factor. It turns to Tritheism almost instantly.
A Subordinationist, Non-economic, non-Filioque formulaic might get closer. But no more so than some form of "Oneness" Modalism.
I would (and do) share your distaste for "social Trinitarian" views and analogies. I would bet I am just as disturbed at Rublev's Trinity (
http://www.belygorod.ru/img2/Ikona/Used/017rublev troitsa.jpg) as you are.
But you're not at all disturbed by a multiple-sentienced, multi-hypostatic, uni-phenomenal God. Most aren't. I am. I was lost for 28 years because of it.
Think merely "center of action" for hypostasis.
Alas, I cannot; at least in multiples. God is one hypostasis.
Thanks.
Convo with you is edifying and disarming. Thank YOU!!:banana: