Is Orthodoxy an Exclusivist or Inclusivist religion?

TheLostCoin

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So, religions tend to be classified into three categories by academia in terms of how the religion relates with other religions: Pluralistic, Inclusivist, and Exclusivist.

Of course, it's not the case that it's always one of the three; they can sometimes be in between, but for the sake of simplification, we will have these three categories.

Pluralism: All the religions tend to express the same thing but in different ways, and we are all walking the same path with each other.
Inclusivism: Our religion is right, the others are wrong, but there are good things within other religions which parallel ours that can be helpful.
Exclusivism. Our religion is right, the others are wrong, and because they are wrong, bad things will happen to those people.

I know I'm being scholastic here, but I can't help but notice that I seem to receive mixed signals from different people - it seems like most Orthodox people whom I talk to view Orthodoxy as an Inclusivist religion, where there's certainly good things in other religions that can be helpful to one's Salvation, even to be saved; and I've come across things like Saint Nephon of Constantia, where he explicitly says, in a Vision of the Last Judgment, that based on what they were given, there will indeed be Pagans who are saved due to them not knowing Christ but doing their best to follow God.

On the other hand, from more Traditional Orthodox members, especially monks either from Athos or elsewhere, Orthodoxy is viewed as Exclusive: Extra Ecclasiam Nulla Salus - there is NO SALVATION outside the Church, and that's FINAL; There's no Sacraments Outside the Church, no Saints outside the Church, PERIOD. And they'll quote the likes of Saint Augustine or Saint Bede, who will say that just like everybody outside the Ark wasn't saved, so is everybody outside the Church.


So, which one is - if not right, more correct? Is Orthodoxy Exclusivist or Inclusivist?

And what about religions which - if not Orthodox, are so incredibly close to Orthodoxy but not in communion - either non-canonical schismatics (Macedonian Orthodox, Ukrainian Orthodox, Orthodox Church of France), Old Calendarists / Genuine Orthodox, Old Believers, Oriental Orthodox, etc.?

Me personally, I tend to be an Inclusivist to a certain extent - because I think that you really have a problem of God's Omnibenevolence in terms of Him creating people stuck in Native, isolated cultures, who don't know Christ, just to sentence them to eternal fire.

More than that, you have to answer why there are Saintly figures outside of Orthodoxy like Padre Pio, Sharbel, or Gregory of Narek, and miracles as well.

But maybe we are just incapable of knowing God.

Thoughts?
 
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buzuxi02

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Based on your above definitions, It's an inclusive religion with a small tinge of exclusiveness.
As far as who is saved or will be up in heaven that's God's decision alone. The Church cannot say with certainty the status of other congregations since this has not been revealed to her, for us they are sects. What has been revealed is that there exists only one visible Body of Christ, His Church and from it flows the Grace in Her sacramental life. We can only follow and proclaim what has been handed down to us. It's irrelevant whether this person or congregation can be saved as our mission is to bring them in as well following the canons and teachings of the Church as the apostles instructed us.
 
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ArmyMatt

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when it comes to Judgment Day, exclusivist. only Orthodoxy saves, period.

however, when it comes to who accepts the True Faith on that day, we cannot. the most militant atheist in this life could be a real follower of Christ, the atheist just doesn't know it.
 
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TheLostCoin

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when it comes to Judgment Day, exclusivist. only Orthodoxy saves, period.

I think it's pertinent to quote Saint Nephan here.

"Then came in the large crowd of the people that did not know Jesus Christ, but they kept His law anyway, listening to the Holy Spirit and their good conscience. Many of them were shining as bright as the sun in their innocence and purity, and The Lord gave them Paradise and beautiful bright crowns with roses and lilies. But these people were all blind because they haven’t been holied in the holy Baptism. Because in spirit the Baptism is light and the sight of the soul. They could not see at all the Greatness of God. This is why whoever is not baptized, even if they make it to heavens, they cannot see a thing."

http://www.crosscrafter.com/A_vision.pdf

It could be easily argued that they accepted the Faith through implicit desire, but...why are they blind? Doesn't membership of the Church require Baptism (Water, Blood, Desire?)
 
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TheLostCoin

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Also, it's not Augustine who said that, it was someone else.

Saint Augustine said this:

"No man can find salvation except in the Catholic Church. Outside the Catholic Church one can have everything except salvation. One can have honor, one can have the sacraments, one can sing alleluia, one can answer amen, one can have faith in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and preach it too, but never can one find salvation except in the Catholic Church."
 
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ArmyMatt

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Also, it's not Augustine who said that, it was someone else.

Saint Augustine said this:

"No man can find salvation except in the Catholic Church. Outside the Catholic Church one can have everything except salvation. One can have honor, one can have the sacraments, one can sing alleluia, one can answer amen, one can have faith in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and preach it too, but never can one find salvation except in the Catholic Church."

sure, but you have until Judgment Day to join the Church to receive salvation.
 
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TheLostCoin

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sure, but you have until Judgment Day to join the Church to receive salvation.

I really do struggle with this deeply, and this doctrine makes me lose Faith in God, and I hope you can forgive me Father.
Is salvation really just reduced to a guessing game?

maxresdefault.jpg


Something along the lines of

chick_jack_thelongtrip.jpg



As I've stated before, the Orthodox Church is at most only 4% of the Earth's population. And that's assuming that the 4% are devout believers, are the other 96% condemned?
 
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archer75

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@TheLostCoin, I know you weren't asking me, but can I ask what about Fr Matt's post made you think of these two images? I don't see how "having until Judgment Day" brings up the Chick vision of the afterlife or a ball-and-cup game.
 
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TheLostCoin

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@TheLostCoin, I know you weren't asking me, but can I ask what about Fr Matt's post made you think of these two images? I don't see how "having until Judgment Day" brings up the Chick vision of the afterlife or a ball-and-cup game.


Well, I just struggle with the uncertainty.

Like, there's really only two means of knowing what the Church is - empirically and Spiritually.

Spiritually is limited by the fact that there's two forces, the Holy Spirit and the devil which pretends to be the Holy Spirit, and you can't really know which one is which. After all, you might just be deluded! Who knows? Maybe the people who speak in tongues at their Pentecostal services really know the power of the Holy Spirit, and the idea of Nous and contemplation of the Divine is just prelest!

The more pragmatic option is logically and empirically, but this is flawed because you are always limited with information.

I mean, who knows? I don't know Koine Greek, maybe there's some theological nuance in Leo's Tome that logically implies the blasphemy of Nestorius, and the Oriental are right! Or maybe Dioscorus was really a Monophysite, based on his quotation from Justinian, and the Chalcedonian are right!

What about Papal Supremacy? For me, I've come to the conclusion that Vatican I is illogical on the premise that two Popes got excommunicated in Ecumenical Councils, but what if I'm wrong? After all, in the Acts of Chalcedon, the Papal Legate ignores the proceedings of Ephesus 449, stating they were made null and void by the Apostolic Bishop in Rome! (!!!) What? Can a Pope overturn a Council? Or is overturning it based on the fact that all the Bishops agreed that Leo was Orthodox, or maybe he made a sentence about how unOrthodox it was based on the alleged proceedings of the Council? Was Leo even Orthodox?

God knows, we sure as hell don't. Theologians have been chocking each other for 1500 years and can't figure out what went wrong, and why they went wrong.

So, all we can do is pick a Church based on the information available, but who knows! I could be a schismatic condemned to hell for leaving Rome, or I could be condemned to hell for not picking the Oriental Communion! Or maybe I pick either of those communions and am condemned to hell for not being with the Chalcedonians!

All it is a guessing game, pure and simple, and it's a pretty big necessary gamble if God even exists. Pick the wrong one, and feel the pains of fire for ever! You have a 33% chance, so don't guess wrong!

There's no clear answer that sits up as a city on a hill, it's just guessing the right one.

It is purely and simply a Chick comic, where Satan takes off his mask and says "HAH! Got ya, you didn't really accept Christ as your Savior!"

Somebody-Goofed-8.png
 
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ArmyMatt

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I really do struggle with this deeply, and this doctrine makes me lose Faith in God, and I hope you can forgive me Father.
Is salvation really just reduced to a guessing game?

maxresdefault.jpg


Something along the lines of

chick_jack_thelongtrip.jpg



As I've stated before, the Orthodox Church is at most only 4% of the Earth's population. And that's assuming that the 4% are devout believers, are the other 96% condemned?

no, because there are many in that 96% who are not Orthodox formally, but are in their hearts. which means they will be saved in the end. many join the Church at death, and many will join on Judgment Day.
 
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TheLostCoin

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We are left in this dilemma because "we don't know till Judgment Day," but Orthodox theologians can't even recognize when Judgment Day happens. Is it possible to change after death? Do we experience the Last Judgment as soon as we die?

Who knows, but to mitigate this risk, it's seems safer to make the decision sooner than later.

But we are left in this dilemma.
 
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ArmyMatt

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We are left in this dilemma because "we don't know till Judgment Day," but Orthodox theologians can't even recognize when Judgment Day happens. Is it possible to change after death? Do we experience the Last Judgment as soon as we die?

Who knows, but to mitigate this risk, it's seems safer to make the decision sooner than later.

But we are left in this dilemma.

yes, it is better to mitigate this sooner. but God loves everyone, and He always seeking to save man.
 
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archer75

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Well, I just struggle with the uncertainty.

Like, there's really only two means of knowing what the Church is - empirically and Spiritually.

Spiritually is limited by the fact that there's two forces, the Holy Spirit and the devil which pretends to be the Holy Spirit, and you can't really know which one is which. After all, you might just be deluded! Who knows? Maybe the people who speak in tongues at their Pentecostal services really know the power of the Holy Spirit, and the idea of Nous and contemplation of the Divine is just prelest!

The more pragmatic option is logically and empirically, but this is flawed because you are always limited with information.

I mean, who knows? I don't know Koine Greek, maybe there's some theological nuance in Leo's Tome that logically implies the blasphemy of Nestorius, and the Oriental are right! Or maybe Dioscorus was really a Monophysite, based on his quotation from Justinian, and the Chalcedonian are right!

What about Papal Supremacy? For me, I've come to the conclusion that Vatican I is illogical on the premise that two Popes got excommunicated in Ecumenical Councils, but what if I'm wrong? After all, in the Acts of Chalcedon, the Papal Legate ignores the proceedings of Ephesus 449, stating they were made null and void by the Apostolic Bishop in Rome! (!!!) What? Can a Pope overturn a Council? Or is overturning it based on the fact that all the Bishops agreed that Leo was Orthodox, or maybe he made a sentence about how unOrthodox it was based on the alleged proceedings of the Council? Was Leo even Orthodox?

God knows, we sure as hell don't. Theologians have been chocking each other for 1500 years and can't figure out what went wrong, and why they went wrong.

So, all we can do is pick a Church based on the information available, but who knows! I could be a schismatic condemned to hell for leaving Rome, or I could be condemned to hell for not picking the Oriental Communion! Or maybe I pick either of those communions and am condemned to hell for not being with the Chalcedonians!

All it is a guessing game, pure and simple, and it's a pretty big necessary gamble if God even exists. Pick the wrong one, and feel the pains of fire for ever! You have a 33% chance, so don't guess wrong!

There's no clear answer that sits up as a city on a hill, it's just guessing the right one.

It is purely and simply a Chick comic, where Satan takes off his mask and says "HAH! Got ya, you didn't really accept Christ as your Savior!"

Somebody-Goofed-8.png
Or maybe the Anglicans should be included, which gives us a 25% chance...

While I am certainly behind you and many other posters in my knowledge of the various schisms, I can say that I just can't believe that it works that way.

I don't believe that God requires us to have knowledge of Latin and Greek - not only as abstract systems, but also the usages of specific people who lived many centuries ago.

I don't believe that it's all a trick or some sort of guessing game.

On a related note, I also don't believe that the 99-year-old parishioner who doesn't know that her parish or jurisdiction just "went into schism" and therefore doesn't frantically leap from treetop to treetop in search of a canonical priest to receive her back into the Church is violently hurled out of the Body of Christ.

I think, as in so many other things, you do the best you can (without constantly imagining brain-in-a-vat scenarios where Satan secretly put a fake version of the Tome of Leo in front of you), and God does the rest.
 
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TheLostCoin

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Or maybe the Anglicans should be included, which gives us a 25% chance...

While I am certainly behind you and many other posters in my knowledge of the various schisms, I can say that I just can't believe that it works that way.

I don't believe that God requires us to have knowledge of Latin and Greek - not only as abstract systems, but also the usages of specific people who lived many centuries ago.

I don't believe that it's all a trick or some sort of guessing game.

On a related note, I also don't believe that the 99-year-old parishioner who doesn't know that her parish or jurisdiction just "went into schism" and therefore doesn't frantically leap from treetop to treetop in search of a canonical priest to receive her back into the Church is violently hurled out of the Body of Christ.

I think, as in so many other things, you do the best you can (without constantly imagining brain-in-a-vat scenarios where Satan secretly put a fake version of the Tome of Leo in front of you), and God does the rest.

Well, what do you do in my position where I feel like I've studied the issue to death, and I still feel uncertain?
 
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archer75

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Well, what do you do in my position where I feel like I've studied the issue to death, and I still feel uncertain?
Ask your priest? (I kid...sort of.)

Ask God to guide you. Don't rush into anything on the basis of a Tome or no Tome, beard or no beard, etc. Attend some services.
 
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TheLostCoin

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Ask your priest? (I kid...sort of.)

Ask God to guide you. Don't rush into anything on the basis of a Tome or no Tome, beard or no beard, etc. Attend some services.

I'm sorry for these outbursts, I just struggle with this, you know?

And I apologize to anybody following me that reads this.
 
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TheLostCoin

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Ask your priest? (I kid...sort of.)

Ask God to guide you. Don't rush into anything on the basis of a Tome or no Tome, beard or no beard, etc. Attend some services.

Also, I have, and it's clear that he's quite sick of my lack of Faith.
 
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