www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Bulgakov and the Ascended Christ

Thank you for your post, John. I'm afraid that I do not perceive Bulgakov as a Platonist. His whole approach to the eucharistic presence seems to argue against the kind of dualism that we would find in a Platonist Christ (e.g., Augustine). In fact, one of his major criticisms of transubstantiation is precisely its dualism.

Regarding Sophia, I haven't begun to try to understand what he means by Sophia. I find it all quite confusing. Gregorios will have to help you here. I am quite out of my depth. My first problem with transubstantiation is that it requires an artificial distinction between substance and accidents. But the scholastics do separate them, in order to account for the fact that after the eucharistic change there does not appear to be any empirical change to the elements. Consequently, we are given two different particulars on the altar--the accidents of bread and the substance of bread. This then allows the scholastics to say that when the priest breaks the bread, he does not in fact break the Body of Christ.

Bulgakov's approach, however, insists the the entirety of the bread is changed, including the accidents. What we are now have is the Body of Christ. This transmutation does not involve an empirical change to the elements, because the change of which we are speaking is of a completely different order. It is metaphysical. And it is possible because Christ, in his risen Body, no longer belongs to the world at all. Thus he can make the bread into his Body without displacing it.

This means (this is me speaking) that we can now actually speak of truly eating, chewing, and swallowing the Body of Christ, just like Jesus talked about in John 6. At the fraction in the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, doesn't the priest say something about the bread that is broken and yet never broken ... One cannot talk this way in the West.

I'm afraid that I do not find the language of symbol here at all useful. The consecrated bread can, I suppose, be spoken technically as a symbol, in that two different things (the bread and Body) are now brought together and made into one thing and the visible element of bread now signifies the Body, analogous to the way my physical body symbolizes and objectifies me in the entirety of my identity. You are of course right that my senses do not perceive the eucharistic bread as anything else but bread; but the Word that speaks forth from the bread identifies it as the Body of Christ and so I believe and so when I look at the bread I truly "see" the Body of Christ. The risen Christ is both hidden and visible. This is the way of things until the Parousia.

What do you think?

Dear Father;

I do think there is an important semantic difference between the East and West in the understanding of "sacrament as symbol."

I remember attending a Roman Catholic confirmation during which the Bishop was asking the children questions, one of which was: What is a sacrament? The answer he was looking for was to render visible an invisible reality. (I missed that one.)

In the East, the answer is more closely: "to participate in an unseen reality."

On first glance you may conclude that these are the same but they really are not. In the first, the form of bread and wine can merely be reminiscent of the body and blood, the symbol is passive and the observer/receiver is active (in that the perception as bread and wine or body and blood seems to be up to them. The perceiver can conclude that it is truly bread and wine or truly body and blood or both).

In the latter, the body and blood and the observer are both active, the Eucharistic elements act and the observer/receiver is transformed. But it is not based on an intellectual construct. The transformation occurs despite ourselves and even if we don't perceive it via our senses or our intellect.

John

John, I'm confused about what you think the difference between an alleged difference between east and west on the nature of symbol, particularly as applied to the Eucharistic presence.

The Latin Church is emphatic that the consecrated elements, specifically, the appearances of bread and wine, are efficacious signs of the Body and Blood: They truly signify and contain the Body and Blood of the risen Lord. They do so not because of any resemblence between bread and body and wine and blood, and they do so regardless to the communicant's faith and belief. Even the wicked receive the Body and Blood, though not of course to their salvation. (Excluding Lutheranism and Anglo-Catholics, the churches of the Reformation confessionally deny that the wicked receive the Body and Blood.) Faith of course is necessary for fruitful, sanctifying communion.

Does Orthodoxy, as you understand it, disagree with this? How would you understand this passage from St Symeon the New Theologian: But more importantly, Byzantine Christianity has a long tradition of not using the category of symbol to refer to the consecrated elements at all. During the Iconoclastic controversy, the Iconoclasts asserted that the Eucharist was the only proper icon of the Body and Blood. The Iconodules replied that the Eucharist is not a sign, symbol, type, or icon of Christ; it is Christ. This retreat from the category of symbol to speak of the Holy Gifts is apparent in Cabasilas's Commentary on the Divine Liturgy.

Can you clarify your argument for me?

Dear Petros,

It is true that Bulgakov was suspect of heresy, he was asked to clarify his position, which he did and was spoken free of all suspicion of heresy by Metropolitan Evlogii. Yet the MP and ROCOR were not satisfied, and have condemned their misinterpretation of Bulgakov. The MP a bit more moderate in limiting it to censorship of his sophiological writings.

It is also true that in his early writngs Bulgakov spoke of Sophia as a fourth hypostasis, but anyone who has ever picked up one of his later writings, will immediately notice he has totally rejected this language.

The 'fourth hypostases' language was copied from Fr. Pavel Florensky (never suspect of heresy, and never chareged with it). The language of 'fourth hypostasis' to both, Bulgakov and his mentor Florensky meant to denote the creaturely hypostasis in relation to the Trinity, it was never used or implied to be an addition to the Trinity.

Bulgakov parted with Florensky and came to realize that Sophia is the Ousia of the Trinity and he strongly rejected the idea that Sophia is a person. Sophia is personal not a person; and it is eternally personalized as the common Ousia of the Three Divine Persons.

As such Sophia does not exist 'outside' the Trinity, but constitutes Its Nature (Ousia). Bulgakov maintained that Sophiology is first and foremost the doctrine concerning homoousion which has been neglected in Trinitarian theology whereas the theology of the Hypostases has been fully developed.

The MP and ROCOR have completely missed the point, and have condemned that which they do not know and have only a misrepresentation of.

Creation, to Bulgakov is a 'kenotic act' of the Trinity. The Trinity allows its Sophia to exist 'outside' Itself and this act is the creation of the world from nothing. Creation out of nothing can only mean that God is the ultimate ground for all being (pan-entheism not pantheism), for nothing besides God truly "is."

Bulgakov, is 'looting' German Idealism (to use a metaphor of St. Gregorios of Nyssa) to express Christian Revelation and to allow it to answer new questions from the perspective of the 'old faith.' Tho sophiology began with the platonizing idealism of Vladimir Solovyov, in Bulgakov it is very much an Orthodox Christian theology, even if it is not the Orthodox Christian Theology; we are not concerned with dogma in sophiology but with theologoumena.

Bulgakov does not separate Sophia from the Holy Spirit. To Bulgakov Sophia is eternally hypostatized in the Hypostasis of the Holy Spirit in suhc a way that the Spirit is Spirit and not Father or Son. The Hypostasis of the Father hypostatizes Sophia in such a way that He is Father and not Son or Spirit, and the Son eternally hypostatizes Sophia in such a way that He is the Son and not Father or Spirit.

Theosis, or sophianization is therefore the attainment of creation of its goal precisely in the Life of the Holy Trinity, because Creaturely Sophia is the mirror image of the Uncreated Sophia (which is the Inner Life of the Trinity). Fr. Bulgakov's sophiology is dependent upon the reality of the Trinity, and postulates the Trinity as the ground of all being and of all life; but more so the Trinity is also the goal of all existence and all life. Without the Trinity there is no Sophia, no creation, no salavtion, no Incarnation, no theosis,.. etc. etc. It is precisely the Most Holy Trinity that grounds and determines Bulgakov's perception of sophiology, which separates it from the speculations of Solovyov and even of that of Florensky. Bulgakov's synthesis has integrated the 'unrefined' and un-Orthodox (not heterodox tho) sophiologies of his predecessors into a complete Eastern Orthodox theological theologoumenon (much as Nicea has done with the Pre-Nicene speculations concerning the 'consubstantiality' of the Trinity; but homo-ousion of course has become dogma!).

Diak

Bulgakov has stated that in accepting Palamism the Eastern Church has taken a step that can only lead to what he calls 'sophiology' and I think he is right.

However, Bulgakov thinks that both the Latin Tradition and the Greek Tradition are incomplete, and he dares to venture towards a completion in sophiology. Sophiology is rooted in Eastern Patristics German Idealism, Fransciscan Love Mysticism, and particularly Richard and Vincent of St. Victor.

Sophiology is thus a modern Trinitarianism which integrates both Western and Eastern motives (eventhough it does have a decisively Eastern stamp due to is Palamism). Bulgakov's strongly perichoretic Trinitarianism has become the basis of even Protestant theologians such as Jurgen Moltmann, it is fair to say that sophiology, in this sense, is a truly ecumenical achievement (even capable of transcending the 'filioque controversy').

I hope this helps,..

IC XC,

Gregorios

Gregorios,

Thank you. However, I still am not able to satisfy, for myself, that Bulgakov really has established a new or comprehensive theology. I agree with its rooting in German Idealist philosophy. Perhaps I just need to read it again.

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quote:Creation, to Bulgakov is a 'kenotic act' of the Trinity. The Trinity allows its Sophia to exist 'outside' Itself and this act is the creation of the world from nothing. Creation out of nothing can only mean that God is the ultimate ground for all being (pan-entheism not pantheism), for nothing besides God truly "is."
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Gregarios, since you understand this better than I do, I am left to believe that, while Sophia is derived from the Trinity, it is, in a sense, the negative pole to the Trinity's positive pole. It is the stage for the Trinity to act upon, it is the receiver of grace, not its source. I can understand how this can share in the Ousia of the Trinity, but it cannot reside within the Trinity itself or Sophia truly becomes a Fourth Person!

Dear Father,

I am not saying that there is ANY real difference between Latin and Byzantine theology in regard to the Eucharistic elements (after all I am an Eastern Catholic in communion with the Latin Church). However, I do think there is a difference in the popular (i.e. the majority of the laity) understanding of the Eucharist, transubstantiation, and the like. So much of theological disagreement falls not within the realm of concepts, but within the limitations of language.

In regard to Symeon's quote above, I would have to see the larger context of his message, but as written, I would disagree. The mere precept that one has to perceive something different in the Eucharistic elements implies that the grace bestowed by it is somehow earned. I think of the babies who receive the Eucharist in our churches. Can they consciously perceive or understand what they are ingesting? Does anyone really? Does the mere act of receiving fulfill the criteria of recognition in Symeon's line of thinking? Is the transformation bestowed in the cognitive, physical, or spiritual realm? If it is a cognitive exercise, than what is really accomplished?

If, however, we place Symeon's quote within the context of the unifying Sophia, where the act of receiving is a communal act that is done to unify us into a worthy Bride, than I have no problem with it.
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quote: The Glorified Body and Blood of the Saviour are 'otherworldy' and the Eucharist therefore constitutes an antinomic miracle, by definition this should NOT be detectable by thisworldy means. A transubstantiation is a thisworldy phenomenon. It equalizes the substance of the Glorified Christ with the substance of the un-glorified world. Transmutation is the establishment of an antinomic identity of Eucharistic Elements with the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
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I do disagree with this definition of transubstantiation. Again, Trent simply tried to name what occurred without describing what actually occurs to the Eucharistic elements. Transmutation is, in my mind, an equal term meaning a conversion of the bread and wine into the body and blood. They cease to be "this worldly" in any sense (except, say, in their Aristotelian "accidents").

I like Gregarios' initial post on this thread (page 1) where he describes the tendency to overexaggeration of Thomism, Aristotelianism, etc. which Bulgakov considered not wrong, just incomplete.

Furthermore, the more recent developments in this theology of the Eucharist are expounded in Pope Paul's Mysterium Fidei alluded to above:

transfinalization--the substance of a thing is its finality, or ultimate purpose. This is grounded in a new ontological reality,i.e. there is not only a change in ultimate purpose of the consecrated bread and wine but also in their very being.

transignification--the substance of a thing is its meaning; the meaning of bread and wine as the ordinary nourishment for human beings
is changed into a new meaning of communion with the body and blood of the Lord.

John

Dearest to Christ Petrus,

I think you have not yet grasped that Ousia and Uncreated Sophia are in fact synonyms. The Ousia = Uncreated Sophia. Sophia is the 'consubstantiality' of the Trinity.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are Persons (Hypostases) as you know. But these 'Pure Divine Selves' also need a content, a common nature that makes them One God. This one common nature is the Ousia, the Sophia, the consubstantiality of the Trinity.

But as the content of the Divine Selves, Sophia is personal (She is Their personal and personalized content), and as such can never be a Person but merely and only personal. The Three Divine Persons 'personalize' Sophia Each in such a way as to be hypostatically different from the Others. Thus the Hypostasis of the Father is different from the Son and the Spirit, in that the Father 'hypostatizes' Sophia (possessess Sophia) in such a way that He is precisely Father and not Son and not Spirit, and this also goes for the Son and the Spirit.

The hypostatic qualities of the Trinity, the threeness of the Trinity, is constituted by the mode of possession of Sophia of each Divine Person. Sophia is the One Nature (Substance - Ousia) of the Trinity the Divine Content of the Divine Persons.

The Pure Divine Self is a self-positing hypostatic 'I' and as such devoid of content and unable to exist. Every hypostatic 'I' (even the Divine I) needs content or else it is merely an empty husk. Sophia is this content, to the Divine Person Sophia is its inner Nature, Its inner Content (Ousia) that makes it what it is.

Therefore it is entirely possible to say that God is Sophia, but it is impossible to say Sophia is God, nay it is heretical to affirm such a thing. For that would add a fourth person to the Trinity.

The Tri-hypostatic God is a threefold selfpositing of 'I' and in the self-positing of 'I' the Ousia of the 'I' is also posited. The Trinity is therefore an eternal Threefold Self-positing where Each Divine 'I' contains Ousia (Sophia) in a way that characterizes its Personal qualities that distinguish it from the Other two. Yet all Three contain and share this one Sophia-Ousia but Each in a different mode.

Creation, is nothing else but God 'making Himself' smaller (kenosis), making room for a creaturely modality of sophianic existence, in this act (which is included in the Threefold Divine Self-positing) Creaturely Sophia comes to be, receives being.

But being, or existence, can not be grounded in anything but God alone. For there is no pre-existent matter alongside God and different from God, and therefore independently co-eternal with God from which created being should arise. Created being is grounded in God. It receives being from the Divine Being, though is different from it.

Creation out of nothing means negatively that there is nothing besides God from which creation was made or formed (such as in paganism and Platonism), and positively that God is the ultimate and only ground for created being.

I hope this helps,..

IC XC,

Gregorios

Very interesting. I wonder what Zizoiulas would make of all this. I'm going to have to find my copy of Being and Communion and glance through it.

Father Kimel, you switched your avatar to an icon of St. Irenaeus of Lyon. Very nice.

It also means that creaturely being is not an emmanation of God; it enjoys a completely different kind of being, with an integrity of its own.

Fr. Kimel bless,

Certainly Father. However, Bulgakov nor myself perceive of God's creative act as emanation. Rather it is creation. Emanation occurs only in the realm of thinghood, whereas Bulgakov elevates the creative act to the level of "act" (Fichte's tathandlung) instead of "fact" (tatsache). God's Selfpositing and in it the creative act occur not on the level of fact, not on the level of thinghood.

IC XC,

Gregorios

Gregorios, perhaps you might ruminate with me on Bulgakov's insistence that it is precisely because Christ's glorified body now transcends the world that it can be transmuted into bread and wine: This is a crucial passage, it seems to me. It indicates a different understanding than that of St Thomas. Even though Thomas understands the transubstantiation as being a metaphysical, and not a physical change, he still insists that if the bread and wine become the body and blood, then this requires that the substance of the bread and wine must disappear. You can't have both substances together. But Bulgakov basically says that one can have both substances together precisely because our Lord's glorified body is not a subject within the cosmos. Consequently, there is no metaphysical reason why a displacement of the bread and wine is necessary for the sacramental transmutation.

I welcome your reflections!

Fr. Kimel wrote: "I wonder what Zizioulas would make of all this?"

I have just finished reading "Being and Communion", and in it Zizioulas is quite adamant that the source of unity within the Trinity is not just personal but a Person: God the Father. He is very hesistant to use a common ousia as the basis of union, and would not, in my view, include any non-Person as the foundation of a doctrine related to the Trinity. I once asked my spiritual father about Bulgakov, and he told me that he thinks that the whole Sophia issue does somewhat diminish the clarity of the Orthodox concept of God. Indeed, Western mysticism, especially such figures as Meister Eckart, are very keen on such terms as "grunt" or "Gottheit" to express the supposed unity that comes before the Trinity. Emphasizing the common ousia of the Trinity could be construed or at least warped into a perspective that emphasizes more the union than the Three Hypostases. What is best in this situation is to leave all of this in the shroud of mystery the Greek Fathers left it in: 1+1+1= 1
Having said this, I cannot but help to feel somewhat drawn to the doctrine of the Sophia, particularily after having read Soloviev. Why does it say in Genesis, for example : And God made man in His image and likeness, male and female He made them. ? Or in the Shepard of Hermas, the angel asks the Shepard who he thought an old sitting woman was. The angel tells him that she is the Church, and she is so old because she was made before all things, and all things were made for her. These things I can only ponder in silence, for I fear saying something that cannot be said.

Yours in Christ,
Arturo

Dear Fr. Kimel;

Finally, I think I know what you are getting at. You are contemplating the possibility that Luther's position on consubstantion, namely that the Eucharist is a mingling of the glorified Christ while maintaining the form of bread and wine. Luther maintained that through the process of impanation, God is able to infuse his divinity into the reality of the bread and wine similar to the way he was able to enter humanity without fusing his divinity and humanity together. The arguement goes that if God is able to fuse His glorified Self to reality in the form of humanity, He is able to IMPANATE Himself in the same way in the substance of the bread and wine.

This does appear to be contrary to the teaching of the Fathers, both of the East and West. The Orthodox position has been that the bread and wine cease to be bread and wine and become (i.e. are converted, not transmuted) into the Body and Blood of Christ. For example:

Rightly, then, do we believe that now also the bread which is consecrated by the Word of God is changed into the Body of God the Word. For that Body was once, by implication, bread, but has been consecrated by the inhabitation of the Word that tabernacled in the flesh. Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, Chapter XXXVII

Consider therefore the Bread and the Wine not as bare elements, for they are, according to the Lord's declaration, the Body and Blood of Christ; for even though sense suggests this to thee, yet let faith establish thee. Judge not the matter from the taste, but from faith be fully assured without misgiving that the Body and Blood have been vouchsafed to thee. Cyril of Jerusalem, On the Mysteries IV, 6.

Because they pressed upon Him, asking for bodily food, reminding Him of the food provided in the days of their forefathers, and speaking of the manna as a great thing, to show them that all those things were but type and shadow, but that the very reality of the matter was now present with them, He mentioneth spiritual food..."the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world..." John Chrysostom Homily on St. John XLVI (Chrysostom's thought on this is rather complicated, I would also direct you to read Hom LXXXII in Matt and Hom. XXIV on 1Cor.)

This was also in line with the teaching of the Western Fathers, especially Hilary and Ambrose.

Thus, if Bulgakov was implying that the bread and wine maintain their existence after the epiclesis, he was holding a heretical position. The Eastern teaching has traditionally been that of conversion of species, not "transmutation." My suspicion is that he was implying that the elements that have the appearance of bread and wine contain the Body and Blood of Christ (like a tabernacle, ala Gregory)

John

I have been contemplating this issue, knowledge and the Eucharist, as a result of this thread.

I find it fascinating that we, all of us postmodern thinkers, just naturally equate knowledge with that which we come to know through our senses.

I don't think the early church had this problem or limitation. In fact, I suspect they were much more willing to accept the limits of "sensual" or "sensible" knowledge.

In this sense, the Eucharist is the only thing that we really ever know. We were born for union with God, we are given union with God. What could be more profound than that?

John