www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Joint Declaration - JPII and Bartholomew I about the Filioque?

I am quite aware of what Aquinas says about the necessity of the "light of glory," but I reject his understanding of the light, because he calls it, "the created light of glory." [Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Q. 12, Art. 7]

Well, Todd, I don't know what to say. Partaking in the divine nature by participated likeness is problematic? You yourself have said that we are uncreated by participation; existentially, not essentially.

Aquinas says specifically that grace is a participation in the Divine Nature. The chapters on the beatific vision are clear that it is a possession of God, that God himself accomplishes in us through the most intimate of unions, himself becoming the form of our knowing him. I don't know how more clear it can get.

As for "participated likeness," I seem to remember Ware saying much the same thing, that theosis amounts practically to loving as God loves. "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

You yourself use the word "participation," which by your own standards should be a betrayal of your interpretation of theosis, since participation is "taking part", i.e. not the whole. Can you use that word without betraying your position?

As a Byzantine Christian I reject this idea as false.

I will try one more time.

A created, temporal human being's participation in the divine nature is uncreated. Is this what you are saying? How can this be, without the created temporal human being also being uncreated?

Inserting the words "essential" or "existential" and pretending that it explains anything won't work. Neither will insisting that I read your works more closely. I've read what you've posted, and you haven't made sense, because you are violating the law of non-contradiction. You assert that a human being is both created and uncreated at the same time, and when it suits you, you defend yourself against the charge of speaking nonsense by appealing to "essential" versus "existential." But, when it doesn't suit you, you slip back into an absolute demand of adherence to uncreatedness.

Which is it? Are we theosisized by participation or not? Sometimes you say yes, and other times, when it suits you to utter a "As a Byzantine Christian I reject this!" you reject participation.

In any case, this is my last post on this topic. One cannot reason with those who will not reason.

P.S. You could look further down in question 12, to article 9, where it is declared that it is God himself who comes to be in the soul of the Christian, but undoubtedly you will reject it all out of hand, because Aquinas committed the great sin of using the word "created."

Peace,

Karl

How does the idea that theosis involves loving as God loves equal participated likeness?

It should be borne in mind that Eastern theology rejects the teaching of Trent on Justification, because Trent taught that, the "formal cause [of justification] is the justice of God, not that whereby He Himself is just, but that whereby He makes us just." [Trent, Decree on Justification]

In the Byzantine doctrinal tradition man participates in God's own energy of justice, and not some kind of likeness to it. In other words, man is made just by the justice of God, the very justice by which He Himself is just, and not a created likeness of God's own justice. Theosis does not involve a participation in a "likeness" of the divine nature, nor of the divine life, justice, or truth; instead, it involves a participation in the uncreated divine energies (i.e., God Himself as He is manifested outside of His ineffable essence).

Yes, it is uncreated, because the divine energies are uncreated. Man, a creature by nature, becomes uncreated by grace, and this involves a real participation in God Himself, and not in some type of likeness.

Yes, I read that too, but for Aquinas man participates in God through a "created" light of glory, and not through God Himself as energy.

He means that we have a direct share in the Godhead, as he says time and time again in the Summa. Such as I-II Q113 A9 which says:


There are countless more references like this, but it's not worth the time to go about pulling them all out.


You don't have to accept the metaphysics St. Thomas Aquinas uses, and nobody is saying you have to, but you're incorrect about what he's saying with it. Calling a spade a balloon won't make it so.

Peace and God bless!

Fr. John Hardon, S.J. on the created nature of sanctifying grace:


Nature of Sanctifying Grace. What is sanctifying grace? It has been called the "masterpiece of God's handicraft in this world � far more glorious than anything we can behold in the heavens above us or on the earth at our feet." Is it just God's favor toward us, as Luther wanted? No, it is much more. Is it God's life or nature or God's love, as some have called it? No, for God's life and love and nature are uncreated, are God Himself. Sanctifying grace is not God, it is not the Holy Spirit, it is not just God's favor. It is something created, given to us by God out of love and mercy, which gives us a created likeness of God's nature and life. It is a supernatural gift infused into our souls by God, a positive reality, spiritual, supernatural, and invisible.

Course on Grace - Part 2 (a) [therealpresence.org]


The Latin teaching on "created" grace is not compatible with the Byzantine doctrine of theosis.

I can't resist one more.

You obviously DID NOT READ article 9, because it says, quite clearly, that the union is effected by God himself.

I quote for your benefit. Remember that "essence" isn't the same as "ousia."

"I answer that, Those who see the divine essence see what they see in God not by any likeness, but by the divine essence itself united to their intellect. For each thing is known in so far as its likeness is in the one who knows. Now this takes place in two ways. For as things which are like one and the same thing are like to each other, the cognitive faculty can be assimilated to any knowable object in two ways. In one way it is assimilated by the object itself, when it is directly informed by a similitude, and then the object is known in itself. In another way when informed by a similitude which resembles the object; and in this way, the knowledge is not of the thing in itself, but of the thing in its likeness. For the knowledge of a man in himself differs from the knowledge of him in his image. Hence to know things thus by their likeness in the one who knows, is to know them in themselves or in their own nature; whereas to know them by their similitudes pre-existing in God, is to see them in God. Now there is a difference between these two kinds of knowledge. Hence, according to the knowledge whereby things are known by those who see the essence of God, they are seen in God Himself not by any other similitudes but by the Divine essence alone present to the intellect; by which also God Himself is seen."

Now, since Thomas says that the blessed see God by the divine essence itself, how can you accuse him of saying that he denies theosis? Unless, of course, you think that the divine essence is created.

I think you are misreading Aquinas. He holds that union is achieved with God through a "created" means, and that is why he called the light of glory created, because it is a created perfecting of the human intellect, which is intended to allow it to see the divine essence.

I also think you are wrong about Aquinas' use of the word essence, because he clearly uses the term to refer to that which is common to the three divine persons, or do you claim that God has two essences?

You have not proven this, you have merely asserted this to be the case, and I see no reason why I should believe your assertion simply because you have made it.

God bless,
Todd

I don't know about Hardon. Nevertheless, there's a nice quote in there from St. Basil, as long as we are proof-texting:
"St. Basil long ago expressed it very simply when he called this new life "a similitude of the divine life."

Presuming the quote is accurate, can you accept Basil the Great, or must you, as a Byzantine Christian, reject him because he speaks of "similitude" or likeness?

After all, the Son is spoken of as the likeness of the Father in scripture.

Hardon is not alone in what he says about sanctifying grace as a "created" thing, which is not God. I will be posting another text shortly from Cardinal Journet.

God bless,
Todd

You are equivocating; you must show that Aquinas' use of the Latin "similtude" has the same meaning as the Greek term "homoiosis," which includes the idea of assimilation. Thus, when the Eastern Fathers speak of "likeness" they mean assimilation to God (i.e., through His energies).

Cardinal Journet on "created" grace:


4. We must now observe that God's love is of two kinds:

(a) a love which St. Thomas calls common, by which God loves the blade of grass, the star, the pebble . . .

(b) a special love by which God elevates the rational creature above the conditions of his nature, clothes him as if with a new nature, brings him into a new universe. He makes him a sharer in the divine life by pouring into him created grace. Created grace is a reality, a quality, a light that enables the soul to receive worthily the indwelling of the three divine Persons.


The Meaning of Grace [ewtn.net]

I quote from you, from one of the papers on your website:

" Now, in order to be fair to the Latin Church�s teaching on grace as a created reality, I thought I would provide an interpretation of that doctrinal position that explains it in a way that would allow it to be conformed, at least in some sense, to the Eastern view of grace as uncreated. A. N. Williams, in her book The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas, argues that the term �created grace� signifies not the nature of grace in itself, but rather its mode of existence within the created person receiving it, for as she says, �. . . grace conforms to the nature of its subject: �In this way it must be a finite being, since it is in the soul of Christ, as in a subject, and Christ�s soul is a creature having a finite capacity; hence the being of grace cannot be infinite, since it cannot exceed its subject.� Nevertheless, grace considered as gift is not created, nor is the effect of grace created.� [19] In other words, grace is essentially an uncreated reality, that is, it is a participation in the uncreated life of God, but once it is infused into a limited finite being, it takes on the characteristics of that being. So, one could say that in the Latin tradition grace is only called created because a created being receives it, while in its essence it is and remains uncreated."

Do you now disagree with your paper? Has your position changed? For with this last paragraph, I agree, and have been arguing the point, but to no apparent effect.