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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Is this unitarian or trinitarian?
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
I also see clearly, Andrew, that you credit Fr. Gregory with an adequate understanding of Orthodox theology. Very good.
quote:
Father Gregory, by the way, you are quite right about the observation. The absence of article in that particular verse just demonstrated the point you made on the term being declaratory in intent.
Then, what about the prayer that closes the Trisagion:
"O all-holy Trinity, have mercy upon us."
Now, I don't have a Greek liturgy book here, but I'm quite sure that the adjectival "all-holy" would agree with the noun Trinity (triada). I even know that word. What I would like to know is whether that direct invocation of the Trinity is all right to pray or not? Does it sound unitarian to you?
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eleison me, tin amartolin: have mercy on me, the sinner
Posts: 6351 | From: Hesychia, in Hyperdulia | Registered: Aug 2004
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
The question is simple Mary. What do you mean by saying there are three divine persons and why this isn't tritheism to you.
Discussion only goes to Greek if someone asserts that he is of the same faith with the Greek-speaking fathers of the Scriptures, the ecumenical councils, and the Creed. To examine whether someone accepts the first and the second ecumenical councils, we can't take one's word for it. We have to compare what one says with what those Greek speaking fathers actually taught.
ETA: Cross-posted... I see you are still evading. That's a pity. You aren't taking into account anything I or father Gregory said about what the word trinity means and how it's used.
[ 24. November 2008, 17:31: Message edited by: §Andrew ]
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
Andrew, that strikes me as non-responsive. Mary asked a question. Why don't you answer it clearly instead of with riddles.
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
I have answered that question a few posts ago.
The Greek prayer to which LM pointed speaks about the trinity, in Greek, in the feminine grammatical gender, in singular, as we would speak of let's say the Parliament.
See my posts here, and here.
I ask again: What do you mean when you say there are three divine persons and why this isn't tritheism to you.
[ 24. November 2008, 17:43: Message edited by: §Andrew ]
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
Yes I am taking it into account, and I do believe it. I am just not trying to find English words that will suit you, that's all.
Father Gregory said:
quote:
I think that the greatest weakness of subsequent western trinitarian theology is that it denied ANY hypostatic differentiations and personal ontologies beyond the eternal generation and spiration which allegedly THEMSELVES fully accounted for the hypostases. So, the Father and the Son become the Father-Son relation, the Father and the Spirit become the Father-Spirit relation and the Son and the Spirit become the Son-Spirit relation. Integrate these component relations and you have the hypostases as simply the modal relations of an abstracted a priori unity.
I agree with every single word of that, and I have publicly renounced every single error that Fr. Gregory enumerates there. Lietuvos and Cor have also averred that they too believe what Fr. Gregory says. So despite your insistent denials, we all do have common ground here. Please do not paint everyone from "the west" with that same tar-brush of "amorphous Trinity". There is nothing amorphous about our belief there. We just don't claim to have the total understanding of the Trinity the way you do, but that comes from our humility, rather than from our lack of education.
Unfortunately, in the translation used by most Orthodox English-speaking churches in the U.S., the "Hapgood Translation", p. 120, gives one of the dismissal hymns this way:
"We have beheld the true Light; we have received the heavenly Spirit; we have found the true Faith. Let us bow down in worship to the Trinity Undivided, for He )(my italics) hath saved us."
I know, only because Cor gave a quote of this lovely hymn, that the actual pronoun used means "the same", not "He". That is to say, the pronoun refers to "Trinity".
Mary
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eleison me, tin amartolin: have mercy on me, the sinner
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
What do you mean when you say there are three divine persons and why this isn't tritheism to you?
You can speak about all the hymns you like. I don't mind. The word used in that prayer is "she". The Trinity. She. The Parliament. She. Get it?
I don't mind explaining all the examples you like. I won't forget my question to you though. What do you mean when you say there are three divine persons and why this isn't tritheism to you?
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
Yes, Sir, I GET IT! I posted the prayer to show you that even a great saint, St. Tikhon who blessed and okayed Isabelle Hapgood's translation, didn't seem to mind that she had put a "He" where you demand a "She". That "He" that Hapgood used came only from common English usage, and from the fact that calling the Trinity "She" in English would fall on English-speaking ears, at least in the 1920s, as wrong. In this day and age, of course, the theological modernism and relativism that is so unpopular and unorthodox would just love it if you changed the translation to read "She".
As to what I believe about the Holy Trinity, I believe the same that the Orthodox Church has always believed, and I do not have to articulate in in words.
Your post is not fair to those of us who are reticent about declaring the truths of the Orthodox Church in our own unworthy words. We are not theologians. We are not seminary graduates.
Let those declarations be made by Fr. Gregory, and we will assent to them, unless the highly unlikely event occurs in which Fr. Gregory's thought is judged by a higher authority than that of a Greek layman, to be in error.
Mary
[ 24. November 2008, 18:06: Message edited by: Leetle Masha ]
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eleison me, tin amartolin: have mercy on me, the sinner
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
I don't know why you (pl) seem not to be taking into account my posts...
For example, I explain how the trinity is called "she", and what that means, and I draw a parallel with the Greek word for "Parliament"... and then LSK says I didn't address LM's concern...
I say that I have no problem with addressing the Trinity as "Trinity" WITH THE QUALIFICATION that we bear in mind it's a shorthand and nothing more, and LM says "here's a hymn that does what you say we shouldn't do!"
Or, now, I said the language used doesn't matter as long as the understanding is Orthodox... and LM says something like "but St. Tikhon okayed a "he"...
That said...
I want to address another issue... These things being "difficult"...
If you read the history of the controversies you will find out that the entire Christian population of the Kingdom was involved... You went to the bakery and people started to argue about these things. It was not an issue of academics and philosophers, but of ordinary people, because these things are NOT supposed to be difficult.
Ordinary words were used for the same reason.
The fathers that convened in the councils were not the great philosophers of their times. Some of them were. But many were ordinary people. The Faith is an issue of each one of us. Not a philosophical problem for great thinkers to solve.
The word "person", or that fancy word "hypostases" aren't difficult to understand. I am a person. You are another person. He is another person. Three persons.
Nothing complex there.
So, I re-iterate my question:
What do you (pl.) mean when you say there are three divine persons and why this isn't tritheism to you?
[ 24. November 2008, 18:13: Message edited by: §Andrew ]
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
The reason I seem not to be taking into account your posts, Andrew, is that your posts are too frequently ambiguous and also insulting.
Why should I, who have been a member of the Orthodox Church since 1977, who have affirmed every belief required by the Orthodox Church, submit to an inquisition conducted by you, Andrew? You who have said that the Orthodox Church sucks! You lost all your credibility months ago with that one short sentence, and again and again by your repeated efforts to undermine the witness of your Church and your fellow Orthodox Christians.
How many other Orthodox Christians besides Fr. Gregory, whose herculean effort to help you toward some clarity is greatly appreciated, Myrrh and I have joined in your microscopically analytical discussions? Don't you think there might be a reason for that?
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
You must be kidding me...
Again and again you have attacked my character, engaged in mud sliding against me, and tried to imply all sort of things so that you spread all sort of gossip against me, and you are now making this post? You must be joking!
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
Andrew, I have been fighting with you on these boards for several years. The respect you have shown is evident.
If you do not want me on your thread, you have accomplished that, but you have lost an Orthodox Christian. I have never attacked your character, but I do not trust you because of your past behaviour. I trust those who allow me to have a say on these boards, and they are growing fewer and fewer. You have treated one other Orthodox poster on here with supreme rudeness, one who made but one post objecting to your tactics.
You simply cannot tolerate other Orthodox Christians, because they might be right about one or two things. I feel very sorry that you take my posts the way you do, but if there's nothing else you'll do, I will have to leave you completely alone. This was my final try at getting through to you, and you blew it.
Mary
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eleison me, tin amartolin: have mercy on me, the sinner
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
What do you mean when you say there are three divine persons and why this isn't tritheism to you?
You can speak about all the hymns you like. I don't mind. The word used in that prayer is "she". The Trinity. She. The Parliament. She. Get it?
I don't mind explaining all the examples you like. I won't forget my question to you though. What do you mean when you say there are three divine persons and why this isn't tritheism to you?
Actually this is very unclear to me. English does not have grammatical gender in the way that Greek does. Gender in English speech is entirely determined by the subject, and other then determining which form of third-person pronoun (masculine, feminine, or neuter) is used, has no impact on meaning.
"Parliament" is a mass noun. It is a corporate body, which is both plural and singular at the same time. Therefore we say "Parliament is in session right now". Parliament may have multiple parts, but it has one will.
Calling the Trinity "She" is absurd in English. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit when are addressed as male either individually or collectively. There is nothing female in that group to use a female pronoun for.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
SPK, I understand the fixation on the gender of words in classical languages and the insistence on the agreement of any modifiers attached to the words, but I draw the line at saying that nouns with adjectives agreeing are determinative of Church dogma.
If we did as has been suggested, call the Holy Trinity "She", the Wiccans and the U.S. Feminist theologians would be begging to be chrismated in the Orthodox Church!
Then, some of us would have a real problem. This linguistic hair-splitting is as nothing in comparison to the intolerance, mostly on nationalistic grounds, of some Orthodox Christians for other Orthodox Christians.
A lot of my trouble on these boards, by the way, has come from the accident of birth that made me an American. But these boards are not always a political popularity contest, thank God. Just this one thread, it seems.
Mary ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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eleison me, tin amartolin: have mercy on me, the sinner
Posts: 6351 | From: Hesychia, in Hyperdulia | Registered: Aug 2004
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
SPK
If in English you are using "He" for bodies, for many persons together, then by all means use "He" for the Trinity. But if you are not doing that, then using it for the Trinity would mean something different other than what the word "trinity" actually means.
By the way, how do you understand "there are three divine persons" and why isn't this tritheism to you?
LM
Nobody said you are not welcome here. I have already attempted that we resolved all it is that you have against me. It's very obvious that you are playing games with the words you are using, implying things against my character and my person, but I don't hold that against you. If you want us to resolve these issues, I'm here for you. We can discuss openly, sincerely, and with respect for each other despite our disagreements.
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
You have been flinging unfounded accusations against me, Andrew, ever since you came on these boards. And you know it. And everyone else has seen you do it.
Why are you still doing it, if you want me to feel welcome?
But never mind that. What I would really like to see is you tolerating other people's point of view for one or two posts before you start fighting with them.
That business about the Parliament is another red herring. Just stop with the minutiae and I'll be happy.
And stop requiring me to submit to your evaluation of my Orthodoxy. That is my spiritual father's job, and although you obviously have the ambition to be spiritual father of anyone who enters one of "your" threads, you have no epitrachelion, nor epigonation, unless you are some Greek prelate's way to get on line. If so, tell us who you really are.
It is so very hard to believe that one as young as you can be so sure of supreme proficiency in patristics. You're hardly dry behind the ears yet!
[ 24. November 2008, 19:05: Message edited by: Leetle Masha ]
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eleison me, tin amartolin: have mercy on me, the sinner
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
Andrew, I think we've already been over the ground of how our conception (speaking for the Western Christians here)of three divine persons is not tritheism. It isn't tritheistic because we believe and confess that these three share a single divine substance, that each is God and that the three persons are in intimate relationshp, mutually interpenetrating and indwelling. The Son is God, of eternal generation from The Father, and the Holy Spirit is God, of eternal spiration from the Father (again leaving aside in what sense the procession of the Spirit involves the agency or being of the Son).
Now, I know that answer doesn't satisfy you because you will want to know what exactly I mean by person.
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
LSK
your description begs two questions:
What you mean by substance, and
What you mean by person.
So, yeah, I think it's only reasonable that I ask you to explain what you mean by those words. I explained what I mean by them. Your turn. Else the description isn't of much use, is it?
My question was a bit different, however. I started by the common phrase "there are three divine persons", and I asked what you understand this phrase to mean, and then, after you explained that, how, in your view, this isn't tritheism.
That's all I asked.
I explained the answer I give to that question. See for example the dialog here, under Athanasius' name in MIgne's Patrology.
I have been replying to all sort of questions. I think it would be constructive if you (pl.) gave your answer to the one question I posed. I got even more questions back. I answered. I asked my question again. I think it's an important question.
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
It's not only an ambiguous question, Lietuvos, it's a loaded question that is being used to evaluate the "Orthodoxy" (small or large O) of anybody and everybody.
Only an ordained Orthodox priest, with the emblems of qualification to hear confessions, can actually do that. So if someone says on this thread that someone else's beliefs are heterodox, we usually depend on the ordained priest to make that judgement.
I have detailed all my beliefs to my spiritual father, and he has pronounced me to be Orthodox. He does not ask such loaded questions, of course, nor does he demand a c.v. as a qualification to discuss the Creed and the Definition of Chalcedon.
I keep hoping these discussions will help us all find some common ground, but I guess the requirements for agreement on this thread are too steep. It's our "education", dontcha know, that stands in our way.
Mary
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eleison me, tin amartolin: have mercy on me, the sinner
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
Andrew, I'm very reluctant to use specific terms to try to describe the quality and "thingness" of personhood that exists x3 in the Triune God. We are talking about three distinctions, three who are each eternal, three who are each almighty, three who are each God; yet not three gods but one God together. It is the nature of God to be these Three. God is One and God's Substance - God's "existance" - comprises these Three; and each of these three does not exist in isolation, but with the other two persons. In this sense, though God is three persons, God is indivisible. The persons cannot be understood without reference to the one substance - the one reality of Deity - whilst the one reality of Deity cannot be understood properly except in reference to the Three Persons.
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
SPK
If in English you are using "He" for bodies, for many persons together, then by all means use "He" for the Trinity. But if you are not doing that, then using it for the Trinity would mean something different other than what the word "trinity" actually means.
By the way, how do you understand "there are three divine persons" and why isn't this tritheism to you?
...
What LSK said about the Three Persons and their mutual indwelling. They share a fundamental threeness and oneness, in that they act together and share a single Divine Will. All three exist simultaneously and act separately, yet in perfect harmony due to their fundamental, overarching "God-ness". The Trinity is not three gods who act in opposition or disharmony to each other.
Anyway, excellent point about language Leetle Masha. Like all English-Canadian school kids, I took French lessons in elementary and high school. The first thing you realize about French is that it has this baffling concept called grammatical gender which has nothing to do strictly with being sexually male or female. As English doesn't work that way, it takes a lot of getting used to.
Question: Why is "my family" considered female in French?
Answer: It just is. Welcome to French.
English has done away with grammatical gender of the kind Andrew is used to in Greek. That's just they way it is.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Actually it is far easier to understand. We use "he" rather than "it" for God simply as "it" is slightly coarser. You would not want to imply the Godhead is less than a person now would you. It is a mark of respect and nothing more.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Actually it is far easier to understand. We use "he" rather than "it" for God simply as "it" is slightly coarser. You would not want to imply the Godhead is less than a person now would you. It is a mark of respect and nothing more.
I wonder if Andreas gets that? I mean really?
Just to be clear - in English there is no grammatical gender. "He" means male and "She" means female. As simple as that.
However, in English, it is also rude or insulting to refer to a person as "it". (Or indeed anything to which we conventionally attribute personality including animals in general, countries, and sometimes even machines such as moving vehicles and in particular ships - languages are funny like that)
So we are in a bind when talking about God. Either we say "it", which seems rude to us, and also implies that God is not a person - it would be something that a deist or an agnostic might say, but not a Christian or other theist. Or else we choose to use either "he" or "she". Which is more personal but really does contain the misleading implication that we think God is male or female. As you have seem arguments about.
But there really is no choice that works out for everybody.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
See my comment to that, in reply to SPK, here.
[ 24. November 2008, 21:40: Message edited by: §Andrew ]
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Let's all get together VERY CLOSE, earlobe touching earlobe and .....
>
>
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bang our heads together.
By the authority committed to my office (not to my person) ...
Love one another and LISTEN (no one excepted and including me).
I am not trying to be a Host BUT IN THE NAME OF GOD,
ENOUGH! ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
This was my answer to Andrew's question.
I thought it was the sort of answer he wanted, because he had said that the answer lay in the Fathers.
If he wanted more, I cannot give more, because I am not capable of defining dogma for the Orthodox Church.
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eleison me, tin amartolin: have mercy on me, the sinner
Posts: 6351 | From: Hesychia, in Hyperdulia | Registered: Aug 2004
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
Very sensible, Father. ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
SPK
If in English you are using "He" for bodies, for many persons together, then by all means use "He" for the Trinity. But if you are not doing that, then using it for the Trinity would mean something different other than what the word "trinity" actually means.
By the way, how do you understand "there are three divine persons" and why isn't this tritheism to you?
...
What LSK said about the Three Persons and their mutual indwelling. They share a fundamental threeness and oneness, in that they act together and share a single Divine Will. All three exist simultaneously and act separately, yet in perfect harmony due to their fundamental, overarching "God-ness". The Trinity is not three gods who act in opposition or disharmony to each other.
Thanks for your post SPK, you express this better than I did.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
What LSK said about the Three Persons and their mutual indwelling. They share a fundamental threeness and oneness, in that they act together and share a single Divine Will. All three exist simultaneously and act separately, yet in perfect harmony due to their fundamental, overarching "God-ness". The Trinity is not three gods who act in opposition or disharmony to each other.
I don't think that there's any overarching 'God-ness' in the Trinity. There's nothing more to the Trinity than the three persons. But each person is such that they are necessarily part of the Trinity. There is no conceptual space in which we can imagine the Father as not Father of the Son.
(If you don't think these things through then Aquinas' distinction between persons as independent substances and persons as relations looks like it's downgrading the reality of person. But Aquinas always has in mind the super-eminent reality of God. The problem with the Orthodox account as it is being expounded on these boards is that it looks as if the words 'three' and 'person' are being used univocally for three human persons, three martian persons, three angelic persons, and three divine persons. As if we could understand the three persons of the blessed Trinity as material contingent beings as we are.)
A question for the orthodox here:
are the persons of the Trinity part of the essence of God or part of the activity (=energies) of God. If they're only part of the activities of God, then you would appear to have modalism. If they're part of the unknowable essence, then how can we know that they are three and not one? After all Father Gregory says that we can experience them, and we can't experience the essence of God.
Probably I'm misunderstanding the essence/energy distinction, but I would like to know how.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Dafyd
In trinitarian theology 1+1+1 does NOT = 3. Are there 3 "1's" (hypostases)? Yes there are. Together, are there 3 Gods? No there are not. Are the persons personal? Yes they are. Are the 3 persons individuals? No they are not.
You simply cannot use counting and atomism to characterise the tripersonal unity. Moreover the energies of God are not activities or actions. The energies of God are God tripersonally US-WARD. The essence of God is God tripersonally GOD-WARD. Manifested and Unmanifested correlate respectively. What applies to one (the essence) applies to the other (the energies) and vice versa but ALWAYS under the schema that I have already presented, (back to the top, as they say on a web page).
PS ... your exoneration of Aquinas is meaningless ... literally without meaning.
[ 25. November 2008, 00:53: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cor ad cor loquitur:
quote:
Accept, holy Trinity, this offering which we make to you in remembrance of the passion, resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in honour of blessed Mary ever Virgin, of blessed John the Baptist, of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, of those whose relics rest here, and of all the Saints. To them may it bring honour, and to us salvation; and may they, whose memory we keep on earth, be pleased to intercede for us in heaven. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.
How does addressing the Trinity in this way come across to Orthodox ears? A Catholic commentator on the above prayer says: "This beautiful prayer ... reminds us firstly that all our worship is offered to the One God, who is a Trinity of Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit."
One thing: This might go either way. I don't know how old this prayer is, but 'you' is both plural and singular. (But it used to be 'thee' in singular.) And if we go further; 'your' is (originally) only plural and not singular. Traditionally, singular 'your' is 'thy.' So that prayer might not say much in this regard.
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
You can speak about all the hymns you like. I don't mind. The word used in that prayer is "she". The Trinity. She. The Parliament. She. Get it?
No. Because that only shifts the problem. Why is it problematic to speak of a "personal God-He" (whatever that's supposed to mean), but not problematic to speak about a "personal God-She"?
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
In trinitarian theology 1+1+1 does NOT = 3. Are there 3 "1's" (hypostases)? Yes there are. Together, are there 3 Gods? No there are not. Are the persons personal? Yes they are. Are the 3 persons individuals? No they are not.
We agree on this bit certainly.
quote:
You simply cannot use counting and atomism to characterise the tripersonal unity. Moreover the energies of God are not activities or actions. The energies of God are God tripersonally US-WARD.
This is an action or so it so it seems to me.
quote:
The essence of God is God tripersonally GOD-WARD.
This was probably the bit I was missing. I'd got the impression that absolutely nothing could be said about the essence.
quote:
PS ... your exoneration of Aquinas is meaningless ... literally without meaning.
You haven't tried to find any meaning in it, so what do you expect?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Dafyd
ENERGIES
What I am trying to exclude here is action at a distance by confessing that the Energies ARE the tripersonal hypostases manifesting one God in creation itself; ie., not acting ON creation from without but IN creation from within. Traditionally the Orthodox have said that the Energies are Uncreated (by being God). Is this your position?
AQUINAS
This is your contribution:-
quote:
I don't think that there's any overarching 'God-ness' in the Trinity. There's nothing more to the Trinity than the three persons. But each person is such that they are necessarily part of the Trinity. There is no conceptual space in which we can imagine the Father as not Father of the Son.
(If you don't think these things through then Aquinas' distinction between persons as independent substances and persons as relations looks like it's downgrading the reality of person. But Aquinas always has in mind the super-eminent reality of God.
How does the "super-eminent reality of God" rescue the plain meaning of the hypostases as combinatorial relations of two? If by "super eminent" you mean the "hyper-transcendent" ESSENCE then fair enough but I still don't see how that saves Aristotle from collapsing the hypostases into a relationality which has no underpinning in personhood.
[ 25. November 2008, 08:21: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
No. Because that only shifts the problem. Why is it problematic to speak of a "personal God-He" (whatever that's supposed to mean), but not problematic to speak about a "personal God-She"?
When we say "class, don't forget to have your homework ready for tomorrow" we don't address an ultra-personal entity, but we are using that term merely to address the persons of the students in the class.
If you are using the term trinity that way, I have no problem with it, although, if you want my personal opinion, I call the trinity it in English. I don't know if that says anything to you.
I don't get why if you don't use "he" for other collective bodies, you use it only for the trinity, if you don't refer to something ultra-personal.
That said...
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
Let's see where we are here....
First, I'm charged with tritheism, but then people say "we all believe the same" ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Then, there is no explanation of what the terms person and essence mean.
This I find problematic.
In Greek you can't get more clearer than that. The words prosopon (person), hypostasis (the one that exists on a foundational level), atom (individual), yparxis (existence) have been used to describe what we mean by "three divine persons".
Instead of that, in this very thread you spoke of one existence that is "God", an overarching "God-ness", that the Godhead is not less than a person (what does this mean????) , someone even said that God is by necessity three persons!
You can't have it both ways. Either what I said sounds tritheistic to you, or it doesn't and we are of the same faith. Confusing this issue further by not explaining the words you are using isn't helpful!
I explained very clearly what I mean with the words I use. One human substance/essence/nature... 6+ billion persons/hypostases/individuals/existences...... That's the way the ancient discussions went...
I also pointed to Paul and John...
Feel free to share your thoughts...
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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cor ad cor loquitur
Shipmate
# 11816
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Posted
(takes deep breath)
Shall we look at the Litany of the Saints? quote:
Kyrie, eleison.
R. Kyrie, eleison.
Christe, eleison.
R. Christe, eleison.
Kyrie, eleison.
R. Kyrie, eleison.
Christe, audi nos.
R. Christe, audi nos.
Christe, exaudi nos.
R. Christe, exaudi nos.
Pater de caelis Deus,
R. miserere nobis.
Fili Redemptor mundi Deus,
R. miserere nobis.
Spiritus Sancte Deus,
R. miserere nobis.
Sancta Trinitas, unus Deus,
miserere nobis.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
Father of heaven, God, have mercy on us.
Son and Saviour of the world, God, have mercy on us.
Holy Spirit, God, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.
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Quam vos veritatem interpretationis, hanc eruditi κακοζηλίαν nuncupant … si ad verbum interpretor, absurde resonant. (St Jerome, Ep. 57 to Pammachius)
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
There is something I'd like to point out before I begin addressing particular points... The difference between the creed of the first ecumenical council and that of the second is not in the "one substance"... That's in both councils. That's not what resolved the issue... If Wikipedia is to be trusted, the difference is a) calling Christ TRUE God from true God and b) expounding the verse that refers to the Holy Spirit. Which is very revealing... not just "God from true God", but "true God from true God"... which resolves the ancient controversy in a clear way... Anyway.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
A question for the orthodox here:
are the persons of the Trinity part of the essence of God or part of the activity (=energies) of God. If they're only part of the activities of God, then you would appear to have modalism. If they're part of the unknowable essence, then how can we know that they are three and not one? After all Father Gregory says that we can experience them, and we can't experience the essence of God.
Probably I'm misunderstanding the essence/energy distinction, but I would like to know how.
I'll give it a try...
We are human. Our operation is human... i.e. it has the limits that come with being human... I can't create mountains, for example... the human operation goes hand in hand with the human nature... i.e. if an operation is human, this means the nature is human... So, by the operation we get to realize which nature is which.
Take Christ for example... "I'm thirsty"... that's human. "Your sins are forgiven"... that's divine.
We begin with the persons. Always. Not with natures, nor with energies.
We have the person of Christ. And he shows both human and divine energies. This means that He is both human and divine.
Each theophany begins with someone (the person) revealing himself to a human. Take all those descriptions in Moses for example. We have the Word interacting with Moses. Moses meets with a person other than the one God, and that person's energies are divine, therefore this person is divine in nature.
That's a brief sketch.
So, the persons are NEITHER parts of the nature, NOR parts of the energies. Does this make sense?
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The problem with the Orthodox account as it is being expounded on these boards is that it looks as if the words 'three' and 'person' are being used univocally for three human persons, three martian persons, three angelic persons, and three divine persons. As if we could understand the three persons of the blessed Trinity as material contingent beings as we are.
That the use is univocal doesn't mean we apply our being matter to the divine persons... A person is just "someone". A human person, yes, it's a material someone, with flesh, bones, and blood, and all that. An angelic person doesn't have flesh and blood, but it's still a person... A divine person isn't created at all, but it's still a person.
You shouldn't go from the univocal use to attributing the characteristics of our nature to other natures... It doesn't work that way.
quote:
Originally posted by cor ad cor loquitur:
Shall we look at the Litany of the Saints?
OK... I was under the impression that you guys said something like:
Lord have mercy (to the Father)
Christ have mercy (to the Incarnate Son)
Lord have mercy (to the Spirit)
but OK...
I don't have a problem with the words in that prayer.
What do you mean however when you say "one God" in that prayer? And what do you mean when you say "there are three divine persons"? How do you understand those words?
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leetle Masha:
SPK, I understand the fixation on the gender of words in classical languages and the insistence on the agreement of any modifiers attached to the words, but I draw the line at saying that nouns with adjectives agreeing are determinative of Church dogma.
If we did as has been suggested, call the Holy Trinity "She", the Wiccans and the U.S. Feminist theologians would be begging to be chrismated in the Orthodox Church!
Then let's do it!
What I think had been lost in the West is the feminine, and specifically the power of the feminine which for the Orthodox is celebrated in the Mother of God, and this outpouring among the Wiccans and Pagans of the present day can only be to the good, the Trinity isn't male.
Found this while looking for icons of the Unburnt Bush which is an interesting read.
(John of Damascus, Holy Matter and the Mother of God by M. Sophia Compton)
quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Ah, in that case I quite agree. I have encountered people who confuse the Holy Trinity with a Divine Person, just as I've encountered people who refer to the Holy Spirit as "it." It's not orthodox Anglicanism though in the slightest. And when one encounters it in a sermon, at least it's a good indicator that one's time might be better spent mentally rehearsing the next hymn than listening to the rest of it ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Isn't the Holy Spirit referred to by "it" in the Greek NT? The Holy Spirit is feminine, Wisdom, She, in the OT.
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
quote:
Originally posted by §Andrew:
What do you mean when you say there are three divine persons and why this isn't tritheism to you?
You can speak about all the hymns you like. I don't mind. The word used in that prayer is "she". The Trinity. She. The Parliament. She. Get it?
I don't mind explaining all the examples you like. I won't forget my question to you though. What do you mean when you say there are three divine persons and why this isn't tritheism to you?
Actually this is very unclear to me. English does not have grammatical gender in the way that Greek does. Gender in English speech is entirely determined by the subject, and other then determining which form of third-person pronoun (masculine, feminine, or neuter) is used, has no impact on meaning.
"Parliament" is a mass noun. It is a corporate body, which is both plural and singular at the same time. Therefore we say "Parliament is in session right now". Parliament may have multiple parts, but it has one will.
Calling the Trinity "She" is absurd in English. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit when are addressed as male either individually or collectively. There is nothing female in that group to use a female pronoun for.
As this shows. We've ended up here with One God who is Male in three parts.
(And with one will which is problematic for us.)
Myrrh
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Major Disaster
Shipmate
# 13229
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Posted
Cor ad Cor loquitur suggested
I wonder if one way to progress this discussion might be to compare passages from the principal liturgies of both ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ churches to see how they speak of the Trinity.
For a ‘western’ source I would suggest the Roman Missal simply because it has been through a fairly rigorous theological vetting by various groups in the Vatican. ..
to which Fr Gregory replied:
Dear Cor ad Cor Loquitur
Comparing liturgical doxologies and the like is an excellent way forward.
and §Andrew responded:
Dear cor ad cor loquitur
I'm not going to disagree over words. Please, explain what you mean by those words, and I will give you my view on that.
As for calling upon the Trinity I wouldn't have a particular problem per se, but it would be the three divine persons together I would bring in mind, or, like father Gregory put it:
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Mashing it together as Trinity (which after all is only a convenient shorthand)
So, I can accept it as a convenient shorthand... What do you mean by that word? Because viewing that Trinity as a personal "He" is problematic and not Orthodox!
Having followed this thread from the beginning with considerable pain and distress at the energy directed against persons rather than towards clarifying ideas and winning their sympathy towards the truth, I once again enter the discussion to put my earlier question more explicitly, in the context and spirit of the now developing mutual understanding, that we are not simply arguing about words. I hope we are trying to clarify the most important thing of all: our understanding, within our limits, of God as revealed to us. In the spirit of finding a way forward, therefore:
How are we to understand the following prayer, which is attributed to Saint Basil the Great in the slavonic books, and is said as part of Morning Prayers by normal Orthodox Believers?
I give it in Greek, and then a standard English translation which retains the distinction of singular and plural in the second person.
ΕΥΧΗ ΠΡΩΪΝΗ - ΕΥΧΑΡΙΣΤΗΡΙΟΣ ΜΕΘ' ΙΚΕΣΙΑΣ
Εκ του ύπνου εξανιστάμενος ευχαριστώ σοι Αγία Τριάς, ότι διά την πολλήν σου αγαθότητα και μακροθυμίαν, ουκ ωργίσθης εμοί τωι ραθύμωι και αμαρτωλώι, ουδέ συναπώλεσάς με ταις ανομίαις μου, αλλ' εφιλανθρωπεύσω συνήθως και προς απόγνωσιν κείμενον, ήγειρας με εις το ορθρίσαι και δοξολογήσαι το κράτος σου. Και νυν φώτισον μου τα όμματα της διανοίας, άνοιξον μου το στόμα τού μελετάν τα λόγιά σου και συνιέναι τας εντολάς σου, και ποιείν το θέλημά σου, και ψάλλειν σοι εν εξομολογήσει καρδίας, και ανυμνείν το πανάγιον όνομά σου, του Πατρός και του Υιού και του Αγίου Πνεύματος, νυν και αεί και εις τους αιώνας των αιώνων. Αμήν.
As I rise from sleep, I thank Thee, O Holy Trinity, for through Thy great goodness and patience Thou wast not angry with me, an idler and sinner, nor hast Thou destroyed me with mine iniquities, but hast shown Thy usual love for mankind; and when I was prostrate in despair, Thou hast raised me up to keep the morning watch and glorify Thy power. And now enlighten my mind's eye, and open my mouth that I may meditate on Thy words, and understand Thy commandments, and do Thy will, and hymn Thee in heartfelt confession, and sing praises to Thine all-holy name: of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
My purpose in raising this again, after the discussion has advanced seven pages or more, is not to score points but to bring an example from basic, daily Orthodox prayer life, which appears to do what §Andrew calls problematic and not Orthodox.
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O Beata Solitudo! Sola Beatitudo!
Posts: 869 | From: Heart of Midlothian | Registered: Dec 2007
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Leetle Masha
Cantankerous Anchoress
# 8209
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Posted
MD, thanks for posting that great prayer! It's a good reminder to talk to God more than we talk about Him, at least for us idlers and sinners.
So many mentions of the Holy Trinity, so easy to forget!
M
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eleison me, tin amartolin: have mercy on me, the sinner
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
Major Disaster
I don't have a problem with using the word Trinity as a shorthand for the three divine persons, as long as we keep in mind that it is an ordinary word meaning three together, like three eggs, or whatever. It's not a magical word which means "three yet one at the same time or whatever it's a paradox"
I'm wondering why you raise this here since I already explained that this use is OK with me and that I have no problem with it.
What I do have a problem with is calling upon someone "God" who is somehow all three divine persons... There is no other "someone" than the three "someone" of the divine persons. No ultra-personal God. That was my objection.
So, I do not have a problem with the Great Basil. In fact, if we read his work against the heretics of his day, we will see him making the same arguments I made in this thread... starting from saying that the teaching of the Holy Spirit is pure and simple... to saying that all humans are "omoousians".... etc etc
So, to sum up:
a) Please take into account what I have said about the word Trinity. You will see that I didn't object on us using that word in our prayers.
b) Please take into account what Basil himself taught about these issues... His teachings are the context for his prayers.
c) I have explained what my faith is, and I hope I did so with great clarity. Now, you are free to challenge me on what I believe, and I expect you to explain what you believe as well.
I explained how I understand essence, and nature, and person, and hypostasis, and individual, and existence... I have explained how the three divine persons are not in schism with each other and how they live in each other... I also explained how there is no such thing as an "ultra-personal" "God" which we can address as if we address one person, that is somehow all three divine persons.
What are your thoughts about those things?
[ 25. November 2008, 14:54: Message edited by: §Andrew ]
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
Andrew, I can't adequately explain why it's not tritheism other than to say that it's something about the particular divine nature such that any divine person who has it will be one with the others. Divine persons are united in their nature and purpose and capability and action in a way that three gods would not be.
I believe this is what the fathers were getting at in saying the mono- in monotheism is not numerical. I'm not convinced about those who used the one-ness of human nature as an analogy though.
Is that enough to be getting on with? This is a work in progress for me. Increasingly I'm less worried about tritheism, though, as I think that would imply opposition or competition or division in the divine nature, something which I don't think any Christian believes.
On this question of appropriate pronouns, although I largely agree with Ken I think western thought is occasionally prone to using language that's too imprecise. For me, it's fine to use "it" for trinity but I'd tend to use "they" instead because that better conveys what trinity means to me. The divine nature isn't God, and God isn't a committee. Each of the divine persons is fully God. When somebody says God is a trinity, my heresiometer twitches.
Having said that, I have no problem with a statement that says "God is like this..." because by default the G word means the Father, and according to the doctrine of the Trinity that also says what the Son and the Spirit are like in context. This is the reason I would find it wrong to call God "it" - because God is a person. And he has a Son who is true God, and a Spirit who is true God.
Having said all that too, I don't go looking for a stake and a box of matches when somebody refers to the trinity as God. Dig a bit deeper and you'll almost certainly find it's sloppy language or unexamined assumptions or a different way of approaching the mystery, not the beginning of a modalist takeover.
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Isn't the Holy Spirit referred to by "it" in the Greek NT? The Holy Spirit is feminine, Wisdom, She, in the OT.
Only just spotted this Myrrh, sorry.
That's not the point. The revealed doctrine, or for the Daves around the traditional opinion of the Church is that the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person and we don't refer to persons as "it" in English unless we want to be insulting. So if I hear somebody calling the Holy Spirit by the I word, it sounds to me like they're either being rude or they're denying the Personhood of the Spirit - insert my usual disclaimer about jumping to conclusions etc.
I've got no axe to grind regarding the choice of masculine or feminine pronoun.
[ 25. November 2008, 15:15: Message edited by: GreyFace ]
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
GreyFace, I don't want to move beyond the second ecumenical council... because if we are having problems here, wait to see the problems we will have once we get discussing "one divine will" and "no γνώμη in Christ"....
I agree with much of what you wrote... BUT...
...the problem for me is this: that the three divine persons are in communion with each other is not a result of their nature... and this has important implications for us... because we are called to be one "exactly as" they are one. So, if you explain their "oneness" in any way that does not allow for us becoming one as they are one this just overthrows the whole gospel.
[ 25. November 2008, 15:35: Message edited by: §Andrew ]
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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Major Disaster
Shipmate
# 13229
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Posted
Andrew, I read your posts with care, I learned to refine my thinking under the relentless barrage of your questions, and I am very grateful to you. I agree that there can be no question of any call upon the Trinity-as-super-person, an individual with which or whom one relates, being orthodox Christianity.
However, you said yourself that Trinity-He is problematic and not Orthodox. The thread started with that premise, quoting "He too does not find love," and finding that to be unitarian. This was taken as typifying the unitarianism of western Christianity, causing much painful discussion and protests from LSK SPK and others, including Orthodox Christians.
I understood through the discussion, that you allow Trinity as a shorthand for the three Persons, and that "God" as an address is for you the Father, and that is how you understand it is used in the Creed. I accept that, and agree.
But in this prayer, the Trinity is NOT shorthand for the Three, or else it would naturally use the second person plural. It uses the singular repeatedly, and then names the Three as the name of One, quite deliberately and explicitly. I think it a good example of true and orthodox belief and prayer, using language in a way that you claimed to be unacceptable. I am not trying to score points, although I hope this will cause you to modify your high demands for orthodoxy.
As to asking me what I believe, I fear my answer will be the profession of Faith of the First two Councils, as further defined and elucidated by the subsequent Holy Councils of the Church. I fear my ignorance, and inability to express the Truth, and will try not to be drawn into showing prowess in this most important of areas, where I see but in a glass darkly, yet believe with all my strength what the Church believes and proclaims.
This prayer has been a problem for me; but I say it sincerely because I have it from the Church, and I believe in the Church.
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O Beata Solitudo! Sola Beatitudo!
Posts: 869 | From: Heart of Midlothian | Registered: Dec 2007
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El Greco
Shipmate
# 9313
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Posted
Major Disaster, I ask that you allow me to speak openly about what you wrote.
quote:
Originally posted by Major Disaster:
However, you said yourself that Trinity-He is problematic and not Orthodox. The thread started with that premise, quoting "He too does not find love," and finding that to be unitarian. This was taken as typifying the unitarianism of western Christianity, causing much painful discussion and protests from LSK SPK and others, including Orthodox Christians.
This makes things much clearer. So, thanks for that! I have only one reservation, which I will share below, but if my reservation gets lifted, I will accept the "He too finds no love" as OK.
Now, to my reservation:
quote:
But in this prayer, the Trinity is NOT shorthand for the Three, or else it would naturally use the second person plural.
This is not accurate, as I have tried to explain in many posts. Exactly because it's a shorthand we do NOT use the second person plural. The word, grammatically speaking is in the singular, in the feminine gender, which is why the singular number is used.
It's much like the Greek word for parliament... "Edoxe ti vouli kai to dimo"... "It seemed good to the parliament and the city"... The "vouli" is like the "triada" (trinity), in the singular, in the feminine gender... denoting the members of the parliament.
So, it's NOT because of a mystery of oneness other than the oneness of communion into which we are called also "to be one" that the singular number is used.
If you used it that way, I wouldn't object. But it seems that you don't and so my objection remains.
I asked to be allowed to speak openly. Here's why:
quote:
This prayer has been a problem for me; but I say it sincerely because I have it from the Church, and I believe in the Church.
This reminds me of "faith seeking understanding". Having acquainted myself with the Orthodox teachings throughout the centuries, this does not sound Orthodox at all in my ears. Faith always follows knowledge and experience. First we know and experience God and then comes the faith of God. Faith that seeks knowledge and does not come as a result of knowledge is rejected in strong terms by the Orthodox Saints.
I hope you forgive me for saying this much.
[ 25. November 2008, 16:00: Message edited by: §Andrew ]
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Ξέρω εγώ κάτι που μπορούσε, Καίσαρ, να σας σώσει.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
ENERGIES
What I am trying to exclude here is action at a distance by confessing that the Energies ARE the tripersonal hypostases manifesting one God in creation itself; ie., not acting ON creation from without but IN creation from within. Traditionally the Orthodox have said that the Energies are Uncreated (by being God). Is this your position?
I have no position on the energies / essence distinction. It seems to me in so far as I understand it to be an attempt to have the apophatic cake and eat it. Obviously I am in no particular position to make that judgement on the basis of the primary sources, but I note that Rowan Williams who is more intelligent, wiser and holier than either of us, and knows more about Eastern Orthodox theology, doubts that the distinction can be rendered coherent.
The distinction between God acting on or God acting in creation is merely verbal. God is not spatially located in relation to creation.
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AQUINAS
This is your contribution:-
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(If you don't think these things through then Aquinas' distinction between persons as independent substances and persons as relations looks like it's downgrading the reality of person. But Aquinas always has in mind the super-eminent reality of God.
How does the "super-eminent reality of God" rescue the plain meaning of the hypostases as combinatorial relations of two? If by "super eminent" you mean the "hyper-transcendent" ESSENCE then fair enough but I still don't see how that saves Aristotle from collapsing the hypostases into a relationality which has no underpinning in personhood.
ITYM Aquinas not Aristotle, unless the slip is Freudian.
By super-eminent I mean that God's existence is God's essence, an opinion that Aquinas shared with the Islamic and Jewish neo-platonists (and which I believe they got from John Damascene - but I doubt the Orthodox would dissent from the claim). (Remember my point that the West starts with the revelation of one God to the Gentiles?) It follows that as you say God is not three individuals: the three persons share the same essence which is the same existence.
Aquinas doesn't start from the claim that the persons are relations. He starts from the observation that the Father generates the Son. The only generation we are aware of which is not a creation of a distinct individual (which would be Arianism) is an intentional communication/attitude. Hence it is proper to understand the Son as the intellect/word (as in John Damascene the two signify the same). And the intellect is a relation.
Relations can of course be self-relations: you only need one thing for a self-reflexive relationship.
If you're an Anglo-American empiricist, then of course you assume that the only real reality is individuals, and relations can be reduced to properties of individuals. But that raises too many aporiae. Hegel responding the aporiae of Hume and Leibniz and Kant came to the conclusion that relations such as intellect are in fact fundamental reality.
But Aquinas in defining fundamental being not as static self-identity but as the divine activity of self-creation had got there first. And I think Aquinas' solution is better than Hegel's in that Hegel tends to deny material reality a genuine place. Hegel ignores the role of contingency in created existence: no relation in created existence can be fundamental since either term could exist without the other. Hegel would look to Aquinas rather too much like a neo-Platonist.
Now I think it's true that if you take Aquinas out of context it looks as if he's denying any genuine reality to the persons. But you oughtn't to do that: in Aquinas, as much as any thinker, you can't understand his positions without seeing how he got there. Aquinas' definition of the persons as relation needs to be understood in terms of his fundamental doctrines of God as existence as such, and that all language for God is analogical.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Major Disaster
Shipmate
# 13229
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Posted
If it doesn't sound orthodox to you, I am not surprised, particularly, but I suspect you are using both Faith and Knowledge in a different sense from the normal primary meaning in English. I really don't want to engage in a debate over words and their meanings in different languages.
I can see what you mean concerning the Prayer to the Trinity using the second person singular in an analogy with the Parliament. It is a valuable insight for which I am grateful.
My life experience has been that I have never known anyone completely. I believe that this is the case for other people, and there is much evidence that we are each a mystery to one another. I have never thought that this side of death I shall "know as I have been known" by God, and have willingly taken many decisions on faith and trust. Vindication of trust, or disappointment come later, and never complete the picture in the sense implied by the tag fides quaerens intellectum which you render as faith seeking knowledge, or earlier, faith seeking understanding.
Faith that seeks knowledge and does not come as a result of knowledge is rejected in strong terms by the Orthodox Saints.
Does this mean that neither faith nor knowledge grow as a person grows?
I think the desire to grow in knowledge is not rejected by St John of Damascus in the work I linked to, or St Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Catechetical Instructions, nor by the Cappadocian Fathers in their teaching on the Trinity, or St Athanasius on the Incarnation, for a start. Else why would they have written? If you reply that this is for refutation of the heterodox I shall wonder why the latter's knowledge of God was so deficient that their faith was perverted, since I understand the relationship with God to be not initiated by the human person, only reciprocated out of free choice.
You have written freely and I see no malice in what you wrote. I have nothing to forgive in this. But you said you would accept Karol Wojtyla's 1938 poem with one reservation, which you then tied to my use of God-He, deduced from my confessed earlier difficulties with the prayer I cited. You should simply accept that you don't, cannot know who Karol Wojtyla's He is, since there is no means of identifying the He of the poem. That was the substance of my objection to your OP when I first posted on this thread, and you have given no satisfaction on this. His poem is quite independent of anything I may have said, and the author was used undeservedly as a pillory to launch your argument. You cannot hurt J-PII now, so I leave the matter to your conscience, as I have no standing to forgive a slur on him and his Faith.
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O Beata Solitudo! Sola Beatitudo!
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Dafyd
For all that I respect Abp. Rowan I am afraid that you can't trump me with him. I do not build my own doctrine but rather that of the saints and faithers of the Orthodox Church.
Although St. Gregory Palamas was the first to articulate this distinction between essence and energies systematically he remained an existential theologian and traced the distinction back within the Tradition of the Church but articulated in different ways at different times. If this distinction is not made then any contrast of God's transcendence and immanence is merely semantic. Aquinas (not Aristotle, sorry) does not work within theological framework nor does he start from the Church's experience of God but rather builds on an Augustinian framework and pushes the equivalence of the hypostases to the point where they effectively disappear leaving merely the smile of the Cheshire Cat beaming down moggiless.
No amount of "you need to see how he got there" (I know how he got there and it was a wrong turning) or all theological language is analogical (it isn't - we have had this before about "Father" as a Divine Name) will rescue the Angelic Doctor from the plain sense of his conclusion to which you yourself have attested.
[ 25. November 2008, 23:52: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
Posts: 15099 | From: Manchester, UK | Registered: May 2001
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