www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Hesychasm

Myles, my friend, I believe you have misinterpreted what I said . . . or I was really bad at expressing myself.

Scholasticism isn't bad.

And, scholasticism isn't the cause of the West having forgotten the Holy Spirit. Materialism, I think, is the root cause of that.

However, the Catholic Church *was* scholastic in its mindset and approach. Ask people, ordinary people. If a person asked a question about the faith, or how to live the faith more deeply, they were given a bunch of quotes from the papacy and scholastic reasoning: stuff that makes for good arguments but (often) poor food for the soul. With Vatican II, the Church has not abandoned the scholastics: as you so well illustrated with John Paul the Great. However, the Church is not being limited to these in practice either.

And, the solution to the "identity crisis" (as you term it) in the Western Church is not anything more or less than remembering the Holy Spirit and living in greater union with Him.

Living in union with the Holy Spirit: that is what hesychasm . . . and scholasticism . . . were all about.

The goal is God. And God is ultimately the means. God reaches down to us to raise us up to Him. Things like hesychasm and scholasticism are our responses to Him and our attempts to live in ever greater conformity to His life-giving grace.

I am not saying the Latin Church should become Greek. I am not saying the Latin Church should give up its heritage.

I am saying that the Latin Church must rediscover theosis . . . sanctification . . . living in the Holy Spirit, ever more.

And I'm also saying that a great way to rediscover theosis is to learn from those who haven't forgotten it: The Eastern Churches. That, in turn, allows the Western Church to remember its own forms of spirituality.

Finally, that isn�t disrespecting the saints, including St. Thomas Aquinas; that is honoring them and imitating their example in following Jesus Christ.

I hope I got it right this time in expressing my view. ;-)

God Bless.

--John

Dear Zenovia, Christ is Risen!

Uncreated Light is God's Energies; the Beatific Vision would have us beholding God's Essence. What Saint Gregory is most remembered for is making this distinction clear: "It is not possible for man to see God, upon Whom the angels dare not gaze", but we can participate in His Energies. Believing in the Beatific Vision is diametrically opposed to what Saint Gregory taught. I find no Orthodox writings that say otherwise; even the most pro-Latin Orthodox maintain this, only they no longer refer to it as "heresy".

I have always presented RCC positions directly from their own writings and I have presented never given "a fundamentalist 'Orthodox' opinion of what the RCC position is"! Whatever I have said about RCC positions, I qualified as "pre-Vatican II" RCC positions; I find it impossible to pin down anything definitive as the contemporary RCC position. Below I quote a paragraph summarizing the former.

Photius

Dear Ghazar , Christ is Risen!

Your are most correct that this distinction did not originate with Saint Gregory Palamas! Saint Gregory quotes a number of ancient (and pre-Caledonian) fathers, such as Basil the Great, to show that this distinction is an ancient belief.
In Saint Gregory's time, this whole matter came to be in dispute; apparently, no one had disputed it before. Therefor, Saint Gregory was the first to defend this matter against those who reckoned it heretical, and so Saint Gregory is known as its defender and preacher, but he himself stated that he was defending the Faith of the ancient fathers, Holy Tradition.

Photius

Dear Photius

Your difficulty in pinning down the current RCC position is also one that I too share!

Alex

That's because in the post-Conciliar RCC on most
theological and doctrinal matters, there
often seem to be as many different positions
as there are bishops. Official teachings are
no longer enforced in practice.

antonius

Dear Photius,

What happened to that church in your avatar?

Alex

Did you mean my avatar?

antonius

Dear Photios,

A few years ago I began cotemplating on the Holy Trinity. While doing so I came to the understanding that it was the Holy Spirit when we heard the �Logos� (Word), and the Holy Spirit that gives us the comprehension of the �Logos�. To put it bluntly, we received the Holy Spirit through Jesus by hearing the �Word� and through the Creator in our comprehension of the �Word�.

Immediately that same day, I was blessed by receiving a book on Saint Gregory Palamas the Hagiorite by Metropolitan Nafpaktos Hierotheos. There it was, exactly what I myself (through the Grace of God) began to understand about the Holy Trinity.

The book was surely a blessing because I had heard the most absurd things from our GOA priests, expecially in reference to our Theotokos. By having that book I was able to quote everything Saint Gregory stated about our Theotokos on a �political� forum that was quite popular and I was able to counteract every rediculous thing that was said on what we �Orthodox� supposedly believe. You see I was raised in an era before the full blooming of our �oppositional� theology.

Now let me explain what an �oppositional� theology is. When Luther and others broke from the RCC they believed in the sacraments as well as our Theotokos and the saints. That gradually changed because their theology began to be formed not through searching on how we can achieve unity with God, but rather through an �opposition� to the RCC. In other words, since the RCC believes certain things, then we must go the other way and disbelieve them and disprove them.

Now you stated that it was heresy and blasphemy to believe in the �beatific vision�, because we cannot see God. Yet in this book, Saint Gregory states that God is the Uncreated Light, and we see God when we have a vision of the Uncreated Light. Now I find out one is Essence and one is Energy, (as if that would make a difference in our relationship to God), yet in this book, Saint Gregory never stated that in reference to the vision of the Uncreated light. . Also there are subtle references, giving one the impression that Saint Gregory's battle with the heresy of Barlaam was one and the same as his discourses with the RCC. By calling me as well as Alice heretical and blasphemous, you are brow beating us. To be blunt, and I do hope you will forgive me, but I consider brow beating �cultic�.

Now I know that Saint Gregory had discourses with the Latins, as did our more recent Saint Nektarios. They both dissagreed with the RCC on a certain issue, and frankly I would love to read their exact words. I say �exact� because every person interprets things according to their own experiences and understandings. In that sense their interpretation becomes prejudicial. But if one should �deliberately� misquotes or make false reference to a saint in order to emphasize their viewpoint, then they are �mocking� them and by doing so they are mocking the Holy Spirit.

If they should be doing so with the belief that the end justifies the means, then they are using sinful means to achieve those ends, and an �end� that requires sinful means in order to be obtained cannot be within the Will of God.

All in all, our Lord wants unity in His Church. Anyone who tries to hinder that unity through �lies� and falsehoods is blasphemous because they are not placing their faith in the Holy Spirit, but in themselves instead... And we all know who the father of all lies is.

If I have offended you I apologize. I am open to true discourses on differences because as I stated both Saint Gregory and Saint Nektarios did consider the Latins wrong on certain issues and frankly I would like to know what those differences are and really discuss them. As for a solution, I seriously believe we have taken diferent paths and since it would make no difference to our final theosis, does it really matter?

Xristos Anesti,

Zenovia

Both the Palamite and Thomistic systems hold that it is possible to see the vision of God, but where they disagree is about the nature of that vision.

For Thomas the vision of God entails seeing the divine essence, and this idea is clearly rejected by St. Gregory Palamas, who holds instead that one sees the vision of the uncreated Light by participating in God's uncreated energies.

The divine essence is and always will be wholly inaccessible to man, for it is utterly transcendent. Thus, it is impossible to participate in the divine essence; and in fact, if a man could participate in the divine essence it follows that he would be annihilated, because the essential distinction between God and man would be destroyed.

St. Gregory Palamas deals with the distinction between the divine essence and the uncreated divine energies, and the nature of the vision of the uncreated Light, in The Triads and in the One Hundred and Fifty Chapters.

For a concise treatment of the Palamite doctrine I recommend reading the book A Theology of Uncreated Energies, by Fr. George Maloney; and for those interested in a more detailed study I recommend Fr. M. Edmund Hussey's dissertation entitled The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Theology of Gregory Palamas.

Oppositional theology was at it height centuries before we were born! Read the writings of Saint Mark of Ephesus, for example. In late Byzantine times, all Orthodox rebaptised converts from the RCC; today, only a minority do. There is some revival of gratuitous oppositionism in some circles, but I have nothing to do with these circles, and they do not overlap with what you called "fundamentalist Orthodoxy".

Photius

Dear Apotheoun, Christ is Risen!

I was writing my post while you posted yours.

You stated the facts very well. Thank you!

Photius

Indeed He is risen!

Thank you for your kind remarks; and I must commend you as well, for the distinction between God's inaccessible essence and His uncreated energies is vital to understanding the true nature of theosis.

Todd,

How does one get their hands on Hussey's dissertation?

Everyone,

You might want to look at a paper I wrote this semester on Maximus regarding Christ's mode of willing and the Saints in the Eschaton. It was a genuine plurality in God that was needed for a full refutation of Monenergism and its Origenist presuppositions. If there is no plurality of objects to will in God (not just a plurality of mental judgments about God) then we would be in stasis. It is at this point that their would be one will of God and the Saints (i.e. an obliteration of personhood in my opinion).

http://www.energeticprocession.com/archives/2005/05/synergy_in_chri.html

Mac users make sure you have the latest version of adobe acrobat reader or you will see garbled characters.

Daniel

And who truly knows what 'final theosis' is unless they have experienced it, or God has revealed it to them? We should not be so smug as to presume to know God's great mysteries unless He has seen fit to reveal them to us.

In the end, does it really matter? Have all those who believe one way or the other not gone to Heaven because of it, or how about those who do not know anything in their simple unread minds, but know more of the heart and soul than most theologians......have they also not gone to heaven to experience the gifts of God, whatever they may be?

I say that these matters are irrelevant, and also in the end we all may be surprised, if our account of humility and love has been great enough before the awesome judgement seat to ensure our salvation.

Humbly in Christ our Lord and our HOPE,
Alice, a sinner

Why?

I genuinely do not understand, and I genuinely ask the question.

I understand theosis as the process of the Holy Spirirt further divinizing us: from the image of God to the likeness of God.

The fact that God in His infinitity is beyond us seems obvious and irrelevant. The finite cannot apprehend the infinite.

What matters (at least to me) is that "part" of His infinity which He streeches out to us, to me, to save and sanctify me.

The Easterners call this "uncreated enregies" and the Westerners call this sacntifying grace." Is there really a difference here beyond terminology? in effect? If so, why?

--John