Logos Doctrine 3
Posted by Dallas Wolf in The Logos Doctrine (series) on June 27, 2014
“This revelation is uniquely Christian.”
In terms of humankind, the Logos gives to every human being an intuitive knowledge of the existence of God and a culturally influenced knowledge of moral laws which we feel the obligation to fulfill in freedom. The Logos also gives structure to the mind or nous. The nous is not the Logos but it is the Logos that gives order to the contents of the nous.
Clement of Alexandria (AD 150-215) believed that humankind should live life according to the Logos (cf. Stromata, 3). Faith, in terms of assent and obedience, is the beginning, but it is not enough. Real participation in God requires the addition of knowledge. Clement does not feel that there is any conflict between faith and knowledge, between reason and revelation. Knowledge enters into faith as one of its constituent elements; reason and reflection are the avenues through which the divine revelation comes.
According to Justin Martyr, the spermatikos logos, the germinal or seminal word, is sown as conscience in the hearts of all humans. According to Justin, the use of reason by people, even in those without express faith in Christ, is already Christ the Logos at work in them. “We have been taught,” St. Justin declared, “that Christ is the First-born of God, and we have declared . . . that he is the Word [Logos] of whom every race of men were partaken, and those who lived reasonable are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists.” First Apology, 46.
The Incarnation of the Logos as a human, Jesus of Nazareth, is a unique revelation of Christianity. Jesus is unique in that he represents not only the incarnation of the Logos of God, but also the Christ (anointed one), the Hebrew Messiah. So, now when we use the word Logos in any post-incarnational discussion, we need to also mentally add “Jesus” and “Christ” to “Son” in our composite picture. To the Stoic idea of Logos as a universal, transcendent principle, Christianity added the very personal dimensions of Son of God and Jesus Christ. This revelation is uniquely Christian.
St. John Chrysostom: “Wealth is one thing, covetousness another”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Patristic Pearls on June 26, 2014
St. John Chrysostom (344/354 – 407). There is a very definite difference between rich and rapacious; between wealth and covetousness. Wealth is not a bad thing. Misuse of it is.
“I am often reproached for continually attacking the rich. Yes, because the rich are continually attacking the poor. But those I attack are not the rich as such, only those who misuse their wealth. I point out constantly that those I accuse are not the rich but the rapacious. Wealth is one thing, covetousness another. Learn to distinguish.”
– St. John Chrysostom, Homily on the Fall of Eutropius
Tillich: “He who sacrifices the Logos principle sacrifices the idea of a living God…”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in New Nuggets, Theology on June 26, 2014
Paul Tillich (1886 – 1965) – German American Christian philosopher and theologian who is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. He maintained that the Logos Doctrine was absolutely essential to Christian theology.
“He who sacrifices the Logos principle sacrifices the idea of a living God, and he who rejects the application of this principle to Jesus as the Christ rejects his character as Christ.”
~ Systematic Theology, Vol. 3.
Logos Doctrine 4
Posted by Dallas Wolf in The Logos Doctrine (series) on June 26, 2014
“…according to the Logos Doctrine, Christianity is very inclusive and universal.”
The incarnation of the Logos, the Son, as Jesus the Christ is a once-for-all event. It is not the incarnation of a particular characteristic or set of characteristics of God; it is the very Logos of God, center of divinity, which becomes incarnate. The incarnation initiates a series of events in the economy, or plan of God for the salvation of humankind.
The saving economy of Jesus Christ, the Logos, are is found in his incarnation which deified the fallen nature of humankind; in his ministry which gave us direct knowledge of God; in his death by which he redeemed us from the bondage of sin; and in the resurrection, which defeated death.
Jesus Christ, as Logos, is first of all a teacher in the sense of giving us existential knowledge and power through the Holy Spirit. Justin Martyr said, “the teachings of Plato are not alien to those of Christ, although not in all respects similar. For all the writers of antiquity were able to have a dim vision of the realities by the means of the implanted word [Logos].” 2nd Apology, 13.
So, you see, according to the Logos Doctrine, Christianity is very inclusive and universal; “catholic”, if you will. It is not the exclusive club, tribe, or competing religion than humans have made of it. Ancient Christianity was inclusive of all truth, regardless of source, place, or time. It included all of humankind, without distinction.
When seen from the viewpoint of the Logos Doctrine, the seemingly exclusive claims of John 14:6 become a declaration of inclusive, cosmic, universal truth. The verse reads: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’.” In paraphrase, I believe this means: “I am the Logos, the self-manifestation of God the Father. We are the same in essence, but the Father remains hidden from creation. The only possible way that humankind has to understand and know God is through understanding and knowing the Logos.” This is the cosmic Christ. This is the Way; the “finger pointing to the moon”!
St. Symeon the New Theologian: “…by what other means can he ever obtain salvation? By no means!”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, Monasticism, Patristic Pearls on June 22, 2014
St. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022) was absolutely insistent that every believer must receive a second baptism, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is not to be confused with ritual Orthodox Chrismation.
“… ‘John Baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit’. If one is ignorant of the Baptism wherewith he was baptized as a child and does not even realize that he was baptized, but only accepts it by faith and then wipes it away with thousands upon thousands of sins, and if he denies the second Baptism – I mean, that which is through the Spirit, given from above by the loving-kindness of God to those who seek it by penitence – by what other means can he ever obtain salvation? By no means!”
~ from: The Discourses. XXXII
St. Symeon the New Theologian: “… first seek to learn and experience these things in fact…”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, Monasticism, Patristic Pearls on June 21, 2014
St. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022) excoriates the church clergy for not personally being contemplatives and experiencing the presence of God (theoria) themselves before trying to lead and teach the laity. This criticism is just as valid for the institutional church today as it was for the Byzantine church in AD 1000. Few, if any, of the contemporary institutional clergy practice contemplative Christian prayer.
“You priests and monks teach others with vain words and think that you are rulers – but falsely! Ask your elders and high priests, gather yourselves together in the love of God, and first seek to learn and experience these things in fact, and then have the will to see this and by experience become like God. Be anxious not merely to act a play and wear the garment thereof and so to approach apostolic dignities. Otherwise, as you in your imperfection rush to rule over others, before acquiring the knowledge of the mysteries of God, you will hear these words, ‘Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and shrewd in their own sight! Woe to those who put darkness for light and light for darkness!'”
~ from: Discourses, XXXIII
Nous (νοῦς) – “…the highest faculty in man” 1
Posted by Dallas Wolf in The "Nous" (series) on June 20, 2014
“What’s a “nous”?”
In the last 500 years, since about the time of the Protestant Reformation (16th century) and Enlightenment (17th century), Western culture has been obsessed with the rational, reasoning, logical mind. It has become so dominant in our thinking, that it is now the sole measure of human intelligence. Our fixation with the rational mind is not without foundation. The power of the rational mind has been the engine that gave us the scientific method of inquiry; it brought us the Industrial and Scientific revolutions; the Information Age. It has largely shaped the modern world. So, in modern society, when we speak of “mind” or “intelligence” we mean one thing and one thing only: the rational, reasoning human mind.
For Christians trying to understand the New Testament (originally written in Greek) and other early Christian spiritual writings (also predominantly in Greek), the exclusive association of “mind” and “intelligence” with man’s rational, reasoning faculties is problematic. In Christian spiritual tradition, the rational, reasoning faculty of man is not the only definition of “mind” and “intelligence”. In fact, it is not even considered the highest or most developed definition of “mind” and “intelligence”. That distinction belongs to the “nous”.
What? What’s a “nous”? I’ll bet most Westerners, even mature Christians, have never heard the word “nous”. The word “nous” (pronounced “nooce”) is Greek (νοϋς) and can be found throughout the Greek New Testament (it appears explicitly 22 times in the NT) and in scores of other early Christian (Patristic) writings.
The term “nous” can be thought of as a perceptive or receptive ability to hear God’s voice and to, perhaps, experience Him in His energies. It has often been translated simply as “mind”, as in Paul’s letter to the Romans where he wrote, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind [nous], that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (12:2)
More next post.
Nous (νοῦς) – “…the highest faculty in man” 2
Posted by Dallas Wolf in The "Nous" (series) on June 19, 2014
“…the organ of contemplation…, the ‘eye of the heart’…”
The word “nous” has been translated into English as “mind”, “intellect”, and a variety of other meanings as well. The word “mind” was the choice made by Bishop Kallistos Ware (now Metropolitan Kallistos) and others in their translation of the Philokalia (the collection of Christian mystic writings from the 4th to the 15th centuries). But our modern conception of “mind” does not really capture the meaning of “nous”. Some use the word “intellect” as an equivalent. This also misses the nuanced meaning of “nous”. The problem is that we in the modern world only think of “mind” and “intellect” in terms of our rational, reasoning faculties. We can start to get a sense of the real meaning of “nous” from the definition contained in the Philokalia itself. Here, it translates “nous” as “intellect”, but you can see that it is clearly different from our contemporary idea of “intellect”:
“the highest faculty in man, through which – provided it is purified – he knows God or the inner essences or principles … of created things by means of direct apprehension or spiritual perception. Unlike the dianoia or reason…, from which it must be carefully distinguished, the intellect [nous] does not function by formulating abstract concepts and then arguing on this basis to a conclusion reached through deductive reasoning, but it understands divine truth by means of immediate experience, intuition or ‘simple cognition’ (the term used by St Isaac the Syrian). The intellect [nous] dwells in the ‘depths of the soul’; it constitutes the innermost aspect of the heart… The intellect [nous] is the organ of contemplation…, the ‘eye of the heart’ (Makarian Homilies).”
A lot of confusion surrounded the term “nous”, clearly. As a result, many secular philosophers have used it to refer to quite different concepts. “Nous” has been used to refer to anything from personal mental qualities or abilities all the way to qualities ascribed to God or the cosmos.
Nous (νοῦς) – “…the highest faculty in man” 3
Posted by Dallas Wolf in The "Nous" (series) on June 18, 2014
“… the noetic energy that functions in the heart of a person that is spiritually healthy.”
Originally, “nous” was understood by ancient (pre-Christian) Greek philosophers, most notably Plato and Aristotle, as man’s highest intellectual faculty. By intellectual faculty, the ancient Greeks did not mean the ability to reason things out to a logical conclusion, but rather the intuitive and immediate grasp of the reality of things. To them, “nous” was more of a direct contact between mind and truth.
The Church Fathers borrowed the term “nous” from Greek philosophy and gave it a distinctive Christian meaning. They used it to refer to the noetic energy that functions in the heart of a person that is spiritually healthy. The “nous” can be used to explain another borrowed concept from philosophy, the Logos Doctrine of the church. Second century Christian apologist Justin Martyr used the spermatikos logos (“seed” of the Word) to explain the universal indwelling presence of the Logos, the Word, or Son of God the Father within every human being (cf. the prologue to the Gospel of John, vv. 1:1-18). The idea of the “nous” also evolved over time among the Fathers. Early use of the term can be ambiguous as some early Fathers used the word “nous” when they were referring to the reasoning rational mind.
According to Orthodox theologian Fr. Michael Pomazansky (in his book, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology), it was the teaching of the overwhelming majority of the Church Fathers that the phrase ‘Image of God’ (cf. Genesis 1:26) refers to man’s soul, more precisely to the highest faculty of the soul, the “nous”. So, man is the “Image” by virtue of the spiritual nature of his “nous”. One common comparison made among patristic writers illustrates the relationship between body and the healthy “nous”. The analogy is that of the body being similar to a horse and the “nous” to the rider guiding and controlling the animal to move in the direction he would have it go.
St. Symeon the New Theologian: “…it is entirely possible when one desires it.”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Monasticism, Patristic Pearls on June 18, 2014
St. Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022)
“Do not say that it is impossible to receive the Spirit of God.
Do not say that it is possible to be made whole without Him.
Do not say that one can possess Him without knowing it.
Do not say that God does not manifest Himself to man.
Do not say that men cannot perceive the divine light, or that it is impossible in this age!
Never is it found to be impossible, my friends.
On the contrary, it is entirely possible when one desires it.”
~ Hymns of Divine Love, 27
First Thoughts 