I have an ongoing series on Bulgakov's Apocalypse of John on Grail Country, would love to have you join us and talk about this reflection on Even So Come. I'll shoot you an email.
Say more about this last clause of this statement: "But the change to come is the transformation of all things—including time, space, and matter—into God’s unconditioned, uncreated ways of being." Transformation into "uncreated ways of being."
For Bulgakov (and Maximus, as seen in Amb 41, as well as the Cappadocians, et. al.) our humanity and all other creatures' creatureliness comes to share fully in the Spirit, who gives us a share in God's ways of being God — in Johannine language, we know as we are known; in Petrine, we are made partakers of the divine nature; in Pauline, we are not not merely made alive but become life-giving spirits.
Do you see this as a kind of hypostatic union - different from Jesus who IS God, but also "like" him, our new Adam holds our HUMAN continuity as well as discontinuity - such that to become life-giving spirits is precisely to become true human beings embodied for "the age to come" as fully born children of the life-giving, eschatological SPIRIT? Is our full partaking of the uncreated divine nature a full renewal of our created humanity? Completed creatureliness shares fully in the Spirit and thus becomes the full creature, fully alive? "Made alive" precisely as creatures who do not lose the integrity and particularity of our creatureliness in our "transformation into uncreated ways of being"? LOTS of restating of the same question here, I know, but I'm wanting to press into being the fully sanctifed/holified children of God - who remain -newly, Spirit-ually - human. Maybe you can tell I've been reading lots on gnosticism recently!!
Bonhoeffer is helpful here: God became human so that humans might become human—because to be human is to become as Jesus is. Divine humanity, in other words, is the only humanity there is!
Question Chris, though yet again my choice wording might greatly risk grave reductionism at the cost of a, probably very necessary, fuller response:
Why wasn’t / isn’t the Second Coming of Christ the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost?
Which, presumably, is still unfolding or playing out the culmination of the “already” but “not yet” Kingdom [Presence] of God within and throughout all creation.
I ask because (Shhhhhh...!) I’ve found myself already concluding as much. 😬Yelp, even though my eschatological-ecclesiological sensibilities should prove to be half-baked and not even half-cocked; and, therefore, as wrong as rain in a hurricane, and as foolish as tea with Trump at sentencing and visiting hours. Yelp, though my pneumatology be reckoned worse than deceptive in all its satanic evil and bifurcated tongue; and, consequently, altogether heretical while leaving me irrevocably anathema!
Because, it very much seems to me the End determines the Beginning every bit as much, if not more, than the Beginning might dictate the End? E.g., when explaining a game isn’t it necessary if not wise to start at the very end and then work to the start? Otherwise, inherent unanswered questions like, “Uhhhh... what’s the point???”, will continually compile and confuse competitors.
All that to say, Bulgakov seems to be saying what I’ve either dimly or dumbly now dared to ask? God knows that, sure as shootin’, I’d love to have this gracious theologian and poet warrior in my corner while “pressing on”! At the very least, utterly joyful to discover his eschatology a true “safe space” o’ grace to hide under while hunkering down and hiding out—planning and propagating my next plague upon God’s people.
I have an ongoing series on Bulgakov's Apocalypse of John on Grail Country, would love to have you join us and talk about this reflection on Even So Come. I'll shoot you an email.
Say more about this last clause of this statement: "But the change to come is the transformation of all things—including time, space, and matter—into God’s unconditioned, uncreated ways of being." Transformation into "uncreated ways of being."
For Bulgakov (and Maximus, as seen in Amb 41, as well as the Cappadocians, et. al.) our humanity and all other creatures' creatureliness comes to share fully in the Spirit, who gives us a share in God's ways of being God — in Johannine language, we know as we are known; in Petrine, we are made partakers of the divine nature; in Pauline, we are not not merely made alive but become life-giving spirits.
Do you see this as a kind of hypostatic union - different from Jesus who IS God, but also "like" him, our new Adam holds our HUMAN continuity as well as discontinuity - such that to become life-giving spirits is precisely to become true human beings embodied for "the age to come" as fully born children of the life-giving, eschatological SPIRIT? Is our full partaking of the uncreated divine nature a full renewal of our created humanity? Completed creatureliness shares fully in the Spirit and thus becomes the full creature, fully alive? "Made alive" precisely as creatures who do not lose the integrity and particularity of our creatureliness in our "transformation into uncreated ways of being"? LOTS of restating of the same question here, I know, but I'm wanting to press into being the fully sanctifed/holified children of God - who remain -newly, Spirit-ually - human. Maybe you can tell I've been reading lots on gnosticism recently!!
Bonhoeffer is helpful here: God became human so that humans might become human—because to be human is to become as Jesus is. Divine humanity, in other words, is the only humanity there is!
That's it. You just said what I was groping toward. THANKS Bishop!!
And thank you for sharing Bulgokov with us and the beauty of your MAIN point! I don't want to lose the wonder in the weeds.
Question Chris, though yet again my choice wording might greatly risk grave reductionism at the cost of a, probably very necessary, fuller response:
Why wasn’t / isn’t the Second Coming of Christ the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost?
Which, presumably, is still unfolding or playing out the culmination of the “already” but “not yet” Kingdom [Presence] of God within and throughout all creation.
I ask because (Shhhhhh...!) I’ve found myself already concluding as much. 😬Yelp, even though my eschatological-ecclesiological sensibilities should prove to be half-baked and not even half-cocked; and, therefore, as wrong as rain in a hurricane, and as foolish as tea with Trump at sentencing and visiting hours. Yelp, though my pneumatology be reckoned worse than deceptive in all its satanic evil and bifurcated tongue; and, consequently, altogether heretical while leaving me irrevocably anathema!
Because, it very much seems to me the End determines the Beginning every bit as much, if not more, than the Beginning might dictate the End? E.g., when explaining a game isn’t it necessary if not wise to start at the very end and then work to the start? Otherwise, inherent unanswered questions like, “Uhhhh... what’s the point???”, will continually compile and confuse competitors.
All that to say, Bulgakov seems to be saying what I’ve either dimly or dumbly now dared to ask? God knows that, sure as shootin’, I’d love to have this gracious theologian and poet warrior in my corner while “pressing on”! At the very least, utterly joyful to discover his eschatology a true “safe space” o’ grace to hide under while hunkering down and hiding out—planning and propagating my next plague upon God’s people.