Kant and subjectivism

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear All,

The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) introduced the distinction between phenomena (things as they appear) and noumena (things as they are, in themselves). Kant claimed that noumena are unknowable and indescribable. (How far does this relate, I wonder, to the Orthodox understanding of logoi?)

The psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875 - 1961) then went on to apply this distinction to God (as noumenon), and the image or concept we have of Him in our mind (as phenomenon); Jung suggested that because of this distinction it is impossible to know whether God exists in fact, as distinct from the image we have of Him in our minds. Hence, the dogmatic claims of theologians for the objective existence of God are in fact merely psychological statements about subjective experiences. My question is: what would an Orthodox response to this be? How do we show that dogmatic claims concerning God are indeed objectively true, rather than subjective concepts?

I know these are hard questions, but I wonder if someone can point a way out of the objective / subjective dilemma that is appropriate for Orthodox Christians?

In Christ
Byron

[Owen Jones]

A thinker must be evaluated and judged, not only in terms of how he may concur with or conflict with Christian theology, but on his own terms. That is to say, are there inherent problems or contradictions in a thinker's ideas. Does he accomplish what he claims to have accomplished. Are there intrinsic flaws in his thought. Has he accomplished something that is worthy of consideration, regardless of the flaws. And so on.

With respect to Kant, I suspect that very few people have read him, and those who have probably do not understand him, and I pretty much fall into that category. But my sense is that Kant is following in the European tradition post Aquinas and the tendency in Catholic thought to develop a metaphysical proof of the existence of God. That is, to treat God in an objective or objectivized way. This, I believe, is something that Kant refutes. On the other hand, Kant is not a solipsist. He does not argue that we cannot know anything, or that all knowledge is subjective, as many of his Christian critics claim. The reaction to Kant seems to have taken several tracks among Western Christianity -- a further objecification, in the form of fundamentalism; romanticism; and Christian skepticism. None of these are helpful. In non-Christian thought, Kant spawns the school of phenomenology, which, in summation, says that we can only study or learn from phenomena.

Perhaps we could step back and look at our own tradition which is sadly misunderstood or simply ignored in the West. Orthodoxy understands and appreciates the symbolic nature of reality and existence, including the words we use to discuss the nature of God and His Creation and the reality in between. By theological truth, we do not mean factual information that is lying around for anyone to pick up. By truth we refer to a realm of existence in-between what is known and what is unknown, between matter and spirit, between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven, that is represented by our liturgy, and must be lived out in our daily lives through faith. IN orther words, truth is somethng that we live, not something we look up in a book.

Kant's skepticism toward an objective theology and metphysics is not totally inconsistent with Orthodox views, but Kant began the trend to philosophical skepticism that holds to this day. IN place of that, he seems to posit the moral "ought." Being a good German bourgeois conservative, he understands that morality is the basis of civilized order, and that there must be some impregnable argument in favor of morality. But Christian thought never has been grounded in morality per se. And the moralization of Christianity is one of the problems confounding the modern Church and the modern Christian.

At any rate, God is not simply an object of human cognition or conjecture, nor is man simply a subject of God's love and grace, as we have seen in recent postings regarding the problem of evil. What is man that Thou are mindful of Him? In being just a little lower than the angels, and capable of transformation, man is seen in our tradition as a composite of divine and human elements that is, shall we say, dynamic in nature. In one sense our nature is fixed -- all men are liars, no man is good, no not one. On the other hand, man is potentially divine in nature and the mysterious interaction between nature and grace is not something that can be objectivized into entirely separate realms. That is why in our tradition we think in terms of an intermediate realm between our fallen nature and our redeemed or divinized nature. I don't know where that leaves Kant, but Eric Voegelin is the best expositor of Kant and if one can find his collected works in a major library you can look up his essay on Kant in Volume 8, which I intend to do some day myself!

[Owen Jones]

About Kant and Voegelin--

There is of course the Ranieri source cited a few weeks ago.

It may be of interest to read Leszek Kolakowski's "Why Do We Need Kant?"
reprinted in his Modernity on Endless Trial. "Being human is not a
zoological but a moral concept" summarizes one element of Kant's
anthropology that he (Kolakowski, but here no doubt Voegelin would concur)
finds permanently valuable, while he finds Kant's transcendental doctrines
about the conditions of human knowing--theoretical and practical--to be
valuable for for their defense of the formal definitions of reason and
morality in the struggle against historicism.

In what context did Voegelin make his statement?

At the very least, someone like Kant deserves to be read, and not merely
summarized. Since good English translations are readily available, this is
just a matter of time and discipline.

The three great Critiques--Pure Reason, Practical Reason, Judgement--lay out
his project for securing the theoretical foundations for our knowledge of
the "physical world", the "moral world", and the "aesthetic world
(Urteilskraft--judgement)". It is an immensely ambitious project. In the
course of these works, Kant made or adapted memorable arguments and
distinctions which many find either indispensable or at least historically
significant for their enormous influence. "Phenomenal" and "noumenal" is
one of them. It has existed since the time of Sextus Empiricus, at least.

Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone stakes out a program for liberal
Protestantism that many contemporary Christians regard as a disastrous
derailment. There is no point to prayer, Kant believes.

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals is a short later work restates that
his moral philosophy and gives his deduction of the "Categorical Imperative"
(in four different formulations). The notion of "autonomy of the will" is
conceived memorably (and many would say, incorrectly).

The short essay "What is Enlightenment?" is a model of clarity and
concision, and "Perpetual Peace" has been an inspiration to liberal
one-worldism for two centuries now. And so on.

Hegel famously combatted Kant's "epistemological turn" most pertinaciously
in the Introduction to The Phenomenology of Spirit. It is a memorable
battle of the giants, and I commend it to any interested in pursuing the
topic. It might even take your mind off the girl in class for a few
moments.

The time period between the publication of the Critiques (1780's) and
Hegel's Phenomenology (1807) saw a number of memorable criticisms,
reactions, and developments in response to what was regarded by many as an
epoch-making work that demanded response. Jacobi, Herder, Hamann, Schulze,
Reinhold, Beck, Fichte, Schelling , Hegel and Maimon all published
controversial works in this period of "Kantian aftermath".

Documents from this period are available in English in di Giovanni and
Harris, Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of Post-Kantian
Idealism. di Giovanni's Essay "The Facts of Consciousness" is excellent,
should catch the interest of any reader of Voegelin.

Frederick Beiser's The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte
is a highly readable overview. I understand Beiser more recently has
published a work on Hegel himself, but have not seen it.

Read a bit of Kant, and see if some of the issues begin to come into focus.
{this is from another website: OAJ}

[Father David Moser]

The problem of subjectivism/objectivism as defined by Kant and Jung really ends up being absurd. The basic question of philosophy is "Can you know?" and only if that is answered in the affirmative can one proceed. If you extend the subjective/objective distinction to its end and apply it to every interaction then it is apparent that one cannot know and so the whole effort is futile.

If it is not possible to know God directly but only as an element of our subjective experience, then neither is it possible to know another person other than as an element of our subjective experience. Extend that further and it is impossible even to know whether I myself exist apart from my own subjective experience. Thus it is impossible to know any objective phenomenon - everything is tainted by my subjective perception. The trap, of course, is the absolutization of human senses and reason - if I see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, then it must be real (and if you see it too and use the same words to describe your exprience as I then we have confirmation that it is real, or maybe we just have confirmation that we are experiencing a mass hallucination or worse yet a pervasive delusion) - but even that is suspect if you carry the idea of subjectification to its end. Foolishness in the highest degree!

God CAN be known directly apart from one's own subjective ideas and we know this from the experience of the saints who in their lives know God. If we reject that this is possible then we fall into the same trap as Kant and Jung and nothing becomes knowable.

Fr David Moser

[Owen Jones]

More on Kant --

Kant rejects the notion that we can produce propositions about that which is beyond experience. What is beyond experience includes "the thing in itself" or the substance or essence of that which appears. Metaphysics is largely a failed attempt to get behind experiences (phenomena) and to produce propositions about what does not appear (noumena). Kant does not doubt that there are noumena (e.g., we can distinguish our selves that we directly experience from the noumenal selves that undergird the actions of our empirical selves) but attempts to categorize our selves as, for instance, free and determined lapse into contradictions (antinomies) that doom the enterprise of propositional metaphysics.

What we can do, according to Kant, is to analyze the (transcendental) conditions of experience and reveal its structure through the necessary categories through which experience comes to us.

Voegelin agrees with this, wishing to comment on "the structures of consciousness" rather than the contents of consciousness. Voegelin, however, wants to bypass the aporia that Kant lapses into by talking "about" noumena when consciousness, on Kant's account, is structured to refer to phenomena that are organized into categories that do not allow designation of noumenal realities. Voegelin, who I think is closer to Dilthey than to Kant, insists that our awareness of "God" or "It-Reality" as he has it in OH5 is a part of the structure of consciousness, and that the structure of consciousness can be analyzed through valid linguistic objectifications (linguistic Indicies & Type Concepts). We can talk the reality of God as a symbol engendered by consciousness without talking "about" God through a series of metaphysical propositions. As Voegelin argues at length in the section on Hegel in OH5 "God" is not a "senseless sound."

Voegelin does not go past Kant insofar as he accepts the principle that we are to confine our propositions (but not our symbols) to what is given in experience. He goes past Kant in rejecting his analysis of the structure of consciousness.

I am not sure what it means to say that Kant was a "theological skeptic." He is skeptical of the "proofs" (a modern term) of God's existence. He doubts the "cosmological " arguments offered by Aquinas, and offers a famous critique of the "ontological" arguments that begin with Anselm. (A refutation that hinges on the notion that "existence is nor a predicate.") Doubts about "proofs" of God's existence hardly distinguish Kant from Voegelin. Indeed, as previous discussions have indicated, Voegelin confines the notion of "existence" to those empirical objects of consciousness that he designated as "thing reality" and denies that God "exists."

Kant was very careful to claim that reason leaves room for faith, which, if skeptical, is not skeptical in the sense of, say, Sartre's atheism. Furthermore, Kant argues for the existence of God as a necessary presupposition for morality.

[Owen Jones]

True enough, albeit a bit oversimplified. The Fathers see no need, as far as I can see, to even use such qualifiers as objective vs. subjective, or direct, in terms of knowledge of God. Rather, they are descriptive, and then abstract from that description to concepts which they are always aware are symbolic and analogical in nature. You have the problem that all knowledge, awareness, or experience is mediated in some respect, and all of the Fathers seem to respect this. In some ways, they may even go overboard in terms of seeing everything as an allegory.

By merely critiquing subjectivism we do not arrive at an objective answer. The whole subjective and objective thing is a bit of a red herring and is based on the historical degredation of philosophy into schools and systems.

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Fr David and Owen,

Thank you both for your responses, especially Owen who has taken so much trouble to provide a lengthy and full number of responses. Owen writes:


Perhaps we could step back and look at our own tradition which is sadly misunderstood or simply ignored in the West. Orthodoxy understands and appreciates the symbolic nature of reality and existence, including the words we use to discuss the nature of God and His Creation and the reality in between. By theological truth, we do not mean factual information that is lying around for anyone to pick up. By truth we refer to a realm of existence in-between what is known and what is unknown, between matter and spirit, between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven, that is represented by our liturgy, and must be lived out in our daily lives through faith. IN orther words, truth is somethng that we live, not something we look up in a book.

This seems very accurate and perceptive (although I have a question: isn't the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven the same?). In a sense, it chimes with some of the existentialist appeals to a lived reality as opposed to a detached study of objective phenomena - wasn't this Kierkegaard's reaction to Hegel? At any rate, it certainly also harmonises as a message with that of Fr David, namely


God CAN be known directly apart from one's own subjective ideas and we know this from the experience of the saints who in their lives know God. If we reject that this is possible then we fall into the same trap as Kant and Jung and nothing becomes knowable.

Perhaps a problem arises, however, when we try to explain in ordinary language what we mean by the "experience" of "living the truth". A skeptic, even a complete atheist like Sartre mentioned above, also believes their experience is based on living the truth - the truth that they experience! They see with their physical senses neither God, nor His Kingdom, nor the angels, nor miracles that disprove the laws of nature as discovered by science, which they understand to be purely human knowledge acquired by sensory evidence and rational investigation. To such a frame of mind, the proposition that God is Truth and the Source of all truth is at best a scientific hypothesis that needs to be proved by experiment before they can accept it!

I'm rambling on a bit, but what I'm trying to say is that Owen's point about the Fathers


You have the problem that all knowledge, awareness, or experience is mediated in some respect, and all of the Fathers seem to respect this. In some ways, they may even go overboard in terms of seeing everything as an allegory. By merely critiquing subjectivism we do not arrive at an objective answer.

may be very valid, but in practice it is very difficult to convey a sense of Truth through the use of symbol and allegory, to someone who disputes it by describing your experience as "subjective", and who may therefore claim the right to use different symbols and arrive at his own "truths" via different allegories...perhaps Mathhew's point from an earlier thread also comes close to an Orthodox approach to resolution of this problem:


I do think further thought needs to be given to the relationship of terms like 'direct', 'indirect' and 'mediated', among others. In Orthodox thought, a 'mediated experience' is not the same thing as an 'indirect experience': it is direct in the context of mediation. So to say that 'experience is mediated' is not in fact to say that it is not direct. Nor is the shunning of all mediation to be desired. As rational creatures, the direct experience of our eyes, for example, are mediated through our intellect -- we look at a vision of a plant with a long, green stem and a cup-shaped red flower, and our intellect mediates that experience such that we say to ourselves, 'this is a tulip'. The intellect is not lessening the directness or immediacy of the experience through its mediation; it is in fact making that experience fuller in its receipt. As human creatures, we are not called to shun this mediatorial agency of our intellect -- only to learn how to use and attune it, realising and actualising both its strengths and its limitations.

Given that mediated experience may nevertheless be "direct", I wonder if someone could elaborate further on the Orthodox understanding of the word symbol?

In Christ
Byron

[Paul Koufalas]

> Byron, it may not be exactly what you are after, but Fr Alexander Schmemann has discussed the meaning of symbol at length in his book, For the Life of the World, in Appendix 2, "Sacrament and Symbol". He also provides a reference which deals with "the very complex and in many ways confused history of that term in Western thought". Fr Schmemann's essay uses as a starting point "the debate on the real presence...the term 'real' clearly implies the possibility of another type of presence which therefore is not real. The term for that other presence in the Western intellectual and theological idiom is, we know, symbolical." He says that "[historians of theology] do not seem to realize that the Fathers use of 'symbolon'...is not 'vague' or 'imprecise'...and that the subsequent transformation of these terms constitutes indeed the source of one of the greatest theological tragedies." "The difference here is primarily a difference in the apprehension of reality itself...to be 'symbolical' belongs thus to its [the world's] ontology, the symbol being not only the way to perceive and understand reality, a means of cognition, but also a means of participation." He explains that "symbolize" means "reveals, manifests and communicates". "If the Fathers hold together in a living and truly 'existential' synthesis...the absolute 'otherness' of God...in His essence, and...the reality of man's communion with God, knowledge of God and 'theosis', this synthesis is rooted in...the 'mysterion' and of its mode of presence and operation--the symbol. For it is the very nature of symbol that it reveals and communicates the 'other' as precisely the 'other', the visibility of the invisible as invisible, the knowledge of the unknowable as unknowable, the presence of the future as future. The symbol is means of knowledge of that which cannot be known otherwise, for knowledge here depends on participation--the living encounter with and entrance into that 'epiphany' which the symbol is...The 'original sin' of post-patristic theology consists therefore in the reduction of the concept of knowledge to rational or discursive knowledge or, in other terms, in the separation of knowledge from 'mysterion'. This theology does not reject the 'symbolical world view' of the earlier tradition...But it radically changes the understanding of that 'signum'." Well, you can find and read the essay in full if you think it may answer your question.

[Owen Jones]

I meant to write, Kingdom of God and Kingdom of Man. Good comments, Byron, about distinctions to be made about direct vs. mediated. Good comment about experience not having any inherent absolute authority. The "my experience" vs. "your experience" dillemma. The response to that is that we must begin with certain givens. God is a given, according to Euclid. Not beginning with certain givens is irrational. The Beginning is a symbol. It represents the experience, not only of a starting point in time. But a grounding experience. Then you have the symbol of The Beyond as the other pole of symbolic, spiritual order. These polarities are the primary ordering experiences in the psyche of man. If these are rejected, it is a sign of a disordered psyche. The Fathers do not deem it necessary to even enter into a debate on this issue. You cannot have a debate with someone who begins with a disordered experience as the starting point.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Byron,

I think that by 'symbol' in its Orthodox meaning we mean communion with something in a mediated way. Thus an icon is a symbol of the prototype with which we are in prayerful relationship. This word is even used in the Liturgy of St Basil the Great for the as yet unconsecrated Bread & Wine which are said to be "the sacred symbols of the Body & Blood of Thy Christ."

I think your reference to Sartre above illustrates a very important point. Sartre would assume that his knowledge & understanding of truth is objective. Whereas divine truth would be based on a fantasy and 'alienation' of man from himself. But yet we know as Christians that his knowledge is false because it is based on what is false; ie it is mediated by an unpurified intellect, feelings & opinions.

Mediation or symbolic knowledge is inherent to being human. The question however is what do we have communion with? A self-defined world that revolves around what is fallen in ourselves and ends in relativism & nihilism? Or the divine world which is beyond ourselves & yet defines what we really are?

The first type of symbolic knowledge is really just selfishness foisted onto the rest of God and creation. Thus the constant note of frustration & despair in these thinkers. For all their preoccupation with overcoming alienation (or in more modern terms 'being true to yourself') their end point is the worst alienation possible because the way they relate to reality ends in no communion with it.

One can often hear that modern man is searching for God. I disagree that modern man often searches actively for God because this always involves a selfless death to oneself- something inherently rejected by our culture. If he is looking for God it is often a creation of his own mind and feelings, someone or something which doesn't interfere too much and gives assuring pats on the back at critical times.

Modern man is overwhelmingly engaged in the effort to 'be true to himself'. The consequence of this is that he is wracked with loneliness and either a very troubled or else downright pathological relation to what is around him. His 'symbolic knowledge' is like being in a locked room with the lights turned off. With those with the eyes to see they understand that the result of this being 'true to yourself' is a being cut off from communion with all things. And it is this which people in desperation cry out to solve.

Thus we get back to the basic point about Christianity and knowledge which is that we know from experience that the only true knowledge is based on ongoing dying to what is sinful in ourselves. And it is this which leads gradually to true 'symbolic' knowledge or communion with God and others.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Owen Jones]

Another term for symbol is representation. God represents Himself in the things He has made, and in the process of spiritual development of those things.

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear All,

Paul quotes from Fr A. Schmemann:


to be 'symbolical' belongs thus to its [the world's] ontology, the symbol being not only the way to perceive and understand reality, a means of cognition, but also a means of participation..."symbolize" means "reveals, manifests and communicates"...For it is the very nature of symbol that it reveals and communicates the 'other' as precisely the 'other', the visibility of the invisible as invisible, the knowledge of the unknowable as unknowable, the presence of the future as future. The symbol is means of knowledge of that which cannot be known otherwise, for knowledge here depends on participation--the living encounter with and entrance into that 'epiphany' which the symbol is...

Fr Raphael confirms that


by 'symbol' in its Orthodox meaning we mean communion with something in a mediated way.

As Fr Raphael indicates, the Orthodox understanding of symbol takes us back to the experience of God. From a purely "rational" secular viewpoint, we begin by suggesting God exists, then "prove" His existence by the use of symbols - which point to His existence. There, through unspiritual eyes, lies a tautology. This is because, according to Orthodox understanding, to the "unpurified intellect" the symbol is a closed entity. Fr Schmemann writes elsewhere ('Worship in a Secular Age' - Keynote speech at the 8th Syndesmos General Assembly, 'Worship in a secular age', Boston, USA, December 1899):


Such inability can be seen in the first place, in the secularist's very approach to worship, in his naive conviction that worship, as everything else in the world can be a rational construction, the result of planning, "exchange of views", and discussions. Quite typical of this are the very fashionable discussions of new symbols, as if symbols could be, so to speak, "manufactured", brought into existence through committee deliberations. But the whole point here is that the secularist is constitutionally unable to see in symbols anything but "audio-visual aids" for communicating ideas. Last year a group of students and teachers of a well-known seminary spent a semester "working" on a "liturgy" centered on the following "themes": the S.S.T., ecology, and the flood in Pakistan. No doubt they "meant well". It is their presuppositions which are wrong: that the traditional worship can have no "relevance" to these themes and has nothing to reveal about them, and that unless a "theme" is somehow clearly spelled out in the liturgy, or made into its "focus", it is obviously outside the spiritual reach of liturgical experience. The secularist is very fond today of such terms as "symbolism", "sacrament", "transformation", "celebration", and of the entire panoply of cultic terminology. What he does not realize, however is that the use he makes of them reveals, in fact, the death of symbols and the decomposition of the sacrament. And he does not realize this because in his rejection of the world's and man's sacramentality he is reduced to viewing symbols as indeed mere illustrations of ideas and concepts, which they emphatically are not. There can be no celebration of ideas and concepts, be they "peace", "justice", or even "God". The Eucharist is not a symbol of friendship or togetherness, or any other state of activity however desirable. A vigil or a fast are, to be sure, "symbolic": they always express, manifest, fulfill the Church as expectation and preparation. To make them into symbols of political protest or ideological affirmation, to use them as means to that which is not their "end", to think that the liturgical symbols can be used arbitrarily - is to signify the death of worship, and this in spite of the obvious success and popularity of all these "experiments".

Contrast this Orthodox understanding of the symbol with the Jungian definition:


Symbol. The best possible expression for something unknown. "Every psychological expression is a symbol if we assume that it states or signifies something more and other than itself which eludes our present knowledge".[Definitions," CW 6, par. 817.] Jung distinguished between a symbol and a sign. Insignia on uniforms, for instance, are not symbols but signs that identify the wearer. In dealing with unconscious material (dreams, fantasies, etc.), the images can be interpreted semiotically, as symptomatic signs pointing to known or knowable facts, or symbolically, as expressing something essentially unknown. "The interpretation of the cross as a symbol of divine love is semiotic, because "divine love" describes the fact to be expressed better and more aptly than a cross, which can have many other meanings. On the other hand, an interpretation of the cross is symbolic when it puts the cross beyond all conceivable explanations, regarding it as expressing an as yet unknown and incomprehensible fact of a mystical or transcendent, i.e., psychological, nature, which simply finds itself most appropriately represented in the cross".[ Ibid., par. 815.] Whether something is interpreted as a symbol or a sign depends mainly on the attitude of the observer. Jung linked the semiotic and symbolic approaches, respectively, to the causal and final points of view. He acknowledged the importance of both. "Psychic development cannot be accomplished by intention and will alone; it needs the attraction of the symbol, whose value quantum exceeds that of the cause. But the formation of a symbol cannot take place until the mind has dwelt long enough on the elementary facts, that is to say until the inner or outer necessities of the life-process have brought about a transformation of energy".["On Psychic Energy," CW 8, par. 47.] The symbolic attitude is at bottom constructive, in that it gives priority to understanding the meaning or purpose of psychological phenomena, rather than seeking a reductive explanation. "There are, of course, neurotics who regard their unconscious products, which are mostly morbid symptoms, as symbols of supreme importance. Generally, however, this is not what happens. On the contrary, the neurotic of today is only too prone to regard a product that may actually be full of significance as a mere "symptom"".[Definitions, CW 6, par. 821.] Jung's primary interest in symbols lay in their ability to transform and redirect instinctive energy. "How are we to explain religious processes, for instance, whose nature is essentially symbolical? In abstract form, symbols are religious ideas; in the form of action, they are rites or ceremonies. They are the manifestation and expression of excess libido. At the same time they are stepping-stones to new activities, which must be called cultural in order to distinguish them from the instinctual functions that run their regular course according to natural law".["On Psychic Energy," CW 8, par. 91.] The formation of symbols is going on all the time within the psyche, appearing in fantasies and dreams. In analysis, after reductive explanations have been exhausted, symbol-formation is reinforced by the constructive approach. The aim is to make instinctive energy available for meaningful work and a productive life.

It seems that for Jung, 'symbol' also suggests the presence of something unknown; yet his conclusions are so strikingly different from the Orthodox. For Orthodox, the symbol "is means of knowledge of that which cannot be known otherwise", whereas for Jung it is "the best possible expression for something unknown". Is the symbol not both? Isn't it both a source of knowledge and an expression of the unknown? Doesn't it conceal at the same time as it reveals? I would like to read a response to this genuine question.

Owen wrote


Not beginning with certain givens is irrational. The Beginning is a symbol. It represents the experience, not only of a starting point in time. But a grounding experience. Then you have the symbol of The Beyond as the other pole of symbolic, spiritual order. These polarities are the primary ordering experiences in the psyche of man. If these are rejected, it is a sign of a disordered psyche.

Owen, however much I agree with you, I cannot help thinking: is this "begining with certain givens" not a betrayal of the philosophical attitude? All the same, I would like to hear more about what you mean when you refer to the polarities of "the beginning grounding experience" and "the Beyond" as primary ordering experiences in the psyche. What is a grounding experience? What is the Beyond as symbol?

In Christ
Byron

[Owen Jones]

Philosophy is not open-ended inquiry. It is an ordered search by the soul for the source or ground of its ordering principles. As such, it has to start with certain givens. Theology is essentially an extended meditation on Scripture. Philosophy is an extended meditation on the primary experience of a divinely ordered cosmos. However, the word "theology" was a neologism of Plato. He observed that the sophists declared that either a) there is no god or b) He does not have the power to save us or c) He has the power to save us but He can be bribed with sacrifices. Plato said this cannot be true, and the opposite her termed theology, without giving a proof of its truth. It is simply a given. AS for the Christian, we start with Scripture as a given, not as some contrived text to prove some point. Much as we say, the fool is the one who says in his heart there is no God. In this case, fool means one who thinks he has tricked himself into thinking he can step outside of reality.

Regarding the Beginning and the Beyond, these are the primary experiences of the cosmos, that speak to us of a created order -- the ordering principles in between which we discover existence as a divinely ordered principle. It is how Scripture is ordered. The structure of existence is always an in-between existence, between these two "poles" if you will. In principle, any attempt to step outside of this structure is a gnostic inversion or deformation of reality. We cannot get back to the beginning, or get beyond the Beyond, or immanentize the beyond into a spatial/temporal reality. Scripture is bounded by the words "in the beginning" and the eschatological vision of a transcendent Beyond. It is not a reality that can be either objectivized or subjectivized because we are not talking about objects or things. Yes, we are talking about experiences, but there is never a purely subjective or objective experience. An experience is always an experience of something, so for every experience there is always an immanent and transcendent dimension.

[Owen Jones]

Here is an excerpt:
<<
The thing-in-itself is a symbol through which Kant sought to grasp the
correctly seen fact that our experience of nature is an experience "from
without," while the "within" of matter remains inaccessible to us: Our
experience of nature is, strictly speaking, phenomenal. Kant
furthermore has correctly seen that consciousness, under the title
"reason," is a special case, inasmuch as in consciousness we have
experience of a process "from within." He interpreted this situation
through the assumption that in the metaphysics of "reason" we are indeed
dealing with the thing-in-itself. This assumption, however, seems to me
to be rash. It does acknowledge that, unlike nature, we experience
consciousness from within. It overlooks, however, that in this
experience-from-within we do not experience being as a whole, within
which consciousness is a particular process, but experience only
consciousness itself. The experience of consciousness thus is not
phenomenal, but noumenal; but even the <italics>noumena</italics> of
reason are not the noumena of being as a whole. That being which is the
ground of all experiencable concrete being is an ontological hypothesis
without which the actually experienced ontic nexus of human experience
remains incomprehensible. But it is never a datum in human experience;
rather, it is always the strictly transcendent, which can be approached
only through medtitation.
>>

[Owen Jones]

Re: [evforum] Voegelin and Kant
EV was very much influenced by Kant. His vocabulary is Kantian and many
of the issues he addresses are Kant's. However, how could he have
avoided this in the environment of his education in Germany. There were
other Kantians, like Schiller and Schopenhauer who arguably may have had
a more direct influence on EV. For example, EV adopts Schiller's
"relations" and adds society to the list.

As with most commentators on Kant, EV saw that there were what amounts
to two facets of Kant's and Kantian thought. The first from Kant the
epistemologist of science, the author of Critique of Pure Reason. The
second from Kant the ethetician, the author of Critique of Judgement.

With respect to the Critique of Pure Reason, EV is clear that Kant's
analysis misses out on differentiations made by Plato. In many respects,
Kant and his contemporaries were not at fault. The relevant passages
from Plato were not available to them. For EV, contrary to Kantians,
"the phenomena is the noumena", and vice versa. The subject-object
dichotomy is the result of erroneously reifying poles of the experience
of consciousness.

This view places EV firmly outside of the phenomenological schools now
plaguing Europe. Husserl and his followers attempted to solve the
dilemma that modern physics created for Kantians by passing beyond
Newton. If Kantian Newtonians could no longer lay claim to a priori
knowledge of the universe, then there was no a priori. This is a very
uncomfortable position for those who could not get beyond the main
Kantian epistemologicial analyses, that imply that there is a phenomena
/ noumena split. Most Europeans are today stuck in this rut, as are the
main philosophical thinkers that they hold so dear. For them the
phenomenon is no longer a set of a priori categories, it cannot be.
Rather, it is a set of adopted windows on the world which are then used
in the various flavours of phenomenological "exegesis" to expose aspects
of reality, aspects of the hidden noumena. This is essentially Kant
without Newton, Kant without a priori.

However, apart from the Kantian problematic dabbling into the workings
of the scientific mind, Kantians were also people who had to deal with
the social and ethical issues of their day. In this vein, Kantians,
following Kant, experienced the Enlightenment as man's coming of age, as
a freeing of mind from external controls. This was but a facet of the
experience at the time of the demise of Christian and Aristocratic
control over society. However, perceptive minds, like Kant's, saw
through to the demonic nature of this endeavor. He proposed an "ethics
of duty" in support of orderly German society against such vicissitudes
of the spirit as the French indulgence for frivolity and pornography,
and of English instinctive utilitarianism. EV perceived that if there is
nothing above to restrain choice, then one ideology is as justifiable as
another, one imaged view of humanity is as defensible as another. French
frivolity, Nietzschean Dionysian frenzy, or Kantian duty are but just
one more human construct, with no final value. In this context, types of
action that would be considered insane acquire a value because of their
imaged effect in an ideal world, as opposed to what damage they might
cause in the real world. One of these imagined worlds is the one that
imagines that it can see into the mind of God, enough to decide for that
rest of society what it is that God wants, what God is (Geist,
Evolution, History) and what God is doing. This is the Gnostic mind.
Kant was not this. Schopenhaurer was not. Schiller was not. But, Leibniz
probably was. And, Nietzsche and his throng clearly were.

Ok then, this is my first two cents worth on the Voegelin and Kant
question.

Owen Jones wrote:
> Thanks for the comments, but I'm puzzled. Isn't "getting beyond
> Kant" exactly what Voegelin does, by rediscovering, if you will, the
> metaxy structure of reality?
>
>

[Owen Jones]

Re: [evforum] Voegelin and Kant
Voegelin would indeed be bypassing Kant if he had rediscovered a "structure of reality." He did nothing of the sort. What he discovered were structures of consciousness that Kant had ignored or misread. the Platonic symbol of "metaxy" is an adequate symbolization of the selfing experience of consciousness. We find ourselves "in the middle" in a variety of ways. (See Voegelin's discussion of the plurality of middles in OH 5). For instance, we discover the historicity of consciousness and discern the futility of the "freeze history" netaphysicians such as March. Our consciousness is not structured in such a way as to allow us to see "history" as an object that is whole and about which we may make propositions. "Philosophies of history" such as those of Hegel and Marx fail to respect the structural limits of human consciousness, and they often bear the grotesque political consequences that attend to Gnostic delusions that fail to respect and ignore the limits of conscious apprehension.

There are other ways that consciousness finds itself in the middle as well. well. Since consciousness includes tension toward the ground of being, we carry a sense of imperfection that precludes the possibility of creating the fullness of being that is only intimated to us. we are "bwtween" divinity and nothingness, and that precludes us from making a perfect reality on the model of, say, a Leninist fantasy of pure historical agency. To attempt to create paradise is to ignore an integral aspect of consciousness. (Voegelin's closeness to Anselm on the sense of imperfection is worth exploring, I think.)

Voegelin does not invent direct propositions about reality. To say that reality "has" a "structure" or includes "structures" may be acceptable symbolically, but not propositionally. What would have is an impermissible application of a spatial metaphor to "something" that is not spatial. Whatever reality is. it is not something that can be divided and analyzed using thing language. I can identify the 'middle" of my body and bemoan the fact that the middle is expanding. I can locate my Geo between a Volvo and an Accura when I return to a parking lot. "Reality" has no middles so far as I can tell. "It" certainly is not "in" the middle of anything.


Converting the Platonic symbol of "metaxy" into metaphysical propositions is a fairly good beginning to understanding the derailment that was Neo-Platonic metaphysics. Indeed, Gnostic theology is one of those derailments. Of the many fanciful versions one can discover and imagine, this (imagined) version may be the one I like best:

"Man is in the middle between God and nothingness. Man is lower than the angels and higher than Chimps. That will change upon beatification. Man will move "higher" than the angels. Man will be 17.5% more Godlike than the angels."

Such is the fate of bypassing Kant, I think. Voegelin does not write these comedies.

[Owen Jones]

The subjective-objective "dillemma" really goes back to Descartes, although the idea surely goes back to the ancient Greeks (there really is nothing new under the sun). Descartes believed that in mediation he could abstract his mind from the rest of reality and look at it objectively. But the most influential person on modernist philosophy is Newton, whose theory of physics -- to put it crudely, that a bunch of physical entities are constantly bumping into each other -- gave birth to the theory of historical evolution and hence revolution, of biological evolution (Darwin and his precursors -- Darwin actually mythologized what had been around as a theory for some time), Hegelianism, Marxism, etc. Now we know that Newtonian physics works in only a limited sense, but more importantly, there is no evidence that physics have any real bearing on philosophy or theology.

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Owen,

Thank you for your several contributions to the question I raised re Kant and subjectivism - it appears to have taken your interest in a big way!

I can't say I have been really following closely everything you've written, but it certainly looks to me like you have a lot of interesting and important ideas; like I've said before, it would be a shame not to bring them together into book form and try to get it published...

You wrote:


One of these imagined worlds is the one that imagines that it can see into the mind of God, enough to decide for that rest of society what it is that God wants, what God is (Geist, Evolution, History) and what God is doing. This is the Gnostic mind.

Admittedly to presume to know what God is essentially, is a ridiculous proposition which probably only the crudest amongst Gnostics would maintain. I won't even discuss that, except as an amusing and rather naive suggestion; we may know that God is, f.e. a Trinity of Persons in communion with each other and creation, and we even "know" that God is spirit, but we cannot say what God "consists" of, as if He were an ordinary substance. The other assertions however, to know what God wants and what He is doing - isn't this what Christians try to understand through prayer and the Christian life?

In Christ
Byron

[Owen Jones]

Byron,

Those were all quotes from another forum that I lifted. HOwever, consider the context. And take a look at the context -- "for the rest of society" I am compelled to ask God for direction and guidance in my life, to seek His will for my life and my daily, momentary thoughts and actions. But I cannot presume to know what God wants in terms of others, other than in a very general moral and spiritual sense, and even less so with respect to society. When I claim that a certain social theory is God's will, and that I know for sure what that is, that is when we get into the area of gnostic hubris.

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Owen,

Point taken - from that perspective what you say makes perfectly good sense. The elevation of an "-ism" to God's Will for others and the whole of society probably does constitute "gnostic hubris". Do you think we also need to be careful about prescribing Orthodox Christianity to the whole world in this way?

In Christ
Byron

[Owen Jones]

I absolutely do. Christianity is not for everyone, and in any case, a physician needs a willing patient.

[Father David Moser]

Christianity is not for everyone, and in any case, a physician needs a willing patient.

Maybe I missed the point of this comment, but it does seem strange to me.

Yes, Christianity *is* for everyone. God, who is the lover of mankind and Who desires that no man perish but that all be saved sees the sickness of our soul and provides for us the way to Himself - that way was revealed by He Himself - God incarnate, the God/Man Jesus Christ. The Way of the Gospel which our Lord revealed to us - the only way to be healed and become like God - has come to be called Christianity (although one must beware for there are false forms of Christianity, just as there are quack cures for physical illnesses). "Christianity" is the (one and only) path to spiritual health and to union with God and is therefore open to everyone.

As for the "willing patient", yes it is true that to benefit from a doctor's help, a patient must be willing to follow the doctor's directions - but if he is *unwilling* and does not do so, then he doesn't get well - he just suffers all the more from his disease (and if it is a disease which if untreated can bring about death, then he suffers from death).

Fr David Moser

[Owen Jones]

As faithfull believers we are called by God to demonstrate His love for mankind by how we live, and to spread the Good News. But there were plenty of people who were unwilling to listen, from the very beginning. And then, how does one deal with the phrase, I came, not for the righteous, but to save sinners???? Never have we said that the righteous are damned if they are not specifically a member of an Orthodox congregation.

It seems to me that there is an awful defensiveness today in the way we live and respond to a sinful world. We want to overcome the mystery of God and His ways by circling the wagons around certain specious doctrines that no one could possibly take seriously.

How does it somehow deny or besmirch our doctrine to simply state an obvious fact, that Christianity is not for everyone? That many if not most will reject us and/or despise us or ridicule us, or simply be too busy or deem our faith to be irrelevant (just as was prophesied and demonstrated by our Lord Himself)? Not to mention the vast cultural and religious differences that exist in the world. What is required is that we be the Christians that we are called to be so that people can at least see a difference. If there is no apparent difference between an Orthodox Christian and anyone else, then so what? Yet so many of us seem to live in a high state of angst about the question, who is saved and who isn't saved, as if this were knowledge that we are privileged to possess. This strikes me a purely Pharsaical approach to salvation.

One notable thing worth discerning from the writings of the desert fathers is that they are constantly in fear of their OWN salvation. They are constantly on guard lest they might relapse, not simply into a sinful state, but into a state of non-existence. I see nothing about any focus on whether the other guy will be saved on not.

Such a view veers dangerous close to secular ideology, IMHO. The whole basis of ideology is that the answer is presumed to have been found to everyone else's problems. So spreading the ideology becomes a pathology. Of course, when it comes to Orthodoxy in America today, we have no fear of that problem, since it is clerverly hidden.

So please, let us not fall into the trap of defending Christianity in a Newtonian and Cartesian way, that we possess an objective truth and that the rest of the world is mired in subjectivism. That is to mischaractarize the problem. The "problem" such as it is, is within us, that we (I) do not fully exemplify the Incarnation in our own lives.

[Alec Lowly]

Scripsit Owen Jones:


We want to overcome the mystery of God and His ways by circling the wagons around certain specious doctrines that no one could possibly take seriously.

A very provocative and interesting post, but I would feel more comfortable with your argument if you were to specify ~which~ "certain specious doctrines" you have in mind.

You cannot be saying that Orthodoxy holds "specious" doctrines, correct?

[Owen Jones]

No, of course not...sorry. What I am referring to is any claim that Orthodoxy is a guarantee of salvation and that being non-Orthodox is a guarantee of non-salvation. While there are some holy people in our tradition who lean in that direction, and while we all say and believe that Christ is necessary for salvation, it does not water down our faith and doctrine to say that salvation is a mysterious process that we are not in control of. God is. Salvation is apparently not for everyone, according to the words of our Lord Himself, and hence, Christianity is not for everyone. , and apparently the same applies to Orthodoxy, seeing as how some heretical form of Christianity seems always to have dominated our history. In theory of course there is no absolute obstacle to everyone on earth becoming an Orthodox believer. But if they are not, are we not the ones at fault, not them? In any case, as Christ's body, the Church serves the same function as our Lord in his own earthly ministry, to witness through voluntary suffering, and thereby something mystical happens that is beyond our ken, but is somehow salvific for all. So in our own tradition, which is the most honestly Biblical, salvation cannot be reduced to belief alone.

[Tim Grass]

Thanks for that Owen.... some food for thought I'm going to have to think about.

--tim

[Alec Lowly]

Ah, the phenomenon of thread drift: we seem to be tacking far away from Kant and Voegelin, but ...

Owen Jones wrote:


What I am referring to is any claim that Orthodoxy is a guarantee of salvation and that being non-Orthodox is a guarantee of non-salvation. While there are some holy people in our tradition who lean in that direction, and while we all say and believe that Christ is necessary for salvation, it does not water down our faith and doctrine to say that salvation is a mysterious process that we are not in control of. God is.

True, agreed.


Salvation is apparently not for everyone, according to the words of our Lord Himself, and hence, Christianity is not for everyone.

There's a semantics problem here. Would we not all agree that salvation is ~offered~ to everyone, hence Christianity (life in Christ through the church) is ~offered~ to everyone?

In any case, re-reading Owen's Post No. 1192 in light of his clarification in Post No. 1193, the only problem that remains for me is Owen's question, "And then, how does one deal with the phrase, I came, not for the righteous, but to save sinners???? (Mark 2:17) Never have we said that the righteous are damned if they are not specifically a member of an Orthodox congregation."

I immediately thought of Matthew 5:20, "For I say to you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."

Now the Pharisees were technically righteous, and I suppose that a lot of Christians, including we Orthodox, are only technically righteous, as the Pharisees were, which means that we may be in a whole lot of trouble -- because we know as a fact that we are all sinners.

So what constitutes the righteousness that the Lord was talking about in Matthew 5:20? Is it the same righteousness we find in Mark 2:17? "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Is the Lord saying that there are "healthy" who do not need His healing and "righteous" who do not need His call? Neither the apostles nor the fathers would answer yes to that question, I think we would all agree, so I suppose we must conclude that the Lord was simply using a figure of speech, and that we would not do well to force these verses to carry a weight too heavy for them.

Thoughts?

In XC,
Alec Lowly,
whose righteousness does not surpass that of the scribes and the Pharisees, as far as he knows ...

[Owen Jones]

I'm not convinced that it is just a figure of speech. I think there are very many naturally righteous persons in the world, regardless of their doctrine, whose salvation is assured. I fear that because I profess faith in Christ, that I will be judged by a higher standard. Moreoever, there are many who are, in a sense, sinful because of circumstances, who God takes great pity on and his mercy on them is abundant. This is my prolegoumena on the subject and should not be taken as Gospel by anyone.

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Owen,

I will not take your words as Gospel (only the Gospel is the Gospel) but I will say that these words inspire me personally, and I feel they contain mercy and humility. As you indicate in #1193, there is room in our Tradition both for those who remind us of the sheep and goats, and for those who remind us of the Samaritan.

Many thanks.

In Christ
Byron

[Tim Grass]

I mean the following as a real question, not sarcasm.... in looking at the title of the thread, are you saying then that the need for Christianity is subjective? I'm not really sure I understand what's being said here.... the basic points I take, but what about statements like Christ ofeering himself "for the life fo the world"?

--tim

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Tim,

Good question. I am certainly not saying that Christianity is subjective, though followers of Jung and others prone to the error of psychologism might say so, and followers of Kant might say that even if Christ exists, there is no way of knowing Him objectively. My concern is how to offer an Orthodox response to both these critics.

In Christ
Byron

[Owen Jones]

Tell them that truth is a realm, not a piece of information lying around waiting to be picked up.

[Owen Jones]

Thanks to Byron.

[Owen Jones]

For Tim......

Best to eschew the whole issue of a subject and an object. True theology makes the distinction between the created and the Uncreated. The created refers to objects, so to speak(thing reality), but God is not an object (i.e. a thing). So there is no subject/object dichotomy in theology. We are talking about different realms here, with man existing in an in-between realm.

[Fr Seraphim (Black)]

Man is not 'an in-between realm.' Humankind is created in the image and likeness. The Fall has distorted the 'likeness'. God can certainly be known through His Divine Energies. We forever, even in Eternity, remain created persons. And Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Light.

[Owen Jones]

OK, let's use patristic language. Man is a composite being. But this does not refer to our biology. It refers to the dynamic process of being human, which means that we can go in either direction, up or down, life or death, blessings or curses, immortality or mortality, salvation or damnation, existence or non-existence.

Please show me a man who is not some "place" in-between in this process. The liturgy transports us into a realm that is in between our creaturely nature and the divine nature, in between the temporal and the eternal. This is more than a metaphor, but not an experiment in astro-physics.

This is really a simple principle, not too difficult to understand. We do not cease to be creaturely as we "grow" into His image and likeness. That is the problem with thinking in Newtonian terms of subjects and objects, or the Kantian "dasein."

[M.C. Steenberg]

Fr Seraphim,

I think you misread Owen's post, which did not claim that 'man is an in-between realm', but that he exists in an in-between realm.

INXC, Matthew

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear all,

For the purpose of having a correct notion of Orthodox anthropology, would it be patristic to suggest that man's body is created, but his soul, being the breath of God, is not? Or is it more accurate to say that both body and soul are created, but f.e. spirit isn't? Is it all of us, or just part of us that exists in an in-between realm?

In Christ
Byron

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Byron,

Man in his totality is created- body, soul & spirit.

While reading the discussion between yourself and Owen I was reminded of St Maximos the Confessor who speaks of man as microcosm. There is a book about this called Man & Cosmos by Lars Thunberg (SVS Press) which you may find helpful.

Here is a quote from St Maxomis which is found in this book:


The Logos, God by essence, became man and messenger of the divine will. He let the most intimate ground of the goodness of the Father appear, if one may say so, and showed in Himself the goal for which created beings were created. For it is for Christ, ie for the Christic mystery, that all time and all that is in time has received in Christ its beginning and its end. The union between the determined and the indetermined, the finite and the infinite, the limited and the non-limited, and also between Creator and creature, between rest and movement was conceived before the times. It found its accomplishment at the end of time, giving through itself fullness to the preknowledge of God. This was so in order that the beings who are mobile by nature should find Him who is by essence absolutely immobile- when their movement toward themselves and toward each other had reached its goal- and also in order that they should gain, through experience, an active knowledge of Him, in whom they are made worthy to find their rest and have in themselves, always unchangeable, the enjoyment of this knowledge.

Thus man as created microcosm- body, soul and spirit- is called to be a mediator. In an essential way in fact this mediation refers to what man really is and is called to be.

The overall context of this mediation however St Maximos places within five distinctions: 1) between the created and the Uncreated; 2) within the world of created things between the intelligible and the sensible; 3) within the sensible world between heaven and earth; 4)on earth, between paradise and the world of men; and 5) in humanity between man and woman, or the masculine and the feminine.

About this Thunberg says,


In all these cases man is assigned a special function. He should begin with his own division, the fifth, which for St Maximos stands in a certain tension in relation to God's original intention for the human race. However, it is very important to notice that none of these distinctions is evil in itself, nor are they caused directly by the fall or by sin. But when sinfullness is there, the evil powers will always use these distinctions to create sinful divisions.

The mediations thus should be carried out by man- and are already carried out by Christ, through an inverted order from that of man.

The insight of this quote is extremely important for it basically is saying that the dialectical world we are used to living in and which we take to be normal reality is actually a result of the Fall. In a connected sense we could even say this fallen world is due to our fallen perception or spiritual faculties through which we have a fallen relationship to God's creation. Although it would be wrong to go to the extreme of thinking the Fall is only subjective- nevertheless the Fall is truly & directly experienced by us as humans in its most intense way due to the fact of our being mediators for better or worse.

This relates to one other point Thunberg makes based on St Maximos. This is that man as microcosm is called to be an active mediator. As Thunberg says,


It is not only through his constitution which reflects the world that man is a microcosm. It is also through an act of mediation. God has placed him in an intermediary position in order to carry out this act. The very fact that the things of the world are reflected in man presents him actually with a vocation to gather them together for his and their final goal. He should relate opposite phenomena: mortal creatures with immortal creatures, rational beings with nonrational beings, etc. In this way man should function as a world in miniature, and for this reason he was created as a reflecting image of the whole cosmos.

Indeed I think this gets to the heart of the purpose behind man created as body, soul and spirit.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Owen Jones]

It is not only through his constitution which reflects the world that man is a microcosm. It is also through an act of mediation. God has placed him in an intermediary position in order to carry out this act. The very fact that the things of the world are reflected in man presents him actually with a vocation to gather them together for his and their final goal. He should relate opposite phenomena: mortal creatures with immortal creatures, rational beings with nonrational beings, etc. In this way man should function as a world in miniature, and for this reason he was created as a reflecting image of the whole cosmos.

It seems that Thunberg has somewhat missed the point here. This passage points to the patristic doctrine of the nature of man as in-between.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Owen,

You wrote:


It seems that Thunberg has somewhat missed the point here. This passage points to the patristic doctrine of the nature of man as in-between.

Missed what point?

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Fr Raphael, Owen, all,

Father Raphael, bless! Your input has been missing from the forum over the last few days - I presume you are busy with all a priest has to do during Lent.

Actually, your post was so good, it deserved to get posted twice!

Now, these are quite complex notions, so I would like to get my mind around them as much as I can in my carnal condition.


The union between the determined and the indetermined, the finite and the infinite, the limited and the non-limited, and also between Creator and creature, between rest and movement was conceived before the times. It found its accomplishment at the end of time, giving through itself fullness to the preknowledge of God.

This is referring to our Lord Jesus Christ, is that correct? If so, in what way was this union "conceived before the times"? And what is "preknowledge of God"?

Again, if I've understood correctly, man is created as a microcosm of body, soul and spirit, elements of his being in dynamic tension with each other. Is he therefore called to bring these elements into harmony through the work of mediation between created and Uncreated, intelligible and sensible, heaven and earth, paradise and the world of men, masculine and feminine? Christ has begun this work from the Divine "side", and each of us is called to complete it from the human "side". Thunberg says, for example


[we] should begin with [our] own division, the fifth, which for St Maximos stands in a certain tension in relation to God's original intention for the human race. However, it is very important to notice that none of these distinctions is evil in itself, nor are they caused directly by the fall or by sin. But when sinfullness is there, the evil powers will always use these distinctions to create sinful divisions.

So what is meant by this, is that we can begin at the division between man and woman, masculine and feminine, which currently "stands in a certain tension in relation to God's original intention for the human race". We know from Gal 3:28 that "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." I guess this is not suggesting each of us should therefore become androgynous, but it is suggesting that we should achieve a harmonious coexistence with one another in collective worship of the Lord. The current tensions between men and women, the power struggles and 'wars of the sexes' are ungodly. On an individual basis, until a man can look at a woman and see his sister in God (rather than an object of desire), and vice-versa for a woman, they have as yet not completed the work of mediation:


it basically is saying that the dialectical world we are used to living in and which we take to be normal reality is actually a result of the Fall. In a connected sense we could even say this fallen world is due to our fallen perception or spiritual faculties through which we have a fallen relationship to God's creation. Although it would be wrong to go to the extreme of thinking the Fall is only subjective- nevertheless the Fall is truly & directly experienced by us as humans in its most intense way due to the fact of our being mediators for better or worse.

The Fall is therefore not subjective, but it is in his individual subjective consciousness that each of us is called to mediate between the opposites, in order to become servants of God's Will. And the goal is to move in our perceptions and actions from the created towards the Uncreated, from the sensible to the intelligible etc. In other words, while neither 'pole' of these opposites is in itself evil (division between them is) am I right in thinking also that man's purpose is to mediate the movement of all in this more spiritual direction? In other words, man is called, f.e. to balance his bodily and spiritual needs in such a way that his spiritual needs subsume his physical?

Owen writes


The very fact that the things of the world are reflected in man presents him actually with a vocation to gather them together for his and their final goal. He should relate opposite phenomena: mortal creatures with immortal creatures, rational beings with nonrational beings, etc. In this way man should function as a world in miniature, and for this reason he was created as a reflecting image of the whole cosmos.

Can you say a bit more Owen, regarding the way in which "the things of the world are reflected in man", and the way in which he is called to "gather them together for his and their final goal"? Please give examples where possible, my mind can be very concrete at times!

In Christ
Byron

[Byron Jack Gaist]

P.S. Incidentally, there is a quote from (none other than) the philosopher Nietzsche, which I find resonates strangely with St Maximus' thinking here:


Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end...Behold, I am a herald of the lightning and a heavy drop from the cloud; but this lightning is called overman. Thus Spake Zarathustra, Prologue, 4

I just think it's interesting, though Nietzsche's language rather lacks the sobriety of St Maximus!

In Christ
Byron

[Owen Jones]

"The Fall is therefore not subjective, but it is in his individual subjective consciousness that each of us is called to mediate between the opposites, in order to become servants of God's Will."

Why say this? Why must it be an "individual subjective consciousness?" What does that mean? Where does this terminology come from? Do we see this in Maximos? Or is it in Descartes and Newton and Kant?

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

This is referring to our Lord Jesus Christ, is that correct? If so, in what way was this union "conceived before the times"? And what is "preknowledge of God"?

This "preknowledge of God" refers to the pre-eternal plan for the union between the Uncreated & created which is now being brought to full fruition through Christ. Seen from within this perspective the Incarnation is part of the pre-eternal Divine plan and is not only reactive to man's fall.

I think that St Maximos always sees the Incarnation from within the larger cosmic context of the the ultimate purpose of creation. Specific to man as microcosm his role has always been to unite the Divine and created and this is woven into his very being- spirit, soul & body. This means that sin describes the unnatural state of man in which he wars against this state of unity. Somehow this description I think is very poignant in describing our present predicament as humans.


So what is meant by this, is that we can begin at the division between man and woman, masculine and feminine, which currently "stands in a certain tension in relation to God's original intention for the human race". We know from Gal 3:28 that "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." I guess this is not suggesting each of us should therefore become androgynous, but it is suggesting that we should achieve a harmonious coexistence with one another in collective worship of the Lord.

This understanding of unity I think is crucial and it is here I think that Thunberg's description is so good. For he explains that Divine unity is not dialectical- a unity of opposition which can only be resolved by what is distinct melding into the other. Rather in the image of the Holy Trinity the divine plan fulfills the nature of each distinct thing as it is in union with others. In some way I think this also describes our present modern predicament which often seeks to resolve the terrible isolation we feel by annihilating others.


The Fall is therefore not subjective, but it is in his individual subjective consciousness that each of us is called to mediate between the opposites, in order to become servants of God's Will. And the goal is to move in our perceptions and actions from the created towards the Uncreated, from the sensible to the intelligible etc. In other words, while neither 'pole' of these opposites is in itself evil (division between them is) am I right in thinking also that man's purpose is to mediate the movement of all in this more spiritual direction? In other words, man is called, f.e. to balance his bodily and spiritual needs in such a way that his spiritual needs subsume his physical?

I think Owen has a point here. Probably it is better to point to what we are in its completeness- body, soul & spirit- and say that it is through the proper use of our faculties in Christ that unity will naturally occur.

I'm not sure that this would subsume the physical to the spiritual as much as it would naturally restore man as a balanced creature according to the Divine plan.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Fr Raphael and Owen,

Thank you for your responses. I am a bit confused; I spoke of "individual subjective consciousness" because of the following words from Fr Raphael:


the dialectical world we are used to living in and which we take to be normal reality is actually a result of the Fall. In a connected sense we could even say this fallen world is due to our fallen perception or spiritual faculties through which we have a fallen relationship to God's creation.

I guess I understand "fallen perception or spiritual faculties" in an individual sense. "Subjective consciousness" is just another way of saying our awareness, which may or may not, if I understand correctly, be a spiritual or illumined awareness according to whether or not we are living in Christ. Owen is probably right however, to say these terms sound more like Western philosophy than Maximian anthropology.

Fr Raphael refers to "a balanced creature according to the Divine plan"; doesn't this imply a hierarchy of (1) spirit, (2)soul and (3)body? Or are these simply lying alongside each other, equal in value of importance? When, f.e. we deprive ouselves of food in order to curb the passion of gluttony, are we not bringing the body under the rightful authority of the spirit?

Fr Raphael writes:


Specific to man as microcosm his role has always been to unite the Divine and created and this is woven into his very being- spirit, soul & body. This means that sin describes the unnatural state of man in which he wars against this state of unity. Somehow this description I think is very poignant in describing our present predicament as humans...Divine unity is not dialectical- a unity of opposition which can only be resolved by what is distinct melding into the other. Rather in the image of the Holy Trinity the divine plan fulfills the nature of each distinct thing as it is in union with others.

If I understand correctly, this means f.e. that we do not move forward in our spiritual life by melding e.g. the created into the Uncreated, but by placing the created into a correct attitude with respect to the Uncreated. But this is a little hazy, can someone provide some tangible examples?

In Christ
Byron

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Byron,

Probably at this point we're just trying to come to grips with how we are each using certain words and phrases. By subjective consciousness as you explain it you don't mean individual opinion.

What I am referring to is how St Maximos' anthropology assumes not only a way of acting but also a way of seeing things; perhaps what we today might call consciousness as long as we don't mean something totally self-defined or the result of environment. St Maximos rather always starts from nature and what it is- and indeed this is the Patristic starting point.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Owen Jones]

I think it is best to simply eradicate subjective and objective from our vocabulary and thought processes and move on from there.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

Reading back through the past several days' activity in this thread, I came across Owen's comment:


Tell them that truth is a realm, not a piece of information lying around waiting to be picked up.

Now I'm nearly certain I know Owen's answer to the following question from past discussions, but I thought I would ask it all the same for the sake of the present conversation: Can you expand on this response a bit in light of the reality of authentic encounter with the person Christ? I would be interested both in your response vis-a-vis those disciples, etc., who met the incarnate Christ in Galilee; and the ongoing encounter with the Son that is the experience of the Christian people throughout time. How does this personal encounter with Christ who is 'the truth', fit your conception of truth as a realm?

INXC, Matthew

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Byron and others,

You wrote:


For the purpose of having a correct notion of Orthodox anthropology, would it be patristic to suggest that man's body is created, but his soul, being the breath of God, is not? Or is it more accurate to say that both body and soul are created, but f.e. spirit isn't? Is it all of us, or just part of us that exists in an in-between realm?

Not quite. http://www.monachos.net/mb/clipart/happy.gif The patristic witness is quite clear that the soul, too, is created. There is nothing intrinsic to man, who is created being by definition, that is uncreated; this is part of the basic patristic delineation of created/uncreated that is synonymous with creation/God or man/God.

But the soul, as 'breath of God', is unique - in the articulation of many fathers because it conveys the Spirit of God to the creature; so while man is always created in all his elements, it is through the created soul that he participates, 'anthropologically', in the life of the Trinity.

INXC, Matthew

[M.C. Steenberg]

Fr Raphael wrote:


Sorry about posting the same thing twice! The post now seems to appear on the thread without a moderator. It confused me so I posted twice thinking I had somehow made a mistake.

I knew it would throw somebody, some day! As is written somewhere in the various documentation, the Community alternates between moderated- and free-posting modes as a means of keeping control over spam and 'phishing' threats that arise from time-to-time across the internet.

Glad it finally threw somebody for a loop -- I was shocked that no one had yet got confused!

INXC, Matthew

[Owen Jones]

I'm not sure I am up to the task but here goes. That Jesus is the Christ is not a fact of information. Nor is it simply a matter of belief, or of what we might term today "blind faith." Rather, from the Biblical witness, it is a perception that comes as a gift from God. This is why there is such emphasis in early patristic Christianity on a moral transformation of our senses before we can understand the Biblical witness, or the preaching upon it. This transformation of our perception is both the cause of (in terms of making Its presence available) and the result of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Christ does not exist as a historical reality so much as a Divine-human reality, since Christ is the maker of history, not the other way around. That divine human reality is an in-between reality. So people bound to a purely material, earthly, worldly existence cannot "see" with the spiritual preception necessary to recognize Christ as Christ. But neither is there a purely divine person who exists in a heavenly state. There is only an in-between state which is what the Church is a window to.

That is not to say that propositions about Christ, stated as factual, historical knowledge, are not necessary in order to codify our faith and protect against theological error, or that such propositions are not important in introducing us to a reality to be experienced. But they really cannot be stated in terms that stand on their own. That is when theology becomes detached from experience, and we treat Christ as a material phenomenon.

If Christ were an historical fact, then everyone would believe, just as everyone believes that China exists. But it just doesn't work that way.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Glad it finally threw somebody for a loop -- I was shocked that no one had yet got confused!

Trust the Canadian to be the first one to be confused!

I appreciate in your response to Byron about the hierarchy of spirit, soul & body that you found the word unique to describe the soul as 'breath of God.' I kept struggling to find the proper word to describe this hierarchy (& finally gave up!) because due to the Fall the power of the spirit and soul can be turned either to incredible good or else evil. In other words the hierarchy has a power in it that has potential in two different directions. The fact that there is a hierarchy describes in some way the fact of being mediators for either tremendous good or tremendous evil. It's as if with us there is no action that does not produce ripples of effect in a very large pond we don't entirely see.

Somehow the word 'unique' allows for these two directions in one word.

A lenten word to add on this coming Sunday of St John Climacos. It's amazing how the ripples can be turned to good if one keeps humbling oneself in relation to an impulse to do evil. The difference is quite tangible.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[M.C. Steenberg]

Owen wrote in his post above, no. 52 in this thread (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showpost.php?p=22271&postcount=52):


That Jesus is the Christ is not a fact of information. Nor is it simply a matter of belief, or of what we might term today "blind faith." Rather, from the Biblical witness, it is a perception that comes as a gift from God. This is why there is such emphasis in early patristic Christianity on a moral transformation of our senses before we can understand the Biblical witness, or the preaching upon it. [...] That is not to say that propositions about Christ, stated as factual, historical knowledge, are not necessary in order to codify our faith and protect against theological error, or that such propositions are not important in introducing us to a reality to be experienced. But they really cannot be stated in terms that stand on their own. [...] If Christ were an historical fact, then everyone would believe, just as everyone believes that China exists. But it just doesn't work that way.

It's taken me a bit of time to draw the connections, but I've finally remembered that this reminds me of a conversation that has been inactive for some time, but which was once the most active in the Community, namely the Intellect, Questioning, and Orthodoxy (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1744) thread. It still remains the largest thread in the forum by leaps and bounds, with nearly 600 messages.

I'd really recommend reading the whole thing; it's an extremely interesting discussion (which can of course be continued). But of immediate relevance to what Owen is saying here is, for example, post #80 (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1744#post22686) and the chain of responses that follow.

XB, Matthew