Lucian,
I object to the name "Oriental Orthodox" for Non-Chalcedonians.
It seems sinful to me for Orthodox Christians to refer to Monophysites as "Orthodox."
How can one reject any of the holy Ecumenical Councils of the Church and be Orthodox?
The only sin committed here, is the sin committed by you and those who adhere to your line of thought. It is a sin against the intellect (since your comments regress to circular reasoning, the fallacy of equivocation, and the resort to loaded questions), and it is a sin against God (when you falsify the truth, and in turn bear false witness against others). Please allow me to elaborate:
Those who continue to disregard the accurate and most appropriate title of miaphysite to describe the Oriental Orthodox Church’s faithful adherence to Cyrillian Christology, for the title of monphysite which carries false historical and theological connotations associated with the Eutychian heresy, in spite of both the lack of evidence to support the monophysite claim and their awareness of the evidence that negates the monopyhsite claim - are liars, and their father is the father of liars. They follow satan in transgressing a fundamental moral commandment of our Lord, by bearing false witness against the true testimony and doctrine of the Oriental Orthodox church. Surely, they shall be held accountable before the Almighty God for their deceit and vanity (may His wrath be upon the enemies of His Church).
To argue that the mere affirmation of The One nature of Christ leads to monophysitism is to commit the fallacy of equivocation, and is to also attribute the heretical title to the great St Cyril, if ofcourse you wish to remain consistent in your fallacious reasoning. Monophysitism is no more the exclusive corollary of affirming One Nature, any more than Unitarianism is the logical corollary of affirming One God. Please try and use your God-given logic, if indeed you are created in the image of God like the rest of us, and hence possess the ability to reason.
Furthermore, you regress to even more logical fallacies, when you ask loaded questions like:
How can one reject any of the holy Ecumenical Councils of the Church and be Orthodox?
Justify the presupposition inherent in this loaded question, and then maybe we can have a reasonable and objective discussion. Those who continue to arbitrarily define “The Orthodox Church” as the church which follows a certain set number of councils which they arbitrarily declare and determine to be “ecumenical” and consequently representative of “The Orthodox Church”, to then conclude that those who do not adopt this set number of councils according to the unjustifiable level of authority arbitrarily attributed to them are thus not Orthodox, are doing nothing more than begging the question. I have not yet found one EO believer who can prove the Ecumenicity of Chalcedon without first presupposing its authority on this level.
If the enemies of the Oriental Orthodox church have no reason or logic to support their satanic cause, then what do they have against us? If historical truth does not support their anti-Christ cause, then what do they have against us? Surely Satan has deluded them, he has shut their eyes, and closed their hearts and minds. What do they have against us? Nothing, for if God is for us, who can be against us? Let us further expose the futile satanic agenda of the anti-Christ anti-OO’s:
Quote:
"I confess that before the union our Lord had two natures, but after the union I confess one single nature."
Quote:
"So we can say that the Divine nature united hypostatically with the human nature within the Virgin’s womb, but after this unity we do not ever speak again about two natures of Christ."
Would someone care to explain to me the difference in the two quotes above?
Yes it’s actually very simple; but after reading through many of your inept arguments, I can’t say that im confident that you will be able to come to an humble recognition of the extreme fallacy and sin committed in your isolation of the two above respective quotes out of their intended context, in order to implicitly draw a fallacious (precisely because in actuality it does not exist) parallel, which the demon that possesses you is trying not only to enforce in your mind, but to spread to others like HIV+ and AIDS, using you as his instrument to dupe your brethren simpletons. I will however explain for you the obvious differences nonetheless, in the hope that the intercessions of our teacher St Dioscorus (the blessed upholder of the Orthodox faith whom you betrayed and falsely condemned, in the same manner that the Jews betrayed and condemned Our Lord Christ), and his predecessor the great St Cyril the pillar of faith (the true champion of Orthodox Christology whom you defy), will help you such that the Lord may have mercy on your feeble mind:
First of all, since it is debatable whether Eutyches actually subscribed to the Eutychian heresy ascribed to him (regardless of the fact he is anathemized by both our Church’s), I will simply make my points under the assumption that Eutyches was indeed a monophysite in the truest heretical sense of that word.
The difference between the two quotations is obviously the CONTEXT in which they were made. Eutyches uses the adjective “one” in a sense of strict singularity, in order to qualify the type of nature which ultimately resulted from the hypostatic union. The corollary of confessing such a nature is that the two distinct natures from which this mono nature came into being, were compromised in a manner such that the consubstantiality of Christ’s divinity to the Father or of Christ’s humanity to the human race, could no longer remain as such. Placing this statement in it’s appropriate context, we understand that the single nature that Eutyches refers to, is a third new nature resulting from the fusion of Christ’s divinity and humanity, such that the latter became “dissolved” by the former.
His Holiness Pope Shenouda III on the other hand, uses the term “unity” to denote the Composite One nature of Christ (which in turn reflects upon the prefix mia- as opposed to mono-). Unlike Eutyches, H.H. does not understand the ultimate “One nature” to be some sort of a third new and single nature/essence, but simply a reflection of the unconfused and inseparable unity between Christ’s divinity and humanity, as pertaining to the state of Christ's existence.
The Oneness (mono-) of Christ’s nature according to Eutyches may be denoted by the Hebrew word Yachid which the Jews ascribe to the Godhead in order to preclude any sort of “compound unity” connotation. The Oneness (mia-) of Christ’s nature according to the Oriental Orthodox Church may be denoted by the Hebrew word Echad which the Bible appropriately ascribes to God’s being, to allow diversity within unity.
The term for nature itself – physis, can be understood in two different senses – a static sense, and a dynamic sense. The former is the essentialistic use of the term as it is understood when referring to a static object of contemplation, and as such is more or less synonymous and interchangeable with the term for essence - ousia. The latter is employed when referring to operative capacity, and as such is not interchangeable or synonymous with ousia.
As such we have in Eutychian Christology, a new third essence formed through the divine essence’s dissolving reaction upon the human essence:
Ousia (1 – divine) + Ousia (2 - human) ---->* Ousia** (3 - divine)
*Ousia 1 dissolves Ousia 2
** physis in it’s essentialistic context
In Cyrillian (Oriental Orthodox) Christology, Christ does not obtain a new third essence as a result of the reaction between the initial two, but rather the hypostasis of Christ which initially operated according to the capacity of the divine essence, obtains a new operative capacity – The One Dynamic nature of the God-man – such that He may operate according to the perfect attributes of a perfect humanity and the perfect attributes of a perfect divinity:
Ousia (1 - divine) + Ousia (2 - human) ---->* Nature** (1 – God-Man)
*Ousia 1 unites with Ousia 2, without mingling, without confusion, and without alteration.
** physis in it’s dynamic context.
Regarding Eutyches' and H.H.'s qualification that two natures cannot be spoken of after the union; again the subjectively intended implications are each far off. According to Eutyches, two natures could not be spoken of because two natures ceased to exist in reality after the confused union, in which the divine consumed the human.
What is the basis of His Holiness' qualification that we should not speak of two natures after the union therefore, and in what context does he understand and intend it? He gives us an indication of this in the line preceding the quotation in question:
From "The Nature of Christ" by H.H.Pope Shenouda III:
The expression "One Nature" does not indicate the Divine nature alone nor the human nature alone, but it indicates the unity of both natures into One Nature which is "The Nature of the Incarnate Logos". The same applies when we speak about our human nature which comprises two united natures: the soul and the body. Thus, man’s nature is not the soul alone nor the body alone, but their union in one nature called human nature. We will discuss this point in detail later on. St. Cyril the Great taught us not to talk about two natures after their unity. So we can say that the Divine nature united hypostatically with the human nature within the Virgin’s womb, but after this unity we do not ever speak again about two natures of Christ.
Obviously then, he is to be understood in the context of St Cyril, who also affirmed that after the unity and hence the ‘formation’ of the One Nature of God the Logos Incarnate, we are not to speak of two natures such that we separate the divine and human and speak of them independently:
In His letter to Succensus Bishop of Diocaesarea in Isauria, Saint Cyril of Alexandria wrote:
‘Considering, therefore, as I said, the manner of His incarnation we see that His two natures came together with each other in an indissoluble union, without blending and without change, for His flesh is flesh and not divinity, even though his flesh became the flesh of God, and likewise the Word also is God and not flesh, even though He made the flesh His own according to the dispensation. Therefore, whenever we have these thoughts in no way do we harm the joining into a unity by saying that he was of two natures, but after the union we do not separate the natures from one another, nor do we cut the one and indivisible Son into two sons but we say that there is one Son, and as the holy Fathers have said, there is One Nature of the Word (of God) made flesh.
This qualification made by H.H. in his faithfulness to St Cyril, is therefore not a negation of the natures per se for he clearly affirms the continuing reality of the existence of the two natures after the union and consequent One Nature of God the Logos Incarnate:
From "The Nature of Christ" by H.H.Pope Shenouda III:
[The One Nature of God the Logos Incarnate] has all the properties of the Divine nature and all those of the human nature. In this One Nature, the body was not transmuted to the Divine nature but remained as a body, the body of God the Logos. The Logos, also was not transmuted to be a human nature but remained as it is the Divine nature though united with a body. His Divine nature is not susceptible to death while His human nature is liable to die. Both the Divine and the human natures united in essence in the Hypostasis and in nature without separation.
If he is not speaking of negating the reality of the existence of two natures, what is his beef? It is the same beef that the Orthodox Alexandrian Christological school of thought has always had since the days of St Cyril – we cannot speak of two natures as pertaining to the state of his existence. His Eminence Metropolitan Bishoy; the personal representative of H.H. who is thus in sync with H.H on all doctrinal issues further elaborates, and makes clear the Coptic Church's position:
For those who professed one incarnate nature of two natures, they have added “without mixture or change” in order to refute Eutychism. Those who professed two natures added “without separation or partition” in order to refute Nestorianism. Both sides spoke of one truth that the Lord Jesus Christ is one divine-human subsistence, i.e. they spoke of one subsistence of two essences united in the one Christ.
Those who used the expression ‘one incarnate nature’ had meant to express the state of existence; those who used the expression 'two natures' had meant to express the reality of the continuance of the existence of the two natures. In other words, some have spoken about the state of existence, and some have spoken about the reality of the existence, and because they both used the same word 'nature', they clashed.
Those who meant the ‘state of existence’ said “one nature”, and those who meant the ‘reality of existence’ said “two natures”. The proof is that both sides have together accepted that there can be no distinction between the two natures except in thought alone. This means that there can be no actual distinction between them in reality, but rather in imagination and contemplation. This does not mean abolishing the reality of their existence, but abolishing the state of their existence not in union. Unity is the truest expression of the 'natural union'.
Peace.
