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Christians: What does it mean to be a "Christian"?
- Thread starter Tranquil Servant
- Start date
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
You realize, of course, that this definition excludes anyone who lived and died prior to 325 A.D.
Not really. The Faith never changes. It's only clarified in response to heresy. The Apostles and pre-Nicene Fathers would have had no problem accepting this Creed.
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
What evidence can you provide to support this statement, Shiranui? I believe there is very little, if any, evidence that any of Christ's contemporaries or any of His followers prior to the mid- to late-third century believed in the God of the Nicene or Athanasian Creeds. What is the earliest statement you can provide to prove me wrong?
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
That's a pretty bold statement for you to make. How can you know that? Can you provide statements from any of them to that effect?
Let me ask you this: What do the creeds tell us about the nature of God that the Bible doesn't also tell us?
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Tranquil Servant
Was M.I.A for a while
as I mentioned before "Christian" was not a title given to us by Christ but by man.
I know about the trinity. I was raised Christian. I don't care for the "definition" of three "persons" in one. It sounds as if God is limited.
And thank you but no thank you.
Well, there's 2 Corinthians 13:14: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
St. Ignatius of Antioch (a personal student of St. John the Apostle, mind you) says this for starters:
Study, therefore, to be established in the doctrines of the Lord and the apostles, that so all things, whatsoever ye do, may prosper both in the flesh and spirit; in faith and love; in the Son, and in the Father, and in the Spirit; in the beginning and in the end; with your most admirable bishop, and the well-compacted spiritual crown of your presbytery, and the deacons who are according to God. Be ye subject to the bishop, and to one another, as Jesus Christ to the Father, according to the flesh, and the apostles to Christ, and to the Father, and to the Spirit; that so there may be a union both fleshly and spiritual. - Epistle to the Magnesians, chapter 13
There's this from the Didache, chapter 7:
After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water
. If you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Theophilos of Antioch is the first person to explicitly use the word "Trinity":
It is the attribute of God, of the most high and almighty and of the living God, not only to be everywhere, but also to see and hear all; for he can in no way be contained in a place.... The three days before the luminaries were created are types of the Trinity, God, his Word, and his Wisdom.
Novatian wrote an entire treatise about the Trinity:
Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Novatian/A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity - Wikisource, the free online library
Pope Dionysius of Rome also writes about the Trinity in the way that the Nicene Fathers understood it:
Next, I may reasonably turn to those who divide and cut to pieces and destroy that most sacred doctrine of the Church of God, the Divine Monarchy, making it as it were three powers and partive subsistences and godheads. I am told that some among you who are catechists and teachers of the Divine Word, take the lead in this tenet, who are diametrically opposed, so to speak, to Sabellius' opininons; for he blasphemously says that the Son is the Father, and Father the Son, but they in some sort preach three Gods, as dividing the sacred Unity into three subsistences foreign to each other and utterly separate. For it must be that with the God of the Universe, the Divine Word is united, and the Holy Ghost must repose and habitate in God; thus in one as in a summit, I mean the God of the Universe, must the Divine Trinity be gathered up and brought together.... Neither, then, may we divide into three godheads the wonderful and divine Unity...Rather, we must believe in God, the Father Almighty; and in Christ Jesus, his Son; and in the Holy Spirit; and that the Word is united to the God of the universe. 'For,' he says, 'The Father and I are one,' and 'I am in the Father, and the Father in me'. For thus both the Divine Trinity and the holy preaching of the Monarchy will be preserved.
Feel free to read more here.
Nothing. The Creed is a distillation of how God revealed Himself to us, as described in the Bible, safeguarding the proper interpretation of it. The Athanasian Creed has a couple screwy things in it (for example, it seems to promote the Filioque idea, or the idea that the Holy Spirit has His origin in both the Father AND the Son)
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
I don't have any problem with either of these, because I do believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I also believe that all three can rightly be called "God." Finally, I believe that they are "one." I just don't see how either of these statements, particularly the passage from 2 Corinthians has anything to say about how they are "one." I believe that they are "one" in will, purpose, mind, heart, power and glory -- in short, in every conceivable way except the physical. And I most definitely believe myself to be a Christian.
I have no doubt but that this all made perfect sense to the Nicene Fathers. However, I strongly suspect that had Christ's Apostles heard it, their response would have been something along the lines of "huh?"
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
Okay, but obviously the Roman Catholics don't find the Filioque idea at all screwy. The problem that I see is that the Bible does not specifically state one way or the other whether the Holy Spirit has His origin in both the Father and the Son or just in the Father. So, the Athanasian Creed does present us with supposed "facts" that the Bible does not actually address, and the Eastern and Western Churches are at odds over one of these supposed "facts." If all revelation had ceased with the deaths of the Apostles, how is one to know which point of view (i.e. regarding the Filioque idea) is correct and which one was incorrect? Apparently this was an interpretation made by human beings, without the benefit of revelation from Heaven, and human beings are fallible. I suspect that you personally (based on the fact that you've come across as a pretty non-dogmatic, open-minded sort of person) would say that even when this disagreement is taken into account, both Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism are Christian. So I guess I wonder why, if I believe everything the Bible itself has to say about the nature of God, but do not accept the 4th and 5th century interpretations of what it has to say, you would not consider me to be a Christian. If I believe that Jesus Christ is the fully divine Son of God and the author of my salvation, I don't know what I could possibly be if not a Christian.
A true Christian is one who believes and practices the teachings of Jesus Christ. The way to identify them is by their actions, not their words. Jesus said his disciples could be identified by the love they have for one another. (John 13:34,35) I know of only one religion that practices (not just preaches) such love.
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
Tranquil Servant
Was M.I.A for a while
Let's just say "way of Life" rather than "religion"
Despite the fact that numerous Popes vehemently opposed the Filioque's inclusion in the Nicene Creed at Rome; in fact, Pope St. Leo III even wrote the Creed--without the Filioque--and hung it up on the doors of the cathedral in Rome. In fact, for a while, Roman Popes preferred to not say the Creed at all, than to say it and allow for the Filioque.
The Father alone is the source of the Trinity. The Latins agreed with this for the longest time. Many still do. If the Holy Spirit has both His origin in the Father and the Son, then the Holy Spirit is beneath both. Now, the Spirit proceeding (i.e. going) from the Father and Son is no problem. But the Spirit has His source alone in the Father.
EDIT: I will note that the Filioque can have different meanings, and some of those meanings are perfectly in line with Orthodox teaching. Only some interpretations of the Filioque (i.e. double procession of the Holy Spirit) are heretical.
Accepting that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully Man is a HUGE part of being Christian. Since both RC's and EO accept the Trinity and the Hypostatic Union, we are both truly Christian (even if the Romans thought up an innovative ecclesiology over the years
)Actually, a few questions:
1: What exactly is your view of the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
2: How are they exactly "one"? Are they one God in three Persons? Or three Gods in one Godhead? Or three aspects/masks/faces of one God?
3: How would you say that your understanding of God/Father, Son and Holy Spirit differs from the Nicene Fathers'?
4: Would you agree with the below statements? If so, where? If not, where and why not?
Thus, as the Father is “ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing and eternally the same” (Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom), so the Son and the Spirit are exactly the same. Every attribute of divinity which belongs to God the Father—life, love, wisdom, truth, blessedness, holiness, power, purity, joy—belongs equally as well to the Son and the Holy Spirit. The being, nature, essence, existence and life of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are absolutely and identically one and the same.
In the Bible the term “God” with very few exceptions is used primarily as a name for the Father. Thus, the Son is the “Son of God,” and the Spirit is the “Spirit of God.” The Son is born from the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father—both in the same timeless and eternal action of the Father’s own being. [There is one God because there is one Father, since He is the source of the Trinity.]
In this view, the Son and the Spirit are both one with God and in no way separated from Him. Thus, the Divine Unity consists of the Father, with His Son and His Spirit distinct from Himself and yet perfectly united together in Him.
In Orthodox terminology the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are called three divine persons. Person is defined here simply as the subject of existence and life—hypostasis in the traditional church language.
As the being, essence or nature of a reality answers the question “what?”, the person of a reality answers the question “which one?” or “who?” Thus, when we ask “What is God?” we answer that God is the divine, perfect, eternal, absolute… and when we ask “Who is God?” we answer that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The saints of the Church have explained this tri-unity of God by using such an example from worldly existence. We see three men. “What are they?” we ask. “They are human beings,” we answer. Each is man, possessing the same humanity and the same human nature defined in a certain way: created, temporal, physical, rational, etc. In what they are, the three men are one. But in who they are, they are three, each absolutely unique and distinct from the others. Each man in his own unique way is distinctly a man. One man is not the other, though each man is still human with one and the same human nature and form.
Turning to God, we may ask in the same way: “What is it?” In reply we say that it is God defined as absolute perfection: “ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing, and eternally the same.” We then ask, “Who is it?”, and we answer that it is the Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In who God is, there are three persons who are each absolutely unique and distinct. Each is not the other, though each is still divine with the same divine nature and form. Therefore, while being one in what they are; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are Three in who they are. And because of what and who they are—namely, uncreated, divine persons—they are undivided and perfectly united in their timeless, spaceless, sizeless, shapeless super-essential existence, as well as in their one divine life, knowledge, love, goodness, power, will, action, etc.
Thus, according to the Orthodox Tradition, it is the mystery of God that there are Three who are divine; Three who live and act by one and the same divine perfection, yet each according to his own personal distinctness and uniqueness. Thus it is said that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each divine with the same divinity, yet each in his own divine way. And as the uncreated divinity has three divine subjects, so each divine action has three divine actors; there are three divine aspects to every action of God, yet the action remains one and the same.
We discover, therefore, one God the Father Almighty with His one unique Son (Image and Word) and His one Holy Spirit. There is one living God with His one perfect divine Life, who is personally the Son, with His one Spirit of Life. There is one True God with His one divine Truth, who is personally the Son, with His one Spirit of Truth. There is one wise and loving God with His one Wisdom and Love, who is personally the Son, with His one Spirit of Wisdom and Love. The examples could go on indefinitely: the one divine Father personifying every aspect of His divinity in His one divine Son, who is personally activated by His one divine Spirit. We will see the living implications of the Trinity as we survey the activity of God in his actions toward man and the world.
Also, which of these do you agree are incorrect understandings of Who God is? http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/doctrine/the-holy-trinity/wrong-doctrines-of-the-trinity
[]=my own additions
Thank you, and God bless! In the Bible the term “God” with very few exceptions is used primarily as a name for the Father. Thus, the Son is the “Son of God,” and the Spirit is the “Spirit of God.” The Son is born from the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father—both in the same timeless and eternal action of the Father’s own being. [There is one God because there is one Father, since He is the source of the Trinity.]
In this view, the Son and the Spirit are both one with God and in no way separated from Him. Thus, the Divine Unity consists of the Father, with His Son and His Spirit distinct from Himself and yet perfectly united together in Him.
In Orthodox terminology the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are called three divine persons. Person is defined here simply as the subject of existence and life—hypostasis in the traditional church language.
As the being, essence or nature of a reality answers the question “what?”, the person of a reality answers the question “which one?” or “who?” Thus, when we ask “What is God?” we answer that God is the divine, perfect, eternal, absolute… and when we ask “Who is God?” we answer that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The saints of the Church have explained this tri-unity of God by using such an example from worldly existence. We see three men. “What are they?” we ask. “They are human beings,” we answer. Each is man, possessing the same humanity and the same human nature defined in a certain way: created, temporal, physical, rational, etc. In what they are, the three men are one. But in who they are, they are three, each absolutely unique and distinct from the others. Each man in his own unique way is distinctly a man. One man is not the other, though each man is still human with one and the same human nature and form.
Turning to God, we may ask in the same way: “What is it?” In reply we say that it is God defined as absolute perfection: “ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing, and eternally the same.” We then ask, “Who is it?”, and we answer that it is the Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In who God is, there are three persons who are each absolutely unique and distinct. Each is not the other, though each is still divine with the same divine nature and form. Therefore, while being one in what they are; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are Three in who they are. And because of what and who they are—namely, uncreated, divine persons—they are undivided and perfectly united in their timeless, spaceless, sizeless, shapeless super-essential existence, as well as in their one divine life, knowledge, love, goodness, power, will, action, etc.
Thus, according to the Orthodox Tradition, it is the mystery of God that there are Three who are divine; Three who live and act by one and the same divine perfection, yet each according to his own personal distinctness and uniqueness. Thus it is said that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each divine with the same divinity, yet each in his own divine way. And as the uncreated divinity has three divine subjects, so each divine action has three divine actors; there are three divine aspects to every action of God, yet the action remains one and the same.
We discover, therefore, one God the Father Almighty with His one unique Son (Image and Word) and His one Holy Spirit. There is one living God with His one perfect divine Life, who is personally the Son, with His one Spirit of Life. There is one True God with His one divine Truth, who is personally the Son, with His one Spirit of Truth. There is one wise and loving God with His one Wisdom and Love, who is personally the Son, with His one Spirit of Wisdom and Love. The examples could go on indefinitely: the one divine Father personifying every aspect of His divinity in His one divine Son, who is personally activated by His one divine Spirit. We will see the living implications of the Trinity as we survey the activity of God in his actions toward man and the world.
Also, which of these do you agree are incorrect understandings of Who God is? http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/doctrine/the-holy-trinity/wrong-doctrines-of-the-trinity
[]=my own additions
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Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
Actually, it is of no great importance to me how the Eastern and Western Churches differ in their understanding of the nature of God. The disagreement, however, apparently was at one time (even if not so much today) significant enough that it was an important factor in the split between the two. So the point I was trying to make is that you have to almost draw somekind of a line somewhere between which doctrines one absolutely must believe in order to be a Christian, which doctrines, while very important, are not "deal-breakers," so to speak, and which doctrines separate the "real Christians" from the "wannabe Christians" (many of whom are every bit as devoted to knowing and believing what is "true" as the ones who are excluding them from the Christian family). For this reason alone, I tend to go with the most all-encompassing set of criteria possible in determining who is and who is not a "real Christian." My own criteria would be something along these lines. A Christian is a person who...
1. Believes that Jesus Christ is the fully divine Son of God, the Only Begotten of the Father.
2. Believes that He and He alone is the way by which we might be forgiven of our sins and reconciled to our Father in Heaven.
3. Strives to obey Christ's commandments and to live a life that is in accordance with the way Christ taught us we should live.
4. Considers himself to be a disciple of Christ, and thereby claims the title of Christian.
Okay, well we Mormons also believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man.Accepting that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully Man is a HUGE part of being Christian. Since both RC's and EO accept the Trinity and the Hypostatic Union, we are both truly Christian (even if the Romans thought up an innovative ecclesiology over the years
Several years back, I wrote a post which I believe answers these questions fairly well. I'm just going to cut and paste it from my own post. (It's the part of this post in blue.)
Our first Article of Faith states: We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh. While we believe that God is the Father of the spirits of each and every person who has ever lived, and that we are all His spirit offspring, Jesus Christ is most definitely in a class by Himself. He was with His Father in the beginning. Under His Father's direction, He created worlds without number. He was chosen to be "the Lamb" prior to the foundation of this world. He sits today on the right hand of His Father. Along with the Holy Ghost, the Father and the Son make up the Godhead.
We believe that our Father in Heaven and His Son Jesus Christ have a true father-son relationship. The words, "Father" and "Son," in other words, mean exactly what they say. They are not metaphorical or symbolic of a vague metaphysical relationship, in which two beings are some how both part of a single essence. We are each the physical sons and daughters of our mortal parents. Jesus Christ is the literal, physical Son of a divine Father and a mortal Mother. He was conceived in a miraculous way, but like all sons, was in the "express image of His Father's person." That is to say, He looked like Him. Dogs beget puppies, and cats beget kittens. God beget a Son who is the same species as He is. They both have bodies of flesh and bone (although, until His birth in Bethlehem, Jesus Christ was a spirit being only).
The Father and the Son are physically distinct from one another, and yet they are also "one." This doctrine is taught in the Book of Mormon as well as in the Bible. We just understand the word "one" to mean something other than physical substance or essence. We believe they are "one in will and purpose, one in mind and heart, and one in power and glory." It would be impossible to explain, or even to understand, the degree of their unity. It is perfect; it is absolute. They think, feel and act as "one God." Because of this perfect unity, and because they share the title of "God," we think of them together in this way. It would be impossible for us to worship one of them without also worshipping the other.
Most Christians also use the words “co-equal” and “co-eternal” to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son. We do not. We believe that, as is again the case with all fathers and sons, the Father existed prior to His Son. No son's existence precedes his father's, and Jesus Christ is no exception to this rule. We also believe Christ to be subordinate to His Father. He is divine because of His relationship with His Father. It is, however, important to understand what we mean when we use the word "subordinate." We understand that the Son holds a subordinate position in the relationship; we do not believe Him to be an inferior being. As an example, a colonel holds an inferior position to a general, but is not an inferior being. To most people's way of thinking, an ant, however, is an inferior being to a human.
The third member of the Godhead is the Holy Ghost. Unlike the Father and the Son, the Holy Ghost is a person of spirit only. It is by virtue of this quality that He is able to both fill the universe and dwell in our hearts. It is through the Holy Ghost that God communicates to mankind. We come to understand spiritual truths through the witnessing of the Holy Ghost, who communicates with us on a spiritual plane. It is through Him that we come to know the Father and the Son.
So often, we are accused of believing in three Gods instead of just One God. To us, this is a totally misrepresentative statement of our belief. In the Book of Mormon itself, we read the following two verses, which state unequivocably that we believe in "one God."
And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. (2 Nephi 31:21)
And he hath brought to pass the redemption of the world, whereby he that is found guiltless before him at the judgment day hath it given unto him to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom, to sing ceaseless praises with the choirs above, unto the Father, and unto the Son, and unto the Holy Ghost, which are one God, in a state of happiness which hath no end. (Mormon 7:7)
When we say that we believe in "one God," we are using the phrase as a synonym for "one Godhead." We believe this "Godhead" to be comprised of three divine beings or personages. Now I don't know what a divine being is if it's not another way of saying "God." So, if someone were to set out to prove that we are polytheistic, I suppose he could technically make that claim. But to make that claim is to completely disregard the absolute and perfect unity we believe the three members of the Godhead to have. We see the word "Godhead" as a collective noun. In other words, it's spoken of in the singular, even though it is made up of more than one "member," "person," "personage," or "divine being." I know that the Athanasian Creed says that the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God. It specifically names each person one at a time and says that that individual person is "God." It then turns around and says that there is just "one God" -- which I believe to be an accurate statement, provided one understands God to mean "Godhead." I'm sure you would say that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, despite being "one God" are "three something." You say they are "three persons" and you acknowledge that each one is "God" (in other words, these "persons" have a divine nature and divine qualities). But let us say that each of them individually is "God," and all you-know-what breaks loose.
(continued on next post)
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Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
Let me put it this way... When I read the Apostles Creed, I think, "Yeah, okay. I can go along with that." When I read the Nicene Creed, I go, "Wow. God just got more complicated than He used to be. I used to feel a personal connection to Him that is starting to kind of fade away." When I read the Athanasian Creed, I usually have to take a couple of Extra-strength Excedrin and lay down for a couple of hours. Yes, God truly is unknowable (ineffable, inconceivable and incomprehensible) but not to the degree these Creeds try to make Him. Above all, He is my Father in Heaven, the Creator of my spirit, the One who gave me life. He knows me personally and loves me deeply. He doesn't want to be so completely and utterly foreign to me that I cannot look to Him as a loving Parent who wants only eternal happiness for me. I suppose when you've grown up hearing the language of the Creeds, it may seem natural to you. To me, they sound like they are trying to help us not get to know God instead of trying to help us get to know Him.
I'm not sure exactly how much of the rest of your post comes directly from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and how much doesn't, so I'm just going to break in here with my comments. I'm not sure exactly what the difference is between these three words: "ineffable, inconceivable and incomprehensible," but to me they all seem to mean pretty much the same thing. And as I said earlier, I definitely believe God to be all of these things -- to some degree." I cannot even begin to fathom His power and glory, and I don't think any of us can. But, I do believe the Bible to do an entirely adequate job of explaining that He is far beyond our ability to comprehend. I don't find philosophical jargon to be the slightest bit useful in helping me know Him the way a loving Father would want His daughter to know Him. I believe He wants very much for us to have as good of an understanding about Him as possible, and for us to have as much of a personal relationship with Him as possible. I see that anything that broadens His "unknowability" to any further extent than necessary to be not of His doing but ours.
I'm going to break in again here. My biggest disagreement with this paragraph is with what seems to be a contradition between these two sentences:
1. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In who God is, there are three persons who are each absolutely unique and distinct. Each is not the other, though each is still divine with the same divine nature...
2. ...they are undivided and perfectly united in their timeless, spaceless, sizeless, shapeless super-essential existence, as well as in their one divine life, knowledge, love, goodness, power, will, action, etc.
I agree with the first of the two statements (except that I deleted the words "and form" from the end, since I do not believe they all have the same form). I believe the are perfectly united in terms of their character traits and qualities. I do not, however, believe them to be "timeless, spacless, sizeless or shapeless."
I don't know if this will make sense or not, but I agree with much of what you have said in these past few paragraphs, even though I would undoubtedly express the concepts in much simpler, less philosophical terms. If I wanted to get picky, yeah, I could. There are certain phrases I'm not entirely comfortable with, but most of them are not really huge disagreements. My guess is that if you and I were to sit down and honestly try to hash things out, to really understand what the other believed, and were to actually look for common ground, our understanding of God would be similar in many regards. Yes, there would be differences, and I would not try to pretend there aren't. Still, I believe that we do worship the same God, even though we may differ in some of the ways in which we perceive Him.
For the time being, Shiranui, I'm going to hold off on addressing the points in this article. I hope my explanation of my beliefs has been good enough that you can more or less know how I'd comment in terms of the points the article brought out. If you'd like, and if there are some specific points you would like to discuss further, please just tell me.
You're welcome, and thank you for your willingness to engage in respectful dialogue. It is much appreciated.
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Yes, you've made that much clear to me.
Several years back, I wrote a post which I believe answers these questions fairly well. I'm just going to cut and paste it from my own post. (It's the part of this post in blue.)
Aside from the "spirit offspring" business, i think we're both agreed here.
I've heard the "flesh and bone" terminology before, and I'm not quite sure I agree with it. On the whole though, we're agreed here.
Aside from the LDS disagreeing with the Father and Son having the same "physical substance or essence" (which may or may not be an accurate description of the Greek ousia), we're agreed.
Just so the definitions are clear, and so we're both on the same page and talking about the same thing, here are a couple definitions of "essence":
In philosophy, essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity.
identifying nature: the quality or nature of something that identifies it or makes it what it is
the sum of innate properties and powers by which one person differs from others, distinctive native peculiarities, natural
^After seeing these definitions, would you say that the Father and Son each have the same Divine Nature/Essence?
This is unfortunately the biggest difference between the two of us yet. This particularly falls under the umbrella of either "Arianism" or "Semi-Arianism," which the Orthodox Church rejected in the 4th century. The Orthodox teaching is that "There was never a time when the Son was not."
Surprisingly, this is not a disagreement between us; the Son is subordinate to the Father, not in terms of majesty or glory or divinity or power, but in the sense that the Father begets the Son.
Would you say that the Son is divine in and of Himself, or only because He is related to the Father?
Agreed.
Agreed again, but we Orthodox also believe that God has another way in which He communicates with us. Or, more accurately, we have a teaching on exactly how God communicates with us from the Father, through the Son and by the Holy Spirit. More on that later; it's more pertinent to one of your later points
Each one of them individually IS fully God, but they are also together God. From what I can gather, the reason that Mormons more often have the "polytheist" charge levelled against them is because of (what seems to me, anyway) your even stronger emphasis on the Threeness of God that goes beyond even what the Orthodox normally state. And between the Catholics and Orthodox, we Orthodox place more emphasis on God's threeness!
I'm sorry that the Nicene Creed makes you feel that way.
Especially when the Creed points to God's intimate involvement with the world, through the Father's creation, the Son's Incarnation, and the inspiration of the Spirit.For what it's worth, I'll note here that the so-called Athanasian Creed is basically unheard of among the Orthodox; it's not widely taught, and TBH, I've never even read the thing or heard it mentioned as any kind of Orthodox teaching.
I would agree, so would the Orthodox. The point of the Creeds isn't to make God seem foreign, remote and detached, but to safeguard the proper way of understanding Who and What He is.
The funny part is, I grew up very culturally Christian (IOW, basically not Christian at all). Seven years ago, I wouldn't have been able to tell you whether it was the Jews or the Christians that believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. The creeds seem to have had the opposite effect on me; they helped me to understand exactly Who God is.
You're right in getting at the fact that the Creeds don't really help us to get to know God in terms of a relationship; they're more like a short biography that you would find along with a press release.
Could you clarify as to how you feel that the Creeds help us not get to know God?
Just the part directly before this citation that was in quote marks.
Ineffable means we're unable to properly speak of Him accurately in human language. But yeah, you're right, inconceivable and incomprehensible are pretty much synonymous.
The Creed helps us with understanding Him, but you're right; they don't build a relationship.
We Orthodox teach that God is unknowable in His Essence, but we CAN know Him through His Energies (i.e. uncreated grace, interaction with creation, etc.) God's Energies are just as much a part of Him as His Essence; a simple way to think of it is that God's Essence is Who He is within Himself, whereas His Energies are Who He is in relation to creation. He is at once both infinitely transcendent, and at the same time closer to us than our own hearts. We stress that Who God is within Himself is unknowable, but God is knowable through His uncreated grace and interaction with us.
This teaching was clarified by St. Gregory Palamas, whose feast day was yesterday, incidentally. Here's a blurb about him from the same series of books:
In 1326 the Calabrian Barlaam, a Greek uniate and a representative of the emerging humanist tradition of the Western renaissance, came to Constantinople. Barlaam and some Byzantine humanists who were highly influenced by Western philosophical and theological ideas, ridiculed the practice of hesychast prayer. They generally denied the possibility for men to be in genuine union with God. In 1333 Gregory Palamas confronted Barlaam’s position and defended hesychasm. He established the Orthodox doctrine that man can truly know God and can enter into communion with Him through Christ and the Holy Spirit in the Church. (underlined emphasis mine)
Essence and Energy
A council in 1346 upheld Gregory’s teaching. The holy monk made his famous distinction between the unknowable and incomprehensible Essence or Super-essence of God, and the actions, operations, or energies of God which are truly uncreated and divine (such as the divine light). These energies are communicated to men by divine grace and are open to human participation, knowledge, and experience.
Essence and Energy
A council in 1346 upheld Gregory’s teaching. The holy monk made his famous distinction between the unknowable and incomprehensible Essence or Super-essence of God, and the actions, operations, or energies of God which are truly uncreated and divine (such as the divine light). These energies are communicated to men by divine grace and are open to human participation, knowledge, and experience.
I don't think the author meant "form" as in "physical bodies" or "appearance." I'm going to do some more research here, but I think "form" was meant more in the Platonic sense here. I'll get back to you on this.
The attributes ascribed to the Trinity in this case seem to be relating to something different; Fr. Thomas Hopko writes something about "super-essential existence." I don't know what he meant by that, and TBH, I'm not entirely sure if even he did!
So, to take out the confusing crap, I get the impression that you would agree with this, yes?
they are undivided and perfectly united . . . in their one divine life, knowledge, love, goodness, power, will, action, etc.
Just to clear the air (and this is my bad for not citing my stuff
) I wrote none of this, aside from the part I put in brackets. All the indented stuff comes from the same book The Orthodox Faith, a section of which I linked you to.I'm feeling that too. I also feel that the Orthodox Trinity and the Mormon Godhead are not too terribly far apart in understanding.
Likewise. Having read your responses here, it's as you've said; I can see how you would answer each of them.
Do you know of a religion that refuses to kill their fellowman at the command of political leaders? Who chose death in concentration camps rather than serve in Hitler's armies? Who chose imprisonment in democratic lands rather than kill in their armies?
The one religion that forms a worldwide brotherhood? Jesus said you could identify the true religion by the outstanding love they have among themselves. (John 13:34,35) I think if you look for the true religion, you will find it.
Katzpur
Not your average Mormon
I'm not sure I agree with you. I do believe that all true "Christians," (regardless of their denomination) will demonstrate the love Jesus said would be seen among His followers. If a person claims to be a Christian and lives the kind of life Jesus said we should live, his actions will clearly be evidence of his desire to live a Christ-like life. With regards to which "religion" is "true," however, I think there's more to it than the way its members behave. That would certainly be a clue, but not the only factor. And since there is not a single religion on the earth today that doesn't have more than its fair share of bad apples, that would mean (according to your reasoning) that the true religion simply doesn't exist.