I'm reading Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom by David Bradshaw. I'm only a few pages in, but these sentences made me chuckle:
It is only by seeing both the eastern and western traditions as developments out of a shared heritage in classical metaphysics that they can be properly understood. Doing so also has the benefit of shifting the focus of comparison from questions of dogma and ecclesiology to questions of fundamental metaphysics. (p. xii)
I chuckled at his statement that our understanding of what divides the traditions will be benefited by a shift to "questions of fundamental metaphysics." It's not that I think what he says is false, just that I don't see how fundamental metaphysical questions are any more tractable than those of dogma and ecclesiology.
1 comment:
By the culmination of Bradshaw's book he has painted a distinctly different picture between the East and the West that he calls Metaphysical. I think he uses that term because he is trying to deal with Aristotle, and makes sense of what both traditions did with the Prime Mover. However, I think that there's more purchase with the average contemporary reader with the term "Epistemological" (for those philosophically inclined) or "Soteriological'/ "Sacramental" (for those theologically inclined).
I'm curious for more of your thougts on the book...
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