Comments on: Exploring the Twain 5 – Major issues between East and West

By: aldenswan.com » Blog Archive » Exploring the Twain 7: Eastern Orthodoxy and Universalism

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 07:49:44 +0000

[...] is not one of the issues on my list, but I have run across a couple of articles and podcasts concerning the issue of universalism, so I [...]

By: The Priest Paul

The Priest Paul — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:25:40 +0000

There are two gaps here at least. In the previous comment I was referring to the ontological gap which is absolute and eternal as far as God’s essence and the essence of creation. Creation is made absolutely and entirely by God, but it is made out of nothing, not out of God’s own nature as would be understood by pantheism.
This gap is crossed by God’s Energy, Operation, or manifestation. This energy is referred to in all the names of God and all the qualities of God revealed in the Bible.
The Fathers teach that Christ is the image of God in His humanity. Nellas, for example in his work on Deification, says that Adam was created in the image of the image. He was created at the beginning of a path.
My understanding is that through fellowship with God he was meant to realize the fulfillment of his purpose in Christ, even apart from sin. This is speculation because he did in fact sin and fell off the path and lost immortality, so we have Romans 5 12 ff.
This fall into death is a second gap that Christ crossed in His work of salvation which is applied by obedient faith and love in the sacramental life of the Church.
This is described by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians and Colossians, for example,
Deification is described in
Eph 3:17-19
17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height — 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. NKJV
Pray for me a sinner.

By: me

me — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:41:53 +0000

I think there is also a difference between East and West in defining what the gap actually is. Even prior to “the fall,” there was a gap between man and God. Some in the West have the concept that crossing the gap means becoming like Adam. Does Theosis hold that man’s destiny is higher than that of Adam (assuming Adam also had a higher destiny)?

By: The Priest Paul

The Priest Paul — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:06:13 +0000

I think that in all Christian theology there is and ought to be a gap between God and and His creation, especially man as the center of that creation . It is the ex nihilo gap. Karl Barth called it “the infinite qualitative difference between God and man.”
In the West there is a problem about how this gap is crossed. It began with Augustine and Pelagius. Augustine emphasizing God’s work and Pelagius emphasizing man’s. John Cassian representing the East takes a middle position, called Semi-Pelagianism in the West.
St. Maximos said that we can become gods by grace but not by nature. The West is nervous about any kind of Theosis. Eckhart trying to develop an experiential theology falls into Pantheism because he lacks the doctrine of the difference between God’s essence and His energy, which is clearly developed by the Cappadocians, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Gregory Palamas.
The doctrine is that God is unknown and not participated in by man in his Essense or Superessential nature, but is knowable, known and participated in by the saints in His Divine energy.
Doctrinal division developed in the Scholastic period between the Dominicans who emphasized God’s work and the Fransiscan’s who emphasized man’s will. There was no synergy because there was no doctrine of Divine energy in which man could participate.
This continued in the Calvinistic Armenian debate. I suspect it is the basis for the Roman emphasis on the authority of the Papacy to cross the gap, and the Federal theory of the Atonement to legally cross the gap.
In Orthodoxy Communion/Synergy is the center of everything. To be developed.

By: me

me — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:03:48 +0000

Paul, not to worry. I’m not known for protecting commenters egos, but I do try to remain respectful.

I’m interested in your earlier comment about the difference between energy and synergy being the cause of the Calvinist-Arminian issue. If you feel inclined, please feel free to expand on that thought?

By: The Priest Paul

The Priest Paul — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:23:49 +0000

Please don’t feel you need to protect my ego. Wat ever you may say will not be as cutting as the triple by-pass I had last August 24 and I am thanking our Lord for that.

By: The Priest Paul

The Priest Paul — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:30:18 +0000

i Apologize for my careless mis-spellings and typos. Embarrassing and irritating. I will try to edit more carefully.

By: The Priest Paul

The Priest Paul — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:38:01 +0000

The Russian Orthodox Church has always accepted Holy aptism from Rome or Lutheran and many accept Baptism if it was in the name of the Trinity. Some think that the baptism becomes Orthodox when the Chrismation takes place in the Orthodoz parish.
I studied under John Gerstner at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He said the the RCC was the true Church until they offically rejected the Gospel in the 12th article on Justification in the c ouncil of Trent. I believe they lost something basic when they forsake the Church in 1054 and sustained that rejection until this point,
I do not think the Orthodox Ch ever offically rejected the Gospel and still is the true Church.
The West has lost a good deal of sound theology since, especially failing to teach the distinction between God’s essence an energy and synergy which is the cause of the Calvinist Armenian division.

By: The Priest Paul

The Priest Paul — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:26:43 +0000

I wouldn’t say that there were or are two or more churches. That doesn’t seem to be in accord with the Bible or holy tradition, that is, the manifestation of the life of the Spirit of Christ in and through God’s people.
We would all agree that there is one body of Christ. There reality of that body in space and time in the institution is subject to our cooperation and is problematic
I think that is one reason we constantly look to the saints, the people who the Church recognizes as having got it right.
The Orthodox church according to Fr, Meyendorff, is fully itself in partaking of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.
It seems to my poor grasp of history is that Rome separated themselves from us. That was to my mind a dangerous act and something of which I repented for my part, when I was chrismated.
The russian Orthodox Church has always accepted Holy Baptism of Rome or of the Lutheran t

By: me

me — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:22:14 +0000

I understand, I think, the point Paul was making. When the Nicene Creed was being developed, there were no denominations – just the one Orthodox church. So, the early church never considered the concept of the “invisible” church.

I am presuming that this is something that Luther and the other reformers would have considered (though at that time, there were actually 2 churches, the Eastern and the RCC).

I would also guess that this has come up in the various dialogs between the EO and other churches over the years. I should look into that …