Why would that surprise you? Orthodoxy believes God to be both a personal and impersonal. He is "personal" in as much as we can relate to Christ in his human nature without imagining burning bushes and pillars of fire, but he is not our "personal" God. He is everyone's God.
If God is mostly unknowable mystery, and He doesn't have personal relationships with His children (as you recently said and argued that Jesus did not), then it follows that you do not see God as personal.
What abut the Reformed God who has preordained everyone according to his will to either go to heaven or hell? How personal is that? If God is impartial ("no respecter of persons" is what the Bible says!), then how can he also be personal? It is rather we who adopt God as our personal pet and make him into whatever we want him to be. I got news for you, FK: the world is the way it is whether we understand or like it. It's not your world; it's everybody's world. The same with God; God is everyone's God, not yours, or mine.
You are not alone. Many philosophers/theologians also took this approach all the way unto this day.
Good for them. Only the self-centered would imagine that God exists for them and not for others.
You are really changing horses with that one
I don't think so.
Since when have YOU EVER followed anything called the Orthodox Catechism.
I do all the time, FK. I defer to the Church no matter what my opinion is. I do not presume to have the collective wisdom and knowledge of the Church.
We both know what you have been arguing. I really DO read all of your posts
My arguments are just that, my arguments.
Again, another of our current discussions has you saying the Jesus did NOT have personal relationships with His own disciples!
No he didn't. He was their master; they were his disciples. It was a strict teacher-student relationship. Jesus always reminds them that they do not know or understand him, that he is not like them. Every one of the instances in the NT where he address them it was for a purpose of teaching them. He never treated any of them as his peers.
You, on the other hand, fantasize about them socializing together. Where in the Bible does it says God socialized with anyone? But you will find "personal" relationship eve with the OT God who does not much more than rebuke and threaten (not to mention destroy and kill). There is no intimacy in any of that. Even when Christ washes his disciples' feet, it is a duty and obedience, not personal favor or an expression of affection.
Jesus even had a fairly dysfunctional home life when you think about it; his own family thought he was not althogehter right in his head; and he even denies them as his family. No special smoochy affection in that household, FK, nothing as we would think in terms of "personal" or "intimate." God is our Lord and we are not his peers or friends or cousins, not in the way we think of it.
That is a big problem in western Christianity: the absolute drop-on-your-knees-face-to-the-ground reverence you see in Orthodoxy is lacking. Oh no, in the west we have "Daddy," we accept the Eucharist in the hand, etc. God is our Lord and Master, not our peer or buddy or fellow.
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Excellent post.
I think you posited recently that we see the word "personal" very differently in relation to God. I think that's right. :) I don't use "personal" in any way to mean "private" as opposed to others.
FK: "If God is mostly unknowable mystery, and He doesn't have personal relationships with His children (as you recently said and argued that Jesus did not), then it follows that you do not see God as personal."
What abut the Reformed God who has preordained everyone according to his will to either go to heaven or hell? How personal is that?
Oh, I don't know. Maybe about as personal as it gets. :)
If God is impartial ("no respecter of persons" is what the Bible says!), then how can he also be personal?
Simple, the same way we are. Whether or not God is a personal Being has nothing to do with to whom He wishes to have a personal relationship ... WITH. You are a personal being, yet you do not have a personal relationship with all men. Same with God. ......... God is impartial in that there are not different rules for different people when it comes to being saved. Everyone, OT and NT is saved in exactly the same way. Wouldn't you agree? :)
FK: "Since when have YOU EVER followed anything called the Orthodox Catechism."
I do all the time, FK. I defer to the Church no matter what my opinion is. I do not presume to have the collective wisdom and knowledge of the Church.
Well, if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but I have a memory of your saying a long time ago that there IS NO official Orthodox Catechism put out by the Church. The Latins have theirs, but I remember the Orthodox view being that you did not get into that stuff. If there is a Catechism that you take as authoritative in a similar way the Latins do theirs, would you mind giving the link for it again?
FK: "Again, another of our current discussions has you saying the Jesus did NOT have personal relationships with His own disciples!"
No he didn't. He was their master; they were his disciples.
But in this very post that I am responding to you are arguing that the only way we can know God personally is through the humanity of Christ, ........... WHICH YOU DENY He showed to those CLOSEST TO HIM on earth. :) What's the deal? If Christ wasn't personal with His closest brethren, then how do you say that we can know Him personally?
You, on the other hand, fantasize about them socializing together. Where in the Bible does it says God socialized with anyone?
Plenty of places. Here is one example:
Matt 9:10-13 : 10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Obviously, Jesus socialized with those who were not His disciples, since He notes that they needed Him. No teacher-pupil relationship there. Another example would be the wedding at Cana, as social an event as it gets. Do we suppose that Jesus went and just sat in a corner? No, He was a guest and talked with people just like anyone else. And again, what do you suppose all the thousands of meals that Jesus shared with His disciples were like? Were they silent, or only filled with "shop-talk"? Does that make sense to you?
Even when Christ washes his disciples' feet, it is a duty and obedience, not personal favor or an expression of affection.
You put yourself in the stinky feet of those disciples when Jesus did that for them, and then tell me with a straight face that it was a pro forma ceremony. :)
That is a big problem in western Christianity: the absolute drop-on-your-knees-face-to-the-ground reverence you see in Orthodoxy is lacking. Oh no, in the west we have "Daddy," we accept the Eucharist in the hand, etc. God is our Lord and Master, not our peer or buddy or fellow.
There is no issue about whether GOD is a "buddy" or a peer or an equal. The issue is in HOW God chooses to relate to us. Is it mechanical or is it personal?