Eastern Orthodox theologians assert that there is no way for finite humans to understand or even to think of God as He actually is because He is infinite. Orthodox theologians distinguish between the "apophatic," (or negative way of knowing God by asserting what He is not) and the positive or "cataphatic" means of knowing Him. More comfortable with the mystical than most in the West, the paradox of the infinite revealing Himself to the finite and the tension between apophatic and cataphatic knowledge is, for Orthodox theologians, a cause for worship, not scholastic contemplation and examination.
The center of Orthodox theology is the concept of "theosis": participation in God's nature while maintaining a distinct human nature. Theosis is at the center of the Orthodox understandings of humanity, sin, and redemption. Humanity was created to participate in theosis but the Fall brought mortality which led to individual sin. Redemption is God's provision of divine life in Christ, the beginning of theosis. The concept of theosis has also influenced the Eastern ecclesiastical practice of the use of icons and the Orthodox understanding of the Lord's Supper.
This paper will examine the development of Eastern Orthodoxy as well as some of its major tenets. Special attention will be given to those areas where the differences between it and Western theology seem to be especially important.
It is important to note that prior to the split with Rome and its ecclesiastical allies, the Eastern Orthodox church played an important role in defending orthodox Christology against the heresy of monophysitism. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 set forth as orthodox the belief that in the person of Christ there are two complete natures, not one. At this point, a group of churches continuing to hold to the belief that Christ had only one nature, split from the still united Eastern and Western churches. They refer to themselves as Orthodox, but they are not a part of the Eastern Orthodox church [2].
Following the Council of Chalcedon, differences between the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity grew, but the two did not officially split until 1054 when a papal bull of excommunication was delivered to Eastern Orthodoxy's leading city, Constantinople (Istanbul) [3]. The two most grievous points of conflict which precipitated the split were the issues of papal authority and the Filoque clause. The Eastern churches attributed much greater authority to the decrees of the church councils than did the Roman Church, which honored the Pope at the same level as the councils and thought it appropriate for the Pope to have authority over creedal statements made in the past [4]. When the Latin church adapted the creed established at the second Council of Nicaea by adding the Filoque clause, the Eastern Orthodox church took a stand against both the content of the clause as well as the liberty taken with an established doctrine of the church. The Filoque clause essentially asserted that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Son as well as from the Father. The Eastern Orthodox conception of the Trinity did not allow for this addition. Both sides of the controversy took a series of steps away from one another, and the schism was unmistakably completed when Pope Leo IX excommunicated the Eastern Christians. Thus, from the eleventh century continuing through the present, Eastern Orthodoxy has developed as a theological system separate from Western Catholicism and Protestantism.
Because of the monophysite controversy and the radical split with Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy was geographically constrained on both the East and West. Thus, it's expansion was primarily to the North as Eastern Orthodox missionaries took Christianity into the Slavic countries [5]. Today, Eastern Orthodoxy is prominant in Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Russia, and Georgia are all Eastern Orthodox, and there continues to be a Patriarchate of Constantinople (Istanbul).
In answer to this problem, the Greek Fathers proposed the negative, or "apophatic," way of knowing God. Essentially, the apophatic way refers to knowing God by recognizing and asserting what He is not [7]. The Chalcedonian Creed reflects apophatic thought in the language it employs to describe the nature of Christ. The Creed is couched in negative terms and offers little explanation of the exact nature of the incarnation [8].
Additionally, the Orthodox church understands the nature of theology to be paradoxical: an unknowable God chooses to reveal Himself. The content of His revelation is the incarnation, and through it the distance between the finite and the infinite is in some sense bridged. Thus, they assert that in tension with the apophatic way of knowing God is the positive or "cataphatic" means of knowing Him. The paradox of the infinite revealing Himself to the finite and the tension between apophatic and cataphatic knowledge is that any understanding gained cataphatically serves only to point to the immensity of the gulf remaining between the man with newfound understanding and the actual reality of God. For the Orthodox, any knowledge of God is grounds not for the cessation of contemplation, but continued hunger for more [9].
The Orthodox approach to God is therefore much more tolerant of the mystical and the mysterious aspects of the God-head than is Western theology. Theology in the West tends to emphasize the rational pursuit of information about God and the systematic elimination of all that is mysterious about Him. In contrast, Orthodoxy views the mysterious as cause for worship, not scholastic contemplation and examination. While Eastern Orthodox theologians value the mysterious, they are not proponents of the irrational or intellectually inconsistent. They think the intellect is important, but they do not believe that it is the only criteria by which truth should be judged. They assert instead that the highest form of theology is experiential, not intellectual [10].
Eastern Orthodoxy's assertion that humanity's ultimate goal is theosis, or participation in the Divine life, has informed and shaped their doctrine of the Fall. Their understanding of original sin differs from that of Western theologians in that Adam and Eve are not responsible, through their sin, for universal guilt, but for universal mortality. Adam's personal sin did not bring condemnation upon all people, it brought death upon all people. The experience of mortality leads otherwise guiltless individuals to sinful acts [12], but the Orthodox maintain that each person's sin is the result of his or her own choice and not the choice of Adam [13].
Given this idea that humanity's basic problem is mortality, the Orthodox view of redemption is much broader than that of the Western church. Western theological tradition emphasizes the judicial aspect of salvation, asserting that in salvation, God is primarily concerned with the remission of sin [14]. The Orthodox view is that the gospel is not primarily the solution to man's problem with personal sin. It is God's provision of divine life in Christ, the beginning of theosis. A residual benefit of beginning the process of deification is the remission of sins. Baptism is the means by which the believer enters into this new life. John Meyendorff summarizes the idea of redemption in Eastern Orthodox theology well. He says,
Communion in the risen body of Christ; participation in divine life; sanctification through the energy of God, which penetrates the humanity and restores it to its "natural" state, rather than justification, or remission of inherited guilt--these are at the center of Byzantine understanding of the Christian Gospel [15].
Western Christianity, beginning with Augustine, has exhibited a preference for the written word over pictorial or representative articles, while the East has gravitated toward the pictorial. The Protestant Reformers firmly rejected the use of icons and in so doing took one step further away from Eastern Orthodoxy than the Roman church had previously done [19].
The central role which icons play in Eastern Orthodox worship demands a note of explanation here. An icon is a picture of a saint, of God, or of angels painted on a piece of wood which, when completed, is blessed by the church. The painting is not technically considered an icon until it has been blessed because the blessing establishes a link between the icon and the actual subject which it portrays. Once blessed, icons are placed in churches, homes, and various public places. The first action of an Orthodox worshipper when entering the church would be to acknowledge and honor the icons displayed there. The Orthodox believe that when they contemplate the icon with the right attitude of heart, they are mystically brought into the presence of the one portrayed by the icon [20].
The argument against the use of icons in worship is that they are inherently idolatrous. Eastern Orthodox theologians deny that any deity is ascribed to the icons and justify their inclusion in worship largely on the basis of Christ's incarnation. The Orthodox think that God's use of an image, Christ's body, sanctions other uses of images as vehicles for the communication of divine truth. They cite the pictorial representation of the cherubim over the ark as another example of divinely sanctioned imaging [21].
Another practice of the Eastern Orthodox church which distinguishes it from its Western counterparts is the celebration of the Eucharist. In some ways, Eastern Orthodoxy appears to be standing between the Protestant and Catholic understanding of the Lord's Supper and its meaning. Eastern Orthodox thought understands the elements of communion to be actual types of Christ's glorified humanity, which in some mystical way, comes to the believer as he or she partakes of the bread and wine. Orthodox theologians deny that they have simply renamed the doctrine of transubstantiation. The crux of the issue and the distinction they see between what they teach and the idea of transubstantiation is that the bread and wine are representative of Christ's humanity.
On the other hand, they resist the idea that the wine and the bread are mere symbols. The Orthodox Church believes that the elements are more than a pictorial representation of Christ. There is definitely a mystical element in the Eastern Orthodox celebration of the Eucharist that is not present in Protestantism. In light of this, it is best not to categorize Eastern Orthodox thought about the Eucharist with either predominant Catholic or Protestant teaching. It is a distinct doctrine with a different flavor than either of its counterparts [22].
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