More from Florensky, with reflections

 That which claims to answer all questions has no place in Christianity. (Crossroads, p. 6)

1. It was Eunomius, the radical Arian, who claimed to know God as well as God knew himself. Orthodox theology confesses that God dwells in light unapproachable, not merely light unapproached. Hence the importance of the apophatic way in theology: we cannot know God in his essence, but only by his energies--the "back parts" of God, as St. Gregory the Theologian says. The confident Christian apologist who becomes an atheist is, by now, a trope. He has confused his map of the territory for the territory itself. If and when he finds some stubborn fact contradicting his map, he gives up the territory.

2. "Now we know in part," says Paul, and "through a glass darkly." Not only do we not know everything; even the things we know are known murkily, as it were. So the Christian speaks about most things with hesitation, tentatively, with gentleness. Just as the true scientist always has in the background "of course, I may be missing something," so also with Christians on most points. Humility is the watchword.

3. That's not to say we know nothing, or that no questions can be answered. "I determined to know nothing among you--except Jesus Christ and him crucified," says Paul to the Corinthians, the know-it-all community. Christ crucified is surely the heart and soul of all that we know; and if there is any murkiness here, it is not due to the fact, but to our own clouded hearts. We know that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; we know that Christ is God and man; we know that Mary is Theotokos and the answers to many other questions. 

4. The content of the message shapes the character of the messenger. There's an episode of Fawlty Towers where Basil is prepared to do a fire drill. Neither he nor the guests believe there is actually a fire, and so their attitude is nonchalant. But then a fire does break out in the kitchen. Manuel steps out of the kitchen. His message is the same as Basil's: "Fire!" But his demeanour is altogether different. His hair is disheveled, his gaze is intense, his message is clipped and focused. You can see wisps of smoke coming from his hair and his uniform. (The whole clip may be seen at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IMlhu9fjVI).  So when Paul addresses the Corinthians he says, "And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. 2 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. 4 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God."

On the value of husks and of settings

NOTE: I posted this on FB today, but I thought it good to put it on my blog as well, for a record and remembrance.

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 "The removal of its historical husk leads to Christianity's destruction, as in the case of Protestantism."--Florensky, "At the crossroads of science and mysticism," p. 5

A husk seems of little value. If we could produce grain without the husk, we would. The same is true of the leaves that surround the ear of corn. They exist for the sake of the fruit.

The same is true of the setting of a ring. It works best when it is unobtrusive, and simply shows off the glory of the gem it holds. Some might say that since a setting necessarily covers a part of the gem, if we are to see the gem in its full beauty we must eliminate the setting.

But the husk and leaves protect the grain and corn, and the setting both allows the jewel to be seen in its intended splendour and protects it from being lost.

At its outset, Protestantism sought to reform the Church. (Here I assume, with the Orthodox, that the Roman pontiff was the first Protestant.) The setting of conciliarity, of sobornost, was peeled away to reveal the power (not just authority) of the Roman pontiff. The "first among equals" became "the first without equal." The Filioque was its first fruit.

Almost immediately the western church fell into schism. Its Babylonian captivity in Avignon, the back-and-forth of the office among various powerful kings and families, and finally the spectrum of three popes reigning concurrently--all of these were the beginning of sorrows. Read the history. It's all there.

A council was called to settle the issue, but because the fruit of the peeling away (the Filioque) was not renounced, the mere use of a council to restore the papacy did not restore the western church. Instead, the same move was made by dissident priests and monks (e.g. Luther) and kings (e.g. Henry VIII) as had been made by the Roman pontiff himself: the One asserted itself against the Many, the intellectual asserted itself against the Tradition, the Part against the Whole.

To take but one example: Protestants rejected the already-narrowed tradition in favour of "Scripture alone." But within a single century, in the Protestant lands (Reimarus taught at Wittenberg; Semler was born in Electoral Saxony), arose the higher criticism that undercut the authority of that text. 

Protestantism is the inevitable result when a first among equals becomes a first without equals. Sobornost is but a husk. But the Church learned painfully--and may we not forget now--how important the husk is!