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PARTICIPATING IN THE DIVINE DANCE

These notes employ Rohr & Morrell's Divine Dance, Tom Oord's Uncontrolling Love and
Greg Boyd's Process & Trinity as foils to help me deepen and better articulate my own
panSEMIOentheism.

Framing the reasonableness of the questions posed by natural theologies, logically


Beyond which some theologies of nature proceed evidentially (ontotheologically) or
evaluatively (theopoetically) or both
Gifting an equiplausible (vis a vis worldviews) epistemic warrant for faith as a truly live
option and sufcient normative justications for faith as a forced and vital option!
Employing, mostly ...
metaphysical agnosticism (w/o root metaphors or a priori predications)
emergentist phenomenology (w/o invoking supervenience)
aristotelian causations
modal ontology
palamitic theological distinctions
pentametric axiology of truth, beauty, goodness, unity & freedom
scotistic distinctions and predications

essential eternalities & neccessities

conceptual equivocal, analogical, referential, descriptive

modal adequacy univocal predications, whether bracketed or explicit, degrees


of realization vis a vis emergent complexities

formal regularities & probabilities re: what an entity is doing

modal a/temporality 1ns, 2ns, 3ns, 4ns including haecceities w/grammars


related to noncontradiction and excluded middle

It may be that, in some sense, the distinctions of Hartshorne and Palamas may reconcile
to Peirces modal distinctions. Hartshornes essence, existence and actuality, and
Palamas essence, hypostases and energies, may relate to possibilities as 1ns,
actualities as 2ns and probabilities as 3ns, which would entail a formally distinct divine
contingency. Peirces Ens Necessarium would entail necessary divine aspects, which I

refer to as 4ns. Rather than a mere dipolar approach, this entails an irreducibly triadic
modal ontology or vague phenomenology or meta-metaphysic. Contingent aspects
would be identied nonstrictly, while necessities would rely on strict identity.
Aristotelian:
Act (2ns) & Existence (2ns) or Efcient (2ns) & Formal (3ns) causes
Potential (3ns) & Essence (1ns) or Final (3ns) & Material (1ns) causes
Both formal and nal causations refer to the regularities, in/determinables and
in/determined realities of peircean 3ns, or hartshornean actuality or palamitic energies,
where work is being done, activities are in play, an entity is doing something,
teleodynamically, which will bring about a temporal future. The future that will ensue
from an encounter with formal causes will result from end-stated (teleomatic) or
end-directed (teleonomic) work that has already been done (boundaries already
established).
Final causes will bring about causes from end-intended (teleologic) work being done
synchronically (essentially ordered) or in the future. Hence, material precedes formal
(teleopotent, teleomatic, teleonomic), which precedes efcient, which precedes nal
(teleologic) causes.
These asymmetric temporal relations mean an entitys past but not its future determine
its nonstrict identity. A failure to employ such temporal and teleodynamic distinctions to
Aristotelian potencies or teloi can lead to strict, essentialistic accounts of an entitys
identity, which then lead to axiological absurdities, whether regarding divine or human
persons, divine or human activities, divine and human participations.

Divine Energies as Formally Distinct:


In musing about such matters, I have considered Peirces categories temporally,
corresponding to past possibilities, present actualities and both future probabilities &
necessities. And Ive mapped those, respectively, to Hartshornes essence, existence and
actuality, as well as Palamas essence, hypostases and energies.
The Peircean Thirdness or future orientations or teloi, whether as probabilities,
Hartshornes actualities or Palamas energies, refer to dynamical realities, to activities, to
work being done by an entity, which, per our view, may either be variously
in/determinable, epistemically, or in/determined, ontologically.
If one applies Scotus formal distinction to a probabilistic reality, taking that distinction
to be neither real, essentially, nor merely conceptual, logically, but still genuinely
objective and inseparable, one thus afrms theres more than epistemic indeterminacy in
play in an entitys openness to future inuences but one does not, necessarily, at the
same time, specify the degree that that entitys future remains variously in/determined.
In other words, when we refer to Peircean thirdness, it seems to me that we invoke
regularities without necessarily specifying their epistemic or metaphysical natures. If we
further invoke Scotus formal distinction, applying it to thirdness, we are further

specifying a given regularity as not merely epistemic but clearly ontological but without
specifying the degree of in/determined/ness, such as variously probable to inevitably
necessary.
When one applies Scotus formal distinction to creatures, thirdness has only ever
corresponded to probabilities and not necessities. Hartshorne precisely invokes a
nonstrict identity due to asymmetric temporal relations.
On the other hand, when I have invoked both a peircean thirdness and a scotistic formal
distinction in reference to the divine energies, I am only suggesting that they are
dynamical, distinct from divine essence or hypostases but inseparable, and are
efcacious. That does not necessarily implicate a divine contingency of any sort; that
would have to be argued separately. At any rate, God, alone would enjoy a strict identity.
Creaturely partaking of and participation in divine energies remains contingent due to
our nature. God only ever loves, necessarily so, precisely because Shes absolutely free,
metaphysically. Which aspects of Gods interactions with creatures might be contingent,
again, would have to be argued.
I argue for divine contingency here:
https://paxamoretbonum.wordpress.com/divine-overows-engaging-boyds-trinity-proce
ss-as-a-foil/
When applying Scotus formal distinction to realitys regularities (or peircean thirdness),
we take that distinction vis a vis a given entitys identity to be neither real, essentially, nor
merely conceptual, logically, but to be still genuinely objective and inseparable from that
entity, as well as dynamically efcacious. The peircean modal categories entail
asymmetric temporal relations, which could implicate a nonstrict identity for that entity,
whenever that thirdness refers to the dynamical activities of a probabilistic reality.
When applying Scotus formal distinction to the divine energies, we take that distinction
vis a vis the divine energies to be neither real, essentially, nor merely conceptual,
logically, but to be still genuinely objective and inseparable from the divine essence, as
well as dynamically efcacious as divine energies.
However, just because the peircean modal categories entail asymmetric temporal
relations, they neednt necessarily implicate nonstrict identities, if the peircean thirdness
in play happens to refer to the dynamical activities of a necessary, rather than
probabilistic, reality.
When we invoke the formal distinction between the divine essence and energies, we are
only afrming a genuine, objective, inseparable and dynamically efcacious activity of
those energies but have not thereby a priori indicated whether they are contingent vs
necessary. That would have to be argued separately in the case of any given divine
energy.
At some point, because thirdness refers to teloi, an approach that afrms only
probabilistic and contingent teloi will lose all theologic impetus unless it also afrms a
robustly, subjectively intentional Telos of the Ens Necessarium with some aspect of the
economic Trinity identical to the immanent Trinity.

About my interpretation of Rohr's Divine Dance

I offer what's immediately below as prologue for my engagement of The Divine Dance,
which wholly resonates with my holonic pentametric, set forth below, because I rather
precisely fashioned it in extensive dialogue with Fr. Rohr's teachings over four decades,
especially as fashioned by others whose writings have profoundly inuenced me. It
represents, in fact, my lifelong attempt to articulate the systematic and philosophical
theologies (orthodoxic) that seem to me to be implicit in the explicit theophanic
teachings of his formative and contemplative spiritualities (orthorelational,
orthocommunal, orthopathic and orthopraxic).
https://www.scribd.com/user/122381033/John-Sobert-Sylvest

https://independent.academia.edu/SylvestJohn
Older inuences include Thomas Merton, Don Gelpi, the American Pragmatists: Peirce,
James and Dewey (as recently appropriated by Terry Deacon and Ursula Goodenough),
Charles Hartshorne, Jack Haught and their ilk.
More recently, I've been inuenced by the approach of those who inhabit communities
nurtured by the likes of Mike Morrell and Tripp Fuller, by the thinking of Brian McLaren,
Thomas Oord, Catherine Keller, John Thatamanil and Philip Clayton.
No one's inuenced me more, though, than Amos Yong, the preeminent authority on the
Spirit, Holy.
This is all to point out that I knew before reading the Divine Dance that Rohrs approach
to the Trinity with Morrell would be neither some ad hoc poetic musing nor some fanciful
ight of a supercial theological imagination. Rather, I am poised, here, to harvest the
fruits that will have emerged organically from a theological crop thats been long
cultivated in the ground of

Scotistic intuitions (in continuity with Peirce),

Franciscan sensibilities (often a minority account within larger traditions),

Patristic outlooks (apokatastasis and practical universalism, oh my!),

polydoxic sophiologies (others are on efcacious wisdom trajectories?! e.g.


Gregory of Palamas),

a generous ecclesiology (preferential option for the marginalized, even),

a pluralistic pneumatology (the Spirit s also over there?! in her?!),

a Goldilocks anthropology neither too pessimistic (e.g. total depravity) nor


optimistic (ergo, no facile syncretism, no insidious indifferentism, no false
irenicism) and, paramount,

a contemplative stance that afrms a most robust, participatory relationality,


beyond a mere propositional, problem-solving preoccupation.

None of this would a priori be inconsistent either with various Arminian, Molinist or Open
approaches, with various logical defenses or evidential theodicies to problems of evil
(whether Augustine, Plantinga or Oord), with various creation accounts (ex nihilo,
profundis, multitudinae, tehomic) or various wisdom traditions vis a vis their shared
soteriologic trajectory of human authenticity (an implict pneumatological, Christological
inclusivism via Lonergans transcendental imperatives and conversions) and diverse
sophiologic trajectories of sustained authenticity (via being in love).
The late Don Gelpi, SJ had a saying: orthopraxy authenticates orthodoxy.

Gelpi had Lonergans conception of authenticity in mind as he so related right practice


to right belief. And Gelpi expanded Lonergans authenticity to include what he called
ve conversions. Those conversions refer to intellectual , affective, moral, social and
religious transformations. We might, then, think of them, respectively, in terms of
right believing,
right desiring,

right behaving,
right belonging and
right relating.

Following Lonergan and immersed in the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce, Gelpi
would offer that any authentication of the various dogma, practices, liturgies, rituals and
doctrines not just of Christianity, but of any of the worlds great traditions, as well as
indigenous religions, could be cashed out in terms of how well they foster ongoing
human transformation.
Now, this doesnt invoke that vulgar pragmatism of if its useful, then its true, but it
does suggest that, wherever, whenever and in whomever we witness

right belonging ,

right desiring,

right behaving and/or

right relating, then we will more likely also encounter

right believing.

Its no accident, then, that systematic theology will typically address ve integral human
value-realizations:
1) truth via creed, as articulated in beliefs about realitys rst and last things, in what we
call an eschatology, which orients us;
2) beauty via cult-ivation, as celebrated in lifes liturgies, rituals and devotions, in what we
call a soteriology, which sancties us;
3) goodness via code, as preserved in codications and norms, in an incarnational or
sacramental economy, which nurtures and heals us;

4) unity via community, as enjoyed in familial and faith fellowships, in what we call an
ecclesiology, which empowers and unites us; and
5) freedom via contemplation, as realized through radical self-transcendence, in a given
sophiology, which will ultimately save and liberate us.
One can authenticate a given systematic theology, whether its implicit or explicit
expression, in orthodoxic, orthopathic, orthopraxic, orthocommunal and orthorelational
terms, discerning how well this or that creed, cult, code, community or contemplation
fosters intellectual, affective, moral, social and religious conversions, respectively

orienting a people's beliefs to logos and for truth,

sanctifying their desires in pathos and for beauty,

engendering nurturing and healing behaviors in ethos and for goodness,

empowering and uniting them in cosmos and for unity, and

saving and liberating them in mythos and for freedom.

A proper theological critique thus will address eschatology, soteriology, sacramentology,


ecclesiology and sophiology, as well as a theological anthropology. Christian
approaches will add a paterology, pneumatology, Christology, missiology and distinct
apologetics.
Reality thus presents a vefold donative or "giving" nature as reected in what I call an
holonic pentametric, which includes
1) a pentalectical axiology of the gifts: truth, beauty, goodness, unity and freedom, which
when integrally converged gift love, itself;
2) a pentapartite anthropology of the gifted: intellectual, affective, moral, social and
religious as reected in logos, pathos, ethos, cosmos and mythos;
3) a pentalogical epistemology of receiving: descriptive (e.g. sciences), evaluative (e.g.
cultures), normative (e.g. philosophies), interpretive (e.g. religions) and contemplative

(e.g. the robustly relational);


4) a pentadic phenomenology of givens: intraobjective identity of unitary being,
intrasubjective integrity of the unied self, intersubjective intimacy of our unitive
strivings, interobjective indeterminacy of an ultimate unicity and transjective necessity of
the ens necessarium; and
5) a pentatarian theology of givers: the eschatologically omniscient, soteriologically
omnipathic, sacramentally omnibenevolent, ecclesiologically omnipresent and
sophiologically omnipotent --- all variously (re)conceived in a trinitarian panentheism
(and/or revised classical theism) to refer to divine necessities of an esse naturale and
divine contingencies of an esse intentionale.

relevant distinctions per my intuition:

essential - eternalities & neccessities

conceptual - equivocal, analogical, referential, descriptive, logical

modal adequacy - univocal predications, whether bracketed or explicit, degrees of


realization vis a vis emergent complexities

formal - regularities & probabilities

modal a/temporality - 1ns, 2ns, 3ns, including haecceities w/grammars related to


noncontradiction and excluded middle

Divine Overows: Engaging Boyd's Trinity-Process as a Foil


Some parallels between Boyd's approach and my Peircean-Scotistic phenomenology:
aesthetic primacy = peircean normative sciences where aesthetics precede ethics which
precede logic
dispositions = peircean thirdness
denitional dispositions = scotistic haecceity, dynamical, hartshornean nonstrict identity
(only divine essence enjoying strict identity as Ens Necessarium)

constitutive dispositions = scotistic formal distinction coupled with distinctions of


modal adequacy and modal a/temporality

Boyd: A beginning point is the recognition that the mechanistic (and hence
deterministic) models of dispositions which tend to be most useful in science need
not be considered ultimate. Their utility, and thus relative validity, can be afrmed, but
the very recognition that we are talking metaphorically about an unpicturable reality
suggests that no one model need be taken as exhaustively denitive for disclosing
the nature of this reality. The legitimacy of models must be contextually determined.
JB: d'accord, ergo:
dispositions are variously in/determinative = pluralistic account of teloi (teleopotent,
teleomatic, teleonomic and teleologic teleodynamics)
emergentist stance (sans supervenience) avoids both epistemic and ontological
reduction or a priori conclusions that we have necessarily encountered epistemic
in/determinables and/or ontological in/determinedness and to what degree
Boyd: It is the insight of Whitehead and Hartshorne that there is an aesthetic
dimension to all experience which, I believe, can furnish us with another very fruitful
model of dispositions. If beauty is indeed a priori, and if becoming is, therefore,
essentially a becoming towards aesthetic satisfaction, then it is reasonable to
construct a model of dispositions which reects this dimension of reality. I believe
that the Process concept of a subjective aim towards aesthetic satisfaction
furnishes us with just such a model.
JB: again, d'accord
This comports with evolutionary epistemology, Jack Haught's process aesthetic
teleology, Peirce's aesthetic primacy and my own (with Yong) axiological epistemology.
Boyd: The aesthetic model of disposition we are here arguing for seems to accomplish
just this. It renders creative acts futuristically unpredictable but retroactively
intelligible. It thereby fullls Ross requirement for intelligible spontaneity by
circumscribing without determining the act it explains, and it does this without
necessitating either the postulation of an indeterminate world totality (Ross), an
indeterminate Creator (Neville), or an unintelligible self-creation ex nihilo (Hartshorne).
JB: In semiotic terms, this marks the threshold where nonarbitrary signs --- which
function merely as icons and indexes (peircean rstness and secondness, respectively),
such as in the algorithmic, teleonomic, end-directedness of sentient creatures --- are
supplemented by arbitrary signs, which function robustly as symbols (peircean
thirdness), such as in the nonalgorithmic, teleologic, end-intendedness of sapient
creatures.
It also marks the crossing of the telic threshold from what Peirce would call the nious
and Mayr the teleomatic, beyond the teleonomic, even, to the truly teleological, or, in

Deacon's terms, from the merely thermodynamical and morphodynamical to the robustly
teleodynamical, or, in classical Aristotelian terms, from formal to nal causation.
Boyd: It seems, therefore, that one may accept the principle of continuity and yet reject
psychicalism.
JB: Yes. A priori applying a root metaphor proves too much, especially if it commits to a
philosophy of mind stance or is too specic, not vague enough (like eld).
Boyd: It is, we again see, Hartshorne, and not the phenomenologists, who commits the
fallacy of misplaced concreteness.
JB: Put differently, it is one thing to adopt an emergentist stance, quite another to
smuggle in supervenience with distinctions, for example, between weak and strong
emergence. It's an unwarranted move from an exploratory heuristic to an a prioristic
explanatory metaphysic. The move should be characterized as a fallibilist, metaphysical
hypothesis and then tested and argued and not presented as self-evident.
Boyd: Because of the way experienced is dened, the God-world relation lies beyond
the accident of Gods will. While the precise way non-divine reality exists is inuenced
by the divine will and is contingent, the fact that there is a contingent non-divine reality
is in no way the result of Gods will. It is a metaphysical, and thus eternal, necessity.
The Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo is thus impossible. So also, then, is the
Christian doctrine of God as self-sufcient unto Godself completely impossible. The
supposed a priori structure of rationality, and hence being, requires this.
JB: Any reductionistic bent will a priori commit us to various types of modal and
dependent contingenies and/or necessities. Philosophically, various creatio accounts
remain live options? It needn't be decided theologically either.
Boyd: Both being and becoming are capable of being exemplied concretely and
abstractly.
JB: By categorically expanding our temporal modalities beyond the abstract (1ns) and
concrete (2ns) to recognize the dispositional (3ns) as real, we can exemplify being as
concrete and essentially distinct and becoming as dispositional and formally distinct.
Boyd: As we shall see more fully in our exposition below, an adequate metaphysical
account of the structure of experienced reality requires the acceptance of the
ontological parity of being and becoming.
JB: There's a denite parity insofar as each entity remains irreducibly triadic, as abstract,
concrete and dispositional. As we've recognized, previously, the dispositional invites
disambiguation as it vaguely refers to teloi that can variously be weakly nious or
strongly nal causes, variously in/determinative or even metaphysically necessary.
Boyd: And nally, while we have defended Hartshornes view that aesthetic value is a
priori, we have argued that his correlation of aesthetic intensity with synthesized
multiplicity is not necessary. One can, rather, distinguish between the subjective
intensity of an experience, and the expression of that experience: the former admits of

an acme point, the latter does not.


JB: I nd the distinction between the intensity and scope of aesthetic experience helpful,
as well as its overow into contingent illustrations. It seems a recapitulation of Scotus'
invocation of a univocity of being in conjunction with innity, or the peircean-scotistic
formal distinction coupled with further distinctions of modal adequacy and
a/temporality, all which preserve the analogy of being, as any innite instantiation
accords a qualitative difference. This intensity thus comprises an essential divine
aspect, while the scope would refer to an extrinsic, constitutive relation.
Boyd: Can God be necessary and contingent in different respects, but not in such a way
that Gods necessary features are merely abstract?
JB: Our triadic distinctions allow for God's necessary aspects to be essentially distinct
regarding, for example, necessary dispositions and intensity of aesthetic experience,
while any contingent aspects would, while real, be only formally distinct and inseparable,
for example, illustrative expressions and scope of aesthetic experiences.
These distinctions, then, will impact our accounts of divine essences, hypostases,
persons, paterology, christology, pneumatology and soteriology, making our classical
understandings of radical grace, radical freedom and radical intimacy even more
intelligible.
Divine benevolence (normatively & sacramentally) would mediate between divine
omniscience (descriptively & eschatologically) and divine omnipresence (interpretively &
ecclesiologically) to effect divine omnipathy (evaluatively & soteriologically), all realized
via divine omnipotence (contemplatively & sophiologically).
In human anthropology, as imago Dei, the normative mediates between the descriptive
and interpretive to effect the evaluative as augmented by the contemplative
(self-transcendence).
Boyd: Prima facie, then, no obvious absurdity is committed in maintaining that God can
be, in one sense, necessarily actually innite while further maintaining that God can
also be, at the same time but in another sense, contingently actually innite. This is,
from another angle, simply to say that God can have a necessary eternal perspective
on Godself which may (it is a contingent matter) include a perspective which
encompasses non-divine perspectives. God is eternally and necessarily dened by this
ones eternal experience of Godself, and this experience may encompass, and nd
expression in, the interaction of non-divine creatures.
JB: This articulates Joe Bracken's move, which employs a eld-theoretic approach to
preserve transcendence while providing for an immanence that remains consistent with
indispensable classical and trinitarian insights.
Boyd: The design and epistemic arguments, we have seen, arise out of the concept of
reality as necessarily ordered and necessarily knowable. They build upon the third,
fourth, and fth foundational statements of Hartshornes system. Together they attempt
to demonstrate that a necessary cosmic Orderer and necessary cosmic Knower exist.
What must now be explicated is the type of power and knowledge which these

arguments necessitate.
JB: Much of this section presupposes, not uncontroversially, the principle of sufcient
reason, which is ne as a theological leap but philosophically needs to be argued.
Similarly, we cannot a priori know whether the cosmos presents as brute fact or, as a
whole, necessarily, begs explanation. In other words, the fallacy of composition may or
may not apply. Accordingly, alternate trinitarian eld-theoretic accounts, whether
creative, co-creative or pro-creative via ex nihilo, ex profundis or multitudinae, may
remain viable. They would have implications regarding any problem of evil. Any defense
will still require both kenotic-free will as well as metaphysical constraints on divine
knowledge, power and freedom as discussed elsewhere.
Again, as regarding any essential or voluntary kenosis, we best be mindful of the plurality
of teloi which God need or need not sustain in noncoercively interacting with freedom. In
my view, it is only the robustly teleologic dynamics of human freedom that need be
sustained via divine constraint. Other teleodynamics, then, whether quantum
teleopotency, inanimate teleomaticity or biological teleonomicity would remain subject
to divine prerogatives whenever they are not otherwise inextricably intertwined with
some realization of personal freedom or agency. As with the qualications discussed
elsewhere regarding omniscience (of future peircean 3ns, necessities and probabilities),
this makes our hopes regarding eschatological realizations more real, our theosis more
pressing, our petitionary prayer more urgent, our recognition of the miraculous more
ubiquitous.
Boyd: Hence we have arrived at what constitutes the outline for a trinitarian
dispositional metaphysics, grounded on a priori truths, and compatible with the
dynamic, non-substantival process categories of modernity as well as with Scripture
and the Christian tradition. The relationship between the Trinity and the world process is
that the creative process of the self-sufcient God graciously grounds and
encompasses the creative process of the world. And the ultimate result is the worlds
redemptive sharing in the eternal self-delight which characterizes and constitutes the
creative self-becoming of the triune God.
JB: And why wouldn't we all say, Amen!?
Notes:
Would it be fair to say, within Thomism, that, while Gods relation to creation is not real,
but logical, it is still real-ist? It implies no absolute causal disjunction, only that, for
example, creation would be an effect proper to no known cause.
As such, we could only ever aspire to successful references to, even while in principle
precluded from providing successful descriptions of, G-d. Put differently, Gods logical
relation is not without foundation and we can make true statements, both literally and
analogically, about God. The literal statements, though, can only ever be predicated
apophatically.
In other words, the real vs logical distinction does not threaten Gods eminent
intelligibility even though it preserves G-ds utter incomprehensibility.

After all, we have a rather robust phenomenology of creaturely participation in and


partaking of divine operations, such as regarding the Incarnation, the Sacraments,
pneumatological gifts, soteriological graces, theosis, eschatological and proleptic
realizations, the miraculous, petitionary prayer and on and on. These Divine Presences in
no way threaten Divine Simplicity even as they donatively gift us, transforming us from
image to likeness.
More succinctly, these Presences dont differ essentially, only constitutively. Hence, we
realize a Eucharistic Presence in the People Gathered, the Word Proclaimed, the Sacred
Species, none substantially distinct, only tran-substantial. Theotic divine energies gift
presence not via distinct ousia, but via met-ousia. Divine contingencies thus only
ever refer to constitutive and not essential relations.

That reminds me of Fr Norris Clarkes approach, where Gods immutable in the absolute
order, but mutable in the relative order. Gods extrinsic, constitutive relations dont
threaten the innite perfection of divine personal being. This differs from Whitehead and
Hartshornes accounts of Abstract/Primordial immutability and Concrete/Consequent
mutability, where creation is needed to complete God. Clarkes God doesnt need the
world.
I think this gets at some of the confusion between Aquinas and Scotus. Some say that
Scotus (re univocity) was addressing semantical issues, while Aquinas (re analogy) was
concerned with things. If so, then Scotus certainly doesnt threaten the Thomistic
analogy of being. Any Scotistic instantiation of innity ultimately entails a qualitative
difference. Furthermore, arguably, though he conceives innity positively, its really
another apophatic negation not nite like not mutable. Mostly, though, Aquinas
analogy thus does not devolve into equivocity, as if our analogical predications could not
make successful references to God, precisely because they're coupled with literal
apophatic statements. Instead, it protects us from the idolatry in imagining that weve
ever made exhaustively successful descriptions of God. Not sure I said this very well. I
guess that, consistent with Fr Clarke, we might say that any differences in Gods
behaving vis a vis extrinsic, constitutive relations to creatures, would not entail
differences in Gods being vis a vis intrinsic, essential aspects of the Trinity. Those
extrinsic relations effect our becoming in likeness to God, but no divine becoming.
re: that things cause Gods knowledge? how does this not lead to creatures actualizing
states of affairs in Gods mind? <<<<<
The distinctions I've come across grew out of an exchange between Fr Clarke and Lewis
Ford.
God's inner being can indeed be affected, whether 1) both absolutely and relatively, such
as in the divine hypostases, interpersonally 2) absolutely but not relatively, in the divine
nature or 3) relatively but not absolutely, such as in knowledge of and love relations with
creatures.

How this squares with divine simplicity in Thomistic terms, I don't know. But, in my view,
#3 above sounds like what Scotus would call a formal distinction, as it refers to
constitutive but not essential dispositions. Whatever the case, I think this requires a
qualifying of divine simplicty that, for some, would entail a narrower conception than
relied on previously.

RE: But if real relations are dened simply as relations one truly has (i.e., relations that
involve one in acts of mind and will vis--vis what one is related to) but which remain
extrinsic to what one is essentially, then Im ne with positing Gods real relations with
the world. Does this commit me to a notion of divine simplicity unacceptable to classical
theists? <<<<<
I think some Scotists would certainly accept your notion of divine simplicity.
http://lyfaber.blogspot.com/2010/02/divine-simplicity-and-formal_20.html?m=1
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/Grace/scotus.htm
Also, some neo-Thomists would, too: The Jesuit philosopher W. Norris Clarke advises
Thomists to simply drop the doctrine of the lack of real relations in God and to adopt
the view that, [God's] consciousness is contingently and qualitatively different because
of what we do.
As some have put it, it's one thing to affect God's absolute nature but quite another to
affect God's nature absolutely, only the latter violating divine simplicity.

While formally distinct, essential attributes would still refer to a divine noncontingent
nature. Scotus would also apply a modally adequate distinction, which refers to degrees
and intensities by which attributes are expressed. A modal ontology would also further
implicate temporal distinctions such as past possibilities, present actualities, future
probabilities and eternal necessities, all quite apart from the divine essence. These
modes would differ between each attribute, among them collectively and from the divine
essence (esse naturale). So, beyond a mere formal distinction plus modal distinction of
intensity, creaturely divine partakings and participations implicate a modally temporal

distinction, hence contingency --- not in the divine nature, but --- into any consideration of
divine acts or relationality (esse intentionale).

################

The analogy of being, alone, would dissolve into mere equivocation. But it's not to be
taken alone, but, only ever in conjunction with literal references to reality, apophatic
though they may be.

The univocity of being, alone, would collapse transcendence. But it's not to be taken
alone, but only ever in conjunction with the distinction between innite and nite
instantiations of attributes.

The univocity of being expresses the implicit semantical presupposition that necessarily
grounds the realist - not equivocal - nature of the analogy of being, while the analogy of
being expresses the implicit essential qualitative aspect that inhere's in the in/nite
distinction of the univocity of being.

Thus the real vs logical distinction of Thomism doesn't express what the Scotists would
consider a conceptual distinction (e.g. Venus as both morning and evening star), but
very much could be interpreted to, implicitly, include the scotistic formal distinction of
nonessential but inseparable attributes.

##########

essential, formal, modal, conceptual, adequate

non/essential

im/participable

intra/extra

non/contingent

in/separable

essence/energy

im/passibility

essence/will

naturale/intentionale

Is the Existence of the Cosmos merely Brute? clearly Fruit? or coyly Mute --- vis a vis its
primal origins?

To better get at such a consideration, perhaps we can disambiguate various of our


conceptions of God and cosmos in terms of contingency:
In terms of modal and dependent contingency, then, how would we classify each
conception below as modally contingent or not modally contingent and as dependently
contingent or not dependently contingent?
1) classical theist conception of God - neither modally nor dependently contingent
2) classical theist conception of Trinity - not modally contingent but dependently
contingent
3) classical theist conception of creatures - both modally and dependently contingent
4) pan-entheist conception of indwelling essence - neither modally nor dependently
contingent
5) pan-entheist conception of Trinity - not modally contingent but dependently contingent
For example, Bracken and Boyd: God's inclusion of the world supplements the triunity of
God, hence tripersonal notion of God
Bracken and Boyd, in their own ways, successfully fuse classical, trinitarian and process
approaches.

Boyd's distinction between the intensity and the scope of the unsurpassable aesthetic
experience, coupled with his conception of immutability as everlasting disposition
allows for God's essential, internal love relationality to overow into contingent
illustrations.
6) pan-entheist conception of creatures - both modally and dependently contingent
7) panen-theist mereological conception of God (as the whole greater than the sum of its
parts) - not modally contingent, but some divine aspects are dependently contingent,
while others are not
8) panen-theist mereological conception of Trinity - not modally contingent, but some
divine aspects are dependently contingent, while others are not
For example, Philip Clayton: the prehended world is in some sense constitutive of God as
trinity, hence unity of complex God
9) panen-theist mereological conception of creatures - both modally and dependently
contingent

10) pantheist conception of God - modally contingent but not dependently contingent
For example, any overemphasis upon the economic as opposed to an immanent trinity
or on a dyadic structure between creature and creator
11) pantheist conception of creatures -modally contingent but not dependently
contingent
12) idealist monist conception of reality - modally contingent but not dependently
contingent
13) materialist monist conception of reality - modally contingent but not dependently
contingent
Various divine aspects might include e.g. im/mutability, im/passibility, essence,
hypostases, energies, etc
Various creaturely aspects might include e.g. in/determined/ness, tehomic, ex nihilo, ex
profundis, ex multitudine, coeternality, pro-created, co-created, various monisms, etc
http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2016/05/two-senses-of
-contingency.html
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/creatio-ex-nihilo-proposed-alternatives-1/
http://www.academia.edu/7643061/_Divine_Knowledge_and_Future_Contingents_Weigh
ing_the_Presuppositional_Issues_in_the_Contemporary_Debate_Evangelical_Review_of_
Theology_26_3_2002_240-64
http://www.metanexus.net/book-review/quantum-mechanics-eucharistic-meal-john-polk
inghornes-bottom-vision-science-and-theology
This is a preliminary draft for discussion purposes, which is to acknowledge that I'm
unsure regarding the above characterizations. I think the questions are meaningful, even
as I grapple with the answers.
Notes:
Peirce used categories of rstness, secondness and thirdness, roughly mapping to
possibilities, actualities and probabilities, temporally relating to past, present and future.
The probabilities are telic, including both formal and nal causes. I refer to teloi because
the category is so vague as to include personal intentionality and, for example,
thermodynamic end-states.
The category of thirdness refers, vaguely, to probabilistic realities, without specifying
whats epistemic in/determinable vs ontologically in/determined. If we go further to
invoke Scotus formal distinction, we specify the ontologically in/determined, but it
remains a fuzzy concept to what degree determined?

Hence, I nd Mayrs distinctions helpful, like teleomatic for end-states (inanimate nature)
or teleonomic for end-directed (biological organisms), reserving teleologic for
end-intendedness, persons. Much of this comes from engaging the biosemiotics of Terry
Deacon.
Also, I assume an emergentist stance without invoking supervenience. For example, I
note that symbolic language and consciousness emerged here, in Homo sapiens, but
remain agnostic regarding philosophy of mind, e.g. nonreductive physicalism vs
panpsychism.
I dont believe we have to reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics, describe the origins
of the cosmos, life or sentience, etc in order to epistemically warrant or normatively
justify the life of faith. So, the peircean categories are but conceptual placeholders, an
exploratory heuristic, not an explanatory metaphysic. Theyre probabilistic. They are thus
fallibilist and eschew a prioristic, rationalistic, naive realisms, precisely by prescinding
from modal necessity to modal probability. Nonstrict identity comes from Hartshorne, or
at least Dombrowski interpreting him, invoking moderation in metaphysics,
differentiating acorns from oak trees, navigating the shoals of essentialism and
nominalism.
Some divine energies might could be successfully referred to using these modal
categories and divine interactivity contingent in some aspects. But, at some point,
references to God must go beyond the univocal and analogical predications or, in
principle, how could we be really talking about G-d?
We look around and see all these regularities and probabilities and infer neccessity, only
ever encountering it in analytic abstractions, never physically instantiated. The argument
for the reality (not being) of God, Peirce says, invokes the Ens Necessarium, wholly
transcendent. Thats telos with a capital Telos.
Perhaps this is where Boyds distinction between the INTENSITY of the aesthetic
experience of internal, loving relationality and, on the other hand, its SCOPE might come
in. Insofar as we take Boyds conception of immutability as an eternal disposition, even
when the essential divine experience overows as contingent illustrations, neither the
disposition nor the intensity change.
Also, perhaps we can disambiguate an equivocal notion of contingency such that theres
not a scintilla of contingency, modally, in either Gods immutable disposition or intensity
of aesthetic experience. Any contingencies, such as in the scope and illustrative overow
of the aesthetic experience, are not modal but the dependent variety as we already
acknowledge in the hypostases and energies?
Years ago, I wondered why Hartshorne went dyadic, theologically, when he had Peirce at
his disposal. He had his reasons but I cannot recite them now. Both Boyd and Joe
Bracken have rehabilitated CH with trinitarian approaches that respect classical theisms
key insights while drawing on process strengths.
The divine attributes must be reconceived such that they refer to that knowledge, power
and freedom greater than which could not be conceived without falling into logical
inconsistency, internal incoherence and metaphysical incongruity vis a vis personal

freedom, divine freedom and inmutable divine dispositions. Divine knowledge of the
future would not refer to peircean secondness or actualities but to thirdness, including
necessities and probabilities as well as divine prerogatives. God's eschatological aims
are bolstered by the divine freedom to inuence such future possibilities. Constraints on
divine omnipotence and freedom have been treated elsewhere under the logical problem
of evil.
Additional notes:
Speaking of apophatic qualications, the traditional apophatic way of approaching any
God-concept can go a long way toward guaranteeing its consistency. A list of properties
can be logically guaranteed to be conceptually compatible with each other precisely
because of their negativity. So, coupled with our analogical God-talk, apophatic
references can be very meaningful.
For any interested, Christopher McHugh recast Hartshornes modal ontological argument
using such negative properties:
http://indels.org/library/modern/doug_krueger/krueger-mchugh/mchugh1.html
Speaking again of apophatic qualications, we think of Cambridge properties, which are
external. Such would include energies, works, activities and relationships, all
distinguished from substance and considered epinoetic. So, too, negative attributes, e.g.
immutability, would be epinoiai.
So, while one would not posit real distinctions in God, it seems like we could properly
posit formal distinctions not just in our human relating to God, but among some of
the attributes in Gods essence, itself, which remain inseparable?

Toward My Logical Defense re: Problem of Evil --- evoked by Oord's Uncontrollong Love
In Peirces modal ontology, he prescinds from categories of possibility, actuality and
necessity to those of possibility, actuality and probability. This move precisely afrmed a
realist stance toward realitys probabilities (not unrelated to Scotus formal distinction),
but allows us to remain metaphysically agnostic as to which such probabilities refer to
ontological regulators (various teloi, e.g. teleopotent, teleomatic, teleonomic,
teleodynamic) and/or mere epistemic regularities (observer artifacts).
We can also remain agnostic regarding which of those teloi, in any given instance, would
be distinguished essentially (i.e. absolutes, necessities, eternalities) and which
emergently (e.g. thru cosmopoiesis, biopoiesis, etc).
Thats to say that we can realize human values, probabilistically, employing only vague
phenomenological categories, even as we remain in search of a metaphysic (e.g. the
most robust root metaphors).
We recognize that chance and necessity, pattern and paradox, order and chaos,
symmetry and asymmetry, the random and systematic, determinacy and indeterminacy,
regulators and regularities, all play real roles in reality when we prescind, ontologically,

from modal necessities to probabilities. The semiotic grammar changes from a reality,
where noncontradiction and excluded middle both hold to one where noncontradiction
certainly still holds, but excluded middle folds.
We dont thus solve Humes problem of induction, speculatively, but we recognize that,
practically, a fallibilist, probabilistic approach fosters human value-realizations because,
if epistemology indeed models ontology, human inference will work just ne if teloi
indeed correspond, ontologically, to an axiological sufciency of actual regulators.
Still, regarding freedom, we dont refer to realitys teloi univocally, in my view. Theres a
radical discontinuity, qualitatively, between the nonalgorithmic, teleodynamic,
anthroposemiotic freedom made possible by human symbolic language, and the more
algorithmic, teleonomic, biosemiotic freedom gifted by sentience, which is merely iconic
and indexical.
When I conceive of divine constraints relative to human freedom, I imagine omniscience,
omnipathy, omnibenevolence, omnipresence and omnipotence as those divine attributes
greater than which could not be conceived without otherwise violating the internal
coherence and consistency or external congruence and consonance between realitys
essential divine and metaphysical logics, kenotic included.
But it is only human freedom that, for me, is at stake and inviolable, a freedom that
emerged rather recently. I say emerged, phenomenologically, grinding no metaphysical
axes vis a vis philosophy of mind, such as to characterize it in panpsychic or
nonreductive physicalist terms, for example.
Suffering, to me, is a tehomic artifact that God only ever alleviates, save for essential
constraints, never using it instrumentally by design even though Hell always
transformatively exploit it for Her ends and our ultimate good.
I believe God has coaxed some regularities forth, while others might logically inhere in
various tehomic multitudinae. Those regularities with which God cannot interfere, in my
view, are those which would be indispensable to each humans freedom. When natural or
personal evils cause human suffering, Gods only constrained by inviolable tehomic
logics or His own essential kenosis vis a vis human, teleodynamic freedom (but not vis a
vis teleonomic, teleomatic or teleopotent teloi of lesser ontological densities or
metaphysical complexities than the imago Dei).
The above has been my defense to the logical problem of evil. I remain agnostic
regarding evidential theodicies. I believe theres a plurality of reasons that Gods wholly
exculpable, that the approaches of Augustine, Plantinga, yourself (Oord) and others
could be sufciently nuanced for a defense, logically.
Evidentially, cumulative case apologetics can provide at least a modicum of
equiplausibility vs alternative cosmogonies, but reality remains way too ambiguous for
us and way too ambivalent toward us to coerce one belief vs another, which leaves us
with normative justications of faith rather than epistemic warrants, in other words, with
forced, vital but live options, which may be quite to the point and in service of human
freedom.

Regarding the divine essence, hypostases and energies, our partaking and participation
in the energies remains an established THAT, theologically, but, as to HOW, again Im
metaphysically agnostic. Exactly what might be predicated of both God and creatures, I
dont know. All such predications, though, cannot be merely equivocal or analogical
rather than univocal or well introduce insurmountable causal disjunctions.
I believe God authors many more miracles than most imagine but, on the other hand,
remains constrained way more, in certain ways (essentially, metaphysically or
kenotically) than classically conceived by most. I am deeply sympathetic to your (Oord)
project and strongly resonant with your approach.
I give human freedom inviolability via essential divine kenosis but dont univocally
predicate freedom or emergent teloi up and down the phylogenetic ladder or great chain
of _____.
Because Gods nature is love, God always gives freedom, agency and self-organization to
persons.
We encounter a plurality of teloi in the regularities of nature, perhaps some
1) tehomic (whether from co-eternal, procreative and/or creative origins), perhaps others
coaxed forth by divine energies, perhaps some
2) eternal, static or universal, others temporal, dynamical or local,
3) some robustly telic, teleodynamically (end-intended), others moderately so,
teleonomically (end-directed), others weakly nious, teleomatically (end-stated) or
variously indeterminate, teleopotently (end-un/bounded).

We may encounter a plurality of divine constraints, voluntary (beyond any essential


kenosis, superabundantly) and involuntary (externally, due to inviolable metaphysical
logics, which would lapse into incoherence and inconsistency, whatever their origins, and
internally, by an essential kenosis).
God sustains the teleodynamic, end-intended, regularities of nature, as comprised in the
essence of personal freedom, but otherwise opportunistically will suspend any of
reality's violable regularities in service of the divine will.
Any lack of divine intervention to prevent evil results only from involuntary constraints,
whether kenotic or metaphysical.
God otherwise invariably intervenes in teleonomic, teleomatic and teleopotent realities in
service of the divine will, except for when they are necessarily entwined in sustaining any
particular teleodynamic regularities, which would be essential for any person's freedom.
We encounter regularities without knowing their precise origins and natures. The above
rubrics would be consistent with any number of creation accounts.

Contribution to discussion of Oord's Uncontrolling Love:


Perhaps realitys regularities and freedom are both being too vaguely conceived. If we
more narrowly dene freedom in terms of that type which belongs to a person and better
distinguish between regularities by employing more precise telic conceptions, there
would be less freedom at stake for and fewer regularities to necessarily be sustained by
an essential kenosis.
These moves wouldnt be ad hoc but eminently defensible, phenomenologically, prior to
using a particular metaphysic or root metaphor. The freedom of a human person is not
just quantitatively but qualitatively different, semiotically. It is robustly telic or
teleodynamic, rather than merely teleonomic, as in other sentient animals. Other teloi or
regularities are thus not agentially end-intended or teleodynamic but are otherwise
merely end-directed or teleonomic, end-stated or teleomatic or variously
end-un/bounded or teleopotent. Those types of regularities and freedoms, in my view,
to the extent they wouldnt be intrinsically inviolable, metaphysically, neednt necessarily
be subjects of essential kenosis, could otherwise be objects of divine prerogatives.
Im only considering logical possibilities, not evidential plausibilities.

Glossary of Teloi
I have found it helpful to refer to various emergent TELOI (teleo -potent, -matic, -nomic
and -logic) refer to various end-phenomena (un/bounded, stated, directed and intended).
veldopoietic entwinement marked by the teleopotent end-un/boundedness of eld
(veld-) dynamics
cosmopoietic entwinement marked by the teleomatic end-statedness of a
materio-energetic, proto-sentience
biopoietic entwinement marked by the teleonomic end-directedness of an
electro-chemical, incipient sentience;
sentiopoietic entwinement marked by sentience, broadly conceived to include

hormonal sentience;
neuronal sentience (including, for example, abductive instinct);
striatal sentience;
limbic sentience and
cortical sentience (including, for example, nonreective awareness, nonarbitrary
inconicity and indexicality).
sapiopoietic entwinement, marked by the teleologic end-intendedness of
sapient sentience (including, for example, abductive inference, reective awareness,
arbitrary symbolicity and subconscious problem solving)

Regarding my account of emergent teloi, above, I only invoke emergence in terms of a


vague phenomenology or exploratory not explanatory heuristic.
In other words, those different levels of complexity refer to evolved novelties in nature
that resist both epistemic and ontological reduction. Specically, my heuristic does not
employ distinctions like weak and strong emergence, which are, respectively, trivial and
question begging (in how they invoke supervenience). We neednt be anxious to prove
too much or to say more than we could possibly know.
The Baldwin Effect does suggest downward causations. Among other types of formal
and nal causations, such as are becoming increasingly in vogue in semiotic sciences,
whether or not any of natures downward causations violate physical causal closure or
not remains an open question, in my view.
That human persons are radically free-enough for most of our theological anthropologies
can be established axiomatically via either a reductio ad absurdum or, more rigorously,
by a vague semiotic phenomenology with no resort to a more robust metaphysic.

Divine Aseity & Essential Kenosis

On the aseity distinctions, I nd the Palamitic approach helpful, where the divine energies
express the divine will, from which divine creativity or procreativity would ensue,
contingently, apart from divine essences and hypostases. It may be that conating
creatio with love proves too much, says more than we could possibly know regarding
divine necessity. I afrm the notion that takes love as necessity, but agree that creatio
reveals our contingent participation in divine energies. To that point, consistent with the
distinctions on which I reected above, we must further distinguish between natural
participations in the divine energies and those gifted rational persons. Again, its only the
latter Id make a concern of any essential kenosis. Thats to conclude, I suppose, for
example, that any sustaining of natural regularities would be a by-product of Gods
sustaining our personal freedom, the end product. But those natural regularities, which
naturally but not rationally participate in the divine energies, wouldnt a priori and in every
instance necessarily be sustained.
charles sanders peirce, thomas oord, uncontrolling love of god, modal ontology,
possibility, actuality, necessity, probability, scotus formal distinction, ontological
regulators, teloi, teleopotent, teleomatic, teleonomic, teleodynamic, epistemic
regularities, cosmopoiesis, biopoiesis, sentiopoiesis, sapiopoiesis, veldopoiesis, root
metaphor, chance and necessity, pattern and paradox, order and chaos, symmetry and
asymmetry, the random and systematic, regulators and regularities, noncontradiction,
excluded middle both human value-realizations, epistemology models ontology,
nonalgorithmic, teleodynamic, anthroposemiotic, symbolic language, and the more
algorithmic, teleonomic, biosemiotic, sentience, iconic, indexical, divine constraints,
human freedom, omniscience, omnipathy, omnibenevolence, omnipresence,
omnipotence, divine attributes philosophy of mind, panpsychic nonreductive physicalist,
tehomic artifact, tehomic multitudinae, essential kenosis, teleodynamic teleonomic,
teleomatic, teleopotent ontological density, imago Dei, defense to the logical problem of
evil, augustine, plantinga, cumulative case apologetics, equiplausibility, cosmogonies,
normative justications, epistemic warrants, forced options, vital options, live options,
human freedom, divine essence, divine hypostases, divine energies, miracles essential
divine kenosis, univocal predications

Democratizing Theosis for Jesus is a truly Cosmic Christ


And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men

How might we conceive the implict faith of nonbelievers?


If we consider our journey in terms of a formative spirituality that fosters what Lonergan
called authenticity (secular conversions) and sustained authenticity (being in love), and

...
if we conceive of the Spirit as inviting, coaxing, even wooing each person from image to
likeness into intimacy ...
then, at least, in terms of orthopraxy, we might afrm the presence, in any person who'd
respond, of such theotic realizations as

kenosis (e.g. self-transcendence) and

katharsis (e.g. purgative way), which foster

synergia (cooperating with the spirit & divine energies).

So, in the domain of orthopraxis, a person might realize the fruits of a somewhat
inchoate theosis. Its soteriological trajectory would be abundantly efcacious.
How would we, then, otherwise conceive (not indifferently) the more robustly theotic as
realized in the explicit faith of believers?
The more robustly theotic will necessarily move beyond our ascetical and orthopraxic
concerns to the more explicitly mystical, which will also entail such theotic realizations
as the

theurgic (e.g. rituals & practices such as the hesychastic way of the heart) and

illuminative (including initiations into community & mystagogy), which will


culminate in

theoria (i.e. loving contemplation).

None of this to suggest that an implicit faith cannot realize truly unitive goals, such
as through synergia, but only to recognize that, optimally, theosis will realize the
gnosiological gifts of special revelation.
In the life of implicit faith, like Pip in Great Expectations, one realizes reality's pervasively
donative nature and responds appropriately in becoming a true gentleperson, even while
otherwise remaining ignorant or even positively confused regarding the identity of one's
benefactor.

In the life of explicit faith, one learns the identity of humankind's Benefactor and one's
ascetical soteriological trajectory is supplemented by the superabundant realizations of

a mystical sophiological trajectory, which further fosters, contemplatively, our being in


love with God, others, the cosmos and even ourselves.
When we say contemplative, it can refer to a
prayer practice or means or method, which is contemplative;
associated cognitive-affective dispositions or felt contemplative experiences, including
consolations & desolations requiring discernment; and the
terminus or ends or ultimate goals in terms of transformation or our love of God and
neighbor (including even our self and the cosmos) via our increasingly habitual
cooperation with the gifts of the Spirit.
Our emphasis, thus, remains on love, which is the goal of transformation.
Now, surely the question must beg for some regarding the plurality of explicit faiths. And
that's a reality I've treated elsewhere. In a nutshell, I believe there's an essential
orthopraxic soteriological trajectory that inheres in all who cooperate with the Spirit,
whether through implicit or explicit faith. Otherwise, I view the plurality of explicit faiths,
for the most part, as diverse polydoxic sophiological trajectories, each, more or less,
properly emphasizing different contingent expressions of the divine simplicity to which
we respond, thereby sustaining our authenticity, by being in loving relationships that,
however variously constituted, invariably participate in God's love.

For my part, my soteriologic resonances are distinctly pneumatological and my


sophiological commitments are profoundly Christological and trinitarian. So, beyond any
facile syncretism or insidious indifferentism, I do recognize Jesus as both the Incarnate
Human One and the Eternal Cosmic Christ and commend following Him to all who would
will to journey to our unitive destiny ever more swiftly and with very less hindrance
(which is to say with the greatest consolations and most efcient economy i.e.
sacramental).

How would I plead to charges of interfaith, interreligious and ecumenical irenicism?


Guilty.
Why do I otherwise imagine myself exculpable?
It's not a false irenicism.

Then rang the bells more loud and deep


God is not dead, nor does he sleep
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men

Then ringing singing on its way


The world revolved from night to day
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men

Perichoresis as Vehicle Negativa in Rohr's Divine Dance - a polydoxic trinito-phany in


continuity with an orthodoxic trinito-logy
RE: And my longforgive mereview has one main point: its that The Divine Dance isnt
about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Its a book about an alternative spirituality of Flow,
committed to a metaphysic that refuses to recognize a distinction between God and the
world. <<<<< Fred Sanders
Well, no. It's not.
Human perichoretic participation refers to neither the Trinity's essence (ousia) nor its
persons (hypostaseis) but to the uncreated energies (energeiai), which are loving, saving
and deifying. Thus our human union with God is neither substantial nor hypostatic.
Classical ontological distinctions between creatures and Creator are maintained, as
humans don't participate in God's essence!
These distinctions pertain even to eucharistic theology. Apophatic theology doesn't
convey objective knowledge (episteme) but leads, trans-apophatically and
trans-rationally, to subjective experience (gnosis) of God as its goal.
These understandings of theotic (deifying) sanctication and glorication are wholly
compatible, soteriologically, with notions of justication, many would contend, even
those of reformed traditions.
Previously, I purposefully used vehicle negativa as distinct from via negativa, as the latter
refers to a rational mode and a form of kataphasis, while the former refers to a
transrational experience or participation, a form of apophasis, which does not proceed
through essentialist negations but, instead, through ineffable existential experiences or

REALizations. The latter are robustly relational in an interpersonal sense, experiences


beyond words. Such is the reality to which perichoresis vaguely refers without robustly
describing.
A vehicle negativa transports and trans-forms us, while a via negativa in-forms us, such
as the distinction between knowledge of and knowledge about, the latter a problem to be
solved, the former a lover to be loved. Both are necessary but one is a means, the other
an end.
To be more clear, some Orthodox theologians point out that both the via positiva and via
negativa are RATIONAL approaches, both sharing the same trajectory of increasing
descriptive accuracy, whether through afrmation of what something is, ontologically, or
is like, analogically, or through negation of what something is not or is not like. Thats
how kataphasis and apophasis are largely conceived in the West, often through radically
logo-centric lenses.
When Lossky employed an apophatic, perichoretic strategy, though, he referenced a
transrational mystical experience moreso in terms of ineffability. He aspires merely to a
successful relational reference but does not ambition a successful metaphysical
description. (This distinction applies, by the way, to so much of nondual teaching in
Buddhist & Hindu traditions, as they arent doing metaphysics as much as they are
leading us into experiences or real-izations).
The Orthodox priest, Dumitru Staniloae, according to some, was more rigorous and
nuanced than Lossky. He would refer to our ineffable experiences as transrational and
trans-apophatic. Thats why I prefer to refer to
trinito-logy vs trinito-phany.
The difference between a metaphysical image and a model does not lie in how
exhaustively it is employed in different contexts as a basic metaphor. An image does
symbolic and metaphorical work, poetically and aesthetically. A model, though, is based
on a root metaphor, which serves as an heuristic device, metaphysically, employed
systematically, ordinarily, in terms of classical Aristotelian causes --- material, efcient,
formal and nal, setting forth putative relationships to bridge emergent phenomena such
as in natural theologies, quantum interpretations, cosmogonies, biopoietics,
philosophies of mind and symbolic language origins.
While exhaustively applied, Rohr's images aren't doing the work of models,
metaphysically or onto-theologically, only the work of metaphors, theo-poetically,
aesthetically. Rohr's images already presuppose a classical Scotistic-Palamatic
metaphysical frame of distinctions, a model of divine essence, hypostatic persons and
divine energies, panentheistically interpreted. There is another method in play here,
theopoetically, at the intersection between theology and spirituality.
Once we dene the applicable methodological contours of the development of doctrine
from historical exegetical and polemical environments, through what additional methods
might we authenticate their spiritually transformative efcacies?
Theopoetics.
We abide with the paradox, tolerate the ambiguity, nurture the creative tensions, seek out

the antinomies, resist rushes to closure and admonish the voices of certitude but move
forward, anyway, in humility, with hospitality, doing what we've discerned we must and
saying what we believe we should, dialogically, boldly and imaginatively!
As Scott Holland suggests: Good theology is a kind of transgression, a kind of excess, a
kind of gift. It is not a smooth systematics, a dogmatics, or a metaphysics; as a
theopoetics it is a kind of writing. It is a kind of writing that invites more writing. Its
narratives lead to other narratives, its metaphors encourages new metaphors, its
confessions more confessions . . .
If all too certain theological understandings get undermined and theopolitical modes of
historical discourse challenged, theo-poetics will have a chance to successfully advance
the spiritual efcacies of otherwise sterile abstract doctrines, bringing them alive in the
concrete lives of the faithful through fruitful ortho-relational, orthocommunal, orthopathic
and orthopraxic realizations.
As Roland Faber puts it: One moves into an undened land in which one experiences
differently, begins to think differently, and is encouraged nor just to adopt to, but to
create new theological language. Today, I think that not only can we not control this eld
or region in fact, but that it is of the essence of process theology to be an uncontrollable
undertaking in the innite adventure of God-talk, and consciously so, in modes that I
came to name theopoetics.
Rohr is merely the latest in a long pedigree of people who want to run with the Trinity (or
dance, as it were) to --- not draw conclusions, but --- to create new theological language,
encourage new metaphors, and to help us experience differently those historical
realities that were developed with our traditions out of what we might call the
formations contexts of the Trinity within the pro-Nicene polemical and exegetical
environment.
I would even call my own writings regarding Rohrs ouvre a systematic theophany and
not systematic theology.
Still, for Rohr, onto-theology would be descriptive but not pejorative. After all, one could
argue that his fellow Franciscan, the medieval Scotus, was among the rst, great
onto-theologians! That said, again, that's not what he's doing in this book.
The Divine Dance does not amend classical ad intra, ontological accounts of the
immanent, essential Trinity (vis a vis questions of who and what). Arguably, neither does
it amend the traditional ad extra, divine communication accounts of the revealed,
economic Trinity (vis a vis when, where and how). Instead, it addends these approaches,
supplementing them with a theopoetic, trinito-phanic, perichoretic critique.
Some have invoked perichoresis --- not as a kataphatic, root metaphor of onto-theology,
but --- as an apophatic, more properly trans-apophatic, theopoetic critique. Such
theologians, while very much afrming the indispensable noetic trajectory of logos in
every theo-logos, employ perichoresis as a vehicle negativa, which serves to remind us
that all symbols, whether sacramentals or metaphors --- not only reveal, but --- conceal
the realities, which they reference.

Accordingly, a perichoretic critique, evoking the poetry of dance, doesn't at all deny
ontological root metaphors, much less substituting its own (e.g. ow) but, instead,
invites us to keep the trinito-phanic metaphors coming!
Assuming such a theopoetic critique, then, one must avoid the category error of
employing such perichoretic references (e.g. dance, ow or relating) as kataphatic and
onto-theological root metaphors, when, indeed, they are precisely otherwise intended to
serve as artistic conceptual placeholders. This is to say that such placeholders,
apophatically and phenomenologically, deliberately bracket such metaphysics. They
much less so deny old models, interpretations and metaphors and much more so
encourage ever new, always deeper, understandings!
Bottomline, I knew Rohr wasn't doing onto-theology or metaphysics precisely because,
as a Roman Catholic and panentheist, he's manifestly not committed to a metaphysic
that refuses to recognize a distinction between God and the world.
Also, when reading Rohr and Morrell's references to divine energies, I relexively put on
the Orthodox lens and thought of Gregory of Palamas and, in turn, interpreted their
perichoretic references as apophatic, theopoetic critiques, for example, consistent with
Vladimir Lossky's approach. Any implicit metaphysic would be Scotistic, trinitarian
distinctions consistent with his Eucharistic, Christological and Incarnational approaches,
some representing minority reports but not otherwise unorthodox.
This is all to point out that I knew before reading the Divine Dance that Rohr's approach
to the Trinity with Morrell would be neither some ad hoc poetic musing nor some fanciful
ight of a supercial theological imagination. Rather, I am poised, here, to harvest the
fruits that will have emerged organically from a theological crop that's been long
cultivated in the ground of
Scotistic intuitions (in continuity with Peirce),
Franciscan sensibilities (often a minority account within larger traditions),
Patristic outlooks (apokatastasis and practical universalism, oh my!),
polydoxic sophiologies (others are on efcacious wisdom trajectories?! e.g. Gregory of
Palamas),
a generous ecclesiology (preferential option for the marginalized, even),
a pluralistic pneumatology (the Spirit 's also over there?! in her?!),
a Goldilocks anthropology --- neither too pessimistic (e.g. total depravity) nor optimistic
(ergo, no facile syncretism, no insidious indifferentism, no false irenicism) and,
paramount,
a contemplative stance that afrms a most robust, participatory relationality, beyond a
mere propositional, problem-solving preoccupation.
None of this wouldn't a priori be inconsistent either with various Arminian, Molinist or

Open approaches, with various logical defenses or evidential theodicies to problems of


evil (whether Augustine, Plantinga or Oord), with various creation accounts (ex nihilo,
profundis, multitudinae, tehomic) or various wisdom traditions vis a vis their shared
soteriologic trajectory of human authenticity (an implict pneumatological, Christological
inclusivism via Lonergan's transcendental imperatives and conversions) and diverse
sophiologic trajectories of sustained authenticity (via being in love).
The late Don Gelpi, SJ had a saying: "orthopraxy authenticates orthodoxy."
Gelpi had Lonergan's conception of authenticity in mind as he so related "right practice"
to "right belief. " And Gelpi expanded Lonergan's authenticity to include what he called
ve "conversions." Those conversions refer to intellectual , affective, moral, social and
religious transformations. We might, then, think of them, respectively, in terms of
right believing,
right desiring,
right behaving,
right belonging and
right relating.
Rohr and Morrell address these in spades! more appropriately, HEARTS!
Following Lonergan and immersed in the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce, Gelpi
would offer that any authentication of the various dogma, practices, liturgies, rituals and
doctrines --- not just of Christianity, but --- of any of the world's great traditions, as well as
indigenous religions, could be cashed out in terms of how well they foster ongoing
human transformation.
Now, this doesn't invoke that vulgar pragmatism of "if it's useful, then it's true," but it does
suggest that, wherever, whenever and in whomever we witness
right belonging ,
right desiring,
right behaving and/or
right relating, then we will more likely also encounter
right believing.
It's no accident, then, that systematic theology will typically address ve integral human
value-realizations:
1) truth via creed, as articulated in beliefs about reality's rst and last things, in what we
call an eschatology, which orients us;
2) beauty via cult-ivation, as celebrated in life's liturgies, rituals and devotions, in what we
call a soteriology, which sancties us;
3) goodness via code, as preserved in codications and norms, in an incarnational or
sacramental economy, which nurtures and heals us;
4) unity via community, as enjoyed in familial and faith fellowships, in what we call an
ecclesiology, which empowers and unites us; and
5) freedom via contemplation, as realized through radical self-transcendence, in a given
sophiology, which will ultimately save and liberate us.
Rohr and Morrell, right up front, ask:
"If Trinity is supposed to describe the very heart of the nature of God, and yet it has
almost no practical or pastoral implications in most of our lives if its even possible

that we could drop it tomorrow and it would be a forgettable, throwaway doctrine then
either it cant be true or we dont understand it!"
As prologue, they introduce the pragmatic critique, inquiring whether orthopraxy has
authenticated Trinitarian orthodoxy!
They make the point: "Remember, mystery isnt something that you cannot understand
it is something that you can endlessly understand!"
They don't confuse a lack of comprehensibilty with a lack of intelligibility. Thomas Oord
similarly resists a retreat into theological skepticism when it comes to our God concepts
vis a vis the problem of evil and thereby has articulated a theology of love (considering
putative God-constraints, such as essential, metaphysical or kenotic). Similarly
eschewing a radical skepticism regarding Trinitarian doctrine, Rohr and Morrell are on
their way to articulating --- spoiler alert --- a theology of love!
Here comes the leit motif of Rohr's lifelong emphasis on the fruit of the contemplative
stance: "Whatever is going on in God is a ow, a radical relatedness, a perfect
communion between Three a circle dance of love."
They ask: "Instead of God watching life happen from afar and judging it How about God
being inherent in life itself? How about God being the Life Force of everything? Instead of
God being an Object like any other object How about God being the Life Energy
between each and every object (which we would usually call Love or Spirit)?"
This reminds me of the Orthodox hesychastic conception of Divine Energies as well as
Joe Bracken's process notion of the Divine Matrix. In some ways, it speaks to Scotus'
univocity of being.
Whether one employs a root metaphor like substance, process, experience, energy or
ow, mystics and philosophers have long intuited some type of unitary being, some type
of interconnectedness that allows objective interactivity across what may otherwise be
ontological gulfs, which would be logically necessary to account also for the
intrasubjective integrity of each unied self, who then participates in those glorious
unitive strivings of all loving intersubjective intimacies.
I'm willing to bet, though, that those above references to life forces and energies will
have many exclaiming a heterodoxic: "Game! Set! Match!" That is, they will lter the rest
of the book through the cloudy lens of their facile, hence errant, metaphysical
presuppositions --- that Rohr articulates a pantheism!
So few trafc in the nuances required to distinguish between pan-en-theism,
pan-entheism, panen-theism or cosmotheandrism, theocosmocentrism, between an
objective unitary identity and a subjective unitive intimacy or between epistemic, ontic
and interpersonal nondualities. I won't tease out all the relevant nuances, here, but I can
only suggest from a rather long acquaintance with both Rohr and Morrell that they aren't
playing theology without a suitable philosophical net! Keep reading!
Here comes another minority opinion grounded in a long established Scotistic
Franciscan sensibility - that the Incarnation was not occasioned by some human felix
culpa but was in the Divine pneumatological cards from the cosmic get-go: "This God is

the very one whom we have named 'Trinity' the ow who ows through everything,
without exception, and who has done so since the beginning."
Yes, indeed, for God so loved the world!
"But divine things can never be objectied in this way; they can only be 'subjectied' by
becoming one with them! When neither yourself nor the other is treated as a mere object,
but both rest in an I-Thou of mutual admiration, you have spiritual knowing. Some of us
call this contemplative knowing."
There it is - -- the distinction between the objective and subjective, the merely
propositional and the robustly relational!
Ultimately, beyond the truth, beauty, goodness and unity, in which all creation
participates, there emerged a freedom gifted by that contemplative faculty found in the
human imago Dei: "But we have to be taught how to 'gaze steadily into this law of perfect
freedom, and make this our habit,' as James so brilliantly intuits it."
Love and freedom remain integrally related to the extent that in addition to any essential
and metaphysical constraints God may even kenotically self-constrain toward the end of
augmenting our freedom, amplifying our love!
The following is so poignantly put:
"Did you ever imagine that what we call 'vulnerability' might just be the key to ongoing
growth? In my experience, healthily vulnerable people use every occasion to expand,
change, and grow. Yet it is a risky position to live undefended, in a kind of constant
openness to the otherbecause it would mean others could sometimes actually wound
you (from vulnus, 'wound'). But only if we choose to take this risk antie also allow the
exact opposite possibility: the other might also gift you, free you, and even love you. But
it is a felt risk every time. Every time."
Did you ever imagine that God might take risks? Felt risks? Precisely to free you? That
beyond any omniscience, omnibenevolence, omnipotence, omnipresence --- all suitably
(apophatically) nuanced as capacities greater than which could not otherwise be
conceived without falling into either metaphysical incoherence or theo-logical
contradictions --- God passionately experiences, also, a divine omnipathy? precisely
through the Incarnation!
How does one merit this type of love?
"Jesus never has any such checklist test before he heals anybody. He just says, as it
were, 'Are you going to allow yourself to be touched? If so, lets go!' The touchable ones
are the healed ones; its pretty much that simple. Theres no doctrinal test. Theres no
moral test. There is no checking out if they are Jewish, gay, baptized, or in their rst
marriage. Theres only the one question: Do you want to be healed? If the answer is a
vulnerable, trusting, or condent one, the ow always happens, and the person is healed.
Try to disprove me on that!"
Here we encounter the wisdom of an authentic formative spirituality, where right relating
precedes right belonging which fosters right desiring which encourages right behaving
and sees right believing much more so as a participatory orthocommunal, orthopathic
and orthopraxic response, much less so as an orthodoxic proposition, which, truth be
told, more often presents in polydoxic sophiologies, which entail the wisdom of love

(beyond our philosophical love of wisdom).


While the Dance perichoretically circles around truth, beauty, goodness, unity and
freedom, each of these divine imperatives integrally intertwined with and leading to the
others, because of our radical human nitude we will ordinarily follow a transformative
path conveyed rst in community and gifting us, even, our deepest desires. The
pro-positional, apart from the participational and relational, will lack normative impetus
unless those norms derive, rst, from some energizing evaluative dis-positions.
It's beyond the scope of this consideration but modern semiotic science with roots in
medieval Scotism very much resonates with this emphasis on relationality, which need
rely on no robust metaphysic, no particular root metaphor, only a vague phenomenology
(Christianity can remain in search of a metaphysic!):
"What physicists and contemplatives alike are conrming is that the foundational nature
of reality is relational; everything is in relationship with everything else. As a central
Christian mystery, weve been saying this from the very beginning while still utterly failing
to grasp its meaning."
My favorite quite from the Divine Dance:
"God does not love you because you are good. God loves you because God is good. I
should just stop writing right here. Theres nothing more to say, and itll take the rest of
your life to internalize this."
Merton once lamented that our churches do a great job helping socialize people but a
terrible job transforming them. He was not using my broadly conceived notion of
transformation, which includes Lonergan's conversions, like the social. Instead, he was
talking about that growth in intimacy with God, self, others and cosmos that lays in store
for those who properly relate, contemplatively. Rohr and Morrell touch on this: "Most
Christians have not been taught contemplation. Contemplation is learning how to abide
in and with the Witnessing Presence planted within you, which of course is the Holy
Spirit, almost perfectly symbolized by the ark of the covenant. If you keep 'guard,' like two
cherubim, over the dangerous, open-ended space of your transient feelings and thoughts,
you will indeed be seated on the mercy seat, where God dwells in the Spirit. The passing
otsam and jetsam on your stream of consciousness will then have little power to trap
or imprison you. The only difference between people that matters is the difference
between those who allow this space to ll iith ow and those who dont, or wont, allow
it. Like Mary, the model for contemplatives, 'it is done unto you,' and you can only allow.
Always."
If the kind reader can grasp these fundamental distinctions from Part I of the Divine
Dance and thereby realize that Rohr and Morrell are supplementing not rewriting
Trinitarian doctrine, they'll be readily disposed to receive the gifts of the book's
remainder, which are participational, contemplative, pastoral or, in other words,
distinctions that can make a transformational difference in one's life!
The crux of the Sanders critique was: "And my longforgive mereview has one main
point: its that The Divine Dance isnt about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Its a book
about an alternative spirituality of Flow, committed to a metaphysic that refuses to
recognize a distinction between God and the world."
Beyond either classical theism or panentheism (broadly conceived, as it has many

versions variously heterodox), Rohr was being charged with PANtheism.


Long story short, he's NOT a pantheist.
I've seen panentheist irtations even in Reformed, Calvinist notions (the great Edwards!)
and have drawn great inspiration from Wesleyan Arminian theologians in the same
direction! We're talking about LOVE here, so, I'm condent this misunderstanding will
resolve, happily!
RE: essence (ousia) vs (hypostaseis) vs uncreated energies (energeiai)
One way of interpreting these distinctions would be to consider the rst two
metaphysically and the last mystically. Thats been partly my thrust in distinguishing
trinoto-logy from trinoto-phany, rational from trans-rational, kata/apo-phatic from
trans-apophatic, speculative from relational, philosophical from contemplative,
ontotheology from theopoetic, episteme from gnosis, science from art.
My case in favor of Rohrs project has been to emphasize it as an exercise in
post-experiential effabling about ineffable contemplative encounters, drawing on
reections of our contemplative community and tradition.
Clearly, though, Rohr has never advocated an arational contemplative stance, as if
mysticism gifted a gnosis unconstrained by doctrine, tradition, philosophy or science.
The contemplative, relational, mystical approach goes beyond these other epistemic
approaches but clearly never without them.
So, too, the distinctions between essence (ousia) vs (hypostaseis) vs uncreated energies
(energeiai) are much more subtle than Ive let on for fear of going too deep into the
metaphysical weeds. But, Ill set those fears aside.
Distinguishing the divine energies from the divine essence does, of course, have a
philosophical and doctrinal angle in addition to the mystical, all which must be
expressed in continuity. Theres a question of how much continuity vs how much free rein
to be answered. Its hard to put this succinctly without coming across too bluntly, but the
old essentialism vs nominalism, Thomism vs Scotism, analogy vs univocity of being,
tensions come into play. This problem cannot be satisfactorily addressed using
essentialistic approaches.
One must honor Fr Rohrs Franciscan sensibilities and contemplative approach and turn
to Scotus, placing him in dialogue with Gregory Palamas regarding divine energies in the
Orthodox tradition. The distinction between the divine essence is neither what Scotus
would call real nor merely conceptual but is, instead, a formal distinction, not wholly
unrelated to what Peirce came to call thirdness in his modal ontology. There is a great
deal of continuity between Scotus and Palamas, Peirce and Hartshorne, and
panentheism (broadly conceived).
Just for the record, my point is that Rohr did not elaborate a trinito-phanic interpretation
wholly apart from an eminently defensible Scotistic-Palamic metaphysic-theology. He
went theo-poetic-ally beyond but not without an onto-theo-logic.
Some my have confused his not being sufciently Thomist with his not being doctrinally
sound. Those are two wholly different considerations. There is great promise for
bridging East and West, Catholic and Orthodox, divine essence and divine energies, if we

pay more attention to real vs conceptual vs formal vs modal distinctions, if we open our
hearts and minds to both Scotus and Palamas.
Note:
Rohr would probably afrm divine passibility while denying mutability (cf. Denis
Edwards). His trinitarian approach might be inuenced by Joe Bracken, who expanded
on Whitehead and Hartshorne (Bracken deliberately mindful, too, of orthodox notions of
transcendence) using a eld theoretic approach (social ontology employing elds). At
least, it seems Rohr often uses such eld metaphors and he has referenced a divine
matrix, too. Not all Catholics think any of this succeeds or that it or panentheism is
necessary (Norris Clarke).
Amos Yong, with whom I most resonate, shares some of Brackens insights regarding
realitys pervasive interrelationality, interactivity and intersubjectivity. But he derived
those insights from a pneumatological reading of creation narratives, not from a process
cosmology.
Footnote regarding Sanders' hyper-Critique:
Being immersed in Rohr's spirituality and theology for decades, I gathered his meaning
easily and implicitly. I would be unable to easily discern where he might have more
artfully been more explicit in his presupposed onto-theo-LOGY to keep the uninitiated
reader, one as intelligent as Sanders, from misinterpreting anything. I just don't know but
my sneaking suspicion is that Sanders will accept any needed clarications and place
part of the blame on Rohr. At the same time, as a scholar, Sanders could've inquired
further into Rohr's body of work to equip himself with better hermeneutical lenses,
especially once he realized how hypercritical his review would be, if only not to
embarrass himself, but also to avoid offending charity.
Confer:
In "Divinization: A Lost Pearl" Fr Rohr writes:
If you want to do your own research here, the fathers of the church to study are St.
Clement of Alexandria, Origen, St. Basil, St. Athanasius, and St. Irenaeus in the West; and
St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Maximus the Confessor, Pseudo
Macarius, Diadochus, and St. Gregory Palamas in the East. The primary texts are in the
Philokalia collection and the teachings of the Hesychastic monks.
https://cac.org/divinization-lost-pearl-2016-04-14/
In "The Univocity of Being" Fr Rohr quotes Bonaventure:
Christ has something in common with all creatures. With the stone he [sic] shares
existence, with the plants he shares life, with the animals he shares sensation, and with
the angels he shares intelligence. Thus all things are transformed in Christ since in the
fullness of his nature he embraces some part of every creature. Bonaventure [1]
https://cac.org/the-univocity-of-being-2016-11-14/
See also:
Divine Simplicity and the Formal Distinction

http://lyfaber.blogspot.com/2010/02/divine-simplicity-and-formal.html
The Essence/Energies Distinction and the Myth of Byzantine Illogic
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2016/06/27/the-essenceenergies-distinction-and-the-m
yth-of-byzantine-illogic/
Farewell, Divine Dance? An Open Letter to The Gospel Coalition.
http://mikemorrell.org/2016/12/farewell-divine-dance-open-letter-gospel-coalition/
See:
http://theopoetics.net/what-is-theopoetics/denitions/
theopoetic, trinity, richard rohr, mike morrell, scott holland, roland faber, vehicle negativa,
via negativa, perichoresis, apophasis, kataphasis, transrational, ousia, hypostaseis,
energeiai, theosis, theotic, sanctication, justication, glorication, perichoresis,
perichoretic, episteme, gnosis, trinity, eucharist, apophatic, trans-apophatic

From ontotheological (trinito-logical) is-ness to theopoetic (trinito-phanic) dance-ness?


YES!!!
Regarding perichoresis, Rohr has spoken and written rather extensively regarding divine
interpenetration and indwelling, all in delity to its patristic etymological roots. Of course
its not uncontroversial to univocally predicate such a perichoretic dynamism of persons,
both divine and imago Dei, but its eminently defensible.
What's not defensible, though, is the presupposition that Rohr's use of dance imagery
was grounded in philological warrant, though, rather than metaphorical effectiveness,
which was precisely LaCugna's position.
As it is, again, the apophatic and theopoetic evocation of perichoresis refers to a
relational reality and not an ontotheological modeling attempt. The dance metaphor thus
belongs to Rohr's trinito-phany and is not over against classical trinito-logy. As such, it
doesn't tell us how to think about the immanent Trinity in terms of essence, but how to
experience the economic Trinity in terms of divine energies (or other psalmodic not
philosophic metaphors).
Rohr's inviting us into a robustly relational, contemplative, mystical experience and not
rewriting classical trinitarian formulae.

trinitology, trinitophany, catherine lacugna, richard rohr, mike morrell, perichoresis, divine
energies, divine dance, immanent trinity, economic trinity, ontotheology, theopoetic,
mystical experience, contemplative experience, apophatic

Divine Dance: Rohr, Morrell & Panikkar - Oh my!

As to Fr. Richard Rohr, I've been getting excited with his every new publication, tape, mp3,
video, webcast or daily e-mail for almost 40 years now. I can never resist hyperbole and
superlatives as I commend each new work to family and friends. Why stop now?
I have always unwraped each new gift from Fr Rohr anticipating its practical, pastoral
signicance, looking for changes I can make in my relationships to God, others, the
world, even myself. He's never trafcked in idle, academic speculation (nothing wrong
with that, just not his theo-schtick) but has engaged us with invitations to new ways,
dis-positions, of seeing, imagining, participating, giving, receiving and experiencing Love,
moreso than any new pro-positions.
The Divine Dance, in all of the above ways, in my view, represents Fr Richard's magnum
opus!
In a nutshell, right away, I thought: Fr Richard and Mike Morrell have done regarding the
Trinity precisely what Panikkar did regarding the Christ!
That's to suggest that in the same way that Panikkar elaborated and related his
Christo-phany to classical Christo-logy, they've, in effect, elaborated and related their
beautiful Trinito-phany to classical Trinito-logy.
Enough of my words. But, to my point, I used the glossary entry for Christophany at the
Panikkar website and did word substitutions --- Trinity for Christ, Trinito-logy for
Christo-logy and Trinito-phany for Christo-phany.
Below's what fell out.
It's eerily on the mark???!!!
Trinito-phany is the Christian reection that the third millennium must elaborate.
- It does not claim to offer a universal paradigm, nor even necessarily a model to adopt,
but rather simply to offer to all humanity a believable image of Trinity.
- It is a Christian word yet opened to the universal problematic in a concrete and thereby
limited way.
- The word is used in the sense of phaneros of the Christian scriptures, visible and
public manifestation of a truth. Divine energies are a direct manifestation of God to
human consciousness and represents an experience.
- Trinito-phany does not ignore nor claim to abolish the preceding trinito-logy, but
trinito-phany rather tries to situate itself in a continuity with trinito-logy in order to deepen
it.
- Trinito-phany suggests that the encounter with Trinity can not be reduced to a mere
doctrinal or intellectual approach; it wants to elaborate a reection on the economic
Trinity and the human being with clear reference to the immanent Trinity: The logos is
also the Logos of God, but the Logos is not all of the Trinity."
- The Trinito-phany does not take anything away from the Trinito-logy, but shows itself
opened to the reality of the Spirit.
- This contemplative, mystic attitude situates trinito-phany in a more receptive posture, in
contrast to the more aggressive search on the part of reason.

- This notion of Trinity must include both the gure from the historic past as well as the
present reality.
- Trinito-phany is a reection opened to the Christian scriptures, but is in dialogue with
the other religions; opened to dialogue with the past (even the pre-Christian) and with the
present (even the non-Christian) and in particular the contemporary scientic mentality.
- Trinito-phany, therefore, does not exclude a priori any epiphany of the sacred or the
divine when searching for an integration of the image of the Trinity in a more spacious
cosmovision.
http://raimon-panikkar.org/english/gloss-christophany.html
trinitology, trinitophany, christophany, christology, raimon panikkar, richard rohr, mike
morrell, divine dance, perichoresis, trinity, mystical experience, contemplative mystic

Morrell's 4-D IMAX Rohrian Perichoretic Adventure


To get properly immersed in a 4-D IMAX Rohrian theo-phanic adventure, one needs a set
of 3-D lenses, which implicitly provide Rohr's indispensable theo-logic vision.
Of a hundred writers who have held Duns Scotus up to ridicule, not two of them have
ever read him and not one of them has understood him." ~ Etienne Gilson
Perhaps the same could be said of Richard Rohr?
Occasionally, it does seem to be the case that his Franciscan, Scotistic sensibilities,
which have long yielded minority --- not unorthodox --- reports, leave him misunderstood,
and ...
precisely by those who, only having engaged him sparingly, have engaged him
supercially, thus rashly judging him, even while stridently recommending to others that
he best go unread!
Those who fail to trade-in their hermeneutically polarized theo-logical shades before
entering Rohr's perichoretic theater will not only nd his motion picture of our
relationship to the Trinity blurry, but might feel theologically poked, jolted and shaken in
their seats from a lack of that hermeneutical context, which otherwise allows his
imagery to theophanically stoke, ignite and re-up others of us!
Rohr's hermeneutic --- not only neither blurs nor ignores, but --- manifestly employs very
robust notions regarding identity (strict and nonstrict), separability and distinction.
For those searching for his onto-theo-logical, trinito-logical model,
it's not articulated explicitly in The Divine Dance, which explicates Rohr's theo-poetic,
trinito-phanic imagery. But it is nevertheless implicated and rather pervasively!
This is to recognize that Rohr's mystical imagery has always most certainly represented
a trans-rational, trans-apophatic, experiential and relational over-ow and precisely from
the rational, kataphatic-apophatic, modalities with which they conuently stream,

existentially model-ing the doctrinal and liturgical continuities, which they


theo-phanically transcend but do not theo-logically transgress.
Rohr employs a robustly relational Hermeneutic of Presence:
We encounter Rohr's Implicit Hermeneutic (Scotistic & Palamatic) of Presence vis a vis
the ways he addresses:
Incarnation (Christological & panentheistic) and
Eucharist (people gathered, word proclaimed & sacred species), which then
onto-theo-logically extends to the
Trinity (perichoretic), trinito--logically, for those searching for his model, which takes:
essence as ousia
persons as hypostaseis
energies as energeiai
eucharist as christ's transgured, life-giving, but still human, body, en-hypostasized in the
Logos and penetrated with divine energies
participation, as methexis --- not partaking of divine essence, but --- partaking of
met-ousia
metousiosis as a multifaceted presence that involves
semiotic (sign and symbol),
dynamical (efcacious via divine power and activity),
penetrative (indwelling) and
distinct (essentially, conceptually, adequately, formally and/or modally) realities.
None of this is to claim that such a hermeneutic is either unproblematic or
uncontroversial, only that, at least in Catholic circles -- Anglican, Orthodox and Roman --it is not unorthodox. I don't see why it would necessarily be incompatible in Arminian,
Wesleyan or other traditions. Indeed, many of its elements can foster ecumenical and
interreligious dialogue across all of our great traditions, East and West,
pneumatologically, panentheistically and polydoxically!
theo-phanic, Duns Scotus, Etienne Gilson, Richard Rohr, Scotistic sensibilities,
perichoretic, strict identity, nonstrict identity, separability, onto-theo-logical, trinito-logical
model, Divine Dance, theo-poetic, trinito-phanic trans-rational, trans-apophatic,
kataphatic, apophatic, Hermeneutic of Presence, Scotistic, Palamatic, Incarnation,
Christological, Eucharist, people gathered, word proclaimed, sacred species,
onto-theo-logically, Trinity, trinito--logical, essence, ousia, hypostaseis, energeiai,
en-hypostasized, divine energies, methexis, met-ousia, metousiosis, semiotic, divine

indwelling), essential distinction, conceptual distinction, adequate distinction, formal


distinction, modal distinction, mike morrell, polydoxy, ecumenical dialogue, interreligious
dialogue
pan-semio-en-theism - with no mereological stances, no root metaphors, no modal
necessities mereological agnosticism (neither inconsistent with the fallacy of
composition's applicability nor its inapplicability to the universe vis a vis sufcient
reason) cosmogonal agnosticism (neither inconsistent with, for example, singularity,
steady state, quantum, string, cyclic or multiverse accounts, nor inconsistent with,
for example, creatio ex nihilo, creatio ex profundis, creatio ex chaosmos, creatio
continuans or cosmotheandric coeternality accounts vis a vis primal causation)
ontological agnosticism (not inconsistent, for example, with substance, process or
experience root metaphors) modal agnosticism (not inconsistent with adequate
determinism with or without physical or metaphysical necessities) kenotic
agnosticism (not inconsistent with god-constraints, whether self, metaphysical or
essential, for example) hence compatible with pan-entheism - indwelling god with
kenotic will (self constrained) panen-theism - god as greater than sum of god's
parts (metaphysically constrained) pan-en-theism - cosmotheocentrism with kenotic
nature (essentially constrained) pan-semio-en-theism, mereological stances, root
metaphors, modal necessity, fallacy of composition, principle of sufcient reason,
cosmogony, singularity, steady state, quantum mechanics, string theory, cyclic
universe, multiverse, creatio ex nihilo, creatio ex profundis, creatio ex chaosmos,
creatio continuans, cosmotheandric coeternality, primal causation, substance
ontology, process metaphysics, metaphysics of experience, adequate determinism,
physical necessity, metaphysical necessity, essential kenosis, pan-entheism,
panen-theism, pan-en-theism, cosmotheocentrism

What's going on in my peircean rubric is a move from any robust metaphysic to a vague
phenomenology.
To bust that move, one simply prescinds from necessity to probability in one's modal
ontology.
If, ordinarily, whether in a folk essentialism or naturalist nominalism, the necessary
(normative) mediates between the possible (interpretive) and the actual (descriptive) to
effect various teloi (evaluative) ...
Then, in a vague phenomenology, it is, instead, the probable (normative) that will mediate
between the possible (interpretive) and the actual (descriptive) to effect various teloi
(evaluative).
This vague phenomenology is only ever normative because it successfully references,
maybe in part even describes, what we know from evolutionary epistemology, which is
realist, fallibilist, hedonic/noxious oriented and so on. It accounts for our common sense
and common sensibilities.
Alas, at reality's emergentist thresholds (veldo-, cosmo-, bio-, sentio- and sapio-poietic
entwinements), our vague conceptions break down because our metaphors have

collapsed.
So, we go searching for root metaphors to normalize gravity and quantum mechanics, to
cross the threshold from the inorganic to life, to resolve the hard problem and articulate
a philosophy of mind, to explain symbolic versus syntactic consciousness and so on.
The various emergent teloi- (teleo -potent, -matic, -nomic and -logic) refer to various
end-phenomena (un/bounded, stated, directed and intended). They evoke Aristotelian
notions of formal and nal causation. Rather than remaining wholly vague, however,
when talking in terms of nal causation, such as in classical metaphysics, they aspire to
a tad more specicity.
My inventory of teloi, therefore, does NOT mark an advance in certainty regarding
putative eternal verities, but, instead, marks a RETREAT.
It's easy to plug extremely vague concepts like nal causation into formal syllogisms in
order to reason one's way to apodictic truths and necessary conclusions, but such
tautologies add no new information to any systems.
However, the emergentist heuristic says, hold your epistemic horses, the concept of nal
cause might refer only analogically, maybe even equivocally, to different realities.
Finality, itself, may well be emergent.
We can't be playing so fast and loose with such conceptions, much less employing them
in a modal ontology that presupposes necessities rather than probabilities.
Peirce, himself, crafted a neologism, nious, to refer to telic realities that were not
robustly teleoligical. Ernst Mayr, I think, popularized the teleonomic conception. Deacon's
building on this approach but his understanding is far more rigorous than my
folk-peircean rubric.
My rubric, though, has had great heuristic value for me, personally, helping me better
grasp some of the issues in play in popularized quantum interpretations and
cosmogony.
So much will turn on the quality and degree of reality's mix of chance/necessity,
order/chaos, a/symmetry, un/boundedness, ir/regularity, pattern/paradox and
dis/continuity. That in turn will suggest alternate mereological stances regarding
whether the whole truly begs explanation or can be understood in terms of each part.
One remains a phenomenologist, in my view, to the extent one remains agnostic both
regarding primal mereology and putative root metaphors.
One crosses the threshold and becomes a metaphysician when taking a mereological
stance, a vulgar metaphysician when settling on a root metaphor, and a metaphysical
menace when employing necessity in one's modal ontology.
I employ hyberbole, here, because, properly considered, since metaphysical stances refer
to putative primal realities being merely evidentially plausible, at best, per our

meta-mythic constraints (dare I suggest, ortho-mythic religious naturalism), they would


not tend to interfere, epistemically, in our more robustly probabilistic descriptions,
evaluations, interpretations, hence, norms. Liberal regimes reect this situation,
implicitly and properly, allowing the free exercise, while proscribing the establishment, of
same.
So, treating naturalism as a fuzzy concept, the gradient might take
1) lowercase n to represent agnostic phenomenologists
2) bold lowercase n to represent provisional mereological stances
3) uppercase N to represent an addition of a root metaphor, whether consciousness,
energy, etc to one's meteology
4) bold uppercase N to represent an implicit or explicit use of necessity in one's modal
ontology, added to a mereology and root metaphor.

My Vague Phenomenology and Emergentist Heuristic


veldopoietic entwinement - marked by the teleopotent end-un/boundedness of eld
(veld-) dynamics
cosmopoietic entwinement - marked by the teleomatic end-statedness of a
materio-energetic, proto-sentience
biopoietic entwinement - marked by the teleonomic end-directedness of an
electro-chemical, incipient sentience;
sentiopoietic entwinement - marked by sentience, broadly conceived to include
hormonal sentience;
neuronal sentience (including, for example, abductive instinct);
striatal sentience;
limbic sentience and
cortical sentience (including, for example, nonreective awareness, nonarbitrary
inconicity and indexicality).
sapiopoietic entwinement, marked by the teleologic end-intendedness of
sapient sentience (including, for example, abductive inference, reective awareness,
arbitrary symbolicity and subconscious problem solving).

metaphysics, phenomenology, emergentism, emergentist, emergence, modal ontology,


teleomatic, teleodynamic, teleonomic, teleological, nious, naturalism, metaphysical
naturalism, methodological naturalism, cosmogony, mereology, primal reality, root
metaphor, moral probabilism, quantum interpretation, quantum gravity, philosophy of
mind, emergence of consciousness, origin of life, hard problem of consciousness,
sentience, sapience, teloi, modal ontology, folk essentialism, naturalist nominalism,
evolutionary epistemology, metamythic, common sense, religious naturalism
Charles Sanders Peirce considered god-argumentation a fetish. At the same time, he
distinguished between that and the formulation of an argument, such as the classical
proofs. While those are not conclusive, they are suggestive. They do not prove God's
existence but demonstrate the reasonableness of faith by, at least, establishing the
equiplausibility of its interpretations versus competing stances, especially regarding
putative primal origins, primal being, primal destinies, primal meaning and primal
causes. Such propositions go beyond reason but must not go without it, whether
empirically or logically. They would not, then, interfere with or compete with probabilistic
sciences.
Our traditions contribute so much beyond such creedal propositions. Indeed, ordinarily,
formative spirituality proceeds rst via right belonging, which cultivates right desiring,
which then inspires right behaving. So, our faiths gift us much more so orthocommunal,
orthopathic and orthopraxic stances and much less so orthodoxic propositions, which,
across the different traditions are truly polydoxic, meaning that they addresss different
dimensions of the same ultimate reality, for example, variously emphasizing unitary
being or unitive strivings, etc

Below is a Normative Justication Heuristic based on Evidentiary Standards


proposed as a conversation starter. A religious or poetic worldview represents an
inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or hunch regarding primal axiomatic
realities, integrating various affective inclinations, evaluative dispositions, normative
derivations, implicit cognitive presuppositions and contemplative self-transcendence.
A metaphysical worldview, not necessarily inconsistent with religious and/or poetic
worldviews, represents a particularized reasonable suspicion based on specic and
articulable facts, taken together with rational inferences from those facts,
depending upon the totality of circumstances, and can result from a combination
of particular facts, even if each is individually innocuous. Worldviews are merely
plausibilistic. A moral approach should, for any given issue, be justied by the
evidentiary equivalent of a probable cause, which is to suggest a reasonable
amount of suspicion, supported by circumstances sufciently strong to justify a
prudent and cautious person's belief that certain facts are probably true. A political
stance should be justied by substantial evidence, more than a mere scintilla. It
means such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to
support a conclusion. A legislative remedy should be justied by a preponderance
of the evidence, also known as balance of probabilities. The standard is met if
the proposition is more likely to be true than not true. A constitutional article
should be justied by positions based on what are clear and convincing proofs,
meaning that the evidence must be highly and substantially more probable to be

true than not. Any curtailment of constitutional protections should require evidence
beyond a reasonable doubt, which is to say a proof having been met if there is
no plausible reason to believe otherwise. religious worldview, poetic worldview,
metaphysical worldview, reasonable suspicion, probable cause, primal axiomatic
realities, evidentiary standards, moral philosophy, political philosophy, legal
philosophy, preponderance of the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt,
constitutional law
Using Religious Naturalism as MetaMyth
veldopoietic entwinement - marked by eld (veld-) dynamics cosmopoietic
entwinement - marked by teleomatic end-statedness biopoietic entwinement marked by teleonomic end-directedness sentiopoietic entwinement - marked by
sentience, broadly conceived to include hormonal sentience; neuronal sentience
(including, for example, abductive instinct); striatal sentience; limbic sentience and
cortical sentience (including, for example, nonreective awareness). sapiopoietic
entwinement, marked by the teleologic end-intendedness of sapient sentience
(including, for example, abductive inference, subconscious problem solving and
reective awareness). In my commitment to religious naturalism, "religious" refers
to my evaluative dispositions and "naturalism" refers to my methodological
stipulations. These evaluative and descriptive commitments thus precede and
constrain my metaphysical, metaethical and metamythical approaches. Put
differently, my commitments to the "givens" of religious naturalism (those including
both its values and its epistemic deliverances) thus condition the explicit and
implicit "oughts" cohering in my interpretive, normative and existential stances
toward reality. Said more concretely and specically, my religious naturalism
provisions my objective moral realism and epistemic fallibilism, both which
condition my emergentist phenomenology, holistic personalism and humanist
existentialism. In my view, while existential leaps beyond the metamythic framing
of religious naturalism can be normatively justied, such plausibilist accounts of
putative primal realities do not bear the burdens of proof necessary to be morally
actionable, much less juridically defensible. Primarily, our metanarratives might
otherwise deepen our innate and learned evaluative dispositions through our
manifold and multiform communal celebrations & liturgies and personal devotions
& rituals. By so enhacing our right belongings and reinforcing our right desirings,
our mythic metanarratives, albeit weakly plausibilistic, can still otherwise help
foster that right behaving, which has otherwise already been discerned through
more robustly probabilistic methods. To the extent these metanarratives are not
congruent with the religious naturalist metamythic they can hinder right behaving
and frustrate the values of human authenticity. religious naturalism, falllibilist
epistemology, emergentist phenomenology, humanist existentialism, holistic
personalism, objective moral realism, metamythic frame, meta-myth, veldopoiesis,
cosmopoiesis, biopoiesis, sentiopoiesis, sapiopoiesis, hormonal sentience, neuronal
sentience, striatal sentience, limbic sentience, cortical sentience, sapient sentience,
teleomatic end-statedness, teleonomic end-directedness, teleologic end-intendedness,
emergentist entwinement

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