Sushkov, Sergei N. (2015) Being and Creation in the Theology of John Scottus Eriugena: an Approach to a New Way of Thinking
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Sushkov, Sergei N. (2015) Being and creation in the theology of John Scottus Eriugena: an approach to a new way of thinking. PhD thesis. https://theses.gla.ac.uk/7070/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] 1 BEING AND CREATION IN THE THEOLOGY OF JOHN SCOTTUS ERIUGENA: An Approach to a New Way of Thinking Sergei N. Sushkov MPhil, MTh Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Critical Studies Department of Theology and Religious Studies College of Arts University of Glasgow July 2015 2 ABSTRACT The work aims to demonstrate that at the heart of Eriugena’s approach to Christian theology there lies a profoundly philosophical interest in the necessity of a cardinal shift in the paradigms of thinking – namely, that from the metaphysical to the dialectical one, which wins him a reputation of the ‘Hegel of the ninth century,’ as scholars in Post-Hegelian Germany called him. The prime concern of Eriugena’s discourse is to prove that the actual adoption of the salvific truth of Christ’s revelation about all humans’ Sonship to God (resulting in their return to union with Him) directly depends on the way the truth of God’s Oneness is consistently thought of. It is exactly the dialectic of the universal and particular which allows Eriugena both to tackle the dichotomy between being and non-being (called by him the fundamental division) and to proceed towards raising a question how the totality of God’s being can be approached so as to let him radically reconsider a predominantly metaphysical view of creation the theological reflection traditionally relies on. According to the dialectical understanding of unity (with a strong appeal to a dialectically coherent treatment of contradiction) that Eriugena does adhere to, the reality of creation cannot be thought of, and therefore known, otherwise than in the way of being inseparable from the universal Principle of all. This is the Principle abandoned by nothing, unless the mind corrupted by the senses thinks otherwise and, following the metaphysical pattern of dichotomy (as that of the fundamental division), improperly sets the creation and its Principle apart. Restoration of the mind to the proper rational motion of recta ratio (right reason) freed, as Eriugena argues, from the dictates of senses therefore becomes the way of both the epistemological breakthrough to the infinite whole and practical return (reditus) from the world of finite things (the corrupt mind’s construct) to living in the divine reality of creation. The work’s argument is based on the assumption of close affinity between Eriugena’s discourse and that of his Islamic contemporaries (Allaf, al- Nazzam, al-Kindi, and others), who developed their dialectical ideas within the Mu’tazilah tradition of a philosophically disciplined approach to the truth of God’s Oneness. In particular, al-Nazzam’s engagement with Parmenides’ Periphyseon and his resistance to the danger of a dualistic interpretation of its ontology seem to provoke Eriugena’s innovative approach to Christian theology with a view to suggesting a mode of overcoming dualism as the main obstacle on the way to the Truth revealed. 3 This vision of the meaning of Eriugena’s undertaking allows us not only to better understand the novelty of his approach to Christian theology, but also reconsider some of the key points of his discourse that seem to have become a sort of commonplace in Eriugenian studies: 1. Unlike the prevalent opinion, not the forms of the division of Nature but the modes of interpreting being and non-being are to be understood to constitute the genuine subject-matter of each book of the Periphyseon and, hence, of the five parts of his system. 2. The fourfold division of Nature is to be interpreted not as a basic structure of the system offered by Eriugena, but as a means of introducing dialectic to the body of theology by refuting Augustine’s metaphysical vision of a hierarchical model of the universe and indicating the way of resolution of the cardinally theological contradiction – God does and does not create at the same time. 3. All this gives reason to disagree with a general tendency of associating Eriugena’s work with exploration of the division of God’s Nature and to reinterpret it as an immense anti-division project to be understood as an important turn in the history of Christian thought entirely focused on the truth of God’s Oneness and human life in conformity to it. *** I affirm that this thesis is entirely my own work and has not been submitted for examination in any form elsewhere. 4 CONTENTS Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 6 INRTODUCTION 7 The central point 7 Rediscovery of Eriugena 9 The Neoplatonism issue 10 Anti-hierarchy argument 19 Anti-subjectivism argument 25 The major and minor tasks 29 The work outline 35 I. ERIUGENA: PERSONALITY AND ORIGIN 41 Vision 41 Background 42 Sources 43 The Eastern turn 46 The Falsafah agenda 49 The Mu’tazilah key concepts 52 The predestination controversy 59 II. PARMENIDES’ ONTOLOGY: THE CRADLE of DIALECTIC67 The ontological approach 67 Being and time 70 Temporality and eternity 81 The totality of Being 83 The opposites and contradiction 88 The dialectical understanding of contradiction 95 Self-identical being 98 Dialectic versus metaphysics 102 Resolution of the contradiction 104 A blueprint for Eriugena’s discourse 107 III. THE KEYS TO ERIUGENA’S SYSTEM 109 The ladder of notions 109 Overcoming of dualism 110 Creatio ex Deo 115 Dialectic, Reality, and the Book 116 IV THE TEXT UNLOCKED 123 Review of Books I – III 123 Setting a new aim 124 The key to the sacred text 125 Man’s ⃰ duality 127 Man’s uniqueness 127 5 Rational motion 129 Irrational motion 130 Subrational motion 131 Manifestation of the proper order of creation in man 132 Man’s choice 132 The outer and the inner man 133 The spiritual and the unspiritual man 134 The split of reality 136 The unity of reality 139 Mode 4 and the unity of being 144 V. THE DOCTRINE OF CONTRADICTION 148 The integral approach 148 Thinking the whole 153 Difference and contradiction 155 Uniformity of subject. 157 VI. THE DOCTRINE OF KNOWLEDGE 162 Two perspectives on one reality 162 Phantasies and concepts 166 Two types of knowledge 175 “A doctrine according to reason” 180 Knowing the infinite 182 VII OVERCOMING THE DIVISION 189 Partaking in the one indivisible reality 189 The logical dilemmas and paradoxes 191 The triune nature dialectically conceived 195 The cardinal contradiction 198 Novelty of the fourfold division 202 The universal and particular from the dialectical perspective 205 Overcoming a dualistic view of creation 207 A coherent treatment of the opposites 210 Irrelevance of the divisive approach to the Divine reality of creation 213 The meaning of God’s ‘rest’ 217 A dialectically coherent treatment of the cardinal contradiction 221 The infinite reality from the metaphysical and dialectical perspectives 224 The unity of the infinite self-identical being 232 CONCLUSION 239 NOTES 247 BIBLIOGRAPHY 279 6 Acknowledgements This work has become the result of many years of hard labour and research, and I am grateful to all whose guidance, advice, and criticism helped this project to come true. First of all, I wish to thank my supervisor Prof David Jasper, whose constructive critique and encouragement, concentration on the key points of the argument and practical advice were absolutely vital at the concluding stage of the project. I am also grateful to Prof Joe Houston, under whose supervision this research was begun and whose strategy of line-by-line analysis of Eriugena’s dense text eventually allowed me to unlock its secrets. I wish also to thank Prof George Pattison for his deep interest in the ideas articulated in the work, and Prof Ian Hazlett for providing an opportunity to speak at the annual Perth conferences about the early developments of the work. I would like to thank as well my fellow-scholars whom I met at the Maynooth SPES conference, and above all professors John O’Meara, James McEvoy, Werner Beierwaltes, Willemien Otten, and Jack Marler, for the fruitful and encouraging discussions. I am grateful to Rev Stella Durand for helping my access to the material unavailable in Russia, and to all staff of the University of Glasgow for being always friendly and helpful. I would like to thank a lot Rev John Wright, Rev Aida Younger, Rev John and Molly Harveys, Billy Gribben, Tim Taylor, and all our friends from the Church of Scotland, without whose hospitality and kindness it would be impossible to stay in Glasgow and accomplish the project. Finally, I am immensely grateful to my wife Nina for her invaluable assistance and support, and to my Mother and brother Gena, to whom I am fully indebted for my commitment to studies and the first steps towards the horizon broadened. 7 INTRODUCTION The central point The research undertaken within the framework of this thesis aims to demonstrate that at the heart of Eriugena’s approach to Christian theology there lies a profoundly philosophical interest in the necessity of a cardinal shift in the paradigms of thinking – namely, from the metaphysical to the dialectical one, – which wins him a reputation of the “Hegel of the ninth century”, as scholars in Post-Hegelian Germany called him.