Arsenios
Well-known member
That they were answering Homer... I saw in him the sources of all their efforts to bring philosophic answers to what he posed.
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Arsenios
ECT This should start a decent discussion: Universal Atonement
- Thread starter TFTn5280
- Start date
That they were answering Homer... I saw in him the sources of all their efforts to bring philosophic answers to what he posed.
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Arsenios
TFTn5280
New member
Please speak more in regards to "the professor." Did you think his take on Gr Orthodoxy correct?
False Prophet
New member
If everybody gets saved, then why do we need hell?
TFTn5280
New member
If everybody gets saved, we won't need hell.
Seriously folks, the interview in my opening post may actually be a good introduction to the OP... (It might even address the above question.)
Arsenios
Well-known member
I recall him saying that the Orthodox believe in repentance to the end in this life even after they are "saved"... And that they shared this "problem" with the Latin Church... Such that without the works of repentance, there is no salvation in Orthodoxy... And that the fathers of the Reformation "solved" this "problem" for them, by giving to Christ the atonement that we but passively receive...
Biblically, this runs afoul of the Scripture which tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven is now suffering violence, and that the violent are taking it by force, and that that force is repentance, which is self-denial and suffering for the sake of Christ's Body now on earth, which IS the Kingdom of Heaven on earth...
We solidly believe that the Kingdom of Heaven is not attained on earth without man repenting from his sins insofar as he is able to do so, and asking God for the rest: "Help Thou O Lord my UN-belief..." etc...
I was too interested in his take on the failure of Latin Rome to effectuate repentance from sins by the imposition of penances that was the root cause of the Reformation to really pay all that much attention to his critique of Orthodoxy... He did seem to think that one of the reformers was in fundamental agreement with St. Athanasius...
If you could summarize his take on the EOC's Faith that you were wondering about I could probably answer you better without listening to the whole lecture again...
Arsenios
TFTn5280
New member
Interesting, I heard him say that by-in-large the Reformers carried on Augustine's "bottom up" approach to theology, starting first with the sin problem and interpreting Scripture ~ and thus atonement; make that the western penal jurisprudence view of atonement ~ from that context; rather than Athanasius' top down approach (hence the Eastern tradition), where we learn of ourselves, as included in Christ's atoning work, through the eyes of our risen Lord, perpetuated in our (Western) day in Barth and Torrance, repentance being the natural (as in super-natural) but non-legalistic response to the ever present mediating faith of Christ in us.
OCTOBER23
New member
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The most crucial aspect to be considered in the study of philosophy is the depiction of human action in Homeric poems. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, human action was mainly influenced by the gods. The somewhat divine intervention of deities was attributed to otherwise inexplicable feats done by the mortal characters. However, the hand of the gods was not only limited to the extraordinary actions in these poems, almost every form of unremarkable action in these pieces of literature were somehow associated with Olympian intervention. Everything from a successful hit in a battle, a sudden outburst of rage, an undesirable transaction and many other things could somehow be traced back to the gods.
Because of this feature in Homer’s works, many philosophers even in modern times remark that Homer was a firm believer in the absence of free will. Some even claim that Homer may have had very little grasp on the facets of human personality. However, the other side of the spectrum claims that Homer was no philosopher and that any moral responsibility and relations among humans as a whole were only partly affected by divine intervention and part of that action could still be blamed on human volition. Generally, Homeric poems provided a strong background for philosophical study during that era and examined the relations between gods and men in a different perspective.
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Homer Simpson is my favourite philosopher, Doh.
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The most crucial aspect to be considered in the study of philosophy is the depiction of human action in Homeric poems. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, human action was mainly influenced by the gods. The somewhat divine intervention of deities was attributed to otherwise inexplicable feats done by the mortal characters. However, the hand of the gods was not only limited to the extraordinary actions in these poems, almost every form of unremarkable action in these pieces of literature were somehow associated with Olympian intervention. Everything from a successful hit in a battle, a sudden outburst of rage, an undesirable transaction and many other things could somehow be traced back to the gods.
Because of this feature in Homer’s works, many philosophers even in modern times remark that Homer was a firm believer in the absence of free will. Some even claim that Homer may have had very little grasp on the facets of human personality. However, the other side of the spectrum claims that Homer was no philosopher and that any moral responsibility and relations among humans as a whole were only partly affected by divine intervention and part of that action could still be blamed on human volition. Generally, Homeric poems provided a strong background for philosophical study during that era and examined the relations between gods and men in a different perspective.
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Homer Simpson is my favourite philosopher, Doh.
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Nang
TOL Subscriber
Eh?
you having trouble hearing Nang - or are you being UNNECESSARILY DISRUPTIVE ? - :doh:
View attachment 19540
Arsenios
Well-known member
Yes, he talked about bottom up vs top down, and how the EOC is the latter, and the Legalistic tradition of the Latin Church the former... I might have to listen again...
I must say that the EOC sees the matter from the top down, and sees the Church as the repository of Grace unto Salvation, which we understand in terms of lives lived, rather than in terms of Christ having lived... But what we claim is what we received from Christ from the beginnings, and not what we read in the New Testament which we wrote... We claim the Grace that causes the writing of the New Testament, but that it comes at great price, for the Apostles all left all to follow Christ, including Paul of Tarsus... They threw away their lives to have Life... And that throwing away is a great work, the work of Salvation... The less that is denied of the self, the less room we have for Christ in us... So that we are ever growing into Christ in us, as we ever more turn from self and unto God... There is NO limit to this growth into Christ in us... It is the Kingdom of Heaven which is at hand, here and now, and unto the ages of ages, within us, and among us... This is how Christ set it up for His Body, Whose Head He IS...
That is why we confess our belief in one, holy, catholic and Apostolic Church, which is Christ's Body, bought for a price... So that when we are baptized INTO Christ, it is Christ's atoning sacrifice that has paid for the remission of all our sins, and we are washed clean and sanctified by the Anointing of the Holy Spirit at the hands of His Servants in His Body... We believe in the Church, because the Church is the Living Body of our Lord on earth... One Body... One Faith... One Lord...
I will try to listen to the tape again... This is a rambling response, I know... But what we do does not follow western neo-scholastic formulaics... The Faith is ENTERED, not logically derived, and that entry is by repentance from sin followed by Baptism into Christ... In this we enter the Mystery of the Faith of Christ, where fallen human logical thinking can describe but not define it... A purified conscience is the vehicle of its possession, as Paul records, and this cathartic is only attained in repentance, followed by Baptism into Christ, followed by the 'running of the race set before us', persevering to the end... there are no limits to how high we can attain, for God has no limits... Yet in our living of repentant lives, we but keep and maintain the purity we were given in our Baptism into Christ, and in that race being run, we gain more and more maturity in the Faith that Christ prescribed for us as the medicine of immortality...
And against this background of Life being lived, I didn't hear a lot of what the professor was saying... And I wasn't taking notes... And I heard the cause of the Reformation as he articulated it, and I think he is right...
So forgive the ramble...
Sometimes I just start out on a sentence/thought, and have no idea where it will end up...
If it is too awful, I can delete it...
Arsenios
Arsenios
Well-known member
The Greeks of that period were consummate thinkers, having a written language that reflected a pre-literate organizing of thought... And they were deep thinkers... I loved Homers description of the fire of the Goddess Athena entering one of her favorites, such that while it was there, no man could withstand him in combat... And his description of the souls of the slain in battle "scurrying down into shadowy hades"... I am not remembering it aright, but the descent was watery in insubstantial...
But it was Homer who set the stage for all of Greek life in the stories that he gave poetic form around the early campfires that sparked the flowering of the Greek mind... To this day, if you are going to learn to speak Greek, you first have to learn to think it, because it involves a different construct of mind...
And the Iliad was a Tragedy, and that art form itself reflected what we see today, writ large, where the very trait that causes human greatness causes its downfall... The Anger of Achilles, was it not? No ordinary anger...
But all that was for naught when cometh God... All worldly things went inside out, upside down and backwards... Silence and stillness in purity of heart became essential tools of living for the Giver of Life now encountered and made known, but not in words...
When an atheist meets God, it is a terrible thing to behold...
And blessed...
Arsenios
You are right, that is exactly how I understood him too.
The way of penance and flagellation is not the way to victory. But YOUR answer [if I may respectfully point out] is but a milder form of penance and flagellation for you say the answer is "lifelong struggle"
The bible way is by revelation.
We must allow the revelation to take firm grip of our hearts and mind.
"They overcame the devil by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony" When we fully understand that those sins which once had domination and beset us have been WASHED AWAY and we confess it and embrace it and rejoice over it...the devil must back off.
He KNOWS he was defeated at Calvary. The cross is our victory over sin.
is this where we all stand up and cheer?
so
what does it mean?
it sure sounds good
I don't know about you
but
I see sin all around me
and
believe or not
I still sin
Arsenios
Well-known member
Thank-you - It was a big AHA moment for me, and I was beginning to think that I was the only one who got it, or that perhaps I had gotten it wrong...
Penance properly understood CAN be a way of victory, and under this, flagellation only rarely if at all, and then NOT as punishment of the flesh, but as a counter to the pleasure impulse imparted by the demon of fornication, and normally not with a whip but with some counter imposition of pain that neutralizes the noesis of pleasure abiding in one's members... Paul spoke of it as the subduing of the body, and not as a shadow-boxer only striking the air...
But the point here is that because Salvation came in the flesh, Christ our God, we will find it in overcoming the tyranny of the flesh, because pleasure and pain die at death, and we are baptized into the Death of Christ, and are to conduct ourselves accordingly, which invokes the issue of Christian virtue entailing courage and steadfastness...
Mortification of the flesh is a feature of living a repentant life, and is an ongoing practice of the saints who live ascetic lives. Paul tells us we are to "mortify our members"... And Christ tells us that we are tot take the hard and straited Way of Salvation... He asked regarding John the Forerunner: "What did you come expecting to see? Soft and royal robes and cushions and sumptuous fare?" [at least words to that effect] "A reed shaken in the wind?" And I do not know if you have ever girt your loins in 1st century leathers, or worn a camel hair shirt... One of our very highly ascetic fathers, elder Joseph the Hesychast, tried wearing one... He did not last two days in it...
And the Revelation is Christ IN THE FLESH... THAT is God's Revelation of His Word and our Lord...
It cannot take that particular firm grip if we are still submitting ourselves to our flesh... There IS a mind of the flesh, and there IS a mind of the Spirit, and they are not co-equal...
Salvation is not a merely mental exercise... It is not merely an IDEA... It is an ontological condition of a soul in union with God and thereby making no provision for the flesh... That is why the very first word of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is: REPENT! It is through repentance that God saves us... For we are saved by God's Grace, through the Faith of Christ which disciples us to repent and be baptized, every one of us... And we know from Paul that we are Baptized into Christ in the Holy Spirit... Paul Himself baptized a few, though that was not his particular calling...
Satan WAS defeated at Calvary, but NOT in YOUR flesh, and not in MY flesh, but in the fleshly Body of our Lord alone... The victory over sin was Christ's bodily victory, and that is why we are BAPTIZED INTO CHRIST, because His is the ONLY Body in which sin has been overcome, and we in Him can then find our own victory...
But the Cross of Calvary will NOT hand us victory UNLESS we take up our own cross each and every day and follow Christ... It is called living a saved life, or a Christian life, which denies self and embraces union with our Lord in constant prayer without ceasing...
The only thing lacking in the sufferings of Christ for our sakes is our own sufferings for Him... And this is what Paul was "filling in", and it is what we are all called to do, for in this is the joining of our marriage to the Lamb of God...
In the world, you WILL find tribulation...
It is IN this tribulation that you will find union with God...
The Joy that is NOT of this world...
Arsenios
Arsenios
Well-known member
Do you give confession for your sinning?
Are you given penances?
Are you overcoming your sinning?
Arsenios
Cross Reference
New member
ttruscott
Well-known member
Exactly and far from 'needing hell' why was it ever mentioned in scripture or by Christ??? If there is no hell, such a mention must be drivel, a mind slobber of an excruciating ecstasy, meaningless at best and somewhat schizoid at worst.
Their opinion of their God is anathema,
Peace, Ted
TFTn5280
New member
Chill out, no one's talking about universalism. (If you dunces would watch the video in my opening post, you would know that. Or, here's a novel idea: follow the thread and read the ten other times I've explained this!)
Blessings,