If it's not the _nature_ that suffers, it's the _person_ who suffers, then is the person different from the nature? Do we now have a subject (God) who is a composite of nature and person? If the nature of God is one and undivided with no passive potency, then is God's rationality something added to His essence? If that is the case, how is _person_ not a creature? Aquinas stated that whatever is not the divine essence is a creature. And under classical theism, the person (of the Godhead) is not distinct from the (divine) essence. So, if the person suffers, the essence suffers. This appears to be having it both ways. Moreover, doesn't passive potency include the capacity to receive substantial and accidental perfection? If "nature" can receive rationality, how is that not the actualization of a potency in the nature? More generally, if nature can receive anything accidental, how is that not equally the actualization of a potency in the nature itself?
Was wondering how Palamite theology would be useful, huh! I think the biggest hurdle in me embracing Orthodoxy then would be its claim to historic iconography.
@@origamitraveler7425 That's your biggest hurdle? Orthodox Church sold indulgences just like Catholics: orthochristian.com/7185.html Orthodox Compline prayer to Mary: "On the terrible day of judgment, deliver me from eternal punishment and make me an heir of your Son's glory," weedon.blogspot.com/2009/08/thoughts-on-compline-prayer.html?m=0 During liturgy, Orthodox priests sometimes take communion without communing anyone in the congregation: orthodoxcityhermit.com/2016/08/09/often-receive-holy-communion/ I live in Taiwan. There is only one Orthodox parish in the entire country, established in 2001. English language only. That's it. The only Taiwanese who have taken any interest are English speaking evangelicals. Orthodox are so bad at the Great Commission because you only care about chronological uniformity, and ignore "disciples of all nations." Their church only understands half of the definition of the word catholic. Jesus, Paul, and Andrew founded the Eastern Orthodox Church which is guilty of the above errors and abuses. Jesus, Stephen, the eunuch, and Mark founded the Oriental Orthodox Church, which rejects the Chalcedonian Definition. Jesus, Thaddeus, Bartholomew and Thomas founded the Church of the East, which fell into Nestorianism. Each one claims to be the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. These claims are equally legitimate. Apostolic succession has saved none of them from heresy.Yet those Reformation churches who retain and preserve apostolic succession are somehow illegitimate because of heresy.
Might the question of immutability be taken further back to the point at which God became Creator? I tend to think that if one is concerned to affirm there is no change in who/what God is, then creation must be understood as simply an extension of what God already was before He created. The Scriptures tell us that He clothes Himself with light as with a garment. Could that mean that God has always been giving Himself (as the Logos) some kind of material embodiment, and that the creation derives from that? I think the definition of immutability is often more of a philosophically derived dogma rather than Scripturally derived. As for God's relenting in the case of deciding to change his approach to mankind when He observed the ways in which they were misusing their freedom and deepening their wickedness, I think the Bible makes it clear that God, having given freedom of choice and a certain autonomy to people, observed how they behaved and adjusted His treatment of them accordingly. It does not involve an essential change in God, merely His wise responsiveness to the behavior of free creatures. That He limited His foreknowledge in giving a power of choice to angels and men does not mean that He is not omniscient with regard to what they actually do, or think in their minds and hearts to do.It does mean a voluntary limitation of His knowledge until He makes the observation of their behavior in time.
God is no more changed by His acts upon/in/through/towards His creatures, than an author is changed by inventing his characters. Inventing Hobbits, does not make a man a Hobbit - he remains the human author he was. So why should the Incarnation of the Person Who is the Word of God, change the Word ? A man who invents Hobbits, has found a new way of expressing himself. This is a distant reflection of the Divine Act of “sub-creation”, invention, & Self-expression that is the Incarnation of the Eternal Word of God as the man Christ Jesus. God is not limited by His actions - they are expressions of God’s Sovereign Goodness & Power; but to express God, is not the same as to exhaust or contain God. God is not limited by creatures, and the limitations He gives them, are not limitations upon God. The Incarnation is an instance of God’s Self-expression, in this case as a genuine human being; it no more changes the God Whom it expresses, than being painted or photographed or represented in some other way changes the person represented.
I hope you're still around to discuss this because the man who was created by God has a center of consciousness in him that is ignorant and has the passive potency to learn. Either that center of consciousness is the person of God or it is solely a creature. If the former, then God is changed in that He becomes ignorant to some degree. If the latter, then Jesus was two persons (Nestorianism) or two centers of consciousness with the human center being either solely human or a secondary range of awareness from the divine person. If the latter, then God's consciousness is mutable. If you can offer a solution to that dilemma, I'd like to hear it.
@@davidcoleman5860 To that I would say, that the Divine Person Who assumed a human nature from the human mother of the God-man is the subject who is capable of learning: but only because the Divine Person has united a human - therefore created and finite and perfectible - nature with the Divine Nature of the Logos, in the unity of the Person of the Divine Logos. We are getting into exceedingly deep waters here ! As Dante says in the Paradiso, these are "things difficult to think". The "centre of consciousness" of the Incarnate Logos is - as far as I can see - the created, perfectible, human soul of His created, perfectible, human nature. Through the Hypostatic Union, there is an indissoluble union of the Two Natures, so that each nature "indwells" the another, each nature retaining what is proper to each, without confusion or mixture. The union of the human soul with God through the grace of the Holy Spirit, is a consequence, and an echo, of that. The Sacred Humanity of the Logos is the "instrument" by which the Incarnate Logos, a Divine Person, performs human acts that, because they are the acts of the God-man, are more precisely described as Theandric - "God-mannish" - acts. They are fully human acts, of Divine value and thus, of infinite merit and saving power. The Logos is One Logos, eternally and timelessly present with the Father "before all ages"; but no less really, truly and fully present in time, on Earth, as the Incarnate Lord Who was born a man from the Virgin. The same Divine Person "fills heaven and earth", as God; and was present, in a self-limited manner, as a man, among other men on Earth, during a particular period. The created human nature of the Divine Logos is limited, but the Divine Person and Divine Nature of the Divine Logos is Uncreated and Unlimited. Short answer: I think the dilemma you proposed is not insoluble. Striving with these questions makes one appreciate the value of what the Fathers and their successors achieved, in thinking upon these great and always mysterious questions. A good answer would say plenty about the Undivided Trinity, and about much else. This is no more than scratching the surface.
@@JamesMC04 Thanks for your reply, James. Please be assured that I'm not trying to be argumentative. I am a classical theist who is firmly committed to divine immutability (that there is no passive potency in God), but that's what makes it impossible, at this point, for me to grasp the human center of consciousness in Christ. I say "center of consciousness" to avoid saying "person" because, of course, a person is the subject, and the subject we're discussing is Jesus who is one person with two natures. Assuming a human body via the incarnation is not the issue with me. Since God is every perfection transcendently, no further actuality of being (perfection) could accrue to Him by definition. However, ignorance isn't a perfection; it is either a privation of knowledge or a potency to obtain knowledge. If the human conscious self of Jesus is _solely_ human, then I don't see how that avoids a variation of Unitarianism. If His human consciousness is God's consciousness limiting Himself, then I do not see how that is possible without that entailing some sort of passive potency (the capacity to lose or diminish a state of being, which in this case is omniscience). The standard answer is that His omniscience was not diminished in His divine nature; it was only diminished in His human nature. But that's precisely my problem. To me, that is tantamount to saying that God can cease being God in some instances, which appears metaphysically impossible. Again, I'm not trying to be argumentative. I'm trying to make my question as clear as possible as it exists in my mind.
@@davidcoleman5860 I wrote a reply to that, and then lost it. As happens occasionally. I am not sure this question can be resolved. IMHO, there was no diminishing, but instead the operation of the created - and vastly graced - human soul and intellect that were parts of the created human nature, by the Divine Person and Nature, as instruments of the Divine Person and Nature. The human nature of Christ is the instrument of the Logos. And the Logos is the only Person Whose human nature that human nature is.
If it's not the _nature_ that suffers, it's the _person_ who suffers, then is the person different from the nature? Do we now have a subject (God) who is a composite of nature and person? If the nature of God is one and undivided with no passive potency, then is God's rationality something added to His essence? If that is the case, how is _person_ not a creature? Aquinas stated that whatever is not the divine essence is a creature. And under classical theism, the person (of the Godhead) is not distinct from the (divine) essence. So, if the person suffers, the essence suffers. This appears to be having it both ways.
Moreover, doesn't passive potency include the capacity to receive substantial and accidental perfection? If "nature" can receive rationality, how is that not the actualization of a potency in the nature? More generally, if nature can receive anything accidental, how is that not equally the actualization of a potency in the nature itself?
Fortunately, this is not an issue for us Eastern Orthodox Christians, because of our essence and energy distinction.
@@jamesb0gginsw0rth63 :) !!!
Was wondering how Palamite theology would be useful, huh!
I think the biggest hurdle in me embracing Orthodoxy then would be its claim to historic iconography.
@@origamitraveler7425 That's your biggest hurdle?
Orthodox Church sold indulgences just like Catholics: orthochristian.com/7185.html
Orthodox Compline prayer to Mary: "On the terrible day of judgment, deliver me from eternal punishment and make me an heir of your Son's glory,"
weedon.blogspot.com/2009/08/thoughts-on-compline-prayer.html?m=0
During liturgy, Orthodox priests sometimes take communion without communing anyone in the congregation: orthodoxcityhermit.com/2016/08/09/often-receive-holy-communion/
I live in Taiwan. There is only one Orthodox parish in the entire country, established in 2001. English language only. That's it. The only Taiwanese who have taken any interest are English speaking evangelicals. Orthodox are so bad at the Great Commission because you only care about chronological uniformity, and ignore "disciples of all nations." Their church only understands half of the definition of the word catholic.
Jesus, Paul, and Andrew founded the Eastern Orthodox Church which is guilty of the above errors and abuses. Jesus, Stephen, the eunuch, and Mark founded the Oriental Orthodox Church, which rejects the Chalcedonian Definition. Jesus, Thaddeus, Bartholomew and Thomas founded the Church of the East, which fell into Nestorianism. Each one claims to be the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. These claims are equally legitimate. Apostolic succession has saved none of them from heresy.Yet those Reformation churches who retain and preserve apostolic succession are somehow illegitimate because of heresy.
That’s the best joke I heard all week that the Old Testament teaches immutability.
Might the question of immutability be taken further back to the point at which God became Creator? I tend to think that if one is concerned to affirm there is no change in who/what God is, then creation must be understood as simply an extension of what God already was before He created. The Scriptures tell us that He clothes Himself with light as with a garment. Could that mean that God has always been giving Himself (as the Logos) some kind of material embodiment, and that the creation derives from that? I think the definition of immutability is often more of a philosophically derived dogma rather than Scripturally derived. As for God's relenting in the case of deciding to change his approach to mankind when He observed the ways in which they were misusing their freedom and deepening their wickedness, I think the Bible makes it clear that God, having given freedom of choice and a certain autonomy to people, observed how they behaved and adjusted His treatment of them accordingly. It does not involve an essential change in God, merely His wise responsiveness to the behavior of free creatures. That He limited His foreknowledge in giving a power of choice to angels and men does not mean that He is not omniscient with regard to what they actually do, or think in their minds and hearts to do.It does mean a voluntary limitation of His knowledge until He makes the observation of their behavior in time.
God is no more changed by His acts upon/in/through/towards His creatures, than an author is changed by inventing his characters. Inventing Hobbits, does not make a man a Hobbit - he remains the human author he was. So why should the Incarnation of the Person Who is the Word of God, change the Word ? A man who invents Hobbits, has found a new way of expressing himself. This is a distant reflection of the Divine Act of “sub-creation”, invention, & Self-expression that is the Incarnation of the Eternal Word of God as the man Christ Jesus.
God is not limited by His actions - they are expressions of God’s Sovereign Goodness & Power; but to express God, is not the same as to exhaust or contain God. God is not limited by creatures, and the limitations He gives them, are not limitations upon God.
The Incarnation is an instance of God’s Self-expression, in this case as a genuine human being; it no more changes the God Whom it expresses, than being painted or photographed or represented in some other way changes the person represented.
I hope you're still around to discuss this because the man who was created by God has a center of consciousness in him that is ignorant and has the passive potency to learn. Either that center of consciousness is the person of God or it is solely a creature. If the former, then God is changed in that He becomes ignorant to some degree. If the latter, then Jesus was two persons (Nestorianism) or two centers of consciousness with the human center being either solely human or a secondary range of awareness from the divine person. If the latter, then God's consciousness is mutable. If you can offer a solution to that dilemma, I'd like to hear it.
@@davidcoleman5860 To that I would say, that the Divine Person Who assumed a human nature from the human mother of the God-man is the subject who is capable of learning: but only because the Divine Person has united a human - therefore created and finite and perfectible - nature with the Divine Nature of the Logos, in the unity of the Person of the Divine Logos. We are getting into exceedingly deep waters here ! As Dante says in the Paradiso, these are "things difficult to think".
The "centre of consciousness" of the Incarnate Logos is - as far as I can see - the created, perfectible, human soul of His created, perfectible, human nature. Through the Hypostatic Union, there is an indissoluble union of the Two Natures, so that each nature "indwells" the another, each nature retaining what is proper to each, without confusion or mixture. The union of the human soul with God through the grace of the Holy Spirit, is a consequence, and an echo, of that. The Sacred Humanity of the Logos is the "instrument" by which the Incarnate Logos, a Divine Person, performs human acts that, because they are the acts of the God-man, are more precisely described as Theandric - "God-mannish" - acts. They are fully human acts, of Divine value and thus, of infinite merit and saving power.
The Logos is One Logos, eternally and timelessly present with the Father "before all ages"; but no less really, truly and fully present in time, on Earth, as the Incarnate Lord Who was born a man from the Virgin. The same Divine Person "fills heaven and earth", as God; and was present, in a self-limited manner, as a man, among other men on Earth, during a particular period. The created human nature of the Divine Logos is limited, but the Divine Person and Divine Nature of the Divine Logos is Uncreated and Unlimited.
Short answer: I think the dilemma you proposed is not insoluble. Striving with these questions makes one appreciate the value of what the Fathers and their successors achieved, in thinking upon these great and always mysterious questions. A good answer would say plenty about the Undivided Trinity, and about much else. This is no more than scratching the surface.
@@JamesMC04 Thanks for your reply, James. Please be assured that I'm not trying to be argumentative. I am a classical theist who is firmly committed to divine immutability (that there is no passive potency in God), but that's what makes it impossible, at this point, for me to grasp the human center of consciousness in Christ. I say "center of consciousness" to avoid saying "person" because, of course, a person is the subject, and the subject we're discussing is Jesus who is one person with two natures.
Assuming a human body via the incarnation is not the issue with me. Since God is every perfection transcendently, no further actuality of being (perfection) could accrue to Him by definition. However, ignorance isn't a perfection; it is either a privation of knowledge or a potency to obtain knowledge. If the human conscious self of Jesus is _solely_ human, then I don't see how that avoids a variation of Unitarianism. If His human consciousness is God's consciousness limiting Himself, then I do not see how that is possible without that entailing some sort of passive potency (the capacity to lose or diminish a state of being, which in this case is omniscience). The standard answer is that His omniscience was not diminished in His divine nature; it was only diminished in His human nature. But that's precisely my problem. To me, that is tantamount to saying that God can cease being God in some instances, which appears metaphysically impossible.
Again, I'm not trying to be argumentative. I'm trying to make my question as clear as possible as it exists in my mind.
@@davidcoleman5860 I wrote a reply to that, and then lost it. As happens occasionally. I am not sure this question can be resolved.
IMHO, there was no diminishing, but instead the operation of the created - and vastly graced - human soul and intellect that were parts of the created human nature, by the Divine Person and Nature, as instruments of the Divine Person and Nature. The human nature of Christ is the instrument of the Logos. And the Logos is the only Person Whose human nature that human nature is.
Sounds like nestorianism to me.