Saturday, 11 April 2015

Miguel Brugarolas: Metaphysics of the Logos and the overcoming of dualism: Notes on Gregory of Nyssa’s language of “mixture”

Gregory of Nyssa's Christological language of mixture received a long criticism for its technical deficiency. However its lack of precision and its limits (which is obvious when compared with the later terminological development), Gregory seems to use the language of mixture on a coherent way. From the perspective of the internal akolouthia of Gregory's thought, his theological use of mixture vocabulary seems to refer to a kind of ineffable union closely related with two main principles of his doctrine: the infinite transcendence of God and his real presence through his economy. The anthropological and Christological sense of Gregory's mixture language represents an effort to preserve God's transcendence and to avoid dualism, both in the conception of Creation and Incarnation. This paper deals, through the analysis of some selected text, with the interconnection of Creation-Incarnation-Restoration in Gregory's theology seen from the perspective of his mixture language. Gregory's texts suggest that he would be drawing a new meaning of a common language in order to affirm the real union of two irreducible realities caused by the Wisdom of the Logos, which is both uniform and multiform (cf. Cant VIII: GNO VI 254-255). Our aim is to point out that Gregory's Christology, expressed on a non-technical vocabulary, seems to be more clear -even apophatic- if it is considered from the perspective of the internal coherence of his thought.

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