Dr. David Bradshaw on Divine Simplicity and Essence Energy Distinction
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- Опубліковано 1 сер 2024
- Dr. David Bradshaw joins me to talk about the more difficult and advanced aspects of Essence Energy Distinction and how it relates to the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity.
Dr. David Bradshaw's Bio: philosophy.as.uky.edu/users/d...
Dr. David Bradshaw's Works: uky.academia.edu/DBradshaw
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0:00 Introduction (Dr. Bradshaw, Energy, Identity Thesis)
4:30 What is Divine Simplicity (Απλωτής)?
18:24 Augustine & Theological Determinism, which carries through the Middle Ages & Thomas Aquinas.
23:54 Freedom, Will, Capacity.
30:37 Love for Grandson
38:43 Proactive Wisdom takes many virtues
56:46 Computer Program analogy to God.
1:04:03 Semantic flexibility of the word “Energy”
1:17:52 Son
1:33:12 Why say God is Simple? (Eastern vs. Western view)
1:37:34 God is not made of parts although He has distinctions.
1:49:37 Ousia without Energia is a fiction of the mind (Faith without Works is dead?)
1:54:37 Acting and Being Acted Upon. Potency. Acts of Will
1:57:40 Choosing to Respond To Prayer.
1:58:36 St. Paul on participating in the Divine Energy
2:03:00 Nature/Person "I, You, We drank water." not "My body drank water", etc.
2:14:22 Equivocation on Terms
2:18:20 Existence From Father.
2:20:13 Partaking of Divine Nature. Synergy. Active Presence.
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*Introduction*
David Bradshaw is a Philosophy Professor, written several books 📚 he converted to orthodox Christianity ☦️
18:24 Augustine is a Theological Determinist, which Carrie’s through to The Middle Ages and Thomas Aquinas.
23:54 Freedom, Will, Capacity.
30:37 Love for Grandson
38:43 Proactive Wisdom takes many virtues
56:46 Computer Program analogy to God.
1:04:03 Semantic flexibility of the word “Energy”
1:17:52 Son
1:33:12 Why say God is Simple?
+ Uncreated + Creator of All Things + Source of Being
Western - more Absolute, more Determinist
1:37:34 God is not made of parts although he has distinctions.
Logi are form of divine energy.
1:49:37 Ousia without Energia is a fiction of the mind (Faith without Works is dead?)
1:54:37 Acting and Being Acted Upon. Potency.
God only acts, he is not acted upon.
Deliver ---- Receive, then Engage
Interaction
Will
Desire
1:57:40 Choosing to Respond To Prayer.
1:58:36 St. Paul on participating in the Divine Energy
Energia of God
Energemene - Realizing and Making Effect Energy
Free Will Cooperation With God's Direction
Synergy - Aligning With God
2:03:00 We don't say "my body drank water" we say "I drank water." "You drank water." "we drank water."
Ousia
Hypostasis
2:14:22 It depends on what you mean by [Insert word]
2:18:20 Existence From Father.
2:20:13 Partaking of Divine Nature. Synergy. Active Presence.
Being From Active Will.
You are a beast at this! Thanks!
David, if you copyvand paste these into the video description and add 00:00 for the Introduction (which is necessary), it will add the chapters to the video.
41:00 This is why we shouldn't fear concepts in the Scriptures like God's Wrath. God's Anger is not contaminated with pride like our anger tends to be but is in perfect harmony with His Compassion and Mercies, which makes sense under the pure Orthodox notion of Simplicity. Divine Simplicity depicts integrity, communion and harmony unlike Absolute Simplicity which eradicates everything in assimilation towards an undifferentiated Union.
Saint Augustine’s failure to learn Greek may be among the greatest tragedies in all Christendom. This isn’t his fault, some people just don’t have a head for languages beyond their parents’. He knew his father’s Latin and his mother’s Berber, that’s it. But for this to happen to such a singularly influential man, THAT is the tragedy.
The greater tragedy is the west losing its understanding of Greek and basing all their later theology on St. Augustine's error.
was there any issues that affected christendom pre nicene
This is a very nice observation but to say that it isn't entirely Augustins fault is just being overly charitable. It is encumbered upon each individual to be honest and truthful and aware of one's own limits. To not pretend and go into excess where one is limited. Pride will however cause people to do exactly this. So it is actually Agustins own fault for not being humble enough to say that "perhaps I have reached my limit here and I need help understanding this".
It is a tragedy and it is indeed his fault for causing such confusion on this matter but he also did many good things and it shows exactly the flaws in us as creatures.
@@godsaveskyrieeleison5859
He did seek help. The best he could do was some crappy translations going around. For whatever reasons, Tripoli had become a bastion of Italio-centric politics during that period. Before his Conversion, young Augustine was, indeed, puffed up on his pride as a cultural Italian, even though he was only a quarter by blood. He became more sensitive to his Berber roots as a humbled bishop, but the practical effects locally remained a problem, as Greek speakers were looked down upon, so Greek tradesmen rarely left the ports, and Greek educators avoided such provenances like a plague. It was a perfect storm when you think about it.
I love listening to Dr Bradshaw. He explains heavy topics in a clear way. And these subjects are important for east/west dialogue. He sounds like a man of prayer too, not just an academic egg head. Very grateful for that as well.
Awesome stream David. Thank you Dr. Bradshaw!
Thanks David and Dr. Bradshaw. Good job making a complex topic clear.
These are totally complex issues that are explained in a straight forward, ascessible way. It is one of the best videos i have seen on youtube , the other being Dr.B's video on DS.
Like myself, most Orthodox get the Essence/Energy distinction but do not fully appreciate the implications . It is vital to delve into this realization in order to understand our distance from G-d and understand why we sin.
1:22:00 Also, this makes me think of what the Priest says in the Liturgy before the readings of the Epistle and Gospel: "Dynamis - with strength!" during the Agios and then "Wisdom!" (Sophia) during the Trisagion.
Thanks!
And thank you for the support.
Really appreciate this video.
So God is boundless and incomprehensible, and one thing in Him is comprehensible - His boundlessness and incomprehensibility. And the fact that we speak affirmatively about God shows us not His nature, but what relates to nature... For He is not one of the things that exist, not because He does not exist at all, but because He is above all that exists, above even being itself. For if cognition has existing things as its object, then that which is higher than cognition is of course higher than being, and again: that which exceeds being is higher than cognition.
St. John of Damascus "An Exact exposition of the Orthodox Faith"
I am an Evangelical Charismatic Baptist and believe in energy essence distinction!
what
Convert to orthodox.
The E/E distinction. It's realization compels us down the path of joy and duty ... it is the narrow path ...
Brilliant guy and great interview. But I do think he sells Thomism a bit short.
I would love to hear Bradshaw in conversation with Adonis Vidu, on the divine missions, visible and invisible.
Dr Bradshaw states in Aristotle East and West, a work devoted to examining the use of the word energeia in Greek philosophical and theological discourse from the time of Aristotle to Gregory Palamas, that he cannot imagine what the Divine Light of Godhead can be, other than the divine energy of mutual praise amongst the Triune persons of the Godhead. Well, I have an answer for him. The Council of Nicea identifies the Divine Light of Godhead as the essence of God - the Son is only begotten out of the Father's essence Light out of Light, consubstantial (homoousian) with the Father. Athanasius confirms this (De Decretis 24), as does Basil (Letter 52 to the Canonicae). I found at least 29 Church fathers prior to the Pseudo Dionysius, from the third through the sixth century, who stated the very same thing, that the Son is Light out of Light consubstantial with the Father, including not only Augustine and all of the major Latin fathers, but Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria - all of the Biggies! If the Divine Light of Godhead is the energy of God, as Gregory Palamas teaches, and not the essence of God, the Son is a product of the Father's energy, the Son being begotten out of the light of the Father, and this is the teaching of Arius and Eunomius! The pre-Dionysian Eastern fathers (many of them at any rate) did teach that what comes down to us from God is His energies, but they did not teach that the Light of Godhead itself is God's energy, as Palamas does. This idea is of Neoplatonic provenance, and comes to be the dogmatic teaching of the Eastern Church in light of the mistaken view that the Pseudo Dionysius was an apostolic author, instead of a 6th century Christian Neoplatonist. When you learn the facts, the Eastern criticism of Augustine becomes laughable. Indeed, Palamas himself adopts St. Augustine's teaching from De Trinitate 15.27 that the hypostatic proprium of the Holy Spirit consists in the fact that He is the love (caritas) which subsists between the Father and Son, what Palamas calls the divine eros (theia eros) of the Father for the Son (150 Chapters, 36), which means that God's theia eros is proper to the Divine Essence, and infinitely transcends His agape (1 Jn 4:8) - IF, as Palamas teaches, God is love according to His energy but not according to His essence. What a theological blunder on the part of Palamas! By adopting Augustine's teaching in regard to the hypostatic proprium of the Holy Spirit he utterly demolishes his own doctrine of energetic procession. How a trained scholar such as Bradshaw fails to make any of these connections is beyond me. Even he admits that the Pseudo Dionysius and the Cappadocians imported their energies teaching from Neoplatonism, and just uncritically accepts that we should elevate Neoplatonic metaphysical speculation in regard to the Divinity to the status of revealed dogma. How laughable. How sad.
1:19:00 St. Athanasius (IIRC) says that the Son is the Will of God to solve the dilemma of the Arians. It would make sense in the context of this discussion.
Do you have any idea *why* the Greeks thought a distinction necessarily meant a division? Why there was necessarily an opposition between one and many?
Is it because their notion of hypostasis couldn't account for it, so their first cause had to be an actus purus?
One thing missing from lecture is Kabbalah connection of the emanations of the Sephiroth Tree of Life.
18:27 Catherine Rogers article
Ephesians 1:4-14
"Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory."
The white light of the sun contains the whole spectrum of color ...
♡
Wouldn't the Divine Energies be a part of God?
As one recently accepting of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour through a Protestant calling this is very interesting and enlightening yet equally questionable to me. The amount of philosophical discourse to determine these metaphysical concepts applied almost solely through Greek philosophy seems a bit too much like man’s wisdom at play. Any chance someone would be willing to have a discussion or share more insight on this topic? I’d much appreciate it!
Questions such as "what is/is not God" arise naturally, and are important in regards to questions such as "how are we saved?" or "who is Jesus?" Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the hypostatic union, while intrinsic to the faith, came under vicious attack by those who called themselves Christians through the various Trinitarian and Christological heresies that arose in the first millennium. In order to preserve the Christology and Trinitarianism of the fathers and the apostles from attacks within, Christian theologians had to, more or less, fight fire with fire. Philosophy and debate were used as tools to attempt to undermine the gospel, and one could not simply appeal to scripture, because the enemies of Trinitarian and Incarnational theology cited the same scriptures that the proponents did.
Presently, Roman Catholics (and some protestants) teach absolute divine simplicity, which causes an internal incoherence in their system of theology. As Dr. Bradshaw and Mr. Erhan have pointed out numerous times in this conversation, absolute divine simplicity precludes us as creatures from interacting with God himself directly, and as a corollary prevents God from responding to our actions, and therefore leads to a kind of theological determinism or predestination, all of which are problematic concepts when faced with scripture and tradition.
These truths about God were divinely revealed to those actively living out an Orthodox life. These doctrines are not the result of philosophical speculation but rather these are experiential truths that saints were gifted from God. Only the terminology was borrowed from Greek philosophy and even then many times the meanings were emended by the Fathers. Also, these doctrines all have their basis in the scriptures when correctly interpreted. Read the opening chapter to St. Gregory Palamas’ “Triads” and “The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church” by Vladimir Lossky to gain a further understanding of this concept. Theology and praxis mesh together as one in Orthodoxy.
Αctually if you read the synodicon of orthodoxy all philosophical methodologies to supposed know about God is seen as heresy. To know God in orthodox church theology is to get in union to view God in his divine uncreated majestic Glory that is called as Theosis _ Gloryfication .one example from scripture is 2 Peter 1:16_18
Paul uses the greek word ενέργεια _ energy in his epistles something that is actually lost in translations ,as the greek speaking fathers see it .
Actually the protestant world knows so little about the orthodox church ,they think in protestant world that orthodoxy is just some catholic that dont have a pope and that there priest have beards but catholic priest not .