www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Joint Declaration - JPII and Bartholomew I about the Filioque?

Dear Todd,

Even without the filioque this is true. The Latin translation was never imbued with the meaning of 'proceeding as from the causitive principle.' The Latin word simply did not convey the same meaning necessarily as did the Greek word chosen to indicate procession. The fact that the Latin Church did not reject the Greek text is clear in that the causitive procession expressed in the Greek text was affirmed in council by the Latins, more than once.

Also I would be careful in speaking of 'inspired' texts. The inspired texts of Scripture have traditionally been weighed in one balance, the inspired texts of Councils, in another, and the inspired texts of the Fathers have been weighed in yet another and distinct balance. They all do not present inspired truth in the same balance.

In this case I would say that the Greek text is the authentic and conciliar text.




This last line where the divinized human being "becomes uncreated" directly contradicts your earlier statement that Theosis causes change in neither God, nor man. We share in the uncreated life but we do not become uncreated.

The following text is from Archbishop Chrysostom of Etna. As you can see this is a rather systematic presentation of the lived experience of theosis, and nowhere in this presentation is anything said about human creatures becoming "uncreated."

Also you do continue to misrepresent the meaning of created grace in the west. I look forward to a time when that does not happen, but I understand that I must not hold my breath.

Blessings....Mary

Dear Ned,

To have full Communion between East and West, there must be full agreement on Trinitarian theology.

There can be theological opinions or "Theologoumena" - I believe Archbishop Kallistos Ware once wrote that an Orthodox Christian may believe in the Filioque, the Immaculate Conception as defined by the West etc. and not be a heretic for so doing.

But we need a common, agreed Trinitarian theology that the universal Church can subscribe to - as it did prior to the Schism of 1054.

There is no way that the East will ever agree to a Creed with the Filioque.

Alex

Dear Mary,

How can one understand created Grace to be anything other than "created?" Can you explain that to a Theological peasant like me?

Alex

Mary,

There is no contradiction in my post. I have talked about the fact that divinized man becomes uncreated by grace before, but you -- like the other members of this forum who reject Byzantine theology in favor of Scholasticism -- do not pay attention to what I say. Thus, I have no intention of having an extended debate on an issue that has already been fruitlessly debated on the Byzantine Forum on several occasions.

That said, here is one of my posts from a previous thread:


Click the link in order to see the original post and thread:

Does the rejection of Western doctrines make a man anti-Catholic?

Now, for the sake of clarity I will try to summarize the Byzantine doctrine of theosis for you:

Through the process of theosis man becomes uncreated by participating in the uncreated divine energies (See Thomas L. Anastos, "Gregory Palamas' Radicalization of the Essence, Energies, and Hypostasis Model of God," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 38:1-4, 1993: pages 335-349), while he remains essentially and hypostatically a creature. In other words, the redeemed man is both created (i.e., in essence and hypostasis) and uncreated (i.e., by participating in the divine energies), he is both God and man; and so, through the process of theosis he (i.e., the redeemed man) has become a perfect icon of the incarnate Logos, who assumed human nature and became man, while simultaneously remaining true God. The whole point of the incarnation of the eternal Logos is the divinization of the saints, and, just as the incarnate Logos was both God and man, both uncreated and created; so too, the saints are both human and divine, uncreated and created. Finally, to deny that the divinized man has become uncreated is to deny that he has really been divinized, because there is no such thing as "created" divinity.

God bless,
Todd

Dear Mary,

There was a time when the entire Church recited the same Creed without the Filioque.

That was the original Creed - and today there are Anglicans and others who have also returned to the original Creed.

Our UGCC bishops in Canada have recently agreed to return to that same Creed to be faithful to our Eastern traditions.

There is no reason why the Latin Church cannot return to the original Creed.

And there is no reason why it cannot continue to maintain its theological traditions and opinions.

As long as they don't seek to impose them on the entire Church.

Alex

Dear Todd,

Would you permit me to take this to some of my Orthodox sources for an opinion?

Mary

Dear Alex,

Your respnse to me requires careful though; are you saying that the western usage of the creed reflects a different theology to the eastern (you may have clarified your position previously; if I have not read back sufficiently forgive me)? If this is the case we are in agreement; but does not your reference to Fr. Kallistos contradict the assertion that this difference is so great that it is in error? If oine can not be a heretic for believing the Western usage, where is the impediment to union?

I may have misunderstood some of your emphases, if so I'm sorry.

Ned

I was saddened to see that the thread entitled "The Eastern Schism" (a misnomer to be sure) was closed before I had an opportunity to respond Elijahmaria's post involving a series of patristical citations, citations that she mistakenly believes supports the Western theory of the filioque, but which in fact support the Eastern distinction between the hypostatic procession of origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone, and the simultaneously affirmation of the Spirit's manifestation as energy, which signifies the consubstantial communion of the three divine persons. If I have time later today, I will post a response in this thread, or I will start a new thread in order to make sure the quotations provided are not distorted in order to support the Scholastic theory of the procession of the Spirit from the Son.

On another note, Elijahmaria you have my permission to show my posts to anyone you want, and -- of course -- you can also consult the texts that I cited in my post (i.e., Maximos' Ambigua and Palamas' Triads). I will also be providing additional references, and if my hand is not in too much pain tonight, I will also transcribe sections of those sources in support of the doctrine of theosis as an uncreated enhypostatic energy that makes its recipients uncreated by grace.

God bless,
Todd

As a preview, the following is a quotation from St. Gregory Palamas' "Third Letter to Akindynos":

"According to the divine Maximus, the Logos of well-being, by grace is present unto the worthy, bearing God, Who is by nature above all beginning and end, Who makes those who by nature have a beginning and an end become by grace without beginning and without end, because the Great Paul also, no longer living the life in time, but the divine and eternal life of the indwelling Logos, became by grace without beginning and without end; and Melchisedek had neither beginning of days, nor end of life, not because of his created nature [i.e., his essence], according to which he began and ceased to exist, but because of the divine and uncreated and eternal grace which is above all nature and time, being from the eternal God. Paul, therefore, was created only as long as he lived the life created from non-being by the command of God. But when he no longer lived this life, but that which is present by the indwelling of God, he became uncreated by grace, as did also Melchisedek and everyone who comes to possess the Logos of God, alone living and acting within himself."

Dear Todd,

You've added meaning and intentions to what I had intended by posting those texts.

The western Church's approach to the Trinity in the Creed is clearly relational as it is translated in the Latin Creed, and not causitive as it is explicitly so in the Greek Creed.

And it was my intention to show that both are true approaches to the Trinitarian Life and both have precedence in the Fathers.

To add to what I intended, or to elaborate in your own manner, of couse may suit your needs but it has nothing to do with my intents or messages.

I'd be happy if you, in your enthusiasm, would please stop doing that to what I post in these topics. I try very hard not to do that to you, to add meaning or intention or to attribute anything at all that is not clearly there in the text of your notes. I know it will happen on occasion through no fault, but I am formally asking that you refrain from that as much as possible. I really am capable of saying what I mean without help or external interpretation. None of this is said to be nasty and it is not too much to ask in an intelligent and informed dialogue.

Blessings.....Mary

Dear Todd,

I did post your synopsis of theosis to four monks from the GOA and three priests and a monk from ROCOR. They have all responded save for one of the priests.

They have rejected your synopsis as too extreme, preferring to express the union between man and God as a participation in the divine life by grace. The reactions to your parallel with the Incarnation were so strong that I am not going to inquire further.

I told them you were a student and they said that they understood your journey but that they hoped that you did not attribute such a statement, concerning man 'being both created and uncreated' as the Incarnation is both divine and human, to any of the Fathers or to Orthodoxy in general. They say that goes too far.

As you will note in the very paragraph that you have offered here the phrasing is always "uncreated by grace" and that is what the monks and priests who responded to me meant by "participation."

The west has a way of phrasing it to say that theosis is a creaturely share in the uncreated life of the Trinity. Sharing in this case having the meaning of cooperation or participation.

I am not going to carry this further because it is pointless at this time, I fear.

Mary

Mary,

Ask your Orthodox friends to email me at Apotheoun@yahoo.com (they should put "theosis" in the subject line), because I want them to explain to me why they reject the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, St. Maximos the Confessor, and St. John Damascene on becoming uncreated, a teaaching which has been repeated in modern times by Fr. Meyendorff, Vladimir Lossky, Fr. J. M. Hussey, and Fr. Dan Rogich.

God Bless,
Todd

P.S. - I will still try later tonight or perhaps tomorrow -- depending upon how my hand feels -- to transcribe various texts in support of the doctrine of theosis as an uncreated and eternal gift of God that makes man uncreated.

A note of clarification: I completed my M.A. in Theology last year, and although I do intend to eventually get a Ph.D. in Theology (most likely focusing my dissertation on this very topic), I am presently taking care of my mother, who suffers from emphysema, and I will not begin work on my Ph.D. as long as she needs my assistance. Until then I will continue to teach theology and medieval history at a local Catholic high school.

That said, it is clear that we are all on a journey, including the unnamed individuals you spoke with, and I am sure that they have far to go in order to advance in the spiritual life, as we all do.

God bless,
Todd

P.S. - Be sure to have them email me, because I want them to explain their position, so that I can understand why they deny the explicit teaching of the Eastern Fathers I mentioned in my earlier post.

Below is a link to an article on the theology of St. Maximos, which speaks about man's becoming uncreated, by being united to the uncreated through grace.

Maximos Confessor on the Infinity of Man [myriobiblos.gr]


Some quotations taken from the article:

"The five great divisions of nature [according to St. Maximos] were put before man as a labor for unification 'by the proper use of the natural faculties.' Beginning with his own division into male and female, he should by an apathetic relation to the divine virtue shake off his nature and become simply 'bare man'; then, proceeding through the other divisions he could, at the end, unite the created nature to the uncreated, revealing these two as one and the same by virtue of grace."

"The one [i.e., the Logos] by receiving the human nature enters the creation and the other by achieving a union of his nature with the divine enters the realms of the uncreated."

"This proceeding from movement to rest means a transition from time to eternity, a surpassing of the separation between the created and the uncreated, a passage to God, who lies behind time, movement and alteration. This is the κατάπαυσις or σαββατισμός i.e. cessation."

"The adjectives fatherless, motherless and without generation were not attributed to Melchisedek 'for the sake of natural and chronical properties,' which characterize father and mother and generation, beginning and ends of days, i.e. things which have been abolished by Melchisedek himself. They were given to him 'for the sake of divine and blessed properties,' for the sake of virtue, through which he transformed his species. In other words he was named so, not on behalf of his nature created out of nothing, according to which he began and ended his life, but on behalf of the divine and uncreated grace, which comes forth from the eternal God and exists forever, above any nature and any time. Man is recognized as having been begotten 'gnomicly' in his integrity only through his uncreated grace, having attained that state, because he preferred virtue to his nature. So, he was begotten by the Logos in the Spirit to the divine and endless and immortal substances of God and this brings in itself truly the likeness of God who has begotten him. The one who has mortified his earthly members dies and rises with Christ. And since he has declined worldly goods and mortified the earthly members, he has ceased to reproduce in himself the life measured by time which has a beginning and an end, and is shaken by a multitude of passions. He abandoned these, for the sake of the better, the divine and eternal life of the Logos who dwelled in him. Being released from the bonds of time, he is freed in both extremes and so he becomes not only without end - an aspect easily understandable - but also without beginning, since beginning falls into the frame of time which was abolished. The end of times and ages is the complete unity of the genuine beginning with the genuine end within man who is saved. And since genuine beginning and end are just God, unity between these two elements within men who are saved constitutes a unity with God. Therefore, we observe first the choosing of things, then the complete unity between beginning and end, and finally theosis."

"The one who receives the gifts of the incarnated Logos once, through the sacraments, is forever united with him and keeps his hypostasis forever inside his soul. For Christ is all the time begotten in him secretly and he makes of the soul who begets him a virgin mother. Having the God-man permanently within himself, he is in a continuous and perfect contact with the divine. The one who is able to be elevated into the heavens through the divine Logos, who descended on earth for this purpose; he becomes God just as God became a man. When he supersedes nature, he becomes by grace what the giver of grace himself is by nature; after he stops his natural operations, according to flesh, according to sense and according to mind, he becomes God through participation in the divine grace. So in the proportion of his participation in the theosis he is also deified in soul and body; this is the uncreated θέωσις, divinization, which is offered to the worthy. And just as divinization is a divine energy without beginning and end, so also is the person who is deified."

Hi Todd,

I took this idea back to the priest-monk that is closest to me and I don't think it's going to work out in terms of feedback. They just don't want to do it. These scholars that you mention are interesting but not central to Orthodox monastic life, particularly for the Greeks. In some circles they are seen as and spoken of as "fringe." So I don't think you all would be speaking the same language, and I've gotten at least one resounding 'No' for an answer and so I am not going to press. It was probably an error in judgment on my part to even take your text away from here. I don't think we'll do that again. My apology

Man is not made uncreated in his nature as you have said, and nobody is arguing that man does not participate in the uncreated Life of the Trinity, so there's no problem there. As a Carmelite, prior to my introduction to eastern Catholics or Orthodox Catholics, I believed that we participated in the uncreated life of the Trinity and it was through those experiences that I began my journey eastward.

So I think that you are straining to try to keep the two spiritual and monastic traditions absolutely separate, but they are not seen as totally separate on the part of the various monastics themselves. Whatever the differences they don't appear to be in the direction that you are pointing. Our human natures do not change in our adopted participation, as sons and daughters, in the Divine Life.

I will be happy to read the texts and wish that I could be more helpful in typing things in for you. I might have some of the texts here, though I don't have volume 1 of the St. Gregory Palamas homilies.

Blessings...Mary

Just a point of clarification here. The difficulty was not with the idea that God became man so that man could become God. The difficulty was with your strong parallel between the Incarnation and man. It reads as an equivalency in that text you offered as a synopsis. That was where the objection was so please don't take it off to be something else. This is part of the reason that there is resistance to discussing it with you. It is apparent that things morph in ways that are not accurate, and who needs to be constantly defending things they never said or meant? Know what I mean?

Blessings....Mary