...the assertion that Christianity is founded on the views of the ancient Greek philosophers constitutes a great error, unless we mean by "Christianity" a philosophical-theological system, like that of Thomas Aquinas or some other rationalistic Western theologian. As I emphasized at the beginning of my address, true, Orthodox Christianity is not a work of men and is not based on human conceptions, on human inventions; it is a work of God, a Divine revelation. It took many terms from the ancient philosophers, but assimilated them completely to the essence of the Gospel. These terms did not impede in the past, and do not impede us today, from comprehending this essence—on the contrary, they aid us. As in the past, so also today, the concepts and terms of ancient Greek philosophy assist theology, as well as every science, to express its special content.
Constantine Cavarnos
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
On assimilation
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3 comments:
Jacob! Good to find your blog. I have already subscribed to the RSS feed.
I hope that you will enjoy it. As you can see it's mostly quotes, but hopefully they'll do someone (including me) some good.
This quote is very relevant to my state of mind prior to my conversion to Orthodoxy. During my rebellious days, I viewed the Christian church (at least the Western church) as solely a man made institution. And of course, man being in a fallen state, I assumed that this "church" must also be fallen and therefore fallible. It's obvious that I had only a superficial understanding of the scriptures (as Divine Revelation) at the time. For anyone seeking the Truth, all he has to do is read the Scriptures and will be silenced! So, why did it take so long for me to realize that??? ;) By the way, Hi Jacob! Hope yer doin well!
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