- "EUTYCHIANISM Eutychianism takes its name from the fifth-century monastic leader, Eutyches, who maintained that divinity and humanity merge to form one nature in the incarnate Christ. The position arose in reaction to Nestorianism, the view that there are two persons in Christ: the divine Son and the man, Jesus. The Council of Ephesus (431) rejected Nestorianism by affirming the unity of Christ’s person, but Eutyches and his followers went further by denying any distinction between Christ’s two natures. As such, Eutychianism is a form of monophysitism—the view that Christ has only one nature. The Council of Chalcedon (451) strongly rejected Eutychianism by asserting the distinction of Christ’s two natures “without confusion [and] without change.” The great danger of Eutychianism is that it confuses the two natures of Christ, making him a kind of tertium quid (“third thing”), which is neither God nor man. On the divine side of the ledger, it posits a change in the Son’s divinity, which calls into question his immutability and thus his unity with the Father and the Spirit. On the human side, Eutychianism, like all monophysite Christologies, tends to elevate Christ’s divinity to the point of diminishing his humanity. If there is to be a fusion of natures, then quite clearly it will be the divine nature that takes precedence over and overwhelms the creaturely nature. The result of this belittling of Christ’s humanity is a belittling of his saving work as the Last Adam—the True Man—who renders willing obedience to God in and through our common humanity, thus securing righteousness and eternal life for his people" https://ref.ly/o/credo06-2/10760?length=1633 "The Eutychians were led to the opposite extreme from the Nestorians. They held that there were not two natures but only one nature in Christ. All of Christ was divine, even his body. The divine and the human in Christ were mingled into one, which constituted a third nature. The Eutychians were often called Monophysites because they virtually reduced the two natures of Christ to one. The Council of Chalcedon, in 451, condemned this doctrine. The Monophysite controversy then took a new turn. Some followers of this view now taught that Christ had but one will. But the Third Council of Constantinople, in 681, condemned the Monothelite doctrine, declaring that in Christ there are two distinct natures, a human and a divine, and that therefore there are of necessity two intelligences and two wills. G. The Orthodox View The Council of Chalcedon, in 451, established what has been the position of the Christian church. There is one Jesus Christ, but he has two natures, the human and the divine. He is truly God and truly man, composed of body and rational soul. He is consubstantial with the Father in his deity and consubstantial with man in his humanity, except for sin. In his deity he was begotten of the Father before time, and in his humanity born of the virgin Mary. The distinction between the natures is not diminished by their union, but the specific character of each nature is preserved and they are united in one person. Jesus is not split or divided into two persons; he is one person, the Son of God" https://ref.ly/o/thiessensystheo/513515?length=1518 "If the divine and human natures are joined in the one person of Christ, it becomes crucial to say precisely how the natures are joined, or at least to rule out wrong answers to that question. An error called Eutychianism conceived of the two natures as merging or mingling together in the incarnation, so that divinity and humanity flowed into Christ to form an unprecedented, new, mixed nature: a divine-and-human nature. In visual terms, you could say that if divinity is yellow and humanity is blue, Eutychianism makes Christ green. Many theological problems arise from this error, but the most disastrous is that the humanity of Christ is eclipsed. Recall that the two natures involved in the incarnation are not the same size: divinity is infinite, but humanity is not. So if the two natures were to flow into one common nature, the result would not be a compound Christ, but a disappearance of the human into the divine. Again the logic of salvation would be undercut, as God would not so much save humanity as eliminate it by overwhelming it. The council of Chalcedon (held in what is now a province of Istanbul) was not convened only to refute Eutychianism, but also to draw together the abiding insights of Cyril (one person), the clarity of Pope Leo I, and to summarize the conciliar Christology so far. With Chalcedon, Christology achieves a remarkable balance. If Nestorianism exaggerated what is double in Christ, Eutychianism exaggerated what is single in Christ. The incarnate Son is one person in two natures; not two persons (Nestorianism) or one nature (Eutychianism). In the incarnation, rightly understood, divinity and humanity are both truly present, neither diverging nor merging. In these four councils, the early church faced the hardest questions and rejected the major mistakes that can be made in answering them. The central section of the Chalcedonian Definition of 451 sums up the results: “He was begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from Mary, the virgin God-bearer, as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation.” Those four mighty negatives are boundary markers for orthodoxy, showing the right way to interpret the Bible in light of the logic of salvation. Later Councils There were several councils after Chalcedon worth paying attention to, but the most important was a second Council of Constantinople held in 553 under Emperor Justinian. Its importance lies in the fact that it connected Trinitarian and Christological terminology. There are three persons in the Trinity, and one of those three persons is the Son, the subject of the incarnation. The second person of the Trinity, in other words, is the one person of the incarnation. One of the Trinity died on the cross. The Christology of Chalcedon describes the incarnation as a hypostatic union, where “hypostatic” means “in a person.” The incarnation is not a union of natures (that would be Eutychianism) nor an interpersonal union (that would be Nestorianism), but a personal union: two natures maintaining their own natural reality and integrity, but now united in one person or hypostasis. After Chalcedon, it was possible to integrate this truth with the truth of the Trinity, in which we confess one divine nature in three hypostases or persons. The result is a beautiful integration of the biblical storyline with the more analytic categories of doctrinal clarity. The person of the Son came down and became incarnate, adding a true human nature to his eternal divine nature. There was nothing novel in this. The fifth council simply brought together Christological and Trinitarian uses of the word “person” in order to make it clear that the person on the cross is the Son of God. It may be helpful to simplify the Christology of the councils as a way of keeping good order between the unity and the duality of Christ. Chalcedonian categories are especially helpful in maintaining the integrity of the two natures, maintaining a duality in Christ. Anything that belongs to a nature is something that we should expect to be dually present in the incarnation: two natures, two sets of natural inclinations, and even two natural wills, as a later council (Constantinople III in 681) would affirm. But anything belonging to a person is something that we should expect to be singly present in the incarnation. An important consequence of this is that when we say “Jesus is a human person,” we do not mean that his personhood is something creaturely like the personhood of every other human. Instead, we mean that he is a divine person (the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity) who has taken on a created human nature. At the center of the incarnation is the hypostasis of the hypostatic union. The person involved in the incarnation is not a compound person derived by adding something from above and something from below; the person of the Son comes down from above and takes to himself what is below. The parallelism and duality appropriate to two-natures Christology only functions properly within a zone marked out by the doctrine of the Trinity. Thus the clear categories of Chalcedon, with their tough logic articulating how the divine and human natures of Christ do and do not relate in his one person, are given life and sense by the doctrine of the Trinity, the story arc of Christ’s mission to save humanity, and the logic of salvation. We may have any number of further questions about the incarnation, and we should be alert to which ones will not be answerable. Questions about the interior psychological experience of the incarnate Son of God, for instance, are probably not questions we can answer. But the point of the Christological work of the councils was not to dissolve the mystery of the incarnation; it was to locate that mystery and to exclude false understandings of it. In some of the councils, the books of the Gospels were set up on prominent display to show that Scripture itself was the source and the goal of all the deliberations. For those of us who inherit the conciliar Christology today, it continues to be true that the doctrines should serve the Bible, and not vice versa. The decisions of the councils should serve to help us understand the story of Jesus in Scripture" https://ref.ly/o/csbancientfaithsb/44260?length=6426
Ancient Faith Study BibleIf the divine and human natures are joined in the one person of Christ, it becomes crucial to say precisely how the natures are joined, or at least to rule out wrong answers to that question. An error called Eutychianism conceived of the two natures as merging or mingling together in the incarnation, so that divinity and humanity flowed into Christ to form an unprecedented, new, mixed nature: a divine-and-human nature. In visual terms, you could say that if divinity is yellow and humanity is blue, - Interesting Blair. I looked quickly over it, and the point stands: Jesus was less than the Father only when voluntarily let go of divinity to become incarnate Hypostasis of God, so He could die for us. Like I mentioned elsewhere, He is indwelled by the Father first as the Angel of Yahweh, (the Spirit of God was in that Angel), then as incarnated Being, the Holy Spirit indwelled Him, so He could be a vessel for the performance of the miracle works. Finally when glorified Jesus becomes the New Temple of God, where the fullness of Deity dwells bodily. Jesus was fully divine on Earth (ie with miracle powers when the Holy Spirit was on Him). It seems that the H.S. needed to go away for Him to die. Note that the Bible that Jesus was similar to His brothers, an nowhere does it say that of a fallen nature, so there is a great chance that He was of Adam's human nature before the fall. The problem of the Doctrines now is that they think beings from a fallen nature are the rule, when that is the exception. God's Kingdom must be humongous, we are but a little region of it. We are not the rule, in God's Kingdom there is only one will: His, an no suffering, injustice, calamities, etc. Perfect Jesus (most likely in Adam's pre fall nature) came to save us fallen creatures, as we are the ones out of whack. So anyone thinking Jesus is of a fallen nature is probably eisegesing the Bible. The Holy Spirit does not remain in fallen nature after comes down. Not sure if you have the resource that talks a bit about Jesus the New Temple of God. I will post in private message to you.
- I am in the process of responding to those other points on the other thread that it was under. Hope to be done with the response tonight. God willing of course :) Hope you have had a blessed resurrection day so far.
Orthodox Perspectives on Person
Technically not eastern - "The eternal and immutable God has been revealed in three co-etemal Persons. The Father is the first Person, the first hypostasis of the one God, the Son is the second Person, begotten of the only Father. The Holy Spirit is the third hypostasis, who proceeds from the Father only. (Hypostasis is a Greek word without a perfect English equivalent, usually rendered "nature," "being," or "real existence.")"
Abune Melketsedek. The Teaching of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. N. p. Print.
"This can be explained, for the most part, by the fact that in one and the same term some shepherds of the Church placed one meaning and others, another meaning. The concept of “essence” was expressed in the Greek language by the word ousia, and this word was in general understood by everyone in the same way. Using the word ousia, the Holy Fathers referred it to the concept of “Person.” But a lack of clarity was introduced by the use of another word, “Hypostasis.” Some signified by this term the “Persons” of the Holy Trinity, and others the “Essence.” This circumstance hindered mutual understanding. Finally, following the authoritative example of St. Basil the Great, it became accepted to understand by the word Hypostasis the Personal attributes in the Triune Divinity."
Fr. Michael Pomazansky. Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. N. p. Print.
"In Orthodox terminology the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are called three divine persons. Person is defined here simply as the subject of existence and life—hypostasis in the traditional church language.
As the being, essence or nature of a reality answers the question “what?”, the person of a reality answers the question “which one?” or “who?” Thus, when we ask “What is God?” we answer that God is the divine, perfect, eternal, absolute . . . and when we ask “Who is God?” we answer that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The saints of the Church have explained this tri-unity of God by using such an example from worldly existence. We see three men. “What are they?” we ask. “They are human beings,” we answer. Each is man, possessing the same humanity and the same human nature defined in a certain way: created, temporal, physical, rational, etc. In what they are, the three men are one. But in who they are, they are three, each absolutely unique and distinct from the others. Each man in his own unique way is distinctly a man. One man is not the other, though each man is still human with one and the same human nature and form.
Turning to God, we may ask in the same way: “What is it?” In reply we say that it is God defined as absolute perfection: “ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing, and eternally the same.” We then ask, “Who is it?”, and we answer that it is the Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In who God is, there are three persons who are each absolutely unique and distinct. Each is not the other, though each is still divine with the same divine nature and form. Therefore, while being one in what they are; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are Three in who they are. And because of what and who they are—namely, uncreated, divine persons— they are undivided and perfectly united in their timeless, spaceless, sizeless, shapeless super-essential existence, as well as in their one divine life, knowledge, love, goodness, power, will, action, etc.
Thus, according to the Orthodox Tradition, it is the mystery of God that there are Three who are divine; Three who live and act by one and the same divine perfection, yet each according to his own personal distinctness and uniqueness. Thus it is said that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each divine with the same divinity, yet each in his own divine way. And as the uncreated divinity has three divine subjects, so each divine action has three divine actors; there are three divine aspects to every action of God, yet the action remains one and the same.
We discover, therefore, one God the Father Almighty with His one unique Son (Image and Word) and His one Holy Spirit. There is one living God with His one perfect divine Life, who is personally the Son, with His one Spirit of Life. There is one True God with His one divine Truth, who is personally the Son, with His one Spirit of Truth. There is one wise and loving God with His one Wisdom and Love, who is personally the Son, with His one Spirit of Wisdom and Love. The examples could go on indefinitely: the one divine Father personifying every aspect of His divinity in His one divine Son, who is personally activated by His one divine Spirit. We will see the living implications of the Trinity as we survey the activity of God in his actions toward man and the world"
Thomas Hopko. The Orthodox Faith Doctrine and Scripture. Vol. 1. N. p. Print.
"The noun “hypostasis” and the adjective “hypostatic” are used to describe the substantive existence or subsistent entity of each of the three persons or individuals of the Holy Trinity (A Patristic Greek Lexicon, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 1456). St. John of Damaskos says, “We believe in one God, one origin without beginning, uncreated, unchanging, immortal, eternal, infinite, indescribable, omnipotent, simple, bodiless, invisible, the source of goodness and righteousness … the cause of all good things, one essence, one divinity, one power, one desire, one action, one beginning, one authority, one strength, one kingdom, recognized and worshipped in three perfect hypostases … which is indeed inexplicable … There is truly one God: God [the Father] and the Logos [the Son] and His Spirit” (Ἔκδοσις Ἀκριβὴς τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Πίστεως {An Exact Exposition on the Orthodox Faith}, Thessaloniki: Pournara, 1998, pp. 47-49 & 62). The holy Fathers teach that several verses in the Old Testament declare the existence of the Holy Trinity. Such examples are, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). “Behold, the man has become like one of Us” (Gen. 3:22). “Come, let Us go down and confuse their language” (Gen. 11:7). “The Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom … from the Lord” (Gen. 19:24)."
Elder Ephraim, The Art of Salvation, Saint Nektarios Monastery Publications 2014 p. Print.
"According to Zizioulas, it was the Greek fathers, especially the Cappadocians, whose efforts to formulate trinitarian theology laid the groundwork for an ontology of person. They effected what amounts to a “revolution” within monistic Greek philosophical thinking by identifying “hypostasis” (ὑπόστασις, substantia) with “person” (πρόσωπον, persona), that is, with a concept to which no ontological content could be attributed within the framework of this particular thinking.19 This identification entailed two weighty consequences:
(a) The person is no longer an adjunct to a being, a category we add to a concrete entity once we have first verified its ontological hypostasis. It is itself the hypostasis of the being. (b) Entities no longer trace their being to being itself—that is, being is not an absolute category in itself—but to the person, to precisely that which constitutes being, that is, enables entities to be entities.20
In what follows, I will examine more closely these two consequences of the patristic theological and philosophical revolution, consequences which together constitute the two cornerstones of the ontology of person represented by Zizioulas.
If one understands the trinitarian postulate μία οὐσία, τρία πρόσωπα (“one substance, three persons”) to mean that God at first (in the ontological sense) is the one God, and only then exists as three persons, then “the ontological principle” of the deity is lodged at the level of substance, and one still remains entangled in monistic ontology. The trinitarian identification of “hypostasis” and “person” effected by the Cappadocians breaks through this ontology. This identification asserts that God’s being coincides with God’s personhood. This is precisely the sense of the statement that God the Father is not only the πηγή (“source”), but also the personal αἰτία (“cause”) of the Son and Spirit.21 The being of the triune God is a result of God’s personal freedom. “God does not exist because He cannot but exist”;22 quite the contrary: God the Father perpetually confirms—constitutes!—his own existence in the free personal activity of the divine life.23"
19 See Zizioulas, Communion, 36f.
20 Ibid., 39.
21 See Zizioulas, “Holy Spirit,” 37.
22 Zizioulas, Communion, 18.
23 “God, as Father and not as substance, perpetually confirms through ‘being’ His free will to exist” (Zizioulas, Communion, 41).
Volf, Miroslav. After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998. Print. Sacra Doctrina: Christian Theology for a Postmodern Age.