Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
Who is the big quote from, Kosta? It is very good.
" More importantly, there is a difference between healing and being healed, saving and being saved. Annalex doesn't think it is a matter of proper tense, but proper tense has a lot to do with our mindset and the proper tense is the starting point where you will either continue thinking correctly, or go off track."
The distinction is a crucial one. As we all know, the Fathers often spoke of The Church as a hospital for the soul and indeed it is, a place where healing "can" take place. One of the 5th century Fathers, a Holy Abbot by the name of Martyrius, wrote this as an instruction for his monks:
"Just as the body that benefits from clean air will acquire good health and will be kept pure, so too the soul that enjoys the divine words - as it were, God's wind - will be restored to health and rejuvenated in purity, and made holy. Its eye will be illumined so that it can gaze all the time on God. Just as is the case with the body's eye, provided it is open and clear, it never ceases to have its fill; so too it is with the illumined *eye* of the mind: provided it is straightforward and pure, it is occupied with spiritual vision; and when it is opened so as to peer into the mysteries of divine knowledge and into the world above, it will become even more illumined and purified, thus enabled to approach the essential light of the divinity that exists above the world."
They can?. I am sure they are capable of it, but is it their will or not? Dogs can be bred to be tame or viscious. In either case it is none of their doing or fault. The way they are is not subject to judgment; they can be neither condemned nor praised.
Elder Cleopa. A 20th century Romanian saint.
"I don't understand the difference. Even in a cynical sense, aren't we all "selling something" from our POV? :) You would also try to convince a seeker of your doctrine, just as we would, right? Are we not all in a marketplace of ideas? :)"
I can't speak from a Latin Church perspective, but froma Greek Orthodox one, well it really isn't a selling job. People come to our parish all the time, especially fundamentalist Protestants interestingly enough. Most of them have read themselves into a place where they feel the need to check out Orthodoxy. I think many of them are a bit disappointed that we don't give them any pitch. We are happy to have them attend the Divine Liturgy and we will answer their questions, but beyond that, it has to be between them and God. Most of them don't stay, but a good number have. If they disagree with us, that's just fine. We offer them anoter cup of coffee and a piece of baklava. For those who stay, it usually takes about five years for them to really come to understand the metanoia which Orthodox Christianity effects in people. Orthodoxy, FK, is the most counter-cultural sort of Christianity. Those conservative Protestants come into The Church sincerely believing that they have found what they were always looking for, the True Church. And they have, but five years later they have discovered that the True Church they found is really quite a different True Church than they had originally believed.
There's no way to "sell" or even evangelize that, FK. One has to live it...for years.
He's really, really worth reading, Alex! He is like a 20th century Father.
Not really. I would, of course, answer questions and defend the Church against calumny, like I do here, but the Church does not expect the converts to come because they made up their mind that they like the teaching; they come because it is where Christ is, like it or not.
I am a convert myself, from Orthodoxy. I observed many prospective converts in the Christian Initiation of Adults class. Typically, those who have endless doctrinal questions fall off. They are "seekers" who will get shorter, simpler answers in an evangelical setting and that is where they will end up. This is America, people are not disposed to listen to carefully nuanced, laced with medieval history and latinisms doctrine, and they are not attracted to the idea of spiritual authority. Those who complete the class and convert can't wait to get in, they are hungry on a visceral level. The instructors tend to try and slow them down, so that they don't rush into the church headlong on sheer enthusiasm, and they try to get some doctrine into them even though they are too impatient to ask. Questions come later; the first year or two, anyway, the converts just live it.
Let me ping Jo Kus who, I heard, teaches RCIA.
Why, of course the tense matters. What I am saying is that boh past and present tense in employed, but when the present tense is employed it is not clear from the Greek (or English) if it is continuous mood ("you are being saved") or past perfect ("you have been saved"). English has grammatical categories that patristic Greek doesn't have, so the translator ends up with non-specific "you are saved".
Exactly. I wrote my 2407 at the same time and we have very similar observations. It is funny.
Amen.
"I was found by those who did not seek Me; I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me." -- Romans 10:20
I don't think the Protestants compel, but they expect people who look to find a match, and so they try to make sure the match is good. It is, like I said, marketplace of ideas.
You have a habit of making wide, general statements. I find this very odd, since Orthodoxy has a lot to say about concreteness--the particular.
Many protestants do not fit your broad generalities. There is much more variety of faith and practice among Protestants that your concepts allow you to see.
I know what you are saying annalex, which is why you said it not as simple as tense. But it is. The Church never confused which tense it was understood to be -- the future. Because when we are saved we are purified and spotless, immaculate if you will, worthy of being heaven, sainted, healed. In either case it is the end of a process of healing, purification, of perfecting.
Take for instance the famous verse "Be therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." What does that mean? In Greek it is in the future -- "will be" or become -- therefore perfect...
So, why keep me guessing? Which protestants, pray tell.
"Exactly. I wrote my 2407 at the same time and we have very similar observations. It is funny."
I wouldn't have expected anything different from you, Alex. After all, you are a member of The Church, and despite your Latin affiliation, you have a "genetic" and cultural Orthodox phronema! :)
You don't have to convince me -- each man his own pope, right? Let's see, a 100 million maybe more... :-)
As a matter of fact I have read SOME (not all) and SOME works (not all). It makes no difference. His statement:
I will also add that Elder Cleopa comments are much like the comments I hear here all the time. Predestination is a mystery. God looks down the corridors of time to see how man chooses. The scriptures don't say man choose God. Our Lord Jesus was very clear.
Joh 15:16 "You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.
It's the food that we eat ... :-)
" It's the food that we eat ... :-)"
Do they have that veritable nectar of the gods, schlivovitsa in Mother Russia? That certainly contibutes to the proper phronema, as of course does retsina! :)
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