| On this point, Barlaam was undoubtedly referring to the famous writings of Ps. Dionysius the Areopagite, who viewed God-man relationships as a scale of mediations–the «celestial» and the «ecclesiastical» hierarchies–a Christian version of the Neoplatonic world system. Palamas rejected this approach with indignation. Of course, he respected the writings of Ps. Dionysius, whom he counted among the greatest Fathers of the Church, but he took the «hierarchies» of Dionysius, as describing the relationships between God and man, as they existed in the Old Testament, when God was speaking only «through angels» (Heb. 2:2). 51 After the coming of Christ, however, God enters into immediate communion with humanity. «Did He not deign to make His dwelling in man», asks Palamas, «to appear to him and speak to him without intermediary, so that man should be not only pious, but sanctified and purified in advance in soul and body by keeping the divine commandments, and so be transformed into a vehicle worthy to receive the all-powerful Spirit?» So, communion with God in Christ is real and immediate. It is not pantheistic absorption into the Divine however: Man, being «in God», or rather «in Christ», preserves his full humanity, his freedom (he is required to «keep the commandments»), and he participates in a process that knows no end, because God, in His transcendent essence, is always «above» any given experience of Him. But man " s communion is not with «created grace» only, but with God Himself. This is the meaning of the doctrine of the «uncreated energies», which, as we have seen earlier in this Introduction, is rooted in the Christological doctrine of «hypostatic union» as it was formulated in the East after Chalcedon particularly by St. Maximus the Confessor. The doctrine of the energies was defined with ever greater refinement in the later writings of Palamas, particularly those he directed against Gregory Akindynos in 1342–1347. But in order to understand these conceptual and frequently polemical definitions, the initial freshness of his debate with Barlaam, as it is found in the Triads, is always to be remembered as the necessary context of Palamite theology. |
| This phenomenon of two so dissimilar entities (soul and body) being bound together with such harmony, is one of creation’s miracles. But this miracle is adequately understood only when it is perceived that the two composite elements are created and, from the standpoint of causality, belong to the same category of existence. There is also, however, another link, different and more noteworthy, which does not unite two created entities but, rather, unites the created with the uncreated-creation with the Creator. Gregory of Nyssa, in his unique dialectical, speculating way, distinguished between two pairs of substance, of which one element, the spirit, is common to both. Concerning the uncreated pair, there is God and spirit; concerning the created pair, spirit and matter. 11 It essentially involves three elements and not four, of which one is common to both pairs combined as much with God as with matter. It is certainly difficult to place this third element (that is, the spirit) in a theological structure based on the sharp distinction between the uncreated and the created. However, it becomes easier when the distinction between the essence and energy of God plays a decisive role in this structure. That which Gregory called «spirit» (and this is definitely not the Holy Spirit) is the uncreated energy of God which moves between him and man and transfers divinity from him to man and, in a way, transfers humanity from man to him. To follow the thought of the Cappadocians, by possessing intellect as well as flesh, man unites in himself the rational and irrational elements of creation. Yet, by also possessing spirit, he simultaneously unites creation with the Creator. This entire process of an assorted integration of elements is closely related to the purpose which underlies the creation of rational beings. This purpose is none other than reachingnbsp; the point where they will glorify God worthily and will partake of his blessings abundantly. The union of the rational soul with the body aims at making the soul sovereign over the physical body, not by abolishing it, but by drawing the body towards it in an ascending course until the soul spiritualizes it. |
| Question 30. Are the Words Foreknowledge, Predestination, Providence, of the same Signification in Divinity? Answer. Foreknowledge, Predestination, and Providence have different Signification in Divinity. Providence respects Things which are already created, but Foreknowledge and Predestination were in God before any Thing was created, but in a manner distinct from each other; Foreknowledge being the bare, simple knowing of a future Thing, without any determinate Specification of it: that is, not necessarily determining that this or that should be. But Predestination, joined with Foreknowledge, is a determining the Species, or what a Thing must be absolutely; only, always determining Good, and not Evil. For if Predestination were to appoint Evil, it would be contrary to the essential Goodness of God: Therefore, in like manner, as we first conceive a Thing, and then appoint concerning it, so may we speak with Regard to God: First in order is his Foreknowledge; then his Predestination; and lastly (things being brought into actual Being) his Providence. As the Apostle plainly teaches (Rom.8:29), For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate; whom he did predestinate, them he also called; whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. But this is only to be understood of Man, for other created Beings (except the Angels, who are settled in a State of Certainty and Safety) are not the objects of the Divine Predestination; For, as they had no free Will, so they are without Imputation whatever they do, being done by the Impulse of natural Instinct; wherefore they are neither chastised with Punishment of any kind, nor crowned with the Rewards of Glory and Praise. Question 31. What doth this Article farther teach, concerning God and his Creation? Answer. Whatever your Mind can possibly imagine good, that consider as appertaining to God, the supreme Good, as its Origin and Source; and whatever you can figure to yourself of Evil, consider as the most opposite and remote from God: Not so much as being distant in Place, as being different in its very Essence. Of created Things, think thus: That they are good, as being produced by an infinitely good Maker; only with this Difference, that rational Beings, who are endued with Understanding and free Will, are bad when they depart from God. Not that they were so created, but for that they became so by acting contrary to their Reason. Of irrational Beings, that as they are without free Will, they are in their Nature Good. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Are You a True Christian? Navigation The Treatment for Suffering is Love Source: Notes on Arab Orthodoxy Fr. Georges Massouh 21 October 2018 Man’s inevitable fate is, sooner or later, bodily death. Young and old stand equal before death. Death does not distinguish between children and the elderly. Is there a solution for this inevitable fate that is death? No, even if medical science and new drugs could prolong human life and reduce suffering, they will not reach the point of ending the inevitability of bodily death. If bodily death is inevitable, then what about suffering? Why does man suffer? Is suffering part of human nature or is it something alien to it? There are many questions that both believers and unbelievers have about the suffering that all humans experience without exception. To start with, it must be said that suffering does not only result from illness, but rather it results from many factors, so the source of suffering is not single but multiple. There is suffering that afflicts those who are physically healthy but who suffer from emotional, psychological, financial or intellectual (not achieving desired intellectual ambitions), or spiritual disappointments… Man does not live without suffering: this is the golden rule. According to the Christian faith, death and suffering are alien to human nature. God, the source of every good thing, created man eternal. That is, not dying and not suffering… but man, in his rebellion against God– that is, in his rejecting the source of life and departing from Him– sentenced himself to death, suffering and torment. The coming of Christ, His submitting to death on the cross and His resurrection restored the relationship between God and man. But suffering and death remained the two-edged sword at the throat of all mankind. Metropolitan Georges Khodr states that God is not the cause of everything that happens to us on the face of this earth. Khodr says in his conversation with Samir Farhat , “There are factors in nature and in the essence of humanity. If God liberated us from the responsibility of suffering, then it would be possible for us to be liberated from the dark image of this god, the god who delights in tormenting humankind. The natural inclination, particularly in the East, is that the good and the bad in life comes from God. In the New Testament, after Jesus bears mankind’s suffering, God is no longer the cause of human suffering. We are transported from a purely philosophical, theoretical position to a position of participating in Christ (This World is not Enough, Ta’awuniyyat al-Nur al-Orthodoxiyya lil-Nashr wal-Tawzi’, p. 207). |
| The firm stand on Christ " " s individuality as a man again raised the issue of the hypostatic union, for in Chalcedonian Christology the unique hypo-stasis or person of Christ is that of the Logos. Obviously, then, the notion of hypostasis cannot be identified with either the divine or the human characteristics; neither can it be identical with the idea of human consciousness. The hypostasis is the ultimate source of individual, personal existence, which, in Christ, is both divine and human. For Theodore, an image can be the image only of an hypostasis, for the image of a nature is inconceivable. 53 On the icons of Christ, the only proper inscription is that of the personal God «He who is,» the Greek equivalent of the sacred tetragrammaton YHWH (Yahweh) of the Old Testament, never such impersonal terms as «divinity» or «kingship» which belong to the Trinity as such and thus cannot be represented. 54 This principle, rigidly followed in classical Byzantine iconography, shows that the icon of Christ is for Theodore not only an image of «the man Jesus,» but also of the incarnate Logos. The meaning of the Christian Gospel lies precisely in the fact that the Logos assumed all the characteristics of a man, including describability, and His icon is a permanent witness of this fact. The humanity of Christ, which makes the icons possible, is a «new humanity,» having been fully restored to communion with God, deified in virtue of the communication of idioms, bearing fully again the image of God. This fact is m be reflected in iconography as a form of art: the artist thus receives a quasi-sacramental function. Theodore compares the Christian artist to God Himself, making man in His own image: «The fact that God made man in His image and likeness shows that iconography is a divine action.» 55 In the beginning God created man in His image. By making an icon of Christ the iconographer also makes an «image of God,» for this is what the deified humanity of Jesus truly is. By position, temperament, and style, Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople (806–815), was the opposite of Theodore. He belongs to the series of Byzantine patriarchs, between Tarasius and Photius, who were elevated to the supreme ecclesiastical position after a successful civil career. As patriarch he followed a policy of oikonomia and suspended the canonical penalties previously imposed upon the priest Joseph who had performed the «adulterous» marriage of Constantine VI. This action brought him into violent conflict with Theodore and the monastic zealots. Later deposed by Leo V (in 815) for his defense of icons, he died in 828 after having composed a Refutation of the iconoclastic council of 815, three Antirrhetics, one Long Apology, and an interesting treatise Against Eusebius and Epiphanius, the main patristic references of the iconoclasts. |
| The genuine meaning of the phrase “contingent rationality” points toward the Christian assertion that the world is created by God because of God’s own plan, that is, because of God’s own uncreated “rationality,” so that the rationality of the created world, as intelligible and comprehensible, depends on the uncreated rationality of God. This implies that any attempt to comprehend the worldly structures by exercising the faculties of contingent rationality granted to man will inevitably appeal to something that transcends this rationality, that is, to the ground of the contingent world, which is relational upon God. The world is not self-explanatory; its comprehension will always depend on some meta-level of explanation, originating from the uncreated rationality of God. This makes it possible to assert that the created realm, being contingent on God, yet contains some features of necessity, which means that creation is dependent on God. 321 One may speak about contingent necessity of the world, which expresses some freedom in its structures and their interactions and changes, on the one hand, and the limitedness of this freedom, which preserves the world from complete chaos and arbitrariness, on the other hand. Contingency and necessity combine to make the world unique: free in its self-expression and progression, granted by the freedom of the divine creation, and necessary, by being always dependent on the life of God, who maintains the being of the universe. It is the concept of the incarnation of the Logos of God in flesh that clarifies the presence of the necessary dimension in the contingent creation. This dimension is associated with the intelligibility of the universe, its order and uniformity. 322 In this, the incarnation of the Word-Logos of God provides us with a “vertical” dimension to everything that is involved in temporal flux in the created existence, treated as the horizontal dimension. Using the words of T. Torrance, the supreme axis of the incarnation is provided for the direct interaction with creation within its contingent existence and structure. |
| 86. The same divine revealer who said above that the beneficent procession is a divine distinction adds, «The incomprehensible communications are united according to the divine distinction.» 364 Thus he took here all the processions and energies together and called them communications and he added that they are incomprehensible lest anyone think them to be created effects, such as the substance of each being or the sensible life of animals or the reason and intellect inhering in rational and intellectual beings. For how could these realities be incomprehensible in God while being created? How could the incomprehensible processions and communications of God be creatures, if the incomprehensible communication inheres naturally in the one who bestows it, just as we see in the case of light? 87. This great man goes on to praise such processions and energies of God with other divinely fitting names and calls them participations and absolute participations. In many places in his treatises be shows that they are beyond beings and are exemplars of beings with a preexistence in God according to a transcendent unity. How then could these be creatures? And further, to teach what these exemplars are he adds, «We call exemplars those concepts or beings which pre-exist unitively in God and which bring forth the substances of things, concepts which theology names predeterminations and divinely good volitions which are responsible for the determination and creation of beings; in accordance with these the transcendent one predetermined and brought forth all beings.» 365 How then can the predeterminations and divine volitions responsible for the creation of beings be created? As for those who posit these processions and energies as created, how can they not be manifest when they drag God " s providence down to the level of a creature? The energy which bestows substance, life and wisdom and which in general creates and conserves created beings is identical with the divine volitions and the divine participations themselves and the bestowal of the goodness which is cause of all things. |
| If all people, sooner or later, will reach the same goal, why labor or try to develop your good traits or do good deeds? And what kind of a reward is it to dissolve in Nirvana, where there is no thought, feeling or will? In the discernment of personality a sharp contrast is drawn between the theosophical teachings of reincarnation and the Christian teachings regarding man. Teachings of reincarnation abolish the personality or soul. According to them, in the cosmic evolution it is just a transitory embodiment and does not make up the core of the man. In reincarnations, a person " s personality is not retained. In theosophy, the core element, retained during reincarnation is not personality, but individuality, which is explained as a combination of functions and indicators. Individuality is a purely biological category, established by an evolutionary process. Consequently, man’s destiny is determined by cosmic forces. The teachings of reincarnation do not in essence solve the problems of immortality, because memory of previous lives is not retained which would be a prerequisite of a singular personality. The reincarnated becomes a different person, at times not even a person but something different. The theosophical understanding of the world is in conflict with personality and is, therefore, in conflict with man. The theosophical deity is without personality, as is his man. The deity, mankind and nature are all different forms of the absolute. Christian teaching declares exactly the opposite. The core element that inherits eternity is the personality. Personality is created by God and carries in it the image and likeness of God. This is the great advantage of Christianity over theosophy. In Christian teachings man is continually developing and growing, can enter into communion with God, and to some degree be likened unto Him. All the while retaining his human nature. Man did not develop from the lower spheres of cosmic life. He was created by the Living God and in this likened unto Him. In view of this, man is preordained for eternal and conscious life. |
| The universe, however, being created by God, is not capable of knowing that it has its creator, for impersonal physical objects are not hypostatic creatures: they have no ability to contemplate their own existence and relate it to their ultimate source. Thus the intelligibility of the universe and its meaning are accessible only to hypostatic human beings, who are created in the Divine image, and whose hypostasis is capable of personifying objects in the universe, that is, making the universe self-conscious of its own existence and origin. Maximus the Confessor strongly argued that man as a person cannot be isolated from the fact that human nature has its hypostasis in the Logos and it is in this sense that it can be said that human nature is itself enhypostasized. In other words, it is hypostatically inherent in the Logos; this means that a personal relationship with God cannot be excluded from human nature and is identical with fully realized human existence. The term hypostatic inherence refers theologically to the Greek words enhypostatic or enhypostasis, which were introduced into theology by Leontius of Byzantium in the context of christological discussions of the sixth to seventh centuries, and whose meaning (appropriate for the purposes of our research) in Greek Patristic usage can be described as: “being, existing in an hypostasis or Person,” “subsistent in, inherent.” 291 One can refer to a theological view of “participation” in the Divine in order to illustrate the idea of “hypostatic inherence” of the universe in the Logos of God. When it is said that created beings know about God, it means that they participate in God through a mode which is distinct from his essence (uncreated energies, for example). However, the very ability to participate in God is willed by God himself, for it is God who brought into existence participating beings; the knowledge of why this participation is possible at all is concealed by God from participating beings and known only to himself. 292 |
| The union in the flesh In the original goodness of God’s creation‚ Man was created out of the triune love of God and‚ bearing God’s image‚ he could not be fully expressed other than‚ at its turn‚ in a relationship of love with another creature that is equal to him‚ Eve . Both man and the woman possessed‚ before the Fall‚ just like the animals to which they resemble‚ the respective anatomical features that make them different and complimentary to one another‚ including the sexual organs. However‚ after St. Gregory‚ marriage‚ that is to say the sexual intercourse‚ was not needed before the Fall‚ and‚ if man would not have trespassed the commandment‚ the matter of the multiplication would not have been sexual‚ but‚ the same or similar of that of the angels. St. Gregory asserts that‚ in the final restoration of man‚ man will be restored to this state‚ before the fall‚ when‚ were although living as man and woman‚ they were living like angels‚ without marriage. In the Kingdom‚ the differences between sexes will not disappear‚ only the function of the sexual instinct‚ because it will not be needed anymore‚as it was not needed before the fall. Man and woman will keep their anatomical differences but the functions of their physiology will be adapted to the new situation. Of course‚ only God knows in what form . St. Gregory is not alone in this teaching; St. John Chrysostom follows him in the same direction‚ as well as St. Maximus the Confessor and St. John Damaskinos‚ amongst others. But very importantly‚ this is not to say that there was no intimacy between Adam and Eve in paradise; there was‚ as they were called to discover‚ love and attachment to each other‚ but it was not of a sexual nature. This is something that in our oversexualized society cannot be even conceived‚ but we have to remember that man was created for a loftier goal than just acting on animal instincts. Man was created as male and female to recreate between them the icon of the loving bond of the Holy Trinity‚ that goes beyond the sexual instinct. |
|
|
