Modern Theology 20:4 October 2004

ISSN 0266-7177 (Print)

ISSN 1468-0025 (Online)

IS JOHN ZIZIOULAS AN
EXISTENTIALIST IN DISGUISE?
RESPONSE TO LUCIAN TURCESCU

ARISTOTLE PAPANIKOLAOU

Criticism of John Zizioulas’s relational ontology of trinitarian personhood

generally rebukes him for attempting to dress his philosophical personalism
and existentialism with Cappadocian language and parade it as patristic.1 A
relational ontology is not what the Cappadocians are up to, so the argument
goes, and it has more to do with modern philosophical trends. Lucian
Turcescu gives the most recent and, perhaps, sharpest expression of this
critique.2 Turcescu’s judgment rests on the distinction made by Zizioulas
between the individual and the person. He summarizes Zizioulas’s own
understanding of the notion of the “individual” as, first, a complex of qual-
ities that cannot ensure uniqueness. Second, an individual is an entity that
can be enumerated whereas the uniqueness and sacredness of the person
defies such enumeration. Thirdly, Western theology and philosophy wrongly
define “person” as “individual” and such an identification has its roots in
Augustine and Boethius. Zizioulas further claims, according to Turcescu,
that this understanding of “person” as “individual” is absent in the Cap-
padocian Fathers. Turcescu then attempts to show that Gregory of Nyssa
does in fact speak of “person” in terms that Zizioulas associates with the
concept of “individual”. By so doing, he hopes to show that Zizioulas’s rela-
tional understanding of “person” cannot be attributed to the Cappadocian
Fathers.
Turcescu proceeds to provide citations gathered primarily from the work
of Gregory of Nyssa as supporting evidence in his attempt to illustrate that
“the understanding of a person as a collection, congress or complex of prop-

Aristotle Papanikolaou
Department of Theology, Fordham University, 113 West 60th Street, New York, NY 10023-7484,
USA

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602 Aristotle Papanilolaou

erties is found in the Cappadocian texts when the Fathers try to explain what
a person is”,3 and that “the concept of enumeration of individuals (that is,
the individuals being subject to addition and combination) was an impor-
tant feature of the concept of person”.4 He further argues that the distinction
between individual and person was one not made at the time of the Cap-
padocians and that the terms were used interchangeably. In fact, “[t]heirs
was a time when the notion of individual/person was only emerging”.5 The
thrust of Turcescu’s argument can be paraphrased as follows: by looking pri-
marily at the work of Gregory of Nyssa, it can be shown that the Cappado-
cian Fathers do in fact identify person with individual as Zizioulas defines
the latter and, therefore, there is no such thing as a relational ontology of
person in the trinitarian theology of the Cappadocian Fathers.
Though Turcescu may, in the end, be correct that a relational ontology of
trinitarian personhood does not exist in the Cappadocian Fathers, this
particular article does not by itself discredit Zizioulas’s interpretation. First,
Turcescu grounds his critique primarily in interpretation of passages by
Gregory of Nyssa. Of all the Cappadocian Fathers, however, Zizioulas’s
development of his relational ontology of trinitarian personhood relies least
on the thought of Gregory of Nyssa. Put another way, if one were to elimi-
nate the references to Gregory of Nyssa in the works where Zizioulas most
develops his relational ontology of trinitarian personhood, there would be
little, if any, substantive change.6 This focus on Gregory of Nyssa is under-
standable given the fact that the volume in which the essay appeared was
devoted to “re-thinking” Gregory of Nyssa. But it does not warrant the
general claim that a relational ontology of trinitarian personhood cannot be
found within the thought of the Cappadocian Fathers or in the Eastern
patristic tradition. It also does not sufficiently address Zizioulas’s interpre-
tation of other patristic writers upon which he bases his claim about the link
between a relational ontology and the doctrine of the Trinity.
The Cappadocian Father that is never mentioned by Turcescu is arguably
the one whose thought is most significant for Zizioulas’s claims about a
relational ontology of trinitarian personhood: Gregory Nazianzus. Zizioulas
cites this Cappadocian Father as support for the Cappadocian understand-
ing of the monarchia of the Father.7 If there is an ontology that is personal and
relational, in which person has ontological priority over substance, it is
because of the monarchy of the Father, which means that God

as Father and not as substance, perpetually confirms through “being”

His free will to exist. And it is precisely His trinitarian existence that con-
stitutes this confirmation: the Father out of love—that is, freely—begets
the Son and brings forth the Spirit. Thus God as person—as the hyposta-
sis of the Father—makes the one divine substance to be that which it is:
the one God. . . . Outside the Trinity there is not God, that is, no divine
substance, because the ontological “principle” of God is the Father.8
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004
 Response to Lucian Turcescu 603

It is clear that for Zizioulas, the Cappadocian distinction between ousia and
hypostasis, the linking together of hypostasis and prosopon with the result of
giving “ontological content” to the category of prosopon, the distinction
between essence and tropos hyparxeos, or “mode of existence”, express a per-
sonal, relational ontology insofar as their meaning is grounded in the prin-
ciple of the monarchy of the Father. Without the monarchy of the Father,
according to Zizioulas, there is no such ontology.9
Even a “primordial” communion between the trinitarian persons is not
enough to affirm a relational ontology since this communion itself is one of
necessity and not freedom. A relational ontology of trinitarian personhood
means, for Zizioulas, that freedom is at the heart of ontology insofar as
“being” means to be free from the “given”. For created existence, this means
to be free from finitude and death that are inherent to created existence. To
be is to exist in an eternal relationship with the loving God and only through
such a relationship is created existence “free” to be eternally in loving union
with this God. But in order for God to give this freedom from the “given”,
Zizioulas argues that God’s mode of existence, tropos hyparxeos, must itself
be free from necessity and must be freely constituted. This freedom within
God’s very being is the condition for the possibility of the freedom of created
existence from the “given” of its own nature, and this freedom within God’s
being can only be affirmed, according to Zizioulas, through the principle of
the monarchy of the Father.
Turcescu’s reading of Zizioulas’s understanding of the relation of indi-
vidual, person, and uniqueness is also in need of greater nuancing. It is not
so much that Zizioulas does not think that a complex of qualities embodied
within a particular human being actually contributes to personal uniqueness.
It is the case, however, that such a complex of qualities does not guarantee
such uniqueness. For Zizioulas, uniqueness is identified with “irreplace-
ability”. A particular embodiment of a combination of qualities, which
results from the “division of nature” in creation, does contribute to unique-
ness but not as irreplaceability. Death ultimately renders all created being as
replaceable, destroying a particular, embodied set of qualities, only to be
reconstituted again, perhaps in the same way, in a newly created human
being who tends toward death. Personal uniqueness can only be guaranteed,
according to Zizioulas, in relationship to a being “other” than created exis-
tence, i.e., to the eternally loving God who alone can constitute all human
uniqueness as irreplaceable.10
Even with the notion of the monarchy of the Father, is Zizioulas’s thought
irretrievably “tainted” by modern thought so as to render it non-patristic?
Several things must be said in response to this question. First, for Zizioulas,
the core of theological discourse is an ontology of divine-human commun-
ion. The monarchy of the Father, and, hence, a relational ontology of
trinitarian personhood, is rooted in the experience of God in the eucharist
understood as the event of the Body of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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604 Aristotle Papanilolaou

Notwithstanding the charge of influence by modern personalism, Zizioulas

is self-consciously attempting to give expression to this core of theology,
which is the realism of divine-human communion. For Zizioulas, the “ontol-
ogical revolution” is not so much the change in the meaning of the words
“person” and “hypostasis”, but in the Christian affirmation that God in the
person of Christ has “become history” and, hence, the need to articulate an
ontology in which the notions of history, time, change, particularity, other-
ness, relationality are integrated. In the end, according to Zizioulas, this can
only be done through the Christian doctrine of the Trinity that affirms the
monarchy of the Father.
Second, Zizioulas does not hide the fact that he is attempting to relate
traditional Christian dogma to contemporary questions and concerns. He is
quite explicit when he says that the true task of theology is to “seek ways of
relating the Gospel to the existential needs of the world and to whatever is
human. Instead of throwing the Bible or the dogmas of the Church into the
fact of the world, it would be best to seek first to feel and understand what
every human being longs for deep in their being, and then see how the
Gospel and doctrine can make sense to that longing”.11 There is also no need,
as Turcescu does, “to suggest” possible influences on Zizioulas’s notion of
person as a relational category. Turcescu indicates that Martin Buber and
John Macmurray are the most substantial influences. But Zizioulas does not
appear to hide the fact that both Buber and Macmurray have influenced his
thought.12 Turcescu himself cites Zizioulas’s references to Buber.13 Zizioulas
has also cited Macmurray.14 He even gives credit to Pannenberg for helping
him to articulate thoughts concerning personhood that he was “struggling
to express”.15
Criticisms of Zizioulas being under the influence of “modern personal-
ism” may not give him enough credit of being aware of these various
philosophies, nor to his attempt to define his own theology of personhood
over and against the prevailing philosophical understandings. In an essay
entitled “The Being of God and the Being of Anthropos”,16 Zizioulas
responds specifically to this very charge by the Greek theologians John
Panagopoulos and Savas Agourides; namely, that his understanding of
personhood is influenced by modern personalism and existentialism. Here
Zizioulas identifies distinct kinds of philosophical personalism as exempli-
fied in such thinkers as J. Maritain, E. Mounier, N. Berdiaeff, M. Buber,
G. Marcel, as well as the existentialism of S. Kierkegaard. According to
Zizioulas, these modern forms of personalism and existentialism, though
he recognizes similarities, differ from his understanding of person through
either defining the person in terms of consciousness or subjectivity and not
in terms of relations; or in giving the notion of communion an ontological
priority over “person”. Zizioulas then lists four ways in which his under-
standing of “person” differs from these philosophical approaches. Of the
four, Zizioulas refers to the patristic understanding of the monarchy of the
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 Response to Lucian Turcescu 605

Father as providing the most decisive difference between the trinitarian

understanding of person and modern, philosophical accounts, and which
“precludes any philosophical-personalistic interpretation of God”.17 What is
really at issue, according to Zizioulas, is the relation between philosophy and
theology. In establishing the meaning of trinitarian personhood, “the truth
is rather that philosophy is used in this situation, in order to disclose a new
meaning of person, which appears in front of us, when the “in what way”
(pwV estin) of God’s existence is revealed in Christ”.18 In the end, it is not a
philosophy that justifies or influences the theological, trinitarian under-
standing of personhood; only a trinitarian theology that affirms the monar-
chy of the Father can ground and justify the philosophical notions of person
in terms of freedom, uniqueness, and relationality.19
There is, thus, no reason to suggest possible influences on the thought of
Zizioulas, since he admits a knowledge of modern forms of personalism and
that some thinkers, such as, Martin Buber, have actually influenced his
understanding of person. But Zizioulas also attempts to show how the trini-
tarian understanding of personhood differs from these forms of modern
personalism. He is no more superimposing a philosophical system on the
Eastern patristic writers than did these same writers Hellenize the teachings
of Jesus. His attempt to give further expression to the realism of divine-
human communion through twentieth-century notions of person is analo-
gous to the patristic co-opting of Greek philosophical categories to express
the same principle. Zizioulas is doing exactly what these writers did insofar
as he is thinking about the authoritative texts of the tradition in light of the
questions, challenges, and prevailing philosophical currents of his time. The
alternative is either the hermeneutically impossible bracketing of all that
the interpreter has read and experienced as they approach the patristic texts
in the hope of distilling the pure “essence” of the text itself; or to judge con-
temporary Orthodox theology as authentic based on its faithful reiteration
of patristic texts, i.e., a form of patristic fundamentalism. The latter, however,
is not consistent with the approach of the patristic writers themselves, who
did more than simply reiterate their predecessors.
Zizioulas is consistent with the Eastern patristic writers in the most
substantial way insofar as he affirms as the core of theological discourse the
realism of divine-human communion. He claims that a personal ontology is
the most adequate way to express the realism of divine-human communion.
The real issue, then, is not whether he has been influenced by modern per-
sonalism, but whether a trinitarian theology that affirms the monarchy of the
Father is the only way to ground a personal ontology, and whether such an
ontology does correct and justify the various modern, philosophical under-
standings of personhood. If the core of Christian faith is communion with
God the Father, in the person of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is
difficult to think how such a communion does not imply an ontology that is
relational and personal.
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606 Aristotle Papanilolaou

NOTES
1 See John Panagopoulos, “Ontology or Theology of Person?” (in Greek), Synaxis, Vol. 13–14
(1985), pp. 63–79; 35–47; and Savas Agourides, “Can the persons of the Trinity form the
basis for personalistic understandings of the human being?” (in Greek), Synaxis, Vol. 33
(1990), pp. 67–78; also, André de Halleux, “ ‘Hypostase’ et ‘Personne’ dans la formation du
dogme trinitaire (ca. 375–81)”, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Vol. 79 (1984), pp. 313–369,
625–670; also, idem, “Personalisme ou esentialisme trinitaire chez le Pères capdociens? Une
mauvaise controversie”, Revue théologique de Louvain, Vol. 17 (1986), pp. 129–155; 265–292.
2 “ ‘Person’ versus ‘Individual’, and Other Modern Misreadings of Gregory of Nyssa,”
Modern Theology, Vol. 18 no. 4 (October 2002), pp. 97–109.
3 Ibid., p. 100.
4 Ibid., p. 101.
5 Ibid., p. 103.
6 The works I have in mind are: Being as Communion (Crestwood: New York, 1985), p. 17;
p. 41, n. 36; p. 52, n. 46; p. 228, notes 55 and 56); “The Teaching of the 2nd Ecumenical Council
on the Holy Spirit in Historical and Ecumenical Perspective” in Credo in Spiritum Sancto-
rum, ed. J. S. Martins (Roma: Libreria Editrice Vatican, 1983), p. 34, n. 12; p. 37, n. 22; pp.
43–45, p. 51, n. 62; “The Doctrine of God the Trinity Today: Suggestion for an Ecumenical
Study” in The Forgotten Trinity (London: BCC/CCBI, 1991), p. 31, n. 23; “The Doctrine of
the Holy Trinity: The Significance of the Cappadocian Contribution” in Trinitarian Theology
Today: Essays in Divine Being and Act, ed. Christoph Schwöbel (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995),
p. 48. There are no references to Gregory of Nyssa in “On Being a Person: Towards an Ontol-
ogy of Personhood” in Person, Divine and Human, eds. Christoph Schwöbel and Colin E.
Gunton (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), and in the “The Being of God and the Being of
Anthropos” (in Greek), Synaxis, Vol. 37 (1991), pp. 11–35. In the article that Turcescu cites
most often, “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity”, Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 28
(1975), pp. 401–408, there is only one reference to Gregory of Nyssa (p. 428, n. 1). Zizioulas
cites Nyssa’s Great Catechism in support of the idea that freedom is essential to the Christ-
ian notion of the Image Dei. Even taking into consideration Epistle 38, which most scholars
attribute to Gregory of Nyssa but which Zizioulas consistently attributes to Basil, the letter
is usually cited in support of the general patristic axiom that “substance never exists in a
‘naked’ state, that is, without hypostasis, without ‘a mode of existence’ ” (Being as Commun-
ion, p. 41; see also, ibid., p. 88). Zizioulas does also cite the letter to support his interpreta-
tion of Basil as understanding the unity of God in terms of koinonia (see, “The Teaching of
the 2nd Ecumenical Council of the Holy Spirit In Historical and Ecumenical Perspective”,
pp. 34–35, n. 12). But this letter is not the central text for this particular reading of Basil and
is used as further support of his interpretation of other texts from Basil, such as On the Holy
Spirit, p. 18.
7 See “The Teaching of the 2nd Ecumenical Council of the Holy Spirit In Historical and Ecu-
menical Perspective”, p. 37, notes 20 and 21; “On Being a Person: Towards an Ontology of
Personhood”, p. 42, note 18; “The Doctrine of God the Trinity Today”, p. 31, note 23; and
“The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity”, pp. 50–55. Zizioulas does cite one passage from Gregory
of Nyssa’s Ad Ablabium in support of the Greek patristic notion of the monarchy of the
Father (see, “The Teaching of the 2nd Ecumenical Council of the Holy Spirit In Historical
and Ecumenical Perspective”, p. 37, n. 22; and again, “The Doctrine of God the Trinity
Today”, p. 31, note 23). In both instances, this one passage from Nyssa is cited in further
support of Gregory Nazianzus.
8 Being as Communion, p. 41.
9 For more on this point see, Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Divine Energies or Divine Personhood:
Vladimir Lossky and John Zizioulas on conceiving the transcendent and immanent God”,
Modern Theology, Vol. 19 no. 3 (July 2003), pp. 357–385.
10 This understanding of uniqueness in terms of particular relationships can be shown to
make sense even without reference to God or the uncreated “other”. The example of an
abandoned baby in the fields especially makes this clear. Is a newborn baby abandoned in
the fields unique and, hence, a person? The answer is yes and no. No in the sense that such
an abandonment renders this baby a nonperson, and to deny this is not to take seriously
the reality of dehumanization. The only hope for a baby to still be person and unique is
the fact that s/he is always loved by God. Humans in this sense are not inherently persons,

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 Response to Lucian Turcescu 607

as if they can claim such a dignity for themselves or as part of their essence, but always in
relation to the eternal love of God. For this example and more on the relational under-
standing of person see, Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Person, Kenosis, and Abuse: Hans Urs von
Balthasar and Feminist Theologies in Conversation”, Modern Theology, Vol. 19 no. 1 (January
2003), pp. 41–65.
11 “The Church as Communion”, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, Vol. 38 (1994), p. 13.
12 It is surprising not to see the name of Levinas in Turcescu’s article, since Zizioulas cites
him often, especially his critique of Heidegger.
13 Zizioulas himself has admitted to me in private conversations that the thought of
Martin Buber did influence his understanding of personhood. He did not mention John
Macmurray.
14 In “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity”, p. 408, note 1; and in “The Doctrine of the
Holy Trinity”, p. 59, note 14.
15 “It was after struggling to express these thoughts that I came across the following words
of W. Pannenberg, which, I find, express the same thing in a clearer way” (“Human Capac-
ity and Human Incapacity”, Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 28 (1975), p. 413, note 1).
16 See especially, section 3, pp. 15–19.
17 “The Being of God and the Being of Anthropos”, p. 18.
18 Ibid., p. 19.
19 “[I]s a philosophical justification of patristic theology possible? Or does patristic theology
in its essence constitute the converse, that is, a theological justification of philosophy, a procla-
mation that philosophy and the world can acquire a true ontology only if they accept the
presupposition of God as the only existent whose being is truly identified with the person
and with freedom?” (Being as Communion, p. 46); elsewhere, “the person as an ontological
category cannot be extrapolated from experience” (“On Being a Person”, p. 37); also, “the
meaning of person is not borrowed from philosophy . . . but philosophy is able, if it wishes,
to borrow this meaning from theology” (“The Being of God and the Being of Anthropos”,
p. 18).

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