Are the Stories of Jesus' Birth True?

By Fr John Breck

(The following two articles were originally found on the OCA.org web page.  Fr John has many other interesting articles that can be found there.)

The Christmas season inevitably leads people in the media to speculate on whether or not the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ conception and birth are historically accurate. The question they raise in the public mind is whether these cherished stories are really “true.”

A good, well-balanced example of this kind of reflection appeared in the December 13, 2004 edition of Newsweek. The article rehearsed a familiar array of parallels that have been shown to exist between the birth stories concerning Jesus, and those of pagan heroes or demigods. It also showed how the two Gospel narratives of Matthew and Luke (which differ significantly from one another) were structured according to the model of “Promise and Fulfillment.” In large part, elements in both accounts were drawn from the Old Testament. Jesus’ birth, for example, is patterned after that of Samuel; his descent into Egypt and return to Nazareth recapitulate the Hebrew Exodus tradition; the Magi and their gifts fulfill the prophecies of the Psalms and Isaiah, which declare that kings of the earth shall offer obeisance to the Messiah, sealed by gifts of gold and incense; and the massacre of the children of Bethlehem reflects the original Passover, when the first-born of the Egyptians succumbed to the angel of death, whereas the Hebrew children were spared by the blood of sacrifice (here Hebrew children are killed, while Jesus, who represents the people of the New Covenant and is himself the true sacrifice, is spared).

None of the most characteristic events surrounding Jesus’ birth – the enrollment under Quirinius, the appearance of the star, the birth from a virgin mother in a Bethlehem stable, the visit of the Magi, the massacre of the innocents, or the descent and return from Egypt – is found elsewhere in historical records. Nor is there any allusion to them in other parts of the New Testament. This leads many scholars to assume that the birth narratives were constructed to create a theological symmetry between the beginning and end of Jesus’ earthly existence: he who is finally raised from the dead began his life in an equally miraculously way as the offspring of a virgin mother.

The theological message of these accounts is clear. Jesus is the new and true Israel, the Son of God, who is also “Emmanuel,” “God with us.” He is no mere prophet, itinerant miracle-worker or firebrand revolutionary, as some have tried to depict him. Rather, he is the fulfillment of all prophecy and the source of all genuine healing. The question that seems to concern us most, however, is this: Are these accounts factually “true”; that is, did they “really happen”?

This is a classic example of a “false question.” To explain why, however, requires that we clear up some common misunderstandings.

In the first place, we tend in our day and age to identify truth with “fact.” If an event can hypothetically be recorded on tape or film, if it can be observed and subjected to objective scientific analysis, then we consider it to be “true.” Such a reality may indeed be factual. Truth, however, is situated on another level, both higher and deeper than the level of fact. Jon Meacham, author of the Newsweek article, expressed it very well: “If we dissect the [birth] stories with care, we can see that the Nativity saga is neither fully fanciful nor fully factual but a layered narrative of early tradition and enduring theology, one whose meaning was captured in the words of the fourth-century Nicene Creed: that ‘for us men and for our salvation,’ Jesus ‘came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary and was made man.’”

“A layered narrative of early tradition and enduring theology.” There is no opposition between the two, since (holy) tradition is always shaped to convey theological truth: the significance for us of what God has done within the framework of time and space, to work out our salvation. This is why we insist that “the Gospels are not books of history but works of theology.”

Then again, we need to remember that what we regard as “historical facts” are never free of interpretation. We know of events such as the beginning of the universe, or the French Revolution or the first Gulf War only as those events have been presented to us by scientists, historians and “embedded” reporters. We assume their accounts are true, by which we mean factual. The “facts” that we believe we know, however, are for the most part interpretations we receive in the form of secular “tradition” through media such as news journals, television and books. But like gossip, these interpretations are always colored by the subjective viewpoint, experience and agenda of those who transmit them. We receive and transmit even our own personal experiences under the influence of our subjective interpretation of their significance. If I tell other people about some tragic or joyous occurrence I have known, my retelling is always shaped by the impact that experience has had upon me. To recount an event or convey a reality is always to interpret it, to pass it through the filter of my own experience and my own understanding. Accordingly, the very notion of “fact,” which we so cherish in our age of science and technology, may be little more than an illusion…

Yet the Truth will endure forever. However we (or biblical scholars) may judge the “historicity” of various events, from the Genesis creation account to the narratives of Christ’s birth, the truth of those events, and of their interpretations, lies in God’s presence and activity in and through them. Genetic engineering has already produced parthenogenesis, “virgin births,” in a Petri dish. But this no more proves the tradition of the Virgin Birth of Jesus than the Shroud of Turin proves his resurrection. The biblical narratives, like the Shroud, are received and interpreted as articles of faith. “Proof,” by which we mean objective scientific verification, simply does not apply in their case.

Are the stories of Jesus’ birth, as recounted by the evangelists Matthew and Luke, really true? Yes – as affirmed by the faith, but also by the experience, of countless multitudes of people who know Jesus of Nazareth to be Lord and Savior, who pray to him as God and know their prayer is heard. Yes – because the Church’s spiritual elders have always recognized that truth is more than sheer fact, and that Scripture speaks more in the figurative language of poetry than in the analytical language of science. This is because truth is ultimately ineffable. If Scripture resorts to figures and analogies, if the Church Fathers rely so heavily on allegory, and if Jesus expresses some of his most profound teachings in the form of parables, it is because words are symbolic. They point forward to ultimate reality, and they even participate to some degree in that reality. But as human constructs, words are incapable of grasping that reality in all its fullness. This is why the deepest prayer must finally resolve into silence.

Yes, the stories of Jesus’ birth are true. They are so, because their purpose and their effect is to convey meaning more than fact. In the final analysis, no particular element of biblical tradition can be definitively proved or disproved. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is the witness that tradition offers us, by means of both historical facts and poetic images, to the significance of the person of Jesus in the whole of God’s work to bring to the world salvation and eternal life.

In this light, with the whole of Christian Tradition, we can – indeed we must – declare that in the person of Jesus, the eternal Word of God took flesh and became man. He did so by the power of the Holy Spirit and in the womb of the Virgin Mary. As the “God-man” he suffered, he was crucified and he was buried. Then, on the third day, he rose from the dead in glory, to fulfill the work begun on the first Christmas eve, in a humble stable in the city of Bethlehem.

With this affirmation historical fact merges with transcendent meaning. To skeptical eyes, none of it can be proven beyond question. To eyes of faith, though, there is no greater reality than this, and no more compelling truth.

Scripture: A Verbal Icon

The last column in this space took up the issue of the relationship between fact and truth in the biblical accounts of Jesus’ birth. I tried to point out that the question “Did it really happen that way?” arises from a certain common misunderstanding, one that confuses fact with truth, while it overlooks the point that everything reported as “fact” is filtered through the reporter’s own experience and understanding. For that reason, what we receive as fact is always colored and shaped by interpretation: our own, when it is a matter of our personal experience, or that of the person who conveys the information to us.

With regard to the biblical accounts of Jesus’ conception and birth, we need to recognize that they represent a synthesis of historical reality – what we call fact – and transcendent meaning, a meaning that human words can express only through images or figures.

Jesus’ parables offer an excellent example. They are stories built upon common experiences that the hearer knows as fact: the authority of the king or master of the household, the annual cycle of planting and harvesting, the hypocrisy of certain members of Israel’s ruling class, the care of a shepherd for his flock, and so forth. Jesus takes these common realities and uses them as images – verbal icons – to express a meaning that speaks to the immediate experience of his hearers. Extrapolating on the basis of their own experiences, those hearers (and future readers of the Gospels) easily see in the king or master an image of God as Lord and Judge, in the agricultural cycle a sign of God’s presence and activity in creation, in the rulers of the people a warning of judgment and a call to compassion, and in the shepherd a witness to Christ’s own concern to “seek and save the lost.”

Jesus never intended for his parables to be taken as “fact,” in the sense that they recount events that actually took place. They are figures, verbal images, which point beyond themselves to a deeper reality. For that reason, they are “more than fact.” Although based on familiar daily realities, they lift the hearer to a higher plane, a level of ultimate reality that concerns our relationship with the eternal God.

In this sense, the creation story – indeed, the first eleven chapters – of Genesis can be considered to be “parabolic.” If we ask, “Did it really happen that way?,” the answer is both Yes and No. Yes, insofar as the creation story of Gen. 1 affirms that God is the unique author of all that exists, that everything comes “from non-existence into being” by his will and power, and that what he created and continues to create is essentially “good.” But “no,” insofar as it is now known (scientifically demonstrable, if you will), that the cosmos is not three-tiered with “water above the firmament,” and that the “days” of creation cannot be understood literally as 24-hour periods.

To put it in more technical terms, there is a profoundly “mythological” aspect to every biblical account, including the accounts of Christ’s Nativity. But to say that, we need to be very clear about the meaning of “myth.” A myth is not a legend, an invented story. Nor is it to be confused with a parable. In the proper sense of the term, a myth is a narrative that serves to express, in human language and figures, realities that transcend what we consider to be the purely historical. Some realities, such as emotions and aspirations, can be most adequately expressed in the language of poetry. Transcendent realities – truths about the inner life and external operation of God, for example – can best be expressed in the language of myth.

If this sounds dubious, it is most likely because we tend to misunderstand the concept of “history” or “historical reality.” Seduced by a certain intellectual dualism, we create an improper dichotomy between the temporal and the eternal, just as we often do between fact and truth. We consider them to embrace different spheres of reality, whereas they constantly merge into one another. The universe came into being as a result of the “Big Bang.” But the reason the question “What existed before that?” cannot be answered is because time itself did not exist. The Creator, however, did exist; and at a particular a-temporal “moment” he set in motion what we know as physical and historical reality. We cannot understand the historical or “factual” aspect of creation, therefore, without reference to the transcendent Creator (although many people have tried…).

Similarly, Jesus’ presence in the life and experience of his people occurred in part as a result of certain historically determinable facts, namely that he was born, crucified and buried at specific times and places. Yet at the same time, that birth and that death are transfused with a higher significance because they are vehicles for divine intervention into historical reality. The One born of the Virgin Mary is a human being, but he is also the eternal Son of God; and it is he whose death, followed by his resurrection, marks the definitive Passover into eternal life. Here we find the ultimate merging of time and eternity, of historical event and transcendent truth.

Because God is present and active in every event of world history as he is in our most intimate and personal experiences, it is imperative that we correct any false dichotomy between time and eternity, fact and truth. All time is permeated with eternity, just as every fact has the capacity to convey some aspect of ultimate reality. Yet eternity transcends time as much as truth transcends simple fact. Language attempts to express this interrelationship, and it does so most effectively in the form of myth: a story in human words that expresses in its own unique way the ultimately inexpressible mystery of divine and human interaction.

This is why we affirm that the Genesis creation story is true, even though every element of the account is not “factual.” And this explains why the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ birth, death, resurrection and glorification are true, although every detail could not have been verified to the satisfaction of skeptics who might have been present. The truth of those accounts, however, is not merely subjective, even though it is perceptible only to eyes of faith. Thomas saw and believed, as did the other disciples, together with countless others (1 Cor 15:3-8!). What they saw was reality: historical reality insofar as they beheld the risen Lord in the flesh, but transcendent reality insofar as that flesh was transfigured into his resurrection body.

Although we are usually oblivious to it, what we call fact, time and historical reality are always filled with eternal presence and meaning. The expression “realized eschatology” is not mere theological jargon. It too is a verbal icon that seeks to express an ineffable truth. It means that the world itself, in the memorable words of Gerard Manley Hopkins, “is charged with the grandeur of God.” Scriptural accounts – whether we class them as factual, historical, parabolic or mythological – are verbal icons whose purpose is to seize that grandeur, to make it intelligible in the form of human language, and to offer it to us as a life-giving witness to what is ultimately and absolutely true.

And He was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man.

By Fr Alexander Schmemann

(The article below is taken from the book Celebration of Faith, vol.1 which is a commentary on the Nicene Creed.  This particular article is a commentary on the verse within the Creed: And was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man...)

  "Of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary." I think that for those who are not believers, for those outside Christianity, there is no bigger stumbling block and temptation than the Christian belief that Jesus was born of a virgin. Alas, this belief has been rejected even by many Christians, in particular those Protestant scholars who study the Gospel and faith "scientifically," and in whose opinion faith in a Mother-Virgin is unacceptable, an assault on reason, a superstition. But simple believers, and those who are themselves humble, can humbly and without doubting accept this evangelical teaching. They can not only accept it, but receive it as a joyful gift, as a radiant and joyful mystery which God has graciously deigned to disclose to us. And since it is impossible to prove the "reality" of this virginal conception and birth, we are left either to believe or to disbelieve. We can humbly accept it, or we can reject it "on principle" and in the name of science and reason. In speaking about it, therefore, we can only attempt to impart what this belief gives to our consciousness, to our heart-what it reveals to us in the deepest part of our being.

Of course, belief in the virgin birth of Christ as proclaimed in the Gospels once again raises, and very pointedly, the question of our reason, the mind, and of the limits of that scientific approach to all those phenomena which the mind alone is capable of knowing and where it is legitimately the supreme judge. This question is important because the virginity of the Mother of God, as the Church calls Mary the Mother of Jesus, is refuted precisely on the basis of reason. Reason says: this does not happen and therefore it must be erased from the Gospel. Thus, we are forced to make a choice: which is higher, the gospel or reason? Which judges which, which corrects which? Is it reason which judges the Gospel, or the Gospel which judges reason? I must immediately point out that this dilemma concerns not only the affirmation of faith in Christ's virgin birth: it concerns first of all, as we know perfectly well, God Himself. This very same reason, this very same science knows neither God the Creator, nor the God who is Love, nor God the Savior. For science only knows what it can verify, and this verification, as philosophy says, must be accomplished empirically.

The problem therefore widens. The question now is this: does there exist a sphere of knowledge, a phenomenon of life where the mind, at least our earthly, human mind, while not being excluded-because Christianity places the mind on a very high level-has no final authority, where it cannot, and therefore must not pronounce any kind of final judgment? This question may be put in another way: are there indeed limits to the mind, beyond the borders of which-if it is a genuine, or "intelligent" mind-it says: "I do not know"? I say "intelligent mind" because doubtless there is such a thing as a "stupid mind": this is the person who usually shouts louder than anyone else and considers himself a know-it-all. The intelligent mind, the real scholar, says about a lot of things, "I do not yet know," and this not-knowing is immeasurably more worthy of authentic science than conceited omniscience.

So Christian faith, Christianity, takes the following position concerning the mind: first, it acknowledges that the mind is God's highest gift, a genuinely divine gift. Second, it affirms that the mind is darkened and limited by sin-as is everything in the world, as is the entire person- and therefore cannot come to know and explain all things. And finally, it holds that the mind can and must be enlightened, illumined, deepened, and reborn through faith. To do this the mind must first humble itself, which means that it must admit that it is not the only intelligent force operating in the world; that rationally, all it can understand on its own is some sort of blind and irrational force of causality; that there exists a God who acts, a God whose ways are not our ways, whose wisdom is not our wisdom, who overthrows the proud mind that affirms its own omniscience. If this is admitted, then the previously mentioned objections to the virgin birth-this does not happen, and therefore is impossible; this does not correspond to the laws of nature we know, and therefore it did not happen; and so on-also fall away. We can then accept that the world's most profound laws are unknown to us; unknown are those mystical depths of the mind where it encounters within itself the operation of the God who is Creator, the God who is Love, the God who is Providence.

Faith and the Church certainly do not claim that virgin births are a normal occurrence, that it is possible for children to be conceived without a father and to be born from a virgin. Faith and the Church only affirm that this ineffable, unprecedented and, for our fallen minds, impossible event occurred that one time-and only that one time-when God Himself appeared on earth as man! Thus, faith in the virginity of Mary the Mother of Jesus does not at all depend on whether this event is "possible" or impossible," whether it regularly occurs or not. The Church herself, in one of her prayers, affirms how "impossible" this is: "Virginity is strange for mothers and childbearing is strange for virgins." Rather, this faith depends exclusively on whether we believe that Christ is God who has come into the world, to us, "for us men and for our salvation." If we believe this, then it also becomes possible for us to understand not with our reason but in the depths of our consciousness, the mystery of the virgin birth.

It is this mystery which contains within itself the Church's faith in Christ, her knowledge of Him as God and Man, as God who became man, as Man deified, filled with God. It is not given to us to bring God down to earth and to make Him human. That is God's decision, God's initiative; the reason for His becoming man is not to be found in anything earthly, in one of earth's natural laws, but only in God. Christ is the Son of God. But He receives His humanity, His flesh and blood from us, from a human being, from the Virgin Mary. Through the Holy Spirit, through His creative Power and love it was granted to Mary to become Mother, and through this motherhood eternally, forever, to give birth to us, as well as to Christ the Son of God, and to reveal Him as one of us, as the Son of Man. God's free decision to create the new man, and man's free acceptance of that gift, this is the meaning of our faith, this is its joy. God descends from heaven so that man may ascend to heaven. Through Jesus Christ we are children of God; through Mary, Christ is with us and within us as our brother, our son, our Savior. And all of this is expressed in the brief confession of the Symbol of faith: "and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man.

Faith And Science In Orthodox Gnosiology and Methodology

By Dimitris Charalambidis

Problem or pseudo-problem?

The antithesis and consequent collision between faith and science is a problem for western (Franco-Latin) thought and is a pseudo-problem for the Orthodox patristic tradition. This is based upon the historical data of these two regions.

The (supposed) dilemma of faith versus science appears in Western Europe in the 17th century with the simultaneous development of the positive sciences. About this same time we have the appearance of the first Orthodox positions on this issue. It is an important fact that these developments in the West are happening without the presence of Orthodoxy. In these recent centuries there has been a spiritual estrangement and differentiation between the [rational] West and the Orthodox East. This fact is outlined by the de-orthodoxiation and de-ecclesiastication of the western European world and the philosophication and legalization of faith and its eventual forming as a religion in the same area. Thus religion is the refutation of Orthodoxy and, according to Fr. John Romanides, the sickess of the human being. Therefore, Orthodoxy remained historically as a non-participant in the making of the present western European civilization, which is also a different size than the civilization of the Orthodox East.

The turning points in western Europeans course of alteration include: scholasticism (13th century), nominalism (14th century), humanism/renaissance (15th century), Reformation (16th century) and the Enlightenment (17th century). It is a series of revolutions and, at that same time, breaches in the structure of western European civilization, that was created by the dialectic of these two movements.

Scholasticism is supported on the adoption of the Platonic realia. Our world is conceived of as an image of the transcendent universalia (realism, archetype). The instrument of knowledge is the mind-intellect. Knowledge (including knowing God) is accomplished through the penetration of logic in the essence of beings. It is the foundation of metaphysic theology, which presupposes the Analogia Entis, the consequitive ontological relation between God and the world, the analogy between the created and uncreated. Nominalism accepts that the universalia are simple names and not beings as in realism. It is a struggle between Platonism and Aristotelian thought in European thought. However, nominalism turned out to be the DNA, in a way, of European civilization, whose essential elements are dualism philosophically and individualism (eudomenism) socially. Prosperity will become the basic quest of the western man, theologically based on the scholastic theology of the middle ages. Nominalism (that is dualism) is the foundation of scientific development of the western world, that is the development of the positive sciences.

The Orthodox East had had another spiritual evolution, under the guidance of its spiritual leaders the saints – and of those who followed them, the true believers--who remained loyal to the prophetic-apostolic-patristic tradition; this tradition stands at the opposite end of scholasticism and all the historic spiritual developments in the European word. In the East, hesychasm or prayer of the heart is dominant (and is the backbone of patristic tradition) it is expressed with the ascetically experienced participation in the Truth as communion with the Uncreated. The faith in the possibility of the joining of God and the world (the Uncreated and the created) within history is preserved in the Orthodox East. This, however, means the rejection of every form of dualism. Science, to the degree it developed in Byzantium/Romania, developed within this framework.

The scientific revolution in Western Europe of the 17th Century, contributed to the separation of the fields of faith and knowledge. It resulted in the following axiomatic principle: New (positive) philosophy only accepts truths which are verified through rational thought. It is the absolute authority of Western thinking. The truths of this new philosophy are the existence of God, soul, virtue, immortality, and judgment. Their acceptance, of course, can only take place in a theistic enlightenment, since we also find atheism as a structural element of modern thought. The ecclesiastical doctrines that are rejected by rationality are the Triune nature of God, the Incarnation, glorification, salvation, etc. This natural and logical religion, from the Orthodox viewpoint, not only differs from atheism but is much worse. Atheism is less dangerous than its distortion!

Orthodox Gnosiology

It has been said that in the East the antithesis between faith and science is a pseudo-problem, Why? Because gnosiology in the East is defined by the object to be known which is twofold: the Uncreated and the created. Only the Holy Trinity is Uncreated. The universe (or universes) in which our existence is realized, is created. Faith is knowledge of the Uncreated, and science is knowledge of the created. Therefore, they are two different types of knowledge, each having its own method and tools of inquiry.

The believer, moving within the territory of supernatural, or knowledge of the Uncreated, is not called to learn something metaphysically or to accept something logically, but to experience God by being in communion with Him. This is accomplished by introducing him to a way of life or method which leads to divine knowledge.

It has been correctly stated that if Christianity were to appear for the first time in our era, it would have taken the form of a therapeutic institution, a hospital to reinstate and restore the function of man as a psychosomatic being. That is why Saint John Chrysostom calls the Church a spiritual hospital. Supernatural-theological knowledge is understood in Orthodoxy as pathos (experience of life), as participation and communion with the transcendent and not an unreachable personal truth of the Uncreated and certainly not a mere exercise in learning. Thus, the Christian faith is not the abstract contemplative adoption of metaphysical truths, it is rather, the experience of beholding True Being: the experience of the Supersubstantial (Superessential) Trinity.

This clearly expresses that in Orthodoxy, authority is found in experience. The experience of participating in the Uncreated, of seeing the Uncreated (as expressed by the terms and "theosis" and "glorification"), and is not based on texts or in the Scriptures. The tradition of the Church is not preserved within texts but in people. Texts help, but they are not the bearers of the Holy Tradition. Tradition is preserved by the Saints. Human beings are the bearers of the Gospel. The placing of texts above the actual experience of the Uncreated (an indication of the religionizing of faith) leads to their ideologization and in fact to their idolization. This in turn leads to the absolute authority of the text (fundamentalism) and all the well understood consequences.

The presupposition of the function of knowing the Uncreated, for Orthodoxy, is the rejection of every analogy (either Entis or Fide) in this relationship of the created and the Uncreated. St. John of Damascus summarizes this previously extant patristic tradition in the following manner: It is impossible to find, in creation, an icon that would reveal the way of existence of the Holy Trinity. Because, how could it be possible for the created, which is complex and changeable and describable, which has shape and is perishable, to clearly reveal Superessential Divine Essence, which is free of all these categories? (P.G. 94,821/21).

Therefore, it now becomes apparent why school education and philosophy more specifically, according to the patristic tradition, are not presuppositions for knowledge of God (theognosia). Alongside the great academic St. Basil the Great (+379) we also give honor to St. Anthony (+350), who by wordly standards was not wise. Yet they are both teachers of the faith. Both witness to knowledge of God, St. Anthony as someone uneducated and St. Basil as someone who was more highly educated than Aristotle. St. Augustine (+430) differs (something that the West would find very painful, if they knew about it) from patristic tradition at this point when he ignores scriptural and patristic gnosiology and is in essence a Neo-platonist! With his axiom credo ut intelligam (I believe in order to understand) he introduced the principle that man is lead to a logical conception of Revelation through faith. This gives priority to the intellect (the mind), which is considered by this form of knowledge to be the instrument or tool of knowing both the natural as well as the supernatural. God is considered as a knowable object that can be conceived of by the human intellect (mind) just as any natural object can be conceived of. After St. Augustine the next step in this evolution (with the intervention of the scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas+1274) will be made by Decartes (+1650) with his axiom cogito, ergo sum (I think therefore I am) in which the intellect (mind) is declared as the main basis of existence.

It is the Orthodox Tradition that puts and end to this theoretical collision within the field of gnosiology. It does so by differentiating the two types of knowledge and of wisdom:

1) divine or that which "from above" and 2) secular (thyrathen) or lower.

The first knowledge is supernatural and the second is natural. This corresponds to the clear distinction between the Uncreated and the created, between God and creation. These two types of learning require two methods of learning. The method of divine wisdom-knowledge is the communion of man with the Uncreated through the heart. It is accomplished through the presence of the Uncreated energy of God in man's heart. The method of secular wisdom-knowledge is science, it is accomplished by exercising the intellectual/ logical power of man. Orthodoxy establishes a clear hierarchy in the two types of knowledge and their methods.

The method of supernatural gnosiology, in the Orthodox Tradition, is called hesychasm and is identified with watchfulness and purification (nepsis and katharsis) of the heart. Hesychasm is identified with Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy, patristically speaking, is inconceivable outside its hesychastic practice. Hesychasm in its essence, is the ascetic-curative practice of cleansing the heart of passions to rekindle the noetic faculty within the heart. It must be noted at this point, that the method of hesychasm as a curative practice is also scientific and practical. Therefore, theology, under proper conditions, belongs to the practical sciences. Theology's academic classification among the theoretical sciences or arts began in the 12th century in the west and is due to the shift of theology into metaphysics. Therefore, those in the East who condemn our own theology, demonstrate their Westernization, since they, essentially, condemn and reject a disfigured caricature of what they regard as theology. But what is the noetic function? In the Holy Scriptures there is, already, the distinction between the spirit of man (his nous) and the intellect (the logos or mind). The spirit of man in patristics is called nous to distinguish it from the Holy Spirit. The spirit, the nous, is the eye of the soul (see Matt. 6:226).

The noetic faculty is called the function of the nous within the heart and is the spiritual function of the heart, its parallel function is the heart as the organ that pumps the blood throughout our bodies. This noetic faculty is a mnemonic system that exists with the brain cells. These two are known and are detectab1e from human science, which science cannot, however, conceive of the nous. When man attains illumination by the Holy Spirit and becomes the temple of God, self-love changes to unconditional love and it then becomes possible to buiId real social relations supported upon this unconditional reciprocity (a willingness to sacrifice for our fellow man) rather than a self- interested claim of individual rights according to the spirit of western European society.

Thus some important consequences are understood: First, that Christianity in its authenticity is the transcendence of religion and a conception of the Church as merely an institution of rules and duties. Furthermore, Orthodoxy cannot be conceived as an adoption of some principles or truths, imposed upon from above. This is the non-Orthodox version of doctrines (absolute principles, imposed truths). Conceptions and meanings in Orthodoxy are examined through their empirical verification. The dialectical-intellectual style of thinking about theology, as well as dogmatizing, are alien to authentic Orthodox Tradition.

The scientist and professor of the knowledge of the Uncreated, in the Orthodox Tradition, is the Geron/Starets (the Elder or Spiritual Father), the guide or "teacher of the desert". The recording of both types of know1edge presupposes empirical knowledge of the phenomenon.

The same holds true in the field of science, where only the specialist understands the research of other scientists of the same field. The adoption of conclusions or findings of a scientific branch by non-specialists (i.e. those who are unable to experimentally examine the research of the specialists) is based on the trust of the specialists credibility. Otherwise, there would be no scientific progress.

The same holds true for the science of faith. The empirical knowledge of the Saints, Prophets, Apostles, Fathers and Mothers of all ages is adopted and founded upon the same trust. The patristic tradition and the Church's Councils function on this provable experience. There is no Ecumenical Council without the presence of the glorified/deified (theoumenoi), those who see the divine (this is the problem of the councils of today!) Orthodox doctrine results from this relationship.

Therefore, Orthodox faith is as dogmatic as science is. Those who speak of bias in the filed of faith, must not forget the words of Marc Bloch, that all scientific research is biased from the beginning, otherwise research could not have been possible. The same holds true of faith. Orthodoxy, makes a distinction between the two types of knowledge (and wisdom), and their methods and tools, thus, avoiding any confusion between them as well as any conflict. The road remains open to confusion and conflict only where the conditions and essence of Christianity are lost. However, in the Orthodox environment, some illogical analogies exist. Such as the possibility of having someone who excels in science, yet with regard to divine knowledge is a child spiritually; and vice-versa, someone who is great in divine knowledge and completely illiterate in human wisdom as the aforementioned St. Anthony the Great. Nothing, however, precludes the possibility of possessing both types of wisdom/knowledge, as is the case of the Great Fathers and Mothers of the Church. This is exactly what the Church hymns for the 3rd century mathematician Saint Catherine the Wise as possessing both types of knowledge: The martyr having received God's wisdom since childhood, learned all secular wisdom well...

God-Man dialectic

Thus the Orthodox believer experiences in the correlation of the two knowledge-wisdoms a God-man dialectic. And to use the Christological terminology, every knowledge must stay put and move within its limits. The problem of the limits of each kind of knowledge is put thus: The surpassing of those limits leads to the confusion of their functions and finally to their conflict. According to the above, the Holy Fathers defended the correct use of science and education. Saint Gregory the Theologian states: "Education should not be dishonored." The same Father in his second theological Oration also sets the limits of both kinds of wisdom. Saint Gregory says that the ancient sage (Plato in Timaeus) said: "It is difficult to know God and impossible to express Him [verbally]." However the same Greek yet Christian St. Gregory understands that it is impossible to express (describe) God with words, moreover it is absolutely impossible to understand Him! That is, Plato has already pointed out the limits of human reason and it is important to add that there is no rationalism in the ancient Greek philosophy. Saint Gregory also demonstrates the impossibility of surpassing those limits and the conception of the Uncreated by means of the knowledge of the created.

The distinction and simultaneous hierarchy of the two kinds of knowledge have been pointed out by Saint Basil the Great when he states that faith must prevail in words concerning God and the proofs made by reason. That faith originates from the action and energy of the Holy Spirit. Faith for St. Basil is the illumination of the Holy Spirit in the heart. (P.G. 30,104B-105B). He also gives a classic example of the Orthodox use of scientific knowledge in his Hexameron (P.G. 29, 3-208). He repudiates the cosmological theories of the philosophers on the eternity and self-existence of the world and proceeds to the synthesis of biblical and scientific facts, through which he surpasses science. Furthermore, by rejecting materialistic and heretical teachings, he gets to the theological (but not metaphysical) interpretation of the nature of creation. The central message of this work is, that the logical support of dogma is impossible based only on science. Dogma belongs to another sphere. It is above reason and science, yet within the limits of another knowledge. The use of dogma with wordly knowledge leads to the transformation of science into metaphysics. Whereas the use of reason in the domain of faith proves its weakness and relativity. Therefore, there is no belief that is not searched in Orthodox gnosiology, but each field is searched with its own criteria: Science with its presuppositions and Divine Knowledge with its presuppositions.

The most tragic expression of the alienated Christian body is the ecclesiastica1 attitude in the West towards Galileo. The case could be characterized as surpassing the limits of jurisdiction. But it is much more serious, it is the confusion of the limits of knowledge and their conflict. It is a fact that this loss of the wisdom from above in the West and the way of achieving it have caused the intellect (mind) to be used as a tool of not only human wisdom, but of Divine Wisdom too. The use of the intellect in the field of science leads unavoidably to the rejection of the supernatural as incomprehensible, and its use in the field of faith can lead to the rejection of science when it is considered to be in conflict with faith. This same way of thinking and the same loss of criteria is also betrayed by the rejection of the Copernican system in the East (1774-1821). Science, in turn, takes its revenge for the condemnation of Galilee by the Roman Church, in the person of Darwin, with his theory of evolution.

Transplantation of the Western Problem to the Orthodox East

The European Enlightenment consisted of a struggle between physical empiricism and the metaphysics of Aristotle. The Enlighteners are philosophers and rationalists as well. The Greek Enlighteners, with Adamantios Korais as their patriarch, were metaphysical in their theology and it was they who transported the conflict between empiricists and metaphysicists to Greece. However, the Orthodox monks of Mount Athos, the Kollyvades and other Hesychast Fathers remained empiricists in their theological method. The introduction of metaphysics in our popular and academic theology is due, principally, to Korais. For this reason Korais became the authority for our academic theologians, as well as for the popular moral movements. This means that the purification of the heart has ceased to be considered as a presupposition of theology and its place has been taken by scholastic education. the same problem appeared in Russia at the time of Peter the Great (17-18th century). Thus the Fathers are considered to be philosophers (principally Neo-platonists like St. Augustine) and social workers. This has become the prototype of the pietists in Greece. Furthermore, Hesychasm is rejected as obscurantism. The so-called progressive ideas of Korais comprise from the fact that he was a supporter of the Calvinistic and not the Roman Catholic use of metaphysics, and his theological works are intense in this Calvinistic pietism (moralism).

However, for the Fathers,Orthodoxy is anti-metaphysical, as it continually searches empirical certainty, by means of the hesychastic method. This is why the hesychasm of the Kollyvades is empirical and scientific. Ratio according to Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite is empirical. This is illustrated by the Hesychasts of the 18th century in the way in which they accept the scientific progress of the West. The Kollyvades acknowledged scientific viewpoints like, for example, Saint Nicodemos the Hagiorite did in his work, Symbouletikon, where he accepts the latest theories of his time on the functioning of the heart. Saint Athansios Parios does not fight science itself, but its use by the Westernized Enlighteners of the Greek nation. They regarded science as God's work and as an offering for the improvement of life. But the use of science in a metaphysical struggle against faith, as was practised in the West, and as was transferred to the East, is opposed quite rightly by the traditional theologians of the 18th and 19th century. The mistakes lies on the side of the Greek Enlighteners who, without having any relationship with the patristic viewpoint of knowledge, although they themselves were priests and monks, transferred the European conflict of metaphysicists and empiricists to Greece, talking about irrational religion. Whereas, the Fathers of Orthodoxy, discriminating between the two kinds of knowledge making a distinction at the same time between the rational from the super-rational.

The problem of conflict between faith and science, apart from the confusion of knowledge, has caused the idoloziation of the two kinds of knowledge. Thus, a weak and morbid apologetic has resulted in Christianity (e.g. a Greek professor of Apologetics many years ago produced a mathematical proof of the existence of God !). In Orthodoxy, however, this dualism is not self-evident. Nothing excludes the co-existence of faith and science when faith is not imaginary metaphysics and science does not falsify its positive character with the use of metaphysics. The mutual understanding of science and faith is helped by current scientific language.

The principle of indetermination (that there is no causality) is a kind of apophatism in science. The return to the Fathers therefore, helps to overcome the conflict. The acceptance of the limits of the two kinds of knowledge (Uncreated and created) and the use of the suitable organ or tool for each one, is the element of Orthodoxy and of the Fathers which places earthly wisdom under higher or divine knowledge.

In contrast, the confusion of the two types of knowledge in Western thought promotes their mutual misinterpretations and continues and fosters their conflict. A Church which persists in metaphysical theology, will always be obliged to beg Galileo's pardon. But a Science that also ignores its limits, will deteriorate into metaphysics and will either deal with the existence of God (which is not its responsibility) or reject God completely.