Zizioulas on Truth and Communion II

I am afraid that life has continued to be rather disrupted, which has made any serious writing rather difficult, and this will probably continue for a couple of weeks as I’m still catching up on other things. Anyway, I’m posting this rather long summary of part of chapter two of Being as Communion…

John D. Zizioulas. Being as Communion. Studies in Personhood and the Church. London, DLT, 1985 (2004).

Chapter 2. Truth and Communion (67-122)

II. Truth, Being and History: The Greek Patristic Synthesis (72-101)

In this rather substantial section, Zizioulas traces the varying approaches to truth in the Patristic era, focusing particularly on its relationship to history. The challenge for the Fathers was to find a way of expressing the ontological character of truth in a way that did justice to the specific revelation of God in Christ.

1. The “Logos” Approach

This approach, which originated with the apologists and especially with Justin, found “its most audacious representatives” in Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Justin’s view of truth was similar if not identical to that of Platonism, and sees it as “something fixed which establishes its links with the world in and through the mind.” (73) For Justin, “Christ as the logos of God, becomes this very link between truth and the mind, and the truth of philosophy is nothing less than part of this logos.” (74) There is a danger here of a dualism between the senses and the intellect and also, more importantly, of an ontological necessity and monism, but this did not become apparent in Justin.

 

Zizioulas on Truth and Communion I

 I am returning to my reading of Being as Communion, which has unfortunately been rather disrupted of late. I hope that it won’t be too long before I get down to some discussion of his ideas, but it might take a while!

John D. Zizioulas. Being as Communion. Studies in Personhood and the Church. London, DLT, 1985 (2004).

 Chapter 2. Truth and Communion (67-122)

 I. Introduction: The Problem of Truth in the Patristic Era (67-72)

The introduction to this chapter begins by asserting that “Christology is the sole starting point for a Christian understanding of truth.” (67) However what this means is not always apparent and Zizioulas proceeds to examine the challenge that a Christological understanding of truth poses to both Jewish and Greek thought forms.

 For Jews, truth is known in history and becomes identified with the oath of God, which offers security. It is God’s promises that are the ultimate truth and they coincide with the goal or fulfilment of history. “It is in short an eschatological truth which orientates the human spirit towards the future.” (68)

Greek thought, by contrast, seeks truth in a way that transcends history and which is located in the link between being and the perceiving mind. For the Greeks there was a unity between the intelligible world, the thinking mind and being. This unity gave rise to the harmony and beauty of the cosmos, and it is precisely in this unity that truth is to be find. Truth is thus primarily cosmological. This closed ontology of Greek thought found history rather problematical. It had to either explain it by means of some cause or else dismiss it, which ultimately amounted to the same thing.

The New Testament understanding of truth presents a challenge to both Jewish and Greek ideas:

By referring to Christ as the Alpha and Omega of history, the New Testament has transformed radically the linear historicism of Hebrew thought, since in a certain way the end of history in Christ becomes already present here and now. Likewise, in affirming that Christ, i.e. a historical being, is the truth, the New Testament hurls a challenge to Greek thought, since it is in the flow of history and through it, through its changes and ambiguities, that man is called to discover the meaning of existence. (70-71)

The challenge that the early Church had to grapple with, and which Zizioulas discusses in the following section, is how we are to hold “at one and the same time to the historical nature of truth and the presence of ultimate truth here and now.” (71) He suggests that the idea of “communion” was a decisive tool that enabled the Greek Fathers to respond to this challenge.

 

Being as Communion, chapter one, part two

Here is the rest of chapter one. The summary is once more rather detailed. I don’t know if anyone is interested in these summaries, but I think that this is a useful exercise for me and that posting them here will – hopefully – provide a certain stimulus to keep me writing! However, I have realised that trying to write a response to this now feels too forced. There is much that needs to emerge with time, that needs further reflection and that I hope will become clearer as the book proceeds. So I have decided to simply note a couple of points for further reflection at the end and to come back to these at some point in separate posts. (Although I fear that I shall not have much time for writing in the next couple of weeks).

John D. Zizioulas. Being as Communion. Studies in Personhood and the Church. London, DLT, 1985 (2004).

II From Biological to Ecclesial Existence:
The Ecclesiological Significance of the Person (49-65)

This second part of chapter one is concerned with the ecclesial emergence of the person. Salvation means that we become participators in the Divine Life, precisely because we come to participate in God’s personal existence, for “The goal of salvation is that the personal life which is realized in God should also be realized on the level of human existence. Consequently salvation is identified with the realization of personhood in man.” (50)

Patristic theology was concerned with the person precisely as an “image of God”. It identified two “modes of existence”, namely, the “hypostasis of biological existence” and the “hypostasis of ecclesial existence”.

The hypostasis of biological existence is constituted by conception and birth and as such is the product of communion between two people. Such erotic love is an astounding mystery of existence and conceals a tendency to the ecstatic transcendence of individuality through creation. However, it suffers from two passions, namely ontological necessity because of its tie to natural instinct, and individualism in which the body becomes a new mask. “The body tends towards the person but leads finally to the individual.” (51) Death is the natural development of the biological hypostasis, which can assure the continuation of the species but not of the person.

All this means that man as a biological hypostasis is intrinsically a tragic figure. He is born as a result of an ecstatic fact – erotic love – but this fact is interwoven with a natural necessity and therefore lacks ontological freedom. He is born as a hypostatic fact, as a body, but this fact is interwoven with individuality and with death. By the same erotic act with which he tries to attain ecstasy he is led to individualism. His body is the tragic instrument which leads to communion with others, stretching out a hand, creating language, speech, conversation, art, kissing. But at the same time it is the “mask” of hypocrisy, the fortress of individualism, the vehicle of the final separation, death. “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7: 24) The tragedy of the biological constitution of man’s hypostasis does not lie in his not being a person because of it; it lies in his tending towards becoming a person through it and failing. Sin is precisely this failure. And sin is the tragic prerogative of the person alone. (52)

 

Being as Communion. Chapter One, part one

It was probably an illusion to think that I was going to be able to produce concise summaries of Zizioulas. Either I have lost my ability to write concisely or else it is impossible to present him concisely, or perhaps a bit of both. In any case, here is the first instalment of chapter one with some very brief comments.

John D. Zizioulas. Being as Communion. Studies in Personhood and the Church. London, DLT, 1985 (2004).

Chapter 1. Personhood and Being (27-65)

This chapter is concerned with the emergence of the concept of the person and its rootedness in theology. Zizioulas argues that the concept of the person “is purely the product of patristic thought. Without this, the deepest meaning of personhood can neither be grasped nor justified.” (27) This chapter is divided into two major sections. The first traces this emergence historically and shows theology’s role in accounting for the person. The second explores the ecclesial grounding of personal identity.

I. From Mask to Person. The birth of an ontology of Personhood.(27-49)

This section traces the development of the concept of the person from Greek thought, where it tentatively raised its head only to be frustrated by the ontological necessity implied by monism, to its emergence in patristic thought where it is intimately related to the working out of Trinitarian theology.

Ancient Greek thought was unable to see human individuality as permanent in any real sense because of its basic principle which sought to trace the multiplicity of existent things back to a unity in the “one” being. This ontological monism meant that not even God could escape this ontological unity.

 

Being as Communion: Introduction

John D. Zizioulas. Being as Communion. Studies in Personhood and the Church. London, DLT, 1985 (2004).

 

Introduction (pp. 15-26)

Here we encounter the central themes with which Zizioulas is concerned in this book, namely the ontological nature of ecclesiology, the dialectic between history and eschatology, and the role of the Eucharist in both these themes.

For Zizioulas ecclesiology is not simply one aspect of theology. It assumes a fundamental importance not only for all of theology, but also for our understanding of humanity as such. The Church is a “way of being” which is “deeply bound to the being of man, to the being of the world and to the very being of God.” (15)

The Fathers were not concerned with whether God existed, but rather with how he existed, a question had direct consequences for both the Church and humanity, for both were considered “images of God”. They sought to ground human personhood in a relational ontology that emerged from the eucharistic experience of the early Church. This enabled them to avoid both the monism of Greek philosophy and the “gulf” between God and the world of gnosticism. The being of God is thus a relational being. The Trinity is a primordial ontological concept and not a notion that is added to the divine substance. For the Fathers communion becomes an ontological concept. It is communion that makes things “be”.