I've been very much pushing the line that Christianity is a fusion of Hebraic and Hellenistic influences- which doesn't obviate the divine self-revelation of course.
I'd champion the 'By the works of the Law shall no person be justified thing ...' the Law being a 'schoolmaster' to lead us to Christ etc.
But I wouldn't go far as to suggest, as @Dafyd appears to be saying that the Jewish revelation of God was somehow inadequate without Hellenistic input.
That sort of view can veer towards Marcionism I think.
Maybe Judaism started off as henotheistic but the refined monotheistic understanding is very clear from the prophetic writings. I don’t think you find that in the middle eastern gods.
A refined monotheism isn't a form of polytheism where the number of gods happens to be one. In order for God to be responsible for creating everything that exists God has to be very different from anything created or that could be created.
I wouldn't say the Bible is "inadequate", but I'd say it's largely uninterested in addressing some of the more theoretical and philosophical questions raised by belief in God.
From our perspective as Christians, the Judaic revelation lacks the culminating insight of the incarnation. But I don’t think that reduces it to a “just anything”. Judaism is profound.
Jewish theology uses quite a lot of Greek philosophy too AIUI: not just Philo, but also Maimonides.
From our perspective as Christians, the Judaic revelation lacks the culminating insight of the incarnation. But I don’t think that reduces it to a “just anything”. Judaism is profound.
Yes, but to again try to be clear, I haven’t objected to using or applying Greek philosophy, nor, I think, has anyone else. What I expressed discomfort with treating Greek philosophy as the controlling lens through which to view Hebrew Scriptures. There’s a difference between using or applying concepts from Greek philosophy when helpful on one hand, and making Greek philosophy the yardstick by which to measure interpretation on the other.
Jewish theology uses quite a lot of Greek philosophy too AIUI: not just Philo, but also Maimonides.
I stand to be corrected by others who know better, but my understanding is that Philo had little effect on rabbinic Judaism. Per the Jewish Encyclopedia,
Philo included in his philosophy both Greek wisdom and Hebrew religion, which he sought to fuse and harmonize by means of the art of allegory that he had learned from the Stoics. His work was not accepted by contemporary Judaism. “The sophists of literalness,” as he calls them (“De Somniis,” i. 16-17), “opened their eyes superciliously” when he explained to them the marvels of his exegesis. Greek science, suppressed by the victorious Phariseeism (Men. 99), was soon forgotten. Philo was all the more enthusiastically received by the early Christians, some of whom saw in him a Christian.
Maimonides, of course, lived in the 12th Century, as @Barnabas62 noted. I think that bears noting because I think what matters more is how Jesus and his contemporaries, particularly the writers of the NT and the communities within which it was formed, understood the Hebrew Scriptures.
As has been mentioned, we have John, who clearly applied Greek philosophical concepts in his Gospel. But going by what the Jewish Encyclopedia says, that shouldn’t necessarily be read to mean wide acceptance of views like those Philo expressed, or of giving Greek philosophy any primacy of place, at least not within non-Gentile communities of early Christians. Rather, I think it can reasonably be read as meaning that John found those Greek philosophical concepts, with which he was familiar and apparently assumed familiarity among his audience, helpful in understanding the Hebrew concepts derived from the Hebrew Scriptures.
However Hellenistic influence began long before Maimonides. From the third century BC at the earliest. The most obvious evidence is the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the OT. There were many reforms to Judaism from the Ist Century AD afterwards, following the sack of Jerusalem and the terrible Roman/ Jewish wars which led to a further Jewish diaspora.
Personally I don’t know enough to trace the evolution of rabbinical belief from the 3rd century BC to the time of the 12th Century Maimonides. I think the Ist Century Philo may have been influential but it’s hard to say how much.
But it’s undeniable that there were Greek influences on Judaism up to and at the time of Jesus and in the period beyond that.
What would belief in God within Judaism have looked like without that influence? To be honest I don’t know. I think your summery might be a bit extreme but I think I can see better where you’re coming from.
What is curious to me is how this aspect of the thread links with Abraham Heschel’s re-evaluation (possibly reimagining) of the Old Testament God through the writings of the prophets. His reading, that the divine pathos (passibility) is much more consistent principle than the divine apatheia (impassibility) is one I find personally both appealing and textually convincing. It stands in sharp contrast to the reworking of Maimonides. And so far as I can see owes nothing to Greek philosophical thought. It feels more like a reflective recovery of what was always there, rather than something new. An uncovered pre-existent gem in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Here is a brief excerpt from his book “The Prophets” re the book of Amos.
Wow! That’s startling stuff. Seems a mile removed from impassibility. Not Greek at all. Of course I recognise that Heschel uses the Greek word pathos but the writing is part of a clear criticism of the Greek influence on Maimonides.
And it is an example of how an ancient concept can resonate with a modern challenge.
Heschel and Martin Luther King Jr became friends, walked together to Selma Alabama during the Civil Rights Heschel said his legs were praying during the walk.
@Barnabas62 I'm printing out your Heschel passage to read later, I find it hard to read an entire chapter on screen.
Meanwhile, I hope I'm not over-reacting but I'm somewhat puzzled why you seem so keen to denude or play-down Hellenistic influences when those are clearly there in the New Testament itself.
You have demonstrated elsewhere that ideas about divine 'impassibility' (yikes, that word again!) did circulate within Judaism, alongside alternative views. I don't know much about Jewish views on these issues but from what I do know of Judaism it's far from monolithic.
As far as Christianity goes ...
The Marcionites ran to an extreme in rejecting the entire Hebrew scriptures and regarding the 'Hebrew God' as some kind of inferior and malevolent being. I'm sure that developed from mainstream Christian beliefs at that time. We can see the early Christian churches differentiating themselves from aspects of Judaism in the pages of the New Testament. It's certainly there in some of the sub-apostolic Fathers.
I would certainly say that as Christianity developed it lost sight of its Jewish roots and that it over-Hellenised and over-philosophised things at times - particularly in the late medieval Scholastic period in Western theology (if I may be excused a 'sectarian' observation).
That doesn't let my own Orthodox tradition off the hook, particularly given the pogroms and so on.
We haven't excised some of the more strident language in some of our liturgical texts, unlike many Western churches, but we tend to take references to the 'Jews' in some of the Lenten/Easter material as references to wider humanity rather than singling the Jews out for special censure - although I still think it's problematic.
I'll come back to this thread after I've read the Heschel chapter on Amos.
It might answer some of the questions I've raised here or generate new ones.
My intention is just to understand, not to deny. It’s a matter of conscience with me I suppose. I am persuadable by good arguments, good personalities.
When it comes to the perception of the Perfection of God I think the Greeks got a lot right. Just not everything. It doesn’t seem wrong to me to embrace “I the Lord do not change” and the picture of divine pathos in the message of the prophets.
To use your favourite phrase, both/ and. That might seem like a contradiction. I think it’s certainly got paradoxical elements. That seems all of a piece in relating to the unknown, hidden and revealed God.
I've read the Heschel chapter on Amos. It's very good.
I might be missing something as I can't quite see the bearing on the 'passibility/impassibility' debate - at least not in explicit terms.
Likewise I don’t see any contradiction between 'I the Lord do not change' and the divine 'pathos' expressex by the Prophets.
God is constant and changing in his love and in his grace.
We see that in the Prophets surely?
'I the LORD do not change therefore ye sons of Israel are not consumed. Malachi 3:16.
Because God does not change his love for Israel is constant.
The second statement is a corollary of the first.
I really don't see the contradiction.
It's not as if anyone is positing that God is unchangeably miserable, angry, petulant or capricious.
No, the witness of the Prophets and of the Church (which includes the Prophets of course) is that God is eternally loving, eternally gracious and in response to that we should be loving and gracious too.
I'm sorry but unless I've misunderstood you I feel you are setting up oppositions and dichotomies that don't actually exist.
A belief that God is immutable and unchanging in his 'essence' doesn't mean that he is some kind of eternal misery guts who can only be placated by his 'energies' which adapt according to circumstances and which take the 'edge' off things.
No.
Forgive me, but I'm struggling to see what you are trying to say that isn't already 'covered' by classic Christian theology as represented within Orthodoxy and shared also to some extent or other within classic and traditional Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
I'm genuinely struggling to understand the dilemmas and dichotomies you are putting forward. They seem to be strawmen to me.
I’m not going to go down the proof-texting route, but there’s a lot in support of divine pathos.
Isaiah 63 v 9 : In all their distress he too was distressed,
and the angel of his presence saved them.
In his love and mercy he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them
all the days of old.
Hosea 11 v 8: “How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboyim?
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.“
And of course from Amos 5
21 “I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
23 Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
There’s a lot more in this vain but they do seem to represent divine pathos rather than divjne impassibility.
God is portrayed as having feelings, strong emotions in response to human behaviour. To get all Protestant on you, @Gamma Gamaliel impassibility is hardly the plain meaning.
There is no contradiction in the classic Christian understanding between God's eternal and unchanging nature- 'impassibility' if we must use the term - and pathos.
I must have said this a dozen or more times and still you put up dichotomies that don't actually exist other than in your own assumptions and possible misunderstandings of what I've been trying to say.
I've cited scriptural texts, I've quoted poetry, hymns, all sorts and still you persist in tilting at what you think I've said rather than what I'm actually saying.
Now you are flinging proof-texts at me as if I've never read the scriptures before.
You could try harder to understand my position ...
More seriously, if we were always going for the 'plain-meaning of the text' we would eradicate a whole raft of typology, prophecy and much else besides.
The only one of those scriptures you've cited that comes any near to suggesting divine mutability is the Hosea one - 'My heart is changed within me'.
The classic Christian theological position isn't that God lacks 'compassion' in his essence - He is compassion ...'
'Jesu Thou art all compassion, pure unbounded Love Thou art ...'
We make a category error if we think that the 'hate' in the Amos 5 reference makes out that God is some kind of petulant and capricious whinge-bag.
It's clearly hyperbolic language to make a point.
I'm sorry @Barnabas62 but I really don't understand why you are making heavy-weather of all this. It's been there in classic Christian theology for centuries and it runs into the Reformation traditions too from the same Patristic sources.
I'm sorry @Barnabas62 but I really don't understand why you are making heavy-weather of all this. It's been there in classic Christian theology for centuries and it runs into the Reformation traditions too from the same Patristic sources.
It really isn't that hard.
And I don’t understand why you feel you need to keep saying the same thing over and over and over. We got what you’re saying. We got it a long time ago.
It’s like you’re trying to browbeat people into submission, or at least that you’re working from an assumption that the only possible reason @Barnabas62 doesn’t agree with you is because he hasn’t understood you.
I’m trying to explain my own understanding rather than change anyone else’s mind. I’ve been uncomfortable about the concept of divine impassibility for a very long time.
And as you say. I think I have a better grip on the Orthodox position now. While I agree with a lot of Orthodox positions as very much common ground, I remain unconvinced about impassibility for reasons I’ve explained as best I can.
I know that impassibility remains the common traditional view in Protestant denominations so my understanding is at odds with that as well.
But I’m not the only one seeing a problem with the traditional view. Jurgen Moltmann was a prominent and much respected theologian. And he’s not the only one either. Heschel has moved opinions within Judaism.
I’m quite sure any of them could do a much better job than me in explaining why. I’ve just done the best I can.
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
God changed His mind in favour of mercy.
You’ll probably recall from the story that this makes Jonah very very angry. To Jonah this seemed very wrong. He felt badly used. But in the story after a demonstration of His power over Creation, God asks Jonah a question.
“And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left?”
I’m not in favour of second-guessing or limiting God in my mind. He’s God and I’m not. Contribution at an end.
Sorry @Nick Tamen but it's not that I'm trying to brow-beat anyone into submission but there have been times- and they are probably my fault - when it has seemed to me that @Barnabas62 hasn't understood or even been paying any attention to a single word I've written.
Perhaps it's the other way round and I've not understood him nor been listening to what he's been saying 🤷 🤔 ...
I recognise that as someone who is defending the 'classic' position I'm going to martial the Church Fathers, the Reformers, this,, that or the other theologian who holds to it - be they RC, Protestant or Orthodox - and that's going to look as if I'm trying to overwhelm those who take a different view by sheer weight of numbers.
'Look pal, there's more of us than you ...'
That really isn't my intention but seeing as I don't 'do theology' in any other way - such as marshalling proof-texts or however else - it's difficult to see how I can argue otherwise.
'I am a man under authority ...'
I don't hold myself up as the final arbiter in any theological matter, I'm not my own Pope. Rather I submit to Big T Tradition and Christian tradition (small t) as it is widely understood and has been received.
That doesn't mean I've lobotomised myself or dismiss Moltmann or Heschel or anyone else out of hand but it would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that I see Holy Tradition (as understood in the Orthodox sense) as the final arbiter - and yes, that includes scripture.
So with the best will in the world I find it rather bewildering when @Barnabas62 or other Shipmates bowl scripture at me as if I've never read it before or as if the Fathers, the Reformers, the medieval Scholastics or anyone else hadn't noticed it before nor taken it into account.
'Oh, God appears to change his mind in the Book of Job ... I've never noticed that before. I'm coming to have to change my position on this issue now ...'
Now, I recognise that @Barnabas62 isn't out to change anyone's mind or dismantle anyone's cherished beliefs, he's simply setting his own stall out as he is entitled to do.
I 'roll' differently. Were I to read Moltmann I'm sure there'd be much that resonates with me and which I would gladly endorse. There'd be other matters - this one most probably - where I'd think, 'Hmmmm ... I'm not sure I'd go along with that, it doesn't sound in keeping with the traditional and classic understanding I espouse ...'
But I recognise that if we inhabit different traditions we will inevitably have different 'mindsets'. And traditions are best understood from the inside. I don't have a Reformed mindset as I'm not Reformed. Some Reformed emphases will resonate with me, others won't. I don't have a Lutheran mindset as I am not a Lutheran. I am sure some Lutheran emphases and insights will resonate with me - as they have on the 'Theology of the Cross' thread - and others won't.
Some of my Orthodox understandings will resonate with other people and others won't make any sense at all to those who think differently. There's nothing 'hidden' or Gnostic about this, it's simply that we acquire the mindset of whichever Christian tradition we are involved with.
These things do make a difference but not to the extent where we could argue that 'monergists' love the Lord their God more or 'better' than 'synergists' or vice versa, or that those who believe in divine passibility are 'better' or 'worse' Christians than those who take a different view.
I could leave it that but I think he at least may be interested in this explanation.
@Gamma Gamaliel I want to start in a less than obvious place, with the Welsh word “hwyl”. It’s not really easily translated into English but has often been applied to rugby play during the golden age of Welsh Rugby. Of which the supreme example of “hwyl” came in the 1973 game between the All Blacks and the Barbarians. A game I watched.
The key play, recognised as the greatest try ever, involved Phil Bennett, the Welsh fly half, running back and picking up the ball about 5 yards from the Barbarians goal line. Rather than kicking to touch he made three fantastic bodyswerves before releasing the ball upfield. It passed through the hands of some great Welsh players, John Williams, John Dawes, Tom David, Derek Quinnel, brilliant moves from all of them. then finally to the great Welsh scrum half Gareth Edwards who brilliantly scored the try. The Welsh commentator Cliff Morgan, said justifiably about the try that if someone had told the story, no one would have believed him.
I can remember jumping up and down at home and thinking it was one of the greatest things I’d ever seen.
Now what’s that got to do with anything?
Well here’s an attempt in English to define “hwyl”.
A state of intense enthusiasm, motivation, or emotional drive, historically used to describe the passionate delivery of a Welsh chapel preacher
I’m not quite sure how Welsh you are but your writings here have often reminded me of that definition. You do go on a bit, but never without purpose. That’s my personal view and it’s probably not shared by all, but I do admire your commitment. I’m sure Welsh Chapel preachers went on a bit!
So what’s that got to do with Rugby?
Well, I recognised you were tackling me, but a bit like the late great Phil Bennett, I decided to bodyswerve to get the ball upfield. In the process it must have looked as though I hadn’t noticed a word you’d written. I didn’t really respond to that. I was more interested in “getting the ball upfield”.
That was discourteous of me and I apologise for it. I had read what you’d written but was more interested in pursuing my own ideas.
I will be writing further. For £9.99 I’ve acquired an online kindle copy of Abraham Heschel’s “The Prophets”. I’ve got a lot more to read but from what I’ve read so far it might be the best £9.99 I’ve spent in a very long time. In a day or so I’ll explain why.
There is no need to apologise, @Barnabas62 and alongside my cogitations on the Transfiguration this morning and the Divine Liturgy your post has made my day.
With hwyl you are speaking my language.
As an aside, the term has different connotations in different parts of Wales. I'll resist the temptation to go off on a tangent about that as I'd be even more of a 'Welsh wind-bag' than I am already!
Al-READ-y as I'd say it.
You don't owe me an apology but I did appreciate your explanation. I can completely understand your enthusiasm and the hwyl with which you are encountering Heschel.
As I've said before, I've only read one Jewish commentary on the Psalms, which touched on Hebrew poetry more generally and yes, I found my heart strangely warmed.
I'm Anglo-Welsh and have lived in England most of my adult life but have the hiraeth and indeed, the hyl. In South Wales the term tended to refer to 'religious enthusiasm.'
'Ooh, he's got the hwyl that preacher ...'
And yes, that classic try from 1973 which I remember seeing also certainly deserves that description also.
My parish priest, deacon and diakonisa also believe I have the hwyl - although they don't use the term - 'fiery Welshman' is the term I've heard.
Fr Gregory who used to be on these boards wishes I'd demonstrate it more often - for all the Orthodox restraint on 'the passions'.
It can often be in tension with other aspects of my make-up.
I've been accused of 'crossing the line' here and often have to retract some of my more sarky comments. And that's fine. These things don't always come across online and can appear as if I am trying to brow-beat Shipmates into submission.
It's more a case of my getting carried away.
This may sound contradictory but for all our emphasis on what we might call 'divine impassibility' in our understanding of the essence and energies distinction, we Orthodox do very much value 'fire' and fervency.
To use a South Walian expression, 'I can see it on you' when you wax lyrical about Heschel or feel compelled to burst into song with a hymn or chorus.
'I'd not be the one to stop you,' as they'd say in South Wales.
I'm no great shakes and stumble in so many ways but I do respond positively to fire and fervour wherever I see it and I 'do see it on yew, bwt.'
I also admire the calm rationality of a @Nick Tamen (who doesn't lack passion either) and the depth and warmth I see in @Lamb Chopped and @Gramps49 even if I'm at cross-purposes with them at times.
And many other Shipmates besides.
I'm a great believer in the Quaker principle of finding 'that which is of God in everyone'. That's a feature of my own Tradition too but can be obscured by the strident polemicists and 'zealots'.
I appreciate your post. So far as personal hwyl is concerned, that’s kind. But no one had a bodyswerve like Phil Bennett. As Bill McLaren said, he would make players and commentators’ eyes cross.
Passion can be both good and bad, but I think we’re lost without it, rather than lost with it.
I knew that in Orthodoxy dispassionate didn’t mean indifference.
Anyway, my big post will be coming out tomorrow. I’ll try to be comprehensive and succinct, with a bit of the hwyl thrown in. I’m a quick reader, even of complex books but I need to check a few things out …..
In the light of the central issue of this thread, I decided to take a detailed look at the Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel’s massive and much admired book “The Prophets”. Written in 1962. 600 plus pages long and obtainable on kindle at a snip for £.9.99 in the UK.
A brief description of the book structure. The first 300 pages are a detailed biblical analysis of the writings of several major and minor prophets. I’ve looked at those pages in detail and in my eyes they demonstrate the thoroughness and analytical skills of a very great scholar. Heschel studied Jewish theology, both traditional and reformed for several years at university and it shows.
The second 300 pages are devoted to detailed theological considerations of the analysis and findings of the first 300 pages. Heschel’s theology is not an earlier presupposition which coloured the analysis. The truth is the other way round. It was the biblical analysis which conditioned the thought.
(It’s worth adding that the book is a further development of a treatise he wrote in the mid 1930s when quite young and it was very warmly received in Jewish academic circles.)
Now to the theology. What he believes he has uncovered is something he calls the Divine Pathos. Which he openly recognises is a challenge to very long held Traditional Jewish and Christian beliefs about the Divine impassibility of God.
If I give Divine Pathos a brief summary it will be necessarily approximate. It is better to read his own words if you can. They are much better than mine. But here goes.
There is a general analytical understanding that the prophetic writings in particular, and other writings in the Hebrew Scriptures, assert in their words many times that God has feelings, sometimes very passionate ones. He feels outrage at His people's indifference towards the suffering of the poor for example. On the other hand he feels also for the plight of His people and suffers with them. Sometimes He condemns their sinfulness and disobedience to the Covenant between Him and them. Bad things will happen to them as a result. Sometimes He relents, shows forgiveness and compassion. Much more along those lines. Indifference towards the less fortunate is, to Him, a big thing.
To reconcile these scriptures with impassibility, Traditional Jewish and Christian theologians and apologists have argued consistently that these are human anthropomorphisms not to be taken literally but to reveal something of the human condition and teach lessons about frailty, judgment and the need for repentance. (And of course there are many other scriptures which describe the unchanging nature of God, which are taken to be the right way to look at things.)
Heschel argues that these alleged anthropomorphisms actually do something different. They are the hermeneutic key to God’s Divine Pathos. Here’s a direct lift from the book.
But the prophets face a God of compassion, a God of concern and involvement, and it is in such concern that the divine and the human meet. Pathos is the focal point for eternity and history, the epitome of all relationships between God and man.
The central principle, above all others, is that God actively cares. And in that caring, in ways we may only dimly grasp, the eternal God interacts with His people, sometimes to correct, sometimes to forgive, sometimes to suffer with them, sometimes to suffer because of them. It seems wrong to say He is unaffected by this active caring, this active interaction. Whereas classical understandings of impassibility says He cannot be affected. To be unchanging He must be unaffected.
Heschel expands on this at length, looking at the ideas of perfection and the understanding of emotion in Greek philosophy. Also where and how those ideas have percolated into the understanding of the
12th century Jewish theologian Maimonides and other Jewish theologians. Similarly but more briefly into the thoughts of some early Christian thinkers and then into Christian Tradition. He also looks at the flawed basis for fear of emotions. And the understanding of wrath and sympathy. And a whole lot more.
But do not think he believes we can get anywhere close to understanding God’s eternal emotional and feeling life. We see just an echo, just a glimpse. In a memorable reworking of Isaiah 55 v 8-9 (My thoughts are not your thoughts) about the the unchanging otherness of God, he comes up with this.
For my pathos is not your pathos, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my pathos than your pathos.
In an Appendix he points out that his use of pathos is not to be confused with more general and colloquial use. He has been much more precise in explaining the use he makes of it.
(End of my personal approximation).
Two more points and then I’m done with the summary.
1. Abraham Escher is specifically critiquing the use of impassibility and the misunderstanding of the prophets in traditional Jewish theology. Not just Maimonides.
2. His use of the term God is monotheistic, not Trinitarian. As Christians see it, he means God the Father, the first Person of the Trinity. How he sees the Incarnation I’m not sure. I’m sure he understands its central place in Christianity.
His work has been very well received within many different sections of Judaism. It’s been called seminal and a masterpiece.
It has also attracted a lot of attention, largely favourable, from Christian theologians. Most significantly Jürgen Moltmann, who believed the critique of Divine Impassibility has some very searching things to say to Traditional and traditional Christian beliefs. Jurgen Moltman wrote a book called “The Crucified God” which develops these themes.
Finally my personal take. I don’t accept every last bit of his theological analysis but definitely most of it. I find Divine Pathos deeply moving and compelling. I’m seeking to understand the implications for my faith.
“The Prophets” is the best, most engaging, and most challenging theological book I’ve read for many a year. It’s beautifully written, very readable, analytically rigorous, compassionate and passionate. Heschel had that rarest of gifts. A deeply passionate mind.
According to his daughter, he was a man who could not be categorised, who made friends with everyone, filled every room he entered with his personality and humour, was deeply gentle and the kindest person she’d ever known. Much much more than just a theorising academic. The simplest approximation to Divine Pathos is “God feels”. It takes a very gifted and deeply feeling man to write cogently about that.
Whether you agree with him or not, Heschel was a Polish Jew with what the Welsh call “hwyl”. Definitely, boyo!
As Cliff Morgan might say about this book. “What a try!” And about the man’s most meritorious work for justice (with Martin Luther King) and ecumenism (including a significant input to Catholicism re Jews). “What a trier!”
Thanks for the summary of Heschel's book, @Barnabas62. You've obviously put a lot of work into it and I appreciate that.
Here's another Welsh expression, Chwarae Teg!
Or 'Fair Play.'
It does sound like you very much enjoyed reading Heschel and it's having a profound effect on you.
Your summary is well-wrought and I under Heschel's position better for having read it. Reading his actual text would be better of course for anyone wishing to get to grips with his thought.
I've had the following thoughts and questions over the last few days and they remain there having read your summary.
1) Do opposing views on this issue affect the way we live or express our faith?
Heschel marched with Dr Martin Luther King and memorably said that he felt that his 'legs were praying. Chwarae Teg again.
Heschel was one of the key religious figures to align themselves with the US Civil Rights Movement, as was the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos who took part in the march at Selma. The Archbishop would presumably have upheld the 'classic' position on divine 'impassibility' yet he also marched in solidarity with Dr King like Heschel and others - of whatever faith tradition or none.
Different understandings. Same outcome.
2) If it ain't bust ...?
Clearly, as an Orthodox Christian I am 'governed' by the idea of holding to an authoritative Tradition in a way that small t tradition Christians aren't. We tend to take a collective and collegial/conciliar view and whilst there's room for theologoumena - legitimate differences of opinion on theological matters within the framework of received Tradition - we keep within that collective frame of reference.
As I've tried, very clumsily, to explain, for us ideas of the 'passibility/impassibility' of God are 'baked into' Holy Tradition and whilst we might read Heschel or Moltmann or anyone else 'outside' that Tradition in the formal sense, we would evaluate their ideas according to how far they accord or otherwise with that Tradition.
Many Protestants throw up their hands in horror at that point, of course - but I would argue that they are doing the same sort of thing only in a small t sense when they say they subject things to the 'bar of scripture' or to 'Scripture, Reason and Tradition' in the Anglican Archbishop Hooker sense or the Wesleyan 'quadrilateral' which adds 'experience' into the mix.
All those things only 'work' within an agreed frame of reference, whether it's a Reformed (or reformed) one, a Lutheran one, an Anglican one, Wesleyan one, a Roman Catholic one, a Jewish one or whatever else.
That frame of reference may be elastic but it's still a frame of reference.
That's not to shut the discussion down before it's even started. I'm interested in what Heschel has to say and pleased that you find it so inspiring.
I'm no expert and haven't read Moltmann, but am aware of some of his emphases. Neither have I read Jewish commentaries and I'm certainly no authority on the Reformers, Medieval Schoolmen or the Church Fathers either.
Nevertheless, I 'would say this, wouldn't I,' but I don't really understand why we should revise received Tradition on this point unless it can be demonstrated:
- That it's completely false.
- That is harmful in some way.
I understand RC objections to the 'essence/energies' distinction in Orthodoxy as they believe(d) that it undermines the idea of God's 'simplicity' - and we have to understand that in Orthodox Tradition the classic view of God's 'impassibility' integrates entirely with the Palamite distinction. We could get into highly technical territory - apophatic and cataphatic ways of talking about God - but there's enough on the table already!
I note again that the RCs haven't made a dogmatic statement on the issue one way or the other and many these days feel that the Orthodox position is compatible with their own.
Why is this important for us Orthodox?
Because we believe that we can share directly in the Divine energies which express God's unchanging, good and gracious nature in the world - and which are themselves eternal and uncreated.
God's grace isn't something he 'invented' on a spare Thursday afternoon. It is who God is - All-gracious, all-loving ...
To proof-text for a moment:
Psalm 30:5 "For His anger is but for a moment, His favour is for life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning".
Is God's 'anger' eternal? No. Is God eternal and unchanging in his love and grace? Yes.
This has been a long post. I will make a shorter one with some more subjective reflections based on how these views, whichever side we come down on, might help or hinder us in our faith.
Oh I’m sure we can get past it. And I agree your thoughts.
I was trying to recall where my phrase “ just an echo just a glimpse “ came from. And then I remembered. It was from Matt Redman’s LP “Where Angels fear to tread. A song called “Rejoice with Trembling”. Lyrics here
“ We could watch You from afar
And forever be amazed
At how glorious You are
Yet You've drawn us close to You
Where the wonder's greater still
And You overwhelm us, God
And we rejoice with trembling in our hearts
Bring You a song of reverence and love
Jesus, how good, how great You are
And we rejoice with trembling
Before Your throne
Who could fully voice the praise
Of the God of endless days
Tell a fraction of Your worth?
For we only sing in part
Of the grace of who You are
Just an echo, just a glimpse
And we rejoice with trembling in our hearts
Bring You a song of reverence and love
Jesus, how good, how great You are
And we rejoice with trembling
Before Your throne”
Pretty orthodox and Orthodox I think. Such humility is absolutely essential.
I’ll overuse it if not careful but I knew Matt Redman in the 90’s. He has the hwyl.
I do have a good memory and Psalm 30 v 5 is referred to in a subsection entitled “Anger lasts a moment”. In a Chapter entitled “The Meaning and Mystery of Wrath”.
I'm not familiar with that Redman song. Thanks for sharing it.
I'm sure I could find a picky-Orthodox pain-in-the-Interdox fundament who would find something to contest in those lyrics.
'Is outrage! Is not Orthodox ...'
'It's too Christocentric. Where is the Father? Where is the Holy Spirit?
Is it some heretical Jesus-Only sectarian ditty? Is it Modalist?'
And so on ... you won't satisfy the rigorists.
The tone (by which I don't mean those used for chants ) is probably more sentimental than we would be used to but I don't doubt Redman had and has the 'hwyl'. May the Lord bless and keep him and make his face to shine upon him.
Rightio ... some 'personal' thoughts and applications in a 'top of the head' kind of way.
Firstly, how can the 'traditional' or 'classic' view help or hinder us?
I find it helps when I make my Confession, both sacramentally or when I ask for God's forgiveness in private prayer.
However ashamed, embarrassed or conflicted I feel, I know that God is eternally loving, eternally faithful and is not subject to change.
'Change and decay in all around I see,
O Thou who changest not, abide with me!'
Consequently, whatever my feelings and weaknesses tell me to the contrary, I can trust that God will hear, forgive and grant me grace to help me 'do better next time.'
How can the 'classic' understanding hinder us?
You'll disagree with this but only, I would submit, if we see it as implying that God does not care, is indifferent and that the idea of his 'unchangeability' was adopted from Greek philosophy because the Fathers had hang-ups about emotions.
I'd argue that the opposite is the case - although I'm sure some of them had hang-ups about sex and that the Blessed Augustine reacted against his nine years in Manichaeism before his conversion to Christ by framing things in an overly dualistic way at times.
I don't see how the 'classic' understanding in any way 'diminishes' our understanding of God's love and grace and the 'hwyl' - if you like - of his actions in the world. We don't have a distant and indifferent Heavenly Father who has to have his arm twisted by the Son in order to show us his love and grace.
I really don't have a problem seeing the often poetic language of scripture which describe God's actions in anthropomorphic terms. How else can we as human beings express these things? We have to use human reference points.
God is spirit. He doesn't have a 'face' or a 'back' yet that's how it is expressed in Exodus when Moses asks that God's glory might 'pass by.'
So where's the difficulty in understanding other references in anthropomorphic terms?
These things are ineffable and inexpressible. We can only use human terms and approximations.
I'm going to be cheeky. You say you 'agree' with my thoughts, but I'm not convinced you do. Which is fine. But you surely aren't agreeing that Holy Tradition should be the arbiter and yardstick by which we assess these things? If you did then you would be taking a fully Orthodox Big O line - which you clearly aren't on this particular point. You may very well do so on others - many, many others.
I am using the term Holy Tradition in an Orthodox way of course.
You clearly aren't agreeing with my thoughts. You are putting forward ideas from Heschel and Moltmann - and very probably others - that aren't commensurate with Holy Tradition on these particular points - although they will undoubtedly be fully in line with Orthodox understandings - as well as RC and Protestant ones and some Jewish perspectives - on others. Glory be!
I've been told off a few times for getting exasperated and repeating myself on this thread and I'm not typing this in exasperation but curiosity.
I'm curious to know how you agree with my thoughts when you have expressed very different ideas to those I hold?
I'm not saying you should agree with me, simply asking why you claim to be doing so when from my perspective it's pretty clear that you don't. I'm not 'angry' or exasperated about that. Just curious.
I agree with your statement about being governed by the Orthodox Tradition and such statements have consequences.
But you know me too! I’m in agreement with the Protestant nonconformist tradition in the UK . Except when as a matter of conscience I don’t. And I follow what the Northumbria Community calls “the heretical imperative”. Questioning is not doubting. My understanding is that of a learner still learning?
To riposte re active listening. Why should any Orthidox priest seek to pull apart the Redman song out of suspicion when active listening is a call to resonate? Just because it comes from another tradition doesn’t make it less meaningful.
I can and do resonate to “Immortal Invisible”. As an active listener I have no desire to pull it to pieces.
I think we all do better to lose our suspicion of another’s sincerity Far better to journey out of curiosity and recognition of our common humanity. If Pope Paul VI Martin Luther King and Abraham Heschel could develop mutual respect and affection celebrate common ground, why can’t we see similar possibilities?
Our faith becomes harmful when it persuades us to shut the door on such possibilities. There are limits to that, but surely not before finding out more.
My shorthand was too short! I hope this further comment helps understanding.
Anyway, just buy the book! And if you regret it I’ll pay for a refund!
I wouldn't request a refund even if I 'regretted' reading it. I've a lot of unread books reprimanding me at the moment so it may take a while ...
On the Matt Redman aside ... where did I say that Orthodox priests in particular might have an issue with that song?
Read what I wrote. I alluded to 'rigorists' and 'Interdox' keyboard warrior 'fundamentalist' types, some, but all, will be clergy and some won't be 'kosher' clergy either ...
Most will be pains in the arse.
I wasn't saying that they should pick holes in Matt Redman songs or Western hymnody. You may have noticed how I've quoted hymns and poems from Western Christian traditions myself. Why wouldn't I?
Particularly when they appear to support the 'classic' understanding of this issue?
Where have I questioned anyone's 'sincerity' either?
Not for the first time I'm getting the impression you may not have understood what I'm saying.
That's probably my fault with my allusive style and butterfly mind.
Nobody is saying that we shouldn't find 'similar possibilities' to those pursued by Pope Paul VI, Dr Martin Luther King or Abraham Heschel or Archbishop Iakavos or anyone else for that matter - including people here aboard Ship.
Where have I suggested we shouldn't?
I'd be more than happy to visit the Northumbria Community and find opportunities or common ground with them - or anyone else for that matter - beyond the bounds of the Judeo-Christian tradition too, for that matter.
I'm genuinely puzzled as to why you seem to suggest this isn't the case.
Besides, from what I've seen the Northumbria Community are kidding themselves if they think they are being deliciously and wilfully 'heretical' in following the 'heretical imperative.'
Unless I'm missing something everything I've seen in their prayer material and at an event of theirs I once attended many years ago, there was nothing there that wasn't fully commensurate with broad mainstream 'Mere Christianity.'
There was nothing 'transgressive' or even heterodox about it, so far as I could see. 'Heretical' on whose terms? According to whose criteria?
It struck me as a benign and indeed welcome 'neo-monastic' movement within mainstream Protestantism. I once heard a Benedictine monk welcome such movements as potentially having ecumenical significance and I see no reason to doubt that to be the case.
If Baptists and other Protestant Christians are rediscovering forms of 'neo-monasticism' with 'rules of life' and liturgical forms that embody and express that then great ... bring it on.
I'm not saying that they have to do these things in the same way that the RCs have done or in the way the Orthodox do.
Why should I object? On the contrary, I welcome developments like this.
Perhaps I use the 'h' word in a more restrictive or technical way.
I tend to reserve it for out and out Arians and so on, not 'neo-monastic' or 'non-conformist' Protestant groups that haven't broken with mainstream small t tradition.
I wouldn't call Moltmann a 'heretic' for instance but would say that some of his views were 'heterodox' from the standpoint of Holy Tradition as understood from an Orthodox perspective.
Heck, I'm sure some very conservative Protestants would consider me 'heterodox' or even 'heretical' or quasi-Christian in some way. 🙄
Our deacon's wife used to attend a Christian mum's and toddlers group when her youngest was little.
On one occasion one of the other mother's said to her, 'It must be hard for you attending a Christian group ...'
Peter Berger wrote about the heretical imperative as a part of his genuine critique of Christian consumerism. Discussing the concept was a part of my preparation to be a Community Companion.
Because the Community is very open what we make of Berger’s idea is that questioning is fine but Christan consumerism is to be avoided. The Community is not in favour of Christian Consumerism and recognises the value of community membership rather than individualism. For example it strongly advises Christians to remain in their local Churches, not treat the Community as an alternative.
The original Greek word hairesis simply meant to choose. Heresy as the concept developed meant to choose wrongly. then blasphemously. There is a big difference between questioning and choosing. Questioning is an important part of learning and discipleship. Unthinking obedience rather less so.
And there is a general predisposition within the Commjnity in favour of questioning. I’ve said it a lot. A person persuaded against their will is of the same opinion still.
Anyway, all of that resonates with my nonconformity.
A classic example of the importance of more detailed explanations. Hope that makes more sense?
I hope it wasn't my posts that induced drowsiness!
I've also had a nap this afternoon.
FWIW, I s'pose I'm using the 'h' word in a more 'technical' and 'restrictive' way.
I don’t see anything 'heretical' in Peter Berger's critique of Christian consumerism. Unless that consumerism is the prevailing orthodoxy - which it very much might be of course - then there's nothing 'heretical' in the Northumbria Community's stance on this issue.
I'd see the emphasis on community rather than individualism as thoroughly orthodox. It's the individualistic and atomised consumerism that is the 'heresy.'
Big T Tradition doesn't necessarily imply unquestioning obedience - but it does involve the communal dimension.
That's echoed or paralleled in the Northumbria Community's approach in this instance.
Your apparent 'nonconformity' is not always as 'non-conformist' as might appear at first sight. ✨️ 😉
There's nothing you've written there that isn't commensurate with Big T Tradition or what we might find in various forms across the Christian spectrum as a whole.
FWIW, I s'pose I'm using the 'h' word in a more 'technical' and 'restrictive' way.
I don’t see anything 'heretical' in Peter Berger's critique of Christian consumerism. Unless that consumerism is the prevailing orthodoxy - which it very much might be of course - then there's nothing 'heretical' in the Northumbria Community's stance on this issue.
The problem, is by insisting on using heretical in a more “technical” and “restrictive” way, you don’t appear to be using it in the same way, as I understand it from what @Barnabas62 has said, with the meaning intended by the Northumbrian Community when it talks about “the heretical imperative.” I’d say that they seem to be using it as a term of art, not directly related to the common meaning of heresy and heretical.
If you insist on using heretical the way you’re used to using it rather than in the way Barnabas62 has said the Northumbrian Community uses it in this context, you’re going to keep talking past each other.
FWIW, I s'pose I'm using the 'h' word in a more 'technical' and 'restrictive' way.
I don’t see anything 'heretical' in Peter Berger's critique of Christian consumerism. Unless that consumerism is the prevailing orthodoxy - which it very much might be of course - then there's nothing 'heretical' in the Northumbria Community's stance on this issue.
The problem, is by insisting on using heretical in a more “technical” and “restrictive” way, you don’t appear to be using it in the same way, as I understand it from what @Barnabas62 has said, with the meaning intended by the Northumbrian Community when it talks about “the heretical imperative.” I’d say that they seem to be using it as a term of art, not directly related to the common meaning of heresy and heretical.
If you insist on using heretical the way you’re used to using it rather than in the way Barnabas62 has said the Northumbrian Community uses it in this context, you’re going to keep talking past each other.
Sure. I'm very aware that I am using the 'h' word in a different way to how the Northumbria Community deploy it @Nick Tamen.
The point I was making that what they might describe as 'heretical' might be considered orthodox and what they might consider orthodox might be considered 'heretical' ... 😉
What I'm saying is that it all depends on the starting point.
Based on Gamaliel’s thought I’d quite like to move this thread into some real life considerations. There are in fact two questions.
1. Do our real life experiences influence our theology?
2. Does our theology influence our real life behaviour?
I’m going to start with the first.
I think it may be helpful to see Moltmann and Heschel as real life figures rather the just ideas-based theologians. There were important experiences which shaped them. And there is certainly a real life connection between them. It’s Nazi Germany and the horrors of antisemitic persecution and massacres.
Heschel. a Polish Jew, was, indirectly, a fortuitous survivor of the persecution of Polish Jews in WW2. After arrest in Germany by the Gestapo and deportation back to Poland, he knew he was a marked man. With the help of Jewish academic colleagues, he fled from Warsaw to London. From there, with further help, he was able to get a visa and academic work in the USA. His family was not so fortunate. His mother and three sisters died in different ways during the war, one of them in a concentration camp.
Now it is wrong to presume that these experiences influenced his theological work on divine impassibility. The core of the work which became “The Prophets” was written in Germany when he was a student and later a teacher. However it does seem very likely that these tragic experiences of his family and Polish Jews during WW2 has a profound impact on his later support for the Civil Rights movement in the USA and his friendship with Martin Luther King. His response was also entirely consistent with his theology. On the march from Selma to Montgomery his legs were praying!
Moltman’s experiences are very contrasting. He was a German soldier in WW2, surrendered to the Allies in 1945 and was a German POW for three years. As a POW he became extremely depressed. During this time he was exposed to various benign Christian influences.. Also he was made aware, as were many German POWs of the horrors of the Holocaust. A number could not cope with the revelation of how horribly they had been wrong and committed suicide.
But Moltmann survived. He said afterwards that he did not find Christ. Rather Christ found him, “then and there, in the dark pit of my soul”.
He returned to Germany, sill very young at 22. He studied faith, became a pastor, a teacher and then a professor of theology. His. Church background was the German Confessing Church (which began as a protest movement against the Nazification of churches in Germany).
After this period he wrote the three books for which he is best known. Theology of Hope, The Crucified God, and The Church in the Power of the Spirit. I haven’t read any of them. But I know that Heschel’s writing and the following horrific event were profoundly influential on Moltmann’s The Crucified God. Because he said so.
This gut wrenching story is told by Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel in her memoir “Night”.
The event was the execution of a young boy at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Because the boy was so light, the noose did not break his neck instantly, and he hung suffocating for over half an hour while the prisoners were forced to watch. A man in the crowd twice asked, "Where is God now?". Wiesel wrote that a voice within him responded: "He is hanging here on this gallows.".
Elie Wiesel was of course a Jew. A Romanian Jew.
What seriously bothered Moltmann about that tragic, horrific event. It was this notion in divine impassibility. In order to be eternally unchanging, the eternal God the Father of Creation could not be affected and changed by this event.
Moltmann observed that if this were true, God was not more than human. He was less than human. Hence his attraction to Heschel’s Divine Pathos and Elie Wiesel’s Jewish inner voice that God was hanging there. Suffering with, identifying with, that slowly dying child.
Is that an emotional response? Absolutely. Does it show emotional intelligence? Absolutely. Does it at least raise a question about Divine Impassibility? We should hardly be surprised that it does.
God is Love. That applies before and after the horrific events you describe.
The Lamb is slain 'before the foundation of the world.'
God is outside of time. Therefore he can't be subject to change.
There are plenty of ways we can 'accommodate' the classical view with what we see of our fallen world - even if the theodicy is always going to elude us this side of the Parousia.
That doesn't minimise the very particular horrors of the Holocaust.
Nor does it mean that God is 'Unmoved.'
I keep saying that Orthodoxy does not accept the Aristotelian idea of the 'Unmoved Mover' and yet that doesn't seem to register. @Barnabas62 continues to post as if the 'classical' view includes or consists of that.
It doesn't.
It only applies if we work with a late medieval Scholastic model which overdoses on Aquinas - Lord rest his soul.
We all agree that Heschel did the right thing supporting the US Civil Rights movement and that his legs did the praying.
Archbishop Iakavos marched at Selma and he would have had a very different view on these things than both Heschel and Moltmann.
I'm not comparing my own light sufferings with the traumas experienced or witnessed by Heschel and Moltmann but I can't see why my wife's early death from cancer at the age of 56 should 'alter' God in any way.
God was/is eternally loving and faithful before she died and remains so now and forever and unto the ages of ages.
As @Dafyd has reminded us several times, God isn't 'us' - God is 'beyond being' as one of the Orthodox liturgical texts puts it.
Yes, God in Christ took on our humanity our suffering and pain. As St John of Damascus, I think, put it, 'that which is not assumed cannot be healed.'
The Suffering Servant of Isaiah has 'borne our griefs.'
I can hear Handel. 'A Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief.'
Yes, God is hanging on the gallows.
The 'classic' understanding does not deny that. What it does assert is that God does not change - he is ever-loving, all gracious, all faithful and more, so much more.
Comments
I'd champion the 'By the works of the Law shall no person be justified thing ...' the Law being a 'schoolmaster' to lead us to Christ etc.
But I wouldn't go far as to suggest, as @Dafyd appears to be saying that the Jewish revelation of God was somehow inadequate without Hellenistic input.
That sort of view can veer towards Marcionism I think.
I wouldn't say the Bible is "inadequate", but I'd say it's largely uninterested in addressing some of the more theoretical and philosophical questions raised by belief in God.
Jewish theology uses quite a lot of Greek philosophy too AIUI: not just Philo, but also Maimonides.
I stand to be corrected by others who know better, but my understanding is that Philo had little effect on rabbinic Judaism. Per the Jewish Encyclopedia,
Maimonides, of course, lived in the 12th Century, as @Barnabas62 noted. I think that bears noting because I think what matters more is how Jesus and his contemporaries, particularly the writers of the NT and the communities within which it was formed, understood the Hebrew Scriptures.
As has been mentioned, we have John, who clearly applied Greek philosophical concepts in his Gospel. But going by what the Jewish Encyclopedia says, that shouldn’t necessarily be read to mean wide acceptance of views like those Philo expressed, or of giving Greek philosophy any primacy of place, at least not within non-Gentile communities of early Christians. Rather, I think it can reasonably be read as meaning that John found those Greek philosophical concepts, with which he was familiar and apparently assumed familiarity among his audience, helpful in understanding the Hebrew concepts derived from the Hebrew Scriptures.
That was just part of what I wanted to write.
However Hellenistic influence began long before Maimonides. From the third century BC at the earliest. The most obvious evidence is the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the OT. There were many reforms to Judaism from the Ist Century AD afterwards, following the sack of Jerusalem and the terrible Roman/ Jewish wars which led to a further Jewish diaspora.
Personally I don’t know enough to trace the evolution of rabbinical belief from the 3rd century BC to the time of the 12th Century Maimonides. I think the Ist Century Philo may have been influential but it’s hard to say how much.
But it’s undeniable that there were Greek influences on Judaism up to and at the time of Jesus and in the period beyond that.
What would belief in God within Judaism have looked like without that influence? To be honest I don’t know. I think your summery might be a bit extreme but I think I can see better where you’re coming from.
Here is a brief excerpt from his book “The Prophets” re the book of Amos.
https://library.drisha.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/handout_Heschels-the-prophets_pt3.pdf
Wow! That’s startling stuff. Seems a mile removed from impassibility. Not Greek at all. Of course I recognise that Heschel uses the Greek word pathos but the writing is part of a clear criticism of the Greek influence on Maimonides.
And it is an example of how an ancient concept can resonate with a modern challenge.
Heschel and Martin Luther King Jr became friends, walked together to Selma Alabama during the Civil Rights Heschel said his legs were praying during the walk.
Meanwhile, I hope I'm not over-reacting but I'm somewhat puzzled why you seem so keen to denude or play-down Hellenistic influences when those are clearly there in the New Testament itself.
You have demonstrated elsewhere that ideas about divine 'impassibility' (yikes, that word again!) did circulate within Judaism, alongside alternative views. I don't know much about Jewish views on these issues but from what I do know of Judaism it's far from monolithic.
As far as Christianity goes ...
The Marcionites ran to an extreme in rejecting the entire Hebrew scriptures and regarding the 'Hebrew God' as some kind of inferior and malevolent being. I'm sure that developed from mainstream Christian beliefs at that time. We can see the early Christian churches differentiating themselves from aspects of Judaism in the pages of the New Testament. It's certainly there in some of the sub-apostolic Fathers.
I would certainly say that as Christianity developed it lost sight of its Jewish roots and that it over-Hellenised and over-philosophised things at times - particularly in the late medieval Scholastic period in Western theology (if I may be excused a 'sectarian' observation).
That doesn't let my own Orthodox tradition off the hook, particularly given the pogroms and so on.
We haven't excised some of the more strident language in some of our liturgical texts, unlike many Western churches, but we tend to take references to the 'Jews' in some of the Lenten/Easter material as references to wider humanity rather than singling the Jews out for special censure - although I still think it's problematic.
I'll come back to this thread after I've read the Heschel chapter on Amos.
It might answer some of the questions I've raised here or generate new ones.
My intention is just to understand, not to deny. It’s a matter of conscience with me I suppose. I am persuadable by good arguments, good personalities.
When it comes to the perception of the Perfection of God I think the Greeks got a lot right. Just not everything. It doesn’t seem wrong to me to embrace “I the Lord do not change” and the picture of divine pathos in the message of the prophets.
To use your favourite phrase, both/ and. That might seem like a contradiction. I think it’s certainly got paradoxical elements. That seems all of a piece in relating to the unknown, hidden and revealed God.
I might be missing something as I can't quite see the bearing on the 'passibility/impassibility' debate - at least not in explicit terms.
Likewise I don’t see any contradiction between 'I the Lord do not change' and the divine 'pathos' expressex by the Prophets.
God is constant and changing in his love and in his grace.
We see that in the Prophets surely?
'I the LORD do not change therefore ye sons of Israel are not consumed. Malachi 3:16.
Because God does not change his love for Israel is constant.
The second statement is a corollary of the first.
I really don't see the contradiction.
It's not as if anyone is positing that God is unchangeably miserable, angry, petulant or capricious.
No, the witness of the Prophets and of the Church (which includes the Prophets of course) is that God is eternally loving, eternally gracious and in response to that we should be loving and gracious too.
I'm sorry but unless I've misunderstood you I feel you are setting up oppositions and dichotomies that don't actually exist.
A belief that God is immutable and unchanging in his 'essence' doesn't mean that he is some kind of eternal misery guts who can only be placated by his 'energies' which adapt according to circumstances and which take the 'edge' off things.
No.
Forgive me, but I'm struggling to see what you are trying to say that isn't already 'covered' by classic Christian theology as represented within Orthodoxy and shared also to some extent or other within classic and traditional Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
I'm genuinely struggling to understand the dilemmas and dichotomies you are putting forward. They seem to be strawmen to me.
Isaiah 63 v 9 : In all their distress he too was distressed,
and the angel of his presence saved them.
In his love and mercy he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them
all the days of old.
Hosea 11 v 8: “How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboyim?
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.“
And of course from Amos 5
21 “I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
your assemblies are a stench to me.
22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
23 Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!
There’s a lot more in this vain but they do seem to represent divine pathos rather than divjne impassibility.
God is portrayed as having feelings, strong emotions in response to human behaviour. To get all Protestant on you, @Gamma Gamaliel impassibility is hardly the plain meaning.
There is no contradiction in the classic Christian understanding between God's eternal and unchanging nature- 'impassibility' if we must use the term - and pathos.
I must have said this a dozen or more times and still you put up dichotomies that don't actually exist other than in your own assumptions and possible misunderstandings of what I've been trying to say.
I've cited scriptural texts, I've quoted poetry, hymns, all sorts and still you persist in tilting at what you think I've said rather than what I'm actually saying.
Now you are flinging proof-texts at me as if I've never read the scriptures before.
Come on @Barnabas62, you can do better than that.
Apologies for my exasperation but I will say it again. Shall I say it again? (T S Eliot).
(Sighs)
God is ever-loving, ever-faithful, ever true. He does not change. His love and grace are eternal, uncreated and constant.
With me so far?
That is how God is in his very nature. God is Love.
Consequently, God's actions in the world - his 'energies' if you like, are fully commensurate with that.
His actions are ever-loving, ever-faithful, ever-true.
As he is in his nature, so he is in his actions.
No contradiction.
I don't see the problem.
More seriously, if we were always going for the 'plain-meaning of the text' we would eradicate a whole raft of typology, prophecy and much else besides.
The only one of those scriptures you've cited that comes any near to suggesting divine mutability is the Hosea one - 'My heart is changed within me'.
The classic Christian theological position isn't that God lacks 'compassion' in his essence - He is compassion ...'
'Jesu Thou art all compassion, pure unbounded Love Thou art ...'
We make a category error if we think that the 'hate' in the Amos 5 reference makes out that God is some kind of petulant and capricious whinge-bag.
It's clearly hyperbolic language to make a point.
I'm sorry @Barnabas62 but I really don't understand why you are making heavy-weather of all this. It's been there in classic Christian theology for centuries and it runs into the Reformation traditions too from the same Patristic sources.
It really isn't that hard.
It’s like you’re trying to browbeat people into submission, or at least that you’re working from an assumption that the only possible reason @Barnabas62 doesn’t agree with you is because he hasn’t understood you.
I’m trying to explain my own understanding rather than change anyone else’s mind. I’ve been uncomfortable about the concept of divine impassibility for a very long time.
And as you say. I think I have a better grip on the Orthodox position now. While I agree with a lot of Orthodox positions as very much common ground, I remain unconvinced about impassibility for reasons I’ve explained as best I can.
I know that impassibility remains the common traditional view in Protestant denominations so my understanding is at odds with that as well.
But I’m not the only one seeing a problem with the traditional view. Jurgen Moltmann was a prominent and much respected theologian. And he’s not the only one either. Heschel has moved opinions within Judaism.
I’m quite sure any of them could do a much better job than me in explaining why. I’ve just done the best I can.
God changed His mind in favour of mercy.
You’ll probably recall from the story that this makes Jonah very very angry. To Jonah this seemed very wrong. He felt badly used. But in the story after a demonstration of His power over Creation, God asks Jonah a question.
“And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left?”
I’m not in favour of second-guessing or limiting God in my mind. He’s God and I’m not. Contribution at an end.
Perhaps it's the other way round and I've not understood him nor been listening to what he's been saying 🤷 🤔 ...
I recognise that as someone who is defending the 'classic' position I'm going to martial the Church Fathers, the Reformers, this,, that or the other theologian who holds to it - be they RC, Protestant or Orthodox - and that's going to look as if I'm trying to overwhelm those who take a different view by sheer weight of numbers.
'Look pal, there's more of us than you ...'
That really isn't my intention but seeing as I don't 'do theology' in any other way - such as marshalling proof-texts or however else - it's difficult to see how I can argue otherwise.
'I am a man under authority ...'
I don't hold myself up as the final arbiter in any theological matter, I'm not my own Pope. Rather I submit to Big T Tradition and Christian tradition (small t) as it is widely understood and has been received.
That doesn't mean I've lobotomised myself or dismiss Moltmann or Heschel or anyone else out of hand but it would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that I see Holy Tradition (as understood in the Orthodox sense) as the final arbiter - and yes, that includes scripture.
So with the best will in the world I find it rather bewildering when @Barnabas62 or other Shipmates bowl scripture at me as if I've never read it before or as if the Fathers, the Reformers, the medieval Scholastics or anyone else hadn't noticed it before nor taken it into account.
'Oh, God appears to change his mind in the Book of Job ... I've never noticed that before. I'm coming to have to change my position on this issue now ...'
Now, I recognise that @Barnabas62 isn't out to change anyone's mind or dismantle anyone's cherished beliefs, he's simply setting his own stall out as he is entitled to do.
I 'roll' differently. Were I to read Moltmann I'm sure there'd be much that resonates with me and which I would gladly endorse. There'd be other matters - this one most probably - where I'd think, 'Hmmmm ... I'm not sure I'd go along with that, it doesn't sound in keeping with the traditional and classic understanding I espouse ...'
But I recognise that if we inhabit different traditions we will inevitably have different 'mindsets'. And traditions are best understood from the inside. I don't have a Reformed mindset as I'm not Reformed. Some Reformed emphases will resonate with me, others won't. I don't have a Lutheran mindset as I am not a Lutheran. I am sure some Lutheran emphases and insights will resonate with me - as they have on the 'Theology of the Cross' thread - and others won't.
Some of my Orthodox understandings will resonate with other people and others won't make any sense at all to those who think differently. There's nothing 'hidden' or Gnostic about this, it's simply that we acquire the mindset of whichever Christian tradition we are involved with.
These things do make a difference but not to the extent where we could argue that 'monergists' love the Lord their God more or 'better' than 'synergists' or vice versa, or that those who believe in divine passibility are 'better' or 'worse' Christians than those who take a different view.
😞
But I’m taking a breath and reflecting. Seems like a good idea to me.
I will however post some thoughts on the Transfiguration in Kerygmania.
I apologise unreservedly to @Gamma Gamaliel .
I could leave it that but I think he at least may be interested in this explanation.
@Gamma Gamaliel I want to start in a less than obvious place, with the Welsh word “hwyl”. It’s not really easily translated into English but has often been applied to rugby play during the golden age of Welsh Rugby. Of which the supreme example of “hwyl” came in the 1973 game between the All Blacks and the Barbarians. A game I watched.
The key play, recognised as the greatest try ever, involved Phil Bennett, the Welsh fly half, running back and picking up the ball about 5 yards from the Barbarians goal line. Rather than kicking to touch he made three fantastic bodyswerves before releasing the ball upfield. It passed through the hands of some great Welsh players, John Williams, John Dawes, Tom David, Derek Quinnel, brilliant moves from all of them. then finally to the great Welsh scrum half Gareth Edwards who brilliantly scored the try. The Welsh commentator Cliff Morgan, said justifiably about the try that if someone had told the story, no one would have believed him.
I can remember jumping up and down at home and thinking it was one of the greatest things I’d ever seen.
Now what’s that got to do with anything?
Well here’s an attempt in English to define “hwyl”.
@Gamma Gamaliel
I’m not quite sure how Welsh you are but your writings here have often reminded me of that definition. You do go on a bit, but never without purpose. That’s my personal view and it’s probably not shared by all, but I do admire your commitment. I’m sure Welsh Chapel preachers went on a bit!
So what’s that got to do with Rugby?
Well, I recognised you were tackling me, but a bit like the late great Phil Bennett, I decided to bodyswerve to get the ball upfield. In the process it must have looked as though I hadn’t noticed a word you’d written. I didn’t really respond to that. I was more interested in “getting the ball upfield”.
That was discourteous of me and I apologise for it. I had read what you’d written but was more interested in pursuing my own ideas.
I will be writing further. For £9.99 I’ve acquired an online kindle copy of Abraham Heschel’s “The Prophets”. I’ve got a lot more to read but from what I’ve read so far it might be the best £9.99 I’ve spent in a very long time. In a day or so I’ll explain why.
With hwyl you are speaking my language.
As an aside, the term has different connotations in different parts of Wales. I'll resist the temptation to go off on a tangent about that as I'd be even more of a 'Welsh wind-bag' than I am already!
Al-READ-y as I'd say it.
You don't owe me an apology but I did appreciate your explanation. I can completely understand your enthusiasm and the hwyl with which you are encountering Heschel.
As I've said before, I've only read one Jewish commentary on the Psalms, which touched on Hebrew poetry more generally and yes, I found my heart strangely warmed.
I'm Anglo-Welsh and have lived in England most of my adult life but have the hiraeth and indeed, the hyl. In South Wales the term tended to refer to 'religious enthusiasm.'
'Ooh, he's got the hwyl that preacher ...'
And yes, that classic try from 1973 which I remember seeing also certainly deserves that description also.
My parish priest, deacon and diakonisa also believe I have the hwyl - although they don't use the term - 'fiery Welshman' is the term I've heard.
Fr Gregory who used to be on these boards wishes I'd demonstrate it more often - for all the Orthodox restraint on 'the passions'.
It can often be in tension with other aspects of my make-up.
I've been accused of 'crossing the line' here and often have to retract some of my more sarky comments. And that's fine. These things don't always come across online and can appear as if I am trying to brow-beat Shipmates into submission.
It's more a case of my getting carried away.
This may sound contradictory but for all our emphasis on what we might call 'divine impassibility' in our understanding of the essence and energies distinction, we Orthodox do very much value 'fire' and fervency.
To use a South Walian expression, 'I can see it on you' when you wax lyrical about Heschel or feel compelled to burst into song with a hymn or chorus.
'I'd not be the one to stop you,' as they'd say in South Wales.
I'm no great shakes and stumble in so many ways but I do respond positively to fire and fervour wherever I see it and I 'do see it on yew, bwt.'
I also admire the calm rationality of a @Nick Tamen (who doesn't lack passion either) and the depth and warmth I see in @Lamb Chopped and @Gramps49 even if I'm at cross-purposes with them at times.
And many other Shipmates besides.
I'm a great believer in the Quaker principle of finding 'that which is of God in everyone'. That's a feature of my own Tradition too but can be obscured by the strident polemicists and 'zealots'.
Anyhow.
No need to apologise my friend.
Your message is received and understood.
Passion can be both good and bad, but I think we’re lost without it, rather than lost with it.
Poetry in motion.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OOhErMjFn80
The human race would have become extinct without them ...
I used to think the Orthodox emphasis on 'dispassion' meant 'indifference'. Why weren't any of these Saints on the icons smiling?
Why weren't the Holy Martyrs showing any reaction when they were being beaten or scorched?
It's all about balance and equilibrium.
We are to divert our passions for over-consumption, sex (not that there is anything icky about sex) and other appetites into passion for Christ.
Easier said than done but as we 'work out our salvation with fear and trembling' and towards theosis that's the goal.
'Divine impassibility' - if we must use the term - is not divine indifference. 'Zeal for your house has consumed me.'
Anyway, my big post will be coming out tomorrow. I’ll try to be comprehensive and succinct, with a bit of the hwyl thrown in. I’m a quick reader, even of complex books but I need to check a few things out …..
I look forward to the 'hwyl' and the marrow as it were.
A brief description of the book structure. The first 300 pages are a detailed biblical analysis of the writings of several major and minor prophets. I’ve looked at those pages in detail and in my eyes they demonstrate the thoroughness and analytical skills of a very great scholar. Heschel studied Jewish theology, both traditional and reformed for several years at university and it shows.
The second 300 pages are devoted to detailed theological considerations of the analysis and findings of the first 300 pages. Heschel’s theology is not an earlier presupposition which coloured the analysis. The truth is the other way round. It was the biblical analysis which conditioned the thought.
(It’s worth adding that the book is a further development of a treatise he wrote in the mid 1930s when quite young and it was very warmly received in Jewish academic circles.)
Now to the theology. What he believes he has uncovered is something he calls the Divine Pathos. Which he openly recognises is a challenge to very long held Traditional Jewish and Christian beliefs about the Divine impassibility of God.
If I give Divine Pathos a brief summary it will be necessarily approximate. It is better to read his own words if you can. They are much better than mine. But here goes.
There is a general analytical understanding that the prophetic writings in particular, and other writings in the Hebrew Scriptures, assert in their words many times that God has feelings, sometimes very passionate ones. He feels outrage at His people's indifference towards the suffering of the poor for example. On the other hand he feels also for the plight of His people and suffers with them. Sometimes He condemns their sinfulness and disobedience to the Covenant between Him and them. Bad things will happen to them as a result. Sometimes He relents, shows forgiveness and compassion. Much more along those lines. Indifference towards the less fortunate is, to Him, a big thing.
To reconcile these scriptures with impassibility, Traditional Jewish and Christian theologians and apologists have argued consistently that these are human anthropomorphisms not to be taken literally but to reveal something of the human condition and teach lessons about frailty, judgment and the need for repentance. (And of course there are many other scriptures which describe the unchanging nature of God, which are taken to be the right way to look at things.)
Heschel argues that these alleged anthropomorphisms actually do something different. They are the hermeneutic key to God’s Divine Pathos. Here’s a direct lift from the book.
The central principle, above all others, is that God actively cares. And in that caring, in ways we may only dimly grasp, the eternal God interacts with His people, sometimes to correct, sometimes to forgive, sometimes to suffer with them, sometimes to suffer because of them. It seems wrong to say He is unaffected by this active caring, this active interaction. Whereas classical understandings of impassibility says He cannot be affected. To be unchanging He must be unaffected.
Heschel expands on this at length, looking at the ideas of perfection and the understanding of emotion in Greek philosophy. Also where and how those ideas have percolated into the understanding of the
12th century Jewish theologian Maimonides and other Jewish theologians. Similarly but more briefly into the thoughts of some early Christian thinkers and then into Christian Tradition. He also looks at the flawed basis for fear of emotions. And the understanding of wrath and sympathy. And a whole lot more.
But do not think he believes we can get anywhere close to understanding God’s eternal emotional and feeling life. We see just an echo, just a glimpse. In a memorable reworking of Isaiah 55 v 8-9 (My thoughts are not your thoughts) about the the unchanging otherness of God, he comes up with this.
In an Appendix he points out that his use of pathos is not to be confused with more general and colloquial use. He has been much more precise in explaining the use he makes of it.
(End of my personal approximation).
Two more points and then I’m done with the summary.
1. Abraham Escher is specifically critiquing the use of impassibility and the misunderstanding of the prophets in traditional Jewish theology. Not just Maimonides.
2. His use of the term God is monotheistic, not Trinitarian. As Christians see it, he means God the Father, the first Person of the Trinity. How he sees the Incarnation I’m not sure. I’m sure he understands its central place in Christianity.
His work has been very well received within many different sections of Judaism. It’s been called seminal and a masterpiece.
It has also attracted a lot of attention, largely favourable, from Christian theologians. Most significantly Jürgen Moltmann, who believed the critique of Divine Impassibility has some very searching things to say to Traditional and traditional Christian beliefs. Jurgen Moltman wrote a book called “The Crucified God” which develops these themes.
Finally my personal take. I don’t accept every last bit of his theological analysis but definitely most of it. I find Divine Pathos deeply moving and compelling. I’m seeking to understand the implications for my faith.
“The Prophets” is the best, most engaging, and most challenging theological book I’ve read for many a year. It’s beautifully written, very readable, analytically rigorous, compassionate and passionate. Heschel had that rarest of gifts. A deeply passionate mind.
According to his daughter, he was a man who could not be categorised, who made friends with everyone, filled every room he entered with his personality and humour, was deeply gentle and the kindest person she’d ever known. Much much more than just a theorising academic. The simplest approximation to Divine Pathos is “God feels”. It takes a very gifted and deeply feeling man to write cogently about that.
For @Gamma Gamaliel in particular.
Whether you agree with him or not, Heschel was a Polish Jew with what the Welsh call “hwyl”. Definitely, boyo!
As Cliff Morgan might say about this book. “What a try!” And about the man’s most meritorious work for justice (with Martin Luther King) and ecumenism (including a significant input to Catholicism re Jews). “What a trier!”
More seriously ...
Thanks for the summary of Heschel's book, @Barnabas62. You've obviously put a lot of work into it and I appreciate that.
Here's another Welsh expression, Chwarae Teg!
Or 'Fair Play.'
It does sound like you very much enjoyed reading Heschel and it's having a profound effect on you.
Your summary is well-wrought and I under Heschel's position better for having read it. Reading his actual text would be better of course for anyone wishing to get to grips with his thought.
I've had the following thoughts and questions over the last few days and they remain there having read your summary.
1) Do opposing views on this issue affect the way we live or express our faith?
Heschel marched with Dr Martin Luther King and memorably said that he felt that his 'legs were praying. Chwarae Teg again.
Heschel was one of the key religious figures to align themselves with the US Civil Rights Movement, as was the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos who took part in the march at Selma. The Archbishop would presumably have upheld the 'classic' position on divine 'impassibility' yet he also marched in solidarity with Dr King like Heschel and others - of whatever faith tradition or none.
Different understandings. Same outcome.
2) If it ain't bust ...?
Clearly, as an Orthodox Christian I am 'governed' by the idea of holding to an authoritative Tradition in a way that small t tradition Christians aren't. We tend to take a collective and collegial/conciliar view and whilst there's room for theologoumena - legitimate differences of opinion on theological matters within the framework of received Tradition - we keep within that collective frame of reference.
As I've tried, very clumsily, to explain, for us ideas of the 'passibility/impassibility' of God are 'baked into' Holy Tradition and whilst we might read Heschel or Moltmann or anyone else 'outside' that Tradition in the formal sense, we would evaluate their ideas according to how far they accord or otherwise with that Tradition.
Many Protestants throw up their hands in horror at that point, of course - but I would argue that they are doing the same sort of thing only in a small t sense when they say they subject things to the 'bar of scripture' or to 'Scripture, Reason and Tradition' in the Anglican Archbishop Hooker sense or the Wesleyan 'quadrilateral' which adds 'experience' into the mix.
All those things only 'work' within an agreed frame of reference, whether it's a Reformed (or reformed) one, a Lutheran one, an Anglican one, Wesleyan one, a Roman Catholic one, a Jewish one or whatever else.
That frame of reference may be elastic but it's still a frame of reference.
That's not to shut the discussion down before it's even started. I'm interested in what Heschel has to say and pleased that you find it so inspiring.
I'm no expert and haven't read Moltmann, but am aware of some of his emphases. Neither have I read Jewish commentaries and I'm certainly no authority on the Reformers, Medieval Schoolmen or the Church Fathers either.
Nevertheless, I 'would say this, wouldn't I,' but I don't really understand why we should revise received Tradition on this point unless it can be demonstrated:
- That it's completely false.
- That is harmful in some way.
I understand RC objections to the 'essence/energies' distinction in Orthodoxy as they believe(d) that it undermines the idea of God's 'simplicity' - and we have to understand that in Orthodox Tradition the classic view of God's 'impassibility' integrates entirely with the Palamite distinction. We could get into highly technical territory - apophatic and cataphatic ways of talking about God - but there's enough on the table already!
I note again that the RCs haven't made a dogmatic statement on the issue one way or the other and many these days feel that the Orthodox position is compatible with their own.
Why is this important for us Orthodox?
Because we believe that we can share directly in the Divine energies which express God's unchanging, good and gracious nature in the world - and which are themselves eternal and uncreated.
God's grace isn't something he 'invented' on a spare Thursday afternoon. It is who God is - All-gracious, all-loving ...
To proof-text for a moment:
Psalm 30:5 "For His anger is but for a moment, His favour is for life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning".
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm 30:5&version=NKJV
Is God's 'anger' eternal? No. Is God eternal and unchanging in his love and grace? Yes.
This has been a long post. I will make a shorter one with some more subjective reflections based on how these views, whichever side we come down on, might help or hinder us in our faith.
I'll draw breath for now.
I was trying to recall where my phrase “ just an echo just a glimpse “ came from. And then I remembered. It was from Matt Redman’s LP “Where Angels fear to tread. A song called “Rejoice with Trembling”. Lyrics here
“ We could watch You from afar
And forever be amazed
At how glorious You are
Yet You've drawn us close to You
Where the wonder's greater still
And You overwhelm us, God
And we rejoice with trembling in our hearts
Bring You a song of reverence and love
Jesus, how good, how great You are
And we rejoice with trembling
Before Your throne
Who could fully voice the praise
Of the God of endless days
Tell a fraction of Your worth?
For we only sing in part
Of the grace of who You are
Just an echo, just a glimpse
And we rejoice with trembling in our hearts
Bring You a song of reverence and love
Jesus, how good, how great You are
And we rejoice with trembling
Before Your throne”
Pretty orthodox and Orthodox I think. Such humility is absolutely essential.
I’ll overuse it if not careful but I knew Matt Redman in the 90’s. He has the hwyl.
I'm sure I could find a picky-Orthodox pain-in-the-Interdox fundament who would find something to contest in those lyrics.
'Is outrage! Is not Orthodox ...'
'It's too Christocentric. Where is the Father? Where is the Holy Spirit?
Is it some heretical Jesus-Only sectarian ditty? Is it Modalist?'
And so on ... you won't satisfy the rigorists.
The tone (by which I don't mean those used for chants
Rightio ... some 'personal' thoughts and applications in a 'top of the head' kind of way.
Firstly, how can the 'traditional' or 'classic' view help or hinder us?
I find it helps when I make my Confession, both sacramentally or when I ask for God's forgiveness in private prayer.
However ashamed, embarrassed or conflicted I feel, I know that God is eternally loving, eternally faithful and is not subject to change.
'Change and decay in all around I see,
O Thou who changest not, abide with me!'
Consequently, whatever my feelings and weaknesses tell me to the contrary, I can trust that God will hear, forgive and grant me grace to help me 'do better next time.'
How can the 'classic' understanding hinder us?
You'll disagree with this but only, I would submit, if we see it as implying that God does not care, is indifferent and that the idea of his 'unchangeability' was adopted from Greek philosophy because the Fathers had hang-ups about emotions.
I'd argue that the opposite is the case - although I'm sure some of them had hang-ups about sex and that the Blessed Augustine reacted against his nine years in Manichaeism before his conversion to Christ by framing things in an overly dualistic way at times.
I don't see how the 'classic' understanding in any way 'diminishes' our understanding of God's love and grace and the 'hwyl' - if you like - of his actions in the world. We don't have a distant and indifferent Heavenly Father who has to have his arm twisted by the Son in order to show us his love and grace.
I really don't have a problem seeing the often poetic language of scripture which describe God's actions in anthropomorphic terms. How else can we as human beings express these things? We have to use human reference points.
God is spirit. He doesn't have a 'face' or a 'back' yet that's how it is expressed in Exodus when Moses asks that God's glory might 'pass by.'
So where's the difficulty in understanding other references in anthropomorphic terms?
These things are ineffable and inexpressible. We can only use human terms and approximations.
I'm going to be cheeky. You say you 'agree' with my thoughts, but I'm not convinced you do.
I am using the term Holy Tradition in an Orthodox way of course.
You clearly aren't agreeing with my thoughts. You are putting forward ideas from Heschel and Moltmann - and very probably others - that aren't commensurate with Holy Tradition on these particular points - although they will undoubtedly be fully in line with Orthodox understandings - as well as RC and Protestant ones and some Jewish perspectives - on others. Glory be!
I've been told off a few times for getting exasperated and repeating myself on this thread and I'm not typing this in exasperation but curiosity.
I'm curious to know how you agree with my thoughts when you have expressed very different ideas to those I hold?
I'm not saying you should agree with me, simply asking why you claim to be doing so when from my perspective it's pretty clear that you don't. I'm not 'angry' or exasperated about that. Just curious.
I agree with your statement about being governed by the Orthodox Tradition and such statements have consequences.
But you know me too! I’m in agreement with the Protestant nonconformist tradition in the UK . Except when as a matter of conscience I don’t. And I follow what the Northumbria Community calls “the heretical imperative”. Questioning is not doubting. My understanding is that of a learner still learning?
To riposte re active listening. Why should any Orthidox priest seek to pull apart the Redman song out of suspicion when active listening is a call to resonate? Just because it comes from another tradition doesn’t make it less meaningful.
I can and do resonate to “Immortal Invisible”. As an active listener I have no desire to pull it to pieces.
I think we all do better to lose our suspicion of another’s sincerity Far better to journey out of curiosity and recognition of our common humanity. If Pope Paul VI Martin Luther King and Abraham Heschel could develop mutual respect and affection celebrate common ground, why can’t we see similar possibilities?
Our faith becomes harmful when it persuades us to shut the door on such possibilities. There are limits to that, but surely not before finding out more.
My shorthand was too short! I hope this further comment helps understanding.
Anyway, just buy the book! And if you regret it I’ll pay for a refund!
I wouldn't request a refund even if I 'regretted' reading it. I've a lot of unread books reprimanding me at the moment so it may take a while ...
On the Matt Redman aside ... where did I say that Orthodox priests in particular might have an issue with that song?
Read what I wrote. I alluded to 'rigorists' and 'Interdox' keyboard warrior 'fundamentalist' types, some, but all, will be clergy and some won't be 'kosher' clergy either ...
Most will be pains in the arse.
I wasn't saying that they should pick holes in Matt Redman songs or Western hymnody. You may have noticed how I've quoted hymns and poems from Western Christian traditions myself. Why wouldn't I?
Particularly when they appear to support the 'classic' understanding of this issue?
Where have I questioned anyone's 'sincerity' either?
Not for the first time I'm getting the impression you may not have understood what I'm saying.
That's probably my fault with my allusive style and butterfly mind.
Nobody is saying that we shouldn't find 'similar possibilities' to those pursued by Pope Paul VI, Dr Martin Luther King or Abraham Heschel or Archbishop Iakavos or anyone else for that matter - including people here aboard Ship.
Where have I suggested we shouldn't?
I'd be more than happy to visit the Northumbria Community and find opportunities or common ground with them - or anyone else for that matter - beyond the bounds of the Judeo-Christian tradition too, for that matter.
I'm genuinely puzzled as to why you seem to suggest this isn't the case.
As you said I worked hard on that major post and am rather mentally knackered. Plus old!
Time for my afternoon nap.
Unless I'm missing something everything I've seen in their prayer material and at an event of theirs I once attended many years ago, there was nothing there that wasn't fully commensurate with broad mainstream 'Mere Christianity.'
There was nothing 'transgressive' or even heterodox about it, so far as I could see. 'Heretical' on whose terms? According to whose criteria?
It struck me as a benign and indeed welcome 'neo-monastic' movement within mainstream Protestantism. I once heard a Benedictine monk welcome such movements as potentially having ecumenical significance and I see no reason to doubt that to be the case.
If Baptists and other Protestant Christians are rediscovering forms of 'neo-monasticism' with 'rules of life' and liturgical forms that embody and express that then great ... bring it on.
I'm not saying that they have to do these things in the same way that the RCs have done or in the way the Orthodox do.
Why should I object? On the contrary, I welcome developments like this.
Perhaps I use the 'h' word in a more restrictive or technical way.
I tend to reserve it for out and out Arians and so on, not 'neo-monastic' or 'non-conformist' Protestant groups that haven't broken with mainstream small t tradition.
I wouldn't call Moltmann a 'heretic' for instance but would say that some of his views were 'heterodox' from the standpoint of Holy Tradition as understood from an Orthodox perspective.
Heck, I'm sure some very conservative Protestants would consider me 'heterodox' or even 'heretical' or quasi-Christian in some way. 🙄
Our deacon's wife used to attend a Christian mum's and toddlers group when her youngest was little.
On one occasion one of the other mother's said to her, 'It must be hard for you attending a Christian group ...'
Peter Berger wrote about the heretical imperative as a part of his genuine critique of Christian consumerism. Discussing the concept was a part of my preparation to be a Community Companion.
Because the Community is very open what we make of Berger’s idea is that questioning is fine but Christan consumerism is to be avoided. The Community is not in favour of Christian Consumerism and recognises the value of community membership rather than individualism. For example it strongly advises Christians to remain in their local Churches, not treat the Community as an alternative.
The original Greek word hairesis simply meant to choose. Heresy as the concept developed meant to choose wrongly. then blasphemously. There is a big difference between questioning and choosing. Questioning is an important part of learning and discipleship. Unthinking obedience rather less so.
And there is a general predisposition within the Commjnity in favour of questioning. I’ve said it a lot. A person persuaded against their will is of the same opinion still.
Anyway, all of that resonates with my nonconformity.
A classic example of the importance of more detailed explanations. Hope that makes more sense?
And now I must sleep!
I've also had a nap this afternoon.
FWIW, I s'pose I'm using the 'h' word in a more 'technical' and 'restrictive' way.
I don’t see anything 'heretical' in Peter Berger's critique of Christian consumerism. Unless that consumerism is the prevailing orthodoxy - which it very much might be of course - then there's nothing 'heretical' in the Northumbria Community's stance on this issue.
I'd see the emphasis on community rather than individualism as thoroughly orthodox. It's the individualistic and atomised consumerism that is the 'heresy.'
Big T Tradition doesn't necessarily imply unquestioning obedience - but it does involve the communal dimension.
That's echoed or paralleled in the Northumbria Community's approach in this instance.
Your apparent 'nonconformity' is not always as 'non-conformist' as might appear at first sight. ✨️ 😉
There's nothing you've written there that isn't commensurate with Big T Tradition or what we might find in various forms across the Christian spectrum as a whole.
Nor would I expect it to be.
If you insist on using heretical the way you’re used to using it rather than in the way Barnabas62 has said the Northumbrian Community uses it in this context, you’re going to keep talking past each other.
Wish that Divine Impassibility was so easy!
😆
Sure. I'm very aware that I am using the 'h' word in a different way to how the Northumbria Community deploy it @Nick Tamen.
The point I was making that what they might describe as 'heretical' might be considered orthodox and what they might consider orthodox might be considered 'heretical' ... 😉
What I'm saying is that it all depends on the starting point.
1. Do our real life experiences influence our theology?
2. Does our theology influence our real life behaviour?
I’m going to start with the first.
I think it may be helpful to see Moltmann and Heschel as real life figures rather the just ideas-based theologians. There were important experiences which shaped them. And there is certainly a real life connection between them. It’s Nazi Germany and the horrors of antisemitic persecution and massacres.
Heschel. a Polish Jew, was, indirectly, a fortuitous survivor of the persecution of Polish Jews in WW2. After arrest in Germany by the Gestapo and deportation back to Poland, he knew he was a marked man. With the help of Jewish academic colleagues, he fled from Warsaw to London. From there, with further help, he was able to get a visa and academic work in the USA. His family was not so fortunate. His mother and three sisters died in different ways during the war, one of them in a concentration camp.
Now it is wrong to presume that these experiences influenced his theological work on divine impassibility. The core of the work which became “The Prophets” was written in Germany when he was a student and later a teacher. However it does seem very likely that these tragic experiences of his family and Polish Jews during WW2 has a profound impact on his later support for the Civil Rights movement in the USA and his friendship with Martin Luther King. His response was also entirely consistent with his theology. On the march from Selma to Montgomery his legs were praying!
Moltman’s experiences are very contrasting. He was a German soldier in WW2, surrendered to the Allies in 1945 and was a German POW for three years. As a POW he became extremely depressed. During this time he was exposed to various benign Christian influences.. Also he was made aware, as were many German POWs of the horrors of the Holocaust. A number could not cope with the revelation of how horribly they had been wrong and committed suicide.
But Moltmann survived. He said afterwards that he did not find Christ. Rather Christ found him, “then and there, in the dark pit of my soul”.
He returned to Germany, sill very young at 22. He studied faith, became a pastor, a teacher and then a professor of theology. His. Church background was the German Confessing Church (which began as a protest movement against the Nazification of churches in Germany).
After this period he wrote the three books for which he is best known. Theology of Hope, The Crucified God, and The Church in the Power of the Spirit. I haven’t read any of them. But I know that Heschel’s writing and the following horrific event were profoundly influential on Moltmann’s The Crucified God. Because he said so.
This gut wrenching story is told by Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel in her memoir “Night”.
Elie Wiesel was of course a Jew. A Romanian Jew.
What seriously bothered Moltmann about that tragic, horrific event. It was this notion in divine impassibility. In order to be eternally unchanging, the eternal God the Father of Creation could not be affected and changed by this event.
Moltmann observed that if this were true, God was not more than human. He was less than human. Hence his attraction to Heschel’s Divine Pathos and Elie Wiesel’s Jewish inner voice that God was hanging there. Suffering with, identifying with, that slowly dying child.
Is that an emotional response? Absolutely. Does it show emotional intelligence? Absolutely. Does it at least raise a question about Divine Impassibility? We should hardly be surprised that it does.
The Lamb is slain 'before the foundation of the world.'
God is outside of time. Therefore he can't be subject to change.
There are plenty of ways we can 'accommodate' the classical view with what we see of our fallen world - even if the theodicy is always going to elude us this side of the Parousia.
That doesn't minimise the very particular horrors of the Holocaust.
Nor does it mean that God is 'Unmoved.'
I keep saying that Orthodoxy does not accept the Aristotelian idea of the 'Unmoved Mover' and yet that doesn't seem to register. @Barnabas62 continues to post as if the 'classical' view includes or consists of that.
It doesn't.
It only applies if we work with a late medieval Scholastic model which overdoses on Aquinas - Lord rest his soul.
We all agree that Heschel did the right thing supporting the US Civil Rights movement and that his legs did the praying.
Archbishop Iakavos marched at Selma and he would have had a very different view on these things than both Heschel and Moltmann.
I'm not comparing my own light sufferings with the traumas experienced or witnessed by Heschel and Moltmann but I can't see why my wife's early death from cancer at the age of 56 should 'alter' God in any way.
God was/is eternally loving and faithful before she died and remains so now and forever and unto the ages of ages.
As @Dafyd has reminded us several times, God isn't 'us' - God is 'beyond being' as one of the Orthodox liturgical texts puts it.
Yes, God in Christ took on our humanity our suffering and pain. As St John of Damascus, I think, put it, 'that which is not assumed cannot be healed.'
The Suffering Servant of Isaiah has 'borne our griefs.'
I can hear Handel. 'A Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief.'
Yes, God is hanging on the gallows.
The 'classic' understanding does not deny that. What it does assert is that God does not change - he is ever-loving, all gracious, all faithful and more, so much more.