The ground of union: deification in Aquinas and Palamas

223 Pages·1999·22.7 MB·English

by  Anna Ngaire Williams

THE
GROUND
OF
UNION
Deification in Aquinas and Palamas
A. N. WILLIAMS
New York » Oxford
Oxford University Press
1999
Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 1999 by A. N. Williams
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Williams, A, N. (Anna Ngaire)
The ground of union : deification in Aquinas
and Palamas / A. N. Williams.
p. crn.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-512436-7
1. Deification (Christianity)—History of doctrines—Middle Ages,
600-1500. 2. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?–1274—Contributions in
doctrine of deification. 3. Gregory Palamas, Saint, 1296-1359—
Contributions in doctrine of deification. I. Title.
BT767.8.W55 1999
234—dc21 98-22520
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 42
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To the memory of
Francis Clive Williams
23.vii.26-19. v. 79
Ja la vostre anme nen ait sufraite!
De parei's li seit la porte uverte!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people supplied erudition and support during the writing of this work; my debts
are too numerous to catalogue other than selectively. Chief among them are to those
who commented on the manuscript in its earlier version as a dissertation: Rowan Greer,
David Kelsey and Cyril O'Regan. The director of the dissertation, George Lindbeck, de-
serves an additional vote of thanks for his tirelessness in forming in charity a student
notable for her obstinacy. I am grateful to Christopher Wells for the index; for compan-
ionship and support, my thanks go to Inger and Benjamin Brodey, Cathy Kaveny and
above all my husband, Dale Gingrich, and to Merlin and Madeleine, who placed the feline
seat of approval on almost all the pages.
feast of the Holy Name, 19 97 A. N. W.
CONTENTS
1
The Problem and Its History 3
AQUINAS
2
The God to Whom We Are Likened 34
3
The Manner of Our Likening 65
PALAMAS
4
Images of Deification 102
5
Theosis as Constituent of the Doctrine of God 128
6
Conclusion 157
Notes 177
Bibliography 203
Index 213
1
THE PROBLEM AND
ITS HISTORY
I. The Need for the Study
When Edward Gibbon pronounced Byzantine hesychasm the consummation of the "re-
ligious follies of the Greeks,"1 he articulated no more than a commonplace judgment of
the movement that has determined so much of subsequent Eastern Orthodox thought,
not only in the realm of spirituality but also in dogmatic theology and theological method.
Gibbon's remark is characteristic of both late medieval and modern Western appraisals
of hesychasm and its chief proponent, Gregory Palamas. Ironically, it describes with equal
accuracy the general tenor of Eastern estimations of the movement that revolutionized
the medieval West as hesychasm galvanized the East: scholasticism. These two move-
ments prove to be definitive moments in their respective traditions; they also occur during
the period when the fracture between the two halves of Christendom hardened at last
into a divide accepted by both sides as unbreachable until the midtwentieth century.
The traditional dating of the East-West schism—1054—has long been challenged.2
Instead, the divide is viewed as the culmination of a long, slow process of mutual mis-
understanding and gradual estrangement. There is, however, a modern scholarly con-
sensus that, while exact dating may be impossible, the divide may be viewed as fixed by
some point between the high Middle Ages and the early Renaissance.3 The late Middle
Ages, then, proves a decisive moment in the history of relations between the churches
of East and West, the point to which any ecumenist must return if the cause of recon-
ciliation, or even increased understanding, is to be advanced in our time. While in the
views of some historians the root of the schism was political rather than religious,4 those
political factors have long since become irrelevant to the separation of the churches. What
we face now are first, actual theological differences between the churches, and second,
3
4 9 THE GROUND OF UNION
a history of bitterness. At a theological level, that bitterness is now no longer the residue
of events such as the Crusaders' Sack of Constantinople; it is the consciousness of centu-
ries of bitter polemic and mutual accusations of heresy. This problem is fortunate in the
sense that while nothing can now be done to make amends for thirteenth-century bar-
barism, the polemic and history of theological recriminations may be reexamined with
a view to establishing what legitimate problems inhere in the heap of rancorous rhetoric.
Precisely such an examination and reevaluation has been called for by several promi-
nent students of East-West relations. John Meyendorff, for example, says:
In order to find the mutual understanding between Easterners and Westerners once again,
we should search today for the fundamental inspiration of these two modes of thought,
in a patient dialogue based on the texts. It would then perhaps be possible to delineate
with more precision what in the two Christian traditions belongs to the tradition of that
church to which all Christians ought to refer back, in order to find once again the unity of
the first centuries.5
Kallistos Ware's call for a reevaluation of texts is more ambiguous, oriented not toward
reconciliation but vindication of the Orthodox case:
If these charges [regarding failings of Western theological method] are to be convincing,
they must be formulated with greater precision and fully supported by evidence. . . .
[Orthodox critics of scholasticism] must indicate, with specific reference to the sources,
how and when Anselm and Abelard, Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas applied logic to
matters beyond logic's scope. They must indicate in detail how Aquinas relied on phi-
losophy in a way that the Cappadocians and St John of Damascus did not.6
Regardless of the apparent motive, however, there is an agreement among these stu-
dents of East-West relations that a return to texts is needed.
The cry for a return to the sources in turn raises the question of which among them
must be examined and to what end. Ware has already furnished part of an answer: in
his view, Western scholastics lie at the heart of the East's complaint, and the double
mention of Aquinas in the quotation above suggests that he in particular is problematic
for the Orthodox. John Meyendorff also identifies the Thomist tradition as of particular
concern to the East and further indicates with whom in the Eastern tradition Thomas
might be contrasted. Orthodox theologians, he maintains, would generally agree that
the Greek patristic tradition finds its fulfilment in the theology of Gregory Palamas.
Aquinas and Palamas, then, are immediate candidates for representatives of their respec-
tive traditions, and both date from the crucial period of final separation (Aquinas, 1225-
1274; Palamas c.1296—1359). They possess a further significance in that as Aquinas is
suspect in the East, so is Palamas in the West, not only on the grounds of questionable
continuity with the patristic tradition but also precisely because of his relation to the
Western Augustinian and Thomist tradition.7 Even on controversies such as the filioque,
which quite clearly date from well before the time of Aquinas, the opposition of East
and West has been interpreted as existing directly between Aquinas and Palamas: "On
this question [the filioque], it is interesting to see the conflict of the two traditions—
Latin in the form of Thomism, and Orthodox in that of Palamism."8 Contemporary
Western theologians persist in claiming a fundamental clash between Palamite and scho-
lastic theology: "The irony of Palamite theology is that ... it is concerned with an on-
THE PROBLEM AND ITS HISTORY 9 5
tology of participation by the creature in divine life through the divine energies. This
allowed Gregory to affirm what scholastic theology denied: a real relation between God
and the creature."9
Some commentators do dissent from this conventional wisdom. Meyendorff s view
of the importance of Thomas is echoed on the Western side by the panel of Roman
Catholic and Lutheran scholars who collaborated on the common statement in Justifica-
tion by Faith. Nevertheless, while this group finds that Aquinas and the Eastern tradition
provide useful points of comparison, it differs from Meyendorff in expecting to dis-
cover points of similarity rather than fundamental difference. Eastern theologians, the
statement maintains, described human salvation in terms of a return to God of a cre-
ation that had gone forth from God, and this pattern may still be found in such strong-
holds of Western scholasticism as Aquinas' Summa Theologiae.10 Further, while Aquinas'
position as the strongman of Western scholasticism is denied only by the eccentric,
Palamas' significance within his own tradition has been disputed. Nevertheless, the source
of such objections to his centrality often proves to be Westerners such as Michael Fahey
or the highly influential Martin Jugie, whose tendentious views of Orthodoxy in gen-
eral and Palamas in particular have powerfully shaped the history of interpretation and
reception. Jugie's views are debatable on many counts, but most certainly on Palamas'
enduring place in the Eastern tradition. Writing in 1941, just before the great renais-
sance of Palamas scholarship, he predicted: "Palamism, as the dogma of the Graeco-
Russian church, is truly dead, and neither its few proponents among the Greeks who
have always maintained it, nor the recent sympathy for it on the part of several Russian
emigres, will be able to resuscitate it."" Even so cool a Western observer of Orthodoxy
as Bernhard Schultze challenges this view. Remarking that not only Jugie but also Georges
Florovsky noted a period of latency in attention to Palamas, he points to the resurgence
of interest represented by the work of Basil Krivosheine, Cyprian Kern and Vladimir Lossky
and concludes: "Moreover, in more than one recent controversy Palamism has not only
been recovered, but reckoned by both parties as a badge of Orthodoxy."12
Although there is far from universal agreement, then, the widely accepted positions
of Aquinas and Palamas within their respective traditions and the common perception
of a direct opposition betweeen them are two good and obvious reasons for focusing
on these two figures. The best reason for using their works as a basis for a comparison
between East and West, however, is that given by Ware: when comparisons are made,
the utmost care should be taken not to contrast the best on ome side with the second best
on the other.13 Even if Fahey correctly regards Palamas and Aquinas as the recipients of
a too exclusive focus of attention, there can be no question that both belong to the first
rank of theologians in their respective traditions.
There still remains the question of why Palamas and Aquinas should be compared
specifically on the issue of deification (or theosis or divinization—the three terms will be
used interchangably hereafter). Many points of contention between East and West that
were once debated heatedly, such as Saturday fasting and clergy beards, are no longer
regarded as problematic by either side. Two questions have continued to loom very large:
the filioque and papal supremacy. Are these issues not more significant for ecumenical
relations than deification? Perhaps, but precisely because they recur so frequently in
ecumenical discussions, they are less in need of study. Papal supremacy, in any case, is
6 9 THE GROUND OF UNION
not an issue dividing East from West but an issue dividing the Roman Catholic from
all other Christian churches. It does not pertain, therefore, specifically to East-West
dialogue, especially since in the crucial period of separation the problem appeared in
a rather different form than it does today; it was then concerned not with papal infal-
libility as a dogma but with the relation of the Western pope to the Eastern patriarch.
Moreover, if the papacy continues to be a thorny issue in ecumenical relations, the
filioque does not.
A more important reason for focusing on deification is that while it was not origi-
nally recognized as a dividing issue, it is increasingly identified as the point at which
Thomistic and Palamite theology diverge. Thus the historian Steven Runciman finds in
history the basis for a theological divide as fundamental as it is irrevocable:
Gregory Palamas's doctrine of the Divine Energies not only provided the dogmatic basis
to the Greek view of mysticism. It was also a restatement of the traditional interpretation
of the Greek Fathers' theory of God's relation to man. It came to be accepted by a series of
fourteenth-century Councils as the official doctrine of the Greek Church.14 To Western
theologians it seemed to be clear heresy. It could not be reconciled with Thomism.15
This stark judgment is echoed by other commentators in only slightly less dire terms.
Some view the historical problem as one of correct development of doctrine. On the
Orthodox side, Paul Evdokimov claims that after Augustine and Ambrose, Latin theol-
ogy replaced the theology of theosis with the theology of filiation and grace,16 an inter-
pretation that essentially faults the West for infidelity to the true theological tradition.
Fahey essentially concurs in the view that the problem is one of development, though
without faulting either side.17 We should note, however, that dispute over deification
erupts not only as a point of contention between East and West but also within the East-
ern church in the hesychast controversy: Palamas might well never have risen to theo-
logical prominence had he not been spurred by his dispute with Barlaam, of which we
shall hear more later. As J. M. Hussey and T. A. Hart note: "It was soon apparent [in the
exchange of letters between the two] that the immediate question of the validity of the
hesychast prayer could not be settled without a discussion of its underlying principle,
that of the deification of man."18
An alternate explanation of the historical cause of the divide between East and West
seeks its cause in philosophical assumptions. In Catherine Mowry LaCugna's view, the
difference between East and West lies in attitudes towards substance metaphysics,19 a
grounding that she believes rules out the possibility of a Western form of deification.
Andre de Halleux more specifically links this "mystery of communion bet-ween God and
humanity" to the difference between the Platonic basis of the Palamite East and the Ar-
istotelian basis of the scholastic West.20
While the root causes of the differences remain debatable, there is a clear consensus
that at the systematic level such a divide exists. Yves Congar, whose influential work,
After Nine Hundred Years takes a rather pessimistic view of the possibilities of reunion, never-
theless regards theosis as a useful locus of investigation: "A study should be made of the
theme of Paradise, from an ecclesiological point of view. . . . The dominant idea is of
creation attaining its divine end, by the fact that in its midst there has been set a prin-
ciple (the principle) of divinization."21 While Congar recommends further study, how-
ever, he also sees the fundamental opposition between East and West of which Steven