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He Ain’t Experientially Heavy, He’s My Passenger!
By James Kelley | November 23, 2008
Passenger,
1) Orthodoxy is an association of spiritual hospitals which exists to cure the heart of man. (Nothing difficult or challenging there.)
2) Non-Orthodox “Christians” have no idea what the heart/nous is much less how to cure it (this point is easy to prove and should cause no controversy whatsoever).
You do need a reasoning brain to verify that Augustinian metaphysics is too stupid to be called a heresy [a paraphrase of JSR] :) My five-year old knows that Platonic forms do not exist, and she accepts that the reasoning power is distinct from the noetic energy in man :) In this she has already surpassed eleven centuries of Frankish theological nonsense :) Good luck to any of her playmates or future instructors who may try to convince her that man is a “reasoning substance plus emotions,” which is what my harebrained (and harenoused!) secondary and university teachers have, for the most part, tried to make me believe.
Like my daughter, you have used your reasoning brain well, for you are exploring Orthodoxy out of your deep dissatisfaction with an arid, sentimental, happiness-mongering Western “spirituality.”
Now, take the next step and use your nous. Contact the clergy of the Orthodox church and they will guide to the cure you are searching for. Without obedience, we cannot even dream of taking a single step toward Him. Let’s face it, at this stage you cannot go back to some outfit that calls itself Christian but that does not guide anyone to the cure of the inner man. Thus, we are stuck together, two passengers in a stormy sea. I’m happy as pie about it, aren’t you!
In love,
James
Topics: Freedom, Friendship, Heresy, Hesychia, Prayer, Theology, Theosis, Truth |
November 23rd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Well, I’m pleased that you have put the time aside to write a post just for me. My reply is probably much too long for a comment, but perhaps for the benefit of readers it would be better to conduct this conversation on your blog rather than by email.
1) Orthodoxy is an association of spiritual hospitals which exists to cure the heart of man. (Nothing difficult or challenging there.)
Nothing difficult or challenging, and, I would add, not necessarily different from Western Christianity, which also uses the metaphor of hospitals. Whether these metaphors are appropriately similar is another story.
2) Non-Orthodox “Christians” have no idea what the heart/nous is much less how to cure it (this point is easy to prove and should cause no controversy whatsoever).
These are actually very problematic claims, especially the first. If I as a non-Orthodox Christian have no idea what the nous is or how to cure it, then I also don’t know why I should cure it, and I further don’t even know what you mean by saying “Orthodoxy is an association of spiritual hospitals,” i.e. hospitals curing the nous.
This is, in my mind, tantamount to asserting that different worldviews can be incommensurable. They can only be understood from the inside, so to speak. For a Catholic version of this, see http://perennis.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/are-non-catholics-blind/. You’re not saying this directly, but I think it is implied by your remark. Let me explain.
There is a sense in which such claims are trivially true. I don’t know what it’s like to experience something unless I experience it. Reading about the neurobiology of color perception will not tell me what it’s like to see the color red. So experientially an atheist probably has no idea what the nous in Orthodox theology is.
But the stronger sense you might be intending it is that, given what non-Orthodox Christians believe, they can’t even begin to understand what Orthodox Christians mean by “nous.” The only way to understand it is to see it from the viewpoint of already having become an Orthodox Christian. I believe one person on your blog made this point when he said that Jay Dyer’s criticisms of Orthodoxy were irrelevant because he hadn’t received the Holy Spirit in chrismation.
This is a big problem. For if Orthodoxy is “an association of spiritual hospitals” whose task is to “cure the nous,” then I can have little or no idea what you mean by “hospital.” Perhaps you can assure me that it’s a good thing, but I really don’t know because I don’t know what is meant by “nous,” so I don’t know what the “spiritual hospital” is supposed to be curing.
Furthermore, if I have no idea what is meant by “nous” then I can have no motivation to convert to Orthodoxy. I only have an assurance that once I convert I will see what is being talked about. My conversion might come about due to a particular affection I am feeling, which I take on faith to be God urging me to become Orthodox. As we all know, however, other people take this affection to steer them toward Buddhism, or Judaism, or veganism, or what you. So for me, that cannot be the whole story, for if I trust myself to be guided solely by such considerations I will really have very little to say to atheists of Hindus. Their affections, demonic though they may be, lead them in different directions, and we have no other common ground. I am not attributing this view to you, by the way, but this seems to me to be the only neutral way of presenting this dilemma.
I don’t know if this is what you mean by your claim, so correct me if I’m mistaken, but it is the only interpretation of your words that comes to mind. I have seen one Orthodox apologist say that he believes worldviews are incommensurable, and this strikes me as the general tenor of similar Orthodox apologetics (which of course you take to be Orthodoxy, full stop). It reminds me of the family of Western thinkers starting with some tendencies in Kant, admirably demonstrated in Kierkegaard, followed by existentialism and finally postmodernism. Going further back, at least in the West, we see it in fideists like Pascal and the Jansenists.
Incidentally, this is where I feel a charge of fideism might be justified. In this kind of thinking, it isn’t that one doesn’t use reason, but that one thinks reason is purely internal to a system of beliefs, a kind of coherentism, as they say in epistemology. The body of beliefs must be coherent but that is basically the only requirement.
Moving on to your other comments:
Your cryptic remarks about Augustine’s metaphysics puzzle me, so I’m not sure how to reply. If you think he was straightforwardly a Platonist (as modern scholars understand Plato) as regards the Forms I think you are mistaken. And of course a cursory review of Western medieval theology will show that Augustine’s metaphysics, however influential, was by no means the only voice, especially after the reintroduction of Aristotle. My impression is that you haven’t read much Augustine, and you’ve probably read little or nothing of Aquinas, Scotus, Bonaventure… so your blanket dismissal of “eleven centuries of Frankish theological nonsense” just makes you seem ignorant.
I don’t know where you get the impression that I have a “deep dissatisfaction” with Western spirituality.
November 23rd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
My reply is too long already, but I want to say more about Augustine. The canard that he was not properly vetted and canonized is nonsense, for he was properly vetted and canonized — by the Orthodox West. It’s all too easy to forget that Rome was the bastion of Orthodoxy as the Eastern patriarchates routinely slid into heresy. I don’t want to make too much of that, except to point out that it seems to indicate that the West of the fifth century was more than orthodox enough to properly canonize Augustine. The fact that he wasn’t always on Eastern calendars is just a reflection of language and geographical barriers. This weird assumption by some of your readers that he isn’t really a properly canonized saint because he wasn’t sufficiently considered by the East is just to stack the deck, to beg the question against the West.
My second point about Augustine is that two of the great Western Church Fathers, Pope St. Leo the Great and what Orthodox call Pope St. Gregory the Dialogist, were Augustinians. So if you’re going to toss Augustine on the trash heap of heresy you have to do the same for them. But of course you can’t, since they are on your calendars.
Thus I have a little patience with all of this decrying of Augustine as a heretic, which you now seem inclined to do. To accuse him of holding some heretical ideas is one thing (do I need to trot out the tired example of St. Gregory of Nyssa’s universalism?) — to deny that he was a saint is, to me, a non-starter.
November 23rd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
passenger,
Read De Trinitate by Augustine. It is an encyclopedia of heresy. I don’t mean to be rude, but nothng else you have said is apropos. It is just not relevant to our concerns here at the site.
But thanks for your reply!
November 23rd, 2008 at 4:36 pm
I don’t mean to be rude, but nothng else you have said is apropos. It is just not relevant to our concerns here at the site.
I’m surprised by this response (I’ll ignore the comment about Augustine, since it doesn’t address my point).
In my first comment, I was simply responding to what you said, offering something of a programmatic critique of your claims. True, I was not making specifically theological arguments, but neither was your post.
I suppose if the concerns of your website preclude discussions of theological program as opposed to theological minutiae, then maybe nothing I said was apropos. On the other hand, if your mission at this site does preclude such discussions, then I think it is cut off from questions directly relevant to your theology. And since your post was addressed to me, I assumed I had some freedom in how I replied — that is why I put so much effort into it. I did not realize that the terms of the debate had been set down beforehand. So I’d say that, from my point of view, it’s your loss.
My second comment was off-topic, but since you have dedicated other posts to this very question, I don’t see how it isn’t relevant to your website’s mission.
November 24th, 2008 at 8:05 am
” I did not realize that the terms of the debate had been set down beforehand. ” …
please forgive my interruption .+. what exactly does the above mean ? ” … I did not realize ? ”
When you get the time, please purchase a copy of Fr. John Romanides: Patristic Theology. Fluidly, Papa Romanides spoke the words of our noetic cure, for “modern(ist)” folk.
I have posted: How the did the Fathers theologize?
http://diakrisislogismon.wordpress.com/2008/11/23/how-do-the-fathers-theologize/
Please forgive me a sinner +
November 24th, 2008 at 8:24 am
please forgive my interruption .+. what exactly does the above mean ? ” … I did not realize ? ”
I realized after posting that comment that I was being a bit obscure. Let me put it this way: “I didn’t realize that the acceptable direction the conversation could take was set down beforehand, so that the substance of my reply, if it violated those canons, could be ignored.” I thought that I was being addressed personally, and could reply personally. But it seems that the content of my reply is outside the bounds of accepted discourse on this website, so that what I said was “just not relevant to our concerns here at the site.” So there was a disconnect between what I thought was the course the conversation could take, and what Mr. Kelley as the site owner says. That is of course his prerogative, and I’ve already said what I think about that.
Thank you for the book recommendation and the link.
November 24th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Iakavos, We need to find “those” [clergy] that are able to lead us to this path of purification, theoria, and hopefully, theosis.
[Contact the clergy of the Orthodox church and they will guide to the cure you are searching for. Without obedience, we cannot even dream of taking a single step toward Him.]
November 29th, 2008 at 8:06 am
While I might not know what the nous is, I might begin to realize that I have a serious problem… I might not be able to make an exact diagnosis of that problem, or even have any idea about what will cure it, but the realization that I am in trouble can take place nevertheless…
Which is where those already cured come in the way. By their very presence, I am convinced that their way if the way that leads to my cure as well, so I can decide to follow them.
Things get hard when I’m not in contact with someone cured already… Simply going to an Orthodox priest wont do, because we can’t take for granted that all Orthodox priests actually bear the centuries old tradition themselves so they can guide others… Ideally, they should have been able to do so, but in real life? I don’t think so…
So, we are left on our own, and this is where God enters into play. He knows all about us, He knows us, and He is guiding our steps even before we come to the conclusion that we need serious help… He brings us in contact with people, He brings to our attention books, He is helping us when we need Him…
The context of the Orthodox Church could help someone interested in getting cured… but not by virtue of it being called Orthodox… To follow the liturgies, to start reading books, to pray to God, to follow the discipleship, all these form a context where man can grow further and, with the aid of God, find Him Who Alone is Man’s Cure.
It’s not just to go to church. Not just to pray. Not just to read books… It’s hard for me to explain what it’s all about… Sorry. But to realize one’s problem is the beginning. It’s no use coming to the Orthodox Church because we think it’s the “right” church, or whatever.
Of course, it might be the case that we have no problem, and that those Orthodox who insist otherwise are mistaken. I could live with that. Which is why I think that those who experience within themselves with great anguish the problem, they are those that should explore things further as far as the Orthodox Way goes…
Don’t know how much sense this all makes…
As for what can be understood… If a Lion could speak in human languages, we would still be unable to understand him… I think modern philosophy might have something to say about that, but I’m not sure as I’m not versed in these things.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
The thing James was perhaps trying to say (according to my own interpretation of things) is that all other faiths do not generally do a great job of curing the inner man, some people have surpassed many of us Orthodox: such as pagans, jews, protestants, catholics and the list goes on. From my own experience, their has never been a Faith that has been so focused on communion with God by purifying oneself from the inside (with God’s help of course) than that of Eastern Orthodoxy which I believe to be the fullness of Truth. May God enlighten us! =D
December 7th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Moses, it occurred to me when I first replied that Mr. Kelley might’ve meant what you’re saying, but I decided to go for the stronger interpretation. Both in correspondence and in real life various Orthodox have said the same thing to me, that they believe that Orthodoxy is the fullness of the Truth, but that there is also likely some truth to be found in other Christian confessions, and perhaps even occasionally outside the faith. I figured that Mr. Kelley meant something stronger because, e.g., he put “Christians” in scare quotes after “non-Orthodox.”
In fact I’m not offended at all if Orthodox Christians say there is no grace in those Christian confessions that are not canonically Chalcedonian Orthodox. No, my reply was more to the claim that
“Non-Orthodox “Christians” have no idea what the heart/nous is much less how to cure it .”
I just think this claim is either incoherent or implies fideism.
December 12th, 2008 at 11:02 am
passenger, God bless you,
I follow the teaching of the Orthodox church and the Fathers of the Church. I follow it because I believe that it is the Way, and that it is the only cure for man. Knowing me and what I’m about, do you really think I care about what you think about the Faith? It is not that I do not care about you as a person, I am just unmoved by your flimsy objections. I heard it all years ago.
If you are not willing to search for a spiritual father (and read the Philokalia so you will have some idea, however foggy, about what a spiritual father is), then you will only be frustrated by our conversations here on this site.
I don’t know what to say about your wild charge of “fideism.” I covered this before, and I’m not going to repeat myself. It makes not a lick of sense, and I would be surprised if any Orthodox person reading the site knows what you mean. Do you even know? At any rate, I’ve set down the bottom line, which is all I can do. The nous is not only not cured by the non-Orthodox, it is NOT EVEN RECOGNIZED OR KNOWN OUTSIDE OF ORTHODOXY. This is not my opinion, but rather a fact.
God bless you all, and may God keep us this day without sin,
James
December 12th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Mr. Kelley,
I have tried to use the gentlest rhetorical route possible, but typically for me that was a mistake, as the Internet is, after all, largely a vehicle for polemic. That’s why I don’t get involved in online debate much anymore. I take much of the blame for being reticent about making my points as forcefully as I might, which tends to annoy my interlocutors.
I follow the teaching of the Orthodox church and the Fathers of the Church. I follow it because I believe that it is the Way, and that it is the only cure for man. Knowing me and what I’m about, do you really think I care about what you think about the Faith?
I really don’t have an opinion either way. But where did “caring about” what I think of the Faith come from, anyway? This is a complete non sequitor, not to mention unloving. It needlessly introduces a personal element to this discussion. I was responding to some of your claims, not to you as a person. If you don’t care to defend criticisms of what you say, that’s fine, but don’t make it into a personal issue between you and me. Honestly, if you say things I disagree with, what kind of response do you expect? Maybe I was mistaken in thinking you “cared” about getting a response for me that was critical? Was your post merely a presentation of your views – not an invitation to conversation? I’m puzzled.
It is not that I do not care about you as a person, I am just unmoved by your flimsy objections. I heard it all years ago.
The dangerous part of saying that your interlocutor’s objections are “flimsy” is that flimsy objections are easy to rebut. So far you haven’t even begun to reply — you’ve just said that my arguments are irrelevant, and now you’re saying they’re flimsy. If you’re busy and don’t have the time to answer them, just say so. But at this point that claim would be pretty dubious.
If you are not willing to search for a spiritual father (and read the Philokalia so you will have some idea, however foggy, about what a spiritual father is), then you will only be frustrated by our conversations here on this site.
I’m sorry, but I’m still unimpressed by this piece of advice. Your general point is of course correct, that intellectual discussion is very limited. But that doesn’t mean it serves no purpose whatsoever. It’s pretty weak to suggest that I can’t discuss certain of the things you claim without first seeking a spiritual father. If you can’t see the unreasonableness of demanding I seek a spiritual father before I rebut your claims about e.g. Augustine’s Platonism, then I really don’t know what to say. In general, I have carefully avoided saying things about which I do not profess to know.
I don’t know what to say about your wild charge of “fideism.” I covered this before, and I’m not going to repeat myself. It makes not a lick of sense, and I would be surprised if any Orthodox person reading the site knows what you mean. Do you even know?
I will take partial blame for being too reticent before when talking about fideism, and letting it slide too easily. But I certainly have clarified my position here. Your reply from the other post does nothing to rebut my first comment here. True, you have no problem with “reason,” but as far as I can tell you employ it in a fideistic manner, since you continually dismiss criticism because, e.g., I don’t know what the nous is, or I don’t have a spiritual father. Calvinists and Jansenists place(d) a high value on reason, but they’re still basically fideists, too.
I might withdraw the charge of fideism if you accept that you are employing presuppositionalist apologetics. Of course, by my book, that kind of apologetics is just sophisticated fideism…
The nous is not only not cured by the non-Orthodox, it is NOT EVEN RECOGNIZED OR KNOWN OUTSIDE OF ORTHODOXY. This is not my opinion, but rather a fact.
(1) Fine, I don’t know what the nous is. Why should I give a hoot what happens to it if I’m not Orthodox? Apparently I have no experiential connection to it whatsoever.
Do you see how ridiculous your claim appears when stated so baldly? It must be hedged in some way to avoid absurdity, something you have declined to do. I made this point in my first comment, too – you know, the one you’ve dismissed as “irrelevant” and “flimsy.”
(2) Ever hear of the word-concept fallacy? The fact that other Christian traditions don’t use the terminology of the East has little bearing on whether they have the same Faith.
(3) Normally, if something is a fact, you can back it up with argument of some kind, and rebut arguments to the contrary. Look, I’m not asking for an education in Orthodox theology from you. But you said some things that are possibly inconsistent and some things that are outright false. If you’re happy with that situation I guess I can’t make you do differently.
Finally, and to be far more blunt than before, your claim of irrelevance is wrong because I was just replying to what you said. Your new claim of “flimsy” is so far unjustified because you haven’t even addressed what I wrote.
I’m not frustrated, but I am a little tired of putting energy into careful replies only to be told first that they are not “relevant” and later that they are “flimsy” arguments. I can’t make you have a conversation on the terms I would like. That’s why it’s your website. But I have replied this time because your latest comment contained some remarks that struck me as excessively personal, and that I wished to address. Out of concern for completeness I decided to answer most of what you said.
December 12th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
“True, you have no problem with “reason,” but as far as I can tell you employ it in a fideistic manner, since you continually dismiss criticism because, e.g., I don’t know what the nous is, or I don’t have a spiritual father.”
To clarify, it seems to me that you are seeing that I must have the experience of chrismation in Orthodoxy even to understand what the nous is. That is at least employing presuppositionalist-type apologetics.
I made this point before in my first comment, but it occurs to me that this later clarification might be misunderstood. In any case, I gave you the opportunity to deny this before.
December 12th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
“you are seeing” in the last comment should be “you are saying”. Sorry for the multiple posts.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
“Non-Orthodox “Christians” have no idea what the heart/nous is much less how to cure it .”
I just think this claim is either incoherent or implies fideism.
You are right… it does imply fideism, and I disagree with fideism. Many people come in by faith alone which is great; others however reasoning scientifically come to the faith and this still is great; yet still others come in by questioning religion and God himself and nothing is wrong with this either. Surely there is a spark in everyone, it depends on us if we wish to extinguish or ignite it and each one does so differently. =D
December 15th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
“it depends on us” … to what extent ? When does one fall into delusion thinking they have an “inside track” gnosis, without needing true Bishops anymore ?
December 16th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Moses, I think that is very well said. I believe that there are many paths to the Gospel, and God uses the faculties he has given us to lead us there. For some of us, studying natural theology or the history of Christianity can show that Christianity might be true or is in many ways assuredly true, breaking down intellectual resistance, and thus opening the door to faith, by which we are assured that it is true.
The problem with fideism in general is that it denies that this route is possible, bifurcating our life into the secular and the spiritual. Secular knowledge is objectively worthless, and totally separated from religious knowledge. I think it’s better to say that the latter completes the former, the former points to the latter. This seems to me to strike a balance between a doctrine of total depravity and any natural theology that would make faith an afterthought.
Bringing this back on topic: that is why I’m concerned with statements such as:
Non-Orthodox “Christians” have no idea what the heart/nous is much less how to cure it .
If this and similar statements are taken literally, then the only way to have any apprehension at all of what the nous is is by chrismation into Orthodoxy. Before chrismation, before the Holy Spirit is given, there is no “spark” at all (to use Moses’ term), or it is completely inaccessible. As I keep saying, if this is what Mr. Kelley means, then I think he has problems. The nonbeliever has no way of even coming to the faith, since one of his natural faculties isn’t working at all. Sorry, in my opinion this is just shooting yourself in the foot.
I read http://www.nicenetruth.com/home/2008/09/response-to-jam.html and noticed that Mr. Dyer uses the f-word, too, and makes similar points in different language.
December 19th, 2008 at 2:07 am
passenger,
Of course, the Spirit calls every man, and I never meant that this call is not experienced by all in the eso anthropon. However, the truth remains that the cure of the nous is the original deposit of Christian teaching (just glance at the Church Fathers, esp. Philokalia, please, I am literally begging you now), and that this cure is taught only in the Orhthodox Church, though just because it is Orthodox, this does not mean that some sort of magic is contained there which will zap you into holiness.
passenger, you and your ilk have nothing to offer me or any other Orhtodox. The fact that you cannot recognize the heresies of the Augustinian West saddens me, but I would rather move forward than to dwell on it.
I hope there are no hard feelings.
By the way, I have read most Augustine that has been translated into English, and around forty booklenth secondary sources. The articles I have read number in the hundreds. Not that I am boasting, for we both know that someone can read forever and not understand a word. I know it is hard to believe that someone could read Augustine and STILL disagree with his teachings. You just finally met the guy who won’t budge on Augustine’s heretical teachings. Read O’Meara’s The Young Augustine and Philip Cary’s first book on Augustine. They love Augustine, and they know a Neoplatonist when they see one. It just so happens that many Augustine scholars are big players-of-footsy with Plotinus, as are many non-Orthodox Christians. It makes people like you squirm to see the best Western scholars brag about the great Platonic ‘form’ theory, with its supposedly divine inner space (sorry, Augustine is not talking here about the nous, and this shows where the West goes astray) which is non-noetic yet connected to God somehow. I am glad I do not have to spend my life weaseling my way around Augustine’s pathetic errors. Oh, you also mentioned Aristotle, as if his influence via the Moslems is a good thing!
Oh well, you did express yourself rather well, better than most, passenger. And you did point out that, taken out of its obvious and everpresent (on this site) context, my statement about the nous seems limiting. If only you understood my clear reasoning in countless other posts (please read them, and read Romanides and Met. Hierotheos, I beg you). Good thing my readers will never fall for your rhetoric. Everyone hopefully knows that I have been against (as are all Orthodox) the opposition of culture and Orthodoxy from the word go. I have a manuscript which I am shopping which goes on and on praising the Orthodox views on the Christification of culture. The rest of your low-blows, passenger, will share the same fate as this one and the other one on “fideism.”
Do you know what is the most pathetic thing about Augustinism and the West? Their epistemology, which is two-pronged and straight from Augustine:
1) analogia entis: the world is a lesser, flawed copy of Forms in the mind (essence) of God. With the intellect, analogous to God’s mind, man can ascend to a beatific vision of God’s essence. I learned about this bankrupt nonsense by reading the “classics” of Western spirituality. Once again, passenger, you have egg on your face, since you assumed I hadn’t read your “fathers.”
2) analogia fidae: the Holy Spirit inspires with created graces, enabling us to understand divine data in the Holy Scriptures. These Scriptures contain concepts about God which can give us an intellectual knowledge of God.
Do you know what the funniest thing about Augustine is? When he was told about St. Anthony’s ascetic life (this was when Augustine was at Trier), he did not bother to find a follower of Anthony (or a follower of any ascetic. If you think you are going to get away with the “Ambrose fathered Augustine” lie, forget it. Look up Romanides’ refutation on his site) to teach him the Way to Christ, but rather set up a Neoplatonist think-tank out in the country where he did not put himself under an experienced spiritual father, but rather sat around writing Ciceronian blather with his pretentious friends, none of whom knew what they were doing either. And this is the “greatest Father the West has ever produced” (Tixeront). God help you.
December 19th, 2008 at 4:04 am
passenger, email me your phone number and we will have a talk, though I am extremely busy right now. I am a lot cuddlier on the phone, where I relate to people better.
my email: jamieleekelley@yahoo.com
Ask Jay Dyer. There is more to me than meets the web-eye.
December 19th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Of course, the Spirit calls every man, and I never meant that this call is not experienced by all in the eso anthropon. However, the truth remains that the cure of the nous is the original deposit of Christian teaching (just glance at the Church Fathers, esp. Philokalia, please, I am literally begging you now), and that this cure is taught only in the Orhthodox Church, though just because it is Orthodox, this does not mean that some sort of magic is contained there which will zap you into holiness.
Thank you for saying this. Honestly, it’s pretty much all I wanted, though more could be said, now that it’s out of the way.
passenger, you and your ilk have nothing to offer me or any other Orhtodox.
I have never offered you anything that I’m aware of, and I’m troubled that you keep saying things like this. If you’re saying you don’t care what I have to say in response to what you say, then we should end the conversation here. But I hope that’s quite what you mean.
Oh well, you did express yourself rather well, better than most, passenger. And you did point out that, taken out of its obvious and everpresent (on this site) context, my statement about the nous seems limiting. If only you understood my clear reasoning in countless other posts (please read them, and read Romanides and Met. Hierotheos, I beg you). Good thing my readers will never fall for your rhetoric. Everyone hopefully knows that I have been against (as are all Orthodox) the opposition of culture and Orthodoxy from the word go. I have a manuscript which I am shopping which goes on and on praising the Orthodox views on the Christification of culture. The rest of your low-blows, passenger, will share the same fate as this one and the other one on “fideism.”
I would just like to point out how obscure this paragraph is to me. As for “out of… context,” that was my point from the beginning, to ask you if you meant such-and-such and give you a chance to deny it. I think there is still more to say on the question, but you have been so defensive about the f-word that I think further conversation may be impossible. It wasn’t the main point of my comment, and you latched on to it in lieu of providing a simple denial that you meant such-and-such.
… Once again, passenger, you have egg on your face, since you assumed I hadn’t read your “fathers.”
Who are “my” fathers? I’m sorry, you don’t know enough about me to say this kind of thing.
Regarding your descriptions of analogia entis, analogia fidei, and created grace: Even assuming that your descriptions are fair or accurate, I think you’re confusing Thomism with medieval theology in general, as Scotus rejected the analogia entis as a way of doing epistemology. I stand by my assertion that you know little about the 1,100 years of “Frankish nonsense” you decry.
I never claimed that Augustine was not in error or even that he was not a material heretic (the same way as St. Gregory of Nyssa’s form of universalism was later condemned, but he can still be a saint). I really don’t have an opinion either way yet. I know that his thought was strongly influenced by Neoplatonism, but that doesn’t make him a Neoplatonist. And, being an academic, you should know that you can cite anyone to back up any opinion you like, so please don’t play that card with me. Of course I can think of one thing I disagree with St. Augustine on: predestination. I think St. Maximus the Confessor was right on that, and I’m somewhat troubled that Augustine’s teaching, even in mitigated form, is all-but-normative in the West. But that doesn’t make me want to unchurch Augustine.
As for your attacks on St. Augustine in general: I am defending his sainthood, not his theology, and in ways you haven’t directly responded to. In my opinion, you have set yourself as a private judge of the Orthodox Western Church of the early medieval period. But you do so inconsistently, as you must, since you are also in a pragmatic contradiction, as I pointed out earlier, regarding two Orthodox Augustinian Popes, St. Leo the Great and St. Gregory the Dialogist. I’ll take the judgment of your Church on these individuals over your demonstrably inconsistent private judgment any day.
December 19th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
A little more on predestination: I am still in the learning stages, and am open to correction on what the normative teaching is in the West, and whether it has dogmatic status. Still, I currently prefer St. Maximus’ teaching on this.
December 20th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
I will look for a saying on predestination that St. Gregory the Dialogist gave to his disciple. Please be patient as I attempt to find it.
December 30th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Hey passenger,
St. Gregory of Nyssa was not a universalist. Neither were any of his teachings condemned by any Orthodox council.
You need to talk to Fr. Michael, who has studied all of St. Gregory’s writings in the original Greek.
Honestly, I do not know why you post here, since your ideas are not well-recieved, but no one i’ve asked to go away has left yet, so I guess you are par for the course.
I’ve already given you my advice as to what you should do next. Saliently absent from my list was “keep giving James messages.” Oh well, guess I’m just irresistible.