Orthodoxy and Calvinism in Dialogue

[abacabb3]

Let me just reply to the following, because I did not address it:

Just like the Trinity isn't presented in Scripture or the early Church fathers.

Well, the doctrine actually is, quite a few times actually, but it is certainly not dwelt upon nor talked about in detail.

Many of the early Fathers made ambiguous statements that may well have been wrong by Nicean standards.

True, because the Church at that time understood that their own tradition was hardly monolithic, and that it does indeed take sifting and discernment to figure out what the truth actually is. Interestingly enough, what they came up with is totally consistent with Scripture, while the parts where some of the fathers err is when they go beyond it.

But per your standards here, it seems that those may well have been okey-dokey to believe in.

I think you should take this back, I think this is a dishonest assertion. The Scripture does not permit modalism or Arianism. It requires immense ignorance of the Scripture, or totally mistranslating (i.e. Jehovah's Witnesses) to come up with that conclusion.

Let's take modalism for example. Christ prays to the Father. If God is on earth praying to God in heaven, it cannot be the same divine Person in two places at once, addressing Himself. That would be total nonsense. Then we have John saying specifically, "The Word was with God and the Word was God." Modalism simply cannot work, it takes mental retardation or illiteracy to promote such a doctrine.


Now that this is all said, can we debate the doctrines of grace?

 

[buzuxi02]

abacabb'

I think you have a faulty understanding of what Apostolic Tradition entails. Im not sure what you mean about EO version of purgatory as there is no purgatory in EO. Now I don't know what scripture or church fathers your refering to and believe me I know them well.

There's really no point to actually go there because as I said anyone can find whatever "proof" they want from either scripture or the Fathers. Since EO and Calvinism have a radically different praxis and ethos, then theres no point in picking and choosing and interpreting from this writer or that writer.

Im not even sure why a Calvinists needs to be Christian. If God's grace works on an individual, apart from any free will or apart from any cooperation- all the time, then theres no point to a God-man. If you say there is a need for the messiah and its God who brings them to Christ apart from man's cooperation or even bypassing his faculties altogether, then why aren't there many muslim converts being martyred?
Why is it difficult for Christianity to get a foothold in Japan then? Why does God act upon mostly Europeans for the past 15 centuries while neglecting every other ethnic group?

And how do you explain Judas Iscariot and one of the first original deacons Nicholas as they eventually lost there salvation after receiving the grace?

Calvinism from what I see attempts to answer something no one asked, and basically renders the ministry of Christ irrelelvant. If your saying that God acts upon the person alot more, that he takes 10 steps towards us when we may only take one or sometimes none at all, fine. But if that is your understanding then it all ends up just being semantics and were arguing with ourselves over nothing.

Maybe its just me, but this whole thread has my head spinning. I don't even know how someone sat down and thought if it all up unless they were on something. What the heck happened in the Nordic countries of the 16th century that all of a sudden they woke up and thought they were theologians?

 

[Ignatius21]

abacabb'

I think you have a faulty understanding of what Apostolic Tradition entails. Im not sure what you mean about EO version of purgatory as there is no purgatory in EO. Now I don't know what scripture or church fathers your refering to and believe me I know them well.

There's really no point to actually go there because as I said anyone can find whatever "proof" they want from either scripture or the Fathers. Since EO and Calvinism have a radically different praxis and ethos, then theres no point in picking and choosing and interpreting from this writer or that writer.

Im not even sure why a Calvinists needs to be Christian. If God's grace works on an individual, apart from any free will or apart from any cooperation- all the time, then theres no point to a God-man. If you say there is a need for the messiah and its God who brings them to Christ apart from man's cooperation or even bypassing his faculties altogether, then why aren't there many muslim converts being martyred?
Why is it difficult for Christianity to get a foothold in Japan then? Why does God act upon mostly Europeans for the past 15 centuries while neglecting every other ethnic group?

And how do you explain Judas Iscariot and one of the first original deacons Nicholas as they eventually lost there salvation after receiving the grace?

Calvinism from what I see attempts to answer something no one asked, and basically renders the ministry of Christ irrelelvant. If your saying that God acts upon the person alot more, that he takes 10 steps towards us when we may only take one or sometimes none at all, fine. But if that is your understanding then it all ends up just being semantics and were arguing with ourselves over nothing.

Maybe its just me, but this whole thread has my head spinning. I don't even know how someone sat down and thought if it all up unless they were on something. What the heck happened in the Nordic countries of the 16th century that all of a sudden they woke up and thought they were theologians?

To someone who has never been Catholic or Protestant (as I assume you haven't), I can see where the entire Reformation and Counter-Reformation...well, OK, pretty much the whole of the last 1000 years in Western Christianity...would make very little sense. I can see where heads would spin and people would ask "Wait...you've spent 500 years arguing about what??? But of course everything looks different when viewed from other angles. And Western Christians will look East and, after trying to understand Orthodoxy from a Western framework and failing utterly, wonder "Wait, you guys have spent 1000 years arguing about what??? And certainly, from a Protestant perspective much of Orthodoxy seems like philosophical speculation. It did to me. I'd ask what I thought was a simple question--like "Come on! Let's debate election!" and get answers about "essence" and "energies" and "theosis" and think "Oh, Please!!! This isn't in the Bible! Why are you long-bearded Greeks wasting my time with your bizarre words?"

So I completely get why abacabb3 thinks we have horns growing out of our heads, and is getting bored thinking we are dodging the Bible and thinks "Can't we please debate the 'doctrines of grace' and quit talking about 6th councils, and the two wills of Christ?" From his perspective we are in fact spinning in meaningless circles and avoiding the issues, because he does not understand that we are debating these things. And that without understanding what we mean when we speak of God, and God's will, there's little point to engaging in a tangential discussion about exactly how a man first chooses to come to faith. I understand where he is because I was there myself. I read volumes of Church Fathers and said "Hey, look, right here they sound just like the Reformed!"

Now, to be fair, what you've said about Calvinism above--while perfectly understandable, since it makes no sense outside of its own Reformation/Western framework--is a total and complete misrepresentation and misunderstanding. In no way does it render the Incarnation unnecessary, although it does completely change teh way the Incarnation is related to our own salvation. It has answers to the questions you've raised.

If you want to understand it (and you probably don't ) you will have to first understand early and late medieval Catholicism. All the stuff the EO rejected after Florence? Yeah, all THAT is what spawned the Reformers some centuries later. Most Protestants think their theology is a positive construction built upon Scripture. I sure did. I realized much later that Protestant theology is a negative rejection of the stranger points of Catholicism that we rejected centuries earlier. I've said before in some threads that all of Protestantism is essentially a continuing rejection of the two P's--Papacy and Purgatory--and I'm happy to elaborate on that hyperbole

Anyway, please understand that Orthodoxy is as weird to most Protestants, and they seem to you.

 

[abacabb3]

abacabb'

I think you have a faulty understanding of what Apostolic Tradition entails. Im not sure what you mean about EO version of purgatory as there is no purgatory in EO.

I was referring to the state of the dead after death:

The Eastern Orthodox Church holds that it is necessary to believe in an intermediate after-death state in which believers are perfected and brought to full divinization, a process of growth rather than of punishment, which some Orthodox have called purgatory.[71] Eastern Orthodox theology does not generally describe the situation of the dead as involving suffering or fire, although it nevertheless describes it as a "direful condition".[72] The souls of the righteous dead are in light and rest, with a foretaste of eternal happiness; but the souls of the wicked are in a state the reverse of this. Among the latter, such souls as have departed with faith, but "without having had time to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance..., may be aided towards the attainment of a blessed resurrection [at the end of time] by prayers offered in their behalf, especially those offered in union with the oblation of the bloodless sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, and by works of mercy done in faith for their memory."[73](Wikipedia)

I'm just saying that there is a tradition that the isn't an intermediate state between death and the afterlife.

Since EO and Calvinism have a radically different praxis and ethos, then theres no point in picking and choosing and interpreting from this writer or that writer.

So, that means we have nothing to talk about?

If God's grace works on an individual, apart from any free will or apart from any cooperation- all the time, then theres no point to a God-man.

Why not? God can begin a work and bring it to perfection, with man cooperating along the way. Calvinists don't teach against this.

Why is it difficult for Christianity to get a foothold in Japan then? Why does God act upon mostly Europeans for the past 15 centuries while neglecting every other ethnic group?

My wife is Cambodian, so we actually speculate about these things (why were her people bypassed for so long, for example.) I suppose God sees us as souls and not races, so He saves people despite of the geopoilitcal differences that man views as important.

And how do you explain Judas Iscariot and one of the first original deacons Nicholas as they eventually lost there salvation after receiving the grace?

"They were among us, but not of us."

Calvinism from what I see attempts to answer something no one asked

It is our opinion that the issues are directly addressed in ROmans 9. Now, the minute differentiations in CHristology seem to be more "answers to questions that no one asked and God didn't give a definitive answer to."

 

[abacabb3]

From his perspective we are in fact spinning in meaningless circles and avoiding the issues, because he does not understand that we are debating these things.

Yes, but isn't this thread about soteriology? Why are we avoiding that? If I went into a thread about Christology and saying "we can't talk about gnomic will until we talk about Calvinist soteriology" you'd wouldn't think, you would know I was being tangential.

I hope you see my point.

 

[Ignatius21]

Yes, but isn't this thread about soteriology? Why are we avoiding that? If I went into a thread about Christology and saying "we can't talk about gnomic will until we talk about Calvinist soteriology" you'd wouldn't think, you would know I was being tangential. I hope you see my point.

What you aren't understanding is that we ARE discussing soteriology. Without understanding the two natures of Christ and the incarnation, which includes the issues of divine and human will, then soteriology spins in circles. Hence my frustration that you attempted to blog against the orthodox position while dismissing the essence of it as philosophical nonsense.

Something like me saying to you, will you please quit wasting my time talking about total depravity? I'm trying to discuss election!

It all hangs together.

 

[buzuxi02]

Aba,

Under which heading was that wiki excerpt?

Thats totally wrong someone needs to change that. In Orthodoxy you only recieve a foretaste of what is to come, we await the second coming. Its impossible to recieve the fullness apart from the ressurection at the final judgement. Otherwise there would be no need for a second coming or the need for a ressurection of the body. We enter the fullness when we are reunited with our bodies and come before the judgement seat of Christ and recieve our ultimate rewards or punishments.

Any Orthodox who calls this purgatory is being heretical. In the 15th century when this was being debated with the Latins , the Orthodox completely rejected the notion of 2 fires, one temporal for cleansing and the other reserved after the second coming known as gehenna. The Orthodox taught that they're is only one eternal gehenna fire that awaits the sinners who now are in hades. Minor faults can be forgiven through the prayers of the church but this doesnt involve some sort of additional punishments.

 

[Ignatius21]

Aba, Under which heading was that wiki excerpt? Thats totally wrong someone needs to change that. In Orthodoxy you only recieve a foretaste of what is to come, we await the second coming. Its impossible to recieve the fullness apart from the ressurection at the final judgement. Otherwise there would be no need for a second coming or the need for a ressurection of the body. We enter the fullness when we are reunited with our bodies and come before the judgement seat of Christ and recieve our ultimate rewards or punishments. Any Orthodox who calls this purgatory is being heretical. In the 15th century when this was being debated with the Latins , the Orthodox completely rejected the notion of 2 fires, one temporal for cleansing and the other reserved after the second coming known as gehenna. The Orthodox taught that they're is only one eternal gehenna fire that awaits the sinners who now are in hades. Minor faults can be forgiven through the prayers of the church but this doesnt involve some sort of additional punishments.

Curious whether you have any thoughts on my earlier reply to you:

I'm having difficulty in grasping this entire thread. From what I see there is a lot of semantics about formulating an answer for the mechanism on how individuals are drawn to Christ and saved.
Actually, the issue of "the mechanism on how individuals are drawn to Christ" pretty much IS the difference between Reformed and non-Reformed Protestants. From an Orthodox perspective, it seems rather arcane and frankly useless, because where you come down on that issue--which is already admitted to be a mystery anyway--has no bearing on how you live out your life in Christ.

This, in a nutshell, is the issue: how does a sinful human being first come to Christ? That is, choose to turn from sin and toward God? The Reformed/Augustinian contention is that a person is so depraved, so lost and bound to sin, that he cannot choose God. He hates God. He loves sin. His will is still free, in the sense that it's operational and free from compulsion, but since his desires are 100% evil, he is free only to choose from among an infinite number of ways to reject God. Therefore God, being loving toward his elect, and them only acts purely alone in "regenerating" the sinner, that is, raising him up from his spiritual death, and giving him a new heart that desires God. Then the person, although still sinful, will choose to love and follow God. So God doesn't actually force anyone to love him, or make anyone choose against his or her will. What he does is to replace their sinful desire with Godly desire, so that they freely choose God.

This regeneration--which is not tied to baptism in Reformed theology--is all the work of God, and it occurs on a direct, person-by-person basis. Where the fighting really starts, is that if someone suggests that a man is capable in any way of cooperating with this initial move toward God, then it makes God dependent upon that man, and therefore, not really God. God is said to have become subject to the will of man, now sitting helplessly in heaven wringing his fingers, hoping someone down here chooses to love him. NO! they say. God is sovereign! Thus he does as he pleases! Which, in their philosophy, must mean that man is passive. So, while in Orthodoxy such a subject may be a rather frivolous debate, for the Reformed and Arminians (the ones who hold televised debates, anyway) the matter is of utmost importance. For the Reformed, it makes the difference as to whether God is actually sovereign or not. For the Arminians, it makes the difference as to whether God is horrible monster or not.

(And with apologies to Hedrick, I'm representing this based on the viewpoints I was taught in my very conservative Presbyterian past, together with hundreds of hours of lectures from RC Sproul and John Piper, and very lengthy books by A.W. Pink and J. Gresham Machen. I cannot speak to how this relates to progressive Reformed belief, since my tutoring came specifically from those who had broken away from their liberal counterparts more than 70 years ago).

Now, I personally am interested in learning more about how some of these issues relate to the understanding of the two wills of Christ, as expressed by St. Maximos and later formulated into the 6th Ecumenical Council. There is no question that the will/heart/nous of a human person is corrupt and stricken by sin, nor that the will of a person is cleansed, healed and restored by its union with Christ. I know it was taught by Maximos that Christ's human will (at the level of nature) was fully divinized by its perfect union with his divine nature. And that as a result, Christ never had to deliberate from among different options ("gnomic will") because his human desires were always perfectly aligned with God's.

When speaking of free will, just as the Orthodox differentiate between "desire" and "choice" at the level of natural and personal/gnomic will--if I'm even understanding it all correctly--so too the Reformed differentiate between desire and choice. I think both would agree that a person cannot choose against his desires, and that "natural man" (that is, man in the flesh/sarx) cannot desire God apart from God's own grace. Perhaps the difference lies in this: the Orthodox understand the renewal of the will as a cleansing away of sin and filth from the heart of a person, so that his natural desire for God can "shine through" as it were, whereas the Reformed believe that man's nature itself is corrupt, and therefore has to be essentially replaced. Or, as abacabb3 said above, "overpowered."

A person cannot come to Christ apart from receiving the Gospel. And Christ himself is present in the proclamation of that Gospel. So it is impossible, I would say, for a person to hear the Gospel without God's grace being present together with it. This answers, for me, the question of whether God's grace is required for one to believe the Gospel. It is, but the grace is right there with it. We cannot ultimately explain why one person responds positively, while another scoffs and rejects it as nonsense.

Your thoughts?

 

[buzuxi02]

Ignatius,

The reason why I'm having trouble with this is I cant figure out how it played out on the ground. Usually a misinterpretation of some aspect of tradition arises that needs to be corrected. Was this simply an academic debate? I don't see how this had an effect on the laity where these mental theoria's needed to be pondered upon and dogmatised.

If 2 identical people donated 100 dollars to the red cross and one said he did so because as a Christian he is moved to do so because of Christ and the other says he did so because as a Christian he freely helps the least in society. The outcome is the same, I can't see someone finding fault with one explanation over the other. Its all a mental notion that usually will go unnoticed. So how did someone notice this conjecture? Perhaps it becomes dogmatic issue if an atheist donates 100 dollars and claims he doesn't need any God, he's just being compassionate. If atheism was on the rise in the 16th century and taught all pietism arises out of man and the gospel does nothing, transforms not, then I understand the origins, but that's not what happened here.

Also to add to my confusion is Acab doesn't seem to strictly hold to one position making it sound like semantics to me.

 

[abacabb3]

What you aren't understanding is that we ARE discussing soteriology. Without understanding the two natures of Christ and the incarnation, which includes the issues of divine and human will, then soteriology spins in circles. Hence my frustration that you attempted to blog against the orthodox position while dismissing the essence of it as philosophical nonsense.

Something like me saying to you, will you please quit wasting my time talking about total depravity? I'm trying to discuss election!

It all hangs together.

Being that you have a calvinist background, you already know that I am not going to buy into that paradigm and view soteriology that way. So, I don't think it to be wise to shut down thediscussion of soteriology from either perspective, instead force me to debate whether Protestants even have a tradition in which to draw from.

Let's table that. Please explain how Christ being truly God and truly man (which He is) is a soteriological issue? I mean, couldn't God forgive sinners without sacrificing Himself, if He so wanted to? Or, could the conditions in which He forgave sinners been different if He so willed it? These questions are the reason why I view the issue as not Christological (as I just accept the fact that there is no forgiveness of sins without blood) and rather seek to interpret the texts that relate specifically about salvation.

 

[abacabb3]

If 2 identical people donated 100 dollars to the red cross and one said he did so because as a Christian he is moved to do so because of Christ and the other says he did so because as a Christian he freely helps the least in society. The outcome is the same, I can't see someone finding fault with one explanation over the other.

This is a very good point, which is why I don't think the doctrine of total depravity or predestination is the most important issue to a Christian. You can trust in Christ and have no understanding of this doctrine. However, the Bible would make a lot less sense in many points (Try reading Romans 8:28 during and immense trial and taking comfort in that apart from understanding God is sovereign over every minute detail of existence.)

So, to the Calvinist, their soteriology 1. correctly defines God (which seems to be very important to you guys) and 2. is interwoven with the whole Scripture. So, the wrong answer to your above question doesn't make you a heretic, but it is like having a banana split without the whipped cream and fudge.

Also to add to my confusion is Acab doesn't seem to strictly hold to one position making it sound like semantics to me.

I have only one position, what multiple positions can you see, can you summarize?

 

[abacabb3]

Under which heading was that wiki excerpt?

Purgatory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We enter the fullness when we are reunited with our bodies and come before the judgement seat of Christ and recieve our ultimate rewards or punishments.

I'd agree with that.

Any Orthodox who calls this purgatory is being heretical.

As far as I know they don't. Again, I'm no expert in this, but it seems to me there are some EO teachings that praying for the dead avails them somehow before the second coming. As long as we can agree that dead believers a probably with the Lord as soon as after they die, then we can agree on this and leave the details aside.

Minor faults can be forgiven through the prayers of the church but this doesnt involve some sort of additional punishments.

On behalf of the dead?

 

[buzuxi02]

This, in a nutshell, is the issue: how does a sinful human being first come to Christ? That is, choose to turn from sin and toward God? The Reformed/Augustinian contention is that a person is so depraved, so lost and bound to sin, that he cannot choose God. He hates God. He loves sin. His will is still free, in the sense that it's operational and free from compulsion, but since his desires are 100% evil, he is free only to choose from among an infinite number of ways to reject God. Therefore God, being loving toward his elect, and them only acts purely alone in "regenerating" the sinner, that is, raising him up from his spiritual death, and giving him a new heart that desires God. Then the person, although still sinful, will choose to love and follow God. So God doesn't actually force anyone to love him, or make anyone choose against his or her will. What he does is to replace their sinful desire with Godly desire, so that they freely choose God.

Well then this is heretical. Man is inclined towards sin only not completely overtaken by it. His conduct of willing due to his fallen nature leads him to deliberate between a set of imperfect choices, the vices and virtues. It is this that makes us stumble, not because we are completely depraved.

Each one of us is made by design to be in the image and likeness of God. Thus Christians are predestined to restore that divine image and likeness which was distorted by the fall. There is no other predestination other than becoming sons of God.

But because of our inclination towards sin we fall short, this conduct known as gnomic willing is lived out by each person differently, in their own way, based on each individuals experiences and level of ability to control the passions. This is not a novel teaching of St. Maximus but is found in the earliest teachings of the Church:

Irenaeous 180ad:

If then the advent of the Son comes indeed alike to all, but is for the purpose of judging, and separating the believing from the unbelieving. Since, as those who believe do His will agreeably to their own choice, and as, [also] agreeably to their own choice, the disobedient do not consent to His doctrine; it is manifest that His Father has made all in a like condition, each person having a choice of his own, and a free understanding; and that He has regard to all things, and exercises a providence over all, “making His sun to rise upon the evil and on the good, and sending rain upon the just and unjust.”(BK5)

If, however, thou wilt not believe in Him, and wilt flee from His hands, the cause of imperfection shall be in thee who didst not obey, but not in Him who called [thee]. For He commissioned messengers to call people to the marriage, but they who did not obey Him deprived themselves of the royal supper. The skill of God, therefore, is not defective, for He has power of the stones to raise up children to Abraham; but the man who does not obtain it is the cause to himself of his own imperfection...Nor, again, does God exercise compulsion upon any one unwilling to accept the exercise of His skill. Those persons, therefore, who have apostatized from the light given by the Father, and transgressed the law of liberty, have done so through their own fault, since they have been created free agents, and possessed of power over themselves.(BK4)

Clement of Alexandria in 195 ad spells out this inclination towards sin:

And neither praises nor censures, neither rewards nor punishments, are right, when the soul has not the power of inclination and disinclination....But since free choice and inclination originate sins, and a mistaken judgment sometimes prevails, from which, since it is ignorance and stupidity, we do not take pains to recede, punishments are rightly inflicted. For to take fever is involuntary; but when one takes fever through his own fault, from excess, we blame him. Inasmuch, then, as evil is involuntary,—for no one prefers evil as evil; but induced by the pleasure that is in it, and imagining it good, considers it desirable;—such being the case, to free ourselves from ignorance, and from evil and voluptuous choice, and above all, to withhold our assent from those delusive phantasies, depends on ourselves. (Bk1 ch17 stromata)

Sinning arises from being unable to determine what ought to be done, or being unable to do it; as doubtless one falls into a ditch either through not knowing, or through inability to leap across through feebleness of body. But application to the training of ourselves, and subjection to the commandments, is in our own power...(bk2 )

Where the fighting really starts, is that if someone suggests that a man is capable in any ay of cooperating with this initial move toward God, then it makes God dependent upon that man, and therefore, not really God. God is said to have become subject to the will of man, now sitting helplessly in heaven wringing his fingers, hoping someone down here chooses to love him. NO! they say. God is sovereign! Thus he does as he pleases! Which, in their philosophy, must mean that man is passive.

Well this was already answered by Irenaeous in the above statement. Cyprian says the same :

That the liberty of believing or of not believing is placed in free choice. In Deuteronomy: “Lo, I have set before thy face life and death, good and evil. Choose for thyself life, that thou mayest live.” Also in Isaiah: “And if ye be willing, and hear me, ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye be unwilling, and will not hear me, the sword shall consume you. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken these things.” Also in the Gospel according to Luke: “The kingdom of God is within you.” (testimonies bk3)

 

[ArmyMatt]

I mean, couldn't God forgive sinners without sacrificing Himself, if He so wanted to?

of course He could, if salvation were merely about forgiveness. you don't need God to take on human nature, deify it, die on a Cross, and rise again if it were merely a proclomation of forgiveness.

 

[Ignatius21]

Being that you have a calvinist background, you already know that I am not going to buy into that paradigm and view soteriology that way. So, I don't think it to be wise to shut down thediscussion of soteriology from either perspective, instead force me to debate whether Protestants even have a tradition in which to draw from.

Let's table that. Please explain how Christ being truly God and truly man (which He is) is a soteriological issue? I mean, couldn't God forgive sinners without sacrificing Himself, if He so wanted to? Or, could the conditions in which He forgave sinners been different if He so willed it? These questions are the reason why I view the issue as not Christological (as I just accept the fact that there is no forgiveness of sins without blood) and rather seek to interpret the texts that relate specifically about salvation.

And you also know that I no longer will buy into the Calvinist paradigm. So yes, there's a certain separation there in how we go about this. In a sense you are asking me to act as if all theology beyond about the year 170 AD (give or take) never happened, or at least is irrelevant to a discussion here in 2014, and reconstruct the whole matter of soteriology again from the ground up. Which we can attempt, and heck, it might even be fun.

From the Orthodox perspective, which I now do accept, the 7 ecumenical councils are normative. Their emphases are my emphases, and the consistent way in which the extrapolated doctrine serves as the paradigm that I accept and apply as normal. I am fully convinced that if one accepts the the first three ecumenical councils, then one must accept already that soteriology is an outgrowth of our understanding of God as Trinity. If one accepts the fourth council, that Christ is two natures in one person without either separation or confusion, then one must accept the remaining 3 councils. Which means that the relationship between the two wills of Christ serves as the paradigm in which we understand the relationship between our will and God's. It also means that we accept the use of icons, but that's another story.

At any rate, this thread has kind of spun off, which is OK, except that the focus has become a bit fuzzy. We aren't here to talk specifically about whether "purgatory" as defined on Wikipedia is an accurate term to use for Orthodoxy, etc.

Perhaps we should just spin off a new thread?

 

[abacabb3]

Perhaps we should just spin off a new thread?

No, I think if we address the original topic we should be fine.

 

[Ignatius21]

No, I think if we address the original topic we should be fine.

OK. Since this thread has been everywhere, mainly because it was created to address multiple blog posts that also covered a spectrum of issues, I don't know whether I can say what the "original topic" actually is.

I will begin by asking you to provide what you consider a working definition of "salvation." With Scripture references.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Perhaps we should just spin off a new thread?

That may be a good idea...

 

[abacabb3]

Well then this is heretical. Man is inclined towards sin only not completely overtaken by it. His conduct of willing due to his fallen nature leads him to deliberate between a set of imperfect choices, the vices and virtues. It is this that makes us stumble, not because we are completely depraved.

Each one of us is made by design to be in the image and likeness of God. Thus Christians are predestined to restore that divine image and likeness which was distorted by the fall. There is no other predestination other than becoming sons of God.

But because of our inclination towards sin we fall short, this conduct known as gnomic willing is lived out by each person differently, in their own way, based on each individuals experiences and level of ability to control the passions. This is not a novel teaching of St. Maximus but is found in the earliest teachings of the Church:

Irenaeous 180ad:

If then the advent of the Son comes indeed alike to all, but is for the purpose of judging, and separating the believing from the unbelieving. Since, as those who believe do His will agreeably to their own choice, and as, [also] agreeably to their own choice, the disobedient do not consent to His doctrine; it is manifest that His Father has made all in a like condition, each person having a choice of his own, and a free understanding; and that He has regard to all things, and exercises a providence over all, “making His sun to rise upon the evil and on the good, and sending rain upon the just and unjust.”(BK5)

If, however, thou wilt not believe in Him, and wilt flee from His hands, the cause of imperfection shall be in thee who didst not obey, but not in Him who called [thee]. For He commissioned messengers to call people to the marriage, but they who did not obey Him deprived themselves of the royal supper. The skill of God, therefore, is not defective, for He has power of the stones to raise up children to Abraham; but the man who does not obtain it is the cause to himself of his own imperfection...Nor, again, does God exercise compulsion upon any one unwilling to accept the exercise of His skill. Those persons, therefore, who have apostatized from the light given by the Father, and transgressed the law of liberty, have done so through their own fault, since they have been created free agents, and possessed of power over themselves.(BK4)

Clement of Alexandria in 195 ad spells out this inclination towards sin:

And neither praises nor censures, neither rewards nor punishments, are right, when the soul has not the power of inclination and disinclination....But since free choice and inclination originate sins, and a mistaken judgment sometimes prevails, from which, since it is ignorance and stupidity, we do not take pains to recede, punishments are rightly inflicted. For to take fever is involuntary; but when one takes fever through his own fault, from excess, we blame him. Inasmuch, then, as evil is involuntary,—for no one prefers evil as evil; but induced by the pleasure that is in it, and imagining it good, considers it desirable;—such being the case, to free ourselves from ignorance, and from evil and voluptuous choice, and above all, to withhold our assent from those delusive phantasies, depends on ourselves. (Bk1 ch17 stromata)

Sinning arises from being unable to determine what ought to be done, or being unable to do it; as doubtless one falls into a ditch either through not knowing, or through inability to leap across through feebleness of body. But application to the training of ourselves, and subjection to the commandments, is in our own power...(bk2 )





Well this was already answered by Irenaeous in the above statement. Cyprian says the same :

That the liberty of believing or of not believing is placed in free choice. In Deuteronomy: “Lo, I have set before thy face life and death, good and evil. Choose for thyself life, that thou mayest live.” Also in Isaiah: “And if ye be willing, and hear me, ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye be unwilling, and will not hear me, the sword shall consume you. For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken these things.” Also in the Gospel according to Luke: “The kingdom of God is within you.” (testimonies bk3)

I believe the preponderance of the fathers would disagree, and it is possible that we are quoting who's there out of context. I will follow up with you.

 

[abacabb3]

OK. Since this thread has been everywhere, mainly because it was created to address multiple blog posts that also covered a spectrum of issues, I don't know whether I can say what the "original topic" actually is.

I will begin by asking you to provide what you consider a working definition of "salvation." With Scripture references.

Original topic pertains to predestination. Do EO reject Predestination?