What is the Orthodox Christian view on Heaven and Hell??

[Guest]

:::Pause in conversation on the part of the Orthodox who are not ignoring you, but are participating in the life of the Church for these and the coming hours:::

[sewingmama]

That is beautiful.

 

<3

I agree.. ,makes much sense to me... maybe I should change religions.

[TianXiaXueXiao]

If I change my wording from "knowingly put" to "allowing the individual to choose," does that reflect a more accurate understanding of EO theology? If so, my sentence would read, "If it's fun to knowingly allow a cognizant, self-aware person to exist for eternity in a position of suffering, we don't consider that compassionate" (because remember, we're talking about a fun-loving god). It exposes this god as one who is either incapable or unwilling to prevent a cognizant, self-aware individual from suffering an eternity of pain and torture. If the reason is because of "free will," surely it isn't an impossibility for an omnipotent god to create a reality in which free will is still honored while an eternity of horror is prevented, even for those who don't want to make the choice he wants them to make. 

 

The analogy to the Prodigal Son breaks apart for me in two ways. One is that the father is not omniscient or omnipotent. He is limited in these ways the EO church does not recognize in God. The other is the time frame of eternity. Surely the father would wait forever if he could, not lock the doors at dark and shrug his shoulders and say, "well, he had enough time to figure it out." That locking the door is like the time of death - time's up, you've made your bed, now you will lie in it forever. We don't know what the father in the parable would do if the son never came back, but presumably the door would always be open to the son. This is not the case with God. I think the Mormons have addressed that moral oversight with their theology concerning the different celestial spheres.  I think that reflects an evolution of morality that EO will have to work out within the confines of its existing theology. As the other thread about heaven shows, people tend to get pretty worked up when they're identified as an outsider in this context. It seems mean to us today because we don't share the cultural and moral compass as those who originally developed the dogma of heaven. So either the EO church has to evolve its theology (and no doubt risk be accused of backpedaling), or hang tight (and no doubt risk being accused of being immoral and serving an unsympathetic or malevolent god).

 

 

I don't think your words are falling short, fwiw. I think the line at which you decide to stop asking these questions is different to the line where I stop asking these questions. I think they're logical questions, logical responses to the answers offered. I understand if you haven't thought about them or aren't interested in pursuing them, but please don't think your words are falling short. So far your participation has been valuable to me. I've learned a lot, so thank you. 

 

I have been following this thread and have found it to be truly informative on many levels. Thank you Albeto for your tenacity, as it has kept this discussion alive and interesting!

 

It looks to me like you are asking about whether Orthodox Christians accept the doctrine of Universalism. This is certainly one of those very gray areas in Orthodoxy and you will find that the Church as a whole does accept that all souls may eventually be saved. We do not unequivocally accept that all souls will definitely be saved, but it is a possibility that we sincerely hope and pray for. We live our lives here and now *as though* the door locks, as you put it, at the time of death because this lifestyle is most beneficial to our souls today and why put off holiness and goodness for after death when we can live it (and bless others with it) here and now? KWIM?

 

We are careful when it comes to these discussions because we cannot know the mind of God. We believe that in His love and mercy for mankind, it is possible that all will be saved, but this is NOT *our* realm for judgement.

 

I hope you find this satisfactory. We don't mean to sound like we are dismissing your questions. We really do shrug our shoulders when it comes to the how and why of God's great works, as they are beyond our ken. We stand in awe as this for us is the only appropriate response. :)

 

[goldberry]

If I change my wording from "knowingly put" to "allowing the individual to choose," does that reflect a more accurate understanding of EO theology? If so, my sentence would read, "If it's fun to knowingly allow a cognizant, self-aware person to exist for eternity in a position of suffering, we don't consider that compassionate" (because remember, we're talking about a fun-loving god). It exposes this god as one who is either incapable or unwilling to prevent a cognizant, self-aware individual from suffering an eternity of pain and torture. If the reason is because of "free will," surely it isn't an impossibility for an omnipotent god to create a reality in which free will is still honored while an eternity of horror is prevented, even for those who don't want to make the choice he wants them to make. 

 

 

Although I don't have the same belief system as the orthodox view, I would like to respond to this.  It *sounds* as if (under this proposed belief system) you would hold God responsible for not creating a different reality (the reality we believe as part of this belief system).  In other words, I believe that God is the source of all life and love.  I believe we were *created* to be in communion with Him in order to draw that life and love from Him.  It sounds like you are saying, if God really was compassionate, He would not have created us that way.  He would have created us so that we could walk away from Him and still experience the fullness of His life and love.  

 

I just don't see that.  We were created for that relationship.  Why would He purposely create us in such a way that we could say "screw you" and still have all the benefits of everything He has to offer?  (Not that you are saying that, I am trying to imagine this scenario.)  We were created under the reality that God is the source of life and love.  We can choose to walk away from that (again, recognizing that you don't see it as walking away) but there will still be consequences of that choice.  Under my belief, we need God to experience those things.  He created us to be in an intimate relationship with Him because He knew that would be our greatest good.  If we violate the laws of our creation, we suffer from it.  This does not mean (to me) that God was not just or compassionate in creating us the way we are.

 

To me, what you are saying is like saying if God were really compassionate, he would not have made gravity so that it hurts us if we jump off a building.  It seems like you are trying to hold Him morally accountable for creating a reality in which people can hurt themselves by their own actions.  That seems a little unreasonable in my thinking.

 

(My reply is meant as an honest attempt to address the issue you raised.... I do enjoy hearing your point of view...) 

 

 

[albeto.]

I have been following this thread and have found it to be truly informative on many levels. Thank you Albeto for your tenacity, as it has kept this discussion alive and interesting!

I've enjoyed it for the same reasons - informative on many levels! :)

 

It looks to me like you are asking about whether Orthodox Christians accept the doctrine of Universalism. This is certainly one of those very gray areas in Orthodoxy and you will find that the Church as a whole does accept that all souls may eventually be saved. We do not unequivocally accept that all souls will definitely be saved, but it is a possibility that we sincerely hope and pray for. We live our lives here and now *as though* the door locks, as you put it, at the time of death because this lifestyle is most beneficial to our souls today and why put off holiness and goodness for after death when we can live it (and bless others with it) here and now? KWIM?

I did at one time think EO theology accepted Universalism, but was corrected. Early on in the thread PrincessMommy reiterated that this doctrine/theology was rejected more than 1000 years ago. That was a helpful reminder to me, and perhaps news to others. I expect the doctrine of Universalism is rather recent, historically speaking. I'd be curious to know when it was first referred to. My guess is the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches predate it by many centuries.

 

You say you accept that all souls may eventually be saved, but not that they will be saved. My question is what conditions would be present to miss out on salvation? I understand no one can know specifically, but surely the church has something to say in a general sense, after all, people need to know what to avoid, right?

 

I hope you find this satisfactory. We don't mean to sound like we are dismissing your questions. We really do shrug our shoulders when it comes to the how and why of God's great works, as they are beyond our ken. We stand in awe as this for us is the only appropriate response. :)

I don't think you're dismissing my questions. On the contrary, I appreciate the continued patience.

 

[albeto.]

Although I don't have the same belief system as the orthodox view, I would like to respond to this.  It *sounds* as if (under this proposed belief system) you would hold God responsible for not creating a different reality (the reality we believe as part of this belief system).

 

Well, that's a slightly different topic, and while it may appeal to me personally for reasons of interest, I don't want to get distracted myself from the topic of this thread. But it does raise the question, who else would be held responsible?

 

In other words, I believe that God is the source of all life and love.  I believe we were *created* to be in communion with Him in order to draw that life and love from Him.  It sounds like you are saying, if God really was compassionate, He would not have created us that way.  He would have created us so that we could walk away from Him and still experience the fullness of His life and love.

 

What about walk away from him and not suffer pain and torment for all eternity? That's a hell of a long time, eternity. Surely an omniscient, omnipotent deity could figure out what we, limited by our human minds can't.

 

I just don't see that.  We were created for that relationship.  Why would He purposely create us in such a way that we could say "screw you" and still have all the benefits of everything He has to offer?  (Not that you are saying that, I am trying to imagine this scenario.)

 

This is always my impression of Reformed Theology. I can't get past that myself, but perhaps I misunderstand that as well. The support for this concept, as I understand it, falls back on the idea that God is God, he can do what he wants, who are we to judge him? We're just his creatures, to be used as he pleases (which happens to be to his glory), and we have no reason to demand he be held accountable. This is also supported in the bible, though not in every theology. I do hear (not so subtle) traces of it here as well, including the idea that recognizing and honoring this fact is motivated by humility. 

 

From a moral perspective, I don't see much of a practical difference, however. Whether God says "screw you" or he shrugs his shoulders and says "tsk tsk, what a shame," the practical application is the same - he created a living soul to be cognizant and self aware for all eternity, and those who don't choose to love him choose unspeakable pain for ever and ever and ever. In essence, both paths seem to reflect the same motto, albeit unsympathetic to Christians, "Love me or burn forever." Granted, there is far more nuances in either of these theologies and far more depth to the reasons the theological communities can offer, but from the outside, this is what it appears to boil down to. It's one of the reasons I'm curious about the conditions that would bring one to the brink of hell. If one sees this as the ultimate gospel message, will they be held accountable (suffer hell) for not loving God genuinely, and what would this mean about a god who would condemn a person for such a reason? If not, then what conditions would prevent the slippery slope to the doctrine Universalism? 

 

We were created under the reality that God is the source of life and love.  We can choose to walk away from that (again, recognizing that you don't see it as walking away) but there will still be consequences of that choice.  Under my belief, we need God to experience those things.  He created us to be in an intimate relationship with Him because He knew that would be our greatest good.  If we violate the laws of our creation, we suffer from it.  This does not mean (to me) that God was not just or compassionate in creating us the way we are.

 

Just for the sake of clarification, I do see it as walking away. But back to the obnoxious, short-but-to-the-point motto of "love me or burn," imagine if I were to change your words here to reflect an obsessive, abusive lover: "He willed me to be in an intimate relationship with him because he knew that would be for my greatest good.  If I violate his rules, I suffer from it." The only difference here is the character - one is God and can do no wrong, the other is a man who is not only imperfect, but clearly dangerous. But the behavior is the same. This is what's tripping me up.

 

To me, what you are saying is like saying if God were really compassionate, he would not have made gravity so that it hurts us if we jump off a building.  It seems like you are trying to hold Him morally accountable for creating a reality in which people can hurt themselves by their own actions.  That seems a little unreasonable in my thinking.

 

(My reply is meant as an honest attempt to address the issue you raised.... I do enjoy hearing your point of view...)

 

If the same argument were used to support the obsessive, abusive lover, would it be unreasonable to ask for some accountability?

 

I'm a little hesitant to go in this direction only because I don't want to get distracted from the topic of this thread, but I do think this just might fall within the boundaries of the topic. At least indirectly it does, I think, because it illuminates the character of this god who is identified as "all love,"  but who will force me to endure his presence against my will, causing me to suffer unimaginable pain for ever and ever.

[Pam in CT]

(Can I just say... what an amazing space this is, that SWB has made possible.   :grouphug: to all.)

 

 

 

I hope you had a pleasant Yom Kippur!

Thank you.  (This part of the calendar is more about introspection and asking questions -- other holidays are more explicitly celebratory -- but reflection and the process of asking ourselves what we could do better is important, if not always pleasant in the moment..._

 

 

jumping back to the intrinsic boredom of eternity:

 

 

You mean heaven is eternal boredom?  ;)
 

This concept confuses me - a finite mortal mind. Yes, our minds are limited, but they're not completely ignorant. We can and conceive, quiet well actually, such things as stimulation, pleasure, pain, emotion, perception, memory, relationship, fear, security, time, limitations, communication, etc etc etc. Why would our minds be unqualified to use what we have in relation to what we do and don't know only as it pertains to God?

 

_________

 

We encourage yourself to stop asking questions when it comes to this one subject?

Of course we're not completely ignorant -- our minds are the best cognitive vehicles on the planet.  We're really good at a lot of cognitive processes.

 

Still, though I don't hold too many firm beliefs in too many realms, one belief that I do hold fairly firmly is that we do face cognitive limitations.  In our ability to imagine much further out than we can perceive sensorily, in our ability to solve moral problems that extend much further out than our immediate family/clan circle.  

 

And -- particularly relevant for this discussion -- in our ability to communicate.  Language is fantastic, it's the best communication tool we've got, it's enabled us to achieve remarkable things.  But it has real limitations -- its ability to convey relatively straightforward things like light, color, sound to a blind or deaf person is constrained; and falls off quickly from there -- language imo is pretty inadequate to convey the essence of music, etc....  and yet more so, to adequately convey different human emotions like joy or love or anguish... we are left, even with these examples of elements or experiences demonstrably experienced in the sensory world, grasping for metaphoric containers that are very imperfect vessels for the thing itself... 

 

... and these problems are x1,000 when we try to communicate ideas or visions or concepts that lie outside our ordinarily-experienced world.  Even within mainstream science, which is assuredly not my subject, it seems to me that the magnitudes of space and time and sub-atomics are so beyond our lived experience that they are extremely hard to convey or really to grasp... and yet more so, for realms outside our ability to measure and test according to scientific methods.

 

 

... but since both eternal time, if it exists, and God, if God exists, lay even further beyond the scope of the senses, or measurement tools, or of language, than physics, we can only work with analogies, and as milovany said,

 

You're right, every analogy for what God is like eventually fails somehow.  

 

Which is maybe only to say, *I* can't imagine eternal time.  Not really.  I can say the words, but it's beyond my cognitive capability really to have any meaning to it.  Certainly I can't imagine anything at all that I (presuming there were an I, some self that associated somehow with my current personality) could do for all eternity that wouldn't drive me to tears of boredom, which is why your concept of Eternal Boredom is so hilariously resonant (and apt) for me...

 

_____________

 

And re: your question about questions... I suppose there are some religious traditions that do so strive for doctrinal unity that certain questions are discouraged, but that is certainly not the case for all religious traditions.  It is not like that within Judaism, and it seems, from this and other EO threads, not to be the case in that tradition either.

 

That questions are welcomed, does not suggest that answers are necessarily known.  In Judaism, for example, while there are speculations, thoughts, possibilities within the teachings, there are no real consensus answers even within, let alone across, the various movements.  Much more focused on deed over creed, this world rather than any world which might follow.

 

 

 

 

It would be inappropriate for *me* to hop on to the discussion of the EO teachings on the nature of God and eschatology, though they are quite interesting and beautiful.  

 

 

 

But to return to the hypothetical non-denominational non-punitive God of our earlier exchange, and your hypothetical anxiety of proximity to such an entity... I guess what I'm trying to sort out is -- is the source of your anxiety that even with such an easygoing laid back God, you presume a loss of your self? the separation from loved ones? an implicit judgment that you rejected God (even if God somehow conveyed that the door will always remain open, the light will always be on)  

 

[recognizing that this last bit is particularly divergent from the EO teachings expressed elsewhere in this thread, or in Great Divorce etc -- but for the purposes of the hypothetical, we can imagine a God who continues to hope for the ultimate reconciliation of every single soul even after the last breath is drawn... I mean, if we have eternal time, why not continue to use it for ongoing improvement and progression, KWIM?]

 

 

 

... or, to try to pose what I mean to be the same question, another way: is your anxiety against a specifically drawn image of God (with specific details rooted in the tradition you left / specific Biblical passages / etc) or is it against the idea of any notion of a divine or any eternal time interval (which: I can't make any meaningful sense of either)?

 

I wonder because to me it seems incongruous to be sanguine (as you seem, laudably, to be) about a construct that when it's over, it's over... yet to object to a construct that might have you lose autonomy in some sort of next life.  Or to object to a divinity who might limit your choice in a (potentially problematic) next world-- as if we had any choice about arriving in this (assuredly problematic) one, KWIM?  

 

I'm experiencing language constraints, here, and I'm not at all sure I'm making a lick of sense, so I'll stop here, dear...

 

 

 

[albeto.]

But to return to the hypothetical non-denominational non-punitive God of our earlier exchange, and your hypothetical anxiety of proximity to such an entity... I guess what I'm trying to sort out is -- is the source of your anxiety that even with such an easygoing laid back God, you presume a loss of your self? the separation from loved ones? an implicit judgment that you rejected God (even if God somehow conveyed that the door will always remain open, the light will always be on)  

 

[recognizing that this last bit is particularly divergent from the EO teachings expressed elsewhere in this thread, or in Great Divorce etc -- but for the purposes of the hypothetical, we can imagine a God who continues to hope for the ultimate reconciliation of every single soul even after the last breath is drawn... I mean, if we have eternal time, why not continue to use it for ongoing improvement and progression, KWIM?]

 

The idea of the loss of self is a part of what I'm trying to figure out, but not really the main idea. What I'm wondering is what heaven is understood to be. What I understand from this thread, and other comments in a similar vein, is that EO believe heaven to be a state of consciousness in unity with the divine. This unity won't be a loss of self. Independent thought is expected, but nothing that isn't in conformity with God's will (which will be the independent desire of the individual, which raises questions about free-will in heaven, but I digress). I'm not sure if EO believe in the resurrection of the body like the Catholics do, or if heaven will be only a state of awareness. In either case, people like me, people who are not interested in joining this group, will nevertheless be forced to endure the divine forever (and presumably all the people united with him). I'm curious about the character of this divine entity because in some way that character (or being united with that character) is understood as heaven.

 

... or, to try to pose what I mean to be the same question, another way: is your anxiety against a specifically drawn image of God (with specific details rooted in the tradition you left / specific Biblical passages / etc) or is it against the idea of any notion of a divine or any eternal time interval (which: I can't make any meaningful sense of either)?

 

I wonder because to me it seems incongruous to be sanguine (as you seem, laudably, to be) about a construct that when it's over, it's over... yet to object to a construct that might have you lose autonomy in some sort of next life.  Or to object to a divinity who might limit your choice in a (potentially problematic) next world-- as if we had any choice about arriving in this (assuredly problematic) one, KWIM?  

 

I'm experiencing language constraints, here, and I'm not at all sure I'm making a lick of sense, so I'll stop here, dear...

 

I'm not looking for anything specific, but am trying to understand with a bit more clarity by using what we know and applying it to what the EO teaches. Does that make sense? For example, if we know that experiences are valuable because they are finite, because they are compared to other experiences, because memories interposed on our experiences refine these values, then infinite time, and a loss of certain memories or emotions would indicate a particular expectation. So what are we left with? 

[Suzanne in ABQ]

Thank you all for taking the time to delve so deeply into this subject, and for your eloquence and grace in the discussion.  I have raptly read every word.  

 

I have a question that I bring to the table in hopes that the subject hasn't run its course, and that those engaged in the conversation will return.  I do not write nearly as well as I wish, so I hope I can make myself clear.

 

I just found out, as I read this thread, that my belief regarding the selection of who will enjoy heaven and who won't aligns closely with the Orthodox belief system.  

 

I, too, believe that God is Love, and that His glory will serve as a cleansing fire to those who seek Him, and will be destruction to those who choose to be independent of him.  I believe that in His love, He created us to be in communion with Him, but that, also in His love, He has given us the freedom of choice to be independent of Him.  I believe that we are created with a need for love, and that that love was designed to draw us to Him.  But, I recognize that this world is fallen from the ideal He created, and that His true character is masked from most of us.  I believe that many are "looking for love in all the wrong places" (so to speak).  Some have been hurt badly by those who should have represented God's character to them, and have not ever met the real God of Love.  But if they are truly seeking Him, I believe they will know Him when they encounter Him.  Even if this encounter happens with their last breath, or when they are resurrected at the second coming, I believe they will know Him and will be drawn to Him, and his glory will cleanse them of all that isn't of Him.

 

But, I believe differently about what ultimately happens to those who choose independence.  It is my understanding that, because God is Love and Light, sin can't exist in His presence.  I believe that His coming to this earth in all His glory will destroy all that is not of Him (aka, sin), and that he will ultimately create a new heaven and a new earth.  I believe that all sin, and pestilence, and disease, and evil will be destroyed at that time, and those who prefer those over Him will be destroyed utterly and completely.  They will not live forever in torment.  They will simply cease to exist.  There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, but it will only be for a time, and then it will be over.  Just as Sodom burned with "eternal fire", the fire didn't burn eternally, but the effects of the fire were eternal.  So at the end of time, the "eternal fire" of God's glory will burn with eternal results, but not cause eternal torment.

 

Is there room for this belief in the Orthodox church?  I ask because I am truly seeking a place of worship and community.  I left my previous church five years ago, and haven't been able to find a place where I felt I would be accepted or comfortable.  When I read Chocolatechip's description of Orthodoxy at the beginning of this thread, my heart felt home.  I understand that there is a lot of wiggle room within the faith for individual interpretation on finer points of doctrine, but my not believing in the immortality of the soul seems like sort of a big deal.  

 

Would there be room for me in an Orthodox church, or would I need to pretend?  I don't want to be a pretender. 

 

[Guest]

 

Would there be room for me in an Orthodox church, or would I need to pretend?  I don't want to be a pretender. 

 

Suzanne, that was one of the criteria I had, too, Suzanne--I was not going to pretend or participate in something that I could not fundamentally *do*.  Silly example:  we make the sign of the cross in the Orthodox Church.  Well, that was HARD for me to do, for some reason.  It felt fake.  And then when it didn't feel "fake" anymore, it still wasn't quite "me."  One day I went to vespers with a wonderful woman older than myself and she just sort of took me in hand and physically showed me how to make the sign of the cross, her hand guiding mine.  She broke the logjam for me, and I was so THANKFUL.  But I think she knew that it needed to be broken by then.  She would never have forced me.

 

One of the ways that Orthodox theology differs from what I was used to is this:  we have what is called "apophatic" theology.  We have dogmas, but they are more like a boundary outside which we should not go, not a defining, encompassing definition.  As there has not been clear revelation about what will happen to those outside the Love of God in eternity, there is room for speculation, and not knowing.  

 

In Orthodoxy, a theologian is "one who prays."   It is about knowing God, not knowing ABOUT Him.   

 

If you wish to visit an Orthodox Church, you are more than welcome to do so.  PM me and I will link you up with a friend who goes to an Orthodox Church in your town; she will stand with you, if you like, so your first visits will be more comfortable.  

 

Kind regards,

Patty Joanna

[mommaduck]

 

 

But, I believe differently about what ultimately happens to those who choose independence.  It is my understanding that, because God is Love and Light, sin can't exist in His presence.  I believe that His coming to this earth in all His glory will destroy all that is not of Him (aka, sin), and that he will ultimately create a new heaven and a new earth.  I believe that all sin, and pestilence, and disease, and evil will be destroyed at that time, and those who prefer those over Him will be destroyed utterly and completely.  They will not live forever in torment.  They will simply cease to exist.  There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, but it will only be for a time, and then it will be over.  Just as Sodom burned with "eternal fire", the fire didn't burn eternally, but the effects of the fire were eternal.  So at the end of time, the "eternal fire" of God's glory will burn with eternal results, but not cause eternal torment.

 

Is there room for this belief in the Orthodox church?  I ask because I am truly seeking a place of worship and community.  I left my previous church five years ago, and haven't been able to find a place where I felt I would be accepted or comfortable.  When I read Chocolatechip's description of Orthodoxy at the beginning of this thread, my heart felt home.  I understand that there is a lot of wiggle room within the faith for individual interpretation on finer points of doctrine, but my not believing in the immortality of the soul seems like sort of a big deal.  

 

Would there be room for me in an Orthodox church, or would I need to pretend?  I don't want to be a pretender. 

 

(shortened for simplicity) No, the EO do not believe in the annihilation of some. I think a priest could explain this bit better than I could though. I also have friends in ABQ that go to an EOC there. I think you would enjoy the visit and you could meet the priest and ask questions. I've heard good things of the people there. Like PJ, I admire your heart. I first started attending an EOC, because my husband was heading that direction. I straight up told the priest that I was an iconoclastic Puritan, but was willing to watch and see, listen and learn, if he could put up with me ;)

[Pam in CT]

 The idea of the loss of self is a part of what I'm trying to figure out, but not really the main idea. What I'm wondering is what heaven is understood to be. What I understand from this thread, and other comments in a similar vein, is that EO believe heaven to be a state of consciousness in unity with the divine.

 

This unity won't be a loss of self. Independent thought is expected, but nothing that isn't in conformity with God's will...

 

<snip>

 

I'm curious about the character of this divine entity because in some way that character (or being united with that character) is understood as heaven.

So -- I'm truly not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to restate to see if I've understood -- your hypothetical anxiety with your emerging understanding of the EO concept of God (!!) is an eternally projected tension between your "self," with its memories and proclivities and curiosities, and a divine being?

 

If so, I'm curious about what you imagine you/your "self" and God might eternally... er... lock metaphoric horns on?  I truly don't mean to be flip; I'm up against the language constraints again.  But in a (presumably) non-material existence, with a God described by the ladies herein as pure love (another abstraction that I am effectively unable to wrap my finite brain around, but let's carry on with it), what sorts of conflicts would you imagine might arise?

 

 

 

 I'm not looking for anything specific, but am trying to understand with a bit more clarity by using what we know and applying it to what the EO teaches. Does that make sense?

 

For example, if we know that experiences are valuable because they are finite, because they are compared to other experiences, because memories interposed on our experiences refine these values, then infinite time, and a loss of certain memories or emotions would indicate a particular expectation. So what are we left with?

 

I think I do understand what you're saying here... This, though, seems to me to be a "critique" of any form of eternal time... and is approaching what I was trying to say, haltingly, about my being functionally unable really to grasp the concept of eternal time....  

 

...I can say the words, but I can't really imagine out what it would mean (let alone convince myself that such a thing, if it exists, would be "good" or "bad," not that my opinion has anything to do with its existence or non-existence, lol...

[chocolatechip]

 

Would there be room for me in an Orthodox church, or would I need to pretend?  I don't want to be a pretender. 

I really admire your desire to really believe what your church believes and not just pretend. 

 

I'd also add my voice to those encouraging you to visit an Orthodox Church if you would like. The oft-repeated Orthodox refrain is "Come and see." Visiting can give you a glimpse of what we're all about in real life, real actions, real time. Being able to speak with the priest and ask questions is really helpful. The other reason I think visiting is so important is because our Liturgy is the center of our faith. Yes, we have our theology, doctrine, and dogmas, and they are all important, but they all come together in the Liturgy. It anchors us and provides a "backbone" on which to build our daily lives. 

 

I like to say Orthodoxy is not just my religion: it is my whole life. 

 

 

 

So glad this discussion has been informative and beneficial! 

[Guest]

:::snip:::

 

So what do you envision heaven to be? A state of being or a physical reality? Will you be cognizant and aware, will you have mental thoughts, memories, emotions? Will you be an independent agent, or will you be a part of the divine entity? Will you have any privacy to your thoughts? Will you retain any negative memories, or negative emotions? Will you be cognizant of people like me suffering for all eternity? Will that bother you, do you think? Would you have any power to make a change?

 

:::snip::::

 

A small attempt, and speculation on my part, not the dogma of the Church, although I hope it is BASED in dogma:

 

Based on the dogma of the resurrection of the body, I expect physical reality, the fullness of humanity as we were created (body, soul, spirit, which includes mind, memories, etc.) in a new earth (as taught in the Bible) which is freed from the results of sin--suffering, sorrow, fear, death.  Orthodoxy does not teach absorption into the divine, but union with God. The closest analogy here is "perfect marriage"--two separate beings in perfect unity of love.  

 

I have no response to most of your questions after the point about Unity.  I don't know even how much I can speculate.  I do think, however, that two things are also of interest here.

 

First, time is a creation, and I am not sure that time will function in eternity; eternity is probably more of living into the moment than "when we've been there 10,000 years..."  I also think that thinking about God or about heaven is a lot like thinking about the 5th dimension.  I can only get as far as I can compare five dimensions to the three dimensions in which I live.  Five dimensions is to three as three dimensions is to one.  I can't get my mind around that.  I can force my imagination to take a little step by thinking along these lines:  I am interested now in photography--and before that it was watercolor and before that quilting--which is all about light.  I am learning to understand how light works, how to modify it, how to shape it to make a better photo.  Perhaps in heaven, I will be able to understand it and work with it directly, bending it, shaping it in reality instead of just on a flat photo.  That's another approach to what I am trying to say.  "What heaven will be like" has not been revealed in detail.  We know that God is love, we know that He is everywhere present and filling all things.  We know that we will be with Him and see Him as He is.  That much has been revealed.  How it all works...not so.  

 

Anyway, that's the best I can do with this at this point.  

 

:0)

[TianXiaXueXiao]

I did at one time think EO theology accepted Universalism, but was corrected. Early on in the thread PrincessMommy reiterated that this doctrine/theology was rejected more than 1000 years ago. That was a helpful reminder to me, and perhaps news to others. I expect the doctrine of Universalism is rather recent, historically speaking. I'd be curious to know when it was first referred to. My guess is the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches predate it by many centuries.

 

 

In truth, the concept of Universalism or Apocatastasis has been around and a topic of debate since the early Church. There is even scriptural support for the concept in Acts of the Apostles and 1Timothy. The difficulty is that the EO Church as a whole has not been in full agreement on the veracity of the belief that all souls (including Satan) will be restored. As I stated earlier, this is a gray area for the Church. There are Church fathers who upheld the belief and others who claimed it was heretical. There are still prominent Orthodox Christian writers, theologians, and even hierarchs (most notably in modern times, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware who has written much on the topic) who uphold Apocatastasis. In Orthodoxy, there are very few dogmas and the ones that do exist are emphatically accepted as truth in all places and all times of the Church by unanimous acceptance of their "correctness." There are many, many areas that are not dogmas because we lack the unanimity, so for these instances, they are acceptable as Orthodox truth within certain limits. The limit placed on Apocatastasis is that we can only say it is true that all souls may be saved. This is Orthodox. To say that all souls will definitely be saved is beyond our scope as mere humans, and is not Orthodox.

 

 

 My question is what conditions would be present to miss out on salvation? I understand no one can know specifically, but surely the church has something to say in a general sense, after all, people need to know what to avoid, right?

 

 

We simply don't have an answer for this question. As I stated earlier, we cannot know the mind of God and we do not know the bounds of his Mercy though we perceive them to be infinitely great. We know what to avoid, by following the commandments presented to us in the Hebrew Scriptures and by Christ Himself in the Gospels. We know that we are to avoid and root out Pride in all it's treacherous and even innocuous forms from our thoughts, hearts, and actions. This is all we need to know. :)

[milovany]

I think one state that might almost assuredly exclude salvation for some is being knowingly and willfully unrepentant (iow, refusing to turn toward God). If nothing else in Orthodoxy, and there's actually no "nothing else" because there's oh, so much else, but for the sake of this topic, if nothing else, we're taught that we need to repent, and that "he who endures to the end" with this will be saved.

[albeto.]

So -- I'm truly not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to restate to see if I've understood -- your hypothetical anxiety with your emerging understanding of the EO concept of God (!!) is an eternally projected tension between your "self," with its memories and proclivities and curiosities, and a divine being?

 

If so, I'm curious about what you imagine you/your "self" and God might eternally... er... lock metaphoric horns on?  I truly don't mean to be flip; I'm up against the language constraints again.  But in a (presumably) non-material existence, with a God described by the ladies herein as pure love (another abstraction that I am effectively unable to wrap my finite brain around, but let's carry on with it), what sorts of conflicts would you imagine might arise?

 

Please don't worry about hurting my feelings. I recognize the genuine thought and question in your posts (of everyone here, actually). You mention an eternally projected tension between the self, with its memories and proclivities and curiosities, and a divine being. Interesting image. That works for me. If the divine being and the self will become One Being, United But Not Absorbed, then the very components that make the self exist, the element of autonomy, would be gone-but-not-gone-its-a-mystery. There's nothing more that can be understood about that, as we have to leave it at being both and neither autonomous and independent, and united and dependent. So let's assume this state of being, which is impossible in the natural world today, will somehow exist anyway... later. Then this mind meld, for lack of better words, would be infinitely fantastic for those who love and adore God, but would be an eternal, infinitely painful, violation for those who do not.

 

As I understand it, the very thing that would make it super wonderful for the ladies here would create for me an unending reality of constant pain and torment. Therein lies the impetus for your idea of a hypothetical anxiety. For my part, that's not really the angle at which I'm coming to this, it doesn't really inspire my questions so much. If the EO church is right, then whether or not I like this, whether or not I can come to understand the value of such an arrangement is irrelevant. Ultimately, I would have to endure it, like it or not. What drives my curiosity is more along the lines of how this being, this persona who would force/allow/ignore the suffering imposed on a sentient, self-aware creature, is understood. This is because this persona is the reality of heaven/hell, as I understand it. In any other context, this ethical situation would be understood as immoral, unjustified, and lacking anything remotely related to love, but in the EO church, it's either embraced, accepted, or dismissed.

 

Your question about what conflicts might arise is an interesting one. I'm not sure because no one can know what one might think or feel in an unknowable realm of existence. The bible says that God will wipe away every tear in heaven, and I'm assuming the EO theology accepts this as a meaningful prediction, even if only poetic. This suggests to me a lack of sadness, a lack of worry, fear, anxiety, loneliness, and all those things that make experiences emotionally and mentally difficult. If I am to understand that the believer's mind will be united with God's, that mind will experience infinite love (please correct me if I'm wrong). For someone like me of course, this will instead create an experience of infinite pain. I find that confusing because I am very much capable of experiencing love, so to feel pain because of love is something that doesn't make sense. In any case, I don't know if in the EO church the body is expected to be resurrected (forgive me if it's been mentioned since your post and I haven't read it yet), in which case individuals will conceivably have things to do, or if we will all exist in an altered state of consciousness and merely think and feel, without physical sensations and perceptions to be organized, processed, and responded to by the brain. Perhaps the workings of the brain will exist without the physical properties of the brain, kind of like a mystical homeopathy in which the universe has a memory of our brains and all the experiences we once had, and that is what perceives and experiences sentience forever. I don't know, I'm thinking out loud here as I try to imagine a mind without the very organ that makes up the mind. 

 

So back to conflicts, if there are physical conflicts, it would be no doubt to find escape from the unbearable pain purposefully placed upon me. If there are only mental conflicts, it would likely be to escape unbearable sensory input - memories, emotions, thoughts. I wonder if there would be a fractured sense of self, a kind of supernaturally imposed schizophrenia without any moments of clarity (or would those moments exist to make credible the moments of emotional and mental pain and suffering?). I'm imagining an otherworldly being who would either cause or refuse to release one from an eternity of pain and mental anguish and trying to conceive of how this being is defied as "perfect love." 

 

I think I do understand what you're saying here... This, though, seems to me to be a "critique" of any form of eternal time... and is approaching what I was trying to say, haltingly, about my being functionally unable really to grasp the concept of eternal time....

 

So reduce it to 10,000 years. Or ten years. What can you say about spending ten years with someone in your head in such a way that feels like a burning fire over your whole body. How long do you think you could last before going insane? Might it be a condition in which those who love God will be happy, those who don't will go painfully insane? Would you consider this ethical treatment if it were done over the course of one year? Does that help explain my confusion?

 

...I can say the words, but I can't really imagine out what it would mean (let alone convince myself that such a thing, if it exists, would be "good" or "bad," not that my opinion has anything to do with its existence or non-existence, lol...

 

Well, none of us can. Not only can we not know what God is really thinking, planning, or wishing, but we can't know what to expect the moment after our last breath and we find our consciousness still very much intact. But we can know how we respond to painful stimuli, physical as well as emotional. And we can know the ethical values of certain behaviors based on the circumstances that surround it. I suggest it is possible to talk about this more, but the idea of a cruel god goes against the idea of a loving god, and so the mind concludes that one attribute must be wrong. I am comfortable asking questions, and follow-up questions, as they arise, without a desire to see one attribute or the other preserved. I'm not suggesting the EO folks here are doing that, only that it's what I did, so that's my point of reference. 

[albeto.]

A small attempt, and speculation on my part, not the dogma of the Church, although I hope it is BASED in dogma:

 

Based on the dogma of the resurrection of the body, I expect physical reality, the fullness of humanity as we were created (body, soul, spirit, which includes mind, memories, etc.) in a new earth (as taught in the Bible) which is freed from the results of sin--suffering, sorrow, fear, death.  Orthodoxy does not teach absorption into the divine, but union with God. The closest analogy here is "perfect marriage"--two separate beings in perfect unity of love.  

 

I have no response to most of your questions after the point about Unity.  I don't know even how much I can speculate.  I do think, however, that two things are also of interest here.

 

First, time is a creation, and I am not sure that time will function in eternity; eternity is probably more of living into the moment than "when we've been there 10,000 years..."  I also think that thinking about God or about heaven is a lot like thinking about the 5th dimension.  I can only get as far as I can compare five dimensions to the three dimensions in which I live.  Five dimensions is to three as three dimensions is to one.  I can't get my mind around that.  I can force my imagination to take a little step by thinking along these lines:  I am interested now in photography--and before that it was watercolor and before that quilting--which is all about light.  I am learning to understand how light works, how to modify it, how to shape it to make a better photo.  Perhaps in heaven, I will be able to understand it and work with it directly, bending it, shaping it in reality instead of just on a flat photo.  That's another approach to what I am trying to say.  "What heaven will be like" has not been revealed in detail.  We know that God is love, we know that He is everywhere present and filling all things.  We know that we will be with Him and see Him as He is.  That much has been revealed.  How it all works...not so.  

 

Anyway, that's the best I can do with this at this point.  

 

:0)

 

It sounds lovely. I'm reminded of the episodes on Star Trek, The Next Generation when they visit Risa, the pleasure planet. Everyone is happy all the time and no one is ever not happy.

 

 

ETA (if you see this): What is your expectation of hell? Is it a physical reality like heaven is a physical reality? 

[albeto.]

We simply don't have an answer for this question. As I stated earlier, we cannot know the mind of God and we do not know the bounds of his Mercy though we perceive them to be infinitely great.

 

Then how can you know Universalism isn't possible?

 

We know what to avoid, by following the commandments presented to us in the Hebrew Scriptures and by Christ Himself in the Gospels. We know that we are to avoid and root out Pride in all it's treacherous and even innocuous forms from our thoughts, hearts, and actions. This is all we need to know. :)

 

That works for those who are faithful to the EO church. I'm wondering about people who are not EO, not Christian, or purposefully reject the Christian gospel for their own reasons.

[TianXiaXueXiao]

Then how can you know Universalism isn't possible? We don't say it isn't possible. As I stated earlier, we can only state that it is possible, but we cannot say that it is definite.

 

That works for those who are faithful to the EO church. I'm wondering about people who are not EO, not Christian, or purposefully reject the Christian gospel for their own reasons. This has been addressed multiple times in this thread regarding the Orthodox Christian view on Heaven and Hell. We are all together in the direct presence of God-Pure Love. Those who reject God will experience his Love much in the same way you described up-thread when you stated, "I'm trying to imagine myself in this scenario. I not only reject your god, but I would be opposed for ethical reasons to have anything to do with him. If I were forced to be in proximity of him, experiencing his essence without any respite, it would be torturous." You did a very succinct job of accurately defining our view of Hell. 

[albeto.]

I think one state that might almost assuredly exclude salvation for some is being knowingly and willfully unrepentant (iow, refusing to turn toward God). If nothing else in Orthodoxy, and there's actually no "nothing else" because there's oh, so much else, but for the sake of this topic, if nothing else, we're taught that we need to repent, and that "he who endures to the end" with this will be saved.

 

This requires one to first recognize the need for repentance, right? What about someone like me, someone who doesn't recognize that need because they don't recognize the existence of sin in the first place?

[milovany]

This requires one to first recognize the need for repentance, right? What about someone like me, someone who doesn't recognize that need because they don't recognize the existence of sin in the first place?

 

That's where we say "we don't know."  What we do know is that God created a church that is the ideal place for the healing of souls, and for those that want to come into communion with God, submitting to the care of this caretaker (the Church) is the best path to repentance and salvation.  For those that don't learn of this path before death, we surrender that to the love and mercy of God. 

 

The thing is, you ARE asking the questions and you ARE being given the church's view on this. You have the knowledge. You keep saying, "How can a loving God send someone to eternal torture?" and we keep replying, "He doesn't, people separate themselves from God by knowingly rejecting Him in life."  You still reply, "But this is eternity, not a visit with great aunt Mary -- how can a loving God do that??" and we say, "He doesn't, people choose to turn away from His love, and the consequences of that aren't good."  You seem to think that somehow God (if He does exist) should change because you don't like that He may have put a time limit on making a choice (i.e., by death). We don't know the ins and outs of that completely but we trust that this is the way of the Lord. 

 

But for you, you do know that that time limit is there, right?  So you mayhave a decision to make at some point.  You are surely free to not turn to Him, but why blame the consequences on Him when you're fully aware of them?  I'm not saying at all that I know what would happen with your soul at your demise, albeto -- in other words, are you one of the ones with understanding who rejected it, or are you one of the ones (because you don't believe in Him in the first place) who will not be held accountable because you didn't have the understanding/practice/faith needed?  I'm not saying at all that I know what happens with certain categories of people (those who never heard the gospel while living, those who have heard but who rejected it, those who were in a different faith or on a different path that drew them closer to their God, etc.).  I'm just saying, a good and loving God is not sending people to hell, is not refusing to allow people into His presence, and in fact saw that this would happen (people would separate themselves from Him) and created a way to heal that rift. He sent out the lifeboat as it were. 

 

ETA -- Even as I wrote the above, it's not complete as it's not all about "knowledge" and "understanding" -- it's about knowing God through experience.  So please know that words aren't completely conveying my intent above.  But I can't spend hours at this, so will move along. 

[Orthodox6]

An EO, then, would say, with genuine sadness felt for the other person, that the person has spiritual blindness.

[albeto.]

We don't say it isn't possible. As I stated earlier, we can only state that it is possible, but we cannot say that it is definite.

I'm confused. PrincessMommy said that doctrine/theology was rejected more than 1000 years ago (link). 

 

This has been addressed multiple times in this thread regarding the Orthodox Christian view on Heaven and Hell. We are all together in the direct presence of God-Pure Love. Those who reject God will experience his Love much in the same way you described up-thread when you stated, "I'm trying to imagine myself in this scenario. I not only reject your god, but I would be opposed for ethical reasons to have anything to do with him. If I were forced to be in proximity of him, experiencing his essence without any respite, it would be torturous." You did a very succinct job of accurately defining our view of Hell. 

 

Yes of course it's been addressed multiple times, although each post may have a different focus, or a different question. As we respond to each other's comments, there's sure to be repeated content. Do you share the same expectation of a physical reality, the fullness of humanity as we were created (body, soul, spirit, which includes mind, memories, etc.) in a new earth (as taught in the Bible), like Patty Joanna? If it is a physical reality, what do you think is meant by unity? Physical? Mental? Will Jesus be in one place at one time? Will God have a physical form, or spiritual? Does EO theology speculate on any of this?

[albeto.]

That's where we say "we don't know."  What we do know is that God created a church that is the ideal place for the healing of souls, and for those that want to come into communion with God, submitting to the care of this caretaker (the Church) is the best path to repentance and salvation.  For those that don't learn of this path before death, we surrender that to the love and mercy of God. 

 

The thing is, you ARE asking the questions and you ARE being given the church's view on this. You have the knowledge. You keep saying, "How can a loving God send someone to eternal torture?" and we keep replying, "He doesn't, people separate themselves from God by knowingly rejecting Him in life."  You still reply, "But this is eternity, not a visit with great aunt Mary -- how can a loving God do that??" and we say, "He doesn't, people choose to turn away from His love, and the consequences of that aren't good."  You seem to think that somehow God (if He does exist) should change because you don't like that He may have put a time limit on making a choice (i.e., by death). We don't know the ins and outs of that completely but we trust that this is the way of the Lord.

Just for clarification, I don't think God (if he does exist) should change to accommodate my moral code. I'm curious how the EO moral code works this out. I think I understand. Thanks for the continued patience.

 

But for you, you do know that that time limit is there, right?  So you mayhave a decision to make at some point.  You are surely free to not turn to Him, but why blame the consequences on Him when you're fully aware of them?  I'm not saying at all that I know what would happen with your soul at your demise, albeto -- in other words, are you one of the ones with understanding who rejected it, or are you one of the ones (because you don't believe in Him in the first place) who will not be held accountable because you didn't have the understanding/practice/faith needed?  I'm not saying at all that I know what happens with certain categories of people (those who never heard the gospel while living, those who have heard but who rejected it, those who were in a different faith or on a different path that drew them closer to their God, etc.).  I'm just saying, a good and loving God is not sending people to hell, is not refusing to allow people into His presence, and in fact saw that this would happen (people would separate themselves from Him) and created a way to heal that rift. He sent out the lifeboat as it were. 

 

ETA -- Even as I wrote the above, it's not complete as it's not all about "knowledge" and "understanding" -- it's about knowing God through experience.  So please know that words aren't completely conveying my intent above.  But I can't spend hours at this, so will move along.

 

This makes sense. Thank you. 

[milovany]

Thanks for your reply albeto.  Have you ever been to an Orthodox church for services? I know you don't believe in God and so have zero interest in leading a life devoted to Him, but that's not a requirement for attending. Going to some services for a series of weeks (one of our local priest suggests that non-Orthodox attend at least six or so times) gives a better picture of the EO faith, beliefs and practices than anything anyone could ever write with words. I know you have a Catholic background, and I don't, so I can't compare the two, but we do have some former Catholics in our parish who say it was night and day for them (different, I mean, not spiritually like one was dark and the other light).

[Guest]

I'm confused. PrincessMommy said that doctrine/theology was rejected more than 1000 years ago (link). 

 

 

Yes of course it's been addressed multiple times, although each post may have a different focus, or a different question. As we respond to each other's comments, there's sure to be repeated content. Do you share the same expectation of a physical reality, the fullness of humanity as we were created (body, soul, spirit, which includes mind, memories, etc.) in a new earth (as taught in the Bible), like Patty Joanna? If it is a physical reality, what do you think is meant by unity? Physical? Mental? Will Jesus be in one place at one time? Will God have a physical form, or spiritual? Does EO theology speculate on any of this?

 

I never will figure out how do this quoting thing right:  So:  for the first sentence--It was rejected as *dogma* (that which must be believed).  Those who are so inclined may speculate in their search for understanding, but what they say is not proclaimed as dogma, and the speculation itself must be within the boundaries of dogma.  

 

For the second comment:  Yes, some Orthodox speculate on these matters.  I don't happen to be one of them who does.  It's not my wheelhouse.  But if I were to do so, I would start from the dogmas of the Church, and that would mean that these things are my boundaries (and probably more that I have not listed here):

 

--God is spirit 

--God is unchanging in His essence. 

--God is everywhere present and fills all things

--Jesus is ascended into heaven in the flesh

 

And I don't know whether this part is dogma or not, but when you read the New Testament, it seems like Jesus' flesh had been transformed somehow in the Resurrection, as it looks like it does not bear the constraints of the flesh as we know it.  So one can speculate from there about some of your questions.  

 

As I said, this is not my wheelhouse.  There are Orthodox who operate in this arena, and they write books and blogs that can be read by those to whom they are accessible (they are opaque to me as ... this is not my wheelhouse.  :0)  )  I know that my responses can be incredibly frustrating, because my mind does not work the same way yours does.  That's just the way it goes, I guess.  :0)

[TianXiaXueXiao]

I'm confused. PrincessMommy said that doctrine/theology was rejected more than 1000 years ago (link). 

 

 

Yes of course it's been addressed multiple times, although each post may have a different focus, or a different question. As we respond to each other's comments, there's sure to be repeated content. Do you share the same expectation of a physical reality, the fullness of humanity as we were created (body, soul, spirit, which includes mind, memories, etc.) in a new earth (as taught in the Bible), like Patty Joanna? If it is a physical reality, what do you think is meant by unity? Physical? Mental? Will Jesus be in one place at one time? Will God have a physical form, or spiritual? Does EO theology speculate on any of this?

 

Patty Joanna did a great job of reiterating how the Orthodox church views these things, so I don't want to be redundant. I did want to add that I also understand how the underlined can be confusing! Orthodoxy is just like this. We may "reject" a doctrine as *dogma*, but that doesn't mean that we reject the doctrine as a *possibility.* This is why you will find many Orthodox authorities will still work with and defend a doctrine despite the fact that it has not been completely accepted as our dogma. In this particular case, everything PrincessMommy said was true and everything Patty Joanna and I said is also true with regard to Apocatastasis. And for the record, I also believe as PJ does with regard to the expectation of a physical reality after "death." :)

[albeto.]

I never will figure out how do this quoting thing right:

It's easy once you get the hang of it (fun, too). Click on the little icon that looks like a light switch to the upper left hand corner of the reply box. That will give you the quote in computer script. Simply copy and past the first part within the brackets. It will start with "quote name="albeto".... Copy everything in the brackets, including the brackets. Place that prior to the section you want quoted. At the end of the section you want to quote, copy/paste or simply write in the brackets at the end, the ones that have "/quote" inside. Everything between these two scripts will appear as a quote box. You can write your own comments in between. By clicking on the light switch again, you can check to see if it works. It's a nice thing to learn, it makes the conversation easier for you, me, and everyone else who reads along.

 

So:  for the first sentence--It was rejected as *dogma* (that which must be believed).  Those who are so inclined may speculate in their search for understanding, but what they say is not proclaimed as dogma, and the speculation itself must be within the boundaries of dogma.

So doctrine is mostly what people think at the time. What was rejected over 1000 years ago can be embraced today so long as it's not dogma? Universalism isn't rejected by dogma? Is there a dogma that references justification?

 

For the second comment:  Yes, some Orthodox speculate on these matters.  I don't happen to be one of them who does.  It's not my wheelhouse.  But if I were to do so, I would start from the dogmas of the Church, and that would mean that these things are my boundaries (and probably more that I have not listed here):

 

--God is spirit 

--God is unchanging in His essence. 

--God is everywhere present and fills all things

--Jesus is ascended into heaven in the flesh

 

And I don't know whether this part is dogma or not, but when you read the New Testament, it seems like Jesus' flesh had been transformed somehow in the Resurrection, as it looks like it does not bear the constraints of the flesh as we know it.  So one can speculate from there about some of your questions.  

 

As I said, this is not my wheelhouse.  There are Orthodox who operate in this arena, and they write books and blogs that can be read by those to whom they are accessible (they are opaque to me as ... this is not my wheelhouse.  :0)  )  I know that my responses can be incredibly frustrating, because my mind does not work the same way yours does.  That's just the way it goes, I guess.  :0)

With regard to the idea of being in union with God, how do you imagine that to look? I'm a visual thinker, so I try to picture these scenarios in my mind. I try and imagine what it would feel like to be in the position of any given situation. I am imagining your thoughts will be in communication with God, so rather than having to rely on hidden messages to reveal his side of the communication, he'll talk directly in your minds. Like a kind of hive mind always going, which would provide the autonomy to do things like pursue photography, but still provide the intimate union with God.

 

What do you think it would look like for someone like me? Will I be living in a separated community for the unsaved, autonomous but for my thoughts? Will that be the torturous part - knowing what you all are thinking, and knowing you all can "hear" my thoughts? But then you would be privy to my pain and that doesn't sound very heavenly. Or will my unending pain and suffering be physical? Will I be constantly burned alive, or just feel like it? Will you be cognizant of this because God will be cognizant (because there's nowhere he can't be, nothing he can't know, and you'll be intimately united with him)? How much of Revelation is considered insightful to this end?

[albeto.]

Patty Joanna did a great job of reiterating how the Orthodox church views these things, so I don't want to be redundant. I did want to add that I also understand how the underlined can be confusing! Orthodoxy is just like this. We may "reject" a doctrine as *dogma*, but that doesn't mean that we reject the doctrine as a *possibility.* This is why you will find many Orthodox authorities will still work with and defend a doctrine despite the fact that it has not been completely accepted as our dogma. In this particular case, everything PrincessMommy said was true and everything Patty Joanna and I said is also true with regard to Apocatastasis. And for the record, I also believe as PJ does with regard to the expectation of a physical reality after "death." :)

 

With regard to the bold, what then is the function of identifying dogmatic truth if it may be assumed to not be truth? What I mean is, if the doctrine of Universalism is rejected as dogma, you're saying it can still be dogmatic truth, but you all wouldn't know it?

[milovany]

I believe she's saying that something that's been officially rejected as dogma ("it has to be so; this is our faith") could still be in the realm of possibility. 

[albeto.]

Thanks for your reply albeto.  Have you ever been to an Orthodox church for services? I know you don't believe in God and so have zero interest in leading a life devoted to Him, but that's not a requirement for attending. Going to some services for a series of weeks (one of our local priest suggests that non-Orthodox attend at least six or so times) gives a better picture of the EO faith, beliefs and practices than anything anyone could ever write with words. I know you have a Catholic background, and I don't, so I can't compare the two, but we do have some former Catholics in our parish who say it was night and day for them (different, I mean, not spiritually like one was dark and the other light).

 

Thank you for the kind invitation. It seems to be fitting with your idea that your faith is not all about knowledge and understanding, but rather, knowing God through experience. I understand you to say that factual, logical reasons are secondary to experiential reasons (live by faith, not by sight, trust not in thine own understanding, trust the lord and he will guide your path, etc). In that sense, a positive experience in an Eastern Orthodox church would promote my understanding of your faith. If it moves me emotionally, I would likely respond positively, and hopefully learn to interpret scripture, theology, dogmatic pronouncements, and every day events in light of these positive experiences. On the flip side, if it doesn't move me emotionally, I would likely never learn how to respond in such a way that God could reach me. It seems the responsibility is either on me to promote the chance of having a positive experience, or on God to make it so. Or would the responsibility lie elsewhere?

[albeto.]

I believe she's saying that something that's been officially rejected as dogma ("it has to be so; this is our faith") could still be in the realm of possibility.

 

If something has been officially rejected by dogmatic pronunciation, doesn't that mean by definition it couldn't be in the realm of possibility? Perhaps I should ask what the function of dogma is in the EO church. I'm familiar with it in the Roman Catholic church, so perhaps I'm imposing my knowledge inappropriately. My apologies if so. 

 

Earlier you made the comment...

 

Which probably brings up more "I don't know's" LOL.  Not really, there might be some answers we could attempt to give.   :D

 

The amazing thing, to me, is that even though there's a lot of "mystery" in Orthodoxy, and no official church-wide standard catechism, there's little to no variation in theology -- even after 2000 years (across those 2000 years and/or around the world).

 

If there's little or no variation in theology, even after 2000 years and around the world, then why would an idea rejected 1000 years ago be perfectly acceptable today?

[Orthodox6]

It's easy once you get the hang of it (fun, too). Click on the little icon that looks like a light switch to the upper left hand corner of the reply box. That will give you the quote in computer script. Simply copy and past the first part within the brackets. It will start with "quote name="albeto".... Copy everything in the brackets, including the brackets. Place that prior to the section you want quoted. At the end of the section you want to quote, copy/paste or simply write in the brackets at the end, the ones that have "/quote" inside. Everything between these two scripts will appear as a quote box. You can write your own comments in between. By clicking on the light switch again, you can check to see if it works. It's a nice thing to learn, it makes the conversation easier for you, me, and everyone else who reads along.

 

 

So doctrine is mostly what people think at the time. What was rejected over 1000 years ago can be embraced today so long as it's not dogma? Universalism isn't rejected by dogma? Is there a dogma that references justification?

 

 

With regard to the idea of being in union with God, how do you imagine that to look? I'm a visual thinker, so I try to picture these scenarios in my mind. I try and imagine what it would feel like to be in the position of any given situation. I am imagining your thoughts will be in communication with God, so rather than having to rely on hidden messages to reveal his side of the communication, he'll talk directly in your minds. Like a kind of hive mind always going, which would provide the autonomy to do things like pursue photography, but still provide the intimate union with God.

 

What do you think it would look like for someone like me? Will I be living in a separated community for the unsaved, autonomous but for my thoughts? Will that be the torturous part - knowing what you all are thinking, and knowing you all can "hear" my thoughts? But then you would be privy to my pain and that doesn't sound very heavenly. Or will my unending pain and suffering be physical? Will I be constantly burned alive, or just feel like it? Will you be cognizant of this because God will be cognizant (because there's nowhere he can't be, nothing he can't know, and you'll be intimately united with him)? How much of Revelation is considered insightful to this end?

 

Good morning to you!

 

Much of what you ask about simply is not known.  We gain nothing by speculating about something God has not revealed to mankind.  Either in this thread, or in another recent thread, I said point-blank that the Eastern Orthodox faith has the humility -- (something essentially necessary, both for a religion and for an individual person) -- to say, "We do not know the answer to this."  And there we stop.  That's the end of it. 

 

I would like to see you spare yourself from further metaphorically banging your head against the wall about such topics.  We (the WTM EO members) are glad to share our faith by answering your questions as best as we can; however, we do not assist you, nor do we act rightly ourselves, if we try to satisfy your wish to learn answers to questions which have no answers available to those souls still living on earth.

 

The specifics of what happens to me in the afterlife will not be known to me until after I die. 

 

I gather that there are other Christian groups that will say they have answers to your questions which fall into this category. 

 

We do not.

 

Wishing you a relaxed day!

 

 

[Orthodox6]

P.S.  I have not studied every fine point of this thread; however, I will note this about the "Universalist" position -- IF what you are referencing is the proposition that all human souls ultimately will be granted salvation. 

 

All souls have the possibility of being saved.  Not all souls will be saved. 

 

Nestorian Christianity -- which is outside of the Orthodox Church -- does teach that all men will be saved.  Orthodoxy does not accept this claim.  It arose in the writings of Origen, who is quite a mixed-bag from our perspective. 

 

What will happen in your particular case, none of us know, or can know.  I don't know what ultimately will happen to myself, for that matter.  So I trust in God's mercy and spend every day of my life on earth struggling to flee sin and to serve Christ according to the teachings of our Orthodox faith.  Absolutely am not doing this from fear, but from praying and acting in such ways as will increase my love for God.  I want to seek His will, not mine. 

[Pam in CT]

 

Please don't worry about hurting my feelings. I recognize the genuine thought and question in your posts (of everyone here, actually). 

Yes, I second this.  

 

As well: albeto, you have raised so many deep, rich questions in your posts that have sent my own imagination spiraling and launched a thousand questions in my own mind, which is glorious... but I'll attempt to limit my responses to the subset that hew reasonably close to the constructs that the EO ladies have put forth in this thread.

 

 

 

 

 

 ... What I'm wondering is what heaven is understood to be. What I understand... is that EO believe heaven to be a state of consciousness in unity with the divine. This unity won't be a loss of self. Independent thought is expected, but nothing that isn't in conformity with God's will ...

 

You mention an eternally projected tension between the self, with its memories and proclivities and curiosities, and a divine being. Interesting image. That works for me. If the divine being and the self will become One Being, United But Not Absorbed, then the very components that make the self exist, the element of autonomy, would be gone-but-not-gone-its-a-mystery.<....> Then this mind meld, for lack of better words, would be infinitely fantastic for those who love and adore God, but would be an eternal, infinitely painful, violation for those who do not.

 

As I understand it, the very thing that would make it super wonderful for the ladies here would create for me an unending reality of constant pain and torment. Therein lies the impetus for your idea of a hypothetical anxiety. For my part, that's not really the angle at which I'm coming to this,      

 

 <<<it doesn't really inspire my questions so much. If the EO church is right, then whether or not I like this, whether or not I can come to understand the value of such an arrangement is irrelevant. Ultimately, I would have to endure it, like it or not. >>>

 

 

What drives my curiosity is more along the lines of how this being, this persona who would force/allow/ignore the suffering imposed on a sentient, self-aware creature, is understood. This is because this persona is the reality of heaven/hell, as I understand it. In any other context, this ethical situation would be understood as immoral, unjustified, and lacking anything remotely related to love, but in the EO church, it's either embraced, accepted, or dismissed.

To take these ideas a bit out of order, first   < <<the bit in these kind of brackets>>> : yes, of course.  Just as our existence here, in this imperfect world and time, came to us without our asking for it; and just as we "have" in this life to "endure" it, like it or not, whether it was Made by a Maker or not, whether or not we would have chosen it were we given the chance to refuse.  I do understand that you are not quarreling with Reality (however it may emerge) or asking it to reshape itself according to your moral code, as you put it upthread in response to a different question.  I am very happy to wander a while in hypothetical planes, though I also need to come home for nourishment and rest... :laugh:

 

If, then, your primary line of inquiry is around how the nature -- and particularly, the ethical nature -- of the divine persona is understood... I wonder if your presumption of constant pain and torment turns upon the EO teaching that God's door does not, in fact, remain open to soul who might be inclined to drop in later rather than sooner?  I mean, I do realize how terribly obtuse this question sounds to a believer, but from *your* perspective, is it the "pureness of love" itself that projects as eternally painful, or the teaching that having once opted out of it as a breathing being, you would be eternally cognizant of having made an irreversible choice?

 

I'm wondering because when I try to imagine "pure love," which admittedly is another of these abstractions I can't make real meaning out of, I'm not sure *I* would envision its absence as "constant pain and torment," as you described it above, or "burning fire" as was described far upthread.  I only know ordinary, good-enough human love, of course... Still, as that's the best analogy I have to draw on: when I experience, as I inevitably do, hiccups in my relationships with my spouse, children, parents... such we temporarily move apart from each other, while what I experience in that moment of temporarily-disrupted-ordinary-love is unpleasant -- a sadness, a festering irritation, a ache of estrangement, a flare of anger, whatever -- I don't experience it as torment.  It's certainly less comfortable than other, happier moments of connection or laughter or intimacy, but it's not torment.  And if we -- flawed mortals that we are -- are able to maintain such a reasonably healthy balance between our unitary and our "melded" selves, why would it be different for my "self" (presuming I can take it with me) and an eternal God characterized by pure love, which presumably would be far more nuanced and skillful -- more patient than my husband of my looping halting communication skills, for example; more sensitive to my need for privacy than my children, etc?  A "pure" lover would, I would think, respect your self's hunger to continue to seek out answers, its exultation in philosophical jousting, even its need for psychic distance, right?

 

Again, I can only reach for the ordinary good-enough love that I know, but for me, the difference between the dull ache of separation that I experience in this life for temporary disruptions in my relationships with loved ones, and the constant pain and torment that you project above, is not related to the nature of the love, but to the idea of permanent separation from it.  Because if I believed that the squabble with my teenager were going to result in our permanent estrangement, well, that would be torment, KWIM?  That would be a different thing entirely.

 

So to tease out a distinction that I don't think we've made yet (though we are, admittedly, starting to split the hairs of the angels dancing on pins): is it the EO construct of enforced proximity to God's pure love that is ethically troubling (in which case: I wonder how your working vision of pure love diverges from mine);

 

or is it more narrowly the EO construct that if we don't accept God's love while we yet have breath, we've missed the window forever that is ethically troubling (in which case, I think I understand your concern)?

 

Or, to try yet another frame: which poses the ethical problem -- the nature of God's love, or the nature of the deadline?  I can see the ethical dilemma, or at least the inconsistency, posed by an eternally locked door.  I really can't see the ethical objection to pure love (so maybe you're envisioning that differently)...

[milovany]

Dogma is something like the incarnation of Christ (Jesus was God in bodily form).  This definitely IS part of Orthodox teaching.  There's no way around it.  Icons are a part of our worship.  There's no way around that.  It's been established that iconoclasm is not valid.  Calling Mary the "Theotokos" ("mother of God") and venerating her.  There's no way around that.  What exactly happens to us after death?  No one knows with 100% certainty.  There are possibilities, but no official church dogma. 

 

As for visiting a service, just curious where the idea about being touched emotionally being an indicator of "success" (or not) came from.  This is one BIG reason I love Orthodoxy, it's not at all about the service touching me emotionally.  It's about sharing the Eucharist with other Orthodox Christians (the practices the lead up to that, the worship that we offer related to that, and the thanksgiving we have for that).  It's a-emotional as it were. 

[Orthodox6]

Last installment before moving on. . .

 

Orthodoxy does not believe in "soul sleep" as do some faith groups. Dead people are not comatose. The soul cannot interact with people still on earth, although it can be aware of what goes on there. We strongly believe that the dead hear our prayers and that they will, if asked, pray to God on our behalf. We never pray "to" the dead. We only ask them to pray for us.

 

The appearance and physical attributes of the resurrected body to be received in the future are unknown to us. As usual, we do not waste time in speculating about it. Nor do we speculate on how and how much we will squirm and wiggle if we are assigned to Hell. Honestly, we have greater responsibility to "work out our salvation" through prayer, fasting, repentance and almsgiving while yet we live on earth.

[albeto.]

Good morning to you!

 

Much of what you ask about simply is not known.  We gain nothing by speculating about something God has not revealed to mankind.  Either in this thread, or in another recent thread, I said point-blank that the Eastern Orthodox faith has the humility -- (something essentially necessary, both for a religion and for an individual person) -- to say, "We do not know the answer to this."  And there we stop.  That's the end of it. 

I do understand the limitations of knowledge. I don't expect to understand all there is, or even all there is for a modern EO Christian to know. At some point, the claims of your faith must be accepted on faith, that is to say, they must be believed to be true by virtue of trust because no information exists (which is why faith is required). I don't have that trust certainly, and don't pretend to have it (for reasons shared upthread). The only thing I know to do is find out what I can, and to do that I can only think to keep asking questions as they arise. In this way I might see the kind of boundaries the EO theology maintains, or at least the boundaries maintained by the EO Christians on this thread. Again, I thank you for your continued patience.

 

I would like to see you spare yourself from further metaphorically banging your head against the wall about such topics.  We (the WTM EO members) are glad to share our faith by answering your questions as best as we can; however, we do not assist you, nor do we act rightly ourselves, if we try to satisfy your wish to learn answers to questions which have no answers available to those souls still living on earth.

Thank you for your concern. If I feel uncomfortable, I will refrain from my pursuit of inquiry. Please don't feel like you are burdening me in any way. I appreciate the opportunity to learn as much as possible.

 

The specifics of what happens to me in the afterlife will not be known to me until after I die.

Understood, but there do exist some speculation on part of the EO, right? So far I've gathered that heaven could be an altered state of consciousness, a state of being, wherein the cognizant, sentient minds and unaltered personalities of all humanity will be united with God's mind. Those who are happy with this outcome will find it unspeakably wonderful. Those who don't will find it endlessly torturous. This is one possibility of heaven/hell (which is the same thing, only perceived differently). I've also gathered heaven could be a kind or restored Eden, where all humans will be reincarnated, have physical bodies, see God face to face, and be able to pursue personal interests while still being somehow united with God (who can be seen face to face but is yet a spirit). I understand the EO church makes no formal declarations about what to expect, but these are not only not discouraged, they are popular. The latter is also the most popular throughout history. 

 

The first scenario I can imagine. I may not be accurate, but that is why I share my ideas here, to get more insight. I can imagine it kind of like a dream state only perfectly vivid. In my dreams, I *know* things without reference. Things just *are* and that doesn't bother me (in my dream I mean, I'm not curious, I just go with it). I don't feel much like I have a corporeal body, and all the imagery, perceptions, and stimuli are easily contained within my mind. My logical thinking is off, so things that wouldn't make sense to my waking mind are no obstacle to my dreaming mind. I couldn't explain the reasons behind my dreams any more than you can explain the reasons behind some of these beliefs. I imagine the first heaven/hell scenario to be like this. 

 

I can't imagine the second. I hope you don't mind my asking others what they imagine it to be.

 

In either case, I can't imagine what it might be like to be united with God willfully, happily, knowing intimately the despair and pain of those unsaved souls who are also united with God. I can't help but think of these ideas in terms of ideas I am familiar with, and I don't mean to belittle your faith in any way, but Star Trek's "Borg" idea with the hive mind comes to mind. By this I mean that all individuals pursue their own directives, and yet share a single will (like the perfect marriage analogy above). Obviously, the imagery of loss of autonomy is not one you are perpetuating, and I make no mistake in assuming anything of the sort. It is only the sharing of the will that I apply to my imagination. In this sense, being cognizant of the will of God perfectly would include being cognizant of the minds also intimately united with God, and that would include minds that are unceasingly tortured. That is, if we can assume the idea of divine intimacy being what we conceive of it now. At some point, we have to assume that what we know now will be consistent with what we will know then, otherwise how could you trust anything your church tells you? 

 

I gather that there are other Christian groups that will say they have answers to your questions which fall into this category. 

 

We do not.

I'm specifically curious about the Orthodox Christian view on Heaven and Hell. This is the appropriate place for that.

 

Wishing you a relaxed day!

Thank you! I wish the same for you.

 

 

[albeto.]

P.S.  I have not studied every fine point of this thread; however, I will note this about the "Universalist" position -- IF what you are referencing is the proposition that all human souls ultimately will be granted salvation. 

 

All souls have the possibility of being saved.  Not all souls will be saved. 

 

Nestorian Christianity -- which is outside of the Orthodox Church -- does teach that all men will be saved.  Orthodoxy does not accept this claim.  It arose in the writings of Origen, who is quite a mixed-bag from our perspective. 

 

What will happen in your particular case, none of us know, or can know.  I don't know what ultimately will happen to myself, for that matter.  So I trust in God's mercy and spend every day of my life on earth struggling to flee sin and to serve Christ according to the teachings of our Orthodox faith.  Absolutely am not doing this from fear, but from praying and acting in such ways as will increase my love for God.  I want to seek His will, not mine. 

 

When I was a believing Catholic, I held much the same belief. Certain questions started popping into my head and I never did find an answer to them. I wonder if the EO church maybe had insight that I never found in the RCC. Such questions revolved around the idea that if we could understand why someone would reject God, and if that motivation was made for genuine reasons that otherwise are considered "good," would God likely honor that? He does with regard to children and the mentally challenged, as far as many in the EO church (and certainly here) seem to advocate. So then my mind continues this trail of thought. Is there anyone who could conceivably desire that which goes against his or her own good? Desire something that isn't actually good for them, yes, but on purpose? I can't imagine it. The brain is wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. A brain that would willfully seek pain would be abnormal and couldn't possibly be culpable for not behaving as a typically wired brain. And so I wonder what kinds of criteria might exist to justify an eternity of torment. Surely theologians have contemplated this. I'd be curious to know if anyone here is familiar with these theological problems. I understand you focus on your own salvation and do what you can to help others, that you are not a theologian and do not represent the EO church. I just wanted to clarify in case I was being confusing. 

[albeto.]

Dogma is something like the incarnation of Christ (Jesus was God in bodily form).  This definitely IS part of Orthodox teaching.  There's no way around it.  Icons are a part of our worship.  There's no way around that.  It's been established that iconoclasm is not valid.  Calling Mary the "Theotokos" ("mother of God") and venerating her.  There's no way around that.  What exactly happens to us after death?  No one knows with 100% certainty.  There are possibilities, but no official church dogma.

 

Does the EO church have any dogma considering justification, other than souls can be saved? For example, Martin Luther argued against the Catholic justification and suggested another, "declaring" sin to be gone, in opposition to the RCC theology of justification which suggests sin must actually be gone. Does the EO church have any dogmatic understandings about the mechanics of justification and what happens to sin? How is sin disposed of before heaven, or is it?

 

As for visiting a service, just curious where the idea about being touched emotionally being an indicator of "success" (or not) came from.  This is one BIG reason I love Orthodoxy, it's not at all about the service touching me emotionally.  It's about sharing the Eucharist with other Orthodox Christians (the practices the lead up to that, the worship that we offer related to that, and the thanksgiving we have for that).  It's a-emotional as it were.

 

The idea came from your comment

 

ETA -- Even as I wrote the above, it's it's not complete as it's not all about "knowledge" and "understanding" -- it's about knowing God through experience.

 

If one knows about God through experience, then the service would be an ideal experiential event (indeed, all events are). I understood you encouraging me to attend a service for the purpose of having a positive experience, simply because the idea of encouraging me to a service that would not ideally provide a positive experience doesn't make sense in light of the idea through such an experience is how I might know God. 

[TianXiaXueXiao]

Does the EO church have any dogma considering justification, other than souls can be saved? For example, Martin Luther argued against the Catholic justification and suggested another, "declaring" sin to be gone, in opposition to the RCC theology of justification which suggests sin must actually be gone. Does the EO church have any dogmatic understandings about the mechanics of justification and what happens to sin? How is sin disposed of before heaven, or is it?

 

The concept of Justification is entirely Western and foreign in its juridical application at the time of an individual's death to Eastern Orthodox Christians. We view Baptism, joining with church, as the "justification" Paul speaks of, having been found acceptable to join the Body of Christ-the Church. When we die, the All-Merciful One will impart righteousness to those who truly love him and have "run the race" to emulate Christ in our current lives, regardless of how long we have been "running" at the time of death. Some will experience deathbed conversions after a lifetime of rejecting God, and their race is no less valid than the one who toiled an entire lifetime at shedding the "old man."

[Guest]

I believe she's saying that something that's been officially rejected as dogma ("it has to be so; this is our faith") could still be in the realm of possibility. 

 

This.  

[TianXiaXueXiao]

Also, Albeto, I cannot speak for others but I do believe that the encouragement for you to visit an EO parish was a suggestion for you to see for yourself what it's all about and have an opportunity to pose all of your questions about this faith to an actual priest, face to face, which would no doubt be more effective than us grasping for the best explanation. I prefer face to face conversations with an expert in any given field on the topic at hand in order to truly feel informed. Perhaps this is not the case for you.

 

I don't think you need to worry about whether the experience of visiting a church and meeting a priest in addition to observing our worship will be positive or negative. The only point of the invitation was to improve your understanding of the faith, not to save you soul. ;)

[albeto.]

Yes, I second this.  

 

As well: albeto, you have raised so many deep, rich questions in your posts that have sent my own imagination spiraling and launched a thousand questions in my own mind, which is glorious...

Each idea presents more ideas, and the questions never stop, do they?   ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To take these ideas a bit out of order, first   < <<the bit in these kind of brackets>>> : yes, of course.  Just as our existence here, in this imperfect world and time, came to us without our asking for it; and just as we "have" in this life to "endure" it, like it or not, whether it was Made by a Maker or not, whether or not we would have chosen it were we given the chance to refuse.  I do understand that you are not quarreling with Reality (however it may emerge) or asking it to reshape itself according to your moral code, as you put it upthread in response to a different question.  I am very happy to wander a while in hypothetical planes, though I also need to come home for nourishment and rest... :laugh:

 

If, then, your primary line of inquiry is around how the nature -- and particularly, the ethical nature -- of the divine persona is understood... I wonder if your presumption of constant pain and torment turns upon the EO teaching that God's door does not, in fact, remain open to soul who might be inclined to drop in later rather than sooner?  I mean, I do realize how terribly obtuse this question sounds to a believer, but from *your* perspective, is it the "pureness of love" itself that projects as eternally painful, or the teaching that having once opted out of it as a breathing being, you would be eternally cognizant of having made an irreversible choice?

Good questions. From my perspective, I think it's both. The first, the eternal nature of having made the "wrong bed" and being forced to lie in it is no doubt barbaric to our moral code. The idea that the consequence for not returning unrequited love would be endless torture is also morally problematic.

 

But also the idea of spending an eternity with the god of the bible is morally problematic for me, even when you take away eternity. I interpret this character to be rather immoral, dangerous, and evil. I recognize that according to some Christian theology, this is because I am spiritually blinded and cannot see what truly exists. However, if I'm right, and I think a stronger argument can be made for than against this opinion, then, if I may be perfectly frank, the reality of heaven would be like an eternity enjoying a fine evening of dining and dancing with Hitler. All the pleasantries in existence couldn't hide what the man did, what he stood for, what he believed, and what he loved. I trust this harsh imagery will not be interpreted as a personal insult, I just don't know how else to really convey the idea of my perception of the EO heaven. Any visceral emotional reaction, as unpleasant as it is (and understandably so), should be understood to reflect my argument, not an accusation against the god that everyone loves. If indeed I am spiritually blind, then it can't be helped. If not, at the very least I hope you and others will read it as a misrepresentation on my part, not an accusation I'm attempting to defend. 

 

 

 

 

I'm wondering because when I try to imagine "pure love," which admittedly is another of these abstractions I can't make real meaning out of, I'm not sure *I* would envision its absence as "constant pain and torment," as you described it above, or "burning fire" as was described far upthread.  I only know ordinary, good-enough human love, of course... Still, as that's the best analogy I have to draw on: when I experience, as I inevitably do, hiccups in my relationships with my spouse, children, parents... such we temporarily move apart from each other, while what I experience in that moment of temporarily-disrupted-ordinary-love is unpleasant -- a sadness, a festering irritation, a ache of estrangement, a flare of anger, whatever -- I don't experience it as torment.  It's certainly less comfortable than other, happier moments of connection or laughter or intimacy, but it's not torment.  And if we -- flawed mortals that we are -- are able to maintain such a reasonably healthy balance between our unitary and our "melded" selves, why would it be different for my "self" (presuming I can take it with me) and an eternal God characterized by pure love, which presumably would be far more nuanced and skillful -- more patient than my husband of my looping halting communication skills, for example; more sensitive to my need for privacy than my children, etc?  A "pure" lover would, I would think, respect your self's hunger to continue to seek out answers, its exultation in philosophical jousting, even its need for psychic distance, right?

Interesting idea. So then in this scenario, hell might be likened to loneliness, rather than pain?

 

Again, I can only reach for the ordinary good-enough love that I know, but for me, the difference between the dull ache of separation that I experience in this life for temporary disruptions in my relationships with loved ones, and the constant pain and torment that you project above, is not related to the nature of the love, but to the idea of permanent separation from it.  Because if I believed that the squabble with my teenager were going to result in our permanent estrangement, well, that would be torment, KWIM?  That would be a different thing entirely.

Yes, I do know what you mean. The thought just occurred to me, idea of an experience going on forever may just make hell as boring as heaven. After all, if the experience were to never end, why would torment not loose its luster just like joy would?

 

So to tease out a distinction that I don't think we've made yet (though we are, admittedly, starting to split the hairs of the angels dancing on pins): is it the EO construct of enforced proximity to God's pure love that is ethically troubling (in which case: I wonder how your working vision of pure love diverges from mine);

 

or is it more narrowly the EO construct that if we don't accept God's love while we yet have breath, we've missed the window forever that is ethically troubling (in which case, I think I understand your concern)?

 

Or, to try yet another frame: which poses the ethical problem -- the nature of God's love, or the nature of the deadline?  I can see the ethical dilemma, or at least the inconsistency, posed by an eternally locked door.  I really can't see the ethical objection to pure love (so maybe you're envisioning that differently)...

So to recap, my moral objections to this construct of the EO heaven/hell include the problems you identify: Eternal punishment for not making the "right" choice (never mind having to beat the clock); and the idea of spending time in proximity with the god of the bible (the one portrayed literally or allegorically), as I reject the notion that represents love.

[Guest]

:::snip:::--for length, and because it's already been responded to

 

 

With regard to the idea of being in union with God, how do you imagine that to look? I'm a visual thinker, so I try to picture these scenarios in my mind. :::snip:::   

 

Patty here:  I don't really imagine it.  Even if I did, I would be wary in presenting it in a thread about what Orthodoxy teaches; my imaginings are less than reliable, and at any rate, I haven't really spent thought on this. 

What do you think it would look like for someone like me? Will I be living in a separated community for the unsaved, autonomous but for my thoughts? Will that be the torturous part - knowing what you all are thinking, and knowing you all can "hear" my thoughts? But then you would be privy to my pain and that doesn't sound very heavenly. Or will my unending pain and suffering be physical? Will I be constantly burned alive, or just feel like it? Will you be cognizant of this because God will be cognizant (because there's nowhere he can't be, nothing he can't know, and you'll be intimately united with him)? How much of Revelation is considered insightful to this end?

 

Patty here again:  I don't know.  I don't think about this, because I have enough on my own plate to think about, and to do in developing my relationship with God, in repentance.  It is enough for me to think on these things where I have some element of cooperation to offer to God, and even then I don't do a very good job of it.  Truly, I have no idea.  I will say this:  whatever union looks like, I am pretty sure it will not encompass my understanding all of the things of God.  I will still be a finite being.  It is unlikely that I will ever fully understand my own self.  This area of speculation is just not my wheelhouse.  

 

In another post you wrote something about your approach to understanding these things being from your previous Roman Catholic experience.  I'm going to respond to that in another post, and will try to incorporate something visual for you.  :0) 

[Orthodox6]

OT, but where did you find that cool gif (or whatever the right word), Albeto? I want to download it to stare at when I need to relax! Thanks!

[mommaduck]

I have to chuckle. That gif really does pin it, doesn't it? :) I've been enjoying reading this conversation. I've stayed out of it, because I believe the others speak better than I do and I'm definitely not in the right frame of mind/mood (my snark is up and my filter may not be where it should be). Albeto, you do ask good questions. Unfortunately, we are Orthodox and we accept Mystery and the Unknown.

[TianXiaXueXiao]

I have to chuckle. That gif really does pin it, doesn't it? :) I've been enjoying reading this conversation. I've stayed out of it, because I believe the others speak better than I do and I'm definitely not in the right frame of mind/mood (my snark is up and my filter may not be where it should be). Albeto, you do ask good questions. Unfortunately, we are Orthodox and we accept Mystery and the Unknown.

 

I have found myself getting "hooked" on the chat board lately, too. Pride. Pride. Ugly pride depart from me!

[Guest]

 

If something has been officially rejected by dogmatic pronunciation, doesn't that mean by definition it couldn't be in the realm of possibility? Perhaps I should ask what the function of dogma is in the EO church. I'm familiar with it in the Roman Catholic church, so perhaps I'm imposing my knowledge inappropriately. My apologies if so. 

 :::snip:::

 

In an earlier post, you mentioned that you are a visual person.  In this post, you mention that your approach is from your Roman Catholic past.  I think there might be a key for understanding the responses we give.  (Here comes the visual part...)

 

Imagine this--it is concrete, not abstract and it is not an analogy for further development of ideas; it is a simple illustration.

 

The Roman Catholic Church approaches theology cataphatically.  The Roman Catholic Catechism book asks very specific questions, and goes into detailed answers about what is known.  Because the Roman Catholic Church was closely affiliated with Western history, which includes the Renaissance and Scholasticism, its approach is to seek out and state specific and logically woven sytematic rational positions about as many facets as can be explained.  So, for example, the Catholic Catechism might state the following, "God is love" and go into great detail describing the many kinds and manifestations of love.  

 

The Orthodox Church approaches it apophatically.  This works from the position of what is not known.  The Orthodox state what has been revealed (through Christ and through the Scriptures) but leaves unstated things that go beyond this.  It is a framework that is difficult for moderns.  To use the above example, the Orthodox might say, "God is love but not love as we know love."  This is to prevent us from associating the love of God with the love of a human (who likely as not has had some sort of agenda in loving us, or has presented a deformed view of love, as I myself have done, because I am imperfect in love).  Orthodoxy recognizes that the words we use are finite and cannot be used to describe or understand the infinite.  

 

OK, so (hold on to your hat!), here's the visual.  If I were to go find in the INFINITE stack of boxes of books (seems like it) the box that contains my copy of the Roman Catholic Catechism and place it beside my Orthodox Catechism book, you would see that it is three times as thick, and if you opened it, you would see that the type is much smaller.  If you read it, you would see the exhaustive examination of all kinds of subjects and an organization structure that is akin to an engineering manual (the same numbering style, that's what I mean;  I.2.xi to identify a paragraph.  If you opened the Orthodox Catechesis (which is not The Official Orthodox Catechesis, because there is not such a thing), you would find prose-style chapters with titles like "Who is God?"  Who is man?"  "How do we relate to God?"  "What has gone wrong?"  "Can we be saved?"  and that kind of thing.  Probably about 8 chapters.  

 

An example of the difference:  Both Roman Catholics and Orthodox believe that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ.  Roman Catholics have a teaching called "transubstantiation" which describes the process by which the change from bread and wine takes place; there is a formula for the priest to say, and so on.  Orthodoxy does not have this teaching.  Yes, the Eucharist is the body and blood, but we don't know spell out how it happens.  It just does.  It's called a mystery.  That is the difference I'm trying to get at; if you come to Orthodoxy asking questions and expecting detailed answers...we often do not have them.   

 

Are you ready for this?  A second visual!  Imagine two stacks of lumber:  one is the lumber required to build a large, exquisitely detailed Victorian house with lots of rooms, and plenty of detail work.  The other stack is the lumber required to build a yurt.  Oh, there's a big pile of canvas there, too.  Those two stacks are really different in size.  And when the buildings are built, the experience of living in one is different from living in the other.  

 

If you go visit the yurt, it's not really that useful to impose the blueprint of the house on the yurt in deciding how to live in the yurt.  They are just different.  Each has a foundation, and that is the dogma.  But above the foundations, one is much more delineated; the other is more like a set of boundaries, with more room to just move around while still inside, safe from the bad weather.  

 

A couple of links in case you want to know more about some of these things; my week is filling up and I won't be around as much for awhile as we celebrate my father's 90th birthday and get ready for that trip.

• Apophatic theology:  http://orthodoxwiki.org/Apophatic_theology.  In this article you will see a link to a place that talks about God's essence and energies.  This might interest you. 
• Father John Garvey wrote this wonderful SHORT book for non-Orthodox: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5986074-orthodoxy-for-the-non-orthodox  It is $10 new, but it looks like there are a lot of used copies on Amazon.
• Metropolitan Kallistos Ware talks about salvation in this youtube.  I am only linking this particular video because you can see the back of my head at 00:13  LOL.  You can Google his name and find much of the same info in written material.  However, he is quite interesting to listen to, once you get over the fact that he sounds like Boris Karloff.  :0)  

Kind regards all around.