Book contents
- Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience
- Ancient Religion and Cognition
- Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Funder Acknowledgement
- Introduction
- Part I Ritual
- Part II Representation
- Part III Gender
- Part IV Materiality
- Part V Texts
- Chapter 10 Bridging the Gap
- Chapter 11 A Relevant Mystery
- Index
- References
Chapter 11 - A Relevant Mystery
Intuitive and Reflective Thought in Gregory of Nyssa’s Representations of Divine Begetting in the Against Eunomius
from Part V - Texts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2022
Book contents
- Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience
- Ancient Religion and Cognition
- Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Contributors
- Abbreviations
- Funder Acknowledgement
- Introduction
- Part I Ritual
- Part II Representation
- Part III Gender
- Part IV Materiality
- Part V Texts
- Chapter 10 Bridging the Gap
- Chapter 11 A Relevant Mystery
- Index
- References
Summary
In this chapter I argue that we should take seriously the numerous vivid images of material begetting in Gregory of Nyssa’s Against Eunomius because they provide him with a more experientially based, and so intuitive, way to conceive of the hard-to-grasp idea that the first and second Person of the Trinity were both distinct entities and also unified in essence or nature. However, I shall also argue that Gregory was at the same time continuously correcting problems that an intuitive model of begetting might bring to the divine by returning to more theologically correct, reflective ways of conceiving of the divine. I shall argue that via this oscillation between intuitive ways of thinking about the divine and reflective and theological ways of thinking about it, which Ilkka Pyysiӓinen has argued is normal for theological discourse, Gregory was able to present the Trinity as what Dan Sperber has defined as a ‘relevant mystery’.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience , pp. 266 - 289Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
References
Anatolius, K. 2011. Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine. Grand Rapids, MI.Google Scholar
Ayres, L. 2004. Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, M. R. 1998. ‘Eunomius of Cyzicus and Gregory of Nyssa: Two Traditions of Transcendental Causality’, Vigiliae Christianae 52: 59–87.Google Scholar
Barnes, M. R. 2002. ‘Divine Unity and the Divided Self: Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian Theology in Its Psychological Context’, Modern Theology 18: 475–496.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, M. R. 2014. ‘Contra Eunomium III.6’, in Leemans, J. and Cassin, M., eds. Gregory of Nyssa: ‘Contra Eunomium III’: An English Translation with Commentary and Supporting Studies, 371–377. Leiden.Google Scholar
Barrett, J. L. 1998. ‘Cognitive Constraints on Hindu Concepts of the Divine’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37: 608–619.Google Scholar
Barrett, J. L. and Keil, F. C.. 1996. ‘Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts’, Cognitive Psychology 31: 219–247.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barrett, J. L. and Nyhof, M.. 2001. ‘Spreading Non-natural Concepts: The Role of Intuitive and Intuitive Conceptual Structures in Memory and Transmission of Cultural Materials’, Journal of Cognition and Culture 1.1: 69–100.Google Scholar
Boyer, P. 1996. ‘What Makes Anthropomorphism Natural: Intuitive Ontology and Cultural Representations’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2.1: 83–97.Google Scholar
Boyer, P. 2002. Religion Explained: The Human Instincts that Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors. London.Google Scholar
Boyer, P. and Ramble, C. 2001. ‘Cognitive Templates for Religious Concepts: Cross-cultural Evidence for Recall of Counter-intuitive Representations’, Cognitive Science 25: 535–564.Google Scholar
Burrus, V. 2000. ‘Begotten not Made.’ Conceiving Manhood in Late Antiquity. Stanford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cross, R. 2002. ‘Gregory of Nyssa on Universals’, Vigiliae Christianae 56.4: 372–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Cruz, H. 2014. ‘Cognitive Science of Religion and the Study of Theological Concepts’, Topoi 23.2: 487–497.Google Scholar
De Cruz, H. and De Smedt, J.. 2015. A Natural History of Natural Theology: The Cognitive Science of Theology and Philosophy of Religion. Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
De Halleux, A. 1986. ‘Personalisme ou essentialisme Trinitaire chez les pères Cappadociens’, Revue Théologique de Louvain 17: 215–268.Google Scholar
Drake, H. A. 2000. Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance. Baltimore, MD and London.Google Scholar
Gregory, T. E. 1979. Vox Populi: Popular Opinion and Violence in the Religious Controversies of the Fifth Century A.D. Columbus, OH.Google Scholar
Hanson, R. P. C. 1988. The Search for the Christian Doctrine: The Arian Controversy 318-381 AD. Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Jaeger, W. ed. 1960. Contra Eunomium libri. (Revised ed.) 2 vols. Gregorii Nysseni Opera 1–2. Leiden.Google Scholar
Karfiková, L., Douglas, S., and Zachhuber, J., eds. 2007. Gregory of Nyssa: “Contra Eunomium II”: An English Version with Supporting Studies. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 82. Leiden.Google Scholar
Leemans, J. and Cassin, M., eds. 2014. Gregory of Nyssa: ‘Contra Eunomium III’: An English Translation with Commentary and Supporting Studies. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 124. Leiden.Google Scholar
Lim, R. 1995. Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA and London.Google Scholar
Lisdorf, A. 2004. ‘The Spread of Non-natural Concepts’, Journal of Cognition and Culture 4.1: 151–174.Google Scholar
Lootens, M. R. 2015. ‘Gregory of Nyssa’s Contra Eunomium: Context, Method, and Theology’, PhD dissertation, Fordham University.Google Scholar
Luomanen, P., Pyysiӓinen, I., and Uro, R.. 2007. Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism. Contributions from Cognitive and Social Sciences. Leiden.Google Scholar
MacMullen, R. 2006. Voting about God in Early Church Councils. New Haven, CT and London.Google Scholar
Mateo-Seco, L. F. and Bastero, J. L., eds. 1988. El ‘Contra Eunomium I’ en la produccion literaria de Gregorio de Nisa: VI Coloquio Internacional sobre Gregorio de Nisa. Pamplona.Google Scholar
Purzycki, B. G. and Willard, A. K.. 2016. ‘MCI Theory: A Critical Discussion’, Religion, Brain and Behavior 6.3: 207–224.Google Scholar
Pyysiӓinen, I. 2003. How Religion Works: Towards a New Cognitive Science of Religion. Leiden.Google Scholar
Pyysiӓinen, I. 2004a. ‘Corrupt Doctrine and Doctrinal Revival. On the Nature and Limits of the Modes Theory’, in Whitehouse, H. and Martin, L. H., eds. Theorizing Religions Past. Archaeology, History and Cognition. Lanham, MD.Google Scholar
Pyysiӓinen, I. 2004b. ‘Intuitive and Explicit in Religious Thought,’ Journal of Cognition and Culture 4.1: 123–150.Google Scholar
Pyysiӓinen, I. 2009. Supernatural Agents: Why We Believe in Souls, Gods and Buddhas. Oxford.Google Scholar
Sandwell, I. 2019. ‘Gregory of Nyssa’s Engagement with Conceptual Metaphors: The Analogies of “Father,” “Son,” and “Begetting” in the Against Eunomius’, Religion and Theology 26.1–2: 112–146.Google Scholar
Slone, J. D. 2004. Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Shouldn’t. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Harnack, A. (trans. N. Buchanan). 1958. The History of Dogma, vol. iv. New York, NY.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, H. 2004. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. Walnut Creek, CA.Google Scholar
Zachhuber, J. 2000. Human Nature in Gregory of Nyssa: Philosophical Background and Theological Significance, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 46. Leiden.Google Scholar