Epistemological Certainty and Orthodoxy

[TheLostCoin]

An argument that I've heard Roman Catholics bring up is the Epistemological Certainty argument in the past - and while I think it's quite ironic given that this argument can't even apply to Rome given the curious case of Pope Francis, it's still an argument nonetheless that is applicable to Orthodoxy, and it's an argument that I could never really resolve.

So, as a baseline, we must agree that God cannot change objective morality - the 10 Commandments will never be revoked, for example; adultery will always be sinful no matter what societal circumstances come about.

If God changes objective morality - that is, to change the Gold Standard of God, and to change what God is, that implies that God is neither perfect nor omnibenevolent, for to change to something implies God wasn't (and thus isn't) perfect, and He couldn't be just when judging us, for the standards would be arbitrary, unfair, and even tyrannical.

However, it must be the case that even though sin is sin and good is good, and baseline morality can never change, how this morality is applied must necessarily change.

For example, in the context of the Kingdom of Israel, it was perfectly legal to stone adulteresses for adultery - but it's something which, in the context of Christ, He opposed it. The underlying morality for both does not change, as adultery is a sin worth death, but the context of the unfulfilled Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant changed the significance of the practice put in place.


So, this is where the problem lies - if how morality is applied can change from time and place, how can we know that we are following what's appropriate or morally good for our society to follow?

Let's give an example: there's a famous story from Saint Benedict's life where he destroys statues of a Pagan Temple dedicated to the Pagan deity Apollo. He and his monks went in, destroyed the statues, and converted it into an Oratory dedicated to Saint John the Apostle, making it a Church.

Now, the question becomes this - if I got a group of monks and I went into a local Hindu Temple, smashing their statues, kicking everyone out, and converted it to an Orthodox Church - would this be morally acceptable?

Many would say no - but here's the thing. We can not know if this action is moral or not; Christ can judge me as sinning for not doing this action, but if I do it, Christ can also judge me for forcing conversions on people.

How do we know that our judgment on if such a thing is moral or not is a product of what the Church has taught, or is just a product of Enlightenment "Separation of Church and State" cultural "brainwashing"?


A more significant example is the recent case of the K9 service in the Greek Church. One commentator on the thread said "I feel like I cannot be a part of this community after reading these comments," suggesting that he / she felt it was morally just for such a service to occur given the context of the United States and the unique society we live in. However, most people see it as a scandal to the norms which were given in the past; who is being the Pharisee here, and who is being Christ-like, and how do we know?

This leads to even deeper questions about trusting my priest - how do I know that I can trust my priest? How do I know I can trust him for spiritual knowledge, and he isn't speaking heresy or suggesting nonsense to me?



I can see an answer being that it isn't my responsibility, I should just study the Saints and obey my Priest, and do my best, and hopefully Christ will judge me with salvation if I do so - but this leads to problems with Nestorius, Arius, etc., who may have had the best intentions ever.

I don't know, these thoughts occasionally pop up, and when I interact with them, I get stressed.

 

[“Paisios”]

I don’t have an answer, but I will be watching this thread, as I am very interested in this.

 

[SingularityOne]

- What is the Mind of the Church? - Read an hour a day from the Lives of the Saints, Writings of the Holy Fathers, and Holy Scripture if one hasn't reached the knowledge of the Mind of the Church yet.
- Pray continually for "...His Will to be done...", and trust that is is being done, and partake of the Sacraments as much as possible.
- Fast along with the Church calendar; partake in the ascetical disciplines of the Church
- Go to God in prayer before making any decisions or going to anyone outside oneself and pour one's heart out to Him.
- Discern the people one goes to for knowledge. Ex: "Don't go to a divorced car salesman for relationship advice" as my priest said to me once. - However, go to God before going to anyone outside yourself for direction
- Continual repentance

 

[dzheremi]

I don't get it. God and/or His commands are not objectively 'moral' in the first place, at least not in the way that's usually framed. What generally passes for objective morality would say "You can't do that because those people have just as much a right to worship their false gods as you do the true God" (except it probably wouldn't have the modifiers 'true' and false' in there; i.e., it would deny the idea of objective truth in favor of not seeming to appeal to a subjective of idea of who/what God is and where and how He/she/it/they is/are to be worshiped), and yet God Himself decides what is to be done out of love for people, even if the result is the cause of much suffering for people who would value their own 'right' to do XYZ over what God actually commands.

So how can we answer such a question? Objectively it would probably be wrong, but subjectively (i.e., in reality, where there is only one God), what God says is the only thing that ultimately matters.

I remember a similar question being put to Fr. Patrick Reardon (Antiochian priest) on AFR once, I think by Kevin Allen (memory eternal) on one of his shows, concerning how it was that we can in some sense condone the violence found in OT as God's own means of correction of man while at the same time rejecting Muslim violence in the name of their god, since that seems rather subjective, and if I recall correctly (don't quote me on this, as I'm not quoting the good father, only going on memory) he said something like the Christian must simply insist that the Muslim is wrong.

So there ya go. The Christian must simply insist that the Hindu is wrong. It's not objective in the sense of being neutral, but it is objective in the sense of taking God's command as what is to be done outside of anyone's judgment of it.

 

[TheLostCoin]

I don't get it. God and/or His commands are not objectively 'moral' in the first place, at least not in the way that's usually framed. What generally passes for objective morality would say "You can't do that because those people have just as much a right to worship their false gods as you do the true God" (except it probably wouldn't have the modifiers 'true' and false' in there; i.e., it would deny the idea of objective truth in favor of not seeming to appeal to a subjective of idea of who/what God is and where and how He/she/it/they is/are to be worshiped), and yet God Himself decides what is to be done out of love for people, even if the result is the cause of much suffering for people who would value their own 'right' to do XYZ over what God actually commands.

So how can we answer such a question? Objectively it would probably be wrong, but subjectively (i.e., in reality, where there is only one God), what God says is the only thing that ultimately matters.

I remember a similar question being put to Fr. Patrick Reardon (Antiochian priest) on AFR once, I think by Kevin Allen (memory eternal) on one of his shows, concerning how it was that we can in some sense condone the violence found in OT as God's own means of correction of man while at the same time rejecting Muslim violence in the name of their god, since that seems rather subjective, and if I recall correctly (don't quote me on this, as I'm not quoting the good father, only going on memory) he said something like the Christian must simply insist that the Muslim is wrong.

So there ya go. The Christian must simply insist that the Hindu is wrong. It's not objective in the sense of being neutral, but it is objective in the sense of taking God's command as what is to be done outside of anyone's judgment of it.

I'm not saying that objective morality is separate from God, I'm saying that objective morality can't change, as God can't change, because if it did, that would mean God changes and He is thus imperfect needing to change (and also not omnibenevolent, for he judges people arbitrarily).

My question is how can we know what God's Will is, or even know we are following God's Will, especially when it's morally complicated, in terms of certainty?

 

[mark kennedy]

An argument that I've heard Roman Catholics bring up is the Epistemological Certainty argument in the past - and while I think it's quite ironic given that this argument can't even apply to Rome given the curious case of Pope Francis, it's still an argument nonetheless that is applicable to Orthodoxy, and it's an argument that I could never really resolve.

So, as a baseline, we must agree that God cannot change objective morality - the 10 Commandments will never be revoked, for example; adultery will always be sinful no matter what societal circumstances come about.

If God changes objective morality - that is, to change the Gold Standard of God, and to change what God is, that implies that God is neither perfect nor omnibenevolent, for to change to something implies God wasn't (and thus isn't) perfect, and He couldn't be just when judging us, for the standards would be arbitrary, unfair, and even tyrannical.

However, it must be the case that even though sin is sin and good is good, and baseline morality can never change, how this morality is applied must necessarily change.

For example, in the context of the Kingdom of Israel, it was perfectly legal to stone adulteresses for adultery - but it's something which, in the context of Christ, He opposed it. The underlying morality for both does not change, as adultery is a sin worth death, but the context of the unfulfilled Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant changed the significance of the practice put in place.


So, this is where the problem lies - if how morality is applied can change from time and place, how can we know that we are following what's appropriate or morally good for our society to follow?

Let's give an example: there's a famous story from Saint Benedict's life where he destroys statues of a Pagan Temple dedicated to the Pagan deity Apollo. He and his monks went in, destroyed the statues, and converted it into an Oratory dedicated to Saint John the Apostle, making it a Church.

Now, the question becomes this - if I got a group of monks and I went into a local Hindu Temple, smashing their statues, kicking everyone out, and converted it to an Orthodox Church - would this be morally acceptable?

Many would say no - but here's the thing. We can not know if this action is moral or not; Christ can judge me as sinning for not doing this action, but if I do it, Christ can also judge me for forcing conversions on people.

How do we know that our judgment on if such a thing is moral or not is a product of what the Church has taught, or is just a product of Enlightenment "Separation of Church and State" cultural "brainwashing"?


A more significant example is the recent case of the K9 service in the Greek Church. One commentator on the thread said "I feel like I cannot be a part of this community after reading these comments," suggesting that he / she felt it was morally just for such a service to occur given the context of the United States and the unique society we live in. However, most people see it as a scandal to the norms which were given in the past; who is being the Pharisee here, and who is being Christ-like, and how do we know?

This leads to even deeper questions about trusting my priest - how do I know that I can trust my priest? How do I know I can trust him for spiritual knowledge, and he isn't speaking heresy or suggesting nonsense to me?



I can see an answer being that it isn't my responsibility, I should just study the Saints and obey my Priest, and do my best, and hopefully Christ will judge me with salvation if I do so - but this leads to problems with Nestorius, Arius, etc., who may have had the best intentions ever.

I don't know, these thoughts occasionally pop up, and when I interact with them, I get stressed.

I just wanted to point out a couple of things, Jesus never said it was wrong to stone the woman caught in adultery, he said who is without sin let him cast the first stone. One by one they were convicted of their sins and left her with only one witness who refused to accuse her. Just as God's morality in internal he must require it of us, the expression in the New Testament is the righteousness of God in Christ. It's an objective morality known to all (Rom. 1:18-20), leaving us without excuse for our sin.

There was no compulsion from Christ to convert, Jesus and the Apostles attempted to persuade. When they departed, Jesus did nothing to try to stop them. They smashed no idols, they stoned no malefactors and they turned the world upside down with their testimony.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[SingularityOne]

Essentially, only Christ can judge. Christ-Crucified is the only “Objective Morality”. That being said, what is the Mind of Christ in The Church? That is what I need to crucify my mind to.

I am called to have mercy on the other person’s essence. I am called to judge actions that are not of The Holy Spirit so that I can avoid doing that action myself (for self-control) and to help the “poor and needy” who cannot stand up for/defend themselves, in mercy (this takes a high level of discernment in that helping them may be to their detriment; pray before doing to “let Thy will be done” and asking if it is according to His will to help the other so that oneself doesn’t cross a boundary for their own growth), but I am not called to judge the other person’s essence.

My action of mercy is Christ's justice.

 

[TheLostCoin]

Essentially, only Christ can judge. Christ is the only “Objective Morality”. That being said, what is the Mind of Christ in The Church? That is what I need to crucify my mind to.

I am called to have mercy on the other person’s essence. I am called to judge actions that are not of The Holy Spirit so that I can avoid doing that action myself (for self-control) and to help the “poor and needy” who cannot stand up for themselves in mercy, but I am not called to judge the other person’s essence.

My action of mercy is Christ's justice.

That's very similar to an answer I was thinking about how to answer this question- maybe where there is pure, consistent, objective morality which never changes or is interpreted differently is how one personally relates to that objective morality rather than broad statements on social norms - for instance, one can debate the censorship of sexuality and to the degree which is best for society, but in all instances across time and space, to look at a woman lustfully is always gravely sinful. "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife", and "But whosoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

That's a possible solution to morality - what about Faith? What if someone inadvertently holds to a heretical view, and how can one be certain that they don't hold to heresy - I mean, Eutyches might have just been following his conscience, being an uneducated monk.

How do we know that 99% of the Bishops aren't in heresy?

 

[ArmyMatt]

God's standard of morality doesn't change. the problem is through salvation history, man does change. God takes man's changes into account, even though His standard never does.

 

[TheLostCoin]

I just wanted to point out a couple of things, Jesus never said it was wrong to stone the woman caught in adultery, he said who is without sin let him cast the first stone. One by one they were convicted of their sins and left her with only one witness who refused to accuse her. Just as God's morality in internal he must require it of us, the expression in the New Testament is the righteousness of God in Christ. It's an objective morality known to all (Rom. 1:18-20), leaving us without excuse for our sin.

Amen.

There was no compulsion from Christ to convert, Jesus and the Apostles attempted to persuade. When they departed, Jesus did nothing to try to stop them. They smashed no idols, they stoned no malefactors and they turned the world upside down with their testimony.

It's definitely the case that Paul went into Pagan Temples and Jewish Temples to try to convert people, as is testified in Acts 17, and God even orders the smashing of idols in Deuteronomy 12:1-3.

 

[TheLostCoin]

-

 

[SingularityOne]

That's very similar to an answer I was thinking about how to answer this question- maybe where there is pure, consistent, objective morality which never changes or is interpreted differently is how one personally relates to that objective morality - for instance, one can debate the censorship of sexuality and to the degree which is best for society, but in all instances across time and space, to look at a woman lustfully is always gravely sinful. "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife", and "But whosoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

I think this reflects the question of Job to God of why things happen and him asking God for an explaination of all things. His ways are higher than my ways. However, my ways come more into how His ways would function in my hypostasis the more I relinquish my will to His will regardless of what the world puts in places as it’s own boundary/parameter.

Maybe I should say it this way: there is an objective morality. However, considering my nous is still corrupted by sin and not in subjection to God’s Holy Will, I cannot see my own hypostasis’ “subjective morality”/“purpose” in submission to “The Objective Reality”/God’s Divine Will yet due to my disobedience and ignorance. God willing, thought the grace of God, I will be able to see Him face to face and know His Holy Will so that my “subjective morality” will be in alignment with His “objective morality” that never changes. Blessed are the pure at heart, for they shall see God.

 

[dzheremi]

I'm not saying that objective morality is separate from God, I'm saying that objective morality can't change, as God can't change, because if it did, that would mean God changes and He is thus imperfect needing to change (and also not omnibenevolent, for he judges people arbitrarily).

My question is how can we know what God's Will is, or even know we are following God's Will, especially when it's morally complicated, in terms of certainty?

Ah. I see. Apologies for taking the question in a different direction than was intended.

Well then my answer would be essentially what Father Matt already said, and the means of my own 'participation' in it (for lack of a better way to put it) vis-a-vis actual examples like your Hindu situation would be essentially what SingularityOne already said.

 

[Lukaris]

I think the divine moral code we find in ( for ex.) Leviticus 18, Leviticus 19, Leviticus 20 & Romans 1, Romans 13:8-10 etc. are the same but the consequences of sin in man’s hands is restricted by the Sermon on the Mount which in turn is proactive towards mercy.

Lastly, God has allowed equal legitimacy to the gentile ruler in secular matters ( Romans 13:1-7).

 

[Not David]

Yeah, I don't see God changing but using different methods to deal with people. You cannot acr with barbarians the same way you act with philosophers.

 

[~Anastasia~]

I may be thinking too simplistically but - how can I explain this? It almost seems to me that things like the 10 commandments and other things we lump under "morality" are really a sort of legalistic necessity due to our human limitations.

What I mean is that I tend to think that what is good/right/moral tends to be what is loving - i.e. the greatest good for the person(s) involved. The thing is, only God knows the full implications and outcomes of our decisions. We could do a thing thinking we are doing what's best for someone, but we might be wrong.

I think God often intervenes and makes things right. But we might not know. The cases that seem questionable, like making over a pagan institution or killing someone to protect the innocent, we can't know the intricacies and details of who will be affected how and exactly what course of action is best (maybe it's good to convert the pagan temple to a Church, but at a particular point in time and not before - for reasons we know nothing about. I am reminded that the Holy Spirit once prevented the Apostle from going where he had purposes to go.

Of course adultery in itself cannot be a good thing no matter how one argues. But God can even in His condescension to us and mercy bring something good from such sin and mistakes on our part, ultimately helping some. But that doesn't make it objectively "good".

I think I'm not really addressing the question - sorry. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think there's maybe a bigger question behind it which eclipses the way we consider any particular question of morality.

Or maybe I'm wrong lol.

 

[Toolbelt]

My feeling is that people have changed over time to be more compassionate to other faiths and respectful to there beliefs. This could actually be hurtful to the church in general as she is living in a secular environment with secular morals that sometimes come into conflict with gods.
Its dangerous and if we become to complacent with our beliefs. We risk falling away from the truth.
I think this is the meaning of this verse.

1 Thessalonians 5 New King James Version (NKJV)
The Day of the Lord
5 But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. 2 For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. 3 For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.

 

[TheLostCoin]

My feeling is that people have changed over time to be more compassionate to other faiths and respectful to there beliefs. This could actually be hurtful to the church in general as she is living in a secular environment with secular morals that sometimes come into conflict with gods.
Its dangerous and if we become to complacent with our beliefs. We risk falling away from the truth.
I think this is the meaning of this verse.

It's for this reason that people are so opposed and paranoid to the WCC and the Ecumenism movement in general.

 

[Toolbelt]

There is only one truth as opposed to many. What the wwc is trying to do is have everybody agree to an ecclesiastical divorce. Which gives legitimacy without communion.

 

[Lukaris]

The late Fr Thomas Hopko, of Blessed memory, recommended that we read C.S. Lewis’: Abolition of Man to understand the implications of losing objective morality which is heading towards free fall at present. Alongside St. Paul’s preaching in Romans 2, I think these are some valuable tools in contending in our basic attitude in Christian vs false world concepts. I think also Sirach ( Ecclesiasticus) 34 & 35 are valuable Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible, Ecclesiasticus Chapter 1.