GAN Episode 18 - The Five Words Part 1

[@KevinGoldenEnterprises]

Wow! The sound quality was already good. Is even better now 😀. Plus the content, as usual, is just glorious! So full of love, life, and light.

[@astonishedheartswithc.baxt101]

Thank you! Glad you are enjoying it!

[@lalitkumarparsoya4588]

Sir we need publicity in Hindi Sir we want to understand the Trinity please Sir help me

[@astonishedheartswithc.baxt101]

@@lalitkumarparsoya4588 आपकी टिप्पणी के लिए धन्यवाद। उपशीर्षक अब वीडियो पर देखे जा सकते हैं। कृपया जान लें कि यह एआई-जनित अनुवाद है, इसलिए यह पूरी तरह से सटीक नहीं हो सकता है। इसके अलावा, ध्यान रखें कि यह चैनल और इसमें जाने वाले सभी काम मुख्य रूप से स्वयंसेवकों द्वारा किए जाते हैं, इसलिए यदि कोई तरीका है जिसमें आप मदद कर सकते हैं तो इसकी बहुत सराहना की जाएगी।

[@kathrynnewton8721]

Oh my word beautiful people, thank you! Got the 5 words now. I listened in the wrong order😅

[@maximumreality8144]

I know that God exists in eternity, not in time as we do, and Baxter is saying that the Trinity has always existed but what then does "only begotten son" mean? Even the terms "father" and "son" imply that the latter came after the former.

[@j.decker5187]

@@maximumreality8144 John 1:1 explains that the Father, Word and Spirit have always existed. The Son speaks of the incarnation of the Word in Jesus.

[@chrisgreen2013]

There is a deeper question behind this question, and it is worthy of a long answer. Yes, we cannot absolutise every aspect of our earthly analogical reference without becoming Arian. So just because earthly fathers precede earthly sons does not mean that the essence of fatherhood and sonship includes either logical or temporal priority. If it did, the father would not necessarily be father, only abstract unknowable deity. But neither can we say that the father / son relationship only started to exist at the incarnation (which is what the first response could be taken to imply.) Rather, we must say that the eternal responsibility of the son “was” to become incarnate. (I use the word “was” to be clear that it is only a figure of speech, and that eternity in this sense is not pretemporal time, a category error, but atemporality, the omniscient authority behind the unfolding of time.) This leads to an inescapable conclusion which invariably meets kneejerk accusations of pantheism. But as David Bentley hart notes, pantheism isn’t a word that means anything. It is just a word that people use for labelling people as heretics who aren’t as deistic as they imagine orthodoxy requires. Still, God is not reducible to creation, for he is it’s author. But he does not have any other “hobbies” other than being author of creation, even if he is only mulling the idea of creation over in atemporality. To be aware that you are going to do something and love what you are going to do is, in a sense, to have already begun to do it. And so the father-son relationship is absolute, because a Christ that does not consider himself absolutely responsible to incarnate himself in his creation as head of that creation can only ever be a figment of a deistic imagination. The activities of the father, son and Holy Spirit are, essentially, plan-do-review, from the bottom of their hearts, intrinsic to their perichoresis. So, there is no point in atemporality in which the trinity seriously considers not creating to be a good idea, because the very thought of creating is a joyful one to them which inwardly compels each other to consider it foolish not to just get on with it. (I am speaking vulgarly to draw out a point that sophisticated language always tries to smooth over.) Gregory of nyssa taught this explicitly, and other respectable giants taught implicitly. Still, let the accusations of pantheism begin. Yes, god does not create to fill up some emptiness in him. But that’s just a silly pagan fiction anyway, too foolish for a direct response. But neither would he ever consider it at all wise not to create, because there is no real freedom in not doing what one by their irreducible nature wants to do. God is too intelligent to be at all pleased with the idea of existing as the kind of eternal 3 way holy introverted spiritual orgasm that evangelicals often suppose. That is also a silly pagan fantasy, in that once declared by those who lord it over us and are called teaching benefactors, there is no rational content for the layman to challenge. It’s what Roman slaves imagine emperor freedom to feel like: not having to do anything. And sadly it has become such a foundational evangelical postulate, that to dare question it (let alone note that there is zero scriptural basis for it) is to be a “pantheist.” The closest you get is god declaring that he does not need our expertise, our ideas of what creation should look like. Which is fair enough, and paul rightly sums it up in romans 11.

[@maximumreality8144]

@@j.decker5187 It's hard for us creatures that live in time to comprehend being outside of time. Eternity seems to be like an existence where there is both permanency and change/growth and a past, a present, and future all at once (EX: John's Revelation experience). So the English term "begotten" must be inadequate to describe what Christ was referring to in John 3:16. John 1:1 parallels Genesis 1:1 with the phrase "In the beginning". That phrase sounds like it is talking about the creation of time and space, the universe but John 1:1 could be referring further back to the creation of the heavenly realm/angels, if they came before the creation of our physical universe, which seems to be the case. In Genesis it is followed by the term "Elohim created" (Note: From what I heard or read somewhere, "Elohim" = gods but the term "create" is in the singular conjugation; not a grammatical error in the Hebrew and demonstrates the mystery of our Trinitarian God) and in John it describes a person within the Trinity (The Word or Miltha in the Aramaic) and is and with Elohim.

[@carycupka4081]

In the quest to understand our origin e.g. the ancient Greek quest for ἄρχω (archè) there is a point at which further questions loose their legitimacy in the face of pre-articulate meaning. In this case I think we are at that point with respect to understanding the meaning of *begotten* e.g. compare the Nicene Creed's use of that term while using the phrase 'proceeds from' and the Filioque controversy which finally split the churches- with reference to *time* e.g. celestial time and human generations. It's one thing to say, I believe in the bodily resurrection, ascension and glorification of Jesus in accordance with the multi-vocal testimony of the apostles e.g. St John. It's quite another thing to ask, What does it mean? It's not that the question 'isn't allowed.' It's the experience of a shear tidal wave of meaning-diversity that overwhelms mere cognition in the attempt to seriously engage the questioner face-to-face. Where do we even begin? That brings us back to ἄρχω. Here's a resource out of the heart of the neo-reformation: Herman Dooyeweerd. Studying Dooyeweerd's work- even through the bias of Friesen's pan-en-thiesm- helped me discipline my thinking i.e. theoretical thought with respect to the limits of rationality and the *supra-rational* realm of human experience. Wade in to the glossary if you dare: "...the heart [is] the supra-rational, religious root of existence." jgfriesen.wordpress.com/glossary/heart/ P.S. Consider what @chrisgreen2013 said about "atemporality" and "pretemporal time" in that reply to your question. Use the keyboard shortcut {Ctrl + F} on the above hyperlink and browse the immediate context of the 39 findings for the prefix "supra". I've found this prefix helpful in my attempt to breach the veil of pre-articulate meaning where others e.g. most theologians and all fundamentalists use the veil as a line to demarcate the sovereignty of their theoretical thought.

[@carycupka4081]

Indeed, Dooyeweerd famously uses the *prism* as an analogy to express the "tidal wave of meaning diversity" when the light of eternity penetrates the "temporal horizon." The prism *refracts* the light which appears to our eye as 'white' into a kaleidoscope of colors. jgfriesen.wordpress.com/glossary/prism/ "time refracts the totality of meaning" jgfriesen.wordpress.com/glossary/dimension/ "Our horizon of [our eternal and temporal] experience is therefore an ontical framework which is given in advance, and not constructed by our rational thought." jgfriesen.wordpress.com/glossary/given/ "Philosophic theory must enable us to give an account of the structure of temporal reality given in naive experience (NC II, 579)." So this *totality of meaning* is how my understanding finds rest in the *plērōmatos of Christ* -Ephesians 4:13. Jesus the GodMan embodies the 'fullness'.