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To: qua; HarleyD; Kolokotronis; kosta50

The characterization of Orthodoxy as Platonic and Catholicism as Aristotelean is a fairly commonplace one, but one that I find difficulty in understanding.

The primary person who applied Platonism (in its Neoplatonic form) to Christian theology was not an Easterner, but rather a Westerner (and indeed the Reformers' favorite Church Father, if they had to pick one): St. Augustine.

As has been discussed on other threads, when Thomas Aquinas came along, his primary detractors were Augustinians -- in a sense, it was a struggle between Platonistic Catholics and Aristotelean Catholics.

Stating that Orthodox theology is Platonistic shows more than anything else an unfamiliarity with Orthodox life and theology, which is intensely practical and Biblical. The patristic mind is not a systematic or theoretical one, but rather one that is of a piece with that of the Old Testament prophets.

How on earth one gets from theories about being and non-being or matter and unity to Orthodox ascetic practices or our teachings on theosis would really have to be explained to me. Likewise your comments on loss of individuality, the intellect as a spark of divinity, or free will as an ooze of godness.

I would encourage you to look a little more closely at Orthodoxy, and I think that you would be surprised at how much of a continuity there is from Old Testament to New Testament to Patristic writings to current day Orthodox life and belief that there is.


3,202 posted on 03/03/2006 10:51:22 PM PST by Agrarian
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