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An Orthodox view of Salvation

My friend Duncan posted the following video on Facebook this evening.  It’s worth watching, whatever your theological background; it’s especially worth watching if you’ve no familiarity with Eastern Orthodoxy.

I have a very deep respect and appreciation for Eastern Orthodoxy, although I do have some disagreements with various points. (Of course, to the Eastern Orthodox, my issues don’t matter.) I have just finished reading Three Views of Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism, in which a number of theologians discuss various differences in approach.  I have perhaps more disagreements with evangelicalism than I do with Eastern Orthodoxy; as I’ve remarked before, I tend often to side with Luther, who tends to be somewhere in the middle of these two camps.  This is not because I was raised Lutheran (I don’t think, anyway), but because Luther just seems to echo what Paul appears to say.

So, while I do agree with much that is said in the video, the Orthodox position on cooperative salvation – our work being added to the work of Christ – is something I have an issue with.  I do agree that we were saved 2,000 years ago, that I am currently being saved (Luther seemed to agree with the Orthodox understanding of theosis or deification), and that at the final judgment I will be saved.  Again, this is simply an echo of Paul.

My problem with the Orthodox view comes from 2 main sources: Paul, and Jesus.  And yes, these are pretty good sources.  The Orthodox view of cooperative salvation seems to beg Paul’s rhetorical question in Galatians 3:3: “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?”  Paul seems to be clearly saying in this letter that to add any human effort to the work of Christ is to lose the Gospel completely.

To this, add the words of Jesus in John 10:27-29:

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.

I do believe that we are to continue in good works; that is the work of the Spirit in us. I just don’t believe that this contributes at all to our salvation, and in fact, can be as dangerous as Peter’s reverting to kosher food.  That’s not me, that’s Paul.  I’m guessing that there is an Orthodox interpretation of Galatians, and I would be very interested in seeing it.

Without further commentary, here’s the video.  Again, I do agree with most of it, and very much appreciate the spirit in which this is presented:

Written on 18 September 2009 by me under Theological Musings with 2 Comments
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Tradition!

No, I’m not trying out for Fiddler on the Roof.  I’ve been thinking a bit lately about the concept of Tradition (and tradition) in church theology.  Yeah, I know, I tend to think about some obscure things.  First, a little background:

Tradition, with a capital “T”, is also known in the Eastern Orthodox churches as Holy Tradition.  OrthodoxWiki.com defines Holy Tradition as “the deposit of faith given by Jesus Christ to the Apostles and passed on in the Church from one generation to the next without addition, alteration or subtraction.”  Holy Tradition is not given equal status with Scripture, however it is seen as authoritative as far as the interpretation of Scripture goes.  It does not change or grow with understanding or time.  While in the Roman Catholic Church the Pope can “amend” church doctrines, there is no one in the Orthodox Church with that authority.  Again, Tradition doesn’t change, it just is.

This, of course, is debated by all other churches.  The RCC has, as I have pointed out, a different approach to church authority, giving preference to the Pope.  This is really what the Reformation was all about.  One of the main doctrines emphasized by Luther and the other reformers is sola Scriptura, or “Scripture alone” as the church’s source of authority.

Protestants: Sola Scriptura

While by and large the protestant churches all affirm this, there are many different approaches, which in part explains why there are so many different churches and traditions (with a small “t”).  One problem is that many evangelical churches have no respect whatsoever for the earlier church teachings, instead preferring their own unique twists of interpretation.  Personally, I find this quite dangerous, allowing for much bizarre error to creep in, and allowing for bizarre creeps to mislead many people.

What I find really interesting, however, is that so many churches say “sola Scriptura” but in practice have their own form of tradition that controls them as much as the Eastern Orthodox is guided by their Tradition.

Lutherans

I’ll pick on the Lutherans because I was one, and still hold to a lot of Lutheran approaches to things.  Luther, of course, rejected the Pope’s authority in favor of Scripture alone.  However, over the years, the Lutherans developed a number of documents that defined the “Lutheran” faith, including the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, Luthers’ Catechism and the Formula of Concord. These are all published in one rather large volume known as The Book of Concord.  Some Lutherans, especially in the Missouri Synod, will quote this as much if not more than the Bible itself.  It is interesting to me that the church that first developed Sola Scriptura holds so strongly to a 2nd book.

Calvinists

For Calvinists, there is also a slough of documents that guide their interpretation of Scripture. There is the Westminster Confession, Calvin’s Institutes, the TULIP, and so on.  Calvinists, even more so than Lutherans, will default to Calvinist Tradition rather than go back to Scripture.

All the rest

To look at the rest would take far too much time; nearly everyone has some kind of tradition guiding them, even if it is to be “blown to and fro by every wind of doctrine.”  Some, of course, are less dogmatic than others. The ELCA (Lutheran) and the Episcopal Church have all but left the faith, setting aside even Scripture as authoritative.  Then you have those who follow whatever “prophetic word” floats by.  Fundamentalists are dognatic, but in violation of the clear meaning of Scripture as well as any other source of authority or interpretation.

Emergents

There are many in the “emerging” movements which have chosen to be “blown to and fro” with concepts such as “open-source theology” or even becoming somewht “interfaith.”

My own thoughts

My personal belief is that Scripture – while being open to each individually – is not necessarily open to all individual interpretation.  I think it is important to look to the Church Fathers (2nd-4th Centuries) for guidance, as well as look at the wise men through the ages.  However, I am not convinced that the early Church Fathers had everything perfect.  I think Luther recovered some major truths, but not all.  (I can’t say the same for Calvin, however.)

For example, there are some people with new thoughts about Biblical interpretation, such as NT Wright, who are coming under attack by Calvinists, Lutherans, and others as he dares question traditional interpretations of core doctrines such as Justification.  Now, I tend to think Luther’s thinking follows Paul as closely as possible; however, Wright has some interesting thoughts. Should he be dismissed simply because he doesn’t follow the TULIP or Concord?  Not necessarily.  I don’t even mind if he disputes Chrysostom or Polycarp; I don’t think they saw in the mirror any clearer than Paul did.

Bottom line, I think we need to be open-minded, but with a very healthy dose of respect for historical interpretations of the Bible.  If your own thoughts don’t fit in any existing tradition, then it’s time to rethink.  You may have a valid point, but it’s more probable that you’re simply wrong.


Written on 14 September 2009 by me under Church, Theological Musings with 2 Comments
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Fr. Dmitiri Dudko on faith and proof

Russian Orthodox priest Father Dmitri Dudko was both a heroic and a tragic figure in Communist Russia.  He was under constant scrutiny by the KGB, but continued to teach the truth of Christianity. While Christian dialog was prohibited, in 1972 and 73 he asked his congregation to submit questions they had, which he then addressed in his sermons. Many of these were written down by those in attendance, and distributed around Russia (not unlike the spread of the NT documents, or Luther’s 95 Theses).  In 1977 many of these were published outside of Russia in a volume entitled Our Hope, which reveals much about the church in Russia in the early 70′s, as well as providing some thoughtful questions and answers about the Christian faith in the context of an overtly atheistic culture.

Dudko was eventually broken by the KGB and coerced into recanting, which was apparently televised.  He later confessed how much he regretted his mistake, writing “Compared to the hell that I then brought into my soul, anything – even torture or execution – would have been easier to bear.”  He died in 2004.

The other night I picked up the book, and opened it to page 140:

Question: What proof is there in apologetics of Christ’s resurrection?

Answer: Proofs? Nowadays we’ve begun to prove everything. Prove that you love. Prove there’s a sun in the sky, or clouds. Prove you’re a man, not a camel…  So they ask me to produce proofs of Christ’s Resurrection.  We consider proofs to be an important argument, whereas in fact they’re no argument at all.  Proofs are the fruit of our weakness and not of our strength, the fruit of our unbelief.  Forgive me, but I don’t want to know any proofs, and I wouldn’t recommend that you seek them.  The fundamental proof is our faith. If we have no faith, no proofs will help.

But then, of course, the question arises:  Does this mean that we must believe blindly?  “Believe because it’s absurd,” like Tertullian?  I would like to address precisely this: the absurdity and the “blindness” of faith.  For in fact, faith is vision.  …  Faith, as one Russian philosopher said, is profound knowledge. The knowledge we glean from books is shallow, and with its help all we can learn are earthly laws.  But knowledge of the resurrection of Christ demands profound knowledge  – that is, not merely stuffing your head full of quotations and information, but transfiguring your entire being. That brings profound knowledge: faith.  Yes, faith often contradicts the shallow variety of knowledge, and shallow knowledge in turn considers faith to be absurdity.  It is for this reason that Tertullian said, “I believe because it is absurd” – not because faith itself is agsurd, but because shallow knowledge, the sinful world, considers it to be so.  I believe, not because it is absurd in general, but only because from your point of view it is absurd. In this way, we believe Christ’s Resurrection, but we don’t “prove” it. You have no faith?  That is your misfortune. …

… I know that there are people who doubt the Gospel, who insist that it’s not convincing. It is difficult to refute such people. They can only be pitied, for those who say such things are unable to believe; they have not yet acquired profound knowledge.

This is brilliant- this is an understanding of knowledge that can’t be comprehended from within a modernist framework, which by intent considers only “shallow” knowledge as reasonable.

Written on 23 July 2009 by me under Epistemology, Faith, Science & Doubt, Philosophy with 5 Comments
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Augustine was a trouble-maker

Augustine ultimately attempted to weld together philosophical motions of the divine essence to the tenets of the Christian faith and, in so doing, allowed the content of Christian faith to be determined by the logic of philosphical rationalism.  The rationalization of theology by Augustine would be a fateful move that would determine western thinking about God, through Descartes and, ultimately, ending in the atheistic nihilism of Nietzeche. - from Orthodox Readings of Augustine By George Demacopoulos, Aristotle Papanikolaou

It’s true that Augustine was the Church’s great champion of grace, defeating the Pelagian heresy (of course, never mind that evangelicalism has to a large part reverted to Pelagianism).  However, I’m not sure that what he gave the west was much better. If anything, Augustine’s heresy is more insidious.  It certainly sounds Pauline, talking about grace and all.  However, in his attempt to shut down Pelagius, Augustine develops the concept of inherited guilt; that is, we are not just born with a defective, fallen nature because of Adam, we are held guilty because Adam sinned.

Now, Augustine has put himself in a position where he is forced to toss the baby out with the bath: his concept of inherited guilt means that infants are born guilty. If a baby dies without being baptized, they are condemned to hell, because that’s the rule. Baptism is the only “cure” for original sin, you see.  It would seem that Augustine’s view of grace runs into a bit of a problem here: If we must act to initiate baptism in order to be saved, then we are relying on some human effort (even though it is God who does the baptizing).

Augustine’s complex view of grace also includes the concepts of double predestination and perseverance, concepts which Calvin popularized some years later.  Double predestination is the logical conclusion that if God predestines some to be saved, then logically he must predestine some to be damned.  The doctrine of perseverance says basically that we cannot know the future; we may become apostate and fall away from grace (which essentially must mean that we were not predestined to be saved in the first place).

The effect of Augustine’s teaching on Total Depravity (the inherited sin/guilt thing) resulted in a theology where a chasm exists between man and God.  The Eastern church, on the other hand, held that while man inherited a fallen nature, our guilt is purely our own. Furthermore, man’s destiny is to become Christ-like, or “partakers of the divine nature.”  This concept, known as theosis or deification, was closer to where Luther ended up after he moved away from Augustine’s position.  Deification doesn’t mean that we are becoming God, but it does mean that we are being united with God, and being conformed to His image.

As with Descartes, Augustine’s thinking has predominated the west – especially the reformed traditions – to the extent that we don’t even realize that while we read Paul, for example, we think Augustine.  While Augustine said many good things, much of what he said was quite wrong, and we do the Bible a disservice to not work to set Augustine aside as we read it.  As NT Wright points out in his recent book on Justification, evangelicals claim to believe in sola scriptura (Bible only) and to reject tradition; however, they will default to Augustinian thinking rather than taking a fresh look at what the Bible actually says.

Augustine may have been a wonderful philosopher and theologian, but it seems to me that he also caused a great many issues that have plagued the church ever since.

Written on 06 July 2009 by me under Theological Musings with 10 Comments
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