Believe It or Not

Believe It or Not
By David Bentley Hart
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/04/believe-it-or-not

On The Unconditionality of Divine Love

Here are some links to a very well written set of articles by Fr Aidan Kimel on the Eclectic Orthodoxy blog (make sure to also read the comments section of each post):

Hell (Unfortunately)?
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/hell-unfortunately/

Universalism and the Deluge of Condemnation
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2015/06/18/universalism-and-the-deluge-of-condemnation/

The Gospel of Deluge
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/the-gospel-of-deluge/

Debating Universalism: The Need to Do One’s Homework
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/debating-universalism-the-need-to-do-ones-homework/

Orthodoxy and the Damnation of the Damned
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2015/06/25/orthodoxy-and-the-damnation-of-the-damned-2/

The Unconditionality of Divine Love and the Universalist Hope
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2015/06/27/the-unconditionality-of-divine-love-and-the-universalist-hope/

Highly recommended is the most recent post "The Unconditionality of Divine Love and the Universalist Hope" which is also reblogged below:

Theosis as Beautification: A Passion and Paschal meditation

On this Great and Holy Friday may you continually encounter the beauty of the Cross and the Resurrection.

If you've a few moments, please see the following meditation by Fr Johnathan Tobias:


Theosis as Beautification -- a Passion and Paschal meditation
by Fr Jonathan Tobias
http://janotec.typepad.com/terrace/2015/04/theosis-as-beautification-a-passion-and-paschal-meditation.html

What is Orthodox Theology?

What is Theology? What is Orthodox Theology?
Fr. Andrew Louth

"What is theology?" We first need to avoid a trap set by the word itself. There are lots of areas of knowledge designated by the suffix -logy: biology, anthropology, psychology, psephology, geology... I've lost count of the number of times people have asked me what I am a professor of, and in response to my saying "theology" have responded by saying how fascinating it must be to study rocks, and the formation of continents, and so forth!

The Structure and Meaning of Holy Week

The Structure and Meaning of Holy Week

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65QgZlNQ1yQ

http://www.christthesaviour.ca/ 

https://soundcloud.com/christthesaviouroc/the-structure-and-meaning-of

Fr John Behr on Forgiveness Vespers

"This evening we stand at the entrance to the Great Fast, and we enter into this holy season by asking each other for forgiveness.

Forgiveness is at the heart of Christianity, the mystery of Christ. It expresses the love that God has shown us in Christ, our mediator, reconciler, redeemer, and creator, the one who breaks down the wall of separation that we erect through our hardness of heart and brings us into unity with God and with each other.

It is at once the easiest thing—my yoke is light says Christ (Matt. 11:30)—and the hardest thing, as hard as our own hearts, our own sense of self—righteousness and self-worth. It is as hard as taking up the cross, and yet so easy, if only we can embrace it fully.

That which stands in the way of our taking the path of forgiveness is primarily our own hard-heartedness: we often don't want to forgive others, preferring to lick our wounds, aggrieved with others, but satisfied with ourselves, and build our identity on these wounds—“poor me"—and even more we often don’t want to ask for forgiveness, preferring to blame others because they can’t see how right we really are.

How hard it is, yet so easy, to cut through all of this self-righteousness, to accept the forgiveness that Christ offers us, and to forgive one another. By taking the first step, by asking one another for forgiveness, We cut down our ego and all that which would assert itself and justify itself, and we allow our hearts of stone to be cracked open, to receive the love of God, to become hearts of flesh, capable of loving one another.

When we do this we will find that forgiveness is not just a matter of saying "forget it," "it doesn't matter," "let's pretend it never happened." Rather we will find that even the evil and sin that has happened becomes an occasion of joy and life. Just as when Joseph's brother - who had sold him into slavery - were told by Joseph when they approached him: You thought that you did this? In fact, it was God who sent me here to preserve life (Gen. 45:5).

In the same way, if our hearts are set upon Christ and following him into the glory prepared for us from before the foundation of the world, if this is so, then everything that has happened, and happens still, becomes the means by which God is forming us, breaking our stony hearts, so that we might be conformed to the First-Born of many brethren (Rom. 8:29), so that we can indeed rejoice in all things, not only those things for which it is easy to be thankful - the good things that have come our way and the joy that others bring - but also all the trials and tribulations by which we now suffer, pummelling us and softening us, to share in the Pascha of Christ, the Pascha which, as we will sing in a minute, allows us to forgive all in the resurrection of Christ.

It is to this end, and this end alone, that all the extra prayers and ascetic efforts of the coming days are directed - certainly not that we should feel ever more proud of our achievements in them.

According to the Fathers, our life comes from our neighbor. God is the source of life, but it is a life that is lived here and now, with one another. And so our steps to a renewed life must begin concretely here, with one another. And so our steps to a renewed life must begin concretely here, with one another, beginning by asking each other for forgiveness, for all the things we may have done or not done, loose words or deliberate actions, for any offence caused, and, more generally, for having fallen short of what Christ has asked from each of us."

+ Fr John Behr, "The Cross Stands, While The World Turns" (Yonkers: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2014) 25-26.

David Dancing Before The Ark: The Liturgical Theology Implicit In 2 Samuel 6:14

David Dancing Before The Ark:
The Liturgical Theology Implicit In 2 Samuel 6:14
by Fr Robert Barron

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNTSNxFbFxk


Transcript

Homilies and Preaching

“The homily should not be a sermon about the Gospel, but preaching of the Gospel. In other words, it should not be an explanation of what was read, nor a class in theology, nor a meditation on the Gospel theme, because all these depend on the preacher’s own gifts and talents. What feeds the congregation is not the preacher’s rhetorical or theological or devotional skills, but the Gospel itself”

From "Theologia Prima: What is Liturgical Theology" by Professor David Fagerberg paraphrasing Fr Alexander Schmemman

The Mystery of Holy Week

The Mystery of Holy Week
by Fr Stephen Freeman
http://glory2godforallthings.com/2014/04/07/the-mystery-of-holy-week-2/

For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. (1Co 15:16-19 NKJ)

What "Historical Theology" Means

What "Historical Theology" Means (from an Orthodox Perspective)
by Fr Oliver Herbel
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9ai0L_ZYgzJR2x3ZTdNNEM3YUU/edit?usp=sharing

The Issue with Biblical Literalism

"There are many who want a God who will be argued, a God who will take His place on the playing field of human debate. God as a cause among the causes becomes useful for the human project (whatever we imagine it to be). But ultimately such a God is no God at all, just a god surrounded by the many gods, not the One, but one of many. 

For the literalists, God is the cause of the Bible and the Bible is the great effect by which all causes may be explained. But even here they err, making of the Bible what the Church never received. The Word became flesh (not paper)."

+ Fr Stephen Freeman, http://glory2godforallthings.com/2014/02/06/evolution-creation-and-the-hidden-cause/

ps. Highly suggest reading the comments section in http://glory2godforallthings.com/2014/02/06/evolution-creation-and-the-hidden-cause/

+++

Evolution, Creation and the Hidden Cause

http://glory2godforallthings.com/2014/02/06/evolution-creation-and-the-hidden-cause/

Appropriating the Academic Study of Scripture from an Orthodox Perspective

by Seraphim Hamilton

Reblogged from: http://onbehalfofall.org/appropriating-academic-study-of-scripture-from-an-orthodox-perspective/

When I first studied Orthodoxy, I had long been studying contemporary Biblical scholarship.

The history of the Church was foreign to me, and the revelation that the canon of Scripture emerged out of the history of that same Church (thus making Sola Scriptura self-contradictory)—along with the revelation that Patristic theology resembled Catholic and Orthodox theology far more than Protestant theology of any variety—convinced me very early on that Protestantism was untenable. Thus began a long struggle with Catholicism and Orthodoxy which I won’t go into here. Soon after I became convinced that the Orthodox Church was the way to go, I returned to the pages of Scripture.

I had absolutely no idea what it meant. And it was enormously difficult to ever begin reading it in an Orthodox manner.

Who Do You Say I Am?

Who do you say I am?

By FrJohn Behr

Reblogged from http://payingattentiontothesky.com/2013/10/17/who-do-you-say-i-am-fr-john-behr/

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel of the Coming One (cf. Matthew 11:3; 21:9; 23:39) and accordingly the citizenship of Christians is not on earth but in heaven, from which they await their Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (Philemon 3:20). In like manner the Gospel is not located in a specific text; what came to be recognized as “canonical” Gospels are always described as “The Gospel according to…” The Gospel is not fixed in a particular text, but, as we will see, in an interpretative relationship to the Scriptures — the Law, the Psalms and the Prophets.

“Who do you say I am?” Before we can even begin to answer Christ’s question, we must consider the background against which this question is raised and the framework within which it can be answered. The first subject inevitably raises issues concerning the historical background, and the delicate subject of the relation between history and faith, while the latter immerses us in the divisive topic of the relation between Scripture and tradition and the complex problem of canon. All these topics were debated in the first couple of centuries, and settled in a manner which thereafter (at least for the period considered in this series) became normative.

Concerning the issues surrounding historicity, much has been written on “the scandal of particularity,” the fact that God revealed himself uniquely through his Son, a first century Jew. Many volumes have also been devoted to describing the social, political, economic, and cultural setting of first century Palestine. In a similar vein, there have been many attempts, especially in the last decades of the twentieth century, to reconstruct the “historical Jesus” through the supposedly objective methods of historical-critical research.

It must be clearly noted, however, that such endeavors, the speculativeness and arbitrariness of which are amply demonstrated by the bewildering variety of “real” Jesuses they fabricate, are neither an answer to Christ’s question nor, consequently, are they of the order of knowledge upon which the Christian Church is based. Christ’s question calls for interpretation, to explain the meaning and significance of this person, his life and works.

To say that Jesus was born of Mary and was crucified under Pontius Pilate is to make an assertion concerning the order of history, about an event, possibly verifiable, possibly not; to say that he is the incarnate Word of God, the crucified and risen Lord and Savior, is an interpretation and explanation of who he is and how he stands in relation to those seeking to respond to him — a confession.

The writings of the New Testament are already such interpretations, written in the context of faith in the one whom God raised from the dead. Their status as interpretations cannot be bypassed in an effort to seek the supposed historical core and then subject it to other interpretative frameworks. The “real Jesus” inscribed in the writings of the New Testament is already interpreted, and to understand him more deeply, we must turn primarily to the symbolic world of Scripture, in and through which Christ is, from the first, understood and explained — revealed.

However, to speak of a collection of writings known as the New Testament presupposes certain developments, raising further difficult issues. Most immediately, why these writings and not others? Although seems probable that the letters of Paul began to be gathered into collections towards the end of the first century, and a fourfold Gospel collection soon thereafter, [H. Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 58-65; T. C. Skeat, The Oldest Manuscript of the Four Gospels? NTS 43 (1997), 1-34; G. N. Stanton, The Fourfold Gospel, NTS43 (1997), 317-46] the crucial battles lay ahead in the following century, and it is really only by the end of the second century that a recognizable New Testament came into use, and along with it an appeal to apostolic tradition, apostolic succession, and the canon or rule of truth. The importance of these debates cannot be overstated; through them these elements are brought together into one coherent whole. The New Testament has its place within a larger constellation.

If we are to understand the particular contours of this debate and its resolution, we must avoid reading its terms in the manner set by the polemics of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, in which Scripture is opposed to tradition, as two distinct sources of authority.

[In its official pronouncement, the Council of Trent (1545-63) affirmed, somewhat ambiguously, that the truth and rule are contained in written books and unwritten traditions (in libris scriptis et sine scripto traditionibus), Session 4, 8 April 1546; a draft of the decree submitted on 22 March 1564, suggests a greater independence of these two mediums, referring to the truth contained "partly (partim) in written books and partly (partim) in unwritten traditions." Text cited and discussed in Y. M. J. Congar, Tradition and Traditions: An Historical and a Theological Essay (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 164-9.]

Separating Scripture and tradition in this way introduces an inevitable quandary: if the locus of authority is fixed solely in Scripture, and “canon” is understood exclusively in the sense of a “list” of authoritative books, then accounting for that list becomes problematic;

R. Pfeiffer points out that the term “canon” was first used to designate “list” by David Ruhnken in 1768, and that his coinage met with worldwide and lasting success, as the term was found to be so convenient: one has the impression that most people who use it believe that this usage is of Greek origin. But the original Greek was never used in this sense, nor would this have been possible. From its frequent use in ethics it has always retained the meaning of rule or model.” (History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age [Oxford: Clarendon, 1968], 207).

Despite this recognition, Pfeiffer himself a few lines later describes the list of biblical books as its “canon,” appealing to passages where it could equally be taken in the sense of “rule” (Origen apud Eusebius HE 6.25.3; Athanasius, On the Decree of Nicaea, 18), cf. G. A. Robbins, Eusebius’ Lexicon of Canonicity, St. Patr. 25, (Leuven: Peeters, 1993), 134-41.

Most of the studies treating the canon of Scripture not that “canon” primarily meant “rule,” yet presuppose that it should mean “list,” and sc devote most attention to cataloguing when, where and by whom, the various writings were accepted as Scripture. For a more considered discussion of the issues concerning canon and Scripture, see, J. Barton, Holy Writings, Sacred Text: The Canon in Early Christianity (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997) and W. J. Abraham, Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).

If, on the other hand, Scripture is subsumed under tradition, on the grounds that the Church predates the writings of the New Testament (conveniently forgetting, in a Marcionite fashion, the existence of Scripture — the Law, the Psalms and the Prophets), then again a problem arises from the lack of a criterion or canon, this time for differentiating, as is often done, between “Tradition” and “traditions” — all traditions are venerable, though some more so than others, yet the basis for this distinction is never clarified.

With regard to the establishment by the end of the second century of catholic, orthodox or normative Christianity, the most important question must be: on what basis was this done? Was it a valid development, intrinsic to the proclamation of the Gospel itself, or an arbitrary imposition, dictated by a male, monarchical, power-driven episcopate suppressing all alternative voices by processes of exclusion and demonization, or however else the history might be written?

The picture of an originally pure orthodoxy, manifest in exemplary Christian communities, from which various heresies developed and split off, as it was presented for instance in the book of Acts and, in the fourth century, in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea, has become increasing difficult to maintain, especially since the work of Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity. And rightly so: the earliest Christian writings that we have, the letters of Paul, are addressed to churches already falling away from the Gospel which he had delivered to them.

Yet the Gospel was delivered. Debates certainly raged from the beginning about the correct interpretation of this Gospel; it is a mistake to look back to the early Church hoping to find a lost golden age of theological or ecclesiastical purity — whether in the apostolic times as narrated in the book of Acts, or the early Church, as recorded by Eusebius, or the age of the Fathers and Church Councils, or the Empire of Byzantium. Nevertheless, the Gospel was delivered, once for all.

However, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel of the Coming One (cf. Matthew 11:3; 21:9; 23:39) and accordingly the citizenship of Christians is not on earth but in heaven, from which they await their Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (Philemon 3:20). In like manner the Gospel is not located in a specific text; what came to be recognized as “canonical” Gospels are always described as “The Gospel according to…” The Gospel is not fixed in a particular text, but, as we will see, in an interpretative relationship to the Scriptures — the Law, the Psalms and the Prophets.

Inseparable from the debates about which works were to count as Scripture, was the issue of the correct interpretation of Scripture. Not only was there a commitment to a body of Scripture, but there was also the affirmation that there is a correct reading of this Scripture, or more exactly, that there is a correct canon for reading Scripture, a canon expressing the hypothesis of Scripture itself.

Even if it was expressed in many different ways and its articulation continued to be refined, a process which continues today, nevertheless there was a conviction that there is one right faith; and this conviction that there is one right faith, one right reading of the one Scripture, is intimately tied to the confession that there is one Jesus Christ, the only Son of the one Father, who alone has made known (“exegeted,” John 1:18] the Father.

The assertion that there is such a thing as right faith came to be expressed, by the end of the second century, in terms of the canon (rule) of faith or truth, where canon does not mean an ultimately arbitrary list of articles of belief which must be adhered to, or a list of authoritative books which must be accepted, but is rather a crystallization of the hypothesis of Scripture itself. The canon in this sense is the presupposition for reading Scripture on its own terms — it is the canon of truth, where Scripture is the body of truth.

It is often said that Christianity (along with Judaism and Islam, though these are not dealt with here) is a “religion of the book,” and this is usually taken in a very weak sense, that somehow, somewhere, for whatever reason, Christianity involves a book. But what is established as normative Christianity in the second century takes this in a much stronger sense: God acts through His Word, then that Word needs to be heard, to be read, to be understood — the relationship with God is, in a broad sense, literary. As such, it requires the full engagement of all the intellective faculties understand and accomplish, or incarnate, God’s Word.

It was no accident, as Frances Young observes, that what came to be orthodox or normative Christianity was “committed to a text-based version of revealed truth.” This Christianity, one might say, is an interpretative text-based religion.

She further points out, concerning the question of historicity touched on earlier, that it would be anachronistic to suppose that in antiquity God’s revelation was thought of as located in historical events behind the text, events to which, it is claimed, we can have access by reconstructing the from the text, treating the texts as mere historical documents which provide raw historical data, subject to our own analysis, rather than in the interpreted events as presented in Scripture, where the interpretation is already given through the medium of Scripture [Frances Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: bridge University Press, 1997), 167].

 What is recognized, by the end of the second century as normative Christianity is committed to understanding Christ by engaging with Scripture on the basis of the canon of truth and in the context of tradition.

But if this is the basis for what is established as normative Christianity by the end of the second century, it is no less the very dynamic of the Gospel itself. One of the earliest formulae for proclaiming the gospel is that Christ was crucified and raised “according to the Scriptures”:

I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.
(1 Corinthians 15: 3-4)

The Gospel which Paul delivered (“traditioned”) is from the first according to the Scriptures.” Clearly the Scriptures to which Paul is referring here are not the four Gospels, but the Law, the Psalms and the Prophets. The importance of this written reference, repeated twice, is such that the phrase is preserved in later Creeds; Christians who use the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed still confess that Christ died and rose according to the (same) Scriptures.

The point of concern in this basic Christian confession is not the historicity of the events behind their reports, but that the reports are continuous with, in accordance with, Scripture; it is a textual, or more accurately an “inter-textual” or interpretative confession. And this scriptural texture of the Gospel is, as we will see, the basis of both canon and tradition as articulated by what emerges as normative Christianity. If “orthodoxy” is indeed later than “heresy,” as Bauer claimed and as is commonly assumed, it is nevertheless based on nothing other than Gospel as it was delivered at the beginning.

On Preaching

Fr Aidan Kimel is currently writing on the topic of preaching at "Eclectic Orthodoxy" blog. You can also follow the series as it develops by going directly to the preaching category at http://afkimel.wordpress.com/category/preaching-2/ 

It's a must read for those involved in missions and evangelism, as there are some very important presuppositions addressed which can be of tremendous benefit to Orthodox missiology. Sometimes Orthodox parishes might model missiological methodologies on popular or reductionist approaches advocated by contemporary proponents of the second storey. Sometimes we might take missional courses that teach methodologies which have presuppositions and doctrines foreign to the ethos and lex orandi of the Church. Sometimes we might even make the methodology our message, instead of the Gospel, the Kerygma and Life in the Holy Trinity. 

Fr Aidan's musings on preaching might encourage us to revisit what we mean by preaching, or the Gospel, or what missiology implies in an Orthodox context.

Included below is a sample from the series, entitled "Preaching Gospel as Gospel: How Unconditional is Unconditional?":

The Paschal Foundation of Christian Theology

The Paschal Foundation of Christian Theology
by Fr John Behr, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 45.2 (2001) 115-136.
http://www.svots.edu/sites/default/files/2001-06-svtq-behr.pdf

The question of the proper starting point, the “first principles,” is one to which theology, and every discipline it encompasses, must continually return. Without being firmly grounded on its proper foundation, the vast body of reflection developed within theology risks collapsing into dust. It is not simply that the first principles are elementary stages, transcended by higher realms of esoteric reflection, but that they also provide the necessary orientation or perspective within which the more abstract discussion takes place and is to be understood. It is clear that the Christian faith is first and foremost faith in the lordship and divinity of the crucified and exalted Christ, yet the implications of this fact for how we understand and construe Christian doctrine are rarely considered. The analysis of this dimension offered in this article might seem unnecessarily laborious and extensive, but the scope and importance of its implications merit such a venture.

Fundamentalism as a Modern Distortion

"The caricature of Christianity, some of which has been made possible by Christian fundamentalism (itself a caricature of Christianity), is generally too incorrect to be addressed by a serious Christian...The great tragedy, of course, is that contemporary Christianity has been so “gutted” by those who claim to be its reformers, that a central doctrine of the faith can now be used by non-believers in an effort to undermine a modernized Christianity that was only invented a few years ago."

+ Fr Stephen Freeman, A Faith That Cannot Be Defended

"For the sake of harmony, I for one am more than willing to acknowledge that the God described by the new atheists definitely does not exist; but, to be perfectly honest, that is an altogether painless concession to make.

Would that I could, however, lay the blame for many of these misunderstandings entirely to the charge of the atheists. I cannot, sadly. Late modernity in the West has been marked, as no other period ever has, by the triumph of ideological extremism. The twentieth century gave birth to fundamentalism in religion, but also in politics, social theory, economics, and countless other spheres of abstract conjecture and personal commitment.

Justification

Fr Aidan Kimel has posted another very thoughtful and enriching series that would be of benefit for all Orthodox Christians to read and consider. http://afkimel.wordpress.com/category/justification/ Here is the series in one big re-post:

St Isaac the Syrian and God's Love

Fr Aidan Kimel has posted a lovely (and challenging) series on St Isaac the Syrian's views on God's love, judgement, penal sub, and Orthodox understanding of salvation.

The writings of St Isaac challenges us I think because of the paradox and incomprehensibility of the astonishing wonder of God's love. Perhaps again we must appeal to an apophatic paradox: God's Love is incomprehensibly beyond what I think love is, yet this love has been encountered and can be touched in and through the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. We partake of Bread and Wine that is Body and Blood. We behold the Man, Who is God in the Flesh.

We are in wonder and ask the Theotokos to pray for us, for how humble is she who in her womb, she embraced Him whom the heavens could not contain? It is this tremendous paradox that humbles us and yet raises us, beyond compare. May we live out our Baptism and glorify God with His Saints.

In regards to the universalism of St Isaac the Syrian, I agree with Fr Aidan that we must tread carefully on the subject, and realize our own sinfulness and readily repent, growing in union with God, growing in union with the infinite depths and mysteries of Divine Love, that one day we may have the humility to love in the Way and Type of Christ.

O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, everywhere present and fillest all things, Treasury of Goodness and Giver of Life, Come dwell in us, cleanse us of all stain, guard us from the Enemy, teach us to love, repent and pray, free us from delusion and the fallen passions, and save our souls, O Good One.

May our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ the Son of God, Who we Glorify with the Father and the Holy Spirit, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

ps. I highly recommend Fr Aidan's blog http://afkimel.wordpress.com and have also included the series in one big post below:

A Prayer Before Encountering Scripture and Teaching

The following is a beautiful prayer from "Speaking to God from the Depths of the Heart" by St Gregory Narek. It seems fitting for students, teachers, preachers, servants and parents...

Adam Our Ancestor?

An interesting read that touches a possible Orthodox response to modern historical understanding of the early chapters of Genesis...

 + + +

Adam Our Ancestor?

by Stephen Thomas

I have been frequently referring to a “before” and an “after” situation, using the language in a kind of narrative. There was for Man a “before,” when humankind was in a primordial state of bliss. Then there was an “after,” a point in our past after which things seem to have gone wrong, so that we lost our original happiness with God. This “after” shows humankind as sick and in need of healing; deification is that healing.

I have argued that the Bible has coherence as a whole, that it is an orderly account which explains things in terms of what previously happened and in terms of what are the real moving forces behind life. Thus the Bible is, in some sense, a “history.” It is a unique kind of history with God as the main character or agent, the subject of which is our salvation.