Is Orthodoxy an Exclusivist or Inclusivist religion?

archer75

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

And I apologize to anybody following me that reads this.
I didn't mean to reprimand you for anything, I just said the best thing I could think of. You have my sympathy and prayers. Oddly, this (my conversion, and my "choosing" Chalcedonian Orthodoxy) is one thing where I didn't fall into my usual need to be "correct." But I sympathize.
 
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archer75

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Also, I have, and it's clear that he's quite sick of my lack of Faith.
I don't know what's going on here, and I'm not correcting your priest, but in the end we have to live with a little uncertainty.

If you chose the confession / communion and were ABSOLUTELY sure for all time...then you could worry - what if my priest is a rogue who was received with fake chrism? What if he doesn't even know it? What if these are fake sacraments? What if he missed contact with my right ankle at my Chrismation? There's no end to it. At some point you have to say, I want to profess faith in Christ and this is what I'm doing now. You don't have to check your brain at the door, but neither can you rely on intellect and research alone.
 
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TheLostCoin

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I didn't mean to reprimand you for anything, I just said the best thing I could think of. You have my sympathy and prayers. Oddly, this (my conversion, and my "choosing" Chalcedonian Orthodoxy) is one thing where I didn't fall into my usual need to be "correct." But I sympathize.

No, you didn't. I still sinned though; if you know my history on this site, I very much struggle with perfectionism and the desire to be perfect in my knowledge of things - it's connected directly to my habits of scholasticism, and my flesh (it's very clear that my flesh is directly connected to this in a weird way).
 
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TheLostCoin

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If you chose the confession / communion and were ABSOLUTELY sure for all time...then you could worry - what if my priest is a rogue who was received with fake chrism? What if he doesn't even know it? What if these are fake sacraments? What if he missed contact with my right ankle at my Chrismation? There's no end to it. At some point you have to say, I want to profess faith in Christ and this is what I'm doing now. You don't have to check your brain at the door, but neither can you rely on intellect and research alone.

Yeah, but that's what absolutely terrifies me with the doctrine of Extra Ecclasiam Nulla Salus - it seems to reduce salvation to this paranoia.

I don't think Christ could judge me that harshly (if at all) if I unintentionally ate bread and not the Eucharist. However, according to this doctrine, He CAN judge me even if I am unintentionally wrong about Church choice (assuming that I can't change after death).
 
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archer75

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No, you didn't. I still sinned though; if you know my history on this site, I very much struggle with perfectionism and the desire to be perfect in my knowledge of things - it's connected directly to my habits of scholasticism, and my flesh (it's very clear that my flesh is directly connected to this in a weird way).
Join the club. I behave poorly on this site all the time, worse than you. But I try not to let that shake my faith in Christ.

Glory to God for all things!
 
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archer75

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Yeah, but that's what absolutely terrifies me with the doctrine of Extra Ecclasiam Nulla Salus - it seems to reduce salvation to this paranoia.

I don't think Christ could judge me that harshly (if at all) if I unintentionally ate bread and not the Eucharist. However, according to this doctrine, He CAN judge me even if I am unintentionally wrong about Church choice (assuming that I can't change after death).
Even if we accept EENS...why is it so hard to say also that we don't know the boundaries of the Church? All who are saved are the Church, no? And God does what he will.
 
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ArmyMatt

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One more.

0031_08.gif

haha, he actually says Alexandria downplays Christ's Divinity.
 
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Mary of Bethany

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Lost Coin,

You are looking for certainty. You can be certain of this - our God is the God Who loves mankind. He is not a trickster waiting to catch us in mistakes, but our Father Who desires the salvation of all, including you. ❤️
 
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TheLostCoin

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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.

Here's the thing, though - you don't know that, and it might not be possible to convert at all at death.
 
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ArmyMatt

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Here's the thing, though - you don't know that, and it might not be possible to convert at all at death.

I do know that. of course that's a possibility according to St Mark of Ephesus. St Peter's epistle has Christ preaching to those who died in the Flood, the generation so wicked God laments He created man in the first place.

now, whether or not it will happen is another story, but of course it's possible.
 
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Not David

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I would be worried if I would be Calvinist because I cannot be sure if I am really the elect (I know that there is the perseverance of the Saints but it is realistic to assume one will fall later on).
I believe the problem is that you think God would not be able to have mercy on those who lived by ignorance. I should be preoccupied that my family is Evangelical and not part of the Church; however; I don't since I know that God is a good God who loves mankind.
 
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TheLostCoin

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I would be worried if I would be Calvinist because I cannot be sure if I am really the elect (I know that there is the perseverance of the Saints but it is realistic to assume one will fall later on).
I believe the problem is that you think God would not be able to have mercy on those who lived by ignorance. I should be preoccupied that my family is Evangelical and not part of the Church; however; I don't since I know that God is a good God who loves mankind.

The phrase "There is no salvation outside the Church" and "Those outside the Church will perish like Noah" seems to very logically and intrinsically suggest a type of Feeneyism where all heretics, infidels, etc. will burn forever.

For the longest while I had no problem with this, because - quite disgustingly, as I am a disgusting person - I was quite more of a Pharisee than I am now, and I simply used Orthodoxy not as a means of discipline and self-betterment, but as nothing more than a proxy of intentionally and childishly abdicating the faults of who I was, and be able to have an upper ground of judgment on the rest of the world.

You can't tell me that this phraseology doesn't have such a logical implication of the whole non-Orthodox world being condemned. I tried using said phraseology in the most charitable way possible when discussing this topic when it came up with Orthodoxy with my Catholic family (how there's no Salvation Outside the Church, but we don't know who's saved and who's not, it's possible that they can be saved before the Last Judgment, God will judge everyone with perfect justice), and now my family occasionally torments me about how I think my dead, really loving and devout Protestant grandparents are burning in Hell, because they don't rely on academic dialectic to try to synthesize contradictory ideas; rather, they are simple people who hear what's being said and understand what's being said alone and in of itself.

But their opinions are not what's bothering me - such an idea has bothered me ever since I realized how I was blaspheming Orthodoxy with who I was, because I now realize how unjust it seems to be, when it seems that Orthodoxy should be understood as nothing more but a means of personal transfiguration through Christ and a love of the human dignity that each person deserves, and repentance through God's Grace and ultimately, Union with God - but there are and were clearly other paths which offered this same methodology and end-goal, whether it's Traditional Catholicism and the writings of the Carmelites, Old Believers, Oriental Orthodoxy, etc.

When all of them have extremely similar methodology and produce holy people who act similarly to each other (Francis of Assisi and Basil of Moscow, Padre Pio and Paisios the Athonite, Maximilian Kolbe and Dimitri Klepinin),

it's frustrating that the doctrine implies a basic guessing game - a very cruel and agonizing when, especially when there are Catholics who put most lukewarm and lazy Orthodox to absolute shame.

2 Catholic priests, 2 activists arrested for pro-life witness inside abortion center


Oops, these Priests are condemned to hell, they were schismatic heretics. I'm sorry man.
 
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ArmyMatt

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The phrase "There is no salvation outside the Church" and "Those outside the Church will perish like Noah" seems to very logically and intrinsically suggest a type of Feeneyism where all heretics, infidels, etc. will burn forever.

For the longest while I had no problem with this, because - quite disgustingly, as I am a disgusting person - I was quite more of a Pharisee than I am now, and I simply used Orthodoxy not as a means of discipline and self-betterment, but as nothing more than a proxy of intentionally and childishly abdicating the faults of who I was, and be able to have an upper ground of judgment on the rest of the world.

You can't tell me that this phraseology doesn't have such a logical implication of the whole non-Orthodox world being condemned. I tried using said phraseology in the most charitable way possible when discussing this topic when it came up with Orthodoxy with my Catholic family (how there's no Salvation Outside the Church, but we don't know who's saved and who's not, it's possible that they can be saved before the Last Judgment, God will judge everyone with perfect justice), and now my family occasionally torments me about how I think my dead, really loving and devout Protestant grandparents are burning in Hell, because they don't rely on academic dialectic to try to synthesize contradictory ideas; rather, they are simple people who hear what's being said and understand what's being said alone and in of itself.

But their opinions are not what's bothering me - such an idea has bothered me ever since I realized how I was blaspheming Orthodoxy with who I was, because I now realize how unjust it seems to be, when it seems that Orthodoxy should be understood as nothing more but a means of personal transfiguration through Christ and a love of the human dignity that each person deserves, and repentance through God's Grace and ultimately, Union with God - but there are and were clearly other paths which offered this same methodology and end-goal, whether it's Traditional Catholicism and the writings of the Carmelites, Old Believers, Oriental Orthodoxy, etc.

When all of them have extremely similar methodology and produce holy people who act similarly to each other (Francis of Assisi and Basil of Moscow, Padre Pio and Paisios the Athonite, Maximilian Kolbe and Dimitri Klepinin),

it's frustrating that the doctrine implies a basic guessing game - a very cruel and agonizing when, especially when there are Catholics who put most lukewarm and lazy Orthodox to absolute shame.

2 Catholic priests, 2 activists arrested for pro-life witness inside abortion center


Oops, these Priests are condemned to hell, they were schismatic heretics. I'm sorry man.

except that isn't what we believe or how we define things. come on now.
 
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TheLostCoin

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scroll up, it's been answered by me and others.

Did you read my post? My argument is that your argument seems like nothing more than a "what if" loophole that doesn't really address the problem, other than a sense of "hope" which are just banal platitudes to defend God.

Forgive me for saying this, but I wonder if this whole doctrine was just invented to scare people from not leaving the Church or compromising received dogma; or perhaps the Fathers, believing in a Theistic Worldview, felt like the heresies and schisms would eventually die off, such that God's omnibenevolence isn't violated.

Well, it's been 965 years, and there are 3-6x more Roman Catholics than Orthodox, and almost the same amount of Protestants, with thousands of denominations, and Orthodoxy being isolated to some Eastern European countries in terms of dominance, so...
 
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ArmyMatt

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Did you read my post? My argument is that your argument seems like nothing more than a "what if" loophole that doesn't really address the problem, other than a sense of "hope" which are just banal platitudes to defend God.

Forgive me for saying this, but I wonder if this whole doctrine was just invented to scare people from not leaving the Church or compromising received dogma; or perhaps the Fathers, believing in a Theistic Worldview, felt like the heresies and schisms would eventually die off, such that God's omnibenevolence isn't violated.

Well, it's been 965 years, and there are 3-6x more Roman Catholics than Orthodox, and almost the same amount of Protestants, with thousands of denominations, and Orthodoxy being isolated to some Eastern European countries in terms of dominance, so...

it's not a "what if" loophole if it's IN the Bible. heck, in the era of Byzantine humanism beginning in the 900's, there were many who wrote about salvation of the pre-Christian pagans. so it originated before the schism and long before Protestantism.
 
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The phrase "There is no salvation outside the Church" and "Those outside the Church will perish like Noah" seems to very logically and intrinsically suggest a type of Feeneyism where all heretics, infidels, etc. will burn forever.

For the longest while I had no problem with this, because - quite disgustingly, as I am a disgusting person - I was quite more of a Pharisee than I am now, and I simply used Orthodoxy not as a means of discipline and self-betterment, but as nothing more than a proxy of intentionally and childishly abdicating the faults of who I was, and be able to have an upper ground of judgment on the rest of the world.

You can't tell me that this phraseology doesn't have such a logical implication of the whole non-Orthodox world being condemned. I tried using said phraseology in the most charitable way possible when discussing this topic when it came up with Orthodoxy with my Catholic family (how there's no Salvation Outside the Church, but we don't know who's saved and who's not, it's possible that they can be saved before the Last Judgment, God will judge everyone with perfect justice), and now my family occasionally torments me about how I think my dead, really loving and devout Protestant grandparents are burning in Hell, because they don't rely on academic dialectic to try to synthesize contradictory ideas; rather, they are simple people who hear what's being said and understand what's being said alone and in of itself.

But their opinions are not what's bothering me - such an idea has bothered me ever since I realized how I was blaspheming Orthodoxy with who I was, because I now realize how unjust it seems to be, when it seems that Orthodoxy should be understood as nothing more but a means of personal transfiguration through Christ and a love of the human dignity that each person deserves, and repentance through God's Grace and ultimately, Union with God - but there are and were clearly other paths which offered this same methodology and end-goal, whether it's Traditional Catholicism and the writings of the Carmelites, Old Believers, Oriental Orthodoxy, etc.

When all of them have extremely similar methodology and produce holy people who act similarly to each other (Francis of Assisi and Basil of Moscow, Padre Pio and Paisios the Athonite, Maximilian Kolbe and Dimitri Klepinin),

it's frustrating that the doctrine implies a basic guessing game - a very cruel and agonizing when, especially when there are Catholics who put most lukewarm and lazy Orthodox to absolute shame.

2 Catholic priests, 2 activists arrested for pro-life witness inside abortion center


Oops, these Priests are condemned to hell, they were schismatic heretics. I'm sorry man.
It is the same reasoning Protestants don't want to use the term Mother of God because it implies Mary is divine or like my mom being against icons because it might imply idolatry to others.
It is not what you believe but what it is
 
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