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

Nice even tempered response, Ghosty. I always enjoy your posts.

Mary

Dear Ghosty,

I personally don't see how your quote from Aquinas absolutely agrees with the East's perspective on Uncreated Grace.

Let's also remember that for years the RC theologians absolutely condemned Palamism as a form of "Quietism" (e.g. see Holweck's Dictionary of Saints, 1924 as but one example). To talk about an agreement between Aquinas and Palamas/Eastern Orthodoxy is to inject an interpretation that has not been there between East and West until perhaps recently.

It is, in any event, far too early to make assumptions about a topic that has been a point of contention between East and West for centuries, do you not agree?

As for interpreting Aquinas, that again is up to the authority of the Church in the final analysis. And Meyendorff et al. would not have published their works if their studies did not have the absolute approval of their Church as being a true expression of Orthodox theology. Your comment about their "spin" is perhaps more relevant for modern Catholic theologians who, even with an Imprimatur, are more likely to spin (and that out of control at times).

Mary's comments on this topic likewise reflects a confidence that her own analysis IS the analysis when the two Churches, East and West have not been able to reach an agreement (and her insistence that she is speaking to certain Orthodox teachers etc who agree with her, whoever they may be, STILL does not mean that those teachers/commentators are expressing the viewpoint of their Church which is why Todd had such trouble relating to them).

My point is simply that we are entitled to talk here as much as we wish - ultimately the respective Churches are the final authority on interpretation. And interpretation is what we are about all the time - whether it comes to theology, history or what-not. If the Churches say that Aquinas and Palamas agree, then they really do!

My own feeling is that Aquinas and the Scholastic tradition is not identical to the meaning of Uncreated Energies, nomatter how the philosophical issue is tossed about. I can't believe that centuries of acrimony between East and West on this matter was bereft of solid philosophical grounding, even though we live in ecumenical times (which may or may not be a good thing, depending on our perspectives).

I've attended lectures here at the University of St Michael's College on Aquinas and mention was made of Theosis and Palamism - to show how different the two systems really are, especially on the score of "Uncreated Grace."

Ultimately, it matters not what Alex thinks, or what Mary thinks or Ghosty etc. It matters what the two Churches affirm about their respective doctrines of sanctification.

If the two say their systems say the same thing in different ways, then that is the final authority.

And then we don't need to have these conversations that seem to sometimes degenerate into opposing theological football teams replete with their own cheerleaders.

I know you can take a joke! Not so sure about Mary . . . (kidding)

Good night to you both.

Alex

Where did I say it did? I was pointing out that Aquinas did not argue that Grace was a creature, as some claim. Aquinas' theology is different from Byzantine theology, and in more than just symantics, but they are relaying the same fundamental Truth about creatures really and truly participating in Divinity. They use different systems to get there and explain it, just as all matters between orthodox theologies.


You seem to making a lot of assumptions about what I'm saying

The theologies are very different, and even discuss different things in certain cases (you will almost never find discussion in the West of participating in Divine operations, for example, despite them being technically classified as "energies"). My point is simply that a ) Latin theology is not as it is often characterized in polemics, and b ) it is working with the same fundamental Truth, namely true participation in the Divine Nature.

And yes, the misunderstandings go both ways. Just a couple weeks ago, in fact, a Dominican priest friend and teacher of mine who's read the Summa front to back in Latin but doesn't have anything but the most basic training in Byzantine theology, stated that the Eastern Orthodox don't believe in real participation in Divinity in Heaven, but rather believe only that we'll receive theophanies, or "Divinely created images". He contrasted this with the Latin/Thomistic understanding of real participation and vision of God; he said this because of the language of the Essence/Energy distinction. The lack of understanding of Palamism among Thomistic scholars runs very, very deep.

I had to chuckle, because it was almost the exact same accusation Latins receive in these discussions, but the tables were turned. The two traditions speak a very different language, and often deal with things from very different angles, so much so that the misunderstandings even cut both ways in an almost identical manner

As for the accusation of Quietism, it was based on misunderstanding, because the Latin tradition contains a very similar tradition of participation in the Divine through prayer, especially among the Thomistic Carmelites. St. John of the Cross and St. Theresa of Avila are perfect examples of this, and they based their understandings entirely on the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (St. John of the Cross even uses an absurd amount of Thomistic terminology in his "poetic" explainations of this doctrine ).

Again, I'm not trying to reduce it to "it's all the same", because it's not. If it was there wouldn't be so much "translation" needed. I'm simply saying that the underlying doctrines that both theologies are trying to defend and explain are the same, and that the two traditions don't contradict eachother on these fundamental levels, though absolutely do not walk the same path to get there. It would be impossible, and unwise to even try, to relagate the full splendor of Divine revelation into one human theological system.

Peace and God bless!

Thanks! It helps to pray a bit before jumping into the fray

God bless!

Pseudo-Athanasius,

You (and a few other Western posters here) need to read my posts more carefully, because the real distinction between essence and energy is fundamental to understanding my position.

God is essentially unknowable, because in essence He is utterly transcendent and beyond comprehension or vision of any kind. But as St. Basil said, "[God's] operations [energeiai] are various, and the essence [ousia] simple, but we say that we know our God from His operations [energeiai], but do not undertake to approach near to His essence [ousia]. His operations [energeiai] come down to us, but His essence [ousia] remains beyond our reach." [St. Basil, "Epistle 234"] Thus, when a man speaks about the Tri-hypostatic God he is referring only to God's enhypostatic energies, and not His essence, because the divine essence is beyond being (hyperousios). In other words, it is impossible to identify any of the concepts (epinoia) that arise in a man's mind in connection with his experience of the uncreated energies with the divine essence itself, because the divine essence is beyond human thought and predication. In fact, this explains why the East holds apophatic theology in such high regard, while simultaneously seeing kataphatic statements as referring only to the uncreated divine energies.

God bless,
Todd

That is a beautiful quotation from Thomas, I do not agree with him on this issue, but it is a lovely quotation.

Grace is God Himself as energy, and when a man receives the gift of uncreated theosis he takes on all the qualities associated with that gift (i.e., he becomes uncreated by grace, as both St. Gregory Palamas and St. Maximos taught).

God bless,
Todd

Couple of thoughts here based on your post and others in the queue:

1. Orthodoxy and Orthodox monks and scholars are not fully agreed on an unstated premise in your logos that necessitates that the essence and energies are totally separate. Close readings of both St. Maximus or St. Gregory do not reveal that they teach that the essence and energies are totally separate.

2. The idea of union with God for most people being a matter of seeing the divine theophanies seriously took root in the Benedictines and the Domninicans in the mid-1700's.

According to those teachings, only a few elect, were ever to see the rays of the divine sun, and union was described in terms of the sun and the reception of the sun's rays.

Since then, during the 20th centuries, all of the greatest of the Dominican fathers of this period have devoted their lives to redressing that error that raised its head firmly in the 18th century again.

Theosis as a lived experience for all of God's adopted children is once again the dominant teaching in the papal Church.

So experientially there has always been a teaching in the west very much akin to the teachings of St. Gregory, of the sun and the rays of the sun as a natural analog for the expression of essence and energies.

That is why many of our traditional monastics have no difficulty relating to their brother Orthodox. For that group there is agreement on experience, and the fact that St. Gregory was trying to express his own experiences and those of his monks, and not to develop a whole new theological expression, is an important element of his work.

If there is ever again communion between Orthodoxy and the papal Church it will come in great measure from the work of our monastics in common, as well as from people like those of us who post here and interact closely and with great love.

3. I have been in formal Carmelite formation with a professed hermit for nearly a decade, and in spiritual formation with an Orthodox monk as well, and the Carmelites, out of all of the western orders, have preserved the language of union of the holy patristic fathers and most especially the desert fathers to describe their experiences, and they too have been accused of quietism. Their teachings and homilies could be lifted verbatim from Evagrios the Solitary, or Nikitas Stithatos, or St. Maximos or St. Gregory. So it is not a matter of lived experience that separates east and west in the prayers of quiet and the payer of union.

There is no clash between my formation in the reformed saints of Carmel, and my Orthodox spiritual formation. I am sure both monastics are sufficiently well formed and educated and honest to refrain from working with me in tandem, if they thought that they were pulling me in opposite directions.

As long as you and I are able to continue talking without interference I will continue in this line of discussion. If the interference from outside becomes too loud or insistant or continues to be threatening or make authoritative noises that have no bearing, then we can wait till some other time, or speak privately if you wish.

God bless you and your work.

Mary

Dear Mary,

Now I remember you! You are the Third Order Carmelite that sometimes sang for her cat during baths!

Certainly, Carmelite spirituality has many connections with the East as it originated there.

One difficulty here is that contemporary Catholic theology and catechetics sometimes likes to assume terminology from the East, like Theosis, without really delving into how its own historic traditions agree with it or not.

Just because something looks like something else does not mean that that is what it is in fact or, more importantly, that the respective Churches agree on it.

In the area of ecumenical theology, Rome likes to say that unity with the Orthodox is "almost complete."

What does that really mean though? Orthodox theologians, not to mention Church authorities, are at a loss to explain this. Meyendorff, speaking for the Orthodox side, once wrote: "There is no agreement on the Filioque, on the Marian doctrines, on Purgatory or on the Papacy - how can agreement in faith be 'almost complete?'"

The tactic employed here to denigrate Orthodox theologians when they come out with clear statements like that won't wash - Meyendorff (+memory eternal) simply voiced what the Orthodox Church believes.

It comes back to the fact that all theological discussion, beginning with this forum, is simply an engagement in wishful thinking (with respect to actual unity on faith issues) until the respective Church authorities formally give their approval to this or that interpretation.

Neither a Lay Carmelite nor a Benedictine Oblate-in-training have the authority to change any of that.

Alex

No, the fact that the divinized man takes on the characteristics of the uncreated divine energies (i.e., including uncreatedness) is not "speculation"; instead, it is a dogma of the Orthodox faith. To deny that man becomes uncreated by being divinized, while remaining a creature in his own essential nature, is to deny that the energies themselves are uncreated.

There is no "created" grace in the Eastern tradition, nor can there ever be such a concept, and this is one of the fundamental disagreements between East and West, because as St. Gregory Palamas explains in his treatise entitled Dialogue Between an Orthodox and a Barlaamite:


God bless,
Todd

Dear Ghosty,

Thank you - you've made yourself very clear in your post above!

One problem I have with the presentation during this discussion is citing references as if they are, in and of themselves, self-explanatory - as if to say "Here is what he says and so that closes the matter."

Whether Aquinas takes a different road that ultimately leads to the same goal as Palamism - perhaps, but the Orthodox Church would disagree. Would RC theologians engaged in dialogue with the Orthodox and who have a solid background in Orthodoxy accept this - that is highly doubtful.

As you yourself have shown in the case of the Dominican without any background in Eastern theology, Aquinas is clear enough about his methods to make for a solid line of demarcation with the East. That, in and of itself, is a valid point made by that Dominican.

I've enjoyed reading your posts just as much as Mary But Todd's representation of the Orthodox position is THE representation of the Orthodox position. If anything, he has helped me deepen my understanding about these matters and he is totally consonant with mainstream Orthodoxy here and in all things.

I would suggest that if any disagree with Todd, they are disagreeing with Byzantine theology - not that there is anything wrong with that.

For me, there is nothing heretical about Aquinas. It is his perspective that is so different (as you yourself admit) from that of the East that he has really nothing to say of relevance to the East on the matter of Theosis, even though his moral theology has been used by Orthodox.

The UGCC Patriarch Joseph Slipyj, however, was a great admirer of Aquinas and even had a Byzantine icon of him placed in his Cathedral of St Sophia in Rome.

My position is "let's not offend the Orthodox who are reading these discussions, let's leave Todd alone and try not to remake him in our own image and likeness so that we can have our idea of what unity should be like and, finally, let's at least affirm that not every difference between East and West can be resolved - and that it need not be for the realization of the ultimate goal of unity."

Alex

Mary,

Please reread my posts. The real distinction between essence and energy in God involves no separation; just as the real distinction between the three divine hypostaseis involves no separation between the Father, Son, and Spirit. Eastern theology is not, like Western philosophical theology, dialectical in nature, i.e., it does not accept the Greek pagan idea that distinction involves opposition.

Nevertheless, essence and energy are really -- and not merely notionally -- distinct, but without any kind of separation, because God is adiastemic (i.e., He is beyond any kind of "gaps").

God bless,
Todd

P.S. - Who are these unnamed monks and scholars?

Alex,

I truly appreciate your kind support throughout this thread, because I do feel somewhat overwhelmed by the number of posts that are aimed at me, and what I am saying. It does appear -- at least to me -- that the Byzantine doctrine of theosis is somewhat unpopular with a few Westerners (and even some Easterners) at the Byzantine forum, but I cannot change my position because both St. Palamas and St. Maximos taught that man becomes uncreated by his participation in the uncreated energies.

Thank you again, and God bless,
Todd

Of course we become literally uncreated by participating in God's energies, because theosis involves a real existential change in man, but without destroying his essential nature. Thus, I refuse to reduce theosis to something unreal, because it is very real indeed.

The problem for a Western Christian is that Western philosophical theology has reduced God to His essence alone, but this idea has been rejected by Byzantine tradition as false, as St. Gregory Palamas said, "Essence is necessarily being, but being is not necessarily essence" [St. Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum, II, 10; ed. Contos, page 89], and in the Capita Physica he said, "Not all things spoken of God betoken His essence" [St. Gregory Palamas, Capita Physica, no. 127]. Thus, God (and man as well) is more than His essence [cf. St. Basil, Epistle 235].

God bless,
Todd

An excerpt from the Synodikon of Orthodoxy:


THE CHAPTER AGAINST BARLAAM AND AKINDYNOS

To those who at times think and say that the light which shone forth from the Lord at His Divine transfiguration is an apparition, a thing created, and a phantom which appears for an instant and then immediately vanishes, and who at other times think and say that this light is the very essence of God, and thus dementedly cast themselves into entirely contradictory and impossible positions; to such men who, on the one hand, raving with Arios' madness, sever the one Godhead and the one God into created and uncreated, and who, on the other hand, are entangled in the impiety of the Messalians who assert that the Divine essence is visible, and who moreover, do not confess, in accord with the divinely-inspired theologies of the saints and the pious mind of the Church, that that supremely Divine light is neither a created thing, nor the essence of God, but is rather uncreated and natural grace, illumination, and energy which everlastingly and inseparably proceeds from the very essence of God,

Anathema, Anathema, Anathema.

Again, to those same men who think and say that God has no natural energy, but is nought but essence, who suppose the Divine essence and the Divine energy to be entirely identical and undistinguishable and with no apprehensible difference between them; who call the same thing at times essence and at times energy, and who senselessly abolish the very essence of God and reduce it to non-being, for, as the teachers of the Church say, "Only non-being is deprived of an energy," to these men who think as did Sabellios, and who dare now to renew his ancient contraction, confusion and coalescing of the three Hypostaseis of the Godhead upon the essence and energy of God by confounding them in an equally impious manner; to these men who do not confess in accord with the divinely-inspired theologies of the saints and the pious mind of the Church, that in God there is both essence and essential, natural energy, as a great many of the saints, and especially all those who gathered at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, have clearly explained with respect to Christ's two energies, both Divine and human, and His two wills; to those then who in nowise wish to comprehend that, even as there is an unconfused union of God's essence and energy, so is there also an undivided distinction between them, for, among other things, essence is cause while energy is effect, essence suffers no participation, while energy is communicable; to those, therefore, who profess such impieties,

Anathema, Anathema, Anathema.

Again, to those same men who think and say that every natural power and energy of the Tri-hypostatic Godhead is created, and thereby are constrained to believe that the very essence of God is also created, since, according to the saints, created energy evidences a created nature, whereas uncreated energy designates an uncreated nature; to these men who, in consequence, are in danger now of falling into complete atheism, who have affixed the mythology of the Greeks and the worship of creatures to the pure and spotless faith of the Christians and who do not confess, in accord with the divinely-inspired theologies of the saints and the pious mind of the Church, that every natural power and energy of the Tri-hypostatic Godhead is uncreated,

Anathema, Anathema, Anathema.

Again, to those same men who think and say that through these pious doctrines a compounding comes to pass in God, for they do not comply with the teaching of the saints, that no compounding occurs in a nature from its natural properties; to such men who thereby lay false accusation not only against us, but against all the saints who, at great length and on many occasions, have most lucidly restated both the doctrine of God's simplicity and uncompoundedness and the distinction of the Divine essence and energy, in such a manner so that this distinction in no way destroys the Divine simplicity, for otherwise, they would contradict their own teaching; to such, therefore, as speak these empty words and do not confess in accord with the divinely-inspired theologies of the saints and the pious mind of the Church, that the Divine simplicity is most excellently preserved in this God-befitting distinction,

Anathema, Anathema, Anathema.

Again, to those same men who think and say that the name 'Godhead' or 'Divinity' can be applied only to the essence of God, but who do not confess in accord with the divinely-inspired theologies of the saints and the pious mind of the Church, that this appellation equally pertains to the Divine energy, and that thus one Godhead: of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is by all means still professed, whether one apply the name 'Godhead' to Their essence, or to Their energy, as the divine expounders of the mysteries have instructed us,

Anathema, Anathema, Anathema.

Again, to those same men who think and say that the essence of God is communicable, and who thus without shame strive to subtly introduce into our Church the impiety of the Messalians, who of old suffered from the malady of this same opinion, and who thus do not confess in accord with the divinely-inspired theologies of the saints and the pious mind of the Church, that the essence of God is wholly inapprehensible and incommunicable, whereas the grace and energy of God are communicable,

Anathema, Anathema, Anathema.

To all the impious words and writings of these men,

Anathema, Anathema, Anathema.

To Isaac, surnamed Argyros, who suffered throughout his life with the malady of Barlaam and Akindynos, and though at the end of his life the Church asked, as formerly she had often done, for his return and repentance, he nevertheless remained obdurate in his impiety and in the profession of his heresy, and wretchedly vomited forth his soul,

Anathema, Anathema, Anathema.

Dear Todd,

I don't think the word "literally" means what you think it means.

God is uncreated. I am uncreated. Does the word "uncreated" mean the same thing in each sentence?

When did I ever say that theosis is unreal?

Further, your claims against "The West" are tiresome. Name names, or give quotes. Otherwise, it is argument by slur. Who are your targets? Don't speak in generalities. Give quotes from primary sources.

I am finding this argument tiresome, since you either don't know what words mean (like "literally" or "utterly"), or you use them with a particular meaning only known to you. One cannot have an argument with a person who uses a private language.

I have no problems with the doctrine of theosis. I have no difficulties with an essence/energy distinction in principle. What I vigorously object to are your repeated claims that the Catholic Church is heretical, Sabellian or ditheist or whatever. That is offensive to me. Since I am an eastern _Catholic_, to say such things is to call me a heretic.