Kyle David Bennett: Sergius Bulgakov Blog Conference

Friday, April 4, 2008

Sergius Bulgakov Blog Conference

In September I will be participating in a titillating blog conference on the the Russian Orthodox theologian Sergius Bulgakov. My presentation (read post) will be concerning his pneumatology. Methodologically, I will juxtapose his view of the Spirit with that of the Reformed theologian Jurgen Moltmann. I hope it will be interesting. If not, the other presentations definitely will be.

The details are here.

2 comments:

Janet leslie Blumberg said...: I have a question for you about the quotations from Gregory Nazianzen. He seems to be using a classical vocabulary of "idea" and "form" and so I wonder if, when he refers to "secondary natures," he is referring to Aristotle's eidos (eide), which Aristotle calls "second ousia"? "First ousia" (or being in the primary sense) is the individual living thing and its eidos is its nature or "secondary being" because its definition is the same as that for the individual? Can you gloss Gregory's "secondary natures" for me in that passage you cite?; September 2, 2008 2:20 PM
Janet leslie Blumberg said...: I was able to find the oration on-line and no, he seems to be speaking of the angels made of fire and spirit as the secondary natures, after God, who is the first and "only Nature."
Great excerpts on your site! Thanks!; September 3, 2008 12:03 PM

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::Sapientia::

Augustine

De Civitate Dei 19:2; 19.6; 19.8

"Anyone who joins me in an examination, however slight, of human affairs, and the human nature we all share, recognizes that just as there is no one who does not wish for joy, so there is not one who does not wish for peace."

"It is in hope that we are made happy."

"What consolation have we in this human society, so replete with mistaken notions and distressing anxieties, except the unfeigned faith and mutual affections of genuine, loyal friends?"

Predestination of the Saints 5

"No one believes everything unless one first thought it believable... Everything that is believed is believed after being preceded by thought... Not everyone who thinks believes, since many think in order not to believe; but everyone who believes thinks, thinks in believing and believes in thinking."

"For now treat the Scripture of God as the face of God. Melt in its presence."

The Trinity 1.3.5

"Dear reader, whenever you are as certain about something as I am go forward with me; whenever you hesitate, seek with me; whenever you discover that you have gone wrong come back with me; or if I have gone wrong, call me back to you. In this way we will travel along the street of love together as we make our way toward him of whom it is said, 'Seek his face always."

The Confessions 1.1

"You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

The Profit of Believing 12.26

"Nothing would remain stable in human society if we determined to believe only what can be held with absolute certainty."

True Religion 24.45-6

"Authority invites belief and prepares man for reason. Reason leads to understanding and knowledge. But reason is not entirely absent from authority, for we have to consider whom we are to believe or what books we are to believe in order that we may rightly worship God."

"Rational life does not owe its excellence to itself, but to the truth which it willingly obeys."

Gregory of Nyssa

On the Holy Spirit

"God is everything of this kind that can be named to raise our thoughts to the grandeur of his being."

"If they [Trinity] are not accepted, their opposites must be conceded."

"The Christian is marked by his belief in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; in this consists the form of him who is fashioned in accordance with the mystery of the truth... There is a blurring out of the mark, and a loss of the essential form, and an alteration of the characteristic signs of our complete humanity, when the Holy Spirit is not included in the belief."

"Still when one shall have reached the highest limit of human faculties, the utmost height and magnificence of idea to which the mind can ever attain, even then one must believe it is far below the glory that belongs to the Holy Spirit."

"The power to glorify could never be displayed by one who was not himself glory."

"When you have grasped the notion of the Son have you not admitted therein that of the Holy Spirit too? For how can you confess the Son except by the Holy Spirit?"

On the Baptism of Christ

"For of them some are at their labors within, while others outside hum around the hive."

"For everywhere human reasoning, perplexed in the attempt at discovery, falls back upon this syllable 'how,' as those who cannot walk fall back upon a seat."

"No longer shall Adam be confounded when called by you, nor hide himself, convicted by his conscience, cowering in the thicket of paradise. Nor shall the flaming sword encircle paradise around, and make the entrance inaccessible to those who draw near; but all is turned to joy for us that were the heirs of sin: Paradise, yes, heaven itself my be trodden by humanity: and the creation, in the world and above the world, that once was at variance with itself, is knit together in friendship: and we humans are made to join in the angels' song, offering the worship of their praise to God."

Soul and Resurrection

"Knowledge becomes love because that which is known is by nature beautiful."

Letters

1: "For the increase of things goods come to the same thing as the diminution of things evil."

Gregory Nazianzen

Oration 27.3; 27.5

"Not to everyone my friends, does it belong to philosophize about God; not to everyone - the subject is not so cheap and love - and, I will add, not before every audience, nor at all times, nor on all points; but on certain occasions, and before certain people, and within certain limits."

"For we ought to think of God even more often than we draw our breath; and if the expression is permissible, we ought to do nothing else."

Oration 28.2, 9, 10, and 31

"For to those who are like wild beasts true and sound discourses are stones."

"For it is much easier, and more concise, to show what a thing is not from what it is than to demonstrate what it is by stripping it of what it is not."

"Comprehension is one form of circumscription"

"Even the secondary natures surpass the power of our intellect."

Oration 31.26

"Theology reaches maturity by additions."

Oration 39.10

"When I speak of God you must be illumined at once by one flash of light and by three."

Oration 40.1 and 8

"For too great length in a sermon is as much an enemy to people's ears as too much food is to their bodies. "

"For, to say it all in one word, the virtue of Baptism is to be understood as a covenant with God for a second life and a purer conversation."

Oration 41.1 and 10

"And of all beautiful things none gives so much joy to the lover of the beautiful, as that the lover of festivals should keep them spiritually."

"Today let us teach dogmatically; tomorrow we may discuss."

Letters

48: "I shall gain this only from your friendship, that I shall learn not to trust in friends, or to esteem anything more valuable than God."

49: "My greatest business always is to keep free from business"

73: "I am not angry at being overlooked, but I am glad when I am honored."

John Chrysostom

"The roads to hell are paved with the skulls of erring priests, and erring bishops are their lamp posts."

Origen

Against Celsus 1.2

"The gospel has a proof that is proper to itself and is more divine than the dialectical arguments of the Greeks."

Evagrius Pontus

"A theologian is one who prays, and one who prays is a theologian."

Hilary of Poitiers

The Trinity 4.14

"God can only be known in devotion."

Jerome

"If Rome can perish, what can be safe?"

Theodore the Studite

Icons 1.16

"If merely mental contemplation had been sufficient, it would have been enough for him to come to us in a merely mental way."

Richard of St. Victor

Benjamin Minor 13

"Where there is love, there is seeing."

Friday, April 4, 2008

Sergius Bulgakov Blog Conference

2 comments:

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