www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology A Latin Trad polemic against Orthodoxy...

Eastern Orthodoxy Unveiled

JAMES LARSON

We tend to think of Eastern Orthodoxy as a branch of Christianity whose form of worship and religious symbolism may seem rather strange to us, and we are also ready to admit that the one really important Catholic doctrine which they have rejected is the Primacy of the Pope (we tend to mistakenly think of their rejection of the Filioque - the doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son - as being a rather marginal issue), but most of us are not prepared to consider that Orthodoxy is something radically different, and even opposed, to Catholicism.

However, such is the case. The extraordinary fact is that virtually any serious Orthodox writer will be the first to make precisely this claim: namely, that Orthodoxy and Eastern Spirituality represent a faith and spirituality which in many ways are in profound opposition to the Latin Tradition. And this, despite the fact that his counterpart in the West is usually expending a good deal of effort in attempting to prove that the differences are minimal and inconsequential.

http://www.christianorder.com/features.html

I'd appreciate any input in rebutting the author's claims.

JohnRoss:

I did a little moving around the author's website, reading some of the other things available.

This [i]IS NOT[/i] representative of Catholicism. It represents the disturbed views of someone who has not followed the Church and her teaching for the past 40 years. This is one of our embarrassments--just like some of the "more Orthodox than and EP or the MP" that our Orthodox brothers have.

The best advice I'd give you is to wipe the reference from your computer and avoid the site. This will do nothing but disturb your peace. And preserving the peace that comes from Christ, "the peace from above that the world cannot give and cannot know" is what your life in Christ is all about.

There will be people who do not know our Orthodox brethren firsthand and will never get close enough to know them. There will be people who never learn what the Catholic Church is all about either. Both types will take quotes out of context from written or posted sources and then proceed to condemn them from ignorance. This website is a prime example.

It's been said that there are those Orthodox who would never be in communion with Catholics even if the entire Catholic Church became Orthodox tomorrow in all points and on all points. They'd find some reason to stay separate. That's unfortunate. But consider the rabid invective coming from that site you posted. The same is true for those who see themselves as the guardians of Catholicism when all they are is people who are so afraid of examining and growing their own faith that they can do nothing but remain at some point in history that is past.

The truth from a Catholic point of view--and I am not the Magisterium; just a man who has tried to understand what the Magisterium is saying and to faithfully live it, explain it, and transmit it to those around me by word and example--is that we and Orthodox Christians are already one on a profound level that many cannot understand because they refuse to do so. At the level of Communion with Christ, that profund level attained at the moment of reception of the Life-giving Mysteries, we are one. Because Christ cannot be divided and if one is in true communion with Him, one is in true communion with every other person who has communed. There are plenty of layers of division that have surrounded our joint participation in concelebration, but the fact remains that Divine Communion is attained in the Apostolic Churches wherever they are found. If nothing else can convince a person, one only has to look at the miracles surrounding saints in each Church. The Holy Spirit doesn't play favorites when these mysterious things happen in relation to one that God obviously has found to have lived in His favor. St. Sharbel, a Maronite, is greatly revered in Russia; St. Nektarios and St. herman of Alaska are two of my favorites. We all admit that the Holy Spirit blows where He wills and when He does see fit to overcome our human weakness and sinfulness, we will all be amazed. https://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=67276&page=260&fpart=3

The truth remains for all us. We need each other. We MUST learn to love each other. We must learn to lvie together. We must find a common language with which to witness to the Saving Mystery of Jesus Christ to a world that desparately needs to hear it and is searching for it. We each need to understand the Faith from the other's point of view. That does not mean giving up anything of one's own faith; it does not mean agreeing with the other's point of view. But it does mean that understanding comes from seeing through the eyes of the other and knowing deep down that the other's experience brought him to the point where he is. And that the Holy Spirit is alive and well in all this. Somehow beyond our meagre understanding the Holy Spirit is at work in both communities. Our task is to work and pray that He can make us one again after so long that we have lived apart. The world needs to see this and the Lord wills it. It is not our task to be the barrier to its fulfillment.

In Christ,

BOB

I worry about the ignorant who read stuff like this.

Unfortunately, the Latin Trad camp harbors some people who still adhere to the praestantia latini ritus, although this has not been Catholic teaching since before the birth of even the eldest among us. I encountered one - a priest, no less - a few years ago who is utterly horrified at the idea of allowing the faithful to receive Holy Communion in both kinds.

This is by no means typical of the majority of articulate Latin Trads.

Fr. Serge

Who is this guy? (No...Don't waste your time answering this question.)

This is annoying and very sad. He sure spent a lot of time on concocting this argument and my time would be better spent cooking dinner.

Where's Secret Squirrel? Isn't he supposed to be ridding the world of nuts?

Wow, for an sspxer he is rather reserved and charitable. Why, just last week I graduated from eastern schsimatic to become, according to a Lefebvrite:
"vile demented rutting heathen" (actual quote)

Brothers and Sisters:

Here's an interesting sentence from Patriarch Alexy's letter to the Romanian Orthodox locum tenens and the Synod. I think it's worth reflecting on by all of us.

As for me, I count myself blessed to have encountered the group that makes up this forum for the love, compassion, and mutual desire to understand one another that pervades. Thank God for all of you and may God continue to bless all of you.

In Christ,

BOB

Having simply skimmed through the article, I must admit that I enjoyed the quotations from the Church Fathers on the transcendence and unknowability of the divine essence, and the quotations from Lossky and Meyendorff were also quite good.

Sadly, I doubt that Mr. Larson has a good grasp on the Patristic theology of the divine energies, which is found in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers, St. Maximos the Confessor, St. John Damascene, and St. Gregory Palamas (to name just a few). The distinction -- without a separation -- between the divine essence and the divine energies is the basis for the doctrine theosis (i.e., divinization), because without this ineffable distinction one runs the risk of falling into pantheism.

God bless,
Todd

This comment by Mr. Larson is incorrect:

The divine energies are not identical with the divine essence, but the divine energies are God, i.e., they are God as He manifests Himself to us [see St. Basil, Letter 234]. Thus, as St. Gregory Palamas said, "Essence is necessarily being, but being is not necessarily essence," and so, "not everything predicated of God is essence." [see St. Gregory Palamas, Contra Akindynum II, 10; and Capita Physica 127].

Let�s be honest�both sides have their fair share of zealots who believe that their way represents Christ�s truth. Regardless on how they express themselves, let us not forget that since Vatican II, so much work has been done to build bridges especially between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Patriarch Athenogoras and Pope Paul VI took a bold step by lifting the excommunications of 1054 for which they took a lot of heat and and in death still do so. Sorry to say, others like this gentleman, are quick to light their torches to burn down those bridges.

In our quest for full communion, there are going to be alot of ugly and nasty things said, and, some very profound and heart-felt words meant to invite each other into a deeper relationship. It's like a husband and wife trying to reconcile after a separation; what usually gets in the way is �history.� History is a tricky thing, it is usually based upon our own perceptions. If we can only look at our common past, and use it as a springboard to rediscover Christ in each other!

Dear Zan,

I'm dying to know, and so, I'm sure, are many others - how did you become a "vile demented rutting heathen"?

In any event all those interested should read Chesterton's delightful poetic comments on Higgins the Heathen!

Our dog is often rutting and sometimes demented - but he really isn't vile, and he has never expressed his religious convictions, so I don't know what they are.

Fr. Serge

In the aftermath of Summorum Pontificum, many Catholic "Traditionalists" are desperate to look for reasons -- any and all reasons! -- to justify remaining in a sort of "state of resistance" against the Holy See. Magazines such as Christian Order (which I used to like) and Latin Mass Magazine (which I also used to like), not to speak of "Fatima Crusader" and its aberrations, are desperate to justify their continued existence, and in order to do so, they have to resort to finding more and more proof of papal "heresy" courtesy of Benedict XVI (!)

Reading James Larson's "unveiling" of Orthodoxy, I got the impression that the real target here is NOT Orthodoxy, but the Vatican's ecumenical outreach to the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church is attacked here only in order to show Mr. Larson's readers just how bad the Vatican has become, that it even contemplates dialogue with these "pantheistic" "heretics".

The more scholarly levels of "indultarian", non-Lefebvrite, non-sedevacantist Traditionalist Catholicism has always been deeply respectful of Eastern Orthodoxy. The man considered by many as the greatest Traditionalist liturgist, Klaus Gamber, openly called upon the Catholic Church to draw strength and nourishment from the Eastern Churches. The "Ottaviani Intervention" and many other Traditionalist defenses of the Tridentine Mass have cited the Eastern liturgical tradition with great approval.

I believe that this discussion should move away from assessment of James Larson's character to discussion of the historiocity and merits of his view of Orthodoxy (as Apotheoun has already began to do.) Until relatively recently (as a cursory reading of Catholic Encyclopedia and earlier Latin authors on the subject will demonstrate), negative views of Eastern theology were not fringe but mainstream. The fact that it is not representative of Catholicism *now* does not mean that it was not for a quite lengthy period of time.



It's both; his theological problems with Orthodoxy are the cause of his frustration with Rome's ecumenical outreach. Why shouldn't a hardcore Augustinian or diehard Thomist not be scared of Lossky?

The following comment by Mr. Larson is incorrect:

St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his treatise entitled The Life of Moses, said, ". . . knowledge of the divine essence is unattainable not only by men but also by every intelligent creature," and so -- as he went on to say -- when Moses ". . . grew in knowledge, he declared that he had seen God in the darkness, that is, that he had then come to know that what is divine is beyond all knowledge and comprehension" [St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, numbers 163 and 164]. Now, it is the common teaching of the Fathers of the East that the divine essence is beyond any form of human (or angelic) knowledge, and that is why they insist that the knowledge of "what" God is cannot be attained, but at the same time they insist that "who" (and "that") God is, can be known through the revelation given to mankind in Christ. In other words, God's tri-personal existence can be known, or better experienced, by man through the outpouring of the divine energies, which are the personal (enhypostatic) manifestation of the three divine persons (hypostateis). Thus, the Eastern Fathers hold that it is possible to know "who" God is, i.e., to the degree that He has revealed Himself, but it is impossible to know "what" God is, because God is essentially beyond any form of conceptual definition.

That said, I thought I would conclude this brief post with an extended quotation on the doctrine of energies from Archbishop Joseph Raya's book called, The Face of God, since he provides a good summary of this important doctrine:

God bless,
Todd

Summary Critique of Larson's Polemic



I really can't blame a Traditionalist Latin Catholic for being freaked out by Meyendorff and Lossky; both emphasize the differences between Eastern and Western theology, and Lossky rarely misses an opportunity to bash Aquinas.



The Eastern concept of divine transcendence and unknowability coupled with the Thomist conception of God would lead to an unworkable, non-Christian understanding of divine-human relations, but he fails to understand that in Eastern theology, although the essence is unknowalble, that the divine names apply to God's energies which are truly God.


Larson's right that the Eastern stance on the absolute unknowability of the divine essence is at odds with the doctrine of the Beautific Vision in the eschaton, but the "apparent contradiction" he sees between theosis and God as "beyond being" is caused, again, by his failure to understand that the energies of God, beyond the essence, are truly God.


Here Larson is simply mistaken. Lossky and Meyendorff do not identify nature (created) and grace (uncreated) with each other, but are simply asserting that nature never exists *wholly* apart from God's grace which sustains creation itself and that the will to create is distinct from God's essence and therefore free.



Larson is only half-right when he states that"the 'nature' of God which man is alleged to possess in this supposed state of deification cannot be what Eastern Orthodoxy considers the absolutely transcendent and ineffable God Himself, who is beyond all nature, essence, and being." The absolutely trascendent and ineffable essence of God is not united with man, but his *uncreated* energies are. He makes the erroneous claim that "energies" of God which are in no way identifiable with the "God Who is" because he mistakenly assumes that the Orthodox hold (like Thomists) that everything outside of God's essence must be created or that there is nothing to God outside of His essence. Larson never escapes this terminological confusion.



Since Larson reduces God to His essence, apophatic theology appears to render God completely unknowable, which is, as demonstrated, a mistaken impression. He's right to note the tension between apophatic theology and the doctrine of the Beatific Vision, but his understanding of the Eastern depiction of divine-human relations is warped.



Apophatic theology does undermine analogia entis, the teaching that created perfections possess a "likeness" to those in God's essence.



His claim that deification requires "a negation of all that is human nature" is completely erroneous and totally unfounded. Eastern and Western theology are in agreement that man's salvation depends upon his cooperation with God's grace, but he is right to note that the East does not affirm the teaching that man will be "able to see the very Essence of God" before or during the Eschaton.



Larson accurately states that according to Eastern theology are not appicable to the essence of God, but the problem is that he stops there under the impression that that is the end of the story. For some reason, he believes that the distinction between hypostasis and energy is problematic, and that the assertion that the divine energies are God renders apophatic theology internally incoherent.



Larson again, due to terminological confusion, asserts that because Orthodox hold that the divine names are not applicable to God's essence that that they are not applicable to God at all, that's how it would work within the Augustinian framework but that's not how it works with the Eastern framework.



Larson's simply being a faithful Thomist when he states, "For St. Thomas, this is, of course, completely unnecessary. God is defined as pure Act. All the Names and Acts we rightly posit of God may be multiple in our conception of them, but are in reality One in His Substance. It is this fundamental fact of the Nature of God which Orthodoxy has entirely missed," but his charges of pantheism and soteriological confusion only hold if God is reducible to His essence, which is the very thing that Orthodox deny.



This lapse into absurdity is the logical outcome of Larson's numerous misinterpretations. Since he believes that the East teaches (a) God is reducible to his essence which is absolutely unknowable and (b) that God's energies are created, it's not surprising that he is able to draw further problematic conclusions from his starting data. However, he is right to state that the Palamite distinction between essence and energy demotivates the Augustinian Filioque.



Larson is annoyed by the fact that the East has not found it necessary to dogmatize a description of the Real Presence using Aristotelian metaphysics, and he opposes the the claim that original sin does not include an inherited guilt.



Here he claims that opposition to Thomist metaphysics leads to theological anarchy, pantheism and denial of creation ex nihilo, which only follows if his depiction of Eastern theology is accurate, which it is not.

I will end my critique here since after this section he makes no arguments or substantive comments and does nothing but insult what he does not understand.