THAT THEY MAY BE ONE:

HOLISM IN DUMITRU STNILOAE'S THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

For

Dr. Gary D. Badcock

John Gibson

January, 2006

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CONTENTS Introduction 2 I. ONTOLOGY

a) THE PHYSICAL: The Body; The World 3 b) THE PSYCHICAL: The Soul/Conscience 10 2. EPISTEMOLOGY a) THE PNEUMATIC: Spirit/Heart/Mind; The Supra-conscious 14 b) COMMUNICATION WITH THE DIVINE AS ARCHETYPAL 16 CONSCIOUSNESS AND TRUTH 3. TRANSFORMATION & THE GRAND SYNTHESIS a) SOME NOTES ON SIN 21 b) COMMUNION AS SYNTHESIS 23 c) DEIFIED BEING 27 CONCLUSION 30 BIBLIOGRAPHY 33

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INTRODUCTION If one would venture to describe the central theme in Stniloae's theology, it could

be said fairly that the idea of unity is foundational, providing the point of departure where

from his investigations begin, and to which point they return again. The Being is three in

One; the two elements of soul and earth aspire to spirit, and the three become one being as

man. The form of unity functions here both as the very vehicle of its self-expression its

point of departure as well as its destination, that which it says, or alludes to in its

realization and self-expression.

As the Romanian theologian Emil Bartos has indicated, in Stniloae's thought

"deification . . . precedes redemption," and is in itself, a cosmic principle. That is, "theosis

includes primarily the deification of the entire world before its fall."1 It seems as though God

through creation effects his exitus, while man, through various principles and operations

imbued upon him by God, acts in some capacity to effect the reditus of the cosmos back to

God. This image of man as point of return is viewed by Stniloae as a medium of unification

by grace.

The intention of the present paper then, is to assess the role of man in the work

described above, to see how this is played out in man's relation both to creation and to God

in the theology of Dumitru Stniloae. We will consider the ontological as well as

epistemological state of things, that is, how Stniloae images the constitution of man, as well

as how it is that man comes to knowledge of both the created and uncreated realms which

surround him. Some consideration will also be made concerning Stniloae's ontological

perspective, in particular since this paper is an anthropology to the extent that man is

directly participant in its realization.

1 Dumitru Stniloae, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology (Carlisle, Cumbria, U.K.: Paternoster Press, 1999), 95.

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I. ONTOLOGY

a) THE PHYSICAL: The Body; The World Stniloae proposes that with the creation of man, the work of creation reaches a head

of sorts, though the head is not static, but is itself dynamic, that is, it is eternally engaged in a

process of unfolding, as a sort of infinite virtuality ensconced within potentiality. The fact of

this unfolding is ample justification for the position of man within the cosmos as Stniloae

sees it. Potentiality, however, can take the form not only of growth in the positive sense, but

is free also to unfold in a form antithetical to the purport of growth, namely, it may be

expressed in the negative and obverse sense, in an utter absence of potentiality expressed

instead in the work of destruction. It is of course the 'divine spark' within man which, when

it is given due, will lead man to take up the former work remaining thus true to his essence

and nature rather than the latter, which is contrary to potentiality expressed as growth, and

contrary therefore to the very essence of man, and which will invariably draw him away from

the realization of his proper state of being.

Though "in the beginning" all things were created, the internal reasons, or rationale,

the logoi inherent in all of creation, causes creation to develop further into new orders of

existence. All expressions of being were foreseen, therefore, in the various forms which had

preceded each of these expressions, having had within them the potentiality of the divine

logoi. It is in this way that Stniloae affirms man's relation to the cosmos, having been

formed out of its dust, while safeguarding also the importance of the relation of the cosmos

to man maintained in light of man's superiority over nature:

The fact that the world is understood within man and for man and through man shows that the world exists for man, not man for the world. But the fact that man

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himself, by explaining the world, understands himself for his own sake through the

world demonstrates that man is in need of the world too.2

Man is unique in the order of creation in that he is able to impart to the rest of

creation its meaning, while creation cannot, from the obverse perspective, reveal to man his

meaning, nor that of the cosmos itself. This observation seems obvious enough, though it

might be challenged by the contemplation of nature as witnessed in the efficacy and beauty

of the ecological system. In and of itself, this simple form of being the non-human

creation is good, but man is called to know more than 'being,' and through this knowing,

to present an increasingly rich assessment of being, which assessment would include the

qualification perhaps of 'sacrality,' of transcendence of being with reference to the cosmos.

Stniloae calls to mind Rahner's transcendental existential in his presentation of man's role in the

cosmos as being transcendent to the mechanistic chain of being exhibited within the non-

human realms of creation. Nature, Stniloae asserts, "has been created to be humanized" it is

to become a "man writ large."3 Stniloae comes close to anthropocentrism, but never

commits to it entirely:

For creation does not reach its completion until, in humanity, God has revealed to it its meaning. Man appears only at the end because he has need of all things that have

come before him while all that has gone before man only finds its meaning in him.4

Man is imaged here in the role of a cosmic conductor, calling all of creation to its fullest

statement of expression, toward an ever-increasingly beautiful crescendo which never fully

arrives so dynamic is its beauty. When it is healthy and true to its form, the work of man,

2 Dumitru Stniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: The Experience of God, Vol. 1: Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God (Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press), 3-4. 3 Ibid. 4 Dumitru Stniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: The Experience of God, Vol II: The World: Creation and Deification, (Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press), 12.

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the humanization of the cosmos, is revealed as an infinitely expanding horizon of

imagination and hope.

It is of course a deified model of humanity to which the world is to be conformed.

In the course of a lengthy discussion about the human passions which bind man to the

world, Stniloae mentions Heidegger's perception of care, that is, anxiety or worry, which is

detailed in his Sein und Zeit. Heidegger, it seems, locates the catalyst for care in the fear of the

finitude of the world. In the words of the philosopher, "By it (angst) man tries to continually

assure the realization of his future possibilities in connection with the world to which he

finds himself nailed. To be part of the world means essentially to be anxious."5 Just as

Heidegger's student Karl Rahner overcame this boundary with his transcendental existential,

Father Stniloae corrects it with the dimension of spirit; he indicates that missing in

Heidegger's analysis is the dimension of spirit, noting that the philosopher puts, or associates

care into, or with, the material world only. Heidegger, it seems, locates the catalyst for care in

the fear of the finitude of the world. Over and against this limitation of the material, a

deified humanity will no longer submit, will no longer be overwhelmed by the degradation of

the body of creation as object of time, nor will it be content with a search for future

possibilities that are confined within the arena of time, and are contingent upon nature

exclusively.

Having a favourable theology of the world, Stniloae sees in the world an "educative

character" for man. In its nature as created being, the world is revealed as a gift of God, to

whom it is offered back by man as gift, when man makes a movement toward truth in his

being, toward spiritual growth.6 Furthermore, by these means man can become free from the

arbitrary, impersonal and cyclical experience of the mundane, which can offer man no 5 Sein und Zeit, 19-200. 6 ODT II, 22.

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meaning or justification for his existence. Freedom is found when man acknowledges instead

God as the proper author and reason of all of being, when through an exchange of such a

gift, namely, the world, giver and receiver are each made transparent, one to the other.

In consequence of a turning instead to the natural world, either as source of

meaning, or as an object through or in which existential fulfilment is sought, man meets with

a spurious kind of infinity - which in and of itself is good, forming as it does man's arena of

being - but this infinity is nothing more than a mechanistic regeneration of nature without

consciousness of self. Even the Neo-Platonic schema of the World Soul would not admit

such a consciousness of material being, of nature. Stniloae asserts at length the obvious,

that this lack of consciousness and therefore inherently impersonal essence of the cosmos

necessitates the impossibility of its constituting any form of salvific, and therefore by

extension, absolute being:

Now the infinite thirst of the passions in themselves is explained in this way: The human being has a spiritual basis and therefore a tendency toward the infinite which also is manifested in the passions; but in these passions the tendency is turned from the authentic infinite which is of a spiritual order, toward the world, which only gives

an illusion of the infinite.7

Put within a proper perspective, man will find satisfaction for his infinite thirst as a subject

of the divine economy which has as its purpose the deification of all of creation, beginning it

seems, with man. But this is not possible for man apart from the world by which man

expresses in part his desire for deification:

The economy of God, that is, his plan with regard to the world, consists in the deification of the created world, something which, as a consequence of sin, implies also its salvation. The salvation and the deification of the world presuppose, as primal divine act, its creation. Salvation and deification undoubtedly have humanity directly as their aim but not a humanity separated from nature, rather one that is ontologically united with it. For nature depends on man or makes him whole, and man cannot

reach perfection if he does not reflect nature and is not at work upon it.8

7 Dumitru Stniloae, Orthodox Spirituality: A Practical Guide for the Faithful and a Definitive Manual for the Scholar (South Canaan, Pennsylvania: St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary Press, 2002), 78. 8 ODT II, 1.

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Stniloae makes efforts to affirm the excellence of the created world through his close

consideration of creation, which doctrine is too often overlooked in the Christian

preoccupation with salvation. "The world," says Emil Bartos "is ordered and reliable because

it is the Lord's world."9

The realm of nature, of the world, is one upon which man is dependent to such an

extent that it must be said to be a part of his nature, and hence is not to be viewed apart

from man in the transformative work of deification, which is the primary economy of God.

The transformation of the world and that of man is thus viewed together. Likewise, nature,

here understood as the world, does not fulfil its purpose apart from its dependence on man.

Nature is the matrix in which man is free to effect either its destruction or to foster its

growth and health; the effects of these decisions are correlative with the extent to which man

will truly live - which state is known only in solidarity with fellow man - or to what extent he

will suffer, should he come to poison and to corrupt nature, both that of the world, and the

communion of humanity. "Nature is interposed...within the beneficial or the destructive

dialogue that goes on among human beings..." and so it will be seen as a mirror, a

barometer, of man's relation to the world, that is, his relation to nature, and to the human

community itself, reflecting the extent to which he is willing or not to foster the health of

both, and consequently, also their edification.10 This can only be accomplished by a

humanity that is not intoxicated by an overt ego-centrism, which believes itself to form the

centre around which the cosmos revolves, a cosmos which he believes to exist only as an

object for exploitation, to be manipulated as a means to achieve his various and ultimately

paltry ends.

9 Op. cit. in note 1, 97. 10 Ibid.

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Stniloae illustrates the interdependence of man and nature by means of the necessity

of maintaining an organic synthesis, or perhaps a synergism, of human and cosmic natures

for the sustenance and general well-being of the world in which man finds himself. The

work of these syntheses alone are fertile, rather than static. As gifts of God, bringing forth

for humanity and also for the world the means of existence, nature continually renews itself

inexhaustibly in "a movement of renewal and fertility,"11 though within itself, this renewal

and fertility is arbitrarily determined and limited by the nature of the material cosmos.

Likewise, the renewal and fertility offered by God in the work of deification will, through

man, come to affect nature as well, the result of humanity's ontological unity with material

nature. One might here call to mind Gregory Nazianzen's "the unassumed is the unhealed."

Man, as has been stated by the Fathers, becomes "partakers of the divine nature", therefore

called to effect the transformation of nature, both that of his own, and that of the cosmos in

which he moves.

The body, subject to external stimuli and sensations of nature, utilizes the faculty of

the will expressed as reason, in effecting transformation of the world in nature, those things

to which the body is exposed and thus perceives, favouring those senses and meanings

which are superior within the realm of nature and are objects of perceptible experience. In

short, the good is to be preferred, and sought after, which practice can only lead to

transformation of the cosmos. It is in no way an ineffectual or tawdry thing to seek the

divine image, the logoi, in creation; it can only effect transformation of an individuals

judgment in perception, and therefore transformation of the world as well, as action will be

tailored by perception. Nature is made to rise up as it were, to that level complementary to

the conscious subject.

11 ODT II, 3.

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Through the body the human person interposes himself as a factor that breaks the connections between the processes of nature and sets up connections of a spiritual

and moral character willed by the human person himself.12

So it is that abstract energies such as freedom and will enter into the cosmic

equation, are brought forth into the cosmos. Nature becomes for the first time aware of the

processes of nature, becomes aware of the elements material and spiritual, and ultimately, the

being of modes of divine revelation proper to both ontological natures. Nature is therefore

revealed to possess a dynamism which vastly exceeds a merely mechanistic regenerative

process. The cyclic mechanism of nature is invested with, as Stniloae says, the "spiritual and

moral character." But this is not the bondage of a ghost in a machine; these latter have no

common substance. In this scenario, the ghost does not recognize the internal logoi of the

machine, nor those of its own for that matter, therefore there can only be a sense of

detachment from its machine. Furthermore, a machine (and for what its worth, even one

that came somehow to contain a 'ghost') can only be perceived as purely object; all of its

properties are purely static, while consciousness is not.

Stniloae emphasizes that it is through the body that the soul comes to meet the

world, and it strives always to mould the body, edifying it to receive the world, and to react

to the world in a manner which befits its divine archetypal nature. And through the form of

the body the soul gives expression of its infinitely complex relation with both the higher

order of the spirit, as well as the order of creation in the world, knitting together the two,

informing and setting ever higher the potentialities and horizons of the world.

And so for Stniloae, the world exists for man, for the purpose of dialogue between

God and man, as the means with which man can ascend to God, and aspire to truth, which

desire is apparent in man only, and is indicative of his position within creation. And likewise,

12 ODT II, 73.

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the world constitutes the means by which God comes to man, par excellence in the

Incarnation, and present as an energy of sustenance in the dynamic logoi inherent in all of

creation. For Stniloae, man lives as mediator between spirit and matter, or as Joseph

Ratzinger has stated so eloquently in his book on creation, in the human being heaven and

earth touch one another.13

The seemingly anthropocentric view of the world in Stniloae is in truth a

theocentric, specifically christocentric perception, with man alive in the cosmos as a conduit

of the divine, a turning-point of sorts, whereat the creation comes to awareness of its

creator, and is offered back to this source.

Only humans can be and become more and more the "witness" of the glory and goodness of God shown forth through the world; only humans in a conscious way can rejoice more and more in the love of God and become God's partners. All these things impose on us a responsibility before God and before the world itself, and it is by the exercise of this responsibility that we increase in our communion with God and

with our fellow human beings as we humanize or perfect ourselves.14

b) THE PSYCHICAL: The Soul/Conscience The body is capable of effecting transformation of nature, working in concert with

the superior rational faculties of the soul/consciousness, namely, the will. This is just as in

the Orthodox doctrine of the divine energies of God, wherein the uncreated energies come

into and inform the will; likewise, the will informs the body, and together, they inform non-

human creation.

As the only being in the world conscience of itself, we are, at the same time, the

consciousness of the world.15 Be that as it may, the body is, as 'materialized rationality at the highest point of its

complexity' also unique within nature (i.e. nature as rationality given material form). This is

13 Joseph Ratzinger, In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990), 43-44. 14 ODT II, 19. 15 ODT I, 3.

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due to the presence of the soul, which elevates the body. This is not to deny the occurrence

of rationality, of logoi within all of the created cosmos; in this corporal materialization of

'rationality' Stniloae is perhaps referring to the being of subjective consciousness. The body

alone is not properly thought of as transcendent to nature, transcendence over creation

begins through the unification of the physical and psychical forms of nature. Furthermore, it

must be said that the elevation of the body effected by the presence of the soul begins

neither with the volition of the body alone, nor even with that of the soul; the edification of

these created forms is initiated through the inspiration of the uncreated divine energies,16

and the transformation of the cosmos will not be undertaken by a being with a latent

conscience, with a purely 'fleshly' body constituting part of the receptive principle of man;

the energies must come to be accepted by the subject if he is to be an effective participant

within the divine energies.

Nor is it rightly said that the unified physical and psychical natures reach, of

themselves alone, an utter transcendence over the solely physical. It is the task, in the

opinion of Stniloae, for this unity of body and soul to 'render the world transparent for

God.'17 Putting aside the tendency to egocentrism, man too mustbeing himself an element

of that same worldrender himself 'transparent for God', not only in his material form, but

more importantly, within his conscience as well:

God freely creates the world to make it spiritual and transparent for himself... Through the human spirit inserted within the world, the divine Spirit is himself at work to bring about the spiritualization of the world through his operation within the

soul of man, and in a special way, through his incarnation as man.18

Stniloae closely links the soul and the conscience, seeming to locate here the

'person' of the individual, in his claims that "...it is by reason of the soul that the human

16 OS, 127. 17 ODT II, 78. 18 Ibid.

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being is 'someone' and not just 'something'. What makes a human being 'someone' is this

substratum [the soul] endowed with consciousness and with the capacity to react consciously

and freely."19 And it is within this "substratum" that is borne the "will", that which not only

causes man to desire to live, but, ideally, to live to the fullest, to eternally seek perfection in

being, to come to know and to experience the good, "while his irreplaceable uniqueness

shows itself worthy of enduring eternally."20

More importantly, Stniloae links the psychical faculties with God's being itself. As

the constitutive factors of human nature, these properties of ". . . consciousness, cognitive

reason, freedom . . ." are, of themselves, and in their apparently infinite dynamism,

reflections of the divine being; living, organic analogies to the divine being, and points of

contact with the divine: "the soul is brought into being by a special creative act of God so

that it might make use of the world in a dialogue with God."21

Though it is rightly said that these immaterial properties are proper to human nature,

Stniloae asserts the intention of God as being not the creation merely of a genus which

gathers up knowledge through the passage of time, striving toward the eventual salvation of

the genus as a collective. This dynamic is certainly not to be denied, though it must be said

that man engages in a dialectic with Personal reality, with 'infinite Persons.' It is apparent that

the dialectic is supremely personal. Stniloae would not deny such a thing as corporate sin

and judgment, but in terms of the conscience at the subjective level, the work of progress is

individual, and without it, any qualification of collective progress would be rendered

impossible:

Even though human self-consciousness might continue in endless self- replacing succession and transmit with this succession the meaning of existence as humanity

19 ODT II, 65. 20 Ibid. 21 ODT II, 78-79.

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comes to know it, if the meaning of his own existence for each member of this succession were not carried on into eternity in order to be eternally deepened, the

meaning of our existence would appear to us as devoid of any real sense.22

Having presented his understanding of the constitution of man - body and soul - in

such a way as to avoid dualism while maintaining the transcendence of soul over body,

Stniloae continues this mode of thought in his examination of the death of the body.

Though the body is imbued with rationality, is governed by it on the purely material level, its

particular form or quality of rationality, its expression of rationality, must, under the duress

of materiality, clothed in materiality, suffer a terminus. The rationality of the body is given

voice in materiality, in that which is transient, and it therefore must suffer the consequences,

the cost of time, namely, death. But, as Stniloae says,

the soul is not identical with this palpable and particular rationality of the body, and that is why it does not cease to exist simultaneously with the death of the body. For the soul ... is a conscious rationality that belongs to a subject and surpasses the entire

passive rationality and sensibility of nature.23

The soul is not to be absorbed back into nature simultaneously with the dissolution of the

body, since the soul does not share a common source of being, or more specifically, a

common essence, with the general worldly nature:

The soul is produced by the eternal conscious Spirit who, while conceiving the rational principles of matter and moulding them into material form, also brings into

existence in his own image a conscious soul.24

Through the agency of the body, the soul mirrors this work of the divine, working to

conceive the rational principles apparent in the world, transforming material reality upon

which rationality is stamped, into a spiritual reality. This work is made possible by the

intimacy of the soul in union with the eternal conscious Spirit, in which too is found its

raison dtre:

22 ODT I, 6. 23 ODT II, 66. 24 ODT II, 67.

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. . . the soul is created to raise up the rational principles of created things into their union with the eternal principles of the world conceived by God, and this is to occur

within a dialogue of knowledge and collaboration with God.25

2. EPISTEMOLOGY a) THE PNEUMATIC: Spirit/Heart/Mind; The Supra-conscious Stniloae is of the opinion that the region of the conscience which is not always

present to man's awareness is properly thought of as consisting of two regions, rather than

the singular subconscious. He justifies this by suggesting that the prefix 'sub' places this region

in a 'subordinate zone' and is in addition 'loaded down with the Freudian heredity of so

many disgraceful tendencies and thoughts' which are rightfully repressed by the conscience.26

Rather than denying the being of this region, Stniloae suggests that the region wherein enter

the purely positive potentialities and energies associated with growth in spirit arise into

awareness through what is better called the "supra-conscious" or the "trans-conscious." The

energies received in this region are, in the words of Stniloae, "ready to flood the conscious

life and even the subconscious, with their cleansing power, when we offer them the

conditions."27

The supra/trans-conscience is used interchangeably it seems, with the concepts of

both 'spirit' and 'heart' in Stniloae's theology:

Thus the "spirit" of the soul, or of the mind, would be the uppermost part, or the innermost, because in the spiritual order, the highest is the innermost, most intimate.

We believe that the term "heart" also refers to this part.28

And again: . . . for Christian teaching the spirit is not an entity in man distinct from the soul, but rather, consists of the higher functions of the soul that are dedicated less to the care of

25 Ibid. 26 OS, 98. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid.

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the body than to a kind of thinking that is capable of rising even to the thought of its

Creator.29

As has been stated above, the work of these regions becomes active "when we offer

them the conditions." It is outside the scope of this paper to make an inquiry into Stniloae's

creation and incarnational theologies, but it will suffice to say here that the beginning of

these "conditions" is nothing less than the creation of the cosmos by the Father, the

incarnation of the Word in Christ, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the reception of

these truths by the conscious mind.

In the same way as the Holy Spirit, our spirit goes down into the conscious and subconscious regions of our life on the surface, of contact with the visible world, only

after reason (logos) has prepared us for His reception.30

Though these characteristic words are often used quite synonymously, 'mind' seems

to be the vehicle with which these ideas are given fullest expression in Stniloae's thought,

that is, the concept of mind seems to bind together these subtle ideas. These different

elements are to be seen as distinctions within a unity distinctions rather than disjunctions.

None of these concepts is to be held superior to the others in any way. Stniloae utilizes the

trinitarian model as a means to emphasize the unity of being at work here. Reason, which is

the work with which man should be primarily concerned, proceeds from the mind,

just as the divine Logos is continually born from the Father, who is the first Mind (nous). Therefore as the divine mind is the principle of all things, so too the mind in

man is the ultimate principle of all that is in him, so of reason, too.31

It is important to not underestimate here the use of the expression 'ultimate principle.' Just

as the Logos is the first and the last, proceeding from the Father for the purpose of returning

all of the cosmos to him, "the principle of all things," so the mind processes logos (reason),

that is, logos proceeds from nous (which likewise proceeds from the body), in a dynamic

29 ODT II, 71. 30 OS, 99. 31 OS, 285.

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similar to the procession of The Logos from The Nous. Reason commences in the mind, is

poured out into the cosmos, and then is perfected in its return to mind, effecting

transformation of cosmos/self.

Viewed in this way, mind might be seen as a gateway not only to the infinite virtuality

of the personal subject, but to the very essence of being itself, to the extent that it can be

recognized for what it is, namely, a gift from God. When this sort of dynamic of being is

recognized, and taken up by the individual, the world is truly made transparent to God we

come to see, as C.S Lewis has said with eloquence, that it is "drenched in deity." It might be

informative to image these three terms, spirit, heart, and mind, as constituting a lens of sorts,

self-attenuating by the whole being of the individual person, which, correlative to its present

mode at any given moment in time, allows or disallows, refracts either opaquely or clearly the

divine energy into the being in totality of the individual. The temptation here would be to

image these as hierarchical, with these three elements coming to form the height of man. But

in Stniloae's thinking, such a man would be inherently dysfunctional as ontologically

lopsided in the manner of the platonist conception of man's being, or as Augustine has said,

this would be nothing more than the curvature of the self back in upon itself. And what is

more, this would be a compromised self sold short of its very fine physical form.

b) COMMUNICATION WITH THE DIVINE AS ARCHETYPAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND TRUTH

The man in whom God rests and who rests in God must reflect the infinity of the conscious light of God; the infinity of God must become proper to man, by grace. This is what is meant by divinization of man in God and the humanization of God in man. It is the union of God and man in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of light: the illuminating Spirit of God becomes the Spirit who illuminates man by grace. The divine consciousness and the human consciousness become transparent to each other, coinherent. By affirming that this mutual penetration without confusion occurs between God and man, Christianity has revealed the unfathomable and indefinable

mystery of the human person and his consciousness.32 32 Dumitru Stniloae, Prayer and Holiness: The Icon of Man Renewed in God (SLG Press, 1982), 14-15.

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The mystery of the human person and his consciousness, the mystery of the subject

is opened out into the possibility of divine-human intersubjectivity through the ontological

link with the divine personal subject. The linkage here is the constituent aspect of subject,

though that of man is created, brought into being through the divine uncreated energy, while

the divine subject is pure, uncreated subject, in essence. On the level of man, the

consciousness might be thought of as energy, while nature can be thought of as essence.

This created image of the conscious eternal Spirit is brought into existence not simply as a rationality molded into material form and having a general and conceptual character, but as a factor which by itself - in the same manner as the Logos - is able to have itself as the object of its own thought, that is, to conceive itself and all other things besides. Here an interruption takes place within the creative action of the conscious eternal Spirit. It is not just through the simple conception and command of the creator Spirit that the conscious soul is brought into existence. Rather, since from the beginning it has the character of a subject, the soul is called into existence through a kind of reduplication of the creator Spirit on the created plane. The conscious supreme Spirit speaks with the created conscious spirit as with a kind of

alter ego, though the latter remains created.33

The divine creator Spirit speaks to man, seeking to remind him that just as within the

Godhead there is intersubjectivity, and hence a community of love, man must seek this same

ambiance within the human community if each of its members is to begin to realize the

profundity of his own subject, as well as that of his fellow beings, and ultimately that of

God. The world becomes obscure, is lost to the one who comes to be fully for himself in

egocentric isolation, due to this state being contrary to the rationality of the cosmos, in

particular, its aspect of personal intersubjectivity. For Stniloae, the discovery of self is

contingent upon one's being in community. As Bartos has said "the human being . . .

receives the quality of personhood only in relationship with other humans and with God."34

Experience tinged with an element of egocentric subjectivity, forms a barrier to knowledge

of truth due to the influence of acquired, or unnatural, passions. An egotistic, entirely

33 ODT II, 67-68. 34 Op. cit., note 1, 99.

18

subjective intellect will replace objective logoi with subjective ones, and the world invariably

becomes exclusively utilitarian, perceived to be tailored to the needs of the individual alone:

The rational character of this truth or meaning stands not only in the unchangeable objectivity, harmonically woven into all reality, but also in the power with which it compels recognition once we have attained the purification of passions. God sparkles then from everything, from the threshold of any fact whatsoever, from the first moment. In this sense a discursive thought is no longer necessary to extract it and to make it obvious. It is in a way its intuitive sparkle. But it sparkles as an overwhelming reason, as an objective logos understood by us, yet beyond our understanding. It imposes itself by its fully convincing and evident rationality and at the same time, by its supra-rationality as a reflex of a harmonious and immutable order of the existence

of a thing or fact within the framework of the whole of reality.35

Subjectivity invariably results in disunity, putting "the general in the service of the

particular" and thus hindering the normal development of the whole. The truth is no longer

recognized, as objective truth is concealed by subjective "truth." This leads in turn to

confusion concerning the ultimate being of truth, which in subjective expression must always

be tenuous, and therefore the whole can only be seen as illusory, as in existentialism.

Stniloae maintains that this is the problem too with the German theologian Karl Heim's

belief of perception from the perspektivische Mitte, for this perspective, likewise, is shaded as

one of "special interests" and "a center of the passions."36 Stniloae says succinctly of

subjective "truth," that "The appearance of 'truth,' of subjective opinions is explained by the

fact that they are refractions of the one truth, in the distorted receptacles...of the passions."37

Contrary to this view, Stniloae maintains, in accord with the Fathers, that truth is the most

objective reality, and as such can not be known only in a purely theoretical way, wherein

reason is detached from the life of an individual. Indeed, such a detachment is impossible. In

short, Stniloae purports that "the truest subjectivity is the most conformable to the

35 OS, 209. 36 Ibid., 211. 37 Ibid., 212.

19

'objectivity' of truth."38 This is to be known by the individual whose passions do not dictate

his perception of reason, for whom the passions give rise to a subjective and spurious

'reason.' Reason is born of the virtues, not of the passions.

Virtue is defined here by Stniloae as that quality achieved through prolonged

exorcise, of a continuous sacrificing of the egocentrism which gives rise to false perceptions.

It is noted that this might too be considered a form of subjectivity, but the form which is

sought here is one where the center is not the self, but God: "Only the subjectivity which

means the living of the surpassing of personal subjectivity can approach the truth."39

Stniloae is here in agreement with Kierkegaard who has said "the truth is the evidence for

which he is ready to lay down his life," though Stniloae views the "laying down" as

conditional for the experience of truth, as is also evidenced in the scripture Those who find their

life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it40 (Mat. 10.39).

The qualification of conscious created spirit as subject, given that it is an image of

the divine archetype of consciousness, is imparted through the conscious supreme Spirit

who can only have the character of one who is subject. Stniloae maintains that it is the

nature of a conscious subject to be "always in dialogue with another conscious subject or

subjects."41 Having a common source in the divine, the content of the consciousness with

which the created subject is endowed, is, to some extent mutual: a collective human

consciousness tinged with that of the divine, the latter element consisting primarily - though

not exclusively, it might be said - of the eternal inner reasons, or logoi inherent within all of

creation. However, on a strictly ontological level, the created consciousness exists in

ontological relation with the materialized rationality of the world, which is maintained and

38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Also see Bonhoeffer, Christ as Center. 41 ODT II, 68.

20

developed through the ongoing guidance of the supreme rationality of the Logos - an

impulse that is also implanted within the very rationality of the cosmos. By these means,

creation aspires and attains to that level of complexity and symmetry appropriate for the

form of the body and conscious soul as befits a form knit together by the conscious supreme

Spirit. Stniloae says that it is "[A]t that time the conscious soul is brought to exist through

the special creative and initiating act of the dialogue the Logos undertakes with it."42 That is,

the conscious soul is brought into, and in ontological relation with - a materialized rationality

(the world) - which has been prepared, that is, the 'impulse toward development' with which

all of creation is imbued in the form of the inherent logoi, has prepared a place as it were, for

the created conscious soul. This is the work, in the opinion of Stniloae, of the Logos,

conceiving the world in an efficacious way in anticipation of created consciousness,

commencing with the instance of the creation of materialized rationality, which began with

"In the beginning."

With the advent of these processes described above, in the spirit of intimacy that

Stniloae images as existent between the Creator and creature, the purpose of creation is

brought to fruition:

The purpose of creation is thus fulfilled through this bringing into existence of the conscious created person, for the Creator also is person, and creation has as its purpose to bring about a dialogue between the supreme Personal reality and created

persons.43

The intimacy is affirmed further as archetypal created consciousness realized in the

incarnation of the Logos:

... the Logos himself entered as subject into a creative dialogical relationship with a created subject - the visible image of his own spiritual Subject - and brought the

human soul into existence simultaneously with the body.44

42 ODT II, 69. 43 Ibid. 44 ODT II, 70.

21

Stniloae views the Logos having entered into created subject as Word speaking into that

which is spoken as visible image of Himself as the principal and paramount expression of

created subject:

In this way, the expression of the complete materialized rationality of the world and the quality of being a conscious bearer of this rationality were able to be concentrated

within the new subject.45

3. TRANSFORMATION & THE GRAND SYNTHESIS a) SOME NOTES ON SIN Perhaps it is correct to say that Orthodoxy has had somewhat of a tendency to speak

rather generally on certain aspects of theology this certainly seems to be the case with

regard to the topic of sin. It is fair to say of Stniloae's theology that sin is not given the

same emphasis as are other of his topics. Very little about sin has appeared in his works

available in English, but perhaps this issue is taken up more thoroughly in the volumes of

the Dogmatic which are yet to be translated.

Generally, it can be said that Stniloae sounds quite optimistic in his evaluation of

sin, perhaps a not uncommon criticism from Western readers of Eastern theology.46 But we

should take this optimism seriously, and not dismiss the words of a man who spent five

years in prison, apparently for his part in the revival of Romanian Orthodox spirituality.

Stniloae places his discussion of sin within what has been called his own variation of

the theologia crucis, though in the opinion of one commentator, Stniloae's theology of the

cross has less to do with the anthropocentric view of the economy of salvation and the

45 ODT II, 70. 46 John Meyendorff addresses this issue in his preface to Stniloae's Theology and the Church, p. 9.

22

radical dichotomies between natural and revealed theology and nature and grace, which are

sometimes evidenced in Western theologiae crucis.47

Over against these Western tendencies, Stniloae, in the words of Miller, "balances

creation and salvation, the order of nature and the order of grace," and his theology of the

cross is integrated into this vision.48 In brief, Stniloae envisions the world as a gift of God,

and that the nature of gift is that there is communion initiated through the giving of a gift;

the giving does not end with the deliverance of the gift, but commences what Stniloae calls

"the dialogue of the gift,"49 with the gift itself transcended by an opening out into an

eternally transcendent communion of love.50 There can be no dichotomy here, as the world

becomes the necessary lens through which we come to see God effecting an opening out

into dialogical communion with the divine. The reciprocity, the return of the gift to God is

what is effected through man's role as priest/mediator of the cosmos. The shirking of this

duty, itself the purpose of creation, has resulted in the opacity of God's being in the cosmos,

namely, the state of sin, the falling away of purpose and dialogue with God. Man has become

transfixed with the gift at the cost of forgetfulness of the giver.

The cross enters into this thought as God's presentation of the brokenness of the

world. For Stniloae, the being of the cross is

etched into the fabric of the world since the Fall. All things manifest a brokenness

when their claim to ultimacy is discredited either by destruction, by pain or by death.51

The cross is meant to save man from the potential mesmerization which arises from his

experience of the beauty of the world. The cross serves as moderator between man and the

47 Charles Miller, The Gift of the World: An Introduction to the Theology of Dumitru Stniloae (Edinburgh: T&T Clarke, 2000), 70. 48 Ibid., 71. 49 ODT II, 21-22. 50 Op. cit., note 46, 73. 51 Ibid., 76.

23

world. The world must first be seen through the wood of the cross, before God can be seen

through the materiality of nature, all the gifts of which

requires a certain cross, and this cross is meant to show us that all these gifts are not

the last and final reality.52

The dialogic nature of man's relationship is maintained on the part of God by a

divine providence which is organic, is not threatened by man's constantly evolving capacity

for sin. God's capacity to love is not challenged, is not caught short by man's wicked

propensities:

providence and the plan for deifying creation and the human being are not thwarted by the introduction of sin into the world, but . . . the effect of sin has . . . been that providence takes the conditions of mankind's sinful state into account, while the plan

for deification also includes within it the redemption of humankind.53 b) COMMUNION AS SYNTHESIS

The creator Spirit who is the origin of the rationality of nature given material form and of the conscious subjects connected to it, is also their goal, a goal in which human subjects find their full unity in conjunction with that nature through which they communicate and which has itself been raised to a condition completely overwhelmed

by spirit.54

With respect to the primacy or superiority of one of man's constituent elements over

the others, Stniloae uses the mythology of Genesis to affirm the rejection of the dualism

which would arise from such an hierarchical ordering of man's nature. In the creation story

of Genesis there is no temporal succession in the creation of Adam, but we read there only

that YHWH made man by taking dust from the earth and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life; thus

man became a living soul. Stniloae takes this to mean that "man is created simultaneously in his

wholeness." This sounds rather like creationism, but certainly this is not the intention here,

and this detail should most likely be read as an aetiological account to relate both the close

52 Ibid., 77. 53 ODT II, 191. 54 ODT II, 6.

24

intimacy shared between creator and creature, as well as Stniloae's assertion that man comes

truly to be when body and soul are merged together as two constituent elements of the single

being of man. As noted above, Ratzinger has said in the human being heaven and earth

touch one another, and this is what Stniloae has in mind here. It is in the being itself of

this touching, that man can be said to truly come to being. Here we do not learn of flesh

enlivened by a soul, thus rendered sentient flesh; nor of a soul anchored or enfleshed, thus

rendered motile and extended soul. Instead the locus point whereat the touching of heaven

and earth takes place, is both where and when man is "created simultaneously in his

wholeness." The wholeness is affected only at the instance of the touching.

Stniloae argues, as did St. Gregory Palamas against Barlaam, that knowledge of God

does not happen within the arena of an ecstatic mind. The mind that experiences knowledge

of God is not one set in abstraction, is not detached from the integral person, indeed is no

longer rightly considered as an isolated entity in any sense, due to the very fact of its having

come to engage with (in) such an experience. The commencement of such an experience

invariably sets in motion a transformation into unity. It seems to be a mind that is allowed to

function in abstraction which is not capable of experiencing the divine:

It is, instead, that mind wherein the whole person, made up of soul and body, is concentrated and vibrates, so to speak, in unison with the results of those experiences

accumulated within it, but purified and made clean.55

Stniloae draws upon St. Gregory's remonstrance against Barlaam with these words:

"to . . . make the mind 'go out,' not only from fleshly thoughts, but out of the body itself, with the aim of contemplating intelligible visions that is the greatest of the

Hellenic errors, the root and source of all heresies . . . "56

and says these further things about Gregory's theology of the body:

St. Gregory Palamas did not speak of a body devoid of sensations, but of a body whose sensations have been purified, directed toward God. He treated the "heart" -

55 ODT II, 76. 56 Ibid.

25

where the mind (nous) must gather itself in order to experience the grace of God - as the innermost organ of the body, but at the same time he treated it as the centre of the encounter between body and soul and as the governing organ (hgemonikon organon). This means, that it is not pure intelligence that governs man or encounters God, but the entire man in whom understanding and feeling make up a single whole. Indeed, the integral reason of man scarcely achieves this wholeness... According to [Gregory], it is genuine madness to let the mind loose in abstract thinking cut off from a person's integral being. A person who does so is far removed from himself, from

reality, from God.57

Of course it is not possible for the mind to function apart from one's integral being, as this

would be a sort of paramount expression of schizophrenia, an ultimate division of the self,

or more precisely as Stniloae in agreement with Gregory asserts, this is really an end of the

self, or at the very least, an illusory self.

That the mind is not to be separated from the whole person in the matter of knowledge of God is due also to the fact that the full knowledge of God is simultaneously a union with God on the part of the one who knows. In this union, however, it is not just the mind understood as a purely spiritual element of the soul, that takes part, but the entire soul. All things that move receive stability in the infinity of God. In God and in the understanding that is lived out by human beings, all things

are unified and not a single one of them disappears.58 The import Stniloae gives to the idea of unity is be realized also in man's opening

out to the divine in prayer. In a discussion of prayer, Stniloae says that this event must be

undertaken in unity of mind and heart if it is to be effective, indeed if it is to be prayer at all:

Pure prayer is concerned with the reuniting of the mind (nous) and the heart. Neither mind nor heart can be allowed to remain alone. Prayer that comes only from the mind is cold; prayer that comes only from the heart is sentimental and is ignorant of all that God has given us, is giving us now and will give us in Christ. It is prayer without horizon or perspective, prayer in which we do not know what to thank God for, what to praise him for, what to ask him for. The man who prays in this way has the feeling of being lost in an impersonal infinity. Such a feeling knows nothing of encounter

with a personal God. And thus it is not prayer.59

In approaching the divine, the heart is not made subordinate to the mind, but the mind

operates, sees, as it were, through the lens of the heart:

57 Ibid., 77. 58 Ibid., 75-76. 59 P&H, 8.

26

We must also be quite clear that this meeting between heart and mind is not brought about by the ascent of the heart into the mind, but by the descent of the mind into the heart. In other words, it is not in the mind that the heart finds its rest; but it is in the heart (or rather where the depths of the heart meet the depths of God) that the mind

finds the rest for which it is searching.60

Stniloae asserts that though the Fathers certainly talk about the opening of the mind

to the infinity of God, he contends that it is through the heart that the mind finds the desire

and the initiative to commence this work. As Stniloae says, "... the heart is for the mind a

sort of sensory organ in relation to God, just as the bodily senses are the apparatus which

enable us to perceive and feel the realities with which the body enters into relation."61 It

seems that it is in the heart that the mind is oriented, and that the two become infinitely one

correlative to the extent that they possess, respectively, both desire and knowledge. The

mind makes a kenotic descent of sorts, not putting aside its proper nature, but humbling

itself into the heart. When this work is begun, the experience of God is to some extent

immanent, and the morass of transience and finitude has begun to be left behind. Without

the synergism of mind and heart, one might come to assemble notions arising solely from

the intellect of a spurious, impersonal god, as did the gnostics, but this has no place in the

confession of the Trinitarian God, who is known to us intimately as Christ, as Love, through

the Spirit. It seems that together, the mind and heart make possible the sense (strictly

speaking) of gratitude: the mind grasping the being of its (gratitude's) object, the heart

qualifying it.

This process, this unity of mind and heart makes possible a pure understanding.

Stniloae reminds us that St. Symeon viewed the knowledge of God as a kind of seeing,

transcending all sense perceptions, though this knowledge too is perceived. And this

knowledge is unlike that typically (and probably unfairly) associated with the West wherein

60 Ibid. 61 Ibid., 9.

27

knowledge is deduced from its subject at a distance, and by way of analogy, in the manner of

Scholasticism. The knowledge of God proposed by the Eastern Fathers, Symeon and many

others, has the intimate quality of that which is tangible, experienced directly, what Stniloae

describes as a feeling of the mind:

The reality of God radiates a spiritual light that penetrates the human mind, just as created things radiate a material light. We have no longer preserved this sense of the understanding except when we speak of understanding our fellow human beings

in sympathy.62 c) DEIFIED BEING

Infinity is God's ambiance.63 Toward the conclusion of Kahlil Gibran's book The Prophet, after the prophet has

spoken at length on a great many topics, fielding the questions of the crowd gathered before

him, the request "Speak to us of religion" is put to the prophet, who responds "Have I

spoken this day of aught else?" The same response is made fairly with respect to Stniloae's

theology if one comes to it with the intention of isolating his teaching on deification. It

would be informative, however, to approach Stniloae's thoughts on deification with some

focus on his concept of the intermingling of time and eternity, since it seems to be through

this dynamic that deification is effected.64

. . . as the finite essence of creation cannot be explained apart from the super-essence of God and its connection with that essence, neither can its own attributes be explained apart from the dynamic attributes of God and their own relation with these. Moreover, the finite essence of the world and the various essences which form, as it were, branches of the world's essence are arranged to reach up, through grace,

towards an ever greater participation in the divine attributes.65

The temporal essence of creation reaches up into the divine attribute of infinity, which being

in itself is not the object of this reaching up, but rather, it is the participation within the divine

62 ODT II, 75. 63 ODT II, 143. 64 Op. cit., 1. Emil Bartos discerns in Stniloae's ideas on deification a constitutive triad of time, space, and power. 65 ODT I, 141.

28

as realized within the mode of infinity, which constitutes the objective. For as Stniloae had

mentioned above, an endless replication of human self-consciousness infinity lacking the

divine would be excruciating in its lack of meaning, for its want of an eternal deepening.

Man, in his awareness of the infinite source of the finite creation, looks from within the

realm of time out onto that of the infinite. This tendency is the impression upon man of the

image of God in which he is made. This is a dynamic of like calling unto like, of like becoming,

through the habitual answering of this call, unto like:

Even a biological image preserves affinity with its pattern only if continual power comes to it from that pattern or if continuous communion exists between itself and the pattern. The same phenomenon can also be observed among human beings. A frequent and convergent relationship will make two or more people come to resemble one another. If, however, no affinity between a biological image and its pattern, or between two or more human beings existed, there would be no question either of any relationship manifesting or expressing the one as image of the other. Thus, man remains as the undiminished image of God only if, on the basis of some kind of kinship, a living relationship between himself and God is preserved, a continuous

communion wherein both God and man are active.66

Convergence of thought, ways of thinking and acting, are things which come to be through a

close proximity in space and through great, repeated frequency in time. God has provided

man with the gifts of both space and time, though the time spent in the filling of one's space

with energies devoted God-ward is easily taken for granted, and the tendency is sometimes

toward the purely external expressions of cult. Of all the gifts of God, time is perhaps that

which is most likely to be taken for granted, since it apparently extends infinitely, and though

it is omni-present, it seems somehow elusive, as something which does not readily afford

satisfaction in itself. If one invests any time to reflect upon its being, one becomes aware

how it is charged always with an abstruse longing, bringing this to the forefront of a

reflective consciousness. "Time," says Stniloae, "is a kind of ladder extended by eternity

66 ODT II, 82.

29

towards the created world."67 Clearly, for Stniloae, deification is processional, occurring

through time, and is not to be had passively, but requires an active response on the part of

the recipient, through the constant seeking to align the will through appropriation of both

time and space towards a dialogic being with God.

Stniloae finds it helpful also to view the process of deification as involving two

fundamental steps:

if deification in a broad sense means the elevation of man to the highest level of his natural powers, or to the full realization of man, because all during this time the divine power of grace is active in him, deification in a strict sense involves the progress which man makes beyond the limits of his natural powers, beyond the boundaries of

his nature, to the divine and spiritual level.68

It seems that man's response is the movement of ascension up the ladder toward eternity.

The progress "beyond the limits of his natural powers" is the letting down of the ladder by

God. The creation of time, or more specifically, the aeon of the world, is the gift of

potentiality wherein time, effective in the conscious subject, is touched by eternity: "the

creature is conditioned by infinity."69 The invitation in the form of the ladder is constituted

in large part by the creation of man as conscious subject; the conditioning is conscious

awareness received always as grace of the virtual infinity of the created subject. The inter-

subjectivity within which man lives, the communal aspect of his being, fosters awareness of

this, acting as another element of man's effort in the process of deification:

even [though] the communion between created persons is finite . . . it expands the

content of the life of each of them very greatly. 70

The trinitarian inter-subjectivity is the perfect community of Persons, which in its perfection

is the state of perfection which inspires man internally to strive for a similar state while

67 ODT I, 157. 68 OS, 363. 69 ODT I, 141. 70 ODT I, 142.

30

preserving the created essence as a "natural boundary." Man's experience of the interpersonal

communion is a partial realization of this state, which comes to a fuller expression through

the proper utilization of the gifts of time and space, edified always and made possible

through the creation of these integral dimensions and God's free gift of grace.

It is wrong to consider time and infinity as having between them an incompatible

ontology which will not allow the two to meet on any level. As Emil Bartos has said, "for

Stniloae, the existent border between the eternal and the temporal does not separate but

becomes the meeting place for two realities that enter into dialogue."71 The being of time is

the womb of potentiality standing between man and God as an invitation to ascend into the

divine life through a dialogue consisting of the gifting of this dynamic of time, and the

spiritual exercise of man in response:

A mother puts her child at a certain distance from herself and then calls the child to her so that it may strengthen itself through the exercise of the movement that it

makes towards her, attracted by its desire for her.72

CONCLUSION It seems fair to conclude that for Stniloae, being in itself, that of man in particular, is

realized through a thorough-going synergism of each of the created elements by which he is

constituted. In addition, man is called to harmonize also the elements of the cosmos into

which he has been placed as mediator, as the consciousness of the universe, "because within

his thought all things meet and through his will he can achieve a unity in himself, a harmony

with all others and with God."73 This is possible through the efforts realized in and through

the work of this consciousness delivered through the mechanism of the body. In this way

man can align these elements of his, as well as those of the cosmos, together so that they

71 Op. cit., note 1, 108. 72 ODT II, 155. 73 ODT II, 147.

31

sound in harmony, in the way that a conductor calls his orchestra to sound individual notes

together, weaving together the rich tapestry of the harmonic chord as it is intended by the

composer to be heard.

The fullness in which God has intended man to live is realized then in fullness of

being as realized in the intermingling of body and soul, time and eternity, heaven and earth

namely, of all things created and uncreated, seen and unseen, though not requiring

dissolution of the integrity of any of these. Indeed such dissolution would place the divine

intention beyond man's reach. Such dissolution is the effect of the curvature of the self back in on

itself, as Augustine has stated, though he had in mind a dualistic understanding of self, and

meant probably 'mind' or 'consciousness,' a less than integrated self at the least, not the

"subject" that Stniloae has imaged. We could perhaps imagine Stniloae rephrasing this as

the curvature of the subject back in on the self.

Stniloae's theology is a much needed corrective for the tendency to view classical

christian theological anthropology as inherently dualistic, particularly that of the Eastern

church. Instead we read in Father Stniloae a theology with a truly ecumenical application in

its imaging of the nature of Christianity itself. Emil Bartos has said of this quality of

Stniloae's theology, that therein

Christianity reveals itself as a religion of communication and interaction, where the ontological basis of the whole creation is actualised from the perspective of those

realities that exist in dialogical relationship.74

Andrew Louth rightly asserts that Stniloae is not simply either a bridge between East and

West,

or between Russian and Greek Orthodoxy: he is at the centre of what many would

regard as the liveliest and most original movement in modern Orthodox thought.75

74 Op. cit., note 1, 99. 75 Andrew Louth, The Orthodox Dogmatic Theology of Dumitru Stniloae (Modern Theology, 13:2, April 1997), 256.

32

As has been stated by one commentator, Stniloae would not propose that Christ

and the Holy Spirit are acquired in isolation, but instead "they come to dwell in the

individual through a communal action, through the Church's sacraments of Baptism and

chrismation."76 In this way and many others, Stniloae affirms the necessity of community as

received tradition both of which (tradition and community) are threatened by the

encroachment of the subjectivization of society in the Western world. Stniloae would not

deny, but instead is quite affirmative of the liturgical nature of the cosmos that in its being

it is called to acknowledge and celebrate the excellence of God but would maintain that the

sacramental aspect of the church is contingent upon community, and can not be said to exist

outside the Church as community. Berger rightly asserts that for Stniloae

the goal of knowledge is always 'person' (interpersonal communion), and the means of attaining this goal is always found in 'nature.' By 'nature' is understood both human nature (both material and spiritual) and the elements of the natural world, and "even the uncreated energies, which he sees as an extension of the divine nature in participable form to creatures. . . It necessitates a spirituality that leaves out no aspect

of reality.77

The reality is found, in the opinion of Stniloae, only in a holistic, and therefore fully

authentic expression of these various aspects. Created and uncreated; material and

immaterial; finite and infinite these are to come together in a dynamic holism in which

'selves' are not lost in an amorphous mass, but rather, come finally to fuller expression

consequently through the reciprocal sharing out in witness to the divine. These are not

disjunctions, but distinctions borne of the divine will, participative in the logoi of creation,

that they may be one.

76 Kevin M. Berger, An Integral Approach to Spirituality: The Orthodox Spirituality of Dumitru Stniloae (St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 48:1 (2004), 127. 77 Ibid.

33

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: The Experience of God, Vol. 1: Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God (Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press). Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: The Experience of God, Vol II: The World: Creation and Deification, (Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press). Prayer and Holiness: The Icon of Man Renewed in God (SLG Press, 1982). Some Characteristics of Orthodoxy (Sobornost, series 5, no.9, 1969), 627-629. The World as Gift and Sacrament of Gods Love (Sobornost, series 5, no.9, 1969), 662-673. Orthodoxy: Life in the Resurrection (Eastern Churches Review, 2/4, 1969), 371-375. The Orthodox Conception of Tradition and the Development of Doctrine (Sobornost, series 5, no.9, 1969) 625-662. Orthodox Spirituality (South Canaan, Pennsylvania: St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary Press, 2003). Citeva trasaturi caracteristice aleOrtodoxiei (In English trans., Eastern Churches Review, 2, 1968-1969), 371-375. The Economy of Salvation and Ecclesiastical Economy (Diakonia, New York, vol. 1, no.2, 1970), 115-126. The Cross and the Gift of the World (Sobornost, 6/2, 1971), 96-110. The Victory of the Cross (Fairacres Pamphlet, no. 16, Oxford Press, 1971). St. Callinicus of Cernica (Studies Supplementary to Sobornost, no. 2, London, 1971), 17-32. The Foundation of Christian Responsibility in the World: The Dialogue of God and Man (Studies Supplementary to Sobornost, no. 2, London, 1971), 53-73. Unity and Diversity in Orthodox Tradition (The Greek Orthodox Theological Review: Brookline, vol. XVII, 1972), 19-37. Jesus Christ Incarnate Logos of God, Source of Freedom and Unity (The Ecumenical Review, 26, 1974), 403-412. The Role of the Holy Spirit in the Theology and Life of the Orthodox Church (Diakonia, 9/4, 1974), 343-366.

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Witness Through Holiness of Life (Martyria-Mission: The Witness of the Orthodox Churches Today: Geneva, 1980), 45-51. The Christian Sense of Responsibility (Jesus Christ the Life of the World:Geneva, 1982), 108-112. The Faces of Our Fellow Human Beings (International Review of Missions, 71 1982), 29-35. Prayer and Holiness: The Icon of Man Renewed in God (Fairacres Pamphlet, 1982, Oxford, no. 82). The World as Proof of the Goodness of God to Man (ROC, 1987, no. 4), 51-59. The Romanian Spirituality A Synthesis Between East and West (ROC, 17, 1987, no. 2), 54-63. Romanian Orthodox Anglican Talks: A Dogmatic Assessment (Romanian Orthodox Church and the Church of England: Bucharest, 1976), 129-148. Secondary Sources Kevin Berger, An Integral Approach to Spirituality: The Orthodox Spirituality of Dumitru Stniloae (St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 48:1 (2004). Ion Bria, A Look at Contemporary Romanian Dogmatic Theology (Sobornost, 6/5, 1972). Ion Bria, The Creative Vision of D. Stniloae: An Introduction to His Theological Thought (The Ecumenical Review, 33, 1981). (Joint Commission in Mnich), Points of View: The Orthodox-Catholic Theological Discussion (ROC, XII, no. 3, 1982). Alf Johansen, Dumitru Stniloaes Dogmatics (Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe, vol. IV, no. 1, 1984). Istvan Juhasz, Dumitru Stniloaes Ecumenical Studies as an Aspect of the Orthodox Protestant Dialogue (Journal of Ecumenical Studies, vol. 16, 1979, no. 4). Andrew Louth, The Orthodox Dogmatic Theology of Dumitru Stniloae (Modern Theology, 13:2, April 1997). Charles Miller, The Gift of the World: An Introduction to the Theology of Dumitru Staniloae (Edinburgh: T&T Clarke, 2000). E. C. Miller jr., Presentation of the Gifts: Orthodox Insight for Western Liturgical Renewal (Worship, 60/1, 1986). Antonie Plamadeala, Some Lines on Professor Stniloaes Theology (The Altar: London, 1970).