In this passage, Jesus uses two different titles to describe Himself. The first is “light of the world.” This reference will immediately draw the reader back to the previous chapter, where Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). It is thus fitting that the miracle Jesus is about to perform will bring a blind man out of literal, physical darkness into literal light. In this way, Jesus’ miracle is meant to confirm his claim to being the light of the world.
The second title is “Son of Man.” This is the most common name Jesus uses of Himself in the New Testament. It is also a direct reference to Daniel 7:13, a passage that the Jews understood as referring to the coming Messiah. Jesus will later make reference to this passage when standing before the Sanhedrin on the night of his arrest, prompting outrage from the Jewish leaders (Mark 14:62-64). This is a clear reference to Jesus’ self-understanding of his divinity.
A third title is given to Jesus in this passage by the blind beggar, that of “prophet.” The Pharisees initially deny this. Though they don’t specifically say “prophet” they do conclude that Jesus “is not from God” because he broke the Sabbath. Despite this, when they ask the blind beggar who he believes Jesus to be, he replies, “He is a prophet.” The prophets of Israel were often accompanied by signs and wonders to prove to the people that they were sent by God, and this is likely what the beggar has in mind.
The purpose of Jesus’ miracle is clear: It a sign that He is who He claims to be. As stated above, Jesus bringing literal light to a man who was in literal darkness by way of healing his blindness demonstrates that Jesus is indeed the “light” of the world. Moreover, as the beggar clearly understood, this miracle proves that Jesus was sent from God, for “how could a sinner do such signs?” (John 9:16) This is always the purpose of the miracles in the Bible: To show God’s confirmation of His prophets. This is why Nicodemus reasoned that Jesus must be “a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs…unless God is with him” (John 3:2). By this sign, Jesus proved to the blind man that He was from God. Then, later, He returned to the blind man and revealed Himself as much more than a mere prophet, but as the Son of Man, or Messiah. The miracle had proven God’s confirmation of Jesus, and thus His confirmation of Jesus’ claims about Himself, including His claims to divinity, and so the blind man responds in faith and worships Jesus.
Jesus expects this response from the blind man, because he could not “see”, but now sees. This is the very reason Jesus says that He came into the world, to give sight to the blind. The Pharisees, however, are those who claim to “see” already, despite their blindness to the obvious working of God right before their eyes. This proves that they are in fact the “blind” ones. They have blinded themselves and refuse to accept the true sight, or “light”, that is standing right before them.
Do you think the water and mud resemble sacraments?
I don’t really see an obvious connection, no. Do you?
Well, grace being conferred through matter seems somewhat sacramental, doesn’t it?
Would you say that the mud and saliva themselves physically “carried” grace?
Sure, why not.
Does this passage give you any reason for thinking so? There are many other times when Jesus heals people without the use of physical substances.
I think this passage seems fairly cut and dried that Christ used the spittle and mud to heal the man’s eyes. Certainly Christ Doesn’t need matter to heal, but often he uses matter to heal. If you think that grace can’t operate through matter than I’d hask how St. Paul’s hankerchief healed people or how the bones of Elisha brought a dead man back to life in 2 Kings 13, or how the woman was able to be healed of her discharge by touching Christ’s robe, or basically just how Christ was able to operate graciously from within a human body?
Basically, there doesn’t seem any good reason to think that grace is not operating through matter in this passage as this is a fairly common Biblical occurence. It seems that the only reason to deny such a straight-forward reading of the text would some sort of prior philosophical committment about the unfitness of matter to be a vehicle for Divine Grace. Manicheeism anyone?
So physical objects carry grace in the sense that God makes them little grace banks independent of Himself? I hope I’m just unclear on this point, but that would mean that God couldn’t control who was given His grace via the sacraments (ie. bread/wine). If this was true, then we could manipulate God’s grace by, say, carrying the sacraments into battle with us to grant us His favor…or, maybe bring the ark into war against the Philisti…wait, that didn’t work.
Maybe you’d say that God makes little grace lockboxes, but He can withdraw His grace from them if they are improperly used? If so, I’m not sure how this differs from saying that God is the one giving His grace irrespective of physical elements, since it seems God is then conditioning His grace upon His desires, not the use of some physical element.
Maybe we have to perform certain rituals to invoke His grace? Sorcery, anyone?
Strawman anyone?
Seriously, this is as obvious a strawman as I’ve ever seen in my life. It betrays a lack of understanding of an Orthodox view of the Sacraments and of other holy objects (such as relics). God is not manipulated by the Sacraments, but uses them as a means to union with Him. His presence is in the Sacraments through His divine energies. These energies are salvific and healing for those fit to partake, but they judge and destroy those unfit. This is certainly true of the Eucharist.
Just look at 1 Corinthians 11. This is why many have become weak, ill, or deceased. They partook of the Sacrament improperly. The presence of God is healing for the righteous and judgement for the unrighteous. This, coupled with the fact that only the Church has the authority to administer sacraments, is the reason why they cannot manipulate God.
Why can’t God operate through matter? Is matter unfit for God? Is there some sort of opposition between God and matter that is unbridgeable? If so, then this implies a docetist Christology. If God can’t enter into and operate through matter, then Christ could not have done so with a material human body.
Furthermore, you didn’t really explain any of the clear instances of God operating graciously through matter in Scripture. What of Christ’s robe? Elisha’s bones? St. Paul’s hankerchief?
First off…I believe I started out saying “I hope I’m just unclear on this point”…I’m not claiming any deep knowledge of Orthodox faith, so…if you would…please refrain from the knee-jerk responses. It’s unbecoming of someone of your intellect and lowers the level of discourse for everyone.
As to the rest of your post, I’ll look at it in reverse order (with points, so you know if you’re responding to everything):
1. “You didn’t really explain any of the clear instances of God operating graciously through matter in Scripture. What of Christ’s robe? Elisha’s bones? St. Paul’s hankerchief?”
Good examples, although I’m not recalling the handkerchief incident in the New Testament, but I’m too lazy to find out where it is.
These are very clear examples of God acting graciously. Let’s use Christ’s robe: tons of people were pressing against Christ, and none were being judged or in any way affected by the contact until one woman was healed by it. One person out of many being blessed sure looks like God’s grace to me.
Again, BIG DISCLAIMER: I could be misunderstanding you…but this looks a lot more like God’s grace to me than some mystical indwelling of Christ’s robe. Was this woman the only believer in the crowd? The only one with need of healing? If Peter had worn the robe later (as the physical manifestation of God’s will on earth), could he have gone into battle against the Romans and shot lightning from his eyes? (Okay, the last one wasn’t serious…sorry)
2. You yourself may be guilty of a strawmanning here. I don’t speak for Dave, but I would never contend that God can’t or has never worked through physical matter (ie. the whole existence of Christ)…I’m just saying He doesn’t necessarily imbue objects with His divine footprint. Otherwise, the church better retake Mount Sinai pretty quick, because we know for sure that God Himself touched the rock there, and anyone who climbs that mountain with a willing heart can be saved.
God has certainly shown his grace to people through matter, but I’m not sure I buy the idea that such power remains in a “salvific and healing” sense.
3. I really don’t see what bearing 1 Cor 11 has here. If I have the sniffles, it means I might have taken communion with an unworthy heart? Anyway…as far as I know, the EO doctrine of the Lord’s Supper is more like consubstantiation than transubstantiation, so rather than lump you with the Catholics, I’ll stick you with my understanding of the Lutherans. Thankfully you don’t believe in perseverance of the saints like some Lutherans, or you’d be like my grandparents, sure they’re going to heaven because they took communion once. Instead, it seems like the church is God’s gas/service station on earth, where good little believers putter up and get their tanks filled with grace and their lives tuned up. (Okay, I’m being a jerk again)
The Calvinist doctrine of communion isn’t that far off of that of consubstantiation other than that the bread and wine are not salvific. This might be the real “matter” that we’re debating here. Since most high church believers see the church as God’s representative on earth with some literal control over the salvation of the flock, things like communion become a big deal. I’m wondering…if the Orthodox church were to keep everyone from taking communion and lock up all the relics in Moscow…would they be damning everyone to hell?
I’m guessing you reject the notion of Solo Christo, since you hate everything Calvinist, so you might answer my last hypothetical with a yes. If Christ isn’t sufficient for our salvation or some other entity must rubber stamp our entry into heaven, then…well, I’m going to hell. Seems like a difference over that aspect of salvation is so fundamental as to be irreconcilable, so unless you can get the Patriarch or the pope or someone to forgive my Calvinist ancestry, it’s been nice knowing you.
4. Well, if you’re still reading…I’m guessing your blood pressure is off the charts. If not, then I’m guaranteeing that you won’t respond to this post. I guess I could be nice and strip some basic questions that I have from the rhetoric I used above: Can you be saved if you don’t take communion? If yes, does the Lord’s Supper make you “more saved”? What if it’s being administered by the unbelieving servants of Satan himself who broke off from the true church back in the 8th century?
In the end, who’s controlling the “God” in the relics and sacraments? The church? What if they screw up or try to use such things improperly? Does God remove His blessing or automatically substitute a curse in such cases?
Even assuming relics etc. can do what you believe…is everyone who doesn’t receive a miracle damned by touching them? If people can simply “not receive grace” when they touch Jesus’ robe, it seems like the operative element in all such instances has a lot more to do with God’s will than His physical presence in some particular matter. God Himself left the temple at various times. Even though He certainly uses matter, I don’t believe that He endows it with particular power…God just uses stuff. We should focus on God, not things.
Donald–
To add on to the stuff Mark was saying, consider the following as a response.
You wrote:
“So physical objects carry grace in the sense that God makes them little grace banks independent of Himself?”
Response:
The language of “independence” you use is interesting. Saying that grace dwells in physical objects is not saying that grace is in them independently of God. For grace *is* God. Specifically, grace is God as He personally manifests himself in the world through his activities (energies). To say that there is grace in the sacraments means that by definition, God is himself present in them; God acts in and through the sacraments. So no, they are not grace banks independent of God. They are vessels of the gift that is God Himself. The sacraments surely don’t contain God’s essence (the transcendent aspect of God that is beyond language, thought, and even the categories of ontology) but they do contain divine activities.
Lets think about this biblically. God’s glory is a unique manifestation of his presence; so unique, in fact, that we can accurately say that the glory is God (Lev 16:2, Rev 22:5, Isa 6:1 and John 12:41). The fact that the glory is “God as He manifests himself actively and immanently” but not “God’s ultimate transcendent aspect” is obvious especially in Exodus 33. God’s glory dwelt in the Tabernacle (Ex 40:34-5). The tabernacle became a vessel of divine glory. And yet this doesn’t imply that because the glory has a particular location, it is independent of God. The tabernacle was a place of the presence of God, not a “grace bank independent of Himself”. Similarly, the sacraments can carry divine grace without that grace being independent of God.
You wrote:
“I hope I’m just unclear on this point, but that would mean that God couldn’t control who was given His grace via the sacraments (ie. bread/wine). If this was true, then we could manipulate God’s grace by, say, carrying the sacraments into battle with us to grant us His favor…or, maybe bring the ark into war against the Philisti…wait, that didn’t work.
“Maybe you’d say that God makes little grace lockboxes, but He can withdraw His grace from them if they are improperly used? If so, I’m not sure how this differs from saying that God is the one giving His grace irrespective of physical elements, since it seems God is then conditioning His grace upon His desires, not the use of some physical element.”
Response:
The issue you bring up with whether or not we can appropriate grace in a way that God doesn’t want us to is a good point. But the identification of grace with divine activities helps solve this problem. Saying that grace is in the sacraments means that God is active in and through them. But God can surely control how He acts. So if God wanted his glory to depart from somewhere, He could have it depart. He could cease to act a certain way–namely in a way that is conducive to salvation–in and through the sacraments. So I’m agreeing basically with your initial consideration of a possible defense of the sacramental position (“Maybe you’d say that God…can withdraw his grace if…improperly used”).
But does this imply that there’s no real difference between saying this, and saying grace works independently of sacraments? If God can withdraw his grace, how is this different from saying that God is the one giving the grace irrespective of the physical elements? I think this argument depends on the assumption you make at the end of your last sentence: “if God is conditioning his grace upon his desires, then He operates irrespective of physical elements”. Why think this is true? Lets say your dad and mom are planning to give you and your brother stockings for Christmas and put gifts in them. Your mom is the one sewing the stockings, and your dad is the one supplying the gifts. Your dad says “If you kids are good, I’ll send gifts in your stockings.” He proceeds to put three small gifts in each of your stockings. Over the course of the next 3 weeks, your brother consistently misbehaves, and you consistently behave. Your father watches and removes all 3 gifts from your brother’s stocking. On Christmas morning, your mother hands you and your brother your respective stockings. You look inside and pull out the 3 gifts; your brother looks inside and sees no gifts.
Now I don’t know about you, but I would say that your father had actually been using the stockings to send you his gifts. This is distinct from saying that your father just gives you gifts irrespective of stockings. It doesn’t matter that he could remove the gifts if he wanted to; the gifts are still sent in and through the stockings your mother made. What matters is the question “are the gifts in the stockings?” not the question “could the gifts have been removed from the stockings?”. What matters is not hypothetical issues of conditions (could the stocking have been emptied if my father decided not to put my gifts in there? could the gifts have been given without a stocking?) but the identification issue of parts, properties, and relations (is the gift actually in the stocking?).
Lets give a biblical spin to this. God’s glory dwelt in the temple, but it also left the temple. In Ezekial, God (the glory) went from the cherubim to the Temple to a mountain east of Jerusalem (Ezek. 8:4, 9:3, 10:4, 19, 11:22-23). Hence God’s glory wasn’t connected of necessity with any particular location. But does this imply that there is no significant difference between God being there in the temple and mediating his presence (contingently and conditionally) from it, and God not being there at all? I certainly don’t think so.
You wrote:
“Maybe we have to perform certain rituals to invoke His grace? Sorcery, anyone?”
Response:
I’m not sure what you mean by sorcery; but I’ll assume that it involves (1) man approaching a deity without any kind of positive disposition, in a very contractual sort of way that involves no personal interaction; (2) being able to force the deity to reveal himself when called upon–man controlling God at his whim.
Grace is not just operative; it is cooperative. We are God’s co-workers (2 Cor 6:1-2) who must receive grace worthily to be saved, who must call on God who will listen to us and save us . We are urged to cooperate (work out our salvation in fear and trembling) because God gives us grace (energizes us to will and to energize according to his good pleasure; Phil 2:12-13). We must make use of the grace (receive the word of God) that is present within us already (implanted, which is able to save your souls). God does not just unilaterally act on us and cause us to improve irrespective of our cooperation. Various divine activities can enter into human nature through different ways (the grace that is always present in human nature, Christ’s indwelling all human nature and filling it with more grace, coming into contact with things in the world that mediate grace). But none of it can be accessed and actually participated in by a person unless that person freely makes use of the grace that is present in his or her nature. To return to the stocking analogy, lets say that your dad gives you and your brother each three gifts in your respective stockings. You decide to personally make use of the gifts in your stocking: you take them out, open them up, and use them for what they were intended for. Your brother disregards the stocking and its contents. In doing so, he scorns the gifts and does not receive them: he fails to cooperate with the generousity of your father.
One of the key ingredients of personal response to grace is faith. Without the act of faith, we cannot appropriate the grace of the sacraments. So sorcery is out of the question for that reason. Grace can only be received by those who cooperate with God’s activities. That requires faith, hope, and love. So you can’t have the grace in a contractual sort of way where you have no positive personal response to God; that is definitionally impossible.
As my explanations above imply, God doesn’t have to reveal himself to us just because we do certain things. You could go through all the preparation in the world to get ready for God to reveal his glory to you, and he still doesn’t have to. Sacraments are different from “magic” for many reasons, one of which is that it is God who is in control of the process. He is sovereign, and his activity is under his control at all times. God’s presence can leave things (to varying degrees and in specific ways) instantaneously if He wants it to.
Ancient Israel obviously approached God through ritual and by gathering in particular holy places. But this doesn’t imply they were sorcerors–at least not all the time. They would have been (by my definition) when/if they did so with no love, and if they could force God to respond to them. But that’s not how it always was/is.
Well, I can only afford a brief reply (edit, okay, so not so brief…but it is rambling and possibly incoherent
) First, I appreciate a helpful response to my often irritating rhetorical style. I employed that style even more liberally in my response to Mark, but there are some related questions in there that I’d love to have answered concerning the church’s role in the whole sacramental equation.
Second, I looked at the several verses you listed for the proposition that God’s glory is God. Exodus 33 seems the most obvious, but I don’t think you’d distinguish God’s glory from His presence. (We’re probably just slicing the baloney in similar ways coming from different ends of the table here)
The conclusion that you draw that I find more interesting is the idea that God Himself is present in the matter of the sacraments inasmuch as His grace possesses them (I believe this is accurate to your statement). You appear to draw the conclusion that God’s attributes are to some extent discrete manifestations of His overall presence. I see this in the suggestion that God’s transcendence (most certainly one of His attributes [why He's 'Lord of Lords, etc]) is somehow separate from His grace to the extent that He indwells inanimate objects.
In nearly every manifestation of God in the Bible, the transcendence of His attributes are stressed. That’s why His glory makes Moses glow and Paul blind, His grace surpasses understanding, or His love is deeper than the ocean. Don’t take me the wrong way when I say this, but it doesn’t appear that God does anything half-assed. Although He might veil His full transcendence, He never appears in anything but the fullness of Himself.
What I’m trying to point out here is the transcendence of God. I never contend that God does not use matter, or even that He does not veil Himself sometimes in it, but that the Creator at all times transcends the Creation. Christ was surely fully man, but at the same time, the true glory of His godhead was veiled by the flesh on earth as it is not in heaven. This is partly why I think we may be hitting a disconnect here.
I think your gift analogy is a little inadequate in relating the differences between your view and mine. If I get what you’re saying right, then the gifts that the father puts in the stocking would not be presents, but presence (bad pun, sorry). If God is His Grace, then little aspects of your dad would be hiding in your stocking.
This may be where our views differ a bit. I don’t believe that grace, love, or power are things. They are descriptions of attributes and attitudes. You might say that a loving husband is filled with love, but I don’t believe there is some divisible aspect there called love. Rather, a husband is fillled with love in relation to the magnitude of his affection for his wife. When I say God is Love (which I would affirm), I don’t mean that God is literally love, but that He is the transcendent manifestation of that concept. His love abounds to us to the fullest measure that that word could mean and beyond, but that doesn’t mean that His love could indwell some animal crackers and give me a warm feeling in my tummy (unless they were soaked in vodka).
I think glory may be a little different in that it is a visible (in a limited sense) attribute of God. When His glory dwelt in the temple, only the High Priest could enter His presence. When His glory passed by Moses (even in part, and veiled), Moses literally glowed. When Christ appeared in glory to Paul, it blinded him, and when John saw the glory of God in Revelation, he could only recount it in allegory, as its reality defied description.
My point is that I think everything about God points to His transcendence. God is not just Holy, He is Holy, Holy. He is not just Mighty, He is Almighty. You get my drift. I think my emphasis on the transcendence of the divine leads to my differing view of communion, and this may not be the most adequate space to really hammer out those differences; however, I can say this. I’m extremely wary of pointing to anything but Christ and saying, “There is God.” I think the purpose of the sacraments, Old Testament sacrifices, and, well, everything, is to point us to God Himself as the sole worthy object of our adoration and consideration. We endanger ourselves by ever focusing on some earthly or material manifestation of God’s attributes without being drawn immediately to their source. God Himself is gracious whenever, however, and to whomever He pleases, I don’t look to the sacraments as manifestations of His grace but rather as signposts directing us to Him in all His transcendent fullness.
As to the sorcery point…I meant it to be ridiculous. I don’t actually think you would advocate something like sorcery or manipulating God. Don’t have time to rehash cooperative grace. I’ve been dodging exam study for too long already.
Donald, I’ll deal with some of the earlier stuff probably later but in regards to your trying to understand Mike’s post:
I can understand your intuitions about the transcendence of God. Basically, you will hear a sort of double-talk from the Fathers on the issue of the energies being God Himself. God is His energies, but He is also beyond them. This is because there is a real metaphysical distinction between God’s essence and God’s energies. God’s essence is what is utterly and completely transcendent, but God’s energies are what bridge this gap between His essence and us.
So God is His Glory, but he is also beyond His Glory. This is what is meant by the writer of Exodus when He talks about the difference between what Moses can see of God and what he can’t. It’s very interesting to see how this plays out in the Eastern view of God and time, specifically in Dionysius the Areopogite. God experiences time both temporally and from an eternal standpoint, but he is not circumscribed by either since time and eternity are both energies of God.
So, all that to say, I agree with your intuitions about transcedence in regards to God’s essence. God is beyond all being. He is not even a being at all. He is completely uncircumscribable by anything. Yet, God also needs to be immanent if we are to become “partakers of the Divine Nature,” as St. Peter so eloquently puts it. This is where energies come in. To understand the Eastern view of the essence-energies distinction and its place in the Scriptures and the Fathers, check out Dr. David Bradshaw’s papers. You can find them by just googling his name and going on his site.
This is what I thought MG was getting at. It’s also pretty much what I’m rejecting. It seems like this would create at least another dozen or so facets of the godhead at this point, since God’s energies are divisible from His transcendent essence. Sorta the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Grace, Love, Mercy, Justice, Power, etc. etc. (or even each of those attributes as a subheading for each of the F,S, & HS).
Basically, it seems to be dividing the substance of the godhead…something the Athanasian Creed places outside the realm of Christian faith. Although, of course, I suspect that you reject the Athanasian Creed, since the EO church was never particularly fond of it (being largely consumed by Arianism at the time of its writing [500s in Gaul, not by Athanasius]).
Persons aren’t energies and energies aren’t persons. Furthermore, while energies are distinct from essence, this does not mean they are divisible from essence. Distinction does not imply metaphysical divisibility, only conceptual divisibility; otherwise we would have to say that the three persons of the Trinity were divisible because they are distinct, although one must keep in mind that persons and energies are very different things. Energies are activities, the exercising of various powers/capacities/dunamis; while person is a fairly difficult to define concept that has to do with vague notions such as “the self,” “the ego,” and “the other.”
Personhood is a specific mode of existence that is utterly unique, and not reducible to any type of part-whole relationship. Ultimately, any individual person cannot be described adequately by language, because language is for generalities and persons are utterly unique. This is why one needs names to denote a specific person. Lastly, because persons cannot be described linguistically, they must be experienced to be known. Knowing a person is not like knowing an abastract proposition.
As far as Creeds are concerned: Substance is a way to translate ousia, which is better translated essence. It is a distinct metaphysical category from energia, or energies and thus, the Orthodox conception of the Divine Energies does not divide the essence of God.
Why do you hold the Athanasian Creed as important? Why would tradition be important for you? Even if tradtion was important for you, the Athanasian Creed isn’t authoritative in any sense. It was not developed by an ecumenical council, nor used across all of of Christendom. The Nicene Creed is the symbol of the Christian faith, not the so-called apostles creed or Athanasian creed which as you know were neither written by the Apostles, nor Athanasius.
I don’t know where you’re getting the Arian charge from? I could just be being ignorant here, but you might want to recheck your history. As far as I’m aware, the Church in the 500’s was dealing with the leftover Christological controversies of Nestorianism and Monophysitism.
Finally, although I don’t find anything in the “Athanasian creed” that would establish an Orthodox doctrine if the essence/energies distinction as heretical, I do find something heretical in the Athanasian creed; namely, the filioque (although this may have been added in after it was written, I’m by no means an expert on this so called creed). This would be enough for me to dismiss the creed as un-Christian and not authoritative.
Basically, if you’re gonna use creeds, you gotta use the one that’s actually authoritative and binding: The Nicene Creed.
MG,
I may be missing something, but how does God manifesting Himself (whether we call it His “energies” or not) in the Temple or Tabernacle bear on the issue of the sacraments? Are you suggesting that God’s energies actually entered or indwelled the physical structure of the building itself? If not, then the simple fact that God chose to manifest His presense within a certain area of physical space doesn’t speak at all to the issue of whether or not the bread and wine transform. You said that “the tabernacle became a vessel of divine glory.” This may be true depending on how we interpret it, but it doesn’t seem to be at all true in the same sense as you’re arguing that the bread and wine become vessels of glory.
I’d also like to hear your thoughts on what Donald said about the sick woman and Jesus’ robe:
“…tons of people were pressing against Christ, and none were being judged or in any way affected by the contact until one woman was healed by it. One person out of many being blessed sure looks like God’s grace to me. Again, BIG DISCLAIMER: I could be misunderstanding you…but this looks a lot more like God’s grace to me than some mystical indwelling of Christ’s robe. Was this woman the only believer in the crowd? The only one with need of healing?”
Mark, my understanding of ancient church history is largely cursory. At the time of Athanasius (4th Cen) the church was indeed largely consumed by Arian-style heresy. Although Athanasius appealed to what would eventually become orthodox teaching, he was for a time subsumed in his area by the sheer number of Arians. I’m not sure when exactly that situation changed, just as we’re not sure when exactly the Athanasian Creed was produced.
I’d be a little careful with charges of heresy if I were you. If the filioque is truly heresy, then all of Western Christendom (including me) are damned to hell. If it’s simply error, the situation may be different. I’ve been operating under the assumption that you’re still a Christian no matter how much we’ve disagreed so far; maybe the feeling’s not mutual.
In terms of why I used the Athanasian Creed, it’s simply because it’s one of the creeds widely accepted by Western Christendom…nothing more. I don’t find any of the creeds to be authoritative or binding in the sense you’re implying because I do not believe that tradition is a source of binding authority on anything close to the level of the Scripture. I used the one I did because it pointed to the area I was interested in, not because I see it in any way equivalent to Scriptural truth.
Oh, and I still hold to my point that God’s grace is not actually God but simply one of His attributes.
Don’t have time to post much now…too many papers and deadlines
But just so we’re clear: The filioque is a heresy. In the canons of the second ecumenical council it specifically states that nothing is to be added or subtracted from the Creed. Furthermore, there was a council that was by my judgements “ecumenical” that was held in 879 which Pope John VIII attended that declared that adding the filioque to the creed was against the faith of the apostles.
However, one has to know what an Orthodox means by this in order to judge it. Being a heretic does not mean that one certainly goes to hell. I’ve found that in general a distinction is made in Orthodoxy between the purpetrators of heresy and those how follow. Certainly not everyone who happened to find themselves on the Western side of the divide come 1054 went to hell. We don’t even say for sure where the purpatrators of heresies end up. We hope that Arius is saved on the last day. I don’t think it seems likely, but all things are possible with God.
A heretic simply means that one claims to be a Christian but denys what the church plainly teaches. This is heresy. While heresy does not automatically condemn one to hell, it still warps your view of God and reality, so it’s not a good thing.
You seem to have a very legal framework for understanding salvation Donald. Obviously this isn’t surprising given that this is the way that Western Christianity understands salvation a la Anselm. This is a big reason why you might have trouble understanding Orthodoxy because we operate off of a completely different framework with regards to salvation, specifically one that is ontological. Sin is a disease that needs to be healed so that man might be united to God and “become partakers of the Divine Nature.” healing and theosis. That’s the basic way salvation looks to the Orthodox. This is the logic that guided all the Christological debates.
That is really the divide between our views. I believe the legal analogy is one of the most prevalently used ones when describing God and His people (“You have tested me” is roughly equivalent to bringing suit/ the whole book of Micah is a courtroom drama, etc.). Of course, I may just like the legal view a whole lot more b/c I’m going to Georgetown Law. Feel free to dismiss my views based on such bias
David–
Keep in mind that when I say “sacrament” I don’t just mean the bread and wine. Any kind of mediation of divine grace through creation is sacramental. And I’m not giving some kind of argument for a specific idea of what the Eucharist as a sacrament constitutes. I’m not trying to argue that it involves transformation of the elements. All I’ve been doing is suggesting that divine grace can be mediated through matter. (of course at that point its hard to see why we wouldn’t accept that the elements change…)
I can’t think of any reason not to think that God indwelt the matter itself, as opposed to just the physical space contiguous with the matter that occupied it. Moses’ face certainly had the divine glory shining from it; that seems to be an example of glorified matter (not to mention Christ’s glorified body). Paul says that one day God will be all in all. And Jesus says that all things are possible with God. He also gives the uncreated glory of God to his disciples and has it dwell in them in John 17. I don’t see why the matter couldn’t be indwelt here.
Even if we don’t go this far, the idea that God’s glory can be located inside of the space inside a physical object (ie. the hollow space of the temple–even if it isn’t dwelling in the particles of matter) is sacramental. We think space (especially holy space) is sacramental too, including the space occupied by the physical objects that are normally called sacraments.
With respect to Donald’s suggestion about the tons of people who touched the robe, that’s very interesting. It makes one wonder why that particular woman got well. If many had faith, and if many of those with faith touched his robe, that does seem to bring up the question of why it healed on that occasion. God sometimes works mysteriously.
But that issue doesn’t call into question the fact that still, it seems that in Mark 5:27-34 the grace is in and comes through the robe from Christ. After all, Jesus perceives that “the *power proceeding from Him* had *gone forth*” when the woman *touched* the robe. The divine presence that came from Jesus entered the woman *through* the touching of his robe.
Also, the mystical indwelling of Christ’s robe just *is* divine grace; its not a matter of “either God’s grace or mystical indwelling”. Grace is God’s presence/life/activity/power/nature given to us. Hence Philipians 2:12-13 it is God’s energies that are the gift that enables salvation. And in 2 Peter 1:4 participation in the divine nature comes through having God’s power, grace, and glory. Further examples abound. Make sure to see David Bradshaw’s work on this, “The Divine Glory and the Divine Energies”.
“I can’t think of any reason not to think that God indwelt the matter itself, as opposed to just the physical space contiguous with the matter that occupied it.”
Perhaps, but do you have any reason to think that?
“Even if we don’t go this far, the idea that God’s glory can be located inside of the space inside a physical object (ie. the hollow space of the temple–even if it isn’t dwelling in the particles of matter) is sacramental.”
Because He’s indwelling the air molecules? At this point any manifestation of God in any way outside of the spiritual realm is “sacramental”, and then our disagreement seems to come down to definitions.
In any case, my original purpose was to point out that this doesn’t seem to be a good example. First of all it was God’s glory in the temple, not grace (though you may take issue with this). Secondly, it was visible. Protestants have no problem accepting this while at the same time denying the transformation of the elements, if only because there seem to be several major disconnects. And keep in mind that Calvin (and possibly Luther too, though I’m not sure) thought that grace was indeed conferred by the sacraments, he simply took issue with the possibility of Christ’s physical body being able to leave heaven and “attend” thousands of Masses simultaneously.
“All I’ve been doing is suggesting that divine grace can be mediated through matter. (of course at that point its hard to see why we wouldn’t accept that the elements change…)”
Actually, that seems to be another big disconnect that we ought not take for granted. How does God’s energies being mediated through matter in any way suggest the transformation of one physical substance into another?
In any case, I still haven’t read Bradshaw’s article on energies, so I need to do that soon.
David–
You wrote:
“Perhaps, but do you have any reason to think that?”
I gave some examples. It seems like glory dwells in matter in the case of Moses’ face and glorified/resurrected human bodies. Would you not consider these examples of divine glory dwelling in matter?
You wrote:
“Because He’s indwelling the air molecules? At this point any manifestation of God in any way outside of the spiritual realm is “sacramental”, and then our disagreement seems to come down to definitions.”
No, because He is present at points in space. The question then becomes whether physical objects can transmit the grace inside of them.
You wrote:
“In any case, my original purpose was to point out that this doesn’t seem to be a good example. First of all it was God’s glory in the temple, not grace (though you may take issue with this). Secondly, it was visible. Protestants have no problem accepting this while at the same time denying the transformation of the elements, if only because there seem to be several major disconnects. And keep in mind that Calvin (and possibly Luther too, though I’m not sure) thought that grace was indeed conferred by the sacraments, he simply took issue with the possibility of Christ’s physical body being able to leave heaven and “attend” thousands of Masses simultaneously.”
Is God’s glory not a grace? To use a very basic definition of grace that even you should agree with: Glory is a gift of God, that helps us, right?
Regarding visibility, you could use that same kind of argument against the Incarnation. If you respond “well, but God told us that it was happening” then I would say the same thing about the Eucharist.
Regarding Calvin and Luther, yes, that’s right. Calvin’s metaphysics of universals prevented him from affirming that the same thing could be multiply instantiated; he therefore denied the possibility that the body and blood could be present in many places at once. Luther affirmed this was possible because he held to the communicatio idiomatum (the idea that the properties of the divine nature of Christ got transferred onto the human nature) and hence thought that Christ’s body could be omnipresent.
But what relevance does this have?
You wrote:
“Actually, that seems to be another big disconnect that we ought not take for granted. How does God’s energies being mediated through matter in any way suggest the transformation of one physical substance into another?”
Christ’s glorified body was indwelt by divine energies and it definately had different and weird properties as a result. You might say it was transformed…
You wrote:
“In any case, I still haven’t read Bradshaw’s article on energies, so I need to do that soon.
Good idea.