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Overview
Sergius Bulgakov is widely considered to be the twentieth century's foremost Orthodox theologian, and his book The Comforter is an utterly comprehensive and profound study of the Holy Spirit. Encyclopedic in scope, The Comforter explores all aspects of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, as they are viewed in the Orthodox tradition and throughout church history. The book has sections on the development of the doctrine of the Spirit in early Christianity and on the development of the doctrine of procession in the patristic and later Byzantine periods. It also touches on the place of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity and explores Old and New Testament notions of the Spirit of God. A concluding chapter deals with the mystical revelation of the Holy Spirit. Made available in English through the work of Boris Jakim, today's premier translator of Russian theology and philosophy into English, Bulgakov's Comforter in this edition is a major publishing event.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780802821126 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company |
| Publication date: | 06/01/2004 |
| Pages: | 416 |
| Sales rank: | 1,017,300 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.99(d) |
About the Author
Boris Jakim is the foremost translator of Russian religiousthought into English. His published translations includeworks by S.L. Frank, Pavel Florensky, Vladimir Solovyov, and Sergius Bulgakov.
Read an Excerpt
THE COMFORTER
By Sergius Bulgakov
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Copyright © 2004 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-8028-2112-X
Chapter One
The Place of the Third Hypostasis in the Holy TrinityI. Trinitarity and the Third Hypostasis
In order to clarify this question it is necessary to distinguish (of course, in the abstract) the immanent Trinity from the economic Trinity, the supra-eternal life of the Holy Trinity in Itself from Its trihypostatic revelation in creation. Let us first investigate trinitarity in its immanent aspect. Here, Revelation gives us the fact of the divine triunity of the Father, Son, and Spirit: Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, the one Name, the one God the Holy Trinity. Not three in unity, but triunity; and not one, but unifiedness in Trinity. This is the divine number, which does not exist in the natural world, but which is a super-number for the latter: the three in one. This super-number refers not to things, which can be counted in their separateness and juxtaposition, but to the Divine Person or Persons, Who has or have one unified, but not common, natural life. This super-number, Trinity-Unity, can be expressed in the language of human discursive thought only as a paradoxical and rationally absurd, for contradictory, union of one and three. This inability of the rational-logical understanding to accept this super-number manifests the limitation of this understanding: it is not competent to make judgments about the super-rational. Therefore, in its practical relation to the super-number, the rational-logical understanding must adapt itself, passing from one to three, and then back from three to one, while simultaneously containing both the one and the other. The speculative reason is still capable of postulating this triunity, which the rational-logical understanding does not have the power to concretize by its operation.
The Trinity is not a simple juxtaposition of three, distinct but united externally (by analogy with three lights that merge into one another). Such a trinity is, first of all, not self-enclosed; rather, it is open for continuation: the juxtaposition presupposes a series continuing into (bad) infinity, although it can be broken off at any number of terms, in particular at three. It is solely as such a juxtaposition that trinitarity was conceived by early patristic theology, which thus found itself in a state of perplexity and helplessness before the fact of the Third hypostasis as the end of the series. But the Holy Trinity is not three, but a triunity; and It is not a series but an enclosed whole, which has the fullness of Its being, Its power, precisely in trinitarity. It is necessary to understand the necessity of this trinitarity - not more and not less - of the hypostases. And one must take as one's starting point this necessity when considering the Holy Trinity-Unity, as well as the separate hypostases, and in particular when considering the Third hypostasis and His place in the Holy Trinity.
The trinitarity of the hypostases in the Divine Person results, first of all, from the nature of the personal self-consciousness, which is not fully manifested in the self-enclosed, singular I, but postulates thou, he, we, you, i.e., not uni-hypostatizedness, but multi-hypostatizedness, with the latter defined typologically and essentially as tri-hypostatizedness. I presupposes, as its self-affirmation, thou or co-I; and as its confirmation, so to speak, it presupposes he, and is definitively realized only in we (or you); i.e., ontologically it is not unique, although it is one. In creaturely, relative being, I is posited not only in itself but also outside itself; it is extrapolated and thereby limited. Despite its seeming absoluteness, I is not capable of actualizing its I-ness in itself and must, so to speak, become convinced of its own being by looking into the mirror of other I's. Without such a mirror, it disappears for itself, stops being conscious of itself in its I-ness.
But in the Divine Absolute subject, which is one and genuinely unique according to its own kind, all altero-positings of I cannot be actualized outside of it, because of the absence of all "outside," but must be contained in it itself, so that it itself is for itself simultaneously I, thou, he, and therefore we and you. Furthermore, none of these three positings of I - as I, thou, and he - can be defined solely from a single center, from I alone, which would be only I, I itself, for which the other I's would be only thou and he (and we and you, and even they). They must independently exist for themselves as I, fully equally centered each upon itself, being at the same time thou and he, each for the other.
Thus in the one absolute I there exist three I's, as fully equal centers of I, completely transparent for one another and belonging to the fullness of the reality of this Absolute self-I, of this genuine triune I that has nothing and coposits nothing outside itself - "this one light and three lights," this triunity. These are three hypostases, three personal centers, each of which is an equi-personal I, hypostatizing Divinity, the divine nature. But this equi-personal I never posits itself in separation from the other equipersonal I's, as unique or even as one of three I's (which would transform the trinity into a community or harmony of three - a tritheism); rather, it posits itself in the other I's, is coposited with them. And there results a unique but also triune divine I, for trinitarity is not only trinity but also unity.
What is the relation of this unity-trinity to trinity-unity, to the three hetero-personal hypostases? Is this not a "fourth hypostasis," existing in addition to, or above, the three hypostases? No, it is not. There is no "in addition" or "above" here. What there is is the total identity of personal self-consciousness: one is three and three are one, hetero-personally and uni-personally. A static and rational-logical computation necessarily yields either simply three or simply one; or, finally, four, by adding to the three separate I's the trine I; for the rational-logical understanding knows only things fixed in their separateness, not the dynamics of the life of the spirit which overcomes this separateness. The God glorified in the Holy Trinity is one, one Divine I, the Absolute Subject, the Holy Trinity, which we therefore address as a person. But this Person is also three Persons, Who exist for us as such, Who are distinct in prayer, in life, in thought, but Who are never separated from one another and transformed into three. The life of this trine, triune subject is love, by virtue of which it is three, while being one in the divine self-identity. The absolute self-sufficient divine Subject is the unceasing motion, the "perichoresis" of the divine I-ness, which cannot be stopped at some one center, thus breaking the ring of love and transforming the trinity into three or one. God the Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are hypostatically equal, for They are equally divine as the divine I. They are not distinguished in their equal I-ness.
To consider the trine subject and the hypostatic subjects only as I, in their pure subjectness, however, is to admit an abstraction, for concretely in the life of the Holy Trinity all three hypostatic subjects, as well as the triune subject, are mutually defined by an unchanging interrelationship; and therefore, while preserving the equal dignity and equal divinity of their hypostases, they have their defining, distinctive properties, or gnorismata. Therefore, while being equally divine, they are differently divine; and the trihypostatic subject, the trine I, is not simply a transparent I existent in three centers that are identified, but the Holy Trinity, the Father-Son-Spirit in Their divine triunity. Therefore, the three divine subjects, although equally divine, are not interchangeable: The Father is not the Son, nor is He the Holy Spirit. The Son is not the Father, and so on.
Aside from the hypostatic triunity of the three subjects, which is, so to speak, a priori the Holy Trinity with respect to one person, there also exists the Holy Trinity as the trine interrelation or mutual definition of the three persons. And just as, with reference to the trihypostatic subject, we have established precisely trinitarity, not more and not less, as the determining and exhaustive self-definition of I and as the actualization of the self-consciousness of the Absolute Subject, so we must also understand the Trinity in Its interrelation precisely as concrete trinitarity, in the inner necessity and perfection of the number three (once again, not more and not less).
The question arises: Why is God Who exists in the Holy Trinity trine, and not dual or quaternary, etc., in His hypostases? Of course, deduction is incapable of establishing the fact of divine Triunity, which is given by Revelation; but thought is called to fathom this revealed fact to the extent this is possible for human knowledge. We have already seen how ineffective patristic thought was in this respect: it transformed the Third hypostasis into a kind of theological addendum, an "etc." or "and so on," without inner justification of Its being; or it conceived the Holy Trinity as a double and, connecting three separate subjects: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (the Cappadocians).
Against such a conception of trinitarity as "and-and" or "etc.," it is necessary to set forth the following trinitarian axiom: The Holy Trinity is a divine triunity which is exhaustive and perfect in Its fullness, a triunity of interrelations which is trine and integral in all Its definitions, without any disjunctive or conjunctive "and" connecting the separate hypostases. Every hypostasis in separation, as well as their triunity, must be understood in trine connection and in trine self-definition, which form the Whole, the Holy Trinity.
The connection of the Holy Trinity - in both the East and the West - is established through origin or origination. In the East, for the Cappadocians and then for St. John of Damascus, the Father is the "cause" of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, who originate from Him. In the West, essence, essentia, is the principle in and from which the Father-Son, and then the Holy Spirit, originate, although in this origination too the primary place is given to the Father. For this theologeme of origination there is a Biblical foundation, though only in a particular dogmatic interpretation or doctrinal reworking; and it is therefore erroneous to see here a direct Biblical thesis. In fact, Scripture says that the Son is the only begotten Son of the Father, from Whom also the Holy Spirit proceeds. This fact of the fatherhood of the Father and of the sonhood of the Son, as well as of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, is affirmed in Scripture; fatherhood/sonhood is affirmed several times, the procession but once (John 15:26). Concerning the distinction of the hypostases, revelation indicates, essentially, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinguished hypostatically; and the Father is the Father of the only begotten Son, the Son is the Son of this Father, and there is also the Holy Spirit.
To be sure, the Father-Son relation presupposes generation and birth, although of course in a wholly other sense than earthly birth. But nowhere is it said that this - as if implied - generation, generatio activa, expresses the essence of the Father, or that generatedness expresses the essence of the Son and procession the essence of the Holy Spirit, so that one could place an equals sign between the hypostases and these hypostatic properties (which patristic theology does not yet do but which Latin theology indeed does do). Such an equation is, on the one hand, a logical abstraction, while on the other hand it is a theological deduction and not given by revelation. The judgment that generation and procession signify different modes of the same relation, i.e., origination, and in this capacity can be equated and juxtaposed, this judgment is also a theological deduction.
Thus there results the further opposition between the Father as anaitios, not having origination, and the Son and Holy Spirit as aitiatoi, having origination. The next step in this generalization is the conclusion that the Father is the cause (aitia) of the origination of the two other hypostases, and the entire Holy Trinity is interpreted as a relation of causal origination. This is the basis of the entire trinitarian theology of the West, which in part also developed here the trinitarian doctrine of the East, where this idea had first appeared, although it did not achieve such complete and consistent development as in the West.
With reference to this doctrine we must first observe that the concept of origination is not a Biblical one, for Scripture knows neither aitia nor origination, processio. The very being of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father does not yet signify, with reference to divine eternity, their abstract relation according to origination or causality, in all the imprecision and, what is more important, ambiguity of this expression. One cannot refer here to the fact that, in defining the generatedness but uncreatedness of the Son, both the first and second ecumenical councils also used the non-Biblical expression homoousios, because it was accepted by the Church as the authoritative definition of the two ecumenical councils only after prolonged struggle and many efforts at interpretation. Neither aitia nor processio has the authority of the Church behind it (the doctrine of origination in the Western sense crept only into the definition of the Council of Florence).
The idea of causality and origination with reference to the Holy Trinity is not only a product of abstraction but also of a centuries-old hypnosis (especially in the Latin church). It is only by virtue of this abstract-logical hypnosis that unverified and unexamined propositions, without any Biblical foundation, are accepted as indisputable axioms of theology. To interpret "generation" and "procession" as two forms of origination, and Fatherhood, with reference both to the generation of the Son and to the procession of the Spirit, as causality, is arbitrary and an abuse of an abstraction.
Continues...
Excerpted from THE COMFORTER by Sergius Bulgakov Copyright © 2004 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Excerpted by permission.
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Table of Contents
| Translator's Introduction | vii | |
| Author's Preface | xiv | |
| Introduction: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Patristic Literature | 1 | |
| I. | Early Christianity | 1 |
| II. | Tertullian's Subordinationism and Stoic Philosophy | 9 |
| III. | Cosmological Subordinationism in Arianism | 15 |
| IV. | Ontological Subordinationism in Origen's Doctrine of the Holy Trinity | 18 |
| V. | Homoousianism in the Trinitarian Doctrine of St. Athanasius of Alexandria | 23 |
| VI. | The Cappadocians' Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and of the Holy Spirit | 28 |
| VII. | The Western Doctrine of Homoousian Trinitarian Theology (St. Augustine) | 40 |
| VIII. | The Trinitarian and Pneumatological Doctrine of St. John of Damascus | 42 |
| 1. | The Place of the Third Hypostasis in the Holy Trinity | 53 |
| I. | Trinitarity and the Third Hypostasis | 53 |
| II. | The Taxis or Order of the Hypostases in the Holy Trinity | 68 |
| 2. | The Procession of the Holy Spirit | 75 |
| I. | The First Doctrines of the Procession of the Holy Spirit: dia and et (que) | 75 |
| II. | The Second Epoch in the Doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit. The Greco-Latin Polemic: Photian (Anti-Latin) Theology against the Latin Filioque | 95 |
| 3. | On the Spirit of God and the Holy Spirit | 153 |
| I. | In the Old Testament | 156 |
| II. | In the New Testament | 159 |
| 4. | The Dyad of the Word and the Spirit | 177 |
| I. | In the Divine Sophia | 177 |
| II. | In the Creaturely Sophia | 189 |
| 5. | The Revelation of the Holy Spirit | 219 |
| I. | The Kenosis of the Holy Spirit in Creation | 219 |
| II. | Divine Inspiration in the Old Testament | 227 |
| III. | Divine Inspiration in Christ | 244 |
| IV. | The Pentecost | 267 |
| V. | The Gifts of the Pentecost | 285 |
| Epilogue: The Father | 359 | |
| Index | 395 |