The 4th Virtual Multidisciplinary Conference December, 12. - 16. 2016, www.quaesti.com
THE RELATION BETWEEN THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY Antoniu – Cătălin Păştin Theological, Ecumenical and Intercultural Researches Centre “Saint Ioan Cassian” within the “OVIDIUS” University of Constanta, Romania Abstract—The christian teaching about the One and at the same time the Triune God, with Whom man have to get into communion and to persist in this existence, growing in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit’s work revealed through the holy sacraments and worships of the Church. The Church is the institution of our redemption through which we are growing in Jesus Christ. The Church, understood as the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, prolonged into mankind through the Holy Spirit’s Work and God the One and at the same time the Triune Person represents the greatest Mystery of Christianity. In this meaning prayer is even monological due to the fact that God is a Trinity of persons: “I and the Father are one.” (John. 10, 30). Here lies the great Mistery: the single God worshipped in three persons. The power of the Holy Trinity, which we always find again within the Church through the committing of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, transfigures us in our inner life and so beginns the long process of our perfection and deification in Jesus Christ. Keywords- immanence, Knowledge, Christian Spirituality
I.
INTRODUCTION
The name YAHVE expressed the transcendental nature of God and the name EMANUEL reveals His immanent nature. YAHVE was so holy for the former Jews, that it couldn’t be pronounced. When they came back from their babylonian slavery, the Jews tried more and more to protect the God’s Name from what they considered to be an impolite familiarity. Therefore, the divine name begun to be represented only through the four consonants which composed the name: YHVH. This word means “that who is” or “that who is present” and suposses that God is available to help. Even the transcendent name of God carried in itself a grain of His immanence, which was close enough to come to rescue. Emanuel, “God with us” is used for Messiah. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (ISAIAH 9:6). This will be God amidst us: the divine and quick immanence. Within theology, the concept of transcendent related to God expresses His existence ”separate and beyond and of the limits of the material universe1” (Oxford Dictionary of English, publishing house OXFORD DISCTIONNARRY PRESS, 2003, page 1872). Often the word ”transcendent” (which originates from the latin word transcendens, participle of the latin verb trasncendere = which surpasses) is antinomically used opposite of or face to
face with the meaning of the notion „immanent” (in the volume Oxford Dictionary of English, publishing house OXFORD DISCTIONNARRY PRESS, 2003, page 866),in order to mark the ontological distance between uncreayed – created, an insurmountable distance as a knowing act from creation to Creator without the manifested help from God to man. As far as the transcendens and immanence of God in relation with His creation, the Orthodoxy simultaneously asserts the both concepts, noticing in the notion of transcendence the God’s supreme liberty face to face with the creation limits (affected by the presence of sin), and in immanence the unintelligible snd the incomprehensible God’s mercy through which This restores the world feeding through His redemptive presence and accomplishing His work through the embodiment of His Only begotten Son of God Jesus Christ (see the work with the number 1). The embodiment represents the supreme immanence. God walked again through the garden, this time under the physical form of His children: Adam and Eve (see the work with number 2). The relation between Theology – Philosophy was differently understood in the Eastern Tradition compared to the Western Tradition. Within the Western Tradition the Theology became dependent of two antiquity philosophycal systems. By means of Blessed Augustin, the Western Theology became dependent of the platonism, which manifested reservation and aggression opposite to the material. In platonism it is considered that the spirit is the prisoner of the material and its redemtion consists of the spirit release of the carnal handcuffs. This aversion towards the sensible and material universe imprinted in two ways in the western theology: 1. Firstly through the fact that the Blessed Augustin don’t speak about the spirit presence in the body. Sometimes there is even at him the tendency to make this approach, but he considers that the spirit is outside material. In Protestantism, whose inspiration source is the Blessed Augustin’s philosophy, the human nature is entirely alterated by sin, what represents a remark of the neoplatonism and platonism concerning the material. The neoplatonic system influnced the Western Theology as far as the Predestination Idea, which prevalently was preached by the Blessed Augustin and the Reformers (the Calvinists and Lutherans). Therefore, if the material is bad and couldn’t be improved, the man redemption remains a problem of God, thus
Philosophy, Ethics and Religion 10.18638/quaesti.2016.4.1.307
eISSN: 2453-7144, cdISSN: 1339-5572 - 108 -
ISBN: 978-80-554-1301-3