Jesus Christ, Incarnate Logos of God, Source of Freedom and Unity
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JESUS CHRIST, INCARNATE LOGOS OF GOD, SOURCE OF FREEDOM AND UNITY DUMITRU STANILOAE1 I An authentically theological way of thinking Orthodox thinking about the liberation and unification or recapitu lation of mankind in Christ has remained faithful to the mind of the Fathers of the Church. It therefore links this theme closely to its under standing of Christ as the divine LOGOS incarnate. This understanding forms the groundwork of a firm faith and a firm theology. A theology which would be nothing more than an aggregate of feelings, lacking an ontological view of the relationship between Christ and the world, would be shifting soil. It could not provide a basis for common efforts undertaken with a view to liberation and unification. A purely sentimental theology would rather only justify and deepen the capricious attitudes fostering the divisions among Christians. A theology may take its cue from social circumstances. But these take different forms, and are interpreted in the light of different interests, each of which seeks to orient society in its own special way. Such a theology would be equally incapable of enabling Christians to act along converging lines and with deep conviction for the sake of liberation and unity. Clear and efficacious guidelines for the striving towards liberation and union can only be provided by an authentically theological way of thinking. Furthermore, the liberation and unity brought within our reach by Christ cannot be properly envisaged except in relation to the objective salvation which He accomplished. They can only mobilize to the full the interest and efforts of Christians when they are seen as elements of salvation. But salvation, being the establishment of a certain positive relationship between God and men, implies primarily a certain under standing of God — the chief subject of any theology understood in the strict sense of the term. 1 The Rev. Professor D. Staniloae, Rumanian Orthodox Church, is Professor Emeritus of Theology at the Orthodox Theological Institute, Bucharest. This article was translated from the French by the WCC Language Service. THE ECUMENICAL REVIEW From such a standpoint, one can see however that this theology, theology in the strict sense of the term, does not neglect the human side of the relationship between God and man. But in terms of this theology, as far as man is concerned, the most solid and unifying factor in this relationship is the understanding of God. And this factor has to come into play if the work of man's salvation is to be effectively accomplished in him. All that has been said up to the present comes into focus when it is specified that this theology in the strict sense of the term — which could be called a 'theological theology' in contrast to the various types of non-theological, or rather anthropological theologies — is not, as we understand it, a theology concerned with God in general. It is a theology concerned with the Son of God as the supreme Logos, the source and stay of all the rational structures of things and of the reason of all men. This is truly theology because it is concerned with theos ho logos. This theology began with St John the Evangelist, who saw in Christ the divine Logos incarnate. It remained predominant throughout the whole of patristic thinking. For the Fathers also understood Christ to be this incarnate Logos. St John the Evangelist was called 'the Theologian'. But this was not because he was considered to have been the first to have speculated about God in human terms. Nor was it because he was considered to have been the first of Christian thinkers to have brought the human logos into association with the notion of God, the transcendent being. He was called the Theologian because he envisioned God Himself, or, more precisely, the Son of God, both as theos and as Logos. The Greek Fathers developed the doctrine which atì&rms that Christ does not save us merely because He is Son of God or true God, but also because He is the supreme Logos, or because the Son of God incarnate is the divine Logos. II Human reason and divine mystery There is a relationship, involving a certain correspondence, between human reason and the divine Logos. The divine Logos became incarnate to fortify in two respects the rational element in human nature. One was to harmonize the ways in which this reason is used by the various rational beings, the unified mode thus realized being itself then linked JESUS CHRIST, SOURCE OF FREEDOM AND UNITY to its source, the incarnate Logos. The other was to give human reason the preponderant role in knowledge of God's work, and in man's self- guidance in his personal life. Thus theology, in so far as it is concerned with theos ho logos, can also be a theology of the encounter between ho theos and human reason, inasmuch as God Himself is the source of human reason. This is the base on which patristic spirituality also developed, in which the passions are held in check by reason. The divine Logos is not, of course, an impersonal Reason, but a hypostatic, personal Reason. He is not merely the supreme reality, full of intelligible meaning, either as object of knowledge for another person or quite simply for the beauty of this intelligibility in itself. This supreme Reason is a person whose fully intelligible being both knows and can be known. As such, this person is superior to his own rational mani festation, as he is to all knowledge which would claim to have grasped fully his intelligibility. For the person in general is an unfathomable mystery and at the same time full of meaning. All the more so the divine or the supreme Person. If each person is a mystery which defies definition, the divine Person is the infinite mystery. This mystery, however, is the source of rational manifestations, which are intelligible and are imparted by these meaningful manifestations. The driving force behind these rational or meaningful manifestations is the interest in, indeed the infinite love for, the persons who are brought into communion. The rational is merely the manner in which communication comes about, the way knowledge of self is imparted. The persons to whom the supreme Person imparts Himself in an intelligible way are in turn rational in their ways of communicating with each other and of imparting to each other at the same time the inexhaustible mysteries of love and liberty. Love is more than reason Persons use reason to communicate with one another and to make their lives a relationship of love. It is not reason that makes use of persons. The person is infinitely more than the circumscribed reason by which he or she imparts himself to other persons. But he cannot impart himself without in his communication implying an overall meaning for his existence, a meaning richer than any given meaning that is communicated. It is impossible to think of a rational order as existing objectively on its own. It is always a rationality communicated or received by a person. 406 THE ECUMENICAL REVIEW It is impossible to think of a rationality without a hypostatic reason which thinks and communicates its thought or which receives a com municated thought. And it is impossible to imagine a person without the will to communicate himself or to receive a communication in a fully meaningful way, in a way that is rational or intelligible. This is how, in fact, the person breathes spiritually. It is impossible to think of a rationality without a person or of a person not under the necessity of communicating himself in some rational or intelligible way. The separation of the person and the rational results in the fantastic notion of a self-engendered rationality which is devoid of meaning, and a person as a sentient life-force, blind and devoid of meaning. The supreme Person imparts the life-giving mystery of his fulness by means of rational or intelligible forms, and his communications must take on, for non-divine existents, contours defined against the back ground of his infinity. This is the only way in which he can make him self comprehensible to them. He has conceived the finite rational structures of these existents, and, at the moment which he determined, has given actuality to these mentally discerned existents. He thus com municates his discriminated rational thoughts to the finite persons which he has likewise called into existence. Thus in the divine Logos, the living and infinite depth of the Person is likewise the voluntary source of defined, rational thoughts on which the light of their life-giving infinite source is perpetually playing. The things of the world are communications exemplifying the rational thoughts of the supreme Person, at a level of discernment which is in keeping with human understanding. Cognitive human reason itself is the creation of this supreme cognitive Reason, created to under stand the thoughts communicated by this supreme Reason by means of things. The divine image in man This is what constitutes the divine image in man. The divine Reason merely externalizes His thoughts on the level of human reason. Now the externalized thoughts are words addressed to human understanding. The circumstances produced by men, but also by the supreme Reason, give rise to a dialogue between God and man which leads men to their fulfilment in God. Undoubtedly, divine Reason also speaks to men by divine words, whose pattern is embodied in things and in the actions accomplished on JESUS CHRIST, SOURCE OF FREEDOM AND UNITY 407 them. By such direct speech, the hypostatic Reason which speaks to men through nature gives more explicit contours to the goal towards which it desires to lead men through the circumstances of their life among natural things.