The commenter known as “Anti Gnostic” asks a perceptive question:
What does Orthodoxy offer that other communions don’t?
He gets the standard cliched answer:
“What Orthodoxy offers is the promise of communion with the incarnate God, and theosis, leading to the salvation of the eternal soul…”
He responds,
So does Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. And Wiccanism, if I bothered to check. So tell me, why should I believe Orthodox Christianity over any other belief system?
All metaphysical religions die on this field.
Jacob writes frequently (though not nearly as much as I’d like) on the topic of “chain-of-being” metaphysics. That’s the neo-platonic metaphysics that crept into “the Catholic Church” after Augustine through the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, and were systematized into Roman Catholicism by Thomas Aquinas, in part, because he mistakenly thought that “Pseudo-Dionysius” was genuinely the Dionysius from Acts 17.
This is one reason why Roman Catholicism needs to do more than just “apologize for the sins of the children of the church”. It needs to take stock and ‘fess up to all the erroneous doctrinal nonsense that it has incorporated into its system, erroneously calling it “Christianity”.
But instead, it buckles down, and says, things like “the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ”.
In doing so, it bears false witness of God's word.
Neo-platonism is not God’s word. Eastern religions are not God’s word.
I don't agree with his answer.
ReplyDeleteYou know of course that I am no fan of EOxy, but I don't think this works well.
Buddhism is atheistic.
Hinduism thinks that all is one and illusory at the same time.
Islam does not offer union with God (not even close), and certainly doesn't think that God became incarnate.
Judaism doesn't think God became incarnate.
I don't know enough about Z or W.
There are better ways to refute EOxy. Ways that actually work.
To be fair to Jacob, too, I didn't pick up his headline, which was "What do you have to offer?" Too, this is just "one weakness" -- and maybe it was more glaring to me from a marketing perspective, where you have to offer your "unique selling proposition". The response given in the dialog about "the incarnate God" certainly points to Christianity, but "one-ness with God" is the overwhelming sense that I get from this sort of thing ("theosis" and all).
DeleteWhat Rhology said. That answer is just boneheaded. Also, what religion isn't metaphysical?
ReplyDeleteThomas -- Biblical Christianity does not have a "chain-of-being" metaphysics. That's specifically neo-Platonist.
DeleteAlso, Thomas, I left off some of the original post I linked to. Michael Horton has written about the "metaphysics" of the Reformation -- the notion that our real problem as humans is "guilt from sin" (requiring forensic justification", and not some sort of ontological grace that enriches our personal holiness. That's the context for this piece.
DeleteThe sloppy use of the term metaphysical is confusing and unhelpful. I suppose that can be forgiven; metaphysics is a notoriously unclear concept. But the seeming equivocation on the term "God" is more nefarious. Clearly Eastern Orthodoxy is theologically distinct from "Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism" or "Wiccanism." For one, none of those other religious systems believes in the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus. That alone makes it preferable to the alternatives.
DeleteMatthew, I appreciate your forgiveness, but really, it's not necessary. The original writer was an EO writer (equivocating "God") -- but in context, it was an EO website, between EO interlocutors. The original question was, roughly, "why are our young people leaving Eastern Orthodoxy?" And the answer was given in my blog post above ("the promise of communion with the incarnate God, and theosis, leading to the salvation of the eternal soul…").
DeleteSeriously, if you go out and ask the average person on the street about "communion with God", they are not even going to distinguish between "God" and "the universe". All of those groups do promise "communion with God". Yes, we know what incarnation and resurrection are -- but that's not a given, by any stretch, among young people in the EO churches. That's what struck me.
In retrospect, I could have been more careful with my own title here. But I think the point made in Jacob's post is an exceptional one.
By metaphysical I mean "chain of being" ontology, especially enshrined in False Dionysius and section 34 of the Catechism of the Cathoilc Chuch. Also see Mike Horton's works on this point (and most everything I say on metaphysical religion is taken word for word from Horton).
ReplyDeleteRho,
You have accurately described those religions, but that wasn't the point of the post. All of these traditions posit a form of the ineffable One and offer some form of communion with that one (which may or may not be theistic, so Buddhism is included).
Do they? Does Islam propose that Allah is ineffable? Isn't the Qur'an problematic for that? What about Zoroastrianism? Isn't that dualistic? Are these religions really relevantly similar? I remain deeply unconvinced.
DeleteThe point is not "these religions are really relevantly similar". Obviously they are not. The point is that Eastern Orthodoxy, with its theosis, which leads toward pantheism, is not dissimilar in its apologetic to these religions that all seem to claim a kind of "one-ness".
DeleteIslam? That has a pretty clear Creator/creature distinction, or so it seems to me. Does Zoroastrianism lead to oneness if it's a dualistic religion? Judaism? Isn't this just a deeply reductionistic analysis?
DeleteThomas, somewhere, C.S. Lewis said that "in the end, only Christianity stood against pantheism"
Deletehttps://www.creationism.org/csshs/v06n3p04.htm
And I've even cited that here:
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2010/10/pantheism-of-roman-catholicism.html
Now, perhaps he didn't take Islam into account (or he didn't think Islam, at the time, was a threat to Christianity).
And certainly Zoroastrianism isn't a major factor in the world today, that I'm aware of.
But certainly, Lewis's perceived enemy, pantheism (as a worldview system), may be found within Christianity -- as this writer (who seems mistakenly to have included Islam in this list of "eastern" religions) seems to think.
If it'll make you happy, I'll edit the OP to remove Islam and Zoroastrianism (replacing those words with "...") -- Would that solve your issues here? Would you then allow that broad swaths of "Christianity" have incorporated a form of pantheism into their systems? And that these are largely rendered indistinguishable from the eastern religions because of their inherent pantheism?
Thomas,
DeleteIslam holds to Cr/creat. distinction on one level, but they also hold that Allah is beyond predications of good and evil. And if you read medieval Islamic theologians they use the exact same language as Aquinas (and Maimondes, ironically).
Mr. Aitken: All Muslims believe this? Some Christians would say the same thing, as you yourself have mentioned. The Qur'an is believed to be eternally written, and contains descriptions of Allah, so it would seem that he is not believed to be utterly ineffable by Muslims, but I'm not aware if this constitutes an intramural debate within Islam.
DeleteJohn: I'm not disputing that some elements of Christianity have incorporated pantheism. I just don't think that's the only danger, or that there are essentially only two metaphysical religious systems. I'm only resisting the oversimplifying tendency that some Christians take toward other religions, which doesn't seem an unreasonable thing to do to me. I don't think that Lewis is right that only Christianity stood against pantheism, I think other religions also are not pantheist, although perhaps there's further context to the statement that I'm not aware of. Anyway, there's no need to edit the post, let people read the comments and decide for themselves.
Fair enough, thanks for the clarification.
ReplyDeleteWhat about "incarnate"?
For a lot of people -- most people -- "incarnation" doesn't register at all. It's simply a breakfast drink. I think, all things considered, the statement "All metaphysical religions die on this field" is a very insightful one.
DeleteI didn't say EOxy was completely foreign to biblical data. Yeah, they believe in incarnation, but they also believe that the Logos assumed a generic human essence, which is problematic. My point was their neo-Platonic theology.
DeleteIf the One is ineffable and beyond affirmation and negation, then precisely how is it different from other religions that also posit a One who likewise is beyond affirmation and negation?
My use of "metaphysical" is taken straight from Van Til and Michael Horton. Take it up with them. And Scott Clark. He focuses on this dialectic too. To say it another way: is my problem overcoming estragement (metaphysical, escaping finitude) or is it meeting a stranger (covenant religion)?
This is classic Reformed Van Til 101. I don't see what the problem is.
I didn't say EOxy was completely foreign to biblical data. Yeah, they believe in incarnation, but they also believe that the Logos assumed a generic human essence, which is problematic. My point was their neo-Platonic theology.
DeleteWell, that seems to be the implication given by the commentator you (approvingly!) quoted. What else were we to assume?
My use of "metaphysical" is taken straight from Van Til and Michael Horton. Take it up with them. And Scott Clark. He focuses on this dialectic too. To say it another way: is my problem overcoming estragement (metaphysical, escaping finitude) or is it meeting a stranger (covenant religion)?
That assumes you were successfully communicating their use of "metaphysical." It's hard to see how it was obvious you were using the term as Van Til, Horton and Clark use it.
This is classic Reformed Van Til 101. I don't see what the problem is.
The problem lies in what appeared (to more than just me) an unhelpful appropriation of terminology, not your ultimate apologetic goals (whatever they happen to be--I am still not quite sure). Not all of us are ensconced in the world of Van Til, where simply using the term "metaphysical" automatically calls to mind certain Reformed uses.
The terminology (metaphysical religion &c.) may be idiosyncratic but in Jacob's defense he has been writing for months on this subject, and by following his writing it is reasonably clear what he is talking about in this one.
DeleteThis chart illustrates what I am getting at.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.christianciv.com/VT_Diagrammed.html#Great_Chain
In Scott Clark's "9 Points Against the FV", either lecture 3 or 4 deals with chain of being religion. It's brilliant. I am not a huge van til fan, but he is absolutely correct on this point.
Thanks Jacob -- Horton (citing McCormack) works through this distinction between Platonic and Covenantal ontology on pgs 199-204 of "Covenant and Salvation" as well.
ReplyDeleteI'm still waiting for an answer to my question about incarnate. :-)
ReplyDeleteI didn't Eoxy doesn't hold to Christ as God Incarnate. But (a) nobody knows what that means any more, and (b), with respect to salvation, those who are "saved" all become "incarnate" anyway through the process of deification. I'm writing more about that tomorrow likely, but for now, this is a process of "what they give, in terms of orthodoxy in their doctrine of Christ, they take away [in favor of pantheism] in terms of their doctrine of salvation."
DeleteWith that said, the OP was about EO apologetics (an internal matter) -- so, if they are selling "you will be like God" to their young people, how, really, does that differ from those other Eastern religions?
I'll give you a snippet. Here is how other Eastern Orthodox describe “salvation” – “deification”, as described by the Eastern mystic “Maximus the Confessor” (580-66 AD):
In the same way in which the soul and body are united, God should become accessible for participation by the soul and, through the soul’s intermediary, by the body, in order that the soul might receive an unchanging character, and the body, immortality; and finally that the whole man should become God, deified by the grace of God-become-man, becoming whole man, soul and body, by nature, and becoming whole God, soul and body, by grace” (cited in John Meyendorff, “Byzantine Theology”, New York: Fordham University Press, ©1974, 1979, pg 164).
This has very much to do with why we (Protestants) think that "salvation by infusion" is a bad thing.
No no, you're misunderstanding my question. The OP says that "the promise of communion with the incarnate God" is held in common by all those other religions too. But it's not. So, what am I missing?
DeleteMaybe this statement holds the key?
Deletethose who are "saved" all become "incarnate" anyway through the process of deification
I viewed "incarnate" as a throwaway term in the OP. And nobody ever said there was a one-to-one correspondence in every way. EOs see "Theosis" and an "incarnate God". Many of the others see "one with God" or "one with the Universe"; the key term being "one". While it's not an exact 1:1 correspondence, it's a troubling thing -- and even a lot of Protestants are getting sucked into the "theosis/deification/"one-with-the-universe" kind of thinking.
DeleteThe bottom line is that nobody really cares about this distinction, and they should.
I'll try to explain it this way. EO (and most of the Eastern fathers) hold to the Instrumentalization thesis. This means taht the Logos assumed a generic human nature in order to deify the flesh. This runs into problems when when they get to the communicatio idiomatum.
DeleteSo we are using theology of incarnation in different ways. Covenantal religion sees Logos as assuming a local human body within the narrative of God in Jesus of Nazareth redeeming his people.
I also think something got lost in translation: this comment by Anti Gnostic wasn't meant to be a sum-all of theological precision. It was deliberate rhetorical flourish. I've surveyed tens of thousands of pages of church fathers, along with leading monographs all the way through postmodern philosophy. I understand these systems aren't identical, but there are similarities.
ReplyDelete