No System

I’m not sure whether I will return to blogging regularly. Here is some reflection from current reading.

I just read Anatolios’ “Oppositional Pairs” on Augustine’s De Trinitate. I thought he was going to talk about reconciling passibility and impassibility in Christ, a topic we discussed in Patristics last semester. He is working with a different pair of terms (faith/sight) — though he still reconciles them in Christ. It’s a good paper. I’d like to bop him over the head with my editorial red pen for this sentence: “Her recommendation of strategies generated by the linguistic turn is shaped by her own commitment to a critical theory that seeks to agitate presumptions of stability of meaning and the integrity of referentiality.” The rest of the paper is almost as dense and jargon-laden. Still, it is useful for trying to understand the Fathers’ theologizing (theology as verb, not noun). I am happy that Anatolios disses “faith and reason.” What an awful dichotomy. It has thrown the West off for a millennium. That Augustine uses antithesis as a key rhetorical strategy is not surprising, given his Manichaean roots. (Though many Fathers use antithesis to great effect, and it’s probably not polite to speculate on philosophical-cum-rhetorical inclinations.) That Augustine overcomes antitheses in Christ is also not surprising. That’s orthodox. (By the end of the paper, tho, it all begins to feel extremely Hegelian!)

Anatolios is correct to begin with the purpose of De Trinitate as laid out in Book I, seeing what Augustine himself says he is doing, and to track this throughout the rest of the work. (We did the same with Athanasius in class.) What is Augustine’s purpose? In the meat of his paper, Anatolios gives a plausible analysis of Augustine’s rhetorical-structural use of the antithesis faith/sight. But was Augustine’s purpose, “As a bishop and preacher… to find ways to structure Christian meaning in communicable form”? Does “the retracing of his maneuvers to this end enable a valuable reappropriation of his theological vision”? Anatolios’ analysis is good, but (like everybody else) he is in doctrine-mode, system-mode, “metaphysics” mode (as in Fr. Behr’s “myth and metaphysics”). Does Augustine have a “theological vision,” a “structure of Christian meaning” he is trying to put into “communicable form”?

What were the Fathers trying to do? Why did they write? (What else were they doing besides writing?) Was their purpose to “communicate” a “theology” (noun)?

I’m also reading Fr. Lienhard on Marcellus. The second chapter of his book _Contra Marcellum_, where he lays out the two “theological traditions,” is helpful. But again we have two “theological visions.” Reasonably enough, Fr. Lienhard poses the question how to choose between them. In effect he asks, which is the right system? Which is the right doctrine? In a nice little paragraph (p. 45) he says, “the doctrine on which the two traditions may best be tested is the doctrine of salvation. In a sense, salvation is the most basic of all religious concepts, and every religious system offers some kind of salvation. Each presupposes that there is a gap or a rift between the human and the divine [cf Anatolios’ study and Augustine’s system] and offers to close or to heal it. The doctrine of salvation finally answers the simple but honest question, ‘What’s in this for me?’” (p. 45) Fr. Lienhard goes on to give an overly simplified characterization of the soteriological view of each of the two theological “traditions.”

What I want to ask is: what is wrong with this whole picture? According to Anatolios, Augustine has a theological system (a teaching about God — naturally, “in Trinity”; the world; humanity; Christ) that he is trying to “communicate,” and according to Lienhard, fourth century patristics may be characterized as a debate about the soteriological impact of two alternative theological systems. System, then communication. System, then salvation.

This whole approach is WRONG. There is no system.

(Or, if there is, this would be a quintessentially “Greek” characteristic of patristics.) A system is theology as noun. It is not method. It is not process. It is not salvation. A system is just a bunch of propositions one can argue about and take or leave. Further, a system is never “bright knowledge,” as Fagerberg put it. It is not “liturgical epiphany,” as Fr. Job put it (as the third stage of Fr. Schmemann’s method, built on stage two, theological reflection, and stage one, historical research to get at liturgical “fact”). (See the Liturgical Symposium at St. Vlad’s last weekend, with podcasts on Ancient Faith Radio.)

Or, look at it another way. The problem with western “faith versus reason” is that both end in system, one “revealed” (from scripture) and one constructed (via reason, either by “natural theology” or by morphing scripture into a system through logical deduction from revealed “first principles”). But there is no system!

Or, consider the other great Catholic duo of “faith and morals.” Faith is what you “believe,” morals are what you “do.” Believe the propositions of “the faith” (i.e. “the system”) as true, and do the commands of God — and you will be saved. Does salvation work this way?? Would we need Christ if it did? Who would He be? On such a view He becomes merely another (“creedal”) proposition to “believe in”; and/or He becomes — supposing, say, that we can’t actually do God’s commands — our propitiation with an (offended/wrathful/judging) Father, who (assuaged with the blood of His Son) might relent after all and let us in to heaven despite our moral failings. Is this how salvation works??

(Note that both “faith and morals” are, further, on this view, matters of will, supported by “grace”. To be saved, one must have both a “will to believe” and “will power” to do what is right — or, at least, hearty “willing-ness” to accept Christ’s propitiation on our behalf for our acknowledged moral failure, when will power fails.)

Or, Fr. Behr has argued that it doesn’t work to transpose system (“metaphysics”) to historical narrative (“myth”), as modern theology is wont to do. Christ, the author of history, may not be subjected to history. Stories are edifying, but how would a story save you? Nor may Christ, Word and Hand of the Father, who is Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible, be subject to philosophical or scientific system, to human rationalization. Systems are handy heuristics, but how would one save you? (Orthodoxy today is particularly strident on the no-salvation-by-scholasticism theme.) Nor may Christ, the fulfillment of the Law, be subject to humanly-constructed moral code (cf the Grand Inquisitor). Social engineering is tempting, but it won’t save you either.

In short, salvation can’t rely on myth, metaphysics, or morals — so what is its method? (to imitate Fr. Hopko’s penchant for alliteration) How are we saved? Why did the Fathers write? What else were they doing besides writing? They weren’t communicating system. They weren’t preaching salvation based on getting a correct system. (This raises a big question about the point of Councils.) They weren’t mythologizing by writing “salvation history.” They weren’t doing either dogmatics or systematics. They were exegetical — we established that in patristics — but to what end? How does exegesis save you?

Christ saves.

How? Who is He?

What’s the connection with exegesis?

Christ is “interpreted” from Scripture. The disciples are converted and become martyrs and missionaries (true apostles) through coming to see who He is via the opening of Scripture and the breaking of bread (road to Emmaus). They find out who Christ is through exegesis. In a mysterious circularity, however, the treasury of Scripture is itself unlocked BY Him (by using the rule of faith, which is the mosaic of Him), as the key. He Himself, not yet recognized, walks along beside the disciples, opening Scripture to them. Scripture reveals Him; He opens Scripture.

OK. But what is all this opening and revealing? How does IT save? I think we are saved sacramentally along all soteriological dimensions, which, to borrow from philosophy, are ontological, epistemological, moral, and aesthetic. (And maybe some more.)

Anatolios develops his analysis of Augustine along epistemological lines. Faith and sight are both epistemological media. Fr. Lienhard’s first theological tradition (“miahypostatic theology”) works on the level of ontology: “Salvation, in this tradition, is essentially a divine act by which the human race is elevated and deified. Salvation takes place in the order of being.” (p. 43) Fr. Lienhard’s second theological tradition (“dyohypostatic theology”) works on the level of “faith and morals,” and will. Christ is mediator, teacher/revealer and moral model/exemplar. “Salvation takes place in the order of will; it is not a new state, but an offer of knowledge. The Son reveals the truth and is the model of a God-pleasing life; Christians are saved when they accept the truth and live it.” (p. 40) Fr. Lienhard over-simplifies when he leans towards divine initiative (and ontology) in the first tradition and human will (and epistemology and morals) in the second, but between the two, he covers the three dimensions. In any viable Christian “tradition,” salvation must involve both God and man, and must work on all dimensions, because this is who Christ is.

Fr. Schmemann also had it right with his “bright knowledge” and “liturgical theophany,” and in general with his overriding perception of the whole “world as sacrament” (the original title of _For the Life of the World_). Our salvation in Christ is total. It is ontological. It is epistemological. It is moral. It is aesthetic. Christ comes to us sacramentally through liturgical prayer and worship, through study of Scripture, through love of neighbor. He is Eucharist, Word, and Friend. He is Beauty and Son. He is Wisdom, Truth, Shepherd, Gate, Human, God, Life and Way. Our “ontological state” is changed through sacrament. Our “epistemological state” is changed through sacrament, as is our will and our behavior. Baptism and chrismation initiate us into a new reality. Immersion in Scripture gives us words and images through which we enter into a “whole new way of thinking” (as Fr. Job said of Fr. Cyprian Kern, this being the most important aspect of Fr. Cyprian’s “method” that Fr. Schmemann inherited). Scripture is epistemological sacrament. The Christian’s changed being, his life lived iconically in the world, and his prayer and worship, lend faith-in-action and beautiful expression to scriptural images and understanding. It’s the whole package.

The Fathers write rhetorically, persuasively, not just for apologetic or polemical purposes; not just to instruct us, to teach us “right doctrine,” a correct system; but to exhort, cajole, draw and push us along a lived path, a path they themselves, presumably, were also traveling. They had not reached the end of this path, so they HAD NO system (as if there will be a system even at the end). They did not have total vision. They had faith and hope; they had experience; they had “bright knowledge.” But they were still on the road. What they write are travelogues.

Jesus journeyed with the disciples on the ROAD to Emmaus. After worship at the inn, the disciples traveled back to Jerusalem. Jesus appeared again and told them to stay in the city until they were “clothed with power from on high,” a brief pause, and then He leads them out to Bethany, ascends, and they return to the city and are “continually in the temple praising God.” Soon enough, they begin their own apostolic journeys.

This is salvation. Not myth, not metaphysics, not morals. Journey. A particular kind of journey understood most clearly as Christ on the Cross, descending into Hades, conquering the devil, ascending to Heaven, sending the Spirit, opening Scripture, guiding the apostles, becoming human, reaching through time and space, creating the world.