Why God Is a Person and Not an Idea | Jonathan Pageau & Fr. Stephen Freeman

[@LucasGarvey]

This reminds me of a line from Brothers Karamazov "The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I often make plans for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually face crucifixion if it were suddenly necessary. Yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together."

[@ximenadelrio]

Smart comment here !!!!!!

[@MrDarryl1958]

"We have to generalize people before we kill them" That sentence stood out

[@mugsofmirth8101]

How is that true of scumbags like Jeffrey Ep$te¡n?

[@the2ndcoming135]

Let’s go to the moon not because it’s hard but because people are stupid as hell.-JFK probably or probably not😂

[@nicodemuseam]

Not only that, but we have to dehumanize or "other" someone in order to hate or kill them. If we see another human being as an extension of ourselves, which is the reality of the Orthodox Christian worldview(Man is one single composite organism), then we cannot hate them, or we hate ourselves.

[@georgechristiansen6785]

This only applies to groups. Wars and persecutions, but it is far from an absolute. Most people who killed someone very much kill an individual. They may dehumanize them, but they are quite particular.

[@MrDarryl1958]

@@georgechristiansen6785 “We” speaks to the idea that it is a response of a collective, usually to an out group. For sure, Cain killing Abel speaks to the individual resenting someone who is closest to him.

[@nortons7040]

The very concept of individuality, of human being as an individual and sovereign "person" is actually product of Christian theology. Before that people had kind of collective personality (family, tribe, city (Greek "polis"), kingdom, etc.). There weren't even words to describe personality as we understand this word now. "Persona" literally meant a "mask" and it took centuries of Christian theology to form new meaning of this word. With the decline of Christianity we can witness that collective identification is regaining it grounds again - political, ethnical, sexual, racial and so on. It's modern tribalism. This makes sense - the more we forgetting about Ultimate Person (i.e. God) the more we became depersonalized ourselves. The thing is - it is not us who tend to "humanize" God by seeing Him as a Person, vice verse - it is God who created us in His image and only through communion with Him we can became ourselves, became sovereign persons rather then accumulation of social interactions and biological features.

[@aramkaizer7903]

That's really interesting. There's this disheartening strain of Jungian thought that sees God as some memetic manifestation of an archetype in the subconscious. But that just isn't God. That's something completely different.

[@poli.f.0nia]

Very well said, however I don't agree that "God" could be a person, nor an idea. It would be just something outside of our grasp of understanding.

[@Cyrus_II]

@@aramkaizer7903 "completely different" ?

[@aramkaizer7903]

@@Cyrus_II Yes lmao. God isn't just a manifestation of the paternal archetype.

[@martinthecarolean9762]

Norton S that’s an excellent point about the concept of the individual person gaining traction with the establishment of Christianity in the West. I would also add that the native pagan cultures of Greece and Rome also had in their mythology a robust sense of the heroic individual which probably merged with the Christian idea and which made Christianity much more easily accepted

[@couragecoachsam]

An interesting idea that hate doesn’t stick to particular; it sticks better to the generalized. Likewise, love doesn’t stick to the generalized, only the particular.

[@Tim_Climie]

Nice idea. The only time this breaks down is when the third commandment is broken with the 'god's on our side' phenomenon. "We Americans! We Californians! We Hollywood Blvds! We've committed sins, but God will destroy OUR enemies!" You're still right though, in that even with this, the hate is still generalised. I just wanted to point out that vanity often calls on the collective.

[@olgakarpushina492]

Not really. I hate quite particular little things, like my hubby's dirty socks always on the floor etc. But I see what you are trying to convey. One can hate stereotypical Jews or Blacks or Asians, but have no problem with his/her Jewish/Black/Asian neighbour.

[@frankdayton731]

@@olgakarpushina492 I think maybe there's differering notions of "hate", like for instance you can hate an enemy army or ideology and so you'd willingly take up weapons to fight against fascism or communism or whatever. But when you actually come face to face with an opposing soldier whom you don't know and never seen before, it's hard to really "hate" them on a personal level. However, if you've been bullied year after by a particular kid in elementary school, or have had an abusive family member that lived in the same home with you, then you detest almost every little thing about them; the way they walk, their manner of speech, idiosyncratic expressions on their face etc.

[@Kitiwake]

He didn't say that. He said your can't note anything in general.

[@cnote3598]

You can hate a single thing

[@climbingmt.sophia]

Three distinct layers of interacting with God 1. God as Idea: True, but if this is the extent of "God" then the soul/identity/self is trapped in the mind which holds the ideas. The mind is the Ontological ground. 2. God as Person: True, but if we stop here we get locked into the individual experience of other people as Other, and thus relate to God as if we had equal ontological reality to Him 3. God as Person and Ground of Being: Here God is viewed as Person, the highest level of consciousness we can imagine, but also as so far beyond what we can imagine as Person. Thus only can God be understood as "farther beyond us than the furthest star, but closer to our soul than our own awareness."

[@juniperstardust5549]

Person doesn't mean body, that's where most people get stuck, Got is consciousness and the ubiquitous energy, but it's one consciousness too, one consciousness, meaning, a person, with a million bodies, with a million human faces, maybe with only one ultimate face and body, but a person never the less

[@panokostouros7609]

*"My friends, the Truth is a Person."* - _Constantine Zalalas_

[@LoremLorem]

Oh wow, that's helps to understand the relationship between this reality and a higher reality (meta). That is such a big picture: an abstract thing truth as a person. It explanes why and how the right truth is limited. It has a figure, a personality. All that is Jesus like here is part of Jesus, a subcomponent.

[@panokostouros7609]

@@LoremLorem Yes, however Jesus is not just an abstract Platonic ideal. He's the Divine/Human Archetype that can be experienced and loved personally.

[@LoremLorem]

Dude, what's up with that nickname tho? Pano kostouros? You know, my native language is finnish.

[@panokostouros7609]

@@LoremLorem Haha, it's the name my parents gave me. It's Greek! Glorious Greek!

[@LoremLorem]

@@panokostouros7609 Oh man! :) I'm sure it's wonderful in greek.

[@thewholemessprinciple]

The "Transcendent Particular". I love that! 💚 "When God becomes man, the infinite enters the particular and the particular is revealed to have infinite value." 10:08

[@ishiishi7351]

The highest thing we encounter is always other people, the thing that can transform us the most is people

[@konflux4714]

And for an ant, it's another ant.

[@betterdaysahead3746]

I remember listening to this when it first aired. Two years later the words spoken and shared are even more profound.

[@johncarroll6367]

Starving... dying of thirst...Homeless in Winter without a warm coat, shoes, gloves, and a warm hat....Stranded in a foreign land , not knowing the native tongue...Gravely ill, unable to afford a doctor or medicine...Trapped in a nightmare prison full of evil, dangerous men. In all of these the risen Christ is not merely with or in you. He is and was and will be you, from before time began until the end of this age... until all is fulfilled. "It is finished!" It was a prophecy... Amen? Glory to God in all things!

[@everitadave]

I had a unique healing experience that led me out of depression. Without knowing why and what I was looking at my own photography daily for 2 years, not thinking of anything, just feeling very much loved. It was miraculous and it restored my self value, my faith in Lord Jesus Christ and love for everyone else. Later, after studying Catholicism for 2 years, I am willing to say - I am (we are) the image of God.

[@viktoriap3251]

Wow You actually communicate that the only way we can experience reality is through our most probably very limited human senses, I don't know how many times I tried to express and explain that to people in my surroundings. They never seems to understand what I am talking about although it is very simple to understand. Or they look at me like I said something totally insane and unscientific. Maybe they just don't know how to respond to that,bif I am actually honest. But it is very refreshing to hear someone express that opinion except myself. Also very beautiful, to hear about this personal concern of the Divine. The name, the person as a unique individual. It is so obvious when I hear it. The common opinion today is so, despite of the perverted narcissistic individualism, when it comes to the spiritual realm and even in a global matter it is always about that we are all a small part of humanity, almost as if humanity is an organism that we all collectively must work in accordance to sustain. I understand in a way were it come from. We are of course a collective as well, that's just a fact. But it touched me to be remembered about our individual uniqueness to God. I had almost forgot about it.

[@northstar92]

To hate discounts the whole, leads to an insular world view. Through love, it's possible to understand how these particular forces of hate arise. Hate limits knowledge and love unleashes it.

[@ChrisRatto-s9y]

God is light and love.

[@jessecerasus9621]

This is so logical, good job my friends. ;-)

[@MeShellMaBelle]

One of my favorite authors, Ernest Holmes, in writing about how we’re made is God’s image puts it this way: The personal cannot emerge from a principle which does not contain the inherent possibility of the personal. And you could go down the list of all human attributes; personality, etc. Of course, God is even more.

[@jayc9940]

There is nothing better in the world than meeting with an old friend to share sorrows and laughter with. Human emotion and interaction is a way we can experience ‘God’.

[@georgechristiansen6785]

An interesting note on songwriting/poetry is that the more particular the characters and events in the work are the wider the span of people, who are not even familiar with those particulars, can relate.

[@bigol9223]

Do you have examples or something I can read about this

[@georgechristiansen6785]

@@bigol9223 Not really. It's just something common is songwriting/poetry you'll find if you look.

[@has25252]

This is an eye-opener for me.

[@quietbarringaluminum]

“The highest thing we encounter is always other people..the richest thing…the one that can transform us the most are always other people.” This is quite an assertion stated as fact.

[@willhedges6639]

Why wouldn’t that be true

[@willhedges6639]

If consciousness is the place where meaning and virtue is acknowledged and instantiated in actuality, why would it not be true that the interaction between two conscious beings would be the meeting place between to the developments of entire lifetimes of consciousness. That is where we flesh out meaning and truth and where the most vital expressions of humanity develops in understanding.

[@mersouled]

What a profound conversation! I am eternally grateful for you to having decided to go on KZbin at some point. 🙏

[@MrDreadEnd]

wow what a conversation, I realized abstraction is for the stupid. I and most humans are too stupid to understand the complexity that is the truest possible representation of what is. We rely on successive abstractions to understand complexities. But pure abstraction leads to nothingness. Gratetful for this dialogue on why the individual person nature of God makes sense and why God furthered that personhood in Christ.

[@2b-coeur]

yeahh yeah i think abstraction and generalisation are the garments of skin, for our minds. we need them only until we can be transfigured to understand and participate in the cosmos more immediately.

[@koffeeblack5717]

I think Hyper-person, or the notion of God as Super-personal is most apt. The basis for our best understanding of God is an analogical extrapolation of our own actuality, which is as Jonathan says "personal". The highest order unity we know of is that of the person.

[@jonathan_1465]

"We find love in the particular......." is a very profound statement that has massive implications not only for the afterlife but also questions this vague abstraction we're taught about "oneness in the body of Christ."

[@2b-coeur]

Read Teilhard de Chardin ! it's not an abstraction

[@jonathan_1465]

I have, which further reinforces my point.

[@2b-coeur]

​@@jonathan_1465 really? "The Divine Milieu" where he talks about the body of Christ as like.. forming through a prolongation of the particularities of matter and of souls? {bc he like you specifically complains about how vague and non-concrete our doctrinal ideas often are, and to me it's a beautiful and very embodied book}

[@Lord-of-D]

Doesn't seem difficult. Jesus is an individual who honors He who made Him by sharing in He who made Him. This is what makes Him the Christ, which means "the anointed one" - which if you put it in Jungian terms, makes Him the first true individual among man, unspoiled and undetermined by the world. Oneness in the body of Christ points to Jesus calling us to do the same in remembrance of He who did so first. An important distinction to be made is that there's only one other who individuated, but failed: Satan. He failed because he tried to do so *in spite* of God. So now he spends the rest of eternity projecting spite and self-hatred on we who have been given the chance to overcome him by doing it right, no matter how many times we may fall short. It certainly helps that God humbled Himself enough to provide a living example. ...before we killed Him for going against our perception of His own word.

[@schmellen88]

Love this. Thank you.

[@Leningrad_Underground]

I listened to the brief dialogue. These are your contentions . I may respectfully disagree, so be it. Thank you for sharing your view . I hope we all learn .

[@FreshDonuts]

I think this ties in closely with discussions regarding the vast insufficiency of post-Aquinas 'natural theology', which happens to be all the rage with protestants at the moment. Eventually arriving at the notion of the 'uncreated general diety' and then attempting to later meld that notion with the extremely particular reality of the Holy Trinity at some later point when a person is 'ready for it' seems tenuous. One cannot love (or arguably more importantly) 'be loved' by an idea. Faith premised on philosophical notions will eventually fail to sustain the alleged object of that faith, it must be sustained by the Person directly.

[@avenger822]

Touché

[@panokostouros7609]

This exactly why Neoplatonic Thomistic Catholic Theology is insufficient.

[@avenger822]

In itself yes but it is complementary. It was not meant to replace revelation.

[@emmagrace6396]

@@panokostouros7609 what would you recommend instead?

[@sarrok85]

Agreed.

[@PrisonMike-_-]

This is a beautiful archetype for the faith itself too

[@Kaspar502]

I love the idea of the "transcendend particular". The best way I ever had to describe was the "universal-particular" which constitutes actul individuality.

[@2b-coeur]

yeahh that was the term i was using before haha trying to get past the 'garments of skin' of abstract generalisations - while also seeing the gestalt kinda comm/union of particulars toward the Universal. it's a delicate distinction to learn to make at first..

[@andrewharmon2157]

The definition of "person" is one with intellect, power, and will. God is a person by the same definition we are defined as persons.

[@remingtonsloan8331]

Thank you for having this conversation and sharing this clip.

[@the2ndcoming135]

This is why I prefer hanging around people who aren’t idiots. Regardless of race😂

[@unclerandal8214]

amazing talk

[@elektrotehnik94]

Damn this was impressive & wise. Thank you

[@PhilLeith]

Woah! @9:59 .... blew me away. Like a nuclear explosion. Jonathan says "it used to mean 'mask'" ... I had to look that up. Indeed. That's how it started, and the concept was further developed over time to where we've lost the seed of the concept - the meaning today is practically unrecognizable from its origin. Practically. But not completely. At first I thought he said "it means to act" ... but I misheard him. But even in my mishearing him, it ended up being on point. Originally, it meant a mask worn by stage actors. What is a mask? A mask is a "face". A face is what we primarily use to ... interface (between faces, right?) with each other. Now I can better wrap my head around the whole idea of the Trinity. God is three persons. But also one. Always a headscratcher to me, and I went to Catholic school from K-8th grade and Church every Sunday, acolyte most Sundays as a teenager. I got more of it than a lot of people and this concept was still hidden in fog. But ... if you say God has three faces ... three ways he manifests, three ways he interfaces with, well, us, I suppose -- well that I can wrap my head around. "Light" has two faces (that we know of). It can be seen as particles ("photons") or waves. It behaves like both. Yet it's still "light". It's not one or the other. It's both. At the same time.

[@Kaspar502]

This video is so beautiful

[@metaspacecrownedbytime4579]

This is why God is known as Father. Even that is a generalization. We must make sure God knows us and our name.

[@panokostouros7609]

Ok, I understand what you mean but you should be more clear. We don't need to "make sure" God knows us. He already does. We need get to know Him.

[@metaspacecrownedbytime4579]

@@panokostouros7609 yep you are correct.

[@thereisnospoon9059]

You can derive that God is a person through logical reasoning. First you derive that a prime mover must exist due to the impossibility of infinite regress, then you consider the properties of the prime mover. By it's very nature the prime mover is not moved by anything, and thus is indeterministic. If the prime mover is indeterministic, then by what means did any action arose? Well if it wasn't determined then it was chosen, and to chose you need free will, and there is nothing that defines a person better than the choices that they make. TLDR: The prime mover is indeterministic --> If actions don't arise deterministically they they must arise by choice --> choice requires free will --> free will is a characteristic of a person --> God is a person

[@Benjumanjo]

Sure, that seems logical, but god is also a person from a metaphysical perspective as well as a physical one.

[@frankdayton731]

@championchap what other type of entity can have "free will", that aren't persons (or person-like things like highly sophisticated Artificial Intelligence)?

[@brianbridges8124]

If infinite regress is impossible ( no evidence to suggest previous causes can cause things going back forever and ever) ..... then a God that infinitely existed is also impossible. They are both just as a absurd as each other. Neither are logical because neither have sufficient evidence for the possibility of their existence let alone probability.

[@kisslena]

Beautiful discussion!👏🏾⭐️⭐️⭐️

[@eduardovalentin9416]

I'm reading a book about Buddhism and Christianity (Without Buddha I would Not Be a Christian by Paul Knitter) and this very topic has come up and this video immediately came to mind. The author takes issue with the concept of, what he says "God-as-other." He condenses this perspective to one in which he is frustrated with the idea of God as a person, or as he also says "super-person." I was confused especially when remembering this video because it does really seem that if God is not a person, that is, there is no space for an "I-Thou" reality to manifest then we cannot enter into relationship or worship this God. Funnily enough, this is precisely what Christine Mangala Summer (a Hindu convert to Orthodoxy) mentions in her book "The Human Icon" as being a critical flaw in Sankara's Advaitic philosophy. If the "I-Thou" relationship does not exist then proper Bhakti cannot exist either. My take-away from that idea was that essentially if one engages in worship of a deity then it's ultimately farcical since what you worship is merely another crystallization of the Atman. Hence why she believes Vishishtadvaita (qualified-Advaita) as proposed by Ramanuja is far more harmonious with our Orthodox heritage. That said, and back to Knitter, I think when the idea of God not being a Person is invoked, especially by the spiritually mature and wise, the emphasis (at least my own charitable take on the matter) is that God is not _a being_ which we enter into relationship with. That is to say, God is not a Person who "has" being, but is rather Being itself (as Paul Tillich puts it) as well as "InterBeing" and connection (a la 1 John 4.7). God is, like many others have put it, and as Fr. Stephen says "TransPersonal" or "Transparticular." The very categories of personhood are too narrow to contain the reality of God. God isn't a person like you or I are persons, but God most certainly is personal, and this is brought to bear through experience. Those sweet moments of divine connection and unitive consciousness are not, and if I may be so bold, _cannot_ be due to an impersonal force or idea. Nothing impersonal in my experience affects me that way. The deepest realities I encounter are always within the personal/relational context. All that to say, is that if someone says "I believe God is an 'idea' or 'force'" I will press them for what they mean by that since, for many, "Personal" seems related to, if not be wholly synonymous to: A Being.

[@thewholemessprinciple]

What a great response! I couldn't have arrived at Christianity without the Buddha influence, either. I think what's bad about conceiving of the divine as just an idea or a force is that it means you have no real interest in getting to know It. (I consider "It" a holy pronoun! 💚) What if all you know about your wife is that she's female, and her name is ____, and that her birthday is written on the calendar? Some kinda love! I like to get to know God through all created things. The lower, the higher, the absurd, the ideal... As Richard Rohr has been so controversial as to suggest, "God loves things by becoming them". If God is a person, that Person is...Us. Individually & collectively, over the course of all time. And when God is not being Us, God is not "not-a-person" so much as...unmasked. I tend to refer to Jesus Christ as the "key" to uniting our humanity with our higher consciousness, so that all things fall into proper place in our lives. He came as God, so we wouldn't have to wear that heavy, thorny crown. We can just...Be.

[@eduardovalentin9416]

@@thewholemessprinciple Omg yes! And I love the tie-in with Fr. Rohr. God does become us. In fact, it is simply the case that the Church is the Body of Christ, in a very real sense. I think St. Teresa of Ávila wrote a lovely poem writing " Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world." The incarnation is still happening when we gather, and manifested most clearly in the Synaxis of the Liturgy. That is the incarnation of the Christ as Church, or Church as Christ. Also I love your channel, you seem amazing :-)

[@brianmoondogg6110]

Check out gospel of Thomas stuff

[@TonyTones123]

I think you would also like “Christ: The Eternal Dao” my friend!

[@eduardovalentin9416]

@@TonyTones123 Ive read it once all the way thru, and the Enneads alone like 2-3 times maybe. An unbelievable gem of Orthodox spirituality incorporating one of the most subtle philosophers in the world.

[@mcnallyaar]

4:38 "You have to generalize anybody in order to kill them. We find it very difficult to kill particular people, because particular people are always not quite what you imagine." POW

[@JoeKawano]

“Well, which one of them?” He asks.

[@mirceanicula9198]

Good

[@brianmoondogg6110]

I think God is Life itself. Only a person in the way Hope is God's smile. Lords, and such history is another story altogether

[@tylerdavis520]

Jesus said that already. The way, the truth, and the life

[@benjaminlquinlan8702]

But an immaterial person right? The forces on God not being "discovered via scientific inquiry" makes it difficult for people to put faith into the intangible. God is a person but that doesn't help the modern mind comes to terms with that I don't think. It started for me when I started to think of God as a character from a book. Then I started to communicate with that character based on what I knew of him from the literature. Quickly God became personal and palpable to my life

[@TheWildernessLife]

Nothing is immaterial. It’s just Divine matter. More refined and invisible to our mortal eyes unless he chooses to reveal himself. All matter is actually divine and all emanated from the source of all existence, God.

[@dr.klausschwab6184]

@@TheWildernessLife i dont think emmination is the correct word, that sounds more platonic.

[@MHAFOOTBALL]

Thank you

[@somedude1901]

Is it possible that there’s an infinite amount of particular experiences of God, but the one He designed us for is the “human particular”?

[@malpais776]

Thanks for this. For Someone who has seen it all, heard it all, is really old ? God sure seems to take things personally sometimes.

[@SpiritualFox]

I think we often blindly stumble into God's domain, if not literally bump onto Him, especially when we are not actively seeking Him, and, we say at such a time, well, it's not like God did it, and literally it was God that did it, and we are literally taking his crown, so He takes it back, and suddenly we are on the floor kicking and screaming about what a meany God is. I mean, can you imagine God pretending He's some sort of God? The ego.

[@SkyJensen]

Powerful

[@celienepaul5378]

Insightful. Esp. @13.08.....'Christian virtues or virtues gone mad'. Human mind cannot exist in a vacuum. To exist we need to believe something. Need to be aware of what we orient ourselves to.

[@Frederer59]

Oohh this is good. Ken Wilber added a 4th component - the plural of True which is Systems. So, the Personal (Beautiful or Values); Interpersonal (Good or Ethics); Objective (True); and Inter-objective (Systems of objects).

[@Mlk-Al-Halabi]

Wow, that's exactly what Tarkofsky says in his book, sculpting in time, the image is a finite thing that stretches to infinity.

[@mcnallyaar]

Interesting also that that "person" comes from the Latin "Persona" ("for sound to go through" -- referring to theatrical masks which had amplifying aspects). There's this connotation of a character, but also of performance. Does anyone happen to know what the biblical Greek word was? πρόσωπο prósopo? Did it appear in scripture or perhaps first in the writing of the Church fathers?

[@samanthayork3125]

I'm interested in this question, and please forgive me for my ignorance--i learned about the word prosopon from reading about Nestorius (who was condemned as a heretic, fwiw), and this word, and the corresponding 'prosopic union' were opposed to the mainstream orthodox words and definitions hypostasis and hypostatic union. From my limited understanding, it seemed as if hypostasis, which is often translated as person (for example, three persons in one God) is also read as 'underlying reality/substance' whereas it seems that prosopo is more like (as you mention) the dramatic masks of plays. It seemed like Nestorius believed that Jesus (understood as a man, as far as I can tell) and the Logos (understood as the divine) were, almost, two personas, only to be revealed (in the light of the resurrection) as eternally being/having been one. What is interesting to me is the derivation of our modern word person via the latin persona, and therefore, from prosopo, while most people translate hypostasis (the actual doctrinal word) as 'person'. It seems like something is lost in translation, which may then say something about the english/american understanding of what it means to be a person, and the secular nature of our society (I'm editorializing here). I cannot speak to the differences between this idea of "'different masks' which are revealed to be identical" and the modalism heresy, though my own gut feeling is that the former is indeed different from the latter, and, somehow, less heretical, though I suppose a heresy is a heresy... :/ I am an amateur interested in theology and merely reporting things I have read and to some extent tried to digest and understand. Sometimes people say that Nestorius taught that Christ was mere man, and the point to the fact that he wanted to say the ever-virgin Mary was 'Christotokos' and not 'Theotokos'. But I believe he did this in the effort of peacemaking, and even if he erred to the point of heresy, I sometimes feel saddened by his fate, and his story, and the story surrounding the council of Ephesus, so I began to read about it. Please forgive me for any errors I may have made (I hope I have not; if I have, please correct me), and for my many words when perhaps fewer would have sufficed. Thank you and God bless.

[@obscuredictionary3263]

@@samanthayork3125 People call the Assyrian church of the east the Nestorian church sometimes, and I believe they consider him a saint I could be wrong though. I wonder how true these claims are.

[@oo1o11o]

Fundamentally Transcendental

[@bakhtior2589]

Have y'all read Being as Communion by Zizioulas?

[@sparkomatic]

2:08 then who is the figure Kosmos at the bottom of the Pentacost icon?

[@2b-coeur]

"we can never know anything in general, only in particular. God is the Transcendent Particular." y e s wow i came to the same realisation the other day! i feel our abstract generalisations correspond to the garments of skin, for our minds.. intermediate, provisional, but in the end illusory ways of groping from particular to Universal. we need them for now to navigate the world, but as we grow into Christ, the cosmos becomes more immediate, more particular and simultaneously more universal. but generalities are like.. veils, lukewarmness, to be transcended/transfigured more and more. (also John Vervaeke: God doesn't know anything abstractly; everything is immediate and participatory for Him.) (also Pierre Teilhard de Chardin expands on these ideas) And I love George Macdonald's perspective on the new name - a person's identity is in their kenosis, their self-giving to the other; the heart of each of our unique identity is the incommunicable kind of sanctuary of our apprehension of God (Cloud of Unknowing type stuff), which is the fount of our eternally expressing Him, in ourselves, to each other, in the communion of persons.

[@fr.hughmackenzie5900]

It's true that things only exist as particulars, but through 'general' (or more technically 'universal') relationships - and therefore across what Pageau calls the 'scaling up hierarchy' of unities. Otherwise you, and especially Fr Freeman, fall into Nominalism. The very heart of human knowledge shows this: We know through relationship with the known, hence forming a higher (mor general) unity - 'that of which I am conscious'. Distinction fosters more "general" unity. Modern science has confirmed this hierarchy of unities.

[@2b-coeur]

@@fr.hughmackenzie5900 okay right, relationships, pattern.. in my understanding one can understand angels that way. as patterns; if the cosmos is a symphony they are chords and notes.

[@fr.hughmackenzie5900]

@@2b-coeur Nice image. All things I would think are notes or chords or movements etc. in God’s symphony. Important I think (sadly contra Pageau) to have a clear distinction between free, creative mind and deterministic matter. Created minds, - human souls and angels -- are pattern-ORIGINATORS - both notes and composers - in the direct image of the Creator of the hierarchical cosmic pattern. Matter-energy which is always formed into hierarchical predictable unity-patterns of lower-level unities. That’s why human technology works so well.

[@sparkomatic]

1:40 "you can't ever ever ever know anything in general", he says generally.

[@pohjoisenvanhus]

Do we have a category higher than a person? How is a god that is an idea or a concept essentially different from a lifeless rock that can't do anything? I'm not sure if it was Cherbonnier's Hardness of the Heart or one of Abraham Joshua Heschel's texts but the text argued that we don't have a category higher than a person. Anything with less agency and without a self is no different from a false idol.

[@dmi3kno]

"Transcendentals are to be encountered in the particular". Incarnation gave infinite value to the particular.

[@Susan-zk7ne]

So it seems to me that this idea of the general verses the particular explains why the word 'sibling' has taken root in our culture. Sibling takes away our identity as an individual sister or brother and turns the relationship into something general that has diminished meaning and value.

[@manubishe]

One may encounter people who have names, age and very precise description of the people they either killed, or precise circumstance in which they would kill. At the extremes, some people will express people they will kill, given opportunity, said killers will be either from criminal background, or paranoid/mentally disturbed.

[@EduardoRodriguez-du2vd]

For someone who interprets symbols and patterns, it's remarkable that he doesn't notice because it seems natural to him to assume that god is a person. Where does that pattern come from and why is it assigned to God and why is God assigned to reality.

[@fr.hughmackenzie5900]

I agree that he hasn't proved that there is 'an infinity' grounding the hierarchical cosmos (even in other videos where he does show that there is a 'highest level'. In his intro here he indicates that the higher levels involve human intentionality, using that to jump to a personal God. Pantheism I think, not a transcendent God.

[@johnstewart7025]

What if God created our world by being our minds or by just being mind. He is both mind in general as we know it, but also at the omega and alpha levels, as well. We are a point in that spectrum.

[@kipling1957]

I’ve resigned myself to the position that God is unknowable.

[@joshuaparsons887]

Unknowable in his essence, perhaps, but we can know him through what he does and what he has revealed about himself. God in his totality though is completely beyond our understanding or comprehension.

[@BrotherLaymanPaul]

Picasso’s an interesting case, he never entirely went into pure abstract art. He always maintained human form to an extent, just pushed to the extreme.

[@ChrisRatto-s9y]

Gos is I AM.

[@kevinh2345]

I've never heard it put more plainly than "you can paint a picture of 'man', you can paint a picture of 'a man'".

[@ivaxnog6157]

Are you guys familiar with Margaret Barker stuff, share some of your view

[@aaronneil780]

Hi Jonathan, do you have the reference to that quote from St. Maximus you referred too?

[@mattr.1887]

God may well be a PERSON. But I think it would be human folly and even human pride to assume that we've got God all figured out. I think at the rate that Christians go, there would never be a need for God to speak, because they seem to already "know" what He would say and they are content with that. To put this another way: Do you really believe that God thinks and reasons just like we do? Nothing in nature or life experience has really shown me this. And I say this as a former diehard believer who was even involved in ministry.

[@seraphimseraphim987]

Seeing this only now what verse in Revelation is he talking about writing a new name for us. I see Rev 3:12, but that seems to refer to God’s new name? Is there another verse the guest is speaking about?

[@scott96999]

Our material form is a symbol "in His image" to help us understand the true nature of God through pattern recognition. The body is not a literal manifestation of the form of God. That is the entire point of Jesus. I have always found the idea that we are even intellectually capable of understanding God's form as incredibly arrogant and ultimately baseless. It's like trying to explain something experiential literally with language. It just is not physically possible.

[@stainedglasszealot6231]

Some comments: We cannot encounter god directly. But we encounter him as a man. Humans are the highest form of experience. Every human has infinite value. We encounter the infinite in the particular.

[@MeShellMaBelle]

One thing that has really helped me is the question of how God created us. If He is First Cause of ALL, then what “materials” did he use to make us? The answer is that he created us out of “God Stuff” (sorry). So we all have Him in and around us to varying “design”. This is His promise that He never leaves us. The long story of the Bible points to the necessity of showing us how to reactivate that Holy Spirit connection within us to bring us back to Him [in the garden] by our choice.

[@kennethjackson163]

God is a Spirit & no respector of persons or personhood...only the Spirit can lead you God who is worshipped in Spirit & Truth.

[@joshuaparsons887]

So God isn't an individual?

[@name._..-.]

I want, but I cannot understand that idea, if he is a particular person, where he is? It's much easier for me to imagine God as a n abstraction of some sort, maybe I am stupid :(

[@matthewkilbride1669]

I think Jesus spoke about groups quite often. For just one instance, Matthew 23: The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law are experts in the Law of Moses. 3 So obey everything they teach you, but don’t do as they do. After all, they say one thing and do something else." Is the proper reply to Jesus, "Which Pharisees are you talking about, Jesus? We're individuals, not a group!"?

[@maximosmagyar9653]

I'm very confused by this. I really want to ask Vervaeke's question. Do you think the statement "God is a person" is metaphorically necessary or psychologically indispensable?

[@metaspacecrownedbytime4579]

God is not a metaphor, He desires as a person to know each of us individualy and particularly. It is all about relationship. Chritianity is about you getting to know God and letting God know who you are warts and all.

[@panokostouros7609]

It's most certainly necessary. We don't know who we are without the Archetype, God. If God were not Personal, then we would be unable to relate with Him. We are microcosms of Him, so He is Personal like we.

[@metaspacecrownedbytime4579]

@@panokostouros7609 This is true, i love that comment. We are created as images of God.

[@benjaminlquinlan8702]

I can relate with Gandalf and I can relate with God. Only because I have read there character/ spirit in the literature. I've incorporated their person into my mind. So I can enter into a dialogue with them. God is the ultimate spirit of human goodness and that's what loves humanity most.

[@leondbleondb]

I think taking the persona away from God is an apologetic approach for all the evil goes on in the world and when God does not intervene in the rape and killing of a child for example. If it's an abstraction it is more acceptable because He isn't just watching.

[@Liberte8888]

I can't imagine the most powerful Intelligence, Energy, the creative force etc. that designs and is behind all things in the universe being "less" than us: We have a conscience ( a particular point of view), we are able to be aware of our own existence, think and desire individually but this "supra-brain", "God", the "source" would be deprived from these attributes? So basically the creatures would be superior than their creator? That doesn't make any sense at all! She He is necessarly like us but much more!

[@thenowchurch6419]

Swedenborg taught well on this. The Divine Human was his favored terminology.

[@3sotericCompassionist1976]

LBRP

[@thenowchurch6419]

@@3sotericCompassionist1976 Yes indeed doing the LBRP cultivates one's divine spark connection to Jah.

[@therealq2812]

Its an idea...what better way to control the masses?

[@Krshwunk]

it sort of sounds like you're trying to make a point.

[@absolutetruth1881]

GOD is above us, lives in us and works through us. HIS Spirit of life is in us and HE experiences HIS creation through our consciousness. ALL of GOD'S creation is HIS consciousness. Though we are many members, we are one body. That being said, its the very reason that the cancer must be removed. It continues to destroy the body. GENESIS 2:7 and breathed into his nostrils the spirit of life and man became a living being.

[@SomeFinnishGuyJukka]

The "highest" experience of reality is heightened awareness of things with less input from my biases and desires, which liberates the mind and gives inner peace. I don't experience reality as fundamentally personal but impersonal, just space-time populated with things, some of which are persons.

[@stuckmannen3876]

Based

[@cuchulain55]

truth is ONE. pathes are many.

[@TheGerogero]

Is Fr. Freeman advocating nominalism?

[@thedisintegrador]

0:25 if it is not our experience of reality, then how come so many people describe God in such a way? Aren't you rather talking about "us" being right and "them" being wrong just because? 0:46 Just not true, not for me at least. The encounter with trans-personal God was much more life-changing to me than when I got married. 1:00 why? 1:25 Sir, so far in my life, christianity was the thing that made the LEAST sense to me 1:43 platonists would disagree with you. 2:40 that's actually a valid point about modern art. But isn't it better to actually not draw the image of the general at all? Like in islam. 4:48 also a good point 8:09 well, no, abstraction is also a sort of knowledge. That's all what Plato and Aristotle were on about. Depends on what you mean by "communion" 9:15 so our experience of the world determines the nature of God? Oh my... talk about god being a made up thing... 10:30 infinite value for the infinite... but isn't that... you know.. better? Isn't that what it should be? Shouldn't you value the infinite more than the particular? Isn't the whole more than its parts? 13:30 so in christianity there is no such thing as virtues gone mad? Read the Apofthegmata of the desert fathers and talk to me about virtues gone mad and unnatural. Give me a break.. This whole thing hinges upon a simple theological argument for me. God is the absolute highest reality. And as such He should transcend every category we apply to Him. Therefore, God is even beyond personhood. It's that simple.

[@dhdhebeb1780]

Yes, but in so far as it is to us, He is "Individual" Else, we wouldn't be Indivuals All are Ones in Difference, hence they are Unified and Unique Our Uniqueness is Our Simplicity Being Simplicity is it's One and Many

[@wadeboyce1420]

Jesus thought it not robbery to be equal with God , but took on the nature of a servant and humbled himself to death even death on the cross, ( Philippians 2 , 6-11) all that to say when we regard God to be so high beyond comprehension he entered this world as a man to show us how close and available he is to us , to be with us and even in us , either he is so small he can enter us, or we are so great we can accommodate him , but remember its also said we are made in his image , and greater things than he (_Jesus) we will do also..

[@mmccrownus2406]

God is the impersonal impersonality The personal impersonality The personal personality The impersonality personality Aka Father Son Mother Holy Spirit (energy)

[@phoenixkennedy5927]

1 minute ten why does the infinite have to reflect the human? it makes no sense!

[@kennyblobbin]

Why thumbs down? Somebody tell me I don’t get it.

[@brightonkazembe6838]

How can you be a person if you have no limitations ?, unless God has limitations. Perhaps i dont understand what a person is?

[@jesseandjoyj]

There is a difference between the idea of a person (having a character/attributes, will) and an embodied person (limited in scope). God is a person but he is only an embodied person in Christ. In the incarnation he self-lumited. The incarnation is also the focusing-down/distillation of God's personhood (which was there before the incarnation).

[@dmitritelvanni4068]

1:13 this hmm... idk man. I'd say while I think that's true of pagan gods, the semitic/abrahamic(whatever is socially acceptable to call it) has been clear that he's pretty incomprehensible and abstract. In both testaments too...

[@Mantis74]

Missing what amen means, does it not mean so it be? It just has to be a man is weak?

[@Benjumanjo]

Amen in Arabic literally means ‘I have faith in what was said’

[@BrockSamson18]

First!

[@AK-iy2xg]

This is why when Pontius Pilatus asked Jesus “What is truth?”, the Lord never answered. The right question would have been “Who is the truth?” Then Jesus would have answered “I am the Truth”, the way He did earlier during the Last Supper. The absolute truth can never be a theoretical type or an abstract idea, but the Self-life; the “I am”. Excerpts from the book of St. Sophrony of Essex, St. Silouan the Athonite. (Free translation from Greek) Pages 135-137

[@connorhenderson6841]

I like it

[@NickdeVera]

we naturally anthropomorphize, so anthropomorphism must be right. lightning/thunder can't be impersonal forces, they have to be thor, zeus etc

[@pulsare.m.6719]

4:08 I love humanity it is people I can't stand 😅

[@liiviiosa]

i don't quite understand a couple things in this vid. firstly, how particular can general be? humanity is a particularity if other life forms exist, the world/earth is a particularity in terms of planets, fr freeman used his name as an example of a particularity, but there are many other people named stephen possibly even with the same last name? if you had even just one other man with the same name in the room it would become more of a generalization. secondly, i don't understand what fr freeman means when he says that people will commit crimes against generalizations like race, gender, etc. so many crimes are committed specifically against friends, spouses/significant others, or members of their own families. people in mlms or people getting into sales usually first try to sell to people they know.

[@fr.hughmackenzie5900]

Couldn't agree more. Fr Freeman is tending towards "Nominalism" which ends up collapsing all meaning. Pre-modern science Christian philosophy ("scholasticism") rightly avoided nominalism like the plague, but went a little too far in the other direction, making generals ("universals") into metaphysical abstract quasi-Platonic Forms. I think Fr Freeman is reacting against that.

[@danettebeavers8193]

It’s funny how we don’t know the name of the first Christian.

[@JonathanPageauClips]

The first Christian was the Virgin, technically speaking

[@danettebeavers8193]

@@JonathanPageauClips I thought it was the woman from Mark 14:9 and Mathew 26:13?

[@greyforge27]

Read John Henry Newman about how only images - mental apprehensions of particular objects - motivate us to act, as opposed to inferences or propositions. He calls this real assent versus notional assent. He attributes the rise of Christianity in history to the influence of Jesus as a particular, concrete image in the minds of believers. Not an idea or a philosophy, but a vivid object in the imagination.

[@yosemitejam]

Don’t you think “God” and “god(s)” have relevance based on the viewer? How am I to know the difference, between the Supreme God and the god who is in charge of marketing on this end of the universe?

[@GeoRaphaelMichael]

Would a stick figure be a general human?

[@russellleigon4336]

not on my whiteboard! hehe!