Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
FK, your conclusion runs up against 2100 years of scriptural exegesis by The Church. You know, I really think it comes down to those differing understandings of theosis. For us, once one attains theosis, which as I have said is extremely rare in this mortal state, one would be completely safe, but until then one wouldn't be.
I suspect I sound like a broken record, but how could the God bearing Fathers who put the canon of the NT together be so, so wrong in this absolutely vital area? Every single Father, except perhaps +Augustine and arguably Origen (who was condemned for a teaching something like what you are proposing though a bit broader), agrees on this. Much of the Protestant sola scriptura mentality seems founded in a reaction against Rome, the medieval structure and theology of which many extend back in time to at least the Emperor Constantine. In a way I don't blame the Protestants for doing this since if one listened only to Rome for most of the past 600 years one would think that the Church looked like the Church of Alexander VI right back to the Apostles. But that simply isn't true as both history and the writings of the Fathers amply demonstrate. I don't doubt that that is a hard mentality to overcome, but if you desire to understand, if not accept, the theology of The Church on theosis, you have to take off two pairs of glasses; one that of Protestantism and the second a very old medieval Roman pair. I am not suggesting that you will then ipso facto become Orthodox. I am suggesting that you will recognize the innovation which the Reformers wrought. At that point, having compared that innovation with what The Church had uniformly believed up to that point, you can determine if in fact God did something entirely new and innovative through the Reformers.
Well, I don't mind if we have an honest disagreement on interpretation, but I do want to be clear on one thing. I thought your argument was never that the Bible supported a sinless Mary, it was that it didn't prohibit it. The Bible also doesn't prohibit space aliens from coming and living among us. :) So, isn't the best you can hope for that it's possible Mary was sinless? I still don't see anything in the Bible that actively says or suggests that Mary was sinless.
ping #2680
But you said Matthew didn't know. How could he have spent so much time with Jesus and not known whether or not Jesus had biological half-siblings? He must have known. That strengthens the "until" view.
Mary was sinless because reason compels her, as Mother of God, to be, and because that is the simplest conclusion to make from the analogy with the Ark of the Covenant, the verse about the royal gate that opens only once, and the "full of grace" language. It is also a belief that came straight from the apostolic times.
The fact that scripture alone can be interpreted away from the apostolic tradition should not surprise you. We generally don't think that the scripture can even be understood in general terms without it, -- witness all the off-the-cliff apostates who read the scripture as closely as the mariophobes do.
"I still don't see anything in the Bible that actively says or suggests that Mary was sinless."
I'm off to the priest's house for a little snake bite medicine, so I'll probably comment at length later, but you might be interested to know that +John Chrysostomos agreed with you and believed she did sin at least once, at the Wedding Feast at Cana. The Church and the other Fathers reject that.
First, following Jesus in his adult ministry did not entitle Matthew to any particular insight into Mary's precise relation to the "brothers" of Jesus. Second, it was simply not Matthew's focus, in either of the passages, to convey either knowledge or speculation that he might have had.
I disagree. Paul is not talking about “before salvation” and “after salvation”. That is a just not there in the text! The words are never mentioned. Consider reading Romans 2 and 3 again. Paul is not talking about people before they are saved are wicked! First of all, Romans 2 shows that people have a law written on their hearts (placed there by God). Consider the following passage:
“Tribulation and anguish [shall be] upon every human soul that does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek; but glory, honour, and peace to everyone that works good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law (for not the hearers of the law [are] just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified; for when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature that which is of the law, these, not having the law, are a law unto themselves; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, accusing and also excusing their reasonings one with another)” Romans 2:9-14
First, even the “saved” Jew, the one who proudly bragged about their law, will be judged on whether they do evil. They are not saved by being born of the flesh of Abraham. That includes Greeks, as well. See, the judgment is based on whether one does good or not – and this includes Greeks! Note, Paul attacks the source of pride of the Judaizers, the Law. “as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law”. – The doers of the Law will be justified, not just those who hear it. Jesus Himself says this in Matthew 7:21:
“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in the heavens”
Next, we have the Law written even on the Gentile’s hearts – our conscience. It is placed there by God. If we obey it, if we fulfill this Law written on our hearts, we will be justified, as Paul says. And of course, this presumes that it is done in Christ – even those who do NOT know Christ (those who love know God). So what Paul is saying is summed up at the end of Romans 2:
For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is circumcision that which is done outwardly in the flesh, but he [is] a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision [is that] of the heart, in the spirit [and] not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God
Thus, a saved person, one of God, a son of Abraham by faith, is not of the flesh, but of the spirit – one who walks in faith. Whether a person follows the Decalogue and the Mosaic Law, or whether one follows the Law written on their hearts, a person IS A JEW, one of the people of God – a member of the Church, as I have described so long ago.
In Romans 3, Paul continues his assault on the proud Jews who think they are saved because they are of the flesh of Abraham. He brings up a veritable litany from the Old Testament Psalms. Unless you read the context of those Psalms, you will become confused and will not get what Paul is talking about. In each case, Paul is quoting many Psalms written by David against JEWS. There were wicked Jews pursuing David, and David wrote Psalms against them, saying that they never followed God, that they were foolish, etc. Use your Bible and go to those Psalms noted in Romans 3. You will find in each case that it is Paul charging the “saved” Jews of being wicked, just as David did 1000 years before. THEY were wicked – while the Gentiles were open to the Word of God.
Continuing in Chapter 4, Paul delivers the coup de grace by reminding them that Abraham was declared righteous BEFORE he was circumcised, the ultimate initiation ritual for the Jew, what separated them from the Gentile. By pointing out the futility of relying on their human heritage to show they were “saved”, Paul points to the REAL message of the Bible (even the OT), that man is saved by Faith in God…
All this other stuff that ALL men are evil and do not follow God totally misses the point of Romans 2-4 and Paul’s attack on the self-righteous Judaizers. Paul is merely quoting OT Scriptures to point out that the Jews were no better than the Gentiles as a group. Look again to Romans 2 and the quote above and you will find that is the premise of Paul’s discussion in this section.
No one is righteous in his nature when born. All of the elect are righteous in God's sight after salvation. No wicked person would ever seek out the Lord. God gives grace to those whom He will, and then they seek the Lord.
True. But it is not what Paul is talking about here.
But your whole argument is based on silence, (regarding Mary) isn't it? The standard for you is much stricter because you are making the positive argument. You are saying "look at all this non-evidence, therefore it must be so." :) Just in your above, you use "if" for two ideas, and "perhaps" for two conclusions.
No. Catholics use many arguments that converge to tell us that Mary was sinless. We do not rely solely on the absence of something in Scripture to point out that “Mary is a sinner because it doesn’t specifically state that”. That is an argument from silence. There is no other evidence to prove that statement, thus, it rests totally on the lack of evidence, a logical fallacy. We, on the other hand, utilize the various writings of men to ascertain what the common beliefs of the time were. “How did Christians consider Mary during the first few centuries”? In the writings of the first Christians, we note that men are mulling more profoundly over that treasure called the Apostolic Teachings – both Scripture and Tradition – to mine the meanings of what God gave men. We see evidence that notes, from different sources, that Mary was considered special, not only in Scripture, but in the Apostolic Tradition and writings that followed. Thus, we use inferential evidence to determine that Mary is sinless, rather than empirical.
I wrote : “Paul does NOT say that Jesus is the only sinless person in Romans 3. Thus, Paul (and the Spirit) leave room for exceptions to the universal "all". “
You responded : An argument from silence is a lousy argument. ... :)
LOL! That’s not an argument from silence – as elsewhere in Scripture, we KNOW that Paul doesn’t mean that Jesus has sinned:
For we [do] not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted like as [we are], yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15
Thus, we infer that Paul cannot mean that “All” is universal, because elsewhere, Jesus is mentioned as being sinless. Since Scripture cannot contradict, we infer that Paul has exceptions in mind.
Brother in Christ
Re: my post #2,555 "Some Orthodox even point to the fact that she may have sinned (the incident at the wedding party when Christ turned water into wine), but these are private opinions and not doctrinal statements." (Kolo you were not pinged on that one, but I am glad you brought this up independently).
kosta-"That's odd, coming from a Calvinist..."
HarleyD - "Not really. God made all of us exactly as we are. There is not one thing that you have that has not been given you by God including your hopes, desires, faith, etc. God fashioned each of us according to His purpose."
Right. Harley, I take your statements to mean that only the elect will ever WANT to know God. God gives this grace only to His elect. All others will never have the desire to know God, because it is not in man's sinful nature to seek God. Therefore, all get what they want.
Yes. Amazingly there are some who witnessed God before them such as the Jews before Mount Sinai, Balaam or Belshazzar yet they never came to a saving knowledge. It is also interesting that the rich man in the flames of torment never asked Abraham to intercede before God for him. As strange as this may sound I believe he was right where he wanted to be.
Except that what you are saying is an oxymoron -- based on what you tell me about your theology: that man could not have wanted to be anywhere, for that would imply that he had decided his fate by his own choice. I think you need to rephrase your statement to read "he was right where God wanted him to be."
Whether a slave to righteousness or to sin, yout theoogy says it's all God's doing. In either case our minds are captive to God's will -- and therefore whether evil or good, it must all be "good". Such is the nonsense you convey.
This is what Thomas Merton, a late Catholic monk, in his book New Seeds of Contemplation (1961], says about this:
In our understanding, someone "full of grace" is someone without sin, as much as humanly possible, and fitting to be the vessel pure enough for God to use for His own Son. So, while the Scripture does not directly mention her sinless life, the only reasonable understanding of being "full of grace" is that she was without sin.
Assuming that the vast majority of Orthodox go through Chrismation as infants, is there the presumption that they will receive the same training as the convert as they grow up? I ask because I know it's true that so many Protestants are baptized as infants and then never get much, if any, training in the faith. (That was my case.) The Southern Baptists were the first people I found that were really SERIOUS about Sunday school for both children and adults. Do you all have this or an equivalent?
FK, there isn't enough bandwidth on FR to even scratch the surface of Orthodox theology on prayer like what you call the "sinner's prayer". FK, theosis is all but impossible without a continual "sinner's prayer" on our parts!
That's great! I knew you wouldn't object to it, but it's great to hear how much you actively embrace its equivalent.
I don't think I'm confusing anything, I just think we use the word differently. That's OK.
Although you said you didn't respect your children [as newborns], but loved them nonetheless, I say you are deceiving yourself because you did respect their humanity, their space, and their rights.
Same thing. Yes, I "respect" the FACT that they are humans, but that is using the word in a completely different sense. I thought you were saying that God has "respect" for us because of merit, but you're saying that is not the case. Why am I wrong to use "respect" in human terms? Is there Biblical support for God "respecting" us?
BTW, regarding my (now) teenagers, I actually have zero "respect" for their space or their rights! As a benevolent dictator, I will allow them to make certain mistakes, even if I know in advance and can prevent it. This is how they will learn some very valuable lessons. However, on any serious matter, or if any injury might be involved, then I will disrespect their spaces, rights, and anything else in order to save them from themselves. This has already happened with both of them. :)
How does it challenge God's sovereignty if we know we are of the elect? Our side would say that God wants us to know, and live in assurance. "If God is with us, then who can be against us?" (Rom. 8:31), and so forth. That strengthens our faith and helps empower us to obey (love) Him.
Amen. Either Christ died for our sins, or He didn't.
If Christ died for our sins, we are saved already because He has paid the price for our redemption. We stand acquitted before God and blameless because He took on the burden of our guilt and absolved us of it when He died in our place.
These things happened. They are real. Christ rose from the dead. He accomplished what He came to earth to do -- He redeemed His sheep, past, present and future.
"When God calls a sinner, He does not repent of it. God does not, as many friends do, love one day and hate another; or as princes, who make their subjects favorites and afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness of a saint; his condition admits of no altercation. God's call is founded upon His decree, and His decree is immutable. Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out His people's sins, but not their names." -- THOMAS WATSON
A megalomaniac is one who is delusional with his self-perceived omnipotence. I assure you I do not accuse God of that! :) "Exalted" is a tricky word and can have different meanings in different contexts.
Clearly, Jesus does recognize and praise several demonstrations of faith in the Gospels. I know that. My only point is to remember that it is God who made it all happen.
Really, who takes away from the Creator by complementing the creation? When I build a chair, and someone says, "that's a nice chair", do I get upset, demanding that I get all of the credit, or is it understood that I am being praised THROUGH the chair? It is the same thing with humans.
NO! It is not the same thing at all with humans. :) For your analogy to carry, it would have to be another chair praising the first chair. This is because you are the creator of the chair, and the person praising it would be another human, an equal. God has no equal to praise His work.
There is nothing wrong with the second chair complimenting the creator (you) on your work, but it should appreciate that you also created it, and know that all the credit for both chairs goes to you. The second chair should know that the first chair did nothing toward its creation or its beauty.
Really, you have a misplaced idea of God's sovereignty. You seem to believe that because we PARTICIPATE, that means that God does 98% and we do 2% on our own! Hardly!
When you say "Hardly!", I couldn't agree more. You short-changed God by 2%. :)
I had thought that common sense - having thousands of different denominations that all equally claim to be led by the Spirit - would be enough for you to determine that the Spirit does not lead on the dogmatic front to individuals.
Oh, come on! Are you really one of those who says there are "thousands" of different Protestant denominations? That's bogus. The biased only count it that way because of our autonomy. So if my church performs the Lord's Supper once per month, and the next SB church down the street does it twice per month, then it's considered two totally different faiths. That's ridiculous. While I do admit there are sometimes important variations in theology, the basic core beliefs cannot possibly be split up as you suggest. I maintain that the Holy Spirit does lead individuals.
The oral teachings and practice of the communities determined HOW to read Scripture when Scripture was not so clear - or even when it seemed so to many people.
This is a main protest I have. You are stating openly what I have been gathering. Tradition trumps scripture! You cannot take scripture on its face. You must filter it through the Church's lens to arrive at an interpretation that matches tradition. It is the scriptural meaning that changes, not the tradition. That is the only way HOW to read scripture.
WHO wrote the Scriptures? You seem to have a problem remembering that the Apostles wrote it AFTER they had been teaching people for YEARS! Of course the Bible is to be read through these conditions.
No, I remember that, I just don't trust people playing the telephone game with doctrine that is not in the Bible. If you're right, then it goes back to my assertion that God was the most cryptic author in the history of literature. I don't know why He would speak in such riddles to His own beloved, except that a tiny few men might explain it to us. Again, by your arguments, the Bible wasn't written for us at all.
FK: "If you believe that "anyone" could come up with a book like the Bible, then I don't know what to say. I don't believe anyone could."
Really? A lot of people are absolutely convinced that the Koran is the Word of God. A lot of people believe that the Book of Mormons is from God. I could write a letter, sprinkle some "thus says the Lord" with some general prophesies (some of which are bound to come true), and I'd have a so-called inspired book from God!
But you evaded my question. Is the Koran or the LDS bible "like" the Holy Bible? We both know that billions have been fooled with false teaching. God told us it would be so. Honestly now, how many DEVOUT Muslims and Mormons do you expect to see in Heaven? Scripture tells you the answer plainly. My answer would be "extremely few".
I laugh when you repeat that you "could write a letter...". From my understanding, that is exactly what L. Ron Hubbard did! And today millions are fooled, and sadly, they are also lost. I believe that it is only God's grace that showed us both that all of these other teachings were false. Without it, one might seem as good as another. God gave us the grace to know.
Jesus didn't write the Bible! See what I mean? You are drilled so heavily on this stuff that you can't identify for yourself that the Bible takes outside verification to prove its claim! Anyone can write a book with "thus says the Lord". Only people on the ground can determine the truth of it or not.
The Word didn't author the word? That seems odd. The Bible does have plenty of outside verification to authenticate it, but none of it is needed. I don't agree that people need to determine the truth of the Bible. Truth is truth. People need to discover the truth that is already there. The difference is that with "determine" there is a human component. The truth of the Bible does not depend on man accepting it.
The reason why you know the Bible is from God is because the Catholic Church says it is and the Protestants unwittingly follow in step to that claim, not realizing the irony that they rely on the Church's determination of authority, while casting aside its authority to teach that very same book! Go figure.
That can't be right, because I still believe the Bible is self-authenticating. I don't begrudge that the Catholic Church said the Bible was God's word first, I'm glad she did! But, it really is true that when I accepted it, I didn't know anything about Church history or that Catholics put it together, or any of it. I was taught that the Bible was God's inerrant word, and I had read enough chapters, and seen the wisdom and internal consistency, and so I believed. We believe the Bible authenticates itself apart from the RCC, so there is no irony.
Read the Gospels, brother. Notice how the Pharisees act, those who "knew" they were saved. Read the letters of Paul. Notice how he attacks the Judaizers, those who "knew" they were saved.
Regards
Are you saying that all are saved, then? Since Christ died for the sin of the whole world, does this mean that everyone is saved?
"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." John 1:29
Regards
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.