Orthodox Dogmatic Theology Vol 2

by Dumitru Stăniloae

The long-awaited second of six planned volumes in translation of this, the greatest masterpiece of modern Orthodox theology. Staniloae develops a theology of creation, humanity, the unseen world of angels and demons, the fall of humanity, providence and the deification of the world.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, Spirituality

467 pages, Paperback

First published December 20, 2000

About the author

Dumitru Stăniloae (Romanian pronunciation: [duˈmitru stəniˈlo̯aje] was a Romanian Eastern Orthodox priest, theologian, academic, and professor. Father Stăniloae worked for over 45 years on a comprehensive Romanian translation of the Philokalia, a collection of writings by the Church Fathers, together with the hieromonk, Arsenie Boca, who brought manuscripts from Mount Athos. His masterpiece, The Dogmatic Orthodox Theology (1978), makes him one of the most reputed Christian Theologians of the second half of the 20th century. He produced valuable comments on the works of the Fathers of the Church, such as Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, or Athanasius the Great.

Reviews

[Silouan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“When the mirror of the human soul was untroubled, the personal God, creator and providential guide, revealed himself there with an uncontestable degree of evidence, and all the good intentions of man coincided with those suggested from within by God. The natural and the supernatural did not form two distinct levels of life and reality, but combined in a singular order of life that was simultaneously lucid and good. It is particularly to this state that did not know sin that St. Maximus assertion regarding the absence of distinction between the natural law and the supernatural law applies.
In the condition that was his from the beginning, man saw in all things, just as the saint does, gifts continually being offered by God and words continually being addressed to him through the various circumstances brought about by God.
Nature itself was a diaphanous medium of the present activity and speech of God. Only when sin blunted the acuteness of man's pure sensitivity to God, who works and speaks through created things, did the necessity arise for a revelation that differed from the activity that God was still carrying on at every moment through the medium of creation, but no longer perceived by man. Before that time God walked continuously through the transparent ‘garden of the world.’”

“Although man enjoyed a freedom he no longer had after he fell into sin, the freedom of the first man was not so confirmed in the good, however, as to hold completely firm in the face of temptations from a sensibility that was predominantly of the flesh. The first man was able to change his state of purity more easily than someone who is consolidated in his hold on the good by reason of long perseverance, yet the attraction to such a change in the case of the first man did not come from the violence of certain pleasures already tasted or of certain passions that had penetrated deeply within through the habituation of nature.”

“Dark spirits can infiltrate so deeply into our souls and bodies that their "I" comes close to uniting with our own "I," so that it is hard to distinguish the manifestation of what is ours from what is theirs. That is why the fathers call for attentiveness and great sobriety when dealing with "phantasms" and other products of the imagination.
Because the demons are close to humans who have different kinds of passions and because they are responsible for feeding these passions within them, the demons have something akin to humans within themselves. That is why they are distinguished according to the groups of those overmastered by each of the various passions. St John Cassian, for example, spoke of the eight spirits proper to the eight passions (the spirit of gluttony, unchastity, avarice, anger, dejection, sloth, vainglory, and pride). But these work in solidarity for the purpose of having the passions succeed one another in a chain.”

[G Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please see notes from volume #1 in this series...