A. Problem or pseudo-problem?
The
antithesis and consequent collision between faith and science is a
problem for western (Franco-Latin) thought and is a pseudo-problem for
the Orthodox patristic tradition. This is based upon the historical data
of these two regions.
The
(supposed) dilemma of faith versus science appears in Western Europe
in the 17th century with the simultaneous development of the positive
sciences. About this same time we have the appearance of the first
Orthodox positions on this issue. It is an important fact that these
developments in the West are happening without the presence of
Orthodoxy. In these recent centuries there has been a spiritual
estrangement and differentiation between the [rational] West and the
Orthodox East. This fact is outlined by the de-orthodoxiation and
de-ecclesiastication of the western European world and the
philosophication and legalization of faith and its eventual forming as a
religion in the same area. Thus religion is the refutation of Orthodoxy
and, according to Fr. John Romanides, the sickess of the human being.
Therefore, Orthodoxy remained historically as a non-participant in the
making of the present western European civilization, which is also a
different size than the civilization of the Orthodox East.
The
turning points in western Europeans course of alteration include:
scholasticism (13th century), nominalism (14th century),
humanism/renaissance (15th century), Reformation (16th century) and the
Enlightenment (17th century). It is a series of revolutions and, at
that same time, breaches in the structure of western European
civilization, that was created by the dialectic of these two movements.
Scholasticism
is supported on the adoption of the Platonic realia. Our world is
conceived of as an image of the transcendent universalia (realism,
archetype). The instrument of knowledge is the mind-intellect. Knowledge
(including knowing God) is accomplished through the penetration of
logic in the essence of beings. It is the foundation of metaphysic
theology, which presupposes the Analogia Entis, the consequitive
ontological relation between God and the world, the analogy between the
created and uncreated. Nominalism accepts that the universalia are
simple names and not beings as in realism. It is a struggle between
Platonism and Aristotelian thought in European thought.
However,
nominalism turned out to be the DNA, in a way, of European
civilization, whose essential elements are dualism philosophically and
individualism (eudomenism) socially. Prosperity will become the basic
quest of the western man, theologically based on the scholastic
theology of the middle ages. Nominalism (that is dualism) is the
foundation of scientific development of the western world, that is the
development of the positive sciences.
The
Orthodox East had had another spiritual evolution, under the guidance
of its spiritual leaders the saints and of those who followed them,
the true believers--who remained loyal to the
prophetic-apostolic-patristic tradition; this tradition stands at the
opposite end of scholasticism and all the historic spiritual
developments in the European word. In the East, hesychasm or prayer of
the heart is dominant (and is the backbone of patristic tradition) it is
expressed with the ascetically experienced participation in the Truth
as communion with the Uncreated. The faith in the possibility of the
joining of God and the world (the Uncreated and the created) within
history is preserved in the Orthodox East. This, however, means the
rejection of every form of dualism. Science, to the degree it developed
in Byzantium/Romania, developed within this framework.
The
scientific revolution in Western Europe of the 17th Century,
contributed to the separation of the fields of faith and knowledge.
It
resulted in the following axiomatic principle: New (positive) philosophy
only accepts truths which are verified through rational thought. It is
the absolute authority of Western thinking. The truths of this new
philosophy are the existence of God, soul, virtue, immortality, and
judgment. Their acceptance, of course, can only take place in a theistic
enlightenment, since we also find atheism as a structural element of
modern thought. The ecclesiastical doctrines that are rejected by
rationality are the Triune nature of God, the Incarnation,
glorification, salvation, etc. This natural and logical religion, from
the Orthodox viewpoint, not only differs from atheism but is much worse.
Atheism is less dangerous than its distortion!
It
has been said that in the East the antithesis between faith and
science is a pseudo-problem, Why? Because gnosiology in the East is
defined by the object to be known which is twofold: the Uncreated and
the created. Only the Holy Trinity is Uncreated. The universe (or
universes) in which our existence is realized, is created. Faith is
knowledge of the Uncreated, and science is knowledge of the created.
Therefore, they are two different types of knowledge, each having its
own method and tools of inquiry.
The
believer, moving within the territory of supernatural, or knowledge of
the Uncreated, is not called to learn something metaphysically or to
accept something logically, but to experience God by being in communion
with Him. This is accomplished by introducing him to a way of life or
method which leads to divine knowledge.
It
has been correctly stated that if Christianity were to appear for the
first time in our era, it would have taken the form of a therapeutic
institution, a hospital to reinstate and restore the function of man as a
psychosomatic being. That is why Saint John Chrysostom calls the
Church a spiritual hospital. Supernatural-theological knowledge is
understood in Orthodoxy as pathos (experience of life), as
participation and communion with the transcendent and not an
unreachable personal truth of the Uncreated and certainly not a mere
exercise in learning. Thus, the Christian faith is not the abstract
contemplative adoption of metaphysical truths, it is rather, the
experience of beholding True Being: the experience of the
Supersubstantial (Superessential) Trinity.
This
clearly expresses that in Orthodoxy, authority is found in experience.
The experience of participating in the Uncreated, of seeing the
Uncreated (as expressed by the terms and "theosis" and "glorification"),
and is not based on texts or in the Scriptures. The tradition of the
Church is not preserved within texts but in people. Texts help, but they
are not the bearers of the Holy Tradition. Tradition is preserved by
the Saints. Human beings are the bearers of the Gospel. The placing of
texts above the actual experience of the Uncreated (an indication of the
religionizing of faith) leads to their ideologization and in fact to
their idolization. This in turn leads to the absolute authority of the
text (fundamentalism) and all the well understood consequences.
The presupposition of the function of knowing the Uncreated, for Orthodoxy, is the rejection of every analogy (either Entis or Fide)
in this relationship of the created and the Uncreated. St. John of
Damascus summarizes this previously extant patristic tradition in the
following manner: It is impossible to find, in creation, an icon that
would reveal the way of existence of the Holy Trinity. Because, how
could it be possible for the created, which is complex and changeable
and describable, which has shape and is perishable, to clearly reveal
Superessential Divine Essence, which is free of all these categories?
(P.G. 94,821/21).
Therefore,
it now becomes apparent why school education and philosophy more
specifically, according to the patristic tradition, are not
presuppositions for knowledge of God (theognosia). Alongside the great
academic St. Basil the Great (+379) we also give honor to St. Anthony
(+350), who by wordly standards was not wise. Yet they are both teachers
of the faith. Both witness to knowledge of God, St. Anthony as someone
uneducated and St. Basil as someone who was more highly educated than
Aristotle.
St. Augustine (+430) differs (something that the West would
find very painful, if they knew about it) from patristic tradition at
this point when he ignores scriptural and patristic gnosiology and is
in essence a Neo-platonist! With his axiom credo ut intelligam
(I believe in order to understand) he introduced the principle that man
is lead to a logical conception of Revelation through faith. This
gives priority to the intellect (the mind), which is considered by this
form of knowledge to be the instrument or tool of knowing both the
natural as well as the supernatural.
God is considered as a knowable
object that can be conceived of by the human intellect (mind) just as
any natural object can be conceived of. After St. Augustine the next
step in this evolution (with the intervention of the scholasticism of
Thomas Aquinas+1274) will be made by Decartes (+1650) with his axiom cogito, ergo sum (I think therefore I am) in which the intellect (mind) is declared as the main basis of existence.
C. The two types of knowledge
It
is the Orthodox Tradition that puts and end to this theoretical
collision within the field of gnosiology. It does so by differentiating
the two types of knowledge and of wisdom:
- divine or that which "from above" and
- secular (thyrathen) or lower.
The
first knowledge is supernatural and the second is natural. This
corresponds to the clear distinction between the Uncreated and the
created, between God and creation. These two types of learning require
two methods of learning. The method of divine wisdom-knowledge is the
communion of man with the Uncreated through the heart. It is
accomplished through the presence of the Uncreated energy of God in
man's heart. The method of secular wisdom-knowledge is science, it is
accomplished by exercising the intellectual/ logical power of man.
Orthodoxy establishes a clear hierarchy in the two types of knowledge
and their methods.
The
method of supernatural gnosiology, in the Orthodox Tradition, is
called hesychasm and is identified with watchfulness and purification (nepsis and katharsis)
of the heart. Hesychasm is identified with Orthodoxy.
Orthodoxy,
patristically speaking, is inconceivable outside its hesychastic
practice. Hesychasm in its essence, is the ascetic-curative practice of
cleansing the heart of passions to rekindle the noetic faculty within
the heart. It must be noted at this point, that the method of hesychasm
as a curative practice is also scientific and practical. Therefore,
theology, under proper conditions, belongs to the practical sciences.
Theology's academic classification among the theoretical sciences or
arts began in the 12th century in the west and is due to the shift of
theology into metaphysics. Therefore, those in the East who condemn our
own theology, demonstrate their Westernization, since they,
essentially, condemn and reject a disfigured caricature of what they
regard as theology. But what is the noetic function? In the Holy
Scriptures there is, already, the distinction between the spirit of man
(his nous) and the intellect (the logos or mind). The spirit of man in patristics is called nous to distinguish it from the Holy Spirit. The spirit, the nous, is the eye of the soul (see Matt. 6:226).
The
noetic faculty is called the function of the nous within the heart and
is the spiritual function of the heart, its parallel function is the
heart as the organ that pumps the blood throughout our bodies. This
noetic faculty is a mnemonic system that exists with the brain cells.
These two are known and are detectab1e from human science, which science
cannot, however, conceive of the nous. When man attains illumination
by the Holy Spirit and becomes the temple of God, self-love changes to
unconditional love and it then becomes possible to buiId real social
relations supported upon this unconditional reciprocity (a willingness
to sacrifice for our fellow man) rather than a self- interested claim of
individual rights according to the spirit of western European society.
Thus
some important consequences are understood: First, that Christianity
in its authenticity is the transcendence of religion and a conception
of the Church as merely an institution of rules and duties.
Furthermore, Orthodoxy cannot be conceived as an adoption of some
principles or truths, imposed upon from above. This is the non-Orthodox
version of doctrines (absolute principles, imposed truths).
Conceptions and meanings in Orthodoxy are examined through their
empirical verification. The dialectical-intellectual style of thinking
about theology, as well as dogmatizing, are alien to authentic Orthodox
Tradition.
The
scientist and professor of the knowledge of the Uncreated, in the
Orthodox Tradition, is the Geron/Starets (the Elder or Spiritual
Father), the guide or "teacher of the desert". The recording of both
types of know1edge presupposes empirica1 knowledge of the phenomenon.
The
same holds true in the field of science, where only the specialist
understands the research of other scientists of the same field. The
adoption of conclusions or findings of a scientific branch by
non-specialists (i.e. those who are unable to experimentally examine the
research of the specialists) is based on the trust of the specialists
credibility. Otherwise, there would be no scientific progress.
The
same holds true for the science of faith. The empirical knowledge of
the Saints, Prophets, Apostles, Fathers and Mothers of all ages is
adopted and founded upon the same trust. The patristic tradition and the
Church's Councils function on this provable experience. There is no
Ecumenical Council without the presence of the glorified/deified (theoumenoi), those who see the divine (this is the problem of the councils of today!) Orthodox doctrine results from this relationship.
Therefore,
Orthodox faith is as dogmatic as science is. Those who speak of bias
in the filed of faith, must not forget the words of Marc Bloch, that
all scientific research is biased from the beginning, otherwise
research could not have been possible. The same holds true of faith.
Orthodoxy, makes a distinction between the two types of knowledge (and
wisdom), and their methods and tools, thus, avoiding any confusion
between them as well as any conflict. The road remains open to
confusion and conflict only where the conditions and essence of
Christianity are lost.
However, in the Orthodox environment, some
illogical analogies exist. Such as the possibility of having someone
who excels in science, yet with regard to divine knowledge is a child
spiritually; and vice-versa, someone who is great in divine knowledge
and completely illiterate in human wisdom as the aforementioned St.
Anthony the Great. Nothing, however, precludes the possibility of
possessing both types of wisdom/knowledge, as is the case of the Great
Fathers and Mothers of the Church. This is exactly what the Church
hymns for the 3rd century mathematician Saint Catherine the Wise as
possessing both types of knowledge: The martyr having received God's
wisdom since childhood, learned all secular wisdom well...
Thus
the Orthodox believer experiences in the correlation of the two
knowledge-wisdoms a God-man dialectic. And to use the Christological
terminology, every knowledge must stay put and move within its limits.
The problem of the limits of each kind of knowledge is put thus: The
surpassing of those limits leads to the confusion of their functions and
finally to their conflict. According to the above, the Holy Fathers
defended the correct use of science and education. Saint Gregory the
Theologian states: "Education should not be dishonored." The same Father
in his second theological Oration also sets the limits of both kinds
of wisdom. Saint Gregory says that the ancient sage (Plato in Timaeus)
said: "It is difficult to know God and impossible to express Him
[verbally]." However the same Greek yet Christian St. Gregory
understands that it is impossible to express (describe) God with words,
moreover it is absolutely impossible to understand Him! That is, Plato
has already pointed out the limits of human reason and it is important
to add that there is no rationalism in the ancient Greek philosophy.
Saint Gregory also demonstrates the impossibility of surpassing those
limits and the conception of the Uncreated by means of the knowledge of
the created.
The
distinction and simultaneous hierarchy of the two kinds of knowledge
have been pointed out by Saint Basil the Great when he states that faith
must prevail in words concerning God and the proofs made by reason.
That faith originates from the action and energy of the Holy Spirit.
Faith for St. Basil is the illumination of the Holy Spirit in the heart.
(P.G. 30,104B-105B). He also gives a classic example of the Orthodox
use of scientific knowledge in his Hexameron (P.G. 29, 3-208).
He repudiates the cosmological theories of the philosophers on the
eternity and self-existence of the world and proceeds to the synthesis
of biblical and scientific facts, through which he surpasses science.
Furthermore, by rejecting materialistic and heretical teachings, he gets
to the theological (but not metaphysical) interpretation of the nature
of creation. The central message of this work is, that the logical
support of dogma is impossible based only on science. Dogma belongs to
another sphere. It is above reason and science, yet within the limits of
another knowledge. The use of dogma with wordly knowledge leads to the
transformation of science into metaphysics. Whereas the use of reason
in the domain of faith proves its weakness and relativity. Therefore,
there is no belief that is not searched in Orthodox gnosiology, but each
field is searched with its own criteria: Science with its
presuppositions and Divine Knowledge with its presuppositions.
The
most tragic expression of the alienated Christian body is the
ecclesiastica1 attitude in the West towards Galileo. The case could be
characterized as surpassing the limits of jurisdiction. But it is much
more serious, it is the confusion of the limits of knowledge and their
conflict. It is a fact that this loss of the wisdom from above in the
West and the way of achieving it have caused the intellect (mind) to be
used as a tool of not only human wisdom, but of Divine Wisdom too. The
use of the intellect in the field of science leads unavoidably to the
rejection of the supernatural as incomprehensible, and its use in the
field of faith can lead to the rejection of science when it is
considered to be in conflict with faith. This same way of thinking and
the same loss of criteria is also betrayed by the rejection of the
Copernican system in the East (1774-1821). Science, in turn, takes its
revenge for the condemnation of Galilee by the Roman Church, in the
person of Darwin, with his theory of evolution.
E. Transplantation of the Western Problem to the Orthodox East
The
European Enlightenment consisted of a struggle between physical
empiricism and the metaphysics of Aristotle. The Enlighteners are
philosophers and rationalists as well. The Greek Enlighteners, with
Adamantios Korais as their patriarch, were metaphysical in their
theology and it was they who transported the conflict between
empiricists and metaphysicists to Greece. However, the Orthodox monks
of Mount Athos, the Kollyvades and other Hesychast Fathers remained
empiricists in their theological method. The introduction of
metaphysics in our popular and academic theology is due, principally,
to Korais. For this reason Korais became the authority for our academic
theologians, as well as for the popular moral movements.
This means
that the purification of the heart has ceased to be considered as a
presupposition of theology and its place has been taken by scholastic
education. the same problem appeared in Russia at the time of Peter the
Great (17-18th century). Thus the Fathers are considered to be
philosophers (principally Neo-platonists like St. Augustine) and social
workers. This has become the prototype of the pietists in Greece.
Furthermore, Hesychasm is rejected as obscurantism. The so-called
progressive ideas of Korais comprise from the fact that he was a
supporter of the Calvinistic and not the Roman Catholic use of
metaphysics, and his theological works are intense in this Calvinistic
pietism (moralism).
However,
for the Fathers, Orthodoxy is anti-metaphysical, as it continually
searches empirical certainty, by means of the hesychastic method. This
is why the hesychasm of the Kollyvades is empirical and scientific.
Ratio according to Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite is empirical. This is
illustrated by the Hesychasts of the 18th century in the way in which
they accept the scientific progress of the West. The Kollyvades
acknowledged scientific viewpoints like, for example, Saint Nicodemos
the Hagiorite did in his work, Symbouletikon, where he accepts
the latest theories of his time on the functioning of the heart.
Saint
Athansios Parios does not fight science itself, but its use by the
Westernized Enlighteners of the Greek nation. They regarded science as
God's work and as an offering for the improvement of life. But the use
of science in a metaphysical struggle against faith, as was practised
in the West, and as was transferred to the East, is opposed quite
rightly by the traditional theologians of the 18th and 19th century.
The mistakes lies on the side of the Greek Enlighteners who, without
having any relationship with the patristic viewpoint of knowledge,
although they themselves were priests and monks, transferred the
European conflict of metaphysicists and empiricists to Greece, talking
about irrational religion. Whereas, the Fathers of Orthodoxy,
discriminating between the two kinds of knowledge making a distinction
at the same time between the rational from the super-rational.
The
problem of conflict between faith and science, apart from the
confusion of knowledge, has caused the idoloziation of the two kinds of
knowledge. Thus, a weak and morbid apologetic has resulted in
Christianity (e.g. a Greek professor of Apologetics many years ago
produced a mathematical proof of the existence of God !). In Orthodoxy,
however, this dualism is not self-evident. Nothing excludes the
co-existence of faith and science when faith is not imaginary
metaphysics and science does not falsify its positive character with the
use of metaphysics. The mutual understanding of science and faith is
helped by current scientific language.
The
principle of indetermination (that there is no causality) is a kind of
apophatism in science. The return to the Fathers therefore, helps to
overcome the conflict. The acceptance of the limits of the two kinds of
knowledge (Uncreated and created) and the use of the suitable organ or
tool for each one, is the element of Orthodoxy and of the Fathers which
places earthly wisdom under higher or divine knowledge.
In
contrast, the confusion of the two types of knowledge in Western
thought promotes their mutual misinterpretations and continues and
fosters their conflict. A Church which persists in metaphysical
theology, will always be obliged to beg Galileo's pardon. But a Science
that also ignores its limits, will deteriorate into metaphysics and
will either deal with the existence of God (which is not its
responsibility) or reject God completely.
See also
