The return of my commitment to philosophical writing was happily marked earlier this year by the acceptance for publication at Religious Studies of a short essay I wrote, “On Orthodox Panentheism.” The goal of the paper was to explicate a picture of the God-world relation which is both Orthodox (in big- and little- ‘o’ senses) and distinctively panentheistic, where “panentheism” is commonly defined as a view where God is “in” the world, and the world is “in” God, but where God is still transcendent of the world.
Dear Jeremiah, while life is too short to read another of Rooney’s confused screeds, I am not surprised that he cannot make basic distinctions. He once wrote a paper conflating me with Jordan Wood on the relation of the divine identity to creation, which is an issue on which Jordan and I totally disagree. I have to admit that your use of Palamite metaphysics suggests that you and I are not really on the same page on a few fairly crucial points, since I am (notoriously in some minds) hostile to neo-Palamism. But in the main you are of course right about that which is most essential: Sirach 43:27–or, to put it in a way that Rooney can’t read, τὸ πᾶν ἐστιν αὐτός.
It’s important to remember the Neoplatonic origins of these ideas. In Proclus’ ‘Elements of Theology’, proposition 115, Proclys argues that every god is above being, above life, and above mind. The words he uses are υπερουσιος, υπερζωος, and υπερνους. Pseudo Dionysius would transpose this conception onto Christian theology (Divine Names, 6:1). In propositions 23 and 24 of Elements of Theology, Proclus draws a distinction between particable and imparticable forms, as a solution to a problem with Plato’s theory of forms as laid out in Parmenides. Proclus then argues in proposition 116 that every god is particable except for God (The One). This is crucial for understanding what Pseudo Dionysius is taking about in The Divine Names ch. 2 part 5, when he talks about the nonparticipation of the Godhead. So that God is then essentially imparticable but energetically particable.
Proclus also takes a distinction between ουσία and ενέργεια for granted throughout his work. The distinction between essence and action (or energy, or operation), almost certainly goes back the Plato’s Timeaus. That at the beginning of the Timaeus, Socrates and company recount the previous day’s discussion of the ideal city in the The Republic. A description of the essence of the ideal city. Now they want know of the ideal city in action; if one will, the energies of the ideal city. Which then lead to the myth of Atlantis. That Athens will be the ideal city in action by resisting an invasion by the empire of Atlantis. Suffice to say, the myth of Atlantis has been taken grossly out of context.
I wonder if there's some utility in considering the starting point to be the Incarnation, since this is the point of ultimate connection between divinity and the created order, which are united "without change, without confusion, without division, without separation," perfectly preserving both Transcendence and Immanence. This "moment in time," perhaps because it happened to an eternal, infinite Person, also has repercussions all throughout the "past" (even the "time before time" before Creation), and thus can the Lamb slain in 33 A.D. also be the "Lamb slain before the foundation of the world."
Looks very interesting and I look forward to seeing this develop. This may be a dumb questions, but what is the relation between God's energies and Christ? It seems that some of the statements about the energies also could be made about Christ; i.e., it is through Him that we access the Father.
Well, for starters—how’s the Greek? I would think that you should know Greek if you’re going to make claims about what the Greek Fathers mean when they talk about the God-world relationship.
Sure. Your argument, if I understand it, has to do with suggesting that panentheism is not Orthodox/orthodox or coherent. This is partly an exegetical argument about what the Greek Fathers mean in context and partly an interpretive argument about what to do with what they think in a prescriptive mode. If your exegetical argument is to suggest that the Greek Fathers never speak about God as the true being of the world or as never including the world or as in no way continuous with the world, this is erroneous, and the sort of error you’d be more likely to make if you cannot read them in Greek/don’t know their philosophical milieu very well.
I was not asking about your thoughts in regard to the exegetical argument, since your claim earlier was that I was ignorant about 'very basic metaphysics.' We can talk about exegetical arguments elsewhere. But, to clarify your earlier point, what did you think I am missing regarding 'very basic metaphysics'? For example, do you think it is obviously/uncontroversially true and in need of no argument, or 'very basic metaphysics,' that God or His energies are the substantial forms of created entities? Or do you concede that Carey's claims on this front are contentious?
Responding to the rest of your comment: I’m not a Palamite, but neither is David Bentley Hart. Your rebuttal to “panentheism,” as Jeremiah correctly notes, lumps him and Hart together as though they represent one position, which they do not. But the idea that God is in fact the substantial form of forms, or that the Logos qua Logos is simultaneously also the logoi of created things, is at least as old as Philo of Alexandria—older if one considers the monistic background to Philo’s thought in the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. That Clement, Origen, the Cappadocians, Evagrius, Ps-Dionysius, and Maximus, as well as Eriugena summarizing them, all take this essential point in succession from one another cannot miss anyone that reads them in their originals. When LXX Sir 43:27 says that God is το παν or Ps-Dionysius says that God is “all things and none of them” (DN I.6 596A-C), it is only an extremely eisegetical act of special pleading that could avoid the conclusion that they mean what they say in pointing to God as, indeed, the substantial being of the world. This is for the Greek Fathers generally the entire point of LXX Exod 3:14.
That you don’t see the connection between the descriptive and prescriptive elements of your argument I cannot help you with. But in Greek philosophy generally, simplicity and infinity imply a certain degree of monism, and pantheology (to borrow MJ Rubenstein’s term), and the Greek Fathers utilize that. Your contention, if I have you right, that panentheism is not coherent, is therefore tantamount to claiming that a good degree of the Greek philosophical tradition—particularly the Stoicism invoked by the New Testament texts and the Middle and Neoplatonism that Early Christianity absorbed—is not coherent. This seems to me to be a basic ignorance of the metaphysical logic that makes the Greek tradition so powerful, and of what attracted the Fathers to its use in expounding Christian Faith. And I ask about the Greek, because the Greek would help.
Dear Jeremiah, while life is too short to read another of Rooney’s confused screeds, I am not surprised that he cannot make basic distinctions. He once wrote a paper conflating me with Jordan Wood on the relation of the divine identity to creation, which is an issue on which Jordan and I totally disagree. I have to admit that your use of Palamite metaphysics suggests that you and I are not really on the same page on a few fairly crucial points, since I am (notoriously in some minds) hostile to neo-Palamism. But in the main you are of course right about that which is most essential: Sirach 43:27–or, to put it in a way that Rooney can’t read, τὸ πᾶν ἐστιν αὐτός.
愿天主赐予你平安。
愿上帝启迪你，让你学会谦逊，你这个可悲的家伙。
您不知道我的学术领域中包括亚洲语言和文学吗？
Just being trolled by Fr. Rooney is saying something. It looks to me that you are on the right path.
Any chance you'd be willing to directly send a draft of the paper? I don't have institutional log-in credentials :)
It’s important to remember the Neoplatonic origins of these ideas. In Proclus’ ‘Elements of Theology’, proposition 115, Proclys argues that every god is above being, above life, and above mind. The words he uses are υπερουσιος, υπερζωος, and υπερνους. Pseudo Dionysius would transpose this conception onto Christian theology (Divine Names, 6:1). In propositions 23 and 24 of Elements of Theology, Proclus draws a distinction between particable and imparticable forms, as a solution to a problem with Plato’s theory of forms as laid out in Parmenides. Proclus then argues in proposition 116 that every god is particable except for God (The One). This is crucial for understanding what Pseudo Dionysius is taking about in The Divine Names ch. 2 part 5, when he talks about the nonparticipation of the Godhead. So that God is then essentially imparticable but energetically particable.
Proclus also takes a distinction between ουσία and ενέργεια for granted throughout his work. The distinction between essence and action (or energy, or operation), almost certainly goes back the Plato’s Timeaus. That at the beginning of the Timaeus, Socrates and company recount the previous day’s discussion of the ideal city in the The Republic. A description of the essence of the ideal city. Now they want know of the ideal city in action; if one will, the energies of the ideal city. Which then lead to the myth of Atlantis. That Athens will be the ideal city in action by resisting an invasion by the empire of Atlantis. Suffice to say, the myth of Atlantis has been taken grossly out of context.
I wonder if there's some utility in considering the starting point to be the Incarnation, since this is the point of ultimate connection between divinity and the created order, which are united "without change, without confusion, without division, without separation," perfectly preserving both Transcendence and Immanence. This "moment in time," perhaps because it happened to an eternal, infinite Person, also has repercussions all throughout the "past" (even the "time before time" before Creation), and thus can the Lamb slain in 33 A.D. also be the "Lamb slain before the foundation of the world."
Looks very interesting and I look forward to seeing this develop. This may be a dumb questions, but what is the relation between God's energies and Christ? It seems that some of the statements about the energies also could be made about Christ; i.e., it is through Him that we access the Father.
The energy versus essence distinction has its origins in Neoplatonism.
What Rooney really does is reveal his ignorance here of very basic metaphysics.
You are welcome to say what you think I'm missing.
Well, for starters—how’s the Greek? I would think that you should know Greek if you’re going to make claims about what the Greek Fathers mean when they talk about the God-world relationship.
I was interested in your claim about 'very basic metaphysics.' Would you care to elaborate?
Sure. Your argument, if I understand it, has to do with suggesting that panentheism is not Orthodox/orthodox or coherent. This is partly an exegetical argument about what the Greek Fathers mean in context and partly an interpretive argument about what to do with what they think in a prescriptive mode. If your exegetical argument is to suggest that the Greek Fathers never speak about God as the true being of the world or as never including the world or as in no way continuous with the world, this is erroneous, and the sort of error you’d be more likely to make if you cannot read them in Greek/don’t know their philosophical milieu very well.
I was not asking about your thoughts in regard to the exegetical argument, since your claim earlier was that I was ignorant about 'very basic metaphysics.' We can talk about exegetical arguments elsewhere. But, to clarify your earlier point, what did you think I am missing regarding 'very basic metaphysics'? For example, do you think it is obviously/uncontroversially true and in need of no argument, or 'very basic metaphysics,' that God or His energies are the substantial forms of created entities? Or do you concede that Carey's claims on this front are contentious?
Responding to the rest of your comment: I’m not a Palamite, but neither is David Bentley Hart. Your rebuttal to “panentheism,” as Jeremiah correctly notes, lumps him and Hart together as though they represent one position, which they do not. But the idea that God is in fact the substantial form of forms, or that the Logos qua Logos is simultaneously also the logoi of created things, is at least as old as Philo of Alexandria—older if one considers the monistic background to Philo’s thought in the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. That Clement, Origen, the Cappadocians, Evagrius, Ps-Dionysius, and Maximus, as well as Eriugena summarizing them, all take this essential point in succession from one another cannot miss anyone that reads them in their originals. When LXX Sir 43:27 says that God is το παν or Ps-Dionysius says that God is “all things and none of them” (DN I.6 596A-C), it is only an extremely eisegetical act of special pleading that could avoid the conclusion that they mean what they say in pointing to God as, indeed, the substantial being of the world. This is for the Greek Fathers generally the entire point of LXX Exod 3:14.
That you don’t see the connection between the descriptive and prescriptive elements of your argument I cannot help you with. But in Greek philosophy generally, simplicity and infinity imply a certain degree of monism, and pantheology (to borrow MJ Rubenstein’s term), and the Greek Fathers utilize that. Your contention, if I have you right, that panentheism is not coherent, is therefore tantamount to claiming that a good degree of the Greek philosophical tradition—particularly the Stoicism invoked by the New Testament texts and the Middle and Neoplatonism that Early Christianity absorbed—is not coherent. This seems to me to be a basic ignorance of the metaphysical logic that makes the Greek tradition so powerful, and of what attracted the Fathers to its use in expounding Christian Faith. And I ask about the Greek, because the Greek would help.