Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
"St. Gregory Palamas said, as I recall, that the Theotokos achieved theosis at the time of her Entrance into the Temple at age 3. Her ascending the steps to the temple and being brought into the Holy of Holies was both a physical depiction of her inner ascent and a recognition of her state of theois."
Are you thinking of this, from his sermon on the Feast of the Entrance of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple?
"Now, when Righteous Joachim and Anna saw that they had been granted their wish, and that the divine promise to them was realized in fact, then they on their part, as true lovers of God, hastened to fulfill their vow given to God as soon as the child had been weaned from milk. They have now led this truly sanctified child of God, now the Mother of God, this Virgin into the Temple of God. And She, being filled with Divine gifts even at such a tender age, ... She, rather than others, determined what was being done over Her. In Her manner She showed that She was not so much presented into the Temple, but that She Herself entered into the service of God of her own accord, as if she had wings, striving towards this sacred and divine love. She considered it desirable and fitting that she should enter into the Temple and dwell in the Holy of Holies."
Notice how +Gregory stresses that she did these wonderous things "...of her own accord...."
They are not creatures, FK. Let's make that clear. As regards the Son and the Spirit, the Father is the source and cause of everything and all, including the divinity, but in the case of the divinity we cannot speak in terms of time.
That being the limitation, we know that if something is begotten, it must have a source and cause. If something proceeds from something, it must have a source and cause. God the Father has neither the source nor cause. He is Existence, and everything that exists is from Him, including the Son and the Spirit.
So, now you are using some church as the source of your beliefs? I asked for your idea of Trinity, not some institution's. Isn't that what Protestants are all about -- rejecting any and all "church authority" and relying only on their individual interpretation of the Scripture?
BTW, the London Baptist Confession is pretty much what the Apostolic Churches teach, so I have personally no problem with it (as far as I read -- that is most of it).
I see Jesus Christ as being both 100% God and 100% man, as opposed to 50-50
We never believed He was 50:50 anything; He is fully divine and fully human, a 100:100 ratio.
God created the angel by the name of Lucifer who reblled against God and fell from his "rank." Unlike humans, angels -- who are created as servants of God -- cannot be redeemed. Their fall is eternal.
In fact your entire theory that God doesn't allow those who believe to fall is proven wrong exactly with the fallen angels, for they surely believe in God, yet they fell. You may find thew reasons as unfathomable, but we know, and you know but won't admit it, the root cause is the free will which God freely gave us along with our minds (as he did to the angels)
Why thank you; ditto.
And, I think this is where I would have an honest disagreement with Catholics, and I'm not sure about you yet Kosta. :) I would say God never leaves His elect, EVER! This is true even when the elect choose to disobey temporarily (if the choice is permanent, then God was never present in the first place so He couldn't have "left"). Because I believe He never leaves, I can't accept that salvation is won or lost based on the instant of confession and the first mortal sin thereafter.
That's a very nice thing to say. Thank-you for the kind words!
God rarely mediated "directly" with His people. Invariably, He did it through a prophet, a patriarch, the Apostles, and Jesus Christ - who is the fullness of God's mediation to mankind. We don't see that after the first generation, God suddenly removed His special care and coming to His people. We don't see a reason why. We don't see this in Scriptures. We don't see it in the writings of the Church Fathers. They all believed that God continued to operate through His Church - both the hierarchy on one level, and the entire Church on another level. For an individual's spiritual well-being, the Spirit came to that person. To define doctrine - what we believe - the Spirit speaks through those left to guard the faith, teaching what the Apostles taught. Is there any Scripture that says that Christ no longer gives His Church the power to continue Christ's teachings as seen in Matthew 28:20 after the first generation? This seems to be a Protestant addition to Scripture here.
I happen to believe in a young earth, and have always had trouble repelling the "scientific" arguments.
Quite frankly, it doesn't matter one way or the other to me. Currently, the evidence of science seems stacked against the young earth scenario, and God created nature, which doesn't lie. So either man is totally lost on the age of the earth, or Gen. 1-3 isn't meant to be a scientific treatise on how the earth was formed. Are we to believe that God spoke to the writer of Genesis on the concepts of quantum physics and so forth? The writers of Scripture are more worried about theology, using history as a back-drop for explaining God's love, His reason for creating us, and so forth. It doesn't change anything of our fundamental belief. As a Catholic, I can believe either scenario, as long as I understand God was behind it because He loves us...
I'm just not wild about the idea of being left out of the ministry. :) Our side feels like we participate in the Great Commission too.
I hope that I have not given you that impression! You are certainly not left out of the Great Commission. WE, as Christians, are called to be the light of the World, to evangelize to all, either by our words or actions. I have labored to explain that you are part of the Church in some manner if you follow our teachings and if Christ abides in you, proof of which is your faith working through love. We as Catholics believe we represent the fullness of Christ's VISIBLE Church. When people want to know "what did God teach us?", they are to learn that fully through the Catholic Church. But this does not exclude Protestants, our separated brothers, from the Church. Every several hundred posts, it seems I am repeating this. But please understand, we don't look at Protestants as outside of the Church or going to hell. We call you "separated brothers", outside of the visible communion of the Church, but still a part of it. You also have a responsibility to do what is within your own knowledge and what has been revealed to you, even if it is imperfect.
I think when I said this I was thinking of all the disagreements among the Fathers on various issues as have been noted on this thread. Is the answer that at the time, these issues had not been resolved infallibly?
Yes. Before a teaching is officially "defined" and declared infallible, there will be some give and take between theologians as they wrestle with what the Church has taught in the past and its current belief. Thus, a Father can disagree with what will, in time, become an infallible teaching.
What puzzled me is that I thought mortal sins were much more common than what the name sounds like, and you seemed to hint that they are relatively rare?
They are not common, especially among those who take their walk seriously. To be a mortal sin, it must be a serious offense, one must KNOW it is serious and can separate us from God, and one must DO IT ANYWAYS. How often do you think that happens among serious Christians?
Brother in Christ
This disagrees with the Scripture that tells us that those who are Baptised have received the Holy Spirit and the first installment of salvation - and yet - some people become disinherited from the Kingdom as a result of serious sins, sins that John calls "deadly". Why does John consider that Christians can sin deadly if 1) Christ was never there to begin with or 2) We can not die if we are of the elect from our point of view? Your view would have Christ NEVER within the Christian - which is patently false.
Please remember that the elect cannot be left out of heaven IN THE END - but who is to say that God doesn't leave that person for a time? Recall the Prodigal Son. Was the father with the son when he went on his little "excursion" through sin and dissipation? The point is that God KNOWS that the Elect will RETURN! Nothing about not leaving or how rocky the journey will be.
Of course, WE don't know if we are of the elect to begin with, so all of this talk about assuredness is a bit presumptuous for me.
Regards
Those crazy Calvinists, what with all that scripture and junk they always use...
OK, after reading this, and Harley's "absolutely correct" I rethought it. Originally, I went to a site that gave the world populations of different denominations. I presumed that the majority of followers would be followers of their own self-professed doctrine. Apparently, I'm being told this isn't the case, and in that event I owe you an apology.
The kicker is that from some tiny space in the back of my mind, I remembered something from the original post. To paraphrase Arlo Guthrie "Remember Luther and Erasmus? This is a thread about Luther and Erasmus." :) Anyway, it's near to the end and here it is:
The error of "semi-Pelagianism" is still alive in the church today. Much of the church world sides with Erasmus today, even among those who claim to be "Reformed." If a "Reformed" or Lutheran church denies what Luther says and sides with Erasmus, they despise the reformation of the church in the sixteenth century. They might as well go back to the Roman Catholic Church. ...
...Also, in this synergistic view of salvation, we see the principles of the bilateral, conditional covenant view which is in many "Reformed" churches. If God and man work together in salvation, then the covenant must be a pact in which both God and man must hold up each one's end of the agreement.
OOPS! Looks like I'm toast on this one. OK, I was wrong. :)
that's good -- we see we have things in common.
I think you are absolutely right! :) The more I learn about reformed theology, the more it rings true to me.
Similarly with the concept of the "elect", God foreknows who the elect will be; that doesn't mean that He presdestines anyone for election.
I'm not sure how comfortable I am with these terms yet, but would that be called a "fully" Pelagian view? :) Is this a fair summary: double predestination (Calvinism) is what Harley and I believe, single predestination (also known as semi-Pelagionism or Arminianism) is what the Catholics believe, and no predestination (Pelagionism) is the Orthodox view? (I'm just trying to get comfortable using these terms on my own. :)
Again, it all comes back to two things. What was and is our created purpose and what really is meant by the English word "sin". The answers to those questions determine quite literally everything we believe about our role in Creation and our relationship to God both now and for eternity.
Am I correct in thinking that by a person's view of sin determining his belief about his relationship with God, you are referring to your rejection of original sin? I know that you all say that sin is "missing the mark", of Jesus. I suppose I would use a label such as "evil". I think you may have, but if you haven't already answered this, what is the concrete difference between sin and evil? I suppose I would see evil as anything apart from God. I know you would never say that sin is "acceptable" in any manner, I just had an impression that your view was that evil was "worse" than sin.
FK, our destinies are known to God through His foreknowledge. He knows what our choices will be. That doesn't mean He makes them for us. Those who choose God, and follow Christ's footsteps will be saved; those who don't won't.
We can say quite confidently that everyone who is alive today will be dead 150 years from now. In other words, we are predestined to die. But God did not cause that. Our souls are pre-destined to go to heaven or hell. God knows where each soul shall end up, but He doesn't cause the soul to heaven or hell. Those souls that believed shall be saved; those that believed not shall be damned. No one is compelled to believe or not to believe.
As for God "abandoning" us -- it is a false perception of ours (and I mean the believers or the "elect" as you say). Of course, the nonbelievers will never say that God abandoned them! But true believers experience periods when they feel that the Spirit is not with them. Just the contrary is true: we are not with the Spirit. He never leaves us; we leave Him -- short or long, it doesn't matter. God is always and forever. His love is always there for us to accept.
The Orthodox do not reject the original sin -- the sin committed by our ancestral parents. The Orthodox do not believe we inherit the sin of theirs, nor that we are responsible for their sin.
We are simply born with the consequences of their sin. Imagine a woman who is an alcoholic and drinks while she is pregnant. Her sin will poison the baby. The child, will be born brain-damaged from the effects of alcohol, yet the child is not guilty of having done any drinking of his or her own. Where is the guilt in that child?
St. Augustine and all of Western Christianity realize the damage done to our nature by our ancestral parents' sin -- but you attach shame and guilt to each human being born for their doing. That twisted logic is what the Orthodox Church rejects! We see ourselves as damaged and sick and in need of healing; not as some dirt that we should be ashamed of, for our damage is not of our own doing.
Even if we "know", faith is never worthless because (relative) continued faith, meaning there can be temporary breaks, is required to finish the race. I agree to that. As for "hope", it doesn't just mean something wished for. Hope also means "To look forward to with confidence or expectation. ... See syns at expect." (American Heritage College Dictionary, third ed.)
FK: "If the falling away proves permanent I would absolutely agree with you that the person was never of the elect."
Which does a lot of damage to your idea of salvation "now" vs. my idea. Again, a person whose falling away is "permanent" did not think he would do that 5 years ago, do you? Thus the danger of presumption.
I'm not sure I see the damage. I never claimed that everyone who claimed to be of the elect actually was. We both know that cannot be true. As I think I said earlier, I think that these people are in a worse condition than those who have no knowledge at all. But I can't speak for anyone else, and do not try to.
I can only speak for myself. I can speak about my faith and, based on God's promises in scripture, I can speak about my hope (expectation). If it turns out that the truth really is that the Bible does not mean anything like it says, then I might very well be lost. But I don't worry about that because if that IS true, then I have been worshiping a false God all along anyway, and deserve my fate. So, I choose to live in confidence. :)
We believe, however, that God expects us to use the gifts He has given us. Thus, we are secondary movers - God enables us to do things, such as give birth to children and bring people to God for the purpose of salvation.
I think I am still unsure what you mean by "secondary movers". I agree that God expects us to use the gifts He has given us. I give the gift of gasoline to a car and it starts. Then, I drive it away, helping it to fulfill its purpose. Is the car a secondary mover? I DON'T think this is what you mean. Neither do I, because God's love for us is nothing like that for an inanimate object.
In terms understandable to us, I see His love as being most like that of a parent to a child, who doesn't know what is good for him. I see it is NOT being between a parent and a child who is mature enough to make right decisions on his own.
Why would God jealously not allow us to participate in His work? Is He that insecure? Of course not. We know He is the cause of all, both natural and supernatural. Our participation doesn't take anything away from God! HE MADE US!
I don't think God is on some kind of ego trip. :) Yes, He let's us participate, that is clear. If you say that He is the cause of all things that are good, then we agree. However, my spider-sense is still tingling because, on the surface, this doesn't match up with the free-will doctrine. To me, "free will" on this thread has meant:
"Give man credit on his own accord for making the wise decision to cooperate with God. Sure, God gave us the ability and steered us in the right direction, but ultimately, it was the person who made the free-will decision, apart from God. Some choose unwisely on their own accord and some choose wisely on their own accord. God is fine with whichever choice because He respects us and our independent decisions." At least, this is how it seems to me.
There are many Christians who will say "Lord, Lord" and Jesus will respond - "I never knew you". That is a scary thought for those who think they are "saved" already...
Well, it's only scary if they turn out to be wrong. :) As we mature through sanctification, we grow stronger in our confidence that we're right. I guess a part of what I am saying is also that, at least in my own case, the more I have learned, the more I have wanted to still learn more! The more I learn, the LESS I want to rest on my laurels. I don't know if that makes me a freak or what. :) My HOPE is that it only makes me "normal".
We believe that EVERYTHING comes from God. I don't remember anyone saying that love is self-generated. It is from God just as much as faith is from God.
That is, EXCEPT for your free will choices, right? Those are made on your own, aren't they? You can't say that a free will choice against God comes from God, if God really loves us, right? This is our huge difference on this.
Thus, our cooperation is seen at the same time as His decision to elect us. In this mystery, then, I see God calling us and we respond simultaneously (in His POV).
I'm not sure I have my hands fully around this one yet. :) OK, from GOD'S POV, He elects us simultaneously with our free will decision to choose Him? I "thought" (please correct me if I'm wrong) that you have also said that God always gets what He wants. So, if the fix isn't in (which I say it is), then how do you account for the fact that God elected only the exact people who simultaneously choose Him?
I don't think you can say that God waited to see who would accept Him first and then elected them, because that would subtract from His sovereignty. You also can't say that God chose His elect first and ensured that they would accept, because that is my argument. How do you see it?
We [Catholics] view salvation from our point of view - thus, we can't know for certain if we will inherit heaven in the end. You appear to view salvation from God's point of view - the elect - who can never lose their salvation.
NOW, I think you really may be on to something with this! I'll keep thinking about it, but that sounds pretty good to me.
Where I see the problem with your POV is that you assume you are of the elect because you have done the Sinner's prayer. I think we agree that it is more than that.
I do agree that it is more than that. Since my sanctification has reached a certain level, I now know enough to rely on what God promises. On His promises, so far God is batting a thousand! I don't expect Him to start blowing it any time soon. That means I won't either. :)
Aside from Calvin and perhaps some remark by +Augustine, where does this idea come from?
As far as I can tell, it is a reconciliation of other ideas.
2 Cor. 5:14-15 : 14 For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
On the surface, this would seem to present a problem. However, no one is going to argue that all are saved. So, I'm guessing that to reconcile verses like these with the fact that only the elect are saved, we say that what Christ did was sufficient for all to have been saved, had God chosen all. Since God only saves the elect, the cross is only effectual for the elect.
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