Sweeter Than Honey: Orthodox Thinking on Dogma And Truth (Foundations Series, Bk. 3)

St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, June 2006. Paper Back. New. Well aware of contemporary challenges confronting an Orthodox Christianity that refuses to budge in its adherence to truth, Bouteneff sets out to reestablish absolute truth as a tenable position and to revive and explore the lost connotations of the too-often scorned word 'dogma;' namely, 'that there is such a thing as absolute truth about God and the world, that this truth can be discerned, that it can be an object of faith and love, that it is the root of creativity and freedom.' After firmly establishing the existence of truth and grounding it in the person of Jesus Christ in the first half of the book, the remainder of the study explores how the Orthodox Church discerns dogma, beginning with the possibility and purpose of theology, moving on to the mechanics of doctrine (e.g. 'The Descent of the Holy Spirit' and 'The Formation of Doctrine'), and concluding with a summary of the Church's loci theologici, the sources from which theology is discerned: Scripture, Liturgy, Fathers, Councils, Canons, Saints, Icons and Art. Written as a survey text for a broad audience, this new Foundation Series volume offers both an effective apologia for truth to our age of relativism as well as an excellent overview of Orthodox theology to anyone interested, whether new or cradle Orthodox, or non-Orthodox. 213 pp.