Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
From New Advent:
Mortal sin is defined by St. Augustine (Contra Faustum, XXII, xxvii) as "Dictum vel factum vel concupitum contra legem æternam", i.e. something said, done or desired contrary to the eternal law, or a thought, word, or deed contrary to the eternal law. (emphasis added)
You can't remember the last time you said a word, or even had a THOUGHT contrary to eternal law??? Your wife is one lucky woman! :)
You appear to contradict yourself in these two sentences. First, you future actions do matter - I presume towards salvation. Second, God has already chosen you and you cannot fall. So tell me, why do your future actions matter if you have already declared yourself saved irrefutably?
Future actions matter because of all the "perseverance" verses that you can quote to me better than I can to myself. :) The difference is that I do not say I "choose" to persevere, if I am of the elect. It is a part of being chosen by God that the future actions will necessarily occur. It might be akin to the fulfilling of prophecy in real time. One could say "why bother with the fulfillment if the result is already ordained anyway"? The answer is that the fulfillment is also ordained, so it must be so. For the elect, God has already ordained that future acts will occur, regardless.
Ah, well this is a new concept from you. Previously, you have told me that one must have knowledge of Jesus Christ and believe upon Him. Why does it make sense to you that God would pick some elect who don't have access to the Bible?
Yes, I do believe that the elect must have knowledge of Jesus and believe on Him. In my knowledge I know Him in English as "Jesus the Christ". I didn't know what His disciples called Him until I saw "The Passion". :) Of course there are a million other translations and names that refer to only Him. The English name "Jesus" is of no consequence, it is the person of Jesus that matters.
It makes sense to me that God would pick some elect who don't have access to the Bible because Jesus had tremendous compassion for the poor and unprivileged. (IOW, He wasn't an American leftist! :) Therefore, He doesn't pick His elect based on the blessings, or lack thereof, He bestows on them. The disciples were not chosen for their education or wealth or success in the world, so I don't see why the elect should be either.
Spiritually and in any other way. This is an innecessary qualifier.
What you are talking about are called inertial frames of reference in modern physics. If your frame of reference begins to accelerate, you will observe fictitious forces moving objects not attached to that frame. For example, it you have a hot cup of coffee sitting on the dashboard of your car and step on the gas, the coffee is going to slide into your lap. But relative to the earth, the coffee didn't move horizontally at all because no forces acted on it in that direction, even though from the point of view of your scalded lap, it looks like some invisible force pushed the coffee off the dashboard.
If the Church begins to teach geocentrism again, nothing will change. We'll have the same seasons, the same satellite TV, and the same Carl Sagan intoning about "billions and billions"
Yes, in Eistein's theory of general relativity, modern physics doesn't care where you place the center of the universe. You can make the tip of your nose the center of the universe, and as long as you keep your nose the center for all your calculations, you get the same answer as putting the center 100 million light years away from your nose.
So, what you say makes sense. It doesn't matter where you locate the physical center as long as you don't become dogmatic and literalistic about where the center is.
As for bringing out the spiritual meaning of the center, I believe someone in the middle ages said that God is a circle whose circumference is nowhere and whose center is everywhere.
"I grant that I may be misinterpreting what you mean here, but statements like these still raise huge red flags for me. I'm not accusing you of thinking that you will become your own "gods", but the language that has been used on this thread by the Orthodox just has a certain tenor to it that I think might be a little confusing to some."
FK, the language we are using is the language of The Church from its earliest days, even from +Paul and +Peter. Unfortunately, since the Reformation, much of the West simply doesn't talk about, or believe in God and "salvation" the way it did for the first 1500 years of its existence. You know I like +Gregory Palamas; here's a snip from one of his works:
"Three realities pertain to God: essence, energy, and the triad of divine hypostases. As we have seen, those privileged to be united to God so as to become one spirit with Him - as St. Paul said, 'He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with Him' (I Cor. 6:17) - are not united to God with respect to His essence, since all theologians testify that with respect to His essence God suffers no participation.
Moreover, the hypostatic union is fulfilled only in the case of the Logos, the God-man.
Thus those privileged to attain union with God are united to Him with respect to His energy; and the 'spirit', according to which they who cleave to God are one with Him, is and is called the uncreated energy of the Holy Spirit, but not the essence of God..." Topics of Natural and Theological Science no. 75.
This concept of divinization is rejected only by Protestants so far as I know. The Latin Church has always ascribed to it. Indeed, Aquinas wrote of it many times and the Calvinists' favorite father, +Augustine, described theosis the exact same way with the exact same words that +Athanasius did.
Try this link, FK; it might explain theosis to you, complete with scriptural references:
http://home.nyc.rr.com/mysticalrose/grace3.html
"What did she do to deserve credit?"
She said "Yes", FK. Here's a bit more from near the end of the Akathist Hymn to the Most Holy Theotokos (Parts of which I will be chanting tomorrow night) which will explain a bit more:
Priest: An angel of the first rank was sent down from heaven to say to the Theotokos: Hail! (3) And perceiving You, 0 Lord, taking bodily form, he stood in awe and with his bodiless voice, cried aloud to her as follows:
Hail, through whom joy shall shine forth;
Hail, through whom the curse shall vanish.
Hail, fallen Adam's restoration;
Hail, the redemption of Eve's tears.
Hail, height that is too difficult for human thought to ascend;
Hail, depth that is too strenuous for Angels' eyes to perceive.
Hail, for you are the throne of the King;
Hail, for you hold him who sustains everything.
Hail, star that shows forth the Sun;
Hail, womb in which God became incarnate.
Hail, through whom creation is renewed;
Hail, through whom the Creator becomes an infant.
Hail, 0 Bride unwedded.
People: Hail, 0 Bride unwedded.
Priest: The holy one, beholding himself in innocence, says to Gabriel: the incredible tidings of your voice appear difficult for my soul to accept. For how do you speak of childbirth from a seedless conception, crying: Alleluia.
People: Alleluia.
What happens in a frame of reference of a car is that a gravity field emerges and pushes the passengers to their seats, and the coffee to the edge of the cup. It might be more convenient to speak of acceleration, but the underlying reality is the same, -- the warped time/space.
St. Augustine is NOT the official source of Catholic teaching. I don't know if you are taking him out of context or what. But a mortal sin as taught by the Church is much more serious than what you quote the Saint on. It is an "individual act done knowingly, willingly and deliberately in a serious violation of God's will and Law." That narrows the field quite a bit! I'll presume that my wife will agree with you!
The difference is that I do not say I "choose" to persevere, if I am of the elect.
How exactly does that work? How do you "not choose" to persevere in the actions that you do?
The answer is that the fulfillment is also ordained, so it must be so. For the elect, God has already ordained that future acts will occur, regardless.
So what is the difference between you and another Christian, all things equal, who both love God and claim eternal salvation - but then, ten years from now, you are still persevering and the other is not? HOW on earth would that other Christian KNOW TODAY that he would fail in the future? Or you? We don't know we are of the elect with absolute certainty. The proof is in the claim of "you were never saved to begin with" line that you'd apply to the "fallen away" - who mysteriously did all of those good deeds without Christ - although he thought he was IN Christ during that time. I am thoroughly confused on how you can make this claim and simultaneously claim you KNOW your "salvation" is secure when you don't even know you are saved today to begin with!!!
Yes, I do believe that the elect must have knowledge of Jesus and believe on Him.
Romans and 1 John disagree with that statement. So does Jesus Himself. Paul in Romans 2 says that even the pagan can follow the law the Christ wrote on their hearts (as Jeremiah prophesied). Thus, they are spiritually circumcised and are able to obey the Commandments, even though they don't have a copy of the Decalogue. 1 John says that anyone who loves abides in Christ. Those who abide in Christ will be saved. And Jesus talks about judging the nations and separating the goats from the Sheep. Note that the principle guideline is not whether they know Christ, but whether they ACT like Christ - which can only come from God's Spirit Himself. Thus, people can be part of the Church unknowingly, as I have said before when discussing Vatican 2 and the Constitution of the Church document.
The disciples were not chosen for their education or wealth or success in the world, so I don't see why the elect should be either.
I'd have to quote hundreds of verses to show that man is expected to obey commandments, to repent, to turn from evil, etc... God does not command what cannot be done (through the use of Grace). It is my opinion that God sees our response in the same "moment" that He chooses and elects us. Being elected for grace is not the same thing as being elected for glory. Many are chosen, but few heed the call. The road is narrow...etc...REPENT and BELIEVE! YOU!
Regards
I realize that I read scriptures partly on the way I have been taught. I admit I have a frame of reference. I just believe that frame of reference is faithful to the scriptures, as opposed to also being faithful to other teachings. As little as possible is added or subtracted from the plain meaning. Sometimes, of course, it is necessary to add or subtract in order to avoid internal conflict, but the way I read the scriptures does not have to please anyone else, or any other person's or organization's teachings.
I disagree that without any outside help that any interpretation is possible. I don't know of any Protestants who believe that Jesus didn't really die on the cross. Imagine yourself without any background, reading everything up until these verses:
Mark 15:37 : With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
Luke 23:46 : Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.
To me, the plain meaning of this, without ANY background, would be clear. It would take a serious twisting of interpretation to change the meaning of these words. I am surprised you tried to make this point. That is, unless you think just reading the words as they are is a paradigm in and of itself. I don't know.
There are a number of Scripture references that COULD point to secret knowledge. For example, when Christ interprets His parables ONLY to the disciples, but not the crowds. See, there is really no way to independently KNOW which is correct!
I disagree. The only way to get to secret knowledge or anything else extra-Biblical is to build it in artificially. Once that happens, then yes, anything is possible. But that takes a proactive decision on the part of the reader to get there. It cannot be blamed on the scripture. Yes, some passages are difficult to discern, but that is what the rest of the Bible is for.
As to "Jesus didn't preach knowledge is the way to salvation", what do you think "He who believes will be saved" mean? Isn't that salvation by knowledge of the Risen Lord?
I don't think the Gnostics thought that knowledge and belief were the same thing, at least to how we use the terms. I just implied in a recent post to you that some of the Pygmies will be saved without any formal knowledge. What would the Gnostics say to that? :) Yes, knowledge of the Lord is necessary, but such knowledge is from God to whom He so wills.
[About God choosing the elect without using foreknowledge] Then you are in good company, as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas believed the same thing.
I figured I had a shot at a match with Augustine, but I didn't know about Aquinas. Thanks. :)
Wrong. Thirty-five years ago you could still find a physicist talking about a cetrifugal force. But that force doesn't exist; it only appears to exist; it is a fictitious force. A gravity field does not emerge to push you into your seat. The gravitational field is there all along. And since it doesn't accelerate you at all, the force of gravity is in equilibrium, and therefore the net gravitational force is zero.
What you feel as a mysterious appearance of a gravity force is only a contact force of the seat of your car pushing against your body. Since your body is not accelerating in either the horizontal or vertical directions, your body pushes back with a contact force. What you feel is that interplay between contact forces, and what eventually accelerates you forward is the friction forces between your body and the seat, not a mysteriously created gravity force.
I don't think you misunderstood me, as I really didn't explain myself, and I'd like to do that now.
You quote St. Ignatius of Loyola who was admirable in so many ways, and whose Spiritual exercises are excellent.
Here's how I see things:
When a person prays, it is as Rev. Spurgeon describes, he or she reverts to the brogue of his native land. He or she confesses what he or she really believes.
When a person prays in this manner:
"Dear Lord, please give me the strength to accept this loss, to suffer through this grief, to face this fear, to go the distance in this marathon. Dear Lord, please give the Grace to stop despising so and so, to see her instead as you see her, Dear Lord."
He or she is admitting that the power to accomplish these does not lie within him or herself.
In my view, then, the attendant argument that it's 100% God and 100% you is superfluous, if not meaningless, following such a naked admission of inadequacy.
I do not think it unholy to give God all the credit. It is, in fact, the honorable, just and holy thing to do, and it taxes me not in the least.
When I was a senior in high school, one of my final projects was to write Judas Iscariot's suicide note. It was the only natural A I ever received. Even my teacher was taken aback, as I had been nothing but an unremarkable student up to that point.
When I sat down to write the note, the mingling of sentiment and language moved through me and my pen like lightning. It was only a few paragraphs long, and took me almost no time at all to complete. It was God that moved through me, I am absolutley convinced of it. And I've read the quotes of professional musicians who say pretty much the same thing.
I never quite knew how to explain it then, as I never even considered that God considered me anything but the blackest of one of his sheep. But, I was wrong. He does love me, and I really know that now.
As this thread was originally posted to discuss the differences between Luther and Erasmus's view on free will, I feel compelled to confess my affection for Erasmus, as I become acquainted with some of his works. He was a humble servant of God.
jo kus, I will give you the last word here, as I'm not one who is inclined to go 'round and 'round without amendment.
I'm not likely to alter this particular view of mine, and I'm perfectly content to accept that the same holds true for you, without thereby concluding that your differing view falls under the condemnation of God. Is that the driving force behind religious debate; that the person holding an opposing view must needs fall under His condemnation? It sure seems that way.
I bid you peace, jo kus, and a Blessed Easter.
I'm from Missouri, SHOW ME indications! :) You are saying that God doesn't get what He wants.
Sin, FK, presupposes reason and free will (by necessity) or else it is not sin. You are saying that God ordained Adam's sin which is to say that He "programmed" Adam to sin. This is sheer nonsense.
I definitely draw a distinction between "ordination" and "causation". I addressed this in an old post which I just found, and I am sorry I did not ping you to it originally. It is here, in post 3802.
Adam was created with a possibility of being immortal.
Then what would have happened to the rest of mankind if Adam had made a wise decision? Would Jesus have ever appeared? Do you mourn Adam's decision or are you thankful for it?
In what other way?
I rather like the way Palamis puts this. But unless people have had a semester or two of Greek, most Protestants are not going to find the language appealing, but rather strange.
Discussions on this thread have argued the merits of a literal translation versus translating the sense of the text. Would it be too much of a distortion of the Greek to say "a trinity of Holy Persons" instead of "triad of divine hypostases"? If it is possible to translate with these words, I think it would open an avenue to discussion with Protestants.
Also talking about the uncreated engergy of God sounds like something out of a physics class to most Protestants. I believe that Palamas is talking about the ways in which God communicates himself by means of grace. So, would it be a distortion of the text to say "uncreated grace" instead of "uncreated energy"? Then we might have a good discussion of whether grace is a created or uncreated.
As for the essence (ousia) of God, substance would not be an adequate way of translating this. Again, it sounds too much like physics class. How about God in Himself? At any rate I have the impression that Catholics believe that the beatific vision is of God's essence, but this is impossible for Orthodox Christians as I understand it. Finding the corresponding language for Protestants might be more challenging because Protestents do not ususlly talk of the beatific vision. How about this: meeting the Risen Christ or meeting the Risen Lord?
My intention here is to facilitate discussion by translating meaning for meaning, not word for word.
Some of the comments and examples given here articulate very nicely some of the things that I feel and think about the relationship of science to the Scriptures, but have difficulty expressing.
It has been my personal experience that I was far more skeptical toward the Bible and far more inclined to try to find alternative explanations for certain things in it back when I was in high school. With every year of working in the sciences, from college through doctoral and postdoctoral work, I actually found myself more and more inclined to accept Scriptures at face value.
In no small part, it has been precisely because of my acute awareness of the limitations of both observation and explanation in the sciences. Since history is one of my avocations, I am always fascinated to read accounts written by scientific observers of both the recent and distant past. I particularly read with great interest observations that deal with my own particular little area of knowledge -- things that I know forward and backward and intimately, because people's lives depend on how well I understand it.
What I am working my way up to is that when I read the observations of my predecessors in my little field of expertise, I see the acuteness and accuracy of their observations. Being less dependent on technology, often their observations are far more precise than our own. I am astounded by their observations and even by the perceptiveness of their explanations for what they are observing.
They use different language and terminology, because their paradigm for making the explanations or for describing things are different. They certainly have different tools and technology for making observations, but because I live inside the same practical world that they do, I understand what they are talking about, and am awed at their perceptiveness. When one gives them a chance to speak in their own language, they are often far more scientifically accurate than a casual glance would give them credit for.
On the other hand, when I step outside my own area of expertise, and read something from an earlier era in some other area, it all too often sounds like ignorant voodoo. This is because I don't know enough about what they are observing to see past the differences of culture and time and recognize what they are talking about.
To steal annalex's example, I'm not going to take those ancient observations and paste them into a modern textbook, since by taking them out of their original context and trying to read them as though they were written today, they would appear inaccurate at best, nonsensical at worst.
And of course, I'm here talking about writings that were originally intended to be scientific in their day, which of course, the Scriptures never were. But that doesn't mean that observations contained within non-scientific works, taken in context, are necessarily without accuracy. This is aptly illustrated by annalex's description of his living in a hopelessly archaic geocentric world -- which I certainly also do, but would never have had the courage to say so with such boldness. :-)
There is an easy explanation for that: science isn't religion and religion isn't science. Pascal said there are two ways to understand the world--through the mathematical mind (esprit de geometrie) and the intuitive mind (esprit de finesse). He was one of the greatest scientists and mathematians who ever lived. But he considered his religious experience and the knowledge of God it gave him to be superior to all his mathematical and scientific discoveries.
"I think the disagreement is not over theology of the scriptural inerrancy, but over your apparent attempt to separate "hard fact" from "spiritual truth", because it came methodologically perilously close to the sola scriptura heresy, which in a likewise manner separates Scripture from the Tradition."
This is a very perceptive observation. A close family member recently asked me to talk about what it was about my encounters with Orthodoxy that "pushed me over the edge." In my answer (which was predictably more lengthy than necessary -- no surprises here for my fellow FReepers), the word that kept coming up over and over in a variety of contexts was "wholeness." No division between Scripture and Tradition, no division between spiritual truth and "hard facts," and ultimately, the path of the spiritual life that leads towards a life where one's mind, body, and soul are not divided from each other, and where we are not divided from God.
"Perhaps we developed an allergy to it and overreact."
I will certainly plead guilty on that score. I come by the allergy honestly, since I have lived through the gutting of people's faith through very similar approaches. But the overreaction part is also all too often real, and certainly unnecessary when it happens, and for that I must offer apologies to all, especially to kosta.
As I think I just asked Kosta, what would the world have been like had Adam simply refused? Would there have been any point to the Incarnation? ... Are you saying that the man Jesus used His free will to just choose not to sin? Are we just lucky that Jesus made good choices? Do you think God ordains anything, or what is your concept of the idea?
chuckle...God did not wait with baited breath to see the results of what Adam would do.
Well, then you are also chuckling at other Catholics! You told me yourself that some Catholics believe that God sees the decisions of man for Him, and bases His decisions for election upon them.
He certainly KNEW what Adam would do - AND, working within Adam's free will, made something of incredible evil - the wounding of all future mankind - into something of incredible goodness - the Incarnation of our Lord and Savior. Why would God have to force anything? He knew what Adam would do and provided accordingly for all human kind.(emphasis added)
GOD SCRAMBLED??? Here again are two examples of you making God dependent upon man. You have God working around man's free will decisions. You can't escape it, even as you convey the point unintentionally.
FK: "Well, I do believe that God passes over some, and does not give the grace they would need to be saved."
This denies the responsibility that MEN have for their own evil actions.
I don't think so. I believe that men are ultimately responsible for their own evil, even when they have no capacity to do "good". That is just the way that God ordered our existence. We have no standing to complain, as He is the potter.
Agrarian: "We in the Orthodox Church believe that Holy Tradition is inerrant, and that Scripture stands at the pinnacle of that body of Tradition.:
qua: "I think it is important that we understand this at two levels.
At the first level is the question of Tradition as revelation and how that doctrine came to be."
I wouldn't so much call it a doctrine as it is a way of thinking and acting. We begin with the fact that God reveals Himself to man, and that only through revelation can man know God. The first accounts of revelation are of how God reveals himself to Adam. Perhaps the most profound passage in this regard is this: "And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?"
We understand this to mean that the Lord was accustomed to "walking" *with* Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Whatever this exactly means, we know that it means that God revealed himself to Adam and Eve in a direct and more extensive way than the few statements of God to Adam that are recorded in these chapters.
There is a passage somewhere in the liturgical texts or writings of the Fathers for Holy Saturday where it is said that the first thing that Christ did when he descended into Hades after his death was to go looking for his friend Adam, with whom he had walked in the Garden of Eden. Whatever the merits of this poetic portrayal (or the iconographic portrayal of Christ taking Adam and Eve by the hand in the icon of Holy Saturday -- commonly referred to as the icon of the Resurrection), the broader point is that God's revelation of himself to Adam was far more, both in content and immediacy, than the spoken words that were later recorded in Scripture.
The same is true of the revelation to the other prophets and patriarchs. The words of Scripture are a record of God's revelation of Himself to man -- they are the most perfect record of that revelation. But they are not the revelation itself -- if they were, we would be left with the nonsensical concept that the children who came to Christ to have him bless them and touch them were not having God revealed to them, but that any revelation involved in this act didn't happen until the evangelists recorded the events on parchment.
Holy Tradition, when spoken of in terms of written sources, is a record of God's revelation of Himself to man. When thought of as the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in the Church, it has an even more direct and immediate connection to revelation.
"This is, again, an Origenistic doctrine derived by him through Platonistic categories. Because particularization, the many, is bad we must have a mediation to proceed to the One, the good."
I am unaware of whether Origen (or any close followers) articulated this in any particular way that was unique. I would welcome references. I haven't read much Origen, and so am not particularly familiar with his specific words.
I would, though, say that your statement that "particularization, the many, is bad," bears no resemblance to anything I have encountered in Orthodoxy. Quite the contrary. Particularization, as it were, is at the heart of the Orthodox approach to revelation and Tradition. I have articulated this in earlier posts, and so won't belabor the point, but ours is a highly particular faith.
The patristic approach is not one of abstraction, but rather of using the particulars of God's revelation to bring us to a direct and personal relationship with Him.
"In Origen, this mediation is the Church and the Sacraments which delivers us from the natural to the super-natural."
Again, I'm not familiar with the specific statements of Origen to which you refer. But to refer to the role of the Church and the Holy Mysteries (as we Orthodox prefer to call what the West calls sacraments) as a mediation that "delivers us from the natural" is again to speak of something in which I simply do not recognize the Orthoodox Christian faith.
Quite the contrary. The Holy Mysteries (and we Orthodox do not draw a hard and firm line limiting them to seven in number, let alone two) hallow the physical and bring the physical into union with the spiritual.
Orthodoxy considers the separation of physical from spiritual to be unnatural for humans. This is what is so unnatural about death, where the soul is separated from the body. We do not consider that Paradise (or hell) can truly and fully begin until our souls are reunited with our bodies after the general resurrection at the end of this age.
"Beginning with Augustine and through the Holy Spirit continued on at the Reformation we have men of God sanctified away from pagan dualisms understanding that God's good creation is not inherently evil..."
If by dualism, you mean a dualism of the physical and spiritual, I think that you would find that Orthodoxy completely rejects that. We of all people would reject the idea that God's good creation is inherently evil. That is a Gnostic idea.
"...but because of the fall became totally corrupt and that any movement toward the good is accomplished only by the supernatural work of the Word. What is meant by the "Word" is multi-faceted and layered and something I don't have time to get into presently."
Very well, we will leave the Logos for now.
"The second level is the question of inerrancy. This evolved from the controversies of liberalism in the Protestant Churches. Unfortunately Fundementalism took it too far, IMHO, incorporating enlightment epistemologies to fight the enlightment epistemologies. There is no consenus on a proper epistemology even within Reformed cirles as evidenced by the controversies between Warfield and Kuyper, and Van Til and Clark. Nonetheless, what is agreed is that only the Word in its full meaning can save."
You are correct that we should be careful in how we use words like "inerrancy" and "infallibility," since the connotations for different traditions are strong ones. This is similarly valid for concepts such as theosis/divinization -- Forest Keeper has a good point that certain terminology can actually get in the way of mutual understanding because of such connotations.
This is not a reason to abandon any given terminology, if it is true and appropriate, but rather is a reason to take care to define it, or at least to take the time to explain it when questions are raised.
The point I was trying to make, for the benefit of those of a Protestant point of view, was that the reverence that traditional Protestantism has toward the Scriptures is analogous to the reverence and deference that we Orthodox have toward Holy Tradition, within which Holy Scripture has the preeminent place. I can do little better than to quote from Bp. Kallistos (Ware):
"The Christian Church is a Scriptural Church: Orthodoxy believes this just as firmly, if not more firmly than Protestantism. The Bible is the supreme expression of God’s revelation to man, and Christians must always be ‘People of the Book.’
But if Christians are People of the Book, the Bible is the Book of the People; it must not be regarded as something set up over the Church, but as something that lives and is understood within the Church (that is why one should not separate Scripture and Tradition). It is from the Church that the Bible ultimately derives its authority, for it was the Church which originally decided which books form a part of Holy Scripture; and it is the Church alone which can interpret Holy Scripture with authority.
There are many sayings in the Bible which by themselves are far from clear, and the individual reader, however sincere, is in danger of error if he trusts his own personal interpretation.
'Do you understand what you are reading?' Philip asked the Ethiopian eunuch; and the eunuch replied: 'How can I, unless someone guides me?' (Acts 8:30). Orthodox, when they read the Scripture, accept the guidance of the Church."
Your reasoning is flawed. What possible reason would there have been for the Incarnation if there had never been a Fall?
I'm not sure what you think my reasoning is, but you are making my point. There would have been no reason for the Incarnation, or any of the rest of it. The actual result then, must make God a failure under your view. God created an immortal, sinless (by nature) being, and yet look what happened to His creation. Does God need more practice? Should He have taken a Mulligan? My question was aimed at whether it was possible (out of God's control) or only subject to God's ordination (God is in control). I take it that your side is with the former.
"I'm not sure what you think my reasoning is, but you are making my point. There would have been no reason for the Incarnation, or any of the rest of it."
Why do you think it would have been a bad thing if sin had never entered the world?
"The actual result then, must make God a failure under your view."
Not at all. Man was the author of his own Fall by the exercise of the free will he possessed.
"My question was aimed at whether it was possible (out of God's control) or only subject to God's ordination (God is in control). I take it that your side is with the former."
God chooses to let us exercise our free will. God has control of everything to the extent He chooses to use it. God created us for theosis, but he endowed us with free will, the same independence of action He possesses. We are created in the image and likeness of God and free will is an attribute of that. We have used it wrongly. Here's what +Athanasius says in On the Incarnation:
"Upon them, therefore, upon men who, as animals, were essentially impermanent, He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked—namely the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself, so that, reflecting Him and themselves becoming reasonable and expressing the Mind of God even as He does, though in limited degree they might continue for ever in the blessed and only true life of the saints in paradise. But since the will of man could turn either way, God secured this grace that He had given by making it conditional from the first upon two things—namely, a law and a place. He set them in His own paradise, and laid upon them a single prohibition. If they guarded the grace and retained the loveliness of their original innocence, then the life of paradise should be theirs, without sorrow, pain or care, and after it the assurance of immortality in heaven. But if they went astray and became vile, throwing away their birthright of beauty, then they would come under the natural law of death and live no longer in paradise, but, dying outside of it, continue in death and in corruption...This, then, was the plight of men. God had not only made them out of nothing, but had also graciously bestowed on them His own life by the grace of the Word. Then, turning from eternal things to things corruptible, by counsel of the devil, they had become the cause of their own corruption in death; for, as I said before, though they were by nature subject to corruption, the grace of their union with the Word made them capable of escaping from the natural law, provided that they retained the beauty of innocence with which they were created. That is to say, the presence of the Word with them shielded them even from natural corruption, as also Wisdom says: God created man for incorruption and as an image of His own eternity; but by envy of the devil death entered into the world." When this happened, men began to die, and corruption ran riot among them and held sway over them to an even more than natural degree, because it was the penalty of which God had forewarned them for transgressing the commandment. Indeed, they had in their sinning surpassed all limits; for, having invented wickedness in the beginning and so involved themselves in death and corruption, they had gone on gradually from bad to worse, not stopping at any one kind of evil, but continually, as with insatiable appetite, devising new kinds of sins."
Because of this state of affairs, FK, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Not because God failed but because we did and He loves His creation. Some posts back I suggested you read +Athanasius "On the Incarnation". It really explains what The Church believes and always has. If you read it, it becomes readily apparent why the Incarnation is the ultimate example of God's love for His creatures, but it is also apparent that but for our sin, the Incarnation would have been quite unnecessary and what the Incarnation does is return us to our original potential.
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