Filioque essay

I have attached a paper written for my Master’s Degree entitled: “Discuss the filioque in the background of Orthodox ecclesiology, the theology of deification and the Orthodox Biblical exegetical methodology.” It received a good mark but there were questions as to how well is represents the Orthodox view on things. Feel free to raise any critiques of it.
Themes in Orthodox Theology

God within

One aspect of Orthodox Theology is the understanding of salvation as theosis, which is the participation in the very Life of God, participating in God. God is not related to externally, as over there but internally within. Although, He is not encompassed by us, nevertheless, He is to be found within our hearts and not by looking for Him externally. That is why it is hopeless to ask to see God because that is not how one knows God. When God is within then we are also in Him and He in us. We participate in His Life, which becomes our life.

Our worship consists not of outward raising of arms and clapping of hands with joyful songs but with a broken and humbled heart that is softened and open to His entry within to make us what He is. Not that we are lost in Him but that we become ourselves in Him; He gives us a new name that we are known as ourselves and being so known remain as ourselves forever in Him and He in us in unity. External modes of worship have their place but they are to bring the heart to the right place before the Lord, so that He may freely enter.

The Tradition of worship in the Orthodox Church reflects and reinforces this true worship. The Church buildings, music, icons, structure and form of participation are all there to provide the correct environment for this.

The music using the Church monophonic chants sung by properly appointed male chanters, excepting convents, provide the right tone and spirit of music to raise the heart to divine thoughts. The tone in contrite and deep yet laced with joy. Nothing light and frivolous, affecting the emotions or passion, nor merely pleasing to the ear and mind but something that moves the heart in a spiritual manner. Instruments have no place because they focus the mind on the sounds as an end in themselves and on material things rather than on the words that enlighten and edify the mind and heart lifting them to heaven.

Icons also present the same spiritual environment. They do not express emotion, passion nor physical movement but in calm, sober reflection lift ones mind and heart to God. They radiate a passionless joy and interior contemplation, knowing God within Who radiates His light from the Saints face, as He did for Moses.

The structure of the Church within also develops the right relationship between man and God. The Altar area or rather the throne room of God, Bema, is the centre of God’s reign. It is here that Christ brings man and lifts him by His sacrifice, resurrection and ascension. The centre of this area is the Throne, the High place. The altar is set before this but should not replace it because the focus is coming into God and not on the sacrifice as an end in itself. It reminds us of God’s presence in man and man’s in heaven. The nave of the Church, properly surrounded by the icons of the Saints and Angelic hosts, forms the place where man meets God. It is separated from the Throne because man has yet to ascend into eternal life yet it is in God because God reigns in us now. It is a holy place for the royal priesthood and not those of the world who do not belong here. The narthex is the place where man seeks God but does not yet have Him reigning within through Baptism and repentance. The Throne room is reserved for the Priesthood who as Christ bring man before God. Laymen remain outside reminding us that we have not yet completed the struggle and reached the final goal.

Worship is largely clerical in form and mostly done in one voice whether it is the Bishop speaking, or a chanter. This reflects that we speak with one voice in the same mind and this is the mind and voice of Christ. We worship in Christ, we come to the Father in Him not of ourselves. He it is who leads the worship in the Spirit. Worship is not of man but of God. It is participation in the Life of God as the Son relates to the Father, so to must we also. God does not force our participation and we too relate in the Son as ourselves so the laity respond as if with one voice to the petitions of the priest or deacon or own the hymns of the chanters for themselves by participating in the refrains. Worship is orderly with each keeping to ones proper rank and place because God is a God of order and has arranged His creation and angelic hosts in appropriate order as He sees fit. Men and women stand separated to remind us that our real unity comes not with earthly bonds but with each one uniting to Christ in oneself but also with all. It also helps to remind us to lift our minds from earthly pleasures to those true pleasures in heaven.

The Church building, temple, whether the ancient basilica or the domed “Byzantine”, focuses the eye and mind on its interior. It does not lift ones mind out of the temple and skywards with spires and height to an external God “up there” but brings the mind within itself, into the heart. Heaven is within the Orthodox temple and is manifest with the presence of frescos and icons of the Saints building up to Christ Himself in the interior of the dome. The temples, although sometimes large, are humble on the exterior but within the true glory shines forth as it does with the Saints.

So, all things bring the mind into the heart where God dwells in His Spirit. Here it is that man knows God and participates in the very life of God, in God and God all in all.

Remember me O Lord in Thy Kingdom

Not to be taken too literally, it can be said that the Son, begotten of the Father, is as Word begotten from thought. This adds substance to the constantly repeated prayer for God to remember us.

God, of course, never forgets us so the idea of remembering on a human level is not applicable to God. Something more must be meant with this prayer. One aspect is that we remember God and, in our prayer, it is our remembrance of Him that appears to remind Him of us with the synergetic assistance He then provides. Along with this aspect, is, I believe, another aspect of the prayer. This is that in God remembering us, thinking of us, He begets us, as words in the Word so that we become sons of God, albeit by adoption rather than nature. While, all people are remembered and all live forever, only the faithful will be remembered in “Thy Kingdom” that is they will reign with Christ and in Christ as sons.

So, God remembering us is not merely a mental note about us but the establishing of our very being and existence; without this we would cease to exist. This also applies to the Liturgy, which we do in remembrance of Him. This again is not merely the recalling of past events but the making real of the Life of Christ in which we truly participate. The Liturgy is not only the transformation and eating of the Body and Blood of Christ but a complete union with His entire life, that which is past, that which is now and that which is too come. It is completely realised in the Liturgy through remembrance of Him, in the Spirit. The Liturgy is a Divine action in which we participate; it is not of ourselves or our own work, although we also bring our own bodies to the Altar and share in the Life of Christ, which becomes ours.

The Liturgical Centre of Life

I was just reflecting on some comments by Photios Jones on Energetic Procession about Tradition and Liturgy with other thoughts about theology based on Liturgy and I wondered why this is so. The following thoughts came to mind.

Christ is our Life. He is the centre of it and all of it. We live in Him and He in us. The Liturgy is the ultimate manifestation of the Life of Christ. It is the Mystery of His life in which we participate and at the pinnacle is the very participation in this life of our whole life, in body and soul. The rest of life a continuation of this Mystery. That is why we feel most alive and natural in the Liturgy because we are living the fullness of our life.

Holy Tradition is the body of faith and practice that manifest the life of Christ. It was taught to Apostles by Christ and transmitted orally and in writing. These teachings provide a rule of life in all its aspects so that we may live the life of Christ in its fullness. Because the Liturgy is the centre of this life the Liturgy is also the centre of Tradition. The Liturgy encompasses the fullness of the Tradition and is its fullest manifestation. Thus to understand the Tradition, to understand the Scripture one must see it in context of the Liturgy. When one interprets Scripture they must do so in context of the Liturgy, which is the life of Christ to which the Scriptures bear witness. When one walks away from the teaching or practice of the Church, it is the Liturgy from which they are excluded, from the centre of the Tradition.

Because the Liturgy is the centre of our life in Christ, its whole way must manifest the life in Christ. It is not merely the breaking of bread but encompasses the whole process, including its setting. Architecture, icons, music and rites as well as words all reflect the life of Christ, they are all Holy and Divine. Although there are exceptions due to circumstance that do not affect the heart of the Liturgy, nevertheless, the wrong architecture, the wrong music, the wrong icons, and especially the wrong rites and words can all distort the full manifestation of the life of Christ. Tradition, although transcending material limits, also incorporates material detail and makes it part of the process. Yes, there is a variety of detail in the Liturgy but there is also a uniformity of detail. Although not bound by detail the Liturgy is not divorced from detail.

Some thoughts on time

These thoughts were made some time ago before I was Orthodox. They don’t necessarily represent the Fathers or the Tradition of the Church but they are a take on the issue that I think may be within the Tradition. Any thoughts or critiques?

I will begin by defining time as a measure of change. Things that change have a past, present and future. Things that do not change are said to be timeless because the past, present and future are indistinct and also there is no change to measure. Also, I understand that the future does not exist, expect as a potential, the present is an instant and lacks any permanence and the past also does not exist except as a memory. (Only timeless things truly exist in permanence.)

God is unchanging hence He exists without time. Creation has time because it is changing. Time began with Creation and will continue until Creation ceases to change; before Creation there was no time. We cannot think of what happened before because there was no change and we cannot say why did not God create earlier because there is no earlier. The first moment of Creation is the earliest time.

Time does not, therefore, have an eternal existence. It came into being with Creation. Like the rest of Creation it only existed in potential before the beginning of Creation. God’s existence cannot be referenced to Time; He lives beyond time and is unaffected by it. Time only has consequence to His creatures.

God being immutable cannot change with the events of time. Hence, He must know all future potentialities as if they were actual before Creation. When those potentials become present for the creature, this cannot affect God and they also do not make a change for God when they become past memories. His knowledge of things does not know any such difference.

Being omniscient God knows the future because the future potentials are knowable when they become present to the creature. If a creature knows something then so must God. Being Immutable the knowledge cannot come to God over time; He must know all things eternally.

God has given mankind free will. This means that man is free to make his own decision about things. Therefore, man is able to freely change some aspect or action of his. Because the future exists only in potential and not in actuality then the free choice of a man can make one potential actual for the man while others remain not so. Another choice will make a different potential actual for the man. This does not affect God because His knowledge is unchanged by potentials becoming actual for a man and His knowledge of potentials as actuals. Man’s free will is therefore consistent with God’s immutability and omniscience.

What about predicting the future? God is omnipotent so he can affect all things as He wills. If He determines that such an event should take place then He can make it happen; He is free. This is God’s providence in Creation. Note: all determinations of God were made before time and He does not change His mind. An apparent change of mind can occur because free choices actions of an individual can “trigger” a predetermined decision of God. Hence, a man prays for God’s mercy and then God “changes His mind” and relents from the threatened punishment. God had already determined to do so before time when the man actualised the future potential for prayer for himself and meet the “requirements” for God’s relenting. God can predict the future trials of a man because these things are brought to a man through God’s providence. However, God cannot necessarily predict a man’s salvation because the man’s free will actualises for himself salvation or damnation. It does not affect God whether a man is saved or not because He knows all future potentials including salvation of the man. The choices of men only affect themselves and those of limited knowledge. If Saints are to share the energies of God, including omniscience then they also will know the future potential of everyone being saved as if they were actually saved and they also will not be affected by the loss of sinners.

Because God’s decisions are all predetermined before time then all things He does are predetermined including the call, justification and glorification of man. He foreknows the potential salvation of all men and He has willed that all be saved. He has also determined the means for all to be saved. However, man must choose the triggers for these predetermined actions of God. If man chooses not to then God cannot and will not force them upon a man because God has given us free will.

Mixed “Marriages”

Let no Orthodox man be allowed to contract a marriage with a heretical woman, nor moreover let any Orthodox woman be married to a heretical man. But if it should be discovered that any such thing is done by any one of the Christians, no matter who, let the marriage be deemed void, and let the lawless marriage tie be dissolved. For it is not right to mix things immiscible, nor to let a wolf get tangled up with a sheep, and the lot of sinners get tangled up with the portion of Christ. If, therefore, anyone violates the rules we have made let him be excommunicated. But in case persons who happen to be still in the state of unbelief and to be not yet admitted to the fold of the Orthodox have joined themselves to each other by lawful marriage, then and in that event, the one of them having chosen the good start by running to the light of truth, while the other, on the contrary, has been held down by the bond of delusion for having failed to welcome the choice of gazing at the divine rays (whether it be that an unbelieving woman has looked with favor upon a man who is a believer, or vice versa an unbelieving man upon a woman who is a believer), let them not be separated, in accordance with the divine Apostle: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbeelieving wife by the husband” (1 Cor. 7:14).

Canon 72, Council of Trullo (Sixth Ecumenical Council)

There is a sad state of much disobedience in this matter and allowance of mixed “marriages” with those outside of the Church. Disobedience to Christ is bad enough in this matter but let us examine what is happening here and hopefully those of a right mind will be repulsed by the idea of such a marriage and never trouble the clergy to permit such a thing.

Why is my language so strong? Why have a put quotes around the word marriage? It is because once the Mystery of marriage is better understood, it will be realised that there is true marriage between someone in the Church and one outside, not in the Mystery of marriage. There is a union in the flesh but this only serves to heighten the problem.

Marriage is the Mystery of the union of Christ and His Church. The man is the icon of Christ and the woman is the icon of the Church. Their union as husband and wife is the union of Christ and the Church. They become one flesh in Christ. Each family is a small Church in Christ and thus marriage finds its place in Christ. As with all aspects of Christian life our life is in Christ and everything finds its place in Him. If it cannot then it is to be rejected from our lives because what is not in Christ is dead.

Only a baptised man in the Church can be Christ because only such a man can truly have Christ and be in Christ. Only a baptised woman in the Church can be the Church, the body of Christ because only in the Church does one become united to His body and partake of it. So the Mystery of marriage can only be fulfilled between those in the Church. To marry someone outside the Church in Christ is impossible because those outside the Church cannot fulfil their place in the Mystery of marriage and the marriage is not a true marriage in Christ but something outside him and of the flesh. (It should nevertheless be respected as marriage in that there is still a union on flesh and to avoid an excuse for adultery. Also, in respect of secular law that recognises the union.)

This is not to mention that when a believer lives as one flesh with an unbeliever then they are uniting the flesh of Christ with one unbaptised and this confers a similar burden on their soul as if the unbeliever were to dare to receive communion. Would you dare to share holy communion with heretics? Then why share your body, or rather Christ’s body with them in marriage? Such a thing should not occur.

An exception to this is when one partner comes into the saving body of the Church and the other remains outside or if one’s partner should decide later to leave the Church. In this case the faithful partner sanctifies his/her partner for the sake of the children. They should not depart because this would case many other problems but if the unbeliever decides to leave of his/her own will then so he/she should be let free. There is no true “marriage” in Christ and so no breach of the Mystery. It is a state of economy but not the fulness of the Mystery in Christ.

Eternity and Universal Salvation

While there is great hope that all men may be saved, the Church declares that Universalism is a heresy. Why is this? Cannot God save all people? Will not all change their minds when confronted with God in His fulness?

In answer to the last question, I believe that it is not a matter for our salvation to know that God is, even the demons know this, it is about loving God. This love can only be properly seen when the presence of God is not completely manifest. It is the servant who obeys his master when the master is not present is the true servant. This servant can be trusted as a son and becomes a son to the master because he shares the master’s interests as his own. Christ, although present, does not manifest Himself in the fullness of His glory that our love can be tested to be shown true and given freely; not something given by the force of His presence.

Can God save all people? Yes, if they are willing to be saved. No, if they are not. God cannot force salvation on man who is unwilling to be saved, that is to live the life of God in its fulness. If God did so man who not be free and thus would not be able to live the life of God, who is free. Man would lose salvation immediately his salvation is forced upon him. Man must be free to forever refuse salvation.

Perhaps time will heal all men? Perhaps this may be true but two issues arise. God has limited time for man on earth to a few years. He could not abide with man’s evil forever. Man’s faith must to tested in body because man is both soul and body. When man is separated from his body, he is judged because it is the life of the complete man that is tested, man in the flesh, and not man as a soul only. No this latter man can only wait for the final judgement to confirm his lot when reunited with his body on the last day. This point raises the second issue and reason against universal salvation. God lives beyond time and space and for us to share in the fulness of His life we too must live beyond time and space. Our lives will no longer be in time, our lives will no longer be subject to change. Without change there can no longer be repentance nor change of mind, so those apart from Christ will eternally remain so. There can be no salvation without time coming to an end. That is why the Saints are waiting to be perfected with all of us in the consumption of time. In an instant we will be taken up and your eternal destinies decided. If we remain in time and change we can never share the fulness of God’s life.

What of the Saint’s teaching that we go from glory to glory? Does this not imply change? In a sense it does but this must be taken in perspective. Using the analogy of a blackhole from the perspective of an external observer someone falling into the blackhole disappears almost in an instant. However, from the perspective of one falling into the blackhole the process takes almost an eternity. Thus, from the perspective of God, time ends and our reward is given in an instant. However, from the perspective of limited man, it takes and eternity to receive the eternal gift. Thus, man sees himself going from glory to glory throughout eternity constantly receiving the fulness of life in God that was given in an instant without change. The sinner suffers inversely.

So, for the possibility of the salvation of any means the potential of eternal suffering for those rejecting this salvation during their lives on earth. One is associated with the other and man must have his freedom. Salvation cannot be without the possibility of damnation. If this were so then God would have arranged it as such but He cannot deny Himself.

On Eternal Joy of Man

Reading Aquinas has inspired me to think of the life to come and to what it means to man. I believe that man finds himself and perfect joy in perfect Love. It is love that man seeks above all, even in the corruption of self-love.

I believe that the meaning of life is in relationships, the heart of which is love. Love binds and preserves relationships and sin breaks and destroys relationships. Love is the source of all virtue because he who loves his brother will not sin against him.

God is love. When God is all is all then love is all in all. This unites all men, who are willing to love all men because in Christ all men are united transcending time and space. We share complete relationships with all without ceasing in time of separation in space. This is what gives man perfect joy and it is all in love. Sadly, one who hates his brother can have no part in this or will be eternally tormented by this because there is no escape from those one hates. They are there always in a union far transcending the union of man and wife. We no long live looking at the other separate from us but live in them and united with them without confusion. What joy! What wonder! But who is ready for this? Who can endure such close relationships? For man this is impossible but for God all things are possible, if we are willing.

It is sharing in the life of God that in love that is the perfection of man. In sharing in the Divine Energies of God, man shares in this life and love; God’s life and love becomes man’s life and love Man “sees” and “knows” God in His Energies even if the Essence of God remains transcendent of man and unknowable. This does not concern man who finds his joy in the love and life of God, living in infinitely dynamic relations with all in God. Loving and being loved. Man is perfectly happy in love and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else. “Seeing” and “knowing” are the participation in the Life of God when one sees God in love and knows God in love by sharing this love and knowing it for oneself and seeing and receiving it in and from all. This is knowing God in truth and deed, in living as He lives, loving as He loves and being loved by Him. I believe that in God men will love and know those even in hell; for those in God, there is no lose of loved ones because they love all and know all. Only for those rejecting the love of God is there loss.

Monks do not run from relationships but to relationships. In separating from the limits of human relationships and seeking to unite with the life of God monastics, in acquiring the Holy Spirit, begin to live the Life of God on earth; they share God’s love and knowledge of all. They begin to know all and love all; praying for all and weeping for all. They know themselves with all and in all. Surely, they are most blessed; but this is the hope of us all in Christ.