Chapter two

Orthodox Theological Perspectives on the Religions

What is the significance of the entrance of into the cloud and his vision of God? . . . As the mind, moving forward by ever more perfect con- centration, comes to understand true knowledge of realities, as it draws closer to contemplation, the more it sees that the divine nature is invis- ible. Leaving behind all appearances, not only of the senses but of what the intellect sees in thought, it turns always more to the interior world, until by the effort of mind it penetrates even to the Invisible and the Unknowable and there it sees God. For in fact true knowledge and true vision of the One it seeks consists in seeing that He is invisible, wrapped all around by His Unknowability as by a cloud. That is why the great John, who penetrated into that luminous cloud, says that “no one has ever seen God” [John 1:18], asserting by this negation that the knowledge of the divine essence is inac- cessible not only to men but to all intellectual beings. Thus when Moses makes progress in knowledge, he declares that he sees God in the darkness, that is to say, he understands that the divinity is that which transcends all knowledge and escapes the grasp of the mind. “Moses entered into the dark- ness where God was,” the Scripture says. What God? “He who makes dark- ness his retreat,” as David says.1 This passage from , one of the fourth-century ‘Cappado- cian Fathers,’ is quoted as an example of the apophatic approach of the Eastern Church. This ‘negative theologizing’ is used by Orthodox Chris- tians to free the intellect of its earthly presuppositions and open the heart to the divine mystery, which, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, they believe will lead to theōsis, the Greek term for deification.2 It is useful to reflect on the central Orthodox concept of apophatic at the beginning of this discussion of the theological perspec- tives of Orthodox Christians on the religions of the world because, when it comes to figuring out what God does or does not do, the Orthodox tend

1 Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, II, 163–164, in Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca [PG], J.P. Migne, ed., 44 (, 1844–1864), 376C–377B; English translation taken from John Meyendorff, St. and Orthodox Spirituality (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998), 35–38. 2 For a succinct discussion on these concepts, see the entries for ‘’ and ‘deification’ in The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern , K. Parry, D.J. Melling, D. Brady, S.H. Griffith, & J.F. Healey, eds. (Oxford, Blackwell Publishers, 1999). 50 chapter two to proceed with caution. They affirm that, at a certain level, what God does, and how or why He does it, are a mystery. On the other hand, East- ern Christians affirm that one can know God through his ‘energies,’ as Gregory Palamas eloquently explained,3 which can be observed in many ways and in many places. In other words, while Orthodox Christians con- stantly strive to have a better knowledge of God, they are also reluctant to define Him, fearing that, with the limitations of the human mind, they will construct merely a caricature of the Divine. This tendency has certain repercussions for how Orthodox Christians view other religions. Though Orthodox theologians have always been passionate, and in many ways unyielding, about their dogmas and traditions—the term ‘’ translates as ‘right teaching’ or ‘right worship’ (from two the Greek words: orthos, ‘right,’ and doxa, ‘teaching’ or ‘worship’)—at the same time they highly value humility when it comes to the beliefs and practices of others. Peter Bouteneff, echoing a common sentiment among Orthodox theolo- gians in recent years, puts it this way: Truth is truth, wherever it is found, and while Orthodox Christianity does claim uniquely to teach the fullness of truth, it does not claim a monopoly on truth. On that basis, Orthodox Christians are open to mutual learning and mutual transformation. This step may sound radical. But once we admit that truth exists outside our own faith, and especially if we say that everything that is true is true because it reflects Jesus Christ (who is Truth), then we must be open to the ways in which God’s truth has been found even in faiths that do not share our belief in Christ.4 Therefore, not only is it possible to maintain a strong sense of one’s own beliefs while searching for common ground in other religions, but the search for truth itself, no matter where it might be found, will also only strengthen one’s faith. Before moving on, however, to the ways in which Orthodox Chris- tians have sought to find common ground with other religions, it is first necessary to consider the framework within which the Orthodox tradi- tion determines truth in general. In other words, how do the Orthodox determine an authoritative position, whether in relation to non-Chistian religions or to any other topic? It is in answering this question that one

3 For a summary of Palamas’ definition of what became the Orthodox doctrine on the ‘essence and energy’ of God, see John Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998), 202–227. 4 From the foreword to John Garvey, Seeds of the Word (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005), 12.