Orthodox Monk has posted another blog article in response to my earlier comments. I sent him the following rejoinder. I do not know if he will post it in the comment thread or not.Dear Orthodox Monk,
I'm afraid I cannot accept your characterization of my criticism of your arguments as "taking a hard line." Quite the contrary, I think I've been fair, irenic, and civil. But I do strongly disagree with your polemical presentation of Catholicism. Your argument would have carried more weight a hundred years ago, but today it carries next to no weight at all. You are arguing against a Catholic Church that no longer exists, if it ever existed. To specifics:
(1) Is Thomism a normative expression of the Catholic Faith? I suppose it all depends on what one means as "normative."
Does it mean that to be Catholic one must be a Thomist? Absolutely not. The Catholic Church comprehends within itself a wide variety of theological approaches and conceptualities. One can certainly find traditional Thomists within the Catholic Church, but one also finds disciples of St Augustine, St Bonaventure, Bl. Duns Scotus, Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Joseph Ratzinger, as well as many whp look principally to Scripture and the Church Fathers as their models for theological reflection. Byzantine Catholics are as Catholic as Latin Thomists, and the Catholic Church has never insisted that they must abandon their Eastern theology and embrace medieval scholasticism. The Catholic Church is a pretty big tent.
Does it mean that the writings of St Thomas Aquinas are inerrant and one may not disagree with the arguments and conclusions of St Thomas Aquinas? Absolutely not. Catholic theologians disagree with the writings of Aquinas all the time.
Does it mean that Catholicism affirms the theology of Thomas Aquinas as representing a faithful, though fallible, expression of the Catholic Faith? Yes. As I stated in my earlier comment, the theology of Thomas Aquinas will always enjoy a special place in the Catholic Church. But this does not mean that Catholics are absolutely committed to the scholastic method which Aquinas represents (read, e.g., the influential writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar), nor does it mean that Catholics are not free to vigorously disagree with him.
Non-Catholics may cite Studiorum ducem as often as they want, but this simple fact remains: Catholics do not recognize the Summa Theologica as possessing the level of authority that non-Catholics think it should on the basis of Pope Pius XI's encyclical. One must attend to the realities of Catholic life and reflection.
(2) Was Barlaam a Thomist? You write: "Fr. Kimel thinks that Barlaam wasn't arguing from a Catholic point of view. It would take too long to refute that." I wish you would take the time to refute the assertion that Barlaam was not arguing from a Catholic point of view. I would like to see the evidence. I am not a Byzantine scholar. You are correct that I am following Fr John Meyendorff's historical analysis at this point. Perhaps Meyendorff is wrong in his interpretation of Barlaam and perhaps Romanides is right. I am not in a position to judge. However, I have read enough of Romanides to know that I do not trust his scholarship. He strikes me as a polemicist whose scholarship is driven by his anti-Westernism. Until otherwise persuaded, I think I'll stick with the Orthodox Fr John Meyendorff.
But I am confident that you are wrong when you assert that Barlaam was a Thomist. From the little I have read about his theology, which apparently exalted philosophical reason above divine revelation and denied the possibility of participating in the divine nature, Barlaam was rightly denounced by the Eastern Church. Are there similarities between Barlaam and Aquinas? Perhaps. But I am also confident that there are significant and important differences. Scholars disagree on whether Barlaam knew Aquinas's theological writings first hand. In his book Aristotle East and West, David Bradshaw suggests that he did not. Certainly Barlaam's apparent nominalism decisively separates him from Aquinas. Another possible and perhaps important difference: following Pseudo-Dionysius, Barlaam asserts that God is beyond all Being; Aquinas identifies God as the Act of Being.
You write: "But wasn't one of Barlaam's major arguments a denial of the notion that there could be a difference between energy and essence? Is this not a Thomist position?" From the little I have read, Aquinas may well have agreed with Barlaam on this point; however, Aquinas would not have agreed with Barlaam's assertion that all grace is created. As A. N. Williams observes, for Aquinas "What grace is, most truly and fundamentally, is gratia increata, the Holy Spirit, God apse" (The Ground of Union, p. 89). Aquinas most certainly believed that the baptized, by adoption and grace, participate in the divine nature and the Trinitarian life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the words of St Thomas:
The gift of grace surpasses every capability of created nature, since it is nothing sort of a partaking of the Divine Nature, which exceeds every other nature. And thus it is impossible that any creature should cause grace. For it is necessary that God alone should deify, bestowing a partaking of the Divine Nature by a participated likeness, as it is impossible that anything save fire should enkindle. (ST I-II.112,1 reps.).
Commenting on John 15:9, Aquinas writes:
For he did not love them to the point of their being gods by nature, nor to the point that they would be united to God so as to form one person with him. But he did love them up to a similar point: he loved them to the extent that they would be gods by their participation in grace--‘I say you are gods’ (Ps. 82:6); ‘He has granted to us precious and very great promises, that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Pet. 1:4).
Would Barlaam have agreed with Aquinas that by grace we are given to actually participate in the divine essence?
It would no doubt be interesting to read a Thomistic assessment of Barlaam's theology, as well as a Barlaamite assessment of Aquinas's theology; but I seriously doubt that either of us has the competence to discuss this question.
It should also be noted that many medieval Eastern theologians appreciated the writings of Aquinas. Patriarch Gennadios II, to whom St Mark of Ephesus personally entrusted the anti-unionist cause, lamented the Latin origin of Aquinas: "Would O excellent Thomas that you had not been born in the West. Then you would not have needed to defend the deviations of the church there [specifically, the Filioque and the distinction between the divine essence and energies] … you would have been as perfect in theology as you are in ethics." Nor was Gennadios II alone among the Byzantines in his appreciation of Aquinas, as
Fr Hugh Barbour [
eirenikon.wordpress.com] observes.
(3) Is the Catholic Church adamantly and irrevocably hostile to hesychasm, particularly as elaborated in the writings of St Gregory Palamas? It is certainly true that Latin Catholic theologians have raised critical questions about certain aspects of Palamas's theology (e.g., Adrian Fortescue's article on hesychasm in the Catholic Encyclopedia; but the Latin opposition to Palamas has never achieved Magisterial status, and it is hard to see how it ever could, given the Catholic Church's self-understanding as embracing the theological patrimonies of both East and West. The Latin Church continues in communion with the Melkites and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, both of whom commemorate Gregory Palamas on the Second Sunday of Lent.
It is important to distinguish between Latin rejection of the Palamite distinction and the question of theosis. Within the limits, and sometimes beyond the limits, of their inherited conceptualities, Latin theologians have found ways to affirm the divinization of human beings in Jesus Christ through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. In addition to the book by Williams, cited above, I reference Daniel Keating, Deification and Grace. I also recommend
E. L. Mascall's discussion of theosis in his Gifford Lectures [
giffordlectures.org].
