ICOANA CREDINTEI.ICON OF FAITH

4-4

Authors: PhD. Alexandru-Corneliu ARION

13-21

Authors: PhD. Marin BUGIULESCU

The present paper presents the Theological and Dogmatic definition of the Person of the God-man Jesus Christ, as it has been formulated by the Orthodox Church in the course of time. In the Ecumenical and local synods, the Church proclaimed against the heresies various definitions of faith or dogmas. Dogma, in its essence, is a truth of faith revealed by God, unchangeable, formulated and transmitted by the Church, for man’s salvation. The central dogma of Christianity is the Trinitarian one. Regarding the Person and the Work of Christ, against the heresies promoted by Arius, Nestorius, Eutychius and Macedonius, at the Ecumenical Synods III (Ephesus 431), IV (Chalcedon 451), VI (Constantinople 680-681), the Church officially stated that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly Man, and His Person includes the divine nature, from eternity, yet united in time with the human nature, each nature having its own will, and the human will follows the divine will. This union of the divinity with the humanity in Christ is actually the basis of man’s salvation realized objectively in Christ and actualized personally by all the Christians in the Church, by means of which evil and death are defeated by the resurrection leading to eternal life.

27-33

Authors: Stoian Mihai Sebastian

God made Himself a man for man to reach the likeness of God – this is the essential idea of the oikonomia of our salvation, dear to all the Church Fathers, from Saint Irenaeus to Saint Athanasius the Great and the essence of Christ, mystery and original and fundamental sacrament of our meeting with God and of our salvation, of all of us, in Christ, and of the acquisition by each man of the fruits of salvation and deification through Christ, in the Holy Spirit, in His Church. Christ’s mystery and sacrament begins by the Embodiment of the Father’s Logos. The Passions, the cross, the tomb and the resurrection are its continuation. And all these translate the mystery of the reason why God created everything and the very mystery of man - participating to the original mystery, namely Christ, and the Church, as sacrament. Therefore, Christ is the Mystery and the sacrament by excellence - original and general -, spring and content of all the mysteries and sacraments, condition and explanation of all these.

49-59

Authors: Phd. candidate, Constantin–Valentin BUGIULESCU

This article deals with the dogma of the union of the two natures, divine and human, in Christ’s pre-existing Hypostasis and the redeeming importance of this union for man’s deification as full realization in Christ. Christ, the pre-existing Hypostasis, becomes by oikonomia a hypostasis uniting in Himself - in an undivided and unseparated, unmixed and unchanged way - two different principles, two natures united in a special way, we could even say a completely special way. This new way of union and living makes the fallen human nature be lifted by the oikonomia of love to the state of partner of the Father, oikonomia realized by and in Christ’s community of hypostasis. Christ is the One Who gives everything back to the human nature in order for it to be accomplished, but, moreover, He realizes in Himself the accomplishment of all the potentials and virtualities that used to constitute the human nature and which, because of sin and implicitly the deepening in it (the fall), decreased in intensity so that they no longer had the power to generate the good existence that comes and is directed through the creation towards God. Christ’s embodiment - as a completely special way of assuming the human nature - generates, on the one hand, the re-establishment of the fallen nature and, on the other hand, by the assuming, by Christ, of all the things pertaining to the nature, except for sin, and His descent on their level of existence and power of development, our deification is mysteriously realized, as well. It is by the embodiment that Christ “becomes a man for men but also of men”, born as a man of the Virgin Mary and of the Holy Spirit, “for us, men, and our salvation”.

68-82

Authors: Prof. Leontin POPESCU

The existence of the evil in the world is maybe the most difficult problem man has tried to decipher all along his history. The fundamental question which has been asked during all this time has been WHY? And comprises either the search of an explanation (What for? What is its cause?), or the search of hat is it good for? Where can it take us?). It is clear that beyond any philosophical, moral, religious, social etc., category, which could lead us to deciphering this notion – the evil-, one thing is certain: the man experiences the evil in its different forms: physical, psychological, moral sufferings, cataclysms and earthquakes, totalitarianisms and fanaticisms. Philosophy, religion, morale –humanities, in general, have tried along the time to find an explanation and even a definition of the evil, but none has absolutely succeeded in finding a definitive explanation. And this acknowledgement makes us think that the evil has something beyond the whole created nature of man and universe and through this, it cannot be defined. Even if man and universe feel its consequences, it exists not as something given, but as possibility.

90-100

Authors: PhD. Lect. Alexandru-Corneliu ARION

This paper aims at a comparing exposure between Christianity and classical Hinduism on the concept of person, analysed from theological point of view. In this plan, i.e. of the Divine and human understanding as a person, there is not only a distinction between these two great world religions, but also a level difference, qualitatively insurmountable, since Christianity rests on postulating and understanding of God as the Person par excellence, while in the current Asiatic religion, at the absolute level, divinity (Brahman) goes beyond the status of a person, that is endowed with only at a lower level (phenomenal). The postulation of a single ultimate Reality, in which souls return once they reached the state of liberation, can be understood but only through a monistic-pantheistic identification of the creaturely with the Absolute, Brahman. For despite the insistence on a personal relationship between man and divinity that we find at some classical thinkers, ultimately, what remains is the absolute and impersonal reality of Brahman. Man cannot be thought of in personal terms, rather than as a temporary manifestation, for once with the breakage of the causal chain: «avidya-karma-samsara», he gets dissolved in the impersonal Absolute of God. In Christianity, the problem of person and that of hypostasizing nature is expressed in such a way that excludes simultaneous emphasis on unity (One) or plurality (Multiple). Christian theology knows no abstract deity: God cannot be conceived outside the three Persons. If ousia and hypostasis are almost synonymous, that happens so just to defeat our reason, to prevent us from objecting the divine essence outside Persons and of “their eternal movement of love”.

106-116

Authors: PhD Olanrewaju Abdul SHITTA-BEY

Discourse on human will has a long history in Western philosophical tradition; and this discourse remains evergreen with changing subject-matter from one period to another. As a matter of fact, the discourse has significant implications for other intellectual disciplines that advance the course of the human species. In this connection, this paper examines the most recurring debate in the history of the discourse on human will; this paper particularly examines the various controversies that have been generated by the question whether the human will is free or not. The question has serious implications on the way we construe existence in all ramifications. The paper considers the debate within the bounds of two distinct thought systems of Western and Yoruba philosophical traditions. Within the context of Western thought, the paper focuses on doctrines that have evolved in the attempt to address or respond to the question whether the human will is free or not. Within the Yoruba thought system, the paper examines the works of some scholars that have contributed to the discourse on the fundamental question. This paper argues that the question of whether the human will is free or not does not arise in the Yoruba philosophical system. The analytic and phenomenological approaches are adopted in this paper. The analytic approach is important to achieve the twin goal of explanation and clarity of concepts and issues; that is, the approach affords us the opportunity to engage and subject written literatures to critical exposition. The phenomenological approach is significant as an interpretative tool to interrogate oral texts that account for the notion and conception of human will in Yoruba thought system.