{"id":1408,"date":"2025-06-17T13:22:55","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T18:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/?p=1408"},"modified":"2025-06-17T13:22:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T18:22:55","slug":"the-hexagon-of-heresy-part-3-cosmology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/2025\/06\/the-hexagon-of-heresy-part-3-cosmology\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hexagon of Heresy \u2013 Part 3: Cosmology"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The This post is the third in a series on a recent book by James D. Gifford, Jr. titled The Hexagon of Heresy: A Historical and Theological Study of Definitional Divine Simplicity<\/em><\/a> (Wipf & Stock, 2022).<\/p>\n

In the first post<\/a> I discussed the problem of the One and the Many and why the idea of absolute or definitional divine simplicity (DDS) is problematic. I also explained how the “Hexagon of heresy” arises in response to the One\u2013Many dialectic spawned by DDS.<\/p>\n

In the second post<\/a> I applied the lessons of the first post to Christology. DDS, it turns out, makes it impossible to develop anything like an orthodox Christology because it sets Christ’s divinity and humanity in opposition to each other. This opposition can be (a) acquiesced to, resulting in the dichotomist-dualist<\/em> Christological heresies of Ebionism, Arianism, and Nestorianism; (b) dialectically overcome with Christ’s divinity controlling and dominating his humanity, resulting in the monist<\/em> Christological heresies of Docetism, Apollinarianism, and Monophysitism; or (c) avoided by rejecting DDS and related ideas in favor of Christological orthodoxy<\/em>, which allows Christ’s divinity and humanity synergistically to\u00a0harmonize.<\/p>\n

In this post I apply the lessons of the first two posts to cosmology or how creation relates to God. The questions to consider, therefore, are whether\u00a0 creation is (a) fundamentally independent of God in dichotomist-dualist<\/em> fashion, (b) ultimately wholly controlled by God in monist<\/em> fashion, or (c) derivatively independent of God so that the two are not inherently opposed but rather able synergistically\u00a0to unite in Christologically orthodox\u00a0<\/em>fashion. By “derivative” independence I mean that creation, while ultimately dependent on God as its creator, has a measure of gifted<\/em> or\u00a0delegated<\/em> independence from God. Creation, in other words, is genuinely free. This freedom is limited, but it is neither an illusion (as the monists<\/em> would have it) nor is it fundamental (as the dichotomist-dualists<\/em> would have it).<\/p>\n

From Christology to Cosmology<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ecumenical councils from 325 to 681 gradually dismantled the heretical Christological symptoms<\/em>\u00a0of DDS, but they did not explicitly address or reject DDS itself. So, despite the defeat of DDS with respect to Christology, that defeat remained merely\u00a0implicit<\/em>. This allowed DDS to continue influencing Christian theology in other areas, such as\u00a0cosmology<\/em>\u00a0(how creation relates to God),\u00a0providence<\/em>\u00a0(how God manages creation),\u00a0soteriology<\/em>\u00a0(how God heals and saves a fallen creation), and\u00a0theological method<\/em> (how creatures can best arrive at knowledge of God). In particular, Augustine of Hippo (354\u2013430), the single most influential Church father in the Latin West, made DDS a central assumption of his theology. He thereby effectively ensured (without quite realizing it) that the same heretical tendencies Origen’s affirmation of DDS injected into Christology would reemerge in other areas.<\/p>\n

I’ll say more about Augustine shortly. For now, we should observe that in Scripture Christology is intimately connected to cosmology. As Gifford puts it, “the New Testament, specifically in the opening verses of John, Colossians, and Hebrews, places Christ (as God) at the center of creation\u201d (p. 135). John 1:1\u20133, Colossians 1:15\u201317,\u00a0 and Hebrews 1:1\u20133a collectively teach that Christ, the divine Word or Logos, creates and sustains all (created) things and that all such things exist \u201cin,\u201d \u201cthrough,\u201d and \u201cfor\u201d him. Furthermore, as the preeminent mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5), Christ is also the preeminent mediator between God and creation. For reasons having to do with both creation and the incarnation, therefore, Christology has direct implications for cosmology.<\/p>\n

An Arian Christology, for example, implies that God either cannot or will not interact directly<\/em> with creation, but only indirectly, through a created intermediary. Thus, Christ, the fullest revelation of God to humanity, is (on the Arian scheme) a mere creature, albeit the greatest possible creature. And if God never interacts directly with creation, then it follows that creation can never interact directly with God. Of course, if creation cannot interact directly with God, then not even the created Arian Christ can interact directly with God. The Arian Christ therefore needs a mediator between God and himself, a mediator that, on the Arian scheme, does not exist. In short, the cosmological implication of Arianism is that not only creation, but Christ himself, is cut off from direct access to God. Us creatures cannot experience<\/em> God. The best we can do is make inferences<\/em> about God from what we observe in creation. And forget about miraculous divine intervention into creation. If God can do that, then he can become incarnate. But Arianism denies the incarnation and so, by implication, it must also deny the miraculous. The net result is that Christological Arianism entails its cosmological counterpart, namely, deism<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Christian Cosmology through the 4th Century AD<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prior to the great Christological debates of the 4th\u20137th centuries, the early Christians viewed cosmology through the lens of Christ’s double role as creator and incarnate mediator.<\/p>\n

Justin Martyr (c. 100\u2013c. 165) associated the Word (Logos) of John 1:1 with the Stoic notion of the logoi spermatikoi<\/em>, the rational seeds “implanted by God in all humans” in virtue being created in God’s image. By virtue of these logoi<\/em>, human reason is a finite participation in the divine Logos expressed throughout creation and preeminently in Christ (Gifford, p. 135).<\/p>\n

Irenaeus (c. 130\u2013c. 202) was the first prominent Christian to clearly affirm creation ex nihilo<\/em> in contrast to Greek philosophical ideas of necessary emanation and eternally preexistent matter (Gifford, p. 136). For God to create ex nihilo<\/em> is for God to create freely<\/em> and by Himself alone<\/em>, without external assistance or constraints.<\/p>\n

During the first two centuries there was nothing especially problematic about Christian cosmology. Early thinkers “articulated the received tradition well,” but their use of “pagan thought structures” and terminology harbored latent dangers that came to fruition in the third century work of Origin of Alexandria (184\u2013253). Because he accepted DDS, Origen was compelled to view creation as both eternal and necessary. He viewed the very coming-to-be of creation as a kind of metaphysical \u201cfall,\u201d a departure from God\u2019s perfect rest, toward which all creation must eventually and inevitably return (Gifford, pp. 136\u2013137).<\/p>\n

Athanasius (c. 294\u2013373) began the process of reversing Origen\u2019s cosmological confusion by reasserting creation ex nihilo<\/em> and the essence\/energies distinction. Creation is God\u2019s free act<\/em>, not something that flows inexorably from God\u2019s being or essence.<\/p>\n

Finally, Basil of Caesarea (329\u2013379) countered the Stoic idea that creation was a mere projection of God\u2019s thoughts (logoi<\/em>), insisting that \u201ccreatures do not simply receive their form and diversity from God; they possess an energy, certainly also God-given, but authentically their own\u201d (Gifford, p. 138, quoting Meyendorff). In this context Basil cited\u00a0Genesis 1:24: \u201cLet the earth bring forth \u2026\u201d to argue that creation was gifted its own<\/em> energy. Creatures were made to do things, not merely imitate divine rest \u00e0 la Origen.<\/p>\n

Maximus the Confessor and the\u00a0Logos\/<\/em>logoi<\/em> distinction<\/strong><\/p>\n

A couple centuries later, Maximus the Confessor (c. 580\u2013662) drew together the various strands of the earlier Church fathers into a cosmological synthesis that eventually became normative for Eastern Christianity. His central idea is the Logos<\/em>\/logoi<\/em> distinction. It’s not easy to piece together exactly what he means because he doesn’t lay it out in any one place. Drawing on primary and secondary literature, Gifford provides over twenty different descriptions of the logoi<\/em> in Ch. 8 of his book. Here are a few of them:<\/p>\n