dfsiemensjr@juno.com wrote:
>
> On Fri, 14 Apr 2000 17:21:55 -0400 George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
> writes:
> >
> > I have not set out a specific understanding how the immanent
> > Trinity is
> > to be understood as being temporal but have focussed on what should
> > be the starting
> > point, that the history of Jesus is part of the divine life and not
> > something outside
> > it. How to relate the two seems to me, as I said, unfinished
> > business. It's clear,
> > though, that the resolution has to be in terms of a doctrine of God
> > which is trinitarian
> > from the start & not one which is initially unitarian.
> > The "how" question is important but I see little point in
> > getting into detailed
> > debates about different possibilities if there is no agreement on
> > what I think are the
> > basic christological & trinitarian reasons for talking about divine
> > temporality in the
> > first place. I realize that you think I'm dodging the question of
> > how to speak of
> > divine temporality. I think you're dodging consideration of the
> > reasons for speaking
> > about divine temporality, & that that should come first. Can we say
> > without
> > equivocation that in the event of the cross God suffered?
> > .............................
> >
> But George, that is precisely where there is equivocation, or at least
> ambiguity. I find a parallel in a conversation I had many, many years ago
> with a pre-teen Catholic. He explained that the Virgin Mary was the
> Mother of God, which meant that he did not create the world until after
> his birth. He was adamant on the point. Your question begs the questions
> of divine temporality and the interpersonal relationships in the Godhead.
Mary is the Mother of God because the person Mary bore was the Second Person of
the Trinity. In the two natures christology of Chalcedon one can say that without
having to say that the divine nature was born ~6 B.C. What is said of either of the two
natures in the hypostatic union can be said of the single divine person. In that sense
one is even allowed to say "God suffered" or "God died" because the humanity which is
hypostasized in the Logos suffered and died. Lutheran christology went farther by
saying that the divine attributes are communicated to the human nature (and not "only"
attributed to it via the person), which is why we can speak about the omnipresence &c of
the humanity of Christ. Lutheran Orthodoxy, more traditional in this regard than
Luther, insisted just as you have that the divine nature is incapable of change and that
thus there is no reciprocal communication of the human suffering, death &c to the divine
nature. Luther himself in places uses language that has been characterized as
"Dei-passianism", & I think that's the course that should be followed, though we would
agree (you much more strongly than I!) that there are difficulties in doing so. If the
christological insight of Luther had been combined with the systematizing skills of
Calvin or Aquinas things would have turned out very differently.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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