The Christian Discussion thread IX: Pelagius Rising.

[Tarsonis]

Good Christian music doesn't exi....

https://youtu.be/GpxFUo7oxWM

Gregorian chant not good?

Boi....

Sorry contemporary* Christian music

[Salus Maior]

Gregorian chant not good?

Boi....

Sorry contemporary* Christian music

That's better

[Northern Davincia]

While the Orthodox Church has its perks, why be a Jedi when you can be Sith? Come to Home to Rome, the true seat of Power!!Mwhahahaja. *ahem*. I mean, Catholicism is cool too,

relevant

Being Catholic grants you superpowers. *nod*

[Constantinopolis]

Don't get me wrong, salvation is still very unlikely for non-Christians - for a number of reasons, including the fact that they wouldn't recognize many of their sins as being sins, and you cannot repent of something that you don't recognize as being sinful.

Beyond a few basic things, the religions of the world don't actually agree on how one should live one's life.

Well to be fair, lack of knowledge of what is sinful prevents one of being guilty of said sins.

That's only the Catholic view. In the Orthodox view, lack of knowledge doesn't absolve one from guilt. In fact, we explicitly affirm the existence of sins committed "involuntarily" and "in ignorance" when asking for forgiveness. Our standard formula is to ask forgiveness for "all our sins, of deed, word or thought, voluntary and involuntary, committed in knowledge or in ignorance". We say a prayer including that formula during each Liturgy.

[Auze]

So I just decided it didn't warrant it's own thread but I've been chewing on a question.

Would you go to heaven?

Tomorrow morning you read the paper and it turns out they proved that the classical heaven and fiery hell exist. Believers go to heaven, unbelievers go to hell. It's a great article and deals with lots of details that don't matter here. What you're challenged to consider is this: knowing that heaven exists and that you have the opportunity to live your life in such a way that you go there, will you?

I wouldn't. I have known, respected, and loved too many people who would be in hell to allow myself to go to heaven. How the actual hell am I supposed to be satisfied with the kingdom of god if the people who made my life in the mortal plane tolerable are suffering? I would rather face hell than accept circumstances that reward me while my friends suffer..

Considering that the main ones who believe in this version are fundamentalist protestant, and us mormons are in their top 10 groups most likely to go to hell... probably no.

[Nordengrund]

relevant

Being Catholic grants you superpowers. *nod*

So does Scientology. Tom Cruise says he has unlocked force powers, and I suspect that he is a Sith Lord. Well, unless Popetine is a Sith, then I guess Scientology is the Jedi religion.

[Constantinopolis]

Being Catholic grants you superpowers. *nod*

So does Scientology. Tom Cruise says he has unlocked force powers, and I suspect that he is a Sith Lord.

Stand back.



We got this.

[Stonok]

We got this.

Get help, you're no match for him. He's a Sith lord!

[Corpus Magnus]

So I just decided it didn't warrant it's own thread but I've been chewing on a question.

Would you go to heaven?

Tomorrow morning you read the paper and it turns out they proved that the classical heaven and fiery hell exist. Believers go to heaven, unbelievers go to hell. It's a great article and deals with lots of details that don't matter here. What you're challenged to consider is this: knowing that heaven exists and that you have the opportunity to live your life in such a way that you go there, will you?

I wouldn't. I have known, respected, and loved too many people who would be in hell to allow myself to go to heaven. How the actual hell am I supposed to be satisfied with the kingdom of god if the people who made my life in the mortal plane tolerable are suffering? I would rather face hell than accept circumstances that reward me while my friends suffer..

If these people are the sort who "made your life tolerable", are you sure they would go to hell?

[Tarsonis]

Well to be fair, lack of knowledge of what is sinful prevents one of being guilty of said sins.

That's only the Catholic view. In the Orthodox view, lack of knowledge doesn't absolve one from guilt. In fact, we explicitly affirm the existence of sins committed "involuntarily" and "in ignorance" when asking for forgiveness. Our standard formula is to ask forgiveness for "all our sins, of deed, word or thought, voluntary and involuntary, committed in knowledge or in ignorance". We say a prayer including that formula during each Liturgy.

Not to be combative but this is litterally the biblical view, not just the "Catholic" view. St. Paul litterally calls the law a holy curse for the very fact that it brings death by bringing awareness of sin. Adam and Eve are espressely exiled, not for their offense, but for "having knowledge of Good and Evil."

[Diopolis]

I was a catholic boy and taught that protestant was how polite folk said heathen.

You were Catholic and you were taught that "one accepted Christ or did not and that nothing in between mattered"?

Which is outright heresy.

And that one cannot find salvation after death (which may be an outright denial of the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory)? Then whoever taught you those things needed to do a better job of reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

No, it is not. Those in purgatory are considered already saved in eternal matters, but required to finish doing penance for their time on earth. The church teaches that at judgement day all those in purgatory will immediately go to heaven, even if their penance is not completed(this does leave open the loophole that all of those in purgatory could experience a single instant of more intense suffering to complete their penance, but it is not taught officially)- this is one of the ways in which purgatory differs from Orthodox conceptions of the afterlife. In the Orthodox view, the path to heaven continues on after death and one can fall off of it at any point. So Orthodox after death journeying to heaven can go to hell. Catholics believe that those in purgatory are saved, they just need to stand in line first.

Let me pray from hell.

You can't. You can only pray from Heaven. That is why, even if you don't care about yourself (which is a good thing), you should still want to be saved so that you can help others.[/quote]
If he's a Catholic, he believes those in hell are beyond our help, our charity, our pity.

[Constantinopolis]

Come join the Orthodox Church. We have cookies prosphora.

Joking aside, I would recommend "Orthodox Dogmatic Theology" and "The Living God" as particularly good books about Orthodox theology. There's also "Know the Faith", which works really well as a quick summary.

But, of course, as important as theology is, it is not really possible to understand Orthodoxy without experiencing the Liturgy as well. So, if you haven't already, I would strongly recommend finding a local Orthodox parish in your area and visiting once or twice. If you happen to be in the United States, there is an excellent search engine for finding Orthodox parishes near a given location.

Thank you, I will definitely have a read of those, I’ve attempted to visit the nearest Orthodox Church, I just live quite a distance away from it, but definitly visiting is a priority when I have a Sunday free. Just to see the Divine Liturgy, even without religious implications, is probably beautiful.

Yes, absolutely! Now, like Arch said, it is best to go to a larger parish in order to get the full splendor of the Divine Liturgy (although that's more of a general guideline than a hard rule - I know of some tiny Orthodox churches that provide a mystical experience like no other place on Earth). A smaller community is, on the other hand, a better place for getting to know people.

Also, one thing I forgot to mention in my previous post is Ancient Faith Radio. It's a great online resource for Orthodox-related podcasts and Orthodox music.

Don't get me wrong, salvation is still very unlikely for non-Christians - for a number of reasons, including the fact that they wouldn't recognize many of their sins as being sins, and you cannot repent of something that you don't recognize as being sinful.

Just for reference for the non-Orthodox, Const and I disagree somewhat over universal salvation within Orthodoxy. It's not a disagreement of dogma, but rather of degree; of how likely or unlikely it is that non-Christians would achieve salvation. Past discussion in this thread's predecessors suggests that I'm more hopeful about and open towards a modified universalism, as per my preferred patristic (though not, of course - at least not on this subject - Origenist) teachings on apocatastasis.

However, on the basis of past posts, I believe Const and I would almost certainly agree that ultimately it's not our judgement to make, and that we would be better off focussing on our own salvation rather than worrying about the salvation of others; Matthew 7:1-3, and all that. We would also entirely agree on the cause and nature of Hell.

Yes, that is correct. It's not our judgement to make, and we simply can't know who will be saved among the non-Orthodox, and whether the number of them will be great or small. We should focus on our own salvation, but also, of course, pray for the entire world.

As for our disagreement about salvation for non-Christians, it's not so much a disagreement as a matter of optimism vs. pessimism. The Orthodox Church does affirm that salvation for non-Christians is at least technically possible, but we do not know how likely or common it might be, and opinions within the Orthodox Church range from "it's so extremely rare that almost zero non-Christians are saved" to "nearly all people will be saved". The Church discourages people from arguing about it because it's all just speculation. I personally tend towards the pessimistic view - that very few non-Christians are saved - simply because that's my attitude to most things in life in general: I assume the worst just in case, so that I'll be ready for it; and if it turns out I was wrong, then I can be pleasantly surprised.

[Constantinopolis]

That's only the Catholic view. In the Orthodox view, lack of knowledge doesn't absolve one from guilt. In fact, we explicitly affirm the existence of sins committed "involuntarily" and "in ignorance" when asking for forgiveness. Our standard formula is to ask forgiveness for "all our sins, of deed, word or thought, voluntary and involuntary, committed in knowledge or in ignorance". We say a prayer including that formula during each Liturgy.

Not to be combative but this is litterally the biblical view, not just the "Catholic" view. St. Paul litterally calls the law a holy curse for the very fact that it brings death by bringing awareness of sin. Adam and Eve are espressely exiled, not for their offense, but for "having knowledge of Good and Evil."

Adam and Eve are exiled for having disobeyed God (specifically, for having broken the one single super-easy-to-follow commandment that He gave them, in other words failing quite pathetically), not for "having knowledge of Good and Evil." Having knowledge of Good and Evil was one of the effects of their offense. It wasn't in itself the offense.

And sin would exist just the same with or without the Law. It is quite ridiculous to say that lack of knowledge of sin absolves one from sin, because then the logical conclusion would be that we need to keep everyone as ignorant as possible about God and His revelations to Mankind. It's like that old joke about the Inuit and the missionary priest:

Inuit: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"
Priest: "No, not if you did not know."
Inuit: "Then why did you tell me?"

Obviously illogical perspective is obviously illogical. In order for the very idea of the Gospel as "Good News" to make any sense, it must be the case that sins remain sins even when people don't know about them.

[Diopolis]

Not to be combative but this is litterally the biblical view, not just the "Catholic" view. St. Paul litterally calls the law a holy curse for the very fact that it brings death by bringing awareness of sin. Adam and Eve are espressely exiled, not for their offense, but for "having knowledge of Good and Evil."

Adam and Eve are exiled for having disobeyed God (specifically, for having broken the one single super-easy-to-follow commandment that He gave them, in other words failing quite pathetically), not for "having knowledge of Good and Evil." Having knowledge of Good and Evil was one of the effects of their offense. It wasn't in itself the offense.

And sin would exist just the same with or without the Law. It is quite ridiculous to say that lack of knowledge of sin absolves one from sin, because then the logical conclusion would be that we need to keep everyone as ignorant as possible about God and His revelations to Mankind. It's like that old joke about the Inuit and the missionary priest:

Inuit: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"
Priest: "No, not if you did not know."
Inuit: "Then why did you tell me?"

It's interesting to note that the classical definition of "virtuous pagan" as it was used by the Catholic church was those who have come as far along the path of truth as they possibly can without having the benefit of revelation. This is obviously a vanishingly rare thing- when my pastor explained it to me, he opined that Siddartha(I think I spelled it right) Buddha was the only person he personally saw as a virtuous pagan. I might include a smattering of stoic philosophers, zoroaster, possibly confucius, and maybe a few other people we don't know about, but it's still not a long list.
AKA, that Inuit wouldn't be held liable for not knowing about God, but he could easily be held liable for not knowing about sin, or not knowing that adultery(which inuit society saw as normal and not stigmatized) was a sin.

[Lower Nubia]

While the Orthodox Church has its perks, why be a Jedi when you can be Sith? Come to Home to Rome, the true seat of Power!!Mwhahahaja. *ahem*. I mean, Catholicism is cool too,

relevant

Definitly need some of that Papal power!

[Northern Davincia]

So does Scientology. Tom Cruise says he has unlocked force powers, and I suspect that he is a Sith Lord.

Stand back.



We got this.

"I am the church."

[Salus Maior]

Adam and Eve are exiled for having disobeyed God (specifically, for having broken the one single super-easy-to-follow commandment that He gave them, in other words failing quite pathetically), not for "having knowledge of Good and Evil." Having knowledge of Good and Evil was one of the effects of their offense. It wasn't in itself the offense.

And sin would exist just the same with or without the Law. It is quite ridiculous to say that lack of knowledge of sin absolves one from sin, because then the logical conclusion would be that we need to keep everyone as ignorant as possible about God and His revelations to Mankind. It's like that old joke about the Inuit and the missionary priest:

Inuit: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"
Priest: "No, not if you did not know."
Inuit: "Then why did you tell me?"

It's interesting to note that the classical definition of "virtuous pagan" as it was used by the Catholic church was those who have come as far along the path of truth as they possibly can without having the benefit of revelation. This is obviously a vanishingly rare thing- when my pastor explained it to me, he opined that Siddartha(I think I spelled it right) Buddha was the only person he personally saw as a virtuous pagan. I might include a smattering of stoic philosophers, zoroaster, possibly confucius, and maybe a few other people we don't know about, but it's still not a long list.
AKA, that Inuit wouldn't be held liable for not knowing about God, but he could easily be held liable for not knowing about sin, or not knowing that adultery(which inuit society saw as normal and not stigmatized) was a sin.

So, for instance if there was a civilization on a tiny island where Christian missionaries weren't able to reach and tell them about God, they wouldn't be condemned for not knowing about God, but if they were a civilization of rapacious murderers and totally sinful they could still be condemned for that even if they didn't have missionaries to tell them it was a sin?

[Diopolis]

It's interesting to note that the classical definition of "virtuous pagan" as it was used by the Catholic church was those who have come as far along the path of truth as they possibly can without having the benefit of revelation. This is obviously a vanishingly rare thing- when my pastor explained it to me, he opined that Siddartha(I think I spelled it right) Buddha was the only person he personally saw as a virtuous pagan. I might include a smattering of stoic philosophers, zoroaster, possibly confucius, and maybe a few other people we don't know about, but it's still not a long list.
AKA, that Inuit wouldn't be held liable for not knowing about God, but he could easily be held liable for not knowing about sin, or not knowing that adultery(which inuit society saw as normal and not stigmatized) was a sin.

So, for instance if there was a civilization on a tiny island where Christian missionaries weren't able to reach and tell them about God, they wouldn't be condemned for not knowing about God, but if they were a civilization of rapacious murderers and totally sinful they could still be condemned for that even if they didn't have missionaries to tell them it was a sin?

Yes. The Aztecs probably aren't liable for worshiping huitzillopotchtli, but sacrificing humans to him, they are.

[Auze]

This discussion is another reason as to why Mormonism is awesome.

[Northern Davincia]

This discussion is another reason as to why Mormonism is awesome.

Explain thyself. At least we don't believe men can become gods.

[Auze]

This discussion is another reason as to why Mormonism is awesome.

Explain thyself.

We basically covered the "what happens to those who had no knowledge in the truth?" debate in part of our doctrine- it's all explained.

[Northern Davincia]

Explain thyself.

We basically covered the "what happens to those who had no knowledge in the truth?" debate in part of our doctrine- it's all explained.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." -John 3:16
Seems self-explanatory to me.

[Auze]

We basically covered the "what happens to those who had no knowledge in the truth?" debate in part of our doctrine- it's all explained.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." -John 3:16
Seems self-explanatory to me.

As in somebody never had a chance to find out about it, or even didn't know about the church.

[Northern Davincia]

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." -John 3:16
Seems self-explanatory to me.

As in somebody never had a chance to find out about it, or even didn't know about the church.

Well, the predicament here is that there's your word, and then there's word of Christ Himself. I believe the latter has more significance.

[Minachia]

Stand back.

(Image)

We got this.

"I am the church."

Wait, if Orthodox are Jedi and Catholics are Sith, what are Protestants?