Romanides on Original (Ancestral) Sin November 6, 2008
Posted by Solomon in Augustine, Books, Eastern Theology, Human nature, Patristics, Quotations, Sin, Total Depravity.3 comments
Romanides’ thesis is that the Fathers of the second and third centuries believed (contra Augustine) that the effect of Adam’s sin was to introduce death (constituted in the loss of divine grace) into the race of man. Through death Satan rules mankind and causes them to sin. Important in this is that 1. God is not the author of sin or death 2. Satan is no instrument of divine wrath 3. Death is no punishment inflicted by God but rather the natural consequence of our sin which came at the deceptive prompting of Satan, thus it actually makes sense for God to want to save us from death.
This is how:
“In the first place, the deprivation of divine grace impairs the mental powers of the newborn infant; thus, the mind of man has a tendency toward evil from the beginning. This tendency grows strong when the ruling force of corruption becomes perceptible in the body. Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in man gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival. Thus, Satan manipulates man’s fear and his desire for self-satisfaction, raising up sin in him, in other words, transgression against the divine will regarding unselfish love, and provoking man to stray from his original destiny. Since weakness is caused in the flesh by death, Satan moves man to countless passions and leads him to devious thoughts, actions, and selfish relations with God as well as with his fellow man. Sin reigns both in death and in the mortal body because ‘the sting of death is sin’”
The Ancestral Sin pg. 162
Depravity and the Absolute Importance of Prayer October 29, 2007
Posted by Krause in Books, Eastern Theology, Faith and Works, Freewill, Prayer, Total Depravity.1 comment so far
Recently I’ve been reading one of the basics in Orthodox spirituality: “The Way of The Pilgrim, and The Pilgrim Continues His Way.” So I guess, that would actually be two books, but it’s in one volume, so…eh. But the Pilgrim books are the old story of a Russian pilgrim who wonders across the land with nothing but a knapsack on his back with breadcrusts and his Bible in it. He travels to various holy sites, attends liturgy, and somehow finds a way to get enough hospitality to survive.
One day the Pilgrim hears an epistle reading during liturgy in which the words “Pray without ceasing…” are said, and from then on he decides he must find out what this means. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Orthodox prayer/spirituality. In the “Sixth Meeting,” in “The Pilgrim Continues His Way,” the pilgrim is having a conversation, when one of the wiser men decides to give him a lecture on some of the mysteries of the “Philokalia.”
Within this talk, the man decides to explain what part men play in their own salvations, ie: what is left up to our wills. First, he brings up faith, because obviously faith is necessary for salvation. But, the man says, man can’t just have faith. Faith is a gift from God. On his own, man cannot even produce faith the size of a mustard seed. So how can we get this gift? Ask and ye shall recieve the man responds.
Next, he brings up works. For as St. James says, “Faith without works is dead,” and “For a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” However, St. Paul reveals to us that we are powerless an unable to justify ourselves by keeping all the commandments of the law. So how can one be saved? The Savior Himself reveals this mystery: “Without me ye can do nothing,” and “He who abides in Me…bears much fruit.” To be in Christ, the man says, is, “continually to know His presence and to unceasingly to ask in His name.” So the man says, once again we see that it is only through prayer that one can ever perform good works. This, he says, is “why prayer is necessary above all else, because it gives life to faith and through it all the virtues are aquired.”
Not so fast though, the man next tells us that “True prayer requires its own conditions. It mus tbe offered with a pure mind and heart, with ardent zeal and undivided attention, with tremendous awe and profound humility.” Yet, obviously no one does this because as the blessed St. Paul tells us, “…we do not know what to pray for as we ought…” So what can a man do if he can’t even pray right, but all of salvation comes down to prayer? The only thing that is actually up to our will, the man says, is quantity.
So there you have it. How depraved are we? Pretty doggone depraved, but not completely. We have it within our power to choose how frequently we pray. It’s not within our power to have faith, do good works, or to pray rightly, but we can choose how much we pray in our own feeble, imperfect manner. True prayer is a gift of grace.
So the question is…how often do call up on the name of the Lord for mercy? Might want to rethink the priority that you currently assign to your prayer life. I know I have. Peace and blessings.
My first taste of Palamas July 21, 2007
Posted by MG in Books, Divine Attributes, Eastern Theology, Epistemology, Theology.add a comment
I just picked up St. Gregory Palamas’ writings “Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychsts”. This is a foundational text in Orthodoxy for understanding grace, God, and how they relate to the spiritual life of a Christian. Palamas is specifically a defender of the idea that human beings can really, truly encounter God Himself–not just created symbols of him, or through created gifts that He sends us. Because this is so, God is not ultimately encountered through philosophical learning or other created means of education. It is not propositional knowledge of truths but knowledge-by-acquaintance that is to be sought in relation to God. So I hope to learn from our Father Gregory about the divine energies; that is, the uncreated grace of God, which is God Himself meeting us in his activities.
I begin Palamas with an ironic awareness that the condition he accuses his opponents of is one that I, less than a year ago, suffered from. Excessive rationalism truncates the possibility of mystical union with God and is a danger to faith, not a help. Don’t get me wrong; I’m obviously committed to reason. And obviously I also think the Christian faith can be intellectually vindicated through rigorous argumentation. But at the end of the day, it is virtue that matters, not philosophy. Reason does not save us. Rather it is deification in Christ.
And so through thy holy prayers, o Father Gregory, and thy divine knowledge, overthrow by your logic and argumentation and blessed wisdom that pretentiousness within me that grasps to the idea that logic and argumentation and worldly wisdom are the greatest and highest means of union with God.
“I have heard it stated by certain people that monks also should pursue secular wisdom, and that if they do not possess this wisdom, it is impossible for them to avoid ignorance and false opinions, even if they have achieved the highest level of impassibility; and that one cannot acquire perfection and sanctity without seeking knowledge from all quarters, above all from Greek culture, which also is a gift of God–just as were those insights granted to the prophets and apostles through revelation. This education confers on the soul the knowledge of [created] beings, and enriches the faculty of knowledge, which is the greatest of all the powers of the soul. For education not only dispels all other evils from the soul–since every passion has its root and foundation in ignorance–but it also leads men to the knowledge of God, for God is knowable only through the mediation of his creatures.
“I was in no way convinced when I heard such views being put forward, for my small experience of monastic life showed me that just the opposite was the case; but i was unable to make a defense against them. ‘We not only occupy ourselves with the mysteries of nature’ they proudly claimed, ‘measuring the celestial cycle, and studying the opposed motions of the stars, their conjunctions, phases and risings, and reckoning the consequence of these things (in all of which matters we take great pride); but in addition, since the inner principles of these phenomena are to be foudn in the divine and primordial creative Mind, and the images of these principles exist in our soul, we are zealous to understand them, and to cast off every kind of ignorance in their regard by the methods of distinction, syllogistic reasoning and analysis; thus, both in this life and after, we wish to be conformed to the likeness of the Creator.’
“I felt myself incapable of responding to these arguments, and so maintained silence towards these men; but now I beg you, Father, to instruct me in what should be said in defence of the truth, so that (following the Apostle’s injunction) I may ‘be ready to give an account of the faith that is in us.’”
St. Gregory Palamas, Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychysts
Summer Reading Goals June 2, 2007
Posted by MG in Books, General.2 comments
This is a list of what I want to read this summer. If you have any suggestions, please tell me (in a comment or in person). Actually, some of the things I want to read I haven’t picked out yet. For instance I want to read a book by a naturalist on metaphysics and ethics. I was thinking I’d go pick up Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe or perhaps something by Searle; but are there any better suggestions anyone has?
I. Philosophy:
A. Metaphysics:
1 Koons’ Realism Regained: An Exact Theory of Teleology, Causation, and the Mind.
2 Insert naturalist counterpart here: probably Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe
3 VanInwagen’s Essay on Freewill
4 Something by John Martin Fischer about compatiblism
B. Epistemology:
5 Plantinga’s Warrant: The Current Debate
6 Some comparably excellent book expressing opposing views
C. Ethics:
This was actually covered by the books up there on metaphysics. Koons’ book offers an ethic, as does Value and Virtue.
D. Philosophy of Religion/Philosophical Theology
7 Michael Martin’s Atheism: A Philosophical Justification
8 An awesome book by a bunch of authors: The Rationality of Theism
9 Suffering Belief, a book arguing against theism with the problem of evil.
10 For Faith and Clarity, another awesome book by a bunch of authors
11 The Christian God by Richard Swinburne
E. Philosophy of Language
12 Something nice and juicy that would challenge my current views
13 A book my friend Keith has called Against Postmodernism or something like that
II Theology
A. Ecclesiology
14 D. H. Williams (editor) The Free Church and the Early Church: Bridging the Historical and Theological Divide
15 Cyril’s stuff on the Church.
B. Soteriology
16 Schreiner’s The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance
17 Shank’s Life in the Son
C. Anthropology
18 Joseph Farrell’s Free Choice in Saint Maximus the Confessor
19 Russel Philip Shedd’s Man In Community: A Study of St. Paul’s Applications of Old Testament and Early Jewish Conceptions of Human Solidarity
20 One of the Church Fathers’ books on human nature.
D. Sacraments
21 Something against sacramental theology… but I’m having trouble finding anything specifically.
22 Something pro-sacraments…?
E. Historical Jesus, etc.
23. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God
24. Earman’s The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture
25. More of Blomberg’s Jesus and the Gospels
26. Something on New Testament Culture/Rhetoric or some similar subject…
That’s a lot of stuff… I hope I have time to read at least some of it. I tried to be balanced in my choices where I wanted to read opposing views, and hopefully I was successful in choosing the best representatives of each view.
–MG
Michael Martin’s "Atheism: a Philosophical Justification" March 31, 2007
Posted by MG in Books, Natural Theology.add a comment
I realized its been a lonnnng time since I seriously read any serious atheist arguments against theism. So I decided to check out Michael Martin’s “Atheism: a Philosophical Justification”. I’ll be reading it and responding to some of Martin’s better arguments over the next few months… this oughta be fun.
Michael Martin’s "Atheism: a Philosophical Justification" March 31, 2007
Posted by MG in Books, Natural Theology.add a comment
I realized its been a lonnnng time since I seriously read any serious atheist arguments against theism. So I decided to check out Michael Martin’s “Atheism: a Philosophical Justification”. I’ll be reading it and responding to some of Martin’s better arguments over the next few months… this oughta be fun.
