I saw this scroll across the bottom of the screen during the Obama heath care speech. What an amazing story- Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago will be required reading in Russian schools.
I wish it were required reading in our own. Christendom may be rising the East.
The BBC said that requirement was in response to a strong rise in the Russian Communist party. Besides, who’d want a federal government deciding what books are required to be read?
Good point Joel. My wish for required reading would be purely local. Russia, however, is a different matter. I am not sure that decentralized federalism fits with the nature of Russia.
My comments are also inspired by other events that Americans would rightly hold suspicious, the renewed political power of the Russian Orthodox Church.
It would be easy to criticize these events from an American perspective, but it would also be easy to miss that point the traditionalist in Russia are winning some victories.
Bill,
I would argue it was the traditionalist mindset of the RO that allowed Communism to flourish in Russia.
GAS, why don’t you make your case? I’d be interested to hear it.
On the subject of Russian Orthodoxy, a friend sent this link to me today:
http://www.ncregister.com/daily/catholic-orthodox_unity_in_sight/#When:15:10:59Z
According to the article, the Catholic Archbishop of Moscow has suggested that unity between Catholics and Orthodox could be achieved “within a few months”!
But perhaps it’s merely an instance of more Catholic over-enthusiasm.
Btw, Bill, when are you going to initiate the discussion on Caritas in Veritate?
Andrew,
1. Formalism as a means to Salvation equivalent to subjection to the State as a means to a Communistic Utopia.
2. Paradise to be achieved by theosis, or radical transformation.
3. Apophatic theology and the skeptism of outward objects as having any meaning.
4. A theology of suffering.
GAS wrote:
“1. Formalism as a means to salvation equivalent to subjection to the State as a means to a Communistic Utopia.”
BC: Before responding I would like you to flesh this out for me a bit. What exactly do you mean by formalism? Are forms themselves dangerous? Why not include Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, High Church Presbyterianism? Are all these formal ecclesial bodies types of communist utopia?
also:
“2. A theology of suffering.”
BC: As opposed to a theology of glory? What exactly do you mean.
Wow. Its amazing what we can come up with, isn’t it? Your points do show an attempt to wrestle with fundamental questions concerning Orthodoxy, GAS, though arising from a hostile perspective toward it.
1. I second Bill’s question for more clarification. Somehow, I don’t think “formalism” (in the sense of observing outward ritual at the expense of true inward piety) is part and parcel of Orthodoxy’s self-understanding.
If you mean high precision without deviation in liturgical practice, I’d point out that the system of old covenant worship was very strict also. Orthodoxy understands services of public worship to participate in the actual liturgy of Heaven, so precision is not optional.
2. Interesting. So there’s a correlation between Christian perfectionism and utopianism. I can see the possibility of that where one faith is exchanged for another with a continuity of underlying principle carrying over. I’ve thought the same thing about other heresies.
Yet, I don’t see how Christian perfectionism can be tarnished with the excesses of godless communism. Isn’t this argument of guilt by association? Where has actual Christian perfectionism been guilty of such excesses?
3. How does speaking about God in terms of negation lead to a nihilistic view of creation, exactly? I’d be interested in an argument that’s already in print, if you know of any.
4. So Dostoevsky was a proto-Communist?
5. Finally, GAS, where does atheism fit in?
Bill/Andrew:
1. Formalism. The question isn’t whether forms are bad or whether Orthodoxy lacks piety but rather the priority of that within the form lies the truth instead of merely pointing to the truth and any deviation from the form is necessarily heterodoxy. Georg Lukacs who wrote History and Class Consciousness (1923) defined orthodox Marxism as fidelity to the Marxist method and not to dogma which sounds eerily similar to Orthodoxies antipathy to Christian dogma.
2. Theology of suffering. Asceticism, theosis, and apophatism are the means, phenomenon, and dogma that the Godhead cannot be known in a rational manner but only experienced through mystical participation with the Godhead. Objective reality (God) exists outside the mind and the sense world is all relative. Lenin expressed the same rationale for Materialism.
3. Andrew, I have read that many Orthodox Scholars are skeptical that Scripture is a true revelation of God and have encountered Orthodox apologists who argue against the veracity of Scripture in the same philosophical manner as an atheist. While my ancedotal experience does prove anything about Orthodoxy I do deduce that apophatism leads to skepticism of Scripture and it is a small step from there to atheism.
4. Interesting that you brought up Dostoevsky. It occurred to me that Ivan merely exchanged one form for another form without having to give up his philosophical foundation.
GAS,
I am not sure Lukacs is the best basis to analyze Orthodox from. Marxism is a form of Gnosticism as is evident not only from its structure but from Marx’s poetical writings as well. Consequently I am not sure how a view that sees matter as God-bearing can be a basis for one that ultimately denies matter altogether. Furthermore, Marxism procedes by a dialectic that is simply not present in Orthodox theology, which is why the Orthodox eschew doctrinal development. And it seems even more odd that a tradition which enshrines Christian dogma in the councils of the church could be said to have antipathy towards it. Furthermore, Orthodoxy has caught the eye of not a few existentialists precisely because it affirms a view of personhood that strongly resists any attempt to reduce persons to principle, rules or attributes, which is one reason why the Communists tried to kill of the church. Like the Jews of Germany, people with a history don’t fit into alternative theories of history very well.
Every Christian tradition has some form of apophaticism, it just depends on how it is understood. The West’s interpretation is derived in large measure from Albertus Magnus’ (mis)reading of Dionysius on up through Aquinas and Scotus and then into the Reformers. But no Christian tradition sees God as comprehensible ad intra.
Secondly, the Orthodox teaching is that God is known in his energies or activities which are fully divine, but that God is inaccessable in his essence, which is why the Orthodox do not have a doctrine of intentional union in the eschaton, otherwise known as the beatific vision. And this ties with my previous remark, and because they lack a doctrine of the beatific vision and affirm rather theosis via the energies, they affirm the deification of the body and matter, which is testified to in the theology of the icons. The divine persons of the Trinity are present in their actions though not reduced to them or exhausted by them.
What the Cappadocians taught and Orthodoxy affirms is that we know the energies of objects and not their essences. Part of the problem is that it seems you are talking activities or energies as phenomena, which just aren’t equivalent. With Marxism it is no surprise as a species of Idealism that it is devoid of God and therefore evacuates all of the material world of any objective reality. Marx’s Hegelian chickens come home to roost which is why Marxism is never really instantiated. Its never really Marxism because we have so many more bodies to dispense of that are in the way to the ideal state. The real culprit here is Ockham.
I’d have to see who these Orthodox writers were, but the Orthodox church in her doctrinal statements and in her representative theologians strongly affirms the divine Scriptures as revelation and truthful. What it doesn’t affirm is the historical-grammatical methodology because it sees in its presuppositions a faulty Christology, particularly that of Theodore of Mopsuestia.
Perry,
I’m not a philosopher so I won’t pretend to know all the nuanced convergences and divergences between Idealism, Orthodoxy, and Neoplatonism but I’m still convinced that Marxism and Orthodoxy share a philosophical ground motive that through the Form transformation occurs leading to an ever rising level of deification.
Gas writes, “I’m still convinced that Marxism and Orthodoxy share a philosophical ground motive that through the Form transformation occurs leading to an ever rising level of deification.”
Gas, unless I’m mistaken, you’re guilty of equivocation on this point. Mr. Robinson has made quite clear what the Orthodox understanding of “deification” is. The Orthodox do not mean that man becomes God in essence.
Hegelian idealism, of which Marxism is a type, posits that God is actualized by the world process. This is not Orthodox Christianity, but a gnostic perversion of the truth.
I hope you still honor St. Athanasius as a great theologian of the Church. He said, “God became man, so that man could become God.” This must be understood as a participation in the divine energies (direct activities vs. mere created effects) of God. See 2 Pet. 1:4.
As far as “transformation” goes, man cannot encounter God without being changed. And, it is perfectly biblical to say true believers are changed into the likeness of Christ.
In 2 Corinthians 3:18, we read St. Paul to say, “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
One of the weaknesses of popular Protestantism, in my view, is a pressing tendency to deny/ minimize the reality of spirit and spiritual transformation (in the guise of anti-perfectionism).
The spiritual and the ontological are indivisible. In fact, a truly Christian ontology will acknowledge the spiritual constitution underlying all things. I.e., what is seen is derived & constantly sustained by what is unseen (Heb. 11:3).
How real spirit is will be revealed at the Eschaton, when all creation will be set ablaze with God’s glory. Already, the whole creation longs for the revelation of the glory the sons of God already possess (Rom. 8:18ff.).
The denial of immanent spirit is essentially a feature of gnosticism, which is unable to preserve the reality of the material. The material creation does not need to be obliterated. It is the internal principle of corruption leading to death that has been overcome in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Any presentation of the Gospel that leaves this aspect out is a diminished pseudo-gospel. Any “Christianity” that denies the indwelling Spirit and the ontological unity of Christ and his Church is unworthy of the name.
Andrew,
No equivocation, just understanding the basic underlying structures. Even with different forms, types of transformation, and meanings of deification the processes seem similar.
As to transformation, of course all types of Christian religion hold to some form of transformation but as I’m sure you are aware the Reformed faith holds strongly to the Creator/creature distinction.
Different formulations between different Christian traditions will affect a whole range of other doctrines and practices and so to take one example, Sacraments, how one formulates the nature of the Sacraments, be it more or less formal, will filter to other doctrines and practices.
It seems to me that these doctrines and practices will also translate into public life. A person from a formalist Christian tradition in which the operation of a practice through the correct form guarantees its end would be inclined to believe the same about governmental operations and it would spill out to those who are only nominally associated with that tradition by it’s cultural influence. Or so it seems to me.
Wait a minute, GAS. On one hand, you say, that the basic processes are the same regardless of the outward form, i.e., there are differences between Orthodoxy and Marxism in accidentals but not in substance. To back this up, you say, appealing to Lukacs, that orthodox Marxism is “fidelity to the Marxist method and not to dogma.” And, you reference the radical apophatic methodology of some Orthodox that leads to denying Scripture. Along the way, you disregard the significance of difference in “types of transformation” and “meanings of deification” between the systems.
Well, of course, when Orthodoxy’s “meaning of deification” (which is bound up with its Christology) and “type of transformation” (which is bound up with its theology) are cast aside, its content—its truth—is gone. All that’s left is hollow outward form and practice. But the question we should be asking is whether “the operation of a practice through the correct form” when done in true faith is in fact guaranteed by God to achieve its end.
On the other hand, you say that in Orthodoxy the truth lies within the form “instead of merely pointing to the truth.” Here, you draw a parallel between the Orthodox conception of the Church and the Marxist conception of the state. In Orthodoxy (as in Roman Catholicism) the Church becomes the end in itself, while in Marxism the state becomes the end.
However, this is precisely where Orthodoxy and Marxism differ. Orthodoxy has dogma regardless of whether modernizing theologians allow it to properly shape their theology: the dogma propounded by the ecumenical councils. You have already said it makes no difference to Marxists what outward form Marxism takes. The Orthodox, on the other hand, affirm that a particular outward form is coordinate with the content of Orthodox faith. There is a world of difference between the two. For Orthodox, sacramental signs bear objective content that is indivisible (though distinguishable) from the faith of Church which is inseparable (though distinguishable) from the faith in the true believer. Marxism, being essentially materialistic, excludes content altogether.
Many Protestants share with Marxism the view that outward forms are interchangeable and/ or dispensable. They are not. God has established a particular embodied context—the Church and her constitutive sacraments—in which the faithful are preserved unto eternal life. Outside the Ark there is no salvation.
The rejection of fixed outward form leads to the attempt to dissolve and restructure society according to the whims of men, i.e., by “social contract.” Millions have been murdered in the long revolution to overthrow the authority of priests, kings, and fathers. Once priestly authority was sufficiently undermined, it was relatively easy to convince whole populations that the authority of kings rested on nothing but arbitrary power and coercion.
Now that there are no kings, no father can be a king. The democratization of the church leads to the democratization of the state, which in turn, leads to the democratization of the family. In each case, the exercise of real government has been exchanged for control by an amorphous totalitarian bureaucratic system only apparently headed by a representative chosen by the people. This representative, whether he be a dictator or president, is actually chosen by and serves the system itself. The buck never stops; no one is really responsible.
The democratic heresy also intrudes into Christianity’s understanding of the Trinity itself. For example, in Calvin’s theology, the metaphysical equality of the three Persons is set against the monarchy of the Father, so that each of the three Persons is the ultimate cause of himself. This has in modern times led to the denial of the essentially “male” quality of the Godhead. Now, we read in books like The Shack that God manifests him/herself in many different forms.
The so-called Creator/ creature distinction is actually the Kantian distillation of all that was bad in the Reformers (though it did not originate with them). Gordon Clark didn’t know everything, but he rightly perceived that if human knowledge and divine knowledge do not share propositional content, it is impossible for humans to have any knowledge whatsoever. Van Til’s theory of analogical knowledge is far more radical than St. Thomas.’
I argue further that the Creator/ creature distinction must logically deny the very possibility that anything creaturely can image or manifest the divine. To honor the creature never really honors the divine; sins against creation can never really be sins against the Creator.
It is wrongly concluded from the doctrine of divine aseity that God’s works have no intrinsic relation to God as God, i.e., that there is no interface, absolutely no communion, between the supernatural and the natural. This dichotomous sundering of human and divine makes it impossible for modern minds to accept that human fatherhood and kingship uniquely manifest divine fatherhood and kingship. In the modern age, an overly scrupulous fear of tyranny and idolatry makes genuine submission to human authority impossible.
At the root of all this error is a faulty Nestorian Christology that short shrifts the real synergy that exists between the divine and human wills within the Son’s single Hypostasis. There is no hypostatic union. The two may be very close, but there is no co-inherence. Contrary to modern unbelief, Christ overcame and overcomes the separation between God and man caused by sin and restores creation to its wellspring in the divine life. The human spirit is quickened by the divine Spirit.
The Nestorian “Christ” ascended to a noumenal realm that has no communication with the phenomenal. As Man, he exercises a purely “spiritual” sovereignty in the hearts of men (redemptive grace). This… influence has no metaphysical reality; it is reducible to natural phenomena (faith), albeit specially created. There is actually no testifying of the Holy Spirit with the human spirit.
As God, the Son exercises a purely metaphysical sovereignty over the bodily world (common grace). As man he is Priest; as God he is King. There is no unity of the Messianic office; there is no Priest-King. There is no single inheritance that Jesus Christ received after pursuing the course of his earthly obedience. In the end, there are two Christs: the wrathful King that destroys the kingdom and the loving Priest that saves elect individuals out of it. Israel after the flesh is forsaken; particular Jews are saved.
The dual sovereignties of the Nestorian Christ are exercises of raw extrinsic power which signify nothing of the regeneration of the natural order from within for which the prophets longed and hoped. This is neither the Christ nor the faith St. Paul confessed:
“There is one Body, and one Spirit,
Even as ye are called in one Hope of your calling;
One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism,
One God and Father of all,
Who is above all, and through all, and in all.”
-Ephesians 4:4-6
The historical Church founded by Jesus Christ is in fact moving toward eschatological glorification. The Communist state, not being blessed by God, can never achieve this end, and so reduces its vista of termination to the material here and now. When true to their theology, the Orthodox anticipate a future blessedness secured by God’s grace. With them, I believe that God shall be glorified in his Church, and that this end is assured through the present gift of the indwelling Spirit.
Andrew,
Thank you for your comprehensive reply. Some quick observations.
1. You emphasize “true faith” when you say, “But the question we should be asking is whether “the operation of a practice through the correct form” when done in true faith is in fact guaranteed by God to achieve its end”, but I wonder what the true faith is directed at? If the Ark, so called, is able to perform the saving measures ex opere operato then it appears that the true faith must be directed at the Church and not the living God. This is of course what Protestants protest, the making a transcendence of relative reality much like Marxists will make a transcendence of the state.
2. Orthodoxy and dogma. While Orthodoxy accepts the dogma of the ecumenical councils her apophatic character leaves much of the dogma left to mystery which places the emphasis on merely the functions of the Church and her wait for eschotological glorification not unlike the Marxists emphasis on the functions of the State in lieu of the mysteries of the universe while waiting for a humanistic utopia.
The rest of my comments shall have to wait as it is late.
GAS,
I’ll wait for the rest of your reply, but here’s a preliminary response.
1. The obect of true faith is God. However, the “holy catholic Church” is an article of faith because we believe in “One God, the Father Almighty… one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God… and in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life.” There’s a proper and legitimate faith in God over/through (transcendant) and in (immanent) the Church and her ordinances.
If the Church of history is the Church established by Jesus Christ, it is the Temple of the Holy Spirit on earth. As such, the catholic Church is indefectible, though particular churches may fall.
2. This is a danger, I’ll acknowledge. What can I say? Satan attempts to pervert our judgment all the time by using something that’s very true in itself to oppose other truth.
BTW, I’m sure you understand from the last comment that I don’t deny a Creator/ creature distinction, properly understood. It just has to be framed in a way that allows for true confrontation/ interaction of the Creator with His creation.
Andrew,
Continuing on:
The rejection of fixed outward form leads to the attempt to dissolve and restructure society according to the whims of men, i.e., by “social contract.”
You imply that this one branch of the break from the despotism of the Romanist rule in the Middle Ages is responsible for the current political thought failing to mention Calvin, Rutherford, et. al, and the seperation of branches of government due to Total depravity. These men knew, despite your caricature, that the only way to repress evil in men of power was to limit their power. Even the Romanist Lord Acton realized this.
The so-called Creator/ creature distinction is actually the Kantian distillation of all that was bad in the Reformers (though it did not originate with them). Gordon Clark didn’t know everything, but he rightly perceived that if human knowledge and divine knowledge do not share propositional content, it is impossible for humans to have any knowledge whatsoever. Van Til’s theory of analogical knowledge is far more radical than St. Thomas.’
Now I’m confused. I thought the Orthodox were apophatic existentialists but you make company with the rationalist Clark and dismiss Van Til who acknowledges a form of apophatism? And somehow the Magisterial Reformers were Kantian before Kant?
At the root of all this error is a faulty Nestorian Christology…
You call me a Nestorian and I call you a Monarchialist… and so it goes.
Andrew, I appreciate your distinctions but I still believe it’s a large leap from Jesus Christ to an Ontological Church.
Well, GAS, I did mean to keep the discussion above the level of merely trading ad hom’s, and was attempting to address some root issues just as you attempted in your critique of Orthodoxy. I suppose I’m at fault for trying to say too much at once.
It’s not going to be easy to out-orthodox the Orthodox. When it comes right down to it, the competing views of Christ are going to have to be laid side-by-side. In the end, there must be an objective assessment of which system is most faithful to the Scriptural Christology and the historic orthodox faith that has interpreted and proclaimed it from the beginning.
I don’t dismiss Van Til. He had many useful things to say. So did Clark. With Clark, I affirm that human beings can know propositions God knows. “In Thy Light, we see light.” I also affirm that we can “see” the “shape” of truth, which is a vision of the structure of true propositions in their logical relations. This vision, properly called knowledge, is fragmentary and never fully comprehensible to the creature. God knows all things exhaustively in one act. We know things only partially and discursively. And this (human) knowledge is derived from the total encounter with the transcendent and immanent spiritual realities that accompany their instantiations/ appearances.
All error, philosophical error included, is spawned from theological error. Luther was Cartesian before Descartes, seeking solace in the absolute certainty of which faith alone is capable. Before Kant, Calvin taught that the Eucharistic elements are as far from Christ as heaven is from earth. This is to say that earth is completely metaphysically closed off from heaven. Purportedly, the receptive hand of faith is the point of contact between the phenomenal (creaturely) world and the noumenal (divine). However, in reality faith fails, being reducible to a natural psychological motion (knowledge, assent, trust). The infinite gap cannot be bridged because the Divine Spirit is isolated to the noumenal. In the end, the elect cannot even know that the faith they possess is a divine gift.
So, I have you on record denying the Ontological Church despite Col. 1:15-20 and other passages. Good; clarity is preferable to agreement. Do you deny that Christ is consubstantial with the individual believer also?
Andrew, you said:
Purportedly, the receptive hand of faith is the point of contact between the phenomenal (creaturely) world and the noumenal (divine). However, in reality faith fails, being reducible to a natural psychological motion (knowledge, assent, trust). The infinite gap cannot be bridged because the Divine Spirit is isolated to the noumenal. In the end, the elect cannot even know that the faith they possess is a divine gift.
C’mon now Andrew, on your blog you purport to some Reformed leanings at some time and yet what you describe above could only be described as neonoministic arminianism. Why would you try to pin this Arminian doctrine on Reformed doctrine? In what way does Reformed doctrine isolate the Divine Spirit to the noumenal? Calvin claimed the Spirit bridged the gap between the phenomenal and noumenal so why the deceptive effort to claim Reformed doctrine is materialistic? If the divine gift is purportedly wrapped in a cookie does that make it more knowable?
Do I believe the Church is a distinct being? No. Am I to suppose that there is such a being with Christ’s head and all of the regenerate from history are some how dangling from below? I believe this is why many Easterners and Romanists fall off the boat and worship the Church instead of the true God. I do believe the Church is organic in it’s interconnectedness, organization, and development by God’s providence. So instead I will allow the natural reading of Colossians instead of imposing speculative philosophy upon it.
Do I deny Christ is consubstantial with the elect? No, Christ shares his humanity with the elect but I reject any Platonic rising of the elect into a monistic diety.
Hi Gas,
You write:
“C’mon now Andrew, on your blog you purport to some Reformed leanings at some time and yet what you describe above could only be described as neonoministic arminianism. Why would you try to pin this Arminian doctrine on Reformed doctrine? In what way does Reformed doctrine isolate the Divine Spirit to the noumenal? Calvin claimed the Spirit bridged the gap between the phenomenal and noumenal so why the deceptive effort to claim Reformed doctrine is materialistic?”
All I’m saying, GAS, is that the overriding inclination to separate the divine from the creaturely through the Creator-creature distinction or something comparable will ultimately lead to skepticism and an anti-supernatural/ materialistic worldview. I am making no comprehensive statement about Reformed piety. Calvin believed in the ontological union of Christ and his church, no matter how reticent he was to use metaphysical categories. You, however, appear to entirely lack this piety.
“If the divine gift is purportedly wrapped in a cookie does that make it more knowable?”
Well, it is where Christ is encountered in a way he isn’t elsewhere. The sacrament was instituted to fulfill a specific function in the application of redemption. The fact is, and the Church has always believed, that the consecrated elements aren’t mere bread and wine any longer; they possess a function and meaning that transcends (though including) their natural purposes.
“Do I believe the Church is a distinct being? No. Am I to suppose that there is such a being with Christ’s head and all of the regenerate from history are some how dangling from below?”
There couldn’t be a better illustration of your materialistic mindset than this. You appear to have no knowledge of the spiritual order in which creation and new creation subsist. How can the Body of Christ reach its fullness if it doesn’t exist? (Cf. Eph. 4:12,15-16).
“I believe this is why many Easterners and Romanists fall off the boat and worship the Church instead of the true God.”
See below.
“I do believe the Church is organic in it’s interconnectedness, organization, and development by God’s providence.”
Here you confess the extrinsic power of God that forces things together, but deny the intrinsic power that indwells, sustains, and perfects it, i.e., the life-giving Spirit.
“So instead I will allow the natural reading of Colossians instead of imposing speculative philosophy upon it.”
Your “natural” reading arises from a naturalistic hermeneutic that fails to observe that Scripture presupposes and teaches an ontology. My “natural” reading of Scripture leads me to think otherwise.
“Do I deny Christ is consubstantial with the elect? No, Christ shares his humanity with the elect…”
What is humanity, GAS; what is there to share? Or, are you deceitfully using a word that signifies nothing?
“…but I reject any Platonic rising of the elect into a monistic diety.”
Here, you impute a false belief to your opponents due to a confusion (in your own mind, apparently) between natures, and perhaps between “person” and “nature.” We (catholics) do not believe we are consubstantial with Christ’s divine nature. We are consubstantial with his human nature, a real existent thing. The Church is formed into a real unity, but we do not worship this unity.
We worship a divine Person in his humanity (which we see) and his divinity (which we do not see), without separation and without confusion.
The union that properly forms the Church is not a hypostatic union. The Church’s members may be metaphysically joined to the Head, and in personal (covenant) relationship with him, but neither the Church nor any of its members is absorbed into the nature or merged into the Person of the Logos.
We catholics hold the Church in the highest esteem (that can be accorded the creature), but we do not fall into formal idolatry on this point.