Hesychasm under the scalpel

My post on hesychasm has generating both positive and negative comments. I’ll concentrate on the negative comments.

Prejean said:

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FYI, the odd thing about your argument here is that it's exactly backward. The reason for the concept of uncreated energies is to avoid attributing rank idolatry to the Scripture itself when describing God speaking to (or even wrestling!) people. If those were created manifestations, then attributing the name God to them would be blasphemous (ergo, Arianism). It was the pagans and Arians arguing that uncreated energies (and the related occurrence of the Incarnation) were impossible.

Oh well. Your soul; your business. Won't bother you about it anymore.

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i) The first thing to note is that Prejean is giving a different argument than “Photius.” Now, “Photius” may or may not agree with Prejean on this particular point, but I was responding to “Photius,” not Prejean, so it’s no flaw in my argument that I didn’t address a reason which “Photius” never gave in his reply to me.

Again, Prejean is welcome to change the subject, and his objection deserves to be addressed in its own right, but that’s a separate objection.

ii) Blasphemy and idolatry are Biblical categories. Hence, the question of when or whether we are guilty of such sins is a question of whether our attributions are out of step with the attributions of Scripture. Prejean has offered no argument to justify the claim that if I take my cue from the narrative viewpoint of Scripture, I’m an idolater or blasphemer.

iii) In addition, as the Backwater Biblicist points out, there are many different theories of reference. Hence, it is quite unnecessary to commit oneself to the Palamite distinction, per se, in order to escape the danger of idolatry, if that is, indeed, a danger.

iv) Speaking for myself, I regard a theophany as a symbolic manifestation of God’s presence. A theophany is a genuine public event—a sensible, extramental occurrence in which God makes use of physical media to symbolize his attributes. This can take personal or impersonal forms. And, in that respect, yes, I do come down on the side of Barlaam.

v) In the very context of theophanic events, Scripture itself draws a distinction between sign and significate. The burning bush is described as a divine sign (Exod 3:12). The Plagues of Egypt are described as “signs and wonders” (Exod 7:3). The prophet Ezekiel repeatedly uses the buffer word “likeness” in the description of the inaugural theophany (chap. 1).

Hence, any Bible-based theory of theophanic predication will make allowance for the semiotic distance between sign and significate in these attributions.

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PP:
"Why the necessity to rationalize these things beyond clear revelation in a dogmatics-styled fashion?"

You're assuming that it's even possible to correctly interpret revelation outside of the philosophical framework, something I don't concede.

"I can understand trying to make heads and tails of something --- no problem there --- but it sounds like you're elevating this to a supreme matter of doctrine ["your soul, your biz"]."

I'm not sure what an irrelevant matter of doctrine would be. One can't deny true doctrine, although there might be subjective reasons that excuse the denial. I find it hard to rationalize that possibility in light of comments about "Timothy Leary on acid."

BB:
"While the average layman might get tripped up navigating his way out of the pseudo-problem this theology proposes, one has to wonder what philosophically informed exegetical theologian is going to accept either this crude account of reference and predication, or willingly own the nasty theological consequences ('arianism') that supposedly follow from the rejection of catholic mysticism."

You're entirely misconstruing what I said. My point was that as a historical matter, it didn't develop as Steve suggested. Whether you or I perceive this as a convincing reason is irrelevant; neither Photius nor I were laying out an argument for our respective cases.

But speaking of a "crude account of reference and predication," who do you consider a "philosophically informed exegetical theologian?" ISTM that exactly the problem is that there isn't a philosophical answer sufficient to reject natural theology (Reformed epistemology notwithstanding), and I find little enough reason to think that I am wrong for allowing natural theology to inform my reading of Scripture, rather than taking the rather naive perspective that I can develop my theology solely from Scripture (something that even the Reformed epistemologists reject as a possibility).

Jason:
Run along and play now, Jason. The adults are talking.

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i) The PP can speak for himself. But given his stated sympathies, I wouldn’t be surprised if his philosophical framework is similar to the abductive method championed by J.W. Montgomery.

ii) Speaking for myself, I’ve already argued at length for my own interpretive framework. And beyond the general question, I have, just now, addressed the specific issue of theophanic predication.

iii) My reference to Timothy Leary goes to the question of mysticism as a valid source of dogma. Mysticism involves an altered state of consciousness. There are various techniques for triggering such a mental state. These include sensory overload or sensory deprivation, viz. the dervishes. The methods of hesychasm (e.g., breathing-exercises, naval-gazing, verbal repetition) are homologous with Yogic and Tibetan techniques.

iv) Another ancient technique is a drug-induced state. This was employed by the Vedic sages, Delphic priestess, American Indian shamans, &c.

In our own time it was popularized by the likes of Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, and the Beatles. Zaehner wrote a classic critique.

v) The literature on mysticism is vast. Among the more important philosophers of William James, Joseph Maréchal, Nelson Pike, and R. C. Zaehner.

vi) So, yes, I think it’s both licit and, indeed, an epistemic duty to ask ourselves why we should give any more credence to a mystic than we should to an acidhead.

And even if we did give credence to a mystic, why should we privilege Palamas over the Dalai Lama or Al-Rumi?

vii) As to philosophically sophisticated Evangelical exegetes, two good examples would be Vern Poythress and Tony Thiselton.

viii) Natural revelation is relevant, but natural revelation is mute. Hence, you cannot extract a doctrine of natural revelation from natural revelation itself. You must go to special revelation for a doctrine of natural revelation. Although the phenomenon is extrascriptural, the doctrine is not.

***QUOTE***

It's not as if we Catholic think people are saved by being Christian.

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You have to hand it to Prejean: here I think he’s managed to sum up the difference between Catholicism and Evangelicalism in just about the starkest and briefest terms possible. Normally I’m arguing for Calvinism, but now we’ve come to a wider and deeper dividing line with Catholicism on one side and Bible-believing Protestants of every stripe on the other side.

Catholics don’t think that people are saved just by being Christian. No, salvation is a Christian-plus package.

Moving on to “Photius”:

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Hesychasm and theosis is true knowledge of God.

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Once again, he’s assuming what he needs to prove.

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True knowledge of God is the grounding of what makes scripture inspired and ecumenical councils infallible.

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”Photius” is confusing revelation and inspiration. Revelation would confer true knowledge of God upon the recipient, but revelation alone wouldn’t make Scripture inspired. In principle, Scripture could be an uninspired record of a revelatory event.

True knowledge of God is what grounds the truth of Scripture, not the inspiration of Scripture.

***QUOTE***

Did Jeremiah have true knowledge of God? How exactly did that happen?

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Since “Photius” offers no exegetical argument to show that Jeremiah acquired his knowledge of God via hesychasm and theosis, he is posing a false dilemma.

There are different media of revelation, such as dreams, vision, auditions. Here God assumes the initiative, not the seer or prophet—unlike mysticism, where the contemplative assumes the initiative through the use of various mind-altering exercises, as if revelation were a natural force which we could harness through spiritual technology.

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Orthodoxy is not Neo-Platonism.

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True. Orthodoxy is not a transcription of Neoplatonism. And I never equated the two. But on the particular point of contention, Neoplatonic theosophy supplies the interpretive grid for Sufism, Cabbalism, and Byzantine mysticism alike. The experience itself doesn’t generate the framework within which it is catalogued and decoded. These are alike because they share the same primitive experience and the same deep grammar to conceptualize that experience.

Moving on to Robinson:

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The Bible says that God is both seen and not seen. The Bible appears to equate God's glory with God. The Bible says that God glorifies us with his glory. The Bible says that we become partakers of the divine nature but yet no one can become God by essence, which at least seems to leave logical room for saying that God's nature is wider than his essence. If not, as Turretin rightly notes, given absolute divine simplicity it is not possible to make a distinction between communicable an non-communicable attributes since they are all identical, and, contra the Bible, it is impossible to become partakers of the divine nature. Then we are stuck beomcing partakers of something like the divine nature, implying that Christ, of whom we partaker is homoiousious, of like essence with the Father. Here we are right back to the medieval doctrine of created grace, which the Reformers had such a tissy over.

Call it whatever you like but the logical space for a distinction between essence, what God is ad intra and energies, God's activities is present in the Biblical corpus. Moreover, it is the distinction that Nicene and Post Nicene Trinitarian theology depends. Without it, we are left with semi-sabellianism where the divine persons are relations or Arianism where every other person than the Father is a creature produced by an act of will. This is why Barlaam's theology is implicitly Arian because given his adherence to ADS it is impossible to make the Biblical distinction between God's ad intra and his activities. Either the Son becomes a creature or the persons are reduced to metaphysical relations (semi-sabellianism).

As to mystical theology, the East isn't mystical if by that is meant that reason never grasps God. It does, just in his energies or powers. And the apophatic theology of the East can hardly be faulted for the Reformed on have their own apophatic theology generated by absolute divine simplicity that was displayed here not too long ago with Steve's post about Van Til's Trinitarian theology. For Van Til, the Trinity is paradoxical and beyond any rational model. Why? Because it is impossible to reconcile God's unity and plurality on Van Til's model in a rational way. This is why Van Til speaks of God being "one person" and other fruity statements.

Why doesn't Van Til saying that God ad intra is beyond our rational grasp not "mystical" and "apophatic" and not "going beyond" the biblical material, but Nicene Trinitarianism is? Looks like special pleading.

By Protestantism's own confessional standards, Svendsen is heterodox. He advocates nestorianism by saying that a person is identified with nous so that Jesus who has two intellects is an an aggregate of two persons. Even White, and I would hope Steve wouldn't advocate such heterodox positions.

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There’s a great deal to sort out here:

i) One of the basic problems here is that Robinson is raising exegetical questions without looking for exegetical answers. Rather, he raises exegetical questions to create “logical space” for extrabiblical, nonrevelatory answers.

But if you’re not seeking exegetical answers, why raise exegetical questions in the first place?

ii) In the OT, the visible/invisible dialectic is resolved by the distinction between God qua God and God qua theophany, while in the NT, it is resolved by the distinction between God qua God and God qua Incarnate—which transposes the theophanic category to a higher key.

iii) As for the rest, I’m aware of the Orthodox prooftexts. I’ve already addressed the Orthodox prooftexts and a good deal besides. Cf.:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004/05/smells-bells-incense-nonsense-1.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004/05/smells-bells-incense-nonsense-2.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004/11/three-views-of-eastern-orthodoxy-1.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004/11/three-views-of-eastern-orthodoxy-2.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004/11/three-views-of-eastern-orthodoxy-3.html

iv) Then you have Robinson’s divine simplicity hobbyhorse. The problem is that he left that debate half-finished.

I agree that the persons of the godhead are not reducible to relations—as if you could have relations without relata. That’s a problem for the Scholastic doctrine of divine simplicity.

I’d just remark that to say it’s implicitly Arian is to say that Latin theology—a la Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas, &c—is implicitly Arian.

v) But how are we to distinguish between God’s ab intra and ab extra acts? On a timeless model of divine eternality, there is no ontological distinction. God is what he does—inasmuch as what he does is not other than what he is, although there is more to God than what he does ab extra. As a spiritual being, all divine acts are mental acts, consubstantial with the divine nature. With God, there is no becoming--only being.

Rather, the distinction is conative. There is what God is of necessity—his triune nature and divine attributes; then there is what God chooses to do in effecting a mode of subsistence other than himself.

vi) Regarding the traditional communicable/incommunicable classification, I prefer, with Leibniz, to regard all natural categories as limiting principles of divine attributes. Space and time are limits, in contrast to the eternal and spiritual nature of God. Human justice is a property-instance of God’s exemplary justice, and so on. On the one hand, this avoids a makeshift distinction between communicable and incommunicable while, on the other hand, preserving the transcendence of God.

vii) It is because I affirm that Christ is consubstantial with the Father that I deny that we are consubstantial with Christ. Actually, Scripture itself says that we are homoiousias with God, in contrast to Christ, who is homoousias with the Godhead. Otherwise, you end up with pantheism.

That, of course, is one reason the Palamite distinction was originally brought in. But the distinction is arbitrary.

viii) To say that reason can grasp the energy of God fails to solve the epistemic problem it posed for itself. How does the energy correspond to the essence? Once you set up the distinction, the object of knowledge is not God qua God, but God qua something seemingly identical with God inasmuch as his energy is increate, and yet distinct from the divine essence. So we end up with a phenomenal tertium quid—a pane of frosted glass obscuring what God is really like. All you’ve done is to reshuffle the old platonic/Neoplatonic deck, whether you call it the Demiurge or hierarchy of intelligences.

ix) As to Van Til’s apophaticism, this is not generated by his commitment to divine simplicity. Rather, it’s generated by the undue pressure of German idealism (Kant, Schelling, Hegel), and its English offshoots. You can also find variations on this in Kuyper, Bavinck, and Dooyeweerd. It’s a Dutch-Reformed, Neo-Kantian sidestreet—leading to a blind alley.

As with Transcendental Thomism, the danger is to turn God into a precondition of knowledge rather than an object of knowledge—whereas God is both.

x) In terms of Biblical Christology as it hones in on the person of Christ, we have to sets of revelatory data: on the one hand, we have an “essentialist” Christology, consisting of third-person statements about the nature and person of Christ. These tend to emphasize the two natures.

On the other hand, we also have a “phenomenological” Christology, consisting of first-person, self-presentational statements. These tend to emphasis the unity of Christ in the sense that, although they often alternate between statements proper to the divine or human natures respectively, the speaker himself undergoes no audible gear-shifting from a divine mode to a human mode, or vice versa, in making these statements. There is no split personality in view.

From a Protestant perspective, what we must avoid is minimizing either revelatory viewpoint in relation to the other. The phenomenological Christ is, ipso facto, his self-revelation. He chooses how to present himself, how to come across, and in so doing he is true to himself—true to who is really is.

At the same time, his divinity is not a tangible attribute, so the essentialist Christology discloses things which are not otherwise evident to the senses.