Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, welcome. You're listening to Jay's analysis, and we
are going live. Gonna let the audience trickle in here
a little bit, see if we can build up a
little bit of watch your viewership listenership. Excuse me before
we actually get going with the debate, before I send him, No,
we're not late. I'm just I'm on the road, so
I'm at a bit of a disadvantage. I don't have
my library with me, and I'm not really familiar with
mister fun doctor Feeld. Actually he we have mutual friends.
I've been friends with some guys for about a decade
that set this up, and I'm glad to do this
because it's been so long since I've done it, real
debate with a trained person and these kinds of ideas.
You know, we get the internet philosophers, but we don't
often get trained academic types. So I'm going to send
him the link now, and I'm gonna be going from
memory here. I've got some of my articles pulled up
because I'm on the road, but I didn't want to
say no to this debate, and if need be, we
may down the road have successive debates that deal with
you know, maybe questions that get raised in this debate. Right, So,
since I'm on the road, I don't have my sumo
with me, I don't have the Sumo countries and TLAs,
I don't have my thmistic commentaries. I'm going to be
going from memory. And but again, it's not that hard
to know what Thomas's doctrin of divine simplicity is. It's
pretty clearly stated multiple times in Volume one of the
sum and in Volume one of the Super Countridge and
Tea Lace. So I've sent him the link, so he
should be coming in pretty soon, and I imagine it
will be a pretty pretty laid back debate. Doctor fine Gold,
How are you good? How are you? Mister Dyer? You jay? Okay?
That's cool. Thanks for doing the debate, man, how are you?
I'm doing all right.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me on. It's an honor.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I appreciate justin putting it together. I know he
was kind of looking for somebody to do a debate
for a while, and I think you would be a
perfect category or a perfect person for this category. You
you want to tell us a little bit about yourself
and your research, and that you I think you did
your dissertation on Thomas right, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2: So my dissertation, which I defined it last November, was
on divine impass ability in aquitness, so specifically trying to
deal with the problem of how to reconcile standard to
missing doctrines like pure actuality and divine simplicity with the
dependence of the love of the love around the beloved,
which seems to imply passibility. And are you still there?
Speaker 1: Because yeah, you know, you might want to cut your
camera off because it's good, it'll use a lot of bandwidth,
and we might want to audio.
Speaker 2: Let's see if I can figure out how to do that.
Speaker 1: There we go, Yeah, yeah, that'll probably be a little smoother.
Now sounds good. And I want to add two to
the audience that we will will be taking we are
you cool taking questions? Of course? Okay, so people in
the audience, if you want to do super chat questions,
will take those. As usual, I always split the super
chats with the guests, so doctor fine Gold will get
half of the super chat questions that you guys ask,
So come up with some good ones. As we discuss here,
I'm thinking maybe we could do a pretty free flowing
conversation style doesn't have to be formal debate, mainly because
I'm not at my library, so I'm on the road
and I'm kind of going from memory. You have the
home court advantage all sort of. I just have my laptops.
But okay, well that's fine, so I'll do you How
do we want to start this off? Do you want to? Uh,
let me ask you? Are you are you very familiar
with Eastern theology or like the Eastern.
Speaker 2: Now I can't claim a lot of familiarity. I have
a couple of paragraphs on Pollens and my dissertation, but
that's about it. So if you want to, maybe it
would be good to do something like this where you
give the basic polem my position, which I take it
you'll be defending. I'll give the basic elevator pitch for aquitness,
and then we can start probing.
Speaker 1: Sure, so I'll start off by saying that the Palamite
position actually isn't the the position just of San Palamas.
In fact, it's a doctrine that I would say pretty
clearly as taught in Saint Bezols letter two thirty four,
where he exp makes the distinction between the essence and energy,
or the essence and the operations of God. If we
look at Saint John Damascus's Orthodox Faith in multiple times
throughout the work he makes the distinction between the essence
and energy of God. Of course, in book one he
will say that the energy of God is one, and
then he goes on to say that the energy of
God is also multiple. For us, that's a one in
the many questions where we don't actually see a dialectic,
but in fact the energies of God are or actions
of God are multiple. And later on on the Orthodox
Faith he even clarifies this in a more intense way
when he talks about the energies in Christ and the Incarnation,
specifically the relationship between the two natural wills and operations
or energies in the two natures. This, of course is
because the six that Conical Council dealt extensively with debating
the Mono Thelites on the question of Christ and the
Incarnation having two wills and two energy's property to the
proper to those natures. So I would argue, as Saint
Gregory Palamas does against Barlam, and as Saint Gregor sat
Maximus the Confessor did against against Paris the Mono Thelite,
that the nature grace question and the question of the
essence and energies distinction in the incarnation is even clearer
when we understand that there's no dialectics. So there's no
dialectics in the relationship between nature and grace. There's no
dialectics between the relationship of Christ's human nature and energy
participating in the divine nature and energy. So, in other words,
the uncreated energies of God. It's not just a question
of God's relationship to creation, but it's also solidified dogmatically
and theologically in the sixth Ecumenical Council when it deals
with this specific question. If you read the debate between
Saint Maximus and Puris, you'll see that Maximus relies throughout
in that one hundred and fifty page treatise on this
being a real distinction. This real distinction allows for God
to remain transcend it in his essence and yet come
down to us and allow us to participate in his
uncreated glory and life. Jesus says in John seventeen that
he came to give us the same glory that he
shares with the Father from all eternity. That glory that
light is not created, is in fact uncreated, and it's
not something that just is postponed to an intellectual vision
in the afterlife to be a tipic vision. And in fact,
it is something that's participated in here and now, and
we know that by the fact of the incarnation. In fact,
when the Fathers at the six Ecumenical Council and at
the fifth by the way, talk about the incarnation, they
speak of the humanity of Christ as being deified via
the incarnation. Again, this process is done by the uncreated
energies which proceed from the divine nature, certainly, although they're
not the exact same as the divine nature. In our view,
that is the that is the means by which the
humanity of Christ participates in the divine life. That's explicitly
stated quoting from Saint Gregor Nissa and Saint Gregor of
Nazianzus and the theological orations at the fifth and sixth Council.
So it's repeated, it's reaffirmed. We also have statements at
the Council of Ephesus citing Saint Cyril of Alexandria Gisnastoria,
so that the bread and wine in a similar way,
participate in these divine energies. There are multiple references to
these same ideas in the Liturgies of the East, all
which talk about the operations of God. The baptismal right,
for example, talks about calling down the energies of God
into the baptismal font. And again it's all just based
on our crystological understanding, which we see as again dogmatically
stating in the sixth and fifth Council, that the energies
deify the humanity. So that model of deification of Christ's
humanity is the model for the individual believer, the individual
baptized Christian, as they participate in God through the Church,
through the sacraments, and that that participation is a real participation,
but it's a participation in the uncreated glory, an uncreated light,
uncreated grace of God, not a created grace. So I
would contrast this with what's later dogmatized, so not just
theoretically or philosophically speculated upon an aquinas in terms of
how there might be a relationship between this absolutely simple
essence and created beings, or this absolutely simple essence and
the one person of the Trinity somehow becoming incarnate. Rather,
it is the question of the Roman dogmas, and the
Roman dogmas do eventually state. And I think I'm vindicating
this by this, not just in my reading of what's
that the Roman Council's, particularly like Tranth or Vatican One,
where dogmatic divide simplicity has stated pretty clearly, you also
have the outworkings of this in terms of created grace.
You know, Trent has, if I recall, going from memory,
a condemnation of different speculations about what kind of grace
and justification is actually given in baptism, and one of
the things that's condemned is the idea that it's not
created grace. So, in other words, the grace that is
stamped upon our soul, the sanctifying grace, is a created effect.
And of course this is again in that sort of
riscituentan causal format of God the cause, and then we
receive the effects of that cause. But the effects that
we receive are in fact created. And I would argue
that the reason that Rome has this issue is precisely
because eventually in the dogma, the uncreated created or excuse me,
the uncreated grace, as his energy to sanctioned doctrine was
eventually lost, so it was perfectly fine in terms of
up into the sixth seventh eighth Council, if you count
the eighth r eighth that is where it was stated explicitly.
But it eventually, i would say, after the rise of
Frankish dominance, Charlemagne, the Carolinians, you eventually have this dogma
kind of being lost and forgotten. In Roman Catholic theology
pretty much settles into a pretty ossified, solidified doctrine of
what divine simplicity is. So there are a lot of errors.
I'm going to close up here with this opening statement.
I think that's the main the main point we would
say that there's a lot of errors that kind of
flow out of this that you can tease out. And
so my first clarification is that I'm not debating whether
Thomas had good intentions. I'm not debating whether Thomas in
other places in the Suma said things correctly. I'm not
here to debate Agustin's intentions or and some's intentions, but
rather just specifically whether or not the things that are stated,
say in book one of Syma Theologica and in book
one of the Semlicuntries and Telaes about what divine simplicity
is if that actually makes sense with and comports with
what is stated elsewhere about how there is a real
distinction of persons, because to us it doesn't seem that
there could be a real distinction of persons if distinction
implies composition or division. In fact, that's a direct borrowing
from Plutonis, as Plutonis who first said will, following other
Greek philosophers before him, that all consideration of distinction implies
division or composition. And for us we see that as
many times refuted, particularly in the christological heresies, but also
in the triological triantological formations of the early Church. So
for us, all of these questions are linked the doctrine
of God how he relates to creation, also the doctrine
of Christology, the doctrine of the sacraments, and the doctrine
of eschatology, or all intimately connect an ecclesiology in terms
of how we view the essence introducedinction and whether we
believe that it's possible or not. So when it comes
to Aquinas's conclusions, I'll say that for my later critique,
given the fact that, for example, I don't see how
creation can be a free action of God if we
accept his doctrine of device simplicity, and the idea that
all the actions of God are absolutely isomorphically identical to
the essence of God. I don't see how we can
say that there's a real incarnation if God is an
absolutely simple essence, or for example, how we would avoid
patropascianism if God is an absolutely simple essence. In other words,
that one hypostasis of the trinity couldn't enter into a
motive being that the others do not. So, for example,
the Father is not crucified, the Father does not become incarnate,
it's only the Son. But if God is an absolutely
simple essence in which the distinctions implied composition of division,
becomes difficult to see how there is a real nation,
how God's actions within time and space are real actions
signifying the divine power for as For example, it's common
amount to the early Fathers to speak of Christ's human
nature being evident when he cries or when he eats,
But we see the Fathers also making a strong argument
for the divine power operat in Christ or through Christ.
When he walks on water, when he does miracles, when
he raises the dead, those are actions proper to the
divine nature, and they are real powers entering into time
and space from the divine nature itself. Now we don't
believe the divine nature interers into time and space, but
in fact that is possible for the uncreated to enter
into time and space because of our belief in the
essence introduced sanction. And I'll close with I would say
our strongest case in that regard is the fact that
for us, the theophanies of the Old Testament up until
Augustine in book three of On the Trinity is when
it's first question. The Eastern Fathers never questioned the belief
that it is not created holograms or angels that are present,
for example in Exodus three in the Burning Bush, or
in Exodus twenty three where God says I will put
my name in my Angel, the Angel of the Lord.
It is consistently believed that these theophanies are the pre
incarnate presence of Christ himself. Tomism and Augustinian debates and
discussions and on the Trinity and questioning of this led
to the possibility that or led to the conclusion that
it's difficult to see how an absolutely simple Trinitarian essence
could manifest within time and space. Therefore, we have to
accept that these are just angelic created forms. We don't
believe that their Angela created forms, and neither do the
church fathers who argue that these are these are this
is the Logos manifesting within time and space. How is
that possible? It's possible because of the essence energy distinction.
So I will close with that and as my opening
statement and let you let you speak.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, there's I had a bit there obviously,
so maybe leaving something out, but it sounds as though
we've got maybe five or six areas. You're powered right,
So you've got I don't I don't know if you
talked about this one explicitly, but you've got the distinction
of attributes within God. You're going to have the problem
of God's actions of respect to the world. You've got
the problem of the trinity. You've got the problem of
the hypostatic union and the communication of idioms. And you
have the problem of nature and grace and what it
means to say that we share in God's life. And
I'm not all these are the same problem. So we
should probably take those piece by piece, and I'll try
to get to that in a minute. Since you did
a little thing saying what you were clarifying is what
you're trying to do and what you're not trying to do,
I'll do a little bit of the same. So I'm
not a theologian by trade, and my job. The thing
what I'm trying to do here isn't primarily to make
sense of council document so are the fathers. What I'm
trying to do is to make sense of the coherence
of Aquanus's doctrine of divine simplicity as best as I
understand it, and I've messed around with the Trinity some
I'm not an expert on the aquinus A theory of
the hypostatic union, so what I'll be saying about that
will be mostly guesswork, So I'm just throwing that out
as Covey ads here.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and what.
Speaker 2: You said about impuning motivations, I thoroughly agree with that.
I think we're both here to try to safeguard God's
transcendence and try unity as best as we can. So
let me start my elevator pitch, which I'll try to
keep fairly short, just by explaining why somebody like Aquinas
would find the doction of divine simplicity appealing, and then
we can go over how in the context of that
doctrine you try to make sense of the other things
that you talked about. Does that sound good?
Speaker 1: Sure? Okay?
Speaker 2: So the basic reason for affirming divine simplicity it comes
from affirming the philosophical and obviously a theological a doction
of the first cause. What does it mean to say
that there is a being who is absolutely first? What
does it mean to say that there is a being which,
unlike any being that we know of, it does not
need a further explanation behind itself. So all Aquinas is
famous proofs for God's existence, and this goes for Aristotle
as well. Are going to argue from our experience in
the created world of things which are a certain way
that didn't have to be, and arguing from that to
a cause which you might say, not to use aquitas
own terms, but something which is the sufficient reason of
its own being that way.
Speaker 1: Right, So the.
Speaker 2: Argument for emotion. We see things that change, we see
things that move. What does that mean? That means we
see something which was in potency becomes actualized and we
want to figure out what on earth did it do
that what's responsible for it's going from potency into act
And you can say there was something else that actualized that.
That's fine, but then you've got to ask the same
question about it. Does it have an actualized potency? If so,
what made that one actualize? And so you're going to
keep on chasing that ball until you come up with
something which has no potency but just it is pure actuality. Right,
So that's the famous domestic doctrine of Actus Purus. Sure,
I'm sure you're well familiar with and thinks that it's
once you grant the pure act doctrine, in other words,
that there is nothing there's nothing in God whose reality
has to be explained by something outside of itself. There's
nothing in God that could have been otherwise that was
made to be the way is by something that wasn't itself.
Once you grant that, Aquanus thinks that it's a short
step to the doction of absolute simplicity. Because for Aquitas,
whenever you have parts, where you're going to have is
some sort of potency act relationship. Right, So when you
have talking there are different kinds of parts. I'm not
sure how familiar you are with Aquinas's myriology with the
study of parts and holes. Right, So the most obvious
kind of parts is going to be integral parts.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So like the bricks that make up a house.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So in the case of the bricks that make up
a house, you've got actual, actually some mutual dependence relations going, right,
because the house wouldn't be a house unless it was
built up out of these parts. Right, So there's dependence there.
But likewise, these bricks only actually count as what they
are in the parts of the house because of their
dependence on the whole. Right, yourselves are humans because they're
part of your human body. And so with regular integral
or quantitative parts as they're sometimes called, you're not going
you don't want to predicate those of God, because then
you'd be introducing potency into what by definition can't have it.
If it did have it, then you'd have to ask
what actualized the potency, and you want to have reached
the actual first cause yet, So that's for integral parts.
Usually what people are worried about, when at least people
who grant that God's immaterial, what they're worried about when
they object to divine simplicity isn't integral parts. It's usually
going to be accidents, right, either the kind of accident
which ionus would call extraneous accidents, which in us would
be things like color and shape and size and all
that stuff, or proper accidents, which for us would be
things like the powers of our soul, things which we
can't help about having given our nature. So why can't
there be a multiplicity in God of those aquitness is
basic answer here. It's going to be, well, anytime that
you have a So there's a couple of different lines
of argument.
Speaker 1: Here's why.
Speaker 2: Anytime that you have a subject and a feature of
that subject, and so there's me, and there's my color
that feature that accident makes the subject be in a
certain way. In other words, me. It's just as a
human being, I can be all sorts of different colors.
I've got potency. And what the accident does is it
actualizes that potency in a certain way, makes me be actually.
Speaker 1: Tan or whatever.
Speaker 2: And that would imply that what it does imply that
what's being actualized is of itself potential. And so we
don't want to predicate accidents of certainly of tenness or
color of God, because among other things, he doesn't.
Speaker 1: Have a body.
Speaker 2: We don't want to predicate accidents of Wiz the more
justice of God either, because again, that would be to
imply that what God is the subject of which you're
predicating these accidents lacked that actuality. And so the stimistic
claims that when we say that God is wise, I'm
not saying that there's an extra metaphysical reality which I'm
plugging into the metaphysical reality, which is God. I'm rather
saying that the metaphysical reality, which is God, I can
capture a facet of that if you like, by my
word wise. And so that's one line of argument, and
that argument would be that if you were to say
that God have an accident distinct from himself, then that
would mean that this accident was actualizing God, unless that
God was in potesy, unless that God could not be
really the first cause, and that's wouldn't be God. The
other line of argument would be, I call it the
limiting line of argument. And so the idea would be this,
once you gr and we'd have to do a couple
more steps to show this, but once you grant that
God is the fullness of existence.
Speaker 1: Right, So if you grant.
Speaker 2: The octus purus claim, and you also grant the EEPs
from esse claim, and I can defend that if you like.
Then you're saying that God is this pure fullness of
existence of its itself, and to saying that the pure
fullness of existence itself is something limited, which would be
the case if I were to say that this pure
fullness of existence itself had this little do a hickey
attached to it called wisdom, which was different from it
and different from these other attributes, then I would be saying,
then the infinite and the pure and the what is
pair se through itself is something limited and participated. And
Aquanas thinks.
Speaker 1: That that's.
Speaker 2: Also in flat contradiction to the claim that God is
the first cause in which all other things participate, but
who himself participates in nothing. So I take it those
are the two main lines of arguments against positing accidents
really distinct from God in hearing in him. Now we
would have to do a little bit of work to
pair what you're calling energies with accidents one more thing,
and then we can get into the trying to poke
at the difficulties in each other's positions. So there's you
talked about operations in particular, the word and urgeia obviously
comes from the Greek word, which is most commonly used
for operation. Rislotl uses it that way, although he also
uses it sometimes to talk about form if I'm not mistaken.
And so there's this question of whether these arguments against
divine accidents would also apply to arguments sorry would also
apply to divine actions. Aquinas seems to think that they do.
So he claps actions as a kind of accident, and
so he wants to rule out all actions from God
for the same reason. Then he rules out accident distinct
accidents like justice and wisdom and mercy and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It's not clear to me, So I'm.
Speaker 2: A bit of a heterodox Stonis. I'm putting my cards
on the table here. It's not clear to me the
actions and formal accidents should actually be considered on the
same plane. I think you can make a principled case
for allowing a real distinction of God's creature directed actions
from himself in a way which you can't make a
good argument for real distinction of his attributes from himself.
And we can get into my crazy theories for why
that's the case later. Okay, So that's my basic argument
for a Quintus's position, as I understand it, should I
try to go through the various theological points that you're
bringing up, or do you want to speak to what
I just said.
Speaker 1: Well, one thing I would say too in response is,
at first, we do affirm that God is simple, every
Orthodox doctrine, every Eastern father and all the fathers Western
fathers as well. Right, consider, we all agree on simplicity.
So it's not really a question of do we teach
divine suplicity, but what in fact do we mean by that?
For us? You know, one of the key theological treatises
is on the Orthodox Faith, and of course Quita specifically
deals with in his treatise on Divine Simplicity. He specifically
deals with questions from John of Damascus right specifically on
the essence synergy distinction. So sometimes in Orthodox theology, yes,
operations inner gay that's actually used in the New Testament
multiple times of divine activity, so it signifies the divine
activity within time and space. But there's another important aspect
that I should add to here that for Orthodox this
actually solves a lot of the disputes between the East
and the West over the filioque and trinitarian questions, which
I'm not trying to get into that, but it is
important to Germane to our discussion because we don't believe
that that, you know, it's necessarily the case that there's
only actions of God towards creation or eternity. Now, in
a sense, yes there could be. I mean, there are
those two things. But I want I'm trying to say
is that we believe in a level of energetic manifestation.
So for example, when many of the church fathers talk
about the Spirit being manifested eternally from the Sun, that
is that our doctrine signal, which is laid out at
the Council of Black Herne as eternal manifestation. We see
that as different from hypostatic origin of the spirit. So
the reason I say that is because it's not just
the Spirit eternally manifesting the sun and the Spirit resting
in the sun, as Gregor Palomas and Saint John Damascus say.
It's John Adamascus who makes this distinction between eternal manifestation
and hypostatic origin. This is why Saint John doesn't teach
the philioquay, and in fact he rejects. He says that
there's no, there's no co cause or co producer of
the Spirit other than the Father. The Son does eternally
manifest the Spirit, and not just that the Son and
the entire trinity manifests. In other words, all the trinitarian
operations are from the Father through his Son and the Spirit,
and this applies to eternal manifestation as well. So, for example,
some attributes of God are appropriate to all eternity. God's
love has eternally manifested for all eternity in that trinitarian way.
God's God's goodness has eternally manifested that way. But some
actions of God, as you said, are proper appropriate to
time and space, to history. Saint Gregor Palamas and Saint
Maximus make this distinction. They talk about how God's us as,
for example, in relationship to Sodom and Gomor, that was
something that occurred within time and space and passed away.
Some of God's actions occur within time and space and
continue on into eternity, for example, the creation of the church,
setting up in the church, and so forth, the incarnation
of Christ. These begin in time and space and they
continue on into eternity. So not all actions of God
are necessarily just related to the intertrinitarian life of God
at intra or God at extra there's also for us
a very important other level of energetic manifestation, which is
a helpful distinction and actually explains what is it oftentimes
confused in Rumman Catholic teaching on the philioquay. So I
just wanted to add that caveat, and also the second
caveat that we don't actually accept act as purists. So
you began your opening statement by saying, well, if we
accept the first cause argument and the actress purist position,
then it does logically lead to these other things. And
I would say, you're right, does We would agree with that. However,
we just simply don't accept that starting point. And this
is the thing that I think most Thomas don't question
is what if we just question that starting point? What
if we just reject which starting point, the Plutonian and
the Originistic doctrine, the Greek doctrine, the Hellenic doctrine of
what simplicity is. For example, Botonis and in the Ideods
he says God is an absolutely simple intellectual essence. God
is So.
Speaker 2: Sorry, hold on, because that's not the starting point. The
starting point is just the notion of God is first cause?
Is that what you're attacking.
Speaker 1: Well, what I'm saying is that you can reason back
through to talking about a first cause. It doesn't matter
whether you want. When we're talking about divine simplicity, the
starting point is that that cause has to be absolutely simple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not the starting point. The starting point is
that there has to be a first cause, and we
prove from or we try from the notion.
Speaker 1: Okay, but we have, but we have a completely different
order theologia. We don't do that kind of a reasoning
back to the first cause. That's an Aristotelian doctrine. Now,
church fathers talk about a first cause, but we don't
talk about reasoning back to the first cause. In order
to get to a definition of God as simple and
then lay later by SuperNature, we tackle on the person's
orthodoxiology is completely reversed. It's the other way around. We
start with revelation from God and Christ, and that's how
we don't know naturally about God being a first cause
and then later God having three persons. It begins with
a personal revelation of I am that I am. This
is why Saint Gregory Palamas says to Barlem God doesn't
say I am existent being, I am the super essence.
He says I am he. For example, when Saint Basil
argues against Eunomius, and he specifically argues on the question
of what the one is till on, he argues that
it is a personal plane, it is about hypostasis. It
is I am he. It is not I am essence,
I am super being, I am whatever. It's I am he.
So even I know that you want to say, I'm
not starting with super essence, I'm starting with first reasoning
back to first cause, and then predicating about analogically about
what this essence is. What I'm saying to you is
that we just reject that whole process, the hope, the
whole hold on. So there could be two things here.
Speaker 2: So maybe you're saying that you just don't think that
any proofs for Gaza distance work. Is that what you're planning.
Speaker 1: No, we believe in the transcendental argument as most compatible
with orthodox theology. Saint John Damascus makes a transcendental argument.
But yes, I do believe the classical arguments don't work
very well. Precisely before this, well, we got precisely because
of what, because of this issue that we're talking about.
Speaker 2: You mean they don't work because they get you in
no place you don't want to be.
Speaker 1: No, I mean I argue with atheists all the time
and refute them quite quite the frequently because of the
transcendental argument. So it doesn't leave me to a place.
Speaker 2: No. I don't mean they like you don't want to
I don't want there to be a guy. What I
meant is you don't like the five ways, for example,
because they would imply divine simplicity.
Speaker 1: Is that what you're saying, they are bad arguments based
on classical foundationals epistemology and orthodox anthropology doesn't make sense
with classical foundationalistemology.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I think I would like for this discussion
to be fruitful. I think we should do maybe two things.
Maybe this is a rabbit hole, so tell me if
you don't want to do this. But so on the
one hand, I think it would be good to probe
this five ways issue a bit because I agree with
you that if we if we think that those are bunk,
then your arguments for divine simplicity are going to be
take short of their foundation. But here's this other thing.
Speaker 1: So it's right.
Speaker 2: So let me grant you for a minute that they're
a starting point as a Christian should be a revelation
rather than natural reason, start from God speaking in the
burning bush, rather than what we can know by the revelation,
which is written in the world around us. Very Saint Paul, right,
granting that, surely you would still want to maintain that
whatever the God of revelation is, it's not caused, and
it's the sort of thing whose explanation you don't have
to seek.
Speaker 1: Right, sure, I mean Eastern fathers will will say at
times God is first cause. Saint JOHNA. Mascus says that
I'm sure.
Speaker 2: And so what I'm trying to do, and what I
think divine simplicity does is it's a logical consequence of
a coherent claim that God is the first cause. And
so if you don't think that it follows from the
claim that God is the first cause, I would be
interested to see where where you think that argument comes apart.
I can restate, why does the first cause have to
be absolutely simple?
Speaker 1: Why can't there be compositive first cause? I mean, there's
no In other words, I have to accept a whole
bunch of other life philosophical.
Speaker 2: Of course, And I'm trying to figure out which of
those premises you're attacking. So the premising question would be
whenever you have two things that are right. So when
I have an attribute, but let's just can we go
with that as an example of composition.
Speaker 1: Okay, but I go ahead?
Speaker 2: Okay, Right, So when I have an attribute, right again,
that's going to mean that the subject, according to the
framework I'm using, the subject has been actualized by this
distinct reality is inhering in it. And so it seems
as though if you're going to grant that the composition
of subject and accident can be analyzed into a relation
to potency and act, and you want to maintain that
God is not does not have potency, then you're going
to have to grant a god you can accident. Now
there are more prevacies there.
Speaker 1: So go ahead, but we don't maintain that again, you
don't maintain which part we don't believe that God is
pure act with no potential.
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's rewind then, So it seems as the
when I look around at ordinary things, right, and I
see that I'm staring at the coffee mug on my desk,
I see that it is the certain shape, and I
can ask why, right, And that's a good question to ask.
It doesn't explain itself. It didn't have that shape and
that color just because of the nature of the matter
that makes it up.
Speaker 1: Right, So I need to.
Speaker 2: Seek outside of the cup for the reason why the
cup is and why it is this way. And it's
precisely because the cup didn't have.
Speaker 1: To be this way. Yeah, I mean, I understand.
Speaker 2: So in other words, whenever you have you have is
which didn't have to be this way, and whenever you've
got something which is this way but didn't have to
be this way, you need to ask why.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So I'm saying that if you say that God has potency,
it's actualized, then you need to explain why that happened.
Speaker 1: Sure. Well, the person I would say is that if
I adopt the tonistic doctrine of what simplicity is, and
if identify God's actions with his essence, then it's very
difficult to see. And I would say, you can't argue
that creation is actually a free action of God. Now,
all historic orthodoxyology hold on because create the act of
creating the world. I know, I know this objection quite well.
More to this objection, which I bet you don't know,
which is that it's not just a matter of whether
or not the action of creating was constrained by God's essence,
because they're identified. There's also a question of the divine exemplars.
This is because it's multiple times in the Suma identifies
the exemplars, the ideas behind the created things with the essence. Now,
if creation is based on the exemplars, then creation it's
hard to see how it's not also just as unchanging
and eternal as the exemplars upon which they're based. And
this is why worthodoxynology. That's why Saint Maximus and Gregory,
they don't identify the ideas or the logo with the
essence of God. They are the things around the God,
around God. This is why Dionysius the Areopagite, who Aquinas
cites multiple times that makes the distinction between essence and energy.
This is why Dionysius says that you can never get
to God's essence, and you can't even via negativa reason
about God's essence. It's not just a question of unifical
or analogical. Analogical analogical Another questions which we should say
for a little bit, but theological doesn't work either because
of the doctrine of divind's implicity as stated by Quinus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so first thing, like, I would like to
keep the ARGUMENTI I just gave separate from that.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So there's there's two things that both of us need
to do in this debate, right. So one of them
is make the case for why our position has to be,
why we think it has to be the way it is,
and the other one is to defend against objections to it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So when I'm giving you the potency act argument, right,
that's why I think it has to be the case.
And then I need to defend against objections like and
then how do you make sense of freedom?
Speaker 1: Right? So likewise, but.
Speaker 2: Energy essence, right, you're saying you need to One of
the reasons why you believe in the energy is essence
distinction is because you think it's necessary to say a
guard divine freedom.
Speaker 1: And then you have.
Speaker 2: As an objection. Right, So let's let's just keep these
two different things separate.
Speaker 1: I believe it because it's revealed, and I also believe
my view of what God is in terms of simplicity
because it's revealed. I don't begin by looking at the
composition of created things like coffee cups and try to
reason back and say, well, there must have been a
first simple cause that's not like a composite coffee cup.
In fact, I don't have to go that route. And
when you look at the early Church Fathers, when you
look at the way Scripture talks about these things, it's
a revealed doctrine, both of the persons and of what
God's nature is, which we don't know what it is,
of course, So no, we don't begin. As Paul says
in Act seventeen, the divine ussia is not like any
created thing. What he's arguing with you.
Speaker 2: Don't need to argue with me about that. That's actually
kind of both of our points. So anyway, keep going.
Speaker 1: But but a Thomas also wants his cake and to
eat it too, because he also says that this absolutely
simple divine essence does that there is an analogical similarity
between what's in this essence, the divine exemplars and the
created forms, and the creative forms are nothing like an
absolutely simple essence. So there's a divide where there's not
a bridge between this absolutely simple essence because there's no
uncreated grace, there's no bridge between the absolutely simple uncreated
and the created, and they share no similarity. Then there's
no basis for the analogia analogia innthis or the participation
in God in terms of redemption. It's all created grace,
it's all it's all bridged off by by Thomas's doctrine
of simplicity. Now I recognize again that he wants there
to be distinctions of persons. He wants there to be
God acting within time and space in terms of the
incarnation the logos somehow entering into a mode of being
that the Father and the Spirit do not. But our
contention is that in the system as a whole, with
all Thomas's claims and presuppositions, it doesn't work. It's contradictory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, let's let's keep So we've got
three issues on the table as of this moment. Right.
So we've got, on the one hand, my question, which
you haven't answered yet, which is, how is it why
is it that a compositive potency in act wouldn't need
an explanation? You have the second question, which is you've
addressed to me which I haven't answered yet, which is
how it would be possible for an absolutely simple God
to be free. And then there's the third question, which
isn't a pistological question, which is if we don't if
we grant that the divine essence is transcendent, what what
are our predicates lashing onto? Right? And that's the problem
with analogy. And so those are I think three separate issues.
We should probably go over.
Speaker 1: Them one by one. Okay, So the first one is
I've already answered it, and I said, first of all,
we don't accept that God is pure act with no potentiality.
Speaker 2: That's not an answer though, right, because the way you
need to explain to me is why is it?
Speaker 1: So you're it is an answer because in Christian theology,
God is not explained in that way. He's revealed a
certain way. So what my answer to you is that
we don't have an answer to to acquine us to
Aristotle's dilemma of accidents and substance, because that's not how
we look at and view God. We don't use that system.
It wasn't used for the first thousand years. So I
don't have to answer that question because it's not applicable
to how we know who God is. We know who
God is through revelation and through participating in that field life. Well,
we're all on board with.
Speaker 2: Saying that revelation is true, right, but the question is right.
So I would challenge you to find examples in the
scripture of saying that God is in potency to attributes
or stuff like that.
Speaker 1: You keep asking me, what where can I have as
I do at least you keep asking me to use
Arisitilian terminology and classifications and categories, and I just told
you that we don't, and they're not in scripture, and
they're not in the in the first thousand years of
the church farm generally speaking.
Speaker 2: The thing that you had said first was that you're
fine with saying that God has potency least.
Speaker 1: I was trying to speak to your terminology, for example,
in Bradshaw's essays in his book, where he says that
if we follow through what's saying that God has no potentiality,
it's difficult to see how there's a free act of creation.
But I'm moving the step back further and I'm saying
we reject your doctrine of what simplicity is because it's
direct from origin and.
Speaker 2: I'm not interested in arguments from authority or where claims
came from.
Speaker 1: What I'm trying to for a thousand years, right matters.
Of course, it matters where they came from. If you're
if you're just rehashing Platinus, then that's a problem and
a point does that? No?
Speaker 2: No, I mean, look what we're trying to do, or
at least here's what I'm trying to do. Right, So
we've got we've got a revelation. We know by revelation
a couple of things. We know more than a couple.
We know that there is one God, and that he
is the first cause of all things, that he's three persons,
and that the second person became man and died.
Speaker 1: For our sense, I mean.
Speaker 2: Matters if something is directly contained in revelation. But like
what where like these distinctions came from. I'm not sure why.
That's germane right, So to say that Platinus originated this
way understanding what it means to be the first one cool.
Speaker 1: So, soology it does matter. It does matter because it's
the doctrine of the Heretics and the doctrine of the
Greeks that the early councils rejected. So every time the
Christological controversies happen. They argue against guys who were influenced
by Greek thought. This actually comes up in the writings
of the Fathers and in the Councils. They say, you've
been influenced by the Hellenic ideas of what simplicity is.
So if Plotinus talks about simplicity in a certain way
and in which it identifies all the names or attributes
of the one with the essence of the one, and
then when you know Meius says the exact same thing.
In Saint Gregor Nissa writes an a hit or page
book against Eunomius and makes this very argument, saying, Hey, Youunomius,
you got your argument from Plotinus. I would say that
I can just simply repeat that same argument against you,
because a Quitas rehashes the same argument from Eunomius and
from Plotinus. So absolutely tell.
Speaker 2: Me, though, is that somebody who, by dint of using
reason alone, with no help from revelation says some true
things and some false things. No, that's not You who
have the revelation should discard the baby with the bathwater.
That's what I'm hearing. Like what I say, know, most.
Speaker 1: Of these, most of these were fine with heedagogy. So
you're making a strong man. I didn't say that we
have to throw out all philosophy or anything a question.
Speaker 2: If it's the case, the fact that Platinus said something
means that it's wrong.
Speaker 1: That's the origin of this proposition. Okay, do you do
you understand big bid? Do you understand dialectics? Right? So,
when the early church fathers are arguing against somebody like Celsus,
or whether they're arguing against Arius, or whether they're arguing
against Eunomius, they often talked about how these heretics employed dialectics.
And so, for example, it's Platonis who pioneered this, right,
it doesn't matter whether it's Platinus who said it or
whether it's Nestorius who said it. The same heresy is
being restated. Who cares who said it if it's wrong
in principle, So I'll grant you that, yes, it doesn't
matter ultimately who said it. But I'm saying that when
the Church fathers argue against these things, they absolutely are
concerned with the origin or the wellspring of where these
errors come from. And I'm telling you that we reject
the Greek philosophical origin of how we understand what simplicity
is and we actually just go to what's revealed. That's
what the Church fathers do. That that's why they reject
Hellenic dialectics every time there's a council, and particularly the
sixth count.
Speaker 2: My only point is, I'm not going to accept it
as a valid accounter argument that you say that this
principle or whatever was articulated by Platinus, and Platinus tell
some heretical views, therefore they must not hold this principle.
Speaker 1: That's the argument. The argument is, your doctor of simplicity
is the same as Platinass, and it's heretical man.
Speaker 2: And it's certainly not the same as Platonis is because
I hold the trinity right, the emination.
Speaker 1: Of new from the already I already had one when
I said that, the question wasn't whether Thomas also said
correct things elsewhere, but whether the doctrine simplicity itself wasn't
the exact same as what Platina said. And when Platina
says that all the acts and names and operations of
God or the One are exactly the same as the essence,
that's the same as what Aquina says. And so when
This is why Origin was led to say that the
son is a different subsistence or a different kind of
created subsistence, different from the Father, because he identified the
hypostasis of the father with the essence. This is why
you Nomius identified the father with unoriginate and with absolutely
simple essence.
Speaker 2: In other words, you're saying that you think that the
platinum doctrine Platita thinks that the one is completely simple. Okay, fine,
and that this one means can only be one hypostasis
in itself. It can't be three that have the nature
of the one. If you could even speak of the
nature of the one, that you probably can't. For him,
and Thomas wants to hold that that same doctrine of
divine simplicity, you say, but with but also persons, correct?
Speaker 1: Is that right? Yes, it's the same philosophical Greek idea
of what simplicity is, and then also the idea of
let's also tack on persons. Let's use the Greeks and
so far as they were good at talking about simplicity
and the monad, and let's tack on three hypostasies. And
the argument is that given what's said in Greek and
Hellenic thought generally that I'm talking about here about what
simplicity is. It doesn't there's no place for real distinctions
in the persons. This is why it leads to modalism.
This is why.
Speaker 2: Do you want to get to Aquinas's trinitarian theory then,
because that would be our next step. I'm still going
to say, I'm like, I would like to go back
to the problem of whether or not you're willing to
say that God has potency, So I'm going to take
that as just bracketed for the moment. Do you want
to go to trinity instead?
Speaker 1: I mean, if you listen to what I say, right,
So when I said yes, if you want to use
your language and say does God have potency, then I
would say in the sense of him not having to create,
but yet he chose to create. That is.
Speaker 2: So, well, this is just a verbal that part is
just a verbal distinction, right. So Aquinas constantly uses this
distinction between active and passive potency, and the only kind
of which he's going to deny of God as passive potency,
which is the kind of has.
Speaker 1: Let's just we can cut past all this and just
make it very clear that that Aquinas says that all
the distinctions and the attributes of God are notional. They're
not real that they're just conceptual distinctions that we make.
And so God's love is the exact same as the
essence is the exact same as the Foregnoledge is exact
same as the act of creating. That's ultimately foolish. I
agree with the first part of the claim.
Speaker 2: Right, So he does say that God's essence is the
same as his active loving himself, which is the same
as his active knowing himself. It is the same as
his active existence, which is the same as the act
by which He makes all things that it's.
Speaker 1: Also the attributes that are the same as the essence
of God.
Speaker 2: Sure, so then you were talking about we're trying we're
talking about acting passive power. Right, So obviously right, God
can make things that he hasn't made. But for a
quintas that doesn't imply that God is. What we need
to avoid is saying that God is receiving something or
being actualized by something which he did not have to
receive or be actualized by. Right, Does that Does that
make sense? Raison, What we're trying to do is exclude
receptivity or passivity from the divine nature?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Is that a goal that you're okay with? Or do
I need to defend that one?
Speaker 1: I don't think that that any Orthodox person would say
that God's that God needed anything in his nature or
anything like that.
Speaker 2: That that that's when I say that God doesn't have potency.
That's just what I mean. Right, So the cup is
in potency to this shape or that shape by virtue,
but it's matter, and so it's being actualized by that,
and so the cups needed some sort of shape.
Speaker 1: That's what we.
Speaker 2: Deny when we deny that God has potency and Aristotelian terms,
if you want, if you if you like the word
need better or open slot or whatever, that's fine, same idea. Okay,
So are we okay? Can we then agree that God
doesn't have.
Speaker 1: Potent as far as I can tell, yes, that makes sense. Okay.
Speaker 2: So that's all that we're trying to maintain when we
hold that God is entirely simple. We don't want anything
in God which would fill a slot.
Speaker 1: That's really that's not all.
Speaker 2: That that's our reason for holding it. Okay. So if
you can show what you need to do, and this
is what I tried to do, in my own DISSERTATIONE. Right,
So I'm arguing with you, but I'm actually at least
half on your side. So we get to that part
in a minute. But what you would need to do
is to explain why the kind of multiplicity that you
want doesn't involve actualizing or filling a need or an
open slot or whatever in the divinity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would, just because that makes sense, I would
throw out of all these categories, big part I would
throw out.
Speaker 2: Well, surely though, you're going to agree now, No, you can.
What you can what you can do is you can
tell me that these things right, So give me an
example of multiplicity, say the divine persons. You can say us, well, agree,
of course, but this multiplicity does not involve an actualization
of the divine essence, and so we can allow it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But what you need to do is for every case
of an energy that you describe, you need to explain
to the temist why this doesn't count as right, Why this,
why you don't need these categories right, why they don't apply.
I think the onness is on you.
Speaker 1: No, it's not, because, first of all, there is a
thousand years of the Church using categories and explanations in
terms that are not Tomistic and are not Aristotelian. So
we already have like the use of this. So it's
the onus is not on me, but actually on in this.
Of course, you know, it was very controversial when when
Tomism began to adopt the restilianism. Uh so, And ultimately, yes,
it's not you know so much about this or that
specific term, but it's about the the almost scientistic approach
to dissecting God in this way and not looking at
how the revelation of what hoopostasis is in the New
Testament or what innergaia is as opposed to fusis in
the New Testament.
Speaker 2: Right, I don't know what you mean by scientistic right,
what we've gotten as the data of revelation, right, we've.
Speaker 1: Got it's not data. It's it's not natural revelation as
a science. Theology is not the queen of science. That's
what I mean by scientistic. Right. It's about it's about understanding,
yes it is, but that means that understanding comes through
the direct experience of God, not through the intellect.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so if you want to say that the
only proper knowledge of God is by mystical vision and
then we're just wasting our time talking about him.
Speaker 1: Right, that's probably true. I believe in an analogia that's
applicable to the energies. Right, so the logoi to read,
say Maximus, the doctrine of the logoi, which he identifies
as divine ideas. Uh, they're uncreated energies, they're not the
essence of God. And so again what you notice is
that what distinguishes the Orthodox position consistently across the board.
That's why I started out talking about how we have
a different anthropology, we have a different triology, we have
a different doctrine of Christology, and a different eschatology and
a different ecclesiology. Is cause of the U S and
S energy distinction and all these different points. So it's
a whole system. It's it's holistic in our U.
Speaker 2: I understand that. But so let me just try to
plug it in. Since your we're back to energy, let's
just try to plug in that term energy into the
question I was asking you. All Right, so what if
Thomas is going to be worried about when he hears
you're talking about divine energies. Is the question of whether
these energies would be such as to actualize the divinessence.
I assume correct me if I'm wrong. I think you
would want to say that, in fact, they don't actualize
the divine essence, and that they're not received by or
that they're not principles of God's existence or God's nature
at all. What I'm trying to tell you that you
have anything God? Is that fair statement?
Speaker 1: Yeah? But what I've been trying to convey is that
you have to reject homism. Right, this whole system is
a problem. So because you are trying to force me
into the risk of to you categor worries, I'm trying to.
Speaker 2: Tell you an It's just this is not like Aristotle.
Say that and not right, and that's something is necessary
or contingent. This is not Aristotle.
Speaker 1: This is just about you were talking about in potentia
and actuality and active through.
Speaker 2: It just means can be. It's what can be. That's
all it is. I know that's not Aristotle's copyright.
Speaker 1: I know what contingency means. What I'm telling you is
that you are a Tomas and these categories that you're
talking about did come from Aristotle, and they were introduced
by Uh. You know Thomas and his his teacher Albert Magnus,
they were not the norm for the first thousand years
of the church. Now why weren't they the norm? Precisely
because of the questions.
Speaker 2: And we're not trying to have an argument about terms here,
You're you're saying the.
Speaker 1: Part we are because because we reject your doctrine of simplicity. Doctrine,
don't can you not see that, Helen doc simplicity can
be questioned.
Speaker 2: Of course you can be questioned, but I'm saying that
this doctrine of simplicity arrest like you can be questioned,
I don't think that it can be successfully debunked. But okay,
well reason.
Speaker 1: So there's a whole there's a whole, eight hundred page
book that debunks it, written by Saint Grego. There are
lots of books that try to that's another the Doctor
of the Church and he and he shows that Eunomianism
is modalism based on it's his doctrine simplicity. It's the
exact same doctor simplicity.
Speaker 2: Hold on, we're not here to just trade claims. You're
wrong or you're wrong, right. We're here to try to
evaluate arguments as best as we can, right, And so
the argument that.
Speaker 1: That Aquinas's doctrine simplicity is exact same as eunomius doctrine simplicity,
and although the conclusions are different, Eunomius is refuted in
eight hundred pages by Saint Gregoranissa and the whole argument
is based on essence, energy distinction, as well as other things.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let me latch onto that. Then how are
you defining the divine simplicity doctrine, which you say Aquinas
shares with Eunomias.
Speaker 1: Well, I can look at the suma under the questions
like question three the simplicity of God, where it's stated
very clearly in those what eight questions? I think he says,
is God composite? Is the simple? Is God's existence exact
same as his essence? Yes? It is? Is there any
accidents in God? No? Are the attributes the same as
the essence of God?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Are they just logical distinctions? Yes? So forth and so on.
I mean, there's not a whole lot of debate. I
wouldn't think about what Thomas says divine.
Speaker 2: And so you're holding the Eunomius holds likewise that God
is identical to anything that can be said of him,
and therefore there can't be a trinity.
Speaker 1: The only difference, the only difference between Aquinas and Eunomius
is that Aquinas wants there to be a via negativa
and Eunomius didn't. Ah, you can you can fall on
two sides of this coin. You can fall on the
on the side of the coin with the quietness where
you want both things to.
Speaker 2: Be true, or you can follow on both things are white,
the trinity of persons and unity of nature? That what
well were the three of the two things are a
trinity of persons and simplicity of nature?
Speaker 1: What two things?
Speaker 2: That's the whole both things at once? What two things?
Simplicity of nature, persons.
Speaker 1: And the via negativa where we can predicate analogically of God.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that the via negativa issue is what's
at stake here.
Speaker 1: So let me this is why. It's the exact same
debate that Saint Gregory had with Barleum. Barleam says that
when we predicate of God, we predicate of him substantially
but analogically, and Saint Gregory responds by saying, if God
is an absolutely simple essence, and you only know creative effects.
You don't actually know God. You don't actually know God
because you never know whether you're experiencing what attribute, because
all the attributes are divine essence A right, I mean,
you're experiencing love. How do you know you're experiencing love
or justice or pere knowledge or what? You never know
because they're all the same as a divine essence. And
you don't ever participate in God.
Speaker 2: And I'm happy to get into a problem of analogical predication,
but I'm not sure that's the same problem. Can we
see trinity for just a sec Okay, so let me
just try it. Maybe this will or maybe this won't
be germane to the to your point, but let me
try to give Aquitance's defense. Right, So this is now
the other side of the coins, not arguing force position.
It's repelling objections, explaining why he thinks that his doctrine
of simplicity is compatible with the trinity of persons, right,
because it seems to me that you're just saying that
straight up. It's just a case of trying to have
your cake and eat it too, right, right, correct? Yeah,
so Aquitances claim he holds divine simplicity to this extent.
He doesn't want there to be anything in God which
actualizes or is a principle of God's existence. Now, the
reason why he thinks this is compatible with there being
three subsistent relations in the divinity is because of how
he understands the nature of relation in particular. Right, so
he does more arsitilian framework.
Speaker 1: Bear with me.
Speaker 2: So in his framework, every anything, all ten of the
categories are going to have two sides to them. Right,
There's going to be the essay side, and there's going
to be the form of the Razio side.
Speaker 1: Right, So you have.
Speaker 2: Dog nature and a substantial form, and you have the
essay which is proper to it, which is subsistent essay.
Speaker 1: And then you have.
Speaker 2: Quantity his form. And then there's the essay which is
proper to which is n s or inherence, and the
same for quality. And in the case of these two,
there's a double sort of inherence. According to Aquinas, So
quantity and here's.
Speaker 1: This cup is big.
Speaker 2: Let's say quantity and here's a subject, both in the
sense that it draws its existence from that subject.
Speaker 1: Right, it doesn't.
Speaker 2: Quantity doesn't just hang out on its own, and it's
always the quantity of something. And here's in that sense,
and here is in a further sense, which is that
it posits that content, that formal content in the subject
and makes that cup b three ounces whatever. Right, So
it serves now as a principle of that cup's being,
makes that could be in a certain way. Okay, And
same for quality. So all the things that we normally
think of as attributes, whereas accidents have this double inherence
that they exists in the subject, draw their existence from it,
and they make it be in a certain way. So
Aquitans is going to deny that there can be any
anything predicated of God, anything really distinct from God in
hearing in him, after the fashion of quantity or quality.
And the reason is because quantity or equality and here
is in that second way. And thus would if really
distinct from God, add something to God's being? Relation is
different according to Aquinas, because it doesn't do that. And
here's only in the first way.
Speaker 1: Still got an.
Speaker 2: Essay one creatures, but it doesn't make its subject. It
doesn't it doesn't add any new content to the subject.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, and you've got these two cups that are equal
in size to each other the size right, that's in
the category of quantity, posits content in the subject, actualizes
it and modifies it. And based on the fact that
it's got this thing which is modifying it, it's got
this other feature, which is the relation of equality, which
doesn't add anything to the cup at all, doesn't make it,
doesn't modify, it doesn't actualize, it doesn't limit it nothing.
So it's it's Rozzio guerna Quinas is pure towardness, purely
towards something else. So that's just among creatures. Transposing this
to God, he's going to say, okay, So, like everything
else in God, our arguments for divine simplicity are right.
The essay sign of this accident is not going to
be in essay. It's not going to be inherence. It's
just going to be the solf same divine essay. But
I can still talk about it's Rozzio, it's content being
distinct from from other relations in God, because these relations, right,
they're towards this is not towards the essence. They're not
positive something in the essence, they're not modifying, and they're
strictly looking outward. And so I can say that God,
when kind nature is two because of the Father or
from in the case of the Son, without actualizing, modifying, limiting,
or what have you, of the divine nature. And so
for aquittness, it's entirely principled to hold divine simplicity in
the sense which I just stated, namely, there can be
nothing in God which limits him or actualizes him, and
at the same time to hold three subsistent relations in
that divine nature. And so it's not ad hoc. It's
not just we're going to tack it on. It has
to do with what it means to talk about relations
in the first place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm familiar with what he says, and the problem
is that it doesn't work. So, for one, the basic
way to repute this is just to talk about the
fact that this distinction is spoken of as relations of opposition.
And yes, Aquinas does at times try to say that
the Father is still the arcade of the Trinity, But
what he doesn't understand is that for the Eastern position,
which has already declined this dogmat Yeah, can you hear me?
Speaker 2: Hang on, I think I want to just say that again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I was trying to say is that this
is already defined an Orthodox theology, we already had a
way to understand the relations within the Trinity, precisely because
we didn't have the absolute divine simplicity doctrine. So we
already had an Eastern tradition that dealt with these issues,
particularly in Saint Maximus Confessor, Saint Photius and so forth,
who really fleshed this out on multiple levels. And that's
because we don't have the absolute divind simplicity problem that
we needed to even use relations of opposition. This does
not come into play until Augustine and then later on
picked up by Anselm an Aquinas. So the problems with
this idea and the way that you formulated it is
that I understand that Aquinas doesn't want it to be
just tacked on. He wants it to really be, you know,
three hypostases. But the problem is that when you get
to this question of identifying the persons with the essence,
which Aquinas is very dogmatic about, he says specifically that
na curious person. This goes contrary to the fact that
Saint John Damascus in on the Orthodox Faith, says very
clearly that the identification of nature in person is the
root of all heresies and that's because sat John Damascus
understood that all the dialectical heretics would use this as
this kind of dialectical relationship between thing and other one.
In many simplicity and differentiation, they always set up a
dialectical tension, and so relations of opposition are ironically or
the Augustinian shield is a way to define the person's dialectically.
The problem is that it doesn't work. For one, the
spirit is subordinating in this relationship because he doesn't have
a property that the other you have. And in fact,
in Roman Catholic dogma it's actually stated more than once
that the father and the son are together a co
cause of the spirit. So the father and the son
is sharing property that the spirit doesn't have. All of
this in order to maintain this system of how to
differentiate between persons and an absolutely simple essence again, just
toss out the absolutely simple essence doctrine of a quitas
except the Eastern doctrine, and you don't have this problem.
The persons are differentiated because the father is the archae
You unriginate the cause of the persons. The aspiration is
unique to the spirit, generation is unique to the son,
and you don't need this relation of oppositions doctrine, which
is a dialectical philosophical speculation approach and actually doesn't really
distinguish a person because in fact, every one of the
persons shares this relation of being not the other. Right,
each of the persons is not the son, is not
the spirit is not the spirit is not the father,
et cetera. So not being the other two, uh, and
the spirit not having a property of producing a person
imbalances the trinity. So the spirit ends up being subordinated.
And this is the chief reason why the East has
a problem with the Philly. Okay, So what you're talking
about in a way to distinguish the persons that doesn't
do damage to divine simplicity. Not only does it not work,
it's actually the root of the Philly. Okay. The Philioka
was introduced precisely because of this question and these issues,
and it just simply doesn't work, all right.
Speaker 2: So first off, so I'm just going to reiterate my
point about it appeals to authority.
Speaker 1: So you're you're in a Roman Catholic church, no, I know,
appeals to authority and name Catholic.
Speaker 2: I would have appreciated if you like. Later emailed me
the quotation you're thinking of, which one, the one about
the root of all heresies? That sounds fun. It's an
on the Orthodox faith. It's famous where you're talking about
Crystal the Yeah. But secondly, apart from all that, So
first off, so you want to go down the subordination
to something, it's not clear.
Speaker 1: To me a what you gain by or how.
Speaker 2: This problem is more your problem for me than it
is for anybody, including for yourself, because if you're going
to say that subordinationism just means that one person is
going to be subordinate to another in as much as
it is from another, then.
Speaker 1: Feeling, then you've got a problem. So I said, the
Roman doctrine of the father and the son together sharing
the property of being the co calls of the spirit
subordinates the spirit because the father and the shunt sons
share a property that the Spirit does not. So in
class if you read John Damascus or any Eastern Fathers
or what's normative, even in some Catholic theology, they will
make the claim that whatever we say something about God
to Trinity, it's either applicable to the persons or to
the essence. Right, So we're making a statement, either about
the unity of God or about the persons. There's no
there's no property that two persons share that the others
that another person doesn't have. And infhilioquism is it's defined
in Florence and the Roman dogmas. You have the father
and the son as the co cause of the hypostasis
of the spirit. It's not just the eternal manifestation, which
is what we believe about the son sharing in the
eternal manifestation of the spirit, the spirit rests in him.
But in fact, in the Roman Catholic dogma, there's I
don't think there's any question that it's the father and
the son who are the hypostatic cause of the spirit.
So the subordination comes by the fact that the father
and the son share a property that the spirit does not.
Speaker 2: Okay, So it's true that Aquitus will say this too much,
that there's four relations in God. There's going to be
the relation of paternity, affiliation, of spiration, and of procession.
And he holds up of those four and maybe this
is the esthetic. Uh, it's a pleasure that you're having
with us. Only three of those are I forget what
the technical term is, but only three of those correspond
to a person. The reason is because the fourth, namely spiration,
is not held in opposition.
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 2: Well, it's held in common by two persons, and so
it doesn't serve to identify one person as as opposed
to another.
Speaker 1: Well, he uses relations of opposition and he tries to
use affiliation, spiration, et cetera. So so there's there's both
our president of Quinas and it's only in the more
radical philioquiz that really that relations of opposition even entered
as a way to do it, but it doesn't work.
But there is a section where he talks about relations
of opposition.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, no, the relations of opposition essentral. So quin
it's the theory, right. My point was just sure you
have this aesthetic ugliness if you like that. Of the
four relations with the two pairs, right, So, fraternity, affiliation,
and procession to spiration, only three of those pick out
a person. And the reason is because the fourth spiration
is shared in common by two of itself. I'm not
sure why that's why that's a problem.
Speaker 1: If you want to does the father and the son
share a property that the spirit does not? In anything
that you say about God is applicable either to the
persons or to the nature.
Speaker 2: Okay, So by your theory, don't the son and the
spirit both share a property which the Father does not.
Speaker 1: No being from, No, because because the way that they're
defined is not merely being from the way they're defined
is hypostatic origin. Generation defines the son, spiration defines the spirit,
and the Father is the sole cause.
Speaker 2: Okay, and so okay, But so it seems so you see,
I'm trying to forguret where to start here. So it
seems as though I could say in reply, right, so
what you've got there is they've got they both share
this property of being from, and one of them is
from in this way, which is being generated sonship, and
one of them is being from in this way, which
is being spiratd or proceeding or whatever. But it seems
as though I can say the exact same thing with
regards to spiration, right, because I can say that the
son aspirates the spirit as from the Father, and I
can say that the Father inspireates the spirit, not as from.
And so although sure there's a verbal similarity at the
level of abstraction, the reality is there's no like actual,
real relation which father and son both have, which the
spirit doesn't.
Speaker 1: But in the Roman dogma they're defined as a co cause.
Father and son are.
Speaker 2: Hypostatically no person is caused by any other.
Speaker 1: Of course, they are cause.
Speaker 2: The cause means to receive it being. I don't think
you want to say that.
Speaker 1: This is typical Orthodox and Church father terminology. The father
is the sole cause. Even a quantus uses this terminology.
Speaker 2: So again, it just depends on what you mean by cause.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's if by cause you mean something which makes something else,
obviously not normally when.
Speaker 1: It's in your own dogmas that the father and the
son are the co cause of the spirits hypostasis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to send me footnotes, you want
me to read the dogma to you the footnote. But
when I'm trying to do right now is just the
sentiquent position as I understand it, And to my knowledge,
he's never going to say that the father causes the son.
He's going to say that the father generates the son,
is going to say that the son has the divine
nature as from the father. He's a very precise, and
I think.
Speaker 1: The term cause is used. They don't mean it in
the sense of creating. It's just a it's just termin it's.
Speaker 2: Used as synonymous for XS from WY. That's fine.
Speaker 1: Well, that's how it's used patristically, so they're not saying
and many church fathers use this terminology. Again, it's in Florence. Uh,
the father and the son are a co cause I'm
looking for the other. I think it's lateran it talks
about I'll give you the Denzinger here in a second.
But but again, the point is that that in the
you have a balanced position in the East where you
don't have attributes of properties that that two have. And
saying from from a source is not an attribute because
it's it's not a positive relation. It's a negative relation.
That doesn't that doesn't express anything that's part of that
relation of opposition. We don't we don't do relations of opposition.
We do hypostatic origin as the way to understand the trinity.
And since the Father alone is the sole cause or
arcade of the trinity, he's the unoriginate one. The only
way to distinguish the person's is by hypostatic origins, by
the fact that the son is generated and the spirit
eternally proceeds.
Speaker 2: So how do you distinguish what it means to be
generated and what it means to be proceeded.
Speaker 1: I will tell you what every single Eastern father says
to that very question, which is that we don't know
what those words mean.
Speaker 2: Okay, But what Acquinance is trying to do is to
give a principled reason for why these two should not
collapse into each other. Right, And it seems as if
that's something valuable today. Just to go back to the
subordination as something again, it's just not clear to me.
It's not clear to me why by saying that the
father is strictly two, by saying that the son is
both from end to and saying that the spirit is
strictly from It's not clear to me why I am
saying that one of these is like better or nobler
or higher than the other. Right, Because and Iquanas does
discuss this objection, and his point is simply that when
you're talking about nobility, if the nobility comes strictly from
the difine essence, that's something absolute and that's shared equally
by all. To speak of from and to or from
end too, is not to speak in the language of
better or worse, more primary or secondary.
Speaker 1: The idea of subordination doesn't have to do necessarily. We're
just defining what is less and more noble. What do
you mean by subordin? What is it that you see
as the problem with what you're calling subordination? And what
and how do you define it? That again, in our tridology,
which I again would argue is from the Eastern fathers
and councils and not just like my speculation, our triology
doesn't argue that that we can say anything about God
that isn't applicable to hypostasis or to God considered as
unity right to one God. So if we say wisdom,
wisdom is a property or attribute that is applicable to
all the persons. Right, So it's not like the Father
alone has wisdom and the spirit doesn't. Right, So that's
a that's a statement about God considered as God. It's
applicable to all the persons because because wisdom is a
wisdom is a natural attribute. It's a property or an
attribute applicable to nature. So likewise, when we say that
we consider the will of God, does God have three
wills or one will? God has one will? Because will
is a property of nature and not a property of hypostasis,
and for us, this is applicable to anything that's said
about God. So when we even when we talk about
trinitarian relations, when we talk about how we distinguish the persons,
we distinguish them by their origin, by the fact that
the Father alone is the fact that you have a
problem with the Father soul ark or cause, I think
shows a lack of understanding of what the Eastern fathers
say when they define the Father as the cause.
Speaker 2: So for us, what you mean by a cause is
just I think what I meant by what I meant,
we're just talking about the relations of origin.
Speaker 1: That's fine, okay, okay, But but for us, it's not
just a question of speculating about the trinity. For us,
this is how we know God. God is known first
and foremost, as Paul says, one Father. So God reveals
himself to us hypostatically or personally. We don't start with
reasoning back and coming up when they first cause simple essence.
We start with the fact that God says, I am
heat God is personal. We start our order theology is
different or order theology right. We start with the Father
and the Father as the sole cause or arka A. R. H.
In the Greek as Basil uses, it is the cause
of the son in terms of generation, and he's the
cause of the spirit eternally in terms of spiration. And
so that alone is the way that we distinguish the person.
There's no other way. So anytime we make a statement
about God, when we say how do we know who
the spirit is? We say, he proceeds eternally from the
Father through the son. And when we say who is
the son, he's the one. He is eternally generated from
the Father and eternally manifest us the spirit. Right, So
those are the ways that we distinguished And anything said
about God and our trinitarian theology causes imbalance. If we
attribute a property, a positive property to two persons, that
one of them doesn't have the spirit therefore lacks and
the ability to produce a person, and this and and
in other words, the Father and the Son have this
this melded kind of co cause here to use the
terminology of Florence, and I think the latter and council. Again,
I'm going for a memory here, but it is a
It is a father and the Son together signify a
single principle of the spirit. To use the terminology. Yes.
Speaker 2: The reason I'm having trouble with this argument is that
it's just not clear to me what what is so
dire about the saying that this.
Speaker 1: Is because nothing that's said of God it doesn't produce.
And when you say things about or a new person
the others too.
Speaker 2: The other two are because you're you're happy with saying.
Speaker 1: You can actually you can. You can see the subordination
of the spirit of the Roman Church over the last
several hundred years. The Spirit is not given his proper role. Uh.
And this is why you think that you know, I mean,
this is I'm not trying to get off on a trail,
but the Roman Church thinks that you need the payments to,
you know, settle all issues. Because the idea of Pentecosts
actually guiding the Spirit guiding the actual churches is is suppressed.
It leads to the idea of why we need a
pope because you don't understand the meaning of Pentecost and
the reality of the spirit. The Spirit is just as divine.
He's not lacked, he's not lacking in the ability.
Speaker 2: You don't need to convince me that the Holy Spirit
is divine. All. I'm all I'm doing is I would
want to deny firmly that being toward another person as
towards rather than from, is somehow essential to being a
divine person.
Speaker 1: I don't think he doesn't produce.
Speaker 2: I do think that following down the filioqui trail is
a bit of a rabbit hole at the moment.
Speaker 1: Right, So related Philly is a result of absolutely.
Speaker 2: I understand that. So you're saying that it's a this
clinching argument against divine simplicity, that divine simplicity entails the bunk,
and that it's not going to work for me, because
I don't think the is bunk unless it seems perfectly
legit to hold divine simplicity. So, if you want to
argue against h the argument that I was giving.
Speaker 1: Before, the father and the son are a co cause
or a co principle together the spirit, the spirit does
not have this property of producing a person. Yeah, that
is subordination. So he's lacking in a property that the
other two share.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean you could say the same thing
about the right. So I don't see why that's any
more problem classic because the father is that doesn't mean
that the father is like better.
Speaker 1: No, you're not you're not getting the point that for
the first thousand years it was normative to say that
anything that we say about God's applicable to either the
persons all all of them, or to the nature, or
to the hy or or to them individually. So there
can't be something that to share that one doesn't that
produces the imbalance. There's only one cause.
Speaker 2: Of seeing the connection between those two claims. There's also
everything which is predicated.
Speaker 1: Only one ark in the trinity, and it is the Father,
and the Son does not share in his ark, in
his hypostatic property. Billyoquism makes the son share in what
makes the Father distinct, namely being the unoriginal cause of
the of the Godhead.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, you're not gonna like this, right, but
the stimistic answer to that part of the problem is
going to be what makes the Father be the Father, right,
is the generating of the Son in the act of knowledge,
which is this diadic thing. And then what makes the
Holy Spirit be the Holy Spirit is the fact that
it results from the love of the two right.
Speaker 1: So again this is why you use the same argument
that the Arians used, that that the Holy Spirit is
a product of the will of the Father and the son.
This is also the exact same argument.
Speaker 2: I'm aware that you don't like the psychological analogy, but again,
can we keep the.
Speaker 1: No because because this is important because listen, Sat Gregory
Poms uses the psychological analogy, but he applies it to
eternal manifestation, and when he critiques the Filioc way, he says,
the Romans are confused because they mistake mission for hyposthetic origin,
and they also mistake eternal manifestation for hyposthetic origin. So
that's why I began the talk when I mentioned Saint
John Demascus talking about eternal manifestation of the spirit. It's
not hyposthetic origin. It's it's John of the Mascus who
makes that point in that distinction. And what's not hypothetic origin? Mhm,
what's a lot hyposthetic origin? What we were just talking
about with the Holy Spirit? Uh, the psycle logical analogy
that you used, right, this is from Augustine and it's
in you're saying.
Speaker 2: That it's not the hypostatic origin. That's a claim. I
deny it.
Speaker 1: What's your argument because it doesn't work because the son
takes on a property of the son, takes on the
very thing that defines the father which is to be
the sole archade.
Speaker 2: No, what defines the fathers to be, according to Kunas
is to be right, to not be from what definess
of opposition. And I said earlier that doesn't work because
the other two are not from which you admitted. I
can go over the text again, let's see, But okay,
we've got we can keep on going and feel the
oquay trail if you like.
Speaker 1: Let let's put it this way. Let's put it this way.
If you read on the Orthodox Faith, which of course
Aquinas you know, references many many times, you will find
that everything that I'm saying and claiming is one hundred
percent in line with what sam JOHNA. Mascus is arguing.
And my point is just to say that.
Speaker 2: There may not be that's not really not concerned.
Speaker 1: But okay, I'm telling you to read it because you'll
find my arguments are all from that and other Orthodox writers.
So I'm not making arguments that are like out of
my head. They're actually from maybe somebody that you would
find worth reading useful right for the sake of future dialogue.
I'm saying, if you read that, you'll see all my
arguments are there would happily.
Speaker 2: I think the opportunity to read Saint John and the.
Speaker 1: Roman Church affirms that, right, So that affirms what he's
a doctor of the church in aquas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the doctor of the church is not to affirm
everything that they that they say it's true, of course, but.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that true because he said it. I'm saying
that the arguments are there and for future reference, you
would if you want to understand where I'm getting all this,
it's from there.
Speaker 2: Sure well, no, I appreciate that. But again, so just
to recap what got us there, right, So, you're saying
that divine simplicity is irreconcilable with the Trinity, because the
only way that's uh that you can reconcile it with
the Trinity is by subordinationism. I'm not convinced we can
have we can keep on having that argument if you
think that's the lynchpin.
Speaker 1: But you understand what I'm saying though. What the problem
is that you don't understand our position in terms of
hypostatic origins. Is the only way to explain who God is.
I mean, even the idea of the Father being the
cause is foreign to you, and it's common in the
Eastern fathers.
Speaker 2: Uh So I was inexplicable, right, because I asked you
what procession means as distinct from filiation, and you said
that that's in principle unanswerable.
Speaker 1: And that's the answer of all the Eastern Fathers, and
even Augustine says that we don't even know exactly what
these words mean.
Speaker 2: We have to exactly what these words mean. But I'm
asking you to give me some way in which, in
an imperfect we can distinguish these things.
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't know how to define it. We
don't know how to procession, We don't know how to
find eternal generation and why these two things are different.
But they are. And if you read the next several
hundred centuries after Augustine of debate on this very question,
what you come to find out is that the way
that we distinguish the person's is different from the way
Rome tries to do it. Rome tries to do it
within a context of also accepting absolutely divide simplicity. We don't.
And because we don't, we have the Father defined by
his role as archae or soul, origin or cause of
the Godhead. That means that that for him to retain
his his hypostasis. He doesn't share that property of being
the cause with anyone else. So that's why the son
can't take on. Listen, that's why the son can't take
on what is his defining hypostatic term.
Speaker 2: I understand that and the issues that we're taking two
different things as being the defining note of the father.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So I'm looking right now at Dave Potentia uh nine
to nine, which is on whether there are only three
persons of God?
Speaker 1: Hello? Hello, what looks like we lost Hell being not born?
Are you there in my computers?
Speaker 2: Having I'm looking right now at the Potensia nine nine,
which I think is aquinance, is the fullest explanation of
how he thinks the of the three persons are distinguished
from each other.
Speaker 1: I could be wrong.
Speaker 2: About that, but so what he takes is the defining
attribute of the father is not being cause of the others,
which is what you are taking that right, So I
grant you right. If you're gonna say that the person,
then the father and the and the son would collapse
into each other on the fil right.
Speaker 1: The son which defines the father.
Speaker 2: Rather, what defines the father is being, which in other words,
means to not be born, right, so to not be
from a cause. And that's not true if either father
or son. And so it seems as that problem that
you were just worried about, Uh, just depends on what
you choose as the.
Speaker 1: No. I I recognize that Aquinas has a place for
for forgiving the father that role. That's not what the
contention is. The contention is that when when we see
that as the father's only define main defining property, that the.
Speaker 2: Son or being the cause of another, that.
Speaker 1: He is unriginate and the soul. Hey, godhead, this is
again the classical terminal to who the father is. And
Basil and Greg renounci Azus and Gregoranissa and in the
councils uh that that can't be something that the that
the son shares in. Okay, and the son shares in
that if he becomes also the cause of the spirit, there's.
Speaker 2: No you take the defining attribute of the father, right,
So if you take the defining attribute of the father
as being the cause of a person more cause, I
mean like the originating toward and yeah, then there would
be two fathers and that's what you're trying to avoid.
But if you simply take the father to be that
which is, which does not proceed, which is not from another,
then there's only one, and I'm not sure what the
problem is.
Speaker 1: That's just another way of saying that he is the
sole cause of the Godhead. He's not from another. Okay,
the other two are from another. Right, So this is
really of opposition. And again I'm trying to tell you
that that doesn't work as a negative definition of who
these people are. Who excuse me, hypostasies are from these persons.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, again, I'm not sure what I lose by
saying that he is that which is by taking the
Father as that which is who gives and does not receive,
taking the Son and he who gives and receives, and
taking the Holy Spirit as he who receives. Right, like
that seems to distinguish all three quite nicely. You can
say like that receiving is common to son and spirit.
You can say if you like that giving is common
to father and son. But these are different kinds of giving,
in their different kinds of receivings, just like you said.
Speaker 1: Right, So Aquanas talks about sometimes the Roman categorich we'll
talk about the Father is the principal source of the
Godhead and then the son as a secondary source when
we talk about the spiration, and what we say is
that that's impossible because number one, the son can't participate
in the father's hypostasis, and number two, it gives two
persons a positive property that the spirit doesn't have.
Speaker 2: So I get what you're saying. What I'm just going
to argue what I was saying, which is I don't
think I'm well, let me say it a different way.
I don't think I'm giving any of the persons a
real positive property something which exists.
Speaker 1: Uh, the Father and the son produced the spirit.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, this is the common medication.
Speaker 1: That's a real positive property that the spirit doesn't have.
Speaker 2: So maybe this is getting into the problems of divine
predication or just the problems of predication in general. So
what a client is going to claim is that not
all of your just the fact that you can use
the same word for something, it doesn't mean that there
is in both cases the same reality corresponding isomorphically to
your word.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So quint is this going to say that there's two
relations in the father, one to the son and one
to the spirit, right, because I would mean that the
Father was too subsistently. What you've got in the case
of the Father is one relation which is not from
and toward period, and what you've got in the Son
is a relation of from and toward right received giving,
and the way you've got in the Holy Spirit is
a relation of reception. There's no real thing which is shared,
although I can speak of the Son and spirit received.
Speaker 1: Think the Father and the Father and the Son really
produces spirit.
Speaker 2: Do you say that the Son and the Holy Spirit
really receive the Father.
Speaker 1: We don't use any of this, gobly Gi because we
don't believe tonism, but I'm we have, but we have
a way of distinguishing.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that receiving is as much of a
positive predicate as giving, and whether or not you have.
Speaker 1: That because you affirm hypostatic origin supposedly Roman Caviolts do
supposedly does. And for the Spirit it is said to
be from the Father and the Son as a single principle.
There's no single principle in God that two persons shared
that the other one doesn't. It's a very simple argument.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, and I agree with that.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I'm saying that there is no metaphysical reality which father
has and which father and son both are.
Speaker 1: Yes, there is. Your councils say together they constitute a
single principle of the spiration of the spirit in terms
of this hyposthetic origin. So that.
Speaker 2: No, because we won't say that the there isn't no
act of causing. Right, there's relations of tor and there's
relations of from the standards missing model in this right
is that you have.
Speaker 1: Well, you can throw out the word cause and you
can just say he's the principal source. The father and
the son in the Roman Catholic dogmas are said to
together a single source of the hypostasis of the spirit.
Speaker 2: I'm okay with that. That is directly what you said,
a what's it, right, A property like whiteness or greenness
or relation or whatever, which is real in both father
and son. Again, just as you would not want to say,
that's simply the fact that both son and spirit are
from or are or proceed let's say, from the father.
You're willing to say that, right, that both father and
son proceed from the Father.
Speaker 1: No, absolutely not, because proceed is In the Greek the
eperusis is a specific term that defines who the spirit is,
and generation is specific to who the son is. Okay,
is the word we don't. We don't use these common
attributes of well, both are from another, right, we don't
do relations of opposition.
Speaker 2: Look, that's fine. I mean if you want to say
that this you're talking about cause, right, So you're using
this word cause. Yes, father causes the quote unquote.
Speaker 1: The fathers and their councils use this term of the father.
You know.
Speaker 2: That's fine. But but you're going with that, right. Is
there a correlative?
Speaker 1: By the way, they don't. They don't use the Ariscitilian
tomistic view of this. That's fine.
Speaker 2: Are you going to grant that there is a correlative
to cause which is being caused?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, okay, correlative? Is it is true to say, listen,
it is true to say that the son and the
spirit are from another. That's true. True, that's fine. All
we're saying is that that that is not what defines
the persons. And lets us know the distinctions of the hypostats, all.
Speaker 2: Right, but simply being to another is not what defines
the persons in domistic theology, either another and not from But.
Speaker 1: You again understand that it's not supposed to be too.
But the whole dogma interjects a new principle into the trinity,
of the Father and the Son together constituting a single
hyposthetic source of the spirit. So you have a new
principle of a diad introduced into the trinity, and there
is no diet. It's always whatever is true is true
of the persons or of God as a whole. That's
straight up classic orthodox trinitarianism. I'm saying orthodox in the
general sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. I'm trying to think of a way
to save us without just repeating myself again.
Speaker 1: You're admitting hyposthetic properties and causes or origins we calls
that's standard timistic trinitarian theology. Mm hmm. And the origin
of the spirit is from a father and son as
one principle. Correct.
Speaker 2: My knowledge of the coin is is Strinitarian theology is
not sufficient to allow me to say yes to the
as from.
Speaker 1: It's may be to check. He does say that the
barbercal but I don't have the sumo on hand. So
but anyway, I don't think we're gonna.
Speaker 2: I would be really hesitant to say that.
Speaker 1: I would be surprised. That's the dogmatical to the teaching.
Speaker 2: But I would be surprised if he thinks of father
and son as together doing.
Speaker 1: One what's it?
Speaker 2: H again, but there is no action which is coming
out of either one of them, right, Uh? In this theology,
there's just relations of to and from. So again there's
there's no like source of so that you're you're talking
about a diad being.
Speaker 1: Like a again the reason that producing a third thing.
Speaker 2: And I just think that's the wrong way to think
about this.
Speaker 1: Now, it's not the wrong way, it's the right way
because that's how the Eastern Fathers all categorize it, and
that's how it's used not just in the councils, but
also when it comes to Christology.
Speaker 2: I'm saying that that's the wrong way to understand what
a quite is saying.
Speaker 1: Ah anyway, yeah, so do we want to maybe move to?
So what's that? Do we want to move on? I mean,
we're just going to keep going, I think, in circles
about this because you know, so.
Speaker 2: Maybe even Re Saint John Damascene is going to convince
me that the filioquay is so bad that it's this
tremendous roadblock to to any divine simplicity theory. But at
the moment it seems to me that being able to like,
I'm not feeling the problem of saying that both father
and son can be said to spire it because again
this does not name a real relation, according to Aquinas,
and so like maybe I should, I would only be
moved by it at the moment. If to spire eight
were said to be a real relation defining a person
for Aquinas, that would be inconsistent.
Speaker 1: Aquinas does not hold that.
Speaker 2: But okay, so let me just let's backtle from this,
can I can I ask you another question about the energies. Okay,
So the central the central problem, like I was saying earlier,
thought a Toomas is going to have with talking about
energies is if energy are in some way going to
be positing something in the subject. Right, It's the regular
accidents like wisdom injustice. Right, So when I say that
I have these right, they are from me, right, they
exist in me, but they also posit something in me
if they make me be a certain way.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So if we were to take energies in that sense,
the Thomas is going to be very worried, right, because
it's going to seem as though you're filling a slot
or an opening or something in God that the divine
nature of itself doesn't have. Now, I presume that's not
what you're saying, right, do you want to characterize how
your understanding of energy as avoids that? How is predicating
wisdom as an energy of God different from predicating wisdom
as an accident of me?
Speaker 1: Because we don't identify This is the point I was
making earlier about analogical predication. We don't identify the predicates
with the divine essence, would then makes them meaningless. We
say that the predicates are analogical to the energies, which
are not the divine essence. That was an answer your question,
because what you're talking about with you is actually an
argument that Nissa uses when he says that how do
we understand the difference between act or energy, h and
will and nature in person? He says, well, let's look
at a human person. Right, There's there's an action that's
distinct from the person. The person builds a house that's
an effect of the work that he did. We might
learn something about that person, but we don't perceive his
nature or directly know his hypostasis. By looking at the
house that he built, we might learn a few things
about him when we when we interact with that person directly,
we interact with his hypostasis, which is makes what makes
him distinct. And we understand that perhaps we share a
common nature between me and so you have you, mister
duarct Fingeld, have a human nature that I share. But
I'm the hypostasis Jay, You're the hypostasis, uh duc Feingel.
So doesn't now. So the Eastern Fathers make these analogies
right to who God is, and they say that in
the same way that a man creates a building, and
we might learn about him and his wisdom and his
works that are proper to human nature through creating a house.
In the same way, there's an analogy to God creating
the world, and his energy and act of creating the
world is distinct from who he is in his essence.
Because if we said that the act of creating the
world was the same as the divine us, since we
would be led to all kinds of absurdities, such as
that the creation of the world is exactly the same
as the conflagration, because both are divine actions. So what
we say is that the energies of God are the
things around him. This is the way Thatsius, the Areopagus,
the Saint Basils sat Gregory, Saint this as they all
say that. It's the way to understand this is to
look at when Moses goes up on the mountain, and
we're told in Exodus that Moses saw God face to face.
But no man can see God face to face and live.
So how is this possible? What's possible because that the Theophanes,
the manifestations of God, the energies of God within history
that operate can at times even be made visible if
God so chooses to Right.
Speaker 2: So I mean all of that you're describing, it's completely
compatible with what it Quita says about the vine simplicity.
Speaker 1: Right, No, it's not at all.
Speaker 2: Sure it is because it absolutely maintains.
Speaker 1: That the apes are not real in your doctrine.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you mean by that.
Speaker 1: So you don't believe that, you don't believe that, you
don't believe that God's goodness was manifest distinct from the
essence of God. Mostes didn't see the essence of God.
Speaker 2: Manifestations of God's goodness are distinct from the essence of God.
Speaker 1: Right, So look only because you believe they're created effects
though you don't believe that it's actually the goodness of God.
You believe that it's a created hologram or effective God.
This is why RAS intends to not believe that the
Angel of the Lord it was the preincarnate logos, because
that's that's impossible and absolute divine simplicity.
Speaker 2: It seems to me that you're trying to hold two
incompatible things. So let me try to parse this out.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you to argue, is revealed right that the
are the logos pre incarnate hold on person become can
become manifest within time and space.
Speaker 2: Yes, I know that the person become manifest and time
and space.
Speaker 1: But you don't believe that, sure, I know you don't.
You don't believe that the ansl of the Lord was
the logos. The Roman Catholic doctrine is that those are
created holograms and not Christ himself. That's why you believe
that the light of Mount Table has created light.
Speaker 2: Well, let's rewind a little bit, okay, so and we
can talk about how to make I've.
Speaker 1: Never met a Catholics that the Theophanies were real or
that the light of Matthew seventeen the transfiguration was uncreated
like every Roman Catholic I've ever met. But but you've said,
like I've ever read.
Speaker 2: That I was saying. Finus agrees with one hundred percent
is what you said at the beginning, which is that
these things which you are calling energies are not attributes
of God in the sense of things that modify him
or exist in him to sink from his essence, but
rather there are things that show up in his works.
Speaker 1: Saint Basil and Saint Gregorissa use the analogy of the
sun and its heat and its h right, So the sun,
the heat and its rays can be genuinely distinguished, but
they're not exactly the same. We don't believe that the
fore knowledge of God is exactly the same as the
wisdom of God, or the love of God, or the
justice of God. Like the equating the foregn knowledge of
God with the justice of God makes no sense.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is I want to get into that
argument in a minute, okay, and quick question, so I
know how to pace myself or what's left? How much
time do we have left on this?
Speaker 1: I probably need to go pretty soon. We can set
up like a part two though, if you want but
you've been going for how long have we been going?
Speaker 2: Then our hour and fifty minutes?
Speaker 1: I think, okay, so let's say two hours and then
maybe we can pick up at a part two if
you want to do it.
Speaker 2: Sure sounds good. Yeah, so I think which I was
trying to get out with the energy thing. Right, So
what a Coitas wants to deny, which I would want
to deny with them, is that that's something you picked
justice in four and knowledge. So let's go with that,
all right, I would want he would want to deny
that these things manifested in the world. Right, So let's
say the justice of the nation of sinners, or the
justice or the fore knowledge manifested in prophecy or whatever.
Speaker 1: He would want to deny that these.
Speaker 2: Manifestations are attributes existing in God in the way in
which I described quantities and qualities as existing in their subjects. Right,
does that make sense? In other words, they don't pose it.
What you just described, what Aquitans is holding with divine
simplicity is the same.
Speaker 1: In this respect.
Speaker 2: Neither of you seems to me want to say that
there is something in God distinct from the essence, which
is nonetheless makes God be a certain way.
Speaker 1: Can we agree about that? As far as I understand
your meaning, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: There's no so in my soul, there's a little do
hickey if you like. The virtue of justice, which I
wasn't born with, it doesn't come with my soul, Please God,
I've acquired a little bit of it over the course
of the last thirty years, and it makes me be
in a certain way. And it's distinct from me. Right.
That's not what you mean by energies, right. What you
mean by energy in my case would be something like
I do something just right, and that shows you.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, for example, what you.
Speaker 2: Actually see is my just action. Am I getting that right?
Speaker 1: Correct? For example, in the New Testament, when inner gaia
is used, it's it's for example, when Paul talks about
the operations of the spirit, right, So the energy of
the spirit is when he's talking about like the gifts
of the spirit. So when the spirit grants prophecy, when
he grants mercy to different gifts to the saints, the
charismatic gifts. I don't mean charismaticism, you know what I mean.
The word that's used there is inner gaya, which just
signifies divine operations or actions. Yeah, and sometimes yes, we
would say that if you're talking about the attributes the
love of God, we believe that is an energy, and
we even believe that the knowledge that we have that
God's essence is one is also an energetic truth that
we learned through vind revelation. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I if I'm trying to make sense of what
you're saying and transporting it into my categories, I think
I kind of sent to a lot of it. But
it's going to sound like this, So tell me if
you've got problems with this translation. So it seems as
though you want to say that the energy can refer
to when I speak of the energy of God's justice
or of his unity or whatever. What you mean is
not that there is an attribute distinct from the divine
essence which adheres in the divine essence, but rather one
of two things. And maybe you think that you said
the same thing. They don't sound the same to me.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: Thing one would be there's a work done in creation
which manifests that which I am calling God's justice right,
So that would be like the punishment of this sinner,
And the other one would be the content which I
am predicating of God. Right, So when I say it right,
so you've got thing one, that's this thing which happened
right here, the ciner got punished. And then there's thing too,
which is as a result of seeing this, I predicate
this concept that I have of justice of God. And
I don't want to say that this concept that I
have of justice is like a concept of God, but
I do want to say that I can predicate it
of Him. And so because you want to, on the
one hand, deny that what I've got in my mind
of justice equals God, but on the other hand, you
want to affirm that it gets to God somehow. You
call this an energy, and this is an energy in
a different sense from the actual work of damning the center.
Is that all sound fair?
Speaker 1: So far? Well? I laid out three distinctions at the beginning,
where I was talking about the energies of God as
relating to eternal manifestation, the energies of God relating to creation,
and then some energies that let's just.
Speaker 2: Stick with the things like justice and fore knowledge for
the moment.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a sense in which I mean, you could
say God is even and that's where I wanted this
double distinction to show up.
Speaker 2: Okay, well you get trinitarian stuff and leaving aside hypostatic
union stuff.
Speaker 1: And all that. Well, but I want to stress for
us all these things are related, because you're not going
to have the essence energy distinction without the proper doctrine
of the Father as the ark and the right order theologiate.
So it's not like these things operate in in and
discreete from the other other doctrines. They all hang or
fall together. I'll bear that in mind.
Speaker 2: And so tell me if I'm if my lumping things,
or if I if I'm saying something which would be
corrected by bringing in some of the other sides. So
what Acquittance would want to say?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So, in this case of understanding seeing God's justice and
predicating it of him, right, we'll you'll deny that there
is a what sit which is up there in God,
which is distinct from God's essence to which I am
referring when I say that God is just. What he
would affirm is that there are three things involved. There
is the action which is just, There is my concept
of justice, and there's the divine essence, which bears some
sort of resemblance to my concept.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it doesn't. And that's the whole point. Because
the things you had are particular, and they're discrete, and
they're related to things in time and space and history
and the absolutely simple essence which is supposedly identical to
divine justice, God's justice. There's no way to know that
that's what you're experiencing or bridging that gap, because all
you know is all you know is creative effects. Right.
Speaker 2: So, but I mean so, but that's true of this
isn't just true of God?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So we know all things through their operations, right, I
don't have any direct access to you, right, to you
the operation of talking.
Speaker 1: Right, that's how you and I know each other. But
it's not just created effects. In terms of knowing God,
and in terms of knowing God, it's beyond creative effects.
That was what was true generally for the Old Testament period,
signs and symbols. Now we see Christ face to face,
as Paul says and said, dudes, three, that's right. No,
you believe in the beatific vision. You don't believe we
see Christ face to face.
Speaker 2: I believe that what it means to say that I
see Christ face to face now is different from what
it means to see Christ face to face in the
beertopic vision, if that's what you mean.
Speaker 1: Right, because now it's only creative effects.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're mixing issues again. I think one of
the things I know that is the justice my life,
and I know that this is big for Palamas and
the original.
Speaker 1: How do you know that it's the justice of God
and not the foregnoledge or love of God that you're experiencing.
Speaker 2: So Colonus would say, depending on what you mean by that,
that's uh.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it matters whether I'm under God's justice.
Speaker 2: Like, hold on, if you're talking about right, so I
can say this action right, So let's say that this
action here seems to exemplify uh, God's or or whatever. Right,
So the center gets failed like twenty times and gets
this huge insects of grace and conversion. Okay, what is
it that allows me to say that the name mercy
is most applicable to this situation? It would be because
what I see of this situation most maps of my
creaturely concept of mercy.
Speaker 1: But to say that your creaturely concepts are analogous right
to something that is completely unlike the things that you
think you have. Like in other words, the divine justice
is not like human justice.
Speaker 2: Right, of course I'm going to object to completely unlike
of course.
Speaker 1: But so so it's analogous. It's an analogy. But the
thing that you that you're making an analogy to is
absolutely simple, that's right, and all and all the predicates
are actually identified. So how do you know that you're
actually experiencing one or the other because they're not really distinct.
Speaker 2: Right, So it depends on what you mean by what
you're experiencing. Right, if you're saying that I'm experiencing God, right,
so if you're asking which part of God I'm experiencing it,
I'm saying that is experiencing any part of God, because
God doesn't have parts. But if you're asking why am
I applying this name to this manifestation, it's because this
manifestation captures more of this concept that I have than
of that concept. Yeah, I don't see a problem.
Speaker 1: That bridge between the concept and the thing. There's no
bridge between the concept and the absolutely simple essence. You
never know that actual thing. You only know creative effects,
and you don't know I never You don't know if
your creative effects match up to this thing. How can they?
So this is why Palamas calls it atheism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I'm not going to say repeat
what you said right before that last thing.
Speaker 1: All that you experience in your life or the created
effects of this this super monad essence, you never experience
a direct example of God himself or God's justice within
time and space. You only experience creative effects of God.
And so when you talk about the love of God,
or the fore knowledge of God or the mercy of God,
you're not actually talking about something that you know that
you've experienced. You're only talking about a creaturely analogue that
that you hope matches up to this absolutely simple essence,
wherein all of the attributes are the exact same, So
it's meaningless.
Speaker 2: The problem is the word I think that we're using
talk about in two different senses. Right, So there.
Speaker 1: Doesn't work if absolutely divind simplicity is true, that's the
crux of the argument, because all of the things that
you're talking about are not like an absolutely simple essence.
One creaturely effect is just you're just interpreting a creaturely
effect compared to some other creaturely effect. Yeah, so figure
out where to start hearing again.
Speaker 2: All right, So look, I just disagree with your claim,
and then we'll see if I can give a principle
of reason for disagree with it. I just disagree with
the claim that if X is limited and why is
infinite and per se rather than participate participated that it
follows that X is that there is no similarity whatsoever
between X and all you.
Speaker 1: All you know is creative effects, and you never know
that thing itself, so you have no reference for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I say, let's let's try to give concrete examples, right.
Speaker 1: That is the analogy andthis right.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, I'm not quite sure how you think these words,
So let me just try to give concrete examples, and
let's see where we part way.
Speaker 1: The analogy andthis and aquitas analogae of being, right, is
that there's a we can look at the world, we
can see being. We can predicate that God is the
super being. But of course he doesn't have being in
the exact same way as everything else has being, because
the being in this world is composite. It's caused. The
being that God has is the super being that's uncaused
and not composite. Right, So there's there's an assumption of analogy, right,
and we're not using unibical predication. We're using analogy, right.
Speaker 2: I Mean the idea is that's supposed to be the
same thing signified, but different mode of signification. And that's
your classic line.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So let me just try to give an example.
Speaker 1: So when I say that you.
Speaker 2: Are loving or whatever, right, so I don't have access
to the habit of love which is in your soul,
but I do have access to the actions by which
you work for the good of others, right, and so
on the basis of your doing these actions, I creditate
love of you. Where love means that in you by
virtue of which you will the good for others, and
you see you seek their good.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So and in us this that by which you will
and you seek work for the good of others, is
this extra little habit which is added on to your soul,
and which is different from the habit of wisdom, as
evidenced by the fact that you can have one without
the other.
Speaker 1: We just don't use these categories.
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to explain what, okay, And so when
I talk about God's having love, it would be the
same same sort of deal in this respect. And I
don't have access to God's love. I don't see inside
his essence. What I have access to, just like you said,
is are these manifestations I see God becoming man and
dying on the.
Speaker 1: Cross for us.
Speaker 2: I'm not quite done yet. And because of this right,
so I say when I say that God is has love,
is love, what I mean is that there is in
God that by which he does this act, which is
seeking the good, of seeking the good of others. It's
just that in this case, that by which he does
this operation is not an extra little what's it which
is added on to him?
Speaker 1: It's just him.
Speaker 2: And I can't fathom that. But that's what I means.
That's why I predicate the same word of me and
of you and of God. Yeah, analogic categories, that's fine,
But I understrying to make sense of what what we're saying, like,
why we think that it makes sense to apply the term,
uh loving, let's say to God.
Speaker 1: But you're only looking at created analogs and none of
those things are the thing itself. So you don't actually
know that God has loved? Do I know that you
have love? Yeah? But but knowing that I have love,
doesn't mean that you know Godhill, because how do I
another creative effect?
Speaker 2: How do I know that you have love.
Speaker 1: Because you have a personal interaction with me and you're
in your doctrine.
Speaker 2: It's not, Well, what do I have to have a
personal interaction with you to know that you have love?
Speaker 1: Well, you might hear secondhand from somebody, But the point
is that that we're not we're talking about God himself.
Speaker 2: Right. Well, no, but I'm saying that both of these
things right, So it can be right soon case of
you and me. Right, it can be the case that
I see you doing something good to another, or I
can see you doing something good to me, like taking
these two hours out of your day to talk to me. Right,
And both of these give me right allow me to
predicate with you something which I don't directly see. But
how do you know that that is God showing love
to you as opposed to somebody else? No, if God
is an absolutely simple essence, you don't know what. You
don't know that you're actually experiencing any of these things.
You can only do analogical predication because of the effect
and the thing which I am seeing, which who don't know.
Speaker 1: You don't know that that created effect is an action
of love, because you don't know God himself.
Speaker 2: But I think you're getting the sequence of questions backwards, right,
So what I mean by love just is right that
by which you do this kind.
Speaker 1: Of operation, you don't know that God is doing that.
Speaker 2: I don't I mean, I don't know that this operation
that I see in front of me is an active love.
Speaker 1: Is that what you're saying, You don't know that God
is doing that act of love because God is outside
of time and space and absolutely simple according to this doctrine.
Speaker 2: So what you're saying, it could be for all I know,
it could be somebody else.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe God is exacting justice on you. You don't know,
because atributes are the exact same as the essence, and
all the attributes are synonymous with one another. You never
know God or what you're actually experiencing within history is
from God.
Speaker 2: I don't see how that follows at all. Right, So
it seems as though it's perfectly possible for one and
the same form that I just on the level of creatures.
Forget God for the moment, just on the level of creature,
it's perfectly possible for one and the same, but the
reasoning creatures hold on. It's perfectly possible for one in
the same form to be responsible for different operations, unless
for different manifestations, and to give does that work for God?
Speaker 1: You can't. You can't reason that up to God like
Thomas want to do. I'm telling you what I'm trying
to argue is that the analogia doesn't work in your
view because God is absolutely simple. If you believe in
the essen synergy distinction, it would work. No, no, but
you're gonna have to repeat but the divine essence. Therefore,
within time and space, you don't actually experience God's love
or God's mercy. You don't know what you're experiencing if
you're experiencing God at all, because all you experience in
creative effects. There's no analogue between what's in your mind
and the absolutely simple essence Word. All the acts, tributes
are melded into one giant monead. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Bear with me for a second. Tell me which part
of this picture you're being bothered by. Okay, so I
see this. Let's say I'm Adam. Okay, and let's say
I know whether let's say, by revelation whatever that God
just made this place, and he gave me all this
stuff up to and including this helpmate who's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: Uh, for my good.
Speaker 2: That's definitionally an act of love, right, I'm how you
know that God did that out of love. Let's say
God said that.
Speaker 1: Well, now you're relying on that, which is what we
would agree. Yeah, you should rely on revelation. You can't
rely on all these creative effects.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me see if I can restate it. So
to say that something is an act of love, right,
it means that it is done conscious right, It's not
done randomly, It's done.
Speaker 1: Deliberately for the good of another.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, And so what you're asking is, how is
it that I can tell that this act that is
the creation of the world around me is an act
which was deliberate and which was done for my good.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how many times I can
restate the argument. It's because it's a very simple argue.
I'm not trying to do anything.
Speaker 2: Are you denying that? I just want to guess right now.
Speaker 1: No, I believe that God created the world in love, absolutely,
But that's because there's a direct bridge between God in
the world.
Speaker 2: That I was asking, though, Right, So I'm just saying
this thing out here. Maybe this is the trouble.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So you're saying that you can only know whether something
counts as an act of love if I have some
sort of direct, independent access to the source from which
it sprang. And I'm saying that works exactly the opposite way,
and that I assume that I infer you like that
there is a source from which it sprang if I
see the operation.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, I don't have any direct access to your love,
and I never will. All that I have access to
is your operations of love. And I know that whenever
there is an operation, there is corresponding to it something
by virtue of which this operation happened. And that's something
I call the happen of love. And it's exactly I mean, God,
It's just that in the case of God, that habit
isn't a.
Speaker 1: Happen You're just stating the position. You're not addressing the point,
which is that the God that you're talking about is
absolutely simple and all the action identified. Right.
Speaker 2: But what I'm trying to say is to call this
act an act of love, I don't need to already
know what it sprang from the direction of inference goes
the other way. It seems as though you're saying, in
order you know that this is an act of love,
I have to first I have access to that from which.
Speaker 1: You're reasoning up from creatures, and you're saying creaturely loves us,
that there's some ultimately divine love, and I'm saying that
that doesn't work, because, for one, what you say God
is in terms of absolute divine simplicity bears no resemblance
to the creaturely love that you're trying to make it
analogous to.
Speaker 2: And that's just what I fail to see, because it
seems like the reason all the actions your idea for
me God good for me, because all of the attributes
are identified with the divine essence and the distinctions are
only creaturely.
Speaker 1: So if the distinctions are only creaturely, you never know
if the creaturely idea in your head actually matches up
to the absolutely simple essence that it's supposed to mirror.
Speaker 2: Let's see, there's another way I can do this. It
seems to me that you're what you're presupposing here is
that in order for a predication of a term to
be truly predicated of a subject, the term has to
be some morphic in content with some discrete reality in
the subject.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: So in other words, in order for me to say
that you are just, there has to be something in
you which is has just something real, something distinct from
all the other the rest of the parts of you,
which has just what I mean by the word justice
and nothing else. Are you committed to that.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of getting a little flustered here, not because
I just I think we're going around and around in circles.
Because you're just restating what analogical predication is, and I'm
asking you to explain how you can really predicate a
god if all of the attributes of God and the
names of God are absolutely identical to the divine essence and.
Speaker 2: You and I'm doing my best to explain that, but
I'm just trying to.
Speaker 1: Make sure that you're just restating what analogical predication is,
and I know what it is.
Speaker 2: So I'm just asking you to agree with me or
disagree as I go, so I know where I need
to need to set up my my battle lines. Are
you committed to saying that the in order for true
predication to happen. The formal content of my the termine
predicating has to be exactly co extensive with a real thing,
the subject.
Speaker 1: We don't believe in unibical predication.
Speaker 2: Okay, So if that's the case, why can't it be
that two of my terms should have a formal content
which is less then, uh than they're referent to which
I'm applying.
Speaker 1: Them, Because the reference, namely God in this case, is
completely different because he's absolutely simple, and all of the
predicates are this are identical.
Speaker 2: Here we are going in circles. Okay, let's see if
I can try this another one.
Speaker 1: And by the way, it doesn't work either to say
let's start with creaturely love and then reason up because
we all know what love is. No, we don't. In fact,
I would again that's a classical foundationalist assumption from this
kind of epistemology that we would reject. You don't have
a clear idea of something like self evident maxims or
something like this that you can then reason up to
build up to God. In fact, if there's no way
to understand those maxims or those foundations epistemologically or logically
or whatever without presupposing God's existence.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a whole other argument. Do you want to
keep on going with analogy for a better or should
we just I'm.
Speaker 1: Gonna have to go. Let's take some super so people
who are listening, if you want to take if you
want to ask questions, I'm sure this will take a
few minutes, but you can ask your super chat questions. Now.
We already have a couple here, one from Gilaimos Russius
for five dollar. He says, the Father uncreated, the Son uncreated,
the Holygos uncreated, not three uncreated, but one uncreated Athenationian creed. Actually,
even Rome admits that the Athenaian creed was not composed
by Athenatius. It's a later forgery, and the Orthodox Church
does not accept the Athnician creed. But yes, we agreed
that all three of the persons are uncreated. Gillie Mus
Russius again for five dollars. When the peraclet cometh, whom
I will send to you from the Father, the spirit
of truth, who proceeds from the Father, right proceeds from
the Father, is a statement of our in our view,
hypostetic origin, and the Father is the sole archae is
the only source of the Spirit. Jesus says he will
send the Spirit into time and history. All Orthodox writers
believe in the mission of the Spirit being sent by Jesus.
This is why began the debate making the distinction between
economia or the mission of the Spirit within history, the
eternal manifestation of the Spirit, which applies the Augustinian psychological
analogy in Saint Gregor. Almost the Sun eternally manifest the Spirit.
But then in terms of hypostatic origins, the Father alone
is the arka soul and cause of the persons in
our view? Are there any more super chats? If not,
I think we will call it to a close, give
them a few minutes. Yeah, man, this was This was
pretty intense, pretty heated, pretty pretty deep stuff. I appreciate
doing it, and if we get a few more, appreciate
the opportunity. Yeah, if we get a few more super chats,
I'll split the money with you. But I go not
ending about that. Well, I always do that with guests.
Any of you, theo nerds out there, won't ask questions,
send us some money. What we do we do? Two hours?
A little bit of her Okay, all right, well, I'm
not seeing any more super chats. So I guess we'll
call it a close, and thank you doctor fine Gold,
very eloquent, very good at explicating his positions, good defender
of Tomism. We will think about this spatimistic heresies, but
let's do on this for a while and uh we'll
come back with maybe a part two.
Speaker 2: All right, well, thank you, all right, God bless you.
Speaker 1: Thank you Jack too. Man