The corruption of monasticism on the life of the church

After the victory of icons, the number of monks who became bishops grew. (John Binns, The T & T Clark History of Monasticism, p. 77)

The monastery was a centre of support for icons during the iconoclast controversy in the eighth and ninth centuries. (p. 90)

Monasteries were places of ascetic struggle and were populated by women and men who lived by different standards and had a different set of values from those of the city. They were suspicious of education and learning, which they associated with the world which they had left behind. They recognized the need to read and understand the Bible and other books but wanted to distinguish this form of knowledge from secular education. (p. 175)

Monasticism, with initial good motives, became a snare and a curse to the church over time. With the idea that the "spiritual" was superior, and the mundane is of the world, monasticism led Christians aways from education and learning, causing a steady deterioriation in the interpretation of Scripture. One just has to read the allegorical sermons of medieval times to see how over-spiritualizing had led people away from the Word of God into fanciful interpretations, distorting the Word of God for their own traditions.

By the time of Niceae II (787AD), monks had devolved into a movement away from Scripture, as they were at the forefront for pushing for the use of icons, which a cursory read through the Scriptures should have shown to be contrary to what God has said. The Second Commandment clearly forbids the use of any form of images of in worship (Ex. 20:4-6), and this prohibition against images (which includes icons) extends throughout the Old Testament, a prohibition that Jesus nowhere rejected. There is simply no way to support icons from Scripture, and Eastern Orthodox arguments are speculative based upon tradition rather than Scripture.

"You shall know them by their fruit" (Mt. 7:16). The seeking of God by speculative mysticism leads to darkness and disobedience, and Nicaea II is proof of that, as monks, not knowing the Scriptures, violate Scripture with impunity, leading to a council promoting falsehood and heresy. If there was any doubt of the spiritual darkness of monasticism, Nicaea II is its irrefutable proof.

Monasticism in violation of Scripture: The case of Amoun

Another pioneer of Egyptian monastic life was Amoun. He was born in 295 and lived in the north of Egypt in the region of the Nile Delta. He was an orphan and at the age of twenty-two was forced by his uncle to marry. He went unwillingly through the ceremony but then read passages of the Bible to his illiterate new wife instructing her about the importance of chastity. She had little option but to accept his preferred way of living but wanted at least to live in the same house. Amoun worked growing balam, ate and prayer with his wife, then retired at night to a different room. This went on for eighteen years after which his wife suggested they lived separately. Amoun then happily moved to the nearby mountiain of Nitria, when he was thirty-four years. (John Binns, The T & T Clark History of Monasticism: The Eastern Tradition, 38)

Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. (1 Cor. 7:27)

The case of Amoun, one of the pioneers of monasticism in Egypt is instrumental in showing us how seeking supposed good things led many to sin. In this case, Amoun violated Scripture and broke his marital vows to his wife. Scripture is clear that those who are married to live as married men and women — the husband to love his wife and the wife to honor and respect her husband (cf. Eph. 5:22-33). It is also clear from Scripture and its context that one's happiness or "consent" in the matter of marriage is irrelevant to the obedience of these commmands, noting that many marriages in antiquity were arranged without the concept of consent or romantic love. Amoun entering a marriage through being forced by his uncle to marry is therefore irrelevant to the issue of how he ought to conduct himself in his marriage.

God is God, and He is the one who ordains each person's station in life. The greatest virtue comes in obedience to God in our daily lives, not to create an artificial "holiness" through human means. Thus, the one who enters into marriage ought to obey God in the midst of his/her marriage, noting the marriage covenant that binds husband and wife in one flesh (Eph. 5:31 cf. Gen. 2:24). There is therefore no legitimate reason for Amoun to violate his marital covenant, breaking it with the view of "living for God." Instead of living according to God's revealed will, monasticism replaces the words of God with the commandments of Man, and in so doing showing us how sin enters through Man's sincere attempts to be good.

The beginnings of monasticism

Where did Christian monks come from? There were certainly no monks or nuns in the Bible, yet, for we know that monasticism infests the lands in the time of Martin Luther. Most certainly, monasticism is a departure from biblical Christianity, yet how did it emerge in the first place?

In his book on the history of monasticism, John Binns details the emergence and development of monasticism [John Binns, The T&T Clark History of Monasticism: The Eastern Tradition (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2020)]. As someone sympathetic to the Eastern tradition, Binns holds that monasticism is nothing more than Paul's supposed ascetism taken to heart, but more on that at another time. Formally however, monasticism begins with the first monk, Anthony of Egypt, the father of eremetic or solitary monasticism, around 304 AD. Pachomus began the first coenobitic or communal form of monasticism aound 320 AD. From then on, monasticism spreads rapidly through Christendom, becoming a feature of both Eastern and Western Christianity.

The beginnings of monasticism come about due to a few factors. A major factor is the fermenting of pagan views of ascetism through the views of condemned heretics like Origen and Evagrius, something which Binns could not deny, although he separated their heretical "metaphysical speculation" from their "ascetical teaching." (p. 182). Another factor is the elevation of marytrdom and martys to a holy status in the early church (the "cult of the martyrs"). Those who attain to this yet are denied actual marytrdom can aspire for the "white martyrdom" (p. 36) that symbolizes a removal from the world. A third factor is the zeal for holiness, which became difficult when more and more people became Christians. When Christianity became normal, those who seek purity ran to the desert to live out their separate lives, a choice easier to make after Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire resulting in an influx of nominal Christians into the Church.

As it can be seen, two of the main factors of the beginnings of monasticism come from a desire for good things. There is nothing wrong with honoring and respecting those who pay the ultimate price for their faith in Jesus Christ. There is likewise nothing wrong with a desire for holiness, and the influx of worldliness into the church should trouble Christians. But is the solution a withdrawal from the world, as monasticism would do, in a personal pursuit of one's subjective holiness? The answer of the Reformation was a resounding no. We are called to be in the world, but not of the world, as it is written:

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. (Jn. 17:15-6)

Marytrdom is a gift, and so is continence, but none of these things are things one can dictate to God. The problem with monasticism from its inception is its vain attempt to control what gifts God should give to His people. One desire matyrdom, so one seeks after the "white" variety when the "red"' version (real martyrdom) is not given. One thinks ascetism brings one closer to God, so one becomes a monk, usurping God's prerogative over who should be married and who is to be celibate. In the end, instead of submitting to God, one attempts to climb Jacob's ladder to reach God, never understanding that God is the only one who can reach us, never we him.

The Eastern and the Western views on the Trinity?

In the classical Latin Trinitarian doctrine, “Father, Son and Spirit are only ‘relatively’ distinct.” Whatever the interpretation given to the idea of “relation” implies in this statement, it is clear that Western thought recognized the ontological primacy of essential unity over personal diversity inn God; that is, that God is essentially one, except in the divine Persons, who are defined in terms of relations. In Byzantine thought, however—to use an expression from Maximus the Confessor—“God is identically monad and triad,” and there is probably a tendency in both worship and philosophical formulations (as distinct from doctrinal statements) to give a certain pre-eminence to the personal diversity over essential unity. A reference to the Nicaean “consubstantial” was the Byzantine response to the accusation of “tritheism.” (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 184)

In light of the 2016 controversy over the Trinity, and the subsequent rise of Neo-Thomism in conservative Evangelicalism, does any of these look familiar?

Meyendorff on Nicaea and the issue of subordination

It is common in the Neo-Thomist revival to assert that subordination of any kind is contrary to Nicene orthodoxy. Now, whether that is so can be discussed. It is however, interesting to read what an Eastern Orthodox theologian has said about the matter.

By accepting Nicaea, the Cappadocian Fathers eliminated the ontological subordinationism of Origen and Arius, but they preserved indeed, together with their understanding of hypostatic life, a Biblical and Orthodox subordinationism, maintaining the personal identity of the Father as the ultimate origin of all divine being and action: … (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 183)

Now, that is interesting and food for thought.

The impact of Pseudo-Dionysius in EO liturgy and sacramentology

Fortunately Dionysian theology has had practically no effect upon such central texts as the baptismal prayer and Eucharistic canons. It served principally to develop and explain the extremely rich fringes with which Byzantium now adorned the central sacramental actions of the Christian faith, without modifying its very hear, and thus leaving the door open to authentic liturgical and sacramental theology which would still inspire the mainstream of Byzantine spirituality. (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: historical trends and doctrinal themes, 30-31)

So, according to John Meyendorff, the impact of the Neoplatonic Pseudo-Dionysian error in Eastern Orthodoxy is seen in its liturgy and view of the sacraments, and thus presumably into its view of icons? I guess that is why the liturgy must re-enact the celestial hierarchy.

A hypothesis on energies and will in medieval Constantinople

This dynamic conception of created nature constitutes Maximus' main argument against the "Monoenergists" of the seventh century, whose Christology considered Christ's humanity as having lost its geniunely human "energy" or will because of its union with divinity. But, for Maximus, created nature would lose its very existence if it were deprived of its proper energy, its proper purpose, and its proper dynamic identity. This proper movement of nature, however, can be fully itself only if it follows its proper goal (skopos), which consists in striving for God, entering into communion with Him, and thus fulfilling the logos, or divine purpose, though which and for which it is created. (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Thoeology: historical trends and doctrinal themes, 133)

When it comes to the issue of will, it is interesting how Eastern theologians like Vladimir Lossky have distinguished between "will" and "choice." To understand why that is so, we have to look at what happened during the 6^th century controversies over monoenergism and monothelitism, which are not exactly topics most people are interested in. Most certainly, the writings of Maximus would be helpful. But in the meantime, from what Meyendorff has written, it seems there is more than meets the eye in this distinction between will and choice.

In the controversy over monoenergism and monothelitism, nature is associated with energy, and energy to will. Therefore, just as there are two natures in Christ, so likewise there are two energies and two wills. In Meyendorff's book, the picture that seems to emerge is as follows: The workings or energes are identified by where they come from, as energies are the dynamic movement (kinesis) of natures. Therefore, in the case of Christ, he must have a human energy because the human nature will "imprint" as such when energy proceeds from it. But energy must be properly directed, and the will directs the energy according to the proper goal (skopos) of its movement (kinesis). In other words, the will moves the energies to its final cause.

This is of course just a preliminary picture for now. But such a picture would make sense of why the Byzatines held that Christ has two wills. If however, we define 'will' differently, then there is no reason why we cannot tie 'will' to person instead of nature, and so better preserve the dynamism of the three Persons.

Against the classical theist view of the "person" of the Trinity

In effect we find in [Marius - DHC] Victorinus a further specification of the energein katharon of the Anonymous Commentary [on Pamenides -DHC]. This energein now turns out to be esse, the unlimited and uncircumscribed being of the Father, from which is derived all the limited and circumscribed being (ὄν) found in the Son. Such esse is anything but “being” conceived as a static condition of existence; it is a kind of inwardly directed activity, containing implicitly life and intelligence as well as existence. In thinking itself it manifests itself as what it is, giving rise to the triad of ese, vivere, and intellegere – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Oddly enough, then, despite all the accretions of Neoplatonism, we are not too far from the self-thinking thought of Aristotle’s Prime Mover. The divine self-intellection remains the activity par excellence, the one that precedes all others, giving rise by virtue of its necessary intrinsic structure to the intelligible order and plurality of the world. (David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom, 115)

Whatever its shortcomings and its difficult and sharply dialectical style, the Mystagogy makes clear the basic Byzantine objection to the Latin doctrine of the Trinity: that it understands God as a single and philosophically simple essence, in which personal or hypostatic existence is reduced to the concept of mutual relations between the three Persons. (John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical trends and doctrinal themes, 60)

In disputes over the doctrine of the Trinity, classical theists often claim that we should not import the "modern" ideas of personhood into the Trinity. So what is a person of the Trinity? Well, according to Thomas and Thomists, nothing more than the relations between the persons it seems. The primary focus is the one divine essence, and the persons are the differentiating relations, and nothing more. But how are those persons actually "persons"? Appeal to "mystery" does not help their case, because "mystery" excuses the super-rational, not the irrational. "Analogy" works only when one can show how the analogy works, otherwise the "analogy" is false. Classical theism runs around and around in circles, always ready to attack others with labels of heresy ("subordinationism," "tritheism," etc), but, like Mathew Barrett's book, empty vesssels do indeed make the most noise.

Perhaps a better way to look at the issue is to step away from the heat of the moment and look at how Trinitarianism came to be defined in history. And what one sees does not look good for the Western church. There is nothing wrong with focusing on the one essence, if one focuses at the same time on the three persons. Nevertheless, from the shift in the meaning of energein towards the Latin esse, it seems that a prima facie case can be made that the Western Church has collapsed the emerging category of "energy" into the category of "being." The "energies" of God in the West was collapsed into the category of "actuality." Aristotle's "thought thinking itself" was reformed in the Western church, with the triad of "ese, vivere, and intellegere" reforged into the one being of the divine.

The picture that emerges from this Latin understanding of the Trinity seems to be one being in three instantiations. What does this look like? While limited, the image that comes to my mind is that of Reverse Flash with two of his time remnants. In DC comics and in the Arowverse, speedsters have the ability to create multiple time remnants of themselves, exact same beings (same ontology) as the speedsters but who are disconnected from their original timelines and thus they exist side by side with their same being counterparts. The image that comes to mind is that of Eobard Thawn somehow creating two time remnants in eternity and the three of them exist for all time, if that could happen. This is not to suggest that the Latin Trinity is Eobard Thawne, but rather that the Reverse Flash with two time remnants is an image (an analogy) of how one being can be instantiated into three "persons."

This analogy should show us clearly why the view that the persons of the Trinity are mere relations is just ridiculous. Eobard Thawn, Thawne's first remnant, and Thawne's second remnant are not three persons, even though they have the ability to act differently despite their one essence. Instantiations of one being are not persons, and can never be persons. Persons, as the Greeks know to be the case, have their individual hypostasis (ὑποστασις) or personhood. Speaking of which, it is much more likely that the Greeks know their language and its meaning more than the Latins know the original Greek meaning of hypostasis. When the Greeks maintained that the persons of the Trinity are real persons, without all the qualifiers like "we should not import modern notions of personhood into the Trinity," it is much better to follow the Greeks than the Latins who are hardly experts on the Greek language.

In Eastern Orthodoxy, which seems to have a better doctrine of God, the one God is present in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each person of the Trinity is a person in the fullest sense of the term, with his own individual personality. While not necessarily taking the Eastern view concerning the filioque, it is clear that the East has some legitimate concerns over it, and behind it all lies a much more developed theology of the Trinity than Thomas Aquinas' view could ever be. It is certainly revealing that modalism and unitarianism is a constant danger in Western Trinitarianism, a sign that Western Trinitarianism, with its deficient view of personhood in reducing the persons to mere relations, has a corroded foundation that opens the way to these trinitarian heresies.

Eastern Orthodox view of the persons of the Trinity with regards to the monarchy of the Father

The Latins think of personality as a mode of nature; the Greeks think of nature as the content of the person. (Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Easatern Church, 58)

The Father—πηγαία θεότης, source of all divinity within the Trinity—brings forth the Son and the Holy Spirit in conferring upon them His nature, which remains one and indivisible, identical in itself in the Three. (Ibid., 59)

What does Eastern Orthodox believe concerning the monarchy of the Father? One way to think about it from a Western perspective is to believe that the Son and the Spirit have derivative being from the Father, a form of subordinationism. However, given that the East rejects subordinationism, that is obviously not the way they think of the Trinity, so how do they conceive of the Trinity?

To this, Eastern theologian Vladimir Lossky, when speaking of the Trinity, asserts that the monarchy of the Father teaches that the "source of all divinity within the Trinity" is the Father. But since nature is the content of the person, this merely asserts primacy of the Father within the Trinity, a "functional subordination" if you will speak anachronistically. The "being" in Western thought is untouched by this doctrine. The person can be said to consist of the content of the person (the "what") and alongside the person as hypostasis (the "who"). The conferrence of the nature of the Father deals with the content of the Son which derives from the Father.

If that is truly what the Eastern view of the Trinity is, as Lossky asserts and I make inferences based upon what is said, then it seems that the Eastern view of the Monarchy of the Father is way superior to any Western view of the Trinity.

Gregory Palamas versus followers of Thomas Aquinas

Hence the formulation of the doctrine as an antinomy: the energies express by their procession an ineffable distinction—they are not God in His essence—and yet, at the same time, being inseparable from His essence, they bear witness to the unity and simplicity of the being of God. The opponents of St. Gregory Palamas—eastern theologians who had been strongly influenced by Aristotelianism (in particular the Calabrian monk Barlaam who had received his theological training in Italy, and Akindynus, who quotes the Greek translation of the Summa theologica)—saw in the real distinction between the essence and the energies a derogation of the simplicity of God, and accused Palamas of ditheism and polytheism. Having become alienated from the apophatic and antinomical spirit of eastern theology, they set up against it a conception of God which saw Him, primarily at any rate, as a simple essence, in which even the hypostases assumed the character of relations within the essence. The philosophy of God as pure act cannot admit anything to be God that is not the very essence of God. From this point of view, God is, as it were, limited by His essence; that which is not essence does not belong to the divine being, is not God. Thus, according to Barlaam and Akindynus, the energies are either the essence itsself; that which is not essence does not belong to the divine being, is not God. Thus, according to to Barlaam and Akindynus, the energies are either the essence itself, understood as pure act, or are produced by the outward acts of the essence, that is to say, the created effects which have the essence for their cause—creatures, in other words. The adversaries of S. Gregory Palamas recognized the divine essence, they recognizes also its created effects; but they did not recognize the divine operations or energies. [Vladamir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Creswtood NY: St Vladamir's Seminary Press, 1957), 76-7]

In his time, Gregory Palamas was charged by followers of Thomas Aquinas to be a ditheist or polytheist due to his belief in the essence- energies distinction. In 2021, those who do not follow Thomas Aquinas are likewise charged by Matthew Barrett to deny the simplicity of God. Matthew Barrett is the modern day Barlaam and Akindynus, attacking Christians with charges and arguments based upon the faulty philosophy of Thomas Aquinas.

Book Review: Through Western Eyes, by Robert Letham

What is Eastern Orthodoxy? In his book Through Western Eyes — Eastern Orthodoxy: A Reformed Perspective, theologian Robert Letham seeks to introduce and analyze Eastern Orthodoxy for the rest of who are children of the Western churches. Has Letham done a good job introducing Eastern Orthodoxy to us? You can read my thoughts in my review of his book, here. An excerpt:

What is Eastern Orthodoxy? For most Christians in the West, Eastern Orthodoxy (EO) seems mysterious, and looks like an older Roman Catholicism without the Pope. Into this lacuna of knowledge, Reformed theologian Robert Letham has written a book seeking to “demystify” Eastern Orthodoxy for the rest of us Christians of the Western tradition. Specifically, Letham seeks to put forward and analyze Eastern Orthodoxy according to his Reformed perspective, thus helping us understand what Eastern Orthodoxy is about.

Letham divides his book into three sections. In part one, he deals briefly with the history of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Part two deals with the theology of Eastern Orthodoxy, and part three is where he does a comparative evaluation between Reformed theology and Eastern Orthodoxy. He ends with a glossary of terms and a rather comprehensive bibliography for the study of Eastern Orthodoxy.

[more]

Gregory Palamas and the Essence/ Energies Distinction

(III.ii.6)

… but also some works of God are without beginning, as the Fathers also rightly affirm. For was it not needful for the work of providence to exist before Creation, so as to cause each of the created things to come to be in time, out of nonbeing? As it not necessary for a divine knowledge to know before choosing, even outside time? But how does it follow that the divine prescience had a beginning? How could one conceive of a beginning of God’s self-contemplation, and was there ever a moment when God began to be moved toward contemplation of Himself? Never! [Gregory Palamas, The Triads (The Classics of Western Spirituality; Ed. John Meyendorff; trans. Nicholas Gendle; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1983), p. 94]

These works of God, then, are manifestly unoriginated and pre-temporal: His foreknowledge, will, providence, contemplation of Himself, and whatever powers are akin to these. But if this contemplation, prescience, predetermination and will are works of God that are without beginning, then virtue is also unoriginated, for each of His works is a virtue; ... (Ibid., p. 94)

(III.ii.8)

But even if this man considers that everything that has a beginning is created, we for our part know that while all the energies of God are uncreated, not all are without beginning. Indeed, beginning and end must be ascribed, if not to the creative power itself, then at least to its activity, that is to say, to its energy as directed towards created things. (Ibid., p. 96)/p>

The strong influence of Neoplatonism on Eastern Orthodoxy would logically result in a distant and remote deity. Such is however contrary to biblical Christianity. The contradiction is so obvious that Eastern Orthodoxy could not continue being Christian without modifying parts of what it received through Dionysius. This it did in positing a distinction between the essence of God, and His energies. "Energies" can be taken as the workings of God. They are the dynamic workings of God, not to be identified with who God is (essence), neither are they identified with what God does (the works of God). The essence of God is as what Neoplatonism says it is: beyond being, beyond intelligibility, utterly inaccessible to anyone but God. The energies of God are however what humans can perceive. In fact, the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis, sometimes called "deification," is the idea that the believer could partake in the divine energies fully.

In Palamas' Triads, certainly not everything stated is I believe compatible with biblical Christianity. Nevertheless, Palamas' promotion of the essence/ energies distinction is a helpful category. Neoplatonism has forced the issue, showing how immutability if applied to the whole of God would result in a static God, the God of Deism. Therefore, in order to have a vital communion with God (which the East promoted through its misguided monasticism), new philosophical categories were formed. Western Christianity in general was not as strongly influenced by Neoplatonism as the East was, and therefore was slow to see the problems that would arise with a God who has only an essence that is utterly transendent and immutable. The East remained orthodox in their doctrine of God, unlike many Western theologians who came to see the same problems, and therefore invented these categories congrunt to biblical orthodoxy that we can now appropriate.

One argument that Palamas pointed out was to note that the decrees of God and the foreknowledge of God are prior to creation. God's will and His own self-enjoyment (contemplation) are likewise eternal. Yet all these are not "being" but operations of some sort, since they are active in nature. Therefore, it can be seen that these "works" (as utilized by Palamas) of God are "without beginning." These energies are not just within God so to speak, but they translate to "activities" that are "directed towards created things."

Now, the fact that there are these decrees of God and other active operations are clear from Scripture. What is however omitted from the thoughts of many theologians is an attempt to categorize them as either essence or works. The fact of the matter is that it is neither of these categories, and thus the category of "energies" is most appropriate here. Orthodox Western systematic theologians tend to talk about God's essencce, then His attributes (communicable and incommunicable), and subsume these operations under the atttributes of God. The problem is that atttributes are "static" in nature. They describe what God is, not what God does. Therefore, including these active operations under the section on the atttributes of God, or worse, to shift parts of them to the works of God, is I believe to be massive categorical confusion.

God is immutable yet He relates both to Himself and to us His creatures. We must hold to both, and do it without diminishing either of them. Without the category of "energies," I do not see how either of these truths could not but be diminished, to the detriment of our understanding and worship of our living God.

Neoplatonism, symbols, and the issue of icons

All expressions of God, the lowly and sensible no less than the exalted and intelligible, participate in him and are thus “similar.” (Eric D. Perl, Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite, p. 103)

All things, then, are in effect symbols of God and are so used in the scriptures, and this is simply a restatement of the doctrine that being is theophany. (p. 103)

The Platonic doctrine of participation, which Dionysius invokes in justifying the suitability of all things as symbols of God, makes it clear that the symbol is a genuine presentation of the symbolized. (p. 104)

A symbol, then, in being finite, available, in not being God and thus in leaving him behind, in concealing him, reveals him as beyond being and thought. … Only by being concealed in symbols can God be revealed (p. 104)

Hence, as Dionysius here indicates, there can be non-symbolic knowledge of God, no knowledge of God without the concealment of symbolism. (p. 105)

The Second Council of Nicea of 787 AD, known in Eastern Orthodoxy as the "Seventh Ecumenical Council," mandated the virtue of holy icons (two-dimensional images) and anathemized those who reject icons (the iconoclasts). For Protestants who see idols of any kind as a violation of the Second Commandment, Nicea II contradicts Scripture and is thus an illegitimate council. Therefore, we would not call it the "Seventh Ecumenical Council" except improperly. Nevertheless, Eastern Orthodox promotion of icons and treating the issue as of the essence of faith stems from this council.

For a Reformed person like myself, I had found it puzzling why Eastern Orthodoxy is so adamant on the issue of icons. Reading Eric Perl on Dionysius however has shown me the likely backdrop for this fascination with icons. This is not to argue that any Eastern Orthodox is a neoplatonist or that any of them hold to full-blown neoplatonism, but rather that the philosophical underpinnings of the Eastern theology of icons is found in the neoplatonism of Dionysius.

In Dionysius' neoplatonic ontology, symbols mediate the divine. Since God is not "being" neither is he "not-being," being the unity of all as the necessary condition for being, being as such is a "theophany," an appearance of the divine (Ibid., p. 32). All things are symbols mediating the divine. To use Christian terminology, all matter is "sacramental." Since God is "beyond being" and "unknowable," to get to the "hidden God" is to go through the symbols mediating the divine. As Perl said, "Only by being concealed in symbols can God be revealed." In other words, Dionysius asserts that there is no way to reach the divine if the symbols are gone.

Once we see this, it becomes clear that a main reason why icons are so important in Eastern Orthodoxy is due to its fear of losing the connection to God. If symbols are necessary to reveal the hidden God, then removing the symbols would be akin to removing God. Seen this way, Nicea II is understandable, albeit it shows us the tragic consequences of adopting an unbiblical ontology which leads to gross idolatry.

Neoplatonic ontology: Being as Intelligibility and God as unknowable

Plato’s understanding of being as form or idea (εἶδος, ἰδέα) is a direct consequence of this identification of being and intelligibility. [Eric D. Perl, Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite (New York NY: State University of New York Press, 2007), p. 6]

Intellect, therefore, is perfect consciousness in that it is the knowledge of being as its own content and therefore as itself. (Ibid., p. 85)

Dionysius adopts his doctrine of God as “nameless,” “unknowable,” and “beyond being” from the Neoplatonic tradition established by Plotinus, and his thought can be understood only in that context. His “negative theology” is not fundamentally a theory of theological language but a philosophical position taken over directly from Neoplatonism, although, as in Plotinus, it has implications for language in that words are discursive expressions of intellection and hence cannot apply to God. (Ibid., p. 13)

Similarly, Dionysius is not content to say simply that God is ineffable, unknowable, or incomprehensible. To say “God is ineffable” is to describe him, to ascribe the attribute of ineffability to him, and thus to contradict oneself. (Ibid., p. 14)

… God is not some being other than all things (the very formula is an absurdity) but is rather the entire content of reality, i.e. all things, without differentiation, without the distinctions from one another by which they are all things. (Ibid., p. 31)

The knowledge of God, then, is given to sense no less than to intellect. Conversely, since God is the object of all cognition and of none rather than merely the object of the highest cognition, the cognitive ascent does not end with intellect. It extends beyond intellect to culminate in “the darkness of unknowing” … (Ibid., p. 93)

Platonism and neoplatonism are important philosophies at the base of the Western philosophical enterprise. For the purpose of church history, Neoplatonism plays an important role in the formation of certain philosophies and theologies in the church. Specifically, as I read more into Eastern Orthodoxy, the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius played an important role in the formation of Eastern Orthodoxy theology, as mediated by Eastern fathers such as Gregoras Palamas in his Triads. Dionysius is not actually written by the real Dionysius the Aeropagite (thus a "false writing" - pseudepigrapha), but it was thought to be so for a long time. The writer of these false writings was a Neoplatonist, and through him Neoplatonism influenced the theology of Eastern Orthodoxy.

But what does Neoplatonism believe in, besides the usual things we associate with Plato? In his book, Eric Perl brought forth certain aspects of Neoplatonism that can be seen in the writing of Psuedo-Dionysius. Concerning ontology, one thing that struck out was the absolute identity between being and thought. Whether Plato taught that to be the case I am unsure, but certainly this strong identification of one to the other was surprising. Note that Perl is not merely stating that Neoplatonism teaches that being and intelligibility are associated or linked, but that they are to be identified. Thus, it is not the case that things exist are intelligible, but rather that to begin to exist is to be intelligible, and to not begin to exist is to be unintelligible. In set theory, all elements of the set "having being" map exhaustively onto all elements of the set "being intelligible." This strict identification implies a collapse of epistemology into ontology, and I suppose that is why the issue of "being" is so prominent in many philosophical discussions.

In Perl's analysis of Dionysius as read alongside Plotinus and Proclus, this identification of being with intelligibility is the reason why Dionysius calls God (the philosophical "the One") "beyond being." To call God a "being" is to imply that he is derivative and not ultimate. To say that one can speak about what God is, is to likewise make God knowable and thus derivative, since being is intelligibility. Thus, in Dionysius, God is "beyond being" and we can describe him only using "negative theology" or apophatic theology. But unlike today's classical theists who use the term, apophatic theology in the Dionysian sense implies a total rejection of any description of God, such that even "ineffable" cannot be predicated of God, for to predicate something of God (even "ineffable") is to reduce him from cause to derivation. Dionysian apophatism is thorough and cannot be squared with any Western theology save mysticism.

Not surprisingly, Dionysian apophatism logically leads to a form of naturalism. The One is not separate from the world, but rather is the supreme unity of the world, in a descriptive manner of speaking (since it technically *is* not anything). While Neoplatonism would baulk at any determination of the One, both Proclus and Dionysius would reject the view that God can exist apart from the world (aseity), and thus no matter how apophatic they want to be, "the One" is certainly not a se therefore Neoplatonism would be considered a form of naturalism. Since Dionysius influenced Eastern Orthodoxy, it would be interesting to see to what extent Gregory Palamas and Eastern Orthodoxy in general utilized those ideas from Dionysius, but that is for another time.

Letham and Theosis

7. It is union with Christ, with his person. This goes beyond the indwelling of the Spirit in the church and its members, … (Robert Letham, Systematic Theology, p. 787)

This goes beyond communion. It entails union. It is more than participation in the communicable attributes of God. It is not to be restricted to union with righteousness, goodness, holiness, or truth, neither is it union with the benefits of Crist, as if it were union with the doctrine of sanctification. It is union with Christ. Moreover, the humanity of Christ were not simply united to some of God’s attributes; if it were, we would be left with an extreme form of Nestorianism. (p. 788)

Athanasius’s main term for expressing this is μέτοχοι (partakers). (p. 771)

The Eastern Orthodox teaching of theosis teaches that the godly will become partakers of the divine energies in what the western churches call glorification. Utilizing the essence/ energies distinction, theosis, while speaking of partaking of the divine, is not like fusing into the divine like a drop of water returns to the sea. Rather, it deals only with the "energies" of God. In Eastern Orthodoxy, that is basically stating that Man will become as close to the divine as creaturely possible.

The problem with theosis is that it remains an ontological category. This is compounded by Robert Letham who seems to embrace some version of theosis, which he insists is more than what the Reformed teaches about union with Christ. This is disturbing especially when he quotes Athanasius in his use of μέτοχοι (metachoi), as opposed to 2 Peter 1:4 where the term is κοινωνοι (koinōnoi). As seen in 2 Peter 1:4 therefore which deals with the divine, the use of koinōnoi rather than metachoi seems to indicate that the partaking is more of a perfect communion between two people, rather than any form of ontological unity.

It is for such reasons that Letham's embrace of some type of theosis is to be rejected. While not the same as ontological fusion, the ontological focus of theosis should make it unpalatable to all who hold to the Creator-creature distinction.

Letham, God, Essence and Energies

I am using the following terms thus: essence refers to who God is ..., and nature to what God is like. When we think of the divine attributes, we are working with this latter category. This very roughly corresponds to the Eastern distinction between essence and energies or powers. (Robert Letham, Systematic Theology, 157)

While not being an expert on how Eastern Orthodoxy exactly uses the term "energy" as opposed to "essence," I somehow doubt that Letham is correct in his understanding of what "energies" are. Do "energies" really correlate with the nature of God? Since in Eastern Orthodoxy, the focus is on theosis which is a union with the "energies" of God, a correlation of "energies" with "nature" seem to imply that Man actually become like God by nature, so we come to have a divine nature? What does that even mean?