divine I submit to Church dogma. The Orthodox Church has three dogmas in short : (1) Triune God, (2) dual nature of Christ in one person, (3) Theotokos the Mother of our Lord and God jesus Christ, our Savior. These dogmas are immutable and those who reject them are not Christians.
I accept (submit) to those dogmas on faith, as they are illogical and reason alone cannot explain them. They are derived from the Scriptures, which I accept as the source ofm God's truth eve if mixed with myths and cultural biases.
Outside of those three dogmas and scriptures, the Orthodox Church teaches patristic doctrines. These teaching are based on consensus patrum and not on the teaching of any one individual father. While they can become more detailed as new understanding develops, they are not dogmatic in nature; individual fathers have been wrong.
An example of that is +Gregory of Nyssa, a Cappadocian Father and among the most prominent patristics. For a while he was a student of Origen and shared with Origen his belief in universal salvation (a heretical belief that everyone will eventually be glorified, including satan). Today, practically all groups who call themselves Christian reject that as false. So, we are under no obligation to "believe" any Chruch Father individually. However, I believe that the doctrines to which the Fathers mutually agreed (consensus patrum) is wiser and more knowledgeable than I am. ut I do not necessarily agree with individual fathers whose doctrines were accepted locally.
I believe that the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is the TRUE Church within which one can find the fullness of the Orthodox Faith; that it is the Church Christ commissioned; that its sacraments are real.
Everything else is my opinion. My faith and my opinion are not one and the same. :)
No, the consensus patrum reads +Paul differently then I or the Protestants. I know what my impressions are, but I defer to the consensus.
There is One truth, FK. There is one true God. There is one true faith. There is one true Church. How do we know our God is a true God and not an idol? How do we know we have the true Church?
If no Church knows the truth fully, then there is no true Church. If you are church shopping then you can't believe your church is a true church but a man-made institution.
Exactly.
-A8
Latins make a distinction between doctrine and discipline. I can't remember if Orthodoxers do. ...... In the way you are phrasing this, I get the impression that to be a good Orthodoxer you must agree with dogma, but not necessarily doctrine. Is that right? I ask because I figure there must be some Orthodox doctrine about the Bible itself, and if so, then if you MUST also believe in doctrine (contrary to my supposition above), then I am confused based on the history of this conversation.
One bottom line question is at what level (dogma, doctrine, discipline) does heresy come into play?
BTW, I have a sneaking suspicion that "they can become more detailed" really means "they can change", even though no one wants to admit it. :)
My faith and my opinion are not one and the same. :)
This is exactly the crux of the mystery I am trying to discover. :) I don't understand how this is not a "house divided". I mean, my faith is concrete, and I have opinions in some areas, such as a young earth. However, they never directly contradict. This is why I don't understand when you say that your opinion on occasion conflicts with Church teaching.
No, the consensus patrum reads +Paul differently than I or the Protestants. I know what my impressions are, but I defer to the consensus.
Yes, you'll defer, sort of as if that is how you would answer on a test to give a teacher what he wanted. Meanwhile, you really think something else. This is what I don't understand.
If no Church knows the truth fully, then there is no true Church. If you are church shopping then you can't believe your church is a true church but a man-made institution.
I respectfully disagree and say that not only does MY local church not know the truth fully, but that God's Church does not know the truth fully (unless it is unknowable to the individual). Otherwise, there is no more growth and sanctification ceases. The good work that God began in us would no longer be needed ...... "until the day of Christ Jesus".
Presumably, if the Orthodox Church knew the truth fully, it would have said so and published so in order to witness to the rest of us. That would be the Christian thing to do. Yet, you just told me that in Orthodoxy there are only three dogmas, all of which any Christian could readily agree to. Do those three dogmas constitute the "truth fully"? If so, then I would think that you, the Catholics, and us would all be in communion together. So that can't be what it means.
Brass tacks: If you believe that the Orthodox Church is in possession of the truth fully, and if your last council was over a thousand years ago, and if you have three dogmas, and if every holding of the consensus patrum is searchable and learnable by any Orthodoxer today, then, have you stopped growing spiritually?