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Response to Jay Dyer’s recent messages
By James Kelley | August 30, 2008
Above, Jay, you wrote:
“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.”
Here I detect, if I am right, a kind of Nestorianism in that you are separating Christ’s human will (along with its nature) from his divine will and nature, as if the second Person of the Trinity has to rustle His own flesh into conformity with Himself, or one could also see your position as Monophysitistic since you seem here to indicate that there is an inactive human will which does not actually will the human energies of Christ into action, but merely slavishly follows some alien divine will. I hope you are not saying any of this, and I eagerly await your clarification.
Also, you said:
“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.”
I could easily quip that the Augustinian West refuses to follow all of the early Christian Fathers’ teachings on the completely free choice of man to love God. Indeed, The Church Fathers and the teachings of the Orthodox Church do not conceive of man’s will or nature in isolation from God. Instead the good that man does is synergistic (and man can really do the good, and without being coerced by God, for this would be God doing it. However, God’s love/energy consantly calls us and aids us, keeping us intact and drawing us to Him, though God’s love is not deterministic), and thus totally free. Therefore, your notion of a totally gratuitious election just seems bizarre to us Orthodox. It’s like someone walked up to St. Gregory of Nyssa and said, “You know, your writings on free choice and man’s self-determination limit the sovereignty of God. I just don’t think it covers some verses which give me trouble.” But seriously, it depends on what you mean by “totally” and what you mean by “gratuitous.” Don’t you believe that man is free to choose, and is thus free to love God? Don’t you believe that God loves man and that because of this love He allows opposition to his will?
Every time I get to this point with a Calvinist or some other type of non-Orthodox Christian, I’m met with something like: “but the Scriptures say otherwise.” Do they? If my interpretation of Scripture ever leads me to deny that God is love, I will hopefully doubt my own interpretation before doubting that of the Orthodox Fathers, who are inspired with the same inspiration as the writers of the Bible. I have talked to non-Orthodox who have tried to reel me into their Augustino-scholastic interpretations of Scripture, such as the guy who said to me: “The Bible says ‘Essau have I hated.’ See there, God hates people He wants to hate.” At that point, I hear that zany circus song start up. I’m not saying you are doing anything that far off, Jay, but it is basically the same thing to expect me to agree that God is wrathful in the sense to which Fr. John objects. Maybe that is the problem: It just seems simple as pie to both of us that we are right.
However, for you to say that Fr. John Romanides disagrees with St. John of Damascus is just plain shocking. Nothing in the lengthy quotation from the Damascene which you quoted above does anything but prove me right and prove you wrong, as far as I can tell. I already said that God wills that there be a real freedom in creation so that an equally real love can exist. This means that God is not dependent upon man or creation, as St. Gregory of Nyssa and many other Fathers have always agreed. St. Gregory of Nyssa, in Contra Eunomios I, describes the experience of noetic illumination as the realization in the heart that all created beings are dependent upon God, the truly real Being, Who is dependent upon nothing.
Fr. John Romanides, along with the whole Orthodox Church, affirms that God knows His elect because he, as God, is all-knowing. Even Boethius knew that God’s foreknowledge and predestination of the elect did not mean that free choice was negated. What puzzles me is why we even disagree, for you, Jay, seem to be agreeing with me and Fr. John on the deep truth that God is sovereign without impairing man’s freedom.
What you are doing in other places, Jay, is telling us that synergistic, deificatory Orthodox theology does not seem “Biblical” to you. Maybe a better approach is to explore the implications of your interpretations of the Holy Scriptures. You wrote: “…we certainly do think His wrath is soothed by the pleasing sacrifice of Christ…”. You back up your seemingly impious imputation of wrath to God by saying that there are many references to God’s “wrath” in Scripture. What kind of God is wrathful? Only one answer is possible: A wrathful God is Himself in need of salvation, for He is subject to the passions and is no better than me. In the Orthodox view, God hates no one, but only loves. Our saints do not become deified by hating evil people, but by perfecting their “love for enemies,” as St. John of the Ladder insists.
It is truly difficult to say anthing “original” about this subject, since a lot of ink has been spilled about it over the centuries, but Dr. J.P. Farrell has written a great book about it called Free Choice in St. Maximos the Confessor.
As usual, I appreciate your interest, Jay, and I believe our only way forward is to be humble, keep our heads down, pray, and try to be open to each other as sincere followers of Truth. Along the way, we’ll also do this (blog) 
Topics: General |
August 30th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
+1
Free Choice in St. Maximos the Confessor -
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1878997025/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link
August 31st, 2008 at 1:51 am
First, would Fr. Romanides affirm an antecedent and consequent will in God?
August 31st, 2008 at 1:55 am
Do you honsestly think Fr. Romanides would say this:
“But inasmuch as He is a just God, His will is that sinners should suffer punishment.”
“The first then is called God’s antecedent will and pleasure, and springs from Himself, while the second is called God’s consequent will and permission, and has its origin in us. And the latter is two-fold; one part dealing with matters of guidance and training, and having in view our salvation, and the other being hopeless and leading to our utter punishment, as we said above. And this is the case with actions that are not left in our hands.”
I don’t think he would and it isn’t that shocking to me that St. John and St. Thomas are more in line that St. John and Fr. Romanides.
jay
August 31st, 2008 at 2:06 am
As to the first response above, I am in no way Nestorian. I told you on the phone how much I loved McGuckin’s book, which is a thorough-going vindication of the Cyrillian Christology. I’ve posted things on nicenetruth in defense of mia physis.
No, the human will does not have to be “wrestled with,” but I am citing the Sixth Council, which reads in its Definition of the Faith:
“”For it was right that the flesh should be moved but subject to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius. For as his flesh is called and is the flesh of God the Word, so also the natural will of his flesh is called and is the proper will of God the Word, as he himself says: “I came down from heaven, not that I might do mine own will but the will of the Father which sent me!” where he calls his own will the will of his flesh, inasmuch as his flesh was also his own. For as his most holy and immaculate animated flesh was not destroyed because it was deified but continued in its own state and nature, so also his human will, although deified, was not suppressed, but was rather preserved according to the saying of Gregory Theologus (St. Gregory of Nazianzus): “His will [i.e., the Saviour's] is not contrary to God but altogether deified.”
The flesh, including the human will, is subject to the Divine Person who assumed it. And I did not say anything about an inactive human will, but one subject to and moved by the divine without losing its own natural energy. I believe the above statement.
Now when it comes to the matters of doctrine such as election, then yes, St. Paul trumps St. Gregory of Nyssa or St. Irenaeus or even, say, the early St. Augustine, because he was an apostle and was infallible in his teaching. No father is, regardless of his recognition and fame. Ultimately, yes, its a question for me of who is a better biblical theologian. And I’m no Protestant, either; this is only done in concert with liturgy and Church authority. I mean, you yourself pick and choose which “father” you will accept.
August 31st, 2008 at 2:12 am
More to come in response to your response…
jay
September 10th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I think many Western theologians are missing in their discussion of ‘the will’ of man. In Jay Dyer’s posting, it is mentioned that Abraham’s subduing of his own will to that of God’s had something to do with Abraham giving God his mortal “ok”. James touched on this point thoroughly, but I would simply like to reiterate that what is missing from the Augustinian school of metaphysics is a grasp on the energies of God. Here, I’m no suggesting that we can offer a finite definition of God’s ‘energies’. What am suggesting is that the ‘Western’ conception of man fails to recognize our relationship to the literal energies of God.
It is my understanding that, when man chooses with his own free will to submit to the will of God, he is choosing to become a conduit or vessel for the Holy Spirit. For example, let us say that God’s energy flows like electricity. When we come into contact with God, either through illumination or through death, we are given the gift of choice which determines how we experience the energies of God. We can choose to either temper ourselves through Purification and become conduits for the will of God, or we can resist the will and energies of God that we will inevitably face. If we choose resistance, God’s energy will destroy us. If we choose to cleanse ourselves and function in harmony with the will of God, then his energy will flow through us.
So, to say that Abraham had to give his consent for God to exact His Will is an incorrect understanding of the Will of God, in my view. It is God’s will that we rejoin His energy. Mankind, however, has been given His gift of reason, as is clearly summarized by St. John of Damascus, which allows us to determine how we will experience the Will, energies and Love of God.
As I have mentioned in previous postings, I am no theologian, so please - to those reading this post - if I am wrong, please, correct me. My goal is to actually understand theology, not to simply be viewed by my peers as one who understands.
September 11th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Above, Jay hurled quite an accusation at me:
“Now when it comes to the matters of doctrine such as election, then yes, St. Paul trumps St. Gregory of Nyssa or St. Irenaeus or even, say, the early St. Augustine, because he was an apostle and was infallible in his teaching. No father is, regardless of his recognition and fame. Ultimately, yes, its a question for me of who is a better biblical theologian. And I’m no Protestant, either; this is only done in concert with liturgy and Church authority. I mean, you yourself pick and choose which “father” you will accept.”
Jay, you’ve finally met an Orthodox who has heard this kind of cant and can read between the lines to expose what is really going on. You’re probably not even aware of what you are supporting. You just feel threatened by an alien theology that was designed to put idolatry under its heel. Unfortunately, Augustine’s writings are going to be ground up under this Orthodox heel. Let’s begin…
It’s an old Latino-Augustinian historiographical game to insist that the early Church Fathers are flanked by the two authorities: The Bible (led by The Apostle Paul), and Augustine. The Fathers of the Church (East and West) who wrote in the first four centuries are seen as semi-Pelagian because they oppose Augustine’s ridiculously naive interpretation of St. Paul (see Fr. John Romanides’ article on Original Sin in St. Paul). It is embarassing for Western theologians when they hit the books in grad school and find that the earliest witnesses to Orthodoxy, the Apostolic and Nicene Fathers, all disagree with Augustine about virtually everything. Jay, you say that I pick and choose which Father I believe? No, I follow the Orthodox Fathers of the Church, none of whom follow the silly errors of Augustine. Can you point out a tradition of belief in the East (or the West before Augustine) which believes that universals exist in the mind of God which we can ascend to via our rationality, which is denuded of all passible energies in order to be granted vision of God’s essence? No. What about the idiotic notion that God’s appearances to the Old Testament saints in glory are below the pure intellectual visions that God grants by zapping concepts (reflections of the divine essence) directly into the brain? To suggest that any of the other Fathers who came before Augustine said this is demonstrably false. Anyone is welcome to try, and to be taken apart and make a fool of for their trouble. Should we even go into the filioque? What about Augustine as a great biblical scholar. What a joke. Fr. John speaks eloquently on Augustine’s blunders:
“In his De Fide et Symbolo, Augustine makes an unbelievable naive and inaccurate statement: “With respect to the Holy Spirit, however, there has not been, on the part or learned and distinguished investigators of the Scriptures, a fuller careful enough discussion of the subject to make it possible for us to obtain an intelligent conception of what also constitutes His special individuality (proprium).”
Everyone at the Second Ecumenical Synod knew well that this question was settled once and for all by the use in the Creed of the word “procession” as meaning the manner of existence of the Holy Spirit from the Father which constitutes His special individuality. Thus, the Father is unbegotten, i.e. derives His existence from no one. The Son is from the Father by generation. The Holy Spirit is from the Father, not by generation, but by procession. The Father is cause, the son and the Spirit are caused. The difference between the ones caused is the one is caused by generation, and the other by procession, and not by generation.
In any case, Augustine spent many years trying to solve this non-existent problem concerning the individuality of the Holy Spirit and, because of another set of mistakes in his understanding of revelation and theological method, came up with the Filioque.”
Augustine’s writings present a position which claims to be the cure for Pelagianism, but which is actually just another error. Grace is not something which operates as an “add-on” to man, nor does is operate without reference to man’s free response. That’s why Roman Catholics and Protestants, who are either brainwashed by years of Augustinian training or just plain desperate because deep-down they know better, have to invent the sad fable of semi-Pelagianism. Jay, why do all of the early Fathers, from St. Ignatius and St. Irenaeus, to St. Athanasius, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Basil the Great, all present, as a central tenet of Christian Truth, the dogma that man’s salvation is in his own power, and is accomplished through synergy with God?
Feeble cover-up attempts like “semi-Pelagianism” are disgusting to any right-thinking Christian. To calumniate the Fathers is a grave sin, for they are Holy, and they have lived the life of the angels while here on earth. I would never, and I have never, picked only Fathers I prefer. I follow the Fathers of the Church. Augustine is venerated as a Saint by some Orthodox, but even these Orthodox acknowledge that Augustine’s writings are a catalogue of heresies. The only difference between Augustine’s heresy catalogue and that of Sts. Irenaeus and John of Damascus, is that the latter speak out against the heresies and Augustine (through ignorance) praises the heresies!
September 12th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
“Augustine’s writings are going to be ground up under this Orthodox heel.”
Now we’re talkin’.
September 21st, 2008 at 3:20 pm
You said:
“It’s an old Latino-Augustinian historiographical game to insist that the early Church Fathers are flanked by the two authorities: The Bible (led by The Apostle Paul), and Augustine. The Fathers of the Church (East and West) who wrote in the first four centuries are seen as semi-Pelagian because they oppose Augustine’s ridiculously naive interpretation of St. Paul (see Fr. John Romanides’ article on Original Sin in St. Paul).”
No, the Fathers use this same three legged stool–as St. Irenaeus does in Against Heresies.
But all we get from you is criticisms of Augustine based on Fr. Romanides’ and Farrell’s works: no biblical theology and no patristic citations other than failures in St. Augustine.
There are quite a few well-thinking anti-semi-pelagians in the world and over the centuries. In your first post, you defended Fr. Romanides against semi-pelagianism, and now you admit my point that for the EO, its not an issue. Why did those Fathers you listed fail to mention it? For several reasons that I listed in our phone discussions: First, because the west dealt with it directly, as it was a more western problem. The East was focusing on Christology. Second, its no more odd that St. Augustine would make great “developments” than St. Maximus would at the 6th council. Does the fact that elements of St. Maximus’ predecessors were less clear than he was on the wills in Christ mean that no one had the same principles he did? No, and the same goes with the western developments of predestination.
The Fathers you listed are not seen as “semi-pelagian,” they are seen as less clear, as St. Maximus says of St. Gregory of Nazianzus when correcting him on certain statements he made concerning Christ’s humanity. And if you would read St. Augustine against the Pelagians you would realize you’re making the very same arguments the Pelagians were.
You admitted you weren’t even aware of the Indiculus on the phone, and yet the popes who affirmed the Indiculus are hailed by you as Orthodox. Yet, the Indiculus affirms my view.
jay
September 21st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
By the three-legged stool I meant Bible, Tradition and Apostolic Succession, as used by St. Irenaeus. No serious theologian should have a problem with this.
jay
September 21st, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Has anyone else besides me here read ‘The Place of Bl. Augustine in the Orthodox Church’ by Fr Seraphim (Rose)? That book pretty well settled this whole issue for me.
September 21st, 2008 at 8:36 pm
By the way, I read part of the post on ‘Energetic Procession’ that you’ve commented on, James, where Fr Seraphim’s book is described and criticised, and it almost sounds like the author of the post didn’t read the book.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:58 am
I read Fr. Rose’s book, and it was ok, but somewhat typical in presenting him as basically a proto-Calvinist, which is not correct. At no point does St. Augustine deny synergy, and he held to a negative reprobation, not a positive, double predestination.
Jay
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:42 am
If St Augustine does not deny synergy, then I fail to see how his position can diverge from that of St John Cassian. Did St Cassian misunderstand St Augustine? Did he wrongly believe St Augustine’s position to be what we would call ‘proto-Calvinist’? Is the ‘dispute’ between them merely a 1600-yr-old misunderstanding? As I see it, if there is even such a thing as ’semi-Pelagianism’, a notion widely doubted, then surely you must believe that the book in question is not at all ‘ok’, but ’semi-heretical’. (By the way, the author’s name is not ‘Fr Rose’, but ‘Fr Seraphim’. Following monastic tradition, he gave up the surname ‘Rose’ at his tonsure. I, and other Orthodox, occasionally use it in parentheses simply in order to differentiate him from others with the same Christian name.)