From: Steve.Hayes@p5.f22.n7101.z5.fidonet.org (Steve Hayes)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: What is a "personal god" (Re:'my personal savior')?
Date: 3 Oct 92 06:22:42 GMT

On <29 Sep 1992 21:56> Chang-Chi Liu said to All :

 CL>Despite of the recent discusion about the personal savior, I am 
 CL>still  
 CL>confused about the term "personal god".  I checked the Webster 
 CL>about the  
 CL>word "personal', and the following are the definitions:

<definitions deleted>

 CL>I am not sure which definition(s) is the right one.  The 
 CL>"correct" use of  
 CL>"personal god" seems to imply definition (2a), and (2b).  How 
 CL>about (5a)  
 CL>and (5b)?  The moderator made it clear that a personal god is not a  
 CL>private god.  My another question is that where does the term  "personal  
 CL>god" come from?

The English word "person" is used in two senses by theologians. In once sense 
it is derived, via Latin, from the Greek word "prosopon", meaning having ones 
face towards someone - someone who sees and is seen. In the sense of the 
three "persons" of the Holy Trinity, it is used to translate the Greek word 
"hypostasis". 

I hope the following extracts from a book by the theologian Christos Yannaras 
may help. The books is "The freedom of morality", and it was published in 1984 
by St Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood, New York.

"In the life of the Church, God reveals himse;f as the hypostasis of being, 
the personal hypostasis of eternal life. The personal existence of God is the 
comprehensive and exhaustive expression of the truth of being. It is not the 
essence or the energy of God which constitutes being, but his personal mode of 
existence: God as person is the hypostasis of being.

"In other words, the Church does not identify the truth of being with God as 
an objective and abstract first cause of existence and life: God is not a 
vague supreme being, an impersonal essence which may be approached only 
through the intellect or the emotions. Nor is He a `prime mover,' a blind 
energy whiuch sets in motion the mechanism of the world; nor yet an image of 
man exalted into an absolute, an infinite magnification of the individual 
characteristics and psychological demands of the human being. The God of whom 
the Church has experience is the God who reveals Himself in history as 
personal existence, as distinctiveness and freedom. God is person, and He 
speaks with man `face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend' (Ex 33:11)."

"The one God is not one divine nature or essence, but primarily one person: 
the person of God the Father. The personal existence of God (the Father) 
constitutes His essence or being, making it into `hypostases': freely and from 
love He begets the Son and causes the Holy Spirit to proceed."

"The truth of the personal relationship with God, which may be positive or 
antithetical but is nevertheless always an existential relationship, is the 
definition of man, his mode of being. Man is an existential fact of 
relationship and communion. He is a person, Prosopon, which signifies, both 
etymologically and in practice, that he has a face (ops) towards (pros) 
someone or something: that he is opposite (in relation to or in connection 
with) someone or something. In every one of its personal hypostases, the 
created nature of man is `opposite' God: it exists as a reference and relation 
to God."

"Consequently the person is not an individual, a segment or subdivision of 
human nature as a whole. He represents not the relationship of the part to the 
whole, but the possibility of summing up the whole in a distinctiveness of 
relationship, in an act of self-transcendence."

"In everyday speech, we tend to distort the meaning of the word `person'. What 
we call `person' or `personal' designates rather more the individual. We have 
grown accustomed to regarding the terms `person' and `individual' as more or 
less synonymous, and we use the two indifferently to express the same thing. 
From one point of view, however, `person' and `individual' are opposite in 
meaning. The individual is the denial or neglect of the distinctiveness of the 
person, the attempt to define human existence using the objective properties 
of man's common nature, and quantitative comparisons and analogies."

===== end of quote =====

There is a great deal more, but I hope that is enough to show that when we 
speak of a "personal relationship with God" it does not (or should not) mean 
a _private_ relationship with God. The term "personal saviour" can express 
the truth of our relationship with God. But it can also, if misunderstood as 
Yannaras indicates above, distort the truth of that relationship. 


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