NECESSARY DISTINCTIONS IN INTERFAITH DISCUSSIONS

© 2000-2002 by Orchid Land Publications

[updated 20020424]

     Whatever one may think of the value of official interfaith discussions (CLICK HERE & HERE for the Orthodox position), many that take place are marred by a failure to heed necessary distinctions (see R177 for some errors based on category confusions; SEE ALSO HERE AND  HERE. ).  The failure to keep one's categories unconfused means that a discussion is meaningless to a high degree, the participants speaking at cross-purposes.  In addition, Orthodox participants have always come out the losers, for reasons set out on the page first linked above.  What follows here has the object of showing how both sides can avoid various errors by taking a different slant on the matters discussed at such gatherings.   I will try to group into relevant subgroups distinctions that I have found missing in ecumenical discussions online (and offline).

GENERAL

Official vs. private/personal deviation from what is officially approved or condemned.  One should not blame a group for the deviations of an individual.

Apologetics vs. ecumenics.   The one defends and critiques; the other looks for commonalties.

Respect for expertise (e.g. Wolfson on the sense of Logos in John 1:1).  At the Pseudo-Synod of Ferrarra-Firenze, the Greeks constantly had to remind the Latins that Greek was their language and that they therefore understood it better than Latin misinterpretations.  If a proven fact or the results of scholarly investigation by a first-rate scholar in his/her speciality are rejected by the other party, no equally weighty counterproof being alleged, profitable discussion cannot ensue.  When one makes how one feels or what one would like to be true more weighty than the objective facts that are, no profitable discussion can follow--unless the other party happens to feel the same way and/or have the same wishes.  Arguments like the Latins' justification for only male clergy lack conviction; how could a group of both sexes in first-century Palestine culture wander around, bathe in the river, sleep in the same dwelling, etc.?  (One thinks of Japanese theatrical groups, either all-male or all-female, whose participants represent characters of either sex.)  Better reasoning should be found to support this traditional conclusion.  See further arbitrary grounds below for assuming a parallel between the Trinitarian Processions and Missions.

CLICK HERE FOR CHANGING PARADIGMS
CLICK HERE FOR HETERODOX CHRISTIANITY
CLICK HERE FOR PROPER INTERFAITH AND INTERNET DISCUSSIONS

      To understand the overall pattern of theological distinctions, the following table may be helpful; the reader should consult pp. 33-36 of C. N. Tsirpanlis' Introduction to Eastern Patristic though and Orthodox theology (The Liturgical Press, 1991), where (despite ambiguities on some points in that volume) the senses of Logos and energeia (SEE HERE) are clearly and insightfully laid out.  Note that the left-hand column is the ontology/reason-based traditional view of reality, while the right-hand column is the late-Mediaeval Nominalist (via moderna) or virtual-reality Reformation view of what is really real--though only in its will-first view and in preferring words to Mysteries (sacraments), since energy is foreign to the static Western view of Christianity, and there's no room for the Likeness of God and theosis.   (Orthodoxy rejects apotheosis in favor of theosis.)

The foregoing table offers a roadmap to theological study; but see also HERE--and for faith & reason and distinctions in the senses of faith, CLICK HERE.   The Logos ("Rational Principle of Order") creates the material and spiritual creation, whose implanted created logoi characterize the purposes of every creature.  As Tsirpanlis explains, Origen and Areios made opposite confusions of the distinction between being and will in understanding God and the economy (Creation);  Origen took creation to be an overflow of (divine) Being; Areios took the Creator-Son to be (like the "energetic" economy of the cosmos) generated by will rather than as Essence.   Similarly, the all-holy Paraclete proceeds (His ekpórefis) from (para) the Father by Essence but is sent (His ékpempsis) from (ek) the Son by will.  a similar confusion between Procession (ekpórefsis) and Mission (ékpempsis) mars discussion of the all-holy Spirit.  Worship is Godward-directed (the Oblation on the Altar); Salvation, human-directed (the words from the pulpit).  The Icon (Image) of God in humans is of their essence (reason and freewill), whereas the Likeness of God in humans is the Energy of Grace that enables these potentialities to be realized in a soteri(ologic)al way to attain to théosis (Divinization by Energy; not apothéosis or deification by Essence). 
     Theology is thus not a list but a coherent system   (CLICK HERE & HERE):  Fiddle with a part over here, and you mess up a part over there--or at least introduce inconsistencies.  A list is just a matter of (unsystematic) additions (Latin innovations) and subtractions (Denominationist rejections of tradition/time and substition of will for being/ontology in its as-if, or virtual, reality of justification, Christ's bodily Presence at the Lord's Supper, etc.).  Just as there is an intimate connex between Incarnation and Resurrection and material Mysteries, so also between Incarnation and time and tradition:  Change one, you affect all of them!   As similar connex exists between will and virtual reality.
     Western theology confuses the sense of Logos, whose threefold logic in Patristic Greek writings is:
--The Son of God is the (theoretical) Reason of God AND the (practical) Wisdom (Sophia) of God.  (No such parallelism exists between word and wisdom.)
--The prologue to St. John's Gospel reflects the use of Philo the Jew, whose life overlapped that of Jesus's.  The Logos is the Principle of Reason and Order in Creation.  (See Wolfson's famous study.)
--The Logos creates order (logoi) in the cosmos.  (If Logos is mistranslated as "Word" in the Western manner, we would expect a "wordy" rather than a logos-endued (loyikos) cosmos.  And, of course, word-magic is always a danger there, as anthropological investigations of hocus-pocus find in many pre-industrial cultures.)  CLICK HERE for more on this confusion; confusions in conceptualizing faith, Grace, Justification, etc. in terms of different presuppositional frameworks; and confusions of Greek categories (in the Bible and Patristic thinking) due to mistranslations of Greek distinctions between the Image and Cognation of God (CLICK HERE), théosis and apothéosis, etc. (see below).
    The words 'Adam in Hebrew, ánthropos in Greek, and homo in Latin refer, like Mensch in German, to humanity in general.  The most correct translation of the singular is "human being" or "humanity"--not "man" (adult male)--which is another word in those languages. 
     One should distinguish missionizing from proselytizing.   The first is broadly apologetics--informing others of the the truth about one's Faith and disabusing them of misconceptions and false allegations.  Proselytizing, however, is actively pushing another to choose one's own Faith.  To those who say that "we" (Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc.) "all believe the same thing," we simply reply that saying Jesus is Christ God and saying He is not God are contradictory--not saying the same thing.  Further, saying that Jesus is Lord and Savior falls far short of affirming that He is God--the second Person of the all-holy Trinity--the Logos or Reason and the Wisdom of God.

WITH WESTERN CHRISTIANS

Ontological vs. juridical outlooks.   This is related to the power of will over reality.   The juridical outlook puts will first and allows it to create a virtual reality that is for all practical purposes more real than (ontological) reality.  (CLICK HERE FOR MORE.)  The ontological outlook puts being and reason ahead of will--though without necessarily falling into a rationalist approach to holy Mysteries.   If different parties cannot agree to provisionally use one of the other premises about reality, their talk is a waste of time; see more below on relativism.

Trinitarian Procession (ekpórefsis) vs. Mission (ékpempsis, sometimes ékphansis).  This is the distinction between the ontological origins of the second and third Persons of the all-holy Trinity and actions taken by Jesus in His human life in the economy of creation; see John 15:26.  Some online Latins claim (wrongly and with no argumentation) that the processions and the missions should be parallel--that if the second Person of the all-holy Trinity "sends" the all-holy Spirit in the economy of creation, He "should" also be a Source of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity.  This heresy is as wholly without fundament in logic as in its conclusion.  To illustrate how ignorant of fundamental theology such a proposal is, consider how unparallel the períchoresis ("interpenetration, coïnherence") of the Persons of the all-holy Trinity and the períchoresis of the two Natures of the incarnate Jesus Christ are; or how disparate the appropriation (idiopoíesis) of an Energy to one Person of the Trinity and the appropriation of human behavior by the Person of the incarnate Son of God are.

Relations vs. beings.  A Western, Augustinian approach to the Trinity assumes that relations are prior to beings; logic assumes the opposite.  Relation priority compels the West to adopt the Filioque in the Western creed.  (CLICK HERE FOR MORE ON THIS.)

Psychology vs. ontology.  A Western, Augustinian approach to the Trinity assumes that divine emotions are ontological; e.g. that the love of the Father and the Son for each other IS the Holy Spirit.  This can only be metaphorical in an ontological framework, since literally it is nonsense in this framework.  CLICK HERE FOR A SUMMARY CONCERNING THE FILIOQUE.

Essence vs. nature vs. a juridical condition (virtual reality).   The term for nature in the East, phýsis, is a bit slippery, lacking the precision of the Western notion that a nature is the function of an essence; the East uses "energies" for such functions.  (Note that Greek dýnamis "power"--related to the verb meaning "be able to"; cf. dynatón "mighty, powerful" and dynasty--refers to a potency or potential that energy [enéryeia] actualizes or enables.  (CLICK HERE for energy; for synergy, HERE & HERE.)  Hence, eneryés "energetic, active, effectual" is closer to English dynamic than this is to Greek dynamikón "efficacious."  Energón is "active, effectual, productive," and eneryetikón is "active" or "productive"; enéryema "action" is the result of an operation or activity.)  Physikón means "natural" or sometimes "physical" in Greek.  (There has been, in the history of Christian theology, a good deal of confusion about phýsis, hypóstasis, substance, etc.  These terms should be avoided or used with the greatest care, except that hypostasis should be used in the Orthodox manner, since its import is very clear.  (SEE FURTHER HERE.)   Since nature in any use should mean "what is in accord with or promotes the nature of a thing or person," positive or juridical law should not be confused with natural law.   (SEE MORE HERE & HERE.)

Théosis (Divinization) vs. apothéosis (Deification).  The first is partaking of the uncreated Energies of God, which is God's Being but not His Essence; the second is becoming divine according to Essence.  Théosis is the   consequence of believers' ontological union with Christ and of the Union of His two natures.  See 2 Pet. 1:4.  The Orthodox teach that the faithful partake of Divinity according to uncreated Energies rather than according to the imparticipable divine Essence.  This energetic Union is a union with God's Nature and is a sharing of Christ's divine Life.

What are inheritable vs. what are not inheritable.  Physical and genetic traits of nature are inheritable (mortality, defective genes, etc.); moral traits and guilt are not.  There is, in short, no inherited guilt; but death is inherited.  Believing in Eve's and Adam's "original" sin and their guilt provides no grounds for deducing that we are guilty of their sinning--as some Western apologetes who cannot understand the logic of the matter would have some believe.  Guilt and merit can be transferred from one individual to another in only two ways:  (1) When the two become ontologically one, as the members of Christ's Body do with Him; (2) by divine imputation when, as the Protestant Reformers taught, God imputes Adam's sins to each of us and then in His "wrath" punishes us for the sins He has imputed to us--which is really virtual sin and virtual guilt, though real punishment. 

Relativism with respect to framework vs. relativism with respect to everything.  To take the latter first, pure relativism--"we are all saying the same thing, even  when we say things inconsistent with one another"--is a widely held position toward reliigous matters that is unsustainable in reality.  Each view in this frame of reference is a kyrma--"whatever one comes up with."  Relativism to one's framework is a completely different matter.  If one starts out with the view that will is primary, one will end up with different conclusions from one who starts out with the premise that will is secondary to a being that wills and to reason:  In one framework, a given idea can be true while in the other framework it is counterlogical.  If one starts out with the premise that time and matter have no religious value (and are even evil), then tradition and incarnation, bodily resurrection, and sacraments cannot have value or sense.

Ad hominem arguments vs. objective arguments.  In most instances, there is little to be gained by attacking an opponent's intelligence or sincerity; where there is a basis for doing so, it is often best simply to cease discussions with that person.  An exception is that one may show a conflict between what one says and what one does--as when Orthodox Christians point to the conflict between ecumenical overtures by the papacy and Uniatism. 

Normal vs. natural.  Normal is a statistical predominance, whereas natural is defined in the preceding.  A Christian thinks that what is normal since the Fall is often unnatural or counternatural.   There is no contradiction here if the terminology is properly understood.

Mistranslations vs. correct translations.   Relying on translations can lead to big-time error.  A few examples will illustrate this. 
--First is translating Logos (when it refers to the One "by Whom all things were made and apart from Whom was not one thing made that was made) as "Word" is quite silly; how could the cosmos be created and sustained (from falling back into nothingness) by a "Word"?  For this Gnostic, word-magic concept and the uses of lógos (with small "l") that mean "saying," etc.,  CLICK HERE. 
--Second, cf. 1 Cor. 15:44:   A traditional rendering ("it [the body] is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.  There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.") misleadingly translates Greek psychikón "animate" as "natural" and pnevmatikón (more justifiably) as "spiritual."   (For what is meant by a "spiritual body," see under Protestants below.)  This rendering introduces a dualist conflict between natural and spiritual that is not in the text.  CLICK HERE FOR MORE.  Third, a popular evangelical English version of the Bible consistently mistranslates sárx "body" as "sinful nature"; but natures cannot sin and, except in a Gnostic framework (for which CLICK HERE), created natures and matter (e.g. flesh) are not evil. 
--Fourth, compare the translation in one Bible of Rom. 12:1-2, especially verse 2--". . . that ye present your bodies . . . which is your reasonable service.  . . . be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind [noûs] . . . "--with what the Greek really says in current English--viz. "that you all present your bodies (as) a living, holy sacrifice--your logos-endowed [loyikón] Worship [latreía]. . . . be transformed by renewing the highest intelligence" . . .    Service should be "Worship." While some parties may prefer Worship to be "wordy" instead of infused with reason, reasonable should be "rational"; and mind (noûs) might better be "highest intelligence."
  --Fifth, Worship and worship.   Worship, properly used in a religious context, is latreía (latry), given only to God.  Worship with a small "w" (as in addressing a judge as "Your worship") is veneration--douleía (duly), rendered to Saints, the Cross and icons, relics, etc.  (The all-holy Theotokos is accorded hyperduly.)  The latter is also referred to as proskýnesis (properly, "prostration").  Distinguished from prostration by some is metánoia (pronounced metánya)--the bow with one's right hand swept across the floor that substitutes for a prostration on days when kneeling is not done (viz. from the midnight Paschal service till after the divine Liturgy of holy Pentecost [before the following Vespers begins] and--traditionally--all Lordsdays). 
--Sixth, Divinization and Deification, respectively théosis and apothéosis in Greek.  The former refers to becoming a sharer in the divine Life and uncreated Energies of God (2 Pet. 1:4); the latter, to becoming essentially divine, i.e. a partaker of the divine Essence.  Only the former is an Orthodox concept, since no one can "become" God in this sense after not being divine.  Note that nature (Greek phýsis) has always been problematic, sometimes referring to essence, sometimes to hypothesis, etc.  (Transindividual natures are not admitted in the via moderna or Nominalist framework of the Reformation.)
--Seventh, etc.  CLICK HERE!  Relying on translations can lead to big-time error.  A few examples will illustrate this. 

WITH LATINS

      Formal validity (kyros or íschys, often vevaiótes) vs. ontological authenticity (exousía, sometimes the more modern afthentikótes; the adjectives are gnésion, afthentikón, alethinón).  (The terms are infelicitously called lesser validity and greater validity, respectively, by some authors.)  Validity is to authenticity as dýnamis is to enéryeia.  SEE ALSO HERE & HERE.  Gnesiótes is licitness--usually called canonicity in the Orthodox world--is the juridical aspect of the matter.  ( For the terms canonical and canonicity, CLICK HERE.)  In summary, validity  refers to what is correctly done from a formal or factual perspective.  Thus, the apostolic succession of a western body can be valid without the Orthodox recognizing it as authentic (Greek afthentikón "actual, genuine")--i.e. as being part of the Church in which the pleroma or fulness of Grace exists.  What is done in the Orthodox Church is authentic when valid; conversely, validity does not automatically confer authenticity--the Life of the divine Energies--Grace.  (See HERE for the difference between acrivia [akríveia "strict exactitude"] and economy [dispensation from strict application of a rule].")   

       Complementation vs. inconsistency in development.  Leaving aside those who reject time and tradition and therefore development in religion--freezing the work of the Holy Spirit at the time of the Apostles and (despite John 16:13) ignoring the necessary working out of the implications inherent in the deposit of Faith that took place during the centuries between the death of the last Apostle and the rise of Martin Luther,  . . . let us consider traditional Christianity.  Here, there is no objection to development--a process through which, after every possible view of each mooted point has been defended, the Church has sifted out the one teaching or interpretation that is true enough to stand for all generations to come.   What may be disputed is (i) whether innovations carried out unilaterally (in schism from and without the consent of all of the Orthodox patriarchates--a pentarchy before the Latins went into schism and indeed heresy) can be authentic; and (ii) whether a given development is in fact consistent with or is inconsistent with all that has been previously accepted.  In contrast with inconsistent developments, consistent developments are not treated as true innovations, just as new insights into old understandings.

       The status of the Latin patriarchate before vs. after their schism.   It is irrational to argue that the status of the patriarch of Rome subsequent to Rome's schism from Orthodoxy is the same as it was before that schism.  Even IF one can show that a given attitude of the Roman patriarch existed in some quarter before the schism, that could not show that it was retained by Rome after Rome's unilateral innovations and breaking off from Orthodoxy.  Authenticity belongs to the body that did not unilaterally innovate but continued in what had existed during the prior unanimity among the pentarchy (five patriarchates).

WITH PROTESTANTS

Confusion reigns over different senses of "faith"; CLICK HERE FOR THIS.  Defining   faith as mental "belief" is consonant with a willed assent based on a conviction of the truth of a belief; but defining faith simply as a willed "assent" to certain propositions in the Reformation manner requires no evidence, though it does not disallow it.  The will-based Reformation concept of faith (as fiducia) boils down to what is called fideïsm, but would  better be called "fiducianism."   The gulf between the two views is great enough to block common discussions about "faith" and its rôle in Salvation.

Being/ontology vs. will/theletism vs. emotions.  The Nominalist-Positivist world of the Reformers put will first and allowed them to view the virtual or as-if reality willed by God (and imputed or ascribed to this or that being) as more real than reality itself.  No such claims are made by those who interpret a biblical verse as metaphorical or allegorical; the conflict their view allows is being inconsistent with claims to embrace only "literal" interpretations, not with reality itself.  Traditional Christianity accepts--with the usual qualifications about the possibility of personal illusion and delusion--the reality of being and actual activities that are perceptible (i.e. to the senses) as well as the reality that is recognized by the noûs as spiritual reality (which is not metaphorical).  The virtual reality or as-if reality of the Reformation (e.g. Luther's view of simul justus, simul peccator and Calvin's view of the "presence" of Christ's Body at the Lord's Supper) is not a traditional way of thinking about theological concerns.  It was a late Mediaeval concoction.  CLICK HERE FOR MORE.

Bodily being (flesh, materiality, carnal being) : spiritual.  Confusing spirit and body is rampant in some circles.  A body in biblical and traditional thinking can be "spiritual" with reference to its origin (e.g. as a Gift consecrated by the all-holy Spirit) or destination or with respect to its purpose or intent or even its preternatural properties--but not with respect to its composition.  As a body cannot be composed of spirit and still be a body, it makes absolutely no sense whatever to speak of body's being "spiritually present."   Conversely, when St. Gregory (of Nazianzos) the Theologian said that the soul is divine, he was not referring to its make-up but to its being closer to God than flesh or body is--since the soul retained immortality at the Fall.  (Note that St. Paul speaks of a psychic or animate soul [psyche] or life--which animate creatures [animals] have; humans also have, in the anthropology of early Christianity a noëtic or spiritual soul [pnevma].)  A spiritual presence is wholy different from a corporeal presence, so far as the make-up in each instance is concerned.  There is no point in arguing for the Eucharistic Presence of Christ (rather than His FLESH or BODY--which is what is at issue), since God is spiritually present everywhere (or better, not absent anywhere)--though of course not in "bodily" terms.  It is important not to confuse the presence of spirit and the presence of body.  Since the conflict arises in connection with the Eucharist, it will be well to note that in 6:51-56, Jesus speaks of sárx "flesh" rather than the more metaphorizable sôma "body."  Note too that a number of verses in the Bible contrast sárx and pnevma "spirit."  Verse 55 of John 6 calls Jesus's Flesh the true or real or actual brôsis "eating."   Even more telling is the verb that Jesus uses for "eat" in the Greek rendering:  Verses 54 and 56 uses troyeîn, which indicates literal, almost slangy eating; in Classical Greek, it referred to the way animals eat.  (Verse 53 uses the more spiritualizable phayeîn "eat.")  Other considerations can be mentioned.  Why would most of the listeners be offended by a metaphorical "Bread of Heaven" (verses 31, 53) in verse 52 or by metaphorical flesh in verses 52 and 60?  It doesn't make sense.  Admittedly, eating blood would offend a kosher Hebrew.  While red wine can symbolize blood, it's hard to see how bread symbolizes flesh.  The long and short of sárx and troyeîn is that it's stretching things over into Gnostic phantasy to interpret them purely metaphorically or purely symbolically.

Worship (Altar) vs. Sermon (pulpit).  Some Denominationists have a sufficiently attentuated idea of Worship that they can, on the one hand, (i) call preaching and prayers for one's own needs "worship," and on the other hand (ii) regard veneration of Saints and relics as "false worship."  (Denominationist "literalists" do not prostrate themselves in worshiping the way it was done throughout the Bible.  The word for "prostration," proskýnesis, is even used sometimes in Scripture for worship.)   Two distinctions have got to be made.  First, Worship is Godward and rendering or giving, while preaching and praying for human needs is humanward and receptive by its human audience.  We contrast the Altar with the pulpit--and priests with preachers.  Secondly, Greek distinguishes latreía "Worship" (with a capital "W") from douleía "veneration" or "worship" (with a small "w")--the former being given only to God.  (The all-holy Theotokos receives hyperduly.)

AFTERWORD

     As in many disciplines, many participants in interfaith discussions have "list" mentalities rather than "system" minds.  Not realizing that a list can be added to or subtracted from, usually with no affect on other items, they fail to understand that a system is quite different--and rather like a cobweb--though actual connections among the "nodes" of the "web" get altered when, and not just the overall shape or pattern when one ignores the overall system.  Each item is discussed by the list mind as something unto itself, with no regard as to its effects on the rest of the system or whether it fits the system in the first place.  You can argue with some that in the Prologue to John's Gospel, where the creator of all that is is called the LOGOS in Greek, this word has to be translated as "Reason" or "Rational Principle" to no effect.  Giving historical and system reasons will have no impact on the list mentality.  The system mind will see how tangential a translation as "Word" is, and how silly its view of word-magic makes for the first-century usage (chiefly that of Philo the Jewish Middle-Platonist, whose life overlapped that of Jesus).  The list mentality sees no point in making the distinctions outlined above on this page.  For a systematic mind, all of this is quite different. 
      Interfaith discussions are a comparative undertaking.   With no heed to systems, many terms in such discussions are apples on one side and oranges on the other.  "Faith" is a good example (SEE HERE).  It is folly to engage in such discussions without getting some agreement on what the terms that are used signify.  In fact, it makes far more sense to discuss the terms and the FRAMEWORKS that such definitions depend on than to discuss teachings that follow more or less as a matter of course from them and depend on them.

SEE HERE AND HERE AS WELL AS
HERE, HERE, HERE, & HERE

SEE HERE FOR AN ANALYSIS OF INTERNET APOLOGETICS