"Now, this term antinomy seems first to have been used in classical Roman law to describe the circumstance of every jury trial: one side completely prosecutes while the other side entirely defends. According to all legal assumption, the truth can arise only through such jarring antinomical interaction. The philosophic use of the term begins with Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781); and from Kant's work forward, the word exhibits a powerful and complex life.
Antinomicalness is, above everything else, an experience. It is the experience of disjunction, the experience wherein human discursive rationality breaks helplessly apart in the face of - better, in the teeth of - dissonant, often harsh realities. Such realities are the very ground of all biblical (indeed, all human) experience. The agony of forced exile is, at the same moment the way of redemptive joy; the created world is simultaneously completely good, completely fallen, and completely redeemed; Christ is at once fully divine and fully human. There is no direct way wherein human reason alone can reconcile the disjunctive elements in these expereinces; equally, there is no way whereby any element can be eliminated without radically falsifying the experience. Our fallen rationality simply breaks down when it directly confronts such antinomies as these."
"Christianity is, in fact, a complexio oppositorum, which asserts in one breath two truths that at first might seem very difficult to reconcile: on the one hand, all Christian confessions grant that God truly gives Himself to man, and that He alone can do this, because His creature is in this respect utterly powerless; on the other hand, this gift would be a sham if God did not in reality make man live by His own divine life. There is a paradox here: in one sense, everything comes from God, and in another, everything comes from man, because no one is saved or damned who has not willed it. St. John’s phrase expresses this two-sided aspect of grace—that we should be called and should be the sons of God [1 John 3:1]. In other words, any theology of grace must insist both on the primacy of God who justifies and sanctifies man, and at the same time on the reality of regeneration."
Antinomicalness is, above everything else, an experience. It is the experience of disjunction, the experience wherein human discursive rationality breaks helplessly apart in the face of - better, in the teeth of - dissonant, often harsh realities. Such realities are the very ground of all biblical (indeed, all human) experience. The agony of forced exile is, at the same moment the way of redemptive joy; the created world is simultaneously completely good, completely fallen, and completely redeemed; Christ is at once fully divine and fully human. There is no direct way wherein human reason alone can reconcile the disjunctive elements in these expereinces; equally, there is no way whereby any element can be eliminated without radically falsifying the experience. Our fallen rationality simply breaks down when it directly confronts such antinomies as these."
+ Dr Donald Sheehan, Excerpt from the Introduction of "The Psalms of David: Translated from the Septuagint Greek." (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2013)
"Christianity is, in fact, a complexio oppositorum, which asserts in one breath two truths that at first might seem very difficult to reconcile: on the one hand, all Christian confessions grant that God truly gives Himself to man, and that He alone can do this, because His creature is in this respect utterly powerless; on the other hand, this gift would be a sham if God did not in reality make man live by His own divine life. There is a paradox here: in one sense, everything comes from God, and in another, everything comes from man, because no one is saved or damned who has not willed it. St. John’s phrase expresses this two-sided aspect of grace—that we should be called and should be the sons of God [1 John 3:1]. In other words, any theology of grace must insist both on the primacy of God who justifies and sanctifies man, and at the same time on the reality of regeneration."
+ From article "Grace Oecumenical" posted by Fr Aidan Kimel, http://afkimel.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/grace-oecumenical/
+ Fr Alexander Schmemman, Quoted by Dr David Fagerberg
+ Fr John Breck, Saint Silouan and the Mystery of God , http://web.archive.org/web/20140611084823/http://johnrbreck.com/saint-silouan-and-the-mystery-of-god
"In the pillar and ground of the truth [Florensky says], antinomy arises from the conviction that life is infinitely fuller than rational definitions, and therefore no formula can encompass all the fullness of life. Similarly, liturgy is infinitely fuller than theological definitions, and therefore no formula can encompass all the fullness of the Church. That’s why liturgical theology is an unending well.
The spirit of truth is one [Florensky insists], but it is not known as one when it is perceived by a human being who lives in space and time. We are finite, and for the finite knower, knowledge of the truth becomes knowledge about the Truth, and knowledge about the Truth is truth."+ Dr David Fagerberg, The Cost of Understanding Schmemann in the West
"Antinomicalness does not say either the one or the other is not true. It also does not say neither the one nor the other is true. It only says both the one and the other are true, but each in its own way. Reconciliation and unity are higher than rationality."+ Fr Pavel Florensky
"This would mean coming to understand liturgical theology as the place where the eternal antinomy of Christianity is reconciled. Here is for me the whole meaning of liturgical theology: the liturgy, the joining, revelation, actualization of the historicity of Christianity and of its transcendence over that historicity. Hence the link of the Church with the world. The Church for the world as its beginning and end, and also the affirmation that the world is for the Church, since the Church is the presence of the kingdom of God. Here is the eternal antinomy of Christianity, and the essence of all contemporary discussions about Christianity.
The task of theology is to be faithful to the antinomy which disappears in the experience of the Church as Pascha. A continuous and not only historical, a continuous passage of the world to the kingdom. All the time one must leave the world, and all the time one must remain in it."
+ Fr Alexander Schmemman, Quoted by Dr David Fagerberg
"Salvation requires ceaseless spiritual struggle; yet salvation remains a wholly free gift. St Silouan illustrates this antinomy by means of the following anecdote.
The Lord appeared to Silouan’s patron saint, Simeon Stylites, when Simeon was only seven years old. The child asked him, “Lord, how wast Thou crucified?” The Lord stretched out his arms and replied, “Thus did they crucify me; but it was my desire. And do thou crucify thyself with me every day” [427]. Silouan, by his own account, knew this kind of crucifixion because of his lack of humility. “Because of my pride,” he declares, “the Lord twice let the enemy attack my soul, such that my soul stood in hell” [cf. 434]. Nevertheless, the gracious gift of God’s free grace, received from within a spiritual abyss, allowed him to hear the words that would transform his anguish into joy and confidence: “Keep thy mind in hell, and despair not!” [430]. From the depths of his misery, and with an attitude of total humility, Silouan accepted daily crucifixion with Christ, and thereby he obtained forgiveness and salvation. “Put no faith in feats of your own, however much you may have striven,” declares this great ascetic; “God has mercy on us, not for our achievements but gratis, because of His goodness” [440].
The divine motivation that issues in salvation is the ardent love that pours forth from God’s heart. This is a love that seeks to embrace and transfigure the whole of creation. “Thou Thyself didst seek me out, a sinner, and give me to know Thy love,” Silouan acknowledges. “Thou madest me to see that Thy love for us brought Thee to the cross and to suffering and death for our sakes. Thou gavest me to know that Thy love led Thee down from heaven to earth and even into hell, that we might behold Thy glory!” [287]. Such is the cry from the heart of one who seeks the Lord “with tears.” It is a cry whose elegant simplicity and dogmatic fullness leads one to recall the offertory prayers of our eucharistic liturgies.
God became man in order to accomplish our salvation. The work of “salvation,” however, is far more extensive than merely freeing the believer from the bonds of sin and death. This liberating act constitutes only the negative aspect of salvation: the aspect that renders a person “justified” before the God of justice. According to Eastern Christian tradition, salvation comprises several dimensions, beginning with forgiveness and concluding with a personal and eternal communion between God and his human creature. “Our joy is Christ,” Silouan exults. “By His sufferings He has inscribed us in the Book of Life, and in the Kingdom of Heaven we shall be with God for ever, and we shall see His glory…” [289]. And he adds the petition: “Grant us to praise and thank Thee world without end. Thou didst give us Thy most holy Body and Blood, that we might live with Thee for all eternity, and be where Thou art, and behold Thy glory!” [311]."
+ Fr John Breck, Saint Silouan and the Mystery of God , http://web.archive.org/web/20140611084823/http://johnrbreck.com/saint-silouan-and-the-mystery-of-god
