UBB.classicTM 6.5.0
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quote:Considering that many of us have to live with a translation of the Apostles Creed like (I believe) "in Jesus Christ God's only son, our Lord. I do believe you are correct!
Originally posted by Shadowhund:
The Arian ship has already sailed.
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quote:A distinction between the Second and Third Person of the Trinity can then not be maintained anymore by reasonable argument. Of course, such a distinction can still be maintained in a non-reasoned way (e.g., by "simply following tradition") or by consciously defying reason. Or one can simply ignore the issue.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
What dubious theology can come from omitting the filioque?
quote:Favoring the Orthodox over the Catholics is your most likely bet. A truly theo-logical motivation would be a nice surprise...
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
What ulterior motive could a person have for wanting to remove the filioque?
quote:There's a One True Scotsman fallacy waiting to happen.
Originally posted by IngoB:
A distinction between the Second and Third Person of the Trinity can then not be maintained anymore by reasonable argument.
quote:Your argument is good until you notice that there is more than one way in which B or C can originate from A. You could say that I originate from God, but the manner of my origin (I am created) is different from the manner of the Son's origin (he is eternally begotten).
Originally posted by IngoB:
Now, if I say to you "A->B" (B originates from A) and "A->C", have I then established three entities? No. Because "B=C" (B is the same entity as C) is not excluded by any relationship so far, and hence "A->B" and "A->C" could just be stating the same relationship with different labels: one time I call it "B", the other time I "C", but it is just that same entity which happens to originate from A. What kind of statement do I need to establish three distinct entities? Well, "B->C" (or "C->B", but labels are for the moment arbitrary). If C originates from B, then it is not the same as B. Since both B and C originate from A, they are not the same as A. Thus A, B, and C are not the same.
Now map the labels as such: "A=Father", "B=Son", "C=Holy Spirit". The same argument holds. What is needed is hence "Son->Holy Spirit" (B->C). Or indeed "Holy Spirit->Son" (C->B), but the latter does not change the principle (three entities by relationship) yet maps the labels against traditional language (which is confusing). So we stick with the former. Thus the filioque follows since both "Father->Holy Spirit" (A->C) and "Son->Holy Spirit" (B->C).
quote:You seem to leave out the possibility that we might not need reasonable argument at all. If the second person of the trinity said "Hi. I'm Jesus" and the third said "Hi. I'm not" we'd know where we were.
Originally posted by IngoB:
A distinction between the Second and Third Person of the Trinity can then not be maintained anymore by reasonable argument.
quote:Pretty precise.
Originally posted by Alogon:
John 15:26 "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
...
How precise is this language (especially in the original Greek)? Father will send Him. He Proceedeth from the Father. I will send Him... (Which is to say, He proceedeth from me as well?)
quote:My guess, like others, would still be that it is creeping ecumenism. I doubt it is part of some big conspiracy or has Orthodox relations in view - more likely it is part of a general 'let's ditch anything that divides us' mentality.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Like I said, I can't believe the person really cares about ecumenical relations with the Orthodox or favoring them over Roman Catholics. I've seen others use ecumenical relations with the Orthodox to argue for getting rid of things they don't like. So far, this is the only reason I can figure for the person making a big deal of the issue and yet I can't figure out the underlying issue (which if discovered probably won't be of the least concern to the Orthodox). It just concerns me.
quote:How about homoousios?
Originally posted by IngoB:
You cannot cash out "begotten" in any other way than "proceed" here. These are both just terms from human experience used analogously to indicate a relationship of origin in God. There is neither "begetting" not "proceeding" in God in any direct sense, due to a complete lack of genitals, doors, and all other stuff in God.
quote:Am I missing something? There is a fundamental difference between "begotten" and "proceed". "Begotten" = be fathered, i.e. be conceived, become incarnate in the womb of the Virgin and be made flesh. This is fundamental to being the Son. The Holy Spirit comes into the world and since Pentecost can indwell human hearts, but is not "begotten".
Originally posted by IngoB:
You cannot cash out "begotten" in any other way than "proceed" here. These are both just terms from human experience used analogously to indicate a relationship of origin in God. There is neither "begetting" not "proceeding" in God in any direct sense, due to a complete lack of genitals, doors, and all other stuff in God.
quote:Yes, but the "begotten" in the Creed refers to his being begotten "before all worlds", not to the Incarnation. At least AIUI anyway.
Originally posted by Enoch:
There is a fundamental difference between "begotten" and "proceed". "Begotten" = be fathered, i.e. be conceived, become incarnate in the womb of the Virgin and be made flesh.
quote:The Spirit is quite definitely homoousios with the Father. That's the point of including the Spirit in the Trinity: the Spirit is of the same kind and of the same substance as the other two persons.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:How about homoousios?
Originally posted by IngoB:
You cannot cash out "begotten" in any other way than "proceed" here. These are both just terms from human experience used analogously to indicate a relationship of origin in God.
quote:The Trinity *IS* asymmetric. The Father is the source or groundspring or origination or whatever you want to call it of the Son and the Spirit.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Going back to the main issue of this post though, there was some argument back in the 60s and 70s of the last century as to whether,
a. The Orthodox position could imply a Trinity that was assymmetric.
quote:Maybe she cares about relations between them and read
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
I can't believe the person really cares about ecumenical relations with the Orthodox or favoring them over Roman Catholics.
quote:
that the Catholic Church, as a consequence of the normative and irrevocable dogmatic value of the Creed of 381, use the original Greek text alone in making translations of that Creed for catechetical and liturgical use.
quote:I doubt it.
Originally posted by Alt Wally:
quote:Maybe she cares about relations between them and read
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
I can't believe the person really cares about ecumenical relations with the Orthodox or favoring them over Roman Catholics.
An Agreed Statement of the
North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation.
In it's recommendations, it states
quote:
that the Catholic Church, as a consequence of the normative and irrevocable dogmatic value of the Creed of 381, use the original Greek text alone in making translations of that Creed for catechetical and liturgical use.
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quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
I 've always thought that the Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son and that such bond is so real that it creates the third person of the Trinity.
quote:According to Diarmaid MacCulloch, Gregory Palamas reused the idea. He didn't actually acknowledge that he was using Augustine, and Augustine would have disagreed with some of the use he was being put to, but the idea is in Palamas apparently.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
So thought Augustine.
The Orthodox aren't as fond of Augustine as Catholics or Protestants.
quote:How much closer do you want to be? If there's no conception of that, then I agree simply dropping the alteration of the creed doesn't do much.
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
But, how much closer to the Orthodox does that really bring us?
quote:The filioque was first added to the creed in Spain in the 7th century (as an anti-Arian measure). It was adopted by Charlemagne's court in Aachen in the 9th century, and from there spread throughout the West. Rome was actually pretty much the last place in the West to adopt it at the beginning of the 11th century.
Originally posted by Gee D:
The original did not have the filioque and aiui the filioque started to be used in Rome in the 8th century. From there, it spread throughout the West and was well in place there by 1054, before Barbarossa, and was one of the given reasons for the Great Anathemas.
quote:This makes it out that Rome had nothing to do with it; it was just those uppity Greeks who wouldn't just agree to disagree. This is somewhat problematic to reconcile with actual history. I'll just remind all that Humbert was a Latin, and it was he who "excommunicated" the Patriarch of Constantinople, not the other way around. For using yeast. It's not just those poor, harassed Westerns being bickered with just for spite by the benighted Easterners.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Byzantium pretty much objected to anything it could find to object to: the dispute that precipitated the Great Schism was whether the Eucharist should use leavened or unleavened bread.
quote:That's what I meant when I said "given reasons". There was a series of alleged departures from true teaching, and the claims abouth the insertion of the filioque happened to
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Byzantium had always objected to it - not entirely from purely religious motives. The Holy Roman Emperors were setting themselves up as replacement Roman Emperors, so Byzantium would object to anything they were sponsorting. Likewise, the reason Rome finally adopted it was that they were pressured to do so while the Holy Roman Emperor was in town warring against the Byzantines. Byzantium pretty much objected to anything it could find to object to: the dispute that precipitated the Great Schism was whether the Eucharist should use leavened or unleavened bread.
quote:I think it is important to realize that only theology makes definitive exegesis possible. Listing a number of "directly applicable" verses usually does not provide a clear answer, allowing several (often many) interpretations. Behind the argument I've given stand a number of key assumptions about God, and those again can be related to a quite different set of "directly applicable" verses. Thus theology is the medium through which exegesis can be harmonized across scripture. If you nevertheless want some "direct" argument from scripture, here's Aquinas again, and here are a bunch of quotes from the Fathers for good measure.
Originally posted by Alogon:
And here I was naive enough to think that it was a problem in scriptural exegesis
quote:That's a strange and somewhat insulting comment, given that I illustrated all steps of the argument with human beings, not quantum particles. The idea of the Father and the Son (as God) saying "hi" to each other like this is of course painfully anthropomorphic. However, it certainly poses no challenge to the philosophical analysis.
Originally posted by mdijon:
You seem to leave out the possibility that we might not need reasonable argument at all. If the second person of the trinity said "Hi. I'm Jesus" and the third said "Hi. I'm not" we'd know where we were. Your argument seems to regard them as quantum particles without sentience that we need a theoretical framework to distinguish. I think they're less tame than that.
quote:Historically, that's a problematic word. Taking it in the now agreed upon sense, it was Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers combating the Pneumatomachi who established that the Holy Spirit is one in essence with the Father and the Son, and the Pneumatomachi heresy was specifically condemned by the First Council of Constantinople in 381 AD in the First Canon.
Originally posted by mousethief:
How about homoousios?
quote:Sure, you are missing that we are talking about God in His Godhead, not about God as Creator or God as Incarnate. It is standard Christian doctrine that the former can be thought of independent of the latter, i.e., God is not defined by His creation and it is not necessary for God to create. Thus we were talking about God (logically, not temporally) before there was anything but God. Otherwise we would be saying that God as such is undifferentiated, but becomes a Trinity by virtue of the Son incarnating and the Holy Spirit indwelling. That's an interesting form of Modalism. However, I would agree that the differentiation into Persons that exists in God as God, while logically prior to creation, maps in a specific way to creation. It is no accident that the Second Person (not the First or the Third) incarnates, and that the Third Person (not the First or the Second) indwells. All this is very interesting indeed, but it does not directly touch the argument I've given.
Originally posted by Enoch:
Am I missing something? There is a fundamental difference between "begotten" and "proceed". "Begotten" = be fathered, i.e. be conceived, become incarnate in the womb of the Virgin and be made flesh. This is fundamental to being the Son. The Holy Spirit comes into the world and since Pentecost can indwell human hearts, but is not "begotten".
quote:Indeed, but modern Orthodox talk about the Trinity is not asymmetric enough. The Holy Spirit must arise somehow differently from the Son, and it is not sufficient to just use a different verb for their origination. Labels are arbitrary. One has to say how these verbs mean something different (and they mean something different precisely because the Holy Spirit originates also through the Son, but in one principle of origination with the Father, and logically second to that of the Father).
Originally posted by mousethief:
The Trinity *IS* asymmetric. The Father is the source or groundspring or origination or whatever you want to call it of the Son and the Spirit.
quote:There really is no contradiction between these statements, just a shift of viewpoint. Firstly, for a nice summary of the agreement of Latin and Greek fathers on this see here, subsection "The same truth has been constantly held by the Fathers".
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I'm not completely sure I buy that argument, as the filioque in any understanding tends to create an imbalance in the trinitarian godhead, arguably. However, the foregoing interpretation of the filioque in which the procession of the Spirit originates in the Father and is mediated through the agency of the Son might be seen as a better solution than the idea that the Spirit is conjointly sent forth by the other two Persons.
quote:True, it was not so. However, it sure looks to me like it is so now. The RCC sure seems a lot more ready to me to solve this particular issue now than the various Orthodox actors are.
Originally posted by mousethief:
It's not just those poor, harassed Westerns being bickered with just for spite by the benighted Easterners.
quote:You have to at least admit there's a hell of a lot more going on in relations between the churches than just the filioque. Also I would say that Rome's method of "solving issues" tends to be very "my way or the highway" so accusing the Orthodox of being stubborn is only saying we're like you.
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:True, it was not so. However, it sure looks to me like it is so now. The RCC sure seems a lot more ready to me to solve this particular issue now than the various Orthodox actors are.
Originally posted by mousethief:
It's not just those poor, harassed Westerns being bickered with just for spite by the benighted Easterners.
quote:On this specific issue, I really believe that to be incorrect. In fact, I expect Rome to declare unilaterally some compromise in the not too far future. (If I were pope, I would declare the "through" solution as the new standard for the liturgy; and leave the other two possibilities - Orthodox omitting or the current RC "and" - as options that anybody can adopt as they see fit, provided this is understood as compatible with "through".)
Originally posted by mousethief:
You have to at least admit there's a hell of a lot more going on in relations between the churches than just the filioque. Also I would say that Rome's method of "solving issues" tends to be very "my way or the highway" so accusing the Orthodox of being stubborn is only saying we're like you.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If I were pope,
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quote:As I understand it, the problem with this idea from the Eastern view is that it depersonalizes the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is just the bond between Father and Son, then it isn't really a person and is thus inferior to the Two persons.
Originally posted by New Yorker:
I 've always thought that the Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son and that such bond is so real that it creates the third person of the Trinity. If this be true, how can the Sprit proceed from the Father alone? The Spirit proceeds from the bond of the Father and the Son.
My two cents.
quote:That's how I remember learning it. Father is perfect; he has knowledge of himself; that knowledge is also perfect, thus a person (Son). Father and Son love each other; that love is also perfect, thus a person (Spirit).
Originally posted by New Yorker:
I 've always thought that the Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son and that such bond is so real that it creates the third person of the Trinity.
quote:!!! ???
Originally posted by IngoB
In fact, I expect Rome to declare unilaterally some compromise in the not too far future.
quote:The bond is so strong that a person exists from it.
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
quote:As I understand it, the problem with this idea from the Eastern view is that it depersonalizes the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is just the bond between Father and Son, then it isn't really a person and is thus inferior to the Two persons.
Originally posted by New Yorker:
I 've always thought that the Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son and that such bond is so real that it creates the third person of the Trinity. If this be true, how can the Sprit proceed from the Father alone? The Spirit proceeds from the bond of the Father and the Son.
My two cents.
quote:This has always been my feeling as well. Good to see I'm not alone in that.
Originally posted by Anyuta:
Takes it from a triangle into a line.
quote:Really insulting? I don't see how.
Originally posted by IngoB:
That's a strange and somewhat insulting comment
quote:I did try to point out that there were political motives going on on both sides and both sides were looking for a fight to pick. Obviously, I didn't manage it for which I'm sorry. One of the main causes of friction was the Papacy's claims to pre-eminence. (Although the Patriarchate of Constantinople was using language that could be taken as claiming pre-eminence as well.) In fact, the significance of the Great Schism has been overstated: both excommunications were personal and soon lifted. What did for ecumenical relations permanently was not the Great Schism, but Rome sponsoring the Latin rite in Constantinople after the Venetians had conquered it.
Originally posted by mousethief:
This makes it out that Rome had nothing to do with it; it was just those uppity Greeks who wouldn't just agree to disagree. This is somewhat problematic to reconcile with actual history. I'll just remind all that Humbert was a Latin, and it was he who "excommunicated" the Patriarch of Constantinople, not the other way around. For using yeast.
quote:It seems to me the other way. Omitting the filioque means that the Trinity is being held together by the Father, which means that the Father gets a more equal than the other two position. Including the filioque means that the differences in role are less matters of status within the Trinity and more matters of differentiation between persons.
Originally posted by Anyuta:
To me the filioque seems to put the Spirit in a tertiary role in the Trinity and that seems to me to be counter to the basic premise of single Godhood. While I can see the need for a single "source" even within a coequal unity, that is taken to a whole other level when you talk about the third person springing FROM the second (even if WITH the first). Takes it from a triangle into a line.
quote:I'm just not seeing that, if B comes from A and C comes from B, that's not a triangle, and that's definitely not showing them as equal. it shows there to be a hierarch. a very clearly liniar hierarchy. if B and C both come from A, it does place A in a somewhat different position, and I do have a bit of a problem with that, but not AS big as with the idea of there being a chain. to me a true coequal trinity woudn't have either the son or the spirit proceeding from the father. The only way I can see that as realy working is if the Father was said to then proceed from the Spirit (making all three proceeding from each other).
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:It seems to me the other way. Omitting the filioque means that the Trinity is being held together by the Father, which means that the Father gets a more equal than the other two position. Including the filioque means that the differences in role are less matters of status within the Trinity and more matters of differentiation between persons.
Originally posted by Anyuta:
To me the filioque seems to put the Spirit in a tertiary role in the Trinity and that seems to me to be counter to the basic premise of single Godhood. While I can see the need for a single "source" even within a coequal unity, that is taken to a whole other level when you talk about the third person springing FROM the second (even if WITH the first). Takes it from a triangle into a line.
The Trinity with filioque is still a triangle. It's just that it's tilted, rather than having a base.
quote:Catholics of the Latine Rite (minus the sick, children, and elderly) are in fact required fast from food twice a year: on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. They are also required to abstain from from meat on those two days and on the Fridays of Lent.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Maybe if they left it out they'd start fasting again.
quote:This is probably not a good place to talk about what I think about the onerous burden of fasting 9 whole days a year.
Originally posted by Pancho:
quote:Catholics of the Latine Rite (minus the sick, children, and elderly) are in fact required fast from food twice a year: on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. They are also required to abstain from from meat on those two days and on the Fridays of Lent.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Maybe if they left it out they'd start fasting again.
This moment of Eccles nerdom was brought to you by the letter F.
quote:We can talk about it on that Lenten fasting thread you started (I've been meaning to jump in on it anyway).
This is probably not a good place to talk about what I think about the onerous burden of fasting 9 whole days a year.
quote:Because you claim that I treat God like a thing.
Originally posted by mdijon:
Really insulting? I don't see how.
quote:Of course I'm denying that the Persons of the Trinity are people, they are God. And of course we identify people by their general (human, not dog, not cat, ...) and particular (John's face, John's sense of humor, not Jane's gait, not Jane's smile, ...) characteristics, as well as their relationship (son of Marc, uncle of Bill, boss of Rebecca) - by what else?
Originally posted by mdijon:
The idea that we need a mechanism for distinguishing the persons of the trinity based on some particular characteristic seems to deny that they are people. All you illustrations of people fail on that point also because we don't identify people by particular characteristics or points of origin in that way either.
quote:Right. Now subtract embodiment (God is an incorporeal Spirit), history (God is eternal), causation of circumstance and biology (God is the uncaused Cause), any sort of separation in interaction (God is omnipresent in space and time), etc. and tell me what you have left of that. Yep, nothing. I'm sorry to burst your anthropomorphic bubble, but God is not much like us, actually. God is the Totally Other, and the Incarnation is just about the strangest thinkable thing.
Originally posted by mdijon:
People self-identify, and have clusters of characteristics and history that they reveal as they please, and some that they can't avoid sharing.
quote:Over there (space), we have the Holy Spirit. He now (time) opens His mouth (embodiment) and says to the Father sitting over there (lack of omnipresence) "You know, I never told you (lack of omniscience) how one day three years ago (history) I met the Son."
Originally posted by mdijon:
Your discussion of both people and the persons of the trinity reminded me more of identifying particles than it did of referring to people with the ability to speak for themselves.
quote:This is what you imagine the Orthodox teaching to be:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
To me the filioque seems to put the Spirit in a tertiary role in the Trinity and that seems to me to be counter to the basic premise of single Godhood. While I can see the need for a single "source" even within a coequal unity, that is taken to a whole other level when you talk about the third person springing FROM the second (even if WITH the first). Takes it from a triangle into a line.
code:Unfortunately, that is not so, since you have no way of distinguishing the upper line from the lower one. And no, simply attaching the label "generation" and "procession" does not do the trick - unless you can cash that out in terms of something within God (and you can't, other than by what will follow). Thus you end up with:/- Son
Father <
\- Holy Spirit
code:Not only does that confuse Son and Holy Spirit, it actually is your dreaded line instead of triangle. What does the "filioque" do? It keeps the upper and lower line apart, by inserting another statement of origin, like so:Father -- Son/Holy Spirit
code:Now your triangle cannot collapse anymore, it is precisely "spanned open" by that line from Son to Holy Spirit. To make this compatible with Orthodox thought (at least the real orthodox Orthodox, i.e., the Greek fathers) one has to add that this new line would not exist but for that from Father and Son, so it is really one curve going "through" the Son from the Father./- Son
Father < |
\- Holy Spirit
quote:Indeed.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I'm a bit bothered about this language that omitting the filioque might be dangerous. Because it's not, logically, a question of omitting it leading to a creed that has anything FALSE in it. It just might mean it has one less true thing in it.
code:Is inaccurate, because you have a line going from the Father to the Spirit that doesn't go through the Son. It would have to be this:/- Son
Father < |
\- Holy Spirit
code:In this model, the procession of the Spirit is "from the Father, through the Son." In your diagram, it is not; it's more like "from the Father, and both through the Son and not through the Son."Father === Son --- Spirit
quote:It's not the Son from the Father and the Spirit from the Son. It's the Spirit from the Son and the Father together.
Originally posted by Anyuta:
quote:I'm just not seeing that, if B comes from A and C comes from B, that's not a triangle, and that's definitely not showing them as equal. it shows there to be a hierarch. a very clearly liniar hierarchy.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The Trinity with filioque is still a triangle. It's just that it's tilted, rather than having a base.
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Really insulting? I don't see how.
quote:I'm sorry but that is how you come across. The language you use about God and his person is rather cold, logical and impersonal.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Because you claim that I treat God like a thing.
quote:But God was embodied and incarnate. And I don't think his bodily characteristics were either a mirage or a shell he picked up. They were him. We also read that has resurrected body ascended into heaven. I think there is less division between body and spirit than you describe.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Right. Now subtract embodiment (God is an incorporeal Spirit), history (God is eternal), causation of circumstance and biology (God is the uncaused Cause), any sort of separation in interaction (God is omnipresent in space and time), etc. and tell me what you have left of that. Yep, nothing.
quote:I think it's important that God would still be God if there had been no creation. And a fortiori no incarnation. The incarnation reveals the Trinity to us, but the incarnation doesn't contribute to God being Trinity.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:But God was embodied and incarnate. And I don't think his bodily characteristics were either a mirage or a shell he picked up. They were him.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Right. Now subtract embodiment (God is an incorporeal Spirit), history (God is eternal), causation of circumstance and biology (God is the uncaused Cause), any sort of separation in interaction (God is omnipresent in space and time), etc. and tell me what you have left of that. Yep, nothing.
quote:That's rather dubious, for a number of reasons. I can't make sense of time applying to God is one reason. The second is that saying God has a history means building that history into the story of God. Anything that is part of that history is then part of God. If some of that is what we would otherwise think evil, we run the dangers of theodicy: the claim that evil is in fact contributory to good and therefore not really evil.
Furthermore I think God has history. We read a fraction of it in the bible.
quote:It means something. I'm not sure it means that.
You might call this an anthropomorphic bubble... I'd look at it the other way around. We are the image of God. That means something. I think you are missing it.
quote:I don't see why it would be clearer?
Originally posted by Anyuta:
well, would it be clearer then, using your logic, to say that the son proceeds from the father and the spirit, to clarify a triangular, rather than linear relationship?
quote:To me leaving the filioque out puts the Spirit in a tertiary position, and I don't think that's a true and accurate description either.
to me the fact that the son (according to the filioque version of the creed) proceeds ONLY from the father, but the spirit proceeds from both puts the Spirit in a tertiary position, and I don't believe this is a true and accurate description of the trinity.
quote:And I think the only way round that is to make 'coming from' not a matter of hierarchy. But I think that the Eastern concern, lacking the filioque, means that the hierarchy has to come in.
if B and C both come from A, it does place A in a somewhat different position, and I do have a bit of a problem with that
quote:I mentioned three relations, not two. My diagram contains all three, namely (once more)
Originally posted by mousethief:
If the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, then this figure:code:Is inaccurate, because you have a line going from the Father to the Spirit that doesn't go through the Son. It would have to be this:/- Son
Father < |
\- Holy Spiritcode:In this model, the procession of the Spirit is "from the Father, through the Son." In your diagram, it is not; it's more like "from the Father, and both through the Son and not through the Son."Father === Son --- Spirit
quote:You are merely attaching labels there. You do not know, cannot say, and hence again remain mum about how generation is supposed to be different from spiration. Of course, it is completely fine to stick to "it is revealed that there is some difference" and not bother any further cashing out such analogies. But then you definitely lose the right to bitch about the "filioque", because that is precisely about cashing out what is revealed in analogical terms!
Originally posted by mousethief:
I fail to see why you think the begetting/proceeding distinction is inadequate. We are told Jesus is the only begotten. Thus the Spirit is not begotten. We know what a Father-Son relationship, the model or ground of the analogy, is. To say that two of the Persons have that relationship, and no other pair do, pretty much differentiates.
quote:I think God couldn't but create. The question about whether he would still be God without the creation doesn't arise. We could wonder if a different God would have produced a different creation, but I think we're getting above our capacity to reason.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think it's important that God would still be God if there had been no creation. And a fortiori no incarnation.
quote:Yes, God would still be God if there had been no creation, and He would be the same unchanging God that exists now.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think it's important that God would still be God if there had been no creation. And a fortiori no incarnation. The incarnation reveals the Trinity to us, but the incarnation doesn't contribute to God being Trinity.
quote:If I knew that I wouldn't need to use the analogy, would I? The whole point of analogies is that they point towards things that you can't put directly into words.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Again, you do not know what a Father-Son Relationship is, in the following sense: You know what a father-son relationship is, more or less. But you do not know what of this refers analogously so as to establish a difference in Person but not in essence that does not equally refer to the Holy Spirit.
quote:I'm not a Thomist. I think we've already established that. I don't NEED to pin all the butterflies to the card.
Or if I am wrong, then stop procrastinating and state your terms of reference.
quote:I think one of the implications is that the Son also proceeds from the Spirit, as that's what happened in the Incarnation (which we just celebrated this past Friday). I think the relationships of the Trinity must refer to the interplay (all words are inadequate) of the Persons outside or independent of the created realm.
Originally posted by Anyuta:
This is an interesting concept, really.. the trinity not as a description of what God actually IS, but rather a description of how God relates to humanity. I had never hear it expressed as such, and further haven't thought about the implications, but it is something to ponder.
quote:It seems to me that if God can't but do it, it's not creation. Creation is a free process. This was I think a fairly important question for the fathers, who wanted to be clear about the difference between Christian theology on the one hand and neo-Platonism on the other.
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:I think God couldn't but create.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I think it's important that God would still be God if there had been no creation. And a fortiori no incarnation.
quote:That is one of the points about the Trinity: it means that God could help create the world as we know it, since the Trinity is not short of persons to shower love upon each other.
Originally posted by mousethief:
That said, I do also think that God, being who God is, could hardly help but create the world we know. It is of Her nature to love, and that love is a creative force, and would desire to create other persons to shower that love upon.
quote:I certainly wouldn't say that. I'd rather say that it flows inexorably from who God is. He's a creatin' kinda God. Otherwise I think you have to say that creating is not in God's nature, only the potential to create. And AIUI God is all actual, and none potential.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The more modern reason for wanting to say God was free not to create is that we don't want to say that creation meets a need or a lack in God.
quote:Yes, the Holy Spirit cannot exist without the Son. But luckily the Son always existed and so did the Holy Spirit. God never changes.
Originally posted by Anyuta:
hmm. so are you saying that the Holy Spirit would not exist without the Son? because although you said the word "revealed" the meaning seems to be more "exist".
quote:Why not? If someone forces me to write a book, is that not still creation? If I feel compelled by something within me to sing, is that still not creative?
Originally posted by Dafyd:
[QBIt seems to me that if God can't but do it, it's not creation.[/QB]
quote:Coercion isn't the same as can't but not. You could still choose to accept whatever retribution the coercer threatens.
Originally posted by mdijon:
Why not? If someone forces me to write a book, is that not still creation? If I feel compelled by something within me to sing, is that still not creative?
quote:'I can't but write this ending' means something like 'if I'm to write the book as well as I can, in accordance with the characters and events and settings I've already set up for the book'. Although even in that situation, it's not the same as grinding through the writing process in a mechanical way.
Authors sometimes talk about needing to make plots do x,y or z for all sorts of reasons that they choose to observe - consistency of plot, of characterizations and so on. "I can't but write this ending" is true in a sense, but not one that challenges the authors authority over the book.
quote:AIUI the answer to that is that creating is not a change from potential to actuality in God. God remains God whether creating or not.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:I certainly wouldn't say that. I'd rather say that it flows inexorably from who God is. He's a creatin' kinda God. Otherwise I think you have to say that creating is not in God's nature, only the potential to create. And AIUI God is all actual, and none potential.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The more modern reason for wanting to say God was free not to create is that we don't want to say that creation meets a need or a lack in God.
quote:Rather the opposite, surely? God's reason for creating the world is that the world is good. But that's not a compelling reason; God could equally well have acted on the reason to do otherwise.
You're saying then that God had no reason to create it; it was just a random anal hair one boring Saturday afternoon.
quote:All your caveats aside I still don't get why "can't but not" precludes creativity. Singing ear-worms isn't the only way of feeling compelled to sing. And there is always some element of choice in most situations, in theory, but consequences that become increasingly unacceptable in practice.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Coercion isn't the same as can't but not.
quote:I thin it means "Don't worry. Everything going to be alright."
Originally posted by mousethief:
So God created the world because She foresaw that the world was gonna be good. What's that contingent on, then?
![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
quote:In understand this, which is why I wrote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
We saw the Pope of Rome as primus inter pares
quote:I was under the impression that the schism was about the process of inserting the filioque, just as much as not more than it was about the actual content of the filioque.
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
To state the obvious: if this wasn't a debatable issue, it wouldn't have caused a schism lasting a thousand years.
quote:This is certainly so. I don't buy into theological arguements about whether or not the filioque is acceptable. I have seen Scriptural arguements from both sides, and I don't profess to be astute enough, theologically, to form a definative opinion. The schism is entirely about the process of inserting the filioque, and nothing to do with its content.
Originally posted by orfeo:
I was under the impression that the schism was about the process of inserting the filioque, just as much as not more than it was about the actual content of the filioque.
quote:As long as by that you mean the Pope of Rome getting too big for his britches, then yes.
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
The schism is entirely about the process of inserting the filioque, and nothing to do with its content.
quote:In that case, whatever forced your god to create, I will call my God.
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think God couldn't but create.
quote:I would say that the generation of the Son and the spiration of the Holy Spirit are both logically prior to the incarnation of the Son. Otherwise the created order would modify God by feedback, and we are then really saying that the Trinity is caused by the incarnation (and perhaps Pentecost for the Holy Spirit). Of course, many moderns assume a "responsive" God (one that changes according to what happens in the world) anyhow, and consider that to be only natural. However, it is basically impossible to declare such a being as the uncaused cause, pure act, non-composite, etc. Then the atheist arguments actually bite.
Originally posted by mdijon:
The arguments for God not having a history seem odd to me. Is the incarnation not part of God's history? OK, it isn't history in that God is outside of time, but it is something else that fills the place of history.
quote:Nobody is claiming that God would be Creator without creating, merely that God would still be God. It is not necessary in an absolute sense for God to will creation, it is an act of His "free will". Though due to His immutability and eternity, it is necessary in the sense that supposing that He wills it, He cannot not will it, and then will always have willed it. The freedom of will is located in the supposition, not in the fact: it is so, always was and always will be, but it could have been otherwise.
Originally posted by mdijon:
The author would still be a person and perhaps still be an author even if he hadn't written that particular book, but to then argue that what is written in the book doesn't apply to the author because he has no history and would still be the author even without the book seems to be going too far.
quote:My diagrams showed relations of origin, not time, nor even logical priority.
Originally posted by Pearl B4 Swine:
It looks to me that this means that The Holy Spirit comes late to the table, by split-seconds, or by eons.
quote:Analogies are not magic. They will only suggest a new insight, if the mapping is sensible. My point was that your mapping makes no sense, because you export a difference indicated by using different words ("begetting" vs. "proceeding") into God without knowing what to assign this difference to. What you know how to assign is merely what these words have in common (namely that something comes from something else). Alternatively, I can also say that you refuse to follow through on the very insight that your analogy is actually generating. If indeed your mapping is sensible, then your analogy tells you that there must be some difference in God that corresponds to the difference between "begetting" and "proceeding". What then is this difference? You don't know. I do. I have told you what it is. You may not believe that, fine. However, you cannot use your analogy as an argument against what I propose, because my statement is entirely in accord with your analogy: it elucidates precisely what your analogy suggests.
Originally posted by mousethief:
If I knew that I wouldn't need to use the analogy, would I? The whole point of analogies is that they point towards things that you can't put directly into words.
quote:The filioque may be considered potentially wrong because it was not explicitly revealed, but this is not the same as saying that the filioque is wrong because it was not explicitly revealed. I think it is right though not explicitly revealed, like lots of other dogma.
Originally posted by mousethief:
I am quite capable of saying that it was revealed, and yet the filioque is wrong, because the filioque was NOT revealed.
quote:Bullshit. The argument from origin is logically unassailable, and it rests on statements about God that are themselves either directly revealed or derived from revelation in a logically unassailable manner. That you are not willing to engage with an argument does not make it any less compelling. Furthermore, traditional Christians are not reduced to an "atomistic" revelation that does not dare to go beyond a first level parsing of scripture. That's perhaps a common corruption of Protestantism, which arose because they destroyed the very teaching authority that protected thinking about revelation from error. I'm not so afflicted, and neither are you, so stop your silly "sola scriptura" rhetoric.
Originally posted by mousethief:
I don't think we are right to go inventing things about the interpersonal relations among the persons of the godhead in the absence of pretty darned good evidence. And there is no pretty darned good evidence for the filioque.
quote:If the filioque is true (at least in the sense of being a valid expression of a perhaps even deeper truth), then it is just plain pigheadedness by the Orthodox to require the Latins to take it back. The Orthodox could certainly ask for expressions of sorrow that due ecclesiastic process had not been followed, or some such. (Though that would make a mockery of a history of mutual aggravation, Rome certainly would show the Orthodox that bit of charity.) However, this will apparently not do. Instead, a truth would need to be withdrawn, which actually has been an essential part of Latin liturgy and theology for about a millennium. To ask for that is so incredibly idiotic and uncharitable, that the Orthodox must pretend that the filioque is a falsehood to justify it. And so they do, resulting in an unresolvable stalemate.
Originally posted by mousethief:
Further, I agree with Anyuta that the Latin Church had no business at all fiddling with a creed that was hammered out in not one but TWO ecumenical councils. Talk about unilateral. Yeah, you guys should fix it unilaterally because you messed it up unilaterally.
quote:It is a mistake to assign creation to God's essence, rather than to His will. If it is God's essence to create, then creation is not an act of love by God at all. It is merely necessary. It is crucial that God must be free to create or not, for Him to love doing so. God saw that creation was good, not necessary. However, you are right in the sense that due to God's eternity and immutability, this freedom of Divine will resides in what could have been, not in what was, is or will be. God is actually Creator, necessarily so in the sense that His loving decision to create never was not actual. Yet it is an imaginable possibility to be God without creating, hence God was free in loving us into existence.
Originally posted by mousethief:
I'd rather say that it flows inexorably from who God is. He's a creatin' kinda God. Otherwise I think you have to say that creating is not in God's nature, only the potential to create. And AIUI God is all actual, and none potential.
quote:Non sequitur. That I can do X does not say anything about others doing X. Furthermore, it is false to say that ecumenical councils can decide any matters of faith or morals definitively alone. They can't. At all. They can only decide definitively together with St. Peter's successor. If any gathering of bishops tries to impose de fide doctrine or governance on the faithful against the pope, then their statements are null and void (and by virtue of that conflict strongly suspect of heresy). The power of the keys is bestowed on St. Peter alone. Ecumenical councils are certainly an excellent mechanism, but in the end they are just that: a way for the bishops to gather with the pope in order to declare definitive teaching and governance. It is however neither required that all bishops throw their lot with the pope, nor that they do so in physical proximity. It may have been a terribly bad idea by the pope to declare the filioque that was accepted only by the Latin side, but that does not make this act illegitimate.
Originally posted by mousethief:
If the throne of Peter included the authority to rule by fiat, then no ecumenical council would ever have been called because it would never have been needed. Just let il papa decide for us.
quote:There are a lot of things that are true that we don't go sticking into the ecumenical creed unilaterally. That you think this is a good argument says exactly everything anybody needs to know about the swollen head of the papacy.
If the filioque is true (at least in the sense of being a valid expression of a perhaps even deeper truth), then it is just plain pigheadedness by the Orthodox to require the Latins to take it back.
quote:I don't really see it as much to the Eastern Churches' credit that the truth of the filioque is irrelevent next to the fact that they weren't consulted in the matter. Just adding my two Protestant Pence to the debate...
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:There are a lot of things that are true that we don't go sticking into the ecumenical creed unilaterally. That you think this is a good argument says exactly everything anybody needs to know about the swollen head of the papacy.
If the filioque is true (at least in the sense of being a valid expression of a perhaps even deeper truth), then it is just plain pigheadedness by the Orthodox to require the Latins to take it back.
quote:I am shocked. SHOCKED.
I don't really see it as much to the Eastern Churches' credit
quote:God doesn't need forcing to create if God's nature is to create. And if it is not God's nature to create, what inspires God to create?
Originally posted by IngoB:
In that case [if God couldn't but create], whatever forced your god to create, I will call my God.
quote:Read for freaking comprehension. I did not say that it was good to put the filioque in the creed. I said in the same post that doing so was legitimate (the pope in fact had the power to do so, irrespective of whether he should have done so). Thus I said that requiring the removal of a truth that was legitimately (though perhaps not wisely) added to the creed - after it has shaped close to a millennium of Latin church life - is pigheaded from the Orthodox. Because, you know, it simply is.
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:There are a lot of things that are true that we don't go sticking into the ecumenical creed unilaterally. That you think this is a good argument says exactly everything anybody needs to know about the swollen head of the papacy.
If the filioque is true (at least in the sense of being a valid expression of a perhaps even deeper truth), then it is just plain pigheadedness by the Orthodox to require the Latins to take it back.
quote:The thread is festival of irrelevance IMO given what is stated in the Orthodox-Catholic statement on the topic of the thread. So what it gives rise to is for us all to ride our favorite hobby horses around. Forgive me, I simply noted the appearance of yours.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Out of anything relevent to say, Willy?
Zach
quote:See, we differ on the "legitimately" because of our view on the papacy. Because, you know, we simply do.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Thus I said that requiring the removal of a truth that was legitimately (though perhaps not wisely) added to the creed - after it has shaped close to a millennium of Latin church life - is pigheaded from the Orthodox. Because, you know, it simply is.
quote:Of course you Orthodox have to maintain some corrupted view of the papacy, because otherwise you would have to self-identify as schismatics and shop for sackcloth and ashes on your pilgrimage to Rome.
Originally posted by mousethief:
See, we differ on the "legitimately" because of our view on the papacy. Because, you know, we simply do.
quote:I haven't insulted Orthodox bishops as either prigs or stuffed shirts. And it is strictly your problem if you see obedience to the vicar of Christ as "kowtowing". One can label any obedience negatively, including that which you presumably show to your bishop and patriarch.
Originally posted by mousethief:
And saying that the eastern patriarchs are just prigs or stuffed shirts or whatever your insult-du-jour is, because they won't kowtow to the autocrat of Rome is just ... I don't know. Unbalanced?
quote:You know, maybe you should act less surprised when people that disagree with each other disagree with each other? Just saying.
Originally posted by Alt Wally:
The thread is festival of irrelevance IMO given what is stated in the Orthodox-Catholic statement on the topic of the thread. So what it gives rise to is for us all to ride our favorite hobby horses around. Forgive me, I simply noted the appearance of yours.
quote:I guess I don't understand your persistent beef with the Eastern Church. But it is what it is.
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:You know, maybe you should act less surprised when people that disagree with each other disagree with each other? Just saying.
Originally posted by Alt Wally:
The thread is festival of irrelevance IMO given what is stated in the Orthodox-Catholic statement on the topic of the thread. So what it gives rise to is for us all to ride our favorite hobby horses around. Forgive me, I simply noted the appearance of yours.
Zach
quote:On the contrary, I don't see obedience to the vicar of Christ as anything because there is no such thing as "the vicar of Christ" in the sense that the RCC means it. And the way the RCC throws its weight around and makes grandiose claims for itself is far more than "my" problem.
Originally posted by IngoB:
And it is strictly your problem if you see obedience to the vicar of Christ as "kowtowing".
quote:The RCC's perspective is of course more refined than just "we are the Church", and corresponding statements have been made both at the highest level (Vatican II) and the most popular one (Catechism). Nothing of that sort is known to me from the Orthodox, which however may be partly due to their reluctance to make easily accessible any clear statement of doctrine.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Until either Church admits the possibility of the Church being wider than themselves
quote:However, the filioque is not important for its intrinsic truth value, but for what that is taken to signify with respect to the schism. Politics has to move before science on this one.
Originally posted by Zach82:
Which is a good reason to stick to the truth value of the filioque itself.
quote:I think Leo III specifically disclaimed having the power to add the filioque to the creed.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I said in the same post that doing so was legitimate (the pope in fact had the power to do so, irrespective of whether he should have done so).
quote:Oh, I know full well the Roman Catholic Church's view is more nuanced than that. I do attend a Catholic theological school after all. But missing out on some nuance isn't quite the same thing as being wrong. Especially when we focus exclusively on the Roman Catholic Church's claims of authority, the situation is just about as I said. Unless either Church is willing to give a little on their claims of authority, then reconciling their claims is logically impossible.
The RCC's perspective is of course more refined than just "we are the Church", and corresponding statements have been made both at the highest level (Vatican II) and the most popular one (Catechism). Nothing of that sort is known to me from the Orthodox, which however may be partly due to their reluctance to make easily accessible any clear statement of doctrine.
quote:I think we can safely agree that if the Church says that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, then it does so for more reasons than "The Pope says so," if only because we have salvation because Jesus Christ is "the way, the truth, and the life," and not because men in pointy/bulbous hats and dresses say we are saved. We do better to look at why the pope says the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son than whether or not he has the authority to make pronouncements like that.
However, the filioque is not important for its intrinsic truth value, but for what that is taken to signify with respect to the schism. Politics has to move before science on this one.
quote:The second point is easy. Nothing inspires God, but God Himself, in a manner of speaking - for while there is no creation, there is nothing but God, so nothing other can inspire Him. A simpler way of saying this is simply that God freely decides to create (or for your god: god just creates).
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
God doesn't need forcing to create if God's nature is to create. And if it is not God's nature to create, what inspires God to create?
quote:The only way to avoid that charge is to do what you do: define God as totally other than the universe. Which is implicitly what I do by assuming we are in fact talking about the same entity, the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Roughly, I would suggest that your god isn't actually a separate entity, but rather just a way of talking about a certain feature of the universe.
quote:I did a lot more than that. Try engaging with what I actually said.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
The only way to avoid that charge is to do what you do: define God as totally other than the universe.
quote:Most was an explanation of what is wrong with pantheism, based on a claim that we're not talking about the same God. I've explained why I'm not in fact a pantheist.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I did a lot more than that. Try engaging with what I actually said.
quote:For you which (kind of) created entity exists is contingent, but not that some created entity exists. Again, I see no evidence in observable entities for the necessary existence of some-thing.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I don't see there is any contingency that cannot be accounted for simply by the nature of the ongoing creative process.
quote:I would have said that experience is the only reliable basis for any sort of verification, in particular also within the empirical / scientific enterprise. I assume what you actually are aiming at is that this particular experience is not provided by the dials of some measurement apparatus, but by introspection - and hence unreliable due to its means. However, meditation / contemplation is in fact rather reliable, and that was my practical point. The question what precisely you are mistrusting in contemplation is a rather interesting one - but for the sake of this discussion here, suffice to say that I don't think that there is a simple answer.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I guess I'm suspicious of delegating this kind of question to experience, as you suggest with contemplation. What kind of answer can that provide? Only I think one that is selectively disengaged from any means of verification, and therefore inherently unreliable.
quote:I don't think the model I'm describing supports the distinction you're making. Existence as an attribute only has meaning for other existing entities within the creation process.
Originally posted by IngoB:
For you which (kind of) created entity exists is contingent, but not that some created entity exists. Again, I see no evidence in observable entities for the necessary existence of some-thing.
quote:Yes, as in your example.
I assume what you actually are aiming at is that this particular experience is not provided by the dials of some measurement apparatus, but by introspection
quote:Reliable for what, though?
However, meditation / contemplation is in fact rather reliable, and that was my practical point.
quote:I think your creator could be imagined as not creating (as not having creative nature). One can show logically from the existence of some-thing that a necessary Being must exist. Since there is evidence for the former, there is evidence for the latter. But one cannot simply reverse these logical conclusions and derive that from a necessary Being it follows that some-thing exists (where the necessary Being is not classed as some-thing, or at least doesn't have to be). In other words, the existence of some-thing shows that the necessary Being has in fact created, not that He necessarily has to create.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I don't think the model I'm describing supports the distinction you're making.
quote:Parts of the universe are created as deterministically flowing from, parts as contingent with reference to, the previous state of the universe. The resulting temporal continuity of the universe is an essential part of what God creates, not a mere appearance. Furthermore, it is not the case that God is merely the "edge of now", creating stuff from moment to moment. If that were so, then some other entity would be required to eternally and continuously keep this "edge of now" god in existence, and that would be my God.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
That each successive now appears to be contingent on its predecessor is only that, an appearance of contingency.
quote:Indeed, in the sense that what is created is a process, or in other (less confusing) words, has temporal features. However, this is no evidence that the Divine act of creating itself is a process: if creating was a process, then we would have to ask what clocks its steps. A process requires a reference frame, for otherwise we cannot say "first this, then that". Yet the First Uncaused Cause cannot be located within any reference frame, for no prior cause can exist to establish it.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
That we only ever observe now is evidence for creation being a process.
quote:It is reliably providing cognitively relevant experiences. I will open another thread to deal with this question.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
quote:Reliable for what, though?
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, meditation / contemplation is in fact rather reliable, and that was my practical point.
quote:Of course we can imagine a different model. But the point of a model is not how it is arrived at but whether it accurately describes what is known. If the fit is good, we can reasonably have confidence in its predictive value. A model based on now and a creator and sustainer of now is a very good fit, both for reality as we experience it and the essence of the God idea in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I think your creator could be imagined as not creating (as not having creative nature).
quote:Only if you have a better-fitting model to account for why there is something rather than nothing.
So your model may not have a place for a non-creating God, but that just means that I can reject it wholesale without violating any known evidence or logical constraints.
quote:Determinism and contingency within spacetime assumes a necessary relationship between the states of space across successive nows. My model by definition excludes this. It specifies, uncontroversially I would have thought, that God alone is responsible for the entire state of space now, including any relationship with the state of space at a preceding now.
Parts of the universe are created as deterministically flowing from, parts as contingent with reference to, the previous state of the universe.
quote:Alternatively, there is no evidence it is anything but a process. We only ever observe now as a universal space that records the residual effect of creation at all preceding nows. There's no difference in quantity or quality of evidence against which to evaluate the model, just in the perspective from from which it is viewed and the framework within which it is interpreted.
this is no evidence that the Divine act of creating itself is a process
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think God couldn't but create.
quote:In my view that makes as much sense as talking about whatever forced God to be good.
Originally posted by IngoB:
In that case, whatever forced your god to create, I will call my God.
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
The author would still be a person and perhaps still be an author even if he hadn't written that particular book, but to then argue that what is written in the book doesn't apply to the author because he has no history and would still be the author even without the book seems to be going too far.
quote:I agree with that. I think one can argue that someone does something as an act of free will, but nevertheless finds doing it intrinsically part of their nature and unavoidable.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Nobody is claiming that God would be Creator without creating, merely that God would still be God.
quote:It is neither. I have just argued that a "god of now" itself requires some framework within which to operate, and hence is not God. Furthermore, of course a god limited to now is utterly alien to the Judeo-Christian tradition. You may be able to argue that scripture does not rule this out, since eisegesis is always hard to refute. However, there is no way that you can claim that an appreciable number of Jews or Christians in the past thought like this. They didn't, and that's historical fact.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
A model based on now and a creator and sustainer of now is a very good fit, both for reality as we experience it and the essence of the God idea in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
quote:It is true that a relationship between states of the universe is absolutely necessary only through God. It is also true, however, that we find in fact a high degree of "continuing causality" between the actual states of the universe, or in other words, we find time. (Unless you wish to claim that all our memories of the past are implanted in every now to falsely give us this impression - that's a conspiracy theory making Young Earth Creationism's hiding of dinosaur bones look like child's play...) The only explanation thereof, if one assumes a radical dependence of the universe on God as we both apparently do, is that God creates this time. However, at the very least this requires "memory" in "now-god". For example, if "now-god" chose to connect the previous now to this now by applying a law of gravity in which masses attract, then it may connect this now to the future now by applying a law of gravity in which masses repel, unless it "remembers" to not do that. Would you agree?
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Determinism and contingency within spacetime assumes a necessary relationship between the states of space across successive nows. My model by definition excludes this. It specifies, uncontroversially I would have thought, that God alone is responsible for the entire state of space now, including any relationship with the state of space at a preceding now.
quote:As I've already argued, processes need a reference framework, something that makes meaningful "first this, then that". If this reference framework is a process itself, then it also needs a reference framework itself, and so forth. Observing the procedural nature of the universe hence tells us that the universe is not God, rather than that God is a process.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Alternatively, there is no evidence it is anything but a process.
quote:It is non-trivial to tease this out with precision, but I think there is clear difference between saying that goodness is essential to God, and saying that creation is essential to God. Basically, creation involves at least one specific external act because it goes from God to something else. Whereas goodness is, or at least can be seen as, a sort of "qualifier" of being. The core essence of God is Being, God Is. I can - at least analogously - say then that God Is Good, God Is Beautiful, God is True, etc. All these "qualify" what I mean by God is Being, but do not necessarily require anything besides God Himself. Hence they can be seen as "God-internal". However, God Is Creative is "God-external" because it requires that something be created to make sense.
Originally posted by mdijon:
It's my view that it is in God's nature to create and he couldn't but do it. Likewise that he is good. That isn't to say someone or something else is forcing him to do either of those things.
quote:The Son as God has no history, but Eternity. The Son as man has a history as Jesus Christ. At any rate, if the Son has his origin prior to the incarnation, then He must be distinct from the Holy Spirit prior to the incarnation. That is what my filioque argument was about.
Originally posted by mdijon:
I agree that the Son has his origin prior to the incarnation. But nevertheless I think it is part of his history and identity.
quote:Hmm, no. Turns this into an argument about culpability for sin, and you will see its dire consequences. What is true is that one can have free will in spite of being entirely predictable in one's choices, because then one can still be free in the sense of always choosing what is best. But this still requires that a different choice is imaginable, that one is in principle capable of doing other. Therefore, it cannot be a part of one's essence. For example, the BVM is free of sin. A dog is also free of sin. Nevertheless, the BVM is the greatest of saints, whereas the dog is no saint at all. That's because the BVM can be imagined to sin, it is not impossible by her nature, but the dog is essentially incapable of sinning. There is an essential difference between these two cases.
Originally posted by mdijon:
I think one can argue that someone does something as an act of free will, but nevertheless finds doing it intrinsically part of their nature and unavoidable.
quote:Your personal vendetta against poor St. Augustine bores me to tears. And you have understood nothing about Christian religion if you believe that St. Thomas Aquinas' writings are false or useless because of what he said then. At any rate, the authority of the RCC is rather larger than Augustine or Aquinas. It is Divine, and the RCC has indeed rejected teachings of both these saints.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
What authority, mate? It didn't work for the RCC from Augustine at least. At least old Thom realised he'd have been better of saying nothing after eight and a half million words.
quote:You are under the same authority. You just happen to be disobedient in ways that I am not, though likely culpable for that only within limits. I'm not aware of particularly excluding you from my love, i.e., willing good for you. Your good of course includes entering full communion with the RCC, as is the case for every human being.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And again, under what authority am I not that you are? That excludes me from your love?
quote:And I have just explained that I am talking about God, not a god. So a framework within which God operates is by definition excluded from my model.
Originally posted by IngoB:
I have just argued that a "god of now" itself requires some framework within which to operate, and hence is not God.
quote:That's not what I said. I said my model is a good fit for the essence of the God idea in the Judeo-Christian tradition. By that I mean one God who is creator and sustainer of all that is. We're talking about how best to imagine that.
there is no way that you can claim that an appreciable number of Jews or Christians in the past thought like this.
quote:You switched from outside to inside the model between those two sentences. We only find what looks to us like "continuing causality" inside the creation process, from within the physical. To metaphysically model creation is to step outside the physical, to where there is only God and, in my model now, in yours presumably spacetime and other 'places' (heaven, hell, etc).
It is true that a relationship between states of the universe is absolutely necessary only through God. It is also true, however, that we find in fact a high degree of "continuing causality" between the actual states of the universe, or in other words, we find time.
quote:Memories of the past are no different to any other effect of creation at prior nows. They are a residual imprint of prior neurological states on our brain state now.
(Unless you wish to claim that all our memories of the past are implanted in every now to falsely give us this impression...)
quote:No. If God alone is responsible for the entire state of space at successive nows, then gravity and every other natural phenomenon are results of the difference between the nows (or a long enough sequence of nows to measure as time). Gravity is part of our experience of how God creates, not a feature on a blueprint to which God is referring.
The only explanation thereof, if one assumes a radical dependence of the universe on God as we both apparently do, is that God creates this time. However, at the very least this requires "memory" in "now-god". For example, if "now-god" chose to connect the previous now to this now by applying a law of gravity in which masses attract, then it may connect this now to the future now by applying a law of gravity in which masses repel, unless it "remembers" to not do that. Would you agree?
quote:God's creation is only a process from our point of view. From 'outside', from the perspective of the metaphysical modeller, there is only creation. We experience that as our now, with our past imprinted on it. For God it is the eternal now, the eternal expression of God's eternal nature.
processes need a reference framework, something that makes meaningful "first this, then that".
quote:There are now too many strands with multiple posters for you to possibly keep track of (although you do seem to be doing extremely well) so I'll confine myself to this line for now.
Originally posted by IngoB:
It is non-trivial to tease this out with precision, but I think there is clear difference between saying that goodness is essential to God, and saying that creation is essential to God.
quote:If you define as absent from your model what is required for it operating, it will simply fail from self-contradiction. My point is that an "edge-of-now" process needs a framework. Think of the frames of a movie as they exist on a film. If you take scissors to the film reel, then where is "now, previous and later" in the resulting heap of pieces of film? One might as well say that there are just many different pictures (curiously related to each other). And it is not enough to point to one film frame and say "it causes the next". Because the problem is then merely moved to the word "causes": how does it do that? If there is a film reel, with one film frame attached to the next, and a projector with a motor spooling the film, then we know how one frame can come after the next. This is what I mean by a "framework" for the process. God can provide this framework if He is eternal, but not if He is Himself just within the "now". A single piece of film, even if a complete picture of the scene, does not explain how one gets to the next piece of film.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
And I have just explained that I am talking about God, not a god. So a framework within which God operates is by definition excluded from my model.
quote:Well, if you think that it is a good fit, and pretty much everyone of that tradition will tell you that it isn't, then you have a problem. Whether it is one of principle or of interpretation is what we are discussing.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
I said my model is a good fit for the essence of the God idea in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
quote:Even an illusion of continuity would have to be maintained by something continuous. A sequence of random events will not appear continuous.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
We only find what looks to us like "continuing causality" inside the creation process, from within the physical.
quote:Ok, so how did they get from previous to now then? You need a "causal glue" of some kind, and that glue itself must be continuous. If I write A->B, then I may say that A and B are discrete, but only if the arrow isn't. Otherwise I get ACB, with -> becoming a discrete state C, a sequence which itself needs an explanation of the type A->C->B.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Memories of the past are no different to any other effect of creation at prior nows. They are a residual imprint of prior neurological states on our brain state now.
quote:That does not address my argument. You need to locate the continuity we observe somewhere. If it is God creating consistently, then God must be such that consistency is in Him beyond the now.
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
Gravity is part of our experience of how God creates, not a feature on a blueprint to which God is referring.
quote:Ahh, we are back to the straight classical model. I have no idea what all that stuff above was about then...
Originally posted by Dave Marshall:
God's creation is only a process from our point of view. From 'outside', from the perspective of the metaphysical modeller, there is only creation. We experience that as our now, with our past imprinted on it. For God it is the eternal now, the eternal expression of God's eternal nature.
quote:Well, it's also a description that's entirely consistent with the model I've been describing.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Ahh, we are back to the straight classical model.
quote:If you look back at your objections I think you'll find they all attempt to apply a spacetime-internal frame of reference to a model that assumes an eternal perspective. They're never going to connect. It seems to be one of those things that becomes obvious once we see it. Perhaps a way in would be to consider that for creation as process, start and end are undefined. Make friends with that idea and maybe the model will begin to make sense.
I have no idea what all that stuff above was about then...
quote:Christ knows.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
How am I disobedient to Christ?
quote:If I could live in two moments at once, instead of just one moment, would I be greater or lesser in my powers? Greater. Would I live more or less through experience and interaction? More. If I could live in a thousand moments? Thousandfold greater power and more life. If I could live in all moments at once, and even beyond? Infinitely greater power and more life. That's God.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Augustine's God is a machine. A stainless steel, faceless Bender with all future eternity spooled inside Him. A clock all ticked.
quote:Bit of a tangent here Martin - if Ingo is telling you where you are not then you are insisting that you know where you are.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
What does Christ say mate? There's only one Church, one body - His - I'm in it. Not with you? Not included?
SHOW ME FROM CHRIST THAT I'M NOT.
YOU tell me where I'm not.
quote:If you have been validly baptized, then you are indeed "part of His body". However, the body analogy isn't really flexible enough to accommodate what (I think) your actual position is... perhaps something like a cell in this.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
There's only one Church, one body - His - I'm in it. Not with you? Not included?
quote:Shrug. Show me from Christ anything... One point SoF really drives home is how utterly futile it is to attempt any kind of religious proof against hostile opinion.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
SHOW ME FROM CHRIST THAT I'M NOT.
quote:I'd be more optimistic about the salvation of those outside of / at odds with the Church, but sure, Cyprian drives home my basic point.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
YOU tell me where I'm not. Unless you're saying that Cyprian says it for you. Those might as well be your exact words.
quote:You are a big boy, I guess you'll manage.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And yes I'm angry. Yes I'm offended. Hurt. And yes I must lay that at the foot of the cross. Where we cannot meet. Where we cannot kneel together in communion.
quote:How droll.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
But if you need God to know tomorrow's observed electrons' spins today, like the real presence and other non-apostolic distinctives, we must tolerate that. We must tolerate your intolerance. Your patronization. Your esotericism.
quote:Well, at least I must suffer it.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And you must tolerate our 'disobedience' in your untransferable, unexemplary, meaningless and of course imparsimoniou obedience.
quote:Assuming that you were baptized/confirmed non-RC: Your baptism is (almost certainly) valid. Your confirmation isn't. That has little to do with whether your priest is married and what bread you use in your services. But it has to do with your episcopate not being in the apostolic succession and/or in communion with the Holy See.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
So my infant baptism and confirmation 6 years ago are invalid because the other priest was married and our bread is leavened?
quote:If I am in Leicester, why not? As long as I don't give scandal to my RC brethren and false witness to the non-RC ones, I can certainly worship God with other Christians and under the right circumstances even with non-Christians. Thus kneeling in prayer is on, partaking in the Eucharist not.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
You're welcome to kneel with me at Holy Trinity, Leicester this Sunday of course.
quote:Will do, if I make it. And you remember that we don't become citizen of that kingdom by virtue of our works, but as a gift. Quit blaming me for not accepting all the gifts waiting for you.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Remember me when you come in to your kingdom won't you. You and a billion first class Christians.
quote:Did I say somewhere that you'll go to hell? Not that I remember.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I just get to be an object of pity on the burning shore while they are in Abraham's bosom?
quote:The successor of St. Peter would not consider you to be in full communion with him, but he would me. End of story.
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Well that's all right IngoB - I'm at least as included in Christ as you. No problem. No disobedience there. No 'adultery'. No separation. Yet YOU judge me disobedient. To whom? To what? How?