My Struggle With Eastern Christianity

[Ziggamafu]

I have been putting this thread off because I wanted to begin it with a lengthy, well-researched post. However, whether it is because I don't have enough interest or because I am lazy, I think that this thread would never have happened if I waited for the motivation to "make time" for such a post. I don't really know why this is...I have spent hours and hours on posts in various atheist forums.

Anyway:

Ever since I started reading some of the threads on Eastern Catholicism / Orthodoxy a couple of months ago, I have begun to devote a bit of time to researching the Eastern Christian mindset. I have learned a great deal, though with every new discovery I see that I have much, much, MUCH more to learn. However, two seemingly "core" elements of Eastern Christianity strikingly stand out to me and have left me startlingly turned off.

1. The Church was born "full grown" so to speak. Connected to this is the notion that all of Revelation was understood by the Apostles to the fullest degree attainable by God's will. There is therefore no subsequent "growth" or "evolution" to the Church's theology.

2. The doctrines of Revelation are mysteries and should not be treated as if they were not mysteries. Connected to this is the notion that it is superfluous at best and erroneous at worst to attempt to clarify or probe a doctrine by human logic. Hence the Eastern bias against scholasticism, which treats theology as if it were a science.

Learning of these fundamental aspects of the Eastern mindset (and if I have misrepresented the East I am sure I will be corrected by Apo) has left me feeling ambivalent toward the East. Both of the two elements I've highlighted seem very Protestant to me, and seem to both disregard Divine Truth's gift of human reason and mitigate the Church into a cold and lifeless statue frozen in time rather than a dynamic, living organism.

Why I became Catholic can be summed up in my favorite passage from my favorite 20th century text on Catholicism:

[quote]We Catholics acknowledge readily, without any shame, nay with pride, that Catholicism cannot be identified simply and wholly with primitive Christianity, nor even with the Gospel of Christ, in the same way that the great oak cannot be identified with the tiny acorn. There is no mechanical identity, but an organic identity. And we go further and say that thousands of years hence Catholicism will probably be even richer, more luxuriant, more manifold in dogma, morals, law and worship than the Catholicism of the present day. A religious historian of the fifth millennium A.D. will without difficulty discover in Catholicism conceptions and forms and practices which derive from India, China and Japan, and he will have to recognize a far more obvious complex of opposites." It is quite true, Catholicism is a union of contraries. But contraries are not contradictories. Wherever there is life, there you must have conflict and contrary. Even in purely biblical Christianity, and especially in Old Testament religion, these conflicts and contraries may be observed. For only so is there growth and the continual emergence of new forms. The Gospel of Christ would have been no living gospel, and the seed which He scattered no living seed, if it had remained ever the tiny seed of A.D. 33, and had not struck root, and had not assimilated foreign matter, and had not by the help of this foreign matter grown up into a tree, so that the birds of the air dwell in its branches. So we are far from begrudging the religious historian the pleasure of reading off the inner growth of Catholicism by means of the annual rings of its trunk, and of specifying all those elements which its living force has appropriated from foreign sources. But we refuse to see in these elements thus enumerated the essence of Catholicism, or even to grant that they are "structural elements of Catholicism" in the sense that Catholicism did not achieve historical importance save through them. For the Catholic is intimately conscious that Catholicism is ever the same, yesterday and to-day, that its essential nature was already present and manifest when it began its journey through the world, that Christ Himself breathed into it the breath of life, and that He Himself at the same time gave the young organism those germinal aptitudes which have unfolded themselves in the course of the centuries in regular adaptation to the needs and requirements of its environment.

-[i]The Spirit of Catholicism[/i], by Karl Adam[/quote]

Looking at the New Testament writings in the chronological order in which they were written indicates a gradually clearer understanding of Christ's oral revelation. Certain texts seem to plainly indicate that the author was clueless that what was being written would one day be regarded as divinely inspired (e.g., 1 John). It took centuries for the NT deuterocanonicals to be hammered out. It is hard for me to understand how one can look at Church history and not see and evolution to the Church's theology; a progressive understanding of what Christ meant and how His revelation is to be applied in each contemporary generation. When the blindfold of Sola Scriptura fell off of my eyes, I quickly became enchanted by the beauty of the Church as the living, growing, changing Body of Christ. Always changeless in identity (hence the impossibility of direct contradictions in universal faith-teachings), but ever moving and changing in the understanding and utilization of that identity in every generation.

To quote Adam again:

[quote]Therefore it was not literary records, incontestable documents, which were the primary means of bringing the message of Jesus to men, but the broad stream of the uniform life of faith of the primitive Church, a life based on the preaching of the apostles and animated by the Holy Spirit. How could it have been otherwise? A living thing, in all its depth and in all its extent, cannot be comprised within a few written sentences. Only that which is dead can be adequately delineated in writing. The living thing is continually bursting the temporary form in which literature must perforce embody it. At the very moment that literature is endeavoring to arrest and fix it, the stream of life is escaping and moving swiftly on. Therefore all literature, and even the Bible itself, is stamped with the character of its time, and bears a form which, however vital its content remains, yet all too easily seems stiff and strange to later generations.

And so the writings of apostles and evangelists point beyond themselves to the supernatural life of faith of the primitive Church, whence they themselves grew. The New Testament, although as the inspired word of God it claims its special divine authority guaranteed by the Church's teaching office, stands within this life, for there were many Christian communities already in existence before any apostle took up his pen. Having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the New Testament as the unique document of the faith proclaims no other truths than those which were already living in the Church before it was written. Through all its chinks and crevices we descry the gleam of the living waters of the broad stream of the primitive faith, and the realization of this contributes not a little to a complete understanding of the Bible. For the Gospels present us with only a fragmentary record of Jesus, from which it is impossible to construct an exhaustive picture. And so I learn the complete Christ, not from the Bible, but from the uniform life of faith of the whole Church, a life fertilized by the teaching of the apostles. Without the living, uniform tradition of the Church, essential elements in the picture of Christ would remain either enigmatical or hidden from me. And without it I could achieve neither an historical nor a religious sympathy with Jesus. Such is the meaning of that profound saying of St. Augustine: "I would not believe the Gospel, did not the authority of the Church move me."

...

And so I find the living Christ by means of the living Church. That is as true today as it was on the first day. My faith in Christ is given me basically and preparatorily by the living apostolic word, perfectly and fulfillingly by the living Pentecostal Spirit. Like the apostles, the Church in her living teaching sets before me the image of the Lord, as the Bible luminously portrays Him, and as she has borne Him still more lovingly and radiantly for centuries in her heart. In a full and true sense she can say that she herself has seen this Jesus, that she stood beneath His Cross, and that she heard His Easter greeting: Peace be to you. Therefore she brings me into the closest historical relation to Jesus. She eliminates time from His picture, and she puts me in religious contact with Him. She can point out that the message of Jesus is not only recorded in lifeless parchment, but is embedded in world history by imperishable signs and wonders, that it is confirmed by a Life and Death of unsurpassable purity and innocence and by a Resurrection of dazzling glory, that it has been sealed by the life-blood of thousands and has given countless multitudes of her sons and daughters a new heart and a new conscience. She can assert further that no other religion has ever approached even distantly the moral and religious sublimity of Christianity. And she can maintain that the radiance of this divinity flashes forth and is externally manifested today also in noble saintly figures, that it attests itself in graces that appear ever and again with new brilliance, and in miraculous gifts.

Since her apostolic word proclaims and attests this and much else, the Church can make credible to me the supernatural mystery of Jesus. Her preaching prepares the way for my faith in Jesus. Her testimony becomes in that measure a motive of credibility, as the School expresses it, but is not yet a true motive of faith. It gives me human faith, a certitude which is not as yet absolute, which is still frail.

But to living word is added the Spirit, the inspiration of the one divine Spirit in the communion of the faithful. The Holy Spirit alone gives our will the power and our understanding the light that we may be able to pass from the mere judgment of credibility to the unconditional affirmation of the mysteries of the faith, that is to true divine faith, and so come to the experience of Pentecost. The more closely the Catholic then gets into touch with his Church, not merely externally, but internally, with her prayer and sacrifice, with her word and sacrament, the more sensitive and attentive will he be to the inspiration of the divine Spirit in the community, the more vitally will he grasp the divine life that flows through the organism of the Church. For "in proportion as a man loves the Church, so has he the Holy Spirit" (S. Aug. "In ev. Joann." xxxii, 8). And when he thinks and prays, suffers and strives with the living Church, then he experiences a broadening, deepening and fulfilling of his whole being. And so the logical certitude of his faith becomes progressively a psychological, living experience that it is the very Life of all life by which he is sustained, that verily, as St. Paul expresses this experience, "the Lord is a Spirit" (2 Cor. iii, 17). This certitude is a personal experience, the most personal experience that he has. He may delineate and describe it in rational language, though very crudely and imperfectly, but he cannot impart it to any other. For it is derived from that complete personal contact of his soul with the Spirit of Jesus that inspires the Christian community. But because it is a certitude that he has tested for himself, no man, no doubt, no ridicule can deprive him of it. Therefore, to be absolutely exact, I do not believe the Church, but the living God, who attests Himself to me in the Church. Nor is it I that believe, but the Holy Spirit that is in me. The Catholic grasps and affirms Jesus ultimately and decisively in the flowing life of His Church, in the Church as the mystical Body of Christ.[/quote]

[mortify]

Great post!

[Aloysius]

Romans seem always on the defensive in these threads, it'd be great to have a thread like this to probe the almighty East who hasn't fallen into wicked protestant errors

[Groo the Wanderer]

I pray daily that the shameful schism in Christ's Church be healed soon. We need to be united against the enemy who prowls this world.

The West has the authority of Christ because of the Pope. The East has the spirituality we have lost in many ways. Bring it all back together and WATCH OUT devil!

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1859627' date='May 6 2009, 11:07 AM']Romans seem always on the defensive in these threads, it'd be great to have a thread like this to probe the almighty East who hasn't fallen into wicked protestant errors [/quote]
No one should feel on the defensive in any of the current threads on Eastern Christianity.

[Aloysius]

by "the defensive", I mean it's the question of the Roman practice under scrutiny... ie in the debate, the Romans are defending the Roman practice/position/mindset. It hasn't been, for the most part, focused upon a scrutiny of the Eastern practice/position/mindset. Now, there have been offense-ive (split suffix to avoid synonym confusion) defenses, sure, Ressurexi comes to mind, but that's all I meant by on the defensive

[Groo the Wanderer]

Funny this thread came up today. This morning, when I was supposed to be doing research for my homework, I wandered over to the diocesan website and looked through the various parishes. Then I wandered over to the Dallas diocese to look at theirs. I found a Byzantine Rite church about 20 mins from me.

I ended up spending the next 2 hours reading everything they have posted about how they celebrate the Divine Liturgy, the Akathist prayers, what a Tetrapod is and how to properly approach it. w00t!

While the Eastern rites do not have the same devotions we do, reading about common Byzantine/Eastern devotions filled me with joy. So much spirituality, so much sacredness, so much prayer.

I don't think I'll be changing rites anytime, but I DEFINITELY wanna pop in there sometime to experience the other half of Christ's Church.



...that they may all be one...


oh yeah...the link for that Byzantine Rite parish... [url="http://www.stbasilsinirving.org/stb/"]http://www.stbasilsinirving.org/stb/[/url]
Lots of pictures, media, and explanations of the faith tradition. yum!

[Aloysius]

I want to join on with the criticism of the idea of the Church as having been born whole. I had an analogy that I thought would be ironic and amusing... it seems as if the Easterners view the Church the way Westerners have, for a long time, viewed heaven. It's a stoic reality... fully actualized and thus needing no more development and clarification... anything that could ever have been needed was taken care of at least by the end of the first millenium, you know. Whereas the Western Church is more like the Eastern heaven, a continuing spiral further and further into the mysteries that were received from Apostolic times... the Apostles didn't have the theology fully formed... it's not too speculative to continue to develop theology as a science or to continue to develop doctrines in ways that bring about more and different understanding (though never contradictory understanding)... it's all a part of that continuing spiral into the heart of the divine mysteries we received. development of doctrine is important.

I like counter intuitive examples... and I'm really developing quite a lot of them in my mind as regards the East/West controversies.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1859688' date='May 6 2009, 12:59 PM']by "the defensive", I mean it's the question of the Roman practice under scrutiny... ie in the debate, the Romans are defending the Roman practice/position/mindset. It hasn't been, for the most part, focused upon a scrutiny of the Eastern practice/position/mindset. Now, there have been offense-ive (split suffix to avoid synonym confusion) defenses, sure, Ressurexi comes to mind, but that's all I meant by on the defensive [/quote]
The difficulty that you are experiencing has been expressed by many people, including Joseph Ratzinger, who -- in his book entitled [u]Principles of Catholic Theology[/u] -- said:

"After all, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, in the same bull in which he excommunicated the Patriarch Michael Cerularius and thus inaugurated the schism between East and West, designated the Emperor and people of Constantinople as 'very Christian and orthodox,' although their concept of the Roman primacy was certainly far less different from that of Cerularius than from that, let us say, of the First Vatican Council. [b]In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been [i]formulated and was lived in the first millennium[/i][/b]. When the Patriarch Athenagoras, on July 25, 1967, on the occasion of the Pope's visit to Phanar, designated him as the successor of St. Peter, as the most esteemed among us, as one also presides in charity, this great Church leader was expressing the essential content of the doctrine of primacy as it was known in the first millennium. Rome need not ask for more. Reunion could take place in this context if, on the one hand, the East would cease to oppose as heretical the developments that took place in the West in the second millennium and would accept the Catholic Church as legitimate and orthodox in the form she had acquired in the course of that development, while, on the other hand, the West would recognize the Church of the East as orthodox and legitimate [b]in the form she has always had[/b]" [[u]Principles of Catholic Theology[/u], pages 198-199].

Clearly, any move toward reunion between the whole of the East (i.e., with the Eastern Orthodox Churches) and the West will require that both sides scrutinize the "developments that took place in the West in the second millennium," while the faith of the East will not require the same type of scrutiny because -- as Cardinal Ratiznger said -- the East has maintained the "form she has always had."

Edited May 6, 2009 by Apotheoun

[thessalonian]

We can certainly give the East time to assimilute the dogmas of the second millenium but it seems to me that in some way the east has to be held accountable for them. We must of course be careful to see that we don't condemn where we are not really contradicting but the developments of the second millenium ARE the result of promptings of the spirit and require the adherence of ALL the faihtful. I truly don't understand how the east can maintain the position that there were no councils and no dogmas over the past millenium. I see that as an apologetic reason for them to rethink their standing in the fullness of the truth if they will be open to reflect on it.

[mortify]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1859733' date='May 6 2009, 02:57 PM']The difficulty that you are experiencing has been expressed by many people, including Joseph Ratzinger, who -- in his book entitled [u]Principles of Catholic Theology[/u] -- said:
(snip) [b]In other words, Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been [i]formulated and was lived in the first millennium[/i][/b].[/quote]

Hate to double post but in case someone runs into this thread and not the other... let us not forget that Pope St Leo the Great lived in the first millennium.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='mortify' post='1859915' date='May 6 2009, 04:32 PM']Hate to double post but in case someone runs into this thread and not the other... let us not forget that Pope St Leo the Great lived in the first millennium.[/quote]
Yes he lived in the first millennium, but he never made the kinds of claims that the First Vatican Council made, and nor would claims to power over the other bishops in the Church have been accepted by the East had he made them. It must not be forgotten that even Leo's [i]Tome[/i], which was delivered at the Council of Chalcedon, was not accepted as authoritative until it had been compared with the teaching of St. Cyril of Alexandria for orthodoxy of expression.

Edited May 6, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Ziggamafu]

[quote name='thessalonian' post='1859863' date='May 6 2009, 06:12 PM']We can certainly give the East time to assimilute the dogmas of the second millenium but it seems to me that in some way the east has to be held accountable for them. We must of course be careful to see that we don't condemn where we are not really contradicting but the developments of the second millenium ARE the result of promptings of the spirit and require the adherence of ALL the faihtful. I truly don't understand how the east can maintain the position that there were no councils and no dogmas over the past millenium. I see that as an apologetic reason for them to rethink their standing in the fullness of the truth if they will be open to reflect on it.[/quote]

The problem is that as long as the East holds to the two points l raised in the OP, such developments on their side are impossible. I loved the quote from Ratzinger, which basically highlighted that the state of the Eastern Orthodox churches is like the state of the Church as a whole around one thousand years ago. I do relate to your bafflement over what it must feel like to think that the ecumenical councils (the need for infallible guidance) somehow ceased being important after the seventh one. And although I concede it as obvious (clever quote-snatchers such as Steve Ray notwithstanding) that the early Church did not have near the development of papal theology that we do today, it seems fairly obvious to me from the Scriptures that developments of papal theology were at the very least foretold / foreshadowed in advance when Christ isolated Peter for the reception of a new name and - more importantly - the keys of the kingdom. Stanley Yaki's book on the subject demonstrates this well (and so does Steve Ray's second appendix to [i]Upon This Rock[/i]). Perhaps the Apostles did not know what all of that meant in their own lifetimes. Perhaps it took the Church centuries to figure out (even as we are still "figuring it out"). But the developments of papal theology seem natural and organic nevertheless. It would take another council - the 8th, in the mind of the East - in order to get everyone to agree on that, however.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1859934' date='May 6 2009, 04:39 PM']The problem is that as long as the East holds to the two points l raised in the OP, such developments on their side are impossible. . . .[/quote]
I will try to give a more detailed response when I have the time, but for the moment I will simply say this: For the East the faith is an experiential encounter with the Tri-hypostatic God, who is beyond intellectual conception, and because the faith is beyond the created intellect of man it is not possible to "develop" theology. The encounter with God that the Apostles experienced is identical to that experienced today through the Church's liturgy. In fact, that is the whole point of [i]anamnesis[/i] (remembrance), for it is one and the same experience that is rendered present in the life and memory of the Church throughout the centuries.

God is not a concept; instead, He is a tri-personal being and no concept can contain the uncontainable.


The quotation below illustrates my point:

"Sensible light shows things to our senses. The intellectual light is to manifest the truth which is contained in thoughts. But those who receive the spiritual or supernatural Light, perceive what is beyond all intellect. They participate in the divine energies and become themselves, in a sort, Light. When they unite to the Light, they see with it in full all that is hidden from those who have not seen the grace of Light. The Uncreated Light is the Light where God makes Himself manifest to those who enter into union with Him." -- [i]St. Gregory Palamas[/i]

Edited May 6, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Aloysius]

I find it fascinating how it all comes down to how the West conceives of the possibility of partially knowing things, of concepts approaching the understanding; while the East considers even partial knowledge of the Divine Essence impossible. I find it interesting for how far-reaching the implications of that are...