Many Christian bodies are now active in encouraging “care for creation” as an important element o... more Many Christian bodies are now active in encouraging “care for creation” as an important element of Christian faith (Oelschlager 1994; Scharper 1998; Bartholomew & Chryssavgis 2003). But does this amount to a continuation of, or rather a departure from, the doctrines and sensibilities of traditional Christianity? Earlier Christian attitudes toward nature have in recent decades come under sustained critical scrutiny, largely due to the influential arguments of Lynn White, Jr., a historian of medieval technology. White claimed that Christianity, especially in its dominant Western form — for he exempts the Byzantine East — de-sanctified the natural world, made humanity think that it did not really belong within the natural order at all, and took much too literally the charge to humanity in Genesis (1:28) to “subdue” and “have dominion over” creation, all of these leading to destructive technologies with little sense of nature's rootedness in a sacred order. White's precursor in this indictment is the 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who claimed that Christianity, particularly in its medieval form, advanced a purportedly Platonistic devaluation of the visible and earthly, thereby standing guilty of not being “true to the earth.” These charges have been somewhat uncritically incorporated into many etiologies of environmental disorder, even though a more careful examination of how nature was actually viewed in Christian thought and sensibility suggests that these charges are somewhat tendentious, based largely on selective readings. It may indeed be questioned whether it was not Christian civilization, but rather its gradual dilution and dissolution leading to the Enlightenment's secular and mechanistic worldview, unparalleled in world civilization, that provided the foundation for environmental degradation. Keywords: nature, early christian attitudes toward; “care for creation,” an element of christian faith; cosmological proofs, connection between creator and creation; deuteronomy
Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, 2019
Humanistic aesthetics sees beauty only as it stands in proportion to the human, only in its kinsh... more Humanistic aesthetics sees beauty only as it stands in proportion to the human, only in its kinship with us, only as we are at home with it, and only in its domestic varieties. But surely an environmental aesthetic must find its proper element not in domesticity, but in wildness; not in what is measured, but in what is unmeasured; not in the homely, but in the strange and uncanny. An environmental aesthetic must be successive to humanism.
Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, 2019
This article traces the origins of the university as an interplay between transcendence and imman... more This article traces the origins of the university as an interplay between transcendence and immanence, sacred and secular, first in ancient Greek philosophy and then within the Byzantine, Islamic, and Latin intellectual worlds. It shows how the dialectic is threatened in modernity through the eclipse of the sacred in the public sphere and the hegemony of the secular in intellectual life, leaving the university no foundation for a unity and coherence of knowledge that would justify its continued existence. The author demonstrates how Newman and Whitehead provide clues for seeking apertures for transcendence to re-enter the university, as do alternative forms of intellectual and spiritual community, but a blueprint for the university's renewal cannot yet be anticipated. I. Three Moments of University Development: The Metaphysical Rivalry of Transcendence and Immanence The beginnings of the university can be found long before the medieval era where its rise is usually discerned. It...
Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, 2019
Pavel Florensky’s The Pillar and the Ground of the Truth is surely one of the most unusual books ... more Pavel Florensky’s The Pillar and the Ground of the Truth is surely one of the most unusual books of philosophy published in the twentieth century. More often than not, it produces in the reader a consternation that has caused many to reject it altogether after a few glances, thinking it an example of the aestheticism and even decadence that has come to be associated with Russian Symbolism. This stigmatization is both unfortunate and unjust, for it is a work of great logical, mathematical, and philosophical rigor as well as a source of deep spiritual insight. Moreover, one of its primary claims is that the formal rigor of logic and mathematics is ontologically rooted—not just applicable to the real, but of one piece with being itself. And another of its claims is that spirituality does not concern some rarified dimension separate from empirical reality, divorced from the human body and natural science and works of art, but that it extends into and illumines every aspect of life; it d...
Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, 2019
After discussing the Orthodox “Jesus prayer” and its relation to Orthodox prayer in general, the ... more After discussing the Orthodox “Jesus prayer” and its relation to Orthodox prayer in general, the article outlines a “Topography of Prayer in Orthodox Practice” under ten subheadings: Divine Presence; Avoiding Representations; Descent to the Heart; the Role of Compunction; the Name of God; the Circularity of Prayer; God Praying Within Us; Stillness (hesychia); Erōs and Longing; and the Cosmic Dimension of Prayer. A concluding section discusses the essential link between prayer and action.
Between the Species: An Online Journal for the Study of Philosophy and Animals, 1993
At ftrst glance, the work of Martin Heidegger would seem to be an unlikely source for ethical ref... more At ftrst glance, the work of Martin Heidegger would seem to be an unlikely source for ethical reflection on our relation to animals. First, it has long been regarded as problematical that Heidegger-whose work seems otherwise to have a comprehensive scope-did not write an "ethics" in the modem sense of the term, Le., did not arrive at a theory of moral obligation on the model of Kant or Mill or his own compatriot and early animal rights advocate, Leonard Nelson. Second, Heidegger's published works-including his recently published lectures, lecture courses, and seminars in the German PHILOSOPHY Between the Species
St. Maximus the Confessor has long been seen within the Byzantine tradition as both its greatest ... more St. Maximus the Confessor has long been seen within the Byzantine tradition as both its greatest theologian and its most important philosopher, and his significance is now becoming increasingly recognized in the West. Maximus was a Byzantine aristocrat, once serving as head of the Imperial Chancellery under the Emperor Heraclius in Constantinople. In 614, he entered the monastery at Chrysopolis, across the Bosphorus from Constantinople, where he became its abbot. Persian incursions into Anatolia and the great siege of Constantinople caused him to flee the area in 626, first to Crete and Cyprus, and finally to Byzantine North Africa in 630, where he did some of his most important writing. It was here that he was drawn into the Monothelite Controversy, theological successor to the Monophysite Controversy that had earlier split the unity of the church with its claim that Christ had only one nature. Conceding the Chalcedonian teaching that affirmed two natures, both divine and human, the Monothelites maintained rather that Christ had only one will, a divine will but not a human will, a view that was favored by the Emperor and by the Patriarch of Constantinople as a sensible compromise, and who both sought to restore the unity lost in the Monophysite Controversy. Maximus strongly opposed the Monthelite view, which still seemed to compromise the humanity of Christ, and entered into a famous debate at Carthage with the former Byzantine Patriarch, Pyrrhus, in 645. Maximus prevailed in the debate, convincing even Pyrrhus, and went to Rome in 647, where he served as advisor to the Lateran Council of 649, which affirmed Chalcedon against the Monothelites. For this, he was arrested by the Emperor, Constans II, and brought to Constantinople in 653 for a series of interrogations and trials. For his refusal to recant, he was tortured, hence his designation as “confessor.” According to tradition, the appendages by means of which he had defied the emperor, his tongue and his right hand, were both severed from his body. After this mutilation, he was sent into exile in the Caucasus Mountains, probably in Georgia, but he died soon thereafter, most likely from his injuries. Keywords: maximus the confessor (580–662); byzantine tradition, greatest theologian; monothelite controversy; theological wisdom, of late antiquity; mystagogy, reflections on liturgical symbolism
St. Gregory Palamas can be understood as having a standing in the Greek East parallel to that of ... more St. Gregory Palamas can be understood as having a standing in the Greek East parallel to that of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Latin West. But this is not because his thought is so comprehensive, although it assuredly is, and certainly not due to similarity in their ideas, for the two stand in sharp opposition concerning central concepts, but because like St. Thomas a century earlier, he formulated a version of his own respective tradition so definitive that, at least with regard to essentials, it can nevertheless be called a “summa.” As it is put plainly by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, one of the most distinguished contemporary Greek theologians, “The theology of St. Gregory Palamas is the theology of the Orthodox Church.” But this is not meant to suggest the kind of official status accorded to St. Thomas in the Roman Church as “common doctor,” but rather to affirm that St. Gregory “was not introducing a new system of teaching and knowledge of God, but he lived and then expressed what he met in the Church and on the Holy Mountain, having been trained in the life in Christ” (1997: 357). St. Gregory was born into a noble Byzantine family in Constantinople. In 1316, after the death of his father, a pious Byzantine senator with strong connections to the Imperial Court, he entered the monastic life, along with most of his family. With two of his brothers, he traveled on foot to the Monastery of Vatopedi on Mt. Athos, where he stayed for three years before moving on to the Great Lavra, at the easternmost tip of the Athonite Penninsula, for another three years. Along with many other monks, he left the Holy Mountain in 1325 due to frequent Turkish raids. Still living a contemplative life, he was ordained a priest in Thessalonica in 1326, and returned to Mt. Athos in 1331 where he lived as a hermit at St. Sabbas, high above the Great Lavra, descending the steep path only for liturgical feasts at the Lavra. Beginning in 1335, St. Gregory became increasingly involved in the Hesychast Controversy, the demands of which required him to once again leave Mt. Athos, this time for good. He became the champion of the triumphant Hesychast tradition, affirmed by three Councils in Constantinople in 1341, 1345, and 1351. In 1347, he was consecrated Metropolitan Bishop of Thessalonica, where his sermons placed a special emphasis on care for the poor and needy. In 1354, while traveling by sea, he was taken prisoner by the Turks for a year, and he spent much of this time in earnest theological dialog with his Islamic captors. He was glorified as a saint in 1368, soon after his death in 1359. Keywords: gregory palamas, saint (1296–1359); St. gregory palamas, theology of the orthodox church; hesychast mysticism; “mystical realism”
No 20th century philosopher has so strongly influenced Christian thought as Heidegger, and only W... more No 20th century philosopher has so strongly influenced Christian thought as Heidegger, and only Wittgenstein approaches his impact within philosophy itself. Yet despite his strongly Christian background, it is questionable whether Heidegger considered himself to be a Christian during most of his career. His work is controversial, both because of his political past, but also because while many see his work as achieving an epochal breakthrough in non-objectifying language, others see it as merely obscure. Keywords: heidegger, martin (1889–1976); heidegger, strong influence on christian thought; heidegger's philosophical approach, on E. Husserl's phenomenology; heidegger's work, as a “confrontation with Christianity”; heidegger, and “eco-theology”
St. Isaac the Syrian, also known as Isaac of Nineveh (fl. c.680), was a monk and mystic, briefly ... more St. Isaac the Syrian, also known as Isaac of Nineveh (fl. c.680), was a monk and mystic, briefly a bishop, and the author of some of the Christian East's most profound and influential texts in ascetic spirituality. He was born in the region of what is now Qatar and Bahrain, then part of Persia and an important center for Christianity; he was tonsured as a monk, and eventually was made Bishop of Nineveh, present-day Mosul, Iraq. After five months he abdicated his episcopacy for reasons that are now unclear, and withdrew to a solitary life in the mountains of Khuzistan, in southwest Iran. A 9th century source states that he lost his eyesight due to his arduous “reading and asceticism,” adding that “he entered deeply into the divine mysteries and composed books on the divine discipline of solitude” (1984: lxv). These books, composed in Syriac, perhaps originally dictated to his followers, are masterpieces in the literature of asceticism and mystical theology. The extant works are in two collections, the earlier-known and longer one translated into English in 1923 by Wensinck, and again in 1984 by Miller, while the second was discovered only recently by Sebastian Brock at Oxford University's Bodleian Library, and translated by Brock in 1995. Keywords: Isaac the Syrian, Saint; Isaac of Nineveh; center of St. Isaac's mystical theology, insight into divine love
Schelling is, along with J. G. Fichte and G. W. F. Hegel, one of the greatest of the German Ideal... more Schelling is, along with J. G. Fichte and G. W. F. Hegel, one of the greatest of the German Idealist philosophers, although accounts vary concerning the precise nature of Schelling's significance. One interpretation, frequently repeated in histories of philosophy, sees Schelling as a crucial intermediate stage of post-Kantian Idealism, a bridge between the Subjective Idealism of Fichte and the Absolute Idealism of Hegel, usually regarded as the culmination of German Idealism. This account, while not false, is rather a halftruth, overlooking as it does the importance of Schelling's later philosophy, which in many ways goes beyond Idealism, and represents a bridge to the various anti-Idealistic philosophies of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Schelling's later philosophy is highly religious in character – taking up in an original way problems such as the nature of God, the essence of human freedom, the problem of evil, and the uniqueness and significance of the Christian revelation and its relation to philosophy – and had a wide influence on 19th and 20th century Christian theology. Keywords: von schelling, friedrich wilhelm joseph (1775–1854); German idealist philosophers; subjective idealism of fichte and absolute idealism of hegel; philosophy of nature, realistic completion of idealism
St. Seraphim of Sarov was an influential Russian staretz (Greek, geron) or elder, a holy man reco... more St. Seraphim of Sarov was an influential Russian staretz (Greek, geron) or elder, a holy man recognized as bearing the charism, or ministry, of spiritual direction. Although he spent much of his life in solitude and ascetic struggle, he was celebrated throughout Russia as a great clairvoyant and worker of miracles, and today he is widely venerated in the Orthodox world, and beyond, as an outstanding modern exemplar of a life filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit. This remains especially the case in Russia, where he is the most beloved of all modern saints. Significantly, and ironically, it was in the basement of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, which had for years been converted by the communist regime into a “Museum of Atheism,” that his lost relics were re-discovered. Thus, as he had predicted, the recovery of his relics in 1991 was associated with the restoration of the Orthodox faith to Russia. Keywords: seraphim of Sarov, Saint (1759–1833); Russian staretz or elder, a holy man; “seraphim” from hebrew root, flaming or fiery; “the true goal of our Christian life… holy spirit of God”
Sergei Bulgakov was the most prominent thinker of the Russian Silver Age that immediately precede... more Sergei Bulgakov was the most prominent thinker of the Russian Silver Age that immediately preceded the Revolutions of 1917, and after his emigration to Paris in 1925, he went on to become the most original, and probably the most widely known, Russian philosopher and theologian living in the west. He was born the son of an Orthodox priest, and the heir of distinguished priestly lineages on both maternal and paternal sides of his family. He grew up with a strong attachment to nature, and a spiritual orientation that he described as “a child's Christian ‘pantheism’.” He began seminary training at the age of 13, but within a few years had lost his faith in God, and shifted his allegiance to Marxism and the longing for “an earthly paradise,” yielding, as he later put it, to “the temptation to worship man.” He eventually became an economist holding a prestigious chair in agricultural economics — adapting Marx to the largely agrarian economy of Russia — and a politician who served in the Second Duma, or Russian parliament, of 1906. Along with many of the Russian intelligentsia, Bulgakov — having published in 1900 a major work called Capitalism and Agriculture — became disillusioned by the poor fit of Marxist economics to Russian reality, and disenchanted with the political irresponsibility of the left. Together with N. Berdyaev, he edited in 1909 an influential collection of articles called Vekhi or Landmarks: A Collection of Essays on the Russian Intelligentsia, which sought to articulate a vision for Russia more indigenous than the failed revolutionary politics. Published in 1912, The Philosophy of Economy represents Bulgakov's major work as a philosopher, finalizes his break with Marxist political economy, and establishes the philosophical grounds for his later work as a theologian. Drawing upon both Orthodox mysticism and German Idealism, especially Schelling, he develops a deeply ecological vision of creation as natura naturans, as revealing divine energies, as divine wisdom (Sophia) at work. Meanwhile, through his experiences of numinous beauty in nature and art, and a mysterious visit to the hermitage of a staretz or spiritual elder — all of these (nature, art, and Church) being vital elements of his later concept of Sophia — he recovered his Orthodox faith, being ordained a priest 1918. He was exiled from Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1922, and continued his academic life at St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, as both Professor of Dogmatic Theology and Founding Dean, until 1944 when, according to those present, he died as a saint. Keywords: Bulgakov, Sergei Nikolaevich (1871–1944); prominent thinker, of the Russian silver age; Russian philosopher, theologian, living in the west; vekhi or landmarks: a collection of essays … intelligentsia; the philosophy of economy, Bulgakov's major work; orthodox mysticism and German idealism; ecological vision of creation, as natura naturans; Bulgakov's the unfading light, manifest in “cosmodicy”; ancient truths of orthodoxy, prism of modern culture
Many Christian bodies are now active in encouraging “care for creation” as an important element o... more Many Christian bodies are now active in encouraging “care for creation” as an important element of Christian faith (Oelschlager 1994; Scharper 1998; Bartholomew & Chryssavgis 2003). But does this amount to a continuation of, or rather a departure from, the doctrines and sensibilities of traditional Christianity? Earlier Christian attitudes toward nature have in recent decades come under sustained critical scrutiny, largely due to the influential arguments of Lynn White, Jr., a historian of medieval technology. White claimed that Christianity, especially in its dominant Western form — for he exempts the Byzantine East — de-sanctified the natural world, made humanity think that it did not really belong within the natural order at all, and took much too literally the charge to humanity in Genesis (1:28) to “subdue” and “have dominion over” creation, all of these leading to destructive technologies with little sense of nature's rootedness in a sacred order. White's precursor in this indictment is the 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who claimed that Christianity, particularly in its medieval form, advanced a purportedly Platonistic devaluation of the visible and earthly, thereby standing guilty of not being “true to the earth.” These charges have been somewhat uncritically incorporated into many etiologies of environmental disorder, even though a more careful examination of how nature was actually viewed in Christian thought and sensibility suggests that these charges are somewhat tendentious, based largely on selective readings. It may indeed be questioned whether it was not Christian civilization, but rather its gradual dilution and dissolution leading to the Enlightenment's secular and mechanistic worldview, unparalleled in world civilization, that provided the foundation for environmental degradation. Keywords: nature, early christian attitudes toward; “care for creation,” an element of christian faith; cosmological proofs, connection between creator and creation; deuteronomy
Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, 2019
Humanistic aesthetics sees beauty only as it stands in proportion to the human, only in its kinsh... more Humanistic aesthetics sees beauty only as it stands in proportion to the human, only in its kinship with us, only as we are at home with it, and only in its domestic varieties. But surely an environmental aesthetic must find its proper element not in domesticity, but in wildness; not in what is measured, but in what is unmeasured; not in the homely, but in the strange and uncanny. An environmental aesthetic must be successive to humanism.
Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, 2019
This article traces the origins of the university as an interplay between transcendence and imman... more This article traces the origins of the university as an interplay between transcendence and immanence, sacred and secular, first in ancient Greek philosophy and then within the Byzantine, Islamic, and Latin intellectual worlds. It shows how the dialectic is threatened in modernity through the eclipse of the sacred in the public sphere and the hegemony of the secular in intellectual life, leaving the university no foundation for a unity and coherence of knowledge that would justify its continued existence. The author demonstrates how Newman and Whitehead provide clues for seeking apertures for transcendence to re-enter the university, as do alternative forms of intellectual and spiritual community, but a blueprint for the university's renewal cannot yet be anticipated. I. Three Moments of University Development: The Metaphysical Rivalry of Transcendence and Immanence The beginnings of the university can be found long before the medieval era where its rise is usually discerned. It...
Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, 2019
Pavel Florensky’s The Pillar and the Ground of the Truth is surely one of the most unusual books ... more Pavel Florensky’s The Pillar and the Ground of the Truth is surely one of the most unusual books of philosophy published in the twentieth century. More often than not, it produces in the reader a consternation that has caused many to reject it altogether after a few glances, thinking it an example of the aestheticism and even decadence that has come to be associated with Russian Symbolism. This stigmatization is both unfortunate and unjust, for it is a work of great logical, mathematical, and philosophical rigor as well as a source of deep spiritual insight. Moreover, one of its primary claims is that the formal rigor of logic and mathematics is ontologically rooted—not just applicable to the real, but of one piece with being itself. And another of its claims is that spirituality does not concern some rarified dimension separate from empirical reality, divorced from the human body and natural science and works of art, but that it extends into and illumines every aspect of life; it d...
Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, 2019
After discussing the Orthodox “Jesus prayer” and its relation to Orthodox prayer in general, the ... more After discussing the Orthodox “Jesus prayer” and its relation to Orthodox prayer in general, the article outlines a “Topography of Prayer in Orthodox Practice” under ten subheadings: Divine Presence; Avoiding Representations; Descent to the Heart; the Role of Compunction; the Name of God; the Circularity of Prayer; God Praying Within Us; Stillness (hesychia); Erōs and Longing; and the Cosmic Dimension of Prayer. A concluding section discusses the essential link between prayer and action.
Between the Species: An Online Journal for the Study of Philosophy and Animals, 1993
At ftrst glance, the work of Martin Heidegger would seem to be an unlikely source for ethical ref... more At ftrst glance, the work of Martin Heidegger would seem to be an unlikely source for ethical reflection on our relation to animals. First, it has long been regarded as problematical that Heidegger-whose work seems otherwise to have a comprehensive scope-did not write an "ethics" in the modem sense of the term, Le., did not arrive at a theory of moral obligation on the model of Kant or Mill or his own compatriot and early animal rights advocate, Leonard Nelson. Second, Heidegger's published works-including his recently published lectures, lecture courses, and seminars in the German PHILOSOPHY Between the Species
St. Maximus the Confessor has long been seen within the Byzantine tradition as both its greatest ... more St. Maximus the Confessor has long been seen within the Byzantine tradition as both its greatest theologian and its most important philosopher, and his significance is now becoming increasingly recognized in the West. Maximus was a Byzantine aristocrat, once serving as head of the Imperial Chancellery under the Emperor Heraclius in Constantinople. In 614, he entered the monastery at Chrysopolis, across the Bosphorus from Constantinople, where he became its abbot. Persian incursions into Anatolia and the great siege of Constantinople caused him to flee the area in 626, first to Crete and Cyprus, and finally to Byzantine North Africa in 630, where he did some of his most important writing. It was here that he was drawn into the Monothelite Controversy, theological successor to the Monophysite Controversy that had earlier split the unity of the church with its claim that Christ had only one nature. Conceding the Chalcedonian teaching that affirmed two natures, both divine and human, the Monothelites maintained rather that Christ had only one will, a divine will but not a human will, a view that was favored by the Emperor and by the Patriarch of Constantinople as a sensible compromise, and who both sought to restore the unity lost in the Monophysite Controversy. Maximus strongly opposed the Monthelite view, which still seemed to compromise the humanity of Christ, and entered into a famous debate at Carthage with the former Byzantine Patriarch, Pyrrhus, in 645. Maximus prevailed in the debate, convincing even Pyrrhus, and went to Rome in 647, where he served as advisor to the Lateran Council of 649, which affirmed Chalcedon against the Monothelites. For this, he was arrested by the Emperor, Constans II, and brought to Constantinople in 653 for a series of interrogations and trials. For his refusal to recant, he was tortured, hence his designation as “confessor.” According to tradition, the appendages by means of which he had defied the emperor, his tongue and his right hand, were both severed from his body. After this mutilation, he was sent into exile in the Caucasus Mountains, probably in Georgia, but he died soon thereafter, most likely from his injuries. Keywords: maximus the confessor (580–662); byzantine tradition, greatest theologian; monothelite controversy; theological wisdom, of late antiquity; mystagogy, reflections on liturgical symbolism
St. Gregory Palamas can be understood as having a standing in the Greek East parallel to that of ... more St. Gregory Palamas can be understood as having a standing in the Greek East parallel to that of St. Thomas Aquinas in the Latin West. But this is not because his thought is so comprehensive, although it assuredly is, and certainly not due to similarity in their ideas, for the two stand in sharp opposition concerning central concepts, but because like St. Thomas a century earlier, he formulated a version of his own respective tradition so definitive that, at least with regard to essentials, it can nevertheless be called a “summa.” As it is put plainly by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, one of the most distinguished contemporary Greek theologians, “The theology of St. Gregory Palamas is the theology of the Orthodox Church.” But this is not meant to suggest the kind of official status accorded to St. Thomas in the Roman Church as “common doctor,” but rather to affirm that St. Gregory “was not introducing a new system of teaching and knowledge of God, but he lived and then expressed what he met in the Church and on the Holy Mountain, having been trained in the life in Christ” (1997: 357). St. Gregory was born into a noble Byzantine family in Constantinople. In 1316, after the death of his father, a pious Byzantine senator with strong connections to the Imperial Court, he entered the monastic life, along with most of his family. With two of his brothers, he traveled on foot to the Monastery of Vatopedi on Mt. Athos, where he stayed for three years before moving on to the Great Lavra, at the easternmost tip of the Athonite Penninsula, for another three years. Along with many other monks, he left the Holy Mountain in 1325 due to frequent Turkish raids. Still living a contemplative life, he was ordained a priest in Thessalonica in 1326, and returned to Mt. Athos in 1331 where he lived as a hermit at St. Sabbas, high above the Great Lavra, descending the steep path only for liturgical feasts at the Lavra. Beginning in 1335, St. Gregory became increasingly involved in the Hesychast Controversy, the demands of which required him to once again leave Mt. Athos, this time for good. He became the champion of the triumphant Hesychast tradition, affirmed by three Councils in Constantinople in 1341, 1345, and 1351. In 1347, he was consecrated Metropolitan Bishop of Thessalonica, where his sermons placed a special emphasis on care for the poor and needy. In 1354, while traveling by sea, he was taken prisoner by the Turks for a year, and he spent much of this time in earnest theological dialog with his Islamic captors. He was glorified as a saint in 1368, soon after his death in 1359. Keywords: gregory palamas, saint (1296–1359); St. gregory palamas, theology of the orthodox church; hesychast mysticism; “mystical realism”
No 20th century philosopher has so strongly influenced Christian thought as Heidegger, and only W... more No 20th century philosopher has so strongly influenced Christian thought as Heidegger, and only Wittgenstein approaches his impact within philosophy itself. Yet despite his strongly Christian background, it is questionable whether Heidegger considered himself to be a Christian during most of his career. His work is controversial, both because of his political past, but also because while many see his work as achieving an epochal breakthrough in non-objectifying language, others see it as merely obscure. Keywords: heidegger, martin (1889–1976); heidegger, strong influence on christian thought; heidegger's philosophical approach, on E. Husserl's phenomenology; heidegger's work, as a “confrontation with Christianity”; heidegger, and “eco-theology”
St. Isaac the Syrian, also known as Isaac of Nineveh (fl. c.680), was a monk and mystic, briefly ... more St. Isaac the Syrian, also known as Isaac of Nineveh (fl. c.680), was a monk and mystic, briefly a bishop, and the author of some of the Christian East's most profound and influential texts in ascetic spirituality. He was born in the region of what is now Qatar and Bahrain, then part of Persia and an important center for Christianity; he was tonsured as a monk, and eventually was made Bishop of Nineveh, present-day Mosul, Iraq. After five months he abdicated his episcopacy for reasons that are now unclear, and withdrew to a solitary life in the mountains of Khuzistan, in southwest Iran. A 9th century source states that he lost his eyesight due to his arduous “reading and asceticism,” adding that “he entered deeply into the divine mysteries and composed books on the divine discipline of solitude” (1984: lxv). These books, composed in Syriac, perhaps originally dictated to his followers, are masterpieces in the literature of asceticism and mystical theology. The extant works are in two collections, the earlier-known and longer one translated into English in 1923 by Wensinck, and again in 1984 by Miller, while the second was discovered only recently by Sebastian Brock at Oxford University's Bodleian Library, and translated by Brock in 1995. Keywords: Isaac the Syrian, Saint; Isaac of Nineveh; center of St. Isaac's mystical theology, insight into divine love
Schelling is, along with J. G. Fichte and G. W. F. Hegel, one of the greatest of the German Ideal... more Schelling is, along with J. G. Fichte and G. W. F. Hegel, one of the greatest of the German Idealist philosophers, although accounts vary concerning the precise nature of Schelling's significance. One interpretation, frequently repeated in histories of philosophy, sees Schelling as a crucial intermediate stage of post-Kantian Idealism, a bridge between the Subjective Idealism of Fichte and the Absolute Idealism of Hegel, usually regarded as the culmination of German Idealism. This account, while not false, is rather a halftruth, overlooking as it does the importance of Schelling's later philosophy, which in many ways goes beyond Idealism, and represents a bridge to the various anti-Idealistic philosophies of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Schelling's later philosophy is highly religious in character – taking up in an original way problems such as the nature of God, the essence of human freedom, the problem of evil, and the uniqueness and significance of the Christian revelation and its relation to philosophy – and had a wide influence on 19th and 20th century Christian theology. Keywords: von schelling, friedrich wilhelm joseph (1775–1854); German idealist philosophers; subjective idealism of fichte and absolute idealism of hegel; philosophy of nature, realistic completion of idealism
St. Seraphim of Sarov was an influential Russian staretz (Greek, geron) or elder, a holy man reco... more St. Seraphim of Sarov was an influential Russian staretz (Greek, geron) or elder, a holy man recognized as bearing the charism, or ministry, of spiritual direction. Although he spent much of his life in solitude and ascetic struggle, he was celebrated throughout Russia as a great clairvoyant and worker of miracles, and today he is widely venerated in the Orthodox world, and beyond, as an outstanding modern exemplar of a life filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit. This remains especially the case in Russia, where he is the most beloved of all modern saints. Significantly, and ironically, it was in the basement of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, which had for years been converted by the communist regime into a “Museum of Atheism,” that his lost relics were re-discovered. Thus, as he had predicted, the recovery of his relics in 1991 was associated with the restoration of the Orthodox faith to Russia. Keywords: seraphim of Sarov, Saint (1759–1833); Russian staretz or elder, a holy man; “seraphim” from hebrew root, flaming or fiery; “the true goal of our Christian life… holy spirit of God”
Sergei Bulgakov was the most prominent thinker of the Russian Silver Age that immediately precede... more Sergei Bulgakov was the most prominent thinker of the Russian Silver Age that immediately preceded the Revolutions of 1917, and after his emigration to Paris in 1925, he went on to become the most original, and probably the most widely known, Russian philosopher and theologian living in the west. He was born the son of an Orthodox priest, and the heir of distinguished priestly lineages on both maternal and paternal sides of his family. He grew up with a strong attachment to nature, and a spiritual orientation that he described as “a child's Christian ‘pantheism’.” He began seminary training at the age of 13, but within a few years had lost his faith in God, and shifted his allegiance to Marxism and the longing for “an earthly paradise,” yielding, as he later put it, to “the temptation to worship man.” He eventually became an economist holding a prestigious chair in agricultural economics — adapting Marx to the largely agrarian economy of Russia — and a politician who served in the Second Duma, or Russian parliament, of 1906. Along with many of the Russian intelligentsia, Bulgakov — having published in 1900 a major work called Capitalism and Agriculture — became disillusioned by the poor fit of Marxist economics to Russian reality, and disenchanted with the political irresponsibility of the left. Together with N. Berdyaev, he edited in 1909 an influential collection of articles called Vekhi or Landmarks: A Collection of Essays on the Russian Intelligentsia, which sought to articulate a vision for Russia more indigenous than the failed revolutionary politics. Published in 1912, The Philosophy of Economy represents Bulgakov's major work as a philosopher, finalizes his break with Marxist political economy, and establishes the philosophical grounds for his later work as a theologian. Drawing upon both Orthodox mysticism and German Idealism, especially Schelling, he develops a deeply ecological vision of creation as natura naturans, as revealing divine energies, as divine wisdom (Sophia) at work. Meanwhile, through his experiences of numinous beauty in nature and art, and a mysterious visit to the hermitage of a staretz or spiritual elder — all of these (nature, art, and Church) being vital elements of his later concept of Sophia — he recovered his Orthodox faith, being ordained a priest 1918. He was exiled from Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1922, and continued his academic life at St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, as both Professor of Dogmatic Theology and Founding Dean, until 1944 when, according to those present, he died as a saint. Keywords: Bulgakov, Sergei Nikolaevich (1871–1944); prominent thinker, of the Russian silver age; Russian philosopher, theologian, living in the west; vekhi or landmarks: a collection of essays … intelligentsia; the philosophy of economy, Bulgakov's major work; orthodox mysticism and German idealism; ecological vision of creation, as natura naturans; Bulgakov's the unfading light, manifest in “cosmodicy”; ancient truths of orthodoxy, prism of modern culture
Uploads
Papers by Bruce Foltz