Ontology of Personality in the Apophatic Theology: Development of the Ideas from Lossky to Manoussakis

Abstract

This article examines the path of the ontology of personality (πρόσωπον) in apophatic theology taken by Orthodox thinkers such as Vladimir Lossky, John Zizioulas, Christos Yannaras and John Manoussakis, and analyzed in dialogue with contemporary philosophy. It is described how the dependence of existentialism, personalism and phenomenology on the ontology of personality (the Another) is established, whose origins lie in Christological and Trinitarian decrees (Lossky). It is analyzed what way ontology in the personal sense, derived from the personality of the Father, takes precedence over ontology in terms of being (Zizioulas). It is pointed out that it is the Nietzschean (“God is dead”) and Heideggerian (“Nothing”) post-metaphysical concepts that have cleared the way for a genuine ontology of personality in its apophatic mystery, manifested and experienced in the phenomenon of “eros” which affirms the primordially interpersonal character of being (Jannaras). It is considered in what the ways in which modern phenomenology, using the ontology of personality, eliminates all the systemic metaphysical elements of thought, opening the way to a mere non-conceptual experience of experiencing the otherness of the Other (Manoussakis). Within the framework that was sketched above, the article offers the following: a critical examination of the personalistic vector in Orthodoxy; reflections condemning any kind of personality reduction; and also the ways and purposes opened up by a new understanding of the anthropological dimension have been indicated.