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Yes, thank you. I was having a hard time remembering what I read. I know there are whole books written on the subject but I haven't read any yet.What you are referring to is called theosis in the East and deification or divinization in the West.
What you are referring to is called theosis in the East and deification or divinization in the West.
There is a practice in Eastern Orthodoxy of mysticism where one focuses on becoming one with God. I'm not sure if I'm describing it correctly but in western Christianity, there is a prevailing belief that we cannot physically experience the presence of God until we die. I have read that through Orthodox mysticism if one can go deep enough mystically, one can experience the presence of God here on Earth. I have never met anyone who has done this but the mystical meditative process of reaching out to God I believe would bring a person to oneness with the universe, God, and self.
Orthodox philosophers tend to lean more toward an eastern way of thinking. You have to really dig deep into the writings of the theologians to find out about eastern mysticism. I have only scratched the surface in my studies.
I was thinking and wondering about centering or maybe balance. Is there such a thing as balance or finding one's center in Christianity? I know in some religions there are those things and I got to wonder if Christianity has something similar or if Christianity is different all together
My looking askance at your "finding balance" stuff comes, not from fear, but from a total absence of any such teaching in the Bible, the Christian's manual of Christian belief and practice.
A centre needs a structure around it. The bible is that structure. The centre of the bible is the temple.
The church is made of wood, the bible stone (shattered interpretively) and the temple flesh.I believe it is the Church not the Bible
I believe it is the Church not the Bible
I do believe there is more to being a Christian than just a book full of books, there is also Tradition. Not everything is contained in the Bible and I do not believe it is the Christian's manual for belief and practice. Some may believe that but I do not.
The Pharisees were big on tradition. Jesus called them "hypocrites," "white-washed tombs," and "sons of hell." He rebuked them for putting tradition on par with - actually, above - the divine revelation of Scripture.
Quite honestly, if you don't regard the Bible as the foundational source for all Christian belief and practice, then I can't call you a Christian brother.
The Bible though is not the center of a believers life, the Bible has not always existed but the Church has.
Anyway, enough of the philosophy
??? I think you need to ponder this statement for a bit and ask yourself if it actually makes sense.
I have never said the Bible is the center of the believer's life.
And the Church is only 2000 years old, preceded by the Tanakh, the OT, by many centuries.
No, he rebuked them for their legalism, for the specific idiosyncratic legal doctrines they were forming from a novel reading of the Old Testament which was at odds with the traditional interpretation that stretches back at least as far as Esdras the Priest and the prophet Nehemiah. It was a case where the ancient, and more correct, interpretation of scripture was being intentionally supplanted by the Pharisaical interpretation, which later developed into the Mishnah and the Talmud, and the Sadducean interpretation, which in its rejection of resurrection, set itself against more ancient forms of Judaism (but the Sadducees were also weak compared to the Pharisees).
Judaism in the time of Christ had descended into a bad situation, owing to the schism with the Samaritans, and the bitter rivalry between four “denominations” whose doctrines clearly represented a departure from the ancient and holy traditions of the Hebrew faith, those being the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Hellenic Jews.
The universal Church put the Bible together, it didn't just pop into existence. You and I will not agree because you view things very strangely from my perspective
I "view things strangely," in your opinion, because, it seems to me, you know little about the Christian faith. You are aware, are you not, that the larger part of the Bible is derived from the Tanakh? Do you know how long the Tanakh was in use prior to the beginning of the Christian Church?
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