In the
previous lesson, we expanded on the Cappadocian Fathers’ theology,
and mainly that of the Holy Trinity; we saw exactly how they
promoted the dogma as compared to their predecessors. May I remind
you of the main points:
a)
they clarified
terminology, by making the significant step of relating the term
‘hypostasis’ to the term ’person’.
b)
they disengaged the
term ‘hypostasis’ from the term ‘essence’; Even at the time
of Athanasios the Great and his contemporaries and up to the time of
the Synod of 362, these two terms were linked. They therefore made
this distinction between essence and hypostasis, by transferring the
term hypostasis from the realm of the essence to the realm of the person. The terms ‘person’ and ‘essence’ are now related, and
the reason they did this, was to give the person an ontological
content, in order to say that the three persons are not three
facades (which was what the term formerly implied), but three
persons. The term person normally signified a façade and a mask,
thus always giving rise to suspicions of Savellianism. So, after
the Cappadocians, we were able to say that God is one essence, three
persons, without the risk of Savellianism, because persons now
signify hypostases, and hypostases are complete beings.
c)
they introduced the
notion of ‘cause’ within God’s being. That is, they posed the
question of who is the cause of God’s existence, of God existing,
and the fact that He is God and exists as a Trinity. The reply that
they gave to this question, was that the ‘cause’ is only the
Father; and when we say ‘only the Father’, we are chiefly pointing
out that the essence is not the cause (keep this in mind, because we
shall see that it is of great importance) and secondly, we are
denoting that neither of the other two persons are the ‘cause’.
So, the ‘cause’ is the Father; and
from this ‘cause’, the Son is primarily evident, while the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the ‘cause’ (who is the Father), through Him
that is ‘from the cause’ (the Son). This may not be entirely clear,
but we shall talk about it later on. What interests us at this
point, is to clarify the meaning of the term ‘cause’; to see how the
existence of God is not simply a given reality. It is a reality
that is owed to something, and that ‘something’ is the Father; it is
a person. It is not the essence of God that broadens, expands or
divides; and that is why only the Father can primarily be called
God. The Father is God, in the sense that He does not owe His
existence to anyone else; He is the very cause of existence, whereas
in the case of the Son and the Holy Spirit, the fact is that their
coming into being is owed to someone else – the Father – and
subsequently, in God we have a narrowing down to one person, one
hypostasis and therefore an unshackled cause, not a compulsory
projection or expansion of God’s single essence. We shall see what
significant existential consequences this has.
Having set down these guidelines,
the Cappadocians created a kind of theology (at least for the East,
who followed them) where the person – the hypostasis – played a
primary ontological role. Whereas in ancient philosophy the leading
ontological role always belonged to the essence (each human was in
essence a person, since human nature preceded him; man does not
bring human nature into being, hence the priority of essence or
nature, with the person in a secondary role), with the Cappadocians
this logic was overturned. In God, essence does not come first;
first comes the person of the Father, Who causes essence to exist.
The Greek verb ‘exist’ is the root from which the word ‘hypostasis’
is derived; thus we say ‘he exists’. Therefore, to exist means that
you are you, and not someone else; that you are an individual.
Well, God exists, as hypostases. And God’s essence exists, only as
hypostases. And that which makes it exist as hypostases is again a
hypostasis and not any attribute that the essence itself may have.
This means God exists independently, and not due to a given essence,
or a given reality. And the essence, which – as the Cappadocians
and Vasileios said – cannot be bare, cannot be devoid of a
hypostasis, acquires hypostasis, it exists, it comes into existence
thanks to a person, and in the form of these three Persons.
Therefore in this context, the Holy Trinity is a primary ontological
meaning; it is not something that we add to God’s being, instead, it
is that which makes God be. In other words, if the Trinity were
removed, God would not exist. Because the only way that God can
exist, is as a Trinity; and this is attributed to the Father – a
person – and not an essence. Therefore the essence – albeit
important and necessary – does not have that primary significance of
causing God to exist. That which causes God to exist, is the
person of the Father.
I have
insisted on these details, because I wanted you to see what happens
in the West with Augustinee, who moves in an entirely different way
in theology, by not bearing in mind the Cappadocians’ theology. It
is important to stress that the West never assimilated the
Cappadocian Fathers’ theology, to this day. The FILIOQUE has also
something to do with this problem, as we shall see. And not only
the FILIOQUE, but a number of other problems related to East-West
differences are attributed to the fact that the Cappadocian theology
was not assimilated historically by the West. Augustinee’s theology
had interposed, and especially during the Franks era, it became the
West’s theological flag, in contradiction to eastern theology, from
whence, tremendous problems ensued. But the roots of these problems
are found in the fact that the Cappadocian theology was not
assimilated by the West; instead, Augustinee’s theology was
sanctioned. What, therefore, is Augustinee’s theology?
Augustinee mainly concerns himself
with the dogma on God, in his writings “On the Holy Trinity” ( DE
TRINITATAE ). In it, he is not as concerned with documenting the
dogma on the Holy Trinity, as he is in finding ways to make this
dogma comprehensible, to find analogies in human existence, and to
somehow assist the thinking person not to reject the theory on the
Holy Trinity, which at first glance is so difficult for the human
mind to accept. So, while searching for these analogies in human
existence, he makes a serious mistake from the very beginning, which
will henceforth leave its mark on the theology of the Holy Trinity.
The mistake is that he searches for an analogy or a model in one
single person, whereas the Cappadocian Fathers could never see the
analogy of the Trinity through the observation of a single person.
They always needed three persons to draw the analogy. In other
words, for the Cappadocians each divine person was a complete
entity, a complete being: thus, in terms of our human experience, an
exact correspondence to a trinity would be a Peter, a Kostas and a
John, whereas with Augustine this is exactly the mistake he made, in
that he believed the Trinity to be found only in Kostas, i.e., by
observing only the one person.
Notice
his train of thought: By observing only one person, he perceived –
under the neo-Platonic influence that he carried – that the essential thing in a person is the
mind. This was the
Platonic viewpoint: what is that which makes me be me? my mind. And
this is what later led to Augustinee’s theory, to be subsequently
developed by Cartesian and western thought in general, which has all
those introvert thoughts on seeking one’s conscience, of discovering
myself on my own, without the need to observe anyone else nearby.
The ability to think, to be conscious of one’s self, is, for the
West, the key to understanding one’s existence. “COGITO ERGO SUM” –
I comprehend, therefore I exist. Therefore it is enough for you to
say that you exist; it is enough to be on our own, in order to study
your existence; that is why it is not necessary to look around you.
So, by looking at one person, we strive to find therein the
analogies that will lead us to the existence of a trinity. We find
the following elements that Augustinee has isolated, and on which he
builds his theology:
a)
The basic element is
the mind
b)
The basic element of
this mind is memory, from which its entire existence springs.
Observe, why memory is of such
importance. It is the Platonic idea of remembrance. Everything we
understand, think about and know of is stored inside us. Each one of
us has a soul, in which eternally exists a storeroom of – let’s say
- the truth. To Platonic thought, knowledge is nothing more than a
recollection of this truth. The derivative of the Greek word “truth”
is “un-forgettable”. When you cease to forget, that is when you
find the truth; in other words, knowledge and reality emerge from
oblivion. This meant that memory is the source of existence. Man’s
mind has a source – memory – from which our existence springs. If
we now take from Athanasios and the Cappadocian Fathers the
traditional expression “source of divinity”, we will observe that
the Cappadocian Fathers did not dwell on the meaning of “source”,
because “source” implies something that gushes perforce.
This traditional image of a source is what Augustinee embraced; he
translated it from the Greek text and thenceforth related the source
to the Father. There is also the term “beginning” – the Source and
the Beginning. This is also used by Athanasios and the
Cappadocians, but not overly stressed by the latter. They state
that the Father is the source, or that He is the beginning, but they
use it in the context of a cause. The differences between
these terms are very subtle. Anyway, the source and the beginning,
all these are the Father, and all these are memory. To human
psychology, memory is the source from which primarily knowledge
springs forth. Knowledge is a basic characteristic of the mind and
of the human being. God is the Mind; the mind has a source of
knowledge, and the knowledge that is produced is the Logos, the
second person of the Holy Trinity.
In order to prove that God as an
intellectual being - and especially as a supreme Mind - is not
without knowledge, he believed that precisely the Logos of God was
the means by which God knows. But, knowledge is always drawn from
memory, and this he analyzes in great detail: I would never know
this table, if the notion of a table were not already stored in my
memory bank. It is the basic Platonic concept, that the ideas of all
things are stored within us. Therefore, when I recognize this
table, it is from within the source that is my memory, that the
knowledge of the table springs from. If I know nothing, then it
would mean that I am not an active mind. In order to be an active
mind, I must express it, and God is an active mind; He has a Logos.
And Logos signifies knowledge. So, from the source that is the
Father comes knowledge that is the Logos – God’s knowledge. But
then, knowledge of what? (given that there is nothing else except
God). Naturally, He has knowledge of Himself – this is
self-awareness. The Logos knows the Father – the object of His
knowledge is the Father – consequently we have a circular reference,
a self-knowledge of God.
But again in accordance with
another basic Platonic theory, God is not only the Mind, He is also
the absolute Good. The absolute good cannot be just the Mind; it
must be the Mind of absolute Goodness. According to Plato, good
always attracts love and Eros, and also beauty. Just as beauty
arouses Eros, likewise goodness arouses Eros, love. Now, if God is
goodness and if there is no other goodness except for Him, whose
love would He arouse? The Logos has a separateness towards the
Father and He recognizes Him, so, by recognizing Him, He recognizes
Him as the Good, and that is when Eros is born, which is the love
towards the Good, who is the Father. This love between the Son and
the Father is the Spirit. The Spirit is a third form of existence,
by which the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father; it
is – as Augustine called it – the “NEXUS AMORIS”, the bond, the bond
of love between the Father and the Son. The Spirit has this – let us
say – hypostatic attribute.
However,
this generates the following problem. As you can see, by accepting
the Father as memory, the Son as knowledge and the Spirit as love,
you will have three separate definitions and descriptions of the
contents of each person. Each person has its own positive
function; it has hypostatic attributes. The Son has the attribute
and the content of knowledge; the spirit has the content of love.
Therefore, there is a way here to positively describe the hypostatic
attributes of the three Persons. If you compare this with the
Cappadocian Fathers and the eastern Fathers in general, you will see
that for them, something like this is impossible; they avoid giving
any positive content whatsoever to hypostatic attributes. When they
are called upon to give their reply on what the hypostatic attribute
is of the Son, or of the Spirit, and – more important – the
difference between “being born of” and “proceeding from”, they avoid
defining the difference between being born and proceeding from. Why?
Because they do not want to give any positive content to the
Hypostases. The Son differs from the Father, simply because He
is not the Father; and the Spirit – likewise – is not the Son,
etc. etc. Thus, we say that the hypostatic attributes are
non-communing ones, as opposed to Augustine, who gives a positive
content to each Divine Attribute. Straight away, the danger of
anthropomorphism arises which is exactly what the eastern Fathers
strove to avoid. However, with Augustine, anthropomorphism became a
part of western theology. They subsequently used other methods to
circumvent it, by means of various innovations that they inserted in
their theology; however, when we say that the Son is Knowledge or
the Spirit is Love, what we are actually doing is projecting through
God the psychological attributes and experiences that belong to
humans. In this way, the Trinity becomes a psychological
conglomeration, a complex of psychological relations; obviously,
this is not the Trinity that the Cappadocians wanted to speak of.
However, the problem is not only
there; in giving an anthropomorphic content, a psychological
content, one must find a way of referring to God, above and beyond
the anthropomorphic, psychological experience. This is why Augustine
doesn’t see the Holy Trinity as the primary classification of God’s
existence. Whereas for the Cappadocians it was imperative for one
to begin from the Trinity, because it begins with the Father and it
is not possible to escape the Trinity, exactly because it begins
with the Father’s person. Augustine does not place the person in
a primary place because he does not begin with the Father. With
regard to the triadic existence, he considers the Father a source, a
beginning etc., but with regard to what we call “God”, he does not
relate this to the Father, as did the Cappadocians and the eastern
Fathers in general. In Augustine’s theology, God is related to the
essence of God; i.e., there is that which the easterners call
“godhood”. There is a difference between the word god and the word
godhood. Godhood has the same meaning as the essence: God is the
Father (God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ).
Well,
this godhood is translated in the sense of DIVINITAS, which bears
the meaning of essence. With Augustine, it is clear that godhood
is the impersonal, single, divine essence; thus, the one God – the
essence - comes first, and logically the Trinity follows, as the
means by which that one God, that one essence, exists. In other
words, even the notion of the Father becomes secondary, with respect
to God. This is a very large mistake: Who is the one God? Are the
Fathers monotheists? If so, then who is the One God in Whom they
believe, when they say “ I believe in one God….”? If we say that
the one God is the essence (which is what Augustine did), then the
three Hypostases – the Father, the Son and the Spirit – are all the
same, from the point of view of ontological existence. The Father
is no longer the cause, in the strict ontological sense. He is a
“source”, but only a “source” in the sense of godhood, meaning that
godhood pre-exists before Him. He is not the One who causes essence
to exist. Therefore, the one God is an essence. This is also heard
from many orthodox – that God is a single essence. He is not an
essence. To us, God is the Father.
Now, where is the significance in placing the one God
in the essence, and prioritizing the essence? The significance is
this: We lose the meaning of cause and we lose the meaning of
independence in the existence of God. When the essence is isolated
and impersonal, it generates the existence of God out of necessity,
because essence contains the element of necessity. Essence is that
which exists; we do not ask why and how it exists. When we do ask
why or how, then we are turning away from the essence and are moving
towards the hypostases. When you say essence, you do not ask how.
The “how” is a question placed by a person or a hypostasis. With
the essence, you simply make an ontological observation: that God
exists. And with this, you are also implying that He is not another
essence; that He is not a man, but God. As for how this essence
exists, it is a problem of the hypostasis. For the Cappadocians,
the “how” cannot be a sequel to the fact that it exists. Without
the “how”, nothing existing exists. This is what they mean by “bare”
essence.
We cannot consequently give
priority to the essence. In Augustine however, priority is given to
the essence. First we say that God exists, then we ask how He
exists. Hence what occurred in the West. Two things happened in
the West: the one unfortunately also applies to us . Mediaeval
theology in the West divided Dogmatics - under the influence of
Augustine’s teachings - into a separate chapter on the one God and
another chapter on the Holy Trinity. How can you speak of one God,
if you don’t mention the Holy Trinity, given that you have accepted
the equation: one God = the Father? For Augustine, this is not a
problem, since he does not accept the equation. To him, the
equation is : one God = one essence. Well, according to him, we
shall first talk about the one God as an essence – about His
attributes; and this is where he lists all of God’s attributes.
(Unfortunately, the same thing is done in our contemporary Dogmatics).
This is the first mistake, and it touches on the methodology of
Dogmatics. However, there is another serious mistake with regard to
monotheism, which continues to plague us orthodox. We say that
there are monotheist religions that accept the one God, while there
are polytheist religions that acknowledge a number of gods. Even
today, attempts are being made on a common basis by all monotheist
religions, to relate to one another. This is happening, on account
of the distinction that Augustine made, which allowed for the
mention of “godhood” or “religiosity”. This perception is so deeply
rooted, that it is extremely difficult to remove from our mind; the
fact is, the “how” God exists is equally primeval as the “if” He
exists, and the “if” He is one. Consequently, to us orthodox, the
Trinity is a prerequisite for every discussion on monotheism, when
discussing it with other religions.
There are other ways for one to
approach the subject of monotheism, but we haven’t elaborated on
them as yet. What is important, is that between Augustine and the
East, lies the chasm of the priority of the essence, which essence
relates to the one God, whereas for us, the one God is the Father.
From these ideas have sprung the
immense differences that we have, also with regard to a special
point – the FILIOQUE – which we shall examine later on.