Karolina Kochanczyk-Boninska: The role of philosophy in the anti-Eunomian discourse concerning comprehensibility of God

In the discussion between Eunomius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa the problem of philosophical inspirations and borrowings occurs many times. and even more interesting studies concerning Eunomius' philosophical inspirations have been published. The aim of this paper is not to show this aforementioned actual philosophical background of the polemic, but to focus on ‘philosophical self-consciousness' of Eunomius and other participants in the debate. The crucial questions that should be answered are: whether certain philosophical assumptions inevitably led Eunomius to his teaching about the nature of God and whether his opponents considered it to be the source of his error. Whether the reproaches presented by Gregory that Eunomius did not know the categories of Aristotle (CE I, 172-186) were only one of the indignities or we should treat them as a suggestion to choose a proper philosophical foundation. Eunomius himself accused his adversaries of using sophistry, although Gregory of Nyssa indicated Platonic (CE II 404) and other sources of his teaching.
Until our times, the Catholic Church has been promoting certain philosophical concepts (e.g. Thomism) to be more adequate foundations for theological debates Basing on the testimonies that can be found in Eunomius' works and the survived treatises Contra Eunomium I will try to show whether the arguments concerning philosophy were only a rhetorical figure or constituted a contribution to the discussion about the role of certain philosophical schools in the theological debate.