The fundamental problem

All that I am saying must take into account the understanding that the central problem of man is that the human, as a person, has used his or her will in a way that is not in accordance with God’s will.  The will when it is used in this way we call, in accord with our understanding of St. Maximos, the gnomic will.

The gnomic will has two big problems: The first is that it relies on its partial grasp of things as if it were the whole story, which is to be challenged by the Christian with a humble acknowledgment: God alone knows the whole story and we know only what He has revealed to us, and at the same time we must be aware of our liability to deception.

Col 2:8-10,   Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.

Philosophy according to the tradition of men I am claiming is what it is because it is the result of the gnomic use of the will.  This doesn’t mean it is all false, in fact it is impossible that it be false entirely. But it is always double-minded.  A partial view of the truth is true insofar as it reflects what God has given to man to understand.  But the claim, for example, that a secular view of things is the whole story is false on the face of it.

We always must acknowledge that we know in part and we must be open to be corrected.

The second problem is that the gnomic will operates egocentrically and/or in a sectarian way, in solidarity with a group who hold to the same partial picture of things as if it were the whole.

This can be an imaginary for real large group such as, “what everyone thinks., ” or one such as, “They say that….”

Individualism and sectarianism are closely linked, a mutual admiration society of support, holding to the same logismoi, the same arguments, the same strongholds, which hold them together as a sect.  They attack Christianity as if it were a sect and sometimes we who follow Christ, are double-minded and fall into sectarian paths, treating our partial grasp of God’s revelation as if it were the whole story.

This is the source of the Western fragmentation of Christianity in the West and can happen to any Christian, which is why our tradition has so many warnings against wolves in the Church.

Acts 20:28-30, Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God* which He purchased with His own blood. 29 For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.

This is why the Holy Liturgy of all the Orthodox services is so important.  It is the consensus of the Holy Men and Women, the saints and martyrs and Fathers and Mothers of the one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, throughout the two millennia of Orthodox Christian worship.  This is why we must live in communion with other Orthodox Christians on a regular basis, why we confess our thinking, and especially our recognized departures from this way,  to a person who knows and loves the Holy Tradition  of Christ and the Apostles and Fathers, and lives it.

The Sin Cycle, How did we get this way?

If the reader is a person who has begun to repent and is seek to follow the light (revelation) of Christ in the concrete situation in which he lives, he or she will most likely be aware of their own double-mindedness.  As the Apostle said:  Rom 7:15-17,   15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.When we become aware of ourselves we are already in trouble.  “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.”

2 Cor 10:3-6

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, NKJV

What we become aware of when we begin to look at ourselves as persons who “hunger and thirst after righteousness,” is that we have in our heart arguments against this way of living to which we have pointed, excuses for why we fail to follow God’s way.

Our Lord said,    Matt 15:18-20,  But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.   For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts (dialogismoi), murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.   These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” NKJV

The greek word arguments in 2 Cor.10, is the accusative case of logismoi, which is usually translated by the word, “thoughts.”  One psychologist calls them ANTS, ‘automatic negative thoughts.”

Fr. Meletios of St. John’s Monastery in provides an excellent presentation of this problem based on the Fathers in his various lectures, some of which can be found on U tube and Ancient Faith Radio.

What I want to contribute to this discussion is what I call the “Sin Cycle” or the Gnomic Cycle,” or the Cycle of Autonomous Man,” or the “Cycle of Death.”(see blog “Cycles of Life)

We have mentioned earlier the issue of human freedom.  One of the marks of what it means to be created in the image of God is the mystery of freedom and responsibility. This is a part of the way God has made us.  Living is communion with God as described in the Life Cycle is a life of human awareness, as the Apostle says,  Eph 5:15-17  See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise,  redeeming the time, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. NKJV

In contrast David, the Royal Psalmist and humble follower of the Radical Middle according to the Mosaic and Prophetic light of the Covenant with Israel, when he becomes aware of himself, said,   Ps 51:3-5  For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me.  Against You, You only, have I sinned, …. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me. NKJV

The most fundamental choice is to worship God or not.

We don’t begin to consciously plan to do wrong, but somehow fail to act according to the light that we have.  When The Apostle Paul says concerning the Pagans of his time,

Rom 1:20-21

1.Failure to Honor God or give Thanks,  For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, NKJV

The source of our most fundamental problem is not an action, but a failure to take action in worship of the the True and Living God.

2.Sin, Walking in the flesh,  What happens is that we become slaves to evil.  This is called, Living in “the flesh.”    Rom 6:16-17, Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?  17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, NKJV

Rom 8:6-8,  For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.  7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.  7 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. NKJV.

3. Conscience, God voice in every heart,    Rom 2:14-16, For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves,  15who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)  16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

Rom 1:30-32  backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful;  32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

4.Blame, the refuge of lies.

Isa 28:16-18,  “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; Whoever believes will not act hastily.  17 Also I will make justice the measuring line, And righteousness the plummet; The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies,  And the waters will overflow the hiding place.  Your covenant with death will be annulled, And your agreement with Sheol will not stand; When the overflowing scourge passes through, Then you will be trampled down by it.

5. Suppressing the voice of God

Rom 1:18-19, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

6.Hardness of Heart.        Ex 9:12,  But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh; and he did not heed them, just as the Lord had spoken to Moses.  Ex 9:34-10:1, And when Pharaoh saw that the rain, the hail, and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet more; and he hardened his heart, he and his servants.  35 So the heart of Pharaoh was hard; neither would he let the children of Israel go, as the Lord had spoken by Moses.  Deut 8:11-15 “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, 12 lest — when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them;  13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; 14 when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;

Matt 13:14-15, And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive;  15 For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’

7. Life Situation, Results of living apart from Christ.   Eph 4:17-22, This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of* the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; 19  who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. 20 But you have not so learned Christ, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus:

In the way of repentance that is made possible in Christ, we must become aware of ungodly thoughts, strongholds, arguments and deal with them, as Paul says,

2 Cor 10:3-6  3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.  4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,  5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,  6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

To conclude: The process of repentance is a awareness of how we have come to the state of heart and mind that we have.  We do not have to go looking for these thoughts.  They come to us in our life situation, and we bring these thoughts to our Orthodox spiritual  director who himself has experience of repentance, and who can show us the way of faith,  hope and love in Christ.

The Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ.

   Matt 11:25-30,   25 At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.   26 Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight. 27 All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.   28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” NKJV

Cycles of Life and Death

Blog Cycles

Fragmented man: Intelligent Faith

The double-mindedness expressed by James is not only seen in the instability of man in regard to holy love, but also in regard to reason and faith.  This has been the source of controversy in the historic Church, especially in the West, such as Tertullian who asked something like, What has Athens to do with Jerusalem, or Augustine, who according to the modern theologian Yannaras, does not understand the

Apophaticism of Truth, which means  Augustine does not understand how human understanding is limited to the partial knowledge given by God and therefore he gives too much space to the ability of human autonomous reason.  At least some theologians said, “I believe in order that I may understand, while others said, I understand in order that I may believe.”   (If anyone cares to correct me here I am especially open to instruction, but I think the scholastics especially did not resolve this.

 

In our modern culture which has, insofar as it has turned away from Christianity, bifurcated into irrational sects, cults and superstition on the one hand and academic, skeptical secularists on the other, so that radical middle Christians are seen as superstitious by the secularists and rationalists by the superstitious.  So as I have already said, When you get the stones from all four directions you may be in the right place.  Because our culture is fragmented, we are radical relative to all the extemes.

 

This intelligent faith question gets us into what academia calls metaphysics and epistemology.  Those come down to the questions what is real and how do we know.

The twentieth century Roman Catholic theologians, Marashel and Rahner and perhaps Lonergan have a view, (he being dead yet speaketh), and one of them said ,(though I saw it and now can’t locate it.), all we know is a small island in an infinite sea of mystery.  Michael Polany said, “What we know doesn’t explain what we don’t know, but what we don’t know explains what we know.  The point is humans are not in a position to make the final determinations about what is real.  Apart from revelation and faith our knowledge is adequate for our immediate situation to the extent that it is not affected by the unknown context of that situation, as it does when threatened by something outside of our control. This reality is what is dealt with in many stories of drama and murder mystery.

 

My only point here is that the meaning of every life situation in which we live is based on its context, and every context by a further context until we reach the final context of everything, and this brings us to the perennial question of religion. This goes beyond knowledge of our immediate situation.

 

Even in the sphere of science humans must guess their way into the nearby but unknown context.  In physics  we have as Sir Karl Popper says, Conjectured and refuted our way into a knowledge of the atomic and subatomic world of the standard model, currently looking for the Higgs Boson to confirm the  conjecture.

 

But science still looks for the unified field theory.  Einstein was unable to find the unity of the four forces basic to the reality of things and the modern conjecture of ‘String Theory’ has apparently gone beyond testability, so that some say it is metaphysics but not science.   Popper would say, If it is not testable it is not science.  In his own day he said that Freudianism and Marxism were not science, because according to their proponents everything that happened proved that they were true.  If they are not falsifiable they are not science.

So, if we have some knowledge that is eternally secure it must be a revelation of the ultimate context.

It cannot, even in religion, be a revelation of a god.  It must be a revelation of the one True and Living God who is the Source, Support and End of all that is, including all that is known and unknown.

 

Naturalism is a conjecture about the ultimate context of all contexts. Naturalism says that what you see is what you get and there is no transcendent plan for this world, except what you make it.  Naturalism is the conjecture that the final context of all the order in the universe is nothing, that all that is, is what it is by accident, that is¸ for no reason and for no purpose.  We can’t say that this is logically possible because in this context logic is an apparition, order and science tell us something of what is happening in our immediate situation, but the order and logic of our immediate situation itself  becomes an accidental appartition.

 

This conjecture is a kind of faith.  It is not grounded in science, it renders science foolishness.  No one lives in this reality.  That is why naturalistic secularists are double-minded.  They live in God’s world, a world of logic and order, or meaning love and purpose.  They protest against God that there is so much unequal and unjust suffering in the world, but that suffering has no transcendent meaning only in the world they create in their imaginations that has no meaning at all.

FRAGMENTED MAN: Holy Love

Why is the natural man, the gnomic man or autonomous man in a fragmented state? James the half-brother of our Lord, probably the first writer in the New Testament, said.

James 1:5-8, If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. NKJV

 

This is an important text, but the Apostle says that the person who acts in any concrete situation without faith is double-minded and unstable.  Our culture has to some extent honored God in its past, and still does, in part and its stability is due to that faith, even if it is to a certain degree.  But as our culture turns away from Christianity, it becomes increasingly  unstable.  What is true of the culture is also true of any person in the culture.

 

Why then is the person without faith in an unstable situation?  The message of Holy Tradition is that God is patiently loving with every human, but there comes a point at which He brings judgment, on an individual or on a culture.  The reasons are not usually very clear to us because we have only a partial knowledge given to us by God, not to judge what He is doing, but to take care of the area of stewardship He has given us to serve Him with the light that we have.  God, the Holy Trinity operates with Holy Love.  Sometimes we see His Holiness, sometimes His loving mercy. As the Apostle Paul says:

Rom 11:19-22, You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.”  Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.  For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.  Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. NKJV

 

We believe that God in His infinite Wisdom puts goodness and severity together.  His severity is a loving severity that is beyond our understanding.  His love is absolutely Holy and will not tolerate evil, how can He make us perfectly holy.

Isa 6:1-5,  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. 2 Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one cried to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”

 4 And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 So I said:

“Woe is me, for I am undone!  Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.” NKJV

God has an answer for this in the Cross,   Rom 3:18-26,  18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”*  19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all* who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just(that is Holy) and the justifier (that is Lovingly merciful toward)  of the one who has faith in Jesus. NKJV

What happens is that autonomous man knows he ought to be holy according to the law that governs everything, but he is not able.  Man that is in the flesh cannot please God and in fact can’t find unity.  In order to be merciful he gives up law, in order to be uphold the law, he must despair of himself and of others.

THE RADICAL MIDDLE VERSUS THE MUDDLED MIDDLE

My friend Russ has some reservations about the ‘middle’ in Radical middle. He does so with the point that I have used muddy middle for years. We used to say that the basic choice is between Nihilism and Christianity. I called the attempt to have one foot in each position or to try to claim some middle position the muddy middle, or muddled middle. Russ now uses the terms Accidentalism versus Intentionalism for the same alternatives. By this he means that if one denies God then one is left with everything happening by accident and so one undercuts science and meaning and all rationality. Intentionality means that the will of God is behind everything and especially behind all knowledge and meaning.

He has picked up and I agree, that Irenaeus argues in a way totally compatible with this in his book Against the Heresies. This means there can be no compromise. This no compromise position is what makes the Philokalia, the sayings of the Fathers, so challenging that most spiritual directors advise their directees to read them under guidance. Our Lord Jesus is Holy and strict and truthful but He died on the Cross as one who is ‘just’, that is strict and ‘the justifier of him that believes in Him’, that is loving. So the radical middle is the place of Holy Love, the way of forgiveness for sinners while it says, “Go and sin no more.”

The problem with strictness is that when it is read by the Gnomic/Autonomous/Walking in the flesh man it is read as one sided legalism which leads to despair. Some will flee from this into a Walking in the flesh relativism to get away from the law.

I want to look deeper into this. The culture of the world is conflicted because, on the one hand it has to live in God’s world by God’s principles and at the same time it try to create reasons to rebel against His revelation in Christ. The result is what the Bible calls double mindedness and what I am calling the muddy middle.

Orthodox Christianity is radically against this attempt at compromise, which it calls walking in the flesh, worldliness, being carnally minded which is death. This compromise is the ground of the passions because only in Christ can a slave of doubled-mindedness be freed from the ‘lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.”

The deepest conflicts both psychological, social, including family, tribal, community, state, national an international are rooted in double-mindedness

Life Situation: The goal and steps

Col 1:9   For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

This fullness of Godly wisdom and understanding is certainly a practical expression of realizing the Kingdom goal (or the eschatological goal) of being filled with all the fullness of God.

The Apostle is praying for the new converts to the True Faith so it is central to His view of what it means to be a faithful Christian.

This wisdom is not just being intelligent.  It is not just knowing the right words.  It is the wisdom that is available in Christ for transfigured living in the deepest sense.

The Apostle begins at the goal.

 5. Walking worthy: He says, ‘that you may walk worthy of the Lord, to please Him in every respect.   Col 1:9

This sounds like a goal, in fact, the goal that all of our Holy Tradition sets before us, the way of the Holy Virgin, the way of the holy saints. 

If this is so could we not interpret the rest of the prayer as steps back to the beginning of the way to begin to realize this goal.

      4. Bearing fruit in Every good work: So, the way to walk worthy of the Lord is by being fruitful in every good work.

     3. Increasing in the Knowledge of God: The way to start being fruitful in every good work is by increasing in the knowledge of God.

     2. God’s Power unto Patience: The way to increasing in the knowledge of God is by crying to God for wisdom, while being strengthened with His power.

1. Gving Thanks to the Father, Holy Communion: The way to become strengthened with His power is to give thanks to the Father, who (based on the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit communicated through the Holy Mysteries and prayer) qualifies us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the Divine  and Uncreated Light.

So beginning with our Life situation this is reversed and becomes the way to Theosis.  This becomes the cycle of the Orthodox way, the way to the fullness of God.

Life Situation: Practical Orthodoxy for every person.

  Early in my ministry an older member of my congregation asked that I preach in a down to earth way. I can fall into philosophical language, but I want to communicate to everyone on their level, so I will try to put these ideas first in simple terms as well as then perhaps, hopefully,  in increasingly precise theological and philosophical language.

It is well known that the wise elders of the Orthodox monastic tradition deal with the practical elements of our lives.  Fr. John Meyendorff calls St. Gregory Palamas’ theology, ‘an Existential Theology.’ 

        

Prov 19:16   .He who keeps the commandment keeps his soul, But he who is careless* of his ways will die. Prov 22:5  Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse; He who guards his soul will be far from them.  1 John 2:3-4  Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.    The word ‘keep’ is translated by Strong as ‘To guard by  keeping your eyes upon’

 

So we want to keep our eye on our own concrete soul in its concrete situation as it operates in the here and now, which Archimandrite Mellitios points out is the only contact point between time and the eternal.

 

 

This means we want to ask, What is God doing in His care for my life and the life of my neighbor in our situation right now?  What is God’s plan here? Lord have mercy, teach me Thy way.

 

So what I plan to do is to seek to begin to understand Colossians 1:9 and following it  in terms of our practical situation in communion with God’s Holy Spirit.

Introducing the way of Holy Tradition

Scripture is the core of Holy Tradition.  The Apostle Paul in praying for some of the first Gentile Orthodox Christians in what became the land of the Apostle John, the Holy Virgin Mary and in a few hundred years,  the Cappadocian Fathers, who spelled out the Biblical doctrine of the Holy Trinity in a definitive way.

In this prayer he outline the essence of the Orthodox way, the way of the saints.

Col 1:9-14     9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; 10 that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and long-suffering with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood,* the forgiveness of sins. NKJV

This is the text I will look at to grasp the Apostolic way, which I may variously call, ‘the way of life’ ‘the way to the radical middle, the way to participate in Holy Tradition, the Sacramental life, the way of the Fathers, the way to Theosis or Deification, as the Apostle Paul says,

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

I don’t know what more theosis could mean than being ‘filled with all the fullness of God.’

 

Next: The Practical Goal

9 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

Responding to Alf and Joseph

Alf said:

Interesting dialog, but I was surprised you did not present the history of Orthodoxy in defense of its authenticity. This has had a huge sway on me. However, I appreciate what was given. Thank you for bothering to reach out to the world. I don’t understand why I never hear Orthodox shows/services on the radio. These would help a lot with us all understanding what it is…
May God Bless.

Fr/ Paul says:  The history is decisive for me as well, but I am not there as yet in the conversation with Daniel and he has now read Bishop Ware’s, The Orthodox Church which shows that argument.  This beginning dialogue is meant to answer Daniel’s questions.  It is very important to address a person according to that person’s interests.  I know we don’t often apply this verse to conversations but it is important for me to remember what the Apostle Paul says, “

Phil 2:3-4

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. NKJV

Forgive me, I get preachy, I am not accusing you of anything, but I have to keep reminding myself to listen.  I do hear you about how important the continuity of the Church is.

I heard a man tell how he was in Greece, years back, when the Communists were trying to take over.  His father and uncle were hiding up in the mountains, while the mother and six children were in the courtyard of their home, inside a wall.  Outside the communist soldier said, This is the Trigonis home isn’t it, I am going to throw a grenade in there.  The mother and children keep doing prostrations and saying the Jesus prayer.  Another soldier called to the first and said, ‘Hey (so and so) come over here.’ And he went.  I asked Alex, What town was that in?  He said, Berea.  I said, that is the town that Paul preached in in the book of Acts, right?  He said, Yes, we have a marker just up the road from our home, showing the very spot from which he preached.   The Baptists always told me that the Bereans were the ones who followed the Scripture.  Well yes and they have also been Orthodox ever since that time.  The reformation did not reach them as it did not reach Orthodox Countries, because it was the Western Church that lost its mooring.

Joseph said:

Fr. Paul, It is good to read your Blog, I miss hearing your thoughts on life. I like how your expression of the radical middle makes the norm of the world the extreme and brings God back to center.

Fr. Paul  says, I would just say, It is the fragmented sectarian norms of the world that are the extreme and the expression finds God at the center, where he always was.  I know you mean, it brings God back in terms of our thinking.

I want to do a bolg on the utter difference between the ‘muddy middle’ and the radical middle.