The Celebrated Difference of East and West

It is a common assertion in academic discussions of Church History that the Eastern Church and the Western Church have developed rather different theologies. Particularly, it is said that the West has an understanding of redemption which ought to be understood primarily as forensic and moral, i.e. the forgiveness of sins. In contrast, the East is said to have a more cosmic emphasis, i.e., the transfer of man from death to life. This difference can hardly be denied, and it has often been a prime obstacle for both the Orthodox, as well as those in the Western tradition, when they have come together to discuss doctrine.

Yet I wonder whether this assertion is somewhat overstated and does not do justice to many ancient theologians in the West or the East. Now, a full investigation of this assertion would require volumes of work. A preliminary reference to the thought of two respected theologians, though, one from the Christian West and one from the Christian East might reveal more similarities than we would expect. I am going to attempt a quick reference to some of the similarities in theological method and understanding between Anselm of Canterbury and Maximus the Confessor, which is based on some independent work I have recently begun.

But, first, let us engage in a quick discussion to set the context for the comparison. Why should we pick Anselm and Maximus, and who are they?

We pick Anselm of Canterbury (ca 1033-1109) as one of the clearest examples of the Western tradition. He is now notorious for his formulation of the "satisfaction theory" of the atonement, a theory which has undergone a great deal of criticism in the modern period, despite its seminal importance. Anselm is often considered to be an epitome of the Western obsession with forensic categories which only work in particular Western cultures. For example, Anselm construes sin at some points in his work as an offense against Divine Justice, for which God must have satisfaction in order to maintain his dignity or honor. This formulation has struck many as a an attempt at mapping the power relationships of medieval Europe onto the divine/human relationship, and the "satisfaction theory" is often trotted out in contemporary theology as an example of everything that is wrong with the Western theological tradition.

Maximus the Confessor, on the other hand, is clearly a representative of Eastern Christianity in late antiquity. He was born in Constantinople ca. 580 (or Palestine, there is some disagreement in the sources) and spent most of his time in Asia Minor, Palestine, and Africa, before spending a few years working for the Pope in Rome, after which he experienced condemnation, several exiles, punishment, and death from suffering. His thoughts were later reconsidered, and he was accepted as a saint by both East and West, being dubbed "the Confessor." Maximus left behind more than ninety works, the majority of which are marked by his concern with the controversy of Monothelistism. While he did spend a little time in the West, Maximus is a good representative of the Eastern tradition due to his affinities with the Alexandrians, Cappadocians, and Pseudo-Dionysius (church historians feel free to pick this apart). Also, Maximus has an emphasis on the gradual ascent of the human being towards God through "struggling" on the path of virtue opened by Christ.

Now, I have been less than convinced of the relative difference between East and West for some time. In particular, I first moved along this line of thought rather freely as I began reading Alister McGrath's Iustitia Dei. He lists some details in that book about how Anselm's discussion of redemption (and that of other Western thinkers) cannot be understood without grasping that Anselm puts forward a rather interesting theory of justification. Anselm's understanding of justification is not "purely forensic," as various critics claim. He does not think that "iustifactio hominis" has only to do with a legal fiction. Rather, Anselm understands iustitia and ius, to refer not only to "justice" or legal standing before the law, but also to cosmic "rightness." Humanity must be restored to the right place in the created order in order for there to be redemption. Already, this emphasis on the restoration of humanity to its proper place in the universe starts to sound more "cosmic" or Eastern. Anselm, the epitome of the so-called forensic preoccupation of the West, does not seem to fall into the trap of viewing redemption in purely legal terms.

What this may show us is that the tendency towards the forensic understanding of redemption was actually a later model, exemplified best in formulations of the Reformation and later Protestant Scholasticism. The legal preoccupation, then, is not characteristically Western but definitively Protestant. Inasmuch as Protestants (like many others) have wanted to read their theology back into earlier sources, they tended to find antecedents for themselves, and others readers approaching the same texts came to them with understandings influenced by the newly traditional Protestant understandings of redemption and justification. Protestant understandings of informed Western academic readings.

My re-investigation of this issue in the primary sources has only started in earnest recently, but I am beginning a comparison of Maximus the Confessor's Logos Asketikos and Anselm's Cur Deus Homo. Both of the works are worthy of comparison because both of them are trying to answer a particular question. Anselm- why did God become Man? Maximus- what was the point (skopos) of the Lord's incarnation?

Another reason I imagine that this comparison will be fruitful springs from the several similarities between the works. First, and most superficially, I've found it rather striking that both Anselm and Maximus write in the traditional format of dialogue to discuss the question. The dialogues take rather different shapes, and they have different goals in mind, but they begin with a similar method of inquiry and response. There is one who is unlearned, who comes to a more learned teacher of theology, who attempts to proceed in an intentionally humble manner as both approach something mysterious. This detail may initially seem rather unimportant, but it reveals a certain humility in Eastern and Western Christian discourse: approaching the mystery of the Incarnation and its significance for human redemption requires a level of humility. Both of the "teachers" in the dialogues express concerns about their ability to understand the issue.

Second, both Maximus and Anselm appeal to a rather specific set of ideas. Namely, they refer to the locus classicus of atonement theology, Paul's discussion in Romans 5:12-21, and particularly to his statement that it was necessary for redemption to come through a Man (that is, a human) because sin had come through a Man. Both Maximus and Anselm appeal to other fairly similar ideas which I won't rehearse here. I will simply sum it up by noting that they have a common base of models for understanding the redemption of humanity, which is significant when we compare the deeper structure of their theology (e.g. death must be overturned by death, one under the Law must redeem those under the Law, his obedience is the substitute for our disobedience and that of Adam, etc.).

These are two brief examples of similarities between these two theologians, but they are only samples of the beginning of my discovery of deep congruence between many of the traditional Eastern and Western understandings of redemption. I will, of course, post more on this topic as I continue to work my way through the Logos Asketikos and Cur Deus Homo.

I suppose now I have to draw out my reason for even including this discussion. Who cares? Does this issue have any real significance for scholarship in general? I believe so. I had a recent discussion with a friend in which we briefly considered a major issue in the study of religion. Namely, few seem to have read closely the primary sources which they are ostensibly supposed to know backwards and forwards. Instead, they have ingested a steady diet of secondary works which fill them with the academic equivalent of the pious platitudes of folk theology. So, you hear statements like, "The Platonic view of the soul has resulted in a lack of emphasis on the physical and bodily in Western thought." Really now? The Platonic view? Considering that Plato's view of the soul is not consistent in the records we have of his thought and is often considered to be, in some sense, physical, it is rather astonishing that anyone can come to this conclusion (I will leave aside at this time the diversities of the 'Platonic tradition' in Western thought). Needless to say, I think we need to reconsider where the lack of emphasis on the body comes from in Western thought, as well as consider whether there really is such a lack of emphasis.

Similarly to our example above, scholars repeat statements like, "Eastern theology is focused on cosmic redemption, and Western theology tends towards legal metaphors." They repeat these statements while only rarely returning to the sources of their scholarship and seeing whether it is the case. Again, why is this significant? It is significant because I think that we tend to read "Western" theology through the eyes of the Reformers and their heirs, whether or not we identify with the Protestant/Reformed traditions. The academy has often been unduly influenced by Protestant readings of theological and historical sources, which has led to the perception of such a sharp divide.

Now, it is evident that we cannot go back and examine every thought which fits in our overall conceptual framework. But we should recognize how many of our thoughts are actually placeholders formulated by other thinkers and accepted rather uncritically on our part. I don't doubt this sort of action is necessary for us to function in the world. I simply think that we might want to continue doing this sort of re-examination of concepts before we go making a career out of them.

I wonder, though, what other sorts of misconceptions do we have? Is it the fate of every generation to cannibalize the works of the previous generation, by saying that they were blind, foolish, and didn't examine their presuppositions?