Traditional milestones for a comprehensive dialogue necessary for the dialogue between science and theology: the Chalcedonian dogma

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleRepere tradiţionale pentru un context comprehensiv necesar dialogului dintre ştiinţă şi teologie: Dogma de la Chalcedon
3. Language term Romanian
4. lemma author Stavinschi, Alexandra
5. lemma category Various approaches to the problem of correlation between science and theology - Orthodox theological tradition and practice
6. Publication date 31-1-2017
7. lemma work Nicolescu, Basarab [Author]. Traditional milestones for a comprehensive dialogue necessary for the dialogue between science and theology: the Chalcedonian dogma
8. lemma manifestations The new representation of the world
9. Keywords transdisciplinarity - dogma - Chalcedonian Christology - interdisciplinary dialogue
10. Citations
    1. 33-45
11. Lemma body

    1. The authors aim to show how the Chalcedonian dogma, thanks to its structure, can provide useful tools that can contribute to a dialogue between science and religion. The article is divided into four sections: Historical aspects; What does the dogma say?; The dogma of Chalcedon: a transdisciplinary analysis; For a traditional approach to the relations between science and theology.

       For the Orthodox Church, the fundamental benchmark and the comprehensive context of its reference system is the Christological criterion, understood as the doctrine preached by the Church. In order to make possible the use of the Christological criterion, the substance of the dogma about Christ's divino-humanity must be transferred from the level of the preached doctrine to a more practical level, ie from the kerygmatic to the dogmatic level.

       What is crucial is not only the content itself of the dogma, but especially the extraction of its consequences. In fact, this is the role of any ecclesial sermon: the instrumentalization of the event that it preaches about, receiving it as a symbol or a criterion which operates through it. The classic expression of ecclesial Christology is the dogma formulated by the Fourth Ecumenical council at Chalcedon (451), which is what the authors analyzed. What matters most in this context is that the dogma succeeded in canonizing a particular working style, which was from the very beginning typical of the Apostolic Church. This essay focuses precisely on this aspect.

       The authors attempted to highlight the fundamental, albeit indirect contribution, of the dogma of Chalcedon in clarifying the manner in which theology can engage in the dialogue with science / culture. In short, the dogma of Chalcedon offers ante factum, beyond its explicit content, the elements of an intellectual type of a transdisciplinary scheme, which are useful for a traditional approach to the relations between science and theology. A transdisciplinary approach to the Trinitarian dogma was already presented at the ESSS Congress in Munich in 1993 and was published in 1998.

       From the perspective of the dogma of Chalcedon, it is clear that the ecclesial tradition of Orthodoxy can be a serious partner in the aforementioned efforts. Nothing in its tradition prevents Orthodox theology from engaging, according to its own criteria, in the dialogue with the scientific community. Moreover, orthodox theology can decisively contribute to implement an ethos of dialogue that respects each other's opinion – an opinion that can be perhaps verified at a different level of perception than the one which Orthodox theology itself is controlling.