{"id":8249,"date":"2012-12-14T06:39:11","date_gmt":"2012-12-14T06:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1984"},"modified":"2012-12-14T06:39:11","modified_gmt":"2012-12-14T06:39:11","slug":"causality-and-characterization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2012\/12\/causality-and-characterization\/","title":{"rendered":"Causality and Characterization"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\">\n<\/head><body><p><\/p><p> In his brilliant  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/080103132X\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=080103132X&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=leithartcom-20\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"> Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine) <\/a>  <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=leithartcom-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=080103132X\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\"> , Khaled Anatolios notes that some recent theologians have criticized the Cappadocian \u201creduction\u201d of the distinction of divine Persons \u201cto the order of causality\u201d (232). <\/p>\n<p> Speaking of Gregory of Nyssa in particular, Anatolios responds: \u201csuch criticism is based on an artificial abstraction of condensed doctrinal formulations  . . .  from the larger context of these theologians\u2019 engagement with the biblical narrative as a whole. The statement that the only ontological ground for the distinction of  <em> hypostaseis <\/em>  is the order of causality [e.g., the Father is uncaused, the Son is \u201cimmediately\u201d from the Father] is not equivalent to the statement that the only  <em> characterization <\/em>  we can make of the trinitarian persons is that of correctly naming their location in the order of causality.\u201d Ironically, \u201cthe very motifs that later critics have latched onto in order to attain a thicker description of the distinctions and relations between the  <em> hypostaseis <\/em> , such as  <em> kenosis <\/em>  and mutual glorification, are already anticipated in Gregory.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his brilliant Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine) , Khaled Anatolios notes that some recent theologians have criticized the Cappadocian \u201creduction\u201d of the distinction of divine Persons \u201cto the order of causality\u201d (232). Speaking of Gregory of Nyssa in particular, Anatolios responds: \u201csuch criticism is based on an artificial abstraction of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology-trinity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Causality and Characterization<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In his brilliant Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine) , Khaled Anatolios notes that some recent theologians have\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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