Orthodox Apologetics

More about the idea of Person, and what it means.

The link:
The contribution of the Cappadocian fathers – The Patristic concept of the person
  by Rev. John Zizioulas

The link:
http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/constan.html

Written by Dr. Peter Gilbert

http://bekkos.wordpress.com/what-is-a-person/

quote:
"Latin-speaking theologians had considerable difficulty getting used to the terms “ousia” and “hypostasis,” since they were both translated into Latin by the one word “substantia,” substance. In Latin theology “substantia” was used to signify the one Godhead while the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were called “personae,” persons. The use of personae for the three and substantia for the one first occurs in a treatise by Tertullian, Adversus Praxean (Against Praxeas), written sometime about the turn of the third century. There it seems to be applied on the basis of two analogies. The first is to persona as the legal status of one who own property (substantia): the property in this case is the divine monarchy or empire which, like the Roman Empire, remains one though administered by several persons: as the Roman emperor can delegate imperial authority to his son, while the empire remains their one undivided property, so God should be understood to confer the authority of Godhead upon His Son and Holy Spirit, while the Godhead itself remains one and indivisible (Adv. Prax., ch. 3). The second analogy made is to persona in the sense of the three grammatical persons which point out the relations between speaker, person addressed, and thing spoken of. Tertullian cites passages from the Old Testament and gives them in turn the interpretations of Father speaking of Son (as, My heart hath disgorged a good Word; Ps. 45:1), of Father speaking to the Son (as, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee; Ps. 2:7), of the Son speaking of the Father (as, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; Isa. 61:1), and to the Father, of Himself (as, O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth, and hitherto have I declared Thy wondrous works; Ps. 71:17), finally, of the Spirit speaking (through the prophets) of the Father and the Son (as, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool; Ps. 110:1). The divine persons are here shown to be distinguished and ordered on the basis or pattern of relations of grammatical persons. As Tertullian says, “he who speaks, and he of whom he speaks, and he to whom he speaks cannot possibly be one and the same” (non posse unum atque eundem videri qui loquitur et de quo loquitur et ad quem loquitur; Adv. Prax. ch. 11. Cf. Varro, de Lingua Latina, 8.20: “cum personarum natura triplex esset, qui loqueretur, ad quem, de quo.”)."

To read the rest please visit the link

From the book Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church by John D. Zizioulas


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""As is known, the final formulation of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity speaks of  "one substance, three persons" (μία ουσία τρία άτομα). One would therefore have said that the unity of God, the "ontology" of God, consists in the substance of God. This would bring us back to the ancient Greek ontology: God first is God (His substance or nature, His being), and then exists as Trinity, that is, as persons. This interpretation in fact prevailed in Western theology and unfortunately entered into modern Orthodox dogmatics with the arrangement in the dogmatic handbooks of the headings "On the One God" followed by "On the Trinity." The significance of this interpretation lies in the assumption that the ontological "principle" of God is not found in the person but in the substance, that is, in the "being" itself of God. Indeed the idea took shape in Western theology that that which constitutes the unity of God is the one divine substance, the one divinity; this is, as it were, the ontological "principle" of God.

But this interpretation represents a misinterpretation of the Patristic theology of the Trinity. Among the Greek Fathers the unity of God, the one God, and the ontological "principle" or "cause" of the being and life of God does not consist in the one substance of God but in the hypostasis, that is, the person of the Father. The one God is not the one substance but the Father, who is the "cause" both of the generation of the Son and of the procession of the Spirit. Consequently, the ontological "principle" of God is traced back, once again, to the person. Thus when we say that God "is," we do not bind the personal freedom of God - the being of God is not an ontological "necessity" or a simple "reality" for God - but we ascribe the being of God to His personal freedom.

In a more analytical way this means that God, as Father and not as substance, perpetually confirms through "being" His free will to exist. And it is precisely His Trinitarian existence that constitutes this confirmation: the Father out of love - that is, freely - begets the Son and brings forth the Spirit. If God exists, He exists because the Father exists, that is, He who out of love freely begets the Son and brings forth the Spirit. Thus God as person - as the hypostasis of the Father - makes the one divine substance to be that which it is: the one God. This point is absolutely crucial. For it is precisely with this point that the new philosophical position of the Cappadocian Fathers, and of St. Basil in particular, is directly connected. That is to say, the substance never exists in a "naked" state, that is, without hypostasis, without "a mode of existence." And the one divine substance is consequently the being of God only because it has these three modes of existence, which it owes not to the substance but to one person, the Father. Outside the Trinity there is no God, that is, no divine substance, because the ontological "principle" of God is the Father. The personal existence of God (the Father) constitutes His substance, makes it hypostases. The being of God is identified with the person.

3. What therefore is important in Trinitarian theology is that God "exists" on account of a person, the Father, and not on account of a substance. Because it's significance is not simply theoretical or academic but profoundly existential, ..........................."" [1]

"The manner in which God exercises His ontological freedom, that precisely which makes Him ontologically free, is the way in which He transcends and abolishes the ontological necessity of the substance by being God as Father, that is, as He who "begets" the Son and "brings forth" the Spirit. This ecstatic character of God, the fact that His being is identical with an act of communion, ensures the transcendence of the ontological necessity which His substance would have demanded - if the substance were the primary ontological predicate of God - and replaces this necessity with the free self-affirmation of divine existence. For this communion is a product of freedom as a result not of the substance of God but of a person, the Father - observe why this doctrinal detail is so important - who is Trinity not because the divine nature is ecstatic but because the Father as a person freely wills this communion." [2]<>

[1] pages  40-42 from the book Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church by John D. Zizioulas

[2] page 44 from the book Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church by John D. Zizioulas

From the book The Person in the Orthodox Tradition by Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos, and translated by Esther Williams

""A 'person' according to the teaching of St. John of Damaskos, is "one who by reason of his own operations and properties exhibits to us an appearance which is distinct and set off from those of the same nature as he", that is to say a person is one who appears as somebody in particular among the many of his kind. And St. John of Damaskos mentions two examples to make it clear. The archangel Gabriel who appeared to the Panagia and talked with her, while he was one of the angels and belonged to a particular species, was at the same time a particular individual "distinct from the angels consubstantial with them".
 That is to say, it is a matter of a particular individual who belonged to a choir of angels. Likewise we have the other example, that of the Apostles Paul. When the Apostle was speaking to the people, "while he was one among the number of men, by his characteristics and operations he was distinct from the rest of men". While he was a man, at the same time he was distinguished from the other men by the particular gifts and merits which he had.

It must be emphasized that, according to St. John of Damaskos, hypostasis, person and individual are the samething. At one point he says: "hypostasis or individuals", and in another place he says: "One should know that the holy Fathers used the terms 'hypostasis' and 'person' and 'individual' for the same thing".

From this brief analysis by St. John of Damaskos it appears that the essence is associated with the nature and the hypostasis is associated with the person. And yet it appears that essence or nature cannot subsist without the person or hypostasis. When we speak of hypostasis or person, we mean the essence or nature with its distinctive features. And of course, as we mentioned before, the teaching about the person was formulated by the holy Fathers with regard to the Trinitarian God in order to clarify the relations between the persons of the Holy Trinity, because of the appearance of various heretical doctrines, which falsified the teaching of the Revelation.""

 

Pages 74-75 from the book The Person in the Orthodox Tradition by Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos, and translated by Esther Williams

From the book The Person in the Orthodox Tradition by Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos, and translated by Esther Williams

""The term 'hypostasis' has two meanings. Sometimes it means simple existence. In this sense the hypostasis is connected with the essence, and this is why certain of the Fathers have said: "the natures, that is to say, hypostasis". At other times it means "the existence of an individual substance in itself", and it signifies the difference of one individual from the other.

It must be pointed out here that these two meanings are given by St. John of Damascus because in the early Church there were two traditions about the meaning of hypostasis. Alexandrian theology associated the essence with the hypostasis, while Cappadocian theology associated the hypostasis with the person. Thus we see that in the Creed as formulated by the First Ecumenical Council the word hypostasis was used in the sense of essence, while finally in the Second Ecumenical Council the teaching was given that the hypostasis is connected with the person and is distinct from the meaning of essence. We see this position also in the Cappadocian Fathers, but we must point out that it was accepted by Athanasius the Great as well. It is a fact that we have no change in theology, but only in terminology. Finally it prevailed that essence is to be associated with nature and hypostasis with person. In any case, essence cannot subsist by itself, since formless essence does not subsist, while in the hypostasis, or individuals, are found both the essence and the intrinsic differences.""

Pages 73-74 The Person in the Orthodox Tradition by Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos, and translated by Esther Williams

From the book The Person in the Orthodox Tradition by Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos, and translated by Esther Williams

""1. The theology of the person

It must be said from the very beginning that the holy Fathers used the term 'prosopon', (person), first and foremost in referring to God, and particularly the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. A whole process had to be gone through in order to arrive at the formulation that the Triune God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are particular Persons-Hypostases, but have a common essence or substance. The common substance does not remove the particularity of the Persons-Hypostases, and the Persons-Hypostases do not remove or break the oneness of the substance.

In ancient Greece the word 'prosopon', which now means 'person', had more the meaning of the mask which the actors used to play different roles on the stage. There is a whole history surrounding the development of the mask into person. Through a long process the word that was used to mean 'mask' finally came to mean not simply something that one puts on, but what makes one a real human being(1).

The holy Fathers did this work chiefly in the fourth century, in their effort to confront various heretics who, in using Greek philosophy, were distorting Christ's teaching about the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Thus we can say that real orthodox theology is experiential and ascetic, while dogmatic theology is mainly "polemic", which means that the Fathers applied various terms from philosophy, not in order to understand and increase or improve the orthodox faith, which is revelation, but in order to express it in the terms of their time and to protect it from various distortions.

In what follows I would like us to take a look at how the holy Fathers came to apply the term 'Prosopon' to the Trinitarian God.

Various philosophising theologians, in their attempt to clarify the relationship between the Father and the Son, ended in a variety of dangerous and heretical teachings. In opposition to the gnostic polyarchy there developed two 'monarchian' parties: the patropaschites and the adoptionists. The former teach that the Son is identical with the Father, while the latter deny the divinity of the Son or Word.
The heresy of the patropaschites was shaped and developed further by Sabellios, who maintained that the Christian God is one, but at times He took on a different prosopon, a different mask. So in the Old Testament he is presented as Father, and in the New Testament as Son and in the period of the Church as Holy Spirit. In reality Sabellios was identifying the substance with the hypostasis. This teaching overturns and distorts the revealed truth about the Trinitarian God. And if it had prevailed, it would have had dreadful consequences for theology, the Church and for man's salvation(2).

The holy Fathers confronted this heresy, which confused the hypostatic characteristics of the Persons of the Holy Trinity and in effect broke up the Trinitarianness of God. I should like to effect briefly to the teaching of st. Basil the Great on this subject so as to show the process by which the theology of the person was settled.
In his texts Basil the Great refers many times to the teaching of Sabellios. He writes that Sabellios regarded God as one, but transformation by different masks: ".....that the same God, though one in substance, is transformed on every occasion according to necessary circumstances, and is spoken of now as Father, and now as Son, and now as Holy Spirit"(3)

Thus the persons of the Trinitarian God are really without substance, they lack ontology. Commenting on this, Basil the Great observes: "For not even Sabellius rejected the non-subsistent representation of the Persons"(4).
Also in other texts of Basil the Great we can find this teaching of Sabellius which regards the persons as a mask which is not connected with the hypostasis(5).

Basil the Great, however, is not content simply to present the teaching of Sabellios, but he refutes it and at the same time expresses the revealed truth in the terms of his time. In what follows I should like us to look at the theological views of Basil the Great relating to the Person of God.

He writes that just as anyone who does not accept the common essence falls into polytheism, so also anyone who discards "the distinction of hypostases", is led to Judaism(6).
We as Christians believe in the Triune God, who has a common essence and distinct hypostases. But in order to reach this point and express himself as perfectly as possible, Basil the Great does two very important things.
First he separates the essence (ousia) from the hypostasis. Until then the essence was identified with the hypostasis, and this still appears also in the dogmatic formulation of the First Ecumenical Council. Basil the Great says that the essence or nature is what held is common in the Trinitarian God and that the hypostases are the particular ways of being of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

On this subject he says: "substance and person have the distinction that the general has with reference to the particular; for example, just as 'a living creature' has with reference to 'a particular man'.
For this reason we confess one essence for the Godhead, so as not to hand down variously
the definition of Its existence, but we confess a person that is particular, in order that our conception of Father and Son and Holy Spirit will be distinct and perfectly clear to us"(7).
Making this distinction was a great effort, and I might say that it was a great "revolution", which finally prevailed, thanks to the great influence of the personality of Basil the Great.

Secondly, Basil the Great identified the hypostasis with the person. Thus while until that time 'person' had meant something "unreal", the mask, from the time of Basil the Great, and thanks to his own efforts, the person has acquired ontology and substance. The person is identified with the hypostasis, and is not something abstract, it is not a mask. St. Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea, writes characteristically: "For it is not sufficient to enumerate the difference in the Persons, but it is necessary to confess that each Person subsists in a true hypostasis"(8).

Referring to the term 'homoousios', he says that it is the most suitable for expressing the relationship of the Son to the Father: "This term also sets aright the error of Sabellios; for it does away with the identity of person ('hypostasis') and introduces a perfect notion of the Persons of the Godhead"(9).
Thus the 'prosopon'- when identified with the hypostasis- which is the essence with the particular peculiarities- takes on great value, losing its impersonal and abstract character and acquiring ontology.

These two elucidations, that is to say the separating of the essence from the hypostasis and the identifying of hypostasis with person, were necessary in order to combat the heresies about the Trinitarian God. Anyone who identifies essence with hypostasis necessarily accepts the teaching of Sabellios. Basil the Great writes felicitously: "Those who say that substance and persons are the same are forced to confess different Persons only, and in hesitating to speak of three Persons, they find that they fail to avoid the evil of Sabellius, who even himself, although often confusing his notions, tried to distinquish the Persons by saying that the same Person changed its appearance according to the need arising on each occasion"(10).

Since the fourth century, then, person has been identified with hypostasis, and essence with nature. These terms are suitable for expressing the dogma of the Holy Trinity. Of course we must add that they do not help us to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity. As the expression "mystery of the Holy Trinity" bears witness, we cannot understand this great mystery with our reason, but we can formulate it in these terms, even though they are completely inadequate, and therefore we often use apophatic expressions. Thus we can understand logically the dogma about the mystery of the Holy Trinity and not the mystery in itself, which transcends human reason and is a subject of revelational experience.""

Pages  68 - 73 from the book The Person in the Orthodox Tradition by Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos, and translated by Esther Williams






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