The Face of God

[JAL]

Wait, you don't believe in the doctrine of divine simplicity, and you believe that it originated with Plato, is that correct? Now, I am understanding.

I found this video helpful to someone like yourself struggling with this profound truth:

Dr. James Dolezal: Divine Simplicity and the Grammar of Classical Christian Orthodoxy

I'm well past "struggling" over this "profound truth" - I'm 20 years past the recognition that it is a lie.

 

[The Liturgist]

The judgement verses speak of a great white throne and one who sits on the throne. I think that God has a face, but it would kill us to look upon His face.

But The Gospel of John makes it clear that no one has seen the Father at any time. Every theophany in scripture is either Jesus or the Spirit, with the one exception of the voice of the Father heard at the Baptism of our Lord.

 

[The Liturgist]

I'm well past "struggling" over this "profound truth" - I'm 20 years past the recognition that it is a lie.

I myself reject absolute divine simplicity in favor of theology imported from the East, namely, Palamism, the essence/energies dichotomy, and the idea that God in his divine essence is completely and totally beyond human comprehension. Note these doctrines are Aristotelian, but for that matter, so is Absolute Divine Simplicity and the rest of Roman Catholic Scholastic theology.

Basically, the early church used Aristotle (for example, in Irenaeus), in part because of the similiarity between Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism, but then, Gnostics started using massive amounts of Aristotle and this spooked the Church Fathers and caused a change in preference to Platonic philosophy. By the year 800 Gnosticism was no longer a serious threat to Christianity; Islamic philosophers started requesting Syriac Christian monks in Iraq and Egypt to translate into Arabic the works of Plato, but especially Aristotle, and these translations were used by the great Islamic philsophers such as Averroes, and the great Yemeni Jewish philosopher Maimonides. They were then translated into Latin, and consequently Aristotle became accessible to Latin speaking theologians for the first time in many centuries, and the result was the Scholastic period of Roman Catholic theology. Eastern Orthodox theology meanwhile continued doing what it always did, and whereas the Roman Catholics will argue the Patristic era ended with John Damascene, many Orthodox consider even recent saints like Ignatius Brianchaninov or Nicodemus the Hagiorite to be Church Fathers.

I don’t preach about this, although I might at some point if I could make the subject matter accessible to my congregation and leave out any trace of polemics. I never preach against the Roman church.

 

[JAL]

But The Gospel of John makes it clear that no one has seen the Father at any time. Every theophany in scripture is either Jesus or the Spirit, with the one exception of the voice of the Father heard at the Baptism of our Lord.

How is your interpretation clear? Why would it be possible to see the second and third person and not the first?

Exposition is supposed to CLARIFY. If the expositor doesn't have a clear reading of the text, he shouldn't consider himself in a position to ASSERT anything about it or TEACH us anything.

Here's a clear reading:
(1) The claim that no one has seen God has limited force/scope.
(2) Limited to what? Specifically it is referring to "God in the absolute fullness of His glory" - literally with a fully unshaded face. Moses saw His unshaded "back parts" as God walked by him on foot, but He covered His face.

Any of us can see God's face but not in the absolute fullness of its glory. I believe I gave reasons for this, earlier on this thread.

 

[The Liturgist]

How is your interpretation clear? Why would it be possible to see the second and third person and not the first?

Because the second person is Incarnate, and the third person has a demonstrated ability to take on visual forms, for example, the dove descending on Christ at His baptism and the tongues of fire at Pentecost.

 

[JAL]

Because the second person is Incarnate, and the third person has a demonstrated ability to take on visual forms, for example, the dove descending on Christ at His baptism and the tongues of fire at Pentecost.

That's not clear. DDS means God is indivisible into parts. There are no "parts" distinct from one another. Therefore one of the Three should not be more viewable than the others. And you say the Spirit has "visible forms" ? But that stands in contradiction to the DDS-insistence that God has no size and shape.

Look, DDS is absolute gibberish. It's not really a question of whether it is a false doctrine or true doctrine. Rather, it doesn't even qualify as an actual doctrine because it's complete gibberish comprehended by no one.

 

[pescador]

We don't share the same physical appearance as God. By 'image' it refers to the nature and character of God. We are rational, intelligent, moral, creative agents that reflect the divine being. The impression of the divine image separates us from the lower animals, and this is easy to distinguish. I hope this helps!

So when God came to earth, He came as -- ready? -- a man. Jesus said, "if you have seen me you have seen the Father." John 14:9, "Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?"

 

[The Liturgist]

That's not clear. DDS means God is indivisible into parts. There are no "parts" distinct from one another. Therefore one of the Three should not be more viewable than the others. And you say the Spirit has "visible forms" ? But that stands in contradiction to the DDS-insistence that God has no size and shape.

Look, DDS is absolute gibberish. It's not really a question of whether it is a false doctrine or true doctrine. Rather, it doesn't even qualify as an actual doctrine because it's complete gibberish comprehended by no one.

Did you read my post where I rejected absolute divine simplicity?

 

[JAL]

Did you read my post where I rejected absolute divine simplicity?

Yes. That's the one where you wrote:

I myself reject absolute divine simplicity in favor of theology imported from the East, namely, Palamism, the essence/energies dichotomy, and the idea that God in his divine essence is completely and totally beyond human comprehension.

You said dichotomy, right? That too was also my same understanding of the Eastern view, where the dichotomy is:
(1) God in His Essence is a simple spirit (this is basically DDS as far as I can tell) and thus cannot be seen.
(2) But He does allow us to see the physical 'effects' of His Presence/Essence, known as the Energies of God (the physical pillars of Fire, Cloud, Light and so on)

Basically it sounds to me like an attempt to stand on both sides of the fence, propounded by those who want to both espouse DDS and yet remain 'biblical'. Here too the end result is an unfathomable gibberish.

God in his divine essence is completely and totally beyond human comprehension.

Right. This view is incomprehensible. It's gibberish. And once that's admitted, let's not dignify it with the classification "doctrine".

God is admittedly incomprehensible QUANTITATIVELY, but not qualitatively. For example I do not grasp the full magnitude (quantity) of His love, but I certainly know what love is. It is kindness.

 

[The Liturgist]

Right. This view is incomprehensible. It's gibberish. And once that's admitted, let's not dignify it with the classification "doctrine".

The view you misattribute to Palamism is indeed gibberish, but its also a strawman and not the actual concept.

The actual scriptural basis of Palamism can be very simply explained as the logical interpretation of John 1:18.*

God is admittedly incomprehensible QUANTITATIVELY, but not qualitatively. For example I do not grasp the full magnitude (quantity) of His love, but I certainly know what love is. It is kindness.

There is so much more to love than kindness. The absolute divine love God has for us is life-sustaining and life-creating; it is love as strong as death.

* I would note that on this verse, this is a place where the initial release of the NIV, as opposed to the dreadful new edition, was actually a good translation, because it expresses the full sense of ekeinos exegesato in a manner more clear in modern English than “hath declared,” which unfortunately due to declining literacy in Elizabethan English now comes across as being weaker than the NIV’s use of “has made him known.” Unfortunately Zondervan has made it their business to eradicate the old NIV with the same zeal they once seemed to reserve for the KJV, which is really bad business; there are several churches that probably would have adopted a different NIV update had Zondervan gone down a different path and addressed some of the legitimate concerns people had with the old version, which had the beginnings of being a very good translation, much like the Bishop’s Bible, which was the stylistic basis for the Authorized Version (KJV).

 

[JAL]

The view you misattribute to Palamism is indeed gibberish, but its also a strawman and not the actual concept.

The actual scriptural basis of Palamism can be very simply explained as the logical interpretation of John 1:18.*

Baloney. I gave a simple logical explanation of that verse earlier - based on familiar physical principles and thus not in gibberish. Whereas you've shown nothing specific to exonerate eastern views from charges of gibberish.

There is so much more to love than kindness. The absolute divine love God has for us is life-sustaining and life-creating; it is love as strong as death.

More empty words. He created us and sustains us out of His loving kindness. You haven't proven that love is more than kindness.