@Dan A question occurred to me this morning while I was driving in to work. Is your answer basically a 'scholastic' answer? If so is the SE format inherently scholastic?

@JackDouglas yes and yes!

@JackDouglas if I were to give a true Orthodox response, I probably wouldn't participate here

I'd probably reach out to the individual privately and encourage them to experience Orthodoxy and ask a priest

@JackDouglas at the same time, Orthodoxy does not preclude me from participating - I just wouldn't dare call it 'theology'

Simply answering questions about Christianity isn't too big a deal to anyone

thanks, another question then, given the weight of instruction in scripture not just to 'read' and 'understand', but more on the lines of 'meditate on' and 'soak up'/'feed on'/'absorb', but also the 'scholastic' style of Paul's writing, do you think the intended means of receiving this revelation is actually a mixture of both rather than one or the other?

@JackDouglas clarification, when I say Scholastic, I was referring to speaking through an Aristotelian lens, not simply 'academic'

so let me start over now that I'm aware you are referring to the common meaning of the term

although in some ways they are synonymous

yes and no

Even Paul is fairly allegorical

His letter to the Romans was written in a juridicial mindset since this best reached their culture (and Protestants tend to elevate the theology of this book above everything else in scripture, including other writings of Paul)

At the same time, some of the interpretations we have of Romans today are largely misguided (as NT Wright and others have observed)

I guess I'm going to say that there is no such dichotomy

we are to love god with all of our heart, soul, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves.

When we approach the biblical text, we should use our whole mind, so long as we do not do so in exclusion to using our whole soul and heart as well

it's more of a balance than an either/or

the mind/heart distinction is not solely Western by any means, but in the East they go hand in hand (although slightly different, monastic literature uses the terms nous/dianoia)

@JackDouglas am I making sense?

@Dan Yes, I think so

I'm thinking that Eastern leans one way and Western leans the other, but someone from either 'tradition' might still be able to know God if he avoids the danger of elevating one extreme of the other until it becomes and idol

(eg a westerner elevating 'logical' understanding and simultaneously denying the existence of communication on any other level in scripture)

s/scripture/revelation

@JackDouglas I certainly agree that one can approach God from the East or West, I just think the East makes it a little easier :P

The article 'River of Fire' points out that Atheism developed in the West for a reason

sure, I can live with that!

I was wondering if the East rejected 'scholasticism' entirely but I'm thinking that's not the case

@JackDouglas no, they didn't reject Plato nor Aristotle entirely

I once heard a priest say, "humans can't get it wrong 100% of the time, even if they try, because they are made in the image of God"

so even though it may be pagan philosophy, that doesn't mean there aren't some grains of truth in it

Logic and dialectical reasoning certainly aren't bad things

But the elevation of rationalism and the desire to deny/resolve contradictions is not always helpful - especially when approaching God

@JackDouglas FYI I edited this then rolled back my own edit after rereading the pertinent meta post