Energetic Procession

If we were faced with the unlikely proposition of having to destroy completely either the works of Augustine or the works of all the other Fathers and Writers, I have little doubt that all the others would have to be sacrificed. Augustine must remain. Of all the Fathers it is Augustine who is the most erudite, who has the most remarkable theological insights, and who is effectively most prolific (William Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1979), Vol. 3, p. 1).

“[Augustine is] a philosophical and theological genius of the first order, dominating, like a pyramid, antiquity and the succeeding ages. Compared with the great philosophers of past centuries and modern times, he is the equal of them all; among theologians he is undeniably the first, and such has been his influence that none of the Fathers, Scholastics, or Reformers has surpassed it.” (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, p.997, New York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1867)

Here is an interesting clip from the upcoming pre-quel to Battlestar Galactica. (Yes, I watch Sci-fi. I watch Lost  as well.) There are a few things here that are interesting. The slide to Sodom via technology, which people like C.S. Lewis clearly saw. (That Hideous Strength  is well nigh modern prophecy.) If you don’t this kind of stuff is coming and rather soon, you need to wake up. Another is the consciousness of reaching rock bottom in sin and finding that it is really nothing good at all. Notice also the focus on the experience of God and the subsequent connection with the creation of life.

WARNING: This clip is not for virgin eyes.

http://video.scifi.com/player/?id=907641

Here’s an informative note on Maximus the Greek over at Logismoi.

Quote:

“[I]t does not follow that Irenaeus is a more reliable witness than Vatican II to how the teaching authority of the Church functioned in his time.”

-Michael Liccione’s comment  on his blog highlighting the shear gnosticism of Vatican II vs. the Orthodoxy of Irenaeus. That is one of the most amazing statements I’ve EVER read. They’ve locked themselves up in infallibility in which there is no turning back.

No critically thinking Orthodox could take this idea of tradition seriously.

I must confess that the following is something of a rant on my behalf. Oh, its not that bad of one so don’t click away just yet.  In graduate school as well as meeting people through other means, I have fairly often run into intelligent people who have converted from Protestantism to Rome. That’s fine. I usually don’t make a big deal of it. After not so long a while, they usually start poking me as to why I am not Catholic.   This turns into a rather dogmatic attempt to convert me. Inveitably this ends up in a complicated theological, philosophical and historical discussion. (Translated from the Dwarvish-I have to take people out to the theological woodshed.) But what amazes me, repeatedly, is the answer I routinely get in one form or another to a simple question.

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When I first read Joseph Farrell’s, Free Choice in St. Maximus the Confessor back in late 1997, it struck me that the insight of Maximus on the plurality of the Good and a denial of absolute simplicity had so many potential applications. Some of these applications are fairly obvious, once you grasp the initial insight. There are numerous applications to resolving problems in historical and philosophical theology and many of them have been discussed here in the past. There are also applications in ethical theory, specifically in cashing out moral particularism.

 But other applications are not so obvious, such as in social and political philosophy and economic theory. I’d like to take some space to point some of these out for further development. The dialectic of modern social and political thought is freedom and equality. To the degree that you make people free, you permit them to be unequal. Likewise to the degree that you make people equal, you restrict freedom. Capitalism is on the freedom end of the spectrum and Communism is on the equality end of the spectrum.  The backbone of socialistic political and economic models seems to be the singularity and simplicity of the Good. Since the Good is the same for all, what is good for one member is good for all since Goodness is one thing. It is the same. If the same is not meted out to everyone equally, then the good must be many different things (relativism) or there will be inequality. The same is to equity as the different is to inequity. But the Good isn’t many different things since it is one, therefore there will be inequality.

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I thought I’d post to keep readers up on the situaton. I deeply appreciate the financial response to my plea. The funds given enabled me to make my house payment, buy groceries and put gas in my car. There seems to me to be nothing much better than putting food into the mouths of another person’s children. For that I am grateful. I have made a list of the contributors and try to be mindful of them during times of prayer. Fortunately, living in St. Louis, housing is relatively cheap (compared to where I am from-California) and I never fell prey to the demon of the adjustable rate mortgage.

I am also grateful for job leads that people have thrown my way, though nothing has panned out as of yet. I am currently looking into the publishing industry for editorial or sales positions, paralegal positions and positions with the US government. When and if my financial situation becomes stable I will resume blogging. In the mean time, I’d ask some of the other contributors to post a thing or to two pick up the slack and keep the blog moving.

As some of you know, last June I lost my teaching position and my academic career was terminated. Needless to say this was due to my having integrity. If I had been dishonest and gone about things in a non-biblical manner by going to the person who stole from me privately, I wouldn’t be in this mess today. If I had know that I was dealing with principalities and powers rather than apparent ministers of righteousness, I would have gone about things differently. But the past is over and done with. As things stand, my wife is still working part time while I look for some kind of employment sufficient to meet our financial needs, while we take turns watching our three girls.

We live fairly frugally and even more so since my termination. We don’t have cable TV and going out to a KFC type place for dinner once a month with the family is a luxury,( which we no longer can afford). We cut off Netflix last month. Other than our mortgage, car payment and some small school loans, we have no revolving debt. We live within our means in our two bedroom home. My wife keeps telling me that I need to find a way to generate some cash flow from the blog writing I do. All of that apologetic experience has got to be worth something. So here goes.

I have been doing this for free. We have here a blog unlike most others in the blogsphere where we attempt to discuss unique material at a high level of sophistication. Few and far between are the places, at least that I know of in the blogsphere where you can discuss, not to mention learn about the kind of things we discuss here, even among “professonal” theologians and philosophers.

Soon my cash reserves will run out and I will be in serious financial difficulty. That means I will lose my house. Currently my wife and I have no health insurrance and my kids are on state medical coverage. So here I am begging until I can get on my feet. If you have found my writing significantly helpful and if you have disposable income and you need to be charitable or philanthropic, I am asking for help.

If you know of any job leads in the St. Louis area which would require someone with strong analytical skills, strong speaking skills and the kind of person who comes in early and leaves late, I could use those as well. For the last few months I have been applying to everything from educational positions, to selling shoes, to Enterprise Rent-a-Car. I am not proud, well at least not proud when it comes to feeding my kids. If you have already donated, you have my gratitude and I am not asking you to give again, but seeking to spread the love around as it were.

If you wish to donate or send me employment information, I would be most grateful. You may contact me at acolyte4236 AT sbcglobal dot net.

Thank you,

Perry Robinson

Reformed writer Robert Letham speaks of the functional Unitarianism of Reformed worship. Of course he doesn’t call it that, but that is what it is. What is the old saying? Lex ordandi…? In considering and trying to remedy the lack of invocation and plain old mention of the Trinity in Reformed worship (deformed worship?) he doesn’t seem to stop and ask why it is that way in the first place. It might have something to do with how Protestant debates over the Trinity shaped their understanding.

In one of the chapters of my book, The Holy Trinity, I describe at some length how the worship of the Western Church has been truncated by the comparative neglect of the doctrine of the Trinity. For most Christians-and I include members of Reformed churches-the Trinity is merely an abstruse mathematical puzzle, remote from experience. Despite our reservations about many aspects of the Eastern Church, Orthodoxy in contrast has maintained a pronounced Trinitarian focus to its worship through its liturgy, which has roots in the fourth century. This is no incidental matter; worship is right at the heart of what it means to be Christian and what the church should be doing. The sole object of worship is God. The God whom we worship has revealed himself to be the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons in indivisible union. I have argued elsewhere that this is his New Covenant name (Matt. 28:19-20). It follows that our worship in the Christian church is to be distinctively Trinitarian. Yet if we were to thumb through any hymnbook, we would be hard pressed to find many hymns that contain clearly Trinitarian expressions, while many of our favorites could equally be sung by Unitarians-think of “Immortal, invisible” or “My God, how wonderful thou art.” As for the average person in the pew, why not try a random survey next Sunday-ask a haphazard selection of half a dozen people what the Trinity means to them on a daily basis, and see what results you get? Then compare your findings with the words of Gregory of Nazianzus, who wrote of “my Trinity” and “when I say God, I mean the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

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