Episode 115: Discussion of Basil of Caesarea’s Against Eunomius
Greetings all! The conversations with Tom and Trevor are back. We begin with a discussion about why we think about the Trinity and difficult topics like this at all, and then launch into a conversation about the unbegotten Father and the begotten Son.
Timestamps:
7:45- Practical v. Theoretical Theology
21:43- Debating the Rule of Faith
32:47- Definition of the Philosopher
46:10- Diverse Names of God
Episode Transcription
Charles Kim 0:00
Hello and welcome to history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim. With me this week will be Tom Glasgow and Trevor Adams. This week we will be discussing Basil of Caesarea's Contra Eunomius. And for those who don't exactly remember know or know much about basal assessor Ria, I think we have discussed him way back in the archives when we discussed his on the Holy Spirit. But just a quick recap. Basal assessor RIA was born in 330, and modern day Turkey. He died in 379, in modern day Turkey, his so what usually is called the Asia Minor, in in discussions of the ancient world, but basil has had sort of famous brothers, Gregor, famous brother, Gregory of Nyssa, and Sister mokwena, the younger, he's also often associated with Gregory Nazianzus. And the three of them are collectively referred to as the Kappa devotions. So Basil is the oldest of those, it kind of gets a little bit short shrift compared to Gregory Nyssa and Gregory Nazianzus, in some cases, but nevertheless, this work is a is comes before the Council of Constantinople. So it's in between the time of Nicaea and Constantinople, just right in that heart of the kind of famous fourth century debates about the Trinity. So this work, is going to discuss the Trinity to some, some degree that's going to talk about ancient theories of naming, and a little bit about, you know, me as his perspective, and another sort of way of reading the story. So I hope that you find that beneficial, just to kind of give you a heads up of what we have coming forward. Tom and Trevor and I have recorded a few other podcasts. This one's going to come out in two parts. We'll we'll have one on Ambrose of Milan and his hymns. I'm going to be recording a conversation with Dr. Kelly Capek, who has a new book on you called your only human, and it's about the limits of humanity. And so we just have a lot of stuff coming down the pike. I hope to be back on track with recording. I also wanted to take the time to thank Eric Sheltie. I think I'm pronouncing that right. But Eric made a very generous donation to us. And so you know, we don't we don't always talk about that. But there are costs to keeping all of these files uploaded. And you know, the technology to do this. And, you know, I will fit the bill occasionally. But I do always appreciate donations, we have a Patreon account, Eric just donated directly through PayPal, I really appreciate that. So I will put a link up to our Patreon in this episode, but if you'd like to donate, we always appreciate it. Usually I say something like if everyone who listened just gave us $1, we would have more than enough. And so based on our listens, we're we're up to where we're about three or 4000 downloads an episode. So that should be more than enough to cover our costs. Occasionally, I do get sponsors. But right now, we don't have any sponsors. And that offsets our costs a little bit. But here is our conversation on basil assessories country, you know, me us, like us on Facebook, find us on Twitter, on Facebook. We're at a history of Christian theology on Twitter. We are at theology, x i A N. And yeah, thanks for listening.
We're back Tom, Trevor Chad. We've been recording, we probably have three or four podcasts. Now, in the docket. As you may remember from I just released a podcast, an interview that I did with this guy, and my file was corrupted. And basically my computer has been on the fritz since I did that interview. So it has been slow in coming with new podcasts. And during that time, I had another file corrupted in one of our conversations that is between Tom Trevor and Chad. So we're gonna kind of rerecord our conversation. It'll probably be shorter. But we're going to kind of, you know, rethink through that. And that conversation was on basil necessery is against, you know, myths. So what will be kind of interesting is we've already recorded and still have good files for our conversations on book two and three. So we'll, I'll insert those in the the feed after this one. But that's partly why there have not been episodes at with any regularity. So my apologies. As I said, it's been a crazy semester and lots of problems. I now have a new computer. So all that is good. My son has had three viruses in the last few months. My whole family had COVID I had a computer crash Asch, you know, I started a new job. I mean, it was just like there was there was a lot going on in the fall semester, we've been, my son actually knows where the hospital is. Now, we've been to the hospital so many times. It's weird, he's two or two and a half. And if so if we actually, if we leave the house at a weird time, he goes, we go to the hospital.
Now, I say all that we actually are all quite healthy now at this point, but we went through quite a lot of weird stuff. So we are going to talk though, we're going to move from the maybe sort of the active life to the contemplative life. And this is this is actually one of these things I always I always struggle when I teach with my students sort of talking about, like, why is it important to talk about God's substance, or God's essence, amidst all the struggles and pains of the world? And I think that's a kind of a question that we could ask or discuss, maybe today, maybe another time, but it's like, why is this so important? Why do we care how we talk about God. And on the one hand, I think that you can overdo it like you can spend all your time only ever thinking about these things. And but but I also think that there's a kind of, in a sense, it helps us give give perspective on what we're going through in this world. Like if you only ever focus on the ills and the suffering. And if that feels like the most real thing, then you kind of get the order backwards, like part of what the contemplative life part of what considering the nature of God and these sorts of things are meant to do is sort of reorient us to the world have to remember that which is true and most supremely good, so that in that light, we can at least see the bad for what it is. So we even have a proper kind of understanding for badness, or a proper understanding for what's wrong, because we have something that's good. So we're turning our attention to what is good into what is holy, and to give praise for what is for what is that so that when we look at what's bad, we can say it's bad, because I know it's good. And so I think I think that's kind of an important thing. Like, like I said, I know we can overdo it. And I know that that's not the only thing in life is the contemplative life. But I do think it's absolutely worth getting right. What is the most real thing, and the most real thing is not evil. And it's not suffering? And I think we get I do think we get that wrong. Sometimes I'll let you guys weigh in, and then we can launch into basil for a minute. But
Trevor Adams 7:45
yeah, I had never Well, whenever someone says why do we do things, I think of reasons. And then philosophies train me to think reasons come in two types. There's like practical or theoretical. And I'm like, why and why do we consider God's nature? And I guess I would have thought that it was purely theoretical, but you kind of just made it seem like there might be practical reasons, which I hadn't really, I guess considered or there, it's sort of tied up, they're sort of tied up together, though, may not so neatly divided into these two types of reasons. Because it's also good to just know what's true, just for the sake of knowing what's true, sometimes, probably most of the time. But and I guess that's a case where knowing what's true. also reveals something about Yeah, the nature of goodness and the nature badness, as you describe. So yeah, that's kind of you could do it for one or both reasons, but they're, they're both sort of the same. They come to the same end, I guess, in a way, that's.
Tom Velasco 9:05
Yeah. And I don't know that I would, I would frame it as wanting to contemplate Gods so that I don't focus on the miseries of life, I think. I think I've wanted not that you necessarily framed it that way. But I just, that's where my mind went. So I'm not necessarily saying that that's what you were saying. Just that's kind of like what popped into my mind. So it's kind of serves as like a helpful way to kind of delineate my thoughts on the subject. But I think I always wanted to think about God and have been since honestly, since I was a kid. And I think I wanted to do so primarily for the reasons that Trevor just said, I wanted to know what was true. Just really, really wanting to have it right. Even as a child like and I mean, four or five, thinking that getting like I just realized getting it right was super important. My mom went through a little bout. She had and she caught a little case of Mormonism for about three weeks when I was a kid. And I say that like, seriously? Well, I say it jokingly, but I said, someone seriously. And then she became a Mormon for like three weeks. Craziest thing, was never really religious, but always believed in God. The Mormon missionaries came, we all liked them. They talked to us, she decided to do their studies and kind of meet with them. She got baptized, we went to church once and then we never went again. And I don't even think I don't even know if my mom remembers that little particular spill in her life. But I remember, my grandparents were Seventh Day Adventists. And my grandfather was probably the biggest spiritual influence on my young life. And I remember always sit there going, well, who's right? Or they're right. Are the Mormons, right? Or is my dad who's a Catholic, right? And that was my big thing. You know, I was like, which one of those is right? And then my mom ended up getting remarried to a guy who, I think would have kind of considered himself roughly Evangelical, but that's not a good descriptor. But nonetheless, when it came to spiritual things of what he, what he believed there was kind of basic evangelicalism. So it's like, I just was wrestling with what is right. So that's what it started with. But what I can say, is, I think, I mean, I don't know, I always, like I was saying to somebody the other day, I'm one of the happiest people I know. I just, I mean, I'm not the happiest that falls on my friend Tucker. I think he's the happiest person I know. But I'm pretty dang happy. And I think that a lot of that comes from that decision, that thing that I've been doing all my life just contemplating that, you know, I think that, and I think maybe for some of the reasons you're talking about Chad, like, I wouldn't tell somebody think about God so that you don't think about pain and suffering, because I think that might make it a little artificial. But I do think that the quote, the fact is, is that when your life is caught up in the things of God, you can't help but kind of really become an optimist. I mean, it's everything, it helps to make sense of everything, right? I mean, I think about how CS Lewis described, I can't remember where this is where this is, maybe one of you will remember. But he talks about how for the believer, as he moves forward in this world, and then enters into glory, right? The heavenly life will work backwards, so to speak. And it will sanctify everything about his life so that even the worst of things worse, the pains that he suffered, will come to that make sense. I mean, I'm not necessarily that they were enjoyable. But they make sense in the light of this. And they're they they fit this narrative of joy. And then he goes on to say, and those who move into the hellish life, right, than hell is essentially working back in their lives and turning even the best of their experiences into into that. So I always thought that was kind of an interesting way to look at it. It certainly seems to be how it's played out in my life.
Charles Kim 13:22
Yeah, and yeah, and I think, if I said, I'm not telling someone to ignore your misery,
Tom Velasco 13:28
I didn't like the way I was processing it.
Charles Kim 13:32
Yeah, right. Um, but it can, at least at a moment, give us like, at least something of okay, I know what good is. And that's why I'm able to say that there's something bad. And that's, I think, you know, and I mean, I'm, I'm fairly thorough going Augustinian and Platanus. In this account, I'm going to say that evil is parasitic on the good, and that it is not the most real thing. But yeah, I know that you guys can probably take issue with me on that if you like. But yeah, I have a long term plan to write a book on what is real. I think the concept of real is a funny one. And like, it used to bother me growing up when I went to a Christian school, everyone would say, well, well, you're at a Christian school. That's not the real world. And I was like, Will well what is unreal about it? Well, it's, you know, it's a protected world. It's a Christian world, you don't know about suffering. And I was like, okay, so sufferings what's real? And, you know, sort of, yeah, you know, we you should know about drugs or you should know about, you know, how people are hard on each other. And, you know, everyone here is fake and, okay, yeah, they're fake. But what is it? Why is it that you know, there's fakeness I'll grant that. That's fine. But why should I think that those things are the most real things
Tom Velasco 15:00
And you're sitting around doing drugs, that is the height of honesty.
Charles Kim 15:06
And it's like it kind of calls into question the sort of existential or postmodern virtue of authenticity, which I used to take as obviously good. And now I don't. But that's maybe a separate issue. I'm not actually sure that being authentic is the same thing as being truthful or honest and a Christian. And in a classical sense, I actually wonder if authenticity is actually at times a very harmful thing. But, you know, those are other questions, but I think you have a lot of questions here about what is real. And so that's what they're debating. Now, part of the weird thing about this, okay, so we have basil assessories, mid fourth century, this is after the Council of Nicaea. So the first Council of Nicaea is 325. But this is actually before the Council of Constantinople of 381. So if you've ever said the Nicene, Creed and church, I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, true God from two, and then you got to believe in God's only son, true God from true God, begotten unmade of one being with the Father, and all of these sorts of things, of one being with a father, these conversations, those come from Nicaea, in 325, but they're ratified and filled out, finally, in 381. So there's a period of history in Christian theological history, where there are a lot of conversations going on in the Mediterranean. And it's also worth pointing out that these are conversations of people who are coming from what is today, Turkey, Asia Minor, these are people coming from Egypt, from North Africa, these are people coming from Syria, and these are people coming from Italy, Gaul and other such places. So this is a international conversation about what it is that Christians say about who God is. And so we have, we have these two people, Basil assessories, from Turkey, from Asia Minor. And then we have eunomia, who actually I don't remember precisely, but I think he comes from Alexandria, but I have to look that up again. But but you know, me as is kind of in the line of areas, and areas thought that there was a time when when the second person of the Trinity was not, there was a time where, where what you know, the the sun was not the sun is essentially begotten. And God is essentially a God the Father is essentially on begotten. And that's basically what is at issue in book one for basil. And for you know, me us. So history sort of favors basil in this conversation, right? History, like, you know, Christian Orthodox Christianity essentially follows basil here. That said, what's interesting, I was just talking about Platonism. I mean, one thing that we have to recall for both of them, I mean, you know, the sort of Neo Neo platonic mindset is actually at play for both of them. And as you know, someday we'll get up to Cal Seaton. I'm right, I just, I should have a paper coming out soon in an orthodox journal about some Christological debates. And what we have to remember is that when these people are thinking about these questions, they are all in various ways, sort of drawing from the deep well, of Greek philosophy, probably a lot influenced by Plato, others by Pythagoras, a little bit of the stoics some other things, but but that's their Well, that's their stream. So they're actually you know, I mean, you know, me us kind of thinks he's being consistent you know, we should say that you know, me as thinks he's, he's being consistent with what he reads in Scripture, you know, me as thinks that what he's doing is is a right way to inherit this tradition. He's trying to be honorable towards the one God in his mind, he's trying to get this right now, Basil chastises him pretty vociferously. On page 80, he, you know, obvious is a lying, stupid, wanton dissembling and blasphemous man. I mean, it gets pretty intense, because, but now again, why is it gets so intense? Well, he doesn't want Christians to to forget that, that the sun is not a creature, the sun is not created. And that's that's where kind of he and you know, me us get off on the wrong foot and get off into this debate is because you know, me is seems to imply that or, excuse me, you know, obvious seems to imply that, that the that the sun is that the essential characteristic of the Sun is that he is on Vega, that he is begotten and the essential characteristic of the Father is that he is on begotten. Right.
Tom Velasco 19:51
Chad, I would interject just because you mentioned that I looked it up I didn't know but you a moment ago said you thought Did you know this was from Alexandria, he is from Turkey from Asia Minor. And he did serve as a bishop in a city in Turkey called CIVICUS. But he did study in Alexandria, and that's where so he did get kind of his predilections and his connections to Aryan theology, which just a reminder, sorry, Aryan theology, it's probably a little confusing this area. Just to reminder, guys that, uh, you know, that, ultimately, at this time in the empire, you had a very strong split, you've had an enormous number of people, and both in power and out of power, who would have considered themselves orthodox Catholics, and would have held to the Council of Nicaea. But you also had a sizable number of people who are Aryans, including during both you Nahmias and Bezos life, some of the Emperor's some of the Roman emperors would have considered themselves Aryan, believing that Christ was a creative being that Jesus was the first creative being. He wasn't just a human, there was something about him that made him greater than all other creative beings. But he was created, and thus was not the one God. So just wanted to interject that really quickly.
Trevor Adams 21:23
Yeah.
Yeah, let's see. I forget now which page is that? He actually tries to give you know, Mises argument.
Charles Kim 21:43
So yeah, they're kind of debating about the sort of the rule of faith. The Creed's on page 89, he sort of begins to lay out some of where eunomia says that. He says, We believe in one God, the Almighty Father, from whom are all things and one only begotten Son of God, the word our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things that one Holy SPIRIT, the Para cleat. And then he adds, this, then is the faith that is simpler common to all who are concerned with either appearing to be or actually being Christians. So that one can say the more important pious summary. So I think, at that point, you know, me, this is not all that all that far from the what becomes the sort of Orthodox position, but eventually he starts to add what makes him different from the nice scions. And really it is it's kind of that he thinks that this only begotten This is constitutive of the suddenness. So we will try to figure out where he actually says that.
Tom Velasco 22:48
So I don't remember exactly where he says the argument. But I think I can summarize it in a way that makes some sense that maybe while you guys are looking that up, I can maybe set this ball rolling a little bit. He defined, he basically said something like this look, what is essence essence, the essence of something, are the attributes or the qualities of that beat that being right. And the Nicene formulation says that the Father and the Son are the same essence. But you know, these points out that the Father is unbeaten, The Son is begotten. And he essentially makes the argument that they can't possibly be the same thing. If the essence of the Father is different from the essence of the Son. And if the father is unbeaten, and the Son is begotten, then they must have different essences. So they have to be different beings more than
Trevor Adams 23:51
Yeah, I found the passage, and it's exactly what you just said, except it. And then he adds that, that he's basically hung up on this pre existence claim. It's like, oh, it's not just merely the fact they have these different properties, it's just that then one would also have to go to have to pre exist himself, he thinks to be both begotten and forgotten. And that's the part that's supposed to be sort of insane. So the quote, it's actually on page 91 of the PDF. He says, let's consider the argument that, you know, Mia sets out concerning God and this is, you know, he is right here, supposedly, at least. Therefore, it is in accordance with both the natural notion and the teachings of the fathers that we have confessed that God is one and that he did not come into existence either from himself or from another. Each of these alternatives you see is equally impossible since according to the truth, the maker must pre exist what comes into existence and what is made must be secondary to the maker. A thing cannot be prior or posterior to itself and no other thing can be prior to God. If there were such a thing. It rather than the set Can which surely have the dignity of divinity. And then he basically says so then it's been demonstrated that God neither pre exists himself, nor that anything else pre existed but that He is before all things that it follows from this, that he is an begotten or rather his and begotten, this is unbeaten substance. And that's where he that's the first point, by the way, I'd jump to Page 94. To get that quote, that's sort of where he sneaks in the fact that it's like it's beyond just apply merely applying a property either it's like God is identical to an begotten this. So the in this is a way in, which of course, would have been normal to talk about this back then you could talk about sort of justice or goodness, like the properties themselves being identical to those things. And just like you'd maybe say, God is love something like that. He is now wanting to say God is on begotten us, and therefore, yeah, then and then he's gonna go on to make the exact argument that Tom outlined, but we know the Son is begotten. That's like, literally what? You know, we say in the creed.
Charles Kim 26:23
Well, one
Tom Velasco 26:25
is on
Trevor Adams 26:26
the gun, you mean begotten? Right. So I Oh, if I said and I met begotten? Yeah,
Tom Velasco 26:31
you might have said it, maybe my brain with one of them around, it could have been my brain.
Trevor Adams 26:37
sun started to be gone is what I meant to say for the record. Yeah.
Charles Kim 26:42
Well, and one of the sort of, again, like, the difficulty in these, these sort of debates is understanding the sort of the logic, the reasoning that they're going through, and for God to be utterly simple, God cannot be different from his properties in some sense. So like, if you're able to name or God cannot be like, two separate things, like we can't think of God and parts. And so like IETF, or, you know, me as thinks that this is part of that sort of simplicity. Like, if I'm able to name this thing, then as like, I can also say something about what is that you'd have of godness. And so there's like, you know, substances and accidents and these sorts of things that, you know, that we talk about, like, for any metaphysical entity, or any entity can have a kind of an essence to the property and these sorts of things. So, sorry, excuse me, a substance and an accident. And so like, you know, me as thinks he's just sort of reasoning, but reasoning from scripture or reasoning from the tradition, he's like, Yeah, that's right, on Christ being begotten, or the second person of the Trinity, the son being begotten, is that's the, that's the one defining characteristic. And that should lead us into something about who he is. So, I mean, I think it's, you know, I don't want to like I'm not trying to give him his due too much in the sense, like, I'm not trying to, like, say that I agree with him. But I think it's important to understand the logic that they're working with. And we could, you know, in order to see how we come to Bezos position, but
Tom Velasco 28:27
I'm willing to give him his due. In fact, you know, as you've already pointed out, Chad, we read this a long time ago, and and you Bezos arguments, I don't remember I remember you know me as is, which means I feel like they've had a stronger impact on me, in general, not that I agree with him. I, I still assert the Nicene Creed. But I will say that there is there is in me, and this has probably come up a couple of times, because when like like the passage you read a little bit ago, Chad, kind of to kick us off, where basil talks about, you know, me as being a heretic, which he's a heretic, granted, but then, like just this really fiery language. It's, you know, one of the things I brought up before it just how bothered I am by the way, the fathers are just constantly employing ad hominem attacks against the guys that are reasoning with. And I always think it's interesting because it's with these doctrines, which, although vitally important, are also really hard to understand, such that I feel like we should have a little bit of sympathy for people who are trying to make sense of stuff that isn't all that easy to comprehend. And so, like, I think, you know, and then I'll throw in one more thing that I've been thinking a lot about lately, and I think this relates and that is, like, I mean, we're all complex beings, not simple beings, except for maybe God. Although I will interject really quickly. For me, I've always been I'm suspicious of and I've said this before, on the podcast, I've always been suspicious of this idea that, that God has to be a simple being, I still am not convinced as to why that is, and is, and it seems to me that that's just rooted in platonic metaphysics. And I, although I, there's a lot about Plato's metaphysics that I'm, I'm intrigued by and that I like and affirm. Many times, I'm not married to it by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I'm the opposite of married to it, because I definitely reject good chunks of it out of hand. But in any case, that's neither here nor there. We're complex beings, and we all kind of have different, like qualities and activities that we take part in and things that matter to us. And probably the two most important things to me, are my like, about me, that is, our my Christianity is number one. And then my love of philosophy is number two. And these two, which I think can accentuate and help each other a lot, also, in certain ways, stand in total contra distinction, right? Because on the one hand, Christianity is dogma, I mean, at least, I mean, I don't want to make that the, the definition is simply cut there. It's, it's but it's, it's like being a Christian means you subject yourself to certain dogma, being a philosopher means that you challenge everything you can think of, which is the opposite of submitting to a dogma. So I live in this really weird world where on the one hand, I'm trying to uphold the dogma, I believe in a dogma, I teach a dogma, I teach it to kids at the school, I teach it, I teach it to people in our church, and I teach it as dogma. But I also feel like I have to challenge everything. And I respect it. When somebody in earnest challenges everything. As long as they're in earnest. That's my big thing. And many of the heretics we've read, I've had no reason to think they weren't in earnest. Like, for me, the heretics I really don't like, I know that sounds terrible, but the ones who are like, trying to create a position to manipulate people and take money from them, and that kind of stuff is that's where I really get upset. But when I'm reading somebody who's just trying to wrestle with something that's hard to understand, I have enormous sympathy for them. Now, I don't know anything about you know, me, it's beyond what basil says. So basil himself is helping me like, you know, me us a little more probably than I should, because he's attacking clearly. But I'm sure if I read you know, me as he would be ticking me off as well, by saying all the same kinds of things that, you know, Basil saying, you know, but nonetheless, I do have that sympathy.
Charles Kim 32:47
This is a minor rabbit trail, I wonder if your definition of what it means to be a philosopher? To what extent is it? I mean, I know that it's a product of at least the last 100 years or 200 years, but Right, so when, when basil assessories, when Gregory Nyssa, when these guys talk about philosophy, what they mean is sort of the pursuit of wisdom and a life well lived. It's not an absolute questioning of every dogma, that would not actually be so. So that was the way that you said that made it made me think of like what sometimes called Academic skepticism, it's sort of a philosophical school that descends from Plato. cardinalities, I believe, is one of the kind of key figures at least in Cicero, when Cicero talks about this, because Cicero seems to be a kind of skeptic of the sort that Tom was talking about, question every dogma. But by the time you know, basil, and you know me, as they're having these debates, they call mokwena. Basil calls his sister Macrina. What are those philosophical peoples that he knows in the way that she lives her life? And what he means is that she's very virtuous. And I, you know, and there's a sense in which like, we don't mean that at all. When we call if we call someone a philosopher, they could be a terrible person, but they just have this inclination to question every prior and assumption, it sort of assumed that they can proceed in their life with with with no presuppositions or something are all questioned presuppositions. And yeah,
Tom Velasco 34:35
well, let me let me just answer because I feel like I need to answer because I want to clarify what I said. Because I wasn't saying that. That was a definition of philosophy. What I was saying,
Charles Kim 34:49
there's a definition of philosophy. I know I get it. Yeah, yeah. And so what I
Tom Velasco 34:53
mean, my definition of philosophy is my understanding Socrates is which is yeah, it's the love of wisdom, which is the pursuit of fundamental truth. And when you which I, which, when you see what Socrates does, that's like one of the one of the things he does is to sit there and to say, Okay, you put forward an answer as to what you think fundamental truth is, let's see if it stands up to scrutiny, because I really want to believe what's right, like, and so I'm not a skeptic. And I don't think people should be skeptics. Nor do I think we should challenge dogma just for the sake of challenging dogma. But I do think a part of coming at wisdom is basically holding it up to scrutiny is essentially and I think one of the things I think about the early church fathers are in terms of their love of philosophy, and the way that they apply the term. It's rooted in essentially kind of a love for Plato and Aristotle, well, mostly Plato at this point, I think, but where they almost st him, so to speak. And so what he did was good. So then they ascribe philosophy to things that he probably wouldn't have. Anyway, sorry, Trevor?
Trevor Adams 36:00
Oh, well, I was I was gonna basically, I was gonna have you tag me and I was gonna in the ring for you. Because, because that's what I was gonna say is that it is part. There's a way in which it's put simply by saying question everything. But there is a way in which it is like the fundamental thing about philosophy and bringing up Socrates is exactly what I was going to do. We, I think that philosophy as a way of life is, has been like sort of left behind for a long time, it is coming back, by the way. And that's sort of what you were mentioning, chat is that it used to mean something about someone if they're a philosopher to it, is that is coming back. They're actually conferences called like philosophy as a way of life. And people are trying to bring it back the latest responses to the last fill papers survey, which is like the biggest survey about the views of modern contemporary philosophers out there. When they asked what is the goal of philosophy? You know, overwhelmingly people used to answer just truth, but now people actually answer understanding more than truth, which is really interesting, which kind of shows that it's more because understanding is kind of an active thing, rather than like this just thing out there, truth, whatever, you know, just, like, we're just like Hoarders of true statements, like, we're not just doing that instead, it's like, we're actually trying to do something and understand the world. And thus, the philosopher should understand things. I mean, that's like a, that would be like an attribute of the philosopher in theory, so it is coming back. But it is fundamental, I think, because as a technically I guess, I'm gonna Epistemologists at least I've studied that more than anything else. I had this like long debate in my own life as to whether metaphysics or epistemology is first philosophy. But whether or not epistemology is first philosophy as in like V fundamental philosophy, it is definitely the fundamental like value of philosophy, because we always want to say, why do you believe that? Like, what reason do you have for that, and that we are definitely always hunting, for reasons. So to understand and that is like what Socrates set out? Right? Like, right in the very beginning of Euthyphro, pretty much after you throw explains why he's about to put his father on trial. He's like, tell me what piety is seeing, as you understand. I mean, that's, that is and that that is the the fundamental, I think, value of philosophy anyway, that but we don't need to go off on that. But I think it it, it does enter even here, right? Because that that's absolutely interest here. Yeah, exactly. So as much as maybe this isn't. Question everything because you'll you'll notice all the philosophers had essentially their cultural metaphysical axioms, you might say, things they left on question. Yeah, but, but then from there, they always want to sort of work forward asking for reasons trying to justify. And that was why I said it was like, epistemology is the value because everyone is trying to justify their beliefs, like you believe that you need to actually justify
Tom Velasco 39:29
your example of the use of road Trevor. I like it because it ties together all of what has been said, you know, tying together even were what you said earlier, Chad to, which is, of course, the goal, like, like Trevor already said, what Euthyphro was doing, he was going to court to put his father on trial to put him to death. And Socrates was like, Whoa, you're gonna put your father on trial? And you're like, yes, because I am committed to justice over anything and else? And Socrates says, Well, sure piety like being I guess he didn't use the word piety. I don't know why. That's, I'm forgetting why that would be the court. Why that would apply in court. But anyway, Socrates said, Well, you better have confidence that you know what you're talking about, if you're going to apply it to putting your dad to death. And so that's where it all comes together is like, it's the idea that we have real understanding. I like that word of these things. And that's why we can live the good life, right. That's why we can live the virtuous life. Because we've walked through it all we thought about it all. And we've come to the right conclusions. Now one thing I will say, though, and this is this is just an immediate my like, my personal kind of jumping at that term understanding, I still think of the goal of philosophy should be truth, capital T truth, but understanding I think of as like, this ancillary step that is necessary to get to that, like, you can't possibly have attained a truth, if you don't even understand the different options out there, like what people are saying and why they're saying it, you know, and, and so, I say that, because only in the case, if there's a philosopher out there who's like, Oh, I'm gonna go with understanding, not truth, because they might think there is no such thing as a capital T truth. And they're just going for understanding almost like, they think it's virtuous to understand it in and of itself. I still think if there is no capital T truth, which I can't see how there couldn't be, I actually can't envision how that would even be possible. I can't see why understanding would matter if there wasn't, so
Trevor Adams 41:44
yeah, I would think, of course, that that would be like, the next question you put to someone in a way because Yeah, cuz if as long as Yeah, if you think like, there's some sort of objective reality that you can come to find truths out about understandings. A great goal, because it's something you can do, personally. And then hopefully, because the world is the way it is, you are learning the truth. So yeah, I'm not really sure exactly all the motivations. I know that that's, at least that was one of the motivations that was explained to me, because I actually just put in truth for being honest, when I took the survey myself. And then I saw the answers come back. And I'm like, why would people say to ask one of my professors, and he was just like, because I think it's something people can actually do. So you can't truth? You know, you can. Yeah, and you might try to figure like, it takes a long time to explain to people the best ways to figure out what's true, right, basically, that's reasoning and all the things we've developed, and that's so hard. So sometimes it's easier to just get people to understand things. And, and it's true that yeah, it's it's like the more basic thing, but then once you get it, you know, once you can just understand a concept, you might be able to further figure out the way the world is, but yeah, anyway, that was that was our tangel philosophies
Charles Kim 43:14
purpose. Yeah, well, just again, to sort of orient our listeners, I probably have said this before, but all these people thought of themselves as philosophers, there wasn't there wasn't an occupation, or there wasn't a self understanding of theologian, as opposed to philosopher, right. So like all the people that we've studied from Justin Martyr to Tertullian, Justin Martyr, wore the philosopher's robes famously, you know, they're like, from from the earliest understanding of Christian sort of thought. They were doing some kind of reasoning. They were doing some kind of rash, like they had a kind of logic to what they were doing, and they thought of it they call it philosophy. Now, you know, that, what the technical term they all know, Gaea theology is, is the study of the things that sort of move towards the divine mystery. And so what what we are approaching with basil and with eunomia says, How do we move to that divine mystery? How do we get to the thing that is the reason that there is the thing right? So I'm looking up at my, my icon of Christ, taken from pantokrator at Sinai, and over Christ's head is whole own right. So the that which is the ground of being the, the the being, and and so that right, so that comes from Exodus three, that comes from a few different places, but that's where for Christian understanding, right, right is is we're trying to understand being right we're trying to understand this thing. Now, that that undergirds all that is, and so you know me as thinks that he can get at this through divine names Christ on begotten, so he thinks this name this name on begotten tells him something, or excuse me, Well, God the Father being on begotten God, the Son being forgotten, he thinks that this name tells him something constitutive of God and so he's trying to proceed into that mystery. Now, Basil says, he says, This is not the substance. And so he says, what I've said on page one of seven, he says, As for me, I would say that the substance of God is on begotten but I would not say that I'm begotten, this is the substance so it does toe it is something true that can be said, but it is not the same as the substance itself. And so he's he's trying to get away from this a little bit above that and one of five, there is not one name which encompasses.
Okay, there's not one name which encompasses the entire nature of God and suffices to express it adequately. Rather, there are many diverse names and each one contributes in accordance with its own meaning to a notion that is altogether dim. Right? So the Cappadoceans the Christians believed that, you know, as First Corinthians says, We see through a glass dimly, right so there's, there's sort of this mysterious nature of God and God's self. There are many diverse names, each one contributes to it, of course, and so meaning to a notion that is altogether dim and trifling as regard to the whole, but that is at least sufficient for us. And so that's kind of what he that's where he takes issue with eunomia. So don't don't think that this one name gives you the whole and there you go, we can get that but
Tom Velasco 47:07
let's go ledger. Oh, I
Trevor Adams 47:09
was just gonna say yeah, I just to sort of, like I guess really recap the things I thought when I first read this. I remember being really confused. And I you know, we've talked about this already. together before we recorded but I remember being really confused about the usage of name and then when I realized that he was naming the property itself he was saying like, the property itself has this name like it is on Vika Agnes. I remember being like, Oh, okay. So that's, that's why he can make identity claims between things like ungodliness. And the father, for example, is that and the reason why it was confusing is in you know, contemporary philosophy names, just sort of refer, they don't really have like a, like a meaning like, properties do. At least that's, that's a common doctrine now held post Kripke de sol kirpy that is, though some people still take issue with it. So it's not it's not like 100% Everyone agrees. But it is like most people think of names in this. This way, they call them rigid designators they just sort of designate the same thing in all possible worlds. And it's, it's so I remember having a hard time understanding that but then once I understood where, you know, me is coming from, like, ungodliness is a name it really a name? What is the name it names, the property on begotten us, which really exists, like it, like almost like Plato's forms, right? It it exists as his primary thing. And once you see that, you see, the argument makes a little bit more sense because then if the father is really identical to the unboundedness we get this we get this problem because it essentially creates this division in God because now you've got the son being identical to forgotten this itself somehow, which is which is another really weird part of the argument now how I don't remember and I don't actually I'm not really sure if we're told exactly how you know me us gets to those conclusions, the the identity claim, because every passage we get is really short from basil. And then when we get you know, Miss is like little description. Or less sorry, little quote. Basil just starts calling him an idiot immediately after like, I faint. Oh, I think to even repeat such stupid claims that I just read to you, but I had to see you could see how garrulous you really I don't know it was it's really, it's just a lot of stuff like that. But you Yeah, but I remember that later. This is later in book one. Basil does come to this idea that our understanding of God is sort of incomplete. I think this is what you're hinting at there at the end, Chad. And I, I'm now trying to find the quote that I wanted to look up that Okay, anyway, I don't have a quote in front of me because I failed. But the basically, yeah, that our understanding of God, like, on this side of reality will always be limited. And that really like God is the only being understands God, in a way, like fully. And I was just gonna say that this is definitely a precursor to like a lot of medieval theology later on where they would probably call maybe some of these actual properties, but what they'll end up saying is we don't really ascribe properties to God, literally. We just do it. As they say. What's the phrase that the medievals use arity? Forget, but you don't, you don't actually apply it but you apply it. metaphor is sort of metaphorically, but that's not the right word. If got some medieval term, they always do. And it's sort of like you're you're sort of applying metaphorically, it's like, that's the best we can do. Oh, wait, I think it's an analogical. Sorry, here you go. Oh, it's like an analogy. Yeah. And a logical predication is what they end up saying, because it's sort of like Yeah, it's like how things are have properties here on earth, God is this, but it's not really like that. Because, you know, God's nature's beyond our understanding, which you can kind of see that precursor, that sort of idea here. And basil. Though basil doesn't say exactly that, of course.
Tom Velasco 52:04
I will chime in and it gets kind of, I guess it'd be shifting things a little bit. I just some of the basal responses to you know, me as I find interesting. And, you know, he writes in a, he uses kind of a, I can't think of the word. He approaches it with language different from what I'm used to. So it could be that I'm misinterpreting basil, but at least the way I seem to understand it, he basically says, Look, when we talk about unburied like the begotten, pneus, or ungodliness, he says, the simple fact that you know me, as can even ask questions about the being God, and ask whether or not he's the godson or unforgotten and describe him in terms of precedents, like first and second, he says that shows that the notion of be godliness or ungodliness, are actually external to the essence of God himself. So it's an essence. So basically, that question is a relational attribute, not a substantive attribute, it's like, okay, it's relational. And so the real attributes of God, of course, would be and he lists, he goes through Scripture and talks about all of these things, you know, righteousness, and eternality, and things of that nature. But then he goes on to say, but all of those things are ascribed to both the Father and the Son. The implication being that the Father and the Son are both God. And then and I don't remember if he says this, but this was my impression. As I thought about it, I thought, well, I'm begotten, this and begotten this, neither of those are qualities of God at all, per se, were rather qualities of the Father and the Son. And I would say that the father being an begotten would be something that would be, and this will be tricky, but it's the way I'm using the word essence, it would be essential to the notion of the father, because he is a father, in this case, because he Well, actually, you know, what, I don't know that it'd be gotten this would need to be, I would say, be getting is essential. Yeah. The father begets that's what makes him the father, and the Son is begotten. That's what makes him the Son. And so So what these terms essentially do is they applied to the term father and son, but not to God. And so then what we're left with is this thing, which is just, again, part of the mystery of the Trinity. The Father is God the Son is God. But God is not two different beings. But you have to have a like essence just means attributes and qualities, to be able to speak intelligently of the notion of the Father, and of the notion of the son. You have to be thinking and talking about different qualities. That's what makes them distinction different, but it's with regards to the fatherhood and son hood, not with regards to the God her. So when you think of God begotten, this ungodliness, those aren't factors that figure in what do figure in our eternality, omnipresence, omniscience, the creative impulse and ability, power, omnipotence, all of those things, that's those are the essence of God. Those are the essential characteristics of God. But when we say that God is also thought that God is father and son, they both are God, but there's not two distinct beings. They share in that essence, what we're saying is that essence of all those qualities that I just mentioned, those apply to Father, those apply to Sun indivisibly, indistinct, true, indistinct, distinctively, but we do make a distinction between the Father and Son, and the distinction between those two persons of the Godhead is that one beget, and the other was begotten.
Charles Kim 56:05
Yeah. distinction of relation and that's really Exactly,
Tom Velasco 56:09
yep. Yeah. Yeah. Which
Trevor Adams 56:11
I think to you know, me as his credit, he just was thinking that, you know, he goes to this little puzzle of pre existence, and that's how he's thinking of B godness. And that's really not like that dumb of an idea. You know, later on, right, we develop these I don't know who the first theologian, Chad, you know, the history of theology, as you know, it was the first person that caught this analogy of the sun and the rays coming from the sun. But yeah, that ends up being like the analogy, everyone, you know, right. Oh, four, is that between what the one and something else?
Charles Kim 56:50
Yeah, it's I mean, I think this is this is sort of foundational for Platonism. Yeah.
Trevor Adams 56:54
So but they borrowed but they borrowed that analogy for the Son and the Father. Okay. Yeah. And I don't know who the first person was to do that, then. But that was my point is, you know, this idea that it's this eternal relation, you know, this is a relationship that's held eternally timelessly, that this proceeding from, you know, so yeah, that's the part that it's not done that, you know, me as didn't think of that, basically, I guess so. So, you know, you know, he's just working through the dogma that art is like, you know, put out there and it's just thinking about the words begotten them begotten and yeah.
Charles Kim 57:37
This has been a history of Christian theology. We appreciate you listening. Up next will be the second half of this conversation where we talk about books two and three of Contra eunomia us. So find us on Facebook, like us, and on Twitter as well. Thanks for listening.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
