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Nature and Persona The Thought of Oliver Clément,
The French Orthodox Theologian [Response to the question of Tiina
Malinen in
Gregorian Study
Circle] Fr. K. M.
George Question: I have read an Orthodox
spiritual anthropology of Mr. Olivier Clément (On
Human Being: A Spiritual Anthropology) in which he says the image of God is not
something within humanity, but is, if I understand him right, in the person,
which is by its origin transpersonal. He says the fundamental distinction is
between persona and nature. Can someone perhaps clarify this thinking line within
orthodoxy? Isn’t the image of God everywhere, also in nature, not only in
persona? Is there or is there not an implicit hierarchy between persona and
human nature, and what are the consequences? Is the
persona and the image of God synonyms, or is the image in the persona? Is the
nature in the persona or the persona in the nature? Or is this division just
one of those too analytic view to a mystery?
Answer: Tiina Malinen has raised some interesting questions to the
members of the Gregorian Study circle in connection with her study of Oliver
Clement. My comments are rather general, and offered for discussion. The
French Orthodox theologian Oliver Clément (OC) stands
in a long line of Orthodox theologians whose theological anthropology is drawn
primarily from the three Cappadocian Fathers, namely,
St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and St. Gregory of
Nyssa. The Cappadocians were highly learned theologians and Christian
humanists who knew very well the Platonic and the Neo Platonic understanding of
the human being. They were fascinated by this Greek philosophical vision of
human nature and destiny, but at the same time critical of it, and drew a
distinction between the Christian biblical understanding and the Greek
philosophical notion of the human being. Oliver Clément and several others like him seem to think that the
Asian thinking based on Hindu and Buddhist religions is the Eastern counterpart
of Platonic-Neo-Platonic line of thought in our contemporary situation. So in
trying to outline an Orthodox understanding of the human being, Oliver Clement
refers often to the Indian and Far Eastern spiritual-philosophical traditions
in order to show the distinct character of the Orthodox Christian view. With this
background in mind, let me make the following observations with the hope of
engaging in a fruitful debate. 1.
Oliver Clément adopts the
word Person (with a capital P) for the human being, knowing well that the Greek
prosopon and Latin persona represented theatrical masks and therefore the superficial
aspects of the human being. He also refers to the Greek hypostasis which can mean substance or nature, and stands for the
distinct identity of a thing or an individual. So he adopts Person for the Human Being in order to
avoid the pitfalls of the superficial level suggested by persona and the merely natural identity of anything else in the
universe suggested by hypostasis. 2.
A Person in
Orthodox Christian understanding is created in God’s image. What constitutes the
“image” of God since God is spirit and without form is a matter of speculation.
The Eastern Fathers like the Cappadocians generally
held that freedom and reason are two essential traits of God’s image in the
human being. A rational human being (ie the one who
can freely exercise the power of logos
in terms of his/her capacity for reasoning, language, discernment, imagination
and creativity) is the one who can freely choose between good and evil, and is
capable of love and self-sacrifice. Such a person participants in God’s nature.
This participation (metousia)
of the Human Person in God’s
attributes is not by nature, but by grace, since human person is always a
created being. 3.
It is this Imago Dei (Image of God) that
distinguishes the human being from other creatures. All other creatures and
nature in general are certainly stamped with God’s love and free will, since
God is their creator. But the human person combines in himself/herself the
transcendent destiny and capacity to partake of the divine nature in a special
way. At the same time he/she shares created nature with the rest of creation.
In this sense human being is a mediator between matter and spirit, between body
and soul. So he/she can mediate grace to all created reality and stand in God’s
presence on behalf of all creation. 4.
In the incarnate Christ who is the unique mediator,
divinity and humanity are united without confusion and without division. Human
beings in Christ share this vocation of mediation and reconciliation. The Human
Person in Christ is not simply a part of nature, but ontologically rooted in
the transcendent reality of God. Though one cannot really separate the person
and nature in human beings because of the inseparable union of both, one can
simply point out the distinct character of the human person on this basis of
union between the uncreated divine and the created human. 5.
Oliver Clement points out that in the Indian tradition
salvation is understood as the total dissolution of the being in an impersonal
faceless eternity. He also refers to the Chinese-Japanese gardens and paintings
in which nature gradually fades into waters and mists. This is a nagging fear
in the West that the individuality and particularity of the human being is lost
in nature, in the vastness of the universe, and reabsorbed into the an
impersonal divinity. Many years ago as a
young theological student I had asked Fr. Bede Griffiths, the well-known
English Benedictine monk who combined the Indian style of monastic life and his
own Western Catholic tradition, about the difference between the Christian and
Hindu mystical traditions. He told me that in Christianity the Human Person and
the Deity remain distinct from each other in spite of mystical union while in
the Hindu tradition, there is total union to the point
of absolute oneness. Later when I came across the idea of theosis (divinisation) in the Cappadocians and the later Eastern Fathers, I doubted
whether that distinction was as easily held as in the Western approach. When the image of God in
us attains total likeness with its Archetype, namely God, it is hard to make a
distinction. However, it is to be admitted that the created Person remains a
creature however he/she may conform to the original Image of God as shown in
Christ. 6.
In the
predominant Hindu philosophical tradition, there is no idea of creation by a
Creator God. All that appears distinct and separate from each other (nama and rupa
– named and forms) is a matter of wrong perception rooted in our ignorance (avidya). When
this ignorance is removed, the truth of absolute oneness of all is manifested.
The great sayings (mahavakyas)
like Aham Brahmasmi( I am Brahman), Tattvam Asi (Thouart That), Ekam Sat Viprah Bahuda Vadanti (Truth is one,
though the learned speak of it in diverse ways) clearly show us the ultimate
unity and oneness of all reality in the Indian/Hindu understanding. 7.
In the Christian
tradition, however, the concept of creation is crucial. The distinction between
the creator God and the created reality remains. No degree of mystical ascent
or spiritual exaltation of the created beings will obliterate this fundamental
distinction. The Trinity with its three distinct Persons (hypostases) and one Essence (ousia), a logically difficult concept, and the
incarnate union of divinity and humanity in Christ, another logical aporia, are at the heart of creation theology. There is an
ineffable distinction and unity simultaneously existing in the Trinity and in
the Incarnation. The Christian concept of Person is interwoven into these
mysteries. 8.
Oliver Clement thinks that it is part of the vocation
of humanity to humanize all creation. Human beings can help transfigure all
created reality so that creation participants in God’s image through the human
Person. Following Gregory of Nyssa, Metropolitan Paulos
Mar Gregorios speaks of human being as the priest of
creation, that is, standing before God on behalf of all that God created, in
thanksgiving and worship. 9.
Fathers like Gregory of Nyssa would hold that the
man-woman distinction is only for this historical existence, with the purpose
of the propagation of the human race. In the In the human existence here in the world, men and women individually and corporately carry the Image of God. No discrimination whatsoever could be meted out on the basis of any ontological distinction between man and women. *********** |