Synergia as a universal paradigm: its meaning(s), discursive links and heuristic resources
“It would not be reasonable to reject out of hand the idea that the world religions… still bear a semantic potential that unleashes an inspiring energy for all of society”.
Jürgen Habermas [1].
0. Mapping the territory: that is the question
In minds of intellectual community of the present day the notion of synergy is first of all associated with synergetics. The program of our workshop is also in full accordance with this fact: it shows that almost all the presented talks are devoted to synergetics in its numerous aspects and branches. The situation makes it natural to expect that the information on what is synergy can be found in synergetics in the first place. But here comes the first paradox of my theme: if I ask the question: What is synergy? – I shall not be able to find the answer in synergetics. The notion of synergy is neither used nor even introduced in synergetics. It is well-known that the connection synergy – synergetics is in no way accidentaclass="underline" as Hermann Haken explained repeatedly, this connection has been put by him from the very start into the idea and the name of a new discipline invented by him. But Haken makes it clear at the same time that the Greek word συνεργεια has served for him only in its literal, etymological meaning: as a source of intuitive ideas about cooperation, collective phenomena, concerted action and interaction, etc. – so that the new discipline could be conceived as “science of cooperation”. The word has helped to form up the name for synergetics, and after this it was not needed anymore; the new science did not make it one of its terms or concepts. On the other hand, however, the fact remained that processes and phenomena studied in synergetics have the properties characterized by synergia even if the word is not conceptualized and is understood only in the initial intuitive sense. It means that synergia is in fact present in synergetics, but only implicitly. Hence the problem arises to display its presence explicitly or, in other words, to reconstruct the concept or paradigm of synergia hidden in synergetics. At the same time, synergia had always another life as well, not hidden, but quite open, that has begun many centuries before the invention of synergetics and went on ever after till nowadays with some interruptions. This other life develops in a completely different sphere, less known and popular than synergetics, the sphere of Eastern-Christian thought. Its history here is rich, and its role quite important: synergia is one of the key concepts of Eastern-Christian spirituality and worldview.
This concept appears in Greek patristics and early Christian ascetics and has a specific nature combining theological and practical, i.e. experiential and anthropological, dimensions. In late Byzantium it becomes one of the cornerstones of a sophisticated theological and philosophical teaching based on ascetical experience and discourse of energy instead of the Aristotelian essentialist discourse of the Western thought. After the fall of Byzantium this teaching was almost th th forgotten, but it makes gradually its return in the 18-19th cc., and since the mid-20 th c. it is carefully reconstructed on the modern theological and philosophical level and developed further.
Moreover, in the last decades the concept of synergia was closely analyzed in its anthropological dimension and it was found that in this dimension it represents a certain paradigm of human constitution. This result has marked the beginning of a new anthropological theory called synergetic anthropology (obviously, the name synergic anthropology would be more adequate since the theory in question has no relation to synergetics!). Starting with the original Byzantine paradigm of synergia reinterpreted as an anthropological paradigm, synergetic anthropology produces a series of extrapolations or extensions of this paradigm extending it gradually to a universal paradigm of human constitution called the “paradigm of anthropological unlocking”. This paradigm becomes the generating focus of nonclassical anthropology of a new type aiming in prospect to provide an integrating discourse or episteme for all the sphere of the humanities. Thus we find the territory of synergia, like that of Gallia in Julius Caesar’s book, consisting of the three big parts. The first of them is synergia in the original sense, the ancient paradigm of Orthodox theology and hesychast practice. The second one is the direct but far-going generalization of this paradigm in synergetic anthropology, the paradigm of anthropological unlocking. The third and last part is hypothetical synergia that is present implicitly in synergetics. It is the most unexplored territory so far, and its relation to the other two parts is an open problem. In what follows we describe in outline all the three domains of synergia and discuss this problem displaying conceptual links between all the domains. We conclude that there is one universal paradigm of synergia of great heuristic capacity that can be one of key elements in the emerging nonclassical and postsecular formation of knowledge.
1. The Domain of Theology
We must start with the common root of all the versions of synergia, the Greek word. Syncretic mind of the Late Antiquity was acting chiefly in the mode of the merging and synthesis, and it collected the enormous pool of words for this mode beginning mostly with the prefix syn-: synousia, synesis, synaisthesis, syneinai, etc. etc. Synergia (cooperation, collaboration, concerted activity) was a typical element of this pool, and not too popular; it was not exploited in philosophical and mystical teachings so abundant in the Late Antiquity, and it begins to be conceptualized in the Christian discourse only. From the very start it is applied to the relation of God and man, and it should be noted that its conceptualization (as pointed out, e.g., in Lampe’s “Patristic Greek Lexicon”) includes two different meanings: besides one given above, synergia can also mean assistance, help. The difference is not cardinal, but important both theologically and anthropologically: the second meaning implies that only one side of the relation is active, and the necessity of man’s own activity in his relation with God is one of the most disputed subjects in all the history of Christian thought. Orthodox thought accepts synergy as a necessary principle of man’s relation with God, and interprets it more in accordance with the first meaning. This is the position of Orthodox synergism: man should not be passive in his relation with God, and his free will and his energies should collaborate with God’s grace present in the world. Contrary to it, in the West both catholic and protestant theology reject the idea of human will freely collaborating with God’s grace. They reject also the principle of synergy as such so that this principle remained a specific part of the Orthodox tradition and was for a long time one of the main points separating Eastern and Western Christian thought. Now this situation is changing, however, since Western theology takes gradually more conciliatory position to Orthodox synergism.
In Orthodoxy, all its basic conceptions are provided with Scriptural roots, and for synergy there are two principal supporting points in New Testament: 1) in the First Epistle to Corinthians the God – Man relation is characterized by the term close to synergia: “We are fellow-workers (synergoi) with God (1 Cor 3,9); 2) the response of Mary to the Annunciation (Lk 1,38). In this response “Mary could have refused; she was not merely passive, but an active participant in the mystery… Supreme example of synergy is the Mother of God”[2] . The next necessary level is the dogmatic basis, doctrinal formulas established by Ecumenical Councils. For synergy such basis is provided by the resolutions of the VIth Ecumenical Council stating that there are two wills or energies in Christ, Divine (uncreated) and human (created), and they are in harmony and accordance with each other. “The relation of the two energies in Christ is the ontological basis… of synergy”[3] . As for the essence of the conception, synergy was conceived in Orthodoxy as a subject of spiritual experience and practice more than a doctrinal principle. Hence the teaching of synergy developed chiefly in the Orthodox ascetical tradition called hesychasm (from the Greek word hesychia meaning quietness). Having its roots in the early Christian monasticism of the Desert th Fathers of Coptic Egypt and Palestine in the 4-5 cc., hesychasm developed gradually into a school of masterly articulated spiritual practice that created an original method of anthropological self- transformation directed to the union with God conceived as the “deification of man” (theosis) or transcension of all the human being in its energies into the horizon of Divine being. The reservation “in its energies” is important: hesychast practice transforms the set of all energies of a human being not touching upon its essence or substance; and it is stated by a special “Palamitic dogma” of the 1351 that the union with God is possible only as the union of human and Divine energies but not human and Divine essence. This union or man’s ontological transcension is considered as unreachable by man’s own energies and realizable only by means of Divine energy or grace; and it implies that synergy, or the contact and collaboration of human and Divine energies, is the crucial precondition of the achievement of the goal of Christian life. Hesychast practice is structured as a ladder whose steps ascend from the initial step of the conversion and repentance (the step of the rejection of worldly way of life, or Spiritual Gate) to the final step of the deification. The first steps are devoted to the overcoming of stubborn patterns, attitudes and structures of consciousness inherent in the worldly way of life while on the higher steps the fundamental change of the whole human being begins. All the hesychast Ladder is supposed to consist of the two big parts, of which the first is called Praxis (practice) and the second Theoria (contemplation), and the main distinction of the second part is that at its steps the action of some “outer energy” becomes noticeable, i.e. the energy perceived by man as coming from without and not belonging to him. As for synergy, it has its special place at the Ladder. It is when the contact and collaboration of human and Divine energies or wills is achieved that the transition from Praxis to Theoria takes place, and thus synergy appears on the verge between Praxis and Theoria and keeps its presence on all the further steps (cf.: “Synergy or coherence of the two wills continues at all the higher stages of the ascent to God”[4]).
1
1 J.Habermas. Religion in the public sphere // Europ. J. of Philosophy. 2006. 14(1). P.17.
3
J.Meyendorff. Byzantine Theology. Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes. Mowbrays, 1975. P.164.
4
Vl.N.Lossky. Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church // Bogoslovskie trudy. 1972, vol. 8. P.108 (in Russian).