Good morning/afternoon!!:banana::surf::banana:
I have a whole reply to your post to me written off-line (I dare not risk losing it here composing in situ)
Been there... Done that... Got the t-shirt... Shredded it to keep my own sanity barely intact... Possibly.
:cigar:
but then when I logged in to post I read and started following the exchange between you and Arsenios.
I am trying to understand "uni-phenomenal" as you apply it to (classic) Trinitarian thought. If I am understanding aright, I would not use "uni-phenomenal" to characterize it but "mono-phenomenal" and by that I mean each hypostasis has a proper prosopon with a proper phenomenon. "Uni" implies to me that there is one, shared phenomenon but (classic) Trinitarianism wouldn't necessarily say that.
Uni- is my reference to traditional Theology Proper formulaics as "uni"ting eternity and everlasting without distinction that the latter is created phenomenon (though giving lip service of bare assertion otherwise).
God created everlasting. God created heaven. And He inhabited everlasting (aeviternity) when/as He created ALL.
God alone is uncreated phenomenon. He created ALL where, when, what. The aeviternity of heaven is created phenomenon with created phenomena, and has wheres, whens, and whats.
God is eternity. There is no "eternity past" in the traditional sense. What most refer to as eternity is aeviternity (sempiternity). It had an inception. A beginning. It was created. And temporality is the "fallen" aions of the cosmos.
Traditionally, all formulaics (including anathemas) have insisted heaven is eternity (along with God) and the cosmos is temporality. And Aquinas did much damage in this regard, basically presenting two semi-congruous eternities. One for God, and one for heaven.
And is that, in fact, what you disagree with as relates phenomenon? That there is one phenomenon proper to a prosopon?
Not really in the sense you seem to be applying it as such, but getting close. Closer than anyone online has gotten; though when taught live with illustrations, everyone gets it epiphanally.
There are two phenomena of existence... uncreated and created. God alone is the former while all else is the latter, including heaven. Eternity (God) and aeviternity (with temporality as its subset for the fallen cosmos aions).
God as Spirit and His Logos are eternal and uncreated Self-Noumenon and Self-Phenomenon (Self-Conscious Self-Existence). The express image OF His hypostasis is NOT another hypostasis in uni-phenomenality. The express image is the impressing of God's hypostasis on His Logos by His Rhema to be re-presented in created phenomenon.
Rhema bookends Logos.
Rhema > Logos > Rhema
Think Rhema as pillars for Logos bridge from objective to subjective. Not an estimate of intellectual thought, but a procession of an express image that is the singular hypostasis re-presented by a distinct prosopon in creation.
Rhema > Logos > Rhema
Rhema is not just the latter as words that stand for the thing thought and spoken about by the Logos. Rhema is also the thing thought and spoken about. It stands for the subject matter of the word, but only because the Logos re-presents the objective by that subjective. And the Logos is focused upon the Rhema, which is God's singular hypostasis.
Rhema is both the objective reality and the subjective realization, with Logos expressing the former as the latter. The only objective reality is God's singular hypostasis; and anterior to the divine utterance, there was no thing (nothing) else to think and speak ABOUT.
Rhema is the signified AND the sign. Logos is the signifier/signifying of the objective as subjective. Creation is subjective, even when given objective reality. The only way for God's objective reality to inhabit subjective creation was for His hypostasis to be impressed into His Logos and uttered forth (and His Spirit was "concurrently" breathed forth) when/as creation was instantiated into existence.
God spoke and breathed forth (exerchomai/ekporeuomai) His singular hypostasis from uncreated Self-Phenomeon into created phenomenon.
I posted this earlier to Arsenios:
The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:25)
The Lord (hypostasis) make His face (prosopon) to shine (epiphaino) upon you and be gracious to you.
That shining would be the proper shining of the proper face of the proper hypostasis being spoken of here (to me, the Son, since the Father's face cannot be seen).
Okay. But not a distinct additional hypostasis. The impressed hypostasis upon the Logos, uttered forth and re-presenting that hypostasis to be able to be seen. And the Father co-inheres with the Son by the Holy Spirit as the perichoretic.
The noumenality of the Logos is the Son. The noumenality of God AS Spirit is the Holy (set apart) Spirit. By His Self-Noumenal Self-Phenomenal Logos, God set apart the noumenon of Himself as Spirit (into creation) from the phenomenon of Himself as Spirit (in transcendence).
God's ousia (with its physis) and prosopon are eternally transcendent, as is His hypostasis. But by the energies of His essence as ecomony, His hypostasis co-inheres with the processed Logos and Pneuma to be the timeless uncreated Father with the Son and Holy Spirit.
But God's innate hypostasis is not intrinsically compatible with created phenomena, maintaining His unchanging transcendent attributes in creation. And His unchanging ousia/physis/prosopon remains immovable and non-processed from transcendence, for it is from whence come the energies for ecomony. (This single aspect is what Aristotle perverted as his "unmoved mover" concept as "god".)
In the created heaven, there is the Father's co-inhering transcendent timeless hypostasis dwelling in the unapproachable light of His in-shining transcendent prosopon. And there is the processed Logos as the express image OF that hypostasis with a localized personal presence (prosopon). And there is the two-fold qualitatively-distinct co-processed and omnipresent set apart (Holy) Spirit, co-inhering with the Son and "sharing" that prosopon.
This is NOT Modalism (not even close), which is uni-phenomenal. But it's what Modalists were trying to capture and represent in various ways.
Apart from the Holy Spirit not having an individuated prosopon (because ultimately WE are the collective prosopon for the Holy Spirit), this LOOKS and FUNCTIONS like three uni-phenomenal hypostases.
But the traditional formulaics ALL started post-procession and post-creation, attempting then to account for procession and creation uni-phenomenally in arrears.
At bottom, I understand you to have one hypostasis with two prosopon and--focusing on the Son right now--CT would have two hypostases with two prosopon. And that is in part because the Word, as a center of action, does things (Hebrews 4:12).
They're the same hypostasis. Same center of action. Logos in uncreated phenomenality, (uncreated) Son in created phenomenality.
So if we could use this text (Numbers 6:25) as the foundation of the concepts being articulated here and reason "up" or abstract from that, I would be most appreciative. I hope you will indulge me! There are ways to consider the Trinity that don't necessarily result in Rublev's Trinity icon since they stress with you the emphasis on God's thinking thought of Himself as word in and through the Word which I would also like to explore more in your articulation of the distinctions between rhema and logos.
This is a breakthrough, even if it's still fuzzy. Though in live teaching many have understood, you're the first online to get a whiff of multi-phenomenality in contrast to multi-hypostaticism.
:banana::surf::banana:
