My Journey to a Dogmatic Universalism

Syncretistic Catholicism

another minority report

Syncretistic Catholicism where any Anglican, Episcopal, Roman & Orthodox consensus informs core beliefs & divergences are received as valid theological opinions

My Journey to a Dogmatic Universalism

While there’s nothing theogonic going on re the divine aesthetic intensity of the divine esse naturale per its intrinsic perfection, there is an eternal theophanic dynamic at play (recreating) re the divine aesthetic scope of the divine esse intentionale in its ad extra relations.

Those ad intra distinctions (Boyd’s intensity-scope & Clarke’s take on naturale-intentionale), of course, would have a natural analog in the theoanthropology of imagoes Dei. For this, I like to use a distinction between primary & secondary natures.

In my dogmatic universalism, the teloi of our primary natures as images of God have been divinely determined & already personally realized.

Neither some Fall, nor other ontological rupture, nor any dispositional habitus of ours can obliterate a primary nature. Neither could they chase off the abiding divine indwelling, which soteriologically imparts our ineradicable capacities for the beatific vision.

Soteriological efficacies ensue, then, from a compatibilist, monergic & universal incarnational pneumato-Christologic presence.

This all coheres in a saving dynamism which incorporates predestination, impeccability, inancaritability, free natural inclinations & abiding indwelling.

In my dogmatic universalism, while the teloi of our secondary natures as likenesses of God can be divinely determined, monergically & extraordinarily so, thus personally realized, ordinarily they involve a synergic co-self-determination.

It is here that some Fall, or other ontological rupture, or some dispositional habitus of ours, can hinder our growth in likeness per our secondary natures. While they couldn’t chase off the abiding divine indwelling, either, or thwart its soteriological efficacies, they can both mask the glories of our primary natures as well as hinder our theotic journeys.

While such sophiological efficacies most often ensue from libertarian, synergic & particular incarnational Christo-pneumatic presences (e.g. sacraments), extraordinarily, they can be effected by compatibilist, monergic divine presences.

This all coheres in a theotic dynamism which incorporates both free natural inclinations & libertarian choice, Maximian tropoi, eternal epectasis, theophanic & Christogonic perichoreses as well as other dynamics of classical formative spirituality, including those of ascetical & mystical theology.

The best theoanthropology I’ve ever come across as consonant with all the above is Don Gelpi’s approach to Lonergan’s account of human authenticity.

Among the best cosmotheandric accounts, I’d include Jordan Daniel Woods’ Maximian Cosmology, David Bentley Hart’s Neoplatonic Christianity, Jenson’s NeoChalcedonian Synthesis & Milbank’s Sophiological Thought.

Since my preferred idiom is Peircean-inspired, my approach has been informed heavily by such as Amos Yong’s Pneumatological Emergentism, Joseph Bracken’s Divine Matrix & Brandon Gallaher’s account of Bulgakov’s Sophiology (as he tweaks it using Bracken).

Above all, though, I was influenced for half a century by my fellow Charismatic Yat (Pentecostal New Orleanian), the late Don Gelpi. As a teen, I marvelled at his homilies. Later, I’d read most every book he released. Finally, he graciously corresponded to advance my inchoate grasp of things.

Don used his Peircean lenses to develop a social, triadic metaphysics of experience. He used that systematics to interpret Maximian Christology, which helped him best articulate his own synoptic narrative Christology.

I’m not married to any systematic account but have worked hard to conceptually map the different idioms employed, such as among Personalist, Transcendental, Existential, Aristoelian & Báñezian Thomists, also Scotists, Palamists, Neoplatonists & Peirceans.

While I haven’t changed my basic stance, pansemioentheism, since 2010, I have changed from a hopeful to a dogmatic universalist in recent years, mostly because I met Tom Belt. That opened the door to the paragon of universalist cyberportals, Fr Al Kimel’s Eclectic Orthodoxy.

In walked a cadre of generous academic theologians – the Young Turks of the Boston College School (DBH’s nomenclature). Hart calls them Neo-Neochalcedonians, when, in fact, due to various mystical eternal – temporal simultaneities, they are, rather, proto-Neochalcedonians (or, maybe, being the exemplary patristic scholars they are, they just faithfully resourced the ressourcement).

I believe that all of these systems can be reconciled. I discovered that in my struggle to learn their languages so as to translate my panSEMIOentheism using the idiom of choice of any interlocutors du jour.

Closing Thoughts

The absence of a natural theogonic dynamic ad intra, as affected by participatory dynamics ad extra, needn’t preclude a personal Christogonic dynamic as realized via a perichoretic eternal ἐπέκτασις.

The latter would operate theophanically per a divine person’s self-determined secondary nature, so purely acting via illuminative means. That’s to say that, since His indwelling being is to the intellect as form to matter, He’d thereby effect unitive perichoretic ends. So, Christogonically, we’re not talking about one unitary being, simply speaking, but about a unitive Oneness as regarding acts of understanding & love, both monergic & synergic, now & forever. As Bracken says vis a vis any Hegelian construction, as “ever on the move.”

Bracken's Spirit & Society appropriates Hegel in a way that could be used to vindicate an Hegelian Christogony &  neoChalcedonian syntheses from charges of theogony. Perichoretically, per the corporate Oneness that theophanically manifests unitive acts of understanding & love, the Christogonic Totus Christus would refer to the One concrete social Absolute in terms of a dynamical & epectatic interpersonal unitive doing.

So, I don’t interpret the Young Turks of the Boston College School (DBH’s nomenclature) as naturally theogonic, but appropriate their NeoChalcedonian synthesis, as well as Jensen’s, as the perichoretic Christogony of the concrete social Absolute to whom we refer as Totus Christus.

I can’t say whether my account above squares w/how DBH or JDW do nature – grace. All reject the artificial extrinsicism of a duplex ordo – natura pura. I see persons as divinely othered & ever-indwelled, 1st by universal & 2nd by particular Px Presences.

See: https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2022/08/24/david-bentley-hart-responds-to-the-neo-neo-chalcedonians/

See also Ty Monroe’s discussion w/DBH.

Since I incline sophianic in my panSEMIOentheism, I feel like I’m aligned w/Hart via a Brackenized Bulgakov. There’s a Brackenized Hegel, too, which inclines me to the Young Turks, too.

So I await the DBH – YT nuptials!

It’s never a mere exchange of thoughts that forms & transforms us, it’s the kindness of other hearts. As an autodidactic with some rather idiosyncratic takes & phraseologies, I don’t have an audience to worry about. Clearly, I write from my head & heart for its intrinsic rewards. A few have been exceptionally kind and encouraging. I already mentioned Jordan Daniel Wood, Tom Belt & Amos Yong. I must add, here, Phil Krill and Garret @ViaScoti.

John Sobert Sylvest

See related:

https://theologoumenon.substack.com/p/each-persons-beatific-capacity-remains