handbook

Mystery is sometimes very mysterious

One of the standard Evangelical definitions of mystery takes all the mystery out of mystery. That particular definition claims that there is no mystery to mystery. In other words, the claim is that a New Testament mystery is only something that was mysterious in the Old Testament but that is no longer mysterious in the New Testament because God has revealed it to us. The claim is that Saint Paul only... [Read more]

A non-theological appreciation of free will and the sovereignty of God

A person commented the following on my post yesterday: You know, the more I read and learn concerning Orthodox theology, the more I see an acceptance of paradox that even exceeds my native Lutheranism. My reply is that it has more to do with the idea of mystery, but rather than try to explain it theologically, watch the video below. It was originally posted in November of 2010 on YouTube. I have... [Read more]

Free will and salvation

I quoted both Patriarch Dositheus and Metropolitan Kallistos yesterday to point out to my Orthodox brethren that some of them go to the other extreme from Saint Augustine and almost end up claiming that our free will was, at best, barely damaged. But, both an approved Orthodox confession and a current Metropolitan who is a world-renowned Orthodox theologian both state two thing. One, humans still had... [Read more]

Free will is not simply a philosophical definition

If you remember my first posting two days ago, I commented that I had a problem with some of my fellow Orthodox. It is in that vein that I continue the discussion. Some of my fellow Orthodox react so strongly to Augustinianism, and its derivative Calvinism, that they go to the point of going to the other extreme and almost denying that the Fall affected our free will. That is, they treat the Fall’s... [Read more]

We are fallen and damaged

We Orthodox often do not take seriously enough what it means that we are fallen and damaged. It is true that we do not believe in various forms of total depravity. However, all too often we react against extreme forms of total depravity by going to the other extreme and almost denying that we are damaged. We do reject those forms of total depravity that use philosophical arguments to aver that a non-Christian... [Read more]

God, science, and Fr. Thomas Hopko

Thanks to a friend, Father Orthoduck is going to give you a link rather than trying to continue the subject of Christianity and science. Why so? Because the link is to a series of podcasts on Darwin and Christianity by Father Thomas Hopko. Now Fr. Hopko is one of the leading Orthodox theologians in the world. Besides, he is up to 15 podcasts on this subject alone, and he has many many more on various... [Read more]

international

The god of the gaps

A person who commented on yesterday’s post had some things to say with which I agree, even though s/he meant them as a criticism. Nevertheless, it does allow me to make a couple of points. Speaking of religious scientists s/he said: There’s only a problem when they invoke god, also known as magic, to solve scientific problems. That’s not doing science. It’s called preaching. Competent... [Read more]

Current cosmology and the Church

As I commented yesterday, the Church has often had a hard time knowing how to respond to advances in cosmology. There has been a tendency to go to one of two extremes. One extreme is that most often cited by the news media, the Galileo trial and the Scopes trial, one by the Roman Catholic Church and one by fundamentalist Protestants. In each case, the church people involved claimed to be defending... [Read more]

Current cosmology and God

Today, atoms make up about 5% of the universe; dark matter makes up about 23%; and what is very strange is that 72% is made up of this dark energy. — David Spurgo, Ph.D. In the last century we have come up from thinking that the entire universe was within our own Milky Way to knowing that there are actually billions of other galaxies like the Milky Way, but separate from us. We now even... [Read more]

site-map

Limitations of science

On a recent post about science, one of the persons commenting brought up some reasonable points about science. But demonstrating bias highlights other problems in modern American discourse – i.e., the false conclusiveness we give to science, and the false distinction we ascribe to it. Science demands repeatable observation to correct bias, but it can’t correct these problems beyond itself. While... [Read more]

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