John of Damascus
c.675-749 · Eastern Christianity · Known
John of Damascus was a Syrian theologian who wrote while Byzantine emperors were smashing icons. In that iconoclast controversy he defended the practice of venerating them: an image shares in what it shows, and the honor you give the image travels on to the person pictured. His On the Orthodox Faith was the first full systematic account of Greek Christian doctrine, and a model for the later Western summas.
Signature
The position Damascene is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Universals
- Realism – Nominalism
- Paradox
- Apophatic Pointer
Positions on the 11 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (79 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- mildly leans Describable (39 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Identity
- strongly leans Unchanging (0 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (100 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (20 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (83 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Ethics
- leans Means (88 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Ignorance
- mildly leans Bondage (38 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- strongly leans Certain (91 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
9 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Damascene refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Monarchy / Confessional State
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Transfiguration
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Direct Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God / Tradition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Divine Command / Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Synergism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Eschatological
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation / Sacred Tradition
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Logos
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Paradox
- Apophatic Pointer
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Divine Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Path to the Divine
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?