Divinization?

[AugustineH354]

Hi Michael,

You posted:

Agreed, that God is altogether simple and in no way composite. Yet also Triune.

Does it follow that God’s attributes are not God ? As to this - maybe the answer differs according to whether one thinks of God’s attributes “from God’s side”, or, “from the side of creation”; given that God is the Source of His activity, and that creatures are acted on, and that God is not a creature, nor to be classed among creatures, but is “wholly other” than creatures.>>

Aug: For me, God’s attributes are the means by which we can discuss the nature of God. Light, love, perfect, holy, just, infinite, omniscient, omni benevolent, omnipotent, et al., are all facets of God’s nature/essence.

Since we are on the “receiving end” of God’s activity - why can’t it be said that God’s attributes are God Himself, but are seen as multiple and diverse by us, simply because we are multiple and diverse ? IOW, this distinction would be a sort of economy allowed to us because we are neither God, nor yet fully conformed to Christ. If other ways of speech about Divine things can be a condescension to our weakness and ignorance - why not this also ? We receive other things in the measure of which we are capable - why not apply this saying to how we experience the God Who is wholly and simply One and Triune ?>>

Aug: Excellent points. I would like to add the question: since God is Triune will the saints experience the triune aspect of the Godhead? Further, since God is spirit, and spirit is substantial, I am compelled to ask: when one “sees” God (Matt. 5:8) why should we restrict this “seeing” to the attributes/energies (the Orthodox view), and not the very essence of God as apostolic constitution *Benedictus Deus *strongly suggests?

Grace and peace,

Aug

 

[DL82]

Hey - how come we’ve gone all the way through this long, long thread without a single mention of the Holy Spirit?

I am going to be entirely heterodox here by saying that there is something about the Holy Spirit that He is in the created world at the same time as being of the ineffable and immutable essence of God. In the same way that Jesus is a fully incarnate human as well as being fully the essence of God.

Once we accept the Holy Spirit’s presence in this equation, doesn’t that reduce to nothing the whole of this controversy?

Or maybe it reduces it back to the filioque, because Catholic and Orthodox churches teach something different on the Spirit’s procession, that maybe leads to disagreement on His operation also.