The ultimate division of all that exists is made by the line between ‘created’ and ‘uncreated,’ the one being regarded as a cause of what has come into being, the other as coming into being thereby.
Please do not take my comments as in any way mean-spirited, i mean them as constructive (and thorough) criticism. To be perfectly upfront about my thoughts, I both think that you misread and are unfair to Hart's monistic theology, and that your arguments (and overall rhetoric) evidence the same tired pattern all prior denouncements of monistic thought (in particular those directed at Bulgakov) in modern theology have; e.g., claiming "its determinist," "its impersonal," it collapses distinctions," etc, while never engaging each of these issues enough to define where ultimate metaphysical monism fails and your supposed middle way succeeds as anything other than a way to avoid logically necessary implications.
You claim that Hart equates and collapses uncreated and created causalities. He doesn't, he affirms their infinite distinction. You quote him saying as much, "‘whole power of nature’ (as we know it, at least) cannot supply.” If you quibble that he adds a hypothetical qualifier, you shouldn't because he operates on the assumption that the hypothetical is false (though he likely has in mind ante-nicene theology in which the Holy Spirit is not distinct from our spirits, in which case this is simply another part of our tradition). His arguments about an ultimate monism are explicitly drawn from the implications of creatio ex nihilo, namely that creatio ex nihilo is creatio ex deo as it is not creation from another substance or cause. Thus, when you say:
"By contrast, God’s uncreated causality initiates existence itself, breaking the analogy that Hart draws between natural and supernatural causality."
You are misreading. It is not the case that Hart fails to distinguish divine and created causality, rather, it is his proper understanding that viewed from the divine perspective all activity is simply God's activity (because God is all being and act and potency which become act). Following from this, Hart correctly argues that divine grace is natural to nature, is the creature's proper end of all its potentials, and therefore, operating on a proper ontology (which is that of Maximus' logoi, or Dionysius' predestinations, or Eriugena's exemplars, or Origen's eschatological creation) all creatures are ultimately God, are ultimately uncreated while also being created, and therefore theosis is not an external imposition or violation of nature.
This is not "simply a form of natural assistance," which is troublesome in any way, because qua finite the creature is not uncreated. Qua Being, which is God, the creature is uncreated. But this is simply eastern Orthodox theology and metaphysical common sense.
You invoke creatio ex nihilo again to try and distinguish Hart's theology from Orthodox theology (homogenized in whichever way you wish) by saying "Creation ex nihilo establishes that the world is not an outflow of God’s essence but a unique act that exists through God's continuous sustaining presence." This is wrong. Creation being an emanation of the divine essence as being, life, intellect (as explicitly in the Areopagite), is not separable from it being the free act of the divinity and vice versa. Divine freedom is simply to be fully actualized. When you deny this and try to use words like "unique act" the only conclusion I can come to is that you hold to a voluntarist account of creation, in which God chooses to create from possibilities he might not actualize, thus God becomes a mere being subject to potency himself. This should be articulated clearly, not held back as a possible interpretation.
This same predilection for using words that sound like they are meant to convey a metaphysical view but do not is evident again when you say, "The Incarnation is not merely a bridging of two realities but a profound event that brings the created and the Uncreated into a harmonious relationship without confusion or seperation." Being charitable, this is a completely apophatic statement conveying nothing. How does the incarnation bridge two alien natures (and alien they must be if an ultimate metaphysical monism is rejected)? Calling it a "profound event" doesn't say anything, we need to be cataphatic here, able to say what a proper metaphysical theology ultimately must admit (at root there is only God and God as the becoming-God).
Your Christological comments should have been informed by Hart's own recent Stanton lectures on Christology (available online and on his substack), as well as his article "Chimaeras, Masks and Portmanteaux." Drawing on Bulgakov, Hart points out and works through a glaring issue in Neochalcedonian Christology. If humanity and divinity are completely disparate and alien, there being some dualism at the root of their being, how can a divine hypostasis unite them, be them, and manifest fully through them? It cant. The question for Christology must rather be “How is it that a full subsistence of the divine nature and a full subsistence of the human nature can be one and the same subsistence, without contradiction?” And the only answer is that an ultimate dualism does not exist, the created is fit for the divine hypostasis because it is always the divinity as finite becoming infinite (godmanhood).
It should go without saying that I do not accept your characterization of Hart's views as antithetical to Orthodox spirituality, but in all that discussion two issues jumped out at me. Firstly, you appeal to Maximus' characterization of deification as one in which human nature is passive before divine infinite activity, and contrast this to Hart's views, but then you say that in this deification we "actively cooperate," synergy remains. If, as your whole argument has seemingly been, there is this gulf between created and divine nature such that to call divine infinite activity natural to creatures is illicit, how is the human qua human still active if human "nature" is passive in deification? He wouldnt be. It is only by understanding that which is passive in deification to be nature qua finite, that we can understand deification as retaining synergy because the divine activity in its fullness is proper to nature which hypostatizes it. This is what Palamas argues, the saints hypostatize the divine energies/activity, or in other words, the divine energies/activity/nature subsist naturally in and as the hypostasis. So... you dont have deification if you dont follow the path to Hart's conclusion.
Secondly, you continually accuse Hart of implicit determinism. A metaphysical monism is not inherently determinist, what matters is how the relationship of the One/Being to the many ones/beings is parsed out. That said, In the last chapter of You are Gods, Hart agrees with and draws on Bulgakov's ontology of freedom which is, in my estimation, the only such ontology that actually escapes determinism while retaining all the tenets of Christian classical theism. Please read this chapter and the cited sections from Bulgakov.
Finally, thank you for your time and for writing. I hope my criticisms come across without being muddled, and as constructive. I also hope that people would stop feeling the need to claim the neopatristic view of creation and anti-monism is "the Orthodox view," as this is being soundly put to rest by newer patristic scholarship (e.g., Jordan Wood's research explicating the patristic acceptance of creation's necessity), and unfairly others not only different ancient voices in our tradition, but rejects the Orthodoxy of new theological thought. God bless!
«When you deny this and try to use words like "unique act" the only conclusion I can come to is that you hold to a voluntarist account of creation, in which God chooses to create from possibilities he might not actualize, thus...»
Do you think God was necessitated to create? That would seem to violate His aseity. It would make His identity/essence dependent on creation. I don't see how it follows from libertarian freedom (which may be intellectualist rather than voluntarism) that "God becomes a mere being subject to potency himself".
«How does the incarnation bridge two alien natures (and alien they must be if an ultimate metaphysical monism is rejected)?» First, the inability of someone to answer a question doesn't disprove their worldview; it only proves that they don't have an answer. Second, what's wrong with saying the Incarnation can do what it does because God has the power to do it?
«If humanity and divinity are completely disparate and alien, there being some dualism at the root of their being, how can a divine hypostasis unite them, be them, and manifest fully through them?» Not being able to explain something doesn't mean it can't happen. «It cant.» How do you know?
«Jordan Wood's research explicating the patristic acceptance of creation's necessity» Where does Wood say creation is necessary? I'm sure that Catholicism teaches that God was free to create or not-create.
1. God transcends the dialectic of necessity/freedom. My answer is both that God necessarily and freely creates, because to be God is to be fully actualized in every way proper to nature (including as creator) and this is the same thing as being free. My argument is the same as that given by Hart and Bulgakov already.
But that God would be reduced to a being by ascribing a deliberating will to him and a process of choosing between options before actualizing himself in one way and not another, is a tautology. Id again recommend Bulgakov and Hart's own writings on this, but I have also written about it on my substack (An Unconscious God, Apokatasis: Part II).
2. You are correct that inability to answer does not necessarily mean someone is wrong, though my conclusions about the wrongness of such a view are based on an assessment of the metaphysics used in the Christian tradition regarding the incarnation.
Whats wrong with it is that the theology of the Incarnation is not in Eastern Orthodox theology an event unconnected from the rest of being, it is the foundation of being and the ontology of every creature individually and as a whole. A philosophical articulation of it that reduces the incarnation to an irrational display of power is not satisfying or acceptable (also, an absolute dualism just isnt reconcilable no matter how much divinity is invoked, its absolute).
3. Same answer as above.
4. I'll be sure to bring some citations later tonight (when I will respond to the OP's comments as well) but he discusses it in his PhD thesis and the footnotes, bringing up bulgakov v florovsky specifically. Also see his interviews where he discusses tradition to see how he views RC magisterium.
I appreciate your feedback. I was actually attempting to offer an olive branch but the question is: “How is it that a full subsistence of the divine nature and a full subsistence of the human nature can be one and the same subsistence, without contradiction?” Is one which for me which both captures loss of nuance when we use substantia in all cases and marks a mystery which is meant to leave things in tension. I appreciate Harts lectures which I’ve begun watching, and he’s not wrong to ask questions I just think it is a qualified monism or dualism—you can approach the mystery from both vantage points and it can be damaging to not account for the economic implications of pure monism.
First of all as you said: “all creatures are ultimately God, are ultimately uncreated while also being created.” This is the both / and problem.” Second I affirm Harts ultimately from an eschatological vantage point, but economically there is an active co-operation between one and God until one is passively deified and we have to leave eschatology in tension with this. I’m not suggesting inadequacy in Harts logic as much as in its ability to account for a dynamic relationship with God who is both other and in me though I am me. There are tensions which hard overlooks at least economically which he collapses with theology.
And I do agree with Gods act of creation as in a sense a natural expression of himself but also it is him going out of himself to create—the logos becomes many logoi. We seek on earth hopefully to unite with God who though active inside us, doesn’t impose upon us, but asks us to participate in his activities like self-giving love. Not everyone manifesting self giving divine love in the world. This at least to me conveys that there is a dynamic relationship between our will and Gods. I don’t believe in eternal hell but I do believe that our mode of existence in this life and cooperation with God makes a difference.
I enjoyed this. A couple of quick thoughts: Creation Ex Nihilo and the Incarnation attest to the fact that there is no nature independent of super nature - surely. Christ is the alpha and omega, the grounding of all that is, and, as far as I understand things, is never simply Divine but always (I’m not speaking of duration here) human and Divine (I’m quite sure Bulgakov makes such a move). Creation is the manifestation of this reality, no? The fall, however one wants to conceive of it, is the insistence that nature is not in fact super nature; this is not an affirmation of the truth but a privation of reality. Christ’s descent to the realm of the dead - death representing an insistence upon a closed understanding of nature - is the affirmation that God will ultimately not consent to have any of his creation locked into such an illusion. The vocation of the Christian is to live “supernaturally” which is to say live what is real, for the sake of the world around him/her. The Eucharist is the body of God, not because it has received grace ad extra, but because in the liturgical setting it is eschatological affirmed as what it truly is; the body of God. Bread incidentally is a microcosm of the entire cosmos - sunshine, vegetation, water, human action etc.
I think Smith begs the question in favor of a strict libertarian view of human freedom...a false dilemma where it's either determinism or strict libertarianism. He writes:
"Unlike Hart’s monistic vision, which risks reducing theosis to a deterministic unfolding...."
"His framework suggests a deterministic path where grace is not distinctly relational but an inevitable outgrowth of nature’s potential. This overlooks the personal struggle, repentance, and active cooperation required in the journey of theosis. For instance, in Hart’s view, St. Mary of Egypt’s conversion might appear as an expected actualization of her inherent divinity, rather than the dramatic and personal turning toward God that involved intense spiritual battle and the decisive rejection of her former life."
But one can say that St. Mary of Egypt's salvation was inevitable although *which* path she took was undetermined.
Smith: "Grace is not an inevitable extension of nature but a transformative and uncreated gift that invites the believer into a relationship marked by love, struggle, and mutual self-giving."
It could be both. Rather than strict libertarian free will, one could hold to a broad account of libertarian free will. We have the freedom to take the sinful or sinless path (to simplify it), and both paths are ultimately equivalent (Bulgakov), for they both end in union with God.
Well yes I’d agree we all end up in the same place in the end but when is the end of infinity? As Maximus says if we don’t participate in virtue and have piety where will we be when God is all in all? Anyway, it’s a dialogue between our will and God’s and if we don’t align with his logoi,his will for us, it is our loss as we move toward ill being and we don’t fully develop in the womb of the world to encounter Mount Tabor; this will not be pleasant when we directly encounter the brilliance of the ever suffered and given love of our Lord. Free will is acquired as well as the ability to no longer deliberate but see clearly.
I think you're being obtuse, as it's implied that the union I'm talking of is a pleasant one. Your comment is just a rehash of the free will defense of hell, which is what your OP was too. It just presupposes strict libertarianism.
Please do not take my comments as in any way mean-spirited, i mean them as constructive (and thorough) criticism. To be perfectly upfront about my thoughts, I both think that you misread and are unfair to Hart's monistic theology, and that your arguments (and overall rhetoric) evidence the same tired pattern all prior denouncements of monistic thought (in particular those directed at Bulgakov) in modern theology have; e.g., claiming "its determinist," "its impersonal," it collapses distinctions," etc, while never engaging each of these issues enough to define where ultimate metaphysical monism fails and your supposed middle way succeeds as anything other than a way to avoid logically necessary implications.
You claim that Hart equates and collapses uncreated and created causalities. He doesn't, he affirms their infinite distinction. You quote him saying as much, "‘whole power of nature’ (as we know it, at least) cannot supply.” If you quibble that he adds a hypothetical qualifier, you shouldn't because he operates on the assumption that the hypothetical is false (though he likely has in mind ante-nicene theology in which the Holy Spirit is not distinct from our spirits, in which case this is simply another part of our tradition). His arguments about an ultimate monism are explicitly drawn from the implications of creatio ex nihilo, namely that creatio ex nihilo is creatio ex deo as it is not creation from another substance or cause. Thus, when you say:
"By contrast, God’s uncreated causality initiates existence itself, breaking the analogy that Hart draws between natural and supernatural causality."
You are misreading. It is not the case that Hart fails to distinguish divine and created causality, rather, it is his proper understanding that viewed from the divine perspective all activity is simply God's activity (because God is all being and act and potency which become act). Following from this, Hart correctly argues that divine grace is natural to nature, is the creature's proper end of all its potentials, and therefore, operating on a proper ontology (which is that of Maximus' logoi, or Dionysius' predestinations, or Eriugena's exemplars, or Origen's eschatological creation) all creatures are ultimately God, are ultimately uncreated while also being created, and therefore theosis is not an external imposition or violation of nature.
This is not "simply a form of natural assistance," which is troublesome in any way, because qua finite the creature is not uncreated. Qua Being, which is God, the creature is uncreated. But this is simply eastern Orthodox theology and metaphysical common sense.
You invoke creatio ex nihilo again to try and distinguish Hart's theology from Orthodox theology (homogenized in whichever way you wish) by saying "Creation ex nihilo establishes that the world is not an outflow of God’s essence but a unique act that exists through God's continuous sustaining presence." This is wrong. Creation being an emanation of the divine essence as being, life, intellect (as explicitly in the Areopagite), is not separable from it being the free act of the divinity and vice versa. Divine freedom is simply to be fully actualized. When you deny this and try to use words like "unique act" the only conclusion I can come to is that you hold to a voluntarist account of creation, in which God chooses to create from possibilities he might not actualize, thus God becomes a mere being subject to potency himself. This should be articulated clearly, not held back as a possible interpretation.
This same predilection for using words that sound like they are meant to convey a metaphysical view but do not is evident again when you say, "The Incarnation is not merely a bridging of two realities but a profound event that brings the created and the Uncreated into a harmonious relationship without confusion or seperation." Being charitable, this is a completely apophatic statement conveying nothing. How does the incarnation bridge two alien natures (and alien they must be if an ultimate metaphysical monism is rejected)? Calling it a "profound event" doesn't say anything, we need to be cataphatic here, able to say what a proper metaphysical theology ultimately must admit (at root there is only God and God as the becoming-God).
Your Christological comments should have been informed by Hart's own recent Stanton lectures on Christology (available online and on his substack), as well as his article "Chimaeras, Masks and Portmanteaux." Drawing on Bulgakov, Hart points out and works through a glaring issue in Neochalcedonian Christology. If humanity and divinity are completely disparate and alien, there being some dualism at the root of their being, how can a divine hypostasis unite them, be them, and manifest fully through them? It cant. The question for Christology must rather be “How is it that a full subsistence of the divine nature and a full subsistence of the human nature can be one and the same subsistence, without contradiction?” And the only answer is that an ultimate dualism does not exist, the created is fit for the divine hypostasis because it is always the divinity as finite becoming infinite (godmanhood).
It should go without saying that I do not accept your characterization of Hart's views as antithetical to Orthodox spirituality, but in all that discussion two issues jumped out at me. Firstly, you appeal to Maximus' characterization of deification as one in which human nature is passive before divine infinite activity, and contrast this to Hart's views, but then you say that in this deification we "actively cooperate," synergy remains. If, as your whole argument has seemingly been, there is this gulf between created and divine nature such that to call divine infinite activity natural to creatures is illicit, how is the human qua human still active if human "nature" is passive in deification? He wouldnt be. It is only by understanding that which is passive in deification to be nature qua finite, that we can understand deification as retaining synergy because the divine activity in its fullness is proper to nature which hypostatizes it. This is what Palamas argues, the saints hypostatize the divine energies/activity, or in other words, the divine energies/activity/nature subsist naturally in and as the hypostasis. So... you dont have deification if you dont follow the path to Hart's conclusion.
Secondly, you continually accuse Hart of implicit determinism. A metaphysical monism is not inherently determinist, what matters is how the relationship of the One/Being to the many ones/beings is parsed out. That said, In the last chapter of You are Gods, Hart agrees with and draws on Bulgakov's ontology of freedom which is, in my estimation, the only such ontology that actually escapes determinism while retaining all the tenets of Christian classical theism. Please read this chapter and the cited sections from Bulgakov.
Finally, thank you for your time and for writing. I hope my criticisms come across without being muddled, and as constructive. I also hope that people would stop feeling the need to claim the neopatristic view of creation and anti-monism is "the Orthodox view," as this is being soundly put to rest by newer patristic scholarship (e.g., Jordan Wood's research explicating the patristic acceptance of creation's necessity), and unfairly others not only different ancient voices in our tradition, but rejects the Orthodoxy of new theological thought. God bless!
«When you deny this and try to use words like "unique act" the only conclusion I can come to is that you hold to a voluntarist account of creation, in which God chooses to create from possibilities he might not actualize, thus...»
Do you think God was necessitated to create? That would seem to violate His aseity. It would make His identity/essence dependent on creation. I don't see how it follows from libertarian freedom (which may be intellectualist rather than voluntarism) that "God becomes a mere being subject to potency himself".
«How does the incarnation bridge two alien natures (and alien they must be if an ultimate metaphysical monism is rejected)?» First, the inability of someone to answer a question doesn't disprove their worldview; it only proves that they don't have an answer. Second, what's wrong with saying the Incarnation can do what it does because God has the power to do it?
«If humanity and divinity are completely disparate and alien, there being some dualism at the root of their being, how can a divine hypostasis unite them, be them, and manifest fully through them?» Not being able to explain something doesn't mean it can't happen. «It cant.» How do you know?
«Jordan Wood's research explicating the patristic acceptance of creation's necessity» Where does Wood say creation is necessary? I'm sure that Catholicism teaches that God was free to create or not-create.
1. God transcends the dialectic of necessity/freedom. My answer is both that God necessarily and freely creates, because to be God is to be fully actualized in every way proper to nature (including as creator) and this is the same thing as being free. My argument is the same as that given by Hart and Bulgakov already.
But that God would be reduced to a being by ascribing a deliberating will to him and a process of choosing between options before actualizing himself in one way and not another, is a tautology. Id again recommend Bulgakov and Hart's own writings on this, but I have also written about it on my substack (An Unconscious God, Apokatasis: Part II).
2. You are correct that inability to answer does not necessarily mean someone is wrong, though my conclusions about the wrongness of such a view are based on an assessment of the metaphysics used in the Christian tradition regarding the incarnation.
Whats wrong with it is that the theology of the Incarnation is not in Eastern Orthodox theology an event unconnected from the rest of being, it is the foundation of being and the ontology of every creature individually and as a whole. A philosophical articulation of it that reduces the incarnation to an irrational display of power is not satisfying or acceptable (also, an absolute dualism just isnt reconcilable no matter how much divinity is invoked, its absolute).
3. Same answer as above.
4. I'll be sure to bring some citations later tonight (when I will respond to the OP's comments as well) but he discusses it in his PhD thesis and the footnotes, bringing up bulgakov v florovsky specifically. Also see his interviews where he discusses tradition to see how he views RC magisterium.
I appreciate your feedback. I was actually attempting to offer an olive branch but the question is: “How is it that a full subsistence of the divine nature and a full subsistence of the human nature can be one and the same subsistence, without contradiction?” Is one which for me which both captures loss of nuance when we use substantia in all cases and marks a mystery which is meant to leave things in tension. I appreciate Harts lectures which I’ve begun watching, and he’s not wrong to ask questions I just think it is a qualified monism or dualism—you can approach the mystery from both vantage points and it can be damaging to not account for the economic implications of pure monism.
First of all as you said: “all creatures are ultimately God, are ultimately uncreated while also being created.” This is the both / and problem.” Second I affirm Harts ultimately from an eschatological vantage point, but economically there is an active co-operation between one and God until one is passively deified and we have to leave eschatology in tension with this. I’m not suggesting inadequacy in Harts logic as much as in its ability to account for a dynamic relationship with God who is both other and in me though I am me. There are tensions which hard overlooks at least economically which he collapses with theology.
And I do agree with Gods act of creation as in a sense a natural expression of himself but also it is him going out of himself to create—the logos becomes many logoi. We seek on earth hopefully to unite with God who though active inside us, doesn’t impose upon us, but asks us to participate in his activities like self-giving love. Not everyone manifesting self giving divine love in the world. This at least to me conveys that there is a dynamic relationship between our will and Gods. I don’t believe in eternal hell but I do believe that our mode of existence in this life and cooperation with God makes a difference.
I enjoyed this. A couple of quick thoughts: Creation Ex Nihilo and the Incarnation attest to the fact that there is no nature independent of super nature - surely. Christ is the alpha and omega, the grounding of all that is, and, as far as I understand things, is never simply Divine but always (I’m not speaking of duration here) human and Divine (I’m quite sure Bulgakov makes such a move). Creation is the manifestation of this reality, no? The fall, however one wants to conceive of it, is the insistence that nature is not in fact super nature; this is not an affirmation of the truth but a privation of reality. Christ’s descent to the realm of the dead - death representing an insistence upon a closed understanding of nature - is the affirmation that God will ultimately not consent to have any of his creation locked into such an illusion. The vocation of the Christian is to live “supernaturally” which is to say live what is real, for the sake of the world around him/her. The Eucharist is the body of God, not because it has received grace ad extra, but because in the liturgical setting it is eschatological affirmed as what it truly is; the body of God. Bread incidentally is a microcosm of the entire cosmos - sunshine, vegetation, water, human action etc.
I think Smith begs the question in favor of a strict libertarian view of human freedom...a false dilemma where it's either determinism or strict libertarianism. He writes:
"Unlike Hart’s monistic vision, which risks reducing theosis to a deterministic unfolding...."
"His framework suggests a deterministic path where grace is not distinctly relational but an inevitable outgrowth of nature’s potential. This overlooks the personal struggle, repentance, and active cooperation required in the journey of theosis. For instance, in Hart’s view, St. Mary of Egypt’s conversion might appear as an expected actualization of her inherent divinity, rather than the dramatic and personal turning toward God that involved intense spiritual battle and the decisive rejection of her former life."
But one can say that St. Mary of Egypt's salvation was inevitable although *which* path she took was undetermined.
Smith: "Grace is not an inevitable extension of nature but a transformative and uncreated gift that invites the believer into a relationship marked by love, struggle, and mutual self-giving."
It could be both. Rather than strict libertarian free will, one could hold to a broad account of libertarian free will. We have the freedom to take the sinful or sinless path (to simplify it), and both paths are ultimately equivalent (Bulgakov), for they both end in union with God.
Well yes I’d agree we all end up in the same place in the end but when is the end of infinity? As Maximus says if we don’t participate in virtue and have piety where will we be when God is all in all? Anyway, it’s a dialogue between our will and God’s and if we don’t align with his logoi,his will for us, it is our loss as we move toward ill being and we don’t fully develop in the womb of the world to encounter Mount Tabor; this will not be pleasant when we directly encounter the brilliance of the ever suffered and given love of our Lord. Free will is acquired as well as the ability to no longer deliberate but see clearly.
I think you're being obtuse, as it's implied that the union I'm talking of is a pleasant one. Your comment is just a rehash of the free will defense of hell, which is what your OP was too. It just presupposes strict libertarianism.