Well, assuming we had a common vocabulary and framework I took some short cuts.They were along scholastic lines. If that type of speech is verboten in your circles that is ok as we are both trinitarians.
What I am curious about is what do you perceive to be the substantive point of dispute with the Copts regarding Christology. i saw what you posted but i wonder how you square that with the councils.
Cyril and his Christology loomed large over three councils. At Chalcedon the Acts show that the attendees thought they were affirming the faith of Cyril (among others).
Since Cyril was Coptic and as far as i know neither of the Roman churches (East or West) speak of him as a heretic or in error in this regard what is the actual point of contention? Obviously, the Coptic and other Oriental Orthodox affirm the faith of Cyril in this regard. Thanks.
BJ,
First:
The ongoing substantive point of contention in my view is this semantic, abstract, philosophical use of the word "nature", which you and I have already touched on. The Chalcedonian, Dyophysite idea is that Christ is in the nature of Man and in the nature of God, which refers to the basic categorical, broad idea that I have been trying to explain. In James' Epistle, he uses the term "nature" to refer to categories, saying, "For every nature of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of the rest, is tamed, and hath been tamed, by the nature of man". A serpent, for instance, has both the nature of a beast and the nature of a serpent. Something actually can have more than one nature.
The Coptic view's premise on the other hand goes that if something is said to have two natures, then it must have two persons or hypostases. In other words, a person has his own whole nature, and he cannot have two of his own total whole natures.
But this Coptic view fails to grasp that when Chalcedonians say that Christ has two natures, Chalcedonians are not saying that he has two of his whole entire total nature. We are saying that Christ is in both categories.
Copts will say at times that Christ's human nature is His humanity and His divine nature is his Divinity, and that He is human and Divine, and that He has Humanity and has Divinity. They can say that He has both. But even then, the OOs don't have a consensus that this means He "is in two natures."
Second:
The OOs are not purely reiterating Cyril on the point, despite such claims. I and other EOs have pulled apart Cyril's writing on the topic. Cyril said that he was in agreement with the Antiochians, who professed two natures. He defended the Orthodoxy of the Dyophysite John of Antioch against those other Egyptian Christians who denied it. After he died, however, the Egyptian faction who considered the Dyophysites heretics reared their head and became in control of the Egyptian church and they labeled Dyophysitism heretical.
Third,
There is an ecclesiastical problem at the root of the split as to how to deal with such conflicts.
Historically, in the early 5th Century , there was a preacher named Eutyches whose Dyophysite opponents reported that he preached strange ideas like Christ having heavenly flesh before his birth but not having humanity after his birth and deposed him. They deposed him particularly for denying that Christ had two natures, but there were other things against him too.
In response, the Coptic Patriarch called what some OOs considered an "ecumenical council" at Ephesus (Iirc, it was called Ephesus II). At this council, Eutyches announced something along the lines of "I confess that before the Incarnation, Christ had two natures, but after the union, only one." The Catholic Encyclopedia cites his statement as: "I confess that our Lord was of [
ek] two
natures, before the union; but after the union, I acknowledge one nature." Pope Leo wrote his Tome about how wrong Eutyches' statement was. It does not make sense that Christ had both his natures only before he became man, and yet didn't have both afterwards. But Dioscorus didn't allow the Tome to be read.
Dioscorus' council decided:
1. Eutyches' statement was orthodox.
2. Eutyches was wrongly deposed by the Dyophysite patriarch Flavian.
3. The Dyophysite teaching that Christ has two natures is a heresy.
4. Since Flavian deposed Eutyches and taught two natures, Flavian was deposed and IIRC excommunicated. He died soon after in exile, maybe being killed as was alleged at Chalcedon.
An interesting point is that later on, Eutyches seemingly was saying things too heretical for the OOs, saying that after the union, Christ's divine nature swallowed His human nature, the idea being that He only had His divine nature afterwards. So the OOs, including Dioscorus, said that Eutyches "returned" to wallowing in his own "vomit." The logical implication is that Eutyches actually was a monophysite heretic. But this change of affairs on Eutyches didn't make the OOs revisit Ephesus II or say that the Chalcedonians were right to depose him, which would have been the logical conclusion.
Now here his where the practical dilemma arises for the Chalcedonian side: How to resolve this schism? And how should they have tried to resolve it in the 5th century?
One answer is to try to persuade the Copts that Dyophysitism makes sense and to do nothing ecclesiastically using divisive church decisions. The problem with that method is that the Copts have already called a supposedly "ecumenical" council that banned Dyophysitism. Clearly decades of debates hadn't persuaded them. Even today, the OOs don't have a consensus on whether Dyophysitism is theologically orthodox, although many OOs do.
Another option, which was what was chosen, was to call the ecumenical council of Chalcedon to resolve the problem. Historically the Church had been calling Councils since the book of Acts to resolve debates like these. So the idea of calling a council seems right. Further, since Nicea, the ecumenical councils were called to have authority for the whole church. So Chalcedon reviewed the debate and said that Christ is in two natures, meaning His humanity and divinity.
The OOs rejected Chalcedon because of its teaching of two natures. So one hypothetical option that has been considered for the sake of Church unity has been to suggest possibly that Chalcedon is not a fundamental council of the Christian Church and that Chalcedonians and OOs can reunite without considering Chalcedon ecumenical and authoritative. And there are three problems with this solution for the Chalcedonian side:
1. Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and probably numerous Protestant Churches do consider Chalcedon an authoritative ecumenical Council, even if they don't consider it infallible. Chalcedon can't be easily waved away at an ecclesiastical level. Maybe Anglicanism or Lutheranism downplays it as a "council of men" sometimes, but the EO church considers the 7 Councils foundational. It considers itself a "Conciliar" Church. And actually the OOs have the same ecclesiology about the authority of Councils as the EOs, but they just consider Chalcedon to be not an authority or else reject it. EO and OO leaders actually have made some good intrachurch statements affirming aspects of each other's orthodoxy, but it still hasn't amounted to the OO Church formally affirming Chalcedon.
2. Church leaders did attempt a kind of reunion in the few centuries after Chalcedon. It led to the Acacian Schism. The biggest practical problem for the EOs was that the OO leader Severus was using the reunion as a reason to persecute those who considered Chalcedon to be still binding. In other words, Church leaders formally united the EO and OO churches without an agreement on whether Chalcedon was orthodox, but the flocks kept polemicising and expressing opposite views on the topic and it led to continuing conflict and even repression.
3. There actually have been a small fraction of OO theologians over the centuries who at times say things along the lines of Christ having only divinity and not humanity. A big majority of OOs would not share their view, but it still creates a problem from the Chalcedonian POV because the OOs don't reject those theologians. That is, if you consider the substance of Chalcedon to be very important for Christology, then it creates a problem of those theologians' orthodoxy. In the EO church, we would say that those theologians are in conflict with orthodoxy due to Chalcedon, but the OO Church as far as I can tell doesn't have a Council that so fundamentally and clearly teaches that Christ retains both his divinity and humanity as Chalcedon. Some OOs I believe have correctly interpreted sources like the Nicene Creed as entailing these beliefs, but the purpose of Chalcedon was to make a succinct, clear statement on the topic. And without it, a problem arises for the Church as to how to express itself on so fundamental an issue if correct, succinct expressions like Chalcedon's are misinterpreted.
So to say that we can reunite as one Church without considering Chalcedon authoritative creates a few big problems for the EO side.
