http://www.theandros.com/iamblichus.html

http://www.quodlibet.net/moore-maximus.shtml

Must reads (for the whole EO, theosis, personhood debate). I’ve ordered Moore’s book (his PhD diss) already. But these two articles are also very interesting. If Moore is right about Maximus, I’ll have to remove M’s quote from my signature.

Tom

I wish I had time to read Tom's article links.

and...

"As Meister Eckhart teaches, "He who abides always in a present now, in him does God beget his Son without ceasing."
Kallistos Ware, Orthodox Way, 115

and...

Loder's The Knight's Move: The Relational Logic of the Spirit in Theology and Science, a section called "The Spiritual Recentering of Human Development."

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 5/15/2008 11:19:43 PM (GMT-5)

D, pay careful attention to what Moore is arguing. He’s saying Maximus (a) has no place for the uniqueness of the human person in the eschaton, that the human ego is replaced absolutely by the divine presence (Moore writes “the uniqueness of the human person finds no place in Maximus’ though”), and that (b) Maximus was wrong in this. Moore:

“In this paper, I will examine the manner in which the Christian tradition fluctuated between the two extremes of eternal separation from God [Moore’s referring here to Origen], and the absolute, person-negating presence of God in the soul [Moore’s referring here to Maximus]. It is in the pagan Neoplatonic tradition, as exemplified by Iamblichus, I will argue, that a personalistic, existentially viable theory of the eskhaton is to be found. By this I mean a theory in which the person, the soul, is intimately bound up with the inner working - or eternally realized history - of the cosmos, in so far as the soul co-operates with God in the maintenance of the cosmic order. This is precisely the goal of Iamblichean theurgy: to raise the soul to the level of perfect demiurgic co-operation with the highest divinity. Yet even Iamblichus' theory requires qualification - if it is to remain existentially viable - as I hope to make clear in the conclusion of this paper.”

He never really makes it clear in the conclusion of his paper just HOW Iamblichus is to be “qualified.” But his point is clear enough. Origen had the deified soul essentially never really deified. It never ‘arrives’, never ‘rests’. It eternally strives. History is never fulfilled. Maximus on the other hand negates the human person altogether. I wouldn’t have gotten that about Maximus from the few quotes I’ve read of him (particularly the one that was in my signature), but I’ll check it out in Moore’s book which I ordered. But assuming Moore is right, then BOTH Origen and Maximus got it wrong; each represents an extreme at opposite ends, and that the pagan Neoplatonist Iamblichus IF QUALIFIED SUFFICIENTLY (don’t miss that; that is, don’t drink Iamblichus straight) offers a better way to maintain a personalist-existentialist (precisely what I’ve been arguing!) view of the soul’s union with God, one in which the human person remains a “unique person,” a “co-operator with God” in administrating the cosmos, and a “creative partner” (Moore’s words) with God. That looks promising. We’ll see.

Tom

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 5/16/2008 3:27:41 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 5/16/2008 5:11:30 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 5/16/2008 5:25:48 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 5/16/2008 5:42:11 AM (GMT-5)

The main subject of our last SK reading, actually the whole book (Concluding Unscientific Postscript), addresses this. Chat with Tyler sometime on it. 

Post Edited (Corey) : 5/16/2008 7:43:23 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Tom) : 5/16/2008 8:12:33 AM (GMT-5)

D: You've already said that SK understands that selfhood is NOT automatic: humans can, through their despair, beliving in beasthood, and not as a true "self". Right?

Corey: Anti-Climacus (again, not SK per se) describes the "negative third" and the "positive third", where the "negative third" is akin to beasthood. It's the unreflective mediation of the actual and possible, the finite and the infinite, etc.

The "positive third", as I understand it anyway, is ALL about reflection and intentional disposition. The truest "self" would be one who maximally reflects and intentionally mediates his potentialities into actualities.

Ironically, the self that I hear you describing (undoubtedly with my own deletions, distortions, generalizations), doesn't actually do much (any?) reflection and mediation. In other words, the model I hear from you is closer to the "negative third" than the "positive third" for all practical intents and purposes. It closer resembles the "Knight of Infinite Resignation" than the "Knight of Faith".

I know I'm probably caricaturing and missing some nuance, but maybe this feedback will at least help you see how it's come across to me.

----

This is making sense of the debate for me. I think Tom is sensing what I am... that your model implies that the "self" -- while ironically claiming maximal self-hood -- is actually maximally minimized (weird phrase, huh).

Post Edited (Corey) : 5/16/2008 11:51:57 AM (GMT-5)

So I understand that you, D, are disagreeing with the EO tradition here (as embodied in Maximus and Pseudo-Dionysius). This is a bit confusing, because all along you’ve been arguing that your Loderian Neo-Chalcedonian view of divine-human relationality is essentially THE EO view, and you’ve often quoted Maximus as chief proponent of your view. Now you’re agreeing with Moore that Maximus stands on one extreme end of a continuum (Origen at the other), and you and Loder are in the middle holding to the correct/balanced view.

Moore:

“We have seen how the final goal of salvation, for Maximus, is the transformation of the soul into a receptacle of God involving, as Thunberg summarized, the substitution of the human ego with the divine presence. Indeed, as Maximus clearly states in his Chapters on Knowledge, in salvation “only God shines forth through the body and soul when their natural features are transcended in overwhelming glory.” Such a statement implies that the redeemed soul is stripped of its nature and of any defining characteristics qualifying it as a distinct, autonomous being, a person – or, in the words of Pseudo-Dionysius, ‘neither oneself nor someone else’.”

and

“In the work of Maximus Confessor we find – to borrow a term and concept from Oswald Spengler – an ‘historical pseudomorphosis’  in its final stage, i.e., we see the Christian spirit conforming to the older and more established pagan philosophical tradition.  While I do not seek to downplay or deny the deeply Christian spirit of Maximus’ work – and his death as a confessor of the faith speaks for itself – it is clear that, at the highest speculative level of his thought, Maximus displays marked affinities with Neoplatonic thinkers, notably Plotinus and Iamblichus.  He agrees with the latter in the matter of the soul’s gradual working toward salvation, and with the former in his view that the redeemed soul merges with the godhead and ceases all motion, no longer existing as a distinct person.”

So let me understand. You’re now DISAGREEING with Maximus and offering a correction on the EO? So how did your EO priest friend reassure you that your view was nothing other than what all the Fathers had envisioned? Does that include Maximus and Pseudo-Dionysius? Maximus is a father. He’s like the chief cornerstone, systhesizer for EO theology, dude. Come on. I clearly disagree with Maximus, but that’s not news. You, however, have advertised your view as THE EO view and supported it by appealing to Maximus. Now you agree with Moore that Maximus went too far and was wrong?

Tell you what I’d like, D. I’d like to hear you say “Maximus was fundamentally wrong in his view of the goal of human being.” Can you say that for me?

Moore:

“In this brief discussion of Maximus’ eschatology I have attempted to articulate a problem that calls into question his entire Christian program, a problem recognized by his younger contemporary Anastasius, and addressed more recently by certain Christian Existentialist theologians [i.e., Zizioulas] – i.e., the problem of the loss of individual personhood in salvation. I believe that the historical roots of this problem reside in the early interaction between Christianity and Platonism….”

Again:

“A younger contemporary of Maximus, Anastasius of Sinai, recognized the implications of this conclusion, and regarded it as ultimately fatal to the authentic Christian view of God and humanity as mutual co-operators – a view that Maximus himself seems to espouse in so many parts of his voluminous writings, but clearly contradicts at the highest speculative levels of his thought. Anastasius corrected the Maximian notion, arguing that ‘theosis is the ascension toward what is better – it is neither a diminution nor an alteration of nature.  In other words, by theosis man will not cease being man; he will simply become perfect man.’ Since we know that Maximus adopted the Aristotelian conception of activity as belonging to one’s nature rather than one’s person [fricking ay!], then to state, as he does, that human nature is transcended in salvation, implies that human beings cease to act. This is a most troublesome conclusion, especially since a main tenet of Christian dogma is that natures exist insofar as they act. To cease to act [freely, in self-determining fashion; that’s ALL he can mean here] is to cease to exist. However, apart from Anastasius’ clarification, the theoretical problem of the loss of personhood in salvation was never adequately addressed by Christian theologians of the Byzantine era.”

Music to my ears.

T

Post Edited (Tom) : 5/16/2008 11:15:17 AM (GMT-5)