hypostasis & homoousios

It was definitely "terminology night" in TS501 last night. Yikes! Such language.. it hurts the head. It might actually be a relief to go to RCIA class tonight and learn about Sacramentals. ;)

Trinitas. (first coined by Tertullian, and the night's topic - the Trinity)

Substantia & personae. (the Latin for substance and person)

Ousia & hypostasis & prosopon. (the Greek for the same ideas.. but not *exactly* the same, which apparently caused a bit of trouble at the Ecumenical Council of Nicea, back in the day. Like, waaaaay back in the day.)

Homoousious or homoiousios? (of one substance, or of like substance? Also a sore spot. One substance won out, by the way.)

And then you have the infamous "filioque clause" (for 'and the Son'), added to the Nicene Creed by the West, helping precipitate the divide between Constantinople and Rome. (of course the sacking of Constantinople by the West didn't help matters, either..)

So when I questioned if anyone had argued that the concept of the Trinity was just a helpful construct that God provided us to help us understand His revelation of Himself to us, but that it didn't require Him to *be* a trinity ontologically, the prof said: "Well, I think that would be another way of understanding the thrust of modalism."

Then he had the nerve to ask me: "So... are you a modalist, then?"

I didn't know if I should be offended or not! :)

I replied: "I don't know yet. I guess you could say I'm still in process. Is that what you call a 'Process Theologian'?" That seemed to satisfy him, and got a laugh out of the class. Inside humor for theology geeks...

I'm beginning to understand why some people say they leave seminary with more questions than they had going in.

Oy! My aching head..