Theosis vs Justification and Sanctification

[Lotar]

I guess the way I see it, is in a nutshell the following:

In Pre-Fall times: man in Paradise with God. in BC times: body decays+soul in Hades. In AD times: body decays+soul waiting 2nd coming. Post-2nd coming times: body+soul reunited and renewed --> new resurrected existence for everyone, which is experienced positively or negatively by each person.

Pretty much the same thing that we believe.

 

[Lotar]

I was hoping I would get more of a commentary on what you think is wrong with the position I was putting forth

 

[Photini]

I guess the way I see it, is in a nutshell the following:

In Pre-Fall times: man in Paradise with God. in BC times: body decays+soul in Hades. In AD times: body decays+soul waiting 2nd coming. Post-2nd coming times: body+soul reunited and renewed --> new resurrected existence for everyone, which is experienced positively or negatively by each person.

Exactly. And being apart from God, (as well as being eternally torn from our bodies), is NOT true existence.

"Instead of remaining in the state in which God had created them, they were in process of becoming corrupted entirely, and death had them completely under its dominion. For the transgression of the commandment was making them turn back again according to their nature; and as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again. The presence and love of the Word had called them into being; inevitably, therefore when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost existence with it; for it is God alone Who exists, evil is non-being, the negation and antithesis of good. By nature, of course, man is mortal, since he was made from nothing; but he bears also the Likeness of Him Who is, and if he preserves that Likeness through constant contemplation, then his nature is deprived of its power and he remains incorrupt. So is it affirmed in Wisdom: 'The keeping of His laws is the assurance of incorruption.' And being incorrupt, he would be henceforth as God, as Holy Scripture says, 'I have said, Ye are gods and sons of the Highest all of you: but ye die as men and fall as one of the princes.'" ~St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation

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Had Christ not saved us, we would have been in a state of non-existence.

 

[Rilian]

Lotar, I think the real difference is that Lutheranism and by proxy almost all Protestantism views the consequence of the fall as the loss of man's freedom. We are now seen as being in a state of complete helplessness to do good or to choose God's love.

Orthodoxy would see the fall as a consequence of man's freedom, and that a compromise of man's freedom would create a world of fatalistic determinism. Irenaeus described us as being at an "epistemic distance" from God, meaning a distance of knowledge, and that it is by our conscious choice to truly turn to God that leads us into full maturity as human beings.

 

[Photini]

Irenaeus described us as being at an "epistemic distance" from God, meaning a distance of knowledge, and that it is by our conscious choice to truly turn to God that leads us into full maturity as human beings.

I believe you can see this described as well in the quote I just posted from St. Athanasius.

 

[Rilian]

I believe you're correct Photini. Looks like we cross-posted.

 

[Lotar]

Lotar, I think the real difference is that Lutheranism and by proxy almost all Protestantism views the consequence of the fall as the loss of man's freedom. We are now seen as being in a state of complete helplessness to do good or to choose God's love.

Orthodoxy would see the fall as a consequence of man's freedom, and that a compromise of man's freedom would create a world of fatalistic determinism. Irenaeus described us as being at an "epistemic distance" from God, meaning a distance of knowledge, and that it is by our conscious choice to truly turn to God that leads us into full maturity as human beings.

Yes, I know that is a point where we disagree. We are not fatalists nor manicheans, like Calvin, but that is a different conversation. At the moment I would not like to look at justification and sanctification, and Theosis. Forget about conversion for the moment.

 

[Orthosdoxa]

Lotar -

I just finished reading "The Life" yesterday (Clark Carlton's treatise on the Orthodox view of salvation), and, at the risk of being told it's "light" I think it might be what you're looking for. It also quotes quite a bit from "The Deification of the Purpose of Man's Life", by Archimandrite George - which is a booklet that I myself have and completely forgot about! I think either of them might be helpful.