Knowing God
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Hesychasm Versus Aristotelian Scholasticism
The 14th century dispute between
Augustinian theologian Barlaam of Calabria, an Aristotelian scholastic,
and Saint Gregory Palamas, whom he accused of heresy for his hesychasm
(the Orthodox teaching on mystical prayer), was important because it
demonstrated one of the major differences between the Latin West, and
the Orthodox East. In the Latin West, God could be known through
philosophical images and symbols, whereas, in the East, one could know
God, personally, through His Uncreated Energies. The Athonite monks
taught that one could experience God, personally, through His Energies,
rather than His Divine Essence. Barlaam insisted that one could not
experience God, but only know, and even prove God's existence, through
the means of logic and reason.The Athonite monks claimed to be able to experience God's Uncreated Light through prayer, specifically through the use of the Jesus Prayer. To this day, this is one of the basic differences between the Orthodox East and the Christian West, for we Orthodox believe that we can know God through His divine revelation, noetically (of the heart).
Vladimir Lossky, one of the greatest of modern Eastern Orthodox theologians, argued the difference between Eastern and Western Christianity is due to the Roman Catholic Church's use of pagan metaphysical philosophy (and its outgrowth, scholasticism) rather than the mystical, actual experience of God called theoria, to validate the theological dogmas of Roman Catholic Christianity. Orthodox theologians such as Father John Romanides and Metropolitan Hierotheos teach the same thing. Vladimir Lossky expressed this as "Revelation sets an abyss between the truth which it declares and the truths which can be discovered by philosophical speculation. For this reason, Lossky argues that the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics have become "different men".
Logic and reason have dominated the theology of Western Christianity from the time of Jerome and Augustine of Hippo, resulting in a juridical approach to God, resulting in the false teaching that God demanded blood atonement for the sins of mankind. The Eastern Church, from the time of Christ, held that mankind was ill, and the cure was meant to bring us back into full communion with the God Who loved us. Christ's holy resurrection was meant, not as a blood sacrifice in our stead, but as Christ's having trampled down the power of death, which had entered into the world through the fall.
We are made whole (healed) by the grace of God, and brought into a relationship with Him that is our true inheritance. Heaven and hell are not places created by God for those who were good, or bad, but rather about relationship. The Fire of God is heaven for those who have responded to God's love, and hell for those who have remained in the darkness of sin (sickness), and whose ego has shut out God, for self. Heaven and hell are not places, but all about relationship.
It is possible to know God, and to experience His Uncreated Energies, because He has invited us into communion with Him, and this invitation is offered freely, as a gift. Our reception of this gift, requires our cooperation, because we have free will. Any relationship that is to be based in love, must have as its basis, freedom of choice. God chooses us, and we are free to respond, or not.
Christ Jesus stands before us, arms outstretched, awaiting our response.
Love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon
Monday April 30, 2012 / April 17, 2012
Third Week of Pascha. Tone two.
Venerable Acacius, bishop of Melitene (435).
Venerable Zosimas of Solovki (1478).
New Hieromartyr John priest (1918).
New Hieromartyr Michael confessor, priest (1935).
New Hieromartyr Theodore priest (1942).
Uncovering of the relics (1641) of Venerable Alexander of Svir (1533).
Martyr Adrian of Corinth (151).
St. Agapitus, pope of Rome (536).
Venerable Macarius of Corinth (1805).
St. Paisius, fool-for-Christ of Kiev (1893).
St. Ephraim the Great of Matskveri Monastery (9th c.) (Georgia).
Monk-martyr Donnan of Eigg and those with him (618) (Celtic & British).
You can read the life of the saint in green, by click on the name.
Donations can be made directly to the monastery through PayPal, or you may send donations to:
All-Merciful Saviour Monastery
PO Box 2420
Vashon Island, WA 98070-2420 USA
Acts 6:8-7:5
Stephen Accused of Blasphemy
8 And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. 9 Then
there arose some from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen
(Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia), disputing
with Stephen. 10 And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke. 11 Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” 12 And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council. 13 They
also set up false witnesses who said, “This man does not cease to speak
blasphemous words against this holy place and the law; 14 for
we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this
place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us.” 15 And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel.
Stephen’s Address: The Call of Abraham
7 Then the high priest said, “Are these things so?”
2 And
he said, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to
our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran,
3 and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ 4 Then
he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from
there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you
now dwell. 5 And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him.
Acts 7:47-60
47 But Solomon built Him a house.
48 “However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:
49 ‘Heaven is My throne,
And earth is My footstool.
What house will you build for Me? says the Lord,
Or what is the place of My rest?
50 Has My hand not made all these things?’
And earth is My footstool.
What house will you build for Me? says the Lord,
Or what is the place of My rest?
50 Has My hand not made all these things?’
Israel Resists the Holy Spirit
51 “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. 52 Which
of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those
who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the
betrayers and murderers, 53 who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.”
Stephen the Martyr
54 When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. 55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, 56 and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; 58 and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then
he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge
them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
John 4:46-54
A Nobleman’s Son Healed
46 So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”49 The nobleman said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies!”
50 Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your son lives.” So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. 51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, “Your son lives!”
52 Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” 53 So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” And he himself believed, and his whole household.
54 This again is the second sign Jesus did when He had come out of Judea into Galilee.
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