The teaching of St. Gregory Palamas on dual knowledge

Contents 1. Philosophy and theology 2. Two ways of knowing God 3. Theology and the vision of God The famous theologian and philosopher of the 14th century, Varlaam from Calabria, during his stay in Byzantium, took an active part in the discussion of two important issues: the procession of the Holy Spirit and monastic hesychy. In the first question he acted as an opponent of the Roman Catholic point of view, in the second - as an opponent of the hesychasts. In both cases he applied Gnostic criteria, equating philosophy with theology, which provoked a sharp rebuff from St. Gregory Palamas. Palamas's argumentation in this controversy was based on a number of positions, among which his doctrine of dual knowledge occupies a prominent place. Three aspects are distinguishable in this teaching: the opposition of philosophy and theology; distinguishing within theology two ways of knowing God and, finally, establishing the difference between theology and the vision of God, or theopsia. 1. Philosophy and theology The first opposition is the result of the conflict between Christianity and Greek philosophy and dates back to apostolic times. This conflict escalated every now and then, and during the Renaissance it became the main factor in intellectual life. The more humanists expanded their activities, the more important the human factor acquired in the knowledge of Divine things; philosophy was therefore valued more and more. Varlaam, one of the most gifted heralds of the Renaissance, went so far as to identify philosophy and theology, their method and results; his argument was that every human good is a gift from God, and therefore all goods are of the highest value. Just as, he declared, there are not two types of health - health given by God and health brought by doctors, there are not two types of knowledge - human knowledge and Divine knowledge, but there is only one knowledge. Philosophy and theology, as gifts of God, have equal dignity 1 . Thanks to this analogy, Greek philosophers were elevated to the same rank as Moses and the prophets, and this trend later acquired such magnitude that Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and other sages took a place in the iconography of the Greek Church. Varlaam argued: “God-inspired Scripture with its wisdom and the philosophy of external sciences are aimed at one goal and achieve one thing: the discovery of truth; after all, the truth is one in everything, both directly given initially from God to the Apostles, and obtained by us in our labors; philosophical sciences also lead to the truth given from God to the Apostles, helping to unmistakably elevate the greatest sacred symbols to their immaterial prototypes” 2. Such reasoning does not yet give the right to consider Varlaam a rationalist philosopher; on the contrary, Barlaam’s train of thought led him to conclusions close to agnosticism: he emphasized the complete inability of man in the natural state to comprehend the Divine and, like Plato and Dionysius the Areopagite, insisted on the need for purification and liberation from the material body in order to achieve a vision of God in a state of ecstasy. Palamas looked at things differently and clearly separated philosophy from theology. In that era, of course, such a distinction was not unusual. Western Averroists 3 were accused and were convicted in 1277, among other things, for teaching that what is true from the point of view of philosophy can be erroneous from the point of view of the Catholic faith, as if two contradictory truths are possible 4 . It has not yet been clarified what opinion the Averroists, especially Siger of Brabant, held on the question of the difference between the two wisdoms and truths. However, it is obvious that they were inclined towards the distinction that again manifested itself in the philosophy of Occam 5 . It is unlikely that Palamas was familiar with the teachings of Western theologians. His initial premises and intentions were different from theirs. When he had to deal with these topics, he sought and found full confirmation of his views from previous Greek theologians. The Apostle Paul, addressing mainly the intellectuals of Athens and Corinth - the wise men, scribes and questioners of this age - pointed out the abyss that lies between two philosophies: the wisdom of this age, which he rejects as foolishness, and the Divine wisdom, eternal and saving (1 Cor 1:18-31; 2:6-10; 2 Cor 1:12). And the Apostle James writes about earthly wisdom as carnal and demonic, and calls the wisdom that comes from above full of good fruits and purity (James 3:13–17). The position of these two Apostles, determined by the missionary tasks of their time, excluded the very possibility of talking about two types of knowledge, since it completely denied the value of worldly wisdom. This attitude to the subject had serious consequences for the development of theological thought until the end of the 2nd century and, to some extent, influenced it in the future. For about a hundred years the crazy wisdom of the world was neglected. However, some apologists who lived and worked in new conditions argued differently. The point of view of Clement of Alexandria deserves our special attention. Clement believed that the initially single truth was then dismembered by philosophical schools, like Pentheus, torn to pieces by the Bacchae, and individual schools, although they claim to possess the fullness of the truth, in fact own only part of it. From this observation it follows that philosophy is not completely devoid of value, but is fundamentally different from theology, since philosophy is concerned with names, that is, the outer shell, and theology with things, that is, essences. “Due to the fact,” he writes, “that there are two types of truth - names and things, some talk about names, these are those who care about the beauty of words, the Greek philosophers, but we, the barbarians, talk about things” 6. At the same time, knowledge is a chain in which the simplest school disciplines serve philosophy as a mistress, and philosophy, in turn, serves theology as a mistress 7 . Clement borrows from Philo 8 the images of Hagar the maid and Sarah the mistress: both of them gave Abraham lovely sons, but not of equal dignity 9 . Abraham says to Sarah, overcome by jealousy: “Even though I accept worldly education as a younger one and your servant, I honor and respect your science as a perfect mistress.” 10 There is no doubt that, according to Clement, philosophical systems possess only a particle of truth, but theology possesses its entirety. Blessed Diadochos of Photiki looks at this division differently, for whom it is associated with the fall of man and is a division into truth and error. The fallen man was “divided into the duality of knowledge” 11. Saint Basil the Great connects two types of knowledge with the conditions of life they serve. Worldly wisdom makes it possible to understand the temporary life here and helps to pass it successfully. Divine wisdom gives us weapons so that we achieve a blessed future life 12. Without excluding one another, both of these wisdoms form, as it were, a tree, on which one of them is leaves, and the other is fruits 13. Returning to Saint Gregory Palamas, we should note that he does not reject Barlaam’s statement that every good is a gift from God and every gift of His is perfect, but he makes the reservation that not every gift is inevitably the most perfect 14. Due to the fact that the gifts of God are divided into natural and spiritual, philosophy is a natural gift 15 and as such is perverted by the suggestions of the evil one, changes and in some cases becomes madness 16. However, in some circumstances, philosophy contributes to the knowledge of existence, but this is not the knowledge that can be identified or put on par with Divine wisdom 17, and it is self-evident that not all ignorance is evil and not all knowledge is good 18. Therefore, the practice of philosophy should not be prohibited, although its abuse is worthy of strict condemnation 19. The attention of philosophy and theology is directed to different objects. Philosophy explores, on the one hand, the nature and movement of things, and on the other, it determines the principles of social life. While it is inside this circle, it is the “revelation of truth,” but if it turns its gaze beyond its boundaries, it becomes an absurd, useless and dangerous activity, since striving for the invisible and eternal is a matter of theology, or the philosophy of Christ 20 . So, if the objects of both disciplines are different, then each of them can have correct conclusions. According to Saint Palamas, as our research shows, secular and theological knowledge are clearly different from each other, and their development follows parallel paths. Each person's value is determined by his purpose. One is intended for temporary life and serves its benefit, but it is not necessary for salvation; the other, intended for eternal life, is more precious and absolutely necessary for spiritual growth and salvation 21 . It is precisely this difference that Palamas strictly designates with the term dual knowledge - diplB gnоsij or diplo. 2. Two ways of knowing God When we detach ourselves from worldly philosophy and follow Christ's truth, we encounter a different kind of dissimilarity. The sought object here is the same, and we have to talk about two ways of knowledge, and not about dual knowledge. Varlaam, who combined the knowledge of God with the method of this knowledge, declared that general concepts - first principles and God - cannot be proven by syllogism 22. According to him, the only means of knowing God is insight, which was endowed with all people of antiquity who achieved perfection - prophets, apostles and even philosophers. It was granted to them who had already been cleansed of all impurity through intense spiritual labor. Illumination made all these people seers of God (qeTptaj) 23. Varlaam argued that the proof is applicable only to things that are transitory, that is, to what is changeable. Palamas, on the contrary, rejected the very possibility of proving such things, referring to Aristotle: “There can be no proof of what is transitory” 24. Varlaam interpreted faith very broadly as the basis of knowledge through insight. Palamas also considered faith as a basis, but distinguished two meanings here: in a broader sense, faith is the basis for things that cannot be proven, and in a narrow sense, for things that can be proven. The doctrine of two ways of knowledge goes back to Plato and Aristotle. Dividing into two groups those four abilities by which we judge things - sensation, understanding, mind and opinion, Aristotle argued that the properties of the first group give us provable knowledge: sensation - with the help of sensory objects, understanding - with the help of primary premises; the second group carries knowledge that is dubious and unprovable 25 . In essence, the four faculties can be reduced to two - the faculties of understanding and the faculties of opinion. Both of these abilities have a confirmation function - faith, which, according to Aristotle, is the consciousness of confidence in the truth of knowledge 26. Clement of Alexandria reproduces the doctrine of dual knowledge and dual faith. "Due to the fact," he writes, "that faith is dual and one relates to knowledge, and the other to opinion, it is permissible to call the proof dual: one is scientific, the other gives rise to opinion. After all, both knowledge and foresight are considered dual: one as completely accurate, the other as incomplete" 27 . Opinion, explains Clement, is proved by human means, while scientific proof is supported by references to the Scriptures; at the same time, he often makes it clear that reliable proof can be carried out independently of the Scriptures. In both cases, as we see, the main role here is played by faith, the definition of which is well known: “Faith is accurate knowledge of the inevitable, and knowledge itself is strong and reliable evidence of what was obtained through faith” 28. What Clement expounds, following the methods of the philosophical schools, the other Fathers expound in a simpler form. Theodore Savvait calls the two ways of knowledge natural and supernatural 29, while St. Maximus the Confessor attaches different names to them depending on the circumstances: understanding (nТhsij) and spiritual sensation 30, cognizing (™pisthmonik") and active (praktik") knowledge 31, relative (scetik") and genuine knowledge 32. The first of them is rational and helps to organize things in the present life, the second is effective management and ensures deification in the future 33. St. Maximus, thus, applies to theology the distinction that St. Basil made between theology and philosophy. The teaching of Dionysius about the positive and negative ways of approaching God is not much different from this theory. In opposing Barlaam’s argument, it was easy for Palamas to rely on this tradition of two ways of knowing God (theognosia qeognws...a). It is unlikely that Saint Gregory was directly familiar with the views of Western scholastics on this subject, although he may have had indirect information about them. On the issue of theognosy, both sides apparently contradict themselves. Barlaam, although he values ​​Greek philosophy too highly, ultimately rejects both philosophical and theological knowledge. Although Palamas belittles Greek philosophy, he admits the value of natural knowledge of God. For Varlaam, the contradiction is resolved by the fact that he recognizes liberation from the bonds of the body in the direct vision of God in ecstasy; in Palamas it is abolished due to the limitation of the scope of application. The position of Saint Palamas is formulated in one of his letters 34. The Divine is above dialectics and evidence, it is not amenable to either sensation or syllogism, however, the Fathers offered us a reasoning about the Divine and described the syllogism concerning it as obvious, putting into it the meaning of universal authority. We are talking here about a syllogism that is different from a dialectical one. Palamas, as we have already said, recognizes the existence of natural and spiritual gifts of God. Natural gifts should not be despised, for they can lead to an incomplete knowledge of God. This happens because God is not an abstract substance, but a Personality with various manifestations. A similar thought was expressed by Clement of Alexandria: "What relates to God is not one thing, but a countless number of things. Striving for God is not at all the same as seeking information about God. And in general, in any subject one must distinguish the essence from the incidental signs" 35 . Likewise, Saint Palamas made a distinction between the essence of God, His uncreated energies and His creations. Based on this distinction, he said: “Some things concerning God become known, others are studied, some can be proven, and others are completely incomprehensible and unsearchable.” 36 What then is known about God? – First of all, His creations and the presence of His power in them. The knowledge of them returned the human race to the knowledge of God even before the law and the prophets; and to this day 37 it leads men to the same thing, for those who examine the causes of things recognize the power, wisdom and presence of God 38 . Such knowledge is acquired by the natural human mind, it is dim and limited and can be achieved even by persons imperfect in moral and spiritual terms. Above this comes provable knowledge. In matters concerning Divine things, a dialectical syllogism leading only to simple probabilities is inapplicable; a provable syllogism is needed here, dealing with things eternal, constant and true 39 . The use of a demonstrable syllogism is justified because, as we have seen, there are aspects of theological problems that can be demonstrated. The proof is based, on the one hand, on general concepts and principles, and on the other, on premises that are self-proven in revelation. Thus, we find here a combination of natural and spiritual gifts, the connection between which is faith and love. According to Palamas, faith is not dual, as Aristotle and Clement thought, but is united and unites both paths. The human capacity for knowledge transformed by it becomes god-like 40 and is capable of leading to a sufficient understanding of those things that are above creation, that is, the uncreated actions of God. This second path of knowledge of God is primarily called theology. 3. Theology and vision of God If, leaving aside the first path of knowledge of God, the path through knowledge of nature, we follow the path of evidence and theology, then we will encounter a new division. It appears where we are talking about the feat of man in his search for God. Ancient asceticism distinguished three states that a person goes through as he approaches God: active, natural [contemplative] and theological. This idea goes back to Origen, who believed that the believer “in an active way finds Christ as the Master of the Household, through the contemplation of nature - as a King, and through theology - as God” 41. Evagrius preserved both the names and meaning of these terms 42, while Diadochos of Photikis slightly modifies the terminology, using the words “knowledge, wisdom, theology” 43. Saint Gregory Palamas, who thought a lot about natural and theological knowledge of God, came to the conclusion that the second path was more fruitful than the first, but in the end he saw that another path had been opened, leading to immeasurably more precious benefits: the path to the vision of God, to qeopt...a. Theology is a conversation about God, and vision of God is a kind of conversation with God. The difference between one and the other is as great as the difference between knowledge and possession 44 . St. Isaac the Syrian, speaking about the two eyes of the soul, one of which sees the wisdom of God, and the other beholds the glory of His nature, 45 figuratively expresses what Palamas describes analytically. Palamas argues that God is not an essence about which one can only speak, “for He did not say I am the essence, but I am the One who is (Exodus 3:14), for He is not from the essence, but from the Being the essence: the One who exists has embraced all being in Himself” 46. Therefore, God is the Person who calls us; The Person whose presence we feel and towards whom we rush. The essence of God remains inaccessible, but His actions become accessible to us. A purified person, by virtue of an exceptional spiritual gift, can see the Light of God, as was the case with the Apostles on Tabor. And although this light is called a symbol, it is natural and does not exist separately from God; in other words, he is His uncreated action 47 . His vision marks the beginning of a meeting that ends with participation in the actions of God. Thus, through his vision of God, a person without bodily ecstasy is elevated to the state of a person who can converse with God and is able to become involved in God. Translation from English by T. Miller Triads in defense of the sacred-silent 2, 1, 4 (hereinafter referred to as the Triads). Ibid. 2, 1, 5. The translation of the quotation is given according to the edition: St. Gregory Palamas. Triads. M., 1995. P. 119. Averroists (Siger of Brabant and others) are followers of Ibn Rushd (Latinized as Averroes), an Arab scholastic philosopher and physician of the 12th century, who distinguished between rational religion (accessible to the educated) and figurative-allegorical (accessible to everyone), which was one of the sources of the doctrine of dual truth. Mandonnet P. Siger de Brabant et l'averroїsme au XIII e s. 2-e№d. Vol. 2. Louvain, 1911. P. 175. See Ockham W. Prologue to the Ordinatio (Sentences I) // Ockham W. Philosophical writings / A selection ed. and transl. by Ph. Boener. London, 1957, pp. 18–25. Clement of Alexandria. Stromata 6, 17. Philo Alexandrinus. De congressu eruditorum 14, 71 et seq. Clement of Alexandria. Stromata 1, 5. See Diadochos of Photikii. The word is ascetic. Ch. 88. The thought of the blessed Diadochos is not entirely accurately expressed by the author, so we quote the text of the Word: “... from the time when our mind slipped into the duality of knowledge, since then it has been in necessity, although it did not want it, with the same action [of grace] to carry [in itself] both good and bad thoughts, especially among those who have entered into the subtlety of discrimination, since human memory from Adam’s disobedience was divided into a kind of duality thoughts.” - Blessed Diadochos. Creations. T. I. Kiev, 1903. P. 4. – Transl. Sanctus Basilius Magnus. Homilia prima in Psalmum 14 // PG 29, 256. Saint Basil the Great. Discourse to young men on how to benefit from pagan writings 22, 2. Sanctus Gregorius Palamas. Contra Acindynum 6, 1 // Cod. Coisl. gr. 98, 149/149. Barlaamus Calabrinus. Epistola 1 ad Palamam / Ed. Schiro 243. Sanctus Gregorius Palamas. Epistola 1 ad Barlaam 22. Aristotle. Second Analytics 1, 8. Aristotle. On the soul 3, 427a–428c. Ibid 428a; Aristotle. On sophistical refutations 2, 165c; Aristotle. Physics 8, 262a. Clement of Alexandria. Stromata 2, 11. Theoreticum filokal…a / Ed. 1960, 1, 326. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. Various chapters 4, 31. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. Theological chapters 1, 22. Venerable Maximus the Confessor. Various chapters 4, 29. Sanctus Gregorius Palamas. Epistola 1 ad Barlaam 33. Sanctus Gregorius Palamas. Epistola 1 ad Acindynum 8. Sanctus Gregorius Palamas. Epistola 1 ad Acindynum 13. Origenus. In Psalmos 126 // PG 12, 1641. Evagrius Ponticus. Practicus prolegomena et cap. 1 // PG 40. Diadokh Photikiysky. The word is ascetic. Ch. 9, 67. Mar Isaakus Ninivita. Sermo 72/Ed. Spetseris, 281.