Drew at Paradoxicon has a very interesting review of David Bradshaw’s Aristotle East and West. I’d like to complement Drew’s thoughtful review with some excerpts from a review of Bradshaw by Augustine Casiday, an Orthodox professor at the University of Wales (Lampeter) and a student of Fr Andrew Louth.
… I often find his claims unpersuasive. Without intending to evaluate Dr Bradshaw’s claims about the reception of Aristotelian philosophy as such, I can say in fairness that argument is cogent, but even so I have reservations about his analysis, which in many ways lacks nuance and, in a few important cases, substance. To put it bluntly, the accounts of particular figures and their beliefs are often crudely executed. I will come to specific examples in due course, but it is striking that, in general, the East is good and the West is bad. That is to say, Eastern thinkers are treated sympathetically and interpreted generously; these passages are richer and fuller than the comparable accounts of Western thinkers … For all the clarity of its evaluation and the discipline with which the analysis is arranged, the basic presuppositions of the book (the unargued beliefs, that is, which support the generalities to which I have been objecting) are by no means self-evidently justified.
The review appeared in a recent issue of Sobornost (28:2). It’s not an entirely negative review, but Dr Casiday does confirm some impressions I’ve had of the book, without being able to put my finger on exactly what bothered me about it. (Of course, Dr Casiday’s judgment must always be suspect because of his first name … just kidding, folks!).
Personally, I wouldn’t dream of attacking Bradshaw from this blog, because (though I’ve studied philosophy) I am not a very good philosopher, and I am scared of his very clever online defenders. The most I can say is that I found his philosophical arguments to be fascinating, but, like Dr Casiday, I am far less impressed with some of his historical judgments.
Thanks for the reference! What bothered me about the book was the philosophy, and not the history as such. As a historical review, it’s probably one of the best (on top of being one of the most accessible) out there on the subject of medieval Byzantine philosophy. The three things that bothered me most were (1) his almost entirely negative portrayal of Augustine as the beginner of “Western” deviations from patristic thought (p. 275); (2) his lack of concern regarding the unity of God and how it can be consistently maintained with a “real” distinction between the essence and the energies (pp. 268-270). The problem is not the same as the unity between the persons and the essence, as the essence is simply the “place” where the persons “overlap,” to borrow Richard Cross’s language (cf. “Two Models of the Trinity?”). For the essence and the energies to be one on that model, there would have to be a common essence of the essence and the energies that bound them together. This is just the “third man” argument right out of Aristotle (which in turn makes one wonder if Aristotle held quite the view Bradshaw attributes to him, considering that Aristotle himself posed powerful objections to such an interpretation with regard to the Platonic Forms). Finally, (3) Bradshaw seems to think the Eastern view to be non-conceptual (and therefore not subject to the laws of contradiction which supposedly reduced the “Western” view of God to deism and then to atheism) and thus insusceptible to such influences as the Enlightenment, sectarianism, caesaropapism, and the like.
“These failings [of “the West,” i.e., the Crusades, Inquisitions, religious wars, unbelief, etc.] were traced to an idea of God that was said to be incomprehensible and self-contradictory. It is no wonder, the charge ran, that the various sects are perpetually at one another’s throats, since each has laid hold in an arbitrary way upon a single idea that is fundamentally incoherent…The East has no concept of God…For the East morality is not primarily a matter of conformance to law, nor of achieving human excellence by acquiring the virtues…As for persecution and religious war, it is also striking that the major institutions and movements that embodied them in the West, such as the Crusades, the military orders, and the Inquisition, all arose after the schism” (pp. 275-276).
If this is not triumphalism, then I don’t know what is. The Byzantine Empire was rarely at peace with its Islamic neighbors (not that this was the Byzantines’ fault, but such certainly constituted a “religious war” of sorts), nor did it hesitate to persecute those within its realm that constituted a threat to the Imperial Church, such as the Jews, the Bogomils, the Paulicians, the Monophysites, the Monothelites, etc., all of whom suffered the sword of persecution at some point in Byzantine history. The Crusades were a Western response to a cry for help from the Byzantine emperor, and in terms of unbelief and persecution, why did Dr. Bradshaw not bother to mention Communism? Bradshaw traces all of these errors to an “incoherent” and “self-contradictory” Western understanding of God. This seems to be a more apt description of some of his own theologizing than of Thomas Aquinas or Duns Scotus (or Augustine). Aside from that, it is not a great step from denying the concept of God to denying the existence of God. I must confess I do not understand the willingness of so many among the “Eastern-minded” (i.e., not just Orthodox, but also Catholics and Jews) to enthusiastically embrace the notion that true religion requires the absence of a concept of God, when such a position is indistinguishable from philosophical atheism (though of course from theological atheism). Just my thoughts, take them or leave them. :)
Could you give a more complete bibliographical reference for the review by Casiday? — I would like to request it through my local interlibrary loan program.
BTW — I know Augustine Casiday (as an acquaintance from several years ago, just before and during his early days at Durham). Good fellow. Of interest: he took the name Augustine as his chrismation name when becoming Orthodox. His given name is Michael.
Fr Joseph,
I receive Sobornost in the mail, but I have misplaced the issue with Casiday’s review of Bradshaw (I typed up the quote some time ago, but without the page references). I do know that it’s from Sobornost 28:2.
Many thanks for the information about Casiday. I’ve not met him, but I have enjoyed reading some of his articles and reviews. Taking the name “Augustine” upon entering the Orthodox Church is a bold statement, I think! :-)
Thank you. If you come across that issue later, perhaps you could drop me an e-mail. The ladies at the library do tend to want complete info when you ask for something.