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Contra Stavrinides
by Frank Nelte
PART X: THE FACTS ABOUT "HYPOSTASIS"
We have been told by Dr. Stavrinides that the Church's official position about the nature of God is that:
God is one being in three HYPOSTASES --- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Where does this idea about "hypostasis" come from? Dr. Stavrinides told us that "hypostasis" is a biblical word and that therefore it is suitable to use in reference to God's nature.
At the end of tape #14 Dr. Stavrinides, after having talked for almost 26 hours (plus the handouts!), said that ... "a THEOLOGIAN would laugh at the level of (his) presentation (to us)" because he had not discussed so many more important subjects. Well, I don't know about "laughing", but I do know that some people were crying when he was finished ... they were "sighing and crying for all the abominations that are being taught in the Church of God"! (adaptation from Ezek. 9:4)
Dr. Stavrinides went on to say:
"We've only discussed the things of the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople."
THAT'S WHERE THE IDEAS ABOUT THE "HYPOSTASIS" OF GOD COME FROM!
In Part II we looked at the origin of this new teaching. Now we need to examine this further and understand the facts about this Greek word "hypostasis". Consider the following things:
And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? 16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? ... . (IICorinthians 6:15-16)
In Webster's Dictionary "Hypostasis" is defined as:
to stand under; to support; something that settles at the bottom of a fluid; it is derived from "HUPO" (under) + "HISTEMI" (to stand).
This seems simple enough ... no esoteric religious meaning here. In plain English it refers to: a foundation, a support.
Lest haply if they of Macedonia come with me, and find you unprepared, we (that we say not, ye) should be ashamed in this same CONFIDENT boasting. (IICorinthians 9:4)
That which I speak, I speak [it] not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this CONFIDENCE of boasting. (IICorinthians 11:17)
For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our CONFIDENCE stedfast unto the end; (Hebrews 3:14)
Now faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)
Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his PERSON, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; (Hebrews 1:3)
THAT'S IT!
The first two uses by Paul refer to "the confidence of BOASTING"; literally: "THE BOASTING THAT PAUL STOOD UPON". In these verses Paul certainly did not imply some secret "theological" meaning for this word.
The next use (Heb. 3:14) is in exactly the same sense ... Paul urges us to hold on to "the beginning of what we stand upon".
The next use (Heb. 11:1) is also in this same sense ... faith is "what we stand upon" regarding the things we hope for.
In all four of these places the word "hypostasis" has exactly the same one and only meaning, i.e. a foundation, something to stand upon. That is precisely what the word "substance" (coming from the Latin words "sub" + "stare") originally meant!
The English word "substance" TODAY has acquired a modified meaning, namely "essential nature", etc.. But that is not what "hypostasis" meant in the days of the Apostle Paul! And in the four places we have looked at thus far the words "ESSENTIAL NATURE" are simply nonsense! They don't fit and they don't convey what Paul was telling us!
THE LATIN WORD "SUBSTANCE" HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS ONE WAY OR THE OTHER!
THIS IS TOTALLY UNWARRANTED!
There is absolutely no justification for transposing the changed, new meaning of the Latin word "substance" back to the Greek word "hypostasis". That is simply the meaning the philosophers in the Catholic Church arbitrarily later gave to these words.
The word "SUBSTANCE" has absolutely nothing to do with the question of what "hypostasis" means and whether or not we should use this word. Throwing this word into his presentation is nothing more than another "red herring".
Beware lest any man spoil you through PHILOSOPHY and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. (Colossians 2:8)
... was certainly not using this word in the sense of the philosophers, as it had been used since Plato's time. The people he was writing to were not philosophers and he didn't want them to become philosophers. He used words that his readers understood.
The word "hypostasis" had puzzled the translators of the N.T., since it was one of the Koine words that were beyond reach of the classical lexicons. It was not until Sir William Ramsay, the great archaeologist, came along with a papyrus that made clear that in Koine Greek the word "hypostasis" meant "TITLE DEED"! That's right! When you own a property, then the TITLE DEED is what your ownership "stands upon". It is really so simple!
All of Paul's five usages of this word agree with this meaning. And it is established beyond doubt that this was the meaning in Koine Greek. And Paul wrote in Koine Greek. Paul most certainly did not use the word "hypostasis" with a philosophical meaning.
Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his PERSON, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; (Hebrews 1:3)
Here the translators rendered "hypostasis" as "person". They did this before Sir William Ramsay's time, when they weren't really sure of what this word meant in Koine Greek. Today scholars readily admit that "person" is really an anachronism, since it was NEVER rendered as "person" until the 4th century A.D.. It is exactly the same kind of anachronism as taking the word "conversation" in the KJV of the Bible to mean "speech".
It is equally as much an anachronism to attach the meaning "essential nature" to this usage here in Hebrews 1:3, since it was not until Origen's time, well into the third century A.D., that "theologians" of the Catholic Church developed this meaning.
In Heb. 1:3 Paul was saying:
"Christ, who being the brightness of glory, and the express character (in Greek) of WHAT THE FATHER STANDS UPON, and upholding all things by the word ..."
In plain English, Paul tells us in Heb. 1:3 that when it comes to character, God the Father and Jesus Christ have exactly the same foundation; they stand upon the same thing! There is nothing mystical about the nature of God in this verse; or what God the Father and Jesus Christ are composed of!
Look, Paul was not being devious here. He wasn't slipping something about "the nature of God" into the discussion without making waves; something true Christians would only "have a limited grasp of", but which pagan philosophers would understand fairly easily.
The only five times this word is used in the Bible, it always has the same meaning. To attach the meaning of the philosophers to this word is deceitful and devious!
And the younger of them said to [his] father, Father, give me the portion of GOODS that falleth [to me]. And he divided unto them [his] living. 13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his SUBSTANCE with riotous living. (Luke 15:12-13)
Another word meaning "substance" is ...
And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their SUBSTANCE. (Luke 8:3)
Another word, from the same root as "huparchonta" is ...
For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring SUBSTANCE. (Hebrews 10:34)
Look at this verse closely!
If you were really looking for a Greek word that means something like: substance, essential nature, what something is composed of, etc., then "HUPARXIS" is a much better candidate than "hypostasis". Just look at that verse again ... can you see what kind of mileage you could get out of the expression ...
"you have in heaven a better and an enduring HUPARXIS"?
But that wouldn't go down well with the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople, or with Origen and a host of other "church fathers", would it? Also, and more importantly, "huparxis" didn't feature in Plato's ideas. He had already taught about the TWO divine "hypostases", NOT the two divine "huparxes". So let's abandon the idea of developing "huparxis".
The answer is: PLATO, the Greek philosopher!
What on earth are we doing, accepting Plato's ideas as truth? In his longest and "most practical" work, "LAWS", Plato has one long exposition of "theology". It is from here that later writers developed different types of "theology" ... M.T. Varro later called Plato's ideas "NATURAL" or "PHILOSOPHICAL" theology ... in contrast to "POETIC" theology.
Handout #4 is nothing more than Plato's ideas, dressed up for Church of God consumption! Any "theology" apart from "BIBLICAL THEOLOGY" is simply not "theology" ... it is nothing more than Greek philosophy and the ideas of men, cut off from any contact with God.
The ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 1958 edition, volume 18, in the article "PLATO" states on page 63:
It should be obvious to anyone who takes the time to study into this, that the religious views of the Catholic Church, as expounded by the Catholic "church fathers" and as discussed at the various Councils of the Catholic Church (Nicea, Constantinople, etc.) are STEEPED IN THE IDEAS OF PLATO!
So likewise is Dr. Stavrinides' presentation STEEPED in the teachings of Plato! The scriptures he uses are highly artificially attached to these ideas, to give them a semblance of being biblical.
They are not! They are as pagan as was Plato himself!
In PART IX, on page 45 under point #9, I referred to Origen's work "DE PRINCIPIIS". Let's look at this more closely now.
In "On First Principles" Origen begins in the first chapter of the first book to discuss the doctrine of God. (That is what Dr, Stavrinides' whole discussion is all about!) Origen quickly begins to interpret the Christian faith in Platonic categories. He argued that the Holy Spirit could not be shared in the sense of dividing it up into parts. Sharing in the Holy Spirit of God, he argues, is like physicians "sharing" in the science of medicine. He describes God in the traditional Platonic vocabulary as: incomprehensible, immeasurable, INCOMPOSITE (note!) and INCORPOREAL (note again!).
In the second book in the section that deals with the identity of the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, Origen, in equally Platonic fashion, stresses the BENEFICENCE of God i.e. he claimed that God could not actually experience anger. Therefore Origen goes to extreme lengths to INTERPRET ALLEGORICALLY any biblical passages that state that God does experience anger. Some of his allegories are rather drastic.
Can we see where Dr. Stavrinides' ideas come from? From Origen, who got them from Plato!
In his book "Wisdom" Origen stated that Wisdom is ..."A PURE EMANATION OF THE GLORY OF THE ALMIGHTY" (Wis. 7:25). He identified "Wisdom" with Christ. So Christ, the second divine hypostasis, is "a pure emanation" from God.
Origen argued that there could not be a time when the Father lacked the Son (i.e. while Christ was dead for three days), since, if there had been, the Father's nature would have to have changed in order to be a Father. THIS IS GOOD PLATONIC REASONING! And this is precisely what Dr. Stavrinides is trying to palm off on the Church of God today.
Origen discussed his Christology more fully in his first two books on his "Commentary on John", a work written only a short time after "On First Principles". It is helpful to study this work as well, as it also clarifies Dr. Stavrinides' ideas further.
Origen expressed Christ's nature as multiple in terms of "EPINOIAI". The Greek word "epinoia" means "THOUGHT", but in philosophical parlance it came to mean "aspects", which were to mean an entirely CONCEPTUAL distinction, as opposed to "hypostasis" which was supposed to mean a REAL distinction.
Does this sound like "striving about words"? Well, it is!
Anyway, these "epinoiai" fall into two groups, according to Origen. The first group, belonging to Christ's "ETERNAL NATURE", are four and they are involved with creation; they are: Wisdom, Word, Life and Truth. Some of this Origen got from Plato's "Timaeus".
Those "epinoiai" of Christ that characterize His role as redeemer correspond to roles of the second divine hypostasis in Platonism. Platonists, like the Catholic "fathers", conceived of the second hypostasis as the means by which the creature can reascend to the simplicity of the first hypostasis. Christ's "epinoiai" in the order of redemption are far more varied than in the order of creation (which were only four). There need to be as many "epinoiai" (ASPECTS) here as there are needs.
Origen found it easy to be simultaneously a "Christian" and a Platonist. He differs from the Platonists in accepting the "incarnation', something true Platonists viewed as an inconceivable degradation of the divine nature. Origen discusses his "doctrine of the incarnation" (God coming in the flesh) in the sixth chapter of the second book of "On First Principles". In this he made the fullest use of his philosophical background. Since, according to Plato's "Timaeus" and Aristotle's "On the Soul", THE SOUL IS DUAL, being rational it could be united to the Godhead, but it also had the capacity to be united with a human body.
Origen explained the incarnation and allowed for Christ's full humanity by postulating the union between:
CHRIST'S BODY + HUMAN SOUL + DIVINE NATURE
Origen taught that the Holy Spirit is the third eternally existing divine hypostasis. "TRIAD" is the word Origen used, rather than "Trinity". In Origen's time "Trinity" would have been an anachronism. Origen also stated that while some pagan philosophers knew of the Father and of the Son, none knew of the existence of the Holy Spirit as a third divine hypostasis. (Plotinus, 205 - 270 A.D., born in Egypt, founder of Neoplatonism, also taught three divine hypostases; his work "Enneads" was edited by Porphyry)
I know all this philosophical reasoning is heavy going ... but it should be quite easy to see Dr. Stavrinides' whole presentation reflected in these thoughts and teachings of Origen, the Catholic "church father". (Actually "church father" is a bit of a contradiction, since, according to Eusebius, Origen castrated himself in his late twenties.)
"one SUBSTANTIA, three PERSONAE".
BUT: the Greek word "hypostasis" means the same as the Latin word "substantia". This adds some confusion, because now we can change the Latin phrase to say:
"one HYPOSTASIS, three PERSONAE".
Or we could change the Greek phrase to say:
"one OUSIA, three SUBSTANTIAE".
By mixing these two languages --- Latin and Greek--- one can see how the different meanings become blurred if one treats these different statements like mathematical equations. Eventually you conclude that these words "ousia" and "hypostasis" and "substantia" really all mean the same thing.
And sure enough, LATER the words "ousia" and "hypostasis" came to be considered to be synonyms BY CATHOLIC "THEOLOGIANS"! But they are not synonyms!
Notice the proof that they came to be seen as synonyms! St. Jerome, who was living alone in a Syrian desert within the province of Antioch wrote two letters to Pope Damasus (376 - 377 A.D.) in which he asked, was it really necessary to profess three hypostases?
"Surely HYPOSTASIS was synonymous with OUSIA."
Here we see the blurring of the distinction between these words. It is only a small step for Dr. Stavrinides to then apply the meaning of "ousia" to the word "hypostasis". Like a card-player shuffling a deck of cards, these "theologians" shuffle around the meanings of words until they come up with a combination that suits them. To St. Jerome the words "ousia" and "hypostasis" were only synonyms. The truth is that the word "hypostasis" has NOTHING to do with "substance" as we understand this word today!
THE CONCEPT OF GOD BEING THREE HYPOSTASES IS TOTALLY AND UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY PAGAN AND AN INSULT TO THE DIGNITY AND POWER AND MIGHT OF THE ALMIGHTY GOD!