Part 2
Christian Salvation (80)
1) Why does man need salvation, intervention, and redemption? What does it mean?
2) First, Christianity teaches that man is alien to God by reason of Creation itself, inasmuch as man has a nature different from God's
3) This initial alienation has been redeemed by God's taking on our human nature in the Incarnation
a) "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14; cf. Colossians 2:9)
b) Christ’s taking on and sharing of our human nature, becomes the medium of our participation in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).
c) This truth was boldly expressed by Irenaeus of Lyons and many other Church Fathers, but most notably by Athanasius himself, "God became man so that man might become god."
d) This transformation by divine grace is the goal of human existence and man's sole reason for being in this world at all
4) Secondly, Man is alien to God by reason of sin, a legacy to which all human beings are heirs (and prone), because "by one man's disobedience many were made sinners" (Romans 5:19).
a) To overcome this alienation from God by sin, Jesus died on the cross, thereby reconciling us to our Creator
(80) This entire section is based on the work of Father Patrick Henry Reardon
b) The Church does not teach that we are “guilty” of Original Sin; however, she teaches that we are prone to sin; it has become a “second nature” to us; we propagate our own sin in our lives and in the world and as a result, suffer its consequences, the ultimate of which is mortality, death
c) Integral to the reconciling death of Christ were His voluntary sufferings and the sacrificial outpouring of His blood; whereby God washed away the sins of the world. Indeed, the Bible's chief image of the reconciliation on the cross is the blood of Jesus, poured out in libation for the sins of the world
d) The New Covenant is established by this redemptive shedding of His blood (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24). Only in the blood of Christ do we have access to God. The necessity that Christ shed His blood for our redemption is established by a general principle governing the biblical sacrifice for sins - namely, "without shedding of blood there is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22). In Christ, therefore, "we have redemption through His blood, the remission of our sins" (Ephesians 1:7). Jesus "Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree…, by whose stripes you are healed" (1 Peter 2:24).
5) Third, Man is alien to God by reason of death, because death is inseparable from sin. By reason of Adam's offense, "sin entered into the world, and death through sin" (Romans 5:12). Indeed, "sin reigned in death" (5:21). Paul goes to Genesis 3 to explain what he calls "the reign of death" (Romans 5:14,17)
a) In the Bible, death is not natural, nor is it merely biological, and certainly it is not neutral. Apart from Christ, death represents man's final separation from God (Romans 6:21,23; 8:2,6,38). The corruption of death is sin incarnate and rendered visible. When death, this "last enemy" (1 Corinthians 15:56), has finally been vanquished, then may we most correctly speak of "salvation." (This is why the vocabulary of salvation normally appears in the future tense in the Epistle to the Romans.) Thus, the resurrection of Jesus is soteriological (salvific). Indeed, it is absolutely essential to our redemption, because Christ "was delivered up for our offenses and raised for our justification" (Romans 4:25).
b) Ultimately it is from the reign of death that Christ delivers us. Just as the sufferings and bloodshed of Jesus were integral to the redemptive value of His death, so His passing into glory and His seating at the right hand of God pertain to the fullness of His resurrection. This theme is especially developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which describes Jesus' ascension as an entry into the heavenly sanctuary as the eternal High Priest, the Mediator of the New Covenant
How Does Salvation Become Ours?
1) Eastern Orthodox Christianity teaches that we are “saved” by becoming “partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (II Peter: 1:3,4
a) “Jesus made possible for us the end of our frustration…being unable to be what we were intended to be in the purpose of God. This He did by incorporating us into Himself, thereby making God's energies available to our human nature….Because you are made in God's image, you are capable of containing and exercising God's uncreated energies.” (81)
2) The beginning of our experience of salvation begins with (is achieved by) holy Baptism
3) The Sacred Scriptures and Holy Tradition affirm clearly that to be “saved” (in the full sense of the meaning) we must abide (remain) in communion with Christ throughout our lives, moment-by-moment
a) “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” (John 15: 4)
4) The first and most important communion with Christ takes place through communion with His Body and His Blood (82)
(81) Divine Energy; Jon E. Braun; Page 118
(82) Hieromonk Kleopa Elie; Regarding the Four Types of Communion with God in the Orthodox Church; Translated from the Greek
5) A Christian who does not believe that the physical bread and wine is truly the Body and Blood of our Lord, is a stranger to the true biblical and historic faith of Christ
a) Gospel of John (6:55): “For My flesh is food indeed and My blood is drink indeed”
b) “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” (I Cor. 10:16)
6) Whoever then communes unworthily, becomes guilty
a) “Therefore, whoever eats this bread and drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord” (I Cor. 11:27).
7) The Christian, however, who communes with fear, devoutness and preparation, becomes worthy of countless gifts
8) He is joined with Christ through grace
a) “He who eats My flesh and drinks My body abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56).
9) He shares in eternal life
a) “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life…” (John 6:54).
10) He will be resurrected on the Day of Judgment
a) “…and I will raise him at the last day.” (John 6:54).
11) Christ Himself creates an abode inside our hearts
a) “That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…” (Eph. 3:17), and “At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” (John 14:20).
12) He who communes Christ has Him living inside of him
a) “…It is no longer I who lives but Christ lives in me…” (Gal. 2:20), and “My little children, for whom I labor in birth until Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:19).
13) He advances and is built up in spiritual works
a) “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” (Eph. 4:15)
14) It cleanses from sin, sanctifies, illumines and bestows eternal life
a) From the prayer of Holy Communion of Saint John Damascene
15) Brings about holiness of body and soul, expels fantasies and cleanses from the passions, gives boldness toward God, illumination and help for the increase of the virtues and the perfection
a) 6th prayer, Holy Communion of St. Basil
16) Brings about spiritual joy, health of body and soul
a) According to St. Cyril of Alexandria
17) These and many more are the spiritual fruits that the Christian receives, who is a believer and comes often with good preparation to the Holy Eucharist
18) He, who does not come forth to this Mystery, will never be able to advance in the work of the virtues, because he does not dwell in Christ and Christ in him
a) “Without Me you can do nothing” (John15:5).
19) The second manner of communion with Christ takes place through the “Jesus Prayer”
a) In which the nous (the “Inner ‘I’) sinks (eventually) into the heart and there it says continuously: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner”
b) The Prayer begins with verbal (out loud, prayerful) recitation, with faith and love
20) The prayer that is done with the nous in the heart has great significance, because it unites the soul with Jesus Christ and through Him to the Father, because the only way that leads to union with the Father is Christ
a) “No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6)
b) The prayer of the heart empowers the Holy Spirit to dwell and to work in our heart and to unite us with the Holy Spirit
c) This union through the unceasing prayer resembles the bride who loves the bridegroom Christ and does not want to ever be separated from Him.
21) The third way of being united with our Creator God takes place with the fulfillment of His commandments and the acquisition of the virtues
22) This cohabitation with Jesus is revealed in Scripture by Him
a) “If anyone loves Me, He will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23), while in another chapter he says; “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, and just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:10)
23) St. Dionysios the Aeropagite says that our likeness and union with God is accomplished only with the fulfillment of the divine commandments
24) Saint Maximus the Confessor says, regarding our union with God: “The word of God and Father is found mystically in each one of His commandments, so that he who accepts the word of God accepts God”.
25) Saint Gregory Palamas speaking on the sanctification of man with the execution of the commandments of God says: “The commandments of God contain not only the knowledge, but also the sanctification (theosis)”
26) The fourth method of being united with Christ takes place through the hearing of the words of God
a) “However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand” (Acts 4:4).
b) “So then faith comes by hearing; and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17).
27) If the Body and the Blood of the Lord is true food and drink, then the word of the Lord being received by the faithful becomes for them “…a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14) and “the bread of life which came down from heaven” (John 6:58) while according to St. Damascene it is called manna of immortality and mystical manna
28) The Apostle Paul, through hearing, accepted the word of God, when he was called with the divine light on the road to Damascus and heard a voice from heaven.
29) It is through hearing that the Samaritan woman receives the word of God, while the Samaritans believe and are baptized through the preaching of the Apostle Philip (Acts 8:5, 6, 12) and receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14, 18).
a) The special and holiest place, where this manifold union with Christ takes place is the Orthodox Church. It is there that all our faithful, coming with piety and faith in the priestly services, find themselves in a mystical atmosphere and commune with the nous, the heart, and the prayer and share in the Holy Communion in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Before all else the liturgical sacrifice is the perfect expression of the union with our Lord.”
The Bible in the Orthodox Church
1) Orthodox Christianity holds a high view of Scripture
a) Seen as the record of the experience of God and salvation of the prophets and apostles, the experience to which we are also called
2) Christ Himself, the Apostles and the Church from the beginning recognized the authoritative nature of the Hebrew scriptures
3) Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit of God through men, and understood in the context of the Revelation of Christ, through the experience of the Holy Spirit working through the Church
a) St Irenaeus: “…the conduct, and all the doctrine, and all the sufferings of Our Lord, were predicted throughout them.”
b) John Chrysostom called the reading of Scripture conversation with God
4) Scripture seen as “property” of the Church, not to be torn away from the overall life of the Church
a) Cf. Contrast however with “bibliolatry” of the Protestants who reject the Church and its Holy Tradition & try to replace it with the Scripture (83) through personal interpretations, often out of context with the greater Christian Tradition
5) Orthodox are not, however, biblical fundamentalists
6) Nor are Orthodox liberal when it comes to the Bible
(83) Above from: New Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky), Archbishop of Verey; Holy Scripture and the Church
a) Orthodox biblical interpretation is based on the long-term, universal understanding (catholicity) of the Church, and not on personal interpretation
7) Three schools of interpretation used by Church fathers:
a) Allegorical method (Origin)
b) A more literal interpretation of the Bible (St John Chrysostom)
c) "Verse homily," a form poetic biblical interpretation
8) Orthodox believe the Scriptures are reliable; although not every text is always to be taken literally, literally as history, or as earth science
9) Holy Scripture points to and conveys the presence of Christ in the Spirit
10)The Scriptures are a sacramental reality
a) Cf. Read the account of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom’s first experience of reading the Gospel of Mark. It’s online
11)People were saved before the canon of the N.T., after the advent of Christ
12)Bible not the only way the Holy Spirit works out our regeneration in the Church
a) Mysteries
b) Rites of the Church
c) Common prayer and love
d) Church services
Orthodox Christianity Contrasted with Western Christianity
1) Western Christianity presents the Gospel narrative largely in terms of a law court: God is the Judge who presides over guilty and sinful man (guilty of punishment); the price for our guilt is paid by His Son and imputed (applied) to us
2) The Orthodox Church by contrast sees the Gospel narrative in therapeutic terms
a) to cure the entire human person - and lead man to theosis, to communion and union with God
b) The words “salvation” and “salve” have the same root and have to do with healing.
3) Very different ethos
4) The Church is seen as a hospital which cures the broken soul of man
a) The Eucharist is understood as “the medicine of immortality…”
5) “Sin” is seen by the Orthodox Church as an illness, needing to be cured
6) Latins (Roman Catholic Church) shared this early therapeutic tradition, but abandoned (early) vestiges of a “therapeutic” tradition, as it moved further away (Great Schism in 1054) from the Eastern Church, esp. in development of medieval Scholastic theology (Thomas Aquinas)
a) “The scholastic theologists, in their effort to maintain the simplicity of God (I.E. indivisibility [no parts or divisions in God – editor’s addition] and at the same time (to) keep intact the distinction between God and the world, identify God’s energy with His essence (as opposed to the distinction between the two made by the Greek patristic fathers, most notably St Gregory Palamas), calling Him “actus purus” (pure energy), and at the same time consider the providential and saving energy of God as created. In this way God, according to western theology, has no actual relationship with the world in His uncreated energy, but only through created means and created energies. But this teaching impairs the whole basis and content of man’s salvation.(84)
b) “According to Western theology, which was based on St. Augustine, the ancestral sin (IE Original Sin in the West – editor’s addition) is inherited from Adam by all the descendants, and God’s justice has condemned all mankind to Hell and prescribed the penalty of death. Therefore, according to the Franco-Latin tradition, hell and death are a punishment by God and not an illness, as the Orthodox Church teaches.”(85)
7) [West] Scholastic theology (further) divided truths into natural and supernatural categories:
a) Natural truths can be proven
i) Intellectual emphasis; intellectual – emotional disconnect
b) Supernatural truths cannot be proven or disproven
i) Disconnect be: Natural and Supernatural
8) Thus began a division in the West between the intellectual/rational/ scientific and the
supernatural (“the holy mysteries”)
(84) John Romanides: The ancestral sin, Page b52, quoted in Life after death; Page 197
(85) Op Cit; Page 197
a) Often the “supernatural” was relegated to a “mystical” or “charismatic” subcategory within Catholicism
b) The loss of “mystery” and awe
c) Sacraments explained in “natural” terms
i) Transubstantiation, etc.
9) Various theological ideas were added by Rome (that were never ecumenically agreed on):
a) Dogma of Original Sin as “guilt”
b) Purgatory
c) The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary
d) The infallibility of the magesterium Pope of Rome (Vatican I)
i) Vs Holy Tradition
10)Orthodox accept by faith, not so much that we can understand rationally (although we do not discount the rational), but so that we can cleanse our hearts, attain to faith by “theoria” (vision) and experience the Revelation of God directly
a) Cf. St Gregory Palamas: the three disciples (Peter, James and John) beheld the glory of God on Mount Tabor, thus acquiring the knowledge of the Triune God in theoria (vision of God) and by revelation (not by reason).
b) It was revealed to them that God is one essence in three persons (hypostases)
c) Saint Paul: Christ revealed Himself to him after His Ascension; by theoria (not by reason)(86)
11) West tends to be more “rational” (of reason) and “juridical” in emphasis (pertaining to the administration of justice - legal) than Orthodox Christianity, using courtroom terminology and concepts from the Roman law court to explain the mysteries and the atonement
a) Words like: “justification”; “guilt”; “acquit”; “condemn”; reckoning; “pardon” (87)
(86) Met Hierotheos
(87) David J. Williams; Paul’s Metaphors: Their Context And Character
12) The Western European Reformers or ‘Protestantism,’ built on Augustinianism, and German/Swiss Reformation moved even further from the Greek East - never developed a “therapeutic” approach at all
13) Supernatural / mystical element almost obliterated in Protestant tradition
14) Sacramentality (Zwingli, etc.) rejected in favor of “faith alone”
15)Rejection of universal Church tradition
16) Almost entirely “juridical” in terminology and conceptuality
a) Cf John Calvin
17) Atonement (the work of Christ through His death) understood in the West almost exclusively as the payment of penalty due us by Christ, applied by God to the believer forensically
a) Called ‘Penal substitution’ atonement model; also called “Satisfaction” model
b) Augustine and St Anselm (11th century; Cur Deus Homo)
18)Orthodox views (metaphors) of the atonement are not singular [IE only one metaphor], not penal and far more varied (88):
a) Redemption (Athanasius)
b) Reconciliation
c) Sacrifice
d) Triumph over evil (Irenaeus)
e) Ransom (Gregory of Nyssa)
19) In West, belief in God intellectually tends to constitute salvation (except in some “holiness” traditions)
a) Because of its emphasis on reason and its gradual separation from an experiential tradition
b) Orthodox characterize such a concept of salvation as “very naïve”
c) Orthodoxy: Salvation is not a matter of intellectual acceptance of truth: rather it is a person’s transformation and divinization by grace(89) beginning in this life
20) [West] Initial conversion/salvation combined (made into one) because of the understanding of “forensic justification” (something God did pro-actively; humans receive it passively; once-for-all package by faith alone)
a) Orthodoxy: salvation as a process of divinization-sanctification
(88) Recovering The Scandal of the Cross; Joel B. Green and Mark D. Baker
(89) Met Hierotheos
21) [West] Salvation separated from actual “Sanctification”
22) Bible and bible hermeneutics (interpretation) separated from the teaching of the historic Church fathers and redefined (they would say restored) by the 16th century “new Church fathers of Western Europe”
a) Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.
b) Orthodoxy: Biblical interpretation must be consistent with Holy Tradition
Suffering, Affliction and Disease
1) When we or a loved one suffers (especially innocently) it is natural to ask where God is:
“If God loves me (us) why do I – or my loved one(s) – suffer? If God is all-loving and all-powerful why does God not intervene?”
a) The problem of evil
2) Orthodox Christianity teaches God is not the cause of our suffering, affliction, and disease
a) Karma is (obviously) not the cause of our suffering, affliction, disease and affliction
3) Then why does suffering exist?
4) The holy fathers teach that death, suffering and affliction are an inherent characteristic of life (90) , a result of the fall of Adam and a consequence of the on-going effects of the “ancient curse” to which all humans, animals, and nature are subject
a) Cf. inherited “original sin” which is a Western-Augustinian concept not accepted by the Eastern churches
5) “The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering, but a supernatural use for it.” (91)
(90) We share this with Buddhism
(91) Simone Weil, quoted in The End of Suffering; Page 114
6) What role does (can/should) suffering play in our “therapy”?
a) Wakes us up from our “sleep walking”
b) Purification of the soul
i) “Stripping away of self”
c) Leads us to repentance
d) Turning from the temporal to the eternal
e) Causes us to have compassion for others
7) With our use of God-given will, we participate in and expand our falleness and sin
a) “Every choice in our lives that separates us from communion with God, and every decision that clouds our awareness of His presence or erodes our relationships with one another has a profound and expanding effect – as the proverbial ripples in a pool.”(92)
8) Saint Athanasius viewed the fall as a reversal of creation, as a relapse into non-being (from which God rescues the Christian)
9) Gregory Nazianzen described material or corporeal existence as a “flowing stream” that “bears with it chaos”
10)God incarnated to rescue us from our suffering
11)God gives us free will and much of our suffering is a consequence of our use thereof
12)Role of our thoughts in our afflictions?
a) Logismoi, etc. (Explain); demonic
b) Wis 1:3: “For perverse thoughts separate men from God”.
c) Elder Paisios said: A single positive thought equals a vigil in Mount Athos
d) How do we keep our thoughts “positive” and “pure”?
(92) Op Cit; 62
13)Demonic activity – individual; corporate (over nations; regions etc.) re: to suffering, affliction, disasters
14)St Maximus (Ambiguam 7): The constant change or flux of material things as a way to redirect deluded creatures toward that which is enduring
15)In the end Christ incarnated to rescue us – not to punish us, although He often uses suffering and affliction to draw us to Him
a) Buddhism teaches that suffering is an inherent characteristic of life; it is fundamentally a pessimistic view and sees the “cure” as an “escape” from life and its consequent suffering
b) Orthodox Christianity, while acknowledging the fall as a reality, is “optimistic” in that the “cure” is Jesus Christ, who died, was buried and rose from the dead (taking our fallen human nature with Him) and alone provides “true “ and “eternal” life
Heaven, Hell and the ‘After Life’
1) Orthodox Christianity teaches a “life” after this life and a resurrection from the dead
a) “…when the soul departs from the body, it immediately enters into the state proper to itself, whereon it dwells until the resurrection”(93)
2) We cannot and should not try to visualize a heaven or hell image or anything beyond the grave
3) Biological death is a beginning, not an end
4) Post-death/ pre-Resurrection state is often referred to by the holy fathers as “repose” or “sleep”
5) “Although a person’s physical, sensual functions have been suspended, the mind has not ceased to function….The ‘intelligent faculty’, the soul, ‘the image of God’ in man continues to be alive because God wills it so, and it perceives in a different dimension, on a different plane and level; thus we see the metaphor of ‘sleeping’ and ‘dreaming’…The primary reason for the use of the term ‘sleep’ to describe the person’s state after death is to teach the resurrection, for a person who is sleeping will awaken and rise up and resume his [full] functions once more…” (94)
(93) The Soul, The Body and Death; Lazar Puhalo; Page 24
(94) IBID; 25
6) The Eastern Orthodox understanding of “Hell” is very different from the Western view, which based on legal and penal paradigms (jail; torture chambers, etc.)
7) Hell [gehenna] is not an instrument of punishment created by God
8) The “fire” of the Last Judgment represents the love of God
9) The holy fathers teach it is the SAME radiance of God’s love which both warms, radiates and gives joy to the faithful (and pure in heart) AND burns and torments the wicked
10)Those persons who in this life preferred “darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” will in the next life, after the resurrection, find no such darkness and will not be able to hide from that light which they hated in this life
11)They will abide forever in the state they chose for themselves in this life
12)St Mark of Ephesus:
13)“We reply that Heaven is not a physical place where the angels dwell like as we, but it is a noetic place, surpassing sense perception, if indeed this should be called a place at all; but more properly, it must be called the ‘place of God.’ For John the Damascene says in his thirteenth Theological Chapter entitled “On The Place of God”: ‘The place of God is said to be that which [or he who] has a greater share in His energy and grace. For this reason the heaven is His throne, for in it are theangels who do His will,’ and again, ‘A noetic place is where the noetic and bodiless nature functions noetically and exists, both is active and is present.” We say, then, that such a place, super celestial and super mundane, noetic and bodiless, contains both the angels and the saints, and we are accustomed to call it Heaven”.(95)
(95) The Soul, The Body And Death; Lazar Puhalo; Page 93-94
14)Contrary to popular Christian belief, “Heaven” or “Hell” do not exist at present, and no one is in “Heaven” or “Hell” yet
15)St Mark of Ephesus:
16)“…it is evident that neither are the saints in perfect enjoyment of those good things and of the blessedness to come, nor have sinners already received condemnation and been sent away to torment. And, indeed, since they are incomplete and, as it were, cut in half, being bereft of their bodies which they wait to receive incorruptible after the resurrection, how could they attain to these perfect rewards?”(96)
17)Where do we go then?
18)“As for now…the righteous abide is all gladness and rejoicing, already awaiting and only not holding in their grasp the Kingdom promised to them and those ineffable good things. But sinners, on the contrary, are in all straitness and inconsolable sorrow, like criminals awaiting the decision of the judge…”
19)In recent years many people, Christians included — not only in the West, but at times also in the Orthodox Church — have come to think that the idea of Hell is inconsistent with belief in a loving God
a) Cf. Hindus speak in terms of hellish states, not an eternal hell
b) Cf. Buddhist cosmology includes a variety of heavens and hells into which a being may be born (also not eternal)
(96) IBID; Page 97
20)While it is true that God loves us with an infinite love, it is also true that He has given us free will
21)Since we have free will, it is possible for us to reject God
22)Since free will exists, Hell exists; for Hell is nothing else than the rejection of God
23)If we deny Hell, we deny free will
24)God will not force us to love Him, for love is no longer love if it is not free; how then can God reconcile to Himself those who refuse all reconciliation?
25)Hell is not so much a place where God imprisons man, as a place where man, by misusing his free will, chooses to imprison himself (97)
(97) From Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware)
26) [And] even in Hell the wicked are not deprived of the love of God, but by their own choice they experience as suffering what the saints experience as joy
a) ‘The love of God will be an intolerable torment for those who have not acquired it within themselves’ (V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 234).
27)The life of the soul from its departure to the Second Coming of Christ, awaits it’s reuniting with the risen body, in what has been called “the intermediate state”
28)Paradise and Hell are not obtained completely but they have a foretaste of the coming joy of the just and the suffering of the sinners
29)This intermediate state is not to be confused with purgatory or the purifying fire of the Latins (Roman Catholic Church)
30)Until the Last Day comes, we must not despair of anyone’s salvation, but must long and pray for the reconciliation of all without exception.
31)No one must be excluded from our loving intercession
32)‘What is a merciful heart?’ asked Isaac the Syrian. ‘It is a heart that burns with love for the whole of creation, for men, for the birds, for the beasts, for the demons, for all creatures’ (Mystic Treatises, edited by A. J. Wensinck, Amsterdam, 1923, p. 341)
33)The holy fathers do NOT teach a concept of Heaven in which the person remains in a static, immutable, cosmic stagnation
34)Entering a timeless existence unbound by mundane physical and temporal restrictions, the person progresses, begun in earthly life, with the beginnings of theosis, unabated and throughout eternity
35)“As we ascend the ladder of spiritual enlightenment, we must embark upon an upward movement that is endless, for the infinitude of God has no bounds and the splendors of God are ineffable.”(98)
(98) IBID; 29
Immortality and the Resurrection
1) Orthodox belief centers on the “resurrection of the dead”, not the “immortality of the soul” (Gnostic / New Age/ Eastern)
a) “I believe in the resurrection of the dead…” – Nicene Creed
2) Immortality of soul as commonly taught is an Eastern and Greek philosophical idea
i) Body-soul dualism
ii) Spiritual-material dualism
iii) The soul is unbegotten and uncreated
iv) The soul has great value compared to the body, which has little to no value
3) Connected with reincarnation / transmigration of the soul characteristic of most – many of the religions that emerged during the Axial Age (800-200 B.C.E.)
4) Rejected by Second Council of Constantinople in 553
5) Why? Not the teaching and experience of Christ and the Apostles or the Judaic tradition
6) Matter = good (Genesis)
7) God created ex nihilo; out of nothing; nothing precedes or is outside of God (eternal souls; preexistent matter, etc.)
8) Individual identity does not survive
a) Incompatible with the Christian idea of personhood
9) God did not create man to die as a being with soul/nous/body, to die
10)Man: body and soul (which includes rational and emotive) as a psychosomatic whole by design
11)St Paul (1 Corinthians 15:35) distinguishes between resuscitation and resurrection
12)Resurrection is not mere resuscitation of a dead body
13)Resurrection implies transformation, as manifested in the description of the Risen Lord
14)“The same body that is buried is the body that is raised up. The identity of the body or the human being is preserved, and yet the whole man is transformed. The resurrection, according to the New Testament witness and teaching as well as the thought of the Fathers of the early Church, is neither a resuscitation of the body – which would exclude any change or transformation – nor a kind of spiritualized resurrection not involving the body.”(99)
15)Why do Orthodox Christians pray and serve commemorations for the departed?
16)The prayers and commemorations for the reposed are acts of love and confessions of faith, not bribes to God, or means of satisfying His need for vengeance, or an appeasement to demons or Satan
17)The benefit to the reposed is in the form of spiritual increase, an increase in their joy and in the mutual exchange of co-suffering and love
18)Our prayers do NOT change the condition or the inheritance of the reposed or obtain for them anything which God will not give them even without our prayers. They are expressions of faith in God’s promises
19)They serve primarily to instruct the living
(99) Quoted in Steven Kostoff article; author: Prof. Veselin Kesich, First Day of the New creation
The Life of the World to Come
1) “…And (I believe in) the life of the world to come…” Nicene Creed
2) What will that “world” look like?
3) Not a science, like the Egyptian Book of the Dead, or the Tibetans
4) “The Church awaits the final consummation of the end, which in Greek theology is termed the ‘apocatastasis’ or ‘restoration,’ when Christ will return in great glory to judge both the living and the dead. This final apocatastasis involves, as we have seen, the redemption and the glorification of matter: at the Last Day the righteous will rise
from the grave and be united once more to a body — not such a body as we now possess, but one that is transfigured and ‘spiritual,’ in which inward sanctity is made outwardly manifest. And not only man’s body but the whole material order will be transformed: God will create a New Heaven and a New Earth.”
5) “Yet the Second Coming is not simply an event in the future, for in the life of the Church, the Age to Come has already begun to break through into this present age. For members of God’s Church, the ‘Last Times’ are already inaugurated, since here and now Christians enjoy the first fruits of God’s Kingdom. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. He comes already — in the Holy Liturgy and the worship of the Church.(100)
(100) Met Kallistos Ware
Addendum
Can Orthodox Christianity Speak To Eastern Religions?
Reprinted from Spring 2008 issue AGAIN Magazine
Kevin Allen
I recently had a conversation with an Eastern Orthodox priest, whose twenty-six year old son recently left home for an indefinite stay at a Buddhist monastery. The priest was heartbroken. His son was not a stranger to Eastern Orthodoxy or to its monastic tradition either, having spent time at several Orthodox monasteries, and even two months on the holy mountain of Mt. Athos. His son’s journey to a non-Christian Eastern religious tradition is not an isolated event. Eastern religions in North America are a growing and competing force in religious life with Christianity. If you count all confessions of Christianity as one, Buddhism is now the third-largest religious group
in the United States, with 2.1 – 2.5 million adherents (based on the 2008 “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey”, The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life), approximately 800,000 of whom are American western “converts”. There are more Buddhists in America today than Eastern Orthodox Christians! The Dalai Lama (the leader of one of the Tibetan Buddhist sects) is one of the most recognized and admired people in the world and far better known than any Eastern Orthodoxhierarch, including the Ecumenical Patriarch.. Look in the magazine section of Borders or Barnes and Noble. You will find more publications with names like “Shambala Sun”, “Buddhadharma”, and
“What is enlightenment?” than Christian magazines!
In addition to losing seekers (many of them youth) to non-Christian eastern spiritual traditions, eastern metaphysics have also seeped into our western culture without much notice. For example, think of how often one hears the phrase “that’s good (or bad) karma”. Karma is a Hindu word that has to do with the consequences of deeds done in a previous life (reincarnation)! They are doing a better job (sadly) “evangelizing” our culture than we Eastern Orthodox Christians are! The Lord Himself commands us clearly “that repentance and remission of sins (baptism)
should be preached in His name to all nations” (Luke 24:47). Buddhists (of which there are many sects) and Hindus (who comprise another 1.2 million Americans) live among us in America in evergrowing numbers right in our own backyards -- in our college classrooms, on our soccer fields, shopping in our “health foods” stores. They are a rich, potential “mission field” for the Eastern Orthodox Church in the United States. Unfortunately with few exceptions, like the writings of MonkDamascene [Christensen] and Kyriakos S. Markides, we are not talking to this group at all. As a former Hindu and disciple of a well-known guru, or spiritual teacher, I can tell you Orthodox Christianity shares more “common ground” with seekers of non-Christian spiritual traditions of the east than any other Christian confession! The truth is when Evangelical Protestants attempt to evangelize the eastern spiritual seeker they often do more harm than good, because their approach is culturally western, rational, and legalistic-juridical with (generally) little understanding of the paradigms and spiritual language (or yearnings) of the seekers of these
eastern traditions.
There are three “fundamental metaphysical principles” that Buddhists and Hindus generally share in common:
1. A common “supra-natural” reality underlies and pervades the phenomenal world. This Supreme Reality isn’t Personal, but Trans-personal. God or Ultimate Reality in these traditions is ultimately a “pure consciousness” without attributes. Buddhists tend to refer this apathetically, as “emptiness”.
2. The human soul is one in essence with this divine reality. All human nature is divine at its core. According to these traditions, Christ or Buddha isn’t a savior, but simply a paradigm of self-realization, the goal of all mankind.
3. Existence is in fundamental unity (monism). Creation isn’t what it appears to the naked eye. It is in essence “illusion”, “unreal” and “impermanent”. There is one underlying ground of being (think “quantum field” in physics!) which unifies all beings and out of which and into which everything can be reduced. What do these metaphysics have in common with our Eastern Orthodox faith? Not much, on the surface. But in the eastern non-Christian spiritual traditions, knowledge is not primarily about the development or dissemination of metaphysical doctrine or theology. This is one of the problems western Christians have communicating with eastern seekers. Eastern religion is never theoretical or doctrinal. It’s about the struggle for liberation from suffering and death. This “existential” emphasis is the first connection Eastern Orthodoxy has with these traditions, because Orthodoxy is
essentially transformative in emphasis.
The second thing we agree on with Buddhists and Hindus is the corrupted state of humanity and human consciousness. The goal of the Christian life according to the Church Fathers is to move from the “sub-natural” or “fallen state” in which we find ourselves (subject to death), to the “natural” or the “according to nature state” after the Image (of God), and ultimately to the “supranatural” or “beyond nature” state, after the Likeness (of God). According to the teaching of the holy fathers the stages of the spiritual life are purification (metanoia), illumination (theoria) and deification (theosis). This paradigm of spiritual formation and transformation is unique to Eastern
Orthodox practice within Christendom. While we don’t agree with Buddhists or Hindus on what “illumination” or “deification” is, we agree on the basic diagnosis of the fallen human condition. As I once said to a practicing Tibetan Buddhist: “We agree on the sickness (of the human condition). Where we disagree is on the cure”.
Eastern Orthodoxy – especially the hesychasm (contemplative) tradition – teaches that true “spiritual knowledge” presupposes a “purified” and “awakened” nous (Greek), which is the “Inner ‘I’” of the soul. For Eastern Orthodox the true theologian isn’t one who simply knows doctrine intellectually or academically, but one “who knows God, or the inner essences or principles of created things by means of direct apprehension or spiritual perception.(101)
” As a well-known Orthodox theologian explains, “When the nous is illuminated, it means that it is receiving the energy of God which illuminates it...”(102) This idea resonates with eastern seekers who struggle to experience –
through non-Christian ascesis and/or occult methods – spiritual illumination. Most eastern spiritual seekers are not aware that the opportunity for profound spiritual illumination, which our hesychasm tradition calls “theoria”, exists within a Christian context.
(101) Makarian Homilies; Glossary of The Philokalia
(102) Hierotheos Vlachos, Life after death; 1995; Birth of the Theotokos Monastery
As part of their spiritual ascesis, Buddhist and Hindu dhamma (practice) emphasizes cessation of desire, which is necessary to quench the passions. Holy Tradition teaches apatheia, or detachment as a means of combating the fallen passions. Hindu and Buddhist meditation methods teach “stillness”. The word hesychia in Holy Tradition – the root of the word for hesychasm – means “stillness”! Buddhism, especially, teaches “mindfulness”. Holy Tradition teaches “watchfulness” so we do not fall into temptation! Hindus and Buddhists understand it is not wise to live for the present life, but to struggle for the future one. We Orthodox agree! Americans who become Buddhist or Hindu are often fervent spiritual seekers used to struggling with foreign languages and cultures (Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Japanese) and pushing themselves outside their “comfort zones”. Converts to the Eastern Orthodox Church can relate! Some Buddhist and Hindu sects even have complex forms of “liturgy” including chant, prostration and veneration of icons! Tibetan Buddhism, especially, places high value on the lives of (their) ascetics, relics and “saints”. The main difference in spiritual experience between Orthodox experience and that of the eastern traditions is that what the eastern non-Christian traditions recognize as “spiritual illumination” or “primordial awareness” – achieved through deep contemplation (Moksha, Samadhi) – Orthodox Holy Tradition understands merely as “self contemplation”. Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), who was experienced in yoga (‘union’) before becoming a hesychast – monk, and disciple of St. Silouan of the holy mountain, wrote this from personalexperience: “All contemplation arrived at by this means (Yoga, etc.) is selfcontemplation, not contemplation of God. In these circumstances we open up for ourselves created beauty, not First Being. And in all this there is no salvation for man.”(103)
(103) On Prayer; Sophrony; pages 168-170
Clement of Alexandria, two thousand years ago, wrote that pre-Christian philosophers were often inspired by God, but he cautioned the Christian must be careful what to take from them! So we acknowledge that the eastern seeker, through his ascesis or contemplative disciplines, may have an experience at deep levels of created beauty, or created being (through selfcontemplation), para-normal dimensions, or even an experience of the “quantum field” modern
physics has purportedly discovered! But is this what the eastern seeker is really struggling for? This is the key question! Only in the Eastern Orthodox Church, through its deifying mysteries will the seeker be brought into the province of Uncreated Divine Life. It is only in the Orthodox Church – of all Christian confessions - that the eastern seeker will find there is more to “salvation” than simply forgiveness of sins and justification before God. He will be led to participate in the Uncreated Energies of God and through them “be partakers of the divine nature.” (II Peter 1:4). As a member of the Body of Christ he will join in the deifying process and be increasingly transformed after the Likeness! Deification is available to all who enter the Holy Orthodox Church, are baptized (which begins the deifying process) and partakes of the holy mysteries. It is not just the monks, ascetics and the spiritual athletes!
Eastern Orthodoxy has much to share with eastern spiritual seekers. Life and death hangs in the balance in this life, not the millions of lives eastern seekers think they have! As the Apostle Paul soberly reminds us, “…it is appointed for men to die once but after this the judgment.” (Heb. 9:27). May God give us the vision to begin reaching out and sharing the “true light” of the Holy Orthodox faith with seekers of the eastern spiritual traditions.
Saint Athanasius and the ‘Penal Substitutionary’ Atonement Doctrine
Kevin Allen
(Reprinted from Preacher’s Institute)
In reading On The Incarnation (DE INCARNATION VERBI DEI) by Saint Athanasius, or parts of it, I am reminded of C.S. Lewis’ admonition that if we must “read only the new or the old, I would advise…to read the old”. His reasoning is that “A new book is still on trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages.” This is true, I believe, of Christian doctrines and ideas
too: they must be consonant with and tested against ‘the great body of Christian thought down the ages.’
Unfortunately many in Christendom today accept without reservation ideas that have been passed down to them that do not meet the “great-body-of-Christianthought-down-the-ages” test. What is even more troublesome is that many Christians do not know (or care?) that they are accepting theological innovations of later or modern
centuries, some of which are not in keeping with early church teaching or ethos (or worse yet, perhaps even contradicting them). I believe the central Evangelical doctrine of penal substitution of the atonement (Christ’s
vicarious punishment for my sins as the central work or accomplishment of the cross) is one of these. Contemporary Evangelical Protestant theologian J.I. Packer calls it, “a distinguishing mark of the word-wide evangelical fraternity: namely, the belief that the cross had the character of penal substitution, and that it was in virtue of this fact that it
brought salvation to mankind.”(104)
(104) What Did the Cross Achieve: The Logic of Penal Substitution: J.I. Packer
One of the interesting discoveries I made reading St Athanasius’ seminal book, written in the early fourth century, is the complete absence of a notion that, for Evangelical Christians, has come to be the central Gospel message itself: the doctrine that Christ paid by vicarious punishment atonement for our individual sins (for which we deserve punishment). Billy Graham is perhaps the most well-known contemporary proponent of this doctrine. I recall hearing him preach many times on television that Christ suffered a horrific death as a punishment (IE penalty) for your and my sins. This idea never resonated with me because it raised disturbing issues about the nature of a God Who required such justice served by sending His Son into the world. However, as theologian J.I. Packer observes, the stark absence of this view in the early church fathers should not come as a surprise since it is a 16thcentury-born medieval interpretation:
“…Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Melanchthon and their reforming contemporaries were the pioneers in stating it (my emphasis)… What the Reformers did was to redefine satisfactio (satisfaction), the main mediaeval category for thought about the cross. Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo?, which largely determined the mediaeval development, saw Christ’s satisfactio for our sins as the offering of compensation or damages for dishonour done, but the Reformers saw it as the undergoing of vicarious punishment (poena) to meet the claims on us of God’s holy law and wrath (i.e. his punitive justice).”(105) The problem with this doctrine is not in the idea of “substitution”. Early church fathers, of course, understood the meaning and redemptive work of the cross as a “substitution” (IE. Christ in place of us). St Athanasius himself writes: “Thus taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death in place of all, and offered it to the Father (an offering, not a penalty – my emphasis). This He did for sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, when He had fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was therefore voided of its power for men.”(106) Later the Saint writes that His death on the Cross was a “sufficient exchange for all.” (107) Later yet he writes of His death on the cross as “a debt owing (my emphasis) which must be paid”(108) And finally he writes, “He died to ransom all…” (109)
(105) Ibid
(106) On The Incarnation; page 34
(107) Ibid; 35
(108) Ibid; 49
(109) Ibid; 51.
So for Saint Athanasius the words exchange, debt, and ransom are used to explain the work of Our Lord on the Cross on our behalf. Contrast this with the more legalistic and penal (IE punishment) explanation of John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion: “Thus we perceive Christ representing the character of a sinner and a criminal…and it becomes manifest that he suffers for another's and not for his own crime." What is the problem with the theory of penal substitution?“The penal satisfaction theory is entirely legalistic. It assumes that the order of law and justice is absolute; free forgiveness would be a violation of this absolute order; God's love must be carefully limited lest it infringe on the demands of justice. Sin is a crime against God and the penalty must be paid before forgiveness can become available. According to this view God's love is conditioned and limited by his justice; that is, God cannot exercise His love to save man until His righteousness (justice) is satisfied. Since God's justice requires that sin be punished, God's love cannot save man until the penalty of sin has been paid, satisfying His justice. God's love is set in opposition to His righteousness, creating a tension and problem in God….According to this legalistic theology, this is why Christ needed to die; he died to pay the penalty of man's sin and to satisfy the justice of God. The necessity of the atonement is the necessity of satisfying the justice of God; this necessity is in God rather than in man. (my emphasis). And since this necessity is in God, it is an absolute necessity. If God is to save man, God must satisfy His justice before He can in love save man.”
For many who may want to know Our Lord, or are drawn to know God, the idea that God the Father required Christ to suffer punishment in order to somehow appease or satisfy His sense of righteousness or justice is an abhorrent idea, keeping many people from accepting the actual love and mercy of God and perverting a correct understanding of the nature of God the Father. How do we Eastern Orthodox and the early church tradition understand the debt, the exchange, the ransom and to whom it was paid?
Saint Athanasius writes, “For by the sacrifice of His own body He did two things: He put an end to the law of death
which barred our way; and He made a new beginning of life for us…”(110)
To whom did He make the sacrifice?
“It was by surrendering to death (my emphasis) the body which He had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, that He forthwith abolished death for his human brethren by the offering of the equivalent.” (111)
The Saint teaches that Christ died, not to appease God the Father, but to rescue mankind (you and me) from death! That was “to whom” he sacrificed himself – the existential/ontological reality of death; that “through this union of the immortal Son of God with our human nature, all men were clothed with incorruption in the promise of the resurrection. For the solidarity of mankind is such that, by virtue of the Word’s indwelling in a single human body, the corruption which goes with death has lost its power over all.”
110 Ibid; 37
111 Ibid; 35
This may seem like a small difference, perhaps even a nuance; however it is a difference that is significant, as it correctly represents the nature of God as “the lover of mankind,” rather than a cosmic egotistical despot or a slave to divine legalism, and the work of the cross as a supreme act of sacrificial love by Our Lord, in which the Holy Trinity was acting (and continues to act) in one accord.
