Thread: ...consubstantial, co-eternal... Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
Kids_in_Manchester (4 & 7) regularly come home from RC primary school with prayers to learn; over this holiday weekend they came home with screeds of creeds. I can't find the bit of paper, so I can't tell you which one - but I know the "eternally begotten" bit popped up, as well as "...consubstantial with the father..." since a) 4 yr old was so delighted to be able to say it and b) it had me diving into the metrical index of my hymn book, to find the hymn in which the thread's subject appears (485 in the recently-old Methodist Hymn book, since you ask, and dating from the 6th or 7th century. But I can't do it in 4 flats).

Thing is - I'm dimly aware of the Arian controversy to which I guess this bit of trinitarian dogma pertains, and I know where to go and look up what it was about, how it was resolved, and perhaps even where to find some background on the political as well as theological context of that resolution.

BUT - I can't remember any of it, because as far as I know none of it addresses any real issue (TM) vital to the faith to which I'm able to bear witness - as in state things which ring vitally true to me, where I've thought about the consequences of adopting a different position and decided orthodoxy is the way to go.

I say 'as far as I know' since I'm well aware that some major plank of my faith may be resting unawares on said dogma - or indeed that I may be sat astride it whilst playfully toying with the idea of chopping it off at the trunk.

Do any of you have a sense of 'well yes - it has to be this way, because otherwise x happens' - which makes this more of an 'alive' issue in your faith - and which makes it something worth remembering as opposed to something interesting, where one must rely on a book to recall the detail?
 
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :
 
I'm no expert, but aren't the alternatives that the persons of the Trinity are different in substance, and hence either multiple gods rather than one God or that the Son or the Holy Spirit are not divine? And for co-eternal that one person of the Trinity existed prior to the others, and hence has some claim to superiority.

Ultimately, if these things are denied, you are unable to say with sincerity that "Jesus is Lord", and that's pretty fundamental to my Christian faith. Whether it's fundamental to yours only you can say.

Of course, given that I have no theological training, I may well be totally misunderstanding what the terms mean.
 
Posted by Edith (# 16978) on :
 
Poor children. What plonked is making them learn this stuff? If I was their Mum or Dad I'd be making representations about curriculum content very swiftly.
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
Laity are just as liable to go to Hell for heresy as clergy, so I do think it's important that the consubstantiality of the persons of the Trinity be taught. Not sure whether it needs to be taught as early as age 4, but that's a different issue.
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
quote:
Do any of you have a sense of 'well yes - it has to be this way, because otherwise x happens' - which makes this more of an 'alive' issue in your faith - and which makes it something worth remembering as opposed to something interesting, where one must rely on a book to recall the detail?
Yes, and it happened in the Methodist Church of Great Britain's Canadian cousins and offspring, the United Church of Canada. So it's closer to home than you think.

Our former Moderator, the Very Rev. Bill Phipps, had an interview with a newspaper, the Ottawa Citizen in 1997. He said he didn't believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God.

[Disappointed]

Then the **it hit the fan. The media jumped on it, most of the United Church laity denounced him as being error, the clergy were doing emergency sermons that Sunday. My current minister was part of a group of conservatives who felt they had to denounce our Moderator because of his heresy. Yes, it was heresy, flat-out anti-creedal heresy. The universal opinion in the Preacher household was that our Moderator was an idiot.

I have encountered numerous examples in modern theology positions and theses that ought not to be defended or rebuked for error because they are based on insufficient knowledge of patristics.

For example, many feminists do like like "Father" terminology for God the Father. They forge and ministers do not remind them of the fact that we call God "Father" because of Christ, who was both truly Human and truly God and did have a mother, Mary. It starts with Christ and goes from there. So saying that God is not Father does a large amount of violence to the Incarnation.

Oftentimes there is very little new in the way of heretical theology, it is simply old heretical theology warmed over.
 
Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
Perhaps I might be a little more specific.

Does *not* being consubstantial -have- to imply that the revelation of God in Christ is somehow incomplete (i.e. there is 'more' of God yet unrevealed, about which we can send each other on trips, and potentially set up in competition to Christ himself? Which in my mind would be Clearly A Bad Thing.)

Does *not* being co-eternal -have- to imply that as a 'mere' (?) -part- of creation, Jesus's revelation of God is somehow inferior to the Real Thing (in which case see above) ?

Interestingly, the last JWs I invited in for a bible study (who, I'm told, are Arian) were very much of the view that the answer to both these questions was No, and that Christ is a complete revelation whose characteristics are not at all at odds with God the Father. (Which, incidentally, didn't stop them having some spectacularly wierd views about the book of that name).

[ 07. May 2012, 21:27: Message edited by: mark_in_manchester ]
 
Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
Do any of you have a sense of 'well yes - it has to be this way, because otherwise x happens' - which makes this more of an 'alive' issue in your faith - and which makes it something worth remembering as opposed to something interesting, where one must rely on a book to recall the detail?
Yes!

The whole purpose of the Christian life - the will of God for mankind - is theosis: our salvation, our growth into union with the life and energies of God.

This happens through our participation in those energies, in that grace, in that divine life, all of which is made possible by the Incarnation and Ascension of Christ, who shared in our birth and death that we might share in his Resurrection and Ascension. In the former actions, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity took on the human nature - fully and absolutely, with all that it entailed, including the effects of the fall. The Word became flesh. In the latter two, that Incarnate Word conquered what was fallen in our nature and ascended back to the divine life, taking our restored human nature with Himself.

That is the basis of our salvation, of our life in God; and all of this rests on one premise: the Christ Who performed these actions for our sake is both God and man - He has two natures.

If Christ had only the divine nature, then He would have still been something entirely other than we are - beyond sight, perception, expression, and even our imagination, and our union with Him would have been impossible. He could not be born and could not die, and so could not rise or ascend in any way in which we could participate.

And if Christ had only the human nature and not the divine nature, that is, if He were not of one divine essence - of one substance or nature - with the Father and the Holy Spirit, then his birth, his suffering and death, his Resurrection, and his Ascension would have been worth nothing as far as human salvation were concerned, for a human being alone cannot draw mankind into the divine life. It may as well have been you or I, or my postman, for all that it would have been worth.

Yet because this man who was born and who died, and who conquered death, and ascended with the human nature into heaven, was also the pre-eternal God, the Only-Begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father by Whom all things were made - because of this, that Resurrection annihalated my slavery to death, and yours, and that of all who seek to share in his Resurrection. And because of that, his Ascension was not just one man floating about in the clouds, but it was God, drawing the human nature to its fulfilment - union with the divine.

So yes, when we celebrate the Eucharist week by week, day by day, and the priest says, 'Let us give thanks unto the Lord', I rejoice to sing in response, 'It is meet and right to worship the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit: the Trinity one in essence and undivided' because I know that, without that basic tenet of the reality of the Christian confession, the name of Jesus Christ means nothing, and our faith is in vain.
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
quote:
Does *not* being co-eternal -have- to imply that as a 'mere' (?) -part- of creation, Jesus's revelation of God is somehow inferior to the Real Thing (in which case see above) ?
Yes, that is good reading of the various conciliar controversies. Attacking the messenger discredits the message and undermines the faith. Faith in Christ and his teachings are part and parcel of one another.
 
Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
Perhaps I might be a little more specific.

Does *not* being consubstantial -have- to imply that the revelation of God in Christ is somehow incomplete (i.e. there is 'more' of God yet unrevealed, about which we can send each other on trips, and potentially set up in competition to Christ himself? Which in my mind would be Clearly A Bad Thing.)

Does *not* being co-eternal -have- to imply that as a 'mere' (?) -part- of creation, Jesus's revelation of God is somehow inferior to the Real Thing (in which case see above) ?

Interestingly, the last JWs I invited in for a bible study (who, I'm told, are Arian) were very much of the view that the answer to both these questions was No, and that Christ is a complete revelation whose characteristics are not at all at odds with God the Father. (Which, incidentally, didn't stop them having some spectacularly wierd views about the book of that name).
Christ's revelation of God to us was always going to be incomplete for the simple reason that God is beyond our capacity for comprehension. That is why so many of the traditional prayers adopt an apophatic approach to addressing God.

However, the real question here is not about the effectiveness of Christ's revelation were he not of the divine nature but rather of the effectualness of his saving work were He not of the divine nature. In what way could his work be considered saving of mankind if He were nothing more than a human being like the rest of us?
 
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
mark_in_manchester:
quote:
Does *not* being consubstantial -have- to imply that the revelation of God in Christ is somehow incomplete (i.e. there is 'more' of God yet unrevealed, about which we can send each other on trips, and potentially set up in competition to Christ himself? Which in my mind would be Clearly A Bad Thing.)

Does *not* being co-eternal -have- to imply that as a 'mere' (?) -part- of creation, Jesus's revelation of God is somehow inferior to the Real Thing (in which case see above) ?
"Consubstantual", to me, means "of the same substance". I hadn't thought it in terms of not revealing enough about God's nature. I already know that I don't know everything about God's nature because there is a lot more to know about the Son, let alone the Father and the Holy Spirit than I've gotten so far. We see "through a glass darkly" after all.

And definitely if Christ weren't "co-eternal", he'd be a created being, not a member of the Godhead.

The thing is that I'm not all that concerned about what the Incarnation reveals about the nature of the Godhead. The Incarnation says to me that the Godhead cared enough to send the Very Best. [Angel] What that reveals to us varies from person to person, from study, devotion, and wise companions over the years.

But then maybe your *not*s are confusing me.

Could you rephrase your questions if I seem off track?

BTW I loves me a good Trinity thread. [Big Grin]

ETA: Yay, Michael! It takes the Orthodox to get a good bead on the Godhead.

[ 07. May 2012, 21:59: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]
 
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
BUT - I can't remember any of it, because as far as I know none of it addresses any real issue (TM) vital to the faith to which I'm able to bear witness - as in state things which ring vitally true to me, where I've thought about the consequences of adopting a different position and decided orthodoxy is the way to go.
I do think it's good that some people engage deeply with issues like this and share the resultant learning with everyone else. But your point here is key, I think; if issues like this don't make a difference to how we live then I'm not sure they're worth worrying about much. Because...
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Laity are just as liable to go to Hell for heresy as clergy, so I do think it's important that the consubstantiality of the persons of the Trinity be taught. Not sure whether it needs to be taught as early as age 4, but that's a different issue.
...I'm very surprised at Fr Weber's suggestion here that precisely correct understanding of the nature of God is vital to our eternal destiny. Am I in danger of an eternity without God if I fail to grasp the finer points of consubstantiality?
 
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
South Coast Kevin:
quote:
...I'm very surprised at Fr Weber's suggestion here that precisely correct understanding of the nature of God is vital to our eternal destiny. Am I in danger of an eternity without God if I fail to grasp the finer points of consubstantiality?
Salvation by intellectual "works". Pfft! If the entrance requirements were so stringent, the JW 144,000 would seem an open door policy.
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Laity are just as liable to go to Hell for heresy as clergy, so I do think it's important that the consubstantiality of the persons of the Trinity be taught. Not sure whether it needs to be taught as early as age 4, but that's a different issue.
...I'm very surprised at Fr Weber's suggestion here that precisely correct understanding of the nature of God is vital to our eternal destiny. Am I in danger of an eternity without God if I fail to grasp the finer points of consubstantiality?
Not by failing to grasp the finer points of consubstantiality, but by denying them or waving them away as unimportant--damn straight!

I've encountered Catholic adults who are unsure whether Jesus is God (despite repeating words to that effect each week at Mass, assuming that they go). I don't know if I'd hold them personally responsible for that, but their clergy and educators seem to have a lot to answer for.
 
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
I've encountered Catholic adults who are unsure whether Jesus is God (despite repeating words to that effect each week at Mass, assuming that they go). I don't know if I'd hold them personally responsible for that, but their clergy and educators seem to have a lot to answer for.
I agree here with your final point, and I'm sure the ignorance of which you speak is not confined to Catholics. But I'd much rather our clergy and educators spent more time and effort on helping people become 'doers of the Word' than on ensuring other folks grasp the finer points of doctrine.
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
I've encountered Catholic adults who are unsure whether Jesus is God (despite repeating words to that effect each week at Mass, assuming that they go). I don't know if I'd hold them personally responsible for that, but their clergy and educators seem to have a lot to answer for.
I agree here with your final point, and I'm sure the ignorance of which you speak is not confined to Catholics. But I'd much rather our clergy and educators spent more time and effort on helping people become 'doers of the Word' than on ensuring other folks grasp the finer points of doctrine.
Being a "doer" comes directly out of being a "believer." It's not an either-or thing, but both-and.
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
Doctrine is a peculiar thing, the best way I have heard it described is that it reflects God by pointing to God, and thereby in fulfilling its task it diminishes its own importance. Doctrine is there to keep us on the right path. Most of the time that path can be safely navigated (in terms of belief) without going near the edges. A person is safe to trust that what they hear in church is correct and since they don't want to engage in theological speculations, they're quite safe.

Really, if you said "consubstatial" to most people they'd reply "Gesundheit".

It's when you start experimenting with theology that doctrine becomes important.
 
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :
 
The JWs are Arians. Their belief is that Jesus Christ was no more than a divine messenger, the highest of angels, but no God. The "consubstantial" was the only word available which effectively prevented Arius and his followers from twisting the Council's strong restatement of the absolute divinity of Christ to fit their heresy.

Arianism had a strong following for the next few centuries, including large numbers in the Roman army, and the various Germanic tribes, as well as several emperors. It then underwent a rapid and substantial decline, and the JWs and a few others are the modern day remnant.

Otherwise, what Michael Astley has very helpfully said.

[ 07. May 2012, 23:46: Message edited by: Gee D ]
 
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Being a "doer" comes directly out of being a "believer." It's not an either-or thing, but both-and.
Agreed, Fr Weber. Thinking about the Jehovah's Witnesses, my worry is that people get flustered when the JWs come to the door with their confidently presented arguments, making folks think their own leaders / teachers don't really know what they're talking about. I think people need either to trust their leaders / teachers and not worry about the details themselves, or really dig in to these matters of consubstantiation and what-have-you so they can rebut the JWs' arguments.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
BUT - I can't remember any of it, because as far as I know none of it addresses any real issue (TM) vital to the faith to which I'm able to bear witness - as in state things which ring vitally true to me, where I've thought about the consequences of adopting a different position and decided orthodoxy is the way to go.
The points mentioned (consubstantial and eternally begotten) indicate that Jesus is truly God, in spite of also being a man, and that He is truly the Son of God, in spite of there only being one God. The former tells you that you can consider what the man Jesus Christ said and did as Divine revelation, the latter tells you that very Divine foundation of the universe is a loving community best described in family terms. So the former tells you that when reading of Christ in scripture you do not have to wonder whether He was right, but only whether you understand Him right, and the latter means that when you live in loving community with others you are in harmony with the very life of God. Would that be concrete enough for you?
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
A substance might be coffee, glass or baking soda. It's something you could do a chemical analysis on.

Does anyone really think that Jesus and God are made of the same substance?
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The points mentioned (consubstantial and eternally begotten) indicate that Jesus is truly God, in spite of also being a man, and that He is truly the Son of God, in spite of there only being one God. The former tells you that you can consider what the man Jesus Christ said and did as Divine revelation
Because he's made of the same stuff as God? I'm made of the same stuff as you, more or less, but it doesn't mean you agree with everything I say.
quote:
the latter tells you that very Divine foundation of the universe is a loving community best described in family terms.
That's sweet, but why does it imply that? It's not saying Jesus is the result of the Father's love for the Mother. Eternally begetting isn't what we do to make human families.
quote:
So the former tells you that when reading of Christ in scripture you do not have to wonder whether He was right, but only whether you understand Him right
Hang on here. From Jesus the Son you have leapt to Christ in scripture, making assumptions about the inspiration or inerrancy of the Bible. Does consubtantiality really justify a fundamentalist approach to scripture?
quote:
,
and the latter means that when you live in loving community with others you are in harmony with the very life of God. Would that be concrete enough for you?
I like living in loving community, but is that really what eternally begotten means? Aren't there more direct ways of saying that loving relationships bring you close to God?
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
A substance might be coffee, glass or baking soda. It's something you could do a chemical analysis on.

Does anyone really think that Jesus and God are made of the same substance?
The Creed does not say that Jesus and God are "made of the same substance". It says that the Son and the Father are consubstantial; that they are of the same substantia, or essence, which you might describe as "God-ness" for lack of a better word.

Jesus is the human incarnation of the Son, but (per the 1st chapter of St John) it must be remembered that the Son existed before the birth of Jesus, in fact is coeternal with the Father (as is the Holy Ghost).
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
A substance might be coffee, glass or baking soda. It's something you could do a chemical analysis on.

Does anyone really think that Jesus and God are made of the same substance?
The Creed does not say that Jesus and God are "made of the same substance". It says that the Son and the Father are consubstantial; that they are of the same substantia, or essence, which you might describe as "God-ness" for lack of a better word.

Jesus is the human incarnation of the Son, but (per the 1st chapter of St John) it must be remembered that the Son existed before the birth of Jesus, in fact is coeternal with the Father (as is the Holy Ghost).
Substantia, substance, essence, stuff, matter, whatever you like. It appears to mean that God and Jesus are made of the same thing. Which I would have said is wrong, because I don't think God is made out of anything at all, and Jesus is made of the same whatever as I am.

What I'm saying is that it's such a poor translation of homoousios that it's effectively wrong. And homoousios is itself a term pressed into service.

The question in the OP is very important. If we can't describe in simple terms the implications of the statements expressed in this high falutin vocabulary, then we just don't understand it.

[ 08. May 2012, 01:11: Message edited by: hatless ]
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Because he's made of the same stuff as God? I'm made of the same stuff as you, more or less, but it doesn't mean you agree with everything I say.
Firstly, we are not talking about material substances here, but about philosophical ones, i.e., the Son is the same sort of entity as the Father. Secondly, God is not like you and me. We do not agree on matters because we apply finite and temporal minds to a limited selection of inputs. God has an infinite and eternal mind with access to all. God cannot disagree with God.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
That's sweet, but why does it imply that? It's not saying Jesus is the result of the Father's love for the Mother. Eternally begetting isn't what we do to make human families.
Eternally begetting isn't, but begetting is. The choice of words indicates the closest mapping in human terms. We are not for example talking of the "Product of God" or the "Derivative from God". We are using terms from biology ("begetting") and family "Father - Son") to express a kind of relationship that is not merely one of "functional consequence". That the begetting is eternal simply relates to the first point about being truly God.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Hang on here. From Jesus the Son you have leapt to Christ in scripture, making assumptions about the inspiration or inerrancy of the Bible. Does consubtantiality really justify a fundamentalist approach to scripture?
Well, if you have doubts about the accuracy of scripture's reporting on Jesus then these doubts remain, as unfortunate as that is for you. However, my point was that Jesus Himself cannot be doubted. If I read something you have said, then even if the reporting on that was accurate enough I may still doubt what you have said. It is not likewise possible to doubt Christ if He is truly God.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I like living in loving community, but is that really what eternally begotten means? Aren't there more direct ways of saying that loving relationships bring you close to God?
Obviously there are more direct ways of saying this, like for example simply saying this. However, the OP asked whether certain "obscure" doctrines have some "practical" consequences that would lead to some more immediate recognition of their importance. Well, that God is a "family" of sorts can be taken as a fundamental organising principle of the world. Communion is then not simply something one does in the world, but it is what the world is ultimately about. That is an important consequence.
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
A substance might be coffee, glass or baking soda. It's something you could do a chemical analysis on.

Does anyone really think that Jesus and God are made of the same substance?
The Creed does not say that Jesus and God are "made of the same substance". It says that the Son and the Father are consubstantial; that they are of the same substantia, or essence, which you might describe as "God-ness" for lack of a better word.

Jesus is the human incarnation of the Son, but (per the 1st chapter of St John) it must be remembered that the Son existed before the birth of Jesus, in fact is coeternal with the Father (as is the Holy Ghost).
Substantia, substance, essence, stuff, matter, whatever you like. It appears to mean that God and Jesus are made of the same thing. Which I would have said is wrong, because I don't think God is made out of anything at all, and Jesus is made of the same whatever as I am.

What I'm saying is that it's such a poor translation of homoousios that it's effectively wrong. And homoousios is itself a term pressed into service.

The question in the OP is very important. If we can't describe in simple terms the implications of the statements expressed in this high falutin vocabulary, then we just don't understand it.
The post-Nicene Fathers don't seem to have had an issue with substantia as a translation of homoousios. That's kind of a side issue, and I'm not so interested in hashing it out here, so I'll just note that and then let go of it.

I wonder if by "understand" you mean to apprehend as you would any other intellectual proposition--I'm not sure that's the kind of believing the Creed is talking about.

You've been talking about God and Jesus as though those terms are synonymous with the Father and the Son. They aren't, not exactly. And I suspect that is one reason why you and I are talking past each other.
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
quote:
The question in the OP is very important. If we can't describe in simple terms the implications of the statements expressed in this high falutin vocabulary, then we just don't understand it.
This obviously false. Serious theological discourse takes serious knowledge, and I can't imagine why people insist that religious truth must be simple enough for a child to understand. Theology is as complicated a discipline as physics, yet I can't imagine anyone saying "Well, Einstein must be rubbish because my 12-year-old can't understand him!"

If one is unwilling or unable to do the intellectual labors necessary to take part in theological discourse, then one is better off taking the theologians' word for it. Let the theologians do their part as the Body of Christ and praise God for it.
 
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
quote:
mark_in_manchester opnies:
Screeds of creeds [leading onto] I can't remember any of it, because as far as I know none of it addresses any real issue (TM)
Sigh.

The nature of God, of course is not anything like a real issue. Just because we are called to be like God doesn't mean that we are called to know what he is like. No. Not at all.

As far as Edith's comments about changing the curriculum because our dear precious and fragile wee ones couldn't possibly understand what these fancy words mean: It's life-long learning, Edith.
quote:
"eternally begotten" ... "...consubstantial with the father..." ... 4 yr old was so delighted to be able to say it
Yup. Ya got that right. A bunch of syllables which presently are just noise to these four and seven year-olds. They are delighted to wrap their talking apparatus around these words. That's all we're asking at this age. FFS, it's all we're asking for at any age, witness the discussion upthread.

Oh. And what Zach82 said.
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
The question in the OP is very important. If we can't describe in simple terms the implications of the statements expressed in this high falutin vocabulary, then we just don't understand it.
This obviously false. Serious theological discourse takes serious knowledge, and I can't imagine why people insist that religious truth must be simple enough for a child to understand. Theology is as complicated a discipline as physics, yet I can't imagine anyone saying "Well, Einstein must be rubbish because my 12-year-old can't understand him!"

If one is unwilling or unable to do the intellectual labors necessary to take part in theological discourse, then one is better off taking the theologians' word for it. Let the theologians do their part as the Body of Christ and praise God for it.
Right on.
 
Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 
And right on from me also, zach. (I hope your finals are going OK or have gone OK.)

I certainly learnt the line "consubstantial, coeternal" in J M Neale's translations of "Christ is made the firm foundation".

When the New English Hymnal came out some 20 years ago, the line was altered to "one in love and one in glory".

I always made a point in singing "consubstantial, coeternal" as I learnt it at school very loudly when the hymn comes up in church.

Children often like long words they don't understand. I've never head the word "preantiestablishmentariansim" since my childhood, but my contemporaries repeated it endlessly.
 
Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :
 
Thank you, Lyda*Rose and Gee D. [Smile]

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
A substance might be coffee, glass or baking soda. It's something you could do a chemical analysis on.

Does anyone really think that Jesus and God are made of the same substance?
The Creed does not say that Jesus and God are "made of the same substance". It says that the Son and the Father are consubstantial; that they are of the same substantia, or essence, which you might describe as "God-ness" for lack of a better word.
Substantia, substance, essence, stuff, matter, whatever you like. It appears to mean that God and Jesus are made of the same thing.
No, it doesn't.

It means that they have the same divine nature. Nowhere is there any suggestion of them being made out of anything. This is your reading of a meaning into substance/nature/essence/ousia that is not intended.

As for substance being a poor translation of ousia, well, I kind of agree. The word has certain nuances in English in addition to its Latin meaning and, for the sake of clarity, I think that essence or nature would be a better choice. However, that is simply a translation issue and doesn't negate the truth of what is being said.

I must also agree with The Silent Acolyte, Zach82, and others who have challenged the approach of ceasing to undrstand what has been revealed as truth simply because it isn't immediately comprehensible or expressible in simple terminology.

Nobody here is arguing that salvation rests on intellectual understanding of the finer points of doctrine - far from it. As one of my favourite podcasters has said, the entry into heaven won't be based on a catechism quiz. However, what Sober Preacher's Kid said here is absolutely spot on.

Christian doctrine isn't an end in itself, just as heresy is not particularly harmful in and of itself. It is the effects of both that are of significance, and both act as channels either to union with God or separation from Him.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Serious theological discourse takes serious knowledge, and I can't imagine why people insist that religious truth must be simple enough for a child to understand. Theology is as complicated a discipline as physics, yet I can't imagine anyone saying "Well, Einstein must be rubbish because my 12-year-old can't understand him!"
This is a bit too simple. We do not require children to recite the actual tensor algebra of General Relativity. Furthermore, the creeds are supposed to be foundational statements of faith, and we do require children to learn the foundations of physics. A more comparable situation would be children standing up before class and proclaiming solemnly "Space and time is relative. Matter and energy are aspects of the same. Space-time is deformed by matter-energy." To a degree we would expect them to understand what they are saying, to a degree we would expect them to understand this fully only after a postgraduate degree in physics.

And this gets us closer to the truth. If we now imagine that there are Newtonians out there who deny Einstein part or whole, then it becomes clearer why we make children proclaim Einsteinian truths they may very well not understand fully. Creeds are not just summaries of fundamental truth, they also serve as a kind of pledge of allegiance. They are markers of "us vs. them", and quite explicitly so for the Christian creeds.

But given that the Lord asked all Christians to be one and all people to be brought to Christ, we do have to ask to what extent we can afford "us vs. them". And so in general it is fair to require the creeds to be relevant enough in what they says to us. Because the creeds are wielding the truth as a sword, and we know that we get to cut off only one ear with that sword before the Lord will stop us. So we better be sure that we strike meaningfully. For people with one ear are harder of hearing...

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
If one is unwilling or unable to do the intellectual labors necessary to take part in theological discourse, then one is better off taking the theologians' word for it. Let the theologians do their part as the Body of Christ and praise God for it.
Sure, but Christianity is the religion of the Logos. Every Christian has sufficient understanding demanded of them, and likewise can demand to be given sufficient understanding before pledging their allegiance, as in saying a creed. If you have people with limited capacity say binding words of Christian faith, then you must make sure that they mean something to them. Empty words do not make a Christian prayer.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
Fr Weber said
quote:
The post-Nicene Fathers don't seem to have had an issue with substantia as a translation of homoousios. That's kind of a side issue, and I'm not so interested in hashing it out here, so I'll just note that and then let go of it.

I wonder if by "understand" you mean to apprehend as you would any other intellectual proposition--I'm not sure that's the kind of believing the Creed is talking about.

You've been talking about God and Jesus as though those terms are synonymous with the Father and the Son. They aren't, not exactly. And I suspect that is one reason why you and I are talking past each other.
I think the translation issue is very important. Late classical scholars (I'd rather not call them Fathers with all the power and gender claims attached to the term) may have been happy with substantia, though it is different from ousia which, I think, is why essence is also used, but consubstantial is not Latin, but an English equivalent and the meaning has therefore shifted again.

I've left 'understand' undefined, and I'm aware that there are important and interesting discussions to be had about its meaning in relation to God and faith. At the moment I'm using it broadly as part of my questioning of the claims about consubstantial, co-eternal, eternally begotten, etc.

God and Jesus, Father and Son will have to be used more carefully, too, but as terms are given technical meanings we are moving back from being able to respond to the OP and answer questions from children and their parents. A special language game might enable more precise communication between people who know the rules, but it severely compromises communication between them and wider society. I don't see how Christianity can be happy with this. We've always torn down temple curtains. Jesus talked of barns, sheep and debts.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Because he's made of the same stuff as God? I'm made of the same stuff as you, more or less, but it doesn't mean you agree with everything I say.
Firstly, we are not talking about material substances here, but about philosophical ones, i.e., the Son is the same sort of entity as the Father. Secondly, God is not like you and me. We do not agree on matters because we apply finite and temporal minds to a limited selection of inputs. God has an infinite and eternal mind with access to all. God cannot disagree with God.

For me, and I suspect most people, substance implies matter. It's simply how we use the word. Philosophical substances is a scarily brain-straining term. I'm trying to give it some content: might we say that meanings of words are a different sort of substance from the rules of logic? No, my neurons aren't enjoying this.

Yes, God is very different from us, so that describing God and thinking about God are hugely problematic. An English form of a questionable Latin translation of a Greek term that was already having its meaning stretched can't, I think, be glibly defended. We scarcely know what we're doing.

Incidentally, given that God's possibilities are so far beyond ours, it isn't so obvious that God can't disagree with God!
quote:

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
That's sweet, but why does it imply that? It's not saying Jesus is the result of the Father's love for the Mother. Eternally begetting isn't what we do to make human families.
Eternally begetting isn't, but begetting is. The choice of words indicates the closest mapping in human terms. We are not for example talking of the "Product of God" or the "Derivative from God". We are using terms from biology ("begetting") and family "Father - Son") to express a kind of relationship that is not merely one of "functional consequence". That the begetting is eternal simply relates to the first point about being truly God.

I'm sympathetic to the underlying point here, I really am, but I'm also aware that in today's climate there are live issues about marriage, other partnerships, and patriarchy. We have to be very careful about our language. Are the relationships within the Trinity like those in a nuclear family or an extended one, like those in a patriarchal society or an egalitarian one? The language we use about God will appear to endorse this or that view in a contended field.
quote:

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Hang on here. From Jesus the Son you have leapt to Christ in scripture, making assumptions about the inspiration or inerrancy of the Bible. Does consubtantiality really justify a fundamentalist approach to scripture?
Well, if you have doubts about the accuracy of scripture's reporting on Jesus then these doubts remain, as unfortunate as that is for you. However, my point was that Jesus Himself cannot be doubted. If I read something you have said, then even if the reporting on that was accurate enough I may still doubt what you have said. It is not likewise possible to doubt Christ if He is truly God.
Doubts about scripture's accurate reporting of the words of Jesus are a natural response to, for instance, reading a synopsis of the first three gospels. You seem to be starting from the alleged nature of the Trinity and drawing conclusions about the proper way to read scripture.

Effectively you're saying that if Jesus is God, and we've already agreed that he is, then he can't be wrong. Well, there's a big if there, but even if we all agree that Jesus is God, there are many ways of understanding that. It isn't obvious that it means you can't be wrong.

And I noticed you slipped a truly in there - if he is truly God. Are there ways of being God, some more true than others?
quote:

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I like living in loving community, but is that really what eternally begotten means? Aren't there more direct ways of saying that loving relationships bring you close to God?
Obviously there are more direct ways of saying this, like for example simply saying this. However, the OP asked whether certain "obscure" doctrines have some "practical" consequences that would lead to some more immediate recognition of their importance. Well, that God is a "family" of sorts can be taken as a fundamental organising principle of the world. Communion is then not simply something one does in the world, but it is what the world is ultimately about. That is an important consequence.
Communion is what the world is ultimately about: Hallelujah say I, and I'm pleased to see "family" in quotes. This is very modern, though, isn't it? This is the sort of thing early 21st Century people get out of Trinitarian theology.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
quote:
The question in the OP is very important. If we can't describe in simple terms the implications of the statements expressed in this high falutin vocabulary, then we just don't understand it.
This obviously false.
Obviously it wasn't obvious to me, or I wouldn't have said it.
quote:
Serious theological discourse takes serious knowledge, and I can't imagine why people insist that religious truth must be simple enough for a child to understand. Theology is as complicated a discipline as physics, yet I can't imagine anyone saying "Well, Einstein must be rubbish because my 12-year-old can't understand him!"

If one is unwilling or unable to do the intellectual labors necessary to take part in theological discourse, then one is better off taking the theologians' word for it. Let the theologians do their part as the Body of Christ and praise God for it.
It's not the intellectual difficulty, it's the words used that I'm talking about. I think you can express Einstein's theory in plain words. Arguably you need to follow the maths as well, but Einstein needed help with the maths, and the heart of relativity is a wordless insight.

You can certainly express Darwin in simple words. It takes an effort and some time and thought to really get your head round it, but ordinary English will do.

I think the connection between theological statements and the real world is crucial. The OP is right to insist on knowing the cash value of terms like consubstantial.
 
Posted by Nunc Dimittis (# 848) on :
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
quote:
For example, many feminists do like like "Father" terminology for God the Father. They forge and ministers do not remind them of the fact that we call God "Father" because of Christ, who was both truly Human and truly God and did have a mother, Mary. It starts with Christ and goes from there. So saying that God is not Father does a large amount of violence to the Incarnation.
I take issue with this because I think you have misunderstood why feminists have a problem with exclusively male terminology used for the persons of the Trinity.

One of the strings in the feminist bow is actually an old string strung anew: and that is, that your position (that God must be Father) is actually essentialist - which is also heresy... Because, as Gregory of Nyssa says, God is Father and Mother and neither, for a) any gendered language applied to the persons of the Trinity (apart from the humanity of the Son) is anthropomorphic, and b) God is beyond gender. (In Gregory of course theosis involves the transformation of gender, and when he is talking about the later stages of contemplative prayer in which the soul is caught up into the life of the Trinity through the Holy Spirit, the gender ascriptions in his metaphors and analogies - whether speaking of humans or of God - is decidedly fluid.)

So many feminists (and let's recognise that it is more accurate to speak of feminist theologies rather than "feminist theology") are ok with the language of Father, Son, and Spirit when speaking of the Trinity, so long as this is balanced with the proviso above (ie, that God is beyond gender) and the plethora of other biblical imagery used (so picking up on the Sophia-Logos relationship, the feminine particle for Shekinah in the OT, and inanimate referents - God as a strong rock, as a mother bird (Ps 91), tower of refuge, etc etc). And lastly, as long as the coeternal and consubstantial nature of the three persons is emphasised over again against any sense of hierarchical (domineerind/dominating) ordering in the life of God.

[ 08. May 2012, 09:25: Message edited by: Nunc Dimittis ]
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Astley:
Thank you, Lyda*Rose and Gee D. [Smile]

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
A substance might be coffee, glass or baking soda. It's something you could do a chemical analysis on.

Does anyone really think that Jesus and God are made of the same substance?
The Creed does not say that Jesus and God are "made of the same substance". It says that the Son and the Father are consubstantial; that they are of the same substantia, or essence, which you might describe as "God-ness" for lack of a better word.
Substantia, substance, essence, stuff, matter, whatever you like. It appears to mean that God and Jesus are made of the same thing.
No, it doesn't.

It means that they have the same divine nature. Nowhere is there any suggestion of them being made out of anything. This is your reading of a meaning into substance/nature/essence/ousia that is not intended.

As for substance being a poor translation of ousia, well, I kind of agree. The word has certain nuances in English in addition to its Latin meaning and, for the sake of clarity, I think that essence or nature would be a better choice. However, that is simply a translation issue and doesn't negate the truth of what is being said.

I must also agree with The Silent Acolyte, Zach82, and others who have challenged the approach of ceasing to undrstand what has been revealed as truth simply because it isn't immediately comprehensible or expressible in simple terminology.

Nobody here is arguing that salvation rests on intellectual understanding of the finer points of doctrine - far from it. As one of my favourite podcasters has said, the entry into heaven won't be based on a catechism quiz. However, what Sober Preacher's Kid said here is absolutely spot on.

Christian doctrine isn't an end in itself, just as heresy is not particularly harmful in and of itself. It is the effects of both that are of significance, and both act as channels either to union with God or separation from Him.
I know it doesn't mean that, but it does appear to mean that. And translation issues are entirely relevant to questions of meaning. What else are they about?

No one, yet, has argued that salvation rests on intellectual understanding, but a number of posters are saying, as I read them, that it is important to accept as true what the churches teach even if you can't understand it, and that to ask for simpler or plainer explanations is a bit uppity if not downright disobedient.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I think the translation issue is very important. Late classical scholars (I'd rather not call them Fathers with all the power and gender claims attached to the term) may have been happy with substantia, though it is different from ousia which, I think, is why essence is also used, but consubstantial is not Latin, but an English equivalent and the meaning has therefore shifted again. ... A special language game might enable more precise communication between people who know the rules, but it severely compromises communication between them and wider society. I don't see how Christianity can be happy with this. We've always torn down temple curtains. Jesus talked of barns, sheep and debts.
I think you are quite wrong there. It is precisely the fact that there is no simple understandability of the word "consubstantial" through knowledge of plain English which makes it a rather good term to use. Because that means that the natural question "what does that even mean?" will not stop at a simplistic analysis in terms of what one knows, but rather requires some learning what the term actually points to. For example, being German I had to learn what the term "LBW" means, and my learning did not stop either at deciphering the abbreviation. I had to understand quite a bit about the rules of the game of cricket before "LBW" made much sense. If we had tried to render "LBW" into plain English apart from all knowledge of cricket, then we might have gotten something like "illegal blocking of an action important for winning a game" or some other vague and unsatisfying rendering. Now, clearly one can overdo this sort of jargon and render statements entirely incomprehensible except for the most studied expert. That's one undesirable extreme. But to totally flatten language to the lowest common denominator is also an undesirable extreme. A healthy balance need to be struck, and in the case at hand I think the creed is doing just fine with "consubstantial" in it.

Furthermore, your claim about Jesus also falls short. It is true that He liked His parables. But I like my analogies and if you would summarize my writings you may well get the impression that I'm constantly trying to talk in everyday terms. In particular so if you were to summarize those parts of my writing where I try hard to "engage with the people". And quite clearly it is just such "preaching" of Jesus which we hear most of in scripture. That does not mean that Jesus never went beyond that, and in fact we have plenty of evidence in scripture that he did engage in full-blown "theology". Namely in the mode of the day, which was using the law and the prophets in discursive and narrative (one could say "court-of-law-like") arguments. He did so when he first visited the temple as twelve year old (not to tear down any curtains, incidentally) and was still doing it on the road to Emmaus after He was risen. Jesus was a Rabbi to the people of His time according to their knowledge and their modes of understanding. There is no reason why we should not learn of Him in our days according to our state.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
For me, and I suspect most people, substance implies matter. It's simply how we use the word. Philosophical substances is a scarily brain-straining term.
I actually consider it to be an entirely artificial - and rather intellectual - exercise of yours to try to break down "consubstantial" into everyday concepts. The actual analysis of an uninformed "man on the street" would almost certainly rather amount to saying: "What?" And to the extent that this question actually seeks an answer, one can certainly give one then.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Incidentally, given that God's possibilities are so far beyond ours, it isn't so obvious that God can't disagree with God!
I disagree. We are talking here about a logical impossibility. And I consider us to be made in the image and the likeness of God precisely in the sense that we can truly understand things. As far as God Himself is concerned, we end up understanding largely in the negative, but nevertheless our understanding is valid as far as it goes. In particular God is not illogical, because logic is part of the Divine imprint in us.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I'm sympathetic to the underlying point here, I really am, but I'm also aware that in today's climate there are live issues about marriage, other partnerships, and patriarchy. We have to be very careful about our language.
Fuck that.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Effectively you're saying that if Jesus is God, and we've already agreed that he is, then he can't be wrong. Well, there's a big if there, but even if we all agree that Jesus is God, there are many ways of understanding that. It isn't obvious that it means you can't be wrong. And I noticed you slipped a truly in there - if he is truly God. Are there ways of being God, some more true than others?
Sure. If your Jesus can be wrong in a non-trivial manner about matters of faith and morals, then he is not truly God to me. Perhaps he then is a super-prophet a la Moses, but not God Himself.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Communion is what the world is ultimately about: Hallelujah say I, and I'm pleased to see "family" in quotes. This is very modern, though, isn't it? This is the sort of thing early 21st Century people get out of Trinitarian theology.
I put "family" in scare quotes because the analogy to what is happening in the Godhead is clearly damn flimsy. This has nothing to do with more human reasons why one may have to put "family" in scare quotes these days. And I see no problem whatsoever in deriving different motivations from the same words in different times. It is a strength of language that it has multiple layers of meaning which are often not readily apparent. One can "overload" words with massive amounts of information. If God had wanted mechanistic simplicity and precision, He would have revealed Himself in mathematical terms. (Well, He did that, too. We call it physics.)

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
No one, yet, has argued that salvation rests on intellectual understanding, but a number of posters are saying, as I read them, that it is important to accept as true what the churches teach even if you can't understand it, and that to ask for simpler or plainer explanations is a bit uppity if not downright disobedient.
For some mysterious reason, some of the rational animals following the religion of the Logos have gotten it into their heads that salvation has nothing to do with what they are and what the Son of God is, but rather is some kind of phase transition brought on by an emotional seizure. Oh well... But I am not aware that anybody has argued here against terms getting explained?
 
Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
Thanks for your interest in this, folks. I'm just reading now - I've plenty to learn, and not much to say.

I did, however, think I might like to re-iterate -why- I think this matters. I don't object to my kids learning it - I love the fact they do, and want to. I don't object to technical language which can convey complex ideas in a really economical linguistic 'package' - such things are very useful - nor do I disparage such packages as 'jargon'. I don't insist on the utility of a concept resting on its ease of use or grasp-ability by the man in the street - who am I to conflate such things as God, and utility?

But - there are some areas of my faith where a head-knowledge of something has taken root as a gut-level grasp of why something must be - to the point where I can get quite passionate about something others might regard as dry and of limited interest. Sometimes the concepts are tough - but they have nonetheless taken root. I have come to see I can 'witness' to it. And now this thread is helping me find connections between such gut-level things, and points in the creed to which I have not made such a connection in the past. Thanks.
 
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
I certainly learnt the line "consubstantial, coeternal" in J M Neale's translations of "Christ is made the firm foundation".
Thank you very much. That, apparently, will be my musical ear tic for today.
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
quote:
Sure, but Christianity is the religion of the Logos. Every Christian has sufficient understanding demanded of them, and likewise can demand to be given sufficient understanding before pledging their allegiance, as in saying a creed. If you have people with limited capacity say binding words of Christian faith, then you must make sure that they mean something to them. Empty words do not make a Christian prayer.
I certainly agree that real faith seeks understanding. I can't imagine a woman saying to her husband on her wedding night "Golly, I just want to love you and cook dinner for you. I don't want to know anything more about you though!" Yet that seems to be precisely the proposition of "non-doctrinal" Christianity!

As for relevance, I can't think of anyone putting it better than Bernard Lonergan, who said that Christian dogma begins with taking the Holy Scriptures as true. So we cannot get any simpler in explaining homoousias than asking the people to accept "that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins" and that "The Word was God." Even simpler, the people are asked to participate in catholic worship, where Jesus is worshiped as homoousias with the Father.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
For me, and I suspect most people, substance implies matter. It's simply how we use the word. Philosophical substances is a scarily brain-straining term. I'm trying to give it some content: might we say that meanings of words are a different sort of substance from the rules of logic?
For me, and I suspect most people, work implies doing a job. Nevertheless, physicists and engineers use the word in a technical sense and cause no confusion doing it. Unless you're claiming that all words used in theology must be used as in ordinary language theology can use words with special technical senses itself. That goes double where the theological sense is the original sense of the word and the ordinary English sense is derived from the theological sense.

If meanings of words are independent entities with their own real existence then they're substances. If the rules of logic are independent entities with their own real existence then they're substances. (Neither of those seem to be defensible positions. A logical platonist might certainly say that the rules of logic have real existence but that doesn't mean that each rule of logic is its own entity.) On the other hand, if ghosts exist or anything that isn't material then they would qualify as substances.

Saying that the Father and the Son are consubstantial means that they are not independent entities. If one exists the other exists too.

quote:
Incidentally, given that God's possibilities are so far beyond ours, it isn't so obvious that God can't disagree with God!
As usual, a string of nonsense words continues to be a string of nonsense words when you place the words 'God can' or 'God can make' in front of it. 'God can make colourless green ideas sleep furiously' is just as meaningless as 'colourless green ideas sleep furiously'.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
Not by failing to grasp the finer points of consubstantiality, but by denying them or waving them away as unimportant--damn straight!
Actually, I think the point of many of the claims in the creeds is to rule out wrong understandings. God is a mystery; our language fails to grasp him; our words are only pointers into the mystery into which we continually journey. Nevertheless, that does not mean we can assert just any nonsense of God. Logical contradictions don't point us into the mystery; they just collapse in on themselves. Saying God is mystery cannot be an excuse for just any kind of wooliness.
Thus, the creeds don't attempt to pin down our understanding of God; quite the opposite. The creeds attempt to guide us round fallacious or woolly attempts to pin down our understanding of God.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
I think you are quite wrong there. It is precisely the fact that there is no simple understandability of the word "consubstantial" through knowledge of plain English which makes it a rather good term to use. Because that means that the natural question "what does that even mean?" will not stop at a simplistic analysis in terms of what one knows, but rather requires some learning what the term actually points to. For example, being German I had to learn what the term "LBW" means, and my learning did not stop either at deciphering the abbreviation. I had to understand quite a bit about the rules of the game of cricket before "LBW" made much sense. If we had tried to render "LBW" into plain English apart from all knowledge of cricket, then we might have gotten something like "illegal blocking of an action important for winning a game" or some other vague and unsatisfying rendering. Now, clearly one can overdo this sort of jargon and render statements entirely incomprehensible except for the most studied expert. That's one undesirable extreme. But to totally flatten language to the lowest common denominator is also an undesirable extreme. A healthy balance need to be struck, and in the case at hand I think the creed is doing just fine with "consubstantial" in it.
I think this is a fair point. Sometimes it is necessary to retain jargon and expect people to learn what it means. I think that concepts such as grace, sin and faith have to be learnt in the special way they are used within Christianity. My judgement about consubstantial is that this is a mouthful too far.
quote:


[QUOTE]Originally posted by hatless:
Incidentally, given that God's possibilities are so far beyond ours, it isn't so obvious that God can't disagree with God!
I disagree. We are talking here about a logical impossibility.
Why is it a logical impossibility? If the Father and the Son are two distinct persons, capable of having a relationship, why might they not be able to disagree?
quote:


quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I'm sympathetic to the underlying point here, I really am, but I'm also aware that in today's climate there are live issues about marriage, other partnerships, and patriarchy. We have to be very careful about our language.
Fuck that.
If our doctrine of the Trinity leads us to speak of communion as a fundamental patterning of the world, then it matters a great deal how we characterise the relationships in the Trinity. Are they relationships of freedom, commitment, exclusivity, choice, obligation, stability, transformation, dependency or independence? I can see our opinions about marriage and other partnerships being thrashed out in a proxy debate about the Trinity!
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
Dafyd said
quote:
Saying that the Father and the Son are consubstantial means that they are not independent entities. If one exists the other exists too.
Aaaah! It can be neatly expressed, and when it is, we see that it's about being and relatedness, and not about substance or essence.
 
Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Incidentally, given that God's possibilities are so far beyond ours, it isn't so obvious that God can't disagree with God!
I disagree. We are talking here about a logical impossibility. [/QUOTE][/qb]Why is it a logical impossibility? If the Father and the Son are two distinct persons, capable of having a relationship, why might they not be able to disagree? [/QB][/QUOTE]

I'll respond to your earlier post tomorrow, hatless, but the answerto this is that the three Divine Persons have the same grace and energies. Everything that has been revealed shows us that they act in harmony, with one purpose stemming from their one will.
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
quote:
Why is it a logical impossibility? If the Father and the Son are two distinct persons, capable of having a relationship, why might they not be able to disagree?
Because "person" did not mean the same thing to the Church Fathers that it does to us.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Why is it a logical impossibility? If the Father and the Son are two distinct persons, capable of having a relationship, why might they not be able to disagree?
Where would any kind of disagreement come from? God knows all, sees all, understands all, creates all, ... Where would any kind of disagreement live? God is everywhere and eternal. God really is nothing like you and me. Actually, God can only be considered more than Person by virtue of relationship. I mean, literally. God is more than one Person strictly only in the sense that there is a relationship of origin in Him. The Son is a different Person from the Father only by virtue of the Son being from the Father rather than the Father being from the Son (and like statements about the Holy Spirit). For all other intents and purposes God is One.

A much more interesting question is whether Jesus the man can disagree with Logos the God in the Incarnation.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
If our doctrine of the Trinity leads us to speak of communion as a fundamental patterning of the world, then it matters a great deal how we characterise the relationships in the Trinity. Are they relationships of freedom, commitment, exclusivity, choice, obligation, stability, transformation, dependency or independence? I can see our opinions about marriage and other partnerships being thrashed out in a proxy debate about the Trinity!
Yeah, well, not really. God as God gives a sort of a binary endorsement to relationships... Try Jesus for hints about human relationships.
 
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
IngoB:
quote:
A much more interesting question is whether Jesus the man can disagree with Logos the God in the Incarnation.
Sort of, kind of, but not in finality:
quote:
And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. Matthew 26:39
ETA: At least if the Father and the Logos aren't disagreeing.

[ 09. May 2012, 07:44: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]
 
Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Incidentally, given that God's possibilities are so far beyond ours, it isn't so obvious that God can't disagree with God!
I disagree. We are talking here about a logical impossibility. [/QUOTE][/qb]Why is it a logical impossibility? If the Father and the Son are two distinct persons, capable of having a relationship, why might they not be able to disagree? [/QB][/QUOTE]

I'll respond to your earlier post tomorrow, hatless, but the answerto this is that the three Divine Persons have the same grace and energies. Everything that has been revealed shows us that they act in harmony, with one purpose stemming from their one will.
 
Posted by Fuzzipeg (# 10107) on :
 
Unfortunately I don't know how to type Greek script but the Creed of Nicaea uses the phrase ek tns ousias tou patros which means "from the inmost being of the Father" inseparably one. When we come to "substance" in English the word is better translated as "one being"..sharing one being with the Father..therefore distinct in existence though essentially one. I won't get started on Athanasius De Decretis......
 
Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
OK - I get that 'consubstantiality' means to most here, that you can't get a fag paper between the Father and the Son. That's good - I believe that - and I can witness to it, in that I can feel something about our enormous loss if that were not true.

I'm less clear (still) on the co-eternal thing...unless it's just a get-around for an objection to anything truly-God being made by anything else (as in a made-God implies a greater God, so the made-God is somehow not-God).

But given we've agreed their rock-solid mutual identification, this seems a bit belt-and-braces.

I like the stories about 'relationship within the being of God' - but, to be frank, it sounds a bit made up. I mean, -I- can accept it, but then I already want to believe...
 
Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
Bugger, missed the edit. Should have said '...can't get a fag paper between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit'.

Binitarian theology - guess who's not a charismatic. [Hot and Hormonal]
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Dafyd said
quote:
Saying that the Father and the Son are consubstantial means that they are not independent entities. If one exists the other exists too.
Aaaah! It can be neatly expressed, and when it is, we see that it's about being and relatedness, and not about substance or essence.
But that's what substance means when you use the word in that way.
Or are you saying that theology shouldn't use words that are in any way multivalent? (That's have more than one meaning?)
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
"Homoousias" means that everything attributable to God is attributable to the Son. If God is eternal, then the Son is eternal.

The battle cry of the Arians was "There was when the Son was not," and Saint Athanasius knew full well that denied the divinity of the Son.
 
Posted by Fuzzipeg (# 10107) on :
 
But those who say:

'There was a time when he was not;' and

'He was not before he was made;' and

'He was made out of nothing,' or

'He is of another substance' or 'essence,' or

'The Son of God is created,' or 'changeable,' or 'alterable'

these the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematises.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Astley:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Incidentally, given that God's possibilities are so far beyond ours, it isn't so obvious that God can't disagree with God!
I disagree. We are talking here about a logical impossibility.
quote:
Why is it a logical impossibility? If the Father and the Son are two distinct persons, capable of having a relationship, why might they not be able to disagree?
quote:

I'll respond to your earlier post tomorrow, hatless, but the answerto this is that the three Divine Persons have the same grace and energies. Everything that has been revealed shows us that they act in harmony, with one purpose stemming from their one will.
That's right, is it? You assert it as if it's something that has been discovered as true, like a fact from physics. But you can't investigate the Divine Persons like that. What you have said is, I believe, simply a statement of how we have chosen to talk about God. We have decided to talk about persons, grace and energies (whatever they might be, it's not a phrase I'm familiar with).

Maybe we have good reasons for talking about God this way, but that's what has to be demonstrated. That's the 'so what?' bit, the cash value, the difference these terms mean.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Why is it a logical impossibility? If the Father and the Son are two distinct persons, capable of having a relationship, why might they not be able to disagree?
Where would any kind of disagreement come from? God knows all, sees all, understands all, creates all, ... Where would any kind of disagreement live? God is everywhere and eternal. God really is nothing like you and me. Actually, God can only be considered more than Person by virtue of relationship. I mean, literally. God is more than one Person strictly only in the sense that there is a relationship of origin in Him. The Son is a different Person from the Father only by virtue of the Son being from the Father rather than the Father being from the Son (and like statements about the Holy Spirit). For all other intents and purposes God is One.
Hmm. I'm not trying to argue that God can in fact disagree with Godself, or the Father disagree with the Son, I'm merely taking issue with the assertion that this is impossible. I see such assertions as unwarranted. I don't believe we can pronounce on the nature of God in this way.

All language about God is at best analogical. God doesn't 'really' have relationships, and as someone else said, 'person' when applied to God doesn't mean the same as when it's applied to us.

Scripture has a more robustly anthropomorphic view of God than the philosophical theologians take. God changes his mind in the OT, and in the Garden of Gethsemane we are shown a separation or distance between Jesus and the Father. Between the Son and the Father? I wouldn't like to say if the ache is within the hypostatic union or the Godhead, but Moltmann talks of the cross introducing a rupture into the Trinity.

At any rate, I don't think it's nonsensical to ask if God can disagree with Godself. It's provocative and perhaps silly. What I have a horror of is theology that makes confident, plonking assertions about what can and can't, must and must not be the case. This is God we are talking about, and all bets are off.
 
Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
That's right, is it? You assert it as if it's something that has been discovered as true, like a fact from physics. But you can't investigate the Divine Persons like that. What you have said is, I believe, simply a statement of how we have chosen to talk about God. We have decided to talk about persons, grace and energies (whatever they might be, it's not a phrase I'm familiar with).

Maybe we have good reasons for talking about God this way, but that's what has to be demonstrated. That's the 'so what?' bit, the cash value, the difference these terms mean.
Not discovered: revealed.

I didn't re-state the examples - this is true - but it wasn't because I was expecting my words to stand alone as an authoritative assertion. Rather, I simply didn't think I would have to. In the biblical account of act of creation (the point holds regardless of literal/symbolic reading), in the biblical accounts of Theophany and Transfiguration, and in the prayers surrounding the sacraments which express what we believe God is doing in them, we find an understanding in the present and going back to biblical times of the divine Persons acting with unity of will. In the garden before his Passion, we see the tension in Christ's conformity of his human will to the divine will that He shares with the Father.

From this, we have traditionally understood that the communion of the three Persons and their oneness includes a single divine will. This is part of the energies of God that we can perceive through revelation. The idea of the Persons disagreeing among themselves is one that, to me at least, is alien to what God has revealed to us of Himself. We could be wrong, I suppose, but what is there to suggest that we are?

("Grace" and "energies" are synonymous. Using the former on its own runs the risk of it being misunderstood as the common protestant use of the word while using the latter on its own risks incomprehension to those unfamiliar with the sort of theological discourse where the term is common. I suppose using them both was more misleading but I never quite know how to word these things with a mixed audience.)
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Dafyd said
quote:
Saying that the Father and the Son are consubstantial means that they are not independent entities. If one exists the other exists too.
Aaaah! It can be neatly expressed, and when it is, we see that it's about being and relatedness, and not about substance or essence.
But that's what substance means when you use the word in that way.
Or are you saying that theology shouldn't use words that are in any way multivalent? (That's have more than one meaning?)
Theologians can and do talk to each other in a highly specialised vocabulary, but theology isn't just a specialism, it belongs to the church. There is theology, rightly, in our hymns and liturgies, and we introduce our children and members to it.

It will often use language in nuanced ways, but it does need to communicate with non-specialist people in the common discourse of society. English is rich and varied enough for us to be able to improve on consubstantial. We no longer talk about anti-phlogiston and defend it as opening an interesting discussion into the history of the science of combustion, we talk about oxygen.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
Michael Astley said
quote:
From this, we have traditionally understood that the communion of the three Persons and their oneness includes a single divine will. This is part of the energies of God that we can perceive through revelation. The idea of the Persons disagreeing among themselves is one that, to me at least, is alien to what God has revealed to us of Himself. We could be wrong, I suppose, but what is there to suggest that we are?
Thanks for your clarification. I agree with the paragraph above. It's a fair summary of our traditional understanding, and it allows for the possibility that we might revise it; albeit a very unlikely one in this case.

The revelation of God is Jesus Christ. Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation are interpretations of that revelation and just as they were thrashed out over many years, so there is still room for revising the way we express them.
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I don't believe we can pronounce on the nature of God in this way.
Well, I do. However, I find it a somewhat odd exercise to argue about the scope of the human mind. That seems naturally circular.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
All language about God is at best analogical.
Indeed. But the point of analogies is precisely to extract additional understanding by exploiting structural similarities. Analogies are not about stammering sounds that mean nothing.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Scripture has a more robustly anthropomorphic view of God than the philosophical theologians take.
Indeed. Consequently, there is very little scope in scripture for your hesitation concerning statements about God. Your attitude of "mystical vagueness" is actually a variant of philosophical theology, not of the robust faith of the Jews. And perhaps the best argument against it is that it captures none of the confidence of that robust faith. It is bloodless.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
What I have a horror of is theology that makes confident, plonking assertions about what can and can't, must and must not be the case. This is God we are talking about, and all bets are off.
All bets are off? Let's burn our bibles then, for they can tell us nothing.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
We no longer talk about anti-phlogiston and defend it as opening an interesting discussion into the history of the science of combustion, we talk about oxygen.
That's not because the meaning of anti-phlogiston has changed whereas oxygen is a perfectly good ordinary English word. The meaning of 'oxygen' is fixed by scientific discourse rather than by the community of English speakers as a whole.
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
quote:
Maybe we have good reasons for talking about God this way, but that's what has to be demonstrated. That's the 'so what?' bit, the cash value, the difference these terms mean.
As I said up thread, doctrine begins with taking the Holy Scriptures as true. Doing so leaves a lot of questions about the nature of Jesus. These words, like homoousias and hypostasis arise when we, without in anyway way dispelling the mystery, seek to identify the metaphysical issues at hand and show how the Christian Faith in the Holy Scriptures is not completely irrational.

Writing off the paradoxes in Scriptures as a mystery we don't have to think about is just another way of saying the Scriptures aren't true. We are creatures with brains, and we are obliged to use them in any real faith.

Zach

[ 10. May 2012, 12:36: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
 
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Zach, I must disagree with the way you appear to be presenting the proper approach to the Christian canonical scriptures. I would say that properly we take them to contain or express various truths and insights about ultimate meanings, but they are not "true" or "Truth" in the sense of being definitive. Thus, I would view St Paul (or collectively the possibly several authors of the letters ascribed to Paul) as being the Church's first theologian, but the theology he presents isn't fully consistent or clear, and some of his ideas on subjects apart from Christology may be taken as simply erroneous and culture-bound. As far as Paul's christology, this would best be viewed as grappling with a number of conceptual problems and an attempt to hammer out a theory of the nature and relationships between the monotheistic patriarchal God of Judaism, Jesus of Nazareth, and the figure of the awaited Messiah, and of the nature of the salvific/atoning activity that was attributed to the work of Jesus as the Messiah acting in concert with the Father-God. The theorising moves forward with the formulations of the author of St John's Gospel, using Hellenistic constructs.

The creedal formulations aren't contradictory to the rather disparate theorising we have in the corpus of Scripture, but they are a further development of some very rudimentary or seminal ideas first presented by the writers of the books that came to comprise the "New Testament". However, it seems to me a simplification to talk of these things as "true", as though we were talking of verifiable facts or propositions of formal logic. Rather, both scripture and the creeds present various models that attempt to describe and encapsulate theological truths that cannot be adequately or firmly comprehended by such formulations.
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
I am sorry, LSK, but I can't see a difference in taking the Scriptures as true and taking the Scriptures as definitive. The Bible is not a mere suggestion to be considered by the Church among other suggestions. It is God's judgment against humankind and for Himself, and while it needs to be interpreted in the Church, it must be accepted in faith.

Neither can I accept the Creeds as an account of God apart from the accounts of God in the Scriptures. The Creeds are the Christian account of the Scriptures.

[ 10. May 2012, 13:56: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
 
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Rather, I would say that since humans wrote the scriptures, they are human judgements about God, humankind, and the Creation. We take them to represent the peculiar ("unique") revelation in our tradition of the nature of ultimate truth. However, in fact, the scriptures can at best only point us to Truth or Ultimate Meaning. And sometimes the scriptures may take us off course, as well.
 
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
I would also add that it is the Living God as active agency and the atoning action of God uniquely presented in the person of Jesus of Nazareth that must be taken on faith, not the canonical scriptures, which merely transmit the story. Taking the scriptures themselves on faith potentially leads us down a very slippery slope to all sorts of unhelpful views, uncritical beliefs, and literalisms.
 
Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :
 
quote:
I would also add that it is the Living God as active agency and the atoning action of God uniquely presented in the person of Jesus of Nazareth that must be taken on faith, not the canonical scriptures...
Ah, the difference between truth and Truth, as if the two were entirely unrelated!

I would point out that "the atoning action of God uniquely presented in the person of Jesus of Nazareth" is, according to the Creed, "In accordance with the Scriptures."

What would you say the real difference is between your views and those of Marcion, LSK?
 
Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :
 
Zach I'm now away from home for a couple of days and on an iPhone so I must defer a larger response for now but would very much like to respond later at greater length. As I understand it the Niceness Creed says Christ rose again in accordance with the scriptures. In a way the relationship between scripture and creed could be described as tautological, though that would not be my point. That actually is one of the more scriptural assertions of the Creed, whilst others such as "eternally begotten of the Father" or the assertions regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit are more extrapolations from scripture, formulated in a Hellenistic context. I think we may engage these formularies as the statements of the doctrine of the historic Church without thinking that they are perfect and lucid models of ultimate reality.
 


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