Quote:
Originally Posted by zeek
HERn's thread questioning which of Witness Lee's teachings to retain or throw out started me thinking about Lee's conception of God's eternal purpose. http://www.ministrysamples.org/excer...PURPOSE-1.HTML I must admit I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, some of the church fathers and famous Christian mystics expounded ideas of divination which may be compatible with Lee's. On the other hand, there seemed to be something rather crass about a spiritual paradigm centered on selfishly devouring God's substance through pray-reading the bible and calling on the Lord. So I am interested to hear where others stand on the matter. If you reject Lee's proposition, have you found another conception of God's plan or purpose that is better supported, more comprehensive or more to your liking? I must admit not having thought about it for awhile and not having actively engaged in a search for another theory. I haven't even taken a serious look at Rick Warren's purpose driven life to see how it stacks up. I suppose I am skeptical about any claim to know the ultimate answers after Lee's theory fell apart for me. How important is it to have a theory about this issue? Is there any way to discern whether any theory we have about it is more than our own projection on the facts of our experience? |
Once on this forum, we discussed the Theosis in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches. I have not changed my mind about it since that time. For us EO Christians, the purpose of man's life is union/communion with God. And deification (theosis) is both a transformative process as well as the goal of that process. In other words, the goal is the attainment of likeness to or union with God. The path to this communion: faith, prayer, partaking in the divine nature through the Eucharist (the Holy Communion) and walking in the Commandments with the help of God’s grace.
From Wikipedia:
Theosis ("deification," "divinization") is the process of a worshiper becoming free of hamartía ("missing the mark"), being united with God, beginning in this life and later consummated in bodily resurrection. For Orthodox Christians, Théōsis (see 2 Pet. 1:4) is salvation. Théōsis assumes that humans from the beginning are made to share in the Life or Nature of the all-Holy Trinity.
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Theosis
On the earth, we just start the process of deification. And we will reach our goal of the attainment of likeness to or union with God only after the Lord's second coming when He transforms our bodies.
More about theosis:
http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/theosis.aspx
http://malankaraorthodoxchurch.in/in...113&Itemid=248
http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/theosis-english.pdf a book