[quote author=Zoxsasi link=topic=9987.msg123080#msg123080 date=1291204499] [quote author=Father Peter link=topic=9987.msg123074#msg123074 date=1291200783] I did explain how God could perhaps be eternally loving even apart from the Trinity. But He IS the Holy Trinity.
See, that is the problem. I'm not speaking hypothetically. I'm saying that it is IMPOSSIBLE for God to be loving outside The existence of the Trinity.
I think the proofs by LifeInDeath, including the quotes from His Eminence Bishop Bishoy explain this.
I think your rationale is that even if God did not have a Triune nature, we would not be able to know if He would still be "all loving" - but you would!
If God did not have a Son who was beloved to Him, then He could not be All-Loving. The reason is as follows:
"ALL-LOVING" means that He was perfect in His Love. The Creation did not create or trigger Love in God, but rather that Love was already manifested IN GOD's BEING (i.e. THROUGH the Trinity). If the One God did NOT have a Triune Nature, like in Islam, then His love would be selfish. He did not love anyone outside of Himself.
I think what you are saying is that you don't disagree with me, but you do not either agree with me on this simply because I am making a "hypothetical" statement (i.e. "what if").
But this can be answered easily. We know that God must be all-loving. There's no what-if's. How could He be "all - loving" if He never loved BEFORE the creation? Who would He have loved? Himself!! ?? Is that LOVE? To love yourself is SELFISH. But He Loved the Son, in the eternity of His Being. The Son IS The Beloved of the Father.
Hi Brother,
I think we must put this question to one side for a moment Fr Peter is making a very important point. God must be approached as a mystery who is reveals Himself only to people who encline their hearts to Him. We very often forget this and speak about God in ways that are inappropriate - and are really quite beneath His dignity. My confession father refers to the Holy Spirit as an 'it' sometimes which really gets on my nerves.
Knowledge of God isn't whether or not God is a set of hypostasis or not, these are terms the church created to defend the truth against heresy - true knowledge of God comes from experience when we participate in the trinitarian mystery in the sacraments, when we pray, when we perform ascetic labours, when we sanctify our hearts and come to better resemble Christ in our own nature. In fact we can even go further to say that we experience more about God in silence then when we speak.
This is how God was revealed to us by Christ in the Gospels and in the experience of the Church.
Remember the anonymous patristic quote I referenced? - I believe not it was Hillary of Poitiers fathers only go where heretics first dare to tread! The would prefer to leave God as a mystery if it were not for the corruptions of heretics.
Another way to describe this is we were discussing the nature of the Holy Spirit on another forum and I quoted St Gregory of Nyssa who said something to the effect of the difference between begetting and procession is a mystery known only to God. To this a friend who is a priest replied that this explanation would be sufficient if it were not for the heretics of the church - and he was right if we stopped as saying it was a mystery it would intellectually satisfy very few people so the fathers go on to formulate a defence.
When we do speak about God there are a few things we need to remember - the first (and this is explained very vividly in the old testament) is that our God is a Holy God and He is to be feared! We take so much for granted that we live in an era of grace when the high priest of the old testament who served the altar used to a have a rope tied around his waist in case he dropped dead while he was serving and he was only granted this honour once a year - we now can approach the altar everyday without but we still ought to do so with fear. Arius's life was ended when he dared take communion while denying the church council and started to feel ill. He went to the bathroom and was gone a long time before his supporters came to find him and all his insides had come out. I heard another story like this recently when a jehova's witness came into a coptic church and gave communion to her baby. This thing was discovered and they tried to convince the woman to let them baptise the child immediately and she was afraid of what would happen if her husband found out; the child died later that day.
We often forget in these kinds of discussions the holiness of God and that this knowledge comes to us from very holy people who lived sanctified live and were deemed by God to be worthy of knowing Him more intimately than we do. They went to record this for our sakes and we must not forget how orthodox theology has come to be passed down to us and the fear that we must have in all things concerning God.
Consider the end of Arius, a man who had no regard for the holiness of God and the need to speak of Him out of what is handed to us in Orthodox Tradition and the very sad end that he had. St Athanasius said something which is very sobering - let these people who spend so much time describing God describe their own nature... and he is right - we dare to try and understand the infinite God and yet we know so little about our own nature and psychology.
The famous story of St Augustine with a child on the beach also teaches us this lesson, we cannot understand this infinite God with our own finite perception.
In the book of Job we see that Job challenged God and His right to afflict him. God responded and showed him that He was the creator of the whole universe and He did not have to respond or have the approval of the creatures He has created when He deals with them. Job saw this and understood there are matters concerning God's judgement which are beyond his comprehension and he had no right to criticise.
In the life of St Anthony there is a very similar story recorded by St Athanasius, when St Anthony asked God about some of His judgements and God responded saying that these are matters under God's care and Anthony should focus on his own life. St Anthony obeyed the Divine instruction and God began to quite freely reveal His judgements to him.
A good way to describe the attitude is to summarise St Gregory the Theologians second theological sermon. The context is that he was struggling with Eumonius who was a heretic, and he had just delivered a sermon previously to his congregation admonishing them for not living in a way that befitted being Orthodox Christians which made his task of refuting the heretic much more challenging. He followed this up with a sermon on the attitude of someone who wishes to study theology and he used the imagery of Moses and Israel when they approached mount Moriah. God would reveal Himself to Israel at the top of the mountain but only one person there (Moses) was deemed worthy to ascend the mountain. The first thing that happened was a warning was sent that no animals should approach the mountain lest they die, the animals are heretics and unworthy people like Arius or anyone who is unbaptised. The second was that the congregation of Israel received the same invite as Moses but out of fear dared to not approach the mountain - this is perhaps us because we need to sanctify ourselves and learn to draw near to God. When Moses did eventually come to the mountain to see God he did't get what he expected - he was told by God that no one can see God or they will die. This is what happened to Arius who dared to apply his crude human perception to God - God told Moses that what He could do is to walk by as Moses hid in a safe cleft at the top of the mountain. This is a reminder of two things - the first is that a big part of knowing God is knowing that we cannot know and that what Moses did get to see was what God chose to reveal to Moses - in the limited capacity that Moses could accept.
To relate that back to our discussion we must accept that God and His Divine life is a mystery - God reveals the indescribable to us out of His own humility and we must be prepared to receive it with the same attitude. We must be careful when applying things from human observation and life to God - this is a realm which ought to only be available to the fathers of the Church. When St Gregory gave his sermon he asked the question - who is able to ascend this mount with me? The question before we go on now is - are we able?
Actually to put it another way sometime we may respond with a 'spiritual' answer to what is a 'theological' question. Very often the desert fathers would have someone come and ask a question and they would tell tell them what they needed to hear rather than the answer to their question. In this case it could be a very valid response to say - God is a mystery and we ought to leave Him that way - because this is how we can experience Him in the fullest...
As to the answer to the question, maybe God will answer that for us in the realms of experience as He did with the fathers.
Comments
[quote author=Father Peter link=topic=9987.msg123074#msg123074 date=1291200783]
I did explain how God could perhaps be eternally loving even apart from the Trinity. But He IS the Holy Trinity.
See, that is the problem. I'm not speaking hypothetically. I'm saying that it is IMPOSSIBLE for God to be loving outside The existence of the Trinity.
I think the proofs by LifeInDeath, including the quotes from His Eminence Bishop Bishoy explain this.
I think your rationale is that even if God did not have a Triune nature, we would not be able to know if He would still be "all loving" - but you would!
If God did not have a Son who was beloved to Him, then He could not be All-Loving. The reason is as follows:
"ALL-LOVING" means that He was perfect in His Love. The Creation did not create or trigger Love in God, but rather that Love was already manifested IN GOD's BEING (i.e. THROUGH the Trinity). If the One God did NOT have a Triune Nature, like in Islam, then His love would be selfish. He did not love anyone outside of Himself.
I think what you are saying is that you don't disagree with me, but you do not either agree with me on this simply because I am making a "hypothetical" statement (i.e. "what if").
But this can be answered easily. We know that God must be all-loving. There's no what-if's. How could He be "all - loving" if He never loved BEFORE the creation? Who would He have loved? Himself!! ?? Is that LOVE? To love yourself is SELFISH. But He Loved the Son, in the eternity of His Being. The Son IS The Beloved of the Father.
Hi Brother,
I think we must put this question to one side for a moment Fr Peter is making a very important point. God must be approached as a mystery who is reveals Himself only to people who encline their hearts to Him. We very often forget this and speak about God in ways that are inappropriate - and are really quite beneath His dignity. My confession father refers to the Holy Spirit as an 'it' sometimes which really gets on my nerves.
Knowledge of God isn't whether or not God is a set of hypostasis or not, these are terms the church created to defend the truth against heresy - true knowledge of God comes from experience when we participate in the trinitarian mystery in the sacraments, when we pray, when we perform ascetic labours, when we sanctify our hearts and come to better resemble Christ in our own nature. In fact we can even go further to say that we experience more about God in silence then when we speak.
This is how God was revealed to us by Christ in the Gospels and in the experience of the Church.
Remember the anonymous patristic quote I referenced? - I believe not it was Hillary of Poitiers fathers only go where heretics first dare to tread! The would prefer to leave God as a mystery if it were not for the corruptions of heretics.
Another way to describe this is we were discussing the nature of the Holy Spirit on another forum and I quoted St Gregory of Nyssa who said something to the effect of the difference between begetting and procession is a mystery known only to God. To this a friend who is a priest replied that this explanation would be sufficient if it were not for the heretics of the church - and he was right if we stopped as saying it was a mystery it would intellectually satisfy very few people so the fathers go on to formulate a defence.
When we do speak about God there are a few things we need to remember - the first (and this is explained very vividly in the old testament) is that our God is a Holy God and He is to be feared! We take so much for granted that we live in an era of grace when the high priest of the old testament who served the altar used to a have a rope tied around his waist in case he dropped dead while he was serving and he was only granted this honour once a year - we now can approach the altar everyday without but we still ought to do so with fear. Arius's life was ended when he dared take communion while denying the church council and started to feel ill. He went to the bathroom and was gone a long time before his supporters came to find him and all his insides had come out. I heard another story like this recently when a jehova's witness came into a coptic church and gave communion to her baby. This thing was discovered and they tried to convince the woman to let them baptise the child immediately and she was afraid of what would happen if her husband found out; the child died later that day.
We often forget in these kinds of discussions the holiness of God and that this knowledge comes to us from very holy people who lived sanctified live and were deemed by God to be worthy of knowing Him more intimately than we do. They went to record this for our sakes and we must not forget how orthodox theology has come to be passed down to us and the fear that we must have in all things concerning God.
Consider the end of Arius, a man who had no regard for the holiness of God and the need to speak of Him out of what is handed to us in Orthodox Tradition and the very sad end that he had. St Athanasius said something which is very sobering - let these people who spend so much time describing God describe their own nature... and he is right - we dare to try and understand the infinite God and yet we know so little about our own nature and psychology.
The famous story of St Augustine with a child on the beach also teaches us this lesson, we cannot understand this infinite God with our own finite perception.
In the book of Job we see that Job challenged God and His right to afflict him. God responded and showed him that He was the creator of the whole universe and He did not have to respond or have the approval of the creatures He has created when He deals with them. Job saw this and understood there are matters concerning God's judgement which are beyond his comprehension and he had no right to criticise.
In the life of St Anthony there is a very similar story recorded by St Athanasius, when St Anthony asked God about some of His judgements and God responded saying that these are matters under God's care and Anthony should focus on his own life. St Anthony obeyed the Divine instruction and God began to quite freely reveal His judgements to him.
A good way to describe the attitude is to summarise St Gregory the Theologians second theological sermon. The context is that he was struggling with Eumonius who was a heretic, and he had just delivered a sermon previously to his congregation admonishing them for not living in a way that befitted being Orthodox Christians which made his task of refuting the heretic much more challenging. He followed this up with a sermon on the attitude of someone who wishes to study theology and he used the imagery of Moses and Israel when they approached mount Moriah. God would reveal Himself to Israel at the top of the mountain but only one person there (Moses) was deemed worthy to ascend the mountain. The first thing that happened was a warning was sent that no animals should approach the mountain lest they die, the animals are heretics and unworthy people like Arius or anyone who is unbaptised. The second was that the congregation of Israel received the same invite as Moses but out of fear dared to not approach the mountain - this is perhaps us because we need to sanctify ourselves and learn to draw near to God. When Moses did eventually come to the mountain to see God he did't get what he expected - he was told by God that no one can see God or they will die. This is what happened to Arius who dared to apply his crude human perception to God - God told Moses that what He could do is to walk by as Moses hid in a safe cleft at the top of the mountain. This is a reminder of two things - the first is that a big part of knowing God is knowing that we cannot know and that what Moses did get to see was what God chose to reveal to Moses - in the limited capacity that Moses could accept.
To relate that back to our discussion we must accept that God and His Divine life is a mystery - God reveals the indescribable to us out of His own humility and we must be prepared to receive it with the same attitude. We must be careful when applying things from human observation and life to God - this is a realm which ought to only be available to the fathers of the Church. When St Gregory gave his sermon he asked the question - who is able to ascend this mount with me? The question before we go on now is - are we able?
God bless,
LiD
As to the answer to the question, maybe God will answer that for us in the realms of experience as He did with the fathers.
God bless,
LiD