INDEX SUPPLEMENT C: RELATIVISM, RATIONALISM, AND SYSTEMATIZING
© 2004 by Orchid Land Publications
[20040424]
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While
being systematic is rational, it is not |
Extremists reduce religion to belief or even rationalist . . . or, at the other extreme, to relativism, the purest form of irrationalism. Irrationalism can involve a primacy of will, as with Luther's famous occisio rationis "the slaughter of reason," which he called the true evening sacrifice of a Christian; he redefined faith in volitional (fiduciary) terms. Or irrationalism can be realized simply as a minimalist set of a few slogans. The most prevalent brands of irrationality are (i) viewing religion as a set of rules to be thoughtlessly upheld; and, what is anything but rare, (ii) the individualistic-egoistic interpretation of one book--Scripture, or rather its Western mistranslations--by those who hold that any individual knowing nothing of ancient culture is better able to interpret (some mistranslation of) Scripture than the collective wisdom of holy Eastern Fathers who belonged to the Hellenistic culture and spoke the language has been. The Creator in the East has always been the Reason or LOGOS of GOD (John 1:1,3) and the Wisdom or SOPHIA of GOD (1 Cor. 1:224, etc.; wisdom is practical reason). It follows that the created cosmos is logikós "intelligible, amenable to being understood by human reason." (If a Word had created the world, it would be "wordy"--as many seem to think.)
Whereas Orthodox theology has for two millenniums remained consistent with the Greek New Testament (and its energy ontology) and with itself, the West has undergone many radical changes--Augustine, Anselm, the influence of Cordovan Islam on the cognitive and juridical of both Aquinas's theology and on the juridical form of the via moderna framework of Luther, who called himself a modernist, whose other modernism was the Gnostic-leaning devotio moderna. Both of his modernisms promoted individualistic religion.
The energy ontology of the Greek New Testament (and indeed of Hellenistic Greek) entails that the cosmos is constantly being created anew, slightly different, by the Logos to keep it from falling into nothingness. Both creation and tradition involve time--temporal developments of being and of a revelatory tradition--just as the material creation has the religious value and potential of being a vehicle of spiritual Grace, which is uncreated Energy and Light, God's Life.
The Orthodox goal is the same GLORY that Christ's holy Apostles saw on Mt. Thavor at His Transfiguration and St. Stephen the Protomartyr Deacon saw at his Martyrdom (Acts 7:55; cf. verse 2 with the Hebrew SHEKHINAH). While Jesus in his final words in St. Matthew's Gospel enjoined us to teach all peoples, and that is therefore a supreme Orthodox duty, we should not forget that teaching humans is not glorifying the all-holy TRINITY.
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