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.
Thank you for having me on. It's an honor.
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.
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?
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.
Let's see if I can figure out how to do that.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But yeah, and what.
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?
Sure? Okay?
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.
Right, So the.
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.
Right.
So like the bricks that make up a house.
Right.
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.
Here's why.
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.
Tan or whatever.
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.
Have a body.
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.
Right, So if you grant.
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.
That that's.
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.
It's not clear to me, So I'm.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So maybe you're saying that you just don't think that any proofs for Gaza distance work. Is that what you're planning.
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.
You mean they don't work because they get you in no place you don't want to be.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So it's right.
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.
Right, sure, I mean Eastern fathers will will say at times God is first cause. Saint JOHNA. Mascus says that I'm sure.
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?
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.
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.
Okay, but I go ahead?
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.
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.
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.
Right, So I need to.
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.
To be this way. Yeah, I mean, I understand.
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.
Okay.
So I'm saying that if you say that God has potency, it's actualized, then you need to explain why that happened.
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.
Yeah, okay, so first thing, like, I would like to keep the ARGUMENTI I just gave separate from that.
Right.
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.
Right.
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?
Right? So likewise, but.
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.
And then you have.
As an objection. Right, So let's let's just keep these two different things separate.
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.
Don't need to argue with me about that. That's actually kind of both of our points. So anyway, keep going.
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.
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.
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.
That's not an answer though, right, because the way you need to explain to me is why is it?
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.
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.
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.
The thing that you had said first was that you're fine with saying that God has potency least.
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.
I'm not interested in arguments from authority or where claims came from.
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?
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.
For our sense, I mean.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If it's the case, the fact that Platinus said something means that it's wrong.
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.
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.
That's the argument. The argument is, your doctor of simplicity is the same as Platinass, and it's heretical man.
And it's certainly not the same as Platonis is because I hold the trinity right, the emination.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Also the attributes that are the same as the essence of God.
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?
Right?
Is that a goal that you're okay with? Or do I need to defend that one?
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.
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.
That's what we.
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.
Potent as far as I can tell, yes, that makes sense. Okay.
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.
That's really that's not all.
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.
Yeah, I would, just because that makes sense, I would throw out of all these categories, big part I would throw out.
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.
Right.
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.
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.
Right, I don't know what you mean by scientistic right, what we've gotten as the data of revelation, right, we've.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
This is just about you were talking about in potentia and actuality and active through.
It just means can be. It's what can be. That's all it is. I know that's not Aristotle's copyright.
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.
And we're not trying to have an argument about terms here, You're you're saying the.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Okay, so let me latch onto that. Then how are you defining the divine simplicity doctrine, which you say Aquinas shares with Eunomias.
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?
Yes?
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.
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.
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.
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?
What two things?
That's the whole both things at once? What two things? Simplicity of nature, persons.
And the via negativa where we can predicate analogically of God.
I'm not sure that the via negativa issue is what's at stake here.
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.
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.
Bear with me.
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.
Right, So you have.
Dog nature and a substantial form, and you have the essay which is proper to it, which is subsistent essay.
And then you have.
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.
This cup is big.
Let's say quantity and here's a subject, both in the sense that it draws its existence from that subject.
Right, it doesn't.
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.
Still got an.
Essay one creatures, but it doesn't make its subject. It doesn't it doesn't add any new content to the subject.
Right.
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.
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?
Hang on, I think I want to just say that again.
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.
So first off, so I'm just going to reiterate my point about it appeals to authority.
So you're you're in a Roman Catholic church, no, I know, appeals to authority and name Catholic.
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.
To me a what you gain by or how.
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.
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.
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.
It's not.
Well, it's held in common by two persons, and so it doesn't serve to identify one person as as opposed to another.
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.
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.
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.
Okay, So by your theory, don't the son and the spirit both share a property which the Father does not.
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.
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.
But in the Roman dogma they're defined as a co cause. Father and son are.
Hypostatically no person is caused by any other.
Of course, they are cause.
The cause means to receive it being. I don't think you want to say that.
This is typical Orthodox and Church father terminology. The father is the sole cause. Even a quantus uses this terminology.
So again, it just depends on what you mean by cause.
Right.
It's if by cause you mean something which makes something else, obviously not normally when.
It's in your own dogmas that the father and the son are the co cause of the spirits hypostasis.
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.
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.
Used as synonymous for XS from WY. That's fine.
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.
So how do you distinguish what it means to be generated and what it means to be proceeded.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The other two are because you're you're happy with saying.
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.
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.
I don't think he doesn't produce.
I do think that following down the filioqui trail is a bit of a rabbit hole at the moment.
Right, So related Philly is a result of absolutely.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Of seeing the connection between those two claims. There's also everything which is predicated.
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.
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.
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.
I'm aware that you don't like the psychological analogy, but again, can we keep the.
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.
That it's not the hypostatic origin. That's a claim. I deny it.
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.
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.
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.
There may not be that's not really not concerned.
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.
I think the opportunity to read Saint John and the.
Roman Church affirms that, right, So that affirms what he's a doctor of the church in aquas.
Yeah, the doctor of the church is not to affirm everything that they that they say it's true, of course, but.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I understand that and the issues that we're taking two different things as being the defining note of the father.
Right.
So I'm looking right now at Dave Potentia uh nine to nine, which is on whether there are only three persons of God?
Hello? Hello, what looks like we lost Hell being not born? Are you there in my computers?
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.
I could be wrong.
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.
The son which defines the father.
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.
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.
Son or being the cause of another, that.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Uh, the Father and the son produced the spirit.
Yes, right, this is the common medication.
That's a real positive property that the spirit doesn't have.
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.
Right.
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.
Think the Father and the Father and the Son really produces spirit.
Do you say that the Son and the Holy Spirit really receive the Father.
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.
I'm just saying that receiving is as much of a positive predicate as giving, and whether or not you have.
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.
Yeah, no, and I agree with that.
Right.
I'm saying that there is no metaphysical reality which father has and which father and son both are.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The fathers and their councils use this term of the father. You know.
That's fine. But but you're going with that, right. Is there a correlative?
By the way, they don't. They don't use the Ariscitilian tomistic view of this. That's fine.
Are you going to grant that there is a correlative to cause which is being caused?
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.
Right, but simply being to another is not what defines the persons in domistic theology, either another and not from But.
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.
Yeah, I don't. I'm trying to think of a way to save us without just repeating myself again.
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.
My knowledge of the coin is is Strinitarian theology is not sufficient to allow me to say yes to the as from.
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.
I would be really hesitant to say that.
I would be surprised. That's the dogmatical to the teaching.
But I would be surprised if he thinks of father and son as together doing.
One what's it?
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.
Like a again the reason that producing a third thing.
And I just think that's the wrong way to think about this.
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.
I'm saying that that's the wrong way to understand what a quite is saying.
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.
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.
Aquinas does not hold that.
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.
Right.
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?
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.
So I mean all of that you're describing, it's completely compatible with what it Quita says about the vine simplicity.
Right, No, it's not at all.
Sure it is because it absolutely maintains.
That the apes are not real in your doctrine.
I don't know what you mean by that.
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.
Manifestations of God's goodness are distinct from the essence of God.
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.
It seems to me that you're trying to hold two incompatible things. So let me try to parse this out.
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.
Yes, I know that the person become manifest and time and space.
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.
Well, let's rewind a little bit, okay, so and we can talk about how to make I've.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
Then our hour and fifty minutes?
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.
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.
He would want to deny that these.
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.
In this respect.
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.
Can we agree about that? As far as I understand your meaning, I'm not sure.
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.
Most of the time, for example, what you.
Actually see is my just action. Am I getting that right?
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.
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.
Oh.
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?
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.
Stick with the things like justice and fore knowledge for the moment.
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.
Okay, well you get trinitarian stuff and leaving aside hypostatic union stuff.
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.
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?
Right?
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.
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.
So, but I mean so, but that's true of this isn't just true of God?
Right?
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.
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.
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.
Right, because now it's only creative effects.
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.
How do you know that it's the justice of God and not the foregnoledge or love of God that you're experiencing.
So Colonus would say, depending on what you mean by that, that's uh.
Well, I think it matters whether I'm under God's justice.
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.
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.
Right, of course I'm going to object to completely unlike of course.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I'm not going to say repeat what you said right before that last thing.
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.
The problem is the word I think that we're using talk about in two different senses. Right, So there.
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.
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.
All you know is creative effects, and you never know that thing itself, so you have no reference for it.
Yeah, when I say, let's let's try to give concrete examples, right.
That is the analogy andthis right.
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.
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.
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.
Right.
So let me just try to give an example.
So when I say that you.
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.
Right.
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.
We just don't use these categories.
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.
Cross for us.
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?
It's just him.
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.
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?
How do I know that you have love.
Because you have a personal interaction with me and you're in your doctrine.
It's not, Well, what do I have to have a personal interaction with you to know that you have love?
Well, you might hear secondhand from somebody, But the point is that that we're not we're talking about God himself.
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.
You don't know that that created effect is an action of love, because you don't know God himself.
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.
Of operation, you don't know that God is doing that.
I don't I mean, I don't know that this operation that I see in front of me is an active love.
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.
So what you're saying, it could be for all I know, it could be somebody else.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Uh, for my good.
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.
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.
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.
Deliberately for the good of another.
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.
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.
Are you denying that? I just want to guess right now.
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.
That I was asking, though, Right, So I'm just saying this thing out here. Maybe this is the trouble.
Right.
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.
Right.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
All right.
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.
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.
You and I'm doing my best to explain that, but I'm just trying to.
Make sure that you're just restating what analogical predication is, and I know what it is.
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.
We don't believe in unibical predication.
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.
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.
Here we are going in circles. Okay, let's see if I can try this another one.
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.
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.
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.
All right, well, thank you, all right, God bless you.
Thank you Jack too. Man