ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA'S CONCEPT OF HYPOSTASIS
Abstract
Contrary to what some scholars seem to have held, in the Cappadocian
Fathers there can be no ontology of the Trinity. God, according to the Cappadocians,
transcends every possibility of being grasped by the human mind. The terminology of ousia
and energeia is therefore conceived as a human strategy of speaking of God economically
with a view to problems that originated with the Eunomian and Apollinarian controversy.
Gregory's approach to this kind of language is rather pragmatic, and he stresses the
importance of regulating all talk of God by the sense (or experience) of what is proper or
dignified to say.
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