This document summarizes a discussion between Tony and David Bentley Hart on the works of Gregory of Nyssa. Some key points: 1) David summarized Gregory's view of the resurrection as the soul reconstituting itself. 2) David greatly admired Gregory's vision of the consummation of all things described in poetic language, seeing the beginning and end as directed towards union with God. 3) Gregory viewed the end of all things from the perspective of eternity, seeing the perfected state as the true creation, not as a separate future event but a continuation of present spiritual growth.

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Summary of Tony’s discussion with David Bentley Hart on Gregory of Nyssa
Gregoryof Nyssa Interview Two:
“On the Soul and the Resurrection”
David’s summary of Gregory’s dizzying vision:
“The resurrection is in a sense, the soul reconstituting itself”
1) David introduces Macrina – a remarkable woman, and a unique insight intowomen in
this era
a) We don’t have much insight into the role and thinking of educated women in this
time – so the portrait of Macrina that emerges in this book is unique and instructive.
We have a view into the mind of an educated, brilliant woman of the fourth century
b) The Platonic dialogue positions Macrina as teacher and Gregory as student – a
relationship that we have no need to doubt. Macrina was the eldest and in many
ways the pioneer of the thinking in this family. Gregory clearly held her in highest
esteem.
c) The family were ‘political radicals’ in their communist thinking with a fierce sense of
social justice. Macrina seems to have influenced Gregory’s views on slavery as she
persuaded her mother to free the family slaves. The women slaves formed a
convent or order led by Macrina and her mother.
2) Tony asked: ‘Why do love this book so much?’
David answered,
a) Because of the final small section where Gregory/Macrina lays the ‘radiant quality’
of the end of all things.
b) Based on 1 Corinthians 15 – and Origen’s handling of that text, particularly verse 28,
when God will ‘be all and in all’. David called this the most remarkable chapter in the
NT.
i) First historical account of the Resurrection (older than the gospels) in
unembellished form – verse 3-5
ii) Culminating in vision of new creation when all of creation will be filled with God
c) Gregory had the most coherent ‘two horizon’ vision of the NT
i) Judgments of history
ii) Final and full consummation of reality as reconstituted in the resurrection – and
which he describes in the temple imagery
d) Thus you need to hold the two treatises together (‘On the Making of Humanity’ and
‘On the Soul and the Resurrection’)
i) Creation and eschatology both directed towards union with God
ii) Gregory has been underestimated because he did not systematise his coherent
vision in one place – he offers us succinct poetic shafts of light which he expects
us to piece together
3) In my beginning is my end?
Tony compared this vision to TS Eliot’s phrase ‘in my beginning is my end’. He explained
that you only understand the ‘beginning’ of reality through the lens of the ‘end’, and you

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only grasp the point of the ‘beginning’ if you keep the ‘end’ in mind. David agreed but
went further….
a) Yes but even that is viewed through the lens of time….
b) Gregory viewed it through the lens of eternity… (here I quote David extensively
because it rich and dense…)
i) ‘From the perspective of eternity, the ‘end’ comes first and the ‘beginning’ comes
last. (True creation) is … true humanity in the divine image, perfected in divine
likeness and union with God – this is the ‘man’ of the first creation account
(Gen1;27). This is, all human beings throughout all time united in spiritual
harmony, in their rational nature with Christ as their head, deified in God. This is
the true creation. Until that reality comes to pass, creation has not yet happened
in a sense. From eternity that is the creation that God has made to be. In time, it
is the ‘end’ of our temporal course; in eternity it is the very foundation of our
existence.’
ii) Tony likened this to a strategic visioning process whereby people design the
present from the point of the view of the end or desirable situation.
4) Tony then moved onto Gregory’s evocative handling of the image of a ‘painting’;
whereby the soul is akin to the mind of the painter, and body akin to the materials
(pigments and hues) which constitute the painting. To which David said,
a) Although the dialogue is rooted in some quaint 3/4th century debates about
metaphysics, their view of matter was sophisticated. It was not a material substrate
– ie the whole human life was ‘resurrected’ not just the atoms and physical elements
that constitute the physical body.
b) Gregory was building on Aristotlean view of ‘psyche’ as a form of life whereby the
soul ‘composes’ the body or its form, much like the mind of the painter composes
the picture.
c) In this sense the resurrection is ‘the soul reconstituting itself’.
d) Furthermore, the resurrection is not separate from our present spiritual life, but in
Gregory’s mind was a continuation of it. The soul is ‘renewing’ itself’ in the present
spiritual life and the resurrection will not be qualitatively different from this but will
accentuate it.
5) Epektasis or infinite enlargement…??
This moved the conversation on towards Gregory’s rich picture of growth – commonly
called ‘epektasis’ (or stretching out). This was picked up later by Maximus.
a) Muhlenberg (Lutheran theologian of 1950s) argues the Gregory was first theologian
to ascribe ‘divine infinity’ to God. But as a Lutheran, Muhlenberg found this
frustrating since there was always a gap between the infinite God and finite man – a
gap that was permanent since Muhlenberg had no notion of deification.
b) Thus Gregory inaugurated a positive view of the infinite1
c) Gregory viewed the ‘gap’ between infinite God and finite man in a positive light –
not as pursuing unreachable goals but as divinisation, as an everlasting epektasis.
d) He did not see us as burdened in this progress by regrets, and bad memories but
rather as animated by a pure state of futurity, openness to an infinite future
1 I found this strangeat firstwhen David said it,butI guess that ‘infinity’can be scary. itis aloof and its
vastness seems to dwarf humanity.

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e) In fact the very distinction between infinite and finite becomes the ‘terms of our
every more intimate union with God’.
6) ‘Death’ seems to disappear for Gregory
David then commented that when you read Gregory, you are not sure where ‘death’ is –
it does not loom large as a barrier as he roves between the spiritual growth of the now,
and the resurrected state of the future.2
7) Gregory’s poetic ‘raids on the inarticulate’
Tony then commented on Gregory’s power of language and quoted TS Eliot who called
poetry a ‘raid on the inarticulate’.3
a) David commented on Gregory’s love for the ‘mirror’ image. He borrowed imagery
from Scripture but then built on it creatively.
8) The Temple imagery of the end of all things
Tony then asked David to finish by returning to the temple image from Psalm118 which
Macrina uses to picture the end of all things. David contrasted Gregory and Augustine,
saying that Gregory was a better reader of Paul than Augustine.
a) Augustine misread Romans 11 and this was ‘catastrophic’ for the church. Augustine
made the ‘elect’ convertible with the ‘saved’ and this misreading distorts the
argument of Romans 11 which positions the notion of ‘elections’ as temporary
manoeuvres on God’s part in the context of history and circumstance not as
‘salvation’. They are manoeuvres on the pathway to salvation (which are expressed
both as accountable decisions by the ‘elected’ and as divine callings from God). But
all the manoeuvres culminate in, and contribute to the end game which is the
salvation of all – and the vision of which prompts the outburst that finishes the long
and torturous passage that began in Romans 9 – “Oh the depths of the riches of the
wisdom and knowledge of God…”
2 This makes sense if you ponder Gregory’s vision of present growth as a nascentform of resurrection. And if
you add to that his vision of resurrection lifein eternity not as a finite settled state but rather as a continuation
of spiritual growth. Both these visions areco-ordinated by his magnetic vision of divinisation as theend of all
things.
3 Four Quartets, East Coker. “Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt/is a wholly new start, and
different kind of failure/because one has only learnt to get the better of words/for the thing one no longer has
to say, or the way in which/one is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture/is a new beginning, a raid
on the inarticulate/ with shabby equipment always deteriorating”