By Maximus of the Dyercord.
Lógœ and the World
Reasons don’t exist in your head, reasons are natural energies of the soul that are varied mirrors of God’s lógœ & energies of creation itself, that which is around the Logos like a garment as He is their hypostatic source, i.e. their mode of existence. They are reflections of God’s lógœ in creation—energies. You don’t ground them in yourself, they pre-exist in God as thought-wills & are around God.
Explanation is only possible with the Orthodox worldview, that isn’t just a methodology but the possibility of a methodology even existing in potentiality, and potentialities aren’t empirical, they are God’s activities & providence in creation as the totality of being itself, as creation is a body in which the Logos is embodied in everything you ponder about creation as being natural are mirrors of the soul which are impressions of the Divine archetypes (lógœ) of beings in relation to what God intended things to be ad extra, as Christ is the One Who enhypostatizes creation. He is the Principle Principal of existence itself. We contemplate principles of beings in their varied lógœ in creation as an inner movement of the soul’s energy noetically. These concepts are spiritual, archetypal realities set in place for us which reside in the æonic realm. The æons are the intelligible celestial reality in our inner heart we comprehend in the Logos. When we have purified ourself we have theoria—the vision of the world as a whole, the way God sees it. We participate in that life through the Church herself, the mystical Body, but yet we understand not merely mental activity—for the origin of contemplation is in the soul & heart, not the brain, for we are made after God’s image & likeness, therefore setting us apart from irrational animals.
All the sensible & intelligible realities are unified in one whole when we move towards the Cause of all these principles in the Liturgy, for the Church herself is a representation of God. The symbols & incense are ways in which we encounter God, the principles of creation have their truest end & meaning in the One Who is the Divine Reason the One Who recapitulates all the principles which come from Him. When we comprehend, we noetically gaze at the ‘blueprints’ of creation & their natural properties, i.e. the entire man: body, soul, & spirit (nûs).
True philosophy is when we love God. This is why we start with God, not ourselves. For I don’t speak of my mother without her attributes & activities, for she is both her activities & attributes,because they are aspects of her nature & hypostasis that is intertwined. Likewise we speak of principles in creation in this sense, it already presupposes the Trinity. You don’t magically ground it in Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy is the only way it is even possible to ground whatsoever. It’s prior to doxatixally grounding things, the Principle of creation is Christ, He is the Head of creation & its Reason. So likewise “belief” isn’t a merely intellectual activity, it’s the soul’s movement towards a principle when we have rightly understood something. For we don’t ask “Does the soul or cognitive see?” without first the soul being active to even ask that question. Likewise this is true for creation, we don’t speak of matter, substance, identity, qualities, kínēsis, or energy, without first presupposing the Trinity as the One Who makes its course even intelligible & meaningful, how the principles at all relate to the world of the terrestrial world in the celestial as both being imminently interwoven with each other without confusion.
As well, concepts aren’t just ideas in my brain. The word concept is parádīgma or lógos. Plato’s Timæus, page 17, speaks of the lógœ of beings & the models which they’re patterned after. We don’t conflate concept with the act of understanding nor the thing itself. Concepts aren’t identical to it, nor univocal predicates. They are categories which God has revealed & come from Him.
Nûs: Orthodoxy contra Platonism
First of all the purpose of the nûs in Orthodoxy is entirely different to how whether “classical” Platonism, or “middle” Platonism, or “neo-” Platonism views it. “Classical” Platonists believe in the beatific vision—that the intelligible divine light is the essence of their deity, therefore you become their deity’s essence. Platonic thought has two categories with perception: The sensible kind of the existing created effects & things that come into being. Then the perception of the intellect. “Intellect” is nûs, but it doesn’t matter for the word. Platonists have the nûs as the highest rational faculty, it’s intellectual knowledge which they call nóēsis. Noḗton epistḗmē in the Timæus commentary. Christian nóēsis is possible because we are made after the image & likeness of God, which we call theognosis. Platonism only gets you to an abstract divinity of the intelligible reality; a heavenly divine eternity of ideas which in content are univocal to the essence of their deity. Orthodoxy accepts that we existentially experience theology not merely an intellectual knowledge. We transcend the isomorphic realm of our knowledge into the mystical.
Apophaticism
Negation tells us what the One is not in our attempt to measure Divinity by our standards. No assertion can apply to the One. It is completely indescribable with language. To climb to the root-foundation of knowledge & existence, we have to throw the latter away & abide in utter ‘silence’. More than this, according to Proclus we cannot remain even in silence, because this implies that such a state applies to the One. The One is Itself “beyond being, activity, silence & stillness” (In Parmenides 1171.1-15.) The One is beyond language, knowledge & existence. It is the Ineffable (aarhêton), the Unknown (agnôston), and the Exempt (exī̂rêmenon). The negative ‘apophatic’ terms spring partly from Platonism but also from thr Chaldæan Oracles as revelatory proverbs. How much a transcendent the One is, we glimpse from Proclus’ comparison of It with the participable unity-henads & with being. Unity is more than absolute being. Unity precludes the distinct implicit when we say that it is identical with that; it is not identity with respect to anything else. Further, the participable unities are always connected to some being, and existent. By contrast, the One does not relate to anything at all—not even to existence. Proclus tells us that it is above potentialities & actualities, and transcends the most unqualified kind of existence (hýparxis) (In Parmenides 1167.25-36). Further to stress that the One is not just universal class-property of unity but its Archetype & Source, he does not hesitate to make a word up for the One’s character: ‘super-union’ (hyperenôsis) (In Parmenides 1181.39, & Platonic Theology 5.103.17).