Fresco painting (detail) by Fr. Ilie
(Current Landmarks in the Dialogue between Science and Religion) [1]
Abstract: We consider Iconic Anthropology as a proper place for an integrative approach to theology and science. The triadological and iconological perspective emphasized in the works of Fr. Ghelasie Gheorghe and Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae is highly relevant for the Christian orthodox tradition. We apply it to indicate the insufficiency of some outstanding naturalist theories regarding the nature of mind and the problem of consciousness. In the same light we discuss the long debated problem of human freedom and natural law. The Christian gnoseology presents a double methodology in a unitary view, avoiding the temptation of a reductive monistic or dualist approach. To explain the level of integral movements of the soul in its undivided simplicity the discursive character of thinking does not suffice. The area of science is that of created energies and decomposable levels of reality. Science cannot give direct evidence on the soul itself, a realm which is beyond its domain of competence. Theology has as principal goal man's salvation in communion with God and its efforts have a holistic and liturgical, Eucharistic finality. But science is inseparable from theology as soul is inseparable from its movements and their partial reflections in the realm of multiple energies.
A. Introduction
At the turn of the twentieth century a Romanian Father has brought to light one of the most important synthesis of patristic theology, with prolifically generative implications as regards the dialogue between science and religion [2]. Hieromonk Ghelasie of Frăsinei (1944 2003) is a prominent representative and exponent of the Carpathian hesychast tradition.
The sheer scope and coherence of his mystical theological vision, the richness of associations and the accuracy of his comparative approaches to other lines of thought – traditional and modern, philosophical and scientific – are utterly impressive. His writings are indeed a promising panorama of the living Christian tradition in the present day world.
Fr. Ghelasie acknowledges the restraints that inevitably occur in the dialogue of science with religion on both sides: theologians and scientists. The first party is “afflicted by the fear of science which desacralizes the mystery”, while the latter “are afraid of and associate religion to mystification” [3].
Knowledge is presented from a Christian dialogical perspective, as an integral knowledge which allows the two distinct modes of knowledge to retain their specificity. Creation has an iconic and dialogic background on the divine support and in the orientation towards the participation at the divine mystery.
The fundamental communication is dialogic, and the physical causal relations remarked by science are reflections not of the being itself, but of its substantial (spiritual, personal) movements/ dialogical acts. The reasons of mind/ of the energetic field give information not about the soul/being, which remains to be known apophatically by communion in love, self giving, Eucharistic partaking. That means that reductive scientific or philosophical approaches that identify the soul with its energetic field and/or with the bodily icon of their union suffer from insufficiency when related to the integral/unified theological anthropology.
The dialogical character of knowledge is manifest on the level of the language of soul, as well as on the energetic level. Therefore, in a Christian sense, the relation between science and religion is indeed the expression of the unitary integrality of the Person and its relationships with God and the created world.
Starting from the revelation of the Holy Trinity, Father Ghelasie affirms the sheer equality and coexistence of mystery, knowledge (i.e. science) and language; of mystery, revelation/discovery and identification; of mysticism, metaphysics and theology. The theological defining does by no means represent a departure from the action of scientific knowledge, but on the contrary a further opening towards the integrality of the mystery of person and communion. The Trinitarian iconic perspective which, according to Father Ghelasie, is distinctively characteristic of the Christian vision – allows for the overcoming of the philosophical dualism in a critical yet not antagonistic approach to the relationship between science and religion.
B. Elements of Triadology
The starting point of Father Ghelasie’s approach is the Divine Revelation and its patristic comprehension. Ontologically speaking, his teachings are profoundly personalistic and focus heavily on triadology, starting from the triadic indication of the Divine Person in Itself and its trinitary opening beyond Itself. This triadological vision is closely related to, is intertwined with the 14th century hesychast vision of the integrality of being and energies synthesized by Saint Gregory Palama.
It is this very vision that is able to provide an answer to several important issues/problems that arise when philosophy and Christian mysticism and theology meet, namely:
How/ in what manner/ way can we indicate the dynamism of the being in itself as a living being without reducing the being to the impersonal abstract principle of an immobile/static unity?
How can we avoid conceiving of the energy as of a mechanical, automatic and impersonal emanation originating in the being?
What is the dynamic personalistic term that mediates the relationship between being and its energies in such a manner that it does not imply a composition in God?
How can we represent the relationship between being and hypostasis or person according to/ in accord, agreement with the Divine Revelation of the Trinity, so as to avoid monist or tritheistic tendencies?
In other words – how can we understand the integrality being energies as a dynamic living unity from a theological person oriented and communion oriented perspective, considering also its mystical fulfillment? Father Ghelasie offers from the very beginning a triadological approach to the Person. He literally updates, brings into actuality fundamental patristic distinctions by means of a unifying Trinitarian and iconic view. The Trinitarian representation of the Person disqualifies any attempt at representing being simply as an abstract and impersonal principle of unity.
In full agreement with the Orthodox Christian/Eastern Orthodox tradition, this perspective reveals the Origin of the Divinity in the Absolute Person, God the Father. The Person of the Father is in Himself a Trinity of (eternal) permanencies or integral divine modes which are essentially interrelated, interweaved and interworking, in interpenetration, beyond all attributes and qualities: Self Spirit Logos, Consciousness – Memory – Language, Peace – Movement Repose, Subject – Being – Self, Icon [Chip] Face – Likeness, Totality – Unity – Equality, Icon – Model – Prototype etc.
The Trinity of Divine Persons is presented as the ultimate absolute eternal opening of God the Father – Who is the Absolute Arche Icon, the Absolute Proto Icon or Hyper Icon. This very opening is absolutely realized from eternity in the Birth of the Son and the Proceeding of the Holy Spirit. The above mentioned triad of permanencies or integral modes – originating in God the Father – is bestowed upon the Son (through/with His Birth) and upon the Holy Spirit (through/with the Proceeding) fully and equally, in absolute terms and from eternity. This triad indicates what is common from eternity to the three divine Persons. Each Trinitary Person possesses this triad in His personal manner but in absolute Trinitary Communion. Thus the Trinity – beyond the idea of number – represents the ultimate fulfillment/realization/consummation of the Opening of the Person, of the Father Who is the absolute “Principle” of the Unity in God. Fr. Ghelasie emphasizes thus the full accord and reciprocal affirmation in God of Person and Trinity.
We do not run the risk of reducing the Being to an abstract, impersonal principle precisely by overtly/openly declaring the being a permanence of Person together with the consciousness and the language and an integral mode that finds its Trinitarian correspondence in the Holy Spirit, the Bearer/Conveyor of Grace and Movement within the Trinitarian interrelationships. Similarly, we escape the peril of identifying the terms “Being” and “Person”, precisely because the Being is considered a permanency, an integral mode that paradoxically contains within itself the whole Person. Due to this very association of Being and Movement in the Trinitarian communion – the Being is ultimately revealed as a “living Being”.
The Person is no longer regarded as a monadic singularity as such, for it gains a special dynamism. In God, the Person manifests by Itself and also within the Trinitary communion movements of permanencies or integral modes, which emanate the uncreated Divine Energies. Grace is equally characteristic of all the Persons of the Trinity. It is reflected, it is emanated by the movements of the Person’s integral modes as such, and within the interpersonal communion. The Energies are by no means simply impersonal emanations of a static immobile being; on the contrary, they are the reflection of the movements originating in a living Being, a Being that is in Itself alive. This is how the Trinitarian approach has managed to break through and find a path of mediation between these all too debated terms: ‘Being’ and ‘Energies’, by means of the Acts and Movements of the Person in Itself and “beyond” Itself in the absolute Divine Communion.
These divine acts/movements are indicated and explicated by the triad of love communion self offering. Between Being and Energies Father Ghelasie situates ‘the Act”. The energies originate in and emanate from the Act and return to the Act. As it is, etymologically speaking the word ‘energy’ (en ergon) means ‘(being) in work, in act’. As reflections of the Divine Act, the uncreated Divine Energies do not imply a composition within/in God, Who is fully present within/in His Energies. On the other hand, this vision is fundamentally supportive of the apophtism of the Person, which is mentioned in contemporary theology by theologians like Vasheslavtev and Staniloae. Thus the Mystery of the Person in Itself/ as such is not reduced to the energies of manifestation which describe strictly the movements and Acts of the Person. The Person is discoverable beyond mere energetic reasons by means of direct Communion. For the Person is to be apophatically discovered as love–communion–self offering by means of the movements and interrelated intertwined per¬manencies.
The Being as integral mode, as permanence of the Person is also fully resonant with the Mystery of Incarnation. The Son of God assumes in His own Hypostasis the mode of created existence/ the created mode of existence, that is, His Icon which is created in the integrality of Being (i.e. soul) and Energies (i.e. energetic body).
The divine Grace is itself presented triadically as information energy light, mind senses reason, will feeling thinking – all being essentially Divine. The Divine Persons, the Triad of the Person in itself and the movement energies are inseparable and in a constant/perpetual reciprocal/mutual affirmation/assertion, so that we cannot talk about a composition when it comes to describing the One Living God.
C. Elements of Iconic Anthropology
The anthropological transposition/translation of the revealed Mystery of the Trinity happens/unfolds in light of the revelation that man is created in the image and likeness of God and also in light of the Divine Incarnation. According to Saint Maxim the Confessor, the Incarnation is generally regarded/deemed as a Mystery of Creation and of the journey that the Creation embarks on in order to reach its transfiguration in the unity with God.
Father Ghelasie presents the Creation of the world from a liturgical perspective as to the (atemporal) Trinitarian counsel about the creation before the very birth of time/act of creation. The Creation is the Gift that the Son presents to the Father. The Blessing of the Father bestows Being onto the Creation and the Breath of the Holy Spirit confirms the Gift of the Word, it endows this Gift with life.
The Creation bears the seal of the Divine Act, which is im¬printed in its very Being through the Divine word and Divine breath of life. The Divine Icon of God indeed marks man’s own Being, for man is the creature that allows the creation to be united with God in Christ. The seal of the Divine Icon and Words represents the inescapable participative condition of the ontology of creation. By means of this seal the created reality is grafted on the Mystery of the Son of Man, which the Son of God takes upon Himself/assumes in the very divine counsel about creation. The duality of God and Creation is under no circumstances a duality of contrary realities, but an iconic duality that is liturgically oriented.
The Act of Creation initiates a dialogue and an iconic orientation that encouragingly guides man towards participation, an invitation addressed to the entire Creation to participate in and partake of the Divine Life. The very foundation of the Creation is therefore dialogic. The created existence is essentially a participative, cooperative answer to the Divine Act of Creation which ontologically marks its identity. Hitherto, according to the Christian vision, created life discloses its answer of growth in the “unaltered identity of being, according to its species” (Saint Maximus, Ambigua), “retaining its species through continuous birth till the end of the world” (Saint Basil the Great, Homilies to Hexaimeron). The created existence is governed by the Mystery of Filiation, it translates this Mystery of Divine Filiation into the created mode of existence.
Father Ghelasie transposes the distinction between Being and Energies to an anthropological level as unitary integrality of soul and energetic body (reflections of movements of the soul). The Soul is explicated by the triads: consciousness memory language, I spirit word, consciousness being self, rest movement repose, icon face likeness [4]. The direct communication of the Soul happens through integral movements such as love communion self offering, love trust/hope faith.
The energetic body is characterized by the following triads: information energy physical mass, informational energies vital energies accumulative energies, mind feelings reason, will senses thinking, individuality form manifestation. Thus, the energetic body presents a triple rationality configured by the mental or informational reason, the reason of the senses and the reason of organic functions.
Father Ghelasie defines the Iconic Body (Trup) as the icon of interweaved/twined and interworking soul and its energetic body (corp). The iconic body partakes of the Eucharistic condition; it is the wedding garment of the merging/interpenetration between being and its energies, of the union of man with God and the entire creation. The iconic body has three centres: the cerebral centre, the centre of the heart and the abdominal centre.
Firstly, consciousness and mind are merging (without confusion, in a state of interpenetration) in the cerebral centre. The heart is then the centre of merging/interpenetration between memory and vital energies, and also between spirit and feelings. Next, in the abdominal centre, the language of the soul merges (without confusion or separation) with the language of the organic functions. Finally, the heart is the centre of the integral union of the soul with God, as the spirit is the bearer of movement and energies.
Thus the energies find their repose only in the move¬ment of the spirit which “projected” them/from which they come out. The Hesychast Prayer enacts the return of the energies to the movement of the spirit by means of constantly addressing Christ. In fact it is He Who first calls for us, Who purifies us and thus retrieves and restores us to our Eucharistic condition.
The fall of man has brought about movements that are contrary to his iconic orientation, contrary to the Icon/Image of God in man. These projected on to negative energies that have generated an additional/subsidiary/supplementary reality. Thus the reality of the soul was obscured, smothered and camouflaged and the subconscious arose [5].
The break with God is thus readable in the split self of man, while the diminished Eucharistic condition is reflected in the death of the body. This post lapsarian condition extended and thus afflicted the entire creation. The “garments of skin” are symptomatic of the present time condition of the world where the entropic effects of the fall are manifest. But at the same time, these “garments of skin” are provisions of the Divine Plan that limit and control the effects and consequences of the sin and help us reach the eschatological border of the transfiguration of the world in the unity with God.
The Creation is in a state of perpetual suffering and is bewailing its long destiny of waiting for the time when it can again partake of the glory of the Sons of God, as we read in the Scriptures.
D. Remarks
Gnoseologically speaking, the iconic anthropology is characterized as the triad mysticism metaphysics theology.
A possible parallel vision in cultural history belongs to Jacques Maritain who developed a theory of metaphysical knowledge which postulates:
– the dia noetical intellect (knowledge through the senses)
– the peri noetical intellect (knowledge through signs)
– the ana noetical intellect (knowledge of the trans intelligible which first reveals the metaphysical and then the supernatural, but never reaches the knowledge of God).
Yet spiritual apotheosis is not described as a metaphysical experience but as a mystical one.
Owing to his special approach to the structure of the human being, Father Ghelasie’s conception embodies an iconic anthropology and an iconic integralism that reveal the iconic body (Trup) as the very Icon of the soul and body integrality. This iconic body is the axiological centre of spiritual life, being described as the altar of the merging (interpenetration between) soul and body, as the altar of the cosmic Eucharisty.
The dialogic character specific to Hesychast mysticism is based on triadological ontology and the ontological Eucharistic condition, as possibility of Eucharistic realization provided by the plan and economy of the Incarnation.
Axiologically speaking, the human being is not coordinated by spiritual or material values but by the Eucharistic value which is proclaimed as most integrative of all values. Thus, the role of the liturgical ritual is revealed as the participative dialogical fulfillment of the Eucharistic condition.
Another major issue – that this theology undertakes to discuss – is the idea of Filiation. The essential order of existence is based on love and filiation, not just on hierarchical rationality. This is why the theism presented by this theology possesses an irreducible Christ centered character.
E. Iconic Anthropology versus Naturalist Scientific Theories on the Nature of Mind and the Problem of Consciousness
In his approach to the nature of the human mind and that of the consciousness, Father Ghelasie marks a clear cut distinction between the two, mind and consciousness. Within the iconic anthropology that he presents, consciousness indicates an integral mode, a permanency of the reality of the Soul; while the mind indicates the informational mode of the energetic reflections. As it is, consciousness and mind interpenetrate in the brain which is a centre of the iconic body (trup). This iconic body interweaves the soul and the energies emanating from its movement.
After the Fall, the anti iconic movements literally split the energetic reflections, which hereafter foreground/evidence an antagonistic logic of contrary relations. On the other hand, the soul and the consciousness of the Divine Icon, the level of divine communion gradually withdraws in the background. The Soul grows blind, the additional reality deprives the Soul of its original sight and this marks the rise of the subconscious.
In the following, we shall comparatively approach some of the most important theories in the philosophy of consciousness referring to the relationship between consciousness and the material, energetic body as examined by scientific research.
Causally speaking, the theology presented by Father Ghelasie, fundamentally departs from epiphenomenalism in many respects, for epiphenomenalism postulates that consciousness is just an epiphenomenon of neuro physical processes, the consciousness having in fact no influence, no impact whatsoever on the phenomena of organic origin.
The conscious voluntary act, for instance, is not regarded as a free decision that originates the act of the subject, but is merely considered a mysterious interior illumination that passively accompanies nervous processes as such. As it were, these latter nervous processes are deemed to be the true driving forces behind our acts.
All in all, the arbiter of our consciousness is literally discarded as a mere illusion but still, the material level is completely irrelevant to our decisions. Hermann Ebbinghaus – a German philosopher and associativist psychologist (1850 1909) – suggestively explains away the epiphenomenalist conception regarding consciousness, by use of a metaphor. Our inner spiritual life, that is, our subjectivity is compared to a spectator who passively attends a play without interfering in the flow of remarks and gestures performed on stage [6].
The epiphenomenon is defined as an accessory phenomenon, as a superfluous unessential addition that accompanies the rise/production of an ontologically superior phenomenon. Deprived of autonomy, the epiphenomenon represents a secondary reality that suffers from an utter lack of authenticity.
Iconic anthropology is radically different from epiphenomenalism due to the following fundamental distinctions, namely:
– the Soul is ontologically superior, for the Soul is the originator of the material energetic movements, while energy as such is a derivate reality
– the voluntary act is a free decision of the subject. From the perspective of existential dynamics, the iconic personalism is essentially a theology of the act, for the personal act or movement initiates all energetic manifestation.
As compared to emergentist evolutionist theories, consciousness does not appear on a superior level of development. On the other hand, one cannot altogether refute the causal relationships that occur between the spiritual level and the corporal energetic level.
The difficulty of clearly identifying these causal relationships (soul energetic body) resides mainly in the discursive untranscribability of the triadic modes of the soul. The direct mode of communication that characterizes the soul fundamentally transcends any capacity of representation that the discursive reason holds. Anyway it is not a mere abstraction, while one experiences it in a concrete way in the interpersonal communion. The corporal energetic reflections – as studied by science – inevitably refer to the movements of the soul, providing rational information and existential indications about them.
The unobjectivisable character of the reality of the soul does not necessarily imply an absolute apophatism, because the energetic reality is not parallel to the reality of the soul, but in a constant state of interpenetration and reciprocal assertion/affirmation.
The symbolising and naming performed by the discursive language can only hint at the reality of the soul and its participations/implications. To put it in other words, the theological language reveals the iconic orientation, and at the same time represents the altar of the soul to soul dialogue and communion beyond partial reasons/insufficient reasoning.
In this sense, the vision of the iconic body as intertwined and interworking soul and energetic body, discloses the structuralist scientific excursus/method as utterly inseparable from the participative dialogical dimension belonging to the reality of the soul. The separation motivated by methodological criteria is a moment of the abstract thinking, but in the unique concrete unity of the person, the reality of the soul and the reality of its energetic reflections are inseparable, in interpenetration and reciprocal affirmation.
As regards the dualistic perspective, iconic anthropology is incompatible with a dualism of substance. It is true that dualism does not recognize the primordial character of matter over consciousness, matter being considered autonomous. The iconic theology though, does not regard the energies as self standing, but as reflections of the movements originating in the soul. Consequently, we cannot talk about a substance dualism, and neither can we talk about a pantheistic emanationism, for the energetic body is endowed with an irreducibly real consistency, which is generated by the real and irreducible movements of a living being.
Similarly, the iconic body partakes of the Eucharistic condition that ultimately reaches the Liturgical Union of the Creation with God. Although the Fall resulted in a diminishing and weakening of the Eucharistic condition – bringing about the all encompassing mortality that afflicts and ails the entire Creation – the communion with the Risen Body of Christ is the prerequisite of reaching the eternal/ever lasting liturgical realization/fulfillment of the iconic body.
In the same time, the Christian viewpoint cannot subscribe to a conceptual dualism, because the properties, features and definitions that this dualism performs – although being supported by the movements of the soul – are scientifically distinguishable in the field of partial reasons, as far as the energetic reflections are concerned.
As to the materialist monist theories, we can say that these theories recognize the specificity of the consciousness as unsubstantial product of the matter. On the other side, the Christian iconic ontology presents the soul as substantial, and the energies as not possessing their own ontological substance: they are not a self standing, autonomous principle [7].
Nevertheless, we cannot talk about an idealist ontological monism, because – from a personalist iconic perspective – reality intertwines in its ontological structure both ‘principles’: both the spirit and the matter, that is, its energies of movement.
Behaviourism and functionalism represent other structuralist attempts at reducing the mystery of the soul to the level of energetic manifestations.
Behaviourism is a psychological conception developed by James Watson (1913) as a reaction to introspectionist psychology. Behaviorism considers that the proper object of psychology is solely the study of external behaviour, and thus this approach literally eliminates consciousness. This current promotes the compared analysis of human and animal reactions and their response to stimuli, by studying the motor, glandular and verbal behaviour.
The reductionist study of these schemes of behaviour, sym¬ptomatic of this so called objective psychology, presents a limited spectrum of approach, for it basically refers to the distinctive semi mechanical workings describing the schemes of behaviour and therefore overlooks altogether the personal reaction and the uniqueness of the person.
As opposed to the psychologist interpretation performed by logic, logicism – with its main representatives Husserl and Lukasiewics – argues that the forms of correct/proper thinking are autonomous and do not depend on the psychic reality. These forms have an objective value and a sui generis mode of existence that is suspended in an ideal atemporality. Basically, for the logicist interpretation it is of not relevance whether these forms of thinking reach the level of consciousness, whether they are right or wrong, true or false, whether they are present or absent.
According to the Hesychast mysticism, the improper perception of the Logos does not necessarily imply its inexistence, its non existence or its subjective and purely immanent existence. On the other hand, the major difference between logicism and the iconic perspective refers to the fact that in the logicist view the ‘objectivity’ of the ideal forms exists as such, whereas the iconic anthropology holds the ‘objectivity’ of the divine Logoi – which supports and closely inform the forms and rationality of the Creation – as enhypostatic in character, indicating a real personal existence in the Divine Logos. Therefore, in the Person of the Divine Logos and in God’s own plan there is a foundation for the ‘objectivizing’ of the human logos.
In other words, the logoi of created forms belong to the Divine Logos which indicates to the created reason the level/degree of objectivization. And this is precisely why the rationality of the Creation is transcendentally oriented. This rationality aims at the direct communion with God in the Divine Embodied Logos, Jesus Christ.
In the Program of the XVI th World Congress of Philosophy (Düsseldorf, 1978), one of the principal themes of debate was: the rationality of science and other types of rationality. With this occasion one has brought a criticism regarding the scientist approach.
There have been stressed the limits of scientific rationality, characterized by, as an outstanding invited speaker Jean Ladrière affirmed: “a process of systematical growth based on procedures, with local character, for controlling the validity. Either in the formal sciences or in the empirical sciences, the validation has an operatorial na¬ture. Therefore, in last analysis, the two specific features of the scientific rationality are its local and operatorial character [8].
With regard to positivism, which includes the early physicalism of type Carnap, one has made the hypothesis that it “identifies veracity with verifiability and truth with the means of its verification” [9]. This interpretation indicates the elusion of the objective status of truth. “The neopositivism has adhered constantly at a subjectivist relativism, based on formalist and conventionalist arguments” [10].
In the work “Der Logische Aufbau der Welt”, Rudolf Carnap affirms significantly: „The conception that what is being given constitutes in fact my own impreessions is common to solipsism and the theory of formation. The last one and the transcendental idealism assert the thesis that all objects of knowledge are constructions and as such they are objects of knowledge as logic forms [11].
For the iconic ontology, the construction of reality in consciousness has a precise sense: it refers to the forms existing in a close relationship with the ontology of the person or the identity understood as icon (bearing the divine seal). The logical forms, concepts and ideas are only partial reasons and only the axiological élan of consciousness can comprehend/include them in a round/holistic meaning.
The terminological distinctions performed throughout this presentation call for a separate but similar approach to the relationship between mind and the physical body. Yet all so far mentioned considerations easily apply to this latter relationship of mind and body, because the mind and the organic functionality are two equal interpenetrating modes that originate in the movements of the soul.
F. Several conclusions
We must necessarily mention that iconic ontology cannot agree with a naturalist ontology that behaves reductively in respect to the Divine Mystery. The Seal of the Divine Icon of God is deeply imprinted in the human being and essentially sustains its existence.
This is why the project of regaining the direct knowledge and communication of the soul calls for the restora¬tion of the Eucharistic condition which is afflicted by the reality of the sin. This restoration is the province [12] of the Eastern Orthodox theology and mysticism. The methodology required by this spiritual science is a special one.
This is the path of purification, illumination and deification of man in the gradually arising unity with God in Christ. The measuring device employed in this “science of the soul” is man himself, purified of all passions and enlightened by Grace, united with God. The further development of the method and of the measuring device occurs with the growth in Christ and with the personal attempt to reach a state of sinlessness. This is why, in relation to the soul, the Saint is the experienced “scientist”, and the Holy Tradition is the adequate space of the scientific approach to the Divine Revelation.
The mystery of the Creation is closely intertwined and interrelated with the Divine Mystery. The energetic reflections of the soul are more than simple illusionary emanations; they are radiating movements of the soul, the aura of the being as dialogical and liturgical being. Created Life is the participative answer founded in the Divine Seal.
The iconic anthropology does not overlook the dialogic dimension/pattern present in the created beings. The Creation is itself triadologically configured in the triad man angels nature. The interpenetration within this triad discloses the Creation as a trinitary dialogic scene, which is oriented towards union and transfiguration in the Resurrected Body of Christ. The relationship between the cons¬ciousness and the body cannot be separated from the interrelations that occur on the dialogic level, and this relationship goes beyond the province of natural scientific research.
As the iconic ontology reads, the physical world is not a causally closed system, for it is fully compatible with an epistemology that is open towards the Divine Transcendent and towards the reality of the soul, which is itself transcendental as compared to the reality of energetic reflections. The level of these energetic reflections originates in the movements of the soul.
The Seal of the Divine Icon is the principle of the unity of the soul, while the soul is the principle of the unity of the energetic reflections. The unity of level of energetic reflections refers back to a founding model, a Divine transcendent model (as support of synergy) – the Divine Words and the Divine Icon/Image – and also a transcendental created model – the soul. In their urge to put together a self sufficient explicative system, natural sciences have looked for a principle of unity that is strictly immanent in the physical world and in the energetic reflections that it is studying.
G. The arrow of time
A very important aspect of Fr. Ghelasie's thought is the distinction between the “big bang of the creation” and what he calls the "big bang of the fall". Indeed, he repeatedly pointed out to the importance of the fact that the effects of the fall were not only felt by human beings, but in fact the impact was truly cosmological, the differences between the pre lapsarian and post lapsarian universes being so great that the discursive reason (dianoia) of the fallen man finds impossible to apply concepts rooted in the entities and processes of the fallen universe in order to get a “realistic” glimpse on the pre lapsarian world. Indeed, the fall of man marked the entrance of death into the world (Romans 5:12), and a world without death is out of the grasp of the unaided human reason.
However, in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, it is the Incarnation of Christ which made possible a contemplation of the mysteries of the pre-lapsarian world: through the spiritual mediation originating in our participation in Life of the Church, dianoia and nous (the spiritual intellect) are harmonized. In the life of the Church, time itself has a liturgical character: one then may assume that while there was “time” in the pre lapsarian world (and certainly there were the days of the creation), the pre lapsarian time was a liturgical time: a time of communion, togetherness, praise and worship of the Holy Trinity. And together with time, the character of the whole pre lapsarian universe is liturgical: all of its processes, movements, acts and gestures are nothing but Liturgy in an extended sense; the “pre- lapsarian physics” itself has a liturgical mode (tropos).
In this Cosmic Liturgy a central role is definitely played by the human being, the crown of the creation, created in the image and likeness of God. That made the fall of man impact the whole Cosmos.
After the fall, the death (which can be related to entropy) which entered the universe transformed the mode (tropos) of time itself. The post lapsarian time (that is, the time as we know it, and which is studied in physics and cosmology) is a “stochastic time”, in the sense that the “arrow of time” (term introduced by Eddington in 1927) is linked with entropy: following that arrow leads to in¬creasing randomness.
Moreover, the inherent randomness in the quantum rea¬li¬ty suggests that randomness and increasing entropy are cha¬racteristic features of the post lapsarian universe. While the actual event of the fall may remain eternally hidden from our perception, the pre lapsarian liturgical universe did not disappear! [13] It still “is” (and can be contemplated, through the Grace of God, in Life of the Church).
Missing this comprehension, the hypothesis of natural evolution was promoted as an explicative principle that would relatively provide a unified vision and understanding of the physical world as a causally closed system [14]. The patristic view on the other hand, argues that the kinship between the various forms of Creation does not reside in the gradual evolution and transformation of these forms one into another; the common key is to be found in the Seal of the Divine Act of Creation that bestows upon the entire Creation the identity, the Icon, the Logos of Filiation [15].
Due to the emphasized dialogic/participative iconic identity, the Orthodox Christian perspective does not appear compatible with Darwinist hypotheses about the transformation of species, but with micro “evolution”, i.e., with the growing diversity and adaptation of living beings within their specific identity and general interrelation.
The last century has demonstrated several times how the objectifying tendency of science may sometimes lead to excessive and over wrought interpretations that trespass beyond its competence. This deficiency may cause existential crises, the splitting of life and culture, the inability to reconcile the scientific content and its abstract implications with the reality of a unifying (concrete) act/event of communion.
The iconic ontology cannot agree with a naturalist ontology that behaves reductively with respect to the Divine Mystery. The project of regaining the direct knowledge and communication of the soul calls for the restoration of the Eucharistic condition which is afflicted by the reality of the sin. The methodology required by this spiritual science is the path of purification, illumination and deification of man in the gradually arising unity with God in Christ.
H. Natural law and spiritual freedom in the conception of Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae
Father Stăniloae is the most renowned Romanian theologian. He is one of the founders of neopatristic current in theology. In his „Dogmatic Theology” (vol. 1) he approaches the problem of natural law and spiritual freedom, a question long debated in science and philosophy. In accord with the doctrine on uncreated logoi of St. Maximus the Confessor, he affirms the existence of a correspondence between the malleable rationality of nature and the human capacities [16].
The human hypostasis brings nature to realization on his spiritual and liturgical way toward the union with God. Nature’s realization itself depends on the realization of man’s vocation as priest of creation, involving „a responsibility toward the human community and God” [17].
One of the most interesting modern issues concerns the possibility to conceive in a scientific way the reconciliation between the deterministic or random character of the laws of physics and man’s freedom or power of choice [18].
Fr. Stăniloae expresses at his turn not simply the human capacity to transcend the determinism of natural laws but also a kind of malleability of the natural realm adapted to man’s action. The natural laws allow the exercise of man’s freedom that actualizes and brings to fulfilment nature’s virtualities [19], so that a key word is their inseparability [20].
Man has in his own body the evidence of this compatibility between spirit and nature [21]. There is a kind of iconic hierarchy in which the higher level and the lower level are in a reciprocal affirmation [22]. They form together an iconic body in which elevation of lower level has as correlative the backing of the higher level by the lower level. The differences between human involvement and nature’s flow is affirmed together with the relation of non contradiction given ontologically [23].
More than that, Fr. Stăniloae affirms the solidarity and continuity of man and nature, an extended relation of spirit and body [24]. Nature has an anthropic orientation and a liturgical dimension. It is God’s gift to man which is returned with man’s self offering offering to God in the view of final transfiguration. It is a place of the all embracing formula of synergy: “The synergy is the general formula of God’s action in the world” [25].
In that sense, Fr. Stăniloae remarks in man a “transcending of nature that is neither his own product nor a mere product of nature” [26]. This transcending involves man’s creation as a living icon of God in the mystery of divine economy; realized in the likeness with God, man will bring nature its partaking to the blaze of God’s sons, as Scripture says.
One of the principal points in the debate is that a (deterministic) approach of natural sciences objectifies reality. Affirming the non dualistic iconic ontology of human being, Fr. Stăniloae remarks a certain “non objectivity of the body. According to Christian faith, the body is in a special way a partaker to the interiority and life of the spirit, going beyond the biological, physical and chemical level” [27].
The transcendental vocation of the spirit meets the incarnational eucharistic vocation of the body in a unique iconic integrality [28]. The body is more than a mechanical structure acting through automatic processes. Even if life’s fundament is spiritual, spirit and body are interpenetrated realities that are in a paradoxical relation of reciprocal interiority [29].
Fr. Stăniloae affirms the mystery of the body as “partaker at spirit as subject”, in terms that point to its Eucharistic condition that transcends mere materiality [30]. The relation spirit body is thought in terms of an iconic hierarchy and reciprocal actualization [31].
The personal soul body integrality seen in the realm of divine economy and in the world’s dialogic (inter relational) texture is emphasized. The distinction between the actual condition affected by death and the eschatological resurrected condition is decisive for a right understanding. One could already locally contemplate certain indications and evidences about the eschatological condition in the veritable divine miracles [32] .
Notes:
[1] We sincerely thank Mrs. Alice Butnar for her most valuable translation work.
[2] For the patristic grounds and actual relevance of the iconic anthropology see our study „Mistica Iconică, o Viziune Unificatoare” in: Ierom. Ghelasie Gheorghe, „Scrieri Isihaste”, Platytera, Bucureşti, 2006, p. 316 415.
[3] Ierom. Ghelasie Gheorghe, Medicina Isihastă, Axul Z, Axis Mundi, Bucureşti, 1992, p. 9. Fr. Ghelasie remarks further: “Mystery resides in the very Revelation of the Holy Spirit and in the Christ centered Iconic Language. As it is, in the Christian view this calls for an intertwining between Religion and Science, Soul and Body, Mystery and Revelation, Divine Being and Uncreated Energies. Yet, Christian Science is not a syncretistic mix up but an Equal Dialogue, in co existing but also individual ways. Christianity is not a Religious or Philosophical System, but an ever Opening and Revealing Vision. The revealed Christian Dogma is not a closed System but a Defining in Opening. The Christian Mode of Knowledge is an Opening Discovering in its Defining. It is a Mystery manifest in Different Modes of Defining which brings in Evidence all the more the Mystery as a Mystery” (idem).
[4] As concerns the theology of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Ghelasie distinguishes the triad of permanencies or integral modes of the Person from the Divine Hypostases/Persons which have it in common. The Son of God and the Holy Spirit are receiving it from the Father through their Birth and respectively Proceeding from eternity. This explains and avoids the modalist or tritheistic confusions/errors.
[5] We mentioned above some important aspects of the iconic anthropology developed by Fr. Ghelasie in: Ierom. Ghelasie Gheorghe, Memoriile unui Isihast, vol. I, Platytera, Bucureşti, 2006, see for ex. p. 18 20, 27. Terminological clarifications with details and implications for the hesychast practice could be also found in: Ierom. Ghelasie Gheorghe, Scrieri Isihaste, Platytera, Bucureşti, 2006.
[6] Essai de psychologie, Paris, Payot, 1930, p. 202.
[7] Richard Swinburne affirms the irreducibility of the mental events with respect to the physical descriptions, distinguishing between quantifiable and non quantifiable variations. Ηe observes that at the background of the integrative process that is characteristic for the advance of science lies the assumption that different branches of study have the same subject matter. Right this assumption makes unlikely, in Swinburne’s view, to explain in a physicalist view the mental events (Richard Swinburne, On Mind Body Dualism, Interview with Science and Religion News (2006), http://users.ox.ac.uk/~orie0087/framesetpdfs.shtml, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford).
[8] in vol.: Filosofia şi concepţiile despre lume, Caiet documentar 3, U.B. 1979, p. 123.
[9] I. S. Norski, Sovremenîi pozitivizm, Moscova, 1961, p. 302. Stephen Barr calls the claim that quantum theory is incompatible with materialism the London Bauer thesis and presents The London Bauer Argument in Brief (Stephen Barr, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, p. 232).
[10] Ştefan Georgescu, Epistemologie, E.D.P., Bucureşti, 1978, p. 81.
[11] Weltkreisverlag, Berlin, 1928, pp. 248 249.
[12] province = area of special knowledge, interest, responsibility.
[13] Considering as a distinctive property of time “to be in a flux leading to novelty and to the endless unfolding of the reality of the world” Alexei Nesteruk discusses the attempts of Prigogine and Penrose to explain entropy, the expansion of the universe and the arrow of time. Considering flows of correlations in place of binary correlations, Penrose links the irreversibility of time to boundary conditions that, seen through the “patristic eyes”, “point towards the logos of Creation”. The implications of man’s fall are not discussed in this emergentist context, but Nesteruk affirms along with some theological implications that “the role of the future in the sustenance of time, as its creation from the kingdom, can be articulated only through an appeal to ecclesial and liturgical experience” (Alexei V. Nesteruk, Light from the East, Theology, Science and the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2003, p. 166, 169, 177).
[14] Nesteruk observes that “the extended but still monistic scientific substantialism is not able to detect that the ontological basis of the world is beyond the world (…) In order to justify the inference from the world to God and to make it a useful instrument in the science religion dialogue, one should adopt a different methodological ap¬proach”. Breaking “the monistic trend and its view on the world”, this approach should fit the methodology of the “theological monodualism” with its “relational ontology” (Ibid., p. 97).
[15] The created existence is essentially a participative, cooperative answer to the Divine Act of Creation through the Divine Logos which ontologically marks its identity. Hitherto, according to the Christian vision, created life discloses its answer of growth in the “unaltered identity of being, according to its species” (Saint Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua), “retaining its species through continuous birth till the end of the world” (Saint Basil the Great, Homilies to Hexaimeron). The created existence is governed by the Mystery of Filiation, translating the Mystery of Divine Filiation into the created mode of existence.
[16] Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă, I, EIBMBOR, Bucureşti, 1996, p. 247.
[17] idem.
[18] Stephen Barr brought into light in a recent book the scientific debate on the possibility that quantum mechanics, with its probabilistic indeterminist approach, allows free will. The laws of physics, says he, “must be flexible enough that more than one outcome is possible in a particular situation: for free will to be possible, laws of physics must have the indeterminacy built into them. The key point is that quantum indeterminacy allows free will, it does not produce it.” (Stephen Barr, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, p. 179).
[19] Fr.Dumitru Stăniloae, Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă, I, p. 249.
[20] “Nature is structured such that there is place for (allows) human intervention that transcends its precise laws. These laws are in a way completed by the intervention of human freedom. The human sense of existence combines with the exterior nature, fulfilling it in a way that makes impossible a separation. A separation can be made only in an abstract level, imagined by man’s spirit”, ibid., p. 248.
[21] The modern science agrees with this reconciling between personal freedom and natural law and the picture of a “interwoven texture of Matter, Life, and Soul”, as Hermann Weyl commented in 1931 the implications of quantum theory (apud: Stephen Barr, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, p. 184).
[22] “The model of this completion is the symbiosis between the spiritual life, with its fullness of conscious thinking and sensibility, and the physical chemical laws of the body”, Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă, I, p. 249.
[23] ibid., p. 248.
[24] ibid., p. 249. John Polkinghorne traces a kind of non reductive imagery of multi level explanation, distinguishing clock like type from cloud like type systems. He applies this for distinguishing an energetic field from a mere mechanistic physical system. He distinguishes further a fallacy that lies in the deterministic interpretation of the words „dependent on”: „We can admit that thoughts are dependent on the neural substrate in the sense that, without it (or something equivalent) we presumably cannot think, but this does not mean «dependent on» in the sense of «determined by»” (Polkinghorne Q & A, http://www.starcourse.org/jcp /qanda.html#Meteor). Of course, living bodies cannot be reduced at cloud like non living systems, as their energies arise from the participative movements of their living being.
[25] Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă, I, p. 256.
[26] ibid., p. 250.
[27] ibid., p. 251. Also: „In the body, the rationality acquires a particular complexity, owing to the spiritual richness that permeates it. At its turn, the rationality of the spirit itself actualizes itself (comes into actuality) in a complexity of great refinement and subtlety, in its action on the body”, idem.
[28] ibid., p. 251.
[29] ibid., p. 252.
[30] ibid. p. 259.
[31] “Man’s body cannot be understood without the spirit that organized and penetrated it combining the reasons of the body through which spirit’s reasons are manifested. The body is continuously adapted to the spirit, and is imprinted by spirit. The body is the first reserve of innumerable material contingent possibilities. The spirit actualizes them through correspondent spiritual possibilities able to be actualized. But without the body, soul’s possibilities couldn’t be actualized. (…) the body also has a contribution to soul’s formation: it gives to the soul its own seal”, ibid., p. 252 253.
[32] Fr. Stăniloae develops an idea of St. Maximus the Confessor, that “miracles represent a renewal of the mode (tropos) in which the human nature’s reason is accomplished, or of nature in general, but not its alteration. This, there is no contradiction between the created nature and the powers of God, that brings to realization His creation, as there is no contradiction between nature and what is superior to nature (ibid., p. 256, apud: Ambigua, P. G., vol. 91, col. 1341). The miracles are a local coming into evidence of the divine action that in the eschatology times will pervade and transfigure the actual condition. This will happen in a way that brings a much higher adaptation and transparency of laws to the full realization of the personal inter communication (ibid., p. 257).
(English translation: Alice Butnar)
Paper published in the volume Ierom. Ghelasie Gheorghe, „Medicina Isihastă” („The Hesychast Medicine”), Platytera Publishing House, 2007, pp. 271-301)
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