diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | drafts/greek_church_orthodoxy.rst | 157 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | vita_brevis-again.rst | 34 |
2 files changed, 191 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/drafts/greek_church_orthodoxy.rst b/drafts/greek_church_orthodoxy.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bad80c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/drafts/greek_church_orthodoxy.rst @@ -0,0 +1,157 @@ +Greek Church & Orthodoxy +######################## + +:date: 1970-01-01T00:00:00 +:status: draft +:category: faith +:tags: ecumenism, utUnumSint, theology, ecclesiology, greek, orthoschesi̱ + +.. zotero-setup:: + :style: chicago-author-date + +.. default-role:: xcite + +With the end of the Jewish Church (early second century) the +Church as whole was more or less dominated by the Greek culture +until the Roman Church started to dominate the West. It seems to +me that we still carry the inheritance of that era more than we +generally recognize, and that perhaps the Greek tradition in the +Church was the bigger break from the original Christianity +(whatever this term means) than for example many times blamed +Constantine taking over of the Church by the state. + +I agree with Paul (1Co 1:22) that the dominant feature of this +Greek Church was search for wisdom based on the tradition of the +Greek philosophy. Importance of the Greek Church and its +inheritance lies in my opinion in the stress on the link between +the true faith and correct theology. The biggest fruit of these +early centuries of the Christian history is in my opinion a deep +dive into the understanding of God, development of the +Trinitarianism, and starting a huge tradition of the Christian +theology. Unfortunately, the flip side of this love for study and +understanding was in my opinion too much stress on orthodoxy as +the most important characteristics of Christian and less stress +on other aspects of the Christian life. The flower of this +understanding is for example the Athanasian Creed claiming that +“Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary +that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith except every one do +keep whole and undefiled; without doubt he shall perish +everlastingly. … This is the catholic faith; which except a man +believe truly and firmly, he cannot be saved.” Suddenly the +salvation is not based solely on the true relationship with the +living Jesus Christ [#]_ and it is now more concerned with +exactly correct intellectual understanding of the God [#]_. +Suddenly having wrong understanding of some minutiae of theology +makes oneself a heretic and excludes you from the salvation. + +There seems to be now an emerging agreement from many sides that +the extreme stress on the theological unity was crippling the +Church in the war of the fifth and sixth century, but also that +the exact minutiae of this fight are now mostly irrelevant +`[@JenkinsJesusWars2011]`. This idea was (kind of surprisingly) +partially supported by `@cantalamessa:2015serving`: + + The situation in the beginning of the third millennium is not + same as the one in the beginning of the second millennium, + when the Eastern and Western Church separated. It is not the + same either as the one in the middle of the second + millennium, when the separation between Catholics and + Protestants. Are the mean by which the Holy Spirit proceeds + from the Father (the *Filioque* controversy), or the exact + description how the godless is justified, are these questions + something which makes the blood of our contemporaries + boiling, or are they the questions which makes the Christian + faith stand or fail? The world goes on and we got stuck with + the problems and formulations which are completely alien to + the contemporary people. + +Later fights about the true definition and nature of God and +Jesus seems to be a clear reflection of the Greek nature of the +Eastern Church [#]_. Do we consider these “Greek issues” +really SO important? How many especially Western Christians +actually care about the distinction between dyophysitism and +monophysitism? Do most current Christians even know what’s the +difference? Or to return to the Athanasian Creed, do we still +really believe that all Arians and Nestorians are in The Hell, +just because of incorrect understanding of the nature of Trinity, +when we all accept that nobody actually really understands the +Mystery of Trinity? + +That is not to say that I consider these discussions to be +useless, or that I would like to doubt the Trinitarianism. I +believe that the Trinitarianism and the ability to maintain (more +or less successfully) balance between the two Natures of Christ +are two most important distinctions between the Christianity as a +religion and other religions of the world. So, I don’t think +the theology is the problem, but the too high stress on the +correct theology as a qualification for the membership in the +Church or even for the salvation itself. + +My claiming that the current Church puts too much stress on the +Greek inheritance may seem too theoretical and abstract. Let me +present here as an example what I am thinking, the discussion +around `[@RatzingerFaith2006]`. It is obvious that this speech +was completely misunderstood equally both by the religious +fanatics and secular journalists. While everybody was excited +about the citation taken out of context, we missed what the whole +speach was all about. I more or less agree with `[@Jenkins2009]` +that “Benedict insisted that authentic Christianity had to be +based on the Greek philosophical tradition, establishing the +European intellectual model as the inevitable norm for all future +ages.” + +See for example this rather surprising statement + + “[…] it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its + origins and some significant developments in the East, + finally took on its historically decisive character in + Europe.” + +Squeezing fourteen centuries of the Church of the East into +“some significant development in the East” (and ignoring the +Church in Africa completely) is a rather strange statement. Or, +see the following passage proposing an intriguing idea: + + The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought + did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw + the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man + plead with him: ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us!’ + (cf. Acts 16:6-10) — this vision can be interpreted as a + ‘distillation’ of the intrinsic necessity of a + rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry. + +Getting from this Biblical story to the God’s ordinance of +linking the faith with the Greek philosophy seems to me tortuous +at best. Yes, anything can be interpreted to mean anything, but +the path here truly seems complicated. Suddenly in the +Ratzinger’s view it seems that the Greek philosophy (I suppose +in its transformed Thomistic version) is an integral part of the +Gospel message? + +Also, it doesn’t seem to me surprising that the Orthodox church +as the most pure heir of this Greek Church is the strongest +opponent of the ecumenical movement. I know that documents like +`[@mount_athos:2007memorandum]` are not 100% faithful +representation of the stance of all Orthodox Christians, but +certainly it presents a strong and authoritative voice and it +seems to present the absolute rejection of any ecumenical process +other than return of all non-Orthodox back to the Orthodox +church. + +.. [#] Could we call it ορθοσχέση [orthoschési̱], right relationship? + `@haykin:2005orthopathy` suggests the term “orthopaty”, right + affection, for something possibly similar. + +.. [#] This stress was then made even more salient by the + Protestant tendency to *sola scriptura*. See + `[@schmelzer:2015why]` for comment on this Protestant trend. + +.. [#] The Western church was mostly not present in these discussions + because it steadfastly kept its party line, true to its + quasi-military(?) character; or perhaps because of most of + the time it was struggling for the mere survival during the + Fall of Rome era. + +---- + +.. bibliography:: diff --git a/vita_brevis-again.rst b/vita_brevis-again.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f30d6b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/vita_brevis-again.rst @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +Vita Brevis and Augustine’s giving up wife for the sake of His Salvation +######################################################################## + +:date: 2015-10-03T11:20:14 +:category: faith +:tags: Augustine, philosophy, podcast, blogcomment + +(I wanted to comment on “The History of Philosophy: without any +gaps” `podcast about Saint Augustine`_, but somehow their +comment system is broken) + + | Sister, when you love your man, be careful how you tell him that + | He will put you back in a corner and use you like a Sunday hat + +OK, this quotation pushed me over the edge, so I have to write it +here. I have read Augustine’s Confessions many times, actually +it was one of the books which are most “guilty” of my own +conversion to the Christianity. And yet, I have completely missed +the story of Augustine’s wife and family (my study of the Roman +Law would lead me to believe that actually they were married, but +that’s another issue). So, when I stumbled upon the `“Vita +Brevis”`_ by Jostein Gaarder I was completely shocked how much +I managed to ignore while reading my beloved book. So, no +Augustine didn’t divorce his wife and didn’t take her child +because of the holy quest of His Conversion. It was a way worse. +Read the Confessions again, or better yet read the Gaarder’s +book as well. Highly recommended. Yes, the latter is a fiction +book. I know. + +.. _`podcast about Saint Augustine`: + http://historyofphilosophy.net/comment/4679#comment-4679 + +.. _`“Vita Brevis”`: + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0753804611 |