RELATIVISM 

© 2002 by Orchid Land Publications

[last updated 20020923]

i

     Two letters have come to my attention, letters that advocate "reconciling" beliefs of different kinds of Christianity and instituting intercommunion among them--both to serve as a means to achieve certain practical political goals.  I decline to mention the writers' names in order to avoid  being personal and to avoid seeming to be interested in anything beyond the ideas themselves.  (An earlier series of letters promoted experience--evidently placing it higher than, but not necessarily in contradiction to, belief.)  What these approaches have in common warrants comment.  If I contest the logic or any other aspect of these statements, I am not contesting the right to say what one supposes to be true--a right I am also claiming for myself.  It is, however, fair to contest the propriety of proposing what on the face of it appears to be impossible--at least when no attempt is made to show how to get around the obvious difficulties.  
     In addition to being or existing, humans have two potentials and the two corresponding energies of Grace that actualize those dynámeis according to which humans have been created and without which we would be animals--and not very good ones at that:  (i) Cognitive or mental; and (ii) will or moral.  The first has to do with belief, doctrine; the latter has to do with politics and, if you will, experience.  They are often related.  In fact, will without reason is bound to go astray according to the Fathers; nevertheless the Reformers (and the whole via moderna tradition Luther adhered to) exalted will above reason.  "Being related" does not mean being confused with one another.  To confuse co-operation with communion is simply unacceptable in the real world, not to speak of the world of logic and commonsense.  This is because co-operation is on the level of will and love, whereas communion is on the level of belief, without which communion can only be a superficial Lord's Supper.  (See on the meanings of "Unity with God" below.)     
     What does Scripture say?  My concordance lists three and a third long columns of passages (by far the most being from the New Testament) containing "belief" and "believer)."  They are too many to quote here, but if one reads the NT, one will know them already; otherwise, why be Orthodox?  What did the Protomartyr; St. Laurence; SS. Blandina and her companions--as well as thousands of  other holy Martyrs--say?  If the reader doesn't know, why is one Orthodox at all?      
     To put a human-oriented, political agenda above the holy Faith seems intolerable to me.  (I don't deny that one can cite plenty of ethnic and other agendas--like teaching modern instead of New Testament Greek in church schools or calling colleges by names of foreign cultures--as though any of them were superior to our own in the non-religious aspects intended.  When GOA institutions speak of the Church's task as being to promote Hellenic culture, they are not speaking of the ancient culture on which Western civilization is based--since that kind of Greek is not what is taught in parish schools--whose pupils cannot read the NT.)     
     What did St. Peter the Aleut (the first Orthodox native-American Martyr) say when given the choice of having his hands, etc., cut off if he failed to become a Latin Catholic?  He said, "We have been baptized" and he refused to save his life or escape other tortures for the sake of relativizing the Faith he had accepted.  Should we recommend others to do less?      
     What is problematic for the proposals under scrutiny, viz. proposals to subject beliefs to politics?  The main problem in saying (the Pope says it too), "Let's get together!" is that writers unfailingly stop short of revealing HOW--i.e. how to "reconcile" antinomies without abandoning honest beliefs.   (I'm not talking about politics--reconciling the papacy with Orthodoxy and all of that.)  Never do we find a concrete proposal for reconciling incompatible views of Grace or Unity with God (see below); yet, these two beliefs are basic enough.  But unless the way is shown, the whole idea comes down to abandoning beliefs as not worth exalting above political good will--a position that (like the idea that love can overcome all differences) in the end levels all religious differences as not being worth the time of day.  There's NO THIRD WAY OUT; or, if there is, let's be shown!  It is proper either to show how to do it or to stop advocating such an idea.     
     To show what I mean, let the authors of the letters in question rise to the following challenge.  Take a basic belief--Grace, which all agree is unearned and necessary to Salvation--or Unity with God as our final destiny.  Please reveal how to reconcile the following differences in an HONEST way if you think you should continue advocating what is unthinkable by those who follow the criteria of honest discussion.   

--Orthodox GRACE:  UNCREATED ENERGY

--Latin Sanctifying GRACE:  created NON-ENERGETIC (non-operativa) HABIT 
     (an enduring QUALITY) of a believer's soul 
--Protestant) GRACE:  God's BENIGNITY . . . not "something." 

--Orthodox UNITY with GOD:  ONTOLOGICAL, through the uncreated ENERGIES
      in uncreated Light. 
--Latin UNITY with GOD:  VIRTUAL Unity with the ontologically imparticipable 
    divine ESSENCE--an intentional or conceptual Unity. 
--Protestant UNITY with GOD:  VIRTUAL Unity with the divine ESSENCE--covenantal,
     will-based. 

     How can Grace be both energetic and non-energetic, both uncreated and created?
Please don't duck the issue, all who advocate reconciling these views.  Or do we just tolerate all of them side-by-side (which is relativism, effectively non-belief) and put political goals ahead of TRUTH?  Would any Orthodox subscribe to Calvin's opinion?:  He said to Hobbes, his pet tiger:  "But who likes originality and truth?!  Nobody!  Life's hard enough without it!  Only an idiot would pay for it!"    But then, the Apostle Paul advised us to "rightly-discern" [one word in Greek:  "rightly cut out"] the truth." 
    If you think that  intercommunion is the only way to have worthwhile religious coöperation--which to my mind  confuses the energy of believing with the energy of will . . . and for a politic end at that--please show us how!  Please show us a concrete example involving the fundamental concepts just laid out!  Let's be grown-up about it.  Let's not turn Orthodoxy into one more relativistic religion--there are plenty of those around to choose from, and the Internet will offer you some that even call themselves "Orthodox."  You can have your cake and eat it too in one of those.      
     Why propose something that, unless you can show otherwise, is not possible to achieve in an above-board way?  I'm not saying you can't, just that I think it cannot be done.  Unless one can show how it is possible to bring  together in an honest way any two of the three views (except the two Western views about virtual unity), it is hardly proper to go around advocating what on the face of it is not possible.  Now I'm not denying that some people ignorant of our beliefs and the beliefs of others could honestly think that they can be combined or relativistic ally tolerated.  But those who know what we and others believe cannot, I claim, logically show how they can be honestly (with integrity on all sides) combined.  To show I'm wrong, be my guest; if you cannot or won't, why advocate it?  It is hardly a proper way-out to say, "Someone with good will can combine them!"  If even the Pope cannot show how, can that be a workable or convincing approach?  Note that I am not (for purposes of this discussion) saying that the beliefs cannot be combined; I'm saying, "Till you show how to do it, it must be considered an airy-fairy proposal from never-never-land."      
     Far better would it be to put beliefs above expedience and die for them, as the Saints have done!  Or don't the Saints count as guides for us Orthodox any more?  I defend everyone's right to have one's say (so long as it's not harmful to others), but I am simply asking whether an Orthodox list is really the most appropriate place to promote doctrinal relativism for the sake of achieving the stated political goals?  (Am I wrong in thinking that one letter seems to think that abandoning Orthodox beliefs is less of an evil than letting the Muslims wreak havoc on the world . . . that if this goal could be achieved through relativism, it's okay?)  For my part, I think that one would be advised to read all of the NT passages that speak of belief and believing . . . and truth; and then--BEFORE assuring us that reconciliation of Orthodox, Latins, Lutherans, etc. can be done--SHOW HOW to reconcile what is not amenable to being reconciled.  Otherwise, one is just waving hands at the matter.  If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and if this describes all past (but not all thinkable) ecumenist game plans, I'd recommend another adage--if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!  I don't see how conflicting beliefs belonging to different thought worlds (axiomatic paradigms) can be reconciled in an honest way . . . nor do I see how that strategy can be reconciled with the examples of St. Athanasios the Great, St. Vasil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, the many Martyrs who suffered for our Faith that we honor, etc.  Recall that more Orthodox martyrs died under the Turks and Communists in the last century than in all past centuries in all forms of Christianity.  Was that all wasted, and is the Blood of Martyrs who have died for Orthodox beliefs not the seed of the Church?       
     Everything comes down to this:  What does it accomplish to advocate something that one cannot show to be doable in an acceptable manner?

ii

    With regard to one letter last week written to refute an earlier one by me refuting other relativists, let me simply point out that a "refutation" on the level of practical volition cannot counter a statement on the (cognitive and/or noëtic) level of belief.  
     The purport of what follows is to show that my correspondent's assertion--"Christ's emphasis was on striving to live harmoniously with one's neighbor"--could easily be true without necessitating the abolishing of differences of belief and without compromising or watering down our beliefs.  Before discussing whether we need to ignore some beliefs in order to achieve harmony and the "peace that passeth all understanding" it will be well to pause and see what Christ said of His mission in Mat. 10:34:  "Don't suppose that I've come to bring peace on  earth: I haven't come to bring peace but a sword."  One sword that he brought was the sword of truth that rightly discerns [cuts out] the truth (see 1 Tim. 2:15).  Of course, Christ's words cannot contradict my correspondent if it's all relative:  In that case, Mat. 10:37-39 can mean whatever one wishes the passage to mean, as in the modernist "hermeneutic" theologies.  If truth is relative, there's no problem in suppressing or ignoring it when one is pushing an agenda that differs  from the Orthodox Tradition.   It's as though these ecumenist proposals for the Orthodox had not always failed--uniformly--an alleged thirty times during the Middle Ages and countless times in the twentieth century.  If there were an ecumenism conducted according to the energy-ontology of the Orthodox paradigm, Orthodoxy would of course NOT come out the loser, as it has in ALL past officially sponsored discussions that I am aware of.  (There are, by the way, printed collections of some of the more recent ones that the Orthodox have taken part in.)
     But to return to Christ's teaching, Jesus did not advise watering down beliefs in order to get along with others.  That is 100% false.   (If that is not what my correspondent is contending, what would be the point of her advocating that we ignore and/or compromise points of basic belief to promote harmony?)   She cites Titos 3:9 in opposition to my view that we should not compromise our views for the sake of a secular (or any other) goal . . . a view that I am amplifying here by noting that agreeing is not necessary for living in harmony and coöperation with others.  Titos objects to moras zeteseis "inane controversies."   The passage reads:  "Avoid inane controversies . . . and strife [plural in Greek] and legalistic quarrels."  If one is to avoid controversies per se, why is my correspondent so zealous in getting mired down in them?  Isn't she quoting against her own arguments?  Note too that if there were no difference between inane quarrels and useful quarrels, we could and should toss the writings of St. Athanasios and St. Gregory Palamãs out of the window, shouldn't we?  
      Can't one see that Christ did not teach that we should only love those we agree with?  Why teach what we already do?  Christ urged us rather to love those who disagree with us and attack us.  The relativist idea that in order to achieve some useful purpose we need to compromise our views is so far from the Gospel that one can only wonder why it is assumed and put forward--in this instance, as being Christ's will.  The New Testament urges us to love even those who disagree with us—which constitutes the grounds for my loving the authoress of the letter in question. To repeat, one mustn't confuse co-operation or love or peace with what is on another (the cognitive) dimension--agreeing on beliefs. 
     Note that the question is not about one's right to be a relativist.  The question is whether relativism is to be found in the Bible as interpreted by the Fathers--the way the Orthodox have always approached such matters.  The question is whether relativism conflicts with true Faith and hence with ORTHOdoxy. What do we read from this correspondent?  She writes: 

 Christ didn't base salvation on concepts of grace being created or uncreated.  Grace is a gift.  Do brothers and  sisters sharing a swingset argue with each other about how it was manufactured or do they just enjoy IT [my emphasis]?   How does clinging to this particular contention contribute to Christianity's purpose or to God's 'peace that passeth all understanding?  

If Christ's purpose was, as He Himself declared, NOT that of bringing peace on earth,  how can my correspondent contend that this was "Christ's emphasis" or "Christianity's purpose"?  Isn't this falling into a mora zetesis or "inane debate"?  Selective citing of Scripture is the oldest artifice of inane debate.
     When my correspondent says, "In all doctrines, grace is acknowledged. No disputes over the existence of it, . . ." the "it" covers more than one thing--three things, in fact.  When a pagan calls a given statue of Apollo or some Indic deity "God" and when we call Christ "God," there is no single "It" in common.  To think that a common name means we are speaking of the same thing is an elementary delusion, as I previously stressed.  But let's continue with the line of argumentation:

By some, grace has been experienced and reasoned to be uncreated, inherent in God, generated and emanating from Him; while others have proclaimed it as created. If this contradiction [sic!] was of such vital importance to acquiring "the pearl of great price" Christ would have distinctly addressed the issue. Perpetual dwelling on certain doctrinal differences (initiated within the mind of man), will merely hinder that desired anointing.

Now we learn what issue Christ WOULD HAVE addressed if he had thought the contradictory ideas of Grace important to discuss!  I wonder where my correspondent found this in the Orthodox Fathers and Mothers.  As for the importance of Grace, the holy tradition regards Grace as the sine qua non of righteousness.  (See Philp. 2:13 in the original ancient GREEK!)  We are being told that there's no real problem--even on a vitally basic matter--if we allow mutually exclusive views "initiated within the mind of [hu]man" to coëxist.  Presumably with regard to something less fundamental (e.g. whether the eucharistic loaf should be leavened or not), the idea that "anything goes" would be even less objectionable.  
     Let's analyse relativism once again, very tedious (pertaesum, as Cicero would say) though it may be.  I propose to show in due course why relativism is so counterproductive, to put it as mildly as politeness requires.   Since all sides apparently agree in assuming that Grace is essential to Salvation and that Grace is unearned--undeserved--what is the issue?   My correspondent correctly tells us that some say that Grace is "uncreated, inherent in God."  We must remember that if Grace (God's Life-- uncreated Energy--for the Orthodox) is not separate from His Essence, we cannot ONTOLOGICALLY participate in God's Being-beyond-being.  For, as all agree,  the uncreated Essence beyond essences is ontologically imparticipable.   Now if Grace is not part of God's Being-beyond-being AND if we cannot ontologically participate in His imparticipable Essence, we can only participate in His Essence VIRTUALLY:  As the Latin scholastics say, worshipers  participate in the divine Essence intentionally [conceptually]; the Reformers contend that believers have unity with God volitionally--covenantally.  The question that arises is whether an ontological participation with God's Life and a virtual participation in his ontologically imparticipable Essence have the same consequences . . . so that we can view them as equivalent or even equivalently rational?  

     We know what the Orthodox Fathers say, but that does not impinge on a relativist.  In fact, the very question fails to impinge on anyone that thinks of theology as just a list of beliefs--not as a coherent system in which one belief impinges on another to the benefit or harm of th' other belief!  Consider further what the correspondent goes on to say--that "others have proclaimed it [scil. Grace] . . . uncreated."  In fact, the Reformers reject the "it" in a literal way--Grace is not "something"--it is God's goodwill.  For a list mind, these are just different views of Grace--no problem, seeing that "it" is undeserved and essential for us all.  But what Grace is makes a big difference in whether Divinization is ontological and real or only virtual.  There is a connection between what Grace is and what union with God is . . . and what being saved means.  Either Grace is God's Life and Energy or It is not.  It is of vital importance.
     If anyone thinks that the foregoing is a trivial matter, that person has not accepted the Patristic idea that Unity with the divine Being (2 Pet. 1:4)  is Salvation Itself!  (Without the New Testament and Orthodox concept of actual being as that which gets actualized by energy, a worshiper's Divinization in the uncreated Light makes no sense, given that light is a form of energy.)  I will disregard the choice that Salvation is not important and take the position that "it" is no optional and trivial concern.  As such, opting for the view that Grace is or is not God's uncreated Life-giving Energy has diverse and obvious consequences.  To opt for the view that Grace is created Energy or not even "something" is to reject Orthodox teaching.  There are no two ways about it, so far as I can see, though I'm willing to listen to a logical argument favoring the contrary conclusion.  
     Note that I am judging the ideas, not the person who sent the letter being contested here.  I am not questioning that she is sincere in believing in and promoting ideas that she deems to be as worthy of being proclaimed on the internet as I think they are not--though I defend her right to argue for her views.  But since sincerity cannot make what is false true or vice-versa; and since we cannot both be right, at least one of us has got to be in error.  The truth sets us free according to Jesus, whereas the opposite goes with slavery to the despot of this world.  I cannot accept that one is being Orthodox (or Biblical:  see 2 Pet. 1:20 and cf. Col. 2:23) if one elevates private opinions above the consensus of the holy Tradition that has stood for two millenniums. This tradition upholds our opposing a false view of something basic even though it may be at the cost of having one's writing hand cut off--as happened to St. Maximos the Confessor and St. John of Damaskos.  

     Let's see where  my correspondent's  reasoning leads in some other area of life that many would agree is important--food--our daily bread, etc.  I have to assume that the notion that food is essential to life is an idea that is even less controversial than the idea that Grace is the essential nourishment of Salvation for a Christian.  The parallel should be easy to follow.  There are many kinds of material or physical food.  Some Africans live exclusively on corn and get rickets.  Some Eskimos live on fish.  Some poor Asians exist on brown rice.  Some people chew tobacco even when they are aware of the consequences.  All of that having been said, let's now call food "it."  The question is then:  Why dispute over "it"?  We do differentiate food because some get rickets, some get cholesterol, some get other diseases.  There are systematic consequences to the differences; it is not true that  they simply constitute a list of options.  It's pretty clear that calling different understandings of "God"--an idol; Jesus; Pele of the volcano that I live on the side of-- or of Grace or of Union with God "it" is as fraught with consequences as differences in the example of food (physical nourishment).   As we don't claim the differences in corn, beans, rice, shrimp, lamb, marijuana, etc. are things that we can disregard, it would be "inane" (in the verse our correspondent cites) to make the equivalent assertion about something far more important that physical food.  For is Grace not spiritual nourishment?  That differences do not matter is an idea that--IF the correspondent put it into practice--would do damage to her spiritual health and (as I plan to show below) the health of the true Church.  The "experience" which my correspondent has been prone to exalt to the detriment of other aspects of believing would reveal the diverse outcomes of consuming different kinds of spiritual food even more than  the consequences of physical food on the body.
     Aside from the facetious insertion of "perpetual" in the last sentence of the quotation last cited, there are other considerations.  I don't think that a Unitarian would balk at the idea that Grace can mean whatever you wish.  But a thoughtful Unitarian will understand that different views of Grace entail different ideas of spiritual nourishment, each having different prospective consequences.  I believe I have now met my correspondent's intimations about Christ's purpose (not:  peace) and different views of Grace.  I don't expect her to change her mind, but I would like readers not to be inveigled by her assertions.  Those who have the ability to connect the dots won't be; those with a list mentality could be.
     If the gift of Grace is so non-basic that we can wave our hands at what it means, I for one am stumped--an ecumenist could not get a classical Lutheran to accept that, so we are left with the relativist choice of uniting with the Liberal Lutherans (and Unitarians) but not with the Classical Lutherans. Where does that get us?  Of course, no Orthodox places faith ABOVE righteousness; faith is rather placed UNDER Worship and piety ( righteousness; the sequence in 1 Cor. 13 is faith, hope, love)--as the essential FOUNDATION of hope, love, and righteousness.  Beliefs are not the end--far from it.  There can be no Orthodox gnosis without orthopraxis, even though praxis without right belief is bound to be wayward.  The noëtic eyes that my correspondent speaks of go beyond the finite limits of sense data and mirror the divine Intelligence.  
     The Biblical texts cited in the correspondent's letter under scrutiny come laden with individualist (non-Patristic) deductions from them.  Whatever else the texts say, they don't prove relativism to be Biblical UNLESS one thinks that that being at peace with all people is THE purpose of the Incarnation AND that peace and coöperation PRESUPPOSE either agreeing on doctrine or ignoring doctrine . . . as being the only ways of being at peace with others, of loving them, of respecting  them . . . whatever.  Strange . . . For even I can respect someone who honestly thinks I'm wrong and can give reasons for it . . . more than I can respect someone who is indifferent to such differences of belief as divide us.  In instances in which differences are overcomable, they can only be overcome by NOT sweeping then under the rug!
     The relativism of some correspondents is a modernist (I use the term descriptively, not as a swear-word) idea that is at war with the Orthodox Fathers.  Was St. Athanasios a relativist when he suffered to keep one iota out of the Standard of Belief?  Why should we prefer a modern relativist's viewpoint to that of St. Athanasios, St. Maximos the Confessor, St. John of Damaskos, and St. Gregory Palamãs?  One has a right to believe what one wishes, but presumably not a right to call the un-Orthodox Orthodox.  I would like to know why living harmoniously with others or having the peace that surpasses understanding requires us to water down our beliefs.  The correspondent has consistently avoided addressing the HOWs.   If truth doesn't matter, we are not shown why.  We need to know how this comports with what Christ and St. Paul said about truth.  
    If the two-millennium-old Orthodox tradition doesn't count for more than an opinion of us non-Saints, why?  In John 8:58, Jesus referred Exod. 3:14 (the name of YHWH) to Himself; and St. Elizabeth in Luke 1:43 called Jesus's Mother "the Mother of YHWH" (a Jew had to say "my Lord" or another locution instead of saying the forbidden name YHWH).  If Jesus is YHWH and the Ancient of Days, the Creator of all that has been made, and LOGOS (Reason of God), as St. John said, as well as  SOPHIA (Wisdom of God), as St. Paul averred, does it not follow from all of that that unreason does despite to the LOGOS Creator and our Savior?  St. Paul told us to "rightly discern" (one word in Greek) the truth; and Jesus said that the truth sets us free.  Are we to give up what sets us free and prefer an individualist account open to the suspicion that it has been instigated by the Great Prevaricator?  Unless it is shown that St. Athanasios, St. Maximos, St Gregory the Theologian, St. John of Damaskos, etc. misinterpreted the New Testament, is it right to ask us to reject them and prefer a modern relativism--least of all to achieve a human or even secular goal? 
     If my correspondent is to "refute" what I've said, she cannot do it listwise with a list of arbitrarily selected quotations interpreted equally arbitrarily--and out of harmony with such Fathers as I am acquainted with.  She has got to do it systematically--i.e. what she says about one thing cannot conflict with other Biblical passages or what she says about them.  If anybody can convince oneself that speaking of "Grace" is saying the same thing (or at least nothing of any importance that is different) in a situation in which contrary meanings are specified, then of course one can convince oneself that if I call a statue "god," I mean the same thing or am referring to the same being as does someone who calls YHWH "God"!   If, however, Jesus is YHWH, if the Reason of God made the cosmos loyikós,  how can a Christian abandon reason for a secular compromise that can easily be shown to be contradictory (my correspondent uses the word "contradiction") and hence counterrational?  (Note that the Trinity is not counterrational because no one says that God is three and one in the same respect.)   How can we believe that Christ is Reason if we contend that goodwill can set aside reason; if we hold that goodwill can make the true untrue or the untrue true; or if we level peoples' convictions to meaningless mirages of pseudo-agreements as being the only proper way to ensure that we can or will love or have peace with one another?  I do not find this in Scripture as interpreted by the Fathers.  Perhaps some Unitarian says it, and various individuals in history have no doubt elevated these and other human goals above Worship of God, truth, and even Grace . . .  but I am sure that such was not the view of St. Eirenaíos, St. Athanasios, St. Gregory of Nazianzos the Theologian, St. Gregory Palamãs the Theologian, or the Saints who had their writing hands cut off for refusing to deny the truth.  
     The opposed error of relativism is rationalism--something to be equally warded off.  Finite human reason cannot fathom the uncreated, infinite Being beyond being.  Such attempts are fruitless.  But none of this means that we are free to ignore reason in concerns for which reason is competent--e.g. discerning a cognitive contradiction, say, a contradiction between views of Grace or Unity with God.  We should use our reason guided by NOUS ("transcendental insight"), which holistically embraces reason will, and the emotions, but IT is not overruled by them nor does NOUS take them to be of no account.  To claim that NOUS promotes relativism is strange.  To claim that speaking of "noëtic eyes" can somehow justify embracing an irrational contradiction that someone feels to be unimportant doesn't compute.  
     Those who deny that Grace is uncreated Energy also deny the distinction of God's Energy from His Essence.  Is that unimportant?  If the divine uncreated Essence is changeless AND also not distinct from Energies, is not Predestination inevitable--as Fr. J. Romanides observed?  Is that consequence unimportant?  To know whether something is important requires rising above the list mentality and considering its systematic compatibilities and incompatibilities with other truths--along with the systematic consequences of holding a given view.  How can we honestly say we are talking about the "same" thing simply because of and as the result of applying the same word to different concepts?  Anyhow, we are not SHOWN HOW to reconcile created and uncreated Grace in ways that those who hold the conflicting views could honestly say, "Your Grace and our Grace are the same in relevant ways."   
     I find the following ideas to be unjustifiable fantasies: 

--to relativize and sacrifice or compromise our Faith in 
God for the sake of human objectives;

--to assume that a kind intention necessarily presupposes 
agreement OR overrules what is right.

Moreover, I cannot think of A MORE EFFECTIVE WAY TO DISTURB THE PEACE of holy Orthodoxy than to promote relativistic ideas about the holy Faith. 

     The challenge in my previous letter has been replaced with a "refutation" that deflects the question of  truth to a goal of promoting a practical human purpose (cf. the letters which my earlier letter was responding to)--namely, the goal of fulfilling  "Christianity's purpose"--evidently (I'm not sure) "God's peace that passeth all understanding" and harmony among those of different persuasions.   I do not find in the Bible or in what I have read in the Fathers that this was a goal of Christ's important enough in His eyes to nullify Biblical exhortations about truth and true belief.  The Martyrs would be aghast at the ideal of giving up a belief to promote a pragmatic goal.  The forty Martyrs at Sevaste would be aghast to hear that they were to embrace a false view of Christianity to placate those who didn't like their religion--or to preserve their status in the army that they had been serving in.
     A person seeking truth enters a discussion having sought to neutralize one's biases to find where truth leads.  A person pushing an diverging agenda enters into a discussion having slanted the premises, having slanted some evidence and ignoring contrary evidence, and of course having adopted any strategy that will support one's predetermined agenda.  If it means checking one's reason at the narthex door, let it be so.  In all of this, there is a deep gulf that renders dialogue next to useless--as if one side spoke Navaho and th'other side spoke Tagalog.  Most other forms of Christianity have long since succumbed to relativism--unofficially where not officially.  Those that haven't done so are those that have reduced the Faith to some microdoxy.  Since the sixteenth century, Orthodoxy (because of the Balkan Dark Ages under the Turks and the demise of education that ensued), has not been free of compromises of truth for the sake of some secular goal.   The only real education during that dark time was to be found in the West, and many thinkers (authors of Western-like "Confessions" in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) more or less inevitably became infected with Western approaches.  In America, Orthodoxy has embraced some kinds of Americanizations that it should not have embraced and failed to adopt other American ways (like getting the pure view of Orthodoxy across in Orthodox Christian English) that could be viewed as necessary and beneficial to spreading the Gospel in our land.   As it is, our impact on American life and culture is as negligible as could be imagined. 
     To envision the contemporary agenda of sacrificing reason (and elevating personal interpretations above the consensus of Patristic teachings)--whether to promote opposition to Islam, to preserve the holy places in Jerusalem (though every place is equally holy or unholy in a relativistic outlook), or to promote secular peace or a personal peace that passes all understanding--as beneficial for religion in general or for Orthodoxy in particular is not a little saddening.  Resisting those distortions is a worthy struggle, even by those as unworthy as I am.
     Relativism will always appeal to those who yield to the lure of letting practical goals set aside truth, even if it means living with a contradiction (the correspondent's word).  That goal makes one immune to the problem of "perpetual"  rational conflicts.  Relativism will always be seen in the opposite light by those who cannot abide category-confusions as a mode of argumentation and believe that Christians rise to the noëtic from our whole soul--reason, will, emotions like love.  The latter group is at ease with the idea that agreeing with the Fathers' consensus will not violate reason or lead us astray.  We would remonstrate with a child for trying to tell us that feeding one's pet dog or cat entitles her or him to maintain that it is irrelevant whether the birdseed he feeds his cat and dog fills the bill . . .  as if a kind intention overruled what is good or bad!  But we learn that ANY kind of "Grace" can nourish our souls (and divinize us).  Orthodox holism, a balanced middle course between rationalism and irrationalism  (emotionalism, arbitrary volition, secular priorities, etc.) is not easy to maintain.   All of us are bound to stumble.  But when we fall, we should get up and stand as straight as we can.  
     Since the two sides (the Orthodox and either the rationalists or the relativists) speak different cognitive languages, they really cannot communicate beyond a fairly primitive degree.  But I think that giving other parties freedom to think what they wish has this one exception:   It's wrong to call an idea "Orthodox" unless it can be shown to agree with what the holy Fathers taught . . . and why promote ideas on an Orthodox site unless one is implicitly claiming that they are Orthodox?  If the Saints mentioned above had their writing hands cut off for refusing to compromise such truths about God as had been made available to sinners on earth, can't we today at least be wary (especially when it costs us nothing to avoid doing it) of ruling out beliefs that they suffered to uphold?  Others may not consider the Saints' views holy or worth accepting, but loyal Orthodox have done so . . . till recent centuries.    
     I once asked a Protestant clergyman, who has just led a group to build a new church house, what the members of his Church believed in.  He intimated that they had no explicit or ultimately sustainable beliefs.  When I asked what the purpose for the Church's existing was, he conceded that it was a social club.  A report by K. L. Woodward in 1993 (Newsweek, Aug. 9, p. 46) spoke of Methodist leaders taking time off to ask what it meant to be a Methodist.  I found that strange, since a project that you want to promote is normally (and logically) antecedent to forming an organization to promote it.  American Orthodoxy will--God forbid!-- end up like those groups if either of two opposed views prevail:   
(1) If the relativists prevail, Orthodox belief will end up as vapid as are the "tenets" of the "seven mainline Protestant" bodies described in the 1993 article; or
(2) If the Orthodox who are willing to unite into an American Orthodox Church don't get on with it and ignore hierarchs in other countries seeking to thwart it (and till now succeeding), who knows when or how it may happen?  
      The religious group on this island with the strictest discipline (the Latter Day Saints) is the fastest growing, while the relativist groups have largely died out; their church-houses have been bought out by the fast-growing Buddhists and the fast-proliferating Christian sects and New Age cults.  But if relativism (whether ecumenical or some other kind of relativism) prevails, we will end up in a situation like that described by a Lutheran-trained pastor interviewed for the article under scrutiny:  "People today aren't interested in traditional doctrines . . ."  The siren calls of autodoxy, eclecticodoxy, syncraticodoxy, minidoxy, scheticodoxy, and other cacodoxies as well as the pushing of modernist agendas (whether fancy hermeneutics or unquestioning relativism of belief) about Christ's coming for the purpose of promoting peace or other secular goal (despite His explicit disavowal of the pacific goal) or any other distortion of the Patristic consensus are agendas that will more and more eat at the heart of the Faith.  
     I hope that our hierarchs will promote the straight and narrow path of Orthodox belief, Worship, and other piety, and not be seduced by any lures to allow the Fathers' teachings to wane in our land.  Laxity in discipline has already led to a very sectarian  situation in American Orthodoxy--a fissiparous course rivaling that of Protestantism.  That Orthodoxy has made no impact on the American scene is evident everywhere.  It is evident in the fact that Public Broadcasting last week had many programs over several days explaining the music and prayers sung during the Jewish High Holy Days (mainly heard were tenors--in contrast with those deep bass voices favored in Orthodoxy), but was largely silent during our holiest week.  Why, since there are as many nominal Orthodox as nominal Jews and Muslims in America, did they fail to produce a similar program for Orthodox Great Week and Pascha?  A great part of the answer lies in the fact that our disunity (in contravention of Jesus' prayer for unity) has left this and that small but (through a casuistry rivaling that of the Jebbies) "canonical" group in the role of just another "denomination"--each too weak to go to PBS and say, "Here is a person knowledgeable of Orthodox music, one who can explain the greatness of the Slavic and Greek traditions of music, one who can explain how this or that music brings out the meaning of such and such words in this or that prayer sung during Great Week and on Pascha."  It is much more in line with promoting Orthodoxy than  "priorities" like getting a hierarch invited to the White House or praying at a political inauguration, though chagrin was expressed when no Orthodox hierarch was invited to pray with clergy of other religions (including Islam) at a National Prayer Service in a cathedral having  a woman bishop--even though praying with non-Orthodox would have violated the canons.  (At least:  We don't any longer often hear the absurdity that Orthodoxy is one of the "official" American religions--an idea that betrays intolerable ignorance of the US Constitution.)
     Relativism in Orthodoxy can only exacerbate the "muteness" of Orthodoxy on the American scene, just as relativism and sectarianism perpetuate it.  IF YOU CANNOT GET THE ORTHODOX TOGETHER WITH ONE ANOTHER, WHAT IS THE POINT OF SEEKING TO GET THE ORTHODOX TOGETHER WITH THE NON-ORTHODOX for ANY purpose?  What an inversion of priorities that is!  Churches accustomed to state support in Eastern Europe have not learned how to have a voice in America's religious melee--and the reasons are not far to seek.   The Holy Spirit allows this sad situation for His own reasons--perhaps viewing it as beneficial for Orthodoxy that certain  groups (including any whose foreign hierarchs block the unity that Christ prayed for in the interests of non-American goals) should not be present at the constitution of an Orthodox Church of America, lest they bring disorder into what is being formed.  
     We should not forget, I suggest, that Christ promised that the Paraclete would lead the Church "into all truth" (John 1613).  He will guide the formation of an Orthodox Church of America--we need have no fear.  If He led the Church into truth during the many centuries before Augustine, before the popes who claimed ultimate rule and infallibility, before Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Campbell, Mary Baker Eddy, and Joseph Smith appeared on the scene, anything now being put forward by relativists or others that disagree with what has gone before will not be viewed as coming from the Holy Spirit--at least among those who reject contradictions.  That is the logic of the situation.  The Spirit will presumably found an American Orthodox Church under the influence of truth.  Whatever happens, a remnant will remain faithful, as always.  I venture to think that however large the relativists become to disturb the PEACE of Orthodoxy, the faithful remnant will prevail in the end.  The Paraclete will hardly let anyone ultimately  thwart the main purpose of Christ's becoming human--His being "handed over because of our sins," and His  rising "for the sake of our being made righteous" (Romans 4:25).

SEE ALSO R35 & R257