Christos Yannaras: Towards a New Ecumenism

TELOSBOUND DISCORD: TREY’s book “Aphesis: The Impossibility of Subjectivity”: (Preface below!) PATREON THE BAPTIZING PHILOSOPHY PODCAST: anchor - youtube - THEOSBOUND: Preface to Aphesis: The Impossibility of Subjectivity Aphesis is a philosophical journey through hell, ending with a brief–perhaps even miraculous–glimpse of salvation. Many readers of the first edition were quick to note that the transition from the atheistic philosophy of subjectivity to the meditations on Christian theology were sudden and did not naturally follow from the reasoning of the previous chapters, but is this not the very way in which the grace of God operates? It is often when the sinner is most lost in this world–totally unconcerned with anything beyond themselves–that the Spirit of God descends into their hearts and shatters all of their prior assumptions and misconceptions. I found Christ through this book. When I wrote the first word of Aphesis in the summer of 2019, I was a staunch (Nietzschean) atheist, and I wrote the final chapter as a catechumen in the Orthodox Church. When I say that I found Christ through this book, I mean it in the most literal sense. My “moment of conversion” occurred while I was shooting hoops in my driveway, in deep and troubled thought over my inability to complete the final chapter of this book, one which would overcome, or at least provide a reconciliation with, the “impossibilities of subjectivity.” And suddenly, as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes, I perceived the profound truth that the Christian story of salvation provides a “narrow path” out of every paradox and contradiction I found myself lost in. I dropped the ball, and the coincidences I perceived “made me suddenly stand still.” I then messaged my cousin, my best friend and brother in Christ, to tell him the good news. Over the next two years we discovered Orthodox Christianity. Orthodox Christian theology–which has its foundation in the ontology of communion–posits that the being of beings is found in the other, in communion with the other. Communion is not mere “relating” to the other as if there were an underlying self-relation that only secondarily “relates” to another self-relating being. The radicality of the communal ontology consists of its absolute opposition to the notion of self-relation, which it banishes into the outer darkness. Pure self-relation is not merely something to be avoided–it is strictly impossible. The source of all being, being as such, is the communion between the Persons of the Holy Trinity: “Nothing in existence is conceivable in itself, as an individual, such as the substance of Aristotle, since even God exists thanks to an event of communion.” The ontology of communion posits that one’s being is not found in oneself but in and through the other. One reconciles with and finds oneself in Christ. Simply put, the life of the individual is not found “in itself,” but in God: “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day [...] This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.“ (John 6:53-57) The true radicality of Christ’s “hard teaching” is often lost in the English translation. The Greek term translated as “eat” is closer to “munch” or “consume.” The communal ontology sees being as the consumption of the other (which is another reason why the communal ontology is not merely “relational”). But this “consumption” is not selfish devouring and the destruction of otherness, but a full reception of the other’s freely given love, made possible through the simultaneous giving of oneself. If one remains enclosed within oneself, one cannot commune; it is only in abandoning one’s self-imprisonment through self-sacrifice that one becomes open to communal life. HASHTAGS: #philosophy #theology #metaphysics #ontology #orthodox #christianity #orthodoxchristianity #communion #church #jesus #christ #catholic #bible #hegel #negation #dialectics #epistemology #psychoanalysis #logic #ethics #theory #socialtheory #apologetics #God #aphesis #subjectivity #paradox #contradiction #reading #books #intellectual #politics #conservative #politicaltheory #sigma #staniloae #trinity #ecumenism