Ioannis Zizioulas

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

IS JOHN ZIZIOULAS ANEXISTENTIALIST IN DISGUISE?RESPONSE TO LUCIAN TURCESCU

ARISTOTLE PAPANIKOLAOU

Criticism of John Zizioulas’s relational ontology of trinitarian personhoodgenerally rebukes him for attempting to dress his philosophical personalismand existentialism with Cappadocian language and parade it as patristic.1 Arelational ontology is not what the Cappadocians are up to, so the argumentgoes, and it has more to do with modern philosophical trends. LucianTurcescu gives the most recent and, perhaps, sharpest expression of this critique.2 Turcescu’s judgment rests on the distinction made by Zizioulasbetween the individual and the person. He summarizes Zizioulas’s ownunderstanding of the notion of the “individual” as, first, a complex of qual-ities that cannot ensure uniqueness. Second, an individual is an entity thatcan be enumerated whereas the uniqueness and sacredness of the persondefies such enumeration. Thirdly, Western theology and philosophy wronglydefine “person” as “individual” and such an identification has its roots inAugustine and Boethius. Zizioulas further claims, according to Turcescu,that this understanding of “person” as “individual” is absent in the Cap-padocian Fathers. Turcescu then attempts to show that Gregory of Nyssadoes in fact speak of “person” in terms that Zizioulas associates with theconcept of “individual”. By so doing, he hopes to show that Zizioulas’s rela-tional understanding of “person” cannot be attributed to the CappadocianFathers.

Turcescu proceeds to provide citations gathered primarily from the workof Gregory of Nyssa as supporting evidence in his attempt to illustrate that“the understanding of a person as a collection, congress or complex of prop-

Modern Theology 20:4 October 2004ISSN 0266-7177 (Print)ISSN 1468-0025 (Online)

Aristotle PapanikolaouDepartment of Theology, Fordham University, 113 West 60th Street, New York, NY 10023-7484,USA

erties is found in the Cappadocian texts when the Fathers try to explain whata person is”,3 and that “the concept of enumeration of individuals (that is,the individuals being subject to addition and combination) was an impor-tant feature of the concept of person”.4 He further argues that the distinctionbetween individual and person was one not made at the time of the Cap-padocians and that the terms were used interchangeably. In fact, “[t]heirswas a time when the notion of individual/person was only emerging”.5 Thethrust of Turcescu’s argument can be paraphrased as follows: by looking pri-marily at the work of Gregory of Nyssa, it can be shown that the Cappado-cian Fathers do in fact identify person with individual as Zizioulas definesthe latter and, therefore, there is no such thing as a relational ontology ofperson in the trinitarian theology of the Cappadocian Fathers.

Though Turcescu may, in the end, be correct that a relational ontology oftrinitarian personhood does not exist in the Cappadocian Fathers, this particular article does not by itself discredit Zizioulas’s interpretation. First,Turcescu grounds his critique primarily in interpretation of passages byGregory of Nyssa. Of all the Cappadocian Fathers, however, Zizioulas’sdevelopment of his relational ontology of trinitarian personhood relies leaston the thought of Gregory of Nyssa. Put another way, if one were to elimi-nate the references to Gregory of Nyssa in the works where Zizioulas mostdevelops his relational ontology of trinitarian personhood, there would belittle, if any, substantive change.6 This focus on Gregory of Nyssa is under-standable given the fact that the volume in which the essay appeared wasdevoted to “re-thinking” Gregory of Nyssa. But it does not warrant thegeneral claim that a relational ontology of trinitarian personhood cannot befound within the thought of the Cappadocian Fathers or in the Easternpatristic tradition. It also does not sufficiently address Zizioulas’s interpre-tation of other patristic writers upon which he bases his claim about the linkbetween a relational ontology and the doctrine of the Trinity.

The Cappadocian Father that is never mentioned by Turcescu is arguablythe one whose thought is most significant for Zizioulas’s claims about a relational ontology of trinitarian personhood: Gregory Nazianzus. Zizioulascites this Cappadocian Father as support for the Cappadocian understand-ing of the monarchia of the Father.7 If there is an ontology that is personal andrelational, in which person has ontological priority over substance, it isbecause of the monarchy of the Father, which means that God

as Father and not as substance, perpetually confirms through “being”His free will to exist. And it is precisely His trinitarian existence that con-stitutes this confirmation: the Father out of love—that is, freely—begetsthe Son and brings forth the Spirit. Thus God as person—as the hyposta-sis of the Father—makes the one divine substance to be that which it is:the one God. . . . Outside the Trinity there is not God, that is, no divinesubstance, because the ontological “principle” of God is the Father.8

602 Aristotle Papanilolaou

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004

It is clear that for Zizioulas, the Cappadocian distinction between ousia andhypostasis, the linking together of hypostasis and prosopon with the result ofgiving “ontological content” to the category of prosopon, the distinctionbetween essence and tropos hyparxeos, or “mode of existence”, express a per-sonal, relational ontology insofar as their meaning is grounded in the prin-ciple of the monarchy of the Father. Without the monarchy of the Father,according to Zizioulas, there is no such ontology.9

Even a “primordial” communion between the trinitarian persons is notenough to affirm a relational ontology since this communion itself is one ofnecessity and not freedom. A relational ontology of trinitarian personhoodmeans, for Zizioulas, that freedom is at the heart of ontology insofar as“being” means to be free from the “given”. For created existence, this meansto be free from finitude and death that are inherent to created existence. Tobe is to exist in an eternal relationship with the loving God and only throughsuch a relationship is created existence “free” to be eternally in loving unionwith this God. But in order for God to give this freedom from the “given”,Zizioulas argues that God’s mode of existence, tropos hyparxeos, must itselfbe free from necessity and must be freely constituted. This freedom withinGod’s very being is the condition for the possibility of the freedom of createdexistence from the “given” of its own nature, and this freedom within God’sbeing can only be affirmed, according to Zizioulas, through the principle ofthe monarchy of the Father.

Turcescu’s reading of Zizioulas’s understanding of the relation of indi-vidual, person, and uniqueness is also in need of greater nuancing. It is notso much that Zizioulas does not think that a complex of qualities embodiedwithin a particular human being actually contributes to personal uniqueness.It is the case, however, that such a complex of qualities does not guaranteesuch uniqueness. For Zizioulas, uniqueness is identified with “irreplace-ability”. A particular embodiment of a combination of qualities, whichresults from the “division of nature” in creation, does contribute to unique-ness but not as irreplaceability. Death ultimately renders all created being asreplaceable, destroying a particular, embodied set of qualities, only to bereconstituted again, perhaps in the same way, in a newly created humanbeing who tends toward death. Personal uniqueness can only be guaranteed,according to Zizioulas, in relationship to a being “other” than created exis-tence, i.e., to the eternally loving God who alone can constitute all humanuniqueness as irreplaceable.10

Even with the notion of the monarchy of the Father, is Zizioulas’s thoughtirretrievably “tainted” by modern thought so as to render it non-patristic?Several things must be said in response to this question. First, for Zizioulas,the core of theological discourse is an ontology of divine-human commun-ion. The monarchy of the Father, and, hence, a relational ontology of trinitarian personhood, is rooted in the experience of God in the eucharistunderstood as the event of the Body of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.


Response to Lucian Turcescu 603

Notwithstanding the charge of influence by modern personalism, Zizioulasis self-consciously attempting to give expression to this core of theology,which is the realism of divine-human communion. For Zizioulas, the “ontol-ogical revolution” is not so much the change in the meaning of the words“person” and “hypostasis”, but in the Christian affirmation that God in theperson of Christ has “become history” and, hence, the need to articulate anontology in which the notions of history, time, change, particularity, other-ness, relationality are integrated. In the end, according to Zizioulas, this canonly be done through the Christian doctrine of the Trinity that affirms themonarchy of the Father.

Second, Zizioulas does not hide the fact that he is attempting to relate traditional Christian dogma to contemporary questions and concerns. He isquite explicit when he says that the true task of theology is to “seek ways ofrelating the Gospel to the existential needs of the world and to whatever ishuman. Instead of throwing the Bible or the dogmas of the Church into thefact of the world, it would be best to seek first to feel and understand whatevery human being longs for deep in their being, and then see how theGospel and doctrine can make sense to that longing”.11 There is also no need,as Turcescu does, “to suggest” possible influences on Zizioulas’s notion ofperson as a relational category. Turcescu indicates that Martin Buber andJohn Macmurray are the most substantial influences. But Zizioulas does notappear to hide the fact that both Buber and Macmurray have influenced histhought.12 Turcescu himself cites Zizioulas’s references to Buber.13 Zizioulashas also cited Macmurray.14 He even gives credit to Pannenberg for helpinghim to articulate thoughts concerning personhood that he was “strugglingto express”.15

Criticisms of Zizioulas being under the influence of “modern personal-ism” may not give him enough credit of being aware of these variousphilosophies, nor to his attempt to define his own theology of personhoodover and against the prevailing philosophical understandings. In an essayentitled “The Being of God and the Being of Anthropos”,16 Zizioulasresponds specifically to this very charge by the Greek theologians JohnPanagopoulos and Savas Agourides; namely, that his understanding of personhood is influenced by modern personalism and existentialism. HereZizioulas identifies distinct kinds of philosophical personalism as exempli-fied in such thinkers as J. Maritain, E. Mounier, N. Berdiaeff, M. Buber, G. Marcel, as well as the existentialism of S. Kierkegaard. According toZizioulas, these modern forms of personalism and existentialism, though he recognizes similarities, differ from his understanding of person througheither defining the person in terms of consciousness or subjectivity and notin terms of relations; or in giving the notion of communion an ontologicalpriority over “person”. Zizioulas then lists four ways in which his under-standing of “person” differs from these philosophical approaches. Of thefour, Zizioulas refers to the patristic understanding of the monarchy of the



Father as providing the most decisive difference between the trinitarianunderstanding of person and modern, philosophical accounts, and which“precludes any philosophical-personalistic interpretation of God”.17 What isreally at issue, according to Zizioulas, is the relation between philosophy andtheology. In establishing the meaning of trinitarian personhood, “the truthis rather that philosophy is used in this situation, in order to disclose a newmeaning of person, which appears in front of us, when the “in what way”(pwV estin) of God’s existence is revealed in Christ”.18 In the end, it is not aphilosophy that justifies or influences the theological, trinitarian under-standing of personhood; only a trinitarian theology that affirms the monar-chy of the Father can ground and justify the philosophical notions of personin terms of freedom, uniqueness, and relationality.19

There is, thus, no reason to suggest possible influences on the thought ofZizioulas, since he admits a knowledge of modern forms of personalism andthat some thinkers, such as, Martin Buber, have actually influenced hisunderstanding of person. But Zizioulas also attempts to show how the trini-tarian understanding of personhood differs from these forms of modern personalism. He is no more superimposing a philosophical system on theEastern patristic writers than did these same writers Hellenize the teachingsof Jesus. His attempt to give further expression to the realism of divine-human communion through twentieth-century notions of person is analo-gous to the patristic co-opting of Greek philosophical categories to expressthe same principle. Zizioulas is doing exactly what these writers did insofaras he is thinking about the authoritative texts of the tradition in light of thequestions, challenges, and prevailing philosophical currents of his time. Thealternative is either the hermeneutically impossible bracketing of all that the interpreter has read and experienced as they approach the patristic textsin the hope of distilling the pure “essence” of the text itself; or to judge con-temporary Orthodox theology as authentic based on its faithful reiterationof patristic texts, i.e., a form of patristic fundamentalism. The latter, however,is not consistent with the approach of the patristic writers themselves, whodid more than simply reiterate their predecessors.

Zizioulas is consistent with the Eastern patristic writers in the most substantial way insofar as he affirms as the core of theological discourse therealism of divine-human communion. He claims that a personal ontology isthe most adequate way to express the realism of divine-human communion.The real issue, then, is not whether he has been influenced by modern per-sonalism, but whether a trinitarian theology that affirms the monarchy of theFather is the only way to ground a personal ontology, and whether such anontology does correct and justify the various modern, philosophical under-standings of personhood. If the core of Christian faith is communion withGod the Father, in the person of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it isdifficult to think how such a communion does not imply an ontology that isrelational and personal.



NOTES

1 See John Panagopoulos, “Ontology or Theology of Person?” (in Greek), Synaxis, Vol. 13–14(1985), pp. 63–79; 35–47; and Savas Agourides, “Can the persons of the Trinity form thebasis for personalistic understandings of the human being?” (in Greek), Synaxis, Vol. 33(1990), pp. 67–78; also, André de Halleux, “ ‘Hypostase’ et ‘Personne’ dans la formation dudogme trinitaire (ca. 375–81)”, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Vol. 79 (1984), pp. 313–369,625–670; also, idem, “Personalisme ou esentialisme trinitaire chez le Pères capdociens? Unemauvaise controversie”, Revue théologique de Louvain, Vol. 17 (1986), pp. 129–155; 265–292.

2 “ ‘Person’ versus ‘Individual’, and Other Modern Misreadings of Gregory of Nyssa,”Modern Theology, Vol. 18 no. 4 (October 2002), pp. 97–109.

3 Ibid., p. 100.4 Ibid., p. 101.5 Ibid., p. 103.6 The works I have in mind are: Being as Communion (Crestwood: New York, 1985), p. 17;

p. 41, n. 36; p. 52, n. 46; p. 228, notes 55 and 56); “The Teaching of the 2nd Ecumenical Councilon the Holy Spirit in Historical and Ecumenical Perspective” in Credo in Spiritum Sancto-rum, ed. J. S. Martins (Roma: Libreria Editrice Vatican, 1983), p. 34, n. 12; p. 37, n. 22; pp.43–45, p. 51, n. 62; “The Doctrine of God the Trinity Today: Suggestion for an EcumenicalStudy” in The Forgotten Trinity (London: BCC/CCBI, 1991), p. 31, n. 23; “The Doctrine ofthe Holy Trinity: The Significance of the Cappadocian Contribution” in Trinitarian TheologyToday: Essays in Divine Being and Act, ed. Christoph Schwöbel (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995),p. 48. There are no references to Gregory of Nyssa in “On Being a Person: Towards an Ontol-ogy of Personhood” in Person, Divine and Human, eds. Christoph Schwöbel and Colin E.Gunton (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), and in the “The Being of God and the Being ofAnthropos” (in Greek), Synaxis, Vol. 37 (1991), pp. 11–35. In the article that Turcescu citesmost often, “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity”, Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 28(1975), pp. 401–408, there is only one reference to Gregory of Nyssa (p. 428, n. 1). Zizioulascites Nyssa’s Great Catechism in support of the idea that freedom is essential to the Christ-ian notion of the Image Dei. Even taking into consideration Epistle 38, which most scholarsattribute to Gregory of Nyssa but which Zizioulas consistently attributes to Basil, the letteris usually cited in support of the general patristic axiom that “substance never exists in a‘naked’ state, that is, without hypostasis, without ‘a mode of existence’ ” (Being as Commun-ion, p. 41; see also, ibid., p. 88). Zizioulas does also cite the letter to support his interpreta-tion of Basil as understanding the unity of God in terms of koinonia (see, “The Teaching ofthe 2nd Ecumenical Council of the Holy Spirit In Historical and Ecumenical Perspective”,pp. 34–35, n. 12). But this letter is not the central text for this particular reading of Basil andis used as further support of his interpretation of other texts from Basil, such as On the HolySpirit, p. 18.

7 See “The Teaching of the 2nd Ecumenical Council of the Holy Spirit In Historical and Ecu-menical Perspective”, p. 37, notes 20 and 21; “On Being a Person: Towards an Ontology ofPersonhood”, p. 42, note 18; “The Doctrine of God the Trinity Today”, p. 31, note 23; and“The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity”, pp. 50–55. Zizioulas does cite one passage from Gregoryof Nyssa’s Ad Ablabium in support of the Greek patristic notion of the monarchy of theFather (see, “The Teaching of the 2nd Ecumenical Council of the Holy Spirit In Historicaland Ecumenical Perspective”, p. 37, n. 22; and again, “The Doctrine of God the TrinityToday”, p. 31, note 23). In both instances, this one passage from Nyssa is cited in furthersupport of Gregory Nazianzus.

8 Being as Communion, p. 41.9 For more on this point see, Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Divine Energies or Divine Personhood:

Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on conceiving the transcendent and immanent God”,Modern Theology, Vol. 19 no. 3 ( July 2003), pp. 357–385.

10 This understanding of uniqueness in terms of particular relationships can be shown tomake sense even without reference to God or the uncreated “other”. The example of anabandoned baby in the fields especially makes this clear. Is a newborn baby abandoned inthe fields unique and, hence, a person? The answer is yes and no. No in the sense that suchan abandonment renders this baby a nonperson, and to deny this is not to take seriouslythe reality of dehumanization. The only hope for a baby to still be person and unique isthe fact that s/he is always loved by God. Humans in this sense are not inherently persons,



as if they can claim such a dignity for themselves or as part of their essence, but always inrelation to the eternal love of God. For this example and more on the relational under-standing of person see, Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Person, Kenosis, and Abuse: Hans Urs vonBalthasar and Feminist Theologies in Conversation”, Modern Theology, Vol. 19 no. 1 ( January2003), pp. 41–65.

11 “The Church as Communion”, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, Vol. 38 (1994), p. 13.12 It is surprising not to see the name of Levinas in Turcescu’s article, since Zizioulas cites

him often, especially his critique of Heidegger.13 Zizioulas himself has admitted to me in private conversations that the thought of

Martin Buber did influence his understanding of personhood. He did not mention JohnMacmurray.

14 In “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity”, p. 408, note 1; and in “The Doctrine of theHoly Trinity”, p. 59, note 14.

15 “It was after struggling to express these thoughts that I came across the following wordsof W. Pannenberg, which, I find, express the same thing in a clearer way” (“Human Capac-ity and Human Incapacity”, Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 28 (1975), p. 413, note 1).

16 See especially, section 3, pp. 15–19.17 “The Being of God and the Being of Anthropos”, p. 18.18 Ibid., p. 19.19 “[I]s a philosophical justification of patristic theology possible? Or does patristic theology

in its essence constitute the converse, that is, a theological justification of philosophy, a procla-mation that philosophy and the world can acquire a true ontology only if they accept thepresupposition of God as the only existent whose being is truly identified with the personand with freedom?” (Being as Communion, p. 46); elsewhere, “the person as an ontologicalcategory cannot be extrapolated from experience” (“On Being a Person”, p. 37); also, “themeaning of person is not borrowed from philosophy . . . but philosophy is able, if it wishes,to borrow this meaning from theology” (“The Being of God and the Being of Anthropos”,p. 18).



Ioannis Zizioulas

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