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In the Image and Likeness of God. By

Vladimir Lossky. New York, St. Vladimir's
Seminary Press, 1974. Pp. 232. No price.

George Dion. Dragas

Scottish Journal of Theology / Volume 32 / Issue 01 / February 1979, pp 77 - 80

DOI: 10.1017/S0036930600043428, Published online: 02 February 2009

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George Dion. Dragas (1979). Scottish Journal of Theology, 32, pp
77-80 doi:10.1017/S0036930600043428

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 BOOK REVIEWS 77
inevitably to lose balance, however creative and important may be
aspects of that philosopher's thinking.
In the third and final section come 'Some Theological Details',
expounding the effect of Bultmann's existentialist reduction on the
doctrine of God, ethics and faith. The conclusion is that these and
other Christian teachings resist unification in terms of a single idea.
It is at this point that readers will divide. Whether they follow
Bultmann or Roberts, it will be difficult for them to accuse this
author of a superficial critique, for he has probed deeply and
sympathetically. His book should prove an indispensable intro-
duction to Bultmann the systematic theologian for a long time to
come.
COLIN GUNTON (London)

In the Image and Likeness of God. By VLADIMIR LOSSKY. New York, St.
Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974. Pp. 232. No price.
ANOTHER book of Lossky in English is without doubt a theological
event! English-speaking readers are familiar with the lucid and
penetrating style of the great Orthodox theologian, author of the
Vision of God (Faith Press, 1952) and the celebrated Mystical Theology
of the Eastern Church (J. Clarke, 1957). This book moves along the
same lines, clarifying and developing the distinctive theological
theses which were defended in the earlier writings. It represents a
collection of essays translated from the French edition (Aubier-
Montaigne, 1967), which, as Professor John Meyendorff remarks in
the Preface, 'represent a very consistent doctrinal statement of the
Orthodox understanding of man's destiny as communion in love
with the Triune God' (p. 11).
Essays one to three deal with the doctrine of God and the know-
ledge of God. The first one discusses the character of theological
apophasis and its place in God's revelation, and the contrasts
between the apophaticisms of the O T and NT and of Clement the
Alexandrian and Dionysios the Areopagite. The second essay
explores the semantics of 'darkness' and 'light' in the context of
man's knowledge of God. In the centre of it, we find the two senses
of darkness, the negative or Johannine, which signifies epistemo-
logical, moral and even ontological absence of God, and the positive
or theological, which is associated with the cloud which Moses en-
countered on his ascent to Sinai. The discussion is developed with
reference to the thought of Philo, Clement the Alexandrian, Origen,
Evagrius, Gregory of Nyssa and Dionysios the Areopagite. The third
essay develops the theology of light, with reference to its classic
78 SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
exponent, St. Gregory Palamas, and particularly the central Pala-
mite thesis that, 'God is called light not according to his essence, but
according to his energy'. This last distinction is interpreted as a
theological repudiation of the intellectualism which replaces the
experience of God's grace and energy with abstract ideological
conceptions. The fourth essay is particularly important because it
contrasts the Eastern and Western teachings concerning the pro-
cession of the Holy Spirit. The root problem is the difference of
Eastern and Western Triadologies. The Western relies on the
principle of 'relations of opposition' as the clue to the hypostatic
distinctions within the Trinity, and inevitably prescribes the onto-
logical primacy of the divine essence over the divine hypostases.
Eastern Triadology refuses to identify relations of origin with
relations of opposition. It regards the three persons as absolute as
the essence, refuses to subject the one to the other, and therefore
prescribes an 'absolute existential antinomy', which demands
theological apophasis.
The fifth essay discusses the fundamental difference between the
Anselmic and the Greek Patristic views of Redemption and their
implications for ecclesiology and particularly the Christian notion of
persons and their relation to human nature. Above all the Anselmic
view is Christomonistic whereas the Greek Patristic is both Christo-
logical and Pneumatological. The Christological aspect (objective)
pertains to the human nature and the Pneumatological (subjective)
to the human persons. The distinctly Christian categories of
'persons' and 'nature' are further clarified in the sixth essay. Like
the 'hypostaseis' and the 'ousia' in the Holy Trinity, they have
absolute existential status and therefore can neither be derived from
each other nor conceptualised by means of a notional hermeneutical
principle, but must be approached apophatically. Lossky's notion of
'person' moves between the opposite notions of Boethius and Richard
of St. Victor, and is connected with the language of the 'image'
which is explored in the following seventh essay in the double
context of Triadology and anthropology. When applied to the
divine persons the imago dei refers to their common nature, the
komoousion. In anthropology, it does not refer to a 'natural' com-
munion of God and man, but to the grace of God in man, and
pertains to the totality of human existence, persons and nature.
The eighth essay offers a profound discussion on the notion of
Tradition, connecting it with the Gift of the Holy Spirit who abides
and acts in the Church, the Body of Christ. This vertical notion of
Tradition is fundamentally interconnected with all sorts of hori-
zontal ecclesiastical traditions, such as Bible, dogma, liturgy, etc.,
which are partial but true and can only be known in the light of the
 BOOK REVIEWS 79
transcending fullness of the former to which they belong. The ninth
essay develops the ecclesiological meaning of catholicity. It is a fact
inherent in the very being of the Church in virtue of her possession
of the Truth which is founded on the Father's will realised in
Christology and Pneumatology. Christ creates the natural unity of
men and the Holy Spirit establishes their personal diversity.
Catholicity consists in the perfect harmony of this created unity and
diversity, which is ultimately rooted in the Truth of the Triune
God. As such, it excludes both dogmatism (resulting from Christo-
monism) and pentecostalism (resulting from Pneumatomonism). The
meaning of the catholicity of the Church is further clarified in
the following essay where the fundamental notion of theological
anthropology, the catholic consciousness, is expounded at length.
Catholic consciousness is neither group-consciousness (impersonal
objectivism), nor mere self-awareness nor preponderant opinion
(personalist subjectivism), which are determined philosophically in
the context of the old Adam. In the context of ecclesial reality there
are as many personal consciousnesses as human persons, but there is
only one subject of consciousness, the Church. The eleventh essay,
on the Panagia, the all-holy One who has consummated the holiness
of the Church and all holiness possible to created being, is an
excellent outline of Orthodox mariological doctrine. It provides the
occasion for discussing the reciprocal relations between Mariology
and devotion, tradition, dogma and scripture, and expounds the
unique relationship between the Person of the Mother of God and
God, founded not only on the Father's will realised in the Incarnation
and Pentecost, but also on the will and faith of the Virgin. Particu-
larly interesting is Lossky's outline of Orthodox theological objections
to the R.C. dogma of the Immaculate Conception and his exposition
of the uniqueness of the Mother of God. The last essay is a critical
investigation of Christian eschatology, based on an examination of
the notions of God's dominion over his creation and God's Kingdom
in redemption. Far from being a mechanical notion, an external
constraint imposed by necessity, and far from being realised auto-
matically, God's dominion is connected with the free submission of
human wills to God's will in love, which presupposes the divine risk
of a contingent creation and created persons endowed with self-
determining freedom. It is the dynamic process of the fulfilment of
God's kingdom in man's deification realised on the plane of Christ's
Body, the Church.
This is a brief account of the central theses of Lossky's thought but
there is a profound and rich content built around them. They are
expounded dialogically and even polemically against heterodox
alternatives and have a distinctly orthodox ecclesiastical dogmatic
80 SCOTTISH JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
character. It is a coherent dogmatic statement of Orthodox Theology
extremely valuable to the contemporary attempt to reconstruct
Christian Theology on an ecumenical and strictly Christian basis.
Following the text the editors have appended a 'Bibliography of
the writings of Vladimir N. Lossky (1903-1958)' which comprises
Lossky's entire literary output in Russian, French, English, German
and Rumanian. They omitted to indicate the Greek translations of
Lossky's major works, including the Mystical Theology (translated and
edited by the presbyteress Stella K. Pleurakes Thessalonike, 1964,
2nd ed. 1972), the Vision of God (translated by Meletios Kalamaras
and edited by Basil Rigopoulos, Thessalonica, 1973), and the present
volume (translated by M. G. Michaelides, and edited by Basil
Rigopoulos, Thessalonica, 1974).
GEORGE DION. DRAGAS {Durham)

Love's Endeavour Love's Expense. By W. VANSTONE. London, Darton,

Longman and Todd, 1977. Pp. 120. £2-95.
A MOST moving book. An unforgettable book, not because it con-
vinces in all it says but because it is a book of heart and head. A vital
piece of theological reflection emerges from the despair of a parish
priest. It really is an account of life from the dead. The reader is
taken modestly by the hand and introduced into the heart of one
man's life. Through a fragment of pain and the resulting under-
standing you see a vision of the whole, intimate and immense, the
twin marks of the work of God in the soul of man. We see a man
thinking, engaging, resolving. Here is a natural theology of the
personal, which a preceding faith in the incarnate Son of God who
spoke in parables underwrites. Here is the story of a priest who in
the despair of understanding why he and a church building have to
be planted down in an indifferent, self-sufficient housing estate, is
suddenly shown that he, and it, and the few who will come, are all
in order that one leper out of ten cleansed by the expensive love
of God can return and give thanks for the lot. He goes on to reflect
on the transcendence of love's power and Tightness, love's power to
become powerless both in creation and in redemption. 'Anything else
that leaves love, power and justice separated leads to a Trinity not
surpassing but contradicting the logic of the person.' If it had not
been used for the life of Michelangelo, the title, The Agony and the
Ecstasy, would have fitted this book.
The personal equation in the book is so strong that it gives rise to
several theological problems. Does love put itself at risk to such an
extent that the final outcome of its rejection or acceptance is unknown