Theological Pensee, no. 2

"Speech--God of Word, Act, and Promise and not the god of the ontologians."

We do not ascend a ladder to meet God.  His Word descended and spoke to us (Romans 10).  The above is not a criticism of metaphysics.  Logical and metaphysical tools help us refine what we believe about God.  We can even make a case for ontotheism if we were so inclined.  

Rather, we are attacking chain of being.

A reflection on *Being*

Based on Robert Sweetman's essay in Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed T radition.  His larger target is the claim that nominalism created the Reformation (and hence ruined Christian Europe).  I think he ably rebuts that thesis, but his essay does a good job in showing what the analogia entis really is.

“Being” covers the most humble individual to the most general genera.  Being functions as a genus, but it is not a genus itself.  It does not have anything more universal in which it can participate.  Because being is not definable, it is not univocal.  

Because we have to predicate “being” over everything, this points to some sameness between everything.  And because there is a sameness, being cannot be equivocal.  Thus, it is analogical.  

Further, Thomas denies univocal knowledge (ST 1 Q. 13 a.5).  When we predicate some finite thing, we predicate it in a divided way.  When we predicate something of God, we are predicating it in an undivided way (since God has it immediately and simply).

Analogy is founded on the proportionality of one name to another where they participate in a common  unity.  The predicate of a term of both God and man is founded on some order of all creatures.  In short, analogical predication posits a single essence as a middle term uniting God and creature (Sweetman 83).  The dissimilarity is that the creature has a derived and diminished existence. 

Neo-Church Fathers, hellenism, or extra nos proclamation

To help put the below in context, here is a picture of Chain of Being

"Like the dead, take no account of either the scorn of men or their praises, and you can be saved." -St. Makarios the Great.
“Struggle until death to fulfil the commandments: purified through them, you will enter into life.”
—St Thalassios the Libyan

Response:  if all he means by this is struggle in sanctification, no problem.   

A person must first spend a long time in ascetic practice. He must begin by purifying his body from the actual committing of sin, whether great or small, and then purge his soul of every form of desire or anger. His moral impulses need to be disciplined by good habit, so that he does not do anything whatsoever through his five senses that is contrary to the purpose of his intellect, [This is very good Hellenistic philosophy, but very bad Hebraic revelation--JBA]  nor does his inner self consent to any such thing. It is then, when finally he becomes subject to himself, that God makes all things subject to him through dispassion and by the grace of the Holy Spirit. For a man must first submit to the law of God, and then he will rule as an intelligent being over all around him. His intellect will reign as it was originally created to reign, with judgment and self-restraint, with courage and justice. Now he will calm his wrath with the gentleness of his desire, now quieten his desire with the austerity of his wrath; and he will know that he is a king. All the limbs of his body, no longer abducted by ignorance and forgetfulness, will act in accordance with God’s commandment. Then through his devotion to God he will achieve spiritual insight and will begin to anticipate the snares prepared by the devil and his secret and stealthy attacks.St Peter of Damaskos

If this is true, and if this is being used as the ground of salvation, and this is the purported biblical teaching, then why did Paul worry about being accused of antinominism.  At least Roman Catholicism pretends to give grace a role.

“Forgiveness of sins is betokened by freedom from the passions; he who has not yet been granted freedom from the passions has not yet received forgiveness.”
—St Thalassios the Libyan

It's hard to imagine Paul being accused of antinominianism in Romans 6 if he were preaching the above.

The only path to salvation is the  unwavering following of the instructions of the Holy Fathers
~Ignatios Briannchaninov

Seems like Jesus got replaced.

“Chastity's wings are greater and lighter than the wings of marriage. Intercourse, while pure, is lower. Its house of refuge is modest* darkness. Confidence belongs entirely to chastity, which light enfolds.”
—St Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on the Nativity

Notice the language of higher/lower.  Spiritual (mind) stuff is higher on the scale than passional stuff.  This is Hellenism with a vengeance and it is foreign to the Bible.  My whole outlook on life is one total negation of this mentality.  

“Since Elijah repressed the desire of his body, he could withhold the rain from the adulterers. Since he restrained his body, he could restrain the dew from the whoremongers who released and sent forth their streams. Since the hidden fire, bodily desire, did not prevail in him, the fire of the high place obeyed him, and since on earth he conquered fleshly desire, he went up to the place where holiness dwells and is at peace. Elisha, too, who killed his body, revived the dead. That which is by nature mortal gains life by chastity, which is beyond nature. He revived the boy since he refined himself like a newly wind infant. Moses, who divided and separated himself from his wife, divided the sea before the harlot. Zipporah maintained chastity, although she was the daughter of pagan priests; with a calf the daughter of Abraham went whoring.”—St Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on the Nativity

This is funny since Elijah called down fire on men.  Was he doing it Jedi-style, with the passions neutral?