Numerically speaking, the two major theological traditions are Catholicism and Orthodoxy. It’s striking that, in their different ways, both traditions have a deep commitment to theological illusionism.
In Catholicism, you can see this in the dogma of transubstantiation. Here the illusion operates at two levels. To begin with, the consecrated bread and wine retain the sensible properties of bread and wine, but that’s illusory because, in essence, the communion elements have been changed into the true body and blood of Christ. So there’s no connection between the substance and the sensible properties. The Mass is like the Matrix: virtual reality.
But the illusion runs even deeper. According to Catholic dogma, the communion elements become the “true body and blood of Christ.”
But what is a true body? What makes a body a human body? All of us have an intimate experience with human bodies.
Yet, when you consume the Host, does that mean you consume a miniature version of Jesus’ body? Are you, say, eating Jesus from the top down, starting with the hair, brains, ears, eyeballs, and teeth, and working your way down through the fingers, genitalia, and lower intestine until you swallow his toenails? Or is this a “processed body,” like processed meat?
Whatever else Catholicism means by the “true body,” I don’t think that’s what it means. And yet that’s our only point of reference. A true human body has all those constituents. Has that structure. Limbs, bones, organs, urine, &c.
So transubstantiation is illusory at two levels. The secondary qualities of the bread and wine don’t signify or identify the primary qualities. Indeed, the secondary qualities are systematically deceptive. For they naturally belong to a very different substance.
And the substance doesn’t correspond to what we naturally mean by a human body. The substance is alien to human experience. So the Host is an illusion encasing an enigma.
Orthodoxy also has a deep commitment to theological illusionism. We can see this in its dichotomy between the divine essence and the divine energies. God is said to be absolutely unknowable in his essence, yet he reveals himself in his energies.
But if that’s the case, then what do his energies reveal? Not his essence. Hence, God is essentially unlike his energies.
Orthodoxy prides itself on its Trinitarian theology. But is God really three persons? He may reveal himself as three persons, but that’s a manifestation of his energies, not his essence. Maybe he’s one person rather than three. Or maybe the Son is the fons deitas. For the energies are dissimilar to the essence.
We’re not just talking about the possibility that God’s energies may not correspond to his essence. Rather, if God is unknowable in his essence, then his energies don’t correspond to his essence.
His energies present an illusory revelation of God. Illusory persons. Illusory attributes. Virtual reality. What lies behind the mask?
Numerically speaking, the two major theological traditions are Catholicism and Orthodoxy.
ReplyDeleteYeahg, right, ... I'd wish. (Protestantism has 600 to 800 milion souls).
It’s striking that, in their different ways, both traditions have a deep commitment to theological illusionism.
ReplyDeleteSteve, I applaud you for having the courage AND the immense intelligence and hopefully wisdom for treading continuously in areas where few dare to tread.
Yet, when you consume the Host, does that mean you consume a miniature version of Jesus’ body? Are you, say, eating Jesus from the top down, starting with the hair, brains, ears, eyeballs, and teeth, and working your way down through the fingers, genitalia, and lower intestine until you swallow his toenails? Or is this a “processed body,” like processed meat?
ReplyDeleteIt is not processed meat or a hunk of flesh. It is Jesus' body, whole, intact, and entire, in the same way that a baby inside his mother's body is whole, intact, and entire.
Ben,
ReplyDeleteBased on your answer I assume you go with Steve's first question, "Yet, when you consume the Host, does that mean you consume a miniature version of Jesus’ body?"
Is that your answer?
Mark
Dear Mark,
ReplyDeleteDue to my limited knowledge of mtaphysics, I am hesitant to affirm Steve's first option. Mostly, I intended to reject option 2.
Ben Douglass Said, It is Jesus' body, whole, intact, and entire, in the same way that a baby inside his mother's body is whole, intact, and entire.
ReplyDeleteHow can Jesus truly be "man" if his human body can do this, while being at multiple places at the same time?
Hi Ben,
ReplyDeleteHow do you distinguish your position from cannibalism? That’s not a facetious question. I’m genuinely curious.
Steve, try reading Christos Yannaras, "The Essence Energy distinction and its importance for Theology."
ReplyDeletePhotios
Why isn't there a Magisterial answer to this? Why leave poor Ben to fend for himseld out there?
ReplyDeleteHow do you distinguish your position from cannibalism?
ReplyDeleteDear Steve,
Cannibalism involves the destruction and assimilation of the flesh of the one eaten. In the Eucharist, Jesus' flesh is neither destroyed nor assimilated to us (rather, we are assimilated to it). Thus, it is no more cannibalism than if a doctor puts his hand inside a person's body during surgery.
Why isn't there a Magisterial answer to this? Why leave poor Ben to fend for himseld out there?
Dear Rho,
There is a magisterial answer to this question. From the Catechism of the Council of Trent:
"[I]n this Sacrament are contained not only the true body of. Christ and all the constituents of a true body, such as bones and sinews, but also Christ whole and entire."
Dear Mark,
ReplyDeleteI checked the Summa: the dimensive quantity of Christ's body is present in the Sacrament: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4076.htm#article4
So, it is incorrect to state that the Eucharist is a miniature version of Christ's body. As for explaining St. Thomas' argument, I will once again plead my relative ignorance of metaphysics. The same answer applies, mutatis mutandis, to John Bugay's question.
BEN DOUGLASS SAID:
ReplyDelete“Cannibalism involves the destruction and assimilation of the flesh of the one eaten. In the Eucharist, Jesus' flesh is neither destroyed nor assimilated to us (rather, we are assimilated to it). Thus, it is no more cannibalism than if a doctor puts his hand inside a person's body during surgery.”
Hi Ben,
Always nice to hear from you.
If a surgeon ate one of his own patients, I ‘d define that as cannibalism. I think the District Attorney would define it the same way.
And do you deny that the communicant digests the communion elements?
BEN DOUGLASS SAID:
ReplyDelete“So, it is incorrect to state that the Eucharist is a miniature version of Christ's body.”
That confirms my original contention that when Catholicism says the bread and wine become the true body and blood of Christ, we have no frame of reference. You can call it a human body, but it doesn’t resemble a human body. It’s a noumenal blank.
If a surgeon ate one of his own patients, I'd define that as cannibalism.
ReplyDeleteWe are assimilated to Christ in the sense of being sanctified, not in the sense of being absorbed into Him and losing our individuality.
And do you deny that the communicant digests the wafer and the wine?
No. Christ's body and blood do not remain under the sacrament after the corruption of the species of bread and wine.
You can call it a human body, but it doesn’t resemble a human body. It’s a noumenal blank.
ReplyDeleteChrist's body is Christ's body, with a size and shape and solidity just like yours or mine. That much is easy to understand. What is difficult to understand is the mode of its presence in the Eucharist. This, I freely confess, I do not understand myself. However, it is not necessary to salvation to understand this, just as it is not necessary to salvation to understand how one person can possess two natures or three persons can share one nature.
It's funny, you picking on Catholics. How different is Jesus living in a piece of Wonder Break much different than evangelicals saying "Jesus has set up house in my aorta"?
ReplyDelete“Christ's body is Christ's body, with a size and shape and solidity just like yours or mine. That much is easy to understand.”
ReplyDeleteYou’re claiming that a wafer the size of a quarter (or a chalice) contains (or conceals) a body the size of a normal man’s body. You admit the body of Christ in the Eucharist has the same dimensions as a normal body, yet you claim that it’s contained (or concealed) in a wafer or chalice. What’s more, that this is replicated in many different locations at once (whenever Mass is celebrated).
To say that’s difficult to understand is, indeed, an understatement. It’s geometrical gibberish.
In fact, we do understand a thing or two about modalities. For example, we understand that the same substance can be more compact or more diffuse depending on its mode of subsistence (e.g. ice, water, steam).
However, a change of mode involves a change of structure. H2O is not the same size, shape, and solidity when it’s liquid or stream.
“This, I freely confess, I do not understand myself. However, it is not necessary to salvation to understand this, just as it is not necessary to salvation to understand how one person can possess two natures or three persons can share one nature.”
Sorry, but this won’t cut it. You see, Catholicism doesn’t content itself with simply taking this dogma on faith or retreating into mystery.
Transubstantiation is a face-saving device. An attempt to explain the real presence. To rationalize the real presence.
It’s not just the real presence that’s dogma: transubstantiation is dogma.
A rational explanation is fair game for rational scrutiny.
Catholicism posits that the consecrated communion elements are the body and blood of Christ. But, of course, the wafer and the wine don’t bear any resemblance to a human body. Not superficially. Not if you x-ray them, put them under an electronic microscope, subject them to chemical analysis, &c.
In no empirical respect do they resemble the body of Christ. So Catholicism tries to finesse the total disconnect between appearance and “reality.” And it does so by drawing an Aristotelian distinction between substance and accident.
But it also shears the accidental properties from the essential properties—which Aristotle would never do.
So you end up telling us, not only to take the real presence on faith, but to take transubstantiation on faith.
That’s an illicit move. For transubstantiation is an explanation for the real presence. An explanation is not immune to rational analysis. Unless an explanation can stand on its own two feat, it loses its explanatory value. You’re simply using one enigma to gloss another enigma.
Even if the sensible properties of the bread and wine are mere appearances—smoke and mirrors—that doesn’t begin to explain how one full-grown man can swallow another full-grown man whole, from head to foot.
You would a miracle, not of communion, but of the communicant. The mode of the communicant would have to change.
james said...
ReplyDelete"It's funny, you picking on Catholics. How different is Jesus living in a piece of Wonder Break much different than evangelicals saying "Jesus has set up house in my aorta"?"
Because we don't take that literally, dumb dumb. It's a metaphor for Christ's control over our life.
ben douglass said...
ReplyDelete“We are assimilated to Christ in the sense of being sanctified, not in the sense of being absorbed into Him and losing our individuality.”
That sounds like a doctrine of spiritual presence. We’re sanctified by the grace of communion.
But Catholicism wants to say more than that. Do you or do you not believe that the communicant literally consumes the true body of Christ?
If not, then why do you take the language of “eating” and “drinking” literally in Jn 6 and 1 Cor 11?
If you’re really talking about a process of spiritual assimilation, then you’re not entitled to lay claim to the literal interpretation of your Eucharist prooftexts for the real presence.
ben douglass said...
ReplyDelete“No. Christ's body and blood do not remain under the sacrament after the corruption of the species of bread and wine.”
But what are the species of bread and wine if there’s no bread and wine to generate or support them? The underlying substance is not bread or wine, but the body and blood of Christ. Species of what? Of nonexistent bread and wine? You’re positing properties without a property-bearer.
Okay, so how do you interpret, "eat of my flesh, and drink of my blood"? (John 6:53)
ReplyDeleteIt's a weird way to say, well, anything, isn't it? Why not just say, "Do as I have commanded?" or "Live as I have lived" or something less obtuse?
Why the intentional obfuscation when people's souls are at stake?
James said:
ReplyDelete"Okay, so how do you interpret, 'eat of my flesh, and drink of my blood'? (John 6:53) It's a weird way to say, well, anything, isn't it? Why not just say, 'Do as I have commanded?' or 'Live as I have lived' or something less obtuse?"
For the same reasons people use figures of speech, poetry, and other such "obtuse" methods of communication in the modern world. We've addressed John 6 many times in the past, such as here and here. What's supposed to be too difficult to understand? You mention verse 53, but you don't address Jesus' comments earlier in the passage about the nature of the eating and drinking He's discussing. You don't address the contexts in which such language makes sense and would be more easily understood in first-century Israel. You just single out one verse and suggest that it's too difficult to understand, without addressing the surrounding context or the many points that have been made about the passage over the years by those who have discussed it.
- orthodoxy doesn't teach that God is unknowable in the intellectual sense, in his essence. rather we can't know his essence in the sense of participate in God's essence. as cyril of jerusalem said "if someone says that the essence of God incomprehesible, then why do we speak about him?" or Gregory Palamas: "to say that the divine essence is communicable through its energy is to remain within the bounds of right devotion".
ReplyDelete- God as trinity is an attribute of his essence, NOT energies.
- his energies reveal his essence like the sunlight reveals the sun. to say the sunlight misrepresents the sun would be foolish.
- since Gods energies ARE God, they can hardly misrepresent God or be an illusion
Just as with so many things in Catholicism we are led from the corporeal to the spiritual, from the sensible to the intelligible, from the particular to the universal. But in reaching these higher matters, the means to them, that is, the corporeal, the sensible, etc. are not illusions but are perfectly real.
ReplyDeleteNow Christ as a whole is present in the bread and wine, namely, body, blood, soul, and divinity. The body and blood are means to delivering the divinity. The Eucharist is a tool left by Jesus to assist the faithful in the fight against the devil. When the priest raises the host, it's as if rays of white light stream from it. Each host (both bread and wine) after consecration contains a small piece of light of Jesus's divinity. When the host is eaten, the bread and wine, being body and blood and soul which contain the divinity open up like petals in a flower and release the divinity that settles in the will (having been made suitable for it by Jesus's own union of human soul of divinity), strengthening it and filling it with love for God, scaring away the devil. Or so, at least, I was made to understand in a kind of revelation.
One hesitates to think that Dmitry is being serious.
ReplyDeleteIf I wanted to make a joke, then I'd tell you the one about the priest, the minister, and the rabbi.
ReplyDeleteSERAPHIM SAID:
ReplyDelete“Orthodoxy doesn't teach that God is unknowable in the intellectual sense, in his essence.”
Really?
“From this Gregory turned to the main problem: how to combine the two affirmations, that we humans know God and that God is by nature unknowable. Gregory answered: we know the energies of God, but not His essence…He affirmed, as emphatically as any exponent of negative theology, that God is in essence absolutely unknowable,” Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (Penguin 1997), 67-68.
Continuing with our seraph:
“God as trinity is an attribute of his essence, NOT energies.”
How do you know God’s essential attributes if his essence is unknowable?
“His energies reveal his essence like the sunlight reveals the sun. To say the sunlight misrepresents the sun would be foolish.”
You’re substituting a metaphor for an argument. Where’s the argument?
It’s fine to use a metaphor to illustrate a point of truth. But you have to establish your claim as true. A metaphor won’t do the work of an argument.
“Since Gods energies ARE God, they can hardly misrepresent God or be an illusion.”
You’re glossing over a fundamental tension in the essence/energies dichotomy. If they are divine without distinction, then they are indistinguishable from the essence, at which point they are identical with the essence. At that juncture, any metaphysical or epistemological distinction collapses.
again, "know" in this case is not in the intellectual sense, it is in the sense of participation, and intimate experience. beginning with ge 4:1, "Adam knew Eve and she conceived" and going onto jer 1:5 "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee", to "know" someone is often used to go beyond mere intellectual knowledge of, to mean a direct and intimate experience and connection. This is what we dont have, a direct experience of God's essence. As scripture says, Ex. 33:20 "And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." This shows the limits with which man can directly experience and know God
ReplyDelete"This is what we dont have, a direct experience of God's essence. As scripture says, Ex. 33:20 "And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." This shows the limits with which man can directly experience and know God"
ReplyDeleteI thought that God's essence was invisible according to Orthodoxy. If one could see God, it would only be the radiance of His glory which would be His energies. If this is the case, then what does the above prooftext prove?
For those who believe in transubstantiation, help me understand something.
ReplyDeleteIf you'll recall, we have Jesus in the Upper Room with His disciples for the Last Supper. In Luke Chapter 22: "19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."
20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you."
Here's my question for proponents of transubstantiation:
When the disciples/apostles received these instructions from Jesus for the very first time, did they truly think they were eating the real body and drinking the real blood of Jesus Christ when they ate the bread and drank the liquid?
If not, why not? If not, then according to the doctrine of transubstantiation, what caused the apostles to later believe that the elements did become literally the Real Presence, i.e., the real body and blood of Christ when they celebrated communion?
Or do you argue that the apostles believed from the very first time that they were literally eating Jesus's body and literally drinking Jesus's blood while Jesus was sitting with them in the Upper Room?
I can't be the first person who's asked this question. So what's the standard issue response?
Thanks in advance.
"I thought that God's essence was invisible according to Orthodoxy."
ReplyDeleteMust we always be so literal? It is the bible which says God is invisible. If you're unable to reconcile this, you have much work to do
"did they truly think they were eating the real body"
ReplyDeletehow can anyone know what they were thinking? And how would it help your argument to know one way or the other?
"what caused the apostles to later believe that the elements did become literally the Real Presence"?
what caused the apostles to later decide it was unnecessary to follow the Jewish law after Jesus said not one jot or tittle would be removed?
SERAPHIM SAID:
ReplyDelete“Again, ‘know’ in this case is not in the intellectual sense, it is in the sense of participation, and intimate experience.”
The standard way to gloss that distinction is to distinguish between knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance.
Even in that case, knowledge by acquaintance is often “intellectual.”
There might be some exceptions like certain forms of know-how, viz. learning to ride a bicycle. But if that’s the sort of thing you have in mind, you have to establish that “knowing” God is like learning how to ride a bicycle.
A deeper problem is that if you define our “knowledge” of God in noncognitive terms, then you deny the very possibility of propositional revelation. That throws the Bible out the window, along with the Nicene Creed, Chalcedonian Creed, &c.
“Beginning with ge 4:1, ‘Adam knew Eve and she conceived’.”
Yada doesn’t mean “knowledge” in that context. In that context, it’s a synonym for “sex.”
“And going onto jer 1:5 ‘Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee’."
Once again, yada doesn’t mean “knowledge in that context. In that context it means “choice.”
“To ‘know’ someone is often used to go beyond mere intellectual knowledge of, to mean a direct and intimate experience and connection.”
Not based on your semantic fallacies and spooftexting.
“This is what we dont have, a direct experience of God's essence.”
Which doesn’t mean we can’t know God’s essential attributes: only that we know them by description rather than acquaintance. Our mode of knowledge comes from God’s propositional self-revelation in Scripture (as well as natural revelation).
“As scripture says, Ex. 33:20 ‘And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.’ This shows the limits with which man can directly experience and know God.”
A straw man argument since the question at issue is not whether there are “limits” on our knowledge of God, but whether God’s essential attributes are absolutely unknowable.
"Must we always be so literal? It is the bible which says God is invisible. If you're unable to reconcile this, you have much work to do"
ReplyDeleteThen what does your prooftext prove?
[Me]: "did they truly think they were eating the real body"
ReplyDelete[Seraphim]: "how can anyone know what they were thinking? And how would it help your argument to know one way or the other?"
[Me]: "what caused the apostles to later believe that the elements did become literally the Real Presence"?
[Seraphim]: "what caused the apostles to later decide it was unnecessary to follow the Jewish law after Jesus said not one jot or tittle would be removed?"
Seraphim, is this the best you got? Is this the standard-issue response? I would like to invite you to provide a more comprehensive response if you can. I don't want to simply ask a question, and then reprove a powderpuff response.
Give me the best answer that you and any other transubstantiationist has in answering my question about the apostle-disciples taking the Eucharist for the very first time in the Upper Room with Jesus sitting there.
To clarify, when OT passages say that someone "saw God" (esp. the passage from Exodus) it means a literal theophony, a visible manifestation, not God's essence. Thus, I must ask what the Orthodox gentleman intends to prove by citing the Exodus passage since that passage isn't even referring to God's essence but His theophony.
ReplyDeleteSo Catholicism tries to finesse the total disconnect between appearance and “reality.” And it does so by drawing an Aristotelian distinction between substance and accident.
ReplyDeleteBut it also shears the accidental properties from the essential properties—which Aristotle would never do.
Catholicism does not shear substance from accidents as a philosophical principle. In the Eucharist, God sustains the accidents of the bread and wine without a subject through a special miracle. To say that Catholicism shears substance from accidents because it affirms transubstantiation is like saying it shears sex from procreation because it affirms the Virgin Birth.
For transubstantiation is an explanation for the real presence. An explanation is not immune to rational analysis.
Granted. I distinguish the dogma's defensibility and my personal ability to defend it at the present state of my studies.
That sounds like a doctrine of spiritual presence. We’re sanctified by the grace of communion.
But Catholicism wants to say more than that. Do you or do you not believe that the communicant literally consumes the true body of Christ?
Yes, the communicant literally consumes the true body of Christ. But the communicant is assimilated spiritually, not physically, to Christ.
But what are the species of bread and wine if there’s no bread and wine to generate or support them? The underlying substance is not bread or wine, but the body and blood of Christ. Species of what? Of nonexistent bread and wine? You’re positing properties without a property-bearer.
Yes, the consecrated host has properties of bread and wine which do not inhere in any substance. Do you believe this is beyond God's power?
When the species of bread and wine are corrupted, I'm inclined to say that the substance of the body of Christ changes back to a natural substance. There is precedent for this: in our Lord's hair, nails, skin, blood, etc., which He lost and which thereupon ceased to be divine.
When the disciples/apostles received these instructions from Jesus for the very first time, did they truly think they were eating the real body and drinking the real blood of Jesus Christ when they ate the bread and drank the liquid?
ReplyDeleteYes.
"Yada doesn’t mean “knowledge” in that context. In that context, it’s a synonym for “sex.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, yada doesn’t mean “knowledge in that context. In that context it means “choice.”"
so "know" has a much wider and deeper range of meaning than anybody here wanted to admit. you feel free to dictate what it means in the bible, but you won't even let Orthodox define their own terms. That's rich.
"Which doesn’t mean we can’t know God’s essential attributes: only that we know them by description rather than acquaintance. "
Obviously. Which is why Orthodox simultaneously define the dogma of the trinity, define that it is an aspect of God's essence, and yet say that God's essence is unknowable. Are you finally figuring this all out padawan?
"Then what does your prooftext prove?"
Then what does your whiney complaint about my text prove, since it is directly contradicted by other scriptures? I never claimed to be proving anything, just correcting the misunderstanding about what orthdox believe. try not misrepresenting others, its a better start to dialogue.
"Seraphim, is this the best you got? Is this the standard-issue response? I would like to invite you to provide a more comprehensive response if you can."
You want a better response to a question to which nobody has an answer? For a question history does not record? for what purpose?
"Thus, I must ask what the Orthodox gentleman intends to prove by citing the Exodus passage since that passage isn't even referring to God's essence but His theophony."
but I never referred to an incident of seeing God. I referred to an incident where God denied that he could ever be seen.
"but I never referred to an incident of seeing God. I referred to an incident where God denied that he could ever be seen."
ReplyDeleteThat's not what the text says. God is denying Moses the privilege of seeing his face (i.e. a theophony) since that would kill Moses.
When that phrase is used elsewhere in the historical books and elsewhere in the rest of the Bible, people are shocked that they "saw God and lived" (Genesis 16:13, Judges 6:20-23, 13:2-23, Isaiah 6:5, etc.). They are speaking of a visible theophony.
Exodus verse doesn't say what you want it to.
BEN DOUGLASS SAID:
ReplyDelete“Catholicism does not shear substance from accidents as a philosophical principle. In the Eucharist, God sustains the accidents of the bread and wine without a subject through a special miracle. To say that Catholicism shears substance from accidents because it affirms transubstantiation is like saying it shears sex from procreation because it affirms the Virgin Birth.”
i) First of all, when I say that transubstantiation shears the substance from the accidents, I’m not rendering a value judgment, per se. I don’t think it would be immoral for God to create an illusion.
ii) But it’s still illusory. It has the secondary qualities without the primary qualities. For if all of the empirical properties, which naturally signify a particular substance, and are naturally caused or generated by that substance, are in fact produced apart from the substance in which they naturally inhere, then that’s a paradigmatic illusion.
The secondary qualities of a human body are separated from its primary qualities, while the secondary qualities of bread and wine are separated from their primary qualities, and the secondary properties of bread and wine are then arbitrarily transferred to the primary qualities of a human body, with no intrinsical relation. That could not be more illusory.
iii) Yes, you can say God miraculously sustains them, but they cease to be secondary properties *of* the primary properties. It’s a form of virtual reality: the appearance is one thing while the reality is contrary to the appearance—not just in the sense of being different, but being a different *kind* of thing entirely.
iv) As for the virgin birth, yes, God can produce an effect apart from the natural cause. But it’s not as if Mary and Joseph went through the motions of conceiving Jesus by sexual intercourse. There was no illusion of natural generation to conceive him in the womb.
“Yes, the consecrated host has properties of bread and wine which do not inhere in any substance. Do you believe this is beyond God's power?”
Depends on what aspect of transubstantiation we’re discussing:
i) There are limits to what God can do with a concrete natural medium in its natural state. For example, God can’t make a chicken that flies 1000 miles per hour.
God can make something that flies 1000 miles per hour, but it wouldn’t be a chicken.
God can create matter, destroy matter, reorganize matter, create a new kind of matter, &c.
But there are limits to the manipulation of matter. A physical medium is not indefinitely mutable. Physical media have physical limits. That’s what makes them finite and creaturely.
ii) Can God generate illusory appearances? Yes.
iii) Can God enable a full-grown man to swallow another full-grown man whole? Not that I can see. That’s a geometrical impossibility. Omnipotence can’t perform logical contradictions.
“There is precedent for this: in our Lord's hair, nails, skin, blood, etc., which He lost and which thereupon ceased to be divine.”
I don’t think of his hair or nails as “divine.” They’re human.
Now perhaps what your saying is that since Jesus is the God-man, you can attribute human properties to the unified Person.
True, in a roundabout way, but that doesn’t mean you can attribute human properties to divine properties. So your identification strikes me as equivocal.
seraphim said...
ReplyDelete“so ‘know’ has a much wider and deeper range of meaning than anybody here wanted to admit.”
Wrong! You’re confusing the sense of the English partial synonym with the sense of the Hebrew word. “Yada” doesn’t signify “know” in a wider and deeper range of meaning. Rather, sometimes it means “know,” sometimes it means “sex,” and sometimes it means “choice.” Very different meanings. Not a wider and deeper meaning for the same basal sense. You need to acquaint yourself with elementary lexical semantics.
“you feel free to dictate what it means in the bible, but you won't even let Orthodox define their own terms. That's rich.”
Now your confusing words with concepts. The Orthodox are free to define their terms however they like. However, they are not at liberty to define concepts however they like. You don’t get to define or redefine the concept of “knowledge” however you please. And you don’t get to put forward an incoherent or unscriptural concept of knowledge.
Oh, and I’m not “dictating” what yada means in Scripture. This is standard Hebrew lexicography. Don’t be such an ignoramus.
“Obviously. Which is why Orthodox simultaneously define the dogma of the trinity, define that it is an aspect of God's essence, and yet say that God's essence is unknowable. Are you finally figuring this all out padawan?”
You’re confusing my position with yours. *You* don’t get to say that you know God by description rather than acquaintance as long as you deny the possibility of propositional revelation regarding God’s essential attributes. Are you finally figuring this all out padawan?
You think you can substitute a lot of attitude for rational discourse. Doesn’t cut it here.
Invest in a HALOT, and find out that you are wrong. why should I converse with someone without even an elementary familiarity with biblical resources?
ReplyDeleteAnd I never denied the existance of propositional revelation. What I said is that the orthodox denial of "knowledge" about the divine essence is NOT the denial of propositional knowledge.
you're so confused you're saying the complete opposite of what I'm saying. Shoudl you really be commenting on religions that you are so ignorant of?
"I referred to an incident where God denied that he could ever be seen."
ReplyDelete'That's not what the text says'
``no one may see me and live'' - 'nuff said
'When that phrase is used elsewhere in the historical books they are speaking of a visible theophony.'
except I wasn't referring to these other places
"``no one may see me and live'' - 'nuff said"
ReplyDeleteWow! You obviously suffer from a lack in elementary logic. The text adds "and live" meaning that someone can see the theophony, but they won't see it for long because they'll die.
Please read the next five verses and tell me if Moses saw something or not.
"except I wasn't referring to these other places"
Those other places militate against your position since they use the exact same language as this verse. Those verses speak of a literal visible theophony, and therefore, this one does too.
SERAPHIM SAID:
ReplyDelete“Invest in a HALOT, and find out that you are wrong. why should I converse with someone without even an elementary familiarity with biblical resources?”
That’s transparent bluff and bluster in the absence of a counterargument.
“And I never denied the existance of propositional revelation. What I said is that the orthodox denial of ‘knowledge’ about the divine essence is NOT the denial of propositional knowledge.”
You deny a propositional knowledge of God’s essential attributes.
“you're so confused you're saying the complete opposite of what I'm saying.”
You *say* lots of contradictory things. The fact that you *say* something doesn’t make what you say the least bit coherent.
“Shoudl you really be commenting on religions that you are so ignorant of?”
I assume you were looking at your own reflection on the monitor when you typed that.
"The text adds "and live" meaning that someone can see the theophony, but they won't see it for long because they'll die."
ReplyDeleteYou CANNOT see my face, for no one may see me and live.
...not...
you can see my face, but you would die.
"read the next five verses and tell me if Moses saw something or not."
he could not see everything, that is the point. there is a point beyond which you cannot cross.
"Those other places militate against your position since they use the exact same language as this verse."
OK, so God got it wrong in Exodus. Whatever.
"That’s transparent bluff and bluster in the absence of a counterargument."
No it isn't, the range of meaning of the Hebrew word is well within the bounds I am advocating. not that I need the support of HALOT mind you, since you've already conceded I have the right to define my own terms.
"You deny a propositional knowledge of God’s essential attributes."
ridiculous. That you feel the need to continue with the tack of telling me what I said when I didn't say it, and telling me what I believe, it simply makes you look silly.
SERAPHIM SAID:
ReplyDelete“No it isn't, the range of meaning of the Hebrew word is well within the bounds I am advocating.”
You continue to flaunt your ignorance of lexical semantics. The fact that a word like yada may have a wide semantic range doesn’t imply that yada means “knowledge” in every occurrence, only a special “kind” of knowledge.
What this implies, rather, is that yada has a number of distinct, unrelated meanings.
“Not that I need the support of HALOT mind you, since you've already conceded I have the right to define my own terms.”
You’re such a jerk. Did I say you have the right to define *Hebrew* words however you please, or *Biblical* words however you please? No.
The Orthodox are free to define Orthodox theological terms however they please. “Their own terms.” That was your phrase.
“Their own terms” are not the same as Biblical terms.
BTW, you don’t speak for Orthodoxy. Who are you, anyway? Some anonymous layman?
So you personally don’t get to define Orthodox nomenclature.
“Ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous” is not an argument.
“That you feel the need to continue with the tack of telling me what I said when I didn't say it, and telling me what I believe, it simply makes you look silly.”
I realize you’re intellectually overtaxed by this exchange, but here’s an elementary distinction for you to work on. The question at issue is not limited to what you say, but to the logical implications of what you say—whether or not you intended to imply that.
"What this implies, rather, is that yada has a number of distinct, unrelated meanings."
ReplyDeleteBut they're not distinct or unrelated. Rarely are the various meanings of words unrelated.
Still, it matters nothing to my statement whether they are related or not.
"The Orthodox are free to define Orthodox theological terms however they please."
great, so this whole line of discussion is completely a side issue to the point of this blog article
"“Ridiculous” is not an argument."
How am I supposed to prove the negative of what I didn't say or claim? have you stopped beatingi your wife btw?
"The question at issue is not limited to what you say, but to the logical implications of what you say"
wonderful. When nyou come up with something, let me know.
SERAPHIM SAID:
ReplyDelete“But they're not distinct or unrelated.”
To “know,” to “choose,” and to “have sex” are distinct, unrelated senses.
“Rarely are the various meanings of words unrelated.”
Try looking up “run” in the dictionary and then explain all how the different senses are interrelated.
“Still, it matters nothing to my statement whether they are related or not.”
You’re too obtuse to keep track of your own pitiful argument. You’re claiming that Gen 4:1 is a special form of “knowledge.” You’re claiming that Jer 1:5 is a special form of “knowledge.”
So, yes, your claim is dependent on whether the various senses of yada are all related to the basal sense of knowledge.
“Great, so this whole line of discussion is completely a side issue to the point of this blog article.”
As I already explained to you, but you’re too dense to register, there’s a difference between words and concepts. Orthodoxy doesn’t get to define or redefine concepts however it wants.
“How am I supposed to prove the negative of what I didn't say or claim?”
I already explicated what your claim entails.
“Wonderful. When nyou come up with something, let me know.”
I already did, but you’re too thick to follow your own argument.