Philosophers and theologians enjoy debating the fine points of various issues. After all, it is important that we have neither invalid, nor illogical, nor inconsequent thinking in our formulations. In other words, we are trying to make sure that we are believing the right things for the right reasons. As a result, both philosophers […]
Search Results for: Orthodox imperfect
Children’s tales, merry and frightening
“When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.” – J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons […]
I am not a 1960’s person anymore
I read an article on CNN that reminded me of history. I had forgotten some of these facts, but I remembered them when I read the article. In reading these facts, I realized that I no longer agreed with Christian thought of the early 1970’s. This raises some interesting epistemological issues for me, but let […]
Photoshop musings
This will be real short tonight. The photo above comes from a website that shows just how much changing one can do on a human face, or a human body, simply by using Photoshop. My favorite one was the one above, in which a person who looks like he has seen the hard side of […]
Where there is God, there is no evil
Yesterday I quoted from Saint Seraphim of Sarov. One of the sayings for which he is known is: Where there is God, there is no evil. Everything coming from God is peaceful, healthy and leads a person to the judgment of his own imperfections and humility. I had mentioned two days ago that saints are […]
On Holy Tradition and democracy
G.K. Chesterton — Orthodoxy: I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record. The […]
To God be the glory
Below is a comment I made on another blog. It had to do with the phrase sola Dei gloria, which means only to God be the glory. ========= Steve, Curtis, Matt, and Jan point out that the Scriptures themselves talk about humans having glory. We are being changed from glory to glory. Glory has come […]
On arguing about the Church
Yesterday, I finished my post by saying, “You see, in order to be able to put forth that argument, one has to engage in a self-deception that, in the long run, can leave one open to self-deception in other areas of one’s life.” If you remember, I was talking about the dangers of citing the […]
Not everything is Holy Tradition
“Custom is the plague of wise men and the idol of fools†— Thomas Fuller One of the mistakes that is common in liturgical groups is to mistake anything which has been done for a while with Holy Tradition. Even among the Orthodox, there is a common tendency to see what is as what must […]
Can a heretic be saved?
Since the Middle Ages, it is quite common to assume that if one is a heretic, then one cannot be saved. This is not surprising, since it seems that one of the favorite words of the Roman Church was “anathema” (or accursed) in those days. Meantime, the Reformers did their own bit of burning and cleansing. […]