1. as three non discript angels (so as not to show the face of the Father)
Posted on 09/29/2005 2:21:03 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
The year was 1838. In England, the Industrial Revolution was under way, but it had made rich only the owners of production, not the workers. In increasingly crowded cities, ordinary people struggled for their daily existence. Some of the poor rioted. The Poor Laws were under attack: Welfare to the needy would only increase their dependence and encourage the breeding of still more hungry mouths to feed, said critics. It was in this pivotal year that Darwin, back from his voyage on the Beagle and trying to understand the forces that drove the origin of new species, read the works of Thomas Malthus, a parson and social economist.
In opposition to the utopian thinkers of the day, Malthus believed that unless people exercised restraint in the number of children they had, the inevitable shortfall of food in the face of spiraling population growth would doom mankind to a ceaseless struggle for existence. Out of that unforgiving battle, some would survive and many would not, as famine, disease, and war put a ceiling on the growth in population.
These ideas galvanized Darwin's thinking about the struggles for survival in the wild, where restraint is unknown. Before reading Malthus, Darwin had thought that living things reproduced just enough individuals to keep populations stable. But now he came to realize that, as in human society, populations bred beyond their means, leaving survivors and losers in the effort to exist.
Immediately, Darwin saw that the variation he had observed in wild populations would produce some individuals that were slightly better equipped to thrive and reproduce under the particular conditions at the time. Those individuals would tend to leave more offspring than their fellows, and over many generations their traits would come to dominate the population. "The result of this would be the formation of new species," he wrote later. "Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work."
That theory, of course, was none other than natural selection, the driving force of evolution. Though scholars have debated just how influential Malthus was in Darwin's thinking, there can be no doubt that his view of the struggle in society enabled Darwin to appreciate the significance of the struggle in the wild.
Blaming jews for Christ's death is not Christian rhetoric. Take your collective guilt elsewhere, bigot.
Sorry to burst your bubble, jb, but they're the same Guy.
They are Three in One, One in Three. Each acts seperately at the same time but all are of one God Head, that is one of those mysteries of Christianity that no matter how hard you blow your gaskets trying to figure out, you never will.
"Godhead?" And you accused me of believeing in Greek paganism?
Your knowledge is soooo limited, I will of course educate you.
Space does not permit a full description of the theology of the Orthodox Church. Let's touch briefly on its doctrine of God.
The Trinity
The Holy Trinity is of supreme importance in Orthodox theology and life. It "is not a piece of 'high theology' reserved for the professional scholar, but something that has a living, practical importance for every Christian." Because we're made in the image of God, we can't understand ourselves if we don't understand this doctrine. God's triune nature also makes clear that He is personal--that He experiences personal communion within the Godhead, and thus can commune with us as well.
The Father
Below I'll speak further about the role of the Father in the Trinity. Here I'll just touch on the Orthodox understanding of the knowability of God. Orthodox believe that God is unknowable to us in His essence for He is so much higher than we are: He is absolutely transcendent. For that reason we can only employ negative language when speaking of Him: we can say what He is not in His being, but not what He is.
However, God is not cut off from His creation. While God's essence is the core of His being and cannot be known, His energies, which permeate creation, enable us to experience Him. His energies "are God Himself in His action and revelation to the world." Through these "God enters into a direct and immediate relationship with humankind."{4}
The Incarnate Son
The whole of the sacramental theology of Orthodoxy is grounded in the Incarnation of Christ. The Incarnation is so significant that Orthodox believe it would have occurred even if Adam and Eve hadn't fallen into sin. It was an act of love--God sending His Son to commune with us. Because of sin, however, it also became an act of salvation.
Orthodoxy seeks to give proper weight to both Christ's deity and His humanity. One must recall the weight given to the Nicene Creed and its clear declaration of both natures. He is "true God and true man, one person in two natures, without separation and without confusion: a single person, but endowed with two wills and two energies." The divinity of Christ is of utmost importance to Orthodox. "'Behind the veil of Christ's flesh, Christians behold the Triune God' . . . perhaps the most striking feature in the Orthodox approach to the Incarnate Christ [is] an overwhelming sense of His divine glory."{5} He is the face of God for us. This revelation was seen most strikingly in the Transfiguration and the Resurrection.{6} On the other hand, the places where He lived and ministered and the Cross upon which He died are pointers to His humanity, and they are revered highly.
The Holy Spirit
The importance of the Holy Spirit in the Orthodox Church can hardly be overstated. They believe, in fact, that it is one thing that sets the Eastern Church apart from the Western. Whereas the Western Church put greater emphasis on the power of theological understanding, Orthodox depend more on the activity of the Spirit. St. Seraphim of Sarov said that such things as prayer and fasting and other Christian practices are not the aim of the Christian life. "The true aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God."{7} In the corporate setting, the Spirit is invoked repeatedly in Church worship. On the individual level, believers place themselves under His protection each morning in their prayers.
Deification
One of the oddest teachings of Orthodoxy to evangelicals is that of the deification of man or theosis. The central message of Christianity is the message of redemption in Christ. Orthodox take quite literally the apostle Paul's teachings on sharing in the message of redemption. "Christ shared our poverty that we might share the riches of His divinity; 'Our Lord Jesus Christ, though He was rich, yet for your sake became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich, (2 Corinthians viii, 9). . . . The Greek Fathers took these and similar texts in their literal sense, and dared to speak of humanity's 'deification' (in Greek, theosis)." We are "called to become by grace what God is by nature." For this to happen, of course, Christ had to be fully man as well as fully God. "A bridge is formed between God and humanity by the Incarnate Christ who is divine and human at once."{28} Thus, "For Orthodoxy, our salvation and redemption mean our deification."{29}
Underlying the idea of deification or divinization is the fact of our being made in "the image and likeness of God the Holy Trinity. . . . Just as the three persons of the Trinity 'dwell' in one another in an unceasing movement of love, so we humans, made in the image of the Trinity, are called to 'dwell' in the Trinitarian God. Christ prays that we may share in the life of the Trinity, in the movement of love which passes between the divine persons; He prays that we may be taken up into the Godhead."{30} Jesus prayed "that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you." (Jn. 17:21) As Peter wrote: "Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires." (2 Pet 1:4)
As the image of God, we are icons of God. There is a reflection of God in us by nature. However, we grow in the likeness of God, or "the assimilation to God through virtue." If we make proper use of our ability to have communion with God, "then we will become 'like' God, we will acquire the divine likeness. . . . To acquire the likeness is to be deified, it is to become a 'second god', a 'god by grace'." This is a goal we only acquire by degrees. "However sinful we may be, we never lose the image; but the likeness depends upon our moral choice, upon our 'virtue', and so it is destroyed by sin."{31}
But will we be fully like God ourselves? To understand this doctrine, we must understand the difference between God's essence and His energies. God's essence is the core of His being. His energies are those characteristics by which we experience Him. "They are God Himself in His action and revelation to the world." Through these "God enters into a direct and immediate relationship with humankind." We cannot know His essence, but we can know His energies. Our deification consists in our "union with the divine energies, not the divine essence: the Orthodox Church, while speaking of deification and union, rejects all forms of pantheism." We do not become one being with God. Nor do we become separate gods in our very essence. "We remain creatures while becoming god by grace, as Christ remained God when becoming man by the Incarnation." We are thus created gods.{32}
This deification involves the body, too. We will be transformed as Christ was in the Transfiguration, but the full transformation of our bodies will not come until the Last Day.
Several points can be made about the significance of deification. First, it is meant for all believers, not just a few. Second, the process doesn't mean we won't be conscious of sin in our lives. There is a continual repentance in the Christian life. Third, the means of attaining deification aren't extraordinary. They are simple: "go to church, receive the sacraments regularly, pray to God 'in spirit and in truth', read the Gospels, follow the commandments."{33} Fourth, it is a social process. The second most important commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves. We don't become divinized by ourselves. We realize the divine likeness as we live a common life with other believers such as that of the Trinity. "As the three persons of the Godhead 'dwell' in one another, so we must 'dwell' in our fellow humans."{34} Fifth, deification is very practical. It involves the hands on application of Christian love, such as feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, etc. Sixth, it "presupposes life in the Church, life in the sacraments," for it is here that we commune with God. "Church and sacraments are the means appointed by God whereby we may acquire the sanctifying Spirit and be transformed into the divine likeness."{35}
He was the proto-Paul Ehrlich. He cannot account for the ingenuity and advancement of human beings.
I'm sure you know of the Greek conception of the Godhead as the Aristotelian "First Cause" which emanates Reason, Wisdom and other gods. That sounds to me a little like the "blind watchmaker" who created the universe but does not interfere with it. I'm not saying that's what you believe, but I sure don't believe it. I believe that God is One. That is the true mystery of the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all the Same Thing. What is the Holy Spirit but Christ living in us?
I also believe in the bodily resurrection of the dead at the end of time, and everlasting life in the world to come.
ping
Thanks for the ping.
Nazis killed Jews because they wanted to further the evolution of the human race and cause the extinction of the inferior. You are the ignorant fool and an anti-Christian liar and slanderer. May your hatred consume you.
Of course you can't because the truth is that German Christians of all types condemned Nazism and were persecuted for it.
You did not merely try to blame the holocaust on Christians, but you have denied the truth: that Nazis killed Jews because they believed in Darwinian survival of the fittest, and that jews were as much untermensch as cripples and retards.
You are covering for the race-creed of the nazis and deflecting the blame onto Christians. For this you deserve to be condemned.
Joe, I am not badgering you. But I really would like to know how you answer questions in #68.
Your analysis of nazi anti-semitism is shallow. You left out Bolshevism and the Judeo-Masonic Conspiracy, for example. You seem not to realize that the Nazis subscribed to the theory that Judaism itself was a conspiracy to rule the world, as described in the "Protocols of Zion." Goebbels wrote in his diary that Hitler believed the Protocols were genuine. As far as they were concerned, Christianity was part of this Jewish conspiracy.
They were deceived by Satan.
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