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

This is demonstrably false. It is not a position that is taken fully seriously by many scholars and theologians from the east or the west, after they have actually read the teachings of the Angelic Doctor.

That other western secularized scholars and thinkers have spoken as if with the voice of the Church is without doubt, but St. Thomas was not one among them and did not teach the caricature that you present here. It is simply a false attribution on your part. That is verifiable in eastern writers, western writers and from St. Thomas's own words.

As I said earlier there are others from the east, Metropolitan John of Pergamon among them, who would take issue with your interpretations of the language of "uncreation" and the implications that remain unanswered by your formulations or lack thereof.

No amount of quoting will alter the fact that there is more than one interpretation possible in many of the words of the Fathers. No one who has any amount of education in patristics and the history of theology would today claim that we fully understand St. Maximus or St. Gregory, yet you demand that without any further ado, we either accept your interpretations or suffer the slings and arrows of Alex telling us that we are not eastern, really .

You continue to hold up St. Thomas as a straw man, when the real challenge to your theses comes from within the eastern tradition, as I said, starting, but not ending, with Metropolitan John, for those who are interested in doing some searching on their own.

It is also not a part of universal Orthodox teaching to take the language of uncreated to mean that creation is undone.

As I said, it is still universally acceptable in Orthodoxy to envision or conceptualize mankind being drawn into the uncreated flow of divinity by grace, remaining unchanged in their creatureliness, for as long as they are held there by grace.

To make more of it than that is to raise the kinds of questions that I have raised here that you choose to ignore or write over the top of as though one more unexplained and out of context quote is an answer to any of what I have proposed as serious difficulties in your limited presentation of energies.

Again I do not reject the Palamite teaching on essence and energies in the context in which it was taught.

Mary

Citation?

Here's a quick bit about how grace _is_ the partaking in the divine nature:

I-II.112.1

Article 1. Whether God alone is the cause of grace?

Objection 1. It would seem that God alone is not the cause of grace. For it is written (John 1:17): "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Now, by the name of Jesus Christ is understood not merely the Divine Nature assuming, but the created nature assumed. Therefore a creature may be the cause of grace.

Objection 2. Further, there is this difference between the sacraments of the New Law and those of the Old, that the sacraments of the New Law cause grace, whereas the sacraments of the Old Law merely signify it. Now the sacraments of the New Law are certain visible elements. Therefore God is not the only cause of grace.

Objection 3. Further, according to Dionysius (Coel. Hier. iii, iv, vii, viii), "Angels cleanse, enlighten, and perfect both lesser angels and men." Now the rational creature is cleansed, enlightened, and perfected by grace. Therefore God is not the only cause of grace.

On the contrary, It is written (Psalm 83:12): "The Lord will give grace and glory."

I answer that, Nothing can act beyond its species, since the cause must always be more powerful than its effect. Now the gift of grace surpasses every capability of created nature, since it is nothing short of a partaking of the Divine Nature, which exceeds every other nature. And thus it is impossible that any creature should cause grace. For it is as necessary that God alone should deify, bestowing a partaking of the Divine Nature by a participated likeness, as it is impossible that anything save fire should enkindle.

Reply to Objection 1. Christ's humanity is an "organ of His Godhead," as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iii, 19). Now an instrument does not bring forth the action of the principal agent by its own power, but in virtue of the principal agent. Hence Christ's humanity does not cause grace by its own power, but by virtue of the Divine Nature joined to it, whereby the actions of Christ's humanity are saving actions.

Reply to Objection 2. As in the person of Christ the humanity causes our salvation by grace, the Divine power being the principal agent, so likewise in the sacraments of the New Law, which are derived from Christ, grace is instrumentally caused by the sacraments, and principally by the power of the Holy Ghost working in the sacraments, according to Jn. 3:5: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

Reply to Objection 3. Angels cleanse, enlighten, and perfect angels or men, by instruction, and not by justifying them through grace. Hence Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. vii) that "this cleansing and enlightenment and perfecting is nothing else than the assumption of Divine knowledge."

AMM,

Take a look at this text of the Melkite Interventions at Vatican II,

http://www.melkite.org/xCouncil/Council-15.htm

It is a speech given by Archbishop Zoghby at Vatican II. Further down is Patriarch Maximos IV on birth control. It is quite illuminating.

Joe

Dear lm,

Thank you for that great compliment! It is thanks to the intercession of a Jesuit Martyr that I was conceived - my birthday is tomorrow so your comment is particularly poignant for me.

As for Uncreated Energies, I think we are all lucky that Todd is not a Jesuit!

Cheers,

Alex

Thanks. My respect for Bishop Zoghby continues to grow.

Dear Friends,

Those who deny that Aquinas referred to Grace as "created."

Why is it that all those who follow Aquinas refer to Grace as "Created" including Pope John Paul II?

And if you say he did NOT believe that, then why use that word to describe Grace, as if Scholastic positioning wasn't confusing enough?

Hmmm?

And aren't you Thomists "uncreating" his theology with some assumptions that RC theologians of the past would have disagreed with?

Hmmm?

It's a shame there aren't any "Orthodox Jesuits" - then you guys would really be in trouble!

Alex

Happy birthday Alex! What martyr? I actually love the Jesuits--one taught me philosophy and another was my spiritual director for seven years and brought me back into the Church.

Pseudo-Athansius:


That sounds like theosis!

I'll bet Aquinas and Palamas are good drinking buddies in heaven!

Alex,

I just did a word search for "created grace" in the Summa and there were zero (0) matches!

There is one orthodox (in union with Rome) Jesuit who seems to have brought us inclusive language!

lm

Look at the analogy he gives "it is impossible that anything but fire should enkindle."

Only God can deify, like only fire can burn.

Dear lm,

I'm all for Saints getting together in Heaven! (Are you related to Aquinas in some way? ;))

You mean Aquinas never taught "created grace?" Boy, the Latin Church is more messed up than even I thought!

St John de Brebeuf - on the Old Calendar, the day of his martyrdom falls on my birthday. My middle name is "John-de-Brebeuf."

Which is also why I'm resisting the adoption of the new calendar . . .

Alexander John-de-Brebeuf

I hope I am related to Aquinas by faith! What a humble man. To think that he said, "All I have written is but straw," compared to what he saw in his vision on the feast of St. Nicholas--after which he wrote no more.

Perhaps he saw those energies!

Those North American martyrs were tough men. I once listened to tapes of someone reading their journals in a car for ten hours--their story is magnificent!

What I appreciate about St. Thomas is that he can bring things down to elemental truths (or truths about the four elements) which I can understand.

Now talking about energies is like talking about quantum physics. There may be a good analogy there, but I just can't see it!

Aquinas does refer to Grace as created, but only in terms of its "accidental being" in man. In layman's terms this means that our having it is created, since it's the possession of Grace that is the accident. He's not refering to the substance of Grace in calling it created; on the contrary he states again and again that only God Himself can deify, and that Grace is nothing else but the Divine Nature itself being shared with creatures. He even explicitely says that creatures can't cause Grace.

You can kinda think of substance as the noun, and accident as the adjective. As a noun, Grace is absolutely transcendent and uncreated, since it's nothing less than the Divine Life. As an adjective applied to us it's created, but only insofar as it's used as an adjective to describe us having it.

To us a mundane example, red can be used as a noun, as in the color itself, and it can also be used as an adjective when applied to a certain object that is red, like a car. The color red itself is older than any car, but that this car is red is from the time it's painted. The nature of the color hasn't changed, but the car's accidental relation to the color has.

Applied to Grace, as a noun, a substance, it is absolutely uncreated by definition. Our sharing in it has a beginning in time on our end, though, and insofar as we're talking about "my having Grace" as an adjective it can be called "created" (just like the car doesn't make red, but is made red). Even as an accident the nature of Grace doesn't change, so it doesn't become a creature through joining with us, but its literal "being in us", or our having it, is something created; if it wasn't that would have to mean that we're not creatures by nature.

Aquinas talks about this in I-II, Q110, A2 [newadvent.org] which I cited before. He describes how Grace can't be the substantial form of a human, as that would mean the human is God in the exact same way the Persons of the Trinity are (their substantial form is the Divine Nature, as ours is human nature). Grace/Divinity can be our accidental form, though, something added on top of what we are ourselves by nature, just like the car being red; we are really and truly Divine, just like the car is really red, but we're Divine by participation, whereas God is Divine because God is Divinity Itself.

Hope that helps!

Peace and God bless!

Nowhere in my posts have I ever said that creation is "undone," what I have said is that man becomes uncreated and infinite through the process of theosis, while remain created in his own essential nature.

Of course it is acceptable to speak of the divinized man as a creature, because in his essential nature he remains created, while through his participation in the uncreated energies he has become uncreated. As I have said several times already, the divinized man is both created and uncreated, human and divine, finite and infinite, and as a consequence he is a perfect icon of the incarnate Logos.

God bless,
Todd

Aquinas is simply saying here that no created being can "cause" grace. It does not mean that all grace for Aquinas is itself uncreated.

The problem with this text is centered on the concept of "participated likeness." What exactly does Aquinas mean when he says that God bestows a "partaking in the divine nature by a participated likeness"?

In Byzantine theology man does not simply become "like" God, he actually participates in uncreated divinity (i.e., the divine energies), and becomes God in God. Moreover, man does not partake of the divine nature through some kind of likeness; instead, he participates in the divine nature itself through the uncreated divine energies.