Gregory Palamas Theo Anthropology And Mysticism According To The Philokalia Their Relevance To Religious Life In Asia

How are we to regard our body? As a prison, an enemy, or, maybe, an ally? Is it something bad that needs to be humiliated and extinguished, or should one see it as a huge blessing, that deserves attention and care? Is the body an impediment to human experience of God? Or, rather, does the body have a crucial role in this very experience? Alexandros Chouliaras' book The Anthropology of St Gregory Palamas: The Image of God, the Spiritual Senses, and the Human Body argues that the fourteenth-century monk, theologian, and bishop Gregory Palamas has interesting and persuasive answers to offer to all these questions, and that his anthropology has a great deal to offer to Christian life and theology today. Amongst this book's contributions are these: for Palamas, the human is superior to the angels concerning the image of God for specific reasons, all linked to his corporeality. Secondly, the spiritual senses refer not only to the soul, but also to the body. However, in Paradise the body will be absorbed by the spirit, and acquire a totally spiritual aspect. But this does not at all entail a devaluing of the body. On the contrary, St Gregory ascribes a high value to the human body. Finally, central to Palamas' theology is a strong emphasis on the human potentiality for union with God, ?theosis: that is, the passage from image to likeness. And herein lies, perhaps, his most important gift to the anthropological concerns of our epoch.

The question of the ‘structure’ of the human person is central to many mystical authors in the Christian tradition. This book focuses on the specific anthropology of a series of key authors in the mystical tradition in the medieval and early modern Low Countries. Their view is fundamentally different from the anthropology that has commonly been accepted since the rise of Modernity. This book explores the most important mystical authors and texts from the Low Countries including: William of Saint-Thierry, Hadewijch, Pseudo-Hadewijch, John of Ruusbroec, Jan van Leeuwen, Hendrik Herp, and the Arnhem Mystical Sermons. The most important aspects of mystical anthropology are discussed: the spiritual nature of the soul, the inner-most being of the soul, the faculties, the senses, and crucial metaphors which were used to explain the relationship of God and the human person. Two contributions explicitly connect the anthropology of the mystics to contemporary thought. This book offers a solid and yet accessible overview for those interested in theology, philosophy, history, and medieval literature.

Concepts of the Divine that emerge in mystical testimonies have often been studied. Seldom has the human person, the common denominator in all mystical testimonies, been given due attention. Nevertheless, questions regarding universal elements in mystical experiences and the role of particular theological traditions in current debates on mysticism cannot be addressed without examining the underlying concepts of the human person and the relation to the divine in mystical texts. The complexity and diversity of mystical texts call for an approach that is in the first place critical-hermeneutical and takes all elements, be they particular or universal, into account. It also calls for an interdisciplinary and cross-religious perspective in which the expertise from various disciplines and different mystical traditions is combined. This volume brings different anthropological concepts to the fore through an interdisciplinary study of texts from two religious traditions, the sixteenth-century Arnhem Mystical Sermons (from the Christian tradition) and the twentieth-century Sri Aurobindo Gose (from the Hindu tradition).

This wide-ranging book looks at the history, evolution and contemporary idea of initiation.

THE Church has taught for ages that between the truths of revelation and the truths of science there can be no conflict. The Vatican Council has solemnly repeated this teaching. On the other hand some men famed for scientific learning and some famed for unscientific bluster proclaim that between faith and science no reconciliation is possible. Educated Catholics may well ask, How are such assertions possible? Still it is not hard to find the explanation. If we could ascertain at once what are the truths of science and what are the truths of revelation their comparison would end the controversy. But what are the truths of science? Science has no infallible mouthpiece. The ablest and sincerest men of science may be mistaken. Generations of scientists have fought in defence of error. For hundreds of years they taught that the sun moves and the earth is at rest. For centuries they spoke of heat and light as imponderable substances. Linnaeus taught that species were immutable; Lamarck, the contrary. Cuvier, Von Baer. and Agassiz returned to the teaching of Linnaeus, and now Darwin and Haeckel, reviving the views of Lamarck, proclaim the mutability of species. Who is right? Linnareus or Lamarck? Cuvier or Haeckel When does a scientific theory become a scientific theorem, a scientific truth? Can one great name safeguard us against error? There is not a distinguished scientist alive who will say in cold blood, "I cannot err." Is the consensus of all men of science a guarantee that their teaching is scientific truth? The history of Ptolemy's theory bids us be prudent in our answer. Surely it is more than hazardous to maintain that a theory or view against which are raised some of the weightiest voices in science is, without possibility of error, the scientific truth. And what are the truths of revelation? Some scientific oracles, not content with defining the truths of science, insist upon defining for us the truths of religion. No doubt they are very kind; but really we must decline their Grecian gifts. We look to the Church to tell us what are revealed truths. Reasonable men will find this reasonable. When the Church has spoken, we know what revealed truth is. But there are hundreds of opinions on dogma and morals which the Church has neither approved nor condemned; there are thousands of Biblical texts the meaning of which she has not defined. To be sure, we have the opinions of theologians, we have what is called the received interpretation of the Scriptures, which is often but another word for theological opinion. But the views of theologians, however learned and holy, are not, of necessity, revealed truths. For scholars, who are not controversial scientists, it is not always easy to decide what are the truths of revelation. Since, then, it is neither easy to find the truths of science nor to find the truths of revelation in every case, it follows that it is difficult to compare them with each other. The prudent scholar, therefore, will not commit himself hastily to the proposition that there is between them an irrepressible conflict. Where religion and science seem to be at variance and during the past half century scientists (not science) have propounded many views seemingly at variance with Scripture-he will first ascertain whether the dicta of scientists are the truths of science, and next whether the assumed meaning of the Bible has been officially set forth by the Church. The former he will ascertain by inquiring whether the views in question are unanimously held by all reputable authorities in science or whether weighty voices are raised in contradiction; the latter he will easily ascertain by an appeal to Church History. If he finds that the Church has defined nothing in the premises, he may examine what is the most probable and the best supported theological opinion.

The scholarly contributions gathered together in this volume discuss themes related to the cultural, social and ethical dimension of St Gregory Palamas’ works. They relate his mystical philosophy and theology to contemporary debates in metaphysics, philosophy of language, ethics, philosophy of culture, political philosophy, epistemology, and philosophy of religion and theology, among others. The book considers a variety of topics of special interest to Christian theologians, philosophers and art historians including church and state relations, similarities and differences between Palamas, contemporary phenomenologists and philosophers of language, and hesychast influences on late Byzantine iconography.