Perhaps this is too harsh and judgmental; most folks don't really care to dive that deeply into theology, a word that conjures up a feeling of headiness, intellectualism, irrelevance. And this is a legitimate critique as much theological talks can leave one bound in a state of elevated intellectualism that passes for 'spirituality' but is often the trapping of concepts and illusions. Been there, done that.
This is ironic, I suppose, in that I'm defending something against which I am arguing. However, the Church would not have survived 2,000 years had it not developed a dogma on which it could stand. But would this dogma have been different if every layperson had access to the Scriptures as do people today? In other words, if the Bible as we have it were available for all people in a variety of tongues would the doctrine of the Trinity been something different? Or are we just repeating history again with all of the doctrinal debates occurring today?
And yet the more deeply I dive into theology proper, digging back through the layers of those who were there in formulating the doctrine, the more I begin to see just how it is that it developed. And it makes sense (though I'm still not entirely on board).
I'm currently reading two of Vladimir Lossky's books, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church and Orthodox Theology. The first thing that comes to mind is that this is theology proper.
Here is a smattering of quotes from Orthodox Theology:
Theology...is a matter of opening our thought to a reality which goes beyond it. It is a matter of a new mode of thought where thought does not include, does not seize, but finds itself included and seized, mortified and vivified... (13-14)
Yet theological thought can also become a hindrance, and one must avoid indulging in it, abandoning oneself to the feverish illusion of concepts...One must avoid it becoming a flight before the necessary of "contraction" of prayer, to replace the mystery lived in silence with mental schemata easily handled, certainly, and whose use can intoxicate, but which are ultimately empty. (14-15)
Theology, then, is located in a relationship of revelation where the initiative belongs to God, while implying a human reponse, the free response of faith and love... (16)
Certainly, faith is present in all walks, in all sciences of the human spirit, but as supposition, as working hypothesis: here, the moment of faith remains burdened with an uncertainty which proof alone could clear Christian faith, on the contrary, is adherence to a presence which confers certitude, in such a way that certitude, here, is first. (16)
To think theologically is not to think of this revelation, but by means of it...Theology starts from a fact: revelation...The philosophy which speculates on God starts, on the contrary, from an idea. (18)
There are two things to consider in the above: one is the notion of prayer. Prayer, according to Lassky, is ultimately silence. It is the reciprocity of a relationship whereby the faithful seeks to leave all concepts behind and enter into relationship with a personal God transcendent to all we may think. It is this silence that is true 'gnosis', a gnosis, which, according to Lassky, is "illumination by grace which transforms our intelligence" (13).
The other idea of which Lassky speaks is to know God by apophasis, the negative way. We know God by what He is not. He is the Lover just out of our reach and it is vital for Him to remain such as if we were to know His nature we would be God. In this is the idea of deification of humanity found in the Eastern Church. it isn't that men become God by nature but that we continually participate in elevating our humanity toward the divine in our pursuit of our Beloved.
In The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Lassky notes:
[In the apophatic way] God [does not] presents Himself as object, for it is no more a question of knowledge but of union. Negative theology is...a way towards mystical union with God, whose nature remains incomprehensible to us...This awareness of the incomprehensibility of the divine nature thus corresponds to an experience: to a meeting with the personal God of revelation. (28,34)
What a far cry this seems to much of the 'noise' of the Church today. I will say, however, that 'relationship' is greatly focused in modern churches. But I have found the theology wanting, often suspect, if not altogether absent. Theology is the backbone of any church, the substance that grounds the Church. Without this, we know not what we worship and risk worshipping a creation of our own making.
Quoting Evagrius:
The one who has purity in prayer is true theologian, and the one who is true theologian has purity in prayer.
But, Lassky notes:
...purity in prayer implies the state of silence. The hesychasts are the "silents": encounter and gift, gnosis is placed beyond the nous; it demands the surmounting and arrest of thought. (Orthodox Theology, 13)
Hesychast comes from the Greek hezychazo, translated as 'rest, peace or quiet' in the New Testament.
"And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands..." (1 Thessalonians 4:11)
According to Thayer's it means to cease being a busy body, to lead a quiet life, to cease from labor. So 'silence' is a fitting appropriation of the term. Jesus does instruct us in regards to prayer:
"But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees {what is done} in secret will reward you." (Matthew 6:6)
While public prayer may edify the hearers, the 'silent' prayer is the important prayer. It is silent in that we must listen for the Father as He already knows what we need before we even ask. This is the silence we must seek as it is in this silence that we lay aside all that may hinder the Spirit from moving in us to accomplish God's work through us.
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