My Struggle With Eastern Christianity

[Apotheoun]

Al,

Part of the problem is that East and West mean different things when we speak of "knowledge" or of "knowing" God. Read St. Gregory of Nyssa's homilies on the [i]Canticle of Canticles[/i] or his treatise [i]The Life of Moses[/i], or read St. Maximos' treatise entitled [i]Thalassium[/i], and you will see what I mean. For the East knowledge refers to an experiential encounter (i.e., like when Adam "knew" his wife), while for the West knowledge refers to intellectual knowledge arrived at by discursive reasoning. To really [i]know[/i] God -- from an Eastern Christian perspective -- intellectual activity must cease, because it is only then that one can enter into the uncreated gift of [i]theosis[/i] and experience God as He truly exists beyond being.

God grant you many joyful years,
Todd

Edited May 6, 2009 by Apotheoun

[mortify]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1860001' date='May 6 2009, 06:01 PM']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... [/quote]

It should be clarified that not all Easterners believe the Just in Heaven wont be able to see God's Essence. This is more of a Greek idea than anything else.

[Aloysius]

I've read Gregory of Nyssa (actually had a class that included some of his works this year, mind you it wasn't too in depth or good of a class, but it was a class nonetheless)

I understand and accept that there must be a focus on the experiential aspect of knowing God; however, I also believe that applying intellectual concepts towards approaching Him can be one means of experiencing Him, and a means by which one deepens one's understanding of He whom they are experiencing. so I affirm the scholastic approach to theology as one part of the more holistic experience that the human race has of God... you try to cut off an essential aspect of human experiencing, which is the intellectual approach to attain one type of knowledge. It can work in tandem, the intellectual approach need not cease as the experiential knowledge comes.

[Apotheoun]

[i]Theosis[/i] is beyond man's created intellect, and -- since you have read St. Gregory of Nyssa -- you know that he holds that only when one gives up the intellectual pursuit of God shall he truly find Him.

[Aloysius]

But I do not necessarily agree with Gregory there. I believe one must give up the intellectual route as the primary means, but I do not believe one needs to give it up altogether. The intellectual approach will not result in theosis, but it is indeed one very important way in which many people experience God. The problem is when it becomes the only way. One must be willing to surrender and submit one's own intellect to the ascent of the spiritual life in God, but one need not cease applying concepts to their experience of Him.

[Innocent]

My reversion from indifference to attempting to take the faith seriously started with my reading from two or three different sources (Dom Aelred Graham & Pope Benedict XVI) that the Catholic Church is the great "Both ... And"

A recent example of this is what Pope Benedict said in his [url="http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7743"]July 2007 Q&A session[/url] in 2005 with diocesan clergy:

[quote]... Catholicism, somewhat simplistically, has always been considered the religion of the great "et et" ["both-and"]: not of great forms of exclusivism but of synthesis. The exact meaning of "Catholic" is "synthesis".

...

I would say - and it seems to me that I have already mentioned this earlier - that this aspect is also part of a good and truly Catholic pastoral care: living in the "et et"; living the humanity and humanism of the human being, all the gifts which the Lord has lavished upon us and which we have developed; and at the same time, not forgetting God, because ultimately, the great light comes from God and then it is only from him that comes the light which gives joy to all these aspects of the things that exist. Therefore, I would simply like to commit myself to the great Catholic synthesis, to this "et et"; to be truly human. And each person, in accordance with his or her own gifts and charism, should not only love the earth and the beautiful things the Lord has given us, but also be grateful because God's light shines on earth and bathes everything in splendour and beauty. In this regard, let us live catholicity joyfully. This would be my answer.[/quote]


I suppose this view would be considered totally foreign to the Orthodox mindset?

Edited May 7, 2009 by Innocent

[Innocent]

Today I found something really interesting.

It has to do with Mortimer Adler, the famous Aristolean philospher, who was for a long time, a non-Catholic Thomist (!) and who finally converted to Catholicism roughly one year before his death. (But I think he joined the Episcopal community in 1983 before that.)

Anyway, back to the subject: Adler, based on his Thomistic mindset, in one of his books[url="http://thursdaynightgumbo.blogspot.com/2008/05/vehige-review-of-mortimer-adlers-truth.html"](reviewed here)[/url] considers the religions which reject the unity of truth have to be considered false.

But later, when he talks about why he became a Christian, he says,

“My chief reason for choosing Christianity was because the mysteries were incomprehensible. What’s the point of revelation if we could figure it out ourselves? If it were wholly comprehensible then it would be just another philosophy.” ([url="http://www.musingsat85.com/myblog/?p=346"]source[/url])

Somehow I thought of this thread and the discussion about the partial use with subordination to whole experience vs. total non-use of the intellect in religion when I read this. I wonder where Adler was on this spectrum.

[Ziggamafu]

The author of 3 John felt that continuing to write his personal note would be a waste, clearly indicating that he had no clue that he was writing under divine inspiration.

The development in theology from Mark to John is self-evident.

The evolutionary understanding of the nature of God and Christ is made clear by even a casual reading of the Fathers of the first several centuries.

All of these points seem to indicate a Church that is a living, organic entity, moving and changing through time as a mustard seed grows into a "tree" that gives shelter; I do not see within the Gospels a Church that is a sculpture, frozen in time almost two thousand years ago.

I grant that the Eastern churches seem now to exist in a form most like that of the infant Church. I grant that the East seems to possess a more solemn and sacred liturgical ambiance than the West, most likely due to the Eastern emphasis on mysteries and mysticism. I furthermore grant that the current Eastern churches are not "wrong" anymore than the Church as a whole was wrong when it was, more or less, indistinguishable from the Eastern churches around 1,000 years ago. I simply see the evolution of the Church as self-evident from even a casual read through its history, and the Eastern churches therefore seem to have stunted their own growth. And it consequently seems, at this admittedly early stage in my studies of the East (studies that are entirely indebted to the help of Apo, for the record) that the East, although it has much in attitude that the West has tragically forgotten, seems to be crippled.

Regarding the experience of God:

I do not reduce sex with my wife to a mathematical equation (although I suppose in that case 1+1 could =3); it is an experience that I believe was created as a poetic image of the Trinity (which I know the East would disagree with, although I think it could be argued - though I wouldn't want to risk my life by arguing it - that even here the father is the "source" of causation). Nevertheless, I grow in my understanding of her, as innumerable head-lumps caused by frying pans will readily indicate. I do not believe that divine intimacy precludes the divine approval of and even admonishment toward the use of reason in figuring out God; a task which, like understanding my wife, is infinitely beyond all human power, albeit not beyond our responsibilities and certainly not beyond the wants of our spouse, earthly or divine.

God could have revealed the full grandeur of his plan to Adam immediately after the Fall; he didn't. Christ could have revealed the full grandeur of his revelation on the first day of his preaching ministry; he didn't. Like the creation of the universe, all of God's history with Man has been indicative of a God who likes to "take time" with his Creation. It fits the nature of such a God - a God who is Truth itself - to create a Church like he created trees, to lumber slowly but ever taller through time, bearing scars and indignities from passersby, to sway in the winds that may come, but to ultimately shelter all who would find refuge under her branches. God did not send Jesus full grown, but as the smallest of seeds, slowly, but surely, growing and developing in the fullness of time. Likewise it would seem to make sense that the Mystical Body of this same Jesus would be growing and moving through time. And it would make sense that the God who is Truth would want his children to explore and understand more and more of His Truth by means of their God-given reason.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1860157' date='May 6 2009, 08:11 PM']The evolutionary understanding of the nature of God and Christ is made clear by even a casual reading of the Fathers of the first several centuries.[/quote]
That is how modern Western Christians read the Fathers, but they have fundamentally misunderstood the Fathers, especially the Cappadocian Fathers.

To be frank, what St. Maximos discribes as hell, i.e., a discursive or intellectual knowledge of God, is what the Scholastics called heaven.

[Apotheoun]

Zig,

St. Gregory is quite clear on this subject, and he disagrees with Aloysius, because he holds that discursive knowledge, i.e., knowledge achieved through the dialectical processes of the mind, actually prevent a man from finding God, and so he must leave that type of knowledge behind. He speaks of this in his homilies on [i]Ecclesiastes[/i] and in his homilies on the [i]Canticle of Canticles[/i] when -- in the latter text -- he describes the Brides (i.e., the Church's) search for her Bridegroom (i.e., God), and here is what he said:

[size=3]No name would have a meaning that would reach Him Whom we seek. [b]For how can He be discovered by a name when He is beyond all names?[/b] Thus she says: I called Him, but He answered not (Cant. 3:1). For then I recognized that of the magnificence of the glory of His holiness there is no end. Hence she gets up again and in spirit traverses the entire spiritual and transcendental world, which she calls here a city. Here are the principalities and dominations and thrones assigned to powers, and gatherings of heavenly hosts (which she calls the market-place) and an innumerable multitude (which she calls the broad ways), and through all she hopes to find Him Whom she loves. In her search she surveys the entire angelic army. And not finding among the good things there the object of her quest, she reasons thus with herself: Is it possible that my Beloved can be comprehended? Have you seen Him whom my soul loveth? [b]Their only answer to the question is silence; and by their silence they show that what she seeks is incomprehensible to them.[/b] And after she has gone about the entire supramundane city [b]by the operation of her mind[/b], and has not recognized her Beloved even among things spiritual and immaterial, [b]then at last she gives up all she has found; for she realizes that what she seeks can be understood only in the very inability to know His essence, and that every intelligible attribute becomes merely a hindrance to those who seek to find Him.[/b] This is why she says: When I had a little passed by them (Cant. 3:4), [b]I abandoned all creatures and passed by all that is intelligible in creation; and when I gave up every finite mode of comprehension, then it was that I found my Beloved by faith.[/b] [St. Gregory of Nyssa, [i]Homilies on the Canticle of Canticles[/i]][/size]

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1860157' date='May 6 2009, 08:11 PM']I do not reduce sex with my wife to a mathematical equation (although I suppose in that case 1+1 could =3); it is an experience that I believe was created as a poetic image of the Trinity (which I know the East would disagree with, although I think it could be argued - though I wouldn't want to risk my life by arguing it - that even here the father is the "source" of causation). Nevertheless, I grow in my understanding of her, as innumerable head-lumps caused by frying pans will readily indicate. I do not believe that divine intimacy precludes the divine approval of and even admonishment toward the use of reason in figuring out God; a task which, like understanding my wife, is infinitely beyond all human power, albeit not beyond our responsibilities and certainly not beyond the wants of our spouse, earthly or divine.[/quote]
Whether you like it or not, your noetic conceptions formed from the experience of you wife in married life are distanciated from that actually experience, and so they cannot really convey what that experience is, but that is not all, for there is even a further distanciation that occurs when you try to reduce your noetic conceptions to language, because language cannot relate clearly even the concepts that one forms in relation to reality. All of this was pointed out by the Cappadocian Fathers in their disputes with the heretic Eunomius, for he believed that he could noetically conceive God in his mind and grow in his knowledge of Him, who is beyond intellectual conception.

As St. Gregory explained in relation to David's statement in the Psalms that all men are liars (Ps. 116:11), the great King of Israel was not saying that all men are depraved; rather, he was pointing out the limited nature of human language. Language is a [i]diastemic[/i] reality and as such it is the creation of man, and not the creation of the Creator of man, who does not have language, but only a Word. This idea is also found in St. Hilary, as I said in an earlier post.

Edited May 7, 2009 by Apotheoun

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]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.[/quote]

it looks like the debate between 'side with mystery' v. 'don't side with mystery', or 'side with 'we kinda have the ability to know things' v. 'side with 'we kinda don't have the ability to know' -- are two sides of the same coin.

it'd seem any reasonable person would say reason can only take one so far, both experientially and even in an intellectually good way. -- and can lead to sufficating God due to things that could never be understood without God's premises. ( no one would say it's not okay to speculate-- is there anyone who'd say that? no, just perhpas arguable about the degree of it)
yet that reason shoujldn't be abondoned.
as i usually say as a hard core moderate,,,, these are more psychological differences than anything. that, perhaps probably do play out in reality significantly, in how those espousing the sides, in a way that makes one more rationalist and the other not.... but aren't really that different other than degree.
my background is very intellectuaal and rationalist... and i've found to the orthodox to be a release philsophyically. not to mention many other reasons i have mucho respect for them etc. so i may be a bit bias for them.


as to the first point, im not sure who or where it's said that the orthodox think all has been revealed etc.
i do know that it's pretty standard to say 'only the first five (?) councils are binding" etc. and that is kinda arbitrary to me. maybe a rule of thumb, maybe not? i don't know.
i doubt that's what the orthodox would say though. it sounds more like a caricature of them than anything - that is the stuff about 'all has been revealed'.

there is a lot to be said though, about the system of truth they utilize, as arguably inferior to the catholic system. there's not much more, at least in my opionion, to be said firmly about all that, other than philosophically, though.
(depending on how one views 'firmly' of course)

Edited May 7, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]as to the first point, im not sure who or where it's said that the orthodox think all has been revealed etc.
i do know that it's pretty standard to say 'only the first five (?) councils are binding" etc. and that is kinda arbitrary to me. maybe a rule of thumb, maybe not? i don't know.
i doubt that's what the orthodox would say though. it sounds more like a caricature of them than anything - that is the stuff about 'all has been revealed'.[/quote]

i mean, it shoulds like it could very well be in line with the catholic idea that divine revelation and "what's need to be known" per knowledge, and been revealed etc.
i wonder if there's as much disagreement on this point as is let on.

maybe initil poster of this thread would agree that the orthodox would agree more things can be deductively or 'good idea' etc known, and that perhaps 'what's needed to be known for salvation etc' has been revealed. but, he'd disagree with the idea that there's nothing that could be definitively and mandatorily stated as infallible any more.
that kinda goes back to the idea of the philsophies behind the catholic v orthodox systems, and im not sure it's so much a 'for sure' bad point per them, just debateable though i can see as plausible not liking the idea. im not sure why it's such a big deal though? for example, say the assumption of mary was never defined and not mandatorily required as belief, is that such a bad thing? unless he's more concerned about things like moral concern, like 'contraception equals immoral' where as in the orthodox it's up for grabs. ?

Edited May 7, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]maybe initil poster of this thread would agree that the orthodox would agree more things can be deductively or 'good idea' etc known, and that perhaps 'what's needed to be known for salvation etc' has been revealed. but, he'd disagree with the idea that there's nothing that could be definitively and mandatorily stated as infallible any more.
that kinda goes back to the idea of the philsophies behind the catholic v orthodox systems, and im not sure it's so much a 'for sure' bad point per them, just debateable though i can see as plausible not liking the idea. im not sure why it's such a big deal though? for example, say the assumption of mary was never defined and not mandatorily required as belief, is that such a bad thing? unless he's more concerned about things like moral concern, like 'contraception equals immoral' where as in the orthodox it's up for grabs. ?[/quote]

that's being said from a more liberal orthodox view, ie mine. ie 'we can't really know, just sometimes deductively and sometimes 'a good idea'.
but i know many a good orthodox would say many things can be known objectively and manditorily etc. at that point, it's more a fight between what sense of 'objectively'. and again a fight regarding the underlying philosophical basis's for the systems of truth.

[abercius24]

Apotheoun, it almost seems as though you hold that the Eastern view of Faith is more along the lines of Fideism apart from Theism, where as the Western view of Faith holds to Theism alone. Is this a valid understanding of your position? (I'm sure this is oversimplistic and inaccurate at some level, but I think it's a good place to start in understanding the differences.)

Just to remind everyone, Fideists believe that a person cannot even begin to know God apart from God granting that person the gift of Faith. Theists believe that a person can begin to know God at the most rudimentary level simply by way of an honest use of reason.

I hold that we Western Catholics are a combination of the two. We are Theists in terms of one's intellectual understanding of God, but we also see that the honest pursuit toward intellectual understanding can be a means through which that person opens themself up to the Gift of Faith, which ultimately comes from God alone.

Edited May 8, 2009 by abercius24