Symeon the New Theologian

For Symeon, Christianity is first and foremost a transformative experience of the divine, beginning in this life in response to the Gospel and scripture, mediated in the practices of the church, and brought to a fitting climax in the world to come. The epistemic corollary involves a particular conception of theological discourse, a vision of epistemic failure and struggle, and a grounding of theological claims in transformative perception of the divine as depicted in scripture and in the great dogmas of the canonical faith of the church. His epistemic orientation thus focuses on our epistemic faculties or capacities, their repair through divine action and grace, and their success in securing accurate depictions of the triune God. The chapter concludes with six questions and issues that deserve further investigation.