[OBW]

OK. Getting blank editing box when hitting "Quote," so doing it this way:

From ICA:

Orthodoxy teaches that Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. They were to develop into the likeness of God. When they sinned in Paradise, the image of God was tarnished, disfigured (although not totally lost or destroyed), and the capability to develop into the likeness was lost as sin, evil and death now reigned. Thus, mankind became diseased or sick, i.e. corrupted and mortal. Jesus through His Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection reunited mankind with God by healing the sickness and destroying our enemy death through His Death, becoming the life-giving spirit. The Lord, the last Adam, succeeded in doing what the first Adam failed in.

I honestly believe that this is much more faithful to the creation and fall, including the purpose of man and the result of salvation and moving forward from there.

But I disagree with the idea that developing into the likeness of God equates to any kind of deification. Maybe it is just bad terminology more than bad theology. We consider deification to mean becoming connected to the essence of God. But that is not the picture. It is not that we become more stars with original light, but moons that reflect the light of the one who is deity. Leave the deification out and the EO has a much better grasp on the purpose of man than so much of Protestantism, especially the Evangelical part.

Well, despite the justifications given, I cannot agree on the icons in the way the EO does. I think that much of the argument they make is true. But there is something unsettling about such a need for them. I agree that anything that leads you to God (and not to the icon or to a false god) is positive. But there is something about the manner in which things become accepted icons that is very unsettling. It demonstrates to me a significant lack of focus on what matters.


Then from aron:

But if Augustine and Calvin hold to total depravity of mankind, why should I follow their logical trains? They (Calvin and Augustine) are totally depraved, and their logic is thus distorted. Or is their logic somehow unquestionable, post-redemption? Like that of Darby, Nee and Lee to come after them? Anyone who questions them is fallen; they alone have the light? I think not. Wake up and listen to yourselves. You don't have the inside track on human thought. You can look, and think, and hold forth, but so can everyone else.

To make sense of the Bible the proponents of this position need a vastly truncated scripture. Jesus taught that infants angels' were constantly beholding the face of the Father in heaven; Calvin's logic of total hopeless depravity had them destined for the pit from birth. So what gives?

What gives is scripture; where the theology can't hold up to scripture, scripture is studiously ignored. I found this out in the LC: bring up the 'wrong verses' and you get a blank stare, and silence.

Quite observant with respect to both the roots (Calvin, Augustine, etc.) and the present (The LCM, among other extreme sects). Everyone has it completely figured out. I'm having this argument in the Alternate topics where there is a discussion concerning the problem of evil (POE). The argument is based upon a declaration that all these things claimed about God are actually true, and that God is, by definition, required to act in a manner consistent with those characteristics such that He would never allow evil to exist, even going so far as to stop it before it happens.

But that means that God is what we want him to be according to our image of perfection.

Sort of like the old saying that goes something like "God created man in His image and we have been returning the favor ever since."

I suggest that the correct doctrine (or more properly, truth) is probably a mix of Calvinism and Arminianism, EO, RCC, and virtually all Protestantism, with a little of the less clearly heretical thoughts of the Gnostics thrown in for good measure. But truth is not for knowing except to the extent that it informs our living (and oddly, this is where the EO and more liturgical and confessional groups shine) in everything that we do. While there is a place for those who have a true calling to preach, missions, etc., all of us should treat everything about all parts of our lives as if they are spiritual. From driving, to how we treat those that we consider immoral, to how we do business, work for a boss, love and argue with our spouses, and so on.

And when we think of it in terms of knowing for the purpose of informing our living, so many of the specifics of Calvinism v Arminianism become virtually irrelevant. All I know is that I have to believe and obey. Not just be able to point to where I believed (past tense). John 3:16 does not declare "that whosoever believed in me" but "whosoever believes in me." All those declarations of "once saved, always saved" do not respond to "believes." Only declares that "believed" can be substituted for current belief.