"SALVATION".
"The arena, the field of battle, the site where the fight actually takes place is our own heart and all our inner man. The time of battle is the whole life." (1)
"We have been looking at the fact that, contrary to Protestant-secularist mythology, the Church is a historical reality. Now we shall see that the Augustinian-Scholastic, and Protestant concept of salvation is not the same as that taught by the Orthodox Church.
"FREE WILL"
"St. John of Damascus (674-749+ AD) wrote,
For as we are composed of soul and body ... our soul does not stand alone, but is, as it were, shrouded by a veil, it is impossible for us to arrive at intellectual conceptions without corporal things. Just as we listen with our bodily ears to physical words and understand spiritual things ....(2)
"For the Byzantine Orthodox theologians like St. John of Damascus, there was not a contradiction between faith and reason, or between God [God's sovereignty, SRH, ed.] and mankind's free will. "Some may say that it is not necessary to study nature," he wrote. "We ought to know that these are the words of the indolent and lazy. The study of nature, which is the basis of theology, proves theological truth. The student will see the spirit of God in nature." (3)
"In the tine of the Byzantine empire, it was believed, as expressed by St. Symeon the New Theologian, that human nature is "mutable and changeable." Human beings were not condemned to live "forever bound by the iron chain of an immutable nature." (4)
"The great message of the Christian Fathers, like St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Gregory of Sinai and St. Symeon the New Theologian, was that our human and sinful nature is alterable. In contrast to the rigidity of the Augustinian view of predestination and original sin, the Eastern Church believed that free will is God's greatest gift to His creatures." (5)
"Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, expressed this idea well in AD 180.
For God made man free from the beginning, so that he possessed his own power just as his own soul, to follow God's will freely, not being compelled by God. For with God there is no coercion; but a good will is present with Him always. He, therefore, gives good counsel to all. ... Not merely in works, but even in faith, man's freedom of choice under his own control is preserved by the Lord, who says, "Let it be done to you according to your faith." (6)
"According to Holy Tradition, we can choose to change our ways. We may exercise our free will and flee the slavery of sin "according to our faith." We are not locked into a path of election or damnation. Far from it, we can choose to love God as He loves us. We can even spend a lifetime in trying to become like God ourselves. St. Symeon taught that in our efforts to flee sin, we are not left as orphans unainded, for "within all of human nature He [God] placed a loving power so that the rational nature of man might be helped by the natural power of love." (7) Love, according to the Church, is the power of mercy by which God draws us back to Himself. (8)
"NEW HOPE"
"It seems to me that the root problem of our culture is that we have looked for salvation in the wrong places. (9) The secularists have looked for salvation from sin by turning to the works of political action, as if coercive government programs could eradicate evil. The American Protestant also looks for a magical instantaneous "silver bullet" solution to sin. He calls this the "born-again" experience. But, accoridng to the Holy Tradition, just saying that one is "born-again" is meaningless. It does not entail the necessary repentance, ascetic struggle, hardship, sacramental worship and the use of our free will to choose God's way again and again, which the historical Church has taught is the only way we can become like God, strive to become "deified" -- in other words imitate Christ and through imitation to become God-like ourselves. As the Psalmist expresses the desire to be saved: "I shall [only] be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness" (Psalms 17:15).
"The witness of the historical Church contradicts both secular idolatries and Protestant delusions of simplistic solutions to our moral problems. Instead, it holds out the hope of a spiritual journey toward the end of becoming God-like, of awakening one day in His likeness.
"In AD 270, St. Basil the Great wrote
I would say that the exercise of piety is rather like a ladder, that ladder which once was seen by the blessed Jacob, at which one end was near the earth and reached to the ground, while the other extended above and reached to Heaven itself. What is necessary is that those who are being introduced to the virtuous life should put their feet on the first steps and from there mount ever to the next, until at last they had ascended by degrees to such heights as are attainable by human nature. (10)
"As St. Basil the Greta teaches, salvation is not a matter of instant experience, nor is it one of cosmic fate or election. Rather it is like everything else -- a process, a struggle, a climbing of a spiritual ladder,
"How are we saved? How can we some day awake in God's likeness? Some Protestants will give a simplistic and incomplete answer to this question: "By believing that Christ died on the cross for us." According to Holy Tradition, that answer is, at best, only partially correct. An answer, more in keeping with Holy Tradition, to the question, "How are we saved?" is simple but difficult: by struggling to become like Christ. Orthodox author and priest Anthony Coniaris writes,
Salvation is not static but dynamic; it is not a completed state, a state of having arrived ... but a constant moving ... toward becoming like Christ, toward receiving the fullness of God's life ... it can never be achieved fully in this life." (11)
[pp. 203-206].
Notes.
1. Lorenzo Scupoli, Unseen Warfare, edited by Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain and revised by Theophan the Recluse, translated by E. Kadloubovsky and G.E.H. Palmer (Crestwood, 1987).
2. As cited by H.J. Magoulias, Byzantine Christianity (Detroit, 1982), p. 48.
3. Ibid., p. 48.
4. Ibid., p. 77.
5. "In Scripture we see God coming to reveal himself to man, and we see man meeting God, and not only listening to his voice, but answering him too. We hear in the Bible not only the voice of God, but also the voice of man answering him -- in words of prayer, thanksgiving and adoration, awe and love, sorrow and contrition, exultation, hope or despair. There are, as it were, two partners in the Covenant, God and man, and both belong together, in the mystery of the true divine-human encounter, which is described and recorded in the story of the Covenant. Human response is integrated into the mystery of the Word of God. It is not a divine monologue, it is rather a dialogue, and both are speaking, God and man ... Yet, all this intimacy does not compromise divine sovereignty and transcendence. God is "dwelling in light unapproachable" (I Timothy 6:16). This light, however, "lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9). This constitutes the mystery, or the "paradox" of the revelation." Georges Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View, p. 21.
6. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, AD 180, in The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 1, trans. W.A. Jurgens, p. 98.
7. H.J. Magoulias, Byzantine Christianity, p. 48.
8. As St. Clement of Rome writes: "Let us fear Him. ... so that through His mercy, we may be protected from the judgment to come." The first Epistle of Clement, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1867, and Grand Rapids, 1993).
9. "Western civilization ... has departed from the faith ... history is now seen as the vehicle of salvation. Whether in the form of .... the Enlightenment type of progress ... Marxism ... or Western social engineering ... it places salvation within the institutions of history and thus fulfills the biblical definition of idolatry." Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction (Nashville, 1983), p. 13.
10. St. Basil the Great, Homilies on the Psalms, AD 270, in The Faith of the Early Fathers, vol. 2, selected and translated by W.A. Jurgens, p. 16.
11. Anthony M. Coniaris, Introducing the Orthodox Church (Minneapolis, 1982), p. 48.
Schaeffer, Frank. (1994). Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the Age of False Religions. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press.
"The arena, the field of battle, the site where the fight actually takes place is our own heart and all our inner man. The time of battle is the whole life." (1)
"We have been looking at the fact that, contrary to Protestant-secularist mythology, the Church is a historical reality. Now we shall see that the Augustinian-Scholastic, and Protestant concept of salvation is not the same as that taught by the Orthodox Church.
"FREE WILL"
"St. John of Damascus (674-749+ AD) wrote,
For as we are composed of soul and body ... our soul does not stand alone, but is, as it were, shrouded by a veil, it is impossible for us to arrive at intellectual conceptions without corporal things. Just as we listen with our bodily ears to physical words and understand spiritual things ....(2)
"For the Byzantine Orthodox theologians like St. John of Damascus, there was not a contradiction between faith and reason, or between God [God's sovereignty, SRH, ed.] and mankind's free will. "Some may say that it is not necessary to study nature," he wrote. "We ought to know that these are the words of the indolent and lazy. The study of nature, which is the basis of theology, proves theological truth. The student will see the spirit of God in nature." (3)
"In the tine of the Byzantine empire, it was believed, as expressed by St. Symeon the New Theologian, that human nature is "mutable and changeable." Human beings were not condemned to live "forever bound by the iron chain of an immutable nature." (4)
"The great message of the Christian Fathers, like St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Gregory of Sinai and St. Symeon the New Theologian, was that our human and sinful nature is alterable. In contrast to the rigidity of the Augustinian view of predestination and original sin, the Eastern Church believed that free will is God's greatest gift to His creatures." (5)
"Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, expressed this idea well in AD 180.
For God made man free from the beginning, so that he possessed his own power just as his own soul, to follow God's will freely, not being compelled by God. For with God there is no coercion; but a good will is present with Him always. He, therefore, gives good counsel to all. ... Not merely in works, but even in faith, man's freedom of choice under his own control is preserved by the Lord, who says, "Let it be done to you according to your faith." (6)
"According to Holy Tradition, we can choose to change our ways. We may exercise our free will and flee the slavery of sin "according to our faith." We are not locked into a path of election or damnation. Far from it, we can choose to love God as He loves us. We can even spend a lifetime in trying to become like God ourselves. St. Symeon taught that in our efforts to flee sin, we are not left as orphans unainded, for "within all of human nature He [God] placed a loving power so that the rational nature of man might be helped by the natural power of love." (7) Love, according to the Church, is the power of mercy by which God draws us back to Himself. (8)
"NEW HOPE"
"It seems to me that the root problem of our culture is that we have looked for salvation in the wrong places. (9) The secularists have looked for salvation from sin by turning to the works of political action, as if coercive government programs could eradicate evil. The American Protestant also looks for a magical instantaneous "silver bullet" solution to sin. He calls this the "born-again" experience. But, accoridng to the Holy Tradition, just saying that one is "born-again" is meaningless. It does not entail the necessary repentance, ascetic struggle, hardship, sacramental worship and the use of our free will to choose God's way again and again, which the historical Church has taught is the only way we can become like God, strive to become "deified" -- in other words imitate Christ and through imitation to become God-like ourselves. As the Psalmist expresses the desire to be saved: "I shall [only] be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness" (Psalms 17:15).
"The witness of the historical Church contradicts both secular idolatries and Protestant delusions of simplistic solutions to our moral problems. Instead, it holds out the hope of a spiritual journey toward the end of becoming God-like, of awakening one day in His likeness.
"In AD 270, St. Basil the Great wrote
I would say that the exercise of piety is rather like a ladder, that ladder which once was seen by the blessed Jacob, at which one end was near the earth and reached to the ground, while the other extended above and reached to Heaven itself. What is necessary is that those who are being introduced to the virtuous life should put their feet on the first steps and from there mount ever to the next, until at last they had ascended by degrees to such heights as are attainable by human nature. (10)
"As St. Basil the Greta teaches, salvation is not a matter of instant experience, nor is it one of cosmic fate or election. Rather it is like everything else -- a process, a struggle, a climbing of a spiritual ladder,
"How are we saved? How can we some day awake in God's likeness? Some Protestants will give a simplistic and incomplete answer to this question: "By believing that Christ died on the cross for us." According to Holy Tradition, that answer is, at best, only partially correct. An answer, more in keeping with Holy Tradition, to the question, "How are we saved?" is simple but difficult: by struggling to become like Christ. Orthodox author and priest Anthony Coniaris writes,
Salvation is not static but dynamic; it is not a completed state, a state of having arrived ... but a constant moving ... toward becoming like Christ, toward receiving the fullness of God's life ... it can never be achieved fully in this life." (11)
[pp. 203-206].
Notes.
1. Lorenzo Scupoli, Unseen Warfare, edited by Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain and revised by Theophan the Recluse, translated by E. Kadloubovsky and G.E.H. Palmer (Crestwood, 1987).
2. As cited by H.J. Magoulias, Byzantine Christianity (Detroit, 1982), p. 48.
3. Ibid., p. 48.
4. Ibid., p. 77.
5. "In Scripture we see God coming to reveal himself to man, and we see man meeting God, and not only listening to his voice, but answering him too. We hear in the Bible not only the voice of God, but also the voice of man answering him -- in words of prayer, thanksgiving and adoration, awe and love, sorrow and contrition, exultation, hope or despair. There are, as it were, two partners in the Covenant, God and man, and both belong together, in the mystery of the true divine-human encounter, which is described and recorded in the story of the Covenant. Human response is integrated into the mystery of the Word of God. It is not a divine monologue, it is rather a dialogue, and both are speaking, God and man ... Yet, all this intimacy does not compromise divine sovereignty and transcendence. God is "dwelling in light unapproachable" (I Timothy 6:16). This light, however, "lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9). This constitutes the mystery, or the "paradox" of the revelation." Georges Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View, p. 21.
6. St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, AD 180, in The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 1, trans. W.A. Jurgens, p. 98.
7. H.J. Magoulias, Byzantine Christianity, p. 48.
8. As St. Clement of Rome writes: "Let us fear Him. ... so that through His mercy, we may be protected from the judgment to come." The first Epistle of Clement, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1867, and Grand Rapids, 1993).
9. "Western civilization ... has departed from the faith ... history is now seen as the vehicle of salvation. Whether in the form of .... the Enlightenment type of progress ... Marxism ... or Western social engineering ... it places salvation within the institutions of history and thus fulfills the biblical definition of idolatry." Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction (Nashville, 1983), p. 13.
10. St. Basil the Great, Homilies on the Psalms, AD 270, in The Faith of the Early Fathers, vol. 2, selected and translated by W.A. Jurgens, p. 16.
11. Anthony M. Coniaris, Introducing the Orthodox Church (Minneapolis, 1982), p. 48.
Schaeffer, Frank. (1994). Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the Age of False Religions. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press.