AndyHolland wrote:I have often found those doing the accusing - and most often myself when so accusing - are most guilty of that which we accuse others of. If we looked hard enough, wouldn't we see this all the time? And seeing it, wouldn't we be ashamed - mourning for our sins?
What exactly is this accusation which I have allegedly brought forth, that you in turn believe me to be guilty of? The quote that you pasted of mine, to which the above was a response, had no accusation contained therein.
'The judgement we give is the judgement we get' is a law, like for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, or conservation of mass or momentum or energy - it is inescapable and universal - proceeding from the mouth of the Lord by whom all things were made, and being spiritual above all things created as well, absolutely immutable. Yet we should observe this law at work everywhere, for there were two trees in the midst of the Garden, one leading to the fruit of knowing Good and Evil, that is selfish judgment, and the other leading to eternal Life, the Holy Cross of whom only the Lord Himself was found to be worthy to become the eternal blessed fruit.
I am sure your intentions are genuine, and I appreciate that, but with all due respect I do not need a moral lesson here. My judgment if any, is righteous judgment. Your brothers are bearing false witness against my Church, and launching the most vile slander against her. In fact, after reading kollyvas' response in the other thread, I can quite confidently say that I never encountered such deception and filth, even during my days of polemical engagement with islamics.
Our St. Maximos the Confessor pointed out in the Greek language that Christ has two natures and two wills, fully human and fully divine in unconfused union.
Our Fathers were well educated in the Greek language, believe me. Sts. Dioscoros and Severos, explicitly declared the fact that Christ was fully human, consubstantial with mankind, and fully divine, consubstantial with the Father, simultaneously. They furthermore confessed that the unity between Christ's divinity and humanity, was without mingling, without confusion and without alteration. Here is a bit of trivia for you: the very first person at Chalcedon to declare the unity of Christ's nature to be without confusion, mingling, transfusion or alteration, was in fact St Dioscoros. The evidence is located in the very minutes of the Council itself.
Being well acquainted with the Greek language and metaphysical concepts, our Fathers, in following the blessed St Cyril, also found it appropriate to speak of One Nature (MIA physis) of God the Logos Incarnate when speaking of the being of Christ. The term Nature refers to the collective set of qualities so actualised. In this sense since both the divine nature and the human nature were actualised in the One hypostasis of Christ, the collective set of human and divine qualities and properties, may in turn be considered One Nature. The One God-man Nature, or as previously stated, "The One Nature of God the Logos Incarnate". As is clearly implied, this One Nature is composed of the Divine Nature and Human Nature i.e. it is "One Nature of Two Natures". Since the Divine Nature and Human Nature of Christ were simultaneously actualised in the One Hypostasis of Christ, they could only be distinguished as "two natures" in contemplation; but such two-nature language was inappropriate for speech with respect to the actual existence of the Incarnate Word, for if both Natures were truly actualised in the hypostasis of the Incarnate Word, then the hypostasis of the Incarnate Word truly possessed all the qualities and properties of divinity and all the qualities and properties of humanity, and as such there would be ONE COLLECTIVE SET of human and divine qualities and properties, and hence He would possess ONE NATURE.
So being God, for Jesus truly arose from the dead, he was both fully human and fully divine and His salvation is freely offered to all. That salvation is nothing less than freedom from sin and death by subjecting our will to God's will that we receive in Holy Baptism. We follow Jesus, none other, and being children by adoption we have no other method way to follow Him than to subject our will to God's will - and He therefore lead the way we trod, so that His baptism becomes our baptism.
Because Jesus was Baptized in the river Jordan to fullfill all righteousness and did not allow John to shy away from baptizing Him. We know Jesus has two natures and two wills, fully human, fully divine. So the Lord speaks of his passion as a baptism. We take up our cross and follow Him - fully.
This is basic Orthodoxy as far as my Church is concerned. I have no contention with this. This is the faith we have always proclaimed.
"God became man so man could become like God."
Search the Scriptures.
I don't need to search the Scriptures my friend, this is the faith according to which the Church has raised me. "God became man so that man could become God" is a maxim proclaimed by all the great Coptic Saints: St Clement of Alexandria, St Athanasios of Alexandria, St Cyril of Alexandria, St Dioscoros of Alexandria, and St Severos of Antioch. The soteriological significance of Christ possessing full humanity has always been apart of our dogma.
The problem here is that you feel the need to attempt to teach me these things because you have this false (yet nonetheless innocent) pre-conception that I am ignorant of such things. You have been duped by the false polemics of your Church into believing that my Church is heretical and monophysite, and that it denied Christ's humanity etc. etc. You need to understand that everything your Church has proclaimed concerning my Church is a lie. Everything you are attempting to teach me is basic Orthodox doctrine as far as my Church is concerned. You're not saying anything new or unheard of. This is the unchanging faith of the Church.
Have you ever engaged with Oriental Orthodox doctrine/dogma, from OO primary source material, in order to see for yourself just what exactly we believe? You should.
Peace.
