A BRIEF REVIEW OF J. KARMIRIS,
Under comment here is the (not very adequate) translation by Fr. G. Dimopoulos of the 1973 paperback volume by Dr. John Karmiris bearing the English title, A synopsis of the dogmatic theology of the Orthodox Catholic Church. (I have access only to the translation, which mostly employs Latinate terminology rather than Greek terms where it could slant the discussion in an undesirable manner; by not translating passages in Latin and German, the translator leaves readers who are not at home in those languages to their own devices. We find in full capitals the atrocious formations, MONERGISMUM and SYNERGISMUM. It hardly needs saying that my comments in places may be relevant only to the degree that the translation is valid.) While Kamiris relates Grace to energy in his chapter (Ch. 8) on that subject, he strangely fails to relate unity with Christ and Divinization (mistranslated as Latinate "deification") to the uncreated Energies--the very topic where the holy Tradition would most saliently speak of uncreated Energies!
What now follows specifically addresses what Karmiris says from the bottom of p. 59 through the middle of p. 62 in Ch. 7 "Concerning the redemptive work of our Savior" and the short Ch. 8 on "Grace." The author deduces from the Incarnation such an exaggerated view of the results of the Incarnation of the LOGOS (mistranslated as "Word") as to create problems in understanding those individuals that are not divinized, seeing that he acknowledges (p. 75) that "all are not going to be saved." We will see how he addresses this matter and escapes the apparent universalism of Salvation in his treatment of the soterial rôle of the Incarnation.
In Ch. 7 (p. 59), Karmiris tells the reader that
in the human nature of the Lord Jesus Christ was included and recalled and redeemed the whole of humanity, and as a unique organism united again with Divinity. As a result of this follows . . . the Deification of saved man, who becomes "a partaker of the divine Nature."
--where "man" is presumably ánthropos "humanity" or "humankind" in Greek, not an individual male--anér. Karmiris continues (pp. 59-60) with the following clarification of the import of the foregoing:
It is self-explanatory that deification is to be understood from a moral [he mentions the moral aspect four times in two pages] standpoint, and not from a real or pantheistic view. That is, the human nature is somehow deified by the grace (katà chárin) of the Divine, . . .
He cites, inter alios, St. Maximos the Confessor's words (p. 60):
The word of God, becoming Man, did not deify it physically (or naturally), because without interruption . . . The Word [for LOGOS!] of God was made man--not naturally, but qualitatively deifying His nature, which was unfailingly preserved by the Holy Spirit, in much the same matter as water and wine, once mixed, ever remain thus. For this reason, He truly becomes man, in order to, by His grace, make us gods, deifying us by virtue of His Incarnation.
I would translate the passage from Pròs Thalássion . . . perì Diaphorôn apóron tês theías graphês "To Marinos . . . on unmanageable ambiguities of Holy Scripture"; Migne PG 90, 400D-401A), Q 40, thus:
When the LOGOS of God had become human, . . . He divinized [humanity] not in Nature [presumably: Essence] but in quality, having without cease revamped it [sc. human nature] to [be like] His own Spirit, just as water [assimilates] to the quality of wine in accordance with the measure of what has been mixed. In that way, He became human in truth, so that according to Grace He might constitute us gods.
This does seem, if we read no further and interpret phýsis "nature"--that slippery and fluctuating term in Greek--as "Essence," to give some countenance to a soterial quality received by humanity in the Incarnation. But, as will be seen, there is more to be said about Maximos' view.
Having observed that the "mystical Body of the Second Adam" is "composed of all the faithful who have subjectively (by will?) appropriated to themselves the salvation of Christ," Karmiris adds (p. 60) that:
the deification of the human nature of Christ is passed on "by virtue" to all of the members of His body. In this manner, the whole mystical body of Christ is deified together.
If we put the idea "that Divinization is to be understood from a moral standpoint--and not from a real" point of view--beside its transmission "by virtue" (i.e. virtually) to the faithful members of Christ, we find little difference from current Latin "intentional" unity with Christ and the Reformers' foederal or covenantal unity with Christ. One recalls that St. Paul viewed incorporation into Christ as a real or ontological "new creation"--not as a moral or intentional union only. Karmiris says [p. 79] in a virtually Lutheran manner that pístis ("faith") "includes the acceptance of truth"--that faith is not "an intellectual effort alone" but "is also "undoubtedly a moral work"--that is, a matter of the will.
But let us return to St. Maximos. Without citing the passage, the footnote in which Karmiris gives the reference to the quotation from this Father already cited also refers to Q. 54 (Migne PG 90, 520). Notice that PG 90, 517D-520A-C reads:
[The LOGOS is the Undoer of the captivity of the true Israël--not from an earthly place to an earthly place . . . but from earth to Heaven, from evil to virtue; from ignorance to recognition of truth; from decay to incorruption and from dying to immortality; and to speak succinctly, from the sensible and fleeting cosmos to stable noëtic reality [noöúmenon]; also from the transient life to what is durable and permanent. . . . The LOGOS has imparted a second participation in nature, much more unfathomable than the former: Inferior to the [same] degree that what He first disposed of [was] superior was what He later voluntarily partook of in order that He might save the Icon (Image) and make the flesh immortal; and having in [our] nature detected the serpent's endemic blight [lógos--literally: "inherent rationale or principle of being"] and having completely and utterly destroyed [it], He re-established a nature pure as at the beginning, having by théosis [i.e. Divinization] gained the advantage over the first forming. And by bringing into being what had not existed from the outset, He thus rescued what had been exhausted [in His] having reïnforced the no longer fallen [nature] with immutability. And to fulfill the whole will of God the Father [literally: of the God and Father] for Himself, He divinized [nature] with the power [or: "potential": dýnamis] of the Incarnation.
On the face of it, it would seem that St. Maximos' understanding of the Divinization of human nature--whether or not an energization of the potential of the Assimilation ([h]omoíosis) to God that our first ancestors were endowed with along with the Icon or Image of God--is that it itself is but a potential for the Divinization of an individual member of Christ..
Indeed, Karmiris speaks [p. 75] of an "objective" and "potential redemption obtained for us by the Savior for appropriation to all men" (apparently through the Incarnation, though Karmiris later [p. 57] specifically includes the teaching, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Christ). Karmiris contrasts "objective Salvation" and "potential "Redemption" with the "appropriation" of Salvation as its "subjective" side. On p. 75, he says that Salvation "needs to be personally and subjectively applied and appropriated by each man individually . . . through the life-giving and saving energy of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in him."
One could easily conclude that Karmiris is addressing Western Christians and specifically Protestants as much as Orthodox readers, organizing his exposition in accord with this purpose. In the absence of disclaimers, his already commented-on Western "moral unity" with Christ could be understood as a juridical Redemption, Regeneration, and Adoption. This occurs in Karmiris' Western-like division between Justification (presumably Greek dikaíosis "being made righteous") and Sanctification--though he at least avoids Atonement and, worst of all, Anselmian Satisfaction. Note Karmiris' more typically Western framework of "Prophet, Priest, and King" in his chapter on the redemptive work of our Savior. After speaking of the Incarnation (and citing 1 Cor. 1:30), he (p. 57) describes the three offices (functions) of Christ as His prophetic teaching, His priestly Crucifixion, and His royal Resurrection. (One is justified in assuming that the Incarnation is the ontological basis of the three offices. At least, Kamiris deals with purgatory only in a footnote.) If it is the translator that writes "subsistence" for hypóthesis and Word for LOGOS, it is also reasonable to assume that the author himslef uses Latinate terminology, especially the juridical terminology used to describe and explain Salvation; this diminishes the Orthodox flavor of this writing. (On the other hand, we read [in Greek orthography] on p. 60 methéxei, with no gloss, though katà chárin on the same page itself glosses "by grace.") Karmiris also seems to adopt Luther's fiducial conceptualization of faith in claiming (see above) that faith is "undoubtedly a moral work"--that is, a matter of the will.
Nevertheless, he gets it right when he speaks of synergy or coöperation [p. 77]: "Thus, even though we accept salvation as being wholly a work of Grace, it still is not possible without the condition of its free acceptance on the part of the human will." Though Karmiris (see p. 70, 33, where he cites a German theologian, apparently not Orthodox, who correctly describes the goal of the Incarnation in Eastern theology as Vergottung) is surprisingly apologetic for the Eastern emphasis on the soterial rôle of Divinization, he is often very Eastern in much of the content he inserts into his Western-appearing framework--not least in his not limiting Christ's "redemptive work" to His Immolation on the Cross in the Western manner and his attention to the rôle of the Eucharist in incorporation with Christ. But his frequent harping on human freewill seems like the sort of Orthodox theology (exhibiting a strong infiltration of Western conceptuology) that appeared in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries in Russia and in Greece into the early twentieth century. As noticed near the beginning of this review, the basic Orthodox concept of being (and of Grace and Life and Light and Divinization) in terms of energy (that which actualizes the potential of dýnamis) is mostly absent. We do not find a dýnamis-enéryeia distinction between the Icon or Image of God and the Assimilation to God (misrendered statically as "Likeness"--which would be omoíoma, not omoíosis in Greek), both of which the first humans were endowed with at their creation. (It was the Assimilation to God (omoíosis Theô), or Cognation with God, that was lost, the latter being the activator or actualizer of the potential (dýnamis) of the reason and freewill of the Icon that was got lost. Without the Grace or uncreated Energy of the Assimilation, the reason and freewill of the Icon of God would be impotent for pleasing God. (Cf. Philp. 2:13 in Greek; had the Icon been lost, humans would be anything but human--animals or automatons.) There is of course no Salvation without the energization of uncreated Grace, sharing in the Life of Christ--the Life and Light of the cosmos.
While it may be relevant to note that Karmiris studied at the German Universities of Berlin and of Bonn, he received his doctorate from the University of Athens. Another point in passing of possible significance is the translator's reference to Frank Gavin's Some aspects of contemporary Greek Orthodox thought, a volume that the reader is left to examine for oneself.
If I may recur to the prior question, are Salvation and théosis natural (since the Incarnation) or personal and individual? Karmiris says that "human nature is somehow" divinized "by Grace" (and this is repeated below without "somehow," though "somehow" pops up two more times). If Christ's members are morally but not really (ontologically) divinized "by virtue of His Incarnation" and humans generally are divinized by the marriage of natures in the one Person of Christ, then why are some humans--unbelievers--not saved or divinized? This answer is buried in some of Karmiris' emphases on the Incarnation; one is not sure in various places whether the Divinization of an abstract, collective human nature or the individual Orthodox Christian's Divinization through unity with the Person of Christ is being commented on, e.g. in "deification is passed on, as it were, to all who are saved, and who compose the mystical body of Christ, who participate in His deified and Life-giving [eucharistic] Flesh" (p. 60)--with a hint at the antídosis tôn idiomáton (the exchange or mutual transfer of the characteristics of each nature to the other). If Karmiris eventually distinguishes "objective" Divinization from its "subjective appropriation," he nevertheless seems to fail to take into his consideration that the Incarnation was in fact a Personal union in which separate natures came together in one Person and that individual believers have to be united with Christ in order to participate in what He came to bring and do.