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In all cases we have filmed the best available copy. UM iSotins International S00 N, ZEEB AD, ANN ARBOR, MI 481068019248 Hopko, Thomas John GOD AND THE WORLD: AN EASTERN ORTHODOX RESPONSE TO PROCESS THEOLOGY Fordham University PHD. 1982 University Microfilms International ssow.2ee»Roas ann arts, Mt ss05GOD AND THE WORLD: AN EASTERN ORTHODOX RESPONSE TO PROCESS THEOLOGY BY THOMAS HOPKO B.A., Fordham College, '60 M.Div., St. Vladimir's Seminary, '63 MAL, Duquesne University, '69 DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY AT FORDHAM UNIVERSITY NEW YORK 1982FORDHAM UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES May 17, 92 49, This dissertation prepared under my direction by ToMa..Ts.HOBKC... entitled ...GOD AND. THE. NORLD:..201--BASTERI -ORTHODOX.- PROCESS. SHEOLOGY hhas been accepted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of...Doctar.of. Philosophy... .TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. ee ee ee ee Response to Process Thought. Theological Method... . - Goa and the Trinity. . +: God and the World... . - A Preliminary Synthesis. . Chapter I. HE METHOD AND TASK OF THEOLOGY. . Process Theology and Whiteheadean Charles Hartshorne... . ~ Cobb and Ogden. . ss Pittenger and Williams. . “Classical theism”. . . . contact with Hellenism. - Hellenistic Gnosticism. . Origen and Alexandria . . Cappadocian Theology. + Gregory of Nyssa... - Eastern Christian Hellenism A Whiteheadean Appreciation The Dionysian Corpus. . . - Maximus the Confessor . . . the Non-Platonistic Traditio: ‘The Antiochene Tradition. . The Ascetical Tradition . The Byzantine Synthesis . Gregory Palamas ‘i “Natural Theology". . . John Cobb's Position. + - Church and World. . .. + Hartshorne's Position + < "Negative Theology" . . . The "Tentativeness" of ‘Theol: 0: 9. IZ, THE NATURE OF GOD... ~~~. ~~ ‘The Whiteheadean Foundation . . ‘The Process Conceptualization . iii Philosophy: a7Tir. ‘The Eastern Orthodox Vision. : The Meaning of "Nature". . . : The Divine "Nature". . 1. : The Divine "Supra-Nature". . . . Athanasius and the Cappadocians. : ‘The Dionysian Conceptualization. - Differentiation and Multiplicity - Maximus the Confessor... .. +. John of Damascus... pee The Palamite Conceptuatization + Superessentiality and the Divine En The Position of Cobb and Ogden. . . Hartshorne's Critique of the Trinity Pittenger and Williams... . +. + The Eastern Doctrine of Person. . . Wrong Explanations of the Trinity. . The Orthodox Doctrine... .. + + ‘The Cappadocian Conceptualization. Trinity as "Metaphysical Archetype’ Neither "Classical" nor "Process". . GOD AND THE WORLD. 2... ee ee ee Process View of Creation... . Creation in the Eastern Orthodox View. The Conceptual Elaboration... . Theology and the World... 2. God's Real Relation with the World The Experience of Perfection. . . The Meaning of Perfection. . Divine Movement in Creation. God's Response to the World. Omniscience and Providence . Prayer and Worship... . Incarnation of God's Son + The Impassability of God . The Suffering of God... God's Actualization in the CONCLUSION 5 csc ete cee cee (BIBLLOGHREHY 2 gi "Higher" and "Lower" Divinity. . Unity and Multiplicity... Two Doctrines of Divine Polarity DIVINE PERSONALITY AND THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY, eee te te ee iy 132 133 141 143 145 151 155 160 163 166 170 172 174 177 182 184 188 190 198 204 207 211 223 228 232 234 240 244 250 255 262 264 273 283 285 296 300 308 321 326 335 346INTRODUCTION I consider Christian theology to be one of the great disasters of the human race. . . .+ A clash of doctrines is not a disaster--it is an opportunity.” AN. Whitehead I first encountered process thinking when I studied philosophy at Duquesne University in the 1960s. I never took a course in process philosophy, but I learned of Alfred North Whitehead and attempted to read nis major works. When I came to Fordham to study theology I encountered process theology in my course work in systematic theology. Once again I never formally studied any aspect of process think- ing in a course exclusively devoted to process theology, but I was obliged to consider the teachings of the process theologians in my studies on the doctrines of God, Christ and redemption, as well as in seminars devoted to the method and language of theology. The present dissertation is the result of my choosing liueien Price, Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (New York: New American Library of World Literature, Mentor Books, 1956), p. 143. “Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern Worl Lowell Lectures 1925 (New York: New American Library 0: florld Literature, Nentor Books, 1948), p. 166- 1process theology as the minor area of my doctoral examina- tion in 1972. In addition to writing about Saint Athanasius’ doctrine of redemption and Saint Gregory of Nyssa's theory of duotwors %€§, T wrote about the process theologians’ cri- tigque of "classical theism." Because of my examination essay, Dr. Bwert Cousins encouraged me to petition the faculty of theology to allow me to develop as my doctoral @issertation a general response to the process view of God and the world from the perspective of the orthodox Eastern Christian theological tradition, which is primarily that of the Greek fathers. ‘The request was granted. Dr. Cousins becawe my mentor. And the present thesis is the result. Response to Process Thought ‘The purpose of my dissertation is not to analyze process theology as such. Neither is it to examine or criti- cize a particular teaching of one or another process theologian or position. It is rather, as I have indicated, an attempt to make a general synthetic response to the basic, agreed-upon conclusions concerning God and the world of the leading process theologians--Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb, Schubert Ogden, Norman Pittenger and Danicl Day Williams; with a decided emphasis on Hartshorne--from the perspective of the Eastern Christian theological tradition as it is elaborated by the fathers, councils, liturgies and contem- porary theologians of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The 3Because my dissertation was written over severalreason for attempting such a general response to process thinking about God and the world is, in a sense, the very thesis of the dissertation, which is to demonstrate that a broad and basic reaction to process thinking is necessary because the entire approach of the process method, with that of the "classical theism” which it criticizes and re- jects, is open to serious questioning. From the point of view of the orthodox theology of the Christian East, many of the criticisms which process theology directs toward what it calls “classical theism" are necessary and right.4 But the conceptualization which process theology itself provides is hardly more acceptable. The reason for this, as we understand and try to explain it in our dissertation, is that the process school is rightly to be called "neo-classical," since it has not really changed or denied the basic positions of "classical" thinking, but has merely arranged and explained them in a new and dif- ferent fashion. As such, in our view, process theology is years, the more recent works of the original process think- ers have not been considered. I also have not examined the writings of such "second generation" process theologians as Lewis 8. Ford, Bernard Lee, Delwin Brown, et al. Because of the nature of my work, however, as well as actual develop- ments within the process movement, I am convinced that my thesis is not altered or weakened by this unfortunate limit ation since the basic positions of process theology elab- orated by its seminal authors remain fundamental and central to the school. ‘the meaning of "classical theism" for the process thinkers is discussed below, pp. 28-33.not a radically new doctrine. It is a new form of an old, fundamentally Hellenistic, philosophical approach which is in many ways as logically and theologically untenable as that which it intends to replace. The purpose of this dis- sertation, then, is to defend the thesis that process theology, though it raises many important questions and pro- vides many necessary criticisms of faulty doctrines about God and the world, has not been successful in providing a satisfying doctrine, even though it has had great impact, especially here in America, not only in academic theological and philosophical circles, but also in the practical areas of pastoral counselling, religious education and spiritual life, Indeed, it is the far-reaching interest in process theology which has encouraged me to attempt to show that there is a teaching, different from both "classical" and "neo-classical" theism, which appears much more adequate to the reality of things; to logical thinking and to the wit- ness of the biblical scriptures and the saints and mystics of East and West who have claimed to know God, and so God and the world, by way of experience. I have been encouraged in this attempt not only by my mentor, but by the very dean of process theologians, Charles Hartshorne, who has given the following warning. If any view is omitted from consideration, and this happens to be the true one, then we will only be con- paring absurdities; an? the one which appears to us least absurd will be the one which is most protected from our adequate scrutiny, for some reason personal to us, such as the force of tradition or the charm of novelty, or at least it will be the one whose inadequacyis least readily seen in a given state of culture, or even hardest to detect owing to the very generic char-, acter of the human mind (Bacon's "idol of the tribe"). While Hartshorne presents his neo-classical position as the "third possibility" between two unacceptable posi- tions (AR as opposed to simply A or simply R; which is to say a God who is in some sense absolute and in some sense relative, as opposed to a God who is simply absolute or simply relative), our view is that Eastern Christian theol~ ogy may itself be taken as a "third possibility" between the classical and neo-classical conceptualizations of God and the world which differ only in that one insists on a choice between polar opposites taken from the created order of things (A or R), while the other insists on combining the two (A and R). The "third possibility" in this case, the theology of the Eastern Christian tradition, is to reject a schema of conceptualizations drawn from polar opposites within creation, and to adopt a new and different approach. which arrives at new and different conclusions. I write about it this way in the dissertation, in response to Hart- shorne's encouraging warning. It just might be possible that the "classical theism" of the process critique has been inadequately scrutin- ized because of the "force of tradition," while "neo~ classical Surrelativism" is now being uncritically embraceé because of the "charm of novelty." And there is even the possibility that the inadequacy of process thought is overlooked in our time because of our “given charles Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism (New York: Harper Bros., 1941; Feprint ed. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1964), pp. 82-83.state of culture" and the propensity of the contemporary theological "tribe" to produce "idols"; new in place of old, Be that as it may [T continue], it must be determined whether the Eastern Christian view. . . is not in fact the view which is omitted from the debate which frees theistic thinking from "comparing absurd- ities."6 our dissertation, obviously, is intended to show that the Eastern Christian view is indeed the missing per- spective which is most satisfying and convincing. ‘Theological Method We begin our work by attempting to show that there is another way of doing theology than the way proposed by the process thinkers, and, we may add, the way of "classical theism." We reject the position that theology is inevit- ably wedded to and built upon a particular philosophy. And we reject as well the contention that Eastern Christian ‘theology is essentially Platonistic. There have certainly existed Eastern Christian theologies which were determined by Hellenistic, Platonistic teachings (Arianism, Origenism, Byzantine humanism, etc.). But these doctrines were judged by orthodox Christians to be mistaken and even heretical. For this reason throughout the thesis we distinguish between orthodox Eastern theology which differs radically and sub- stantially from Hellenistic thought, and the unacceptable and heretical traditions found within Eastern Christian history which are to be rejected precisely because of their inability to overcome Hellenistic philosophical ®see below, p. 265.presuppositions and prejudices, particularly of a cosmo- logical nature. For this reason, too, we often add the word "orthodox" to define the tradition which we are com- paring to the process tradition to which we are responding, also often identifying this tradition simply as that of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which we take it to be. In our first chapter about the method and task of theology we claim that the Hastern Christian theological tradition which we call orthodox (and Orthodox) elaborates a conceptualization of God and the world which is not deter- mined by any particular philosophy or philosophies; cer- tainly not Platonism, We attempt to show that the theo- logical convictions of this tradition are the result of man's lived experience of God as He makes Himself known in His Son and Spirit within the Christian Church, which con- victions were most often formulated and explained in conscious opposition to doctrines considered as false and divisive because they resulted from "philosophy . . - according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ" (Colossians 2: de In the Eastern Christian view, theology, as we use the term today, is an “intellectual contour" resulting from man's communion with God through faith.’ It is the product of the ascetic, mystical, liturgical and spiritual life of The expression is that of Father Georges Florovsky. See below, p. 118.the Church. It is "the climax of purity" (Saint John Climacus).® It is not built upon any particular philosophy. It forges out its own words and concepts which it defends as "adequate to God" (Seonpenfic ) on the basis of the knowledge of God as He makes Himself known in the world of His making. We claim in our thesis that this theological tradition may legitimately be compared with process theology even though process thought presents itself as a "natural theology," not only because the process thinkers themselves claim that proper theological conceptualizations even of "natural theology" must take into consideration the so- called "revealed" doctrines and the witness of "religious experience," but also because the Christian East does not know the distinction between "natural" and "revealed" theology as it has developed in recent times in the West, and provides a jifferent perspective on this issue which appears to be in sympathy with ideas on the subject pre- sented within the process school. We also claim that though the process thinkers are generally critical of what they understand to be "negative theology," which is what Eastern Christian theology is understood, in a sense quite rightly, to be, that here too the differences in the understanding and appreciation of "negative" (or apophatic) theology in the two approaches permits a valid and fruitful dialogue 8gohn Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 30. 20. the translation is that of Father Georges Florovsky, Col- lected Works, vol. 4: Aspects of Church History (Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1975), p. 17-between the two perspectives, The first chapter of the dissertation, then, is an attempt to demonstrate that there is another way of theol- ogizing than the way defended by the process thinkers; a way more adequate and proper to the theological task which, as a result, arrives at conclusions which are in many ways closer to "neo-classical" than to "classical" theism, especially in some of the most difficult and debated points of controversy, but which nevertheless are radically and substantially different. God and the Trinity ‘The second chapter of the thesis deals with the nature of God. We show here that the Eastern Christian conception of God is "dipolar," and we try to compare and contrast this view with the "dipolar" process vision. We take up the meaning of the term "nature," demonstrating that the term has several different meanings in the Eastern tradition in respect to both God and creatures. We defend the position that the Eastern Orthodox view of God, with its distinction between the supraessential essence or nature on the one hand, and the infinite multiplicity of uncreated divine energies, operations, actions, manifestations, ac~ tualizations . . . (the terms for this aspect of God are many) on the other, is more adequate to divinity and more satisfying to human thought and religious experience than is the process view with its distinction between the10 abstract and eternal "primordial" nature of God, and His actual, changing "consequent" nature. We also defend the conviction that the orthodox Eastern perspective overcomes the errors of the so-called "classical" theism, while avoiding the pitfalls of the process alternative. In the third chapter we deal with the issue of divine personality. Our position is that the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of the tri-hypostatic Godhead: the consubstantial and suprasubstantial Trinity of divine persons which func~ tions both as the metaphysical exception to and the meta~ physical exemplification of human interpersonal and communal relationships, presents a vision of God which is genuinely and authentically societal, without reference to the created world. the God who is Love timelessly begets His divine Son, Image and Word, and eternally breathes forth His divine Spirit with whom He exists in an eternal, perfect and immu- table relationship of being, life and activity. Once again the intention is to present the orthodox Eastern Christian perspective as a "third possibility" between the classical and process views, both of which are considered to be in many ways untrue to reality and unacceptable to human thought and experience. God_and the World In the final chapter of our dissertation we deal specifically with the question of God and the world, attempt~ ing once again to respond to the issues raised by thea process critique of classical theism, particularly those dealing with divine love and suffering. We conclude in this chapter that the process thinkers are right in insist- ing on the real relationship of God to the world and the world to God. They are wrong, however, in claiming that such a relationship necessarily leads to the conclusion ‘that God must in some sense be actually passive, changing, growing, developing ana suffering in Himself. The orthodox Eastern view, as we present it, is that God genuinely suf- fers in and with His world. He does so by sympathy, empathy and compassion. And He does so preeminently through the incarnation of His Son and Word who becomes the real man Jesus, entering fully and totally into the processes of the world's “creative advance into novelty." God, in this perspective, is eternally responsive to the actual world. He creates and orders the world in authentic cooperation with His creatures, in response to their actual thoughts, words, deeds and prayers, He is impassible, but not passive. He is incapable of suffering in Himself; but He genuinely suffers in others, even becoming what the others are in order to share their tragedy fully in His love for the world. And through His suffering He secures the positive development and growth of His creatures in the unending process of becoming more and more godlike forever in com- munion with Himself. The thesis again is the same: We claim a theological conceptualization which escapes what we see as the errors12 of classical and neo-classical theism, while upholding and defending what we take to be the valid insights and desires of both. Our conclusion is that there is a sense in which God is both actually eternal and unchanging, loving, per- sonal, societal and free; and yet actually becoming, both within the Godhead in the timeless generation of the Son and the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit as well as in and through the uncreated divine actions and energies which flow eternally and essentially from the three divine per- sons; and also in the incarnation of the divine Son and Word as a real human being within the created processes of the world. And there is also divine becoming within the world of God's making when human beings made in God's image and likeness partake of His divine nature and become ever more godlike in the gracious process of deification (@fwouc! becoming by grace all that God is by nature in an unending process of sharing God's divine being and life. A Preliminary Synthesis The “creative advance into novelty" is secured for human beings and the entire creation by the activity of the unchanging God within the changing world. This is my thesis. Its presentation is admittedly synthetic and intuitional, and perhaps even “subjective” in many ways. But that is its purpose. I apply to it the words which Professor George Fedotov once applied to a work of his own on a different subject:13 + + + I am moved to this enterprise by the conviction that . . . the point of departure is not analysis but synthesis, a kind of preliminary synthesis, even though intuitional or subjective. Analysis comes secondly to test and modify the primary form of synthesis. T use the same method in each chapter of the disser- tation. I first present a summary of the process position on the given issue. I do this by presenting what I take to be the main points of the subject in question through selected quotations from the authors whose works T am using. I do not discuss the peculiar ideas of an author unless he makes a specific point which has particular relevance to a parallel point in the Eastern Christian position with which it is to be specifically compared or contrasted. and I seldom comment on what I believe to be inner contradictions or inconsistencies in any one process thinker (or even in the thought of the movement as a whole) unless, once again, the issue has a direct relationship to some comparable, or contrastable, aspect in the Eastern tradition. My interest is not at all to make an inner crit: sm of process theology. It is rather to lift up certain generally agreed upon con- clusions of process thought about God and the world which result from certain generally agreed upon intuitions and xeasonings of the process school, in order to respond to these common views from perspectives generally held in the Sceorge P. Fedotov, The Collected Works, vol. 3: The Russian Religious Mind (1]:"Kievan Christianity, The loth — £0 the T3th Centuries (anbridge? Harvard University press, I9%6; reprint ed., Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1975), p. xv.14 Eastern Orthodox theological tradition. In each chapter of the dissertation therefore, after I expose the process position as clearly as I can through the authors' own words, I respond to it with a synthetic summary of the Eastern Christian perspective on the same subject. I draw the Eastern synthesis from the accepted sources of Eastern Orthodox theology, namely the liturgical texts and con- ciliar statements formally adopted by the Orthodox Church, with references to the biblical and patristic writings from which these texts and statements are drawn, an@/or commented upon, interpreted and explained. Once again, except when it seems necessary to my task, I do not enter into an examina~ tion of any of the inner theological quarrels and contro- versies which exist among Bastern Christian thinkers and schools of thought. Nor do I deal with Eastern Christian positions officially judged by the Orthodox Church as eretical" which, as I show in the first chapter of my work, have certainly existed. Nor do I deal with peculiar ideas of the Church fathers which are not part of the common Church tradition and are considered, in the light of the common tradition, to be mistaken and false. In the disser- tation I attempt to limit myself to those ideas and doctrines of the fathers for which they are called "fathers," i.e., for which they have been glorified in the Church through canonical recognition and liturgical veneration as pro- tectors and defenders of the common Orthodox faith. presume in the thesis a unanimity among the fathers on the15 subjects treated (a "subjective" point) and, as with the process theologians, I use their own words to witness to what I take to be their common vision. My final step in each chapter, after placing in parallel the process and Eastern perspectives, is to attempt to demonstrate how the Bastern tradition responds on the issues in question to the process position with its critique of "classical theism" and its own "neo-classical" solution. I try to show similarities between the process and Eastern positions, especially areas of agreement in their question- ing and rejecting of certain "classical" views, as well as to point out areas of disagreement and divergence. And most importantly, I attempt to demonstrate how the Eastern orthodox theological tradition deals with the subjects at issue in a way which is radically different from that of the classical/neo-classical debate. Again, because of the intuitive, synthetic and, in this sense, subjective charac— ter of my selecting and juxtaposing the two theological perspectives on the given themes, the resulting conclusions in each instance, and so in the dissertation as a whole, are equally intuitive, synthetic and subjective. We defend our method, however, and apologize for it with Professor Fedo- tov's defense and apology. At this stage in the encounter between process theology and the Eastern Orthodox theolog- ical tradition a "preliminary synthesis, even though Antuitional and subjective" is required as a first prep- aratory step for further study and more careful and detailed16 examination and analysis of particular issues. I present my dissertation as an attempt, the very first to my knowl- edge, to open the way for this work, and I welcome the ongoing debate with the Whiteheadean hope that the "clash of doctrines" will not result in "disaster," but rather in the "opportunity" for greater insight and clearer under- standing of the actual relationship between God and the world.CHAPTER I THE METHOD AND TASK OF THEOLOGY our study begins with a long and detailed examination of the nature of theology because this is, in our view, the basic and central issue in the dialogue between process theology and the theology of the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition. According to process thinkers, theology is always the product of philosophical thinking. Right theology re~ sults necessarily from right philosophy. Eastern Orthodox theologians have traditionally defended another position. For the Eastern Orthodox, theology results from man's experience of God which, in this tradition, means the ex- perience of God as He manifests Himself in the world through His divine energies and actions in Jesus Christ ana the Holy Spirit in the Christian Church, In explicating this encounter, theology, in the Eastern Orthodox view, formu- lates concepts adequate and proper to the experience; concepts which may well have philosophical meaning in their own right, but which are not necessarily brought to theology from any purely philosophical reflection on the nature of things. The church, however, is in the world. She lives in 471s history and her theologians pray, contemplate, think and speak within certain human conditions and cultures. It is inevitable, therefore, that their language, images and symbols will be those of their particular time and place; but this does not mean that these categories, and certainly their content and meaning, are simply taken over from secu- lar philosophical thinking without radical redefinition and refashioning. We begin our study in this chapter, therefore, by discussing the process position concerning theology and philosophy generally, and theology and the process philos- ophy of Alfred North Whitehead in particular. We try to show how process thinkers limit their conception of "class~ ical theism" to a certain type of philosophically-based theology and how they place the whole of Eastern Christian theology (with the exception of the thought of Nikolai Berdyaev) into their scheme of "classical theism" by view- ing it wholly as the result of Hellenistic, and more narrow- ly, Platonistic, philosophical thinking. We then attempt to show that while there were theologies in the Christian East which were judged to be erroneous (if not outrightly heretical) by the Eastern Orthodox Church precisely because of their Hellenistic content, the Church tradition presents itself not as the product of Hellenism or any other “human philosophy," but of the actual encounter with God who re- veals Himself in and to the world of His making by His manifold manizestations and operations effected through His19 Logos~Son, incarnate as Jesus Christ, and His Holy Spirit, in His final covenant community with creation which is the catholic Church. Because it is so commonly held that all Eastern Christian theology is thoroughly Hellenistic in substance, we find it necessary to devote a large part of this chapter to an attempt to demonstrate the contrary and to show rather that Eastern Orthodox theology is in direct opposi- tion to Hellenistic philosophy on many, if not actually all, essential points, particularly about God and the world. And in attempting this demonstration, we conclude with a pre- sentation of what theology is and how theology is done within this tradition. Process Theology and Whiteheadean Philosophy: charles wartsheene nee Process theology is consciously built on the founda~ tions of the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Without the philosophical thought of Whitehead, particularly as it is developed philosophically and theologically by his devoted disciple Charles Hartshorne, process theology would be unthinkable. Indeed, it would not exist. The work of the theologians to which we will attempt to respond in this thesis--in addition to Hartshorne, John B. Cobb, Jr., Norman Pittenger, Schubert M. Ogden and Daniel Day Williams--would not be what it is without the work of the great process philosopher and his theologically oriented disciple. In reference to the theological method of the process20 theologians, before entering into any discussion of the content of their thought about God and the world, it is important to see that they all agree fundamentally in their approach to theology generally. For each of them the White- headean philosophy and the "neo-classical" theistic meta- physics derived and developed from it, is the best possible theological conceptualization of Christian doctrine avail- able to man, This metaphysical philosophy is not merely most adequate for modern man in the present secularized, scientistic world. It is the most adequate philosophical scheme yet devised for the theological exposition of biblical revelation and Christian faith in the history of man. The claim is that the Whiteheadean process metaphysics fulfills the requirements for a "fully develored conceptuality which is understandable in the present situation and appropriate to the essential claims of the scriptural witness." and in fulfilling this requirement it also overcomes the "logical absurdities" of the past metaphysical theologies of what the process school calls “classical theism," the "greatest intellectual error mankind has ever made."? vhus, in the first line of his first major book on the subject, Charles Hartshorne writes the following in his characteristic manner and tone: ischubert M. Ogden, The Reality of God _and Other Essays (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 67~ 2charles Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity: A Social Conception of God (Sew Haven? Yale University Press, 19a01, p. xi; and Hartshorne, Man's Vision of God, p. 28.21 To the mountainous--I had almost said, monstrous-- mass of writings devoted to “philosophical theology" what can there be to add? I answer simply, if without apparent modesty, there is exactitude, logical rigor. : + + The purpose of this book is to show that and how the question, Is there a supreme, or in any sense perfect being, a God? can be answered by secular or philosophic reason operating according to strict canons of procedure. 3 The logical exposition of Hartshorne which follows in his many works leads to the view of God and the world which is basically that of Whiteheadean process philosophy. What concerns us now is not the content of that position, but the understanding of the method of its elaboration. The point is that it is presented as a strictly logical, reasonable, philosophical, metaphysical elaboration, and that the logic, reason, philosophy and metaphysics are fundamentally those of Whitehead who, according to Hartshorne, “has not had the leisure to develop and expound the theological aspect of his philosophy" and who also has "fallen into some fairly serious errors, or at least faults of exposition" which his disciple- assistant intends to clear up.4 Hartshorne is fundamentally a Whiteheadean logician. His appeal is to logic and reasoning. He makes the claim that his doctrine is fully adequate to the rigors of proper logical thinking. It at last provides man with a doctrine of God which is logically, metaphysically and religiously adequate to philosophical truth, biblical revelation and Suartshorne, Man's Vision of God, p. vii. ‘tpid., pe x.22 man's spiritual experience of worship and virtuous living. Cobb and ogden John Cobb's position is the same as Hartshorne's, to which he acknowledges his grateful dependence. His philosophical foundation is the process philosophy of White~ head, with corrections, additions and further elaborations; and it alone is viewed as adequate to logical thinking, religious faith and the demands of the modern era. Cobb's book God _and the World is "written out of an understanding of reality informed chiefly by the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead." He specifically states that "the philo~ sophical conceptuality that underlies my thought comes from And his A Christian Natural Theology is, as the title page says, expressly "based on the thought of Alfred North Whitehead." «+ . a Christian theologian should select for his hatural theology a philosophy which shares his fundg- mental premises, his fundamental vision of reality.’ -_. + I am proposing a Christian natural theology based on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead's philosophy was, I believe, Christian in the sense of being deeply affected in its starting point by the Christian vision of reality... . Sgohn B. Cobb, God and the Worlé, (Philadelphia: West- minster Press, 1969), p. 11. See also John B. Cobb, A Christian Natural Theology: Based on the Thought of Alfred North Whitehead (Philadeishtar Nestninster Press; 156s) Pp, 20, 252-84. 6 Cobb, God and the World, p. 41. Tcobb, Christian Natural Theology, p. 266.23 . +. I see the relation of the Christian theologian to Whitehead's philosophy as analogous to that of the theologians of the past to the philosophies they have adopted from the Greeks. Whitehead's work is obviously already Christianized in a way Greek philosophy could not have been. Hence, it proves, I am convinced, more amenable to Christian use. . . . + « + T believe that in Whitehead we have an excel- lent philosophy unusually free from the tensions of Christian faith characteristic of other philosophies that Christians have tried to employ. Schubert Ogden is in the same line. He is more cautious than Hartshorne in his defense of Whiteheadean metaphysics, but he also acknowledges his debt to the dean of the process theologians. Ogden argues primarily for the excellence and adequacy of process metaphysics for Christian theology in the modern situation. If there were no White- head and Hartshorne, Ogden would choose Heidegger; but the existence of process thought determines the choice.” Recording to Ogden, contemporary atheism is not so much a rejection of God as it is a rejection of fallacious and unconvincing conceptualizations about God. The real issue is one of the "right philosophy." The problem of the adequate conceptuality mann puts it, the "'right' philosophy’--is the perennial problen of any theology aspiring to an adequacy always beyond its grasp. Moreover, because the concepts avail- able in a given situation are always a matter of the theologian's historical destiny, he is often forced to express his intentions within limits that make their adequate expression impossible. 10 ogden goes on to say that "among the most significant 8tpid., pp. 268-70. Sogden, Reality of God, pp. 162-63, 172-74. 1rpid., p. 56.24 intellectual achievements of the twentieth century has been the creation at last of a neoclassical alternative to the wll metaphysics . . of our classical tradition. He sees it in the work of Alfred North Whitehead and, theologically, in the elaborations of Charles Hartshorne, which accomplish~ ment, he claims, "easily rivals the so-called philosophia perennis. "1? It is my belief that the conceptuality provided by this new philosophy enables us so to conceive the reality of God that we may respect all that is legitimate in modern secularity, while also fully respecting the distinctive claims of Christian faith itself... . +». By Making resolute use of this "system of thought," theology today should be able, in considerable measure, to accomplish its proper task: to bear witness in the most adequate conceptual form now possible to the reality of God which is re-presented [sic] to us all in Jesus Christ.13 Pittenger and Williams Norman Pittenger has written a small book about White- head devoted to the philosopher as being among the “makers of modern theology." In this book Pittenger speaks specif- ically about "the concern for the reconception" of Chris~ tian thought, and defends the appropriateness of Whitehead's thought for this enterprise. I believe the answer [why Whitehead is "exerting such an influence on Christian theologians") is that his philosophical stance, the conceptuality which may be found in or drawn from his works, provides a setting in which the essential Christian faith can be re-thought and re-stated for our own time. Many believe that this approach. . . is appropriate to that faith in a fashion Uypia. 1 ypia. 13rpid., pp. 56-57, 70.25 which is unparalleled in other possible approaches.!4 Pittenger himself has written books on christology and eschatology in the process perspective. In his book God in Process he presents a brief survey of the main thinkers and thoughts of the process theological school. The point once more is to defend the appropriateness of the Whiteheadean philosophy, but perhaps more as a correction, development and addition to the views of classical theism than as its wholesale rejection.15 Daniel Day Williams, the last of those whose thought we shall directly consider in our dialogue with process theology about God and the world, has also written about the method and task of theology. In his moving book, The Spirit and the Forms of Love, written in the light of the "new possibility" of "process philosophy which proposes nothing less than a revolution in metaphysics and theology,"*° the late Professor Williams writes about the meaning of process philosophy for Christien theology which necessarily requires lMyorman Pittenger, Alfred North Whitehead (Rich- mond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1969), p- xi. 15see for example, Norman Pittenger, The Word In- camate: A Study of the boctrine of the Person of ChYist ‘Gow Yorks Harper Bros 1555), p- Ue, Te2; and Norman Pit- tenger, God in Process (London: SCM Press, 1967), pp. 96- 109. 1paniel Day Williams, The Spirit and the Forms of Love (ew York: Harper @ fow, WCB Broke26 “philosophical structure for its intelligibility." The relation between philosophy and theology is a perennial problem for Christian thought, and the debate about methodology never ends. In the last analysis the test of a method is whether it illuminates concrete problems of life. The present book is an attempt to think theologically about the meanings of love with the resources contributed by process thought. The justi- fication for such a method would be that it commends itself by making some sense out of the meaning of love of God and the loves of men. Process thinkers do not claim to 'have all the answers.‘ One of our cardinal tenets is the tentativeness of all structures of inter- pretation... . Process philosophy opens up for Christian theology a way of conceiving the being of God in historical- temporal terms... . +» Whitehead's is the seminal mind which pro- vided the majn structure of thought which is process philosophy. ‘The point here is that while the process theologians insist on the insufficiency of philosophy for Christian faith, and the tentativeness and ultimate insufficiency of any given philosophy for the complete exposition of Chris- tian theology, they assert simply and clearly that theology must, of necessity and inevitably, be wedded to some phil~ osophy. This does not mean that theology forges its own modes of expression out of spiritual and religious experience, and so produces its own conceptuality, its own symbols and texms--not to speak of its own metaphysics; and does so necessarily within the philosophical, cultural setting of its day. It means precisely that theology must, and in the past always has, consciously "selected" a philosophy which serves as the ancilla theologiae not merely in presenting lypia., p. 106. 18ipia., pp. 106-107.27 symbols, categories and forms of expression, but of pro- viding and supplying a definite content and doctrine. thus they claim that as the classical Christian theologies of old have selected not merely the forms but the substance of Greek philosophy, and as some moderns have selected Heideg- gerean or some other existential or linguistic philosophical doctrines, so process theology has selected as most adequate and sufficient the logic and metaphysics of Whiteheadean Process theology. In criticizing past theologies, the process theo- logians are clear to underline the fact that the main problem is that the philosophy ot philosophies on which these theologies were based are either totally fallacious; or at best, insufficient and inadequate; or more mercifully, are simply no longer meaningful or relevant as perhaps they once were. But the point is that it is the philosophical substratum and the conceptuality which are questioned and attacked. The positive assertion is that now, in the present conditions of man, the philosophy that theology necessarily needs is process philosophy. It alone--and “at last" provides the undergirding for a theology of God that is logically sound, religiously adequate and existentially relevant to biblical revelation, Christian faith, religious experience and the needs and demands of modern man.1 see ogden, Reality of God, p. 59; Charles Hart- shorne, A Natural Theology for Our Tine (la Salle, I11.: Open Court, 1967}, p. 125.28 “Classical theism" tn adopting and defending "neo-classical" Process Philosophy as most adequate for theological conceptualiza~ tion in our time, the process thinkers unanimously agree to reject what they call "classical" metaphysics and particu- jarly the "classical theism" which they see deriving from it. In the purely theological realm, "classical theism" is Presented by the process theologians as the sole alternative fo "neo-classical" process theism, and as virtually the only theology existing (with but few, almost miraculous, os tions) before the arrival of their own formulations. While it is neither my t: nor my duty here to deul with "classic al theism" as understood, or Perhaps misunderstood, by Process thinkers, and still less to enter into direct Gialogue with it in its own right, 1 do find it necessary to make Several remarks which I consider Pertinent to our present work, Christian expression in the theologies of Augustine, Anselm and Thomas Aquinas. According to process thinkers, “class— ical theists" defend the "monopolar view of God as absolute, and in no sense relative; one, and in no Sense many; simple, and in no sense multiple: essential, and in no sense29 accidental; being, and in no sense becoming; actual, and in no sense potential; active, and in no sense passive; imm- table, and in no sense changing; knowing, and in no sense ignorant; powerful, and in no sense weak; complete, and in no sense growing . . . even when what is affirmed of God is qualified by the demands of “negative theology." Thus, for example, Hartshorne notes that for the "classical theists" as he understands them, God may well be "more simple than one, but not more complex than many." This is so because there is a "transcendent analogue" in God for but one pole of the polar opposites that are found within the world.?° This "classical" conceptualization, according to the process thinkers, denies God any real relationship with the world, removes Him from being in any sense its metaphysical exen- plar, and deprives the world of value for Him since He totally controls it, receives nothing from it, and is absolutely perfect, complete, happy and satisfied without it, in and by Himself. According to the process thinkers, this "classical" view of God, with almost no exception, exhausts theology, certainly Christian theology, outside of their own "neo-classical" perspective. My first comment at this point, therefore, is that it is quite misleading to draw a division between "classical" and "neo-classical" theism within the Christian tradition as 20see Hartshorne, Philosophers Speak of God, P. 3.30 if these were the only two possibilities actually open to one's choice. It is misleading, if for no other reason, because many theological "schools" or "approaches" are har: ly considered by the process writers. We do not find, for example, any careful examination of the theology of Scot Brigena, Bonaventure or the Victorines. Nor is there any serious study made of the "conceptualizations" of such western ystical" authors as John of the Cross, Eckhart or Ruysbroeck.”4 and there is certainly no analysis at all of the writings of the Oriental Church fathers (Greek, syriac or Slav) or of Eastern Orthodox theology generally. Therefore, on the basis of the authors referred to by the process thinkers, we must conclude that their "classical theism" is formed from an extremely narrow selection of thinkers from within the Christian tradition. My second comment is, to my mind, of more importance. Tt is that I believe it can be shown that the “classical theism" of the process thinkers reveals some serious mis- understandings and misinterpretations even of the theolo- gians which they have selected and studied. This, I think, is probably so with the thought of Thomas Aquinas, and the Thomists and neo-Thomists; it is certainly so in my view (without attempting to prove it here) with Augustine and Anselm whose theological writings, when taken "mystically" rather than "rationalistically," as expressions of intuitive 2lrpid., p. 325.31 insight rather than logical reasoning, may well allow for an interpretation and understanding other than that provided by their process examiners, And on this same point there are grounds to argue that certain contemporary theologians coming out of "classical" traditions--such as Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar--undoubtedly formulate conceptions of God and the world which do not square with process views about “classical theism" and which are certainly not them- selves compatible with "neo-classical" process positions. ?? This leads to my final remark. The process thinkers, with virtually no examination, unanimously place the Orthodox theology of the Eastern Christian tradition within their category of "classical theism." The Russian religious philosopher Berdyaev (hardly an Orthodox theologian as Hartshorne identifies him) is excepted, taken as he is by Hartshorne as "neo-classical" in aspiration if not yet satisfactorily in technical exposi- tion.?3 But the main theologicns, primarily the Greek 22gee, for example, Karl Rahner's teaching about divine unity, immutability and change in Theological Tnves- tigations, 12 vols. (London: Darton, tongan f Todd Teds 1966 and 1974), 4:107, 109-17, 119-20. ?3yartshorne often refers with admiration to Berdyaev and considers him a spokesman for Eastern Orthodox theology (e.g., Man's Vision of God, p. 2). In Philosophers Speak of Gea?" havtahorne Writes about’ berdyacy's thought! "ere at Jast is an out-and-out dipolar theology! . .. To us it seems the most rational of any [metaphysics] since that of Whitehead, to which it has profound similarities" (pp. 285- 86). This is the supreme compliment, yet it must be said that Berdyaev is not considered to be a theologian by con- temporary Orthodox thinkers and his doctrines about God and the world are judged as erroneous by the overwhelming majority32 fathers, are all dismissed as hopelessly Philonian and Hellenistic. Only Pittenger and Williams show any interest in the tradition, and their interpretations, slight as they are, cannot be accepted as accurate.?4 For this reason we must take up the accusation that Eastern Christian theology is a form of "classical theism" formed by “Hellenism,” and more specifically, "Platonism," and attempt to show that such a position cannot. be affirmed and defended. It is exactly our thesis to reveal the contrary: to demonstrate that the orthodox theological tradition of the Christian East is neither "classical" (as the process thinkers define it), nor "neo-classical," but that it is a theological tra~ dition in method and conceptualization essentially different from both. Our question now is this: Is it true that Eastern Christian theology has "selected" the philosophy of Plato or some other Hellenistic philosophy as the basis for its theology? And if it is not true, then what is theology in this tradition, and what are the sources of its of his fellow churchmen. See also Charles Hartshorne, “White- head and Berdyaev: Is There Tragedy in God?" The Journal of Religion 37 (1957):71-84. E.G., see Nicholas 0. Lossky, History of Russian Philosophy (New York: International Uni- versities Press, 19517 paperback ed. by the same publisher, 1969), pp. 233-50; V. V. Zenkovsky, A History of Russian Philosophy, trans. George Kline, 2 vols- Gander? Routledge % Kegan Paul, 1953; New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), 2:760-80. 24yartshorne, Natural Theology, p. 28; Philosophers speak of God bp. 285; Cobb CHEISEION Natural Theology, 3°68; Pittenger, Word Incarnate, pp. 93, 113, Tear ia lians, Spirit and’Forms of Love, pp. 91-93, 158-60.33 intellectual conceptualizations and its symbolical, verbal expressions? Contact with Hellenism First of all we acknowledge that virtually all of the fruitful Christian thinking and the positive theological achievements, as well as all of the temptations to dis- tortion and the actual Christian heresies in the first cen- turies of the Christian era in the East, were the result of the contact of Christianity with the ¥ellenistic philosoph- ical world in which the Gospel of Christ was first preached and lived. There was no choice to the Christian thinkers of this period but to think in the thought forms of the day; They had to use the means of expression and the intellectual categories which were naturally and culturally theirs. These were the categories of Greek philosophy. The meeting of Jerusalem and Athens was inevitable and although some like Tertullian found it abominable, the mainstream of Christian thinking did not.?5 The first Christians were faced with the task of proclaiming and defending the Gospel in the Hellenistic world. The mystery revealed in Christ Jesus, "which was kept secret for long ages," had to be "made known to all 25nertullian, The Prescription of Heretics, 3.7 (for English translation, 5ee Quasten, Patrology, 3 vols. (Utrecht-Antwerp: Spectrum Publishers, 1960-62; Westmin- ster, Md.: Newman Press, 1960-62], 2:320-22). See also J. N. D, Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine (New York: Harper i'now, 1958), pp. SE} and G- Ly Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: SPCK, 1959), pp. ixff.34 nations according to the command of the eternal God" (Romans 16:25, 26).26 the "faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" had to be contended for (Jude 1:3). The Christians were commanded to “always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you" (I Peter 3:15). ‘They were inspired to proclaim "the eternal life that was with the Father and was made manifest . . ." (I John 1:2). Bternal life had been defined by the Master Himself as the knowledge of the true Goa and Jesus Christ whom He had sent (see John 17:3). ‘The Holy Spirit was given as the pledge and guarantee of this eternal life, being the Spirit of truth, wisdom and understanding; the Spirit of Christ who is the Truth, the Light and the Logos of God: Life Itself. There existed from the beginning the intellectual dimension of Christian faith--a loving of God with “all of one's mind" (Natthew 22:37); Deuteronomy 6: }--with the inevitability of Christian theology, not merely for practical purposes, but as an essential contemplative element of Christian life as such. ‘The philosophical world into which the Gospel came was that of Hellenism, It was a mixture of many elements which has been basically described as Middle Platonisn. Scholars analyzing this subject tell us that the basic atmosphere was Platonistic, but it was not the classical Plato. There was an amalgam of elements, substantially the %6un1ess otherwise noted, all biblical quotations are from the Revised Standard Version.35 result of a close association of Platonic and Pythagorean philosophical mysticism, The prevailing philosophy was symbolic and religious in character. Admitting the lack of a truly comprehensive study of this period, Daniélou refers to a remark of Bréhier who says that "very little is known about Middle Platonism, the period of history of Platonism stretching from the fourth century before the Christian era to the Platonic revival at Alexandria at the end of the second century."*7 But Danidlou then proceeds to make his own brief investigation of the period with the following conclusions: ". . . the form of Platonism we are concerned with came into existence by way of reaction against this sceptical attitude [of the first leaders of the academy after the death of Plato]."°° the victory of this reaction to scepticism was that of Antiochus Ascalon whose dominant attitude, even in epistemology, was based on moral principles. He was Platonic in his understanding of God, the universe and the soul, but his Platonism was mixed with elements from Aristotle, the Stoics and the Pythagoreans, and the final result was Platonism of a mystical, religious, one might even say soteriological variety. In describing this type of Platonistic philosophy, Daniélou contends that its "gen- eral tone," rather than its technical systematic detail, is 274, préhier, Shrontnue annuslle de 1'institut inter: pational de collaboration philosophigue, 1939, p- (40. quoted in Jean Daniélou, Origen, trans. Walter Mitchell (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1955), p. 85. *8panielou, Origen, pp. 85-86.36 what the Christian teachers struggled with in dialogue and apology in the early period. When the church fathers spoke about Plato, the French Jesuit scholar claims, "the Plato- nism they were referring to was the eclectic mystical kind. And When people talk about the Platonism of the Fathers, this is the Platonism they mean."29 Hellenistic Gnostici In the New Testament we already find evidence of the first encounter of Christians with the Platonist tendencies of the time. Whether or not we totally accept the view of Daniélou, we can recognize the type of philosophy which he described in the adversaries of the apostolic teachings. Both John and Paul war against those who are anti-Christ in their denial that Jesus Christ has truly come "in the flesh," and that He is over all spiritual principalities and powers. he One through whom all things were made, has reconciled all things to God in His "body of flesh" thus destroying the “philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition," the "knowledge falsely so-callea."20 Although the exact identity of the anti-christ ad- versaries of the New Testament authors is rot clear, the ?%rpid., p. 87. See alsc Kelly, Barly Christian Doctrine, pp. laff. 30See 1 John 4:2-4; Colossians 1:18~22, 2:8-10; I Timothy 0. On this subject see also Alfred North White- head, Religion in the Making (New York: Macmillan, 1926; paperback seprint Git, Nev York: World Publishing, Meridian Books, 1960], pp. 71-72.37 identity of the later Gnostics is easily known. They are Platonists of the mystical, eclectical, Pythagorean type described by Danielou. They love numbers and mathematical formulations, and are proponents of spiritualist, anti- flesh dualism. They offer salvation to those who escape the body of flesh through intellectual enlightenment and noetic purification. Christian gnosticism is a religious movement rather than a philosophy. It is a genuinely Hellenistic phenomenon; one might even dare to say that it is Christianity assuming not merely the conceptuality and structures of the day, but the metaphysical, ethical and cosmical content of the prevailing philosophy as well. To the local philosophers, it most likely must have appeared as highly relevant, even if its quasi Christian content perhaps appeared somewhat suspect. 3! Besides the heretical forms of Gnosticism which used the Christian terms, there was a whole world of similar gnosticisms and Hellenist philosophies to be confronted by the Christian Church. One reaction of the Christians was to war against the culture directly and to deny any connec- tion with it in any way, declaring it simply to be the work of demons. There were others, however, who, while strictly denying the false character of human philosophy, tried to 31ge0 Quasten, Patrology, 1:254-75; Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, pp. 22ff.; Louis Bouyer, The Spiritual aso ery Pa ity oF the New Testament and the Fathers, trai yan We York? beselees 1563), pp. 227-04.38 come to terns with the pagan teachings in those areas where such a positive meeting was possible. These were they who not only loved the style and beauty of Platonic thought, but who even ascribed their entrance into the Christian Church to their devotion to ancient Greek thinking. ‘These men not only defended the Christian faith from pagan er- rors, but they in like manner attempted to absorb what was true, good and beautiful in Hellenistic thought, and to overcome the Hellenistic philosophical tradition, as it were, from the inside fulfilling its positive elements with the "true philosophy" of Christ, the incarnate Wisdom of God. Origen and Alexandria ‘The most famous and influential of the early Hellen- izing Christian thinkers were Justin the Philosopher (+165), Clement of Alexandria (+215) and the master Origen (+253). While we cannot enter here into the intricate details of the doctrine of these thinkers, it is enough to say that this Hellenizing influence, especially that of Origen, caused great difficulties in Christian theology and spiritual life for centuries, and, in the words of Vladimir Lossky, "super— human effort" was required to overcome it. “In its reaction against Origenism," Lossky claims, "Christian theology will keep the vocabulary proper to the thought of Alexandria, but it will separate itself more and more from the point of departure of this thought, as it was shared by both Plotinus39 032. and Origen. Such are his conclusions: Salvation by means: of a flight from the world, an es- cape of the spirit from the world, will appear as a limitation or spiritualistic deformation. In reality we are dealing with a way of salvation which does not tear us out of the world but is rather opened for this created world, in the Word become flesh. Gnosis, in- tellectual or’ super-intellectual contemplation will be seen, more and more, as but one of the necessary moments of the communion of created beings with God, without being the way of deifying union par excellence. The great volume of Origen's writings with its ~ variety and richness of thought was open to many theological interpretations, both heretical and orthodox. The orthodox tradition which followed closely upon the Origenistic foun- dations was that of the Cappadocian fathers, Basil of Caesarea (+ 379), Gregory of Nazianzus (+ 374) and Gregory of Nyssa (+ 383). In the writings of these men, the in~ fluence of the classical background shows itself very strongly. In their literary style as well as in their meta- physical constructions, the Hellenistic, Platonistic character of their intellectual formation is apparent. Once more, it could hardly have been otherwise. They wrote as educated men, and the education of the time and place was that of Greek philosophy. They thought as metaphysicians, and again, the philosophical metaphysics from their time to our own, until the advent of the neo-classical metaphysics 32yiadimir Lossky, The Vision of God, trans. Ashe~ leigh Moorhouse (London: Faith Press, 1963; Clayton, Wis.: American Orthodox Press, 1963), p. 58. 331pia.40 of the process school, was that of the ancient Greek world. The dominant problems of the theological controversies of their time were also metaphysical. The main problem was that of the nature of God. It was a problem which could hardly have been formulated by them in categories other than those provided by the metaphysics of the Hellenistic culture. only the language and categories of Greek philosophy were available for the task at hand. And these theologians, following the lead of Origen--himsel£ a direct cause of the difficulties which they faced--found themselves forging out the first genuinely Christian metaphysical theology. 34 Cappadocian Theology Once again we cannot enter into the details of the Cappadocian theology of the fourth century. But we must make the small effort to show that this most basic and critical theologizing in the history of the Eastern Church, that which laid the foundations for the entire Byzantine tradition which followoa, was a radical departure from many of the key ideas of the Hellenistic thought of the Origen- istic type. The main departure was from an intellectualis- tic doctrine of salvation and the contemplative vision of the essence of God through an escape from the senses by 34sec ibid., pp. 61-74; Quaesten, Patrology, 3:203- 96; Kelly, Early Christian Doctrine, pp. 258ff.; Prestige, God_in pateistig Thought, pp, ZI9FE.; Georges Florovsky, SSiretied Works velar christianity and culture (pelitont, 2 Nass.: Nordland, 1974), pja noetic purification. Basil of Caesarea, for example, in~ sisted upon the fact that the essence of God is unknown and will remain eternally unknown to man, The final end of man in Basil's view is not a spiritualistic, asensual, in- tellectualistic contemplation of the essence of God. It is rather a "union" (vuoig) with God expressed not in terms of knowledge but in terms of love. It is a communion with God which is man's deification, his being "made divine" by grace. The "spiritual man," an expression which Basil uses in place of the Alexandrian "gnostic man," is the Christian filled with the Holy Spirit. Gnostic contemplation is re- placed in Basil's theology by spiritual union. The “divine object" of union for Basil is not the essence (odcla) of God, but the person of God the Father made known through the divine manifestations and energies in the person of the son by the indwelling of the person of the Holy Spirit. The essence of the three divine persons remains hidden for eternity. It is totally other than the created being and essence of all else that exists through the act of the divine will, It remains unknown to the human mind forever.35 We shall have opportunity to refer directly to Basil's theology in this thesis, but what we must now see is that Basil's view is far different from that of Greek philosophy or the Hellenistic intellectual mysticism of Plotinus or see Basil, Letter to Amphilochius, Letter 235 (see NPNP, 8:274-75); also Against Eunomlus, Letter 16 (see NPNF, B:125-26). Sec also Lossky, Vision of God, p. 63.42 even the Christian Origen. The terms he uses are similar. Without due attention they may even appear to have the same meaning. Yet for the Cappadocian theologian, theol- ogy depends on faith. Tt operates within the Church. It is strictly according to tradition. It is rooted in God, centered in Christ, a gift of the Holy Spirit; and the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are "of one essence," sharing the same divine essence which is essentially beyond the knowledge of man. ‘The three divine persons have created ‘the world from nothing.3® they have raised up man before whose appearance "the preaching of theology remains envel- oped in shadow" but after whose emergence "faith unveils herself and the dogma of truth appears in all its light."37 They make themselves known to those who repent, believe, are baptized, abide in prayer, keep the commandments, study the scriptures and grow in virtue by putting on Christ through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.3° This, too, is the teaching of Gregory Nazianzen, the first in the Church tradition to be called "the Theologian" after the apostle and evangelist John. again we have the doctrine of the unknowable essence of the consubstantial Trinity, and again we have the teaching of man's end as 36pasil, The Hexaemeron 1 (see NPNF, 8:52-58). 37gasil, The Hexaemeron 9. 5 (see NPNF, 8:106). 38pasil, on the Holy Spirit 9 (see NPNF, 8:15-16); or on the Holy Spirit, trans. David Anderson [Crestwood, N.Y. St, Viadiniz’s Seminary Press, 1980], pp. 42-44).43 union with God in faith and in love in the life of the Church. This is what Gregory says in his famous Theological Orations about the task, method and meaning of theology. Not to everyone, my friends, does it belong to phil- osophize about God; not to everyone; the Subject is not so cheap and low. . . Not to all men, because it is permitted only to those who have been examined and are passed masters in medi- tation, and who have been previously purified in soul and body, or at the very least are being purified. > And there is no doubt that for Gregory the purification and enlightenment necessary for theology come not through philo- sophical illumination, but through the sacramental life of the Church and the participation in the Christian mysteries of baptism, chrismation and the eucharist.‘ But if any be . . . unworthy of this height of contem- plation, if he be altogether impure, let him not approach at all, for it would be dangerous to him. . . . But if any is’an evil and savage beast, and altogether inca- pable of taking in the subject matter of contemplation and theology, let him not hurtfully and malignantly lurk in his den among the woods, to catch hold of some dogma or saying by a sudden spring, and to tear sound doctrine to pieces by his misrepresentations. Therefore we must begin again thus. It is difficult to conceive God, but to define Him in words is an impossi- bility, as one of the Greek teachers of divinity taught, not unskillfully as it appears to me. This Greek teacher is most likely Plato himself in the meaeus, and we note the genuine sympathy of the theologian 3%Gregory Nazianzen, First Theological oration 3 (see NPNF, 7:285). 40see Gregory Nazianzen, Oration on Holy Baptism and Second Oration on Easter (see NPNF, 7:360-77, 422-34). 4lGregory Nazianzen, Second Theological Oration 2. 4 (see NPNF, 7:289).44 for the philosopher.4? But yet he continues to hold that “itis impossible to conceive Him. For what will you conceive the Deity to be, if you rely upon all the approximations of reason? Or to what will reason carry you, 0 most philosophic of men and best of theologians, who boast of your familiarity with the Unlimited? Again the style and tone is familiar. It has a Platonic inspiration. Direct reference to Plato is made. and yet the Theologian reverses key doctrines of the Platonists as he develops, with numerous appeals to logic and reason as well as to faith, love, goodness and virtue, the doctrine of deification in Christ and the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church. + + + the Divine Nature cannot be apprehended by human feason. . . we cannot even represent to ourselves all its greatness. . . . For every rational nature longs for God . . . but is unable to grasp Him. . . .44 But we sketch Him by His attributes, and so obtain a certain faint and feeble and partial idea concerning Him, and our best Theologian is he who has not indeed discovered the whole, . . . but conceived of Him to a greater extent than another, and gathered in himself more of the likeness of adumbration of the Truth, or whatever we may call it. 4> 42se0 NPNF 7:289, note n. Also Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, trans. Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1957; reprint ed., Crestwood, N. Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976), p. 34. ‘3¢regory Nazianzen, Second Theological Oration 7 (see 2290). NPNE, ‘4cregory Nazianzen, Second Theological Cration 11, 13 (see NPNP, 7:292-93). 4Scregory Nazianzen, Fourth Theological Oration 17 (see NPNF, 7:316).45 + + + now We haye both seen and proclaim concisely ana'simply the doctrine of God the Trinity, comprehend- ing Light out of Light in the Light [i.e., the Son out of the Father in the Holy Spirit]. He that rejects it, let him reject it; and he that does iniquity, let him do it. We proclaim that which we have understood. 46 For the matter stands thus. The Old Testament pro- claimed the Father openly, and the Son more obscurely. The New manifested the Son, and suggested the deity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit Himself dwells among us and supplies us with a clearer demonstration of Himself. . + + You see lights breaking upon us, gradually; and the order of theology which it is better for us to keep, neither proclaiming things too suddenly nor yet keeping them hidden to the end. For thc former course would be unscientific, the latter atheistical; and the former would be calculated to startle outsiders, the latter to alienate our own people. . . . And again Our Saviour said that all should be taught ys by the Spirit when he should come to dwell among us. Gregory, like Basil, does not deny the possibility of the knowledge of God. Indeed he boldly affirms it. Neither does he reject the use of reason and logic. He claims to be eminently reasonable and logical. Neither does he deny his connection to the pagan philosophers. He quotes them di- rectly. But his doctrine is not that of the philosophers. His theology, both as spiritual experience and as conceptual expression, is the product of his faith and the outgrowth of his living experience of God in the Church. Once again, being who he is, living when he did, and confronting the problems which he faced, he could hardly do otherwise than to use the language and thought forms of Hellenistic culture. ‘Scregory Nazianzen, Fifth Theological Oration 3 (see NPNF, 7:318). *7eregory Nazianzen, Fifth Theological Oration 26, 27 (see NPNF, 7:326).46 But once again, he hardly built his theology on the basis of Hellenistic philosophy. He hardly "chose" a metaphysics from the secular teachers of his time either as an adequate conceptuality or as a metaphysical foundation for his thought. His conceptuality as well as his metaphysics are his own original creation. They were created to express, explain, defend and glorify the Most Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Gregory of Nyssa When we come to Gregory of Nyssa, the brother of Basil, we meet the most mystical and speculative of the Cappadocian fathers, the one most in line with Origen, the most Platonistic of the three, the real bearer of the Chris- tian Platonism of Alexandria into the later age which can most properly be called the period of Byzantine theology. There are two opposing opinions about Gregory. ‘The first, which was once held firmly by many scholars, simply states that Gregory was a genuine Platonist who superficially christened Hellenistic philosophy without any substantial changes in its essential doctrines. In this sense it would be really the case that Gregory "selected" Hellenistic philosophy as the substratum for his theology and expressed his faith according to the metaphysical doctrines which this philosophy provided without essential alterations. Thus it has been said about Gregory: ". . . but for some few orthodox dogmas which he could not circumvent, Gregory had47 merely applied Christian names to Plato's doctrines and called it Christian theology."4® The other opinion, which belongs to a number of patristic scholars today, is that there definitely is a formal Platonic stream in the thought of Gregory which rivals only Origen in its power and in- tensity, and that there are indeed unresolved Platonisms in his teachings. But there is as well, especially in the metaphysical content of Gregory's thought, a powerful "reversal of the Platonic perspective," a "complete meta- morphosis" of the harmful and unorthodox Platonic metaphysics which in various ways, in various Christian authors, de- formed the faith of the Church. This reversal and meta- morphosis of pagan Platoniism into Christian Platonism by Gregory was accomplished by a very close adherence to the fundamentally spiritualistic and mystic language and cate- gories of the Platonic worla.4? Gregory of Nyssa may be called a systematic theolo- gian as well as a mystical theologian and a Christian phil~ osopher. Like Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory was thoroughly Hellenistic in his education and culture. But once more we have in Gregory the "church father" a totally different doctrine from that of Plato and Hellenism 48q, P. cherniss, The Platonism of Gregory of Nyssa (Berkeley: The University of California Publications in Classical Philology, 1930), p. 62. *21ossky, Vision of God, p. 72. See also Jean Dani~ lou, Platonisme et théologie mystique: Essai sur la doctrine spirituelie de Saint Grégoire de lyse (aris, 19041748 generally; a doctrine, we might say, in which the Hellenism in which Christianity found its first cultural expression was for the first time genuinely Christianized to the extent that Hellenistic culture could be metaphysically and system atically baptized into Christ. The uniqueness of Gregory is that he did not fight like Basil or declaim like the Nazianzen; he rather presented an integrated picture of what Christian philosophy and theology are when presented by a Christian Hellenist with creative philosophical and theo- logical gifts. To summarize in the briefest and most general way, we may say that the fundamental perspective of Plato is totally reversed by Gregory. The Christian theologian presents a complete “interiorization" of contemplation. ‘The celestial journey of the soul and the final culmination of the vision of God are restricted to an internal psychic ascent. The “intelligible world" is not divine as with Plato (and Ori-~ gen), but it belongs to the side of the human, the created, and so the sensible. ‘he divine essence cannot be known, as the master Basil has said. ‘There is a "darkness" beyond vision in the theological ascent, and in this "darkness" communion with God is given to creatures. This communion with God in the divine darkness is a communion of love rather than gnosis, Beatitude is not mere knowledge or Quasten, Patrology, 3:284; J. P, Cavarnos, “Gregory of Nyssa ‘on the Nature of the Soul," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 1, 2 (1955) :136ff.49 contemplation, which is "this side" of union, It is rather “having God within oneself" through purification in faith and love, the "purity of heart" which according to the Gospel, allows man to "see God." Union in love goes far beyond contemplation and it is the exact opposite of Pla~ tonic contemplation, considered as man's final end. It is a constant progression, an eternal perfecting, an unending ascent in deification.°° For Gregory the very essence of man--even in the “final stage" of “deification"~-is not the unchanging, static contemplation of the inmutable and unchanging essence of the Good, or the One. Tt is rather the infinite, con- stantly changing progression in loving union with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit in which is granted an ever more perfect communion with God, the Trinity, which for eternity is never completely satisfiea.>! The divine essence for Gregory, as for the Cappa~ docians generally, belongs equally to the three divine per- sons--Father, Son and Spirit--who are consubstantial. The essence of God, although indeed unchanging and immutable, is not static. It is unchanging and immutable because it is full, complete, unlimited, unable of addition of any sort. Yet it is also a "bubbling spring" overflowing with 50:ossky, Vision of God, pp, 72-74; From Glory to Glory: Texts from Gregory OF Nyssa's Mystical writings, Seats ant ed, HGEbGEe MMgurT ites Vite Teteeductlon ey Jean Daniglou (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961), pp. 23- 46. Slprom Glory to Glory, pp. 46-71.50 innumerable divine energies and manifestations, appearing eternally new and different to the soul which God deifies in an interpersonal relationship, the "marital union" with Christ, through whom union with the Father is consummated in love, by the Holy spirit.5? We shall have occasion to consider Gregory's doc- trines in this thesis in some detail, but what we must now see is that Gregory of Nyssa as a Christian theologian and metaphysician--a "father of the Church"--is radically dif- ferent from the Platonist philosophers whose doctrines he knew, whose language he used, and whose style he imitated. It can in no way be defended that Gregory of Nyssa “selec- ted" Hellenist philosophy as the metaphysical doctrine through which he would express and structure his Christian theology. By way of example, let us hear Gregory himself: Now the divine nature, as It is in Itself, according to Its essence, transcends every act of comprehensive knowledge, and’ It cannot be approached or attained by our speculation. Man has never discovered a faculty to comprehend the incomprehensible; nor have we ever been able to devise an intellectual technique for grasping the inconceivable . . . the way that leads to the knowl- edge of the divine nature is inaccessible to our reason +. « for being by nature invjgible, He becomes visible only in His operations. . . . God's "visibility" in His operations is fully realized for 52Gregory of Nyssa, On the Cant: Sermon 11 (P.G. 44:997 D-1000 C); Sermon 12 @ B-1028 A); Sermon 15 (P.G. 44:1093 c~ 1096 b)7 (see From Glory to Glory, pp. 245-46, 262, 281-24). 53cregory of Nyssa, On the Beatitudes, Homily 6 (@.G. 44:1268 B- 1272 C; See From Glory to Glory, pp. 98-100; or ACH, 18:146-47).51 Gregory in the coming of Christ and the Kingdom of God in the Church. Here man's nature is fulfilled by Jesus" saving purification which allows the creature not simply to know something "about God," but to "possess Goa" within one's own being and to "see" Him in one's own purified heart, for the “pure at heart," says Christ, are blessed to "see God." Thus God's xingdom is really "within us."54 For you have within your grasp the degree of the knowl- edge of God which you can attain. For, when God made you, He at once endowed your nature with this perfection: upon the structure of your nature He imprinted an tation of the perfections of His own nature. . . . We see here not only Gregory's doctrine of man as created "in the image and likeness of God" with the natural capacity to know God within himself, yet being radically different in nature from the divine; but we also see that the "kingdom of Goa" has come in power, which Kingdom is identified by Gregory with the Holy Spirit when he says simply, "The Holy Spirit is the kingdom." He is "the king "56 wno ef- dom of the Father and the Unction of the Son, fects the purification and enlightenment of the soul of man and allows him to be "heaven." The Spirit is God's gift through faith in Christ, according to this churchly teacher. 54¢regory of Nyssa, On the On the Beatitudes, Homily 6 (P 44:1268 B- 1272 C; see From Glory to {Glory to Glory, p. 100; or ACW, 18: ae . 55cregory of Nyssa, On the Beatitudes, Homily 6 (2.6. 4411268 B- 1271 C; see From Glory to Glory, p. 101; or ACH, 18:148). 56cregory of Nyssa, On the lord's Prayer, Homily 3 (see ACW, 18:53).52 Abraham passed through all the reasoning possible to human nature about the divine attributes, and after he had purified his mind of all such concepts, he took hold of a faith that was unmixed and pure of any concepts and he fashioned for himself this token of knowledge of God that is completely free of error, namely the belief that God completely transcends any knowable symbol. . . - Iam, he admits . . . mute, inert, incapable of ex- plaining rationally the Godhead that my mind has seen ; + + there is no other way of drawing near to God than by the intermediary of faith; it is only through faith that the questing sgyl can unite itself with the incomprehensible Godhead: Using the language of Ecclesiastes, Gregory insists that when God's innermost essence is at issue, His divine being as such, it is always a "time to keep silent." But when it is a "question of His operation, a knowledge which can come even down to us, that is the time to speak . . . by telling of His works and explaining His deeds, and to use words to this extent. "5% In taking opportunity of his "time to speak,” Gregory makes a radical reversal of Platonism by insisting upon the essential changeability of human nature and its essential inability ever to stop in its movement toward God and in God for all eternity. "For it is impossible for our human nature ever to stop moving," he writes, “it has been made by its Creator to ever keep changing."°? and yet the changing nature of man itself acquires "the permanence and S7¢regory of Nyssa, Answer to Eunomius' Second Book (.G, 45:940A-941D; see From Glory £0 Glory, pp. 102-21 — [Eisserecely cited as Against Eunomies, Book 12); or NPNP, 59). ®8cregory of Nyssa, On Ecclesiastes, Homily 7 (P.G. 44:724D-732D; see From Glory t0 Glory, p. 129). *%eregory of. Nyssa, On Virginity 7 (P.G. 46:352A-D; see From Glory to Glory, p. 1037 or NPNF, 4:352).53 immutability of her [the soul's] desire for perfection," being given "stability" in Christ the Rock.®? thus the human stasis in God is ever dynamic, "for he who is rising can always rise further; and for him who runs to the Lord the open field of the divine course is never exhausted."6+ ‘Though we are changeable by nature, the Word never wants us to change for the worse; but by constant progress in perfection, we are to make our mutability an aid to our rise towards higher things, and so by the very changeability of our nature to establish it imnovably in the Good.®? «+ «in our constant participation in the blessed nature Of the Good, the graces we receive at every point are indeed great, but the path that lies beyond our immediate grasp is infinite. This will constantly hap- pen to those who thus share in the divine Goodness, and they will always enjoy a greater and gggater participa~ tion in grace throughout all eternity. For Gregory of Nyssa, the nature of man and the mean- ing of his life, his very metaphysical foundation, in this present world and for all eternity, is a constant movement from "beginning to beginning," from "glory to glory," in God Himself, the inexhaustible and unchanging superabundance of being and life, beauty and goodness, whose divine SGregory of Nyssa, On the Canticle of Canticles, Homily 6 (see From Glory to’Glory, pp. 198, 253]. Sleregory of Nyssa, On the Canticle of Canticles, Homily 5 (PG. 44:873C-876c} See From Glory to Glory, p. 181). ©2Gregory of Nyssa, On the Canticle of Canticles, Homily 8 (P.G, 44:944D-94507 See From Glory to Glory, Ps 216). ®3¢regory of Nyssa, On the Canticle of Canticles, Homily 8 (.G. 44:940C-941C; see From Glory to Glory, — pp. 211-12).54 manifestations are infinitely limitless, It is the contem- plation and speech about these manifestations, these ever- new appearances of God in Christ and the Spizit that is theology for Gregory. Eastern Christian Hellenism Before proceeding to the theological vision of the pseudo-Dionysius, the next Greek theologian whose thought will be particularly considered in our study of God and the world in dialogue with process theology, it is necessary to pause and to note that there existed alongside the Cappa- docian fathers various Christian teachers who were unable to overcome the metaphysical views of Hellenistic philosophy. Marcellus of Ancyra (4. 374), in his treatise De Sancta Ecclesia, listed the heretical Christian sects which existed until his time, and all of them virtually without exception were connected in some way with Greek philosophical doctrines. Marcellus himself did not succeed in avoiding the list of heretics, being judged as a Sabellian by the second Ecumenic- al counci1.®4 The Arian Eunomius, the greatest of the Arian theo- logians and the main adversary of the Cappadocian fathers, exceeded even the mystical forms of Neo-Platonism in his vationalist, nominalist doctrines that the simple essence of God can be perfectly known by the human rational mind 4see Quasten, Patrology, 3:200; Kelly, Barly Chris~ tian Doctrine, pp. 109-295; G. Prestige, Fathers and Here- Eics (London: SPCK, 1949); NPNF, 14:172-76.55 through the clear and distinct concept of the "Unoriginate." Eunomius attacked the Cappadocians for logical absurdity and the false employment of philosophical concepts. He attacked them as well for theological innovation and departure from the biblical teachings. Of the doctrine of Eunomius, Lossky has written that "it reveals an intellectualism pushed to the extreme and deprived even of the religious element found in Platonism. It is an altogether rationalist dialectic dealing with abstract ideas."©° In his response to the accusation of being an “inno~ vator" in theology because of his employment of new terms and expressions, Basil appeals to Church tradition and the muitiformity of theological and doxological formulae in the Church to express the same truth. 56 Gregory of Nyssa, on the same issue, presents a clear teaching about the meaning and value of the words of God in the scripture and the words of man in theological expression. In answering Eunomius' charge that Basil's language about God "is a following of pagan philosophy," Gregory claims first of all that all words are human, including those of holy scripture, and are employed to indicate a reality, and to lead man to "the essential nature of things which are under considera- tion," which the words and concepts themselves cannot fully contain. He then goes on to claim that Christ the Word Stossky, Vision of God, p. 63. 66pasil, On the Holy Spirit 29. 75 (see NPNF, 8:47; or On the Holy Spirit, p. 112).56 and the Holy Spirit teach the believers "the employment of a conception," while Eunomius "being struck by the beauty of the Platonic style . . . thinks it not unseemly to make Plato's theory a doctrine of the Church."67 ‘The point here is that the theological controversies between "orthodoxy" and "heresy" were not simply about the content of theology. They were also disputes about the method of theology, the use of terms and concepts, and the exercise of logic in relation to the Divine. The Cappado- cian position was very clearly that all words and concepts are subject to the reality of the things of which the words and concepts are the expressions, and that the important thing is the reality and the meaning which the words and concepts indicate. Secondly the fathers insisted that new formulations of truth can and must be made (and were then- selves accused of “innovating"),°° but that these formula~ tions must be adequate to truth, and as such are inspired by God Himself. They further insisted that there is a logic “proper to God," which is not that of human wisdom, but that which is born out of the living union with the Father, through the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is a logic which finds its verification not in syllogistic rationalizations, but in the experience of faith; "in the manner of the S7gregory of Nyssa, Answer to Bunomius' Second Book (see NPNP, 5:269, 289, 280, 281). ©8,,5i1, on the Holy Spirit 29. 75 (see NENF, 8:47; or On the oly spizit;p- tla}, See also Letter to Gregory, Letter 7 (see NPNF, 67115).87 Apostles," as Gregory Nazianzen put it, "and not in that of aristotle. "©? It has to be noted at this point as well that in addition to the dogmatic heresies of the first four cen- turies, there were also the distortions of the Christian faith on the spiritual and ascetical level through the monastic tradition also stemming from Origen. The distor- tions in Christian spiritual theologies also owe their existence to the failure to overcome Hellenist mystical doctrines. The most serious heretical spirituality was born, or at least very strongly asserted itself for the first time, also in the fourth century. The main exponents of this line were Didymus the Blind (+398) and more impor- tant, Evagrius of Pontus (+399), both fervent disciples and defenders of their master Origen. Evagrius, who was closely connected with the Cappado- cian fathers, acquired great influence in the monastic movement as a spiritual master. His popular ascetical writings endured in the East, after his formal condemnation in the sixth century, under the names of Maximus the Con- fessor, Nilus of Sinai and others. His metaphysical, and particularly his cosmological doctrines, however, suffered the same fate and endured the same condemnation as those of Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 23. 12, quoted in ceorges Florovsky, Collected Works, vol. 4: Aspects of Church History (Belmont, Nass.: Nordland Publishing, 975), Be i58 Origen. He was certainly an Origenist, and perhaps the posthumous condemnation of the Alexandrian theologian owes much to the popularity of his monastic disciple and his spiritual brethren. Whatever the details of the issue, however, the point important for us in our present study is that once more we find a case of Hellenistic doctrines in the Christian East which have not been received by the Eastern orthodox theological tradition, and have been formally judged by the Church as false and harmful.7° A Whiteheadean Appreciatio Tt is not out of place at this point to consider Whitehead's appreciation of early non-Western Christian theology. His cursory remarks made almost in passing appear to be the only recognition among process thinkers that perhaps something new and revolutionary was happening in early Christian theology which was not simply the uncritical acceptance of the Philonian metaphysical tradition. In his Adventures of Ideas, Whitehead notices a "three-fold revelation" about the nature of God and the world in philo~ sophical religious history. First there is an "intellectual discovery" by Plato. This is Plato's conviction that the "divine element in the world is to be conceived as a 700m Evagrius, see Quasten, Patrology, 3:169-76; Lossky, Vision of God, pp. 85-91; Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Phe Metaphysics and the Mystical Theology of Evagrius,” Monastic Studies, no. 3 (1965), pp. 183-95. See also the ¥ifteen anathemas against Origen of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (NPNF, 14:318-19).59 persuasive agency and not as a coercive agency," a doctrine which ould be looked upon as one of the greatest intel- lectual discoveries in the hi tory of religions." Then Whitehead claims that this doctrine received its historical, existential exemplification in Christianity which is the “revelation in act of that which Plato divined in theory." Then the third element of the "three-fold revelation" is the "metaphysical interpretation of what Plato discovered and Christianity exemplifiea" found in “the first period of the formation of Christian theology by the schools of thought mainly associated with Alexandria and Antioch."”) The originality and value of their contribution to the thought of the world has been greatly underestimated. This is partly their own fault. For they persisted in declaring that they were only stating the faith once delivered to the saints; whereas in fact they were groping after the solution of a fundamental metaphysical problem, although present to them in a highly special form. ‘These Christian theologians have the distinction of being the only thinkers who in a fundamental metaphysical doctrine have improved upon Plato. It is true that this period of Christian theology was Platonic. But it is also true that Plato is the originator of the heresies and of the feeblest side of Christian theology. 72 After commenting briefly on Plato's metaphysical doctrine of God and the world and comparing it to the orthodox theology of the Christian East, claiming that the "Arian solution is orthodox Platonism, though it be heterodox Christianity," Whitehead concludes as follows: Tlaifred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Nacmillan, 1933; paperback yeprint by the same company, Free Press, 1967), pp. 166-67. T2tpid., p. 167.60 My point is that in place of Plato's solution of second~ ary images and imitations they [the orthodox Christian theologians of Antioch and Alexandria] demanded a direct doctrine of immanence. It is in this respect that they made a metaphysical discovery. They pointed out the way in which Platonic metaphysics should develop, if it was to give a rational account of the role of the per- suasive agency of God. Unfortunately, the theologians never made this ad- vance into general metaphysics. ‘The reason for this check was another unfortunate presupposition. The nature of God was exempted from all metaphysical cate- gories which applied to individual things in this temporal world. /3 Whitehead then continues to fault this theology for philo~ sophical and metaphysical error and incompleteness. He does so in the classical way in which all process thinkers fault “classical theism." Since it is the purpose of my thesis to deal with the critique of "classical theism" made by process theology, and to see how these accusations are dealt with in the theology of the orthodox Eastern Christian Tra~ dition, I will not pursue this issue further at this point. My only interest here is to show that the master of all process thinkers did recognize in orthodox Christian think- ing of the patristic period what he considered to be a major advance beyond Platonism, and presumably Philonianism, identifying “orthodox Platonism" with "heterodox Christian- ity." Tt will be obvious to the reader that the present thesis will hold that Whitehead saw things clearly in this observation, and that his almost casual remarks should cause those interested in our question to pursue the issue more seriously and deeply. My intention will be to do just that, 73tbid., pp. 168-69.61 and to show that the accusation of Whitehead and his dis~ ciples against “classical theism" are wholly inapplicable to the vision of God and the world found in Eastern Orthodox theology. ‘The Dionysian Corpus As we continue our reflections on theological method in the Eastern Christian Church, particularly in relationship to Hellenistic philosophy, we must note that the immediate successor to Gregory of Nyssa in the line of Platonist the- ologians who have found a lasting place in Eastern Christian theology is the mysterious author of the corpus of writings called by the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. The pseudo- Dionysian writings which appeared in the sixth century, most probably from monophysite circles as an apology for their christological doctrines, have undergone the same criticism as those of Gregory of Nyssa. They have been judged by some scholars as Platonism with a tinge of Christianity. Vladimir hristian Lossky however, presents the Dionysian author as a thinker disguised as a Neo-Platonist, a theologian very much aware of his task, which was to conquer ground held by Neo-Platonism by becoming a master of its philosophical method."74 Pather John Meyendorff holds the same view, calling the author of the Dionysian Corpus an "apologist" who was consciously appealing to the Neo-Platonists and 74Lossky, Vision of God, pp. 99-100.62 origenists within ana without the Christian Church; a man presenting the faith in a boldly Neo-Platonic form.75 ‘The crucial point in Dionysian thought, laying aside its overwhelmingly Platonistic style and language, is the critical distinction of Plato's world of ideas and the God of the Christians. The Being, the Good, the One of Hellen- istic thought are not to be identified with the Christian God, the Holy Trinity. ‘The essence of the Trinitarian God- head is not identical with Platonic Being, Gocdness and oneness. If there is any point in the theology of Dionysius it is this one. Negative corrections must always and of necessity be placed upon any and all positive metaphysical statements about the being, goodness, simplicity and unity of God. For Dionysius the true God of the Christians is above, beyond, other than and more than any positive assertion that can be made about Him. This is so much the case that God may properly be said not to be one, good, simple, perfect, unchanging. He may properly be said not even to be, if we consider that our positive rational conceptions are adequate to the Divine Reality. Indeed, for the Areopagite, the Super-essential Trinity is strictly other than anything which can be thought or said about It, both positively and negatively. ‘The super-apophaticism of Dionysius cannot be a 753ohn Neyendors£, Christ, in Eastern Christian Thought, trans. Yves is (Washington, D. C.: Corpus Books, 1969), pp. 68-84; (Crestwood, N. Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1975), pp. 91-111.63 construed to deny the validity of theology as expressions about God. It is not a rejection of theology as such, for theology is for him first of all the mystical communion with God in "darkness," as it is for the Cappadocians, especially Gregory of Nyssa; the union beyond knowledge perfected through faith and love. And it also is conceptual expres- sion, logical and precise, about the knowledge of the unknow- able God through His self-revelation in the divine manifestations, operations and energies. Again the funda- mental theology is that of the Cappadocians. and here we agree wholly with Charles Hartshorne when he says that the negative theologian has a conceptuality: "He must actually be applying human, albeit negative, conceptions."76 his is an important point, one we will have to deal with below, as to its meaning and content. what is important here, however, is that Dionysius’ vision of theology, its task and method, is based on the assertion that the theologian builds his own metaphysical view and his own conceptualiza~ tions from his religious experience in the community of faith. Although his language, terms, and style are culturally, and perhaps apologetically and even polemically determined, it is our contention that he does not simply follow a metaphysical doctrine from a secular philosophy with which to describe and explain the Thrice-Holy Lord. Let us listen to the mysterious author himself. 7yartshorne, Divine Relativity, p. 35.64 «+ + let us set before our minds the scriptural rule that in speaking about God we should declare the Truth, not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demon- stration of the power which the Spirit stirred up in the sacred writers, whereby, in a Manner surpassing Speech and knowledge, we embrace those truths which in like manner, surpass them, in that Union which excceds our faculty, and exercise of discursive and of intuitive reason [wath thy uoe(iova tfc Aoyexfic ual voedas Suvducws x@ eveovetac). We must not dare then to speak, or indeed to form any conception, or the hidden super-essential [dnepoto.oc] Godhead, except those things that are revealed to us from the Holy Scriptures. For a super-essential under- standing of It is proper to Unknowing, which lies in the Super Essence thereof, surpassing discourse, in- tuition and being; acknowledging which truth, let us 1ift up our eyes towards the steep height, so far as the effluent light of the Divine Scriptures grants its aid; as we strive to ascend unto those Supernal Rays, let us gird ourselves, for the task with holiness and reverent fear of God.7 And from the famous and most influential Mystical Theology: For the more we soar upwards the more our language be- comes restricted to the compass of purely intellectual conceptions, even as in the present instance plunging into the darkness, which is above the intellect we shall find ourselves reduced not merely to brevity of speech but even to absolute dumbness both of speech and thought. 78 This is the "metaphysics" of the unknown author, so totally different from that of any form of Platonism; and so crucial, as we shall see, for our understanding of God and the world TTpionysius, On the Divine Names 1. 1. (see C. E. Rolt, Dionysius the Aréopagite: On the Divine Names and the tical theology, nev ens Tuondont S6CR 1940) New York? Henitians 15101 pps 51-32, Gonerally Speatings T have used Rolt, but’have often altered the text to be more adequate to the original, according to the terminology consistently em- ployed in this dissertation. I must say that I consider Rolt's Introduction and Notes very often to reveal a mis~ reading and misunderstanding of Dionysius, and thereby to be seriously misleading to his readers. 78pionysius, Mystical Theology 3 (see Rolt, Dionysius, pp. 197-98).65 in dialogue with process theology. For in the view of this unknown author, theology is perfected in total silence when the theologian is "at last united wholly with Him whom words cannot describe."7? Much work had to be done to the Dionysian Corpus to bring it fully into the Christian theological tradition of the East. Maximus the Confessor had to give it the proper christological dimensions; and Gregory Palamas had to stress the aspect of its teaching about the divine manifestation and emanation through the divine powers, energies and opera~ tions of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity; but never- theless the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius are affirmed and celebrated as orthodox Christian theology. On this point Lossky has made the following remark, not irrelevant to the purpose of our study: "If in the East the tradition of Dionysius marks a definite triumph over Platonic Hellenism [especially in its lingering Origenist and Evagrian versions], in the West the work of Dionysius, poorly assimilated, will often become the vehicle for Neo-Platonic influences."®° Maximus the Confessor Maximus the Confessor (+662) is the one, more than any other, who receives credit for giving the Dionysian weitings their proper place in Eastern Christian theology. 79pionysius, Mystical Theology 3 (see Rolt, Dionysius, p. 198). 80zossky, Vision of God, pp. 104-105.66 Theologically Maximus' main concern was in the area of christology. He received his title of "confessor" for his defense of the full humanity of the Word Incarnate, including a complete and full human nature, will, reason, action and operation. The philosophical point here is that for Maximus, the metaphysics of Greek philosophy was findamentally inade- quate for the proper understanding of Christ, and of God Himself. Maximus is a difficult thinker to judge, firstly be- cause of the complexity of his doctrine and the particularity of his language and thought forms; secondly because of his mission to assimilate the doctrines of Dionysius, and the Evagrians into the theology of the Church while overcoming their Platonism and Origenism; and thirdly because of the almost total lack of systematic, scholarly treatment of his writings which are themselves thoroughly unsystematic.®+ Regarding the Platonism of Maximus, the problem and the interpretation of it is familiar. We have once again a man using the categories of Platonism to defend and expound 8lon Maximus in English, see Lossky, Vision of God, pp. 105-12; Meyendorff, Christ in zastern Christian Thought i360), pp, 99-115, (1975]> pp T3L-SL) Ancien Christian ~ Writers, vol. 21: St, Maximus the Confessor: The Ascetic Life and the Four Centuries on Charity, by Polycarp Sherwood (West- Hinster, Nat Newman Press; 195), Introduction and Notes, pp. 3-102, 211-84; Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Mediator: The ‘Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor (Lund: Siesta, 1886}; daresay Pelvkans The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 2: The spirit of Eastern Cheistendon (00-1700) (chicago: University of Chit cago Press, 1974), pp. 8-36, 62-75.67 the Christian faith. But there is a new factor in the thought of Maximus which makes his work radically different from the earlier fathers, such as the Cappadocians. By the time of Maximus, through the theology of Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Cyril of Alexandria, and the christological conclusions of the fourth and fifth centuries, there existed what may be called a Christianized Platonism, that is, a Christian theological tradition expressed in Hellenistic categories which, in the theology of the fathers and the councils of the Church, as well as in the Church's liturgy and spirituality, had become the very language and con- ceptuality of the Church. Generally by Maximus' time, Plato and Platonism were clearly regarded as enemies of the Christian faith, both spiritually and politically, because what was considered to be acceptable was understood as having been already assimilated. The great heresy of the sixth century was Origenism, the Lingering effects of which. were the main object of Maximus' polemical theology and his positive ascetic writings. That century also saw the re~ surgence of pagan Hellenism connected with the name of Proclus, the supposed object of the Neo-Platonic "apology" of the pseudo-Dionysius. In 529 the Emperor Justinian sup- pressed the teaching of Greek philosophy and closed the university of Athens, the seat of Proclus, thus hoping to destroy all nostalgia for ancient Hellenism which politically and ideologically could become a cause of weakness and division in his new Christian Roman Empire. The "ecumenical"68 university in the Great City of Constantinople, the new Athens as well as the new Rome, was reformed to teach Chris- tian theology in which, it was supposed, all of the positive aspects of Platonic philosophy had been absorbed, and the false doctrines overcome, with the main philosophical instruction being the logical and ethical teachings of Aris- totle. Plato as a symbol of old Hellenic glory was a danger; Aristotle was much less so. Indeed it was Aristotle who provided the basic structures of thought for sixth-century christology. Thus the fifth Ecumenical Councii in 553 repeated in fifteen anathemas Justinian's condemnations of Origenist Platonism. By the time of Maximus, therefore, pagan Platonism and heretical Christian Platonism were most consciously excluded from the life of the Church. The christological monotheletism and the Origenist view of God and the world against which Maximus fought were, however, yet to be overcome. Very briefly, the complex and elusive thought of Maximus, insofar as it expresses the meaning and task of theology, can be summarized as follows. Firstly, Maxims reversed the Platonic Origenist doctrine which held that in the beginning there was a stasis (ordoug) of the one which broke down by kinesis, movement, Gtvnouc) an evil action, which then resulted in the coming to be of the present world, genesis (yévectcl. Maximus defended the biblical doctrine of creation (genesis), which creation in- cluded movement (kinesis) as natural and essential and69 whose goal, finally, is rest (stasis) in God, the Holy Trin- ity. Kinesis, according to Maximus, is not evil. It is, on the contrary, naturally good, although it can be, and in fact has been, perverted by evil and sin. The wicked movement of human self-love (ovAautid) is the "original sin." It has brought darkness and ignorance to man (éyvola). Even human passions according to Maximus are not evil in themselves. ‘They become so when they are wrongly used, being captivated by sin. It is for this reason that Maximus defended the full humanity of Jesus. The Incarnate Logos has to have full and complete humanity, real human will, freedom and energy, as well as all natural human emotions and passions-~the doctrine for which he suffered greatly--in order for human nature to be liberated from sin and become capable of unending movement toward and in God. Salvation for Maximus is freedom from sinful passions, and passionless stability in God the Holy Trinity. But the eternal "stasis" is not static. Tt is not the cessation of all kinesis. It is rather a stable kinesis in God as Gregory of Nyssa clearly taught; or in Maximian terms, an “Geunivntoe otdctc," an “evermoving rest."82 Theology for Maximus is the goal of human existence, as for Dionysius and the Cappadocians, as well as for Eyagrius. It is salvation. But unlike Evagrius, and like the fathers, theologia is communion with God in love, and not noetic contemplation. It is a union 82pnunberg, Microcosm and Mediator, p. 62.70 with God beyond discursive reasoning and intellectual in- tuition attained in the sacramental life of the Church through prayer and purification from sinful passions. Tt is the overcoming of self-love and ignorance by contempla- tion (Scuola) and action (npdEig), resulting in the ulti- mate form of gnosis which is union with God in love beyond knowledge (uvotixh deodoyia).°? Maximus the Confessor takes us, according to Vladimir Lossky, “from ‘physical gnosis" of created beings to theology or divine knowledge, obtaining the 'grace of divine comprehension’ (Scodoyi#% xdotc), surpassing the knowledge of creatures ‘on the aisles of love! in order to 'be in God.'"®4 and, in Maximus’ own words: In order to leve God . . . we must in an irresistible leap surpass the sensible and intelligible, time and the aeon and space, we must be totally deprived of all energy of the Senses, thought and mind (vous), in order to encounter inexpressibly and in ignorance (4ppitwc te nat dyvdotws) fhe divine delights, above thought and intelligence. ® If you wish to be a theologian, do not seek to find what God is in Himself, for this can be discovered not only by no human mind, but by no mind which is below God. But examine, as far as possible, the attributes investing Him, such as: eternal presence, boundless- ness, indescribability, goodness, wisdom, and His powers as creator, provider and judge of all. For he is already a great theologian among men yho uncovers, however little, these attributes of God. 83rpid., pp. 355-57. 841 ossky, Vision of God, pp. 106. ®Swaximus, Ambigua, quoted in Lossky, Vision of God, p. 109. a 88yaximus, Second Century on Love 27 (see ACW, p. 157; Early Fathers tron the Phelokalia, trans. E>m1 In this study we shall consider the very important content of Maximus’ theology about God and the world, and especially about the cosmic process, but for now let it only be noted that for Maximus, whatever the difficulties and obscurities in his thought, there is no question but that Christian theology forges its own concepts and thought forms from spiritual experience in the Church, and in no way “porrows" or "selects" a metaphysics from secular philosophy as the foundations for its thought. There are Platonisms in Maximus for certain. They are the Platonisms of the Evagrian spiritual tradition and the patristic theological tradition. They are also the original doctrines of Maximus himself which perhaps are still suspect of being more Hellenistic than Christian, and which remain a matter of debate, which debate at present is only in its most primitive, formative stage. Be that as it may, however, the logical, metaphysical and theological battles by the time of Maximus are waged in terms, concepts, words and philosophical cate- gories which are now those of the Church tradition. ‘The Non-Platonistic Tradition Before proceeding to a discussion of the philosophic- 21 and theological orientation of the "last of the fathers" the one who is in the Eastern Church, Gregory Palamas: perhaps the most critical for our study of the relationship Kadloubovsky and G. E, H. Palmer [London: Faber & Faber, 1954], p. 303).72 of God and the world in view of the doctrines of process theology--it is important to note that in addition to the Platonic tradition in Eastern theology which we have traced from the early period through the Cappadocians and Dionysius to Maximus the Confessor, there has existed in the Christian East a great variety of theologians and spiritual writers who have almost nothing to do with Hellenistic thought and Greek philosophy as such. In the early Church there were not only the Platonists such as Justin, Clement and Origen. ‘There were also the apostolic fathers such as Ignatius of Antioch (+c. 117) and the apologists such as Theophilos of Antioch (d.c. 185) and Irenaeus of Lyons (d.a. 202) whose theology was strictly within the biblical and sacramental categories of the Christian Church. In Alexandria itself there were not only the Hellenistic schoolmen, but also Anthony and his monks, and the great bishops Athanasius (+ 373). and Cyril (+ 444), whose trinitarian and christo- logical doctrines were fully accepted in Eastern Christian theology, but whose thought forms and categories were hardly those of Platonism as a metaphysical philosophy. About cyril we can only say here what Lossky says: “It is the Alexandrian theology of deification freed from every trace of Origenisn, . . . Tt is pure theology . . . where there is no room whatever for the God of the philosophers. . . . Alexandrian theology, losing all contact with Platonic73 contemplation. "87 About Athanasius, the one most honored by the Cappadocians, we have to say more. According to Athanasius, God created man to know Him, The knowledge of God is lost through sin. The same Logos of God in whose image man is made, the one through whom all things are made, became man in order to restore man to the knowledge of God that he should naturally have. Christ gives the Holy Spirit so that man can come to the knowledge of the Truth. The Spirit is given in the Church. Theology is the act of knowing God in Christ and the Spirit in the Church. This purely scriptural doctrine is devel- oped directly and simply, primarily in "non-technical," bib- lical terms. It could be claimed that there is no meta~ physics here, but there is. There is a clear doctrine of man, the ways of knowing, the meaning of created nature, and the destiny of the world. Most simply it is the teaching that "theology" should be a “natural” act of man, and that "revelation" is the restoration of man to his "natural status." The fact that man and his world are corrupted by sin means that human logic, outside of Christ and the Church, is incapable of the knowledge of God and all things in Him. This does not mean that "natural man" is incapable of the “supernatural knowledge" which is given in Christian "reli- gion." Tt means rather that “natural man," i.e., man as we know him, is, in fact, not "natural" at all, It means that ®7Lossky, Vision of God, pp. 80-81.4 man-without-God is not man, but a beast; and even worse than a beast. Tt means that there is no "middle way" of an “autonomous human" between God and nothingness. This is the teaching of the Bible. The "autonomous human" is not human at all; it is beastly or demonic. It is wedded to the "nothing" out of which he is made; man wedded to the darkness of dust and death. Man is only man when he is united to the Logos, the Light and the Life of God. The Logos comes to make man "human," not "supernatural," and 80 to give him the wisdom and knowledge of God which should be his simply by being made "in the image and likeness of God." We might say, that for Athanasius (as for Irenaeus of Lyons) “grace” is a necessary element of “human nature." Without grace--the Logos and the Spirit in and with man-~man is not man, He cannot act logically, rationally or spiritu- ally. He needs to be saved. Theology can only be the act of man who is saved; and not only theology, but logic itself, for both are gifts of the Logos of God. This is the doc- trine of the Alexandrian father which has been universally held and continually repreated in many different ways in the orthodox Eastern theological tradition. It deserves care~ ful consideration. God, Who has the power over all things, when He was making the race of men through His own Word (Logos), seeing the weakness of the nature, that it was not suf- ficient of itself to know its Maker, nor to get any idea of God; because while He was uncreated, the creature had been made out of nothing . . . did not leave them destitute of the knowledge of Himself, lest they should find no profit in existing at all. For what profit to78 the creatures if they knew not their Maker? or how could they be rational without knowing the Word (and Reason) of the Father, in Whom they have received their very being? For there would be nothing to distinguish them even from brute creatures if they had knowledge of nothing but earthly things. Nay, why did God make them at all, if He did not wish to be known by them, 88 According to Athanasius, of course, God wishes to be known by His creatures. ‘The reason God is not known is that men in their perversity have rejected this knowledge and have plunged themselves into ignorance. The teaching is remi- niscent of that of Saint Paul. People have "suppressed the truth" through willful sin and, refusing to acknowledge God, "their senseless minds were darkened" (see Romans 1). In Athanasian terms, men became "brutalized," and “demoniacal deceit" clouded every place and hid "the knowledge of the true God." "What was God to do?" he asks. And he answers that "the most holy Son of the Father, being the image of the Father, came to our region to renew man once made in His likeness" and He does all things, including being nailed upon the cross, in order to find His beloved "lost sheep. "8? For by the Word revealing Himself everywhere, both above and beneath, and in the depth and in the breadth: above, in the creation; beneath, in becoming man; in the depth, in Sheol; and in the breadth, in the world-; all things have been filled with the knowledge of God. 88athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God 1l. 1, 2 (see NPNF, 4742; or On the Incarnation, trans. and ed. by a Religious of C.S.M. ed. [London: Mowbray & Co., 1953; reprint ed., Crestwood, N. Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, n.d.], pp. 37-38). ®9,thanasius, On the Incarnation 13. 1; 14. 2 (see NPNF, 4:43; On the tnearnation, pp. 41-42). 0nthanasius, On the Incarnation 16. 3 (see NPNF,16 Christians come to know this, according to Athanasius, in the Church. It is this which is impossible to be seen and grasped by those who are outside of Christ, the Image of God, known in the Holy Spirit who “fills the universe. **? ‘Thus the church father writes to Serapion in his letters about the Holy Spirit that what must be preserved is the “tradition, teaching and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, the apostles preached and the father kept since upon this the Church is founded, and he who should fall away from it would not be a Chris- tian, and should no longer be so called."9? this is Eastern Christian theology which is utterly un-Platonic and yet which, as we have seen and will see, is precisely the teach- ing of the Cappadocians, the pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus, the most Platonistic of the theologians of the Eastern Church whose doctrines have been accepted in Church tradition. It can hardly be hela that such teaching has been determined by philosophical Hellenism of any sort. The Antiochene Tradition Going further East from Alexandria we find the theo- logical schools of Antioch, Caesarea and Jerusalem, all 4:45; On the Incarnation, p. 44). lnthanasius, First Letter of Serapion 26 (see Let- ters Concerning the uoly Spirit Tanss fe B. Shapland New York: Philosophical Library, 1951], p. 131). *2athanasius, First Letter to Serapion 28 (see Let~ ters Concerning the Holy Spirit, pps 133-34)11 proponents of a fundamentally exegetical, biblical theology, rooted #1so in the sacramental life of the Church, If any- thing, these schools of theology have been called Aristo- telian in their logic and style of concrete thinking. But there is no Aristotelianism to be found here in the manner of its use in Western Thomism, the b@te noire, according to Process theology, of "classical theism's" teaching about God and the world; and, according to Hartshorne, the "high- 093 est authority in traditional theology. ‘The doctrines of the great antiochene, John Chrysostom, and such lesser known but perhaps theologically more important men such as Theodoret of cyr, Ephraim of Syria and Cyril of Jerusalem are crucial in the history of Eastern theology. Let us only listen to the most popular Chrysostom for an example of his understanding of the method and meaning of theology. He is speaking about the Gospel according to St. John. +. . We shall hear of things in heaven. . . as might be expected of one who speaks from the very treas- ures of the Spirit, he is come bringing us sublime doctrines and the best way of life and wisdom. . . . Do these things belong to a fisherman? Do they belong to a rhetorician at all? To a sophist or a philos- opher? To every one trained in the wisdom of the gentiles? By no means. The human soul is simply unable thus to philosophize on that pure and blessed nature; on the powers that come next to it; on immortality and endless life; on the nature of mortal bodies which here- after shall be immortal . . . on the enquiries that shall be as to deeds and words, as to thoughts and imaginations, It cannot tell what is man, what the world; what is man indeed, and what is he who seems to 93yartshorne, Man's Vision of God, p. 232.78 be man, but is not; what is the nature of virtue, what of vice. 94 There then follows a long discourse about the foolishness of human philosophy, and the need for purification and virtue and every ascetic effort in order to learn truly "to philosophize" according to the word of God, in the life of the Church, with the proper use of human will and reason. This is a teaching already familiar to us, but with no use of Hellenistic philosophical doctrines at all, although the style is that of a rhetorician of the classical Hellenistic cultural type. It is the usual doctrine of theology as an ascetic effort, au attempt to see and to know and to speak about the things of God, a knowledge and speech about God in Christ and the Spirit in the Church. There is great appeal to reason in the sermons of Chrysostom. Much talk of foolishness, nonsense and lack of rationality, among men. There is much talk about proper concepts and precise terminology, and great concern for clarity. But it all has nothing to do with secular philosophy or Hellenistic meta~ physics.2° The Ascetical Tradition Before proceeding to the doctrine of Gregory Palamas 2430hn Chrysostom, Homilies on St. John, Homily 2. 2 (see NPNF, 14:4), a °5tn his second homily on Colossians, Chrysostom re~ bukes those who "under pretense of curing the Greeks" by assuming thelr philosophy and manner of disputation only Succeed in "casting the Christian into perplexity" as they79 as the summation of our present survey, we must also mention the tradition of ascetical theology, such as that found in the corpus of writings called the Philokalia, which has had immense importance for Bastern Christian theology and life. These are texts on the ascetic and mystical life attributed to such men as Anthony of Egypt, Mark the Ascetic, Macarius of Egypt, Gregory and Nilus of Sinai, John Climacus, Sabbas and Sophronius of Jerusalem, Isaac of Syria, Simeon the New Theologian, as well as Maximus and Palamas himself. These writings are not only important as monastic instructions and guides to practical spirituality, they also have critical significance as revelations of the meaning of theology in the Eastern Church. It was in the area of spiritual, ascetical and mys- tical life that the temptations to Hellenization were the strongest and most intense in Eastern Christian life. It was here that the "spiritualizing" of the Origenists lin- gered longest and with no small effect. Nevertheless the point must be made that theology in the orthodox ascetic and mystical tradition ultimately came to be identified with the attainment of communion with God in love by the grace of the Holy Spirit through the overcoming of sinful passions, primarily through the practice of prayer. it is in this way that the well-known Evagrian dictum, often attributed to Nilus of Sinai, came to be understood: aim to “establish their satanical doctrine" (see NPNF, 13:269)..80 He who prays in spirit and in truth does not borrow from creatures thoughts to glorify the Creator, but draws from the Creator Himself contemplations for his praise. Tf you are a theologian, you will pray ip truth; and if you pray in truth, you are a theologian.76 And so also these words of Saint John Climacus, the famous author of the influential Ladder of Divine Ascent: The growth of fear is the beginning of love, but a complete state of purity is the foundation of theology. He who has perfectly united his feelings to God is mystically led by Him to an understanding of his words. But without this union it is difficult to speak about God. The engrafted Word perfects purity, and slays death by His presence; and after the Slaying of death, the disciple of divine knowledge is illumined. The Word of the Lord which is from God the Father is pure, and remains so eternally. But he who has not come to know God merely speculates. Purity makes its disciple a theologian, who of him- Self grasps the dogmas of Trinity.97 This same doctrine is found in others, for example Hesychios the Priest and especially Diadochos of Photiki whose influence in the tradition was very great. The follow- ing is typical of their teachings. All God's gifts of grace are flawless and the sources of everything good; but the gift which inflames our heart and moves it to the love of His goodness more than any other is theology. It is the early offspring 6st, Nilus of Sinai, 153 Texts on Prayer 60, 61 (see Early Fathers, p. 134). The original source of this well- known Saying is certainly Evagrius Ponticus, On Prayer 61 (see The Philokalia, trans. and ed. G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware [Zondon: Faber & Faber, 1979], 1:42, This translation is far superior to that of the Kadloubovsky and Palmer volumes of the Philokalia writings). ®7yohn Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent 30. 20- 24 (see The Ladder of Divine Ascent, trans. Lazarus Moore (Wondon: Faber & Faber, 1953], p. 264).al of God's grace and bestows on the soul the greatest gifts. First of all it leads us gladly to disregard all love of this life, since in the place of perish- able desires we possess inexpressible riches, the oracles of God. Then it embraces our intelléct with the light of a transforming fire, and so makes it a partner of the angels in their liturgy. Therefore, when we have been made ready, we begin to long sincerely for this gift of contemplative vision, for it is full of beauty, frees us from every worldly care, and nourishes our intellect with divine truth in the radiance of in- expressible light. In brief, it is the gift which, through the help of the holy prophets, unites the deiform soul with God in unbreakable communion. So among men, as among angels, divine theology--like one who conducts the wedding feast--brings into harmony the voices of those who praise God's majesty.98” Whatever else might be said about the knowledge of God and theology in the Philokalia tradition, it must be ad- mitted that theological knowledge is anything but a concept~ uality of God built upon philosophical foundations. It is rather the sunmit of ascetical, contemplative achievement, the fruit of “dispassion" (éné9eta) which comes by prayer and repentance.°® zt is the "complete state [or, in Father Florovsky's translation of this line from Climacus, the 100 ‘climax'] of purity. It is the achievement of "ration- ality" through purification from evil enabled by divine 8piodochos of Photiki, On Spiritual Rnovledge 67 (see The Philokalia. 1:275). See also Diodochos, Spirit ual Knowledge 71-72, 92 (sce The Philokalia, 1:2777 200) For Lossky's comments on Diodochos, especially on the dis- tinction between theology and knowledge (yvio.s ), see V: of God, pp. 95-98. See also Hesychios the Priest, On Watel fulness _and Holiness 171 (see The Philokalia, p. 192). 9%on “dispassion" see below, p.314 , note #2. 10°sce above, p. 80, n. 97. See also Florovsky, Aspects of Church History, ‘p. 17.82 grace; the liberation from "sinful" and "blameworthy pas- sions" of soul and body through which the whole person is united with God; it is the "acquisition of the Holy Spirit" by which a human being is made divine by grace and comes to the knowledge of the truth of all things.101 Because the Philokalia writings consist almost ex- clusively of methods and techniques of ascetical struggle and spiritual warfare, rooted in prayer and purification of heart aimed at the knowledge of God in Christ and the Holy Spirit, which is theology, the charge is often made that these writings are a form of Eastern Christian Pelagianism. Such a charge would be in order if it were understood and taught that the free act of a human being is possible with- out the grace of God. In fact the teaching is clear and most critical for this view of theology that the human being is human only with God and cannot act at all, except sin- fully and as a slave, without the presence and power of God acting within him. Thus it is the teaching that man's 1W1see texts ascribed to Anthony of Egypt, On the Character of Men (see The Philokalia, 1:329-55) ; Tsaac of Syria, Diections on spiritual Training 21-27 (see Early Fathers, pp. 187-08); Maximus the Confessor, First Century ontove 1-4, 13-14, 33-35, 64-67, 85-86, 93-947 Second Cen- EUEY-on Love 16, 25-27; Third Century on Love 1,8, 34) 69 Tt, 99-55; Fourth Century on love TIS, S762 (see Earl Fathers, pp, 287-341; OF Rel, pps 137-202) , ‘The use oF the expression "the acquisition of the Holy Spirit" for the goal of Christian life belongs originally to writings ascribed to Macarius of Egypt. It was made popular in con- temporary Orthodox Church life by Saint Seraphim of Sarov in Russia (+ 1833). See George P. Fedotov, A Treasure of Russian Spirituality (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1950; reprint Bic New Gok? Harper, 1963; aso Belmont, Mass.. Nordiand, 1975, as vol. 2 of Collected Works of Fedotov), pp. 265-79.83 actions are truly his own only when he is acting with God, and God with him, as was discussed above in our consideration of the views of Saint Athanasius. There is no act of man separated either from divine grace or evil passion. as the apostle Paul taught in his letter to the Romans, in man's members is working either the "law of sin and death" or the “law of the Holy Spirit and life." Man is never autonomous, a law to himself. If the law of sin is working in a person, he is bound by passions and is in ignorance and darkness. If the law of the Holy Spirit is acting in him, he is free and wise, and his actions are his own (since grace is not a “divine passion" and does not "possess") and he is thereby liberated to think rationally and to act with virtue. only a metaphysics which sees created nature as inde- pendent of divine grace (or the world as independent in its being from God) can convict the ascetic theological tradi- tion of the Eastern Christian Church in its orthodox form (for the Hellenisms and Origenisms were great and powerful and not always successfully avoided) of Pelagian distortions and errors.!02 the metaphysics expressed in these writings shows how the charge is meaningless and without philosoph- ical foundation within the tradition's own perspective where human nature requires divine grace for its own integrity and 102on this issue, in addition to Lossky, Vision of God, see John Meyendorff, St. Gregory Palamas a! 3 Spirituality, trans. Adele Fiske (Crestwood, Ye: Ste Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974, especially pp. 20-55, 119-29.a4 freedom. This point will be of greatest importance in our general @ialogue about God and the world between this tradi tion and that of the process theologians. And it will be of special interest and significance further in this chapter when we deal with the issue of so-called "natural theology. ‘The Byzantine Synthesis As the Philokalia was an anthology of spiritual and ascetical writings, so also other "collections" were being made in the Byzantine period. In the eighth century John of Damascus (+c. 749), defender of the veneration of icons and hymnographer par excellence of the Byzantine Church, systematically catalogued patristic theology. The philo- sophical chapters which introduce his work called A Complete Exposition of the Orthodox Faith are Aristotelian in content and form, They are, like his exposition, rather ary and scholastic. The very idea that a "complete exposition" could be written reveals the theological atmosphere of the times. In the ninth century the outstanding statesman and bishop, Photius of Constantinople (+c. 893), who was also a great scholar, also showed little originality in theological mat- ters, except perhaps in the doctrine of the procession. of the Holy Spirit. He is most well-known intellectually for his compilation of texts of patristic authors as well as of Greek philosophical and literary authors. To speak of a Platonism or a secular metaphysics of either John Damascene or Photius of Constantinople in relation to their respective85 theologies would be wholly unfounded. From the time of Photius we see the beginnings of the so-called Byzantine Renaissance, the rebirth in the East of classical and literary studies, the renewal of ancient art forms and the emergence of a "humanism" among the cul- tural elite. The living Christian tradition would now con~ tinue exclusively in the monasteries. The monks would be the defenders of the faith in opposition both to the "offi- cial" theologians of the Byzantine Church with their lifeless quotations from the patristic past, and to the intellectuals who would fall prey to their classical philosophical pre- occupations. In 1055 Michael Psellos, a scholar in the tradition of Photius, had to defend himself against charges of being a "Platonist." Psellos himself bears witness to the monks he had known who “crossed themselves at the mere mention of Plato's name and uttered anathemas against this Hellenic Satan."103 his report finds support in the writings of the greatest monastic father of the period, Saint Simeon the New Theologian (+c. 1022). For Simeon, the Holy Spirit is the teacher and no one else. Not only the writings of the philosophers, but even the writings of the holy scriptures are subordinated to the immediate indwelling of the Spirit 103pui1ip Sherrard, The Greek East and the Latin West (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 119. Also, Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom, pp. 242-41.86 of Truth in man within the life of the Church. It was a "blasphemy" and a "new heresy," according to Simeon, to say that the Holy Spirit could not be attained in the eleventh century in the same way that the apostles experienced His coming in the first days of the christian era.104 The only thing that God demands from us mortals is that we do not sin. But this is not the fulfilment of the law. It is merely keeping inviolate the image and hich rank we possess by nature. Clothed thus in the radiant garments of the Spirit, we abide in God and He in us; Ehrough grace we becone gods and sons of God apd.are illumined by the light of His knowledge. . . .105 ++ + a man, who consciously possesses in himself God the Giver of knowledge to men, has already studied all the Holy Scriptures and has collected, like fruit, all the benefit their reading can afford. So he no longer needs to read books. For what need can a man have of reading books, if he is in converse with Him who has inspired the writers of the Holy Scriptures, and if all His ineffable mysteries are indelibly inscribed within him? On the contrary, he himself will be for others an inspired book containing mysteries both old and new, inscribed in him by the finger of God, since he has accomplished everything and in God is at rest from all his works--this is the height of perfection, 10 This is anything but Platonic metaphysics. ‘There is little doubt that Simeon was among those monks who considered Plato and Platonism to be demonic. 104simeon the New Theologian, Discourse 32 (see Sources chrétiennes [Paris: Cerf, 1963], 96:47). See also Practical and Theological Precepts 57 (See Writings from ie Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart, trans. =. Kadloubov- sky_and G. E. H. Palmer [London: Faber & Faber, 1951), p. 109). 105gimeon the New Theologian, Discourse 48 (see Sources chrétiennes, 96:107). 106simeon the New Theologian, Discourse 133 (see Sources chrétiennes, 96:129).87 In the same eleventh century John Italos, the dis~ ciple of Psellos, was officially condemned by the Church in 1082 for teaching Platonic philosophy as truth, not as a mere exercise or method of thinking as was the accepted Aristotelian interest of the period, At this time also the Church's Synodikon of Orthodoxy added the condemnation of those who believed in the reality of "Platonic ideas."107 he final clash between the late Byzantine philosoph- ers, together with the formalist theologians who repeated the formulations of the past ages but, as Lossky says, viewed ". . . the Cappadocians through the eyes of Plato, Dionysius through the eyes of Proclus, Maximus and John Damascene through the eyes of Aristotle . . .," and the living, theolog- ical tradition of the monks, came in the fourteenth century in the so-called Palamite controversy.108 Gregory Palamas (+ 1359) is the key figure here in our survey of the place of Platonism in the Eastern theology, a theologian most relevant for our study of the relationship between God and the world from the perspective of Bastern Christian thought. Gregory Palamas Gregory Palamas was expertly trained in the logic of Aristotle. He was fanatically opposed to Plato and Platonism generally and never referred in his writings to any form of 107sherrard, Greek Bast and Latin West, p. 119. The Synodikon is an official statement of the Church's doctrine proclaimed liturgically on the first Sunday of Lent at Vespers. 8rossky, Vision of God, p. 126.88 Platonic doctrine except with criticism or sarcasm. He expressed the knowledge of God gained in ascetic and mys~ tical experience through his monastic practice of hesychast prayer in the terms of Dionysius and Maximus, since by this time this was the sacrosanct language of the theological tradition of the Church itself. His main enemy was ration- alistic nominalism which denied any real knowledge of God except in terms of conceptual definition. It was at this time that, among the adversaries of Gregory and his mor 4,109 ‘Thomas Aquinas was translated into Greel We will enter deeply into the theology of Gregory Palamas in this paper, and we would only state at this point that his "dipolar" doctrine of God--the divine essence be~ yond human comprehension together with the infinite multi- plicity of divine energies which penetrate the created world --is not only consistent with the Cappadocian, Dionysian and Maximian Line of theologizing, but that it is completely different from any type of secular philosophical doctrine connected with Hellenistic Platonism. Gregory's main point, as we shall see, is that knowl- edge of God is possible. It is not the knowledge of God's unknowable essence. It is the knowledge of God's essential energies, His manifestations and revelation which are truly divine, and are communicated to man in Christ through the 109see John Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, trans. George Lawrence, (ondon: Falta Presse 156i pps Zo 30, 116-33.89 Spirit in the Church. The knowledge of God through the divine energies is real knowledge. It is grasped by the whole man, mind and heart, body and soul. It is the knowl~ edge of the uncreated light known by the apostles and prophets in the divine theophanies recorded in the scrip- tures. The fact that the divine energies penetrate the created world and are "seen" by man in no way destroys the divine simplicity and immutability. The energies are essen- tial to God and are eternal. They are dynamic and multiple, numberless and limitless. They are comprehended by the creature illumined by divine grace, but the manner of con- prehension is not by human reason. This is the main point of Gregory Palamas relative to the meaning and method of theology. (Man knows God truly when he attains) to that unknowing which is above knowledge and compared to which all our philosophy and our ordinary knowledge based on the understanding of the created world are found to be in- sufficient and one-sided. It is truly impossible to be united to God unless, be~ sides purifying ourselves, we come to be outside, or rather above ourselves, having left all that pertains to the sensible world, and risen above ideas, reason~ ings and all knowledge, and even above reason itself, being entirely under the action of the intellectual sense (&vodno1c vorod ) . - . and having reached that ignorance which is above knowledge or, what is the same, above every kind . . . of philosophy. . . By it [purification in prayer] man is deified, not by 1G regory Palamas, 22 Homilies, ed. Sophocles (athens, 1861), p. 176, quoted in Basil Krivosheine, The Ascetic and Theological Teaching of Gregory Palamas (Lon- lon: Caldwell, 1954; reprinted fron The Eastern Churches Quarterly, no. 4 [1938]), p. 14.90 way of ascending from reason or from the visible world by the guess-work of analogy. . . .t11 For Gregory Palamas the speech about the "dipolar" God--unknown and yet known, invisible and yet seen, simple and yet. multiple in manifestations, changeless and yet appearing in limitless manifestations and forms, transcendent and yet penetrating the universe, incommunicable and yet in- @welling man by grace--is presented as wholly logical. It is not the logic of the graceless intellect or of “reason alone." It is not the logic of human philosophy. It is the logic "proper to God."112 this logic, far from that of Hellenistic metaphysics, is the logic of the Christian theology of God and the world, which we shall analyze in this present study. It is our hope that this lengthy survey of the rela- tionship between Eastern Christian theology and Hellenistic philosophy and metaphysics, has demonstrated with sufficient clarity that there is a theology of the Eastern Church which is not substantially dependent upon any secular philosophy. We hope to have shown that Eastern Christian theology has known Hellenistic deformations, but that these deformations are not to be attributed to those who are received as orthodox saints, fathers and teachers of the Church, at least gregory Palamas, Sermon on the Presentation of the Virgin to the Temple, ed. Sophocles, pp. 169-70, quote Krivosheine, Teaching of Palamas, pp. 14-15. 112see Krivosheine, Teaching of Palamas, pp. 22, 31- 32; also note 83, Pp. 57.91 in the areas of their teachings for which they are glori- fied and followed. We hope to have proven that the theo- logians accepted by the tradition of the Bastern Church as orthodox have in fact forged out their own metaphysical views and have founded them primarily and essentially on their experience of God in Christ and the Holy Spirit in the spiritual and sacramental life of the Church. And finally we hope that we can proceed on the basis that there is a classical theism of the Christian Bast, which lies outside the criticism made by the process theologians about-virtually all Christian theologies prior to their own. Natural Theology’ Tt may perhaps be argued at this point that the “neo-classical theism" of the process theologians is meant to be a "natural theology," and as such cannot be compared to the theology of the Eastern Church tradition because the Eastern theology appears to deny any possibility for a "natural theology." It may also be argued that the "nega~ tive theology" of the Eastern tradition has been totally rejected by process thought, and, as such, cannot enter into any meaningful dialogue with it. I do not believe that these objections are valid. I hold rather that process theology while differing in many respects from Eastern Christian theology can be compared with this tradition for the following reasons and on the following bases. First of all, the Eastern theological tradition92 neither affirms nor denies "natural theology" in the clas- sical Western sense of the term, because the very possibil- ity for distinguishing "natural theology" from "revealed theology" does not, in this sense, lie within its fundamental perspective. The Eastern fathers would not allow for a natural theology constructed or created by "natural reason alone" without the aid of “divine revelation" because they do not believe that there is such a thing as "reason alone" which, devoid of divine enlightenment, can, in its own "natural" right, so to speak, arrive at a true vision of reality. For the fathers, as we have seen, there is no such thing as "reason alone" or “human nature" which can act positively or naturally outside of union with the divine Logos. Thus if there is truth anywhere at all in human nature, it is the same truth revealed in "divine revelation," enabled by the same Logos. In this sense the God of the philosophers must be the same God as that of the Christian revelation and religious experience, the same God as that of the theologians and mystics of all religions. If it is not the same God, then it simply is not God.113 In this same way, the Eastern theological tradition would deny that “divine revelation"--the dispensation of the law and the prophets, and ultimately of Jesus, the in~ carnate Word of God--is a special gift of information and insight to be superadded to the natural knowledge of natural 113gee John Meyendorff, "Orthodox Theology Today St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 13, nos. 1-2 (1969) Ti-32,93 man gained through the use of natural reason. The divine dispensation of salvation is rather the restoration of human nature and human reason, the restoration of man to his natural state as a logical and spiritual being, in gracious union with the Logos and the Spirit of God, capable of knowing the truth, The divine dispensation of salvation yields the knowledge which man can and should naturally have, but does not have because sin has blinded his eyes. If any man sees anything truly, therefore, and has genuine knowledge of any kind, whoever he is, whatever his disci- pline of study, and whatever his religious convictions, then what he sees and knows must be consonant with divine revelation. Thus divine revelation is not the gift of knowl- edge which man could never have naturally, or the gift of knowledge more than man can have naturally; it is rather the gift of knowledge which man must have naturally, and would have if he reamined "natural," as created "in the image and likeness of God," and did not bestialize and dehumanize himself by sin. Paradoxically put, man should naturally have the knowledge of God which surpasses human nature, and if he does not have it, he is "unnatural" because of evil. In the same way, the doctrine that man is presently in the "unnatural" state of sin does not mean that the Word of God in revelation erupts into human life as a total enig- ma and paradox, a mystery which destroys human reason and can only be "accepted on faith," understood as an irrational or contra-rational "leap" into the light, with theology thus94 becoming the logical structuring of divine "data" revealed by God's word and accepted on faith. Faith for the Eastern fathers is rather the gracious use of human reason to accept and to trust the truth of the Divine Word because it is consonant with reason which is naturally enabled by the same Divine Word. Faith, therefore, is an act which assumes and affirms human rationality, the act which reveals man's essential rational and logical abilities and faculties, including the quality of having insight into things, of seeing and understanding, with the aid of divine grace. ‘Thus the capability and the necessity to believe, to give intellectual assent and existential trust to what is seen as being real, true and genuine in experience, is intimately connected with knowledge. It is based on knowledge. Tt is done with knowledge. And it results in knowledge, including the knowledge of God "beyond reason and understanding." Paith and knowledge are essentially and necessarily bound together. There cannot be one without the other on any level of knowledge, and the grace of God is necessary and essential for both. Thus there is no credo quia absurdum in in the orthodox Eastern tradition; and in a certain sense every failure of faith is a failure of rational behavior, the result of having eyes and not wanting to see, of having a mind, and refusing to understand. There is also the further point that for the orthodox Eastern theological tradition, what is revealed in “divine revelation" which comes through the Word of God is not data95 about God; it is the Divine Word Himself. What one comes to know in the community of faith, the sacramental and spiritual experience of the Church, is not something about God, some information which otherwise could not be known by human reason unaided by revelation; it is God Himself. Through the Logos of God, in the Spirit, man comes to know God and all things in Him, Tt is the same God that man was created in the beginning to know, but does not know to the extent that his mind has been blinded by sin, both his own and the sins of the world, Thus, in this view, to the extent that man's heart is pure and his mind is clear of passions, he will see God. If he sees Christ, he will see God in Christ, and recognize Christ as the Truth. He will know the meaning of things. He will gain wisdom and understanding. It is on this basis that the Christians affirmed what they saw to be true in Greek philosophy, and considered the Greek think- ers who saw and said true things, to be inspired by God's Logos and Spirit. All knowledge and truth was seen to be the work of grace and the revelation of the Logos in puri- fied hearts and enlightened minds. What the fathers denied in pagan philosophy was not "philosophy" as opposed to “theology”; it was rather simply the pagan errors. Indeed many fathers (and not only such as Justin or Clement, but such as Chrysostom) called their own doctrines “philosophy” =-the “true philosophy. "114 M4see, for example, John Chrysostom, On Colossians,96 Thus, in such a perspective, theology was never con- sidered to be simply the conceptualizing and rationalizing of the data of revelation given by the divine Word and accepted on faith in opposition to, or at best, independent of, the reason of man, And it certainly was never con- sidered to be such a conceptualizing and rationalizing on the basis of any secular philosophy or metaphysics “se~ lected" as it were,or "adapted" and "adopted," from the best available. Theology, as we have repeated, was rather considered to be the knowledge of God through existential communion in faith and love, in Christ and the Spirit, in the Church; a communion which yields concepts and words "adequate to God," within the conditions in which such words and concepts are capable of adequacy. Pinally, in this perspective, it is not the case that the question about whether or not "natural theology" is possible depends on the answer to the question of whether or not man's natural reason can know divine truth without the benefit of divine revelation. And it is certainly not the case that this tradition has answered with a categorical negative. In fact, this theological way, as we have tried to demonstrate, cannot even answer such a question because it finds it ill-conceived. It is a question wrongly placed because it is built on wrong premises; founded, we might Homily 9 (see NPNF, .13:302); Gregory Nazianzen, In Defense of His Flight to Pontus (see NPNF, 7:205, note 1); also The First theological Oration, Oration 29 (ee NENE, 7:285~ Ba). ae97 say, on false philosophical and metaphysical bases; on a distorted vision of reality, reason and revelation, John Cobb's Position It is my opinion that John Cobb has felt this very difficulty and has tried to overcome it in his final chapter about the "theological task" in his A Christian Natural Theology. I do not believe that Cobb was able to overcome it however, precisely because of his Western Protestant con- ditioning. Inthe first place, Cobb calls his natural the- ology "Christian" and defends this use of a "revelational" adjective to what should theoretically be a "neutral," yeason alone discipline. He also insists that the strict line between philosophy and theology cannot be held, and deplores any "sharp demarcation" between the disciplines. He also categorically denies the division in Western Protes- tant tradition between "natural" and "revealed" theology. Like Whitehead, he thinks that philosophy must consider the totality of man's experience, including religious experience. And he affirms his selection of Whiteheadean metaphysics as the ground for his Christian natural theology precisely be- cause he sees it as a philosophy most adequate to his Chris- tian views, asserting as well that this is so because Whitehead's thought has been “deeply affected in its starting point by a Christian view of reality" which, as we have noted, in his opinion, Hellenistic philosophy has not; and therefore has in this way been the "substantive" cause for98 the classical Protestant view that natural theology is in possible. 145 Cobb's weak point in my view is that he still con- tinues to attack the position that it is the knowledge gained in divine revelation that is normative for theology, because he still sees revelation as unphilosophical as well as limited and sectarian, most likely because he still sees "grace" as opposed to “nature"--despite all protestations to the contrary--"religion" as fundamentally opposed to "rea~ son"; and because he sees Christian "religion" as but one partial expression of the truth which has many expressions among humankind, including expressions in non-Christian religions, which, he holds, might also possibly employ the Whiteheadean scheme for “natural theologies" of their own, 116 Whatever the reasons, however, it seems certain that Cobb does not hold that Christian theology can forge its own philosophy, its own metaphysics and logics, its own integral worldview, without the help of secular philosophical doc- trines; but must in fact select its metaphysics and logics, its fundamental worldview, from among the available secular systems, still rejoicing, however, in the happy case of finding one "deeply affected . . . by the Christian vision of reality."117 1 believe that if Cobb could be fully liberated from his Protestant (perhaps rather we should say 1Scobp, christian Natural Theology, pp. 252-84. 16rpia., p. 282. W7qp:4., p. 26899 Western) cultural and theological conditioning, he would simply affirm that theology can and must produce its own philosophical vision, being grounded in the existential reality of living communion with God in the sacramental and spiritual community of the Church, and would affirm or deny all other doctrines, religious or secular, simply on the basis of whether or not they appear to be true in any given instance, on any given point in question. This does not at all mean that the philosophical theology of "revealed reli- gion" would be, or even could be, done in blissful inde- pendence of the scientific and philosophical doctrines of the given time and place, sitting, as it were, in judgment within its own world over all thoughts and opinions of man. We have repeated continually that this is not, could not be, and never in fact has been, the case. It is impossible not only because "divine revelation" is in the world, for the world and about the world; being also, as it is, the revela~ tion of the Logos of God, by whom, in whom and for whom all things are made. It is impossible also because the recipi- ents of divine revelation are in and of the world, under- stood as natural creation; and the Church itself, in this tradition, is not understood to be anything other than the good world of God's creation redeemed and restored. The Church as a sacramental community is precisely God's good world as recreated, sanctified, deified, purged from all darkness, falsehood and sin. To quote Gregory of Nyssa,100 the Church of Christ is "a recreation of the worla,"118 There will, therefore, always be a dialogue between revela~ tion and reason, spiritual contemplation and secular science, confessional theology and worldly philosophy, the knowledge of God given in the dispensation of salvation and the knowledge of God given in the realm of creation. ‘There will always be a deep and essential interconnection between these two realms because they are realities of the same world created by the same God, symbolic manifestations and expressions of the same Divine Reality through the same divine Logos and the same Holy Spirit, to, for and in the same logical and spiritual creature, Man. Theology, both as existential communion with the living God and as the con- ceptual and verbal expression of the truth of this God, will always necessarily be the result of a synthesis of experience of a person living in both realms at once. This, as I understand it, is also fundamentally Cobb's position, and that of process theology generally. Church and World It is also Cobb's opinion, as I see it, which is shared by the orthodox Eastern tradition, that all secular knowledge and understanding and all secular experiences of every sort--save those which are wicked and false--will always be a boon to theology and a genuine contribution to 118 ‘ Gregory of Nyssa, On the Canticle of Canticles, Homily 13 (P.G, 10498; see From Glory to Glory, Pp. 273).