A Study on the Question of Will in Trinitarian Theology Until 381

EVEN AS WE ARE ONE: A STUDY ON THE QUESTION OF WILL IN TRINITARIAN THEOLOGY UNTIL 381 By Leonidas Kotsiris Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Religion May, 2013 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Professor Robin M. Jensen Professor J. Patout Burns Professor David A. Michelson Professor Paul J. Dehart Professor Lenn E. Goodman Copyright © 2013 by Leonidas Kotsiris All Rights Reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER............................................................................................................ PAGE I—INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................1 THE PROBLEM ...............................................................................................5 PROPOSAL AND THESIS ...............................................................................12 II—JUSTIN, TERTULLIAN, KNOWLEDGE, AND WILL ...............................................26 JUSTIN .........................................................................................................28 THE DIVINE HIERARCHY .................................................................31 THE SON AS HYPOSTATIZED WISDOM AND WILL OF GOD ..............38 THE SON AS REVEALER OF THE DIVINE WILL .................................43 TERTULLIAN ...............................................................................................55 SCRIPTURE AGAINST PRAXEAS: GOD WILLED TO BE HOW HE IS ....62 THEOLOGY: MONARCHY AS ONENESS OF DOMINION AND WILL ESTABLISHED IN THE ONENESS OF SUBSTANCE AND PERFECTION OF KNOWLEDGE .............................................68 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PARADIGM OF THE BEGETTING AND THE IMPERATIVE OF PRECEDENT WILL ......................................71 SUBSTANCE .....................................................................................76 A CHRISTIAN PROBOLE BASED ON THE ONENESS OF KNOWLEDGE, WILL, AND SUBSTANCE ......................................................80 THE SON AS REVEALER OF GOD’S WILL .........................................83 THE CENTRALITY OF WILL IN HUMAN FALLENNESS AND THE RESPONSE TO GOD ..............................................................92 III—THE GNOSTICS, PLOTINUS, AND IRENAEUS ...................................................103 VALENTINIANISM ......................................................................................105 THE PLEROMA AND THE EMERGENCE OF A THEOLOGY OF WILL ..107 COSMIC BEGINNINGS ....................................................................109 PLOTINUS ..................................................................................................120 THE SOULS ....................................................................................123 THE QUESTION OF TOLMA ............................................................126 PLOTINUS’ CONTRACTION OF WILL ..............................................131 IRENAEUS ..................................................................................................133 “ANOTHER GOD BEYOND GOD” ....................................................135 THE EONS .....................................................................................138 TWO ASPECTS OF GOD: GREATNESS AND LOVE ............................144 THE BLANKET OF MYSTERY SHROUDS THE WILL .........................148 THE HOLY SPIRIT: THE PREPARER ................................................153 IV—ORIGEN: THE THEOLOGIAN OF WILL ............................................................157 GOD AS MIND ...........................................................................................164 THE SON AS WILL .....................................................................................168 CREATION: THE SPHERE OF CHANGE ........................................................179 THE INTELLIGENT BEINGS ........................................................................180 BODY ........................................................................................................187 THE CHRIST ..............................................................................................193 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................204 V—THE DISPUTE OVER ARIUS .............................................................................207 THE BEGINNINGS ......................................................................................214 THE THALIA ...............................................................................................217 THE UNKNOWN GOD AND THE CENTRALITY OF WILL ..............................221 THE RESPONSIVE WILL OF THE SON .........................................................229 ARIUS’ TURN ............................................................................................238 THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA .........................................................................241 THE AFTERMATH OF NICAEA ....................................................................243 THE COUNCIL OF ANTIOCH AND ONENESS ACCORDING TO SYMPHONY .......255 THE MACROSTICH CREED AND THE QUESTION OF THE WILLED BEGETTING ...................................................................................271 ATHANASIUS ON THE FATHER’S PRECEDENT WILL ...................................275 THE GREGORIES: RESOLUTION OF PRECEDENT WILL, AND THE OUTWARD VOLITIVE MOVEMENT OF THE TRINITY .......................283 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................299 VI—CONCLUSION ................................................................................................303 BIBLIOGRAPHY .....................................................................................................310 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In 343, the town of Sardica,1 in the northwestern reaches of the imperial province of Thrace, was host to a synod of bishops who had assembled to address a number of questions that had arisen in the troubled wake of the Council of Nicaea. This was not out of the ordinary. That great council which had gathered in Bithynian Nicaea in 325 to condemn Arius2 had proved something of a stumbling block in the life of the Church. In its effort to describe the ontological status of the Son relative to the Father it had included in its doctrinal statement a term, the homoousios, which had not to that point enjoyed universal usage and was open to a variety of interpretations. This move had been met with great reservation from a significant sector in the Church, and thus many local councils, assemblies, synods, and state interventions would be required in the fifty or so years that followed Nicaea before a broad consensus on its precise meaning could be won and peace finally be restored in the Church. Sardica simply was one of these councils. What makes it special for this study, however, is that, in affirming Nicaea and rebuking the “madness of the Arians,”3 it also issued statements that bitterly denounced the “blasphemous and perverse” opinion that the Gospel passage, “I and My Father are 1 Today’s Sofia, Bulgaria. 2 The matter of Arius was the chief but not the only question on the agenda at Nicaea. Other items had included the issue of the Melitian schism in Alexandria, a common timing of the Christian Pascha, and certain administrative and disciplinary matters. 3 What had sharpened the hostility was the fact that the Sardican council had initially been intended to be a more all-encompassing assembly comprising both Nicaea advocates and skeptics. But the tension between the two camps was such that the anti-Nicene party quickly withdrew, even before the council had commenced, and held its own separate meeting in nearby Philippoupolis. 1 one,”4 really referred to the oneness of “concord and harmony”5 that supposedly united the Father and the Son.6 In the same vein, the council went on to upbraid the “ignorance and mental darkness” of those who took the words of Jesus’ prayer to the Father—viz. “As Thou and I are one, that they may be one in us”7—as evidence that people could be one “in the same way” that the Son and the Father are one.8 Thus Sardica denounced the view that there was an analogy between the oneness that could be achieved among humans, which inevitably was volitional, and that between the divine Persons in the Trinity. Sardica attributed these offending views that it condemned to a certain Valens and Ursacius.9 However, there is little doubt that they saw the real origin of these opinions in something that yet another council, this one held in Antioch but two years earlier (341), had articulated in its second epistle to describe the relationship between what it termed the three hypostases of the Trinity. This council had promulgated the formula: three according to hypostasis, one according to concord.10 Antioch had not been the first to use the language of concord,11 but its statement marked the first time it had been put forward by a synod. Its hope had been to gain support for a method of describing the unity of the Father and the Son (and, of course, the Holy Spirit)12 that avoided the language of 4 John 10:30. 5 Apud Theodoret, Hist. eccl. 2.6 (NPNF2 3:71 [PG 82:1016A]): “...διὰ τὴν συμφωνίαν καὶ τὴν ὁμόνοιαν...” 6 Apud Theodoret, Hist. eccl. 2.6 (NPNF2 3:71). 7 John 17:21. 8 Apud Theodoret, Hist. eccl. 2.6 (NPNF2 3:72). 9 Theodoret, Hist. eccl. 2.6 (NPNF2 3:71). 10

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