Resolving Essence/Energy Disputes With Christology

April 11, 2010 Leave a comment

By: Jay Dyer

No one should be afraid to read someone even the West believes to be a Doctor of the Church. Some Latins, however, actually discourage people from reading St. John of Damascus. Ironically, Aquinas himself read the Damascene and cited him extensively.

Since I can’t seem to get anyone to read Book III, I’ll post the relevant chapter that explains it all. Why do I keep harping on Book III? In this Book of On the Orthodox Faith, St. John give his exposition of the teaching of Ephesus, Chalcedon and Constantinople II and III. These councils are key, as they focus on Christology. Christology is central, since that is our bridge to God, and not speculation and philosophizing about God’s essence in supposed “natural theology.”

It is in Christ that we meet the Father and the Spirit. It is the Incarnate Christ who shows us the Trinity. So if we want the clearest, most explicable understanding of the meaning of the essence/energy discinction and what hypostasis is, or what enhypostatized means, we should look to Christology, as it should be evident that what we formulate about the ontological Trinity must match up with our doctrine of Christ Incarnate. In other words, it makes no sense to come up with some hyper-philosophical, speculative view of God “ad intra” and God “ad extra,” as if we can come up with views that don’t have to match up with what we are saying about the divine hypostasis Who assumes human nature.

Everything about Christology proves the essence – energy distinction and is the doctrine of the 6th council in particular. Below, St. John exposits perfect Christology, as it culminated in the 6th Ecumenical Council.

Confusions resolved. Read more of this post

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The Anthropic Cosmology of Maximus the Confessor

April 10, 2010 Leave a comment

An excellent scholarly paper (pdf) on Maximus’ cosmology and the Logos/logoi doctrine.

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St. Maximus, Van Til, Aquinas, & Logos/logoi

April 10, 2010 Leave a comment

By: Jay Dyer

I’m posting this because the St. Maximus section is often referred to (and it’s all St. Maximus anyway). The western corollary to the Logos/logoi is “divine exemplarism.” Both are rooted in neo-platonism. The crucial difference between east and west on this point is that the East does not stick the archetypes/logoi in God’s essence, which is absurd. They are “idea” operations of God we are told, not His essence. Aquinas’ doctrine of saying they are in God’s essence leads logically to his emanationism. Do cheeseburgers really have an archetype in God’s essence? Of course not. Does God know every fact about cheeseburgers from all eternity? Of course. Furthermore, if Thomistic ADS is true, then how are all these archetypes distinguished in God’s essence? They cannot be. Is the archetype for Plato really the same as the archetype for cheeseburgers? No, and they are not in God’s essence. And by the way, if Aquinas distinguished nature and person, he wouldn’t stick the archetypes in God’s essence, which he says must be done because of ADS.

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[As Cornelius Van Til made his few steps up the mountain of God and stopped to soothe the blisters in his Dutch wooden shoes, he surveyed the scene below. Exhausted, he slumped over to fellow beginner Rushdoony. Resting on Rushdoony's cane, he perchance peered up, beyond the fog and foliage, and there, atop the highest crags, he spotted St. Maximus the Confessor staring down at him. Van Tillians, ponder ye these mysteries. -Jay] Read more of this post

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Critique of the Protestant & Thomist Views of Absolute Divine Simplicity

April 6, 2010 Leave a comment

By: Jay Dyer 

When Taylor Marshall and crew originally fussed about this, they were content to dismiss it as “Palamism” – some form of obscure medieval Byzantine mysticism. Now, after more reflection and realizing that the Eastern Fathers all teach a distinction between essence and energy in God, it’s now become an exercise in seeing if oil and water can be mixed. I tried to do this for a while as well. Is there some way to reconcile the two? As a good buddy of mine put it the other day, if the two communions have argued against one another on this issue for hundreds of years, is it really plausible that the Church needed Mike Liccione’s bad arguments to reconcile the two? Nope.

So let’s look at some recent arguments given in attempt to both prove Thomistic absolute simplicity or reconcile it. My friend Ben follows Taylor Marshall in trying to argue that because St. John of Damascus talks about the one energy in God, somehow this is to Thomism. This is false for two reasons. First, it’s false because Thomas explicity rejects any distinction between essence and energy, and second, St. John says both that the energy of God is both one and multiple. Ben argues that this “oneness” of energy means that “in God” all actions and attributes are one and identified. Calvinist blogger Steven Wedgeworth (who won’t allows my comments) argues this here. A reading of the entire Book I is necessary to get the complete meaning of what St. John is saying, as well as Book III where St. John applies the essence – energy distinction at length to Christology. Read more of this post

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