Two famous accusations, with an underlying tone of mockery indicative of bad faith, are often made by New Atheists. One can be easily dealt with - that there is as much reason to believe we are created by a personal, triune God as by a “spaghetti monster”. The suggestion of arbitrariness is perhaps somewhat credible against Protestantism and even Kierkegaard’s anguished leap of faith, notwithstanding the disrespectful and deeply blasphemous tone. In terms of traditional Christianity, which, like the Neoplatonists, sees a transcendental order to the cosmos, this somewhat childish accusation does not hold. Indeed, the advocates of scientism, such as Russell, have more explaining to do, when they claim the cosmos, finely tuned as it is, is simply there with no cause or reason.
A second accusation against Christianity that can also be made by Neoplatonists and Buddhists, who do believe in the transcendental, but not a personal Creator, is that the Christian God is a consequence of anthropomorphism. As the disrespectful New Atheists put it, we have a need for a Sky Daddy. Orthodox theologian Christos Yannaras would not disagree, referring to the erotic yearning for God. The Neoplatonist sees the One as impersonal, the Buddhists acknowledge the transcendental meaning of reality, without accepting the personal nature of the Creator.
In a recent debate on Youtube, between esteemed cognitive scientist John Vervaeke and Christians Jonathan Pageau and Jordan Hall, Vervaeke builds on this perspective, arguing there might be a latent crypto-egotism in Christianity. For all its claims about kenosis, the person survives and has a relationship with God as a Father and Lord. This means it is not true self emptying and instead preserves my existence and anthropomorphises God. Vervaeke is of course not as crude or reductive in his arguments as someone like Dawkins. He recognises love and care participate in transcendental reality, but rejects that it works both ways. Contrary to Jordan Hall’s reciprocal openness at a divine level, Vervaeke sees the care of God for us and our personal existence at an eternal level as unnecessary and unjustified. Further it contradicts agape as the highest form of love - we have a secret vested interest in our faith - selfishly we want to live forever and be loved by the highest reality.
The discussion can be found here: https://youtu.be/Vp_08T0Ucik?si=_IH0L9q5pnun-uaK
In this we see the great divide between Eastern religions and the Greek philosophy of Neoplatonism on the one side, where the person is completely absorbed to the point of benign annihilation, versus the Christian belief that the personal is central to reality. God created the cosmos as a personal god and Man as a person is the imago dei.
This really is all about Being. We can see how this sanctity of humanity has degenerated in the secular West into liberal individualism - a true cult of egotism. There is no intention here to make a case for that perspective. Nonetheless, there is a different and fundamental point - yes the Fathers recognised God is both Being and non being. God is above existence so it is in a sense true to say God does not exist, not in an ontological sense. Indeed God is something more like Beyng as opposed to Being, to use Heideggerian terminology. God is non-dual, above the divisions into Intellect and Soul of the Neoplatonists.
On a more fundamental level then, the personal exists. God is Three Persons, in part because he overcomes duality and also is One as an aporia.
It is somewhat arrogant to attempt to compete with the intellectual ability of John Vervaeke. All that can be said in unsophisticated and laymen’s terms is why this simply does not ring true for me. Yes God is in a sense above all superlatives. Included there is love, goodness, truth and beauty. But all of these participate in God. The personal is the highest level of existence. In human beings it is the person that makes us more than a mere sum of our parts (and more than the passions that lead to the consumer individual of liberalism too).
Yannaras points to our encounter of the personal energy of other humans as indicative of the Supreme Personal of God. What is fundamental to understanding any of this is the separation of energy and essence.
What happens in most Eastern faiths is in one way or another, the human person is dissolved in the divine essence. True Christianity does not accept this, because Creator and Creature are of different natures on a fundamental level in an unbridgeable way. Nonetheless, participation in the divine energy is not only possible, but the purpose of our existence. This was always the orthodox perspective, but was most clearly articulated in the arguments St Gregory Palamas made in defence of the monks of Athos and their practice of hesychasm - specifically the Jesus Prayer.
It is surely the case that love is only possible if personal identity is retained and through the existence of energy. Energy is what is personal. Yannaras refers to the capacity we have to recognise the distinctiveness of Mozart’s music or Van Gogh’s art - neither are the substance of the person, but both are expressions of the unique energy. We find God, we find faith, not through propositional arguments, but in recognising the divine energy expressed through creation, which is not in itself God. Relationships are in the realm of energy not essence. This is how Orthodox Chrsitian philosophy saves the human person from annihilation. It is also how love is real.
In our personal human relationships, true love is the intermingling of energy without dissolving the other person - they retain their fundamental existence, their being. This is why the so-called “sky daddy” is so central, so important and worth defending as that which Christianity is about, The relationship is all made possible through the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, the Logos (the principle, the wisdom, the Logos, the Sophia) as man - God in the flesh in time and space. We can thereby overcome the barrier - our fallen nature.
Is this crypto egotism? Not so, it is rather what makes love possible. It is in recognising the eternal sanctity, through eternal being of the person, we can truly self empty through love. The Three Persons of the One Godhead and the personhood of the Imago Dei are why there is being and how we can achieve kenosis, because persons are real and eternal and can be loved.
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