An Introduction to Divine Relativity: Beyond David Bradshaw’s Aristotle East and West

The Thomist 72 (2008): 173-231 AN INTRODUCTION TO DIVINE RELATIVITY: BEYOND DAVID BRADSHAW'S ARISTOTLE EAST AND WEST ANTOINE LEVY, 0.P. Studium Catholicum Helsinki, Finland CATHOLICS AND LUTHERANS more or less agree on what it is on which they disagree. It is more complicated to specify why the Orthodox disagree with them both. Speaking in "phenomenological" terms, the difference of "religious world" between Eastern-Byzantine and Latin-Western Churches is primary evidence for the faithful on both sides. However, defining what it is that makes those religious worlds so different seems a desperately tricky venture. The difference in ecclesiastical structure is not the cause, but the consequence of the splitting of the Oikoumene into Western-Latin and Eastern-Byzantine parts. Differences between specific religious rituals and practices can well express a difference of religious world views, but a harmonious religious world-view cannot be born out of specific rituals and practices. One can always point to dogmatic divergences between Western and Byzantine Churches, such as the famous Filioque. However, though the subjects of disagreement between Catholics and Lutherans are much more numerous, they do not give rise to a similar difference of religious worlds. Conversely, one cannot conceive of an agreement on matters of dogma or ecclesial practice between the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches that would suppress the difference in the "religious world" between the Latin-Western and the Byzantine-Eastern forms of Christianity.1 1 This conviction lies at the core of Uniatism as a specific historical phenomenon: nonWestern Churches claim to be respected in their "otherness" by the Roman Church even when there is complete coincidence of views at the dogmatic level. 173 174 ANTOINE LEVY, O.P. It would seem that this difference is not really a divergence-it is rather due to the set of positive properties that makes one mental world different from another. Both John and Peter have their own mental worlds, and this can lead them to disagree on a number of things, like who is the most inept politician in England or what color they should paint the kitchen wall. These disagreements are consequences of their different mind sets, and not the other way round. It is difficult to explain what makes the mind-set of individual human beings so different. It is all the more difficult to describe the difference of the religious world-view between the Byzantine tradition and its Western equivalent. The clues that can be gleaned from the extant literature on the subject-cultural influences, conflicts of political ambitions, etc.-are disappointingly vague. What then about the constitution, throughout the ages, of two original, consistent world views which, despite the existence of a relatively wide consensus on dogmatic issues, seem to have remained utterly foreign to each other by successfully resisting any form of higher synthesis? Keeping these preliminary considerations in mind, one can fully appreciate the monumental undertaking of David Bradshaw in his Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom. 2 As the title and subtitle suggest, the author does not appeal to difference of dogmatic stances or to the infinitely contingent list of religious practices in order to explain the estrangement of the two Church traditions. It is in the living process initiated by the encounter between Christian revelation and Greek philosophy that Bradshaw claims to identify the reasons for the silent emergence of two distinct religious worlds within Christendom. This approach contrasts with the rash judgements and the confessional invectives to which, probably for lack of convincing arguments, theologians from both sides have had abundant recourse in the past. Relying on an impressively wide range of literary sources, the study possesses the basic feature of the scientific genre: it is open to further discussion. This is precisely the purpose of the present argument. As I launch 2 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. BEYOND BRADSHAW, ARISTOTLE EAST AND WEST 175 into a critical response to the positions of the author, I recognize that I owe this opportunity to Bradshaw's innovative approach. I am convinced that he will welcome the possibility to discuss his conclusions further and to scrutinize new perspectives sketched out on the very issues with which he...