487 - Eastern Orthodoxy As a Theological Task

Eastern Orthodoxy As a Theological Task
By Charles B. Ashanin

DURING my stay as a guest of Princeton Theological Seminary in the first semester of the 1957-1958 academic year I was pleasantly surprised to find included on the curriculum a program of studies called "The Greek Church." This discovery was enhanced by the fact that the Princeton Theological Seminary is a denominational foundation and that these studies were directed by a distinguished Byzantine scholar from Dumbarton Oaks, Prof. Glanville Downey, a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church. It was obvious that the architect of this program of studies was Dr. John Mackay, a distinguished theologian, at that time President of the Seminary. I could not help but compare this academic "adventure" with a similar one made in Oxford, now several decades ago, at Mansfield College, a stronghold of non-conformist Christianity when the distinguished head of that school, Dr. Nathanial Micklem, introduced studies in Thomas Aquinas.

All those who know Dr. Mackay and Dr. Micklem are aware of their staunch and unyielding Protestant faith, and it cannot be said for a moment that they are religiously susceptible to Eastern Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism respectively and that these studies which they encouraged were based on anything other than their wisdom and, foresight in regard to the importance of such studies. As theologians and heads of two distinguished centers of Protestant theological studies, Dr. Mackay and Dr. Micklem were trying to give the future leaders and theologians of their respective churches a theological vantage point which had hitherto been lacking because of the Protestant religious positivism which dominated the theological vistas, to the great theological disadvantage of all concerned. One may surmise that in their distinguished careers as Christian leaders and theologians Drs. Mackay and Micklem personally felt the scholastic disadvantage of this religious positivism in Protestant theological schools, and had to overcome it in order to achieve for

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their Churches and for themselves that respect which they now enjoy in the commonwealth of the Christian community.

Looking back upon Dr. Micklem's scholastic adventure with Thomism, one may safely state that contemporary Congregationalism in England has produced in the last thirty years a group of theologians and church leaders whose contribution to the Christian community in Britain has been of great importance theologically and has gained for contemporary Congregationalism a respect which far exceeds the numerical strength of Congregationalism in England. An example may illustrate my point. During the war, when religious questionings and the search for a contemporary doctrinal re-statement of Christianity were stirring the student world in Britain, John Whale, then President of Cheshunt College, Cambridge, another Congregational center of theological studies, offered this re-statement in a course of lectures now published in a book called Christian Doctrine. This book has since enjoyed much respect among Christian intelligentsia of all denominations. For me the connection between this book and Dr. Micklem's patronage of the Angelic Doctor in Oxford is obvious.

But to turn to my main theme, which asks the following question: What importance is there in studies of Eastern Christianity for theological schools of the West? [This question asks, first of all, for an appraisal of Eastern Christianity, but naturally I can touch I only upon a few most relevant aspects here under which I would like to discuss Eastern Christianity-Christianity and History, Christianity and Culture and Christianity and Theology.]

I

The often used statement that Christianity is a historic religion is ultimately meaningless if it does not mean that Christianity, which is entirely involved in the historic life of man, has the power of maintaining its own identity in the face of historic change, and not only to do this but also to make history its vehicle in achieving its aim. That is, to make the Christ-Event the meaning of historical process. This problem is really "to be or not to be" so far as Christianity is concerned. This was clearly grasped by Roman Catholicism and the entire structure of the papacy was built to secure control over history in order to safeguard the identity of Christianity in the face of the flux of history. One of the most

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significant things about Roman Catholicism is its awareness of history as a threat to the presence of the Absolute in Christianity, in witnessing to which lies the justification of Christianity for the existence of man as a living spirit, a personality, i.e., a self-related, free agent whose destiny is to know and experience the Absolute and achieve his own integrity by entering in communion with the Absolute Self, or God. But the key to the Absolute in history-the Absolute, not as an idea but as a living and personal Self, capable of fellowship and communion with man-is bound up with Christianity. History is a process which recognizes only a relative Self, the human self, which for history is only a temporal category, for when man's life finishes its course upon earth then history obliterates even the memory thereof, in spite of all human struggle and longing to the contrary. Man cannot defend himself from historic relativism except, and this is where Christianity comes in, by exalting the revealed Absolute Self of God in Christ against this relativity which alone history recognizes. This exalting of the revealed Absolute Self of God places man against history which inexorably fights man, compelling him to give up faith in the Absolute Self of Christ and see Him only as an ordinary human self. This is why Christianity and history are in a mortal struggle with one another. Although this struggle concerns man absolutely as an individual, it cannot be fought by man in isolation and without his involvement with the whole Church (conceived as a spiritual and historic reality) in the struggle with history. Man who thinks and lives his religion in terms of extreme individualism, by his inability to see his own destiny as that of the Church itself, becomes a defeatist in the face of the struggle.

The problem of history for a man arises primarily because as a Christian he is no longer an isolated individual spiritually, but a "person" whose life is hid in God through Christ in a community of the whole fellowship of the Church. Only the Church can defend the Absolute as revealed on earth in Christ from the damatio memoriae which history wages upon it, and make the Image and the Spirit of God, as revealed in Christ, available to man as a saving power. Only those who do not know what the threat of history to Christianity really means could discard the great importance of the Church as the organ of man's salvation. It is on this problem of Christianity and history that the issue of the division between

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Eastern and Western (Roman Catholic) Christianity arose in the first place. This division is bound up with two answers within the Christian community to the problem of Christianity and history. The ultimate reconciliation between Eastern and Roman Catholic Christianity lies in the recognition of the fact that both sides take the threat of history to Christianity seriously, but that they differ in their way of meeting this threat because they conceive the nature of Christianity differently. Along with this there must be a recognition that each of these two groups in its respective answer to the threat of history shows a "courage to be" for the revealed Absolute Self as its ultimate concern. As for the ultimate validity of their answers to the threat of history, that will be finally shown by the depth of the conflict between Christianity and history, which has not as yet reached its critical stage.

It is because of its answer to the problem of Christianity and history and its ultimate significance for the Christian community that Eastern Christianity deserves a theological appraisal. The answer to the problem of history as given by Eastern Christianity is contained in the concept of "Sobornost." Sobornost is the statement that the Christ-Event has created and placed in the stream of history the event of the Christ-bearing community. This Christ-bearing community is a free union of men, brought about by the reception of the Holy Spirit, made available to men who recognize the Christ-Event as the divine revelation of the Absolute in history and who commit themselves to the Christ-Event as the Absolute concern in whom the impersonal forces of history are brought under His power and judgment. By the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Christ-bearing community frees human existence from the sway of relativism with which history threatens man. Sobornost is the proclamation to man of the Gospel that so long as he enters into the fellowship of the Christ-bearing community, the Holy Spirit in him will help man to transcend and overcome the threat of history and be enabled to, uphold the divine Absoluteness revealed in Christ, and through it to know himself saved from the relativism and impersonalism of history and human existence. Sobornost is a positive statement that against the threat of history God has placed in that same history the event of the Christ-bearing community, which is fully exposed to this threat and overcomes it, not by fighting this threat of history and desperately trying to manipulate history and subject it to any

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principle whatsoever, but by living the Christ-Event fully in history and thus proclaiming the revelatory power of the Christ-Event as final. Thus the Christ-bearing community permeates history with the Christ-Event and gives to history more and more the nature of Heilsgeschichte, the history of salvation, or the history of God's people. Of course, the Christ-bearing community achieves this only through the power of the Spirit acting through the Christ-bearing community's suffering love, which derives its strength through faith in the Christ-Event and by the gift of Christ in the Holy Spirit, as experienced in worship and the sacraments of the Christ-bearing community.

The concept of Sobornost is directly in conflict with the principle of the papacy, for the latter meets the threat of history first by subjecting the Christ-bearing community to, and imposing upon it, the ecclesiastical principle of the papacy. Then it proceeds to organize this same community in the physical struggle with history in order to impose upon it this same ecclesiastical principle of the papacy and in this way seeks to overcome the threat of history.* Spiritually, the principle of papacy signifies that the spirit of history has invaded Roman Catholicism and that in it there has occurred a disbelief in the spiritual nature and power of the Christ-bearing community. Even supposing that the principle of the papacy is able to protect Christianity from the threat of history, there still remains a problem for Christianity of how to overcome the threat of history which is contained in the principle of papacy itself, for the principle of papacy belongs to this world and is largely conditioned by history. Papacy is a compromise between Christianity and history in their struggle with each other, and all the decisions of the Vatican Council of 1870 which gave to the principle of papacy the status of dogma could in no way overcome this fact. It must be recognized, however, that this decision was the greatest effort of the scholastic mind to protect Christianity from the threat of history inherent in the principle of papacy. The papacy is Christianity's own obstacle in the struggle to transform history into a vehicle of the Christ-Event, through the historic existence of the event of the Christ-bearing community.

* There have been attempts on the part of Roman Catholic theologians to reconcile the idea of the papacy with the concept of Sobornost. Most interesting of these is that of Father G. Dejaifve, S.J., see his article "Sobornost and Papacy" in Eastern Churches Quarterly, Vol. X, 1953.

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It was this eschatological understanding of the nature of the, papacy which brought about the Reformation and Protestant revolt against this new and more subtle form by which history continues to threaten Christianity. For this purpose Protestantism has established the principle that the Scriptures, being the Word of God, are the supreme authoritative arbiter in the life of the Christian community. The Protestant principle was established as a defense against the papacy. But as the principle of papacy is only a theoretical construction, the "Protestant principle" is merely a theological answer to it. Because of this, the "Protestant principle," by opposing papacy, makes only a partial contribution to overcoming the, threat of history to Christianity. The "Protestant principle" is, solely a theological and not a spiritual answer to this problem. Secondly, the rejection of papacy on the part of Protestant Christianity does not come to grips with the real problem of Christianity and history, for this problem still remains for Protestant Christianity, even when the principle of papacy has been rejected. Protestant Christianity, which more and more recognizes itself spiritually and historically as a part of the Christ-bearing community, still has to face the fundamental question of how the Christ-bearing community is to overcome spiritually the threat of history. It is here that an understanding of Eastern Christianity may provide Protestantism with a deeper comprehension of itself and of its mission as a Christ-bearing community, facing and overcoming the threat of history by knowing the spirit of this Christ-bearing community from within itself and making it a spiritual reality by which the Divine Absoluteness revealed in Christ is upheld in history as a saving power for man in the face of the threat of history. An understanding of the nature of the Christ-bearing community as conceived by Eastern Christianity is of great theological importance for contemporary Christianity, inasmuch as all ecumenical endeavors at present are directed towards a discovery of the unifying spirit of the Christ. bearing community by which this community may withstand and overcome the threat of history which has invaded it, as the divisions within that same community reveal at the present time.

II

The problem which culture raises for Christianity lies in the fact that culture is a natural church of man. Culture is a form in which

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man's social, psychological, religious, historical, and tribal forces manifest themselves, creating for him an environment which is needful for his growth and development. Culture is a mark of man's ability to create a world of his own and make his own life as a human being possible upon earth. While nature provides for man as an animal, by creating culture man provides for himself as a human being. Culture is a sign that man is not completely a creature of nature and that nature alone cannot satisfy his needs as a human being. Culture implies man's transcendence over nature and the appearance within it of another order of being-that of man and his humanity. Culture is a creation of man's humanity, for all the gifts of his humanity, rational, artistic, religious, etc. are brought forth to create culture.

From this brief description it is easily seen how culture acquires a religious significance for man because of its total embrace of man, and it is here that the problem of culture acquires ambiguity, for it is at the same time man's inward necessity and a threat to his spirituality. The world of culture is a world of immanence. Through it man gains transcendence over nature, but not transcendence over himself. Culture is conducive to the humanity of man, but not his personality. Culture knows man as a collective, but not as a particular individual. Its urge for creation is inspired by the collective subconscious, and man is dominated by this collective. By pointing to the threat of culture I must insist upon its utter significance for man-without culture man is not a man. Culture unifies the human collective and makes the human subconscious the energizing force of human psychological life. Culture is essential for human mental sanity. It is a religion without revelation.

In this discussion I will limit myself exclusively to the problem of the importance of culture for Christianity. It is important that Christianity should safeguard human culture and not destroy it. On the other hand, Christianity must help man to transcend himself as a creation of his culture and achieve selfhood. Man must not remain satisfied to be fed from below by the creative streams of his culture, but must receive inspiration from above. It must take into itself a revelation of God and become not only a living soul-something already achieved by means of his culture-but also a living spirit, a personality. Through Christianity man achieves just this. The problem arises, however, of how Christianity and culture can

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be reconciled. This reconciliation is of the highest importance, for their conflict becomes a conflict within man himself. It is a conflict between his psychological life, which derives its strength from culture, and his personal life, the life of his spirituality, which derives from Christianity. Paul Tillich has understood this problem profoundly, and his advocacy of the reconciliation of Christianity and culture and, consequently, of the psychological and religious life of man has not as yet received the appraisal which it deserves. This is due partly to the fact that many Protestants think that it is essential for the Protestant principle to maintain an antithesis between culture and Christianity, between the psychological and spiritual life of man, between the transcendent nature of the Word and the immanence of human existence. Many Protestants have become aware of the danger of this antithesis and are anxious to blunt its edge. Tillich argues against it on the basis of the doctrine of man. His anthropology pleads that man is a unity and anything which tends to destroy or disturb this unity signifies the de-spiritualization and depersonalization of man-the very fact against which the whole spirit of Christianity is in revolt-for the significance of Christianity for man lies just in the fact that it integrates, unifies, and personalizes the life of man-which is the final aim of man's destiny. Other Protestants oppose this antithesis theologically, by giving preeminence to the doctrine of the Incarnation and drawing consequences from it for the historic existence of man. A notable representative of this school is the Iona Community in Scotland. In fairness to traditional Protestantism one must point out that there exists a real danger to Christianity in the indiscriminate association of culture and Christianity. An obvious example of this are the German liberals in theology who under the influence of Hegelian philosophy did exactly this and turned Christianity into a religious, philosophy.#

On the other hand, the antithesis is no solution. In Roman Catholicism the problem of culture and Christianity is dealt with on the scholastic principle of the Middle Ages. The natural life of man (to which culture belongs) is subordinated to the supernatural, principle contained in the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. This latter is epitomized in the historic form of ecclesiasticism, of which

# See my article, "Towards an Understanding of Rudolf Bultmann's Theology," Journal Religion, Vol. XV, 1958.

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papism is the quintessence. The relation between culture and Christianity is regulated by means of scholastic logic and organized ecclesiasticism which subordinates culture to Christianity. Unfortunately for the scholastic and legalistic mentality, and fortunately for the cultural and spiritual life of man, both culture and Christianity refuse this forced kind of relationship. This is best illustrated by the Renaissance on one hand and the Reformation on the other. The only surprising thing is that Roman Catholicism pretends that they never occurred, or if this is admitted, the whole thing is explained away, and thus the problem of Christianity and culture in Roman Catholicism is ultimately left unanswered.

Eastern Christianity fully admits the autonomy of culture. This does not mean that Eastern Christianity is indifferent to the problem of culture. On the contrary, the problem of Christianity and culture is resolved in Eastern Christianity by Christianity embracing culture. This attitude of Eastern Christianity considers Christianity itself to be supremely concerned with the unity of Being, organized by the Spirit. In this Christianity in no way endangers the unity of Being organized by the soul-or the humanity-of man. On the contrary, Christianity gives to the latter a fuller meaning by embracing it. For Eastern Christianity the destiny of Christianity in history is to create a community which will permeate the whole of human society by its spirit, and thus the two worlds, the human and the spiritual world, will become one entity. This relationship is based on the dialectic which exists between the spirit, which Christianity reveals, and the soul, which culture represents. The term "spirit" in this connection means that transcendent divine reality within man which creates within human existence the unique reality of personality, of individual selfhood, in which man transcends even the human collective and reaches towards God for communion as a free being. The spirit is that reality in man which gives him a dimension of experience and creativity which derives its inspiration from, and aims at, uniting man with God through Christ, in whom this union has not only been revealed, but made an actual experience of man by the Holy Spirit, who in the Church makes the reality of Christ's divine human union man's own experience. The soul is an immanent human reality, an awareness of man and the human world in which he lives, moves, and has his own being as a creature of this world, which he desires to transcend but cannot because the

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generic collective of which he is psychologically a part denies this to him, as it binds him closely to itself and to its world.

Thus the spirit and the soul-Christianity and culture, cannot be in antithesis, or in any opposition with each other. Their nature is different in character, and yet they are interrelated in that they are two aspects of reality which make man what he is, a generic category merged in the world and also a free individual selfhood, transcending the human collective into which the necessity of his soul and his culture binds him and seeking to create the world of communion with the other free spiritual beings into which the freedom of his spirit calls him. It is necessary for the fullest development of man as a psychological-spiritual reality to reconcile Christianity and culture, and in Eastern Christianity this is achieved by the creation of a spiritual and religious atmosphere in which the world of the soul experiences the power and love of the spirit, not as its enemy, but as its saviour. The liturgical-worship of Eastern Christianity provides this meeting place, and out of this comes a surrender of the soul to be fashioned and formed by the spirit. Out of this arises the ascetic life in Eastern Christianity, which signifies not the destruction of the soul, but, through religious discipline curbing those elements in the soul which are destructive to man's nature as this nature may become where the union of the spirit and the soul has come about.

Out of this there arises a new culture which is a vehicle of Christianity. In this culture Christianity permeates the whole of man's world, and man's world finds its meaning and fullness in Christianity. Eastern Christianity is the only form of Christianity which contains a religious answer to the overcoming of such conflicts in man's world as that of religion and science. The problem of religion and science is best understood from the Christian point of, view within the context of Christianity and culture, for this problem I of religion and science is an integral part of the problem of Christianity and culture, and not an independent question. The reason why it appears to be an autonomous and direct question is that both Christianity and culture have been reduced to abstract rational, concepts and made to be different statements about the same dimension of reality. Actually, they are not. If they are seen, as they should be, in a dialectical relationship, then science, which is the expression of man's transcendence over nature, would acquire Chris-

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tian justification instead of being made to be opposed to it. In Eastern Christianity this opposition of Christianity and science could never appear because of the solution of the primary problem, that of Christianity and culture.

III

Theology is man's attempt to understand his religion and relate it to his existence. Theology is also an attempt of man to stand outside of his religion and look upon it from a distance, as it were, in order to protect himself from the overwhelming power of the irrational, or numinous elements in religion. Without theology religion becomes a dangerous possession in man's hands. Theology aims at relating man's life to his religion so that man's life may participate in those dimensions of being which religion reveals. Supreme in this is, of course, man's relation to God, the source of all religion. This is achieved by the feat of human thought and rationality which, looking at religion and human life, makes metaphysical inferences about the nature of both and their relevance for each other, and places religion and the life of man in a dialectical relationship. Thus religion is prevented from overpowering human life and endangering the rationality so necessary to human existence by the awfulness of man's creatureliness before God. In the same way theology protects religion from being abused by man, who may be tempted to use the creative power of religion for selfish aims and thus plunge both religion and his existence into the realm of magic and irrational collective subconscious, a danger which inevitably occurs where man's life dominates religion. Theology is necessary if man's life and his religion are to act upon each other creatively. Theology is, as it were, the regulating balance of the creative forces of religion and life acting upon each other. From this vital role of theology there arises the problem of theology for religion, and in this connection it will be discussed in relation to Christianity.

It is fashionable in some quarters to say of Christianity that it is not a religion. It is said that Christianity is the end of religion. This profound comment is misleading, if it is understood that Christianity is a theology. The followers of Karl Barth are prone to this misunderstanding, although Barth is only partially responsible for this misunderstanding, for in Barth the statement that Christianity is not a religion aims at denoting the difference between Christianity

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and other religions, and it does not mean that for him Christianity is a theology. % The significance of Christianity in this connection, i.e. of the statement that Christianity is not a religion, lies in the fact that in Christianity religion moves in and embraces two realms-the immanent and the transcendent. Christianity is the religion of both man's soul and of his spirit. In this lies the power of Christianity to integrate and unify these two dimensions within human existence. Thus Christianity is the religion of the total man. But in this characteristic of Christianity by which religion transcends itself arises the problem of the relationship between Christianity and theology.

A discussion of how this problem arises is prerequisite to the solution of the problem. It arises from a misunderstanding of the nature of transcendence of religion in Christianity and the metaphysical character of theology in which human thinking transcends itself. By this last statement I mean simply that in grappling with religion man's thinking (his theological thinking) by necessity becomes metaphysical, for it abstracts from itself elements of particularity and tries by the inductive and deductive process to grasp the problem in its totality. But the two elements of transcendence, although related, are different in character. The transcendence in Christianity where religion transcends itself comes about by the fact that in Christianity the spirit is incarnate in the soul. By this descent of the divine into the human world, the spirit takes into itself the human world and gives it a new understanding of itself in the light of the spirit. Here transcendence is related to personality and to the personal life of man. In fact, it creates personality and thus it is a fact of being-the creation of being as a self for God, for itself, and for others.

The transcendence which man experiences in theological thinking is related to the fact that here he experiences his unity with a universal mind, inasmuch as his particular thinking acquires the ability to think in categories which show the presence of the universal mind and thought in him. This transcendence is impersonal and ab-

% In my teaching of theology to African students I observed a very interesting fact in this connection, namely, their anxiety about the statement that Christianity is not a religion. One of their expectations of Christianity is that it will help them to "tame" the forces of primitive religion and transform them into a creative spiritual and psychological power which would be beneficial to the individual and to society. The statement that "Christianity is the end of religion" seems to imply that Christianity is not interested in this problem. Hence they feel suspicious of Barth's theology.

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stract, for it is related to thought and not to being in man. But for all this it appears more ultimate, and it is here that theology becomes a threat to Christianity. In fact, this threat has partially invaded Western Christianity, and it is because of this that studies in Eastern Christianity become relevant in showing the way how this threat could be overcome. The relevance of this statement is best illustrated by the fact that in Western Christianity the concept of "doctrine" tends to acquire an absolute significance. It would be a rewarding task if someone would make a critical study of this concept of "doctrine" in Western Christianity. It is a concept which is not very easy to define, for a "doctrine" is not a dogma and yet it acquires, an authoritarian significance. A doctrine is not a mere theological concept, although it is construed by the process of theological reasoning, for this reasoning is almost irrelevant to it. There is something "religiously given" about "doctrine" and yet as I mentioned before, it is not a dogma, for it is not a part of the revelatory Event. The revelatory Event, in one sense, is independent of "doctrine." Doctrine which follows the revelatory Event as its description acquires, in Western Christianity, the significance of the revelatory Event itself and dominates the meaning of this Event for man. This is best seen in Protestantism, where the revelatory Event, Christ, and the doctrines which describe this revelatory Event, such as the doctrine of the Word, the doctrine of salvation, grace, etc. usurp the religious significance of the revelatory Event and push this Event into the background. When this occurs the personal and the saving nature of the revelatory Event is being obscured and dulled by the impersonal doctrine which dominates the relationship between man and the revelatory Event. This form of religion breathes fanaticism and sectarianism because the unifying personal character of the revelatory Event, which puts the highest premium on a person and the personal, is depersonalized and distilled in a doctrine. In this form of religion the union of Christians is not based on a Common Spirit, but on a Common Doctrine. This form of Christianity demands, therefore, unquestioning surrender to doctrine.

Roman Catholicism has gone further in this direction, and in the concept of the papacy has given to the authoritarian character of doctrine a seal in the form of ecclesiastical power and organization which signifies a triumph of doctrine in the personal encounter of God and man in the revelatory Event. The papacy signifies that the

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doctrines of the two revelatory Events, the Christ-Event and the Church-Event, instead of being commentaries upon these revelatory Events and thus subservient to them, have acquired domination over these Events. Here theology has become religion. This triumph of doctrine is given the status of a revelatory event in the dogma of the papacy. What this means for Christianity and the damage done to it spiritually is easily seen. All this has arisen from the problem of Christianity and theology. That is why the study of Eastern Christianity in the light of this problem may help us to see more deeply the nature of Christianity as a religion of revelation where the spirit, and not theology, organizes and dominates life.

In Eastern Christianity theology never usurps the place of "the dogma"-the revelatory Event. This is due chiefly to the fact that in Eastern Christianity spiritual life maintains its own autonomy through worship, asceticism, and through the sacramental life. The Patristic age has defined the role of theology in Eastern Christianity by placing it in its proper relationship to man's religious life. Theology in Eastern Christianity is also autonomous. It is this autonomy of dogma and theology which creates an inner interdependence between them. But here I must explain the meaning of dogma in Eastern Christianity, for the use of this term differs widely from what is meant by it in Western Christianity. Dogma, in Eastern Christianity, is a revelatory Event, which grasps man and "initiates" him into a hitherto undisclosed experience and knowledge of God and of himself. This knowledge is not a scientific knowledge, for it is not a disclosure of mind to mind, it is a disclosure of the spirit to the spirit. It is a knowledge of sui generis for want of a better term it may be called a religious knowledge, although this term is unsatisfactory. It would be still better to call it a personal knowledge, for here man grasps the nature of reality as personal, for the human self recognizes itself as a personal reality in God, and God in itself. Dogma is a recognition by man of the Divine Reality disclosed in the revelatory Event as personal, and his response to it. Dogma is a living awareness of the revelatory Event. Dogma creates theology and theology tries to give rational and descriptive information about dogma. The two remain, however, in a dialectical relationship, but never in conflict with each other. Dogma calls for theological thinking and illumines human rationality through it and makes it aware of dimensions of being which are closed to any other kind of thinking. Dogma initiates man's ra-

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tionality into the reality of the revelatory Event. Because of what dogma is, Eastern Christianity considers all descriptions of dogma relative. Eastern Christianity has not, nor ever could have, an official theological system, as is the case with Thomism in Roman Catholicism, or as was once the case with the systems of Luther and Calvin in Protestantism. This does not mean that in Eastern Christianity any theology of dogma is as good as any other. When two theological views about dogma appear which happen to be contrary to one another, the Church arbitrates between them and either approves one and rejects the other, or rejects both and offers a theology which expresses more adequately the nature of dogma.

Thus Eastern Christianity protects the nature of Christianity from losing its personal revelatory character and becoming dominated by impersonal theological descriptions which are creations of the human mind. This is achieved in Eastern Christianity by keeping a dialectical relationship between the spirit and the mind. This dialectic in Western Christianity tends to disappear, and we meet the mind-spirit concept which is a composite category. This hybrid is behind the concept of "doctrine" as we find it in Western Christianity, and that is why theology in the West acquires an authoritarian character and becomes a threat to Christianity instead of being its commentary, and why, at the same time, Christianity becomes an enemy of creative theology, as we very often find in some forms of Western Christianity, notably those groups which are dubbed as fundamentalist. Eastern Christianity shows the way of the autonomy of religious life and theological thinking respectively and also their creative interdependence. It is in this that the study of Eastern Christianity acquires importance for an understanding of the nature of theological creativity and its religious significance.

V

By discussing the relevance of the study of Eastern Christianity under the foregoing aspects, I have tried to show how Eastern Christianity throws light upon some most difficult problems which face Christianity. But perhaps the greatest relevance of the study of Eastern Christianity lies in the fact that these studies provide the student of Christianity in the West with a viewpoint which gives another understanding of those views of Christianity which have been a cause of its fragmentation in the West. Studies in Eastern Christianity create an antithesis for the study of Christianity in the

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West, and a student of the history, theology, and psychology of Christianity is thus enabled to see it in a wider perspective. Because of this a Western student of Christianity is enabled to challenge the hitherto existing dogmatism of many an opinion held in the West about it, which is responsible for the fragmentation of Western Christianity. The study of Eastern Christianity is indispensable for the ecumenical endeavors of the Christian community and for creating a reconciliatory spirit within it.

No doubt there are obstacles to the introduction of these studies in the West. One of these is a common misconception that Eastern Christianity is merely another and more conservative form of Roman Catholicism and nothing more. Secondly, some more "catholic" forms of Protestantism claim that all the relevant elements, theological, liturgical, and ecclesiastical, which characterize Eastern Christianity are to be found preserved in them, only adapted to the Western mode of thinking and understanding. Unfortunately, such thinking is highly misleading, to say the least. Thirdly, there is a scarcity of scholars who are well enough acquainted with both Eastern and Western Christianity to be able to interpret Eastern Christianity relevantly in the West. In spite of all these obstacles, the importance of these studies cannot be sufficiently stressed. Studies in Eastern Christianity stand in the same relation to Christian theological education as studies in Classics stand in relation to the rest of studies of Western culture. To omit them would mean the same as studying Western culture and omitting its classical stage. This parallel is not meant to stress the antiquity of Eastern Christianity so much as to indicate the special "classical" point of view, comparable to the relevance of such classical thinkers as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle for European philosophy.

This "classicism" of Eastern Christianity is to be found in Patristic theology. Patristic studies, of course, have become a specialized and independent theological discipline, and yet their full relevance is not seen without studies of Eastern Christianity as a whole. Without these studies, Patristic studies lose their living significance. It is like studying a cut branch of a tree in order to determine the nature of the tree from which it was cut. A strange procedure, when the living tree itself is there to give much more adequate information about itself.

In the West, and especially in America, due to emigration and world upheavals, there has emerged a community of Christians who

503 - Eastern Orthodoxy As a Theological Task

are the heirs of the Christian traditions of the East. They are in the West to stay and to make their own religious contribution to its culture and to the theology of Western Christendom. They seek to be partners in this with their fellow Christians. But this partnership cannot be brought about unless their fellow Christians are willing to understand them religiously. Thus the study of Eastern Christianity is not only of academic importance, but of social interest as well. Up to now the traffic has been mostly one-sided. Eastern Christians have studied the traditions and theology of the West, to the point where the Roman Catholic historian, Fortesque, could write in his book on the Eastern Church, that Greek theologians speak like German higher critics, referring to the fact that most of them were educated in Protestant faculties of theology in the West.

From my own experience and personal acquaintance with many Protestant theologians and Church leaders who have studied Eastern Christianity under such scholars as Professor Matthew Spinka, lately of Hartford Theological Seminary, their acquaintance with Eastern Christianity, especially with Russian religious philosophy which expresses the spirit of Eastern Christianity philosophically, has given them a tremendous vantage point in their work as theologians and Church leaders. But the most valuable element which they have gained is, perhaps, their awareness of Christianity as a unity, and their concern for it. These new trends in Protestantism and its responsibility for the whole of the Christian community is the most important thing in modern Protestantism. This means that modern Protestantism is identifying itself with historic Christianity and taking responsibility for history. This also means that Protestantism is understanding its own destiny in terms of being a Christbearing community, and because of this, Protestant and Eastern Christianity are being drawn towards each other. I think that studies in Eastern Christianity, at least on a post-graduate level, may prove of inestimable value. And if such experiments as that of Dr. Mackay are transformed into an academic tradition, not only at Princeton, but elsewhere, only benefit to all concerned can result from it. Or, as Robert Payne puts it, "Eastern Christianity, which remains faithful to an earlier Christian tradition, may again invigorate the West."&

& Robert Payne, The Holy Fire-The Story of the Fathers of the Eastern Church, London, 1958, p. 14.