ORTHODOXY AND FAITH
By Protopresbyter Fr. George D. Metallinos, Professor
Emeritus of the Athens University, from his book “Philokalian Distinction
between Orthodoxy and Heresy, ” ch. 8.
It is understood that Orthodoxy is always closely
linked to faith. Thus, we speak of the “right and true faith,” in order to
distinguish it from the “adulterated faith.” Orthodoxy is the true glory and
glorification of God—the genuine notion of God—while a heresy is a manufactured
glory, a morbid glorification of God. Orthodoxy and heresy thus confront each
other in the area of Faith, and that is exactly where they diversify. What,
therefore, is “faith” and how is it perceived in the life of the Church as the
Body of Christ?
First of all, “faith” in the language of theology
signifies divine revelation; it is that which is revealed to man, by God—it is
the content of the revealed, Divine Truth (Fides quae creditur). However,
Divine Revelation is not an abstract thing, that is to say, a collection of
intellectually conceived truths, ideas and basic positions that man is called
upon to accept, in order to be saved. Such is the Scholastic view of faith,
which has infiltrated our Dogmatics also. The Truth of the Church is a Person;
it is the incarnated Son and Logos of God; it is the incarnate All-Truth. It is
the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. The unknown and unapproachable God became
(and continues to become) known, ever since the beginning of Creation, in Christ.
In other words, God discloses Himself; He is self-revealed, in multilateral and
resourceful ways (Heb m), the culmination being His self-revelation in the
Son—the incarnation of Flis Son—which was the prerequisite for the event of
Pentecost, for the sake of which Creation (according to the Saints) was
“composed.” The Pentecost is God’s supreme revelation in the Holy Spirit, and
man’s experience within history.
Christ, as a God-Human, is in a certain way the “objective”
faith, which is offered from above, so that we may come to know God in Himself
[set Jn 14:9—whomsoever has seen Me, has seen the Father). He is our
“hypostatic” (=personal) faith, according to Saint Maximus the Confessor. We
become faithful by participating in that personal and incarnated Faith (i.e.,
Christ). Only in Christ can there be a possibility to know the true God. And
that is what establishes Orthodoxy’s uniqueness and exclusivity, in the event
known as salvation. (Acts
4:12)
To the revealed Faith, which is “accredited” to man
for his salvation, man reciprocates with his own (subjective) Faith [Fides qua
creditur). Man’s faith is absolutely essential, in order for God’s power to
function inside man; to lead him to salvation. Its significance is stressed by
Christ Himself: Whosoever believes and is baptized shall be saved; whosoever
disbelieves shall be reproached. (Mk 16:16). The “objective” Faith must
necessarily be transformed into man’s “subjective” Faith, for his salvation.
And that is effected, through the indwelling (Rom 8:9 ... if the Spirit of God
dwells within you ...) of the “objective” Faith; in other words, the indwelling
of the Uncreated inside the created; of God inside man. Man is invited by Christ
to become “faithful”, to be receptive of the revealed-in-Christ Truth as a
“life in Christ”, and to live that Truth, so that he too may become “true,” just as Christ is the true One (1 Jn 5:20). Man’s
salvation is when he is rendered “true,” and the prerequisite for this, is his
union with the true God.
A faith that is Orthodox is the one that acts
soteriologically. And that is the precise point where heresy differentiates
itself from Orthodoxy. “Heresy” is the adulteration of the faith and its
retraction at the same time, because it is adulterating the faith in two directions:
on the one hand, with regard to the “believed” (Christ) and on the other, with
regard to its manner of accepting Christ. In a heresy, Christ is segmented and
is accepted, not in whole but segmentally, by a segmented—not whole—person,
because He is approached only by man’s intellect and his lips, while the heart
and man’s entire existence is a long way off Fom God (Mt 15:8).
A heresy (every
heresy) is not only a false teaching; it is literally a non-Orthodoxy and a
non-Christianity. By approaching the matter in this way, we disentangle
ourselves from the confessional disagreements of the past and their scholastic terminology.
After all, what is of primary concern is not how false a teaching might be, but
whether it is capable of healing man (as Fr. Romanides used to teach); whether
it is capable of saving him. Thus, one could say in conclusion—with regard to
the process of the event called “faith”—that faith begins as a logical intellectual
process, in the sense of an external affirmation by man, progressing as an acceptance
of God’s offer and aloyalty towards Him, to be fulfilled however, with an
internal certainty and cognizance of God, in Christ. These are the exact basic
meanings—linguistically—contained in the term “faith” [pistis) in the Greek
language, the language of theGospels: empistosyni (trust), pistotita (fidelity,
faithful- ness), vevaiotita (certainty, confidence).
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