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So I think we DO philosophize (wait, I said that,) just as we eat and make love. And in all three exercises it's best to do them with attention, enjoyment, skill, gratitude, and love.

'Just' as in 'only'...'exactly as'? All three at once? Your methods are too athletic for me... ; )

I would prefer a stump and a pipe when I am waxing philosofickle, a table and chair (and an easy chair for after) for eating, and as everyone knows, lovemaking requires a tire-swing... So combining them all together would necessitate some sort of hardware upgrade that escapes my feeble imagination.

I think the metric is coherence.

Ahh... Homo-sapiens. 'And calling themselves wise, they became fools'. At one time, the coherence of man claimed a flat earth that one should be careful not to fall from.

I was speaking loosely but, yes, I think one cannot do it both well and poorly at the same time and in the same respect.

Perhaps, as a described discipline, but I think the reality tends toward both, with an edge toward 'poorly', or the resulting conclusion would not look like the cacaphony we have today. Man is, in the main, dumb as a box of hammers (I would describe myself as a ball-peen).

Of COURSE there are things too great to comprehend, things before which reason will fail. I am not coming down against revelation or against the need for revelation. I LOVE it when my reason is overmastered!

Me too - And when I reach that point, I am happy to be boggled by wonderment... I need not go further, to define that which is beyond me. I think YHWH is that, without a doubt in my mind. I don't think He fits in the trinitarian box. It ascribes limits that are not necessary, and probably false (by reason of His greatness).

And while I'm a convinced Trinitarian[...]

I am too, in a basic sense. But YHWH is YHWH, after all - I think the construct is unneeded, and does nothing to resolve the issue. Nor can it, btw, as we cannot KNOW.

I am aware that the Nicene Formulation confronts us with a mystery much bigger than the idea. In fact I think both Nicea and Chalcedon give us principles for theological investigation(and more) but they are in a certain sense like being hit in the face with a cold, wet towel.

I don't think creeds give principles, I think they maintain limits. They become exclusionary (if not designed to be so in the first place). The problem is self-evident in the common expression that one is not a Christian if one does not accept Nicaea... When no such prerequisite is evident within the Scriptures.

And while that serves to preserve orthodoxy, it also calcifies... makes unyielding... That which cannot be confronted cannot be examined for error. I think there should be no such thing. ALL things should be thrown upon the altar continually - That which burns away is better left undone.

This has been gnawing at me. I think it will turn out to be one of those disagreements that can only be resolved on the other side of the Jordan. So let us look eagerly thither. I don't think He fits in the trinitarian box. It ascribes limits that are not necessary, and probably false (by reason of His greatness).

I guess I don't see The NC Creed or the bogus but delightful Athanasian creed as limiting Him. I don't see HIM being in the box. But, bearing in mind your strong cautions about sapientia, I think they help prevent incoherence by, so to speak, clumping up the places where we have to say, "Okay. Mind officially blown. I can say no more."

Clearly there can be no adequate depiction of God. But clearly there can be something that is nothing more than babbling. We want to avoid both extremes, if we can.

I don't think creeds give principles, I think they maintain limits.

I find that they limit discourse, and usefully. I think I've told you of a time, I can't even remember what was at issue, when I was arguing with my professor. And, referring to Chalcedon, I said, "You're confusing the natures!" And he retorted, "I am not. YOU'RE dividing the person."

And we both laughed. And then we set about the question again.

We both found that Chalcedon helped us frame the question and see where answers would probably go wrong. Or, to put is another way, we both saw that whatever we were discussing ( I WISH I could remember) was at heart Christological.

Let-me take one more stab, from another direction. I used to have a friend who was a Jehovah's Witness. And as it happens I used to be pretty familiar with their stuff.

Now, they're Arians, and very up front with it. The "Son" is a creature in their view. He is on our side of the Creator/creature divide.

So, when he ascends, he can only ascend so high. He is restored to his pre-Incarnation angelic state.

So the best that is offered to humanity, which cannot rise above the Son, is that 144k are "lost in wonder, love, and praise" in heaven, and the rest of the redeemed are at some distance from heaven on a delightful new earth.

Against this is Nicene/Chalcedonian Christianity which maintains that the Son is God, and in him human and Divine nature are united without being blurred. The Incarnate Son crosses the Creator/creature divide, and when he ascends he brings humanity to the heart of God, so that, as we feelthy papists like to say, God now loves us with a human heart. (This is the theology behind the "Sacred Heart' devotion.)

So, in our view, heaven is an ever closer intimacy with God himself, an ever increasing unity, which is hard to see as the "finale" of a work accomplished by an incarnate angel, a creature, even if he is the first-created.

Now, I don't think I am limited. Intellectually I can appreciate the integrity of the Arian understanding as proposed by the Witnesses. And I didn't reject it (at first) because the Magisterium told me to. I rejected it because it seemed a tawdry, unimaginative, and, compared to orthodoxy, even demeaning point of view. Over here we have God so loved the world that he sent his favorite creature to redeem it, and we are redeemed, most of us, into a delightful life on a new earth. And over HERE we have God so loved the world that He himself came to redeem it into an ever closer and more wonderful union with himself, a deeper participation in the love which flows among the members of the Trinity.

To me, that is consonant with Scripture, at least as coherent as anything else that's offered, and way cooler. THEREFORE I embrace orthodoxy.

ALL things should be thrown upon the altar continually - That which burns away is better left undone.

So we be saved if only as through fire.....