Logos in St. Gregory of Nyssa - Fr Matthew Raphael Johnson
Channel: Yanni McQueen
Date: 2020-11-08

Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson explains the theological system used for creation and how it is reflected in language.


This broadcast is an academic lecture on the patristic idea of St. Gregory of Nyssa. Next week, it will be continued with Gregory the Theologian. This comes from my upcoming book, The Ontology of Death: Patristic Philosophy against Promethean Nominalism.

Often, those writing on the church fathers do not have a background in the history of metaphysics. On the other hand, those writing on metaphysics refuse to see the patristic writings as legitimate continuations of Plato's metaphysics or even metaphysical systems at all. In a very weak way, this book tries to rectify this serious problem.

Realists believe, in one sense or another, in Forms. These are Archetypes and are Reality in the strict sense, hence the name “Realist.” Because material things are constantly in flux and our own human perception picks up only the tiniest aspect of the external world, the Forms are prerequisite for all knowledge.


Approaching the subject more broadly, the doctrine of the church is encapsulated in the idea of Logos. When God creates out the fullness of his very being, two things are created: The universal objects and the particular objects dependent upon them. The hierarchy is clear: Pure Being overflows and creates the most important Ideas; these Ideas, in a sense, “create” what is below them, the particulars in matter.

The world, put simply, is distinguished between the universal and the particular, the latter encased in matter and the former serve as its principle. Only the universal has being. The universal here is not “universal” in Aristotle's sense. It is not abstract. For Realism, the Idea is the most concrete thing in existence. It is the particular that is abstract unless understood as an aspect of the Idea, the universal which serves as the goal and source of the particular.

While this seems excessively abstract, it serves as the foundation for understanding the concept of evil. As all mental illness is based on delusion, all evil is based on the misuse of things. Language isn't used to inform, it is meant to deceive. If universals aren't real, then language doesn't refer to anything but that which is created by the powerful.