Orthodox thoughts

I am trying to summarize my recent foray into Orthodox theology and how it has impacted my thots thus far. I first became interested in Orthodoxy after attending a friend’s wedding. She had converted some time after college. In any event, the wedding ceremony was fascinating. I remember the celebrant (priest) speaking about how it was God Who was conducting and enacting the marriage. My friend and her husband never said a word. They were standing before God and hearing from Him. Thus began my curiosity.

I have just finished The Orthodox Church by Timothy (now Kallistos) Ware. He’s a bishop in England. Anyway, some of the things I found fascinating are as follows:

• He has a critical attitude (w/proper English manners of course) of what he calls Western or Latin Scholasticism. This would be the natural outcome of Western Europe having undergone the “Enlightenment” and suddenly there had to be an intellectual/scientific explanation for everything, including God. However, he says, God is Mystery. There are simply things about Him that defy science and human reason and to focus one’s theology on that spectrum is to miss much. This would explain his repeated statements that there isn’t a “systematized” theology in Orthodoxy per se. Not like the books on my bookshelf by scholars who give a disclaimer on how “we cannot categorize God” but then plunge in anyway and put Him in nice tidy little boxes.
• The Filioque. This was one of the points on which the Orthodox and Roman Catholics parted company. The western churches began to teach that the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and Son. The east maintains that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, but possibly could proceed through the Son. This issue, and Papal claims of church wide authority led to the separation. I haven’t begun to study or meditate on this concept yet, but it should prove fascinating.
• The different perception of the Trinity. Ware believes that the West (meaning us) usually view God as one “essence” (for lack of a better word) Who manifests Himself as Three Persons. Orthodoxy, he maintains, views God as Three distinct Persons who are “one in essence”. To me, that is simply a matter of rearranging the order of the words, but does have some interesting implications, that I won’t go into now. Hahahahaha!
• Orthodoxy has a distinction between God’s “essence” and His “energies”. They believe that God is utterly transcendent from His creation. Makes sense. They also say that He is completely involved and fills His creation. True dat, as well. So, they say it is His essence that is transcendent and His energies (“which are God Himself”, I’m still chewing on that one) that are present here in Creation. Hmmm.
• Man is made in the image of God, but that he is striving to attain the likeness of God. I think that the likeness is the outward living of what we are made of (image). Therefore, Adam was made in God’s image, hadn’t yet sinned, but (according to Ware) had to work to attain the likeness. This contradicts the theory that I’m most used to which seems to state, without saying it, that not only was Adam sinless, but totally perfect as well. Orthodoxy seems to teach that Adam was “innocent” like a child is innocent, not fully mature as I am want to believe. This could shed interesting light on how Eve was deceived. I’ve always wondered how she could be so easily duped. Oh, and Ware says that Orthodoxy doesn’t necessarily hold the first part of Genesis as “historical fact” but is important for religious truth.
• Christ the Victim vs. Christ the Victor. Ware talks about how we in the West focus on the crucifixion and Christ being unfairly convicted and the whole judicial thingy-boo. Also that we look at what Christ did, on behalf of our sins, mostly from the legal standpoint. But the East, while embracing the Passion, also moves beyond the Crucifixion and then focuses on the Resurrection and Christ the Victor over sin and death. And I quote, “Where Orthodoxy sees chiefly Christ the Victor, the late medieval and post-medieval west sees chiefly Christ the Victim. While Orthodoxy interprets the Crucifixion primarily as an act of triumphant victory over the powers of evil, the west…has tended rather to think of the Cross in penal and juridical terms, as an act of satisfaction or substitution designed to propitiate the wrath of an angry Father.”
• The Sacraments (especially Baptism and Communion) are much more than just symbolic. I know that for me, when these things happen, I’m pretty much lost in my own thots and not really connecting with the divine during these events. Whereas for the Orthodox, that’s the whole point of the Sacraments—to connect with God.

That’s probably the bottom line for me thus far is that, from my couch, Orthodoxy looks like it has a much more other worldly focus than my worn out form of Protestant evangelicalism. The way I’m seeing things is that my brand of church is primarily concerned with the here and now: my behavior, church programs, number of members (a.k.a. the “Saved”), etc. Of course there’s the “eternal perspective” of “winning souls” and “planning life backward from eternity”. But, the Heavenlies are something off in the future. In the book form of Orthodox mindset, the Heavenlies are NOW. God’s very presence is here, now. To be walked in and experienced not just given mental assent. It is as though there is the real possibility of seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, and touching the reality of my being “seated in Christ”. How I ache for that…

More ruminating to come…