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Athanisian reflections on evil and freedom
By James Kelley | August 24, 2008
In Contra Gentes, St. Athanasius proclaims “That evil is not from God, nor is it in God, nor has it existed from the beginning, nor is it of any substantive existence; but men, in departing from the theoria of the good, began to devise and imagine that which is not, according to their desires” (7.3).
The great Alexandrian saint becomes quite emphatic throughout Contra Gentes (a writing which was intended to serve as a basic outline of Christian teachings, basics which are non-negotiable and not the opinions of man, but teachings based upon St. Athanasius’ experience of God) about the issue that no evil comes from God, “for evil does not come from good, not through good, or the result of good” (6.2).
In fact, St. Athanasius links the notion of a God who does evil to idolatry. Idolatry occurs when man’s vision of God (St. Gregory of Nyssa later follows St. Athanasius point by point, using the term “energein” to describe what man communes with in his nous), seen in the purity of his nous, is interrupted. When man’s remembrance of God in his nous is interrupted, the inevitable result is that his memory is tied to fantasia, illusions which are influenced by demonic energy. Only through illumination of the mirror of the soul (the nous) can man realistically and literally know that “there are no other Gods beside the Lord God.” Under the influence of fantasia, we fashion Gods who hate and who commit adultery, and whose wrath must be placated by “meritorious works.”
All of the above presupposes that man is free to accept the freely-given gift of salvation. Athanasius distinguishes between the “general capacity” according to which creation is “in the image” because it is sustained and connected to the Creater, and the “free capacity” given to man which includes the “general” but which allows man to freely respond to God’s knock at the door of the heart. As the greatest living scholar of St. Athanasius, Fr. George Dion. Dragas, put it, “God’s ultimately free act and man’s relatively free act may be said to constitute the fundamental presupposition in Athanasius’ theology” (Athanasiana 147).
Thanks be to God that our Orthodox theology, based upon real vision and participation in God, cures our souls from fantasia if we cooperate and react to God’s call. What we are cured from is the illusion of a God who can be reduced to mere human psychology.
May God bless you all, and pray for me and my family,
the unworthy James
Topics: Athanasius, Determinism, Freedom, Heresy, Patristics, Theology |
August 29th, 2008 at 9:51 am
First, let me say it was this – St. Athanasius revelation – that brought me to Orthodox Christianity. His exposition on Christianity, in my opinion, is a revolutionary doctrine that truly overthrows the pagan superstitions that survive in Dualism and overturns every previous and subsequent interpretation of man’s relationship to the Almighty and to his fellow man. Although I am certainly no theologian, I believe that Athanasius’ conception of good and evil is the essence of Christianity. We cannot simply agree to disagree with those offering divergent interpretations; we must call them out into the open and refute their misanthropic (demonic) strain of logic. After all, the belief that Evil exists in the Natural world as an eternal, irreversible phenomenon, has become the justification for every form of tyranny imposed on man by man.
To assert, as St. Athanasius did, that God is not the author of Evil, leaves us to ponder another conclusion; that is, mankind, ‘authored’ by God as we are, is not and cannot be ‘evil’ or ’sinful’ by ‘nature’. To accept that we have the capacity to choose God’s Will and to be in communion with God and man stands in definite contradiction with the metaphysical philosophical presuppositions of Modernity and Western Liberalism. Rather, God gives us the power to choose our spiritual fate.
We cannot simply defer to the fatalism of the Augustinized pseudo-religions. Christ is the great liberator of history! His word revealed to mankind our true nature. We are not pawns in a pagan game with Eternal Evil on one side and Eternal Good on the other, as Western theologians tend to suggest. Neither is mankind a mere animal as Modernists would have us believe. We are not compelled by some unquantifiable Nature to do harm to ourselves and to one another as the Social-Darwinist and Radian thinkers have taught – these beliefs are fostered by those who envy God and hope to exert their dominance over his Creation. Revelation has provided us the key to free ourselves from worldly compulsions.
Our socialization inhibits our understanding of our nature (perhaps more so now than ever), but social pressures do not and cannot undermine our capacity to realize our True Nature; that is, our natural condition to be in communion and harmony with both God and our fellow man. To believe otherwise is to reject the power of God himself. With that said, I think it is imperative that we take Athanasius to his conclusion and in doing so expose the latent paganism and heresy in modern social doctrines, Christian and otherwise. By separating spiritual questions from ‘worldly’ concerns we are subscribing, perhaps subconsciously, to the metaphysics of Dualism and rejecting of our Nature, rejecting Christ, and rejecting the power of the Holy Spirit.
Thank you for heralding Athanasius, Brother James.
August 30th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Well, where to start here…? Human actions in Augustinian and later normative Catholic theology do not placate God’s wrath simply, but only through our union with Christ’s humanity, which does, in a created sense, placate His wrath. We do not think of God as an adulterer and pagan demi-god; we know the divine nature is impassible; but we certainly do think His wrath is soothed by the pleasing sacrifice of Christ, and its only because of Him that our works have any “merit.” That’s why I find that Fr. Romanides and especially Fr. Kalomiros are pains–and straining, in my opinion, on so many occaisions to recast so many biblical texts that plainly declare God’s wrath.
Our works do not commend us to God and only because God works in us and chooses to condescend to accept our works which are we said to be “rewarded.”
The NT speaks in this way in more places that can be listed concerning God rewarding our works. But do human actions initate or cause the grace of God that results in our initial conversion? Absolutely not: no more than the human nature in Christ was a condition for the Incarnation. In Orthodoxy, election is ultimately man’s decision, meaning man is the final determiner of the initial impetus of faith, co-operation, and perseverance therein.
As such, the number of the elect must either fluctuate, or if it is admitted that there is a definite elect, it must be on the basis of foreknowledge of faith only. This is the opposite of what the NT teaches. Divine election is completely gratuitous, and not conitngent upon human actions. In this scheme, Christ loses none of the sheep given to Him before the foundational of the world. Their perseverance in good and final salvation is also completely unmeritted: yes, and even all of history is ordered and ordained by God for the sake of the elect: Romans 8:28-30. All those elected are brought to final glorification–none of the sheep given to Christ are lost. In this scheme, man has nothing to boast of before God, as St. Paul says in Romans 4 concerning Abraham and in Romans 11.
But in all Eastern Orthodox theology, because of its refusal to admit a completely gratuitous election, ultimately Abraham was saved because he willed it, and God’s help was contingent upon his “ok” and perseverance therein. A good will itself was not a free gift of God. And all Orthodox, when they deride “merit,” seem to fail to consider that its is actually their own theology that is more “meritorious” than the truly Augustinian and Thomistic Catholic tradition on this point. In my estimation, only the Augustinian-Thomistic tradition has been consistently biblical and liturgical on this point.
And as a side note, James, when we were chatting, I stated wrongly off the top of my head that Augustian deals with the Pelagian use of Eastern Fathers in “Two Letters Against Petilian”–that’s an anti-Donatist work (duh). Its in “Two Letters Against the Pelagians.” Sorry for that error.
Now, I know this is not a sufficient refutation of the points at hand, but I want to start with something brief and simple about my understanding on these points and where I’m coming from, and try to clear the ground of the more purely polemical misconceptions such as that in our theology merit placates the angry Zeus; that we are flat out fatalists and whatever other broad, over-simplifications “JD” has thrown into the mix.
I’ve read both Ss. Augustine and Thomas on their theory of evil, which “JD” proposes as dualistic (a standard polemical tact of deflecting the issues) and, though I may be proven wrong, I doubt he has actually read the anti-Faustus works where St. Augustine early on in his career worked out and overcame a lot of His youthful Manichaean errors. In the full length City of God, there is a beautiful section where he argues of the parasitical and “negational,” or “non-beingness” of evil, that is in perfect harmony with the Eastern Fathers. St. Thomas makes this same argument in numerous places. Two years ago I had to hash this out with one of my Nietzschian professors who relied on these same, tired old labels of St. Augustine as a mere dualist.
More on this later, but this is a start.
August 30th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Clarification:
“The NT speaks in this way in more places that can be listed concerning God rewarding our works. But do human actions initate or cause the grace of God that results in our initial conversion? Absolutely not: no more than the human nature in Christ was a condition for the Incarnation.”
By this I mean that the Incarnation was not contingent upon a human willing in Christ, if you will. In the 5 and 6th Councils we read that the Savior’s human will is “altogether deified,” which, following the Incarnational principle of soteriology, itself indicates an initiatory and primary place to the divine in our conversion. Otherwise, our human wills would not need to be deified, and certainly the divine is what is the cause and power of our entire being’s theosis.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Again, Jay Dyer seems to be missing the point on the subject of “works”, which is no doubt caused by evident his misunderstanding of the Energies of God, and the Father’s teachings on reason and free will.
Mr. Dyer accuses me of making over-simplifications for the sake of polemics, but this is itself intellectual dishonesty. As Dyer himself has admitted, “I know this [reply to JD] is not a sufficient refutation of the points at hand”. On this point, Mr. Dyer and I agree. Instead, his reply to my post is an empty attack on my character and devoid of any legitimate dissection of the theological points at hand. Mr. Dyer’s presumption that I am not well-versed in the works of Augustine is both incorrect and a bit of a dirty polemicist’s trick. Even Mr. Dyer’s placing of quotations around my name (”JD”) is a dirty trick, as to say, ‘…and who is this “JD”, if that is even your real name.’
Mr. Dyer, rather than attempting to make a straw man of my screen name, dismissing my points by inferring that I am not as learned as yourself, and equating me, as an individual, to some Nietzschean professor you once had, I would ask that you stay on point for the sake of intellectual honesty. If my recognition of “Dualism” in Augustinian theology is incorrect, I look forward to being thoroughly enlightened by someone who is some much more well-read.
That is all I will say on the propagandists techniques employed by Mr. Dyer. Instead, let us get to the heart of the mate by clearing the air with definitions. First, I am curious to know how Mr. Dyer defines Dualism. Please offer us something we can sink our teeth into. Then, we can weigh the teachings of Augustinian.
I will grant Mr. Dyer one concession; that is, I will acknowledge that there are tracts in Augustine’s works that are in accordance with Orthodoxy. Even a broken clock tells the right time twice per day. Unfortunately, the rest of the time it is misleading. In fact, Mr. Dyer (who has implied he has thoroughly internalized the complete works of Augustine) should understand that, if we examine Augustine’s writings in their entirety instead of picking and choosing various selections out of context, than Augustine is most certainly a Dualist, and therefore a heretic.
Mr. Dyer’s tendency towards Sola Scriptura is also alarming, and suggests a definition of “God’s wrath” that implicitly equates God’s Will with vindictive human emotions. No doubt Mr. Dyer has been infected with Augustine’s perspective on the subject. However, I, as one who is not so well-versed in Augustinian theology, ask Mr. Dyer to please enlighten us and tell us more about the mind and motives of God.
For the sake of clarity, let me put several questions to Mr. Dyer.
1. If the works/actions/behavior of man, during our mortal life, has no bearing on our Salvation, what determines our place in Heaven?
2. Did God pre-select an “elect” to enjoy the “reward” of Heaven before the existence of mankind?
3. How does God “work in us”?
4. How do we differentiate between God working in us, and us reinventing God (”taking the Lord’s name in vain”) for our own devices, or demons masquerading in us as God’s spiritual agents?
5. Mr. Dyer stated, “…we certainly do think His wrath is soothed by the pleasing sacrifice of Christ.” Based on this statement, I wonder (a) how you define “God’s wrath” and (b) how is it that God is soothed by sacrifice? (C) Is it the shedding of organic blood that satiates this wrathful God?
Finally, to guard against further evasions and dismissals of these questions by Mr. Dyer, let us be quite clear on the matter of Freedom, Will, choice and fatalism. Toward this end, I will post a definitive passage from St.
John of Damascus on the subject.
According to St. John, God “know[s] all things beforehand, but He does not predetermine them. Although He knows what is in our power, He does not predetermine it” (De Fid. Orth.. II, 30). St. John summarizes the Christian conception of freedom:
“We hold, therefore, that free-will comes on the scene at the same moment as reason, and that change and alteration are congenital to all that is produced. For all that is produced is also subject to change. For those things must be subject to change whose production has its origin in change. And change consists in being brought into being out of nothing, and in transforming a substratum of matter into something different. Inanimate things, then, and things without reason undergo the aforementioned bodily changes, while the changes of things endowed with reason depend on choice. For reason consists of a speculative and a practical part. The speculative part is the contemplation of the nature of things, and the practical consists in deliberation and defines the true reason for what is to be done. The speculative side is called mind or wisdom, and the practical side is called reason or prudence. Every one, then, who deliberates does so in the belief that the choice of what is to be done lies in his hands, that he may choose what seems best as the result of his deliberation, and having chosen may act upon it. And if this is so, free-will must necessarily be very closely related to reason. For either man is an irrational being, or, if he is rational, he is master of his acts and endowed with free-will. Hence also creatures without reason do not enjoy free-will: for nature leads them rather than they nature, and so they do not oppose the natural appetite, but as soon as their appetite longs after anything they rush headlong after it. But man, being rational, leads nature rather than nature him, and so when he desires aught he has the power to curb his appetite or to indulge it as he pleases. Hence also creatures devoid of reason are the subjects neither of praise nor blame, while man is the subject of both praise and blame.”
September 10th, 2008 at 9:17 am
P.S. I apologize for the typos. I am writing in a hurry today.