Orthodoxy and Hipsterdoxy

In contemporary Orthodoxy, we often hear a theological metanarrative that divides “Eastern” (i.e., Orthodoxy) and “Western” (i.e., Catholicism and Protestantism) Christianity into two halves that clash at their theological cores, or, as one author puts it, their “phronemas”. While prevalent in contemporary, popular-level writings, this metanarrative likely has its conception from Orthodox theologians and academics of the 19^th century and took full-root in the 20^th century. Exponents of this metanarrative reduce Western theology to a vaguely defined “rationalist”, “legalistic”, “Augustinian” framework, while defining Eastern theology as mystical, experiential, and giving primacy to the Greek fathers, particularly the Cappadocians.

It is a metanarrative because it provides an overarching explanation of what enables any theological disagreement between Orthodoxy and the West; thus, it is more fundamental to any specific doctrinal disagreement. It is a metanarrative because it walks the reader through the diverging theological developments of Church history between Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism. Euphemistically, I will refer to this metanarrative as hipsterdoxy. I call it hipsterdoxy because it comes from within Orthodoxy and seeks to differentiate Orthodoxy from the perceived theological mainstream of the West, ostensibly for the sake of being different. It is my aim to show this metanarrative is erroneous. I will do this with a short elaboration of the metanarrative and then address five theological doctrines often used to justify it. My hope is the reader will see, to quote Marcus Plested in his Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, “the Christian East is not quite as ‘Eastern’, nor the West as ‘Western’, as is generally assumed”.

The Metanarrative and Its Deficiencies 

The hipsterdox collapse Protestantism and Catholicism into a single, simplistic theological paradigm. This paradigm consists of various themes: a juridical, angry God conceived of in essentialist terms by the Western barbarians that were (and are?) enslaved to cold rationalism, theological legalism, and rigid doctrinal structing. This paradigm is in perpetual tension with the antithetical, Eastern paradigm. The Eastern paradigm, possibly also collapsing different traditions – Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Church of the East  - into a single, simplistic framework involves a loving, merciful God conceived of in personalist terms, articulated by the enlightened East Romans, suspicious of human reason, respectful to the unknowability of God, conceiving sin as a therapeutic issue, and solving theological questions in an ad hoc way, ambivalent towards systems and structure.

Sweeping generalizations utilizing rhetorical jargon as cited above, rarely defining said jargon, rarely citing primary sources, and unsubstantiated labeling of the heroes and villains of these paradigms – the Cappadocians and Palamas for the former and the three Western boogeymen: Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas for the latter - is par for the course. As we see with Fr. John Romanides:

A basic characteristic of the Frankish scholastic method, misled by Augustinian Platonism and Thomistic Aristotelianism, had been its naive confidence in the objective existence of things rationally speculated about. By following Augustine, the Franks substituted the patristic concern for spiritual observation, (which they had found firmly established in Gaul when they first conquered the area) with a fascination for metaphysics. They did not suspect that such speculations had foundations neither in created nor in spiritual reality.

No one would today accept as true what is not empirically observable, or at least verifiable by inference, from an attested effect. So it is with patristic theology. Dialectical speculation about God and the Incarnation as such are rejected. Only those things which can be tested by the experience of the grace of God in the heart are to be accepted. [Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine - Part 2]

This portion, much like the rest of this writing, is largely rhetorical assertions. There is no defining terms, no citing primary sources, ad no arguements. Consequently, an exposition and comparative analysis of Eastern and Western theology becomes impossible because the author presupposes so much in his claims that he inadvertently leaves much for the reader to assume rather than know.

Romanides, like many other proponents of this metanarrative, wish to make an empiricist/rationalist trope in describing the paradigms of East/West, respectively. Ironically, without citing any evidence to back up such a generalization, Romanides acts with the same a priori rationalism with which he’d like to charge the entirety of Western Christendom. In truth, the Enlightenment Era empiricist/rationalist dichotomy to which Romanides appeals would be regarded as a false dilemma by the Thomist on the basis that such a dichotomy rests on faulty metaphysical premises originating from Kant, not scholasticism in general or Aquinas in particular. So much for collapsing all Western philosophy and theology into a single box.

Theological Doctrines Used to Justify the Metanarrative

We will look at five doctrines commonly used as evidence to justify this metanarrative. We will present hipsterdox claims about the doctrines, cite teaching of the doctrine from Western councils and writers, cite the Church Fathers and 2^nd millennium Eastern Orthodox authorities, and close with some analysis of the hipsterdox claims in light of the cited primary sources. 

1. Original Sin

1.1 Hipsterdox Claims

Perhaps the most cited and misunderstood doctrine is original sin. So the story goes, the Western doctrine of original sin is an invention of St. Augustine committed to the idea of an “inherited guilt” – a rarely defined term, but presumably the idea that all are personally responsible/culpable for Adam’s disobedience in Eden – and unbaptized infants who die are sent to hell for punishment of this sin. The Orthodox alternative teaches a more mysterious, compassionate, “patristic version” of the original sin, preferably called ancestral sin, as a means to differentiate it from the Western view. Romanides claims:

The theory of the transmission of original sin and guilt is certainly not found in St. Paul, who can be interpreted neither in terms of juridicism... It is no wonder that some Biblical scholars are at a loss when they cannot find in the Old testament any clear-cut support for what they take to be the Pauline doctrine of original sin in terms of moral guilt and punishment. The same perplexity is met by many moralistic Western scholars when they study the Eastern Fathers. Consequently, St. Augustine is popularly supposed to be the first and only of the early Fathers who understood the theology of St. Paul. This is clearly a myth, from which both Protestants and Romans need liberation. - ORIGINAL SIN ACCORDING TO ST. PAUL

From Eastern Orthodox priest, Fr. Anthony Hughes:

His [Augustine’s] misinterpretation of a key scriptural reference, Romans 5:12, is a case in point. In Latin the Greek idiom eph ho which means because of was translated as in whom. Saying that all have sinned in Adam is quite different than saying that all sinned because of him. Augustine believed and taught that all humanity has sinned in Adam. The result is that guilt replaces death as the ancestral inheritance. Therefore, the term original sin conveys the belief that Adam and Eve’s sin is the first and universal transgression in which all humanity participates… justice provides proof of inherited guilt for Augustine, because since all humanity suffers the punishment of death and since God who is just cannot punish the innocent, then all must be guilty in Adam. - Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy

Lastly, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick in his popular book Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy:

The idea that all sinned “in” Adam may stem from a mistranslation of Romans 5:12…in Latin translations the last phrase [of Romans 5:12] is…”in whom all have sinned”, saying that in Adam (the “one man) all sinned, making all guilty of Adam’s sin. In Greek it is…”because all sinned”, which is not only the actual wording of the Scriptures but the faith of the Orthodox Church. This is, while we all suffer the effects of Adam’s sin, we are not guilty of any sins but our own. We did not sin in Adam, but we sin because Adam’s sin made us capable of sin. (Page 80)

1.2 Western Teaching on the Doctrine

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

All men are implicated in Adam's sin…even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin…How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man"…Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature…It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind… deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act…original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants…human nature is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin". - Catechism of the Catholic Church 

Pope Innocent III taught:

We say that two kinds of sin must be distinguished, original and actual: original, which is contracted without consent; and actual, which is committed with consent. Thus original sin, which is contracted without consent is remitted without consent through the power of the sacrament [of baptism]; but actual sin, which is committed with consent, is by no means remitted without consent. . . . The punishment of original sin is the deprivation of the vision of God, but the punishment of actual sin is the torment of eternal hell. - Maiores Ecclesiae Causas

The Council of Trent taught:

If anyone asserts that the transgression of Adam injured him alone and not his posterity, and that the holiness and justice which he received from God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has transfused only death and the pains of the body into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul, let him be anathema, since he contradicts the Apostle who says: By one man sin entered into the world and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned [Romans 5:12].

For in virtue of this rule of faith handed down from the apostles, even infants who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this reason truly baptized for the remission of sins, in order that in them what they contracted by generation may be washed away by regeneration.

If anyone denies that by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted, or says that the whole of that which belongs to the essence of sin is not taken away but says that it is only canceled or not imputed, let him be anathema. -Session V, Decree Concerning Original Sin

1.3 Church Fathers & Orthodox Authorities on the Doctrine

He clearly shows forth God Himself, whom indeed we had offended in the first Adam, when he did not perform His commandment. In the second Adam, however, we are reconciled, being made obedient even unto death. For we were debtors to none other but to Him whose commandment we had transgressed at the beginning. - Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 5, 16:3

Nobody is hindered from baptism and from grace— how much rather ought we to shrink from hindering an infant, who, being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins— that to him are remitted, not his own sins, but the sins of another. - Cyprian, Letter 58:5

Likewise it seemed good that whosoever denies that infants newly from their mother’s wombs should be baptized, or says that baptism is for remission of sins, but that they derive from Adam no original sin, which needs to be removed by the laver of regeneration, from whence the conclusion follows, that in them the form of baptism for the remission of sins, is to be understood as false and not true, let him be anathema. - Council of Carthage 419, canon 110

In Adam I fell, in Adam I was cast out of Paradise, in Adam I died; how shall the Lord call me back, except He find me in Adam; guilty as I was in him, so now justified in Christ. If then, death be the debt of all, we must be able to endure the payment. - Ambrose, On the Death of Satyrus, Book 2:6

For where sin abounded Grace did much more abound; and if a taste condemned us, how much more doth the Passion of Christ justify us? - Gregory the Theologian, Oration 38:4

I who have wholly sinned and was condemned through the disobedience of the first-formed and the treachery of the Devil. - Gregory the Theologian, Oration 22:13

And so also in those who fail to receive the Gift [baptism], some are altogether animal or bestial, according as they are either foolish or wicked; and this, I think, has to be added to their other sins, that they have no reverence at all for this Gift, but look upon it as a mere gift — to be acquiesced in if given them, and if not given them, then to be neglected. Others know and honor the Gift, but put it off; some through laziness, some through greediness. Others are not in a position to receive it, perhaps on account of infancy, or some perfectly involuntary circumstance through which they are prevented from receiving it, even if they wish. As then in the former case we found much difference, so too in this. They who altogether despise it are worse than they who neglect it through greed or carelessness. These are worse than they who have lost the Gift through ignorance or tyranny, for tyranny is nothing but an involuntary error. And I think that the first will have to suffer punishment, as for all their sins, so for their contempt of baptism; and that the second will also have to suffer, but less, because it was not so much through wickedness as through folly that they wrought their failure; and that the third will be neither glorified nor punished by the righteous Judge, as unsealed and yet not wicked, but persons who have suffered rather than done wrong. For not everyone who is not bad enough to be punished is good enough to be honored; just as not everyone who is not good enough to be honored is bad enough to be punished. - Gregory the Theologian, Oration 40:23

Man, then, was thus snared by the assault of the arch-fiend, and broke his Creator's command, and was stripped of grace and put off his confidence with God, and covered himself with the asperities of a toilsome life (for this is the meaning of the fig-leaves ); and was clothed about with death, that is, mortality and the grossness of flesh (for this is what the garment of skins signifies); and was banished from Paradise by God's just judgment, and condemned to death, and made subject to corruption. - John Damascene, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book III, Chapter 1

For the purpose of God the Word becoming man was that the very same nature, which had sinned and fallen and become corrupted, should triumph over the deceiving tyrant and so be freed from corruption, just as the divine apostle puts it, For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:21). - John Damascene, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book III, Chapter 12

That saying that calls no one sinless except God, even though he has lived only one day on earth, does not refer to those who sin personally, because how can a one-day old child sin? But in this is expressed that mystery of our Faith, that human nature is sinful from its very conception. God did not create man sinful, but pure and holy. But since the first-created Adam lost this garment of sanctity, not from any other sin but from pride alone, and became corruptible and mortal, all people also who come from the seed of Adam are participants of the ancestral sin from their very conception and birth. He who has been born in this way, even though he has not yet performed any sin, is already sinful through this ancestral sin. - Symeon the New Theologian, The Ancestral Sin and our Regeneration, Homily 37

Before Christ we all shared the same ancestral curse and condemnation poured out on all of us from our single forefather, as if it had sprung from the root of the human race and was the common lot of our nature. Each person’s individual action attracted either reproof or praise from God, but no one could do anything about the shared curse and condemnation, or the evil inheritance that had been passed down to him and through him would pass to his descendants. - Gregory Palamas, Homily On The Meeting of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ

Your second article [of the Augsburg Confession] contains the assertion that every man is guilty of original sin. We also affirm that this is, indeed, the truth. The psalmist says in the 50th Psalm (50:5): "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me." And the Lord says in the Gospels concerning the purging away of such original sin: "Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven" (John 3:5). - Patriarch Jerimiah III of Constantinople, First Theological Exchange: Constantinople to Tubingen, Augsburg and Constantinople

As all mankind, during the state of innocence, was in Adam; so in him all men, falling from what he fell, remained in a state of sin. Wherefore mankind is become, not only subject unto sin, but also, on account of sin, unto punishment; which, according to the sentence pronounced of God, was (Gen. ii. 17), In the day that thou eatest of the tree, thou shalt surely die. And to this the Apostle alludes {Rom. v. 12), Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. So that we are conceived in our mother’s womb, and born in this sin, according to the holy psalmist (Psal. li. 7), “Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother conceived me.” This is called parental, or original sin, first, because that, before this, man was free from all Sin; although the devil was then corrupt, and fallen, by whose temptation this parental sin sprang up in Man; and Adam becoming guilty, we all likewise, who descend from him, become also guilty. Secondly, this is called original sin because no mortal is conceived without this depravity of nature. - Question 24, Pan-Orthodox Council of Jassy (1642)

We believe the first man created by God to have fallen in Paradise, when, disregarding the Divine commandment, he yielded to the deceitful counsel of the serpent. And as a result hereditary sin flowed to his posterity; so that everyone who is born after the flesh bears this burden, and experiences the fruits of it in this present world. But by these fruits and this burden we do not understand [actual] sin, such as impiety, blasphemy, murder...and whatever else is by our depraved choice committed contrarily to the Divine Will, not from nature. For many both of the Forefathers and of the Prophets, and vast numbers of others, as well of those under the shadow [of the Law], as well as under the truth [of the Gospel], such as the divine Precursor, and especially the Mother of God the Word, the ever-virgin Mary, did not experience these [sins], or such like faults. But only what the Divine Justice inflicted upon man as a punishment for the [original] transgression, such as sweats in labor, afflictions, bodily sicknesses, pains in child-bearing, and, finally, while on our pilgrimage, to live a laborious life, and lastly, bodily death […] Baptism is necessary even for infants, since they also are subject to original sin, and without Baptism are not able to obtain its remission... And those that are not regenerated, since they have not received the remission of hereditary sin, are, of necessity, subject to eternal punishment, and consequently cannot without Baptism be saved… And Augustine says that it is an Apostolic tradition, that children are saved through Baptism; and in another place, “The Church gives to babes the feet of others, that they may come; and the hearts of others, that they may believe; and the tongues of others, that they may promise;” and in another place, “Our mother, the Church, furnishes them with a particular heart”… And the effects of baptism are, to speak concisely, firstly, the remission of the hereditary transgression, and of any sins of any kind that the baptized may have committed. Secondly, it delivers him from the eternal punishment, to which he was liable, as well for original sin and for mortal sins he may have individually committed. –  Decrees VI and XVI, Pan-Orthodox Council of Jerusalem (1672)

1.4 Analysis & Objections

              First, we see a common explanation regarding what caused the claimed divergence between East and West on original sin: the latter’s utilization of an erroneous translation of Romans 5:12. The West’s translation entails that in the person of Adam, all have sinned; while the East’s translation entails that Adam’s sin merely makes us capable to commit our own personal sins and inherit death. However, “because of whom” and “in whom” do not necessarily point to a significant theological difference because there is nothing obvious in either phrase that entails such a theological difference:

Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all sinned.

Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, because all sinned.

In both translations, Adam brings sin and death into this world, and, consequently, causes us to inherit death. This much all agree. But does his sin cause us to inherit sin? Again, there is nothing in the phrase “because all sinned” that prevents such a reading. One could easily point out that the sin being referred to in “because all sinned” is the sin that was just spoken about prior: Adam’s sin. The difference in phrasing does not entail a difference in meaning. At most, the textual variations lead to an underdetermination in St. Paul’s intent. 

It is the teaching authority of the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, that is responsible to clear this ambiguity. From the councils and fathers we read all are in Adam and participate in his fall, thus becoming our fall. This corporate participation is possible by what essentially binds us to Adam: our possessing the same nature. Ambrose says, “In Adam I fell, in Adam I was cast out of Paradise, in Adam I died” and that he [Ambrose] is “guilty” given “I was in him [i.e., Adam]”. St Damascene says it is our nature “which had sinned and fallen and become corrupted”. Such an interpretation is applicable in either translation of Romans 5:12 and it is clear from the Fathers that whether we say “in whom” or “because” all sinned, it is Adam’s sin referred to here and this sin is the reason all men have sinned.

However, because this sin is innate to our nature and not a committed, personal act, no one can be held personally culpable for it other than Adam, in whom it is both a marring of his nature and a committed act because he committed it. Therefore, to speak of “inherited guilt” as some Orthodox so often do, would require a nuancing those Orthodox rarely do. Separated from the supposed foundation of a substantial theological difference caused by the two translations of Romans 5:12, “inherited guilt" becomes a free-floating term in need of a meaningful definition.

And yet, there is a sense in which we do inherit guilt. We do not inherit the personal fault of another, but we are liable for the sin of another since we inherit a sinful state (i.e., being cut off from God’s justice and mercy) and made to suffer the consequences of Adam’s sin, namely death of body and soul. This notion of inherited guilt is like a father owing land, that, in addition to being poorly maintained, is also overdue on taxes; the father subsequently dies, and the land, along with all its decay and debts, is inherited by the father’s son, becoming his responsibility. This inherited guilt is unlike a father committing murder and then his son being charged with the murder.

If the Orthodox Church is “the conciliar Church”, then how does one ignore two pan-Orthodox councils (i.e., Jassy and Jerusalem) which authoritatively defined original sin in a way that contradicts the hipsterdox metanarrative? The oft response is that these councils were influenced by Western thinking, and therefore one cannot use these compromised councils as evidence. The basis for this response being these two councils' definitions of original sin are Western. However, this obviously begs the question with which the hipsterdox must answer and can therefore be rejected as illogical. Indeed, the question being asked is to prove that the definitions of original sin at Jassy and Jerusalem are western-influenced. Asserting the councils are western-influenced because they teach the western doctrine original sin without ever independently establishing whether the doctrine itself is western in the first place is to argue in circles. Further, even if we grant the western influence claim, it must also be asked how one can seriously believe their hierarchs of the 17^th century were so ignorant of the authentic Orthodox tradition that they would have uncritically relied on Western sources to authoritatively define the Orthodox stance on original sin in such a perverted, western way, while being clear in condemning other theological issues of a Western-bent (e.g. the papacy and filioque) in those same councils?

As shown above, it is clear in Catholic teaching that original sin is not a personal fault or guilt inherited (per the CCC), but a “state” (per the CCC) that is “contracted” (per Innocent III) and is a sin, “which is the death of the soul” (per Trent), that is, cut off from God's grace. It is clear the East has always taught our corporate participation in this state, since, “a taste condemned us” (per Gregory the Theologian) and, as a result, “human nature is sinful from its very conception” (per Symeon) and “no one could do anything about the shared curse and condemnation” (per Palamas) before Christ’s saving atonement.

2. Christ’s Atonement

2.1 Hipsterdox Claims

              Leading into another soteriological doctrine closely related to original sin is the atonement, Christ’s passion on the Cross. There are multiple “theories” or “models” of how we can understand the atonement, none of which need be mutually exclusive since no single theory exhausts the atonement’s salvific reality. However, certain models are unequivocally rejected by the hipsterdox as medieval, Western perversions. Any juridical/legal atonement model, utilizing themes of “payment”, “punishment”, “satisfaction”, "wrath", or the like, is something unknown and rejected by the East:

Penal substitutionary atonement argues that Christ, by his own sacrificial choice, was punished (penalized) in the place of sinners (substitution), thus satisfying the demands of justice so God can justly forgive their sins. It is thus a specific understanding of substitutionary atonement, where the substitutionary nature of Jesus’ death is understood in the sense of a substitutionary punishment.

In the Scriptures, we do not have a legal problem. Sin is not a legal debt or an infraction demanding the satisfaction of justice. Sin is death (Romans 6:21-23). Sin is a life lived out of communion with God, the Lord and giver of life.

Penal imagery represents one of the most serious deformations of Christian thought, a sad detour for theology. That it has now passed into fixed dogma within some circles should be of great concern to all Christians. Those who hold to this dogma would do well to return to the fathers and consider the scope of Scripture. The labyrinth of proof-texts that are often assembled to argue for the penal model are but isolates. - Fr. Stephen Freeman, The Scope of Passover and Penal Substitution Theory

And Dr. Jeanie Constantinou:

This idea, that the most important thing for our salvation is Jesus paid a price for our sins, and that somebody has to die and there has to be a blood atonement… was [not] unheard of in the early church, but it was rejected in the early church…it was made popular in the Middle Ages in western Christianity…and that became the dominate model for understanding salvation in the Christian west. So, Protestants and Catholics come from the same perspective; they understand each other better than they understand us because we don’t emphasize the death of Christ…as the most important thing. - Let's Talk Live: Thinking Orthodox with Pres. Jeanne Constantinou (16:51-17:47)

Lastly, Frederica Mathewes-Green, in which see advertises her new book on the subject:

As you see, the cover shows two views of the Cross…to look at the Cross is really to see a microcosm of what is the difference between the Western Christian and Orthodox understanding…and as you see in this painting from the 1600s in Belgium…this shows a decidedly dead-looking, bloody, and hideous Christ. But in the Orthodox view, Christ is golden, he is standing on the footrest as if he’s holding up the Cross, as if he’s showing it to us. He is not terribly bloody, it doesn’t look like he’s suffering, he has completed his work…well they’re two different theologies, two different ideas of the atonement that lie behind this. - Two Views of the Cross: Orthodoxy and the West

2.2 Western Teaching on the Doctrine

              Below I quote Aquinas’s first four replies of the first four articles from the Summa Theologiae, Third Part, Question 49 in which he covers four themes of the atonement in each respective reply – freedom from sin, delivery from the devil’s power, freedom from our debt of punishment, and reconciliation with the Father. It is interesting to note the ordering he gives the themes:

Christ's Passion is the proper cause of the forgiveness of sins in three ways. First of all, by way of exciting our charity, because, as the Apostle says (Romans 5:8): "God commendeth His charity towards us: because when as yet we were sinners, according to the time, Christ died for us." But it is by charity that we procure pardon of our sins, according to Luke 7:47: "Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much." Secondly, Christ's Passion causes forgiveness of sins by way of redemption. For since He is our head, then, by the Passion which He endured from love and obedience, He delivered us as His members from our sins, as by the price of His Passion: in the same way as if a man by the good industry of his hands were to redeem himself from a sin committed with his feet. For, just as the natural body is one though made up of diverse members, so the whole Church, Christ's mystic body, is reckoned as one person with its head, which is Christ. Thirdly, by way of efficiency, inasmuch as Christ's flesh, wherein He endured the Passion, is the instrument of the Godhead, so that His sufferings and actions operate with Divine power for expelling sin.

By Christ's Passion man was delivered from the devil's power, in so far as the Passion is the cause of the forgiveness of sins, as stated above (Article 1)…it must be said that Christ's Passion freed us from the devil's power, inasmuch as it reconciled us with God, as shall be shown later (Article 4)…Christ's Passion delivered us from the devil, inasmuch as in Christ's Passion he exceeded the limit of power assigned him by God, by conspiring to bring about Christ's death, Who, being sinless, did not deserve to die. Hence Augustine says (De Trin. xiii, cap. xiv): "The devil was vanquished by Christ's justice: because, while discovering in Him nothing deserving of death, nevertheless he slew Him. And it is certainly just that the debtors whom he held captive should be set at liberty since they believed in Him whom the devil slew, though He was no debtor."

Through Christ's Passion we have been delivered from the debt of punishment in two ways. First of all, directly—namely, inasmuch as Christ's Passion was sufficient and superabundant satisfaction for the sins of the whole human race: but when sufficient satisfaction has been paid, then the debt of punishment is abolished. In another way—indirectly, that is to say—in so far as Christ's Passion is the cause of the forgiveness of sin, upon which the debt of punishment rests.

Christ's Passion is in two ways the cause of our reconciliation to God. In the first way, inasmuch as it takes away sin by which men became God's enemies, according to Wisdom 14:9: "To God the wicked and his wickedness are hateful alike"; and Psalm 5:7: "Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity." In another way, inasmuch as it is a most acceptable sacrifice to God. Now it is the proper effect of sacrifice to appease God: just as man likewise overlooks an offense committed against him on account of some pleasing act of homage shown him. Hence it is written (1 Samuel 26:19): "If the Lord stir thee up against me, let Him accept of sacrifice”.

And to quote John Calvin, who is commonly refenced by name- although uncommonly cited by work - on this topic:

The cross was cursed not only in the opinion of men, but by the enactment of the Divine Law. Hence Christ, while suspended on it, subjects himself to the curse. And thus it behoved to be done, in order that the whole curse, which on account of our iniquities awaited us, or rather lay upon us, might be taken from us by being transferred to him…For the Son of God, though spotlessly pure, took upon Him the disgrace and ignominy of our iniquities, and in return clothed us with his purity…Hence it is not without cause that Paul magnificently celebrates the triumph which Christ obtained upon the cross, as if the cross, the symbol of ignominy, had been converted into a triumphal chariot...the Son of God endured the pains produced by the curse and wrath of God, the source of death. How small a matter had it been to come forth securely, and as it were in sport to undergo death. We do not, however, insinuate that God was ever hostile to him or angry with him. How could he be angry with the beloved Son, with whom his soul was well pleased? or how could he have appeased the Father by his intercession for others if He were hostile to himself? But this we say, that he bore the weight of the divine anger, that, smitten and afflicted, he experienced all the signs of an angry and avenging God. - John Calvin, Institutes, BOOK II, Chapter 16

2.3 Church Fathers & Orthodox Authorities on the Doctrine

He Himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous One for the unrighteous, the incorruptible One for the corruptible, the immortal One for those who are mortal. For what other thing was capable of covering our sins than His righteousness? By what other one was it possible that we, the wicked and ungodly, could be justified, than by the only Son of God? O sweet exchange! O unsearchable operation! O benefits surpassing all expectation! That the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous One, and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors! - The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, Chapter 9

…since it was necessary also that the debt owing from all should be paid again: for, as I have already said, it was owing that all should die, for which special cause, indeed, He came among us to this intent, after the proofs of His Godhead from His works, He next offered up His sacrifice also on behalf of all, yielding His Temple to death in the stead of all, in order firstly to settle man’s account with death and free him from the old trespass, and further to show Himself more powerful even than death, displaying His own body incorruptible, as first-fruits of the resurrection of all. - St Athanasius, On the Incarnation, Chapter 20

They pierced my hands and my feet- what else can that mean except the Cross? and Psalms 87 and 68, again speaking in the Lord’s own person, tell us further that He suffered these things, not for His own sake but for ours. Thou has made Thy wrath to rest upon me, says the one; and the other adds, I paid them things I never took. For He did not die as being Himself liable to death: He suffered for us, and bore in Himself the wrath that was the penalty of our transgression, even as Isaiah says, Himself bore our weaknesses. So in Psalm 136 we say, The Lord will make requital for me; and in the 71st the Spirit says, He shall save the children of the poor and bring the slanderer low, for from the hand of the mighty He has set the poor man free, the needy man whom there was none to help. - St. Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus

The people were subject to another curse, which says, cursed is every one that continues not in the things that are written in the book of the Law. [Deut 27:26] To this curse, I say, people were subject, for no man had continued in, or was a keeper of, the whole Law; but Christ exchanged this curse for the other, cursed is every one that hangs on a tree. As then both he who hanged on a tree, and he who transgresses the Law, is cursed, and as it was necessary for him who is about to relieve from a curse himself to be free from it, but to receive another instead of it, therefore Christ took upon Him such another, and thereby relieved us from the curse. It was like an innocent man's undertaking to die for another sentenced to death, and so rescuing him from punishment. For Christ took upon Him not the curse of transgression, but the other curse, in order to remove that of others. - John Chrysostom, Homily 3 on Galatians, Verse 13

These things the Saviour endured, and made peace through the Blood of His Cross, for things in heaven, and things in earth (Col 1:2). For we were enemies of God through sin, and God had appointed the sinner to die. There must needs therefore have happened one of two things; either that God, in His truth, should destroy all men, or that in His loving-kindness He should cancel the sentence. But behold the wisdom of God; He preserved both the truth of His sentence, and the exercise of His loving-kindness. Christ took our sins in His body on the tree, that we by His death might die to sin, and live unto righteousness (1 Peter 2:24). Of no small account was He who died for us; He was not a literal sheep; He was not a mere man; He was more than an Angel; He was God made man. The transgression of sinners was not so great as the righteousness of Him who died for them; the sin which we committed was not so great as the righteousness which He wrought who laid down His life for us — who laid it down when He pleased, and took it again when He pleased. And would you know that He laid not down His life by violence, nor yielded up the ghost against His will? He cried to the Father, saying, Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit (Luke 23:46); I commend it, that I may take it again. - St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 13:33

Christ offered Himself for a savour of a sweet smell, that He might offer us by and in Himself unto God the Father, and so do away with His enmity towards us by reason of Adam's transgression, and bring to nought sin that had tyrannized over us all. - St Cyril of Alexandria, SERMON III, Commentary on Luke

For God’s anger did not cease with Adam’s fall, but He was also provoked by those who after him dishonoured the Creator’s decree; and the denunciation of the Law against transgressors was extended continuously over all. We were, then, accursed and condemned, by the sentence of God, through Adam’s transgression, and through breach of the Law laid down after him; but the Savior wiped out the hand- writing against us, by nailing the title to His Cross, which very clearly pointed to the death upon the Cross which He underwent for the salvation of men, who lay under condemnation. For our sake He paid the penalty for our sins. For though He was One that suffered, yet was He far above any creature, as God, and more precious than the life of all. - St. Cyril of Alexandria, Gospel According to St John, Book XII

He was not subject to death since death came into the world through sin. He dies, therefore, because He took on Himself death on our behalf, and He makes Himself an offering to the Father for our sake. For we had sinned against Him, and it was meet that He should receive the ransom for us, and that we should thus be delivered from the condemnation. - St John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book III, Chapter 27

When a man has fallen it is not possible for him to be raised by human power, nor can human evil be destroyed by human righteousness. The commission of sin involves injury to God Himself, for it says “you dishonour God by breaking the law (Rom. 2:23). There is need of virtue greater than is found in man to be able to cancel the indictment. For the lower it is particularly easy to commit an injury against Him who is greatest. Yet it is impossible for him to compensate for this insolence by any honor, particularly when he is in many ways indebted to He, whom he has injured, and He who is injured is so far superior that the distance between them cannot even be measured. He, then, who seeks to cancel the indictment against himself must restore the honour to Him who has been insulted and repay more than he owes, partly by way of restitution, partly by adding a compensation for the wrong which he has done. Yet how can he who is unable even to attain to the measure of his debts succeed in surpassing it? It was therefore impossible for any man to reconcile himself to God by introducing his own righteousness. Accordingly, neither could the old law overcome enmity or would the unaided efforts of those who line under the new be capable of achieving peace…Wherefore, since we by our own means and of ourselves were unable to display righteousness, Christ Himself became for us “righteousness from God and consecration and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30). He destroys the enmity in His flesh and reconciles us to God. This he accomplishes not merely by sharing our nature, nor was it only when He died for us, but at all times and for every man…He alone, then was able to render all the honour that is due to the Father and make satisfaction for that which had been taken away. The former He achieved by His life, the latter by His death. The death which He died upon the cross to the Father’s glory He brought in to outweigh the injury which we had committed; in addition, He most abundantly made amends for the debt of honour which we owed for our sins. - St. Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, Excursus - Christ’s atoning work

That we may more readily believe this mystery, the Word of God teaches us of it, so much as we may be able to receive, by the comparison of Jesus Christ with Adam. Adam is by nature the head of all mankind, which is one with him by natural descent from him. Jesus Christ, in whom the Godhead is united with manhood, graciously made himself the new almighty Head of men, whom he unites to himself through faith. Therefore as in Adam we had fallen under sin, the curse, and death, so we are delivered from sin, the curse, and death in Jesus Christ. His voluntary suffering and death on the cross for us, being of infinite value and merit, as the death of one sinless, God and man in one person, is both a perfect satisfaction to the justice of God, which had condemned us for sin to death, and a fund of infinite merit, which has obtained him the right, without prejudice to justice, to give us sinners pardon of our sins, and grace to have victory over sin and death. - Catechism of St. Philaret of Moscow, Q. 208

O Christ our God, of Thine own will Thou hast accepted the Crucifixion, that all mankind might be restored life. Taking the quill of the Cross, out of love for man in red ink of totality with bloody fingers Thou hast signed our absolution. - Triodion, Sunday of the Cross, Great Vespers, Tone 3 (pg. 335)

2.4 Analysis & Objections

The East is not shy of using juridical themes in describing the multi-dimensional reality of the atonement and the Western traditions have Christus Victor as essential dimensions of its articulations. Again, there is no single model that exhausts the reality of Christ’s Atonement. One is free to personally prefer a particular theory and point out the importance of balancing them all to avoid the error of emphasizing one dimension at the expense of another. However, one cannot utterly reject that which is clearly grounded in the consensus of the Fathers on the grounds that some focus on juridical aspects. Otherwise, one falls into the trap of creating false dichotomies between these theories rather than recognizing their complimentary reality.

Indeed, why does Fr. Freeman fail to see that his rejection of sin as “a legal debt or an infraction demanding the satisfaction of justice” and his acceptance of sin as “a life lived out of communion with God” are not mutually exclusive? In Chapter 11 of Cur Deus Homo, Anselm writes that sin “is nothing else than not to render to God his due” and that this due is every rational creature’s wish to “be subject to the will of God”. Is not our will being subject to God’s the same as, or at least a part of, “a life lived” in communion with God? What else does it mean to be in communion with God if not to have our will in conformity with His?

Further, if Christ being “punished in the place of sinners” and “satisfying the demands of justice so God can justly forgive their sins” are truly “one of the most serious deformations of Christian thought”, and that those who indulge it, “would do well to return to the fathers”, then would Fr. Freeman be willing to make such a chastisement to the likes of the Church Fathers and Orthodox patrimony to which he claims heirship? What of Chrysostom saying the atonement “was like an innocent man's undertaking to die for another sentenced to death”; what of Cyril of Jerusalem stating “Christ took our sins” in order to preserve the Father’s sentence that “had appointed the sinner to die” but should also “exercise of His loving-kindness”; what of St. Philaret of Moscow stating that Christ’s “voluntary suffering and death on the cross for us” brought “a perfect satisfaction to the justice of God, which had condemned us for sin to death”? Is Fr. Freeman willing to bite the bullet and chalk all of this, and the other fathers cited above, to mere “isolates”, as he seems to call such examples?

Unfortunately, Dr. Constantinou and Ms. Mathewes-Green display an even deeper level of ignorance and, frankly, embarrassment to the Orthodox position. The former’s insistence that “Jesus paid a price for our sins, and that somebody has to die and there has to be a blood atonement” was something “made popular in the Middle Ages in western Christianity” and rejected “in the early Church” is clearly falsified by the florilegium above. If Dr. Constantinou wishes to affirm - as I suspect she would - that the law of what is prayed is the law of what is believed (lex orandi, lex credenda) than, she must rethink her claim if she wishes to pray in good faith with her parish at Great Vespers during the third week of Lent, “taking the quill of the Cross, out of love for man in red ink of totality with bloody fingers Thou hast signed our absolution”.

In sum, Atonement theories which focus on themes of punishment, justice, and satisfaction are by no means unknown in the East. Further, as is shown by quoting one of the most eminent Western theologians, and the scholastic, Aquinas, neither are themes of redemption, freedom from illness, victory over death, lost in the West. Substitution and satisfaction theories have a place in Orthodoxy and cannot be rejected on the grounds that they utilize juridical themes under pain of consequently rejecting the fathers. Further, such models need not entail the common strawman against them often utilized theological liberals, presenting an angry, abusive Father taking out his impassioned furry on His Son. Rather, to quote Aquinas from another question of Part 3 in the Summa, “Christ as God delivered Himself up to death by the same will and action as that by which the Father delivered Him up; but as man He gave Himself up by a will inspired of the Father"; and further, to requote Calvin, "we do not, however, insinuate that God was ever hostile to him or angry with him. How could he be angry with the beloved Son, with whom his soul was well pleased? or how could he have appeased the Father by his intercession for others if He were hostile to himself"? Consequently, there is no contrariety in the Father delivering Christ and in Christ delivering Himself on the cross.

3. Transubstantiation

 3.1 Hipsterdox Claims

              Moving from the soteriological to the sacramental, we come to the doctrine of transubstantiation. We also move from charges of “legalism”, “jurdicalism”, and caricatures of the supposed cruelness of the Western God, to charges of “rationalism” and, used as a pejorative, “scholasticism”. Transubstantiation is the doctrine that explains what is changed on the alter table in the priest’s words of institution over the Eucharistic host, that is, the bread and wine. Transubstantiation utilizes the perennial metaphysical distinction of “substance” (a particular thing) and “accidents” (the properties of a particular thing) to describes what changes: the substances of bread and wine change – and thereby cease to be bread and wine – and are changed to the body and blood of Christ. Despite this substantial change, the properties of bread and wine remain, which account for the consecrated Eucharist retaining the smell, look, nutritional content, etc. of bread and wine. There are those quick to condemn or dismiss this doctrine on the grounds that is employs metaphysics to explain the mystery of the Eucharistic, showing the rationalism of the West:

Fr. Damick, again, in his popular book Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy:

Orthodoxy has always shied away from such speculation or definition and says simply that the bread and wine become Christ’s Body and Blood. How this happens, whether the bread and wine are still in some way present, whether continuing to refer to them as bread and wine means something about the nature of that presence, and so forth, are not treated as dogmatic concerns. (page 117)

According to Fr. John Breck from the Orthodox Church in America’s official website:

Orthodox Eucharistic theology does not explain the change of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ as a result of “transubstantiation,” the teaching that the “accidents” (visible properties) of the elements remain unaltered, while their “substance” or inner essence becomes the actual Body and Blood. Orthodox tradition speaks of “change” or “transformation,” (metamorphôsis; in the Eucharistic Divine Liturgy metabalôn, “making the change”) but always with a concern to preserve the mystery from the probings of human reason. - Why Not “Open Communion”?

3.2 Western Teaching on the Doctrine

The Catholic Church’s first ecumenical council defining the doctrine:

There is one Universal Church of the faithful, outside of which there is absolutely no salvation. In which there is the same priest and sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine; the bread being changed (transsubstantiatio) by divine power into the body, and the wine into the blood, so that to realize the mystery of unity we may receive of Him what He has received of us. And this sacrament no one can effect except the priest who has been duly ordained in accordance with the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself gave to the Apostles and their successors. - The Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215

And Trent:

But since Christ our Redeemer declared that to be truly His own body which He offered under the form of bread, it has, therefore, always been a firm belief in the Church of God, and this holy council now declares it anew, that by the consecration of the bread and wine a change is brought about of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood. This change the holy Catholic Church properly and appropriately calls transubstantiation. - Thirteenth Session of the Council of Trent

And a snippet of Aquinas:

I answer that, the presence of Christ's true body and blood in this sacrament cannot be detected by sense, nor understanding, but by faith alone, which rests upon Divine authority. Hence, on Luke 22:19: "This is My body which shall be delivered up for you," Cyril says: "Doubt not whether this be true; but take rather the Saviour's words with faith; for since He is the Truth, He lieth not." - Summa Theologiae, Third Part, Question 75, Article 1

3.3 Church Fathers & Orthodox Authorities on the Doctrine

The Bread and Wine of the Eucharist before the invocation of the Holy and Adorable Trinity were simple bread and wine, while after the invocation the Bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the Wine the Blood of Christ. – St. Cyril of Jerusalem Catechetical Lectures 19:7

Consider therefore the Bread and the Wine not as bare elements, for they are, according to the Lord's declaration, the Body and Blood of Christ; for even though sense suggests this to you, yet let faith establish you. Judge not the matter from the taste, but from faith be fully assured without misgiving, that the Body and Blood of Christ have been vouchsafed to you. Having learned these things, and been fully assured that the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to taste, but the Body of Christ; and that the seeming wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the Blood of Christ – St. Cyril of Jerusalem Catechetical Lectures 22:6,9

This is long, but only an abbreviation of a beautiful articulation of the Eucharist; I recommend reading the whole thing:

Since the human being is a twofold creature, compounded of soul and body, it is necessary that the saved should lay hold of the Author of the new life through both their component parts. Accordingly… the body comes into fellowship and blending with the Author of our salvation… [by] that Body to which immortality has been given it by God, when it is in ours, translates and transmutes the whole into itself… Yet in no other way can anything enter within the body but by being transfused through the vitals by eating and drinking. It is, therefore, incumbent on the body to admit this life-producing power in the one way that its constitution makes possible. And since that Body only which was the receptacle of the Deity received this grace of immortality, and since it has been shown that in no other way was it possible for our body to become immortal, but by participating in incorruption through its fellowship with that immortal Body, it will be necessary to consider how it was possible that that one Body, being for ever portioned to so many myriads of the faithful throughout the whole world, enters through that portion, whole into each individual, and yet remains whole in itself.

Rightly, then, do we believe that now also the bread which is consecrated by the Word of God is changed into the Body of God the Word. For that Body was once, by implication, bread, but has been consecrated by the inhabitation of the Word that tabernacled in the flesh. Therefore, from the same cause as that by which the bread that was transformed in that Body was changed to a Divine potency, a similar result takes place now. For as in that case, too, the grace of the Word used to make holy the Body, the substance of which came of the bread, and in a manner was itself bread, so also in this case the bread, as says the Apostle, is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer; not that it advances by the process of eating to the stage of passing into the body of the Word, but it is at once changed into the body by means of the Word, as the Word itself said, This is My Body. He disseminates Himself in every believer through that flesh, whose substance comes from bread and wine, blending Himself with the bodies of believers, to secure that, by this union with the immortal, man, too, may be a sharer in incorruption. He gives these gifts by virtue of the benediction through which He transelements the natural quality of these visible things to that immortal thing. – St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, Chapter 37

Now we, as often as we receive the Sacramental Elements, which by the mysterious efficacy of holy prayer are transformed into the Flesh and the Blood, do show the Lord's Death. – St. Ambrose On the Christian Faith 4, 10:125

And make this bread the precious Body of Your Christ. And that which is in this Cup, the precious Blood of Your Christ. Changing them by Your Holy Spirit. - Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, The Holy Anaphora

We believe the All-holy Mystery of the Sacred Eucharist…to be that which our Lord delivered in the night in which He gave Himself up for the life of the world…In the celebration of this we believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be present. He is not present typically, nor figuratively, nor by superabundant grace, as in the other Mysteries, nor by a bare presence, as some of the Fathers have said concerning Baptism, or by impanation, so that the Divinity of the Word is united to the set forth bread of the Eucharist hypostatically, as the followers of Luther most ignorantly and wretchedly suppose. But [he is present] truly and really, so that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, the bread is transmuted, transubstantiated, converted and transformed into the true Body Itself of the Lord, Which was born in Bethlehem of the ever-Virgin, was baptized in the Jordan, suffered, was buried, rose again, was received up, sits at the right hand of the God and Father, and is to come again in the clouds of Heaven; and the wine is converted and transubstantiated into the true Blood Itself of the Lord, Which as He hung upon the Cross, was poured out for the life of the world…Further [we believe] that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, there no longer remains the substance of the bread and of the wine, but the Body Itself and the Blood of the Lord, under the species and form of bread and wine; that is to say, under the accidents of the bread. - Council of Jerusalem (1672), Decree 17

In the exposition of the faith by the Eastern Patriarchs, it is said that the word transubstantiation is not to be taken to define the manner in which the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of the Lord; for this none can understand but God; but only thus much is signified, that the bread truly, really, and substantially becomes the very true Body of the Lord, and the wine the very Blood of the Lord. In like manner John Damascene, treating of the Holy and Immaculate Mysteries of the Lord, writes thus: It is truly that Body, united with Godhead, which had its origin from the Holy Virgin; not as though that Body which ascended came down from heaven, but because the bread and wine themselves are changed into the Body and Blood of God. But if thou seekest after the manner how this is, let it suffice thee to be told that it is by the Holy Ghost. - Catechism of St Philaret, Question 340

3.4 Analysis & Objections

              Contra the cited statements above of both well-intentioned Orthodox priests, the Orthodox Church is neither shy about theological speculation and definition on the matter of the Eucharist. Indeed, her preference appears to be the concept – both the word and meaning – of “transubstantiation”. In fact, she is even willing to be persecuted for the doctrine, as explained by Fr. John McGukin. Further, the West acknowledges the mystery and sacredness of the sacrament, which “cannot be detected by sense, nor understanding, but by faith alone”, per Aquinas. Indeed, the hipsterdox claim that transubstantiation some how destroys the mystery of the Eucharist or seeks to explain that which cannot be explained in a category mistake; transubstantiation doesn’t explain away the mystery, transubstantiation is the mystery. Transubstantiation doesn’t seek to explain how the Holy Spirit operates in changing the elements from one substance to another, it is simply explaining what is being changed and what is not being changed by that divine power.  Both sides use the language and metaphysics of transubstantiation and preserve the mystery.

It would certainly be news to St. John Damascene that Orthodox shies away from metaphysical language in theology, particularly the basic metaphysical notions of “substance” and “accidents”. Indeed, in Chapters 4 and 5 of The Philosophical Chapters of his summa, The Fount of Knowledge, the Damascene defines both the way any student of metaphysics would. The Church has always used metaphysics as its handmaiden to theology, such as during the time of St. Athanasius when the Church used “ousia” for properly describing the shared essence of the Father and Son. Further, it is unreasonable to argue that the Church will use the words of metaphysics but not the meaning behind them; divorcing the meaning of the word from the word renders the word vacuous. Words ultimately communicate ideas, and in this case, we are speaking of metaphysical ideas. Albeit we might apply these metaphysical ideas to matters of faith instead of their typical use relating to matters of nature and creation.

4. Faith and Reason

4.1 Hipsterdox Claims

Sticking with the theme of Western rationalism, we come to a fourth, more general topic: the very use of reason in our faith. While the hipsterdox would almost certainly say transubstantiation fits under this theme, it is separated in this writing to give it a special focus given how frequently transubstantiation is singled out by the hipsterdox. However, there is much to be said more generally about the role of reason in matters of faith by the hipsterdox, the West, and Orthodox authorities. The construction that the West is rationalist, enslaved as it is to the specter of scholasticism – another term rarely defined by its critics – which is contrasted with a mystical East that sees prayer as the principle means by which we obtain knowledge is another trope that oversold. Let us investigate:

Once again, citing the well-intentioned Fr. Damick in his Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy:

Reason [for Rome] tends to be placed on a higher level in Christian life than it is for the Orthodox Church. Especially since the time of Thomas Aquinas, Rome has defined and redefined much of its doctrine in terms of reason. Aquinas’s project was to merge Catholic dogma with philosophical requirements of Aristotelian logic. To be fair, many Orthodox saints also used Aristotle, including John of Damascus…Aquinas’s writings actually enjoyed some popularity in the East…but it was accompanied by reservations – he takes the project further than many Orthodox are comfortable with. The Thomistic merger with Aristotle is the origin of many modern Christian attempted to “prove” God’s existence…Human reason becomes not merely a tool but rather the very criterion of truth. It is also the reason much of Roman Catholic spiritual life is legalist because it is often concerned more with satisfying legal, philosophical categories than with addressing and healing spiritual realities. These are not hard characterizations of Rome…but the emphasis is clearly different than for the Orthodox. Reason, though useful, is not a necessary element in Christian life. (page 57-58)

With all due respect to his office, I will also quote his Eminence, Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos:

Western theology, however, has differentiated itself from Eastern Orthodox theology. Instead of being therapeutic, it is more intellectual and emotional in character. In the West [after the Carolingian "Renaissance"], scholastic theology evolved, which is antithetical to the Orthodox Tradition. Western theology is based on rational thought whereas Orthodoxy is hesychastic. Scholastic theology tried to understand logically the Revelation of God and conform to philosophical methodology. Characteristic of such an approach is the saying of Anselm [Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093-1109, one of the first after the Norman Conquest and destruction of the Old English Orthodox Church]: "I believe so as to understand." The Scholastics acknowledged God at the outset and then endeavored to prove His existence by logical arguments and rational categories. In the Orthodox Church, as expressed by the Holy Fathers, faith is God revealing Himself to man. We accept faith by hearing it not so that we can understand it rationally, but so that we can cleanse our hearts, attain to faith by theoria and experience the Revelation of God.

Scholastic theology reached its culminating point in the person of Thomas Aquinas, a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. He claimed that Christian truths are divided into natural and supernatural. Natural truths can be proven philosophically, like the truth of the Existence of God. Supernatural truths - such as the Triune God, the incarnation of the Logos, the resurrection of the bodies - cannot be proven philosophically, yet they cannot be disproven. Scholasticism linked theology very closely with philosophy, even more so with metaphysics. As a result, faith was altered and scholastic theology itself fell into complete disrepute when the "idol" of the West - metaphysics - collapsed. Scholasticism is held accountable for much of the tragic situation created in the West with respect to faith and faith issues. - The Difference Between Orthodox Spirituality and Other Traditions

I will close this section by acknowledging  a very common dichotomy the hipsterdox make on this issue that most frequently comes up during the 2^nd Sunday of Great Lent, the Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas. This trope is to impute Aquinas’s thought and scholasticism more generally onto Barlaam of Calabria to them associate any condemnation of Barlaam by Orthodox councils and Palamas as an indirect condemnation of Aquinas. I will not be engaging this trope in this writing because 1) I have neither adequate knowledge and access of Barlaam’s or Palamas’s writing to providing any of my own commentary and 2) in a “recommended reading” section at the end of this article, I will be citing Marcus Plested’s Orthodox Readings of Aquinas that sufficiently engages with this caricature. Suffice it to say, never is this trope ever substantiated and what I will address in this section, while not directly refuting it, should at least raise doubts about its soundness.

3.2 Western Teaching on the Doctrine

From Aquinas:

We cannot know what God is, but only what He is not. So, to study Him, we study what He has not—such as composition and motion. - Summa Theologiae, First Part

It is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason. For, as above explained (I:12:4 and I:12:12), man cannot obtain the knowledge of God by natural reason except from creatures. Now creatures lead us to the knowledge of God, as effects do to their cause. Accordingly, by natural reason we can know of God that only which of necessity belongs to Him as the principle of things, and we have cited this fundamental principle in treating of God as above (I:12:12). Now, the creative power of God is common to the whole Trinity; and hence it belongs to the unity of the essence, and not to the distinction of the persons. Therefore, by natural reason we can know what belongs to the unity of the essence, but not what belongs to the distinction of the persons. Whoever, then, tries to prove the trinity of persons by natural reason, derogates from faith in two ways.

Firstly, as regards the dignity of faith itself, which consists in its being concerned with invisible things, that exceed human reason; wherefore the Apostle says that faith is of things that appear not (Heb 11:1), and the same Apostle says also, We speak wisdom among the perfect, but not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world; but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery which is hidden (1 Cor 2:6-7).

Secondly, as regards the utility of drawing others to the faith. For when anyone in the endeavor to prove the faith brings forward reasons which are not cogent, he falls under the ridicule of the unbelievers: since they suppose that we stand upon such reasons, and that we believe on such grounds.

Therefore, we must not attempt to prove what is of faith, except by authority alone, to those who receive the authority; while as regards others it suffices to prove that what faith teaches is not impossible. – Summa Theologiae, First Part, Question 32, Article 1

Defined by Vatican I:

Now reason, does indeed when it seeks persistently, piously and soberly, achieve by God's gift some understanding, and that most profitable, of the mysteries, whether by analogy from what it knows naturally, or from the connection of these mysteries with one another and with the final end of humanity; but reason is never rendered capable of penetrating these mysteries in the way in which it penetrates those truths which form its proper object.

For the divine mysteries, by their very nature, so far surpass the created understanding that, even when a revelation has been given and accepted by faith, they remain covered by the veil of that same faith and wrapped, as it were, in a certain obscurity, as long as in this mortal life we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, and not by sight.

Even though faith is above reason, there can never be any real disagreement between faith and reason, since it is the same God who reveals the mysteries and infuses faith, and who has endowed the human mind with the light of reason.

If anyone says that in divine revelation there are contained no true mysteries properly so-called, but that all the dogmas of the faith can be understood and demonstrated by properly trained reason from natural principles: let him be anathema.

If anyone says that the one, true God, our creator and lord, cannot be known with certainty from the things that have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema.

– Vatican I, Session 3: Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith

4.3 Church Fathers & Orthodox Authorities on the Doctrine

That there is a God, then, is no matter of doubt to those who receive the Holy Scriptures, the Old Testament, I mean, and the New; nor indeed to most of the Greeks. For, as we said , the knowledge of the existence of God is implanted in us by nature…All things, that exist, are either created or uncreated. If, then, things are created, it follows that they are also wholly mutable. For things, whose existence originated in change, must also be subject to change…all existing things, not only such as come within the province of the senses, but even the very angels, are subject to change…Things then that are mutable are also wholly created. But things that are created must be the work of some maker, and the maker cannot have been created…For if he had been created, he also must surely have been created by some one, and so on till we arrive at something uncreated. The Creator, then, being uncreated, is also wholly immutable. And what could this be other than Deity? – John Damascene, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Chapters 1 and 3

It is plain, then, that there is a God. But what He is in His essence and nature is absolutely incomprehensible and unknowable….For everything that is moved is moved by another thing. And who again is it that moves that? And so on to infinity till we at length arrive at something motionless. For the first mover is motionless, and that is the Deity. And must not that which is moved be circumscribed in space? The Deity, then, alone is motionless, moving the universe by immobility. So then it must be assumed that the Deity is incorporeal. But even this gives no true idea of His essence, to say that He is unbegotten, and without beginning, changeless and imperishable, and possessed of such other qualities as we are wont to ascribe to God and His environment. For these do not indicate what He is, but what He is not. But when we would explain what the essence of anything is, we must not speak only negatively. - John Damascene, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Chapters 4

With those that do not believe in the Holy Scriptures we will reason thus…The Deity is perfect…Should we say, then, that there are many Gods, we must recognise difference among the many. For if there is no difference among them, they are one rather than many. But if there is difference among them, what becomes of the perfectness? For that which comes short of perfection, whether it be in goodness, or power, or wisdom, or time, or place, could not be God. But it is this very identity in all respects that shows that the Deity is one and not many. John Damascene, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Chapters 5

In a section titled A Natural Contemplation Demonstrating that the World has an Origin and a Coming into Being, as do All Things after God, St. Maximus writes:

But if the mover is the beginning (arche) of every motion of everything that is moved, and if the cause toward which whatever is moved is carried along is the end (telos) (for nothing moves without a cause), then no being is unmoved, except the Prime Mover [for the Prime Mover is absolutely unmoved, since it is without beginning (anarchos)], from which it follows that no beings are without a beginning (anarchos), since none of them is unmoved. – On Difficulties in the Church Fathers, Vol. 1 (The Ambigua)

In a section of the same work titled Exposition of the Passionate Part of the Soul, and of Its General Divisions and Subdivisions:

What would be truly great and wondrous, presupposing much attention and zeal -- and above all the help of God -- would be for someone first to acquire mastery over the natural powers of the material dyad, by which I mean anger and desire, and their various manifestations; and blessed is the man who has acquired the facility to move them to whatever direction seems appropriate to reason (logos), until he is purged of his former defilements by means of ascetic practice governed by ethical philosophy. - On Difficulties in the Church Fathers, Vol. 1 (The Ambigua)

From St Nectarios of Aegina, in a recently translated work:

The Greek nation, led by natural knowledge of God to discover the truth, also knew that truth made known to man by revelation, and, by means of both, was guided to the highest truth…Philosophy discovers God in creation, increasing the longing for him in the heart…Philosophy’s considerations of the divine attributes taught man moral virtues, so that through these he could become like unto the divine, but such teaching alone is unable to raise man to the throne of God…philosophy is not an aim or final end, but a guide leading to Christianity, which overcomes philosophy’s short comings and perfectly satisfies the desires of the human heart. - Concerning Greek Philosophy

What do we mean by theological education?

The science of theology; we mean that the bishop should possess theological knowledge acquired in a scientific manner. In other words, his theological knowledge should be composite, but not confused and disordered such as proceeds from random and varied reading, rather than from scientific examination and study. - The Necessary Attributes of the Spiritual Shepard

4.4 Analysis & Objections

              From the sources cited, it is clear the East is quite intellectual and philosophically minded on matters of the theology and virtue. Cosmological arguments for God’s existence are present in the Eastern Fathers and how one learns the virtues and conducts themselves to tame the passions and increase in virtue are all endeavors requiring right reason. On the other hand, the West is ever mindful of the limitations of reason in matters of theology and respects the mysteries that exist within what God has revealed to man; to push reason too far in matters of faith, warns Aquinas, is to make the faith a mockery.

              While Fr. Damick shows on multiple occasions the desire to avoid oversimplification when assessing the West, he nevertheless ends up with one foot in the hipsterdox rhetoric and another foot wishing for more nuance. The consequence is ambiguity. Additionally, he simply is incorrect in some of his assessments cited above. As we see from Aquinas himself, it was not his endeavor to “merge Catholic dogma with philosophical requirements of Aristotelian logic”, as Fr. Damick claims. And attempts to “prove” God’s existence preexist both modernity and Aquinas; Fr. Damick’s claim here is blatantly false and calls into question if he has read the Damascene’s On the Orthodox Faith, despite referencing The Fount of Knowledge in the same section. Finally, to claim “reason, though useful, is not a necessary element in Christian life” seems to come close to the Gnosimach heresy described by the Damascene in On Heresies:

88. The Gnosimachi are opposed to all Christian knowledge, asserting that those who search the sacred Scripture for some higher knowledge are doing something useless because God requires of the Christian nothing more than good deeds. Consequently, it is better to take a simpler course and not to be curious after any doctrine arrived at by learned research.

    Further, such a statement certainly seems to contradict St. Maximus’ statement on the use of reason in mastering the passions and St. Nectarios’ claim that a bishop must necessarily be learned in the science of theology. On the contrary to Fr. Damick, the Christian must always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have (1 Peter 3:15).

              Much of what I have said about Fr. Damick applies to his Eminence. But to address the latter’s specific claims: it is a false dichotomy to say theology is either “based on rational thought” or “is hesychastic”, theology is based on both reason and contemplative prayer, both are not just able to coexist, but compliment. Further, it is both implicated by the Damascene and explicitly stated by St Nectarios that “Christian truths are divided into natural and supernatural”, contra his Eminence’s claim that this is a specific claim of Aquinas. The Damascene clearly articulates a natural theology when he observes “most of the Greeks [i.e., the Gentile pagans]” and “those who receive the Holy Scriptures” can and did know certain truths like God’s existence and at least some of his attributes, such as his oneness and immutability. St. Nectarios is explicit in this division of knowledge in the citation from Concerning Greek Philosophy.

5. The “One” God

5.1 Hipsterdox Claims

              We now arrive at the final doctrine we will discuss in this tour of hipsterdoxy. This doctrine deals with the revelation of the Trinity and how we are to understand it. So the narrative goes, the East emphasizes the persons rather than essence of the Trinity, while the West, following the supposed errors of St. Augustine, emphasizes the opposite. Consequently, Orthodoxy and the West are at odds – independent of the filioque - with a doctrine as core as the Trinity; indeed, how we understand this revelation is radically different, with the Cappadocians and Augustine presented as the two poles in this doctrinal dilemma:

The same personalistic emphasis appears in the Greek Fathers' insistence on the "monarchy" of the Father. Contrary to the concept which prevailed in the post-Augustinian West and in Latin Scholasticism, Greek theology attributes the origin of hypostatic "subsistence" to the hypostasis of the Father—not to the common essence. The Father is the "cause" (aitia) and the "principle" (archē) of the divine nature, which is in the Son and in the Spirit. What is even more striking is the fact that this "monarchy" of the Father is constantly used by the Cappadocian Fathers against those who accuse them of "tritheism": "God is one," writes Basil, "because the Father is one." – Fr. John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, page 183

In the Bible, in the creeds, and in the Liturgy, it’s very important…to remember that the one God in whom we believe, strictly speaking, is not the Holy Trinity. The one God is God the Father. In the Bible, the one God is the Father of Jesus Christ. He is God who sends his only-begotten Son into the world, and…in a parallel manner, the Spirit…we should notice, by the way, that in Eastern Orthodoxy, the term “Triune God” is not a traditional formula…There is the one Theos, kai Patera, the one God and Father: “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty…” That’s the one God. But then that one God is Father eternally with his Son, who is God from God, and with his Holy Spirit. – Fr. Thomas Hopko, The Holy Trinity

The past century was not a good one for Blessed Augustine: during its course, he was subject to increasingly servere criticism for his trinitarian theology. This misfortune occurred as the so-called "de Régnon paradigm"—that the Greeks began with the three and moved to the unity, while the Latins began with the one before treating the three… Against this general tendency, nevertheless, there have appeared more recently new voices arguing that the situation is, if truth be told, not so bleak… there nevertheless remain some fundamental questions—questions not so much of the grand order of metaphysical or ontological claims regarding the ultimate ground of reality, nor even the grammar by which we speak of such things, but, much more prosaically concerning the employment of the term "God." St. Gregory the Theologian knew that he was on unchartered, even unscriptural, territory in using the term "God" of the Holy Spirit, even if it can be argued that scripture does so in other words. Augustine, on the other hand, does not seem to be aware that he is using the term "God" of the Trinity in a radically new manner, one that is not only different but also problematic. The concern of the Cappadocians, following Athanasius, Origen, and Irenaeus, was not the implications of how one affirms that each divine person is God and the one God, singularly and collectively, but the reverse: how to affirm the one God is Father… To speak of "the triune God" or "trinitarian God," the one God who is three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, sounds not only odd, but distinctly modalist. – Fr. John Behr, Calling upon God as Father: Augustine and the legacy of Nicaea, found in Orthodox Readings of Augustine

5.2 Western Teaching on the Doctrine

That then which the Lord says —Whom I will send unto you from the Father, — shows the Spirit to be both of the Father and of the Son; because, also, when He had said, Whom the Father will send, He added also, in my name. Yet He did not say, Whom the Father will send from me, as He said, Whom I will send unto you from the Father,— showing, namely, that the Father is the beginning (principium) of the whole divinity, or if it is better so expressed, deity. He, therefore, who proceeds from the Father and from the Son, is referred back to Him from whom the Son was born. – St. Augustine, On the Trinity, Book IV, Chapter 20:29

Partly then, I repeat, it is with a view to this administration that those things have been thus written which the heretics make the ground of their false allegations; and partly it was with a view to the consideration that the Son owes to the Father that which He is, — thereby also certainly owing this in particular to the Father, to wit, that He is equal to the same Father, or that He is His Peer, whereas the Father owes whatsoever He is to no one. – St. Augustine, On Faith and the Creed, 9.18

We firmly believe and simply confess that there is only one true God, eternal and immeasurable, almighty, unchangeable, incomprehensible and ineffable, Father, Son and holy Spirit, three persons but one absolutely simple essence, substance or nature {1} . The Father is from none, the Son from the Father alone, and the holy Spirit from both equally, eternally without beginning or end… in God there is only a Trinity, not a quaternity, since each of the three persons is that reality — that is to say substance, essence or divine nature-which alone is the principle of all things, besides which no other principle can be found. This reality neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds; the Father begets, the Son is begotten and the holy Spirit proceeds. Thus there is a distinction of persons but a unity of nature. - Fourth Lateran Council, 1215

The Latins asserted that they say the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son not with the intention of excluding the Father from being the source and principle of all deity, that is of the Son and of the holy Spirit, nor to imply that the Son does not receive from the Father, because the holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, nor that they posit two principles or two spirations… - Council of Florence, Session 6, 1439

4.3 Church Fathers & Orthodox Authorities on the Doctrine

The sacred scriptures have everywhere plainly declared that God is one—that is, a co-essential Trinity, forever of the same Godhead, the same dominion. - St Epiphanius, Panarion, Books II and III, Against Noetians

That God is truly one and there is no other, is plainly confessed in God’s holy church, and it is agreed that we do not inculcate polytheism, but proclaim a single sovereignty. However, we do not err in proclaiming this sovereignty but confess the Trinity—Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, and one Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit…The Father is an entity, the Son is an entity, the Holy Spirit is an entity. But the Trinity is not an identity as Sabellius thought, nor has it been altered from its own eternity and glory, as Arius foolishly held. The Trinity was always a Trinity, and the Trinity never receives an addition. It [the Trinity] is one Godhead, one sovereignty and one glory, but is enumerated as a Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and not as one entity with three names; the names are truly complete and the entities are complete…And < to show what the truth is* > when < someone > supposes < that > < only the Father is the true God* > because he has said, “I am the first and the last,” “I am alpha and omega,” “The Lord thy God is one Lord,” and “I am he who is,” so that no one will deny the Son and the Holy Spirit he says, “My Father is greater than I,” and, “that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” This is not [said] because the Son is not the true God, but to reduce the name of the Trinity to a single oneness, and redirect men’s thinking from many divinities to one Godhead. But if the blunderer Arius gets the notion that only the one, that is, only the Father, is called the “true” God, while the Son is God but not “true God,” Christ refutes him in his turn, in another way. He says [of himself ], “I am the true light, that lighteneth every man that cometh into the world,” but of the Father, “God is light.” And he refrained from saying, “true light,” so that we would realize the equality of the Father’s Godhead with the Son’s and the Son’s with the Father’s because of “true God” and “true light,” and not be < misled* > because of the Father’s being “light” and the Son’s being “God” without the addition of “true” in those instances. There was no need to say “true” [in these two latter cases], since there was no doubt about it. The one perfection of the same relationship—the Father’s to the Son and the Son’s to the Father—was made plainly evident from the words, “God” and “light.” And that demolishes all the idiocy of your error. The Father is a father, the Son is a son, and the Holy Spirit is a holy spirit. They are a Trinity—one Godhead, one glory, one sovereignty, < one God >, to whom be glory, honor and might, the Father in the Son, the Son with the Holy Spirit in the Father, forever and ever. Amen. - St Epiphanius, Panarion, Books II and III, Against Sabellians

And when I speak of God you must be illumined at once by one flash of light and by three. Three in Individualities or Hypostases, if any prefer so to call them, or persons, for we will not quarrel about names so long as the syllables amount to the same meaning; but One in respect of the Substance — that is, the Godhead. For they are divided without division, if I may so say; and they are united in division. For the Godhead is one in three, and the three are one, in whom the Godhead is, or to speak more accurately, Who are the Godhead. – St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration. 39.11

For we confess this blessed Trinity to be One God for this reason, because in these three Persons there is no diversity either of substance, or of power, or of will, or of operation. – St. Leo the Great, Sermon 75, Section 3

If anyone will not confess that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have one nature or substance, that they have one power and authority, that there is a consubstantial Trinity, one Deity to be adored in three subsistences or persons: let him be anathema. For there is but one God even the Father of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit in whom are all things. - 5th Ecumenical Council (553), canon I

Wherefore we do not speak of three Gods, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but rather of one God, the holy Trinity, the Son and Spirit being referred to one cause, and not compounded or coalesced according to the synæresis of Sabellius. – St. John Damascene, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book I, Chp. 8

The name God is applicable to each of the subsistences, but we cannot use the term Godhead in reference to subsistence. For we are never told that the Godhead is the Father alone, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone. For Godhead implies nature, while Father implies subsistence, just as Humanity implies nature, and Peter subsistence. But God indicates the common element of the nature, and is applicable derivatively to each of the subsistences, just as man is. For He Who has divine nature is God, and he who has human nature is man. - St John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 3, Chapter 11

He no longer sends his disciples to the Jews alone, but since he has received authority overall, and has sanctified all human nature in Himself, it is right that He sends them to all nations, commanding the disciples to baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Let Arius then be put to shame because Christ did not say to baptize “in the names”, but “in the name”, for the name of the Three is one, the Godhead, and the Three are one God. - St Theophylact of Ochrid, The Explanation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew, 28: 16-20

Having received divine grace from heaven, / by your lips you teach all men to worship one God in Trinity. / All-blest and venerable John Chrysostom, rightly do we proclaim thee, for thou art our teacher revealing things divine! - Kontakian to St. John Chrysostom

Come, all ye nations, and let us worship Him. We have learned to praise one God in three persons who in his compassion delivered us from error. - Resurrectional Stichera, plagel 1, sticheron 3

5.4 Analysis & Objections

              By insisting that the Father alone should be called “the one God” because the Father alone is the principle and source of all divinity, the hipsterdox once again fall into dichotomizing that which is complementary. Additionally, the notion that the “post-Augustinian West” did not attribute “the origin of hypostatic ‘subsistence’ to the hypostasis of the Father” is clearly false, contra Fr. Meyendorff; both Augustine and Florance explicitly teach this monarchy of God the Father. It is also clear that many Orthodox teachers and prayers affirm the Trinity and “One God”.

If the whole point of naming the Father “the one God” is to ensure his monarchy and sole source, cause, principle, etc. of the divinity of the other two persons, that is perfectly congruent with calling the Trinity “the one God” in a different sense, which would be that by virtue of all three sharing the same divine essence of the Father, all three make one, ultimate, definitive divine reality. If Fr. Behr can acknowledge that St. Gregory the Theologian was, in a sense, treading on new ground by naming the Holy Spirit “God” (Fr. Hopko makes this point too in the cited material above, but I did not include it for brevity's sake) but is nevertheless perfectly justified in doing so based on Scripture and Tradition, then why is St. Augustine not given the same charity when he – supposedly – was treading on new ground with naming the Trinity “the one God”?

Why does describing the Trinity as “the one God” sound “distinctly modalist”, per Fr. Behr, but describing the Father as exclusively “the one God” not potentially distinctly subordinationist? If the answer to the latter is, “well, such a description of the Father does not intend to subordinate the Son and Spirit, but to communicate an essential component of the Trinity, namely the Father’s monarchy”, then why can’t the same principle of charity and nuance be applied to understanding why one would describe the Trinity as “the one God”; namely, that “the one God” in Trinity, the “Triune God”, speaks to the unity of the Godhead which all three persons share and the cooperative effort vis-à-vis their single nature, will, and operation? This did not seem to be a problem for the many Orthodox authorities cited above. Such authorities also would include St. Augustine, since, after all, the Orthodox Church considers St. Augustine to be a Church Father, per the same ecumenical council that anathematized those who “one Deity to be adored in three subsistences”.

Conclusion

              The hipsterdox have done much to contrive a metanarrative about both the East and the West that simply doesn’t map on to either the Greek or Latin Fathers of the One Church or the 2^nd millennia  authorities of both Orthodoxy and Catholicism. We have sought to show that such a simplistic metanarrative is unsound with by using primary sources and analysis of those sources. But why does any of this matter? There are four reasons for this engagement: 1) it allows us to know and faithfully hold to portions of our faith neglected in modern times because of this oft-accepted narrative, 2) it renders the abuse towards St. Augustine as a theological scapegoat as ahistorical and unjust, 3) it contributes to the establishment of an accurate, full presentation of the faith to inquirers and catechumens: when well-meaning inquires absorb these hipsterdox ideas, it can come to define what it means to be Orthodox, and then the impetus for their conversion is shattered when they realize it’s false, 4) it allows us to move away from distractions, looking for differences that aren’t really there, and refocus our apologetical and ecumenical efforts on doctrinal issues (e.g. the filioque, papacy, sola scripture, etc.) that truly do separate us.

Further Reading

General introduction to the topic:

Orthodox Readings of Aquinas (Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology)

Original Sin:

Inherited Guilt in Ss. Augustine and Cyril

Original and Ancestral Sin: A Church Dividing Issue?

Christ's Atonement:

Orthodoxy and Penal Substitution

Doctrine of the Atonement, Catholic Encyclopedia

Penal Substitution in the Latin and Greek Fathers of the Church

Transubstantiation 

Transubstantiation (Aquinas 101)

Transubstantiation: Maybe Dositheos Got It Right

Faith and Reason

Natural Theology in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition