Thank you Dear Fr Addison for the suggested readings. I have been reading and reading David’s books and look forward to this new book. Also Ancient Faith Radio introduced to the Fr Pat Reardon and have the book on Psalms. I had not heard of Nigg’s book—but the description you offered makes it inviting. Thank you as always for your guidance! I always look forward to your substack posts. The last post on Emerson’s romanticized view of nature was an interesting read. As a high school student reading Emerson and Thoreau gave words to some of my own interior longings connected to nature. It took a little while but fifty years later I’m living in a log home in a remote part of the NW and can more easily, from this vantage point, see the shortcomings of the transcendentalists ideas of God and Nature. Surrounded by mountains and pine trees, wildlife and my dog Cannie, I find peace—but there is a difference in my mind between those manifestations of the glory of God and the icons on my wall.
Thank you again for your kindness and generosity in sharing your thoughts with us.
The title of your brother’s book reminded me of John Michael Greer’s A World Full of Gods an intellectual defense of polytheism. You and your brother may find it worth while to read. Also good to check out the competition.
Greer has predicted that many neo-pagans will end up becoming Christians in the near future. In a recent Substack Rod Dreher shared that an Orthodox Church in the south was experiencing an influx of former neo-pagans. Greer regards Christian faith as a type of henotheism with real spiritual power if seriously practiced. He regards Christian mystical experience of the ultimacy of their God as just little us meeting a very much bigger better being, not as evidence of that being being the ultimate one. I found his arguments compelling at best leading to a draw between monotheism and polytheism with the resolution found after death. The Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is quite real and present to me so I remain a Christian and am not threatened by his ideas.
All Christians (well, I suppose the vast, vast majority) are 'polytheists' in the sense that they believe in powerful spirits, usually referred to as angels and demons. But it does not make very much sense to refer to God Himself as a powerful spirit or being; if we admitted that, then Nicene Christianity would be insensible.
Well, it says in John - God is spirit and he is intensely personal, he is not some generic ground of being. In fact the Persons of the Trinity are quite distinct, I like to say they are different in terms of who they are but they are the same in what they are - God. This differentiation between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and their individual, distinct personhoods is clearly seen in the New Testament. Bishop Kallistos Ware in his book The Orthodox Way says - “through our encounter with God in prayer we know the Spirit is not the same as the Son” “although Father, Son, and Spirit are one single God, yet each of them is from all eternity a person, a distinct center of conscious selfhood. God the Trinity is thus to be described as ‘three persons in one essence’. There is in God true unity , combined with genuinely personal differentiation” His thorough explanation of the Trinity is well worth reading. In my experience of the Three Persons they each feel different but share the common taste of Deity. The Son has the added human taste of Jesus of Nazareth who is “the same, yesterday, today and forever”. I can see when faced with this understanding how Jews and Muslims can accuse Christians of a form of polytheism. The Jews and Muslims also say there are angels and demons and they don’t see that as infringing on their monotheism. The angels and demons are a class of beings as are humans, animals, plants, part of the multiplicity of creation.
God is not a pyschological subject (He has no ψύχη, pysche, except by condescension in the Incarnation) and certainly not three — He's far too grand for that. In fact, if Sergius Bulgakov's views are right, God is perfectly Personal because of His simplicity; He is simultaneously subject, object, and copula, a tri-hypostatic Personality. I think that when we imagine God to be "not a psychological subject," we end up thinking He lacks a personality, when in fact we are the ones who maintain a shadowy and imperfect reflection of true Personality.
I would have to, reluctantly, disagree with the good late Metropolitan (and may God rest his soul!) on the point that "each of them is from all eternity a person, a distinct center of conscious selfhoold," as I don't see how that differs from tritheism. The modern conception of the 'person' as a pyschological subject is, well, irreducibly modern, and not the meaning of the Greek πρόσοπων (prosopon, 'face, mask') or ὑποστάσις (hypostasis, "subsistence, substance"). If God were to be like that, He simply wouldn't be God; the Trinity would just be a powerful coalition of beings who, in themselves, cannot account for even their own existence.
Well, there is the God of the New Testament and the god of the philosophers and scholars (Pascal).
Oh, the Triune God is a lot of fun and such a dance to be with. “In thy presence is fullness of joy” The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”
More from Kallistos Ware
“Why believe that God is three? Is it not easier to believe simply in the divine unity, as the Jews and the Mohammedans do? Certainly it is easier? The doctrine of the Trinity stands before as a “crux” in the literal sense: it is , in Vladimir’s Lossky’s words, ‘a cross for human ways of thought’
“Why should God be a communion of three divine persons neither less or more? Here again there can be no logical proof. The threeness of God is something given or revealed to us in Scripture, in the Apostolic Tradition, and in the experience of saints throughout the centuries. All that we can do is to verify this given fact through our own life of prayer.”
I see the Trinity in the Bible, in the ancient teachings and in my own experience. I invite you to join the dance of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “You shall go forth in joy and be led forth in peace” and “May the the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” 2 Corinthians 12:14
I wouldn't say that those two are opposed to one another! After all, if Christianity can't play nice with reason, then it is either insensible or only true in a limited and incomplete sense. I am not particularly interested in subscribing to a creed amounting to that!
Of course, we aren't going to be able to pin God in a box, comphrending Him completely, but at the same time, what we say about Him has to make sense. Saying God 'transcends logic' is no different than saying He 'transcends good and evil.' To transcend good and evil is just to not be the Good (or even just good); to transcend logic is just not to be the Truth (or even just rational). If this is so, then all of our theological talk is just vacuous sophistry.
All that being said, I am already a Trinitarian Christian! And may our God bless you and keep you.
Well, in the New Testament and in practical lived experience it sure can look and feel like a tritheism so the early Church fathers had their philosophical hands full in making monotheism work! There is also Godhead complexity you can see in the Old Testament. If a gallon of water was like God it would be all vapor, all liquid, all ice simultaneously, a sort of quantum physics state of superposition
Thank you Dear Fr Addison for the suggested readings. I have been reading and reading David’s books and look forward to this new book. Also Ancient Faith Radio introduced to the Fr Pat Reardon and have the book on Psalms. I had not heard of Nigg’s book—but the description you offered makes it inviting. Thank you as always for your guidance! I always look forward to your substack posts. The last post on Emerson’s romanticized view of nature was an interesting read. As a high school student reading Emerson and Thoreau gave words to some of my own interior longings connected to nature. It took a little while but fifty years later I’m living in a log home in a remote part of the NW and can more easily, from this vantage point, see the shortcomings of the transcendentalists ideas of God and Nature. Surrounded by mountains and pine trees, wildlife and my dog Cannie, I find peace—but there is a difference in my mind between those manifestations of the glory of God and the icons on my wall.
Thank you again for your kindness and generosity in sharing your thoughts with us.
James
And thank you for your very gracious comment.
The title of your brother’s book reminded me of John Michael Greer’s A World Full of Gods an intellectual defense of polytheism. You and your brother may find it worth while to read. Also good to check out the competition.
https://www.amazon.com/World-Full-Gods-Inquiry-Polytheism/dp/1801520801/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3814NLORONZPX&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.QMqhFN0eRvzd59KzJjkFkhnU2KYuRZPS22o2wdkEb-RWZsm6XJ6VJJyDp-yIU0kP3CwM-Btoh9WaHUB87oWt-4ulqFsZs9iAkkapRlIPRkfuWgXmo4JKK6HCgjACSWBPPogZjMXXqXte17NWKXKF1d-nCNVMBWynbUXCB1_N_cLBafEWZCm_SQmACfiNFnTlfCld_ZrqWPiC9f6bdRZ4Ncqx4yJv_8tnPxcblaL4tak.MZBCYzWGWTpbICJGVzJ-kQ6_0xAuSRyptJDURwMqoGs&dib_tag=se&keywords=A+world+full+of+gods&qid=1720550428&s=books&sprefix=a+world+full+of+gods%2Cstripbooks%2C179&sr=1-1
I will pray.
continue to pray or take it up again actually, as your dear brother is so beloved to my heart since we first 'met' (online, alas), some years ago.
I really just adore him for his humanity.
God ease and save him.
_mb
Greer has predicted that many neo-pagans will end up becoming Christians in the near future. In a recent Substack Rod Dreher shared that an Orthodox Church in the south was experiencing an influx of former neo-pagans. Greer regards Christian faith as a type of henotheism with real spiritual power if seriously practiced. He regards Christian mystical experience of the ultimacy of their God as just little us meeting a very much bigger better being, not as evidence of that being being the ultimate one. I found his arguments compelling at best leading to a draw between monotheism and polytheism with the resolution found after death. The Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is quite real and present to me so I remain a Christian and am not threatened by his ideas.
All Christians (well, I suppose the vast, vast majority) are 'polytheists' in the sense that they believe in powerful spirits, usually referred to as angels and demons. But it does not make very much sense to refer to God Himself as a powerful spirit or being; if we admitted that, then Nicene Christianity would be insensible.
Well, it says in John - God is spirit and he is intensely personal, he is not some generic ground of being. In fact the Persons of the Trinity are quite distinct, I like to say they are different in terms of who they are but they are the same in what they are - God. This differentiation between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and their individual, distinct personhoods is clearly seen in the New Testament. Bishop Kallistos Ware in his book The Orthodox Way says - “through our encounter with God in prayer we know the Spirit is not the same as the Son” “although Father, Son, and Spirit are one single God, yet each of them is from all eternity a person, a distinct center of conscious selfhood. God the Trinity is thus to be described as ‘three persons in one essence’. There is in God true unity , combined with genuinely personal differentiation” His thorough explanation of the Trinity is well worth reading. In my experience of the Three Persons they each feel different but share the common taste of Deity. The Son has the added human taste of Jesus of Nazareth who is “the same, yesterday, today and forever”. I can see when faced with this understanding how Jews and Muslims can accuse Christians of a form of polytheism. The Jews and Muslims also say there are angels and demons and they don’t see that as infringing on their monotheism. The angels and demons are a class of beings as are humans, animals, plants, part of the multiplicity of creation.
God is not a pyschological subject (He has no ψύχη, pysche, except by condescension in the Incarnation) and certainly not three — He's far too grand for that. In fact, if Sergius Bulgakov's views are right, God is perfectly Personal because of His simplicity; He is simultaneously subject, object, and copula, a tri-hypostatic Personality. I think that when we imagine God to be "not a psychological subject," we end up thinking He lacks a personality, when in fact we are the ones who maintain a shadowy and imperfect reflection of true Personality.
I would have to, reluctantly, disagree with the good late Metropolitan (and may God rest his soul!) on the point that "each of them is from all eternity a person, a distinct center of conscious selfhoold," as I don't see how that differs from tritheism. The modern conception of the 'person' as a pyschological subject is, well, irreducibly modern, and not the meaning of the Greek πρόσοπων (prosopon, 'face, mask') or ὑποστάσις (hypostasis, "subsistence, substance"). If God were to be like that, He simply wouldn't be God; the Trinity would just be a powerful coalition of beings who, in themselves, cannot account for even their own existence.
Well, there is the God of the New Testament and the god of the philosophers and scholars (Pascal).
Oh, the Triune God is a lot of fun and such a dance to be with. “In thy presence is fullness of joy” The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”
More from Kallistos Ware
“Why believe that God is three? Is it not easier to believe simply in the divine unity, as the Jews and the Mohammedans do? Certainly it is easier? The doctrine of the Trinity stands before as a “crux” in the literal sense: it is , in Vladimir’s Lossky’s words, ‘a cross for human ways of thought’
“Why should God be a communion of three divine persons neither less or more? Here again there can be no logical proof. The threeness of God is something given or revealed to us in Scripture, in the Apostolic Tradition, and in the experience of saints throughout the centuries. All that we can do is to verify this given fact through our own life of prayer.”
I see the Trinity in the Bible, in the ancient teachings and in my own experience. I invite you to join the dance of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “You shall go forth in joy and be led forth in peace” and “May the the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” 2 Corinthians 12:14
I wouldn't say that those two are opposed to one another! After all, if Christianity can't play nice with reason, then it is either insensible or only true in a limited and incomplete sense. I am not particularly interested in subscribing to a creed amounting to that!
Of course, we aren't going to be able to pin God in a box, comphrending Him completely, but at the same time, what we say about Him has to make sense. Saying God 'transcends logic' is no different than saying He 'transcends good and evil.' To transcend good and evil is just to not be the Good (or even just good); to transcend logic is just not to be the Truth (or even just rational). If this is so, then all of our theological talk is just vacuous sophistry.
All that being said, I am already a Trinitarian Christian! And may our God bless you and keep you.
Well, in the New Testament and in practical lived experience it sure can look and feel like a tritheism so the early Church fathers had their philosophical hands full in making monotheism work! There is also Godhead complexity you can see in the Old Testament. If a gallon of water was like God it would be all vapor, all liquid, all ice simultaneously, a sort of quantum physics state of superposition