08 — The Scholarly Debate

The collection’s both-sides flagship (METHODOLOGY §4.2). Farrell radicalizes a distinguished neo-Palamite lineage (Lossky, Romanides, Meyendorff); that lineage’s East-West grand narrative has in turn been challenged at its foundation by the critics of the “de Régnon paradigm” (Barnes, Ayres) and the Orthodox re-readers of Augustine and Aquinas (Demacopoulos & Papanikolaou, Plested), with David Bradshaw as a measured middle voice. This section names the positions and adjudicates nothing.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox academic (both-sides scholarly debate)

Overview

Everything the Church confesses — that the Filioque is an error, that the monarchy of the Father and the essence-energies distinction are Orthodox doctrine — this collection confesses and does not put up for debate. What is a live scholarly question, on which faithful scholars divide, is the historical-interpretive claim that Eastern and Western Trinitarian theology stand in a systematic, civilization-defining opposition rooted in Augustine. GHD radicalizes one side of that question; a serious body of scholarship contests it. This section stages the debate by name and takes no side, so the reader can see exactly where Farrell’s grand narrative sits in the field.

Files in This Section

  • The Neo-Palamite Lineage Farrell Radicalizes — Lossky (measured, dogmatic), Romanides (the cultural-historical thesis Farrell extends), and Meyendorff (the Palamite scholarship); what GHD inherits and where it goes beyond its teachers.
  • The De Régnon Paradigm Critique — de Régnon’s schematization and its dismantling by Barnes and Ayres; the Orthodox re-readings of Augustine (Demacopoulos & Papanikolaou) and Aquinas (Plested); Bradshaw’s measured contrast; and where GHD sits in the field.

See Also