Other than calling him a Gnostic, what else can be said of where most Orthodox think he went wrong?

Blessings,
Jonathan

The key question to the issue (irrespective of Williams’ writing) is this matter of the essence-energies distinction and absolute divine simplicity. Working that out through whatever means will be an important part for mutual understanding of the East and the West.

With that being said, St. Gregory’s work is commended to me by my spiritual father, so I am hopeful that regardless of the means of reconciliation (correction of one, the other, both, or a sort of understanding that the views are complementary/not mutually exclusive), that that reconciliation will come one day.

Blessings.

That was extremely well-put. Not only is this counter-intuitive, it implies a commitment to nominalism (at least with respect to the relationship between choices and character formation). It seems there is an intrinsic, necessary connection between sin (personal action seperating oneself from God’s goodness) and corruption (a disoriented state of psychological or physical being). This follows from the fact that choices are intrinsically and necessarily related to character.

If this is so, it is much easier to read Paul as commenting on this in Romans 1 when he mentions that the fact that sin leads to corruption *is* the wrath of God. Given that Paul should have already accepted that sin intrinsically and necessarily leads to death, if he believed God also retributively punishes sin by making human beings more wicked (whether through natural laws/secondary causation or immediately and directly), it would have been preferable for him to state as much, and clarify how what he is saying is different from the obvious fact that sin leads to death by nomological necessity. And the same goes for Romans 6:23 where he says that sin (the power or tyrant–not God responding to our guilt) pays us the “wage” of death. This seems to be highlighting a necessary and intrinsic connection–not something that is imposed arbitrarily by divine fiat. The alternative–God could make a world where sin leads to life–seems quite unacceptable. How could personal action of seperating oneself from life lead to a greater degree of participation in life?

And yeah, given that the Fathers weren’t nominalists and that Athanasius always speaks of death in terms of a natural law, it makes more sense to think that he is viewing things in terms of natural consequences.

I suppose one could hold that murder is necessarily intrinsically evil and still say that God can decree that it can lead to life. But that isn’t a much better picture; it seems to show divine disregard for intrinsic worth. I wouldn’t be surprised if a Reformed person was okay with that, though.

I’ve read some of it. Williams basically seems to think that Palamas had the same view of God as Aquinas, namely absolute divine simplicity (either that or his view is compatible with that of Aquinas, I don’t remember). At face value this seems rather bizarre, given his involvement in the controversy with Barlaam and the fact that in order to deny what Barlaam is saying you need to affirm that the essence-energies distinction is a real distinction. I didn’t pick up any positive argument for the controversial part of her thesis with respect to Palamas per se, but rather an argument that the essence-energies distinction is not stated so clearly as to rule out the possibility that it is a mental distinction in the Triads.

My impression is that Williams had omitted reading many much clearer texts in Palamas’ writings (ie. the Capita or Dialogue Between an Orthodox and a Barlamite) which state the distinction very unambiguously compared to the Triads.

Also, (though this point is unnecessary given the above) regardless of the clarity or lack thereof with which Palamas says things, the distinction is in the earlier Fathers, and is necessary for the Christology of the sixth ecumenical Council.

If you would like me to take a closer look into Williams’ book, I can. But I doubt there is anything in there (and other people have confirmed this to me) that convincingly shows that Palamas did not hold to essence-energies as a real distinction.

Blessings!

Don’t worry about not replying for the time being. Maybe you could just respond to this section right now, and come back to the rest later:

You wrote:

“But what seems to be in view here is the idea that ultimately the individual is to be bound by Scripture and held responsible for his judgments (like your quote said). If the individual believer is held accountable for his judgments does this mean he is the authority? No, if God is still judging him for his beliefs and actions- including whether or not he submits to the Church‘s authority which is derived from Scripture..”

Are there any circumstances where a person should submit to the Church’s authority by giving up beliefs that he or she privately holds on the basis of what he or she considers to be strong exegetical arguments?

thankx

1. Given your definitions of accuracy and authority, do you have more authority than a minister in your congregation who is less intelligent than you are? And when you make a better historical-grammatical argument about how to interpret a passage than a pastor who is unable to rebut that argument against his view, does this negate all normative force from his interpretive decisions?

Response: If my minister’s judgments correspond to the word of God then my minister has ministerial authority over me whether or not he is more intelligent than me. If he is wrong and he is unable to give any sort of evidence authority or defense and what he is teaching does not corresponding to the word of God then he is not functioning as an elder similar to your case of insanity and church authority.

2. You wrote: “Now if a child has more evidence than his father then the child is displaying evidence authority to the proposition he believes and thus evidence authority can trump any authority it seems to me.”

If a child has more evidence for belief in what kind of proposition? Is it a proposition about what kinds of behaviors one ought to have, or about physics, or about theology?

Response: The evidence authority would be referring to any and all propositions. But then again evidence authority would have more authority than the Eastern Church in your case as well because you would not believe the Eastern Church if it was 1) saying something that is unreasonable, 2) if there was no reason to believe the Eastern Church in any way.

Let’s say a smart child has more evidence that orange juice is healthy to drink than he has that orangeade is healthy to drink. His mother tells him to drink orangeade instead of orange juice. If the child disobeys his mother, has he done wrong? Is the child conscience-bound to accept the decision of his mother?

Response: He is not conscience-bound because the Mother is not longer functioning as a Mother because of the evidence authority that orange juice is healthier, just like in your case of the insane Bishop or if you had evidence against the Eastern Church.
Also, are you disagreeing with David’s idea that sometimes, the judgments of experts can overrule the most persuasive arguments of amateurs?

Response: I do not disagree with David. Someone like a Doctor or an expert in the Hebrew language can have habitual principles that are reasonably grounded in their continual experience of their practice. They may not be able to give internal grounds for such principles but they know them to be reasonable. In those cases when someone gives an argument from all the limited principles he has of Hebrew or health care the doctor or the Hebrew expert can say in his or her experience that is not how things usually function or work without giving any sort of examples. At this point the persons experiential feel for things defeats the unexperienced persons are argument who does not have the same strength of the experiential feel. Now if both are experts that have done equal amount of study then of course the doctor or the Hebrew expert is unable to pull that card.
When you use the predicate “prescribed”, do you mean that the authority consists in the ability to prescribe belief and behavior? Or does “prescribed” refer to the prescription of Scripture that these are authorities? If the former, do these prescriptions have normative significance only when we have independent reasons to accept them? If the latter, what does the authority consist in?

Response: Good question: I would say both. Scripture prescribes that the government official have this sort of prescribed authority (1 Peter 2:13-20). The government is able to bind our conscience to believe a certain person has a more authority over others in the government and that this individual commands behaviors such as pay taxes, but if the government officials explicitly go against the word of God in their governing then in that instance they are not acting as government officials (Acts 4:19-20). Their authority consists in the fact that when we have no good or bad reasons to believe them either way they can command us what to believe and do and we are morally obligated to follow them.

4. When Jesus says “the Pharisees and Scribes sit on the seat of Moses; do whatever they tell you”, do you think he is just saying “the Pharisees and Scribes tend to be accurate, obey them when there isn’t evidence (evidence authority) against their teachings”? Does the Church have more or less authority than the Scribes and Pharisees had?

Response: Yes, Jesus was either saying that or he was saying it sarcastically because elsewhere he speaks about some of their bad practices and teachings (Matt. 15:9; 16:12). The church would have this ministerial authority as well.

5. To bring up my standard example again, consider a child who is told by his father to take out the trash. The child says “no, dad, I don’t feel like taking the trash out”. If the dad said, “why don’t you respect my authority and do it?” and the child said “I am not persuaded that I should follow your advice for some reason other than the fact that you said so. Until my own reasons for acting become strong enough to make it necessary for me to take the trash out, I am not bound by your authority” would you say the father has authority over his son?

Response: Yes, the child is obligated to obey the Father unless the father violates the word of God, in which case the father would not be functioning as a Father like the insanity case. Feelings and inscrutability are not sufficient to overrule any authority.

First, the issue does not ultimately seem to be how our language community uses the word “authority” and related words, but what Scripture means by words such as authority. Does it mean by “authority” and words related to it such as “office” a kind of general expertise?

Response: I think I have given evidence above and in my previous post for the scriptural grounds for my view of prescribed and/or ministerial authority. The Bible teaches the prescribed authority as I have defined with governments, elders, and husbands/wife relations. I think that from the fact the Bible gives these prescribed authorities that we are reasonable in inferring that in all instances of prescribed authority we ought to think that there is accuracy as well, but of course when the prescribed authority is wrong he is no longer acting as a prescribed authority like your example of the insane person.

Does Scripture in some places mean by the word “authoritative” or “binding” nothing more than “plausible, likely”?

Response: I never said that the Bible meant that. I think you have misunderstood my position. When the Bible means prescribed authority it does not mean just accuracy authority but rather both until you know that the authority is no longer acting as a prescribed authority like the case of the insane person that you mentioned.

When Scripture speaks of commands and obedience in the Church, does that always merely consist in being persuasive and persuaded by appeals to reason?

Response: It consists in it both being reasonable and having intrinsic authority.

It seems to me that when Scripture designates people as authorities (and makes similar ascriptions), it ascribes something roughly like the intrinsic power to bind human consciences to believe and do certain things.

Response: I would disagree. I would say they derive the authority ministerially from the Bible and they can bind people’s consciences ministerially so long as they do not contradict the word of God and when they are no longer acting as authorities like in the case of insanity as you have mentioned.

Second, on a scale of kinds of authority, it seems that expertise and making a plausible inference is lower than the kind of prescriptive power that our parents have over us, and that supreme court justices have with respect to the interpretation of the constitution. Intuitively, it seems like God would give the Church at least as much authority over its members as our parents have over us and at least as much authority as judges have over their people. So even if our culture uses the word “authority” to describe things according to your taxonomy, it seems there is an intuitive case to be made for the Church having the kind of authority I’m arguing that it has.

Response: I agree, if you have thought I was saying otherwise then perhaps you have misunderstood my position.

When you say that the passages can be read ministerially, what do you mean? Can you articulate ministerial authority in comparison to my conception of Church authority? And can you give me some examples of how this relates to perfect passive participles in biblical passages?

Response: When I speak of ministerial authority it is authority that already revealed in the Bible and set in stone, but that the elders declare it to the church authoritative fashion which entails binding the consciences of all who hear it (if it is false then they are not acting as elders as in the case of your insane person elder or bishop). Your concept of authority is beyond the Bible (in the cases of Icons which cannot be supported by the historical grammatical method as you have admitted elsewhere) and it is intrinsic as opposed to derivative. The perfect passive participle conveys the idea that something has already been completely bound by an agent and so the Apostles would simply be proclaiming something that has already been done and revealed and thus acting in a way that derives the authority from something that is already the case.

These are good questions MG. But I am having difficulty seeing any trouble with the Protestant view of authority. I hope you are well.

God Bless,

NPT