llevronbelac

[llevronbelac]

Look, we joke a lot, but really, "you were born evil, wretched, worse than the scum of the earth, and it took killing a god to make you salvageable, so now you'd better be grateful to that god and thank him 10,000 times a day for it and fill your thoughts with him 24/7 and abide by the letter of his every word, lest you suffer unimaginable torture for all of eternity" is a truly horrendous thing to believe about yourself and other people

[llevronbelac]

Could you explain the Orthodox view of original sin?

To explain it, I need to start with one of the basic East-West theological differences. The West primarily thinks about sin as a legal transgression which must be forgiven or punished, while the East primarily thinks about sin as a sickness that must be healed or cause harm. This, in turn, creates a difference between "sin", the force of sin and corruption in the world, and "sins", people's sinful actions - the same way there's a difference between the disease and the symptoms.

And that's what lies behind our view of original sin - we have original sin, not original sins. We are born with souls that have an inclination towards sin and bodies racked by death and corruption, but we do not inherit the guilt of Adam; we are guilty only for our own sins (by the way, this means that we think unbaptised babies go to Heaven). Because the idea of "original sin" is heavily associated with the idea of guilt in many people's minds, English-speaking Orthodox Christians usually say "ancestral sin" rather than "original sin".

[llevronbelac]

"That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."

John 17:21-23, English Standard Version

[llevronbelac]

Also, the purpose of prophecy in the Bible is to inspire change in those hearing the prophecy so as to avoid it. Prophecy is a warning of coming judgements that can be avoided by changing your actions.

Take for example Jonah and Nineveh. In 40 days Nineveh would be destroyed, but because they heard this prophecy they repented and the city was not destroyed.

God lays out the purpose of prophecy in Jeremiah 18. When He declares that He will bring destruction on a rebellious nation, if they repent of their evil, He too will repent of the destruction He declared would take place; and if He declares to bless an obedient nation and they turn towards evil, He will repent of the good He promised to bestow upon them.

Prophecy in the Bible is not a prediction of future settled events, but a call to repentance from a loving God who desires for none to perish and all to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Tumblr is like "isn't it weird that Christians never think about this fairly obvious implication of their own theology?", then proceeds to independently re-invent an eight-hundred-year-old heresy that caused three separate wars.

[llevronbelac]

It's crazy to me how my core political belief is "don't kill people" and this really pisses people off from every corner of the political spectrum.

[llevronbelac]

[llevronbelac]

[llevronbelac]

Theosis

"The Son of God became Son of Man, so that the sons of men could become sons of God." - Calvin (paraphrase of ICR 2:12.2)

"For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." Athanasius (On the Incarnation)

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich." Apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 8:9)

[llevronbelac]

I know we love to call things Gnostic around here (for good reason) but may I introduce some nuance/other related heresies that may add specificity to your burns:

Gnostic: group of ideas involving a complex cosmology with many lesser creating beings (aeons) emanating from the true God, the last of which created the material world because he was so stupid. Called "Gnosticism" because it was all about gnosis, or knowledge: you need secret knowledge of the aeons to set you free from materiality (which they do see as evil, but it doesn't directly impact their practice; they were often described as sexually promiscuous and greedy for gain). I recommend calling things Gnostic only if and when they imply you need secret knowledge to get to a level of insight into the world higher than normal people have—the denial of the goodness of matter is more distinctive for the following heresies:

Manichean: a form of Gnosticism that emphasizes the strict dualism between matter and spirit, where the material world is evil and not created by God, while the spiritual world is good and salvation comes from ascent out of the world to God. The noun is Manichaeism. Augustine used to be this. I recommend calling things Manichean when their major error is just thinking the material world is inherently bad and we need to escape it, and similarly when they (explicitly or implicitly) deny that creation is inherently good insofar as it is created by and a reflection of God.

Docetic: Docetism is the Christological heresy that says Jesus didn't have a real material body, but was kind of like a ghost or made out of soul-matter and just pretended to eat and walk and suffer like us. Obviously this is influenced by Gnosticism/Manichaeism, but its unique application of the view of matter as evil to Christ, and consequent denial that He was truly human like us, qualified it as a distinct heresy. I recommend calling things Docetic when their main error is denying God's meaningful engagement with and presence in the material world, and of course when they specifically deny that Christ had true physical humanity with needs and senses like ours.

[llevronbelac]

[llevronbelac]

Thank you for the resources.

Original Sin

You, I, and your reformed source seem to be in agreement that sin is not a part of human nature. This is why I reject original sin, because we are not created in the womb already guilty of sin just like Christ, who was fully human, was not created in the womb already guilty of sin. All the answers that protestants and catholics come up with for why Jesus wasn't a sinner even though all human beings are born sinners can simply be answered by the historic Orthodox understanding that a person is only guilty of the sins they commit not their father's sin nor their greatest grandfather's sin.

Penal Substitutionary Atonement

Does metaphoricalizing what is understood of God the Father's wrath, separation, and damnation of God the Son, not remove all weight from the PSA argument? So Christ didn't actually experience any of the punishments that we deserved; where is the penal substitution there? Would you rebuke those who do hold to PSA as a literal forsaking of Christ on the cross? In all honesty, I just see no reason to hold to a new and novel atonement model when there already are the Christus victor, recapitulation, restored icon, ransom, and moral influence models to explain the work of Christ that Christians have believed in for millennia before PSA was formulated.

Eternal Conscious Torment

Absolutely none of those verses cited prove the immortality of the soul for unbelievers. They all speak of believers being gifted eternal life by God. This is my position, these are my proof texts.

Here is something I wrote a couple years ago about this commonly cited proof text.

Matthew 25:46: 

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats. This is an eschatological parable that speaks of Jesus’s return at the end of time to judge the world in which the saved and unsaved will be separated. The saved going to experience eternal life and the unsaved going to experience eternal punishment. 

There are two arguments the ET view gives regarding this text. First, the eternal nature of the punishment must require that the act of carrying out the punishment be similarly eternal. Second, the parallel nature of the eternalities must be equal. Since the eternal life given to the righteous results in their ongoing enjoyment of said life forever, then the eternal punishment given to the unrighteous must likewise result in an ongoing act of punishing forever.

There are six instances in the New Testament where the word eternal is used to describe nouns that signify actions: Matthew 25:46 (eternal punishment), Mark 3:29 (eternal sin), Hebrews 5:9 (eternal salvation), Hebrews 6:2 (eternal judgement), Hebrews 9:12 (eternal redemption), and 2 Thessalonians 1:9 (eternal destruction). If one was to be consistent, to interpret Matthew 25:46 to mean that the punishment must be an ongoing act of punishing for it to be eternal, then the redemption, salvation, and judgement spoken of in Hebrews must likewise be an ongoing act of redeeming, saving, and judging in order to be eternal. The CI view would contend that it is not the continuous nature of the action noun that is eternal but rather the nature of the result coming from a single action of the noun. Hebrews 9:12 says, “He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.” The eternal nature of the redemption obtained by Christ describes its finality and lasting effect, not the ongoing action of redeeming. Likewise, the eternal nature of the punishment described in Matthew 25:46 is final and everlasting: death.

Regarding the second point, death is the more logical opposite but equal parallel to the eternal life given to the saved. Other parallels given throughout the New Testament of the fate of the saved versus that of the unsaved contrast death and life. John 3:16 famously says “...whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life,” and Romans 6:23 says, “for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ our Lord.” In both these verses perishing and death are contrasted against eternal life just as Matthew 25:46 contrasts eternal punishment with eternal life. The eternal punishment spoken of in Matthew 25:46 is most comprehensively and consistently interpreted as death: an eternal, final, irrevocable cessation of life, not as an ongoing act of being and experiencing punishment."

The Philosophical Arguments

Eternal

The eternal deprivation of life, ie Death, fulfills the demands of an eternal infinite punishment. It fulfills it to an even greater extent because there is no future hope of redemption for those who had both body and soul destroyed in hell. The infinite justice of God is truly, purely meted out. There is no ongoing sinning that acquires more debt that requires more wrath in a never ending cycle of sin never truly being punished. God's Justice supports my view.

Torment

The transcendent holiness of God who is truly, purely holy, unable to tolerate anything or anyone that is unholy, decided to immortalize sin and sinners in His eschaton so as to ensure that sin and sinners exist for all eternity to continue to sin against Him? Would not the thrice Holy God who cannot even look upon sin more likely want to eradicate it from existence? God's Holiness supports my view.

Conscious

The punishment that Christ bore on the cross was death.

Thank you so much for the response. You obviously don't have to continue to dialogue if you don't want to. Something though that I would really love to know is whether you would affirm someone who didn't believe in these doctrines as a fellow brother or sister in Christ or whether affirming these doctrines are necessary to be saved?

I reject original sin because it is Anti Christ

I reject penal substitutionary atonement because it's Anti Trinity

I reject eternal conscious torment because it's Anti Scriptural

I do not reject these doctrines because I have a heart issue preventing me from affirming biblical truth. It is precisely because I desire to conform myself to the Truth of Scripture that I deny these doctrines.

[llevronbelac]

The post was meant to be curt and punchy not a thorough theological defense, born out of a conversation I had with my pastor on why I didn't hold to doctrines he considered to be essential to Christianity. My Christological/Trinitarian/Scriptural objections to them didn't seem to be the answer he was looking for.

But to your question, absolutely! I'm glad you are interested.

Original Sin

The doctrine of original sin proposes that one of the consequences of Adam's fall was that all his progeny would be born guilty of the sin that he committed because we were all in the loins of Adam when he committed this sin, and by extension as ones born sinners already guilty of having committed sin, we are incapable of choosing to do anything but sin (many protestants and catholics today define original sin as just being born with a inclination to sin without the guilt but this is not how Augustine or the reformers saw it).

The issue that this doctrine causes in Christology is that Jesus was fully man, made like us in every respect, sharing in all things common among the descendants of Abraham, so that through suffering that which we suffer He is able to redeem us from this suffering as our faithful High Priest. But if the guilt of sin is inherited by all the descendants of Adam at conception, then Jesus as one of these descendants was a sinner and not our spotless redeemer. If by having a human nature, we are born guilty of sin, then Jesus who assumed a human nature did as well. No Christian can affirm this. So the answer given for this problem is just to deny that Jesus was fully human. He assumed a pre-fallen Adamic nature... that did not need to be redeemed. He only assumed our flesh and blood, but not our guilty nature, taking the appearance of a man... but not actually being fully man. This is why I call it an Anti Christ doctrine. It leads one to have to affirm one of two unaffirmable positions, either Christ was not sinless or He was not man.

Penal Substitutionary Atonement

The doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement proposes that as an atonement offering Christ substituted Himself for us, having our sin guilt transferred to Him and His righteousness transferred to us, and underwent the punishment that we deserved so that we would not have to. This punishment is classically understood to be the outpouring of God's wrath for all sin on Christ while He was on the cross, the turning of God's face away from Christ as God is too Holy to look upon such sin, and the damnation of Christ as the just punishment for our sins.

The issue with this doctrine is that Jesus is God. God the Father poured out His divine wrath on God the Son, God the Father forsook God the Son, and God the Father damned God the Son. How is this possible within the Trinity? The three members of the Trinity are in perfect loving harmony with each other, one member can not hate the other nor can they separate themselves from each other as if God were a clover where one leaf could be plucked off and burned.

In denying PSA, I am not denying that Jesus voluntarily underwent a punishment for sin (death) while He Himself was not under the condemnation of sin. Nor am I denying that through the work of Christ as a substitute we are redeemed, He died so that we may have life through His blood, He was victorious over Sin and Death so that we may be released from their bonds, it is through union with Him and His infinite riches that our infinite debt could be paid. He was the atonement for our sins, covering our unholiness with His blood so that we may enter into the presence of God. But none of this requires God the Father to pour out His wrath and separate Himself from God the Son to satiate His Holy Justice. The work of Christ is so much greater than that.

Eternal Conscious Torment

I have written a number of essays on this so I don't feel the need to write too much. The biblical evidence is support of ECT is miniscule, a parable in Luke and two verses in Revelation, while the evidence for Conditional Immortality/Annihilationism is astounding. There are hundreds of verses in the Bible that talk of the end of the wicked being death and destruction (even the two verses in Revelation when properly understood speak of this). God is the only immortal one and yet proponents of ECT talk as if we by nature have immortal souls. Over and over again, the Bible states that eternal life and immortality is a gift given exclusively to believers.

I do understand that the Tradition is very strong in support of this view so I try, and frequently fail, to be as charitable as I can to those who hold this view.

I reject original sin because it is Anti Christ

I reject penal substitutionary atonement because it's Anti Trinity

I reject eternal conscious torment because it's Anti Scriptural

I do not reject these doctrines because I have a heart issue preventing me from affirming biblical truth. It is precisely because I desire to conform myself to the Truth of Scripture that I deny these doctrines.

[llevronbelac]

Ephesians 1: the faithful in Christ Jesus are predestined to be sanctified, justified, and ultimately glorified as a part of their spiritual inheritance for the glory of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the work of Jesus.

Romans 8: Those who love God are predestined to be sanctified, justified, and ultimately glorified for the glory of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the work of Jesus.

This fool: God has decreed before creation to arbitrarily damn most of humanity because it is through their damnation that He is made most glorious.

Can you tell me about predestination?

I'd love to!

Predestination is the belief that God chose His elect in advance, before the creation of the world. He effects this by working in the lives of His elect via regeneration and the gift of grace. This is foundational to Reformed theology, which can be neatly summarized with the acronym TULIP.

As with all things Reformed, it starts with scripture.

"For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified." (Romans 8:29-30)

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will" (Ephesians 1:3-5)

There are many more, but I don't want this to get too long.

We can see in scripture that faith is a gift from God, through no effort or valor on our part (Unconditional Election). And thank God for that, because sin has so separated us from Him that we are incapable of choosing Him on our own (Total Depravity). We also see that God chooses his elect, as he chose Jacob over Esau (Limited Atonement). God always gets what he wants in the end (Irresistible Grace). And finally, I thank God for the fact that my salvation depends on Him and not me because He will never let me go (Perseverance of the Saints).

Predestination is ultimately the understanding that God is sovereign over all things. He is unlimited and does not choose to limit Himself. He is the source of all good in this fallen world. And we can take comfort in the fact that He knew us before he created us (Jeremiah 1:5).

[llevronbelac]

i do not inhabit my body i am my body, i am not a brain in a meat suit i am wonderful flesh and bone and veins and synapses and cartilage, my soul is not separate from my body they are one and the same and they are me, and if god did not care about the body he would not have promised to resurrect it

[llevronbelac]

Let’s be real. With this new twenty one pilots letter coming out I just want to say, there are some truths that are easier to stand up for than others. Because people will agree with you.

If you boldly proclaim that you should take care of animals, which are weaker than yourself, rather than abuse them, almost everybody is going to agree and applaud. But if you add, “but a human life is more valuable than a pet’s life,” then you’re going to have people raging at you.

If you boldly proclaim that someone has value, and they should not take their own life, almost everybody is going to agree and applaud. But if you add, “God is the one Who assigns value, regardless of how you feel, so you don’t have the right to kill yourself,” then you’re going to have people raging at you.

If you’re just going to “stand up” for the part of the truth that everybody agrees with, but keep your mouth shut about the equally important whole truth that people find “controversial,” that’s not really “standing up” at all.

Everybody’s “standing up” for “don’t kill yourself.” Everyone likes “self-worth,” everyone wants someone else to tell them they have it, even if they don’t feel it. Everyone’s standing up for that.

Not everybody is standing up for the actual universally true answer to the question, “where does worth come from?” Or, more broadly, “why don’t i have the right to do whatever I want with my life, including end it?”

The answer to both is, “The God of the Bible assigns human beings worth because they’re made in His image, He loves them, and He put them on the planet. Who are the humans to argue that they feel no value, then try and take control of when they leave the planet, when He said, ‘I want you here, and you have worth?’”

That’s the answer. Because hey, if you assign yourself worth? Well, that’s just based on you. And you feel worthless just as often as you feel worthwhile. Who’s to say when you’re right and when you’re wrong, about your own worth? I’ll tell you who. Not you. God. Someone outside of you, who knows you better than you know yourself, and actually sees this all clearly, and actually has the authority to start your life up and end it any time He wants.

“For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even to live. Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not have confidence in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead;” 2 Cor 1:8-9

Psalm 31:15 says “My times are in Your hands,” not mine.

That’s the answer. Thats the whole truth, the whole reason you shouldn’t commit suicide or think you’re worth nothing—the whole truth is the version that will last, it’s the version that applies to everything and has lasting effect in every season of your life, including the part that comes after death.

That’s the truth that’s hard to stand up for. Because people would much rather be god of their own lives than accept that a God more powerful, more loving, and more understanding than they are themselves is in charge.

[llevronbelac]

Ahh, so when she said crying over the Gospel she just meant Calvinism not the Gospel...

no, girl im fine— I’m just crying over the gospel again

[llevronbelac]

“Are you able to drink the cup I drink?”