Talk:Theological differences between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church

Hell - the concept of eternal punishment

What has happened to this section? All that's left is a set of {{seealso}} links to Hell in Christian beliefs, Hell in Eastern Orthodox theology, and Hell in Catholic theology. This is not appropriate. There should be at least a summary of what these articles say. In particular, this section should compare and contrast the similarities and differences between Orthodox and Catholic beliefs about hell. --Richard S (talk) 00:41, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

A summary of it is contained in the theoria article. LoveMonkey (talk) 02:47, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Palamism

I found this quote from Christopher Livanos quite interesting:

Though the Catholic church agrees, and has since the Middle Ages, that a certain difference will always exist between man and God, it has never said precisely what the diffrence is. The Orthodox Church, however, stated its position on the matter definitively in 1351 when it sanctioned the doctrine of the “Palamite Distinction" between God's energies and his essence and the participation of humanity in the former but not the latter.

Livanos, Christoper. Greek tradition and Latin influence in the work of George Scholarios: alone against all of Europe.

--Richard S (talk) 05:01, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Differences of perspective and emphasis

StormRider was asking over at Talk:Divinization (Christian) if there were any scholars who discussed the Catholic view of divinization. In the process of looking for sources to answer his query, I ran across this entry in "The encyclopedia of world religions" which I thought provided a really concise and cogent summary of the difference between Catholic and Orthodox theologies. I have paraphrased in the section titled "Differences of perspective and emphasis". --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 07:01, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Anthony Dragani on Adrian Fortescue

While looking for something else, I stumbled across this really good summary of Fortescue's view of Eastern Orthodox theology. In brief, Dragani asserts that Fortescue views Eastern Orthodox theology as being "in harmony with Catholic theology". This is particularly interesting given the sense in Fortescue's Catholic Encyclopedia articles that he considers Palamism to be heretical. This presents an interesting conundrum. I don't have time to work this source into the article but I think we should do so especially since it seems to me one of the best sources (outside of papal pronouncements) for asserting the Catholic view that Eastern Orthodox theology is fully compatible with Catholic theology. (NB: If you read all the way to page 75, it will become clear that Fortescue is harshly critical of the Eastern Orthodox Church and of its theology. He espouses many opinions that the Orthodox would find offensive and objectionable. That notwithstanding, the point is that as early as Fortescue, some Catholics considered Orthodox theology to be "fully compatible with Catholic theology". --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 15:37, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to engage in a bit of speculative OR and synthesis here but this is what I see based on little glimpses here and there. In the article on Palamism, we write that Fortescue, also writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia, claimed that "the real distinction between God's essence and operation remains one more principle, though it is rarely insisted on now, in which the Orthodox differ from Catholics". If we combine this with Fortescue's assertion that EO theology is "in harmony with Catholic theology", we might conclude that Fortescue did not see Palamism as incompatible with Catholic theology (different maybe but not incompatible). Moreover, I think it is worthwhile to consider what Fortescue meant by "rarely insisted on now". Who did Fortescue think was not "insisting" on the essence-energies distinction? I suspect that it was the Orthodox theologians of Fortescue's time that were not insisting upon the difference. This could be attributable to what Michael Angold terms the "dry scholasticism" of Greek Orthodox theologians trained in Italy during the centuries-long Ottoman occupation of Greece. Lossky's call for a Neo-patristic synthesis is characterized as a call for the Orthodox to eschew the Scholasticism of the West and to return to the (Greek) Fathers of the Church, including Palamas. This is thus the "rediscovery of Palamas by emigre Russian theologians" that Daniel Payne refers to. Thus, the 20th century is characterized by a Catholic Church that chooses to minimize the differences between the theologies of the two churches whereas there is a movement among (some?) Orthodox theologians to focus on the differences. One question I have is that we keep saying "some Orthodox theologians". Do we, in fact, have any examples of Orthodox theologians standing in opposition to Lossky and Romanides and supporting the view of Fortescue that the two theologies are in harmony with each other? --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 16:08, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Editing restrictions

LoveMonkey, if you edit Eastern Orthodox commentary on Roman Catholic teaching, you know you must, in the body of the article, clearly attribute the commentary to the specific individual or document making it (not just say "the Eastern Orthodox hold"), and you must clearly identify it as opinion, rather than as factual information about the nature of RC teaching (not say, e.g., "Roman Catholic theologians hold that ...").

I don't want you to be subjected unnecessarily to sanctions for violating the agreed Wikipedia:Editing restrictions; so I am reverting your edits, to save you from being blocked. Esoglou (talk) 19:35, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

My edits where grammar and other such edits. You reverted because you are here to edit war. How is it that Esoglou is yet again modifying statements from Eastern Orthodox sources? Each edit Esoglou made was to statements from Eastern Orthodox sources.[1] Then Esoglou goes and posts on administrator Ed Hubbards personal page complaining [2] even though it was Esoglou who violated the terms of the restrictions. Look at Esoglou's comments here on the article talkpage. After Esoglou violates the restrictions he tries to blame ME for his violations. LoveMonkey (talk) 23:12, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Esoglou you are going to get into a world of hurt by blatantly breaching your editing restrictions in this way, especially so soon after the restrictions were enforced. Do not edit this material, even if you think it's wrong and even if you think LM has failed to uphold the restriction. Bringing perceived breaches of the agreement to Ed's attention is the right thing to do; "correcting" them yourself is not. For the record I see no breach by LM here.--Taiwan boi (talk) 03:47, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

While I was already fully aware that I was not to make any changes of my own to LoveMonkey's accounts of "Eastern Orthodox pictures of Roman Catholic theology" and took care not to make any such changes, I have now learned that LoveMonkey himself may at will add phrases or remove them from his accounts, without thereby violating his agreed obligation to ensure that what information he adds about "Eastern Orthodox commentary (positive or negative) on Roman Catholic teaching/practice must be clearly attributed, in the body of the article, to the specific individual or document making it and must be clearly identified as opinion, rather than as factual information about the nature of RC teaching/practice or its compatibility/incompatibility with EO teaching/practice". Esoglou (talk) 10:34, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Taiwan boi. Esoglou, it strikes me as incomprehensible that you would edit that section so soon after the restrictions were put in place.

I actually agree that LM's addition of the word "anthropomorphic" was problematic, even if it's supported by one of the existing sources. In my opinion, when Esoglou or LM starts adding material (even individual words) about RC/EO commentary on EO/RC teachings, the editing restrictions should kick in, and they should be required to attribute the sentences that they are editing to a specific document or person in the body of the article. However, I have no interest in sparking another fight, so I'll just drop it for now. LM, for your own sake, I hope that you consider attributing sentences in the section "Eastern Orthodox pictures of Roman Catholic theology" to specific documents or individuals whenever you edit them, even if you are only editing already-existing sentences. This will make it less likely that you'll run afoul of the editing restrictions.

At any rate, Esoglou, you technically should not even be discussing this material on the talk page (if I'm reading the editing restrictions correctly), let alone editing it. If you think LM is doing something wrong, just alert Ed; don't intervene yourself. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 16:53, 14 February 2011 (UTC)